Dates

• Existence: 1887 - 1983

Biography

World War I Army nurse Louise Marie Liers, who was also an obstetrics and baby care specialist, was born in 1887 to Frank and Caroline Liers in Clayton, Iowa. She graduated from high school in Dubuque, Iowa, and attended nurse's training at St. Luke's hospital in Chicago, Illinois. After her graduation in 1910, Liers continued working at St. Luke's until 1916, during which time she organized and headed the obstetrics department.

After leaving St Luke's, Liers enrolled in the Red Cross and was sent to France during World War I as an Army nurse. She was stationed in Nevers, France, which was approximately four hours from Paris by train. She treated wounded soldiers for sixteen months in France. After the war Liers resumed her career in private nursing in the Chicago area. She returned to Clayton, Iowa, in 1927 however, due to her father's death and her mother's illness. Although she did not expect to continue nursing, the need for medical practitioners in her community prompted Liers to resume providing nursing care. Liers retired from hospital duty in 1949 (at which point a local newspaper reported that she had attended early 7,200 births), but she continued nursing her neighbors in the Elkader and Garnavillo area until she was eighty years old. Louise Liers died in the Guttenberg Care Center in 1983.

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