The Most Interesting Thing I Learned This Week: My Grandmother Wore Combat Boots

This week started out pretty slowly as far as interesting things go, but towards the end of the week things really picked up. I learned some interesting facts about Chicago while watching a video at Navy Pier - yes I was at Navy Pier this week. Why was I at Navy Pier you ask? Good question. My mom and her sister, my Aunt Molly, came to visit Stacie and I towards the end of the week. Navy Pier was one of the destinations they wanted to check out, so we made it happen.

I also learned - from my aunt - that kids are using ring tones in classrooms that teachers can't hear. They're called mosquito ring tones. Click on the link and try it out. I could hear it to a certain point, but not all of them. I know they were producing a sound, though, because my cute black lab, Bradie, was trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. As it says in the article, the sound was originally developed to repel teens. Shopkeepers would pump the tones in front of their stores to prevent loitering while leaving adult patrons none the worse for wear.

But the most interesting thing that I learned this week has to be that my grandmother, Loais Williams (Loais Ball at the time), worked at a Consolidated Aircraft Company plant outside of Fort Worth, TX, wiring B-24 Liberators for our involvement in World War II. I always knew she studied to become a nurse with the Navy, but as it turns out prior to that she was wiring B-24's to make money to go to nursing school. She was able to get into a nursing program that was paid for due to a nurses shortage as it turns out, but the fact that she was doing that to make money is pretty awesome.

I can't even wire a toaster, and there she was wiring up a bomber.

I found the picture below on a Navy archive site. This is the facility in Ft. Worth that my grandmother worked at, so it's very possible she worked in this very building getting these babies ready to go.

The WWII generation was just in a class all by themselves. They got their hands dirty, and they got stuff done to keep their country safe and hopefully make a better life for their children and grandchildren. And for that I say thank you - particularly to my grandmother. Who probably didn't wear combat boots, but it would have been super cool if she had.