00:00:00.000 - 00:01:08.000

You're in charge. That's the rule. If you want to stop, if you want to get a drink of water, if you don't want to answer a question, just say, "Let's go on," or "Can we stop for a minute," or "I've got to sneeze," or whatever it is. Really and truly, you are in charge, because we want this to be enjoyable. We want it to be fun. When we leave here, we want you to still be smiling. That's one of our goals, really and truly. We're not here to dig deep like Barbara Walters and make you cry. None of that. I'm Deanie Parrish with Wings Across America. We are interviewing Beverly Wilkinson. She was a WASP, Class 44W8. We are in her home in Sedona, Arizona. Today is the 16th of November, 2001, and the videographer is Nancy Parrish. Okay, Beverly, if you'll start off by giving us your full name and when and where you were born, and we'll go from there.

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Beverly Jean Wasdietrich, my maiden name, Wilkinson. I was born in Cadet, Wisconsin on February 24, 1924. Okay. Beverly, tell me about your mom and dad. My mother was a schoolteacher in a little one-room schoolhouse just outside Cadet, Wisconsin, outside Chippewa Falls, really. My father was a hardware—son of a hardware store owner, and he and his father had this business in Cadet. Also, all my uncles and aunts had mercantile type of businesses in this little town.

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The name Dietrich Hardware, Dietrich Dry Goods—there were only 630 people in this little town. And where did you live, Beverly? Did you live in town or did you live out from town? I lived in town, right near the grammar school. I went to the grammar school and also to the Catholic grammar school in Cadet. Did you have any siblings?

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I have a brother who lives in Prescott. He's a retired nuclear—he's a nuclear physicist from the University of Nevada, but he was in marketing and engineering for Honeywell in Huntsville, Alabama, and also out of Salt Lake City. He's retired. He lives in Prescott and has a big garage where he restores old, old classic cars. Oh, wow. I see him often because he's a volunteer with Arizona Department of Transportation with the uniform and just happens to come by here about once a week with his cohort, who is a woman, about 70 years old, and they're both in uniform, and they just love doing this.

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Was he older or younger? He's younger. He's almost ten years younger. My sister died—she was a nurse, a registered nurse in San Francisco. She died at 54. And my other sister died at seven years of age in Cadet. She had rheumatic fever and it damaged the valve of her heart. I also had measles and strep throat at the same time, but I was lucky. I was five when she died.

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Do you recall when you started school? Well, I was seven years old when I started first grade. However, I wanted to go to school so badly that I went a year ahead when I was six, and the teacher was exceptionally good. My mother wanted me to have her, so I had two years of first grade. I wasn't old enough to finish first grade, but I just had to be in school. I was anxious. Was that the same school where your mother taught?

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No. My mother was out in the country before she was married. Tell me about that little school where your mother taught. She lived on a farm. Her name was Touton, very French. Her parents had this farm and had thirteen children. The boys, one became a dentist. They all had bad hearts, however, because they went to work in the woods, up in the northern Wisconsin woods. They were big, strapping boys, and I think it was hard on their hearts. They lifted too much. The dentist died at fifty-five, and the others all died of heart attacks.

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I think there were six men and seven girls, and the girls, only one had a bad heart. But my mother lived to ninety. Most of them had lived to ninety years old, the women. In elementary school, how far did you go in this one little school that you went to? How many grades? Fifth grade, and then I was in Milwaukee for seventh grade, then in Chippewa Falls, which is very near Cadet, Catholic, eighth grade, and first grade of high school. Tell me about your grandparents.

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They're French. My grandfather lived to eighty-four. He was part, I think, a fourth Irish. He did the jig, and he was fun. My grandmother lived to ninety-three. She, by this time, was in California with one of her daughters. They had this farm, and my mother nursed everybody, all the farmers. She took care of all the farmers' illnesses. Even despite the fact she was only four foot eight, I think, and had thirteen children, she was all French, spoke no English, refused to learn English. My grandfather did speak English. They came down from Acadia, up in Evangeline country, and they came down to Mississippi and settled in Wisconsin.

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A lot of that town is French, and some German. My father was all German. Did they live near you? Yes, right next door. And then your other grandparents?

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Right next door was the Dietrichs, the German. My two tons were over in Chippewa Falls, which is only thirteen miles away. Were you able to visit with them a lot? Oh, yes. Went to a lot of French parties, keg beer, and all French-speaking and French songs. So when I was in college at Berkeley, I took French, and she said, "You're from a French background, aren't you? I can tell."

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Beverly, what was a Christmas like when you were growing up at your house? Well, being Catholic, we went to midnight mass, and then when we came home, we opened our gifts right after midnight mass. We didn't wait till the morning. We opened them immediately. Very religious Christmas. I was in many plays in Catholic elementary school. Were you an angel?

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I think I was Mary once, and I think I was an angel another time. And then for Christmas dinner, was it a big family thing? Yes, and my one uncle, who married my aunt, he was not Catholic, so he didn't go to church with us, and he stayed home. And he sat on my brother's tricycle and broke it. We never forgave him. He should have gone to church with us.

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Do you remember any special gift that you got at any Christmas that you have remembered all these years? Got a big doll. My sister, who was older, got the first choice, so she took the blonde. But the dolls were about this high. They had bought them in Minneapolis, and I got the dark-haired one. I wanted the blonde because I was blonde and she was dark-haired, so vice versa, but she got the first choice.

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And what was Christmas dinner like? Usually turkey. Who cooked? My mother. She was a very good French cook.

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Also, we had touquere, which is a French meat pie made from pork. She made that, and I still do. I make that at Christmas time. I've had people over at Christmas time. I make this touquere. It's ground pork, make our own crust. Very rich, very fattening.

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As you were growing up, did you have vacations in the summertime? Yes, we had a cottage out on Lake Wissota, which was between Kadat and Chippewa Falls. We spent the whole summer out there, picked wild blueberries and hazelnuts from the trees. It was right on the lake, so we spent a lot of time in the water.

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But my dad stayed in town, but came home on weekends, but my mother and we three children were at Lake Wissota all the time. And at this lake, were there other families that you interacted with? Yes. And their children?

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Yes. I had a good friend who lived a couple doors away, and the people next door were very, very nice to children. And they hired me to go to the store, which was about two blocks away. And I'd walk to the store, and then they'd pay me a nickel to bring back what they wanted. And what would you buy with that nickel? Do you recall anything special?

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Candy, probably. Chocolate candy. [Laughs] How important do you think it is for families to interact with each other the way your family did? Oh, I think, like Hillary said, I really believe we're all a family, we're all a village.

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And I liked growing up in a small town, and that's why we chose Sedona. I like a small town. I always said I didn't want to live in a place that didn't have a mailbox in front of my house. [Laughs] In elementary school, aside from the teacher that you had when you first started,

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were there other teachers that you recall who might have influenced you or encouraged you? When I was in high school in Redding, California, my three years of high school there, I had a Mrs. Sartorius who was my math teacher, and she interested me in math, in algebra, in trigonometry. And that's why I went into engineering at Cal Berkeley for the first year.

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I took aeronautical engineering because I liked math, but I realized that a woman wouldn't get very far as an aeronautical engineer. I'd probably be designing refrigerators for the airplanes. And so I went back. I changed over to economics, international economics, which was much more my forte.

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I did much better than I did. I made it through my first year of engineering, which a lot of people didn't, but it was hard. In elementary school, you went to what grade before you changed schools? I started, let's see, I was in Catholic school in Chippewa Falls, and Father McGurk, that's where I first started being interested in flying because he was the pastor,

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and he was from Duquesne University, and he talked about flying a lot. I first got interested in that. But then when we moved to California, Mrs. Sartorius was probably my influence, and Father gave me the recommendations for the WASP, the one back in Wisconsin,

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and then Mrs. Sartorius gave me my good recommendation from Reading High School. She later, when we went back for our 50th reunion back in '92, she was still alive, and we all had her at our reunion parties, and she sat there like a queen. She was a tough teacher. She was not easy, but she was good, and we all just thought she was the greatest thing.

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At what grade level did you move to California? Freshman. Freshman in high school. Why did your family decide to go to California?

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It was the Depression in 1938, and he wanted to get out of Wisconsin. He sold the hardware store. My father had taken too many people on credit and taken old cars from farmers, and he decided it was time to get out of there.

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So we moved to California, and he worked at the Shasta Dam. Did he know someone in California? Yes. We knew this doctor from Kadat and his wife who were here in Arizona. They were in Subicue, Arizona.

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He was a public health doctor after he left Kadat, and they wrote to my dad and said, "You ought to come west. This is where the future is." And then where did you live in California? Reading.

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At Reading. Were you near the school then where you started in California? No. Actually, we were in Central Valley, which is about eight miles out of Reading, but near the Shasta Dam.

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And all the workers at the Shasta Dam lived in Central Valley, and so we took a bus. Okay. In high school, did you have extracurricular activities other than your academics, such as speech or music or sports?

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Did you enter other things? Not very much because I was working. I worked part-time every evening at the little theater in Central Valley. I was an usherette and then the manager.

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So I worked the whole three years that I was in high school. Okay. And in high school, you had this one teacher that interested you in math. What kind of student were you?

