Biography
Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, known as the Grand Lady of Software and Amazing Grace, was a remarkable woman that dedicated her life to the Navy and wrote her name into history as a first computer programmer and co-inventor of COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language). She had made an amazing career in scientific, engineering and military service, and received many awards and commendations for her accomplishments, among which are such honorable medals as American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, and Naval Reserve Medal. Her contributions to computer science and the Navy were so significant, that “It's only fitting that Grace Brewster Murray was born between two such memorable events as the Wright Brothers' first successful power-driven flight in 1903 and Henry Ford's introduction of the Model T in 1908” (Dickason, 4).
Grace Brewster Murray was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City in the family of Walter Murray, an insurance broker, and Mary Van Horne, and was the eldest of three children. From the early childhood her mother passed her passion for mathematics on to her daughter, and her parents taught her to go for her goals and achieve them. Her passion for machanisms and gadgets is thought to be inborn. “As a child it is reported that she dismantled an alarm clock to see how it worked. To find out how to put it back together again she dismantled another and so on until there were seven alarm clocks in pieces” (i-programmer).
These two things, which she learned from her parents pre-defined her future career. After finishing Vassar College with a degree of BA in mathematics in 1928, she took on a teaching post there, while simultaneously pursued her studies at Yale University, where she obtained a degree of MA in mathematics and physics in 1930 and afterwards a PhD in mathematics in 1934 under the supervision of algebraist Oystein Ore. She was one of four women in a doctoral program of ten students, and her doctorate in mathematics already was a significant accomplishment of those days. In 1930, the year of her Master studies completion, she married Vincent Foster Hopper, an educator, and began teaching mathematics at Vassar a year later. Even though she divorced him some years later, and they didn’t have children, she didn’t resume her maiden name. Vincent Foster Hopper died in 1945 during World War II.
Hopper stayed teaching at Vassar and in 1941 she had achieved the rank of associate professor when she won a faculty fellowship for studies at New York University's Courant Institute for Mathematics. Being born in a family with military traditions it was not surprising when she made a life-altering decision and resigned her teaching post at Vassar in order to join the World War II effort and become a member of Navy WAVES, the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, in December 1943, and to assist her country in its wartime challenges. As …