Ruth Mustion
Aug 13, 1925 - Sep 13, 2017
Ruth Elnox Mustion was born in Howell County, Missouri on August 13, 1925 and passed from this earth on September 13, 2017, at the glorious age of 92. Ruth married Milow Dwight Mustion on April 21, 1947, and was married for 61 years. She was preceded in death by her husband, in 2008.
She is survived by her daughter, Debbie Mustion Yancey and husband Jim Yancey, son, Micheal Mustion and wife Janie, six grandchildren, James Yancey and wife Jenni, Jonathan Yancey and fiancé Jamie, Natalie May and husband Donovan May, John Garza, Ashley Garza, and Michael Trey Mustion and wife Charming. Ruth also had seven great-grandchildren, Averie Yancey, Chloe Yancey, Luke Yancey, Dylan May, Ryan May, Connor Mustion, and Amelia Carrizales.
Ruth was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was a graduate of Southwest Missouri State, expert seamstress, homemaker, gardener, goodwill ambassador of God, educated advisor and friend to many.
Having built bombers for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas, during World War II, Ruth was an original Rosie the Riveter and A member of the Rosie the Riveter Association.
Ruth was a faithful Adult Sunday School teacher for 20 years and a member of First Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas for 59 years. She loved God and her church, where she built many life long friendships.
Ruth lived her last three years at the Waterford Retirement Community in Deer Park. She loved her time there, appreciated the loving staff, and spending time with the other seniors.
Visitation will be Sunday, September 17, from 3:00pm to 5:00 p.m. Funeral Service Monday, September 18, at 12:30p.m. at Grandview Funeral Home, 8501 Spencer Highway, Pasadena, Texas 77505. Interment will be at Grandview Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Baptist Pasadena, 7500 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas 77505.
_______________________________________________________________________
Y.C. Orozco Published Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Ruth Wicker Mustion was 17 when she boarded a bus to Springfield, Missouri.
It was 1943, it was wartime, and Mustion had signed up for a six-week training course; from there she took another bus to Wichita, Kansas, where Mustion would spend the next two years at Boeing working on the first B29s.
What she thought was a humble role in the war effort would become a significant chapter for American women and their role in World War II.
Mustion was one of the thousands of American women who became collectively identified with the Rosie the Riveter movement, marking the first time American women, on a large scale, stood by side by side with men in the workforce.
Mustion turned 90 on August 13, and her memories of her time at Boeing are as sharp as ever.
In Wichita, Mustion, who had now turned 18, settled into a basement apartment, boarding with an elderly couple, and immediately began on the assembly line working on B17s and then the first Boeing B29s. First, she did framework on the nose portion of the bombers, and learned a lot about patchwork on those early frames.
“I had so many patches on it we wondered how it could get off the ground,” she said.
Mustion became so proficient at her job she would eventually become a supervisor, training other workers, both women and men. That wasn’t always easy, she said.
When World War II began, American men had to leave thousands of factory jobs to enlist or become part of the war effort in some way. Work in the American factories was considered harsh, dirty and too physically grueling for women, who were deemed fit mostly for clerical work, or in her role as a wife and mother in the home or a caregiver in someone else’s home.
That all changed with the war, and women were rallied to go to work in factories because the country needed the workforce.
But while these women worked side by side with men, it wasn’t always a smooth ride, said Mustion.
There were some men, she said, who resented and even retaliated against the women, even though they were doing the same jobs with equal proficiency, whether it was welding, shipbuilding or riveting.
Some women were harassed, she said. Once, a male worker pinched her in an inappropriate manner. In defense, Mustion threatened to strike back with a hammer. She laughs at her youthful fearlessness now, but the intimidation, and the repercussion was real then.
“Our assistant foreman got upset because I guess they didn’t want you standing up for yourself,” she said. “The assistant foreman started making it hard on us, giving us more physical work that men should have been doing. He was punishing us.”
Mustion didn’t back down.
She had joined the war effort in part because of her patriotism. But by this time, 1944, it was personal.