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I was the top student in the Catholic schools back in Wisconsin by decimal points. They always--you know how nuns are. Everything was competition, and I fought hard. I studied hard, took a lot of books home, and my aunt always said,

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"Oh, poor Beverly. She has to study so much." But she didn't realize it was because of my ego. I wanted to be the top, and I was. And then I was secondary honor roll and national honor roll in high school.

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Okay. In high school, as you look back over all those years, who were your role models? Oh, I don't know. Let's see. I suppose Amelia Earhart. I knew about her.

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I didn't know about Jacqueline Cochran then, but I think-- We used to--two friends of mine were pilots, became pilots too. We used to go to the airfield, which is not far from our high school in Reading, during lunch hour, and we'd talk to the pilots.

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I guess those were our role models. And this one instructor--well, he might not have been an instructor. He might have just been one of the pilots. He offered us a ride, gratis.

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We didn't know what it meant, so we refused. We went back to school and found we could have flown free. We were so embarrassed we didn't go back to them and say, "Hey, we want a ride," because we thought it was going to cost us a lot of money.

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But that one girl was killed flying. She was living with my mother up in Reno, and she spun in in a-- in their--Luscombe, in the foothills of Mount Rose while I was in the WASP. The three of us remained good friends after high school.

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When I found out about the WASP, I wrote to them in California. They both applied. They didn't get in. They weren't fortunate like I was, where I got in the minute the age was lowered.

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One couldn't find her birth certificate, so that slowed her down. And the other one hadn't got her interview in time, and they stopped interviewing. That's the one that was killed. This other one learned to fly up in Earrington, where I did.

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All three of us went to Earrington, Nevada, to get our flying time in. But the one that couldn't find her birth certificate, she was one for 45-1. She was assigned to the class, and it was canceled. She lives in California, in Vista, California.

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She went on to become the only female commander of California Highway Patrol. She's retiring. We travel together a lot. Oh, that's great.

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What were your social activities like in high school? Oh, we dated people. We were very active dating. Proms, senior balls.

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This one girl that became the commander was the senior princess, prom queen or whatever. She was very, very pretty. Do you remember any specific male friends that you liked in high school? Well, this one was--he and his brother owned this company that did all the paving of the roads to Shasta Dam.

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I dated him almost all through high school. How large was your high school? I mean, were there--I don't know how big it was. Can I answer?

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Yes, we'll break. Okay. We were discussing how large your high school was. I think maybe 100 of us in my senior class, I think.

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Can you recall your senior prom? Oh, yes. Tell me about it. Oh, we had a good time.

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I went with this friend of mine that I had been dating for a long time. And in March, the one I said that had one of the pilots friend, we double dated. And my mother came to the prom and the senior ball, too. And I was so happy that she came and saw all this.

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Good. What was your high school graduation like? Well, we were outside, as I recall. It was in June of 1949--no, 1942.

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Many of the boys had left after Pearl Harbor. They left and became pilots, some of them. One that I still see a lot of, he lives in Malibu. He became a pilot.

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He was our senior class president. And he became an instructor during the war. And he comes to Sedona with his wife. They have a condominium timeshare, and they come to Sedona.

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And they've come three times to their timeshare. And he's very--doesn't fly anymore, but he still remained a very good friend. When you moved to California, how much contact then did you have with your grandparents? My grandfather had died when we left Wisconsin.

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My grandmother was still in Chippewa Falls. And then she lived with one of my aunts. They moved to California, to Pasadena. So she moved to Pasadena with them.

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And I have a picture of her making this rug that I have in there. She and my mother made this rug. It's made out of scraps from the Chippewa Falls woolen mills, handmade. And I still treasure it dearly.

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My mother kept it. But she was 93 when I left for Germany. And she said, "Oh, it's so sad. Beverly's moving so far away." And they said, "Well, she wants to. She wants to see the world.

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That's why she's going." So she died while I was over in Germany. I was there three years. And then I went back again after we were married for another three years.

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Do you recall where you were and how it made you feel when Pearl Harbor happened? Yes, I was on my way to work at the theater when I heard about it. And I heard President Roosevelt talking on the radio. And it was an awful shock.

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How did that--did it affect your family in any way? No, my brother was younger, so it didn't affect him. My sister was a nurse. She was in nurses training down at Franklin Hospital down in San Francisco.

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And she was dating a fellow who was in the Army, and she later married. But there was no--the family wasn't affected, really. And then in Vietnam, my brother wasn't affected because he had had rheumatic fever, too. Ten years after my sister, it seems to have run in the family.

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So his heart was bad, so he wasn't able to go into service. So actually no one in my family was in the service. When you were still in high school, what were your dreams? To fly. I wanted to fly.

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Do you know why you wanted to fly? Did you know any girls that were flying? No, I didn't know any girls. There was Alma Hickey, I found out later.

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She lived in Reading. She was an instructor there, and then she went in the WASP. But I didn't know her. Well, one time when we went back to Wisconsin on a trip,

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my father stopped at this little field where they had a barnstormer. And he said, "Would you like a ride? It's only $5." But $5 during the Depression. And he didn't go up, but I did.

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So I got a ride. I was probably a sophomore or junior in high school. And I thought that was the greatest thing, so I guess I was hooked. So even in high school, then, you wanted to fly.

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Yeah. Before you graduated from high school, did you know what you were going to do? Going to college? Yes, I knew I was going to college.

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I took all college prep courses, so I knew that I would go to college eventually. It took me four years to go. I was playing around in the WASP and flying after the WASP, too. And were you still in high school when you decided you were going to learn to fly and took your first lesson?

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No, this was after high school. So what did you do after you graduated that summer, for example? I went down to stay with my sister in San Francisco. This doctor friend of ours from Wisconsin was in the Army as a doctor,

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and he was going over to the Pacific. His wife was a nurse in Phoenix, a public health nurse, and she came to see him off. And she came to my sister's house, and she told me that in Phoenix there were a lot of young cadets to see and to fly.

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And the weather was great, and I could get a job at any of the airfields very easily. So the next day I came to Phoenix with her. What did your mom and dad think? My dad--they were divorced by then.

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My mother was all in favor of it. She happened to be visiting down there from Reno, and she said, "Yes, I'll call your job and quit for you. Go!" She helped me through the WASP all the way.

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She was 100% behind me on everything like that. So when you got to Phoenix, you lived with your sister? No, that was in San Francisco with my sister. No, I lived with this nurse friend.

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Then I got a room in a house with two girls that I met. One worked at the BX out at Thunderbird Field. And then how did you contact somebody to obtain flying lessons? Well, I worked in a hangar as a supply clerk in this hangar.

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And the cadets had to sit on a bench in front of the hangar. And I had to pass by these cadets. And there was one that was particularly good-looking, and we weren't allowed to talk to them.

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Well, they weren't allowed to talk to us, really. So a mechanic on the airplane brought me a note from this cadet. And then I sent a note back to the cadet. And we met in the Westward Ho at a cadet party.

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And we started dating, and that was my future husband. But he was crazy about flying, and he was a good natural pilot. His instructor took me up. And I couldn't log the hours, but I could fly with him.

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And he was going to give me instruction until I found out about this Yarrington, because he wouldn't have been able to give me much time. I wouldn't have been able to get my time in. So that's why I left for Yarrington.

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But it was all because, I'm sure, of Jim's love of flying that I got really hooked on flying more. And at what stage was he, primary, basic, or--? Primary.

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Primary training. Then he came back to Luke. He went to Pecos, Texas, was it? Yeah. For secondary.

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And then for advanced, he came back to Luke Air Force Base, flying AT-6s and P-40s. What was the first airplane that you went up in when you began to take flying lessons? Well, the first flight I ever had was an Air Coupe down in Thunderbird. Somebody flew in, one of our customers, in this Air Coupe, and he gave me a ride in that.

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But as far as flying, it was Arroncas up in Yarrington. That was my first airplane. Do you recall your solo? Yes, I remember it very clearly.

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They cut off my shirt, the tail of my shirt. And then my next big solo was in the Wasp when I was thrown into the wishing well. Okay. Once you started learning to fly, was this before you had heard of the Wasp training program?

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About the same time. Okay. Yeah. And you had--

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I had already had the ride in the Air Coupe, and I was dating Jim, and I was pretty enthused about flying. And then I heard about the Wasp. He had gone overseas by then.

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Okay. So you kept working in the hangar and flying on the side? Just a little bit. I left for Yarrington immediately, really.

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How far was Arrington from where you were? Yarrington was up near Reno. Okay. And why did you decide to go up there?

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Because I could get my flying time in so much faster. It was a special school that my mother found out about. A man who had the auto dealership in Reno had this--owned this school, and he had a lot of the future Wasp in this class.

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So there were quite a few of us there. There were maybe a dozen of us in Yarrington and Carson City, and we got our flying time in fast. That was why.

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I couldn't go to California because there was no private flying in California. But that was not part of the CPT program. No. You paid for your own time.

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Yes, I paid. Okay. Was this after you had been interviewed? Yes.

