- [Victoria O'Donnell] This is the story of a city in Oregon that was built in 1943 to house shipyard workers, especially families and working mothers and their children.

Built along the slews of the Columbia River, with 40,000 people, Vanport was Oregon's second largest city and America's largest housing project.

One and two bedroom apartment units, doors where people could buy food, supplies, clothing and toys.

Six schools and kindergartens, after school recreation buildings and nurseries in Vanport and outstanding childcare centers at the shipyards gave parents the security of knowing that their children were well cared for, as women took on skilled jobs and earned high wages in the ship building industry where women's skill, strength, and productivity were highly valued.

Henry J. Kaiser and his son Edgar, recognized that meeting women's need for excellent childcare, adequate housing and other support services would enhance productivity, enabling them to build more ships faster.

It has been said that this was the most ambitious attempt ever made in the US to shape space for employed women and their families.

When the war ended, much of the city was torn down.

What remained was wiped out by a flood in 1948.

Nothing of the city remains today.

There are empty fields and a golf course.

(upbeat music) - But when my youngest sister graduated from high school, we decided we'd like to try something different.

And we had heard about the shipyard in Portland and how they were hiring people at a pretty good wage and decided we'd like to have a piece of that.

So we got in my 37 Chevy and headed out that way.

- Lived in Texarkana, Texas, me and my husband and four children, and I worked at the ammunition plant, made 105 millimeter shelves.

And he worked as a guard at the Ordinance Depot.

And the two younger children was took care of at home.

The two older children was in school and the first one that came to Oregon was my oldest brother.

And after he came, then my mother, and I had two younger brothers and a younger sister, and my stepfather came.

And then after they were here, then they asked, mom wrote and asked, would we come out?

- [Victoria O'Donnell] These two women were among the people who came to Portland at the rate of a thousand a day in 1942 and 1943 to work in the Kaiser Shipyards, Henry J. Kaiser, builder of the Hoover and Grand Cooley dams with friends in high places, open shipyards in Oregon and California to build Liberty and Victory ships and baby aircraft carriers, at first for the allies and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for the US Maritime Commission.

- And now it's my pleasure to bring to you the man who has made this so-called modern - So we are dedicated you and I to building ships.

We are the home front army.

And your job in that army is as important as my job.

We are fellow Americans, fashioning victory our heads, and our heart.

There's work to be done for America.

Let's roll up our sleeves and get at it.

And good luck to you.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Edgar Henry Kaiser's son, established three shipyards on both sides of the Columbia River, in Portland, Swan Island, and Vancouver, Washington.

The shipyards were open night and day, but many more workers were needed to meet the demand for more ships for America and her allies.

Newspaper ads appeared in cities all over the nation, urging people to come to work right away.

(lively music) From across the country, 160,000 new residents came to the Portland area.

Many of the new workers were women.

Kaiser hired women without discrimination and provided free training.

They had the same jobs, pay, and hard conditions as the men.

There was also a massive propaganda campaign conducted by the federal government to get more women to join the workforce.

Ads for beauty products.

(lively music) Health aids, magazine stories, and movie stars like Loretta Young told women.

- We have a right to be proud of the part that American women are playing in this war.

We found that the hand that rocks the cradle can build bombers, make ammunition, can turn every kitchen into a salvage station for vitally needed war material.

That is a job for each and every one of us, and it is our duty to find that job because every job we do is a pledge that our homes will not be destroyed.

(lively music) - [Victoria O'Donnell] Short films told women they could be trained to do the work.

- [Announcer] They are taking to welding as though the welding rod were a needle and the metal, a length of cloth to be sewn.

(orchestral music) After a short apprenticeship, a woman can operate this drill press as easily as a juice extractor in her own kitchen, and a lathe will hold no more terrors for her than an electric washing machine.

Individual consultation determines for what kind of work the applicant is best suited.

- Would you like to work in a factory?

- I don't know anything about machines.

- Can you drive a car, ride a bicycle?

Can you replace a burned out fuse?

- Oh yes, I can do that.

- Then you can be trained for a job and the training won't cost you a cent.

- [Announcer] With the strides that have been made in industrial methods, there's practically no limit to the types of work that women can do.

