Laird family papers

The chief figure in the Laird Family Papers is Thelma Fae Laird, nurse and educator. The collection most fully documents her service in the Navy Nursing Corps during World War II, mostly in the South Pacific; there are letters to family, photographs, and printed matter and memorabilia from this period. But there are also materials from her school years, her work for the American Nurses' Association (1947-51), and her last academic position at Florence-Darlington Technical Education Center (1972-73). Her papers also contain a long and cordial correspondence with Bernard M. Baruch.

Thelma Laird's wartime letters to her parents make up most of the family correspondence. But the collection does include papers of Thelma's mother, Sara O'Neil Laird, concerning her work as a Wisconsin school teacher at the turn of the century; correspondence of her father, Allan Max Laird, concerning Wisconsin politics, a French lawsuit on behalf of his father's pearl business, and his work as a minister in Elmira, N.Y.; correspondence and obituary clippings concerning her brother, Joseph M. Laird; and other papers and photographs of various members of the Laird and O'Neil families.

There are also two folders of letters written by five servicemen to their families and friends. All were patients at the U.S. Navy Base Mobile Hospital #4 (c/o Fleet Post Office, San Francisco) in September 1943, when the letters were written; one serviceman mentions being in a malaria ward, while two others were receiving psychiatric treatment. Though the envelopes all have postage, none is postmarked. It is not known why the letters were not sent, or how they came into Thelma Laird's possession. These letters, and transcripts of Thelma Laird's school records, are closed to research for 75 years from the date of their creation.

The papers were given to Yale by Janet Grant Rudnicki, Executrix of Thelma Laird's Estate, in September 1980.