Legacy Series Oral History Program

Started in 2013, the Legacy Series oral history program preserves the experiences of Holocaust survivors, World War II veterans, home front workers, and other individuals who lived during the Second World War. Preserved on film in the KSU Archives, the oral history interviews support education, exhibitions, and public programs at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education.

For more information on how you can contribute to the Legacy Series, please contact:

Curator: Adina Langer
Phone 470-578-2083

Email
Legacy Series oral history interview of M. Alexis Scott by Adina Langer
Susan Berman is the daughter of German Holocaust survivors

Susan Berman

Born in Brooklyn in 1948, Susan Berman is the daughter of German Holocaust survivors. Her mother Ruth took the Kindertransport to England in 1939, a few months before other members of her family boarded the ill-fated ship, the St. Louis. Berman's father Manfred was arrested on Kristallnacht, but after his release he fled Germany and immigrated to the United States, where he served in the U.S. Army.

Videos

TopicsSecond GenerationSt. LouisImmigrationAfter the WarUSOPre-war Jewish LifePropagandaRise of AntisemitismRise of NazismKristallnacht

Edward Francell

Edward Francell was born into a secular Jewish family in Paris, France, in 1934. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, Francell and his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Los Angeles. At school Francell participated in fundraisers for refugees fleeing Europe. Francell graduated from Columbia University in 1956. 

Videos

TopicsPre-War Jewish LifeKristallnachtThe CampsHolocaust ResistanceRemembering the Holocaust 

Edward Francell, holocaust survivor.
Norbert Friedman, holocaust survivor.

Norbert Friedman

Born in Poland in 1922, Norbert Friedman was forced into the Mielec concentration camp after the German invasion. He would survive eleven camps throughout the war building airplane engines for the German air force. After liberation Friedman completed his college education in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1950. 

Videos

TopicsStart of WarThe CampsHolocaust ResistanceLiberation

Hershel Greenblat

Born in Ukraine in 1941, Hershel Greenblat spent the first two years of his life hiding in underground caves. His parents were resistance fighters who left him in the care of friends when they carried out attacks on the Nazis. After the war Greenblat’s family lived in a succession of displaced person camps before immigrating to the United States.

Videos

TopicsHolocaust ResistanceAfter the War

Hershel Greenblat, holocaust survivor.
David Jacobi, holocaust survivor.

David Jacobi

Born in 1962, David Jacobi is a lifelong resident of Atlanta. His father's family survived the Holocaust in Germany, and his mother's family survived the Blitz in England. After the death of his grandparents, Jacobi began researching his family's wartime experience and cataloging the artifacts they left behind.

Videos

Topics: Pre-War Jewish LifeRise of Anti-SemitismHolocaust ResistanceWar in EuropeSurviving the Blitz,  After the WarPostwar AmericaSecond Generation

Andre Kessler

Born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1940, Andre Kessler attributes his survival during the Second World War to the landlord of his building who enabled his family to go into hiding for sixteen months. After the war Kessler escaped from behind the Iron Curtain to Austria and immigrated to the United States in 1951. 

Videos

Topics: Rise of Anti-SemitismThe CampsHolocaust ResistanceAfter the War,Remembering the Holocaust

Andre Kessler
Herbert Kohn

Herbert Kohn

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, six-year-old Herbert Kohn was forced to leave public school in Frankfurt, Germany. The Nazis imprisoned Kohn’s father after Kristallnacht but released him a few weeks later because of his service in World War I. Kohn and his family immigrated to the United States in 1940.

Videos

TopicsPre-War Jewish LifeRise of Anti-SemitismKristallnachtHolocaust Resistance

Rochelle Lawrence

Born in Poland in 1929, Rochelle Lawrence immigrated to Palestine with her family in 1936. After two years of bombings and food shortages in Tel Aviv, Lawrence’s family moved to the United States with the support of relatives. In 1949, Lawrence married a veteran of World War II and eventually had three children. She made her home on Long Island before retiring to Georgia to be closer to her daughter.

Videos

Topics: Pre-War Jewish Life, Rise of Anti-Semitism, Remembering the Holocaust

Rochelle Lawrence, holocaust survivor.
Murray Lynn, holocaust survivor.

Murray Lynn

Murray Lynn was born in Hungary in 1930. As a teenager he was deported to Auschwitz and forced to work as a slave laborer for more than a year. After liberation Lynn returned to his hometown and found few survivors of the Jewish community. He immigrated to the United States in 1948.

