Clara Rose Leigh

This photo was taken beside the Walter Leigh residence located on Norwood Road in Science Hill, Kentuky; "Clowning around!" (retrieved from personal collection)

Rose in her 1928 Ford; Wedding picture of Rose and Cliff Monroe. From left to Right: Victoria Kay “Vicky”, Rose, Cliff, William Jackson, Troy Leigh (retrieved from personal collection)

Rose posing outside the beauty salon where she worked at in Louisville, Ky; Rose taking a breather! (retrieved from personal collection)

Rose (left) and her sister Eula (right) when they were teenagers; This photograph was taken when Rose worked for the Yellow Cab Company in Louisville, KY (retrieved from personal collection)

Obituaries for Aunt Rose (retrieved from personal collection)

Rose Leigh family at the 1982 Indiana Leigh family reunion; "Rest at Peace" (retrieved from personal collection)

“she was born in Science Hill, Kentucky and attended her first year of grade school in Pulaski County at the age of seven. Her family then moved to Fairfax, Ohio. Rose and her brothers and sisters rode in a school bus pulled by horses which was heated by an oil burning stove to the county school. Three years later her family moved back to Science Hill, Kentucky where Rose would finish her schooling. The family of Walter and Minnie Leigh attended the Church of the Nazarene in Science Hill along with distant family relatives. During the year 1936, Rose married Clarence Abbott and then moved to Scottsberg, Indiana to work at the Morgan Packing Company. She canned tomatoes at the company and later commented about the work there, “yuck!” After moving back to Kentucky, she gave birth to her first child, Constance Molee on 2 December 1937. On 5 July 1940, Rose gave birth to another child, a boy this time, Troy Halbert Abbot. She then started learning the house building trade; she and her husband Clarence built their first house during 1941 in Somerset, Kentucky. After divorcing Clarence in 1942 she moved, along with her children, to Yipsalonti, Michigan. She was employed there as an aluminum sheet metal riveter making B-29 bomber airplanes. That is when Walter Pigeon, the film actor, appeared at the bomber plant to make a short film about selling war bonds. Rose was selected to work with him and during the productions of the film, the song, “Rosie the Riveter” was orchestrated. Rose was the “Rosie the Riveter,” of the war bond films. She applied to become a pilot but was turned down because she was 18 years old and had two children. She wanted to fly the B-29 bomber that she had helped manufacture. Then Rose moved back to the city of Louisville to work at another aircraft production plant installing emergency landing gears and while working there, she also attended beauty school. When she was laid off from the production plant, she drove a taxi cab for the Yellow Cab Company in Louisville, Kentucky; and after graduation from the beauty school, she bought a house in New Albany, Indiana. During the year 1955, she again ventured in the new home construction business. In 1961, she and her daughter, were involved in an automobile and train accident. Both were seriously injured. Soon after Rose started airplane pilot training in 1970 and was officially licensed in 1972, Rose and Vicky were again injured, but this time in an airplane crash during 1978. Again both weathered the mishap with courage and full recovery. On 20 July 1979, she married Cliff Monroe, in Clarksvlle, Indiana.; She states, “I am very relaxed and happy; living a life of leisure (or lazy)!” I have been taking classes on woodworking and hope to get my workshop set up and make picture frames. As you I’ve been a tomboy and always busy, HA!”