KASSON, MINN. – Helen Leqve sat at the table, her materials in front of her, as she prepared to tell 10 friends and neighbors how she helped win World War II.
The 94-year-old Kasson woman is eager to give that talk again and again, because she believes so few know what she, and thousands of women, did to help defeat the Axis Powers. She was one of the women who replaced men, gone to combat roles, to build thousands of airplanes. They became known, thanks to a famed Norman Rockwell poster, as Rosie the Riveter.
She's proud of that nickname and her work. "Yes, I am, I really am," she said. "I want people to know what we did during the war."
Leqve said she always has had that pride but didn't have the drive to discuss it because she didn't think others were interested. Then her great-grandson, Tyler Collett, 13, of Northfield, asked. He's a history buff, and one thing led to another until last year, when she spoke before the Lions Club in Northfield. That led to talks in Owatonna and Mantorville, and finally, to her friends in the Westfield Court area.
Now, she wants to speak out even more. "I would talk to anybody," she said.
Leqve said her riveting career began because, when she was in high school in Aitkin, Minn., she wanted to be a nurse. When World War II broke out, she realized it would take four more years of training to be a nurse, but if she worked in a defense plant, she could help the war effort immediately.
She took a Greyhound bus to California to work in Lockheed's Burbank Defense Plant. "It's a huge, huge plant," she said. She was told she was going to be a riveter.
To drive the rivets, she would get one in dry ice so it would shrink small enough to go through a hole in the metal that would be part of a B-17's wing. A woman, called a bucker, stood on the other side holding a heavy piece of metal against it so when Leqve drove it in, the other side would mushroom and as it warmed, would swell. Because she and the bucker were small, they were called upon to slide into the tightest parts of the wing.