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Okay. Let's go back to the interview. Yeah. I had seen this picture on the front of Life magazine,

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and I wrote to Jacqueline Cochran after--if they ever would lower the age to below 21, because I was only 18 and a half, and she sent me a telegram. I have the telegram that they have lowered the age to 18 and a half, that very minute practically,

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and that I could get my interview the next day at the Westward Ho in Phoenix with Maxine Howard, the famous racing pilot. And she interviewed me. I didn't have any log time, but she said, "As soon as you get your 35 hours' time,

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have your instructor send me a telegram," which I did. That's why I dashed up to Yarrington. And he sent the telegram. She wired back--Jacqueline Cochran--wired back saying,

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"You're assigned to class so-and-so in February, next February." So I stayed in Reno and worked as a mechanic on C-47s out at Reno Air Base. Didn't know what I was doing, but they put me in instrument repair. You had to take tests, as I recall, and I passed the tests, and I was put in that.

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And I kept saying, "But you shouldn't waste your time with me. I'm leaving for the WASP." So they did finally say, "Yeah, maybe you'd better come back from--." They sent me to school down in Sacramento for, I think, a month.

00:33:00.000 - 00:33:14.000

It rained all the time I was there, too. But then I said, "I'm leaving for the WASP in another month." So I left for Reno. When you were being interviewed, were there other girls being interviewed the same day?

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I guess. I didn't meet any of them. I didn't see any of them. I was wrapped up in Maxine. Do you recall what she told you about the program and what was expected

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and what they were planning to do with you if you got through the program? Yes, she told me that I could be a ferry pilot or an instructor or a test pilot. She told me about Sweetwater, how we would have marching, and we'd have ground school and Morse code and learn about engines.

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Everything sounded wonderful. When you were up in Reno, where did you live? Right in Reno, my mother's home. I lived with my mother.

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Okay. And then eventually you got another telegram. Did you have to take a physical? Oh, yes. I went out to Reno Army Air Base and had a physical.

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Was that an unusual experience? Yes, it was. Tell me about it. I don't know if you want to hear it.

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I'd never had a pelvic exam, and they made me have a pelvic. And I just about died. I felt I'd been raped when I walked out of that hospital, but I guess they had to. But no, I passed with flying colors in Reno.

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I didn't have any problems. Did you also have to take a written examination, do you recall? No. Okay.

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I had to have the 35 hours and the student pilot license, but I didn't have to have a private license. The original ones had to have a commercial and 500 hours, but it got down to 35 hours. They wanted us to learn the Army way to fly anyway.

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They weren't too interested in our experience by then. Okay. Then when you got the telegram to report, how did you get from Reno down to Sweetwater? I took a train down to L.A. and stayed over a couple days

00:35:20.000 - 00:35:40.000

with my uncle and aunt and my grandmother, and then I took the train to Sweetwater. Stayed at the Blue Bonnet Hotel, had a roommate there that I met, and she said, "I understand one of us will wash out." And I said, "I'm not going to be the one," but she was.

00:35:40.000 - 00:35:57.000

She was nice, a nice gal. But that was it, about 50/50 chance of making it. And do you recall how you got from the Blue Bonnet Hotel out to the airfield? They picked us up in the cattle truck,

00:35:57.000 - 00:36:12.000

but I remember the bellboy asking us if we wanted any booze. I remember that for some reason. We said, "No, thank you." We were only 18 1/2 years old.

00:36:12.000 - 00:36:30.000

We weren't about to have to have a bottle, but he was bootlegging. That's what I remember about that. And then once you got out to Avenger, take me through what happened as far as being assigned a room or where did you live?

00:36:30.000 - 00:36:44.000

We were put in this bay. I think there were eight of us to a bay. I can't remember. We were on cots, and we had an adjoining bathroom, shower, between us and the other bay.

00:36:44.000 - 00:37:04.000

We were there alphabetically. My name was Dietrich, so everybody I knew in the WASP training days was a D. My friend, she was Dager, and her husband later said, "Why are all you girls named D, have a D?"

00:37:04.000 - 00:37:16.000

But she washed up, too. How did that make you feel? Well, she had washed back. She had health problems.

00:37:16.000 - 00:37:29.000

She had washed back from 8 to 9 to W10, and then she washed out. It was mostly health problems. She later died of muscular sclerosis. She visited me here.

00:37:29.000 - 00:37:40.000

She couldn't climb my steps. She said, "Oh, my knees are bad." She wouldn't admit until a couple years later. She said, "Yeah, I knew I had MS back then."

00:37:40.000 - 00:38:00.000

But I stayed in contact with her all these years because she lived in Reno. She was a reporter. After she got washed out, she came to see me the minute I got to Reno. She came to Mother's house, and she was a reporter for the police department and the fire department.

00:38:00.000 - 00:38:25.000

I would go with her every night--well, not every night, but often. I thought that was fascinating. Then she later married the editor of the Reno Journal. Beverly, what was the biggest adjustment that you had to make while you were in training?

00:38:25.000 - 00:38:44.000

I guess having to take a shower with 15 other women, naked. In high school, I don't remember ever having--I remember showering, but I don't think we were quite that casual. But you learn not to be modest, I guess.

00:38:44.000 - 00:39:08.000

What was your understanding about the training for the girls versus the training for the male cadets? I think they were very equal. We had primary, basic, and advanced. Our class was the first one to go from PT-17's primary straight to an AT-6 for our cross countries,

00:39:08.000 - 00:39:26.000

and then to the BT-13 for our advanced, because that was for instruments. We were the first one, so it was hard on our class. Fifty percent of us washed out. It was difficult to go right to that.

00:39:26.000 - 00:39:39.000

But the rest of them did, too, after that. They went to AT-6's immediately. What were the eating facilities like? Oh, it was good. I thought food was great.

00:39:39.000 - 00:39:54.000

Now, my friend Kay Elliott, that was stationed at Waco after we graduated, she wouldn't eat. She ate--evidently, we must have had a BX that had hamburgers, because she lived on those hamburgers. She wouldn't eat.

00:39:54.000 - 00:40:09.000

But we did think Cochran probably owned a pig farm. We had pork all the time. It was every meal we felt we were having pork, so we got tired of it. What was the weather like when you were in training?

00:40:09.000 - 00:40:21.000

Did that interfere? Well, it wasn't too bad. It was a lot of sandy, blowing sand. And we had grasshoppers.

00:40:21.000 - 00:40:40.000

I remember we had to put our silk hose in jars to keep the grasshoppers out from eating our silk hose. But I have pictures of us sunbathing out between the two barracks. It wasn't bad. And flying in the cockpits, I don't remember being that cold.

00:40:40.000 - 00:40:53.000

Of course, October--no, February. February to October. So we really had more summer weather. Did it snow while you were there?

00:40:53.000 - 00:41:05.000

I don't remember. It must not have. And then as far as other things that you did, calisthenics, did you have to do calisthenics? Oh, yes.

00:41:05.000 - 00:41:22.000

We had to do pull-ups on bars. He was a good gym teacher. He was very tolerant of our inability to do a lot of this stuff. Good. Okay, we have to change tape.

00:41:22.000 - 00:41:29.000

Okay. End of tape one. Moving right along. I've heard some things I never heard before.

00:41:29.000 - 00:41:35.000

Really? Yeah, put those-- I didn't know about-- [microphone feedback]

00:41:35.000 - 00:41:51.000

Do you recall when you first arrived at Avenger, seeing all the airplanes, how did that make you feel? Oh, it was a thrill. As we drove up, before we went through the gate, we saw all the airplanes. And we couldn't believe how big they were.

00:41:51.000 - 00:42:01.000

PT-17 looked awfully big to us. Okay. Tell me about some of your bay mates. How were you different?

00:42:01.000 - 00:42:21.000

Well, Gertrude Dietz, Didi, she was from California. She had gone to the University of Arizona for a while, but she sold her books to buy something to drink with her boyfriend. So she flunked out of UA.

00:42:21.000 - 00:42:35.000

But she was a fun one. She nicknamed all of us. My nickname she gave me was "Brat" because I was so young. They were older than I was, so she called me--and I'm still to this day called "Brat,"

00:42:35.000 - 00:42:51.000

but everybody doesn't think that's why. They think I was probably a brat, and I probably was. Then she died of lung cancer. She was a veteran because she had graduated.

00:42:51.000 - 00:43:05.000

She was in California, and she got lung cancer from smoking. Way back in our WASP days, she smoked constantly. We all warned her, but she didn't listen. So she had lung cancer.

00:43:05.000 - 00:43:24.000

She had an operation with the Veterans Administration, giving two of the top thoracic UCLA surgeons operated on her lung. Two weeks later, she had to have the other one operated on, and she didn't live very long.

00:43:24.000 - 00:43:41.000

But she came to visit me many times here at the house. In fact, when my husband died of a heart attack, she called me and said, "Is there anything I can do?" And here she was, dying herself.

00:43:41.000 - 00:44:05.000

But she came on her last trip. She ran a camp for Hollywood movie star children up here in Foxboro and also in Hollywood. So her campers brought her here for her one last trip here. Then the other one was stationed at Waco.

00:44:05.000 - 00:44:27.000

She had been--that's Kay Elliott Thompson. She's now in a nursing apartment in Sacramento. She was our cadet squadron commander. She was tall, very straight, stature, spine up, and she had been a basketball player.

