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(Kalabalık konuşmalar) I'm Deanie Parrish and we're interviewing Wasp Anita Paul aka Sister Teresa on the campus of Baylor University at KCTF public television station, Waco, Texas. Today is October 8, 1999.

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It all started on May 21st, 1924, when I was born in New Hampshire, in a small town of Nashua. My name is Anita Paul, and I'm also known as Sister Teresa. My first picture I have as a child is, I was bound, I remember that I can still, I was

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three years old, I can still remember the day. I wanted my picture taken, but it was the Fourth of July and I wanted the flags. So my sister and I, the first picture they made me stand by a tree, but if you look at my face you'll see I wasn't very pleased.

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The second picture is my sister and I have a flag, but that is not what I wanted. I wanted the two flags, so the last picture and I had a big grin, I had the two flags in my hands. So my dad was in the First World War so I guess he

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had, he talked about it once in a while and he still had part of his uniform, they used to wrap their legs up around with like an ace bandage when they marched and all, so he used to wear that, when

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he went to work, cut wood or anything, so I got used of the military color of khaki. Then also the day, May 21st was the anniversary of the day Lindenburg landed in Paris so on the farm calendar there was on

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the square of my birthday there was a picture of this little tiny black spot with the Arc of Triumph in Paris. So I was about two and I kept looking at that and wondered what kind of a bird it was so I remember

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they explained to me that it was a plane and not a bird. And then they said this man had flown but the ocean didn't mean anything to me at that time. But all I knew was somebody was, had a plane on my birthday.

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So then in the background is an academy where I started school. They took the poor children from the neighborhood for the first two years of schooling and the tuition was ten cents a month.

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We carried it to school in a corner of a handkerchief. And there, when it was time for the noon day recreation, if it was raining, the sisters would tell us the story of all these sagas of the

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missionaries in the Arctic and how they went by dog sled all over and then the ones in Africa, how they traveled by safari and they had to go through with all these wild animals. And I thought about that. And

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then one day I had, it was the measles, I had gotten the measles and I couldn't go outdoors and this little noise came over the house and everybody ran out and it was the first plane that ever flew over the town.

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It was a Piper, I don't remember. And I looked out the window out of the corner just to make sure that I would, just got a little tiny glimpse of the thing because I wasn't allowed to,

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you know, if you expose your eyes to light you were supposed, something awful was supposed to happen to you with measles. So anyway, I saw that and I went back to my darkness.

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I was thinking about it and I thought, "Well, this is stupid. Why did they use planes instead of the dog sleds and the safaris to get into the missions? It would be much easier because they went right over everything." So I had that idea and I kept that thought all my life that someday I was going to be

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a missionary and fly planes. And I thought to fly the planes and the missions you had to be a missionary. To be a missionary you had to be a nun. So the whole thing was settled in my mind.

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I was going to be a nun so I could be a missionary so I could fly for the missions. So the day of our first communion, the sisters had told us to pray and ask God to show us what he wanted from us in life. So I thought to myself, I didn't have to ask him, I knew, so I just told him what I was

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going to do. I was going to be a missionary and fly for the missions. So I grew up with that in my mind. Then when I got, when I was in high school,

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I grew up on this farm and we had, they had two hundred and fifty acres but it was, that was the rich, the riches of the family was the farm and we worked on, they had to raise

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vegetables and they sold them for, to make, to earn a living and then all our vacation time and our free time we just worked in the fields and we polished tomatoes to go to market and shined up

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the cucumbers and counted the corn and we did it, we got the big truck ready for the market. So we grew up with that and in the wintertime when there wasn't any farming well there was a lot of snow

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so we went skiing and sledding and skating and in the summer we played tennis but it was all on the farm and it was all within the family circle anymore or less because the schools, the schools were so far away that there wasn't all these,

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there weren't the activities that you have now, you know. So we were, the farms were in Hudson and the high school when I got through with the grade school and I went to public high, but during grade school I was, it was a bilingual, my family was French so I was bilingual from practically birth.

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And then in high school I took commercial courses because there was no question of going to college. The family didn't have enough money in those days. It was only the elite that could get there.

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But I had, my marks went bad. So they, the local companies would go and pick up the students that they wanted, they thought they would want to work for them right away. So I got out of school on Friday and on Monday I started working for, in Nashville, for this

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and paper company and the man who was my immediate boss was in the reserves. This was in June of '41 and in December '41 the war broke out. So he was called into service right away and then he phoned from Washington because they were building up the Quartermaster Corps where they had to compute all the requirements for

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all the troops and all the, to get them on the, where they were needed at the right time. So I worked in that for about, I got there in August, I had just turned 18, and then the following spring they got the, they began talking about the WASP clothing they had to get ready for this new branch that was coming in, to be in the Air Force.

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So I got wind of that and I went to, I think it was in June of '43, I went to the, I found out who the recruiting officer from the inside, and then I went to the Pentagon to see the lady and she said, "Well, the first thing you have to do is get a physical, go to bowling field," and gave me the officer's name, the doctor who was the officer who was supposed

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to be doing all I remember about the test. They had this big box of yarn and you had to pull out all the pinks and all the blues and all the reds, make sure you weren't colorblind. This was at bowling field and all these other, we ran, they had this track, you know, you

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make your run and then they see if you get winded. They put me through the paces. Then finally I got back. The recruiting officer had told me to go there, and then she put me in the January '44 class.

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But how much time did I have flying? None. I had never been in a plane. She said, "Well, you've got from July to December to get 35 hours of flying time,"

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because that was the requirement, 18 and a half years and 35 hours. I had to have been set foot in the plane. At the end of July the dentist that I had was in the Civil Air Patrol. So he took me up for my first ride and then after that I decided to quit my job and go

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to the airfield in Virginia, which he had to stay out of fifty mile zone of no man's land on the coastline with planes, no planes were allowed, so we had to go fifty miles. We started, there's another girl that was taking, had gotten in the same class and so we got, we went together, we'd leave by bus after work on Saturday night, two hours into

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Virginia, we'd sleep on the lawn and then first thing in the morning we'd go to church and then we'd fly, do some flying and bummed rides with everybody we could, we had planes to be in the air. Then that didn't work fast enough so I finally, I quit my job, I think it was the end of September

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and I went to live at the airport. I got the rest of the training, but on my first solo flight, it was a Sunday, and the moral of that story is don't solo students at sundown. I took off, and I was supposed to just go around the field, but the Civil Air Patrol

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had had a simulated wreck that they had been looking for all afternoon, and the thing was filtering back. Nobody had found it. They couldn't, they were just a training exercise.

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So I decided on my solo flight that I'd go look for it. It nearly gave everybody a heart attack. I flew out of the traffic van. I was supposed to come in for my landing.

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I flew out of the traffic van and headed where I thought they had put the thing. Well, I went around in circles looking all over, and then finally I couldn't find it either. And I looked and the sun was going down in the horizon a little bit, so I thought I'd

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I go back to the field and I thought, well, where is the field at this point? Because it was in this valley in Virginia and the mountains all over the place and the field was a hay field that they had flattened out to get just enough for a landing strip. So I said, this is true, I said a prayer and I said, I have no clue whether I've gone east,

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west, because I kept circling around and looking for this place. I had no idea where I was. So I just said, I'm going to go that way. And I went that way and I got right over the field and they

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were, they had set fire to the grass because it was, it was getting dark. And so I practically made a night landing on my first solo because I circled the field and then talk about

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stubbornness, I was about to come in to land and I said, I'm just going to show them I'm not scared. So I went around the field another time. They thought I was going to break out of the traffic

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pattern again so they threw more gasoline on because they seen the runway. So when I finally came down, it was absolutely dark. And I kept coming down like steps, you know. And I just made it to the end of the field. They cut the engine off because there was no more space, so they cut the wings. And then I said, "Do you want

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me to start it up? Start it up and I'll taxi up to the hill." They said, "No, we'll push it." The instructor was so mad because they said, "You don't do that on a solo flight." Nobody told me. So anyway, that was my first solo.

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But I really, at that time, I had no idea. When I went like that, it was God's direction because I had no clue which way I'd been, north, south, east, or west at this point. So I got back.

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So whenever I flew, I always said a little prayer before I took off and when I got back. So then from there, I went home for some man was flying up from the south and he had a theater, so instead of going back to Washington and packing my things to send home, I called him up and

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asked him, will you please pack my things because I was going to hitch a ride with this person to get to Boston. He was worried he was going and my home was near New Hampshire so it would be close to home so I hitched a

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ride with this man and he was not a very good navigator. He got lost and he landed in a cornfield in upstate New York because he was a little off course. Then this man came out and this plane landing and

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cornfield. And so where are we? We were practically on the other side of Boston, which was quite a ways off from being on course. So he got his things done over again and we landed safely in Boston. But I landed on the cornfield on the trip. And I wondered how he was going to get off the ground, but he made it. He was a good pilot, just not a good navigator.

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So I went home and then I packed my bag and we had to pay our own fare because this was not in the military yet. We had to be reported in Texas, but at Sweetwater and get yourself there the best you can after that. You start getting paid. So everybody came in and I met one of the wives that remained my best friend in St. Louis. She didn't have any reservation

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and she had to get in the same class that I did, so we shared the bunk, the whatever whatever boys, the bad buddy call, the bunks. And so we got to be good friends and we got in and the first, we were all in dresses and everything and all the trainees came out, "Oh look, dresses!" Everybody else is in their uniforms, I mean their little zoot suits.

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And there was snow on the ground when we got there so it was a little cold. And the first flights we did, we had all these heavy, heavy fleece-lined suits because it was the open cockpit planes. And we went through the basic, I mean the primary and the basic and the advanced. Let's go back to your childhood. In growing up, did you have siblings?

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I just have one older sister. Tell us about the religious training. I went to parochial schools, and we had to learn French and all the history of Canada as well as the history of the United States, because the French immigrants came via Canada

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and then they came down to the States. So we had the, well my mother had, she had a phlebitis of my sister's birth, but I never, every single day I saw her kneel down, you know her leg was enormous, the doctor had told her she should get off of it, but she never had time to do it, so she carried that

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to her grave at ninety-three, but nothing ever happened except that it was big and heavy, but I saw her every single night she'd kneel down to say her prayers, and she'd pray maybe fifteen minutes while we was doing our studying you know, but even with that it couldn't have been very

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comfortable I can imagine you know because she was kneeling on this leg that was hurt mostly most of the time. So I had the example of well forgetting yourself for God. I mean it didn't matter what, God came first no matter what

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and I remember going to Christmas Midnight Mass in a horse drawn sleigh because there was snow on ground and I think the cars, very few people had cars because we'd amuse ourselves on Sunday. My sister would take one direction and I'd take the other direction. We'd count the cars

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that were coming to see who had the most at the end of the afternoon. There might be an hour before the next one came by. There really wasn't that much traffic. So this was the peaceful Sunday afternoon amusement. And then we played tennis and we did all these other things on the farm, but it was a, I grew up knowing that God existed even though I wasn't

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too clear about everything he was doing and all. So then when I went into the WASP, two in our class, with three that had the letter E began, their name was E, two of them were killed in accidents and the third one was washed out, she didn't make the grade. How far did you get from school?

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How did you get to school? It was about four miles, I guess. A lot of times we'd walk home. There was a bus that rent, but sometimes we didn't

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want to wait for the bus. So we walked home. And my dad worked on the railroad. When he got in, it was like this four-mile walk after he

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got off his work. And I remember waiting for his-- I'd stay awake and pray somebody would give him a ride. There was only two other people that had a

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car in the area. When he got on the lawn, you could hear the footsteps crunching, you know. But I knew he was home and everything was all right, so I'd go to sleep. But I had this, because I loved my dad, because he was a role model for my, because when the

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war broke out, they had the Yankee Division in World War I that was made up of the French Canadians because they could speak French, so they sent them over to France, like some of the first ones to go were this... My dad was in there, so then when he came back after...

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He was gassed in one of the Battle of the Marne, and he said all his... Everybody was from the same town, so the whole town, every family had it, but they put them on stretches with their heads down, their feet up in the air. They left him like that for like 10 hours or something, and they saved their brains

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from the gas having any effect on the brains because the gas rises, and that's how they treated it. But he got it and he was fine. It didn't have any bad effects from that, but that was the treatment.

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So they would be joking upside down if you had to wait for the gas to clear. So anyway, my patriotism came kind of from him because when Second World War broke out I didn't have any brothers. Well, I went to Washington to work for the Quartermaster Corps to do my BIP.

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And then when I heard about the loss, I thought, "Well, no." Then I also, it was because I had no brothers, but also I decided this would be the best training I could possibly get for the mission flying I wanted to do. And besides serving my country, I was going to kill two birds with one stone.

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And when I came out, I tried to, they had, one of the bishops in the Hudson Bay region for it. Then he began inquiring, and nothing was charted. There were no beams or anything. It was just ice. They thought, "Well, wait a little bit, because it's too early. They'll get to putting range stations and all." But nothing was charted, actually, in that whole

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area. Then I went to... Did you have close friends in high school? Yeah, they used to...

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Quite often some of the friends would come. We had these picnic things where groups would come

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from the class. They were friends, but we... It was a different... I guess a different type

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of friend than now. We didn't just... a little click or it was everybody was friendly so we ought to come for the weekend, Saturday we could

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have a picnic in the woods or something like that so all these kids would come and we'd have the picnic in the woods and then there was so much to do and so much to discover that my grandmother, we had forty

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calves in the summer we'd be cleaning the manure behind him for five cents a week to get and then my mother would never let us spend our earnings. we had to put him in this bank. She taught us how to save for

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other people by, we saved all this money that we earned and then we sent it to the missions to some missionaries, you know, as an offering at Christmas time. And the sisters at the academy had all the little kids writing to one

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missionary and mine was in Japan and when I later, when I became a nun I met him in Tokyo when I got there. He was still there, he was older now and he'd been through the concentration camp during the war but he still had my

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that's in the first uniform, the convent, it was a black dress with a real stiff collar, and they turned it around and we had a ribbon, a colored ribbon on it for the different, according to whether you're in first, second, first or second grade, on the big days. But the rest of the time everybody had it turned backwards.

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And that was the uniform. We had one of those pictures. And that was the man that you had saved money and... Yeah, the one that, it was the missionary that I had been sending my pittance to. But even though it was a depression and we were poor, we were always taught that we had

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to share with others. And at Christmas time, if we wanted a new doll or something, you had to give up the old one, and we weren't allowed to leave our toys hanging around. So they were taken care of, you know, they were in good shape.

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So we would give them to a poor family, and then Santa Claus could bring you another one because you didn't accumulate. We were allowed to accumulate a whole bunch of things, so we shared. Tell us what Christmas was like.

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My dad had made a little tiny crib out of asbestos because during the Depression, the railroad was stalled practically at Standstill, so he got any kind of job he could in an asbestos company. He worked in this, so they had stuff they cut off, samples, so he brought this and he

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made this little, I'm sure in Bethlehem, never saw a crib like that. He had this little barn that he had made with asbestos, a roof and that, and put one little tiny red bulb in the corner. The animals were made out of celluloid.

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It wasn't a matching set, but they had this little tiny thing. Before we went to bed, as kids, my mother used to get it ready a couple of days before, and she always put the light on as we were going to sleep. I remember going to sleep with this little empty crib

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and then Christmas night, we knew this was the night that the little figure would be in there. And I can remember the thrill it was, Christmas night after midnight to wake up and

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see that the little baby Jesus was there. But it was the completion, I mean the complete crib. I grew up with that realization that Christmas was the incarnation of God, the incarnation of the

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son of God. So that all worked together to lead to my vocation. But I always had thought that I was going to be a nun, to be a missionary, so I could fly for the missions. Well, when the flying for the missions didn't turn out, then I tried thinking that maybe I wouldn't I had met this very fine young man, and anyway, I decided, well, he was in medical school,

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I decided, well, okay, I'll do that. So we got engaged. When was this? What?

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When was this? This was after I was in the WASP. It was between '46, '45, '46, somewhere along there. Because as soon as I got out, I tried to do my flying for the missions, and that was out.

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Let's go back and talk about training before we get to that. Tell us what the venture field was like when you got there. Under construction. They were working on a—I don't think we ever flew with the runways really in finished

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shape because the first night flying solo we had, I can remember the runways—we really had to figure out which was a runway and which was a taxi because everything had flare pots around it and I was coming in looking for the, trying to concentrate

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on that and I caught my hand on the earphones so I disconnected the earphones and I couldn't hear anything more from the tower and I couldn't find the rest of the piece to put it back together. So being French,

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when I get excited sometimes the words come out French, in French English. So I called the tower and I said, would you please give me a green light?

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My earphones are unconnected. So I never lived that one down, the WASP, the unconnected earphones. So they said, they couldn't give me any answer

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because I couldn't hear them. So they gave me a green light and they kept it on me all the way down to make sure I'd get a ground. Usually they're clear for land,

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That's what I wanted to find out. So they followed me with this green light all the way down to the ground. And I got down and when I saw I had some light from the line, I could put the earphones back in.

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But it was in my final flight with the Army checkpile, you know, the very last flight, the first time in the world they changed the runway in Megan, east-west, and it was a real short runway. And there was all sorts of construction all over the place.

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It was the first time, and I was really nervous anyway, because this was the last place you could wash out. And when I took off, I gummed the takeoff a little bit because I, you know, it wasn't the usual runway that was there.

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So I pulled it up too fast a little bit and I corrected it. So he said, "That wasn't very good." I said, "Well, I was kind of, this is the first time I've flown." He said, "That doesn't matter."

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So I thought, I really thought I was finished, but then he passed me anyway. Tell me about how you lived at the Bay of Nations. We had eight to a bay? Six.

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Six to a bay. In my bay, we had never had any problems with anything. Everybody's told the mark, except they hid some watermelon in the ice house one night. One day, it went out.

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It went out and did that. We had to get under the bed in the morning and pull all the blankets real tight so they could bounce the quarter off the top of it, because they pulled the inspections off. Tell us about the girls that you lived with, where they were from.

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I don't remember that exactly where they were from. Rose Palmer was from Fort Worth, is about the only one that I, because we didn't have that much time with the Brown School and all and we came back and studied and we really didn't have much time to get acquainted as friends.

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You know, I really, we just, everybody was there and we talked to everybody but we knew the names and some, you know, we remembered them but it was, we didn't go anywhere. I went to Mass on Sunday, they allowed us off the base if you had to go to church so We got off to church on Sunday and the Sweetwater people always were very, very kind.

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They always wanted to bring us home for dinner, but mostly we were supposed to be back at the base, so I refused every time because the, but there was one lady who, her house was open to everybody, so we, everybody went by there to say hello to her and maybe have a, whatever she, she always had something cooking for anybody who was coming by.

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I should have looked up my statistics. I really don't remember. It was 120? I don't remember. I'll have to straighten that out afterwards. I really can't remember the number. They had no problems with it. They were the civilian instructors and we really outdid I didn't experience any kind of reticence or nothing that they were holding back.

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We marched everywhere. We went to the flight line, to the mess hall. Just once I was on the flag, when they brought the flag down, they had a platoon of four girls went out for the flag raising and the flag taking it down.

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So I only hit that once, I don't know. And they had this wishing well at the beginning, and I never got thrown in it, I just stayed around long enough. I just threw my money in and ran.

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I did money a whip. They threw the girls in as they soloed or whatever it was. Tell us about the different stages of flying and what you flew in each stage. The first one was the AT-17 and the open cockpit, and it was winter, so we had somebody's jackets

00:30:51.580 - 00:31:09.140

on and, I mean, fleece-lined things, and plus a parachute to climb up into it. We weighed a ton to hop into. Dressed like that, it really wasn't easy. And we had all the training, and in our class, one of the instructors, they flipped the plane

00:31:09.160 - 00:31:21.660

around and made you hang out. made you hang out to make sure you knew what your safety belt was in there for. So upside down and just hanging. I want to see both arms. You're trying to hold on to the side but you had

00:31:21.660 - 00:31:37.660

to put your arms straight out. And one instructor lost his student in that and one of those flips she landed, so she landed by parachute and got into the Caterpillar Club because she had jumped out of a plane and so everybody was mad because she

00:31:37.660 - 00:31:53.060

She fell out, but she made it to the Caterpillar Club. She had a little caterpillar because she had bailed out of a plane. And then one day we had been practicing spins all by ourselves and I was on a duel with the instructor.

00:31:53.160 - 00:32:08.740

We had one flight with the instructor on the day and one by ourselves, I mean solo. It seems to me that almost every day we went, and then the other periods while he was taking the others up we had our solo flight. And he says in the mic, "Look over there."

00:32:08.740 - 00:32:25.540

And this girl, it was Erickson I think, she had just started a spin and it was two turns and if you didn't start kicking it out, you didn't get it out, and it went three, he said, "She's in trouble." And four, we watched her spin all the way down to the ground and just, but they didn't

00:32:25.540 - 00:32:40.340

know who it was. So he flew all the way because his students were up on solo. And when he got, I think he got the number off the plane and then we rushed back to the field and they went to get, you know, find out who it was and they picked up her body.

00:32:41.040 - 00:33:02.500

But then they passed the hat to pay for the coffin because with civil service pay, Congress hadn't militarized this yet, so the civil service had no anything that they could pay the coffin of whoever works for them, so we'd send the body home with the money that we put together to get them out.

00:33:04.060 - 00:33:24.020

And let's see, what else? And there were a couple of accidents, but I was in the last barracks, the last row of barracks in the back, our class, and they had the graveyard back there, so as we looked out the window there were all these planes that had been from way back, since they had

00:33:24.080 - 00:33:37.660

an airfield there, all the wrecks were there, so they said they left them there so we'd Learn to be careful, not be hot pilots. (chatter) Let's cut. We're going to end our first tape.

00:33:37.880 - 00:34:40.120

Good. [SIDE CONVERSATION] My sister came down to Texas for my graduation, and I didn't get to see her very long because John Michael's father who had flown with the Flying Tigers

00:34:40.920 - 00:34:50.180

had come in for his daughter's graduation. He was a colonel in the Air Force or something at that point. And he came in in a B-24 and then he took anybody that was going up the East Coast.

00:34:50.270 - 00:35:00.480

He said he could take anybody. So there were eight of us who flew on the B-24. We flew right out of-- right after graduation, we flew. We grabbed our things and we flew out to Washington.

00:35:01.040 - 00:35:15.080

And I had-- I took advantage of going to the Quartermaster Corps to see the people. I remember my shirt sleeve was slipped down, and so the colonel said, "Well, you can put an elastic at the top to hold it up."

00:35:15.600 - 00:35:31.880

And then the other one says, "Yeah, but I think they're too long." I said, "Yeah, but I don't know what kind of arms." Everybody in my class, they were about maybe four inches longer than your hand. They went down over your hand, so they said they'd have to take care of that.

00:35:32.240 - 00:35:50.600

So anyway, that was the quartermaster. It was the right place to tell them. Then I went, I took, we were in the Santiago blue, the blue uniform with the bray. When we flew out, we just had the shirts and the slacks, but then before we moved around

00:35:50.620 - 00:36:06.920

in Washington, we got dressed. I went home to Boston, I think I took a train to Boston to see my family in Lynn. They were living in Lynn, Mass. at that time. It was only there a couple of days, I think, and then we had to go back

00:36:07.040 - 00:36:33.820

to Altus, Oklahoma, which was back to Texas for all, to all extended purposes. So we had to pay our fare back again, so that took about two days and two nights for that trip back by train because the planes were still, not too many people flew and they didn't have too many planes and the weather and all that. So I took a train and then when I reported

00:36:33.960 - 00:36:53.340

to the base, Mary was already in, she had come in earlier in the day, so then we met together and we had our quarters with the WACs. INTERVIEWER: Who did you report to? BENNETT: We reported to the commanding officer, I forget his name. We reported to the commanding

00:36:53.340 - 00:37:11.660

officer of the base and that was the only time that I actually ever saw him the whole time we were there and he didn't say anything, couldn't ask us anything or he just followed the sergeant. So we followed him to where we were supposed to go and they had, part of that military

00:37:12.400 - 00:37:26.840

etiquette or whatever it was, for the first three days I think it was, we weren't supposed to talk to anybody if we were not introduced to them. That's what they had told us at the base in Sweetwater, when they briefed us, that you didn't speak to anybody until you were introduced to them for the first three days.

00:37:26.960 - 00:37:37.960

After that, you could talk with whoever you wanted to, but that was the etiquette at that time. So the only one who spoke to us in those three days was the chaplain who came over and sat with us.

00:37:38.720 - 00:37:53.380

And then he, eventually he asked me about the following Sunday, he asked me if I would fly him to, I think it was, I'll have to check on the name. I think it was Enid, the next base. It was a B-25 school.

00:37:54.340 - 00:38:08.820

So he took care of the two bases, so I used to get the plane ready on the flight line while he was having mass at our base, and then I flew him to the other base, and then we came back again. So I did that the whole time I was at Altus.

00:38:09.220 - 00:38:21.120

So that was one of your jobs, to fly the Chaplain? It was what? One of your jobs, to fly the Chaplain? That was one, yeah, it was a sign. He asked the C.O. if he could have me assigned.

00:38:21.200 - 00:38:45.180

Base flight was engineering maintenance and they took care of a few other little odds and ends around the base. That's what they called it, their base flight attached to engineering maintenance. But there were other jobs, I suppose, when they didn't have anybody because the C.O.'s secretary got married and I got the joy of flying them to San Antonio on their honeymoon.

00:38:45.300 - 00:38:54.880

And then another time I flew an officer who was leaving for overseas. So they all said, "There you are. You can fly. You're flying your replacement out, the one you replaced."

