The First Doughnut Girls back to 'Doughnut Girls'
Helen Purviance
Helen Purviance was born 16 February 1889. She entered the Salvation Army school for officers' training in the USA Eastern Territory and was commissioned in 1908. She was selected for special war service in 1917 and was with the first contingent of women sent by the Army to the war zone. She was in Europe when the idea was born to serve doughnuts to American soldiers and fried the first doughnut served by The Salvation Army in France to a man in uniform.
This photo of her, taken when she was 28 years old, shows her helmeted with a gas mask around her neck, near the front lines in France.
 Helen Purviance
She later held other appointments in New York state (the Bronx, Syracuse, Fuiton, Oswego, and Buffalo) and in New Jersey (Paterson). She was also on the staff of the Eastern training college. After a period of years in the Central Territory, she returned to the Eastern Territory as assistant field secretary and retired from that appointment in 1949.
Lt. Colonel Helen Purviance, one of the original World War I "Doughnut Girls", was promoted to Glory on February 26 just following her 95th birthday at the Peabody Retirement Community, North Manchester, Indiana.
Louise Holbrook
Louise Holbrook was born in 1893 and married in 1912. Three years later applied with her husband (Alva) for officership from Boulder, Colo. and by 1918 they were on the front lines in France with the 28th Infantry. They were stationed under the fire of German guns, handing out doughnuts and coffee, and at the little town of Cheppy she was partially buried in rubble from a shell. Three weeks later she was back at work.
 Louise Holbrook
She was a gifted musician, playing four instruments in her service for God. But as with her fellow Doughnut Girls, she is remembered by thousands for boosting morale in sight of battle on the front lines. In 1941, with war breaking out in Europe and in the Far East, Commissioner McMillan assigned them to Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, to organize the work as requested by the military. In 1943 they retired to the mainland to live in Vallejo, Calif. Louise Holbrook was promoted to Glory in 1991.
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