Burton woman reflects on star-studded career
Trending
BURTON -- In 1955, Rosa Herst, a fresh graduate of Burton High School, along with her family, were upended out of the small Geauga County village and forced to move across the United States to California because of problems with her father's health.
"My dad was sick. The doctor said if he didn't go, he probably would die, maybe within the next year," Herst said. "He had a breathing problem, so we all went to California."
For Herst, 85, her family's move to California signaled the beginning of a journey that would see her reach heights within manufacturing companies North American Aviation and Rockwell International and help her country reach the highest of heights in the realm of space travel.
Leading up to this year's Thanksgiving holiday, Herst looked back on her time working with spacecrafts with immense gratitude. She expressed thankfulness for the events that followed her time in California, as well.
She said she started as an assembler with NAA, which eventually was bought out by Rockwell. She worked through various engineering positions for the manufacturing firms, helping to create electrical engineered products that went into NASA's Apollo Command and Service Module and the Space Shuttle orbiter.
"With the spacecraft, I came in on the ground floor, working in Downey, California," Herst said. "At that time it was the Apollo Spacecraft. We had a vertical building that they would take it up and it would go through the shake test and everything like that. But, before that, we had to create all the things that went inside the Apollo."
Herst said that she, along with the other assemblers, spent their days working through product concepts to create the devices that went inside the spacecraft.
"We had to create the kind of (electrical) harnessing that was put inside the spaceship itself, then you had the metal framework that had to do with each section that had to plug together and work together," Herst said. "Then the whole bottom of the Apollo was made out of hook-and-eye material, and when they would walk in it, they would have shoes that would hook into the carpet that was on the floors."
Herst said she helped with the planning and creation of the electrical boxes on the Apollo spacecraft.
"It had about 10 or 12 different things in there," she said. "Relays, transformers, boards and stuff like that.
"That particular box went on the Apollo to help adjust its pitch and yaw and going sideways and stuff like that on the outside of the ship," Herst said. "Then it had to go through final inspection as well as testing to make sure that nothing would blow up in the process of putting them together."
Herst said that she was able to make several suggestions and improvements to the design of the boxes.
"When they finally got started with putting together the ones that were going onto the spacecraft itself, they told me that because I was so good at wiring them, that if anything were to happen, they'd put me on the next ship to go up there to fix the first one," Herst said. "I told them 'Gah, I'm not leaving Earth!'"
After working at Rockwell for a stretch of time, Herst received a promotion where she spent her time looking at the drawn concepts and figuring out how to put them together. She said the new position came with a raise.
Then a few months later, she was given another promotion, this time to lead her entire assembly line.
"That was all within seven months of being there," she said.
Eventually, Herst was promoted into Rockwell's training department as a quality engineer. She said she was an engineer for inspection for the final assembly of the products.
"I would go to different manufacturers that were creating our products to be sent to us," she said. "If they were having a problem, it was my job to help them figure out how to fix it. So I travelled around the United States in that fashion."
Herst said she is still fascinated with space travel. She has a box at her home full of NASA literature and artifacts that she has collected throughout the years. She currently is reading a book about astronauts from her local library.
POST ROCKWELL
In 1990, Herst said she was laid off and forced to retire from Rockwell. After working on the spacecrafts, climbing through the ranks of the company and getting to travel the country, the next phase of her life started off a bit rocky.
"When I got my check on the last day, I was shocked," she said. "My check said $0. No money came in my hand on that particular day. It was really terrible."
Herst said luckily, she had some money left in savings from working on the road. But the money that was in her bank account was all she had.
"When I was working and travelling to the different states, the place that I was living at in Santa Ana, California, (people) were robbing my place," Herst said. "They came in and robbed me of everything I had. I had no TV, no radio, whatever else was in my drawers was all gone. Everything was stolen. Also, both sets of wheels were taken off my car, it was sitting on blocks, fortunately."
Herst then decided to move back to Downey to try to live with friends or relatives. She said she took what was left in her apartment and packed it into a storage facility. Unfortunately, poor luck continued to mount.
"Unbeknownst to me, they were having issues with burnouts, somebody was coming in and setting fires," Herst said. "There were several buildings that they had that were covered. I didn't realize I had renters insurance that had covered the product wherever it went. If you put it in storage, it was still covered. I was there for maybe three days, and the whole unit had burned up."
Herst said the renters insurance provided enough money to get her by. She said she put gas in her truck and drove to the home of a friend she had met through work.
"I finally found one of my friends, she had a trailer and she allowed me to stay in the trailer for the next four days," Herst said. "After that, I got my $0 check, and I knew I was gone. But I had to stay to file for unemployment, which would take me over the weekend. So she let me stay for that weekend, otherwise I'd have been looking for some driveway to park in."
RETURN TO BURTON
After the series of unfortunate events in California, Herst returned to Burton in 1990.
Prior to moving to California, Herst and her family lived in a small, green house on South Cheshire Street, just off the Burton Circle.
When Herst moved back to Burton, she was able to move into her childhood home.
"In 1990, it took us about six months to buy this house back," she said.
Herst said she briefly went back to work in Burton, but the career opportunities were not as abundant as they had been in California.
"I came back here and found they didn't have any jobs in electronics, it was all in plastics," she said.
Herst said she briefly worked for a company that needed help writing a handbook for its quality department. She said that job took six months.
"I enjoyed it, it put more money into my pot because I wasn't finding any place to actually work," Herst said. "I really didn't want to go back to work, and I still did have money in the bank that would cover."
Herst has devoted much of her time in Burton to her faith. She said she became a Christian while she was living in California and was driven to faith in Jesus Christ through an addiction to alcohol that she battled for decades.
"I had been drinking for 40 years," Herst said. "It was when I was able to get to a church in Orange, California, Pastor Joe's it was called. I had gone there a couple times, he preached similar to my grandfather who was also a minister … I went to the church three times and I enjoyed it. The fourth time I went, they were going to have baptisms, and I said 'I want to be baptized,' so I went and got baptized."
Herst said that she has been going to Abundant Life Church and she is incredibly thankful for her fellow congregants.
An added blessing for Herst came in 2020.
Before then, Abundant Life Church held its services at a worship center on state Route 608 in Middlefield.
While Middlefield was not a far drive for Herst, Abundant Life purchased the old Burton Elementary School Building on South Cheshire Street in 2020.
Herst's church moved into the old school building that is in her backyard. An Abundant Life Church sign sits right next to Herst's house.
She noted several things that she is grateful for considering the Thanksgiving holiday. She is thankful for her loving parents, brother and extended family. She is thankful that she was able to overcome her addiction to alcohol. She was especially thankful for all of the work she was able to do in California on the spacecrafts.
But, for the present moment, Herst expressed thankfulness that she can spend Thanksgiving with loved ones at her church.
"On Thanksgiving, (the church) is moving to the new gym," Herst said. "They've been in the small gym, it only holds about 200 people at a time. It fills up two services every Sunday. This is going to be a 500 seat, single service at 10 a.m. It is opening on Thanksgiving day."