HERoes of WW1: Inspirational Women Quiz

Answer: A warship

Lenah was born in 1874 in Canada and immigrated to the US after formal schooling where she met and married Col. John Higbee. When he died in 1908, she applied to the Navy Nurse Corps which required applicants to be 22 to 44 years old and single. In a male-dominated world at that time, she rose the ranks of NNC, all while lobbying for better pay and working conditions. When WWI began, she expanded the NNC to over 1300 nurses. She trained them, got them onboard ships, deployed them to harsh overseas locations, and treated illnesses and injuries more severe than anticipated.

Higbee also worked alongside her nurses during the 1918 influence pandemic. In 1920, she was awarded the Navy Cross for her contribution to the NNC. In 1944, for the first time in history, the US Navy named a warship after a woman: the DD-806 destroyer was named the "USS Higbee". Higbee died in 1941 and was interred at Arlington.

Answer: Serbia

Flora Sandes was born in 1876 in Yorkshire and was the daughter of a clergyman. She always enjoyed shooting and riding as hobbies. When WWI began, she joined an ambulance unit in the capacity of a nurse and left for Serbia to aid the people there. She saw her skills were needed on the front, and since Serbia allowed women to fight, she joined the army.

She advanced through the ranks and was even wounded in hand to hand combat in the trenches. She was promoted to sergeant major and was given a very high decoration as an award.

She later wrote a book, helped raise money for Serbia, and ran a hospital. She died back in England in 1956. She always said she had "done the unthinkable".

Answer: True

Edith was born in 1865 in Swardeston, a village in England. Her father was the local vicar and Edith grew up finding joy in helping other people. She was a governess for a family in Brussels for five years before she found her calling in the nursing profession. By age 30, she was doing private nursing as well as working in infirmaries and homes for the poor in England. In her 40s, she moved back to Belgium to run a training school for nurses.

When WWI was declared, she began using the nursing school as an "underground railroad" to aid British soldiers in escaping the Germans. For over a year, she did this while stating it was her right as a Christian to help her fellow man. She was caught in 1915, tried, and quickly executed by a firing squad. The tremendous outcry that followed shocked the Germans and Edith Cavell swiftly became known as a martyr for the cause. Recruitment rates skyrocketed. After the war, her body was moved back to England for burial.

Answer: Battalion of Death

Maria was born into a very poor family in 1889 and lived with starvation and beatings from alcoholic family members. Her young marriage failed when her husband became violent. When Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, Maria petitioned the czar to allow her to serve. She joined the army and totally embraced it. She was soon called "Yashka" by her fellow male soldiers and was decorated several times. In 1917, she was asked to create an all-woman strike force for propaganda purposes. Instead, it was a huge actual success and 300 women were chosen out of 2,000 volunteers.

The Battalion of Death, as it was called, was a harsh unit with little discipline but the women were brave. In the Kerensky Offensive, the women stormed the enemy trenches, often ahead of their male counterparts. The group was disbanded and Maria visited the United States in 1918 where she wrote an autobiography. When she returned to Russia, she was deemed an enemy of the people and executed by the Bolshevik police.

Answer: Siegburg

Louise was born in 1881 in a small village in France and became a teacher by the time WWI began. When wounded British soldiers were in the town, she helped nurse them and then snuck them back to their troops. Eventually she became a key part of the French network, aiding French and British soldiers stuck behind enemy lines. She often traveled to Belgium for covert meetings. It was at one of these clandestine discussions that she was captured by the Germans and put on trial. Both the Pope and the President of Spain asked for leniency and instead of being executed she was imprisoned.

She spent three long years in Siegburg prison, known for its poor conditions. Food was scarce, medical attention almost nonexistent, and spirits low. Louise continued small protests by aiding other inmates or sewing the buttons on German uniforms so they fell off. She was released when the war ended and in 1919 was give the Legion d'Honneur by the French Republic president. She wrote her memoirs in the 1930s and even helped in WWII. She died in 1966.

Answer: Spy

Martha was born in 1892 in Belgium and was trained as a nurse. In 1914, her brothers left to serve in the war and her town was invaded by the Germans. Martha quickly joined the local hospital and earned an Iron Cross from the Germans for her work aiding the sick and wounded. In 1915, she was approached by a family friend and agreed to work as a spy for the British. She was tasked to listen and record anything she heard from the Germans, especially regarding ammunition caches. To cover her trail, she pretended to be a double agent for a short period of time.

Eventually, she was caught when her engraved watch was left behind at a rendezvous point. Because of her previous aid to wounded Germans, she was given prison time instead of execution. After the war she was released and went on to write many spy novels including her autobiography entitled "I Was A Spy!" She died in 1966.

Answer: Colonel

Julia Stimson was born to a well-known New England family in 1881. Her uncle had helped found Cornell University Medical College and she became interested in medicine. After graduating from Vassar, she went on to nursing school. Even though she suffered from a debilitating skin condition, she enlisted in the Army as a nurse when the US entered WWI.

She performed so well in France that she was promoted to chief nurse of American Red Cross in 1918 and supervised over 10,000 people. Her work earned her multiple medals and she was given the rank of major, which made her the first woman to do so.

She advocated for nursing until she retired from the Army in 1937. She continued to aid people in WWII and died in 1948 after complications from surgery.

She was promoted to colonel shortly before her death.

Answer: True

Elise Inglis was born in 1864 in India where her father was the civil service. In her teens, the family moved back to their original home in Edinburgh, Scotland. Undeterred by society's views, Elise went to medical school and became a doctor of gynecology. For years, she treated the destitute and became active in the women's suffrage movement. When WWI started, she was 50 years old and anxious to start medical hospitals near the field entirely staffed by women. Turned down multiple times by the War Office, the French government took her up on her offer.

The hospitals were quickly built in various locations. The one in Romania alone was serviced with women doctors and a female surgeon and treated over 11,000 wounded soldiers. Elise died in 1917, the very day she arrived back in Britain. She left behind a legacy where her hospitals had sent over 1,000 women doctors, nurses, orderlies, and drivers to war areas all over Europe.

Answer: Orphans

Evalina Haverfield was born in 1867 to the third Baron and Lady Abinger in Scotland. She married an officer in the Royal Artillery and raised two sons. After his death and a failed second marriage, she became a prominent activist in the women's suffrage movement. When German invasions began, she founded the Women's Emergency Corps to train women doctors, nurses, and motorcycle messengers. She joined others in Serbia and spent two years there caring for wounded soldiers. She felt special empathy toward the Serbian orphans suffering through food shortages and harsh winters.

In 1918, she returned to England where she raised money for Serbian needs. Returning to Serbia in 1919, she founded a local orphanage in Bajna Basta within a building that was a cafe. Driving between villages, she treated sick children or brought them to the orphanage. She caught pneumonia and died in March of 1920. Years later that town now boasts a hospital and museum dedicated to her memory.

Answer: Air force

She was born Helena Charlotte Isabella Fraser in 1879 to an aristocratic and military family in London. In 1904, Helen graduated with an honors degree in botany, focusing on fungi. She became Head of the Botany Department at Birkbeck College and married a fellow teacher. Upon his death, she became a professor.

When WWI broke out, she was named Chief Controller of a contingent of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corp in France. Her leadership expanded and she became the first woman to be a Military Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1919, she went on to lead the Women's Royal Air, a group of women recruited to serve as clerks, fitters, drivers, cooks, and storekeepers during the conflict. Gwynne-Vaughn retired in 1941 with a rank of director and died in 1967.