Female World War II veterans from Monongahela featured in new video
Monongahela physician Josephine Stevens in uniform during World War II.
Monongahela resident Sally Stephenson, left, in uniform during World War II.
A jacket worn by Josephine Stevens of Monongahela when she served in the U.S. Medical Corps in London and Paris.
A portrait of World War II veteran Sally Stephenson of Monongahela.
By Scott Beveridge
Sally Stephenson never had any experience flying a plane, yet she was assigned during World War II for three years to train young men to be pilots.
This duty in the U.S. Navy also came down to the young Monongahela woman in 1943 at a time when women were not permitted to fly military planes.
“I was blown away by that,” said Laura Magone, president of Monongahela Area Historical Society.
Stephenson and another Monongahela woman, Josephine Stevens, are featured in a recent digital history video produced by students at California University of Pennsylvania based on their research into World War II at the historical society.
The Cal U. students were fascinated by women’s roles during the war, stories that mostly focused on their efforts on the home front, said Cal U. professor Christina Fisanick.
These two women stood out because they served alongside men in the war effort, Fisanick said.
Stevens served as a surgeon across Great Britain with the county’s Red Cross. Meanwhile, Stephenson read books and interviewed people to learn how to train pilots.
“I thought they did a nice job,” Magone said of the video, “Women of War Time,” produced by Kayla Boardley, Larry Wiles and Patrick Skinner.
Stevens returned to her hometown medical practice after the war and died in 1994. Stephenson died in 2015.
Fisanick has been guiding her freshman honors students in making videos for the digital storytelling project in conjunction with the Sen. John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh and its affiliated partners.
Her students also created a video honoring Sgt. Walter E. Glod of Donora, who was killed in action by enemy fire in France Sept. 14, 1944, while establishing a roadblock.
His sister, Charlotte Glod Simmons, was happy to see the video after relating she could hear her mother’s cries several blocks away from their home after the family received a telegraph about his death on the battlefield.
“She was waiting all these years for someone to tell his story,” Fisanick said.