CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A number of churches throughout Clarksburg, Harrison County, and West Virginia as a whole are planning to join in a bell-ringing ceremony Monday afternoon to commemorate “Rosie the Riveters” this Labor Day.
Rosalyn Alonso with the Clarksburg Progressive Women’s Association worked on contacting local churches to participate over the past ten days, joining other towns in West Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachussetts, and Kentucky.
“We contacted as many churches as we possibly could,” she said on Monday’s Labor Day edition of the MetroNews-affiliated “The Mike Queen Show” on the AJR News Network. “At one o’clock today, several in downtown Clarksburg and several throughout Harrison County, will be ringing their bells as a way to participate in this project.”
Alonso said it’s important–now 71 years removed from the end of World War II–that we remember the crucial role American women played in the war effort.
“A lot of people under 25 years old probably never heard of Rosie the Riveter,” she said.
Alonso estimated that around the onset of WWII, 95 percent of factory jobs were held by men. She recalled the men who worked at Eagle Convex Glass Company when she was a young girl growing up, and said that women stepped into those roles as soon as those men went to war.
“They didn’t wait to be drafted,” she said. “They signed up and went to the war. That left a lot of open spaces in that factory there.”
“They needed someone in there operating. The women rolled up their sleeves and went into those factories.”
Everyone is encouraged to participate when the bell-ringing begins at 1 pm Monday afternoon.
“You still have time to run through your Christmas decorations and get out a bell and stand on your front porch and ring your own little bell,” Alonso said.
In West Virginia, bell ringings are also planned in Beckley, Buckhannon, Cross Lanes, Glenville, Grafton, Huntington, Morgantown, Nitro, Princeton, and Racine.