Irma Cameron

2LT Lieutenant Irma Cameron (Dryden) says she arrived at Tuskegee Army Air Field by train with schoolmates Alice M. Dunkley and Mary Rickards in 1943 after going into military service. Cameron was an only child. She was born May 28, 1920 in New York City and later lived in New Jersey. Her dad was a Jamaican. He had a career as a dental technician and her mother was a teacher. She was a graduate of the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing’s class of 1942. This medical nurse was married to one of the airmen, although their marriage ended in divorce in later years. She said that she and Charles Dryden were married November 16, 1943 participating in the first military wedding at Tuskegee. The Hawk’s Cry Hospital Headlines of November 11, 1943 included the nuptual announcement, “We wish to congratulate 1st Lt Charles Dryden, of the 99th, and 2nd LT Irma Cameron, Army Nurse Corps, upon their marriage. We wish them a happily married life and many memories of the beautiful occasion.” The story of her courtship and marriage is included in Tom Brokaw’s An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation. Charles Dryden also included their story in his book, A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman. Dryden’s father and mother were both Jamaican. Second Lieutenant Irma Dryden left the service in 1944. She died on Thursday, September 17, 2020.

(Information from interview with Irma Cameron Dryden, Tom Brokaw’s An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation, Charles Dryden’s, A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman, the April 10, 1943 The People’s Voice newspaper .)