Call Number:

MC 67

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing

Extent:

0.75 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Edna LaPorte Strumpf papers, Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1933-1991 (inclusive)

Creator:

Strumpf, Edna E. LaPorte, 1933-1991

Donor:

Strumpf, Neville E.

Form:

Lecture notes and Personal papers

Abstract:

Edna LaPorte Strumpf was an Army nurse during World War II, as well as a longtime nurse in Veterans Hospitals and a Red Cross volunteer. This collection consists predominantly of lecture notes and exams from the period of Edna Strumpf's attendance at Mt. Sinai Hospital Training School for Nurses in Philadelphia, from 1934-1937.

Edna E. LaPorte Strumpf, a native of Virginia, attended the Mt. Sinai Hospital Training School for Nurses in Philadelphia from February 1934 to her graduation in May 1937. Upon completion of nurses' training, Edna LaPorte worked at Mt. Sinai for ten months as a staff nurse. She later accepted a position at the Bronx Veterans Hospital where she became a supervisor. In 1943, LaPorte joined the United States Army and was assigned to the 126th Evacuation Hospital stationed in Europe. She married Herbert Strumpf, also a nurse, in 1944. Following discharge from the army on January 15, 1946, she worked at the Veterans Hospital in Northport, New York, until the birth of her first child in 1947. During the years after, in Selkirk, New York, Strumpf raised three children and served as a volunteer for the American Red Cross Program in Albany, the Bethlehem Ambulance, and on the Board of Directors for a local resident home for the mentally and physically disabled.

This collection consists predominantly of lecture notes and exams from the period of Edna Strumpf's attendance at Mt. Sinai Hospital Training School for Nurses in Philadelphia. The school merged in 1953 with the school of nursing at Jewish Hospital to become the Albert Einstein Medical Center School of Nursing. The notes are comprehensive and cover a wide range of topics, including professional issues. Also available are graduation and class reunion materials, a procedure manual, a history of the school, and a selection of promotional pamphlets distributed by the Sharp & Dohme pharmaceutical firm of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Perhaps most interestingly, a collection of correspondence from before Strumpf's matriculation at Mt. Sinai is included. One such letter is from Good Housekeeping, which at the time provided a referral service through their school department.