June 1941 - Graduated from St. Joseph's High School
Worked for Bendix Radio, Joppa Rd. Baltimore, Md  1941-1942
Entered the Cadet Nurse Corps - 1942
Trained and worked at St. Joseph's Hospital, Baltimore, MD
Graduated from nurses training - 1945
Parents -  Thornton W. Rodgers and Carrie Frances Gelwicks Rodgers

"After graduating from St. Joseph's High School in 1941, Rainey worked (for a while) at the rubber factory in Taneytown. There was little employment in the Emmitsburg area except waitress, store clerk or the sewing factory. In early 1942 she went to Baltimore to work at Bendix Radio. 
 
In 1943 she joined the Cadet Nurse Corps and went into Nurses Training at St. Joseph's Hospital in Baltimore. I think that the most likely reason she joined the Cadet Nurse Corps is because her Aunt Lillian had been a nurse in WWI and her brothers were joining the Navy -- this was a time of great patriotism.
 
Her boy friend, at the time, was Joseph Earl Hemler who was killed in the Philippines.
 
In 1945, after graduating from Nursing School, she worked at St. Joseph's  Hospital for a while before meeting  Lieutenant John Owens, a 1939 Irish Immigrant, who entered the US Army in 1942 and received a battlefield commission in Germany.
 
Rainey and John were married in 1947. They had five children and lived the rest of their lives in Baltimore. Rainey died in 1989 and John in 1990."

Submitted by her brother, Don Rodgers

If you knew this individual, and would like to see them remembered in
the next History of Emmitsburg, Please send us any stories or
anecdotes about them to us at: history@emmitsburg.net

Read Ed Houcks': Remembering Some of Emmitsburg's Honored Veterans