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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/af604db20cfe3806af1b93256d640371.mp4
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/de441a6fc56fbdccf26c3c236fa707b6.pdf
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Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II - WAC
Mae Johnson
Interviewed by James Smither
Length of Interview: 29:14
(00:02)
JS: We’re talking with Mae Johnson of Greenville, Michigan and the interviewer is James
Smither, of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Mrs. Johnson, can you
start with some background on yourself. Where and when were you born?
MJ: I was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, July 14th, 1919. I grew up there, went to school.
Graduated from Leavenworth. Not the prison, the college…the high school. And then, at that
time, some of the guys from school were being sent into the Army or the Navy and the girls
wanted to keep them happy, so we would join a club and write to them as often as we could.
And send them goodies and stuff.
(00:56)
JS: Now do you remember that year you graduated from high school?
MJ: ’37.
JS: So after you graduated, did you go to work, or stay at home, or what did you do?
MJ: I stayed home and earned some money, because I wanted to learn to be a nurse. So when I
got enough money, I went to nursing school. And I was almost through the complete course, a
three year course, and I got sick and I was out so long that I couldn’t possibly make up the time,
so that was the end of that.
JS: Now, where did you attend nursing school?
MJ: It was in Greenwich, Connecticut.
JS: Okay. And then, once you got sick and you couldn’t catch up, what did you do after that?
MJ: Let’s see. I did a lot of baby-sitting jobs. And then I went to work, at that time it was
called the Waterbury Clock Company. We held hands and made faces. (laughs) And we made
parts for gyroscopes. So we knew what we were getting into at that time. I worked there for
quite a while.
(02:20)
MJ: And then one of my best girlfriends had a sister who lived in California. She was a nurse.
And we had enough money saved up so the two of us took the train and went out to California
�and stayed out there until we ran out of money. We had to go to work out there, so we got a job
at the Bethlehem Steel Company.
JS: Now, where were you when Pearl Harbor happened?
MJ: I think I was at home, in ’41. I must have been at home, cause I was with my dad. I
remember that.
JS: Home in Connecticut, at that point. All right. And when did you go out to California, then?
(03:00)
MJ: I can’t remember. There’s that time element…I can’t keep it straighten out.
JS: But the war’s going on at the time that you go out there.
MJ: Right.
JS: So you go and you work for the steel company. And what were you doing for them?
MJ: Oh, I don’t remember. It was something for the military, but I can’t exactly remember. I
know…should I say that, Ed? Is it a bad word? (speaks to someone on her right) No, it isn’t
really a bad word…really. I had a job working with a bastard file. And I had never heard of that
before. And I was real close with my dad, and I knew all of his tools, but I never recalled that he
had one of those things. Oh…that was fun. And we both stayed there until we could make
enough money to get back to Waterbury again. (laughs). But, I remember what fun it was on the
train. I mean, it was a real train, not like Amtrak. But it was fun, mostly it was a mixture of
military people, going back and forth.
(04:07)
MJ: I remember one time, too, that we almost missed the train because we went out to get some
goodies, and we pretty near didn’t make it… but… While we were out in California, that was
great. Because there was so much to see back then, that was free. And I think I should tell you
the story about my girl-friend…she was really naughty. We went to Chinatown one night…
JS: So, San Francisco?
MJ: Yeah. With the little bit of money that we had, and we went to the restroom. And when we
came out, everybody in the place was laughing their heads off. And come to find out, I had a
piece of toilet tissue that was trailing on my shoe. And I never did forgive her for that, for not
telling me that. But we had a really good, a really good time. We had a chance, one time while
we were out there, to go to Alcatraz, cause her sister knew somebody that was working on the
boat or something. But we just missed it by a day.
(05:17)
MJ: But, you know, you see things on tv and it brings back memories, which are great. So…
�JS: Okay. So, you had your adventure in California. You come back home to Connecticut.
And then what do you do at that point?
MJ: And then at that point, after having seen all the military, and having worked in the
Bethlehem Steel, I guess I became over-patriotic. I said, oh gee, I guess I’ll join the service. So
I did.
(05:45)
JS: Now how did that wind up working? Was there a recruiting office nearby that you go to?
Or what happened?
MJ: I didn’t hear you…
JS: What’s the process? How do you end up enlisting in the WACs?
MJ: Well, I had to go and enlist. And I think that was in New Haven, Connecticut, if I
remember correctly. And, of course, I was accepted. And they give you all of your gear, all that
stuff. And I was sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. For the basic training. I was not there all that
long. Just enough to learn all the… I do remember that while I was there, I didn’t like the soil
that they had there. It was that red clay. And it was a heck of a job, trying to keep your shoes
clean. And of course, you had that spot inspection. Get points off if you had a grain of that little
red clay on your shoe.
(06:40)
JS: So what did they have you do, in basic training?
MJ: Oh, my. We had a lot of PE. And marching. Marching, marching. Lots of school work.
You know, the same learning as the guys do, basic things. I remember that one of my fears was
that while we were marching, I would become out of step. And we had to put on a rear view
parade performance for a big general, one time. And I thought, of my goodness, is it going to be
me that’s going to make a misstep? I can’t remember for sure, but I think it was General
Marshall.
JS: That’s quite possible.
MJ: And, of course, I didn’t know him from Adam, at the time. Yeah, I was there at Fort
Oglethorpe for just a short time. And then they sent me to Hot Springs, Arkansas. To a huge
Army/Navy General Hospital, that had been previously been a luxurious hotel.
JS: Right. Cause you had the health spa there with the hot springs.
(07:53)
MJ: Right. And those were…I have to tell the truth, I never, cause I never did get into one of
the spas. But we called it “Million Dollar Row” back then, and we would walk by. The hospital
was at the top of the hill. You could overlook the city. Um, I remember one time that they were
giving us some kind of a drill, and they were using a hose to put out a fire, a pretend fire. Of
�course, they turn the water on. I can remember one girl, she was trying to hold the hose down. It
jumped up in the air and she almost went flying. (laughs) It was comical, but…
JS: Was this like one of those big, kind of canvas fire hose? Very big, a lot of pressure, just
bounce around…
MJ: Everybody was just laughing their heads off, it was just really fun.
(08:48)
JS: Now what was your job at Hot Springs?
MJ: Actually, it was doing everything except the charting. For the…the nurses did all the
charting. And the nurses dispensed all the medication. But the technicians actually gave them
out to the patients. So, you know, it was just routine. Temperature, pulse and respiration.
JS: Did you have a particular ward or part of the hospital that you were assigned to?
MJ: It was called the surgical…actually, on my record, it says “Surgical and Medical
Technician,” so there was a combination of both of them there. But, um, we did just about
everything. You’d never catch a nurse emptying a bedpan, I’ll tell you that. You know how that
goes, don’t you?
(09:46)
JS: Now were the nurses officers at this point?
MJ: Yeah. All officers.
JS: So you’re the enlisted people. You do the dirty work.
MJ: Yeah. We did the dirty work. Which is par for the course, isn’t it?
JS: Okay. And, I don’t know…what was daily life like there?
MJ: Well, it was quite an adjustment getting used to living with so many girls. And sharing
small quarters, really. Coming back to Fort Oglethorpe, though, I can remember how naïve I
was. When they asked for volunteers to do something, and I volunteered for kitchen patrol. And
part of it was cleaning out a grease pit. The other part was peeling potatoes. And that was
before the, you know, automatic peelers.
JS: Right.
(10:38)
MJ: Yeah. Oh, golly. It was fun at the Army/Navy General, but you know, when I first got
there and looked at all those guys, and thought, I don’t know if I can really stand it, cause it was
just overwhelming. You know, when you see the devastation to their bodies. But, truthfully, it
�was the vets themselves that bolstered us. Which is surprising. So we both learned along the
way.
(11:16)
MJ: So then after Hot Springs, then they sent me to Fort Sheridan, to the base hospital there.
And that wasn’t exciting, quite so exciting until you know when… (smiles). I walked in one day
and they had just brought back a bunch of guys that came back from overseas. And I saw this
one person in particular, and I said to my girlfriend…I have to chuckle every time I think of
this…well, I said, I’m going to take that guy home with me. I said, you can have the rest of
them. I’ll take him home.
(11:54)
JS: Now in his account of things, he had kind of a foul temper at that point.
MJ: He did. But he was a charmer. He didn’t really have to say anything, to be honest. I really
and truly meant that, that I wanted it to, you know, get to be a lasting friendship. So…what else
can I tell you about that…
JS: Well,
MJ: He finally warmed up, how about that?
JS: He must have. Now, what did your duties consist of? Were you doing the same kind of
work at Fort Sheridan as you had in the other place?
(12:27)
MJ: Yeah. Of course, it was a smaller…a much smaller base.
JS: Now did you get there before the war in Europe ended?
MJ: Right, um hmm.
JS: Okay. So you got there early ’45, maybe?
MJ: The war ended in ’45.
JS: Right. And before they started to bring these guys back from Europe, this was just people
on the base who got sick, that you dealt with? Cause it was the base hospital, or did they already
have patients?
MJ: No, we always took care of the ones that they brought back.
(13:03)
JS: Now, what kind of accommodations did you have at Fort Sheridan?
MJ: We had barracks. Bunk beds.
�JS: How many women would they put together in a room, in these places?
MJ: You know, I’ve been trying to think of that. You mean, like for sleeping quarters?
JS: Yeah.
MJ: I really don’t remember. But I’d say maybe thirty or forty.
JS: Now, when you decided to join the WACs, what did your parents think of that?
(13:34)
MJ: Well, maybe they were happy to get me out of the house, to tell you the truth. (laughs)
Because I was about twenty, twenty four.
JS: Twenty-five, yeah.
MJ: So I think they were…they were happy. My dad had been in the Navy, so…I should tell
you that actually I wanted to join the Marines, because I thought the Marines had a more exciting
life. And their uniforms were nicer looking, and you know, once a Marine, always a Marine.
(laughs) And I couldn’t make it. And I ate carrots, until carrots came out of my…
JS: But you couldn’t pass their physical?
MJ: I couldn’t pass just the eyes. Just the eyes.
JS: The eye test.
MJ: So, I settled for the Army. But, Fort Sheridan was an interesting place, because Lake
Michigan was right there. We had a few little walks on the beach, there. And we were close
enough to Chicago so that we could go there for all the cultural activities. And I really learned a
lot. I mean, I came from a small town, what I thought back then, was 100,000 people.
Waterbury. But then when you get close to Chicago and see the mass of people…
(14:59)
JS: So you didn’t, like from Waterbury, you didn’t get on a train and go into New York City,
particularly?
MJ: Oh, New York City was our…we spent a lot of money in New York City.
JS: Okay. So you had that kind of experience before.
MJ: One of the…one thing about going to New York City was… of course, we had to keep
scrounging for our money so we had enough to get there. But anyhow, there were five girls in
that one particular group that I hung around with, and we went one day, and we were going to do
so much, and one of the girls said, let’s go to the opera. So, I had no idea what the opera was
�like at that point. So I said, okay, let’s go. So just before we went to the opera, there were some
vendors on the street, selling orchids. No…yeah, orchids. Twenty-five cents. So well, we
thought, we can spend twenty-five cents to have a corsage. So we did that and we thought we
were really bigwigs, you know. That was fun.
(16:16)
MJ: And, at Fort Sheridan, all kinds of things to go to. I really liked it there. One of the nice
things about Chicago was, or an unusual thing, was riding on the North Shore Line. They had a
pot-bellied stove, I can remember, on that train. So when I went to visit Ed, when he was at the
Veterans Hospital, that was in Waukesha, Wisconsin, so I’d get on the train at Fort Sheridan and
ride to Milwaukee. And pick up and go to the Veterans Hospital.
JS: So they had sent him from Fort Sheridan up to Waukesha, for the recuperation period?
MJ: Yeah.
JS: Okay, yeah.
MJ: Yeah. There were so many things to go to. But everything was free back then.
(17:06)
JS: Now what did you like to do in Chicago?
MJ: I liked to go to the museums. Because in Waterbury we didn’t have any. We had smaller
ones, but nothing like there.
JS: Yeah, cause Chicago at that point already had the Field museum, they had the aquarium.
The Art Institute was down there, and so forth, yeah.
MJ: I remember one time they gave us tickets to the football game at Northwestern.
JS: Okay.
MJ: That was fun. I don’t think I watched the game. I watched all the people around me. But,
oh my golly, I can’t think. The food in Chicago was so good. Chinese. You acquainted with the
Palmer House in Chicago? That was one of our…when we thought we were such big shots back
then, too. Going to the Palmer House. (shakes head) That was fun. Um, I can’t remember what
else. All the things that people pay to go see, nowadays. The Aquariums…oh, golly. I can still
picture walking the street.
(18:27)
MJ: There was one place there, I can’t remember the name of the hotel, it was right on the main
drag, I don’t even remember the name of that main drag anymore.
JS: Michigan Avenue?
�MJ: Michigan Avenue. And there was one big hotel there, and any service person that came in
there had free room and board. So that really paid off. There were several of us stayed there
several nights, you know, over the course of our time there. So…
(19:05)
JS: So now eventually, you meet this fellow, and you decide to get married. Um, you tell your
parents at the last minute…
MJ: Did we have to go back a little bit? How did that go? Oh, I know now what I’m thinking.
He proposed and at the time, he smoked all these cigarettes. So, I said, no way. I’m not
marrying any man that’s going to smoke a cigarette and put…
JS: That’s the other part of the quitting smoking story, then? (laughter) Cause in his version, he
just had a bet with a priest. (laughter) So he didn’t switch right away.
MJ: I don’t know which came first.
JS: Well, the priest was on the ship coming back from Europe.
MJ: Oh, oh oh!
JS: All right. Now this is why you talk to two people.
(19:56)
MJ: I had not heard that story, truthfully. But, I guess he picked me over the cigarettes. It paid
off, didn’t it?
JS: Yep. Yep. Still here.
MJ: Oh, dear. So, we decided then, we’d get married at the [unclear] Chapel. And we had to let
our parents know. And my folks came from Waterbury and his folks came from Greenville.
And everybody met the night before the wedding. Which was, you know, when I look back on it
now, it’s really comical. Wondering if, gee, I wonder if she’ll like me. But, at 23 or 24 years
old, who cares. I mean, you’re your own guys then. So we had a military wedding right there at
the chapel. Not a big one, but everybody came.
(20:56)
MJ: One funny part of that was my dad and I, like I said, we were always so close, and we were
standing back in the entrance way of the church, and the music kept playing “Here Comes the
Bride.” And my dad and I kept talking and talking. I don’t know how many times they played
it. And Ed tells me, he thought he was being jilted, at the time. (laughter) But finally, I
realized, gosh, I guess we better get a-going, so we walked down. And I can remember
afterwards, Ed telling me he asked the minister, “what am I supposed to do?” (laughter) And
the minister said, just stand there. Just say “I do” when you have to.
JS: Okay. Now were you still in the WACs at that point?
�(21:46)
MJ: Yeah.
JS: And then, did they make you leave once you got married?
MJ: No. No, I stayed until, let’s see, what was it? We were married in October. I don’t know.
It must have been November or December. I think we were home for Christmas, weren’t we?
Here? For Christmas?
JS: So basically, you were able to stay in until it was time for you and him to go?
MJ: Right.
(22:25)
JS: Now were there other pieces of your family story that he left out that you want to get in?
Cause how many kids did you have?
MJ: When we came back, after we were married and came back here, our first son was born in
1949. And we lived here at the time. And then Ed started college, and while at college, our son
Bruce was born, 1951. But over the years, we kept track of all their sports, you know, like all
good parents do, and go to PTAs and all that sort of thing. And, I’m losing track of all my
thoughts. They’re getting all confused.
