Lillian Roda Turner (née Petersen)
(1907 - 1996)
Profile
Pvt. Lillian Roda Turner enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1945. She was one of twenty-nine Danish born WACs during the Second World War.
Lillian Roda Petersen was born on 27 February 1907 in Copenhagen, Denmark, to machine worker Peter Ludvig Petersen and Gurli Retualfine Severine Slysser.[1]
Petersen emigrated to the United States in 1923, arriving in New York from Copenhagen onboard the SS Hellig Olav on 24 November 1923. Her final destination was Detroit, Michigan, where see planned to join her sister Britta, who had lived in Detroit with her husband since 1920.[2]
Petersen married her first husband, Børge Sandorff in Detroit in 1924.[3] The couple divorced four years later.[4] Sandorff was Danish born and, years later, he served in the US Army Air Force during the Second World War.[5]
In February 1929, she married Merrill Chester Houdyshell. They had to sons, before leaving each other in 1935.[6] Petersen married her third husband, Meryl Leland Turner on 24 April 1937.[7] She was naturalised as a citizen of the United States on 25 June 1943.[8]
Lillian R. Turner enlisted as a Private (A-617922) in the Woman’s Army Corps (WAC) on 18 January 1945 in Detroit, Michigan.[9]
Turner divorced her husband in 1947,[10] and married Albert John Toreson in February 1948.[11] She died in Florida on 20 February 1996.[12]
Endnotes
[1] DNA: Parish register, Sankt Matthæus sogn.
[2] Ancestry: New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[3] Ancestry: Michigan, U.S., Divorce Records, 1897-1952.
[4] Ancestry: Michigan, U.S., Divorce Records, 1897-1952.
[5] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[6] Ancestry: Michigan, U.S., Divorce Records, 1897-1952.
[7] Ancestry: Michigan, U.S., Divorce Records, 1897-1952.
[8] Ancestry: U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes, 1794-1995.
[9] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[10] Ancestry: Michigan, U.S., Divorce Records, 1897-1952.
[11] Ancestry; Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952.
[12] Ancestry: U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current.