80 years later, "Rosie the Riveter" Grace Brown still a symbol of strength
MESQUITE (CBSNewsTexas.com) - She's an icon almost as familiar as Uncle Sam: Rosie the Riveter. A symbol of strength and will, she's the housewife turned war hero who traded family chores for factory work to help our men on the front lines during World War II.
"When the war began, President Roosevelt was asking the girls to take the boys' places that had to go to service," said Grace Brown.
101-year-old Grace Brown of Mesquite was a real-life Rosie, contributing to the war effort on the home front.
"We had a meeting and we had choices as to what to do," Brown said. "Could have been a pilot on a transport plane or other things that we could have done. I chose the safest thing. I said, 'I'll be a machinist.'"
The women were paid, and many received free housing. In Fort Worth, workers constructing B-24 liberators for consolidated lived in "Liberator Village" on Wyatt Drive.
Brown worked at the consolidated plant, which is now Lockheed Martin. Here's a highly-circulated photo of grace during those years.
"I was just doing my job," Brown said. "The government came in and started taking pictures. I couldn't say 'Wait, I've got to put on makeup or clean apron. "
"There were two main facilities. In Dallas, you had the North American Aviation Firm, which built the T-6 Texas Trainer during the buildup prior to the war," said Terry Furgerson, a professor of history at Collin College. "That plant went on to build B-51 Mustang Fighters and B-24 Liberator Bombers. The second plant was in Tarrant County, in Fort Worth where they built the B-24 Bomber. The B-24 Liberator is the most produced American aircraft of WWII: 18,000 units, 20% built in the DFW area."
One remains on display at the Commemorative Air Force Museum in Dallas.
"My dad did not like me working as a machinist," Brown said. "He said, 'Oh, they're only going to teach you how to sweep the floor.'"
Brown was taught much more than that, and skills she used long after the war.
"I kept all my tools and my toolbox," said Brown.
The Rosie image was one of the most successful recruiting campaigns in U.S. History.
In July, a mural at Fort Worth's vintage flying museum was unveiled in the "Rosie Garden." The painting was created, fittingly, by two local female artists. Grace Brown was in attendance.
"You just felt like it was your duty," said Brown. "I am just as patriotic now as I was in 1941."
80 years later, Brown says Rosie's message remains just as relevant today: We can do it.
