Collins, Winifred Quick, 1911-1999

Navy captain Winifred Quick Collins (1911-1999) was born in Great Falls, Mont., the daughter of Daniel A. and Mary Winifred (Farrell) Redden. She attended the University of Southern California (B.S. 1935), the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration (1938), and Stanford University (M.A. 1952). She was commissioned as an ensign in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in August 1942, and in 1948 was in the first group of women commissioned in the United States Navy. In 1957 she was appointed Chief of Naval Personnel for Women, the most senior position for which women were eligible; she was the only woman line officer with the rank of captain. She retired in 1962, and was active in a number of organizations, including the National Navy League, in which she was the first woman elected vice-president and director (1965). Winifred Collins was married to Rear Admiral Howard Collins. She died in Washington, D.C., in 1999.

Winifred Quick Collins was born Winifred Mary Redden in Great Falls, Montana, on November 26, 1911, the third child of Daniel A. and Mary Winifred (Farrell) Redden. Older sister Evelyn (1904-1972), older brother Daniel (1906-), and younger brother Lawrence (1922-), rounded out the family, which was well-off during Winnie's early years. When Collins was ten, the Reddens bought a small hotel in Missoula, Montana. Within a year, however, they divorced; Daniel moved to the west coast, leaving the hotel to Mary. That same year, Collins contracted polio and was nursed back to health by her eighteen-year-old sister.

Eventually, Mary Redden sold the hotel and joined with another woman in running a boarding house. Collins' father disapproved of these living arrangements for his youngest daughter, and sent her to a Catholic boarding school. When Collins returned home to celebrate her thirteenth birthday, she discovered that her mother and youngest brother had moved, leaving no forwarding address. Four months later, she received a brief note from her mother postmarked Lewiston, Idaho, that included a clue that she was working at a bakery. When Collins found her in Lewiston that summer, her mother immediately took Collins to a Catholic hospital where she lived while working for her room and board.

In 1925, at age fourteen, Collins moved to Missouri to live with her sister and brother-in-law. Within a few months however, Collins realized that her brother-in-law's attentions were inappropriate, and left to live with an aunt in Oregon. In 1928 she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she shared her older brother Daniel's one-room apartment, sleeping while he worked nights. Despite attending school in four different states, Collins graduated high school on schedule in 1929. After working full time for a year, she received both a scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), and a part-time job from Lucien Brunswig, president of the Brunswig Drug Corporation. Graduating in 1935 with a B.S. in business administration, she became the company's personnel director, and married her first husband, Roy Quick, in 1935. In 1937, Collins was recommended by her USC professors for a new program at Radcliffe College, where women would be taught management training by Harvard Business School faculty. Realizing the opportunity this represented for Collins, Brunswig once again financed her education. Leaving California and her unhappy marriage to become one of five women to graduate with the first class in the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration (1938), she returned to California to become the director of the Junior Counseling and Placement Department for Pasadena Junior College. She did not rejoin her husband, however, and their divorce was finalized in 1941.

Ada Comstock, president of Radcliffe College, telephoned Collins in June 1942, requesting that she go to the Naval Procurement Office in Los Angeles and meet with the selection committee for the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES). Five days after the U.S. Navy Women's Reserve was activated, Collins was commissioned an ensign, the lowest ranking officer in the U.S. Navy. After the month-long Naval indoctrination at Smith College, Collins was chosen personally by the commanding officer of the training school, Captain Underwood, to be his personnel director. Two months later she was spot-promoted to lieutenant junior grade. Increasing numbers of women joined the WAVES, and Collins was sent to Washington, D.C., to work in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. She, along with eleven other officers, analyzed Naval shore jobs and determined what skills the WAVES would need. In the fall of 1944 Collins was sent to Hawaii as the District Personnel Officer to arrange sleeping quarters, recreational facilities, jobs, and mess halls for the planned arrival of 5,000 WAVES. After the war ended in 1945, she was put in charge of releasing the WAVES back to civilian duty, was spot-promoted to lieutenant commander, and received the Bronze Star.

Returning to Washington, D.C., in 1946, Collins helped plan for the eventual acceptance of women into the regular Navy, working out policies and procedures, job assignments, and necessary training. In June 1948, Collins and eight other WAVES officers were sworn in as commissioned officers of the U.S. Navy. Sent to Stanford University with other officers for graduate study in 1951, she received her master's degree in education (1952), and became Assistant Director of Naval Personnel for an area that encompassed Nevada, Utah, and Northern California. In 1953, Collins became one of two women commanders in the Navy, and when the Personnel Director retired that same year, he recommended her as his replacement. This assignment was the highest ever held by a female officer in the Navy, with a staff of 350 Naval personnel. Collins remained Director until 1956, when she was assigned to London as Senior Assistant, Staff of Commander in Chief, Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. Remaining in this post until the summer of 1957, she was promoted to captain and Chief of Naval Personnel for Women. Collins was the only female captain, and senior-ranking woman in the Navy for the next five years. According to her autobiography, More than a Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy Man's World (1997), "...I set standards for the performance of duties and dealt with discipline, housing, uniforming, promotions, retirement, education, and publicity. ...I needed to work on the problems of poor quality in recruiting for both officers and enlisted women, impediments to career development, inadequate housing and recreation, low morale, poor self-image, and negative public attitudes." (p. 126, 129)

Collins retired from the Navy in 1962, after marrying retired Rear Admiral Howard Lyman Collins the previous year. Howard Collins, who died in 1984, had two sons from his first marriage, Howard Lyman Collins, Jr., and John Collins. The latter retired from the U.S. Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel. After retirement, Winifred Collins became the first woman National Vice President of the Navy League (1965), first woman director of the Retired Officer Association (1964), first woman director for Corn Products International (1977), first woman trustee of the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation (1977), and the first woman named to the Navy League's Hall of Fame (1990). Collins died in Washington, D.C., in May 1999, from the cancer she had been battling for years.