Mary Alice Dee

Born December 7, 1921 in Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York. She worked as cheerleading coach/director. She died January 2, 1996 in Portland, Oregon.

• Summer recreation counselor and swimming instructor for Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 1939–1943.
• Transferred with wartime work from Northampton, Massachusetts, to San Francisco in 1944.

A Mount Lebanon Girlhood

Mary Alice Dee was born on December 7, 1921, in Syracuse, New York, but grew up in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. An energetic student at Mount Lebanon High School, she served as senior class secretary, vice-president of the Girls' Athletic Association, and a member of the class play committee, and was voted “Best Natured” in her graduating class of 1939.

Teacher and Coach

Mary Alice studied physical education and English at Slippery Rock State Teachers College, graduating in January 1943 after serving as president of the Women's Dormitory Council and a member of two national honor fraternities. She taught physical education and English at Beaver Area High School from 1942, where she ran the Girls' Athletic Association, coached cheerleading, and directed the school's annual May Day pageant, having already spent several summers as a swimming instructor and recreation supervisor for the Mount Lebanon public schools.

A WAVES Officer in Wartime

In 1944 Mary Alice enlisted in the WAVES — the Navy's Women's Reserve — and trained as a midshipman at Smith College before being commissioned an ensign. She served as assistant welfare and recreation officer at the Naval Supply Depot in Clearfield, Utah, where one commanding officer described her as possessing “a pleasing personality” and being “industrious, cooperative, attentive to duties”; her personnel file from her enlistment interview called her “attractive, sparkling personality, well poised, capable, dependable, and a natural and chosen leader.” She married John James Leineweber during a leave in Clearfield in April 1945, and that August, pregnant with their first child, resigned her commission under the Navy's policy of the time barring mothers of dependent children from service.

A Portland Catholic Life

After the war Mary Alice taught physical education at the University of Portland's College of Nursing and at Holy Child Academy, and for decades was a fixture of All Saints Parish in Portland — serving hot lunches, overseeing school uniforms, and in 1965 becoming the first laywoman elected to the parochial school board, making All Saints the first Catholic school in Portland, and the 112th in the country, to have lay representation on its board. She later served as treasurer of Central Catholic High School's Parents' Club and as president of Birthright Oregon. She died in Portland on January 2, 1996, at seventy-four.