Indigenous women in Ironworkers Local 725, Canada. Photo: Lightframe
Tradeswomen Reject Union’s Capitulation
Tradeswomn Inc. is a nonprofit I helped found in 1979. Still going strong, the organization helps women find jobs in the union construction trades. Here’s the text of a speech I gave October 30, 2025 at Tradeswomen’s annual fundraising event.
Sisters, we’ve come a long way.
When we first started Tradeswomen Inc., we had one goal: to improve the lives of women — especially women heading households —by opening doors to good, high-paying union jobs.
It took us decades to be accepted by our unions. Decades of proving ourselves on the job, standing our ground, demanding a seat at the table.
And now — by and large — we’re there. We are leaders. Business agents. Organizers. Stewards. We have changed the face of the labor movement.
But sisters, we are living in a dangerous time.
Our own federal government is attacking the labor movement. And we cannot look away.
We all know that Donald Trump is gunning for unions. Project 2025 is his blueprint — a plan to dismantle workers’ rights and roll back decades of progress.
Let me tell you some of what’s in that plan.
It would roll back affirmative action, regulations we worked so hard to secure, Allow states to ban unions in the private sector, Make it easier for corporations to fire workers who organize, And even let employers toss out unions that already have contracts in place.
It would eliminate overtime protections, Ignore the minimum wage, End merit-based hiring in government so Trump can pack the system with loyalists, And — unbelievably — it would weaken child labor protections.
Sisters and brothers, this is not reform. It’s revenge on working people.
And yet, too many union members still vote against their own interests. Why? Because propaganda works. Because we are being lied to — by the media, by politicians, by billionaires who want to divide us.
That means our unions must do more than just bargain wages. We must educate. Engage. Empower. Because the fight ahead isn’t just about contracts It’s about truth.
We women have proven ourselves to be strong union members — and strong union leaders.
We’ve built solidarity. We’ve organized. We’ve made our unions more inclusive and more reflective of the real working class.
And now it’s time for our unions to stand with us.
Many of our building trades unions have stood up to Trump, and to anyone who would divide working people.
But one union — the Carpenters — has turned its back on us.
The Carpenters leadership has disbanded Sisters in the Brotherhood, the women’s caucus that so many of us fought to build.
They have withdrawn support from the Tradeswomen Build Nations Conference, the largest gathering of union tradeswomen in the world. They’ve withdrawn support for women’s, Black, Latino, and LGBTQ caucuses claiming they’re “complying” with Trump’s executive orders.
That’s not compliance. That’s capitulation.
But the rank and file aren’t standing for it.
Across the country, Carpenters locals are rising up, passing resolutions to restore Sisters in the Brotherhood and to support Tradeswomen Build Nations.
Because they know: You don’t build solidarity by silencing your own. And our movement — this movement — is built on inclusion, not fear.
While the Carpenters’ leadership retreats, others are stepping up.
The Painters sent their largest-ever delegation — nearly 400women —to Tradeswomen Build Nations this year.
The Sheet Metal Workers are fighting the deportation of apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Electricians union is launching new caucuses, organizing immigrant defense committees, and they are saying loud and clear:
Every worker means every worker.
Over a century ago, the IWW — the Wobblies — said it best:
“An injury to one is an injury to all.”
That’s the spirit of the labor movement we believe in —and the one we will keep alive.
Our unions are some of the only institutions left with real power to stand up to the fascist agenda of Trump and his allies.
We have to use that power — boldly, collectively, fearlessly.
Because this fight is about more than paychecks. It’s about democracy. It’s about equality. It’s about whether working people — all working people — will have a voice in this country.
Sisters and brothers, we’ve built this movement with our hands, our sweat, and our solidarity.
Now — it’s time to defend it. Together. Solidarity forever!
My Regular Pagan Holiday Post: Samhain, November 1
When does winter begin?
Is it October, when we pick the last tomatoes to let them ripen indoors? November 1, Samhain, when daylight thins and the world folds in on itself? December 1, when the record-keepers say it does? Or December 21, when the Earth leans furthest from the sun?
There are many ways to mark the turning.
In Northern California winter starts when the moss wakes up and fungus emerges
The Astronomers’ Winter
Astronomical winter begins with the solstice, that celestial pause when the sun halts its slow descent and begins its long climb back toward spring.
