They did. And they raised a family. But even that family, who knew her simply as “Granny,” had no idea that among the records of battlefield heroics, she stood out. According to her relatives, she never recounted her experiences of the field hospital or the wounded.

It was a decade-long journey by one of Montana’s best contemporary historians that culminated in a small ceremony in Los Angeles last year, where Sandelius was awarded the honor, even though many nurses during the “Great War” never got the same recognition as their male military counterparts.  

In fact, in what may be a cruel historic irony: Sandelius’ name may have been more remembered had she been killed in action rather than just serving in it. The names of the fallen dead were remembered, often chiseled in the stone of memorials and written in the books of military history.

However, Sandelius’ story follows a common trajectory: Small town girl who becomes a nurse, only to have the country enter into a great global war. Edward Saunders, who has done extensive history of Montana women in the military, especially during the first half of the twentieth century in his book, “Knapsacks and Roses,” said when America entered into the war, there were more nurses in Montana than the military, which only had about 400 (at the time, there were 500 in the Treasure State). The Department of War would send out a call for more than 14,000.

Sandelius answered that call, not once, but three times. She volunteered to be a nurse for the military; she volunteered to go to overseas; and then she volunteered to go to the front lines. None of those things were required.

But it would be her service on the battlefield, in a field hospital that wasn’t much more than a tent, during some of the most intense fighting where she caught the notice of the commanders.

In July and August 1918, Sandelius was assigned to the U.S. 28th Division, which was helping the French infantry stave off German attacks, including those with lethal gas. During the Oise-Ainse offensive and the Second Battle of the Marne, the 28th sustained more than 14,000 casualties.

Sandelius was assigned to Field Hospital 112, near Cohan, about 60 miles from Paris. Saunders recounts that the tented field hospital would receive more than 5,000 wounded and perform more than 200 surgeries.

But on Aug. 10, the Germans stepped up the attacks, and the field hospital was caught.

Even after military commanders had ordered the nurses to withdraw to three miles, Sandelius refused to leave the side of the injured and sick.

“For eight consecutive days and nights, she stayed with her patients, enduring enemy artillery and aerial bombardment in dire and deadly conditions,” Saunders wrote.

Her life could have ended in a multitude of ways during those harrowing hours, but two coincidences should have killed her. Both times, a German warplane — military aviation was still in its infancy — dropped a bomb near the tented hospital, only to have them both fail to explode. One landed approximately 15 feet from her.

While she would survive on a combination of luck and steely determination, Sandelius and other nurses would stay on long after the war’s end on Nov. 11, 1918, helping to care for the sick and wounded.

She returned to the United States in 1919, alive and with little other fanfare. Few even know that she and her husband, Stillwater County soldier C.B. Benbow, had fallen madly in love just prior to entering into the war. Not knowing where they’d end up, or if either would make it out of the worldwide conflict alive, they secretly wed two weeks before she left.

The marriage had to be done secretly, or she’d likely not be accepted for the war effort. On all of her war records, including her dog tags, she remained Elizabeth D. Sandelius, No. 12660, of the American Expeditionary Forces.

In reality, she was Elizabeth D. Benbow.

After the war, she returned to her husband, C.B., who was trained as an early aviation pilot, but never left the states during the war. Sandelius died in May 1983, never knowing her battlefield legacy would be remembered. She was buried in Los Angeles’ National Cemetery.

It was Saunders, while researching his book about Montana women and their involvement in World War I, who discovered Sandelius’ story.

“From the centennial of World War One about 10 years go, I first met her in the dusty archives of the Montana state library among many records of Montana women who went to war in 1917,” Saunders said. “As I looked at Elizabeth’s service record in war-torn France, I couldn’t help but think, ‘This gal was in some bad stuff.’ I wanted to find more about her. My walk with her began.”

His inspiration would lead him to research more of her life, and he believed that U.S. military officials had overlooked awards that she more than deserved.

It took nearly a decade of research and a writing campaign. Saunders was able to track down the grandchildren of Sandelius, themselves old enough to be grandparents. They were shocked to learn about “Granny’s” history, and proud that their grandmother, whom they remembered warmly, was also a hero.

They offered letters of support in Saunders’ campaign to earn her recognition, including sending Sandelius’ dog-tags and photos. And they were shocked when the U.S. Army accepted their case for Sandelius receiving the Silver Star.

Saunders, a retired Army colonel who served in combat himself, remembers calling the family when the letter from the U.S. Army arrived.

“We both had tears in our eyes,” Saunders said.

Sandelius was among the first four American servicewomen in the American military history, all WWI Army Nurse Corps nurse, to have been awarded the Silver Star medal for valor in combat.

“The greatest tragedy that can befall an American serviceman — or woman — is not that they may be killed in action, that’s the greatest sacrifice. The greatest tragedy is they may be forgotten: Forgotten in life and forgotten in death by the very same nation they — and I — swore and oath to defend, even at the cost of our lives,” Saunders said. “In the words of the ancient Greeks, Elizabeth helped make gentle the horror which mankind often inflicts upon itself.”