Louise Carmita Lafournaise

ouise Carmita Lafournaise was born August 8, 1889 in the Métis settlement of Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan Territory now the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her Métis parents were Marie Therese McGillis and my 4th Gr-Uncle (or son of my 4th Gr-Grandparents) Napoleon Joseph Lafournaise, both born of the Red River Settlement. The arrived in Glasgow, Valley County, Montana in 1898. From my known information she was the 4th child of 8 children. After receiving an 8th grade education in 1914 with her sister she graduated from a Catholic mission - Saint Ignatius Training School for Nurses, Colfax, Washington. In Ophelia, Montana she filed for a homestead in 1915. She received her nurses’ certificate #697 from Montana state on November 13, 1917. Then in Havre she worked at the Sacred Heart Hospital, Great Falls and the Fort Benton Sanitarium, Chouteau County, Montana until the Great War (WWI). On March 27, 1918 she enlisted with the US Army Nurses Corps, listed as an April Replacement Draft Nurse, and transported with the American Expeditionary Force from Hoboken, New York, overseas on the Leviathon ship April 24, 1918. Assigned to the front lines of France as the first female nurse to serve on the front lines at the Evacuation Hospital No. 1, her tour of duty continued on the front lines at various evacuation hospitals. These would earn her 2 George Washington chevron service awards authorized to wear for her service with the American Expeditionary Forces and a victory service ribbon. For her effort in September 12 - 15, 1918 at the Evacuation Hospital No. 16 during the St Mihiel Offense, a major battle the 200 thousand American Expeditionary Forces and 48 thousand French troops launched through the salient against German positions which resulted in the first US led offensive Allied victory, Louise was awarded a bronze star! She returned home in July 1919. Relocating to California, she worked in Palo Alto at the US Veterans Hospital No. 24. After working in the spinal meningitis ward she contracted spinal meningitis in 1933, but recovered successfully, and was so recorded in the medical history journals! In 1926 she married Private Raymond Lee Schneider, WWI US Marine Corp. He died February 15 1936, and Louisa continued to lived in their home that they had bought in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California. At the age of 94 Louisa died March 17, 1984 in Sonoma County, California. With full military honours, she and is buried alongside her husband Raymond, Plot D East, site 313, San Francisco National Cemetery, 1 Lincoln Blvd Presidio of San Francisco, San Francisco, California.