Patriotism was at its utmost during WWII and women were equally struck with their sense of duty. The difficulty, no branches of the service allowed women to serve. A woman’s place was in the home if she were married. Only a few proper jobs were available for single women during this time. Proper women worked as telephone operators, teachers, nurses, secretaries or domestic servants. Nevertheless, after the careful consideration of the moral obligations and what impact serving women would have on family life, particularly their children, the government decided to open up the branches of service to them. This would allow the men to be placed in full combat roles, pilots, or mechanics. Before the end of the war, Congress voted for Women to be drafted.
Service Branches for Women
May 1942. Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was the first branch opened to women by the Army. However, they gave women no military status or benefits. They were considered to be with the Army not in the Army. It wasn’t until 1943 when their name changed to Women’s Army Corps (WAC) that they were given full military status and some benefits. They were only allowed to perform clerical duties
June 1942. Office Of War Information (OWI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) opened to women. The OWI was established primarily to encourage Americans to support the War effort. Women helped produce propaganda to convince Americans they were fighting for a better world. Other propaganda by this department reminded Americans to keep quiet about information they heard, and to save food and useful products. The OSS department supported the agents and intelligence used for spying on others to gain useful information. Women deciphered radio traffic, translated documents, debriefed agents, and a very few worked as spies. July 1942. Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) a branch of the Navy where women had full military status and full benefits. The WAVES assignments included administrative duties including top-secret projects, medical technicians, telephone and radio operators.
September 1942. Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, a branch of the Army Air Force (AAF). Women flew aircraft between factories and AAF installations. The name was changed in 1943 to Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). Many women lost their lives plus they did not achieve “Military Active Duty” status until an intense congressional battle in 1977.
November 1942. Marines took in women but did not make any name distinction between the male and female branches. The Marines gave full military status to women but fewer benefits than the males. Female assignments included auto and airplane mechanics, drivers, Teletype and keypunch operators, administration, and parachute riggers. Some women did parachute from planes and operated antiaircraft guns however only in training.
November 1942. U. S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS), a branch of the Coast Guard where the name SPARS was taken from their Motto: Semper Parafus. These women were given military status but fewer benefits. Their assignments were Yeoman, parachute riggers, storekeepers, air traffic controllers, radio and radar operators, boatswain mates and coxswains. Conversely, to these titles, the majority of the women worked in communications coding and decoding messages.
March 1945. Congress approved a draft for Women Nurses. This bill to draft nurses for understaffed hospitals and field operations overseas was the only time drafting was considered for women during wartime. No women were ever drafted as the war ended shortly after the bill passed.
Women as Civilian Volunteers
American Red Cross (ARC). This vital organization had already been established prior to WWII by Clara Barton in 1881. Women volunteers shipped food to prisoners of war, collected blood, and aided war refugees.
Some women volunteers acted as communication links between families notifying them of sick, wounded or missing soldiers. They helped families with pensions, benefits, allotments and allowances. They offered loans to service men waiting for their money between induction and the completion of the paperwork for their first allotment. ARC Home Services offered housing for wives that followed their husbands from military base to military base. They also helped them with employment and financial matters until new accounts were established, and they helped arrange for money transfers. They gave classes on prenatal and postnatal nutrition and gave women a place to meet other women to share their experiences.
They sent “kit bags” of soap, shoe cleaner, cigarettes, playing cards, and writing paper to soldiers. They knitted hospital and surgeon gowns, socks, blankets and bandages.
Other women volunteers acted as a liaison between the soldiers and government for discharge, furlough, or clemency.
The “Gray Ladies” of the ARC worked in understaffed hospitals, serving as nurses if qualified or assisted them by handling registrations and other paperwork. They offered comfort and counseling to families waiting in hospitals. These ladies were ambulance drivers transporting patients and emergency blood between hospitals. These brave ladies became air-raid wardens when men were not available for this task.
January 1940. American Women’s Voluntary Services. This group of ladies did not get the credit they deserved for the many acts of kindness and services they preformed during the war. Somehow, politically, they were labeled as wealthy women with a title of volunteerism that generally did nothing. But to the contrary, they formed mobile kitchens, gave lessons in First Aid, drove ambulances, trained women in cryptography mechanics and translation, sold war bonds, and set up camps for temporary agricultural workers.
