Nurse's WWII cap has a role in History Center exhibit

Star Tribune

The cap is now part of the Minnesota History Center’s “The Greatest Generation” exhibit.

The St. Louis Park resident was called to service by a plea from Eleanor Roosevelt.

By HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA, Star Tribune

Last update: May 25, 2009 - 8:06 PM

Sylvia Johnson remembers the war, the wounds -- and the soldiers who received them.

But most of all, the 86-year-old woman remembers the white wool cap she wore as a student nurse in 1945 in Utah while taking care of hundreds of soldiers during the latter part of World War II.

"I'm very emotional right now," the St. Louis Park resident said Monday morning as she looked at the cap, which is among hundreds of items on display at the Minnesota History Center as part of its exhibit "Minnesota's Greatest Generation: the Depression, the War, the Boom."

The white cap contains more than 100 signatures, collected in the last days of her six-month tour of duty serving with the Cadet Nurse Corps in Brigham City, Utah.

She had stored the cap away decades ago. It was rediscovered two years ago when her daughters were helping her move.

"They got excited and then I got excited," said Johnson, who lent the cap to the History Center, making it among the hundreds of items WWII veterans and their families provided for the massive exhibit, which opened over the weekend.

On Monday, the History Center honored the contributors with a reception and an afternoon ceremony, including a flyover of WWII aircraft.

"It's just a way to say thank you," History Center curator Matthew Anderson said. "We are telling their story. People have been very moved."

More than 3,000 people a day have come to see the exhibit, which opened Saturday.

"It's wonderful," Johnson said as she toured the exhibit with her daughters, Ramona and Cynthia Johnson.

Sylvia Johnson joined the Cadet Corps after hearing then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's plea for senior nursing students to help combat a national nursing shortage.

"I wanted to contribute to the war," said Johnson, who defied her father's wishes in order to join the corps and go wherever she was assigned. "He thought it was the worst thing I could do."

Johnson, from Madison, Minn., ended up in a military hospital in Utah, traveling by bus for several days in a wool uniform to get there.

Although she had two years of nursing education, and was familiar with such things as dressing wounds and assisting in surgery, Johnson was not prepared for the carnage she saw in the hospital in Utah.

There were head wounds, amputations, mental illnesses, even the occasional escaped prisoner of war from a nearby concentration camp.

"It certainly was a kind of awakening," said Johnson, who had a 44-year career in nursing. "It gave me a great career and certainly contributed a great deal to who I am today."

Heron Marquez Estrada • 612-673-4280

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