Gwenellen Scupholm Oral History Side B

title:

Gwenellen Scupholm Oral History Side B

creator:

Scupholm, Gwenellen "Gwen" (1924 - )

subject:

American Red Cross

description:

Side 2 of 2. Gwenellen “Gwen” Scupholm was born in Port Huron, Michigan in 1924. She grew up with her parents and younger sister and they spent a few years in Ontario, Canada while she was a child. After returning to the United States, they still spent summers during the Depression there. They moved many times due to the Depression, and she attended 12-14 different schools in that time. She graduated high school and worked from 1942-1944 at Sperry Gyroscope in labs before returning to Michigan and attending Michigan State University. After graduating from college, she worked for a television station as a receptionist, secretary, and assistant to the women who developed use of the studios. She wanted to join the military during the war, which her mother supported but her father did not. After a woman she worked with told her about a job in Korea with the Red Cross, she went to a lunch with a Red Cross recruiter. She joined in the fall of 1953, training for a couple of weeks in Washington, DC before going to San Francisco, California to fly out to Korea. She arrived in Korea towards the end of 1953 and was stationed with seven other Red Cross women with the 40th infantry division. These eight women rotated between two main recreation roles, with two staying on-base to plan programs and six going in pairs to various carry out programming with companies in the division, seeing about five every day for an hour each. These activities greatly depended on what the men wanted to do each day, since the goal was to simply keep them entertained and happy for a bit. They would also bring donuts and coffee with them when they visited. After spending 23 months in Korea, she was sent to France to set up recreational activities, especially ones that were cross-cultural. After spending some time there, she went to Morrocco in April 1956 after two Red Cross women were hurt in a car accident and remained there until 1958. She returned to the United States and worked for three years with the Red Cross in Pennsylvania, then becoming assistant director of personnel for the eastern area office, where most of her work was recruiting college students to work in Vietnam. She was then sent to the Office of Volunteers as division manager and chair of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania chapter. After four years there, she went to the National Headquarters as director of volunteer personnel. She retired from the Red Cross in 1989 and has volunteered since, working in the Rd Cross archives in Florida at the time of the interview. Because she was in the Red Cross she didn’t have a formal rank and did not receive any military service medals or awards. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Binker, Mary Jo

date:

2001-07-18

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

837; 2001.837

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

NR

coverage:

Korean War (1950-1953) | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1954-89

rights:

Unrestricted