00:44:27.000 - 00:44:50.000

If you've seen the movie "League of Your Own," she was one of those. She went to Hawaii on basketball, professional--no, baseball. The other one was Kit Dooley. She was from Westchester County in New York, wealthy, electric man.

00:44:50.000 - 00:45:07.000

Her father had an electric company that wired a lot of the big hotels in New York City. When she got out, she worked for him. And she is still alive. She never comes to any of our wash reunions, but she was one of my pets.

00:45:07.000 - 00:45:36.000

I visited her when I got out of the service when we got--we were stationed together in South Carolina, Shawfield. I went with her by train up to New York and stayed with her for a couple weeks before I went home to Reno. But her father got us tickets for Christmas present to Oklahoma, the stage play "Oklahoma." I still hear from her all the time.

00:45:36.000 - 00:45:54.000

Let's see, Ann Bailey, she was down in Phoenix. She died down in Phoenix. She had been a waitress at a drugstore at Hollywood and Vine. And she saw Lana Turner and all those that were supposedly discovered there.

00:45:54.000 - 00:46:13.000

She was flying one time. We went down for the chamber tests, the air chamber tests down at San Antonio. And we were flying back, and this airplane was right behind me all the time. It was Ann. She said, "I knew you wouldn't get lost."

00:46:13.000 - 00:46:21.000

[Laughs] Little did she know it. [Laughs] But she was right on my tail all the way.

00:46:21.000 - 00:46:32.000

Let's see, who else? Peg Daly-Trigo, the one I said died of MS. She was one. Doris Booth is up in Modesto, California.

00:46:32.000 - 00:46:52.000

We're very close. She and her husband come to all the WASP reunions. Her parents own a huge ranch out of Modesto all the way to the foothills of the-- yeah, all the way almost to Reno.

00:46:52.000 - 00:47:11.000

It's a big, big ranch. She and her husband run the ranch. Her father has died. She and Dede and Kit and all of them worked for Air Traffic Control when they got out in Oakland.

00:47:11.000 - 00:47:28.000

They said they screwed up Oakland Air Control System. I didn't go with them. I didn't think I'd like that. In Reno, I got my instructor's reading, and I ferried airplanes, and I instructed horse.

00:47:28.000 - 00:47:44.000

Let me go back to Avenger and ask you about ground school. What subjects did you enjoy in ground school? I liked engines. For some reason, I thought learning about engines was very interesting.

00:47:44.000 - 00:48:04.000

I didn't like Morse code. That was difficult, I thought, but I passed it. I guess mainly engines. When you first arrived at Avenger, what were you issued as far as uniforms?

00:48:04.000 - 00:48:15.000

Zoot suits. I think that's all we had. And turbans. We had to wear turbans, white turbans to cover our hair.

00:48:15.000 - 00:48:36.000

But until we graduated, we really didn't have anything else. Now that I think about it, we had suntan pants and shirt. Can you recall your first solo flight in a PT-17? Oh, yes.

00:48:36.000 - 00:48:52.000

That was a real thrill. When I first flew with my instructor, Mr. Singleton, he said, "I like the way you take off." He said, "You don't just think about it. You push it and you take off." So I soloed quite early.

00:48:52.000 - 00:49:02.000

I wasn't afraid of the airplane. It was a good-flying airplane. I liked the PT-17. Easily ground looped, however.

00:49:02.000 - 00:49:19.000

I didn't, but... How was your schedule arranged during the day as far as ground school and flying? Sometimes we had ground school in the morning and we flew in the afternoon or night. And then other times it would be vice versa.

00:49:19.000 - 00:49:41.000

Did anything unusual happen to you while you were in the PT-17? When I first arrived, an 86 augered in. One of the WASPs flew. She was landing, as I recall, and something happened to the airplane.

00:49:41.000 - 00:49:51.000

It wasn't her fault. That was rather traumatic for all of us. Did they give you some time off? No.

00:49:51.000 - 00:50:02.000

We didn't know her. She was another class. But that was kind of a shock to hear that. But it couldn't happen to us.

00:50:02.000 - 00:50:19.000

And then Ty Hughes. She was in the bay next to me. Her husband was lost over the CBI theater. We walked out in the desert together the night she heard about it.

00:50:19.000 - 00:50:30.000

That was tragic, too. It made you feel quite mortal. But then she got through that. Oh, yes, she graduated.

00:50:30.000 - 00:50:43.000

I think she was maybe the squadron commander and Kay was her helper. I can't remember. But she wrote all our songs and did all our plays. She was very talented.

00:50:43.000 - 00:50:58.000

She had been a pre-med student at U of A. And where did you sing these songs? Oh, at the Fifanella Club on Saturday nights or as we were marching we'd sing these songs.

00:50:58.000 - 00:51:09.000

Do you recall the names of some of those songs? I can't remember them. We've got them all, though. I've got them somewhere.

00:51:09.000 - 00:51:21.000

I just thought maybe you wanted to sing a song. Oh, no, not me. I can't carry a tune. When you finished the PT-17s, did you have some time off?

00:51:21.000 - 00:51:38.000

I think that may be when we went to Lake Angelo or to San Antonio-- no, not Midland, Big Springs. We went there for a weekend at the Adolphus Hotel. Did you have a car?

00:51:38.000 - 00:51:51.000

No, Doris Booth had a car, though, the one that had the big ranch. We were just--no, she didn't. She didn't bring her car, and we were furious with her. We said, "You own a car and you didn't bring it?"

00:51:51.000 - 00:52:06.000

And she said, "Well, I didn't know if I should." But Arlene Baker had a car. So when we got out of training, graduated, we were allowed two weeks off, and I was on my way to Reno.

00:52:06.000 - 00:52:24.000

So Arlene took a bunch of us to California in her car, and then I guess I must have taken a train to Reno. Okay. When you went on to instruments, for example, how did you enjoy instruments?

00:52:24.000 - 00:52:44.000

I liked it very much. Kit had trouble with instruments because she kept peeking through a hole in the floor of the airplane. And then also Arlene had been a Link trainer instructor, and she would take Kit at night and give her classes to get her through instruments.

00:52:44.000 - 00:53:03.000

Kit had a hard time, but I think Arlene finally cured her of trying to peek. But no, I liked instruments. My one problem, the day I was going to take my instrument exam, a checkride, as I was walking to the airplane,

00:53:03.000 - 00:53:20.000

I had this letter from my mother telling me that my friend had died, had crashed. And so it was kind of a haze going through that instrument checkride, but I passed, so I guess it was all right. But that was a shocker.

00:53:20.000 - 00:53:34.000

Was there ever a time when you were in flight training that you were really afraid? No. I was too young to be afraid. No, I don't think I ever was scared of anything.

00:53:34.000 - 00:53:46.000

I felt immortal. Couldn't happen to me. No, I can't remember ever being scared. Even when you were in training,

00:53:46.000 - 00:54:02.000

were you aware of what some of the WASPs were doing who had graduated? Oh, yes. They came for instrument, advanced instrument. And when I was on OD at night and check them in,

00:54:02.000 - 00:54:17.000

I met several of them and talked to them a lot about what they had been doing. A lot of them were ferrying, but they were taking this Brian instrument course at Sweetwater. Then when you went into advanced and had cross countries,

00:54:17.000 - 00:54:36.000

tell me about one of your cross country trips. We were in AT6s, and we flew to Yuma, where Annabel Earp, a WASP, granddaughter or great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp, met us.

00:54:36.000 - 00:54:58.000

And she took us to the hotel or wherever we stayed. But on our way, what I remember most was going over rodeo. And we all said, "Rodeo, radio, hi-dee-ho, ho-dee-ho," or something like that, and drove the controllers furious.

00:54:58.000 - 00:55:07.000

But I think there were probably a dozen of us did that. We cooked that up. That's all I remember about that. Oh, but we did stay in Tucson.

00:55:07.000 - 00:55:17.000

I remember being in Tucson. And one fellow I had dated was there, so I went to the Arizona Inn. So did you stay an extra day?

00:55:17.000 - 00:55:24.000

What? So did you stay an extra day? No, no, we weren't allowed to. Business.

00:55:24.000 - 00:55:47.000

Were you ever in a position where you were a position uncertain, maybe not lost but a little bit confused where you were? Not in Sweetwater, but later with Jean Rose. We were flying to Canada during February vacation from Berkeley.

00:55:47.000 - 00:56:03.000

She came from L.A. and she stayed overnight with me, and then we flew to Canada, to Victoria and Vancouver. Halfway there, we were lost. We didn't know where we were.

00:56:03.000 - 00:56:16.000

So we landed and we dashed to the pay telephone to see what the name of the town was, and this man at the airport said, "You're lost, aren't you?" [laughs] We didn't want to admit it.

00:56:16.000 - 00:56:30.000

But that's about the only time. Do you recall any outstanding instructor at Sweetwater that you had? Yes, this Mr. Singleton. I fell madly in love with him.

00:56:30.000 - 00:56:41.000

Oh, okay. But the rules said-- And he asked me out on a date, and I said no. Well, in fact, Kit was the one.

