Seaman 1^st Class, US Navy, Clelia Frittelli Shumway

Born: March 8, 1923, New York, New York

Died: March 25, 2013, Los Lunas, New Mexico

Seaman 1st class Clelia Frittelli Shumway joined the US Navy as one of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), though the exact date is unknown. When joining the WAVES the rating of apprentice seaman was used, but once you completed your basic training one was promoted to Seaman 2^nd class.¹ What Seaman Frittelli did to receive promotion isn’t clear, but when she left the WAVES she was a full seaman first class.  The exact date she left is unknown.

Clelia was born in New York, New York on March 19, 1923, the oldest child of Rotilio and Anna Frittelli.² She grew up in New York with two sisters, though one died tragically young.^3,4 After completing high school, Frittelli Shumway joined the US Navy WAVES and served well.

After the war, she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and worked as a clerk in a bank.⁵ About a year later, Frittelli Shumway became engaged to Kenneth Shumway, and the two were married in June 1949.⁶ After her marriage, she worked a number of jobs to support the newly wedded pair while her husband attended the University of Utah to study engineering on the GI Bill.^7,8 In 1954, Frittelli Shumway’s husband took a job at the Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.⁹ Only two years later he resigned from that position and the couple moved to Phoenix, Arizona where their son was born.¹⁰

Frittelli Shumway and her family moved back to Albuquerque in 1958 for her husband to once more work at Sandia Labs.¹¹ By 1963, the family was welcoming a daughter. ¹² The Shumways were eventually a family of five. After thirty years at Sandia Labs, her husband retired.  He passed away in February of 2007.¹³  Clelia Frittelli Shumway passed away in Los Lunas, New Mexico on March 25, 2013.

Images & Documents

Notes:

1. How to Serve Your Country in the WAVES. Found at Naval History and Heritage Command. 16 October 2019. p. 20.

2 & 3. “Clelia Frittelli Shumway.” Family Search. Copyright 2021. Accessed: 19 September 2023.  For note 3, this site mentions her sister died at eight.

4. “Frittelli.” Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02662; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 31-1586B. There are only two daughters listed here.
5. “Frittelli.” Salt Lake City, Utah, City Directory, 1948.
6. “Clelia Frittelli.” Salt Lake Telegram. Salt Lake City, Utah. 14 May 1949. p. 20.
7. “Shumway.” National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Salt Lake, Salt Lake, Utah; Roll: 287; Page: 73; Enumeration District: 30-37.
8. “Shumway, Clelia Mrs. & Shumway, Kenneth.” Salt Lake City, Utah, City Directory, 1952.
9. “Shumway Promoted to Sandia Post.” Albuquerque Tribune. Albuquerque, New Mexico. 30 Apr 1963. sec. D p. 7.
10. “Kenneth Jack “Kenny” Shumway.” Find a Grave, memorial page for Kenneth Jack “Kenny” Shumway Jr. (11 Feb 1957–20 Oct 2017).
11. See note 9.
12. “Births.” Albuquerque Journal. Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10 April 1963. sec. D p. 1.
13. “Shumway, Kenneth Jack.” Albuquerque Journal: Obituaries. Albuquerque, New Mexico. 26 Feb 2007. sec. B p. 6. The number in the family and his retirement also come from this obituary.

Compiled by: A. D. McLean, MA, MLIS. Central New Mexico Community College, retired 2022.

Featured Image:

“Clelia Frittelli Shumway in uniform.” Family Search. Copyright 2021. Accessed: 19 September 2023. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KW86-YHW/clelia-frittelli-1923-2013