Pageland, S.C., my hometown, as training area in World War II

Click HERE for the link about when Hospital Training Grounds were established in Pageland during World War II.

Scroll down for photos from the link and later.

An excerpt from the link:
It was expected that the 8th Evacuation Hospital would be activated on September 1, 1942. To provide field experience during July and August, the members of the University unit applied for active duty. While awaiting orders, the individuals closed medical practices, transferred patients and their records, sold or stored equipment, and made wills. By the end of June members of the unit received a red-bordered “IMMEDIATE ACTION” order to active duty.

The unit was assigned to the 3d Evacuation Hospital which it joined in Pageland, South Carolina. The new officers spent the first two weeks in basic training. Four or five hours each day were devoted to lectures on military courtesy, medical records, military administration, field sanitation, camouflage, and the use of gas masks. Both officers and enlisted men went on road marches and learned to roll packs and pitch tents. After general training they set up an evacuation hospital to serve the troops during maneuvers. Tents for the medical and surgical wards, operating room, dispensary, kitchen, x-ray, and messes were pitched in a field. The members of the unit were also responsible for unpacking the hospital equipment and drugs for the pharmacy. They discovered that most items had been wrapped in November 1918 newspapers. The equipment was incomplete in modern operating room equipment, lacking in essential laboratory and X-ray equipment, and stocked with obsolete items.

end of excerpt.

Click photos to see larger. The captions are UNDER each photo.

The gym shown in the website photo was across the street from my house, where I lived after this happened, and was part of the high school. The big two story house was two doors down from where I later lived. It's an interesting slice of war time I'd not seen until someone from Pageland posted this link.



The house two doors down. This was used as nurses quarters.




This is the same house, taken when I was in seventh grade. My female friends flocked to play touch football in the neighbor's front yard in hopes that the 'new boy in town' would come out. His family had recently moved into the big white house. The neighbor in the house whose yard we were in is now in her nineties and going strong.





Sandbox behind the white house. Me with neighborhood kids. I'm wearing the glasses.The shed behind us was where the 'new kid's' older twin brothers hung me by my shirt laughing to get even for my punching HIM in the stomach after he tackled me playing touch football to show off to my friends. The house behind that belonged to one of the poorer families in town.



A younger shot, playing in the middle neighbor's yard:-)




Pageland High School Gym, where I later attended many basketball games and the junior senior prom. The gym still stands, but the High School was torn down and a Middle School built in its place. My father was school superintendent, so we lived in the house designated for that position across from the school (yes, we paid rent)



Our house. My bedroom overlooked the side porch and had front dormer windows. When I practiced my clarinet too late at night, Mrs. Tucker called up from their bedroom window below...'Priscilla , can you stop for the night?'. Oh dear. I always did.



Playing with little next door neighbor outside my side porch.




Headed for the prom junior year in that gym. Ohhh, those glasses.