(23:14)
JS: But there was a story about Bruce you wanted to…
MJ: Yeah. Bruce, his son graduated from high school last year. And one of the big joys of his
life was going to Alaska with his son, to fish. But previous to that, Bruce and Justin went three
or four times to Canada, to get together, just the three of them. Which was three generations,
which I thought was just super. And they did all their fishing up there. They have stories to tell.
So both boys were really active. We’re really happy. And we have three grandchildren. And
expecting another one, hopefully. Other than that, I don’t know…
(24:23)
MJ: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. When we were married at Fort Sheridan, of course, they had
a reception for us. And they came out with this big beautiful wedding cake. And, come to find
out, it was made by a German prisoner of war. Who was one of the cooks, one of the p.o.w’s.
And, Ed didn’t know about that until several months later. He probably would have thrown up at
the thought of it. But that was interesting.
JS: Yeah. Cause a lot of the guys talk about coming back and they’ll go to a meal around one of
the big camps in New York, and the meals were all being served by German p.o.w.’s. Did you
yourself see much of the Germans on Fort Sheridan? Were you aware of them on the base, or
did you not…?
�(25:11)
MJ: The p.o.w.’s?
JS: Yeah.
MJ: We had a lot of them there. We had the…what did they call them? The S.S. troops. We
had the bigwigs there. And, I don’t know. I didn’t seem to be frightened of them, but just the
thought of them being there… Of course, they had to toe the mark. They were watched
constantly. I often wondered what happened to them. Because it would be the same as P.o.w.’s
over there. But…but quite a difference, because the German prisoners were really treated well.
When they weren’t overseas.
(25:57)
JS: Well, some of them just stayed. They all had the chance to go home, and some of them
found a way to stay in this country and are still here.
MJ: I’m sure there are quite a few…
JS: But they’re less likely to be the S.S. guys, though, than the regulars. But that was…and we
were using them for farm work here in Michigan. They were all over the place.
MJ: Yes. I think they probably went to farms. But am interesting, an interesting…
JS: All right. Now think back to the time that you spent with the WACs, whether in Arkansas or
at Fort Sheridan. Are there any other kind of particular things that kind of stick in your head,
about that? Either individual people or things that happened to you?
(26:47)
MJ: I can remember one particular time that I got really close to a patient who had been in some
kind of a wreck. And her face was just about shattered. And I was assigned to just take care of
her. And I was with her just constantly, you know, for the whole shift. And I had to keep
putting compresses on her face. Soothing her and trying to help her emotionally, and I remember
her name. She was a lieutenant. Lieutenant Edith Rittenberg. And she was a wonderful
wonderful lady. And she made it, she finally recovered. She didn’t recover there, but she went,
I think she went to some big hospital out west. That was one where I felt like I was really doing
good.
(27:56)
MJ: But at the Army/Navy General Hosptial, I can still picture those guys. That was
heartbreaking. And that was just one small segment of the war. You think of the nurses that
were overseas and had to do all that hard work. Tirelessly. They were on their feet constantly.
JS: But in those days, it took a very long time to recover from wounds. And men would be in
bed for months and months and months at a time, and somebody had to look after them and take
care of them, so that went on for a long time.
�MJ: Right. I was really happy that I went into the service. It’s just that the best part of it for me
was meeting Ed.
(28:38)
JS: Did you find that having had that nursing training was helpful to you when you became a
technician?
MJ: Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially for the classwork. So. There’s so many terms that you
better be familiar with, that you better be on your toes or out you go, you know. But I was really
disappointed that I couldn’t finish nurse’s training. But it just wasn’t to be, so…
JS: Okay. Well, in the end, you came out pretty well.
MJ: Very well. Very well.
JS: I’d just like to thank you for taking your time to add your story to the collection.
(29:14)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-27_JohnsonM1348V
Title
A name given to the resource
Johnson, Mae (Interview transcript and video), 2012
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-02-08
Description
An account of the resource
Mae Johnson was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1919. She graduated from Leavenworth High School in 1937 and eventually went to nursing school. Because she could not finish nursing school, Mae traveled to California with a friend. After visiting California, she decided she would enlist in Woman's Army Corps (WAC) in New Haven, Connecticut. She was then sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for basic training. After basic training, Mae was sent to Hot Springs, Arkansas where she worked in a hospital as she was assigned to the Surgical and Medical Wards. Once she was finished in Arkansas in early 1945, she was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois where she maintained a similar position as before. While at Fort Sheridan she met her future husband and met many German POWs.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Johnson, Mae
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Format
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video/mp4
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
World War II
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/338e1d24bebbd40d093348dde410d42c.m4v
d62298c92a758cced9a7e9af724fa810
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4491a151ff55d0293c5c507018d3a8a1.pdf
faa52dfcabdde6f5f8ce480fb2c0719d
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II
Jane Breidenfield
Length of interview: (38:20)
(00:15) Early Life
(00:20) Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on August 23, 1921
(00:30) She grew up in Grand Rapids and her father was a carpenter who made cabinets
for ice cream stores. Eventually he was forced to work for the WPA (Works Progress
Administration). He would eventually become the president of his carpenters union.
(2:00) Jane went to Union High school and graduated in 1939. Before and after
graduation she worked and managed a dairy store.
(4:30) She learned a lot about world events from her father’s conversations. She
remembers the shock of Pearl Harbor because her brother, who was in the army, was
stationed in the area.
(5:30) Enlistment and Training
(5:40) In 1943, she was walking by a recruiting station and decided to enlist in the
Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC).
(6:30) Jane was never asked what section she wanted to be in, they would put her where
she was needed.
(7:30) After taking a train from Grand Rapids to Chicago, she was taken to Fort
Oglethorpe, Georgia for training. There were several train cars for men joining the navy
and several for the women; the navy men never entered the women’s cabins
(9:00) When Jane arrived at Fort Oglethorpe, they were given cloths, assignments, and
sleeping quarters
(9:30) The women had to receive various shots and attend classes. Discipline was very
strict during training. Additionally, there were prisoners of war working the grounds; the
women were prohibited from going near the prisoners or talking to them
(11:30) Adjusting to the strict rules wasn’t difficult for Jane. Following orders in the
military was like obeying the rules in school. Few women in Janes group were
troublemakers
(12:00) Military Life in Florida
(12:20) Training lasted a total of six weeks. While Jane was awaiting her assignment, she
had to remain in a bivouac area for a week. She was eventually assigned to Orlando,
Florida. When the women arrived at their station, they would have to decide on whether
or not they would reenlist; Jane did but many of the women she trained with did not
�
(14:30) After she arrived in Orlando, she became a plotter. A plotter placed points on a
large map that detailed flight missions overseas. The information would be sent to
Orlando from the personnel overseas. Most of these were bombing missions in Europe.
(16:40) They received the identification of the plane and its speed through headsets. The
only information the plotters received was related to the plane’s location; if something
went wrong with the mission, she was not told.
(17:50) There were usually four plotters working at once. Jane never attempted to learn
more about the missions she was plotting. Since they were always busy plotting missions,
they never got the chance to look at the officers to tell if they were concerned about the
missions that were being carried out.
(18:50) As the missions progressed, the markers used to plot the missions were moved in
real time.
(20:00) Jane was a plotter for a year and a half until better radar equipment was brought
in to replace the job of the plotters
(20:45) Life in Orlando was rather nice. Jane had a lot of freedom to explore the
surrounding area with the small group of friends that she had.
(21:30) There were two female officers, one colonel and one lieutenant who were in
charge of women such as Jane.
(22:00) The women were allowed to mingle with the men. Much of the social interaction
between the men and women occurred in a nearby beer garden, swimming pool, and
social house.
(23:00) Jane would also go into towns around Orlando and sell war bonds. To do this,
they entertained people by singing, dancing, and acting. (24:30) Jane established a small
children’s group to travel to elementary schools and sing.
(25:30) When the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women’s Army, the
women had to rejoin the service.
(26:00) Her experience with singing and acting was a part of her personal time as well as
her military job. There was a nearby theater where she would partake in various
activities.
(26:45) After her job plotting and selling war bonds ended, Jane became a teletype
operator. There were three shifts that the women rotated between. The most difficult part
of the job was working the 6pm to 12am shift and having to get up early for inspections.
(27:30) Jane began working as a teletype operator before the war ended (middle of 1945
and continued until six months after the war’s end.
(28:20) Jane’s task was to send encoded messages into a room where they were decoded.
After the messages were decoded, the teletype operators sent the messages to Tampa,
Florida and from there they were sent to Washington D.C.
(29:15) Post War Life and Reflections of Service
(29:30) After the war had ended, Jane was still working. Many of the women began to
feel as if they were not needed anymore; when the women finally approached their
commanding officer with their concerns, they were finally released (December 1945)
�
(30:40) After being discharged, Jane returned to Grand Rapids and joined the Army
Reserve
(32:30) Although the reserves consisted mostly of men, Jane never felt like she was
treated differently. This was much better than the way people treated them in Orlando
where people couldn’t accept the women in uniform. However, this negative stigma was
a result of the poor behavior of a small group of women.
(34:00) In regards to racial segregation, Jane was surprised because she had never
experienced it in Michigan. She remembers delivering a message and a young AfricanAmerican man was bowing to her; she felt that she didn’t deserve to be treated any
differently than any other person.
(35:00) Orlando was small compared to what it is today. Jane remembers that there were
several great restaurants and four or five lakes to swim in.
(35:50) When looking back on her experience in the service, she considers it to be some
of the best years of her life. Military life allowed her to be more sociable and tolerating.
Additionally, she learned to accept things that she normally would not.
(37:00) Jane didn’t look for work immediately after leaving the service because she
wanted to be reacquainted with her family. She would later find work in various places.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Veterans History Project
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Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
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1914-
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
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eng
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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RHC-27_BreidenfieldJ1861V
Title
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Breidenfield, Jane H (Interview outline and video), 2015
Date
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2015-07-29
Description
An account of the resource
Jane Breidenfield was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on August 23, 1921. She joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (which would later become the Women's Army Corps) in 1943 and was trained at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Jane spent her term of service in Orlando, Florida where she plotted bombing missions, sold war bonds, and worked as a teletype operator. Selling war bonds allowed Jane to participate in many theater related activities which she enjoyed and often continued in her free time. After the war ended and she was released from her duties in Orlando, Jane returned to Grand Rapids where she joined the Army Reserve.
Creator
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Breidenfield, Jane H.
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
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Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Type
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Text
Moving Image
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/59a7ce8c5b9fb12e59062caaa9e81de0.mp4
e7dc78261994939ff73232b9e3cd1922
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/46446413df1352a1e74cd86bbe6684f1.pdf
2306a2e5478678b186623fe5331710f7
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
BETH SEFTON
Born: May 30, 1921 in Sioux City, Iowa
Resides:
Interviewed by: Frank , Michigan Military Museum
Transcribed by: Claire Herhold, January 29, 2013
Interviewer: Beth, let’s begin with the most basic of things. Where and when were you
born? 1:02:25
I was born in Sioux City, Iowa, May 30th, 1921, so I’m now eighty two years old.
Interviewer: What was your home town like? What was Sioux City like during that time?
Sioux City was a typical Midwestern, all-white, town and so my family was a little bit of an
oddity because my father was Chinese and my mother was English and German and therefore we
were like a black would be to the South in those years. 1:03:22 Except that I think it was more
noticeable because of the fact that we were conscious of it.
Interviewer: Where did you go to school? First off, not high school or anything, but where
did you first go to school?
I first went to school at Irving School. It was just about five blocks from my house and it was a
typical public school. My teachers were wonderful and I had lots of friends. 1:04:00
Interviewer: So you didn’t experience any real problems with the fact that your father was
Chinese at this point?
No, I think a lot of the prejudice was in family stuff, at least until I got into high school.
Interviewer: Well, tell us about what was your high school experience like?
Well, the only problems I had with prejudice there was the fact that some of the mothers were
not happy with the fact that their sons liked me. In fact, one mother kept her son out of school a
half a year so that he would not graduate with us.
�Interviewer: Did you actually personally feel any kind of animosity or did you actually feel
like there was some reason why you were different than the other kids? 1:05:01
No, not with the rest of the population. In fact, I think we were, both my brother and I were very
intelligent, smart kids and so if anything we got preferential treatment.
Interviewer: Did your parents ever sit you down at any time that you can remember and
say that, you know, people out there might treat you differently?
Oh, I think my mother was the cause of that.
Interviewer: Because, you know, it’s very strange to say this but I’m half Russian and
when I first came to America as a child, and of course the Cold War was going on, my
mother sat me down and made sure to say, you know, don’t ever tell anybody you’re
Russian because there might be problems, you know, so I kind of relate to what you’re
saying. In high school then…you graduated from high school. Did you have any idea of
what you wanted to do after high school? 1:06:00
Well, this was the middle of the Depression and our money was limited so it was, and the careers
for women were limited also, so it was either a matter of college or nursing, and nursing was
much more reasonable and much more accessible so I chose nursing.
Interviewer: You know, I think a lot of people today wouldn’t quite understand because
they don’t understand really what a depression is and in a depression your options are so
limited in terms of what you can do. Did nursing cost anything or did you get a
scholarship? How did you actually get the chance to become a nurse? 1:07:00
Well, my, let’s see, it was my brother’s wife had a baby in St. Vincent’s Hospital and I was
impressed with the hospital itself and I know my brother had said to me, “Babe, you better
decide what you want to do.” And so, I looked at the difference, and as far as cost it was very
�reasonable because it was a school of nursing. They did not have colleges at the time that taught
nursing, and so I had to pay, oh I think it was like a hundred dollars for uniforms and things like
that, but most of it was that we worked for our, like what would be tuition, was what we worked.
1:08:21 We worked in the hospital from the time that we were “probies.” We first went in two
hours and then four hours and so that we actually formed the staff of the hospital, and because in
St. Vincent’s there were no interns we really had an excellent education and we still managed to
get all of the subjects in that were taught by doctors and by nurses and by the Briar Cliff College
also. 1:09:01 But it was a do-it-yourself more than now if you want to be a nurse, you have to go
to college.
Interviewer: Two things: what’s a “probie?”
A “probie” is a probationer. Just a short name for a probationer when you start out.
Interviewer: Now you had mentioned there was a college involved. Were you actually
taking classes at any time during the day?
Oh yes, we took classes in the day and in the evenings so beside our work we also had two to
four hours of classes along with it.
Interviewer: Are we picking up that sound? There’s a blower going on? Okay, good.
1:10:00 So what was this experience? Did you enjoy this experience? What was this
experience like of working as a “probie,” if you will?
Oh, you were not a “probie” long. It was about like a there month period, you see. But I loved
nursing. I loved it from the very start, and I loved the people. I loved the work. I loved
everything about it.
Interviewer: What kind of nursing were you doing at this time?
�Oh, the kind of nursing that we did was the entire range of things. We did the wards and private
patients, but every kind of disease that they deal with in the hospitals is what we did. 1:11:03 We
had gallbladders and appendixes and fractures, all those injuries plus a lot of people that had age
diseases. I can remember we had a ward of old men there that had some of the old diseases that
you don’t even see anymore with these ascites and the big abdomens and things that don’t
happen as much now.
Interviewer: I have a notice here, “Beatrice, loving watchful eye?” What is that?
Oh, Sister Beatrice. I was, St. Vincent’s was ran by the nuns, and Sister Beatrice was the,
actually my first paying job outside of the hospital. 1:12:04 We were in training for three years
and they were, the nuns were very meticulous and they watched you, all of the nuns did, but
Sister Beatrice was my first operating room supervisor outside of the hospital.
