Laura was born on August 18, 1890, in Washington County, Ohio, near the town of Watertown, to Leonard Cornes, a cabinet maker, and Margaret Anna Weihl Cornes. Laura, at nine years old, was the eldest of three sisters when their mother, Maggie, died. The three girls went to live with an uncle, Jack Weihl, and his wife, Anna. When Leonard remarried, Laura’s sisters, Florence and Emma, returned to live with their father, but Laura remained with the Weihl family.
Laura married Louis Mindling on February 24, 1910 when she was nineteen years old. Her daughter Ruth was born in 1911, and her son Glen was born in 1917 while the family lived briefly in Indiana. They moved to Marietta, Ohio, not far from the family home, while Ruth and Glen attended high school. After daughter Ruth married and left home, Laura and Lou moved to Lincoln Park, Michigan, near Detroit in the late 1930’s.
She began work with Ford Motor Company in 1942 at the Willow Run factory when the Second World War broke out. Laura began as an upholsterer working on B-24 Liberator bombers. While at Willow Run, Laura was promoted to machine press operator, a position she held when Ford asked her to stay on with the company after the war was over in 1945. She was working at the main Ford plant at River Rouge, near Dearborn, when she slipped on an oily floor in 1956 and broke her wrist. She took medical retirement after she finished her medical leave and she and Lou moved to Miami to live with their son Glen and his family. They lived together for several years before moving to their own efficiency apartment. Laura lived alone for several years in Miami after Louis died, then moved to live the rest of her life with her daughter, Ruth, in Denver.
After Laura's death on December 26, 1980, I received several artifacts and family mementos including a heavy, wrapped bag that contained two wrenches used by my Grandmother at Ford. I like to think she used these tools to help win a war, or perhaps build a car that someone she knew may have driven. They are still used, just the way she would have wanted.
Story generously provided by the family of Laura Estelle Cornes Mindling
Photo 1. At the age of 18
Photo 2. May 1945 - L to R - Daughter Ruth with her son, Dick, Laura and her husband, Lou, her son, Glen, home after 2 1/2 years in Africa and Italy, and his son George.
Photo 3. Laura Cornes Mindling, left, with her sisters Florence Cornes and Emma Cornes, Miami, February, 1962
Photo 4. The wrenches used by Estelle at Ford