Caroline Decides

Caroline was the valedictorian of her Perrysburg High School class of 1934, and in 1937, she graduated from the University of Toledo magna cum laude. When she was only 19 and still a college student, her father, Edward Wenz, was killed in an accident. She felt an immense responsibility from that point on to be a source of support for her mother, Hilda Satterlund Wenz, and her younger sister, Hilda Mary Wenz ("Peep").

At 21, she was able to contribute financially to the household when she got her first teaching job in Portage, Ohio. Over the next five or six years she taught first- and second-graders in small Ohio towns hit hard by the Great Depression. She later said she tried to make school a place where children could take joy and pride in learning and escape some of the hardship they experienced in their lives. Many times she brought food for her young charges. She also nourished their creative talents and their own sense of importance, producing little school newspapers by and for the children.

But publishing was more than a hobby. In 1941, Caroline and her mother, Hilda Wenz, bought two newspaper weeklies, The Perrysburg Journal and The Rossford Record, along with the mechanical equipment of a country print shop. For the next two years, Caroline combined teaching and working with her mother on these newspapers. Her duties included writing, some reporting, advertising selling and copy work, and bookkeeping; she also became familiar with letterpress printing. Everyone admired Caroline as the teacher, the newspaper publisher, and the devoted daughter. She seemed very rooted in small-town life in north central Ohio.

Then she surprised everyone. In 1943, word got around Perrysburg that one of the school teachers had joined the WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service in the US Naval Reserve.

In a 2004 letter, Caroline’s lifelong friend, the vivacious Betty Kuehn Parke, recalled: “Everyone in Perrysburg was absolutely sure it was bubbly outgoing Betty Kuehn [who had joined] —oh no—but quiet scholarly Caroline! I had not the courage or fortitude to do such a ‘wild & crazy thing.’ Never - never would I have even considered it—but Caroline – yes!”

And in February 1943, Caroline was off to Northampton, Massachusetts to WAVES officers training school at Smith College, though she was housed at Mt. Holyoke in South Hadley.