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Metro Atlanta community celebrates 100th birthday of Tuskegee Airmen nurse

Expanded Tuskegee Airmen Exhibit at the National Musuem of the United States Air Force
By Courtney Kueppers
June 2, 2020

A recent gathering in Marietta celebrated the 100th birthday of a Tuskegee Airmen nurse.

The socially distanced gathering celebrated the life and work of Second Lt. Irma Cameron Dryden.

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According to reporting from 11Alive, Dryden made a grand entrance and was greeted by numerous well wishers.

Dryden was a nurse in the military in 1943. Her then-husband was one of the Tuskegee airmen.

"She has had a monumental impact on people and not even know that she did," a spokesperson for the National Association of Black Military Women Atlanta Chapter told 11Alive.

Dryden graduated from Harlem Hospital School of Nursing and left the service as a second lieutenant in 1944.

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Those who gathered to celebrate her birthday brought signs, flowers, balloons and played music from the lawn of her Marietta home.

According to a People article, Dryden is the only living Tuskegee Airmen nurse.

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