The Faculty Minutes for the meeting of January 6, 1942 detailed the requirements and standards set for girls who wanted to enter into the Nurses Aides course on a voluntary basis. They had to prove, among other requirements, that they had the grade point average, leisure time, and permission necessary to complete the course. They also needed to complete the entire course.
As World War Two reached its peak in the years following the early 1940's, as Margaret MacGregor recollected in her interview, many Dickinson students supported the war effort by taking time off of school to work in the factories. In the years 1942 and 1943 Margaret recalled that she stayed at home to work in the York Safe and Lock company as a means to manifest her patriotism and save money (York Safe and Lock had defense contracts). She returned to Dickinson in 1945 alongside the other Dickinson students who had gone off to join the war effort overseas.
As expressed by Margaret MacGregor in her interview she evoked that during the Second World War the great majority of Dickinson College women were extensively involved in social service deeds. As a result of drastic nurse shortages brought about by the global effort overseas, dozens of women would take the Red Cross nurses aid course and for several hours a week worked at the Carlisle Barracks, the Army War College, and the Carlisle Hospital.
Dorothy F. Nagle (Class of 1946) recalls in an interview how she joined the Nurse's Aide program at the Carlisle Hospital during her freshman year at Dickinson. Twelve female students signed up for the program and received training at the hospital. The hospital needed help at the Carlisle Barracks because their nurses were overseas. Nagle believes she learned more in the program than she did during her four years of college and comments that the army "treated us like queens, but did they work us!" Working for the Nurse's Aide program gave Nagle the sense of contributing to the cause.
In an interview, Helen Alexander Bachman (Class of 1946) claims that a majority of the students belonged to a sorority, fraternity, or other organization on campus. Bachman estimates that 99 percent of female students belonged to one of the four sororities. The fraternities owned houses while sorority women had apartments in Carlisle. Fraternities "dried up" during the war due to the absence of men. Sororities, however, had meetings, social functions, bridge parties, suppers, and community service events.
Netta May Hoffman Hakes, class of 1900, passed away on Sunday July 29 at St. Vincent's Hospital, where she resided after an operation. Hoffman Hakes had been an active woman throughout her life. After graduation she became an active member of Dickinson Alumnae Club and the Pi Beta Phi Alumanae Club in New York. An active suffrage movement worker, she later canvassed for Liberty Bonds and other forms of work to aid the World War cause.
Her burial took place on August 2, 1923 at Cherry Hilly in Maryland.