LTJG US Navy, Beatrice “Bea” Brennan Lamb

Beatrice “Bea” Bridget Brennan (Lamb) enlisted in the Navy Women Excepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) in 1943 and reported for duty at the Navy Hospital at Portsmouth, Virginia. ^{1, 2} She was commissioned as a lieutenant and stationed in San Diego, California, where she trained medical corpsmen. ²

Brennan was born to Sarah and John Brennan on July 14, 1919, in Bayonne, New Jersey. She was educated at St. Mary’s Parochial School Holy Family Academy. She entered nurse’s training in 1936 and received her license as a registered nurse from Bayonne Hospital and Dispensary in 1939. ² Afterward, she worked in public health and industrial nursing in Bloomfield, New Jersey at Westinghouse Light Company and was acting director of the Bayonne Visiting Nurses’ Association. ^{3, 4}

In 1945 she met and married Vincent G. Lamb, a high school teacher. After World War II, the couple lived in North Dakota and Minnesota, before settling in the Bay Area of northern California to raise their family. Brennan returned to nursing at a local hospital once her children became older. ² She helped organize and lead the first nurses’ strike for better pay and pensions at the hospital. In 1983 she moved to Los Alamos. ² She became an advocate for Alcoholics Anonymous and worked to oppose the stigma of mental illness. She supported AIDS awareness and spoke before the New Mexico State Legislature in support of gay rights in 1992. ²