Seburg, Verena Zeller Pettoruto, 1912-2007.

Verena Zeller Seberg achieved the rank of Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, one of only three women with this rank during the military action in Korea in 1950-1953. She was the first appointed Chief of the U.S. Air Force Nursing Corps. Born in 1912 in Paxico, Wabaunsee County, she received her nursing training at the St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing in Topeka and graduated in 1934. She received many promotions during World War II and afterward and traveled extensively around the world because of her duties. In the inter-war years of the late 1940s she served as a flight nurse, assisting wounded soldiers who had been evacuated back to the United States. In 1949 Zeller married Marco J. Pettoruto, a Judge Advocate Officer in the Air Force (it became a separate, freestanding entity in 1949). They retired to Massachusetts where he took up a private law practice and lived there until his death in 1976. In 1977 Verena moved to Topeka, and in 1990 she married Dr. G. Herbert Seburg. Verena Seburg died in December 2007.

From the description of Verena Zeller Seburg papers, circa 1931-1982. (Kansas State Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 694174208