Frances Meikrantz was born in 1921 in Worcester, Massachusettes. It was a nice town. She grew up during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939]. They lived in an apartment. Her dad put money down on a house and her mom went back to clean the apartment. When they left, it was so full of cockroaches the floor was black. Then they moved to their house. They stayed there until she left for the Marine Corps. Her mother was a buyer for a department store and she loved her job. Her mother was pregnant with Barbara [Annotaotr's Note: Meikrantz's sister] and she wanted to keep working. When her mother told her she was pregnant her mouth dropped open. When they first bought the house the Depression hit badly and they were afraid they were going to lose the house. Her father worked at the department store where her mother worked in the office. He was the first one to get the job. Her mother had good taste and a lot of important people in town would not use anybody but her. That is why she did not want to stop working. They lived in a small area on the outskirts of town right next to a national park. There were Swedish people as their neighbors and they could bake. The lady next door helped take care of her while she was young. When Barbara came along she helped with her as well. She had a daughter too. Her daughter and her sister's son went to school with her. They were pretty close. He had trouble with his knee so the mother would come over and ask her to walk up the stairs with him. He could do it he just did not want to. He became sick and his joints all froze up [Annotator's Note: Meikrantz makes a gesture with her arms to show this]. When he died he left a message there for her to get a dozen roses the day she graduated from high school. This made her cry. She started at one high school and then finished at the commercial school. She got a job with a big insurance company. That was a dream job. She was getting 14 dollars a week. Her friends could not get more than ten dollars at that time. There was a big tall building in town and the top floor was a bowling alley. They bowled a lot. They would put on a show once a year and anyone that wanted to take part could. They would have a dance once a year. They would take everyone on a picnic once a year. Then she joined the Marine Corps and that ended that. People her mother served heard she had a daughter looking for work and that was how she got the job. The first thing in the morning after she heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was look at the last letter one of the boys she was writing wrote her. She prayed and then she looked at it. He was on the Arizona [Annotator's Note: USS Arizona (BB-39)]. It was a Sunday so she thought maybe he was not on board but he was. She dated him quite a bit. It was quite a few years before she went to Pearl Harbor to say her goodbyes to him. A lot of the boys did not come back. She was in the Marine Corps for the last one. He was older and they were not going to take him but they did. He was not well. He got shot in Germany. He died over there. It just seemed like it was one after another that were killed. She thinks another war is going to start. She dated a lot of boys from one of the colleges in town. She had an uncle in Washington, D.C. and he worked with a man that had a son in the college in her town. They arranged a date for them. She dated several of the boys. One worked in Washington in the labs. He got radiation poisoning and that killed him. Her father had served in the Navy. He was upset about Pearl Harbor. He was not well enough to join again but he was proud of her for joining.

Frances Meikrantz was with a girl from school. They talked a lot and looked into everything [Annotator's Note: branch of service options] and that was the one they chose [Annotator's Note: the US Marine Corps]. They traveled from Worcester [Annotator’s Note: Worcester, Massachusetts] to Boston [Annotator’s Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. They had an appointment to be there for an exam the next day. They went on the train. The train was late but they made it to the exam. Her eyes were not very good. She had a physical with a male doctor which shocked her. She was getting an exam in one room and her friend was in the other room. That trip was stressful. They were late and then they had to take a cab to where they needed to be. She made the mistake of saying they were in a hurry. The cab ride was crazy. She had to close her eyes. They talked a lot on the train and did not pay attention and they forgot to get off. They ended up way out in the country. There were eight of them from the area that left at the same time. She was sent to New River, North Carolina. She did not get to know the other girls and just stuck with her girlfriend. They finished with the basics. It was not bad. A couple of them passed out because of the shots so they were not accepted. They would wake up at two in the morning to go out and do calisthenics [Annotator's Note: exercises that don't rely on anything but a person's own body weight] but she was pretty athletic so it did not bother her. They would get up at five or six in the morning to scrub the floors. She felt sorry for the guy that had to give them instructions. He probably got a lot of talk for dealing with the women. They could tell by his face he was dying. When they called about who was going where, she and her girlfriend were sent to Washington [Annotaotr's Note: Washington, D.C.]. It was a nice deal because she had an aunt and uncle there. It was nice to have them. On Thanksgiving, she was in the kitchen pulling the feathers out of the turkeys. It was a nasty job. She had plans to go to her uncle's for dinner and she thought how was she going to do it. If her aunt had turkey she was not going to be able to eat a bite. She met her at the door and she said she felt bad. Their apartment had a small stove and she could not find a turkey that would fit in the oven. She had to get beef. Meikrantz was relieved. For a while, there were no fatigue clothes. They had to wear men's fatigue clothes. Her dad was happy about that. When they finally issued women's clothes she left the others at home with him. Then they got uniforms.

