The corncob looked sick, so the child proceeded to nurse it back to health.

That was over 80 years ago, and the incident took place on a farm near Mound in Madison Parish. The little girl was Josephine Hopkins, now 92, who said, “Nursing was my sole desire when I was growing up.”

How did she know the corncob was sick, and how did she make it well?

“I had a vivid imagination,” she said, for during the Depression years and being in a large family, there were no toys to play with, so she turned to her imagination.

She was one of a dozen children, born in Wilkinson County, started school at Kingston near Natchez when she was 5, but most of her schooling was in Madison Parish where the family moved because her father couldn’t make a living as a schoolteacher in Mississippi, so he turned to farming.

Her first patients — other than the corncobs — were farm animals and pets. She recalls her father teaching her just about everything about country living. If he killed a snake, the children had to see it so he could teach them how to tell a poisonous one from the others.

One day her father brought in a litter of tiny rabbits who had lost their mother. Josie fed them, doctored them and when they were about grown her father taught her another lesson, “They’re big enough to fend for themselves. You have to turn them loose.”

With such a large family, Josie had plenty of opportunities to practice her skills in nursing, but World War II gave her the chance to get professional training. She had several brothers who were in the Army and had been sent overseas, and in November 1942 the Women’s Army Corps was organized.

“I heard about it,” Josie said. “I couldn’t wait to get to the recruiting station.” She was the only member of the WACs from Madison Parish in World War II.

She was sent to Des Moines, Iowa, and then to Monticello, Ark., where a camp for German POWs was being built.

“But there were no prisoners,” she said, “so about 250 of us (WACs) opened up the camp,” which became a training area for WAC recruits.

Two of the officers went to Little Rock for information on opening a Medical Technical School at the camp, and Josie was the first graduate. The WACs also opened a hospital at Monticello, but Josie and her unit didn’t stay there — they were sent to Fort Dix, N.J.

“We were clapping and crying,” she said, “because they didn’t separate us.”

At Fort Dix, Josie got a look at just about every disease and what to do. This included tropical illnesses, and during her last month there she was assigned to survivors of the Batan Death March.

On Dec. 23, 1945, Josie was discharged and received a good conduct medal, “something that has always amused me. When I went up and they pinned the medal on me and said a little speech, the girls clapped and yelled. When I got back to my quarters, one teased me and said, ‘The baddest girl in the Army got a good conduct medal.’”

Josie’s friends had planned to spend Christmas in New York City, but Josie had a different idea. She packed her bag and was sneaking out the door of the barracks when other WACs waked up. She ran across the street, through the hospital to get to the bus, her friends chasing her.

“They were beating on the side of the bus, yelling, ‘Put Hoppy off! Put Hoppy off!’ — that was my nickname — but I told the driver I had been in the service three years, had my discharge and wanted to go home.” He pushed them back, said it was an emergency and got Josie to the train.

“I arrived at home on Christmas Day, right at noon when I walked in. My brothers had returned from overseas, so my mother had all of us at home for the first time in five years. It was a jubilee.”

After resting for a while, she was “ready to spread my wings. I was 23 when I went into the service, and when I came home I was 27 — I don’t know how that happened.”

In Houston, Texas, she worked in some state hospitals affiliated with Baylor University and stayed there until about 1950 when she came home, then went to Jackson for private duty nursing. She came to Vicksburg to nurse an elderly man, a sea captain named Bobb, and after his death she went to work for Dr. B.B. Martin — “one of my favorite people” — at the Vicksburg Infirmary. Dr. Martin teased her about her detective abilities, she said — she could usually find the candy a diabetic patient was hiding. She later worked in Natchez and was one of the first nurses at the new University Hospital in Jackson. Nothing was ready, she said, no beds, no supplies, nothing. Soon, though, they were ready for business.

“I was assigned to the OB. Everybody was excited that babies would be born there,” she said. “So one day they called and I happened to be on duty. Dr. Newton was the professor of OB and gynecology, so he just had to deliver that first baby. He was watching and waiting, and he went to the delivery room, and I put the supplies up wrong — two gloves for the same hand. He took one and threw it at me, but I dodged and kind of laughed a little because he didn’t hit me. The head nurse said she wouldn’t put up with that, her nurses being abused and told him not to throw anymore gloves. He said, ‘Miss Hopkins, did I throw a glove at you?’ and I said, ‘I don’t think so,’ and I won a friend.”

Josie was in Oklahoma in 1956 when she met Gilbert Kapke, who was from Nebraska. They married and moved to Denver, but on their first trip to the South, “when he saw all those lakes, he was ready to move — he loved to fish,” so they moved to Concordia Parish. He died in 1976, but Josie continued to live on the lake near Ferriday until 1994. She lived in a veterans home in Monroe for a while, but was homesick to see her old friends. So she moved back to Ferriday, “but all of my old friends were dead.”

She has an apartment in an assisted living facility at Ferriday, where she stays busy raising flowers, cooking and writing. Some of her poetry has been put to music, and one song, “Tom Catin’ Time,” was recorded and became popular in Europe, but her copyright didn’t cover it overseas. She has received several prestigious awards.

Her love for cooking probably came from her mother. Josie has vivid memories of hobos coming to their house during the Depression. They were always hungry, and her parents never refused to feed them, for the Hopkins had a large garden and Josie’s brothers killed a lot of wild game.

“One of the vivid remembrances I have is of my mother serving plates and crying,” Josie said. “She cried over every hungry person who came by.”

Josie loves to cook, sitting on a stool (she has trouble standing). She cooks for some of the workers and other friends at the home and about once a week makes gumbo or chicken and dumplings for the maintenance people.

Though she retired from nursing in 1968, Josie keeps abreast of changes in the profession and still has her nurse’s cap, white shoes and stockings and uniform. She feels they were a lot more distinctive than the variety of colors being worn now.

A doctor from Ochsner’s in New Orleans “checks our blood and gives our medication,” Josie said, “but I take care of myself. I know to stay on my diet, but I do cheat sometimes.”

One doctor told her she would do better without her caregivers, and said she should be nursing the home health nurses.

She has problems with her knees, and she has been given a scooter, but she is adamant that, “I won’t be on it until I can’t walk.”

You have to have a sense of humor, she said, especially in the nursing profession. She’s also a person who is spiritually minded — “Sweet Hour of Prayer” is her favorite hymn “because it has special meaning to me.”

Though Josie has no children, she claims the offspring of her siblings as her own. Someone told her she was lucky, but she corrected them: “No, I’m blessed to have a family, pleased with all my nieces and nephews. They’re all special.”

Recently, the apartment manager where she lives admonished her, “Miss Josie, you’re 92. There are just some things you can’t do.”

“Well, you watch me,” she replied.

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Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.