Nevada City woman who helped build planes during World War II shares her story

For women's history month, a local woman who helped build military aircraft during World War II is now sharing her story, more than 80 years later.

At 101 years old, Beatrice Beck, who goes by Bea, looks back at a life that helped shape the nation.

From her time as a riveter during World War II at Lockheed Martin in Burbank.

"I worked on the B-17," she said, "and I came from Minnesota, and that's where I landed, working at Lockheed. It was nice. I work in a big airplane plant somewhere in California. We are already turning out planes at a rate that everyone said was impossible a year ago."

Bea, who now lives in Nevada City with her daughter, Sandy,  took us back to her roots.

"We would not have built all the planes we needed to build to come out successful in the second World War if it weren't for the women who did it," Sandy said.

Growing up on a farm in Wabasha, Minnesota, one of 18 children, Bea milked cows and attended a one-room schoolhouse during the great depression.

"When I go back there now, there's nobody home," Bea said.

"She had a brother, Johnny, who was drafted and was going to California, and she had just graduated high school," Sandy said. "She wanted to come out here with her sisters and just get off the farm."

She got off the farm and onto the assembly line, riveting, welding and wiring aircraft, like the B-17 bomber.

"I think women did do a majority of the work," Sandy said. "However, there were some men there, too. And one of them was my father."

Bea's husband has since passed, but the story goes that they met on a Bombay rack at the factory.

"They were married at St. Finbar's Church in Burbank, California, on November 20, 1945," Sandy said. 

"Yeah, I worked in electrical and had to show other people different things," Bea said.

Bea was invited to the U.S. Capitol when Rosie the Riveter was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. She wasn't able to make it, but received a replica that is now proudly displayed in their home

Nowadays, Bea has traded her drill for quiet afternoons with her daughter, enjoying the simple sounds of home. 

Bea continued to work on aircraft, wiring pilots' cabins, until 1987.