Washinawatok, Gwen, 1992 July 17, Keshena, Wisconsin:
Recorded interview and transcript available online.: Gwendolyn (Dodge) Washinawatok was born on August 13, 1923 in Keshena, Wisconsin. Her father and mother were both Menominee and white. She was the eldest of 6 children. Her mother died when she was eleven, and her father remarried later and had five more children. She attended and was graduated from Keshena High School in 1941. After her graduation she enrolled in the National Youth Administration Nurse's Training in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After the war was announced, the NYA was ended in the spring of 1942. She then went to Chicago to work in a defense plant as a clerical worker. At the end of 1942 she decided to join the Navy, and formally enlisted in January 1943. She did her basic training at Hunter College in New York, was sent to Ohio for training in communications, and was finally sent to Imperial Beach in San Diego, where she served until the war ended. She worked in Naval Intelligence where she intercepted Japanese messages in International Code. After her discharge, she entered a nurse's training program in Wausau, Wisconsin, where she earned her certificate in nursing. She married her husband in 1951, and they eventually had two daughters. She has worked as a nurse in California and Wisconsin, and retired in 1983.
Mrs. Washinawatok begins her interview by describing her experiences in the National Youth Administration Nurse's Training Program. She details where she lived and the duties she had while working at a hospital while studying. This is where she was when she first heard the announcement of Pearl Harbor, and she describes her reactions to it. She talks about how it didn't really seem real to her at first, and how she was more concerned with the fact that the war meant that the NYA program would be ending.
She then talks about her decision to go to Chicago to live with her aunt and uncle after she left Milwaukee. While there, she decided to get a job at the Werner factory in Chicago, where she worked in an office doing clerical work. She talks about how she liked who she was working with but not the job itself, and that this probably influenced her to join the military. She describes the recruiter's office, and explains that her decision to join the Navy was because that was what her father had been in, and she felt that if she had been his oldest son, there would have been no question but that she join.
She describes basic training, and relates some incidents that occurred while everyone was getting used to it. She mentions her training in the International Code after she decided to go into Communications in the Navy. She talks about why she decided to go into Communications and not into the Pharmacy in the Navy. She talks about her experiences in California and describes the things that they used to do for entertainment there. She also describes the shifts that she worked while intercepting Japanese messages for the Navy.
She mentions that she encountered very little racism in the military, except for one women who was from the Northern part of Wisconsin. She believes that non-Indians who grew up around Indian reservation are more likely to discriminate than others. She talks about what the Catholic church taught her as she was growing up, and how this led to her disenchantment with the Catholic Church. She mentions that although there was one nun who encouraged her to go on to school, the rest weren't helpful.
Mrs. Washinawatok ends the interview by describing her awareness of the discrimination that Indians face, and how she became aware of the losses that they suffered only when she became older. She talks about her feelings about culture loss and the present attempts to reclaim it, and how her father raised her.