“I lost my brother on January 4th, 1944. He was a sailor on the ship, the USS Turner,” she said. “I wasn’t about to back down.”
Mustion said she threatened to quit if the work was not equal.
The foreman turned out to be an ally.
“He called me down and said, ‘Now Ruth is it true you’re going to quit?’ I said, ‘Yes, if I don’t get moved out of that job, I’m walking Friday’,” she remembers.
The foreman told her to get her tool box and return to his office.
“I thought this was it, he was canning me and I’m going home,” she said.
Instead, the foreman sent her to another foreman, who Mustion called a “fine Christian man”. Mustion had become so good at her job, she was a valuable resource at Boeing.
“From then on, I never had to declare my moral standards anymore,” she said.
It was lesson in standing her ground and it in how inequality could impact a livelihood.
“This is the thing that really bothered me most: I was just out of high school, barely 18, and these men were in their mid 30s and 40s, so they should have known better,” she said. “They picked on the younger ones, and I was one of the youngest ones. I don’t know what they thought, but they thought wrong. I’m sure standing up to them made a difference because I think they realized that some of us women were not going to take it.”
She had started at 24 cents an hour and would eventually earn 40 cents an hour.
She would send one dollar every month home to her siblings.
With questions about gender equality in the workforce and harassment still a resonant issue decades later, Mustion wonders if anything has changed all that drastically.
“I hope it made a difference, but I don’t know,” she said.
Mustion doesn’t feel bitter because most of her experience at Boeing was a positive one.
“You can never let hatred control your life,” she said.
Mustion recalls the euphoria when the war was over.
“I remember everybody lined up on main street and it was the best feeling in the world,” she said. “It’s hard to describe the joy and relief we all felt.”
Thousands of workers were let go from jobs in the defense industry, due to a ‘liquidation of program’.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing never regretted it, but I was never so happy to get a termination slip,” she said, laughing. “They needed hands to perform the work, and those women, all of us, deserve a thanks for that effort.”
For her 90th birthday, her family celebrated with a big get-together. Mustion’s daughter, Debbie Yancey, is collecting memories. Its time, she said, to cherish her mother’s experience and keep it alive.
“There are not many from my mother’s generation left, and my mother’s story, and others like hers, need to be carried down to the next generation,” she said.
According to her son, the Rosie the Riveter movement has become part of the Mustion’s family history.
“I feel very proud, not just of her, but of all the women that took up the roles and kept the factories going,” said Michael Mustion.
Mustion, with the money earned at Boeing, returned to Springfield, graduated from Southwest Missouri State and became a teacher. She married her teenage sweetheart, Dwight Mustion, and moved to Pasadena in 1961 when he was transferred to Sinclair Petrolem. There, Mustion was active in various school and community programs, and attended First Baptist Pasadena.
She currently and happily resides at the Waterford in Deer Park, a senior living facility, where the staff was thrilled to learn that they had their very own Rosie the Riveter as a resident.
In 1941, production of the B29 Superfortress began in the four main Boeing assembly plants: in Renton, Washington, Mariette, Georgia, and Wichita, Kansas. It could fly higher, further and longer than any aircraft before; it was the same type of bomber that would ultimately drop the two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war.
You could say that the farm girl from Howell County, Missouri, played a significant role in transforming air warfare while in Wichita, but she never saw it that way.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing and felt we were doing a worthy job and something that needed to be done,” she said. “There is no telling how many more men we would have lost. You have to think of it that way.”
War had touched Mustion’s life. Ten boys she knew from her high school died, she lost a cousin and her brother, Roy, just 20 years old. To do this day, Mustion will not watch a war film or documentary. The cost of war is still real to her.
“I will not watch war movies because it’s too painful, too many memories,” she said. “I was touched very deeply by the war. There is nothing romantic about war. All war is hell.”
What does she want her grandchildren to learn from her experience during the war effort?
“I think it’s important for them to remember that when circumstances come up where you need to step in, you need to do it, and you need to do it gracefully,” Mustion said.
