More than eight decades after riveting B-29 bombers in Wichita, Connie Palacioz’s legacy still echoes in the skies—and in the spirit of a generation.
Connie Palacioz has always been a hard worker. At age 15, she was working her first job pressing uniforms in Newton for 25 cents an hour. So a few years later, when she heard on the radio that Boeing was hiring women for more than she was currently earning, Palacioz applied.
What began as a practical decision eventually cemented her legacy. One of America’s original “Rosie the Riveters,” Palacioz, now 101 years old, helped build B-29 Superfortress bombers at the Boeing Wichita plant during World War II. She is celebrated not only as a Kansas treasure but also a national one.
Justin Lister
Becoming a Rosie
During World War II, more than 6 million women entered the workforce to replace the men who reported for military duty. Today, there are about two dozen “Rosies” still living, according to a New York Post article from April 17, 2024. These women were honored with Congressional Gold Medals—the highest civilian honor given by Congress.
The Boeing radio and newspaper advertisements first caught Palacioz’s attention when she was just 18 years old.
“Boeing needed employees, especially riveters,” Palacioz says. Each workday, she took a bus from Newton to the Orpheum Theatre in Wichita. From there, she would walk to the Broadview Hotel, which is now the Drury Plaza Hotel. “They had instructors that would teach you how to rivet, how to drill—everything,” she adds.
For the first two weeks, Palacioz took these training courses and was paid 50 cents an hour. When she completed the courses, she began work as an official Boeing riveter, which paid 75 cents an hour. Every day, she commuted by bus with 35 other Boeing employees to work 10-hour shifts.
“I was kind of disappointed on the first day that I went to Boeing because I didn’t get to rivet. They had me take rivets from the cages. I would go get the size of rivets that people wanted and hand them to them. And that’s all I did on the first day,” Palacioz says. “On the third day, my boss told me that he had a bucker.”
For every successful riveter, there is a bucker—these two would work as a team. The riveter would press a special gun against an inserted rivet, while at the same time, the bucker would hold a heavy “bucking” bar against the opposite end. The pressure from the gun would smash the rivet flat against the bar, locking it into place.
However, no one wanted to work with this particular bucker.
“They had her cleaning bathrooms,” Palacioz explains. “I asked, ‘Why don’t they want to work with her? I’ll work with her!’ But he told me that they didn’t want to work with her because she was Black.”
Palacioz, the daughter of Mexican immigrants—her father was from Monterrey and her mother from Guadalajara—was no stranger to prejudice and racial discrimination. “I said I didn’t mind working with her … I’m a minority, too,” she says.
The bucker’s name was Jerri Warden.
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“She looked at me and said, ‘Are you sure you want to work with me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I came to work. I didn’t come here to be giving other people rivets.’ She said ‘OK.’ And you know what? She was the best bucker … we really became a team.”
Both Palacioz and Warden had to get creative with their problem-solving when applying rivets to a plane’s pilot section, also known as the nose. This cramped space was often the hardest area to rivet because of its odd shape. One of the most difficult tasks, Palacioz says, was positioning the bucking bar. Warden would draw pictures that showed how the bars needed to be angled for each tight spot.
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” Palacioz says.
Together, the two women riveted 1,644 pilot sections of the B-29s at Boeing’s Wichita plant, with their work consistently passing inspection.
“They were passing four pilot sections a day because the Air Force wanted those planes,” Palacioz says. “We had to get them out.”
Of course, there were times when both Palacioz and Warden faced discrimination, mostly from male co-workers who did things they could never get away with in a modern workplace.
For example, their work involved using green clay between the planes’ metal skins. “[Some men] would make figures [out of the clay] and throw them at me,” she says. “One made a breast—like a woman’s breast. I just threw it right back at him. That made me so mad.”
Restoring Doc
In 1987, a B-29 Superfortress nicknamed “Doc” was found at the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California—a boneyard where old aircraft are left to decay. Doc had sat untouched in the Mojave Desert for 42 years.
