Ailke Westerhof

Ailke Westerhof (1876 to 1946) was a Dutch nurse from Leens in the province of Groningen, the daughter of local blacksmiths. Between 1912 and 1919 she nursed in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, working in Hungary and Serbia. Under the Dutch doctor Arius van Tienhoven she cared for typhus patients in Valjevo. Back in the Netherlands she was employed by the Amsterdam volunteer civic guard and taught at the Red Cross in Amsterdam. She was made a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1924 and received the Florence Nightingale Medal from Princess Juliana in 1935, and she also received Serbian honours including the Cross of Mercy and a medal for bravery. She died in the house where she was born, and the street there is now named Zuster A. Westerhofstraat in her memory.