Frances V. Spence (née Bilas; March 2, 1922 – July 18, 2012) was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC (the first digital computer). She is considered to be one of the first computer programmers in history.She was born Frances V. Bilas in Philadelphia in 1922 and was the second of five sisters. Her parents both held jobs in the education sector, her father as an engineer for the Philadelphia Public School System and her mother as a teacher.Bilas attended the South Philadelphia High School for Girls and graduated in 1938. She originally attended Temple University, but switched to Chestnut Hill College after being awarded a scholarship. She majored in mathematics with a minor in physics and graduated in 1942. While there, she met Kathleen Antonelli, who later also became an ENIAC programmer. In 1947, she married Homer W. Spence, an Army electrical engineer from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds who had been assigned to the ENIAC project and later became head of the Computer Research Branch. She had continued working on the ENIAC in the years after the war, but shortly after marrying Homer, she resigned to raise a family. She had three boys named Joseph, Richard, and William. Wikipedia
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