Mary Louise Rasmuson

Who was Mary Louise Rasmuson?

Mary Louise Milligan Rasmuson was an American army officer, and director of the Women's Army Corps.

Born in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Milligan graduated from what is now Carnegie Mellon University and received her masters from University of Pittsburgh. She enlisted in the United States Army during World War II. In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Milligan director of the Women's Army Corps and in 1961, President John Kennedy reappointed her. In 1961, she married Elmer E. Rasmuson, the president of National Bank of Alaska. The following year, she retired from the army and moved to Anchorage, Alaska. The Rasmusons were influential and establishing and greatly expanding the Anchorage Museum. Her step-daughter was Connecticut state representative Lile Gibbons.