my family in WWII

[a425couple]

On 7/18/2021 11:35 PM, David Tenner wrote:
> A great many stereotypes about American women during World War II--
> especially their role in war industries--do not really correspond to
> reality:
>
> "Only 8 percent of wives had husbands in the military; a majority of
> married men were civilians working at home. Most women remained
> housewives; of 33 million women at home in December 1941, seven out of
> eight were still there in 1944, at the peak of wartime employment. Nine
> out of ten young mothers did not work outside the home.
>
> "Of working women, only 16 percent were in war industries, ---
> I will accept your numbers, but am not sure they
really represent all that was happening.
They do not well represent what happened in my family.

My mother had gone to nursing school.
My father left the farm and figured out how
to earn his way through college by working and
living at Univ. of North Dakota at Camp Depression.
They got married and father was working as a social
worker in a pretty depressed area in North Dakota
and in 1941 they had my older brother.
In early 1942 for several reasons (economic improvement
and to work in defense industry) they moved to Seattle
area. My dad earned more as a laborer at Lake Washington
Shipyards then he had been earning. My mother also
started working at shipyard, first as a messenger,
then as a RN in the shipyard infirmary.

My dad had 3 sisters, one married a pharmacist in Dakotas.
One did ? (records/paperwork) in Spokane.
When the youngest finished HS in 1944 she left the
Dakotas to also go to Lake Washington area, then
she started work at Boeing. Neither married.

My mom's older sister was married, she worked in
Seattle at Boeing.