A Woman's Place (5 page)

“Hey, can you tell me how I apply for a job around here?”

“Yes, ma’am. You can talk to Mr. Wire’s secretary, ma’am. Right down at the end of that hallway.” He pointed to the left.

Rosa found the secretary and got an application form. She sat down to fill it out and quickly decided that she needed to lie about finishing high school. They’d never call all the way to Brooklyn to check up on her, would they? When she came to the part that asked her to list two references, she stopped. Should she put down her father-in-law’s name for one of them? Rosa decided against it. He would probably have a fit, saying women shouldn’t work in a factory—although it was okay for his wife to slave away at home fourteen hours a day, six days a week, scrubbing his clothes and cooking his meals without pay.

She wrote Dirk’s name instead, and the name of the cook in the diner where she’d worked in New York. When asked which shift she preferred, she checked all three boxes: 7 A.M.—3 P.M.; 3 P.M.—11 P.M.; and 11 P.M.—7 A.M., just to let them know she was willing to work any time.

The secretary showed Rosa into Mr. Wire’s office when she finished. He looked up from his desk when she entered and stared at her, google-eyed—but Rosa was used to men staring at her. Mr. Wire looked like he was about to give her a wolf whistle when he caught himself and cleared his throat.

“Please, have a seat.” Rosa sat. He peeled his eyes away from her figure and studied her application. “I know your husband,” he said when he looked up again. “My son Larry went to school with him. Played on the varsity baseball team together. Great ballplayer, your Dirk. And he sure found himself a pretty little wife.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Which branch of the service did Dirk join?”

“He’s in the navy.” She gave him her prettiest smile, careful not to lay it on too thick.

“My boy joined the marines. I know your father-in-law, too.” He cleared his throat again. “So … you moved here from New York recently?”

“Yeah. Brooklyn. Me and Dirk met there. We got married a month and a half ago, then he got transferred to Virginia for more training. I sure could use this job, Mr. Wire.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’re starting to train a new team of electricians today, in fact. The job is yours if you want it.”

“You bet I do!”

Rosa’s head spun as she stood up to shake his hand, but she wasn’t sure if it was from her hangover or the speed at which everything was happening. An hour ago she’d been sound asleep; now she was accepting a job. She felt a brief moment of panic, wondering what she might have gotten herself into, then realized that she could always quit again if she didn’t like it. She’d had a whole string of jobs after dropping out of high school. What was one more? If things didn’t work out she could be out of here as fast as she had come in. Maybe by then she’d have saved up enough money to get out of town.

Mr. Wire stood, too. “You may step out here, Mrs. Voorhees, and have a seat with the other ladies. Your foreman, Earl Seaborn, will be with you momentarily.”

“Yeah, great. Thanks a million.”

Two other women sat in the waiting area, and Rosa could tell by the conversation she interrupted that they already knew each other. It burned her up that every last person in this stupid town seemed to know everybody else. These ladies probably knew her in-laws, too. In fact, Dirk’s mother had probably told the whole town about the sleazy wife their darling Dirk had sent here from New York City, and how she was an “Eye-tal-yun” girl who never stepped through the door of a church before. The stares she had gotten last Sunday had been more than Rosa could stand—not admiring stares like Mr. Wire’s, but as if she were on loan from the zoo. She would never belong in a million years. She tried to tell that to Dirk when he first came up with the idea of sending her to live with his parents, but he wouldn’t listen.

“Oh no, Rosa,” he’d insisted. “You’ll charm their socks off just like you charmed me. You’re so funny …” Blah, blah, blah. Rosa could see that moving here while Dirk was in the service had been a big mistake. Yeah, they could save money on rent and all that, but he would have to pick her up in the loony bin by the time the war was over and cut her out of a straightjacket. This factory job might get her out of the house for a while, but judging by the way the two hens sitting alongside her were chewing the fat, it looked like Rosa was doomed to be the outsider again. Then the older lady surprised her.

“Forgive us for being rude,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Helen Kimball.”