00:56:41.000 - 00:56:54.000

She said, "Beth, are you sure you should do this?" We were at the movie theater in town, and she said, "You know, you could jeopardize." And so I didn't. I said no, thanks.

00:56:54.000 - 00:57:15.000

So we took another one of his students out to the park with two other instructors and students, and they were busted by the police. Luckily, they didn't get kicked out, but he was reprimanded strongly for dating. But he wasn't fired or anything.

00:57:15.000 - 00:57:27.000

But the Wasp were confined to base for the rest of their stay in Sweetwater. I remember her name, too. I thought, "Oh, I'm glad I--" She had pull.

00:57:27.000 - 00:57:46.000

She was a famous flying family, so she had pull. And Jacqueline Cochran interviewed for her not to be kicked out, but to just have to be confined to the base. But I didn't have any pull, so I would have been dead in the water.

00:57:46.000 - 00:58:07.000

Before graduation, did they give you a choice of assignments for where you would be stationed after graduation? What did you choose? The four of us were great buddies, but mainly Kit Dooley and Dede and I.

00:58:07.000 - 00:58:25.000

And we asked to be stationed together. To this day, I'm sorry I didn't ask for someplace I could fly a P-51, but I'm not sure that I would have ever got to fly a P-51. But I should have asked for a base just for the chance.

00:58:25.000 - 00:58:42.000

So we asked to be stationed together, and Kit Dooley, the one from New York, and I were stationed together in South Carolina. Dede went to Mitterfield, Bakersfield, California, and Kay went to Waco. Tell me about your graduation.

00:58:42.000 - 00:58:51.000

Did you have new uniforms by that time? Yes, we had uniforms. We were issued uniforms. How did you feel in that uniform? Oh, marvelous.

00:58:51.000 - 00:59:14.000

We had our pictures taken by a photography studio in helmets, of course, but mainly in our uniform. And then Dede's mother came from California, from L.A., to pin wings on us. My mother couldn't come because she had a business in Reno,

00:59:14.000 - 00:59:31.000

but this was the only mother, so she pinned all the wings on us, and I have a picture of her doing this. Did some celebrities or generals come for the graduation? Ellen Cochran was there, Hap Arnold was there,

00:59:31.000 - 00:59:46.000

and Jacqueline pinned our wings on us, I recall--handed us our wings. And then did you have some time off? Yes, we had the two weeks. Then I went to Reno, and then I took--

00:59:46.000 - 01:00:06.000

After I stayed at Mother's, I--oh, I know. Arlene Baker let me off in Phoenix, and a fellow that I had been dating drove me up to Reno and stayed with Mother for a couple days.

01:00:06.000 - 01:00:26.000

Then I took the train all the way across to South Carolina, and on the train were some A-26 pilots just fresh from the South Pacific, and we had the best time all the way across the United States. Were you the only WASP having a good time?

01:00:26.000 - 01:00:36.000

Mm-hmm. And then you went to what, Shawfield? Yeah. When you arrived at Shaw, to whom did you report?

01:00:36.000 - 01:00:49.000

Operations officer. Okay, and where did you live? We lived in the barracks upstairs above the WAC officers, with whom we did not get along because they thought we were wild

01:00:49.000 - 01:01:03.000

and partied too much, and they tried to boss us, and we wouldn't be bossed because they had no authority over us whatsoever. And they had a-- [phone rings]

01:01:03.000 - 01:01:11.000

Uh-oh. Let me get WACs, and you're not getting along with WACs. Oh, that's right. But they--this one, what was her name?

01:01:11.000 - 01:01:32.000

Eileen, I think. She was from Connecticut, and they had a fire drill in the middle of the night, and we didn't--she didn't come down, and they really were furious with her, and she said, "I sleep in the nude, and if you wanted me to come down in a hurry,

01:01:32.000 - 01:01:46.000

you would have been embarrassed, so I didn't come down." But we were a little defiant. We didn't--and so we never went in the WACs. If they tried to recruit us when we got out of the WASP,

01:01:46.000 - 01:01:55.000

not one of us would consider the WACs. What was the mission of Shaw Air Force Base? Basic. Basic training?

01:01:55.000 - 01:02:03.000

Basic training. Okay. And what was your particular assignment? I was test pilot, engineering test pilot on the BTs,

01:02:03.000 - 01:02:21.000

and there's another incident. The woman I replaced had just been killed in BT. She--it had been written up as having the left wing rode low, and it was written up by instructors, and they said, "Oh, it's fixed."

01:02:21.000 - 01:02:38.000

And she said, "No, it's still low," but they said, "Go fly it again." So she did, and she spun in on base leg because of the darn wind low. So I replaced her. That wasn't too happy either.

01:02:38.000 - 01:02:44.000

Do you recall her name? It's in the book. Okay. It's in the roster.

01:02:44.000 - 01:03:00.000

As an engineering test pilot, explain what you would do. We would fly the airplane when it had been repaired and before a cadet, a male cadet, was allowed to fly it. We'd fly it and okay it.

01:03:00.000 - 01:03:20.000

Also, I did some ferry work. I flew--we changed from BT-13s to AT-6s. So we flew all of the BTs out to Tennessee in Maxwell Field, Alabama, and brought back in the AT-6s.

01:03:20.000 - 01:03:45.000

That was the job of most of us, Pat Pateman and Bobby--Bobby--and Elaine. But who else? Pat Pateman had been in the Ferry Command, and then she came down and did mostly ferrying. Did anything unusual happen while you were there?

01:03:45.000 - 01:04:01.000

No, no accidents, to speak of. We did have--one of the WASPs was a good friend of Pat Pateman's, Bobby Wakeham. She was still in the Ferry Command. I can't think of her name.

01:04:01.000 - 01:04:22.000

She was rather famous. She came in in a P-47, and all the instructors, the male instructors, ran out to the flight line to see this P-47 because we were only trainers. And she got out of that airplane, all the male instructors turned around and walked away.

01:04:22.000 - 01:04:40.000

They were furious to see--think a woman got to fly a P-47. So that night we ordinarily went to the Officer's Club and had dinner and stayed afterward and talked to the pilots and had a good time. That night we wouldn't even go to the Officer's Club.

01:04:40.000 - 01:04:58.000

We'd all dine in the meter, but we wouldn't. We sat up in our rooms and partied up there. I wonder if Pat remembers that. When you were at Shaw, how did you hear that the WASPs were going to be disbanded,

01:04:58.000 - 01:05:11.000

and how did that make you feel? We knew it while we were still at Sweetwater. Before we graduated, we knew that it was folding. We were always sorry that we didn't lobby,

01:05:11.000 - 01:05:31.000

but we didn't realize what Cochran was going through. We were busy flying, and we didn't have any idea that she was fighting so hard for us. So we weren't really involved, and we should have been. I think we might have saved our program.

01:05:31.000 - 01:05:50.000

When you were disbanded, did the air base do anything for you, special? I had had a ground accident. We were on the flight line watching somebody land, and this friend of mine had a little motor scooter.

01:05:50.000 - 01:06:05.000

I said, "Oh, let me drive it." He said, "No, the handlebar comes off, so I don't really think it's safe." I said, "Oh, I'll handle it." I didn't handle it. The handlebar came off.

01:06:05.000 - 01:06:23.000

I went scooting across the field and hit a ditch, and I flew. My face and arm and leg didn't break anything. But I ended up in the hospital for two weeks with a concussion. They wouldn't let me out until I could remember.

01:06:23.000 - 01:06:39.000

But he told me what happened. My friend did. So I could quote what happened, but I didn't really remember. I was my last physical in the hospital bed. Then when you were disbanded, where did you go?

01:06:39.000 - 01:06:54.000

I went to Reno. After I visited in New York, I took the train with Pat Papeman. I got off in Reno, and she went down to El Monte. We later all flew together down in El Monte.

01:06:54.000 - 01:07:17.000

After the WASP, we ferried general aircraft from O'Piper or a lot of Texas, Lescom, factory. We flew the small airplanes from the factories to El Monte for this man who had a flying business. Where is El Monte? Southern California.

01:07:17.000 - 01:07:40.000

How did you get that job, hear about that job? Do you recall? I was at Berkeley in college in June, summer vacation, visiting Dede, who was running a camp, this camp for the Hollywood people. My friend, Jean Parker Rose, called me and said, "Do you want a job, a ferry job?"

01:07:40.000 - 01:07:50.000

By this time I was in college. I wasn't flying very much. I said, "You bet." Which school? Berkeley, Cal Berkeley.

01:07:50.000 - 01:08:07.000

What were you going to study? That was international economics that I was studying. Then I went down to El Monte, and I flew these airplanes all summer. Then in the fall, did you go back to school?

01:08:07.000 - 01:08:22.000

Oh, yeah, then I went back to school. I got through Berkeley in three years and four months. After that, I went to summer school all the time because I was in a hurry. I had to keep living.

01:08:22.000 - 01:08:41.000

What was your social life like in college? Oh, I was in engineering the first year, and we used to go down to the Leilani Bar and do a lot of our studying. It was difficult. Chemistry, college chemistry, college calculus.

