During rest periods, the women would put their heads down on the worktable, and the officer in charge, a former schoolteacher named Dot Firor, would read aloud from The Bobbsey Twins or Little Women or some other comforting storybook narrative, and give them twenty minutes to let their minds drift. On the graveyard shift, some would sing to stay awake as they soldered. There was a woman from an Irish family, Pat Rose, who would sing “It’s the Same Old Shillelagh” in the most beautiful lilting soprano.
