Jeanne Gibson, the beloved Rosie the Riveter, has passed away on July 29, 2026, at the remarkable age of 100.

At just 18 years old, Jeanne left her home in Minnesota in the summer of 1944 and answered her nation's call, becoming a welder at Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle. With determination and grit, she helped build destroyers that strengthened the Allied war effort during World War II. She later continued her service with the Army Transportation Corps in Juneau, Alaska, embodying the resilience and patriotism of the Greatest Generation.

Yet Jeanne's legacy extended far beyond the war.

She earned her Ph.D., dedicated three decades to teaching, earned her private pilot license, and spent the rest of her life proving that courage, determination, and purpose know no age. In 2024, Jeanne and her fellow Rosies were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of our nation's highest civilian honors, recognizing the extraordinary women whose sacrifices and determination helped secure victory during World War II. She had a special gift for encouraging young girls, reminding them that no dream was too big and no obstacle too great. Through her words and her example, she inspired generations to believe in themselves and pursue lives of courage, service, and purpose.

Jeanne remained a tireless advocate for preserving the legacy of the Rosies, volunteering at Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park on "Rosie Fridays" and ensuring the stories of the women who helped win the war would continue to inspire future generations.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1579869116843410&set=a.641734863990178

a claw hammer, a borrowed Ford truck, and no patience left, meet Sophie Zielinski and the Moving Crew, circa 1932

In the winter of 1931 Detroit evicted 800 families a month. Bailiffs set furniture on the curb at 9 a.m., landlords changed the locks by noon, children came home from school to find their beds in the snow.

Sophie Zielinski was 44, Polish, a landlady on Chene Street with six cold-water flats, three of them already empty because nobody could pay. 

She had a claw hammer, a borrowed Ford truck, and no patience left.

On January 12, 1932, after watching the Kowalskis across the street get put out with a baby six weeks old and a coal stove still warm, Sophie walked across with that hammer, knocked the new lock off with three swings, and carried the stove back in herself, with Mrs. Kowalski holding the door.

By February there were twenty-two women, Polish, Black, Italian, Hungarian, wives, widows, factory girls laid off from Briggs, all with hammers, all with a list. 

They called themselves nothing at all. 

The newspapers called them the Moving Crew.

For two winters they followed the bailiffs. 

When an eviction went out, the crew went in that night. Locks knocked off, furniture carried back up three flights in the dark, stoves re-piped, windows stuffed with newspaper against the cold, a pot of soup left on to warm, so the children coming home from school would find home still home.

They moved two hundred and eleven families back in, between January 1932 and March 1933. They lost count of stoves. Sophie kept count of hammers broken, seven, notches cut in the handle of hers for each one.

The police arrested Sophie twice. The judge dismissed both times. The second time he told the bailiff, off the record, to stop calling, he was tired of seeing Mrs. Zielinski in his courtroom.

When work came back in 1934 the evictions slowed, then stopped. Sophie went back to collecting rent when people could pay, and not collecting when they could not, which was most of the time for another three years.

She kept that claw hammer hanging behind the kitchen door until she died in 1961, seven notches deep in the hickory handle, head worn smooth on one side from knocking off locks.

Her great-granddaughter has it now, in Detroit, in a toolbox. She used it last winter to hang shelves in her first apartment. It still pulls a nail clean.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=977789628574168&set=a.648129744873493

Meet Paige. she worked with the Soaring by the Sea Foundation, where she helped build and install Browning M2 .50-caliber machine guns on a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1467189712116175&set=pcb.1467193878782425

American journalist Martha Gellhorn tricked the Navy so that she could write firsthand dispatches from Normandy in June 1944, she lied to get on a hospital ship so she could be a stowaway and get transported to the D Day invasion!

She had already accompanied the US Fifth Army to the front in Monte Cassino, Italy in 1943. She wasn't worried about being in the middle of the war.

Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991. 

Her defiance meant she was on the first hospital ship to reach Normandy, arriving at Omaha Beach early on the morning of 7 June, and becoming the only woman correspondent on the ground at the D-Day landings.

"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'

"You could always get by with that. It always sounded harmless and idiotic, and it worked a treat. 'I'm just doing the woman's angle,' and nobody's interested anymore. And then I just locked myself in a toilet until after we left port."

During a career that spanned 60 years, the Missouri-born journalist covered the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Finland, and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. 

She befriended the Roosevelts and stayed with them at the White House, cadged bed and breakfast from HG Wells, and married Ernest Hemingway

She also wrote for Vogue magazine and reported on the Great Depression for the US government, travelling through the Dust Bowl with the photographer Dorothea Lange.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260608-the-woman-who-sneaked-into-the-d-day-landings

Thanks to Don for highly recommending the movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn". Martha Gellhorn is played by Nicole Kidman.