It happens around December 21, though never on exactly the same day— Earth wobbles a little in its orbit, as if uncertain.
The oak’s witchy branches show themselves
The Meteorologists’ Winter
The meteorologists keep tidier books. For them, winter starts on December 1 and ends with February— three even months of cold data, meant for graphs and records.
The forest breathes a sigh of relief as rainy season begins
The Ecologists’ Winter
Ecologists, meanwhile, listen to the ground. They call this time hibernal—the season of rest.
Their calendar has six seasons, each following the pulse of life itself:
Prevernal – the first stirring, buds swelling, birds returning Vernal – full spring, leafing and nesting Estival – the height of summer Serotinal – late summer’s slow ripening Autumnal – the fall of leaves and the long migration Hibernal – the stillness of sleep
The Gardener’s Winter
Gardeners go by the Persephone Period. It starts when there are less than ten hours of daylight in a day, causing plant growth to slow down or stop. Employed to plan crops, insuring plants have time to get a head start before winter harvesting or overwintering.
Mushrooms fruit after the first rains. (My first this season. Satan’s bolete I think)
Other Ways of Knowing
Elsewhere, the world names winter differently.
In the Hindu and Bengali calendars, there is Hemanta, the cooling air, and Shishira, the deep chill that follows.
The Noongar people of Western Australia read their six seasons in wind, rain, and blooming trees— a rhythm that moves with the land, not the clock.
The Cree of the far north know six seasons as well: the breaking and freezing of ice, the coming and going of warmth.
And pagans, watchers of the sun’s dance, divide the year into eight— by solstices, equinoxes, and the cross quarter days between.
Rain revives forest streams
The Truest Beginning
So when does winter begin? Perhaps it starts in a feeling— the first evening you reach for a blanket and feel the world grow still.
Winter begins when the Earth draws inward— and so do we.
April 1945. In Germany the four clubmobilers finally got their own clubmobile, a two-and-a-half-ton GMC truck. Flo was very proud that she could drive it. The vehicle must have required some modification for the women. At five foot two, it’s a wonder that Flo could reach the pedals. The clubmobilers were tasked with driving around to rest camps serving donuts. They managed to get over the border into Austria for some sightseeing. Photos are from Flo’s album.
Autobahn near Munich
The medieval fortess castle, Salzburg Austria
Schloss Klessheim, a baroque palace near Salzburg built 1700
“Kraut prisoners near Munich”
“In QM area with Dr. Minerva”
Flo didn’t caption this picture. It looks like the building is camouflaged.
Flo’s letter home was published in her hometown newspaper, the Yakima Republic.
Miss Wick in Germany: Sees Yanks Parade in Hitler Center
Parades in Hitler’s former stamping ground and presentation of congressional medals to brave American boys in a big Nazi stadium formerly ornamented with swastika flags, are among the sites witnessed by Miss Florence Wick, who is with the American Red Cross in Germany.
“General Patch presented five congressional medals of honor in the exact spot where Hitler used to ‘sell’ his theories to the Germans,” Miss Wick writes her mother, Mrs. Gerda Wick. “I have seen one of the biggest and most famous of Nazi cities in complete ruin. We drove in jeeps down streets which air corps and artillery have reduced to rubble.
War Messy
“War is a mess and how these people can be loyal to a leader who led them into it and brought about such destruction is more than I can understand. It is really something to drive through town after town and see white flags flying from windows.”
Hitler’s Zeppelin Stadium. Photo: Flo Wick
The doughnut business continues good, Miss Wick wrote three weeks ago. The Red Cross workers had been steadily on the move but serving doughnuts all of the time. Germany is beautiful now, especially in the places where the fruit trees bloom and everything is neat and clean, she says. Mail is slow when Red Cross workers, like the soldiers, are on the move. The weather was so warm they were wearing spring cotton uniforms, Miss Wick said.
“The cotton dresses are so welcome because I get tired of uniforms and can wear the dresses after work and when I go out or have company,” Miss Wick commented upon receiving some clothes from home. “We have to do our own laundry and it is a task with no conveniences, but cotton clothes make it simpler.”
