A native of Tucson, Arizona, Beatrice Amado Kissinger was raised in Patagonia, Arizona, near her paternal grandparents. As a child, she recalls that children were punished in school for speaking in Spanish. Overcoming economic and cultural obstacles, Kissinger completed her education and enrolled in St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nuring in Tucson in 1941. During World War II Kissinger enlisted in military service as a Navy Nurse and was sent to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Long Beach, California. There she met and married her husband, Marine Sgt. Jim Kissinger. The couple moved to Chicago, raised a family, but in time returned to Tucson where Beatrice writes about her experiences in the Navy as “the best time of my life...”

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