00:00:00.000 - 00:00:22.320

anymore, is at our table. And then Poland, thereís someone from Poland, you know, they, you know, itís, but most of the people are from Texas or California. You know, once in a while I, I played for someone from Colorado. We donít always know, I donít always know who Iím playing with, but sometimes we have to wait for people to join the game andÖ

00:00:22.920 - 00:00:35.840

>> Well, I think itís, itís a mental challenge, you know? I, I think itís good for the, exercise My brain is being exercised an awful lot right now. (laughing) An awful lot right now.

00:00:35.860 - 00:00:50.680

- Okay, let's-- - Let's begin. - Let me get a room tone here, so let's be real quiet. That should be enough, okay. - We want, and back-- - Whenever, rolling.

00:00:51.320 - 00:01:05.320

- I'm Deanie Parrish, and today we're interviewing Annabelle Moss in Grand Junction in her home, Colorado. She was Wos, class 44-2. Today is the 11th of September, 2000.

00:01:06.040 - 00:01:16.840

Okay, Annabelle, if you'll tell us your name and when you were born, where you were born, and about who your parents were. - My name is Annabelle, Annabelle Craft Moss.

00:01:17.700 - 00:01:31.900

I was born July 30th, 1921. My parents was Lucy Woscraft, and my father was Marcus Charles Craft. In Galesburg, Illinois.

00:01:32.500 - 00:01:50.080

Tell me about any siblings. I have an older brother who was in the Air Force and influenced my flying, my wanting to fly. And I had a younger sister, Marsha Craft, and Marsha died when she was about fifty.

00:01:52.180 - 00:02:14.860

And about what are your earliest recollections of your childhood and tell me about that. Well, I think pictures make you remember things. And I remember when I was two years old on my birthday, sitting in front of my cake with my grandfather Kraft, and of course they took a picture of it, but I remember that.

00:02:16.340 - 00:02:24.860

That's great. Do you remember when you started school? I went to first grade. I wasn't a kindergarten.

00:02:26.620 - 00:02:46.900

And we sat in little red chairs in front of the teacher and read "The Little Red Hen." And what was the one about the "I think I can, I think I can?" I always walked to school. Gettysburg was very cold in the winter, but we walked.

00:02:47.840 - 00:03:02.360

long stockings, with high shoes, brown shoes. What was your dad doing? My dad was a farmer to begin with. His parents had a dairy farm.

00:03:05.240 - 00:03:21.540

And my mother wasn't strong enough to live on a farm. It was very hard work to live on a farm. And she's a little tiny person, about five feet tall. So we moved into town and my father worked for my grandfather, Watson, in the hide wool

00:03:21.660 - 00:03:33.360

business and he loved it. My grandfather loved it. It's a gambling business. You buy wool or hides and you sell them, try to sell them at a profit.

00:03:34.480 - 00:03:51.180

How close did you live to your grandparents? Both my grandparents lived in Galesburg. The dairy farmer lived right outside of Galesburg, and the other one lived on the same street we did, but, oh, fifteen blocks away.

00:03:52.080 - 00:04:04.160

Can you tell me, as a child, what were your Christmases like? We used to divide them. One Christmas we went to my grandmother Crafts, and one Christmas we went to my grandmother Wasson's.

00:04:05.120 - 00:04:21.120

My grandmother Wasson's is the one that lived in town. And I liked it best because I had cousins, girl cousins that were my age that I had more fun with. We always decorated the tree on Christmas, her tree on Christmas Eve.

00:04:22.100 - 00:04:31.340

We never had a Christmas tree. We just had my grandmotherís Christmas tree. I think money had something to do with it. And what was dinner like?

00:04:34.460 - 00:04:54.040

Wonderful. My grandmother Watson always had a huge dinner and we had a lot of people come. Not only family but some of her single friends or her friends. And the Christmas tree was in the sunroom.

00:04:54.740 - 00:05:14.140

She always had special golden plates, silverware. She was a very ritzy, classy lady. Did church play a part in your Christmases? Yes, we belonged to Congregational Church in Galesburg.

00:05:15.740 - 00:05:37.420

Galesburg was founded around the Congregational Church, a great big stone church in the middle of town. I would say that on Christmas Eve they always had the merry ceremony. I was merry for four years, which was exciting.

00:05:38.140 - 00:05:53.380

They started with me with being merry because I was young. That was a young merry. Then the next year, I think it was the sophomore, that we didn't have a minister. So they thought, "Well, we better have a merry that has a little experience."

00:05:53.380 - 00:06:08.080

And then the third year and fourth year, I had been married so long, I was not married. I thought, well, they better keep the same life all those years. What were your summer vacations like? What did you do?

00:06:10.260 - 00:06:20.000

Outside of Galesburg, there is a lake. Galesburg is a railroad town. It has two lakes. Santa Fe and Burlington both go through Galesburg.

00:06:20.900 - 00:06:36.840

And we lived on one of the lakes. At first we just rented a cottage. Galesburg was terribly hot in the summertime. And so I don't know why we thought it was cooler on the lake, but I guess it's because

00:06:36.840 - 00:06:52.820

we could go swimming and cool off. But we always had a cottage, and we had that cottage up to right through Iverson High School. Let me ask you, when you would go out to visit your grandparents on their dairy farm, what would that be like?

00:06:54.320 - 00:07:10.840

Well my grandmother Kraft adored me. And they have an article saying that Laura Bell Kraft was the happiest person in Galesburg when I was born because she wanted a little granddaughter. And so I always was sent to her house.

00:07:11.480 - 00:07:24.920

And if my mother was sick or went away or something. And the other two would go to my grandmother Watsonís house. But it was fun at my grandmotherís house because I loved kittens. They always had a bunch of kittens.

00:07:27.960 - 00:07:39.720

And Iíd always sleep with her in her big iron bed upstairs. Itís a great big beautiful farmhouse. They worked very hard. I remember most of the time during the Depression when they were so poor.

00:07:41.060 - 00:07:59.400

Did you ever help your grandfather? Yes. My grandmother used to make food to sell when he delivered the milk. And I'd go with him and I'd sell all her pies, cookies, you know, and the people would

00:07:59.410 - 00:08:12.580

buy them. Of course, they probably cost nothing, but she made money. Did your grandmother teach you to cook? No one taught me to cook.

00:08:14.340 - 00:08:23.580

Not when I was young. My mother said, "You're going to get to cook and clean and do all those things after you're married. Why don't you just go have a good time?"

00:08:23.580 - 00:08:37.680

I did help with the dishes. I never cleaned. We had a cleaning lady, and she didn't ever care if I cooked. And so when I got married, I could hardly boil water.

00:08:38.920 - 00:09:00.780

But Art's mother taught me how to cook, so I'd read those cookbooks over and over again. What are your earliest recollections of a special teacher in school? Not a lot. Tell me in grammar school.

00:09:00.780 - 00:09:12.900

Do you remember, does one teacher stand out? Yeah, her name was—I remember her name. of Erna, the first name, great big fat gal, sixth grade teacher. Laughed, she was the principal.

00:09:14.040 - 00:09:25.220

She laughed a lot. And then my Latin teacher, I loved him junior high. I almost even liked Latin. Whoever likes Latin.

00:09:26.400 - 00:09:38.620

And in high school I had several. One was my algebra teacher. And I was not a math student. And I took trigonometry.

00:09:39.440 - 00:10:00.340

And how I ever got through that, I'm sure she helped me get through it. But I liked her so much, I kept taking her courses. Do you remember as a child growing up, what were your ambitions? Well, when we were in ninth grade, we were supposed to do what we wanted to be the rest

00:10:00.380 - 00:10:16.340

of our lives. I wrote I want to be a Red Cross nurse. I want to be a nurse. And in junior high school, were you involved with other things other than academics?

00:10:17.960 - 00:10:57.260

Any kind of school? We didn't have a lot of things to do in junior high except go to school, play volleyball. I think maybe English. I had a very good English teacher. She taught me a word that I remember all my life. What is it? Idiosyncrasy. I can even spell it. But she says, Youíll remember

00:10:57.260 - 00:11:19.620

I helped with the book, yearbook, it was called The Reflector. We had clubs like sororities and I was always active in it. What were your social activities? I was very social.

00:11:21.980 - 00:11:42.180

I loved to dance and go out with boys. I had wonderful girlfriends. I think my whole life was bar social. Do you remember one special boy in high school? Yes, I went with a boy. His name was Ali. And we just danced all the time. He was a

00:11:42.200 - 00:12:07.840

wonderful really guy because he worked his way through. In those days, kids didn't work unless they had to. And he worked at the grocery store. He's had a -- you know, all day Saturdays. We'd save up his money to go do things. And when I went steady with him, he couldn't go out every night because he couldn't afford to. And the girls never thought of paying.

00:12:09.420 - 00:12:27.960

At what age did your family allow you to dance? Maybe I was in ninth grade. And what kind of dancing did you enjoy? Well, it was all ballroom, you know, social dancing.

00:12:29.760 - 00:12:50.020

I didn't ever jitterbag. It was more classical dancing. Where would you go to dance mostly? Well, the high school had a lot of parties. They had parties, dances after school, and the boys clubs and the girls clubs had parties. And in Galesburg, they had a roof garden,

00:12:51.740 - 00:13:07.880

but you had, but I, they wouldn't let me go to that for a while. I think maybe my senior year I could go to the roof garden and dance. It was very, very nice. In high school, did you go steady with this one boy? Yes.

00:13:09.230 - 00:13:20.860

Do you talk about your high school prom? We didn't have a prom. Did you have something special? They had these boys and girls clubs.

00:13:22.320 - 00:13:42.020

So the boys would ask, you know, girls to come to their dance, and then our club, you ask somebody to go to the -- and so we had dances every weekend. Because you got invited, I get invited to go to a dance every weekend. QF: Were you a good dancer?

00:13:42.850 - 00:14:00.120

LG: Well, I think I was all right. I don't think I was just splendid. I think I was -- I could dance okay. QF: Did your big brother -- Not much.

00:14:00.200 - 00:14:07.500

Not much? I just, I wonder, did, was your brother very protective of you? No. No.

00:14:09.060 - 00:14:33.400

Tell me about high school graduation. He was in the auditorium, gym, and there were about two hundred that graduated. And I don't know what number I was in class and really didn't care. I got all As.

00:14:34.260 - 00:14:47.260

I wanted to go to a Southern school. I forgot the name of it. They came up and interviewed me and oh, I was so excited and I was going to get a scholarship. They were going to give me a scholarship.

00:14:48.240 - 00:15:02.660

And it was just enough to pay the train down, train back and forth. So they really couldn't afford it. But I was going to go there for, it was a junior college, and go there for two years and then go to Chicago to a nursing school.

00:15:02.880 - 00:15:16.140

I still wanted to be a nurse. And my father did not want me to be a nurse. He says, "I don't want you emptying bedpans." And he says, "For college, to have a college education, do that.

00:15:16.200 - 00:15:38.380

I want you to do something else." My family all had college educations. My mother, my father, my grandmother, even my great aunt had graduated college in Galesburg. I was going there to school because that is what my father could afford.

00:15:40.500 - 00:15:55.600

I never felt poor. We were not really poor. My mother was at one sorority, and I had a friend that was goingótwo best friends, and one was going one sorority and one was going the other.

00:15:56.290 - 00:16:14.740

So I was being pulled, and then my motherís sorority was another one. To this day, I donít know what sorority I would have joined if I had gone to Knox. But one day my father called me and he says, ìI have made enough money this year. I want you to go away to college.

00:16:15.820 - 00:16:27.580

How about Stevens? Or how about Northwestern? And I didn't want to go to Northwestern because I didn't want to compete with beautiful, rich women.

00:16:28.120 - 00:16:39.040

And that's what Northwestern was very much like. And I wasn't too interested in Stevens. It was just a big girl's school. I did like the one that was in the south.

00:16:39.050 - 00:16:58.640

It was a small girl's school. So there was a girl down the street, and she went to the University of Nebraska, and she was one real dud, but she was very popular at Nebraska. And I, "Isn't this funny the way you think?"

00:16:58.780 - 00:17:20.000

And so I said, "You know, I think I'd like to go to the University of Nebraska, and I I want you to know that within five days I was in Lincoln, Nebraska. My father took me up to Chicago in one of his smelly trucks, and we bought all these clothes.

