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Josephine Martin Flynn Collection

WVHP

Collection finding aid (offsite)

Josephine Martin Flynn (1919-2006) of Henderson, North Carolina, was one of the first officers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, serving in the army from September 1942 to August 1946. Josephine Martin Flynn was born in Henderson, North Carolina, on 18 February 1919 to Eva Waite Martin, a music teacher, and Joseph Buie Martin. She graduated from Henderson High School and attended Peace Junior College in Raleigh, North Carolina, for two years. Flynn transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her last two years and graduated in 1940. She then taught school for two years. In the summer of 1942, Flynn applied for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) Officer Candidate School (OCS). In September 1942 she became a member of the second class at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She taught supply courses at the school for one year before becoming a recruiter in Charlotte, North Carolina. Flynn also taught at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and supervised Women's Army Corps (WAC) training all over the country while stationed in the Pentagon. In 1944 Flynn was placed in charge of all civilian personnel at Camp Beale, California, where she remained until her discharge on 13 August 1946. In the fall of 1946 Flynn entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the GI Bill and completed a master's degree in personnel. She married her husband in 1950 and they moved to Greensboro, where Josephine Flynn worked in non-academic personnel at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She became the executive director of the Cancer Society and then worked in the Child Health Program of the Health Department. Josephine Flynn died on 15 September 2006.

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