NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There's a picture you've likely seen before. It's a woman with a rolled up sleeve, showing a muscle. Over her picture is the line: "We Can Do It." That's the face of Rosie the Riveter.
The faces of a Rosie also include these real-life women: Delphine Tedeski Klaput, Delores Leonard, Helen Leqve, Thelma Bryant, and Wilma Kovach.
I loved talking to these women. Watch them tell us their stories in the player above.
"June 6, I was 100!" Wilma smiled.
At the Inn at Opryland, these women and more gathered for the National Rosie the Riveter Convention held by the American Rosie the Riveter Association.
"Very few people know what a Rosie the Riveter is!" Helen said.
We'll tell you what that means through the stories of the women themselves.
"We were ladies wearing slacks!" said Delphine.
A picture of Delphine taken in 1941 was on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her high school sweetheart, George, deployed to fly missions over Europe while Delphine went to an aircraft factory as a classified documents clerk. When the men deployed overseas during World War II, the women, the 'Rosies,' stepped in to help with the war effort at home.
"I don't think we even thought about it!" said Helen. "That was the first time the women had been out on the line working."
"Workin' on planes!" Thelma added.
"I worked on wing flaps on B-17s," said Wilma.
"I was a small gal, and I could climb in the back of the B-17, the back of the plane," Helen continued. "I was the riveter. We were the first ones that ever started the riveting."
"If you were a farmer's daughter like me, oh, that was nothing!" laughed Wilma. "I enjoyed it. I think most of them did too.
"I liked it," Thelma agreed. "They treated me good. They treated me real good."
"We never realized how strong a workers we were," Delphine said. "We knew we were helping out the men, helping in the service."
Then there's Delores who was only 8-years-old when she and her sister were collecting milkweed pods.
"And they made parachutes and life jackets," she explained.
The women said it was wonderful getting to meet Rosies from different states and of different ages.
"I'm 102!" smiled Helen. "I'm halfway to 103."
They said it's time everyone heard the stories behind that famous familiar image of Rosie the Riveter.
"We are important too!" Helen said.
"Oh, I think it's great," said Delphine. "It's been a really wonderful experience for me. I'm very proud to be with them."
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
