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Army Nurse, stationed both at the Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco and at Barnes General Hospital in Vancouver
"Both Anne and Mary were trained as nurses"

Name Mary C Schmalzbauer
Event Type Census
Event Date 1930
Event Place West St Paul, Dakota, Minnesota, United States
Gender Female
Age 27
Marital Status Single
Race White
Race (Original) White
Relationship to Head of Household Daughter
Relationship to Head of Household (Original) Daughter
Birth Year (Estimated) 1903
Birthplace Minnesota
Father's Birthplace Germany
Mother's Birthplace Germany
Sheet Letter B
Sheet Number 8

Household Role Sex Age Birthplace
Catherine Schmalzbauer Head F 65 Germany
Otto Schmalzbauer Son M 32 Minnesota
Mary C Schmalzbauer Daughter F 27 Minnesota

World War II, 1940-1945

World War II in the Pacific brought a vast increase in Letterman General Hospital's responsibilities as hospital ships brought home tens of thousands sick and wounded men from far-flung battlefields that extended from the Aleutian Islands to the southwest Pacific. Before then, beginning in 1939, the United States increased its military strength sharply when war began in Europe. The first peacetime draft began in September 1940. At the Presidio of San Francisco the Army began a substantial program for temporary housing on November 1, 1940. Of the five areas on the reservation selected for the emergency construction, three in the lower Presidio would have a strong association with Letterman General Hospital:

Area A, on the bay front between Marine Drive and Mason Street and east of Crissy Field. It contained ten 2 story, wood frame barracks, two 1 story dayrooms, administration building, post exchange, three combination company administration and storehouse (supply room) buildings, and two mess halls. (Later, in 1941, additional structures in this area consisted of five barracks, two administration-storerooms, a 250-man mess hall, and a recreation building.)

Area B, on the bay front between Marine Drive and Mason Street and west of Crissy Field. It had a similar combination of structures except that a large warehouse replaced the administration building.

Area C, between Mason Street and the Golden Gate Bridge Approach and south of Crissy Field. This area had similar mobilization-type structures but was much smaller than the other two. In 1945 Area C housed Letterman's detachment of WACs.

Barnes General Hospital, Vancouver

Construction of the general hospital at Vancouver Barracks on the north side of the city of Vancouver started on January 9, 1941 and the facility was ready to take its first patients on April 16 of that year. Initially it had 65 buildings with 705 beds, but it expanded to accommodate 1,547 beds. The hospital was named in honor of Major General Joseph K. Barnes (1817-1883), a doctor who had served as the 12th surgeon general of the army, from 1864 to 1882. His years of service encompassed the Seminole Wars, Mexican-American War, and Civil War. Twice he was stationed at Fort Vancouver, and he was there in 1861 when he received orders to report to Washington, D.C., to become surgeon general. Barnes was at the bedside of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) as he lay dying after being shot by John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865).

Some of the first patients from World War II combat to arrive at Barnes General Hospital were wounded or injured during the campaign in the Aleutian Islands. The Vancouver and Portland communities helped support the facility, and the United Service Organizations (USO) held hospital dances there. The Red Cross had a very active handicrafts program, teaching arts and crafts to more than 6,000 patients during the course of the war. In July 1945 movie star and popular soldier pinup Rita Hayward (1918-1987) visited Barnes, then stopped by Baxter General Hospital in Spokane and hospitals in Seattle.

Barnes drew many of its staff from personnel at Washington and Oregon civilian hospitals who were called to active duty. All three Washington general hospitals also made extensive use of members of the Women's Army Corps (WAC), organized into detachments as laboratory, surgical, X-ray, and dental technicians.

Barnes General Hospital closed on February 28, 1946, but reopened as an annex to the Portland Veterans Administration hospital in 1947. After considerable renovation, it continued to serve during the Vietnam War, with some wards being converted to drug-treatment centers. By 1976 it was the last wood-frame veterans' hospital in the nation. In the 1980s new construction replaced the Barnes facility, and the site became the Vancouver campus of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Mary is entering Visitation Convent.

Name: Mary Small
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 02 Jun 1999
Event Place: Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota
Birth Date: 17 May 1901
Birthplace: Minnesota
Mother's Maiden Name: Reiner
File Name: 1999-MN-018631

Citing this Record
"Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V4CF-C2V : 4 December 2014), Reiner in entry for Mary Small, 02 Jun 1999; from "Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002," database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2001); citing Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, record , certificate number , Minnesota Department of Health, Minneapolis.

Resurrection Cemetery Mendota Heights, Dakota County, MN