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This collection primarily concerns Clara Louise Walde Lawrence's career as a nurse in the period before, during, and after World War I. Materials in the collection include correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs and negatives, pamphlets, medical supplies, and other publications. Most of the correspondence, photographs, and publications relate to either WWI or nursing. Notable correspondents include a letter from Julia Cherney (Bateman) to Clara Walde while serving as a missionary in China. Other items of interest include a 1763 Boston Gazette as well as several 19th century American newspapers. The collection also includes Lawrence's Veterans Administration account books from the 1930s.

This journal begins in Hartford, CT when Sarah Ballard begins her training to become a teacher. She writes almost exclusively about visiting local schools and of lectures she hears related to the teaching profession. Much of the first portion of her journal is dedicated to understanding different teaching philosophies. She details her approaches to teaching arithmetic, spelling, singing, and grammar. She also addressing religion and attending church services. Ballard gives some description of her area near Hartford and mentions visiting the Athanaeum and Charter Oak. She also writes about the establishment of a "Deaf and Dumb Asylum". The second part of the journal is written 8 years after the first and picks up as Ballard departs from Boston for San Francisco via sea travel. She records her arduous and foul weather journey which added immense time to her travel around Cape Horn. She mentioned many marine animals that she saw including penguins, porpoises, whales, and sharks and comments often on the length of time of her journey. Her last entry in the journal is a comment regarding the dwindling water supply on board the ship.