LCDR Pauline A. Parish Oral History Side A - Edited

title:

LCDR Pauline A. Parish Oral History Side A - Edited

creator:

Parish, Pauline "Polly" Ann (1920 February 1 - )

subject:

Navy WAVES

description:

Side 1 of 2. This is the edited interview audio. Pauline “Polly” Ann Parish was born on February 1, 1920 in Marion, Ohio. She had two brothers who were eight and nine years older than her. She graduated from Harding High School in Marion then enrolled in Ohio Wesleyan University, which is were both of her brothers went. She was in college when the United States joined World War II, and remembers men going to enlist right away as well as the first time she heard about the death of a friend only a few months after he enlisted. After graduating, she was in the Sears Roebuck personal manager training program when she learned about the Navy WAVES. She and a friend discussed joining but weren’t sure, so they went to their former freshmen dean of women at Wesleyan and she gave them the final push they needed to decide to enlist. After being called up in 1943, she was in the send class sent to Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts for basic training. She broke her ankle while at Mt. Holyoke, so she stayed there longer than usual while it healed, helping with training new enlistees at the same time. Her next assignment was in New York City, where she helped coordinate and direct barracks that were being set up in two former low-income housing buildings. Once they were set up, she stayed to direct one of the two barracks. She was later assigned to decommission Manhattan Towers to non-war status towards the end of the war. Although she was eligible to stay in the WAVES longer, she didn’t want to be in the Navy as a career. She stayed in as a reservist for a year or two, and officially left the service entirely in 1947. She used the GI Bill to buy her first home after taking in her niece when she was 13. She also studied at Stanford University and the University of Colorado after leaving the service. Parish had reached the rank of lieutenant commander when she retired from the military, 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:

Ramirez, Jenette

date:

2006-02-23

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

726; 2001.726

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

070226

coverage:

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

rights:

Unrestricted