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I'll ask you to start from there. You can still talk. Sure. You can talk over this.

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I'm trying to think what I'm doing. Yeah, a lady was killed. She went down to the basement in an elevator and didn't realize the basement was completely flooded.

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Oh, wow. And she drowned. Isn't that awful? Yeah.

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That's the worst one, I think, of all. Tell me when you're ready. I'm rolling. I am Deney Parrish and we are in the home of Doris Nathan in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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She was a WASP, Class 44-1. Today is the 16th of July, 2001. Doris, if you would just start off and tell us your name and when and where you were born. Doris Nathan

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Tell us about your mom and dad. My father came from Germany, and my mother came from Switzerland. My father came in 1890-something first, and worked over here in California on a railroad. He had an accident coupling and uncoupling trains, and he lost the first joint of his

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right hand. However, he was the oldest of seven sons, and the tradition is when parents want to retire, the oldest son must come home. So he went back to Germany, and they had military compulsory military service there.

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When they saw that he had lost those two fingers, they accused him of chopping them off on purpose so he would not have to serve in the military, and they were going to put him in jail. So he told his parents he was not going to do that, and they came and they all packed up and left the farm and they came to the United States.

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So he came back here, and that is how he happened to come back here. He was engaged at the time, but she did not want to come with him. So when he came to Petaluma, where one of his other brothers had already come and established himself as a chicken rancher, and that is what my father did too when they were married.

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He met his mother in Petaluma because her brother had come there and was in chicken farming at the time. And they don't really know how they actually met, except it must have been probably through the church.

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As far as your brothers and sisters, how many brothers and sisters do you have? I had five brothers and two sisters. I now have three brothers and one sister still surviving, and the oldest is ninety-three. My youngest brother is eighty-two, so we are all getting along.

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Doris, what are your very earliest remembrances of your childhood? My earliest remembrances of my childhood was my pesky little brother, because he really, really was a pest to me. Especially one time when I got the most beautiful doll for a Christmas present.

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One day he painted the face green. It was just the saddest day of my whole life. I saw that doll, I was so upset with him. But we are a very close family, so I do miss not seeing them very often.

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But I try to get out to California once a year to see them. Tell me about the home where you grew up. Describe your home. Was it in town?

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No, we lived on a ranch. It was not far from town. It was only eighteen acres, and we called that a ranch because we had livestock. Farms were for produce as far as we were concerned at that time.

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I think now they call them the other way around, but that's all right. And that, then the nice thing about being on a farm and being close, we walked to school. It was that close to like a mile. Describe your house.

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It must have been a big house. No, it was a very small house originally and they kept adding on and adding on. One whole side of the house was a sleeping porch and we all slept in a row. It was divided in half.

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We slept in a row there and that was how we all fitted in. and we had one large living room, dining room, and a bench on one side, and fourteen of us at every meal. When we didn't bring somebody home from school, of course being on the farm, we ate

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our main meal at noon, and we came home from school to eat our lunch. We didn't take it with us, we brought it home. I know during your early childhood there were other members of your family who also lived there.

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Tell me about any of those members who lived with you. My aunt, Tonta, was a maiden aunt and she came when I was born. So she was really my caretaker all my life. And that's, I think, one of the reasons my brother Bob was jealous of me, because she

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was very nice to me and told me stories about her life in Switzerland when she was growing up. She really, really wanted to go back and visit and never did get back there. I always thought when I grow up I'll take her back there because she wanted, but I didn't

00:06:01.400 - 00:06:17.780

ever get a chance to do that before she died. Then we had a grandmother. I don't really know whether I want to record this part or not because she was mean to me. She had just boys and thought boys were wonderful and girls were useless.

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She was very, very mean to me. She would hit me with her cane if I did not button her shoes fast enough. Whereas my brothers would go in there and jolly her along, and she would give them a nickel or a penny.

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That was a lot of money at that time. I did not like her. In fact, I hated her. How about your other grandparents?

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They were dead before I was born. In your early, early years out on the ranch, did you have the modern conveniences? Did you have water and electricity? We had electricity only in the feed mill.

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My father ground his own grain, and I remember when that came in, and I remember when the The telephone came in, too. There was a 220 line, so all the washing—they got a washing machine then, otherwise it before had been done by hand for all those people.

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The ironing was irons on a wood stove, one after the other, warming up while one of them cooled down. Then we got that 220 line down in the feed house, so one room was turned into a washroom for my mother.

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But that was a long distance away down the hill. After all, when there's five boys and a father, there's six men and all those sheets and things. That was a lot of laundry to get done. Can you describe this chicken farm?

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The brooder house was an original house that was there, a very small home. And that is where my father hatched the eggs. Then there was a feed house where he ground the grain. There was a barn where he kept the horse, and then there was a cow shed where we had

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three cows. And then there were the chicken houses scattered around eighteen acres. They were—I do not know how long they were, but they were longer than, I would think, forty, fifty feet long.

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He had the horse and he had a sled that the horse pulled. Every day when it was egg gathering time, the horse would pull the sled and you would have buckets to put the eggs in. Inside of those big chicken houses, there were nesting rooms where they would lay the

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eggs and you would go gather the eggs in the buckets. So by the time you got all the way around the farm, you would have a whole sled full of buckets full of eggs, which were then taken down to the packing room. The packing room was underneath the house.

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The house was on a hillside, so we did not have a basement per se. It was a basement, but it was sort of a cool room. In other words, it was open on one side and into the hill. So it was cooler down there, and that's where the packing room was.

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If the eggs were soiled, then we would have emery boards to brush off. You cannot wash the eggs, because washing the eggs takes the protective film off of them. So you just knocked the stuff off if they were dirty, and then you packed them.

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They were then stored in the coolest part, and twice a week they were taken down to the wholesalers, who then would—maybe it was every other day, maybe it was three times a week. I do not know for sure when he took them down.

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But that was one of my jobs, was to help with gathering and packing eggs. And the other children, how did they participate in this? Oh, there was lots of work to do. Always there was work, because we had trees, fruit trees, almonds, walnuts, and then the

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The heating by wood, we had eucalyptus trees, so many trees were cut every year to supply the wood. In California, it would not be like Michigan where you would need lots and lots of wood. You would not need that much wood, but that is the kind of wood we used for the stove.

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Would your dad also hire other people to help other than your children? No, no. It was all family? Yes, it was all family.

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Do you recall when you started school? How far was school from you? About a mile, mile and a half. And you would walk to school?

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I think my older sisters and brothers drove me down there. There were buses, but I lived too close, so it must have been just a mile, because you had to live further than that before you were allowed on the bus, even though they came right by our house.

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I could not ride the bus. I think they took me down and picked me up. Do you remember what you did on vacations? Did you get vacations?

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Red, that was what I did. I had neighbors, there were some girls that also were in the neighborhood and we would play together. My favorite thing, there was a big, very large oak tree.

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My brothers had taken an old bed springs and an old mattress and hauled it up on the top. When they were not around, I would climb up there on that tall tree to read the book because nobody could know that you were there. You could not see.

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They could call you to do a chore. You just had to be very quiet and keep on reading and nobody would know you were there. That was my very favorite place because it was in the shade of the oak leaves, but it was a big one.

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It was very high. Doris, tell me, when you were growing up, what was Christmas like in your home? Oh, Christmas. Oh, that was very definitely—we had uncles and aunts that had either no children or very

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few children. So, it was a very big gathering. They came to our house. We followed the German tradition, is when you have Christmas Eve.

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And so we would have a big gathering for our food, and we always had a Swiss traditional meal which was spetzle, kind of a noodle-like thing. That was a traditional kind of meal that we had. And then somebody would say, "I think I hear Santa Claus."

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And so the little kids would run out there, the three of the youngest of us would run outside to see if we could spot Santa Claus out there. And sure enough, we saw things down there. One of my uncles would do this with his horse and sleigh.

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Then when we came back in, then the room that had been mysteriously closed off for a couple of days was open and the Christmas tree was there with all the candles burning and the presents under the tree. So that was there.

