Beulah Barkley was born on July 20, 1908 in Union Township, Indiana to parents Jacob C. and Elva Mae Barkley. She had three siblings: an older sister Xariffa M. (Walters), an older brother Ivan Vernon, and a younger brother Robert Dale. Beulah attended East Liberty United Brethren Church with her family for the duration of her childhood and went to Monroeville High School. She lived as a student nurse in a boarding house with other girls her age in Fort Wayne in 1929. She attended Lutheran Hospital School of Nursing and was thereafter employed as a school nurse in Plymouth, Indiana. Beulah enlisted in the Army Corps on May 29, 1943 and trained in Fort Knox, Kentucky and Camp Forrest, Tennessee. She attained the rank of Second Lieutenant and was a registered nurse in the 36th Evacuation Hospital. Evacuation hospitals are mobile or partially mobile and serve as a place of major medical and surgical treatment before casualties are evacuated elsewhere. Second Lieutenant Barkley died of asphyxia in the Battle of Normandy in Sainte Mere Eglise, France on June 27, 1944. She was originally buried in the U.S. Military Cemetery in Blosville, France but was later moved to the Monroeville Cemetery in Indiana. For her service, she received the Women's Army Corps Service Medal, WWII Victory Medal, Europe-Africa-Middle East Campaign Medal, American Defense Service Medal, and the Purple Heart. Information researched and collected by Claudia Hebble, 2015.
"Evacuation Hospital." Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. N.p.: Merrimakc-Webster, n.d. N.pag. Print.
Indiana Historical Bureau, comp. Gold Star Honor Roll: Adams County. Vol. 1. Bloomington: Indiana War History Commission, 1949. Print.
"Beulah Barkley". Ancestry K12. Ancestry, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2015. http://ancestryclassroom.com