TO RECRUIT SPARS HERE -- Ensign Betty Baur and Yeoman Third Class Mary Leffler, will arrive in Davenport Thursday to open a recruiting campaign for the SPARS, women's auxiliary to the U.S. Coast Guard. Recruiting headquarters will be established in the ground floor store space in Hotel Blackhawk, Third and Perry Streets, in the quarters recently occupied by the WAVES. Recruits will be sent to Palm Beach, Fla, for training at the $10,000,000 Palm Beach Biltmore hotel, "Millionaires Paradise."
Source: The Daily Times, August 25, 1943 (photo included)
PARROT AIDS RECRUITING -- Here's a parrot, owned by a coast guardsman and who has sailed seven seas who is serving for his country. He is aiding the SPARS in their recruiting campaign by telling all who visit the recruiting headquarters at Hotel Blackhawk to "Join the SPARS". Miss Mary Leffler, yeoman, third class, one of the recruiters, is shown with the bird.
Source: The Daily Times, August 31, 1943 (photo included)
FIRST RECRUIT
Ensign Mary L. Leffler (left) of the SPARS, takes pride in signing up her first officer candidate recruit, Helen Reich,assistant director of the office of student affairs at the State University of Iowa.
Source: The Des Moines Tribune, July 11, 1944 (photo included)
TO MANAGE STATION
Des Moines -- SPAR Ensign Mary L. Leffler, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. Rex Leffler, Ames, will be in charge of the Iowa Coast Guard recruiting station for Iowa which will open here Monday. Assisting her will be James L. Hopkins, Des Moines, veteran of the southwest Pacific action aboard a LST. The Des Moines Coast Guard office had been closed since November 1943.
Source: Muscatine Journal News-Tribune, February 3, 1945
