Bricklayer won't let dream crumble on her The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot
Yolanda Davis is not only perhaps Virginia's first female bricklayer, but she also survived a 50-foot fall from scaffolding.
She started at the bottom rung, hauling bricks and sweeping work sites for two years as a masonry assistant before winning acceptance into the bricklayer union's apprentice program in 1999. The hurdles were obvious.
At 5-foot-5, she was small for throwing around bricks. She was older than most. Above all, she was a woman.
No one recalls a woman ever completing the apprentice program, which has been around in some form since the local bricklayers union was founded in 1887, said Joe Circelli, vice chairman of the Norfolk chapter of Bricklayers Union Local One. Few women had tried.