Elizabeth Spencer oral history interview

1979-09-12

Spencer, Elizabeth; Mayo, Marlene J.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Spencer conducted by Marlene Mayo on September 12, 1979. Elizabeth Spencer was born in Norfolk, VA in 1903. She taught elementary school for about 30 years. During this time, she was convinced to go to Japan with a friend, applying and getting accepted to work with Special Services, the entertainment branch of the U.S. Military. She received permission from the elementary school to go to Japan, arriving in 1948. She was assigned to work as the service club director at the Yokohama Club. They soon sent her to the Sugamo Prison where she worked with the American G.I.s guarding Japanese prisoners from the War Crime Trials. While there, she organized various performances to entertain the G.I.s, including a singing performance by Japanese school children during Christmas time. She worked at the prison for 13 months before being transferred to another club. She was in Japan for a total of two years before coming back to the U.S., where she went back to teaching for two years, before retiring. After her retirement, she went to Alaska to work for the U.S. Army Alaska. Spencer remained there for two years from 1955-57.

University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

Oral histories

Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952

Japan; Virginia; Virginia Beach

Postwar Japan

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

Recording 01:04:00 (audiocassette; mp3); Transcript: 28 pages (PDF)

This oral history interview is part of the Marlene J. Mayo oral histories. A guide to the full collection of Marlene J. Mayo oral histories is available in our archival collections: http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/42478.
Accession 2009-209-GWP
An interview transcript is available.

Filename: prange-087587