Gwen Owensby

Gwen Owensby felt the urge to serve her country from an early age. Growing up in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, she remembers her dad, who is now deceased, telling her about his own father, Clifford Cecil Owensby, a World War II veteran who died on the USS Indianapolis. Her dad remembered Clifford telling him goodbye at the train station before he shipped off, saying he would never see him again. "You're the man of the family now," he told his seven-year-old son. He never came back.

Gwen's father went into the Navy, and when Gwen was 17 years old, she enlisted in the Navy as well, with her parents' permission. "I felt the pull to follow his footsteps," she says. "I've always felt the urge to be a veteran." Owensby served on the USS Alamogordo in Charleston, South Carolina. She was stationed there 3.5 years of her 4 total years in the US Navy as a petty officer 3rd class. "If I could, I'd do it again," she says.

Recently, Gwen and her mother visited the USS Indianapolis memorial in Indianapolis, Indiana for the first time. "I felt my dad. I felt my grandfather," she says. "Just to see his name up there...I'll always carry that in my heart."

Gwen works in the Lodge warehouse, where you can find her most days driving a forklift and helping Lodge get its orders out on time. She has been with us for almost 15 years.

Thanks for all your hard work, Gwen, and thanks for sharing your story with us!