Lucille Corbin painted china, WW II bomb tags
By Jim Steinberg / The Fresno Bee
01/31/08 00:16:47
Lucille E. Corbin, 85, of Tollhouse painted delicate birds, flowers and other emblems of life on china for decades. Her earlier years were more warlike: She affixed her name on the tags of bombs that Americans dropped over Germany during World War II.
Mrs. Corbin, an artist, riveter and explorer, suffered a stroke last year and died Friday.
Late in life, she and friend June Manter, 85, traveled together to Yellowstone National Park through Idaho, Montana and other parts.
They were two ladies having a great time, Manter said this week, seeing similarities with protagonists in the film "Thelma & Louise."
"We didn't run off the cliff, though," Manter said.
Mrs. Corbin was born in Kerman and graduated from Kerman High School in 1942. As World War II exploded, she found work on a "Rosie the riveter" assembly line in Southern California. She helped put together bombs for the war effort, said daughter-in-law Patsy Corbin. A fuse for each bomb told who had worked on it, and Mrs. Corbin received notes through the war from airmen. They sent their greetings, and told how they were destroying targets in Adolf Hitler's Germany.
Jim Corbin, Mrs. Corbin's son and Patsy's husband, said he suffered pain well before her death. "I've been watching her go for a year," he said.
He served as her critic, watching her craft a career painting china. He recalled her love of American Indians and their culture, which she learned living in the Sierra foothills. She enjoyed ceremonial openings and closings of Indian sweat lodges.
Jim Corbin remembered another personality trait: If you ticked Mrs. Corbin off, "look out."
She taught Ruth Bufkin to paint china. Bufkin keeps a photograph of Mrs. Corbin painting china in Fashion Fair mall for onlookers. Bufkin said Mrs. Corbin "painted anything you could think of. I have one picture 2 feet high, bunches of grapes on vines."
Mrs. Corbin and her husband, Lawrence, lived for years in Whittier, where he became fire chief. When he retired, Mrs. Corbin taught porcelain art in a Whittier adult school. Lawrence Corbin died in April 1983.
Mrs. Corbin was the perfect mother-in-law, Patsy Corbin said:
"She didn't pry. No lecture about care for her son."
When her mother-in-law became most angry, she would say, "Don't that just frost you?" A rosary will be recited at 7 p.m. today and Mass celebrated at 10 a.m. Friday in St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Kerman.
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