A Guide to the Josephine Hobbs Kaser Collection, 1942-1973

Biographical Note

Josephine Hobbs Kaser was born in Idaho in 1912. She trained as a nurse and joined the US Army in 1942. Second Lieutenant Kaser served as a nurse between 1944 and 1945 on the USAHS (United States Army Hospital Ship) Marigold, which was stationed in the South Pacific. She later worked for the Public Health and Welfare Department of the US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (Japan) as the administrator for the Japanese national training program for public health nurses between 1947 and 1952.

Scope and Contents

Papers include correspondence, photographs, ephemera, clippings, and military records pertaining to Josephine Hobbs Kaser’s career as an Army nurse assigned to the USAHS Marigold during World War II, and to her job as a public health nurse in Japan in the postwar years. The correspondence is primarily from Jo to her mother with occasional letters to her sister Mary Rasor. The letters reveal much about Kaser’s daily life aboard a military hospital ship, as well as her observations of culture and conditions in postwar Asia. The bulk the photographs depict the aftermath of the War in the Philippines and Japan, and to a lesser extent postwar Italy, Sicily, and Capri.

Forms part of the Institute for Studies in American Military History.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Unrestricted access.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Josephine Hobbs Kaser Papers, 1942-1973, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

Detailed Description of the Papers