Nearly 60 years later, Garnet Kozielec still marvels at the journey that took her from a job wrapping porcelain dishes to doing so-called “man’s work” making bombers and fighter jets and from her home in West Virginia to Michigan and then California.

In 1942, she and 27 others from the Dunbar, W.Va., area joined millions of women recruited as workers during World War II. Collectively, they were known as Rosies, after Rosie the Riveter, a fictional character at the center of a 1940s government campaign. Wearing a bandanna and bright red lipstick, with her sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular arms, Rosie was portrayed in song and illustration as a tireless, patriotic worker.

Ms. Kozielec, 92, who worked as a riveter on bombers and fighter jets, said in an interview, “It was entirely different from what girls had been doing. ” Near the end of the war, she was making “top wages,” $1 an hour, she said.

On the weekend before Veterans Day, almost 65 years after the war ended and the women returned home, the nation of Belgium thanked Ms. Kozielec and several living Rosies for their contribution to the war effort.

A West Virginia group, Thanks! Plain and Simple organized the event in Shepherdstown on Saturday, reaching out to Belgian officials for their participation. Anne Montague, the group’s president, said she believed it was the first known gesture from a World War II ally directed toward the civilians who worked “on the home front.”

Read the full story at the New York Times..

Lt. Col. Martine Dierckx, of the Military, Naval and Air Attache Embassy of Belgium, thanks the Rosie the Riveters for their service during World War II.

"We need to recognize those who fought and those who died, but there are others who should be remembered too," she said as she addressed the seven Rosies, and their families who were on hand that day. "The greatest generation is not only about soldiers, nor is it only about men."

The women who had taken on work in the factories, many of them holding jobs outside the home for the first time in their lives, also deserved recognition, she said. They had stories that needed to be told, Dierckx said.

She thanked the Rosies, not just for their contribution to the war effort, but also for opening up doors and breaking down boundaries for other women like them.

In what organizers said was the first message of thanks from an Allied nation to the Rosies, Lt. Col. Martine Dierckx, a Belgian official, spoke Saturday.

“Belgium is certainly one of the countries that benefited from your efforts,” Dierckx said.

“I hope you realize you were also among the founders of freedom and democracy in Europe,” she said before shaking each woman’s hand. ..more..

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BARNABUS — Gloria Farmer was just out of high school when World War II was going on and she wanted to lend a hand in the war effort.

So, the 84-year-old Farmer, who then lived at Lyburn and graduated from Logan High School in 1944, headed to Detroit with her cousins and became a "Rosie the Riveter."

Now, Farmer and other women from West Virginia who worked during the war are being honored for their service to the country.

Farmer said times were different in 1944 and people — both men and women — wanted to help the fighting men overseas.

Charleston, WV (HNN) – While most eligible men served overseas in the Armed Forces during World War II, the country’s war effort depended upon having enough equipment, whether planes or bullets. The circumstances sent many women to serve on the home front, taking training to learn factory jobs formerly held by soldiers.

These women working in war factories earned a collective nickname, Rosie the Riveter. In fact, Woody Williams, West Virginia’s only living Medal of Honor recipient, noted that Senator Rockefeller recently “likened the hard work Americans must do at home in tough times to the work of ‘Rosie the Riveters.”

Thanks! Plain and Simple, a West Virginia non-profit corporation, non-political, organizations that helps unify West Virginians around men and women with post military experiences that can be beneficial at home. more..

Opal Moore of Parkersburg was one of the thousands of “Rosie the Riveters” who went to work in manufacturing plants during World War II. Moore worked at the Ames plant in Parkersburg as a welder where flares were made for the U.S. Navy.

Originally, Thanks! Plain and Simple planned to create a documentary about West Virginia’s Rosies. Due to the large number of calls and possible stories, the organization is taking on the task of gathering funding to create a West Virginia Rosie Collection. The goal is to complete the collection by this time next year.

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Opal Moore of Parkersburg was one of the thousands of “Rosie the Riveters” who went to work in manufacturing plants during World War II. Moore worked at the Ames plant in Parkersburg as a welder where flares were made for the U.S. Navy.

The Parkersburg resident reminisced about her time as one of many women nationwide nicknamed "Rosie the Riveter" for the work they did in factories on the home front.

"Thanks! Plain and Simple" is a veterans group in West Virginia that has been working to collect the stories of "Rosies" from around the state.

Moore, 87, worked as a welder .. read more..

Garnet Kozielec (left), 92, of Dunbar, and Mary Lou Maroney, 86, of Charleston, were "Rosie the Riveters" during World War II. The famous poster of Rosie saying "We Can Do It" sits nearby.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Mary Lou Maroney, now 86, moved from West Virginia to Detroit in 1942. She began working in an aircraft factory that made B-24 Liberator and B-29 Superfortress bombers.

"West Virginia was one of the first states to have training for women. We were trained at Stonewall Jackson Trade School. An old streetcar barn was our hangar. We studied working with blueprints and drilling.

"Then three of us went to Michigan to the Ford Willow Run Plant at Ypsilanti. We lived in government dorms. We worked 3-12 shifts - from 3 in the afternoon until midnight.

"I worked on the edges of the [airplane] wings. I was a riveter until January 1945. But I was 'Cassie the Riveter,' not 'Rosie the Riveter,'" she joked.

Read the rest of the story at the Charleston Gazette..