At 104 years of age, Betty Reid Soskin has become a reference for many workers who love their jobs and find it difficult to leave to collect their retirement pension. His work life is full of anecdotes, among which his profession as a forest ranger stands out, which he accepted at the age of 85, as he points out in an interview for Guardian where, yes, he did not want to put figures to the amount he charges for his American Social Security pension (social security).
When she turned 100, she left her job to rest at her daughter’s house, where she helps her to the best of her ability and where she never misses a single news item. She is passionate about politics and has gotten to know former President Barack Obama. She never led a quiet life, she was an activist and composer of protest songs, but it was in the late 80s when she decided that things had to change.
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“That was the moment when I started to live, I stopped becoming something and I just became, I knew who I really was.” And this was when he had just turned 60 years old.
He was born in 1921 in New Orleans, and when the floods of 1927 occurred they moved to California. Her great-grandmother was a slave in 1846 and died at the age of 102. “I didn’t know how to understand who she was, I think I have been many Bettys, but I realized it late, I didn’t understand myself until I was old.”
She opened her own record store and worked as an administrator
Betty has the responsibility of being a reference for thousands of young people or seniors who are working or actively seeking employment. Before becoming the oldest forest ranger in the country, she held several positions. In 1945, with her husband, she opened the first music store specializing in African-American records.
It was then that he learned to play the guitar and composed his own songs, reaching out to Pete Seeger, who was a mentor to Bob Dylan. The money he got was allocated to a project for the Black Panthers (a political association founded in Oakland that helped protect the African-American community).
Later, she got a job as an administrator and immersed herself in movements against racial inequality. At the end of the 80s he took a radical turn in his life, when he wanted to know who he was.
He got a job at age 85, within the National Park Service
At the age of 85, he got a job in the National Park Service, collaborating in the creation of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park, a space in which the role of African-American workers in World War II was explained.
In 2013, the federal government left 800,000 people temporarily unemployed and this forest ranger (who was 92 years old at the time) was protesting because she was unemployed. “I had a lot of work pending,” he explained in an interview for the documentary ‘No Time to Waste’. She took the opportunity to write her biography and President Obama himself congratulated her in person, and told her that she was “a source of inspiration.”
In 2021 he decided to retire, upon turning 100, and with a laugh he highlighted that “my work has been a revolution financed by the Government.” Despite her age, now that she is retired from the labor market, she follows current political events with concern.
“During the 50s and 60s we were always moving forward, I would like to say the same now, but that’s not the case. I’m very afraid of leaving the world in this state.” And when he starts to remember, he assures that “I see everything dim, the years mix in my head, it happened a long time ago but it is as if it had been yesterday.”
“Old age is a gift, I don’t know where it takes me”
Betty has since left activism and rejects the idea of being labeled a feminist. “I don’t like it, I’m a person, nothing more.” And although he remembers his moments of glory on stage, he points out that “now I sing in my dreams, I have not forgotten a single line of my songs.”
Regarding age, give some advice. “Longevity is a gift, I don’t know where it takes me, or how much I have left. I just know that I keep going.”