Many people don't imagine changing careers at 85 years old, but for Betty Reid Soskin, it was a no brainer.
Her life had brought her to Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park and her mother and grandmother worked until the day they died. Betty is now 93 years old and the world's oldest park ranger. She wears her uniform with pride and the park's patrons hang on her every word with admiration.
People like Betty remind us that it's never to late to live your dreams, much like Eileen Kramer, who is still dancing at 100 years old. If you love what you do, then don't stop doing it!
Betty clearly loves her job. "I still love this uniform," she told the Today show. "Partly because there's a silent message to every little girl of color that I pass on the street or in an elevator or on an escalator…that there's a career choice she may have never thought of."
Betty helped develop the plans for the national park and now hosts the tour “Untold Stories and Lost Conversations.”
The tour focuses on the women who worked as laborers, like her, during World War II.
Betty entered the workforce as a file clerk for a segregated union auxiliary and an activist. She hopes to empower women today because she saw firsthand how disheartening it was for the female laborers of WWII to have to quit their jobs once the men in uniform came home.
"I can say, though, from observing all 'Rosies' [the Riveter] who have visited our park, it is clear that those years were a high point in their lives. They express much pride and often great frustration at having been turned loose at the war’s end for the sake of returning veterans to the workplace," she said.
See her story below and SHARE if it inspired you!
