Like
Cpl Marianne Christensen Oral History
Publication date: 17 July 2024
File metadata
Dublin Core Metadata
title:
Cpl Marianne Christensen Oral History
creator:
Christensen, Marianne
subject:
Marine Corps Women's Reserve
description:
Marianne Christensen enlisted in the Marine Corp, Women’s Reserve in 1943 at the age of 23. Before enlisting, she had been a school teacher in South Dakota and moved with her sister to Minneapolis to work in a clothing factory. She saw other people joining, and that along with her own sense of patriotism led her to enlist. She went to basic training at Camp LeJeune, and remembers being treated roughly. Her training was in mess duty, and after finishing training she was sent to the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, California, which was an arbitrary assignment based on her spot on the list. She was stationed there for all of her military service and lived with four other women who she had been in boot camp with. If she could do it again, she would choose to join the Coast Guard instead, and she also would’ve taken advantage of the GI Bill to go to college. When she left the military in 1946, she went with one of her roommates to Chicago. She didn’t want to go back to teaching, so she got a job at the telephone company instead, where she worked for 35 years. Both women then returned to the place where they’d lived in San Francisco, and Christensen didn’t seek work right away after the move. She had reached the rank of corporal before leaving the military, and for her service Christensen 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:
Schoux, Elise
date:
2001-07-31
type:
Audio
format:
Cassette
identifier:
163; 2001.163
source:
CLIR - Recordings at Risk
language:
English
relation:
166881
coverage:
World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-46
rights:
Unrestricted