Comments:

Margaret Walker's tombstone is a relatively modern replacement and badly in error.  She did not serve in World War II and the date of February 17, 1947 is a  typo.  It is probably supposed to refer to the date that the Angel Island  graves were moved to the Golden Gate National Cemetery- February 19, 1947.  In fact, Walker lived in the 19th century and was a laundress with Company C of the 12th United States Infantry Regiment.

Created early in the Civil War, the 12th United States Infantry Regiment was sent to the West in 1869 and its companies were stationed off and on Angel Island during the 1870's.

Although a position of low social standing, doing soldier's laundry was the only job a woman could normally hold in the19th century US Army (female nurses were a phenomenon of the Civil War and they often served in an unofficial capacity).  Each company's commander was allowed to appoint four women to do the soldiers' laundry.  Laundresses were entitled to quarters, food rations and transportation with the unit.  They charged the men for the laundry the did and were present on pay days to make sure the soldiers' debts to them were reckoned.  These women were subject to military discipline and, as they were the only women whose travel expenses were provided by the government, were often married to enlisted men in the company they served with. A post's laundress' quarters were often dubbed "sud's row."

It is interesting to note that in June of 1878 the penny-pinching Army officially ended the practice of hiring laundresses, although those that were already married to soldiers were allowed to retain their positions.  Individual commanders, however, were known to turn a blind eye to the rules forbidding laundresses until the early 20th century.

Margaret Walker is the only woman in the Angel Island graves to be listed with her own rank instead of being listed as a man's dependent.  It is unfortunate that her tombstone should so poorly reflect her important, albeit unglorious, position.