“And I’m Virginia Mitchell,” the thirty-something lady added, extending her white-gloved hand to Rosa, too. “Call me Ginny.”

“Rosa Bon—” She started to say Bonelli, her maiden name, then caught herself. “Rosa Voorhees. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh, are you any relation to Mr. Voorhees, the plumber?” Ginny asked. “I always call him when I need work done.”

Rosa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Yeah, I married his son, Dirk. A month and a half ago, in fact.”

“I taught Dirk Voorhees in the second grade,” Helen Kimball added. “It’s hard to believe so much time has passed, and that he’s grown and married now. Is he in the service?”

“Yeah, we met when he was in corpsman school at the navy hospital in Brooklyn. He walked into the diner in New York where I was working, and
boom
. Two weeks later we got married.”

“Dirk was a very bright student. Well-mannered, too,” the teacher said.

“Yeah? He just got transferred to another navy hospital in Virginia to finish learning to be a corpsman.”

The schoolteacher nodded, and Rosa decided she wasn’t so bad after all, even if people back home would call her prim.

“So you’re a newlywed!” Ginny gushed. She looked neat and well-pressed, every curl in place—the type of woman who would give Rosa’s mother-in-law a run for her money in a contest for Housewife of the Year. Both Helen and Ginny looked out of place here. But then, so did Rosa—not just in this factory but in this godforsaken, backwoods town. Well, Rosa had wanted a change and boy, had she gotten one!

“Are you originally from the Stockton area?” Ginny asked.

“Heck, no! I’m a city girl, street-smart and street tough, too. You have to be in order to get by in my Brooklyn neighborhood, or you don’t last too long.”

They were interrupted by a young, clean-cut guy who strode into the waiting area. “Sorry to keep you waiting, ladies. I’m Earl Seaborn, foreman of your division. Come right this way, please.”

Rosa stood with the others, hardly able to comprehend that she really was starting a new job. What would Dirk’s parents say about that? She’d be willing to bet that at this very moment Tena Voorhees was washing Rosa’s bedsheets. It was no skin off Rosa’s nose. No matter how hard she scrubbed, they’d never be clean enough for her mother-in-law.

Mr. Seaborn opened a door that led into the factory, and there was such an explosion of noise and bright lights that Rosa didn’t know whether to cover her ears or her eyes. The steady banging made her head feel like the clapper of the Liberty Bell on the Fourth of July. What a dumb idea to start work in a noisy factory with a hangover! Mr. Seaborn had to shout at times to be heard as he led them on a brief tour, describing all the stages in the construction process. Rosa passed row after row of machinery and tools and workers in coveralls. Some of the giant hulks of metal resembled boats, but a lot of what she saw looked like complicated piles of junk. The factory went on and on forever and stank of hot metal and enamel paint.

After several minutes, Rosa wondered if this was a bad dream. She glanced at the other two women, and they looked like they wanted out of here, too. The schoolteacher was trying to keep a stiff upper lip, her chin high in the air, but she looked like somebody had put her in a tub of hot water and shrunk her a couple of sizes. The housewife, Ginny, was fighting tears. If her shoulders slumped much more she would bend in half. No backbone at all, that one. Sweet little Ginny wouldn’t last two seconds in the city—they’d eat her alive. Rosa was willing to bet that neither one of them would last the week out in this place. Then again, she might have bitten off more than she could chew, too.

She decided to give the foreman, Earl Seaborn, the once-over to take her mind off her pounding head and jittery nerves. He looked to be about Dirk’s age, in his mid-twenties, and she wondered why he wasn’t off fighting. It galled her to see men shirking their duty when her Dirk had to go and fight. Then she noticed that there was something wrong with Mr. Seaborn’s left hand. He held it funny, when he wasn’t stuffing it into his pocket as if trying to hide it. When she did glimpse his hand, it looked thin and shriveled. As she followed him down the assembly line, she also noticed that he limped, favoring his right leg, dragging his left one. Polio, she guessed. Too bad. He’d be a nice-looking guy otherwise, even if he wasn’t a hunk like Dirk.

