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- Description:
- Clare Rounsevell Ellinwood talks about her service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War One as a civilian secretary and says that she volunteered because her fiance had joined the French Army Ambulance Corp. She talks about working in a hospital in Philadelphia, being shipped to Brest, France on the USS Leviathan, traveling by train to the front, and finally being sent to a base near Vichy. She describes how the hospitals were set up, the constant shortage of food, and the utter devastation of the European battlefields. Ellinwood also recalls Armistice Day and the great celebration, and returning to the U.S. in 1919 to marry the man she had followed to France. Ellinwood says that in spite of the many hardships, her service overseas gave her a chance to do things she otherwise would not have gotten an opportunity to do. Ellinwood is interviewed by Margaret E. Duncan.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-05-09T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Laura Smith talks about her service as an Army nurse during the First World War. Smith says she graduated from nursing school in the spring of 1917, was inducted into the Army in February 1918 and was sent with her unit to Liverpool, England that same year. Smith says that she was later assigned to a mobile tent hospital near Chateau-Thierry and recalls the surgeries, the daily hospital routine, her quarters, wood stoves for heat, blackout conditions, and meals. Her unit, Smith says, moved with the troops to the Meuse-Argonne front and she describes the horrors of the battle, treating gas attack victims and the onslaught of the flu epidemic which killed so many. She remembers the feelings she had when the guns fell silent on November 11th and taking a cruise up the Rhine near Koblenz in March 1919, visiting Monaco, and the Alps and finally being sent back to the U.S. in early June 1919.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alice Pfeiffer talks about her youth in Illinois, her education and her career as an Air Force nurse and administrator. Pfeiffer says that she enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1941, talks about her first duty stations and says that after additional training at Fort Bragg, was sent to England aboard the Queen Mary. Pfeiffer says that she was assigned to the 68th General Hospital which was set up in a cow pasture, worked 12 hour shifts, and lived in very, very basic conditions. After D-Day, Pfeiffer says that she worked in a hospital in France, was finally sent back to the U.S. after the war and was discharged in 1946. She says that she enlisted in the Air Force in 1949, served at various bases and hospitals around the world and retired in 1964 while stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB. Ends abruptly. Pfeiffer is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Estelle M. Davis explains why she enlisted as a Red Cross nurse during World War One and describes her experiences. She reminisces about being a public health nurse in Jersey City, her family's reaction to her enlistment, and being shipped across the Atlantic to Calais with 350 fellow nurses. Davis recounts the awful food and the terrible conditions under which staff had to perform surgery, while serving only 50 miles from the front at Verdun. She says that she met her future husband when treating him for a shrapnel wound at her aid station. Davis is interviewed by Lois Collet.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mildred Blandford talks about her service as a secretary in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Blandford, who served from August 1944 to November 1945, says that she joined the Red Cross for overseas adventure and spent most of her time stationed at the 194th General Hospital in Paris. She says that she was quartered in a Parisian hotel with maid service, but that service in the hospital was no picnic and meant leaving her secretarial duties often to help care for the onslaught of wounded soldiers. After VE Day, Blandford says that she volunteered for duty in the Pacific and was sent to Okinawa where she found herself living in a tent rather than luxury hotel. She talks about her daily tasks and again helping out with wounded G.I.s. and describes two typhoons that hit the island and how staff tried to protect the patients in the tent hospital from the storm. At war's end, Blandford says that she returned to Louisville to work, but later went back to Paris for school and to work for NATO. Blandford is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-10-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mary Myers talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from 1944 to 1950. Myers talks about her nurse's training, why she decided to enlist in the military, basic training and being sent overseas to Marseilles, France in November 1944 to help form the 236th General Hospital. Myers recalls being strafed by German planes in Paris, enjoying a Coca-Cola on Christmas day, her primitive quarters, bathing out of her helmet in cold weather, caring for Allied soldiers and German POWs, and the variety of wounds and diseases she treated. Myers says that officers and enlisted men and women shared the same mess hall and that she was always treated respectfully by U.S. troops and German POWs. Myers also talks about the end of the war in Europe and being shipped to the Pacific just in time for VJ-Day. After the war, she says that she stayed in the Army Reserves and used the G.I. Bill to earn an undergraduate degree and part of a graduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Myers is interviewed by Elizabeth Booker.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Sarah Penrose "Penny" Schemmel Edlin discusses her service with the 82nd General Hospital during World War Two. Edlin talks about her childhood, her education as a physical therapist, joining the Army as a commissioned officer in August 1943, her very rigorous basic training, and being shipped to England in February 1944. She also talks about the harsh living conditions in the hospital camps where she served including, the bad food, unsanitary conditions and rodent infestations, and shares a story about a planned German POW prison break near one of the camps and treating the German prisoners who claimed they couldn't speak English. After VE-Day, Edlin says that her unit moved to France to close down hospitals and later to a hospital in England to treat emaciated American POWs who were returning from the German prison camps. She says that romances between U.S. Army officers and nurses was quite common during the war and that she, in fact, married a man from her unit after she returned to the States. Edlin is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy M. Harrison describes the efforts of the Louisville Unit of the Women's Overseas Service League to collect oral histories and then talks about the life of Sara Landau who served in the American Red Cross as an unpaid volunteer during World War One. Harrison reads from an interview Landau gave in which she talks about answering telephones and carrying messages in Paris and working in a hospital in Vannes writing letters for the wounded and running a library, and a game room. Landau also describes a visit to the hospital by General Pershing and how she felt on Armistice Day in November 1918.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Helene Gram Forster talks about her hospital service with the American Red Cross between June 1943 and December 1945. Forster explains why she volunteered and describes her duties as a hospital recreation worker charged with providing activities and entertainment for patients at bases in North Africa, Italy and France. Forster says that the convoy which brought her to Africa was attacked near Oran, Algeria, and describes crossing the Mediterranean to Naples and being based in a convent hospital in Caserta, Italy, living conditions in camps in Algeria and Italy, caring for allied troops from several countries, and setting up a hospital in a French cavalry school. She says she sailed on a hospital ship back to the States for her leave and then returned to unit in France aboard a mail plane which also carried one of General Eisenhower's aides with a top secret set of battle plans. Forster says that her service during the war was a special time in her life. Forster is interviewed by Edna Fonn.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project