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[African American WAACs or WACs and soldiers at a party; circa 1942-1945]

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[African American WAACs or WACs and soldiers at a party; circa 1942-1945]

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Title	[African American WAACs or WACs and soldiers at a party; circa 1942-1945]
Date	1942-1945
Date approximate?	yes
Subject headings	World War, 1939-1945 United States. Army--Women
Era	World War II era (1940-1946)
Service branch	Army--WAAC Army--WAC
Item description	African American WAACs or WACs and soldiers dance at a party. Three couples are on the dance floor as a band plays and others watch. The man furthest to the left is a sergeant; circa 1942-1945.
Veteran's name	Wertz, Irma Jackson Cayton
Veteran's biography	Irma Jackson Cayton Wertz (1911-2007) of Detroit, Michigan, served as an officer in African American units of the WAAC and later WAC from 1942-1945. Irma Jackson Cayton Wertz was born 8 May 1911 in Brunswick, Georgia to a military family. Her father was a physician and served during World War I. She attended Atlanta and Fisk Universities, and while at school met her future husband Horace R. Cayton. They were married in 1935 in Chicago and would divorce and remarry again before their final divorce during the war. In 1942, she entered the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) as part of the first Officer Training School for African American Women. Upon completion of her training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, Wertz was briefly stationed at WAAC Headquarters in Washington, D.C., before being reassigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona and the Thirty-second WAAC (later, WAC) Post Headquarters Company. While at Fort Huachuca, Wertz fought for better assignments for WACs, who were frequently given assignments unequal to their skills and training. In 1944 she was promoted to Captain and relocated to Fort Lewis, Washington as commander of a WAC unit there. She was discharged upon the end of the war, in 1945. Wertz met her second husband, William Jackson Wertz, while at Fort Huachuca. They married in 1944, and after the war moved to Mexico City. Under the GI Bill, Wertz returned to school to obtain a second master’s degree while her husband studied to be a doctor. Their son Jack was born in 1948. In 1954 the family settled in Detroit, Michigan, where Wertz became an active volunteer. She was president of the Detroit Council of the Parent Teacher Association, served on the board of the Detroit Repertory Theatre, and also volunteered with the Visiting Nurses Association and the Detroit Receiving Hospital Service League. She died on 20 February 2007.
Type	Image
Original format	photographs
Original publisher	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]
Contributing institution	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
Source collection	WV0523 Irma Jackson Cayton Wertz Papers, 1942-1945
Box	1
Folder	1: Photographs
Finding aid link	https://libapps.uncg.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=655
Rights statement	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Additional rights information	IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the rights holder noted above for permission to reuse.
Object ID	WV0523.6.002
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 -- http://library.uncg.edu/
OCLC number	926116571

[African American WAACs or WACs and soldiers at a party; circa 1942-1945]

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