A Storyteller’s Memorial

Maryland Nurses fought death and despair in WWI France

By Diana Dinsick
via the Bay Weekly

Ellouise SchoettlerAmid the horrors of World War I, battlefield nurses were angels of mercy. America’s battered and beleaguered Doughboys knew that for certain, and you will, too, after listening to Maryland storyteller Ellouise Schoettler recount Ready to Serve: Unknown Stories of 64 World War I Nurses from Maryland.

The town of Chesapeake Beach takes Memorial Day seriously, with this year’s Stars & Stripes Festival commemorating the centennial of The War to End All Wars, the most substantial yet. Schoettler’s stories and slide presentation combine with three days of patriotic honors, music, an American Legion picnic, outdoor fun and a hefty dose of patriotism and local pride.

“My love of genealogy led me into storytelling,” says Schoettler, who has spent more than 30 years seeking forgotten stories of everyday women, then painting pictures of their lives using only the spoken word. “I see my family tree as scaffolding. But I always try to flesh it out with stories.”

Schoettler heard her first storyteller years ago in a church basement. She was hooked. “That night,” she says, “I decided I was going to do that, and people are going to listen.”

She did, and they have.

In the early 1950s, Schoettler left her native North Carolina for nursing training at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. Love and marriage intervened. Later she earned an art degree.

As an Air Force doctor’s wife and mother of four, she moved around the world, learning to appreciate the sacrifice of service members and their families. Once her children were grown, she launched her career as a storyteller.

About four years ago, with the 100th anniversary of the Great War upon us, Schoettler began scouting for stories about women’s contributions to the war effort. At the Chesney Medical Library on the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, she stumbled upon a treasure: 57 letters sent from France by a deployed unit of 64 World War I nurses, all graduates of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore.

Schoettler was ecstatic.

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