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During and after World War I Doctors Regina Flood Keyes and her cousin Frances M. Flood, both natives of Elmira, were the first to serve in an American Woman’s Hospital uniform. They were provided with uniforms in December 1917 and accredited to the American Red Cross for duty near the Salonika front. They eventually opened a hospital in Vodena, Greece. This hospital was a refuge to Serbian and other displaced persons as well as to sick and helpless Greek villagers. In addition to the care of inpatients, about 3,000 visits were recorded monthly in the outpatient department. Dr. Keyes and Dr. Flood, with two American Nurses and a corps of local assistants were on double duty most of the time.
Dr. Keyes was the Director and surgeon of the hospital that held 60 beds. In addition to the wounds of war, they were faced with epidemics of the deadly typhus fever. Dr. Flood dealt with the non-surgical cases which included typhus and the infamous influenza epidemic that cost so many lives in 1918. During the influenza epidemic they treated Greek, French and Serbian soldiers as well as refugees.
In 1919 after the war was over the two doctors ran a hospital in Monastir, Serbia. They worked there under very difficult conditions. They had no coal for heat and very little wood. Food was also very scarce. The hospital was one of the few buildings left standing in the city after the war.
Dr. Keyes and Dr. Flood were descendants of Dr Patrick R. Flood of Elmira. He was surgeon for the 107th New York Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and later served two terms as mayor of Elmira. Prior to World War II Dr. Keyes married and accompanied her husband to Samoa where he was U. S. Consul. She was interned by the Japanese during World War II and died at sea on her way home after her release.
Dr. Flood met her husband to be, Alfred Heath, in England and settled in Elmira after the war. In 1923 Dr. Flood-Heath died following an appendicitis operation. She was survived by her husband and infant daughter.
In 1928 her daughter, then aged 5, received her mother’s war honors. Little Miss Marjorie Louise Heath received the Order of St. Sava by direction of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. Sadly little Marjorie succumbed to pneumonia just two years after she received the medal for her mother.
Source: Flood family biographical file, Chemung County Historical Society
George R. Farr
Historian, Town of Elmira
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Joyce
That's a fast response! Hardly had time to finish reading my email. Incidentally, father Frank went to live in USA to join his brother Alfred Heath who, in 1920, had married Dr. Mabel Flood whom he had met while he was a Purser on the RMS Mauritania [fastest liner afloat until 1936] The ship was contracted out by the Cunard Co. to the USA government to bring back American service personnel from Europe at the end of WWI. Mabel and her cousin, both women doctors, had been setting up hospitals with the Red Cross in Serbia and training nurses. They were both awarded a medal by the newly restored King of Serbia but poor Mabel never lived to collect hers in Washington as she and Alfred had a daughter Marjorie [named after a sister of Alfred back in Liverpool UK] Marjorie was born in 1922 but got ill in 1923 and her mother Mabel refused to go into hospital with suspected appendix trouble until the thing burst and she died. I have Marjorie's picture aged 5 [attached] after her father Alfred had remarried a Myrtle Williams [Virginia] Marjorie went with Alfred to Washington but died in Elmira in 1929 from pneumonia.. My mother Lilian Mary Watterson [Liverpool] went out to marry Frank, arriving just after the death of Mabel. I was born in 1924 but my mother died 5 days later. Elmira was not a healthy place for Heath women! A relative of Alfred's 2nd wife Myrtle Williams Heath is Rodney Squiers, late of Horseheads but now of Georgia and Thousand Islands. He supplied me with the pictures as I never knew father Frank, being raised by my mother's family in England . Rodney told me that the Floods were a very old family in the area and that he had donated a lot of historical memobelia to the County Library for them to display but was very upset when returning to see the display as the Library had done nothing except pack all the items away into a store room where they may very well still remain.. Rodney used to be the Art teacher at the High School but now retired and occupies himself with designing and making ceramic items and holding exhibition in Jekyll Island in Georgia. Terry Heath Cheltenham UK [August 2008] |
