PN3 Gloria Finucane Oral History Side A

title:

PN3 Gloria Finucane Oral History Side A

creator:

Finucane, Gloria Minich (1928 February 6 - )

subject:

Navy WAVES

description:

Side 1 of 2. Gloria M. Finucane was born on February 6, 1928 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She graduated from the local high school there then went to the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore, Maryland to study piano for two years. She then returned to Pennsylvania and graduated from business school having studied shorthand and typing. After graduating, she got a job as a secretary at the Delaware Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. She took a leave of absence from the hospital to be a student member of Experiment in International Living, spending three months in Lille, France. On their way over, the Korean War broke out. When they returned in September 1950, she returned to her job and hoped to join the Navy. She didn’t have enough college credit to go right into officers training, so she went to enlisted training instead. She went to Great Lakes, Illinois for training in March 1951. After finishing basic, she was assigned to the US Naval Examining Center, calculating the mean by which tests would be scored. After a couple promotions, she became the secretary of Rear Admiral Haler, which was the head of the Court Martial Board. It was while in this position that she met her husband, who was a lieutenant commander at the Department of Evaluations Center at the time. Although she was set up to go to France after a year with the Rear Admiral, she ended up staying in the United States and leaving the service three months after marrying her husband in 1953. When she joined the Navy, she hoped to make a career out of it, but meeting her husband changed that plan. WAVES weren’t allowed o remain in the service if they got married, so she chose to be with her husband instead of staying in the Navy. When she left the service, Finucane had reached the rank of personnelman 3rd class. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Cleaver, Anne K.H.

date:

1991-05-01

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

51.014

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

408178

coverage:

Korean War (1950-53) | 1951-53

rights:

Unrestricted