Virginia Gardner Becker Collection

Only a part of this collection has been digitized.

17 March 1999 oral history transcript; Black leather WAVES pocketbook (shoulder bag) with name written on inside label; WAVES navy blue wool havelock, circa 1943 with name written on seam label; "Sounding Off" Newsletter June 29- July 27, 1943 5 Issues; Graduation Program Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School, Northampton; Massachusetts dated June 29, 1943; Naval Supply Corps School Certificate dated January 10,1944; Navy WAVES Recruiting Mailer; Navy WAVES Midshipmen's School Yearbook from 1943-1944; Navy Supply School Regulations from October 1943; Navy Supply Corps School Publications Bulletin from September 1943; United States Naval Air Station Quonset Point, RI Cruise Book, 1944; 3 photographs of Audrey in WAVES uniform, circa 1943-1945.

Virginia Becker (1919-2013), of Murfreesboro, North Carolina, a longtime bookkeeper, served in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) from June 1943 until October 1945. Virginia Gardner Becker was born in 1919 and grew up in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. She attended Chowan Junior College and graduated from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) in 1940. She worked at Thomasville Chair Company after graduation." In June 1943 Becker joined the WAVES as an ensign and completed basic training at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in July 1943. She was assigned to temporary duty in Scotia, New York, until she could attend Supply and Disbursing School at Harvard University in October 1943. In January 1944, she became assistant officer in charge of the Commissary Store at the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. On 20 April 20 1945 she married Bernie Becker, an employee of Pratt Reed Company, but she remained in the WAVES until 31 October 1945. She was discharged as a full lieutenant. After the end of World War II, Becker and her husband lived in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Maryland before settling in Martinsville, Virginia, with their three children. Becker spent many years working as a bookkeeper, first for a tobacco company and later for a church. She died on 19 September 2013 in Martinsville, Virginia.

Women's History
Military
Schools and Colleges

Navy -- WAVES

World War II era (1940-1946)

World War, 1939-1945
United States. Navy--Women

Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries