Eleanor Childers was traveling as a courier, carrying classified information about the Pan-American Highway. World War II was under way, and Childers was working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Costa Rica to build an alternative transportation route in case the Panama Canal was attacked.

En route from Costa Rica to California, her plane stopped in El Paso, Tex., and “a bunch of WASPs got on,” she remembers. The Women Airforce Service Pilots were “good-looking college women – young, eager and smart. They were showing off that they knew how to fly the plane, showing off to me because I was the only civilian on board.” When the plane arrived at the Burbank Airport, Childers’ first duty was to go through debriefing.

“When I came out at the front of the airport, the WASPs were there chattering away and waiting for a bus. Up pulled this government sedan with red lights flashing and the representative from the L.A. office picking me up. Talk about the last word!”

Childers was in her early 20s at the time. Now 90 and a resident at Valle Verde in Santa Barbara, Calif., she still gets a kick out of the memory, one incident from a life of independence and adventure.

During her stint in Costa Rica, she took weekend trips to Panama and other places, once flying back over the jungle in the co-pilot’s seat of a single-engine four-seat plane with live chickens in the back.

After returning to the U.S., she enlisted in the Marine Corps Women Reserves in December 1943. She went through boot camp at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and then to school at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to become what the Marines called a sound motion picture technician – in other words, a movie operator. She was promoted to corporal and went to Quantico, Va., and then back to Camp Lejeune. She was selected for officer training, but the war ended before her training could begin.

Later, she served both in the reserves and on active duty, putting in a total of 20 years, 8 months and 12 days as a Marine. She retired as a gunnery sergeant in 1979.

Throughout her service, she was alert to misconceptions about women Marines, who she recalls were often assumed to be as tough as the male Marine prototype or in the service just to get a man. “We had to be very careful. We were taught from the beginning that any time you’re in uniform in public, you represent all of us. In peacetime, when I had city duty and was invited out, I would wear civilian clothes and dress better than I do now, I can tell you! [People would] say, ‘You’re not like a Marine at all. You’re a sergeant?’”

Childers married briefly but has spent most of her life on her own, earning her own living and making her own decisions. “I enjoy the freedom and challenge of singlehood,” she says. “Listen to your own drummer and step out when the cadence is right.”

An independent lifestyle builds strength of character and self-confidence, says Childers, who has lived at Valle Verde since 1985. “You know you’ve been there, done that, and can do it again if you have to. I enjoy talking with young people and saying, “Do it! Maybe you can’t do it now, but plan! Do it!’”

 

Founded in 1949, ABHOW is widely known for its pioneering leadership in senior housing and health care. The company serves more than 4,700 residents in 33 retirement communities in California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington.

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This article appeared in the February 2010 edition of ABHOW Words.