Mary Hortense Staats was born in Coshocton, Ohio, on March 22, 1908, the daughter of Judge Lloyd Nichols Staats and Ethel Jane Fawcett. She earned a nursing diploma at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1937 and was a nurse in Boston and New York City until joining the United States Navy Nurse Corps as an ensign in 1943. From 1944-1945, she was stationed in the Russell Islands (Solomon Islands) with Mobile Hospital 10 and Fleet Hospital 110, where she was promoted to lieutenant. After returning to the United States, she worked at the United States Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended the United States Naval Training Schools in Chicago, Illinois. While in Chicago, she also took classes at Northwestern University. Staats was stationed at the United States Naval Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947, and served during the Korean War and Vietnam War. After her retirement from the navy in 1964, she returned to Coshocton, Ohio. Mary H. Staats died on November 27, 1994.
From the guide to the Mary H. Staats letters, Staats, Mary H. letters, 1944-1947, 1944-1946, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
