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FORGOTTEN FOREMOTHERS
Profiles of lesser-known heroines in the fight for women’s rights
Donna Tobias - 1st Female Deep Sea Diver
Donna Tobias was born on May 22, 1952, in Los Angeles, Calif. to Marie and Elmer Tobias. Father Elmer, a U.S. Army Sergeant and veteran of World War II, worked in manufacturing. Donna, who grew up with brothers Gary and Doug, enjoyed her proximity to the sea; she swam and snorkeled often.
Money was tight for the Tobias family. Still in her early 20s, Donna enlisted in the U.S. Navy, “because it was the one on the water,” she said. She immediately set her sights on the Navy’s diving school. She submitted her application and waited – and worked as a hull technician and welder on the base. In January 1975, just two days before the new class would begin, Donna received word: She’d been accepted. She was officially the first woman ever accepted to the Navy’s deep-sea diving program.
The training was grueling and intense. Few who started finished, with barely a third of each class qualifying for certification.“I told myself they’d have to make me leave,” Donna said. “I wouldn’t quit. If you ever uttered the words, ‘I quit,’ you could never take them back, and there were plenty of eyes waiting to see me fail. I didn’t want them asking less of women, for anything.”
The Mark V diving suit could not be changed to fit Donna. Its weight and durability protected divers in the intense pressure, cold, and turbulence of deep waters. In time, Donna grew more comfortable in the bulky, heavy suit. “It was cumbersome on land, but in the water, you could move around; it was less of a problem,”she told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “In the water, I felt safe in it. I can smell being in this suit—smell the air, the metal, taste it, you know? I got to be fond of it, in the water.”
Donna graduated as the Navy’s first female deep-sea diver on March 14, 1975. As she expected, however, that was as far down that path as the Navy would let her go. Instead of embarking on deep-sea missions and working the salvage projects for which she’d been trained, she moved to Groton, Conn. to be an instructor at the Submarine Naval Base in New London a base active since 1868.
Donna packed a lot into her years with the Navy. She "worked in ports on naval vessels, took part in search and salvage operations in Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, and participated in the sinking of a World War II ship to construct an artificial reef in Chesapeake Bay. She worked in the hyperbaric chamber, which treats divers suffering embolisms, as well as people with carbon monoxide poisoning and gangrene.” She saved lives.
Donna left the Navy in 1980, using the G.I. Bill to earn her bachelor’s degree in education, followed by a master’s in psychology and additional certification to teach students in special education. She brought her trailblazing energy to this new frontier. At the time, special-needs students were segregated from other students in her school system. “She led the charge to become more mainstream, more inclusive,” Louis Allen, her principal at New London High School, told the Hartford Courant. “Donna always spoke up.”
In April 2001, Donna was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. This was the first time that her students and many friends and colleagues learned that they had a history maker in their midst.In her free time after teaching, Donna still swam and snorkeled often. She was a drummer and singer for a band called the Loose Ends, and worked with a theater group called the Second Step Players. She volunteered with Art Reach, a group dedicated to fighting stigma and educating the public about mental illness.
She retired from teaching when her depression became debilitating. On nice days, she joined her friends on the beach to catch crabs and fish. She began volunteering at Mitchell Farm Equine Retirement, a home for aging horses. Farm executive director Dee Doolittle told the Hartford Courant, “It didn’t take her long to fall in love with horses. They need so much care, and she had so much to give.” In her home garage-turned-studio, she created wood and stone carvings. Her home, friend Judith said, “It was a maze of art, an internal labyrinth. Everywhere you turned, there was something to look at.”
On Sept. 21, 2010, Donna died by suicide at age 58. Fittingly, her loved ones held her memorial ceremony on the beach, looking out across the sea.
In 2018, the Submarine Naval Base New London named their new dive locker facility Tobias Hall in honor of Donna. The name suggestion came from the divers themselves.
(Go HERE to read this entire article on the LWVIN website.)
Kathryn S Gardiner | Published on 8/12/2023
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