When Winona Ruth Anderson was just twelve, she started discussing world events with her father. The year was 1932, when Germany was becoming an increased threat to Europe and Japan's aggression was growing.
Winona's life was turned upside-down on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and drew the United States into World War II.
Working in a drugstore as an apprentice pharmacist and managing the soda fountain, Winona made the best sodas around, but she felt she had to do something for the war effort.
After leaving her job, Winona joined the US Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in 1943, and served as a Hospital Corpsman at Corona Naval Hospital in Norco, California, caring for injured Sailors and Marines flown back from the war in the Pacific Theater.
What Would Your Father Say? offers an up-close and personal glimpse of what it was like for women to serve during the war and the toll it took on American heroes.
Filled with joy, sorrow, laughter, and romance, the book uncovers a crucial time in history while addressing the mental and physical adjustments to a changed world facing many of today's servicemen and servicewomen.
About the Author: Winona's father instilled a strong love of country in his twelve children; four of them served in WWII. She had had one year of college, studying premed, and three years as an apprentice pharmacist, when WWII started. As soon as she could, she joined the US Navy WAVES and requested the hospital corps.
Near the end of the war, Winona met and married SpA1/c Herbert J. Gunther.
Later, while raising two children, Winona was active in community service and worked as a retail buyer, home economist, and creator and host of a radio interview program. Now retired from a career in real estate, she lives in Solana Beach, California, in the home she had shared with her late husband.
Her first book, Papa Said, a story of her early childhood on a 240-acre Indiana farm, was published by Inspiring Voices in 2012. It is available through book stores and online.
