Ring A Bell for Rosie


Anne Montague remembers World War II. She was born in 1939, an era in which most women took care of the household and family needs or held jobs outside of the home still considered “women’s work” such as cooking, cleaning, or nursing. The worker shortage in this country when the men went off to war threatened to bring the war effort and our nation to a standstill.

Anne’s father had served in World War I, and while he was away during World War II Anne, and her mother lived in West Virginia with her grandparents and a baby sister who was ill at the time. “I remember my mother coming home sick every day,” Anne recalls. “It didn’t make any sense to me at the time, but she’d go to work every day at the factory. We called it the war plant. I didn’t realize at the time that she was at the end of an assembly line inspecting lenses all day. I don’t know if they were used for periscopes or binoculars or whatever, but she’d be visually inspecting them, looking up and down constantly, and she’d come home with vertigo.” Anne says there are bits and pieces of the war she remembers, but she clearly remembers how they got their information. “Of course, there was radio where people could hear what was going on overseas, and the newspaper carried obituaries of young men in the neighborhood who had been killed in the war. To see the actual newsreels though, you had to go to the shoot-em-up cowboy movies to see the news.” Anne had no idea at the time that her mother was one of the remarkable women who gave their best work and effort to ensure our freedom and liberties. They would become known as Rosie the Riveters or simply Rosies.

It wasn’t until she was in her sixties and her mother had passed that Anne realized the impact of these childhood remembrances and was inspired to start the organization, Thanks Plain and Simple. Ultimately, the primary objective of the organization is The American Rosie Movement. “In 2008, I did my first interview with a Rosie, and when I was done, I looked at that little tape recorder and said to myself there is no way I’m putting this on the shelf. I knew this story had to be told. Her name was Garnet Kozlelec. She had been trained in drafting and blueprint reading and that sort of thing, and she riveted airplanes in Detroit, Michigan, and California.”

Since then, Anne’s been on a mission to teach others by sharing the stories of these remarkable women, and time is running out as many Rosies have passed away. “We’ve basically been on a nationwide search for several years now to find these women to document and share their stories.” Anne is quick to clarify that not all “Rosie’s” who went to work during World War II were “riveters.”  In her mother’s example, many worked in different kinds of factories, government offices or cared for wounded soldiers.

This year, Wreaths Across America will participate in the annual Ring A Bell for Rosie event on September 3, 2021. Volunteers will ring bells at 1 PM their time throughout the world as a moment of solidarity to remember and honor the work these women did on behalf of their families, and a nation in need.

As we live up to their legacy, Wreaths Across America is working with Anne and her organization to develop action plans for youth to get engaged in 2022 as we encourage them to find a way to serve. “We need to teach the legacy of the Rosie’s of World War II and what they stood for,“ Anne explains. “It’s more than about these interviews and documenting what they did during World War II. The women coming into the workforce meant that everyone was pulling together, doing their highest quality work in a cooperative spirit to face new problems. The big picture here is really about pulling together with our best qualities to solve problems.”

Stay tuned to Wreaths Across America Radio as we share more information about our Rosie’s who have served leading up to the September third event and about our 2022 Rosebuds Project as we remember, honor, and teach.