Betty Reid Soskin, an iconic former National Park Service ranger, died Sunday, according to her family. She was 104.
Soskin’s family said she died peacefully at her home in Richmond on Sunday morning.
“This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Betty Reid Soskin, passed away peacefully at her home in Richmond, CA at 104 years old. She was attended by family. She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave,” the family wrote.
Soskin was the nation’s oldest park ranger. She became a permanent NPS employee in 2011. She worked on a park service grant to tell yet untold stories of Black Americans who worked in the U.S. during the war, leading to a temporary job with the park service when she was 84 years old.
She retired in 2022 and was a long-time docent at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park museum.