As Mr. Seaborn continued the tour, some of the men along the way stopped working to give Rosa the once-over. “Hey, baby …” someone called. She thought she recognized one of the guys who’d bought her a drink last night. She heard a wolf whistle.

“Keep your eyes on your work, please,” Mr. Seaborn ordered.

“How big is this place?” Rosa asked after walking for what felt like miles. She was so tired by the time they came to the end of the line that she tripped over a toolbox and nearly fell into the test pond where a huge boat was floating. Ginny grabbed her arm to steady her.

“This is the last stage, where we test-run the ships,” Mr. Seaborn said. “Then they’re ready to launch. They’ll go down the river to Lake Michigan, then out to sea.”

“How often do you complete one?” the schoolteacher asked.

“Not often enough. We’re way behind schedule. But if we can hire enough help and gear up to three full shifts, working around the clock, we hope to launch one every month.”

“Yeah, right!” Rosa said. “How can we put a whole boat together in a month? It’s like working a gigantic jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces.”

“We break it down into small steps,” Mr. Seaborn said, “and everyone builds a small part of it. You ladies will be wiring the ship’s electrical systems.”

He escorted them back to what he called the harness shop, where a young girl who looked as though she was barely out of high school sorted through piles of cables and wires and electrical switches. She strode forward to greet them, towering over Rosa. The girl was as tall as Mr. Seaborn!

“This is Jean Erickson,” Mr. Seaborn said. “She’s going to train you ladies.”

“Yeah, right,” Rosa said without thinking. Jean looked peeved. She was pretty in a plain sort of way, very blond with blue eyes and fair skin and a boyish figure. She looked exactly like the kind of blah hometown girl that her in-laws would have picked for Dirk—the complete opposite of the curvy Italian beauty he’d chosen. Tough luck for them.

“Hey, no offense,” Rosa said quickly, “but you look too young to be bossing everybody around. How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“I’m eighteen. And we’ll start today by learning to solder wire.” Jean’s voice told Rosa that she wasn’t taking any guff, in spite of her age. “Eventually they’ll assign our four-woman crew to the assembly line, where we’ll be expected to wire a certain quota of the ship’s electrical systems in an eight-hour shift.”

“What happens if we don’t finish on time?” Ginny asked in a worried voice. She had finally taken off her white gloves, but she still looked like she wanted to run home.

“Any work we don’t finish overlaps into the next shift,” Jean replied. “But it causes a lot of trouble if the entire production line has to stop while they wait for the ship to move on to the next stage.” She gestured to another crew, working on a later stage of construction.

“It sounds like there will be a lot of pressure on us,” Ginny said.

“Even more so because we’re women,” Jean told them. “There are a lot of men in this place who resent women working here and who would love to see us fail. The only way we can succeed is by becoming a team. We have to work together just like the guys in the army do, cooperating as a unit, helping one another and picking up each other’s slack. With a war on, there’s no time or place for individuals who want to go it alone. We have an important job to do. Soldiers’ lives depend on us. I have five brothers in the armed services, and I’m sure you have loved ones fighting, too. Our boys need these ships so they can invade Europe when the time comes. Our marines need these ships in order to take back all the Pacific islands from the Japanese. Do you think we can pull together and do that?”

“Yeah, sure!” Rosa was surprised by her own enthusiasm. She imagined Dirk and all his navy buddies riding in one of her boats, winning the war because of her hard work, then coming home safe and sound again. She felt tears in her eyes.

What had begun as a terrible day was turning out to be the start of something really good in her life—something that just might make a difference. Rosa couldn’t wait to begin.

CHAPTER 4

*   
Jean
   *

Jean Erickson could tell by the dazed look in everyone’s eyes that her new crew had absorbed enough information for one day. They reminded her of an electrical socket with too many appliances and extension cords plugged into them. Any more and the fuse would blow for sure.

“Okay, I think that’s enough for today,” she told them. “We’ll quit a few minutes early so I can show you where to find your time cards and how to punch in and out. Don’t forget you’ll need to wear the coveralls I gave you, starting tomorrow.”

