Mesquite is home to ‘Rosie the Riveter’

By BOBBIE GREEN

The Progress

Mesquite has been the home of Joy Rodgers for the past thirty years now. But not many of her local neighbors know that there is a real-life ‘Rosie-the-Riveter’ in their midst.

Rosie-the Riveter was the star of a 1940s ad campaign aimed at recruiting female workers in the defense manufacturing industry during World War II. The iconic image of a muscle-bound woman with a red and white polka dot bandana on her head has become symbolic of a generation of women who went to work in the factories making airplanes, tanks, ammunition and more for the military.

In those days, not many women went to work outside the home, especially once they were married. But these women traded their dresses for pants and hit the assembly lines to help their men and their country in the war effort.

Mesquite resident Joy Rodgers was one of those ladies. At that time, she was a young girl, around 18 years old, living in Cleveland Ohio where she grew up. One of her sisters had gotten a job working at a defense manufacturing plant as a riveter. Rodgers also got a job there working on the assembly line. She was often sent to different areas working on various parts.

“Some of the gals thought it was hard work,” Rodgers recalled in a recent interview with The Progress. “But I thought it was fun. We had a good time together.”

At first, Rodgers worked at the Medina Foundry where they made parts for bombers and, later, army tanks.

The plant in Cleveland where Rodgers worked was built in 1942. It was originally intended to build B-29 bombers. But the airplanes were never fully assembled at that location. Instead the defense contract with GM’s Fisher Body division changed before production began. Instead of fully assembled airplanes, the factory produced component parts for those planes to be assembled in other factories across the country. After the war the plant hosted the National Air Races throughout the rest of the 40’s. It later again built tanks during the Korean War.

“When we got our paychecks, we had a little sport with them,” Rodgers recalled. “Using the check numbers, the person with the best poker hand won the extra money we had put in the pot. We had fun but we knew what we were there for.”
Rodgers remembers getting together with a group of 5 or 6 girls, when they were not working. They got back into their dresses, and went to the Elks Hall for dancing.

One of eleven kids, she and one brother are the only ones still living. One brother died at Normandy, and one brother was wounded and captured in Germany.

On V.E. day at the wars end her whole family celebrated together with a huge dinner.

After a divorce from her first husband, Rodgers married a career military man and moved to Colorado. They would take trips to Las Vegas, stopping at the Western Village in Mesquite.

Finally, the couple decided to move to Mesquite in the early 1990s. They lived in a fifth wheel at Desert Skies Trailer Park for a while and then bought a condominium at Rock Springs I.

Rodgers lives alone now, but she is not without friends and family around her. Currently she is at Highland Manor healing from her new hip. When she is up and about, you are likely to find her playing table games and slots at a local casino.

In September Rodgers will be honored along with other World War II veterans by the Ageless Flights Organization, giving them a ride in a vintage World War II airplane from the Mesquite Airport.

Rodgers gave this interview to The Progress while in Highland Manor rehab, recuperating from a hip replacement.