Virginia Ann (Miller) Leasure (2012)
LEASURE, MILLER
Posted By: Kent Transier
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:02:53
Coordinator's note: Virginia Leasure passed away May 26, 2012. A thorough search of newspapers was unsuccessful in finding an obituary. However, an article about her Naval service appeared in the Des Moines Register in 1989 which includes a recap of her life through that time which we have elected to publish in lieu of finding a published obituary. Her full name is taken from her Madison County Birth record.
The Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa
Wednesday, February 22, 1989
Page 44, Columns 5 & 6She remembers spitn polish days with the Navy
By TODD VON KAMPEN
Register CorrespondentWhenever she recalls her days as a U.S. Navy Women's Auxiliary Volunteer Emergency Service member during World War II, Virginia Leasure remembers the question she asked herself back then: "What is this Iowa farm girl doing among all this brass?"
The "brass" included Fleet Adm. Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, and Admirals Chester Nimitz and Raymond Spruance, among other high-ranking naval officers.
Life moves more slowly today for Leasure and her 66-year-old husband, Bill, who found his own excitement during the war as a paratrooper in Germany.
Their home at 3848 42nd St. contains several mementos of the war, including Virginia's scrapbook with its autographed pictures of King, Nimitz and Spruance.
Ordnance Plant
Virginia grew up on a farm four miles west of St. Charles and graduated from high school in 1942.
She then worked for two years at the Ankeny ordnance plant, which manufactured war materials, at the site now occupied by the John Deere Des Moines Works. She "got the urge" to enlist in the WAVES in April 1944.
Her father, Alva Miller, who was serving in the Navy at the time, refused to sign a permission slip to allow her to enter the military; but her mother, Rachel, eventually gave in.
"I guess I felt like I should serve," said Leasure. "There were others that were doing that, and I felt I should be patriotic too not realizing how homesick one could get."
Leasure, who turned 65 on Feb. 15, was offered cooking or stenographic training; but she chose "direct assignment," which meant she agreed to do anything or go anywhere in the United States that the Navy assigned her.
"Anywhere" for the 20-year-old proved to be King's Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Top Secret
Her duty was the stuff of espionage novels carrying top-secret messages and films from headquarters to the White House or the Pentagon, giving passwords at the door and never seeing the same face twice.
Leasure was a member of the 12-person staff of WAVES and Navy men supervised by a captain and two lieutenants who worked across the hall from King's office and took messages there.
"You went through a couple of doors; and by the time you got to the last one, they were pulling window shades over maps," she said.
Leasure said her superiors maintained such tight security that not even the messengers knew what they were carrying. Each day, they were chauffeured by a different route to a square, windowless building to deliver film. Two hours later, they would return to pick up the developed film and would have to prove their identity to someone else.
"You had your ID each time, and you finally convinced them; but they sure made you feel knee-high to a grasshopper," Leasure said.
Although King was usually in a hurry, Leasure said, "He wouldn't ever pass you in the hall and not speak to you. But you couldn't expect him to stop and chat about the weather, either."
Leasure said she didn't meet Franklin D. Roosevelt but does remember standing at attention as Harry S. Truman came walking down the hall.
"Pepsi-Cola Club"
A month or so after the war, Virginia was playing the piano in a "Pepsi-Cola Club" when Bill Leasure approached her.
He had served with the U.S. 17th Airborne Division as it spearheaded the British Second Army's drive into northwest Germany but had been sent to Fort Meade, Md., after the division came home.
"He came up to the piano and asked if I knew the Airborne song," Virginia said. "I said I'd never heard of it."
But Bill, who had just re-enlisted for a year and was on three months' leave, was not put off. He spent much of his leave touring Washington's sites with her.
They were married in 1946 but lived apart until Virginia was discharged that July as a yeoman second class. Bill left the Army that November as a sergeant.
The Leasures returned to Iowa in 1948 when Virginia joined the Veterans Administration and Bill went to school at Des Moines American Institute of Business. They have one son, Jim, now 29 and an electrical engineer for Iowa Public Television. He lives with them.
Photography, Music
Bill retired Jan. 31, 1985, after 10 years in the Iowa National Guard accounting office, one day before Virginia retired from the VA.
On May 21, at a reunion of those who served in King's headquarters, the Leasures expect to renew their ties with many of the people Virginia came to know 45 years ago. The reunion will be held at St. Augustine Beach, Fla.
In the meantime, they busy themselves with photography and music. Their travels have taken them to all 50 states as well as to Europe, the Caribbean and New Zealand.
And they remember their roles in a war that began 50 years ago this September.
"It was exciting, it was educational,'' Virginia said. "It sort of took the timid part of me away. I was proud."
Link to Gravestone Photo
Madison Obituaries maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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