This week: a munitions worker who inspired a wartime icon, a jazz musician forced to play the guitar in Auschwitz, and a rugby legend
THE wartime munitions worker Naomi Parker Fraley, who has died aged 96, was the woman who inspired Rosie, the factory worker in the We Can Do It poster of the 1940s that later became an icon of 20th century feminism.
Fraley’s role in the story was unknown for at least seven decades. Other women had been identified as the inspiration for the poster, which shows a woman in a headscarf bearing her muscular arm, but Fraley had the most legitimate claim of all.
Her connection to Rosie first emerged in 2016 following research by the historian James J Kimble. Mr Kimble’s research narrowed the search to Fraley, who had worked in a Navy machine shop during the Second World War.
The poster featuring Fraley first appeared in 1943, and was aimed at deterring absenteeism in factories. It re-emerged in the 1980s and quickly became a feminist icon and featured on T-shirts, mugs and all manner of memorabilia.
The third of eight children of Joseph Parker, a mining engineer, Naomi Fern Parker was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but moved around while Joseph looked for work. When war broke out, Naomi went to work at the Naval Air Station in Alameda and was assigned to the machine shop. It was there that a photographer took a picture of her at her lathe, her hair tied in a bandanna for safety.
In response to the press attention, Fraley said she was happy to be an icon. “The women of this country these days need some icons,” she said.
THE musician Heinz Jakob “Coco” Schumann, who has died aged 93, was a jazz guitarist who survived Nazi concentration camps to return to his musical career in Berlin after the Second World War.
Schumann made a name for himself as a young musician in Berlin’s underground jazz scene in the 1930s. He was arrested in 1943 after the authorities learned his mother was Jewish, and deported to the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. There, he played in a band known as the Ghetto Swingers before being transferred to Auschwitz in 1944, where he played music to entertain guards.
After the war he emigrated to Australia, before returning to Berlin in the 1950s and re-establishing his career.
THE sportsman Ken Catchpole, who has died aged 78, was a celebrated rugby player who played 27 test matches for Australia and was a member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame. He also captained Australia in 13 tests.
Known for his pace, Catchpole came through the ranks in Sydney and was picked as captain for his Wallabies debut in 1961when he was 21 years old. He formed a halves combination with five-eighth Phil Hawthorne that was acknowledged as one of the best in the world at the time.
After his playing career ended in 1968 following an injury, Catchpole was honoured with a statue outside Sydney Football Stadium.
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