00:38:54.880 - 00:39:07.700

So I thought the poor man, he was probably, he wasn't too happy with me. If I hadn't been there, he would still be in the States. I don't know if he really wanted to go or not. But anyway, I prayed for him all through the war that he was safe for the rest of the time

00:39:07.760 - 00:39:16.960

that he hadn't gotten killed or anything. that God would keep him safe because I felt kind of guilty suddenly going overseas. [LAUGHTER]

00:39:16.960 - 00:39:29.920

If anything happened to him. So-- They were-- it was a base where the cadets, men cadets, had received their advanced twin engine training for--

00:39:29.920 - 00:39:41.280

the ones who were going on to bombers, their advanced training was in the twin engine. And then from us, they went to the base where they had the twin engine bigger things and they got checked out and on. They didn't

00:39:41.300 - 00:40:01.360

have to stay there very long. I don't know if they, that's the way it was working in Altus anyway. I don't know about the other bases. So they, it was, so when they had an accident or something, they, engineering maintenance had to check the plane out and repair what was wrong with it and then they would, the test pilots would take it up to make sure

00:40:01.380 - 00:40:21.980

that it was all right to turn back to the flight line for the, for the boys to fly. Like one time, when I stalled it up in the air, it stalled up, but then the engine didn't pick up on putting a nose down. It didn't pick up at all, so I left it like that and called the base and told them I was

00:40:22.040 - 00:40:40.700

coming in on one engine. They got all the equipment on the runway, and just before I got there, I said, "I got it back," because I really didn't want to come down and have them find out. Because I didn't start it, I didn't turn the stator on to see if it would start in

00:40:40.720 - 00:40:56.180

the air because I thought any cadet flying it and taking off, and this happens on takeoff, it wouldn't be very good and the engine wouldn't pick up. And also wherever it would happen, on landing or whatever, they wouldn't think to turn the key on to try that as a last measure.

00:40:56.300 - 00:41:19.180

So I didn't try it, I just left it the way it was and then gradually when I got closer of the base, I turned the key and it picked up and I came in normally. But then I wouldn't sign it off until they had corrected that because I felt it was, somebody would get excited on the takeoff or on the landing and only one engine, they'd have a little accident

00:41:19.320 - 00:41:38.260

on the way. So anyway, that was that. Another time, it was slow timing and sometimes the engines smoked a little bit and the tower called me on takeoff, "Go around the base, fly one more time in front of the telecon—because you've got black smoke trailing in the back."

00:41:38.260 - 00:41:51.760

So they—I said, "It's probably just because I've got—it's a new engine, and I don't want to go around anyway." So I went around and they said, "Yeah, it's thinning out." You know, so if it had been on fire, nothing I could have done anyway because I was too

00:41:51.920 - 00:42:07.380

low to jump. because they called it the Flying Coffin because it was one of the last ships with fuselage, canvas fuselage, so if it caught fire, the fuselage just went up in smoke real quick. So they had said, "Forty-five seconds.

00:42:08.160 - 00:42:25.100

Don't think twice. If it catches fire, just jump." So that was interesting to remember along the way. When we got there we were assigned to the WAC officers, but Mary and I had, we had come

00:42:25.140 - 00:42:43.840

into the Air Force to do a job for our country and both morally we wanted to stay the way we knew was the right. So the WACs had officers with them every night of the week so we went to the C.O. after two or three days.

00:42:45.640 - 00:43:03.500

She went to the C.O. and asked him if he could find us some other quarters because we really didn't want to live that way and we didn't want any part of it. So he said, "I've just got just the place for you." So they took us to the psychiatric ward of the hospital, which had never been used, and

00:43:03.500 - 00:43:22.540

was way at one end of the hospital, but it had no doors. Everything was geared to having madly off psychiatric patients in there. So nothing you could hurt yourself, there were no doors, but all the, it was like a maze, one door faced this, but you couldn't see from one room to the other, but you could

00:43:22.600 - 00:43:39.700

warp from one room to the other by going to the right or to the left. So that was, we thought there was a little bit of maybe funny irony in it on their part, but we didn't say anything, we just took it. And then eventually there were eight wasps that came all together, we were eight, six

00:43:39.560 - 00:44:06.500

more came and we all lived in there so by that time nobody minded or thought of it. And then we had to eat at the officers club but we had to pay them so much out of us, they took the money out of our salary for the board because we weren't really military so they did the same thing. They let some of the workers on civil service eat their

00:44:06.400 - 00:44:21.340

meals there but they would have to pay for it so they put us in that status. So by the time we paid for the meals and paid for any, if we needed uniforms or anything, we paid for everything. When we left Sweetwater they took back all the, everything except what we ourselves had

00:44:21.420 - 00:44:35.220

brought. You know, we had to bring a pair of tan slacks and a pair of blue slacks and that, but the rest of the flight jackets and everything that we'd worn all through training, they took them all back and if we wanted to keep them we had to give them like, I think it

00:44:35.100 - 00:44:52.040

I think it was $25 for the jacket that we had to pay them. So I had to get to Boston on the train after graduation. We didn't know the plane was coming. I didn't buy the jacket because I didn't have enough money to get home if I did.

00:44:53.740 - 00:45:12.080

We got home and then reported to the Altus. What was your social life when you were at Altus? there wasn't that much social life because we worked all day on the flight line. By the time we got back and had our supper and all that, we were kind of whacked out.

00:45:14.220 - 00:45:39.980

Sometimes we went to the office of the club and played pool or something for a while just to be doing something. >> Yes, one time I had to take a propeller down to, I think it was San Antonio, a student had cracked up the plane on landing and the propeller was broken. They didn't have, they could fix everything else with prop, so they put it in the plane

00:45:41.660 - 00:45:54.880

beside the co-pilot seat, it just fitted on the side and then some lieutenant came over to check it out and made them tie it down better because it would have gone through the windshield the way they had put it. They hadn't tied it enough, so he tied it up.

00:45:54.920 - 00:46:08.600

And then I was about halfway there, and I could see the ceiling was getting lower and lower and lower. So I finally, I forget the place, I called in the, you know, I was keeping the beam fairly close because I didn't know if I was going to close it any time.

00:46:09.060 - 00:46:22.160

And I asked, you know, identified the plane, and I said, "What's the weather up ahead?" You know, and they said, "Oh, we've been trying to get you for the last two hours." You know. "So where have you been?"

00:46:22.160 - 00:46:47.280

but I hadn't turned on the radio yet because I didn't have any need for it. So they said, "Yeah, your bass radio down to all the points along the line to tell you to go back because it's sucked in and in San Antonio and the weather's too bad to try and get down there with what you've got on board." So I turned around and went back. The next day I did the

00:46:47.200 - 00:47:10.820

I went back and got all the way in, and I stayed overnight and flew back the next day. Some hotel, they did pay us, I think it was $9 a day for your food and your hotel, if you were to sleep for RON pay, which was $9. You had to pay it out of your pocket, and it came in your check, so you were reimbursed that way.

00:47:11.200 - 00:47:23.540

You had to put the, they put in the arrow and slip for you and then you got it on your check. I don't know what account they took it out of because it didn't go with civil service, but anyway, they managed that much.

00:47:24.500 - 00:47:36.420

So at the end of your stay at Alphus, there were how many of you lost? Eight. There were eight of us. At the end, they just, they took a bunch of pictures for the, they said for the records

00:47:36.460 - 00:47:42.980

and that. They were shooting everything. And then... Where were you when you learned you were going to be deactivated?

00:47:45.360 - 00:47:54.400

They didn't give us any reason. They just said the program, at least the letter I got, I don't remember that they had any reason for it. They said, "Thank you very much for the service.

00:47:54.700 - 00:48:17.980

We have proved that we are there. Women proved that you could fly as well as the men pilots, but now that the war was practically won, or something, in fact, they thanked, and they were just no reason given that we were just going to terminate the program. They didn't say who or why or what, but just

00:48:18.080 - 00:48:35.080

they said because war was scaling down. Do you remember how you felt? I do. Everybody felt, you know, because we said, "Why don't they leave us until the end?" You know, we didn't care. And a lot offered to stay on without pay, you know,

00:48:35.280 - 00:48:49.560

anything to just stay and fight it to the end but no, they did, no, this was it and that was it. And they had no way, and at some bases I think they gave them a farewell party or something but in

00:48:49.680 - 00:49:00.140

Altus nobody, not CO never even came to say goodbye and nobody said, the chaplain was the only one who came over to say goodbye to me, he's going to miss me because I was his chauffeur.

00:49:00.800 - 00:49:10.760

But outside of that the girls just took off, One of the girls had a car and she was driving, I think she came from California, so she took about five of them,

00:49:11.860 - 00:49:18.740

so Mary and I are about the only two, we were the first two there, I think they must have been all in about the same classes or something because they seemed to know each other before,

00:49:19.560 - 00:49:34.360

so Mary and I took our, but Mary was kind of a cartoonist and an artist, she had made a great big wasp wing out of, I don't know what kind of chalk or something on the wall on the back of the place

00:49:34.460 - 00:49:42.960

where we ate and when they came, they came to inspect the building to see if we had destroyed anything before they let us out, whether we'd have to pay back the government if we

00:49:43.040 - 00:49:53.560

had wrecked their building. So when they got to that they said, they told us she couldn't leave until that thing was off the wall and so she had to scrub it off and I wanted to stay to get it off and she

00:49:53.600 - 00:50:03.900

said no, I'll do it, I'll do it, don't worry about it because I had already my train, I was trying to get a train for New England she was only going to go back to Washington,

00:50:04.000 - 00:50:14.680

I think she was going to go someplace else before, so she wasn't in a hurry. But she had to stay there and the evasives, they could have painted over and it was painted and

00:50:14.900 - 00:50:23.220

nothing would have been visible and besides for all the years that that thing was there, nobody ever lived enough. They never had a psychiatric case in there.

00:50:23.760 - 00:50:33.660

So they made it defacing public government property was what they said to her. They were serious. I mean we thought that you know, that was really, but they gave her all the stuff,

00:50:33.740 - 00:50:44.660

they brought her all the, whatever she needed to scrub it off. And so when I left, when I said goodbye, she was scrubbing this, trying to get the wings off the wall, but they must have been about six feet

00:50:44.900 - 00:50:56.920

long, she had made a real big, on the back wall, but there was nothing on the walls, just plain white everywhere, no fixtures that you could tangle with, nothing on the floors, no doors.

00:50:56.960 - 00:51:08.500

So even the faucets were special. Everything was special. And they were made so that they couldn't hurt themselves. So we were...

00:51:08.610 - 00:51:25.600

How did you get from where you lived to the flight line? To the flight line? No, we walked, Mary and I walked, but when this other bunch arrived, one of them had a car, so we all piled in, eight of us piled into this real, it was a real old car she

00:51:25.520 - 00:51:38.800

she had, but we all managed to squeeze in to get to the flight line. But before that, we had been walking, and it wasn't very close, I can tell you. I can't remember how long it was, but it was a good hike to get to the flight line. QF: Did you have all the weevans?

00:51:39.180 - 00:51:57.180

How did it work? AQ: I stayed around for... I don't remember that we had any testing on Saturdays, except if there had been a rainy day of something, or they needed a plane for, they were all going across country, they didn't

00:51:57.220 - 00:52:13.700

have enough planes available, so they took one off that was waiting to be tested. But usually they were tested practically immediately. When you came in the morning, you got a list of planes that needed to be taken up, and what was wrong with them.

00:52:14.320 - 00:52:36.020

Why were you testing those planes? Maybe they had a bad landing or they broke landing gear or whatever. They let the props hit the ground or something that the student cadets, I mean the cadets, had had trouble with the planes or sometimes it was just a malfunction of the,

00:52:36.320 - 00:52:51.360

and then they corrected it, hoped they corrected it, and then they give it to us to take them up Okay? How did your family feel about your being at Watson? Well, my dad was thrilled and I think my mother was happy.

00:52:52.700 - 00:53:05.560

They never really understood what the civil service and non-militarization and all that was about. I don't think we did either, to tell you the truth, because all we knew is they had told us we'd be militarized by March, and then nothing happened.

00:53:05.740 - 00:53:30.740

And then the next thing we knew, they said the rumor was going around that they were having trouble getting the bill through Congress. That's how it ended. But we just went home and business as usual. We just folded up all the... They were living in Lynn, Massachusetts. It was Boston and then you took a bus the last

00:53:30.880 - 00:53:43.420

20 miles or so to get into Lynn. Then what did you do after you got home? Well, then I thought about what I was going to do. While I was thinking, the phone rang and it was the Quartermaster General's office.

00:53:43.500 - 00:54:00.400

They wanted to know if I wanted my old job back because they already knew the program was finished. I said, "Well, I might as well do that because the war is still on." I was actually in Washington when the war ended. All the jubilation was down on Connecticut Avenue in Washington.

00:54:00.900 - 00:54:10.780

When we heard that the war had finished on one thing and the other, when the bomb, the atom bomb was used, I was in Washington. And then... Where were you in Washington?

00:54:10.960 - 00:54:24.100

Still at the Quartermaster General's office. I went back to my old job. And at that time, it was all top secret. Before the war actually ended, they were getting a division of ski troops ready.

00:54:24.760 - 00:54:48.700

So I worked up all the requirements for these 50,000 ski troopers that they were going to throw into the Italian campaign, but the war ended so they didn't have to use the thing, but that was the last job I did. And then when the war ended, I decided I would go to try and, well, in the meantime I had

00:54:48.780 - 00:55:08.760

gotten, well, decided that I'd try whether or not I should be married or I should be I had tried to fly for the mission, I mean to go there, but nobody would that way, but nobody was willing to, you know, they thought, "Oh, women couldn't do it. They landed in a tree or something, they'd be killed, but a man might be able to walk

00:55:09.180 - 00:55:15.780

out." That kind of attitude. So it was, I was, they told me it was ten years too soon, you know. If I waited ten years, I might do it.

00:55:16.550 - 00:55:29.900

So, Mom, you were in Washington in the quartermaster. Were you dating different women? Well, I, I just, yes. I, it was nothing serious and then one time it was serious and he was a very nice young

00:55:30.000 - 00:55:54.880

man and he was just a medical student so I, well I said yes so I theoretically engaged. Then afterwards he was in school in St. Louis for finishing up and it was, I thought about it and I said well I still got to figure, the missions and being a missionary was still on my mind, so I told him, because he knew about it beforehand. I just don't know, I

00:55:54.880 - 00:56:07.620

wanted to be a nun. And so I said, "Well, I'd like to go and try it, and if I don't make it, well, then I'll be sure." So he said, "Okay." So I gave him all his things back and I went. What do you mean all the things back?

00:56:07.640 - 00:56:34.920

Well, the ring and the fraternity pin, whatever. Then I went to Maryknoll, the American Society of foreign missions, which was... and they were very much interested in keeping up the flying because they were kind of modern in their ideas and they didn't see any problem with maybe not up in the ice fields, but in Alaska or any place like that, but in the

00:56:35.020 - 00:56:49.620

ordinary missions, they could see that it would be coming someday. So at the end of six months, you have the first period of the training, and then at At that time they check you out on your health and your physical and all.

00:56:50.060 - 00:57:04.540

Well they found out I had a low metabolism or something so they said I probably wouldn't have the energy to go to, you know, the stamina for the mission life so they thought well maybe I should just go out

00:57:04.600 - 00:57:15.780

and work on getting the thyroid straightened out so I got out and I went to the lady clinic in Boston and they couldn't find a darn thing wrong with the thyroid. They said there's not a thing wrong with your

00:57:15.640 - 00:57:32.220

thyroid. It must have been her machine when she took the test. So I thought, well, that's -- I mean, God doesn't want me there, because I went out on this. There was nothing on it, nothing to it. So I -- At this point, were there any manned flying missions?

00:57:33.580 - 00:57:55.660

No. No one had even put any planes in the missions at that time. And so I went back, And I didn't know, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, so I was speaking with one of the priests that I knew in St. Matthew's Cathedral, and another priest came in and said, "Can you take shorthand?"

00:57:55.660 - 00:58:17.760

And I said, "Well, I could, but I hadn't for long, but I thought I could." And he said, "Well, they just separated Washington from Baltimore." And the new bishop coming down wanted somebody to take his letters for thanking him for his coordination as bishop. So could I work for a couple of days? So I said, yeah, because

00:58:17.820 - 00:58:34.060

I was going home that Saturday. So I went two days and he dictated the letters, piles of letters, and I brought them back and then I said, well, I'm going to leave tomorrow now. He said, didn't anybody tell you you were hired? I said, no, they forgot. So I-

00:58:34.060 - 00:58:45.860

In Hospital Square? In Washington. So I ended up as secretary to the Bishop of Washington for three years And I worked for him for three years and then I decided I was going to try Carmel. At that point I had...

00:58:45.880 - 00:58:58.720

And where was this boy that... Oh, then, well, I had... When I came out, I waited a year before I said anything. Then I wrote to him and I told him I was out.

00:58:58.860 - 00:59:15.940

So the answer was, "Well, don't do anything drastic until you hear from me." and there was a, the St. Therese, who was the patroness of the missions of the Carmelite, her feast is October the 1st and they have a novena

00:59:16.140 - 00:59:27.240

for nine days before they kind of prepare, you know, to celebrate her feast. So during the novena I was asking, you know, just give me some kind of answer about

00:59:27.860 - 00:59:42.520

what I should do and I still wasn't positive that I wanted to get married so then at the end of the novena I got a letter from St. Louis and it said, "Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so invite you to

00:59:42.580 - 00:59:54.140

the wedding of their son So-and-so to So-and-so." And this was the kid I was waiting for the answer from. Anyway this was the answer and then I looked further down and it said, "In the chapel of St. Teresa."

00:59:55.400 - 01:00:19.980

It was the same novena, "In the chapel of St. Teresa." name Teresa, so it was all, it was a plot, the whole thing. So I ended up, decided I would go to enter the Carmelite Order, which I did, and after my training, I had the help for that, my periods of...

01:00:21.380 - 01:00:37.480

Where were you for training? I entered in Boston, I shouldn't say training, it was a novitiate for the formation, you forms of the new way of life because it's a completely different life and you're living outside and no two telephones to answer at once and all that kind of activity.

01:00:38.600 - 01:01:01.300

Why did you choose that over being a regular nun? Well, because at that point I couldn't really, I felt I couldn't do anything positive for the kingdom of God because they told me I couldn't be a missionary because I had a low thyroid and I couldn't fly.

01:01:01.540 - 01:01:19.540

So I said, "Well, the next best thing is I'd make the sacrifice of all that and take up the life of praying for the world and for the church and for the needs of everyone." So I decided I could do just as much doing that. So I entered with that.

01:01:20.000 - 01:01:37.440

That's what the Carmelite Order is about. In the Central Flying Training Command, the shield that we wore had "Ut Viri Volent," which means that men may fly. The command was like geared to passing on, they had a torch on it, passing on the knowledge

01:01:37.540 - 01:01:55.780

of flying to the next generation, or the generations coming, and the pilots that we needed to defend the country and all. So that was the motto of the Central Flying Training Command. And I got to think about it that in our life, when people all of a sudden, they don't know

01:01:56.300 - 01:02:07.660

what they're really here for, and they begin to think, well, at that point, they're blind, they're mute, they're deaf, they're lame, they're not doing anything as far as eternity goes. So slowly God gives them a light.

01:02:08.120 - 01:02:21.460

They begin to get one light, and as they get the next light, then he opens their eyes and opens their ears, they can understand people, or what, you know, a sermon or reading a book or something that starts to tell them what there is,

01:02:21.760 - 01:02:32.420

what they're really here for. And then they begin to, they were lame, but now they begin to get involved with their neighbor and they begin to show a little love in the

01:02:32.640 - 01:02:44.800

world to helping other people and getting out of themselves. So eventually if they keep it up, And eventually they're flying on this way of the civilization of love.

01:02:44.920 - 01:03:03.180

Everybody is friends and everybody is... the violence is eliminated and all. So actually the vocation of a Carmelite is to pray for people. And when you pray, you're like... you're the ones that's asking for the individual themselves. And then God is responding by giving them the light, even though they don't even know they're going to be getting it.

01:03:03.760 - 01:03:24.800

You know, it's the love that goes out that really changes the world. So the civilization of love is the best way to get people on the way to God. So this is like the vocation of Utvide Volent. We pray for them so that they will fly to God eventually in full service and in full commitment.

01:03:25.780 - 01:03:39.520

So actually the shield that you wore in the Central Flying Training Command is still the shield. Yeah, it's still the same thing. So there's a continuity in our life even though at the moment, At that time I really did, I tried all kinds of

01:03:39.680 - 01:03:53.240

byways and sidetracks to find my way but eventually when that dawned on me but then it's everything else is obvious now, looking back it's all obviously God's work and where I was born, what I did,

01:03:53.420 - 01:04:05.600

everything put together. One thing, one thing would have been, if one link had been missing the whole thing is God, you know, he writes straight with crooked

01:04:05.600 - 01:04:24.240

lines as they say, God always writes straight, even though the lines are crooked, he's writing straight because he's putting you where he wants you to go. So when you finished your initial training? Then normally you would stay in one monastery for the rest of your life, that's the normal

01:04:24.480 - 01:04:38.240

way of being a Carmelite, but I got out, I mean I had my final vows in 1955, so when, Now the general had just visited all the carmen, there were 800 of them in the world. - Who is the general?

01:04:38.800 - 01:04:48.420

- He is the head of the order in Rome. His office is in Rome, but he kind of sees the needs of the order all over the world so that if one monastery

01:04:48.560 - 01:05:01.280

has a lot of vocations and another one doesn't, well he can take some people from there and send them help. But he's the only one that has the authority to move anybody at that time.

01:05:01.320 - 01:05:16.200

know it's a little bit changed since Vatican II, but at that time he was the one that had the last word of who did what. >> How many of these Carmelite missions are there? >> There were about 800 scattered all over the world, including the states and so on.

01:05:16.360 - 01:05:38.940

Practically every country had a monastery. And then he became back, and especially in the Far East, most of those monasteries had then started by the French communities, by the French monasteries, and they were either made prisoners or sent back to their own countries or some of them died during the war so that

01:05:39.040 - 01:06:03.600

the natives were left with no one to help them, guide them, because they were still in formation mostly, all the ones who were doing the actual foundation, all those who were in office of superior and procurator and all that. They were all French, so the natives were left with, they didn't know how to run a

01:06:03.800 - 01:07:06.180

monastery or what to do or anything. So he was picking up bilingual nuns in some of the other houses. [Birds chirping] Here we go.

01:07:06.320 - 01:07:32.760

What is it? I can't really read what it says. It just says south. There we go.

01:07:34.160 - 01:07:40.900

Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? I don't know how you're gonna get up. I'm supposed to, but...

01:07:41.420 - 01:08:05.980

I don't... I don't... This guy's sitting here. Yeah, but this guy's not gonna want to wait for somebody to move. Yeah, she's right in the front.

01:08:07.220 - 01:08:40.060

She's waving at us. And the bus driver is waving at us too. (laughing) - Okay!

01:08:43.620 - 01:09:06.900

(airplane engine roaring) (laughing) (laughing) - Oh, I bet you're exhausted.

01:09:10.100 - 01:09:20.220

(laughing) - Where have you guys been? - They're tearing up. They're tearing up the boat.

01:09:27.680 - 01:09:59.960

My name is Anita Paul and also Anita Paul and known as Sister Teresa or Sir Teres. My family was bilingual from my birth so I have I grew up with two languages and I was born in this... [laughter]

01:10:03.440 - 01:10:10.640

Are we still on? I think we need to start over. Okay, why don't you back it up. In French, my name is Anita Paul.

01:10:10.880 - 01:10:29.380

I'm also known as Sister Teresa. And say, in English, my name is... My name is Anita Paul, also known as Sister Teresa, and in French it's Anita Paul and it's Sir Teresa.

01:10:31.250 - 01:10:53.640

I grew up in a bilingual family, so I was fortunate enough to learn French the easy way, just having spoken it from my earliest years. My grandmother, her mother came from France to Canada and had never learned English because she was already quite old when I knew her.

01:10:54.200 - 01:11:06.880

They had settled in a French area, so there was no church. The services were all in French, as they called them, French parishes. She never really bothered to learn English, so we had to speak French whether we liked it or not.

01:11:07.320 - 01:11:24.300

In your home, what was the common language then? The common language was French at home. When we started school, we began to learn English, so slowly but surely the language spoken at home became English.

01:11:24.740 - 01:11:52.100

By the time we were in high school, we spoke more English than French. Tell me your earliest recollections of home, of your family, where you lived. I was born in 1924, which was just at the beginning of the Depression. My dad had been working on the railroad and had lost his job, so my earliest recollections

01:11:52.160 - 01:12:10.740

of him were working in the wood yard, cutting wood for supplying the firewood for the people who bought it from them. Do you remember your house? The first house I remember, I was just one year old, and it was at the time my brother

01:12:10.820 - 01:12:27.500

was born, I remember that my mother was in bed, and I used to crawl over, just hanging on to things as I'd be walking. My earliest recollection is I wanted to get on the bed to get on, so that whoever was there taking care of me put me on the bed.

01:12:27.640 - 01:12:44.540

I remember that very distinctly. And the other thing is one time I looked at the stairs, I was all bundled up, so I must winter, I looked at the stairs and it seemed like an awfully long trip down there, so I decided to just roll down. So I sat down and rolled down the stairs and everybody thought

01:12:44.540 - 01:13:03.060

I had fallen, but I was perfectly all right. I had deliberately rolled down the stairs. I was so bundled up, it didn't do anything. Did you live in a town or did you live out in the country? We lived in Nashua, which is where the hospital where I was born was there. But then shortly

01:13:03.060 - 01:13:20.480

Shortly after that, my mom and dad moved to Hudson. We lived on my grandmother's farm at that point. How big a farm? They had 250 acres, and they had just gotten it, I think, around the time I was born, because

01:13:20.560 - 01:13:38.980

it was... I remember that it was virgin. My early years, it wasn't all developed, and there were a lot of woods. But it was in Hudson, New Hampshire, which was about four miles from the city.

