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ELKINS -- After years of working to make a dream a reality, the Emma Scott Garden Club will inch a little closer on Monday morning to finally having its Rosie the Riveter statue in place.
A ground-breaking ceremony for the statue's new resting spot at the All Veterans Memorial on 11th Street will take place at 9 a.m. Monday.
"We are going to meet next to the Veteran's Memorial on Monday to do a groundbreaking for the Rosie statue," Emma Scott Garden Club President Linda Shomo told The Inter-Mountain. "Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco and Lynn Phillips from the Governor's Office will be there to speak. It's been a long road, a couple of years, to get to this point. So we are very excited that we are that much closer to having the Rosie statue finally up."
Shomo said two of the living Rosies in the Elkins area, Lorraine Moran and Juanita Morgan, will be on hand for the ground-breaking ceremony.
"We are very excited that those two ladies will be able to join us, and I know after speaking to both of them, they are very excited," said Shomo. "This really is going to be a historic event, because we are the first Garden Club in the world to ever put a Rosie the Riveter statue up."
A parade and statue unveiling are scheduled for later in the week and will be announced at Monday's ground-breaking event.
"This statue is for the women who supported soldiers during World War II," Shomo said. "We couldn't have won the war without the Rosies building the planes, building the ships, making the parachutes, and everything else they did. They not only did their jobs as Rosies every day, but after they got off work they came home and took care of their families. They didn't have the support of their spouses because they were overseas fighting."
The 6-foot, 3-inch statue arrived in Elkins from Provo, Utah on May 5. The statue, which cost the ESGC $67,000, will be placed in the same vicinity as the Gold Star Memorial that arrived at its destination this week.
Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of World War II that represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during the war. Any woman who received pay for any essential work during WWII is considered a Rosie.
"We need to make sure the Rosies are never forgotten," Shomo said. "My mother, who was a Rosie, told me right before she died to not let her or the other Rosies be forgotten. That was about 20 years ago and I never planned to be part of a group that set out to do a statue. It is like it was just meant to be."