View source for Cora Elm

{{short description|American nurse}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Cora Elm
| image              = CoraElm1918.png
| alt                = A young Oneida woman wearing a white nurse's cap and uniform
| caption            = Cora Elm in nurse's uniform in 1916
| other_names        = Cora Sinnard (married name)
| birth_name         =
| birth_date         = February 18, 1891
| birth_place        = Oneida reservation, Wisconsin
| death_date         = June 9, 1949
| death_place        = North Carolina
| occupation         = Nurse
| years_active       =
| known_for          =
| notable_works      =
| spouse(s)          =
| relatives          =
}}
'''Cora Elm''' (February 18, 1891 – June 9, 1949) was an American nurse. She was a member of the [[Oneida people|Oneida Nation]], and attended the [[Carlisle Indian Industrial School]] from 1906 to 1913. She served as a [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross]] nurse in France during [[World War I]].
== Early life and education ==
Elm was born on the [[Oneida Nation of Wisconsin|Oneida Reservation]] in Wisconsin, one of eleven children born to Nicholas Elm and Jane Hill Elm. Her home language was [[Oneida language|Oneida]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Lewis|first1=Herbert S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WMtfN4sUrKoC&dq=Cora+Elm&pg=PA290|title=Oneida Lives: Long-lost Voices of the Wisconsin Oneidas|last2=McLester|first2=L. Gordon|date=2005-01-01|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-8043-4|pages=290|language=en}}</ref> Her father was a farmer, born in Canada,<ref>{{Cite news|date=1935-04-17|title=Nicholas Elm, 86, Hobart Town, Dies|pages=18|work=Green Bay Press-Gazette|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/86909942/nicholas-elm-86-hobart-town-dies/|access-date=2021-10-11|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> and her grandmother was a midwife. Her grandfather Jacob Hill was a hereditary chief in the Oneida nation.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=1949-06-13|title=Indian Nurse in First World War Dies in Hospital|pages=29|work=Green Bay Press-Gazette|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/86901805/indian-nurse-in-first-world-war-dies-in/|access-date=2021-10-11|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She attended the Carlisle Indian School from 1906 to 1913,<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 30, 1913|title=Commencement Week for Carlisle Indians|page=6|work=Philadelphia Inquirer|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-mar-30-1913-2746278/|access-date=October 11, 2021|via=NewspaperArchive.com}}</ref> and trained as a nurse at the [[Temple Health|Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing]] in Philadelphia, graduating in 1916.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Foxwell|first=E.|date=2017-06-05|title=Cora Elm, Native American nurse in WWI France.|url=https://americanwomeninwwi.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/cora-elm-only-us-born-native-american-nurse-to-serve-abroad-in-wwi/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-11|website=American Women in World War I|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930065542/https://americanwomeninwwi.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/cora-elm-only-us-born-native-american-nurse-to-serve-abroad-in-wwi/ |archive-date=2017-09-30 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Hauptman|first=Laurence M.|date=Fall 2018|title=On the Western Front: Two Iroquois Nurses in World War I|url=https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/western-front-two-iroquois-nurses-world-war-i|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-11|website=NMAI Magazine|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806062550/https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/western-front-two-iroquois-nurses-world-war-i |archive-date=2020-08-06 }}</ref>
== Career ==
Elm worked as supervisor of the wards at the Episcopal Hospital after she graduated. Elm participated in demonstration for [[women's suffrage]] at the [[White House]] in 1917.<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 1, 1917|title=Indian Girls Will Plead for Suffrage|url=https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/images/cora-elm-and-sarah-m-ingalls-1917|access-date=October 11, 2021}}</ref>
In December 1917<ref>{{Cite journal|date=December 21, 1917|title=A Red Cross Nurse|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGPXAAAAMAAJ&dq=Cora+Elm+nurse&pg=RA48-PA2|journal=The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man|pages=2}}</ref> Elm volunteered for overseas service and sailed to France, where she worked as a Red Cross nurse at the base hospital in [[Nantes]].<ref>{{Cite journal|date=June 7, 1918|title=Indian Girls as Trained Nurses|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGPXAAAAMAAJ&dq=Cora+Elm+nurse&pg=RA64-PA6|journal=The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man|pages=6–7}}</ref> Elm wrote about her wartime experiences for the ''Carlisle Arrow'' magazine.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=News from Cora Elm|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dEc-AQAAMAAJ&dq=Cora+Elm&pg=PT52|journal=The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man|year = 1917|volume=14|pages=1}}</ref> "My life overseas was not very easy. Although I was in a base hospital, I saw a lot of the horrors of war. I nursed many a soldier with a leg cut off, or an arm", she later wrote.<ref name=":1" /> In 1920 she was sent by the Red Cross to do relief work in Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania.<ref name=":1" /> She was one of the two Native American nurses known to serve in Europe during the war (the other being [[Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture]]), though others served in stateside military hospitals.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stur|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=naKsDwAAQBAJ&dq=Cora+Sinnard&pg=PA13|title=The U.S. Military and Civil Rights Since World War II|date=2019-09-26|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-4408-4206-1|page=13|language=en}}</ref>
After marriage and motherhood, she was a ward supervisor at [[Fort Bayard, New Mexico|Fort Bayard]] in New Mexico, and at Wood Veterans Hospital in Milwaukee.<ref name=":1" />
== Personal life ==
Elm married James E. Sinnard in 1921.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Nursing News and Announcements|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yNMAAAAAYAAJ&dq=Cora+Sinnard&pg=PA429|journal=The American Journal of Nursing|year = 1921|volume=21|pages=429}}</ref> They had a son, James Jr., born in 1926, before they divorced. In 1934, she was charged with breaking her husband's car windows, and her brother and two other men were charged with assault against her husband, but the charges were dropped.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1934-08-07|title=Eugene Frazo Pays $33.41 Fine, Costs for Theft of Tire|pages=4|work=Green Bay Press-Gazette|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/86909086/eugene-frazo-pays-3341-fine-costs/|access-date=2021-10-11|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Her son served in [[World War II]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=1985-03-06|title=James Sinnard Jr.|pages=10|work=Green Bay Press-Gazette|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/86908969/james-sinnard-jr/|access-date=2021-10-11|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She died in 1949, aged 58 years, at a veterans' hospital in North Carolina.<ref name=":0" /> She was buried with military honors, and her gravesite at Holy Apostles Church Cemetery in [[Oneida, Wisconsin|Oneida]] includes a military headstone.<ref>{{Cite web|title=American Indians in WWI: Army Nurse Corps|url=https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/553-american-indians-in-wwi.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-11|website=World War I Centennial|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414044519/https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/553-american-indians-in-wwi.html |archive-date=2021-04-14 }}</ref>
== References ==
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
* Thielel, [https://blogs.dickinson.edu/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology/2017/05/15/biography-6/ "Biography"] ''Voices from the Carlisle Indian School'' (May 15, 2017); a blogpost about Cora Elm Sinnard, including her 1917 passport photo
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Elm, Cora}}
[[Category:1891 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:Oneida Nation of Wisconsin people]]
[[Category:Iroquois women]]
[[Category:American nurses]]
[[Category:American women in World War I]]
[[Category:Carlisle Indian Industrial School alumni]]
[[Category:American expatriates in France]]
[[Category:American women nurses]]
[[Category:20th-century Native American women]]
[[Category:20th-century Native Americans]]
[[Category:Native American people from Wisconsin]]