Professor Elizabeth DeWolfe is an avid user of UNE Special Collections in her history courses and in her own personal research. She recently published “Lieutenant Lowderback’s Short Snorter: A Flight Nurse’s Service and Souvenir in WWII” in the journal Nursing Clio. She profiles Ruth Lowderback (1918–1995), who joined the Army Nurse Corps in November 1943. She was an experienced nurse with training in public health, and she felt strongly the need to serve her country. During 1944 and 1945, Lowderback worked as a flight nurse in the 830th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron. Ruth Lowderback’s letters are archived at UNE’s Special Collections as part of the Randall J. Cushing Collection of World War I and World War II Letters on the Biddeford Campus and have been used in numerous exhibitions in Professor DeWolfe’s History Hands-On classes and in UNE’s Biddeford Campus Art Gallery. These letters, and many others from World War I and II, are available to students and other members of the UNE community for research.
