Posted on 01/10/2018 10:58:42 AM PST by nickcarraway
Priscilla Elder, who spent the early years of her adult life working at the World War II Kaiser shipyards in Richmond and the final years of her life relating those experiences, died Sunday at her Tara Hills home, where she had been under the care of her son and a hospice nurse. She was 97.
Elder was one of the Richmond “Rosies,” women who worked on the home front and have been a popular attraction giving weekly presentations as docents at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond. They became a tight-knit group and along with appearances at the park, the Richmond Rosies have been celebrated at civic events around the Bay Area and made national news in 2014 when they visited the White House at the invitation of Vice President Joe Biden.
“Priscilla was a fighter— fighting her weakening heart and yet still living longer than the hospice nurses predicted,” noted Tammy Brumley, a longtime helper to the Rosies.
Born Priscilla Calabro on March 23, 1920, as the third of 11 children of Italian immigrant parents, Elder was a young mother of 22 when she came to California from Iowa with her 2-year-old son, Charles. She and two of her sisters found work at the Kaiser yards as an electrician.
At the time, “Priscilla’s brother Tony was a gunner’s mate on the USS Dewey, a ship that went to Pearl Harbor to tend to the injured survivors after the Dec. 7 attack,” Brumley said. “Her husband, Donald, was drafted shortly thereafter and served in Europe under General Patton’s Third Army, while her other brother, Fred, was in the Army Medical Corps.”
Elder’s husband served during the Battle of the Bulge and suffered nightmares for years after, she related last month.
Elder initially
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The original “Rosie” (the one from the artwork) quit after two weeks and moved into an office job.
She is still with us but suffering from Alzheimer's.
Really a classic American story. Imagine moving from Iowa to California in 1942. Yes, the war had started but the US was a heckuva lot more still in the Depression than in any kind of what we might think of as postwar boom. Richmond, site of the Kaiser shipyards, was probably just exploding with activity, or at least starting to.
My mom was a Rosie in Detroit.
My great uncle died in an industrial accident at the same shipyard during the war. God bless those whose efforts were so critical on the hone front.
My MIL was a machinist, her best friend was a riveter.
My great uncle died in an industrial accident at the same shipyard during the war. God bless those whose efforts were so critical on the hone front.
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