MY MOTHER, MY ROSIE THE RIVETER

[Bob Middlebrooks]

By Bob Middlebrooks

My mother was Ethel Wingo Middlebrooks.

While the goal of MFA involves genealogy research and searching for ancestors via DNA, we also share stories and events that relate to our families that we think might be interesting to others. With this in mind, the following is an article describing the contribution of my mother to the War effort in WWII. Although she passed away a long time ago, I have never forgotten how she represented the strength of American women when faced with the challenges of war. I know that there are other families with similar stories that make us proud. In today’s fast paced world, it is good to reflect on times when people really did say “What can I do for my country?”

It was in 1943, when I was seven years old, that mother filled that role. We lived only a few miles from what is now known as Warner Robins Air Force Base, located southeast of Macon, Georgia and she worked on an assembly line. Memories of sixty-nine years ago are hard to retrieve.

After Pearl Harbor, there was a frantic effort to speed up defense construction across the United States, and in 1942, construction began to create Robins Field. In October 1942, Robins Field became fully operational. This was a time when there was a tremendous outpouring of patriotism, and it was a time that brought out the best in Americans. People thought more in terms of “us” and “ours” and less in terms of “me” and “mine.” This era is still remembered with a great deal of nostalgia and pride. “Keep’em Flying” was the World War II slogan that appeared on posters all over the base.

In the severe labor shortage of World War II, women were trained for, and successfully performed, jobs that had always been thought to be masculine. In the aircraft engine repair function, for example, the civilian workforce was more than sixty percent female by 1945. It was in the engine repair building No. 169 that my mother worked on a carburetors assembly line for the B25 bombers.
I remember that mother did not make a big deal out of it, but rather treated it as something that needed to be done. Mother never learned to drive a car, and I remember she carpooled with several other women on her shifts. I don’t remember what shifts she worked, but I do remember that there were times when she was not at home on the weekends.
I was proud of what she was doing. My older brother was in the Navy and on a ship in the Pacific, so we all thought that somehow this was contributing to bringing him home sooner ― and perhaps it did. This is not a very exciting recap of one woman’s contribution to the war effort, but it was happening all over the nation. It is not a stretch of the imagination to feel that collectively these brave women did their part to ensure the freedom that we enjoy now.

The Wellston, now Warner Robins, had a population of forty-seven people before the war came along. By March 1945, Warner Robins depot had 23,670 people working on board – 10,686 military and 12,984 civilians. My mom was one of the civilians. After V-E Day on May 8th and V-J Day on September 2, 1945, large numbers of employees resigned and took other jobs or left the work force. It is interesting to note that there were complaints that the civilian workers were disappearing faster than the workload. My mom went back to be a housewife – she never quit being a mother.

Source: 1940s: A Foundation Laid Museum of Aviation, Warner Robins, Georgia.

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