00:17:20.600 - 00:17:38.940

You know, when you go to school, they do not do that so much now. And then we drove back that night. My mother had bought all my underwear, and I got on the train all dressed up with a hat, whole deal, got on the train on my way to Lincoln.

00:17:40.380 - 00:18:05.980

They had written, they had wired, these sororities had all wired so that I would be, during rush week I would be rushed and maybe choose their sorority. My aunt was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, so I got invited everywhere. When I got on the train this morning, he says, "Well, you're just, this is your, do people

00:18:06.060 - 00:18:17.120

know you're coming?" And I said, "No, we just decided I would go." And so she, it was an alpha fee, she got an invitation there that she was, because I had met her.

00:18:17.860 - 00:18:27.960

So I really had a ball. I could go to any of the parties, the Rush parties. And one of them was better than all the rest. So I pledged kappa kappa gamma.

00:18:30.720 - 00:18:39.320

Are you a Cabba Cabba yet? You know what my daughter is. She? And it was just the perfect place for me.

00:18:39.500 - 00:18:53.740

Nebraska was the perfect place for me. What was your housing like in Nebraska? I lived in the sorority house. Well when you first got there, where did you live?

00:18:53.860 - 00:19:03.600

In the sorority house. Now they donít. But the first year. They changed it soon afterwards, but I moved right in on the sorority house, and I loved

00:19:03.680 - 00:19:19.820

it. What was your biggest adjustment to college life? The only adjustment was I had to study. I did not realize that I was as smart as I thought I was.

00:19:20.800 - 00:19:35.520

I just had to adjust to all those fun girls all the time, someone to talk to. I was not used to that and having fun. It was just to me a big party all the time. So the first semester I did not make my average.

00:19:36.280 - 00:19:45.720

I was so ashamed. I missed it by a tenth of a point. They would not initiate me. So the next year, I want you to know, I almost had a four-point average.

00:19:45.800 - 00:20:00.880

I was afraid not to study. But before I would stay up late and I did not study. There were some subjects that really were not what I was interested in, like philosophy, which was kind of hard.

00:20:02.060 - 00:20:15.680

Chemistry was very hard. So when I kind of settled down after that first semester, I made my grades. And from then on, I did not have a problem. I knew I had to study.

00:20:16.720 - 00:20:29.460

And what was your major? I had two majors. was in Spanish and one was in primary education. At this point, had your goals changed?

00:20:30.740 - 00:20:59.860

Well, see, I wanted to be a nurse. And here I was at a university, there was no nursing, you know, there wasn't a program for nursing. And so I had decided, I could have been an English major, which is you can go either way, any way you want. But I decided that I loved children, just adored children. And so I decided to take primary education. I

00:21:00.260 - 00:21:26.000

got their highest honor, I think it was Phi Lambda or something. They wanted me, when I graduated, which was during the war, they wanted me to teach down in St. Louis because Because teachers in those days made $1,800 a year, which is nothing. And of course, down there they made maybe $2,400 or something the first year.

00:21:26.800 - 00:21:44.780

And it was a very exclusive neighborhood. They wanted me to take—they were very disappointed that I went into the WASPs instead of teaching and I did not teach after. Right. While you were in college, what were your summers like? What did you do?

00:21:45.940 - 00:22:04.580

Well, I was very bored in the summertime. I'd come home with nothing to do. Girls didn't have jobs. They didn't work. There weren't any--I don't know what they do now, but they sit--you know, restaurants or whatever. No one had a job. So the first summer, I learned to fly.

00:22:06.220 - 00:22:22.780

What gave you an interest in flying? My brother graduated from a private school, a flying school, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I do not know whether he still has it or not. Then he came back to Galesburg and he taught flying.

00:22:25.580 - 00:22:42.620

And one day he took me up and I just thought it was really fine. And he said, "Well, you probably cannot learn how to fly." He was always very jealous of me. He was the first, so I was the second.

00:22:44.320 - 00:23:08.020

And he says, "You can do other things, but you just won't be able to fly." And so then I took the flying. It was called CAA in Galesburg. They took one girl out of fifteen boys and passed their physical exam, went out there

00:23:08.040 - 00:23:19.820

every morning and every night, and all my friends would say, "Why are you doing this?" Because we'd all have parties, you know, and I'd have to get up at six o'clock in the morning and go and fly. And then I'd--

00:23:19.950 - 00:23:36.720

Was this while you were still in college? This was when I was summertime. Summertime, okay. between what years? My freshman and sophomore year. And I never

00:23:36.800 - 00:23:56.640

forget staying with my friend. I never forget. We lived out the lake, so I had to drive in, which was, you know, about 15 miles early in the morning. Sometimes I'd stay at my grandmother's house. Sometimes I'd stay with a friend. And I got sick. I used to get very nauseous. If It just spins.

00:23:58.020 - 00:24:11.060

And I just, it didn't set well with my stomach. So the only time I'd have to have, just eat watermelon at night. I couldn't eat dinner. I'd just have some watermelon and then go out and fly.

00:24:11.920 - 00:24:27.260

But I loved it. I wouldn't have given it up for anything. So when I went back to college, I said, "I'm not going to marry anybody that isn't a pilot." And of course, no one was a pilot but me.

00:24:27.940 - 00:24:51.080

No one knew how to fly but me. Then the next summer, I went to the University of Wisconsin for the summer. Not that I needed the credits, I just needed something to do. Then the next summer, between my junior and senior year, was the war years, and I worked

00:24:51.000 - 00:25:21.860

at a factory, and I was not a factory person. I had to take the lint out of something with a little vacuum. I was engaged to an Annapolis boy from Hebertsburg, Galesburg, and we were planning to get married when we got out of college, and he would graduate from Annapolis.

00:25:22.720 - 00:25:44.100

So I always had a wonderful June year. And he was home all of June, and I had a hard time getting to work at that factory, because we'd always have a date or do something fun. And I'd get home late at night, and one time I went up to—we got on the train, we took

00:25:44.040 - 00:25:54.660

trains up to Chicago to do something. I remember visiting his family. His family moved to Chicago. And when I got off the train, here was my boss.

00:25:55.800 - 00:26:06.240

Mother had called and said I was sick. I had called and said I was sick. I got fired the next day. But I really did not care because I hated that.

00:26:07.000 - 00:26:17.460

But I made twenty dollars a week. That was a lot of money. So then I got a job at the hospital taking care. And I loved it.

00:26:17.900 - 00:26:32.620

I got paid very little, maybe five dollars a week. I just loved it. Iíd help with the babies or Iíd just go in and see people. I did a lot of volunteer work at the hospitals, even though I wasnít a nurse.

00:26:33.200 - 00:26:45.420

Do you remember when you first took your first lessons, was your brother instructing other people? No, no, heíd gone. He went up to and joined the RCAF in Canada, Royal Canadian.

00:26:46.750 - 00:27:04.680

He wanted to go over to England, but they just kept him in Canada. He finally came down as a pilot here in the United States later on. But he was always proud. He's still proud of the IMA loss.

00:27:05.580 - 00:27:19.600

Annabelle, what gave you that determination when you were getting sick? What made you keep going back? I just loved to fly. I did not join the WASPs to be a veteran.

00:27:20.860 - 00:27:37.280

I didn't join the WASPs really because of patriotic reasons. I just loved flying. Some people love it and some people hate it, but I liked it. And it is an odd thing to hear I was sick and Iíd still go up the next morning and

00:27:37.340 - 00:27:47.800

fly. If I did the flying, I was not sick. But if my instructor was doing the flying, I would get sick. Tell me about your solo.

00:27:49.140 - 00:28:00.160

In those days, that day? What were you flying? A little Cub, Piper Cub. Do you remember how you felt?

00:28:01.000 - 00:28:12.440

I felt the same way when I was in Sweetwater, when I saw O2. Scared. But if he thought I could do it, I could do it. Isn't that how you felt?

00:28:13.800 - 00:28:31.240

Do you remember where you were and how you felt when you heard about Pearl Harbor? I was in college. I was a senior in college. What was it, 1943?

00:28:33.100 - 00:28:45.840

No, I had another year. But all the boys the next day, they were all signing up, you know. It just didn't seem real. I didn't think the war ever did seem real to me.

00:28:46.070 - 00:29:08.480

I think I kind of compare it to your religion. You believe in God, Jesus, and all these wonderful things all your life, and then you go to Israel or Jerusalem and you see it and it becomes real to you. And flying is, a war is like that.

00:29:08.590 - 00:29:23.440

I don't think unless you are in it that you can't imagine what it's like. What happened with the young man that you were dating and engaged to that was going to Annapolis? Tell me about that romance.

00:29:24.600 - 00:29:45.520

Well, when we graduated, we were right in the middle of the war. And we always had such a good time together that there was no -- we didn't think about the time we weren't going to be together. We just enjoyed -- I think it was like living for today.

00:29:45.700 - 00:30:04.140

You enjoy today. And all of a sudden, I went out to Annapolis every year for June week. And when he graduated, he was on the tennis team. He had to go up to Forest Hills, New York, and play tennis with the team.

00:30:04.920 - 00:30:21.780

Well, I could not imagine being married and having your honeymoon with a tennis team. I do not think he really thought about it either. He did not think we needed to do that either. So we thought, "Well, we will just get married."

00:30:21.780 - 00:30:41.860

And then I wanted to be a pilot. And if I had been married, maybe he would have said, "No, I do not want you to be a pilot." So he went up to play tennis, and I went home and took my physical examination to get into

00:30:41.760 - 00:31:14.380

the wasps. I had to go up to Chicago and take this. Oh, I thought, well I passed that exam, I thought I was on top of the world. I never thought about washing out at Sweetwater, which was what everyone was doing. So I went back home and he was sent to California. He was and board a ship, New Mexico I think was a big battleship.

00:31:17.600 - 00:31:34.300

So he says, "Well, let's just go get married." But see, he could have said no. I could have gotten pregnant, and I could not have been a pilot. So I wanted my candy, and I wanted my candy, the whole thing.

00:31:35.360 - 00:32:08.000

I thought I could have the whole thing when we got married, but he came back. So I got on the train, I remember that, and I got down to Sweetwater and looked all around. I thought, "You know, I think I'd rather be married and go home and wait than to have to people washing out. No one was really, real happy about anything. They griped about

00:32:08.240 - 00:32:33.200

where we slept and all that. So I went over and I said, "I want to make a telephone call." And Dee Dee wouldn't let me call home. And Bob kept trying to call me saying, "I'm going to be in California for a while, so why donít you just resign and come out and get married? Well I would have done it in a minute, but he never got a hold of me because he wouldnít

00:32:33.200 - 00:32:47.960

let him talk to me. He canít talk to any of these girls. We were like a little stuck in there learning how to fly. So then he was in overseas and I settled down and learned how to fly.

00:32:49.280 - 00:33:14.840

Tell me about your mom and dad when they first found out that you wanted to fly. My mother and father were separated when I was in college. I was a very independent young person. No one ever really told me what to do.

00:33:17.200 - 00:33:36.340

I think they advised me, but I made the decisions. I made the decision to go to Nebraska. I made the decision to fly during the summer or go to the university. And I did not seem to make wrong decisions, so they just kept letting me be.

00:33:37.020 - 00:33:54.440

Making my own decisions. So then when they got divorced, my mother was alone and I kind of hated it, but she was proud of the fact that I wanted to do it. Her son was a pilot, and so she understood that I wanted to be a pilot.

00:33:55.510 - 00:34:21.640

Do you remember telling your grandparents about flying? What did they think? They all thought I was okay. Whatever I wanted to do for me was okay. When did you first hear about the WASP training? Well, there was a--when I was at the University of Nebraska, there was one of my sorority

00:34:21.900 - 00:34:34.120

sisters and she says--and she was a pilot, too. She'd taken the same course, not with me, but at her hometown. And so she says, "I'm going to go on the WASPs." She told me about it and I said, "Well, that would--" She said, "Why don't you come with

00:34:34.240 - 00:34:44.560

me? You know, it's more fun to have someone to go with." But we were never in the same class. And she did go before me, but she's the one that told me.

00:34:45.160 - 00:35:02.340

She did resign and get married, which many of the girls, some of the girls did, I think, do that. And once she told you about this training program, then what happened? Did you contact her?

00:35:02.340 - 00:35:13.320

Well, then, yes, then I contacted her. In fact, I contacted her when I was at school because I had my eye exam. I had a lot of things in school. You were a senior.

