The Sunnyvale Sun

Cover Story

Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Alma Taylor, who was employed at the Hendy Iron Works plant in 1942, attended its 100th anniversary celebration Aug. 10-12. The plant has been turned into a museum that is filled with artifacts from the company's experience during World War II.

A Place in Time

Rosie the Riveter-era ironworker Alma Taylor remembers Sunnyvale's Hendy Ironworks

By ALICIA UPANO

Alma Carrington Taylor, her sister and roommate cried when they heard the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was a sunny day in their San Jose apartment and the college students, who had been studying, knew life was about to change.

Their boyfriends, who would later become their husbands, were already in the military. These men would head into battle while the women would begin an adventure of their own as America entered World War II.

In 1942, the government called on women to hold down the home front. Nearly 7 million responded--2 million worked in the industrial field symbolized by cultural icon Rosie the Riveter and 400,000 joined the military. The rest, like Taylor, lent their skills to the American workforce. These women made history, offering their talents and helping to pave the road toward workplace equality.

"It changed everything for women," says 84-year-old Taylor. "They could have jobs. They didn't have to stay at home."

In the summer of 1942, Taylor's future husband, Bob, was stationed at Camp Roberts north of Paso Robles. Taylor had just finished her third year at San José State and began working in the offices of Joshua Hendy Iron Works in Sunnyvale, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in a packed ceremony Aug. 11.

The 90-acre plant had once employed only a few hundred employees, but during World War II that number jumped to 8,000, Iron Man Museum tour coordinator Eric Thomas says. The plant made the turbine engines for the Liberty ships built in Richmond. The Hendy Corp. sold the plant to Westinghouse in 1947. Northrop Grumman Marine Systems purchased it in 1996.

The plant today

Today, the complex--which lays hidden in Sunnyvale off Hendy Avenue, less than a block from the downtown area--is still working with the Navy to produce strong, silent engines for attack submarines and other military hardware.

As clichéd as it sounds, forces of nature brought Hendy Ironworks to Sunnyvale. After 50 years of work in San Francisco, the company was leveled by the 1906 earthquake. The city of Sunnyvale--then in its infancy--invited Hendy south with the promise of open space near the railroad.

Just as it did with Moffett Field and the Onizuka Air Force Station, through Northrop Grumman, Sunnyvale played a key role in United States history. Submarines made possible by work done in town were instrumental in such pivotal events as the Cuban missile crisis and still play roles today.

"We as a nation are collectively grateful to you," U.S. Rep. Anna Eschoo told almost 1,000 Northrop Grumman employees at the 100-year celebration.

Also in attendance was Sunnyvale Mayor Ron Swegles, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzi Blackman and other officials.

"I'll bet we all wish we could throw a 100-year birthday party and have this many people show up," Blackman said, reflecting that it is also the Chamber's centennial celebration this year.

When it was owned by Hendy, the plant made engines for war ships, hydraulic monitors used in the building of the Panama Canal and valves for the Hoover Dam. The plant was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1978. Dave Baer started the Iron Man Museum in 1984, filled with artifacts from the plant's 100-year history.

A living legacy

At the anniversary celebration Aug. 12, Taylor and her family found portraits of her as a young woman working at Hendy's. In one, she is standing on a turbine engine. In another, she poses with the Hendy's quartet.

Taylor recalls that time 64 years ago. After a week on the job, she asked for a week off to get married. Bob Taylor had sent her a telegram asking to marry him the following week.

"I was so naïve that I didn't know that you don't do things like that," Taylor says.

The Taylor wedding was a "rush-rush thing" in Carson City, Nev. Taylor returned to her work at Hendy's, and Bob to Camp Roberts.

In addition to their new working lifestyle, women lived with the fear of getting news that a son, husband, or father had been killed. They also had to deal with rationing and the scarcity of meat, sugar and gas. But Taylor had an opportunity to help boost morale.

Shortly after she started working at Hendy's, the plant surveyed its workers for their talents. Taylor had taken years of piano and voice lessons and studied music at San José State.

Soon, she was singing in the Hendy Band that performed regularly for the homefront workers. Taylor still remembers the songs she sang, including "Ah Sweet Mystery of Life," "My Hero," and "Tangerine." She became known as the "Songbird of Hendy." She was in the Hendy Chorus and sang with the San Francisco Opera Chorus for one year.

The former farm girl from the Los Altos Hills performed for dignitaries in the home of Hendy's president, Charles Moore, along with a pianist and dancer one evening.

Moore playfully bet $5 to any girl who would drink the yellow-spring water near his home. Taylor volunteered, having grown up with the mineral water, and won the $5.

She also sang for then-Sen. Harry Truman at Sainte Claire Hotel party. Truman was in town touring Hendy's.

"I had no idea he would be a president of the United States later," she says. "He was just another old man as far as I was concerned."

Her husband was in combat in the Pacific for 18 months toward the end of the war, as Taylor worked at home.

In 1945, when the war ended, the women were fired from their industrial jobs as soldiers returned home. Taylor, who did clerical work at the plant, continued working until she and her husband decided to raise a family. Her first son, Robert A. Jr., was born in 1947, and she had a second son, John R., two years later. She was a stay-at-home mom, but Taylor still yearned to sing.

Her husband gave her money for a diaper service, but she used it for voice lessons, studying under Dora Shepherd and Ivan Rasmussen.

In the early 1960s, Taylor performed leading roles with the West Bay Opera, including La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Don Giovanni. Taylor also performed a one-woman show at clubs in the area.

She held many musical positions in churches, including soloist roles at Westminster Presbyterian and First Presbyterian churches. She was a choir director for the Calvin Presbyterian Church, the first choir director for Temple Emanu-El during the High Holy Days and music director for First Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara. She also sang at the Christian Science churches in San Jose.

During this time, Taylor performed and taught voice lessons. In 1970, her husband had a heart attack and encouraged Taylor to find work that would support her if he died. Together, they studied for the real estate exam and received licenses. Taylor began her career in real estate at 50, retiring at 73. Her husband died in 2004.

She's still active

In her retirement years, Taylor keeps busy. She is involved with the San Jose Opera Guild, San Jose Woman's Club, Preservation Action Council, the Society of California Pioneers, Opera Bridge groups and Preludes and Encores League. In 2001, she established a scholarship for a San José State University vocal student through the San Jose Woman's Club.

Through these affiliations, Taylor has been invited to speak about the Rosie the Riveter era to various groups, such as the Pacific Legal Foundation. In 2000, she attended the dedication of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Richmond. Taylor still maintains the "get-it-done dignity" of the Rosie generation.

"I've always gone my own way," she says.

For more information on the Iron Man Museum, 401 E. Hendy Ave., Sunnyvale, call 408.735.2020. Guided individual and group tours are open to the public by appointment.

Sunnyvale Sun reporter Jason Goldman-Hall contributed to this story.