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Then we got to open what there was, which wasn't very much because you understand there was a lot of us and we didn't get very many things. Mostly it was closed, but then I got books, so that was all right. And then we would play games around the big table, the whole big family, lots of us would

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play games together. And so then you could sleep late because you don't have to get up and worry about getting the crack of dawn. It was a good system as far as I was concerned.

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Did you have stockings? Yeah, we had stockings. Do you remember what you would get in stockings? Basically, and probably socks or something like that, or a pencil.

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This big dinner that had to be cooked, who would do the cooking? My mother and aunt, and I guess my sisters helped, too. I was not paying attention. Do you remember learning to cook?

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No. You did not have to do that. No, I did not learn to cook there. Do you remember the most special thing you ever got at Christmas?

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No, except that doll. Yes, yes. Tell us about that doll. At Christmas you got the doll.

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One of my brothers had made a bed for it, and another brother had made a little chest of drawers for it. And they're woodworking, because they were in high school and they're woodworking classes. They had made those things for it.

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So that was a very special Christmas. Do you still have that doll? No. Let us go on to school.

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In elementary school, how big was your school? How many grades were in one building, for example? I think there were three and three and three. I think that's the way it went.

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In elementary school, do you remember any of your teachers that made an impression on No, the one thing that made an impression was Cora. In third grade, Cora was a little girl whose father had a candy store, and she was very fat.

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She died from diabetes. That was our first touch with reality about something. That's the big thing I remember about the first grades. I was going to ask you, at Christmas time, would you have any celebrations, for example,

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at church? Anything that you did? We didn't go down to the church. In elementary school, how large was your class?

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Do you recall? Big? No. When you finished elementary then and went on into junior high school, what were your

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ambitions? I don't know that I had any ambitions one way or the other, except in elementary school or in sixth grade, my ambition was to beat Henry at the math quizzes that we had. I could beat him at division and multiplication, but he always beat me in addition.

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Never did beat him in addition. In a family that large, was there a lot of competition as far as grades? No. Just in math?

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This was not somebody in the family, this was somebody in the class. Oh, okay. Yeah. What did your family, your mom and dad, expect of you children as far as school was concerned?

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They expected us to do well because we all did well. I mean, it wasn't any—you just did it. I mean, there wasn't any question about it. You just did it.

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QF. Right. When you went on to high school, did you have a goal in mind? AQ.

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I don't remember that I had a goal in mind. But back before I was in high school, and this had nothing to do with school. This was being on the farm, and when planes would come over—that's my first introduction to planes—was when they would fly over and my father would get very upset, because it

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would upset the chickens and then they wouldn't lay well that day. I just loved to see them come over, and that is what I wanted to do. I wanted to fly, getting one of those things up there in the sky. And that didn't have anything to do with school, didn't have anything to do with reality.

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I mean, this was getting close to, you know, it was just one of those things that it was something that was done like a good thing to do. Did that love start in elementary when you were very small seeing these? I'm trying to picture how little I was at the time.

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Early, I was born in '16. It was probably when I was in elementary school, mid-twenties. When you were in school, who were your role models? I had an English teacher and a civic teacher and a math teacher that I thought highly of.

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And then I had a math teacher that I thought was the meanest thing in the world. What was your favorite subject in high school? Science and math. In high school, did you have other outside activities, for example, music or sports or

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journalism? I'll tell you a funny story about music. I aspired to be able to play the piano. I took years to play piano, but I can't play because I have a dead ear.

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My best girlfriend was a very attractive girl and she was going to go to Miss America contest as Miss California, which she won. She had to have something that she could do. So she decided she would sing.

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She needed a little training in singing. This was now, we're getting into the Depression years, and her folks didn't have any money, and we didn't have any, and I couldn't sing anyway. But she found a music teacher who said, "Well, if you get four girls, then I'll do it for

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fifty cents each." Well, she got two other girls, and then she said, "Doris, you've just got to come." I said, "I can't sing." She said, "You've got to come."

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So I said, "Okay." So I talked to her, went over there. And finally after about the third session, the teacher said, "I think I'll pay you to stay away."

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That's how bad I was. My ambitions toward that kind of thing, that's the one thing I wish I could have wished for, a nice lovely voice, but I don't have that. Where did you get this fifty cents to pay for those lessons?

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I worked for the neighbor lady and scrubbed her kitchen and cleaned out. You can't imagine how fussy she was. She wanted her cupboards cleaned out every week. How often do you clean out your cupboards?

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[Laughter] How much would you get paid? I don't remember. Did you have to work all day?

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On Saturday? No, probably half a day was in the kitchen. What then did you save that money for? How did you spend your money?

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Roth: No. Didn't go to movies, I know that. Probably candy or something. I don't remember anything.

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It wasn't that much. It wasn't enough to do anything with, except for those lessons that lasted a couple of weeks. But, the civics teacher had us two classes.

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One was the Senate, one was the House of Representatives, and we had to choose some legislator to be. And then present with another legislator to write a bill and put it in the hopper. Well Paul and I wrote a bill saying that we thought the Air Force should be a separate division.

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That is what the bill we wrote that time I was in high school, a senior in high school. And so the class voted on it and it went to the legislature and they voted on it and decided we were right, that it should be a separate division. So it took a while for the powers that be to follow our footsteps, but they got there

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finally. Kelly: Right, because this was what, '36? And it did not become a separate Air Force until— Bethe: After the war, yeah.

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So there you go. So you see I was interested in the Air Force and airplanes. Paul went into the service too, but he was killed. Kelly: When you were in high school, do you recall a senior prom?

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Did you have a prom? Brennan: If we did, I did not go. Kelly: What were your social activities when you were in high school? Brennan: Through the church.

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And we had Sunday night gatherings, quite a large crowd, and often we came out to our farm, which wasn't very far out, and would have bonfire and weenie roast and that sort of thing. We did that and we went out to the—we lived just like twenty-five miles from the Pacific

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Ocean. We could go over there to the beach. And that's the sort of things we did, was to go abalone hunting and clamming and fishing. Did you swim?

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Oh yeah, the Russian River, yes. We camped and went up to the Russian River and did swimming, yes. Describe what your swimming suit looked like. I can't remember that.

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Was it a bikini? No, it was not a bikini. But neither was it the kind that's a full dress. It was in between.

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I don't really remember what the thirty swimming suits were like. I think they were like swimming suits. Kelly: When you graduated from high school, describe your graduation. Did you have caps and gowns?

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Beall: I have the vaguest idea. I'm sure we did, but I have a very poor memory about things like that. They didn't make an impression that's gone. What kind of student were you in high school?

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An A student. What were your ambitions for when you graduated? I was going to go to college and probably be a teacher. That was probably my ambition.

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But we could not afford it then. So I stayed in high school another year working in the office to make a little money and also So to take classes so I could be a secretary, so I could work at that. That turned into my minor in college, actually, business.

00:26:25.600 - 00:26:43.800

And that's how I worked my way through college. Even though the tuition at the University of California at the time was $10 a semester, and that will shock people these days, but that's what it was, $10 a semester. Then you had to buy your books, of course, but they were not anything like they are these

00:26:43.920 - 00:26:57.240

days. Kelly: So after you stayed an extra year in high school, then what did you do? Beall: I went down to Berkeley. Kelly: How did you get down to Berkeley?

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Beall: Well, I had brothers and sisters that were going there, so there was no problem getting down there. Somebody took me down. Kelly: Where did you live while you were there?

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a boarding house, not a boarding house, a rooming house. I worked for my meals at the men's faculty club. I was a waitress, and then after the first year I was a hostess at the men's faculty club there.

00:27:22.400 - 00:27:33.820

That was one of my jobs, so I got all my meals. And your major was in education? No, it was in biology. My minor was in business.

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In the fifth year was education courses, and anyone will tell you that it's a big waste of time, those education courses. Kelly: In the summertime, when you were in college, where did you work? McMillan: I worked full-time.