00:35:16.020 - 00:35:31.700

I probably had the best time anybody could have for four years of college. I did. I just had a wonderful time. I had all the boyfriends you'd ever want.

00:35:32.410 - 00:35:40.260

You know, in fun. I had a wonderful sorority where the girls were. My sorority meant a lot to me. They were very close.

00:35:41.400 - 00:35:52.640

I never really in contact with them since, but I would have liked to if I had lived closer to them. I had all the honors you could get. I was prom girl.

00:35:53.440 - 00:36:06.160

I was honorary colonel. I had everything that I wanted. So I had a wonderful four years of college. In fact, it seemed very long to me now because I had so many things happen to me.

00:36:08.260 - 00:36:16.120

Were you able to graduate before you went into training? Yes. What was graduation like at college? Did your family come?

00:36:17.340 - 00:36:34.200

No. No one was there. See, transportation was very difficult at that time. 1943. And it was a huge university. The actual campus in Nebraska wasn't so large. It was

00:36:34.240 - 00:36:59.480

like five thousand at that time, because the agricultural campus was another place, and the medical school was in Denver. And so it wasn't really -- you knew people. You knew people when you walked along campus. You recognized a lot of people, and you knew your professors, My physical ed teacher, oh I loved her.

00:37:00.420 - 00:37:12.440

I almost wanted to be a, take that, because she'd take me out to her home and we'd go out and play golf. I loved playing golf. And she took a special interest in me.

00:37:12.560 - 00:37:35.240

So it was just a wonderful, I was thinking about going to the, changing and going to University of Illinois, because I realized when I was in school that you know I knew everybody in all these little towns in Nebraska. I'd broken bow or Grand Island, and because my sorority sisters and my friends lived in

00:37:35.260 - 00:37:54.760

all these little towns. And I realized if I went back to Illinois, which is what I would be doing anyway when I graduated, that I would know everybody in these little towns, which is, I think, nice go to your own school, state school. But you know they have a song in Nebraska, and it

00:37:54.760 - 00:38:31.480

is "There's No Place Like Nebraska." And it's true. The campus had a hundredth anniversary. And all the -- every year, I mean, any year that you graduate, you all came back to go Could it have been a hundred that they'd been on the campus? And when I went back, I left and I thought, "It's just like it used to be."

00:38:31.480 - 00:38:50.680

And they love it just as much as I did. It just is a great school. The people that in Grand Junction they go to, a lot of them went to the University of Nebraska, they are obnoxious over that football game.

00:38:51.260 - 00:39:00.800

Big red. They just go crazy. And you know that was not one of the big things in my life, even though they were very, very good.

00:39:02.890 - 00:39:24.080

As you were growing up, who were your role models? You mean just anybody? Who was my role model? I really think I loved Amelia Earhart. She came to Galesburg one time and made a speech.

00:39:25.240 - 00:39:37.300

Did you see her? Yes. Tell me about that. Well, I was just a little girl, you know. I was at the armory, and I just thought, "Oh,

00:39:37.400 - 00:39:49.740

I would love to be a pilot like she is. I think I was very adventuresome. Do you remember any of heró And I'm never afraid to try anything. Do you remember any of her speech?

00:39:52.440 - 00:40:12.020

Maybeómaybe I was nine years old. Veryówhat year was sheóI don't know. Do you think thatówas that the first time that you really became interested in flying? Is that your inspiration? I do not think I was inspired to fly.

00:40:13.280 - 00:40:25.160

I would like to be someone like she is. I really thought she was. I do not think I was. Some of those other pilots were wonderful.

00:40:25.400 - 00:40:39.880

You see the movies about them, about their life history. Or even Amelia Earhart really is not as great as they make her to be. Sheís great because she died. You know why she choseÖ

00:40:40.920 - 00:40:56.040

Sorry, weíre going to have to change tapes. Well, thatís nice I thought about Amelia. I think I kind of like Mrs. Roosevelt too. What intrigued you about Mrs. Roosevelt?

00:40:56.440 - 00:41:11.300

She came to the University of Nebraska to talk. Sheís so, so homely. I don't think anyone was as homely as she. But she overcame all this.

00:41:13.000 - 00:41:29.420

When you're young and you're twenty or twenty-one, beauty is so important, how you look and what you wear. And she was so homely, and yet she made the most inspiring, wonderful speech. It just wasn't about women.

00:41:31.360 - 00:41:53.240

I donít even know what she talked about, but it was very good. And I am a hundred percent Republican. Even one-tenth of me is a Democrat. So you see, I wasnít really inspired by a Democrat, but I was quite inspired with her.

00:41:56.100 - 00:42:09.120

When you sent off or inquired about training for the WASP training, what was the next step then? My physical examination. And where did you go for that?

00:42:09.180 - 00:42:31.840

Well, yes, you had to pass physically before you could even really apply. And then they liked it that I graduated from this college. I think that is a big—I think my college education got me more places than I did. than anything that I have. My father told me that when he was trying to tell me about

00:42:31.940 - 00:43:00.380

boys. He said, ìThe less you give, the more you will receive.î And he says, ìEducation.î He says, ìI want you to have your education because they can take everything away from you, your health, your beauty, whatever. They cannot take your education.î So I was the of the children that graduated from college. And he liked that. He was willing to pay for

00:43:00.440 - 00:43:16.260

that all the way. So when you graduated from college, did you go back home then? That's when I went back home. Well, I went to Annapolis and we decided, you know, I just would join the WASP, keep me busy until he got back.

00:43:18.400 - 00:43:34.180

Okay, tell me about taking the physical. Where did you go for that? in Chicago, it was by the military, and it was not very stiff. And then what was the next step? Then I just went home and waited to be accepted.

00:43:36.400 - 00:43:57.500

And when you were accepted, then how did you get to Sweetwater? Took a train. Pay for it yourself. How did your family feel about you doing that, about you going to Sweetwater? I told you I was very independent and they did never question what I did.

00:43:57.530 - 00:44:18.140

They only encouraged me. I had a wonderful, secure family and family life even though my parents were divorced. My father paid for anything that I asked him to pay for and my mother was always there right beside me to help me and do things with me if I wanted to do them.

00:44:19.880 - 00:44:36.260

And I was a very lucky person. I was just never even questioned my own ability of what I could do and what I couldn't do. When you got to Sweetwater on the train, did you meet other girls who were also going for training?

00:44:36.780 - 00:44:47.020

No. When you got to Sweetwater? I went to Dallas. See, Yeltsin would go on that Santa Fe to Dallas, and then you take the train to Sweetwater,

00:44:48.260 - 00:45:05.640

and then there were some girls. But I do not remember those girls. Do you remember how you felt when you arrived at Avenger and saw all the airplanes? I think I just wanted to turn around and go home. I thought, you know, why did I want to do this?

00:45:07.160 - 00:45:29.800

Were you frightened? I just think I was not sure that I could do it, that I was going to be able to. I was going to waste my time doing something I really—I stayed at the Bluebonnet Hotel for one night, I think, and we all got on that cattle truck and went out to the—to

00:45:31.500 - 00:45:45.500

venture. How many hours did you have flying before you got there? Thirty-five. During that 35 hours, were there any interesting events that happened while you were flying

00:45:45.780 - 00:45:59.960

that you'd like to tell us about? Were you ever afraid? What was the most scary time that you had? My first 35 hours, I was never afraid.

00:46:03.640 - 00:46:21.680

I think maybe doing a spin was kind of thrilling. And I really did not like it when my teacher did it because it made me sick. I had to open the doors. But if I did it, and he hated that, you know, so he did not do it.

00:46:22.280 - 00:46:34.580

I usually did the spins because then I would not get sick. I was worried, kind of worried about that when I went down too. What if I got sick? We never did spins.

00:46:35.220 - 00:46:45.940

Did you ever do a spin? When you were at Sweetwater? We never did a spin. Do I remember, or I don't remember doing a spin.

00:46:46.760 - 00:47:09.020

Because I was never sick, I was never sick in Sweetwater. When you arrived at Sweetwater, at Avenger, tell me about the housing and about your schedule And what were your expectations? Well, it really did bother me to live in a bay with five other girls.

00:47:10.800 - 00:47:32.520

I thought that was kind of fun. I liked people, so it didn't bother me to have to share space with them. Or if I didn't get the shower first, that didn't ever--some girls it did bother. It was the same when I was in college going through Hell Week.

00:47:32.920 - 00:47:47.960

That never bothered me one bit. I just thought it was funny and enjoyable, and I didn't take it personally. And I felt--I think I felt that way about Sweetwater. Tell me about your bay mates.

00:47:50.700 - 00:48:03.260

Well, when--my name was C, began with a C. So when I went in, within two weeks, I was the only one in my bay. One night I slept alone. You know how they washed people out?

00:48:05.400 - 00:48:22.740

How did that make you feel when they were washed? Well, I was a pretty good pilot not to have washed out so early. And they just, the next day, they just moved us all up. I ended up C in the first bay.

00:48:26.180 - 00:48:48.200

And this one gal, her name was Blondie Eilers, she was always on a diet, eating grapefruit. And I always kind of needed to go on a little diet too, because they fed you. I gained ten pounds, they fed you so much, you know, that starchy food. But Blondie was kind of a health nut then.

00:48:48.880 - 00:49:13.600

So she ate grapefruit a lot. And Kate Lee, I don't think she was in with me. The one gal that is the treasurer of the club now, she was in the same bay I was. And she had beautiful curly hair.

00:49:13.800 - 00:49:25.960

She'd take a shower and her hair would all curl up. But I did not have beautiful curly hair, so I'd have to put a shower cap on. I always admired her. She got married while she was there.

00:49:27.520 - 00:49:40.600

But she didn't leave. Some of them left. One time, I was great at writing love letters, so I'd write love letters for my friends, you know, the boys.

00:49:41.610 - 00:50:02.320

So they'd come, we'd write these love letters. And then the boys would write back, say, "That's the best letter they ever got." We had such a good time doing that. And this one boy, James, I must have written such a good love letter to him, that he flew

00:50:02.440 - 00:50:19.600

in to see me. And you know, they didn't let the men pilots, he was a general's pilot, he just flew in. Because I remember they called me up from the Bay to come up here and they said, "What's this guy doing here?"

00:50:19.600 - 00:50:30.400

He said, "Gerald Spile." And he had come up, he wanted to get married. See, I had written a much too good a love letter. And he never spoke to me again.

00:50:30.990 - 00:50:42.140

I was shocked to see him. But who else is in my Bay that I really enjoyed? Delaney. I was in Delaney.

00:50:42.140 - 00:50:56.820

I was in Delaney Now Delaney is in my class too, and you will find when you interview her, you will have interviewed the star, all stars. She has on her picture something about, "It's a man.

00:50:57.120 - 00:51:13.980

Don't care, it's a man." And she married a really nice guy, they lived in New Zealand, I don't know why. She was the top helicopter pilot, no, top glider, women's pilot. So we really had some really fun people.

00:51:15.080 - 00:51:27.200

They had the club, you know, you went into the club, and a little movie, just one movie they had. Tell me about ground school. What did you like and what did you dislike about ground school?

00:51:28.870 - 00:51:50.080

I did not mind ground school. I really can truthfully say that I still do not know how an engine runs. I never—the engines was not my thing. If I ever had to have a forced landing, I never could have—no one would—I could

00:51:50.100 - 00:52:07.420

have looked at the engine a hundred years and still not know what was wrong with it. So I memorized everything. Remember, we'd go out the hangars and look at the engines? And I—so I'd just go home and pass it.

00:52:07.500 - 00:52:28.080

I just memorized everything. so that I know, but I really did not actually understand it. Was there one particular class that you enjoyed in grad school? I liked the link trainer pretty well. I did spin in a lot.

00:52:31.900 - 00:53:00.000

But I really kind of liked the link trainer. And I don't know, meteorology. I don't think any of them. I think I just took the ground school so I could fly. Tell me about your solo adventure. What were you flying? The PT-19. We used to take the truck out to the fields. Is that what you did?

00:53:00.660 - 00:53:18.280

You get sunburned and have white eyes. I had a very difficult teacher. He swore a lot. We couldn't talk back to him, but he just kept telling us how terrible we were.

00:53:19.520 - 00:53:32.440

And then he'd let us go solo. He was always like that. He never quit. The whole time I was there. Now, Annel, she would get angry and she would rock her stick

00:53:32.540 - 00:53:59.280

back before I hit his knees. Did she tell you that? She did that. She just sticks it back before I thought. And I wasn't that kind of person. When I got mad, you know, I'd just kind of -- I'd sneak away. I didn't want to be with him. And he was mad at me most of And it wasn't hard. It wasn't easy to bank the, do all those exercises.

