Ethel Moseley Damon
Author, teacher, historian, World War I decorated Red Cross nurse (1883-1965)
Ethel Moseley Damon (April 12, 1883 – April 1, 1965) was a teacher, writer and historian who served with the Red Cross in Europe during World War I, and was decorated by Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium and by the Mayor of Le Havre.
Background and education
She was born April 12, 1883, in Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaii, as one of five children of Edward Chenery Damon (1848–1894), a retailer with JT Waterhouse and Company, and Cornelia Beckwith Damon (1857–1908).
Ethel's brothers and sisters were Julia, Maurice, Fred, and William.
Her maternal grandparents Maurice B. Beckwith (1824–1881) and Sarah Moseley Beckwith (1831–1870) arrived in Hawaii in 1855 from Massachusetts to help run the Royal School. Her paternal grandparents Samuel C. Damon (1815–1885) and Julia Sherman Mills Damon (1817–1890) arrived in Hawaii in 1845 as missionaries for the American Seaman's Friend Society. Samuel was the founding publisher of The Friend periodical, and Julia was the first president of the Stranger's Friend Society in Honolulu.
Ethel attended Honolulu's private college preparatory Punahou School, and was Valedictorian at her 1901 graduation. After training at Honolulu Normal school, she taught English at that same institution for a couple of years. She later attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts, receiving her BA degree in 1909. Upon her return to Hawaii, she taught multiple languages at Punahou until the beginning of World War I.
World War I
With the outbreak of war, Johns Hopkins pediatrician Edwards A. Park, working with the American Red Cross Belgian Commission, headed the Children's Hospital in Le Havre as a facility for refugee Belgian children.
“Ethel Moseley Damon” enters the record as author, teacher, historian, World War I decorated Red Cross nurse (1883-1965). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ethel, Moseley and Damon can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q50332182. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1965, 1848 and 1894.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ethel Moseley Damon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.