My Grandmother - A Working Class Hero

Rosemary Cuts Steel! Artist - Edna Reindel, 1944 (Flickr)

My Grandmother

I trace my love for coffee back to those early morning conversations I shared with my grandmother while enjoying a cup of joe. I especially loved hearing stories from her early life. On December 7, 1941, she was just 21. Born in Oakland on March 23, 1920, she was a little girl when the 1920s roared and a teenager during the Great Depression. She married when she was nineteen, and at twenty, she delivered my mother into the world. She had married my Grandfather – a Portuguese immigrant born in Lisbon – in the Catholic Church in Sausalito. For a brief moment, in their home in Sausalito, my Grandmother was happy and optimistic about the life she shared with her husband and daughter. President Roosevelt championed a New Deal that would improve the lives of all Americans. He had proclaimed that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Nonetheless, my Grandmother’s happiness dissolved into fear on that day of infamy as the storm clouds of war enveloped the world.

She worried. If they could bomb Pearl Harbor, how difficult would it be to attack San Francisco? Indeed, there was no reason to attack Sausalito, that is until Bechtel built a shipyard called Marinship on the Sausalito shore, thereby making Sausalito a military target. Though still haunted by the fear of an aerial attack, my then 22-year-old Grandmother applied for a job as a shipyard worker at Marinship. She joined 60,000 other workers who would launch a new ship every 13 days. In all, they would build 15 Liberty ships and 78 tankers.

My Grandmother was a laborer, and her primary duty was to clean up after the other trades. She worked in every compartment of the ships. Women were new to shipyards, and the commander at Marinship was concerned for their safety. Among the large workforce, there were unsavory characters. He issued an order requiring all women to work in pairs for their protection. Any woman caught working alone would be terminated.

Near the end of the war, the commander announced that every Marinship worker would have the opportunity to sail aboard a newly christened Liberty ship. My Grandmother had vivid memories of that day. Instead of coveralls, she wore a dress and heels. They sailed from Sausalito to the Bay Bridge and then under the Golden Gate and onto the open sea. Marinship provided free bag lunches to everyone and paid everyone their regular wage. Though she had helped build nearly 100 ships, she had never sailed aboard one until that day on a Liberty ship.

When the war ended, my Grandmother resumed her role of wife and mother, raising five children in all. In her 40s, she went to college to become a nutritionist. In her 60s, she retired from her job as the lead nutritionist and menu planner at the John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek.

Grandma rarely spoke of her years at Marinship. She never saw herself in heroic terms. Workers were needed to build ships that would help win the war, so she signed on, as did thousands of other women. I am proud of her for many reasons, including her time as a shipyard worker, and I will be forever proud to be her grandson. I think of her every morning as I pour my first cup of joe.

-Ron Shingler