I grew up in Osowatomie, Kansas where I finished high school before moving to Kansas City, Missouri. There, I completed a year of business education at Sarachon-Hooley Secretarial School.   Then I went on to take a job with the Missouri Department of Agriculture in the Commodity Credit office.

I had never even considered joining the military. Then my older brother John was drafted in 1942. He was married and had a child. Going into the service was very difficult for him and his sacrifice made a real impression on me. I thought; "By gosh, if he can do it, well then so can I."

I was fortunate that my boss at the Department of Agriculture was a forward thinking man and supportive of my desire to serve. You see, the Agriculture Department was considered a priority agency in support of the war effort, and my request to join the WAVES could have been denied on the grounds that my civilian service within the department was necessary. However my boss seemed to understand how important this decision was to me. He asked if I really wanted to leave my good job and my apartment. He asked if I was ready to wear a uniform every day. When I told him that yes, I was ready and really wanted to go, he said to me; "Then you go for it". He was wonderful about it!

Here’s something funny. Do you know why I chose the Navy over the Army? It was because of the uniforms. I thought I looked better in navy blue than in khaki. I just don’t look good in that khaki color and when I saw the uniform for the WAVES well, I just thought it was neat. Isn’t that crazy? Well, you know, I'm female, I guess that’s why.

I must tell you that I was a darn good secretary. In fact I was the highest-ranking secretary in the office at the Department of Agriculture, so I really thought I would have a very high post in the Navy. I thought I might even be the secretary to the Chief of Naval Operations. But, because I didn’t have any college I wasn’t eligible for some of the higher positions even though I was probably qualified. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college. Girls with college education became officers and the rest of us retained our "enlisted" status. I went into the service as a yeoman and by the time I left I had upgraded to the rank of Specialist Q 1^st Class.

So anyway, I enlisted and was sworn in in December, 1942. I was given two weeks after I was sworn in before I had to report for duty. Because I was such good secretary (I had excellent typing and shorthand skills) I was sent to Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater, Oklahoma, which is where the training was for those of us with secretarial background. The Navy had taken over about half of the college there for the training of the WAVES. Two of my friends from the Agriculture Department joined the service just a couple of months after I did (their boss gave them some tough talk to discourage them so they did not join right away). We thought we’d be kept together, all coming from the same office in the Dept. of Agriculture, all from Kansas City.  But they worked in the accounting department, so they did not go to Stillwater. One went to Chicago. The other was an absolutely beautiful gal, just outstanding. And where do you think they sent her? Recruiting. I did see her in uniform and I am telling you, she was a beautiful model. Recruiting was the right place for her. I can’t remember where she went and I lost track of her, though I have kept in touch with my friend who went to Chicago.

At Stillwater we were divided up into platoons, 30 girls per platoon. Our days began with drill practice and marching. Every day regardless of the weather – rain or shine – we drilled from 8:00 until 9:00 in the morning. I liked to march – it was fun. I really enjoyed it because it made me feel good and healthy. I’d always been slim and trim and I knew that with the exercise I would stay slim and trim. Our schooling was intensive and started at 9:00, right after drill. We would study history first, and English, and all the background that a good secretary needs – shorthand and typing. I was up to 125 wpm typing. Our secretarial training was very comprehensive and I just knew I was going to be a secretary to an admiral or some other high-ranking officer.

Our schooling at Stillwater ran from 9:00 until noon or 1:00 each day and we had our afternoons free. The 30 girls in our platoon all got to know each other quite well and we enjoyed doing things together. It was like in high school where you kind of cling to those girls you have something in common with. We would sometimes go into Stillwater to see a movie. There wasn’t much else to do in Stillwater though, so we often just went back to the hotel where they put us up and we would study for the next day. The assignments they gave us were terrible, 8 pages of shorthand practice and other similar work.

There were around 200 - 250 of us in that training session and we graduated after 30 days. We were called "the thirty day wonders". We all thought we would be headed for the Navy Department and would work for high-ranking officers. Some of the gals who went to Hunter College in New York were in training for 60 to 90 days. But the Navy really needed us. So, those of us who enlisted early were rushed through training so we could be sent out across the United States wherever we were needed.

