Florence A. Blanchfield

Florence Aby Blanchfield was United States Army Colonel and superintendent of the Army Nursing Corps, from 1943 to 1947. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945, and the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Red Cross in 1951. In 1947 Blanchfield became the first woman to receive a military commission in the regular army.

Florence Aby Blanchfield was born in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, the fourth of eight children of Mary Louvenia , a nurse, and Joseph Plunkett Blanchfield, a mason and stonecutter. She grew up in Oranda, Virginia, attending public school until 1898, when she attended the private Oranda Institute. In addition to having a mother who was a nurse, Blanchfields two sisters also became nurses, and her maternal grandfather and an uncle were physicians.

Source: Wikipedia