Katrina Hertzer (February 23, 1873 — February 12, 1960) was an American nurse during World War I, serving as Chief Nurse of the United States Navy Nurse Corps.
Early life Katrina Elisabeth Hertzer was born in Tiffin, Ohio,"Miss Katrina Hertzer" Tampa Tribune (February 14, 1960): 8. via Newspapers.com and trained at the Illinois Training School for Nurses in Chicago,"Chicago Girls Are Leaders in Red Cross Work" Chicago Tribune (May 20, 1918): 14. via Newspapers.com graduating in the class of 1904.History of American Red Cross Nursing (Macmillan 1922): 173, 235.Illinois Training School for Nurses (1917): 58.
Career Hertzer was superintendent of nurses at a hospitals in Boone, Iowa, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, early in her career. She joined the U. S. Navy Nurse Corps in 1911."New Detail for Miss Hertzer" Red Cross Bulletin (July 4, 1921): 1. In 1912, Hertzer was transferred from the naval hospital in Norfolk, Virginia to one at Chelsea, Massachusetts, where she started as acting Chief Nurse and was officially promoted to Chief Nurse soon after.Lenah S. Higbee, "Navy Nurse Corps" Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (March 1913): 177.Lenah S. Higbee, "Navy Nurse Corps" Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (May 1913): 312.
Hertzer was a member of the American Red Cross's Mercy Ship expedition in 1914,"Red Cross Nurses to Sail on Monday" Pittsburgh Daily Post (September 2, 1914): 2. via Newspapers.com serving in Budapest with Helen Scott Hay and Josephine Beatrice Bowman."America's Red Cross Ship and her Errand of Mercy" New-York Tribune (September 13, 1914): 33. via Newspapers.com "Serbs, Albanians, Hungarians, Croatians, Austrians, Montenegrins, and Russians began their long journey from the front on stretchers, ox-carts and hay wagons to the nearest railroad, where hospital trains brought them filthy, hungry, exhausted to us," she wrote of that work. She also worked with prisoners of war in Siberia."Twelfth Annual Report of the American Red Cross" United States Congressional Serial Set (December 31, 1916): 51.
In 1916, she was named Chief Nurse of the United States Navy Nurse Corps during World War I, stationed at American Red Cross headquarters in Washington D.C. She was the Navy Nurse Corps' liaison, to work with Jane Delano on nurse recruitment during wartime. In 1921 her work with the American Red Cross ended.Clara D. Noyes, "Department of Red Cross Nursing: Items" American Journal of Nursing 21(11)(August 1921): 803.
Personal life Katrina Hertzer died at a veterans' hospital in Madeira Beach, Florida, in 1960, aged 86 years. Her gravesite is at Arlington National Cemetery, as "Kathrina Elizabeth Hertzer".
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