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Well, at that time, the U.S. government had various programs—I can't remember the name of mine now, like the WPA, but it wasn't that. It was another one they had that hired people for ten cents an hour, and then I got raised to twelve, and then fifteen cents an hour.

00:28:15.860 - 00:28:35.980

I typed numbers. The weekly agricultural reports worked for that department. If you want to be bored out of your mind, that's the job to get. At that time, we had to make duplicates of all these and be sure that they're right.

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After you typed and then somebody else was there, would read them to you to be sure, or read what you wrote. You had to check them. Then we had mimeograph machines, the old-fashioned kinds of stencils that you had to cut those

00:28:53.840 - 00:29:11.740

stencils. If you made a mistake typing, it wasn't easy to repair them, but there they were. Do I bless a computer these days when I'm doing any number work? Anyway, but at least it got me through school.

00:29:12.840 - 00:29:23.220

That's when a penny was important. There would be times when we would go around, "I have a penny, how many do you have?" So we could gather a nickel worth and share one Coke. And that was...

00:29:24.140 - 00:29:38.700

While I'm thinking about it, I want to go back and ask you, when you were able, or were you ever able to move off of that porch with your sleeping cot? Yes, yes. And move into a room? How old were you at that point?

00:29:39.720 - 00:29:53.680

Well, you see, my older brothers and sisters started leaving home. The older ones would get the rooms, and the younger ones would sleep on the porch. Yeah. I guess I was a teenager.

00:29:55.400 - 00:30:14.880

But basically I slept on the porch all the time, except the very coldest months, because we slept on the porch. Just with Tonta. Tonta and I had one after some of them had left.

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It wasn't as crowded anymore. And you stayed on in college. While you were going to college, what were your outside activities like? Working.

00:30:24.360 - 00:30:37.380

I thought I made that clear. Right. But I mean as far as socially, did you go to movies at that point a lot? We would sneak into the movies by the side door when some people were leaving.

00:30:38.840 - 00:30:46.100

[Laughter] If that's an activity you want to hear about. [Laughter] I think that's pretty much an activity.

00:30:48.200 - 00:30:56.480

We didn't have any spare money. I was trying to make that point about the pennies. I mean, I'm not joking. We didn't have any money to do anything else.

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When you're going to school and working two jobs, there's just not very much time. Can you describe your graduation from college? Did that make an impression on you? No, not at all.

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What kind of student were you in college? B. Okay. And you graduated from college.

00:31:21.060 - 00:31:35.280

When, after seeing these airplanes fly over your home, when was the next time that you really got a-- that that became important to you? Not until I heard about the WASP program.

00:31:35.520 - 00:31:46.960

That was so far out of my reach. You understand, when you're looking for pennies, You're not thinking about flying airplanes. That was not anything that was possible.

00:31:48.180 - 00:32:04.620

Women weren't flying airplanes. I mean, sure, you heard about Amelia Earhart, and you watched her and Lindbergh on the newsreels, if you happened to see a newsreel. But mostly you saw it in the newspaper and heard about it on the radio.

00:32:06.880 - 00:32:21.680

When you graduated from college, then what was your first job? Teaching. Where was that? I got a job teaching in Downeyville, California, which is an interesting, small, historical

00:32:21.840 - 00:32:32.500

town. It was a county seat. I took that job. Jobs were kind of scarce in the first place, but the second place, I liked the idea of

00:32:32.520 - 00:32:53.360

living in the mountains. So the whole property basically was owned by forestry companies. There were very few people that lived there, so if they needed something, they voted the taxes up for school taxes.

00:32:54.140 - 00:33:21.020

So for forty-eight, there were twenty-eight students in the high school, total of twenty-eight. There were four teachers—well, there were three teachers and two roving teachers, the music teacher and the art teacher. We had everything you could think of, except I was a science teacher, so you taught chemistry

00:33:21.120 - 00:33:41.900

one year, and physics one year, and general science one year. That's how you work that kind of high school. I also was the homemaking teacher, so I taught sewing. This is the hysterical one, because I'm not a sports person at all.

00:33:42.420 - 00:34:02.120

I had to teach the sports program. I went to summer school that summer, because I had to know the rules of volleyball and softball and that sort of thing. basketball because they had a gym that was on the mountainside, and so there's not enough

00:34:02.180 - 00:34:26.180

flat space to have anything like—there weren't any tennis courts, so thank goodness. But anyway, I learned the rules of those things, and so it was kind of fun. I mean, there's only twenty-eight kids there altogether, so there's not a big group that you can choose from to have sides of these.

00:34:27.300 - 00:34:38.600

It wasn't a big strain on me to teach these things. Somebody that knew the rules, I let them be in charge. It was fun. It was really fun to teach there.

00:34:39.040 - 00:34:59.980

Because when it was the first day of hunting, of course, that was the holiday because everybody was going to be gone anyway. When the snows came, the pass over toward Reno would close. So then that road was the most marvelous downhill ski.

00:35:00.360 - 00:35:17.720

You had to trudge up there unless you could get somebody that could pull you up there in a wagon with a horse and wagon. Then you could ski down that road for miles because it was downhill. So that's the kind of skiing I did.

00:35:21.520 - 00:35:37.440

If you wanted fresh fish, there was a stream right outside your door. You just went up and caught some trout for dinner. It was a nice place to live. Of course, that's where I was when Pearl Harbor happened.

00:35:38.800 - 00:35:58.740

And that's where I've experienced the panic that people felt when they knew the Japanese got that close, they were going to come and bomb us there. And so some people in that little town, I guess it was no different close to the coast, but were very careful.

00:35:59.260 - 00:36:13.420

They were sure they were going to bomb us. Why? This little bitty village, why would they bother? Well, the theory was in town, because there was a blackout on the coast.

00:36:14.160 - 00:36:32.980

If we didn't have the blackout, they would think we were at San Francisco and they were sure to bomb us. We didn't really have—some people had panicked about that. How do you feel Pearl Harbor and World War II changed America, changed the people?

00:36:33.720 - 00:36:58.160

That's a very deep philosophical question. I don't know that it lastingly changed anything. Kelly: During that time, right after Pearl Harbor, how did people change? Robinson: They became aware that we were not isolated, that we were vulnerable.

00:36:59.320 - 00:37:23.940

I don't know that it changed them, but to that extent. How about the role of women? Temporarily it did, but it didn't last until the '60s and it started up again. But basically, when the war was over, the Riveters went back home again and I went back

00:37:24.080 - 00:37:37.300

and got married and had children and that's it. But temporarily, women were— Were accepted in places, yes. Going back to your high school where you were teaching, do you recall what the salary was

00:37:37.400 - 00:37:55.940

for high school then? Oh, yes. My first year I got $1,200 for the year, $100 a month. Then it went to $14, and then I moved to Greenville and I got $18 the third year.

00:37:55.960 - 00:38:10.160

Did you move because the salary was better? I think so. I'm not sure, but I think so. At Greenville, were you teaching the same things?

00:38:10.420 - 00:38:20.840

No, it was a bigger school. I only taught science there. Did you have to teach PE? No, I didn't have to teach PE there.

00:38:21.640 - 00:38:31.640

It wasn't nearly as much fun, but I made one very good friend there, who I still correspond with. There were only three. It wasn't that big of a school.

00:38:31.740 - 00:38:48.940

There were only three. Well, yes, there was more than that. But three of us lived in the same boarding room house, and one of them turned out to be a very good friend of mine, because she was as smart as I was.

00:38:50.640 - 00:39:06.740

The third one was the stupidest teacher I've ever seen. She couldn't control anything. She said absolutely stupid things, but that's beside the point. But anyway, it was because I was in Greenville, which was close to Quincy, and because of

00:39:06.740 - 00:39:29.560

Coral Harbor it happened that we could no longer drive. My principal in Downeyville was engaged to somebody in Berkeley, so we were used to going back to seeing our friends that lived in Berkeley, friends I had made in college. Every weekend almost he would go down.

