#VeteranOfTheDay Army Veteran D’Lorz Inez Haynes

Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran D’Lorz Inez Haynes, who served as the 10th director of the Army Nurse Corps.

D’Lorz Inez Haynes was born in June 1909, in Paint Rock, Texas, to Floyd and Lola Rampey Haynes. She grew up in a farming family around San Angelo, Texas, with her three brothers and sister.

Haynes enrolled in nursing school at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas, after graduating from Miles High School in 1929.

After graduating, Haynes wanted to join the Army after hearing about the experiences of Army nurses during World War I from friends and relatives. She joined at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio and began her career in the Army Nurse Corps.

Haynes worked as an operating room nurse at Fort Sam Houston for six years before moving on to Sternberg General Hospital in the Philippines for two years. Six months before the Japanese invasion on Pearl Harbor, she was at Fort Lewis, Washington, for a brief assignment, and then to Fort Worden, Washington.

Haynes returned to the operating room in 1942, this time at then-Walter Reed General Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. She was the chief nurse of many general hospitals throughout Europe and the Pacific during World War II.

Haynes became chief nurse of the First Army Area in New York in 1947. She began a four-year stint in the Army Nurse Corps Career Management Branch of the Surgeon General’s Office in 1949. Haynes earned her bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Minnesota in 1955. Haynes was appointed deputy chief of the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) in 1954.

On Oct. 1, 1955, she began her four-year position as the Army Nurse Corps’ 10th director. During her time as director, the Corps received its first male nurses and Veterans of the ANC Reserve. This period also saw ANC officers transfer to airborne divisions for the first time.

Haynes was one of the first three women in the regular Army to be elevated to the permanent rank of colonel in 1958. She retired from the Army Nurse Corps. Among her many decorations and distinctions was a Legion of Merit.

On Sept. 1, 1959, Haynes began a second career as general director and secretary of the National League for Nursing. She held this position until June 1969. Around this time, Haynes joined the faculty of the University of Texas College of Nursing. One year later, she moved to El Reno, Oklahoma, to provide for her widowed mother and worked at Oklahoma University, aiding teachers in securing grants and financing.

In her golden years, Haynes enjoyed painting, art, symphonic music and traveling. Simultaneously, she also devoted time and attention to civic endeavors. She was an ardent supporter of the United Fund, the Salvation Army, the local junior college and the county hearing association, among other charitable groups.

Haynes passed away in May 1997 in El Reno, Oklahoma.

We honor her service.

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Contributors

Writer: Adrienne Brookstein

Editors: Amanda Baker and Katherine Berman

Fact checker: Hannah Bundschuh

Graphic artist: Courtney Carr