Waterloo's First Woman Officer
Graduated with 435 others, Miss Marion C. Lichty, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Burr G. Lichty, 1481 Newell street, Saturday earned her commission as third officer in the Women's Army Auxiliary corps after six weeks training at Fort Des Moines, Ia. Only five other Iowans graduated: Clara C. Han and Helen E. Hanson, Des Moines; Dorothy A. Tomhave, Estherville; Helen Lloyd-Jones, Mason City and Mary S. Bell, Cedar Rapids.
Source: The Courier, August 30, 1942
Helen Lloyd Jones Reaches Captaincy
Helen Lloyd Jones, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Jones, of 104 River Heights drive, received on May 1 a promotion to first officer (captain) from second officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
First Officer Lloyd Jones is the commanding officer of the 38th WAAC post headquarters company. The thirty-eighth company arrived at Fort Knox, Ky., on Jan. 30, the first to be assigned to active duty in the fifth service command.
Inducted into the WAAC on July 11 at Chicago, First Officer Lloyd Jones went to the officers candidate school at Fort Des Moines, and was graduated on Aug. 29. She was second in command when the first WAAC company was activated. In a short time, she was first in command. When the 38th WAAC company was assigned to Fort Knox, First Officer Lloyd Jones was in command.
Source: Mason City Globe-Gazette, May 5, 1943 (photo included)
THE ARTIST'S WAC
Capt. Helen Lloyd-Jones is cousin of architect Frank Lloyd Wright
It's safe to say that Fort Knox has one of the best-looking Wac officers in the country. Capt. Helen Lloyd Jones, who commands the 3,564th Service unit is a stately blonde with the clear features they always use in posters when they want to depict the ideal American girl. The other Wacs probably spend a lot of time trying to look like her.
That fresh, modern look must come by inheritance. She is the cousin of one of the most modern thinking men in the country: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect who designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokio, built loosely to withstand earthquakes; the Johnson Wax factory, which looks like stacks of phonograph records, and houses overhanging waterfalls or held to the side of cliffs as if by suction.
Mr. Wright is not a man to mince words in public. He often made headlines in various localities by denouncing those things the natives cherish most. Traditional architecture comes in for scathing chiefly. He once threw Captain Lloyd-Jones' home state, Iowa, into hysterics with some nasty comments about the State Capitol. For such tactless social behavior, his cousin has only amused tolerance. "He does it to attract attention," explains Captain Lloyd-Jones. "If he said he liked everything, nobody would notice him."
Captain Lloyd-Jones was in the first class of Wac officers to be graduated form the Fort Des Moines. After that she was in charge of a company billeted in a Des Moines hotel, and seven moths ago she came to Fort Knox.
After the war, Captain Lloyd-Jones may return to her old love, science. That was her major at Iowa State Collage. Just before joining up she worked in Chicago for the American Medical Association, testing medicines.
She didn't have to go far to go for Wac training. Her home is in Mason City, Iowa, about 100 miles from Des Moines. But, as one of the buffer Wacs, she often felt strange even in familiar Iowa. "We were very conspicuous at first," says Captain Lloyd-Jones. "You see, we were not only new to Des Moines. We were new to ourselves. Now it's different. Nobody notices us any more."
Source: The Courier Journal, [Louisville] August 28, 1943 (two photos included)
Former Girls Scouts Go to War
War Brings Out Work's Importance
Girl Scouts of Mason City together with almost a million girls are celebrating the 32nd birthday of Girl Scouting in the U.S. 12th year of organization in Mason City.
[excerpt]
With the nation at war many former Scouts are new serving with the women's branches of the armed forces and have testified as to the value of what they learned as children in the Scout troops. Outstanding examples in Mason City are Helen Lloyd Jones, Myrne Donaldson Monaghan and Anastasia Pappas.
Source: Globe-Gazette, Mason City IA - March 11, 1944 (photo included)
MASON CITY WAC TESTS "SEEP" -- Pvt. Mary Setter (left) Cedar Rapids, and Capt. Helen Lloyd Jones (right) daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Lloyd Jones, 104 River Heights, Mason City, are typical enlisted and commissioned WACs on duty at Fort Knox, Ky. Private Setter is taking a "seep" (amphibious "jeep") to the post motor pool after a trial run.
Source: Mason City Globe-Gazette, March 31, 1944 (photo included)
ON LEAVE -- Capt. Helen Lloyd Jones of the women's army corps, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Lloyd Jones, 104 River Heights, arrived in Mason City Sunday for a short holiday visit with her family. Capt. Lloyd Jones is now stationed at Crile general hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, where she commands a company of WACs. She will return to Cleveland on Jan. 2.
Source: Mason City Globe-Gazette, Dec. 27, 1944 (photo included)
