YNC Margaret Virginia Engelberg Oral History

title:

YNC Margaret Virginia Engelberg Oral History

creator:

Engelberg, Margaret V. (House) (1919 April 7 - )

subject:

Navy WAVES

description:

Margaret Virginia Engelberg (formerly House) was born in Paducah, Kentucky on April 7, 1919. Margaret grew up with her two brothers on a farm in southern Illinois. She attended Brookport High School and graduated in 1938. By then, her mother had left their family, her father had passed away, and her brothers were both in the Civil Conservation Corps camps, so she went to live nearby with her uncle. In the fall of 1938, Margaret attended Draughon Business College in Paducah. She was afforded a scholarship to Draughon from her uncle, which she was grateful for. She studied bookkeeping and stenography, and upon completion of school she secured a job at Paducah Sash and Door Company, a manufacturing place for windows and doors. She worked there for four years. Following the attack at Pearl Harbor and seeing men she grew up with join the military, Engelberg joined the Navy WAVES in February 1943. She was sworn into the Navy in St. Louis, Missouri and from there she traveled to Hunter College in New York for boot camp. Following boot camp, she went to Cedar Falls, Iowa for stenography training to become a Yeoman. After this training, she was assigned to Washington, DC with the Chief of Naval Operations in the Office of Naval Intelligence. While stationed here, she met her husband Edwin Lee Engelberg, who was not in the military but was a 4F and worked at the Bikini Atoll program testing atomic bombs. She stayed in the service immediately after the war ended, leaving in June of 1947. She married her husband a month later, on July 7, 1947, and they had two sons together a few years later, who she raised herself from when they were three and six years old on. After leaving the WAVES, Engelberg worked at the Naval Research Institute in Bethesda, in real estate, and at a manufacturing company. Margaret ended her working career at the age of 73 years old from Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. When she left the service, Engelberg had reached the rank of Chief Yeoman, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2004-01-21

type:

Audio

format:

CD

identifier:

276; 2004.276

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

028263

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-47

rights:

Unrestricted