Andrea Hair met the 4014 Big Boy in Carroll Iowa to honor her family’s connection to Union Pacific. (thank you George!)

“I wanted to come out to honor my grandpa’s, great grandpa’s heritage with Union Pacific,” Hair said. “He was a machinist that lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I’ve always wondered if he worked on locomotives like this or this specific one, but yeah, so that’s kind of the heart behind that is like, you know, hey, that’s part of my heritage and I’m proud of it.”

https://www.ktiv.com/2026/06/01/big-boy-4014-draws-hundreds-iowa-during-cross-country-tour

Susan Young Browne just renewed her drivers license, to keep driving until the age of 115.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/108-year-old-delaware-woman-renews-her-drivers-license-to-2033-works-out-thrice-a-week

Flossie Beadle's attempt to stop the destruction of the cork elms 1960s, trees that were doomed by the road expansion from horse and buggy use to 4 lanes wide

Lakeside Historian Flossie Beadle blocking the excavator

Flossie Beadle tried to save them from being cut down on Woodside but in the end even her shotgun could not stop the removal the the trees to make the road wider, so, instead she talked the community into helping her transplant seedlings/offshoots to all the lakeside schools, like Lindo Park school.

the Cork Elms on the West side of Lakeside were imported from Australia in 1893, by the El Cajon Land Co, and planted by the school kids in Lakeside

There were 50 planted on each side. These were the only lane of Cork Elms in the USA. 

In Feb 1956, seven of the shade trees were cut down from the south lane for an entrance to a proposed shopping center (Safeway Vons) and though the promoter was on record as having promised that the trees would be preserved as an asset to the shopping center, of course, he was lying his ass off. By 1967 all the cork elms were cut down, or destroyed by pipeline construction destroying their roots

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3952879468177821&set=gm.2102025210362015&idorvanity=671136676784216

https://www.facebook.com/groups/671136676784216/posts/1102197400344806/

http://lakesidehistory.org/lakeside-township/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/497495314854913/posts/1078798483391257/

In 2021, history repeated itself just feet away from the Cork Elm location. 

Lakeside resident Billy Ortiz learned from the county that 22 jacaranda trees the Lakeside Garden Club paid for, that he and his grandson helped plant a decade before, were scheduled to come down.

Volunteers planted them on a property along Woodside Avenue, in tribute to some trees long gone.

the Jacaranda trees at the front edge of the land alongside Woodside Avenue had to be removed by April 9, 2021 because most were unfortunately planted by volunteers within a 50 ft. easement established by the City of San Diego to protect existing water lines that connect the property to the main water service. 

Others interfered with the construction of the parking lot and number of spaces for the library and construction of the building itself.

Nearly 130 years ago, and a few feet away, school children planted 50 cork elms. In 1956, county officials wanted to take the trees down to widen the road. In the way was town historian Flossie Beadle.

According to a county spokesperson, the cost of relocating the trees is $10,000 for each tree and not financially "viable."

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/neighbors-rally-to-save-jacaranda-trees-at-site-of-new-lakeside-library

Washtenaw Community College in Michigan has an OUTSTANDING student, 21 yr old Mikala Sposito, who just won the USA Weld Trials in Huntsville, Alabama, and will be the first woman to represent the US in world welding competition in Shanghai, at the WorldSkills Competition

Sposito is the sixth Washtenaw Community College student to qualify in WorldSkills history. 

WCC has produced more WorldSkills welding alums than any other school in the United States 

One of them, Alex Pazkowski, who finished second in 2013, is Sposito’s instructor and mentor.

https://apnews.com/article/first-woman-welding-shanghai-trades-worldskills-afd7fdafe69e69242d8bbee1b45d0204

to publicize the newly established Lincoln Highway, the YMCA of Sacramento sponsored Amanda Preuss and a 1916 Olds Roadster in her drive from San Fran to Times Square in Aug, 1916

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=26343954718607057&set=pcb.10162633132387481

Jimmy's Aunt Lurleen deserves recognition for being the only person in Pecos County history to treat a transmission like a suggestion rather than a mechanical necessity.

Lurleen owned a 1961 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88, which was a magnificent automobile in every sense except for the way she operated it.

she drove everywhere with the throttle half pressed and the brake lightly engaged, which caused the Oldsmobile to move through Fort Stockton like a confused tugboat.

The transmission eventually surrendered.

Most people would repair the transmission.

Lurleen simply continued driving the car in second gear for the next four years.

She said it simplified things.

I once asked her why she didn’t get it fixed.

