Pioneer US Military Figure. The last surviving American female veteran of World War I, and the oldest woman military veteran. In 1916, at age nineteen, Winters met with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and helped persuade him to allow women in the service. She enlisted immediately after America's entry into World War I and was assigned to a stateside naval gun production facility. Upon her discharge after the war she continued to work as a secretary for the US Navy in Washington, D.C., attaining the rank of yeoman second class before her retirement in 1953. Winters was a member of the American Legion for eight decades and one of 20 enlisted Naval Reserve women who founded one of the first Legion posts in Washington, D.C. She also helped found the National Yeoman in 1926, an organization for the discharged veterans of that rank. She served as its eighth commander from 1940 to 1941. Winters died at a nursing home at age 109.
Pioneer US Military Figure. The last surviving American female veteran of World War I, and the oldest woman military veteran. In 1916, at age nineteen, Winters met with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and helped persuade him to allow women in the service. She enlisted immediately after America's entry into World War I and was assigned to a stateside naval gun production facility. Upon her discharge after the war she continued to work as a secretary for the US Navy in Washington, D.C., attaining the rank of yeoman second class before her retirement in 1953. Winters was a member of the American Legion for eight decades and one of 20 enlisted Naval Reserve women who founded one of the first Legion posts in Washington, D.C. She also helped found the National Yeoman in 1926, an organization for the discharged veterans of that rank. She served as its eighth commander from 1940 to 1941. Winters died at a nursing home at age 109.
Bio by: Elizabeth Reed
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