FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — Lucille “Cille” MacDonald, who this spring was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for “Rosie the Riveter” work during World War II, died Friday in Valley Island, Maui. She was 98. MacDonald, a longtime Maui resident who narrowly escaped the Lahaina wildfire last year, was a shipyard welder during the war, according to Pacific Historic Parks, which announced her death in a news release Monday. MacDonald was one of 27 Rosies who attended an April ceremony in Washington, D.C., where they received the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of the millions of women who labored in the war effort on the home front. The medal is the highest honor Congress can bestow on civilians. “Rosie the Riveter” was the moniker given to the legion of women who entered the workforce during World War II as the nation’s men went off to serve in the armed forces. About 5 million civilian women toiled in the defense industry and war-related sectors during the four-year war, according to the Defense Department. Another roughly 350,000 American women served in uniform in non-combat roles in organizations such as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and Army and Navy nurse corps.
MacDonald, just three weeks shy of her 99th birthday, attended the last two commemorations of the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Oahu held each year at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. “I am so heartbroken,” Dodo Dunaj, a longtime friend who attended the Pearl Harbor events with MacDonald, said in the news release. “Cille was the most incredibly inspiring and strongest woman I’ve ever known,” Dunaj said. “I will treasure our memories made together, her unbelievable stories, and the Rosie journey that I was so blessed to be a part of with her. She is a true American icon, my forever hero.” Aileen Utterdyke, president of Pacific Historic Parks, described her in the release as “diminutive, tough, spunky and beloved, an ambassador of all the Rosies who had a key role in helping win World War II.” MacDonald was born Dec. 9, 1925, in Greenville, S.C., one of nine children. She grew up on a farm picking cotton, according to Pacific Parks. After the United States declared war on Germany and Japan after the Dec. 7 attack, the 16-year-old MacDonald boarded a Greyhound bus for the first time and headed south to a shipyard she had heard was hiring, MacDonald said in an oral history posted to Pacific Historic Park’s YouTube page earlier this year.
J.A. Jones Construction in Brunswick, Ga., sent her to school for a few days, after which she began work as a ship welder. “One ship a week, one ship a week,” MacDonald recalled of the shipyard’s output. They wore knee-high, steel-toed boots and blue coveralls, she said. “We worked double shifts, seven days a week,” she said. “Not a minute to have a life other than welding.” MacDonald said she laid down flawless welding beads, striking enough that she was chosen to provide finishing touches to each ship after they moved to the wet dock.
“I was a champion welder, but now I’m a Rosie the Riveter,” she said, adding with a laugh, “How’d I get to be a riveter?” Over the past half-century living on Maui she was sometimes dubbed “honorary mayor” for her effort to build school playgrounds and help in financing construction of a fire station in Napili, according to the news release. She and her late husband built a waterfront home in Lahaina, which, along with thousands of others, was wiped out by wildfire on Aug. 8, 2023. A neighbor helped her escape the inferno, and she spent several nights sleeping in the bed of the neighbor’s truck, the release said.
By WYATT OLSON STARS AND STRIPES