Interviewer: In December of 1941, American was shocked at the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Do you remember that day?
Oh, I remember the attack on Pearl Harbor because I was doing my public health nursing. You
went through the entire phases. 1:13:03 Psychiatric nursing, public health nursing, surgeries,
obstetrics, everything. But I was on one of my last rotations and this was public health and I was
in the car with the public health nurse and we heard it on the radio. And we were really shocked
and it’s something just like the death of President Kennedy that you will never forget when we
realized when we’d been attacked.
Interviewer: What was your immediate reaction to that? What I’m trying to get at, is that
you’re a nurse, we’re now at war. Was there any reaction in terms of …some of the pilots
that I’ve talked to in the past always said, “I’m going to join up, I’m going to go, and go
fight.” 1:14:05 What was your reaction?
�My reaction to whether I should join the service was, I couldn’t at the moment because I wasn’t
out of training. My brother was already in the war. He had joined up ahead because that also
was an out when we were in this depression and you couldn’t get jobs anywhere and so he joined
the service. And so he was up in Camp Grant, Illinois and of course he said, “Don’t join.” And I
wasn’t really qualified yet because I didn’t graduate until 1942, which was, May of 1942.
1:15:07 And then I felt that I needed to have a little outside experience outside of that hospital
before I ever would think of that. However, the real crux of the matter is that the longer we were
in the war, the more you felt the pressure of having to, wanting to join, wanting to be a part of it,
and the need to be. We were tremendously busy at the hospital where I worked. We were on
call every other day and we just were very, very busy and so they kept saying, “Join.” And so
everyone that was a young nurse at our hospital was already thinking of joining. 1:16:04 Two of
the girls that I worked with became Navy nurses and another one an Army nurse. So we were all
on limited time in our jobs it seemed like, and it was like, they pointed a finger at you, “We want
you,” like that poster. And you really felt that you were obligated to, you wanted to really be
part of it. I think that World War II was probably the most patriotic of all wars and certainly the
most fervent, complete, the whole country was behind it so that you just felt that you had to be
part of it.
Interviewer: So in March of 1943, you were talking about like the radios and news venues
were clamoring, but at this point they were clamoring for nurses, or at least that came to
your attention, is that right? 1:17:10
I felt like the radio announcements and the, all of the news media was clamoring for nurses, and
of course, like everything, like even now, they’re always clamoring for nurses to join or so. But
it was also an altruistic feeling of wanting to, not necessarily having to, but wanting to.
�Interviewer: What did you do in reaction to that?
Well, in reaction to the feelings that I had and how the country was going, I…of course, I had to
consider my mother who didn’t want me to join, of course. 1:18:16 There were only the two of
us. But I really felt it was necessary, and so I, I was already a Red Cross nurse because as we
graduated from nursing school we joined the Red Cross. And all of the nurses of that era went to
the army through the Red Cross. We were not considered Army nurses as much as we were Red
Cross Nurses. And so you had to have that backing before you were allowed to join the Army.
1:19:05 Actually, we did not become part of the regular Army until a while after that I was in it,
and I didn’t even realize that. I thought I was an Army nurse right from the beginning. But then
about, oh I forget how many months in, they had us sign something that made us really Army
nurses and not just Red Cross nurses.
Interviewer: For those people who do not have any background in this, why couldn’t, I
mean, American males could join the Navy or join the Army or join the Marines. Did you
have an option?
No, there was no option to join the services that way. In fact, it was considered separate. The
nurses were not considered a part of the Army at first. 1:20:00 Thank God I didn’t know that at
the time because I don’t think any of us realized that we were not an integral part of the Army
itself until afterwards. And then of course when the WACs and the WAVES, Women’s
Auxiliary Corps and all of this, came in afterwards we were a little resentful because they got in
so much easier than we did with so much less training.
Interviewer: So you join up in the Army Nurse Corps. Where were you stationed and what
was your experience? What did you learn there?
�When I joined the service my first station was Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa and it
was a big general hospital. 1:21:03 It had the famous neurosurgeons and it was, I found out later
that it had not been established as long as I thought it had, but it was an entire campus of…and
there were training units, medical units, on the hill. All of them training to go overseas, but this
general hospital did all types of surgery, and of course I was an operating room nurse and I was
in on all of these new ideas and all the new metals that they were using, titanium and all of this
stuff that was brand new. 1:22:01 Now you must remember that at this time there was just the
beginning of penicillin and sulfa was just first being used. There were so many new innovations
that were just beginning at this time.
Interviewer: Now let me understand this. You’re now at Schick General Hospital. You’re
training in these neurosurgical techniques, but you’re in the military. Don’t you have to go
through basic training or anything like that?
Oh, we had basic training at Schick General Hospital. In fact, one of the…we had marches, we
had calisthenics. We also had gas masks where we had to go through a tent and learn how to put
the gas mask on. 1:23:00 And we had, I don’t know what they had in it, but they did have some
sort of gas that was very strong and we really had a tremendous basic training.
Interviewer: Well, give us an idea of what a typical day would be like. I mean, we’ve
interviewed your husband, we’ve interviewed other vets. You know, they’d get up in the
morning, they’d have to do this. But you’re a nurse, so what was sort of a typical day like
during this very first part of your training?
It’s hard to remember exactly…
Interviewer: That’s all right.
�…what a typical day was but I don’t remember whether we did it in different days that they took
you out to do that or whether it was part of a daily thing. But what we did is, I know that we had
surgeries all day long and we an eight hour duty period. 1:24:09 But there must have been time
out when we would have these marches and all of the training scheduled but I just don’t recall
exactly how it was.
Interviewer: That’s okay. In November of ’43 you made a big decision that literally
affected the rest of your life. Instead of staying in the safety of Schick, I understand you
volunteered.
I volunteered to go overseas in November of ’43. This was very tempting to want to stay in this
absolutely wonderful surgery place, but I also felt that what I joined the Army for was to help the
soldiers that were going to be in this fight and so of course there I had to be overseas and not in
the safety of the big general hospital here. 1:25:28
Interviewer: Now your mom was not happy when you joined the army to begin with, but
she must have really wondered about this. What was your mom’s reaction to your wanting
to go overseas?
I think she felt, after I joined the Army, it was completely out of her hands. My mother was
always concerned with the fact that we were in harm’s way. 1:26:00 But she knew that, she
knew that I was going to make my own decisions.
Interviewer: So once you volunteered for overseas duty, what happened next?
Well, after I volunteered for overseas duty I was sent on a train to Camp Rucker, Alabama. We
were in long wooden barracks. There were thirteen, about thirty people to a barracks, all in one
room. And there were like two toilets at the end of the room where you could face each other
�almost. So there was much less privacy and you learned more and more to be buddies with
everybody. 1:27:05
[Long pause as phone rings and crew members shuffle]
I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.
Interviewer: Yeah, me too.
I was going to Camp Rucker.
Interviewer: Yeah, okay. So you’re at Camp Rucker now. I had a question though. This is
in Alabama.
Oh yes, Camp Rucker, Alabama.
Interviewer: Was there any… we had heard earlier on to your being half Chinese…did you
experience any problem there about this or was this not even an issue? 1:28:02
There was no issue at all with my ancestry after I got in the Army. However, Camp Rucker,
Alabama was in the deep South and so I was shocked to find out how much there was still the
separation of the two, the blacks and the whites, in the South. I can remember feeling outraged
that the blacks would step off the pavement so the whites could walk by and there was still that
black back of the bus where…and being from the North, I was really outraged at the acceptance
and the difference it was in the South. 1:29:04 However, it all seemed to be done quite amiably
between both races, and there was not the animosity that it would have engendered up North, but
it was very apparent. We went through Montgomery, Alabama where they still had the flags of
the South up and you would have thought Jefferson [Davis] won the war.
Interviewer: Now, once you went through your training there at Camp Rucker, what was
your next assignment?
�Actually at Camp Rucker we didn’t have any training. What we did was we gathered our
equipment and our… 1:30:04 I can remember that we had our barracks bags laid out and our
bedrolls and all our canteens and we were supplied with everything that we needed. And we also
met the unit that we were going to go overseas with. That was the 313th Station Hospital. We
did meet the officers there and learn a little more about the bonding together of a unit at this
time.
Interviewer: You just mentioned officers. Did you have a rank at this time?
Oh I was brought into the Army as a second lieutenant and there I stayed for a long, long time
because of the fact that when we did get overseas our promotions were frozen. 1:31:14 But I
think most all of the nurses that came into the service came in as second lieutenants and probably
the older ones, the ones that were in charge of you were made captain and the ones that were…or
first lieutenants. Those were the ones that did the paperwork and kept the nurses in line.
Interviewer: From there where did you move on to, because now you’re about to… where
did you go overseas and how did you get there? 1:32:00
We were sent from Camp Rucker, Alabama to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey and from there we
were sent overseas. We had our final inspections and our footlockers were banded and
everything was stenciled and then we boarded the, quite a large ship, and it was called the Brazil
it was. I was seasick, always seasick. I couldn’t believe that I could get seasick because I was
always so healthy and so strong, but ships are not my forte. So I spent my whole ten days going
overseas on the top deck because I found out that I was perfectly all right as long as I was out in
that fresh air but perfectly terrible like a leaden head when I was down where I could hear the
machinery and smell the oil that came from the ship. 1:33:15
Interviewer: So I take it this was not a luxury liner you went over on?
�Well, I think all ships are terrible. I don’t think there’s any luxury liner that could ever get me to
get on a ship that I did not have to be on.
Interviewer: Thank goodness you finally arrive, and where did you arrive?
We arrived, well, we went in convoy across the ...and they had a smoking lamp that they would
put out when the skies got gray and dark. You could see the whole mass of ships that were in
this convoy and we zig-zagged a little bit. 1:34:07 Of course, I thought all this was not really
necessary but I guess it was at the time. I just didn’t realize the dangers, but we landed in
Scotland and that was I think in December of 1943, somewhere along there.
Interviewer: Okay, let’s hold off just for a moment here. You’re getting real close to
touching your microphone so be careful of that. And can we check on …are you all right?
Okay. Is everything okay? All right, good. So this is the first time you’ve arrived in a
foreign country even though it’s an English speaking country. 1:35:03 What was your first
reaction to…? In other words, you get there…Was this the first time you met Scottish
people or British people?
We arrived in Scotland I think in the middle of the night, so and we were in Class A uniforms
which means that we had short skirts, fairly short for that time, and not much protection so we
were freezing. We got on a train there. I met no Scottish people, and it was dark so we’d peer
out the window to see what kind of, what we could see because of course we loved the idea of
being in a foreign country and wanted to see and do and experience everything that there was to
experience. 1:36:02 We got on this train and tried to sleep and went all the way down, all the
way from the top of Scotland clear down to the bottom of England which was, we landed in
North Devon is what we did. But this was a long, long trip. I can remember the one time that
we did stop they had coffee with cream in it. I never drank coffee in my life before but it was
�nice and hot, so that was my first experience drinking coffee. We stayed on this cold, cold train
clear down to Devon and it was rainy in Devon too. 1:37:08 But England will always be my
first love because I spent fifteen months there. It was a beautiful, beautiful country and lovely
people. The wonderful thing that I think I learned about the English was their resilience, their
ability to make do with little. They had large buses and they were very patient in queuing up for
them. But the most, the thing that I treasure most was the fact that even the old people rode
bicycles to save the gas. There was a lot of bicycle riding. 1:38:02
Interviewer: What were you doing during this fifteen months?
I was at the 313th Station Hospital and we were in Barnstaple, North Devon, England. That’s
just almost as far south as you can get, and it was beautiful country. But we set up our hospital
unit there. We were quartered at first in a manor house in Fremington and we learned, of course,
all the things about English living, that they had no central heating, and we had to learn to start
our own fires. 1:39:01
Interviewer: I think people may not realize what a manor house is. This is a huge, almost
castle-like structure with lots of rooms so they would be perfect for housing a whole group
of people.
Well, the manor only housed about the nurses first and then the officers afterwards. And it was a
huge, lovely house. It had a ballroom, which we turned into our dining room, and it had
tremendous…actually one of the things I remember most was the tub that they had there and it
was a built-in and it was so deep that it was amazing. But it was a beautiful, beautiful place.
1:40:01 Polished wood. There might have even been a ghost there sometimes. But we had in
the one large room where some of our nurses were they had put eight beds in this one room,
eight cots, where we slept on cots. And then of course at that time the officers and the enlisted
�persons were out in what they call Nissen huts, which were sort of prefabricated huts that were
long and, I don’t know how they were made.
Interviewer: Like a barracks maybe?
Yeah, kind of like a barracks. And they had potbellied stoves in them. These were the ones that
eventually the nurses got these and we had to keep our fuel going, and we only had so much fuel.
1:41:11
Interviewer: Well, you know, that leads to another question. The war is going on. Did you
have any experience…I mean, I know they weren’t bombing you, but did you have any
experience with perhaps the deprivations of the war or any experience that the war was
going on?
There were…we had many experiences about the deprivation that was going on in England
because we were not allowed to have any milk or any eggs or any things that would be taking
away from the British population. In fact, I learned to drink powdered milk because I loved milk
and powdered eggs. Actually, the United States Army I think ate quite well. 1:42:08 And we all
had bicycles too. We bought them so we could travel without using extra gas. And then of
course, at that time we set up our operating room and our different wards and the hospital things
that we did were for our own unit or, once in a while, we had the airplanes that flew over from
the RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force. 1:43:08 And they had an airfield that was directly
across the river from where our unit was stationed, and I know that there were several times
when they had crashes, were brought in to our surgery and we took care of them.
Interviewer: So at this point you’re not treating war, direct war casualties. You’re dealing
with accidents and the general kind of…I guess, who were treating and what were treating
at this time, besides the RAF and the Canadians you’re talking about?
�Well, we were treating mostly our own personnel and living in expectation of what was to come.
1:44:13 Rather than treating anybody we were set up and ready, but not really functioning as a
war unit. Actually, it was before we had D-day and so…Although I didn’t realize, I figured I
was in the war because I was over there, but I didn’t realize that our Americans were not yet in
the war and I couldn’t understand why we were sort of stagnated and not doing what I thought I
had been sent over for. 1:45:01
Interviewer: Did you have any opportunity to either go into London or any of those areas
that the war could actually be viewed, could be seen?
I did go many places while in England. London was one of them, that was one of the really
scary times because they were having the buzz bombs that came over, these were the unmanned
bombs that Hitler sent over and you could hear the noise from them and when the noise stopped
then you had to look out because that’s when the bomb was going to drop.
Interviewer: Why were you in London?
I went up on a pass to see one of my nurse friends and I was so frightened when there was all
these air raid sirens and it got so black out and I didn’t know where I was. 1:46:10 And we were
going in the subway and when I got off and they said, some British person said, “Oh yes, this
hospital is right in the next block.” So I went up to the hospital and I asked for the, not for the
person that I was coming to see but somebody that had been back in my unit because I was really
frightened. And my nurse friend who was based in London was so calm and so matter of fact
and everybody was going into the subways to escape the bomb scare. But she stayed up there
and we watched through the window and saw all these flares and it was lit up and you could see
the fires and everything. 1:47:09 I know, afterwards, when I was trying to get back to, go back
to my own station, I can remember there were all these hoses that were strung across and the
�British people, not just the men but the women were all working industriously to put out the fires
and it was a real revelation of how efficient these British were. I was impressed. 1:48:02 But I
was glad I was not based in London.
Interviewer: I can imagine it also was a real wake-up in terms of the devastation of war
and the kind of enemy you were up against.
