She was a young woman who had recently graduated from high school when she found herself working as a nursing student in a southern port city, where one of the patients she cared for was an elderly veteran of the Spanish-American War.

“Francois was a bugler during the Battle of San Juan Hill,” Rose Mary Walker said. “Or that’s what he said. He was there, and served with Teddy Roosevelt, but he was in such bad shape. He’d had several strokes.”

It only takes a moment of conversation with the New Iberia resident to realize she’s a unique individual. Her experiences with history wind in and out of her life story, from her time spent caring for veterans to her years spent in California with her former husband and her first child.

Rose Mary Walker sits in her New Iberia home Friday with a flag dedicated to her brother, at right, and one dedicated to her father, at bottom. Her father’s flag is is from World War I and contains only 48 stars. Inness Asher / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

A member of the American Veteran’s Com-mittee, she was recently asked to lay the wreath at the veterans’ memorial in Bouligny Plaza during the Memorial Day events. It was a fitting honor, considering the service she has given to veterans throughout her life.

“I was born and raised in New Iberia,” Walker said. “I lived on Center street, by the New Iberia High School.”

Walker went to school at Mt. Carmel, an all-girl school at the time run by the Sisters of Mt. Carmel. She graduated in 1942 and soon found herself training as a nurse in a New Orleans hospital run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent DePaul. Walker was 19 years old, and there was a war on.

“The hospital was called the Hotel Dieu, or House of God in french,” she said. “It was on Tulane Avenue, but it’s been torn down since.”

Nearly finished with the three-year program, Walker found herself aiding in the war effort. During her final six months of nurse training, she heeded the call of the new president Harry Truman, who created a training program that would pay for her schooling in return for her service.

She transferred to the U.S. Marine Hospital at 210 State Street, where she found herself caring for those hard hit by World War II.

“It was a service hospital, a teaching facility,” she said. “It was sponsored by the government, and we were subject to be called into service at any time.”

Few knew the war was already proceeding toward an Allied victory, and that the world would see it end that same year.

“We cared for merchant seamen, immigrants coming in on the ships, stowaways,” Walker said.

“People who couldn’t return home to their own countries because of the war.”

New Orleans was even then a busy port, she said, and there were people from around the world all over the city.

As the war ended Walker continued working in the city as a civil service employee.

While she met her former husband in New Orleans, she was married in New Iberia but did not stay long. The ensuing years continued with a brief period in Texas, the birth of her first daughter Becky and then nearly a decade spent in California, where Walker would have her second daughter, Candyce, just prior to she and her husband’s divorce.

“When my mother died shortly afterward, I came home,” she said. “And I’ve been home ever since.”

But rich early years do not prevent full latter years. Whatever the circumstances, Walker always found herself returning to her job of caring for others. She worked in the emergency room at Iberia Medical Center for 15 years, before retiring at 58.

She could not stay retired very long, giving no explanation why she returned to nursing at 70 years old.

According to her young-est daughter Candyce, she then entered into private duty, sitting with the ill and elderly before returning to what had been her life’s career.

“What I heard, and this was years ago,” he daughter said, “was that she sat for a doctor who was in very ill health, but still very much clear-minded, and he told her, ‘what are you doing this for? Renew your nursing license and go back to it.’ ”

And so she did, and again began providing care at several local nursing homes.

The young nurse who began serving others during a world war began again, just as she had years before. Today Walker continues to work at the Belle Teche Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. She’ll turn 85 later this month.

“I only work Saturday and Sunday, though,” she said, and while that is certainly true, it is only later she admits both days are eight-hour shifts.

Which is not too bad considering it has been 27 years since she last retired. What that is, in fact, is the continuing work of a marvelous woman.