The three women trailed behind Jean, clutching their folded coveralls as she strode to the time clock. Jean remembered feeling weary and overwhelmed, too, when she first started working here nearly four months ago.

“Sometimes when I punch out at the end of the day I feel like I’m running the gauntlet,” she told her new crew. “Especially since Mr. Seaborn promoted me to crew chief.”

“Why’s that?” Rosa Voorhees asked.

“Well, most of the men don’t like working alongside women. They’ve worked at Stockton Boat Works—or, I should say, Stockton Shipyard—their entire lives, and we’ve invaded their territory. The fact that I’m only eighteen and a crew chief makes me an obvious target for harassment.”

“That must be very hard for you,” Ginny said.

“I try my best to ignore them. I grew up surrounded by brothers who excelled at ribbing me, so I’ve had plenty of practice. Besides, the shipyard is hiring more and more female workers every day, so the men will soon be outnumbered.”

Jean showed them how to punch their time cards, then took them to the women’s locker room. “You can change in and out of your work clothes here, and lock up your coats and purses and things. Any questions?” When they shook their heads, she led the way out of the locker room and back through the factory, fighting the flow of workers arriving for the next shift.

“I gotta catch a bus home,” Rosa said. “Any of you coming along?” She turned to Helen Kimball first. “You going my way?”

“No, thank you. I rode my bicycle.”

“You? On a bike?” Rosa said with a laugh. “
That
I gotta see!” Helen exhaled. “I would have preferred to walk, but I live on the other side of town.”

“So you ride your bike all over the place? Wearing a skirt? Did you use to ride it when you taught school?”

“No, I lived close enough to walk to the school where I taught for the past twenty years.”

“What’re you gonna do when it snows?”

“I’ll have to drive my father’s beast of a car—assuming I can get gasoline rations for it.”

Rosa started to ask another question, but Jean could see that Helen Kimball was getting fed up with her. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Kimball,” Jean said, steering Rosa away. “I’ll take the bus with you once it snows, Rosa. But for now, I walk every day to save money.”

“What’re you saving up for? You got a boyfriend you’re gonna marry?”

“Marriage is the last thing I want!” Jean replied. “I’m saving for college. As soon as the war ends, my twin brother and I are going to go together.”

“You must be real smart, going to college.”

“I’ll take the bus with you, Rosa,” Ginny said, linking arms with her. She glanced at her watch. “Hopefully one will come along shortly. My boys will be home from school soon.”

Jean waved good-bye to the other women and set off at a brisk pace. The two-mile walk felt very long after being on her feet all day at work, and she came through the back door of her sister Patty’s bungalow, wanting nothing more than to sit down and kick off her shoes.

“Hey, you’re home,” Patty said as Jean walked into the kitchen.

“How was work?” Patty had her baby propped on one hip as she stirred a pot of tapioca pudding on the stove with her free hand. One of her toddlers clung to her leg, whining, while the other one emptied pots and pans from the cupboard onto the kitchen floor. A pile of clean diapers filled one kitchen chair, and heaps of clothing that needed to be ironed filled two more.

“Work was very tiring. I’ve been on my feet all day.” Jean pulled out the only vacant chair and sat down to untie her shoes. “They just hired a crew of greenhorns, and I’m supposed to train them. Yikes, what an odd bunch! There’s a middle-aged schoolteacher who’s old enough to be our mother, a housewife in her thirties who has never worked a day in her life—”

“Hey, watch it!” Patty interrupted. “Housewives never
stop
working!”

“You know what I mean. She’s the type who has to look pretty when her husband comes home from work and who believes that a woman’s place is in the home—”

“You’re really asking for it!” Patty said, raising her fist in a mock threat.

Jean laughed. “Sorry, but it’s true. And last but not least there’s a pinup girl who asks a thousand nosy questions per minute. Honestly, Rosa is beautiful enough to be a movie star, but she’s very rough around the edges. Kind of slinky and slithery, if you know what I mean. She got wolf whistles from the welders. I’ll bet none of these three makes it through the two-week training period. I know how hard those first two weeks are; there’s so much to learn. And when these three ladies quit I’ll be stuck training a whole new crew.”