00:53:59.680 - 00:54:23.120

And I was excellent at spot landing. I could land on the spot every time. You know, I figured out and did that. To this day I can park a car, side park a car. I don't have to think, I just zoom in there. And I can remember taking off and flying it.

00:54:23.220 - 00:54:38.360

It was so much fun being up there by yourself. You just did the pattern, come back in, make a smooth landing. I was very good at landing. Do you have any idea why the other five girls in your bay washed out?

00:54:39.760 - 00:54:59.220

You know, you didn't have time to get to know them too well. weeks in very long. Some of them, which wasn't fair, because they were good pilots. They must have been. They got their license, but they have an accident. They just do one thing wrong.

00:55:01.240 - 00:55:27.280

I think it was the '86 that when I had my Army check, I had gone up with my instructor. The other instructors were not really that bad. So it must have been the PT-19. I went up and he flew me around and he says, "You do not know how to fly this thing."

00:55:27.780 - 00:55:40.340

He was squared away up there. He says, "We'll just fill the time up and I'll just fly it." I was going down for my check, my Army check. And so I went down and I was a wreck.

00:55:40.340 - 00:55:59.360

I got in the plane, you know, I had floated. And the Army instructor said, the captain said, "You just sit there for a minute." He knew that, and I think he knew about this instructor also. And so then we took off, he pulled back the throttle and he says, "What are you going

00:55:59.360 - 00:56:06.380

to do?" And I said, "Go straight ahead." And that's all I did. He says, "Take me around.

00:56:08.380 - 00:56:21.600

Get me in." You know, it wasn't very hard. And when I graduated from the WUS, they had a big party. And this instructor, he was a young guy.

00:56:23.160 - 00:56:34.160

He even tried to date me. And one time he landed someplace and he got out and he says, "Well, let's get out for a while." I said, "I'm not going to get out for a while."

00:56:34.160 - 00:56:54.440

You know, he was a -- he just wasn't -- so when we graduated, he said, "Well, I never expected to see you here." And when we went back, I did not go to the reunion, the first reunion, and I guess all instructors were invited and he wanted to know where I was.

00:56:56.980 - 00:57:16.580

He might have been extra hard on me or something, I do not know. He graduated from one of the Texas schools down there. The other instructors were really pretty gentle compared to him, and very nice. I did not ever feel so inferior.

00:57:19.080 - 00:57:38.960

When you had time off, or if you had time off, what did you do while you were at Sweetwater? We would go into the club, have a Coca-Cola, go to the movies. Once in a while, they brought some boys in for us to date. See, I was engaged.

00:57:41.840 - 00:58:06.660

So I really wasn't too interested in a lot of the boys. What were your uniforms like when you were a veteran? We wore those, the zoot suit all the time. We went into town, we just wore our clothes.

00:58:07.620 - 00:58:33.360

When, they had the uniforms made the year that we graduated. We graduated in khaki pants and a white shirt and jacket, I think. And we got our uniforms after we graduated. We had been fitted.

00:58:34.170 - 00:58:50.500

I thought the uniforms were beautiful. Do you remember any outstanding incidents that happened while you were in training? You mean dangerous ones or just anything? Just anything.

00:58:52.040 - 00:59:04.700

Well under my picture, we had a picture taken, a graduation picture, it has, I have two sayings I said through the whole six months. I'm utterly exhausted. I was tired all the time.

00:59:05.880 - 00:59:25.380

I think I'm tired when I worry, you know, it just makes me tired to worry. The other was I'm God's worst pilot. I didn't think I was good. The other girls would come in and tell me how good they were, what they did, what their

00:59:25.400 - 00:59:34.460

instructor said. I thought, "I am God's worst pilot. I do not have this experience of being." I knew I was a wonderful lander.

00:59:34.880 - 00:59:59.700

I could take off and land like a dream. So one day when you have to fly the other girls in link training, I realized how good a pilot I was, and it wasn't until then because they were not very good. They take off and I just wondered if we'd ever get down. And when I flew afterwards, I was stationed at

00:59:59.700 - 01:00:28.380

Randolph Field and I flew officers around. They all told me the same thing. So I think I was a little better, but even then I thought I was worse. I have learned, though, in my that if you think you're top billing, you're really not. So you better just keep on trying, and then you will be top billing. Don't you think that's true? When you get too egotistical,

01:00:29.160 - 01:00:48.160

but some people are very egotistical, and they just do fine. But I don't think that I was. Tell me about any cross-country that you made. Well we were in the cross country where the girl was killed in our class, Michelle was

01:00:48.260 - 01:01:07.920

killed. And I think it was right, she was in the class, the flight before us. And we flew to Midland and landed and they said, "We want you all to keep together. Find a flying buddy and we will fly together."

01:01:07.920 - 01:01:25.140

So because of this, he explained about this girl dying, and they were very upset about it. And she just had gotten in the cloud and had to bail out. It was an accident, hitting a side of one of those, what do they call them, down in

01:01:25.260 - 01:01:30.700

Arizona. So she was on the same cross-country flight with you? Right before us. Right before you.

01:01:31.000 - 01:01:49.060

So they were very frightened about, they were fearful about what the girls would do. So I had a friend called Barry, her name was Anne, we called her Barry. So I said, "Well, we'll just keep an eye on each other." You didn't have to fly formation, just kind of see each other.

01:01:49.640 - 01:02:07.820

Well she took off in an entirely different direction than I had planned. So I thought, I've either got to trust myself or trust her and keep trying to keep up with her. So I said, "You better trust yourself."

01:02:07.820 - 01:02:23.200

looked like she'd gone off in a funny direction, really. She probably hadn't, but to me it wasn't the same direction I was going. And then we flew into Tucson, and right before you get to Tucson, there's this, have you done this?

01:02:24.820 - 01:02:48.000

There's a great big mountain. Not a huge one like the Rockies, but a big one, and you fly over it. The one thing they taught us was always to be at least five hundred feet above the ground. So some of the girls went up so high, they did not have any oxygen to be—they hardly

01:02:48.120 - 01:02:59.940

made it. Well, I thought, I cannot go five hundred feet, so I was just brazing the tops of the—well, I looked like I was brazing the tops of the trees. I was sure that I was much higher than that.

01:03:00.660 - 01:03:14.420

So then we come into Tucson, and here are all these Navy pilots. And Navy pilots are taught differently. They just drop in. Whereas the Air Force, they make a pattern and smoothly come in.

01:03:15.140 - 01:03:29.580

And so I make my patterns. All of a sudden, here was a Navy pilot dropping right in front of me. So then I make my pattern again, and smoothly come in. And here the Navy was just coming in like—

01:03:29.580 - 01:03:44.700

So finally I thought, "Well, I'm going to land this time." So I just went and just landed. I could have been up there all night, letting the Navy pilots come in. And then we got—the weather closed in, and we had to stay in this hotel, which maybe

01:03:44.760 - 01:04:02.220

there were six of us in one room. It was very crowded because the weather was bad, and they would not let us take off because of the weather. afraid, you know, to let these little waspies go. And that was the worst part of the trip,

01:04:02.500 - 01:04:16.000

was from... What were you flying? '86, which was so much fun. We had so much fun. It was a wonderful plane. But you finally got back to Sweetwater.

01:04:16.740 - 01:04:30.820

They finally... Well, then we flew to Blythe, California. And we just flew there, landed, and took off again to come back. So this time they were really worried about us. These were Army, Army captives.

01:04:31.280 - 01:04:45.600

They said, "All right, now there's a lake right outside of the airport. We want you to all circle around it, get into formation, and we're going to fly formation home." Well, we had never been taught to fly formations.

01:04:47.550 - 01:04:56.880

And you can't imagine. Here were all these planes flying around this lake. No one knew where they were going or what they were doing. They just kept going around and around the lake.

01:04:59.100 - 01:05:12.560

Finally the captain threw up his hands and went forward. So then we all got in our little places. And I would look at the guy beside me and he was going, I do not know whether I was going up and down or he was going.

01:05:12.680 - 01:05:30.300

He was not keeping the same altitude at all. And I was right behind one of the leaders. And there was another group of three. So finally he just shrugged his hands and said, "Go forward, all together."

01:05:30.460 - 01:05:43.420

We could not radio each other. "Just go forward." So we all got back to Tucson, took off, and all got back to Sweetwater. They must have just heaved a sigh of relief.

01:05:44.300 - 01:06:00.820

But you know what was terrible? What they did, they hid the fact that people died, the Wasps died. Did you know that? It's in this book, those wonderful women and their flying machines.

01:06:03.100 - 01:06:25.200

It was after graduation, and this gal was killed. I've kind of forgotten how she was killed, but it was their fault. Someone had put sugar, sugar something in her gasoline, and Jacqueline Cochran went down to investigate it and said, "We will say nothing about it," because she wanted

01:06:25.220 - 01:06:44.620

the Wofs to go into the Air Force, and she felt that if they didn't, if they made a big thing about this, that we wouldn't be taken in. I think how the girls' parents must have felt. Tell me about your graduation.

01:06:45.940 - 01:06:59.900

Did you have an opportunity to choose where you would be going? General Arnold put our wings on. Tell me about that day. That was a fun day.

01:07:00.440 - 01:07:20.360

And they did not have good enough people to march, so they had to use the graduating class to do the marching, because we were pretty good. And so we marched, and I think we did all our graduation. It was a beautiful day, and then he put the first person's pins on, he put the wings on,

01:07:20.360 - 01:07:35.340

he put the first person on, and everybody wanted him to. So he put everybody's wings on, which was pretty nice. Right. And when did you get your orders and what did they say? Well, they had us sign up what we'd like.

01:07:38.120 - 01:07:56.400

I don't know how people were chosen. I have no idea. What did you request? I don't know if I requested anything. We just got our orders. I was sent down to Randolph Field. No one else went.

01:07:57.500 - 01:08:10.060

When I left school, I was never with WASPs again. I was always--I was on my own. Okay. When you--after you graduated, did you then go home first? Yes.

01:08:10.060 - 01:08:18.960

Did you have leave time? I took the train. I took the train back to Chicago. I don't remember when it was Chicago. And maybe had a couple of weeks or something.

01:08:19.300 - 01:08:33.420

I don't remember what I did. I remember we did go out to Nebraska. My sister was planning on going to school. I must have gone, when did I graduate?

01:08:33.500 - 01:08:52.140

I graduated in March. At this point, where was your brother when you graduated? I do not know whether he—he flew the hump, but I think that was later on. I'm not sure when he flew that.

01:08:52.180 - 01:09:01.340

He was up in Canada for quite a while. Were the two of you ever at home together with your uniforms on? No. I don't remember that.

01:09:02.820 - 01:09:10.660

Mother would have been proud of that, wouldn't she? Yes. Yes, my mother was very proud of what we did. I think my father was too.

01:09:12.580 - 01:09:24.320

And your sister? Yes. She probably left out. I had a wonderful little sister.

01:09:25.000 - 01:09:38.240

She thought everything I did was just fine, and looked up to me. After you graduated, were you ever able to be with your brother while you were still in the WASP? No.

01:09:40.960 - 01:09:53.520

My brother gave my mother a car to drive, and she gave it to me to take down to Randolph Field. Now why she did that, I do not know. I really do not know.

01:09:53.560 - 01:10:08.620

I remember, or even if my brother cared whether I had the car, it was a little coupe, a little Ford coupe, and I drove to—Marsha went down with me, so I would have someone to drive with me. She loved the Alamo.

01:10:08.920 - 01:10:21.980

We stayed at the St. Anthony Hotel, which is still down there, the big hotel down there, the old one. And every morning she'd go over to the Alamo. She loved it.

01:10:21.980 - 01:10:32.200

It was right by the Alamo. And then I'd go out to work. I just lucked in on things. They wouldn't let me live on the field.

01:10:33.100 - 01:10:43.760

This was a real Air Force Army thing. They did not want the wasps at all. They could care less. I had no place to live.

01:10:44.400 - 01:10:55.680

I had to find my own place to live. But I was getting my parachute, and this gal that was issuing my parachute, she says, "Do you have a place to live?" I said, "No."

01:10:55.680 - 01:11:06.320

She said, "Well, come live with us." So I just went in. I was never in town long enough to bother. It was a little apartment.

