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Scillens, Christine (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the last of three interviews conducted for a Women's Studies class focused on women during WWII. The interviewer and narrator knew each other from classes that they took in the American Indian Studies program. The narrator was open and willing to share her experiences, particularly because of the interviewer's known familiarity with and respect for native traditions and culture. Date Not available
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- 2020-01-30
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- SUBJECT BIO - Christine Scillens is a Teton Sioux woman who joined the Army Nurses Corps during WWII. She was active in the American Indian Movement and the American Indian Studies program at CSULB. Born on a South Dakota reservation, Scillens was put into a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school when she was only six years old. She continued in various schools, going home only in the summer, until she entered college in Kansas City. After two years in college, she moved to Chicago and went to work in the BIA office there. In 1942, she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps, signing up for overseas duty. After training, she was sent to a medical station in New Caledonia, where she remained for six months. She then went to Fort Mason in San Franciso, where she worked in the hospital. She married a man serving in the Navy in 1944. After she was discharged in 1945, she moved to Vallejo, where her husband was stationed. She eventually moved to the Los Angeles area. TOPICS - expectations for future; barracks life; discharge and life as a civilian; attitude toward war; and attitude toward children going into service; marriage to German; working after marriage; cook in maternity hospital; adopting twin girls; move to Indiana; move to California; raising children in her tradition; living in Mexican neighborhood; and life during
- File: aicscillens5.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-6:10)... Before she joined the military, Scillens expected that her life would be like that of a reservation woman who went around helping families with domestic affairs like putting in screen windows, and who started the 4-H club for girls on the reservation. She saw this woman as an inspiration to others on the reservation and wanted to be like her. Scillens went to college after high school and did well the first year. But she wondered what her purpose was the second year. She had seen other parts of the country and wanted to see other places and do other things before she went back to the reservation to settle down. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Scillens notes that everyone had war on their mind. She realized that many men after they graduated had to sign up for the services and no one seemed to know what they were doing. (6:10-11:45)... Scillens went to college in Kansas and started as an art major, but was there only four months. Everyone at school was going into war work and quitting school. Scillens' roommates in town were doing war work and told her that she could also make a lot of money. At the time, she was working part-time at a department store and thought she was doing well. The department store where she worked did not allow Blacks to shop there; there was definite segregation between Whites and Blacks. She did not really know how to feel about this because she was neither Black nor White and felt like she did not fit in anywhere. However, she never noticed any prejudice against her at her job. (11:45-17:15)... Although Scillens had been told that she could do well in a career in art, she always thought of art as her hobby. She had contemplated fashion design when she was a young girl, but her expectations changed after she was in the war. Now she thinks it is silly that she thought of fashion design as a career. Scillens friends who were married and had children would try to prove to her how happy they were with their domestic life. She never thought that she would be happier married with children; she was happy being single. She was going to do everything she wanted to do and be single and make money to travel. She wanted to see all the places she had heard about. Being in the army changed all the dreams she had. In fact, what changed her life was the sexism in the services. (17:15-19:09)... Scillens met her husband when she was in the service. Her whole life changed after she was married and the children came into her life. Then, the only thing that she had time for was taking care of her family. She did find things to do around the house and liked the domestic life, but it took over her life. (19:09-24:45)... When she was in the army, Scillens lived in a barrack with thirty women. They got to know each other very well and became like family. It never entered her mind that some of them were prejudiced. She was friends with the Czechoslovakian woman who had the bed next to hers. All the women shared their problems and if one of them was in trouble, they would all rally around her and help. When Scillens got out of the army, she felt isolated because she did not have the closeness she had with the women in the barrack. Everything seemed very strange to her when she got out; and it took her a long time to get used to being a civilian. She missed being in the army and had to readjust. (24:45-28:45)... When Scillens got out of the army, her family wanted her to go home and visit. She had told her parents that she was married and expecting a child. When she did go back, she only stayed a week. She felt like her family was so different, but believes that it might be her who had changed so much. Her family was afraid to open up to her and they were on guard because Scillens had become more assimilated into the White culture. She had learned to live in two societies: the White and the Indian. For a while she did not want to go back to the reservation because she missed the modern appliances