These women taught Braille and provided guide dogs for soldiers blinded in battle. They were known to shovel snow from sidewalks at hospitals, work in community victory gardens, and give lessons in safe canning and food preservation. They even got their hands dirty and were resourceful by keeping cars and appliances operating for other women when no mechanic or parts were available to repair them.
February 1941. United States Organizations (USO). Acting on a request from President Roosevelt which asked for a volunteer effort from a private sector to help with recreational and social services for troops and families the USO was formed. The United States Organizations (USO) was made up of the following organizations: Salvation Army, YMCA, YWCA, Catholic Community Services, National Jewish Welfare Board, and National Travelers Aid Association.
By 1944 the USO had 3000 clubs in the United States and overseas. These clubs provided the troops with a place to dance, listen to music, have a conversation and cup of coffee. All clubs had a quiet place for troops to read a book or write a letter. It was a place for troops or their families to gather information on a new city or port. The majority of volunteers were women and they aided over one and a half million people during WWII.
The ARC and USO were the only two officially sanctioned organizations by the United States government sent overseas in WWII.
Women played a vital role in the war efforts of WWII and this was a turning point for women in history. WWII let women know they were capable of so much more in their lives while men found essential and equal partners during those trying times.
Independence Day for Quana
Ervin Barber drove his only daughter to the train station in Alba with a heavy heart. The brisk November air was pushing against the car as they made their way from Martins Mill, as if to say, don’t let her go. He glanced over at her tear stained face as he drove and wished he had not told her of his misgivings. He never thought she would join the Navy WAVES.
Ervin was brought up to believe that independent single women living on their own without proper jobs were somewhat loose. Of course he knew better but he did not want others to talk about his daughter that way. He wondered why, at 23, Quana would leave a good and proper job as a schoolteacher to join the Navy?
Quana grew up with her brothers, Brown the oldest, her twin Quentin and younger brother Liston. Ervin and Ellen Hobbs Barber never made a difference between them because of their gender. She knew she could do anything and everything like her brothers. When the war started Brown worked for Monsanto as a chemical engineer and remained with that company assisting the war effort during WWII. Quentin would enlist in the Navy as a Medical assistant and Liston joined the Navy out of High School and was commissioned to a South Pacific ship.
Quana’s two years of teaching had been mediocre. 1942 was even worse watching everyone go off to war. Tending study hall for the male teachers and coaches while they went to the recruiters became unbearable. Even some of the students were leaving to fight the war. Announcing her unhappiness to Quentin, he told her of an article he read in the Houston paper about Navy nurses and promptly mailed it to her.
Quana was the first woman to enlist in WWII from Van Zandt County. She received her traveling orders to report to Mid-shipmen training at Mt. Holy Oak, South Massachusetts leaving by train from Alba, TX, November 10, 1942. Once in Alba, the emotional ride with her father was not over. Only freight trains left from Alba and they traveled on to Greenville where the passenger trains boarded. In Greenville, they were early for the train; her father kissed and hugged her goodbye as he left for home.
What better way to kill the time and cheer up than with a movie? The movie, “Trail of Pine” one of the saddest movies, she says, she ever saw. Her first time to travel by train or be that far from home, leaving her family, and that movie, she boarded emotionally drained.
Arriving at Rockefeller Hall she was assigned a room with three other women, of which, two were teachers. In her room was Bosier from Maine, Bogert from Virginia and Bobbitt from Nebraska. She attended class during the day and in the evening studied or wrote letters to her brothers and parents. A lady would appear at their door at 10 p.m. She would state it was lights out and chant an amusing singsong of Boiser, Barber, Bogert, Bobbitt. The lady waited to hear, “present and accounted for,” harmonically by each woman.
At 30 below zero, Massachusetts was having the coldest winter in 37 years. Quana’s class marched the five blocks to class in dresses, heels and coats to find their fountain pens were frozen once they reached their seats. How cold was it? Marching side by side the moist warm breath of one woman would freeze on the cheek of the one marching beside her. After several days of this extreme weather the Navy decided to keep the women in their dorm rooms until it warmed.
