The Life of Mary Frances Johnson

Written by Jennifer Richards

When the First World War began, military service was assumed to be men’s work. Women were expected to hold the home front together. A small number, however, chose to serve close to the fighting. Natick’s Mary Frances Johnson was one of them — and she was especially valuable because she did something most American women had not yet done: she left home, crossed the ocean in wartime, and used her nursing training to help badly wounded soldiers right behind the lines in another country. Her service was both brave and unprecedented for a woman of her time, because she did it under military conditions, alongside the men who had just fought.

Mary was born March 3, 1885, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, to Edward Andrew Johnson and Ellen (Lydon) Johnson. Her father was a bootmaker, as his father had been before him. After Mary came three more children — Oliver (1886), Ellen “Nellie” (1890), and Irene Genevieve (1892). Only weeks after Irene’s birth, their mother died of puerperal fever. From then on, Mary, still a girl, helped care for her younger siblings — an early pattern of service that makes her later nursing career easy to understand.

When Mary came home in 1919, Natick noticed. On June 27, 1919, the Natick Bulletin reported that the Catholic Women’s Club held a reception for “Miss Mary Johnson, the Red Cross nurse who has just returned from the front.” She was brought to the clubhouse in a decorated automobile, the rooms were trimmed with flowers and flags, and the club president, Miss Mary E. Mahan, presented her with a purse of $50. Mary, “keenly affected by the good will,” told the group about her “varied and thrilling” experiences overseas; the evening included music by the Glee Club and Colonial Orchestra, solos by Miss Alice Brannigan, and a poem dedicated to Mary by Miss Mella Finn. In other words, Natick publicly honored her as a woman who had gone to war and come back.

After the war, Mary continued to build her credentials. In 1921, she studied nursing at Simmons College, and later that year, she applied for the first school nurse position with the Natick School Board. But her most significant impact came through veterans’ and nurses’ organizations, where World War I nurses fought to make their service visible.

By the early 1930s, Mrs. Mary F. (Johnson) Cuttell was a leader in the Massachusetts All Nurses’ Post, American Legion. On April 30, 1932, the Boston Globe reported that the All-Nurses Post planted an elm on Boston Common “in memory of those who have since died from among approximately 10,000 nurses who were overseas in the World War.” The ceremony — attended by nearly 100 people and city officials — was in charge of Mrs. Mary F. Cuttell, commander.

That same spring, the Globe announced a musicale and tea at the Hotel Statler to mark the Legion’s 15th birthday; the special feature was the presentation of Verdun medals to four nurses who had served in the Verdun sector — Mrs Mary Cuttell, Mrs Elizabeth Rosenthal, Miss Margaret Bee, and Miss Edith Williamson — with their names to be forwarded to French officials and placed in the “Book of Gold” at Verdun. A longer article on the event features Mary at the center: she received her medal, accepted medals on behalf of the women who were ill, and Vice Commander Jeremiah J. Twomey emphasized the need to expand the nurses’ post and to serve disabled veterans.

In another notice, the Globe recorded that “Mrs Mary Cuttell of Milford will be installed as post commander” of the Massachusetts All Nurses’ Post, with a full slate of officers and state Legion officials present — proof that she had become a recognized statewide leader for World War I nurses.

In later years, Mary helped recruit nurses for the Red Cross Nursing Program during World War II, served on the executive committee of the All Nurses’ Post, No. 296, acted as a National Service Officer, worked through the Edward P. Clark Post 107, A.L. Auxiliary of Natick, and chaired a veterans’ rehabilitation board. Across four decades, she continued to do what Natick had thanked her for in 1919: ensuring that the women who had gone “to the front” were remembered, supported, and organized.

Mary (Johnson) Cuttell died in 1955. Veterans and townspeople decorated her grave in St. Patrick’s Cemetery on Memorial Day. Service ran in the family — Oliver Johnson served in World War I, and Edward Johnson in World War II — but Mary’s service was distinctive: she demonstrated that a Natick woman could cross the Atlantic, work in perilous conditions, and then return home to lead.

Works Cited

Boston Globe. “All Nurses’ Post Memorial Elm Planting on Boston Common.”
April 30, 1932.

Boston Globe. “Verdun Medals Presented to World War I Nurses at Hotel Statler.”
Spring 1932.

Boston Globe. “Notice of Installation of Mrs. Mary Cuttell as Commander of the Massachusetts All Nurses’ Post.”
Early 1930s.

Colborne, Belle, and C. K. Linson. “With an Ambulance on the Firing-Line.” Paper-doll cut-out sheet from The Delineator. New York: Butterick Publishing Co., ca. 1917–1918. Digital image from “With Ambulance on Firing Line,” Pennelainer, Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/38275730@N04/3715007326 (accessed Nov 7, 2025).

Natick Bulletin (Natick, MA). “Reception for Miss Mary Johnson, Red Cross Nurse Recently Returned from the Front.”
June 27, 1919.

Natick Historical Society. “Mary Frances Johnson Cuttell File.” Natick Historical Society Archives, Natick, Massachusetts.