"Rosie the Riveter," Geraldine Doyle, Dies at Age 86

The woman whose face became the icon for Rosie the Riveter, Geraldine Doyle, age 86, has died.  My prayers go up for and sympathies extend to her family and all who knew and loved her.

However, I am quite disturbed by comments made within the article, shared here, which attempt to eulogize this woman.

It would appear the author is attempting to fulfill an agenda by portraying this woman, Rosie, as ONLY "the original women's libber." 

This truly disappoints me.

As a "product" of a woman and family of Rosie's/Geraldine's generation, I can attest to that which Rosie represented.

The women of this generation were, by the course of human events, thrust into positions of which they had never dreamt:  running a nation, during a time of war, allowing the majority of men the privilege and opportunity to protect and defend the freedoms all enjoyed then and which we enjoy today.

These women fulfilled the role of "help meet," truly defined as one capable to doing the job yet choosing to defer...all the while standing at the ready to help should the occasion arise.

They were women of courage. They were women of strength:  mental, physical, emotional, spiritual.  They continued to raise families while performing tasks, in the home and in the workplace, which were new--and these women succeeded.

They knew how to "make do" with whatever resources were available to them, make a dollar stretch to and beyond the breaking point and, to coin a phrase from that era, "keep the home fires burning" until the men returned to this country from foreign shores.

Because they found themselves capable does not mean they eschewed the values, the faith, the lives which they knew and loved before the war. They did not press on through life during the war only to abandon all that after the war, upon the return of the men, and the resumption--as much as was possible--of "normal" life.

How can I possibly know this as fact, not rumor?  I had the privilege of being raised by such a woman and man, as a part of a neighborhood filled with other such women and men.

My "being" was a surprise to my parents as their only child was in her junior year of college, and they were at the very end of the natural child-bearing cycle.

I had the opportunity of being raised, not by parents who provided my every wish and desire, who desired to be my friends and not parents, who were amenable to bending and breaking rules when I objected or complained, but by parents who were strong in their devotion to each other, to God, and those family values by which they had been raised.

They were children during WWI; they survived the Great Depression; they were active participants in WWII; they not only survived such major events, historical and personal, they thrived, lived, loved, and passed on to their children the true meanings of integrity, faithfulness, character.

To pass on to the current generation the misrepresentation of Rosie as ONLY "the original women's libber" is disrespectful and disappointing.

I can only pray that those who read this will take "a page from my personal experiences" and allow it to overlay the agenda that many so-called "modern-day" women choose to believe is their right.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101229/NEWS01/31229000...