Mary E. Rickards

Second Lieutenant Mary E. Rickards was from Pennsylvania, believed to be born in 1919. She was a surgical nurse on the base. She arrived on base in 1943 with Alice M. Dunkley and Irma Cameron who were all schoolmates. Cameron called her “Ricki.” She was a member of the 1940 class of Harlem Hospital School of Nursing in New York. Alice M. Dunkley was in the same class. Rickards also worked at Harlem Hospital as a nurse. The July 15, 1944 base newspaper reported that she had been promoted to first lieutenant. She was also mentioned earlier in the October 15, 1943 edition of the Hawk’s Cry that she “has been hospitalized and in the care of one of her sister nurses.” She was still listed on the base roster as of March 15, 1946, but by the July 15, 1946 roster, she had separated from the service. She was mentioned as deceased in the Tuskegee Airmen 1977 Convention booklet.

(Information from the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Nursing Service of Bellevue, Harlem, Fordham & Gouverneur [sic] Hospitals, Family Search, 1940 U.S. Census and the April 10, 1943 The People’s Voice newspaper, Tuskegee Airmen 1977 Convention booklet.)