The Pauline H. Reece Memorial Nursing Scholarship

Established in 2013 in memory of Pauline H. Reece by her three children, family, and friends, The Pauline H. Reece Memorial Nursing Scholarship is awarded to a first or second year fully enrolled Associate Degree Nursing student who may have demonstrate financial need. Student must maintain at least 2.5 GPA.

Mrs. Pauline H. Reece was an industrial nurse for Kelly-Springfield Tire Company in Cumberland until enlisting in the United States Army Nurse Corps during World War II, serving as a lieutenant nurse anesthetist in the southeast Asian theater, spending 22 months in the Burma campaign, supporting injured troops of Gen. Joseph Stillwell. It was in Burma that she met her future husband, Jack, a C-47 navigator who was awarded two Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying The Hump, a Himalayan mountain range, delivering military aircraft and supplies from India to China.

Upon returning to the States, Pauline and Jack married and settled down in Omaha, where Pauline continued her nursing career while raising three children and caring for their many pet cats and dogs. She and her husband also lived in St. Louis and Chicago. Following Jack’s untimely passing in 1971, Pauline moved to Baltimore, where she spent the next 39 years raising her youngest daughter and fulfilling her nursing career goals as the clinical director of United Health Maintenance until retiring in the early 1980s. There she was an active member of the China-Burma-India Veterans Association and Parkville Maryland VFW Post No. 9083. Moving to Pinehurst in 2010 to be close to her daughter following an elevator accident, Pauline learned a whole new Southern way of life, making new friends and continuing her involvement with the VFW at Post No. 9604 in Pinehurst.