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- 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:
- 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 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
- Description:
- Florence Bernstein McChesney, from the Women's Overseas Service League Pittsburgh Unit, talks about her service as a flight nurse in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1949. McChesney explains why she volunteered for the Army while working in a TB ward in a Detroit hospital and discusses her training and finally being assigned to the Pacific Theater of Operations. She describes her duties, flying frequently to the States with patients, her quarters in Hawaii and on Guadalcanal, her uniforms, the types of illness and injuries she treated and says that she was the first nurse on Okinawa. McChesney says that she used the G.I. Bill to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees after the war and worked as a nurse until her retirement in 1974. McChesney is interviewed by Amelia Bunder.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-01-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Marcia Baer Larsen, who studied art history and ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design, talks about using her training while working at foreign postings for the federal government, including service in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. After graduating in 1964, Larsen says that she was hired by the Defense Department as a civilian Supervisory Recreation Specialist in the Special Services unit and was sent to Korea to run craft, recreation, and education programs for American troops at an R&R center and also led tours of ancient Korean kiln sites. Larsen says that she was in Korea until 1968 and after two years back in the States was sent to Thailand as administrator of all in-country recreation facilities, including golf courses and recreation centers. Larsen talks about closing centers in Vietnam and Thailand and turning the facilities and equipment over to local government and tells a story of taking an unauthorized flight with a CIA unit into Phenom Phen, Cambodia and initially being refused permission to leave. Larsen says that she left Special Services when she married and later became Director of the Southwest Craft Center. Larsen is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Betty Thompson talks about her service as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army during World War Two. Thompson says that her unit was originally scheduled to be sent to Belgium, but that they were kept in a Paris triage hospital because the causality load became so heavy. She says that she spent sixteen months there and describes some of the most severely injured patients which she treated. After V-E Day, Thompson says her unit was split up and she was sent to the Riviera for duty in a venereal disease hospital and then was finally ordered back to the States in October 1945. She also talks about meeting President Franklin Roosevelt when she worked at Warm Springs, Arkansas after graduating from nursing school, meeting her future husband overseas during the war and using her G.I. Bill money to earn a pilots license.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project