Friday, June 7, 2013

Sepia Saturday: Hospitalman 3rd Class

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.




This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt features the kitchen of a hospital train.  Hospital train?  That’s a foreign concept to me, but I do have a TRAINed nurse.  (HA HA HA HA -- I kill me! Yeah, I'm here through the weekend.)


Janet Louise Basham Meines
Janet Basham Meines
1929 - 1997

Janet Louise Basham was my mother’s cousin.  She was the older daughter of my grandmother’s sister Rosalind Mae Rucker and Larry Dalton Basham.  Janet was born July 10, 1929, in Roanoke, Virginia, and graduated from William Fleming High School in 1947.  


Janet Louise Basham 1947
scanned from William Fleming HS yearbook
The Colonel
available on Ancestry.com


As many yearbook staffs tend to do, quotes were selected for each senior.  Next to Janet’s photo was this gem:  “Thou shalt not wash dishes.”   In the Class Last Will & Testament, Janet left her bubblegum to another student, Jack Baldwin. 



Typical teenager!











Janet Louise Basham Meines
Janet Louise Basham Meines
photo courtesy of her daughter
(name withheld for privacy)



Sometime between graduation and marriage, Janet joined the Navy as a WAVE and became a nurse, specifically Hospitalman 3rd class.  


That is probably where she met her husband, Clarence “Clix” Meines.



Newly-Wed Pair Expected for Stay at Bride’s Home

A former Roanoker, Miss Janet Louise Basham, Hospitalman 3rd Class, WAVE, was married July 24 [1950] to Clarence Haines Meines, Jr., Hospital Corpsman, USN, in the chapel of the US Naval Hospital, St. Alban’s, Long Island, New York.

Both will be discharged from the Navy this week and will arrive in Roanoke Saturday to visit Mrs. Meines’ parents, Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Basham.

Mr. Meines of Paterson, NJ, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Haines Meines.

The ceremony was performed at 4 p.m. and Chaplain J. T. Embry officiated.

Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a ballerina length dress of white organdy and lace over taffeta with a fingertip veil and lace headband.  Her bouquet was of white carnations.

The maid of honor and only attendant was Miss Ellen Farmer of Ohio.  She wore a ballerina length gown of pink organdy and carried pink carnations.

Michael Rooney of New Jersey served as best man.  Ushers were Willard Barnes and Horace Latouir.

Following the ceremony, a reception was held at the WAVEs’ quarters, US Naval Hospital.

For a wedding trip, the couple went to Culver’s Lake, NJ.  Following their visit in Roanoke, Mr. and Mrs. Meines will live in Paterson, NJ.



Janet and Clix raised 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys.  She died in April 1997. 

I don’t remember ever meeting the Meines children when I was a child.  It’s possible.  My grandmother’s sister visited usually every year, and Janet sent Christmas cards, so there was some level of closeness.  Several months ago after scanning a Meines Christmas card into my family files, on a whim I searched on Facebook for the “kids.”  Not too surprisingly, they are there.  The oldest is a new grandmother and now my Facebook friend.  Wonders of the Internet!



I got slightly off-track with this post, but climb aboard the Sepia Saturday train and see what else is cooking.



© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

42 comments:

  1. Lovely photos and it's so great that you've been able to connect and contact family members again.

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    1. Meeting distant cousins is one of the most fascinating by-products of the Internet.

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  2. The newspaper wedding announcement even has a railway and food reference!

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    1. Oh good eye! I didn't even pay attention to the headline below the announcement. Too funny ~

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    2. I love it when Sepians want to help each other match the theme! Well spotted Postcardy!

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  3. Great photos and your lateral "train" link certainly qualifies by Sepia rules. I love the one of her as a Wave, it looks like it was produced for a 1950s colour magazine advert, a rather professional look. Our equivalent Royal Naval female arm are called Wrens.

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    1. Wrens? The next logical leap to "chicks" (or "birds" - do the British still use that term? I learned it from the Beatles) is just too cute for words.

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    2. I think the term "bird" has gone out of fashion, but as I am not allowed time with my male friends eyeing up the "birds" these days I rarely have an opportunity to use it anyway ! I suppose my only use would be to report that "some old bird" had pushed in front of me in the queue at the bakers, hence I
      I return home with no tarts! But I am no spring chicken now.