Aug 13, 1925 - Sep 13, 2017
Ruth Elnox Mustion was born in Howell County, Missouri on August 13, 1925 and passed from this earth on September 13, 2017, at the glorious age of 92. Ruth married Milow Dwight Mustion on April 21, 1947, and was married for 61 years. She was preceded in death by her husband, in 2008.
She is survived by her daughter, Debbie Mustion Yancey and husband Jim Yancey, son, Micheal Mustion and wife Janie, six grandchildren, James Yancey and wife Jenni, Jonathan Yancey and fiancé Jamie, Natalie May and husband Donovan May, John Garza, Ashley Garza, and Michael Trey Mustion and wife Charming. Ruth also had seven great-grandchildren, Averie Yancey, Chloe Yancey, Luke Yancey, Dylan May, Ryan May, Connor Mustion, and Amelia Carrizales.
Ruth was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was a graduate of Southwest Missouri State, expert seamstress, homemaker, gardener, goodwill ambassador of God, educated advisor and friend to many.
Having built bombers for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas, during World War II, Ruth was an original Rosie the Riveter and A member of the Rosie the Riveter Association.
Ruth was a faithful Adult Sunday School teacher for 20 years and a member of First Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas for 59 years. She loved God and her church, where she built many life long friendships.
Ruth lived her last three years at the Waterford Retirement Community in Deer Park. She loved her time there, appreciated the loving staff, and spending time with the other seniors.
Visitation will be Sunday, September 17, from 3:00pm to 5:00 p.m. Funeral Service Monday, September 18, at 12:30p.m. at Grandview Funeral Home, 8501 Spencer Highway, Pasadena, Texas 77505. Interment will be at Grandview Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Baptist Pasadena, 7500 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas 77505.
_______________________________________________________________________
Y.C. Orozco Published Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Ruth Wicker Mustion was 17 when she boarded a bus to Springfield, Missouri.
It was 1943, it was wartime, and Mustion had signed up for a six-week training course; from there she took another bus to Wichita, Kansas, where Mustion would spend the next two years at Boeing working on the first B29s.
What she thought was a humble role in the war effort would become a significant chapter for American women and their role in World War II.
Mustion was one of the thousands of American women who became collectively identified with the Rosie the Riveter movement, marking the first time American women, on a large scale, stood by side by side with men in the workforce.
Mustion turned 90 on August 13, and her memories of her time at Boeing are as sharp as ever.
In Wichita, Mustion, who had now turned 18, settled into a basement apartment, boarding with an elderly couple, and immediately began on the assembly line working on B17s and then the first Boeing B29s. First, she did framework on the nose portion of the bombers, and learned a lot about patchwork on those early frames.
“I had so many patches on it we wondered how it could get off the ground,” she said.
Mustion became so proficient at her job she would eventually become a supervisor, training other workers, both women and men. That wasn’t always easy, she said.
When World War II began, American men had to leave thousands of factory jobs to enlist or become part of the war effort in some way. Work in the American factories was considered harsh, dirty and too physically grueling for women, who were deemed fit mostly for clerical work, or in her role as a wife and mother in the home or a caregiver in someone else’s home.
That all changed with the war, and women were rallied to go to work in factories because the country needed the workforce.
But while these women worked side by side with men, it wasn’t always a smooth ride, said Mustion.
There were some men, she said, who resented and even retaliated against the women, even though they were doing the same jobs with equal proficiency, whether it was welding, shipbuilding or riveting.
Some women were harassed, she said. Once, a male worker pinched her in an inappropriate manner. In defense, Mustion threatened to strike back with a hammer. She laughs at her youthful fearlessness now, but the intimidation, and the repercussion was real then.
“Our assistant foreman got upset because I guess they didn’t want you standing up for yourself,” she said. “The assistant foreman started making it hard on us, giving us more physical work that men should have been doing. He was punishing us.”
Mustion didn’t back down.
She had joined the war effort in part because of her patriotism. But by this time, 1944, it was personal.