01:13:39.410 - 01:13:52.760

So did your family move in with the grandparents? It was an 18-room house that they had. I don't know its history at all, but it was a wooden house. So they had cut some of the little rooms and made bigger rooms.

01:13:54.180 - 01:14:12.300

My grandmother had occupied one-third of it, and then there was another third that we occupied. One of my aunts had three children occupied. The other, waiting at the same house, it was actually like three families in this big house. My aunt had three boys, so we grew up more or less together.

01:14:12.640 - 01:14:27.720

The bag moved away, and another, one of my uncle, who was my grandmother's son, moved in with his family. They had one girl, and they later had two boys, but the one girl was about a year younger than I was.

01:14:28.100 - 01:14:42.560

I played with her more than I did with my sister who was two years older who was interested in learning to knit and all those sort of things. So my grandmother taught her how to knit and how to crochet while I was playing with my little cousin.

01:14:42.980 - 01:14:55.500

So it really was just a family thing. It was like a family. And on Sunday, every Sunday, all the others, there were seven other aunts and uncles in my grandmother's family, her children,

01:14:55.800 - 01:15:06.680

and every one of them would come on Sundays, so it was a family gathering every Sunday. There must have been about, I guess, 15 of us children playing around on Sunday.

01:15:07.180 - 01:15:17.300

And in the winter, we'd all go tromping in the woods on homemade snowshoes, and eventually we all got skis, and we went out. - Which grandparents?

01:15:17.340 - 01:15:38.660

- My maternal grandmother, who is French. - Tell me about your other grandparents. My paternal parents, grandparents also came through Canada, but they came out to Canada in 1600s, very early settlers in Canada, and they stayed there until my dad's parents moved

01:15:38.660 - 01:15:56.880

to the States. So they were there. And my grandparents, my grandmother was like nine years old when she came over from, I She came over as a child, but the others were just born in Canada.

01:15:57.800 - 01:16:18.860

Did your father's parents visit you or did you visit them? They lived further away, so we went to visit them when we got transportation, because in those days if you did it on a horse and buggy, you got nowhere. So finally, when my dad had got the depression, I guess I was about six or so before I really

01:16:18.860 - 01:16:42.380

had gone to visit my paternal grandparents, but they lived near what turned out to be the first airport in Nashville, New Hampshire, and they lived right across the field from it. So on Sundays we didn't mind going over there even though my sister and I were the children and there were no other children around, so we just sat on the porch and behaved

01:16:42.580 - 01:16:56.600

ourselves. But we had a great time because we kept watching the planes take off and landing. little Piper Cubs that were flying around. What do you remember of your contact with your grandmother? What did your grandmother teach you?

01:16:57.380 - 01:17:13.960

My grandmother was almost like, we were just part of the same family. They played cards, my dad and mom would play cards with the uncles and the aunts who came over. But it was always in my grandmother's side of the house that the congregation arrived.

01:17:15.780 - 01:17:43.820

And also, my grandmother used to take care of us once in a while. I really don't know why my mother wasn't there, but I don't remember that. I had to be about four or five at the time. And I remember one time I had gone, we lived upstairs over my grandmother at that And I remember going down and my grandmother telling me,

01:17:44.320 - 01:17:54.260

that would I just please stop talking? (laughs) I wasn't obnoxious, but I asked all kinds of questions and never stopped talking apparently.

01:17:59.340 - 01:18:16.220

But I remember her, she did all the cooking on the farm. My mother did the cooking for us on those big iron stoves that they had with, you put wood in them and coal. But my grandmother would take care of the cooking

01:18:16.320 - 01:18:34.260

for her because my two aunts who lived with her worked on the farm. They helped the cows along with an uncle. So they did all the hard work on the farm, but my grandmother did the cooking. And she was out in the fields until she has, I think she must have been 70 when she was still going out.

01:18:35.240 - 01:18:56.960

What were your chores when you were a young child? We had, we worked, we came home and we played when we were in school. We had an hour to play after school and then we had to do our homework and all. But what didn't interfere with our, when we had a holiday or day off on Saturdays,

01:18:57.040 - 01:19:23.520

that didn't interfere with the schooling, I remember we used to clean the farm truck on Saturday morning so that my uncle could take it into town on Saturday night. I guess he wasn't married, so he must have gone with some of his friends to a movie or something, but we always polished up the truck. We got five cents for doing all that. So my sister

01:19:23.520 - 01:19:45.480

and I, we made ten cents, the two of us together made ten cents a week on that. And then we the manure behind the cows, you have to open a big trap in the floor. It was so heavy, and I used to petrify that I'd fall in the hole, drop this and fall and go behind it. But they dumped all the manure under the barn, and then in the spring they took it out to

01:19:45.520 - 01:20:09.400

the fields. They just pulled it up by hand in those days. Early on, you had an experience about a flag. Tell me about that. On the 4th of July, usually, we used to walk about a mile down to the river edge, because that was a ritual every year, to watch the fireworks that were at the golf course on

01:20:09.440 - 01:20:24.020

the other side of the river. The river was the boundary of my grandmother's farm, so we walked there to watch the fireworks, and that was the biggest treat. But also, one year we apparently had, we always had our flag, we'd go down there with the

01:20:24.020 - 01:20:41.500

flag to watch the fireworks. On this one time, they were taking pictures of that, it was somebody's camera because we didn't have a camera, I don't know, I have no idea of recollection of where the camera came from, but anyway, that was one of the first pictures my mother ever had of

01:20:41.980 - 01:21:04.540

us. they were taking it, and at first they insisted on taking me beside a tree, and that's not what I wanted. I wanted my picture with the flags. And so my sister had hers and I had mine, and I wasn't too happy with that either. I wanted the two flags. So I sat down on the

01:21:04.600 - 01:21:24.640

grass and I had one up and one down. It was probably one of those Navy codes, I don't Anyway, I had, and the picture, the only one I have, I have a big grin, but I know that I remember distinctly that I really wanted the two flags and I wasn't happy. I wouldn't have had my picture taken if they hadn't given me the two.

01:21:26.880 - 01:21:44.920

When you entered school, how far did you have to go to school? In the picture with the flag, the school is in the background, but way up on the hill They had at least a mile of an avenue that was graded. I saw it in later years and it wasn't as big a hill as I thought it was at the time, but

01:21:45.780 - 01:22:01.980

it was a mile of avenue and then another mile from us to the gate, so we had to go. We couldn't cut across the field because there were brooks and woods and all of it in between, so we had to go around. It was about a good, maybe a mile and a half, if not two, but it was probably considered

01:22:02.140 - 01:22:13.980

two. Do you remember any special teacher that might have influenced you? Actually, I only had one teacher because the classes were... they just had the external class, they called them the externals,

01:22:14.620 - 01:22:26.800

because it was a boarding school for girls, but they had agreed with the parish, which was in Nashua, four or five miles away, to take the children in the neighborhood, who were Catholics,

01:22:26.960 - 01:22:39.300

to give them their first two years of schooling. So after we had been two years of school there, then we transferred to the parish school in Nashua, and then we had to take the bus to get to school.

01:22:39.980 - 01:22:55.620

But they were-- I think there were only four in the preschool that when I entered, and in all, we were 12 in the class. So it was really almost like tutoring. In fact, practically everybody that

01:22:55.740 - 01:23:06.640

when you transfer to school, we just skipped a grade because we were ahead of the curriculum of the other school. So how long did you go to Catholic school? The whole primary grade, the eighth grades and all.

01:23:08.180 - 01:23:28.980

And then when you transferred, or when you got out of eighth grade and started high school? Then there were no, the Catholic high schools, the cost of going, on the grade school part, it was ten cents a month. But then when you got to the high school, it wasn't the parish one,

01:23:28.980 - 01:23:40.240

and it was a special high school for all the parishes. So then they had a tuition fee, and my family was still struggling to get the, my mother managed to get us all in school,

01:23:40.320 - 01:23:51.660

but she actually sewed all the clothes that we wore, even the coats she made them for us out of clothes that people would give us, that she would take anything anybody would give us,

01:23:51.680 - 01:24:02.480

and then she'd undo all the seams and get press wash and press all the material. And then I can still remember, I see her at the table, the kitchen table, trying to get all the pieces of her pattern

01:24:02.660 - 01:24:17.280

out of mixing, matching, everything. And she worked till about 11 every single night by tomorrow. She was very, very devoted. Do you remember when you went to a public school?

01:24:18.320 - 01:24:36.200

So after grade school, then, I was trying to decide. I really wanted to go on to the high school, but then the public school was free. So in my mind, I chose to go to the public school myself. I said, "Oh, I'd rather go there."

01:24:36.280 - 01:24:46.800

I had actually in my mind that because then my family wouldn't have to pay anything, and they could breathe a little easier. I can remember my mother not... She'd never buy a thing for herself.

01:24:47.120 - 01:25:04.500

If we had grapes or something, she'd have one. She'd say, "Oh, that's all." give us my sister and me to everything. If she got a box of chocolates on Mother's Day, well, she might have one and we'd have one apiece after supper. After supper at night

01:25:04.580 - 01:25:28.880

she'd give us each one. The box of chocolates lasted a while. And we would have never even had a thought of going and helping ourselves, or asking for one, or insisting on it. We that, well, you took what God gave you and that was that. And I remember once in a while, my mother would--

01:25:29.440 - 01:25:40.480

when she had gotten some candy-- once in a while, my dad was on the railroad and some package would break or something in the shipment. And all the people who were on that particular train

01:25:40.600 - 01:25:48.120

got to take some of the contents home because they didn't know what to do with them. So he would come home with some candy that had been-- the box had broken.

01:25:48.740 - 01:26:04.060

And I can remember my mother, when she had something like that, she'd tell us, well, go in our bedroom and ask God to pray for-- to pray for-- to pray for a special treat or something like that.

01:26:04.160 - 01:26:15.460

She'd never say anything about candy. Just pray for-- that something nice had happened to you. And then she would stand behind us and throw the candy onto the bed. And this worked for quite a while until my sister

01:26:15.460 - 01:26:37.840

to open her eyes and look back. That was the end of that. I really believed that the candy fell from heaven, you know, because I would have believed what they told me. I never questioned that because God, we were raised with that God could do anything. So I was crying. I was sure the candy came from him. Actually, it did, you know, by circumstances.

01:26:38.380 - 01:27:03.660

Tell me the values that your family instilled in you as a child growing up. I'd say it was truth, to live by the truth, and then they would explain to you the truth. The fact is you were born where you are, so you make the best and you don't envy the other ones because you're a lot happier than the kids who had a lot of things.

01:27:04.860 - 01:27:30.060

Going to school, we wouldn't have won the dress contest because my mother made our clothes. I remember some of the things were hard to, like I had one dress that had the sleeves were short sleeves, but we had to wear long sleeves, so she didn't have any other material except, didn't match, so she made me these long sleeves that didn't match.

01:27:30.120 - 01:27:48.360

I wore them to school because that was when we didn't have the uniforms anymore. The last two years of the grade schools, we didn't have to wear the uniforms. Those were black dress with a white collar, so it was easier to worry about clothes. so they had to be black. But the last two years we had clothes. And I remember that

01:27:48.640 - 01:28:13.200

they wouldn't take short sleeves, so I had the short, the dress had been given, but she made the long sleeves. And it cost me a little something, my, what, my pride or my, what? Ego? My ego, yes. They have to wear this because it got obviously, there weren't the sleeves, there belonged to the dress. And then what other? Then I forgot all about it. I remember

01:28:13.200 - 01:28:24.140

just that one moment, but then you forgot about it because that was, so what? - And then what other values? - And thinking of the other person,

01:28:25.280 - 01:28:41.080

and doing services, she really didn't like the idea of our getting paid for the barn and the truck, but my uncle would have insisted on that. But the money that we got from that

01:28:41.080 - 01:29:11.060

would always go into this bank, and it was a metal bank with a little monkey that had a hat, and as you put the money in, he bent it, you put the money in and it fell in, and he bent his, he tipped his hat to you as you put it in. But it was, so all the money that we made went into this bank, and in the school, in the first school I was at, the boarding

01:29:11.060 - 01:29:24.740

given us the address of a missionary in some mission. My sister had one in South America and I had mine was in Japan. And we, at Christmas time, we would send them a money order

01:29:25.040 - 01:29:35.900

for whatever the amount was that was in the bank. And I'm sure my mother rounded it off to make it the closest dollar. And I remember the postage was five cents

01:29:36.660 - 01:29:52.900

for the letter to go to Japan. It wasn't airmail because there was no airmail at that point. a reserve mail, but we sent it away to the missions. We didn't have any spending money.

01:29:53.440 - 01:30:13.660

On Sunday morning on the way home from Cherokee, we stopped to pick up meat or something because it was right on the way, and we were given one penny a piece, my sister and I. They had one of these glass counters that you could look in and they had all these penny candies in there, all kinds of things.

01:30:13.680 - 01:30:31.580

You could get two cigarettes, candy cigarettes, or one mint for your penny. So we'd stand there while they were doing all, the adults were getting all their things straightened out, and we'd look at this one end to the other to figure out which one we were going to buy that Sunday, but we only had one penny to spend.

01:30:32.860 - 01:30:54.540

But that was the only time we ever said, "Ma, can I have this?" She bought, when we were in grade school, she used to buy, the first couple of years, she used to buy a bag of, we called them washboards because it was a cookie that was made like, it had lines on it like the old-fashioned washboards that you used to wash clothes on,

01:30:55.440 - 01:31:12.500

wooden ones, but inside. So we called the cookies washboards and we'd come in, "I'm not going to have a washboard." And she'd give us one. Sometimes you would feel like having another one, so you're brave at one time, you know,

01:31:13.140 - 01:31:21.580

and you're going to ruin your supper. That was it. But sometimes she'd give you a second one. So I decided, I figured out how to make it last.

01:31:22.020 - 01:31:38.460

So I would take it and just chew with my teeth just a little bit at a time, make it last I didn't just eat it, I used to bite it off in little tiny bits. Let me back up a minute to the flags. Why were those flags important to you?

01:31:39.200 - 01:31:53.180

I guess because my dad had been in the First World War, and somehow or other, and they talked about-- Mom used to talk about how they sold liberty bonds at the time of the war, because actually I was born in '24, and my dad, it was only six years before that,

01:31:53.680 - 01:32:09.440

that he had been in France. It was close to them to us, it seemed like a long time ago that all this had happened, but it was very much within their memory range at that point, because they got married when he came back from the war.

01:32:12.780 - 01:32:30.240

He still had part of his uniform, and they had, in those days, the doughboys, as they called them, they used to wrap their legs with this thing as they marched, I guess. It was like a support for the marching, actually. I think it helped their legs and it also kept the bugs out.

01:32:32.180 - 01:32:41.180

But they were called Dole Boys because they came from the United States where there was supposed to be money. The Dole. So they used to call the American soldiers the Dole Boys.

01:32:41.760 - 01:32:55.460

And the Yankee division was made up mostly of New England, the French settlers from New England. So because of that experience of your dad, you grew up-- I grew up with the idea that your country meant something.

01:32:55.900 - 01:33:13.040

So I really loved the country, the countryside. And I loved the geography and thinking about the Indians, the whole history of the United States. That was very much part of my great love for the US.

01:33:13.560 - 01:33:26.800

Let me ask you about your father as you were growing up. Would they have celebrations of Veterans Day and things? And how would your family participate? Well, in the town, every Memorial Day and every Veterans

01:33:26.900 - 01:33:43.020

Day, they had a big parade for the city, and it was the whole of Nashua. And my sister and I belonged to the Daughters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which to us, it was something quite distant.

01:33:43.140 - 01:33:58.540

The foreign wars, but not to my dad and my mom. It was a drill team that they had worked up. we joined it, it had some connection with the parish. And they also had another men's rifle team,

01:33:58.810 - 01:34:10.160

and it was called the Garde Rochambeau. And it was only after I, in fact, after I knew the French nuns joined Carmel and got sent to French Carmel,

01:34:10.740 - 01:34:22.920

that I realized, I found out this Rochambeau was one of the generals that France had sent over to help the United States along with Lafayette, because George Washington wasn't a military man at all.

01:34:22.930 - 01:34:40.920

So the two of them in history are considered as some of the two great helpers to the independence of the United States from England. So that in itself was historical, the fact that we--

01:34:41.280 - 01:34:48.740

When they would have these parades, would your dad march in the parades? No. It was the American Legion would march,

01:34:48.800 - 01:35:02.660

because most of them, they were all busy, and some of them had been wounded and whatnot. My dad had been gassed, so he was always a little bit short of breath.

01:35:05.400 - 01:35:16.180

And when they came back, they joined the American Legion. At that time, they had no-- I think they had a section for the VFW, but it seems to me it was in some way tied in

01:35:16.080 - 01:35:40.860

with the American Legion as far as the parades went. Okay. When you were in high school, do you remember any outstanding teachers, your favorite teacher? There was one, Miss Ash, I think she was Jewish. In fact, I'm sure she was, but she, I had

01:35:40.680 - 01:36:07.560

I had my appendix out my sophomore year, my freshman year, and she taught algebra, and she stayed back after I got back. I was out for a whole month in those days. You couldn't move for ages after an appendectomy. So I missed two months of school in all, and it was graduation. At that point, they had just decided to do a 3-3 program for the high school

01:36:07.560 - 01:36:33.960

in junior high, so it was three years of junior high and three years of high school, the year I went through. Then they quit the following year, went back to the 2-4 plan, the freshman, sophomores, and juniors, and the seniors. But she stayed back every single day to catch me up on my, what I had missed so I'd be able to graduate. And then the other teachers did

01:36:33.960 - 01:37:02.360

same thing. So I got out on schedule, but this happened like in March and April I missed, so I really had just one month to catch up on my backlog. When you graduated, what was your first job? I had taken, I started out with Latin, but I hoped to go to college, but then the economy

01:37:02.360 - 01:37:13.140

and there's a lot of uncertainty in foreign affairs. We got ripples of that. We really didn't know what was really happening, but it didn't look like,

01:37:14.340 - 01:37:24.920

the future looked a little bit bleak at that point. So when I got to senior high school that year, the third, last three years, I switched to the commercial course.

01:37:24.980 - 01:37:42.140

So I had taken, they were giving three years of shorthand, So we get up to a speed of 120 words a minute on the oral speed. And we had three years of typing. So we really got more.

01:37:42.300 - 01:37:51.860

After that, they only had two years. I was in one class. They had the three years. And so the National Government Quoted Paper Company was the big--

01:37:51.860 - 01:38:04.180

that and the mills were the big industry in the city. And they used to go to the high school before the end of the year and pick out the students that they thought were prospects for their employment. So then they offered you a job.

01:38:04.880 - 01:38:21.040

So I got out on Friday and I started working on Monday. Tell me where you were and how you felt when you heard about Pearl Harbor. It was a Sunday, obviously. And we had been-- my sister and I had taken our bicycles

01:38:21.220 - 01:38:31.720

and had gone down to my grandmother's farm. By that time, my mom had-- when we got-- both of us got in high school, Mom and Dad moved into a half of a house that one of my dad's sisters owned.

01:38:31.910 - 01:38:43.140

We had one floor of a house. And that was fairly close to everything. So we could walk to high school and walk to your job and all. So we had-- but we had--

01:38:43.140 - 01:38:57.980

my first job, first thing I did was buy a bike, a bicycle. And it cost $19, I remember. But I saved up right away because that was transportation. I was about to pay the bus all the time to go anywhere and it took too long.

01:38:58.140 - 01:39:21.740

So then we bicycled down to my grandmother's farm, which was like at that point five miles away, but that didn't deter us any from going to see her all the time. Because we both missed, my sister and I both missed the farm because it was the city life when they moved on the edge of the main street, so it was a totally different life.

01:39:22.380 - 01:39:42.800

So anyway, we'd go down to the farm, and we had just gotten back from seeing my grandmother when we were coming in the house when the news broke that Pearl Harbor had occurred. And so then I remember we listened to the radio, and then the president declared war in Japan, and then all of a sudden he declared war in Europe also.

01:39:42.920 - 01:40:00.720

And I really couldn't figure that one out, but anyway, it was on two fronts. Had you already graduated from high school? I got out in June and the war started in December. So I had been working at this card shop and the work that I had been doing there was,

01:40:01.060 - 01:40:21.800

believe it or not, was no typing and no shorthand after all that. But they taught me how to use a slide rule and I was figuring out the percentage of the company's orders that they got, which percentage was going into the war effort. That's what everybody was concerned about so they could get supplies to make their glue

01:40:21.800 - 01:40:46.480

all this stuff. And they had quite a bit of like paperwork boxes and cartons and that kind of, that was their big thing. So they managed to stay on top during the war because they didn't lose their contracts and that they didn't have to change. But the man that I was working for was in the reserves and so he was called into active duty and sent

01:40:46.480 - 01:40:58.600

to Washington because I was in the Quartermaster General's office where they computed the requirements for the troops. And he wasn't there one month, and he called up and asked me if I would come down because they had to go from 300

01:40:58.760 - 01:41:09.880

to 3,000 employees in short order from December to as soon as possible. Had to get at least 3,000 employees in there. So I waited.

01:41:10.600 - 01:41:21.360

Then I said, well, I've still got to be a nun, got to be a pilot, and all this. So it was still in my mind. But then the war effort took the spotlight away

01:41:21.360 - 01:41:28.960

from my private life. And I decided I would do that. It was more important than figuring out how much of the gum, the coated paper,

01:41:29.080 - 01:41:38.920

was going into the war effort. So I went. I was 18. I had just turned 18 in '42.

01:41:39.180 - 01:41:47.020

I had just turned 18. And then in May, and I went-- August 2, I went to Washington. and that was my first time away from home.

01:41:49.080 - 01:42:00.120

But they had already found an apartment with three other girls who were working at that same place, who had room for one more to share an apartment. So I didn't have to go looking for a place to live or anything.

01:42:00.300 - 01:42:12.440

And they were very nice girls. There were four of us altogether. We all worked for the government. >> And while you were at the Quartermaster Corps, you heard about --

01:42:12.440 - 01:42:25.820

>> They were computing requirements, And then this one, in fact, it was the colonel that I was working for who gave me the McCall magazine with the picture of the wasps getting their wings. I don't even remember where.

01:42:28.640 - 01:42:42.500

I kept Hawaii, but it couldn't have been Hawaii that they were getting their wings. Wherever they were, they were the first wasps. Tell me about the back of that magazine. And on the back of that magazine was a picture of Jacqueline Corkman standing on the wing

01:42:42.460 - 01:43:02.880

of a plane and saying, "I always smoke a Camel" after a forced landing. It was like an ad for Camel cigarettes. How did that ad figure into something that happened later on with you, with your picture or with your yearbook?

01:43:03.440 - 01:43:28.160

Oh, and then so, then one time I had a forced landing, but my instructor was one of the the PT-17, one of the plates in the front right near the engine where they pull it out, it takes the screw out. It hadn't been screwed on right, so the plane started flapping in the breeze after we were up in the air for a while. So he made me put my seat all the

01:43:28.160 - 01:43:55.560

way down as far as I could to keep my head down because if that thing ever flew off, coming in the right direction, you'd take your head right off. So while I was practically to the seat, he did the flying and went back to the field to get down as fast and as easily as smoothly as possible. So I think it was like my third flight up on Doolo. And so when

01:43:55.600 - 01:44:18.760

I came down, everybody was going around. We'd tell what happened when the girls were off. We'd tell what had happened on the day. So this was all excitement. I had to come down ahead of time with my struggle. I wasn't doing the flying. But anyway, I said, "Oh, I always smoke a Camel after a forced landing." And that ended up being under my picture in the

01:44:18.880 - 01:44:40.080

class book. Then I thought, when I was going to the convent, I thought, "I don't think I'd better leave that for history." So I took some black ink and wiped it all, covered it all up so nobody could read it, not remembering that there were at least another hundred around, and told them the same book.

01:44:41.860 - 01:44:58.500

So that was the thing that I had done with that. Jack O'Carpen's famous words. When you found out that they were training girls to fly, what made you think that you could do that?

01:44:59.080 - 01:45:10.720

I really didn't know. I'd never been up on a plane before, but I wanted to do that, so there was no question on my mind that I wouldn't like it I had no idea what it felt like to be in a plane.

01:45:11.260 - 01:45:26.860

There was a good Baptist gentleman who was my dentist, and he was in the Civil Air Patrol and that sort of thing. So I mentioned it to him one time when I went in to have my teeth checked. And I think I did that.

01:45:26.870 - 01:45:43.880

I got a dental checkup to make sure that I didn't have anything that would keep me out of the program. He took me up for my first ride. was July 28th, the first time I'd ever gone up in a plane. And I had no time, no flying

01:45:43.960 - 01:46:10.260

time or anything, but he just went up and ran around the field and that was all. So I had really no idea what flying was like, but I knew what it felt to be up in the air for one quick landing. But it was just before that or right after that that I saw that I decided that I was going to... I think it was even before that. No, it was before that.

01:46:11.120 - 01:46:28.340

They had lowered the age. When I saw this, I hadn't been up in a plane, and I didn't... Do you want to start over? No, that's okay. When they gave me this magazine, I took the picture off and pinned it to the wall, because

01:46:28.340 - 01:46:52.080

it was a paperback, I mean paper walls in a temporary building, and I pinned it to the wall and I had decided that's what I was going to do and shortly after that they had, the memos came through about them starting to compute for a program of the Air Force, computing a program for, I mean the Quartermaster General had to compute the clothing for these girls.

01:46:52.920 - 01:47:16.180

They were going to have a thousand, which was all I knew about it. And then, so I asked my boss where they were at the headquarters because at the same time they said they had just lowered the age. I didn't get to keep all that information in my head. All I knew was that they had just gotten permission from somebody or other to start this, train these

01:47:16.260 - 01:47:46.320

thousand women to fly for the Air Force. And so my boss looked up where the recruiting on the door and said, "What do I have to do to join, to enlist?" So it had to be, what was the name? Sheehy? It had to be, what was the first name? Ethel.

