According to Peabody's sister-in-law, around the time of World War 1 Rose Peabody took a Nurse's Aid course at a Presbyterian Hospital in New York and was then posted to France where, after some general nursing duties, she was appointed to manage an orphanage at Étretat; later she acted as an American Red Cross Searcher for Home Communication Service for Mobile Hospital No.
Again, according to her sister-in-law, she received the Croix de Guerre for bravery under fire.
[2] Rose Peabody married Dr. William Barclay Parsons on 22 March 1919.
Parsons was a surgeon with whom Peabody had trained at the Presnyterian hospital, and with whom she had served in France.
[3] Parsons's New York Time obituary describes her as being in charge of Red Cross volumnteers in the North Atlantic aea during World War II.