Five in a Room for Two
April 23, 2008 – 6:00 amFinding houses, apartments, rooms, and housing of any kind was tight during the war years. Harriet had just joined the WAAC. She, along with four new friends, was assigned to the Recruiting and Induction Center, where they were expected to recruit many new women to the WAAC. She relates the problem she and her four WAAC friends had in finding a place to live in downtown San Francisco. (More detail is found in her book, The Gaylord Wacs, and in my book, We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II.
Our initial task after joining the Army was to find housing. We first inquired at the Women’s Hotel, but that was filled up. Then Dottie spotted a vacancy at the Gaylord Hotel, a typical old third-rate San Francisco hotel, well worn, but with its own charm. The vacancy was number 110, a single room with two Murphy beds.
When the clerk asked which two of us it was for, we answered in unison that it was for all five of us. She summoned the manager who agreed to give us two folding cots and to charge us $80 a month, $16.00 a person.
When our supervising officer came to inspect our quarters, the look on her face was frightening, but she knew if she did not approve the room, she would be responsible for finding us a place. As she left, she warned us to be ready for impromptu inspections, but this proved to her one and only inspection.
Meanwhile, on August 30, 1943, The Gaylord Waacs became the Gaylord Wacs. By act of Congress, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women’s Army Corps, with the same entitlements as the men in the Army.
Back at the Gaylord, room 110 and the Gaylord Bar came to be synonymous. That was the place to be while in San Francisco. One week the entire officers’ complement from the Grayling, a submarine in port for repairs, checked into the Gaylord. We soon accepted dates with them, going to movies, restaurants and having a good time.
Several weeks after we parted with lots of tears and their promises to return, the Grayling was on the evening news. It had been hit by a Japanese mine and sunk. No survivors. The war was coming closer and closer.
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