Helen Chomyn was born in Nesquehoning in 1921.

Warren G. Harding was president and Coco Chanel introduced her signature perfume, Chanel No. 5 in that year.

Helen, who grew up to work as a "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II, shares her birthday with the infamous attack on American soil by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and with a happier event, her wedding day.

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants Wasyl and Antonia Matsinko, she was one of 10 children, two of whom died at early ages.

As a teenager, the small-town girl ventured to New York City to work with her sister, Mary, in a mill that made crochet yarn.

Two of their brothers also worked in the city, and on pay days they pooled their earnings to pay bills, sending anything left over back home to help their parents.

Two years later, she returned to Pennsylvania.

In 1942, she married Paul Eckhart. The couple had two children, Dennis and Karen. Paul worked at Bethlehem Steel, and the young family lived in Lehighton, and was active in Grace Lutheran Church.

In 1943, seven months after their first child, Dennis, was born, their lives changed forever when Paul was drafted into the U.S. Army.

With her husband overseas, Helen did her part for the war effort. She applied for and was hired as a full-time inspector of Army shells at Bethlehem Steel.

Each day, she rode to work with six co-workers. She was the only woman.

Her mother cared for Dennis while she labored for 90 cents an hour, the only woman on the quick-moving inspection line.

Her favorite part of the job?

"I was helping the Army," she said proudly.

When the war ended, so did her job.

"I was glad the war was over, and that we were in better shape. And I was glad it was all over and Paul was coming home," she recalled.

Her husband returned from war with a Bronze Star for bravery, and suffering from malaria. He died at age 46 in 1962.

As Helen worked to support herself and her children, she also earned her high school diploma, later attending classes at Cedar Crest College as she worked her way up the ladder at Phoebe-Devitt Home, Allentown.

After 14 years as a widow, she met widower Michael Chomyn of Philadelphia. They wed on her birthday, Sept. 11, 1976. He died on May 21, 2011.

Helen now lives in Lehighton and is grateful for her life, the good along with the bad.

"I thank God for everything, especially the parents He gives us to instruct and train us in our early age," she said.