Evelyn Crane

Nov. 24, 1919

Evelyn Crane has recently passed away. According to her wishes, there will be no services. She is to be cremated and the ashes placed at the area of her choice.

Mrs. Crane was born Nov. 24, 1919, in Winsted, CT, the daughter of Robert and Gladys Pulver Weigold.

She attended the local schools and graduated as an RN from the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, RI, in September 1941.

She worked in the operating room at the Rhode Island Hospital until the spring of 1942. During the early months of World War II, the call for medical personnel to serve in the military was urgent. The U.S. Army authorized the hospital to form an evacuation hospital from its staff. She was one of the first to sign on and the unit was formally activated on July 10, 1942, and assigned to Fort Devens outside of Boston.

After indoctrination to the Army and being issued ill-fitting uniforms and World War I equipment, the unit was sent to Murfreesboro for support to a large contingent of newly drafted infantrymen who were learning how to fight as ground troops.

The hospital left for India aboard the "Monticello," a converted Italian luxury ship, in January 1943. There they spent the entire war supporting General Joseph Stilwell's Chinese army troops, never having an American serviceman for a patient. At times there were as many as 1500 Chinese patients with 50 nurses and approximately 20 doctors plus support staff. The personnel were rotated home from Myitkyina, Burma, after the war ended in 1945.

Mrs. Crane graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1948 with a B.S. in public health nursing and one in education. She accepted a position with the Department of State and Foreign Service in Washington, DC, and was assigned to the embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, and served there until the end of 1955. She was appointed director of nurses with the Department of State and Foreign Service in January 1956 and served as such until 1962.

She married Harold L. Crane, MD, in 1961, and moved to Connecticut in 1962. There she took up the task of volunteering, becoming active in the Planned Parenthood League, Visiting Nurses Associations, American Red Cross, Planning and Zoning Commission and taught 55 Alive Defensive Driving courses in several towns.

After the death of her husband in 1974, she became an outdoor woman and started hiking, backpacking, canoeing, kayaking and cross country skiing with the Appalachian Mt. Club, based in Boston, MA. She traveled extensively enjoying all these sports and the many friends she met along the way.

Mrs. Crane leaves a sister, Frances Green of Longnoct, CO; brother, Robert R. Weigold of Uplands Village in Pleasant Hill; special niece, Betty Magyar of Harwinton, CT; several nieces and nephews; granddaughter and husband, Susan and Dan Castillo of College Station, TX; grandson, Jon Crane of Las Vegas, NV; and five great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Avalon Center for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, designated for the women's shelter.

Hood Funeral Home and Crematory, LLC (www.hoodfuneralhome.com) was in charge of the arrangements.