“I lost my brother on January 4th, 1944. He was a sailor on the ship, the USS Turner,” she said. “I wasn’t about to back down.”
Mustion said she threatened to quit if the work was not equal.
The foreman turned out to be an ally.
“He called me down and said, ‘Now Ruth is it true you’re going to quit?’ I said, ‘Yes, if I don’t get moved out of that job, I’m walking Friday’,” she remembers.
The foreman told her to get her tool box and return to his office.
“I thought this was it, he was canning me and I’m going home,” she said.
Instead, the foreman sent her to another foreman, who Mustion called a “fine Christian man”. Mustion had become so good at her job, she was a valuable resource at Boeing.
“From then on, I never had to declare my moral standards anymore,” she said.
It was lesson in standing her ground and it in how inequality could impact a livelihood.
“This is the thing that really bothered me most: I was just out of high school, barely 18, and these men were in their mid 30s and 40s, so they should have known better,” she said. “They picked on the younger ones, and I was one of the youngest ones. I don’t know what they thought, but they thought wrong. I’m sure standing up to them made a difference because I think they realized that some of us women were not going to take it.”
She had started at 24 cents an hour and would eventually earn 40 cents an hour.
She would send one dollar every month home to her siblings.
With questions about gender equality in the workforce and harassment still a resonant issue decades later, Mustion wonders if anything has changed all that drastically.
“I hope it made a difference, but I don’t know,” she said.
Mustion doesn’t feel bitter because most of her experience at Boeing was a positive one.
“You can never let hatred control your life,” she said.
Mustion recalls the euphoria when the war was over.
“I remember everybody lined up on main street and it was the best feeling in the world,” she said. “It’s hard to describe the joy and relief we all felt.”
Thousands of workers were let go from jobs in the defense industry, due to a ‘liquidation of program’.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing never regretted it, but I was never so happy to get a termination slip,” she said, laughing. “They needed hands to perform the work, and those women, all of us, deserve a thanks for that effort.”
For her 90th birthday, her family celebrated with a big get-together. Mustion’s daughter, Debbie Yancey, is collecting memories. Its time, she said, to cherish her mother’s experience and keep it alive.
“There are not many from my mother’s generation left, and my mother’s story, and others like hers, need to be carried down to the next generation,” she said.
According to her son, the Rosie the Riveter movement has become part of the Mustion’s family history.
“I feel very proud, not just of her, but of all the women that took up the roles and kept the factories going,” said Michael Mustion.
Mustion, with the money earned at Boeing, returned to Springfield, graduated from Southwest Missouri State and became a teacher. She married her teenage sweetheart, Dwight Mustion, and moved to Pasadena in 1961 when he was transferred to Sinclair Petrolem. There, Mustion was active in various school and community programs, and attended First Baptist Pasadena.
She currently and happily resides at the Waterford in Deer Park, a senior living facility, where the staff was thrilled to learn that they had their very own Rosie the Riveter as a resident.
In 1941, production of the B29 Superfortress began in the four main Boeing assembly plants: in Renton, Washington, Mariette, Georgia, and Wichita, Kansas. It could fly higher, further and longer than any aircraft before; it was the same type of bomber that would ultimately drop the two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war.
You could say that the farm girl from Howell County, Missouri, played a significant role in transforming air warfare while in Wichita, but she never saw it that way.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing and felt we were doing a worthy job and something that needed to be done,” she said. “There is no telling how many more men we would have lost. You have to think of it that way.”
War had touched Mustion’s life. Ten boys she knew from her high school died, she lost a cousin and her brother, Roy, just 20 years old. To do this day, Mustion will not watch a war film or documentary. The cost of war is still real to her.
“I will not watch war movies because it’s too painful, too many memories,” she said. “I was touched very deeply by the war. There is nothing romantic about war. All war is hell.”
What does she want her grandchildren to learn from her experience during the war effort?
“I think it’s important for them to remember that when circumstances come up where you need to step in, you need to do it, and you need to do it gracefully,” Mustion said.
