Death and burial of Annie G. Fox

On January 20, 1987, Major Annie Gayton Fox died in San Francisco, California, at the age of 93.¹ Her death marked the close of a life that had spanned from the late Victorian era through two world wars and into the modern U.S. veterans’ movement. She was buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery, a military burial ground that underscores her status as a career Army nurse and decorated World War II veteran.¹

By the time of her death, Fox’s role in history—as the chief nurse at Hickam Field during the Pearl Harbor attack and the first woman of the World War II era to receive the Purple Heart—had begun to be formally recognized in historical accounts and veterans’ commemorations.¹ Her burial among other servicemembers reflects the institutional esteem in which she was held, even though women of her generation often received less public attention than their male counterparts.

Fox spent her retirement years in northern California, living through a period when scholarship and public memory surrounding Pearl Harbor were expanding.⁵ As narratives of the attack increasingly incorporated the experiences of nurses and other support personnel, her wartime service gained new visibility. Her death prompted renewed attention to documents and testimonies that preserved the details of her leadership on December 7, 1941.

For women’s history, January 20, 1987 is not only a biographical endpoint but also a reminder of the long arc of recognition for women’s military contributions. Only decades later did historians and institutions such as the National Archives and veterans’ organizations highlight Fox’s pioneering combat decoration and her role in transforming perceptions of Army nurses.² Her grave in San Francisco National Cemetery now serves as a tangible site of memory for a woman whose career bridged early twentieth-century nursing and the modern professionalization and valorization of women in the armed forces.