In hundreds of United States shipyards, Husky women do the same jobs as men.

Tough, rugged work that they toss off like veterans.

(orchestral music) - [Victoria O'Donnell] There was another message that said this was only for the duration of the war.

- It's okay now, but what about after the war?

The women will have all the jobs.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] This little girl asked, "Mother, when will you stay home?"

The answer, "Some jubilant day when she'll do the job, she likes best making a home for you and daddy."

There was the expectation that after the war, a woman would turn in her badge.

Nevertheless, the women came, learned the jobs, took on new challenges and enjoyed the work.

- [Interviewer] Did you just go in and ask for a job in the shipyards?

- Mhmm, got it right away.

- [Interviewer] Then what happened?

- But you had to go to school for welding first, and then after that, well, I was already employed after I got my certificate for welding, so I don't really recall.

I think they had, yarn, Vancouver that's where I got the welding in the welding school.

In Vancouver, they had a place where you go to assign you what you do.

And I told them I wanted to be a welder.

So they said, we'll have to set you up for, to go over there and do your job and set the machines and go back and weld, put the rods in, you know, on.

- Well, I was keeping the books no pay, you know, it was for the degree of honor fraternal organization.

I happened to be a president of the organization then.

And a friend of mine said, why don't you go to work in the shipyards?

She said, and get paid, you're doing the work anyway.

And I says, well, I don't know how to weld.

I couldn't get a job in the shipyards.

And she says, there's other things beside welding.

And I said, like what?

She says, time checking.

I really wasn't too sure what time checking was.

And she said, it's working with figures.

I said, okay.

- Well, I started out as an what they called a ship fitter helper that was mostly carrying the tools.

And I was fortunate in having a really good lead man or boss there who showed me how to do things.

And our job was to put on the superstructure to make it level and sturdy.

And this to begin with, we would do this work in about a month working on one.

And by the time I finished and we were ready after a year's time, it took about two days to do it, but we had to take a course in welding that lasted, I think we went every night after work for an hour for two weeks.

In fact, whenever I was introduced to anyone, oh, Rosie the Riveter, huh?

- My husband and I both worked at Oregon Shipyard.

We both worked on the outfitting dock.

He was a painter, and I was a welder.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] By mid 1943, one half of the welders at the shipyards were women, and half of them had children.

Sharon Johnson's mother, Irma Johnson, who moved to Oregon from Minnesota, was also a welder.

- [Interviewer] Had your mother ever worked before?

- No, she never worked until she was there.

She went to the shipyards and she enjoyed it because it text tested her to see how much endurance she could do.

And she could do a lot more than she had planned that she could, figured she could do.

And she really enjoyed working there 'cause that was her first job.

- When my first came and I was going to be a welder, my husband told me, no way can you be a welder.

Well, that's what I wanted to do now, because he didn't want me to.

So anyhow, I liked it.

The first day I started, there was four women and three men and me.

The next day there was me and one man.

They was raided the fire.

But anyway, I was, four days is all I was in school.

I just happened to like it.

And I wanted to go on the outfitting dock.

And when I went over to be placed in the shipyard, they told me I was going to the ways and I told 'em I wouldn't do it.

I was going to the outfitting dock that I just wouldn't even work.

So I was going out the door and they come, got me and says, come on, you can go with the outfitting dock.

So that's where I went.

Okay we was building Liberty ships, liberty ships, a little small ships.

Then of course I thought that was a big ship 'cause I never had seen any.

Then we went from there to the Victory Ship, which was quite a larger than larger Liberty Ship.

And I thought the Victory was a big ship.

But then we went to the troop transports, and that was a big, big ship.

- A crew consisted of about three to five people.

And then we had a lead man.

And there were probably five or six crews under one foreman then.

And while we all did the same type of work, it was on different parts of the boat.

Actually, there was quite a bit of absenteeism.

So we never knew exactly how many of the crew.

And there was one time, the only ones on my crew who were there was me.

So my lead man and I, we just went to work and we probably accomplished as much as we would have if the whole crew had been there.

- Well then they had two men.

They hired Doc Mills, retired dentist.

And this fellow that was for each.

They needed more lead men.

They made them lead men.

I was there longer than they were.