Ruth Mustion
Aug 13, 1925 - Sep 13, 2017
Ruth Elnox Mustion was born in Howell County, Missouri on August 13, 1925 and passed from this earth on September 13, 2017, at the glorious age of 92. Ruth married Milow Dwight Mustion on April 21, 1947, and was married for 61 years. She was preceded in death by her husband, in 2008.
She is survived by her daughter, Debbie Mustion Yancey and husband Jim Yancey, son, Micheal Mustion and wife Janie, six grandchildren, James Yancey and wife Jenni, Jonathan Yancey and fiancé Jamie, Natalie May and husband Donovan May, John Garza, Ashley Garza, and Michael Trey Mustion and wife Charming. Ruth also had seven great-grandchildren, Averie Yancey, Chloe Yancey, Luke Yancey, Dylan May, Ryan May, Connor Mustion, and Amelia Carrizales.
Ruth was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was a graduate of Southwest Missouri State, expert seamstress, homemaker, gardener, goodwill ambassador of God, educated advisor and friend to many.
Having built bombers for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas, during World War II, Ruth was an original Rosie the Riveter and A member of the Rosie the Riveter Association.
Ruth was a faithful Adult Sunday School teacher for 20 years and a member of First Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas for 59 years. She loved God and her church, where she built many life long friendships.
Ruth lived her last three years at the Waterford Retirement Community in Deer Park. She loved her time there, appreciated the loving staff, and spending time with the other seniors.
Visitation will be Sunday, September 17, from 3:00pm to 5:00 p.m. Funeral Service Monday, September 18, at 12:30p.m. at Grandview Funeral Home, 8501 Spencer Highway, Pasadena, Texas 77505. Interment will be at Grandview Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Baptist Pasadena, 7500 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas 77505.
_______________________________________________________________________
Y.C. Orozco Published Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Ruth Wicker Mustion was 17 when she boarded a bus to Springfield, Missouri.
It was 1943, it was wartime, and Mustion had signed up for a six-week training course; from there she took another bus to Wichita, Kansas, where Mustion would spend the next two years at Boeing working on the first B29s.
What she thought was a humble role in the war effort would become a significant chapter for American women and their role in World War II.
Mustion was one of the thousands of American women who became collectively identified with the Rosie the Riveter movement, marking the first time American women, on a large scale, stood by side by side with men in the workforce.
Mustion turned 90 on August 13, and her memories of her time at Boeing are as sharp as ever.
In Wichita, Mustion, who had now turned 18, settled into a basement apartment, boarding with an elderly couple, and immediately began on the assembly line working on B17s and then the first Boeing B29s. First, she did framework on the nose portion of the bombers, and learned a lot about patchwork on those early frames.
“I had so many patches on it we wondered how it could get off the ground,” she said.
Mustion became so proficient at her job she would eventually become a supervisor, training other workers, both women and men. That wasn’t always easy, she said.
When World War II began, American men had to leave thousands of factory jobs to enlist or become part of the war effort in some way. Work in the American factories was considered harsh, dirty and too physically grueling for women, who were deemed fit mostly for clerical work, or in her role as a wife and mother in the home or a caregiver in someone else’s home.
That all changed with the war, and women were rallied to go to work in factories because the country needed the workforce.
But while these women worked side by side with men, it wasn’t always a smooth ride, said Mustion.
There were some men, she said, who resented and even retaliated against the women, even though they were doing the same jobs with equal proficiency, whether it was welding, shipbuilding or riveting.
Some women were harassed, she said. Once, a male worker pinched her in an inappropriate manner. In defense, Mustion threatened to strike back with a hammer. She laughs at her youthful fearlessness now, but the intimidation, and the repercussion was real then.
“Our assistant foreman got upset because I guess they didn’t want you standing up for yourself,” she said. “The assistant foreman started making it hard on us, giving us more physical work that men should have been doing. He was punishing us.”
Mustion didn’t back down.
She had joined the war effort in part because of her patriotism. But by this time, 1944, it was personal.