01:47:46.520 - 01:48:45.560

Ethel Sheehy. (coughing) So after working for the Cardinal and I had decided to enter a monastery in Boston, and I chose it because when one day I had gone home to

01:48:45.700 - 01:48:55.780

Lynn for vacation and someone had given me a package to deliver at this monastery and the nuns in those days they wore big black veil over their faces. I never saw anybody face to face.

01:48:56.420 - 01:49:08.360

So I had delivered the package and while I was there one would come and ask me all kinds of personal questions about you know what I had done and so forth and another one would come and she'd

01:49:08.360 - 01:49:20.520

do the same thing, question me and I heard five people in the same questions and when I got back I said to the president, there's something, they're really weird because they all ask me the same questions. They said, they thought you were applying to enter.

01:49:21.160 - 01:49:35.680

This was the council, the superior and her council were interviewing me and asking the questions they asked the candidates who want to enter. I hadn't even decided to enter yet. So they, and finally after about two months I said,

01:49:36.900 - 01:49:47.960

I might as well try it, you know, this is the last stop. And I called and they said, oh, you've already met the council and everybody's happy, all you need is a physical. You can come in.

01:49:48.600 - 01:50:05.280

So they set the entrance date for the following April, and so April 1st, and everybody said, oh, you'll be back. And I said, no, the April Fool's going to be, I'm going to stay. So I've been, after four months, six months, I had my postulancy, which is the time when

01:50:05.280 - 01:50:20.100

You get used to the life. And then in October I received the habit of the Order in a white veil. That meant you were a novice and you were just starting on the real life. And then after a year of that you have first vows.

01:50:20.160 - 01:50:40.640

You make your first promises to God that you'll stay for three years and try this life. And after three years, then if you're happy with the life and the community is happy with you then you make solemn vows and you promise God that this is it until death do us part, that this is your final profession and this is your final consecration.

01:50:40.840 - 01:50:56.760

So the last, when you get your black veil, it's the final step and that's always the biggest ceremony. So the Washington diocesan papers were covering this story because I had worked in Washington for the bishop.

01:50:57.420 - 01:51:18.580

So the publicity agent had an assistant whom I had gone to the movies with two or three times when I was just still, you know, dating and whatnot. So he knew that I was there. So when in 1977, when, was it, no, it was before that.

01:51:18.660 - 01:51:31.600

It had to be before '68. When did they start looking for the wasps? Anyway, at the point where they were trying to find out where the wasps were, they traced me.

01:51:33.030 - 01:51:47.740

He answered one of the Sacramento papers, "Anybody know any whereabouts of any wasps?" So he answered and said, "Well, he knew one who had entered in Boston." So they went to Boston to find out where I was. If I was there, if they knew me, they said, "Yes, she's in Tokyo now."

01:51:47.740 - 01:52:12.860

So that's how they found me, to resurrect us from the archives. But after I had been there for, after my solemn profession, somebody from the General Aid came and they were looking for bilingual volunteers to go to the Orient to help these monasteries that had been left unmanned by any of the foreign groups to help them out.

01:52:13.360 - 01:52:31.080

So I volunteered to go and they sent me to Korea, so I was there for two years and then I got transferred to- So what did you do in Korea? I was a sub-private, the second one in command, but I knew French and a couple of them knew

01:52:31.080 - 01:52:45.340

French but I was like the liaison between them and the Army of Occupation of Korea was still there but the Korean War was just over. I think it ended up, it ended not too long before because there was hardly any missionaries or anybody there.

01:52:46.040 - 01:52:59.520

And the soldiers would come and help us. There was a well on the side of a mountain. They had to go over there every time they needed water and then bring it down to this little hut, the monastery, which was just a bunch of shacks actually.

01:53:00.060 - 01:53:14.560

Now they've gotten to build a complete monastery. But at that time it was just temporary as could be. were about 19 of us. They had 19, they had young ones. They were 19 of us.

01:53:14.560 - 01:53:27.160

You stayed there for two years? I was there for two years and then I needed a rest because there was constant activity with the American soldiers and they were sending relief,

01:53:27.440 - 01:53:50.400

they were sending in flour. They didn't have anything to eat actually. Like I survived for the soup, whole tomatoes. They had a bunch of cans of that so they would put a few of those in water and that was my supper and breakfast. They used the flour and just put a little

01:53:50.400 - 01:54:06.140

bit of oil and made some kind of a donut because they had no leaven, they had really nothing, no butter, just whatever the Army, the relief forces of the United States were sending in as food, they were getting an allocation of that. And that's what I ate the whole time I was there with them.

01:54:06.300 - 01:54:16.620

Where were you in? In Pusan. How near were you to the military? The big bases of Pusan, the first base, because it was a port.

01:54:18.020 - 01:54:33.640

So the chaplain, because I had been working for the Archbishop of Washington, and he had started during the war this war relief services, and they were the ones who were trying to get the food to all the war zones, ex-war zones, to help the people.

01:54:34.300 - 01:54:55.800

So knowing that I was there, they came to see what we needed, and we got the same allocation as everybody else got. So your position while you were there, you were there to pray for other people? It was the same life, but they weren't able to really do it in its perfection because

01:54:55.820 - 01:55:23.920

they didn't have any wall around the place and everybody would wall sit and out. wasn't completely built yet when the French guns were taken away. So they were in a half-and-half, a halfway house. They were neither in the world and they were neither fully in the order. So this is what they were supposed to, they needed the help to do. So the G.I.s were there

01:55:24.020 - 01:55:38.280

constantly with, you know, they'd bring this and they'd bring that and they'd bring all kinds of things that we wanted and didn't want. So I was really exhausted after those two years of constantly talking to somebody day in and day out.

01:55:38.760 - 01:56:10.220

So they, well, I had a toothache in the front, that was one of the things that happened. I had a toothache and they took me to a clinic that they had down there and the dentist took He took an x-ray and then he said, "This tooth needed to be pulled because this was the front one. This was the bad one." And he pulled it and then after that he looked at the x-rays and he said, "Lies. It's really the next tooth."

01:56:10.260 - 01:56:30.520

So he took the next one out and then he tried putting some kind of Korean bridge, some kind of a, you know, like the Orientals have in gold. So I had two beautiful gold teeth here. They hurt like everything because just the last fitting, the doctor died of TB.

01:56:31.700 - 01:56:37.960

And one of his assistants finished the job. And I could still see him. He was perspiring like crazy because he really didn't know what he was doing.

01:56:38.160 - 01:56:45.780

I said, well, it hurts here. And he was working on that part. He worked for I don't know how long to try to get this fitting.

01:56:46.360 - 01:56:58.380

Then I went back. And at night, it hurt. And then when I closed my mouth, it wasn't right. So anyway, I kept it and then they decided that the superior came from Tokyo, who was

01:56:58.660 - 01:57:23.640

in charge of making sure that the monasteries were okay. We decided that I would go to Japan for a rest because I was exhausted. By the time I got there, the first piece of bread I bit into, the whole thing fell out. So the Japanese dentist took care of putting in the teeth again. So anyway, this was going on with all the other excitement. So I ended

01:57:23.720 - 01:57:46.700

up staying in Japan for the ten... because I had asked... they wanted me to go for a rest, so I had asked permission to... I had to... yes, I had to apply to Rome for the transfer... for permission to go to Japan for a while to, you know, rest. It was an indefinite time. Then I ended up staying ten years and I never went back to Korea because

01:57:46.700 - 01:58:07.180

After that, a Belgian nun came to help them, and they decided it was better to have the Belgian nun there than an American nun there because they could control them. She could dismiss the G.I.s when she wanted to, but being American, there was too much rapport that I couldn't really break because they were all clones of the home, and so they

01:58:07.180 - 01:58:29.400

wanted to talk all day long if you'd listen. it was hard to break away because it was, you know, most of them were young and they'd just been through the war and so forth. So I stayed in Japan that long and I was minding my own affairs one day when the general walked in and decided I need somebody who speaks

01:58:29.620 - 01:58:48.060

English in Kenya. So four months later I was in Kenya, in Africa. So how did you get to Kenya? Flying. I flew, I flew because, remember I had said to God I offered my sacrifice. I've top of the cloud again. So I went out to Japan through the Pacific and I kept coming back

01:58:48.160 - 01:59:13.180

the other way and then finally when I ended up in Korea then there was a, I had a slight health problem and they sent me to the States to have it checked out and I came back, I stopped in Guadalupe on the way, then I came back, I went into Washington and so I made the total circle of the earth as a carmelite in planes.

01:59:15.040 - 01:59:32.600

It was always by plane, there was no other way to get out. So after having offered the sacrifice of everything, the top of the cloud again, I made the circle of the globe. And I saw one of those eclipses of the moon when I was crossing the ocean.

01:59:32.970 - 01:59:51.460

It was absolutely beautiful, like you're looking down on it, but a total eclipse of the moon that night. came, the shadow of the sun came and picked up the other side, complete no clouds, nothing, and looking at it this way, it was really a beautiful experience to have that, to see

01:59:51.520 - 02:00:21.580

that. Then I came back to the States and they got the problem taken care of and I went back to Guadalupe and my superiors told me to stay there and I was there for three years and to go to Loop. There I am since '85. Well, there was a monastery, the first monastery of nuns of any kind in the United States.

02:00:21.640 - 02:00:42.560

The 13 colonies was at Port Tobacco, Maryland, where the Carmelite nuns had come in 1790. And then in 1835, they had been told to go to Baltimore because it was too far out in They just had little trails. The road to Baltimore was just the size of one car,

02:00:42.680 - 02:00:53.520

but it was the wagons that used to go by. So then they wanted somebody to reactivate it, so I got involved in that. And then after 10 years there, then I

02:00:53.710 - 02:01:06.460

went back to the missions, which was my first love. So I went back to Guadalupe, and I've been there since 1985. And Guadalupe, tell us what you do. What is a day like for you at Guadalupe?

02:01:07.020 - 02:01:18.320

>>> Well it's the same, very same routine in all the monasteries, we get up at four to five in the morning and then we have our first thing is prayers, we finish, we have breakfast at seven thirty and then we have

02:01:18.960 - 02:01:33.280

about an hour, two hours of work time when we do either the gardening or the sewing up specimens or binding books or whatever the income work is. We make, we're self-supporting as a house and

02:01:33.280 - 02:01:48.460

They live by the work of our hands. And then after that, we meet for prayer. Like, there are 6 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 PM, 9 PM are the hours we pray.

02:01:48.640 - 02:01:59.580

So we have to stop everything. You don't get attached to anything. You can't work five hours in a row and get something done. So it's this business of giving up your will.

02:01:59.920 - 02:02:12.580

You'd like to finish, but you just go. The whole day is scheduled, and that's how we do God's will, because we know that that's the schedule we've promised to obey. So it's not what we're actually-- the little things that we do.

02:02:12.700 - 02:02:31.680

It's just the fact that you're obeying. Because Christ came and he died, he was obedient unto death. He let all the secondary causes work on him and do their thing. He didn't fight the secondary causes, the jealousy and all the things

02:02:31.680 - 02:02:48.260

around him that finally led to his false accusations of trial and the rest and the condemnation to death. So he accepted the secondary causes to prove his love. No greater love can you have than to give your life for those you love.

02:02:48.380 - 02:03:04.780

So he gave his life, but it was the love with which he died that really filled up in all humanity the gaps that are there now for the lack of love because people shoot people because We don't love them. Everything that is wrong in society

02:03:04.790 - 02:03:15.320

is a lack of real love of neighbor, not just the love that Hollywood has on the screen, but the love of neighbor is the basic love that's not there in our society today.

02:03:15.500 - 02:03:34.780

So when Christ died, from the beginning of time to the end, because he was also God, he filled up all these gaps so that everybody now is potentially on the side of love And all they need to get themselves pushed into this civilization of love so that love

02:03:34.880 - 02:03:51.200

can run the world instead of hatred and violence is to be touched by God. And the life of a Carmelite is when you love someone, you're more with them than you are with yourself. And in that, when you're praying, we say, "I'll pray for you."

02:03:51.200 - 02:04:05.940

It's like you're in that person asking God to help that person, even though they don't even know about it. love that's where, because love has no boundaries and no frontiers. You can cross the world, you can love somebody on the other side of the world. And so

02:04:06.160 - 02:04:29.300

that's our mission in life is to day by day to give our love for the world, for those, to give our life for the world, for those we love. And God puts this love. You can give up marriage and having, being loved and loving one person and and one little cell of society for the same love that Christ had for the whole human race.

02:04:30.660 - 02:04:46.240

Because when he entered our creation, when he took on human nature, he espoused the human race. It's like every human being is part of the human race. So we share humanity.

02:04:46.940 - 02:04:59.700

Everybody shares humanity. So it's through this same humanity that we can reach other people and really give them the love. But the love we give them is only the love that God has already put in our hearts because

02:05:00.320 - 02:05:25.380

we've opened up, we've met him, we've accepted to work for his kingdom, and we know what his love for people was and we want to share this, do it with him because he needs human beings to spread this love because now it's like he's the dynamo and we're all the channels that everyone, whether we're in a monastery or otherwise, anyone who smiles at someone

02:05:25.580 - 02:05:44.480

else out of, just out of goodness, out of love to give them a lift that they're part of it whether they know it or not. It's the love of Christ that they're shedding, because in the gospel he says, "At the end of life will be judged on love. I was hungry, you gave me to eat. They say, "When did we

02:05:44.620 - 02:06:11.000

see you hungry?" Whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. So that's the whole secret of the thing. So the Carmelites are like the shock troops for human nature to get themselves into the thing because we give our life, our whole It's finished. It's a day by day, an hour by hour.

02:06:11.160 - 02:06:40.460

But the more you do it, the more you see the reality of God's plan and how the unreal is what there is on Earth right now. And the technology is great, but it's not going to go into eternity. They won't need it then. But everything that man is discovering is already in the laws for it are already built into the universe, built into the creation. and they're only discovering what is already there.

02:06:41.000 - 02:06:49.100

And like television was invented, everyone's got this innate curiosity, they want to know about everything, we all want to know what's going on.

02:06:49.540 - 02:07:02.120

So then God put that desire in us, and out of that desire has arisen television and everything else that has followed. And everything that man invents is only discovering

02:07:02.660 - 02:07:25.300

and is being pushed by a yearning that God has put in each one, but that will eventually be satisfied not with all the technical development and everything, but when we finally, at the end of life, when we go across the frontier and enter into eternity, then all of creation will be like an open book and

02:07:25.300 - 02:07:54.620

we can spend billions of years satisfying our curiosity and really marveling at the super architect that puts all this together. I'm marveling at what the technicians can do with all this. This is what we'll be doing for all eternity. Everybody will be sharing it. If we see something as beautiful, the first thing we do is, "Hey, look at this!" We invite someone to share it with us.

02:07:55.040 - 02:08:16.180

So in eternity, all those we've loved, we've known, we haven't known, will know their story and how they got there and how that it'll be the sharing. We have no idea what it's going to be like, but all we know is that that is what every human being is created for. God created us for himself and we'll only be satisfied until we are doing it in eternity.

02:08:16.300 - 02:08:32.960

He created us for eternal life, not the life that's finishing here. And Christ came to get us across that border by taking on humanity. He's already taken humanity across and now time unfolds and we're just giving our day by day.

02:08:32.960 - 02:08:53.900

We get closer and then time comes to get on the other side and hopefully either by our own cooperation or by the prayers of somebody else we get to where we're supposed to be going without even knowing it or not knowing it because we were born someplace where you haven't heard about it.

02:08:54.060 - 02:09:10.080

That's why my life has been completely taken by God since my childhood. All the things that fell together to bring me where I am today. If this hadn't happened, that wouldn't happen. I wouldn't be here.

02:09:10.120 - 02:09:56.840

If any one of those links had been missed in my life, I wouldn't be here today in Waco because it just felt the pieces fall together. If there could be one message that you would leave to the children of the future generations, what would that message be? They were beaming the television like Dallas, which I'm sure you all know about.

02:09:57.660 - 02:10:15.820

I mean, not the city, but the film, the Dallas soap opera. These poor people, they have nothing. Here they see all these gals in long grounds and beautiful houses. They feel like they want to go out there and fight to get the same thing, because they

02:10:15.880 - 02:10:29.640

see this and they think that's how the rest of the world is supposed to live. But if they gave them something positive about, you know, for instance, I know one kid who is in a 4-H group and their group take paraplegics out in

02:10:29.820 - 02:10:40.740

boats on a fishing trips. They go out fishing and they bring these paraplegics with them. And things like that that they're doing for humanity, you know, the ones who are less fortunate

02:10:40.800 - 02:10:59.180

or the ones who've been hurt by the society by accidents or the kids that are born on the wrong side of the tracks that's born of drug addicts or whatever, because every one of those is a child of God and every one of those is able to receive love and that's what the civilization

02:10:59.340 - 02:11:22.380

of love, it's got to be that, like John Paul says, either we're going to have in the next millennium we're going to have a civilization of love or we won't have any civilization, it's just going to blow itself up because it can't live without this. It's innate in us. We have these yearnings that only, really only faith in God can fulfill them.

02:11:22.700 - 02:11:41.940

And I can tell you, 48 years, I haven't had one unhappy day or one day when I wish I wasn't there. It just grows on you. It's like you're happy with your job. You can be happy, if you're happy doing this, but you have the problem that you keep going, advancing in what you're doing. But mine has been the same for 48 years.

02:11:42.820 - 02:12:05.420

I've grown personally in my understanding of what the life is, and as you get older you get even more and more grateful to God for the gift that this life has been to me. And it's not something that wears out, because every year as you grow in this knowledge, and you're happier and you're more grateful, it's just a happy life.

02:12:08.960 - 02:12:40.880

What did I say, what? Love. If in my life, by my love, I have been able to win by loving the person, that God has been able to give them the light through the love that they were getting from me. I had to go to Washington to buy some things for the nuns and I convinced a lady, a friend

02:12:40.940 - 02:12:53.280

of mine who was driving, it was raining, I said let's take the metro instead of driving all the way through Washington to go to this place. So we did and then on the way back we took the metro and picked a car up where we left it.

02:12:53.740 - 02:13:10.360

Well do you know there was, at one of the stations downtown in Washington, they put on this man who had a black retriever as a seeing eye dog and he was blind and he had this, he was unkempt and he really, you know, nobody was caring about him

02:13:10.420 - 02:13:22.920

so there was a, obviously he didn't have a happy home and with somebody to care for him but this, some gal from the metro station, a worker brought him onto the car that we were in and he was sitting

02:13:23.060 - 02:13:37.800

over there and we were sitting over here and a whole bunch of people over here and we were talking together and saying and then when the girl said brought him on said your station is Landover and she repeated it two times the whole car heard what his

02:13:37.880 - 02:13:54.260

station was supposed to be well that was the one before we were getting off and so she said I wonder if anybody's gonna help him off because this lady had to help him on I said well if nobody does I will she said well I will too so we waited nobody budged getting to the next station so I got up and I said your

02:13:54.260 - 02:14:16.840

station is Landover isn't it and in the most calm and kind voice you said yes them it is, he couldn't see me because he was blind and then I said, "You stay, don't move until the train stops and we'll help you off." So he said, "Okay." So then they called Landover, the train stopped and the two of us got up and we helped him off. He

02:14:17.100 - 02:14:37.080

was really filthy, I mean his clothes hadn't been changed, but you know in the moment that we put our hands on him, completely forgotten, the only thing was he was another human being. We had no, none of that. There never is when you're doing, because it's Christ.

02:14:37.860 - 02:14:45.640

We were talking, we said, "Well, we can look at him." And she said, "Christ is in him." Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say that. I'm sure you've all heard of her.

02:14:46.180 - 02:15:00.600

She said sometimes when they were really hard to face them, and she'd say, "Oh, Jesus, you sure took an awful disguise today." And then she'd go ahead and do it. But that was the only way she could pick up all those people

02:15:00.700 - 02:15:09.540

with leprosy and everything was to see Christ in them. So we helped him off. And as he crossed over, I said, you're right. And I looked.

02:15:09.600 - 02:15:15.200

And oh, these guys, nobody moved. There were a whole bunch of people in there. Nobody moved. And they were all running down.

02:15:15.260 - 02:15:22.520

And I stuck my head out the door and said, one of you is going to take him down to the escalator, I hope. Nobody answered. They all kept on running.

02:15:22.830 - 02:15:32.940

And he's standing there, not knowing which way to go. He can't see anything. And there was one more with a yellow, I saw the yellow, it reminded me. He was yellow pants and yellow shirt, he was all in yellow.

02:15:33.480 - 02:15:44.500

And I said, "Well, you'll take him, won't you?" So I repeated it, and he turned around and said, "Yeah, I will." So we saw, and we looked out, and he was kind of pulling him to make him walk fast, you know.

02:15:45.000 - 02:15:54.540

But then about maybe ten steps later, we saw him, he had gently had him by the hand, and he was leading him, you know. So we said, "Well, there, we won him." So I'm sure they got him off the escalator.

02:15:54.540 - 02:16:07.200

So my friend and I said, "See, that's why we took the metro today instead of going by car because that poor man, who knows where he would be by now. Nobody would have taken care of him." But there's nothing that's a chance in our life.

02:16:07.260 - 02:16:30.160

When we get an idea to do something, it's God who's pushing it into the plan. You never know, but you can give a smile, what that will do for the person. That message is to think of others and know that each one that you do, it comes back into life as joy and peace and pretty soon you're hung up on it and you go off and do something

02:16:30.200 - 02:16:50.040

real like join the Peace Corps or something. You want to do something for people. You get involved in your city things, but for the poor and the underprivileged and those who don't have the life that we have, it's not as I gave it.

02:16:50.440 - 02:17:11.360

United States of America is a very young country, you know, and we're just about getting into now I think into our teenage age, you know, so we're trying, I mean everything's going in every direction right now and nobody's paying attention to anybody else, but slowly we're going to mature into the age that we're going to start, you know, and it's not far

02:17:11.460 - 02:17:32.340

away because we were very young, you know, everybody brought, we saw the gold and we We took everything we could and we saw this and we grabbed it all like kids. Real children who just, we just had the reactions of a child for being a new country. And the rest of the world thinks we're, you know, it's the United States, it's, you know,

02:17:32.600 - 02:17:45.760

everybody's got it made. I keep saying to them, "Yeah, but we were only, we barely, you know, it was 1776 when we got our independence. And so we're just 200 years old, you know.

02:17:46.020 - 02:17:57.080

In 1976, we celebrated the bicentennial. And so I said-- but all, like, France is 900 years old, their country. So they can't imagine what it would

02:17:57.220 - 02:18:04.340

feel like to be a country 200 years old. And they said, the Americans. And I said, there are no Americans. We came from every nation in the world.

02:18:05.800 - 02:18:17.440

But we've proved that all peoples can live together. I think that's the role of America, is to prove that all the nations can live in peace together, provided we don't-- we stop beating on each other,

02:18:17.560 - 02:18:28.220

we'll be all right. But our role model-- we have a role to play in the world as a nation, because God has blessed us. I mean, no other nation has boomed from the crossing,

02:18:28.360 - 02:18:40.620

you know, dying to try to get across the Rockies to having these big cities and flying across the Rockies. 200 years ago, my grandmother was-- there were still Indians in her day.

02:18:40.960 - 02:19:03.700

It was only in 1912 when they signed the peace treaty down here with the Indians. So it's not very long ago. It's just ahead of our lifetime. As we finish this up, is there anything that you would like to tell us that you haven't said about any part of your life?

02:19:05.080 - 02:19:23.460

What do you feel is the most important thing that you've ever done? The most important, well no, I'd say the most crucial moment was, I think I was, I don't know how old I was, maybe, it had to be after the wasps. I was walking down the street and I was saying, "Well I'm a free person, I can do exactly

02:19:23.580 - 02:19:39.260

what I want, I mean I can do, my choice is there." And I said, "I can even walk one foot in the gutter and one foot on the sidewalk, so I'll proceed to do that for a while." I was probably at least 22 when I pulled back and I said, "And what am I really here

02:19:39.260 - 02:19:59.800

on earth for? I was trying to say marriage or what and the words that I learned as a child and why did God make you? And the answer was God made me to know him, to love him and to serve him here on earth and be happy with him for all eternity. And I said, well, basically that's what it is. So then I decided to try to, you know, all right, I've been thinking

02:19:59.880 - 02:20:14.580

about being a nun, that's what I was going to try to do. If it didn't work out, it wouldn't work out. But if I was going to try it. And the third time that I decided to do something worked out, I'm still there after forty-eight years. It worked.

02:20:15.060 - 02:20:31.900

But that's the point, you have to stop and think what do you want to do and then if you say well television, well all right is it just to make money, what are you going to do with the money? Is it that you feel really down deep that you can use television and that to really

02:20:32.020 - 02:20:51.680

to bring the message of hope to the world and to do something positive so that the earth that there's a better place to live and that people will stop killing each other. And you know, the civilization of love. And John Paul II, he's been talking about the civilization of love ever since he came

02:20:51.700 - 02:21:06.440

in and he's proved that he relates to everybody no matter what religion, what country they're in. I mean, when he goes, he has this rapport with them. And that's love in action because he really has given his life to the kingdom of God.

02:21:07.340 - 02:21:24.160

What is your favorite word? That's a good place to end. I can ask you your favorite word and your favorite... We are rolling.

02:21:24.320 - 02:21:45.540

Take two, C. I can remember my first live, just to give you an example of the morality that was inculcated. My grandmother used to wash the floor of this wooden house every Saturday. And this one day I was watching her and pushing things out of the way when she got there and putting them back again.

