A Lawyer, a Judge and a Soldier
Although she does not fully receive credit as a “first” due to the length of time she served, Mary Eleanor Nolan became the first woman judge in Minnesota when she was elected municipal judge in a special election in 1941.
During law school, Nolan worked for the Minnesota State Legislature, the State Banking Department, and the Minnesota Tax Commission. Nolan graduated magna cum laude from Saint Paul College of Law in 1935 or 1936 (sources conflict), less than a tenth of a point behind the leader of her class, and one of only two women in her class. Nolan also achieved the highest score on the bar exam when she took it in 1936. At the time she was admitted to the bar, she was one of four women lawyers in pre-war Minnesota. Nolan returned to Brainerd to establish a law practice, while serving as a United States Court Commissioner from 1936-1940. Municipal Judge Nolan’s chief reputation was being tough on drunk drivers.
In 1943, Nolan chose to give up her judicial position for service in World War II by enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). Originally created in 1942 as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) over the objections of the Army (and without military status), the Corps was re-created by law as the now-military Women’s Army Corps on July 1, 1943. WACs underwent 4-6 weeks of basic training, including physical conditioning, plus 4-12 weeks in their specialties. Unlike the male regiments, the WACs were racially integrated due to advocacy by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.
Initially, most WAACs were assigned to track aircraft in their assigned districts or to work as file clerks, typists, stenographers, or motor pool drivers. Later, they served as “weather observers and forecasters, cryptographers, radio operators and repairmen, sheet metal workers, parachute riggers, link trainer instructors, bombsight maintenance specialists, aerial photograph analysts, and control tower operators” as well as photographers, managers of the precursors to computers, mechanics, and flight crew members on B-17 bomber training flights.
As a new member of the WAC, Nolan was posted to Fort Des Moines, Iowa, the first WAC training center in the country, where she was assigned to motor maintenance and convoy work. Nolan applied and was accepted to Officer’s Training School and was then assigned to be the assistant director of Camp Oglethorpe Training Center in Georgia, which was training 10,000 WAC members.
After she was promoted to Captain, Nolan received a new assignment to New Guinea as the executive officer of a 1500-woman battalion of WACs. She described her arrival as harrowing: “Nothing was ready. For six weeks, my battalion was jammed into an area about 2 ½ blocks square, surrounded by thousands of GIs who hadn’t seen a girl from home.” Nolan quickly managed the situation by ordering that 300 male GIs could enter the WAC cordon every evening to date an equal number of WACs.
Nolan was later re-assigned to the Philippines until the end of the war. During her three and a half years of service, she was awarded two Bronze Stars.
When Nolan returned to Pelican Lake, Minnesota, a small town near Brainerd, she went back into the practice of law, forming the law firm of Nolan, Alderman and Holden in 1955 before going back on the bench in 1957.
A Breadth of Service
Nolan was professionally active in the bar and served her community in a wide variety of ways. She became president of the 15th District Judicial Bar Association and served on the Minnesota State Bar Association Board of Governors. She also continued her service to veterans as the first woman commander of an all-male American Legion Post, and a member of its board for ten years, and she acted as judge advocate for the Disabled American Veterans organization.
A member of the Brainerd Charter Commission from 1946 to 1954, Nolan also sat as Director of First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Brainerd from 1954 until her death and was a director of Farmers State Bank of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. An advocate for the YMCA, she served on its Board of Directors. She was a founder and first president of Brainerd Professional Women’s Club.
Personal Life
Mary Eleanor Nolan was born to James and Nora Theviot Nolan in 1910, the middle child in a family of seven children. She graduated from Brainerd High School when she was 16, attended the University of Minnesota, and graduated from the St. Paul College of Law in 1936.
Nolan also gained some notoriety when she earned her pilot’s license and was the first woman to fly a plane solo in the Brainerd Lakes area. She and her housemate, Melba Griffin, who had been her superior officer at Camp Oglethorpe, often welcomed family members to their home.
Nolan died of lung cancer in 1965 at the age of 55. At her death, a local paper memorialized her work: “she used her talents not only to build up a large and important law practice, but she recognized her obligation to see that justice was available to all. In many Brainerd area homes, her compassion brought lighter hearts during troubled times.”
References
Anne Greenwood Brown, Pioneering Women in Minnesota’s History, With Equal Right, The Official Journal of Minnesota Women Lawyers v. 39, iss. 3, Spring, 2015.
Mary Eleanor Nolan (1910-1965), Wikitree (Mar. 12, 2023).
Douglas R. Heidenreich, With Satisfaction and Honor: William Mitchell College of Law 1900-2000 (1999).