At the end of 30 days we were given our uniforms. We went to a large warehouse-type of building to find our size. Each girl got 2 full uniforms: blazer/jacket, skirt and blouse, and one all-weather topcoat, shoes, and hat. And we got the ugliest stockings you ever laid eyes on – lisle – heavy winter – ugly – socks, awful. But we had to wear them. Once we got to our assignments, wherever we went those socks went. But nylon hose were very, very difficult to come by, and Mother sent me 2 pair of nylon hose from home. I’ve often thought about that and how Mother deprived herself to send those stockings. Because, you see, you got a coupon for one pair of shoes for each member of the family, and a coupon for cigarettes.  Cigarettes were hard to come by, though I don’t smoke, and nylon hose were hard to come by. I was lucky to have them and I would wear them when I would go out for the evening.

We were given 2 weeks of leave after training. I went home and my mother altered my uniforms because the skirts were all too big for me. It was so wonderful to have those 2 weeks at home. Although I did not have a single regret about going into the service I had gotten very homesick during my 30 days in Stillwater. One of the things that I did during those 2 weeks was I went back to my old office in Kansas City to see my old boss. I walked in with my uniform on and it was a big office.  I’m telling you, everybody looked at me and they were saying, "Look, she came back"! And my boss hugged me! He had never done that before; he was just so dear.

I can’t remember whether it was in Stillwater or in Osawatomie where I got my orders as to where I would be going. We had been given 3 or 4 options to request for our assignments. I do remember that California and Florida were the first 2 that I requested.  I thought it would be nice to go somewhere warm and sunny,  and that Washington, DC, was last on my list. Do you know where I was sent? Washington, DC. Well, I didn’t know it at the time but about 90% of all the WAVES ended up in D.C.

When we got to DC we were housed temporarily in a 9-story hotel that the Navy had taken over. There six girls shared one hotel room, 3 sets of bunk-beds to a room. That only lasted for 2 months until the barracks were built. I was assigned to WAVE Quarters D, Barracks 2 at Massachusetts and Nebraska Streets.  I’ll never forget the address. Do you know, I never again saw the 5 girls I had bunked with at the hotel? We all got our papers and went different ways. The bulk of the WAVES in Washington ended up at WAVE Quarters D.

The Navy built ten barracks and I think each barracks held maybe 50 girls. There were 2 floors in each barracks and there were 2 "heads" (bathrooms) on each floor. Our cubicles were really kind of neat. There were 2 bunks and 2 wardrobes in each room. We had no place to sit and talk except the lower bunks, so I chose the upper bunk.  I didn’t want anybody sitting on my bed, though that did mean I had to climb to get into my bed at night. Naturally, the four of us who shared a room got to know each other quite well.

All the girls on one floor worked the same hours, so we were getting up and getting ready for work at the same time. We took turns on a weekly basis working one of three different shifts: the "day watch" was 8:00 AM – 4 PM, "afternoon watch," 4:00 PM – Midnight, and Midnight – 8:00 AM was called "mid-watch." That was a very, very difficult part of our years in service. Your body had such a hard time adjusting to the constant schedule changes. Some of the girls really suffered with it and their systems never could get regulated to it.

Some of the girls had a hard time getting along with their roommates, though that was never really a problem for me. One of my roommates was a girl from Connecticut, and when she enlisted she became acquainted with another girl from Connecticut named Ruth. Although they worked different shifts and weren’t in the same barracks they kind of formed a bond. Well, my roommate and I did not become close buddies, but Ruthie and I did hit if off, and became very good friends. For one thing, we were both Catholics and she would say to me, "What time are you going to Mass on Sunday?" "Well, I think I’ll go at 4:00." "Well, could I go with you?" So even though we didn’t know each other, we soon became very well acquainted. In the course of my 3 years in Washington DC I spent many weekends with Ruthie and her family in Hartford, Connecticut. Her mother and father were so good to me and told me that I was like another daughter to them. Ruthie and I are still close friends today. She lives in Connecticut, and I am going to be going out for a visit this spring. I think I mentioned that there were initially 10 barracks built for WAVE Quarters D. Well, there were so many girls enlisting that the Navy had to build more barracks. Each time a new building was completed those of us who had been in service the longest had the opportunity to move to the newest barracks. I enjoyed the fresher, newer barracks with the newer blankets and furnishings, so within the 8 months I lived in Navy quarters I moved 3 times! After 8 months I did have an opportunity to move into a private home off-barracks, and I took it. For the rest of my stay in Washington I lived in an apartment with a family of three, a mother and two daughters.

