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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:
- Neola Ann Spackman reminisces about her family, her decision to go into nursing, and what motivated her to join the Army Nurse Corps during World War Two, after serving in the Red Cross Disaster Nursing Service. She talks about working in Minnesota, moving to California, and in April 1941, receiving a request to join the Nurse Corps, which she says was almost like being drafted. She describes life at Fort Ord, California, her duties, housing, racial discrimination, and how she spent social time. Spackman recalls almost being transferred to the Philippines just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, shipping out to England aboard a cramped troop ship in 1943 and eight months later transferring to a field hospital which followed the troops into France after D-Day. Spackman says that she joined a field hospital near the front in August 1944 and describes her twelve-hour surgery shifts, being evacuated from Luxembourg as the Battle of the Bulge raged, moving into Germany at Cologne and later witnessing the Russian-U.S. hook-up at the Elbe River. After the war, she says that she was assigned to the Fort Custer hospital in Michigan, was married, worked as a civilian nurse for 35 years and retired in 1982.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-06-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project