and felt like she had been too assimilated into the White culture. (28:45-32:17)... Scillens still keeps in touch with some of her girlfriends from the war. She writes to them even though some of them had not seen each other since the war. None of her friends stayed in the service after the war. Scillens did not think of it as a career and thought that three years were enough. (32:17-35:15)... Scillens Army uniform was tan, with a skirt and blouse for the summer. In the winter they wore a wool uniform, also with a skirt. Around the barrack, the women wore fatigues. (35:15-39:42)... Scillens' feelings about war changed after she was in it and she never encouraged her boys to join. When one of her sons asked to go into the service, she talked to him about her experiences with WWII. She told his that he would be sent to Vietnam and that she did not believe that the war was just or that we belonged over there. She did support him and later he decided to go to UCLA. The difference between her attitude before and after the war was that she felt naive before she enlisted, she just wanted to see the world and travel; after she got out she knew she would have done some things differently. She did not enlist in the army out of patriotism. She was young. Although she does not regret enlisting, she would do things differently if she could do them again. (39:42-42:04)... Scillens had some issues with her uncle because he did not like the fact that she married a German. She always felt that she was living her life and that it did not affect anyone else. After a while her uncle did come to terms with her marriage. File: aicscillens6.mp3 (0:00-7:35)... Although Scillens marriage to a German was not accepted by her uncle, her parents did not have any problems with her husband. And her husband's family was accepting of Scillens; she got along with his mother. There is a tradition among Scillens' tribe that the daughter-in-law does not speak to the mother-in-law unless she is spoken to first. Scillens was twenty-two years old when she married her husband Chuck, who was thirty. When they first married, Scillens lived in an apartment alone while he was still in the Navy. When his ship came into Vallejo or San Diego she would go visit him. Scillens often thinks about how she came to decide to get married. She married very quickly and had a sense of independence but went along with Chuck when he wanted to get married. It also did not seem like they were married because he was gone so much. When they first married she did not work and received benefits from the army. She received a bonus for being overseas and received benefits for being in the army. (7:35-15:36)... Scillens wanted to go back to work after a while and went to the Veterans Affairs office to get a job. The counselor there asked her about her experience before the army. She wanted to get away from the work she had done in the service and did not want to go back to working in a hospital. She had worked in several places but never liked any of them, including several sewing jobs. She realized she was not getting anywhere at the factory and quit when she went back to the reservation. She went to California and became a cook at a maternity hospital. She worked there for about two months and went on to something else. She could not find her niche and nothing was satisfying for her. (15:36-21:06)... Scillens did not make close friends while she was living alone when her husband was still in the service. Everyone was moving around and no one seemed to stay in one place for too long. Chuck got out of the service about two years after they were married. Scillens and her husband had adopted twin four month old girls. They were the daughters of Scillens cousin, who had died in a car accident. She wanted to adopt the girls so they would not go into foster homes and she fought hard to get them. (21:06-28:56)... When Scillens' husband got out of the service, they went to live in Indiana with his mother and then all came to California after Scillen's first child was born. Scillens and her husband wanted to find a home. They were both the same when it came to finding a job and being satisfied with it. Scillens was also very determined to raise her children in the tradition of her people. She has always maintained her culture and her husband was always supportive. They both compromised in raising the children. Scillens has four girls and three boys. When she took the children to see Chuck's mother in Beverly Hills, she was surprised that Beverly Hills was so different. She was living in East LA. (28:56-34:50)... While Scillens was living in East LA and raising her children, she stayed at home and found many things to do. She started a girl scout troop in her neighborhood but it fell apart because she did not have support from the parents. They lived in a Mexican neighborhood and when people found out that Scillens was not Mexican, she became an outcast. She did not receive support from the parents and found it hard to hold the troop together. Scillens and her husband started talking about moving and then he got a job in a can company. (34:50-38:23)... By the 1950's, all of Scillen's children were born and she kept her cultural traditions alive in the home. Their home was also very accepting of other traditions and welcomed other cultures. (38:23-43:37)... Scillens thinks people were better off before the consumerism of the 1950's. She felt like it was a rat race to get the first television or first car or refrigerator. People were basing their quality of life on how much they consumed and how many things they could buy. She did not feel like those things were important and did not even get a washing machine until her children were grown. Her children did have some trouble in school because they were thought to be Mexican but they did not speak Spanish; so the teachers would ignore them. Scillens was always going back and forth to the schools dealing with the problems her children were having. End of tape
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