Army Nurse Visits Parents at Allison
Allison, Ia. -- Second Lt. Hazel Toll, who is in the surgery department in the army nurse corps at Luke Field, Phoenix, Ariz., is a guest in the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Toll of Allison.
Lieutenant Toll is a graduate of Allen Memorial hospital at Waterloo and took postgraduate work in the Michael Reese hospital in Chicago. Prior to enlisting in the corps in September, 1942, she did nursing at Bakersfield and Fresno hospitals in California, and at Salem, Ore.
Lieutenant Toll will leave by plane Saturday from Des Moines to return to her work.
Source: The Courier, Waterloo, IA - May 27, 1943 (photo included)
ALLISON NURSE PROMOTED
Allison -- Hazel Toll has written her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Toll of Allison that she has been promoted to first lieutenant, Miss Toll is with the nurse crops of the US. army and is now stationed a Santa Ana, Cal. Miss Toll enlisted in the army Sept. 1942, and recently finished her basic training in California.
Source: The Globe-Gazette (Mason City, IA) June 27, 1944
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Toll have received word that their daughter, First Lt. Hazel Toll of the army nurses corps, will leave for overseas duty soon She has recently been stationed at Brigham, U. She has been in the service more than two years and is the only woman in the service from Allison.
Source: The Courier, Waterloo, IA - November 7, 1944
WATERLOO NURSE HOME; HAS SEEN ACTION IN EUROPE
In Evacuation Unit With Third Army; Was Stationed at Buchenwald
She hasn't seen a beauty shop for six and one-half months - because she said: "There weren't any where I've been."
First Lt. Hazel Toll, believed to be the first Waterloo nurse back from combat zone, has been too busy following Patton's Third army with the 120th Evacuation hospital to even miss the beauty shop.
Any kind of beauty would doubtless have been out of place, especially at the noted Buchenwald prison camp in Germany, where Lieutenant Toll was stationed for a time and viewed the results of Nazi treatment of the interned which shook the world's moral faith in humanity.
This week she arrive to Waterloo to visit with Mr. and Mrs. Ross Hewitt and their daughter, Miss Glendora Hewitt, 1022 West Fifth street. Lieutenant Toll is a niece of Mrs Hewitt.
Campaign-starred Lieutenant Toll, still wearing her blonde locks in battle zone "hair-do", said there was one thing she would never miss - or trade - her experiences in service after nearly three years.
Tuesday she plans to continue to Allison, Ia., to spend a 30-day leave with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Toll.
The last lap of her homecoming trip looked smooth and comfortable in comparison to the the rugged moves via truck she endured traveling across France, and particularity the one she recalled while enroute to Weimar, Germany.
"That was on Apr. 17. It was probably our most hazardous move, since the road we traveled had been strafed after dark, night after night."
Red Cross insignia was a protection against strafing she explained " but we didn't even have a Red Cross on our mobile unit. We didn't think too much about the danger, although it wasn't too nice a feeling traveling until after midnight.
"We realized our luck after strafings were reported on the same road we traveled only the night before."
Lieutenant Toll witnessed several men killed by "bed-check Charleys" so called at bedtime by a lone German plane and were believed so be staged to determine location.
Engaged in caring for "D.P.s" deplaced personnel from concentration camps, following liberation, Lieutenant Toll was in charge of central supply at Buchenwald.
"There were all nationalities represented there - Polish, French, Russian, a few British and Americans. Some had been there since Poland fell, and many were Nazi objectors," she recounted.
"Men weighted far below 100 pounds and were skin and bone after a continued diet of substitute coffee, black bread, and thin soup. We evacuated them as soon as they were able to leave."
The campaign stars dotting Lieutenant Toll's service bar represented the southern Germany and Rhineland campaigns in which her hospital unit participated.
Their own living conditions weren't bad, she said, since they lived in tents and had shower equipment with their unit.
A graduate of the Allen Memorial School of Nursing in 1930, and former surgical nurse here for six years, Lt. Toll enlisted in September, 1942, while a nurse at Kern county hospital, Bakersfield, Cal.
Source: The Courier, Waterloo IA, July 9, 1945 (photo included)
