Mary Ward’s life was never easy.
She reared three daughters, mostly by herself because her husband was a drinker, did alterations for JCPenney, made her children’s clothes and their dolls’ clothes.
In the last few years of her life her husband, whom she married three times and divorced twice, tried to make it up to her by taking care of her.
Mary Ward died May 23 at age 83 in a Brighton care center.
Ward’s working career began on an assembly line in Chicago making 50-caliber shells for machine guns during World War II.
She and other women who worked in munitions factories, were dubbed “Rosie the Riveter.”
After that stint Ward joined the Women’s Army Corps and was a medical technician at a hospital in Clinton, Iowa.
It was there she met Art Ward, who had been severely injured in the war.
They married the first time in 1946 but his self-acknowledged drinking led to two divorces.
“I was a complete alcoholic,” said Art Ward, adding that he has been sober for more than 30 years.
But for many years Mary Ward struggled to keep her family together, working full time at the Penney’s in Westminster Plaza , rearing the children, making dresses for her daughters and doing other sewing: cross stitch, embroidery, curtains and quilts.
“She was always busy just surviving,” said her daughter, Patty Hardin, of Brighton.
Unfortunately, one of the quilts she made, out of leftover materials she had used in her daughters’ dresses, was stolen from one of the care facilities Mary Ward lived in, said her daughter, Janet Lunbery of Greeley.
Mary Schlub was born on Jan. 4, 1924, in Glen Flora, Wis., and attended high school there.
She and her nine siblings helped with the family dairy farm, getting up before dawn each day to milk cows. Her father drove them to a one-room school in a sleigh, said her daughter, Carol McEnulty, of Cañon City.
In addition to her husband and daughters she is survived by 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren; two sisters, Betty Mickelson, of Black Earth, Wis., and Barbara Krzyzankiak, of Bruce, Wis.; and three brothers, John Schlub of Wisconsin, George Schlub and Rudolph Schlub, of Hayward, Wis.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-954-1223.
