Single Mother Worked at Munitions Plant to Support "The War"

Helena Kelton married her high school sweetheart in the midst of the Great Depression and moved off with him to Great Falls, Montana, to work at a family business there. She had two children, a boy and girl. But then the fairy tale ended.

Her high school sweetheart turned out to be not-so-sweet and left her for another woman. She and her children got on a train back to home in Marion and never dealt with her ex-husband again. No communication and certainly no child support.

Helena's father had died while she was away and her mother still had a full house with her siblings, but she welcomed Helena and the children home. And, Helena went to work for a local family, cleaning their house for $2 a week.

So for Helena, the call for applicants at the Ordill munitions plant couldn't have come at a better time. She needed a good job to get on her feet and support her children and in 1942 there wasn't a lot of that in Southern Illinois or anywhere else.

Helena, who is now 90, lives in Goreville to be closest to her youngest son, born after the war to Helena and her second husband. And though they now live apart, she uses the name of the man she met while working at Ordill. "I still love him and he loves me, but he got Alzheimer's and wouldn't support me. I had to divorce him," she said.

"He is a home east of Marion, but I don't go to see him anymore. It just hurts too much, when he doesn't know who I am," Helena said.

That final love of her life came after she and Harry Kelton had both raised their families and buried other spouses. "We met at the plant, but he was married. Years later, after my husband died, he came around. He told me he fell in love with me then, but he also loved his family. By then, he had lost his wife and I had lost my husband, so we got married."

"After he got sick, his son started sending me a check each month to help take care of me," she said.

And, Helena accepts that help, but she is proud to know that she spent most of her life supporting her family and herself, starting with that job at the munitions plant at Ordill.

"There was an old man from Fudgetown that drove over there every day and he would pick me up," she remembered. "Of course, it's really Fergis, but there was a family there called Fudge and all us kids called it Fudgetown. When he retired, they sent a bus out to pick us up."

The plant, on what is now part of the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge, made 75 mm shells for the Army. "There were three main buildings and in Building 3 they would pack the powder and add the fuse. Then, they would put them in a cart and roll them down to us in Building 1."

In her building, Helena and others would use machines to screw the cap on the shells. "They made us wear safety shoes so we wouldn't drop them on our toes, but if you dropped one, it would go 'pop'," she said, smiling at the understatement.

The shells were extremely explosive and simply didn't get dropped, she said. Helena worked at the plant for the duration of he war, including becoming bay leader later in the war. The supervisory position lead to her only injury while working at the plant.

"There was a man there who thought he was going to get the bay leader position and they gave it to me instead. So one day when I was standing there watching the work, he shoved a cart full of those shells a little too hard and did this," displaying a crooked finger on her right hand.

But despite the injury, Helena was glad for the work as were most of the locals who were able to get it. "After awhile I got on my feet and moved to Herrin."

After the war though, she would abandon her Southern Illinois home again for the lure of work. This time it was the Campbell's Soup factory in Chicago. "They paid us 75 cents an hour and we could buy soup really cheap. Every time we came home, we'd get off the train at Johnston City with a case of soup."

Helena says she can't remember all the odd jobs she ahd to pull her family through those lean years, though she does remember fondly a time when she and her sister rented an apartment in Carbondale to work at the Glove Factory. "We didn't have any transportation so we had to stay in Carbondale during the week and go home on the weekends," she said. Eventually, Helena went to work for Allen's in Herrin and worked at the manufacturing plant for 12 years, until she retired.

It was hard work, she said, but it means that she has insurance and doesn't have to rely on state assistance to make her way. And, that is something she is proud of. That, and her three children and her grandchildren, the youngest of which just started kindergarten make it all worthwhile.

Kelton's daughter and oldest son live in Herrin and her youngest son lives a few doors away in Goreville, so that he and his wife can help her out when needed. And she tries to make that not very often. "I drove until I was 88 years old. Never had an accident or even bumped fenders with someone, but I gave it up after when my doctor said it was time."