 |
|
|
 In
his best-selling book, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw
writes, They
came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War
and went on
to build modern America men and women whose everyday lives
of duty, honor, achievement, and courage gave us the world we have
today. *
Harriette
Vaden Price, Class of 1940, is a proud member of that generation.
|
|
|
By
1944, over 7 million men and women were serving in the American Red
Cross in the European and Pacific theatres of war and in cities and
communities throughout the United States. In support of the U.S. armed
forces, the Red Cross established over 1800 recreational facilities
overseas a little bit of home for the boys over there where GIs
could get a hot meal, shave and a haircut, play some pinball, or just
listen to the latest Glenn Miller records. Harriette
Vaden Price, Class of 1940 (story) was representative of the many
volunteers during the war but she was not the only alumna who served
in the American Red Cross.
Pattie
S. Kaylor (Pattie V. Smith), Class of 1941, sailed aboard the Queen
Mary and arrived in Scotland on D-Day, June 6 1944, before being routed
quickly to London. Upon arrival, Pattie recalls, "when we got into London,
there were a great many hospital trains at the station, loaded with
casualties, so we knew the invasion was on." After an assignment at
a Red Cross Hospital in London, Pattie was eventually transferred to
Polebrook, an RAF station just outside of Cambridge, where
she managed a clubmobile for the 351st
Bomb Group.
|
Another
member of the Class of 1940, Hazel-Wood B. Thomas, left her teaching
job in 1944 to join the American Red Cross. As
she said in a recent phone interview, "Everyone was doing something
and I felt I had to do my part. When I was teaching, I
would ride my bicycle to work in Hampton and you could see the Navy
ships forming up as a task force it was quite a sight." Hazel-Wood
served in the ARC at the Valley Forge Military Hospital in Pennsylvania
as a medical social worker where she worked with military personnel
from both the European and Pacific theatres, including survivors of
the Bataan Death march. She also was responsible for helping veterans
find new jobs and housing after being released from the hospital.
Judith
Gathright Cooke who attended STC from 1936-37, served in the American
Red Cross as a hospital staff aide attached to the 178th General Hospital
in Reims, France, from April 1945 to February 1946. In November 1945,
she helped to open and operate a Red Cross club in Mourmelon, France,
for American troops who were convalescing and staging to go home after
the war. Her specialty was recreation and she kept the troops busy with
bingo, musicals, group singing, ping pong, dances, and special parties
for Christmas and New Year's.
But
the last party was the best as she recalls, "Before the boys left for
the states around the middle of January 1946, we gave them a really
big final party and detachment dance
that
was a lot of fun!" It was finally over, over there.
|
|
* From the dust
jacket of The Greatest Generation, written by Tom Brokaw and published
by Random House, Inc., New York, 1998. |
|