“I lost my brother on January 4th, 1944. He was a sailor on the ship, the USS Turner,” she said. “I wasn’t about to back down.”
Mustion said she threatened to quit if the work was not equal.
The foreman turned out to be an ally.
“He called me down and said, ‘Now Ruth is it true you’re going to quit?’ I said, ‘Yes, if I don’t get moved out of that job, I’m walking Friday’,” she remembers.
The foreman told her to get her tool box and return to his office.
“I thought this was it, he was canning me and I’m going home,” she said.
Instead, the foreman sent her to another foreman, who Mustion called a “fine Christian man”. Mustion had become so good at her job, she was a valuable resource at Boeing.
“From then on, I never had to declare my moral standards anymore,” she said.
It was lesson in standing her ground and it in how inequality could impact a livelihood.
“This is the thing that really bothered me most: I was just out of high school, barely 18, and these men were in their mid 30s and 40s, so they should have known better,” she said. “They picked on the younger ones, and I was one of the youngest ones. I don’t know what they thought, but they thought wrong. I’m sure standing up to them made a difference because I think they realized that some of us women were not going to take it.”
She had started at 24 cents an hour and would eventually earn 40 cents an hour.
She would send one dollar every month home to her siblings.
With questions about gender equality in the workforce and harassment still a resonant issue decades later, Mustion wonders if anything has changed all that drastically.
“I hope it made a difference, but I don’t know,” she said.
Mustion doesn’t feel bitter because most of her experience at Boeing was a positive one.
“You can never let hatred control your life,” she said.
Mustion recalls the euphoria when the war was over.
“I remember everybody lined up on main street and it was the best feeling in the world,” she said. “It’s hard to describe the joy and relief we all felt.”
Thousands of workers were let go from jobs in the defense industry, due to a ‘liquidation of program’.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing never regretted it, but I was never so happy to get a termination slip,” she said, laughing. “They needed hands to perform the work, and those women, all of us, deserve a thanks for that effort.”
For her 90th birthday, her family celebrated with a big get-together. Mustion’s daughter, Debbie Yancey, is collecting memories. Its time, she said, to cherish her mother’s experience and keep it alive.
“There are not many from my mother’s generation left, and my mother’s story, and others like hers, need to be carried down to the next generation,” she said.
According to her son, the Rosie the Riveter movement has become part of the Mustion’s family history.
“I feel very proud, not just of her, but of all the women that took up the roles and kept the factories going,” said Michael Mustion.
Mustion, with the money earned at Boeing, returned to Springfield, graduated from Southwest Missouri State and became a teacher. She married her teenage sweetheart, Dwight Mustion, and moved to Pasadena in 1961 when he was transferred to Sinclair Petrolem. There, Mustion was active in various school and community programs, and attended First Baptist Pasadena.
She currently and happily resides at the Waterford in Deer Park, a senior living facility, where the staff was thrilled to learn that they had their very own Rosie the Riveter as a resident.
In 1941, production of the B29 Superfortress began in the four main Boeing assembly plants: in Renton, Washington, Mariette, Georgia, and Wichita, Kansas. It could fly higher, further and longer than any aircraft before; it was the same type of bomber that would ultimately drop the two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war.
You could say that the farm girl from Howell County, Missouri, played a significant role in transforming air warfare while in Wichita, but she never saw it that way.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing and felt we were doing a worthy job and something that needed to be done,” she said. “There is no telling how many more men we would have lost. You have to think of it that way.”
War had touched Mustion’s life. Ten boys she knew from her high school died, she lost a cousin and her brother, Roy, just 20 years old. To do this day, Mustion will not watch a war film or documentary. The cost of war is still real to her.
“I will not watch war movies because it’s too painful, too many memories,” she said. “I was touched very deeply by the war. There is nothing romantic about war. All war is hell.”
What does she want her grandchildren to learn from her experience during the war effort?
“I think it’s important for them to remember that when circumstances come up where you need to step in, you need to do it, and you need to do it gracefully,” Mustion said.
