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Warrior Women, Part Four

bevsadmin — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:04:50 +0000

NURSE CORPS. – Floris Adele Neil, 20, 1^st cousin once removed:

Lovely and loving, Adele, technically a cousin whom I knew as Aunt Adele, joined the United States Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC) training in 1943 at Providence Hospital in Portland, to serve under the U.S. Public Health Service.

The Cadet Nurse Corps began in 1943 after Frances P. Bolton, an Ohio congresswoman, sent a nurse training act to congress to address the anticipated and worrisome lack of nurses during the war. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt insisted that the act be administered in such a way as to prevent racial discrimination in the Corps. Roosevelt must have been heard, for also serving as Cadet Nurses were Japanese women recruited from relocation camps. The act provided funds to nursing schools to decrease the duration of training while improving their programs. Cadets–women between seventeen and thirty-five years of age–were obligated to serve either in the military or in an essential civilian role until the war was won. Sometimes that meant serving at public health clinics and the Indian Health Service.

According to her marriage license, Adele was still a student nurse when she and William Manly, Jr. married on January 6, 1946. Together they grew a family of seven boys, later adopting two infant girls. Having been discharged from the U.S. Army Postal Service as a Staff Sergeant, Bill served their community of White Salmon, Wash. as postmaster until he retired.

MACHINE OPERATOR – Betty May Lionberger, 21, 1^st cousin once removed:

Friendly cousin Betty was listed in the 1943 city directory for Portland. Her occupation on the page is described as machine operator. Her employer is listed only as “IFMCo.” It appears that the company was probably the Iron Fireman Manufacturing Company (IFMC). The company was established in 1923 and in 1943 were instrumental in building engines and parts for the Liberty Ships produced at the Kaiser Shipyard. In a plant at a second location, the company would also support the airborne war effort when IFMC began to manufacture parts for Boeing Company airplanes.

Eva and Harold Lionberger

At this time, Betty’s residential address was listed as identical to that of my grandaunt, Eva Ruth (Landis) Lionberger, whose husband Harold was away serving in the military. This arrangement between my cousin and our aunt echoes the situation of many women who decided to live with other women, sometimes including children, during the war years, reducing the cost of living. And, I imagine, offering benefits from the support and comfort that an environment more family-like could provide.

Our family was fortunate; everyone came home when the war ended.

Warrior Women, Part Three

bevsadmin — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 19:53:54 +0000

WAVE – Roberta Elaine Witcraft, 21, mother:

My beautiful and intelligent mother, Elaine, made the local paper in April of 1945. It was an event worth reporting: “WAVE Called – Roberta Elaine Witcraft of . . . Eugene [Oregon], who enlisted recently in the WAVES, has been called to active duty, and is ordered to report to the commanding officer of the naval training school at Hunter College, New York City, by May 3, 1945.” She would serve in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) from May 1945 through June of 1946. She received a letter from the Portland office of Naval Officer Procurement at her home dated March 23, 1945. The letter advised her of several items:

“You have this date been enlisted in the U. S. Naval Reserve, Class V-10, for a period during the present war and for six months thereafter, or until such earlier time as the Congress by concurrent resolution or the President [on this date, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)] by proclamation may designate. . . .
The Director of Naval Officer Procurement is your Commanding Officer and you are subject to his orders. . . .
You are hereby placed on active duty, and instructed to keep yourself in readiness for any emergency call to active duty. . . .”

Elaine’s WAVE graduation ceremony. She is second from the left, second row down.

WAVES cronies having fun.

VE Day Celebration, New York

Young, smart, and adventurous, after she was called to active duty, Elaine boarded a train to travel east, where she attended boot camp training in New York City on the Hunter College campus in The Bronx. During her brief stint in New York, she saw the sights of the big city when she could, for instance, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Roxy theatre, and Central Park.

She was ordered to her final assignment in the Women’s Reserve in the Twelfth Naval District at Balboa Park, San Francisco. There, she once received an invitation to attend the commissioning ceremonies of the aircraft carrier USS Palau at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Wash., though she was unable to attend.

After working in clerical administration of officer records, she was honorably discharged at the rank of Yeoman Third Class in 1946, under the signature of President Harry S. Truman, as FDR had died. Elaine remained proud of her service until the end of her life. Our family built their first home in 1958 using my mother’s V.A. Home Loan benefit, a G.I. Bill benefit that my father had not received (but would eventually) from his years of service in the Merchant Marine.