Stars and stripes raised above the swastika at Zeppelin stadium. Photo: Flo Wick
Women Find Home
Most of the time the Red Cross workers have been living in tents although Miss Wick and her roommate found a room in an empty German house on their last move and were enjoying the comforts of a regular dwelling.
We have lovely days in between showers and the countryside is beautiful. We had a picnic in a patch of woods just below an old castle the other evening. We marveled that we were eating fried chicken and hard boiled eggs on a picnic in the woods of southern Germany.”
She “spent more time at the front lines than Gen. Eisenhower”
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 64
April 1945. Marlene Dietrich was a huge movie star. Flo was star struck and delighted to meet her when she visited soldiers and the clubmobile crew in a field somewhere in southern Germany.
Dietrich was also a WWII hero. She became an active participant in the American war effort after renouncing her German citizenship and refusing to cooperate with the Nazi regime. She sold war bonds, raised significant funds for the troops, and performed hundreds of morale-boosting shows for Allied soldiers—often close to the front lines—through her USO tours.
Flo wrote: “Marlene up front. We took her picture. The GIs took ours.“
Dietrich was a humanitarian. She housed German and French exiles, provided financial support, and advocated for their American citizenship. In the late 1930s, she co-founded a fund with Billy Wilder and several other exiles to help Jews and dissidents escape from Germany. In 1937, she placed her entire $450,000 salary from Knight Without Armor into escrow to assist refugees. Two years later, in 1939, she became an American citizen and formally renounced her German nationality.
After the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, Dietrich was among the first public figures to help sell war bonds. From January 1942 through September 1943, she toured the United States, and was reported to have sold more war bonds than any other Hollywood star.
“Danube River (It ain’t blue)”
During two extended USO tours in 1944 and 1945, Dietrich performed for Allied troops in Algeria, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, and later entered Germany with Generals James M. Gavin and George S. Patton. When asked why she risked being so close to the front lines, she simply replied, “aus Anstand”—“out of decency.” Billy Wilder later remarked that she had spent more time at the front than General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Flo and Janet
In 1944, the Morale Operations Branch of the OSS launched the “Musak Project,” a series of musical propaganda broadcasts designed to weaken enemy morale. Dietrich recorded several German-language songs for the project, including “Lili Marleen,” a tune beloved by soldiers on both sides of the conflict.
Dietrich’s return to West Germany in 1960 for a concert tour was met with a mixed reception. Despite negative press, bomb threats, and protests from those who considered her a traitor, her performances drew large crowds. In Berlin, demonstrators shouted, “Marlene, go home!” Yet she also received warm support from others, including Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, who, like Dietrich, had opposed the Nazis and lived in exile during their rule. Emotionally drained by the hostility she faced, Dietrich vowed never to return to West Germany—though she was warmly welcomed in East Germany.
Janet hands out donuts“Three donuts, one grin”
Her contributions earned her numerous honors, including the American Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour. For her efforts to improve morale among troops and aid those displaced by the war, she received additional honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel.
My neighbor and friend, Laura Doty, created a beautiful deck of artful cards inspired by the 20 lessons from Timothy Snyder’s book. I love the spirit behind them — thoughtful, hopeful, and meant to spark conversation. Laura and I would like to see them shared more widely in our community, so I photographed the cards and am posting them here.Laura was also recently featured on Suzanne Maggio’s podcast, From Sparks to Light — Inspiring Stories for Challenging Times, where she talked about another inspiring community project she led. I’m so proud to know her and happy to help share her work.
When Donald Trump illegally designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, my concern for the future of our democracy deepened.
Antifa is not an organization, just a loose movement with no leaders. Because Antifa lacks structure, Trump’s move could target anyone the government assumes to be part of the movement, which could be you or me. I declare I am an antifascist. I object to the fascist takeover of my country.
Whatever you think of antifascists, probably you don’t think of the US government. But there was a time when the villains of US foreign policy were fascists. It was after the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, in which the US refused to intervene, letting the fascists win with the help of Hitler, Mussolini and US oilmen (see Spain in Our Hearts by Adam Hochschild). It was before the CIA incorporated Nazi war criminals into its organization and focused our wrath on communists and the Soviet Union after WWII (see The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot).
