Last updated: September 26, 2023
Person
Gertrude Ivory-Bertram
Gertrude Margaritte Ivory-Bertram was born on February 7, 1916, in Clarksville, Georgia. Her parents were Minnie Allen and Oscar W. Ivory, two hard working and caring people. They instilled a strong work ethic and religious values upon their ten children. Bertram was exceedingly thankful to her parents and how they supported her. On September 9, 1937, she arrived at Brewster Hospital and School of Nursing in Jacksonville, Florida. She later recalled that it “was the beginning of the best years of my life.” Brewster helped her understand her strengths and weaknesses as a nurse, while supporting her goals. For two years Bertram lived on campus, her third year she moved to a bigger hospital for further training. Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, an affiliate of Emory University Medical School, helped Bertram round out the rest of her training. They offered her the final courses needed to complete her state and national requirements for full nurse accreditation. On September 26, 1940, Bertram along with eight other classmates returned to Brewster for graduation. The next month she took her Florida state nursing board exams and passed. Upon graduation, Brewster Hospital offered her a position in the children’s ward.
At the same time, Brewster’s superintendent, Miss Florence Jones, R.N. started looking for candidates to join the American Red Cross Nursing Service. Bertram was the perfect candidate and was urged to apply. In April 1941, Bertram was the first Brewster graduate to be accepted into the American Red Cross Nursing Service. While waiting for her Red Cross assignment she moved to the outpatient clinic at Brewster where she contemplated a career as a public health nurse. Bertram wrote: “To be a productive nurse, one must be well-trained in all aspects of nursing care, and be able to teach and demonstrate health care, and to have a true love for people regardless of their race, creed or color. A public health nurse must have a deeply spiritual love of mankind.” She saw herself as having all these characteristics. In 1941, she planned to enroll in a public health graduate program at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. Before she could submit the paperwork, the Army Nurse Corps called.
On April 23, 1941, she received a letter from chief nurse Captain Mary Gavin expecting Bertram to be on active duty by May 1, 1941. She stated, “I was one of the first fifty-six colored nurses in the United States to qualify for a commission in the Army Nurse Corps.” On April 25, 1941, she was commissioned as a second lieutenant of the Army Nurse Corps. The Army sent her a first-class ticket for the Pullman service train cars. It was the first time she was able to ride first-class. Upon arrival to the train station, no one had told the train workers she was Black. A Black Pullman car porter exclaimed, “Girl, you are out of your place, thinking you can ride in the Pullman area!” She was proud of her new commission and would not be deterred. Betram later wrote in her autobiography, “I walked over to that porter and looked him straight in the eye, then I let him have it. Then and there, I demanded the first-class traveling accommodations to which I was entitled, and I reminded him I was traveling under government orders.” The porter was not fazed in the least. He threatened to put her in her place and led her to the rear of the train. To Bertram’s surprise, the porter had arranged for her to have a private drawing room in one of the sleeping cars that had full amenities. His final rule, “Don’t leave this room. I don’t want you mixing with my people.” The next morning, she arrived in Florence, South Carolina and transferred to an Army transport train.
She started her military career as a ward nurse at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Her first tour of duty was from May 1, 1941, to February 8, 1943. The Army nurses worked twelve-hour shifts and oversaw twenty-six beds. Their duties were not only to treat the sick and wounded, but also provided “hope, faith, and loving care for these young men away from home.” In February 1943, Bertram prepared to be stationed with the Twenty-Fifth Station Hospital overseas. There were thirty nurses, including Bertram, commanded by First Lieutenant Susan Freeman. On February 8, 1943, Bertram, and the nurses of the Twenty-Fifth Station Hospital left Fort Bragg for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. A few days later the nurses moved to Staten Island, New York to board the troop ship James Parker. They set sail; their first stop was Casablanca, Morocco. On March 10, 1943, they departed Casablanca and headed to their destination of Monrovia, Liberia. The Twenty-Fifth Station Hospital was the first all-Black US Army medical unit deployed overseas. For nine months Bertram and the other nurses fought heat and disease to care for allied soldiers.
They were stationed at Roberts Field, an airfield built by the US military in 1942, in Monrovia. For protection in a warzone, all nurses were issued helmets, gas masks, and canteens but were not allowed weapons. To show that they were health care workers they wore red cross arm bands. Malaria was the main reason why so many people were treated by the Twenty-Fifth. Bertram, though taking precautions, contracted malaria. One day, after fighting another bought of fever caused by malaria, she noticed a noncommissioned officer in the ward. Curiously she asked who he was. He introduced himself as Staff Sergeant Robert Bertram. There was a strict no fraternization policy in the Army, especially with nurses and male staff. So, the couple hired a local boy to transfer notes between them, the boy was paid in chocolate bars. Their relationship grew throughout World War II, and they promised to marry as soon as the war was over.
