PFC Army, Marie Pope Wallis

Marie Pope Wallis joined the Women Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) on April 27, 1944, and became one of the first women counselors in the Army. ^{1, 2} She was one of two founders of the first counseling library in the service. ¹ At the end of the war, she served with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) tasked with locating surviving Jewish children in England, Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany. ^{3, 4, 11}

Pope Wallis was born in Des Moines, Iowa to Elwin Almer Pope and Adelaide Harless. ⁵ Pope Wallis attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles as a graduate student. For her master’s thesis, she translated a Spanish-language play into English, authored a critical essay, and organized a production of the play. ^{6, 7} Pope Wallis’ approach to academic work was considered so novel that she had to obtain special approval from the dean. ⁷

Before an automobile accident ended her acting career, she had been in Vaudeville on the Sun Circuit in the southern United States. ^1. She played in stock productions, appeared at the Albuquerque Little Theater, and directed her own acting group on the West Coast. ¹

Pope Wallis moved to New Mexico in 1938 and was the Albuquerque zone director for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), serving on committees concerning social welfare, women’s activities, migratory labor, civic recreation, and Girl Scouts from 1938 to 1939. ^{8, 9} She became an Assistant Professor of Portuguese and Spanish at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 1939 and was associated with the University’s Rodney Theatre for several years. ¹⁰ Pope Wallis set up the first tri-state social work training for Spanish-Americans, under the sponsorship of Inter-American Affairs. ⁸

In 1952 Pope Wallis became the first community service consultant in the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare, serving as the Civil Air Patrol Coordinator for women. ^{8, 10} She began flying airplanes in her 50s and was a licensed pilot in the Civil Air Patrol. ¹¹ She taught at Albuquerque Public School System, the University of New Mexico, Laguna Indian School, as well as Italy, South America, and Spain. ¹

Pope Wallis earned six degrees, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California Southern Branch, a master’s degree in drama and speech and a master’s in elementary education from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in social work, and a Master of Library Sciences from the University of Oklahoma, and a Ph.D. from UNM in 1947. ^{1, 11} She received the first Ph.D. awarded at UNM along with another student. ¹² Her dissertation is entitled “Modern Women Poets of Brazil.” She also did post-graduate work at the National University in Mexico and the National University of San Marcos in Peru. She was awarded six fellowships during her lifetime. ¹ In 1950 she received a government exchange fellowship to study Brazilian women prose writers. She was also awarded a fellowship at Yale University for post-doctoral work. ¹ She authored articles on Latin American literature, social work, education, and essays in Western Woman Poet Lore Magazine and was received into the Brazilian Academy for her work on Brazilian authors. ¹