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So when they go back in, they'll, when they, when I go back in, [LAUGH] I don't know what. >> Are my earrings straight? I figure I don't wear these any place but wasp things, so.

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>> Yeah, look straight to me. >> I had, she did a good job on them, so I. >> Do that. >> Yes.

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Okay, I'm gonna go off bars. Here we go, okay. And I'm rolling, I'm ready. I'm Deanie Parrish with Wings Across America.

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We are on the, in the Wings Across America offices on the campus of Baylor University. Today we're interviewing Jean McCreary. She was a wasp during World War II, class 4410.

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Today is October the 9th, 2002. Okay, Jean, if you would just give us your full name and when and where you were born. >> My name is Jean Terrell.

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I'm sorry. Marguerite Jean Terrell, Morio McCreary. I was born in Troy, Ohio, April the 28th, 1924. >> Okay, Jean, tell me about your mom and dad.

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>> Well, let's say they were always very much in love. And I came right behind the dog. You know, first my dad liked the dog, my mother, then the dog, then me. But he was really good to me because I guess I used to like to draw.

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And one day he sent away for a cartooning book and gave it to me. And I thought, now how did he know that I'd like to do this? And I always wanted to be an artist. My grandmother was an artist, very good.

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And I went to art school at night and I don't have it. You either do or you don't. And it didn't pop up till my youngest son, he's an artist. I mean, they all have skills and talents.

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And I do a good color problem choices, but my son is an artist, my grandmother was an artist. >> When you were born, where did you live? Did you live in town, on the outskirts, or on a farm?

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>> I lived in Troy. And my mother had, they had an apartment. Now it's one of those big old Victorian houses. And it's still there.

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And I doubt if they ever put a plaque on the door for me. But I was born in a private hospital. At that time, a lot of people weren't born in the hospital. And I don't know why I was the only child.

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Maybe it was more than they could bear, but I'm it. >> And what was your dad doing? What was his job? >> At the time, he was a salesman for Hobart Manufacturing,

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when it was still a very small outfit for Kitchen Aid. And now you see Kitchen Aids on every cooking program has Kitchen Aid on it. My aunt wrote their first cookbook. And it was a local company, Hobart Brothers, and they were, it's a company town.

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And my dad, his first job was, he was a chauffeur for some of the people in town, he'd driven since they made cars. And he loved it, he's always driven. I think I probably got miles to drive from him.

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And then he went to work for Hobart, and he didn't like his supervisor. So he told him to go to hell, and he got fired. And as the Depression was coming on, he couldn't get a job. Now the other people that started when he started ended up executives for

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the company, but he didn't. And he needed a job, so he went to work for my mother's people who were butchers. Gruelich, they were German butchers. My grandfather came over from Germany, came to Cincinnati and then Dayton and

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then Troy, and put up a slaughterhouse. That's before they called them packing houses. Then I can remember as a child being down at the slaughterhouse, watching them kill animals, or just the old-fashioned way.

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And my dad did that for 40 years. He really wanted to be an engineer on the railroad, but it didn't work out that way. And then he went to work because he had a wife and child. And then in his 50s, he started into politics.

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And he became president of council, and from that, mayor. And he held office longer than any person in that particular town. He died in office. There are more people in that church because he was mayor

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than I ever expected to see. >> So he died when he was mayor. >> Yeah. >> He was still mayor. >> He was a mayor when he died.

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And he was absolutely beloved by everybody in town. And it took him so long. So you say, well, I'm not a success and I'm 55. He was in his 50s before he started into this sort of thing.

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And it's like my husband said, the only honest Republican he ever knew. [LAUGH] >> Sorry. >> [LAUGH] >> Tell me about your grandparents.

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The grandfather that came over, was he already married? >> He was German, and he came to Troy from Freiburg, Germany. My grandmother grew up in Freiburg, Ohio. The similarity was a family thing.

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And she told me that she came out, she had to walk two miles out to the streetcar, and she carried her shoes so they wouldn't get dirty. And she rode the streetcar into Troy, and I think she probably worked as either a maid or a child's nurse.

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And she met grandpa, and it was a typical German family. They had nine children. The first one lives, the rest of them, first three died. And then she had a little girl, and it died.

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And I asked her one time, I said, Grandma, what did your babies die of? And she said, second summer. And I said, what do you mean by that? And she said, they were nursed until the second summer, put on cows, milk.

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They got diarrhea and it killed them, that simple. And my mother was the last. There's a big line in the Bible underneath Mother's name, Grandpa had just had it.

