The Black Republican

I was going to marvel at the fact that I'd found a story in the San Francisco Chronicle by staff writer Carolyn Jones that didn't just avoid making me want to vomit, but was actually heartwarming, non-partisan, and - amazingly enough - faintly pro-American.

Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."

Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.

But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships -- some with guns blazing, others sinking.

The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and poignancy of a child's perspective. Their public unveiling was celebrated April 14 with a reception for an exhibition of 50 of the works at Oakland's Museum of Children's Art.

These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas.

Many of the children came from lower-income families with parents who moved to Richmond to work in the Kaiser shipyards, which in their heyday turned out more Victory and Liberty ships than those in any other U.S. port. The families lived in makeshift trailer camps, tent cities and quickly constructed government housing.

In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so organized child care was imperative.

"This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story," said Lucy Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond. "These children were seeing the home front and were able to record it from their perspective."

Martha Lee, park superintendent, called the collection "a national treasure."

"People think kids in child care suffered," Fischer said. "But without child care, this artwork would not have existed, simple as that."

But you were so close, Carolyn! That was the VERY LAST sentence.