Oral history interview with Doris Wofford Armenaki, 1999

Partial Transcript: My name is Eric Elliott and I’m with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and today is May 19, 1999, and I’m in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the home of Doris Armenaki.

Segment Synopsis: Beginning of interviewing introducing interviewer and interviewee.

Partial Transcript: I was born in Cornelia, Georgia [November 3, 1923].

Segment Synopsis: Discusses family and education.

Partial Transcript: EE: ...Do you remember, as you were finishing high school, being in any way at all concerned about what was going on in Europe?

DA: No. But I remember the day—I remember Pearl Harbor.

Partial Transcript: Your plans, how did they change after Pearl Harbor Day?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses deciding to join the Cadet Nurse Corps and attend Georgia Baptist College after graduating from North Georgia College in 9142.

Partial Transcript: EE: Three years, then get your nursing degree and go work in a private hospital or some place?

DA: Well, I had begun to think about the service.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses her decision to join the Nurse Cadet Corps, the physical requirements.

Partial Transcript: I met the man who was going to be my husband then.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses her first encounter with future husband; he wanted a tour of the OR, where she worked.

Partial Transcript: Well, now, what was he doing at [Fort] Benning?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses husband Tom's paratrooper training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and his deployment overseas in June 1944.

Partial Transcript: You decided to join the Cadet Nurse Corps in '43.

Segment Synopsis: Reasons for joining the Cadet Nurse Corps and her parents' reaction.

Partial Transcript: We haven’t talked with many with the cadet nurse experience. Was that done through—how was the recruiting for that done?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses a Cadet Nurse Corps recruiter visiting her hospital.

Partial Transcript: This is when you went to Memphis?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses typical day at Kennedy General Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, working with amputees and psychiatric patients, as well as some of her training in Georgia.

Partial Transcript: That’s great, that’s great. What’s a typical day like?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses a typical day in the Cadet Nurse Corps, and when she was named Commanding Officer of her group.

Partial Transcript: ...you were there when [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt passed away, weren't you?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses where she was upon hearing of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her thoughts about him as the President of the United States, and her thoughts about Eleanor Roosevelt.

Partial Transcript: Well, before we go to that, there’s another little part of this. State boards.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses taking the State Nursing Boards in order to get her nursing license and receiving a commission in the Army Nurse Corps.

Partial Transcript: I was sent to Camp Rucker, Alabama, which is now Fort Rucker.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses basic training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and her first assignment after basic at Lawson General Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

Partial Transcript: No. I applied—when I got married in June of ‘46, I expected to get out quickly, because it says you can’t be married.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses her marriage, her final assignment at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and her relocation to Atlanta, Georgia after separating from the service in order for her husband to attend Georgia Institute of Technology.

Partial Transcript: What was the hardest thing that you had to do during your time in the service, either physically or emotionally?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses the physical difficulty of unloading convoys of patients returning from Europe, and the emotional difficulty of working with amputees.

Partial Transcript: And it sounded like you got to—some of the casual photos you had, you all did how good nurses do, you treated the whole person.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses the need to separate her professional life from her social life when it came to working with patients of the same age. Also discusses working with coworkers and patients of different ethnicities, and the few deaths that occurred on the hospital wards.

Partial Transcript: Are there favorite songs or movies from that time period?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses her love of the big bands during wartime, and seeing singer Patti Paige in a USO show.

Partial Transcript: Do you remember where you were—you had to have been in Memphis, I guess, when you heard about VE Day?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses where she was upon hearing of VE and VJ Day, and her thoughts about the United States' decision to invade Europe and Japan.

Partial Transcript: ...Do you have any heroes or heroines, when you think about that time?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses thinking of the patients as heroes, including a convoy of nurses from the Philippines who had been held as prisoners.

Partial Transcript: One of the questions we ask everybody is, do you think you contributed to the war effort?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses how she feels she contributed to the war effort, receiving a Red Cross pin, and her interactions with Red Cross personnel.

Partial Transcript: You got me to September of ‘47, and my first tape’s going to run out, and we’re about through with this interview, other than getting you to home, I think, but I wanted to—you have a very interesting career after ‘47, after your military experience, and I wanted to go over that.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses separating from the service, her husband's acceptance at, and subsequent graduation from, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the doctors she worked with in Atlanta, Georgia. Also discusses their relocation to Greensboro, North Carolina, and the various jobs her husband held over the following years.

Partial Transcript: ...And he died in January of ‘71. Massive coronary.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses the death of her husband in January of 1971, her decision to attend the University of Birmingham, Alabama, and her subsequent job teaching nursing students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Also discusses her final employment as Director of the RN-to-BSN off-campus nursing program in Hickory, North Carolina.

Partial Transcript: During the forties, a lot of women were doing things that, heretofore, men had only done or they were doing contributions that were, you know, outside of the home, out in the workplace. Do you think women of that generation were trailblazers for later generations along?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses how women during wartime were trailblazers because they showed that they could do the same work as men and they could handle just as well as the men.

Partial Transcript: ...But I’m convinced that we should be able to do anything we want to do.

Segment Synopsis: Discusses how she approves of women joining the military, as well as how her military experience has shaped and effected her life.

Partial Transcript: ...I’m going to browse through this with you after we get off the tape, but is there anything else about your service that we haven’t talked about, that you’d like to add?

Segment Synopsis: Discusses being part of The Women In Military Service For America Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, as well as the extensive traveling that she has done over the years after separating from the military.