With regret and much sorrow we share the passing of Isabelle Cook. We ask that you join us in remembering Isabelle for her service to our Country and the woman she was. Isabelle, at 93 years old, became one of the first female WWII Veterans to join the Honor Flight Austin Family. Isabelle served as an Army nurse during the war. “Frankly I volunteered, I was single and I felt that the other soldiers didn’t have a choice they were drafted. If they were overseas and they were wounded I with my experience as a nurse I should be there to care for them.”
Isabelle Cook had just graduated from the Mt. Sinai School of Nursing in New York City when war was declared in Europe. The Army asked Mt Sinai to plan a one thousand bed hospital for overseas service, and she signed up as a volunteer. She spent the next three years in Africa, Italy, and France. At war’s end she found herself in Aix-en-Provence, a French town celebrating the end of the war. Still, there were grim reminders of those citizens who had collaborated or fraternized with the Germans.
To learn more about Isabelle, please click this Library of Congress link, where Isabelle recorded her experiences during WWII for everyone to see and be remembered forever.
