The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America: Remembering the World War I Service of Mary Elizabeth Wyeth

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Remembering the World War I Service of Mary Elizabeth Wyeth

Mary Elizabeth Wyeth (insert) and the Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 68, A. E. F.

For Women’s History Month 2021, we honor World War I nurse, Mary Elizabeth Wyeth. Mary was named for her great, great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Brewer, the wife of Boston Tea Party and Continental Army veteran, Joshua Wyeth.

A few years after graduating from Union Hospital’s nursing program in Terre Haute, Indiana, 27-year-old Mary set sail on 16 Sep 1918 for France with 100 other young women of the Army Nurse Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces. Their destination was the newly purposed Base Hospital No. 68 in Mars-sur-Allier.

Since the sea crossing took place at the height of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, Mary’s nursing work for the Corps actually began aboard ship. Once in France, none of Mary’s nursing experience prepared her emotionally or physically for caring for the vast numbers of soldiers wounded by high-explosive artillery shells, poison gas burns and "shell shock" who arrived by the trainload at No. 68. Many men were sickened by flu that in turn took the lives of several of Mary's fellow nurses.

When Hospital No. 68 closed on 15 Jan 1919, Mary transferred to Base Hospital No. 93 in Cannes, France. There in May 1919, Pvt. John McLaughlin, a young man from her hometown, on leave from the 8th Battalion, 20th Engineers, wrote his mother about seeing Nurse Mary on the sunny coast. After 59 years of marriage, Mr. and Mrs. John McLaughlin and their military tombstones now rest side by side in Terre Haute’s Highland Lawn Cemetery.

Sources: Ethel Ross Wyeth Canion; Alpha Sawyer, US Base Hospital 68 A.E.F (Boston: Griffith-Stilling Press, 1920), 26, 40, 43 and 124; Christina Wyeth Baker, The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America (Berwyn Heights, MD: Heritage Books, 2019), 211; and the Terre Haute Saturday Spectator, 17 May 1919, 24.

THE WYETH AND WYTHE FAMILIES OF AMERICA

Written by Christina Wyeth Baker and published by Heritage Books of Berwyn Heights, MD, 2019, 8½x11, paperback, 558 pages, B5897, ISBN-10 0788458973 is $55.00 plus shipping and handling. To buy the book and have it inscribed by the author, please click here to email Christina Wyeth Baker. Additionally, the publisher, Heritage Books, sells the book on their website as well as through several well-known booksellers. For more information, please check out and like our Facebook site @WyethWythefamilies

About Jeff Wyeth

In 1977, while stationed with the U.S. Army in Germany, Jeff began writing letters of inquiry to family all over the U.S. One of the first responses came from Palm Beach architect Marion Sims Wyeth who designed the exterior of Mar-a-Lago. Marion sent Jeff his privately published booklet detailing the discovery of Nicholas Wyeth's birthplace in Saxtead. On page three of the booklet, Marion said he “is issuing this account at the present time in its very incomplete condition for fear that the notes might be … lost to some other member of the family who may be interested in carrying on this search.” Jeff took the word "search" literally. Finally after 33 years of searching, in 2010, Jeff convinced his sister to write a book based on his collections. Jeff and Christina are from the line of Nicholas' 3rd great grandson, Stephen Wyeth, who transplanted the Wyeth name from MA to OH. Stephen’s father Ebenezer Wyeth III, the oldest child of Ebenezer Wyeth Jr. and Mary Winship, grew up on the shores of Cambridge’s Fresh Pond. In 2020, Jeff and his wife Teresa celebrated 40 years of marriage. They are the proud parents and grandparents of one son and three grandchildren. Jeff serves as an evangelist for the Church of Christ in Grayling, MI.

ABOUT JAMIE WYETH

Celebrated artist, James Browning “Jamie” Wyeth really needs no introduction. Undoubtedly, Jamie is now the most famous Wyeth-named descendant of Nicholas Wyeth. For over six decades, Jamie has painted portraits of pigs, presidents and ballet dancers with equal skill. Walking in the legendary footsteps of his father, Andrew, and grandfather, Newell Convers "N. C.", Jamie has distinguished himself in his own right as a contemporary realist painter. Like his father and grandfather, Jamie’s creativity thrives in the unique environments of the Brandywine region of Pennsylvania and Delaware as well as the mid-coast of Maine. Jamie descends from Nicholas Wyeth’s great grandson, Noah Wyeth. Interestingly, when her mother died, Jamie’s third great grandmother, Lydia Convers Francis, age nine, went to live with Christina and Jeff’s ancestors, Ebenezer Wyeth Jr. and Mary Winship, on the shores of Cambridge’s Fresh Pond. At age 25, Lydia married the nephew of her benefactors, Captain Job Wyeth.

Library Holdings for Christina Wyeth Baker's Book

The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America is owned by The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN; the Saint Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO; the Mid-Continent Public Library Independence, MO; the Wichita Public Library, Wichita, KS; the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC; the Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge, MA and the Licking County Genealogical Society at the Licking County Library, Newark, OH.