Cheney's own Rosie the Riveter

Yes, Cheney has its own, genuine, real-life "Rosie the Riveter." Her name is Elaine Bower Lopes. Just as depicted in books, movies and magazine articles, she operated a riveter and other tools, working alongside the military personnel. To her, it was her way to contribute to the war effort during World War II.

She was born in Montesano, Wash., but her family moved to Cheney when she was a child to be near her father's side of the family, the Bowers, who had a home on First Street. At the time, her uncle, Clarence Bower, worked as a linotype operator for the Cheney Free Press and managed the Shell gas station across the street from the flourmill.

Lopes' family moved into a house on Second Street. Her father had been a logger in Montesano, but after arriving in Cheney, got a job at the local flourmill. Lopes attended school in Cheney until the sixth grade when her family relocated to Sandpoint, Idaho, where her maternal grandparents, the Allenson family, resided.

Her typical Northwest childhood ended when World War II broke out. Before graduating from Sandpoint High School, she decided to accompany a close girlfriend to Boise, Idaho, by bus, where the friend was to marry a serviceman. In 1943, the Civil Air Service was actively recruiting workers and Lopes decided to join up. She was 18 years old.

Lopes was immediately placed in a training program in Boise, and then assigned to the Pocatello Army Airfield, just outside of Pocatello, Idaho. It was a pilot and aircrew training base to the 476th Fighter Group initially, then later to the 265th Army Air Force Base Unit.

Her job was to repair the damage done to the B-17 "Flying Fortress" and B-24 "Liberator" training planes. She riveted into place new aluminum plates to the skin covering the fuselage or the wings. "The damage was mostly from rough landings. One plane was nicknamed "The Cactus Clipper" due to its constant need for repair. If a plane had damage from bullet holes, they didn't come back to us," she mused. There were some fatal crashes, due to the demanding nature of learning to fly the B-24s, but not very often. Everyone working at the base took it hard when these happened, "The women would just sit with their heads bowed, their hands covering their faces," Lopes said.

Nevertheless, she was constantly pestering one of the lieutenants in charge to allow her to go up in one of the planes. Lopes explains, "He was an old crab and got tired of listening to me ask to go up." So one day he agreed with a sigh, "Okay, go check out a parachute." She finally got her one and only ride in one of the B-24s.

She and her female coworkers shared an apartment in Pocatello, about 10 miles away. "One of the girls had a car, and we all drove out together," Lopes said.

The camaraderie amongst the civilian repair technicians and the active duty servicemen was good-natured and close. "They were good guys. They were just kids, you know, and so was I."

One day, a base photographer was taking photographs of the operations and caught her working on top of one of the wings of an aircraft. "It wasn't a very flattering picture because I was bending over, riveting a plate, and my bottom was hanging out. I don't know why he took the picture ..." she says with a wry smile. She still has the photograph, packed away somewhere amongst her belongings.

After the war, Lopes returned to Eastern Washington and got a job at the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company in Spokane. It was located downtown on Third Street. She was a switchboard operator there for 11 years.

"One day, some guy called and said he was going to wait outside the door and shoot me when I came out," she said. "But he didn't know who I was, so he wouldn't know who to shoot. I reported this to my supervisor, but they didn't care if I got shot. It was some drunk who wouldn't have hit me if he tried. I didn't worry about it. We didn't pay much attention to callers like that because they would say all kinds of crazy things."

The shooter never showed up, and in the meantime, Lopes got married and had four children. She has a quiet humility about the role she played in the war effort, although, she is glad she was able to contribute. "I would do it again in a minute if I had to."

Luella Dow is a Cheney-area author, and can be reached at [email protected]. Lea Simpson is a local freelance writer assisting Dow.