Funeral services will be held Saturday, Jan. 25, for Nancy Leftenant-Colon, a groundbreaking figure in American military and nursing history, who died on Jan. 8 at the age of 104.
An Amityville native and a 1939 graduate of Amityville Memorial High School, Leftenenat-Colon was the first Black nurse to serve in the reserve or active-duty Army/Air Nurse Corps and the first Black woman to join the U.S. Army Nurse Corps after its desegregation following World War II.
She died in Amityville, at the Massapequa Center Rehabilitation and Nursing facility, where she had lived for the past year.
Services will take place at Zion Cathedral, 312 Grand Ave. in Freeport. A wake will be held at 10 a.m., followed by a Celebration of Life service at 11 a.m.
Humble beginnings, history-making service
Born on Sept. 29, 1920, in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Leftenant-Colon was one of 12 children born to James and Eunice Leftenant. Both of her parents were the children of freed slaves, according to her biography on the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Rise Above website.
Leftenant-Colon had spoken of how her mother and father instilled in their children the values of education, public service and hard work, despite only completing the sixth grade themselves.
The family was part of the Great Migration, fleeing the oppressive Jim Crow South for a better life in the North. Arriving in Amityville in 1923 with little money, the family managed to gather enough lumber from around the town to build a modest five-room house.
Leftenant-Colon’s brother, Sam, served as a Tuskegee Airman and was believed to have been killed after a mid-air collision near Austria during World War II in 1945, according to CAF Rise Above. His remains were never recovered.
After graduating from high school, Leftenant-Colon pursued her dream of becoming a nurse at the Lincoln School for Nurses in the Bronx, the first nursing school in the country to train Black women. However, systemic racism blocked her initial efforts to join the military, as Black nurses were not permitted to serve in the regular Army at the time.
Leftenant-Colon later though joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1945 as a reservist, treating World War II wounded at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. A year later, she became the first Black woman to serve in the integrated U.S. Army Nurse Corps.
Life of service
During a storied military career, Leftenant-Colon served as a flight nurse during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. She often worked in war zones and was credited with saving countless lives. She was among the first medical personnel to evacuate French Legionnaires from Vietnam’s Dien Bien Phu province.
In 1965, Leftenant-Colon retired as chief nurse at McGuire Air Force Base and with the rank of major. She returned to Amityville, where she served as the school nurse at her alma mater high school from 1971 to 1984. The school named its media center in her honor seven years ago.
Legacy of leadership
Leftenant-Colon’s influence extended far beyond her military and nursing accomplishments. In 1989, she became the first woman elected national president of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the famed African American pilots of World War II, including her brother.
Her contributions earned her numerous accolades, including honorary doctorates from Tuskegee University and Mount Saint Vincent College. She was inducted into the Long Island Air and Space Hall of Fame and received special recognition from President Bill Clinton.
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