That is all about our living situation. Now, I’ll talk about my work. When I got my orders I was assigned to Communications. Now I thought, "What is Communications"? Are you on the phone all the time? Or are you sending letters and telegrams? I didn’t know, but I sure wasn’t working for the Admiral of the Navy, and I wasn’t doing any secretarial work, and I wasn’t typing.  Well, when I got there and I found out what I was supposed to do, I realized it was a very, very important part of the war effort. I helped decode Japanese messages. We were at war with the Japanese and they were beating the socks off of us, they were winning the war so to speak. This Communications operation was set up in Washington at a private girls’ school that the Navy had taken over and renamed the Communications Annex. It was big place, as big as JCCC(the local community college). Not only were the WAVES there, but SPARS (Women in the Marines) were there, too. We didn’t know what the SPARS did there, because we all took an oath and could not tell anyone what we did.   Even our roommates or parents or husbands or anybody. We had to raise our hand and take an oath to God that we wouldn’t tell anyone about anything we were doing. They kind of scared the dickens out of us, really. Even those of us who became very good friends did not know until years after our service what the other one did.

The decoding operation was very involved and my role was just one part of the many phases necessary. I translated letters into numbers all day long for three years. It was such a little thing to do and it was boring as the dickens. Sometimes the letters would spell out the name of an island or something and we would know to listen to the news that night to see what was happening. There were civilians working in the decoding facility, also some brilliant people. The decoding operation played a very important role in winning the war. You asked about how I learned of the Hiroshima bombing. That was not something I picked up during decoding. We had heard rumors of it before it happened, and then afterwards we learned of it through an announcement over the loudspeakers one day while we were working. We all knew it was necessary and were not really surprised.

So you can see, my day at work was very routine but we tried to enjoy ourselves whenever we could. For one thing, I enjoyed the pleasure of going to work every day on my bicycle. I was the only girl with a bicycle. My uncle shipped it over to me. One day I lost control of it and ran it straight into a wall, and that was the end of that. We actually had quite a bit of free time and we girls enjoyed doing things together. We’d go to lunch together and we’d shop (there was a beautiful department store in Washington called Garfinkel’s) and we’d go to the movies. We would also attend the State Dances that were held from time to time, and I have kind of a fun story about that.

The various state officials in Washington would host dances, very nice parties held in a large hall. They were called "State Dances" because the officials from Nebraska or Kansas or some other state would get together and host one so they could meet the servicemen and women from their own state. This one time there was a notice posted on our bulletin board about the Missouri State Dance, and I said to Ruthie, "Let’s go to that. tonight. Maybe there will be some WAVES from Missouri there that I don’t know." They were such nice parties, always with a live band and real good food, and that was such a treat, too. And you never knew, you might meet a guy there. A lot of romances began during the war. A lot of the girls dated the Marines who were posted as guards at the Communication Annex. I’ll tell you, they were so good looking. I never did date a Marine, but I did go out with a few different servicemen who were shipped out.

Anyway, Ruthie and I went to the Missouri State Dance. One of the dances was a Paul Jones Dance. This is where the dancers form two circles – a circle of girls makes an inside ring to the circle of guys on the outside. As the music played everyone went around in a circle, and when the music stopped you would dance with the partner in front of you. Well, we did this a few times, and it was fun. But you didn’t have much of a chance to talk to each other, really. Just a few questions, like "where are you from?" and so on. (If the guy caught your interest you might look him up later, though). This one time we went around and when we stopped this guy grabbed me and said "Hello" and guess who it was? Harry Truman. He was vice president at the time. He said, "Where are you from?" and I said, "I’m from Kansas City" and he said, "I am, too." And I said, "I know you are, Mr. Truman." So we talked about where we lived in Kansas City and by then it was time to move on with the dance. It was a fun, fun evening for me.

If I had to pick one single experience that left a great impression on me, it would probably be when President Roosevelt died and Mr. Truman took over. My mother and sister happened to be in town visiting me at the time of the funeral. The procession down Pennsylvania Avenue was so dignified and solemn and elegant. . . the riderless horse and the single drumbeat…even with the throngs of people lining Pennsylvania Avenue there was no sound other than that single drumbeat. It was very powerful.