Oral History Interview with Helen Evans

Segment Synopsis: In this section, Helen describes her family and early upbringing, including her education at the University of Kentucky and first job as a Home Economics teacher at Versailles High School. She also mentions where she was when she heard about the attack of Pearl Harbor. Her family was returning from seeing an ice skating show, and they found people discussing the event when they made a rest stop in Shelbyville, KY on their way home.

Segment Synopsis: This section largely discusses the process that Helen underwent to join the Women's Army Corps. She begins by answering a question about her experience of the 1930s, to which she responds that she mostly remembers being a High School student, and an active one at that involved in dance and assisting with a Bible school. She first heard about the foundation of the WAC while in the Versailles High School break room with other teachers when they heard a radio story announcing the program. At that point some of them decided to apply. Helen details the three steps of the application: The Physical Exam, the Mental Exam, and the Interview. During the interview she discovered that one of her interviewers was in fact the Dean of Women at the University of Kentucky, a woman she had worked with in the past. Lastly, Helen mentions how her mother was initially upset by her decision to join the army since she knew other mothers who had already lost sons to the war, but eventually she became a very powerful advocate for women in the military.

Partial Transcript: ~1:13:40 - "I believe if you don't take a risk, you haven't gained anything," referring to why she chose to join the WAC instead of other safer career choices.

Segment Synopsis: Helen is asked why she joined the Womens Army Corps, and she starts by mentioning that she had met a young man at school in Wisconsin who went on to join the Navy. She explains that she had many options when deciding to join. For one, she had committed to teaching Home Economics at Versailles High School again. She also learned that she had been accepted to a graduate program at Northwestern University the same day as she had been accepted to join the Women's Army Corps. Helen says that it seemed like everyone in the country was pitching in to assist with the war effort, so she wanted to take a risk and do what she could to assist as well. Near the end of the section she mentions that she thinks service members can often struggle when reintegrating into civilian society because they no longer have someone else telling them what to do.

Segment Synopsis: Helen reported for duty on August 1, 1942. This section concerns her training and WAC classmates, of which there were 11. She discusses how she was the youngest in the class, and was impressed and intimidated by her classmates' greater career and life experience. She notes the ways that her training was different to the mens' training in that they did not engage in weapons training, but also how it was similar in that their other classes and curriculum were exactly the same. She also talks about how many men in the army felt defensive towards the entry of women into the officer corps because the women were not allowed to have combat roles, and so their entry was perceived as pushing some men into more dangerous active duty when they otherwise could have served in a non-combat capacity.

Segment Synopsis: Helen details her interview which concluded her time in training where they asked her what she would like to do in the army. She told them that she would be interested in "anything but food," and was promptly assigned to a bakery and cooking school. After this additional training, she was transferred to the job of teaching other women, noting that even though women were joining the army, the organization would be completely gender segregated until the 1970s. She then went to Louisiana where she helped a project which was attempting to utilize the prison labor of Italian Prisoners of War to grow food to support the war effort. Lastly, she capped off her domestic service by working on a project to determine the difference between male and female ration consumption to determine proper rates of ration distribution between genders.

Segment Synopsis: The rest of Helen's service during World War II was spent inspecting male units in Europe. She anticipated then transferring to the Pacific, but the war ended before her transfer was initiated. She discusses how she greatly enjoyed her service and attributes that enjoyment in part to a love of traveling that her family had instilled in her at a young age by traveling to every Land Grant University and State Capital in the United States. She also discusses some interesting episodes of her service in Europe, including participating in delivering a baby which was called the "youngest POW in Europe" owing to its mother being a Prisoner of War at the time of birth, founding a singing trio while sailing across the Atlantic to Europe, and having to be escorted everywhere by male officers since she was not allowed to carry a weapon.

Segment Synopsis: Helen is prompted to discuss her work with the Women Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and she discusses the process of planning the Memorial site at the entrance of the Arlington National Cemetery. She notes that she also represented Kentucky on the national committee for the creation of a World War II Veterans Memorial. She briefly discusses how it felt to be in Europe when the war ended and closes the section by talking about the tradition of Honor Flights for veterans to Washington D.C. and the ways that Kentucky has been involved, including an all-women Honor Flight for the first time in 2016.

Segment Synopsis: In this segment, Helen mentions that she had a somewhat difficult time reintegrating after the end of the war largely because she had not been planning for her life afterwards and did not know what to do with herself. For a time she traveled widely, and at some point was invited to give a speech representing Women Veterans at a Presbyterian Church in Lexington. In the audience was a man involved in the administration of G.I. Bill benefits who told Helen that the state G.I. Bill office was moving from Lexington to Louisville and they would likely be hiring new personnel. Helen acted on the tip and spent a time assisting with veteran education below the college level until she got married and moved back to Lexington for her husband's new job. Past this point, the segment drifts back to various wartime recollections including concern about her German maiden name (Horlacher) while stationed in Switzerland as well as the time she dated a man who had been impersonating an army officer. She also discusses details of her uniforms while serving and WAVES a similar program to WAC which was developed to enter women into the Navy.

Segment Synopsis: The interviewers ask Helen whether she felt limitations in the army on account of her being a woman. Helen says that she did not feel limited, but saw discrimination in other forms, most notably in seeing other women be the victims of false rumor campaigns. She tells a story about a time when she was working in Washington D.C. and had a Black female secretary who a higher ranking officer wanted to transfer to his office. Helen convinced the officer to ask the secretary whether she wanted to transfer before making it an official reassignment, and the secretary declined his offer because she wanted to remain working under one of the only female officers in Washington D.C. When asked whether she felt pressure in dating during her service, Helen says that she did not feel pressure, although it was expected that those serving only dated people of the same level of rank. This often caused confusing situations when one spouse in a marriage outranked the other despite their being married prior to joining the service. It was not uncommon for wives to outrank their husbands. Helen closes the segment by noting how those creating the WAC program intentionally moved a number of Black WAC trainees into the first WAC class to graduate from training and suggests that this and other policies within the WAC led the organization to be the tip of the spear in terms of racial integration in the U.S. military.

Segment Synopsis: This section largely covers final questions and closing thoughts in the interview that had not already been discussed. For example, they briefly discuss how Helen's husband had also been in the army but had a more unfavorable opinion of the institution. Helen also recalls family traditions for Veterans Day and Memorial Day before and after her service. She concludes the interview by remarking that it is easy for people to forget about a war, especially when their lives have not been touched by it.