Mom in uniform
In the aftermath of WWI, European writers sought to alert the world about the fascist threat and Americans—if they were paying attention—knew about what was happening in Europe. My mother, Florence Wick, was paying attention. What cultural influences caused her to join the American Red Cross (ARC) and serve in Europe during the second world war? What can we learn today from antifascist art?
Watch on the Rhine
In the years before television, theater played an influential role in shaping the culture. Visiting New York City in 1941, my mother saw Watch on the Rhine, an antifascist play written by Lillian Hellman. The popular play won the New York Drama Critics prize that year and was still on Broadway when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. Made into a movie starring Bette Davis in 1943, Watch on the Rhine was representative of a genre of antifascist art popular in the US during the early years of WWII whose purpose was to persuade isolationist Americans to get involved in the European war. It certainly influenced my mother’s decision to join the Red Cross and go to war. I think it may have been one reason she chose to join the ARC, which promised a job overseas, rather than other slots that opened for women, which may have kept her behind a desk back in the States.
Playbook saved by Mom in 1941
I watched the movie and several others with similar messages. Some are just naked propaganda with unbelievable characters and dialog. Others, like Hellman’s, seek to educate Americans about the crisis in Europe, about class and about anti-Semitism. Hellman, who had briefly joined the Communist Party, wrote the play in 1940 following the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939. Her call for a united international alliance against Hitler contradicted the party’s position at the time. She was labeled a “premature antifascist” by the Communist Party, ironically later a moniker used by the FBI during the McCarthy purges to target communists. Her lover, Dashiell Hammett, who had also joined the Communist Party, wrote the screenplay.
His introduction reads: In the first week of April 1940 there were few men in the world who could have believed that, in less than three months, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France would fall to the German invaders. But there were some men, ordinary men, not prophets, who knew this mighty tragedy was on the way. They had fought it from the beginning, and they understood it. We are most deeply in their debt. This is the story of one of these men.
The man is Kurt Muller, a German who has devoted his life to the antifascist movement. We learn that he and many of his comrades fought in international brigades along with the Spanish Republicans to defend Spain’s democratically elected government against Francisco Franco’s fascists. They and others have constructed an underground antifascist organization in Europe. Watch on the Rhine shows us that fascists come in many shades; that Americans, naive about world politics, haven’t moved so far from slavery; that Bette Davis (bless her heart) excelled at overacting. The part played by Davis, Muller’s American wife, was expanded for the movie to make use of her star power at the box office.
The play is set in the Washington DC mansion of the wife’s family, whose dead patriarch had been a respected US Supreme Court justice. The family matriarch, Mama Fanny, runs it like a plantation, overseeing Black servants with strict control. When Joseph, the male servant, is summoned, he answers “Yasum.”
But Joseph gets some good lines. When Mama Fanny orders, “That silver has lasted 200 years. Now clean that silver,” Joseph says, “Not the way you take care of it Miss Fanny. I see you at the table and I say to myself, ‘There’s Miss Fanny doing it to that knife again.’ “
Hellman uses the three Muller children, sophisticated, language rich and worldly, to teach Americans about the outside world. “Grandma has not seen much of the world,” says the oldest, Joshua. “She does not understand that a great many work most hard to get something to eat.”
We learn that the antifascist movement is nonviolent. The youngest kid, Bodo, says, “We must not be angry. Anger is protest and should only be used for the good of one’s fellow man.”
The movie is both a critique of American culture and an attempt to school Americans about developments in Europe. Hellman did deep research for her script, and I thank her for helping me to understand this historical period and the forces that shaped it. Like most films from this era, it’s not available on Netflix, but I was able to check it out from the San Francisco Public Library.
The Moon Is Down
During Hitler’s rise, Nazis were winning the propaganda war. Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, was and still is much admired. Alarmed artists approached the US government with proposals for antifascist plays, movies and books, among them the famous writer John Steinbeck. The result of his effort, the novella, The Moon is Down, was published in March 1942. The next month it played on Broadway and a year later premiered as a movie. Its purpose was to motivate the resistance movements in occupied countries. The sinister title comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
I accidentally discovered the thin book in a friend’s library and read it with great interest. It describes life in a town that has been invaded and occupied by the German fascist army.
There is bloodshed. Orders are followed. People resist, are arrested and executed. People flee. Some people collaborate. Others form an underground to communicate with those on the outside. At the end of the book, the war is still going. But the invaders have been surrounded and we are very aware that the invaders have become the harassed. In a way, the occupiers have become the occupied.