02:21:46.260 - 02:22:12.440

And the cat started to walk across the wet floor and I thought, "Oh no, the cat's going to dirty everything up." tiptoed over, not thinking my feet were doing worse than the cat's feet. But anyway, I reached over for the cat and it moved and in so doing I made a little lunch for it and off balance went the bucket and all the soapy water was all over the floor.

02:22:12.940 - 02:22:27.700

So all my grandmother said, "Now see what you did." I didn't say a word. I thought maybe my grandmother would tell my mother, so I figured I better get there first and tell her about the experience first.

02:22:28.720 - 02:22:41.860

I told her that I was reaching and the cat pushed the bucket over. I said, "The cat pushed the bucket over." My grandmother actually never said a word to my mother, so that wasn't even worth the trouble.

02:22:42.540 - 02:22:56.820

Anyway, that bothered me for days, maybe two or three days. I had this thing on my conscience because I had lied. I said the cat had knocked the bucket over. So finally, and I kept thinking the poor cat,

02:22:56.900 - 02:23:06.820

you know, he really was innocent. I really, all these thoughts were going through my head. So finally I went back to my mother and I said, no, I said it wasn't the cat.

02:23:07.200 - 02:23:15.440

I'm the one who fell out and knocked the bucket over. So, she didn't say anything. She said, well, that's good. You shouldn't blame the cat if it wasn't the cat.

02:23:15.800 - 02:23:27.240

That was all she said. But I had already learned my lesson before I got there, so I felt so relieved of this weight of my conscience. I was really, I think I went over and hugged the cat

02:23:27.940 - 02:23:38.880

(laughs) at the end of the story. So that was, my mother never, my parents never, if we did something wrong, we never got, you know,

02:23:39.000 - 02:23:58.440

taken over the coal, or the coals for it. We said we were sorry, and I remember whenever I, sass my mother or didn't move fast enough or something when she told me to do something. That night I never went to bed because we had been told, "Never let the sun go down

02:23:58.520 - 02:24:13.260

on your anger." Because I thought I might die during the night, so I wasn't going to die with that on my conscience. Every night when I kissed my mother goodnight, I would always say I was sorry for this or that that I had done during the day that I remembered.

02:24:15.280 - 02:24:30.600

It was just a relationship. All my mother had to do was tell us to stop, and if we didn't, then she had a yardstick. All she had to do was put it on the corner of the table, and that was it. We never got the yardstick, but that was all we needed.

02:24:31.100 - 02:24:42.900

We knew that was the limit. We had hit the limit of the noise. When you were in school, how were children, students disciplined? They were made to stand in the corner.

02:24:44.480 - 02:25:01.720

My mother did that to us. I remember putting quite a few hours in the corner at different times. It was right near the chimney, and I'd say, "Is the half hour up yet?" I had to stand in the corner a half hour.

02:25:02.680 - 02:25:20.340

Do you remember any specific incident in school where a child was disciplined? Yeah, I was. I had to stand on the corner in school because my cousin at that point, one of my aunt's sons was the same age as I was, but they didn't stay in, they didn't live with us that long,

02:25:20.420 - 02:25:36.560

but just a few months. So we were in a class at the academy, the two of us were in the second grade together. He said something to me, and it was just talk, something like what we were going to do after school or just something rather.

02:25:37.280 - 02:25:48.680

And the sister caught us breaking the silence in the class, so she made us both stand in the corner, one in that one and one in the other corner of the class. And we had to stand there, I guess, about a half hour. Did you tell your parents?

02:25:48.900 - 02:26:01.840

Well, coming out of school, we both said to the other one at the same time, "If you tell my mother, I'm going to tell your mother." So we never mentioned it to either one of them. We figured we'd already done our penance.

02:26:02.840 - 02:26:23.660

So he never told his mother that I had been in the corner, and I never told my mother he was in the corner. Did that affect you the rest of your life? No, no, because we had already been, we'd done our, our, what, uh. But that incident. That, yeah, that, the incident, I remembered it as a, as a, you know, keeping your word, he never said it

02:26:23.680 - 02:26:40.500

to, never told his mother, and I never told my mother because it was nothing that affected them, you know, in the behavior or it affected someone. We had already atoned to the class because I was standing in the corner being humiliated. - Did it kind of set your values for later on in life?

02:26:43.480 - 02:26:54.900

- Yeah, I suppose because I really, sometimes people will say, "I'll do this for you." And that's the end of it. But I really never felt that that was right

02:26:54.980 - 02:27:08.580

and I never, really, I don't think I ever did it to anyone. If I said I'd do something, well, I'd do it. What kind of student were you in high school? - Well, in all the classes, I liked studying.

02:27:11.400 - 02:27:22.160

School was kind of a weight because it was, being in class was a weight on me because I was a free child running around on the farm, so these hours we had to sit in the classroom,

02:27:22.240 - 02:27:34.900

always weighed down, and I kept that all through school. Sometimes, on days I'd hardly wait, I was bored, I could hardly wait to get out. But I had, apparently, I think I had a very good memory

02:27:35.240 - 02:27:47.440

because I kept everything, all the tests, I always came up with A's. I very seldom got a B in anything because it was just, in those days,

02:27:47.440 - 02:27:55.380

they had a lot of questions, a multiple choice, and just my common sense, you know, I didn't even, I hadn't studied my common sense to tell me which one was right

02:27:55.640 - 02:28:07.560

because it was just in me, I guess. How many in your graduating class? There were 585 in my graduation class that year. And plus, there were about 65, I think,

02:28:07.600 - 02:28:19.580

that had gotten drafted because they had-- in their senior year, they had joined the reserve-- National Guard reserves. And so they had been sent overseas right away.

02:28:19.600 - 02:28:31.680

They were some of the first ones to go overseas. So because the last few months of our senior year, I remember we were talking about the kids that already gone overseas and we weren't even out of school yet.

02:28:32.180 - 02:28:52.240

At that point, what was America's situation in the world? Well, Pearl Harbor, they were drafted before Pearl Harbor even occurred because the government knew a lot of things we didn't know about, you know, the little people. We didn't know that things were getting so hot.

02:28:53.240 - 02:29:13.180

What was your ranking in your class when you graduated? I graduated second in the class, but I was the highest girl, so I got the prize for being the highest female to graduate. The other one, the boy who became the—I was thrilled to death because being valedictorian

02:29:13.300 - 02:29:35.980

would have been a chore for me. I wasn't used to—because in the country where I grew up, we never had to put on any—well, an act, we never had, we had to be polite, I mean, with adults, we had manners and all that, but we never had to face people who were an audience of any kind, it was always,

02:29:36.100 - 02:30:04.460

everybody was a big family. So I think, so I deliberately took, there was a class last year, one year, they called it an auditorium class, so that you could, for public speaking, It was like I'd be on a stage, and we put on a play, not a play, but scenes with texts. We had done the Christmas story, and everybody was speaking it together, but it was all in

02:30:04.580 - 02:30:12.620

like tones. It was beautiful. It was very well done. It was like, I forget what they call it now, but it was choral speaking.

02:30:14.560 - 02:30:28.760

And then we had to pass it, and part of the test was you had to get up and say something in front of the crowd. So it was some experience that you were supposed to relate. So I had decided the easiest one for me was my dad's.

02:30:29.380 - 02:30:38.820

When he left to go overseas, my grandmother had saved up some money and bought him a watch that was a radio. You could see it in the dark. You know, what do you call them?

02:30:40.440 - 02:30:55.580

Face radio? Anyway, it glowed in the dark and it saved his life. They were in the trenches and they were going back to take the place of the ones who were there and had been there for the last eight hours or something.

02:30:56.320 - 02:31:19.160

They were going back in the dark and the Germans, they were firing on both sides. They went by the trench that they were supposed to turn into because it was pitch black and they didn't dare put on any lighting, but someone that was waiting for the replacements was looking down the little part that was like the entrance to the trench, to the hole

02:31:19.240 - 02:31:39.340

where they were, and he saw this, the watch go by. So he told the sergeant, whoever was in charge of the group there, "Hey, we just saw Paul's watch go by. They've gone by that place." So somebody went after them to tell them to come back. They were just lost in the trenches. They had gone by their own trench, so they didn't know where they were at that

02:31:39.220 - 02:32:00.440

point. So they got back and recuperated the replacement group and pulled them back in. But it was my grandmother who had given him a watch that saved them from getting really into a tantrum that night because they would have, if they had gotten there in time or if gone by too far, they would have been exposed to the enemy fire or something. Anyway, he

02:32:00.560 - 02:32:26.040

told that story. I've forgotten a little bit. So that's what I gave as a story, one of the memorable things that I remembered about my father or something. Let's go to Avenger Field. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make as a trainee? I'd say none. None whatsoever. The food didn't bother me either. We made up songs about it and

02:32:26.070 - 02:32:47.840

all that. Because at home we had been trained, like if we had carrots to eat, it was a season in the car, we ate carrots maybe three or four days in a row and then we never had a choice of menu. We ate what was on our plate and we never threw anything away because there were people who, if you didn't eat it, you just left it there and had it the next meal.

02:32:47.920 - 02:33:11.480

You know, it was the thing. And so actually, and you know, I wouldn't say giving in to other people, but not having to be able to live with people who were thinking something else than the way I was thinking. What is your most memorable experience during flight training?

02:33:11.860 - 02:33:33.100

During flight training? I guess it would be the night solo trip that we took in advance because we had had all the duel while the full moon was up, and then comes the solo night, there isn't a moon in the sky.

02:33:35.440 - 02:33:50.100

It was rising later and later. By the time we soloed, it was pitch black. I remember my first solo flight was really in the pitch black sky, but the stars, all you had a little light on the dash on the instrument panel.

02:33:50.740 - 02:34:03.600

And I remember looking up at the sky, and I always said, I think I got my first contemplative bent with that. It was so beautiful.

02:34:04.880 - 02:34:17.240

So that song, remember they had it with the stars are big and bright in Texas? That was my favorite song for the longest time. The stars at night are big and bright.

02:34:18.960 - 02:34:34.480

But it was so beautiful that it was almost, when I read that poem years later about that RAF pilot who said he climbed his plane so high and then so high that he touched the face of God, you know, afterwards I thought, well, that's exactly the way I felt that night.

02:34:34.480 - 02:34:48.100

It was so, so beautiful. And I couldn't believe how anyone could think that all that just popped in there from nowhere, you know, that it had just grew out of nothing. It really grew out of nothing, but somebody told it to grow.

02:34:50.000 - 02:35:11.980

Describe for me how you would get from the barracks to different places, how you got there and about the songs you sang as you marched. My squadron, I don't remember that we sang very much going to the flight hall, to the mess hall or anything in between the things.

02:35:12.420 - 02:35:20.660

We did a lot of singing in the cattle wagon on the way to the— Do you remember the names of some of those songs? Yeah, I know. What song stands out?

02:35:20.720 - 02:35:46.480

One of them was, I've been working on the railroad and I've been waiting on the flight line for a long day to fly that one hour on the auxiliary field. It seemed forever you'd be waiting around to get your turn. They were all mostly the cowboy songs that they put on to the, with WASP words.

02:35:46.980 - 02:36:03.160

Because when I was in high school, the cowboy music was the equivalent to the rock of today, at least in our section of the country. Did your class have a special song just for your class? I don't remember.

02:36:03.340 - 02:36:24.660

I don't remember at all. Tell me about your graduation. Did someone come? Did you have guests for your graduation? Jacqueline Crockin was there and a few other officers. I don't remember the names. There was Joan Michaels, Leslie her name is, Mary's name is, I think. Joan Michaels' father, who

02:36:24.760 - 02:36:36.880

had been flying with the Flying Tigers. I think he was in command of one group. Okay. And you told us about him. And then he had come, phone in from Washington at B-24. He was there then.

02:36:37.260 - 02:36:43.600

Those are the only two. I know that Jack McArthur was here. But as far as your family? Well, my sister was able to come.

02:36:43.720 - 02:36:53.720

She and one of her girlfriends, I think they took the train and took the bus, and she made a vacation out of it on the way down. She stopped at different places. She got there for the graduation.

02:36:53.880 - 02:37:06.620

But then we flew out. I don't even know how she got back to Sweetwater from the base, because we had to get off the ground immediately after the graduations because he had to fly back to Washington. So we all piled in.

02:37:07.240 - 02:37:23.380

Can you tell me when you went home with your new Santiago Blue uniform on, how did your peers and your home town friends feel? My sister wasn't home yet, so I missed her completely. She was still on her vacation coming home because we didn't have that much time at

02:37:23.440 - 02:37:38.860

home. We got out. I had stopped in Washington one day, and then by the time we had to allow four days to get back to Oklahoma, and so it was August 4th we got our wings, and we had ten days.

02:37:39.000 - 02:37:59.180

That was it, the ten-day leave. Were you able to go to any church functions while you were at home and wear the uniform? I went to Mass on Sunday, you know, but they did put my name up on those serving our country on the parish lawn, they had this big sign with everybody in the parish who was in the

02:37:59.660 - 02:38:19.420

service of any kind, you know, pray for the parishioners. They had put my name on there, but actually I think I just, I only went to Mass on Sunday because it was, I had other things, so much other, I think I wanted to sleep to begin with. When you left to go back to Sweetwater?

02:38:19.640 - 02:38:28.500

See, I had to leave four days early to get there for the 14th, so I left. - You had to go on the train? - Yes. - Describe for me some of the people on that train.

02:38:29.120 - 02:38:35.640

Do you remember? Were there service men on that train? - I'll tell you the truth, I have no recollection of that train.

02:38:37.560 - 02:38:49.240

All I remember is coming back, the deactivation day when I came back by train, and we got to the South Station in Washington, Washington, Boston, it was the South Station,

02:38:49.440 - 02:39:08.860

and we checked the duffel bag, And I went with my check, threw my ticket. And the man said, he made a motion. And he opened this door and there was a room,

02:39:09.660 - 02:39:18.860

probably the length of the station, with duffel bags packed up to the ceiling. All the GIs that had been traveling, their duffel bags were locked in there.

02:39:19.340 - 02:39:37.100

They just got off the trains by the hundreds all in there and by the time they went to get them, if I had stayed there a week with my ticket in my hand, they never would have found mine. So by the time I left home for Altus, I didn't have my duffel bag.

02:39:41.180 - 02:39:57.460

Because finally my dad got it. He worked on the railroad and by the time the pile got down low enough, they found it. So he shipped it to me to Aldis, but I just had what I had on my back, and that was it. The uniform and one shirt at one time.

02:39:57.960 - 02:40:15.760

Do you remember any incidents that happened where somebody might have talked to you about what you were doing? Nobody asked or nobody looked at you. I know one of the days we went up to New Hampshire, because by that time my family was living

02:40:15.740 - 02:40:41.120

in Lynn, which was not too far from Boston, but we went up to see my grandmother and the relatives up there. I remember we were walking down Main Street, Nashville was small enough to walk down Main Street, even my mother with her full bites could do it. But I remember that somebody turned around and looked, and it was one of my classmates that I had had

02:40:41.040 - 02:40:57.480

in high school, and I turned around and looked, and then the light turned red, so she couldn't cross the street and I couldn't cross the street, so we just waved at each other, because we were kind of rushing to get where we might be the next aunt before we had to get back to the house to sleep.

02:40:58.360 - 02:41:15.220

Okay. I know one of the things we left out in the original interview was the fact that you met a young man that you fell in love with, right? Could you tell me what qualities he had that attracted you to him?

02:41:15.640 - 02:41:50.980

Well, I'd say the whole thing. He was a good Christian. In fact, he was of English descent, but he was a good Christian and he didn't mind showing it. So, it was, the whole conversation was never any double talk, there was never anything out of line that was acceptable. In those days, it was the acceptable way of living, of doing things. He was just a good

02:41:51.100 - 02:42:19.740

person. We both shared the love of flying. Looking back on it, I say I loved him, but But it was, that kind of love would grow with years. I think that's one of the things that, when they make a mistake now, they think that's the thing that's going to last for a number of years.

02:42:19.880 - 02:42:38.640

But it's not that. It's got to be based on something that grows and not something that you get tired of. So he had the same ideals that I did, so that was one of the reasons. I had told him that I had thought of being a pilot because I wanted to be a missionary.

02:42:40.300 - 02:43:01.600

So he knew about it, so it wasn't a big surprise. And then finally the day I decided I had to decide one way or another forever, if this is what I wanted to do, well then get on with it and not dilly-dally. because when I came home after graduation,

02:43:01.720 - 02:43:09.140

I had gone to see one of the sisters that had taught me in the early grades, 'cause we had kept in touch with her, family had kept in touch with her over the years,

02:43:09.520 - 02:43:18.860

Christmas and that. So I had gone over to see her in my uniform, and she looked at me, she said, "Oh, I'm so afraid you're gonna lose your vocation,

02:43:19.220 - 02:43:27.320

"because I always believed that you really had one, "your goal was set." And I said, "I don't know, don't worry. I'm not going to lose it.

02:43:27.360 - 02:43:43.200

I'm still thinking about it." And then she lived long enough to know that I had entered Carmel and that I got my wings there. That's what I was going to ask you.

02:43:43.280 - 02:44:01.900

Yes. Okay, let's fill in some spots. When you were sent to Japan, describe the monastery where you lived in Japan. It was Japanese construction, which was plywood on the inside, and the two-by-fours, and then

02:44:04.460 - 02:44:25.700

the netting, the chicken netting of some kind. And then they put cement over that, and that was the thickness of the walls, and that was the way they were, because post-war construction, immediate post-war construction was. So they built the monastery that way, which was what the poor people were doing.

02:44:25.920 - 02:44:35.500

Was it in Tokyo? It was right in the suburbs of Tokyo, but the address was Tokyo. When you arrived there, how many nuns were already there? Were they Americans?

02:44:36.140 - 02:44:50.000

No, there were no Americans whatsoever. Only they had three, two French nuns left of the original five who had started the monastery in 1933. and the others were Japanese.

02:44:52.740 - 02:45:03.900

And an Italian nun came to help them out right after the war because they had lost the monastery. They needed foreign help because the two French ones were elderly by that time.

02:45:04.520 - 02:45:13.100

So this Italian one came. So when I got there, she was superior. And then her successor was a Japanese sister, which was the first time they'd ever had

02:45:13.320 - 02:45:23.120

a Japanese in authority. And she was the emperor's niece. She was related to the emperor. She was his niece.

02:45:23.720 - 02:45:31.840

And because she was in the community, the emperor had allowed them, told them to go into the mountains and stay at one of his summer homes,

02:45:32.000 - 02:45:39.720

or his, it could have been one of them, because he wouldn't have given them the only summer home he had, to stay there during the bombings.

02:45:40.000 - 02:45:49.440

So they were not in Tokyo, but the monastery was badly bombed. The glass suffered from the bombings. It wasn't a direct hit, but it suffered from the bombing.

02:45:50.400 - 02:46:18.020

But right after the war, as soon as the peace was enough that the Americans could circulate around, all the American forces were sent out to all the—there were GIs. The chaplain did some of them, but he wasn't the only one doing it—to all the houses of schools and all the buildings that had been, belonged to the church that had been,

02:46:18.480 - 02:46:40.760

the founders were foreigners, you know, so that they, like they had the sisters from maybe 30 different congregations were working in Japan as missionaries. But they went out and made a list of what they needed to get the buildings back in shape and to get the food and everything. So they brought the nuns at Carmel, they gave them some help in getting

02:46:40.760 - 02:47:06.680

building put back in shape. They brought them food until they were able to get on with it by themselves. But that was typical of what the United States did for every... I don't think that got in the newspapers, but that's what there was on the receiving end over there. Relief goods started coming in from the States. The one who started them, they called it War

02:47:06.680 - 02:47:40.320

War Relief Services, was right after the war to help out in cases like that, was the Archbishop of New York City. He was the one who was, in '48, appointed Archbishop of Washington. He was the one that I worked for when he went to New York. That's why when I got to Korea, The first thing he sent us were some stoves to heat, because the sisters hadn't prepared

02:47:40.360 - 02:48:00.840

a thing for the winter. And it got bitter, bitter cold there with the icy winds coming in over the sea from Siberia and all across China and into the Japanese area. Korea was bitter, bitter cold.

02:48:01.980 - 02:48:20.020

So I had written him a letter and told him that we could get some kerosene through the army because they were helping out with people who needed it, with kerosene, the organizations like the hospitals and so forth. And they said we could have the kerosene, but we didn't have the stove.

02:48:20.140 - 02:48:36.260

So he airlifted six stoves, had six stoves. They got there in a week from the time he got my letter. We had the stoves a week later. time we didn't have electricity because all the dynamos producing electricity were up

02:48:36.300 - 02:48:58.560

in North Korea, and the North Koreans would cut it off. They'd let it trickle down just enough to get everybody annoyed. To read, you had to hold the book up like this to be able to get a little bit of light to just pray, you know, to recite our prayers. So I wrote that one. I wrote to the quartermaster general's office, told him in honor of the

02:48:58.560 - 02:49:08.720

years that I had worked for them, couldn't they find an old generator someplace that still worked? And they said, "No, send me one that needs to be repaired because there's no place that's going to get repaired."

02:49:08.720 - 02:49:30.740

So then finally it came down through the commander of the base in Pusan, and his orders were to find a surplus generator that was in working order and bring it to us. So we got the generator, and they set it up for us to get lights, ordinary lighting. It didn't take long before when we turned the generator on, the whole side of the mountain

02:49:30.880 - 02:49:39.360

was getting lit up. When we turned it off, everybody was in the dark. So the military really helped. Yeah, they really helped.

02:49:42.140 - 02:49:50.420

Probably the fact that I was American made a little bit of a difference. How many other American nuns were with you in Korea? Nobody. I was the only one there.

02:49:50.920 - 02:50:10.140

By the time I got there, I think there were only one or two Maryknoll sisters. They had a clinic in Pusan, but they had to close it when the North Koreans pushed down below the 30th parallel. They were practically at Pusan, but they got pushed all the way back by the American forces.

02:50:11.720 - 02:50:30.400

Because everybody was moving down ahead of the invaders. So the place is so full of people, there was no place to go. When I got there, there were 54,000 refugees still from North Korea who were living in cardboard boxes or wooden crates.

02:50:30.560 - 02:50:41.620

Anything they could find, they would hold up and keep the wind off of you on the side of a mountain facing us. It was all, you could just see them all there. And they took me over to see it at close range.

02:50:41.640 - 02:51:07.160

But there were these people, little children, all living in them, like they're waiting for who knew what. What was the most difficult thing that you had to do in Korea? I think it's probably to be an American and seeing this at close range and living it.

02:51:09.040 - 02:51:30.020

In the sense that, as they looked at me, they knew that there was something so much better somewhere else. The contrast with the... Because some of the impressions that Americans gave to the people were a little bit falsified.

02:51:31.360 - 02:51:53.800

When I went to Japan, the biggest compliment they could make me or give me was, "You're like an American. So you could figure that one out, you know. In Korea, what language did you speak? One of the sisters knew a little bit of French with sign language. They had some professor

02:51:53.880 - 02:52:16.300

from the University of Busan, which was across the valley from us, and was operating at one quarter speed at that time. He would come over every day and he knew English and French. It was in his thirties, I think, or something like that. He would come over every day and teach me some of the words.

02:52:16.980 - 02:52:31.780

After a while, you know enough to get by. It's like the illiterate, even the illiterate can get some of their thoughts. They don't know how to express everything, but they can get the main things out when they're talking.

02:52:32.280 - 02:52:58.420

When you left Korea and went back to Japan, did you go back to the same monastery? I had this, the priest who was in charge of all the monasteries in the Orient to try to get them all reorganized was the one that had chosen when our superior, we call him our father general, when they visit the monasteries once every three years to make sure that they

02:52:59.940 - 02:53:13.040

give you a pep talk and to make sure that they're not introducing things that are not in the spirit of the order, because if they're, for instance, if you're a Carmelite monastery, then you've got to be living the rules

02:53:13.100 - 02:53:20.040

and the regulations and the constitutions set up for that particular order. And if you want to innovate anything else, well then you just pick yourself up

02:53:20.100 - 02:53:33.160

and go start something else if you can find somebody to adopt you and listen to you. But you can't force your own ideas into, if something is black, it's black, it's not pink.

02:53:36.560 - 02:53:58.460

So this father, P. Luigi, had come to Korea and he knew what the conditions were and the food was very, very poor quality. But they had their kimchi, which was all this grass and different things that they put in and make like a, I don't know what we would call it, but anyway they put it all in this

02:53:58.540 - 02:54:23.440

big crock and put it in the ground for six months and then they used that with their rice for the, but it has a very peculiar taste and it gets so that their body is saturated with it. And you can tell a Korean from another, one of the other oriental races immediately by the kimchi was called, by the fact that they have eaten kimchi. Anyway, my stomach

02:54:24.080 - 02:54:42.400

wouldn't take it made up of all kinds of little fried, dyed fish and everything else. When you left Japan, then you went to Africa. What year was that? Gideon Lange: It was in, let's see, it was in '69, but actually, the Father General

02:54:42.440 - 02:54:54.940

came in '68. But I— Kelly Reidy: Describe the monastery in Kenya. Gideon Lange: It was made with cement sides and they had tin, what do you call it, sheeting,

02:54:55.600 - 02:55:14.160

They were gondolated, sheeting for roof, the roofing was that, and the walls were cement, dried cement. So it was a substantial building because all around us there were the native huts, the people living in the little--.

02:55:14.160 - 02:55:25.480

How many nuns were at Kenyon? I'd say about 15, I believe. They had the Spanish guns who had started them. There were four of them.

02:55:27.320 - 02:55:40.300

There were nine, so four of nine is 13. They had 18 altogether after the Americans arrived. How many Americans? There were five that were sent to help them out.

