KASMEIER, JULIA CHRYSTINE (1899-1979). Julia C. Kasmeier, nurse, was born on May 27, 1899, to John and Bettie (Simbeck) Kasmeier in Florence, Alabama. She had at least one brother and one sister. She was a Catholic. She attended St. Mary's Academy in Beeville, Texas, and enrolled in nursing school at Santa Rosa Hospital School of Nursing in San Antonio in 1919. She graduated in 1922, and from then until 1928 she held progressively higher administrative positions at that hospital and school of nursing. In 1928 she became education secretary for the state Board of Nurse Examiners. When she assumed the job it was a poorly defined one. Her duty was to inspect and pass judgment yearly on the numerous schools of nursing throughout the state and to make recommendations to the Board of Nurse Examiners about continuation or closure of the schools. Conditions in most schools were poor, and the standard of education was low. Kasmeier conducted a thorough appraisal of nurse education throughout the state before she initiated action to close the weakest schools and elevate the educational standards of those remaining. She constantly strove to improve educational standards throughout her tenure on the board.

She began graduate studies in 1932 and graduated in 1939 with a baccalaureate degree in biology from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio. Four years later she earned a master of arts degree from George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee. Her education placed her in nursing's vanguard, for few nurses had any academic degree at the time. Miss Kasmeier was active in several professional associations at the national and state levels, including the American Nurses' Association, Texas Graduate Nurses Association, National League for Nursing Education, and Texas Hospital Association,^qv in which she was an honorary life member. She retired to San Antonio in 1964 after serving thirty-eight years on the board. She died of cancer on March 16, 1979, in Bexar County and is buried in Shanence, Oklahoma, next to her father and mother.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Who's Who of American Women, 1958-59.

Eleanor L. M. Crowder