A 'Rosie the Riveter'
103-year-old Leqve shares WWII experience working on B-17 bombers
By Amy Kyllo
STAFF WRITER
KASSON — In 1941, Helen Leqve picked potatoes to earn her bus pass to California to join the World War II civilian war effort.
The 103-year-old, like “Rosie the Riveter,” worked on B-17 bombers during WWII. Leqve lives on her own to this day, assisted by her daughter, Karen Tracy, who lives close by.
“There aren’t very many of us (female WWII riveters) left,” Leqve said.
Now, 80 years after the war, Leqve continues to tell her tale, visiting schools, Lions Clubs and historical societies alongside Tracy.
“I enjoy doing it because I think people should know what went on,” Leqve said.
Leqve’s first role as a riveter came at the Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank, California. There, she was in charge of pounding rivets into the inner wing of Boeing B-17 bombers. She was given one week of training before being put out on the floor.
Leqve was born on Christmas Day 1921 in Ogden, Utah, on her parents’ fruit farm. As a child, her parents moved to Minnesota. They packed the family in a truck, and Leqve rode in the back with a cord leading up to the cab, which she pulled if she needed something.
She graduated in 1940 from Aitkin. She planned on being a nurse, but an aunt in California convinced her to come join the war effort.
“I decided … I could do more good helping in the service,” Leqve said.
The only problem was getting there. Leqve was not familiar with changing busses, but luckily, some neighbor girls were also planning to go. Using her potato money, she packed her belongings in a tin suitcase and boarded a Greyhound bus. During travel, her suitcase moved in the luggage area of the bus in such a way it shorted out the bus batteries. Leqve said the driver was mad.
“(He said) ‘Who does that suitcase belong to?’” she said. “Nobody said a word, and I said, ‘I guess it belongs to me.’”
She arrived in California in late 1941 and moved in with her aunt and uncle. In early 1942, she started at the plant.
“You automatically were hired because they were so short (on workers),” Leqve said.
Leqve worked alongside a partner on the B-17s. She put in the rivets, and her partner would use a bucker — which was a blunt tool — to smooth the rivets.
There were no uniforms. Women wore jeans, long shirts and a scarf or hat on their head. Armbands identified their group. They showed a badge to enter the facility, which was camouflaged from above as a suburban neighborhood to protect it from bombing. On their way home, they opened their lunch boxes to show they had nothing extra in them.
Leqve said there were 15-minute breaks every two hours and a 30-minute lunch break. Signs on the door of the bathroom read “Is this trip necessary?”
Leqve was 4-feet-11-inches tall, so she had the special task of reaching into the tail of the airplanes to place ice box rivets, which expanded in ambient temperatures.
“We had to work fast because they were frozen,” Leqve said.
Leqve invited her dad, Cecil Spaid, who had fought in World War I, to join her in California. He worked as a crane operator on the B-17s. In 1943, after injuring her shoulder, they both went back to Minnesota. Once home, she received a letter notifying her that she was still employed with the U.S.
She was sent to Sioux City, Iowa, where she spent a week doing tests to determine her aptitude before traveling via Greyhound bus to the Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah. The base was built on land her parents had sold to the U.S. government when they moved to Minnesota.
At Ogden, she was a mechanic on the tail gunner turret of disabled airplanes.
“These were planes that were in the service, and they got shot or whatever,” Leqve said. “We had to fix whatever was wrong with this plane, and then it got sent back into the service.”
While working, sometimes Leqve found letters to wives or sweethearts written by the airmen.
At Ogden, Leqve worked side by side with Italian war prisoners. They were not supposed to talk to them, but she did anyway.
“I said ‘They’re humans, just like we are,’” Leqve said. “They didn’t want war any more than we did.”
She said the men would spend their wages buying cloth and nylons for wives and sweethearts back home and would show her pictures of their loved ones.
On D-Day, the plant shut down for a while, and they prayed for Allied victory.
“They had the speeches, and it was something to remember,” she said.
Besides working as a mechanic, Leqve worked on cleaning and assembling guns that shipped in oil because she was fast at it. She also got to go to the field when they tested them.
“Not everybody got to do that,” she said.
Additionally, later in the war, she assisted in the parts department.
“I had a boss that catered to some of us,” she said. “If there’s a good opening and I’m doing the riveting, he would call that he wants me over here.”
At Ogden, Leqve met her husband, Merlin, a Minnesotan who was part of the military police. Leqve said meeting Merlin was the highlight of her experience as a riveter. Her first introduction was when Merlin came knocking on her door looking for her.
“My roommate came, and she said, ‘Helen, there’s a soldier out here that wants to meet you,’” Leqve said. “And I said, ‘What do you mean, meet me?’ (She said) ‘He wants to meet a girl from Minnesota.’”
On Feb. 24, 1945, the couple was married.
When the war finally ended, the scene was jubilant. Leqve said there was shouting as flags waved and people hugged, kissed and had a great time.
After the war, the Leqves moved back to Minnesota, once again riding a Greyhound bus. They raised their four children on a 100-acre farm south of Byron, where they milked cows and raised horses, pigs and chickens.
Today, Leqve lives in Kasson. Last year, she and Tracy attended the American Rosie the Riveter Association Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and they plan to attend again at this years’ location in Dayton, Ohio.
“Mom and I do a lot of traveling together, so I’m used to it,” Tracy said. “I don’t recommend that to everybody, but mom does very well.”
