Mary Vail Andress
Mary Vail Andress (March 27, 1883 – May 15, 1964) was an American banker. She was "the first woman to become an officer of a major New York bank". She also did relief work during both World War I and World War II, and was "the first woman war worker to receive the Distinguished Service Medal". Early life Andress was born in Sparta, New Jersey, the daughter of Theophilus Hunt Andress and Sarah Cecelia Cutler Andress. Her father was a physician and a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War. Theodore Newton Vail was her cousin, and Alfred Vail was her great-uncle. Andress graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her mother and grandmother had also attended Moravian. She was captain of the basketball team as a student; later she served as a trustee of the college She attended the Summer School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University in 1905. Career In 1917 and 1918, Andress joined the Women's Overseas Service League and ran a canteen and later directed the American Red Cross rest station in Toul, France. "For a whilt it seemed as if I could never quite get down to the real job," she recalled later,