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Topics: Rise of Anti-SemitismThe CampsAfter the WarRemembering the Holocaust

Sarah Popowski

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1952, Sarah Popowski is the daughter of Holocaust survivors Paula Kornblum Popowski and Henry Popowski of Kaluszcyn, Poland. Having avoided deportation by volunteering for hard labor in 1942, Paula escaped from the labor camp with aid from a righteous gentile and hid with her sister in southern Poland under a false identity. After marrying in a DP camp, Paula and Henry emigrated to the United States in 1949. Sarah Popowski lives in Atlanta and recorded her oral history interview at Kennesaw State University in August 2022.

Videos

TopicsSecond GenerationWar in EuropeThe CampsHolocaust ResistanceHolocaust MemoryLiberationAfter the War

Sarah Popowski, holocaust survivor.
Tosia Schneider, holocaust survivor.

Tosia Schneider

Tosia Schneider was born in Poland in 1928. During the Second World War, her family was forced into the Tluste ghetto, where her mother held a secret school for Jewish children in defiance of the Nazis. Schneider was eventually deported to a labor camp. The only survivor in her family, Schneider immigrated to the United States in 1950.

Videos

Topics: Rise of Anti-SemitismStart of WarThe GhettosThe CampsHolocaust ResistanceAfter the War

Gitte Toben

Born in Denmark in 1952, Gitte Toben immigrated to the United States in 1979. She volunteers at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education because her father, Kjeld Johansen, was a member of the Danish resistance during World War II. He was injured during an attack on the Nazis and went underground to avoid capture.

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Topics: Start of WarHolocaust ResistanceAfter the WarRemembering the Holocaust

Gitte Toben, holocaust survivor.
Sheva Vapne, holocaust survivor.

Sheva Vapne

Born in Latvia in 1928, Sheva Vapne grew up speaking Latvian, Russian, and Yiddish. When the Germans invaded in 1941, Vapne escaped to Russia where she worked on a collective farm until winter forced her south to Uzbekistan. After the war Vapne returned to Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. She immigrated to the United States in the 1970s.

Videos

Topics: Pre-War Jewish LifeStart of WarWar in EuropeHolocaust ResistanceAfter the War

Henry Ahola, World War II Veteran

Henry Ahola

Born in Massachusetts in 1925, Henry Ahola was the son of Finnish immigrants. During World War II, he volunteered to serve in the Army Air Corps and shipped out to Guam, where he worked in a telephone office circulating messages among military units stationed in the Pacific. After the war he worked for the Lockheed corporation in Georgia. 

Videos

TopicsSecond GenerationSt. LouisImmigrationAfter the WarUSOPre-war Jewish LifePropagandaRise of AntisemitismRise of NazismKristallnacht

Roger Amidon

Born in Ohio in 1928, Roger Amidon served as part of an occupational force in Nagoya, Japan, after World War II. His military unit helped to restore power to the city, where many Japanese remained homeless a year after the war. Amidon repaired radio teletype machines on the night shift and spent much of his free time traveling around the country. He moved to Georgia in the 1970s.

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborRationingMilitary TrainingWar in the PacificPostwar America

Roger Amidon, World War II Veteran
Harry Anton, World War II Veteran.

Harry Anton

Born in Minnesota in 1923, Harry Anton volunteered to serve in a supply unit recruited through the General Motors Company during World War II. He spent two years on a base in North Africa before transferring to the infantry during the Battle of the Bulge. While crossing into Germany, Anton was struck by a German bullet and spent several weeks in recovery. 

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborMilitary TrainingWar in EuropePostwar America

Richard Bailey

Born in New York in 1922, Richard Bailey worked as a toolmaker’s apprentice for General Electric before enlisting in the Army Air Corps. He served as a B-26 pilot during World War II, leading crews of six on pre-invasion bombing missions over Europe. By the end of the war, Bailey had flown 65 missions including three on D-Day. 

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Topics: The Great DepressionMilitary TrainingWar in Europe

Richard Bailey, World War II Veteran
Edith Bond, World War II Veteran

Edith Bond

Born in southwest Georgia in 1921, Edith Bond worked at St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company in Jacksonville during World War II. In 1944 she enlisted in the Navy as an officer in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She had postings at the Bureau of Ships in Washington, D.C., and the Pensacola Naval Air Station. After the war she enjoyed a long career in social work.

