Alvarez marched down the long gangway to Dry Dock Four with his rifle at port arms and his boots ringing on the iron, and I watched the back of his neck from the gate. The old gray ship rose above him, her bow scarred and patched, with fresh white letters painted across her side. He read the big name first, USS Elizabeth River, and then his gaze dropped to the much smaller line beneath it. He read it in a voice that came up the gangway, wavering, on the harbor wind. “Sponsor. Nell Fitzgerald. Welder Third Class, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, nineteen sixty seven.” I am Nell Fitzgerald, seventy nine years old, and I stood at the gate in my scarf, and the whole line turned.
In 1967, I was nineteen, and I was one of eleven women who welded the hull of that ship. The yard did not know what to do with us. The foremen laughed, and handed us the worst seams, and the men wore their sleeves rolled up and spoke over our heads. We welded for fourteen months. When it came time to christen her, the yard asked the crew of builders to choose one of their own to break the bottle. They chose me. After the war, I took a job at a dry cleaner, and I pressed shirts for twenty seven years, and I wore my plank owner pin on my scarf every Saturday.
The chief petty officer who had spilled his coffee, Dwayne Hollis, thirty years in uniform, strode toward me with his cap under his arm. “Mrs. Fitzgerald,” he said, in a voice thick with feeling. “My father was a plank owner on the Elizabeth River. He used to say a girl from Portsmouth broke the bottle across her bow. He wore the same pin you are wearing.” The wife of the sailor with the baby on her hip was crying. A young sailor in dungarees took off his hat. And I looked down the dock, where Alvarez had stopped halfway and stood with his rifle, rigid as a post.
A gold anchor pin on a worn scarf gave one retired welder the length of a family day to bring a young guard back to the dry dock in Norfolk.
I gave my terms when Alvarez had marched back up the gangway and stood at attention before me. “Seaman Alvarez, stand easy. You are twenty three years old, and you took your duty seriously, which is the first thing a sailor should do. I have three small requests. Learn the name on that bow, and the names of the eleven women who welded her. Tell the next family at your gate that the pin on my scarf is as real as your rifle. And take me down to the dry dock, because I have not been aboard her since the day she was launched.”
Alvarez lowered his rifle and rested the butt against his boot. His voice trembled. “Mrs. Fitzgerald, I am from a navy family in San Diego,” he said. “My grandmother was a welder in the yard at Mare Island. She told me about women who built ships.” His chin shook. “I told you that a plank owner pin was a souvenir. I told you to go home, Madam, and I said tourists were not allowed.” He took a breath. “I wore a uniform that your hands helped build, and I sent you away from the gate. I will never forgive myself.”
But the young man was driven by shame to a hasty act. Alvarez set his rifle against the gatepost, reached forward, unpinned the gold anchor from my scarf, and ran down the gangway toward the shipyard office, saying he would check the engraving against the old muster rolls. He was twenty paces from the gate when Chief Hollis stepped onto the path with his arms folded. The wife of the sailor planted herself in the way with her baby. And a young sailor in dungarees, who had been watching with wide eyes, moved to block the other side of the gangway.
Alvarez stopped on the iron plates, with the pin in his hand and a wall of sailors around him. The harbor wind snapped the flag above the gate. Chief Hollis spoke very low, in a voice that had given orders on three ships. “Seaman, I am going to say this once. Return that pin to the lady, with both hands, and render honors.” Alvarez stood stiff. Then he turned, walked back up the gangway, and held out the little gold anchor on his open palms. I took it. He stepped back, drew himself up straight, and slowly raised his hand to his brow in a salute that was perfect.
The consequences were stirring. That afternoon, Chief Hollis and Alvarez escorted me down the gangway into Dry Dock Four, and I laid my hand on the cold gray steel of the hull I had welded fifty nine years earlier. The shipyard commander declared a short ceremony right there at the dock, and read the names of the eleven women. Alvarez stood at attention at my side. The commander announced that the yard would mount a plaque beside the gate with the names, and Alvarez asked to be the first to polish it.
In the name of my husband Walter, who passed in 2020, I started the Walter Fitzgerald Fund. It pays for welding school and trade scholarships for young women entering the shipbuilding trades and for gifts for the families of sailors during deployments, in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake. In the first year we sent fourteen women to welding school and sent holiday boxes to one hundred and forty families. One was a twenty year old from Suffolk, a single mother, who struck her first arc in a school booth and called her little girl to see the sparks.
This past Family Day, I stood at Gate Four in my scarf with the gold anchor pinned over my heart, and the band played on the pier. A line of families came up with hot dogs and little flags. At the gate, Alvarez stood at attention, his rifle at his shoulder. When a boy of seven came forward with his father, Alvarez knelt down and pointed to the old gray ship in the dry dock. “Son,” he said, “do you see the name on the bow? Her sponsor is standing right there.” The boy looked at me, wide eyed, and I saluted him back.