First Sioux Cityan to Join Navy Nurses Corps in This War Returns for a Visit
Has Nursed Dozens of Sailors, Marines Wounded in Battle
Ensign Lois Staben, probably the first Sioux Cityan to become a member of the navy nurse’s corp in the present conflict and believed to be the first to return on leave from active duty, is back looking at the old home town.
Ensign Staben, in fact, was in the service before the outbreak of hostilities. She has been in the service two years.
Ensign Staben returned with tales of casualties brought to Aiea Heights Hospital at Pearl Harbor where she has been stationed.
Dozens of sailors and marines wounded at both Midway and in the Coral Sea Battle were nursed by her at the hospital. She was not there, however, when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.
“At that time I was still at San Diego studying for commission,” she related. She received the commission soon after the United States got into the war.
Ensign Staben, staying at her home at 1617 W. 19th Street, is truly a Sioux Cityan. In 1934 she was graduated from St. Vincent’s nurse’s training school. Previously she had been graduated from Central High School.
She will return Thursday to active duty somewhere in the Pacific.
“I’ll be glad to be getting back. It’s certainly the life for any women,” she summed it up.
Source: The Sioux City Journal-Tribune, March 24, 1943 (photo included)
Lois Maxine Staben was born Dec. 14, 1911 to Rheinholt Louis and Mollie Mae Jones Staben. She died Aug. 7, 2012 in Sioux City, IA.
Source: ancestry.com
