Description
Ms. Rapp discusses losing her job to a soldier returning from overseas, but being given the same opportunities to obtain housing, education, and civilian employment as those who'd served overseas.
Helen Rapp
Helen Rapp, the youngest of five children, was born on July 15, 1925 in Schumacher, Ontario. Her dad and older brothers were gold miners. Ms. Rapp's brothers enlisted when the Second World War began, and she used her drafting studies to obtain a job with General Electric in Hamilton, where she helped assemble Bofors guns. When women were permitted to join, she enlisted and served in Ottawa. Ms. Rapp attained the rank of Sergeant and managed the office which controlled all Communication in Canada.
Transcript
What happens is our job was strictly war time and one year to process the men coming back to taking over our jobs. And a soldier came back and he took my job. So all of a sudden, I am a civilian and I’ve been offered a job at D Sigs, but I can’t stand it. I mean I trained this chap to take over my job but of course he wasn’t going to do it the way I did and there was no way I was just going to go into the pool of stenos. So the government was very good for us, to us. Well, they had and we benefited the way the men did, you know school grants, clothing, retraining, whatever. You could buy a house and if you were married a soldier coming back, they could buy a house. They could buy a little farm. They could do so many things, and we were able to take advantage of that.