Sophie Nevins (February 16, 1892 – March 1959) was an American dentist from Brooklyn, New York who volunteered with the Women's Oversea Hospitals in France during World War I.[1]
Sophie Nevin | |
|---|---|
 Passport photograph from 1918 | |
| Born | February 16, 1892 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Died | March 1959 (aged 67) Miami, Florida |
| Occupation | Dentist serving overseas during WWI |
Family and education
editNevin was born on February 16, 1892, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Harris and Ciporia Nevin, both Russian immigrants to the United States.[2] Sophie was the second born of four children with an older sister, Julia, and two younger brothers, William and Edward. The family moved to Brooklyn where her father earned a living as a builder.[3] Nevin was educated in Brooklyn public schools. She graduated from the Manual Training High School and completed her training at the Brooklyn College of Dental and Oral Surgery in 1913.[4]
Service during World War I
editNevin volunteered to travel to France with the Women’s Oversea Hospitals, an all-woman volunteer medical unit sponsored by the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. She was anxious to support the war effort and according to an interview published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, she had previously offered her services to the National League for Woman’s Service with the American Ambulance Corps, as well as the American and British Red Cross.[4]
However, with two brothers serving in the U.S. military, Nevins required special permission to obtain a passport.[5] She traveled to France in April 1918 and joined a Women’s Oversea Hospital group that was in the process of establishing a hospital for refugees, especially women and children, in Labouheyre, near Bordeaux.[6][2]
Nevin provided dental care for American soldiers while waiting for the refugee hospital to open. When she learned that the 4th Battalion, 20th Engineer Regiment stationed in Mimizan did not have a dentist, she volunteered her services to the base commander Brigadier General William S. Scott. Although Scott was in favor of accepting her service, the base surgeon Colonel A. Shaw declined indicating that the “available Army dental surgeons in the area were ‘adequate’ to furnish all necessary dental care for the regiment."[6]
Nevins married an engineering officer, Captain Edwin C. Wemple (1885-1937) in Bordeaux, France on August 22, 1918. She applied for a passport under her new name in September 1918 and returned to New York in October of that year.[7] [8]
Life after World War I
editNevin joined her husband, Edwin C. Wemple, who was working in California after the war.[9] Their son, Jay Nevin Wemple was born in 1923.[10] It appears that the couple separated and divorced at some point. By 1925 Nevins had returned to her parents’ home in Brooklyn and Wemple remarried in 1930.[11][12]
Nevin was living with her sister in Los Angeles in 1940 when she attended an American Legion convention in Boston. A Boston newspaper recognized her leadership in organizing California women in a national defense program and supporting the re-election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.[13]
References
edit- ^ Lemay, Kate Clarke (2019). “Où Sont Les Dames?”: Suffragists and the American Women’s Oversea Hospitals Unit in France During World War I” in Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence. Princeton University Press. pp. 75–76, 79, 83. ISBN 978-0-691-19117-1.
- ^ a b "Sophie Nevin, U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925". Ancestry.com. 9 April 1918. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "1910 United States Federal Census". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ a b "Brooklyn Sends First Woman Dentist to Do War Relief Work in France". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. December 16, 1917. p. 24. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ Lemay. “Où Sont Les Dames?”: Suffragists and the American Women’s Oversea Hospitals Unit in France During World War I”. pp. 75–76.
- ^ a b Hyson, John M. Jr.; Whitehorne, Joseph W.A.; Greenwood, John T. (2008). The History of Dentistry in the US Army to World War II. Borden Institute, Walter Reed Army Medical Center. p. 496.
- ^ "Sophie Wemple, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925". Ancestry.com. 25 September 1918. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Sophie Wemple, New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957". Ancestry.com. 18 October 1918. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Sophie Wemple, 1920 United States Federal Census". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Jay N Wemple, New York, New York, U.S., Birth Index, 1910-1965". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
- ^ "Sophie Wemple, New York, U.S. State Census, 1925". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Edwin C Wemple, Washington, U.S., Marriage Records, 1854-2013". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Women Vets Organize to Aid Defense Plans". Daily Boston Globe. September 24, 1940. p. 6.
- ^ "Sophie N. Wemple, Obituary". The Miami Herald. March 31, 1959.