Marilyn Roberts (Bobbi) Earp Collection

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: Most of this collection has been digitized. Some items have not beed digitized due to copyright or other logistical issues.
What's in the full collection?: 16 June 2000 oral history transcript; Newspaper article photocopy from Whiteville, NC, 1989; portrait photograph of Marilyn in her Navy WAVES uniform; photographs of Marilyn and her husband during their service, 1945.
Full biography: Marilyn Roberts "Bobbi" Earp (1922-2006), of Galien, Michigan, was an air traffic controller with the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services) from 1944 to 1949, followed by a long career as a teacher in Tabor City, North Carolina. Marilyn "Bobbi" Roberts Earp was born and raised in rural Galien, Michigan. She graduated from high school in 1940 and entered the Western Michigan Teacher's College in Kalamazoo, where she lived with sisters who were pilots. After three years of college, she dropped out to take flying lessons and later joined the Civil Air Patrol, while also working in a parachute flare packing factory. Before Earp could get enough solo hours to qualify for the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots), the service ceased taking new recruits." Instead, Earp joined the WAVES in July 1944 and attended basic training at Hunter College in New York. After completing air traffic control training in Atlanta, Earp was stationed at the naval air base in Glenview, Illinois. She worked as an air traffic controller there until her discharge in 1946, and married fellow air traffic controller Roger Earp in September 1945. Earp returned to service in operations at Glenview about a year later, but was permanently discharged from the United States Navy in 1949 when she became pregnant. Earp went back to school in the early 1960s, finishing her degree in education at Pembroke. When Roger Earp passed away in 1964, she began a career in teaching in Tabor City, North Carolina.
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

: Bobbi Earp at desk, ca. 1947; N. Marlyn "Bobbi" Roberts Earp sits at her desk at Naval Air Station Glenview (Illinois), circa 1947.

: Bobbi and Roger Earp in air traffic control tower; Navy personnel N. Marilyn "Bobbi" Roberts Earp and Roger Earp, who married in September 1945, at work in the air traffic control tower at Naval Air Station Glenview (Illinois) in 1945.

: Oral history interview with Marilyn Bobbi Earp; Documents N. Marilyn Roberts "Bobbi" Earp's early life, education, and flight training; her service as an air traffic control tower operator while in the U.S. Navy WAVES from 1944 to 1949; her experiences singing with the choir throughout her service career; and her post-war employment. Earp discusses her interest in becoming a pilot, including the influence of the Rawlinson sisters; her subsequent flight training; dropping out of college; paying for lessons with a job at a parachute factory; the death of WASP Mabel Rawlinson in an airplane training accident; and Earp's desire to join the WASP. " Earp describes her decision to join the WAVES after watching a newsreel in July 1944. Her discussion of basic training at Hunter College primarily focuses on her immediate involvement in the singing platoon; their special privileges and quarters; performances on the radio and at prestigious venues; and the impact that singing has had throughout her life. " Earp also discusses air traffic control training in Atlanta, Georgia, especially her treatment by Southerners and having KP duty for two weeks. Topics from Earp's years of service at Glenview, Illinois, include the working conditions and social life while stationed on base; meeting her husband; being discharged against her will in 1946; returning to service at Glenview in the operations department; and being in the service while pregnant. " Other topics include the Earps' post-war poverty; Roger Earp's illness and death; Bobbi's education at UNC-Pembroke and career as a teacher; and her opinions of women in combat.