It was with bittersweet feeling that Alyce Mayer received a legislative citation recognizing her mother’s service as a U.S. Cadet Nurse during World War II.
While she was thrilled her mother, Marion Mitchell Ott, was posthumously congratulated for loyal and dedicated service to her country, Mayer said it was unfortunate that it didn’t happen in her mother’s lifetime.
“Mom was a wonderful nurse and so caring,” she said. “To have her honored is very special”
Mayer said her regret is that she was busy caring for family members and didn’t have time to pursue the citation, which Rep. Jaime Foster, D-Ellington, presented last week, while her mother could still take pride in it.
Ott, who died at 93 on Oct. 1, 2020, earned her nursing degree in 1948 from Presbyterian Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. While studying there, she also was working in the hospital along with other members of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, who were filling vacancies left by the nurses who went overseas during the war.
According to Alexandra Lord, chairwoman of the division of medicine and science for the National Museum of American History, wars always created a shortage of qualified nurses on the home front and in the military.
Lord said Frances Payne Bolton, a U.S. Representative from Ohio, called for a program in an effort to solve the problem. Backed by over $150 million in federal funds, the Cadet Nurse Corps program was signed into law in 1943 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The program was open to all women between the ages of 17 and 35 who were in good health and graduates of an accredited high school. All state nursing schools in the country were eligible to participate in the program if they were accredited in their state by the U.S. Public Health Service and if they were connected with a hospital that had been approved by the American College of Surgeons.
The participating schools compressed the traditional 36-month nursing program into 30 months, and were required to provide students with the clinical experiences of medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics.
Mayer said her mother devoted herself to nursing during the war, working in successively more prominent roles at Presbyterian Hospital. It was a different world for career women then, she said, referring to some of the responsibilities expected of Cadet nurses in the 1940s.
In the weeks leading up to Foster’s presentation of her mother’s citation, Mayer said she and her brother, John Ott, had a lot of fun going through their mother’s papers and memorabilia.
One amusing document they found was a note from her mother’s supervisor who was a faculty member at Presbyterian Hospital. Dated Sept. 23, 1947, it informed “Miss Mitchell” that she had been selected to act as hostess at a welcoming tea party. “I expect to see you then, in House I lounge a few minutes before 2 p.m.,” the note said. “Look pretty!”
Ott married the late Albert Earl Ott in 1950. She put her nursing career on hold to raise four children.
In 1971, the family moved from New Jersey to Connecticut. As her children started to leave home, Mayer said Ott returned to nursing and worked at Hughes Health and Rehabilitation in West Hartford, Avon Convalescent Home, and for a private practice before retiring in 1995.
Mayer said her mother spent many years advocating for the passage of a law that would have allowed Cadet nurses to receive benefits. In 2003, Ott started to actively pursue legislators, asking for such a bill. She wrote letters to former Connecticut Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman and Christopher J. Dodd, and former U.S. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, all Democrats from Connecticut. They all answered her with vows to keep her views in mind should legislation be introduced, Mayer said,
In 2011, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-New York, sponsored a bill titled “United States Cadet Nurse Corps Equity Act” that would have deemed the nurses’ service to be active military service and, in turn, would have provided benefits. The bill, however, did not receive a vote.
Mayer said Ott was interested to learn that Connecticut allowed citations for those who served in the Cadet Nurse Corps. So Mayer reached out to Foster and said she’s grateful to her for waiting to hold a presentation until the family could be together for Ott’s memorial service, which had to be postponed during the pandemic.
Mayer said her mother’s two living children and three grandchildren were able to attend Foster’s presentation of the citation on Sept. 24.
It was given “in recognition of your loyal and dedicated service to our country with the Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II,” the citation states. “The selflessness and sense of compassion you displayed in answering the call of duty when your country needed you is to be commended and is truly the epitome of what makes your country special.”
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