THE LAST ROSIE
Born in Los Angeles, Elinor came from a very poor family. Her parents were William and Adeline. Both were teenagers when they married, William being nineteen and Adeline just fourteen.
Elinor was the third of four sisters.
Her parents’ marriage was not a happy one as her father was abusive. Eventually they divorced. William went to Oklahoma to become a farmer, taking the oldest girls, Edna and Evelyn with him.
Elinor stayed in LA with her mother, who was pregnant. Soon afterwards, a younger sister, Jean, was born.
Her mother, Adeline, was so poor that she had to put Elinor and Jean into a Catholic orphanage.
Then, she met and married Mike, a sailor in the US Navy and the girls were reunited with their mother.
Mike was posted to Panama and took his new wife and her daughters with him.
Elinor hated living abroad. “I spent a year and a half in Panama. It was a hot and miserable year.”
After returning to LA, her sister Evelyn rejoined them. However, Edna stayed in Oklahoma. Consequently, Elinor never really got to know her.
Elinor met her biological father, William, just once more – and found him a thoroughly unpleasant man.
When she was young, Elinor was desperate to become a Girl Scout, but never got the opportunity to do so – her parents couldn’t afford the uniform,
Aged twelve, Elinor ran away from home. She needed a new pair of shoes but realised her mother couldn’t afford them. By absconding, Elinor thought she would save her mother some money.
Luckily, a neighbour saw her walking alongside the freeway and brought her home.
At quite a young age, Elinor gave birth to a boy called Ronnie, but the child’s father left her.
In December1941, Elinor was sitting having breakfast with her mother and stepfather, when they heard about the Pearl Harbour attack.
Consequently, the USA joined the Second World War and many of the young men went off to fight. Women were needed to step into their jobs, particularly in munitions and weapons manufacture.
There was a big recruitment campaign which included the ‘Rosie the Riveter’ poster, designed by J. Howard Miller. By 1943, 310,000 women were working in US aeroplane manufacturing – 63% of the workforce.
Elinor was always desperate for money and couldn’t find anywhere to live. “During those days, we could hardly find an apartment that would let you rent with kids.” Childcare cost her $20 a month – money she did not have.
She took a job working at the Rohr Aircraft Corporation in Chula Vista, California. They made military planes for the war effort.
Her younger sister Jean joined her as a riveter, whilst older sister Evelyn became a welder. They all worked in the same factory.
Elinor worked on the factory floor and was given on-the-job training. She was paid 65 cents an hour – and she was resented by the men that were still working at Rohr.
However, despite their hostility in public, Elinor remembered many of the men would proposition her in private. She was very beautiful – with dark hair and bright blue eyes – ‘Film star looks’.
Years later, Elinor joked, “I wanted to see if the men were working as hard as they claimed to be.”
Riveting was difficult work. The early machine she operated was like an old-fashioned sewing machine, operated by a foot pedal. The work became easier when the rivet gun was introduced.
Elinor remembered the factory managers preferred women to do the riveting. Men tended to use their strength and apply brute force. However, the women, “Were more delicate and precise.”
The money she earned was just enough for Elinor to rent an apartment and move in with her son and mother. The latter took care of Ronnie whilst Elinor was at work.
In her spare time, which she often went to the cinema with Jean. They particularly loved Western movies.
Elinor enjoyed working at the factory. “At the time we didn’t think about it. We were just trying to get the war over with, and we knew it had to be won. Not until years later did we think we’d done anything special.”
The propaganda song, ‘Rosie the Riveter’, came out in 1943, and after that, any woman who worked on the production line was known as a ‘Rosie’. The women on the factory floor used to play the song at top volume.
Elinor clearly remembered the day the war ended in 1945. “Everybody ran out to the street. Strangers were hugging each other. We all worked hard to get to this goal.”
Immediately, all the women were released from working in the factories, including Elinor.
She managed to get another job, working in an office – but she absolutely hated it, so she resigned.
Elinor then became a carhop (a waitress delivering food at a drive-in restaurant), but when roller skates were added to the required uniform, she promptly quit.
In 1951, Rohr began employing women on the factory floor once again, and Elinor was re-hired. She absolutely loved it. “I’m a working person, I guess. I like to work. I like to be around people who work. I like to get up, get out of the house and get something accomplished throughout the day.”
