CANEBRAKE, Calif. (KERO) — In the Kern River Valley, there is a World War II Navy veteran who is surrounded by memories spanning three centuries. Her name is Rose-Marie Friend and she celebrated her 100th birthday on Mon, Feb 20.
Rose-Marie Friend was born to her family in St. Cloud, MN in 1923. However, Friend also came from another family: the United States Navy.
"My father was in the Navy and my brother was in the Navy," explained Friend. "In fact, my dad had been in the Navy twice. He was in the Navy when he was young and then enlisted again in World War II."
With her father and younger brother both serving, Friend enlisted as well.
"I had taken shorthand and bookkeeping in high school, so when I went boot camp, they sent me directly from boot camp to Yeoman's School in Iowa," she said.
Friend worked in the Property Transportation Office, organizing shipments of supplies all over the U.S. and even the islands.
"One time we got a call to send a shipload of sand to Iwo Jima and we were laughing. 'What on earth are they going to do with all that sand?' Someone said they'll put it in their spinach and that always stuck in my head," Friend said.
Friend and her husband, Cliff, had three boys, all Navy men, and two daughters. All children were raised in a military household.
"Some of this old Navy stuff must have worn off on me because when I hang up a towel, it has to be just so," explained Friend. "When you were in boot camp, you had to have everything laid out just so or you got demoted."
Friend's son, Roger, accompanied her on the 18th Honor Flight in September 2015.
"It was great to see all the monuments and see Washington," she said.
Friend also had the opportunity to sit in current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's chair.
"Yeah, he was stuck in a little corner of an office, and they said 'if you want to sit in his chair, we'll take a picture of you.' So I sat there. Little did I know."
Congressman McCarthy has a bigger office now, but you can still find Friend in her modest home, tucked away in the town of Canebrake, just east of Onyx in the Kern River Valley.
