Northwestern University honors vets on Memorial Day

EVANSTON - On Memorial Day, Northwestern University remembered America’s veterans, and staff placed flags on the Evanston campus to honor the sacrifice of members of the Northwestern community in service to the nation.

Those remembered at the event Monday (May 29) included Helen Burnett Wood, whose life was honored earlier this month at Rose Hill Cemetery during a wreath laying by Col. Jennifer Pritzker and members of the Naval ROTC unit. 

An exhibit on life in Army Field Hospital Twelve, comprised largely of Northwestern enlisted doctors and nurses, is in the lobby of Deering Library until mid-June. Wood’s name appears on a stone monument on the north end of campus honoring those who died in the Civil War and World War I. 

Northwestern University Libraries is holding a commemoration exhibition to honor this spring’s centenary of the U.S. entry into the war. Wood’s death was among the first affiliated with an American unit in World War I.

Near the Norris University Center, another plaque commemorates members of the Northwestern Naval ROTC unit who were killed during World War II and in the war in Vietnam.

A little-known plaque near Harris Hall honors the life of Dr. David Thomas Hanson, a Northwestern trained physician who died while attempting to save the life of a wounded soldier in France near the end of World War I.