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Rutgers Oral History Archives

  • College/Year: NJC '45
  • Links to Oral History Sessions: Ballantine, Catherine (March 2, 1999)
  • Conflict(s): World War II
  • Military Branch & Unit: USO
  • Theater(s): Home Front
  • Women in the Service: Other: Volunteer

Description:

Catherine Ballantine grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. From 1941 to 1945, she attended NJC/Douglass, where she lived on Gibbons Campus and then Corwin Campus. She majored in the foods and nutrition track of home economics. During World War II, she recalls taking voluntary "war courses" on campus, the influx on Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) students at Rutgers, and the wartime growth of Camp Kilmer. As a part of the war effort, she worked at Johnson & Johnson in bandage packaging, in addition to several other jobs in wartime industries. After her husband's military service, they lived in temporary housing on the Heights Campus (now Busch). During the postwar years, she worked in the Food Technology Department. She and her husband raised their family in Glen Rock, and she worked as a home economics teacher in Paterson.

Targum Cover 11 22 1963a

 

"HERE IS A BULLETIN...": Memories of the Day Camelot Died

 

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

Images from that day and the events that followed remain etched in our collective consciousness—the open-top Presidential limo traveling down the people-lined streets of Dallas; President Lyndon Baines Johnson taking the oath of office on Air Force One beside a shaken First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy; John, Jr. saluting his father's passing casket at the funeral in DC.

Those who lived through that traumatic period can recall both their initial shock and the nuances of their reactions.

In "HERE IS A BULLETIN...": Memories of the Day Camelot Died, ROHA presents a sampling of stories related to the Kennedy tragedy, a touchstone event for multiple generations.

The Rutgers Targum (campus newspaper) cover from its November 22, 1963 issue. (Image courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.)

 

Voices of Veterans Banner 1

Voices of Veterans

 

Voices of Veterans is an online exhibit showcasing passages from oral history interviews of veterans who served in the Second World War and in wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. ROHA created this exhibit in commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT MORE ONLINE EXHIBITS 

 

 

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