D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Doe Hollimon

Lieutenant (junior grade), U.S. Navy WAVES
1943–1946

Doe Hollimon
Lt. JG, San Antonio, 1946

I was assigned to the Navy’s largest neurosurgical center on Long Island, NY. We had a Marine officer from South Carolina with a pretty bad speech problem due to his injury. Finally, they decided he could go home for Christmas. His family was horrified because he didn’t have his southern drawl. He had a horrible Yankee accent!

I grew up in Minnesota, and went to high school there. When I was little someone couldn’t pronounce my name, Dorothy, and they called me Doe Doe. My husband didn’t like it so he shortened it to Doe. My grandparents were Norwegian immigrants who homesteaded in Minnesota. My grandfather had been a very successful farmer and entrepreneur, and my father was a county auditor.

I graduated with a degree in speech pathology from the University of Minnesota in 1942. In 1943, I volunteered and was accepted into the WAVES—the Women’s Auxiliary Volunteer Emergency Service of the Navy. My two brothers were in the Navy at the time. In WWII the Navy didn’t accept women except in the nursing corps. In July, I got orders to report to officer candidate school. We went through three months of training like the men did. Then I was ordered to naval communications school, and then to the naval air station in Norfolk, Virginia. Communications was my specialty.

I started working immediately; everything we did was secret. We had about 12 circuits that were monitored 24/7. We had the radio shack which did clear message coding and decoding. Our traffic went from South America to Goose Bay, Labrador. A lot of the traffic was not battle-related, but was for repairs and parts. We had a big assembly and repair department on the station and a big supply department. I did coding and decoding for two years. At first, our commander was very upset when he got women. He didn’t know what to do with us. After two months he confessed that he’d rather have women than the boys because we paid attention.

As I had a degree in speech pathology, they transferred me to the medical corps. I was assigned to the Naval hospital at St Albans, Long Island which was the Navy’s largest neurosurgical center. We had a lot of war casualties. I worked with a lot of Marines that had speech problems which were a result of brain injuries from the islands in the Pacific. We worked with them trying to regain speech. We used a lot of pictures and magazines.

We had a Marine officer from South Carolina with a pretty bad speech problem due to his injury. Eventually, he went with his buddies to New York. When he got back he was so excited because he had gotten to the subway. Finally, they decided he could go home for Christmas. His family was horrified because he didn’t have his southern drawl. He had a horrible Yankee accent! I’m sure it came back after he got home.

I got out in 1946 and went back to Minnesota, but the university was overrun with veterans. Everyone was on the GI Bill, and I couldn’t find a place to live. I flew down to Houston, Texas to see a friend. She talked me into enrolling at the University of Houston where I met my future husband. We got married in 1947. I didn’t want to stay in Houston—too humid. I married him on the condition that we’d leave. We moved to San Antonio in 1953, and this has been home ever since. Jack got a job working for Pearl Brewery in the personnel department in the early 1960s. I went back to work as a speech pathologist at the North East School District and worked about 50 years in the field.

I had always wanted to get married and have a family, and we had two boys. Fortunately, I had grown up in a little town and did a lot of outdoor hiking, picnicking and camping out. The boys always liked that and so did my husband. I’ve been very fortunate to have a good life, good health, good friends, and good times. {01-18-2018 • San Antonio, TX}