Another Ford Girl joins WAACS
“Another Ford Girl Joins WAACS.” Military Career and Life in Japan, 1943-1946, Grace F. Thorpe Collection, National Museum of the American Indian.
Grace Thorpe joins WAACS
“Grace Thorpe Joins WAACS.” Military Career and Life in Japan, 1943-1946, Grace F. Thorpe Collection, National Museum of the American Indian.
Grace Thorpe with Margaret Mead
Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Grace with Margaret Mead, August 1976. Grace F. Thorpe Collection, National Museum of the American Indian.
Grace Thorpe was born in Yale, Oklahoma, on December 10, 1921. Grace’s parents gave her a Native American name inspired by her great-grandmother, No Teno Quah. Later in life, Grace would explain the name refers to the power of the wind before a storm. Grace’s mother, Iva Miller, was Cherokee. Her father, Jim Thorpe, was Sac and Fox and a world-famous athlete. He won two Olympic medals in 1912 in the pentathlon and decathlon, and he played both baseball and football professionally. Jim and Iva met as students at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. They had four children: Gail, James, Charlotte, and Grace.
In 1923, Grace’s parents divorced. Her father moved to California to pursue a career in the movies. Her mother worked in an assortment of jobs to support her family. Grace spent time living with both parents and maintained a relationship with each of them. She attended the all-girls boarding school Saint Mary’s Academy in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma. She then transferred to the Haskell Institute, a boarding school for American Indian students in Lawrence, Kansas.
Like many young women at the start of World War II, Grace felt compelled to contribute to the war effort. In 1943, she briefly worked in a factory at the Ford Motor Company. She then joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) program. She felt that it was important to serve one’s country and hoped she might be sent to serve abroad. Grace completed basic training in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and achieved the rank of corporal. She was assigned to recruit more WAACs in Arizona and Oregon.