North Carolina Nursing History

Autobiographical Sketch of Virginia Yearick Card

My parents were Samuel and Betty Sturgill Yearick, both are decreased. They lived in the Helton Community where I was born and grew up.

When I graduated from Lansing High School I went to Philadelphia, Pa., where I enrolled in Temple University and Frankfort General Hospital School of Nursing. Following graduation, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, Aug. 12, 1942 and was sent to Lawson General Hospital in Chamblee, Ga., for basic training. My first assignment was manager of the nurse’s mess for approximately a year. Then for the next two years I taught nursing to hospital corpsmen, who were scheduled for overseas duty. My next assignment was with neurosurgery, also at Lawson General Hospital. Occasionally I went with a team of neurosurgery staff, who flew from Georgia to battlefield station hospitals in Europe, to bring soldiers with head wounds to Lawson General Hospital. Among them were some wounded soldiers from the 29th Infantry Division in France. They were with my brother, CpI. Johnny Yearick, when he was mortally wounded.

I married Capt. Leonard Henry Card, September 14, 1943. I was discharged from the Army Nurse Crops at Ft. Bragg, N.C., March 26, 1946 as a 1st Lieutenant and later joined the Army Nurse Corps Reserves as a Captain and later retired as a Major. Our daughter Virginia Kathleen was born Fort Benning, Ga., March 5, 1949. We traveled extensively while my husband was in the Army and lived in Korea, Japan and Germany.

My husband retired from his military career with the rank of Colonel. We moved to Laurel Springs in Alleghany County and bought a poultry farm and lived there until my husband died in 1960. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Raleigh, N.C. I sold the farm and moved back to the homeplace, where I grew up, in the Helton Community and continued nursing at various hospitals until I retired.

---Virginia Yearick Card

Note: Major Virginia Card died at the Ashe Memorial Hospital, November 26, 1993. She was interred by her husband in the National Cemetery in Raleigh.