02:55:43.400 - 02:56:08.540

at the end of the year, some of the ones who were sent out had the option of staying there or returning to their own monasteries. Some of them did. And then from Kenya you were sent to Guadalupe? No, from Kenya I happened to swallow a seed that got me out of the country because they

02:56:08.440 - 02:56:32.780

I had swallowed a fruit, the seed of a fruit that was like wood, and it had gotten stuck in some place in my intestines and was creating some problems with internal bleeding. And they didn't know what it was or where it was coming from, so they decided they would – because they had no – the place where they sent me in for a checkup, and it was

02:56:32.780 - 02:57:03.880

an Indian who was the doctor, and his office and clinic, if you want to call it that, it would be like the equivalent to one of our barns. No paint on the walls, just the wooden frame thing, and no paints and cracks in the wall. That was the hospital where I got this test. But he had the thing for the x-ray to take the barium test, but then I don't know

02:57:04.900 - 02:57:29.900

what his qualifications were or anything, but he couldn't find anything wrong, so they decided to send me back to the States, which they did. And fortunately I ran into a doctor in the parish who got the—some of the hospitals have grants to help those who can't pay anything, So she got me, they did all kinds of tests to find out what was wrong with me.

02:57:31.020 - 02:57:42.540

But it didn't cost me anything. But that was just pure, you know, what's the Lord's doing because I don't know who would have paid for it because nobody had any money. But anyway, it worked out fine.

02:57:42.740 - 02:58:10.260

And once you got over that, were you sent then to Guadalupe? I had stopped in Guadalupe to break the trip because we went from Entebbe, which we were supposed to leave from Entebbe, but they had the beginning of the revolution that night when the Adi Amin.

02:58:12.420 - 02:58:28.760

His tanks had gone up and fired into the waiting room and killed one missionary. They had just gotten off the plane that was due to go up to Kenya, and the Kenyan, the foreign missionary in Kenya who had gone to pick them up, they both got killed that night in the, when they--.

02:58:28.760 - 02:58:45.600

Where were you that--? We were supposed to go to, to go to, leave that night, but, but, from, from Entebbe, but somebody got wind of that the political situation wasn't too good. So we were putting it off, and put it off till the next day, and, but the next day there

02:58:45.500 - 02:59:15.680

was no airport. So we left from Nairobi and British Airlines switched their landing place and left from Nairobi and then we had to fly to London to go to the States and then back to France and then Guadalupe and then Miami. So I had stopped over in Guadalupe overnight for to break the trip. And Tokyo was the nun that started the monastery in Tokyo, the French

02:59:15.780 - 02:59:43.180

nun, was the same one who started the monastery in Guadeloupe, so I was like a first cousin. They had the same mother, she was the nun who really had been sent in 1933 to start Tokyo, had gone in '53 and started Guadeloupe, so they had the same kind of the same customs, It was right at home because each monastery follows the same rule and the same constitutions,

02:59:43.260 - 03:00:04.660

but they have their local customs and a lot of the little things depend on who's superior and which way it starts, and then it becomes the way we do things here. Then your next permanent place was at? And I got to the States and I went back there and then I had gotten permission from Rome

03:00:04.740 - 03:00:19.940

to go out of the country, to leave Kenya. So I wrote to Rome and to the General and said, "Okay, I'm back here. Everything is fine. It wasn't any big deal.

03:00:19.980 - 03:00:48.600

It was just a seed that I swallowed. So what do you want me to do now?" So they had, before that, to go back a little bit, when in 1967 I had come to the States for a few months because my mother had gotten into Alzheimer's, and so we decided that it

03:00:48.600 - 03:00:59.540

would be better if she was in a home with the sisters. So they have some sisters that are affiliated to Carmel that are called Carmelite Sisters for the Asian. So I got her into one of those homes.

03:00:59.800 - 03:01:16.120

And I had gone at that time to visit, to say hello to Cardinal LeBel and ask him if he could call the—because the Superior in New Hampshire had been the Superior in Washington, so it was kind of a connection. So he called and she said, "Yes, by all means, bring her up," and they would take

03:01:16.220 - 03:01:38.880

care of her. But at the same time, there was all kinds of, several monasteries were trying to get permission to start the monastery, the first monastery of the order in the United States. And the 13 colonies had been founded in 1790, but had since had to move, about 45 years

03:01:38.880 - 03:01:55.580

later had moved to Baltimore because it was too far out in the country and no way of earning the living and so forth. they had the original, two of the original buildings were still standing, that they had just recovered them in 1935. They ran in, somebody had found a cemetery and began looking

03:01:55.680 - 03:02:12.320

around and here they had two of the original buildings that were still standing up. So they had, they restored them and they had bought the land and made a historical spot out of it, which attracted quite a few tourists all the time. So they, a lot of the monasteries wanted to go back there.

03:02:14.600 - 03:02:22.020

But there was... Do you want to go into that? We're about to run out of tape. In Maryland?

03:02:22.460 - 03:02:35.880

Yeah, we're about to run out of tape. Just do what you feel comfortable with and talk about Fort Tobacco. And I think you could tell me about how the loss... Okay, this is 3C.

03:02:36.860 - 03:02:46.260

How did being in the Wasp change your life? I think it was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very Well, it really, I'd say it didn't change it, it didn't affect my life or change it

03:02:47.440 - 03:03:03.800

in any way. It just confirmed me more or less in the way that I had always wanted to, my goal in life had been to fly for the missions. I wanted to fly for the missions to put my life to a goal.

03:03:03.810 - 03:03:21.920

I had a goal for my life, a useful goal for my life. And the WASP merely, they made me grow in the right direction and they gave me the training for what I thought, the way I wanted to do it. And I was assigned, for instance, I was assigned to the Central Flying Training Command and

03:03:21.940 - 03:03:39.620

the motto was "Ut viri volent," which means that men may fly. It was a training command, so that we were trained that the ability to fly would be given to others. Well, in Carmel, I'd say, I didn't really change.

03:03:40.200 - 03:04:01.840

I changed commands, but it was the same purpose, the same work, so to speak, and that God is now in command, the command is now not the Air Force, but that men may fly is, well, you could explain it this way.

03:04:01.920 - 03:04:23.060

When people first hear about God, before that, they're deaf, blind, mute, and lame. Everybody that comes into the world, as far as the spiritual and God is concerned, that's the state we're all born in that way. Sooner or later, we've got to hear about God and to know about him.

03:04:26.100 - 03:04:41.780

Somebody has to talk about him, so you've got to hear about him. then little by little you begin to do things for him. You begin to walk in his ways. As God picks up,

03:04:42.780 - 03:04:54.220

every person that stands before God, they're in that state. And slowly, little by little, through some means, the light from God enters that person.

03:04:54.220 - 03:05:07.660

They begin to hear what the Bible's all about. They begin to see where the things lead to. They begin to find that there's something in life besides just living here on the planet.

03:05:08.200 - 03:05:17.920

And so, "Ut veri volent," that men may fly, that's the work of Carmel. Day by day, we consecrate or donate our life, however you want to put it.

03:05:18.440 - 03:05:33.200

We give our life so that all men may fly. In other words, the good news of salvation of eternal life, the goal of life, that every man will eventually hear about it

03:05:33.720 - 03:05:50.660

and hear it and see it and then do it. And so at first they begin to walk, more or less, one step at a time, and then pretty soon, as God begins to enlighten them

03:05:50.720 - 03:06:01.380

and they begin to have a goal in life, then they begin to go a little bit lighter step when they begin to run, and then in the end, if their whole life is consecrated, they soar.

03:06:01.410 - 03:06:16.120

They begin, then they really fly in God's service. And so the, that Ut Viti Volent is a perfect model for the life of a Carmelite. And so, as somebody put it, I didn't change my job at all.

03:06:16.120 - 03:06:36.420

I just changed command. - What do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be? I think it would be a legacy of love in the sense that it's a giving of the gifts that we have in the service of others.

03:06:36.660 - 03:06:46.300

That's what love is. Love is an outgoing thing. It's not receiving. There's more joy in giving in a way of love than there is in receiving.

03:06:47.320 - 03:07:06.140

And so the WASP were volunteers at the beginning. forced anybody to do this thing. And whether they realized it or not, down deep, every wasp was giving of herself with the option that it might be your whole life and it might be once and for all that you were going to give it. We all knew that there was a possibility

03:07:06.220 - 03:07:21.560

that something would happen. We wouldn't come back after the war. At least I was ready for it. I knew that it could happen, just like I think most of the girls knew it could happen. And it did happen to some of us. And so it was a gift.

03:07:23.180 - 03:07:43.120

We gave our country the gift of our love to the most, to the possibility, to the... What's the word I'm looking for? To the freedom of the country? Yeah, we gave it to the limit of our possibilities by volunteering.

03:07:44.460 - 03:08:14.440

If we had been drafted, a lot of the boys who were drafted had the same high ideal in their service, but for a lot of others, they didn't have the opportunity to do that because they had to go. It wasn't a matter of saying they were free not to go or to go, but they had to go. But it was a completely free gift in pioneering that particular field. Later

03:08:14.440 - 03:08:27.780

They have women flyers, and I'm sure some of them think of it once in a while, but everything is so computerized and so settled, you could say, that I'm sure it doesn't occur to anybody to say a prayer

03:08:27.960 - 03:08:38.560

before they take off, that God brings them back safely, because you're taking a plane up that you're not quite sure has been really gone through the base operations to be mended as well as it could be.

03:08:39.300 - 03:08:50.380

And you don't know whether it's gonna come back on one wing or not. And therefore, it's a totally different thing. And I think that happens only in the beginnings.

03:08:51.020 - 03:09:00.280

It's only in the beginning of America's history that you find that spirit that isn't really looking, always looking for something that, what it will do for me.

03:09:02.580 - 03:09:12.260

The first pioneers, sure, they came over looking for a haven from something or other. But they gave this new country, they gave it, they were all the ones that,

03:09:12.800 - 03:09:21.680

Like I can speak for the French immigrants. They gave it their all. My grandmother worked for nine hours a day in the mill for a dollar a day

03:09:22.160 - 03:09:31.100

because they didn't mind it because they had freedom. They were free to do it. It wasn't something that they had to do it but because they wanted to do it.

03:09:31.540 - 03:09:40.860

And those who opened the truck to the West, sure, they were probably looking for gold but nobody was making, they weren't being paid by somebody to go out there and look for it.

03:09:41.140 - 03:09:52.560

They wanted to do it, and they were free to do it. Therefore, they knew that they might not make it. And therefore, they were willing to sacrifice that, whether their goal was God or it was the hope of gold.

03:09:57.740 - 03:10:07.980

There was something in their thing that was a love. There was love in their way of life and their sacrifices that they made, because they loved their new country.

03:10:08.940 - 03:10:23.860

And I think that was generally the case. I'd be very much surprised if the history ever turned out to say otherwise. Sure, later on when it got wealthy and all those things,

03:10:23.920 - 03:10:37.720

well then you began to get people who wanted more for themselves and didn't want to work for it. So you began to have the gangsters and all the people who robbed and all this sort of thing. They weren't the ones who were going out looking for the gold, but they pick up the one that somebody else had worked hard for.

03:10:38.220 - 03:10:53.420

So the motive was completely different. Those people were giving of themselves to get what they wanted, not just taking it from somebody. Describe for me, when you received a questionnaire when you were in the French Antilles about

03:10:53.540 - 03:11:19.620

wings across America. Tell me how you felt when you received that questionnaire and what you did about it. My own personal reaction was, well, we had been hidden away for so long that it was, well, maybe now somebody will be interested, but how many are left that are really going

03:11:19.620 - 03:11:42.820

to be interested in that? But then I knew that it was a piece of history that should be told, because you can go down so far and then after that there's only one way you have to go up and things have got to get better in family life, in national life, in the country.

03:11:43.460 - 03:12:07.740

Right now, I always say the United States is just probably coming out of its adolescent age and it's going to start, some of it, part of it is still in doing adolescent tricks, adolescent living. But everybody goes through an adolescence no matter who they are. Whether who's helping them or not or who's not helping them is what depends on how they turn out.

03:12:08.440 - 03:12:30.480

So the sooner or later we're going to our adolescence is going to calm down a little bit and we're going to be we're going to realize more and more what the wonderful position of the United States is for the world. I mean we have a country that's made up of all the nations of the world practically. And we managed to live together without, recently we're having our

03:12:30.820 - 03:12:48.560

arguments a little bit more loudly, if you want to call it that, and we're getting publicity all over the world, which is not good. Let me go back to when you got that questionnaire that inquired of you about telling your story. How did you react?

03:12:48.600 - 03:13:13.100

Well I reacted like that and then as I thought about it, I thought, well, it's a good thing me because it said in there it would be for the, this was before the year 2000, it would be in the next century that this would get into the school. And I remember thinking that by that time, the young generation that's going to be getting this stuff is going to

03:13:13.200 - 03:13:30.620

have been so saturated with what they've seen of what's bad with the world right now that they're going to be looking for answers someplace else. And I thought-- and that was one of the arguments that I gave to-- that I was giving to my superiors.

03:13:31.160 - 03:13:46.860

And locally, it's a whole different culture. And they just don't understand this, the women in the service, anyway. So it doesn't-- so when I asked to present it to our superiors,

03:13:47.340 - 03:14:01.260

and I said I'd abide by their decisions. but that if it was the way that they would do it and so forth. And they agreed by saying that in our constitutions, it actually states that Carmelite

03:14:01.360 - 03:14:12.200

is responsible for giving testimony of her way of life to the people, because we're not locked up the way we were in the Middle Ages, because then everybody knew what we were doing.

03:14:12.660 - 03:14:33.060

But now nobody knows what we're doing. So part of the Vatican II thing was that even the cloistered nuns have got to be willing to be exposed, if you want to call it that, to the public eye in a way that they never would have even thought of a few years

03:14:33.180 - 03:14:50.980

ago because that's a need that's opening up. It's a need that the young generations have. And as Nancy said, she wanted to give them something. She thought it would be something positive that they could have because the story of the wasp,

03:14:50.980 - 03:15:05.420

if you start and think, that story was like almost preserved from getting mixed up with the whole, that whole period of the hippies, the Vietnam War, the, you know, it wasn't, there was nothing

03:15:05.420 - 03:15:21.740

that tarnished it by, none of us went on stay on, on public, went public with opinions about that thing. If we did, we were just an ordinary part of the population. But there was, but the WASPs were not associated

03:15:21.920 - 03:15:37.720

with any discrimination, bigotry, movements, nothing. So that we're still like a movement that can be looked up to people who want to get out of all that stuff because it's something, it's the motives, the motivations,

03:15:38.020 - 03:16:01.800

the work that we did, the sacrifice that it was, in the sense that, well, we all had ulterior motives. I mean, I wanted to fulfill... One of the things was I thought it was a great idea. I'd get the best training in the world I could for the mission I wanted to fulfill in life with flying in missionary territories. But that wasn't a bad motive. It wasn't so

03:16:01.700 - 03:16:12.740

so that I could be British and wealthy at the end. And I don't think anybody had that motive. We were doing it for the love of flying, and we were doing it-- whether they knew it or not,

03:16:13.200 - 03:16:20.280

it was for our country. Because no other country in the world has the freedom for women to go up and do what they wanted. Even at that time, in the other countries,

03:16:20.340 - 03:16:30.500

it would be unheard of for women to just have a plane of their own. Who else in the world had, outside of a few isolated cases, what other country in the world had?

03:16:30.580 - 03:16:46.680

couldn't imagine the Japanese having girls that could go out to the airport and fly off in their own planes if they wanted to. But a whole standard of living was so different because we had people from all over the world that started us with all their ideas.

03:16:48.060 - 03:17:06.000

Tell me the process that you went through in order to be able to come to... So all I had-- when they approved the-- with the approval of the testimony, then they-- and I mentioned how Nancy was proposing to do it.

03:17:06.520 - 03:17:18.880

But they figured it would be much better in the process. It was a legitimate reason to come out of the enclosure and to go there and give the testimony, because it's not the whereabouts that's given.

03:17:19.000 - 03:17:33.940

It's the fact of the testimony being given. And if the permission is for that, and the permissions, everything else that has needed to get to that. So it would have been an interminable job and an expense to do it any other way if they

03:17:33.960 - 03:17:46.540

really wanted to get my story. And I wasn't convinced at that one point, and I think that's how I answered Nancy in the first place. I didn't think what I had done after the WASP would be of interest to anybody.

03:17:47.300 - 03:18:02.120

from the questions that people have asked me in my outings, so to speak, the times that I've been out, people that come up to me and ask me, "Well, what made you do that? What made you come out? What made you be a nun?" The very fact that anybody would question it now,

03:18:02.780 - 03:18:20.060

stop you on the street and ask you that. There is this... the people are looking for something. So the permission to do it and the permission on how to get it done goes together. They said they had no objection to my going over there, whatever, provided I had the...

03:18:20.080 - 03:18:31.480

You just don't walk out of the monastery, the bishop has to know you're gone from his diocese. You know, his praying power in that place, we're under him. So how did you get permission from the bishop?

03:18:32.140 - 03:18:53.600

I just called him and told him what it was, because he comes to the monastery quite often, and I've been working on the vestments, the church vestments, and he's the one who comes with particular orders every now and then, and I always get them firsthand. Somebody was telling me that they were, I think it was a priest who had gone to a youth

03:18:53.880 - 03:19:06.960

gathering of some kind, and they all listened to all kinds of speakers, you know, giving him, talking about gold, you know. I'm about to ask you both those questions. Why do you think it is important that the history of the wasp, that your story and the

03:19:07.040 - 03:19:21.180

story of the other wasp, go down in history? Why is that important? I think because it was something... I hate to use the word heroic because it's not quite...

03:19:21.180 - 03:19:28.900

But it was something wonderful. Something... Oh, I... Poor.

03:19:29.120 - 03:19:46.920

That's not... It's not the heroic, you know? Because I think it was almost kind of the story of what America is from the very beginning. We pioneered a whole nation with all these different people coming in.

03:19:47.360 - 03:19:59.020

And the WASP were pioneers because nobody had ever been in that before. And the ones who volunteered, just as the ones, nobody was sent to the United States in the beginning. They all came because they wanted to.

03:19:59.500 - 03:20:24.680

And they became the pioneers of what we have today. Well, the WASP, nobody was forcing anybody into it, but we all went because we had an ideal and we had a goal that we wanted to accomplish. It was a pioneer spirit that now has died because we've become a nation and we're just

03:20:24.840 - 03:20:48.620

milling around, not looking for it, not having a goal that the nation as a whole can be. The goal is there, is to create a civilization of love that can be an example and can be the leaven for the rest of the world. And I think that is what the WASP story has to be told because that's a pure story, if you know what I mean. There was no politics in

03:20:48.660 - 03:21:11.160

any one of us to try to get through. It's pure in the sense of purity. It's a pure story of motivation, a pure story of pioneering, and a pure story of, in some cases, it calls for heroism to keep going with the thing that you wanted to do. And that you were faced, the obstacles that you were faced with,

03:21:11.500 - 03:21:28.760

just as a lot of the pilgrims, the first pioneers, became heroes because of the obstacles that they overcame to attain the goal that was before them. And all together, we created the nation that we are today,

03:21:29.340 - 03:21:40.600

from the pioneers on up to now. And from the wasps on to the future generations, they've got to be able, in the middle of all the things that are unreal,

03:21:41.980 - 03:21:54.800

like in our society right now, like all those, everything that's in the shade, you know, it doesn't give light and love,

03:21:55.700 - 03:22:17.980

but it's merely shady areas They hide a lot of personal motives that are not pure. The children, the generations of the future have got to be able to see through that and look back or look on something that has gone on, that was started the way the Wasp was

03:22:17.980 - 03:22:37.340

started, just that our nation was started the way our nation was started. What do you feel your legacy will be? I hope it will be the legacy of love that I didn't want anything from myself personally because it is true.

03:22:38.500 - 03:23:07.240

I can tell you that from having 50 years' experience. I have never once experienced a feeling that anybody owed me anything because the more you enter in that spirit of love of neighbor and love of God, the more love God puts into you until you become like Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Pure love of neighbor. And when

03:23:07.300 - 03:23:32.640

she died, did you see her funeral on TV by any chance? We had a cassette of it. There was an unending procession of cars. There were bishops from all over the world. There equivalent to the head of state, to what Gandhi got. And it was fantastic. And here she was. She had been an active nun, an active sister teaching grammar or geography or something,

03:23:33.100 - 03:23:53.820

and she decided she didn't want to do this all her life, so she got a leave of absence for a year to go and think things out. And she went to visit India, and she saw this person on the sidewalk that was abandoned there, and he was put there to die because had leprosy. Well, she rented a room and brought this person in there and gave them, I think

03:23:53.820 - 03:24:15.260

it was a man, she gave him food and she bathed him until he died, probably two or three days later. And the joy that she had in doing that, she knew that was what God was asking of her. And so she went back and gave in her resignation into her thing. And then she started another group with two sisters, and now they've got 8,000, I think, in the world. And this is

03:24:15.200 - 03:24:42.240

in a matter of like 30 years. She's boomed. God is really blessing her because the president of India, what she had for her, the material they bought to make their habits, it was this sari material. It had blue banding on it. Well, he gave that material to her any time she wanted it for her to make the habits, and he took it off the market to be sold to

03:24:42.200 - 03:24:59.600

anybody else ever. So that color and that material is Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as long as this factory lasts. Right. Let me ask you, aside from your decision to become a nun, what is one thing in your life that you are most proud of?

03:25:01.600 - 03:25:30.260

I'd say having been in the West and having been able to serve my country, because I owe my country by quite a bit, having been born here, in the freedom of America. And I felt like a little bit I was paying, I was going to be leaving, physically leaving my country, and spiritually in a sense, I wouldn't be working, I couldn't get a job

03:25:30.260 - 03:25:49.780

as a teacher teaching the kids of my nation and all this. I would be doing nothing visible for my country. And so I was glad for my service in the WASP because then I felt, well, I had given my country for that short time, everything that I could possibly give it, you know, was giving

03:25:49.780 - 03:26:06.300

it my life for them, because we lived the WASP. And then after that, being in the monastery, well, I have a different optic on my country and I've never left it actually because I carry it with me, but it's not visible.

03:26:07.120 - 03:26:18.620

But God gave me the opportunity to do something visible so I wouldn't have probably have to afterwards have second thoughts about, "I should have done this before I entered. I should have done something before I entered."

03:26:18.620 - 03:26:41.480

So he just said it in his wisdom, but that was the first thing I did. Then after that, I went there. Be real truthful with me now. Now that you have done interviews, been interviewed, what is your personal opinion about the value of the Wings Across America project?

03:26:41.720 - 03:27:04.640

I'd say from just from even this last outing I have right now, the number of people that have come up to me and questioned it, you know, I mean questioned what my life is all about. I think being a Carmelite and being on this, it's going to answer their question more thoroughly,

03:27:05.240 - 03:27:22.260

But also, there'll be not just myself, it'll be a whole group of women who did this thing. People are extremely surprised. My sister has a PCU center. She waves it around to different people.

03:27:22.900 - 03:27:31.880

I'm waiting for the local paper to get at one of these tapes. But the people have come up to me. Are you still taping? Yeah.

03:27:33.500 - 03:27:58.240

I didn't know you were taping this part. But anyway, the fact that people are like, I'm not sure if Openshaw knows it or not, but the fact that people are surprised by the fact that I'm part of the Nun, but then if they found out that I was a pilot before that, well, that really blows their mind.

03:27:59.000 - 03:28:16.160

is why, immediately the question is still why. But I think we're going over this era now of all the things of Vietnam, why the hippies, everything that we protested about.

03:28:16.280 - 03:28:33.920

And I think this last election, in a sense it was protested by a certain, And that kind of thing rubs off on everybody. You know, first you quote somebody who said this

03:28:33.960 - 03:28:45.520

and quote somebody who said that. And they get their thinking, because people's thinking will not be naturally to defend the cause, but as soon as a lot of people start downing it,

03:28:45.620 - 03:28:55.520

well then, almost naturally you go down with it, unless you've really got some strong opinions of your own that are based on truth. Well, most people base their opinions on hearsay,

03:28:55.680 - 03:29:06.240

So there you go. But I think the fact that we were-- that's even providential. I mean, the providence of God kept us out

03:29:06.240 - 03:29:22.420

of the spotlight for all the years when the country was in [INAUDIBLE] and now we're coming to light at a moment when the younger generations are going to be ready to say,

03:29:22.900 - 03:29:32.380

OK, why did you do it? and they're going to sit and listen. Before, we could have been just one of the gang along with all the others, and nobody would have remembered

03:29:32.580 - 03:29:42.060

two days later. But this way, I think it's going to make more of a mark, because it was the providence of God that kept it quiet for all that long.

03:29:42.140 - 03:29:49.200

We say we were forgotten and all this stuff, and nobody paid attention. But I mean, none of us-- which one of us was thinking of protesting about it?

03:29:49.320 - 03:29:54.920

Anybody? I wasn't. Why didn't you give us a party? Why didn't you do something for us?

03:29:54.940 - 03:30:06.180

And you know, why we're veterans. It never occurred to me that I would be ever considered a veteran. So I think that that was in the providence of God. Nothing happens by chance in life.

03:30:06.180 - 03:30:22.880

And I don't think even the WASP being put aside for that amount of time was providential because now we're coming to light when this new millennium is going to be the millennium of search, that people are, even though progress will be going on and probably things will be getting worse, but there's going to be a

03:30:23.120 - 03:30:44.180

a group of the younger generation, because look at the eight million who flocked to hear the Holy Father when he called a congress of young people. Eight billion were in France at that time. The press only had two million, but the bishop who was in charge came for our 150th anniversary,

03:30:44.700 - 03:30:56.660

and he told us he was in charge of housing these kids, and they kept getting these notices, 200,000 more on the way from here. 200,000 more, because most of the kids walked across Europe that went from Europe.

03:30:57.120 - 03:31:08.880

And so they kept coming in, coming in, coming in. And they ended up placing 8,000 in homes, because they placed the pilgrims in the homes of-- - 8 million.