01:11:09.080 - 01:11:23.920

I do not remember the other one at all. I can remember there were two of them, but I never see them very much. To whom did you report when you got to Randolph? You know, I do not know.

01:11:24.360 - 01:11:34.620

I do not remember. What did they tell you your assignments would be? To fly officers, non-flying officers. Texas was a big state and they had a lot of schools.

01:11:36.900 - 01:11:51.360

Randolph Field was the center of the Air Force at the time. They had a lot of non-flying officers that needed to go to the schools. I flew an 86, which meant I could just take one person. Sometimes I'd fly to Dallas.

01:11:51.540 - 01:12:04.980

I felt like a chauffeur. You were a chauffeur. And there were other pilots, and I think that's where I reported to the waiting room where they were.

01:12:07.180 - 01:12:30.580

They were gentlemanly from the word go. I never had anyone harass me or say that I, you know, try to belittle me. I never had that experience at all. The only thing I knew they did really, the upper, the general, the adjutant, he really

01:12:30.670 - 01:12:41.220

was not for having a WASP there. He was enduring it. But I never saw him, so who cared? If they were swearing when I came in, they all quit swearing at once.

01:12:42.360 - 01:12:58.260

They never would swear. After I had been there for a while, there were two other WASPs sent down. I was the only girl there for a while, but there were two other Wassons down there. They did not like them very well.

01:12:58.380 - 01:13:18.000

They were like from Philadelphia or someplace, and they had a funny accent, Philadelphia, Texas. They do talk differently in Philadelphia. They were very unhappy girls.

01:13:18.460 - 01:13:31.040

They had washed out of the B-29 school. I think thatís why they, you know, they were probably wonderful pilots to even go to that school. But they werenít very friendly.

01:13:31.280 - 01:13:38.460

Maybe I was too busy to be friendly with them. I donít know. I had a marvelous time. I had a date every night.

01:13:41.220 - 01:13:58.020

What was your schedule like? [Laughter] But I just had a wonderful time all the time. This major one time, he was World War I, and I was flying him out to one of the schools,

01:13:58.520 - 01:14:10.820

and I was out two or three nights. Usually I would just go out for the day and come back. And so heíd find me a date. So we would all have a party that night.

01:14:12.080 - 01:14:19.440

Afterwards we would go to Shreveport. I remember going to Shreveport. I think he was there. I was flying him around.

01:14:19.960 - 01:14:32.400

If the weather was not real good, I would wait until the weather cleared up. I was not an instrument pilot. I just was not into flying. I did not feel secure enough to do that.

01:14:32.540 - 01:14:45.620

So I did not want to take somebody up in the weather and be the first time I had done it out of school. I did do it a couple of times, but I did it by myself. But they liked it that I did not.

01:14:47.380 - 01:15:07.120

You remember any particular flight that was different or anything unusual happened? Well, yes. I flew to New Orleans. Oh yeah, I flew to New Orleans and I landed, I was to land at this kind of air base school,

01:15:07.760 - 01:15:24.760

cadet school, and I came in downwind. The wind changed just as I was coming down. And in New Orleans they have all these canals. They were canals.

01:15:26.840 - 01:15:48.820

I was hopping over this canal going downwind trying to land on this. But they did not tell me to go around or do anything like it. So I was hopping over this canal and I stopped with the holding the brakes at the end. I was so embarrassed that I had done that.

01:15:49.700 - 01:16:05.160

So when I taxied up, I loved those little follow me jeeps. It was kind of like having a boat and all of a sudden you just had everybody take care of you. You never had to do anything.

01:16:06.580 - 01:16:24.580

So I'd follow, and here all along the way were all these officers waiting to see what I looked like. I was so embarrassed, and they said, "We did not think you were going to make it." How did your passenger feel?

01:16:25.000 - 01:16:34.620

Well, the passenger was with me. I was on my way home. That was kind of an interesting thing. That was kind of fun to see New Orleans too, but during the war.

01:16:37.560 - 01:16:56.460

And I just stayed overnight. But then one other time I was coming into Houston, and the weather was really coming in off the bay, the coast, and I kept trying to, I thought, "Oh, I better get instruments and pull everything out and start running through it, you know, and see what I -- and

01:16:56.800 - 01:17:19.420

talk to the radio." And I could not talk to the radio. And so I just kept going lower and lower and lower, and all of a sudden there was the tower, and I came in and landed. Still and came in and landed. And we were way out someplace, they had a big truck.

01:17:19.600 - 01:17:33.740

All the pilots were getting out of their planes because the weather was bad and they were all coming in. And they said, "That was pretty hard, wasn't it?" Because they were all having a hard time because the radio had gone off.

01:17:36.380 - 01:17:50.580

So hot in Houston. While you were at San Antonio, did you get temporal orders to go to any other kind of school? Did you go down to Orlando to that school?

01:17:51.200 - 01:18:03.200

No, I never. I just did my little job. They never had a problem, never saw a wasp. I think one time I did go and meet Barry someplace.

01:18:03.430 - 01:18:14.280

We just were on our way. What were the other two WASPs doing once they arrived? The same as I did. But you didnít live with them or communicate with them?

01:18:16.000 - 01:18:28.200

They had each other and they just really didnít seem to want anybody else. But then I might have been aloof too. I might have been so busy I didnít, wasnít cordial. I felt I was friendly with them.

01:18:28.820 - 01:18:45.800

I understand there was another WASP that went down there after I left. And she said she had a lot of problems with harassment. I do not know why, but she did. One time we were coming in, at Randolph you land, there is no runway, you land on the

01:18:45.900 - 01:18:54.920

grass. Now I am sure it is not like that now. But it is all beautiful grass, and it is all around the buildings. It just is in one direction.

01:18:55.720 - 01:19:09.580

And wherever there was a hole or a bad, or not smooth, they would have little flags. So there were flags all over this field. It was wide. People were landing over here and landing over there.

01:19:09.720 - 01:19:26.380

We were all landing. But you got used to that after a while. So one time I was coming in and all the planes were moved off onto the grass and you had to land between the hangars and the planes.

01:19:27.720 - 01:19:45.080

And so I was coming in and it was crosswind. So I was coming to the radio guys, I had never met these people but you get to know them. He said to me, "Well the other two wives just round loop their planes, let's see what you are going to do."

01:19:45.080 - 01:20:02.680

But we were just coming in at an angle because of the, and they could not change it fast enough as we were coming in the evening. I was so lucky. I never had an accident, you know, or evenó Do you think that was luck?

01:20:06.160 - 01:20:25.800

Oh, you mean I could have caused my own accidents or something? No. Do you think that that was just luck? Oh, you mean that God was looking over at me? No, I think God looked over at me. He got me through that. I used to pray to Him a lot. I really want to do this, God. This

01:20:25.800 - 01:20:41.040

school because that was not an easy job. Didn't you pray to God a lot up there? Absolutely. You mentioned just now that after you left, did you leave Randolph and go someplace else?

01:20:41.100 - 01:21:04.440

Well, then, this, my fiancé wrote me a letter. And he says, "I'm going to be back, and I expect you to be in Galesburg waiting for me." Well, I believed him, and so I thought, "Well, I had better resign."

01:21:04.600 - 01:21:17.420

It was in June. I think they soon closed it, but it was in June when I did resign and went home to be married. Did you have any problems in resigning?

01:21:18.360 - 01:21:29.840

No. I didn't know that. Are you sure we're not going to be here all day? We can last as long as you can.

01:21:32.980 - 01:21:47.940

And your fiancé wrote you and told you that, and then what did you do? So I was very much in love. He'd been gone a couple years, a long time anyway. How did you go about resigning?

01:21:48.750 - 01:22:01.120

I just asked him if I needed a resignation, and then he just fell out of the slip. I had to buy a lot of my stuff. I bought the coat. I have a jacket.

01:22:01.280 - 01:22:13.060

I bought the jacket. I didn't get to keep my uniform. And once you resigned, then what did you do? Did you get on the train or did you have your car?

01:22:13.900 - 01:22:23.340

I had my car, so I drove home. And tell us about that. I don't remember driving home at all. It was a complete blank.

01:22:25.820 - 01:22:38.500

I was kind of excited about going home. And so then when I got home, I called his parents. They lived in Chicago. Well, he's not coming home right away, Ann, didn't you know?

01:22:41.620 - 01:22:59.060

I was fit to be tied. Really, really was really mad about that. He just knew I was having too good a time. He didn't want his future wife, I guess.

01:23:00.760 - 01:23:19.320

But you know, he became a pilot himself. He came home and he went into Tumwa. And I would go out to see him and he would have his problems, you know, flying. And he did not make it at first.

01:23:23.500 - 01:23:46.400

But having graduated from the Naval Academy gives them a lot of more importance. more important than the average ensign or lieutenant JG. Kelly: When you got home and found out he was not coming, what did you then start doing? Did you get a job?

01:23:47.820 - 01:23:57.400

Beall: I went to Chicago. Kelly: Did you get a job in Chicago? What did you do? Beall: I went around, and I could have any job I wanted.

01:23:58.500 - 01:24:14.700

Because there weren't any men around that filled the jobs, and they would teach me anything. All I had to do was want to do it. But I wasn't interested in a career. I didn't need to be the -- have a career.

01:24:14.880 - 01:24:30.020

I was going to get married. You don't have careers, you know, in those days. And so I took a job with an advertising agency in the library. I was a librarian.

01:24:30.540 - 01:24:44.940

Well how dull compared to being a pilot. I had terrible adjustments. I lived with a bohemian family on the near north side in Chicago, which is a fun place to live.

01:24:45.920 - 01:24:58.800

I could walk to work. If it was really cold I would take a bus, but it would take me two seconds on the bus. They were just a wonderful family. It was a mother and father and child.

01:24:59.860 - 01:25:24.620

I had a roommate. I really did not like being out of the service. I missed the WASPs. They promoted me to not a librarian, but a little executive, in that I would write materials.

01:25:25.040 - 01:25:42.320

It was Pillsbury. I would write and do—actually, what did I do? I did not do anything very important. My boss wanted me to become a secretary, so I could be his secretary, because his secretary

01:25:42.320 - 01:26:15.400

is going to quit, her husband was coming home. I said, "I do not want to be a secretary." I only did what I wanted to do. So then I decided I would go into the Red Cross as a staff assistant. It cost $200 to do this. It had $200. So my grandfather lent me the money and I quit. I left Chicago. I just didn't, you know, it wasn't exciting enough for me

01:26:16.120 - 01:26:50.400

to just go to work and get dull and then go home at night. So I joined the Red Cross and went out to Washington, D.C. and at American University and they trained us to be a staff the system. And all that is is just kind of running the ice cream bar, playing cards, being nice to the boys that would come in and need friendship during that, into a club.

01:26:50.680 - 01:27:14.580

Were they mostly service men? Yes. And it was so hot in Washington. Oh, I've never been so hot. We just stayed, like we had a cot in a room someplace. Then we went to, we had a choice of where we wanted I always loved South America.

01:27:14.580 - 01:27:32.000

See, I studied Spanish, and I always had a love for Mexico, South America. So I really wanted to go down to the Panama Canal in Panama, but they were not sending us. So I was sent to Puerto Rico.

01:27:34.140 - 01:27:55.900

And top job, just lucked out. I was sent to this airbase and the boys were returning home from Africa. They would stop in Trinidad, Puerto Rico, and then Miami. They would stay a while in Miami.

01:27:56.360 - 01:28:11.040

They needed before they just let them out. They would have these clubs at these airbases. We had one in this airbase. I've kind of forgotten the name.

01:28:11.130 - 01:28:19.240

How could I ever forget that name? It was like a country club. We had a golf course. We had bowling alleys.

01:28:19.360 - 01:28:26.940

We had swimming pools. We had a beautiful duplex to live in. It wasn't furnished beautifully. I think it is a resort now.

01:28:28.260 - 01:28:35.720

It really wasn't on the ocean. It was on a cliff. You had a beautiful view. And the girls, you got to know the girls really well.

01:28:35.800 - 01:28:52.700

They were very nice. Many of the WASPs did go into the American Red Cross. I lived with the—it was not as much fun. I had to live with the gal that was in charge of everything.

01:28:53.920 - 01:29:03.680

She was not as interesting as the ones that were just staff assistants like me, but she was very nice. There were just two of us. I had a private room.