You really realized how devastating it was, because there was also all the rubble and the
buildings that were downed and the people that were injured. It brought war very, very close.
Interviewer: So once you made it back to your base, where did you go from there?
I think it was about June of forty…I can’t remember… 1:49:01
Interviewer: Don’t worry. That’s okay.
But we were not functioning efficiently as a unit and so the nurses were sent out on temporary
duty to other hospitals. So I was sent up to Exeter and Taunton to, I think it was the 101st
General Hospital. And I always felt a little like if I was the outcast, you know, not really
belonging because you learn to identify so completely with your own personnel and your unit
and so to be sent to a strange place, it was hard to adapt to different areas. 1:50:01 But we were
sent to this big general hospital and I can remember living in another, presumably, manor house
or something in the attic. I can’t even remember what we did there.
Interviewer: This isn’t where you were doing similar MASH-type of…
No, this was earlier on. That was when we were in…
Interviewer: Malvern?
But when I was in this area where we were transferred then instead of being on temporary duty
any more, we were assigned to another unit. This one was the 123rd Station Hospital. And this
was when were sent up to Malvern, England. 1:51:03 That’s probably in the north of England,
�and they had the fifty, I think it was the 55th or 53rd General Hospital there. And there is where is
where I was in the surgeries where they did two surgeries. They had a, it was a standing, it was
not tents. It was a standing unit. But they had actually two surgeries going on at the same time
and I participated in that area. And it was almost like what you see on the MASH unit that Alan
Alda portrays there. I did not like the original M*A*S*H because I thought it was not only
exaggerated, that it was gross almost, but… 1:52:02
Interviewer: All right, so from there I understand you went to France.
From Malvern we were sent over to Wales, and there we met a different set of officers and went
from there to France. So we arrived in France, I think about in January or February of 19, what
is it, 45, I think.
Interviewer: Well this must have been exciting. Now you’re going from England, now
you’re going to another foreign country. And France, of course, has a lot of mystique and
romance about it. What was your reaction to arriving in France and where did you stay?
I arrived in France, I think at Le Havre, and then we stayed at a monastery, I think it was, that
had, I know it had the chapel and we stayed so that we could go to mass every morning if we
wanted to. 1:53:20
Interviewer: So you were in the monastery? There was a chateau there as well?
It was, I guess it was a chateau, but it had that chapel at the side. And we were all in a long
wooden area or so with canvas cots and we managed to press our uniforms by putting them
between the cot and our bed roll and so that’s how we pressed our clothes. And it was a place
where we, I know we had our mess kits with the great big tubs that were out there and we wore
fatigues all the time. 1:54:14 That was a blessing because there was mud everywhere. We got to
�know the French people. In fact, I tried to learn a little bit of French. I never was very good at it
though.
Interviewer: So let’s say for example, you’re now going out to eat and of course you’ve got
candlelight settings with plates and silverware…
Huh? We did not have, although the mystique of France was there, we were not given the
candlelight dinners and things. 1:55:01 What we did see was the long French bread that they
had, but they didn’t even put it in wrappers. They carried it on the street just as is with no
wrappers or anything. And the French family that I learned about was when I went on a
temporary duty to Dieppe and they had an evacuation, a field hospital there. And this French
sixteen year old boy came up and he said, “Oh don’t step off the sidewalk,” he says, “because
there are bombs and mines on the side so you have to stay on the walks.” 1:56:07 So he offered
to take me up to see a castle that was really just the ruins of a castle that was there, and then he
invited me home to see his mother. Although she couldn’t speak English and I can’t speak
French we managed to connect with sign language and smiles and whatever. I have kept him as
a friend ever since and I still correspond with him, and his mother has since died but we did go
back in 1978 and visited her. 1:57:00 She had the Caduceus emblem that I had sent her and she
gave me a little pair of earrings that, I don’t wear earrings, but anyhow. It just was a beautiful
friendship, and he was a diplomat in the European common market. In fact, when we went back
to visit we ended up having to go through security to get to where he was. He’d also been a
French paratrooper.
Interviewer: So where did you go from there? Because we’re not in the Pacific yet, we’re
still in Europe.
�Oh yes, we went from that staging area which was where the chateau was, and from that area we
went to Reims, which was where we were again on temporary duty to a large general hospital.
1:58:09 It was I believe the 178th General Hospital. There’s where I was on night duty where
there were, I was in charge of five different wards at the same time and they were all miles apart
or so I can remember travelling down those wooden staircases and going to each ward. There
were many casualties, there. This was orthopedic wards that I was in there.
Interviewer: So what were you actually doing? I mean, these are war casualties. Give us
an idea of what you’re actually doing to treat these soldiers. 1:59:04 There was a doctor
there, the surgeon was there?
In all general hospitals there’s a doctor and there’s actually the regular set-up that you would see
in one of our civilian hospitals with the doctors and the nurses and the many patients. But of
course, instead of being just single rooms they were in large wards. And the patients were pretty
wonderful because they still maintained most of their sense of humor and they were young so
they had the resiliency and the hope of the future there.
Interviewer: What nationality? Were these British, Canadians, Americans?
These were Americans. 2:00:00 This was an American hospital, and this was, of course, after the
Americans had gotten into the war because this is ’45, early ’45.
Interviewer: So these were the casualties of the war around there and they would come to
either field hospitals and then eventually be transferred to where you were?
To the generals, yes. These were the soldiers that were not sufficiently injured to have to be sent
back immediately to the states, but they convalesced either in these large general hospitals or so.
Interviewer: Was there any indication of the actual war beyond the casualties? Were there
any bombings or any kind of things going on like that while you were there?
�I did not experience any of the front line bombings. 2:01:04 We were always back far enough so
that I always felt quite safe. I don’t know how safe I was, but I felt safe. We had all of these,
actually we had paratroopers and we had aviators both as patients and in the vicinity. We had
gone from Reims to this little suburb, it was called Mourmelon and there was a whole group of
hospital units there. They would transport us in to the 178th General in Reims. 2:02:03
Interviewer: So from Reims, where did you go from there? I understand there was a
French cavalry officers’ barracks?
That was at, the French cavalry barracks that we were situated in was a beautiful place. It was
stone and had outside staircases. It might have not seemed beautiful but it was beautiful to us.
We’d go up the spiral staircase into a large room that had little rooms off of it like spokes on a
wheel. And this is where I met Bill, when I was stationed at this area and we were in between
our own units staging. 2:03:08 The 123rd was staging to go to the Pacific and to Japan, so we
were in between doing our own sewing and getting all of the equipment together for having a
hospital unit that would function in Japan. In between doing that we were also doing duty at the
178th General, so we were scattered in what we had to do, so we did our own thing in between
times and then they would have us over so we could do the actual patients. 2:04:04
Interviewer: There’s two parts to this. Number one is, were you actually informed
formally that you were going overseas or did you volunteer to go overseas?
Oh, when the war was over, V-E Day, Victory in Europe, they came around and they asked us
whether we wanted to be sent back to the states or whether we would volunteer to go on to
Japan. Well, my brother had been over in the South Pacific for all his years and I was anxious
also to go so I volunteered to go on. 2:05:00 I figured, as long as…you see, as nurses we were in
for the duration of the war. That meant until the end of the war, regardless. It’s not like today
�where you can be in for a certain length of time and then you kind of have to re-up or so. But for
us, we were in until it was all over and so either we went on or we stayed in Europe, and those
that didn’t volunteer stayed in Europe. My best buddy did not volunteer to go on because her
husband did not want her to, and so as it was she stayed in Europe and she took care of German
prisoners of war and also some of the army personnel that was left there. 2:06:11
Interviewer: This is where it gets interesting, as this young, dashing paratrooper shows up
in your life. How did that come about?
I met Bill in quite an interesting way. I had a friend that had been like a big brother to me in the
506th parachute unit and he had been sent up to the front and I hadn’t heard from him for some
time and he’d brought me back a camera and a Nazi flag and had just left them and gone on. I
hadn’t seen him, so I was expecting to hear something of this paratrooper when I got called down
to meet someone downstairs. 2:07:20 I was upstairs writing letters and I was being a very good
girl because I had had two proposals and I couldn’t make up my mind who I really liked and so I
was staying home and being really picky about not going out with anybody. And so I thought
this must be from Joe Reed. And so I came down to the unit and there were three gallant
paratroopers there, two that seemed a little older and then this one fairly young, harmless looking
person. 2:08:01 And so we talked and I kept thinking, why isn’t he saying there’s a message
from Joe Reed? And it didn’t come out. Finally, I discovered that the only reason they were
here was because they were looking for dates for a dance that was that evening or the next
evening, and so my two nurse friends were conferring whether they were going to go out. I said,
“I’ll go out with them if I can have the harmless looking one.” So there’s how I met Bill. It
turned out later that he had asked somebody earlier who’d just gotten married, she was quite an
exotic looking beauty, and he’d asked if there was anyone that was like her. 2:09:09 I had
�always been considered her little sister because I had the same complexion and looks more or
less. I seen her too recently at our 501 reunion in Pennsylvania, and she still is a lovely, lovely
woman.
Interviewer: Once you met Bill, though, did you have a chance to spend time with him? Or
were you shipped off to the Pacific? Give us an idea of what was going on during that
period.
I met Bill the day after the war ended in Europe. That was the ninth of May, and I was staging to
go to the Pacific so I only saw him for nine days at Mourmelon before he left. 2:10:13 And I
went from Mourmelon, which is near Reims, down to Marseilles, and there we were waiting for
a ship to go to the Pacific. And incidentally we had a time where we spent on leave in the
Riviera, not with Bill, with my girlfriend or so. So we got to experience a little of that luxury
that you saw of France where we got really sunbaked in the Riviera. 2:11:06 Enough to, I can
remember using the paddleboats that they had there, and we paddled out so far not thinking how
dangerous it might have been, we went way out. And I’ve often thought later on in my life, I’ve
wondered how I could ever have been so oblivious to the danger we were in, but anyhow that
was my…And we saw Bob Hope while we were in the Marseilles area and the beautiful Notre
Dame cathedral. Not the one that’s in Paris, but the one that’s down there, called Notre Dame de
la Garde. 2:12:01 And learned a little bit about the French people there too. They had that, what
is it, not the Guy Fawkes day, but the day for the French Revolution, I forget what it’s called.
Mary Beth celebrates it all the time.
Interviewer: So from there, you’re now being sent to the Pacific. Wasn’t there something
to do with the Russian soldiers? Was this before or after?
�Oh, while I was still in Mourmelon. I was sent to a ward, it was a neuro ward and it was kind of
primitive, really. I know we had our sterile water made and heated on a fire and there was…we
had Russian soldiers there and one of the taught me a few words of Russian or so. 2:13:07 That’s
where we had POWs, prisoners of war, that were German and we also had some very sad cases
on this neuro ward, and one of them was a Russian that I talked to again with sign language.
Interviewer: So these were serious war injuries, then? This is legs and arms?
This was head, head injuries too.
Interviewer: All right, so now you receive, in France, I believe you get a promotion. Is that
correct?
I was finally promoted to first lieutenant. 2:14:02 Actually, it was on my birthday almost. I
think it was the 30th of May or so, promoted to first lieutenant. They finally unfroze our
promotions.
Interviewer: Besides a pay raise, what did that actually incur? Did you have additional
responsibilities or are you doing basically the same thing?
Nothing. Same thing, it’s just like after you’ve worked so hard, they finally say, “Oh well, we’ll
give you a little more title or so,” but it didn’t change what you were doing.
Interviewer: Let’s talk now about going to the CBI, which is the China, Burma, Indian
theater.
We left France to go to the Pacific, the China, Burma, India theater in July of 1945, knowing full
well that we were going to encounter the Japanese and really some horrendous problems.
2:15:21
Interviewer: Well, let’s elaborate on that. What do you mean by that?
�Well, we realized that the Japanese were a little more fanatic, well the Germans were bad
enough, but the Japanese were not going to be conquered.
Interviewer: So you’d heard through the news reels about some of the atrocities?
I’d heard not only through the news reels but my brother had spent, he was a liaison pilot with
the field artillery, and he’d, his plane had crashed several times or so. 2:16:07 And he really had
experiences that were horrendous and he had suffered malaria and jungle rot and hepatitis,
because he was in from the very beginning when they didn’t have any of the safety precautions
that were in place later in the war, so he really was a casualty in his health as far as the war was
concerned.
Interviewer: So without going into the details of the travel, you went by a ship, right,
across. Where did you first arrive and what was your first reaction to coming to a totally
different environment? 2:17:01
On our trip over to the Philippines, we landed at Manila, but actually before we got over there is
when there was V-J Day while we were still on the ocean, and we didn’t know for sure whether
they were going to send us back to the states or whether they were going to send us on. There
was great elation that the war was over, but it was still in a state of flux. I know that there’s been
an awful lot of discussion about whether the atomic bomb was something that should have been
done but I do know that it certainly saved my life and the life of those thousands and thousands
of soldiers that were on their way to death and destruction. 2:18:17 And if they hadn’t dropped
the bomb the war would have gone on for, I think probably many years, many years longer. So
although the decision wasn’t our individual person’s, either our decision or our liking probably,
it certainly was the answer to our prayers. So when they debate now whether that was the proper
thing to do I just know for us who were alive and who were going to it, it was the proper thing.
�2:19:04 Bill has often said that he thought it would have been smart of them if they’d have
bombed the holy mountain instead, but whatever. I’m glad they dropped it for our sakes.
Interviewer: All right, so you’ve arrived now in the Philippines. The war is over. What are
your options now? What are you supposed to be doing?
There were still casualties in the Pacific area and we still had wards. We had, actually, there
were tents. The soldiers that were still casualties were in tents and I can remember giving shots
in the tents. 2:20:07 And I also was elevated to being a chief nurse in the surgery, although the
surgeries were not as many. They had actually a very beautiful facility set up in this one area in
San Fernando and we did get to, we did do surgeries and there was a, I can remember the season
was monsoon season, so there was rains and rains and rains…
Interviewer: I guess that’s a good thing to talk about. You’ve been, of course, in the
weather of the United States where you grew up, then you went to several other places,
then you went to England, you went to France. 2:21:06 What was your first impression of
the atmosphere, the environment, the weather of the Pacific?
The weather in the Pacific was, I can think of two things. It had beautiful sunrises, beautiful
sunsets, and the rest of it was pretty blah. It was barren otherwise, but it the most beautiful
painted sunsets and you could see the natives, the Filipinos in their conical hats fishing in there.
We had actually right outside of our campsite, we were right on the ocean, and we had the wreck
of a, I don’t know whether it was a sub or what it was, but it was right out there on our area.
2:22:19
Interviewer: So you’re treating pretty much the residual casualties of the end of the war
and I imagine they’re just as serious as they were during the war. I mean, these are the
�ones that were fighting, when they were hurt it was still war time. But was there any sense
that there were less and less of them coming through over a period of time?
You didn’t really notice that. The wards were full. But you had a sense that they were trying to
evacuate as many people as possible because this was the end, presumably the end of the
hostilities. 2:23:09 I do know that the Philippines, the Filipinos were still very, and whoever else
was out there, was really hostile because they would not let the nurses leave this encampment
without having an officer with an armed gun on him. What I usually did was make the officer
give me the gun. I don’t think I’d have known how to use it but I liked to have the control of it.
