In October 2023, I had the pleasure of presenting a paper at the North American Division’s Women in Adventist History Conference. My paper, “The Invisible Seventh-day Adventist Medical Cadet Corps: Women in a Man’s World,” briefly explored the lives of four women who at one time or another were involved in the Medical Cadet Corps between 1938 and 1958. Limited to only twenty minutes in which to speak, my research retrieved far more material than I had time to share then. Thus, it is my privilege in this article, and in others in this series, to more fully explore the lives and contributions of these four women in addition to two more women who should have been included in the original presentation. The other stories in this series include:

World War II stretched the working force of the United States to its greatest capacity. By the end of the war, approximately sixteen million men and women were serving in the Armed Forces. Millions more were employed in industry. As the Armed Forces and industry competed for human resources, the United States government had to delicately balance the need for soldiers with the need for workers. Throughout 1940 and 1941, it became apparent that women would be needed to help fill the ranks. Thus, in the spring of 1942, the Women’s Army Auxilliary Corps was created, quickly followed by organizations for women in the other branches of the Armed Forces. Many young Adventist women wondered if they should volunteer for military service. The number of Adventist women who volunteered is unknown, but it is believed to be very few. Those who wrote to Seventh-day Adventist War Service Commission Secretary Carlyle B. Haynes were encouraged to the join the Women’s Medical Cadet Corps rather than the military. His rationale: men were drafted and had no choice but to join the Army; women need not volunteer and risk the problems military service presented Adventists when they could participate in civilian defense work at home.

The Women’s Medical Cadet Corps (WMCC) began in the Columbia Union in the spring of 1942. By autumn, the program was being offered throughout the United States, including Union College (now Union Adventist University). While men in the MCC trained for noncombat jobs in the Army Medical Corps, women in the WMCC trained to volunteer with the Red Cross and civilian defense organizations in their local communities.

Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, the Union College Medical Cadet Corps intentionally developed a cohort of student leaders who later became MCC instructors at other colleges and academies as well as conference MV secretaries—which were, as noted in the previous article in this series, important to recruitment and promotion of the MCC. These were the proteges Everett Dick called upon to serve as his staff each summer at Camp Doss from 1951 to 1958. One young woman appeared among these proteges: Arlene Naomi Church.

Arlene Naomi Church was the daughter of two nurses. Her parents, Charles Fenner Church (1894-1967) and Hazel Estella Nelson (1892-1964) met at Boulder Sanitarium where they both enrolled in the nursing course. They married in 1919. Charles worked as a nurse for many years, but later laid flooring to support his family. Hazel’s own parents had trained and worked at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, although Hazel was a 1915 graduate of Union College. Her only documented professional work was as a Nebraska Conference junior camp nurse in 1938 and 1939, and as you will see, in the Women’s Medical Cadet Corps camp of 1942 or 1943.

Born on July 8, 1921, in Colorado, Arlene moved to College View, Nebraska, with her family when she was still a little girl. Arlene appears in the pages of Union College’s student newspaper, the Clocktower with a great deal of frequency. The picture that quickly emerges is one of a student leader.

Arlene’s elementary years were spent in Union College’s Normal “demonstration” Training School where she was a leader for student activities from a very young age in everything from spring cleaning teams, in about fourth or fifth grade, to assistant Junior Missionary Volunteer leader in seventh or eighth grade. She also attended Union College Academy, the forerunner of College View Academy. In academy she continued to be an MV leader. For unknown reasons, she transferred to Indiana Academy for her senior year, where she graduated as vice president and valedictorian of her class.

In college, Arlene had her hands in every student activity from Sabbath School teacher, leader of fundraising campaigns, and assistant photograph editor for the yearbook to Missionary Volunteer co-leader for campus in 1940-1941. She was also known to perform piano duets with friends and participated in gymnastics. She was involved in everything. Vice president of the junior class in 1941-1942, she also represented the student body on a committee comprised of both faculty and students that organized the brand-new student association at Union College in the winter of 1942. Her senior year, she served one semester as editor-in-chief of the Clocktower. Acknowledging her student leadership, Arlene was among the students from Union College listed in Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities for at least two years.

During the summers Arlene was girls’ director for Nebraska Conference junior camps from 1938 to 1942. She had started working at camp as a counselor in 1937. Her talents extended to “chief instructor in leathercraft, storyteller, and part-time lifeguard of the swimming pool.” Apparently, she also taught first-aid classes, not only as part of MV, but also to other groups in Lincoln. Her senior year at Union College, she taught the first-aid course on campus, presumably for women. Somehow, amidst all of her extracurricular activity, in 1943 she managed to graduate with a degree in education that qualified her to teach.

It is not surprising, then, that when Arlene enrolled in Union College’s first class of twenty-three young women in the Women’s Medical Cadet Corps in the autumn of 1942, by the end of the semester she was promoted to staff sergeant. Nor is it surprising that the next semester she achieved the rank of second lieutenant, in time to help with the first Women’s MCC summer camp at Union College, held June 1-15, 1943. She served as second lieutenant in charge of the twenty-five young women who participated (Clocktower). Classes included first aid, nursing, military drill, and physical exercise in their “smart three-piece outfit of powder blue” uniforms (Clocktower). This first camp was followed by a summer of teaching at WMCC camps in Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska. In the fall she settled at Campion Academy in Colorado where she was registrar, librarian, and instructor in algebra, speech, and the Women’s Medical Cadet Corps (Clocktower).

Arlene taught only until she married Charles Henry Seitz (no known relationship to Marion G. Seitz Simmons) on September 5, 1944. A fellow classmate at Union College, Charles completed his ministerial degree in 1945. From that time on, Arlene followed her husband’s career from St. Louis, Missouri, and Minnesota to the East Pennsylvania Conference, the Potomac Conference, and finally Northern California. It does not appear that she ever taught school again (nor did the couple have children). Instead, her career seems to have been largely subsumed into her husband’s. She is seldom mentioned apart from him and nearly always in a supporting role. Arlene led the Junior division at camp meeting, she conducted children’s meetings during her husband’s revival meetings, and she volunteered at junior summer camps. There are only a few years in which Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook lists her as holding a missionary license. Whether she was paid for any of this work is undocumented and doubtful.

Over half of Charles’ career was spent as Young People’s Missionary Volunteer and War Service secretary in local conferences. In this role, he helped organize and supervise MCC programs at Adventist academies as well as MCC camps. It is safe to assume that Arlene was by his side in all of these activities, but there is only one instance in which her work was recorded in publication. She organized the WMCC at Blue Mountain Academy in 1956 (Columbia Union Visitor).

There is only one place she seems to have outranked her husband. Everett Dick asked her to command the WMCC at Camp Doss. The photo at the head of this article is thought to have been taken in 1954. In his memoirs, Dick recorded that women were included at Camp Doss when there was enough interest. No record of which years that happened has as yet been located apart from 1954, this photograph being the key piece of evidence.

Arlene’s long career of selfless, unpaid volunteer work continued into her later years. Her obituary suggests that she worked in summer camps on a volunteer basis. Arlene Naomi Church Seitz died on April 13, 1990, in Butte, California.

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