Mary Jewel Barlow served in a segregated battalion of postal clerks during the war.

She was born in 1923 in Hartford, Connecticut, to Boce William Barlow and Etheline Maddox Barlow. Her father ran a lunch room and her mother was a laundress. They raised Mary and her three older siblings: Boce Jr., Edith, and Catherine.

Nicknamed “Scrumpie,” Mary graduated from Hartford’s Weaver High School in 1941. Her school yearbook remembered her as:

“A live wire . . . shines as a jitterbug . . . personality full of fun, wit, and laughter . . . numerous and true friends.”

She enlisted in the Army Women’s Corps in 1944. A private 1st class, her service number was A-130463.

She served with the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, also known as the “6-Triple-8.” The motto of the 885 female Black postal clerks was: “No mail, low morale.”

The battalion was sent to England in February 1945 to clear up a huge backlog of mail. WAC Mary Ragland told the Washington Post in 2009:

“Some people didn’t understand about addressing letters, so they would just write a letter to their son or husband addressed ‘To Junior, U.S. Army’ or ‘To Sam, Army.’ It was our job to figure out who those soldiers were and get them their mail.”

The job was expected to take six months. The “6-Triple-8” finished in three. They were sent to Rouen, France, to tackle a similar backlog.

On July 8, 1945, PFC Barlow (left) – along with fellow WACs Dolores Browne and Mary Bankston – died in a jeep accident in Rouen.

Their commanding officer collected money to pay for coffins made by German POWs instead of burying the three women in army-issue pine boxes.

“We had women who had worked in funeral parlors before,” WAC Abbie Campbell later recalled. “They fixed the ladies up beautifully.”

The WACs were buried in Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, three of only four women buried in the cemetery.

Mary J Barlow