00:39:29.860 - 00:39:48.120

Well, without any gasoline, you could not do that. So when I went to Greenville then, I did not have enough gasoline to do that either. Then somebody said, "Well, there's an airport over by Quincy," and that was pretty close to Greenville.

00:39:48.620 - 00:40:04.840

"Why don't we go over there and see what's happening over there?" And what was happening, all the people in the Bay Area that owned planes were bringing it up to small airports in the mountains. Two hundred miles away from the coast you could fly, but you couldn't fly within the

00:40:04.920 - 00:40:19.320

two hundred miles. So they were bringing their planes up to any little airport that was outside the 200 miles. So Quincy then was being populated, and I'm sure Nan told you that's why she came up there from Oakland.

00:40:21.460 - 00:40:38.300

And so that's where I got acquainted with Nan, and she told me about the WASP. And there was somebody else that was there that went into the WASP earlier, whose name I've forgotten now, because she went in almost as soon as I got there that summer. Do you remember the film?

00:40:38.660 - 00:40:43.920

We're about to run out of tape here. Okay. Change the film. Change the film.

00:40:44.460 - 00:40:48.980

Wow. What was that? You were telling us about a hurricane or a... Oh, that's...

00:40:54.280 - 00:41:10.040

Okay, describe for me the first time you went to that airport and saw those airplanes. Were you by yourself? No, no. So Ernie went with me, that was the teacher that was teaching that we were good friends

00:41:10.140 - 00:41:25.360

with. She and I went over and just walked around. I finally decided to see if I could take and get a ride. Then actually I think Nan was there the first time we were there and got talking to her.

00:41:27.120 - 00:41:36.700

That sounded like something good to do for weekends. Did you take a ride that first day? I do not remember. I do not remember.

00:41:36.700 - 00:41:58.480

But then when you did take a ride, what did you think? I decided I was going to learn to fly off an airplane, and so I did. Describe for me your solo. I cannot think of anything to describe to you about the solo.

00:42:01.000 - 00:42:10.480

How often would you drive back to the airport to take lessons or to fly? Just on weekends? Just on weekends, yeah. I was teaching.

00:42:11.780 - 00:42:31.760

At this time, what did you think the WASP program was for? Did you have any idea of what it was all about? I don't remember if I had any idea. To be honest with you, I do not know whether I had any idea what it was actually designed

00:42:31.760 - 00:42:45.020

to do. I just had the feeling that they needed pilots and they were going to train some women, that is all. Did your friend that went with you the first time, did she also start taking lessons?

00:42:45.140 - 00:43:00.540

No, no, no. She was not interested and I was. While you were taking lessons, how many girls were also taking lessons? Jernigan: I do not know that there were any others.

00:43:00.820 - 00:43:12.620

Kelly: Was Nan still there? Jernigan: No, she had just come up the weekend. She had her plane there. I do not know whether she stayed there.

00:43:15.800 - 00:43:28.360

Was there anything unusual or interesting that happened during the time you were learning to fly or after you were flying? No, I just loved it. I just really liked it.

00:43:28.360 - 00:43:52.440

And it was a little airport, and it was in the mountains, and so you had—the runway was just a grass strip, and you had only one direction. I mean, you had two directions, but basically only one direction. In the mountains, you do have a lot of different downdrafts and things like that, depending

00:43:52.540 - 00:44:05.060

on the weather. So I thought it was a very good place to learn. Bud, I thought, was a very good instructor. I still, even when I drive a car, want to be sure I have space, emergency landing place,

00:44:06.340 - 00:44:16.900

just in case. He was adamant about that. Whenever you were up here, you're in the mountains, be sure and find a place to put this down if you need to.

00:44:18.300 - 00:44:34.080

Always look for some place to put it down. Do you think that your flying had any influence on children that you were teaching? No. Did they know that you were flying on weekends?

00:44:35.920 - 00:44:46.860

Were they aware? I doubt it. What did your mom and dad think about your learning to fly? My father was always very, very supportive of anything I did.

00:44:48.140 - 00:45:08.860

He felt kind of guilty because he had afforded to put my other siblings to any school they wanted to go. This was Depression, and he said, "I don't have enough money to put you through to college, I'll give you this amount and you could go to business school on this, or you can

00:45:08.960 - 00:45:27.420

take that and make, stretch it as far as you want to, can, to go to Cal." And so that's what I chose to do. He was very supportive no matter what I wanted to do. My mother never said anything except whenever there was a letter from her, and it was weekly,

00:45:28.080 - 00:45:43.980

She would always have a clipping in it about a plane crash. Never mention it, never mention my flying ever in her letters. She did not say anything about being safe, she would just talk about what was going on on the farm, brothers and sisters.

00:45:44.220 - 00:46:02.820

But there was this little clipping tucked inside. So I knew that she was concerned. Doris, tell me, why wouldn't you take—your dad would pay for your complete education as far as business school.

00:46:03.500 - 00:46:18.520

Why would you decide that you wanted to go to college and you would have to work and help pay for that? What was the difference? The difference was because it sounded boring to be in an office, and the expansion of ideas

00:46:18.580 - 00:46:36.340

and things that a university had to offer. That's the difference. The first job I had there, incidentally, which was one semester, was reading for a blind student who was a graduate student who was going to be a lawyer.

00:46:37.120 - 00:46:51.540

I read law books to him. I read Machiavelli's The Prince to him, if you can imagine. He showed me how to use the university library. He showed me where the buildings on the campus were.

00:46:52.240 - 00:47:13.700

He did not use a cane, he did not use a dog, and he was totally independent. He was a real role model about what you're going to accomplish if you just do it. He was very impatient. I didn't know a word, and he would tell me how and give me the definition.

00:47:14.520 - 00:47:33.360

across it again another day, and if I did not remember, oh, that was just unforgivable. I already told you that. I also realized how boring it is to read 150 papers on the same subject when you are going to grade papers.

00:47:34.860 - 00:47:42.480

It is real bore. Do you know what finally happened to him? Did he become successful? Yeah.

00:47:44.840 - 00:47:57.940

Yes. When you heard about the training program for flying, for military flying, what did you do? I decided I was going to try for it.

00:47:59.040 - 00:48:17.760

So I spent all the money I had. My nice instructor gave me a good deal on the whole thing, actually. He was very cooperative and he thought it was a great idea. So I got the necessary hours in so that I could apply.

00:48:19.560 - 00:48:37.780

I stayed up there in Greenville, which was close enough. I had been boarding there, so I just stayed where I was and then drove over to Quincy. I think it was about thirty miles. Did your mother and dad ever come out and watch you fly?

00:48:38.300 - 00:48:48.120

No. Were you ever able to take them up? No. Once you sent in your application, then what happened next?

00:48:48.380 - 00:48:58.000

Then I had to go to Los Angeles to be interviewed. Who interviewed you? Do you remember? No, I do not remember who interviewed me.

00:48:59.660 - 00:49:08.000

And then what else did you have to do? Oh, get letters of recommendation and all that shebang, just like everybody else had to do. Did you take a test?

00:49:09.520 - 00:49:17.980

Do you recall? I do not remember. Did you have to take physical? Probably, I do not remember.

00:49:19.160 - 00:49:29.640

I figured that is in the records. I can probably read that book over there and find it out. And then how were you notified to report? I was notified to report.

00:49:30.220 - 00:49:44.740

By mail. Then Bud flew me down to Sweetwater. My instructor flew me down to Sweetwater and that's how I got there. I did not have a car there like some people did.

00:49:45.620 - 00:49:59.120

Wow. And when you got to Sweetwater, tell me what happened next. We went to that hotel where we were supposed to go and then we all got on a bus and went out to the—

00:49:59.120 - 00:50:09.840

Was this at Greyhound? No. Describe the bus. I don't remember the first bus, but I imagine it was the one that took us out to the fields.

00:50:11.140 - 00:50:25.460

But I don't remember that for sure. Just know that we all gathered there at the hotel, a bunch of us, not knowing what was going to happen next. Were there other girls there that you knew?

