My Grandma: Public Health Hero, Army Nurse

Sarah Eleanor Grehea (McEntire) as a young nurse, New York City, circa 1918.

On August 14, 1918, newspapers reported what were then believed to be New York’s first cases of Spanish influenza among eight passengers aboard a Norwegian steamship arriving in port.

By coincidence, it would be the same week that the City of New York recorded the appointment of my maternal grandmother, Sarah Eleanor Grehea, to a position as a public health nurse at an annual salary of $660.

Talk about timing. Known as “Elle,” my grandmother graduated from a New Brunswick, N.J. hospital nursing school and started her public health career during the same year that an influenza pandemic began sweeping the globe.

It was a challenge she probably never imagined facing – especially in her first year as a nurse – but young Elle met it with courage and grace.

In the weeks and months to follow, the flu spread rapidly in crowded neighborhoods and tenements, claiming the lives of approximately 30,000 people in New York City alone. From everything I have read, I can only begin to imagine the heartbreak and suffering my grandmother witnessed as she cared for sick and dying patients across the city.

Soldiers filled a makeshift hospital at Camp Upton, Long Island, N.Y., where my grandmother Elle cared for patients beginning in the fall of 1918.

The influenza pandemic of 1918 would ultimately kill 675,000 people in the United States and an estimated 50 million worldwide.

Army Life
In October 1918, my grandmother stood at the crest of another historic moment and plunged right in. She joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps just before Armistice Day as millions of soldiers began returning home at the end of World War I.

Many of these soldiers had been grievously wounded in battle and would require extensive medical care for months or even years to come. At the same time, the pandemic continued to run rampant. When Elle reported for duty at Camp Upton on Long Island, N.Y., the base – like others across the country – faced a huge epidemic of influenza cases.

In a letter to her sister Agnes, Elle provides a tiny window into her life at Camp Upton and the stay-at-home orders that were sometimes required:

Sarah Eleanor Grehea (left) with her fellow Army nurse and friend, Mona Clark, (right) at Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, DC, April 18, 1924.

“This is a terrible afternoon for Sunday. Miss Sullivan and I are off from 2 o’clock all afternoon. We wanted to walk down to Camp as it is a nice walk but now, we have to stick in the house.”

But, in her letter from Camp Upton, Elle also shares how she experienced small moments of joy and relaxation amid her grueling work, like attending an officers’ dance and watching a movie at the Y.M.C.A.

For the next seven years of her Army nursing career, Elle worked at five base hospitals in New York, Illinois, Georgia, and the District of Columbia. Her last duty station was Walter Reed General Hospital, where she served from January 16, 1923, until November 2, 1925.

Finding Love
During the summer of 1925, Elle met Charles Russell McEntire, an Army veteran and patient from Georgia. Charlie had a charming personality and a wonderful sense of humor. During World War I, he had been shot in the leg by an enemy soldier. He spent years in and out of military hospitals with serious complications that almost required amputation.

Charles (“Charlie”) and Eleanor (“Elle”) McEntire, both Army veterans, on their wedding day on November 3, 1925, Washington, D.C.

The nurse and the patient soon fell in love. After a short courtship, Elle left the service to marry Charlie in Washington, D.C. on November 3, 1925. The couple settled in Atlanta where they raised two children, including my mother.

Despite the personal trauma that Elle endured as a young nurse during a terrible pandemic and the aftermath of a brutal war, she didn’t let her past difficulties overshadow the fun side of her personality.

I remember how grandma loved to dance to Lawrence Welk’s music, play bridge, and cheer on the Atlanta Braves, her adopted hometown team.

Like many of her generation, Grandma Elle never talked about challenges like the pandemic that she faced in life. I wish that she had shared some stories about her early life with us, but it was not her way. Perhaps the subject was too painful to revisit.

While I will never know all the details of what she experienced, I admire her resilience and her steely resolve to enjoy life to the fullest, no matter what.

Today, I am a CDC health communications specialist, and I feel a special bond with my grandma as a fellow public health worker, especially since we both entered the field during pandemic times. I am sure that Elle would be especially proud of her great-granddaughter Kaleigh who followed in her footsteps by becoming a registered nurse.

Author’s Note: This article was originally published in CDC Connects, an in-house publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For Women’s History Month (March 2024), I honor my maternal grandmother, Sarah Eleanor “Elle” (Grehea) McEntire (left photo), for her tireless work as a New York City public health nurse during the 1918 influenza pandemic and her seven years of dedicated service as an officer in the US Army Nurse Corps.

My mother, Mary Eleanor (McEntire) Roehl (right), continues to inspire me with her legacy as a champion for civil, LGBTQ+, and women’s rights. Wherever there was a need or a cause she cared about, Mary could always be counted on as one of those helping to build a more caring, equitable, and inclusive world.