Once classes resumed the glazed sidewalks made marching to class hazardous. Quana experienced exposure to the ice first hand when she fell and broke her leg. Now in a cast, “God Mail” would transport her from the dorm each day. That’s what she thought they said with their heavy Northern accents, but in fact, it was “Guard Mail” that delivered her to class.
Her broken leg kept her out of several events. She missed the “Sugaring Off” where they were making maple syrup. Her greatest fear, that the broken leg would cost her the supreme price, her commission. A Mid-shipman could not be commissioned while attached to the Medical Unit. Friday the cast came off and Tuesday she was commissioned to Mobile, Alabama.
The Navy continued to show Quana her independence by moving her to Houston, TX where she was assigned to the Supervisor over shipbuilding. She remembers getting up before daylight, riding the bus downtown to the Rice Hotel to board the Navy bus to the shipyard. Working long hours to get the ships ready and getting home just to crawl into bed.
She was equally independent of the Navy because she made her own uniforms, locating the fabric and fashioning them to fit better than the standard issue.
The Navy showed her the world, with her favorite assignments in Italy as Senior Shore Patrol Officer and in Communications. She had assignments in other European ports while in the Navy. Her last assignment, from Dallas, TX as a Lieutenant Commander she left the Navy after twenty years, five months and 18 days. She has many wonderful memories, lots of worldly friends and says the Navy treated her very well.
Stepping off the plane in Houston, April 1943 is her greatest memory as she watched her proud parents that awaited her. Emotionally teary eyed with delight, her father saw an independent woman in Navy dress blues.
Melba Fisher
Melba Hefner Fisher’s soft blue eyes never gave away the brave tough woman that was inside. Her quiet voice spoke volumes about the war and how her young career started by working for the Civil Service.
This young girl from Coleman, Texas, took her Civil Service Exam in 1938. She was working for a lawyer in Abilene. One year later, she was called to Washington for an interview. Times were hard and Melba never thought she would get the job, just that they needed to interview her before processing her application farther. She went to Washington on the train with her Mother as escort. Young girls of 19 did not travel alone. She was lucky, she had a cousin that was staying at a boarding house in Washington and he was able to secure them a room for the night. The next morning she went to the Pentagon. It was December 19, 1939, very cold and the taxi ride, in itself was an adventure but she arrived safely before the Civil Service Committee.
Following the interview, as she was preparing to leave, they ask if she could report to work the next day. Wide-eyed Melba was shocked and unsuspecting of that offer. However, she stayed on at the boarding house and reported for work the next day as her mother traveled back home to prepare her things for delivery to her in Washington.
Starting out in the mailroom with her nose to the grindstone before Christmas, they ask her if she would like to report to the Navy Department. Elated she jumped at the opportunity. They whisked her off to the FBI for fingerprinting. That also included a print of her entire hand. She was immediately placed in the Secretarial/Steno Pool for the Naval Ships and Equipment Office of the General Inspector. She was assigned to learn from Ms. Cosity who was a 50-year veteran of this department. Melba just observed and listened trying to absorb everything this lady could tell her. This office kept records of ships and equipment loaned to other countries. She learned working in this department almost all of our naval vessels and airplanes were loaned to England aiding them in their fight against Hitler.
While she was learning her job, in her off hours she was absorbing the history of Washington, visiting the White House, museums, and other sites. She coped with the routine black outs that were conducted by the Civilian Defense. They instructed Washington residents to cover windows and lights were shut off in anticipation of possible air strikes.
Always alert she watched reports coming across her desk indicating that they were moving a branch of her office to Houston, TX. She waited until the time was right to bid on that job and six months from the time she signed on with the Navy Department, once again Melba found she was back home in Texas.
While in Texas, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Melba remembers the terror it created in her knowing that our coastline was left unguarded. But she says she never doubted we would win the war. She observed our farm boys preparing for war marching with a broom handle instead of a gun, because guns were in such short supply. She saw the respect shown when troop trains went by and everyone pulled over to wave and shout their support.
She worked in the Neils Esperson Building, which was the tallest building in Houston with its six floors. She remembers Houston with its big stores, their brilliant displays and working the night shift, walking to the railroad track in the middle of the night unafraid, and watching movies at the theater and enthusiastically hollering for the news clips that showed America was making a difference in the world.
