YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Loraine Osborne is a Rosie.
She
isn’t THE Rosie, but she worked as a riveter at the Willow Run bomber
plant in Michigan alongside Rose Will Monroe, the inspiration for a
character that came to symbolize female empowerment and the
we’re-all-in-this-together spirit of the American homefront during World
War II.
Thousands of Rosie the Riveters were there when their country needed them. Now, Rosie is the one who
needs help.
All that stands between her old plant and the wrecking ball is two days and $1 million.
A
group trying to save a slice of the factory west of Detroit raised $7
million, but it needs $8 million and has until Thursday to make that
happen. If the Save the Bomber Plant campaign fails, a piece of U.S.
history will be lost forever.
Osborne says that would be a shame.
"It
should be taken care of so that everybody — our children, our
grandchildren, our great-grandchildren — can enjoy it as the years go
by," said the Kentucky transplant whose brother and sister and their
spouses worked at the facility in Ypsilanti Township, Mich.
From 1942 to 1945, Osborne and a cast of tens of thousands built roughly one B-24 Liberator an hour and
8,685 in all.
"It
was really important to get those planes out so they could save
people’s lives," said Osborne, who met her future husband at the plant
and stopped riveting long enough to get married.
She lived in government housing near the massive plant that was built by Ford Motor Co. and featured a
mile-long assembly line.
Although
women performed what had been male-dominated roles in plants all over
the country during the war, it was Monroe, who was one of an untold
number of women in the Willow Run plant’s 40,000-person workforce, who
caught the eye of Hollywood producers casting a "riveter" for a
government film about the war effort at home.
Monroe, a Kentucky
native who moved to Michigan during the war, starred as herself in the
film and became one of the best-known figures of that era. She
represented the thousands of Rosies who took factory jobs making
munitions, weaponry and other things while the nation’s men were off
fighting in Europe and the Pacific.
Although many Rosies were let
go once the war was over and the soldiers returned home, they had shown
that women were capable of doing jobs that had traditionally been done
by only men. An illustrated poster of a determined-looking Rosie the
Riveter rolling up her sleeve with the slogan "We can do it!" became an
iconic symbol of female empowerment for American women.
The Willow
Run factory transitioned to producing automobiles after the war ended,
and it continued to make them as well as parts for more than a
half-century under the General Motors name before closing for good in
2010.
Now, the plant is coming down in part to make way for a connected vehicle research center.
The
Save the Bomber campaign wants to separate and preserve more than
150,000 square feet of the plant and convert it into a new, expanded
home for the Yankee Air Museum, which would move from its current
location less than two miles away.
The site’s manager, a trust set
up to oversee properties owned by a pre-bankruptcy GM, has given the
group a number of extensions, but there won’t be any more. Demolition
already is underway on other parts of the plant.
"Time is really
short on this," said Dennis Norton, the president of the Michigan
Aerospace Foundation and one of the leaders of the effort to save the
plant. "We need people to help, but I honestly think we’re going to make
it."
Norton and his colleagues aren’t going down without a fight.
In
addition to working the phones and giving potential donors flights in
vintage aircraft, they recently hosted a pair of fundraising events,
including a "bomber buffing" party in which area residents polished
planes.
Osborne embodies the Save The Bomber Plant effort.
The
88-year-old, who worked at an area Ford plant for three decades after
the war, shows up at Willow Run-related events from time to time, often
while wearing Rosie’s trademark red bandanna with white polka dots.
"I
don’t let anything stop me, because my mother taught us, ‘As long as
you can put one foot in front of the other, you can go,’" she said.
___
Online:
http://www.savethebomberplant.org

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