Nora Saltonstall attended school in Paris after graduating from the Winsor School in 1911. When the war began in 1914, France was neither unfamiliar to her nor was the fate of the country something just happening half a world away. By late 1914, Saltonstall was sewing night clothes for the soldiers, working at fund-raisers for the Belgian relief and the Red Cross, and rolling bandages, eventually becoming a leader in women's volunteer war work. She sailed for France in October 1917 to serve as a volunteer. She worked first at finding housing for refugees and assisting at canteens set up as places of respite for the soldiers. As revealed in her letters, she did not find this work to be satisfying and arranged for a transfer to a dispensary run by the American Red Cross. She quickly found this work also to be less than challenging and accepted an invitation to join a mobile surgical hospital run by the French Medical Corps, where she ended up managing supplies and driving both the wounded and the personnel, as well as assisting with nursing duties when needed. It appears that her background and social status helped her to make the necessary connections to move around so easily.