By: Mark Holtsberry
Sister Helen Elizabeth Cummings is an unknown Red Cross nurse from Paulding County who served overseas in Europe during World War 1.
Helen Elizabeth Cummings was born in Antwerp, Ohio, August 7, 1895. The daughter of W. Jesse and Rosa Caroline (Westrick) Cummings. W. Jessie was born in Ohio, May 31, 1874 and Rosa was born in Ohio in 1877. The couple was married December 20, 1894 in Paulding County Ohio.
By 1900, the Cummings family was living in Antwerp, Ohio. Helen, along with her sister, Samantha, who was one years old. W. Jesse was a house painter. In 1903, the Cummings family added a little girl to the.family, Nellie J. She passed away in 1906 and was buried in Riverside Cemetery, Antwerp.
By 1910, the Cummings family was living on Oswalt Street in Antwerp. Helen and her sister, Samantha, were attending school. W. Jesse was working at a Dry Goods store in Antwerp.
In early part of 1918, Helen had volunteered to serve in the American Red Cross. On September 12, 1918, her father W. Jesse, registered for the draft. He was a local mail carrier in Antwerp. He was listed as slender, medium build, brown hair, grey eyes. He was not selected, as his age would have been 44. Helen’s service overseas was a long lasting fourteen months or so, as she was sent home by 1920.
In 1920, the Cummings family was living on Woodcox Street in Antwerp. Still single, Helen had graduated from the Hospital School of Nursing in 1920. Helen was working as a nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. In 1924 Helen chose to take her vows as a nun, but continued to serve in various hospitals as a nurse. She returned to St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1943, where during the next 25 years, she supervised nursing units, the emergency room, and the oxygen therapy unit, before retiring in 1968.
She outlived her parents, as W. Jesse Cummings passed away, in Toledo in 1956 and her mother passed away in Toledo, October 11, 1960. Both were buried in Maumee Cemetery in Antwerp. In 1970, Helen, while living in Toledo, Ohio, became ill. She was sent to St. Vincent’s Hospital where on July 24, 1970, Helen passed away. Services were held in her honor at 9:00 A.M. in the St. Vincent Hospital Chapel. Services were later held in the Grey Nuns Provisional House, Lexington, Massachusetts. With burial in the Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum, Malden, Massachusetts. Her sister Samantha Agnes (Cummings) Kelley passed away June 8, 1990 in Illinois and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Toledo, Ohio.
