Lucile “Lucy” Griffin Leonard was born 28 November 1920 and was raised in Sanford, North Carolina. She studied home economics and institution management at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), graduating in 1941. After her graduation, Leonard worked for the Dairy Council in Durham, North Carolina.
Leonard enlisted in the army and became a hospital dietitian at Camp Butner, North Carolina, in September 1942. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant in March 1943 and went to training at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia. Leonard sailed on the SS Louis Pasteur in September 1943 to the 81st Station Hospital in Bizerte, Tunisia. In 1944, she moved to Naples, Italy, and later to Livorno, Italy. After VE Day in May 1945, Leonard joined the 300th General Hospital in Naples, Italy. She returned to the United States and was discharged in the fall of 1945.
Leonard was an assistant dietitian at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina from April 1946 until the summer of 1947. She then worked for the Coble Dairy Company. She married Bruce Leonard in January 1949 and had two children. Leonard went back to work in 1971 in the county public school cafeterias and retired in 1987. Lucy Leonard died on 18 November 2006.
