It had only been two months since the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when Agnes came into the world on Oct. 20, 1920, born to Roderick and Hattie Troxell. Her mother was one of the first American women to exercise her right to vote, which had taken nearly a century for suffragettes to accomplish. (The couple later divorced and Hattie married Earl Best.)

Emmaus resident Agnes Troxell Paist just accomplished another major milestone in her long and productive life on Oct. 20, 2020 when she became a newly-minted centenarian. Paist still lives in the Macungie Avenue home she and her husband, Dr. Wistar B. Paist, bought in 1959.

The retired nurse is the mother of two adult children, Debra, a retired administrative law judge and Dr. Wistar Jr., a retired dentist and grandmother to one.

Born in Allentown, Paist enrolled in the Allentown Hospital School of Nursing after gradu ating from William Allen in 1938.

“All I remember is wanting to be a nurse,” Paist remarked. Her close friend and nursing school classmate was Anna Mae V. McCabe Hays, the first woman in the U.S. armed forces to be promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. They both graduated in 1941.

Shortly after earning their nursing diplomas, Paist and Hays entered the U.S. Army Nursing Corps. Although they were stationed in different countries, they remained friends until Hayes died in 2018.

Paist journeyed by train to Camp Claiborne, La., where she learned how to treat wounds specific to casualties of war, including treating “jungle rot.”

Jungle rot or tropical ulcer is a chronic ulcerative skin lesion.

In addition to medical training, there was firearms training. Paist quipped when she aimed the rifle one direction, the bullet went another.

Paist also learned about racism.

“The nurse I got was a ‘true southerner.’ She had a ward full of black soldiers. She would never set foot in that ward until the doctor came around to make his rounds. Then she would go through,” Paist remembered. Since this nurse ignored her African-American charges, Paist would tend to them. “To be a patient was a patient, regardless of the color of their skin,” Paist reflected.

Paist transferred to the Army Air Force base at Clovis, N. M. Her first overseas posting was in New Guinea where she worked in a hospital tent in the jungle. It was here Paist became experienced in the use of maggots to eat flesh infected with gangrene. The fly larva would stop eating when they got to healthy tissue.

Paist was reassigned from New Guinea to the Philippines on a hospital ship. She was part of the first contingent of U.S. nurses to be sent to the recaptured territory. Those aboard the harrowing night cruise were cautioned to keep their voices down as they sailed close to enemy-held islands. While gliding past, they could view flickering campfires and overhear conversations spoken in Japanese.

Having reached their destination, the nurses climbed down cargo nets from the deck of the hospital ship to the transport vessels waiting below.

“I was scared to death, because I didn’t like heights,” Paist admitted. They were soon ferried ashore.

After securing a bed in a tent city at San Fabian, each nurse dug a foxhole for shelter from bombing raids. This is near where Gen. Douglas MacArthur had first landed when he fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines.

Paist was later sent to Manila to where the staff established a hospital inside a convent school building. Although the structure was in better shape than most of the battle-ravaged capital city, there was much to clean up before it could be used as a ward.

“They [the Japanese soldiers] used the closets in the school as lavatories,” Paist sighed.

After returning home from the war, Paist attended Cedar Crest College. She met her future husband, Wistar on a blind date while he was studying as a pre-dental major at nearby Muhlenberg College. Her Army veteran date had served as a courier in the Pacific Theater.

They married Dec. 26, 1947.

The couple attended the University of Pennsylvania where Wistar earned his D.D.S. and Agnes graduated with honors as an R.N. She later taught nursing at the college level, but quit to devote her time to raising her children and assisting with her husband’s dental practice.

Both husband and wife were avid readers and heavily involved in community service.

Agnes Paist is still active with the Emmaus Women’s Club, where she served as president from 1968 to 1969 and the American Association of University Women. Her husband died in 2019 at age 99.

Not one to ever miss exercising her right to vote, Paist had already sent in her mail-in ballot.