“A Kansas Nurse in the B.E.F.”

Join us for a special Museum After Hours program at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 10.  The programs in this series complement the Kansas Museum of History’s special exhibit, Captured:  The Extraordinary Adventures of Colonel Hughes, and are held in recognition of the 100^th anniversary of World War I.  The Museum will be open until 6:30 p.m., admission is half-price after 5 p.m.  The Museum Store will also be open until 6:30 p.m.

Doran Cart, senior curator, The National World War I Museum and Memorial presents, “A Kansas Nurse in the B.E.F., 1918:  with the Tommies, Letters and Other Memories from Florence Edith Hemphill, U.S. Army Nurse Corps, British Expeditionary Force in World War I.”  Nurse Florence Hemphill was from southeast Kansas but served in the British Army in World War I.  Her letters are preserved at the National World War I Museum and Memorial and have been edited and published by Curator Doran Cart.

(If you missed Doran’s talk, see the article that appeared in the Autumn issue of Kansas History:  http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2006autumn_cart2.pdf )

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Please note that the talk that was scheduled for January and cancelled because of the threat of bad weather has been rescheduled for Friday April 7^th at 6:30 p.m.:

“When soldiers returned home from World War I they typically brought back souvenirs from their time in Europe.  Charlie Pautler, museum director for Shawnee Town 1929, presents “The U.S. Doughboy Over there:  What He Carried and What He Dragged Home.”  Pautler will explore these kinds of materials and trappings by examining uniforms, equipment, and other items soldiers shared with their families at home.

Blair Tarr

Blair Tarr is the Museum Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society. He oversees the three-dimensional collections of the Society, but has special interests in the Civil War, Wichita-made Valentine diners, and Leavenworth's Abernathy Furniture. In the last few years he has also done a lot of cramming on The Great War. He is a past president of the Kansas Museums Association and the Civil War Round Tables of both Kansas City and Eastern Kansas. He is currently a board member of the Heritage League of Greater Kansas City.