Today’s Explosive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Easter Posey was born in Tennessee in 1920, on Easter Sunday, which explains her name. She was one of 18 children. At the beginning of World War II, the US Army’s Huntsville Arsenal in Alabama began manufacturing chemical weapons, including mustard gas, tear gas, lewisite and phosgene.
With so many men being drafted and being sent overseas, women began taking jobs in traditionally male fields, and so it was at Huntsville. Easter Posey and her sister Stacey were hired at the facility, which offered fairly high pay for the work.
On April 21, 1942, the Posey sisters were assigned to work in a plant assembling 4 pound bombs. Easter operated a mixing machine and Stacey a filling machine.
There was an explosion at around noon that day, followed by a fire, and Easter Posey was the sole fatality, though Stacey was badly injured and remained hospitalized for a year. Thus Easter Posey is the first American woman to be killed in the line of duty in WWII. However, because of the nature of the work being carried out at Huntsville, the accident could not be publicized for many years.
Easter Posey
In 1994, a recreational area within the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville was named after Easter Posey, and a memorial plaque there reads “To the memory of the women workers of Redstone and Huntsville Arsenals who gave their lives in service to their country.”
Culled from Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Aimee