When she was nine years old, Hetty Bower (September 28, 1905–November 12, 2013) saw the wounded veterans returning from the battlefields of WWI and became an unflinching opponent of war. She spent the century that followed fighting for social justice as one of Britain's most unrelenting political activists. Among her last words when she died at the age of 108 was the song she sang with her daughters during those final days, and the refrain to her entire life: "Ban the bomb, for ever more."
Bower, born Esther Rimel, joined the very first women's union, the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries, in her early twenties. Though she was highly politically engaged her whole life, running a hostel for Czech refugees during WWII, becoming a founding member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958, and marching in every demonstration against the war in Iraq, Bower didn't begin her public-speaking career until she was 102, when she addressed the crowds at London's Hiroshima Day Commemoration with her articulate and purposeful message of peace.
After WWII, Bower spent her days working at a London high school, where she championed music education -- she had developed a special love of music during WWI, when her family found comfort in playing piano and singing to override the noise of bomb raids. Her dying words -- a lyric line that bespeaks her two great passions, music and peace -- ring with the undying hope of one day drowning out the sound of war in the world.
Learn more: The Guardian | The Independent
