By Latika Lee
Contributing Writer

Like many of her fellow serviceman, when Claudette May Howell enlisted in the United States Navy, she wanted to see the world. In January 1959, the eighteen year-old boarded a Trailways bus departing Jarvisburg, North Carolina – population 552 – and headed north to be sworn in at the recruiting station in Richmond, Virginia.

Howell left her parents, and everyone she knew, for the first time, to serve her country in uniform. By the end of the year, Fidel Castro would take over Cuba, Alaska and Hawaii would become states and John F. Kennedy would be elected President.

Howell wanted to keep with tradition after graduating high school. Her father was a merchant seaman and had also been in the military as a watchman. She wanted to serve her country, too.
“My adopted mother used to be worried sick. It was World War II. We didn’t have a television, no one did.  But, we gathered around to listen to the radio and every time there was a report about a ship going down, she would get nervous. We had to wait to hear the name of the ship on the next news report.”

But, the news that came across the wires didn’t deter her.

“When my Dad came home, I told him I was going into the Navy, so I could be his boss,” Holmes said.  She was the first African American woman from her hometown to go into the military during the late segregation era of the 1950’s. Howell received advice from her father, which she carried throughout her life. He said, “You are as good as anybody else. It’s their opinion. You remain who you are.”
During World War I, slightly more than 11,000 women, known as Yeomanettes, were on active duty in the Navy. Upon entering the naval service as seaman recruits, WAVES had nine weeks of intense basic training and guidance. Then, they would take interest exams for classification to determine which type of work was best suited for them. The majority served as stenographers, translators, draftsmen, camouflage designers and recruiting agents.

But, by World War II, the number of enlisted women would increase to more than 100,000 and they would perform work in aviation, communications, and the Hospital Corps. At that time, the Navy offered 27 different ratings occupations that were open to women.

“I was gung ho about the military. I wanted to give it my all. It was a portal to a world we didn’t know, ” Howell-Fentress Holmes explained.
Sailors worked on the military installation, but were separated from the women. The new recruit barracks were integrated, so she shared quarters with women from all over the country. She also took communion similar to Catholics for the first time.

“Of course, you had to know how to swim, but it was really important that you knew how to float. You had to say ‘yes ma’am and no sir’. Women could not be pregnant or serve overseas. You couldn’t continue if you were married. And there was no touching- there was no ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.”

Howell advanced through the ranks before being honorably discharged, as a Seaman, two years later. She fell in love and immediately got married and moved to Boston.  There, she found professional clerical positions and work as a factory worker making lifejackets.

Upon returning to civilian life, she and her husband found it increasingly difficult to adjust to being married. Eventually, they would divorce.

She studied to become a licensed practical nurse (LPN) while working at Boston City Hospital, now known as Boston Medical Center and considered being a foreign missionary.

In early 1983, Howell-Fentress needed a change of pace and decided to move to Powhatan County … ‘a place with no noise and no crime’. That’s when she accepted private duty nursing assignments through an agency and later went to work for Powhatan Correctional Center. At the same time, she enlisted in the Navy Reserves, more than 20 years after being discharged, specializing as a cargo handler.  She has supported both the Vietnam War, as well as Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.  As a career reservist, she earned several awards and certificates before retiring with 20 years’ service.

Howell-Fentress later married Lewis Holmes, Sr., a U.S. Army World War II disabled veteran, who died in 2008. The two of them shared the love of country, freedom and ministry.

It’s been three years since she officially retired, but Claudette Fentress-Holmes has not slowed down. In addition to being Guildfield Baptist Church Missionary president, serving on the Diaconate Ministry, and her duties on the pastor search committee, in the larger community, she is a graduate of the Powhatan Leadership Institute, a Powhatan County Fair Association member and has also been a part of the restoration effort in her hometown for the Historic Jarvisburg Colored School Association.