McIlwee, Jean Oral History

McIiwee_Jean_041503 edit

Jean (Newell) McIlwee was born in Junction City on January 20, 1921. She was the eldest of four children. Her father was a farmer. When she graduated from high school, she attended business school and got a job with the federal government in Washington, D.C working as a clerk at the Signal Corps Center. It was here where she had been asked to figure costs for a new unit which turned out to be a unit of women, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Jean joined the WAAC and was sworn into the Army on December 31st. She was then sent to Daytona Beach for basic training, and from there attended Officer Candidate School (OCS). After OCS, she was assigned to Fort Devons, MA before being assigned to Fort Benning, GA. There she worked in the Army Special Training Program. That program was shut down after the Battle of the Bulge when manpower was urgently needed, so Jean was sent to the Army Corps of Engineers in St. Loius, MO. Her assignments also included an overseas assignment in Cairo, Egypt while she was a First Leutenant. She was in Cairo for ten months as the executive officer of a unit of Army telephone and radio operators. She also ran a warehouse for the PX where she eventually met her husband, a transportation Corps Officer Warrant Officer. Jean returned to the United States after the war to Ft. Des Moines. She remained in the WAAC and was assigned to the Adjutant General's office in Washington D.C and worked in finances. Jean left the Army in August of 1946 and married her husband when he came home from overseas. Jean finished her college degree at the University of Kansas on the G.I. Bill and taught school for 26 years. She later finished her Master's degree and worked as a consultant for the school district.