Joy Bright was born on May 4, 1898, in Wildwood, New Jersey. She enlisted as a yeoman in the U.S. Navy in February 1918, and served as a courier at the Camden Shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, and later at NAS Cape May, New Jersey. After the war she worked for the Navy as a civilian from 1919 to 1942, most of this time spent working in the Bureau of Aeronautics. During this time, her first husband, LT Charles G. Little, died in the Navy blimp C-5 in 1919, and her second husband, LCDR Lewis Hancock, Jr., died in the crash of the Navy airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) in 1925. She went on active duty as one of the first women commissioned in the U.S. Navy as part of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in June 1942, and served in the U.S. throughout World War II. During the war, she became the first naval officer on active duty to christen a naval ship, when she christened the destroyer USS Lewis Hancock (DD-675), named after her late husband, in August 1943. She became assistant director for plans of the Women's Reserve in February 1946, moving from the Bureau of Aeronautics to the Bureau of Personnel, and then was made director of the Women's Reserve in July 1946. CAPT Hancock retired from the U.S. Navy as the WAVES Director on July 1, 1953. After her retirement, she married Navy Vice Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie in August 1954, and they remained married until his death on November 19, 1956. Joy Ofstie died on August 20, 1986, and was buried next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.