VAN WAGNER-VIOLET

WORLD  WAR  ONE  WOMAN  MARINE

In mid 1918, the demands of World War One were at an all-time high resulting in a shortage of trained Marine Corps personnel who could be sent to France.  Accordingly, the Secretary of the Navy inquired into the legal statutes regarding naval enlistments and found no legal basis for excluding women under naval law as references to enlistment referred only to “persons.”  Thus, on August 2, 1918, the Secretary authorized authority to “enroll women in the Marine Corps Reserves for clerical duty at Headquarters Marine Corps and at other Marine Corps offices in the United States where their services might be utilized to replace men who may be qualified for active field service.”

News of the order spread like wild-fire and on August 13, 1918, when recruiting offices across the country were authorized to begin enlistments, women flooded into the offices.  Violet Van Wagner was one of the women who responded to the Marine Corp’s advertisements and was among a group of seven women sworn in at the recruiting station in New York City on August 17, 1918.  As the women were sworn in as privates, the group was photographed dressed in a man’s uniform as no woman’s uniforms had yet been produced.

Historical records reflect Violet Van Wagner was born during 1900 in Brooklyn, New York, one of six children.  She grew up in Brooklyn, attended Public School 134 and was graduated from Bay Ridge High School.  Her commercial courses fitted her to meet the rigorous selection standards for Marine Corps stenographers and she was assigned as a stenographer in the Adjutant and Inspector’s Department of Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C.  Prior to the Armistice on November 11, 1918, she was advanced to the rank of sergeant, the highest rank then accessible to the Women Marines.  As such, she paraded before Secretary of the Navy and his Assistant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the final review performed on July 30, 1919, when the Women Marines were released to inactive duty.  However, Violet continued employment at Marine Corps Headquarters as a civilian civil servant until 1926.  By 1928 she had become an employee in the public relations department of the Long Lines Division of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York City where she remained until 1965.  During retirement she was an active member of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Women Marines Association and was the only Woman Marine from World War One in attendance at the Association’s convention at Denver in July 1990.

Following her service in World War One, Violet married Jose Lopez.  During 1992, Violet Van Wagner Lopez died and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery where her memorial marker carries the inscription:  SGT – USMC.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)