97-Year-Old Gets Wish of a Lifetime to Honor Her Mother, a WWI Nurse

Virginia Martenson realizes the importance of supporting and memorializing public servants. After all, the 97-year-old has spent her entire life surrounded by family members who either worked in nursing or joined the military. Her mother, Clara Elizabeth Callahan, did both.   

Callahan enlisted as a nurse in the Army, under the auspices of the Red Cross, to serve during World War I. As a survivor of the 1918 flu herself, she was asked to treat GIs who fell ill during the pandemic at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Two decades later, at the start of World War II, she stepped up to work at local hospitals that were short-staffed because younger nurses had left to treat soldiers injured on the battlefield.

During her retirement, Martenson’s mother continued to take care of her peers while living in her retirement community.

“When they found out that mother was a registered RN, if anybody went to the emergency room or anything, my mother went with them,” Martenson says. “She used her nursing expertise even when we were very young; people didn't go to the doctors. I'm talking about 80 years ago, when you were from a small town.”

Callahan was 99 years old when she passed away in 1995.

A wish granted

Courtesy the family of Clara Callahan Clement

Ever since the Military Women's Memorial opened to the public in 1997, Martenson longed to visit it to honor the millions of women who served, including her mother. In hopes of achieving this goal, she wrote to the AARP-affiliated Wish of a Lifetime Foundation, and her dream trip became a reality.