By Amy Kyllo
STAFF WRITER
KASSON — In 1941, Helen Leqve picked potatoes to earn her bus pass to California to join the World War II civilian war effort.
The 103-year-old, like “Rosie the Riveter,” worked on B-17 bombers during WWII. Leqve lives on her own to this day, assisted by her daughter, Karen Tracy, who lives close by.
“There aren’t very many of us (female WWII riveters) left,” Leqve said.
Now, 80 years after the war, Leqve continues to tell her tale, visiting schools, Lions Clubs and historical societies alongside Tracy.
“I enjoy doing it because I think people should know what went on,” Leqve said.
Leqve’s first role as a riveter came at the Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank, California. There, she was in charge of pounding rivets into the inner wing of Boeing B-17 bombers. She was given one week of training before being put out on the floor.
Leqve was born on Christmas Day 1921 in Ogden, Utah, on her parents’ fruit farm. As a child, her parents moved to Minnesota. They packed the family in a truck, and Leqve rode in the back with a cord leading up to the cab, which she pulled if she needed something.
She graduated in 1940 from Aitkin. She planned on being a nurse, but an aunt in California convinced her to come join the war effort.
“I decided … I could do more good helping in the service,” Leqve said.
The only problem was getting there. Leqve was not familiar with changing busses, but luckily, some neighbor girls were also planning to go. Using her potato money, she packed her belongings in a tin suitcase and boarded a Greyhound bus. During travel, her suitcase moved in the luggage area of the bus in such a way it shorted out the bus batteries. Leqve said the driver was mad.
“(He said) ‘Who does that suitcase belong to?’” she said. “Nobody said a word, and I said, ‘I guess it belongs to me.’”
She arrived in California in late 1941 and moved in with her aunt and uncle. In early 1942, she started at the plant.
“You automatically were hired because they were so short (on workers),” Leqve said.
Leqve worked alongside a partner on the B-17s. She put in the rivets, and her partner would use a bucker — which was a blunt tool — to smooth the rivets.
There were no uniforms. Women wore jeans, long shirts and a scarf or hat on their head. Armbands identified their group. They showed a badge to enter the facility, which was camouflaged from above as a suburban neighborhood to protect it from bombing. On their way home, they opened their lunch boxes to show they had nothing extra in them.
Leqve said there were 15-minute breaks every two hours and a 30-minute lunch break. Signs on the door of the bathroom read “Is this trip necessary?”
Leqve was 4-feet-11-inches tall, so she had the special task of reaching into the tail of the airplanes to place ice box rivets, which expanded in ambient temperatures.
“We had to work fast because they were frozen,” Leqve said.
Leqve invited her dad, Cecil Spaid, who had fought in World War I, to join her in California. He worked as a crane operator on the B-17s. In 1943, after injuring her shoulder, they both went back to Minnesota. Once home, she received a letter notifying her that she was still employed with the U.S.
She was sent to Sioux City, Iowa, where she spent a week doing tests to determine her aptitude before traveling via Greyhound bus to the Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah. The base was built on land her parents had sold to the U.S. government when they moved to Minnesota.
At Ogden, she was a mechanic on the tail gunner turret of disabled airplanes.
“These were planes that were in the service, and they got shot or whatever,” Leqve said. “We had to fix whatever was wrong with this plane, and then it got sent back into the service.”
While working, sometimes Leqve found letters to wives or sweethearts written by the airmen.
At Ogden, Leqve worked side by side with Italian war prisoners. They were not supposed to talk to them, but she did anyway.
“I said ‘They’re humans, just like we are,’” Leqve said. “They didn’t want war any more than we did.”
She said the men would spend their wages buying cloth and nylons for wives and sweethearts back home and would show her pictures of their loved ones.
On D-Day, the plant shut down for a while, and they prayed for Allied victory.
“They had the speeches, and it was something to remember,” she said.
Besides working as a mechanic, Leqve worked on cleaning and assembling guns that shipped in oil because she was fast at it. She also got to go to the field when they tested them.
“Not everybody got to do that,” she said.
Additionally, later in the war, she assisted in the parts department.
“I had a boss that catered to some of us,” she said. “If there’s a good opening and I’m doing the riveting, he would call that he wants me over here.”
At Ogden, Leqve met her husband, Merlin, a Minnesotan who was part of the military police. Leqve said meeting Merlin was the highlight of her experience as a riveter. Her first introduction was when Merlin came knocking on her door looking for her.
“My roommate came, and she said, ‘Helen, there’s a soldier out here that wants to meet you,’” Leqve said. “And I said, ‘What do you mean, meet me?’ (She said) ‘He wants to meet a girl from Minnesota.’”
On Feb. 24, 1945, the couple was married.
When the war finally ended, the scene was jubilant. Leqve said there was shouting as flags waved and people hugged, kissed and had a great time.
After the war, the Leqves moved back to Minnesota, once again riding a Greyhound bus. They raised their four children on a 100-acre farm south of Byron, where they milked cows and raised horses, pigs and chickens.
Today, Leqve lives in Kasson. Last year, she and Tracy attended the American Rosie the Riveter Association Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and they plan to attend again at this years’ location in Dayton, Ohio.
“Mom and I do a lot of traveling together, so I’m used to it,” Tracy said. “I don’t recommend that to everybody, but mom does very well.”
