Helen Turner Watson
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July 3, 1917
Helen Turner Watson | |
|---|---|
 Watson c. 1976 | |
| Born | Helen Fredericka Turner July 3, 1917 Augusta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | September 26, 1992 (aged 75) |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations | Nurse, educator |
| Employers | |
Helen Fredericka Turner Watson (July 3, 1917 – September 26, 1992)[1] was an American nurse and educator. She was one of the first African American women to receive a commission in the United States Navy, serving as an ensign in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps from 1945 to 1946. An alumna of the University of Connecticut and Yale University, she became an associate professor at the UConn School of Nursing.
Watson was born in Augusta, Georgia, United States, on July 3, 1917, one of five children of Frederick D. and Helen Gilbert Turner. She grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where she graduated from Weaver High School in 1935.[2] She attended the Lincoln School for Nurses in New York City and graduated as a registered nurse in 1939.[1]
Watson returned to Hartford to teach in the American Red Cross home nursing and first aid program from October 1939 to January 1941. She also worked as a temporary staff nurse for the Hartford Visiting Nurse Association until October 1941, when she moved to Richmond, Virginia, to study public health nursing on a federal scholarship at the Medical College of Virginia. For two years, she worked as nursing supervisor and community health educator for the Bergen County Tuberculosis and Health Association in Hackensack, New Jersey, while pursuing nursing coursework and fieldwork at Teachers College, Columbia University.[1][3][4]
Military service
Watson enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve in New York City on April 20, 1945. She received her officer's commission as ensign in the Navy Reserve Nurse Corps on June 13. She was the second of four African American women to become commissioned officers in the Navy Reserve during World War II.[3][5] Her newly minted fellow ensigns included Phyllis Mae Dailey of New York City (the first African American woman in history to receive a Navy commission, on March 8), Edith Mazie DeVoe of Washington, D.C., and Eula Loucille Stimley of Centreville, Mississippi. Watson left the Navy in 1946 after the war ended.[6][5]