Participant Info
- Membership Number
- 4850
- Salutation
- First Name
- Ruth Mae
- Middle/Maiden/Previous
- White
- Last Name
- Ziemniak-Gross
- Address 1
- 305 W Main St Unit 215
- Address 2
- City
- Harbor Springs
- State
- MI
- Zip Code
- 49740
- Phone
- 231-881-9045
- Code
- RO
- Work Code #
- State Membership
- MI
- Status
- Date of Birth
- 08/27/1922
- Date of Death
- Deceased At Join?
- Comments
- Her first job was for Michigan Bell. She does not have fond memories of the working conditions there. One supervisor was especially “wicked,” while she said one was OK. Earnings at Michigan Bell were $15 per week, but it cost $1.25 for room and board. She did get to deduct one day’s room and board for tending to the homeowner’s daughters' hair. She said she doesn’t know how she learned how to do that, she just did it, in the true Rosie spirit. Her next job was at Willow Run Air Force Plant, where airplanes were constructed. They paid $1 per hour. Gross said she thought she had hit the jackpot. She worked eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. Each month she would switch from days, to afternoons, to midnights. While working there she lived with her in-laws. Their home abutted what would become Telegraph highway. She had to walk through the field to catch a bus to Ypsilanti. She said she never paid for the bus and didn’t know who did. It picked up Willow Run employees all along the way, so she assumes it was a company bus. When she first began working there, she received training in riveting, bucking, rigging and cables. Gross was placed working on Aileron cables. Hers was the last station before the B-24s would leave the plant. Having quit Willow Run to join her husband, she obtained a job at a shell casing factory. Companies like Chrysler had retooled their equipment to make shell casings. Gross recalls the work, saying the shell casings would go in hot oil to be ground where the wiring pin would go in. She had to take the shell casings out of the oil with her bare hands to place on a rack one by one.
- Name/Location of Company Worked
- Dates of Work
- Type of Work
- Rosie Name if Rb or Rv
- Is/Was Rosie a member of ARRA?
- Contact Name (Deceased Rosie Contact)
- Contact Email Address
- Contact Phone Number
- Contact Relationship