00:50:25.920 - 00:50:36.040

No, I didn't know anybody there. Do you recall how you felt when you were on that bus and drove up to Avenger Field and saw the airplanes? No.

00:50:36.740 - 00:50:48.800

Okay. No. Recall, if you can, what happened after you got out to Avenger with all these girls? I don't really recall very much about that.

00:50:48.800 - 00:51:08.020

I just recall being assigned to the Bay and looking around and trying to decide which which was the best bed to choose and discovering that they had all been chosen already. I took what was there. Describe the room that you slept in.

00:51:08.100 - 00:51:17.640

I wish I could. I cannot. I have been trying to recreate it in my mind. They say there were six of us in the room.

00:51:20.000 - 00:51:29.920

Can you do that? Can you really picture your first day? Because I do not have a memory about that at all. Can you tell me about some of your bay mates?

00:51:35.280 - 00:51:56.120

Yes. If I remember names, which I cannot right this minute because I am asked for it, and As soon as I'm asked for it, I can't remember their names. If I had my book, I would look at it and tell you which ones.

00:51:57.700 - 00:52:14.360

Can you describe the training that you got? I can describe—I'm still working on that bay mate. was one of them that washed out. She was such a delightful person.

00:52:15.640 - 00:52:46.300

She tried so hard, but she didn't wash out. I remember very vividly her using the broomsticks and things, practicing the different maneuvers and things that we had to go through with her hands and feet and stick. Of course, Dorothy was not in the same bay as I was originally, because as people washed

00:52:46.360 - 00:53:07.420

out we kept getting moved up and had different bay mates, as you well know. How long did your training last? August to February. Interviewer: Recall anything about the flying, anything unusual happen?

00:53:08.840 - 00:53:30.040

Do you recall your instructors? Tell me some of the airplanes that you learned to fly. Started out on the Fairchild, right? I liked the Fairchild very much, and I didn't like the next one.

00:53:30.680 - 00:53:39.380

It was too heavy. The BT? Yeah. But the AT-6 was the love of my life, like everybody else's.

00:53:40.680 - 00:54:03.840

And that was the one where I had the experience that really stands out in my mind, when I was flying the AT-6. On a day when there were cumulus clouds, the sun is shining, and I was just up there flying around and flying toward a cumulus cloud.

00:54:04.140 - 00:54:24.420

The sun was behind me, and all of a sudden I saw the halo with a little airplane right in the middle, my silhouette. As I flew toward it, it got smaller and smaller, a perfect, perfect rainbow circle. Did you ever see one of those?

00:54:25.100 - 00:54:42.600

I got so excited about it. When I came down, I told my bay mates about it, and somebody, one of them said, "Oh, that's called a pilot's halo." That was so exciting, because you just see that little silhouette of the plane you're

00:54:42.600 - 00:55:06.040

And, there you are, surrounded by a rainbow, a rainbow with no end. Do you recall any of your ground school courses? I recall a ground school course that I did not enjoy, and that was Morse Code, learning that.

00:55:09.000 - 00:55:34.060

At one time when I was at Fort Sumner, I had an experience flight that was not a pleasant one and I wished that I had learned Morse code better, but I did not remember it at that stage at all. That is a story about a flight that almost did not come out right at the end.

00:55:34.540 - 00:55:58.000

Do you want to go ahead and tell us about that story? Well, I was at Force Summoner and I was asked to take a civilian, what we call non-flying personnel, to San Antonio Air Base to pick up some parts, or whatever he wanted. I mean, he had to pick up something.

00:55:58.800 - 00:56:23.220

So I flew them down there, and coming back there were any number of bases along the way that I was planning to stop to refuel. But as I got to the first one, it was one of those Texas kind of days where the thunderstorms are there, and that base was closed.

00:56:23.240 - 00:56:34.760

It didn't worry me, because there was another two more that I could stop at. There were so many there. That was closed. The next one was closed.

00:56:36.160 - 00:56:47.760

Now I was starting to get a little panicky, because it was nighttime. We were coming back at night. It was a night flight. I got back to my base, and I had already switched tanks.

00:56:49.220 - 00:57:02.280

It was closed down. Well, I circled with my landing lights on, and I talked to them, but I could not hear them. And, they were really no electricity at all.

00:57:03.080 - 00:57:18.440

And so, they got on the blinker, and I thought, "My God, am I supposed to be reading that while I am trying to remember what is upside down and downside up?" It was pouring rain, the kind that is a sheet on your windshield, just pouring rain, pouring rain.

00:57:19.160 - 00:57:37.980

My voice must have gotten really desperate, because it was just a really desperate time. So finally, they got trucks out on the runway to light my way. So I thought, "Oh, thank goodness." I came in, and the engine quit, and it wasn't in yet.

00:57:38.680 - 00:57:58.280

And so I switched the tanks again, and told this guy sitting next to me, "It's the end of your life to switch it, and it caught just in time to go over some wires that were there. I landed in this rain, and I taxied up to the ready room where the CO was standing and

00:57:58.380 - 00:58:12.220

waiting and it quit within ten feet. Both of the tanks were absolutely dry. That was the only close experience I had. That was too close for comfort.

00:58:14.140 - 00:58:43.060

The poor seal got cold because he stood out in the rain and got soft. The strange thing about that was, I did not really react to how close it was to being a real disaster until I had children, until I actually had little children. One day I was walking down to the basement where the laundry was, and I thought, "Oh,

00:58:44.360 - 00:58:59.720

just think, I don't know why I thought of it then." All of a sudden I thought of that whole thing. I never would have had Barb, my baby, if I had been killed then. That shook me up at that time to think about it, which it hadn't before.

00:59:00.160 - 00:59:13.000

I think that's very strange, but that's the way it was. And going back to your training at Sweetwater, do you recall any cross-countries that you took? Oh, yes.

00:59:13.420 - 00:59:37.740

Now, specifically, I know we took a lot of them. I did not have any trouble with the cross-countries. The only time I was uncomfortable was when it was a solo flight in the AT-6, and two men pilots came on my wing.

00:59:38.160 - 01:00:01.620

I was not that comfortable with the AT-6 yet, and I could not get them off my wing. I did not want them there, because I wanted to do my thing of practicing turns, and I did not want them to be right on my wings. They finally went away, but I just was really uncomfortable with them sitting there on my

01:00:01.620 - 01:00:18.820

wings. Kelly: Doris, as a Avenger, when you would go from your base to a flight line or any place, how would you go? Would you all just scatter and go?

01:00:19.900 - 01:00:25.640

How would you get? Would you march? Ruth: I do not know. No, I do not think so.

01:00:26.860 - 01:00:42.820

Do you recall the mess hall? What was the food? The only one thing I remember about the food was that they had grapes for breakfast as as a fruit, and I never had grapes for breakfast as a fruit before in my life.

01:00:43.260 - 01:00:58.900

It struck me as strange, but since then I have gotten quite used to the idea of grape for breakfast. What is the scariest thing that ever happened to you? I just described it to you.

01:00:58.940 - 01:01:08.000

The two guys on your wing? Oh, good. No, the close call. That was the scariest thing.

01:01:10.680 - 01:01:27.780

When you graduated from Sweetwater, let me ask you first about what you wore when you were flying, or what you wore as uniforms. Our class was the first class to get the dress uniforms. So when we graduated, we did have the dress uniforms.

01:01:28.300 - 01:01:39.680

How did that make you feel? Military personnel, yes. Can you describe your graduation? Were there some celebrities who came?

01:01:39.680 - 01:01:52.140

No, really, we didn't have anybody really. Do you recall who gave you your wings? No, I'd have to look in the book and read it. Once you graduated, then—

01:01:52.160 - 01:02:04.440

I know who was there. It was Bartoltz, who was a general because his daughter was in our class. It was her first name. Anyway, she was in my bay.

01:02:05.240 - 01:02:19.660

She was a very attractive, pretty girl. What was her first name? It's gone. What did your orders tell you where to report?

01:02:21.010 - 01:02:26.040

To Maxwell Field. Did you get some time off? Did you go home? Went home.