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Topics: Pearl Harbor, FDR, North vs. South, Military Training, Arsenal of Democracy, War in the Pacific, Women in War, The Atomic Bomb, Victory Celebrations, Postwar America

Theodore Britton

Born in North Augusta, South Carolina in 1925, Theodore Roosevelt Britton, Jr., moved to New York City when he was ten years old. Britton joined the Marine Corps in 1943 and maintained the muster roll for his military unit in the Pacific. He attended New York University and served as ambassador to Barbados and Grenada under President Ford.

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Topics: The Great Depression, Military Training, FDR, First Black Marines, Racism in the Military, War in the Pacific

Theodore Britton, World War II Veteran
Alton Cadenhead, World War II Veteran.

Alton Cadenhead

Born on a farm in Troup County, Georgia in 1924, Alton Cadenhead enlisted in the Marine Corps after the Pearl Harbor attack. Serving as a corporal in the Third Marine Division, Cadenhead was injured in the battles of Guam and Iwo Jima. After the war he worked as a mechanical engineer. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborFDRMilitary TrainingWar in the PacificVictory CelebrationsPostwar America

Robert Chester

Born in New Jersey in 1928, Robert Chester entered the Navy in the final year of the war. He served as a gunner's mate aboard the USS Ludlow, which convoyed ships into Japanese ports during the American occupation. After returning to the United States, Chester took a long-term job in the explosives and chemical industry. 

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Topics: Pearl HarborMilitary TrainingWar in the PacificVictory CelebrationsPostwar America

Robert Chester, World War II Veteran.
Michael Cox, World War II Veteran.

Michael Cox

Born in 1944, Michael Cox grew up in the small town of Molina, Georgia, close to his World War II veteran uncles, George Mack Hamlett and Alvie Lowell Hamlett. While “Mack” served in the Army in Europe and “Lowell” served in the Navy off the Florida coast, both Hamletts documented their experiences with letters and photographs.

Videos

Topics: Military Training, War in Europe, Liberation, FDR, Postwar America

Jimmy Doi

Born in Oxnard, California in 1925, Jimmy Doi was the son of Japanese parents who emigrated from Japan in the early 20th century. He spent two years in the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, before he was drafted into the U.S. Army as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After the war Doi moved to Georgia to work in the poultry industry. 

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborThe Atomic BombJapanese American InternmentFDRArsenal of DemocracyMilitary TrainingWar in EuropePostwar America

Jimmy Doi, World War II Veteran.
Harper Dolvin, World War II Veteran.

Harper Dolvin

Harper Dolvin was born in Atlanta in 1923. Drafted into the military during his first semester at the University of Georgia, Dolvin trained as an aircraft mechanic and gunner in the Army Air Corps. Stationed in England from 1942 to 1946, Dolvin flew 13 bombing missions over Germany as a replacement for soldiers who were injured. After the war he opened a used car business in Atlanta. 

Videos

Topics: Military TrainingWar in EuropePostwar America

Faye Edwards

Born in a coal mining town in West Virginia in 1923, Faye Edwards took a job at a defense plant in Baltimore during World War II. In 1944 she enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and completed two tours of duty in Europe before transferring to Japan. There she met her husband and started a family. She currently lives in Newnan, Georgia. 

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Topics: The Great DepressionArsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarMilitary TrainingWar in Europe 

Faye Edwards, World War II Veteran.
Reuben Griffin, World War II Veteran.

Reuben Griffin

Born in rural southwest Georgia in 1923, Reuben Griffin was initially deferred by his local draft board because he was considered more useful as a farmer than a soldier. By 1944 the need for soldiers was so great that Griffin had to leave his farm behind. He completed training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, and spent a year as part of an occupational force in Japan. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionFDRArsenal of DemocracyMilitary TrainingWar in the Pacific, Postwar America

Guy Gunter

Born in 1918, Guy Gunter grew up in Atlanta, where he worked as a salesman for General Electric before World War II. In 1942 he completed glider pilot training and shipped out to North Africa. He piloted gliders during the invasions of Italy, France, and the Netherlands. After the war Gunter founded an appliance company.

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Topics: Military TrainingWar in Europe

Guy Gunter, Guy Gunter World War II Veteran.
Alan Hall, World War II Veteran.