03:31:09.520 - 03:31:20.840

- The 8 million were housed. And there was no-- and one police officer told them at the end, he had never been in a group of eight million young people.

03:31:21.360 - 03:31:33.180

He'd never been in a group of one million of them that he wasn't afraid for his life. But he said, eight million now. And not one incident of arguments that turned into a fight, nothing.

03:31:33.500 - 03:31:49.980

Not one fight, not one argument. It was a peaceful eight million people from 18 to 35. And I think now this will go on even if John Paul dies. I think a successor of God will raise up somebody that will.

03:31:50.420 - 03:31:57.940

Because he started that in the first year of his pontificate. The first one was in Spain. They had one in Denver. They had 80,000 in Denver, which was good for the United States

03:31:58.040 - 03:32:11.360

because we're not a Catholic country as such. But I think the last sifts were just flying over this era. And so it doesn't matter. We're old.

03:32:11.540 - 03:32:20.800

We're telling our stories. doesn't matter as they're getting in. And maybe God didn't need the 1,000 to do it. He doesn't need anybody.

03:32:20.960 - 03:32:36.320

But the reduced numbers and everything, it's going to make it even more-- they'll be more vulnerable to accept it, because even that fact--

03:32:36.320 - 03:32:48.920

the whole thing is planned by God. He's got everything in His hands. So that's why I think right now, and I think this is the time to do it. I have two more questions.

03:32:49.140 - 03:33:08.820

One is, this is your opportunity to speak to children, generations to come that you will never know, in short, concise message, what would you say to them? I would say to them, as I stand here in the year 2001,

03:33:09.360 - 03:33:30.100

I would pray and I would wish with all my heart that by the time they hear this, the civilization of love is actually in process of being formed, and all the children of the world are the ones who are going to be forming it. They've got to pick it up when they're young enough to really make it a thing in their life,

03:33:31.020 - 03:33:40.580

and they're the ones that are going to save the world. That's why Pope John Paul went after the children, because he realized that, No, 100 years from now, none of us are going to be here. There's going to be a whole new generation.

03:33:40.720 - 03:34:02.620

And if we have not passed on the ideals that make a country, that make a community, that make a people, there's not going to be any more people. Everybody's going to be tribes of... My last question to you is, what is your favorite scripture?

03:34:03.480 - 03:34:11.500

My favorite scripture? I have so many, wait a minute. The profession we were asked to... You wanted to roll in?

03:34:11.860 - 03:34:19.420

No, wait just one second. We wanted... I want to know why it's your favorite scripture. Yeah, we had...

03:34:19.940 - 03:34:31.520

So can we roll while you tell me why? No, I'm trying to think of it. When I entered, you know, you ask yourself that question, almost like when we enlisted in the WASP,

03:34:31.520 - 03:34:43.820

I hope I'm going to make it, you know, because this is what I want to do. Well, when you enter religious life, you don't know, you have a five-year period of screening to make sure that's what you want. You know what you're getting into.

03:34:43.880 - 03:35:06.500

You know what the sacrifices will be, what you'll be asked to give up, what you can do, what you can't do. So I had the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, for whom I worked, his motto, they have a And his motto was "State in Fide, Stand Fast in Faith."

03:35:08.080 - 03:35:26.660

So that had always hit me, 'cause that's what life is. You have to stand fast in the faith that comes from Saint Paul. And so on my commemorative card that we had to give to people, that's what I wanted.

03:35:26.980 - 03:35:39.600

I wanted to put down to have fear not, I have overcome the world. That's what I wanted in the sense that, okay, you can launch yourself out in this life and don't be afraid

03:35:39.880 - 03:35:54.480

because the only thing that could possibly pull you out of it would be wanting to return to the world and everything goes with it, the things that belong to this life and not eternal life. So Christ was saying,

03:35:54.580 - 03:36:10.660

fear not, I have overcome the world. So with me, you can go over this and do it. So that's what I wanted, but then the superior thought it really wasn't for the people.

03:36:10.820 - 03:36:22.620

She thought that they wouldn't understand it, so the superior in Boston. So she said, "No, find something else." So I thought some more, and then I thought,

03:36:24.300 - 03:36:35.680

Then I picked on the one thing, this only I ask of the Lord, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. So I figured, well that was above the culture.

03:36:35.840 - 03:36:51.160

So that's what I took as my motto for my religious life. But it was, in a sense, it was the same thing as the other one, fear not, I have overcome the world. All I ask is to dwell in the house of the Lord

03:36:51.660 - 03:37:01.540

all the days of my life. And so that's what I had on my thing. But I put on my, we get a profession cross at our profession.

03:37:01.980 - 03:37:11.660

So I have on the back of it, we have our motto over there. I picked up state and fide, stand fast in faith. That's the only thing that gets you through anything is to have faith.

03:37:12.000 - 03:37:21.340

'Cause if you lose your faith in God, well then you haven't got anything to hang on to. So I got Bishop's motto on my cross. I got the faith in any way.

03:37:23.820 - 03:37:31.540

I think that's a wonderful model. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

03:37:32.320 - 03:37:38.900

Thank you for taking it. How many hours did it take you to get here? This time? Yeah.

03:37:39.420 - 03:37:46.240

Yesterday? Yeah. I left at eight twenty-five, nine twenty-five. I had to get there for eight twenty-five.

03:37:46.520 - 03:37:57.380

I left at nine twenty-five, and they I got here at three. So it was... The next day? The next day, so it was 24, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2.

03:37:58.270 - 03:38:06.680

About 30 hours. To do how many? 20 hours of taping. Do you have anything you want to ask?

03:38:11.760 - 03:38:21.480

What do you tell a young novice? What would you tell a person who might be thinking about becoming a young person who might be thinking about becoming a young person? I could be thinking of it.

03:38:23.320 - 03:38:31.860

The same thing, you know. And then we'll stop. And if we're thinking of something else, we've still got tape.

03:38:34.500 - 03:38:43.800

You're taping now? Uh-huh. --pop itself out. If it don't-- well, I'm not going--

03:38:43.860 - 03:38:50.080

how long am I going to be doing this? I don't know. Just to describe what it is. OK, then I can just go ahead.

03:38:50.100 - 03:39:02.240

I won't be able to pull this all the way through, but I can fix it afterwards. I'm trying to hurry now and I won't get it. It's going to be ornery. I can go ahead and use it.

03:39:05.100 - 03:39:21.100

I can do it anyway, and then when I pull it, it might work. It's very close to the edge. I might be able to work it out. If it falls in the right place, it won't bother me.

03:39:21.180 - 03:39:27.460

But if it stands in the way, then-- OK. Want to hide my sleeve? My sleeve is all right?

03:39:27.460 - 03:39:35.380

You can't tell the sweater, can you? OK. OK. Just tell us what you're doing.

03:39:37.520 - 03:39:57.580

Well, each one of our monasteries is autonomous, which means that we're responsible for our own sustenance and our own expenses. We have no mother house who sustains or who helps out with the upkeep and the repairs

03:39:57.580 - 03:40:07.340

to the building and all that. We're self-supporting. So we usually, we have a garden where I am now in the Caribbean. We have bookbinding.

03:40:09.900 - 03:40:22.120

They do the real gold embossing on it. They do the real nice bookbinding. And then we have a garden. We make the hosts for services, and we make the vestments

03:40:22.160 - 03:40:29.080

that they use for math. It's another source of income. The priest will buy them from us. Or [INAUDIBLE]

03:40:30.940 - 03:40:45.360

coordinations. And then also, we have chickens, and we sell the eggs. We had cows. Right now, we're just keeping them to sell for--

03:40:45.360 - 03:40:53.080

to go to the butchery, and it was getting too much work, milk the cows. That's history for all. Going up, getting up in years.

03:40:53.980 - 03:41:07.520

And the young ones coming in now are not farmers. They've been working in offices, so they don't take to the country work as my generation did. And we have a garden, and we have fruit trees and vines.

03:41:08.360 - 03:41:15.500

So that we manage to-- and then during recreation time, we have the two hours of recreation during the day and we can just talk.

03:41:18.520 - 03:41:30.760

So somebody always has to tell us to quiet down a little bit, because everybody talks at once. And we're laughing. It's almost sometimes hard to hear what everybody's saying.

03:41:31.340 - 03:41:41.580

But it's very lively. It's not a boring recreation that we have. But we do handwork. Some sisters who are assigned to keeping

03:41:41.680 - 03:41:50.140

the clothes of the community in order, and somebody else assigned the habits and the bales. And each one has their own job. And when I have--

03:41:50.240 - 03:41:58.300

I'm in the vestment room. So when I have work that I can do by hand, or recreation, I bring that to it. But most of it, it's all on the sewing machine.

03:41:58.400 - 03:42:06.380

So I just do-- I learned to do this when I was in high school. One of my friends taught me. And then I did it for years.

03:42:06.440 - 03:42:15.760

And then all of a sudden, it went out of-- nobody was interested in it anymore. And you couldn't even buy a pattern book anymore. What is it called?

03:42:16.060 - 03:42:24.320

It's called tatting. In French, it's called [FRENCH] It's frivolity. But the English is tatting.

03:42:24.380 - 03:42:33.880

I don't know where they got the French word for it. In French, when I'm in the parlor, sometimes we have visitors that the whole community goes with them.

03:42:36.020 - 03:42:49.200

What are you doing? somebody will invariably type up and say, "Oh, that's how frivolous nun," because it's the same word in French for the frivolity and being frivolous. They always tease me.

03:42:50.080 - 03:42:54.120

What are you using to do this with? How what? What are you using? It's a shuttle.

03:42:54.800 - 03:43:15.500

That's all it is. It's the easiest thing to learn because the stitches are always like one under, you go under like that and then you go over and that's the only stitch there is. Everything is under, over, under and over. But it's the number of times that you put the little stitch in

03:43:15.800 - 03:43:33.180

and when you want to make these little, they call them picots, when you want to make those then you don't pull the thread all the way, you just stop it a little bit and you lock it in there and then you end up with these little things that make the variety in it. But that's all there is.

03:43:33.240 - 03:43:45.160

And then you just keep going and pull it. When you get to the end, like here, I need-- I've got to do my five of those. So then you go ahead and make the number you want.

03:43:45.280 - 03:43:54.960

And then you pull and close it, and that's what makes the ring. But it's all-- it's much simpler than crocheting. And I never could get that into my head at all.

03:43:55.860 - 03:44:12.420

And knitting, I can knit a little bit. But this is-- it doesn't go as fast. the stitches smaller, you don't see the progress as you do in knitting. So all of a sudden, I don't know where it came, they started, there's a demand for them now. And people

03:44:12.500 - 03:44:28.340

come and ask us to make them up for them. And what is this? This is a doily, I think, all I know. My superior asked me to fit 15 inches across the middle the diameter and make about five inches of lace around it. So this is what the lady wanted.

03:44:28.560 - 03:44:41.420

I think she wanted a dozen of them, if I'm not mistaken. But then when you get to that stage, you just pull the thing and close the ring. And that's what makes the little ring that makes the pattern.

03:44:44.980 - 03:44:56.620

You can make-- there were some patterns to place them at. And now all the old, old patterns of the '30s and '40s that the companies that put out the books are out of business and they don't exist anymore.

03:44:56.760 - 03:45:05.900

So it's a free for all now. The old, old patterns are coming back. I think, I don't know, there must have been a limit on the time when they couldn't steal them.

03:45:06.300 - 03:45:18.520

But now they're open to anybody. So they're republishing, some of the new companies are republishing the books of instructions and they're putting the old things in, which were beautiful and much more complicated.

03:45:18.590 - 03:45:33.780

The new patterns were the faster the better, the simpler the better. But now they're -- >> Did your grandmother -- I had her tatting needle for a long time, but I left it in Japan. When I left, I forgot

03:45:33.880 - 03:45:51.500

to take it with me. I left it in Japan. I figured I wouldn't need it in Africa. I didn't think anybody would be interested in that in Africa, so I just left it there. But I don't think anybody ever learned it. But where we are now, one sister picked it up. I taught her, so now she's on the team.

03:45:57.660 - 03:46:24.280

[ Inaudible ] Do you want me to get the forty years in? Do you want me to get the forty years in? No, the forty years of silence.

03:46:24.620 - 03:46:33.220

No, we've got that. Oh, you've got that? Yeah, that's all. Okay, so we'll just start from when you got the questionnaire and the letter,

03:46:34.260 - 03:46:54.200

saying that this was going to be done or we were trying to do this. Are you willing to? So when I got Nancy's first letter and the little brochure that she had enclosed, I read it and I thought, "Well, this was great that finally they were going to put the WASP because

03:46:54.620 - 03:47:24.400

over there, even in the French dictionaries, they have wax and waves, but there's nothing about a WASP in the American section of the book, the war and all." I thought, "Well, that was great." Maybe now they would straighten out a few of the records. But then I read it and I thought, "Well, I could tell them where I came from, what I

03:47:24.480 - 03:47:53.400

did before, and why I went into the WASP." I wrote to Nancy a letter, but I didn't think that what I had done after the loss would make American history. So I thought maybe she really, that my story wouldn't make all that much difference because I felt I'd almost gone out of that world. And then I began to, I was thinking about it and I wrote her that

03:47:53.420 - 03:48:12.260

and she wrote back and said, I remember the words, "On the contrary, I think it would be of real interest what you did after the war." So I began to think, because she talked about role models, and I thought, I began thinking about it, and I said, "Well, I wasn't going to make that.

03:48:12.740 - 03:48:28.280

I couldn't make the final decision anyway. It had to, my superiors would have to, it would have to come from them that I could go, you know, because that's the way it works." So I got permission from the local superior to send, because it was something out of the

03:48:28.120 - 03:48:54.200

ordinary for the local superiors. Also, they had no clue about what this involved or what it meant and so forth. Everything that Nancy had given had sent me in her letters and a copy of what I said to our general. It's like the Army. You call them general headquarters, but that's where the person who is in charge over all the monasteries in the world is called

03:48:54.160 - 03:49:16.940

the general or mother general or father general. We're under the father general. We don't have a mother general because each house is autonomous. So there's no one that tells the individual monasteries how to react. Same because we're all over the world. So anyway, to make a long story short, the answer came back from the general aide.

03:49:17.720 - 03:49:30.420

Where is the father general? in Rome, our general is in Rome. And so that's the top headquarters. And if we change monasteries, then the changes

03:49:31.220 - 03:49:46.060

from one monastery to another have to be-- we call it-- we have to have an indult from Rome to change. Because we make a vow that when we enter, we stay in our-- it's very unheard of for a nun

03:49:46.160 - 03:50:02.560

to be transferred to another monastery. Before the war, it just wasn't done except in exceptional cases. When I was transferred to Korea, that was the first time anybody in the States had gone to the missions, been transferred to help out in the missions, but it was because I

03:50:02.580 - 03:50:20.780

was bilingual. They were looking for bilingual people and there were just not that many around, so anyway, I got out. But the letter came back from Rome saying that apparently they know, in the know on

03:50:20.860 - 03:50:40.700

what things are. So they knew what the American Air Force was and there was no question at all about what the WASP – they probably read the brochure that Nancy had written up. But anyway, the father general gave the thing over

03:50:40.800 - 03:50:46.800

to the English-speaking-- the French-speaking-- we call him the definitor, the one who was in charge of the French monasteries.

03:50:47.260 - 03:50:58.040

And I had met him the year before he had come to the monastery to make a pastoral visitation, just to be in touch with the monasteries. And he wrote back, and he said--

03:50:58.600 - 03:51:09.120

and I looked it up afterwards, and I said, yeah. I didn't even notice that. He said, your constitution, he said, I think you should do it. I think you should do it, because it's something

03:51:09.240 - 03:51:21.780

that your constitution, since Vatican II, has spelled out that a Carmelite nun is supposed to be able to give the reason why she's doing what she's doing now.

03:51:21.940 - 03:51:32.320

So that's as important as what goes on before. So he was very much-- he said, I think it's very much in line with the constitution. I think you should do it.

03:51:33.000 - 03:51:46.100

So he said, if you have to go anywhere to meet with the people or whatever, don't forget you need the permission of the local bishop to be absent from his diocese for a while.

03:51:46.460 - 03:51:59.840

We just don't go traipsing all over the place. So the local bishop, he got a copy of the thing. And he had one priest who would speak English. So that, I think, was probably the first time

03:51:59.840 - 03:52:27.580

that the news was let out among the people on the island that I had been in the service there before. Then there was one priest who works for the bishop in his office and he came for something. He had had his pilot training at Randolph Field because after the war, he was a little

03:52:27.360 - 03:52:47.100

younger than I was, but he had had all his pilot training. He got his wings at Randolph on this – I don't know what it was that the French were sending their pilots over here for training, I guess, because he wanted to be an airline pilot. Then he said, well, he decided after he got his wings, he decided he'd fly for God instead. He became a priest.

03:52:47.580 - 03:53:08.380

He went the other way. Did he get married to the WASP? he spoke as if he had already heard about them. So probably when he was at Randolph, it wasn't so long ago or something, or maybe they may have had something around, I don't

03:53:08.460 - 03:53:28.760

know. But probably when he read the – because he speaks English a little bit, so when he read the brochure or something, he probably – because he asked me what base I had trained at and he was trying to remember Randolph. I was trying to remember it too, the way I who loved field. No, no. So finally it came out it was Randolph that he had trained up.

03:53:31.240 - 03:53:56.660

So that's the reason I had decided at that point. And then I began to think about it and that's where it began to dawn on me that the motto of the Central Flying Training Command that it would very bold and that men may fly, that it was really the same, because that was the same reason he said he decided to fly for God instead of flying for the airlines.

03:53:58.020 - 03:54:21.880

That was going through my mind. Then all of a sudden it all tied in together. That really was the vocation of a Carmelite, to give her life in prayer so that men would finally spread by loving the human race, even though it's not a one-to-one basis. Everybody we meet it becomes a one-to-one basis.

03:54:24.500 - 03:54:40.580

I've never met anybody since I've been a Carmelite that I haven't really felt a kinship with them. Really, you just feel the brotherhood of the human race. And you pick them up and you pray for them.

03:54:41.040 - 03:54:51.380

And when we pray for someone, it's the thing that we're substituting ourselves before God to pray. And the thing is, it's the same as if that person were praying

03:54:51.520 - 03:55:05.460

for you, was praying personally. Once you got permission from the bishop, then what did you do? I wrote to Nancy, and I told her that-- I think I sent her a copy of the permission

03:55:05.560 - 03:55:17.880

that I had from Rome and all the-- but I told her, I think I had sent all her stuff. I didn't have anything left. I had sent all the things, the brochures, her letter

03:55:17.880 - 03:55:26.980

everything is all-- I had sent it around to the-- so they kept it. They didn't send it back to me. But anything that's published or any publicity at all

03:55:28.060 - 03:55:37.240

involving the monasteries are-- they just don't want just anybody going in anywhere and making up a story and putting it on a TV or something.

03:55:37.440 - 03:56:01.320

So they insist on having a copy of every book that's written in the files over there. So they probably want a cassette of this I wanted to come in May before the hurricane season, but it just wasn't convenient at that

03:56:01.340 - 03:56:15.780

time, so the superior to make a goal to leave in August. So I did get caught in the hurricane season in Florida when I came. Did any of the other nuns ever know what you were doing? No.

03:56:17.380 - 03:56:34.160

No, they really didn't know why I came to the States. Because when you live closely together, like a family, and for your whole life long, and you're all from different walks of life and everything,

03:56:34.230 - 03:56:48.060

it's like being in the army on the wasp. But it's different when it's a cloistered monastery, because we don't have TV to begin with in the monasteries because what we're doing, we try to keep

03:56:48.120 - 03:57:00.780

all the things that can distract us from the goal that we're there for. And so if somebody comes in, we don't even know any outstanding achievements of anybody

03:57:00.840 - 03:57:09.160

in the community. We know we've got one who is a teacher, but we don't know. And we know we have one who is a nurse. but to tell the experiences that they've

03:57:09.180 - 03:57:19.100

had in their once in a while, something funny or they were told at recreation. But it's not a general knowledge that everybody would say, well, we get our heads together.

03:57:19.180 - 03:57:28.300

And so she was this, and she did that and that. Because we don't have time for that except the two hours of recreation. The rest of the time, we live a life of silence.

03:57:28.400 - 03:57:42.760

At the monastery, there's not much noise in a monastery. And now that you have given your story, what is your feeling about-- do you have any regrets?

03:57:43.520 - 03:57:54.760

No. And the more it settles down, the more I see the hand of God in it. Because the whole thing, the whole idea of the West,

03:57:56.840 - 03:58:06.540

that God was in it for me, but I think he's also in it for this whole program right now. because the world, the young generation, I think, needs--

03:58:06.800 - 03:58:22.580

they need to know that you can do something that serves a purpose without saying, what's in it for me? That it's got to be gratuitous service, gratuitous love, that you can do that.

03:58:22.720 - 03:58:33.340

And that is the commandment, love your neighbor. You put your neighbor first. And if we can do that as a nation, get back on that track as a nation,

03:58:33.820 - 03:58:42.080

then the future of the United States of our country is going to be world leadership in the right direction. It's not going to be to see who's going to be the wealthiest nation,

03:58:42.240 - 03:58:57.000

but we're going to create the civilization of love that it will put an end to wars and put an end to the conflicts and all that's going on now and give the young people-- since this last time when I've come to this time,

03:58:57.500 - 03:59:22.900

the number of people that have stopped me on the street to ask me, "Oh, you're a nun." I've never seen a nun, except in the movies. I've never seen a nun before. "Why are you a nun? What do you do? Why are you a nun?" And then, "Well, who's God?" Like that one boy that I had met in the little church here that Nancy stopped

03:59:23.940 - 03:59:50.980

to make me visit when I was here the last time. He was walking around and I was just sort of looking at the murals and he was asking, "Who is that?" Well, they were the first missionaries who had been martyred by the Indians who came over. And then he looked at the crucifix and he said, "And who is he?" This young generation, no one's ever told them, but it's the most

03:59:50.940 - 04:00:13.000

important thing in life. So if there's something that can open up the door, even of their curiosity, to make them want to find out, want to know, and they do want to know. They ask why about everything now. Why? Even in the discoveries of things, why is this? Because this does this, we probably can do this. And that's how the technology is going faster and faster

04:00:13.120 - 04:00:32.960

and growing. But the spiritual basis of our nation can grow in the same, and at the same speed in the same way because it's everlasting truth. And it can and should be growing that way. And I think we've gotten so far away from that spirit now

04:00:33.280 - 04:00:39.600

of our forefathers and the faith of our forefathers who came over here. Because when they came over, they weren't looking for anything.

04:00:41.440 - 04:00:49.840

They were looking for something, but it wasn't what they can get me, but what I can do to help myself here. There was nobody to help them.

04:00:50.980 - 04:01:01.440

There was nothing ready made. And the fact that we've been able to build such a fantastic country in so short a period of time, that God has a purpose for all that.

04:01:02.900 - 04:01:21.120

And because we're a nation made up of nations of people from everywhere, there's a purpose behind that. And I think the WASP is part of that general plan. The whole way it came out and the whole way that it was,

04:01:21.240 - 04:01:33.520

at the end, it was almost put aside, that's the way God works. He doesn't, it's not winning an award for something that you can say, well, that's God doing that.

04:01:35.260 - 04:01:50.880

It's the hard road that leads there that counts. - I cannot tell you how glad I am that we can take this home. Are you cut? I can be.

04:01:51.920 - 04:02:02.560

This is what I was looking for. That was wonderful. Because even going back now, I feel differently about it. That something has grown.

04:02:02.940 - 04:02:17.760

Something that I see more clearly. No negativity. It's just positive. But it shows, it captures at the end of your life. Not the very end.

04:02:18.620 - 04:02:30.340

I'll be 50 years in next year, my jubilee. It shows that you still have that same spirit. Yeah, I haven't changed. It's just grown. That's what life is all about.

04:02:30.660 - 04:02:40.300

Right. Good. Okay. Here's to... Did you have anything? No, I thought that was wonderful.

04:02:40.580 - 04:02:49.640

I'm sorry I was zooming out there at the end I think that what she said, I should have been doing it, but I was thinking she was gonna say, you know, maybe two or three more,

04:02:49.700 - 04:02:55.400

and I wanted to get her hands, but she was going to remove her hands. Oh, but anyway, that's okay. - It's all right.

04:02:55.700 - 04:03:10.000

- I got it on, it's, I think it's great. - Okay. - Okay. - So, we need to, now what do we do? - I don't think so.

04:03:12.100 - 04:03:20.020

(laughing) All right, who has the first question? Ask her where she lives. All right, or do you want to know what a Carmelite is first?

04:03:20.190 - 04:03:28.680

How many really knew what a Carmelite was? With two hands only? You'll have to hold that mic up. Would you like to hear that first, what a Carmelite is?

04:03:29.320 - 04:03:39.440

All right, we are cloistered, which means we believe in just an enclosure. There's a garden and maybe 11 acres. But we consecrate our whole life to prayer,

04:03:40.220 - 04:03:56.020

Because every human being, when God takes them, first starts giving them a few little hints that he's around. And we can say they're blind, they're mute, they can't talk, they can't hear, they can't see, they're lame.

04:03:56.620 - 04:04:10.200

And slowly, God gives you some light, and then you begin to have a little bit of interest. And then you hear something, and then you get more interest. So God wakes you up slowly, and then you

04:04:10.200 - 04:04:36.480

in his way, you go to church and then you begin to run a little bit and when you persevere then you begin to fly to God. Now the motto of the flying training, central flying training command where I was stationed was "Ut viri volent" that men may fly. So when I joined Carmel it sort of blended right in because we're there to pray so that eventually men

04:04:36.480 - 04:04:59.360

may fly to God. We put our love out in the world because you can, you know, Christ said you can have no greater love than to love, no greater love can you have than to give your life for your brother or the one you love. So we give our life day by day and hour by hour and year after year. I've had 48 now since I entered. But it becomes a joyful life

04:04:59.440 - 04:05:10.020

because you really, you get to know God and you are in a personal relationship with him. I never had a bad day. I never had a lonely day. I never had a day when I was sorry I had

04:05:10.200 - 04:05:17.200

entered in all the 48 years. It's just been a great experience. And when you enter, usually-- can't hear me?

