LTJG Josephine F. Steinhauser Oral History Tape 1, Side A

title:

LTJG Josephine F. Steinhauser Oral History Tape 1, Side A

creator:

Steinhauser, Josephine F. (Trostler)

subject:

Navy WAVES

description:

Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. Josephine Steinhauser (formerly Trostler) was raised in Brooklyn, New York as an only child with her mother and father. Her father was a chemistry and commercial art teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School. He looked down on her mother because she didn’t have a college degree, but she read regularly and was quite intelligent. She went to a small private school that was only four blocks away from her family’s brownstone. She graduated earl and began attending college at just 15. She chose to attend Barnard College because her mother said that it was the best women’s college in the country. She commuted there from home, and although she wanted to study English and journalism, she instead majored in chemistry on the advice of her advisor. Looking back, she wished she had not gone to college at such a young age. She felt like she was immature, would enjoy it more if she was older, and was jealous of people who were able to live on campus. After graduating in 1939, she traveled for the summer before volunteering at the Guggenheim Dental Clinic, which provided dental care to poor kids. She eventually became a paid employee there, before moving on to Bell Telephone Labs where she indexed technical periodicals. She was also in the amateur orchestra at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, which is where she met her first husband. They courted for two years before marrying in 1943. He shipped out to the Pacific soon after, and when she saw papers describing a landing there, she got worried. Later, her mother called and told her he had been killed. They had married so recently that his paperwork had not been updated to have Josephine listed as his wife. His body wasn’t returned from Guadalcanal until 1948, and they held a funeral then. She was still working at Bell Technical Labs at the time, but after realizing her job would be going nowhere, she decided to enlist in the Navy WAVES in 1944. She went to Smith College for six weeks of training, then was assigned to Washington, DC. She lived with two other WAVES in a one-bedroom apartment in Anacostia and was still in touch with those roommates as of the interview. She worked as a secretary for Admiral Briscoe in an office that was focused on guided missile projects and psychological warfare, often tied to the use of napalm. After Admiral Briscoe was transferred, she went to the Bureau of Ships, routing documents on radar and sonar captured from the Japanese and Germans. She chose to leave the WAVES in 1946, itching to get back to civilian life. She met and married he second husband in Easton, Pennsylvania and they had three children together. She wanted to leave him, but a divorce was hard to get and she was planning to leave when she became pregnant with their third child. The family moved to Virginia in 1960 when she got a job as a technical librarian at Dow Chemicals. Moving to Virginia also helped her complete the divorce she had been hoping and planning for. She continued working for Dow in different cities around the United States. She met and married her third husband in DC and they moved to New Mexico, but he became jealous and possessive, so she divorced him in 1980. She met her fourth husband in Tampa, Florida in 1994, they married in 1996, and were still together as of the interview. When she left the service Steinhauser had reached the rank of lieutenant junior grade, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Binker, Mary Jo

date:

2000-10-24

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

891.01; 2000.891

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

024202

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945)

rights:

Unrestricted