“I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My father fought in Argonne in World War 1. In 1939, he got his bonus for serving. My parents paid off the mortgage on their house and drove my brothers and me across the country. I turned 14 before we left. We drove from Michigan to San Francisco and drove up the coast. We drove back across the country through Canada to New York City to see the World’s Fair. We lived on $1 a day. We slept on the floor of the tent and got wet when it rained. We had pancakes every morning and counted telephone poles and state license plates in the car for entertainment. In Miami, Oklahoma, the black chauffeurs had to sleep out of the city limits in cars because they couldn’t be in the city after dark. I sat with my brothers in the back seat and wrote about the trip in my journal. I kept it all of these years.

I had a great childhood. My dad cleaned furnaces and had a job during the Depression. My mom fed the hoboes who came to the back door looking for something to eat. She and I raised chickens and sold eggs for 10 cents a dozen. We delivered them around town.

When World War 2 started, my family moved to Detroit to work at the Willow Run B-24 bomber plant. Henry Ford donated the money to build the plant. It was a mile long. My parents worked in the cafeteria at one end and I worked on the other.

My dad took me there on March 31, 1943 to apply for work on the day I turned 18. I started in the tire crib, but the tires were much bigger than me. They moved me to riveting on the wing by the fuel tank with another woman. We worked like mad because we worried the line would move before our job was done.When the line went smoothly, we put out a plane every 50 minutes. I was a young Christian girl and had never been exposed to so many men, but there wasn’t time to talk. It also wasn’t the thing to do. 

We were the original Rosie the Riveters. Women were proud of being part of the war effort and having these jobs for the first time. I went from babysitting for a quarter a night to making a dollar an hour. The money went into a pile for my family. Some of it went to the church.

I also worked at Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime Store. When the nylon was use for makig parachutes instead of hose and stockings for women, I demonstrated how to draw a line up your leg so it looked like you were wearing seamed hose. Now I look back and think about how terrible it was for showing my legs.

My family moved to Florida and opened a hamburger restaurant called In We Go. My whole family worked there. I met my husband, John MacKinnon, when he was a customer. We married in 1950. John was a pilot in WWII and flew 77 bombing missions in a B-25. He was shot down off the coast of Sicily the day before D-Day. They made it to the coast of Libya. He was a crop duster when I met him. He became a pilot for American Airlines and flew one million miles before he retired after 30 years.

We moved to Arlington, Texas when there was nothing there. While he was working, I looked for real estate. We bought farmland in Italy, Texas and moved there. I loved to walk and work on our farm. I played tennis until I was in my 70’s. I’m 95 now. I am thankful for my family and everything that has happened. It has been a great life.”

Here is your history lesson to go with Elma’s story.
The story of the Willow Run bomber plant: https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-run-assembly-plant-helped-win-world-war-ii
And the story of Nylon and why women started shaving their legs during WWll: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/nylon-ww2-why-women-shave/