Evelyn McBride was never afraid to put herself out there. She performed in front of cameras, danced on the stage in front of live audiences, moved across the country twice, became a single mother and then when asked, put herself in danger for her country.

Born in 1911 in California and named Evelyn Lucille Nicholas, her parents were Nelson G. Nicholas and Gladys M. Bell, both residents of California.[i] Nelson and Gladys married on May 27, 1912. Her parents divorced.

Growing up, Evelyn lived some with her widowed grandmother, Martha “Mattie” Dermody Bell. In 1920, she was eight years old and living with her grandmother in Los Angeles. Her uncles, Leon T. Bell, and Samuel J. Bell, both in their 20s, also lived in the house. Mattie had immigrated to America from Canada in 1872 and became a citizen in 1896. Uncle Leon worked as a pipe fitter for an oil company while Uncle Samuel was a driver for a lumber company.[ii] Evelyn’s Uncle Leon wasn’t just a pipe fitter and WWI vet. He was also a professional baseball player in Vancouver, Canada, a profession he was involved in by 1922.

Sometime in the 1920s, Evelyn’s father, Nelson Nicholas enters a second marriage to Mary Holmes Sylvia. From this marriage, Evelyn gains two half-sisters, Joy Naida Nicholas Perry, 1920, and Gloria Jean Nicholas Cantopulos Erickson, 1924.[iii]

Around this same time, Evelyn’s talent for dancing begins to show up. She appeared at the Hotel Virginia dancing with other children in a show in the fall of 1920, according to a Los Angeles newspaper.[iv]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

Evelyn Nicholas was known to many of her era as Doris Duffy, her stage name as a professional dancer. She appeared in popular musical productions in Los Angeles under the name Doris Duffy or Evelyn Nicholas.[v]

In 1922, she’s eleven years old and is a headlining performer at Redondo Art Theatre in Redondo, California. One advertisement for the vaudeville show reads “Evelyn Nicholas, A Redondo Beach Girl in Dances Up-to-Date.” Evelyn is the only named performer in the print ad.[vi]

She makes the news again at age 13 when she makes a surprise dance appearance at a party thrown by her Uncle Leon’s wife. Described as a professional dancer from Hollywood, recently studying dance in Seattle, Evelyn performed for the crowd. She gave dance numbers to Humoresque, Thais, a Spanish dance, and several jazz numbers.[vii]

In 1928, Evelyn Nicholas appeared in Abie’s Irish Rose, a comedy first appearing as a stage play but then produced as both a silent film and a talkie. Credits list her in the part of the maid of honor.[viii]

Another film credit, “What a Night,” was a silent film that was a farce comedy produced by Paramount in 1928. It featured Evelyn dancing. A Los Angeles Times review of the film in May of 1929 describes the most enjoyable feature as the stage show portion also noting “A bright young dancer is Doris Duffy.”[ix]

Evelyn’s granddaughter, Janet McGee, said to this day she looks to spot her grandmother in Laurel and Hardy movies.

In May of 1929, she made the Los Angeles news under her Doris Duffy name. The headline ”Dancer Ill from Poison Will Live” was probably not the kind of publicity she wanted.[x] As the nation was barreling toward the Great Depression, Evelyn told police she was “despondent because she was out of work.” According to the article, she was rushed from her apartment to Receiving Hospital for treatment that saved her life.[xi] The Los Angeles Evening Express ran the story under the headline “Jobless Dancer, 19, Woos Death with Poison; Will Live.”

On Christmas Eve, six months later, her intention to marry appeared in the Los Angeles Evening Express.[xii] Her wedding made the society pages of San Francisco, “McKay [sic], Ball Player Weds Film Dancer.” Nineteen-year-old Evelyn rang out the old year of 1929 by becoming a Mrs. She married Duncan Fleming MacKay, 21. The wedding was on December 30, 1929[xiii] in Los Angeles with her Uncle Samuel as a witness and a Superior Court Judge presiding. The newspaper article reported on Doris Duffy, her stage name, marrying MacKay.

The young couple, she a show-business dancer and he a professional ball player, made a home in a rental house in San Francisco in 1930. Duncan had been born in Washington state. That spring, Duncan was playing professional baseball as a pitcher for the San Francisco Mission Reds. Mission Reds represented San Francisco’s Mission District from 1926-1937.[xiv] In the summer of 1930, he was playing in the Arizona State League for Tucson, but by the end of July they had released him.[xv]

On October 1930, they welcomed a baby girl into their lives and named her Lorelei MacKay (Jordan).