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[LAUGH] But she didn't have mother until she was in her 40s. And she said, we didn't want you very bad when you were coming, but we're certainly glad you're here now. And Mother took care of her.

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I had her around until I had six children before she died. So Grandma was 95 when she died. So I had a lot of experiences with her and really appreciate it. >> And your mother's parents.

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>> Those are my mother's parents. >> Okay, your father's parents. >> My father's mother died when he was a year and a half old. My grandfather, her husband, was one of the first pharmacy graduates from Ohio

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Northern University in Ohio. And he had a drug store, he was a pharmacist in a drug store. And she died. And in that day, if you had a small child like that,

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you married again as quickly as possible to get a parent for your children. And he married this woman and she wouldn't have anything to do with my dad who was a year and a half old. So he took her to his sister-in-law, who I called Grandma, but

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was actually my grandmother's sister. And they said he ran through the house looking for his mother and couldn't find her. And I don't know whether that has an influence on my life or not, but

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he only attached himself to my mother. And as good as he was in politics and as outgoing as he was, there was a loss there. And the old expression, children should be seen and not heard,

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well, that's pretty much, of course, I talk too much, so maybe that's why. He was really good to me. He was the one that said I could take flying lessons. He bought me a dog, a bicycle, everything that you can get kids.

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But he was close to my mother and they had a real relationship. And I think maybe people that marry, if you grow up in that kind of a household, you expect to do that yourself. And my husband grew up in the same,

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all my children are still married to the same people. Which I think is pretty amazing to have ten kids still with the same people that they started out with. So whether that's inherited or

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that's what they're used to, I have no idea. >> Do you recall, what is the first thing you recall in your childhood? >> [LAUGH] I ran away from home to go over to the next door to the cemetery and I was picking flowers for my mother.

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I had to be under school age. And she caught me and of course she thought I had disappeared. So she's switching me on the heels, chasing me back home, I remember that. [LAUGH] I remember waking up from a nap and

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going across the street to get the neighbors to buckle my shoes cuz I didn't know how, and my folks were taking a nap, we were nap people. Now, I shouldn't have sneaked out of the house to do that, but I do remember doing it, so I was probably three or four.

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>> When you were young, without brothers and sisters, who were your playmates? >> I always had a dog, and I was always allowed to have pets. I guess probably because my dad liked dogs. I always wanted a sister, until I got in the Wasp, I didn't have one.

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Now I do. [LAUGH] >> What is your remembrance of starting to school? How far was the school?

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>> Well, by this time we lived in an apartment and I could walk to school. So we walked past the Protestant school to the Catholic school. And all the little kids going to public school would say, you're a bunch of cat lickers.

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And we said, well, you're a bunch of pot lickers. That's what I remember about walking to school. [LAUGH] But- >> Did you wear uniforms? >> No, but I wore long stockings.

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And my cousin who got by, she was a year behind me in school, got hot and she was allowed to wear ankle socks. And the nuns were gonna send her home, cuz she didn't have long stockings on.

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And I thought, man, she gets by with everything. And her mother went down and fussed at him a bit, so then we were all allowed to wear ankle socks. But she got to do it first.

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[LAUGH] >> In elementary school, do you recall a favorite teacher that might have influenced you? >> Well, not in what I've done. That was later in high school, because I went to the nuns.

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And I was gonna be a nun for ten years till I found out what boys were. And then it sort of burned that out. And I was a tomboy, and I wanted to have hair on my arms like my dad. I wanted to be tough.

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And I remember I got three of the boys down and washed their face with snow. And boy, I was in trouble for that. That was about the eighth grade. And I did it right in the main street, right in the middle of town.

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Well, they were devil men, I got them down and washed their face. And Grandma could watch it out. I had to go by Grandma's house to go home. And my aunt immediately called my mother, so I was in trouble before I ever got home.

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[LAUGH] >> But school was easy, and I liked it. >> In elementary school? >> Elementary school. >> Was it boys and girls, or just- >> Yeah, it was boys and girls.

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There was a heavy emphasis on religion. But I'm really surprised when we worried about going into public school, whether we'd be able to keep up with the kids. And I think that's still true.

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Kids come out of a private school like that, and they do very well. >> I wanted to ask you what you think the advantage of private school is, and especially a private religious school. >> Well, because I learned to shut my mouth when somebody told me to.

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And I suppose it was teaching by guilt, which they don't do anymore. But I learned very early that there were things you did and didn't do. And none of it hurt me a bit. They never laid a hand on me, so I can't say I was ever punished or anything.