I was several weeks, maybe a couple of three months longer.

And it made me very unhappy.

So I go back up to Mr. Camel, he sure got to know me, and I told him that I needed the job.

I should have it, I was entitled to it.

And he says, they only make, what, 15 cents an hour more June.

He said, I'll give you a raise.

I says, I don't want the raise.

Well, I do want the raise, but I want to be a lead man.

And I got to be a lead man.

- Kind of dark in there because you have to have a light.

And then you start welding on the, they have kind of a spaces that you have to weld and go nothing, there's nothing under the ship.

- [Interviewer] Were you a good welder?

- [Alice] Mm, I consider myself a good way welder.

- [Interviewer] Did you like it?

- [Alice] Mhmm, I liked it.

- [Interviewer] Why?

- I don't know,, in those days, it's just I liked it.

I don't know why, but I did.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Women had to wear men's rugged work clothes for protection against sparks and cold weather.

Hard hats, helmets and goggles to protect their heads and eyes and overalls, boots and heavy jackets to keep warm and safe.

- We wore corduroys pants and leather jackets because they were more substantial.

And since we were around welders all the time, there were sparks flying and it seemed like none of our clothes lasted very long.

- Oh, they wore then big suits.

When you weld, you know, that sparks, so it won't burn your big jacket and big pants, and you have big boots like, what do you call those boots with laces way up here, so you won't burn your feet.

- We wore our hair tied up in the bandana.

It had to be no hair was out because danger be catching on fire or getting in machinery.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] They figured out how to look pretty at the same time.

Most wore bandanas, but others wore snoods.

Underneath the overalls, dirt and grease, they were beauty queens like these shipyard contestants for the Miss Montana title.

Cartoons, frequently stressed the glamor and Feminine beauty disguised under work clothes.

"He fainted when I told him I was on his welding crew."

To assist women with psychological and counselors visited them on job sites to talk about working conditions, housing Edgar Kaiser also met with women workers about their problems, the biggest of which were childcare and scarce housing.

His solution was to build a new city named Vanport, a contraction of Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

The US Maritime Commission gave $26 million to Kaiser, who built the project under the supervision of the Federal Public Housing Administration.

A Portland architectural firm, Wolf and Phillips designed Vanport to facilitate women's entry into the war effort.

Kaiser told them to position houses on a straight line to the bus stops that would run past the schools to the job site, and a huge childcare center.

Vanport had room for 40,000 new residents, including 9,000 children, and was constructed in 10 months, opening on September 26th, 1943.

Although people had started moving in months before, there were 10,000 housing units, six grade schools, six nursery schools, five social halls, three fire stations, a library, a theater, a hospital, stores, a post office, a police station, cafeteria, administration service buildings The largest housing development in the world.

But there were no plans for the future.

The buildings were put up to last no more than 10 to 15 years.

When the war was over, it would have served its purpose.

- See, when they put 'em up, they was going fast and needed housing for people.

So they didn't have a, it wasn't built sturdy like a house, installations and different stuff.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Considering the completion time of 10 months from start to finish, the builders did a miraculous job.

The basic units were chunky, rectangular box style, two story buildings.

Each building had 13 furnished apartments that ran front to back with a living room, that had a kitchen counter.

A kitchen with two small burners, an oven and a nice box.

Some units had one or two bedrooms.

The living room was comfortable and open to the kitchen and dining area.

- When we lived in our apartments, we had two units and they were very, very comfortable to live in.

- And we got an apartment there, the apartments was two bedroom, had a nice big living room, nice bath, and they were furnished.

They was furnished with nice furniture.

It wasn't anything really special, but it was nice.

It was nice and everything was very, very clean.

- What was nice, I liked it.

We went to the movies in evenings and to Portland and take buses easy.

- And I remember the playgrounds were great.

There was always someone to play ball with.

Kids from everywhere.

We used to make extra money going and taking ice for all the people because all the apartments had ice boxes.

Another thing I really remember was the fact that when we lived in Texas, even when you lived in town, very few people had indoor toilets.

And there we had it indoors and that was great.

There was like 14 families in each apartment building.

And every family, it seemed like, had kids.

Most of the people were young and their kids were all about our age.

