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- Description:
- Kay Wellinger talks about her service in the American Red Cross in 1969 during the Vietnam War. Wellinger says that she graduated from college in 1966 with a degree in Russian and began working for the CIA right out of school. Looking for more excitement, she joined the Red Cross and was sent to Saigon for two weeks of "supplemental recreation activity overseas" training. She talks about living in fire bases and planning recreational activities for the First Division and later the First Air Cavalry, living under enemy fire in bunkers, being housed and fed right with the troops, receiving hazardous duty pay and constantly being afraid for her life. She says she left Vietnam in October 1969, resigned from the Red Cross and was married that November. Welllinger also says she never heard any complaints from the troops about serving while she was in Vietnam and that when she came home she never experienced any negative fallout from people involved in the antiwar movement. Wellinger is interviewed by Virginia E. Emrich.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-02-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Katie Kerr talks about her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Kerr describes becoming a medical technician, volunteering for the Red Cross in March 1944 and serving as a hospital recreation worker. She talks about her initial duties and training at American University in Washington D.C. and later being shipped to England. She talks about her time in England, how complicated relationships could become, recreation activities the Red Cross organized to entertain the troops, and some of her patients and their injuries. She remembers V-E Day, anticipating being sent to the Pacific Theater, coming back to the States in July 1945, taking a job at Lansing, Michigan's Sparrow Hospital, and meeting her husband, a Michigan State Police Trooper. Kerr talks about how she felt when the atomic bomb was dropped and signs off the interview by reciting her serial number. Kerr is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-08-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Elizabeth "Betty" Brown says she that she wanted to join the Women's Army Corps but failed to pass the physical, applied for the American Red Cross and served in Army and Navy hospitals for four years and then two years as a service club director. She talks about organizing recreational activities for patients in the 65th General Hospital in Europe during World War II and says that after V-J Day she was sent to Guam to work for several general hospitals. Brown describes the variety of uniforms she wore and coming up with creative ways to entertain patients. She says that just being away from home was the biggest wartime adjustment she had to make. Brown also talks about her postwar employment with the YWCA, earning a masters degree and serving in the Peace Corp. Brown is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lucile Pauline Matignon Crane talks about her service as a surgical nurse in the U.S. Navy during World War One, between April 1917 and February 1919. Crane says that she graduated from nursing school in 1914 and first worked at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco and that she enlisted in the Navy for good pay, and a chance for more education and equal opportunity. She talks about shipping out to Scotland, working in a surgical unit in a hospital which was a former resort hotel, the types of injuries she treated and socializing with enlisted men because the doctors were off limits. She also says that she was one of the first nurses to be sent home as the war wound down, spent her leave in Paris and was shipped home from Brest with ten women and thousands of men. Crane talks about her career after leaving the Navy, marrying and settling in Modesto, CA and notes that she received no special recognition for her service until the state of California paid a veterans bonus. The interviewer is unidentified.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-12-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Matilda Papenhausen talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War One. Papenhausen explains why she volunteered for the Army and says that her unit was deployed to an American staffed British hospital in France in July 1917. She talks about the diseases, injuries and wounds she treated, her uniform, quarters, rations, and social activities. Papenhausen says she returned to the States shortly after the Armistice and worked in a Kansas hospital as an assistant superintendent of nurses, and later as a government hospital inspector in Iowa and South Dakota. Ends abruptly. Papenhausen is interviewed by Dorothy W. Early.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-08-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In the second of two oral history interviews, Virginia Emrich describes her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Emrich says that she was sent to Australia in 1944 and then to Manila in June 1945 where she was quartered in a bombed-out building with indoor toilets and showers, but with little privacy. Emrich remembers regularly hearing gunfire and bombs as U.S. troops tried to dislodge the Japanese, setting up a recreation hall for the 11th Airborne Division and regularly suffering earthquakes and tropical rains. She says that she was never hungry during her time in the Red Cross, but was often homesick, cold and tired and always sustained by the conviction that she was doing something worthwhile. Emerich says that she was sent to Japan in September 1945 to open recreation clubs for U.S. occupation forces and that although she enjoyed her time in Japan, she finally asked to be shipped home to care for her aging mother.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-06-11T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Marion E. Marriman talks about her service with the YMCA in Europe during World War One from July 1918 to October 1919. Marriman describes preparations for shipping out including taking a year's supply of toilet paper and and says that she was not worried about German submarines during the voyage because her ship carried German and Swiss mail. She describes her uniform, her quarters in Paris, her duties running a canteen and preparing sandwiches and hot cocoa for soldiers. Marriman also talks about Armistice Day celebrations in Paris and says that she was sent with the occupation forces to Koblenz, Germany where she met her future husband, and that her duties included entertaining the troops and that she danced through 14 pairs of shoes. Marriman also says she had a difficult time re-adjusting to life back in the United States. Marriman is interviewed by Elizabeth Booker and Mary Myers.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a 1983 oral history interview, Dorothy M. Harrison talks about her childhood in Royal Oak, MI, attending the University of Michigan and her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Harrison says she volunteered for the ARC in late 1942 and after receiving their training, her unit was shipped to Europe as part of a forty-ship convoy which was attacked by a German submarine during the crossing. Harrison also talks about opening a service club with the 93rd Heavy Bombardment Group in Hardwick, England, moving to the 337th General Service Engineers and later to the 363rd Photo Reconnaissance Group as part of the push across Germany as the war ended. She describes her quarters, her duties, celebrating Christmas with the troops during the Battle of the Bulge, struggling to get the equipment and supplies she needed to keep the clubs running, and the sexual harassment she experienced. Harrison says that she returned to the U.S. in September 1945, resumed her career as a librarian and married and moved with her husband to Louisville, KY to raise a family.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In the first of two oral history interviews, Virginia Emrich talks about running Red Cross recreation clubs for U.S. troops during World War Two. Emrich discusses her Red Cross training and says that she was slated to go to Europe, but protested the assignment because she wanted to go to the Pacific and was finally sent to Brisbane, Australia in 1943. Emrich says that her first assignment in Australia was to staff a club which had a beach, golf course, and tennis courts and recalls troops from New Guinea and other front line units rotating through Brisbane for rest before the Philippine invasion in October 1944. Emrich says she was later moved to Darwin on the north coast of Australia to run a recreation club and describes her duties there, the tropical heat and humidity, the rains, mud, and insects and says that the troops were not allowed to swim in the ocean because the stingrays were so fierce. Emrich is interviewed by Virginia Cornett.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Alice Nordly talks about her nearly four years of service as an officer in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two and being stationed in the Asian Theater of Operations. Nordly explains why she enlisted in Army and discusses her induction and basic training and says that she was recruited from a local California hospital. Nordly talks about her stateside assignments and duties in various surgical wards and says that she finally shipped out to India on an troop ship which had no naval escort and which took forty-five days to cross the Pacific. Nordly describes stops in New Zealand and Australia before landing in India and taking a train to Ledo, India to support the troops trying to recapture the Ledo Road from the Japanese. She describes the scenery, the poverty, her gear and quarters, the torrential rains and intense heat and treating various battlefield wounds and injuries. After her discharge in 1946, Nordly says that she did face a period of adjustment to civilian life and that what she most disliked about the Army was the regimentation and the lack of privacy. Nordly is interviewed by Neola A. Spackman.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project