Pvt. Jennie George Lee

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.

Jennie Lee’s husband, half-brother, and father were already part of the war effort when she joined in 1944. Her husband, Kenneth Lee, was a warrant officer in the Merchant Marine; and her half-brother, William Robinson, Jr., was a Navy seaman serving abroad. Her father, Corporal Harry C. Green, was stationed in Virginia. She was first based at the Air Service Training Command Center.

Lee was born in Mount Vernon and moved to Yonkers as a child when her mother remarried. Before joining the service, she worked as a layout operator for the GM Eastern Aircraft Division in Tarrytown.