Uss lenah sutcliffe higbee

United States Navy nurse (–)

Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (May 18, – January 10, ) was a pioneering Canadian-born United States Navy military nurse, who served as Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during World War I. She was the first woman to be awarded the Navy Cross.^[1]

Early life and education

Higbee was born Lenah H. Sutcliffe in Chatham, New Brunswick, Canada, on 18 May ^[2] She completed nurses' training at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital in and entered private practice soon thereafter. Lenah Higbee took postgraduate training at Fordham Hospital, New York in

In , she married retired Marine CorpsLieutenant Colonel John H. Higbee.^[3] His first wife Isabel Higbee had died in John Higbee had served as a Marine Corps officer from to He died in April and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.^[4]

Career

In October , she joined the newly established U.S. Navy Nurse Corps as one of its first twenty