She entered the Navy Nurse Corps in March 1909 and served in Naval medical facilities in the United States and in the Philippines during the years prior to World War I. She was a Chief Nurse at Navy Base Hospital # 1, in Brest, France, in 1918-19, and served as an Assistant Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps in 1923-30. Subsequent assignments included duty at Great Lakes, San Diego, and Philadelphia.
After 2 1/2 years of civilian nursing, she became a Navy Nurse in February 1937 and was first stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station Hospital, Great Lakes, Illinois. In 1939, she was transferred to San Diego Naval Hospital.
During the course of her 43-year career, Ms. McNeal Kenny received NSA’s two highest awards: the Meritorious Civilian Service Award (1980) and the Exceptional Civilian Service Award (1984).
Eunice Russell Willson Rice was a pioneering US Navy cryptologist who successfully broke Italian and Japanese codes during WWII.
Rosamond D. Selle joined the Navy’s Women’s Reserve in September 1942 and was commissioned as one of the early WAVES officers. She was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in October 1943 and to Lieutenant Commander in October 1945. She remained in the Naval Reserve until at least 1949.
Maureen Baginski began her cryptologic career as a Russian Language instructor in 1979. During her tenure, Ms. Baginski held various operational management positions, including a tour as a Senior Operations Officer in the National Security Operations Center and the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) National Intelligence Officer for Russia.
Shirley Feldstein enlisted in the WAVES at Portland, Oregon, in September 1942. She received training at Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Norman, Oklahoma, during the first part of 1943 and was a member of the initial group of WAVES to become Aviation Metalsmiths. Later, she served in that rate at Naval Air Station, Seattle (Sand Point), Washington.
Mabel Nora Croft enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in September 1918. She served during and after the First World War with two other Yeomen (F) who had joined the Navy with her, Cora Dell Croft and Frances Gormley, at the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C.
Mary Louise Prather joined the Signal Intelligence Service in 1938 and was named the chief of the Soviet Information Division in 1960. In 1969 she received the Meritorious Civilian Service Award.
In February 1946, Commander Hancock became the Assistant Director (Plans) of the Women’s Reserve and was promoted to WAVES’ Director, with the rank of Captain, in July of that year. She guided the WAVES through the difficult years of Naval contraction in the later 1940s and the expansion of the early 1950s, a period that also saw the Navy’s women achieve status as part of the Regular Navy.