Gina Allen
A Modern-Day Rosie the Riveter
By Suzanne Yeagley
Gina Allen worked at The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc., from March, 1978 to March, 2014. She had worked in a few other offices as a receptionist, word processor, and telemarketer, but when she started working full-time at the Lighthouse, she says, she found her place. “For me, working at the Lighthouse meant that I was in a place where I fit. I tried working in other places… and I always felt like I didn’t fit there. But at the Lighthouse, I fit.”
Gina became blind as a baby; she was born prematurely and while in an incubator, she got too much oxygen resulting in a condition called retinopathy of prematurity.
When Gina originally started working at the Lighthouse as part of a summer student program in 1973, she was 19 years old and the Lighthouse only consisted of one building. Over the years, many things have changed: the Lighthouse expanded from one building to two, elevators were added, and the hot food machine was replaced with a twice-daily food truck. The Lighthouse also went from having drinking fountains to water coolers, and from one payphone, to three payphones, to most people using cell phones to make phone calls.
Gina worked a variety of jobs at the Lighthouse. She started in “the mop shop,” bagging brooms and sealing yarn mops in bags. Then she moved to the sewing room, where she was a power sewing machine operator. Gina ended up staying in her position as a power sewing machine operator for 16 years. She made dish cloths, all-purpose cloths, pot scrubbers, and also worked on neckties and sweat pants that were sold to members of the military.
When talking about the dishcloths, Gina laughs and tells a story about a friend of hers whose father worked for the military. One day when Gina was visiting her friend’s house, she noticed a pot scrubber on the counter, and realized it might have been one that she manufactured. She says she couldn’t help but take a closer look. “I remember cracking up that this pot scrubber was in my friend’s kitchen. We don’t know to this day if this was one of the pot scrubbers we had made or not. I had to check hers to make sure it was sewn correctly though, just because I was so used to checking them for quality.”
The Lighthouse stopped making pot scrubbers in 1994, and Gina then moved to another area where she worked on mops that had sponges on them that “looked like a maple bar. We made those mops for years,” she says. She ran a staple and drill machine that stapled the mop head onto the handle and drilled a hole so the squeezing apparatus could be put on. She also packaged replacement sponges.
When asked, “Did you ever think you’d know this much about mops?” Gina laughs and says, “If you’d have told me I was going to be doing this when I was 18, I would’ve told you that you were a little nuts.” It was a unique profession for her, though, and Gina was proud of her work. “We manufactured good quality products. I am kind of a patriotic person. It was the closest that I ever came to serving my country.” If you mention the similarity to Rosie the Riveter, Gina says, “Exactly, she’s my hero! Rosie the Riveter is my hero!”
Eventually, Gina’s scoliosis began to bother her and after some severe muscle spasms in her back, she finally retired in 2014. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to music, reading books, watching TV and as says, “just kind of doing whatever.” Of her time at the Lighthouse, Gina sums it up perfectly. “It was something I could do to be a productive member of society, to pay my bills, and to serve my country.”