WAVE – Gladys Mahalla (Emery) Lionberger, 32, aunt:

Gladys, attractive and gracious, had joined the WAVES by 1944 and was training as a hospital apprentice. She had married my father’s older brother, Loren. During her training period, she wrote to my father and described her life in WAVES training. Excerpts from two letters follow:

Friday, September 15, 1944, posted from Wave Barracks #127, U.S. Naval Hospital, San Diego – “Were you surprised when you heard I was back here on the West Coast? I certainly was, when I heard I was coming back so soon, but now that I am back, I won’t mind staying here. This moving every four to six weeks isn’t too good for a person’s disposition, and it is possible that I might be on my way again before another month has gone by . . ..

I certainly have absorbed (I hope) a lot of knowledge this past week and we have three more weeks of school. Then we will be assigned to duty . . ..

With the way the European War News sounds, maybe Loren will get to come home after the first of the year. He hasn’t mentioned anything about it at all.

Gladys’ WAVE graduation ceremony. She is third from right, third row down.

Is it still possible for you to get me one of those Schick Ejector Razors that Loren wants so badly?”

Monday, November 21, 1944, posted from U.S. Naval Air Station Hospital, Ottumwa, Iowa – “I’ll try to tell you a few things about the Air Station here that may interest you. We are in the south-eastern part of Iowa, about seven miles north of Ottumwa, and on a plateau with an elevation of about 820 feet. A strong north-eastern wind blows most of the time, and recently it has been quite cold, although we have had very little rain since I have been here.

Gladys Lionberger (R)

We have Aviation Cadets and Officer Trainees learning to fly. They have already been to boot camp and Pre-Flight School, and this is called a Primary base.

The majority of the planes are the regular type of trainers with upper and lower wing. They look like very old fashion planes to me, but I haven’t learned anything about planes yet. The hospital is about as far from the flying field as they could possibly get it. From here the fellows will go to a big Air Station and learn to fly heavier planes and get their wings and their commissions. And then they go to duty.”

She signed both letters: Your sister, Gladys.

Warrior Women, Part Two

bevsadmin — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 19:26:55 +0000

AIRCRAFT/ROCKET WORKER – Edith Lenore (Lionberger) Alkire, 42, grandaunt:

By 1943, beautiful, intelligent Edith was performing war work. Her job was to lead a small but vital group of women machinists, filling rocket propellant orders at California Institute of Technology (CIT), in later years known as CalTech. She married in September of 1944 and continued her important work at CIT.

In January of 1945, Edith wrote to my father as he was preparing to join the Merchant Marine. Here is an excerpt from newlywed Edith’s letter:

“I have been glad of having a real part in trying to bring this terrible war to an end. You probably already know that I work with the very effective Rockets and have had a real part in every new one which has been developed in this country in the last two years, as I am head of the machining dept. in the experimental development of all the new Rockets. We carry out the orders for each new type of propellant for the Rockets on the day shift only in the one little station, of which I have the happy privilege of being the head.

So, if when you become a Merchant Marine, you happen to be carrying cargo which says from C.I.T. Pasadena, Calif., you will know your old auntie has had a hand in it. Forgive me if I seem to be bragging. I do not mean it to be so but just can’t help being proud of having a part in such a successful weapon.

Don and I are getting along beautifully, he surely is a fine husband, just right for me. I find it rather hard to work and keep up a home, but not too difficult. And I don’t feel right about quitting my job until Germany is licked. Lovingly, Edith and Don.”

CHILDCARE – Louise (Hooton) Lionberger Emmons, 48, grandmother:

Louise wrote to my father in late September of 1945–just after the official close of the war. The nation was still struggling economically, and he was still away serving in the Merchant Marine. “I’m taking care of a little neighbor girl,” she wrote, “whose mother works at the shipyard. She pays me $1.00 per day. Said she didn’t know how long it would be before she would be laid off–as a great many are losing their jobs now at the shipyards.”

Besides caring for a shipyard worker’s child, Louise grew her Victory Garden, canned food, kept chickens for eggs, and raised rabbits for meat. During the war years, my grandmother, who wrote poems under the pen name Eloise Emmons, wrote a poem to express her feelings as a mother whose son was away because of war, which surely echoed the sentiments of millions of mothers across the globe. Entitled, “Again You’ll be There,” the final two stanzas read:

My prayer for you each day,
May God guide your way . . .

Then when spring comes again,
And trees are no longer bare,
We’ll watch for your return,
From voyages, over there . . .

