“Mothers (and More!) on the Mother Road”: A Review of Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66 by Cheryl Eichar Jett

 

“Mothers (and More!) on the Mother Road”: A Review of Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66 by Cheryl Eichar Jett (Reedy Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-68106-634-9

Stories about America’s fabled Main Street, Route 66 (John Steinbeck’s “The mother road, the road of flight”), are legion and, in this centennial year, the new books being published are also nearly so. I have reviewed a few of them, including one edited by my friend and colleague Jim Hinckley, Route 66: 100 Years, for which Cheryl Eichar Jett wrote the (excellent) chapter on Illinois. Jett is an accomplished author, known for her writing on Illinois and for her six books for Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series, and it was my recent pleasure to hear her speak in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about her latest book.

Despite the endless coffee table and travel guides published in the past 36 years, which have led to a full-throttle revival of the Mother Road, little attention has been paid to minority populations, whose challenges and triumphs along Route 66 are just as important to the collective America Identity as the ubiquitously represented motels, gas stations, restaurants, neon signs, and muffler man giants that enjoy the lion’s share of attention.

Being a researcher, writer, immersive experience designer, and presenter with a focus on historical education and social activism who has focused on Route 66 for the past 4-plus years, I’m always on the lookout for books featuring minority stories, and Aprons Away went to the top of my list when it was published last month. I read it in a matter of days.

Through the foreword, the celebratory tone and focus are set by Susan Croce Kelly, whose Route 66: The Highway and Its People, kicked off the Route 66 revival in 1989. Kelly is also the author of the only book-length biography of the “Father of the Mother Road,” Cyrus Avery, whom I have been portraying along Route 66 this year. With such pedigrees as Kelly’s and Jett’s I expected nothing less than the engaging read, fount of knowledge, and celebration of women this collection of brief biographies provides.

The book is divided into types of occupation, from architects and designers to restaurant owners; from gas station attendants to innkeepers; from entrepreneurs to those who devoted their lives to public service. Jett also covers the artists, designers, engineers, and documentarians who gave so much to the Mother Road—and to America’s identity. There is also a chapter devoted to World War II and such icons as Rosie the Riveter.

Each chapter comprises a series of profiles written in an engaging, easy-to-comprehend style, using journalism’s inverted triangle. For those looking for specific women to meet your inspirational or research needs, this broad-strokes-to-fine-details structure will make your mission easy. Each biography covers birth to death, marriages (and divorces), career trajectories, and major accomplishments, both on and off America’s Main Street.  

Many of these women came from virtually nothing and rose to great accomplishment, despite their having to do so in times when such opportunities and advancement were almost impossible for them.

In the chapter on architects and designers, the name Mary Colter might be familiar to route enthusiasts, along with the Harvey Girls and the line of hotels where they worked. It’s impossible to tell the story of Route 66 without them. I’ve read books devoted to them, and there were still things I learned from Aprons Away. The section on Helen Liu Fong and the Googie architecture movement is particularly fascinating. Jett also features Scheibe’s Café in Livingston, Illinois; Lucia Rodriguez’s Mitla Café in San Bernardino, California (after reading the story, you may never eat Taco Bell again); Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri; and the Golden Spread Grill in Groom, Texas. Some of these establishments—and the women behind them—get short shrift in the coffee table and travelogue books, so it was nice to see them featured here.

What’s more iconic (and indispensable!) on a Route 66 road trip than service stations? Here we find some of the great lady luminaries—Ola Soulsby (of Soulsby Service Station), the women of Gary’s Gay Parita, African American Elizabeth Threatt, Four Women (later Cars) on the Route, the Texaco White Patrol and Phillips 66 Highway Hostesses, and Lucille Hamons, the Mother of the Mother Road.

Along with food and gas is lodging. Jett covers Murray’s Dude Ranch, the Hotel Figueroa, Alberta’s Hotel, and my favorite motel on Route 66, the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, New Mexico. There is a special section devoted to Missouri, with such gems as the Rockwood Motor Court, Boots Court, Munger Moss, and Wagon Wheel.

In the chapter “Entrepreneurs,” you’ll learn about Bell Miller and her apartments (now the Inn at 835), Frieda Ring Paul and the Marvel Theatre, the Funk family’s maple sirup [sic], and Joyce Tarro and the Coliseum Ballroom in Benld (all four are in Illinois). There is also Mary Costigan and two iconic locales in Flagstaff, Arizona—the Hotel Monte Vista and the Orpheum Theater. “Public Service” spotlights four women whose devotion to community significantly impacted Route 66.

Route 66 aficionados are known to seek out all kinds of visual art on their travels—especially murals. The chapter “The Artists” features a variety of Native Americans, Georgia O’Keeffe, the muralists of Maisel’s Indian Trading post, and several women who created art through the Works Progress Administration.

The growth of the New Mexico and Arizona towns along Route 66 owes a lot to World War II, and authors continue to write about this time in the Mother Road’s history for audiences hungry for more. Jett contributes much to the discussion, including the fascinating story of Franti May “Frances” Manbeck Hill and her connection to British fighter pilot trainees in Miami, Oklahoma; “Rosie the Riveter” (including the woman who modeled for her); the “We Can Do It!” poster; the real women who worked in the factories and on the bases all along Route 66; and those who worked in the military and nursing services.

A wide-ranging, eye-opening chapter is “Design and Engineering.” This is the chapter from which I learned the most. There is Mazie Georgiana Krebs, who designed streamlined excursion steamers; Ray Kaiser Eames, who, along with her husband Charles, was one of the most influential of the purveyors of the mid-century design aesthetic; Juli Lynne Charlot, who designed the poodle skirt (its origin story is a highlight); Marilyn Jorgenson Reece, who designed California freeway exchanges; and Harriet Tapp Burns, one of the early Disney Imagineers, who was mentored by Walt himself.

Especially in this centennial year, two questions I often encounter during my presentations, workshops, and Cyrus Avery performances are: What could have been done differently or better when the Mother Road met its almost complete demise by the early 1980s? and How do we protect its legacy and sustain its rebirth moving forward? Much of this work falls to the documentarians, the subject of the final chapter. Luminaries of bygone decades like Lucile Morris Upton, Dorothea Lange (who graces the book’s cover), and Quinta Dunn Scott, who devoted so much of their lives to documenting Route 66 are highlighted, along with those who are key to the second question, such as Susan Croce Kelly, Shellee Graham, and Candacy Taylor.

Although she’s too humble to do so herself, we must include Cheryl Eichar Jett in this list of A-list documentarians. Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66 is essential to any proper library of Route 66, just as the stories of the passionate and talented women who fill its pages are essential to understanding what this long-decommissioned highway means to the American psyche.

This is a book that all young women should read. It’s nothing short of inspiring. I could imagine no more valuable gift to give a teen deciding where she wants to stake her claim in life than Aprons Away. The many photos are also value-added.