The entire base was surrounded by the Huachuca Mountains, just a twenty-minute drive from the Mexican border. The desert dust was a stark contrast to the topography of the urban Northeast that Elinor had grown accustomed to navigating. Everything looked dry and desolate, and walking even a few feet covered her shoes in reddish-brown dirt. The sunsets, however, were stunning, and like nothing she’d seen before. The pink, orange, and lavender hues illuminating the vast sky were a much-needed reminder of the natural beauty that existed in the world.

Nothing in her past could have prepared Elinor for Arizona. It was as though she’d traveled to another planet. According to 1940 census data, there were 23,679 blacks in Boston.6 In New York City, they totaled 445,844.7 In Tucson there were 1,678.8

Experiencing Jim Crow for the first time was also a shock. The minuscule population of blacks who lived in Arizona was forced to attend segregated schools, and multiple restaurants and hotels refused their patronage, even for blacks in uniform. And the defense plants throughout the state would not hire African Americans, who were also turned away at the polls if they could not read passages from the Constitution, a requirement that white residents did not have to meet in order to vote.9

Fort Huachuca consisted of numerous variously sized buildings, some wooden, some brick, some stone, sprawled over miles of wide-open desert. What stood out immediately were the separate facilities for blacks and whites. Many blacks who migrated from the South discovered that the West was just as inhospitable as the regions they had fled. While Boston was certainly not a racial utopia, Milton was progressive enough that Elinor’s family was able to interact with whites peacefully, attending the same schools, working at the same jobs, and shopping at the same stores. Now, in the military, she suddenly wasn’t fit to be in the same barracks and eating establishments as white people.

The forced separation felt like a punishment. Serving in the U.S. military was supposed to make her feel dignified. Instead, Elinor felt humiliated.

Nowhere on her application to the United States Army Nurse Corps did it describe the segregated facilities she would be expected to inhabit. It also never mentioned anything about being treated like a second-class citizen. Scores of black women like Elinor eagerly arrived at Fort Huachuca with the best of intentions, only to be severely disappointed by their own government.

Between 1943 and 1945 Fort Huachuca was the largest training post for Negro troops, as they were called then, in the United States. The only whites left at Huachuca when Elinor arrived in 1944 were the officers in charge of the blacks in uniform.10