Bess A. Phifer (b. 1917), of Grover, North Carolina, served as a recreation director with the American Red Cross from 1943-1945.
Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
This collection has been digitized in its entirety.
https://uncg.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/1397
June 2021 oral history transcript, copies of photographs
Bess A. Phifer (b. 1917), of Grover, North Carolina, served as a recreation director with the American Red Cross from 1943-1945. Bess Phifer was born on 13 October 1917 in Grover, North Carolina. Phifer graduated from Blacksburg High School in 1935 and then enrolled at Asheville Normal and Teachers College where she majored in Education and graduated in 1939. After college, Phifer taught sixth graders and coached a girls’ basketball team in Waco, North Carolina. Phifer joined the American Red Cross SRAO in the summer of 1943 and did her training at American University in Washington, D.C. Her first assignment was at Kilauea, Hawaii where she worked with the Rest and Recuperation camp. Her duties included organizing recreational activities like volleyball, horseback riding and movie nights. Phifer was in Hawaii for about a year before she was reassigned to Guam to help with the Rest and Recuperation there. Phifer was there until World War II ended in 1945 when she returned to the United States and resigned from the American Red Cross.
Women's History Military
Red Cross
World War II era (1940-1946)
World War, 1939-1945 American Red Cross
Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
