Riveting stories abound about homefront Rosies

Caitlin Hudgins

Friday, May 28, 2004 | 3:31 a.m.

May 31, 2004

Eva Comstock, who has lived in Henderson since 2001, is 93 years old now, but she still remembers her life as a Rosie -- a woman who worked on the home front -- more than 50 years ago during World War II.

Comstock recently contributed her memories of working as an airplane riveter to a collection of stories and artifacts gathered by Ford Motor Co. in honor of Memorial Day.

But Comstock was unable to donate any artifacts.

"She had nothing left to give," her daughter, Donna Colin, said. "You don't take home a rivet gun, and her overalls were long worn out."

Comstock's story was also included in "A Day with Rosie," a book by Jennie Nash, and an excerpt was published in the April issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

Born in Austria-Hungary, Comstock and her siblings were forced to emigrate to the United States when their mother died of consumption in 1920. The children joined their father in Minnesota, where he had been working to make money to send home to Europe.

Comstock, once she grew up, found work and boarded at a hospital in Duluth, Minn., for three years until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Once the United States entered the war, she moved to Detroit to work at a Chrysler plant. When that plant closed down, she went to work at a Ford factory in Dearborn.

Although most Rosies had spent their lives as housewives without their own jobs or income, women stepped up to the challenge of keeping the home front running smoothly. They took the places of their husbands, brothers and fathers by becoming factory workers, drivers, farmers, garbage collectors, builders and mechanics, according to Ford Motor Co.

Comstock's husband, however, was not drafted, so they both worked on the home front -- in fact, they worked in different buildings of the same plant. They took opposite shifts so that one of them could always be home with their twins, Donna and David.

"Mom worked the day shift," Colin said, "because women were not supposed to be out at night."

Every day, Comstock's husband would drive his wife and children to the plant, dropping off his wife and taking the kids back home, Colin said. Comstock would take the bus home eight hours later and then perform the same service her husband had that morning -- she would pack up the kids in the car, drive her husband to work, and drive back home with her children, leaving her husband to use public transportation after his shift ended.

"That way," Colin said, "whoever had the kids also had the car."

Their seemingly perfect schedule, however, made Comstock 15 minutes late to work every morning. After six months, the timekeeper finally inquired about the problem. Comstock explained the situation, and the sympathetic guard allowed her to arrive late for the remainder of her career at the factory.

Rosies with husbands fighting abroad, however, were left with no one to care for their children. Many factories started on-site centers to watch the children while the mothers worked, spawning the popular institution known today as day care, according to Ford.

While the Rosies' jobs were technically "men's jobs," the women who took men's places did not earn men's salaries. On average, women earned only 60 percent of men's wages, according to CNN.com. But without their husbands around to earn money, women often had no choice but to take low-paying jobs.

Comstock doesn't remember how much she earned at the Dearborn factory. "I didn't pay attention," she said, laughing. " As long as I got paid at the end of the week, I was fine."

Even with unfair pay, working provided women with a new independence.

Martha Willoughby said of her mother's factory days: "In many ways, they helped make her the strong, independent woman she was for the rest of her life."

Many Rosies continued working even after the war, despite the government's urgings to return to the home. Comstock, like most Rosies, was laid off from the factory when the men returned from war to reclaim their jobs. She went to work at the Ford cafeteria after her husband died in 1947. She remained until she retired in 1970 at age 60.

Comstock moved to Henderson to be with her daughter about 30 years later, not realizing that she was joining a community founded on the work of Rosies, locally called "Magnesium Maggies."

"Henderson made a huge contribution to the war because it was the only manufacturer of magnesium for incendiary bombs and air frames," Clark County Museum Registrar Suzanne Turgeon said.

"Henderson grew up around the magnesium plants," she said.

Workers originally built tent cities, but the government replaced them with temporary housing in 1941. Eventually residents were allowed to buy their homes, Turgeon said. After the war, Henderson invited in other manufacturers to take over the magnesium plants, resulting in today's titanium and other factories along Lake Mead Parkway.

"Quite a few women worked in Henderson during the war," Turgeon said, "and women continue to work here today."

All of the women who worked during World War II were honored in Washington, D.C., Thursday when Ford Motor Co. and actress Sissy Spacek unveiled more than 7,500 Rosie stories, including Comstock's, at the dedication of the National World War II Memorial.

The collection will later be included in the "Partners in Winning the War" exhibit at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Eventually, it will move to its permanent home at the World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif.

Eva Comstock's story, along with the rest of the Ford collection, will help to fulfill the inscription on the park's Rosie the Riveter Memorial:

"You must tell your children, putting modesty aside, that without us, without women, there would have been no spring in 1945."