Rebecca G. Cameron (1885-1959), known as Reba G. Cameron, was a Canadian-born American Army nurse who was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal for her military hospital work during World War I. She also worked in the Philippines and Japan.
Early life Reba G. Cameron was born in Canada.Reba G. Cameron, The Hall of Valor Project, Military Times website.
Career From 1911 Reba G. Cameron was Superintendent of Nurses and Occupational Director at Taunton State Hospital in Massachusetts, training her nurses in the new methods of occupational therapy.William Rush Dunton, Occupation Therapy: A Manual for Nurses (W. B. Saunders 1915): 18.Kathlyn L. Reed, "Pioneering Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science: Ideas and Practitioners before 1917" Journal of Occupational Therapy 24(2017): 400-411. She also wrote about occupational therapy in nursing journals.Reba G. Cameron, "Occupational Therapy" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (July 1918): 22-23. During World War I, she organized patients to knit and sew for a soldiers' relief charity.Reba G. Cameron, "War Relief Work at Taunton State Hospital" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (September 1917): 141-143. She testified against legislation regarding the registration of nurses at hearings held by the Massachusetts State Committee on Public Health."Massachusetts" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (April 1917): 236.
Cameron held the rank of First Lieutenant in the United States Army Nurse Corps during World War I. She was Chief Nurse of the General Hospital at Plattsburgh, New York, and later at the Debarkation Hospital at Hampton, Virginia."Reba G. Cameron" The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (May 1919): 286. For her service and leadership during wartime, she was one of 24 nurses awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1923."They Also Served and Died" Beaver County News (May 14, 1931): 2. via Newspapers.com
Cameron moved to California after the war, and worked as an army nurse in San Francisco and in the Philippines."Army Nurse Corps" American Journal of Nursing (October 1921): 49."California Women Named for Valiant Service in Late War" Santa Cruz Evening News (March 13, 1923): 1. via California Digital Newspaper Collection She went to Japan on a medical relief mission following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake,"Ship Scheduled to Sail Monday for Quake Zone" San Francisco Chronicle (September 8, 1923): 3. via Newspapers.com and was chief of the occupational department at the Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio of San Francisco when she spoke to the California Society of Educational Therapy in 1926."Men of Torn Souls Aided at Hospital" San Francisco Examiner (March 7, 1926): 78. via Newspapers.com
Personal life Cameron was "retired for physical disability" from the Army Nurse Corps in 1933."War Department and Navy Orders" Daily Press (September 30, 1933): 7. via Newspapers.com She lived in Redlands, California in her later years, and died in 1959, aged 74 years.
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