June 19, 2021: This marker for Marion Crandell is near the Government Bridge at Davenport. According to a 2001 Cedar Rapids Gazette article, this marker, restored that year, was “the first in a series of markers identifying a coast-to-coast Gold Star Highway through Scott County.”
Marion Crandell, a Cedar Rapids native, was the first American woman killed in active service in World War I. Rather than repeat her biography from a historical marker, I’ll link to it and the Gazette’s story about her on the 100th anniversary of her death: March 27, 1918.
Crandell graduated from Omaha High School in 1889; here’s a Nebraska Public Media story about her. The WWI memorial plaque at Omaha Central High School lists her name on the same line as Jarvis J. Offutt, the first Omaha native killed in the war and the namesake of Offutt Air Force Base. That plaque spells her last name as Crandall, as does the Cedar Rapids Republican on March 30, 1918.
According to a blog post from the Davenport Public Library, she lived with her brother in Alameda for a time, which could explain why her gravestone in France (seen in the NPM video) says California.
Aside from a few markers including the one pictured above, Crandell has been an overlooked figure in Iowa history. I have a suggestion: Name the VA Medical Center in either Iowa City or Des Moines after her.
According to San Diego’s CBS station, reporting on the renaming of a VA Medical Center there last year, only three VA hospitals have been named for female veterans. Crandell was not technically a veteran — she was there under the auspices of the YMCA — but she was in the war zone none the less.
Iowa has made sure to pay tribute to Merle Hay, the first Iowa man and one of the first three American soldiers killed in the Great War. Let’s do something equally fitting for Crandell.