Belmont Village Quarterly Newsletter on Senior Living

March is National Women's History Month

March 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of National Women’s History Month.  This year’s theme, Writing Women Back into History, was chosen because, in the words of the National Women’s History Project (NWHP), “it often seems that the history of women is written in invisible ink – even when recognized in their own times, women are frequently left out of the history books.”

President Carter issued a proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as the first National Women’s History Week in 1980. According to the NWHP, at that time, the topic of women’s history was limited to college curricula, and even then, less than 3% of the content of teacher training textbooks mentioned the contributions of women. In 1987, Congress expanded the week into a National Women’s History Month. Today when you search the internet for “women’s history month,” you’ll find more than 4.6 million citations, the result of the tireless work of thousands of individuals, organizations and institutions to write women back into history.

Belmont Village is proud to recognize and acknowledge the many women residents of our communities who, in one way or another, were role models for the women who came after, and who helped lay the groundwork for subsequent achievements by women. 

Our spotlight resident for this quarter is Virginia Deyo of Memphis.  Ms. Deyo served as a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in World War II, and attended officer training at Mt. Holyoke and Smith colleges in Massachusetts.  She achieved the rank of Lieutenant and was assigned to Washington, D.C. as a communications officer. 

“At the end of the war, there were around 80,000 WAVES. About 10% of them were officers, and I was one,” said Deyo. “It was different then – women couldn’t have families and continue to serve like now – if you got pregnant, you were out. I like to think that we paved the way – women are now able to have full careers in the military.” 

Ms. Deyo worked in the Naval Code Room, encoding and decoding secret messages and delivering them to the Pentagon, the Bureaus along the reflecting pool, and the White House Map Room.  “I couldn’t help feeling like a part of history – it was an honor to serve.”

Now, more than ever, each new generation needs to draw information and inspiration from the last. We encourage you to take time to sit down with your elder female relatives to hear what they have to say about the women of their generation.

To learn more about women in history, visit http://www.nwhp.org
To learn more about Belmont Village, please visit www.belmontvillage.com

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