And you could just stand outside and holla and somebody would come out and play with you.

- After school, I was taken to the gymnasium where they taught tap ballet, jazz, gymnastics, and I took it all just to keep me preoccupied and outta trouble.

(laughing) My brothers bowling, they did basketball, they played baseball.

He had a little baseball team for the boys.

The Kaisers had a lot of things done to keep the kids from getting into trouble and keeping 'em outta trouble and putting 'em, so they had recreation so they could not be on the streets while their parents were working.

- And I didn't intend to go to work because I was gonna stay home with my children.

But after two or three weeks I saw that I found out about the nursery schools and all the things about the benefits for the children.

And I decided I would go to work.

And the two younger ones, my youngest daughter, Marlene was three, Eddie was five.

And I checked with the nursery school about them to put 'em in nursery school.

Jimmy was seven and Charles was nine.

And they was in school.

And I, of course, (indistinct) I wanna know how much it's gonna cost for 'em.

It cost $3 a week a piece, which was $12 for my four children for all week long.

I also found out that they got breakfast, they got lunch, and they got an afternoon snack.

So I didn't have to worry about fixing all these meals and everything.

All we had to do is see that they got there and get ready to go to work.

- And I can remember always had little coddle of royal footballs and we had to take one of those.

If you didn't take one of those, you got in trouble with the teachers.

And back then when you got in trouble with the teachers, they didn't just call your parents and tell 'em, you got in trouble with the teacher.

I mean, that was it.

And so everybody just took their cod liver oil and we had balanced breakfast.

Always had milk and some kind of juice and some kind of cereal and a lot of times we'd have eggs and bacon and this type of thing.

I mean, it was all just, you'd go to some brunch or something, you know, for like now, I'm a tire dealer and we'll go to tire dealers conventions.

And it reminds me of when I used to go through the line, because that's the way they always serve the breakfast.

If you go to a breakfast, - Well, this is a picture of one of the classrooms in the shipyards, and I'm in the front row sitting third person on the right hand side.

And this teacher I had, this was second grade, and she was a real neat teacher.

She's right here.

And as you can see, the room looked like it was very spacious.

And that this was our Christmas program that we had at school.

- Because we only went half a day.

You went to school all the time.

There was no vacations.

No in between, you went to school or on If they weren't working, we didn't go to school.

on Saturday and Sunday, if they were working, we had extended service all day.

You weren't latchkey kids then, you had something to do.

And it was provided by Vanport itself.

- Yeah, I had a lot of memories of Portland and Vanport ities.

I always thought it was a friendly place.

Well, the people and it was nice.

I never did really see the landlord.

My husband just paid him the rent, hmm.

That is all forgotten for months.

- Three, I went into surgery, eye surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital.

And Mr. Kaiser, Henry Kaiser had sent me gifts every day I was in there, which I was in for 15 days for two eye surgeries.

And I got dolls, and I got color books, and I got little dresses and a little pair of shoes that he had sent me to the hospital.

Mom and dad had to save, and it was like, I vaguely remember mom saying, it was like the hospital bill was $2,000, which was high back in the war time.

And the doctor ill was 1500.

So they had to save this money.

They paid it, and Mr. Kaiser reimbursed it because he hadn't started his Kaiser health plan at that time, but he reimbursed everything.

You pay it up front and then you got reimbursed in your paychecks.

- Kaiser actually paid their way here.

I mean, they actually would go to, I remember some people from Louisiana, that that's the way they got here.

And I can remember the people from Portland complaining about Kaiser going down there and bringing all the black people up here.

And we all played on the same playgrounds, went to the same schools.

- [Interviewer] Now your husband was black.

- From North Carolina.

- [Interviewer] From North Carolina?

Did you or he ever experience any discrimination at work or in Vanport?

- No, nobody ever discriminated against me.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] The Kaisers built a wartime city, transported many workers to Oregon, hired them without discrimination, and took care of their hospital bills.

Most important, the Kaiser family pioneered childcare centers at the shipyards.

An idea suggested to them by Eleanor Roosevelt and paid for by the federal government.