2:24:01 But we did get to see several things in the Philippines. We saw the place where the
treaty, the Japanese treaty either had been signed or they had met to consult on it, in these
quarters. It was near Baguio. Baguio was the resort area of the Philippines and it was a
gorgeous spot. Down where we were was like the arid, dry spot and up there in the hills was this
beautiful area. And they had the nuns up there and they had the silver filigree necklaces and
things that they made. It’s one of the beautiful things I remember about it. 2:25:00
Interviewer: So when did things, not when in terms of an exact date or something like that,
but give us an idea of when things started to wind down and what were your orders at that
point? Were you going to go back to the states? Were you going to go back to Europe?
What were your options and what…were you ordered to go somewhere?
We had the option of going on anyway to Japan to be part of the army of occupation or we could
return to the states, and I thought, the war is over, I’m leaving. I’m not going on to Japan. My
mother had suffered long enough. And my brother had been sent back to the states, so we were
all eager to go home so that we could start our real lives again. Naturally, I did not volunteer to
go on to Japan. 2:26:03 Some of my nurse friends did, but not me.
�Interviewer: Well, during this period of time, were you corresponding with Bill? Was
there any decision making involving him in this thing too or where were you at this stage in
terms of your relationship?
We had corresponded almost daily. Of course, there were a lot of letters that were not received,
so you’d get them in batches, you know. In fact there was a number of letters that came after I
got back to my home. But I think that I learned to love Bill through the letters, through
understanding…if he had not been a good communicator I don’t think I would have learned how
much he meant and what a strong and wonderful character, person he was if it had not been for
the letters. 2:27:13 In fact, I have, I made a book called “So Long Lives This” out of all the
letters that I wrote and he wrote. He kept his and I kept mine, so they intersperse through this
book. It’s long, but it’s not been published because not only is it personal, it’s too long and too
expensive to publish.
Interviewer: Well, I will agree with you that he is a character, since I’ve known him. I’m
very, very pleased that you’ve kept those. I think it’s very important that your family have
that for the future. So you’ve made the decision. You’re coming back. What was the
process, if you will, of getting out of the military? 2:28:04 Or did you return home still in
the military?
When I left the Philippines, I left as chief nurse of my 123rd unit, guarding all of these strays that
had not previously left or were not going on to Japan and really not knowing what a chief nurse
did. In fact, it wasn’t until I got back and read all the papers that the chief nurse had written
where she told every place I’d been and how many inoculations I had that I realized that I was
glad that I’d never been a chief nurse because it was the paperwork. In fact, I did have a
wonderful chief nurse who I, her name was Mildred Earhart and she, I don’t know where she is
�now, but I did see her several times after the war. 2:29:08 So anyhow, I took this group in three
truckloads to Manila and there was devastation there, great devastation and dusty roads and
rioting and things that, because we were kept on this isolated base, we had not seen. A lot more
danger than I was aware of. Incidentally, we were not the last people to leave this encampment.
There were still people there and I don’t know what happened to them. But anyhow, in
November we were put on the marine jumper that jumped all the way through the water back.
2:30:07 Another ship that I don’t care to have. We came back and landed in Camp Anza,
California which is somewhere near the Golden Gate, and we landed on Thanksgiving Day.
From there, we were shipped back to the base nearest where we had enlisted or joined the Army
and mine I think was in Des Moines or somewhere near, somewhere in Iowa. And we signed all
the papers and were put on terminal leave. 2:31:05 They had these big, what do you call it,
debriefing centers set up to handle the massive number of people that were leaving. And of
course, we could be put in the reserve, and so we were put in the reserve in case anything else
happened.
Interviewer: Were you intending to stay in the military?
No, no. I was only in the military for the duration.
Interviewer: So once you were put into the reserve then, I assume you went back home at
this point.
I went back home and, actually found out that my mother had moved. 2:32:01 I didn’t know
where they were, which was kind of an unhappy situation. I will say one thing, travelling back
from California to Iowa, I was first amazed at the lights and the beauty of the states that, you
know, everything had been dark in all these places and to find that life had gone on very
comfortably. The other thing that I didn’t like was the fact that having spent enough time being
�gone that the war was old news, that the civilian populace were not happy with the returning
nurses and returning people, that, you know, from respect you got not very much. 2:33:21 So I
was really unhappy with the way people treated the military. It goes from great love of the
military while they’re working to great disrespect when they don’t need them anymore.
Interviewer: Did you experience that when you went to a hospital to apply for a job or
something and there was already people there?
No, no. I’m talking about the general feeling as we rolled across the country in these troop
trains. 2:34:06 And it wasn’t until we got into actually Iowa where you got a welcome or so.
Interviewer: So it was the hometown crowd that really gave you the welcome back.
Yeah, more or less. But I mean, it just seemed like a very cold atmosphere, and you realized
how much less the civilian population had had to suffer and how little they appreciated it.
Interviewer: So when you arrived home, you’re of course, thank goodness, you’re greeted
by your mother. Well, you found the house? I guess that’s the first thing, how’d you find
the house?
Actually, I phoned and they said, “Oh, she isn’t here anymore.” And she hadn’t a phone where
she moved because there was a priority and you had to have a real reason to have a phone or else
you couldn’t get one. 2:35:07 That’s another thing, the neighbors that, she was not very nice
about letting her come to the phone. So a lot of things ticked me off when I got back. I guess I
was ready to be ticked off.
Interviewer: So how did you eventually find your mom?
Well, I got her on the phone finally, on the neighbor’s phone, and found out the address and
things, but all of these things had happened while the letters were not going back and forth, so I
didn’t know that they’d bought a house and I didn’t know where I lived anymore. And she
�didn’t know because the first thing she said to me was, “Who is Bill?” She said that I was fickle
because I couldn’t make up my mind between which person I was going to marry, and she said,
“Don’t tell me any more about your romances.” 2:36:11 And so I didn’t tell her.
Interviewer: So your brother shows up too? Was he there?
Yes, my brother was in hospitals from the time that he got back because the last times that he had
been in the Pacific when they were having those last flights and he would take the flight of the
person that was supposed to take it so that the guy wouldn’t die because he felt like he would
make it back better than they. 2:37:02 In the end they had to lift him up to get him in the plane.
Once he was in the plane he was fine, but his legs would get paralyzed from…so he had…
Interviewer: So he was in the hospital, so you went to visit him in the hospital there … or
he already got home?
No, he was out by that time. And he demobilized and then he went back in again.
Interviewer: Let’s cover now how Bill comes into this story again. Did he come to visit you
there or did you go to visit him or what happened next?
Well, we both arrived on different sides of the continent on Thanksgiving Day, and there was a
letter for me when I came back that my mother had. 2:38:08 I guess he must have called or so
because he called me on the telephone and then he came up to visit his father who was also an
Air Force colonel in Grand Island, Nebraska which is next door neighbor to where Sioux City is.
And so he’d visit his father on the weekend and then he’d come up to see me.
Interviewer: So is that when he proposed?
He proposed on Christmas Eve of 1945.
Interviewer: And you said? 2:39:00
�What he said, and he still says he didn’t say it, but he said, “I take it for granted you’ll marry
me,” and of course I did. That’s when we got engaged.
Interviewer: So you got married and tell us just a brief…
I got married and I’ve had ten children and now we have thirty seven grandchildren and four
great-grandkids and we’ve had a wonderful life.
Interviewer: That’s wonderful. One last question, and I ask this of everyone that I
interview. What do you feel you accomplished during that period of time, that period of
time that you went over there, went into danger? 2:40:01 What effect did that have on the
rest of your life in terms of the person you became? Some people talk about how they grew
up very quickly while they were out there, but what effect did the wartime experience have
on you as a person for the rest of your life?
The effect that the war had on me is it did mature me. I think I got more self confidence in
myself and a broader view of people. More or less, it made me an adult and I could also see
through my own eyes rather than through my mother’s eyes or through my childish ideas.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
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1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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SeftonE0737V
Title
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Sefton, Elizabeth (Interview transcript and video), 2007
Creator
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Sefton, Elizabeth
Description
An account of the resource
Beth Sefton was an Army nurse during World War II. She volunteered for duty in 1942 and continued to serve until after VJ Day. She served in England, France, and the China Burma India Theatre working with surgeons and American, German, Russian and English casualties. She left the service as the Head Nurse and a 1st Lieutenant in the Army. Beth met her husband Bill while serving in the war and came home to marry him.
Contributor
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Boring, Frank (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Language
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eng
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2007-08-20
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5ea5564e83383a4290e27b1e647a9a57.m4v
0f146d1afa82b16732cb027fc90cf63c
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/47bf2a90d879e0471cedb4b21aa22362.pdf
99f55b811684b711bca297ef11cebbd7
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II - WACs
Lillian Remus
Length of Interview:
(00:09)
DM: This is Douglas Montagna from Grand Valley State and I‟m here talking with Lillian
Remus about her experiences during World War II. The first question is if you could speak a
little bit about what you were doing before World War II.
LR: Before World War II, I was in the restaurant business. And so I can remember the rationng
that we had, gas rationing, and shoe rationing. Meat rationing. I can remember all that, but we
had plenty because of being in the restaurant business. We were rationed but we had stuff. But I
do remember that, I remember when war was declared, I remember being at bar where I was
working, when that was declared. And so I remember quite a bit about the different things that
was going on, at that time.
(01:04)
DM: Do you remember, did the Great Depression hurt your restaurant business or were you able
to still do well during that time?
LR: Well, I always thought the Great Depression was back in the „30s…see, we weren‟t in the
restaurant business yet. See, I was a farmer, a farm gal. Because I graduated from high school
in ‟36, and that was almost the end of the Great Depression. And I remember that being a
farmer, and I say, my dad, he raised chickens mainly, and then the other, we always had food.
We had fruit trees. We had an eighty-acre farm. We had fruit trees, vegetables, we always had
food. It might be rice, applesauce, things like that, but we always had food. And we shared it
with our neighbors that did not have any, I remember that so much. But, yes, I can remember the
Depression, and how we felt, we had a lot. There were eight of us children. And we felt we
were very well loved, very well taken care of. And that we did not miss anything. I guess we
knew no better. Because we just didn‟t get to town, so we didn‟t know what was out in that
wild, wide world. I think that‟s why, looking back, I think that‟s why I joined the WACs. To
get out and see what‟s in the wide world.
(02:35)
DM: Do you remember Pearl Harbor and the day of Pearl Harbor, when you first heard about it?
LR: Uh, I don‟t remember that much. I remember it happening and it coming over the radio. I
remember that. And, say too much, now that, with the young men around, that was when, yeah,
I would have been in the restaurant business already. Wasn‟t Pearl Harbor…I‟m trying to think
what day that was…
DM: December 7, 1941.
�LR: Yeah, see, that was before…no, it wasn‟t. I was in business already, because I opened up in
‟38. So, yeah. And that‟s maybe what got me thinking more, yeah, that I could go out and do
something else besides being in a restaurant like I was.
(03:27)
DM: Um hmm. Can you talk a little bit about the circumstances that most encouraged you to
enlist and join the WACs?
LR: I think I always was adventurous. I‟m always that type. Because when I was going to
college, I took…I had one year of college. I was taking up home economics, cause I wanted to
travel. I had said then, if I could get in with some company, do demonstration work, and travel.
That was my main thing. So, then, when I had this other girlfriend that said she‟d like to join the
WACs, how „bout me? And I said yes, but my folks were in Florida, who run the restaurant, and
I did not ask them. I just joined up and went. And then they were notified, and then because of
them, then I came back home after six months. But I‟d say it was wanting to get out. Wanting to
get out and see more of the world.
(04:34)
DM: Do you remember if people around you, your friends, customers, co-workers, what did
they think about you joining the WACs?
LR: They wondered why I would go. They wondered why I would go, because some of them
felt I had it made where I was at. And I did have… a lot of friends, a lot of support, but again,
I‟ll say, I had no steady boyfriend and I was 23, and so I had no reason that I had to stay home.
Cause all my younger ones, my younger sisters, were all gone, so I and my brother were the only
ones living on a big farmhouse. Six bedroom farm house, where when Mother and Dad took off
for Florida, we were the only two there. So I just wanted to get out, and see the other parts of the
country. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much. I don‟t regret going at all.
(05:38)
DM: Do you remember what your parents attitudes were?
LR: They were ah…they just wondered why I would leave. See…I don‟t know what the word
is, but they wondered why I would leave and not stay home and support my dad. Because with
him telling me that he would put up that ice cream place for me, if I would run it, and he would
pay me, if I would run it, instead of going to college. And so he put up the restaurant for me. I
did run it. They put it up and it opened in July of ‟38, and then I signed up in ‟43. So I‟d run it
for quite a while. And had a very good business. And a lot of friends. But I just decided I just
wanted to get out and see more of the world. And I will say, we have traveled extensively, my
husband and I. We have traveled. We‟re not home people. We‟re busy people, out and going.
(06:47)
DM: And, then…can you talk a little bit about how you joined the WACs, and the process by
which you got into it?
LR: What do you mean, how I…
�DM: Did you, where did you go to sign up for it? Did you go immediately?
LR: Oh, oh. We went to Muskegon and then we were taken down to Detroit. I think it was
Detroit. We had our physical at Kalamazoo, and then we went on to Chicago, I got. (lloking
down at paper.) „Cause I got “On February 23rd, 1943, went to Kalamazoo for our physical and
there was sworn in. Then we went to Chicago, and from there to Daytona Beach, and was down
at Daytona Beach at the Clariton Hotel.” And, I got, “everything was running good.” But my
girlfriend and I, we were put in different companies. We were put in different companies, so I
heard from her for a while, but she stayed in. When I got out, she stayed in.
(07:56)
DM: What was the training like?
LR: The training, I thought the training was great, because I enjoyed cooking. And I enjoyed
experimenting. And I learned to cook with dried material. How to serve dried, and how to serve
in big quantities. And how to do a lot of cooking, baking. And I kept recipes for a while, but I
enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed the cooking very much.
DM: Did you do much of what we associate with men‟s basic training? Drilling, exercising,
marching?
LR: Yes. I enjoyed that also. Because I also did a lot of walking, biking, because… of course, I
had a car when I was working, but before that I did a lot of bicycling with another friend of mine.
We had our bikes. We had our rollerskates. We had that, being on the farm. We had things like
that for amusement. And so I did enjoy the regimentation, with the marching. I did.
(09:08)
DM: And… you were in Florida. Did you stay…where did you stay? Did you stay in Florida
your whole time?
LR: Yes. We were at the Clariton Hotel, which was quite a place. We were at the Clariton
Hotel, all the time I was there. All the time I was in, was at the Clariton Hotel, staying around
there. And I said, it was in dormitories, but it was just in big rooms, there. At the hotel. It was
great. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the comradeship with the other girls. And wrote to them for a
while. I just always have enjoyed being out like that. I like to be disciplined. I mean, I can see
discipline and I can give it. I can take it and I can give it.
(10:05)
DM: So you were mostly training, learning how to cook dried food and so forth.
LR: Yes. Yes, I mostly learned how to cook.
DM: Now, had you stayed in, what were some of the things or places you could have gone, the
things you could have done?
�LR: I was going to go out as a mess sergeant. See, this is what they had told me. That if I
stayed in, you will be going out as a mess sergeant. But, again, they did not say where I would
be going. If I would be given a choice. But I would be going out as a mess sergeant.
(Interruption from outside room.)
(10:54)
DM: Was there any sense of danger among the people that were in the WACs? I mean, was
there any sense that something dangerous, that you could get killed or injured?
LR: No, not as far as I was. Because we were still in training, you see. If someone went out
afterwards, yes.
DM: Then there was…
LR: Yes. Again, I was in training. And it wasn‟t that great, yet. Things weren‟t…because we
were not in the Army. See, we‟re just auxiliary.
DM: Even if you had become a mess sergeant, would you have been in the Army, then, or
would you have been auxiliary?
