FamilySearch Supports Community Project to Honor Women, Stories of the ‘Six-Triple-Eight’ WWII Battalion

This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Trent Toone, Church News

A new film called “Six Triple Eight,” written and directed by actor/filmmaker Tyler Perry, tells the true-life story of an all-female World War II battalion — the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

The 6888th comprised 855 women, predominately African American, who played a crucial role in resolving a massive postal crisis for the U.S. military, ensuring the delivery of millions of pieces of mail to soldiers and loved ones in Europe who needed a morale boost during the war.

Despite skepticism and resistance from the white male Army leadership, the women, inspired by the motto “No mail, low morale,” cleared a backlog of 7 million pieces of mail in Germany in three months — half the time originally allotted — then worked through millions more in France.

In March 2022, the 855 women assigned to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Their achievements and some of their personal stories are featured in the film, which was released in theaters on December 6 and on Netflix on December 20.

A community of volunteers has used FamilySearch.org and other historical resources to document the lives and preserve the stories of each member of the 6888th on a website — “Honoring the 6888″ (sites.google.com/view/honoringthe6888).

How It Started

Two years ago, Mike and Debbie Ostler, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tempe, Arizona, joined the Black Family Genealogy and History Society. Debbie Ostler read an article about the women of the 6888th and had an idea.

“We felt like these women were very honorable, incredible women, and we wanted to preserve their stories,” she said.

The Ostlers came across a virtual cemetery at FindaGrave.com honoring the 6888th and connected with the person who created it. They invited friends and other volunteers to participate through word of mouth, including the YMCA, the Family History Society of Arizona, the Black Family Genealogy and History Society of Arizona, the Buffalo Soldiers group near Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and the Arizona chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to launch the project.

They decided early on that the best framework for the project would be FamilySearch.org.

“We wanted it to be free and accessible to everyone,” Debbie Ostler said. “We wanted to be able to save newspaper clippings, photos and historical records. But foremost on our minds, we really hope the descendants and families of these women will be able to see and contribute to their profiles ... bring stories and photographs that would really enrich and bring dimension to the women.”

Working together, the community of volunteers completed most of the soldiers’ profiles in six months, from January to July 2024.

Two members of the Six Triple Eight are still alive — retired Maj. Fannie McClendon, who is 104 years old, and Anna Mae Robertson.

Drawing upon the profiles and volunteer research, FamilySearch created a Six Triple Eight Memorial page (no login required) to honor the 6888th. Those with a FamilySearch account can sign in to find out if possible relationships to one or more of the women.

This is a project FamilySearch was proud to support, said Thom Reed, a program manager for FamilySearch.

“As the largest family history organization in the world, we want to make sure that we are providing the community and those out there who are trying to do this work access to the tools and things that we have that will help them accomplish their goals,” he said. “The fact that multiple groups are engaged in some significant work is encouraging for us because it means our resources are being used even further to help more family discoveries happen.”

A December 13 FamilySearch Blog post provides more about the history of the 6888th Battalion.

‘Divinely Inspired Domino Effect’

On Monday, December 16, Reed hosted a live-streaming event with three descendants of members of the 6888th — Carmen A. Jordan-Cox, Karen T. Jordan and Courtnee N. Jordan-Cox — as well as Milauna Jackson, one of the stars of the film, “Six Triple Eight.”

Carmen Jordan-Cox is the daughter of Annie Beatrice Knight, a member of the 6888th. She was joined by her sister, Karen Jordan, and daughter, Courtnee Jordan-Cox.

In a Church News interview prior to the live event, Carmen Jordan-Cox said FamilySearch has been a valuable resource for learning more about her family heritage.

“FamilySearch has been absolutely wonderful in [helping us] to dig through and find all these relatives we didn’t even know we had,” she said.

During the live event, she spoke of learning that Annie Knight went into military service not as a postal worker but as a cryptographic code compiler — a code breaker — of whom there were very few among Black women at that time. Carmen Jordan-Cox didn’t realize this about her mother until 2022, more than 12 years after her death in 2010.

Courtnee Jordan-Cox, who praised Knight for inspiring the women in the family to gain education, summarized the event with this profound thought.

“As I take a step back and look at everything regarding my grandmother’s military service, our family, the other families of other women, all the stories now being uncovered about the women of the ‘Six Triple Eight’ ... I just want to say that I think this is really divinely inspired domino effect,” she said. “As we tell that story, we amplify those voices and the impact of what has happened.”

Copyright 2024 Deseret News Publishing Company.