(lively music) - [Announcer] Shipyard working mama, put that baby down, In Portland, Oregon, The Kaiser Shipyards have solved the problem of welding without worrying over junior.

mothers now just leave the children at the service center where trained supervisors and teachers are on duty 24 hours a day.

The building has 15 rooms and a large outdoor playground, and the kids eat it up.

(lively music) They eat up the food too.

All's well on the junior shipyard front.

(lively music) - [Victoria O'Donnell] The child service center was located at the edge of the shipyards with picture windows giving good views of the Liberty and Victory ships and baby aircraft carriers.

Teachers were advised to take the children to the benches by the windows, telling them that's where mommy is working.

And after work she'll be here to take you home.

(lively music) Bus lines ran from Vanport to the center and then onto the shipyards.

The centers were open 24 hours a day to correspond with the shipyard ships.

(lively music) The large grassy play area had modern equipment, including waiting pools, and the children got lots of fresh air.

(cool music) At first, parents were reluctant to leave children at the center.

So the company newspaper, Bose and Whistle featured Mr. and Mrs. Leon Brown, the first two shipyard workers to bring their children to the center.

Consultations were held with parents to inform them of all the services available.

- But I had the little ones, I had the younger children from like two to three.

And most of them were in the beginning, it was a traumatic experience for them to be separated from their mother.

But you know, all of a sudden after two or three weeks when I'd see them, I told you, coming to me with their arms out and then waving goodbye.

Most satisfying job, most satisfying, food was good, very good.

But with the little ones that I had, we would have to serve the food.

But we would ask them, you know, what they wanted.

With the older children, I think they served themselves.

But the food carts that were brought in, you know, little, bigger, bigger, bigger.

So that they would be accessible to a child serving themselves.

Well, when the children came in on the early shift, most of them were pretty sleepy.

And sometimes we'd have the beds out.

The beds were washed constantly, so they were always clean.

And the child would be put back to bed.

Sometimes they might sleep till nine, 10 o'clock.

And then when the children came in for the three o'clock, that was the active group from I don't remember the time, like three to 11 or something, and I don't know what that was called.

That wasn't graveyard, it was nighttime or something like that.

That was an active time because the children had to play, they had to be fed, they had to be put to bed, and their clothes had to be, you know, put in their little sack for the parents to come up with.

I think it was graveyard shift, I'm not sure the one, you know, from 11 till seven in the morning, the children were brought in.

Now I only worked that about twice.

But they were brought in, in their pajamas, very sleepy and just put into bed.

They had their little boxes and things and you could take the clothes out and then put their daytime clothes in.

Parents could take those out and then bring other clothes in.

But I remember singing, we used to sing at night.

And this little Edward Hughes, I remember rubbing his back.

He was only about two years old, I can still see him.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Nurses were on duty to take care of injuries and minor illnesses and doctors visited every day.

An isolation ward was available for children with contagious diseases such as measles and mumps, so mothers could work even when a child was ill.

Leading educators under the direction of James Himes were recruited from major progressive schools and universities.

- I was honored, I was honored and privileged to work with these people because some of them had written the textbooks that I had studied in early childhood development, at Oregon State.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Kaiser not only provided the best educators, but made sure that the children had large outdoor play areas with covered sections so they could be outside even when it rained.

Staff workers bathe children in special child sized bathtubs, freeing parents from the task.

(calming music) Large kitchens staffed by dieticians, prepared meals, not only for the children.

Meals to go could be ordered for the whole family at low prices.

Parents could pick from menus such as Swiss steak or stuffed pork chops, home baked bread, a vegetables, salad, and desserts such as pineapple upside down cake.

Most people ordered them four to five days a week.

When they got home, all they had to do was open the package, heat and eat.

Feeding the whole family and having quality time with them Instead of doing chores.

In no time, both Kaiser child service centers were filled to capacity.

Edgar Kaiser, who is extremely proud of the child centers, won a Parent's Magazine medal for his rare social vision in organizing the Centers for Children.

(lively music) Over 7,000 women worked at every job, from laborer to welder to ship fitter.

(lively music) Productivity increased until a Liberty ship could be built from prefabricated parts in a record 10 days.

- [Announcer] A Victory feat is a fleet in being not on paper.

