1921 - 2015
The University of Michigan
Faculty Women’s Club
Remembrance of Things Past
By Jane Warner, FWC Historian
FWC Newsletter, Spring 2000
Somewhere in an attic, basement, or a museum in England, Scotland, or perhaps Norway, there may be a tattered, frayed remnant of a leather jacket that originated in an Ann Arbor living room.
In 1941 and 1942, faculty wives gathered every Wednesday afternoon at the home of Mrs. Charles Koella, wife of Professor Koella of the Romance Language Department, to sort through pounds of leather scraps donated by a Detroit auto plant and by the bookbinding department of the University of Michigan Library, and from these scraps make jackets to send to England.
The women tucked their names and addresses in the pockets of the jackets they made, along with packets of chewing gum, cigarettes, hard candies, and various trinkets, and shipped them off to England to be distributed among British seamen, aviators, ambulance drivers, etc., and to Norwegian soldiers along the coast of Scotland. These jackets were indeed welcomed by the recipients, who sent letters expressing their gratitude.
The leather jackets warmed the bodies of the men and women in WWII and warmed the hearts of the women of the Faculty Women’s Club who stitched them together in Mrs. Koella’s living room.
