A pristine, beautifully tailored Army Air Corps nurse’s uniform belonging to the late Antoinette Mott Coleman has been donated to the Block Island Historical Society.
Coleman’s daughter, Marie Crouch, presented the uniform to Historical Society Board member Sharon Lehman. Coleman passed away on April 1, 2020 at the age of 99.
According to a brief biography Crouch also gave to the Historical Society, Coleman, known as “Toni,” was “born on Dec. 26, 1920 on Block Island. Toni was the oldest of five children born to Henry and Marie Mott. At the age of 18 she left Block Island to attend Rhode Island School of Nursing. She joined the Red Cross before graduating, and then went on to serve as a nurse in the United States Army” beginning in November 1942.
“In the Spring of 1945 she silently marched through the pitch black dark night in San Diego, with one hand on the shoulder of the Army Corps Nurse ahead of her. She was one of the 25 nurses who boarded the U.S. Gen. H.B. Freeman unaware of where they were headed — their destination was into the thick of the Pacific theater in World War II.”
Toni later
