{"id":67136,"date":"2016-07-20T02:04:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T08:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-attack-our-oldest-park-ranger-is-back-at-work\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T08:04:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T08:04:57","slug":"after-attack-our-oldest-park-ranger-is-back-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-attack-our-oldest-park-ranger-is-back-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"After attack, our oldest park ranger is back at work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Betty
Betty Reid Soskin and general superintendent Tom Leatherman speak to reporters at Rosie the Riveter\/World War II Home Front National Historical Park.<\/span>Kathleen Richards\/High Country News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Healed but still bearing \u201cbruises internally\u201d two weeks after she was beaten and robbed at her condominium in Richmond, California, Betty Reid Soskin, the country\u2019s oldest park ranger at 94, returned to work at Rosie the Riveter\/WWII Home Front National Historical Park on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience took something away from me, and I\u2019m still trying to measure that,\u201d Soskin said, addressing a roomful of reporters, park ranger and supporters during a press conference at the national park unit. \u201cI don\u2019t know what that is except that something\u2019s missing now and something that can be replaced by getting back to my routine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soskin said there was never a question about whether she would return to work. In fact, she had to be convinced not to return sooner, according to Tom Leatherman, a general superintendent for the National Park Service and Soskin\u2019s boss. \u201cI had to put some pressure on her to not come back as soon as she did,\u201d Leatherman said in an interview following the press conference. \u201cShe wanted to come back last week, and I just wanted her to have a little bit more time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few would have blamed her for wanting to do so. On June 27, an intruder broke into Soskin\u2019s bedroom while she was asleep in bed. According to previous news reports, the man wrestled away her cellphone and began punching her, dragging her out of her bedroom and across her apartment, where he continued assaulting her. Soskin was able to get away from her attacker by grabbing his genitals and locked herself in her bathroom, where she heated up an iron to the \u201clinen\u201d setting and prepared to brand him as a mark for police. Meanwhile, the attacker rifled through her belongings and escaped with a bag of coins, jewelry, hand-painted Korean fans, a computer, laptop, camera, iPad, and cellphone. Most distressing was the loss of a commemorative coin that President Obama had given her last December during a tree-lighting ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to realize though that the coin had very little value actually except to anyone but me,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the experience of having had the president press it into my palm in secret is an experience that I treasure, and that is what was intrinsic to that coin.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Obama has promised to give Soskin a new coin, although she hasn\u2019t yet received it.<\/p>\n

In response to the attack, the Rosie the Riveter Trust established The Betty Fund, whose proceeds will go, as requested by Soskin, toward completing a documentary about her life and impact.<\/p>\n

Soskin became a ranger just 10 years ago. She had worked as a file clerk for an all-black union auxiliary during World War II, and about 16 years ago got involved in the planning process of the Rosie the Riveter\/WWII Home Front National Historic Park while serving as a field representative for former California State Assemblywomen Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock. These days, Soskin gives presentations three days a week at the visitor\u2019s center, speaking about her experiences growing up in a racially segregated America, her time working as a clerk in a Jim Crow-segregated union hall (\u201cThat was a period of pain,\u201d she said), and her path to becoming an interpretive ranger.<\/p>\n

Richard Brabham, a 72-year-old Richmond resident, was one of the dozens of people who came to hear Soskin speak on her first day back on the job. \u201cShe\u2019s a legendary figure in Richmond,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to be sure and see her back on her first day back and welcome her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soskin said she was grateful for the outpouring of support she\u2019s received from the community, both locally and online, and that she \u201chadn\u2019t realized how strong that was, how powerful even virtual support can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Soskin says she still has difficulty sleeping with the lights off, she said vanity \u2014 not fear \u2014 mostly was to blame for her decision to stay home for almost eight days following the attack. \u201cI was living in dread of seeing someone showing me with a couple of black eyes on YouTube,\u201d she said. \u201cI was almost obsessive about not wanting to look like a victim, because I didn\u2019t feel like a victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed. One of her fellow park rangers gave her a mug bearing the words \u201cIron Woman\u201d \u2014 words that can be interpreted in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an adventure,\u201d she told reporters about the home invasion robbery. \u201cOne that one doesn\u2019t wish to ever have, but it\u2019s over now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soskin, 94, was beaten and robbed two weeks ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[585,120,21,13,1982],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-67136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-assault-general","tag-colorado","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-parks"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67136"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=67136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}