LR: Yes. Yes. Cause you see, I would have had to sign back in, and say, on this certain day in
August, that you had to go out the back door, from what I remember, come in the front door, and
sign up. And my superior, I don‟t know what her name was. I know I got a picture of her. She
advised that I did go home, as long as my parents needed me so bad. That I did go home and
help my parents. Instead of staying. So that‟s about what I did.
(12:03)
DM: Was there anything in your six months in the WACs that you remember as being especially
interesting, or anything noteworthy that happened while you were in the WACs, or pretty much
routine?
LR: No. Pretty much routine. Pretty much routine. I can remember sitting on our cots. I can
remember sometimes going into town, like we did. To go along with the trucks, go in town and
that. But as far as doing much, no. We were right there. We were right there.
DM: Okay. Then your parents helped convince you to go back and help with the family
business?
LR: Right. Correct. If it wasn‟t for them, I would have never gone back. I would have stayed
in, and wonder what would have happened. You can always wonder, what would have happened
had you stayed in.
(12:54)
DM: Was that a tough decision for you at the time?
�LR: Uh…yes, I think it was. I was going to say, yes and no, because I did appreciate my parents
and I knew how much they needed me at home. But I was giving up my life for theirs, more or
less. For what they wanted. And that‟s what some people still do. You give up what you really
want to do for … your parents.
DM: For family members, yeah.
(13:23)
LR: That‟s what I did, yeah.
DM: Were they… with you gone, did they have a hard time replacing you?
LR: Yes, they did. Yes, they did. Although my dad always told me that everybody can be
replaced. In some way. But they did not make the pies in the way that I made. I remember
when I got home a big, big sign on the window, of the dairy bar, “Lillian is back! Her pies are
back!” And so I must have made special pies, I don‟t know. But I must have. And so, that‟s
what I would say, I was very much appreciated. That I came back. That I come back. So, I was
glad that I came back. And I will say that when I got home, then here was a letter from this guy,
that I had met years earlier, hadn‟t gone with him. Met him. And for some reason, he had
carried my address with him. So here was a letter that he wrote, I think he was in Sicily or some
place, and wanted to know had I married the guy I was going with. And this and this and this.
(14:35)
LR: And then I corresponded with him for two years, until he come home. And then we got
married.
DM: So it‟s possible if you had stayed in, you never would have pursued your relationship?
LR: Yeah. You don‟t know. He would have been in, I would have been in, what it would be.
One never knows.
(14:55)
DM: And, then, when you got back, were you still, did you still pay attention to the war? Did
you follow the war on the news?
LR: Yes. Yes. Very much. Very much so. Because, especially, writing to him. Then you
followed it quite close. Then I followed it close, yeah. And then, things were not that good as
far as your rationing. Your food. Things going like that. You had to have all of that, from what
I remember. Plan all of that.
DM: And then could you…just briefly talk about what you did later on in life, after you got out
of the WACs and went back to the restaurant business for a while.
(15:41)
LR: Well, after I got out, when I was in the restaurant business for a while, and then got married.
And as far as never having any children, always had been active…I took care of children in my
�home for a while. I worked at a Y(WCA) and taught crafts. And then I started hiking, a hiking
group. And my picture‟s in the paper, three years ago this fall. When I was 87 years old, they
thought that was old for still leading hikes in a state park. And I was still doing that, I still am
doing that, and so at my 90th birthday, there was quite a party for me, again. For leading hikes,
leading them and having the people come out. I had thirty-five of my friends come out for my
90th birthday, for the park. So, ah, I have been very active with the public. Very active with the
public. Right now, we are raising monarch butterflies and black swallowtails and painted ladies
butterflies. And we had people come in yesterday, we had a mother come in with extra girls and
to show the butterflies, how they‟re raised, from their eggs…and, so I still teach and be very
active with the children.
(17:14)
DM: Sounds…
LR: So it‟s great. We enjoy it.
DM: Okay. Is there anything else to say, or…
LR: No. I think that‟s about it.
(17:23)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RemusL
Title
A name given to the resource
Remus, Lillian (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Remus, Lillian
Description
An account of the resource
Lillian Hansen grew up on a farm in Michigan during the Depression and graduated from high school in 1936. She then worked in her parent's restaurant for a few years before enlisting in the Women's Army Corps (WACs) on February 23, 1943. She trained at a hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida and cooked for the troops. After training Lillian returned home to help her parents run their business. She began writing to Raymond Remus, an old friend from high school, who was fighting in Italy. They got married when he returned 2 years later.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Montagna, Douglas (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Women
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-08-12
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/20e7eb36a54ebfb66933b8cd774e7977.mp4
3bd73a931e01964604fd3757029067d6
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/803ee41969ef76f93b35a98bf9eaee87.pdf
a6e03fde6a4f7848815e25ff1dd29761
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II, Women’s Army Corp
Irene Paxson
Length of Interview: 54:02
(00:00:10)
JS: We’re talking today with Irene Paxson, of St. Joseph, Michigan. The interviewer is James
Smither, of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Now Mrs, Paxson, can
you start by giving us some background on yourself. To begin with where and when were you
born?
IP: Well, I was born July 15, 1917. And my mother said it was just as the sun came up on
Sunday morning. Christ child. And I was born in Illinois. In Mount Vernon, in a rural area of
Mount Vernon.
JS: And were your family farmers? Or did they just live out there?
IP: They were…my family were farmers. Doctor. Teacher. Hunt.
JS: What did your father do for a living at that time?
IP: My dad was farming. And teaching country school, at that time.
JS: And how many acres did he have?
(01:04)
IP: A hundred acres.
JS: And what kinds of things did he grow there?
IP: Well, I don’t remember anything about that because he left when I was three years old. So I
assume wheat and corn. That’s what people grew in that area.
JS: All right. And so then, did you stay in that area?
IP: Well, I didn’t stay because my father’s crops were destroyed by the weather. It didn’t rain
for about seven weeks and they dried up, and then my father had to find something else to do.
JS: Okay. And so where did you go after that?
(01:43)
IP: After that, he went to St. Louis and took a civil service examination. He went to work for
the Post Office in St. Louis. Where he worked until he retired.
�JS: So did you grow up in St. Louis then?
IP: I grew up in St. Louis.
JS: Did you live in the city of St. Louis, or…
IP: I lived in the city until I was 11 years old and then we moved to a suburb. A suburb called
[Aveton].
JS: did you go to public schools?
IP: I went to public schools.
JS: And did you graduate from high school?
IP: I graduated from high school.
JS: And what year was that?
IP: That was 1935.
(02:27)
JS: And then what did you do after you graduated?
IP: After that, I went to business school. And then I went to work.
JS: Okay. Now business school, was that for…
IP: Bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing.
JS: Okay, so kind of a secretarial…what we might call a secretarial school.
IP: Yes. Yes.
JS: Now how long was that program?
IP: About six months.
JS: And, then what kind of job did you get?
IP: Well, the first job I got was at [Warsaw] Company, in St. Louis. It was a low paying job. I
was very very shy. Afraid of going on interviews. But fortunately when I went to this school, I
did well enough that, the lady who ran the school, um, suggested me for a state job, working for
the Missouri Public Service Commission. And that’s where I worked after that. A very high
paying job. (laughs)
�(03:31)
JS: Now, you’re doing this, this is the late 1930s…
IP: Yeah.
JS: This was the middle of the Depression.
IP: It was. Jobs were hard to get. So, you went…you had to make sure that you were good at
what you did, or you’d end up working in a dime store or something like that, so…
JS: Okay.
IP: So, I was fortunate enough to have…going from a low paying job to probably one of the
better paying jobs at the time. Any state job pays well.
JS: Now at this time were you still living with your parents, or are you out on your own?
IP: Yes. I was still living with my parents.
(04:08)
JS: Okay. And then how long did you stay in that position?
IP: Oh, several years.
JS: And were you still doing that when World War II started?
IP: No. After a few years, my father had accumulated time working for the government. A
couple of months vacation and he wanted the whole family to go on a trip out west. And I was a
little reluctant to go and, but it was important to my father. The war had started in Europe in
1939, and I had a brother two years my junior and another one a few years younger. But I think
he saw the hand-writing on the wall. And he wanted the family to take a trip out west. So he
rented a trailer, and we went traveling out west to a lot of historic places. My dad had always
been interested in history. And we went to San Francisco, to the Fair. In San Francisco. And
then I stayed out there for a while. In Long Beach, California. And got a job, because I wanted
to just see what it was like, make a life of my own, on my own. So I did. Got a good job. And
then, I received an invitation from the Treasury in Washington, to go to work there. In the
Accounting department.
(05:44)
JS: Now when was that?
IP: That was in, I think it was 1940.
JS: Okay. So you weren’t really in California all that long then?
�IP: No. I was only there about seven months. And so I got the invitation to go to Washington,
so… It just so happened that the aunt I was staying with, her only daughter lived in Washington
D.C. And her son-in-law was head of the legal department for the Veterans Administration.
And I had several other nice contacts when I went to Washington, so, it worked out very well for
me.
(06:19)
JS: Tell me a little bit about what you remember about living in California, though, for that time.
What kind of work…
IP: You know what I remember most of all? I worked in an accounting department. And, um,
I’m trying to think. Southern California Gas. And what I remember most about it, I had a friend
that was a librarian. And she used to bring home books to me. And she brought a book home, it
would be “The History of the Hapsburg Dynasty.” Which started a lifelong interest in
biographical history.
JS: Well, the Hapsburg’s would give you a lot to choose from.
(07:05)
IP: Well, I was fascinated with the contacts of the royal family. And how they secured their
alliances with other countries, through marriage and family. Yes, that I remember most of all. I
did a lot of reading, because I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any dates or anything. But I
had a friend who was a librarian so I did a lot of reading.
JS: Okay. Now at the same time, were you following events in the world carefully? With the
war in Europe, and that kind of thing?
IP: Oh, yes. Yes.
JS: And were you worried that your brothers might get drafted? Or some else like that?
IP: Well, my oldest brother was in. Tommy’s was one of the first groups to go to England. And
sure, I was worried about my brother. I was worried about my friends. I was worried about my
country. Cause we had Germany heading toward Britain. And then we had the Japanese attack.
And fighting a two front war…and I think I was just part of a great movement in our country that
we hadn’t had before. Or since. Because we were attacked and people everywhere tried to do
what they could, for the war effort. Society women went to work in factories. Farm girls were
gone, went to work in factories. People were doing whatever they could. Kind of like the best of
time, the worst of times.
(08:45)
JS: You know if we can kind of follow your story. You go to Washington before America’s
gotten into the war.
IP: Yes.
�JS: You worked in the Treasury Department, did you say?
IP: I worked in the Treasury Department.
JS: What kind of work did you do for them at that time?
IP: I worked in the Accounting department of the Treasury.
JS: And, then, were you doing that job when Pearl Harbor happened?
(09:10)
IP: I was doing that job right up until Pearl Harbor. And I had decided to leave Washington.
An affair of the heart, I guess I would say. (laughs) And I decided to leave. And I went to San
Francisco. I fell in love with San Francisco when we were there before. But my cousin who was
very close to me had married a big name ball player. And he was out there. And she wanted me
to go out there, so I did. And I got a job working for the U.S. Army Engineers out there.
JS: Now was that still before Pearl Harbor or was that right after?
IP: No, that was after. I felt kind of guilty about leaving Washington. My boss tried to persuade
me to stay. But I didn’t.
(10:08)
JS: Okay. Yet, you wind up back with the government pretty soon anyway.
IP: Um hmm.
JS: Cause eventually you decide to enlist in the Women’s Army Corp, known as WAC. How
did you come to that decision?
IP: Well. When I was in Washington, I stayed at a place where there were quite a few
Canadians. One young man was a downed pilot. RCAF pilot. And another young man that
stayed where I did was with the Canadian Legation in Washington. And he had three young
women from, Canadian women that were service women, that came to work at the Legation, that
he wanted to find a place for these three girls, that he thought were typical American girls. And I
happened to be one of them. And so I was acquainted with this service woman from Canada.
She was in uniform all the time. Got a lot of attention when she was walking on the streets. All
the magazines, like Cosmopolitan and unique ladies magazines…and they were…I had these
people around me that had been in the war for a long time. English people and the Canadian
people. And I was following the war pretty closely. But it was a difficult decision to make up
my mind to go in the service. You know, that regimented life is not all that easy. And of course
as a woman, you were volunteer. The men were often drafted. Well, that’s the way it was, when
you went in the service.
(12:10)
�JS: All right. Now, what the actual process when you decided you wanted to enter the service
and then what did you do?
IP: I just went down. I was in St. Louis. I went back to stay with my folks for a while. I just
went down and registered.
JS: So an Army Recruiting Office, basically?
IP: Yeah, I went to the recruiting office. WAC Recruiting Office.
JS: Now at this time was the government making much of an effort to publicize the women’s
branches of the service, to encourage women to joining?
(12:43)
IP: Well, actually women were getting a lot of attention, because this was the first time we had
women in the service. And, um…so I just chose the WAC. I went to basic training. Then Des
Moines, in Iowa.
JS: All right. What kind of facility did they have there? What kind of place did you train at?
Were you training at an Army base, or…
IP: Are you talking about training for what I eventually did…
JS: Basic training, first.
IP: Basic training was at Fort Des Moines. And I think I was there about six weeks. And at that
time, you were tested to find out just what you might be going to do. You go through, get all the
shots, the whole routine. And then I was sent to Kansas City to be trained for radio school.
(13:43)
JS: I want to go back a minute to the basic training part again. The men’s basic training, there
are certain standards that happen. One of the things was there was a very strong emphasis on
discipline and following orders.
IP: Indeed.
JS: So you got the same thing?
IP: Oh sure.
JS: And did most of the women adjust to that pretty well, or…
IP: I would say most of them did. Most of them.
(14:09)
�JS: And did they have anything by the way of physical training? Exercises, and that kind of
thing.
IP: Oh, yes. Of course, one of the best exercises in scrubbing floors, after we took showers.
JS: So you had a kind of version of the same thing the men got?
IP: I think so. Probably not as tough. I can’t imagine going into the service now, where women
do things they never would have thought of doing before then.
(14:40)
JS: Did they give you any weapons training, for instance?
IP: Oh, no. No.
JS: Cause that would be standard now, for women.
IP: Sure.
JS: So they send you to Kansas City next. What are they training you for there?
IP: A general training. A basic training is just, um, getting all the shots and just getting adjusted
to regimented life.
JS: And now I was asking about the next step. You go to Kansas City next?
(15:09)
IP: I went to Kansas city. For radio school. For five months of radio training, there. And I was
stationed in a hotel, and they were very strict. I do know we were called very unprepared for
war. And everything was rush rush rush. We didn’t even make our beds there. We had room
service. Cause very minute counted. You had to work hard to train. And so, um, and so I spent
five months there, and from there I went…
JS: Wait, wait. I’d like you to describe a little bit the actual training itself. And so you’re in
radio school. What does that mean? What were you actually doing?
IP: I was in radio school, I was actually learning international morse code, all this time. For five
months.
JS: How did they teach that to you? What kind of exercises did you have to do?
(16:13)
IP: Well, you started first with the letters. Letters of the alphabet. Done in code. Dot dot dot, I
made up a song like that. And that was tough for some of the girls who washed out there.
JS: Did you have to get to a certain speed, that you could either decode or type?
�IP: Yes. You had to. And some of us were better than others.
JS: Now, did you get any language training at this point?
IP: No. No language training.
JS: This was just the code itself. Did they have you doing anything besides that? Was it just
learning the code or did you do other things?
