Sara Katrina Jenkins Albertson (1921-2004) was a Storekeeper Third Class in the WAVES (Women’s Naval Reserve) during the War. She spent part of her naval career in Washington. She was first married to Howard Lawrence Albertson (1923-1966), who served in the Navy (1942-1945). They had two children. After Howard’s death, she married Theodore F. St. John (1925-2008), who also served in the Navy during the war. She is buried with her second husband in Coral Ridge Cemetery in Cape Coral, Florida.
Lieutenant Geneva Elizabeth Jenkins (1910-1988) and Lieutenant Ressa Jenkins (1908-1986) were serving as nurses in the US Army and stationed in Manila, Philippines when the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred. By the next month, during the Battle of Bataan, the sisters, along with other medical personnel were moved, and makeshift hospitals were set up where they treated American and Filipinos injured during the Japanese invasion. One fellow Tennessee nurse Nancy Gillahan later recalled that they worked 14-18 hours a day, every day. By April of 1942, they were moved again to the island fortress of Corregidor, where a hospital had been set up. Soon, however, they had to be evacuated as the Japanese closed in. Ressa was evacuated by aircraft to Australia, but the plane which was to have followed with Geneva was unable to takeoff, perhaps because of the weight of so many passengers. Geneva, along with 78 other American nurses, was taken prisoner of war. It would be a year before her family discovered that she was still alive.
Geneva spent three years in the Santo Tomas prison camp in Manila, Philippines. It was the largest Japanese prison camp and primarily housed Americans. Although prison conditions were crowded and often dirty, the medical personnel were not abused or tortured. They continued working round the clock. Still, as the war went on, food rations began to be scarce and prisoners were only allowed about 700 calories per day. Some prisoners starved, including a man who gave his portion of rations to his children.
In February 1945, the US Army liberated Manila, including the Santo Tomas camp. In another month, Geneva was home in East Tennessee, where she told one Knoxville News Sentinel reporter, “Home was never so wonderful before.”
Geneva passed away in 1988 and Ressa in 1986.
Geneva never married and is buried in the Knoxville National Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee. Ressa later married Donald T. Curry and is buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Mateo County, California.
