The following biographical sketch is compiled from both published and family sources.^{1, 5}

Harriet was born in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of four children of Nira and Harriet (Leonard) Truland. As a child, Harriet was an avid swimmer, and she used to swim in fishing ponds. Her mother told her not to swim in a fishing hole because it was dangerous, but Harriet did it anyway. One day, diving into the murky water, she cut her knee on an old broken milk bottle. She left a bloody footprint all the way home, in the house on the hardwood floors, and up the stairs. She wrapped her knee in the only bandage she could find. When her mother discovered her, her mother didn’t know whether to kill Harriet or laugh when she saw her youngest child had wrapped her bloody knee with a sanitary pad! As a result of her injury, Harriet walked with a brace on her leg for years.

Family lore suggests that during her childhood, Harriet swam with her older brother John and his friend Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic champion (1924 and 1928) and actor (Tarzan and other roles). The friendship seems improbably given their age differences; Weissmuller (1904-1984) was 15 years older than John, and another three years older than Harriet. Harriet was said to have gone to the Olympic trials (year unknown) but was disqualified when it was learned that she had been paid to teach children how to swim. Perhaps she met Weissmuller at an Olympic trial. He was known to have attended the women’s 1928 Olympic tryouts that were held at Rockaway Playland Pool, New York.

Harriet attended several schools, including Barringer High School, in Newark, eventually graduating in 1940 from Verona High School. She married her high school sweetheart, Arthur J. Anderson. When Arthur joined the Navy early in World War II, Harriet entered college and also did her part to support the war effort by working in an ammunition plant. The work was described as like the cartoon where a person tests bullets on a conveyor belt by hitting them with a hammer. Her job was so dangerous that she was the only one working in a small testing room.

After Arthur was killed in action in the War, Harriet wanted to join the Navy, but the doctor took one look at her knee brace and said she couldn’t join. She decided to come back and try to enlist in the Marine Corps, having removed her brace. A different doctor that day had her jump on one leg and then the other, and she said if he had her jump one more time on her injured leg she would have fallen flat on her face. But her enlistment was approved, and she became a Marine.

In the years following, with successive marriages to George Gottschling, Edward May, and Frank Medley, Harriet lived in various places, including her native New Jersey, Alabama, Colorado, and eventually Florida, where she settled with her last husband, Earl Tilden Johnson. Her last job was executive secretary with a western food chain (her boss was killed in a plane crash). In retirement, Harriet enjoyed square dancing, tap, Hawaiian and aerobic dancing, and was on the local synchronized swim team.

While in the Marine Corps, Harriet befriended Lieutenant General Carol Mutter, the first woman in the Marine Corps to be promoted to the ranks of both major general and lieutenant general. Years later, General Mutter honored Harriet’s memory by conducting her funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.