A goodly number of sorority women answered the call to volunteer for service in World War II. Here is the Service Roll as printed in the November 1945 Phoenix of Alpha Sigma Alpha.
Among the names of the WAVES is Marianna Obermiller. She grew up in Jackson, Missouri. In the fall of 1936, she pledged the Alpha Sigma Alpha chapter at Maryville Teacher’s College (now Northwest Missouri State University) and was initiated on September 17, 1937. The chapter was installed in 1928, a year after Sigma Sigma Sigma became the first sorority on campus.
She graduated in 1940 and was hired as a teacher. In 1943, she was sworn into the WAVES. It appears that she did her service in Bloomington, Indiana, where she was an Activities Director.
She taught in Paola, Kansas, Shenandoah, Iowa, and Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1952, Obermiller was one of two Missouri teachers nominated to compete for McCall’s Magazine’s Teacher of the Year Award.
Obermiller died on March 20, 2002 at the age of 84.
