Pvt. Dorothy Spaulding

In 1943 artist Francis V. Kughler, Hudson River Museum Director H. Armour Smith and Women’s Army Corps recruiter Joanne Coates conceived a plan to encourage women of Yonkers to enlist in the army and honor their contribution. Every Yonkers woman who joined the WACs would have her portrait made in oil or pastel by Kughler.

No stranger to sacrifice for your country, Dorothy Spaulding lost her soldier brother, Sgt. Ralph Spaulding, when he was killed in action in October 1944, just a few months before she enlisted.

Their mother had died before the war, and before Dorothy Spaulding signed up for the WAC, she was living at the Y.W.C.A. and working at the Commodore Restaurant. She told her enlistment officer “I chose the Medical Department because I feel that their need is the greatest and I can do more good there than anywhere else.”