Theresa Sosnowski Kerr Oral History

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: This collection has not yet been digitized.
What's in the full collection?: February 2024 oral history transcript and copies of photographs and newspaper clippings.
Full biography: Theresa Sosnowski Kerr (b. 1927) of Salem, Massachusetts, served in the U.S. Women Marines from 1949-1952. Kerr enlisted in the Women Marines in Boston, Massachusetts on 3 May 1949 and did and began boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Her first assignment was as a secretary at the Navy Annex in Arlington, Virginia. In 1952 she was reassigned as a recruiter for the Women Marines Reserves in Boston, Massachusetts. Kerr met her future husband who was a photographer in the US Marine Corps during the Korean War and left the service on 26 September 1952 to be with her husband who worked as job as a newspaper reporter in New York and then California.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Branch of service: Marines -- Women Marines
Conflict: Post World War II, Korea (1947-1963)
Subject headings: Korean War, 1950-1953
United States. Marine Corps--Women
Contributing Institution: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries

: Oral history interview with Thereas Kerr; Kerr discusses her childhood and working first as a riveter in aircraft construction after graduating from high school in 1944. She explains that she then took commercial courses to learn secretarial skills and then, looking for direction in her life, joined the Women Marines. She describes her experiences in boot camp at Parris Island and then her work as a secretary to a USMC lieutenant colonel at the Navy Annex in Arlington, Virginia. Kerr talks about living a barracks, her time working for a brigadier general, the uniforms, and serving during the Mcarthy Red Scare. She recalls her next assignment as a recruiter for the Women Marines Reserves in Boston, Massachusetts where she met her future husband, a fellow marine. Kerr discusses her post-military life, including meeting new women marines at their graduation from bootcamp.

: Theresa Sosnowski Kerr USMC; Theresa Sosnowski Kerr poses in her forest green service uniform

: Theresa Sosnowski Kerr marines enlisting 1948; Male USMC Master Sergeant and Theresa Sosnowski Kerr look at a Women Marines recruiting poster

: Theresa Sosnowski Kerr marines graduating class Parris Island; Third Recruit Battalion Platoon 2, Women Marines Parris Island, 3 May 1949

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