The visit of the president of the United States to the Kaiser Shipyards lends emphasis to the national spotlight on ship building achievement.

The president and Mr. Kaiser see a 10,000 ton cargo ship slide down to the sea in a perfect launching, 10,000 tons made into a ship in 10 consecutive working days.

A heart chilling fact for Tokyo and Berlin.

- Why would I wanna work at Oregon and not at Vancouver?

Well they said, because it isn't really, they don't even have, can I say it?

They don't even have doors on the restrooms yet.

You know, there's just been women and no women working there, just men.

And I said, but you said it pays a little bit more an hour.

Yeah, paid a little bit more an hour.

I says I wanna get as much money as I can in a short time.

I only intended to work a few weeks or three months at the most.

And I stayed there almost four years.

- Working conditions I thought were real good, but it was noisy, which was typical of all shipyards.

And women and men were pretty much all treated alike.

They did the same type of work and got the same pay.

- [Interviewer] How about the wages, were you paid the same as the men?

- Yes, we all got a dollar, 20 cents an hour.

We was really up there with money.

(laughing) - [Interviewer] Well, you worked in a good shipyard because they did pay the same.

- Ah huh.

- [Interviewer] And now you said you got 90 cents an hour, with those starting wages.

- Mhmm.

- [Interviewer] Did you get a raise?

- $1.35 was the highest I got.

- [Interviewer] What was it like there at night, did they have it all lit up?

- Yes, it was all lit up, it was bright, it was cold.

It was in the winter, and a few times it was icy.

Once in a while, somebody slipped break an arm or leg.

- I saw a couple of people killed.

In fact, I didn't miss it, my hair's breath once myself.

I was on the staging right at the top of the deck and it swung and I went to grab the deck and of course my hand just stepped off, and I just grabbed around the- - Because the boat was moving, I mean, it was in the water.

When she worked on 'em, the boats were moving.

They were affected by other river traffic going by.

- She had to go through examination tests and if you pass, well, then's, when you go to the ship, - [Interviewer] Did you ever get any sparks down there?

- Mhmm, yeah, I had some scars right here, probably still, but they never looked for it Had some scars, like this blotches.

- [Interviewer] Not enough to make you quit though.

- No, no, that was before I got my gear.

You know the one you wear.

- Yeah, I got scars from slag.

- Yes, you had what was called a slide hammer when you welded, then it left a little kind of crust on top.

You'd take your flag camera and knock your flag off of it.

Once in a while a piece would pop up and hit you in the eye or something nice and hot.

- And I was driving that week and I says, don't pick me up.

I'm gonna play cards.

And he says, well, how are you gonna get to work?

I says, I can go get the ferry.

I found out that it will come within two blocks of rivers, just two blocks from where I'm gonna play cards.

And he said, well, okay.

And so I told my husband, I said, I'm taking the ferry tonight.

I'm gonna play cards, okay.

So I just walked two blocks from where I was playing cards down to take the ferry.

And it was a nasty rainy night.

February, I guess what, 13th, 14th.

And he got on the ferry and the pilot said, you have a lovely coat, and I said, thank you.

And he says, we just painted down here.

You better come up the pilot upstairs.

Pilot house, what would they call it, I guess that's it, 'cause I don't know much about ferries.

In fact, if I had known about ferries, I'd have known I wasn't on a ferry that was just a little pilot boat actually.

But I got on and I said to this woman that I didn't know too well, I says, come up with me.

I'm not going up with him alone.

And she called her husband, she says, let's go up.

So we walked this woman, her husband, the pilot and the copilot and myself.

There was five of us up there.

Things start rolling around and I said, I'm getting seasick, can this thing roll over?

The pilot assured me they wouldn't roll over.

And I said to my friend, can you swim?

She says, as a matter of fact, she says, I worked a couple of years as a lifeguard going to school.

Whoosh, just then it rolled over, I mean it rolled over.

I was on my feet and the next thing I knew, I was on my side.

And I can remember thinking, I dropped my lunch bucket, by the way, it mentions it in the paper where I dropped my lunch lunchbox and my shoes because I thought, gee, I have a good lunch, I hate to lose it.

But I was being pushed up against the ceiling and the water kept coming in, I didn't think I would drown.

