By Super User on Thursday, 30 January 2020
Category: Exceptional Elders

Its Never Too Late to Fly High

Ms. Elaine, a WWII veteran, a retired Registered Nurse, widow and mother of four daughters, one granddaughter and 2 great-granddaughters, has called Seashore home since 2015. Ms. Elaine's career started when she completed nursing school training in New York right as World War II broke out. She had to wait until she was 21 to join the Navy Nurse Corps and was stationed at Samson Naval Hospital in New York state during the last year of the war. Almost immediately, POWs from the Philippines started coming in. Most of the soldiers had TB, and they could be cared for and recuperate in the clear air of upstate New York. After the war, Ms. Elaine went on to a career in nursing as Head Nurse at an ER until her retirement. Ms. Elaine and her husband married one week after the war ended and he returned. He served as a Navigator of a Navy Destroyer in the Pacific. One of Ms. Elaine's great-granddaughters is going into nursing which makes her smile. At the age of 94, Ms. Elaine had the opportunity to fly in the open-aired refurbished WWII Stearman biplane through the Dream Flights Program. When asked if she was interested in flying, her smile beamed and she only asked how many times can she go? After the flight, she said that she would have most definitely been a pilot if she had flown before she went to nursing school. Ms. Elaine has brought a wealth of wisdom, tenacity, and pure goodness to all those she meets at Seashore. She takes time with youth who visit to encourage them to always seek to make a difference and to not take for granted the things we have available to us including the opportunity to be educated. She has a spirit about her that genuinely reaches each person she encounters.

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