Betty Etten Wiker Collection
Content Description
This collection includes an oral history transcript, 8 September 2008; photographs of Betty during service as a Women's Army Corps (WAC) 1943-1949; copy of a letter home relaying an exciting bombing mission she was able to take part in. This was to bomb an ice jam on the Chena River to relieve a flooded area in Alaska; copy of a 3 page history of Women's Army Corps from 1942-1945; newpaper clippings circa 1978; 2006 and one undated; American Legion Magazine article on WAC 35th anniversary circa July 1977; official portrait photograph of Betty in United States WAF uniform circa 1952.
Dates
- 1942-1949, 1952, 1977-1978, 2008
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information. Please see our Sensitive Materials Statement.
Biographical / Historical
Betty Wiker (1921-2017) of Chicago served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and the Women in the Air Force (WAF) from 1942 to 1952. Betty Wiker was born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 27, 1921. She graduated from Hirsch High School and attended Moser Business College. She went on to work as a typist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago.
During this time she volunteered as a hostess at United StatesO [United Service Organizations] shows. Wiker enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in December 1942. She completed basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, and was assigned to Bolling Field in Washington, D.C, where she worked first in the plotting room, and later in the motor pool.
She then attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Des Moines, graduating on June 4, 1943. Wiker was then stationed at Wright-Patterson Field in Ohio as a finance officer in the Army Air Forces WAC company.
In March 1944 she was reassigned to Hill Field in Ogden, Utah, as the club officer. A year later she was transferred to Ladd Army Airfield in Fairbanks, Alaska, as a squadron commander. Wiker continued to serve as a squadron commander for the next four years.
In January 1946 she was assigned to Love Field in Dallas, Texas; in June 1946 she was transferred to Memphis, Tennessee; in October 1946 she was stationed at Fort Totten in New York; and from October 1947 to April 1948 she served at Westover Field in Springfield, Massachusetts.
After attending Adjutant General's School at Camp Lee, Virginia, she returned to Westover Field as part of the newly formed Women in the Air Force (WAF) until May 1949 when she was sent to New York City as a recruiting officer.
She married Kenneth Wiker on December 29, 1949. On July 2, 1952 she resigned from the WAF at the rank of major due to pregnancy. Wiker and her husband raised two children in Teaneck, New Jersey, where they lived for fifty years. She currently resides at Carolina Meadows in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Wiker died 5 December 2017.
Extent
0.21 Linear Feet (2 Folders.)
Language of Materials
English
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Condition Description
The condition is good.
Offensive Language Statement
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Processing Information
Processed by Victoria Hinshaw.
- Korean War, 1950-1953
- Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Participation, Female
- Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Women
- Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Women -- United States
- United States Air Force - Women
- United States. Army. Women's Army Auxilliary Corps -- Military life
- United States. Army. Women's Army Corps -- Military life
- Women Airforce Service Pilots (U.S.)
- Women and the military
- Women veterans
- World War, 1939-1945
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Female
- World War, 1939-1945 -- War work
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Women
- Title
- Betty Etten Wiker Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Victoria Hinshaw
- Date
- 2023 January
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- eng
Repository Details
Part of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Repository