Tyler described the Great Pyramids of Giza in his first encounter blog posting. I have always wanted to visit Cairo and the pyramids. This interest was nurtured, even manifested by my mother when I was just a child.
My mother, as a young woman of only nineteen years of age, served in the Women’s Army Corp (WAC) during World War II. Joining the WAC had been an act of defiance towards her father. She had won the National High School music award in New York City as a promising soprano, and along with it a fully paid scholarship to a music conservatory. Her father would not let her attend the school. In his world, a woman’s place was as a wife and mother. My mother aspired to be more. Her destiny would not be set by her father and his traditions. She joined the WAC, showing fearless gumption, where she became a cryptologist, encrypting and de-encrypting military messages. She was assigned to an Army battalion group and was stationed in Caserta, Italy in Europe and Cairo, Egypt in North Africa.
While stationed in Cairo my mother was able to visit the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and ride a camel, all quite exotic experiences for 1943. While eating dinner in a restaurant in Cairo, King Faruk requested her presence at his table. My mother would never have made a good addition to his harem – too headstrong!
I remember her stories well. To me, the pyramids are a symbol of her rebelliousness, her independence, and inner strength and fortitude. It is too late to take my mother back to Cairo. But I have a burning desire to visit there, to walk where she walked and see what she saw. That is the heritage she left for me.
This is the first peer review blog posting.
My mother, as a young woman of only nineteen years of age, served in the Women’s Army Corp (WAC) during World War II. Joining the WAC had been an act of defiance towards her father. She had won the National High School music award in New York City as a promising soprano, and along with it a fully paid scholarship to a music conservatory. Her father would not let her attend the school. In his world, a woman’s place was as a wife and mother. My mother aspired to be more. Her destiny would not be set by her father and his traditions. She joined the WAC, showing fearless gumption, where she became a cryptologist, encrypting and de-encrypting military messages. She was assigned to an Army battalion group and was stationed in Caserta, Italy in Europe and Cairo, Egypt in North Africa.
While stationed in Cairo my mother was able to visit the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and ride a camel, all quite exotic experiences for 1943. While eating dinner in a restaurant in Cairo, King Faruk requested her presence at his table. My mother would never have made a good addition to his harem – too headstrong!
I remember her stories well. To me, the pyramids are a symbol of her rebelliousness, her independence, and inner strength and fortitude. It is too late to take my mother back to Cairo. But I have a burning desire to visit there, to walk where she walked and see what she saw. That is the heritage she left for me.
This is the first peer review blog posting.
References
1 comment:
A wonderful recollection. Beautiful.
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