[7] Once military families were sent back to the American mainland following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, she was a pupil at five high schools.

In 1943, her guidance counselor in high school suggested she become a librarian due to her intelligence, but she was much more interested in numbers than words.

[3] While working at the United States Army Signal Corps in New Jersey, she took engineering classes through a Rutgers University extension programme.

[3] A year after graduation from MIT she was hired by the U.S. Army Signal Corps Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

[3] After five years at the Signal Corps she moved to Los Angeles and began working for Hughes Aircraft Company.

She worked there for 36 years on a range of projects that included antenna design, communications links, optics, and the Landsat scanners.

[15] Virginia Tower married Lawrence Russell Norwood, her third-semester calculus instructor and the president of the MIT mathematics club.