A tale of Allies & Arachnids: Abilene author highlights hidden WWII history

Editor’s note: All historical photographs and clippings provided by Penny Klostermann through her research

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)- Of all the materials that were needed by the U.S. military during World War II, would you ever have guessed that spider silk was among the highest in demand? Abilene author, Penny Klostermann, was unaware of that fact until 2017 when she stumbled upon the ‘fact-a-day’ website, Wonderopolis, that detailed the use of spider silk in making the crosshairs for surveying equipment, gun scopes, and military vehicles. One thing she didn’t find in that article was the name Nan Songer, a woman Klostermann would go on to research for eight years. Her children’s book ‘The Spider Lady: Nan Songer and her Arachnid WWII Army’, illustrated by Anne Lambelet, details Songer’s journey from a young girl with an affinity for bugs to a large-scale supplier of spider silk for the WWII war effort.

“She had to be one smart lady in so many ways. And really have a passion… She’s an unsung hero, and people need to know about her,” said Klostermann.

The Spider Lady is Klostermann’s fourth published Children’s book, but her first non-fiction. She spent nearly a decade doing exhaustive research to learn more about Songer’s work, which could be found in multiple magazine and newspaper articles, but she had gone largely unrecognized outside of her lifetime.

“A lot of women didn’t get their due for things they did during World War II or really even back in that time period at all,” Klostermann explained.

The path to becoming a military spider silk supplier with tens of thousands of spiders in your home laboratory isn’t exactly a clear-cut career, but Klostermann says, for Songer, that path began at a very young age.

“When she was a little girl, she was interested in bugs, everything that crept and crawled. She had a mentor, this older lady, a botanist who studied plants. Nan would go out with her as often as she could and collect insects,” Klostermann shared.

Even at that young age, Songer’s curious nature led her to intense study. Instead of viewing them through a microscope, Songer recounts in her manuscript that she preferred to “sneak” the insects into her house and watch as they crawled around the tables.

In her adult years, Songer began raising crickets, some of which were even submitted to the Smithsonian for study. In 1939, one of Songer’s friends, a surveyor, mentioned to her that he had just replaced the crosshair in his surveying scope with spider silk. This insight piqued Songer’s interest, and she began the process of teaching herself how to raise spiders and properly harvest their silk for sale in hopes of turning her lifelong hobby into a career.

“She knew the exact measurement of thickness that a six-week-old black widow would spin or a ten-week-old green lynx spider, or a golden garden at every age. Those are the three that she mainly used,” Klostermann said.

One excerpt from Klostermann’s book details this pivotal time in Songer’s life and the event that led her to persevere, saying, “Nan worried, have I tried something I know nothing about? But then, much bigger worries were brewing. A world war had broken out overseas, and America needed to be prepared. An SOS was sent out for spider silk, lots of it.”

Songer, having an enlisted son, felt the call of duty and continued in her research. She agreed to manufacture spider silk for the war effort, although she still wasn’t entirely sure how she would do it. Her studies would lead her to innovate new methods of harvest and production. Songer invented specialized magnifying spectacles for silk removal, a makeshift device for weaving together the strands from three spiders to make thicker strands required for larger crosshairs, and a method of splitting a single silk strand for use in smaller crosshairs.

“She wanted to help her country. She absolutely loved America… She had taught herself a lot, but she still had a lot to learn, and she was willing to do it for the country,” said Klostermann.

As her hours of research on Songer’s life evolved from hours to days, weeks, months, and years, Klostermann never tires of discovering new facts about this incredible woman’s work. The dedication and initiative that Songer displayed drew a fitting parallel to those of Klostermann.

After having already submitted six revisions of the book to her publisher, Klostermann says her inquiries hit the biggest break of the project. Years of unanswered calls and questions, which had yielded no new information, were broken when she got in touch with a distant family member of Songer who had kept all of their great-grandmother’s writings.

“Oh, it was amazing. I couldn’t believe it when they said yes,” Klostermann said.

She was now in possession of an over 200-page unpublished manuscript on Songer’s work written by Songer herself. Though, as Klostermann would come to find, Songer’s writing style was not as… concise as her own.

“She writes like a page and a half just about the egg sac of each spider. It is tedious,” said Klosterman.

Thankfully, she had a role model to guide her through this obstacle, a woman who knew a thing or two about tedious work, Songer.

“I never lost excitement for this lady. I never lost the excitement of getting her story out in the world,” Klostermann expressed.

The book was officially published on May 6, 2025. As for Songer, the end of WWII brought an end to the high demand for spider silk, but she continued to provide the resource for uses outside the military, such as surveying and engineering. Klostermann said Songer was dedicated to supporting the war effort, but she preferred times of peace. The author’s note at the end of the book sums up Songer’s feelings with a direct quote, saying:

The Spider Lady, as well as two of Klostermann’s other children’s books, Merry Christmas, Dear Mars, and There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight, are available for purchase at Texas Star Trading Company, 174 Cypress St, #101, Abilene, TX, and through multiple online retailers.