Steinbeck acknowledges the humanity of the enemy. We learn as much about the motivations and humanness of the invaders as the invaded. For that reason the book was criticized mercilessly in the US and Steinbeck’s patriotism questioned. But Europeans loved it. It was translated into many languages and became the most popular piece of Allied propaganda in WWII.
Five Came Back
Things weren’t looking good for the Allies as the US joined the war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Germany and Japan were conquering Europe and the Pacific. The US had only just started to gear up its factories to make war materiel and Europe feared we wouldn’t get it there in time to stop the Nazi advance. It was during this time that the US antifascist propaganda machine went into high gear.
From 1942 to 1945, Frank Capra directed a series of seven antifascist propaganda films, narrated by the actor Walter Huston. The series, called Why We Fight, was produced by the War Department to make the case for US involvement in WWII. These films can now be accessed online. I also saw Five Came Back, a three-part Netflix series about five American film directors, including Capra, who produced propaganda for the US government during the war. The others were John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, and George Stevens.
Making movies of the war changed the filmmakers as well as audiences. We learn that they were haunted by what they saw. Wyler was shocked by racism against Black soldiers and refused to make a film meant to recruit Blacks. Stevens, at Dachau, realized he should be there to film evidence of crimes against humanity, not propaganda. Ford turned to drink after witnessing the bloodbath on D-Day. Huston took on PTSD only to have his film suppressed by the government. Racism was present in these films. While Germans were depicted as humans, Japanese were often seen as subhuman caricatures. The government worried, rightly, that violence against Japanese Americans would result. Then, in 1942, it incarcerated them until the end of the war.
Women in WWII: 13 short films featuring America’s Secret Weapon
Most of these are US military propaganda films whose purpose was to convince women to join the WACS or other service, and also to persuade men that women could do the work. Some were written by Eleanor Roosevelt and narrated by famous actors like Katherine Hepburn. The American Red Cross, in which my mother served, wasn’t mentioned, but there was a picture of an ARC club in North Africa.
I wish the government had made films like this for women in the trades. In one scene a couple of men are talking on their front porch about how one’s sister wants to join the WACS and they think she’s crazy. It’s a man’s war, they say. Then the film counters their sexism and shows competent women doing all sorts of jobs. However, these films also endeavored to persuade women that they were taking men’s jobs and they needed to go back home after the war and relinquish their war jobs to returning soldiers. It was made clear that the jobs belonged to men.
I don’t know if my mother saw any of these films, but it was this sort of government propaganda that propelled her and her generation into World War II. When the enemy was fascism, she was “as patriotic as they come,” according to her sister. Only after the war did she begin to question the government-constructed enemies of the state.
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
Released in 2004, this film makes the case that the story of the Holocaust has been told to the world by films made in Hollywood, starting with Warner Bros. Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, then MGM’s The Mortal Storm in 1940. Neither of these films used the word Jew. The Jewish studio heads wanted to stay in the closet and just be known as Americans. Also, the movie industry made a lot of money from selling its films to Germany during the early years of Hitler’s takeover. Some historians now view studio directors as Nazi collaborators.
Finally in 1940 Charlie Chaplin used the word Jew in The Great Dictator, which he made with his own money. Imagining that an antifascist film can also be hysterically funny might be difficult until you see The Great Dictator. Chaplin slays as Adenoid Hynkel, a thinly disguised Hitler. Jack Oakie’s spoof of Mussolini inspires hilarity. This film is testament to Chaplin’s comic genius. In the globe scene, Chaplin/Hynkel performs a ballet dance with a balloon earth, achieving perfect domination. Chaplin impersonates Hitler to great comic effect. He watched Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Triumph of the Will to learn Hitler’s speech patterns and body movements. Chaplin later said that if he had known the extent of Nazi atrocities, he wouldn’t have made the film. I’m so glad he did.
My mother told us kids stories about her time in Europe during the war, but she never talked about the Holocaust and we were not taught about this historical period in school. So I didn’t learn until 1970 that she had been present at the liberation of Dachau. What finally got her talking was an American TV mini-series, QB VII, about a British court case involving concentration camp crimes. It exemplifies how American media jogged the memories and imaginations of war survivors even 25 years after the war.
