RUTH DORMAN

By Brandi Weekes

Life on the homefront during Wold War II could easily have been characterized as exciting for Ruth Dorman.  When the USO formed in Spokane, Ruth became one of the first USO girls.

Ruth Ellingwood and her family moved to Spokane, Washington from Madison, Wisconsin in 1937.  She attended Lewis and Clark High School where she graduated in June 1941.  She and her classmates were well aware of an impending world crisis.  They presented a poem chorus, based on John Brown's Body, at their graduation ceremony at the Fox Theater.  The script was written by a classmate.  During the summer Ellingwood worked for her father to raise tuition money for Eastern Washington College, then called Cheney Normal School, and began classes there in the fall.

On December 7, 1941, she had finished eating dinner in her dormitory and had gone upstairs to get an early start on her studies when a friend motioned to her.  The radio was broadcasting the situation about Pearl Harbor.  Life was forever changed for Ruth.

She wanted to join one of the women's service groups, but her father persuaded her to continue her education.   After Ruth¹s freshman year of college, life took a dramatic change on the home front.  Travel had been restricted and ration books were disbursed to all families for things such as food, butter and lard, gas, tires, and sugar.  Even silk stockings were rationed.   Ruth remembers women painting their legs with tan facial cream and using eye liner pencils to draw in the seams, which hosiery all had at that time. 

Ruth had to work for a year before she could continue her education, so she found a job as a secretary in a real estate office in Spokane.  She also rolled bandages for the Red Cross.

Spokane was the closest city to both Farragut Naval Training Station in Northern Idaho and Geiger Field, an Army Air Corps training base north of Spokane.  On weekends those sailors and air men had nothing to do, so a USO center was formed in Spokane.  Wanting to be a part of the war effort, Ruth signed up as one of the first USO girls.  Vowing to never drink, leave the USO club site without permission, or date servicemen, USO girls provided amusement for servicemen on the weekends, holding dances and providing food and drink.

Ruth loved to dance.  She remembers one Chief Petty Officer who had taught dancing in New York City at an Arthur Murray Dance Studio.  He danced with every girl.  Ruth stated, "When you danced with him you were really dancing."  Dancing was an opportunity for the USO to help morale and offered a chance for relaxation.

In the fall of 1943, Ruth began school at Washington State College in Pullman.  She joined a sorority and worked half days during the week, and from eight to one o'clock on Saturdays.  All fraternities were vacated.  The only males on campus were medicine and veterinary majors.  Then the "90-day wonders" arrived to live on campus.  They were college training detachment men preparing to be officers in just ninety days.

Ruth remembers several summers in Spokane during the war when she and her two younger sisters took the bus to go swimming at Comstock Pool on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  When they would get off the bus coming home, servicemen would follow them.  Her mother would have watermelon, homemade ice cream made with honey since sugar was rationed, or sandwiches ready to serve whoever came just to give the young men a taste of home life far from their homes.  Ruth wondered how her mother knew she and her sisters would bring home young men on those afternoons, but she always greeted them prepared!

In the summer of 1944, Ruth worked at a Receiving Hospital at Fort George Wright, Spokane.  Receiving Hospitals housed soldiers who had been overseas for too long and needed rest or care for injuries. Ruth served as a secretary for the doctors in the psychiatric ward where the patients talked about traumatic war experiences, such as bomb raids.  She then wrote up their case histories.

In October of 1945 Ruth met her future husband, Don Dorman, when he returned from overseas and went back to college.  She graduated from Washington State College in June of 1946 with a BA in Foreign Language, a major in Spanish, and a minor in French and History.  In September of 1946, Ruth and Don were married.

Ruth Dorman was one of the many women who helped the war effort through comfort and encouragement.  She danced, listened, and offered memories.  She fought the war from home, encouraging those who were to fight in combat abroad.