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But if you sat in a class with nuns, you shut up. You behaved. And I can see it today if you see a class of children that have religious instructors, they behave better.

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>> Do you think it's perhaps called respect? >> Yes, that's a good word for it. And I suppose there's a little guilt thrown in. >> Right.

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>> So, but my folks told me, get in trouble at school and you're in trouble at home. And I knew better. And it's inconceivable to me that children can't behave in school.

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>> As you were growing up as a young child on into high school, what was a Christmas like at your home? >> Kind of everything I ever asked for, you know. Well, the only child thing.

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And I was probably overindulged. They were very good to me. Looking, hearing other people's stories of childhood, I think I was unusual. I had never seen a drunk until I was probably 19 or 20 years old.

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I didn't know people did things like that. I never, the stories I heard about what awful things had happened to children. That was to me was, I didn't even know about it, let alone it happened to me. I didn't know those things happened.

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So I'd say I was pretty cherished. >> What did you look forward to at Christmas? >> [LAUGH] As much as I could get, let's be honest here. No. >> Did you decorate a tree?

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Did you have a tree? >> Yeah, we always had a tree. >> Did you look forward to decorating the tree? You recall? >> Yeah, pretty much.

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But in the sense that it wasn't the beginning and end of Christmas. Christmas to me is not the Christmas tree. It's the story and it's the crèche and when my own children came along, I tried to play a lot of that down.

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Partly because economically I couldn't do all that. So I tried to base, the children had to give each other something. No matter how little it cost, they had to either make it, earn it, something. And that meant each child had to come up with ten gifts.

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Well, 11 counting their dad and I. So I never heard, what am I gonna get? I heard, mom, what am I gonna do for so and so? What am I gonna do for so and so?

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And one year when things were tough, my oldest daughter took a four by four post. My husband cut it up and she made blocks. And for a long time, one of them held up the shelf in my refrigerator. And I think a friend of mine still has one.

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But we tried to put the Christmas emphasis, and I'm sure this goes back to my childhood, on what you're gonna do for somebody else, not what's coming to you. But again, I never had to do without, so apparently it wasn't an issue.

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And you talk about the depression. I wanted to give all my clothes to my friend. I knew she didn't have anything. And I was bossy and pushy, I suppose as I am now.

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And I'd say, why don't you take this skirt? You can have it, I don't need it. She said, I don't want your clothes. I couldn't understand why she didn't want that.

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And she was my best friend. I'd go down to her house, and they had seven children, I think, seven or eight children. And I'd say, can I just sit and watch?

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I won't ask to eat anything. I won't ask for a thing, just let me watch. And later on, when I had the big family, the neighbor boy did the same thing. Must have been the fascination with a group of people.

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And she'd say, no, I want you to go home. [LAUGH] In walking to school, she lived farther out than I did. And she and her sister walked up the street.

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And I was in the first grade. And I said, can I walk to school with you? And she said, well, we walk by your house. If you can come over and fall in step with us, you can walk with us.

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But we aren't gonna slow down for you. So here I am sitting in the steps, just waiting on them to come up the street. And again, I just always wanted a sister, which I didn't have. And to this day, I go get her.

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She doesn't come and get me if we're gonna do something. [LAUGH] >> When you were growing up, what did you do for vacations? >> We took a trip every year.

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My grandmother, my father's aunt, who we call Grandma, loved to travel. But she couldn't really let her husband drive. It wasn't that he couldn't drive, he was a rural mail carrier. But she didn't trust him.

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So she'd buy a new car every two years. She had farms and she had inherited some money. And my dad drove, Grandma sat in front, and Grandpa and Mother and I sat in back.

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And she started planning these trips in January for summer. So I had been all over the country by the time I got to the eighth grade. And at that point, we went to the West Coast. And I know now that we went to see Hoover Dam and Golden Gate Bridge.

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And I realized when I checked the dates that they had just been built at that time. And apparently, my father wanted to see them, so that's where the trip went. We traveled and we didn't have air conditioning in the car. I don't remember being as hot as it probably was.

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But my dad had a compass on his side, and Grandma had one on her side, because she didn't necessarily believe he knew where he was going. But she was different for her age and time, too. She managed farms.

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My great-grandfather was a judge, and he was crippled. He was hurt in the Civil War. And she did a lot of work for him, because he couldn't get around. So she was more of an outgoing woman than the times called for.

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I found a diary of my great-grandmother's. It went around the world in 1902, and it's written in pencil. And all she did was complain about the bad food, the dirty people in India, and so on.

