Dorothy Bates Commissioned As WAVE Ensign
Columbus Junction -- Dorothy M. Bates, daughter of Mrs. Frank Gipple of the Spring Run community was graduated as an ensign Nov. 16 as the Officer Candidate School for WAVES at Smith college, Northampton, Mass.
She is a graduate of the Morning Sun high school and the University of California and enlisted in the WAVES Dec. 15, 1942. Her boot training was received at Cedar Falls, Ia. after which she was in service at Washington, D.C. and Sugar Creek, O. where she was recommended for officer training. Prior to entering the service she as employed as a secretary in the purchasing department of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in San Francisco.
Source: Muscatine Journal News-Tribune, November 24, 1943
DOROTHY BATES PROMOTED
Columbus Junction, Ia. -- Dorothy M. Bates, WAVES, daughter of Mrs. Frank Gipple, has been promoted from ensign to lieutenant, junior grade, at Skaggs Island, Sonoma, Calif., where she is stationed. Her brother, Pvt. Ronald M. Bates on furlough after 30 months overseas, visited her recently returning to his unit after a visit here.
Source: Quad City Times, March 27, 1945
SERVES IN 'FRISCO -- Lieut (j.g.) Dorothy M. Bates, daughter of Mrs. Frank Gipple, of Columbus Junction, in the WAVES since December, 1942, is now stationed in San Francisco. She was given basic training at Iowa State Teachers College, Cedar Falls. One of her brothers, Maj. Joseph P. Bates, in the army since the fall of 1942, went to Pearl Harbor in May 1944 and has been at Iwo Jima since February this year.
Another bother, Ronald G. Bates, has been discharged after having served in the Pacific for 31 months.
Source: Quad City Times, September 2, 1945 (photo included)
Dorothy May Bates Searls was born Feb. 6, 1915 to Joseph E. and Bessie Holland Bates. She died Feb. 18, 2007.
Dorothy served in World War II with the U.S. Navy WAVES.
Source: ancestry.com
