Elinor Otto, One of the Original Rosie the Riveters, dies at 104, By Rich Archbold | Press-Telegram

Elinor Otto, a longtime Long Beach resident and one of the original Rosie the Riveters from World War II, who was a trailblazer for thousands of women who followed her, has died. She was 104.

Otto, who worked for nearly seven decades as an aviation riveter, working on everything from fighter planes and bombers to commercial jets and the C-17 Globemaster III, died early Sunday morning, Nov. 12, at Centennial Hills Hospital in Las Vegas, said her great-niece, Brenda Wynne. Wynne was holding her great-aunt's hand when she died.

Hours earlier, Otto had a stroke and fell in her house in North Las Vegas, where she had moved after living in Long Beach from 1964 to 2019, Wynne said.

Otto was "an amazing lady who was an inspiration to all of us," Rep. Robert Garcia, a former Long Beach mayor, said on Monday. "Elinor was always so proud of her role as an icon for women and our community. She made a huge impact, and her place in history will always be remembered and celebrated."

Long Beach harbor Commissioner Bonnie Lowenthal, who gave Otto a Woman of the Year award when she was in the California Assembly in 2014, said Monday that Otto was "a force to be reckoned with into her 90s and stood proud for the city of Long Beach and the women who followed her."

In 2017, Otto received the Air Force Association's Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

When she turned 100, the American Veterans Center in Arlington, Virginia, honored Otto for her role in breaking down barriers for women in the workplace. She used to like telling the story of a young girl who came up to her and said, "You're my hero."

But she never thought of herself as a hero.

"I was just doing my job like thousands of other women," she used to say.

In talks to various groups, she would say she was proud of what she and other "Rosies" accomplished and how far women have come since then.

"We made history," she would tell women. "Now it's your turn."

Otto's life could have been made into a Hollywood movie.

She was born Oct. 28, 1919, in Los Angeles, but her parents and three sisters moved to San Diego, where she went to elementary school and high school.

She started her first riveter job for the Rohr Aircraft Corp. in Chula Vista in 1942, a few weeks after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. She was 22, recently divorced with a young son and needed a job.

She didn't know how to use a rivet gun.

"But I learned fast," she said in an interview years later. "It was on-the-job training, and we worked hard because we wanted to win the war."

After the war, Otto was laid off from her riveter job, along with thousands of other women. She tried other office jobs and even a carhop gig at a local drive-in, but none satisfied her desire for more activity – not the way building planes did.

She had even been offered auditions to be in movies, but she turned them down, saying, "I don't act in movies; I build planes."

She returned to aviation riveting work in 1951 for the Ryan Aeronautical Corp. in San Diego and stayed there until she was laid off in 1964.

That's when she learned Douglas Aircraft was hiring.

So she moved to Long Beach and spent nearly 50 years at Douglas, which became McDonnell Douglas and, eventually, Boeing.

During this period, Otto worked on commercial jets and, finally, the C-17 cargo plane. She helped build 279 C-17s in Long Beach until she was laid off in 2014 as production on the iconic plane was winding down. (The last C-17 left Long Beach in 2015.)

That ended a nearly second-decade career working on production lines.

"Don't say I retired," Otto said in 2018. "They laid me off."

While she was working as a riveter, Otto developed a reputation for her energetic work style. At only 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and 103 pounds, the red-haired Otto became a legend for the way she whipped around the assembly line — handling the heavy riveting gun with ease.

Her favorite planes, she said, included the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the B-17 bomber and the C-17.

Although she worked on the C-17s, she had never flown in one until 2017 — when she flew in the cockpit of a C-17 that took off from March Air Reserve Base in Riverside. Otto noted proudly that the majority of the crew members were women.

"It was a real thrill," she said at the time.

After decades in Long Beach, Otto moved with her pit bull, Blu, to North Las Vegas in August 2019, following the unexpected death of her grandson, John Perry, with whom she had been living; Perry's death was devastating to her, both emotionally and financially.

Otto lived in North Las Vegas with her great-niece from 2019 until her death.

"I just hate to leave Long Beach," she said at the time. "I love Long Beach so much."

But she returned to Long Beach for her 102nd birthday party, during which she had a great time signing autographs and taking photos with old friends.

"She was a wonderful person," said Heather Kern, a friend who was responsible for a drinking spot in downtown Long Beach being named after Otto, though that place, dubbed Elinor's, has since closed.

Otto was an "amazing and one-of-a-kind person," said Kern, now the executive director of the Belmont Shore Business Association. "She will always be remembered." Services are pending.

PUBLISHED: Press-Telegram, November 13, 2023. Please see: https://www.presstelegram.com/2023/11/13/elinor-otto-one-of-the-original-rosie-the-riveters-dies-at-104/