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And I asked my mother about it, and she said, oh, she was a hypochondriac. She just, she complained about everything. But to go around the world, especially at that time, and just remember that sort of thing.

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But anyway, Grandma helped her father, I suppose physically. I really don't know exactly. But she was always able to plan things. And then from him, she inherited farms, and she ran that business until,

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according to her, that man in the White House, Roosevelt, got in. [LAUGH] She'd get these great big pictures of Hoover and hang them all over her front porch.

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Every place anybody could look at them. And what she was really mad about was she had to pay income tax. She didn't think that was necessary at all. >> [LAUGH] Do you remember any of the cars that you went in on those trips?

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>> Yeah. Grandma got a new car every two years, and I can remember an Essex. Remember with the little flower things on the side and the scratchy robe in the back seat.

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Man, I'd like to get my hands on one of those now. [LAUGH] And then we had Plymouths, and mostly Plymouths, I would say. Not any really elaborate touring car. But still, new every two years.

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And then when she got a new one, she gave my dad the old one. And then we get to where I need a car, so I'm getting a car, my dad, then me. And then the war started and they didn't do that anymore. That was the last free car I ever had.

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>> As you went across country at that time, what kind of facilities were you able to stay at? >> I remember the first motel was in St. Louis. And the concept of motel was different.

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And we sat out in front and my dad said, smell the new Monet. And I thought, that doesn't smell very good. But today when I smell it, it reminds me of him. And we stayed in Gallup, New Mexico in a gorgeous motel that had

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Indian rugs all over the floor. You could have bought anything out there for two bucks. It was just cheap. And I can remember that motel had peppers hanging in the typical of southwest now.

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But we also stayed in tourist homes. And my dad would always go in, rent the room, strip back the bed to make sure there weren't any bed bugs, and then put the bedding back on when we stayed there. [LAUGH] But we went to the West Coast, we went to Seattle.

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I went to Seattle when I was five, because I had an uncle out there. And this would be my mother's family. We went on the train. I'd love to do that again.

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There was a Navy battleship, I guess, in what had been Puget Sound, and we went out to see it. It was something you could do. And I didn't want to get off.

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I loved that thing. I thought that was just the greatest. And I apparently kicked up a fuss about it, getting off. We went up to Mount Rainier.

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And the glacier, we walked under the glacier on the 4th of July, there's a picture of me standing in a dress under this snow arch. And Jack and I were up there in '92, maybe. That glacier has receded.

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It isn't there anymore. And I couldn't believe that that much had happened in my lifetime. >> Wow. Making all these trips across America,

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what is the one place that you remember that stands out in your mind? >> Gee, there's a lot of places. You know, I went to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which was a beautiful place. And I've always said the only place I'd ever move back to is Flagstaff, Arizona.

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I've been there several times, and I lived there for a while. But Seattle, every lovely place you can think of. >> It's America the beautiful. >> But I didn't want to go.

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I wanted to stay home with my friends. And they drug me, they made me go, even as a senior in high school. They said if you can get a job, you can stay home. I could have stayed with my friend.

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And man, I looked for a job. I couldn't get one. And that year we went to Key West. So I had been in every state by the time I was through school.

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I just think of it as being the whole world, but I didn't travel much out of the country until just recently. >> As you grew up on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, would your family gather or would it be just you and your mom and dad?

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>> Well, I think we traded off with the grandparents. The mother's family were older, so she was pretty young. And they would come to our house. But my other grandmother would have us to her house or

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to my aunt's house in Dayton, just locally. It wasn't a very big family. And I was the young smart aleck, so I was lucky if I could behave all day. >> When you think back to Christmas dinner, what can you smell?

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>> The usual turkey dressing. Mother worked, so I didn't really learn to cook as a child. I didn't know how to cook until I got married. So food wasn't something that, as a matter of fact, I was a pretty picky eater.

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And so was my father. He didn't eat carrots cuz they're for rabbits. I think all kinds of things that he said, and of course I picked them right up behind him.

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[LAUGH] I didn't eat meat until I was, mother cut my meat until I was 17 and hand me the plate. When she finally decided that was going a little far and she quit doing it, I quit eating meat.

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I didn't wanna cut it. >> [LAUGH] >> So, we're talking spoiled kid here. >> [LAUGH] >> The first one to tell you this. Getting married and having all those kids was a real shock.

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[LAUGH] >> Of your little playmates when you were young, have any of those, are they still friends? Do you have any friends? >> Yeah, I have the same friend that, she's still a very dear friend.

