Nurse enjoyed tennis
Josephine Esther Seeley, a gifted athlete who spent weekends during World War II hauling Army trucks to the East coast, died of heart disease October 28 at the Presbyterian Village Nursing Center in Redford Township. She was 90 and lived in Redford Township.
Born in Farmington, Ms. Seeley began her career as a gym teacher. But concern that she might be among the first teachers cut after the onset of the Depression prompted her to study nursing in New York and Washington, D.C., said her cousin, Floyd Seeley.
After becoming a nurse, she returned to Michigan and helped set up the school nurse program in the Pontiac public schools, her cousin said.
After she put in a full week as a school nurse in Pontiac, during World War II, Ms. Seeley and several other women drove convoys of Army trucks made in Michigan to the East Coast, where they were shipped to Europe.
“They would get down there and start home on the bus and say, “Never again,” Floyd Seeley recalled. “By Friday night, they were ready to go again. She was a very peppy person.”
Her cousin said he believed Ms. Seeley and her colleagues were paid for their efforts, but “that wasn’t the object for them. They wanted to help the cause.”
Ms. Seeley retired in the mid-1960s after 35 years as a school nurse in Pontiac.
Her interests included tennis and attending the First Presbyterian Church of Pontiac, which she joined when she was 14 and belonged to for 75 years.
Ms, Seeley won the Oakland Park Civic Association tennis tournament in 1927, 1928, and 1929, Floyd Seeley said, adding that in 1929 they retired the trophy and gave it to her.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Presbyterian Village Nursing Center, 25300 W. Six Mile in Redford Township.
Published in the Detroit Free Press, Friday, November 5, 1999
[Great-grand-daughter of SGS # 1967 – Josephine Esther; Clarence Vivian; John Voorheis; Harvey H. (# 1967); John (# 611); Hezekiah; Nathaniel; Nathaniel; Nathaniel; Nathaniel; Robert]
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