Real-Life Rosie the Riveter Declares “I’m a survivor”

Mary Ellen is shown as a young woman with a white hat, curly short brown hair, a smile, a plaid drewss with ruffled short sleeves and peplumb at the waist under a belt. The skirt goes just below her knees. She has white dress shoes with black toes. She carries a white purse and wears short white gloves. — Mary Ellen Dune as a teenager.

Mary Ellen (Miller) Dune, 97, of Marion, comes from a family line that extends back to the Mayflower. Another branch arrived in the United States in 1823.

“My great-great-grandfather, Hartman Dickhout, lived in Hesse Kassel, Germany. He had to pay a percentage of what they earned to the land owners. At age 19, he stowed away on a ship headed to America,” Dune said.

A black-and-white photo fof an unsmiling couple. Mary Ellen has brown hair pulled into a bun, a patterned dress with a lace color, long sleeves, and a full skirt. Hartman has short dark har, sharp cheeckbones, and a long beard with white in teh front. He ears a long overcoat, and has a vest. — Mary Ellen Stinger married Hartman Dickhout, an immigrant from Germany. The first in a line of Mary Ellens in the family, she lived to be 91 years old.

After working the mills in Pennsylvania, Dickhout married Mary Ellen Stinger and started farming. Dickhout walked 40 miles to hear President Lincoln give the Gettysburg address.

“That tells me he was a sturdy man who was interested in history,” Dune said.

Dickhout bought a farm in Waldo, bringing much of the family along.

Dune’s great-grandfather, William Hartman Miller, was the second man in Marion County to sign up to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

“Grandpa Miller was captured. Others rode off for help. They saved him, but the Confederates took his boots!” Dune shared.

Miller’s seven brothers also fought in the Civil War. One didn’t come home and his name is inscribed on the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Chapel.

A Farm Girl Was Born

Dune was born in the house her grandfather built outside LaRue in Dudley Township, Hardin County, in 1926. She was the oldest of eight children born to Harry C. and A. Marie Miller. Her maternal grandparents, William and Susanna (McWade) Weist, raised her for five years.

“Grandpa rocked me and sang German songs,” Dune recalls.

They read to her and played games by the light of gas lamps.

Black-and-white photos of a stern-looking woman on the left and another grandmother as a child and young woman on the right. — Dune was close to many women in her family, including her grandmothers: Susanna McWade Weist, left, and Myrtle Rosella Strine Miller.

Susanna loved flowers, inspiring Dune’s life-long love of gardening. Dune remembers watching her grandmother put potatoes in her apron to plant them. With child-like innocence, young Mary Ellen went behind her and picked up all the potatoes Susanna just planted.

Dune lived through the Great Depression and learned generosity from her grandmother.

“Grandma always fed people who were hungry,” Dune said.

Life on Her Family Farm

Dune moved back kin with her parents when she was 6. She lived on the family farm outside Waldo, Ohio.

Dune did everything on the farm, including milking cows, from age 6. She attended a one-room schoolhouse. She recalls having to knock on the door because she wasn’t tall enough to open it when she started. After it closed, Dune attended Waldo school until her father sold the family farm. Dune graduated from Cardington High School.

Mary Ellen in high school. Her family valued education. She recalls her mother taking her across flood waters from the Whetstone River by horseback to reach the one-room schoolhouse.

Working on the War Effort

She worked at the Scioto Ordnance Plant during World War II.

“I worked on the M-46 bomb line, filling cylinders with phosphorus cups. The phosphorus was hot and my hands swelled so much I couldn’t catch the cylinders,” Dune said. “I transferred to the M-49 line. As the last woman in line, I placed a purple-painted sponge on the nose cone, indicating the bomb was ready for detonation. They went to General MacArthur in the Philippines.”

“I’m a Survivor”

After the war, the 18-year-old landed a job in Marion. Her mother found a room for Dune to rent and dropped her off. She was on her own.

“By evening, I decided that I’m a survivor. I’ve had some things to figure out, but so far I’m doing pretty well,” Dune said.

Dune processed payroll at Marion Power Shovel before she married and had three boys: Carroll, John and David Neidhart. After divorcing, Dune worked hard to support her children, including processing payroll at Huber.

A black-and-white photo of a man with short dark hair, a smile, a white suitcoat and a black bow tie, leans against a slightly shorter woman with curly brown short hair, a smile, a dark dress, a light flower corsage and a white necklace. — Mary Ellen married Richard Dune. They were together for 40 years until his death in 2000. Richard served in World War II in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Mary Ellen married Richard Dune and gained four more children. Together they had one more son. They were married for happy 40 years.

An Active Retirement

Two smiling white women with short white hair. — Mary Ellen Dune, left, now 97, with her sister, Juanita Fields, now 93. Both live independently in Marion.

Dune didn’t slow down in retirement. Her son, John, challenged her to beautify the Marion County Fairgrounds. She and Trella Romine organized volunteers to plant flower beds.

Dune is a charter member of the Creators’ Guild and an active member for 50 years. She enjoys many art forms including sewing, quilting, quilling and flower arranging, earning many fair ribbons.

In 2003, Dune joined Red Hat Society chapter that was active for 20 years.

In 2003, son Richard C. Dune II took her to the Packard Museum. She stood next to a Packard made the same year she was born: 1926.

For her 97th birthday, her grandson, David B. Neidhart, took her on a ride on a combine.

“I’m just a farmer at heart,” Dune said.

Dune lives an active, independent life in Marion today.

“I’ve had so much fun. Life is what you make it. When I’m anxious, I talk to God about it. He doesn’t say too much, but I’m alright,” Dune says with a smile. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

MarionMade! is a program of Marion Technical College.

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