Lt. Catherine (Titus) & John J. Landers Family Fund

The Lt. Catherine (Titus) Landers Fund for Nursing was established by her family, in loving memory of Lt. Catherine (Titus) Landers, to continue her support of higher education, and with the stated preference that the scholarship be renewable, and awarded to an aspiring nursing student.

Lt. Landers was born in Melrose in August 1920 and was the eldest of seven children. For most of her life Catherine resided in Wakefield and graduated from Wakefield High School in 1938. She then attended and graduated from Melrose Hospital School of Nursing as a Registered Nurse in 1942. Catherine joined the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant during World War II and after training in Texas, she boarded the Queen Elizabeth, now a U.S. troop carrier, for England. After D-Day, she followed the soldiers to France where she ran a ward in a field hospital outside of Paris. For her service in the European African Middle Eastern Theatre Campaign, she was awarded the Bronze Star and was later promoted to First Lieutenant.

Following the death of her husband John in 1975, Catherine established the Landers Family Fund Scholarship at the Citizens’ Scholarship Foundation of Wakefield to honor her late husband and his cousin, Miss Katherine Landers, an elementary school teacher in Wakefield.

For more than 100 years the Landers family has lived in Wakefield. Miss Margaret Landers was an elementary school teacher in Wakefield for some 32 years. Her cousin John (husband of Catherine) was a local storyteller and lover of boating on Lake Quannapowitt. The family members were staunch believers in higher education and wished to contribute significantly to helping others achieve that goal. Catherine’s son, Jay (John J. Landers Jr.) is a vibrant mover and shaker of the local chapter. He has served as President, Auditor and is currently Treasurer of The Scholarship Foundation of Wakefield. Jay is a member of the Citizens Scholarship Foundation National Honor Roll and was a player at the national level at Scholarship America.