The Story of My Rosie

I have just recently noticed a company call R. Riveter. I love their story and their mission. I would love to purchase one of their purses when the budget allows. You can read about them on their website:

I love Rosie the Riveter. She is not a real person, but rather a synthesis of the working women of World War II. You can watch a short video on this History Channel website if you would like to know about the birth of Rosie the Riveter:

This is a picture of a real live Rosie working on an airplane during WWII.

My mother was born in 1920 in a place called Grass Lick, West Virginia. I'm not sure exactly where that is, but eventually her family made their way to Kanawha County. Her father was a sometimes coal miner, but mostly farmer. Her mother worked hard in a house with no indoor plumbing or central heat keeping her five children fed and clothed. My grandfather died when my mother was still a teenager. She had to quit school to help her older brother earn money for their mother and three younger siblings. Her first job was keeping house for a wealthy family in Charleston. She later took welding classes at a local technical school and worked at a glass factory in Dunbar. After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, she would soon find herself in Baltimore, Maryland, working at the Glenn L. Martin Co., a defense factory that produced gliders. Her job was to crawl into the wings and yes, rivet them together! There, she would meet and later marry my father, who because of a minor medical condition was not eligible for the military. Sadly, I do not have a photograph of either of my parents working on these planes. I wish I could go back in time and have them shoot some selfies and photos of their friends and coworkers in action. I doubt they understood the significance of their work, but rather did what had to be done without regard to recognition or history. Both my husband and I followed service careers as teacher and pastor. We pray that we have impacted those in our realms of influence, but the impact of my parents' generation had far greater influence. Their efforts and sacrifices in the fight against evil earned them the rightful title of the "Greatest Generation."

My parents, Bruce Peele and Mabel King Peele

Baltimore, Maryland

1940s

I don't know if I have ever done anything brave. I have endured some scary surgeries, spent long days in a rehabilitation center learning to walk, laid on a table at Duke Hospital allowing radiation to flood my body, but I have never been to war or had someone point a gun at me. Some people say high school teachers are brave to face a room full of hormonal teenagers. Maybe.

Panic and fear filled my heart on an August day in 1978 as my brother drove away leaving me in the parking of my dorm at UNC. The excitement and anticipation of college life soon replaced those emotions. This journey didn't take bravery.

On an ordinary day my mother boarded a train in Charleston, West Virginia, and rode all the way to Baltimore, Maryland, to start a new job. She had never ridden a train or even left the state where she was born and raised, yet she embraced this new challenge, unaware of the impact she and her fellow women would have on our country and world.

I am proud that my mother was the type of woman who saw a job that she was able to do, and did it. Without the strength and determination of these workers our world would be a different place. We can only see these days through the lens of Hollywood, but my mother lived it every day: black cloths over the windows, air raids, ration coupons for food, make up on legs bare of nylon stockings, a small cramped wing span where she wriggled, rivet gun in hand, crafting planes that would fly American soldiers into danger in a far away land...the seemingly small daily lives of the greatest generation. This is the Rosie the Riveter I know.

My mother. My Rosie. My hero.

Mabel King Peele

October 15, 1920-November 26, 2012