Alan Hall

Born in Cincinnati in 1926, Al Hall begged his mother to sign his enlistment papers when he was only 17. A signalman in the Navy, Hall served in a secret mission to Le Havre, France, during the D-Day Invasion. He was part of a unit that erected a flashing light to signal Liberty ships approaching the coast with supplies. After the war Hall was transferred to Atlanta in his sales job. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionMilitary TrainingWar in EuropeHolocaust ResistanceVictory CelebrationsPostwar America

Elizabeth Hickcox

Born in New Jersey in 1924, Elizabeth Hickcox lived with her grandparents during the Depression. After high school she worked for Standard Oil before joining the Navy in 1944. Stationed in Washington, D.C., Hickcox worked as a Navy cook preparing hundreds of meals each day. Later in life she moved to Georgia to be closer to her children. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionArsenal of DemocracyMilitary TrainingThe USOWomen in WarVictory Celebrations

Elizabeth Hickcox, World War II Veteran.
Crawford Hicks, World War II Veteran.

Crawford Hicks

Born in Kentucky in 1921, Crawford Hicks piloted a B-17 Flying Fortress on nine missions over Germany during World War II. On his tenth mission Hicks was shot down and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III. Liberated by General George Patton’s Third Army in 1945, Hicks worked for the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI) after the war. 

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborMilitary TrainingWar in EuropePrisoner of WarVictory Celebrations

Joseph Hudson

Born in 1925, Joseph Hudson grew up in his grandfather’s home in Virginia. During World War II, Hudson worked at the Richmond Army Depot before joining the Army in 1944. He trained at Fort Lee and spent two years in India, where he sorted used materiel en route from the Burma Road. After the war, Hudson reenlisted and spent several years in postwar Germany. 

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborMilitary TrainingRacism in the MilitaryWar in the PacificPostwar America

Joseph Hudson, World War II Veteran.
Alonza Jones, World War II Veteran.

Alonza Jones

Born in Alabama in 1926, Alonza Jones grew up in Columbus, Georgia. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943 and served over two years in the Pacific, both on Guadalcanal and Okinawa. After the war he built airplanes for the Lockheed Corporation and later obtained a job with the United States Postal Service. 

Videos

Topics: Military TrainingFirst Black MarinesRacism in the MilitaryWar in the Pacific

Joanna Kimling Stubbs

Born in 1952, Joanna Kimling Stubbs grew up in Marietta, Georgia, where her father, Eugene Kimling, was an engineer at Lockheed. Although born in New York City, Eugene Kimling spent the World War II years in Germany, trapped there after visiting his grandmother in September 1939. A mandatory member of the Hitler Youth, he survived Allied bombings and joined the U.S. Army after the war.

Videos

Topics: War in Europe, Military Training, Postwar America

Joanna Kimling Stubbs, World War II Veteran.
Harry Kone, World War II Veteran.

Harry Kone

Born in Baltimore in 1920, Harry Kone worked as a welder while attending the University of Wisconsin. In 1942 Kone enlisted in the Marine Corps and sustained injuries while unloading a ship at Guadalcanal later that year. He recovered in a military hospital before serving in the Bougainville Campaign in 1943. After the war Kone taught English in Chicago city schools.

Videos

Topics: Arsenal of Democracy, Pearl Harbor, Military Training, War in the Pacific, Racism in the Military, Postwar America

James Pack

Born in 1923, James Pack grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio. After his military enlistment in 1943, Pack chose to enter the Marine Corps. He served in the 20th depot company, taking part in the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa. After the war Pack worked as a civil servant for the city of Detroit before retiring to Georgia. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborMilitary Training, First Black MarinesRacism in the MilitaryWar in the PacificVictory CelebrationsPostwar America

James Pack, World War II Veteran
Hillard Pouncy, World War II Veteran.

Hillard Pouncy

Born in 1922, Hillard Pouncy grew up in Eufaula, Alabama. After graduating from high school, he attended Tuskegee Institute, where he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became a bombardier in the Tuskegee Air Squadron. After the war Pouncy earned a Ph.D. from Syracuse University and worked as a chemist for Union Carbide. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionThe Tuskegee AirmenMilitary TrainingRacism in the Military

James Russell

Born in West Virginia in 1925, James Russell joined the Navy during World War II and served on the USS John D. Henley, or “Lucky John D,” in the Pacific. The ship provided offshore support during six major battles: Saipan, Guam, Tinian, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. After the war Russell started working for a telephone company and settled in Georgia.

