Lucy Minnigerode was born on February 8, 1871 , at "Oatlands, " a historic estate near Leesburg, Virginia. She was the second child and daughter of the eleven children of Charles and Virginia Cuthbert (Powell) Minnigerode. Her grandfather, the Rev. Charles Frederick Ernest Minnigerode, was a German refugee who emigrated to America from Darmstadt in 1839, and for many years was rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.
Education
After attending private schools, in 1899, Minnigerode entered the Training School for Nurses, Bellevue Hospital, New York City, and six years later became a registered nurse.
Career
Following a period of private practice, 1901-10, Minnigerode was superintendent of nurses, first at the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, D. C. , and later at the Savannah Hospital, Savannah, Georgia. As supervisor of Unit C, American Red Cross, she sailed with the mercy ship, and was stationed at the Polytechnic Institute, Kiev, Russia, 1914-15. For her Russian services she was decorated by the Czar with the Cross of St. Anne, 1915. She was director of nurses, Columbia Hospital for Women, Washington, D. C. , 1915-17, and was with the American Red Cross, 1917-19. During the influenza epidemic of 1918, she organized the nurses in Washington's special emergency hospital. At the request of the United States Public Health Service she was detailed by the Red Cross to make a supervisory tour of its hospitals. Her report led to the establishment of a department of nurses and to her appointment as its superintendent. One of her first tasks was to supply some eighteen hundred nurses for more than fifty hospitals established to care for the veterans returning from overseas. By inaugurating a postgraduate course of study she improved the quality of the nurses' work. Her pioneering was of great value to the service of the Veterans' Bureau, which in 1922 took many of her nurses into its service. She held the office of superintendent until her death, at which time she had the direction of six hundred and fifty nurses in twenty-six hospitals, caring for merchant seamen, men of the coast-guard and lighthouse service, and other beneficiaries. She died suddenly, of apoplexy, and was buried in the cemetery at Middleburg, Virginia.
Achievements
Personality
Minnigerode has been characterized as a natural leader, "absolutely fearless, impulsive and outspoken, devoted to her friends, and resolute toward her opponents, " quick-witted, with a retentive memory and a keen sense of humor. A lover of plants and birds, she took much delight in her garden at her Virginia home near the capital.
Connections
There is no any information about her personal life.