(17:03)
IP: We did other things. And now, right now it’s kind of difficult for me to recall. There were
other things that we did learn. But it was chiefly being able to intercept code messages.
JS: so you were listening to something and you had to be able to copy it to…
IP: Oh, yes.
JS: And so, you survive that five months. And during that time, you said they were very strict.
You were living in a hotel. Someone made the beds for you. Did they feed you right there in the
hotel?
IP: No. We had to go several blocks to a place where they fed all of us.
JS: So you weren’t just going someplace, to a restaurant. It was some place…
IP: No, it was for just the service women.
(17:56)
JS: Okay. And what kind of women were you working with? Like how old were they, what
kind of backgrounds did they have?
IP: Oh, I think they had all kinds of backgrounds. But a lot of them had dome secretarial work
before. In offices. There were teachers. Quite a few teachers. One of my particular friends was
a teacher. And then there were girls that did various things. But mostly I would say office work
and teaching.
JS: Well, that’s part of what you have to do, is type quickly. I guess that makes sense.
IP: You had to type sixty words a minute. I never considered myself a typist but that was
required in order to be a part of the program.
JS: Now did you get any free time? Or time off? Did you go anywhere or do anything?
IP: Not really. I got married. (laughs) To a young man I knew before I went into the service.
And we were married in Kansas City.
�(18:59)
JS: Okay. So you had seen him again, when you came back to St. Louis, before you were…
IP: Oh, yes. I saw him. Cause he was stationed in the country and so was I. So we went to
places like Chillicothe, Ohio. And Altoona, Pennsylvania, him and I.
JS: Once you finish your training program, then, where do they send you?
IP: Well, I went to Camp Crowder for more training. A couple months of training. And then
we went to, let’s see. We were sent to [ ], where we had more training. I would say, all
together, we had about eight months of training.
(19:44)
JS: Now, do you remember anything about this additional training? Were you…
IP: I can’t remember exactly where it was. But I didn’t do anything but what I just told you.
JS: Okay.
IP: But I read a book that my doctor gave to me, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, you’re probably
familiar with her. [unable to hear recording] It made me realize that we were so woefully
unprepared for war. Because Roosevelt knew that we had to help Britain, an, but he knew the
country did not want to go to war. There were secret meetings arranged between Franklin and
Churchill. Meeting off the coast of Newfoundland. And reading that book helped me realize
again how fortunate we were that Hitler didn’t invade England. Because he decided to go
change directs and go to Russia. That would have changed everything for all of the free world.
But that was a very wonderful book to read.
(21:17)
JS: I want to kind of get back to what it was that you sort of saw and did and experienced, a little
bit. So, what year was it actually then that you get out to [Bent Hills?], do you remember when
that was?
IP: I think that was, it must have been 1944.
JS: Yes. Do you remember where you were sort of Christmas of ’43? Were you still in Kansas
City, or St. Louis?
IP: In Christmas of ’43, I had to be in Kansas City.
JS: Okay, so probably not too long after that you get out to Washington. All right. Now when
you move to Washington, what kind of living accommodations, now Vint Hills, did that, where
is that relative to Washington?
IP: Well, I lived near Dupont Circle.
�(22:03)
JS: Okay. So you lived in Washington?
IP: I lived in Washington, and my dad had a cousin that was there during World War I, and she
had this dear friend that stayed in Washington and she met me, and she helped me find a place to
live. It was very expensive, as most capitals. And I was so discouraged, looking at rooms. And
maybe a blanket would cover the wall. And the blanket would have a hole in it. [can’t hear
recording] Finally, we found a place that had just been newly opened about six weeks before. A
nice big place with a big friendly front porch. And it was right near Dupont Circle. And I found
a place to stay there. And it was just before Christmas. And the people that were there were
mostly home for Christmas. So I said I would like to have a roommate. It would be more
affordable for me. And so this lady that owned the place said, well there’s a nice young lady that
I think you’ll get along with. And share the room with her. So I moved into a room with a
young woman I didn’t even know. I was looking at her shoes and her dresses to see, you know,
how she was, find out something about her. And Christmas night she came in, with a great big
grin and brown eyes. And she brought fruit cake and brandy and we sat down and got
acquainted and became fast friends. Her name was also Irene.
(24:03)
JS: All right. So now would that be Christmas ’44, then? Or Christmas, ’43?
IP: It was Christmas, ’43.
JS: I try to figure out, as best we can, the time line.
IP: Yes. Well, anyhow, that’s when it was. And then the next morning we went down to
breakfast and I got acquainted with the other people that were there. A gal from California. Her
father was a college professor and she had gone around the world on a tramp steamer. Wow.
(laughs) Margaret Strong. And then there was another girl from Pennsylvania. Another one
from Escanaba, Michigan. One young man, he was a lawyer. And I think we all sat a long table.
A very inviting room. A fireplace, it was chilly at that time. And we got acquainted and became
fast friends.
(25:09)
JS: All right. Now you had mentioned this place called Vint Hills. Is that where you started
working, or did you…?
IP: Yeah. I started working there.
JS: Now how far is that from Washington, itself?
IP: It was about forty miles south. Near Warrenton, Virginia.
JS: So how did you get out there, then?
IP: Well, we went out, they took us by bus.
�JS: Okay.
IP: And the barracks were temporary barracks. We had a little potbellied stove we had to stoke
every day. We had to put coal in. And the snow in the winter time would come right through
the cracks in the floor. To keep warm we had to bring all the covers we had, that they’d provide
for us. And flannel pajamas. Was it cold in Virginia, in the winter time.
(26:12)
JS: So you would have, you said you had a place back in Dupont Circle then, in town. Were
you keeping that room?
IP: Oh, no no no. That’s before I went into the service.
JS: Oh, okay. I was trying to piece together the story there. So that would explain that. This
Christmas there, with these people, that was a little bit earlier in your story. But now you’ve
come out and you’re staying out at the Vint Hills facility, and so you’re living in these
improvised barracks
IP: Um hmm.
(26:40)
JS: Can you detail what you were doing there?
IP: Yes. Monitoring our own troops in North Africa. To see what kind of information they
were giving away. Of course the enemy is doing the same thing we are, listening in. And then I
was transferred to Special [unable to hear] Network, which was operated by a legendary figure in
the
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
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1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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PaxsonI0616V
Title
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Paxson, Irene (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
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Paxson, Irene
Description
An account of the resource
Irene Paxson, born July 19th 1917 near Mount Vernon, Illinois, was working for the U.S. Treasury when Pearl Harbor happened. Not long afterward, she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps and trained as a radio operator and cryptographer. She was assigned to a special base outside of Washington, where she intercepted German radio messages, and also monitored American traffic to watch for security breaches. A little older than most of the other women in her unit, she soon became a leader, but left in 1944 after she became pregnant.
Contributor
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Language
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2010-08-12
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/13c264804ba7a6ceec45210891d521a1.mp4
add010a8e81dc3f36f69e93c57cfc8f3
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d587f98ef438d14bd6caec5971628ca.pdf
86e487caa44ab8b589e04b418e6d7b30
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II
Joy Lillie
Length of Interview: 20:23
(00:06)
XX: Now tell me your name again.
JL: Joy Lillie.
XX: Are you from this area?
JL: I was born in Coopersville. Always lived here all my life.
XX: I see. And your connection, as far as you’d like to talk about tonight, as far as World War
II. Were you in the service yourself?
JL: I was in the 51st Field Hospital.
XX: So you were one of the WACs?
JL: No, the Nurse’s Corp.
XX: The Nurse’s Corp, okay.
(00:34)
JL: We were with the hospital. The Nurse’s.
XX: Were you a nurse, prior to you doing this?
JL: Yeah. I was a nurse at home. Graduated from St. Mary’s in Grand Rapids. And then I went
into the service. And I got assigned to Africa first.
XX: Were they soliciting people like yourself?
JL: Oh, yeah. I volunteered. I volunteered while I was in Detroit. And that was good.
SS (someone witnessing interview): Without Dad knowing? Did you talk to Dad first? About
it.
JL: No, I hadn’t talked to Dad and Mother about it. (laughter) I had a hard time getting in
nurse’s training with them, let alone joining the Army. But we did it.
(01:29)
�XX: So you didn’t have much training when you were in the Army? You were already
trained…
JL: Yeah. I was trained before I went in. We went right into the hospital. As soon as I joined
the service, I went right onto the hospital floor.
XX: And so when you left this country, the first place you went was where?
JL: North Africa. I was there nine months, doing nothing. We were assigned to a hospital ship,
used to bring back wounded soldiers. Well, we got over there and there were several units like
the one I was in. And they had just disbanded them. And so we were left in North Africa for
nine months, before we got back to the States. We didn’t do anything. We were just sitting in
the…
XX: What part of North Africa were you in?
(02:18)
JL: The north part near Iran. That’s where we were.
XX: It wasn’t a nice vacation spot.
JL: Well, it was. It was right on the sea. It was right on the Mediterranean Sea. It was beautiful
during the day but it was cold at night.
XX: What did you do to occupy your days for nine months?
JL: Well, we did nothing. We did nothing. Went to church. They had church every night so we
could go to church and we just wasted away, doing nothing.
(02:46)
XX: Is that right? So then you came back to the United States.
JL: I came back to the United States and within a couple weeks, I was reassigned to the field
hospital.
XX: Where?
JL: I was in South Carolina.
XX: I see.
JL: And was reassigned to the 51st Field Hospital. That was ready to go overseas, but one of the
nurses got pregnant so they had to get a recruit. And I had all of the overseas gear and
everything, so I was picked to go with them. Which made us all unhappy that we had to go
overseas so quick. But that didn’t matter. We went. It was a good unit. I was glad I was in it.
�(03:36)
XX: I’m going to…this gentleman is going to take over for me. She was in Africa and then
back here, and she’s about to go over again.
FV (female voice): Is that when you went to Normandy? When you went back a second time?
JL: Yeah.
(mixed conversation as interviewers change)
(04:37)
JL: Well, we were stationed on land. The hospital was there on D+2, and the nurses arrived on
D+6, of the invasion.
MV: How soon was it before you started seeing people come back to your hospital?
JL: Well, we had patients right away. And the boys and the officers took care of them, til we
got there, and then the nurses did their job, taking care of patients. And it was a story when we
got off the ship, the ship that we had landed at Normandy on, we had to crawl down a ladder to
get to the landing boat, and then the landing boat took us to shore. And then the commanding
officer that took care of us, we had to walk up a hill, and he said, now be sure you stay in line
because it hasn’t been mine-detected yet. So for sure we didn’t stray off of where we were
going. We were so scared, we were hearing noises and bombing and stuff. We were scared
enough without that on our heads.
(05:48)
JL: As we went up the hill, a funny experience happened. We, the enemy got pretty strong, so
we got off and got in a pill box. That the Germans had left. And there was a little sailor in there
and he was wounded. Not bad, but he was wounded. And he said, I wondered what all of these
women were doing in a place like that. He said. Eighteen women, we were divided into
platoons and there were eighteen of us. And he said, what in the hell are you doing here?
MV (male voice): When he found out, I bet he was pretty happy.
JL: Yeah. He was pretty happy. He had to wait to get fixed and he was wounded bad, so he was
taken later, fixed later. But that was an experience, going up that hill. But we landed on D+6,
and the enemy had been pushed back quite a ways, by that time. So by the time we got the
hospital set up, it was…we were stationed there a long time, before we got moved.
(06:54)
JL: And as it moved, our hospital was divided into three platoons. So we hopscotched each
other. We’d get all the patients healed enough to go back, and then another company would
have moved in ahead of us. And then we’d move ahead of them. And that’s the way the platoon
worked. So it was good, one of our platoons was always close to the lines. One time, our
commanding officer was pretty good about getting us close to the lines, he was old Army.
Regular Army, and he was pushy. And he got us too close to the lines one time. We got pushed
�back about a mile, in a ditch, overnight. Because of the air raids and stuff was too strong, we had
to move back. And that was an experience.
(07:44)
JL: We had a girl from the Headquarters with us that night, and she hadn’t been into the lines
that long. She was pretty scared. But that was what happened. And we went over to Germany,
through France, first. Followed the lines into Germany. We had one real bad part, at that time.
One of our units, in Germany, [Rockun] the town was. And the boys had been left out in the
field too long and they had gotten pneumonia. And that was the one place that we lost a lot of
soldiers. They had gotten pneumonia and we couldn’t save them. It was a very depressing set
up for us, because we didn’t usually lose many. That was real depressing, that time.
MV: Was that during the Bulge?
(08:47)
JL: Hmmm?
MV: Was that during the Bulge?
JL: No, the Bulge was later. Later after the war was over, the Bulge was going. But as the field
progressed towards the Germans, we got set up. They sent platoon after platoon. And we
covered a lot of territory after that, the lines were moving fast. We covered a lot of territory in a
short time. Then, after the war, or near when the war ended, we got this Battle of the Bulge. I
don’t know if you guys remember about that.
(09:25)
JL: But we were in Germany at the time, but we got pulled back to Belgium. Wei, a town by the
name of Wei, Belgium. It was a school that was set up as a hospital and we had patients from all
over. We had German patients and American patients and everything, all together. Cause there
were so many wounded at that time. And that was our story of the Bulge, that we landed there.
And that was the end of the war. When the Bulge finished, that was the end of the war for the
Germans. So then we were stationed in Russia, once. Well, we were on leave then. We were
just set up for patients of our own, our own wounded boys and so forth. If they shot their toe off
or something, in excitement. Something like that, that’s the kind of patients we got then.
(10:25)
JL: So, then, as we started home…I was going to tell you about Russ. When we were in the
fighting yet, I got leave to go down and see him. I was in 1st Army and he was in 7th Army.
My commanding officer got me a jeep and a driver and they drove me down to where Russ was.
And as I got there, he was coming up to see me. He’d gotten a jeep and was on his way up to see
me. So that was a very disappointing trip for me.
(10:59)
JL: But, we turned around and came back.
MV: Did you see each other?
�JL: Nope. We got together…he had boils on his legs, so the commanding officer of my platoon
put him in the hospital, so his leave didn’t get started until he left the hospital. So we had some
time together that time. That was exciting. But that’s about the history of my trip.
(11:24)
FV: How about when you flew in a P-48?
JL: Well, that was one time when I was trying to see Russ too, one time. I flew in a P-48.
From, gosh, I can’t remember. We went to Nuremberg. Where he dropped me off. But that was
exciting, riding in the back of the driver, or the pilot, you know. But anyway, that was good.
That was a good ride.
MV: Did you ever have to treat prisoners?
JL: Oh, yes. We treated them right along with Americans. If they were wounded, we had to
take care of them too. We had an experience with one. He was a captain and he was wounded.
And he spoke English real good. But he wouldn’t help us with his companions. They were
scared that we were going to kill them, and all that stuff that they’d been told that we would do.
He wouldn’t help us a bit. Not tell them that we were just trying to help them, or anything. But
eventually, he talked a little bit more but he was bad, cause he was bad for the morale of his own
soldiers.
(12:32)
JL: Because he didn’t let them know that we were really trying to help them and not hurt them.
But, yes, every set up, we had Germans, too.
MV: Now when you moved ahead, set these hospitals up, these tents, did somebody take them
down for you and set them up? Was there a crew who did that?
JL: No. We had the hospital and when we got enough blood and stuff in them, and we got them
ready so that they could transport back. To the Evac hospital, which followed the field hospitals.
