Reba Cameron
Rebecca G. Cameron (1885-1959), known as Reba G. Cameron, was a Canadian-born American Army nurse who was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal for her military hospital work during World War I. She also worked in the Philippines and Japan.
Early life[edit]
Reba G. Cameron was born in Canada.[1]
Career[edit]
From 1911 Reba G. Cameron was Superintendent of Nurses and Occupational Director at Taunton State Hospital in Massachusetts, training her nurses in the new methods of occupational therapy.[2][3] She also wrote about occupational therapy in nursing journals.[4] During World War I, she organized patients to knit and sew for a soldiers' relief charity.[5] She testified against legislation regarding the registration of nurses at hearings held by the Massachusetts State Committee on Public Health.[6]
Cameron held the rank of First Lieutenant in the United States Army Nurse Corps during World War I. She was Chief Nurse of the General Hospital at Plattsburgh, New York, and later at the Debarkation Hospital at Hampton, Virginia.[7] For her service and leadership during wartime, she was one of 24 nurses awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1923.[8]
Cameron moved to California after the war, and worked as an army nurse in San Francisco and in the Philippines.[9][10] She went to Japan on a medical relief mission following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake,[11] and was chief of the occupational department at the Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio of San Francisco when she spoke to the California Society of Educational Therapy in 1926.[12]
Personal life[edit]
Cameron was "retired for physical disability" from the Army Nurse Corps in 1933.[13] She lived in Redlands, California in her later years, and died in 1959, aged 74 years.
References[edit]
- ^ Reba G. Cameron, The Hall of Valor Project, Military Times website.
- ^ William Rush Dunton, Occupation Therapy: A Manual for Nurses (W. B. Saunders 1915): 18.
- ^ Kathlyn L. Reed, "Pioneering Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science: Ideas and Practitioners before 1917" Journal of Occupational Therapy 24(2017): 400-411.
- ^ Reba G. Cameron, "Occupational Therapy" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (July 1918): 22-23.
- ^ Reba G. Cameron, "War Relief Work at Taunton State Hospital" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (September 1917): 141-143.
- ^ "Massachusetts" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (April 1917): 236.
- ^ "Reba G. Cameron" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (May 1919): 286.
- ^ "They Also Served and Died" Beaver County News (May 14, 1931): 2. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Army Nurse Corps" American Journal of Nursing (October 1921): 49.
- ^ "California Women Named for Valiant Service in Late War" Santa Cruz Evening News (March 13, 1923): 1. via California Digital Newspaper Collection
- ^ "Ship Scheduled to Sail Monday for Quake Zone" San Francisco Chronicle (September 8, 1923): 3. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Men of Torn Souls Aided at Hospital" San Francisco Examiner (March 7, 1926): 78. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "War Department and Navy Orders" Daily Press (September 30, 1933): 7. via Newspapers.com