“How come you’re doing the training? You’ve only been working there for a few months yourself.”

“I know. But nearly everyone is new. Most of the original work force either enlisted or got drafted. And the men who’ve stayed behind aren’t real pleased to be working with women. You know what the man who trained me said? ‘You’re not bad, for a girl.’ I asked him, ‘Why did you add,
for a girl
?’ and he said, ‘Because this is
men’s
work.’ I felt like saying, ‘Well, it’s women’s work now, buddy!’ Guys like him infuriate me! Anyway, that’s why Mr. Seaborn made me a crew chief. He figured the training period would be easier on women if they didn’t have to put up with that kind of an attitude.”

“Boy, I’d apply for a job down there in a minute if I had someone to watch the kids. At least you have people to talk to. You should spend all day with a baby and two toddlers and a husband away in the service.”

“No thanks. That’s exactly why I’m going to college. The domestic life certainly isn’t for me.” Jean decided to change the subject before Patty got the bright idea to work piggyback shifts with her. Jean loved her three nephews, but she had no desire to baby-sit solo for them after working for eight hours. “Did the mail come? Did I get a letter from Russ?” she asked.

“No, but I got one from Bill.” Patty looked as if she’d beaten Jean in a footrace. She was four years older than Jean and turned everything into a contest. “Bill says it’s miserable over in England. It rains all the time, there’s no heat in any of the buildings, and the Germans are trying to wipe London off the map with all their bombs.”

“Any other mail?” Jean asked. “Did we hear from Johnny? Or Danny?”

“No, but there was a letter from Ma to both of us.” She handed the baby to Jean and began spooning pudding into dessert dishes. Jean pretended not to notice that the baby’s pants needed to be changed.

“Good old Ma. Where does she find the time?”

“She says that money is tight, as usual, so she’s trying to get jobs for the boys after school—delivering newspapers, running errands, working as telegraph boys or delivery boys at the grocery store. She said that Danny—”

“Don’t tell me everything, you’ll spoil it! I want to read it myself.”

Jean put her nephew in his high chair, then took the letter into the living room and sank down on the sofa with it, marveling at her mother’s endurance. Ma had written the letter unhurriedly, leaving out no detail, telling about life on their small Indiana farm. She never seemed overwhelmed by her huge brood of children but treated each of them as if he or she were her only child. She had written personal words to both Jean and Patty to encourage them:
Cherish your time with your little ones,
she reminded Patty.
You are a natural-born mother. The housework can always wait. Have fun with them. Give Bill my love when you write to him. I’m praying for his safe return
.

And to Jean she had written,
I’m not at all surprised to hear that they’re going to give you a position of responsibility at the shipyard. You are such a smart, capable young woman, and I know you can do anything you put your mind to. Reach for the stars!

Her words brought tears to Jean’s eyes. She tucked the letter back into the envelope when she finished reading it and went into the kitchen to help Patty with supper. Afterward, they washed and dried the dishes together, listening to Frank Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters on the radio while they worked.

“So what are you doing with yourself tonight?” Patty asked. “Writing another letter to Russell?”

“I don’t know. I’m very annoyed with him.” Jean tossed a cooking pot into the cupboard and closed it with her foot. “I’ve written three letters to him, and he hasn’t answered a single one of them.”

“He’s probably busy with farm work. It’s that time of year, you know.”

“He could spare a moment to scribble a line or two, couldn’t he? Even a postcard would be nice.”

“Be glad he isn’t overseas. I wish Bill could have qualified for a farm exemption.”

“That’s what I don’t get. Johnny could have taken an exemption, but he didn’t. He and Russ were best friends. They did everything together—until now. And all of the other farm boys from school enlisted, too. In fact, every eligible guy I know was eager to join up as soon as he finished high school—everybody except Russ.”

“Boy, you really are annoyed with him!” Patty drained the water from the sink and grabbed the towel from Jean to dry her hands. “I have to put the monsters to bed.”

