Roberta Rawson Cato Reid "Bobbie" by Annette Reid Crump

Roberta Rawson Cato Reid 

"Bobbie" 

March 3, 2017

by Annette Reid Crump

I wanted to tell you all a little bit more about my mom.  (There are so many things, but I'll pick a few) To me, she was the first feminist I ever knew. If women hadn't been given the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment 11 months before my mother was born, I'm pretty sure she would have pushed it through herself. She was the oldest of 4 children, her father hoping for a boy, he named her Roberta instead of Robert after him.  She went hunting with her father, and she kept a hunting rifle in our house. She wanted to be an architect although college was out of reach. She was a musician, learning violin and piano in high school, and she added string bass to that collection when I was little. She was a city girl, growing up in Detroit, and held several jobs in the city of Detroit. 

At the age of 21, my mom enlisted in the WAAC soon after its inception in 1942 to aid the WWII effort. In 1943 it became WAC. She liked the new uniforms better. Take a moment and think what it was like to be the first American women ever (outside of nurses) to serve in the army. Society wasn't ready. Servicemen weren't particularly thrilled by it. Her sisters didn't enlist. But she joined the ranks of 150,000 brave American women who faced opposition and forged a new path. She earned the rank of sergeant. She served until the war ended in 1945, and returned to civilian life. A few years ago my sister and I took our mom to Washington DC to visit the Women in Military Service Memorial which was really special. And yesterday the military honored her at her burial with the color guard and a 21 gun salute.

Mom dated an air force pilot in the service and he taught her how to fly. She jointly owned a plane with other ex-service members after the war in Detroit and she flew up and down the state of Michigan. We still have her flight logs.

When she finally met my dad, they married and started a family and she gave up flying.

She ran our household. She was an accomplished home decorator. We moved to Cleveland when I was three and she finally got to design a house for us. I always felt sad for her that my dad changed jobs before we could move into her creation, and we came back to Newark.

She supported my dad's love of theatre and performed just about every backstage job there was, from sewing costumes to doing props and holding book and running the box office and playing in the orchestra. 

It seemed she could do anything she wanted. She was all about the family but she was very strong and independent. And she made me feel like I could do anything too. She taught me how to stand up for myself. And she nudged me out of the nest and taught me how to fly solo. She was always there for guidance and advice, or to provide a listening ear and understanding.

When she was turning 85, not long after my dad passed, I asked her what she still wanted to do that she hadn't yet done. She said she wanted to fly in a helicopter. She came to visit us in LA the following year and we surprised her with a charter helicopter tour of Los Angeles. We got to the Van Nuys airport and met our pilot. While we waited for refueling my mom and the pilot got to talking about flying, what kinds of planes, comparing notes and such. Turns out he was also an instructor and he asked my mom to sit up front with him, in the student pilot seat. The plane had dual controls. Chris and I sat in the back. 

We took off and headed toward the Pacific coastline and once we got over the Santa Monica mountains the pilot let my mom take the controls and he coached her while she flew most of the way to Malibu. She wasn't afraid even though she hadn't flown for decades. She was thrilled. He took over before we got to the coast but he continued the tour especially for her, and our hour turned into 90 minutes because the two of them were having so much fun. At 86. She smiled ear to ear for days. 

Most folks don't get to keep their mother on earth as long as we did. There were times we thought she would outlive us all.  But as I now have a chance to reflect back on a life well-lived, I also see all the many ways she shaped me. We were truly blessed.