Constance Abbey Steed

Diana Medal writes: 

I am proud to post my mother's story on this page with so many other esteemed nursing professionals. My mother, Constance Abbey Steed, R.N., was a U.S. Cadet Nurse and a graduate of the Los Angeles County General Hospital School of Nursing in 1945. I remember her stories about training, including the stress of 4 years of nursing college collapsed into 3 years for the war effort, to emergency cases at downtown Los Angeles. She hung hospital blackout curtains at night so that lights could not be seen by the enemy from the Pacific. She described passing California state boards, a 3 day process, in 1945. My mother died in 2004, but I was able to tell her while she was alive that legislative efforts had started to try to obtain veteran's status for the Cadet Nurse Corps. This would be highly deserved.

How would U.S. hospitals at home have coped during WWII without the Cadet Nurses?