Tag Archives: world war II

Growing up

Eileen Blakely was born in Orville, OH., but her family moved to Canton, OH., when she was a baby which is where she grew up. Looking back, she knows her family struggled during the Depression, but she doesn’t remember feeling hungry or deprived.  Her father worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and her mother worked in a bakery, but the family still lost their home in 1932. They were able to move into a large house as caretakers, however, and some of Eileen’s fondest memories took place in this house.

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“I remember that we had two peach trees. One was a white peach and one was a yellow peach. Jack [Eileen’s younger brother]and I claimed a tree that was ours. We’d built a old tar paper shack. It was kind of off the garage and had a club – a secret club. Everybody knew where it was, but it was one of those kid things.”

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“We never felt poor because everybody was in the same boat in those days. People would help each other out. “

Meet Eileen Horner Blakely

Ethel Eileen Horner Blakely joined the WAVES in 1944 at 20 years of age. She was persuaded to join along with a church friend whose husband was in the army. Eileen went to Hunter College in the Bronx, New York,  for boot camp and next to Cedar Falls, Iowa, for Yeoman’s school (a “Yeoman” in the Navy does secretarial work). She was in the same school at the same time as Margaret Thorngate, and they are sitting near each other in their unit portrait.

Eileen, originally from Ohio,  saw her life as quiet and dull. She wanted to make a difference and  joining the Navy seemed the patriotic thing to do. With a desire to get out of her comfort zone, she signed up for the WAVES – a place where she was needed.

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“I have an uncle who joined the day after Pearl Harbor … A year later another uncle joined the Navy. The year after that, my brother joined the Navy. So when 1944 came, I decided it was my turn. So I joined the Navy.”

Girls in Blue

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“In today’s Navy … I certainly recommend women to do it because they’ve got all the opportunities in the world.”

Eileen Blakely, is pictured below (bottom row, third from left) with Margaret (bottom row, fifth from left) in school at Cedar Falls, then the Iowa State Teachers College.  They were not acquainted at the time, but are now both Oregon residents, only three hours apart, and members of the statewide WAVES group.

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“We met some people from all over. I had three people, WAVES roommates, that we stayed together or kept in touch ‘til they died.” – Margaret Thornagate

Purple Heart Queen

Margaret was sponsored by the Western Sea Frontier during a Red Cross blood drive contest. She gave speeches and publicly inspired others to donate. She did not win, but received recognition for collecting nearly one thousand pints of blood. The WAVES played a significant role in sending blood to the crises at Iwo Jima and Okinawa during the war.

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Margaret, pictured below (center), considered herself a shy woman at the time and her husband now affirms that it was a great personal feat for her to take on such a public role.

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“I went around to different places and got people to donate blood. I probably made my first speech on a ship.”

forward – March!

Margaret Anderson Thorngate was sworn into the WAVES at the beginning of January 1944, and was sent to boot camp in the Bronx, NY., at Hunter College. Margaret’s favorite part of boot camp was learning to march for the regimental review. She was in the marching band in high school and loved the rhythm of marching to the band.

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After boot camp she was assigned to yeoman’s (a “yeoman” in the Navy does secretarial duties) school in Cedar Falls, IA., for three months. She was ultimately stationed at the base in San Francisco, where she could easily visit her family at home. She worked downtown in the Federal Building along with eight to 10 other WAVES and they made $90 a month, which at that time meant, “you could live it up.”

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Why the WAVES?

Margaret was an ambitious young lady. Living in a time when women worked as either teachers, nurses or waitresses, she wanted to do something different.  Despite her boldness and adventuresome spirit, Margaret was still a woman, and admits that one of the main reasons she was drawn to the WAVES, over other branches of the military, was they had the “cutest uniform.”

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“I was an adventurist. I wanted to do something different.”

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“One time when I was thinking about joining and one of these fellas that I knew, he says, ‘Why join the Army?’ He said, “You’d be much cuter as a WAVE,’ – and that did it.”

The Story Begins…

Margaret grew up in Carpinteria, CA., during the Depression.  Her family lived two blocks from the beach. Carpinteria – just south of Santa Barbara – is known as the “World’s Safest Beach” and it’s where Margaret learned how to swim.

During World War II, she volunteered as a civilian aircraft spotter: she would sit on the beach with a friend and watch for aircraft off the coast. One day she was manning her post on a sand dune, when she met the man who would eventually become her husband of 64 years.

Fred, an Army officer stationed on the coast, came walking along the beach in cream-colored bathing trunks, introduced himself, and the rest was history.  She only knew him for a few months before he was shipped off to a new location, but they wrote back and forth and married after the war.  World War II ended while they were on their honeymoon.

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” I wanted to get out of Carpinteria for one thing. I wanted to see the world. I suppose I had a lot of great ideas but you just didn’t really expect them to happen.”

Margaret Anderson Thorngate Photo Album

Margaret Anderson Thorngate is one of the women featured in the upcoming documentary  Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II, produced by TaylorCatProductions. Producers would like to bring Margaret to the USS Missouri to shoot the final segment of the film. She toured the ship and painted it “for luck” during World War II.

Margaret, originally from Southern California, started her military career as a civilian aircraft observer when she was 19 years old.  As soon as she turned 20, the required age for service, she joined the WAVES.

                

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“I always felt important strutting down the street in the WAVE uniform.”

                                              Who is She?

                                                                                                                                    Why is her story important?

Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II

Welcome to hingesofhistory.com.

In this site we’ll be telling the the stories of the WAVES of World War II, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. The blog is part of the larger multimedia project “Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II.