“Well Jimmy Don,” she said, “it still goes forward, and I ain’t planning on racing anybody.”

https://captainmycaptain.blog/2026/03/21/movie-review-its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world/

you might not recall the name Suzi Quatro, but in the 70s, she was a significant pop culture character... both in rock music, and acting on Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero, the younger sister of Pinky Tuscadero, an old flame of Fonzie's

She was born in Detroit, and opened for Alice Cooper in Chicago in the winter of 75, and was on Happy Days in 7 episodes. She had a famous duet song in '78, "Stumbling In"

She was on the cover of Rolling Stone! Jan '75

Quatro moved to the UK from Detroit aged 21 in 1971 and only discovered in January that her US driving license was only valid for 12 months after entering the country, meaning she's been driving illegally here since 1972.

"I was told when I started to drive in this country that my American license was fine," 75-year-old Quatro told The Mirror earlier this week. "And over the years I was insured, I had speeding tickets."

"Can you believe it?" she continued. "I only found out in January because the US laws changed too, and they won’t renew your American license unless you can prove you have been in the particular state your license is from for the last six months, and of course, I can't. I live here. So I needed a British license.

"I'm 75, for god’s sake. I’ve been driving since I was 16."

Quatro took her test on Wednesday 18th March and thankfully passed at the first attempt.

Breaking the good news to The Mirror, she enthused: "I passed! I’m so pleased. It’s such a relief. I got a couple of minors, nothing big. 

"My husband was so pleased. He sent messages all over the world to friends of ours. He’s so proud. At 75 it's quite an achievement."

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1371706378329419&set=a.628458302654234

Coolest thing I heard of lately, a crossing guard put her thoughts to paper, and made 14k a month from that venture

Christine Tyler Hill turned her morning shift into a feel-good and lucrative venture with a subscription base, launching a mail delivered newsletter in January and quickly scored 2,000 subscribers, with thousands more on the waiting list. The business now brings in about $14,000 per month.

Christine Tyler Hill, 36, took a job as a school crossing guard in Burlington, Vermont, after years of working as a designer and illustrator. She was looking for a way to feel more connected to her community. 

Each weekday starting around 7:30 a.m., she spends 50 minutes managing a crosswalk near a local school. The post exposes her to the same faces and varying weather each morning, giving her a steady stream of small moments and details to write about.

Her venture started in late 2023, when she took the crossing guard job and began writing a monthly “cloud report,” which she posted on social media. The report included snippets of her day — like photos of a handwritten thank-you note from a child and snow falling on a store.

Hill has since decided to monetize her side hustle and start a mail club. In January 2026, she debuted the club to her 33,000 TikTok followers in a seven-second clip, explaining that for $8 a month, she would handwrite and illustrate an eight-page magazine chronicling observations from her job and send it out to subscribers. It only took a few days for Hill to get her first 1,000 subscribers. 

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/crossing-guard-mail-club-14-000-a-month-42afb85d

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/crossing-guard-side-hustle-earns-14000-a-month

you will enjoy this old woman sitting in a muscle car, talking trash about electric cars (it's a staged and scripted moment by the way) but I can't find a version of the video I can embed here, so, if you have Facebook, enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3431318220364840

wears a great dress, enjoys hanging out for a photoshoot with a great ol truck? That's marriage material boys. You better find her before I do, I'll charm the hell out of her

 reminder that Daily Timewaster is awesome, I check it every day. 

I wish I'd been in college / university in my 20s instead of the joining the Navy the weekend after graduating high school. I probably would have met a large number of women, and tried to charm the hell out of several of them, and gotten married to someone wonderful, and had a happy life. 

Instead, I was too penniless to give college a try, didn't want to see about 200k in college loans without a responsible plan on what to get a education for. (As in what education, for what career possibility, that would in turn pay off the student loan.)

 And so - still single, and finishing up a blog post. 

See one of my other sites for similar photos https://isonlyskindeep.tumblr.com

https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2026/02/friday-open-road_13.html

meanwhile, over in vintage race car photos.... is this gem. Marjorie Eccles relaxing at Brooklands with a quick smoke and a couple of lines of knitting while a mechanic works on her supercharged Rapier Special.

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/59/

Luella Bates, the first female truck driver to receive a New York driver's license.

Bates was the first of six female employees of the Four Wheel Drive Auto Co. chosen as test and demonstration drivers, and worked from 1918 to 1922 in Clintonville, Wisconsin.

 Ms. Bates and the other women tested each of the behemoth trucks by driving them over a 75-mile course. These runs had to be completed before a truck was delivered or shipped

In January 1920, Bates drove a Model B to New York City, where she attended the New York Auto Show.

Bates was such a hit in New York that Four Wheel Drive decided to use her skills even further. Later that year, they sent her on three transcontinental tours throughout the United States.

