Martha Magruder Boger (1915-2000) was born and raised in Albemarle, North Carolina. She attended the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), graduating in 1936 with a degree in physical education. She then taught health and physical education in an elementary school in Durham, North Carolina, for nine years.
Around 1945, Boger was recruited to go to the army’s physical therapy school. She was inducted into the WAC and went to basic training in Des Moines, Iowa. She was then sent to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, for a year of physical therapy training. Upon completion of this training, she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Medical Specialist Corps, which included dietitians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists, and was not affiliated with the WAC. She was stationed at many places during her twenty-year career in the army, including Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Governor’s Island, New York; the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York; Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Army Medical Field Service School in San Antonio, Texas; Fort Knox, Kentucky; Honolulu, Hawaii; Munich, Germany; and Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Following her discharge from the army as a major, Boger was active in civic organizations including Meals on Wheels and the Mental Health Association. She passed away on 6 June 2000.
