HomeMy WebLinkAboutWWII Prog FordVIRGINIA KELLEY FORD
Home Front - Firestone Factory
My Mother seemed satisfied doing her job, no matter what, because it would help bring my brother and the others home.
I was four years old when the world changed on December 7, 1941. My brother, Edwin Verne "Beany" Ford, Jr. who would turn 18 on the 21st, was a senior in high school. Because he was
in ROTC, he signed an agreement that he would graduate and then go to San Antonio for a two-month radio and electronics course, after which he would enter the Army and serve in the Signal
Corps. We lived in Dallas, with our mother, Virginia Kelley Ford; her brother, Oliver Sims Kelley (who was too old for the draft); their sister, Exa Kelley Williams; and the sister’s
19-year-old son, Ivy Albert Williams, Jr., who enlisted Monday, December 8th.
My mother, who was employed full time, suddenly changed jobs and went to work at the Firestone Plant in Dallas. Right before Pearl Harbor, her sister, who had recently become a widow,
had moved in with us. She became the homemaker and stayed home with me while Mother went to work at a defense plant lining fuselages of airplanes. I learned later that both she and
my aunt had applied for work at defense plants but they decided Mother’s job was the better one for our family.
The main difference for me was that Mother now worked the midnight shift. She would be home when I got home from school until I went to bed. She then left to be at work by midnight.
She did not get home until after I left for school.
She would occasionally bring home leftover endings of black rolls used to help line the fuselage. They would be placed in the bathtub and covered with water. After several hours they
would take them out of the tub and the blacking would be peeled off, leaving white cloth. These remnants, too short to be used on the fuselages, would make dish towels and aprons for
us, or we could save it for lining of homemade quilts.
Her job would continue until the war ended. I think Mother received a significant increase in pay and I never really heard her complain. Mother never talked about feeling patriotic,
but she never complained about her job like she had other jobs.
My brother served in the Army as a courier in the Signal Corps. He was on the Queen Mary headed home from Europe after V-E day. He was supposed to have leave and then be shipped to
the Pacific war zone but was home on leave on V-J day.
Patricia Ford Koppa
College Station, Texas
WWII Prog Ford