East Lyme — Janet York didn’t need to carry an ID card to visit the women’s correctional center that bears her name. Her picture hangs on the wall behind the front desk of the Janet S. York Correctional Institution that has borne her name since 1994.

Janet Spiers York Littlefield, an institution in her own right in her recent home of Niantic and her longtime home of Old Lyme, died Sept. 6 at the Lawrence + Memorial Hospital at age 98, her family and the Fulton-Theroux Funeral Home in Old Lyme announced on Friday.

A celebration of life will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at the First Congregational Church in Old Lyme. A complete obituary will be published in The Day paper.

York Littlefield had a storied life and career in corrections and as a World War II veteran of the Women’s Army Corps in North Africa and Italy.

“She was very special. She really was,” her son, Allan York, said Friday night. “The world is a better place because she was here. To me her whole life was: ‘What glass ceiling?’”

“This woman is spectacular,” her stepson, James Littlefield, said Friday. “The woman was in World War II in charge of the motor pool in North Africa. She’s fighting against (German General Erwin) Rommel, for crying out loud. Not only did they name the prison after her, but she traveled the country accrediting prisons.”

Littlefield has written biography stories and reflections of his stepmother’s life for the “Post Road Review,” a monthly magazine for southeastern Connecticut. He also spoke at the 100th anniversary of what started as the Connecticut State Farm for Women in July 2018.

But it was a casual story he heard about her that stands out in his mind. One day while golfing in Norwich, Littlefield struck up a conversation with a fellow golfer and asked where he worked. The man was a corrections officer at York. Littlefield told him the institution was named for his stepmother. The man told his story.

One day while he was sitting at the front desk, a woman entered carrying a pile of books she wanted to donate to the prisoners. The corrections officer said he couldn’t accept them unless she provided her identification.

York replied that she didn’t need to show an ID. “I’m Janet York,” and the skeptical officer said: “You can’t be Janet York. She died years ago."

“Isn’t that my picture on the wall behind you?” York responded.

York Littlefield was born Jan. 15, 1921, daughter of Jack and Helen Spiers. She grew up in Old Lyme and attended Morgan High School in Clinton. According to a brief biography written by James Littlefield, during her senior year, young Janet attended a lecture on “Corrections as a Career for Women.” The Connecticut State Farm for Women was just 8 miles from her home but she attended the University of Connecticut with plans to become a physical education teacher.

But the war intervened, and in 1942, she joined the WAC and was immediately recognized for her leadership.

“For some reason, I seemed to often be asked to head something up,” York Littlefield told her stepson for his biographical story on her. “Whether it was on board the ship on the way over when I was put in charge of the other women, or in Algiers when I was given the motor pool assignment. I often ended up with more responsibility than I had bargained for.”

She earned a star for service in what was called the “Rome-Arno Campaign.” But with the war raging and dead and wounded all around, a different traumatic experience shaped her next career move. She counseled many women serving with her, and she told her stepson how she felt when one distraught woman was sent home, only to take her own life by jumping over the side of the ship on the way.

“I guess I knew right then and there that I was not going to be a physical education teacher after all,” York Littlefield told her stepson.

She returned and with the GI Bill, earned a Master of Science degree in social work at Boston University. She married Walter York, and although she was pregnant with her daughter, Ann, by the time she returned to Old Lyme, started working part-time at “the farm.” She gave birth to her son, Allan, before beginning to work full-time in 1951.

She rose quickly in responsibility, becoming assistant superintendent in 1957 and temporary superintendent when then-Superintendent Elizabeth McKenzie became ill in November 1960. She recalled her father’s encouragement to convince her worried mother that Janet could do the job: “If Jack Kennedy could run the whole country at his age, their daughter could certainly run the state farm. I never forgot my dad’s ringing endorsement,” York Littlefield told her stepson.

She and Walter divorced, and she and the two children moved onto the farm grounds in the Haven House.

Another promotion came in 1968, when York Littlefield was named deputy commissioner of women’s services for the state Council of Corrections while remaining in her Niantic post. She married Clyde B. Littlefield in 1967 and retired in 1977, she thought. He died in 2010.

She was asked by the American Correctional Association to help accredit prisons across the country and in Canada. She did it for a couple years, but decided the travel was too much and “I decided to spend more time on the water,” she told her stepson.

She stayed in Niantic, a few miles from the institution that bears her name, in a house overlooking the Niantic River.

c.bessette@theday.com