An Interview with Sue Jennison

     My interview with Mrs. Jennison took place in an empty conference room in the Canton Community Center at around 3 in the afternoon. I was interviewing Sue Jennison who had been in the Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II.

Caitlin: Did you always want to be a nurse?

Sue Jennison: Yes, from the time I was in junior high I always wanted to be a nurse.

Caitlin: Were there any people who influenced your decision?

Sue:  No, I didn’t, I never knew a nurse or anything. It was just something I wanted to do. My father believed very strongly in getting a good education, so he was, he encouraged me to go into a college program which I did in combination with Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Caitlin: What did you like, or love about nursing?

Sue: I just loved everything!

Caitlin: Everything?

Sue: Yeah, everything, and when I went to Hopkins, I joined the government program of the Cadet Nurse Corps, because when I was a junior in high school, in December, World War II started. Then through my senior year in high school, we were all very war oriented and so that... everybody was trying to do their best to help their country and my father was offered a position with the War Production Board, in Washington D.C., so the family moved to Washington my senior year in high school. I finished up my high school, living with friends in Illinois, and then joined the rest of my family in  Maryland, in Washington D.C. and went on then to this college and  Cadet Nurse Corp.

Caitlin: Did you actually serve in the war?

Sue:  I was still... the war was over in 1945, and I was still in the Cadet Nurse Corps.  I didn’t ever get into the army, but I  worked in all the civilian hospitals through the war ‘till it was over.

Caitlin: I see. When, where, and how did you meet your husband?

Sue: I met him as a blind date. He was a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and we met on a blind date because a friend of his, a classmate of mine, was a friend of his from where he grew up in Bangor Maine and she introduced us. He finished up at the Naval Academy and I finished up at Johns Hopkins, and the war was over and then we were married. Then while we were married the Korean War started, so then we traveled all over this country, and we spent a year out in Honolulu and he was out with the marines on some islands out there. So we sort of had the experience of two wars.

Caitlin: Oh! So when and where did you two get married?

Sue:  Well we got married in…. let’s see, June 10, 1949,  in  Des

Plaines, Illinois. We had our wedding there.

Caitlin: So, how did you feel about being in the Cadet Nurse Corps?

Sue: Well, it was a very patriotic thing to do, and of course, it’s like kids that are in the National Guard now, and you can go to college, and you can commit yourself to a doing service for the government, and it helps pay your college expenses, which is true nowadays. So, they offered this Cadet Nurse Corps which this explains here, [showing article on Cadet Nurse corps] that the government helped pay for some of our education at the hospitals, and then we were given $25 a month allowance, and we had a uniform and everything.

Caitlin: Oh, what was your husband’s role in World War II?

Sue: He was, well, he was drafted out of college into the army; and he was in the army for two years and he passed some exams and was offered either to go to West Point or to go to Annapolis to become a officer. So he chose to go to Annapolis, and so he was there and then the war was over. But, then he got out and we were married then the Korean War started and so then we were in different places. He was in a submarine and a destroyer, and we were all over the country in different places.

Caitlin: Oh, so did your family support your wanting to be a Cadet Nurse?

Sue: Yes, oh yeah

Caitlin: How did being in World War II personally change your life, or being a Cadet Nurse?

Sue: Um, well, it gave me the education I always wanted and always loved, I just always  loved being a nurse working in the hospitals, or  my last job working in the schools. And I just always loved it, and... what was the question again?

Caitlin: Oh, I’m sorry, How did a being a Cadet Nurse change your life?

Sue: Oh, how did it change my life ? Was that I left the Mid West, Illinois, came East to school, and then uh worked at the hospitals here in the east and met my husband and never went back to the Mid West and my family, after the war all went back to the West, my brothers and sisters and parents. So I ended up being an Easterner, and they still all live out in the Mid West, and so that’s how it changed my life.