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Topics: The Great DepressionRationingMilitary TrainingWar in the PacificPostwar America

James Russell, World War II Veteran
M. Alexis Scott, World War II Veteran

M. Alexis Scott

Born in Atlanta in 1949, M. Alexis Scott is a journalist whose family founded the Atlanta Daily World in 1928. Scott’s father, William A. Scott III, served as an army reconnaissance sergeant and photographer during World War II. In April 1945, he was one of the first Allied soldiers to enter and photograph survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp. President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 1991.

Videos

Topics: The Great Depression, Kristallnacht, Military Training, Racism in the Military, War in Europe, The Camps, Liberation, Postwar America, Remembering the Holocaust, Second Generation

Lorenzo Wallace

Born in Atlanta in 1919, Lorenzo Wallace graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and Morehouse College. In 1942 he joined the Marine Corps and shipped out to the Marshall Islands as a part of a radar group. After the war Wallace worked for the United States Postal Service and later served as doorkeeper and sergeant-at-arms for the Georgia State Senate. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionMilitary TrainingFirst Black MarinesRacism in the MilitaryWar in the Pacific

Lorenzo Wallace, World War II Veteran.
William Wallace, Jr., World War II Veteran.

William Wallace, Jr.

Born in Macon, Georgia, in 1954, William Wallace, Jr. joined a family with a strong Christian faith and deep roots in the state. Wallace's father, William Wallace, Sr. was a veteran of World War II and survivor of the Bataan Death March perpetrated by the Japanese government against American prisoners of war in the Philippines.

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Topics: The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, Military Training, War in the Pacific, Prisoner of War, Liberation, Postwar America, Second Generation

Richard Weber

Born outside of Buffalo, New York in 1926, Richard Weber worked in an airplane factory before joining the Army Air Corps in 1944. He served as a teletype operator on the islands of Saipan and Guam. During his service, Weber memorized Bible verses in his tent at night and went on to become a pastor after World War II. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborArsenal of DemocracyMilitary TrainingWar in the PacificPostwar America

Richard Weber, World War II Veteran.
Geraldine Anthony, Home Front Worker.

Geraldine Anthony

Born in Bartow County, Georgia, in 1927, Geraldine Anthony worked as a janitor at Bell Aircraft in Marietta during World War II. She swept the factory floor of metal shavings and debris that fell from B-29 planes during construction. After the war, she worked on a cotton farm before taking a job with Goodyear Tire in Rome, Georgia.

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionArsenal of DemocracyWomen in War, Postwar America

Tooken Richardson Cade

Born in Michigan in 1924, Dolores “Tooken” Richardson Cade earned her nickname while working the photo booth at the United Service Organizations (USO) in Detroit. She met a sailor who gave her a bracelet etched with the word “Tooken” to signify their engagement. Married in 1944, they were parents to four sons by the time they moved to Georgia in the 1960s. 

Videos

Topics: Women in WarPearl HarborThe USO, RationingMilitary Training

Tooken Richardson Cade, home front worker.
William Campbell, home front worker.

William Campbell

Born in Oklahoma in 1937, William Campbell moved to Oklahoma City when his father was drafted into the military during World War II. For two years, Campbell lived in an abandoned barber shop with his mother and sister and depended on his grandparents for financial support. After college, Campbell got a job with the Lockheed corporation and moved to Georgia. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionWar in EuropeRationingThe USOPostwar America

June Chandler

Born in 1935, June Chandler grew up outside London in the borough of Enfield. During World War II, her neighborhood sustained heavy German bombing, and Chandler had to evacuate to the north. After the war she married an American serviceman stationed in England, and they moved to Georgia where he took a job with the Lockheed corporation.

Videos

Topics: War in EuropeRationingPostwar America

June Chandler, home front worker.
Deryck Cook, home front worker.

Deryck Cook

Born in Exton, England, in 1938, Deryck Cook could not remember a time before the world was at war. Although the worst bombings of the Battle of Britain had ended by the time Cook was in school, gas masks remained compulsory and air raids were common. Cook recalls how his family played host to three evacuated children from Coventry, how ration stamps were required for purchases in the village shop run by his mother and aunt, and how the village children begged chewing gum from American troops stationed there between 1943 and 1944. Cook left England in 1982 with his wife and three children, moving first to Toronto, Canada, and then to Detroit, Michigan, and finally to Georgia where he has lived for more than thirty years.

