Camilla Louise Wills Papers

Camilla Louise "Katie" Wills (1894-1994) was an Albemarle County, Virginia native and 1917 graduate of the University of Virginia Hospital School for Nurses. She passed her Virginia State Board of Nursing examinations in January, 1918, and joined the Red Cross hospital unit then being organized by University of Virginia Hospital physician William H. Goodwin and nursing superintendent Margaret B. Cowling. The Red Cross unit soon became Base Hospital Number 41 for the American Expeditionary Forces in France; in July 1918 the hospital was established in the École de la Légion d'Honneur, Saint Denis, France, just beyond the northern city limits of Paris. After training with other members of the nursing staff at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and New York City, Wills deployed in July -- sailing on board the U.S.S. Cartago, per her report, rather than the Lancashire, as given in other histories of the hospital. She arrived at Saint Denis on August 10, 1918, and the hospital soon entered service. The compound accommodated as many as 2800 patients at once, in the eighteenth-century buildings of the school and in a large array of tents in the enclosed garden. In January 1919, the French facility was disbanded, with final demobilization of most personnel occurring back in the United States in the spring. Wills continued in service as a military nurse for the regrouped Base Hospital 41 on Staten Island, New York, through the summer of 1919.

Remaining in New York for the subsequent academic year, Wills attended the Columbia University Teacher's College, where she began a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing, a degree she would ultimately complete in 1931. In the interim, Wills taught adult home nursing courses from 1920-22 in Clovis and Las Vegas, New Mexico for that state's Bureau of Public Health. She was briefly on staff at Cragmore Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before accepting a position as a high school biology teacher in Martinsburg, West Virginia, for the 1924 and 1925 academic years, returning to Columbia for more coursework in the summer of 1924. She joined the nursing staff of Virginia State Board of Health in 1925, where she became, first, the Assistant State Director for Tuberculosis Education, then, after the spring semester 1926 at the University of Virginia, the Superintendent for Public Welfare for Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1929, Wills returned full-time to Columbia for the BS in Nursing, then continued at Columbia for a Master's degree in Health Education, teaching concurrently at the State Teachers' College in Newark, New Jersey. She continued to teach health education, physiology, and biology at various colleges and high schools for the remainder of her career. Wills retired to Charlottesville in the early 1960s, the place she had always considered home.

Wills' wartime experiences marked her in a significant way. She realized that with greater knowledge of biology, she could have alleviated much needless suffering for her soldier patients. Her career in teaching and public health led new generations of students to that goal.