Eliza Christina Lambros (her Dad was a first generation Greek immigrant) was a single woman living in Elmira, NY during WW2. Her friend, Alice Tagliaferri, saw an advertisement at the local US Steel Co, American Bridge facility in Elmira Heights for women candidates to learn welding. They thought it would be fun and applied. After training they were both told that they possessed enough talent that they could get a job at Schweizer Aircraft. So they went to Schweizers.
While the full extent of what Eliza worked on during the war is unknown, she worked on P-47 fighter parts and later worked on the bell helicopters used in Korea.
American Steel made pre-fab components for Liberty ships, door ramps for landing craft and the Bendix plant, now long gone, made the Norden bombsight (or parts) during the war.
My parents met at Schweizer where Dad, Richard Powell, was a drafter. Mom passed in 2018 at 94.
She continued to work at Schweizer’s for 21 years until the fumes affected her lungs and she was retained in a Biology field in 1993 at Corning Community College.
Schweizer was one of the last family owned aircraft manufacturers until Sikorsky bought them several years ago.
Generously provided by the family of Eliza Christina Lambros