Evelyn Maxine Newcom Pierce (b. 1922) of Herrin, Illinois, served in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) from 1943 to 1964, and then worked at Southern Illinois University until the mid-1980s. Evelyn Maxine Newcom Pierce was born on 21 September 1922 in Freeman Spur, Illinois, the youngest of seven children. Pierce graduated from high school in Herrin, Illinois, in 1940 and began working in personnel at the nearby Illinois Ordnance Plant." Pierce enlisted in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in the fall of 1943. She completed four weeks of boot camp at Hunter College in the Bronx, New York, and then attended yeoman school at the Naval Training Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma, for three months. In early 1944, Pierce was assigned to the Navy Recruiting Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she performed clerical and then public relations work for almost three years. She remained in Philadelphia after World War II, at the 4th Naval District and then the Aviation Supply Office, where she was the information and education officer until going on inactive duty." Pierce volunteered to be reactivated and was assigned to 6th Naval District Reserve Recruiting in Charleston, South Carolina, where she did worked as an office assistant. Following completion of recruiting school in Norfolk, Virginia, Peirce was stationed in St. Louis, Missouri, as a recruiter. Several years later she was transferred to the officer personnel office at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. In June 1957, Pierce went to Washington, D.C., as the chief yeoman for the director of women in the navy, Winifred Quick. She remained there until November 1959, when she was assigned to the United States Navy Training Center in San Diego, California. Pierce left San Diego for Moffett Field, California, in 1961, and retired from there in 1964. Pierce returned to Illinois after she retired from the navy, and worked in the Office of Research Development and Administration at Southern Illinois University for twenty years. Pierce retired from the university in the mid-1980s.