Night Will Fall
In 1945 a team of British filmmakers overseen by Alfred Hitchcock went to Germany to document the Nazi death camps. Their documentary, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, was suppressed and then lost for seven decades. Night Will Fall, a 2014 documentary directed by Andre Singer, chronicles the making of the 1945 film and includes original footage. These images are hard to watch, but I think we need to see them, to witness the consequences of fascism.
The death camp films were suppressed partly because they were thought too graphic for British and American tastes. And American tastes had changed almost as fast as superstate enemies revolved in Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. The Germans, our most recent deadly enemy, had become our friends. The Soviet Union, our recent ally, and communism, was now our mortal enemy.
With my neighbors at the No Kings demo in Santa Rosa October 18
In To Hell and Back, Murphy tells of the last days of the war.
After the crossing of the Rhine, the dike seems to crumble, and a flood of men and equipment pours into Germany. Even the most fanatical Nazis must sense that the game is over, yet they still deceive the population with promises that resistance will bring a negotiated peace rather than unconditional surrender. If they still want war, the Americans give it to them. With victory in sight, they do not soften. Artillery levels sections of towns; flames lick across burning buildings. Infantry and armor prowl rubble-strewn streets, and blood flows needlessly through the gutters.
A column of German prisoners is escorted by 3rd Division soldiers after their capture in Nuremberg, Germany. The fight for the city from April 17-20, 1945 was a tough one for the 3rd Division including mines, booby traps, Panzerfaust, snipers and futile counterattacks. Photo: Dogface Soldier
As the battle lines roll forward, windows drip with white flags. Any house without the mark of surrender receives no polite warning; soldiers rake its windows with machine-gun fire to correct the oversight. The tactic works.
Murphy is transferred to liaison duty, serving as the contact man between the division’s units. Near Munich, he enters a prison camp with his gun drawn and comes face-to-face with a German guard. The prisoners insist the man is a “good joe.” Murphy hears the phrase and thinks bitterly, Maybe he is. But I cannot see men anymore—I see only uniforms. He holsters his pistol.
The German mumbles something and stumbles toward a set of steps.
“There is something pathetically human about his odd, hobbled walk…. Perhaps it is the knowledge that we carry in our hearts that nobody ultimately wins. Somewhere we all go down. Force used tyrannically is our common enemy. Why align ourselves with it in whatever shape or fashion.“
A man and woman inspect their damaged home in Neuheusen east of Bamberg. Photo: Dogface
Then comes the great picture of mass defeat, the most overwhelming sight of the war. It appears in the bent figures of old women poking through ruins for some miserable relic of the past; in the shamed, darting eyes of the beaten; in the faces of little boys who watch the triumphant columns with fear and fascination. Above all, it appears in the thousands of dusty, exhausted soldiers streaming toward the stockades. Their feet clump wearily, mechanically, hopelessly along the seemingly endless road of war. They move as haggard gray masses in which the individual has no life and no meaning. It is impossible now to see in these men the fierce power that made them fight like demons out of hell only a few months before.
Flo titled this page of her album “With the Q.M. in all the best fields in Germany.“
The Quartermaster Corps was responsible for supplying the essentials—food, clothing, and equipment—to soldiers on the front lines. They ran supply depots, managed transportation networks, and made sure the troops had what they needed to keep operations moving.
Fritzie and BillTypical German village streetOur donut boysGerman shrineWith the QM in all the best fields in GermanyRelieving a patrol!The crew’s dog TD
This page of the album is packed with photos. What do they reveal on closer look?
Spring has arrived in 1945. The grass is green again, and Flo is wearing her summer uniform in one picture. Fritzie has a soldier boyfriend—or maybe a husband—named Bill! Even though the crew has its own clubmobile, they still rely on a team of “donut boys” to do the actual frying. These clubmobilers may never have had to cook donuts themselves. Which kind of makes sense; they gave out thousands of donuts daily and needed a whole crew to make them. Flo got to relieve a patrol—she’s still in the regulation Red Cross skirt. The dog, T.D., remains a star attraction. The group has been able to get into German towns. The pictures suggest that the women are camped here with the Q.M. They’re back to living in tents—or maybe sleeping in their clubmobile again.
tradeswomn musings 