A Real "Rosie the Riveter"

This is a story about a woman named Rosie Schramski, 85, of Suttons Bay, who, during World War II actually worked in a factory making bombers and whose job was riveting.

This was in the April 21st Traverse City (Mi) Record Eagle "'Rosie the Riveter' alive and well" by Carol Smith.

In 1944, she spent six months at the Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, as a riveter. She worked nine hours a day constructing the center wings on B-24 bombers on a mile-long assembly line.

With all the men going off to fight the war, thousands of women entered the work force to make the instruments of war they needed. Her daughters interviewed her and sent the story to the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront National Park in Richmond, California.


THE WAR YEARS

She had met her future husband Frank Schramski before the war. He enlisted in the Navy ten days after his high school graduation in 1943 and served on the destroyer USS Benham.

Rosie graduated at the same time and moved to Ypsilanti to help her sister and brother-in-law by babysitting while they worked at Willow Run. She came home for Christmas where she and her girlfriend Gladys decided to get a lucrative job at the plant themselves.

They went back to Ypsilanti, got jobs, and lived in dormitories set up for the workers. They attended the Ford Airplane School and studied from "A Manual of Elementary Rivet Theory."

They were assigned to what was considered to be the noisiest assembly line where the pieces were put together. Rosie was a riveter and Gladys the bucker. They worked hard and carefully, knowing the lives of the crews depended on their effort.

They often volunteered for the night shift where they made more money.

www.rosietheriveter.com

Part of the Interesting Story of the US Homefront During the War. --Cooter