01:29:04.000 - 01:29:17.080

The others all had the share room. As I said, it was very bare assistance. Our club, we did not serve donuts, we served cake. We would go to the bakery and get the cake every day.

01:29:17.820 - 01:29:36.640

It was fun because the club was open twenty-four hours a day, so we had to take turns what hours we worked. They had all these magazines in the club, Life magazine, Reader's Digest. There was no advertisement in it.

01:29:37.360 - 01:29:53.720

They were wonderful little magazines to read. We served coffee. I did not even drink coffee then. We served coffee and played cards with them if they wanted or just talked to them.

01:29:55.560 - 01:30:16.820

They were not allowed to go out so much. We just could walk around the base a little bit. the planes stayed a long time, they needed fixing, repair. At night it was terrible because I am a day person. It was very difficult for me to stay awake at night. I just sit in a

01:30:16.920 - 01:30:32.420

chair and go to sleep. But the minute we got off at night, I would wake up. We'd go bowling. We'd go play golf. And they had dances. Of course, we were very popular.

01:30:32.420 - 01:30:42.720

There weren't any girls. There were just the Red Cross girls. And they had dances. When you danced, they cut in on you all the time.

01:30:44.920 - 01:31:00.720

And it was just nice to all of them. I felt these were officers' dances. They did not let us go with the enlisted men. How long did you do this?

01:31:02.740 - 01:31:16.380

Until the war was over. Maybe a year. After the war was over, we stayed there a little bit longer. They really did not need us anymore. We would go and work in the library or do something.

01:31:16.980 - 01:31:40.680

There was nothing for us to do. they sent us back and they wanted us to go to the Philippines. Well, as you know, I'm always influenced by something else. So I really kind of wanted to go to Manila, to their air base, because as I say, I love that part of it, of traveling. But I became engaged.

01:31:41.720 - 01:31:51.000

So here I was engaged, and he says, "You're not going to the Philippines." So I went— Is this still the Navy? No, no.

01:31:51.840 - 01:32:00.260

I gave up. Who did you become engaged to? Well this fellow was from Indiana. He was a pilot at the air base, yeah, I mean at the air base.

01:32:01.300 - 01:32:07.760

Where? In Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico. They wanted us to get married, and I said, "No, I think we'll wait until we go home."

01:32:08.360 - 01:32:24.500

Because they thought that would be so romantic for us to get married in Puerto Rico. But he didn't want to and I didn't want to either. So we went home and he went back to school. What attracted you to him?

01:32:25.000 - 01:32:46.400

Well, he was just an all-American pilot. He looked 100 percent, sandy-haired, daring, fun pilot. And he was a nice, fun person. But I thought maybe he's not the same at home.

01:32:47.490 - 01:33:07.820

So we went back, and I got a job in Chicago, and he was going back to school. And his family lived close to Chicago, and I used to take the train and stay with his family and visit him. And the more I knew him, the more I knew I wasn't going to marry him.

01:33:09.520 - 01:33:24.000

He was a tightwad. He just had a wonderful father, and he wasn't secure anymore. See as a pilot he was, and he was not when I got back home. He had to go back to school.

01:33:25.040 - 01:33:38.160

And he had a wonderful dad. His dad was a lawyer, and he was sickly. And one time he told me, he says, "I would never let Jack marry anybody, but I'll let him marry you."

01:33:38.660 - 01:33:57.880

So I don't know if I'll marry Jack, because he just -- you know, his father wasn't even positive about it. So one time he went back to Indiana University and I went to visit him. They sang all the fraternity songs to me.

01:33:57.960 - 01:34:16.740

The Beta, it was a Beta, sang all the fraternity songs to me. I am growing older and he is growing younger, even though we are the same age. I did not like that. I was standing beside someone, we were out on the balcony, standing beside someone, a

01:34:16.560 - 01:34:29.140

fell from Fred—he had been a Beta before the war, and he was there for Sunday dinner or something. And he said, "This sure is baby stuff." And I said, "It sure is."

01:34:29.140 - 01:34:40.300

You know, singing songs. He said, "There's a place for that." Well, I think I was about twenty-two or twenty-three. And I wasn't into that anymore.

01:34:40.660 - 01:34:53.420

And he was. He thought it was marvelous. So his father died. And, but we were happy, you know, he was happy just going to school, so weíd wait until

01:34:53.420 - 01:35:04.240

he got through school. And then I met Art. How did you meet Art? Well, I worked for United Wallpaper in Chicago.

01:35:05.200 - 01:35:24.720

And they hired these girls, and weíd go out to the builder shows and big shows, and I demonstrated ready-pasted wallpaper, trims ready-pasted wallpaper. And it was a fun job. And then I also visited many of the stores that sold that and would promote it.

01:35:25.060 - 01:35:44.380

Well, see, I loved traveling, so I was having a fine time. And when I went to Detroit, I met Art at a builder's show. He had a contraption he was promoting, and I was doing this trims ready-pasted wallpaper. So we just talked and dated and got married.

01:35:46.040 - 01:36:04.840

How long after you met him? I waited a while because I had been engaged too many times. I was going to ask you, what attracted you to him? Well, why did I fall in love with Art?

01:36:07.260 - 01:36:32.040

He had a lot of ambition, was really smart, he was very suave, he was grown up, he was mature. He had been in the Navy and he liked the same things, he did the same things. I just thought I would like him.

01:36:33.780 - 01:36:57.280

I didn't think I was ever going to fall really in love again after my first love. Jack was just kind of in between, but I really loved Art. How long after you met him before you decided to get married? We waited, I would say, at least about nine months, which was a long time because we were

01:36:57.300 - 01:37:23.880

both free to get married any time we wanted. I liked his family and his ambitions. He was going in partnership with his dad in the automobile promotion business, advertising, smart. He worked with all the big companies, selling advertising for their cars.

01:37:24.870 - 01:37:40.720

Tell me about your wedding, Anna. Well, when I got married, of course my mother and father were divorced, and I paid for my own wedding because I did not want my father to come. And my father, I think, understood this.

01:37:41.740 - 01:37:54.500

I was very close to my mother and her side of the family, and they were all going to be there. It would have been awkward to have my father there. And yet you had grown up being very close to your father, had you not?

01:37:57.140 - 01:38:05.380

But I don't think my father cared. He didn't care at all. He gave us a car. I mean, it was hard to get cars, you know, right after the war.

01:38:06.620 - 01:38:19.880

He understood. But I didn't ask him to pay for anything. And my sister did, and he gave her away, you know. Who gave you away?

01:38:21.200 - 01:38:34.880

Nobody. Nobody had—I just ran down the aisle as fast as I could. No it was very small and I had my friends in Chicago, my friends were there, my family was all there.

01:38:35.150 - 01:38:51.880

You know maybe there were a hundred, maybe seventy-five people, but they're all relatives. Our family and my family, we got married in the Presbyterian Church in a chapel, so it was filled. The minister that married us, you know, interviewed us and talked to us.

01:38:52.220 - 01:39:03.100

He says, "You know, I never would have married you if I didn't think you were right for one another." And we've always had a wonderful life together. Did you have a long dress?

01:39:03.640 - 01:39:12.500

No, I couldn't afford one. I had a suit and it was darling. And I could wear that suit forever. Art was not rich, you know.

01:39:12.620 - 01:39:32.140

He spent all his money courting me. And we stayed—in Chicago we went to this hotel, beautiful hotel, had dinner, had a suite. The next morning we drove to up Michigan, Tolland, Michigan, or Lake Michigan, and stayed

01:39:32.140 - 01:39:48.900

in a cabin that someone had lent him. Back then he made a lot of money after that. And then where did you go after your honeymoon? Well, we had found this apartment, very hard to find apartments, you know, after the war.

01:39:49.860 - 01:40:12.420

And Art tells a story, he says, "We weren't going to get married until Ann found an apartment, she found one right away." You know, but it was in the Polish district of Detroit, and Kaskowalski's, you know, in In fact, in our apartment, it was kind of more like a duplex thing.

01:40:13.600 - 01:40:26.820

The light flashed on and off, the funeral light right across the way from Krakowski. And they had wonderful markets. But see, I could not cook at all. It took me all day to figure out what I was going to have.

01:40:26.880 - 01:40:46.340

Maybe it was only cheese sandwich, but then I would have to go buy the food. But I just, you know, I was not into eating, he did not care. And our parents, they lived on the other side of town, and they would give us tomatoes and fresh things like that.

01:40:46.380 - 01:41:08.380

So we had a lot of tomatoes. I would go to my cookbook and make all these different recipes of tomatoes. We did not have very much money, but you know when you are young you do not need money. And he, I'd probably a hundredfold in a year, he was very successful.

01:41:10.020 - 01:41:23.600

And one summer, I was so bored. You can imagine doing fun things all your life and all of a sudden you stay home and quit. And he would travel a lot, he was traveling.

01:41:24.620 - 01:41:36.440

He'd go out and so one day I said, "I've just got to do something. I think I'll go down to J.L. Hudson's and get a job. We need all this furniture, and we can get all at a discount." He wouldn't let me.

01:41:37.000 - 01:41:50.960

He says, "I don't want you to work down there." Absolutely not. So then I was a teacher, so then I got a job in a private school in Grosse Pointe and became the kindergarten teacher.

01:41:52.080 - 01:42:10.740

And I picked up the children. I mean, we only had seven or eight, you know. I pick up the children on my way to work, go through the traffic where all the factories you know, it was really a hard drive, and get to schools kind of in a hunting, the riding

01:42:10.880 - 01:42:43.080

school, the hunt club. And it was fun. I loved it. I loved the children. And then I got pregnant. And I was sick, very nauseous after I was pretty ill. So we moved over to Canada because we hadn't bought a house or anything. And we thought that would be fun for the summer to live on Lake Erie and then we'll buy a

01:42:43.200 - 01:43:05.240

house in the fall. So that's what we did. I had to quit teaching because it was so far away, but I'd go back every once in a while. And when the children graduated, I was back there. I was awfully lonely at this cabin.

01:43:05.540 - 01:43:34.160

See, I was used to people all around me all the time. Here I was. My husband wasn't even coming home at night. He was off working, traveling or something. Well, then Art got TB. And he was very sick. And so after the cottage, I remember we went back to visit his family, we were staying there all night. He had to go in the hospital.

01:43:37.040 - 01:43:46.380

And at this point, did you have the baby? No. You were pregnant. This was probably in the fall, and I had the baby in December.

01:43:49.060 - 01:44:03.500

So he went into the hospital, but we bought a house. And it was a darling little Cape Cod house. And it was two stories, no bathroom downstairs. You never know.

01:44:03.640 - 01:44:14.360

The first house, you never know. It just was a cute house. Bay windows. and sunny and bright.

01:44:14.920 - 01:44:23.580

And we didn't have any furniture, but I remember we bought a bedroom. No we didn't buy the bedroom set. What did we buy? We bought a dining room set.

01:44:25.080 - 01:44:30.000

And ours parents--. JF: All that food you cooked. RB: Yeah. [Laughs]

01:44:30.000 - 01:44:48.680

It had a terrible refrigerator, you know, a little tiny refrigerator, and a stove, and I think we bought the kitchen table. But we had porch furniture that we used in the living room, and I bought some curtains. He was in the hospital all the time.

01:44:49.180 - 01:45:04.360

He had a coal furnace. So I never could keep it going. It was always going out. So one time it got so hot, it melted the candles overnight.

01:45:05.960 - 01:45:29.560

It didn't have any controls on it at all. awful. When I moved to a house that didn't have a furnace, I was in heaven. I think Art's father came over and got that furnace going. But then Art came home from the hospital, and I was pregnant, and we had a wonderful time. He had to stay in bed all the time.

01:45:30.160 - 01:45:45.180

That's what they believed him at that time. And we were even resented when people came to visit us. And we'd listen to the radio, we'd play cards, we had kind of a schedule. I probably served him meals.

01:45:46.360 - 01:46:02.720

At this time I think I could cook a little more. And I remember that we had Nicky on Christmas Eve. Can you believe that? I loved my doctor and I felt so sorry for him because here he had to come Christmas

01:46:03.040 - 01:46:12.120

Eve and deliver a baby. She was born Christmas Day. We called her Nicola. We were going to call her Merry Christmas.

01:46:14.740 - 01:46:26.380

And this day she has a little thing about it. She's an artist now. And you know, she says, "I was almost made Merry Christmas." And she's always kind of liked her name, Nikki.

