View source for File:Tim Wilson, Crena Anderson and Ruth Staples May 15, 2016 see Photo Caption 370 fm FNP Bill Green.jpg

Brunswick People

Riveter Rosies' spirit, tradition planted for good
By Patti Borda Mullins    Photos:  Bill Green
BRUNSWICK — In the presence of two local Rosie the Riveter laborers, a group planted a pink dogwood tree next to the MARC Rail station in Brunswick on Saturday to recognize the contribution women made during World War II.
Ruth Kline Staples of Brunswick, and Crena Anderson of Hagerstown, worked as teenagers during the war. They were part of a group of millions of women given the title Rosie the Riveter, filling jobs that would have been filled by men who were away at war.
“They worked the critical jobs to keep America poised to win the war,” said Tim Wilson, historian of Steadman-Keenan American Legion Post 96.
At 18, Staples, a lifelong Brunswick resident, worked on the railroad. She remembered tamping down railroad ties and cleaning the grounds. She also ascended four-story mountains of coal to insert a thermometer to make sure they were cool enough not to spontaneously combust, said Vicki Dearing, president of the Brunswick History Commission. Staples serves on the commission too.
Crena Anderson, formerly of Frederick, actually riveted bolts on A-10 cargo airplanes manufactured by Fairchild in Hagerstown.
“It was hard work,” Anderson said. “We knew that what we were doing was for a good cause.”
Anderson recalled one day when she got stuck inside a wing and could not get out when the whistle blew for the workday’s end. A supervisor found her and pulled her out, freeing her at the instant that she realized her trousers were the reason she had been stuck.
“My pants were hooked on one of those thing-a-ma-bobs,” she said.
The tug that pulled her out did the same to the seat of her pants. She taped them up, got home, patched them, and went back to work the next day, she said.
That was perhaps easy compared to the day she stayed at work after someone with a drill missed the mark and found Anderson’s leg.
“It just missed the bone,” she said.
The small-bore wound required a trip to the medical station. It was washed off and covered with a small bandage, she said. She declined taking off the rest of the day, because certain work needed to be finished, she said.
At the tree-planting ceremony off South Maple Avenue on Saturday, Brunswick Mayor Karin Tome shared some history of the women and of the Thanks! Plain and Simple organization based in West Virginia that has coordinated international commemorative events. Wilson, and Councilmen Carroll Jones, Walt Stull and Angel White helped plant the tree.
Brunswick’s tree planting was one of eight timed to occur on Saturday between 12:45 and 1:15 p.m. in five states.
At each of the locations, a pink dogwood was planted because it is a relatively small tree, but very hardy, and found in many countries.
Tome hopes the Rosie the Riveter celebrations and events will cause their sense of common purpose to spread. She has adopted the Rosie motto: “We pull better when we pull together.”
Debbie Care said Staples, who is her mother’s sister, has always been like a mother to her. Her aunt’s generation handed down a sense of community and patriotism, she said.
“She never complains,” Care said. “She’s very patriotic.”
Anderson attended a Rosie celebration sponsored in the Netherlands this spring. She said the people thanked her for doing the work that enabled American men to go abroad. She said the Dutch people showed her their country and immense hospitality because they connected her service directly to the Allied victory.
“I felt just like a queen,” she said. “It was fantastic.”