Merle Egan Anderson

Merle Egan Anderson (born Merle Egan, Smith Center, Kansas c. 1888, died 1984) was a member of the United States Army Signal Corps' Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. She is one of the first 447 female veterans of the U.S. Army. She is credited for persisting in the effort to gain the Operators Unit veterans' status, which was eventually awarded by President Jimmy Carter, in 1979.

She volunteered as a long-distance telephone operator working for Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company in Helena, Montana. After the war, she married and moved to Seattle.