01:46:27.140 - 01:46:41.800

She looked like a Nikki. I didn't know what I was going to call her, but when I saw her, she looked like a Nikki. So that's what she became. And the floor is at the Prittenton Hospital, and that's where they deliver babies, unwed

01:46:41.880 - 01:46:58.920

women. But they had one floor that they had, that they delivered buried women. And you know, I had to stay there five days. Went home to my little house, and the Christmas tree was still up.

01:47:01.200 - 01:47:29.720

always hated her birthday on Christmas. Sometimes I had it in June. Now I do it when I give her a present whenever I see something I think Nikki would just love. I buy it and send it to her and this is your birthday present. So she never thinks of her birthday too much on it because she doesnít like it. If sheís with us, which isnít very often, we kind

01:47:29.720 - 01:48:00.120

to celebrate it Christmas Eve because Christmas Day is Jesus Day. It's not anybody else's birthday and I think the people that have their birthdays on that day feel that. >>As Nikki was growing up, how were you involved with her school activities or other activities? Being a primary teacher, I wanted to be right in the middle of everything.

01:48:01.700 - 01:48:15.280

Nikki will admit even now, Nikki was very difficult to raise. Why? I just think it was in her genes. Because she was treated no differently.

01:48:16.840 - 01:48:42.880

Another baby came along soon afterwards, which causes jealousy, sibling jealousy. But I didn't like just taking care of babies all the time. I love babies and I love children, but I needed another thing to do and I didn't have that. So I don't think I resented staying home with them.

01:48:43.160 - 01:48:54.060

I didn't want to go to work or anything. But Nikki was difficult. The second child was perfect. Sheís perfect now.

01:48:55.680 - 01:49:08.060

She said she was perfect because Nikki was so naughty. Nikki was naughty. She caused a lot of problems. Teenager, we just didnít know if we were ever going to make that through, but we did.

01:49:09.400 - 01:49:18.080

And I enjoy Nikki now. Sheís an artist. Sheís successful. Her paintings, when we walk around, youíll see some of her paintings.

01:49:22.700 - 01:49:35.860

Other artists appreciate her art. She's not a photographic artist. It's in her dreams. She does a lot with moon and stars and floating figures,

01:49:36.040 - 01:49:50.800

and some people love that. She does--that's a dog, Ipo. And she paints Ipo, and Ipo's funny. Like, she has one that he's down looking down his golf club

01:49:50.660 - 01:50:12.040

up towards the golf hole, trying to make a putt. Maybe the putt was two inches away. He has a sense of humor. And these, I think, are on cards. She has a, something that promotes her art. Sheís, she lives in Maui. >>What was the other child?

01:50:12.780 - 01:50:40.280

>>Claudia. Claudiaís either 18 months apart. And Claudia was just a very, very, very, very very dear, good little girl. She tried hard. Nikki could care less what was going on in school, throwing spitballs or whatever, causing

01:50:40.360 - 01:51:16.500

problems with her teachers, whereas Claudia would try, you know, and she was a joy to have around. Claudia lives in Durango now and she's still a joy. She's an angel. I think Claudia's an angel. She is working for the pregnancy center down there. She's not. You know, as when she found God, it was 100 percent. So she wanted everybody else

01:51:16.580 - 01:51:34.840

to find God and that peace that she had found. She's just a dear, dear woman. She's about 51 now. She doesn't look 51. She looks aboutó Have either of them married? But they're very good friends now, Nikki and Father.

01:51:35.440 - 01:52:10.780

Are they married? Oh yeah. We are into sons-in-laws. We have. See, Nikki's been married twice, and she has three boys from the first husband. And they're handsome. They're about 22 or 23 now. Claudia's And she has two girls and a boy.

01:52:12.580 - 01:52:23.660

And she just this third one, just her last, just got married. She was afraid of getting married the last time. Afraid it won't last, you know. You never know.

01:52:24.840 - 01:52:36.140

Got married too young the first time. And had two little girls right away. He just couldn't. He was young too.

01:52:37.400 - 01:52:56.180

And then the second one, you saw Claudia and just swept her off her feet. Well, he was from New York, and New York people do not live in great junctions. We even sent her back there to have her take a good look at what she was marrying. But when you're in love, you never see anything.

01:52:57.840 - 01:53:11.460

And that didn't work out. We liked him all right. The first husband, her first husband is a millionaire, lives in this town. But he was young when he married Claudia, and they were just too young.

01:53:12.870 - 01:53:29.740

As those girls were growing up, how did you spend your time when they were in school, for example? Did you have volunteer work, or did you have a hobby? Well, see, I've always had a wonderful life.

01:53:30.400 - 01:53:40.540

I had maids in Detroit. One time I had a maid and no car. Then I had a car and no maid. So I think you've got to have both.

01:53:41.660 - 01:54:26.260

Don't you think you need both? But one time I took the girls from their little to a church and I'd work on the Christmas projects and they play with the other children. What did I do in Detroit? We lived in Birmingham, Michigan for seven years. It seems like a long time. We lived here over forty years

01:54:29.360 - 01:54:39.860

I'm glad we moved here. Living here has been so easy. Living in Detroit, you belong to a country club, it takes you forty-five minutes to get to the club.

01:54:41.600 - 01:55:04.100

Here, it takes me five minutes to go to the country club. Why did you decide to move to Harlem? My husband always wanted to have an automobile dealership, and so one day he said, "Let's just sell out, sell the stuff to my father, the business, and buy dealerships someplace.

01:55:04.660 - 01:55:25.200

We almost went to Waco, Texas. We looked at Waco, but we were looking for a place where the weather was kind of nice. The weather was terrible in Michigan. When you take children out, Michigan babies, you spend half your time wrapping them up

01:55:25.960 - 01:55:39.260

to go outside. Here, you just stick on a jacket and go out in the sunshine. So the weather was important. He spent a long time looking for the right place to buy.

01:55:39.360 - 01:55:54.960

We had gone up to Cheyenne, Wyoming. There was a dealership for sale, a Buick dealership. I think it would have been a nice place to live, but coming from Michigan, I do not think we could have adjusted those little shrimpy shrubs that they have.

01:55:55.880 - 01:56:17.880

And they just do not have any trees or anything. So it was a Thanksgiving time, and I went back home to be with the children. And he came over here to look at Grand Junction, and he says, "This is a nice little town." The uranium boom was on, but it did not last.

01:56:19.980 - 01:56:30.920

So he bought the Lincoln Mercury dealership here, and then I soon came out. And it was easier. The children could walk to school. No school buses.

01:56:33.880 - 01:56:47.500

They even could walk to junior high. We bought a wonderful house. It was a great big old house. It has a little swimming pool in the back.

01:56:48.870 - 01:57:06.380

In fact, I think someday it will be one of the historical houses of Grand Junction. The woman that bought it just loves it. We went back to see it and it still looks pretty. It's one of the most beautiful houses I've ever lived in as far as convenience.

01:57:06.700 - 01:57:22.600

It was a ten-room house. It was just nice. And the children could just do—it was pretty easy for them. They did not always like living in the best house.

01:57:23.900 - 01:57:36.700

It was the best house in town. And they did not always like living because their friends did not live in the best houses. But now they don't. They look back on it and they love that house.

01:57:41.220 - 01:57:58.880

At this point in your life, what are you involved in? Well my main love was golf for a while. I started the country club. They didn't have one when I came.

01:58:00.500 - 01:58:13.300

And I played, I was a golfaholic for a long time. And it's a wonderful thing when you're raising children, because you go out on the golf course and you forget all your worries. You're working on that golf game.

01:58:13.860 - 01:58:28.140

When you come home, you're ready to face, you know, and children never played golf. The children never, my girls have never done what I did. Why? They had no interest at all.

01:58:28.500 - 01:58:35.800

No one wanted to fly. No one wanted to be a golfer. I'm a quilter now. No one wants to be a quilter.

01:58:37.200 - 01:59:04.120

Tell me about being a quilter, what you were doing with those quilts. I was in the embroidery club, learning allóthere's just so many things. It was a wonderóit's a very good club, probably one of the best ones in the country here. And very just teaching each other and doing, making these beautiful things. So I

01:59:04.120 - 01:59:31.260

said, "Well, let's have a quilting, let's work on quilting." Because that is hands-on embroidery in a way. So I got so interested in it that I wanted to start a quilting club. So this other gal, she really is a good quilter. So there were four of us got together and started this club. This was about 15 years ago. And then, maybe it's not quite that old,

01:59:31.830 - 01:59:54.000

there was a night group. The night groups divorced themselves because they didn't want the day group to tell them what to do. So they started their night group. And there's a need for people that work during the day or people that can't get away from their children you know, during the day to go at night.

01:59:54.860 - 02:00:13.680

So that club has over a hundred in it. The daytime club has over a hundred in it. And so one day I said to the scout, we started, I said, "Let's start another club. Let's start one where only thirty people can become members, because bigger is not better."

02:00:15.640 - 02:00:35.780

I think almost in anything is true. So I said, so she and I did. She is really talented, very odd person. People do not like her too well, but she has know-how beyond the rest of us, and she loves

02:00:35.860 - 02:00:46.540

to teach it. She knows she is the best, so she teaches it. So we started this club as thirty members, and it is about five years old. And I love it.

02:00:47.140 - 02:01:01.300

They made me quilt and presented it to me last time. It's just piece, it's not quilted. And so I'm, it's butterflies. But I love all kinds of quilts.

02:01:01.300 - 02:01:11.480

It doesn't have to be, I don't like the modernistic ones too well, but I like the old fashioned ones. I like the comforters. There's so much to learn with quilting.

02:01:12.060 - 02:01:32.660

At Sun Bounce Sioux, at Appliqué. Iíve learned a great deal. Tell me what you do with some of these quilts that you help quilt. Well the, about a year ago this Prayers and Squares group started and it comes from the

02:01:32.660 - 02:01:52.600

bottom of California and they make, a group of women, they make quilts for people that are sick, they had something terrible happen to them, and they need a prayer, a loving quilt with prayers. And they're not quilted, they're tied.

02:01:53.930 - 02:02:19.120

So you make the top and you put them together and then you put the strings in and the church is dedicated to that person and then people come and she has a prayer. And then you come and say the prayer. Most of them are very sick, maybe have cancer and are dying, or maybe they have a long time

02:02:19.180 - 02:02:43.780

to go, or maybe just youíll be depressed or a fire. It doesnít have to be dying. This last friend that we made a quilt for, or tied a quilt for, we go to see her, and She's just a darling little lady and has terrible arthritis, osteoporosis.

02:02:44.460 - 02:03:00.160

She shrunk six inches. And she says, "I don't know why you're here seeing me," you know. But she, you know, she's in pain a lot of the time. And they said, "We just want you to have a quilt, though we love you."

02:03:00.160 - 02:03:10.840

And there was a Catholic, she's Catholic, you know, they don't have to be Episcopalian or any certain. Anybody can get one of our quilts. They don't even have to be a Christian. Anybody can get one of our quilts.

02:03:11.780 - 02:03:30.980

And so her prayer, see if I can remember, was, "Dear God, be good to me. The sea is so wide." That's what I was telling her. And I am so small. My boat is so small. And she just loved it. She came out and said it in itself.

02:03:31.540 - 02:03:58.620

say it again. The prayer that Virginia said was, ìDear God, be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.î Annabelle, is this a church-related group who makes the quilt? Yes. We have no money and we donít have very many people that help us. And one One gal does all the organizing.

02:03:59.340 - 02:04:10.560

I have all the, I know all the friends, I know all the people, I know how to do everything. I don't really have time to do a lot of sewing. I don't know why, but I don't. I'm slow.

02:04:10.880 - 02:04:30.420

My eyes aren't that great, I'm just kind of slow at it. So I'm her assistant, but we're getting people. We had a big fair, and we're going to write a letter to our Episcopalian church and ask to be put on the budget so that we will have, we are given materials, but weíre given polyesters.

02:04:30.530 - 02:04:51.840

We want any cottons and certain kind. But the quilts are adorable and the people that get them love them. How do you select the person to receive one? Okay, someone must sponsor. Like if you, if your daughter was sick, anything, you know,

02:04:51.840 - 02:05:17.400

not just a flu or something, but MS. Sheíd lost a child. Had terrible dramatic experience. You would sponsor her and ask us, ìWe would like a quilt for her.î And thatís all it takes. We try to get ahead, but we havenít gotten ahead yet. And once you give a person a quilt, then do you keep in contact with that person?

