Janice E. Hirst

Rank: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Nurse Corps

Hometown: Collingswood, New Jersey

Died: August 15, 1946, Fitzsimmons Hospital, Denver, Colorado

Buried: Harleigh Cemetery, Haddon Avenue, Camden, New Jersey

Second Lieutenant Janice E. Hirst, U.S. Army, was born on March 17, 1923, to Harry C. and Eleanor Hirst. She grew up at 309 Harvard Avenue in Collingswood. Nicknamed “Jan,” her hobbies were collecting souvenirs, reading, and walking. Her ambition was to become a nurse, and when she graduated from Collingswood High School in 1941, she entered the Hahnemann Hospital School of Nursing in September of that year. She graduated as a Registered Nurse on May 4, 1944, and worked as a private duty nurse from October 1944 to May of 1945. She had enlisted into the Army, and had taken her physical at the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia in February of 1945, and had received her commission in April. After VE-Day she was offered the option of leaving the military, but she elected to continue. On June 12, 1945 she was sent to Camp Lee, VA, for one month’s basic training, and was then reassigned to the station hospital at Edgewood, MD, in order to prepare for overseas duty.

Shortly after arriving at Edgewood, she took sick and was removed to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she was transferred to Bruns Hospital in New Mexico, and then to Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver, CO, where she died on August 15, 1946. She was survived by her parents. Her name appears on the World War II War Memorial at Knight’s Park in Collingswood, NJ.