Ruth Monahan’s nursing career moved among hospitals and private duty nursing until the war arrived. Ruth stepped forward as an Army nurse and was soon nursing the Merrill’s Marauders. All volunteers, the men battled through 1,000 miles of jungle with every kind of wound, injury, tropical disease and parasite.

Ruth was the youngest child of her parents, James M. Monahan and Mary E. McCarthy Monahan. She was born on January 2, 1905, in Lancaster, New Hampshire.[i] Waiting for a little sister was Carl A. Monahan, her big brother age seven.[ii] Both of her parents immigrated from Canada years earlier.

Her parents must have been overjoyed to have Ruth. Before she was born, her parents lost their baby, Robert M. Monahan, in 1897, to cholera infantum.[iii] Then another baby developed colitis and they also lost Marion E. Monahan in 1901. Both babies were under a year old.

Before she was born, Ruth’s parents owned a large boarding house in Berlin, Coos County. James worked outside of the boarding house in both concreting and roofing. Mary worked running a boarding house for 16, managing two employees, taking care of her toddler, Carl, and also had baby Marion that year.[iv]

The next census, 1910, finds Ruth, five, and her brother, 11, attending school. Her parents still run a boarding house with eight male boarders.[v]

When Ruth is in her teenage years, according to the 1920 census, they still live on the same road, Goebel Street, in a home they own but they are no longer in the boarding business. James, 58, is now retired[vi] however he had been working as a contractor. Ruth, 15, attends high school. Her brother, Carl, lives with the family but no employment or school is listed at the time of the 1920 census.[vii]

The year 1920 had a turbulent start for the family. James had not been well and struggled with chronic nephritis, a kidney disease. On February 2nd, James died of apoplexy, which indicates he had a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage. [viii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

By 1924, some of the family had moved across country exchanging New Hampshire for California. That year, Carl, her brother, was living in Los Angeles and working as a lineman.[ix] Around this time, Ruth must have been in California as well because she studied at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California.[x]

A few years later, 1927, sees 22-year-old Ruth renting an apartment on Grove Street and working as a nurse in San Francisco. [xi] She is still living in San Francisco and working as a nurse in 1928.[xii] She’s living with her older brother, Carl, a lineman, and their mother, Mary.[xiii] Research is not clear on when the first of the family moved from New Hampshire to California but there were extended family there.

Ruth heads six hours south and settles in Los Angeles. In 1935, she worked as an orderly at General Hospital.[xiv]

It’s unclear when Ruth made her next move but by 1937, She is affiliated with Henry S. Reid Hospital in Palm Springs. Brother Carl had moved there too. Carl, at one time, worked for their cousin in Palm Springs and the two built an apartment building at Cathedral City.[xv] Both Carl, and their cousin, W.L. Jordan, were described as well-known in the area.[xvi] In 1937, Ruth took her nursing care into Alaska. She spent all summer serving in a government hospital, returning to California in December. She was nursing in Alaska with her sister-in-law, Gertrude Monahan, Carl’s wife, who is also a nurse at Henry S. Reid Hospital with Ruth.[xvii]

Her return from Alaska at the end of the year brought Ruth home allowing her to spend time with her mother before her passing. In August of 1938, Ruth lost her mother, Mary, 73. [xviii]

Life in Palm Springs in 1939 sees Ruth having two jobs. She’s nursing at the Reid Clinic and Hospital.[xix] In addition, Ruth worked as a private duty nurse for Julia Carnell of Palm Springs.[xx] Carnell was the heiress to the National Cash Register fortune and she wintered in Palm Springs.[xxi] Around this period of time, news reports mention Carnell, in her 70s, as having been ill and later as having had a bad fall which would explain the need for Ruth’s care.[xxii]

As the war years arrive, 1941 finds Ruth moving back near Los Angeles and living in Fullerton, CA in a rental.[xxiii] During her years in California, Ruth lived many places including Stockton, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Springs and Fullerton.

