The world that young Emily Drake was navigating in the spring of 1942, armed with an Aspinwall High School diploma, was awash in war — in Europe, Asia, Africa and throughout the South Pacific.
Drake, who lives in O’Hara, wanted to join the Women’s Army Corps to serve her country abroad in a noncombat role. Her older brothers — Edward, who was drafted into the Army, and Walter, who joined the Marine Corps — were already doing their part in the battle to win World War II.
“I wanted to join the Army because both my brothers were serving in the military,” Drake said Wednesday at the Women Veterans Celebration Luncheon at the Greensburg YWCA. The Wounded Warrior Project and Adagio Health co-sponsored the event.
Drake, wearing her green Women’s Army Corps cap denoting the WAC Pittsburgh Chapter 120, was among 25 female veterans who gathered for food and fellowship at the Greensburg YWCA as part of a celebration of Women’s History Month.
At age 99 and nearing the century mark July 4, Drake was the oldest member of the gathering.
“Creating get-togethers like this are so important and special. They provide opportunities for our women veterans to connect with one another, share stories, cultivate new friendships and celebrate established ones,” said Dorey Stabile, an Army veteran who helped to organize the gathering as the Women Veterans Outreach and communications specialist at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in O’Hara.
“I really enjoy being around all of the women veterans and getting to know them,” said Jesucita Ferrari, 76, who came from of Mt. Lebanon to join in the gathering.
Ferrari, who grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, was in the Air Force from 1968 to 1971. She volunteered to go to Southeast Asia, and the Air Force complied, sending her to be an administrative specialist at the Royal Thai Takhli Air Force Base in central Thailand in 1970-71.
The women who shared lunch and companionship Wednesday are part of a growing number of female veterans, Stabile said. Women today comprise 10% of the veteran population, up from just 4% at the turn of the century, Stabile said.
By 2040, women are expected to be 18% of the veteran population, making them the fastest growing group of veterans, Stabile said.
When Drake was in the Women’s Army Corps, however, she was part of a contingent of just around 150,000 women out of about 11 million members of the Army. Before joining the WAC in November 1944, she had worked for two years in Downtown Pittsburgh as a secretary for the War Production Board.
Traveling by trolley from Sharpsburg into Pittsburgh in those days, she could see the region’s steel mills and factories were pouring out weapons for the war effort. A byproduct was smoke so thick, Drake said, there were times it blotted out the afternoon sun.
When the war ended in August 1945, Drake, of Polish heritage, wanted to work for the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, but was told that the quota of foreign assignments was filled. Drake had changed her name from Dziekiewicz to Drake because “I got tired of spelling my name over the telephone line.”
Without her knowledge, one of her commanding officers wrote a letter to the Polish Embassy that had opened in Washington, D.C., recommending her for the position. But she could not take it initially because she still was on active duty.
She was back home in O’Hara in early 1946 one evening when, in a true sign of a bygone era, a Western Union telegraph messenger knocked on the front door of the family home with a message that told her there was a job with the Polish Embassy in Washington, but she had to take it soon.
After being discharged from the Army, she worked in the U.S. Embassy in Poland for six years until Poland became ruled by the Communists, and the Americans were removed, Drake said.
She finally got overseas, but as a civilian working for the Air Force for about 18 years at Ramstein Air Base in what was then West Germany during the Cold War. She was able to travel around Europe, like Paris and Copenhagen, while working for the Air Force.
Drake remains proud to have served her country.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Drake said.