Thelma Brown Williams completed Piedmont Training program in 1942, at age 26, after graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk and earning the title of Registered Nurse at St Philip Hospital School of Nursing in Richmond. At the nurses’ graduation ceremony on June 6, 1942, the ceremonies included the staging of a one act comedy, a junior and senior prom, a baccalaureate sermon, and speaker Dr. Paul Cornelly of Howard University. Diplomas and pins were awarded by Dr. I. C. Riggin, state commissioner of health, Dr. Charles Scott, medical director of Piedmont, and r. J. B. Woodson, superintendent of Piedmont. The senior dance included about twenty-five African American soldiers stationed at nearby Camp Pickett, who “expressed their sincere appreciation for invitations extended them, stating that they, the Negro soldiers, had no form of entertainment at the camp, nor had they been previously entertained in the city,” according to an article in the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Just two months later, Thelma Brown Williams entered the US military, in August 1942, and was stationed in a hospital in California at the end of the war. Thelma Williams served in the military for more than twenty years, and left in 1964 with the rank of Major. In 2004, Major Williams was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, with a grave marker noting her rank and service in two wars.

Documents: Birth Certificate, Gravestone, Arlington Cemetery