People – Naomi Parker Fraley, the inspiration for the iconic female World War II factory worker Rosie the Riveter, has died. She was 96.
The Tulsa, Oklahoma, native, who was born on August 26, 1921, died on Saturday in Longview, Washington, according to the New York Times. The California waitress-turned-factory worker began her job at the Naval Air Station in Alameda and was among the first women to be assigned to the machine shop after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941.
Then in 1942, 20-year-old Fraley posed for a photograph wearing her signature red-and-white-polka-dot bandana and working on a turret lathe, for a photographer touring the Naval Air Station, where she and younger sister Ada drilled and patched airplane wings as well as operated rivet machines.\more
It’s sad when you think of all the pink pussy hatted women that we have now. Women like this sustained our nation in a time of war, helping America become one of the mightiest and most prosperous nations in human history. We need more red with polka dots that are meek and humble, less pink lunacy.
The women with backbone are still out there, right beside our guns, bibles, and intelligent kids.😉
Another reminder of the brevity of life. She was from a bygone era in the states when people were united behind a common cause.
Not only would that unity not happen today but it could not happen. That was a aspect of this country never to return.
I live about a mile from a former Fairchild Aircraft plant and I remember as a youngun’ watching about everybody’s mother standing with pride in church when recognized as participants in defense industry during the big war. Thanks to all of you who sacrificed almost as much as the fighting men did. They talk of double shifts 7 days a week and always being on call to come in to work.
Not sure our country (men or women) would answer that call again…
My wife’s Grandmother was a Rosie the riveter during World War helping to build B-17’s. She was quite the Norwegian lady who lived to be 96 and fiercely independent and was constantly active including taking the bus to play Bingo by herself at well over 90. Nothing could stop her until she fell and broke her hip about a year before she died My daughter named her daughter Esther after her great grandmother Esther.
It was women like Rosie that helped make their generation The Greatest Generation. RIP
@Hans the Christian who loves Trump and America January 23, 2018 at 6:52 am
> Not sure our country (men or women) would answer that call again…
I’m sure they would. They still do.
(Not that that’s a
goodbad thing.)@Anonymous JANUARY 23, 2018 AT 10:28 AM
I pray there are still enough to answer – it only takes a small number of Americans to accomplish exceptional things.
After all, if you are a student of history only about 10% of our population fought and overcame the British during the revolutionary war!
My mom was a Rosie the Riveter. We visited the Air Museum at SAC in Nebraska in the late 90s and when she saw one airplane, her eyes lit up and she practically ran over to look at it. When the rest of us caught up to her, she pointed to a row of rivets and said, “These are the ones I worked on”.
Read the whole story. Besides it being a tribute to “Rosie” and all the other women that worked long and hard for democracy toward the end there is a real enlightening story about news reporting today. About stories not being researched and reported as true.