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in the days of World War II.” The individual Japanese worker should not be attacked for taking American jobs. The blame should be placed where it belonged: on big U.S. corporations whose cost-cutting strategies had led to much human misery. Some kind of labor party must succeed, she believed, “for our children’s future” and, indeed, for the sake of humanity. Behind the podium where Genora spoke was a large sign that read, “The bosses have two parties; We need one of our own.”65 The party she sought to build is still in existence today (as of 2007) but has no chance in the national arena and very little, if any, in the local.

At the onset of 1995, Genora Dollinger suffered from exhaustion and illness. She told Studs Terkel, for his book Coming of Age, that, “sure, my body has slackened off, but my interest hasn’t diminished.” She still hoped, even at this late date, that “we’ll see a decent society, without greed, without plundering other nations, without war, and with the salvation of the earth, for crying out loud.” There was a pause in her speech and, significantly, she remarked, “I better take that pill now.”66 These were laudable thoughts that no well-meaning individual could easily refute, but they were idealistic—maybe too idealistic for human beings to attain.

All her life Genora suffered from one malady or another. Tuberculosis, asthma, heart problems, Meniere’s syndrome, and high blood pressure, not to mention the traumatic effects of the beating she endured in the 1940s. She wrote to Michigan governor John Engler to solicit his views about Dr. Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide, a big issue in the news at that time. Although there is little evidence that the thought of suicide ever crossed her mind (she did get to a point where she wanted to pass on), she did “profoundly support” Kevorkian’s “right to die” activities.67 The governor’s answer to Genora was tactful: “The whole question of death and dying involves profound and complex ethical questions.” Neither Kevorkian nor any other individual had the right to “decide who lives and dies in our state.”68

The week of October 9, 1995, opened the way most of Genora’s weeks had for the past three years since 1992, when she had become chronically ill. Her wasted body belied the sharpness of mind she still possessed. On Wednesday, October 11, she quietly passed away at the Cedar Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was eighty-two years old. Obituaries appeared in newspapers over the next several days. The Flint Journal’s Bruce Dickmeyer said that Genora stood out “as a leader” in the UAW labor movement and in the fight for women’s equality.69 The Detroit Free Press lauded her courage in forming the Women’s Emergency Brigade in 1937 that was so significant in the fight against GM.70 The Los Angeles Times spoke of her as a “pioneering female labor leader.”71 The New York Times said that Genora “rallied support for the hard-fought strike that gave the United Auto Workers Union its foothold at the General Motors Company in 1937.”72 Labor journals throughout the country, including Searchlight and Headlight, paid tribute to their fallen comrade. The North American Labor History Congress, meeting in Detroit, “could not proceed without a tribute to so magnificent a labor pioneer as Genora.”73 The Labor Museum in Flint, along with the Women’s Coalition, sponsored a memorial for Genora in December 1995: “Celebration of the Lifework of Genora Johnson Dollinger.” A friend wrote to Sol that the memorial was “impressive.” She could “just hear” Genora “telling folks what should be done! She was some kind of gal!”74

Condolences arrived at Sol’s home from all over the world. Melvyn Bloom spoke about how Genora was one of the great heroines of the American labor movement.75 Janice Hassett Bedayn said she had been privileged to learn a “significant piece” of history “from the woman who made it.”76 Genora had always been the great role model for Patricia Butler, who wrote to Sol that “the world is a little darker, a little colder without her light to warm and inspire us.”77 From