Just like all the other Tuskegee Army Angels of Mercy, Elizabeth T. Dozier arrived at Tuskegee Army Flying School (TAAF) as a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps in 1942. Unlike most of her nursing sisters, she was a widow and one of the older nurses—about 35-years-old. She was born in South Carolina around 1907. Before coming to TAAF, she served as a supervisor of nurses at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. In the 1940 census, Dozier was listed as a graduate nurse at Grady Hospital. This public hospital had the first training school for nurses in the state of Georgia.
Dozier worked as a surgical nurse on the base and was promoted to first lieutenant by 1946. According to one station hospital roster, she had transferred to Lockbourne Army Air Base in Ohio in 1946. In a nursing newsletter she wrote for the Lockbourne Army Air Base (LAAB), she was one of five nurses who reported from TAAF on May 3, 1946. She also wrote that she along with Beatrice Hill were the principal chief nurses during that year.
On a side note, in the March 15, 1946 issue of the base Hawk’s Cry “ LTs Dozier and Scott return to duty after brief illnesses.” Even the nurses had to nurse each other sometimes. (1942 yearbook, Family Search section at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, the 16th U.S. Census, Hawk’s Cry base newspaper, Lockbourne Army Air Base nursing article on March 15, 1947, Atlanta, Georgia City government website.)
Thank you to Pia Winters Jordan, Project Director of the Tuskegee Airmen Nurses Project, for sharing with us the incredible legacy of nurses who served alongside the Airmen. We are honored to feature their history and stories.
Be sure to visit Tuskegee Airmen Nurses Project for more information!