Then, once more,
Things will be the same . . .
I’ll smile, as I speak your name,
For Son, when I look at your chair,
Again, you’ll be there . . .

OFFICE CLERK – Luella P. Moore, 48, 1^st cousin 2x removed:

In my grandmother Louise’s home state of Missouri in 1944, Luella Moore, a relatively young widow since 1941, likely read the headline “Urgent Job Call” in a Kansas City newspaper. The article announced, “The army issued an extraordinary appeal today for skilled electrical workers to volunteer for jobs of at least ninety days on “vital war construction jobs” at the Hanford Engine Works, Pasco, Wash., . . .” These vital war construction jobs left the Hanford location a unusable desert, now part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

According to Luella’s obituary of 1986, she became an employee of General Electric Corp. in Richland in 1945, where she worked for twenty years. Luella is listed on the 1950 census of Richland City, Benton County, State of Washington as a lodger at the Hanford Works dormitory, whose occupation was office clerk in the health industry. One might wonder what Luella and the hundreds of other lodgers on the Hanford Reservation were asked to do in the performance of their jobs, and how many may have suffered the results of radiation exposure.

They Were My Warrior Women, Part One

bevsadmin — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 22:19:01 +0000

During World War II, my various aunties, my mother and her cousins, and my grandmother diligently supported the national home front activities to boost the war effort, mostly in the Portland, Ore.-Vancouver, Wash. area, but also from other cities.

First, a bit about the family: Raymond Ernest Lionberger, my handsome and enterprising grandfather, died when my father was ten months old. Though I never personally met my grandfather, his seven siblings and my grandmother, Louise, filled his absence with stories. This was a loving, loyal, and fun-loving group–sometime tellers of tall tales.

The Lionberger family, along with my mother’s family, the Witcraft clan, were fiercely patriotic, as so many families became during the war years, defending our nation in countless ways. What follows are descriptions of the commitments made by some of the women of my family during World War II, along with their ages in 1945; and I promise, this is not a tall tale.

WELDER – Mabel Beatrice (Shriver) Lionberger, 42, grandaunt:

Mabel was employed at Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation located in Portland’s St. John’s district, situated on a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Mabel (R, in headscarf), sharp as a tack, was an excellent welder, receiving accolades for her work. I doubt that she expected to become a bit of a celebrity when she entered shipyard work. But according to a photo taken in January of 1942 and published in the Oregon Journal newspaper, she was called to the desk of her supervisor along with another woman welder (See photo in The Shipyard Agent pages.) He showed the women a telegram, inviting them to compete in the Best Woman Welder in the World competition.

Mabel agreed to compete. In her obituary from 1979, the writer states that she placed second at Oregon Shipyard. Mabel’s husband, Earl, a builder by trade, also worked at the shipyard during the war.

WELDER – Jean Marsolie (Neil) Johnson, 22, 1^st cousin once removed:

Jean worked as a welder at Commercial Iron Works (CIW) shipyard on Ross Island, situated in the Willamette River one mile south of Portland’s city center. Her mother, Mrs. Clara Palmer, who worked as a burner at the same shipyard–one who uses an acetylene torch to cut metal plates to size and shape–had been driving back and forth to the shipyard with Jean’s stepfather, Tony. According to Jean, her mother Clara persuaded her to try shipyard work.

“And so, I went down, and I liked welding,” said Jean. “I got the hang of it pretty quick.” The workers at CIW spent days and nights specifically building small ships for the U.S. Navy, such as Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) and Landing Craft Support (LCS) ships, submarine chasers, net layers, and minelayers. Jean added, “I loved it, busy, busy, busy.”

Though technically she was a cousin, I knew her as Aunt Jean. Her supervisor at the shipyard was Rudolph “Rudy” or “Ole” Johnson, with whom she fell in love and quietly married while working under his management. Jean would continue to use her welding skills when needed on a farm in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where they settled after the war.

BURNER – Clara Mae (Witcraft) Neil Gadot Palmer, 45, grandaunt:

Clara, an attractive and cheerful woman with a twinkle in her eye, worked as a burner, cutting and shaping metal that would be used in the construction of ships. She identified her occupation as “burner at shipyard” when signing as guardian on an enrollment form for nursing school for her daughter, Adele Neil, Jean’s younger sister. Clara’s husband, Alfred “Tony” Palmer, possibly worked in the lunchroom of the shipyard, having served in the U.S. Navy as a cook in World War I.