Roberta Wooddell House and Nancy Wooddell Thornton Collection

Only a part of this collection has been digitized.

https://uncg.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/344

Photographs of Roberta and Nancy as well as a few family photographs. The photographs also include publicity photographs of Roberta as a WAAC at Luke Field, Arizona and Chandler, Arizona. Folder two contains ten letters written by both Roberta and Nancy to their Mother, Aunt May, and Grandmother. These letters discuss general news, such as Nancy's reaction to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's death, and updates on their lives in the military. There is also a two-disc voice recording which is a souvenir from the Empire State Building in New York City made by one of the sisters. Lastly, there are two postcards: one from Nancy when she was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and the second from Roberta during her basic training at Fort Des Moines in Iowa. Folder three contains four newspaper clippings that discuss Nancy's upcoming nupitals and service in the Army; two others are about Roberta's upcoming enlistement and acceptance to the WAAC officer training school; the last clipping is a photograph of Roberta with her fellow WAAC officer candidates.A group photograph of the 6th Company, 1st Regiment Officer Training Class at Fort Des Moines in 1942, and a 20 May 1944 copy of Wing Tips Mather Field; California Newsletter are in General Oversized box 1.

Roberta Wooddell House (1915-?) was a graduate of Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, graduating on 5 June 1939 with a Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Home Economics. After returning to California, Roberta worked as a personal training supervisor for Weinstock-Lubin before enlisting in the Women's Army Auxiiliary Corps (WAAC) as an officer candidate on 5 July 1942, despite being married to Joe House. Training began in Fort Des Moines, Iowa, on 3 August and she was eventually assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers in New York. Before her discharge she had been promoted to the rank of Captain, and continued to work for the Corps of Engineers as Chief of Civilian Personnel.. Nancy Wooddell Thornton (1916-2002) served in the United States Army Nurse Corps from 1941-circa 1944. Thornton graduated as a registered nurse from St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco and was the first of the sisters to join the Army Nurse Corps. She was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps, and later that year was stationed in Fort Jay on Governors Island, New York, and then Fort Dix, New Jersey, before being sent to Panama for the next two years. She was then stationed with the European Theatre of Operations in Southern France until 1945. On V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day, occurring on 8 May 1945), she volunteered to serve in the Pacific Ocean Theatre of Operations; her final assignment taking place in Japan. She was awaiting discharge upon her marriage to Herbert Thornton on 6 April 1946. She died at age eighty-six on 15 November 2002 in Chestertown, Maryland.

Women's History
Military

Army -- WAAC

World War II era (1940-1946)

World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Women

Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries