On Saturday, Aug. 3, there will be a special ceremony held in honor of Howard County native and “real-life Rosie the Riveter” Mary Bell (Parsons) Davis, who will also be celebrating her 100th birthday.
The event will be held at the Glenwood Fish Nest Restaurant with a 12 noon luncheon.
Davis will be presented the Rosie The Riveter Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, one of less that 200 authorized by the U.S. Congress. The presentation will be made by Camden Mayor Charlotte Young to Davis as the last surviving “Rosie the Riveter” from the Sam and Nettie Parsons family. Also in attendance will be Laura Wright, president of the American Rosie The Riveter Association.
Davis’ sisters, Florene (Parsons) Thompson and Hazel (Parsons) Ward were also workers during World War II and will be recognized posthumously with the family’s oldest son, Seldon Parsons, to celebrate this 95th birthday.
Congress authorized the Medal of Honor to honor the 6,000,000 women “who went to work in the munitions and weapons factories replacing men who had gone to war during Word War II and in doing so forever changed the culture of America.”
Davis and her sisters served their county during World War II by working in the Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant, Texarkana, and the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot, which produced “sidewinder” missiles and other weapons. The Shumnaker barracks still exist and preserved as historical buildings in Camden.
Davis was born and reared in Howard County and is a long-time Marshall County, Oklahoma resident, retired from Madill Walmart at the age of 80. It’s unclear if Davis is the only other living “Riveter” in Oklahoma, according to Davis’ daughter, Glenda Gail Parker of Alexandria, Virginia.
Parker said she grew up hearing her mother talk about her and the two sisters working during the war.
“And while I may not have all the facts completely straight, as I understand it, there was a conveyor-belt for grenade assembly a the Shumaker Ammunition Depot. Occasionally, a pin would fall out of a grenade but there was a barricade in front of the conveyor-belt, an explosives bin for the rejects and live grenades.
“The women were supposed to grab the live grenade, throw it in the bin, yell something…like ‘bend over and kiss it’ then everyone hit the floor. One woman lost her arm doing that, but she saved several lives in the process.”
Davis is the youngest and only surviving daughter of the family’s six girls. All five of her brother and five sisters served the war. She has two serving brothers, Gerald Parons and Seldon Parsons, both of Fort Smith.
Parker noted that when the 6,000,000 working women returned home after the war, “the baby boom started.”
Davis went back to work later in life and worked 34 years at Walmart. Her daughter said her mom never achieved her ambition of getting a college degree; however, all four of her children did and her son became an attorney, according to Parker.
