“I think I felt lost for a while,” she said. “I didn’t know that I was going to come back. And then I came back.”
“I came back as Betty, and I’ve been able to work as Betty ever since,” she continued. “I was defined by myself and that was really something.”
Reid Soskin said working for the park service “was probably the best thing I ever did. I felt as if I were meant to be here, and I was doing exactly as I was intended to do.”
West Contra Costa Unified School District Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said she had the opportunity to see Reid Soskin at work as a park ranger when she and her son visited the Rosie the Riveter park as part of a school group.
“I can’t imagine how many lives she’s touched and really inspired,” Cotton said. “I think that the world needs to know that great things come from Richmond. Great things come from our communities — and she is one of the greatest.”
But it’s Reid Soskin’s music and songwriting that inspires eighth grader Farahzareh Parvar, who plays the flute.
“I do music myself, and I think I just look up to her,” Parvar said. Reid Soskin used her music to reflect on her life and her generation’s fight for civil liberties, but kept her songs private for nearly a half-century.
Reid Soskin said if today’s students take anything from her life’s story, it’s to keep pushing themselves and others forward.
“I hope that they continue to ask questions, and that they never settle for the answers,” she said.
