Josephine Craig McAndrew Oral History Tape 1, Side A

title:

Josephine Craig McAndrew Oral History Tape 1, Side A

creator:

McAndrew, Josephine Craig (Kinney) (Citron) (1922 February 2 - )

subject:

USO

description:

Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. Josephine Craig McAndrew (born name Kinney, married name Citron) was born on February 2, 1922 in Canton, Ohio. She started playing the violin when she was 4 and received private tutoring by the time she was in school. From the ages of 6 to 13 her parents drove her to the Cleveland Institute of Music, which was 60 miles away. Her parents wanted to give her an opportunity they didn’t have themselves, and they always made sure to come to her concerts. By the time she was 13 she had her own radio program at WTAM in Cleveland, and she made her debut at 16 with the Cleveland Orchestra. She graduated from Laurel School at 17 and got a fellowship to study at Juilliard. She studied there for four years and went overseas with the USO after her graduation in 1943 at the age of 21. She was in the first group to go overseas from the concert division with two other women. The women were given a rank and dog tags because they were attached to the military. First, they went down to Miami and played on all of the Caribbean islands. One night when they were at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they were billeted in the infirmary and a man on night duty attempted to assault them after knocking them unconscious with chloroform, but he didn’t use enough of the chemical and they got him out. From then on, they had an MP stationed at their door each night. Their next stop was British, French, and Dutch Guyana and Brazil. Their tour was quite popular with the soldiers, so the USO asked them to extend it, and they did for another month. They returned to New York and a new group of performers was put together. They didn’t know where their tour would be until they got onto the troop ship. They first stopped in London, England and stayed there for a while, playing over the radio. As they toured England and Europe, they mostly performed in hospitals. After staying in England for six months they were given the option to continue touring or return home and she chose to keep touring, so she and the other performers who stayed went to Paris and Normandy, France. When they were in Normandy, they mostly played for repatriated POWs who had been held in German camps. They were still in Normandy when the war in Europe ended, and they moved into Germany soon after. They also went to Belgium, Holland, Italy and Switzerland. They returned to Italy to cross the Mediterranean, going to Algeria and elsewhere in Norther Africa before shipping out from Casablanca to return to the United States. In November 1945, a year and two months after she had arrived in Europe. When she returned home, she resumed her professional career, married in 1947, and started a family in Texas. She was a concert master and taught at a nearby college there. After twenty years of marriage, she divorced her first husband and moved to Houston, Texas, playing as the top of the first violin section in the Houston Symphony for 21 years and marrying her second husband. McAndrew was awarded a Civilian Service Emblem for her time with the USO. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Binker, Mary Jo

date:

2002-12-18

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

618.01; 2003.618

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

352842

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945)

rights:

Unrestricted