Oral History of Leila Kikos, interviewed by Rebecca Michaud, 18 March, 2011

Oral History of Leila Kikos, interviewed by Rebecca Michaud, 18 March, 2011

Leila Kikos was born Leila Elizabeth Bailey on President St. in Charleston, SC in 1923. She graduated from Memminger High School in 1940, after which she studied drafting at The Citadel and worked at the shipyards and for the War Department as a switchboard operator on Meeting St. After the formation of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), Kikos consulted with her father and enlisted. She attended basic training at Hunter College in New York City. She was assigned to Washington, D.C. as a drafter. It was there that she met her husband Peter, a Marine studying bomb disposal at American University. After the war, she and her husband moved to Minneapolis briefly before returning to Charleston, where they operated a bakery.

Listen to the audio on the Lowcountry Digital Library.

Women in World War II

The Citadel Archives & Museum

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application/pdf

English

Text

https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/179

Colleton (S.C.)

38 minutes

Rebecca Michaud

Leila Kikos

Round O, South Carolina