02:05:17.880 - 02:05:41.340

Well, they have a scrapbook, and there are pictures in it with her prayer and about her and the person who made the quilt. We all tie it, but some people are the ones that, you know, one person. On the back, there's a cross, and there's a little angel signature, you know, on the

02:05:41.360 - 02:05:53.640

back. They're just darling. I would think if you were sick or something, you would love one. Are you involved in other things with your church?

02:05:56.360 - 02:06:10.340

I take their classes, and I go to a ladies' group. But right now, I'm not. I was going to take the Southern class and learn more about the religion, but I just -- there was too many things.

02:06:10.900 - 02:06:26.040

I've been very involved with the quilt clubs. I'm kind of an organizer, and I was president the first year, but no one's ever really known how to be president. So I just keep helping them, and maybe I'm the program chairman.

02:06:26.780 - 02:06:42.920

Last year I did three or four jobs because people kept moving away or getting sick or something. So maybe at the end of the year I was the president, I was the vice president, I was program chairman and something else, raising the money.

02:06:44.260 - 02:06:57.260

So they gave me a quilt. Last meeting, a couple of days ago, they gave me a quilt to tell me thank you. Was it one that you had worked on? No, I'll show it to you.

02:06:58.560 - 02:07:19.440

Yes, it's over, Nancy, it's over that chair, the quilt that they made for me. Iíll take a picture while youíre talking. Or you want her to hold it. No, go ahead. Which I, you know, I know what receiving a quilt is like now. Itís wonderful. Itís

02:07:19.540 - 02:07:34.820

not a big quilt. Itís a lap quilt, when you cuddle up to. Annabelle, youíve told us about your two daughters. Tell us about your grandchildren. I told you about my third. Oh, yes.

02:07:34.820 - 02:07:38.440

I have another daughter. Oh, you have another girl? Yeah, Marsha. Marsha.

02:07:38.900 - 02:07:49.240

Marsha was born here in Grand Junction. Tell us about Marsha. Marsha lives out in Palisade, and she has one little girl. And sheís nine, so see, itís kind of fun having a little girl around.

02:07:50.320 - 02:08:16.420

I keep saying, ìYouíre going to be my pilot.î No, Iím not. I have one granddaughter that would like to beófly an airplane. How old is she? Well, sheís about thirty. But sheís into horses. She owns her own horse. Sheís a decorator,

02:08:18.120 - 02:08:44.140

designer. They donít like to be called decorators. Theyíre designers. And sheís very successful and darling, beautiful. Is there anything that you would like to say to those grandchildren? Well, let's see. I tell them all the time, my grandmother told me, "Beauty is as beauty

02:08:45.120 - 02:09:06.880

does." One time I was putting on red, red lipstick and she says, "Beauty is as beauty does." My youngest granddaughter is absolutely gorgeous. She's gorgeous the day she was born. a stopper, and she does not like being gorgeous, very shy. She is a soccer player.

02:09:09.080 - 02:09:25.500

It would have been fun if one of them would have liked to quilt, or if one of them really liked to fly. Or how about a golf game? None of them are interested in what I am, so I have to be interested in what they have.

02:09:27.340 - 02:09:38.540

But I don't love them any less. They're just darling. I have darling children. I made good, I made very good descendants.

02:09:39.860 - 02:09:51.140

And my sister died, so I have all her children. I have four more that are very close to me. Do they live here in Grand Junction? No.

02:09:53.020 - 02:10:15.400

A couple of them come for Thanksgiving with their families, and we raised one boy. He lives in Chicago now. He was twelve when my sister died. And one of them lives—we're just very close to them.

02:10:15.840 - 02:10:35.020

I am their mother, because I am more like their mother than anybody they know, so I'm sort of like their mother. >>Annabelle, as you look back over your life, youíve done so many things. What is the one thing that youíre most proud of?

02:10:37.900 - 02:10:51.700

>>Last thing is learning the computer. I wasnít sure I could learn the computer, you know, but my husband found it. He doesnít do it. He bought it for me.

02:10:53.260 - 02:11:13.400

I love that computer. I love to send email and talk back and forth to the children. I think the things when I do, I do them. Like I flew an airplane, but I've never flown an airplane again.

02:11:16.560 - 02:11:27.480

I succeeded. I played golf, I was champion. One day I could not see the ball very well, so I just took up something else. I do not play golf anymore.

02:11:28.860 - 02:11:46.440

Not a quilt. I am not the greatest quilter in the world, but I know a lot about it. I do not know what my favorite—I think probably the most fun time I had was the years in college. It was really fun.

02:11:47.860 - 02:12:07.680

I really liked being a WASP. When I was watching the air show today, "Oh, those guys are having more fun than anybody I know flying those planes." One of the reunions we went to was in Richmond, and we flew one of those huge planes.

02:12:08.120 - 02:12:26.020

Were you in Richmond? A few went out and got on one of those big planes where they carry the tankers and trucks to war. And they had an all-girl crew.

02:12:27.520 - 02:12:44.980

The girl that got us on, the little gal that flew the plane, and there weren't any men at all. I thought that was really kind of fun. I do not believe that women should be on naval ships flying or even be on naval ships.

02:12:45.920 - 02:13:02.820

I do not think the women should be at Annapolis or West Point. I think there is a place for the women and there is a place for the men. And why the women have to push themselves in to another spot is I do not know. The men do not seem to.

02:13:03.260 - 02:13:25.320

Well, they're nurses now, so maybe that's where their bridge should get. But I would have felt terrible if I couldn't have flown an airplane when I wanted to. But I wasn't proving myself. I just wanted to do it.

02:13:28.420 - 02:13:42.560

And that's the thing, I leave my children. All you have to do is just, if you want to do it, you better try real hard and you'll succeed. What do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be?

02:13:44.960 - 02:13:55.400

I think they made their legacy. They called them the pioneers of the women pilots. They're really not. Amelia Earhart and some of those other women were the pioneers.

02:13:57.340 - 02:14:10.520

I think we all went down there just to have a ball and fly an airplane. We did not want to be veterans. We did not want to be anything but just fly. Here was a wonderful opportunity.

02:14:11.840 - 02:14:37.840

I have never paid a penny to learn to fly or fly a plane. Think of the gift I was given, thousands of dollars. And then they paid me for the joy of doing it. But I think the WASPs try very hard to leave a legacy.

02:14:38.750 - 02:14:48.600

I think people look up to them. And the friends I know, sometimes this one guy, every time he says, "Just here goes that WASP going by." He thinks I ferried planes over to Europe.

02:14:49.010 - 02:15:06.260

I keep telling him, "I didn't do that." And there are some of the women that did do that. When I read this book, there are some women that have done marvelous things. What do you think your legacy will be?

02:15:07.380 - 02:15:19.100

To the wasps or the children? Or anything. My mother had a better time than anybody I know. Or my grandmother.

02:15:19.900 - 02:15:38.220

She had fun. I think the things I've done, but they're my choices. And I think if you get into something that's wrong, you better get out of it really fast. Sometimes you have to try something, and you have to make a mistake.

02:15:39.420 - 02:16:04.080

One time I never made a mistake. That's when I made the mistake that I realized I really haven't learned very much. What is your personal opinion of Jacqueline Cochran? Well, even when I was a WASP, I do not think I was.

02:16:05.700 - 02:16:22.240

I do not think she is anyone you can look up to. I think she had great organization abilities. I think she had fun making all these little pilots. And we all loved that.

02:16:23.200 - 02:16:37.420

So we're glad she did that. She just wanted to be a very important person. But then one time when I was in Washington, the Red Cross, she had a party for us, all the WASPs in town.

02:16:39.280 - 02:16:58.960

And so we went up to her party, and she really did love the WASPs. She took care of all those people, all those girls, she loved them. What advice would you give to children in future generations that might help them to want to succeed?

02:17:01.840 - 02:17:26.840

If you want something enough, you keep trying, and youíll get it. But you have to walk it. If you donít care, you get good grades, but youíre not going to get them. Some people are really smart. They can read something and they have it.

02:17:27.560 - 02:17:40.540

Then there are other people that have to try a little harder. And some people have to try really hard. But sometimes they all get to the same place. So if you try, youíre going to make it.

02:17:42.700 - 02:17:51.960

Annabelle, you have made it. Good. I'm so glad this is over. Can I ask you something? Is it okay if I ask you?

02:17:53.100 - 02:18:05.260

Because, and I'll turn this off for just like the question be on here. How do you get through the bad things in your life? Because everybody has bad things. Your sister died. How do you get through those times?

02:18:05.260 - 02:18:35.240

Well, I think the worst thing that's ever happened to me is my back. I've had a back operation. And it was inevitable. I was going to have this. If you live long enough, you're going to get cancer, you know. So maybe I don't want to live that long. I just think, you pray to God. You read, not that -- I don't get so much reading from the Bible, but I

02:18:35.240 - 02:19:09.580

books that other people write about the Bible or how to live. We have classes in our church that the minister inspires us to study or you study together. But I just think I pray to God. Then you have to know how to pray. This one guy that had a, he took one of the The first one we took a quilt to, she was darling little lady, she has terrible arthritis

02:19:09.750 - 02:19:29.420

and had it for years. But when we got her prayer, all it said was she was praying for other people. She was not praying, she was afraid to pray for herself. So the second guy was a man that we went to see and I told him, I said, "This should be

02:19:29.540 - 02:19:59.260

your prayer and don't be afraid to pray because if you don't ask, you're not going to get anything. And so his prayer was a little bit, you know, he still included the outside world. People are afraid to pray for themselves. You can ask God, if God doesnít really, you know, ask him to get you through the wasps flying or get you through a test or, you know,

02:19:59.480 - 02:20:30.260

your back, heal, you may never get it. You have to ask. So then the third one was this cute little gal. But she did that all by herself. She prayed for herself. And I wonder, weíll go see Justin, the next man thatís going to get one. Oh, then another little gal, she She has cancer. She's young, 40 years old. She didn't want us to see her. She's on prednisone.

02:20:30.840 - 02:21:06.640

She's too young to be ugly. It's all right to be ugly, but she's too young. So we didn't ever see her. But she's going to die in a month or so. I don't know what her prayer you go see this man, Iím going to tell him, donít ask for the world to be taken care of by God. Heíll do that. You ask him, maybe take care of your family, what do you go,

02:21:06.840 - 02:21:20.820

make your life, you wonít suffer. Donít be afraid to ask for yourself. What makes you laugh? I donít know. I laugh, I just laugh all the time. Do I? What makes you laugh?

02:21:20.820 - 02:21:43.880

I donít know. You know, if I get terribly nervous, I really laugh. Maybe Iím nervous. You know, my, you know, I have to, you come in and something terrible happens. And sometimes I think itís just funny. >>The other thing I was going to ask you, you have some stuff written there. Have you

02:21:44.140 - 02:21:49.360

seen it? >>I didnít use it. I didnít use it. What is that? What do I, Iíll just let you know what it is. >>If thereís anything on there that you want to say.

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>>Okay. What do you want to say? Well, one of them was, there will be lesser or greater persons than yourself. And so, donít be afraid to fail or be successful.

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And youíve got to be yourself, but be your good self. Thereís bad selves in ourselves. They always say be yourself or you can be a bad self too. What else did I write in here?

02:22:24.380 - 02:22:36.460

I said never give up. And this one I love. I thought this was quite inspiring. I make my life fun and interesting to myself and I'm interesting and fun to others.

02:22:38.300 - 02:22:41.340

Right on? Right on. Right on. Right on.

02:22:42.420 - 02:22:52.660

just to make myself interesting to others but I think you are. You certainly are. Oh, I don't know. Then I had some inspired here.

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Except to Art. Poor Art. Art says I laugh all the time. Yep.

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Okay. Can we get a picture with you, Art? Yeah. Do not yell it.

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Just quietly. Here he comes. He's going to be in the picture. Oh, good Art. No, you just sit down.

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We've been doing this for four hours. Oh my goodness. See, he makes me real. He takes good care of me. I'm trying.

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Well, give her a hug. Okay. Okay. There we go. Get it?

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I'm getting it one more time just so she can get one more hug. I think this is the key. I've got to crank it up again here. This is a digital camera, so it takes just a second to warm up.

02:23:47.080 - 02:23:59.780

Here we go. Okay. Come on. There we go. Happy birthday, R. I want to see it. You know, Nikki, I cannot figure I've got to get this off of me.