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Personal
View of Virginia Tredinnick Denmark
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The following
is an account of how I happened to go to work for the U.S. Weather
Bureau during World War II. I started work in April, 1942, just two
months after the Department of Commerce inaugurated the policy of
using women as assistant weather observers. I worked at the Bureau
under my maiden name - Virginia Tredinnick.
I had
graduated from Washington University in June, 1938, and had been working
as a secretary for the Family Service Society in St. Louis. One day
I received a phone call from the university employment agency asking
if I would be interested in an unusual job at the airport. When I
said "Yes", they went on to tell me that it would be at the weather
station at Lambert Field. So I called and arranged to go out for an
interview.
The
requirements were that I have an A.B. Degree with math through calculus
and a year of physics. I was interviewed by the Official in Charge
(OIC). I was accepted for the job which I thought was a secretarial
jobl The OIC had not had a secretary, so he made good use of my talents
for several weeks - getting his files in order, etc. Then one day
one of the men told me when I came to work that he was to teach me
how to make radiosonde observations and handed me a copy of "Circular
P", the instruction book. He also showed me a rather large piece of
equipment which he said I would learn to use!
Virginia Denmark (at map desk)" and another Weather Bureau
employee plotting weather maps at St. Louis Missouri (1945). Telephone
equipment in center of room had to be circled when taking observations.
I had
wondered why it always seemed that some of the employees were there
when I got to work and some stayed on the afternoon. When I finally
asked, I found out that people worked shifts and that there was another
girl who had recently been employed who was working from 9 p.m. to 5
a.m. making this night observation and I was to make the day observation.
Things finally began to make sense! Ann was still going to college so
she worked the night shift and I was hired to do the day shift. Releasing
the big balloon in a high wind was a real challenge as was trying to
get one aloft in rain or snow. Launching a radiosonde during high winds
(1945) at St. Louis.
Photo provided by Virginia Denmark.
On-the-job
training at that time was all that was available. In a few months they
decided to lower the qualifications to high school graduates with math
and physics credits. By December of 1943 there were four girls and we
began being trained to take surface observations. All training was done
on the station at that time, but latter a training center was set up
in Kansas City at the Regional Office. By 1945 there were eleven people
on the station, including the OIC, and five were women.
Photo provided by Virginia Denmark.
We changed
shifts weekly -- day shift, evening, and mid-shifts. We worked eight
hours a day, six and seven days a week at first; eventually five and
six days. As I recall, the pay was $1440 a year.
As I recall,
the men usually worked as forecasters with the Flight Advisory Weather
Service (PAWS), while the women did the observational work. But later
some of us did "adaptive forecasting", and I recall the shocked voices
of pilots calling in for a forecast and getting a woman!
With one or two
exceptions the men accepted us and were helpful in training us and
working with us on shifts. Bill Denmark became the 1st Assistant to
the OIC in 1944 and I left the Weather Service in June, 1946, to "marry
my boss". Bill continued to work for the Weather Service, becoming
a State Climatologist in 1961 and retired in June, 1971. The Weather
Bureau was an interesting place to work. It was a most interesting
job which made other jobs uninteresting. We sort-of felt we were "keeping
them flying," and that was important. The morale on station was good
most of the time. It is difficult to say what would be the high or
low points of my career. I enjoyed forecasting. There was no particular
low point. Would I do it again? Yes - weather is a most interesting
subject -never two days the same.
Probably about
1944 several Air Force officers moved into an office next to us as
a forecast unit and of course we worked with them. In extremely cold
weather they would lend us one of their leather and sheep-lined flight
jackets when we had to go up on the roof to take "pilot balloon observations".
A number of military flights came through St. Louis and some stopped
off. One B-17 pilot, a colonel, used to bring his dachshund with him.
He said that he couldn't understand why the dog was friendly with
us when he didn't really like women! We told him it was probably confused
by our wearing slacks.
There was a primary
training base for the Navy on one side of the field and they practiced
landings and take-offs. One day when I was releasing one of the big
balloons with the radiosonde attached, I let it go into the air just
as one of the little biwing planes was landing. I was working with
one of the men from the city office who wanted to learn about the
observations. We got a "red light" from the office meaning that we
needed to change a setting on the instrument, so when we got the "green
light" I forgot to check the control tower which now had a red light
on me!!
There
was no harm done, but the Controller didn't mince words!! I came across
a copy of a photo taken of me by a local newspaper photographer for
a full-page picture in the rotogravure section on December 19, 1943.
As a result of that picture I became "the pin-up girl" for an Air
Force Weather Squadron in Africa.
The
mother of one of the boys sent him the picture and they voted me "the
girl they would most like to spend an afternoon with on a white altocumulus
cloud"!! I recall that the Post ran a series of pictures and articles
in the section entitled "St. Louis Women in the War Effort".
I understand
that I was the second woman to be hired by the "Weather Bureau" in
the country. The first woman was hired in St. Louis two weeks before.Regional
Office observation training class for new Weather Bureau employees
at Seattle, Washington (1943). Photograph provided by Virginia Denmark.
Weather Bureau employees at Lambert Field (St. Louis) in 1946.
Photo provided by Virginia Denmark.
