CPT Edith M. Key Oral History Tape 2, Side B

title:

CPT Edith M. Key Oral History Tape 2, Side B

creator:

Key, Edith May (Rubright) (Knudson) (1919 January 25 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Tape 2 of 2, side 2 of 2. Returning to her time billeted in England before going to the European continent, Key took classes at the Botanical Garden with other nurses to learn how to identify airplanes overhead. She also spent three weeks at administrative nurses’ school with the chief nurse and operating room supervisor before they left England. Back to her time in continental Europe, in February 1945 her unit moved into houses of evacuated German women and families in Brien [sic], Germany, and from there they stayed in a hotel in Neuenahr, Germany. In April 1945 the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated, and Key was among those who went only a day or two after liberation. A Polish man who had been held prisoner there showed them around the camp, including barracks where the sick were kept, torture chambers, the path prisoners were forced to take from the train down to the gas chambers, and the crematorium. Over the summer of 1945, after the war in Europe had ended, she was able to travel to different parts of France, Switzerland, and the Mediterranean before returning to the United States. She was initially planning on only returning to the US long enough to be shipped to the Pacific, but the war ended before that happened. Because she had signed up for the Pacific, she couldn’t stay in Europe for occupation and had to return to the US instead. If she could have, she would have stayed for occupation since there was so much work to do and she found Germany beautiful. She was stationed at Fort Devens for two months before she was discharged in June 1946. She had gotten married in December 1945, and after her discharge they moved to Long Beach, California and she continued working as a nurse with the VA. They had two children and her husband used the GI Bill to be a watch repairman. Her first husband passed at 42 of cancer, she was almost 40 and their children were 7 and 11 at the time. She continued nursing at the Veterans Hospital in Long Beach until she left there at the age of 58. When her younger son turned 16, Key began dating again and married her second husband, a professor at Long Beach state, in 1969. After her time at the Veterans Hospital, she worked per diem at the Long Beach Memorial Hospital for four years and full-time for another 6, retiring from nursing at 68. She remembers taking a trip to Europe in 1984 with her sons and daughter-in-law where she showed them all of the places she served on the continent. She continued traveling with her family and on her own in the decades following her retirement. Key had reached the rank of captain by the time of her discharge in 1946, and for her service she was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, Women's Army Corps Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with a silver star, and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2006-05-23

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

521.02; 2006.521

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

094559

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1942-46

rights:

Unrestricted