The papers of Helen C. Bulovsky are divided into two series: Papers and Photographs.
Papers (1917-2001) contains materials relating to the World War I service of Bulovsky. Letters written home to her parents and siblings constitute the largest portion of this series. Bulovsky began writing letters home while still training in New Jersey and continued throughout her service in Europe. Her letters reveal a woman who is both a little frightened and homesick, while at the same time exhilarated by the world-shattering events happening right in front of her. Bulovsky discusses service in a field hospital near the front lines and the wounded soldiers, both friend and foe, who come before her. She describes twelve-hour days of standing and bending over patients, of nights interrupted by artillery and airplane fire, and of wet and muddy medical tents. In the same letters she often chides her family for not writing her more often, muses about young doctors and soldiers she's met, and asks for news from home. Also included is a diary kept during the year 1918. There are large gaps in it, but entries describe her time on the East Coast just before going over to Europe and service near the front lines with Evacuation Hospital No. 5. The biographical materials include “Behind the Trenches,” Bulovsky's own account of her wartime experiences, and short pieces written by two of her descendants. Service records show her movements during the war as well as her rate of pay. The obituaries give a sense of the regard in which she was held by the city of Madison. Bulovsky traced the route of her wartime movements on two separate maps of Europe. The ephemeral items include a complete set of humorous British war postcards called “Sketches of Tommy's Life.” The scrapbook, though unidentified, appears to have been given to Bulovsky by a male friend/admirer, probably at the beginning of the war.
Photographs (1914-1919) contains over fifty photographs and a photo scrapbook relating to Bulovsky's nursing career and military service. The scrapbook contains numerous photographs of Bulovsky with fellow nurses and doctors at Madison General Hospital, where she received her training before the war. Along with these photographs are words and sentences cut out from periodicals, usually humorous, that help describe the pictures. The majority of the individual photographs also focus on Bulovsky's nursing career. The series contains shots of her in her Army Nurse Corps uniform and in civilian dress, photos of fellow Army Nurse Corps members, and candids of members of her family, including a picture of Bulovsky's sisters wearing the German helmets and holding swords that she sent home as souvenirs. A photograph taken on her return trip to the United States shows the welcoming sight of the Statue of Liberty.
Also included is a photo CD of scanned images contained in a separate scrapbook of Helen Bulovsky. The images show Bulovsky and fellow nurses in Europe as well as soldiers in bunkers. There are many images that show damage to buildings from combat as well as causalities. The scanned images on the photo CD were taken from original photographs and ephemera contained in another scrapbook of Helen Bulovsky. This particular scrapbook, which documents her time during WWI in Europe, is not in the possession of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. This collection does contain a scrapbook of Bulovsky that documents her time at the Madison General Hospital where she trained to be a nurse.