I thought I was gonna be smothered because I was getting so close to the ceiling.

Then somebody broke the window, just reached in and grabbed me out and I hung on the side of the boat, that's all I could do.

And there was a lot of yelling, screaming.

I realized I was in shock, that's why I was so quiet.

I kept saying I'm not scared, I'm not scared.

Yeah, I was in shock.

And I says, if anyone knows how to pray, now's the time to start.

And I started the Hail Mary, and pretty soon someone said, they're having a hell of a good time at that ferry.

And then someone else says there, we heard this afterwards, they're in trouble.

They send out a coast guard.

And there we were, a few of us hanging on the side of the ferry.

And as I say, I was very calm, they put me in an ambulance.

The the coast guard took me to shore, put me in an ambulance, take me to the hospital, and the paramedic went to cover my face.

And I says, oh, please don't do that.

He says, we have to.

He says, it's raining hard and you'll get all wet, (indistinct) I had hysterics.

I says, I've been in the water for three days and I'm afraid I'll get all wet.

They tell me it was a half hour that we were in the water, half hour.

(lively music) - [Victoria O'Donnell] After allied victory in Europe, workers were abruptly laid off.

3000 were terminated in the first week.

After victory in the Pacific, the shipyards closed.

Although they had to give up their high paying jobs, they rejoiced over the end of the war.

- Everybody was, the whole city was blowing their whistle.

Every establishment, it seemed like they did woo, just everywhere.

And the house and the people started honking their horns and you couldn't even get across the street.

They have one of those things that Japan surrenders her- - On the way home, it was 1945.

And on the way home, we've seen people all along the road screaming the war was over.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] Many women returned to their homes, but many more wanted to keep on working.

- I had a farm back here and my brother decided that he wanted to pursue his teaching career.

So it was either a matter of coming back or finding a new renter.

- When you are young, then you got a lot of good things that you wanna do that don't last that long though.

When we came back, well then it's just a lot of work.

My husband worked on a farm up here for about a couple years, and then we decided to purchase some cattle.

- So by that time, my son was in medical school and I wanted all the money I could get.

He was married, he had two children.

And I said, I will work.

And I went to work there just till he got out of medical school.

And when he finished he said, quit work, you don't have to help me anymore, mom.

And I says, do you mind if I continue working and help myself?

- [Victoria O'Donnell] By 1945, the population of Vanport dropped from 40,000 to 26,000.

By 1946, demolition of the city began.

- [Interviewer] Now you started out living in Vanport- - Vanport City, then went to West Vanport City - [Interviewer] Because they were dismantling Vanport.

- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] So you saw them taking it down- - Oh yeah, that was hard.

That was hard to see all these neat buildings and neat housing.

These were our homes for so long, you know, from early forties on through to '48, these were our homes.

None of us kids knew anything else But Vanport.

- [Charles] See, the school was right near this lake, right where this, I don't know if you see that stop sign.

That was probably about where the edge of the school was.

- [Interviewer] And that was the school you went to?

- That was the school that I went to.

There was several schools here, but this was probably the largest school complex.

And that's where it was.

- [Interviewer] Was all this torn down then after the war?

- [Charles] After the war, everything from here, from right in where the camera's pointing now.

Back was torn down.

- [Victoria O'Donnell] In 1948, the Columbia River flooded and destroyed what was left.

16,000 people lost their homes.

- The day that Vanport flooded, the people that came out here from Minnesota with my family, (indistinct), them and their two daughter, their two daughters, and their son that was born when we were in Vanport, all of us went up to the zoo that day and we were coming back home and all of a sudden we were stopped in the middle of the street.

Vanport just flooded.

(laughing) The dikes finally broke.

And we had had a warning for about two weeks that the dikes were ready to go.

- Well, they had put a paper under our door that said if we had to evacuate, we would have 48 hours notice.

So he said, well, I'll go to work.

You know, so he did well anyway, mother instinct, mother instinct.

I had always let my children go to playground and everything.

But that day, I told them not to go anywhere.

I wouldn't let 'em go.

- [Charles] We had more notice than a lot of people did because of that guy, that neighbor driving up.

And we ran over and told my grandma, - [Lois] There had been no siren done.