In October 1943, the Twenty-Fifth was recalled back to the US. The unit was suffering from poor health due to malaria and low morale after nine months of non-stop care. Bertram and eight other nurses were commended by the US Surgeon General for service beyond the call of duty. The nurses were then reassigned to the US or in the Pacific Theatre at other station hospitals depending on their overall health. Bertram returned to Camp Livingston, Louisiana. The after-effects of having malaria and continued bouts of fever made living in Louisiana uncomfortable. She requested a transfer and on March 30, 1944, she returned to Fort Bragg. She was assigned to the penicillin and streptomycin trial ward. This was the first controlled use of the new drugs. Bertram recalled that “There was, in fact, a revolution in drug therapy because of both drugs, and I am proud to have been part of the original studies that contributed to the widespread use of these life-saving medicines.”
Her final assignment with the Army happened after the June 6, 1944, Normandy invasion. 46 wounded soldiers were brought to Fort Bragg after being severely injured. All were paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down, and enroute to Army general hospitals throughout the country. Bertram spoke of her time with these men fondly. “In all the nursing assignments and experiences I encountered on duty, either stateside or in foreign assignments, nothing provided me more pleasure and more humility than caring for those forty-six men.” Bertram oversaw their care and the corpsmen who helped her. The white nurse that was supposed to help her, saw the situation, and left. For she would have been supervised by Bertram, a Black nurse, taking care of white soldiers. The men friendly and appreciative to Bertram and all that she did for them. “On leaving the ward, the entire group expressed thanks and gratitude for the care they had received.” When the war ended in 1945, regular commissions in the Army Nurse Corps were being offered to nursing staff. Bertram was offered a position, but she turned it down, for as long as she was in the Army she could not marry. She made a promise in Liberia, and she was going to keep it.
In 1945 she left the Army and continued in nursing. On October 10, 1945, Bertram boarded the train for Atlanta and began planning her wedding. A month later, on November 20, 1945, Robert and Gertrude were married near his family in Louisville, Kentucky. They moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were they both attended graduate school on the GI Bill. She enrolled in Marquette University ’s Public Health Studies program. After graduation she took a job with the city of Milwaukee as a Public Health Nurse. Her duties were to help immigrant families with medical and social problems. Bertram taught classes about good health practices. She even exchanged recipes with many of her patients and expanded her home cooking. Six months into working for the city of Milwaukee, the state of Wisconsin’s Nurses Association questioned her credentials. She had to discontinue her work and work to prove she was a credited nurse. “I applied and was given permission to take boards, and ten years after I had taken my original nursing board exams in Florida, I passed Wisconsin’s, and returned to my teachings and demonstrations.” To further prove to herself and others that she was fluent in nursing, she took the Master Public Health Nurse test. When she passed, this qualified her to work as a public health nurse in any state. She returned to work and never took a break from nursing until she became a mother.
In 1950, Bertram took a year off being a nurse to care for her newborn daughter. Rita Kathleen was born with Patent Ductus Arteriosus which required close supervision. With her mother’s supervision and the help of therapy, baby Rita beat the odds and grew into a healthy girl. In 1955, the family moved to the calmer climate of Dayton, Ohio to better Rita’s health. Working for the city of Dayton in District 10, she taught classes on meal planning, childcare, proper housing, and many other needs. She also worked with St. Joseph’s Catholic Church to provide food baskets to families in need and the program took off. She recalled in her autobiography, “In my effort to provide these social and medical services, I learned that people, in the main, are wonderful. Most were glad to assist in the community work. If there was need, regardless of what it was, the neighborhood responded and supported every request I made.” She went on to help mental health studies, alcoholism studies, and expand community outreach. In December 1986, Bertram retired after over fifty years in professional nursing.
Gertrude Bertram died on April 22, 2014. She was buried at the Dayton National Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio.
References:
Ivory-Bertram, Margaritte. 1991. Nurse: One Woman’s Effort to Succeed. Landfall Press.Threat, Charissa J. 2015. Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps. Univ. of Illinois Press.
Tomblin, Barbara Brooks. 2004. G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II. Univ. Press of Kentucky.