World War II veteran toll collector at Outerbridge
Achieved rank of chief petty officer
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
By MAURA YATES
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- She didn't make waves, she was a model WAVE.  

Audra Iva Browne, 87, of Prince's Bay, a retired toll collector and World War II Navy veteran, died yesterday in Staten Island University Hospital, Prince's Bay.

Born Audra Iva Richardson in Willow, Ark., she was brought as an infant to Malvern, Ark., where she grew up on a farm with her parents and 10 siblings.  As a young woman, she worked with Dr. Pritchard, a country doctor in Malvern, with whom she helped deliver babies and remove appendixes.

In the early 1940s, she studied English at Henderson State Teachers' College in Arkadelphia, Ark., before joining the war effort with her identical twin, Orpha. In 1943, both enlisted in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES. She was stationed in bases around the country, including the Naval Air Training Center in Pensacola, Fla.  The Richardson sisters were models for advertisements of WAVES uniforms, meant to drum up interest in women's enlistment.

The twins also worked out a system of switching places if one had a date on a night she was scheduled for duty. Not only did their faces match, so did their uniforms, both labeled "Seaman Richardson."  At her last post in Pasco, Wash., she met her future husband, George R. Browne.

She left the military in 1946, having attained the rank of chief petty officer, one of the highest ranks available to women at the time.  Mrs. Browne and her husband settled in Prince's Bay later that year.  She became one of the first female toll collectors for the Port Authority, based at the Outerbridge Crossing. She retired in the early 1990s after a 27-year career.

Mrs. Browne was a member of the Beauvais-Hudson Post, American Legion, and the South Shore Garden Club.  She enjoyed writing letters, reading, antiquing and listening to music, particularly Southern hymns.  Mrs. Browne was a member of St. Mark's Methodist Church, Pleasant Plains.  Her husband of 51 years, George R., died in 1997.

"She was a true lady, generous, loving and beautiful. She will be greatly missed," said her daughter, Linda L. Browne.  Along with her daughter, Linda, surviving are her son, George A.; her daughter, Susan M. Six; four brothers, Farrell, Clovis, Glen and Leonard (LL) Richardson; three sisters, Lucy Smith, Joy Kincade and Camille Lipe, and four grandchildren.

The funeral service will be tomorrow at 8 p.m. in the Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home, Tottenville. The Rev. Andrew Peck-McLain of St. Mark's Church will officiate. Arrangements include cremation.

Published in the Staten Island Advance from 7/30/2008

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