HER MILITARY STORY

2nd Lt. Genevieve Ruth Monahan served as an Army nurse in India for two years. Her number was N-783192. She served with Merrill’s Marauders.[xxiv] The Marauders worked in the China-Burma-India Theater behind enemy lines with the Chinese to attack the Japanese from the rear. Their treacherous march and battles through jungles and swamps often let to wounding, injuries and tropical diseases that were not able to be adequately treated on site. Often the injured had to ride a pack animal to a clearing to be flown out to get care.[xxv]

The Ledo area of India, where Ruth eventually died, was known to be one of the worst areas of malaria in the world. In addition, there was ward after ward of typhus patients. Lice, tape worms, maggots and other parasites were common. Horribly wounded men would arrive from all over and many amputations were done due to gangrene developing over their days-long journey to get care.[xxvi]

In an oral history record, “Voices of the Past,” Brigadier General Anna Mae Hays recalled “… our nurses were well prepared. We had a fair amount of equipment and supplies… And as history has proven, the whole theater was sadly neglected. But, as I said, we did the very best we could.”[xxvii]

At the time of the war, Hays was a nurse in the operating room in India. In 1970, she was the first woman in the United States Armed Forces to wear the stars of a general officer when promoted to Brigadier General.[xxviii]

“Of course, the heavy rains would pour in seven to eight inches of water in 24 hours in the monsoon season. You can imagine the mud problems. Each building was made of bamboo and our roofs were palm fronds so when it rained, water came through the roofs,” she said in her oral history. Without secure doors, snakes, sacred cows or wild jackals would run or slither through the wards or nurses’ quarters. They also cared for ill and wounded Chinese soldiers, American allies, which brought language and cultural differences for the nurses in trying to provide the best care.[xxix]

HER LAST DAY- March 4, 1945

On her last flight, 2nd Lt. Genevieve Ruth Monahan was in a flight route along the Ledo road[xxx] in the India-Burma Theater to care for wounded in Imphal.[xxxi] Her Douglas C-47 Skytrain (#41-18554), assigned to Air transport Command, 11th Combat Cargo Squadron,[xxxii] took off from Dinjan Army Airfield in Assam, India on a mission to ferry passengers. The plane came in too low during the last turn in the process of landing and crashed. Twenty-five passengers, including Ruth, plus the crew of two were killed. Most of the passengers were Army nurses and medical personnel.[xxxiii]

Her brother, Carl, received the news in Balboa, California via a War Department telegram. Her death announcement, appearing in the Palm Springs Desert News, described her as “well known here.” [xxxiv]

She was 40.

MEMORIALS

2nd Lt. Genevieve Ruth Monahan can be seen in the 1945 listing of Gold Star casualties in the Orange County Register newspaper.

HER FUNERAL AND GRAVE

2nd Lt. Genevieve Ruth Monahan was buried at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Santa Ana, California, the same cemetery where she buried her mother. In 1950, her grave site received a bronze marker.[xxxv] Her grave is in Section B, St. Bernadette and the Memorial ID is 89863910.[xxxvi]

RESEARCH NOTES

Research did not reveal Genevieve Ruth Monahan in a 1930 or 1940 census. Nor did it turn up military documents other than the air crash report. The 1945 crash report lists her as Genevieve O. Monohan. In no other records does the middle initial "O" appear and she is Genevieve Ruth Monahan on the grave marker her brother selected for her as well as the ancestry.com records.

LIST OF THOSE KILLED IN THE MARCH 4, 1945 LEDO, INDIA AIR CRASH

Capt. John J. Lukaszczyk, Co-Pilot
Capt. Nicholas J. Mandoukos, Pilot
1st Lt. Walter S. Amsler, Jr.
2nd Lt. Francis W. Blalock
2nd Lt. Julia S. Barnes
2nd Lt. Jane M. Blevins
2nd Lt. Evelyn M. Bruton
2nd Lt. Thomas E. Dellinger
2nd Lt. Rita F. Erard
2nd Lt. Evelyn M. Gerdrum
2nd Lt. Lyndell A. Glisson
1st Lt. Henry D. Hammack, Jr.
2nd Lt. Eathel L. Harris
2nd Lt. Helen J. Henley
1st Lt. Catherine M. Larkin
2nd Lt. Joseph R. Launier
1st Lt. Kathryn L.Lloyd
Capt. Charles W. Loucks
1st Lt. Grady A. Masters
2nd Lt. Kathryn L. McCarthy
2nd Lt. Ann L. Merrill
2nd Lt. Genevieve R. Monahan
Capt. Edward R. Moore
2nd Lt. Mayo C. Onken
Lt. Col. Jack P. Scott
Leona A. Thomey, Civilian, Red Cross
1st Lt. Robert W. Tibbetts

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