(Chelsea Update would like to thank Bob Milbrodt for the information in this story.)
This Monday, the Chelsea Kiwanis Club will plan its annual Halloween party and Costume Contest in cooperation with the Chelsea High School Key Club and Cole Funeral Chapel.
Festivities will include cider, doughnuts, peanuts and some of the most fun and creative Halloween costumes you have ever seen, created by contestants in our town. Stay tuned to Chelsea Update for details.
Last week, Alison Beatty and Patsy Kemner dressed as Rosies and presented the history of the Willow Run bomber plant and the role women played during World War II.
About 80,000 workers produced B-24 Liberator bombers on a mile-long assembly line, at the astonishing rate of one per hour during the war. About 32,000 of the workers were women, who did the jobs men had always done, while the men went off to fight in the war. At the time, it was the biggest building in the world.
The group works to spread awareness about the plant’s history, which is 144,000 sq. ft. of the building has been saved from destruction.
It will be the new home of the Yankee Air Museum, and be called National Museum of Aviation and Technology at Historic Willow Run.
Upgrading the plant, building new exhibits, and displaying the fleet of historic aircraft inside the new museum are all proceeding with corporate donations from Ford and GM, and from folks interested in honoring and preserving the stories of those workers. They are also looking to find the stories of the women of color that worked there during the war.
More information can be found at www.SaveTheBomberPlant.org.
The club meeting begins each Monday at 6:15 p.m. in the St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea Hospital cafeteria, and the speakers begin at about 6:45 p.m. Everyone is invited to the club’s meetings to learn about Kiwanis.
Go to www.kiwanisclubofchelsea.org for more information.