The advertising scheme introduced the idea that the FWD truck was easy to steer, as evidenced by a woman driver.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=25917431527887856&set=gm.33252719147677035&idorvanity=930072950368407

https://www.realwomenintrucking.org/post/herstory-luella-bates-and-lillian-drennan

Luella would undergo several whirlwind tours across America in her trusted Model B truck. Her first tour would take her to approximately 25 towns, beginning in Kansas City, Missouri, and finishing in Bellefontaine, Ohio

 These 3-ton trucks (chassis #8044, #8175, #13325) distinguished themselves by navigating challenging terrains in Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada without assistance. Their ability to traverse muddy and sandy stretches unaided set a commendable record.

descending Laurel Hill grade between Bedford and Chambersburg, Pa, July 9, 1919

the F.W.D trucks  are seen only occasionally in the 1919 military convoy films because of their reliability. 

F.W.D trucks rarely broke down, making them less dramatic for film scenes. In contrast, scenes of other trucks struggling in mud were more visually entertaining, leading to more screen time for less reliable vehicles.

entering Chicago Heights in 1919

   F.W.D. in city parade in Sacramento California September 3, 1919

 During her final tour of 1920, Bates took the southern states by storm. She was now known as "our girl driver." 

In Pennsylvania, they swapped the carbs from Model G to Model M Strombergs, and found a 25% increase in mpg

In Oklahoma, she defied the police and took her truck across a flooded road, hauling meat for a packaging plant. This courageous venture led to the sale of ten trucks for Four Wheel Drive and much admiration for Bates.

 In 1922, Luella left the FWD Auto Company and moved to Milwaukee. She later married Howard Coates and had two sons. She died in 1985 at the age of 88.

Her granddaughter is the actress Ashley Hinshaw, who married Topher Grace

https://www.shipenergy.com/luella-bates-our-girl-driver/

https://www.militarytrader.com/mv-101/driving-force-little-luella-bates

https://unicofreight.com/blog/on-the-road-to-equality-the-women-who-revolutionized-the-trucking-industry/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1621739518062373/posts/3263785273857781/

https://after-ike.com/f-w-d-trucks-steering-through-1919s-road-challenges/

https://transportationhistory.org/2017/03/03/women-in-transportation-history-luella-bates-pioneering-truckdriver/

the Kaiser Darrin prototype was first unveiled at the Los Angeles Motorama in 1952, just two months before the Corvette.

Automotive stylist Howard “Dutch” Darrin took it upon himself to create the fiberglass-bodied roadster himself, proof of concept for the industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, who was staunchly committed to the production of family cars. 

Kaiser hated the car, of course, and it nearly didn’t make it past the prototype stage—except that Kaiser had brought his wife along to see it, and she declared that the car was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/entertainment/cars-of-fallout-tv-show

the right way to emphasis that your car seats are luxurious, in your advertising

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/330/

Mrs. Minnie M. Blandin, 74, who at the turn of the century was president of of the Racine Mfg Company that made bodies for 32 makes of 'horseless buggies,' sitting in a 1904 Franklin that ran the San Francisco to New York in 33 days in 1904. (phoot from Nov 1937

Between 1902 and 1925 Racine supplied bodies to Auburn, Buick, Case, Cole, Elgin, E.M.F., Kissel, Lozier, Mitchell, Mitchell-Lewis, Nash, Overland, Pierce-Racine, Piggin, Premier, Rambler, ReVere, W.W. Shaw, Standard, Stearns-Knight, Stephens, and Stutz. Racine also produced a popular line of taxicab bodies for Chicago’s Walden W. Shaw Livery Co, and its successor, the Yellow Cab Mfg Co.

Minnie married the founder of the Racine Novelty Co, Frederick Franklin Blandin. The Racine Novelty Mfg. Co. / Racine Mfg. Co., was one of the nation’s largest production automobile body builders.

They also made storm aprons and curtains, wood and metallic bodies, battery boxes, spark coil boxes, tool boxes, dashes, fenders and automobile tops, piano stools and ironing boards

the company grew from 400 employees to 1200 in 10 years, and by 1917 were manufacturing 80 touring car bodies and 15 closed bodies daily.

In 1918, the company got the contract to make 500 metal life boats to support the WW1 effort, but the other companies in Racine were just as busy, making cots, shoes, guns, tents, and airplane parts

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/r/racine/racine.htm

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/492/

Loretta Young overlooking Boulder Canyon (Lake Mead) in 1931. I wonder if Cashman's Garage benefitted from her posing with their spare tire cover ad?

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/465/

https://vintagelasvegas.com/post/176107174844/loretta-young-overlooking-boulder-canyon-lake