Front row: left to right: Lois Raskelly, Madeline Spelletich, Rosemary Schlak, Doris Finck and Betty Schmidt
Second row: Maxine Decker, Mable McNamara, Miriam Money, Ann Brooks, Barbra Bates, Fern Cather and Ensign Lucille Schoenfield
Third row: Mildred Filmer, Margarette Francis, Helen Crum, Sophie Peel, Margraten Goff and Betty Durand
Group of Enlistees in WAVES; Will Go to Hunter College Next Month
Shown above with Ensign Lucille Schoenfield, a recruiting officer, are some of the 36 girls who have enlisted in the WAVES, and received thier physical examinations Wednesday at the Hotel Blackhawk. They were sworn in by Lieut. William Black of Chicago, USN, with the exception of Miss McNamara, who will be sworn in next month when she has her 20th birthday.
Similar examinations are being held today for another group of 35 enlistees, secures during the 30-day campaign being conducted in the tri-cites.
One group of enlistees will leave for Hunter college in New York on Aug. 14; another group on Aug. 2; and still another on Aug. 28.
Source: The Daily Times, July 22, 1943 (photo included)
SISTERS -- Miss Mabel McNamara and Mrs. Gladys McNamara McGee, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. J.J. McNamara, 26 Oak Lane, will take their indoctrination training in the WAVES at Hunter college, New York City.
Miss McNamara left Davenport Monday for Chicago to be sworn in on her 20th birthday. Mrs. McGee expects to report at Hunter college on Saturday.
Both are graduates of the Immaculate Conception Academy, Miss McNamara was employed in the classified advertising department of The Democrat prior to her enlistment. She is a past president of the Gamma Theta club and is a pledge of Epsilon Mu chapter of Sigma Phi Gamma sorority. Mrs. McGee was employed at the Rock Island arsenal. She is a member of the Gamma chapter of Beta Alpha Beta sorority.
Source: The Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa, August 23, 1943 (photo included)
Letter to a Boy in Service
Take it from one who knows, the young ladies in the WAVES will be better office workers after the war because of their navy experience during the war. So speaks Yeoman 3/c Mabel McNamara, the ex-Democrat employee who has been doing things the navy way for five months, first at Hunter college and then at Iowa Teachers college in Cedar Falls.
"You certainly learn accuracy in the navy", she explains. "Everything is checked and double-checked and it is better to be right than be president."
Another little item which might be of concern to the wimmen. "I believe that long hair is doomed, anyway as far as the WAVES are concerned," Yeoman McNamara reports. "We have learned too much about bobbed hair."
However the young lady, who has yet to cast her first vote, disagrees somewhat with Yeoman Dolores Savage of Washington, D.C. regarding what will happen to women's dresses after the war. "when all this is over," says Yeoman McNamara, "I'm going to make a bee-line for something very effeminate.
The Davenporter and hundreds of other WAVES put in a full day at Cedar Falls. They are on the go form 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. Their liberty extends from 12 noon on Saturday until 11:30 p.m. and from 10 a.m. Sunday until 7:30.
The ladies have responded well to the navy discipline that there has been only one case of dishonorable discharge since Jan. 15, 1942 -- and since there is a turnover of 300 WAVES every month, that is quite a record. The WAVES stay in billets, four girls to a room with Yeoman McNamara are a WAVE from Utah, one from Idaho and one from Ohio.
Source: Quad City Times, January 2, 1944 (photo included)
