Ethel Johnson was a Sterling Pioneer who entered the nursing profession in 1912. In 1917, she enlisted and served as an Army nurse during World War I in France. She recorded this account of her experience on Armistice Day on November 11th, 1918.

I was a nurse in Base 53, on the outskirts of Langres, France. Having morning hours off, and wanting to buy something in town, I walked through the woods, between the base and town. As I neared the square, common to every French city, I heard the cowbell carried by the town crier. I soon saw him, an elderly man with a following of a number of women. Understanding some French, I drew closer to hear what he had to say. He told the group the war had ended, and the Armistice had been signed.

I went on my way, and was met on the street by a woman who grabbed my arm and kissed me on both cheeks, and exclaimed, “Fins leguerre.” When we arrived at a shop where several women were working she released my arm, and rushed to tell them the war had ended. In the hysteria brought on by the news and the kissing, crying and laughter, I decided to go back to the base. My errand to town could wait.

That evening, the ambulance driver asked some of us if we would like to go to town. The ambulance doubled as a bus, so we went. The town was all lit up, for the first time in years, and everyone seemed to be in the streets. We turned back to the base to avoid the hysteria. Back at the base, all was quiet. Taps were being played off key as the bugler had imbibed in the celebrations too freely.

The base closed that June, and I was one of the last to leave. We packed our belongings and boarded the Aquitania, the big liner some of us had come over, now back to New York. After a few days in Toledo to see my relatives, it was back home on the early morning train to Sterling.

After returning home to Sterling, Ethel taught school in order to be at home with her ill mother. She later went on to work at Fort Lyon Veterans Hospital near Las Animas, Colorado, and later in Cheyenne Wyoming. She donated generously to Sterling throughout her lifetime--the hospital, high school, public library, and here at the museum. She died on June 8th 1971, in Sterling at the age of 88. Ethel Spoor Johnson was the only nurse from Logan County to serve overseas during World War I, and she was the first woman member of the Last Squad, a closed organization of World War I veterans.