Every morning, Elinor would rise at 4:00am, read the newspaper whilst drinking a cup of coffee and then leave the house to start her shift at the factory at 6:00am.
As the years went by, Elinor would park her car further away from the factory. This would increase the length of her walk to work – “Gotta keep moving.”
She said that in the early years, the male workers still resented her – but gradually they got used to women working in the factory.
During the years she worked as a riveter, she changed companies, moving to Ryan Aeronautical Company in San Diego, who were renown for having designed Charles Lindbergh’s ‘Spirit of St Louis’. Elinor found herself working on the production line alongside men who had worked on that legendary aeroplane.
Elinor returned to Los Angeles to join Douglas Aircraft Company, who were eventually bought out by Boeing. All the time, she worked on military aircraft.
Every Boeing C-17 was made in her factory and she worked on every single one.
Elinor continued working well past retirement age. The manager of her factory said, “She’s an inspiration to keep people moving forward. She’s a trooper.”
Another colleague said, “She’s an inspiration. She enjoys working and she enjoys life.”
Elinor’s son Ronnie, died of a heart attack in 2012.
As the years went by, there was a growing recognition of the role women had played in the Second World War. Eventually, Elinor was invited to participate in a Veteran’s Day parade in New York.
Subsequently this led to her being interviewed on both the Ellen DeGeneres Show and the Today Show. She commented, “There were a lot of Rosie the Riveters – but I’m the only one still working.”
Elinor said that throughout those years, she had been approached by Hollywood to appear in films. “I don’t act in movies. I build planes.”
She also joked, “My sister said ‘When are you going to retire so we can go travelling? What are you going to do? Work until you’re 95?”
That is exactly what she did. Just after her 95th birthday, she was made redundant after working as riveter for over seventy years. Elinor made it clear she had not gone willingly. “Don’t say I retired – they laid me off.”
She left on $38 an hour. She said, “The wages have changed but the rivet gun hasn’t.”
Elinor was allowed to keep the rivet gun she had used all those years, but this was only after her grandson John had made repeated requests for it as a souvenir for his grandmother.
She was immediately honoured by the American Veterans Centre and was also made the California State Assembly Woman of the Year for 2014.
Elinor also received a lifetime achievement award from the Air, Space and Cyber Conference.
In that same year (2014), there was the first Rosie Rally, held in Michigan. It was attended by 776 surviving Second World War riveters. They all went in their work clothes. Elinor absolutely loved it.
Elinor was asked how many military aircraft she had worked on. She had no idea. “If you were too busy counting, you wouldn’t have got the job done.”
In 2017, Boeing honoured her contribution by taking Elinor on a ceremonial flight in one of the C-17s that she herself had worked on. She was thrilled – particularly with the fact it was predominantly an all-women crew.
Her grandson, John Perry, with whom she lived, told her in a letter, “You saved American lives and you’ve been saving American lives throughout the whole of your life.”
He added, “It’s a powerful, positive story and one hell of a tribute to the female workforce.”
Unfortunately, in 2019, John died suddenly of a heart attack, aged just 48.
Elinor left her home in Long Beach (with her two cats and her dog called Blue), where she had lived for 55 years and moved to Las Vegas to live with a grandniece. Simultaneously, a bar in Long Beach was named after her.
Elinor admitted that she had never got over the death of her son Ronnie, or grandson John. “But you got to survive (sic). They say you gotta keep living and doing the best you can. But he (John) said in a couple of letters, ‘It don’t matter what happens. I will always be with you.’ He’s still with me. They both are.”
Aged 99, Elinor was granted honorary membership of the Girl Scout movement – a lifelong dream finally come true.
She was still driving into her late nineties.
In her last interview, Elinor said, “When I go to heaven, I hope God keeps me busy.”
She said she was proud of the way she, and her colleagues, had paved the way for other working women. “We made History – now it’s your turn.”
Elinor died two weeks after her 104th birthday. She had a fall and a stroke.
As well as being the last known war-time riveter, Elinor was the last survivor of her immediate family.
There has been a Rosie the Riveter Park (museum) opened on the very Douglas Aircraft site where Elinor used to work.
RIP – Rivetingly Impressive Pensioner
