Jean Mavis Enwall
Jean Mavis Kennett (1912 – 1990) met and married American Colonel Hayford Enwall (1905 – 1993) in 1944 while she was serving as a Lieutenant in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. The AAMWS developed out of voluntary medical organisations such as the VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachments). Jean Kennett was one of some 8,500 Australian women who served in the AAMWS in WW2, working alongside army nursing sisters in hospitals.
During her time as a member of the AAMWS Jean was stationed at Darley Camp, Victoria and she posed for respected war artist Napier Waller. The sketch that Waller took of Jean was published in The Australasian (December 5, 1942) and used in a wartime recruitment poster that read: ‘Do a worthwhile job / Join the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service’ (see ANMS0148[001]).
Jean’s husband Colonel Hayford Enwall worked a barrister and assistant US district attorney in Florida in the years before the outbreak of war. As a reserve Army officer Enwall was called to active duty in 1941 and sent immediately to Australia, serving there and in New Guinea and the Philippines for three and a half years. In the Army Enwall worked as the Chief Legal Officer of the US Army Services of Supply and he served as prosecutor on the Leonski 'Brownout Murders' trial in Melbourne.
Jean Kennett and Hayford Enwall were married on 25th August 1944 at Christ Church, South Yarra. In 1946, at the end of the war, Jean left Australia on the bride ship MONTEREY to meet her husband and begin their life together in Florida. Jean's experience is representative of the 12,000 - 15,000 Australian women who married American servicemen during WW2.
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