My mother, Clarice Sorenson Hutcheon, joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) at 20 years old. Her brother, Henry, died in Nov. 1943 during an active battle in Italy at age 23, and she wanted to honor his memory. Henry, an Army Sergeant and commander of a half-track squad, was the only son among eight siblings and Clarice adored him.
Raised on a farm outside of Roslyn, S.D., Clarice won a scholarship to a business college in Grand Island, Neb., but set her sights on Chicago instead, and moved in with her older sister, Gladys, and her husband. After stints that included working the front counter at a dry-cleaning plant and splicing film at Burton Holmes Films, she joined the WAC.
For basic training, Clarice spent six weeks at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., where she remembers doing a lot of marching and that the sheet on each of their cots had to be folded over from the pillow the length of a toothbrush.
Clarice was then stationed at Romulus Field in Michigan, where she was eventually assigned as secretary to Major Derryberry. On a three-day pass in Chicago, she met her future husband, Bill Hutcheon, at a USO club dance. “A cute redhead asked me to dance. It was instant chemistry and could he ever jitterbug,” she said. Bill, a Chicago native, was serving in the U.S. Air Force in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.
Bill and Clarice dated long-distance for three months, writing to each other every day. He told her to be in a phone booth at the USO club on her 21st birthday when he called her to propose. She said yes. The couple spent their wedding night sitting in the lobby of Chicago’s historic Palmer House Hotel because the front desk had given their reservation to someone else.
That mishap did not deter them from having a 35-year marriage that produced five daughters and my younger brother and me, who both joined the military. I served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and Tom served in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas. My father passed away in June 1980.
Clarice celebrates her 100th birthday on May 4, 2024. Happy birthday, Mom.
