She served as a nurse in California and Mississippi, before being stationed at the American hospital at Rimaucourt, France.

The efforts to identify Heffernan and return the bracelet were the subject of a 2017 film documentary which first aired in January of 2018.

[6]: 124  She arrived to find Shelby in a state of emergency, with 240 patients and facing shortages of both supplies and staff.

[2][4][5] After the First World War, Heffernan continued her career in the Army Nurse Corps at stations in the U.S., China, the Philippines, and Hawai'i.

The bracelet was found in 2002 by an eight-year-old in a garden in Rimaucourt, who asked his teacher for help in locating the owner and their family.

[3] The search initially started in the US, as Heffernan was believed to be American, but where ancestry records showed that no-one of that name was born in the years 1880 or 1881.

[2][4][5][7] The return of the bracelet was filmed, and the search was covered in a French language documentary Josephine H by France 2, which first aired in January of 2018.