Videos

TopicsWar in EuropeRationingThe BlitzWar in EuropeRacism in the MilitaryPrisoners of WarWomen in War

Alan Davies

Born in the East End of London in 1932, Alan Davies was evacuated to the English countryside during World War II because of German air raids. As an adult Davies worked for the Air Force Exchange Service on an American military base in Germany. After transferring to the United States with his job, Davies retired in 1993.

Videos

Topics: Start of WarWar in EuropeWinston ChurchillVictory Celebrations

Alan Davies, home front worker.
Paula Fidler, home front worker.

Paula Fidler

Born in Ohio in 1926, Paula Fidler got a job as a secretary for Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Field during World War II. One of her assignments included recording the experiences of military officials who helped develop the atomic bomb. After the war Fidler married a paratrooper and lived in Europe and Asia before retiring to Georgia.

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionArsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarThe USOThe Atomic BombAfter the WarPostwar America

Lee Foringer

Born in Texas in 1919, Lee Foringer married at the start of World War II and moved to Long Beach, California. When her husband joined the Army Air Corps, she found a job at Douglas Aircraft as a riveter building B-17s and B-19s. Foringer continued to work after she became pregnant with her first child. After the war she worked as a buyer for women’s dress shops.

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborArsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarWar in the PacificPrisoner of WarVictory Celebrations

Lee Foringer, home front worker.
Earline Gaither, home front worker.

Earline Gaither

Born in Mississippi in 1925, Earline Gaither married as a teenager and moved to Michigan during World War II. She got a job on the assembly line at Willow Run airplane factory, where she oiled the guns, installed the flying instruction manual, and added the night-flying curtains. After the war she settled in Marietta, Georgia, and enjoyed a long term career as a manager at Sears. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborArsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarWar in the PacificRationingNorth vs. SouthFDRPostwar America

Edith Gray

Born in Canton, Georgia, in 1925, Edith Gray met her future husband in high school. Before he shipped out to the Pacific in World War II, Gray accepted his marriage proposal. In his absence, she attended business school and worked as a secretary at Canton Cotton Mills. After the war they settled in Rome, Georgia, and Gray worked as a homemaker. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborRationingWar in the PacificWomen in WarPostwar America

Edith Gray, home front worker.
Edna Hicks, home front worker.

Edna Hicks

Born in 1930, Edna Hicks grew up in Harrow, a suburb of London that sustained considerable bombing from German planes during World War II. After the war Hicks got a job at a post exchange on a military base and met an American pilot. They married in 1956 and lived on six bases in the United States before retiring to Warner Robins, Georgia. 

Videos

Topics: Start of WarWar in EuropeWomen in WarRationingVictory CelebrationsAfter the WarPostwar America

Louvinia Jordan

Louvinia Jordan was born on a farm in North Carolina in 1922. During the Second World War, Jordan became a cryptographic clerk or “codebreaker” in the Signal Corps and deciphered top secret Japanese codes. After the war she married a veteran of the Pacific War and worked as a bookkeeper for a newspaper.

Videos

Topics: Women in WarNorth vs. SouthWar in the PacificVictory Celebrations

Louvinia Jordan, home front worker.
Marcel Kohler, home front worker.

Marcel Kohler

Marcel Kohler was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 1950, five years after the end of World War II. He is the youngest of three siblings, with an older brother born three years after the war, and an older sister who was a child during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. His family experienced hardships during the occupation, including food shortages and threats to their property by the occupying forces. During the war, they hid their valuables in secret cabinets, and his sister later shared stories with him of Jewish people hidden in the attic. The Kohler family immigrated to the United States in 1955 and settled in Lansing, Michigan.

Videos

Topics: Rationing, War in Europe, Holocaust Resistance, The Camps, Immigrant Stories

Lori Lee

Born in Kentucky in 1936, Lori Lee spent her earliest years in southern China, where her parents worked as missionaries among the boat people on the Pearl River. In December 1941, Lee and her family were forced into confinement by Japanese occupational forces. They eventually repatriated to the United States. After attending boarding school in Canada, Lee lived in California and Great Britain before retiring to Georgia.

Videos

Topics: Pearl HarborWar in the PacificWomen in WarPostwar America

Lori Lee, home front worker.
Clay Manley, home front worker.

Clay Manley

Born in Tennessee in 1935, Clay Manley spent his childhood moving throughout the Southeast. His father was a supervisor for the Blair Construction company which took government contracts, first as a part of the New Deal, and then as a result of wartime production. After graduating from Mercer University, Manley attended Union Theological Seminary in New York and became a Baptist minister in Georgia.

