Profiles in American Service: Lt. Clara Wilhemina Emily Lewandoske Hoke

Written by Carly Swaim, History Associates

Lt. Clara Lewandoske, a U.S. Army nurse, had been working continuously during her first few months in Paris in 1917. At Evacuation Hospital #1, her ward often saw some of the war’s most recently and badly wounded soldiers. For this reason she did not immediately recognize the handsome older man going from bed to bed. Finally she took notice and realized that General John J. Pershing had come to check on the wounded men. His own orderly had broken his leg and occupied a bed in one of the three rooms that Clara oversaw. General Pershing visited every man in the hospital and asked if they desired anything.  One patient with severe head wounds asked the General for a glass of lemonade. To Clara’s surprise, the beverage arrived later in the day for the whole wing.

Lt. Lewandoske had been a nurse prior to World War I.  After America declared war on Germany, she immediately signed up with the Red Cross and was assigned to the Army Nurse Corps. Soon after arriving in France from Milwaukee, she felt and heard the distant German bombardments on Bastille Day. The next morning, the wounded poured into the hospital and the number of patients jumped from around one hundred to over 3,000.  Lewandoske tended to horrible injuries, and placed men in every open space in the hospital after the beds and stretchers were all occupied.

Few American women witnessed World War I in the same way as nurses serving overseas.  U.S. censorship kept American citizens isolated from the horrors in Europe.  What Clara’s family, friends, and colleagues back home knew of the war was worlds away from her experiences in Evacuation Hospital #1.  When working in the Jaw Ward of the hospital, Clara treated horribly disfigured men. After feeding them through tubes, they often pulled out their field mirrors and stared blankly at their gnarled faces. Clara remembered President Woodrow Wilson becoming as white as a sheet when he and his wife visited her ward. Badly shaken, the pair quickly returned to their hotel following the visit.

Lt. Lewandoske was probably one of the first women to survey the battlefield at Reims.

After the Armistice, she snuck under barbed wire to visit the trenches where men like her patients had experienced a brutal new era of warfare. Ignoring dangers from the live shells that likely covered the combat zone, Clara explored the devastated battlefield.  Following this trip, she returned to Paris and heartily joined the wild celebrations in the street. After the war, she married 2nd Lt. Arnold S. Hoke, himself a war veteran who had witnessed the horrors at Champagne, Aisne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne.

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of Lt. Clara Lewandoske Hoke and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.