Content Description The collection includes a scrapbook, 1943-1945. The album begins with a group of images of Eileen’s home life at a farm in Illinois, followed by photos from her time training as a nurse at Gardiner General Hospital in Chicago, Fort Dix, New Jersey and Camp Atterbury, Indiana. The rest of the images mainly depict her time in England: the 231st hospital buildings at Morley Hall, Norfolk, nurses posing and relaxing on the hospital grounds, nurses at drill, an interior view of an orthopedic...

Scope and Contents

The collection contains approximately 120 letters and v-mail written by Lola Ryan to her parents and brother. Ryan discusses her experiences of being a nurse in basic training, the conditions in wartime France, German prisoners of war, her experiences as a wartime nurse, and her longing to return home and be discharged from the army.