Reclusive Ora and WW2

World War II loomed over the farmer’s nearly grown sons as the family of six sat down to eat their evening meal. As he picked up his fork, George Waight asked his wife, Ora, “Did you see any planes today?” 

“No. I didn’t,” Ora summarized her four hours as a volunteer whose job was to scan the skies in the observation shack. After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Americans feared a mainland attack by Germans or Japanese planes carrying bombs. That fear resulted in the Army Air Force Ground Observer Corps which established observation towers. Inside, each had a table, a pot belly stove, chairs and a phone. In pairs volunteers watched the skies against a surprise attack.

The war changed the nation and individuals. Homebody Ora, who never left the farm, not even to buy material for a new dress, signed up when observers were needed. With two military aged sons, she had to do something. She attended classes to distinguish friendly from enemy planes and faithfully went to the observation shack. Back then planes flew low enough that night time observers could hear them. According to the website neagle.com, pairs of volunteers served four hour shifts around the clock. Newspapers published schedules and class times for training spotters. Ora read the papers, put aside her preference to stay home and volunteered. 

Ora’s youngest child, Doris, not quite 10 when WW2 started, recalled those years. At school she practiced air raid drills where she ducked under her desk. She said her never idle mother did not waste her hours as an observer, “While watching for planes, Mom spent her time making a lace tablecloth,” she recalled. Decades later, the lace tablecloth covered and enhanced a plain maroon cloth – a quiet reminder to the the family of the years of her contribution to the war effort when her son Allan went to war.

Serving in the observer’s shack did not suffice. Ora had to do more. Her oldest daughter, Marion, finished school and went to the city to fill a slot a soldier left in the munitions factory. Ora surprised everyone when she announced, “I think I will go to the city and find a job in a factory. They need workers.”

Ora would leave the quiet of home to work in a factory?!

Hearing this in later years, her granddaughters shook their heads that their grandmother packed up and went to work as a “Rosie the Riveter.” “Grandma did that? I thought she never left the farm!” one exclaimed. “It does seem incredible,” another said. “I remember that when she and Grandpa retired to live in the village, she did not walk two buildings down to buy her groceries at the general store. She always sent someone there with a shopping list.”

But Ora could not just see her youngest Dale off to ‘clean up Japan.’ She had to do something more to occupy her time while waiting for his return. She did what she could to ensure both sons came home. She went to the factory.

Evenings after work and on the weekends she made sure that those who stayed and kept the farm going had meals. She prepared soups and dishes for Doris to re-heat for her dad and herself. Ora made up canning jars of soup, pre-cooked sides of beef, and left instructions for her youngest to heat the meals. 

Watching for planes that never came and standing in a factory line may not seem like much, but for homebody Ora, it was what she could do until the day both sons came home.


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