In continuing its mission to take history out of the textbooks by honoring a local veteran each month of the school year, the Hampton Bays School District is paying tribute to Lilla Shattuck by flying an American flag in her honor throughout the month of March.
“The Hampton Bays School District is proud to honor Mrs. Shattuck for her service to the United States,” said Superintendent Lars Clemensen.
The American flag was raised for Mrs. Shattuck during a ceremony at Hampton Bays Elementary School on March 20. During the event, middle school students read essays and spoke of Mrs. Shattuck’s service during World War II. Also in attendance were Congressman Lee Zelden and Southampton Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, who presented Shattuck with a proclamation.
Mrs. Shattuck, a Hampton Bays resident who was born in Ohio in 1919, grew up in central Alabama and Cuba, where she was homeschooled by her mother. After graduation, her family moved back to the United States, and Shattuck enrolled in the nursing program at the Women’s & Children’s Hospital in Toledo, graduating as a nurse in 1941.
It wasn’t long before World War II broke out, and Mrs. Shattuck decided that she wanted to serve her country. She enlisted and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the medical corp. Assigned to the Seymour-Johnson Air Field Hospital in North Carolina, Mrs. Shattuck repeatedly asked to be assigned overseas, but she remained in North Carolina through the war. It was there that Mrs. Shattuck met her first husband, Sgt. Paul Behrmann. They were married at the end of the war and had a son, Paul Jr. in 1945.
After the war, the family moved to Stony Brook, where Mrs. Shattuck continued to work as a nurse and in 1963, they moved to Bayport and soon after to Hampton Bays. In 1967, Paul Sr. passed away at the age of 58 and in 1970, Shattuck married Lewis Shattuck. The pair was married for more than 30 years. Lewis passed away in 2001 at the age of 101.
Mrs. Shattuck now lives with her son and spends her days at the senior center in Hampton Bays.