Narrator: Betty Nichepor Interviewer: Rynae Wiggins    BN: Strange. I was married to Al, in a new city, with a new family, and new adjustments, just like everyone else after they came out of the service. A lot of adjustments. Changes in your lifestyle. It's hard to come from military life to civilian life for everyone I think. Interesting, to learn, in the military your food was free, and your housing you pay very little for it. Then you come back and you have to get your own clothes because you have military clothes, you buy your own food and you have to learn how to cook. Which I don't like to do [ha-ha]. It's a big jump from what you were doing to what you did when you came back. Adjusting to married life was one thing and learning how to become a civilian. It's easy in one way but it's hard in another way. I don't know how to explain it. Leaving... I was happy to leave but ten years later I wished I was back in the service. It wasn't so bad that I hated it but it sometimes you think-- oh gee [in the military] everyone was doing things for you and you were just doing your duty, but when you're a civilian you're doing everything for yourself. It's a change…you have to do your own laundry, big change.     RW: Do you feel that women have been given the proper recognition for their service?  BN: No I don't think so, it was a long time before nurses were honored and I think that…I can't remember who did it but I'm sure it was one of the veterans in World War II that started the movement. I think we should have some credit of some kind. I don't how it started, but I think we didn't receive the credit that we deserved.   Narrator: Dorothy Kachur Interviewer: Mike Petriello    MP: So what was life like after the war ended?   DK: ...like I said it was the same as it was before really.  I really didn't want to leave the service but then I... my mother needed me and she wanted me to come home so I did. But I'd still go dancing two nights a week [laughter] and I worked. I didn't want to get a job right away. They put you on like, ooh, like unemployment that you get now, like they pay you so much that you're off a job until you get a job.   MP: Was it like welfare?   DK: No, it wasn't welfare. It was unemployment insurance or something. Uh, you'd get it for six weeks after you're out of the service, uh. You had to go in to apply for it.   MP: Right.   DK: And I applied for it and I got a job right away and I hated it [laughter]. But it was too good to pass up. It was a nice job I had.   MP: How did you feel about leaving the service?   DK: Well, like I say I, you get pretty well, when you're stationed with the same people for so long you get pretty close with them.   MP: Yeah   DK: But then everyone lived in a different city.   MP: Uh-huh   DK: But you got used to it after a while after they all got down to their [different cities].   MP: Do you feel that women have been given the proper recognition for their service?   DK: I do.   MP: You do?   DK: And I've seen a lot of women who think they should be getting more than they're getting. And I don't think it's fair that they should be because I don't think they deserve it...but like I say, I know a lot of women think, and I don't know but, this one girl I knew, she was in a wheelchair…but she really thought she should get everything; it was terrible. She wanted me to join an organization that women…tried to get more and I couldn't see it. Because I felt we deserved what we deserved. We weren't getting cheated.   Narrator: Wilma Herren   Interviewer: Andrew Ward       AW: What was life like for you after the war ended?   WH: Well, I worked at Goodyear Aircraft, in West Phoenix.     AW: So, did it help you get a job then, because you had worked for the military during WWII? Did it help you get experience?   WH: Oh yes. I had civil service ranking so I went to work for Goodyear Aircraft and later for Williams Airforce Base. I came back to Arizona in 1944, when my father died. We stayed in Arizona for awhile. After my daughter was born, then I went to work for Goodyear Aircraft.    AW: During the war, you had worked at Fort Bliss and March Air Force Base. Did you have a preference for which job you liked best?   WH: Well, I liked the office jobs best.   AW: Why did you like those better?   WH: I don't know--I just liked the job itself. At Goodyear I worked on PB4Y2s--those are naval aircraft, I believe.    AW: What did you do on those?   WH: We welded them.   AW: So you went from more of an office job during WWII to a manufacturing job after the war...was there a reason why you didn't stay with office work because you liked it better?   WH: Well that is what was available at Goodyear. I remember it was noisy work...later I worked at Williams Air Force Base beginning in September 1945.   AW: And what did you do there?   WH: Accounting and fiscal. We kept track of the property people had, similar to the work I did at Fort Bliss. I remember liking that position. I worked there until 1949.   Narrator: Mary Fane Interviewer: Lindsay Raver    MF: This experience gave me an opportunity to see some of the East Coast as well as to fulfill a role. At the end of the war, I was transferred to Chicago Naval Station where I assisted in a mustering out program. Upon my discharge in November of 1945, I returned to Rockford and became the first woman commander (in that area) of an American Legion Post. I was married soon after to my husband of 58 years. We had met at a wedding in Belvidere, Ill and never forgot each other. He had enlisted in the Navy prior to our meeting and was called to duty in January 1941. He served in Okinawa and Japan and was assigned to the Shangrila aircraft carrier.     We both utilized the GI Bill and attended the Univeristy of Illinois after our marriage. I did not finish as I became pregnant, and in those days, pregnant women stayed home. Don was able to finish and get his degree in Marketing with the GI Bill and his working part-time.   We returned to Rockford for his job and raised 3 children: 2 boys and 1 girl. As my children got older, I was able to use my accounting experience and return to work.