Spotlight on Sierra Madre Volunteers 

Spotlight on Sierra Madre Volunteers is a weekly column that spotlights the people who donate their time to help keep their city ticking.  Check each week to see which of the folks you work side by side with is being recognized in the latest edition.  Click the photo to enlarge it.

Back to Sierra Madre Volunteers Main Page

Rose Fafach -- Rosie the Riveter

Sierra Madreans probably aren't aware that there's a real Rosie the Riveter living here. Rose Fafach actually helped build B-17 bombers during World War II. During that war several decades ago, males were inducted into the Armed Forces, leaving traditional male jobs vacant. Therefore, for the first time women moved into those jobs out of necessity.

Rose Fafach was one of those women and, interestingly enough, with the name of Rose, she could have been the model for Rosie the Riveter. There was even a popular song in the 1940s named "Rosie, the Riveter."

The former Michigan native was married in 1950 to Delchi Fafach and the family with three children moved to Sierra Madre in 1959. Rose's husband was a pizza maker and soon became a partner in Roma Gardens on Green Street in Pasadena.

Rose always worked, ultimately as a tie cutter at a business in Sierra Madre, and when the business moved to Monrovia, she continued. Then her husband became food service manager at Ramona Convent. All this time Rose continued working.

After her husband's death in 1986, the Sierra Madre woman joined the workforce at Penrod's Nursery School and stayed there until her retirement 10 years later.

Did she stop working then? No. She had been volunteering with the Senior Club in Sierra Madre and just continued, answering the phone at the desk, actually replacing two paid city employees. She served on the Commission on Aging, Inc. for four years. Then worked with Karl Teigler (who was Senior Club chairman at the time) to offer bus excursions which became -- and still are --  extremely popular.

Rose was voted Sierra Madre's "Older American of the Year" in 1996 and became Senior Club president. During her tenure she started the popular 50/50 drawing.

And what has Rose done lately? She helps with the blood pressure clinic at the Senior Center and is now in charge of Bingo every Tuesday and Saturday. She's tickled to report that some days there are as many as twenty participating in Center Bingo activities.

"They know me," she says of those who come to the Senior Center. "Its nice to be able to help people...And it keeps me out of trouble."

Rose has seven grandchildren and is also a great-grandmother.