Aug 13, 1925 - Sep 13, 2017
Ruth Elnox Mustion was born in Howell County, Missouri on August 13, 1925 and passed from this earth on September 13, 2017, at the glorious age of 92. Ruth married Milow Dwight Mustion on April 21, 1947, and was married for 61 years. She was preceded in death by her husband, in 2008.
She is survived by her daughter, Debbie Mustion Yancey and husband Jim Yancey, son, Micheal Mustion and wife Janie, six grandchildren, James Yancey and wife Jenni, Jonathan Yancey and fiancé Jamie, Natalie May and husband Donovan May, John Garza, Ashley Garza, and Michael Trey Mustion and wife Charming. Ruth also had seven great-grandchildren, Averie Yancey, Chloe Yancey, Luke Yancey, Dylan May, Ryan May, Connor Mustion, and Amelia Carrizales.
Ruth was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was a graduate of Southwest Missouri State, expert seamstress, homemaker, gardener, goodwill ambassador of God, educated advisor and friend to many.
Having built bombers for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas, during World War II, Ruth was an original Rosie the Riveter and A member of the Rosie the Riveter Association.
Ruth was a faithful Adult Sunday School teacher for 20 years and a member of First Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas for 59 years. She loved God and her church, where she built many life long friendships.
Ruth lived her last three years at the Waterford Retirement Community in Deer Park. She loved her time there, appreciated the loving staff, and spending time with the other seniors.
Visitation will be Sunday, September 17, from 3:00pm to 5:00 p.m. Funeral Service Monday, September 18, at 12:30p.m. at Grandview Funeral Home, 8501 Spencer Highway, Pasadena, Texas 77505. Interment will be at Grandview Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Baptist Pasadena, 7500 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas 77505.
_______________________________________________________________________
Y.C. Orozco Published Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Ruth Wicker Mustion was 17 when she boarded a bus to Springfield, Missouri.
It was 1943, it was wartime, and Mustion had signed up for a six-week training course; from there she took another bus to Wichita, Kansas, where Mustion would spend the next two years at Boeing working on the first B29s.
What she thought was a humble role in the war effort would become a significant chapter for American women and their role in World War II.
Mustion was one of the thousands of American women who became collectively identified with the Rosie the Riveter movement, marking the first time American women, on a large scale, stood by side by side with men in the workforce.
Mustion turned 90 on August 13, and her memories of her time at Boeing are as sharp as ever.
In Wichita, Mustion, who had now turned 18, settled into a basement apartment, boarding with an elderly couple, and immediately began on the assembly line working on B17s and then the first Boeing B29s. First, she did framework on the nose portion of the bombers, and learned a lot about patchwork on those early frames.
“I had so many patches on it we wondered how it could get off the ground,” she said.
Mustion became so proficient at her job she would eventually become a supervisor, training other workers, both women and men. That wasn’t always easy, she said.
When World War II began, American men had to leave thousands of factory jobs to enlist or become part of the war effort in some way. Work in the American factories was considered harsh, dirty and too physically grueling for women, who were deemed fit mostly for clerical work, or in her role as a wife and mother in the home or a caregiver in someone else’s home.
That all changed with the war, and women were rallied to go to work in factories because the country needed the workforce.
But while these women worked side by side with men, it wasn’t always a smooth ride, said Mustion.
There were some men, she said, who resented and even retaliated against the women, even though they were doing the same jobs with equal proficiency, whether it was welding, shipbuilding or riveting.
Some women were harassed, she said. Once, a male worker pinched her in an inappropriate manner. In defense, Mustion threatened to strike back with a hammer. She laughs at her youthful fearlessness now, but the intimidation, and the repercussion was real then.
“Our assistant foreman got upset because I guess they didn’t want you standing up for yourself,” she said. “The assistant foreman started making it hard on us, giving us more physical work that men should have been doing. He was punishing us.”
Mustion didn’t back down.
She had joined the war effort in part because of her patriotism. But by this time, 1944, it was personal.
