‘She took no guff off anybody’ says son of Rosie the Riveter inspiration
Jan 23, 2018, 4:44 PM
A Rosie the Riveter poster at the offices of the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
(AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
The real life inspiration for Rosie the Riveter died on Saturday in Longview, Washington. Naomi Parker Fraley was 96.
“The image for her was good for women. She enjoyed that other people liked it, but she didn’t want notoriety,” said Fraley’s son Joe Blankenship on the Ron and Don Show on Tuesday.
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Although several woman have been thought to be behind the image of the iconic World War II factory worker, a scholar from Seton University determined that Fraley was Rosie’s main model.
James J. Kimble visited Fraley in 2015 during his research and eventually published his findings in the journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs.
“Finally in 2016 it was recognized,” Blankenship said. “We were able to say, ‘Hey, Mom is Rosie the Riveter.’”
Blankenship said that his mother was as bold and fearless as was the character modeled after her.
“She took no guff off anybody,” he said. “One time she was waitressing in Las Vegas at the Sands and some guy pinched her on the bottom and she poured soup over his head.”
“She loved life. She loved to sing. She loved to dance. She was always doing that. She embarrassed me a lot by doing that,” he said.
Listen to the full interview on the Ron and Don Show here.
