Until a few years ago, Peggy Cook had never really thought much about her role in helping further women's rights.

She's one of millions of U.S. women who began work in industrial and trade jobs during World War II - a Rosie the Riveter who helped change the way women - and men - think about traditional women's roles.

"I think I've always worked but just didn't realize it was unusual," said Cook, who turns 83 this month.

Born in 1924, Cook comes from modest beginnings, growing up on "a shack" near the Cowlitz River in southwest Washington. She remembers rafting logs down the river and beating the local boys at log rolling contests.

During the war, she joined an all-female crew making anti-submarine nets near her hometown of Port Townsend. Later, she started her own house painting business, which she ran jointly with her son until retiring.

After being nominated and winning an award as 2002's "Pioneer Tradeswoman of the Year," and then again as "Pioneer Tradeswoman of the Century," Cook became director of the state chapter of the American Rosie the Riveter Association.

"I never knew I was old until then!" she declared.

Cook's accomplishments are also honored along with 12 other local "Rosie's" in a 2008 calendar produced by Washington Women in Trades, an organization that aims to educate and promote access for women in skilled trades.

It was meeting the other Rosie's and listening to their life stories that opened Cook's eyes to the paths she and others helped pave for future young women. It became a "full circle of gratitude," she said.

"What a revelation is was for me to meet all those women," said Cook, who is December's Rosie. "If we are fortunate to live through the mishaps and things that leave us broken, we begin to admire people who have survived those same things."

Based on an actual person, Rose Will Monroe, a Ford employee who built B-24 and B-29 bombers in Michigan, Rosie the Riveter became an American icon.

Rose's persona was captured in war bond promotional films and was the inspiration for the famous Rosie the Riveter poster by J. Howard Miller. The U.S. government used the films and posters she appeared in as propaganda to encourage women to go to work in support of the war.

Her hair tied up neatly in a red polka dotted bandana, with proud piercing eyes and a flexed muscle, the infamous caption reads "We can do it!"

The work that was done by the women of that era wasn't meant to make any feminist statement, though that's what it is widely portrayed as today.

Cook said the women did what they had to for the sake of their families. The significance of it just wasn't discussed, and mostly, it wasn't even recognized among the women or men.

"We were just doing what we were supposed to be doing," Cook said. "We worked to survive. And now we work to acquire."

West Seattle resident and Herald columnist Georgie Kunkel worked summers during the war drilling holes in wing panels of B-17 bombers in Chehalis, her hometown. She taught school most of the year.

Having grown up with just her mother, she had gained an independence many of the other women didn't possess. She didn't understand most of the Rosie's, many who were still very much the traditional women of that time, primping and poising their bandanas before setting to work.

"They were women," Kunkel said. "They were traditional women no matter what they were doing."

Kunkel dislikes some of the popular depictions of Rosie, which she said downgrade what the women actually did for the country - and for themselves.

"Rosie's were made fun of in a way..." she said.

"I am the month of August in the 2008 Rosie Calendar," she said. "August is my birthday and August is also the month that the war was over in 1945. I was a teacher . . . so I simply returned to my profession."

Norman Rockwell's famous painting of a brawny Rosie in a blue blouse and penny loafers perched on a stool eating a sandwich, a pneumatic riveter on her lap, ran on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. To Kunkel, it portrayed Rosie's as "monsters," rather than ladies, essentially instilling the message that to do a man's job the women must be "manly."

She remembered that when the war ended, a man's voice boomed over the loudspeaker where she was working and said, "The war is over you can all go home."

"They were just thrown back and nobody cared for a long time," said Kunkel. "The Rosie's are so mild about the honor they deserve."

Cindy Payne, a member of the Women in Trades organization who helped design and promote the calendar, said the hope is that the legacy of Rosie will not be forgotten through the women's stories and that young girls will be motivated to not fear breaking traditional barriers.

"Every time you talk to one of these women you're inspired," said Payne. "This is a tribute to these women. That's what it's really, really about."

The photographs, by Robin Murphy, are in black and white.

"We thought that was more powerful...it spoke to the theme," said Payne.

Then and now pictures accompany a short bio of each Rosie. Milestones in women's rights and accomplishments of successful women are also noted on the calendar.

Cook, a fist in the air to mimic Rosie's historic pose in the calendar, is as spunky as she must have been in her element as a young woman balancing on logs.

She hasn't lost her excitement for life and said she always tries to get the most out of it and the people in it-even complete strangers. Since moving to Green Lake from West Seattle a few years ago, her weekly walks are filled with unexpected conversations, as she often stops by coffee shops to chat with whoever is reading a book with a title that catches her eye.

Those meetings are later used to fuel another love of hers, poetry.

"I love talking to people and I love their stories," Cook said. "It's just fun to be alive. It really is. I enjoy every minute of it."

The "Strength, Grace, Courage" calendar is $25 and can be purchased online at wa.womenintrades.com, Liberty Bell Printing or Capers. Other locations can be found on the Web site.

All proceeds go to Washington Women in Trades, a volunteer organization that was started in 1978 to support women working in non-traditional jobs.

Rebekah Schilperoort may be reached at 782.1244 or rebekahs@robinsonnews.com