Gayle Doll is presented with her certificate by Shirley Fosler, Metamonong DAR Regent. (Kelly Ortman was not available for the photo.)

The DAR Hospital Corps was established during the Spanish-American War in the spring of 1898 to select and certify nurses for service in the U.S. Army. The corps certified 1,081 nurses and later funded pensions for many of them who did not qualify for government pensions.

At the onset of the war, the Surgeon General requested and promptly received congressional authority to appoint women nurses under contract. Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee of the DAR was placed in charge of selecting graduate nurses for the army. Dr. McGee suggested that the DAR act as an application review board for military nursing services. Thus the DAR Hospital Corps was founded, with Dr. McGee as its director. She wrote the section of the Army Reorganization Act legislation pertaining to nursing and is now known as the founder of the Army Nurse Corps.

In other activities at the local meeting, Cherly Ball, DAR State Historian, gave a presentation on the "Holiday Traditions in the Period Rooms” at the DAR Museum in Washington DC.