01:08:41.000 - 01:09:06.000

It was a difficult class. Wasn't that an unusual route for a girl to take to go into engineering? Yes. Out of 2,000, there were only two women and the instructors. The professors really didn't want us there, and they discouraged our hopes of being engineers.

01:09:06.000 - 01:09:27.000

I probably should have stuck with it. My brother said that up at the University of Nevada, an engineering degree there was about the equivalent of my one year at Berkeley. Berkeley was a tough engineering school. I could have made it.

01:09:27.000 - 01:09:46.000

I said, "Well, I wasn't that great in math, and it scared me." He said, "From then on, you would have used the back of the book for the tables. You wouldn't have had the worry." When you graduated from there, what were your plans? What did you want to do?

01:09:46.000 - 01:10:02.000

See the world. It was international economics and foreign trade, and I wanted to travel. I wanted to see the world, so I took this job running Army service clubs over in Germany. I had five different jobs that I was offered.

01:10:02.000 - 01:10:31.000

One was foreign service. The librarian in our economics library said, "You ought to try for it. The exam is very difficult, but if you could get in foreign service, I think it would be a real good career." So I passed the test, and then they came through and interviewed me, the man from the State Department. He discouraged me. He said, "As a woman, you won't be anything but a file clerk."

01:10:31.000 - 01:10:55.000

I think he might have been a chauvinist, now that I look back. Probably was. He said, "You don't know where you're going to go until you come to Washington and take a six-weeks course, and you could go anywhere in the world, like Leopoldville, South Africa." I did it. I said, "Thanks. I won't take that one." The other one was a job working for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

01:10:55.000 - 01:11:18.000

It kind of interested me, because you got out your own car and you went up and down California comparing prices for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I had to take a test for that, too, as I recall. But then I really wanted to travel, so I took this job. Dede's mother told me about it, the one that pinned the wings on us. She told me about it.

01:11:18.000 - 01:11:46.000

I was visiting, I think in February, before I graduated in June. She said, "You know, they're interviewing for service clubs down in L.A., and I'll take you down, and you could have an interview." Dede couldn't, because she hadn't graduated. She hadn't had to have a degree, so Dede couldn't apply. I went down for my interview, and it was accepted, so I went over to Germany.

01:11:46.000 - 01:12:10.000

Did you know anyone else that was going over? No. I met a girl on the subway on my way out to Port, where we were going. We had to all be collected there. This girl came up. I had my uniform on.

01:12:10.000 - 01:12:28.000

Evidently, they gave us money for the uniform, or they mailed them to us, but anyway, I had the uniform on. She came up to me, and she said, "Are you Special Services? Are you going to Germany?" I said, "Yes." We'd become the best of friends. We were stationed rather near one another in Germany.

01:12:28.000 - 01:12:49.000

We traveled all over Europe, because she bought a car. We went to Norway. We went to Paris and saw De Gaulle. We went everywhere together. I'm going to Tanzania and Kenya in February with her. When you worked, what was your job?

01:12:49.000 - 01:13:13.000

I ran the service club. It's like the USO, but it's a service club for GIs. It was in a big, what they call a Stadthall. It's a big opera house in Heidelberg. We lived across the Necker River. Thirteen of us lived in the house with librarians. We ran this service club. I had bingo and square dancing.

01:13:13.000 - 01:13:29.000

It was not on an air base? No. It was downtown Heidelberg. How long did you do this? Three years. First, I was in Heidelberg for a year and a half. No, two years.

01:13:29.000 - 01:13:42.000

Then I came home on vacation. When I came back, I transferred to Garmisch, which is a very nice resort area. I was very lucky there. I ran the service club there. In Germany?

01:13:42.000 - 01:14:02.000

In Germany. I had run into Jim, my future husband, over there. The cute cadet. The cute cadet. I ran into him my first weekend off from Heidelberg. We went down to Garmisch, four of us girls. He was there in the officers club, and I recognized him.

01:14:02.000 - 01:14:18.000

We dated quite a while before we were married. I came home after a year on my second contract to get married. Then had he been restationed in the States? Yes. He was in San Bernardino.

01:14:18.000 - 01:14:37.000

Tell me about your wedding. I was married in Arcadia, California, living with my aunt. Let's see. That was 1952. I had just come back from Germany, and I hadn't decided I wanted to get married,

01:14:37.000 - 01:14:54.000

but I thought, "I better, better," because he was a real— He's not going to last too long. No, I might lose him. I came back from Germany to marry him, and I hadn't decided when.

01:14:54.000 - 01:15:13.000

Jean Rose and I were flying. We flew somewhere in her airplane. On the way back over Santa Monica, I said, "I'm going to do it," and two weeks later we were married. We had a big party at my aunt's house. Was your wedding a formal wedding?

01:15:13.000 - 01:15:27.000

No, it was justice and peace. Had you met his family? No. They lived in Oklahoma. On our way from San Bernardino to Maxwell Field for him to go to command and staff school,

01:15:27.000 - 01:15:41.000

six weeks after we were married, we stopped over, and I met them. They were lovely, lovely people. When you got to Maxwell, where did you live? We lived in a house.

01:15:41.000 - 01:16:13.000

It was heavily segregated, and I was awfully tempted to sit in the back of the bus with the blacks, but I thought, "No, it wouldn't help my husband's career if I did something like this." But years later Rosa Parks did it, but I was sort of gassed at that. Did you have a lot of interaction with other nationalities when you were growing up, with blacks or Chinese?

01:16:13.000 - 01:16:31.000

Yes. A girl that I—one of my best friends was half Negro in Kedah, in this little town. They owned the dairy farm. Her father was black and her mother was white. The grandfather was black, and a good friend of my grandfather's.

01:16:31.000 - 01:16:47.000

They were best of friends, and I would stay overnight with her. Some of the kids in town would say, "Does it rub off?" I would be furious, so I had no racial prejudice in that little town, ordinarily. But some people in your town did.

01:16:47.000 - 01:16:57.000

Young kids. When he finished command and staff college, what was that, about a year? No, six months. Then where was his station?

01:16:57.000 - 01:17:08.000

Then we went back to San Bernardino. What was his job when he got back to San Bernardino? He was pilot mainly, and also communications officer. He ran the communications system.

01:17:08.000 - 01:17:21.000

Did you live on the air base? Not in San Bernardino. We bought a house. What did you do when he was busy flying or doing his job? How did you spend your time?

01:17:21.000 - 01:17:36.000

I don't remember. He had a job for me when I first got back from Germany with his friend who was personnel officer. He said, "Oh, I've got it. It's a GS-13 or something." I said, "I don't want to work. I want to have kids."

01:17:36.000 - 01:17:51.000

It was quite a shock to him. He thought I was going to be working. I didn't work for the whole 27 years, other than running the service club up at Elmendorf in Anchorage for a year.

01:17:51.000 - 01:18:04.000

Other than that, I didn't work. Let me get you from California. What was his next station? Then he went to the University of Syracuse. We flew there in an Air Force airplane because I had put my uniform on.

01:18:04.000 - 01:18:18.000

I was in the reserves. When I was at Berkeley, I went over to Hamilton Field and enlisted as a first lieutenant based on my WASP training. I took correspondence courses.

01:18:18.000 - 01:18:31.000

I went for ten years. I took courses. I went on active duty two weeks out of the year. Then when they found out I had two children, they wouldn't let me stay in.

01:18:31.000 - 01:18:46.000

When you went on active duty, was it at an Air Force base? Yes, in San Bernardino and at Davis-Monthan. What would usually be your duties? Intelligence officer.

01:18:46.000 - 01:18:57.000

When he went to Syracuse, then you went with him. Yes, and I audited all his classes. I enjoyed it. I liked college. How long did you stay there then?

01:18:57.000 - 01:19:12.000

Six months, I think. He was going on bootstrap where the Air Force said, "If you've got enough hours." He had some college before he went in the Air Force, so he was able to finish in six months and get his degree.

01:19:12.000 - 01:19:29.000

Then where were you stationed? Alaska. He got Alaska orders. We had just bought a little Thunderbird, a '55 Thunderbird. We had gone to Niagara Falls to pick it up at the factory.

01:19:29.000 - 01:19:44.000

When he got his orders, he said, "Oh, I can't take you." No dependents. "And I can't take my car." He was crushed more about the car than the fact that I couldn't.

01:19:44.000 - 01:20:01.000

So I drove the car. We drove the car from Syracuse back to San Bernardino. Then he had to fly up to Anchorage. He ran an AC&W site 150 miles out of Anchorage, only by air, the only way in.

01:20:01.000 - 01:20:20.000

He always would try to get me a job. He got me a job running a service club up at Elmendorf. I drove to Seattle and shipped the car to Anchorage. How long were you up there?

01:20:20.000 - 01:20:35.000

Up there a year. Then where did you go? Then we went back to Germany, near Stuttgart. He was the exec officer for the AC&W site there.

01:20:35.000 - 01:20:49.000

Did you get involved in Officers' Wives Club as you traveled on these different assignments? Somewhat. I went to the meetings, but I never was an officer. I wasn't interested in that.

01:20:49.000 - 01:21:02.000

While you were in Germany that time, did you do a lot of traveling again? Yes. When he finished that tour, where was he assigned? University of Arizona.

