Mary Barlow: Hartford’s Fallen “Six-Triple-Eight” Soldier

Mary Jewel Barlow (1923 - 1945)

I heard about the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion in passing over the past few years, but when I saw Tyler Perry and Kerry Washington’s movie The Six Triple Eight, I was amazed by the story. I wondered how over 800 Black women could go to Europe with the US Army during World War II - and yet the feat had been erased from the history books. As genealogists, we always look a little deeper into the stories we see in media, and I was particularly interested to find out more about the women who died in an explosion in the movie.

I realized quickly that Tyler Perry took artistic liberties with the film: the women that died in the explosion never existed. However, there were three women who really died in their service and I was surprised to see that one of them had the surname Barlow. I knew immediately that this woman was related to me, but I assumed she was from Americus, Georgia, where there are tons of Barlow families. Imagine my surprise when I looked her up in FamilySearch’s 6888 portal and saw that she was born in Hartford, Connecticut - just like me.

Both of my parents grew up in a housing development called Bellevue Square, where the Barlow name is very well known. Parts of the Square have actually been renamed in honor of Mary Barlow Shepard, a beloved education pioneer and neighborhood matriarch. My father was a Shepard, so I went into his tree on Ancestry to search for these family members and I saw that Private First Class Mary Barlow was the niece and namesake of Mary Barlow Shepard. I share an aunt with this fallen soldier.

Both women were already in my tree, but I had no death information for the younger one. I probably assumed she got married and died under a different surname, but I never would’ve imagined that she died in France in service of the US Army at 22. Furthermore, the goal of adding this branch to my tree many years ago was actually about her brother, the Honorable Boce William Barlow, Jr. He was Connecticut’s first Black judge and first Black state senator. At the time, I was living in East Hartford and teaching at Fred D. Wish Elementary, which required me to frequent Boce Barlow Way, a street renamed for the judge.

Now that I know what happened to his sister, I’m wondering: where is the street named after PFC Mary Jewel Barlow?

Honestly, I am not a fan of the way Mary Barlow’s story was changed for this movie. I still can’t find all the details, but it appears that these women were not killed in any explosion. They were ejected from their jeep after some sort of collision. The movie makes it seem like they were incompetent enough to drive over an IED, that had already been discovered and blocked off. I wish the scene had been written better, but there is still honor in Tyler’s reasoning for including it at all.

The part that he portrayed truthfully is that the army refused to pay for the funeral and burial expenses of three Black women. Charity Adams fought hard to make sure Mary Barlow, Mary Bankston, and Dolores Browne were buried in dignity. She found women in the 6888 who had worked in mortuaries and German prisoners who could make caskets. Despite the adversity, the soldiers received a Christian burial in the Normandy American Cemetery. There are only four women buried in the entire cemetery.

This Memorial Day, let’s remember the bravery of Hartford’s own Mary Jewel Barlow. May she rest in peace.