Loretta Walsh (Bowman after her marriage in 1922) was born on April 22, 1896, in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. She enlisted in the U.S. Navy on March 21, 1917, becoming the first female to serve in the U.S. Military that wasn't a nurse, and also the first female Chief Petty Officer in the Navy. Chief Yeoman Walsh served at the 4th Naval District in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from March to December 1917, followed by service at the U.S. Naval Home in Philadelphia from December 1917 to March 1919. After contracting influenza and then tuberculosis during her duties, she was transferred to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Philadelphia in March 1919, and then to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in the same month. Chief Yeoman Walsh was medically discharged on August 7, 1919, and remained in the U.S. Navy Reserve until March 21, 1921. She died on August 16 or 17, 1925 (she was last seen alive on August 16, but was found dead on August 17), and was buried at Saint Patricks Cemetery in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, with a grave marker that incorrectly lists her date of death as August 6, 1925. As nurses that served in the U.S. Military before World War I were technically civilians with no rank, Chief Yeoman Walsh was the first female to serve as a member of the U.S. Military.