Pvt. Emmy Caroline Wogelius (née Skøttegaard)
(1902 - 1984)
Profile
Pvt. Emmy C. Wogelius enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1944. She was one of twenty-nine Danish born WACs during the Second World War. Having emigrated to the USA in 1922, she was nearly stuck in Denmark as she was in the country to bring her father to the USA as the Germans invaded in April 1940.
Emmy Caroline Wogelius (née Skøttegaard) was born on 23 December 1902 in Daldover in Randbøl parish, Denmark, to baker Terkel Christian Skøttegaard and Marie Magdalene Skøttegaard (née Mathiasen).[1]
Wogelius arrived in the United States for the first time in 1922.[2] She travelled with her parents to visit four brothers who had emigrated to the country before that time.[3]
She met Carl John Wogelius during her stay and they married in Chicago on 12 March 1925.[4] They settled in Chicago, where he worked as a carpenter.[5] She was naturalised on 26 May 1937.[6]
Wogelius mother died on 25 February 1939 in Denmark.[7] Wogelius arranged to bring her father to the United States to live with her. On 9 April 1940, as they planned to board the SS Gripsholm three days later, the Germans invaded Denmark. The luggage had been sent ahead to the ship already.
They had to wait for weeks to get out of Denmark, but eventually they were able to get a boat from Copenhagen to the German town of Warnemünde. She later remembered that a German ship lay wrecked from bombing by the Royal Air Force in the harbour.[8] I have not been able to connect these scenes to an attack by Bomber Command. From here they were, somehow, able to get to Genoa in Italy, where they left onboard the SS Manhattan arriving in New York on 10 June 1940.[9] Onboard the ship during the same crossing was Per Stig-Nielsen, who later served in the Royal Air Force.
Wogelius enlisted as a Private (A-609284) in the Women’s Army Corps in Chicago, Illinois, on 19 August 1944.[10] In early 1945, she was stationed at Vaughan General hospital after completing basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.[11] She was discharged on 12 September 1945.[12]
The Wogelius divorced in 1948,[13] and she married Douglas B. Klepper on 3 October 1949.[14] They lived in Saint Petersburg, Pinellas, Folorida, where she died on 4 May 1984.[15]
Endnotes
[1] DNA: Paris register, Randbøl sogn.
[2] Ancestry: New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[3] Danmarks-Gæster, St. Paul Tidende, 28 Jul 1922, p. 8.
[4] Ancestry: Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1840-1991.
[5] Ancestry: 1930 United States Federal Census.
[6] Ancestry: Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1840-1991.
[7] DNA: Parish register, Randbøl sogn.
[8] Getting Around with Ted Ashby, Des Moines Tribune, 08 Nov 1944, p. 14.
[9] Ancestry: New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[10] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[11] Women at War, Chicago Tribune, 14 Jan 1945, p. 78.
[12] Ancestry: U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010.
[13] Ancestry: Florida, U.S., Divorce Index, 1927-2001.
[14] Ancestry:: Florida, U.S., Marriage Indexes, 1822-1875 and 1927-2001.
[15] Ancestry: U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014.