Title	[Portrait of Virginia Gardner Becker, 1943]
Date	1943
Subject headings	World War, 1939-1945 United States. Navy--Women
Era	World War II era (1940-1946)
Service branch	Navy--WAVES
Item description	Formal portrait of Virginia Becker in WAVES uniform, circa August 1943.
Veteran's name	Becker, Virginia Gardner
Veteran's biography	Virginia Becker (1919-2013) of Murfreesboro, North Carolina, a longtime bookkeeper, served in the U.S. 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 continued 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.
Type	image
Original format	photographs
Image type	Formal portrait
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	WV0053 Virginia Gardner Becker Papers
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	WV0053.6.003
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	900810471

[Portrait of Virginia Gardner Becker, 1943]

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