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Pvt. Marna Marie Ahrendt Groff (née Lauritsen)
(1899–1948)
Pvt. Marne L. Groff enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1943. She was one of twenty-nine Danish born WACs during the Second World War.
Marna Marie Ahrendt Groff (née Lauridsen) was born on 1 November 1899 in Copenhagen, Denmark, to carpenter Erik Lauridsen and Anna Marie Lauridsen (née Ahrentsen).[1]
The family emigrated to the United States in 1903 settling in Hennepin, Minnesota. Groff was naturalised as a minor in 1909.[2]
Groff attended the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University, and was a member of the Kappa Phi sorority and Sigma Xi honorary fraternity. She graduated in psychology worked as a teacher before enlisting.[3]
She was married to Rowland Haversack Groff, then a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, on 15 August 1930.[4] R. H. Groff served as a Captain in the US Navy during the Second World War, and rose to the rank Rear Admiral before retirement.[5]
Groff enlisted as a Private (A-206388) in the Women’s Army Corps in New York City on 23 August 1943.[6] She was discharged on 13 January 1946. There is no further information on the nature of her service. She is presumed not to have been an Army Air Force WAC.
Groff died on 23 January 1984.[7]
Endnotes
[1] DNA: Parish register, Betania.
[2] Ancestry: 1910 United States Federal Census and 1920 United States Federal Census.
[3] Ancestry: 1940 United States Federal Census.
[4] Miss Marne Lauritsen, Star Tribune, 22 Aug 1930, p. 10.
[5] Ancestry: U.S., Select Military Registers, 1862-1985.
[6] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[7] Ancestry: U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010.