Sp(Q)C Evelyn Barbara Einfeldt Oral History Part 1

title:

Sp(Q)C Evelyn Barbara Einfeldt Oral History Part 1

creator:

Einfeldt, Evelyn Barbara (Urich) (1922 Ferbuary 26 - )

subject:

Navy WAVES

description:

Part 1 of 2. Evelyn B. Einfeldt (formerly Urich) was born on February 26, 1922 in Iola, Kansas and moved to West Des Moines, Iowa when her father got a job there. She lived there with her parents and sister until her mother and father divorced in 1931 when she and her sister went to El Paso, Texas with their mother, then they moved to Arkansas when their stepfather fund work there in 1937. She graduated from North Little Rock High School in 1937 and looked for work in Iowa for two years before returning to Arkansas to work in a garment factory. In 1942 she moved to working at an ordinance factory building bullets and bombs. She decided on a whim to apply to the Navy WAVES when she passed a recruiting office, and because of her age she needed parental permission. Her mother gave it but her father, a veteran of World War I and living in Oklahoma, refused to sign. She decided that, since he was so far away, the military wasn’t likely to verify his signature, so she forged it and joined the Navy in 1943. She went to Hunter College in the second regiment sent there for basic training. After taking aptitude tests in Washington, DC, she was sent to Sugar Camp in Dayton, Ohio where she soldered wires on commentators for “the Bomb.” They weren’t allowed to tell anyone what they were working on, from their friends and family to the people of Dayton. In 1946, she was sent to St. Paul, Minnesota for a year to do similar work, which is where she also met her husband, who coincidentally had worked on bomb construction in DC during the war. She was there for a year, moved to the Navy Reserves in 1947, and formally mustered out two years later in 1949. She and her husband married in 1947, and both used the GI Bill to go to college. When she left the service, she’d reached the rank of chief petty officer, specialist Q. For her service, she was awarded an American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and Oklahoma Veteran of the Year in 1996. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2003-12-03

type:

Audio

format:

CD

identifier:

268; 2003.268

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

027721

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-49

rights:

Unrestricted