From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (African American Women Veterans in and from Kentucky)

Owens, Dorothea Mae

(born: July 26, 1920 - died: February 28, 2000)

Subject

Women's Army Corps (WACs)

Migration North

Military and Veterans

World War II

Military Branch

Women's Army Corps

Active Duty Entered

July 20, 1944

Active Duty Exit

July 3, 1946

Exit Rank

Tech 4

Notes

Dorothea Mae Owens enlisted in the Army in New York City, according to her record in the National Archives, Access to Archival Databases. She was born in Louisville, KY, the daughter of Pearl H. Riley and John W. Owens. A graduate of Kentucky State College [now Kentucky State University], she left Kentucky and moved to New York.

When she joined the Army in 1944, Dorothea Mae was living in Rochester, NY, working as an elevator operator at the Genesee Valley Trust Company. In October 1944, she had completed her basic training at Fort Des Moines, IA and was transferred to Halloran General Hospital in New York City where she would be a typist.

After her military service, Dorothea returned to Rochester, NY, where she died in 2000. She is buried in the Riverside Cemetery.

Sources: U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index in Ancestry; U.S. Veterans' Gravesites in Ancestry; Dorothea M. Owens in Polk's Frankfort (Franklin County, KY.) City Directory, 1942, p. 166; Dorothea Owens in Polk's Rochester Monroe County, N. Y.) City Directory, 1944, p. 648; and "Pvt Dorothea Mae Owens," Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 10/16/1944, p. 9.