"It was at Arlington Station which used to be a girls' school. It was just a big old open room with desks kind of like this (makes sweeping gesture with hand), and we sat there and did work all day. Eight hours. But we had 45 minutes for…

Editor's note: Louvinia Jordan scored in the top sixth on the test to join the Signal Corps. "They thought I was smart because I did that... I was shocked.... A lot of math. ‘Cause my work was all in math. They just hit what I knew on…

"Well, I went to Raleigh, and they interviewed me. And then I got a job. And I went to Washington and I took the exam until I was too dumb to learn. But they thought I was smart. And they put me out to work. And I did like math problems. My…

"Well, my daddy helped the math teacher in high school, because he did not know math. He was a smart man but didn't know math. And he'd tell my brother, 'take this home and get your daddy to work it and bring it back in the…

“I went to…a national meeting of the American Rosie the Riveter Association in Nashville. When I came back I called the Rome News-Tribune and spoke to this young man. And I told him a little about…who Rosie the Riveters were. It’s amazing how many…

“When I graduated from high school, my father’s oldest sister talked to my father and said, ‘You know, you haven’t been a part of your child’s life very much, and she obviously wants to do something with her life. Would you be willing to finance her…

“But that was one of my greatest frustrations with being a welder. You had to get the temperature on the machine set exactly right. If it were too hot it’d burn a hole in the metal. If it’s too cold it’d stick [laughs], so you couldn’t make a…

“We’d never worn pants. Women did not wear pants. Maybe they did in California and New York City, but not in Lineville, Alabama.”

“We went to Heflin, Alabama to catch the train to go to Savannah. And when we stepped on the train onto that coach, there wasn’t a seat anywhere, and it was filled with young men in khaki uniforms. It was a troop train. Everything was a troop train.…

“Well, my grandfather owned-. He had a small farm…I can just remember going there with him once or twice as a small child. I was probably two, two and a half when we went back to live with him…The thing that I remember most was he had a small, very…