Gladys L. Collier was born in Fleming (Letcher County), KY. She grew up in Chicago, her family is enumerated in the 1930 U.S. Census. Her mother was a widow and she supported her four children as a public school teacher. Her father had died from a heart ailment in Fleming, KY, on October 9, 1929. He was buried in Chicago. When the census was taken in April of 1930, the family had not been in Chicago very long. The youngest child was born in Kentucky and was less than a year old. The family lived on E. 54th Street.

When she was 21 years old, Gladys L. Collier was living in Los Angeles, CA, and this is where she enlisted in the WAC. She did her basic training at the First WAC Training Center in Los Angeles. Before enlisting in the Army, she had been employed as a file clerk with the U.S. Treasury branches in Washington, D. C., and Chicago.

After her military service, Gladys L. Collier returned to Chicago where she died in 1952. She is buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Gladys L. Collier was the daughter of Jim L. and Myrtle Louise Collier.

See Jim L. Collier's Kentucky Death Certificate 27088, file #34 in Ancestry; Gladys Louise Collier at Find A Grave; Gladys L. Collier - Application for Headstone or Marker in Ancestry; Gladys L. Collier's Army enlistment record in Ancestry; "Gladys Collier and Ruby Winston join womens army corp," California Eagle, 09/21/1944, p.4; and "Local Wacs go on duty," California Eagle, 01/18/1945, p.14.