Delila Margaret Sparks
 

Kentucky Post, Monday, 4 March 1918, page 1

Exercises will be held Wednesday, March 20, for graduates of Speers Hospital, Dayton, instead of May 8, because several members of the class are to go to France with Kentucky Base Hospital Unit No 40, now being mobilized at Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville.

Anna Pracht, Delila Sparks and Marie Simon, members of the 1918 class will go to France for service with the Kentucky unit. Josephine Sullivan, graduate nurse, will also go. Bertha McClain and Rose Neiser, graduates left with a Cincinnati unit several weeks ago. Christine Fortlage and Charlotte Willis, members of this years graduating class are not contemplating foreign service because they expect to do cantonment work in this country.

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Kentucky Post, Tuesday, 19 March 1918, page 1

Graduating exercises for the 1918 class of the Speers Hospital Memorial Hospital Training School, Dayton, will be held Wednesday night at the hospital auditorium. Miss Sophie Steinhauer is superintendent of the hospital and is in charge of the training of nurses.

Graduates shown in a photo are: standing (from left to right) Delila Margaret Sparks, Ashland and Charlotte Willis, Bellevue. Seated (from left to right) Marie Anna Simon, Cincinnati; Christine Fortlage, Newport and Anna Marie Pracht, Newport.

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Kentucky Post, Tuesday, 16 September 1919, page 1

Picture: left to right, top; Anna Pracht, Delilah Sparks and Marie Simon; center, Pearl Hoffman; below, Rose Neiser and Etta Kaverkamp.

When the 450 men in Dayton enlisted at the outbreak of the war, 18 girls, too, heard the call of their country and enlisted to go across with these men. They duty was to wait behind the lines, within earshot of the "big Bertha" and howitzers, to administer relief to those stricken men. As stretcher after stretcher came up laden with desperately wounded and dying men these brave girls dressed their wounds an cheered them with talk of home, tho each one feared they would never return.

War veterans and brave nurses said they were satisfied with the warm welcome given them by their families and friends, but no so residents of Dayton. Such service as these young people performed cannot be too greatly landed, so a handsome bronze tablet, ornamented with a giant eagle and two battle scenes, was purchased and on this table will be emblazoned the names of all the men and women who left Dayton to give their service to their country.

Miss Delilah Sparks, upon landing in New York re-enlisted immediately for further government service; Marie Simon is on duty in a Cincinnati hospital; Etta Haverkamp and Pearl Hoffman are on duty at Speers Hospital.

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