Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee was a pioneering figure in U.S. naval medicine and one of the original “Sacred Twenty,” the first group of nurses formally commissioned into the Navy Nurse Corps. She was born on May 18, 1874, in Chatham. In 1899, she graduated from the New York Postgraduate Hospital’s nursing program and married Lieutenant Colonel John Henley Higbee of the U.S. Marine Corps. After working in private practice, she continued her education at Fordham University.
On May 13, 1908, Congress authorized the creation of the Navy Nurse Corps, modeled after the highly successful Army Nurse Corps established in 1901. Applicants were required to be graduates of accredited nursing schools, between 22 and 44 years of age, and unmarried. Following the death of her husband on April 19, 1908, Higbee became eligible and, at age 36, joined nineteen other women as the Navy’s first official nurses — soon known as the “Sacred Twenty.”
After initial training at the Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C., Higbee was assigned in April 1909 to the Naval Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, where she was promoted to Chief Nurse. On January 20, 1911, she was appointed the second Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps and returned to Washington to serve in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. She held this leadership role until her retirement on November 30, 1922.
As Superintendent, Higbee was instrumental in shaping the Corps into a respected professional organization. She focused on recruiting highly qualified nurses, improving standards, and raising public awareness of the Corps’ importance. She frequently contributed articles to professional publications such as the American Journal of Nursingand encouraged other nurses to do the same.
Under her leadership, the Navy Nurse Corps expanded rapidly. When the United States entered World War I, the Corps numbered 406 nurses; by the war’s end, it had grown to more than 1,700, serving both in the United States and overseas, including Europe, the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Haiti, and the Virgin Islands. During the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic, 36 Navy nurses died while caring for the sick. In recognition of extraordinary service during that crisis, four nurses received the Navy Cross — three posthumously. Higbee received the award as well, becoming the only woman to be awarded the Navy Cross during her lifetime.
Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee died on January 10, 1941, in Winter Park, Florida, and was buried beside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery. Her legacy endures through naval service vessels named in her honor, including the USS Higbee (DD-806), commissioned in 1945, and the USS Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123), a modern guided-missile destroyer — a lasting tribute to a trailblazer in naval nursing history.
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