01:21:02.000 - 01:21:13.000

We were there for five years. He was commandant of cadets in the ROTC. We lived up in Sabino Canyon. We had our house built up there.

01:21:13.000 - 01:21:29.000

Then at the end of that five years— Then we went to Malibu and lived there for a year. He was building a boat. Went to Alabama, Huntsville, Alabama.

01:21:29.000 - 01:21:52.000

My brother was working for NASA in Alabama, and he got him. Jim had retired after the U of A. He went to Huntsville, and I stayed home and sold the boat. Then I drove with my two kids all the way to Huntsville, Alabama, from Malibu.

01:21:52.000 - 01:22:08.000

Then he went to Thailand. I followed him to Thailand a few months later with my mother and two kids. Flew to Bangkok. He had an apartment for us by then, but he was stationed up on the Mekong River,

01:22:08.000 - 01:22:26.000

so I only saw him once a month. Which, in Alaska, I only saw him once a month, too, when he came in for his flying time. But we talked on the WATS line. Let's change tapes, because now I want to go back and find out how you got those kids.

01:22:26.000 - 01:22:42.000

I want to find out—when you were in Thailand, was that Air Force? Well, no. It was Sperry Rand, working on an Air Force contract. I got you. So how are you doing?

01:22:42.000 - 01:23:03.000

Fine. Fine. We're rolling. He went over with this group from Sperry Rand out of Salt Lake City. They flew debonairs, beachcraft debonairs, radio-controlled, supposedly, under an Air Force contract.

01:23:03.000 - 01:23:21.000

However, the Air Force was leery of putting the airplanes up without somebody in it, because they had all this expensive equipment. They were flying over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, dropping sensors, and then they would pick up all the sounds of the trucks and everything.

01:23:21.000 - 01:23:37.000

So the Air Force insisted on putting a pilot in it. Then they had to have safety equipment and armor, so they couldn't go as high as they had the 30,000 they should have gone. So it really was not a great success.

01:23:37.000 - 01:24:01.000

But he was in charge of it, and he was stationed up 150 miles. I flew up there on airlines one time, and we stayed in a hotel, and we went out to a carnival. And everybody had these black pajamas on, and I said, "Who are they?" And he said, "Oh, those are the Viet Cong. They come over the Mekong for their R&R."

01:24:01.000 - 01:24:19.000

I felt like I was going to be stabbed in the back. As it turned out, one of the tech reps was stabbed and killed by one of the thieves. He wasn't a Viet Cong. When he came back to the hotel room, he was a big man, and he kind of filled the doorway.

01:24:19.000 - 01:24:35.000

And the thief stabbed him to get out. So it was dangerous. Tell me about your first child. Where were you? We were stationed in Germany. That's why we went from Alaska. It was easier to adopt over in Germany. I couldn't have children.

01:24:35.000 - 01:24:54.000

So we went back just so we could adopt a child. And he was born--when we were in Han Air Force Base, which is above Ramstein, he was born very near Ramstein, and he was all German. And I heard about him from our German landlord.

01:24:54.000 - 01:25:13.000

He was off base, and a sergeant's wife helped find him. He was a newborn. And then we brought him back. He was born in '58, and Mother and my aunt came to visit.

01:25:13.000 - 01:25:33.000

We had a German maid who took care of him while we took Mother and Aunt Laura down to the opening of the door, the holy door, the Pope's holy door opening on Easter. But we brought him-- What year was that, Beverly?

01:25:33.000 - 01:25:57.000

1958, '59. And then we came back in '59 to--that's when we came to Davis-Monthan. No. Yeah, Davis-Monthan. And then he lives here. He lives about two miles from here in Sedona.

01:25:57.000 - 01:26:18.000

He has a painting and contracting business. Just removed all my big old weeds, trees, and now he's going to give me a new roof. And then you got a second child. Then we were stationed in Tucson.

01:26:18.000 - 01:26:39.000

We went through--this was what they call--adopting him over in Germany was what they call the child welfare, the Jungenamt. And we had quite a fight--not a fight--problem with getting a boy baby out of Germany. This was still Hitler people.

01:26:39.000 - 01:27:07.000

The man that ran the welfare didn't want to lose boy babies out of Germany. He had great hopes for future rising, I guess. So we had to really talk, and the obstetrician who had delivered him spoke for us and said, "He'll be adopted by a family, a farmer, and he'll be a farmer boy as slave laborer."

01:27:07.000 - 01:27:21.000

And talked the man into finally signing the papers and let us take him. So we brought him home, and he was naturalized. I think it took two years. We had to go before Judge Castro to have him naturalized.

01:27:21.000 - 01:27:47.000

But then Leslie, our daughter, was born up in Flagstaff, and we had put into the welfare. We had interviews down in Tucson, and we got her quite easily because we had already adopted. And Jim's sister had adopted a child, and my brother had adopted a child. So it was quite easy.

01:27:47.000 - 01:28:08.000

And they happened to be doing one of our house visits when Jim's parents came from Oklahoma and had the daughter and the adopted child, and that helped with our home visits. So we got her within, I think, two months we were able to get her. We drove up to Flagstaff and got her.

01:28:08.000 - 01:28:23.000

But the reason we adopted her was he was four years old, and he said, "I want a sister or a brother. Why can't I have a brother or sister?" So that's when we applied. And he kept saying--when we went to pick her up in the hotel,

01:28:23.000 - 01:28:35.000

the case officer was talking to us and meeting us and everything. He kept saying, "Let's go, let's go, let's go." And I said, "Why are you in such a hurry?" He said, "I'm afraid she's going to change her mind."

01:28:35.000 - 01:28:47.000

It was cute. He was four and a half. Are they very close? Yeah. She's down in Glendale in Phoenix. I'm going--they're coming up--she and her family.

01:28:47.000 - 01:29:06.000

She has two children, and they're coming up for Christmas. They come up every Christmas. Why did you and your husband decide to retire in Arizona? Well, we were living in Morro Bay where he was building another boat, and it was foggy.

01:29:06.000 - 01:29:26.000

And he had arthritis in his back, and he was hurting. So he said, "Let's go back to Arizona where it's sunny." And I said, "Well, I don't want Tucson. It's too hot." But I had heard--I had seen Sedona on that flight to Colorado Springs

01:29:26.000 - 01:29:41.000

and had seen Sedona from the air in our small airplane. So I said, "Let's try Sedona." And we've been here 22 years--23. 1978 we moved here when we came back from Thailand.

01:29:41.000 - 01:30:08.000

And now with you here by yourself, how do you spend your time? Well, I just retired from the real estate business after 20 years here. I worked as--I was manager, and I retired Christmas last year. And I have--well, I'm semi-retired.

01:30:08.000 - 01:30:22.000

I'm a broker for a referral company for realty execs. We have--just take--we refer people. We don't list and sell anymore. I got tired of listing and selling after all those years.

01:30:22.000 - 01:30:36.000

So when I retired, this broker from realty execs approached me with that. So I really don't do anything much. I just sign papers. But I'm active, and I get a percentage.

01:30:36.000 - 01:30:55.000

Do you do any volunteer-type work? Yes. I applied to work at the Humane Society thrift store down here. And I'm going to start in January, I think, after my--well, maybe February,

01:30:55.000 - 01:31:14.000

after my trip to Tanzania. And I belong to the Women's Guild in the Catholic Church. I'm very active in the Air Force Association. And I'm active in that investment club.

01:31:14.000 - 01:31:24.000

Oh, and the 99s, the Women 99s. I'm active in that. But as far as flying, is that all behind you now? Well, not really.

01:31:24.000 - 01:31:42.000

I fly with the other 99s. Out of the 12 of us, five of them have airplanes, they and their husbands mainly. And I fly with them. We've flown up to Grand Canyon Airport for breakfast or to a museum.

01:31:42.000 - 01:31:56.000

This other couple, I've flown with them down to Deer Valley Airport just for breakfast with the group. And we fly to Prescott. We'll have a Christmas party in Prescott, and some of us will fly there.

01:31:56.000 - 01:32:08.000

We've flown to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fest. But I don't fly, and Nell doesn't either. We just fly along. Good.

01:32:08.000 - 01:32:23.000

Of all the things that you have done in your whole life, aside from adopting those two children, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? Being a Wasp, I would say.

01:32:23.000 - 01:32:38.000

And having a happy marriage. I think that is an accomplishment too. We were married 35 years before he died. And this friend of mine wrote this wonderful note to me saying,

01:32:38.000 - 01:32:51.000

"So few people have a happy marriage. You were very fortunate." So he knew Jim very well. Speaking about Jim, in your life you've had good times

01:32:51.000 - 01:33:02.000

and perhaps some bad times and happy times, and certainly that must have been a sad time. What got you through the sad times? Working.

01:33:02.000 - 01:33:18.000

We were visiting his mother, who was dying of cancer in Oklahoma, and he had the heart attack sitting on the bed next to her. And we got almost to Amarillo in the ambulance when he had another attack and he died.

01:33:18.000 - 01:33:35.000

And Brad and his wife came, and Leslie. She wasn't--yeah, she was married. And they came and flew in for the funeral. We had a full-honors funeral in his hometown.