04:05:17.270 - 04:05:25.220

I can't hear you. Let me get back here. All right, maybe I-- how about-- Hold the mic closer to you.

04:05:25.400 - 04:05:31.640

OK, all right. Can you hear now? If you can't hear me, do something. Wave or scream or do something.

04:05:32.640 - 04:05:40.160

Don't let me talk to myself. Where was I? Where was I? Somebody tell me.

04:05:41.780 - 04:05:51.540

What was I saying? What? Oh, yes. So as you go, the more you live this life, the happier you are.

04:05:52.860 - 04:06:08.520

And the whole purpose of the life is to help mankind find its way to God. And the motto could easily be that men may fly. there was no big change. But when I was four years old, I saw my first plane go over. In

04:06:08.520 - 04:06:30.520

fact, not really. I had measles and I could only peek out the window and I saw this thing go over. And we had heard in preschool about the sagas of the missionaries in the Arctic with dog sleds to get to where they were going, and in Africa, the safaris. So I got the idea, "This is stupid. Why did they use planes?" I saw this thing go over. So I decided then

04:06:30.520 - 04:06:51.980

that I was going to fly for the mission, so I'd be a missionary and I'd fly. But then as I grew up, I still had that idea in my head, but nothing was moving. So I went to work in Washington, D.C. when the war broke out. I was working for the Quartermaster General's Office and that's where they computed all the clothing. And I found out ahead of time

04:06:52.040 - 04:07:14.760

that they were going to have a women's flying program. They were figuring out the clothes of these ladies, that they would start this Air Force section for the women. So I went over and volunteered. They were asking for volunteers. They didn't draft anybody for it. So I volunteered to join and I got in first class in 1944 and had lowered the age

04:07:14.840 - 04:07:41.300

to 18 and a half when I was 19. So I went on the first class. But then after I... I always thought this was a good way to serve my country. My dad had been in the first World we were French descent and he had fought to get born in 1918. So I grew up with this sort of patriotism in my blood. So I didn't have any brothers, so I thought, well, this is

04:07:41.380 - 04:08:03.840

one way to serve my country. And then also in the back of my mind, I thought this is a good way to get a good flying education, to get all the best training. So I did that. And after we were sent home, I tried to get into this, and one bishop in the Hudson Bay region thought this was a great idea, and then they got their heads together and they

04:08:03.900 - 04:08:17.560

decided there were no stations, radio stations, nothing, it was just ice. So if you got lost, it would be a little hard time getting out because you wouldn't know where you were. So it all fell to the ground.

04:08:17.840 - 04:08:35.760

And so I went back to work. And then finally I decided that if I couldn't fly for the missions, I would fly for the church. So I entered the Carmelite Order to pray for the people and to get everybody to heaven.

04:08:36.920 - 04:08:52.580

So that's what a Carmelite does. We have the same schedule for the same 48 years, we get up at the same time. Everything is scheduled and that's how we practice obedience. It's only because Christ was obedient unto death,

04:08:53.080 - 04:09:06.380

and death on the cross for love of us. So we have this vow of obedience. And the vow of chastity is we give up having a family, loving one person, being loved by one little cell of society,

04:09:07.200 - 04:09:22.500

to embrace the whole world and all of human beings in our love. And then the poverty, we give up all the consumerism race, and trying to root themselves in the,

04:09:23.040 - 04:09:34.620

everybody wants roots on the planet, by land, anything at all to keep hanging on to the planet. And we give all that up to soar to God and carry everybody else with us.

04:09:35.520 - 04:09:46.620

Now, next question. What? - Okay, you're saying you have to stay in your orbit. How do you like go get food and--

04:09:46.880 - 04:09:57.840

- Until what? How do we get what? How do you get food? Oh, food?

04:09:59.000 - 04:10:07.960

We raise our own. We have a garden. Each monastery is autonomous. That means we're self-supporting.

04:10:07.980 - 04:10:25.280

We have a garden and we do things. The very first experience I had was we had just arrived in at this one monastery and somebody brought a great big bag of green beans, but there were only three of us there, so we said, "We'll have to wait."

04:10:41.720 - 04:10:55.020

God has worked miracles like that all along the way for us. We've never worried about where we're going to get tomorrow's food because he feeds the birds and he'll feed us. We've never gone hungry.

04:10:56.000 - 04:11:12.980

And you look at me, you know I'm not hungry. I haven't really lost my weight from hunger. So what else? Loud, please.

04:11:14.760 - 04:11:27.740

Can you please describe the role that God took during your time at the war in that place? Tell me, tell you about what? The role God took in your life during the war. Was God in my life?

04:11:27.820 - 04:11:38.780

God. Was God in my life? Yes. The whole time I had joined the program, mainly because I wanted to serve my country, and

04:11:38.850 - 04:11:50.580

also I had this mission flying. So I used to pray every single time I took off, and I used to pray I wouldn't get washed out because if you couldn't keep up with the flying, then there was a pink slip and you went home the next day.

04:11:51.080 - 04:12:02.960

So I prayed myself through. I did. I prayed every single day. And when I got my base assignment as a test pilot in Oklahoma, I was at an advanced cadet

04:12:03.080 - 04:12:10.220

base. We tested the planes that the cadets were using. If they cracked them up, we just took a look to make sure they were all right to fly. I also flew the chaplain.

04:12:10.560 - 04:12:24.180

I was his Sunday pilot. And the very last flight that I made in a military aircraft was on a Sunday. I was flying him to another base that he took care of. Dead center of the United States, if you measure this way, measure that way.

04:12:24.500 - 04:12:33.380

He carried the blessed sacrament to give communion to someone at the other base. So I thought, that was really nice. The Lord flew on my last flight with me,

04:12:33.520 - 04:12:46.220

because he'd never carried it before. So it was all very much intertwined. That's why I told Nancy, if she wanted my story, she'd have to merge church and state,

04:12:46.780 - 04:13:02.020

because I couldn't separate them. It's not, it wasn't just a, you know, it had a reason for it. Anybody else? - Do you go to the doctor when you're sick?

04:13:02.140 - 04:13:10.620

Are these things on God? - I'm gonna walk over here because I think it's a, with this, this is double. (laughs)

04:13:10.840 - 04:13:20.520

- When you're sick, do you go to the doctor? - Yes, we have, that's one of the times that according to our, we have constitutions, that govern how we live and our rule.

04:13:20.960 - 04:13:33.800

But according to Vatican II, if we need to go out for the doctor, we go out, but we come right back. And we're not supposed to talk about everything we saw on the way back or on the way over.

04:13:33.980 - 04:13:43.180

If we saw it, we just forget about it. Otherwise, when you kneel down to pray, all these little things come back in your head. So you can't concentrate, right?

04:13:43.600 - 04:13:53.440

Who can say the Our Father all the way to the end without having a distraction? try it. Is there a certain amount of people you all have in your incumbent?

04:13:53.760 - 04:14:08.120

We have only, right now we have 18 where I am, and 21 is our maximum. We can't go beyond 21 because then it gets too many people because we don't really speak to each other except for two hours a day when we have recreation together, and then we really yell.

04:14:08.700 - 04:14:23.900

So you pray the whole day and only talk? No, we have hours of prayer, and then we get up at early, about a quarter to five, and We have an hour of meditation, and then we stay in the office together. The bravery, the psalms, they cover all the psalms in one month.

04:14:24.600 - 04:14:37.400

And then we have mass, and then we have breakfast. And then we go to our work, and we work for like an hour, two hours. Do you wear that all the time? Yes.

04:14:38.060 - 04:14:50.360

Like even when you're hot outside working? It turns up. Do you sleep in pajamas or do you have to sleep in... No, we have a...

04:14:50.640 - 04:14:58.020

It's like... Well, that's all right. In some places where I've been, they wore pajamas for the night. It's just something to sleep in.

04:14:59.060 - 04:15:06.440

A nightgown, whatever. But we don't sleep in the habit, no. They used to in the Middle Ages. I think that was the only...

04:15:06.900 - 04:15:17.860

And they used to be so heavy, they would stand up in the corner by themselves. I mean, the habit, when you took it off. It's safe to say it stood in the corner and prayed all night while you slept. Did you wash your clothes?

04:15:18.160 - 04:15:25.140

Yes, sure. No, no. Every day. No, no.

04:15:25.840 - 04:15:37.060

Like we have this little white, we call it a tunic underneath. We wash that every day. We have changed. But we don't have a choice of what color we're going to wear today.

04:15:38.500 - 04:15:56.960

Oh yeah, there's only one color you can wear. This is it. We have another one that gets washed. Can people come and visit you all? Yes, but through the...we have a grating. It's wood, but it's like a screen with big squares like that.

04:15:57.540 - 04:16:11.560

They can't see you? They can see us, but they can't walk in. It's not in the same room, but it's separated by this grate we call it. Yes? Are you allowed to talk with one another?

04:16:12.640 - 04:16:29.200

During the day, if you're working with history, you can answer questions pertaining to your work and all, but chit-chat, no, we keep that for recreation. Little comments and side remarks that are funny, we keep those for recreation, and then we get hilarious.

04:16:29.500 - 04:16:41.280

In fact, the superior has to tone everybody down every five minutes. It gets really noisy. Yes? What's your day-to-day schedule?

04:16:43.220 - 04:16:57.320

It's the same every day, and it's the same every week, and it's the same every month. But after we start working, we have another short period of prayer, and then we have lunch, which is our big meal. We have our dinner, we call it.

04:16:57.760 - 04:17:11.680

And then afterwards, we have an hour of recreation, and then we go back. You know, in the Old Testament, it said they pray seven times a day. Well, we have seven periods of prayer a day. One is at 6 o'clock in the morning, 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock.

04:17:11.840 - 04:17:25.900

It runs pretty close to that, 6 o'clock and then 9 o'clock. And then after that, we go back to work. We have probably about five hours, plus or minus, of working time. So when you have to do the garden, you go out there and dig and plant,

04:17:26.460 - 04:17:37.180

water and weed, try to get it all done. And then the next day, we have each a job. I had the garden for seven years, and now I have the sewing of the vestments,

04:17:37.190 - 04:17:46.260

you know, the priest wear for mass. We make those and sell those to earn our living, like to pay the electricity and the other things. What time do you get up and go to bed?

04:17:47.540 - 04:17:58.440

Our last prayer starts at 9:30 until 10, 10:15. We go to bed about 10:30, around that. We get about six hours and 45 minutes. But if you get sick, that's good.

04:18:00.700 - 04:18:09.420

At least I say that. You get used to it. Even out here, I wake up when I would-- they have this big thing.

04:18:09.980 - 04:18:18.360

It has a kind of a metal thing. And I have to wake everybody up. So I wake up about one minute before that is due to go off, even here.

04:18:19.060 - 04:18:43.360

I'm so geared to it. No, the WASPs were started to replace the pilots in the United States to go overseas for combat, but we were to do the jobs in the country because there were a lot of pilots that had to fly for teaching, all kinds of things they had to do in the United States.

04:18:43.520 - 04:19:05.140

So we released the pilots for overseas for the combat flying. We were not organized for And the second question was, what influenced you to come to the United? I had always wanted to be a nun and I wanted to fly for the mission. So when everybody told me it was ten years too soon, I said, "I'm going to fly for the

04:19:05.180 - 04:19:20.220

mission." So I figured, well, if I couldn't fly for them, maybe I could just pray for them. And the day I entered the monastery, they take you to the chapel, you know, and I said to God, "I offer you never seeing the top of a cloud again," because that was my biggest

04:19:21.820 - 04:19:40.780

And after I made my final profession, our father general came through and he was looking for bilingual people, and I just happened to be born in a French family. We went to have French parochial schools, so I talked French as much as I did English, to go to Korea. So he sent me to Korea. And then I was there two years, and I got sent to Japan.

04:19:40.960 - 04:20:02.800

I was there ten years, and then one day he came in and said, "Your English isn't doing anything here. I needed in Africa, so I went to Kenya where they speak English. In the missions, the natives had been left almost with no mothers and no fathers, nothing. When the war broke out, all the foreigners had to leave and were sent out of the country.

04:20:02.940 - 04:20:25.860

They were left alone to continue the monasteries that had been established maybe for ten years and so, but they still didn't know how to contact Rome, how to, you know, all this, because their own language was about all they could speak. So they wanted to keep the foreign sisters in there to help them a little bit longer with their, to get organized. So I

04:20:25.900 - 04:20:54.520

ended up in Africa, and then I ended up on the island of Guadalupe, and then I ended up in Maryland for ten years. There was a monastery there. It was the first monastery of nuns in the 13 colonies at Portobaco, Maryland. It was founded in 1790 and the sisters were sent to Baltimore in 1834 because the bishop decided that they better move them. The monastery

04:20:54.640 - 04:21:17.380

had been, nobody had lost sight of it, it had become a farm and then one day somebody found the tombstones and then they found two old buildings that belonged to the original monastery. So they decided to bring the nuns back there. We actually opened it during 1976 for the bicentennial year. We reactivated it. So then I went there for ten years and

04:21:17.400 - 04:21:43.240

then I went back to Guadalupe and I've been there 15 years now until I came for this program, getting the story of the WASP registered for profiterity. But the main thing, everybody, you know, the next century is going to be either the century of the civilization of love or it's not going to last very long and you are the future of

04:21:43.240 - 04:21:53.020

the world. Do you realize that? By the next century you're going to have, you'll be in Congress, you'll have the whole world will be in the hand of this generation.

04:21:54.360 - 04:22:04.420

And yes? What advice can you give to us for the future? What do you want to do for the future? Advice.

04:22:04.900 - 04:22:25.380

Advice? Yeah. You have to learn to love, you have to learn compassion, because love, you know, everything, the Ten Commandments, you know, it's don't do this, don't do that, don't do that. And Christ said, there are only two commandments, love God and love your neighbor, because everything is included in love. If you love somebody, you're not going to kill

04:22:25.380 - 04:22:36.580

and do all the negative things. And love is the only force that can fill this negativeness that's in the world right now. And the thing Christ saved us by his passion and his death,

04:22:36.680 - 04:22:49.340

but it was really by the love that he put into it. He let all the secondary causes, bitumen, put up trial, fake trial, everything that happened to Christ was negative,

04:22:49.500 - 04:22:58.700

but he let that hit him because he was filling it with love. And when he died, he had enough love to fill up all the negativeness in everybody

04:22:59.200 - 04:23:10.500

until the end of the world. And now all we have to do to really get into this program of love, of pushing, getting the world back on a plane of love,

04:23:10.760 - 04:23:21.160

is to let the love of God in. And once you've got it in, you have a strength that nothing can overcome. Because love is stronger than anything.

04:23:22.000 - 04:23:33.820

And you try it sometimes. If somebody doesn't talk to you, just say good morning with a smile and keep it up. That person will one day smile at you. You can't love, there's nothing that can stop it.

04:23:35.000 - 04:23:46.440

If there was, then I think I'm in the wrong place. I'm a little bit disappointed, but it's true. We've seen that. How many of you know about Little Therese, the Carmelite saint?

04:23:46.620 - 04:23:59.120

You know about her? Her relics are touring the country now. They've been touring the world. She entered Carmel at 15 and she died at 24. But in nine years, she had really clicked

04:23:59.280 - 04:24:22.420

onto what love was. It's giving, it's loving, it's forgetting ourselves to make somebody else happy. And she did that for nine years. And at the end of her life, she said, "I know when I die, God is going to do everything I want because I've done everything he wants for my life." And she wasn't dead five years. They were getting over a thousand letters

04:24:22.420 - 04:24:45.140

in her carmel, in Lysier, France. People saying they prayed to her and they got what they asked for. She was working miracles. She got canonized about 28 years after she was born, which is, I mean, after she died, which is unusual. They usually wait 50 years before they even start questioning anybody. But she took the whole world by storm. Now, two years

04:24:45.260 - 04:25:08.160

ago, the Holy Father declared her a doctor of the church, which means she's sitting up with St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, all the big doctors of the Church, because what she taught was something that people could really believe. Vatican II had a lot of her doctrine put in through all the things. Anything that was talking about love was St. Therese's

04:25:08.220 - 04:25:28.100

doctrine. Now the Holy Father has sent her relics, they've launched them. It's been two years now they've been touring. They went to Russia, and it was the Red Guard that carried relics. It just happened that way. They carried them on their shoulders, you know, Stalin's Red Guard, the Kremlin Red Guard. And then when they had a church, they were supposed

04:25:28.180 - 04:25:52.740

to have mass. They couldn't get the relics in because they had to go upstairs. They ended up having mass on Kremlin Square with Stalin's picture in the back. She came to JFK Kennedy Airport in New York. She just came in. Before I came here, I flew up to Maryland and the first stop was at this monastery that I started back in 1976, the

04:25:52.860 - 04:26:13.960

original monastery in the States. But she's coming to Fort Worth, she's going to be traveling all over the States, but there was, let me tell you a couple of miracles. There was a man and one of our carnals had a workman that had a heart attack and he was crippled and he couldn't speak. And his wife put him in front of the TV because to watch the live

04:26:13.960 - 04:26:31.480

the relics were arriving at the airport, and she went out to the store. When she came back, he opened the door and said, all he said was, "Little Therese, if I were in that lineup, I'll bet you would do something for me." Instantaneously, got up and walked and went to the door. He could speak obscured completely. But this is just seeing the relics on TV, you know?

04:26:33.120 - 04:26:54.540

She's taking the whole, everywhere she goes, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. She was a whole year going around Argentina, and if she came up to New York from Argentina. So her thing was love and that is the only thing that counts. She said that the only thing that counts is love. So put that in your lives now and by the time

04:26:54.540 - 04:27:20.700

the new century comes around, you'll see that you could work for a civilization of love, which is the only thing that's worth living for. Who wants to fight me all the time? Anybody? want to fight all the time? No. Everybody wants to live in peace. My family was French Canadian descent. They were immigrants. So in my high school, we had every single nation,

04:27:21.160 - 04:27:42.780

Greek, Lithuanian, everything you could think of, of all the nations. So I grew up with like the legal nations in school, and that sort of stayed with me. And in our monasteries, We have the sisters of all walks of life, and a lot of them are different nations, but we manage to live together in peace.

04:27:43.600 - 04:28:03.700

And that's the little islands of peace and love that is seeping out. So if you feel love coming, open your hearts, it'll be probably coming from the Antilles. Any more questions? Which one is what?

04:28:04.220 - 04:28:14.200

They're like the best? Well, I should say Waco, right? No, I came to Waco when I was training at Sweetwater. I stopped here one time.

04:28:14.820 - 04:28:25.120

This is my second visit to Waco. No, in a monastery. They were all the same in Africa. They had elephants and lions and everything running around

04:28:25.120 - 04:28:47.080

all over the place. In Japan, there are snakes all over the place. We used to find them in the house. So it's the same life every place. We have the same schedule, so you can walk from one monastery into another and feel quite at home. It's not different at all. The language is different. Now everything is in French over there. So I pray in French, and I think

04:28:47.120 - 04:29:24.320

in French, and talk in French. I was telling Nancy, I have to start to think sometimes. the words come out in French, not in English. Anybody else? Will I tell them all I've seen? No. I'll tell them how beautiful Waco is and all this because the superior gave me permission, I'll have to find out first if the rest of the community knows where I am. They might

04:29:24.380 - 04:29:43.040

not have told them at all. I don't know if they told them. They know I'm in the States, but we don't, you know, nobody's really, if they find out, well, they know I've come to the States, but they really don't know all the reasons why I came to the States. That was between the superiors in Rome and the House superiors, because otherwise they might

04:29:43.000 - 04:29:58.360

to be distracted, not wondering what I was doing, where I'm going. How long is your recreation? It's an hour at noon and an hour at night, so we have two hours. Sometimes we'll go out to walk.

04:29:58.500 - 04:30:16.220

We had a bicycle at one time, so we had a bicycle race to get around fast. We caught everybody. So you only get to talk to the other men for two hours? nutty things and jokes and all that. Yes, only in the two hours. But if we're sewing

04:30:16.400 - 04:30:36.500

together or something and we have to, you know, this is the way you do this, you can answer questions and answers about the work. It's not that you can't talk to them. But I wouldn't start in the middle of sewing with a sister to tell her all about Waco or to tell her all about some... If the prioress tells me, well, then my superior says so,

04:30:36.520 - 04:30:47.760

and I'll tell them all about my trip. But otherwise I wouldn't start telling it unless they told me to. Are people always around you making sure y'all don't talk about stuff? Oh no, no, no.

04:30:49.720 - 04:31:01.400

If you are united with God, when you're praying you don't feel like talking to everybody that's around you, do you? No. It's normal.

04:31:02.140 - 04:31:13.320

The more you're... Like St. Teresa of Avila says, once you've allowed Christ in your heart, you won't be able to get rid of him because he'll be with you all the time. And you feel the help.

04:31:14.820 - 04:31:21.280

He helps you with your work. He helps you with your thinking. He helps you when it's very hot. He gives you the strength to keep going.

04:31:22.540 - 04:31:36.640

Sometimes we cool down to 85 in the winter in the island over there. And the summer is about 116. Oh, it gets really hot. We have a lot of hurricanes that come along and wave at us or hit us.

04:31:38.420 - 04:32:08.860

But it's never a dull moment, actually. I can say that. Okay, everybody better go to lunch now. [Applause] (Pray

04:32:32.620 - 04:33:11.860

You're a good to his star you never know what's gonna happen, but it's always good I enjoyed it very much. Are they going to publish all your stories? Nancy's getting it in a digital bank because it's a chapter of history that's never been written.

04:33:12.160 - 04:33:25.880

I know, and it would be fascinating. The history books were written right after the war, and they didn't recognize us until '77. Which is so sad, but it's a beautiful story. We didn't -- we were sorry they hadn't militarized us, but they lobbied in Congress and all.

04:33:26.120 - 04:33:37.760

That's a lot of things that are true. We don't keep a lot of history. My great-grandmother came over from Germany, and I can remember as a child her telling me the stories about how to get, about getting, being a step ahead of Hitler.

04:33:38.260 - 04:33:46.120

And it didn't seem important to me then. And now I would give anything if I had that. >>Because it, yes, that you would have really asked her. >>Sometimes it's too late, isn't it?

04:33:46.140 - 04:33:55.140

>>Yes. >>At least we didn't get yours too late. >>Well, my dad's, I got a lot of it practically just before he died, because he never talked about it.

04:33:55.280 - 04:34:08.780

>>Right. France and I was born only six years after he returned you know. They were married two years after the war so it was so close. What a fascinating life you have lived.

04:34:08.930 - 04:34:24.240

How wonderful. I was just saying just hit your star, hit your wagon to God's star. You don't know where it's going. My brother is a surgeon in Africa. Where is he Billy? What country is he in? Nigeria. Nigeria. And he just loves it. I haven't seen him in four years but he's coming home in August.

04:34:24.780 - 04:34:39.920

So I'm really excited. I enjoyed it so much. I would love to hear the Hall of Stories. Hi, I'm Amy Perry. Jan Vogt. I teach biology here. Oh, that's great. Well, when Nancy talked to the principal, she said, "This is something those kids need to hear."

04:34:39.920 - 04:34:46.080

That's right. It is. They need to hear this. I agree. So, I'm so glad that you came.

04:34:46.260 - 04:34:52.320

Thank you. Who is this now? What? I said, "Who are you now?" Oh, I'm Sally Rue. I'm from the elementary school.

04:34:52.340 - 04:35:00.760

Oh, okay. Interesting that these kids did not know about Cluster Nuns. I thought it was very interesting. But what a wonderful line.

04:35:02.360 - 04:35:12.560

I said to one of them, "You hitch your wagon to God's star and you don't know where it's going." And that's exactly right. I still don't know where I'm going. Well, that's okay.

04:35:14.200 - 04:35:29.320

I think this is the last stop, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was another one. You just never know. I've been 15 years in Gladdenbrook now. >>Well, I met some nuns in, they live in Tennessee and they were cloistered nuns. The happiest

04:35:29.520 - 04:35:44.080

people I've ever in my entire life met. It really is. >>Weren't you fantastic? >>I mean to tell you. You were wonderful. >>Well, I hope it meant, I wanted to get these kids to realize that the whole world's going

04:35:44.080 - 04:35:48.080

to be in their hands, you know. >>That's exactly right. >>Thank you so much, sister. >>Thank you.

04:35:48.780 - 04:36:05.480

many weeks at a monastery in New Mexico. It's Christ in the Desert at Abiquiu and it's a silent monastery but it's not closed. They invite people to come. They make retreats there? Uh-huh. They don't do directed retreats.

04:36:05.480 - 04:36:20.800

No, no, no. But you just participate in their life. You can eat with them, you can worship with them. And it's a wonderful, you know, I've realized what joy these people have. And so, and I'm so glad you mentioned St. Teresa.

04:36:21.400 - 04:36:26.680

Because her relics are coming to Port Worth. Yes, they're coming. That's what I knew. Because I was thinking of Evel at first.

04:36:26.680 - 04:36:30.360

I thought, whoops! No, no, the little flower. Yeah, the little flower. She's still working miracles.

04:36:30.600 - 04:36:38.680

Yeah. I mean, we get the, from the General Lake, we get these bulletins, you know, and she's still, she's still taking the world by storm. Yeah.

04:36:39.180 - 04:36:46.220

Nine years in Carmel. Well, I am so glad you mentioned that. Because I thought maybe these kids would be inspiring to you guys.