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I see her just about every time I go up there. She was not very good at arithmetic, but she played the stock market and she made a bunch of money. I was excellent at arithmetic.

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I got a state award. I can't invest money at all. It just kills me that she could do, I had two friends like that. And I just went back to my 60th high school reunion.

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And the girl that, she married the president of the class. She and I sat, she says I sat behind her. I don't remember this, but her name was Jean Tecklenburg, my name was Jean Terrell.

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And she said I had to keep jumping for fear of what you might be doing to me behind me. I just always, that's why I wouldn't name my kids anything that I thought somebody else was gonna name their kids in the time period, because it was Jean.

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Jean who? Anyway, she's a good friend. The kids I went to high school, I still see. And I've known them all my lives.

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We went, we had a high school reunion in Sanibel Island in Florida, about two or three years ago. And we all went to church, and there were nine of us that had gone to the same church as children, which I thought was pretty astonishing.

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>> Right. When you, as a young child, do you remember some of the games you played? >> We played kick the can, that was my favorite. You know, run up and, if you know how to.

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Just- >> Were you an athletic child? >> No, but I was a tomboy. I had a bicycle from the time I could ride one. And I had a bicycle and a dog, and I went every place, out in the country, in town.

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And then if hot weather, they'd start reporting me to either my parents or the police about mistreating that dog, cuz I made it run alongside of me. I didn't make it run, you couldn't keep it at home. You know, it met me at school, when school was out,

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it was standing on the corner when I came out of school. And I have just always had a bicycle, I've always had wheels. >> But not a collection of dolls? >> Well, I had dolls, some.

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But, this is my cousin again. She had this doll that stayed perfect, just looked lovely. We both got the dolls on the same day. I tried to give mine a bath, and that was before that you could wash them.

00:27:24.080 - 00:27:34.800

Well, it had varnish or something on it, and the first thing I did was just freeze those legs up tight. And then my doll didn't look as good as hers. Well, she was always cleaned up.

00:27:34.800 - 00:27:48.680

I was a tomboy. I wanted to play with the guys. >> When you finished elementary school, then did you change schools or did you stay- >> I just went to

00:27:48.680 - 00:27:58.680

public high school in the same town. We didn't have Catholic high school. And high school was right across the street from my house, and I was probably late every single day.

00:27:58.680 - 00:28:13.200

I didn't have to get out of bed till 8 o'clock. I'd come sliding in under the wire. >> And high school started at what grade level? >> It would be freshman, would be, what is it now, ninth grade.

00:28:13.200 - 00:28:27.480

Cuz we just had elementary school, high school. >> When you went to high school, what extracurricular activities were you involved in? >> Well, again, at this point in my life, I thought I was gonna be an artist,

00:28:27.480 - 00:28:37.640

again, because of the grandmother's influence. And I took every art course you could take. I was trying very hard not to take home ec. I considered that a total waste of time.

00:28:37.640 - 00:28:52.120

So I took every art course, and that's possibly what affected my life. Because we get down to senior year, and they're beginning to find out I haven't taken home ec yet. So I signed up for mechanical drawing.

00:28:52.120 - 00:29:10.600

Well, that filled up my hours. But from the mechanical drawing class, I've made a living all my life from that. And it was simply because I was trying to get out of that girl stuff. [LAUGH] Sorry, that's just the way it is.

00:29:10.600 - 00:29:20.800

>> What was your social life like in high school? >> A lot of fun. Once I found out about boys, my grades probably dropped a whole point. I did real well the first year.

00:29:20.800 - 00:29:33.520

>> What did you do for fun? >> We- >> What, movies? >> Dances, movies. We had quite a crowd, quite a bunch of kids that all sort of came together.

00:29:33.520 - 00:29:44.680

And I still see a lot of them. We still have the same social interests. I just plain like boyfriends. >> Right.

00:29:44.680 - 00:29:56.120

Were you into any kind of sports in high school? >> Not really. I avoided them as much as possible. I avoided PT as much as possible until I got in Sweetwater.

00:29:56.120 - 00:30:06.080

I didn't have to do exercises. So then I got in the back row where they couldn't see me and Peggy Werburn and I, we didn't do a whole lot. [LAUGH] >> How about music or

00:30:06.080 - 00:30:17.840

speech or anything like that in high school? >> Well, I played the piano and I took piano lessons. And then I was trying to dodge that and I told my mother my knee hurt, so she let me quit.

