'Rosie the Riveter' Model, Former Nashua Resident Mary Doyle Keefe Dies at 92

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By Feroze Dhanoa (Patch Staff)

Mary Doyle Keefe, the model for Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1943 Rosie the Riveter painting, which inspired and acknowledged a generation of women who flexed their muscles for the military effort in World War II, died Tuesday in Simsbury, Conn., where she had lived most of the past decade. She was 92.

Mrs. Keefe had been Rockwell’s neighbor in Arlington, Vermont, when she posed for the illustration. She was 19 and working as a telephone operator. Her compensation as ”Rosie”: $10.

The illustration appeared on the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post” on May 29, 1943, and soon — when it was later used to sell war bonds — on posters hung in factories, home garages and the walls of businesses all over the United States.

With an American flag as the background, Rosie is dressed in work overalls eating a sandwich, a rivet gun on her lap and her feet resting on a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf.”

The Norman Rockwell Museum located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts said they were saddened to hear of Mrs. Keefe’s passing.

It is currently part of the permanent collection at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Keefe attended Temple University, graduating with a dental hygiene degree. She was a dental hygienist in Bennington when she met Robert J. Keefe, whom she married in June 1949. They established themselves in Whitman, Massachusetts and later, Nashua, New Hampshire, raising their four children and making lifelong friends in both communities.

Her family will receive friends, Friday, April 24 from 1- 2 p.m. followed by a Memorial Mass at the Carling Chapel at McLean Village, 75 Great Pond Road, Simsbury.

A graveside service will be Saturday, April 25, at 11 a.m. at Park Lawn Cemetery, Bennington, Vermont. In lieu of flowers, donations in Mary’s memory may be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 20 Batterson Park Road, 3rd Floor, Farmington, CT 06032 or JDRF.org.

Image via Carmon Community Funeral Homes

‘Rosie the Riveter’ Image via Amazon.com