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Grace Avery Lillard papers

Call Number

MS 3069

Date

1915-1990 (bulk, 1943-1945), inclusive

Creator

Lillard, Grace Avery, 1919-1990

Extent

1.25 Linear feet (in 1 half-document box and 1 flat box)

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

A small collection documenting the World War II military experiences of Grace Avery Lillard (1919-1990), technician, 5th grade, Women's Army Corps (WAC) Detachment, 1st Tactical Air Force (Provisional), who served in England, France, and Germany, doing cryptography and clerical work dealing with signals. Includes her pocket Bible, some letters sent home from Europe, a detailed scrapbook of photographs and ephemera, and Lillard's typed account of the activities of her detachment between 1944 and 1945.

Biographical / Historical

Grace Avery Lillard was born on 7 June 1919 in McComb, Mississippi, the youngest of three daughters of Lewis Avery and Ada (Albin) Lillard. Her father was a conductor on the Illinois Central Railroad. Her sister Valena (or Lena) married H.R. Parker. Her sister Louise married Charles Saffell. Grace Lillard never married. She graduated in 1937 from McComb High School, and next studied for a year each at Hinds Junior College, in Raymond, Mississippi, and at Southwest Mississippi Junior College, in Summit. In 1941 she completed a bachelor's degree in history and art, at Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for Women) in Columbus. The college hired the recent graduate as laboratory assistant to Professor Amie Marietta Bynes in the art department, a position she held through 1942. Lillard retained an interest in art, and painted portraits and landscapes throughout her life.

On 16 January 1943, at Camp Shelby, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Grace Lillard enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) as an aviation cadet. As she told an interviewer many years later, "I just wanted to see what the Army life would be like or if I could measure up to it." She went through basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and at Camp Shanks in Orangetown, New York, where she learned how to crawl over a strip of land which might be under fire, how to use a gas mask, and how to abandon ship by climbing down a rope ladder slung off a high platform. She would rise to technician, 5th grade, WAC Detachment, 1st Tactical Air Force (Provisional). [After July 1943, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was known as the Women's Army Corps (WAC).]

Lillard was transported to Europe from New York on the troopship Argentina on 3 May 1944, reaching Scotland ten days later. Her tour would bring her to Stanmore, Middlesex, England, where her company did cryptography, message center, teletype, and clerical work dealing with signals. August brought her to Vittel, France, in the northeast corner of the country, where, in their scarce free time, many of the WACs volunteered at a military hospital, visiting patients, "getting them small things they needed such as writing paper, razors, pipes, cigarettes and candy, writing letters for those who could not[,] reading to others, and just doing what they could to lighten the mood of the wounded. Some of the girls were even trusted with the responsibility of feeding the more helpless." May 1945 brought Lillard to Germany, where she remained through the end of the war. The detachment received three combat stars representing Northern France, Central Europe, and the Rhineland Campaigns. Several individual members received the Bronze Star for meritorious service.

Back in the United States she was based in Washington D.C., where she worked for a time in the Department of State Library, with that collection's periodicals, and took painting lessons at the Corcoran School of Art. For 31 years she was with the U.S. Information Service, in the motion picture and television branch, where she was responsible for sending film provisions used in public relations activities to different embassies. She retired in 1975 as Field Coordinator Officer for East Asia and the Pacific.

After retirement Grace Lillard returned to her native Misssissippi to be closer to her family. She had an exhibition of her paintings at Methodist Hospital in Hattiesburg in the autumn of 1989. She died in Hattiesburg, age 71, on 19 June 1990.

==============================

This note is based on Lillard's typescript, "This is Your Story! An Account of the WAC Detachment 1st Tactical Air Force (Prov.)" (box 1, folder 20); her scrapbook (box 2); an article from the McComb, Mississippi Enterprise-Journal of 18 March 1948: "Thrilling Career of Grace Lillard of McComb, Former WAC and Now of Washington" (copy in box 1, folder 14); an article in the Hattiesburg (Mississippi) American of 18 September 1989: "At 70, Lillard puts her art on display" (copy in box 1, folder 14); and her obituary from the Hattiesburg American of 21 June 1990: "Artist-writer Grace Lillard dies at 71" (copy in box 1, folder 14).

Arrangement

The Grace Avery Lillard Papers are organized in two series:

Series I. Personal papers, 1915-1990
Series II. Women's Army Corps service, circa 1941-1945

The material is generally filed in chronological order within each series, except for the photographs in Series I, which are grouped at the end. Similarly, because of its size, the scrapbook in Series II is filed out of chronological order, at the end of that series.

Scope and Contents

The strength of the collection stems from its items documenting Grace Avery Lillard's World War II military experiences as technician, 5th grade, Women's Army Corps (WAC) Detachment, 1st Tactical Air Force (Provisional). These include her pocket Bible, letters sent home to her parents, and 9-page typescript account of her time in service—"This is Your Story! An Account of the WAC Detachment 1st Tactical Air Force (Prov.)"—written while stationed in Ansbach, Germany, near the end of the war in 1945. Lillard describes her basic training, her transport by troopship, accommodations in Europe, air-raid warnings, bombings, cryptographic work, and voluntary nursing at a military hospital. Lillard's scrapbook contains hundreds of photographs, virtually all of them identified, and many accompanied by ephemera, tickets, programs, newspaper clippings, maps, and receipts.

The collection also contains scattered material from Grace Lillard's civilian life, both before and after her WAC service, such as her 12th grade report card (1936–1937), a program signed by actress Jeannette MacDonald (1939), a chapbook of poems she wrote and self-published for friends (circa 1964), two passports with travel stamps for Croatia, Greece, and other European countries, and assorted photographs of family, friends, and Lillard herself, ranging in date from World War I to 1960.

Conditions Governing Access

Open to qualified researchers.

Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.)

Conditions Governing Use

This collection is owned by the New-York Historical Society. The copyright law of the United States governs the making of photocopies and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials. Unpublished materials created before 1 January 1978 cannot be quoted in publication without permission of the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the Grace Avery Lillard Papers, MS 3069, The New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchase, David M. Lesser, Fine Antiquarian Books, LLC, 2017.

Related Materials

The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library holds forty letters written by Martha L. Mills, a private in the WAC, dated August-December 1943 (see the Martha L. Mills Papers), and several WAAC recruitment posters in the New-York Historical Society Collection of World War II Posters, PR 55-8.

Collection processed by

Joseph Ditta

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:47:26 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: English

Processing Information

Archivist Joseph Ditta processed this collection in September-October 2018.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024