Happy 100th Birthday to Janice Spoerl Saunders
Janice Spoerl Saunders celebrated her 100th birthday on December 26, 2020! Jan was born in Knowles, Wisconsin and now resides in New Canaan, Connecticut.
She is a 1943 graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Nursing. In 1944, she was inducted into the Army at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. She did her basic training at Camp Ellis in Illinois, and Camp Chaffee in Arkansas. In December 1944, she boarded a troop train for Seattle, Washington, and on her 24th birthday shipped off on the USS President Johnson for a 10 day journey to Hawaii. After a time in Hawaii, her Army unit was shipped off to Eniwetok Island and Saipan. In May 1945, she was stationed in Okinawa. Her unit of nurses was dropped on a beach, in the dark, the night after the Japanese strafed the airport. Her 75th Field Hospital was the first field hospital on the unsecured island, treating patients from Iwo Jima and others. While there, she survived a typhoon that destroyed the hospital. She returned to the US after the war ended, where she was honorably discharged as a 1st Lieutenant.
After working at Hines Veterans Hospital near Chicago, she went to New York and married Army Captain Edward Long Saunders. They raised 4 children before retiring to Ft. Lauderdale and Vero Beach, Florida.
Jan is now Gramma to seven and a Great Gramma to nine.
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