In 2000, an effort began to restore Doc to flying condition. He was hauled back to Wichita in sections on flatbed trailers.
When Palacioz heard about the restoration project, she volunteered to help. She was surprised to learn that she and Doc were actually old friends. She and Warden had installed the rivets in this plane’s pilot section.
“The rivets are still the originals that I put in. … Only seven were missing,” she says. Remarkably, Doc remained in good condition despite spending four decades in China Lake—a site where old planes were used for target practice. Doc was fully restored in 16 years.
“I worked really hard to clean it,” Palacioz remembers. “It was out there so long in the desert. … Pigeons had gotten in, and it was really dirty, nasty and messy. I spent three months in coveralls and goggles cleaning it.”
Since its restoration, Palacioz has frequently joined the crew to show off the plane and help raise money for Doc’s Friends, a nonprofit that manages the fully restored aircraft. A 2017 video from the Wichita Eagle shows Palacioz seated and ready to take her first ride in Doc. In the video, she makes the sign of the cross and prays for a safe ride.
Palacioz’s daughter, Leticia Nielsen, is undeniably proud of her.
“She’s met thousands of people and signed thousands of autographs. People have really embraced her and her story … that’s what America is all about,” Nielsen says. “Doc is family to my mom and to all of the volunteers, who are all dedicated retired employees from Boeing.”
Justin Lister
After the War
After the war ended in 1945, Palacioz married. Her husband attended Emporia State University using the GI Bill, which provides educational benefits for returning veterans. But while living in Emporia, she faced discrimination from a neighbor who asked if she was a war bride.
“I told the woman I was a Kansan. She said I had an accent. I told her that was because I learned my Spanish first but that I was born in Peabody. She started a petition to throw us out,” Palacioz says. “The dean of the college told her that if they had to get rid of the Palaciozes, then all the GIs must go.”
Eventually, the petition was dropped.
Palacioz later divorced and, as a single mother, raised her three sons, a foster son, and a daughter. She supported her family by working as a hairdresser.
Although she lost contact with Warden, she never fails to mention their friendship in any presentation she makes about being a “Rosie.”
“My mom taught me to respect everybody,” Nielsen says. “That’s one aspect Mom has carried through life. Even now, as we travel to all these air shows and meet all different kinds of people. ... We’ve been really blessed with her life and that she’s able to be with us and is still of sound mind and pretty good health. The only thing is her hearing. Every once in a while, I have to repeat something.”
In recent years, Palacioz has been recognized both at home and abroad for her contributions at Boeing. In 2022, Palacioz was inducted as the inaugural member of the Women in Aviation – Kansas Women’s Hall of Fame. Last year, she was one of 150 veterans flown by American Airlines to Normandy, France, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
“Every night, when we’ve gone to bed, she talks about those volunteers who did not live to see [Doc] fly,” Nielsen says. “That’s how unselfish my mom is.”
Reflecting on her time as a “Rosie,” Palacioz simply says, “I’m glad I could do it.”
The Battle Over Kansas
During World War II, cities such as Wichita transformed almost overnight into major manufacturing centers. The B-29s that Connie Palacioz helped build were designed to fly faster, climb higher, and carry a heavier payload than any previous bomber. The challenge, though, was to get these planes combat-ready for the Pacific theater as quickly as possible.
The U.S. Army Air Forces ordered 250 B-29s on September 6, 1941—months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, the planes could not be built in Wichita until Boeing’s new factory was completed in January 1943.
Fulfilling this order required an army of workers recruited from across Kansas and neighboring states. New air bases were also being constructed throughout Kansas as the state emerged as a major training center for pilots and their crews.
Eventually, the army ordered more B-29 Superfortress bombers. This enormous, seemingly impossible effort to build, modify, train and deliver thousands of bombers for Europe and the Pacific became known as the “Battle Over Kansas.” At the peak of this effort, 45 percent of Boeing’s 29,000 employees were women, according to Doc’s Friends, the B-29 restoration organization’s website.
