JOSEPHINE "JO ANN" SANFILIPPO • VIETNAM WAR
Josephine “Jo Ann” Sanfilippo, 79
Gloucester, MA
Born: 2/9/1946
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Navy WAVES
Rank: E4 Communications Yeoman 3rd Class
Dates of Service: 1964-1967
Jo Ann Sanfilippo grew up ‘down the fort,’ living on Fort Square until she graduated from Gloucester High in 1964 and enlisted in the Navy. The daughter of Nina and Louis Benson, an identical twin to Elizabeth, and sister to four more siblings, Jo Ann knew she wanted to join the military, “I wanted to since I was little.”
Her first posting was at the US Naval Training Center in Bainbridge, Maryland for basic training. She was then stationed at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, where she was trained on the job in communications and teletype. “I hated typing in school, but I became a teletype operator and loved it.” She spent three years in Pensacola.
Once out of the military she moved to NY City for three years, where she worked as a teletype operator, before returning to Gloucester in 1971. She was hired at United Shoe in Beverly as a teletype operator. Years later she met and married Anthony Sanfilippo and together they raised their three sons, James, Joseph & Nino. While raising her sons she worked for the Gloucester School Department as a bus driver and in the school cafeterias. She now has four grandchildren.
“Not many people can say they did what they wanted to do in life, but I did. It’s the thing I’m most proud of - except for my children.”