Videos

Topics: Rationing, Military Training, War in Europe, Postwar America

Bettye McCubbin

Born in 1921, Bettye McCubbin grew up in Kansas City. She left college to work for the United States Employment Service and later got a clerical job with Pratt & Whitney, a manufacturer of airplane engines. After the war McCubbin wrote for the Kansas City Star and married her high school sweetheart, a World War II pilot. They moved to Georgia in 2004. 

Videos

Topics: Arsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarThe USOPostwar America

Bettye McCubbin, home front worker.
Mary McJunkin, home front worker.

Mary McJunkin

Born in Rome, Georgia in 1921, Mary McJunkin quit school to care for her younger siblings after her mother’s death. At 20, she married a serviceman who was transferred to a military base in California. McJunkin worked the night shift at an airplane factory outside Los Angeles. She followed her husband to bases around the country until he went overseas in 1944.

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionArsenal of DemocracyThe USOWomen in War

Joy Mitchell

Born in Rome, Georgia, in 1925, Joy Mitchell worked at the city's newly constructed Battey Hospital during World War II. Posted at the front desk, Mitchell wrote passes for family members and friends visiting soldiers who were recovering from injuries sustained in Europe and Asia. After the war Mitchell became a university librarian.

Videos

TopicsWomen in War, War in the Pacific

Joy Mitchell, home front worker.
Jessie Moss, home front worker.

Jessie Moss

Born in Forsyth County, Georgia in 1918, Jessie Moss took a job at Bell Aircraft Corporation during World War II. She worked on a team building fuselages for B-29 bombers. When her husband returned from fighting in the Pacific, Moss paid for the construction of their first home with money saved from her job at Bell Aircraft. 

Videos

Topics: The Great DepressionPearl HarborArsenal of DemocracyThe USOWomen in WarNorth vs. SouthPostwar America

Anna Ostergaard

Born in 1929, Anna Ostergaard grew up on a farm in Denmark. After Germany invaded in 1940, she stayed away from the cities, where air raids sent people fleeing into bomb shelters. Ostergaard's family survived on a consistent supply of vegetables from the garden. Ostergaard married after the war and immigrated to the United States in 1955.

Videos

Topics: Rationing, War in Europe, After the War, Postwar America 

Anna Ostergaard, home front worker.
Jean Ousley, home front worker.

Jean Ousley

Born in 1945, Jean Ousley met her father for the first time after he returned from service in World War II. Her mother worked at the Kellogg Plant in Battle Creek, Michigan, and then as a welder at a factory in California. As an adult, Ousley led the Georgia chapter of the American Rosie the Riveter Association because of her mother’s contributions to the war effort. 

Videos

Topics: FDRArsenal of DemocracyWomen in WarPostwar AmericaSecond Generation

Mary D'Souza Sequeira

Born in 1933, Mary D'Souza Sequeira grew up under British rule in India. A prodigious track and field athlete from childhood, she competed in the First and Second Asian Games and the 1952 Olympics. She later represented India's National Railways system before immigrating to the United States in 1991. 

Videos

Topics: RationingJesse Owens

Mary D'Souza Sequeira, home front worker.
Jane Tucker, home front worker.

Jane Tucker

Born in Lineville, Alabama in 1927, Jane Tucker moved to Savannah to get a job at Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation during World War II. She became a rod welder and made $1.20 an hour. After the war she attended Northwestern University and became a dental hygienist. In 2010 she started the Rome, Georgia, chapter of the American Rosie the Riveter Association. 

Videos

Topics: The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, Arsenal of Democracy, Rationing, The USO, Women in War, North vs. South, Postwar America

Jane Tucker's Georgia Focus Interview (air date: June 2016):

Hank Van Driel

Born in Schiedam in 1934, Hank Van Driel was celebrating his sixth birthday when the Nazis marched into the Netherlands. He and his family endured five years of hardship and near-starvation rations during the German occupation. After the war, Van Driel studied to become a chef and worked at hotels and restaurants in Rotterdam, eventually landing a job on the Holland America line of cruise ships in 1962. Attracted by steady work in the American resort industry, Van Driel immigrated to the United States in 1964. He has remained a citizen of the Netherlands and travels frequently between the countries. Hank Van Driel recorded his Legacy Series oral history interview at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education on February 28, 2020.

Videos

Topics: Start of War, Nazi Occupation, War in Europe, Rationing

Hank Van Driel, home front worker.