- Yeah, and we were up on the dike, and before the siren went off, and about the time the siren went off, then we could see the water coming.

And my grandma lived probably a couple of blocks, if there were blocks away from us in a different unit and all of a sudden her units picked up, you could see it start to float away.

And everybody would, like I say, we spent the time putting everything up high and those buildings were made out of redwood and cedar.

Okay, redwood and cedar doesn't sit down when it's just sitting on the ground.

There was nothing tying it down.

No foundations under 'em or anything.

They picked up and looked like battleships floating around out here.

A guy in a pickup stopped and let us get in the back end of it to take us up.

My grandma had some friends that lived up in Portland, and I'll never forget my dad.

We saw him, and, it's kind of sad.

- That bothered him because of all them people, his dad had had to get off at Kenton.

- There's a picture of him in the paper.

He is standing looking out.

- And here he is, wondering if he's got any family.

And I yelled at him and he jumped on the truck and he counted all the kids.

And he went to pieces.

It was really, yeah, that gets mom today too, darling.

That gets you today.

- So you walked and you could walk from your apartment just over here to the school.

- Right, right.

When we first came here though, my folks brought us to school because the nursery school was about halfway between where the house was where we lived, the apartment was, the nursery school was right about where that green area is there.

And then we had to take the little kids to nursery school, my dad or my mom.

And then they'd bring us up here and drop us off at school, my brother and I, Jim.

Ed and Marlene went to the nursery school back there.

- And it was just a drop a couple of feet from- - Oh yeah, it wasn't far at all.

They could've walked up and sometimes we did, sometimes my mom or dad would walk up with us if it was nice weather.

But otherwise they'd just jump in the car and run us up here.

And then they'd go back and they all, they always had riders going with 'em to the shipyard because they had buses.

I mean, I remember the great big old gray buses that they'd fill up with workers and take 'em out to the shipyard.

- Okay, now where were the shipyards?

- Okay, the shipyard, if you went by as the crow flies, it was just right straight out that way, okay?

- [Interviewer] Where that sign sign is there.

- Yeah, right across that sign, just a little ways down is where Oregon Shipyards were.

Now a lot of people worked there.

A lot of people worked at Vancouver Shipyards.

Vancouver Shipyards were over this way.

And that's the reason Vanport got its name was because Vancouver's right over there about two miles, and Portland is back this way about three miles.

This is where the school was right here, the school that I went to and my brother went to.

And it was stretched out that way, it was kinda long.

It was just one story and it, and it was right there.

And then when us, we played in through here in this area and when we could sneak off, we got up there where the water was and made rafts and played in the water.

And then the teachers got us to doing something and we built it on that knoll right there.

We had a victory garden.

We spayed it up and we planted all kinds of stuff.

We planted spinach and we planted carrots and we watered and we'd hoed and we dug.

But I don't remember ever eating anything from it.

I don't know what happened to the stuff that we grew.

I don't remember.

Maybe the teachers all took it home, I don't know.

(cool music) - [Victoria O'Donnell] Kaiser Shipyards, the child service centers, and Vanport City met both the needs of the war effort and working mothers in a sensitive and helpful way.

All the while enhancing spectacular productivity.

(lively music) Vanport City was a model of support for women in the industrial labor force.

Never again have the American working women and their children been treated as carefully as they were.

When women's work was valued because it was needed for a national emergency.

- And it was really fun because we were just like a great big happy family because everybody came from the Midwest and the East coast out to Oregon to work in the shipyards.

- But back then everybody had a common cause.

Everybody wanted to win the war.

And that was what helped hold that place together, I know.

I mean, I was only nine years old, but now I can reflect on what I knew then, and now I know why it worked.

- Such beautiful children, beautiful children, and the fact that their parents cared so much about what was happening to them for their care and knowing that they were well cared for.

- I not especially proud, I just figured that I earned that job.

- The women were just filling in while the men were at war.

So I never thought anything unusual about it.

- Cause I was brag about it (mumbles), that's nice.

Didn't tell, oh jeez, she was a welder at one time.

(laughing) - It was just wonderful, it was just absolutely wonderful.

I wish they was still a Vanport.

(Charles laughing) (upbeat music)