As a 19-year-old telephone operator, Keefe posed for the famous painting that would become the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943.

Although she was petite, Keefe was transformed into the iconic -- and burly -- embodiment of the character by Rockwell.

"Other than the red hair and my face, Norman Rockwell embellished Rosie's body," Keefe said in a 2012 interview with the Hartford Courant. "I was much smaller than that and did not know how he was going to make me look like that until I saw the finished painting."

In an interview last year, Keefe said she had no idea the impact the painting would have.

"No I didn't expect anything like this, but as the years went on, I realized that the painting was famous," Keefe said.