Schurch, Martha, 1993 June 1, Madison, Wisconsin:
Recorded interview and transcript available online.Martha Schurch was born on June 20, 1915, in Barneveld, Wisconsin. Raised in Barneveld, her family included two brothers and two sisters. Her sister, Frieda Schurch served in the WACs during World War II (see Frieda Schurch interview). Ms. Schurch's parents were both born in Switzerland. She attended Jones Valley Fairview Elementary School, Barneveld High School, and received her bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin in 1938. She then received a certificate in Social Work from the University of Minnesota in 1939. Ms. Schurch worked as a social worker in Grant county from 1939 through December of 1942 and in Green county from January, 1943 through May, 1943. She then joined the Red Cross, and spent a year in Abilene, Texas, before being sent to an army hospital base in France. She remained in France from January through December of 1945.
After returning home from France, Ms. Schurch worked for a veterans' hospital for a year and then attended Columbia University in New York where she received a master's degree in social work in January, 1950. She returned to Wisconsin and worked as a social worker for the state until her retirement. Ms. Schurch resides in Madison, Wisconsin.
: Ms. Schurch begins the interview by describing her reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the first changes following the beginning of the war. She notes that she had unlimited gas usage because of her job as a county social worker. She describes her work for the county, the types of cases, and her feelings about the job. She then talks about joining the Red Cross, her reasons for joining the Red Cross, training, duties, and her first assignment. She discusses problems of racial intolerance at the base in Texas. She then describes her transfer, first to Washington, D.C., and then on to Europe, including her first accommodations overseas, and the hospital post to which she was assigned. Ms. Schurch became ill while overseas, and she describes her treatment in the American hospital in France. She then talks about her work with the soldiers hospitalized while overseas. She also describes her travels to other parts of France and socializing with other servicemen. She concludes by talking about her family's response to her joining the Red Cross, and how the war affected her life.
