Editing Edith Nourse Rogers (section)

==Early life==
Edith Nourse was born on March 19, 1881, in [[Saco, Maine]], to Franklin T. Nourse, the manager of a [[textile]] [[Factory|mill]],<ref>{{cite news|title=Rep. Edith Rogers, 79, Dies; Served in House 35 Years|last=Casey|first=Phil|date=September 11, 1960|newspaper=The Washington Post|page=B12}}</ref> and Edith France Riversmith, who volunteered with the [[Christianity|Christian church]] and social causes.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|url=https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/R/ROGERS,-Edith-Nourse-(R000392)/|title=Rogers, Edith Nourse|website=History, Art, & Archives: United States House of Representatives|access-date=October 22, 2019}}</ref> Both parents were from old [[New England]] families, and were able to have their daughter privately tutored until she was fourteen. Edith Nourse then attended and graduated from [[Rogers Hall School]], a private [[boarding school]] for girls in [[Lowell, Massachusetts]], and then Madame Julien's School, a [[finishing school]] at [[Neuilly-sur-Seine|Neuilly]] near Paris, France.<ref name=":2">{{cite news|title=Edith Nourse Rogers, 79, Dies; Served in Congress 35 Years|date=September 11, 1960|work=The New York Times|page=82}}</ref>

Like her mother, she volunteered with the church and other charities. In 1907, she married [[John Jacob Rogers]], newly graduated from [[Harvard Law School]], who passed the [[bar (law)|bar]] and began practicing in Lowell in the same year. In 1911, he started his career in [[politics]], becoming involved in the city government, and the next year he became the school commissioner. In 1912 he was elected as a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] to the [[Sixty-third United States Congress|63rd United States Congress]] as the Representative from the 5th District of Massachusetts, and began service in [[Washington, D.C.]] on March 13, 1913.

[[World War I]] soon broke out. In 1917, John Rogers, as a member of the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]], traveled to the [[United Kingdom]] and [[France]] to observe the conditions of the war firsthand. He remained a Congressman during his brief enlistment as a [[private (rank)|private]] in an [[artillery]] training [[battalion]], the 29th Training Battery, 10th Training Battalion, Field Artillery, Fourth Central Officers' Training School from September 2, 1918, until his [[honorable discharge]] on November 29, 1918.

During this period, Edith Rogers volunteered with the Young Men's Christian Association ([[YMCA]]) in London for a short time, then from 1917 to 1922 as a "Gray Lady" with the [[American Red Cross]] in France and with the [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center]] in Washington, D.C. This was the start of what became a lifelong commitment to veterans. She also witnessed the conditions faced by women employees and volunteers working with the [[United States armed forces]]; with the exception of a few [[nurse]]s, they were [[civilian]]s, and received no benefits including no housing, no food, no [[insurance]], no [[medicine|medical care]], no legal protection, no [[pension]]s, and no compensation for their families in cases of death. In contrast, the women in the [[British Army]] loaned to the [[American Expeditionary Force]] (AEF) in France were military, with the attendant benefits and responsibilities.

At the end of the war, her husband joined the [[American Legion]] veteran's organization, and she joined the auxiliary. Her experience with veteran's issues led [[President of the United States|President]] [[Warren G. Harding]] to appoint her as the inspector of new veterans' hospitals from 1922 to 1923, for $1 [[United States dollar|USD]] a year. She reported on conditions and her appointment was renewed by both the [[Calvin Coolidge|Coolidge]] and [[Herbert Hoover|Hoover]] administrations. Her first experience in politics was serving as an elector in the [[U.S. Electoral College]] during Calvin Coolidge's [[U.S. presidential election, 1924|1924 presidential campaign]].