Jean got out her box of stationery and sat down at the kitchen table to write another letter to Russell. She got as far as the date and
Dear Russ
when someone knocked on the front door. She opened it to find Earl Seaborn, her foreman from work, standing on the porch.

“Mr. Seaborn! What brings you here?”

“Hi, Jean. Sorry to bother you after work hours—I hope you don’t mind. I … uh … I got busy today and never had a chance to check back with you about your new crew. Do you have a minute? Am I interrupting something?”

“No, not at all.”

“Listen, I’d be glad to treat you to an ice-cream cone or a milk shake or something down at the drugstore while you fill me in—to make up for bothering you at home.”

“You don’t have to bribe me with a milk shake, Mr. Seaborn.”

“I sure wish you would call me Earl when we’re not at work.”

“Okay … Earl.” The personal name felt stiff on her tongue. “To tell you the truth, it’s hard to say how the women are going to work out after only one day. Everyone seems overwhelmed when they first start—I know I was—and these three are no exception.” She stood in the open doorway, leaning against the frame as she talked, leaving Earl outside on the porch. When she noticed how uncomfortable he looked, she motioned to the porch swing and rocking chair. “I’m sorry. Do you want to sit down?”

“I’d rather walk to the corner drugstore, if you don’t mind, and get that ice-cream cone.” He smiled shyly.

“Oh, all right,” she said with a sigh. She closed the front door and followed him down the porch steps. The evening had turned cool, and after only a few minutes Jean wished she had put on a jacket. At first she walked too fast, accustomed to strolling at a brisk pace and eager to finish this task. Then she remembered the limp that Mr. Seaborn took pains to disguise, and she slowed her steps. She returned to her analysis of the new women as they walked.

“The older one,
Miss
Something-Or-Other …”

“Kimball. Helen Kimball.”

“Right. I’m just afraid she’ll find the work too boring. She told me that she was a schoolteacher for years and years, and she seems very capable. But I’m worried that this kind of work is going to be too dull for her. It can’t be nearly as stimulating as handling a classroom full of kids.”

“I wondered about that, too,” Earl said. “Mr. Wire told me that she’s been a teacher here in town since Hector was a pup. She taught all of Mr. Wire’s sons, and they’re my age. She’s sort of a cliché, don’t you think? The old-maid schoolteacher?”

His words made Jean angry. “Maybe she
chose
teaching as her profession. Some women prefer a career over marriage and a family, you know.”

“Why would any woman choose a career?” He seemed truly baffled.

“For the same reasons men choose careers.”

His smile vanished. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting.”

“Anyway, back to my new crew … The dark-haired one, Rosa, with the Brooklyn accent, is certainly bright enough. She asks thousands of questions. But she seems really out of place here in town.”

“I’m worried that she’ll slow down production, sashaying around with her curvy hips and tight sweaters. She’s really something, isn’t she? Did you hear the whistles she got?”

Jean laughed out loud. So, clean-cut Mr. Seaborn had noticed Rosa, too. He had blood in his veins after all. “You’ll be happy to know that I issued her a very baggy pair of coveralls,” she told him. “But seriously, I can’t imagine that she’ll be content here in Stockton for very long. In the meantime, I think she can do the work. She caught on quickly today.”

They reached the drugstore, and Earl held the door open for her. They walked to the rear of the store and sat down on stools, side-by-side, at the soda fountain. Jean ordered a chocolate ice-cream cone, Earl a vanilla milk shake. She had never bothered to look at Earl Seaborn in any way other than as her boss, but when she saw the teenaged waitress behind the counter giving Earl the once-over as she took his order, Jean decided to size him up herself.

He looked like an all-American boy—brown hair, a faint sprinkle of freckles, a boyish grin. She would guess his age to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven. He wasn’t what you’d call handsome—he certainly lacked the fair-haired, movie-star looks that her boyfriend, Russell, had. Not to mention Russell’s hay-baling muscles. But Earl had a nice smile, a pleasant manner. Jean waited until the whirring blender stopped to continue talking.