01:33:35.000 - 01:33:50.000

He's buried next to his parents. And then we drove back here, and I went to work that very next weekend and sold a house. And people that I sold to had no idea what I had just--

01:33:50.000 - 01:34:03.000

they wondered why everybody was hugging me when they see me at the clubhouse or something, but I never told them. But I think work--it kept me busy, kept my mind off it.

01:34:03.000 - 01:34:19.000

I didn't dwell on it. I deliberately didn't dwell on it. What is your personal opinion of Jacqueline Cochran and the WASP that she created? Oh, I adore her.

01:34:19.000 - 01:34:34.000

She is my--oh, she was my idol. She could do no wrong, and nobody says anything against Jacqueline Cochran to me. When we were in Reno at the 1975 reunion,

01:34:34.000 - 01:34:47.000

a couple of the WASPs were very rude and talked against her, and she left. She and her husband were in the elevator, Floyd Odom, and I left. I was furious.

01:34:47.000 - 01:35:02.000

And I got in the elevator with her, and I apologized. She was furious. They were Nancy Love. In fact, it was Nancy Cruz was her name, the one that said it.

01:35:02.000 - 01:35:17.000

And she was a friend of Gene Parker, and I had met her, but I never liked her after that. What do you feel that the legacy of the WASP will be? Women are capable pilots.

01:35:17.000 - 01:35:31.000

They can fly. They can do just about anything that they have a mind to. If they want to drive a tank, I am all for women in combat.

01:35:31.000 - 01:35:44.000

I wouldn't hesitate to have gone into combat. I read every book in the Shaw Field Library about the women Russian pilots, and I thought I would have done that.

01:35:44.000 - 01:35:59.000

If you could say something to children and future generations, your grandchildren or children that you will never see, that might encourage them to succeed or to follow their dreams,

01:35:59.000 - 01:36:13.000

what would you say to them to encourage them? Work hard. If you want something badly, and you're willing to work hard at it to get it,

01:36:13.000 - 01:36:29.000

you can have just about anything that you set your mind to. But you have to want it pretty badly. And you can do it. I didn't come from a wealthy family.

01:36:29.000 - 01:36:47.000

I worked my way through college, and you can do it. I worked in child care every afternoon. I arranged my schedules in the morning at college or afternoon, and then I was able to change my schedule at work.

01:36:47.000 - 01:36:59.000

But I worked all through college. Beverly, is there anything that I have left out or any story that you want to tell us or anything that you would like to say?

01:36:59.000 - 01:37:11.000

This is your opportunity. I think the story of my daughter. She was in fourth grade in Morro Bay, and I was a substitute teacher.

01:37:11.000 - 01:37:24.000

Jim had got me that job too. Well, I kind of talked him into it too. But he was retired, and I said, "To supplement your pension,

01:37:24.000 - 01:37:39.000

I think we ought to become schoolteachers." We both had degrees. So we applied, and I kept being called every morning, practically, it seemed to me, for substitute.

01:37:39.000 - 01:37:53.000

I wouldn't sleep all night dreading that 7 o'clock morning. And he never was called. So I was at a party, and the principal-- or it might have been the superintendent--

01:37:53.000 - 01:38:02.000

and we were talking about it, and I said, "I don't understand. I'm called all the time, and Jim is never called." He said, "It could be because on the application it said, 'Do you drink?'"

01:38:02.000 - 01:38:13.000

And he said, "Yes, whenever I can." [Laughs] So he never was--they said, "We got the idea." It had been my idea, and he didn't really--

01:38:13.000 - 01:38:25.000

he was building this boat. He didn't want to. But I was substituting in fourth grade, and the teacher and I became good friends. I was mainly fourth grade and eighth grade.

01:38:25.000 - 01:38:42.000

And she said, "One time I was talking about women pilots," and said, "Do you know there's somebody in my class whose mother was a pilot during World War II? Do you have any idea who it is?"

01:38:42.000 - 01:38:54.000

Leslie just sat there. She had no idea. We didn't talk about it then. We didn't mention. And she had no idea that I had-- and she said, "Well, Leslie, it's your mother

01:38:54.000 - 01:39:04.000

who was a military pilot." "Oh!" [Laughs] But now, of course, she's all in. I tried to give my uniform to the museum,

01:39:04.000 - 01:39:16.000

and she said, "No, no, don't. I want it." - Good for her. - Yeah. She wants everything that I had. So she's very aware now, but she's 38 years old.

01:39:16.000 - 01:39:28.000

But she had no idea. - That's great. Anything else? - I can't think of anything else. - Can I ask you if your grandfather taught you how to jig?

01:39:28.000 - 01:39:39.000

- Yes, he did. Yeah. It was cute. He would do this jig, and I would jig along with him. And then I also had a little shot glass, and I'd put it under the tap.

01:39:39.000 - 01:39:51.000

They had beer keg, and I'd get the drippings. - What kind of music? Was there violin music or guitar? Did they whistle? - No, he sang. He sang.

01:39:51.000 - 01:40:04.000

- Irish limerick? - Frère Jacques. - Oh. - I remember him, and he'd bounce me on his knees singing Frère Jacques. And I sang with him always.

01:40:04.000 - 01:40:13.000

- Want to do a little tune-up? - No. [laughs] - Did you ever take your mom up? - No, never did.

01:40:13.000 - 01:40:25.000

I was a little scared to. I was ferrying out of Reno, and I think I asked her one time, and she was all for it, but I don't think--

01:40:25.000 - 01:40:37.000

She flew. She flew to Germany. She flew to Thailand. It wasn't as though she was scared. She was a good writer. Isn't that awful? - And I'd love to know the tale

01:40:37.000 - 01:40:49.000

of cutting off the bottom of somebody's shirt. - Oh, well, we have-- It's a tradition that when you solo, they cut off your T-shirt, the tail of your T-shirt.

01:40:49.000 - 01:41:01.000

And here in Sedona, this friend of mine who's in the '99s, her husband was a retired Air Force pilot, and he was a instructor,

01:41:01.000 - 01:41:13.000

and he was teaching all kinds of women. And Hasse, that's her nickname, said, "Well, I think I ought to learn. If you're teaching women, I should learn.

01:41:13.000 - 01:41:25.000

So also, I think we ought to have something other than T-shirts. That's not very glamorous." So she said, "How about bras?"

01:41:25.000 - 01:41:37.000

And she had a little case up at the airport with all these bras. Yeah, they've all signed them. But he was killed later.

01:41:37.000 - 01:41:49.000

Flew into a mountain here. - And the hose that you had to put in the jars at Sweetwater, where did you wear the hose? - We wore those to parties.

01:41:49.000 - 01:42:01.000

Like when we went to San Angelo or we went down to San Antonio, we went out. - I didn't get that on camera before.

01:42:01.000 - 01:42:16.000

- Yeah, when we went for the chamber tests, we partied there at the different hotels. And then over in San Angelo, we would dress up.

01:42:16.000 - 01:42:28.000

So we dressed. We didn't just run around in pants. It was dresses. I made my own evening gown for our graduation.

01:42:28.000 - 01:42:40.000

It was Behr midriff. And one of my instructors, he was a Czech pilot. He had made advances to me when I was flying.

01:42:40.000 - 01:42:52.000

He always wanted to help put my safety belt on. And I rebuffed him. But I passed. I guess he must have been an instructor, yeah.

01:42:52.000 - 01:43:04.000

I know his name too. And he, at the party, at the graduation party, I had this gown on. It was white and it was Behr midriff, sort of.

01:43:04.000 - 01:43:16.000

And he asked me to dance. And he made a pass at me again with his wife sitting right over there. And I slapped his face. And he showed up in Sedona.

01:43:16.000 - 01:43:28.000

He called me. He came to my real estate office because it had been in the paper about me, this full-page spread.

01:43:28.000 - 01:43:40.000

He called me, and he didn't remember me as me. And he said he didn't like Sedona. He hated Sedona, and he later left. But I wanted to tell him, "I'm the one who slapped your face,

01:43:40.000 - 01:43:52.000

and I never did." I didn't want to see him ever again anyway, and I didn't want him stopping at the real estate office. (laughter)

01:43:52.000 - 01:44:04.000

Favorite airplane? '86. Loved the '86. Got an A on my checkride on an '86. It was really a nice airplane.

01:44:04.000 - 01:44:16.000

And he said, "I thought ahead of the airplane," and I was so proud. That's about all. - That's a great way to end, though. - Thank you so much. - This is awesome. Yeah, I wrote and wrote and wrote.

01:44:16.000 - 01:44:28.000

This is wonderful. Okay. - And we're in Sedona. - You're done! - Done! Done! - Did you think that would never end?

01:44:28.000 - 01:44:42.000

- No! We love to talk about ourselves. - I hate to put you through all that, and I apologize, but thank you so much. - Well, we thank you on behalf of children and future generations. They're going to enjoy listening to you.

01:44:42.000 - 01:44:54.000

- You and I have talked a lot. I can't believe it. It does give them incentive. - Oh, absolutely. - You can do it if you try hard enough.

01:44:54.000 - 01:45:00.000

- Absolutely. - Yes. That's like Janet's speech.