“I lost my brother on January 4th, 1944. He was a sailor on the ship, the USS Turner,” she said. “I wasn’t about to back down.”
Mustion said she threatened to quit if the work was not equal.
The foreman turned out to be an ally.
“He called me down and said, ‘Now Ruth is it true you’re going to quit?’ I said, ‘Yes, if I don’t get moved out of that job, I’m walking Friday’,” she remembers.
The foreman told her to get her tool box and return to his office.
“I thought this was it, he was canning me and I’m going home,” she said.
Instead, the foreman sent her to another foreman, who Mustion called a “fine Christian man”. Mustion had become so good at her job, she was a valuable resource at Boeing.
“From then on, I never had to declare my moral standards anymore,” she said.
It was lesson in standing her ground and it in how inequality could impact a livelihood.
“This is the thing that really bothered me most: I was just out of high school, barely 18, and these men were in their mid 30s and 40s, so they should have known better,” she said. “They picked on the younger ones, and I was one of the youngest ones. I don’t know what they thought, but they thought wrong. I’m sure standing up to them made a difference because I think they realized that some of us women were not going to take it.”
She had started at 24 cents an hour and would eventually earn 40 cents an hour.
She would send one dollar every month home to her siblings.
With questions about gender equality in the workforce and harassment still a resonant issue decades later, Mustion wonders if anything has changed all that drastically.
“I hope it made a difference, but I don’t know,” she said.
Mustion doesn’t feel bitter because most of her experience at Boeing was a positive one.
“You can never let hatred control your life,” she said.
Mustion recalls the euphoria when the war was over.
“I remember everybody lined up on main street and it was the best feeling in the world,” she said. “It’s hard to describe the joy and relief we all felt.”
Thousands of workers were let go from jobs in the defense industry, due to a ‘liquidation of program’.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing never regretted it, but I was never so happy to get a termination slip,” she said, laughing. “They needed hands to perform the work, and those women, all of us, deserve a thanks for that effort.”
For her 90th birthday, her family celebrated with a big get-together. Mustion’s daughter, Debbie Yancey, is collecting memories. Its time, she said, to cherish her mother’s experience and keep it alive.
“There are not many from my mother’s generation left, and my mother’s story, and others like hers, need to be carried down to the next generation,” she said.
According to her son, the Rosie the Riveter movement has become part of the Mustion’s family history.
“I feel very proud, not just of her, but of all the women that took up the roles and kept the factories going,” said Michael Mustion.
Mustion, with the money earned at Boeing, returned to Springfield, graduated from Southwest Missouri State and became a teacher. She married her teenage sweetheart, Dwight Mustion, and moved to Pasadena in 1961 when he was transferred to Sinclair Petrolem. There, Mustion was active in various school and community programs, and attended First Baptist Pasadena.
She currently and happily resides at the Waterford in Deer Park, a senior living facility, where the staff was thrilled to learn that they had their very own Rosie the Riveter as a resident.
In 1941, production of the B29 Superfortress began in the four main Boeing assembly plants: in Renton, Washington, Mariette, Georgia, and Wichita, Kansas. It could fly higher, further and longer than any aircraft before; it was the same type of bomber that would ultimately drop the two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war.
You could say that the farm girl from Howell County, Missouri, played a significant role in transforming air warfare while in Wichita, but she never saw it that way.
“I enjoyed my time at Boeing and felt we were doing a worthy job and something that needed to be done,” she said. “There is no telling how many more men we would have lost. You have to think of it that way.”
War had touched Mustion’s life. Ten boys she knew from her high school died, she lost a cousin and her brother, Roy, just 20 years old. To do this day, Mustion will not watch a war film or documentary. The cost of war is still real to her.
“I will not watch war movies because it’s too painful, too many memories,” she said. “I was touched very deeply by the war. There is nothing romantic about war. All war is hell.”
What does she want her grandchildren to learn from her experience during the war effort?
“I think it’s important for them to remember that when circumstances come up where you need to step in, you need to do it, and you need to do it gracefully,” Mustion said.
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