Scrapbook owned by Lt. Louise Lomax, Army Nurse Corps
- Created by
- Lomax, Louise Virginia, American, 1920 - 2011
- Subject of
- Tuskegee Airmen, 1941 - 1946
- United States Army Air Force, American, 1941 - 1947
- Date
- 1943-1953
- Medium
- metal and ribbon; silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper; ink on paper and newsprint; adhesive
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 126 3/4 × 10 1/16 × 1 5/16 in. (322 × 25.5 × 3.4 cm)
- Caption
- Louise Lomax was born in January 1920 in Nottoway, Virginia, to James and Annie Shepperson Lomax. She received her high school diploma in 1938 from Ingleside-Fee Memorial High School, a segregated boarding school in Burkeville, Virginia. Her maternal grandfather sent her and other grandchildren to study at this school. Lomax continued her studies at the Saint Philip Hospital School of Nursing, a segregated nursing school that was part of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. She graduated in September 1942 and passed her nursing examinations in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C.
- Lomax joined the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) as a 2nd Lieutenant in March 1943 with the help of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. While in the ANC, she trained as a psychiatric nurse at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. By September 1943 she was stationed at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, home of the Tuskegee Airmen, where she was eventually promoted to 1st Lieutenant. She served at Tuskegee until 1946 when the airfield was inactivated after the end of the war. For her service in World War II, she was awarded a World War II Victory Medal and an American Campaign Medal. After the war, Lomax went on to serve at Lockbourne Army Air Base in Ohio, Provident Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, at VA hospitals in Downey, Illinois, and Perry Point, Maryland, and finally at the Army’s Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. She retired from active duty in March 1949 at Battle Creek, receiving an Honorable Discharge lapel pin, and transferred to the Reserve Corps. She served in the reserves for four years before retiring in April 1953.
- Lomax married Methodist minister John Lonnie Winters in November 1954, with whom she had one child, Pia Winters Jordan, the donor. As a civilian, Lomax worked as a psychiatric nurse at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she served for a time as head nurse. She also instructed nursing assistants and worked with the criminally insane. She retired from nursing in June 1973.
- Description
- A scrapbook compiled by Army Nurse Corps (ANC) 1st Lieutenant Louise Virginia Lomax and later annotated by her daughter, Pia Winters Jordan. The scrapbook has a blue cover with three silver-colored airplanes flying at center. At the top of the cover is an image of a U.S. Army Air Force pilot badge. Printed in white text on the bottom left corner is [TUSKEGEE ARMY FLYING SCHOOL]. There are sixty-three (63) pages total containing photographs, invitations, programs, and newspaper clippings, accompanied by stickers and handwritten labels. The contents of the scrapbook relating to Lomax's career, friends, colleagues, patients, Tuskegee Airmen and wives of Tuskegee Airmen, and social life during her time stationed at Tuskegee Army Air Field (1943-1946) and then at Lockbourne Army Air Base. Highlights include Lomax's World War II Victory Medal, a letter from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Inc. on discrimination faced by Lomax in her employment, portraits of Lomax and group portraits of Lomax with fellow nurses, photographs and clippings of her friends and colleagues, a poem written to Lomax by a patient, an autographed photograph of Ralph Cooper, and newspaper clippings on Lomax's transfer from Lockbourne to for St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington for training in psychiatric nursing.
- Place depicted
- Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
- Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, United States, North and Central America
- Type
- scrapbooks
- Topic
- Aeronautics
- Holidays and festivals
- Medicine
- Military
- Nursing
- Photography
- Segregation
- Social life and customs
- Tuskegee Airmen
- U.S. History, 1945-1953
- Women
- World War II
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Pia Marie Winters Jordan in memory of her mother, First Lieutenant Louise Virginia Lomax Winters, Army Nurse Corps; and her uncle, Sgt. Henry James Lomax, U.S. Army
- Object number
- 2022.42.1
- Restrictions & Rights
- Unknown - Restrictions Possible
- Rights assessment and proper usage is the responsibility of the user.