01:02:26.720 - 01:02:43.240

Do you recall how your mom and dad felt about you now flying all the time? Jernigan No, I don't remember anything special about it. How did you get from California to Maxwell?

01:02:44.840 - 01:02:53.240

Jernigan Must have been on the train. Once you got to Maxwell, were there other girls from your class also assigned to Maxwell? Lane: Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:53.740 - 01:03:01.880

Yeah. When you got to Maxwell, what happened? Lane: Well, then we were reassigned. Then where did you go?

01:03:02.060 - 01:03:21.240

Lane: Then I went to George Field in Vincennes, Indiana. When you got to George, do you know to whom you reported? Or where you lived? Where did you live?

01:03:21.240 - 01:03:39.480

Ruth: Dorothy and I had like a house, apartment. It was officer housing, I guess. Were there other WASPs already at George? No, we all got there at the same time, the three of us.

01:03:40.960 - 01:04:04.460

What was your assignment at George? It was called "engineering test pilot." The assignment was, when a plane had been in the shop for any reason, we were to take it up and check it out to be sure that the deficiency had been corrected.

01:04:06.780 - 01:04:18.740

What kind of airplanes were at George? The UC-78, the twin engine. Do you recall how you got checked out on that airplane? Who checked you out?

01:04:18.880 - 01:04:33.920

Yes, I remember. He went overseas and got killed. I do not remember his name, but I remember him. When you would do this engineering testing, would you be alone or would another pilot

01:04:34.000 - 01:04:44.760

go with you? No, I would be alone. And what were your social activities like at George? Where did you have your meals?

01:04:45.200 - 01:04:57.360

Officers Club. Well, we cooked. We had— Do you remember anything outstanding that happened at George?

01:04:58.020 - 01:05:16.140

And then at some point you got orders to go someplace else? Yes, we did. Then we went down to—I can't remember the name of it. Was that the temporary orders?

01:05:16.300 - 01:05:24.100

Did you go to Orlando? No. Oh, yes, I went to Orlando. Dorothy went to flight school—I mean to instrument school.

01:05:24.170 - 01:05:32.780

I didn't go there. She went. Was it while you were at George that you got temporary orders to go to Orlando to get OCS? Yes.

01:05:33.120 - 01:05:54.320

Okay. Describe that training. That training was so hot, and I could see why the South rebelled in the Civil War. Because it was without air conditioning, and it was so hot and muggy, to take off your

01:05:54.080 - 01:06:24.960

clothes and drop them on the floor and then go to another class and come back and find them all laundered and dried and put away, I can see why you didn't want servants. I never was so wringing wet in my life as sitting in a classroom there. We were given the training like an officer's training, learning how to identify aircraft

01:06:25.160 - 01:06:51.480

in the sky, and how to shoot a gun, and let's see, what else? Different rules and regulations. What was the purpose of that training? Theoretically, we were going to be part of the military, so it would have the same information

01:06:51.640 - 01:07:02.740

a lieutenant who had gone to a military school would have. Levy: How long did that training last? Steele: I do not remember. I think like six weeks.

01:07:04.280 - 01:07:14.340

I do not know how long it was. I have not any idea. Were there male officers also in your classes? I don't think so.

01:07:15.460 - 01:07:34.560

When you finished, successfully completed that training, then where did you report? Back to George Field. But eventually while you were at George, then you got permanent orders transferring you. Where did you go? That is what I cannot remember the name of, you will have to tell me by reading what I

01:07:34.600 - 01:07:39.440

told you. Kelly: Hang on. All right, roll it. Okay.

01:07:39.800 - 01:07:58.060

Okay, and when you left George, then where did you go? Beall: Then I went to Turner and Georgia. There were four of us that were assigned down there. It was a B-25 base, and we were to do the same thing we had been doing, that is engineering

01:07:58.180 - 01:08:18.500

test piloting. However, the commanding officer of the base was a very, very, very nice southern gentleman who did not believe women belonged in cockpits or belonged in trousers. So we were not really allowed to fly.

01:08:18.640 - 01:08:39.700

We were transported over to auxiliary fields and manned the tower for takeoffs and landings for the students of the B-25s. I had never smoked in my life, but the other three—he put all four of us over there in this little tower out in the auxiliary field.

01:08:42.100 - 01:09:00.040

They were all smokers, so I decided I had to start smoking. Here I was, you know, been through college, been through high school, college, and teaching, never spoke in my life, but I started then. Of course, that was not a good thing to do, but there was nothing else to do.

01:09:02.020 - 01:09:24.680

So finally, we did something that one is not supposed to do, and that is go over your commanding officer's head. We wrote directly to Jacqueline Cochran and told her what our situation was, so no sooner Or had she gotten a letter that there was new orders for us to depart immediately for

01:09:28.200 - 01:09:43.540

Colorado and go to Colorado Springs? Kelly: Peterson? McKenna: Peterson Field, yeah. Kelly: When you got to Peterson, how were you treated there?

01:09:43.780 - 01:09:55.440

McKenna: Fine. I was put in as a co-pilot on a B-17. We were there just for reassignment or something to do. They stuck us in different planes.

01:09:56.780 - 01:10:05.640

Did they give you some training while you were there at Peterson? No. Okay. So you were there just between assignments?

01:10:05.760 - 01:10:13.860

Yeah, just between assignments. And then you got orders while you were there to go— Fort Sumner. Fort Sumner.

01:10:14.060 - 01:10:34.140

Yeah. And when you got to Fort Sumner, what did you do? There I had two different assignments. One was to continue on—not to continue, but to be a utility pilot, and that was to

01:10:34.220 - 01:11:07.860

do errands and fly personnel. And the other was to be the copilot of C-47. And that was sort of an interesting job, because the C-47 was used to transport the mechanics for the P-63 planes that were flown and were assigned to various bomber bases.

01:11:08.760 - 01:11:28.620

And they went and stayed for a week at each base so that gunners and the bombers could practice shooting at attack airplanes. These were all experienced pilots back from overseas. And the crew on my C-47 also had been together all the time.

01:11:29.640 - 01:11:55.360

And the engineer on—we had a navigator and an engineer and pilot and me. And the engineer was a lifetime career Army man, and he wasn't so sure about having a female copilot in his plane. And so it was a little uncomfortable for the first couple of weeks, but he gradually got

01:11:55.400 - 01:12:12.640

used to me. And he invited me, finally, when we were grounded for weather reasons or had to wait for the mechanics to be available. We always played poker, they always did, and finally he invited me to come join.

01:12:13.140 - 01:12:24.300

So I felt that was accepted finally. That was— Would you go with the same crew every mission? Oh yes, oh yes.

01:12:24.600 - 01:12:46.840

I was there playing. And when you would fly over to the other bases, would the engineers stay there and you would Then we would go back and pick them up and take them to the next base. Some people called it the "flying circus," because they went from one base to another.

01:12:47.550 - 01:13:04.160

Kelly: How long did you stay there? Brennan: Until we were terminated. Kelly: Tell me how you felt when you first heard that the WASP would be disbanded. Brennan: It was an utter, total shock to Dorothy.

01:13:04.160 - 01:13:23.720

Dorothy and I were the only two WASPs at this base, and we had not had a clue, a glimmer, that this was happening. Now, since then, I've been to reunions and found that other people had known it was going to happen because they'd stopped classes.

01:13:24.020 - 01:13:32.540

In other words, people that were at Sweetwater knew that they'd stopped taking new classes in. We didn't know that. We hadn't heard anything like that.

01:13:33.720 - 01:13:48.320

It was a real shock. It seemed like it was just the next day we were supposed to leave, just like that. Did the air base do anything special for you when you left? Not a thing.

01:13:51.540 - 01:14:11.460

We had to check out our equipment, our clothes and stuff, and be sure we were not taking anything that did not belong to us. Then we were told to leave the base, basically. A lieutenant that I knew flew me to Albuquerque, and that's as far as he could take me.

