Background
Higbee was born Lenah H. Sutcliffe in Chatham, Canada, on 18 May 1874.
Higbee was born Lenah H. Sutcliffe in Chatham, Canada, on 18 May 1874.
She completed nurses" training at the New York Postgraduate Hospital in 1899 and entered private practice soon thereafter.
Lenah Higbee took postgraduate training at Fordham Hospital, New York in 1908 and in October 1908, she joined the newly established United States. Navy Nurse Corps as one of its first twenty members. She was promoted to Chief Nurse in 1909. Lenah Higbee became chief nurse at Norfolk Naval Hospital in April 1909.
In January 1911, Higbee (she was the widow of Lieutenant Colonel John Henley Higbee, United States Marine Corps) became the second Superintendent of the Nurse Corps.
She resigned from the position of Superintendent and retired from the Navy on 23 November 1922. Navy Cross citation Date of Action: 1918 The Navy Cross is awarded to Lenah Sutcliff Higbee, Superintendent, Navy Nurse Corps, United States Navy, for distinguished service in the line of her profession and unusual and conspicuous devotion to duty as superintendent of the Higbee died at Winter Park, Florida, on 10 January 1941 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
These nurses, who came to be called "The Sacred Twenty", were the first women to formally serve as members of the Navy. The United States Ship Higbee (Doctor of Divinity-806), commissioned in 1945, was named in Higbee"s honor, and the first United States. Navy combat warship to bear the name of a female member of the United States. Navy.
