Thank you to Mississippi Maritime Museum for posting this on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/msmaritimemuseum/posts/2218088951781641.
Dr. Olivia Hooker was laid to rest yesterday after crossing the bar for the final time at age 103. She was a Coast Guard trailblazer and national treasure. In 1945, Dr. Hooker became the first African-American woman to enlist in the Coast Guard. Members past and present from around the country came to White Plains, New York, to celebrate her life.
You can read more about her life on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Hooker. Thank you Dr. Hooker for your service.
You can pay your respects to her on Find-A-Grave at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195158837/olivia-j_-hooker and https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/194877057/olivia-juliette-hooker (they will probably merge the two memorials soon).
If you are in the area, you can visit the cemetery at https://billiongraves.com/cemetery/Rural-Cemetery/71093 (GPS on Find-A-Grave put the cemetery at 41.04832, -73.77032 which is slightly off, but should get you close enough), you can also check it out at http://www.whiteplainsruralcemetery.com/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Plains_Rural_Cemetery.
To learn more about the Coast Guard, you can visit https://www.uscg.mil/.
My uncle served in the Coast Guard, joining in early 1940 and saw service in the Pacific Theater during World War II. I have a nephew who is in the Coast Guard. I believe it’s still there my hometown had a Coast Guard cutter when I was growing up. Used to be across from the a large park area. It later moved west a few blocks, and I always looked to see if the cutter was in port when we went crabbing or to the beach.
Ups Downs Family History 