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The Rest of the Story Story Mary Doyle Keefe retired to a quiet life in Nashua, New Hampshire. But when things get too quiet, she reminisces aloud for anybody who might want to listen about the good old days, two of them in particular. Mary was 19. Our nation was in the throes of a second world war. Mary did her part on the home front, and she was doing her part when renowned photographer Gene Pelham picked her out of the female wartime workforce. And in effect, he said, I'm going to make you a star. Specifically, Mr. Pelham wanted to photograph Mary for a magazine cover. The sitting would require. One morning he would pay her $5. Mary said, okay, well, the sitting took place in an old barn which had been converted into a high ceiling studio. Mary posed for hours surrounded by the relentless click of the camera shutter. And then she went home. Later there was a phone call. It was Pelham saying he needed another sitting. A blue shirt this time, he requested. And penny loafers. $5. $5. So Mary returned to the barn studio for a second sitting and artistic history was made for Gene. Pelham was the photographer associate of an artist, you know, a storyteller with a paintbrush who, during his 47 year association with the Saturday Evening Post, was to create 317 cover portraits for that magazine. He, of course, was Norman Rockwell. During World War II, Rockwell's paintings portrayed Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, reproduced as posters, which were then widely distributed by the United States government. And when the original Four Freedoms paintings toured the country to promote war bond sales, a fifth painting toured with them. The Portrait of Mary, painted from Pelham's photographs in the spring of 1943, whose title has echoed through each generation since. Rosie the Riveter. That's right, that's Mary Brawny, symbol of the millions of American women who stepped into the rugged factory jobs vacated by departing soldiers and who thereby drove our nation's economy through some of the world's darkest hours. The portrait Rosie the Riveter, an icon of female empowerment. Even still, May 2002, when auctioned at Sotheby's, brought $4.9 million. An auction record for a Rockwell. But now, whenever you think of that, I want you to think of this. That artist Norman Rockwell, studying Pelham's photographs of Mary, realized that his subject, a slender hundred and ten pound beauty, must, in order to convey his theme, must be painted larger than life. And that's when the immortal Norman Rockwell sought to collaborate with another immortal, finally painting Mary's face on the body of Michelangelo's muscular Isaiah. Really, those are Isaiah's bulging biceps straight from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, intruding on Rosie's oppose. For you see, Mary Doyle Keefe, the original Rosie was never a riveter. She had a no less important wartime job, yet one for which Isaiah's guns were optional. Oh yes, I do mean to say that the now legendary American Amazon, Rosie the Riveter in her real life was Mary the telephone operator. And now you know the rest of the story.