Oak Harbor lost two of the few remaining female World War II veterans in the area this fall.

Eva Brown, 93, died in October, and her friend and fellow veteran Patricia Ricketts, 96, followed her a month later.

Eva Marie Murdock was born Oct. 13, 1922, in Maynard, Ark. Her parents were tenant farmers, and the family barely scraped by during the Great Depression.

She first spotted the man she would marry, Raymond Brown, at her high school graduation. He was standing at the back of the room, handsome in his U.S. Army uniform.

She enlisted at age 21 in the Navy WAVES — Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.

In an interview with the Whidbey News-Times last year, she said she joined because all the men around her, including her brother, were enlisting. She wanted to serve her country, too.

“The purpose of our being accepted in the military was so we could replace the men at the desk so they could go to sea duty,” she said. “Some of them were happy to be released from working at a desk. Of course, there were some that resented us.”

The majority were grateful for women joining the ranks and her experience was a good one, Brown said. She worked as a hospital apprentice 1st class.

After two years of service, she used the G.I. Bill to finish her degree. She married Raymond and went on to teach elementary school for the next 35 years in Arkansas and Illinois.

Brown followed her only son, Jim Brown, to Oak Harbor in 1986 to be closer to family.

She continued to take an active role in the community and the Oak Harbor Church of Christ. She served as a volunteer for multiple organizations, including for Whidbey General Hospital’s hospice program and the Senior Center.

Patricia Collier was born Oct. 16, 1919, the daughter of Robert Collier, an author best known for his self-help book, “The Secret of the Ages.” She was one of six siblings and for life remained close to her identical twin sister, Dorothea.

She grew up and attended schools in New York and Sarasota, Fla., eventually attending college at Florida Southern.

At age 23, she enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and went to bootcamp and Officer Candidate School. She served four years, including as the commanding officer of a squadron in India responsible for the movement of troops and supplies.

She served as a leader in the military long before such a thing was even a thought for most women. Then she went onto accomplish much more in her life: she served as a secretary to high-ranking officials at Pan American Airways and became a firsthand witness to the Great Space Race to put American astronauts on the moon. She raised four children as a single mother and was an athlete into her 80s.

Her daughter, Pat Lamont, said her mother was an upbeat soul who would be hard pressed to say a negative thing about anyone or anything.

“She was always smiling, always happy all the time,” said her daughter.