Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest ranger in the National Park System, currently serving at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in California. At 97, she gives presentations to visitors describing her own experiences during WWII serving as a clerk in a Jim Crow union hall, as well as her memories of both Richmond and California at large. 

Soskin has lived many lives, and recounting her experience as a national park ranger doesn't begin until more than halfway through her memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom. However, understanding her child and adulthood is critical to recognizing the skill and strength she brought to the creation of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park.

Soskin grew up in both New Orleans and then California; she worked with her husband to start a record business; she moved out into a primarily white suburb with young children, changing the neighborhood and also being changed by it; she discovered her talents as a musician, which in turn fed and was inspired by her activism. She worked for politicians, for the University of California, and when the Home Front park was first proposed, she brought all this experience with her.

Planning for the historic site began in the early 21st century. The new national park would be a testament to Richmond's importance during the war, a hub of ship building and manufacturing that brought over 100,000 of people together from across the country. Today, the national park allows visitors to "Explore and honor the efforts and sacrifices of American civilians on the World War II home front.  Find out how they lived, worked and got along."

When she began to attend meetings about the park's creation, Soskin realized: "No one else in the room realized that the story of Rosie the Riveter is a white woman's story. I and other women of color were not to be represented by this park as it was proposed."  She continued, "It was then it first occured to me that what gets remembered is a function of who is in the room doing the remembering. There was no one in that room with any reason to remember the segregation and racism of those times."

In fact, Soskin was not a "riveter" at all, but a clerk in buildings and organizations long forgotten by history. Initially, those in the meetings about the park saw her "as a kind of icon of an era and valued for [her] 'historic' value. But I was not to be allowed peer status." That came later, when the group recognized the contribution Soskin would make to the park's mission and day-to-day operation. 

In addition to bringing these elements to light, Soskin also felt "that the creation of this national park might peresent the opportunity for the recollections of a war through the eyes of women - being told through their feminine stories and artifacts - that would differ significantly from the memories of men who tell their stories through body counts and the machines of wars."

Readers of her memoir will feel like she is speaking directly to them, a result of the writing process itself. In addition to the inclusion of her popular blog posts, much of Sign My Name to Freedom is based on interviews with Soskin. Riveted, one hears the accounts of her struggles not only with racism, but raising a gay and disabled child, finding her life's work in activism and at the park, and observations about the makings of history itself. The story moves back and forth in time a bit instead of in a strictly linear fashion, just as a conversation between two people would flow.

While many of us love to visit and enjoy the parks, Soskin has played an instrumental role in creating the very spaces in which we learn about our nation's social history. Approaching her own centennial, she shows through example the benefits of including the community in all aspects of a park's life: both its founding and its annual operations. 

For those interested in a fuller understanding of the human experience, life in California in the 20th and 21st century, and the creation of new national parks - I highly recommend Sign My Name to Freedom.