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Keefe died peacefully on Tuesday in Simsbury, Connecticut
after living the last eight years at the McLean Village
Community, the Carmon Community Funeral Homes obituary said.
Reuters could not immediately reach the family, but Keefe's
daughter confirmed the death to the Associated Press on
Wednesday.
The Norman Rockwell Museum said in a statement on Wednesday
night that it was "saddened to learn of the passing of Mary
Doyle Keefe," and sent condolences to her family.
The museum said Keefe was a neighbor of Rockwell's when the two
lived in Arlington, Vermont. He called Keefe, then a 19-year-old
telephone operator, to pose for the picture that appeared on the
cover of the Saturday Evening Post in May 1943.
The fictional Rosie, depicted eating lunch in blue jean work
overalls with a rivet gun in her lap and her feet resting on a
copy of Adolf Hitler's manifesto "Mein Kampf," became a symbol
of how the war opened doors for American women to enter
factories and take on labor jobs previously reserved for men.
Her pose was modeled after Michelangelo's depiction of the
Prophet Isaac on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the museum
said.
Rockwell later apologized for making the fictional Rosie's arms
and shoulders much larger than Keefe's, according to the museum.
It added that the original oil on canvas painting is part of the
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's permanent collection in
Bentonville, Arkansas.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Simon
Cameron-Moore)
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