Mom worked in a bomb making factory during the war. She didn't actually make the bombs, she worked in the office as an accountant clerk. After she graduated from Wisner High School she went to Omaha and took a three month Comptometer course. She was really good on the comptometer.. calculating numbers, adding, dividing and multiplying. She liked the mechanics of the machine. The click, click click and little bell that sounded off at the beginning of each new calculation. The Ordnance Plant needed human calculators and Mom enjoyed her time working in the office. Plus it gave her the chance to live away from home and make a salary.
It was a good thing she got the job in the office. The bomb making plant could be a dangerous place. A girl of nineteen years died when the forklift she was driving tipped over on her. There were a lot of girls and women working in the Nebraska Ordnance Plant. The able bodied men and boys were all off in the Army or Navy or working on their farms to keep them going.
A Comptometer Machine
Mom really wanted to join the boys that had gone into the service. She begged her parents and priest to allow her to join the SPARS - an women's auxiliary for the Marines. But the war was no place for a fine young Catholic girl to be getting involved in. The family already had seven boys serving and by the end of the war there would be eight of them serving their country. Mom was crushed. The SPARS was her ticket out of her humdrum life and it would give her a chance to see the world and be part of the real action. But in the end she agreed, after shedding many tears, and resigned to stay near home or at least near home and work in the bomb making plant in Fremont.
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