And they kept them and they sent them back to the central surgical place. But we were the first
ones on the line. There were several hospital platoons. And we were right on the line. As soon
as the collecting station got them, we got them. We had bad patients, wounded bad. There were
stomachs and chests and amputations, and everything, we got, because they couldn’t go any
farther back until they were treated. So that was the kind of patients that we had.
(13:48)
JL: We had good surgeons, special surgeons. One for chests, one for stomachs, one for
amputations, so we had all kinds of good surgeons. They worked long hard hours too.
MV: Now what kind of a facility did you stay in?
JL: We had tents. We had tents. There were six of us to a tent.
�MV: So there were people who were in the medical corp who would pull those down and move
them ahead?
JL: Oh, yeah.
MV: Each time, for ya?
JL: There would always be somebody ahead. That’s the way we did it. One set up we had,
which was real bad. It was real cold, and we were in tents. The hospital was in tents and it was
so cold that the blood wouldn’t flow. So the engineers came and set up pot-bellied stoves to
warm up the area, so that the blood would flow. That was a bad set up, because it was so cold
and it was bad. But we didn’t lose too many due to that. But it was cold. Bad set up.
(14:59)
JL: We had all kinds. We’d set up in schools, mostly. If we could get into a town that had a
school vacant. Or we made it vacant. And we’d put our hospitals in the schools, instead of the
tents. But tent set ups were hard. We had a lot of rain and stuff. And engineers would come in
and put boards down and stuff, so we could walk between the patients beds and stuff. Engineers
did a good job, helping us. So that was good.
MV: How did you get back to the United States then, when the war was all over?
JL: Well, we were, after the war ended, we were stationed in different places until we got, until
our time come up. I had more experience overseas so I got back before my husband did. He had
more time in the Army, but he had more time in the States than I did overseas. So I got home
before he did. We’d go to these rest areas, until the boats came that we could go back on. But
we were stationed in a rest area until we had a boat to come home. Then we’d come home by
boat.
(16:14)
MV: Did you have to come home on a hospital ship?
JL: No. We didn’t. Cause we were all healthy. So we didn’t have to. We went over on one.
We come back once, on a hospital ship full of patients. We did that once. So that was good.
The boys were all good, waiting to go home. They were wounded but they were waiting to go
home. That was a good set up. The hospital ship, though, was lots less even to ride in. it wasn;t
a very big ship, like St. Mary’s and the others one were. But, it was…I didn’t get sick because I
got a good stomach, I guess. But a lot of them did get sick. Because we slept in the…our part of
the ship had five beds up, that we crawled into to sleep. But it was kind of weary, for some of
us.
(17:23)
JL: A lot of things happened. Another time, one of the things was a no-no. We’d gotten a
vacation in Paris. When our platoon was down, we got a trip to Paris and we had a… oh,
shoot…ride, not in a truck…but an ambulance. An ambulance truck. And we had six of us, in
this ambulance, riding to and from Paris. And we’re looking out and we saw a German tank out
�in a field. And they says, oh, let’s go see that. Of course, that was off limits, too, because we
didn’t know if it was mined or not, but we went. And we wished we hadn’t, because we looked
in it and it was full of dead Germans. Still and burnt to a crisp. We learned to stay off the fields
after that. We didn’t try that stuff anymore.
(18:34)
JL: But, as a whole, that was pretty much what I did.
MV: Now all the nurses, were they all officers?
JL: Um hmm. We were 2nd Leutenients when we went in. And I come out as a 1st Leutenient.
MV: So all of the RN’s started as officers.
JL: If you were an RN, you were 2nd Leutenients. Yup. It was a different kind of care then we
got in the States, but it was good. I’d do it again, if I were young and they needed me. It was a
good experience.
MV: Well, that was great.
FV: Can you talk about Buchenwald, Mom.
JL: Well, we went through one camp, concentration camp, and it was after the war. And we
were the first medical group through it. And the prisoners were still there. And the dead and the
live were still there.
(19:33)
JL: And we went in and fed the patients and took care of them. They all had dysentery so bad
they were in our tents. And we fed them soup that was in our C-rations. We added a little fat for
them, because they were so emaciated. Bad. They were in bad shape when we got to them. And
we took care of them until they could leave on, wherever they could go. But it was bad. A bad
set up. One we could have not seen, I think. It was not good.
(20:23)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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LillieJ1344V
Title
A name given to the resource
Lillie, Joy (Interview transcript and video), 2011
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lillie, Joy
Description
An account of the resource
Joy Lillie, born in Coopersville Michigan, served in the 51st Field Hospital in the Army Nurse Corps from 1942 to 1945 during the Second World War. During her service she spent 9 months in Oran, Algeria, and went to Normandy shortly after D-Day and worked in France, Belgium and Germany.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Weikel, Daniel (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-09-20
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2050f79d3486889ee884dc965f0ebd80.mp4
495ed39a6042b6690b1f9c420ca0095d
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/846f380ffdf9894315f810beca434d8d.pdf
0c4bcc87a6c9e0ac9b03eceefbb599ec
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
World War II
Mae Johnson
Total Time – (29:18)
Background
· She was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on July 14, 1919 (00:18)
· She graduated from Leavenworth High School (00:24)
· Some of the men from her high school were being sent into the Army and the girls
wanted to keep them happy so they would join a club to write to them and send
them goodies
· She graduated in 1937 (01:01)
· After she graduated she stayed at home and earned some money so she could go
to nursing school
· She attended nursing school in Greenwich, Connecticut (01:39)
o She became sick and could not finish school
· After she could not finish nursing school, she did a lot of babysitting jobs and
worked at a company that made parts for gyroscopes (02:07)
· When the attacks on Pearl Harbor happened, she was at home with her dad
(02:48)
· She then travels out to California with a friend and is forced to find work there
o She worked for a steel company
o She did some kind of work for the military
· In California she had a job working with a bastard file (03:34)
· She remained in California until she could make enough money to return home to
Connecticut
· When she returned to Connecticut, she decided to join the service in the Woman’s
Army Corps (WAC) (05:41)
Enlistment/Training – (05:54)
· She enlisted in New Haven, Connecticut (06:02)
· She was then sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for basic training (06:12)
· In basic training there was a lot of marching, schoolwork, etc.
o She always feared that she would fall out of step when marching (07:05)
�Active Duty – (07:38)
· After basic training in Georgia, she was sent to Hot Springs, Arkansas (07:40)
· She was stationed at a hospital in Arkansas
· In Hot Springs, her job was to do everything except for charting (08:57)
o The nurses would do charting and the dispensing of medication
o She was assigned to the Surgical and Medical Wards
· It was a large adjustment of living with so many women and in such small
quarters (10:11)
· She believes that the veterans coming in bolstered the officers working at the
hospital
· She was then sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois at the base hospital (11:22)
o She did the same kind of work at Fort Sheridan as before
· She was in Illinois in the earlier part of 1945 (12:45)
· Fort Sheridan had barracks for the officers
· Her parents were happy that she enlisted
· Fort Sheridan had a lot of potential for activities because it was so close to
Chicago, Illinois (16:18)
· In Chicago, she enjoyed going to the museums
o One time she was given tickets to the Northwestern football game
· There was a hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago that allowed servicemen and
women to lodge for free (18:43)
o She stayed there several times
· She had met her future husband while at Fort Sheridan
· When he proposed she said, “No way. I am not marrying any man that’s going to
smoke a cigarette.” (19:32)
o He picked her over the cigarettes
· They got married at the Fort Sheridan Chapel (20:14)
o Both of their parents came to the wedding and met the night before the
wedding
· She was still in the WAC when she got married (21:51)
· Their first son was born in 1949 and their second in 1951
· At the wedding, their wedding cake was made by a German POW who was one of
the cooks (24:31)
· She saw a lot of the German POW’s and SS guards at Fort Sheridan (25:12)
· The German prisoners were treated very well
· One time she became very close to a patient that had her face shattered (26:58)
o She was constantly with the injured patient
§ She would try to emotionally sooth her
· It was heartbreaking to see the men at the Army and Navy General Hospitals
(27:54)
· She was very happy that she went into the Army
· She found the previous nursing training as very helpful for her (28:41)
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
JohnsonM1348V
Title
A name given to the resource
Johnson, Mae (Interview outline and video), 2012
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Johnson, Mae
Description
An account of the resource
Mae Johnson was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1919. She graduated from Leavenworth High School in 1937 and eventually went to nursing school. Because she could not finish nursing school, Mae traveled to California with a friend. After visiting California, she decided she would enlist in Woman's Army Corps (WAC) in New Haven, Connecticut. She was then sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for basic training. After basic training, Mae was sent to Hot Springs, Arkansas where she worked in a hospital as she was assigned to the Surgical and Medical Wards. Once she was finished in Arkansas in early 1945, she was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois where she maintained a similar position as before. While at Fort Sheridan she met her future husband and met many German POWs.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-02-08
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fc35a8b8a98c59a22c3561df0acfba19.mp4
651f0e3e33ac37a0f009eb6d79f5169b
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/40841bc2d9e0c426f4dc68e7323bb474.pdf
4d8a383ba81cee0c3472eede4554afec
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State Veterans History Project
Valeria Dellinger
WWII Veteran
United States Army
(42:03)
(00:23)Detroit Michigan
Valeria was born April 4 1925 at her grandmothers home in Detroit
Valeria’s father worked for Ford Motor Company and her mother was a stay at home
mother
Their house was on the west side of Detroit by St. Lawrence Church. Valeria remembers
playing jacks on her porch when she was young.
(3:40)Valeria remembers starting pre-school in Detroit and attending a Catholic school
for 6th and 7th grade. It takes two years of Catholic school to be confirmed.
(5:20)Valeria returned to public school for 8th grade and on thru high school. She
attended Chadsey High School on the west side of Detroit. Valeria was 5’9” in high
school so she played basketball and did very well at it.
She attended her senior prom with a fellow she can not remember his name.
She did graduate high school.
(7:40)After graduation she worked for Michigan Bell training to be a telephone operator
Valeria was 18 years old when she graduated
Valeria was at the movies when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Her mom told her when she
returned home. She had no idea where Pearl Harbor was.
Her cousin went into the Coast Guard and his ship was bombed and died.
Her younger cousin went into the Coast Guard also and he didn’t weigh enough and was
told to eat bananas so he would weigh enough. He came home safe
(10:00)Valeria also had a female cousin who was a year older than her that also went
into the war. She says that her entire family was set on Japan not winning this war.
Valeria went to the movies twice a week and they would give newsreels about the war
during the movies. She remembers seeing television for the first time and thought it
was great to have the movies in her own home.
Valeria originally tried to enlist into the Marine Corps but was told they had enough
women enlisted already. She wanted to serve her country anyway possible so she
enlisted into the Army.
To enlist, she had to go to the recruiting office and be sworn in. Her parents also had to
sign for her to do this. She remembers while in basic training she was investigated
because she was supposed to go to Los Alamos.
(12:20)Basic Training-Des Moines Iowa
Valeria’s uniform needed to be altered because she was tall and thin. She said they
were nice uniforms though.
During basic training, Valeria attended classes, drilled and marched. She said there was
no rifle training.
The Army had prior knowledge of her experience with the telephone company.
�
Valeria was in basic training for about six weeks.
(13:50)Valeria was in basic training in the spring of 1945.
She was interviewed after basic training on where she wanted to work at. She wanted
to be a nurse’s aide but was told they had enough of them. She was told they need
switchboard operators in the south west. They did not tell in it was in Los Alamos.
Valeria took a train along with civilians and service men and women to Los Alamos.
(15:35) Valeria was surprised to pull into Santa Fe, New Mexico. She wondered where
she was with such a small city.
Before going to Los Alamos they had to go to Oak Ridge Tennessee for a physical and a
psychological testing to be performed. One female was traveling with her from basic
training to Tennessee and to New Mexico.
Valeria was asked by the psychologist what company of people she preferred, men or
women? She answered women. He asked if she planned on getting married. She said
yes and he let her go. Her friend was asked the same question and answered men to
the first question and he told her he needed to see her back again.
(18:00)She met her husband in 1946 [1945?] during the Battle of the Bulge while he was
serving in the war. He was from North Carolina but recently died on Christmas Day. He
put in 20 years in the service.
(19:00)New Mexico
Valeria spent time her with dances, the movies, and at the PX where you could purchase
Coca Cola. She said they could be involved with sports but she decided not to. All of
this was on the base.
Valeria did not have to do KP duty. They had Mexicans doing all of those duties.
You were not allowed to listen in on conversations or ask questions. She didn’t mind
because she wasn’t curious.
Valeria has a book about what was expected of them.
(21:10)She went to a dance with a fellow and met another guy from his barracks. He
asked her to the movies and ended marrying him. She says she was very shy at the time
so she double dated with her friend and her boyfriend.
Valeria’s husband had previously served in Germany but re-enlisted and was sent to
New Mexico.
(24:00)Valeria’s husband’s brother was a prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge
and escaped. She remembers her husband saying that he hated the Germans but
figured that was a result of having to fight them in the war. She did not ask her husband
much about the war thinking he probably would not have wanted to talk about it
anyways.
She says she served until November 1946 when she was discharged. She was engaged
at the time.
Her husbands name was A.G. She called him Bill.
(25:33)Home in Michigan
Once Valeria was discharged she came home. She obtained clothes for their wedding
and headed back to New Mexico.
(25:50)Los Alamos, New Mexico
May 1947 she was married at Los Alamos where he was still stationed. She received a
job for the civil service as a switchboard operator.
Valeria’s husband was transferred to Albuquerque, New Mexico
Valeria had a daughter in 1948 and discontinued working at this point.
�
Her husband was a security guard and MP at this point.
In 1952 her son was born.
(28:40)Valeria’s husband was asked to go to the Pacific for service. He did not tell her it
was for Hydrogen bomb testing. At this point, Valeria returned home to Detroit. Her
son was four months old at this time.
In 1953, Valeria said she saw it in the news that they had tested the hydrogen bomb.
Her husband was there a year and she knew he would be coming home at that point.
(30:30)1953, Valeria’s husband requested to be transferred to North Carolina at Fort
Bragg. Valeria moved to North Carolina till they divorced in 1956.
Valeria took her two children back to Detroit and did not remarry.
Valeria’s children are Linda and Alan.
Linda is a housewife with no children and Alan works with construction building new
homes. He married a woman with two children but no biological children. There are
two grandchildren Gabriel and Kylie.
(34:00) Valeria’s mother’s maiden name was Katherine Puskarz and her father was
Joseph Wysick. Her grandmother’s name was Mary.
Valeria has two younger siblings, Raymond and Theresa. They called her Tessie.
(35:20)Valeria came to the Veterans home when she couldn’t take care of herself. She
had an apartment in Farmington Hills. Her son lives in Rockford.
She said something happened to her mind that made things too complicated for her to
handle alone. Her daughter found the facility on the internet.
(38:00)Her daughter in law comes and visits her once a week and does all her laundry
for her and brings it to her.
Valeria enjoys being at the Veterans home. She says she is kept busy. She enjoys playing
bingo.
(40:50)Affects of the war on Valeria’s life
Valeria feels that the service made her more outgoing and met many women and men
during her time in the service that became great friends.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dellinger, Valeria (Interview outline and video), 2006
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dellinger, Valeria
Description
An account of the resource
Valeria Dellinger was a veteran of WWII in the United States Army in 1945 and 1946. She served in Los Alamos, New Mexico as a switchboard operator for the military at the time of the development of the atomic bomb. She married her husband after she was discharged in 1946. He remained a MP for the military and transferred to the Pacific when they were testing the atomic bomb, while she stayed on at Los Alamos in the civil service for a while before moving to Michigan.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer)
Collins, Carol (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-10-16
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DellingerV0226V
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4