01:14:11.580 - 01:14:21.740

But there we found out the base at Albuquerque, somebody that was flying to Oakland who would take me. And so I went. Admiral Tower was his name.

01:14:23.340 - 01:14:34.440

Kelly: Was he the pilot? It was his plane, I don't know. I think he was playing it. I don't remember about that, but he was very nice.

01:14:34.530 - 01:14:57.260

Kelly: On the back of the hurricane? Beall: Oh, well, that was way back when we were temporarily in Alabama. There was a hurricane that was going to come on land, and I don't know whether you – yeah, That's the effects of the hurricane.

01:14:58.060 - 01:15:20.900

And there were bases in Georgia that had a lot of training planes. So we were put on a train to go over and pick up these planes and move them out of the path of the hurricane. And that train was something else again.

01:15:20.920 - 01:15:48.060

That's the part I remember about it, because they had just gotten it out of some kind of a storeroom someplace, because the dust was thick on everything. It was the kind with wicker seats that fold both directions. Of course, it was a steam thing, and it was a hot, humid day when you were on those.

01:15:49.260 - 01:16:04.500

We could only go slow or something. It was a torturous trip on that train. We got there and back. Did you move some airplanes?

01:16:05.160 - 01:16:14.900

Oh, yeah. We went over there and moved the airplanes out of the way. I do not remember our going and moving them back, though. Somebody must have flown them back.

01:16:17.100 - 01:16:28.040

That's the only ferrying I did in my career. And that was when you were just temporarily at Maxwell? Yes. Temporary assignment.

01:16:28.660 - 01:16:47.760

Okay, when you were disbanded from the Air Force, did they give you any compensation? Well, we'd been paid monthly as civilians. But that's it. No, there wasn't any other compensation.

01:16:48.820 - 01:17:06.000

I was just lucky that I got on that plane to get flown to Oakland. Otherwise I would have had to buy my own transportation. So when you got home, then what did you do next? Then I thought to myself, "Well, I can start looking for another teaching job now."

01:17:06.000 - 01:17:31.180

But my best friend in college was living in Manhattan and working there. I had not seen her for a while and I had never been to Manhattan, so I decided that I would go visit her. I got on the train and because the train from California to New York goes through Kalamazoo,

01:17:32.280 - 01:17:53.080

I decided I would stop and visit Dorothy, because we had been stationed together the whole time while on the way. So it was on a weekend, and I'd visit her for the weekend and then go on. So I just took off the suit, just a little overnight bag and what I was wearing, because

01:17:53.140 - 01:18:11.680

I wasn't going to stay there. Well, I got off the plane and that next morning, the young woman who lived in the apartment above Dorothy came down and said, "I just got this telegram and that my husband's going to be arriving.

01:18:11.840 - 01:18:35.040

He was in the Navy and he was going to be arriving at an East Coast port that weekend. I called up my boss and told him I was going to go. He said, "Well, you can't go unless you get somebody to sit at your desk." She was the personnel manager and the health manager of something, of Kalamazoo Stationary

01:18:35.280 - 01:18:48.860

Company. She said, "Where am I going to find somebody on the weekend to take my place?" Dorothy offered me. Dorothy said, "Well, Doris, you don't have any special plans.

01:18:48.940 - 01:19:01.080

Why don't you just call up Ellen and tell her that you'll be a little late?" That's how I happened to come to Kalamazoo, and I never left. I never left. took the job.

01:19:04.080 - 01:19:19.820

Then Dorothy's boyfriend's roommate was Alan Nathan, whom I married. But I told him before I got married that I had promised that I was going to go to Manhattan, and that was all right with him because he's from Manhattan. His parents lived there.

01:19:22.500 - 01:19:38.520

Dorothy and I both went and lived in Manhattan with my friend Alan for two months. And then I got married there. Tell me, Doris, what are the qualities that you saw in him that made you fall in love with him?

01:19:41.270 - 01:20:03.300

He was smart. That's what. And he was kind and gentle. He just—that's basically it, I think.

01:20:04.100 - 01:20:10.020

Had you met his family before you married? No. Had he met your family before you married? No.

01:20:11.300 - 01:20:30.400

Describe your wedding. Well, we got married in his parents' apartment in Manhattan. And my brother and his wife that lived in Lansing came, and Dorothy and Sam came. Dorothy wasn't married to him yet, but they were scheduled to be married.

01:20:30.460 - 01:20:55.720

I got married on New Year's Eve, '45, and Dorothy got married two weeks later, approximately in January of '46. And then he had cousins that lived there, and somebody found a minister to come up, and we just had a very small little wedding in the apartment.

01:20:56.060 - 01:21:13.940

Did you have a special dress? I went shopping for a special dress, yes. Not a long dress, it wasn't a formal wedding. It was a funny little hat that I kept for years until I moved here and decided all those

01:21:14.020 - 01:21:27.560

old hats are better, they should go to someplace where they might use them in the theater or something. Okay, you have a minute Okay, what good switch

01:21:29.980 - 01:21:49.240

Change I'm gonna change tape real quick. Let's turn that off while you Cool or all Thank you What a great place to go shopping for a dress yeah and a little hat the friend here that wears hats all the time

01:21:57.060 - 01:22:06.880

Let me back up just a minute. You were disbanded from the WASP on December 20th. What was that Christmas like? Where did you spend Christmas?

01:22:08.090 - 01:22:16.900

Litz: With my family in Petaluma. Kelly: And then you got married on January 1st? Litz: No, no, no. Kelly: A year later.

01:22:16.900 - 01:22:27.640

Litz: A year later. On December 31st, a year later. You said 1945. We were disbanded in '45.

01:22:28.200 - 01:22:39.020

No, '44. And so then— It was a year and ten days later or five days later. Once you got married in New York, did you have a honeymoon?

01:22:39.420 - 01:22:59.440

Oh, yes. on the train and we went up to Quebec and stayed over there. And then we went to Montreal and then visited that place and then Niagara Falls, what else? And that's before my daughter lived there.

01:23:02.940 - 01:23:23.780

Then we came home. Then when you got back to Kalamazoo, did you buy a house? We lived in his apartment. Sam had moved out and we lived in his apartment until one day he came home and he says, "Come

01:23:23.880 - 01:23:35.800

along." My husband came home from work and said, "Come along. I want to show you something." This is the strangest thing because he bought a house without my even seeing it.

01:23:37.920 - 01:23:45.800

I could not believe he had done it. Were you pleased? Well, it was a nice house except for the fact that it did not have any yard. It was on the corner.

01:23:46.560 - 01:24:01.480

Of course, we did not stay there long. Once you have children, you need a yard. But it worked fine for a while because we knew the people across the street, a couple of people that worked at Upjohn's also.

01:24:02.020 - 01:24:23.420

He was a research chemist at Upjohn's, and they were all deferred because they were working on penicillin, trying to make quantities, I mean figuring out how to make quantities of it and things like that. And so therefore there was a whole bunch of researchers, men that were deferred and were

01:24:23.520 - 01:24:32.720

not in the Army. We're not— Kelly: When you came back to Kalamazoo, did you keep working or did you quit that job? Martin: No, no.

01:24:32.720 - 01:24:45.780

No, when I went to New York, I quit. I got somebody to take the place then. Kelly: Then when you came back and he was working, how did you spend your time? Martin: Furnishing the house and learning how to cook.

01:24:47.020 - 01:25:04.300

I never cooked before. And Dorothy was in the same—got married. She was busy getting ready to get married, and she got married then. They lived in the same apartment where Dorothy had lived for a while.

01:25:06.870 - 01:25:27.940

Kelly: Then you began having children. As those children were growing up, tell me some of the things that you were involved with with their activities as far as school? PTA very much involved in that, and then with the Brownies when Barb was old enough to be

01:25:27.940 - 01:25:47.320

in Brownies. Quite a lot of the parents where we lived, the mothers were working, so mostly it was just me and there was one other mother that had time. So I really worked pretty hard on that, because we had a pretty big bunch, like fifteen of

01:25:47.260 - 01:26:01.860

them and to try to figure out what to do with them once a week was a chore for me. Then I did a lot of gardening. I liked to garden. And Ellen had the vegetable garden and I had the flower garden, and so I spent a lot of

01:26:01.960 - 01:26:20.460

time on that. As your children were growing up, what was their association with their grandparents? Were they able to visit them? One year we would go west, one year we would go east, and one year we would stay here.

