Funeral for longtime McMinnville resident Sarah "Bobbie" Delcena Longfellow will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Chapel of Macy & Son Funeral Directors, McMinnville, with Stephanie Shaw, her daughter-in-law, officiating. The family will receive friends from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday in the chapel.
Mrs. Longfellow died June 8, 2004, in Oakwood Country Place, McMinnville. She was 85. Private interment will be in Evergreen Memorial Park, McMinnville.
She was born Feb. 14, 1919, in Washington, D.C., daughter of Albert L. and Nancy Lee Smith Burns. Maternity ward nurses dubbed her "Bobbie Burns" and the name Bobbie stayed with her all her life.
She spent a short time in her childhood in Big Clifty, Ky., then traveled via Model A Ford to Eagle Rock, Calif. She graduated from Franklin High School in 1938.
During World War II, she became one of the true "Rosie the Riveters" and was an inspector of P-38 fighter plane engine parts. She met her husband-to-be, Bob Longfellow, at Hockaday Aircraft Co. and they married July 3, 1943, in Las Vegas.
Mrs. Longfellow became a long-distance operator in Washington, D.C., while her husband was overseas. After he returned, they lived in Reseda, Calif.
The Longfellows moved to McMinnville in 1965 and she became the "voice of Physicians' Medical Center" as the switchboard operator there until her retirement in 1992. She was preceded in death by her husband in 1994.
Her family said, "Bobbie's greatest love in life was spending time with her family and many, many friends."
Survivors include her son, Brad Longfellow of McMinnville; a granddaughter, Emily Longfellow; and her brothers.
