Reviving History
BETTY REID SOSKIN UNEARTHS SOME OF
RICHMOND’S OTHERWISE FORGOTTEN WWII STORIES
I By Matt Larson
Is it ever too late to start a new career? Betty Reid Soskin, Interpretive Park Ranger for the
National Park Service, got the job when she was 85. Now, at 97, she is the eldest park ranger
in the country and is subsequently becoming a household name.
Three to five times per week she educates visitors of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home
Front National Historical Park in Richmond, sharing stories of WWII that would otherwise be
forgotten. These stories leave visitors fascinated, shocked, inspired…
“Becoming a ranger was not my intention,” Betty recalled. “I never dreamed of any such
thing.” As a field representative for California State Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, Betty’s job
was to sit in on planning meetings for a new national park commemorating the WWII home
front in Richmond. The stars had aligned, as she was part of that very home front effort back
in the 1940s.
“I never did see a ship under construction, I never did see a ship being launched. I was
a 20-year-young clerk, and a woman of color, in a segregated Jim Crow union hall,” she
expressed. “I didn’t have any sense of being a part of anything, really. But I have that sense
now.”
Of all the boomtowns that developed amidst the WWII effort, Richmond was selected for this
park because only here were there enough still-standing structures through which to properly
interpret the history. Betty, in the right place at the right time, noticed pretty quickly that
something important was missing: “The structures that would have told my story, the African-
American story, had been long ago torn down.”
Betty was presented with an extraordinarily unique opportunity to singlehandedly preserve
some of America’s most transformative history, and she’s still doing it to this day. “I’ve been able
to help create a new national park by virtue of the fact that I happen to be a primary resource
for the time being celebrated by this particular park.” she said. “That’s a rather rare thing to be.”
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