Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke 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/1125
What's in the full collection?: 27 May 1999 oral history transcript; New York Times Article; titled; "New Army Nurses Depart for Camp"; photocopy circa 1945; photographs of Agnes and friends in the service before and during her service in the Army Nurse Corps at the Hospital in the Philippines 1945 and in Tokyo in 1946.
Full biography: Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke of Greensboro, North Carolina, worked in the biological warfare lab at Camp Detrick, Maryland, as a member of the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) Hospital Corps from June 1943 to April 1946. Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke was born in Lexington, North Carolina, and grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. She studied biology and bacteriology at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) from 1939 until 1943." Lucke enlisted in the United States. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) after her graduation. She attended basic training at Hunter College in New York in June and July 1943 and then had nine months of medical technology training and corps school at St. Albans Naval Hospital in New York. In May 1944, she was assigned to Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, as a biological weapons lab assistant. In August 1945, Lucke was sent to Dispensary No. 1 at Treasure Island, San Francisco, California. A few months later, she was transferred to Navy Research Unit No. 1at the University of California at Berkeley to do more biological weapons work. Lucke was discharged from the WAVES in April 1946, as a chief pharmacist mate. After leaving the WAVES, Lucke used the GI Bill finish undergraduate training, then worked briefly at the Public Health Department in Greensboro before returning to the University of Iowa for a master's degree in zoology. She then taught biology at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, where she met her husband, Bob Lucke. Henrietta Lucke passed away on 3 March 2008.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Schools and Colleges
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

: Henrietta Lucke; Portrait of Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke in WAVES uniform, circa 1944.

: Oral history interview with Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke; Primarily details Lucke's experiences as a town student at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro); her training at St. Albans Naval Hospital; and working in the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) at Fort Detrick and Treasure Island during World War II. Lucke discusses her parents' backgrounds; enduring hardship during the Depression; and her schooling in Greensboro. Topics related to Woman's College (WC) include her decision to attend; the limited social life of a town student at WC; memorable professors, including Dr. Archie Shaftesbury and Miss Lila Belle Love; first hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and working in the bacteriology department. " Topics related to the WAVES include the uniform; drilling in the summer heat; corps school and medical lab training at St. Albans Naval Hospital; being required to view an autopsy; taking a blood sample from famed boxer Barney Ross; recruiting at Rockefeller Center; seeing Judy Garland and Jimmy Durante while at Hunter College; and friends she made in the service. Discussion of her time at Camp Detrick includes riding from the train station to Frederick, Maryland, with the mailman; living quarters; working with famous scientists like Gail Dack and Joshua Lederberg; low morale among WAVES; special uniforms; and the reasons for developing biological weapons. Other topics include her long train ride to Oakland, California; working with a German prisoner of war; the chaos of Treasure Island after the war; and her post-war education on the GI bill.

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Henrietta Clodfelter Lucke Collection

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