Nellie Jane DeWitt

Captain Nellie Jane DeWitt (born 1895, died 1978) was the sixth and final Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps and became its first director. She was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, grew up on her family's farm in Jackson, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Stamford Hospital School of Nursing in Connecticut in 1917. She joined the Navy Nurse Corps on 26 October 1918, entered its Regular ranks in 1922, served at stations from Charleston to Guantanamo Bay, and was promoted to Chief Nurse in April 1937, serving at the Naval hospital at Aiea Heights in Hawaii. She became Superintendent in April 1946, when the Corps was shrinking after demobilization. On 16 April 1947 the Corps became a staff corps, so its nurses were Navy officers, and she became its Director. She retired on 1 May 1950, advised the Girl Scouts on health matters, led the Susquehanna County unit of the American Cancer Society, and was buried in the nurses section of Arlington National Cemetery.