Betty Reid Soskin, oldest National Park Service ranger, dies at 104

Soskin was the nation’s oldest park ranger and retired in 2022.

Betty Reid Soskin, an iconic former National Park Service ranger, has died, according to her family on Sunday. She was 104.

Soskin’s family told NBC Bay Area she passed peacefully at her home in Richmond on Sunday morning.

“This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Betty Reid Soskin, passed away peacefully at her home in Richmond, CA at 104 years old. She was attended by family. She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave,” the family wrote.

Soskin was the nation’s oldest park ranger. She became a permanent NPS employee in 2011. She worked on a park service grant to tell yet untold stories of Black Americans who worked in the U.S. during the war, leading to a temporary job with the park service when she was 84 years old.

She retired in 2022 and was a long-time docent at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park museum.

Her family said those who would like to express their love and respect for Soskin can do so by sending donations to the Betty Reid Soskin Middle School and to support the finishing of her film Sign My Name to Freedom.