Bernice Sains Freid

b. June 12, 1923

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Bernice Sains Freid until we are able to commission a full entry.

WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) member Bernice Sains Freid.

Bernice Sains Freid called her time in WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during WWII “the happiest days of my life.” Freid joined WAVES on her twenty-first birthday, which marked when she no longer needed her parents’ permission, and trained at A&M College in Oklahoma. During the war, she worked as a yeoman in San Francisco, and was officially discharged in 1946. After a hitchhiking trip with friends that extended into Canada and down into Chicago, Freid went to NYU and Columbia University, becoming a dietician and teaching nutrition and home economics in public and private schools. Missing her connection to the military, she joined the Naval Reserves in college and served from 1947 to 1958, mainly doing secretarial work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She also wrote poems about her experiences in WAVES.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Bernice Sains Freid." (Viewed on November 10, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/freid-bernice>.