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Willa Walker Bean (b. 1919) of Columbia, South Carolina,served as a pharmacist and occupational therapist in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) from 1944-1945. Willa Walker Bean was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1919. She graduated from high school 1935 and graduated from Lander College in Greenwood, South Carolina with a BA in education. After college, she accepted a teaching job in Charleston, South Carolina. While in Charleston, Bean met her first husband, Jack Buntz, at a USO. Bean decided to join the WAVES. She completed basic training at Hunter College in New York. She then completed training in Bethesda, Maryland as an occupational therapist, and was subsequently assigned to Jacksonville, Florida. She received her military discharge after the end of World War II and moved to Oregon with her husband.