Description
Grahame Crichton Coffey was born in 1921 and raised in central Illinois. She graduated Southern Illinois University in 1943 and immediately joined the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). After her training at Smith College and Mout Holyoke College, she was stationed in San Francisco until World War II ended. She worked for the Navy for an additional year in Washington, D.C. and then joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She had a long career in the CIA and was stationed in London and Frankfurt. She discusses growing up in central Illinois, race relations in central Illinois, the Great Depression, her work in the WAVES and military activity in San Francisco, and her career and family after World War II.