Freeport woman honored
SARVER — A U.S. Army Nursing Corps first lieutenant from Freeport who served in the Battle of the Bulge will be honored on Sunday at a community Memorial Day service in Sarver.
The 11 a.m. ceremony, at the outdoor sanctuary across from Sower's Chapel, 100 Iron Bridge Road, will include an honor guard, patriotic music and refreshments.
It will focus on the service of Anna Louise (Blake) Elliott, a West Virginia native who along with her brother, Nelson, served in the Army during World War II.
Elliott's uniform and dog tags will be on display during the ceremony.
Elliot, who died in 2006 at the age of 86, grew up in Hill Top, W.Va., the daughter of Nelson Thomas Blake Sr. and Anna (Birt) Blake. She would join the U.S. Army in May 1944, and go on to serve as a first lieutenant in a MASH unit attached to the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
Elliott's time as a surgical nurse in the Army would take her to the European Theater and the forests of Bastogne, Belgium, where in December 1944 she served on a medical team treating casualties from one of the most brutal engagements of World War II — the Battle of the Bulge. Elliott was one of nearly 60,000 American nurses to serve in the Army Nursing Corps over the course of World War II, according to records kept by the U.S. Army.
Other than the broad strokes of her time in the Nursing Corps and her service at Bastogne, little is known about Elliot's time in the armed services, and her husband, Jim Elliot — a 97-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in the Pacific during World War II — says that's likely the way his wife wanted it.
“There was only one thing that she ever told me,” he said. “At the Battle of the Bulge, when the Germans busted through, all they'd done for 24 hours, with no rest, was cut off arms, legs and (other limbs). She never spoke another word about it.”
Neither of the Elliots ever talked about their wartime service, Jim said, but he's thankful that his wife is being honored for her part in World War II. He said Louise was a kind and caring person. They were married in April 1953, and she went on to work as a public health nurse at the Pennsylvania Department of Health for three decades, before retiring in 1982.
She also pursued memberships with civic clubs in the Freeport area and was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star 179 of Freeport, of which she was a past worthy matron.