01:26:24.220 - 01:26:49.140

So every third year they would see their grandparents on either coast. That's how we worked it out. Since your children are married and gone from home, how have you spent your time? Jernigan: Since they've been married and gone from home?

01:26:49.240 - 01:27:07.780

Well, Ellen was still working for a while, and they were married in 1970, both of them. How did I spend my time? Tell me about some of the volunteer work that you've done. I'm bored with this.

01:27:11.700 - 01:27:26.320

Let's turn it off for a while. What would you like to say to future generations that might inspire them to do something? Or not. Or not.

01:27:29.480 - 01:27:59.280

I find that a hard question to answer because I did not have any problem finding inspirations. I just did what I wanted to do and I never thought that I could not do what I wanted to do, even though it might have meant a lot of work, like going to a four-year university instead of going to business school, it meant a lot of work.

01:28:00.060 - 01:28:16.460

But I wanted it, so I did it. The same way with flying an airplane. I just wanted to do it, so I did it. I don't ever feel, and maybe it was because my father was so supportive of me and always

01:28:16.520 - 01:28:40.860

supported me, except the time when he decided I was pretty ignorant because I didn't know presidents that came before Wilson. I didn't teach history. That's what I'll say to people.

01:28:41.580 - 01:28:57.280

That's what I'll say to young people. Take a lot of history courses because as you get older you find that there's big gaps in your education. It's a great background to have more education, to know where you came from, your heritage,

01:28:58.040 - 01:29:19.620

and what the background of how the country got the way it is. Those are courses that I never liked because I didn't like to memorize dates. Well, I don't think that they should be taught that way, but unfortunately when I When I was in school, they were taught by memorizing dates of battles mostly.

01:29:22.080 - 01:29:43.340

So if you get a chance to take some good history courses that isn't about dates only, do it. What makes you happy, Doris? Seeing friends and family. And they get better when they are ill, when they get recovered.

01:29:46.220 - 01:30:07.680

The other thing is things in nature make me happy. Because someone that lives here who writes nature articles, she is a very good writer, and she said in one column just lately, "Think about the things, the times you have had, the best times of your life.

01:30:08.080 - 01:30:28.720

Where were you? were you doing?" And as I thought about them, I remembered going camping in the Redwoods, and I remembered swimming in the Russian River, and I remembered climbing up the mountains and seeing the cold

01:30:28.820 - 01:30:46.360

streams in the mountains. I've discovered that really the pleasant places were all tied with nature, the experiences I'd had, the places were. So that's what makes me happy, yes.

01:30:47.460 - 01:30:59.040

Let me ask you one more question. What is your personal opinion of Jacqueline Cochran and the Watts program? Well I never knew Jacqueline personally. A lot of my class did.

01:31:00.060 - 01:31:11.360

A lot of my classmates were assigned out to Las Vegas. There was a large group of them. Because she had a ranch out close there, they saw her and met her and knew her personally. I never did.

01:31:12.020 - 01:31:43.380

So I thought that she was, like me, pretty strong-willed about what she wanted to do and after it got to do it, she worked for it. She accomplished what she set out to do, except it took a long time to get us into the military. I think the WASP thing, the whole experience was wonderful for me.

01:31:43.940 - 01:32:02.920

I do not know how much of an impression it makes on liberating women or changing the place of the women, and I don't really have an opinion about that. Kelly: Because that's not why you did it anyway, right? McMillan: No.

01:32:05.040 - 01:32:21.700

Well, actually, I have a feeling that all of this making building monuments to war activities is getting carried away. different battle almost. You have to have a monument these days to it.

01:32:22.540 - 01:32:40.620

I wish that they would make more monuments to other things than to accomplishments and wars. Of course, it is a great sacrifice to lose your life. Maybe I would feel different if anybody close to me had been killed.

01:32:40.840 - 01:33:07.840

I was fortunate that way. Kelly: I have one more question. In your life and my life, there are good times and bad times and happy times and sad times. What has gotten you through those sad times? I don't know.

01:33:13.660 - 01:33:36.200

Kelly: Of all the things you've done, what's the one thing you're most proud of? Beall: That's a very hard question, too. The one thing, well, I've got two children I'm proud of, so I can't mention that, because that's two.

01:33:36.880 - 01:33:44.580

[Laughter] Kelly: That's a good answer right there. I think we'll take that. Can I ask you real quick about the broomsticks?

01:33:45.480 - 01:34:01.500

You talked about the broomsticks. Can you tell me what that was? Because I've never heard anybody say anything about that. Well, because when you were learning the procedures, the very first procedures to do if you had

01:34:01.520 - 01:34:23.560

to have the—you know, when a plane with a gear comes up and this and that, and what it wears, are the procedures for making aerobatic maneuvers. Where is the stick and the rudder going to be? And so you're sitting there with a stick and pushing and the throttle is going this

01:34:23.660 - 01:34:37.820

way and the stick is going that way, you're going down and then you're going to do a loop so you have to gain speed and then you're going to pull back. So you're practicing these things in the bay. Oh, okay.

01:34:38.200 - 01:34:48.260

I had never heard that before. We did in our bay. That was really interesting. You mentioned something about letters of recommendation that you had to get to get into the WASP.

01:34:48.700 - 01:35:02.520

Do you remember who you--? Character recommendation. My father got them, I think, from the club he belonged to or the church, the minister. Recommendations for our character.

01:35:02.740 - 01:35:10.240

To prove that you were of upstanding-- Yeah. Yeah. All right.

01:35:10.400 - 01:35:26.140

I guess the only other thing, I wanted to know if you had a favorite word. Can't think of one. Favorite word. There probably is one that I use a lot, but I'm not aware of it.

01:35:26.500 - 01:35:33.640

Okay. You're great. Okay. That wasn't hard, was it?

01:35:33.680 - 01:35:37.420

No. No? Good. Anything else? Anything we left out?

01:35:37.970 - 01:35:44.560

No, I'll probably think of it tonight. Want to sing a little song here? No, not me. I told you about that one.

01:35:45.860 - 01:35:52.400

I'll turn the lights off. Okay. There we go. Sorry about the lights.

01:35:53.040 - 01:36:02.200

It does make it look so much better though when we don't use daylight. Yeah. We use this kind of light. Skin tones look blue when you go through daylight. God bless you.

01:36:02.390 - 01:36:16.460

Thank you, darling, for doing this. Well, thank you for undertaking this project. Thank you so much. I appreciate it so much. Doris, you know, do you go online? Have you seen our website?

01:36:17.120 - 01:36:23.120

I have. Okay. Not lately. Oh, she adds something all the time.

01:36:23.140 - 01:36:31.120

Did you see my paper dolls? No. Did you see the paper dolls? Maxine wrote, Maxine Forno, who is our new president.

01:36:31.540 - 01:36:51.960

Yeah. I put up this thing where it's a picture of a paper doll, cut out paper doll, like from the 40s with the 40s hairdo and everything. And over on the right hand side is a uniform, pieces of a uniform. You can put a leather jacket, you can drag it over and drop it on

01:36:51.980 - 01:37:03.400

her, you can put a zoot suit, you know, so you can put either a beret or a flying helmet. It's just for kids. But as you drag it over underneath, it says what it is. This is a leather flying jacket.

01:37:03.500 - 01:37:11.060

It was used for open cockpit flying. So you learn something as you, just learning in little doses, I think is (laughs)

01:37:11.260 - 01:37:18.360

- She has a password puzzle. - Kind of what we're about. - It's all about the wasp. - Very good. - But as she said, children.

01:37:18.600 - 01:37:19.400

- I can turn this off.