At 21, Melba was given the responsibility of supervising 13 women that ensured machinery and tools were delivered to the Navy on time. Being young and unsure of herself she prayed that God would give her guidance.
And so He did, as Melba rose within the Navy Department working for one of the most difficult Admirals in the Navy. She could write his letters without taking any notes and knew exactly what he wanted said. He was greatly impressed with her skills. She left his department, climbing to Chief Clerk over Personnel and was responsible for the paperwork designed to send troops home. Before leaving she had made her way to the highest level.
WWII made Melba an independent and secure woman who is much admired by her family and those who know her.
Ola’s Family
The sun poured into Ola’s living room as we chatted about her life during WWII. She told me of neighbors she felt had much better stories to tell about the war. When I asked her what her job was in the 1940’s her face lit up and she proudly stated, “To raise my family.”
Her husband, Charles G. Bryant, was a farmer raising cotton and corn just outside Colfax for a living. Each morning before dawn, Charles was outside milking the cows while Ola was preparing breakfast on the wood cook stove, mixing biscuit dough, frying sausage and scrambling eggs plus making sure the six children were up and getting ready for school. Keeping the wood stove hot by piling in additional wood, making a trip out to the cistern, lifting the buckets where the milk was stored in the cool water, gathering eggs, preparing six lunches, ushering each child outdoors to the outhouse and filling the water pitcher for each one to wash out their sleepy eyes was just part of this early morning routine.
After the children left for school, Ola heated the water to wash the breakfast dishes and started preparing lunch for Charles. After lunch, when the dishes were washed and put away, she would fill the cook stove with sweet potatoes for the children to eat when they came in from school. There were endless jobs for her to do—working in the garden, canning, soap making, quilting, and patching the clothes. That is if Charles didn’t need her to help him.
The Bryants were lucky they had plenty to eat. They raised hogs, chickens and a few cows. They had a large vegetable garden and from time to time were able to purchase plums from Garden Valley for Ola’s famous Plum butter. They cut up and cured the hog in their smoke house. A calf each year would be cut up, cooked and canned for future use since they had no refrigeration.
They had no electricity but that was okay because by the time it was dark they were ready for bed. Their lives were busy and exhausting. Boiling the water for clothes washing, scrubbing each article with the lye soap, rinsing in a separate tub, and hanging out the few belonging that each family member had soiled during the week took all day. Charles worked in the fields most of the day, some days stopping early to trek into the woods to chop down a tree for the firewood use in the wood stove. Even each child had a chore to do to ease the burdens placed on their parents.
Rationing was a big part of their lives. Butter, sugar, shoes and gasoline were some of the items she remembers being rationed. One whole year their car sat in the shed because they didn’t have the money for gasoline. Although it was not allowed, they did give their needy neighbors and friends their gasoline rationing tickets to ease the burdens the war had placed on them.
The doctor came by only if the castor oil did not clear up the problem or if an accident required it. No one went to the hospital; neighbors and friends would sit and help out with the ill at their home. When an illness or accident took a friend or neighbor to the graveyard, then the neighbors and church took care of the families left behind with food or work.
It was commonplace during that time for the homeless or a service man to travel into Colfax. Being hungry and tired they would knock on a door and ask for food or shelter. Ola remembers many travelers allowed into her home where she feed and gave them a place to sleep. A few wanted to chop wood in the morning but Charles wouldn’t have it. They were treated as guests.
The one-day each week that they did not work was Sunday. They rose early, washed in a washtub, and dressed to get to church by 11 a.m. After the service they would return home to eat a meal that had been prepared the day before with little effort left for Sunday. After which they would visit friends or have friends in to visit. But that day was spent in resting.
Ola said she once asked her husband about going to help out with the war efforts in Dallas. But he told her with their youngest son being just 12 years old they had a moral obligation to see that their children were raised well and not allowed to roam the streets.
Ola played a big part in WWII; she raised her family, kept them safe and secure. She was full time partner to Charles, hard working mother, and a God-fearing woman. Today, she has her family around her—some smile down on her from the walls of her living room while others live down the street. She was beaming the day I visited awaiting her great grandson to help her prepare lunch and visit. Ola has another family, The First Baptist Church of Van. They ensure she gets to all the church functions, run errands and help her take care of her yard.
Family is Ola’s story.