Profile
Pvt. Ida Marie Svejstrup Jensen
(1897–1977)
Pvt. Ida Marie Svejstrup Jensen enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1944. She was one of twenty-nine Danish born WACs during the Second World War.
Ida Marie Svejstrup Jensen was born on 25 September 1897 in Østre Vamdrup, Denmark, to Peter Svejstrup Jensen and Elisabeth Dorthea Christine Jensen (née Nagel).[1]
Jensen emigrated to the United States with her mother and siblings in 1910, arriving onboard the SS United States in New York from Copenhagen on 4 May 1910. Their final destination was Penn Yan, New York.[2]
She works as a nurse in Geneva, Ontario, New York in the 1930s.[3] In the late 1930s, she established the Jensen Nursing Home, which she operated until enlistment.[4]
Jensen enlisted as a Private (A-217298) in the Women’s Army Corps in Rochester, New York, on 16 August 1944.[5] She served until 23 December 1945.[6] She served in a hospital in Texas during the war.
She returned to the Nursing Home after the war. In 1949, she travels to Denmark with her father to visit family in their old country.[7]
Endnotes
[1] DNA: Denmark, Church Records, 1812-1918.
[2] Ancestry. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[3] Ancestry: 1930 United States Federal Census.
[4] Operator Enlists, Nursing Home Shut, Democrat and Chronicle, 15 Sep 1944, p. 32.
[5] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[6]Ancestry: U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010.
[7] Genevans Plan Denmark Trip, Democrat and Chronicle, 15 Aug 1949, p. 54.