Frances Meikrantz was working in the office of the people who got the equipment. She worked for the quartermaster. They were all pretty high. One of them came from her hometown. Her job was to do paperwork in order to get the materials to the troops. Her day consisted of sitting at a desk unless she had something that needed to go to the Army in Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.] She hated going down there because she could get lost so quickly. Thankfully, there was a soldier stationed every once in a while and she could ask them which way she had to go. She was not armed, and she was not trained to be. She knew it would come someday, but it was not then. It was always busy. They went to a dance once a week with the guys that were on their way out. All they wanted to do was talk to them. They had to unburden. One guy was upset because his wife was due to deliver and he thought he would not get to see his baby. She did the jitterbug [Annotator's Note: Jitterbug is a generalized term used to describe swing dancing] with him. A couple of weeks later she saw him again. He told her he got to see his baby. She lost contact with him after that. They just wanted to talk about what was bothering them. She was glad to do it because they were going into hell. When they talked to someone it seemed to help. She walked the streets to see what was going on. They were living in barracks. They were right across from the Navy annex. There were about 200 in the barracks. They had a mess hall. Every Marine had to spend a month in the mess hall. If someone wanted milk they needed to grab it on their way in or they might not get it. When the war ended the town was frantic. It was hectic on E-Day [Annotator's Note: VE-Day or Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], but it was worse on J-Day [Annotator's Note: VJ-Day or Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. The whole town was frantic. She took a bus to go out to her aunt's. She did not want to stay downtown because everyone was drinking. She would go stay with her aunt and uncle. She was grateful to have them. When the barracks got overcrowded, she and her girlfriend went to live with them for a month. She was glad the war ended. She is worried about what the future might hold for her grandkids.

Frances Meikrantz went back to her job for a few months and then she got married. She should have stayed in the Marine Corps longer. She could have gotten an education that way. She did look at college, but she did not pursue it. Returning to civilian life was confusing at first. She was used to everything being laid out perfectly, and it was not like that anymore. She does not regret it. It was a good education. Her husband was from Pennsylvania so she went there. Her husband died. She had her son. He used to follow her around while she was cleaning. He wanted to learn the time’s tables. He wanted to go to college. The family did not think he should waste his money. He was smart and he could do it. They could not afford the East Coast so he went to college in Iowa that Abraham Lincoln [Annotator's Note: Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States] started. She thought it had to be a good college. Her son did great. He did chemistry. He started out as a basic chemist and wound up an engineer. He had a lot of patents [Annotator's Note: a patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention]. Most of them were formulas. He invented the machine that would separate oil and water so the oil could be reused. He sold his patent. There were plenty of other single women. They spent most of their time in the country. She learned to ski on a nice little hill. She worked for the insurance company. She hopped around a little bit with some short-term jobs. Basic training was memorable. All the boys were going into the war so it was only fair the girls did too. Otherwise, it could have been rougher than it was. It changes your thinking. You can see what you can be. She was glad to meet a lot of the men that served. On base they would have contact with them. They had programs there. She is glad the war is behind them, and she hopes they will not go through it again. She thinks it is important to have institutions like the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. She thinks the younger generations should be taught about the war because they can see what you can get through and hope they do not have to go through that.