Jean C. Garr, 81; Among Navy’s First WAVES, She Was Decorated in 2002

Jean Claire Garr, one of the first women to serve in the military during World War II as a member of the Navy’s WAVES, has died. She was 81.

Garr, who was decorated by the Navy in 2002 for her military service, died Feb. 8 at Good Samaritan Hospital near downtown Los Angeles of complications from cancer and pneumonia.

Born in Berkeley, she was working in a bank when the United States was thrust into World War II. In 1942, she was one of the first women to join the newly constituted WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). She was among about 86,000 women who held an array of jobs at 900 Naval installations around the country so that men could be freed for sea duty.

“Joining the Navy was a very socially daring thing to do at the time, even as a WAVE,” Jack Green, a historian and curator at the Naval Historical Center, told a Times reporter in 2000 for an article on Garr.

After training at Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville, Ga., and Hunter College in New York City, Garr was assigned to the Treasure Island Naval Station in San Francisco. She left the service in 1944. That same year, she met and married Bill Garr, who was working at a shipyard in Richmond. He would become known to Southern California sports fans years later for his thoroughbred race calls at several Southern California tracks.

After the Garrs moved to Southern California in 1949, Jean Garr established a real estate firm in Arcadia that focused on homes and horse ranch properties in the San Gabriel Valley community of Bradbury. She and her husband also became interested in thoroughbred horse breeding.

In September 2002, the Navy awarded Yeoman 1st Class Garr three military honors she had never collected after World War II: the Victory Medal; a medal for Distinguished Service in the American Campaign; and an Honorable Service lapel pin.

In addition to her husband, of Sierra Madre, she is survived by a son, William S., also of Sierra Madre; a daughter, Jeannie, of La Canada Flintridge; and three grandchildren. Donations in her name may be made to the American Cancer Society.