Rivets and SPARS: The Story and Service of Tina Walker

Ernestine “Tina” Walker Burnham, former Rosie and SPAR during World War Two, exemplifies the unprecedented ways that women contributed to the war effort, and the impacts of the changing gender roles on the post-war society. From a young girl in rural Texas, to a Rosie the Riveter in Tulsa, Oklahoma, then a Pharmacist’s Mate with the U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve, Tina Burnham tells the story of how an ordinary girl in an extraordinary time accomplished things that millions of women were achieving for the first time in the tumultuous years of World War Two.

Born Ernestine Walker in September of 1921, Tina grew up in rural Texas and graduated high school in 1940 from Godley High School in Godley, Texas. After high school, the Walker family moved to Arkansas, where Tina decided to enroll in a school in Texarkana. There, she took a course in riveting and afterwards was sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma to work on Grumman F4F “Wildcats” at a Spartan Aircraft factory as a riveter. Thus, she joined the ranks of thousands of women collectively known as Rosies, after the iconic figure “Rosie the Riveter.”

At least as early as 1942, women began filling jobs in the workforce as men took up arms to fight in World War Two. In 1943, songwriters Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb penned the song “Rosie the Riveter,” praising women for the work they were doing for their country by keeping the war effort going strong. On Memorial Day 1943, a Norman Rockwell illustration appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post which depicted a brawny woman eating lunch with a rivet gun in her lap, and the name “Rosie” on her lunchbox. “Rosie” became the name for all women who contributed to the war effort, particularly in factories and manufacturing, although the name was also extended to any kind of war work. Millions of women stepped up to contribute to the war effort, with some sources counting well over 19 million women in the workplace during the war.

Tina Walker left her job as a Rosie and went to Dallas to visit her sister, where she found another way to serve her country; the SPARs. The SPARs were the women’s reserve corps of the U.S. Coast Guard, named after the Coast Guard’s motto, “Semper Paratus—Always Ready.” It was established on 23 November 1943 to bring women into the Coast Guard, freeing men to serve overseas while women took over the stateside jobs. Dorothy Stratton, a Navy Women’s Reserve (WAVE) officer, was promoted to become the director of the SPARs and later achieved the rank of Captain. Like the men, SPARs received basic training followed by more specialized education. Tina Walker received training at the USS Biltmore, a luxury hotel in Palm Beach, Florida commissioned for the SPARs as a training site. Once the SPARs met their recruiting quota and no longer needed the Palm Beach site, they moved the women to New York, where training remained for the rest of World War Two.

Tina became a pharmacist’s mate for the SPARs, working in the medical facilities in the United States. SPARs were not allowed to go to sea, so the assignments were in the US until the very end of the war, when the women were permitted to serve in Alaska and Hawaii (which were not part of the United States at the time).

After her training at the USS Biltmore, Tina went to pharmacy school in New York City and graduated in December 1944. She was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, to work in the sick bay at the barracks, and later a Marine Hospital. She got to work in each department at this hospital, rounding out her medical training with education in every area, as was common for most SPARs. Nurses and pharmacist’s mates performed similar tasks; the only difference was nurses were officers, pharmacist’s mates were enlisted. Tina served alongside nurses at the hospitals, dispensing medicine and caring for patients from a wide array of backgrounds, from foreign servicemembers to refugees from Communist countries to American servicemen and -women.

The SPARs was organized such that it would be disbanded six months after the war ended. So, on 30 June 1946, Tina Walker was among the thousands of women officially demobilized from the military. The SPARs was the smallest of the women’s reserve forces in World War Two, with a little over 10,000 women serving. After the war, millions of women had experienced the workforce for the first time either in the war production like the Rosies or in the military like the SPARs (or both, for women like Tina). When the men came home from the front, they once again became the majority of the workforce, but more women than ever before stayed in the workplace rather than returning to the role of simply “housewife.” They also expanded into jobs that had previously been unavailable to women, having just proven they could perform much the same work as men when called upon to do so. The percentage of working women never reduced to the pre-war levels again. Before the war, women only comprised about 27% of the workforce, but after World War Two, the number was nearly 37% and continued to grow.

After leaving the SPARs, Tina Walker used her veterans benefits to attend the Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Houston, Texas, graduating in September of 1949. She married her sweetheart, Winston Burnham, in November of that year, and she became a school nurse in Marble Falls ISD for the next 15 years. She had considered becoming a nurse since she was six years old, but her experiences with the Coast Guard and her days as a pharmacist’s mate were the inspiration and encouragement to continue in the medical field, and the education benefits she received after her service enabled her to do just that.

Tina’s life and work is unique, but it tells a similar story as many other women in World War Two. She was an ordinary woman who joined the war effort by stepping into the workforce for the first time, served her country throughout the war, and used her newfound knowledge and experience to create a very different kind of life for herself after the war. To learn more about Tina’s story, click here to listen to her oral interview.

Read More:

National Park Service, "United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS)"

United Service Organization, "Rosies Kept America Running During World War II"

United Service Organization, "Welcoming WACs, WAVEVs, and SPARs"

United States Coast Guard, "SPARS"

United States Department of Defense, "Pride and Purpose: Rosie the Riveters Inspire Women of Today"

United States Department of Defense, "Rosie the Riveter Inspired Women to Serve in World War II"

United States Department of Labor, "Rosie: By Any Other Name"