A Wartime Poem and a Recipe

This poem by Irene Carlisle was published in the Saturday Evening Post on February 3, 1945

Welder
by Irene Carlisle

Slowly upon the ways the gray ships rise,
The hammers ring on forepeak, hold and keel.
Under our gloved hands and hooded eyes
The blue arc stitches up the patterned steel.

Over the hulls, between the clanging cranes,
We climb and kneel and seam the ships together,
Women are always sewing for their men,
It tides the heart through many a bitter weather.

The chattering rivets button up the shell,
The waiting bay is laced with windy foam,
The molten stitches glow beneath my hand,
This is the ship on which he may come home.

Irene Carlisle was a welder at Moore Shipyard in Oakland, California while her husband was in the navy during the war. She is now living in El Cerrito, California. This poem seems so appropriate for recognizing the contribution of the thousands of women who build the ships and planes.

"My dad joined the navy and was stationed here for a while, so that's why we came to live here. We came from a regular-sized house and yard, and took what we could find here for housing.

Actually our apartment was okay, just very small - a studio. We finally worked up to a 1-bedroom place; housing was extremely tight, unbelievably tight. We left our Scottie with friends, and came here. We were from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Donna S. asked if shipyard workers were admired - I don't really think so. Although the attitude of the day was generally very patriotic there was a small group who resented the servicemen, the shipyard workers, "Okies and Arkies". Of course we fit all three groups! Some of the natives felt that we were a real inconvenience, if not an actual threat! But the general feeling was that we were all in this together, and the country was absolutely united.

Those war years were very memorable, something to treasure. Saving grease, cans, foil, toothpaste tube, I'd forgotten all those details. I remember when bananas started slowly coming back in the stores. If you were lucky enough to get one you could take it to Fenton's and they'd make you a banana split; there were not enough that Fenton's could put them back on their menu!" - Irene Carlisle

"I was never known as a cook, but I did have one recipe that everyone liked, before the war. It was a variation of Swiss steak - round steak that had flour pounded into it, and then was simmered for a very long time, making its own gravy.

Of course meat was rationed during the war but one day word went around about horsemeat. You could buy horsemeat at a pet store and it wasn't rationed. We got some. It looked just like lean ground beef steak. I cooked it, but we didn't really feel like having any. The taste wasn't bad but we didn't really want any after all."