Interview with World War II army veteran Albert Jones. Jones discusses being drafted into the army in 1943, joining the 10th Calvary, serving in North Africa and Italy during the war, and building bridges and maintaining supply lines. He also discusses the history of the 10th Calvary and the Buffalo Soldiers and conventions honoring that history.
Interview with Catherine Curtis about her experience as the wife of airman Herbert Brecht during World War II, moving around the country with her young daughter, and his capture as a prisoner of war, and later death, in Europe. She discusses being a member of the Gold Star Wives, her later remarriage, life, and work with the PTA and Old Town Spring PAC, an urban renewal project, in Independence, MO.
Interview with Don Sole about his childhood, his experience in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and later career working his way up in Ford dealerships. He came to Kansas City as a result of his father's work in the garment industry, and worked in aircraft manufacture before enlisting. He discusses his training, his experience guarding Japanese internment camps in California, and his experience as a flight engineer as a civilian and later as part of the Air Corps. He also describes supply flights that would take him to locations including Brazil, West Africa, and India, and shares a Life magazine photo spread about the journey; as well as discussing his family and genealogy research.
Interview with Dorothy Larson about her upbringing in Texas and Kansas, and her later training as a nurse as part of the US Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II, and long career as a nurse at the nursing education at St. Luke's Hospital, living in a dormitory and going to USO dances with other nurse cadets. She also discusses her marriage and family, and shares pictures of her family members.
Interview with Edith Long about her two brothers, Charles Richard and Robert, their childhood in Independence, and her brothers' experiences in the Korean War and World War II. Robert enlisted in the US Army Air Corps but was not sent overseas. Richard, as she called him, enlisted in the Army and served in Europe during World War II, participating in the Battle of the Bulge. He went into the Reserves after his discharge and was later sent to Korea, where he was killed in action, and posthumously received the Medal of Honor. Edith shares fond memories of her brothers and recalls how Richard was acknowledged in local newspapers and by peers.
Interview with Elaine C. Wills about her experience as an aircraft sheet metal mechanic during World War II. She discusses attending the Aviation Institute of Denver with her husband, and their move to California to work at two different aircraft manufacturers until her husband was drafted into the Army Air Corps. She mentions moves to Nebraska, Texas, and back to Kansas City, and describes her experience repairing aircraft damaged in the war and as a woman working alongside men and as a mother managing childcare while working. Elaine later worked for Luzier Cosmetics in Kansas City and was working on finishing her college degree in her 80s, and also discussed rationing, what she enjoyed in her personal time, and her education, marriage and family life.
Interview with Elizabeth Cipolla about her experience as "Lizzie" the Riveter, building B-25s at the Fairfax plant during World War II, and her husband and other family members' service in Europe during the war. She also discusses making skirts and curtains out of fabric from sugar bags, civil defense practices, rationing, war bonds, and other aspects of life on the homefront, as well growing up in the Northeast area of Kansas City before the war, and her family life after, including a period of time when her husband was hospitalized with what would likely later be understood as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Interview with Esperanza Amayo about her life as a daughter of Mexican-American immigrants in Kansas City, Kansas, during the Great Depression; about her brother, friends, and neighbors being drafted into the military; and the discrimination she and other local Mexican-Americans faced in the community. She also discusses her husband Lou's service in the army and his experience at the Battle of the Bulge, and the assimilation of Mexican-American families in the United States.
Interview with Eugene Lebowitz in which he discusses his childhood in Czechoslovakia, surviving the Holocaust in a labor camp and later as a tailor for Nazi officers in Budapest, living as a refugee in Austria and Italy, and coming to the United States as part of the Displaced Persons Act. He discusses working as a tailor for garment companies in New York City, and later being hired by Kansas City garment companies Youthcraft and Fashionbilt as a designer. He also talks about his work as a Holocaust educator with a speakers bureau, the decline of the Kansas City garment industry in the face of Asian manufacturing, and he and his wife Kate share family photographs and additional stories.
Interview with Georgene Stinnett in which she describes her childhood on an Iowa Farm, taking the civil service exam, and moving to Washington, DC, to work at the Pentagon during World War II. She discusses being a stenographer in the Signal Corps, taking dictation from officers and working with classified documents, having lunch while bands played in the Pentagon courtyard, and recalls Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and funeral. She also recalls measures taken by her family and others on the home front, and working as a USO hostess, where she met her husband, and notes improvements in medical care during the war years that benefited her during her pregnancies.