Frances M. Hobbins Collection

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: Only a part of this collection has been digitized.
Where can I find more information?: https://uncg.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/876
What's in the full collection?: 18 March 1999 oral history transcript; portrait photograph of Frances in WAVES Uniform 1945; photograph of Francis in 1997; 8 photographs (1967-1994) of Dorion Tam, the man she "Freed to Fight;" from Hawaii.
Full biography: Frances A. Madden Hobbins (1923-2006) of Boston, Massachusetts, served in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) from 1944 to 1945 and spent almost two decades as a civil servant at the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Frances Madden Hobbins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1923. She graduated from Dorchester High School for Girls in Boston in 1940 and also attended Boston Clerical School for three years. She went on to work as a telephone operator for New England Telephone and Telegraph. Hobbins enlisted in the WAVES on 5 January 1944. She attended Hunter College, New York City, for basic training. She was stationed at Fort MacArthur, Utah, and worked at Clearfield Naval Supply Station as a courier. In 1945 Hobbins was transferred to Pearl Harbor, where she worked in re-supply. She was discharged in December of 1945. After World War II, Hobbins lived in Arizona and Boston. In 1950 she married and settled in Arizona. After her husband's death, she returned to Boston, where she worked in computers at IBM. Hobbins later went into civil service and worked at the Bureau of Naval Personnel in the Navy Annex in Washington, D.C. She also worked in the Navy Yard before her retirement. Frances Hobbins died 10 April 2006.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Branch of service: Navy -- WAVES
Conflict: World War II era (1940-1946)
Subject headings: World War, 1939-1945
United States. Navy--Women
Contributing Institution: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries

: Frances M. Hobbins and Dorion Tam; Frances M. Hobbins poses with Dorion Tam, the man she "Freed to Fight," in Honolulu for the National WAVES Convention in 1997.

: Oral history interview with Frances Madden Hobbins; Primarily documents Frances Madden Hobbins's pre-war family life; her service with the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in Hawaii during World War II; and her post-war career in computers. Early topics focus on Hobbins's father's career as an electrician, her high school, not finishing college, working as a telephone operator, and life in Boston in the early 1940s. " Hobbins remembers enlisting in the WAVES on her 21st birthday, Navy recruitment of telephone operators, and being stationed at Fort MacArthur, Utah, where she drove a jeep to deliver the mail. Hobbins mainly discusses her time spent at Pearl Harbor. She speaks of the fresh food the dietitian supplied; bonding with the other women; V-J Day celebrations; curfew; sneaking off to meet the boys; and visiting Kauai. She tells a story of seeing her brother on a ship at Pearl Harbor and a story about her cousin saving another cousin in the Pacific Ocean. Hobbins also discusses her friendship with the man that she replaced at Pearl Harbor. " Post-war topics include Hobbins' relocations between Arizona and Boston, working as a telephone operator, making the transition into work with computers, and joining the Civil Service in Washington, D.C. She also discusses being a single woman and the effects of the war.