The couple moved to Seattle, Washington sometime prior to 1935.[xvi] In 1940, the couple were settled there, and Lorelei was attending the 4th grade. Evelyn’s husband had taken a job as the personnel manager at a can manufacturing company while Evelyn worked in retail sales for a department store.[xvii] The couple divorce between 1940 and August of 1943.

Evelyn remarries to John Frances McBride of Philadelphia. There are two marriage certificates. The first is dated August 7, 1943 in Riverside County California. The second is from Washoe County, Nevada on February 9th, 1944.[xviii] According to a newspaper article about her death, her husband was in the military and serving in Europe.

Before she enlisted in the army, she was living in Travis County, Texas. According to her enlistment record, she had two years of college and had been working as a file clerk.[xix]

HER MILITARY STORY

Evelyn became one of the many recruits in Austin, Texas which is in Travis County, where she was living. An article in the Austin American Sun listed her name as one of the women who stepped forward to volunteer. It said, “Women have volunteered by the dozens, yet despite the enlistment figure, hundreds more are needed… Named below are Austin women who have enlisted during 1944, women to whom Austin citizens will pause and pay tribute, women in olive drab who are getting in their “two cents” worth now when it is needed most…Evelyn L. McBride.”

Evelyn L. McBride, service number A-818725[xx], served in the Women’s Army Corp, WACS. Evelyn enlisted on June 12, 1944 in Camp Swift in Bastrop, Texas as a private. She served in the 1202nd Army Air Force Base Unit, WACS.

According to HonorStates.org, the women who were in the 1202nd were older, with an average age of 28, than the usual recruit and were chosen for their “maturity and work experience.”

In November of 1944, Evelyn was one of 159 WACs in Accra, British West Africa to serve with the Air Transport Command. Their job was to deliver troops and supplies as well as transfer aircraft.[xxi]

HER LAST DAY

PFC Evelyn L. McBride was with 17 other women of the Women’s Army Corp on a normally routine 776- mile[xxii] flight from Accra, British West Africa to Robert’s Field[xxiii], Liberia. The WACs were onboard as they were being transferred to a new assignment. There were scattered showers that morning but no other weather of note.[xxiv]

Her plane, piloted by a crew of three[xxv], a C-478 #44-76406, disappeared.[xxvi]

The plane was last reported over Takoradi, British West Africa, about 150 miles west of Accra, shortly after departure.[xxvii]

Little is known about what transpired aboard the plane that day but several calls of “Mayday,” an emergency procedure used as a voice distress signal, were heard. The distress signal was loud and clear, lasting five minutes.[xxviii] A search was conducted by aircraft and surface craft over a wide area of the French Ivory Coast.[xxix] The search consisted of seven PET’s and British, French, and Native forces, who were informed to search waters and coastline. No sign of the plane was found.

The plane is believed to have crashed into the sea near Takordi, Ghana.[xxx] The Chicago Tribune reported the “[xxxi]18 WACs were the first ever reported lost overseas.”

She went missing on May 30, 1945 and was declared dead while missing in action off the coast of Ghana, Africa.[xxxii] News of the missing plane made newspapers across America on June 6th, 1945. Her hometown paper The Los Angeles Times reported her demise under the headline “WACs from here missing on trip.”[xxxiii]

Her mother, Gladys Bell, was notified by the War Department via telegram that said, in part, “The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your daughter PFC Evelyn L was killed 30 May 45.”

The newspaper account reports her husband was overseas with the military and her daughter, Lorelei, 12, was living in Seattle.[xxxiv]

Evelyn was 35.

COMMENDATIONS

Purple Heart

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign[xxxv]

MEMORIALS

On June 16, 1945, a memorial service for the missing women was held by the WACs’ leadership in Portman Square in London and over 660 WACs attended.[xxxvi]

PFC Evelyn L. McBride is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing, an American Battle Monument, North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage Tunisia.

AFTER THE WAR

Evelyn McBride’s daughter, Lorelei Mackay Jordan, continued living in Seattle, married and had a family. Lorelei’s daughter/Evelyn’s granddaughter, Janet McGee, holds on to many photos, mementos and memories of the grandmother she didn’t get to know. We thank her for sharing some of those with this project.