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    3. Didn't "birds" come from "Dolly birds" originally?

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    4. Ahem! Nigel the Sepia Saturday rule book states that there are no rules (see Aunty Miriam's words of wisdom in the sidebar of SS).

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  4. I love her yearbook quote and will! For some (stupid) reason, my class didn't do the quotes. I wanted to, although I'm not even sure now which one I would have used.

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    1. My class did the Last Will, but I don't recall quotes. I would have picked something that would embarrass me today, I'm sure.

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  5. I wonder if she had to wash dishes in the Navy!? A lovely collection of photos and how great to connect with her family after all this time.

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  6. It's lovely to make family connections via the web.

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    1. It is! I keep saying to myself "wow" because I can't put into words how amazing it is to meet people that my parents would never have thought possible to meet.

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  7. A nurse in uniform just seems right somehow.

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  8. Love that quote too.

    I wore a pink wedding dress so I like the sound of the bride of honors dress. That is one think with the old sepia photos, we don't get to see the colour and how they really looked.

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    1. I like the descriptions of the dresses too. So simple, yet probably so beautiful too.

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  9. Not off track, just running your own line as did several of us...and you pulled it off with "trained nurse" :-).she was a stunning woman and the old photos even the clipping about the wedding add a lot to the post. Besides the great photos I now have the idea from you of contacting some members of our extended geneaolgy on Facebook, two 2nd cousins I never met linked with me there.

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    1. One problem with Facebook is how many people have the same name. Someone contacted me through my blog to let me know they sent a message through FB, but it's not there, so I fear they found a different Wendy Mathias.

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  10. Holy Moses !“Thou shalt not wash dishes.” ....that's one tablet I would gladly take!:)

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  11. The term WAVE seems particularly appropriate to that hair style. It's a photo wonderfully evocative of the WW2 era.

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    1. Something about that hairstyle and lipstick screams "40s." I always thought WAVE had something to do with the ocean. Although anymore I think it's the men's joke about women always making waves in their quest for equality.

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  12. Janet was born just a year before my mom, but even without that date I probably could have guessed her age pretty close. Every weekend, we Sepians read about various family relations from around the world, study their faded images, and learn more trivia than is in Wikipedia. But the exposure to dated photos like those on your blog, Wendy, is such a valuable education on fashions and styles that I know I've acquired a better sense of history. Thanks.

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    1. I agree. Sepia Saturday has taken me behind the scenes of world-changing events. What an education we get not only about history and world affairs but also about psychology and human nature. I love it!

      Thanks so much for your kind comments.

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  13. I used some cousins who were also nurses in training to train more nurses and I didn't even think of that! I love meeting family members through family history too.

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    1. I read yours! Your cousins made quite the splash on the magazine cover.

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  14. The internet sometimes leads to unexpected contacts indeed. I found two second cousins I did not know I had because one of them found me through my Greetings from the Past blog where I'm blogging about our ancestors. As they're about twenty years older than me they've been able to fill in some things for me.

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    1. That's the best kind of news. It's great when a cousin has information to share.

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  15. Don't you just love the way articles were written way back?
    Yay for meeting up with lost relatives!

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    1. I do miss it. When I was in school, every Sunday I looked forward to reading about all the weddings. Now where I live, you have to pay for an engagement or wedding announcement plus write it yourself. Obituaries too. It's not cheap. Very few people are willing to pay for more than the basic names and dates.

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  16. I had never thought about how Janet and Momma have the same eyes.
    Janet is beautiful!

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  17. Your train of thought was quite wonderful!

    Nice remembrance of her.

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  18. I enjoyed reading about WAVES and hospitalmen. Sepia Saturday is so educational.Thank you for sharing Janet with us.

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    1. I was educated too. It never occurred to me that women in the Navy would be anything but WAVES. Wren is a new term for me.

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  19. I love the third photo of Janet. It reminds me of a classic 1940's era movie.

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  20. So you got a trained nurse who got married in the chapel of a naval hospital. I daresay you are "on theme"!! Sort of...
    :D~
    HUGZ

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