00:30:17.840 - 00:30:31.880

She never should have let me quit, but she did. Then I played the accordion because my father played an accordion and I played in an accordion band for a while. But standing out there at some kind of an October fest, your hands get cold and

00:30:31.880 - 00:30:45.360

you gotta play the keyboard, so I dropped that too. So my musical ability just went right down the tubes. [LAUGH] >> What subject did you really like in high school?

00:30:45.360 - 00:30:55.600

>> History. History and art and English, languages. I did well in most of them. I did very well in algebra.

00:30:55.600 - 00:31:17.520

School was not hard, but the influence of boys kept my grades down. I was on the honor roll, but I could have done a lot better. >> Did you date one particular boy in high school or was it? >> Well, this guy that we went to see, and he'll come up here,

00:31:17.520 - 00:31:26.760

who come to see this arrangement, was my first. He came to town to the public school. And of course, I was in Catholic school. I didn't even know him.

00:31:26.760 - 00:31:40.280

And everybody talked about this handsome kid that came in, and he was so handsome and he drove a car. So at ninth grade, that was pretty heady. And lo and behold, he took me out and gave me this big rush, and

00:31:40.280 - 00:31:52.920

we wrote letters to each other. We wrote notes all the time, and this lasted about, and the big date was to go to Dayton on Saturday night and go to the movies and then stop and get something to eat and come home.

00:31:52.920 - 00:32:10.040

And I had this three months rush, and then he just flat out dumped me for my best friend who lived out the road, and then he'd drive past my house to go pick her up, and I'd sit on the porch and cry, and my life was over at 16. So I just knew there would be no future, nothing again.

00:32:10.040 - 00:32:21.080

And I ran into him, he came back for a reunion, and he wanted to know if I wanted to fly with him, and I said, sure. So we went to the local airport, and he hands me a map. He said, here, you do the map.

00:32:21.080 - 00:32:28.200

I said, I lived here all my life. Why do I need a map to fly over this town? I said, I don't need that map. He says, okay, well, show me where your house was.

00:32:28.200 - 00:32:37.400

And I said, down there. And I said, and that's where I sat on the porch and cried my eyes out over you because you dumped me. He said, no, I didn't.

00:32:37.400 - 00:32:44.400

I said, yes, you did. They aren't aware of that. They don't think about that. You know, if I had that little bit of ammunition today.

00:32:44.400 - 00:32:56.280

[LAUGH] But I was so crushed. Anyway, I found some other guys. He wasn't the only fish in the sea. [LAUGH] And he's still a great friend.

00:32:56.280 - 00:33:11.000

And I came to see him here, and he flies up. Well, last year we flew up to Michigan to see another friend of ours from high school, and I said, maybe I better ask you why your wife doesn't fly with you. He said, she's afraid to.

00:33:11.000 - 00:33:18.000

I said, well, I'm not afraid to. I could get the plane down if I had to, so. And she is charming. I like her much better than I do him.

00:33:18.000 - 00:33:34.200

So when I come to Texas, I go stay with him. She is just lovely. >> What was your graduation like from high school? >> My grandfather gave me a dozen roses, which, you know, that stuck with me.

00:33:34.200 - 00:33:42.720

It was great, and I had met my husband by then. I met him when I was a junior in high school. And he was there for graduation. And then we had to do something wicked.

00:33:42.720 - 00:33:53.760

You know, we just had to think of something to do. So we were gonna go over and break in an outdoor swimming pool that we used to go to, a lake, that was maybe five, ten miles, that was more than that, about 15 miles away.

00:33:53.760 - 00:34:08.320

So we go over and we break in and we swim and we get back in the car and we start for home. And it was Earl, my first husband, and his best friend, and me. And on the way home, his best friend and I have an argument about which way we're

00:34:08.320 - 00:34:18.280

gonna go on this road. And while we're arguing about it, we hit a post that was a road split and put a hole in the radiator. But as a result, we had to walk home.

00:34:18.280 - 00:34:31.080

It wasn't a bad accident, it just simply disabled the car. So we had to walk a distance, maybe eight miles. Nobody picked us up, but it was a beautiful spring night. And we just walked and talked.

00:34:31.080 - 00:34:45.280

And finally the milk truck picked us up and brought us to my front door at six o'clock in the morning. And my mother was fit to be tied. I'd been out all night with a boy, and she just saw everything there.

00:34:45.280 - 00:34:52.640

She just saw everything there. [LAUGH] But it was totally innocent. It was just me trying to tell somebody how to drive.

00:34:52.640 - 00:35:05.800

[LAUGH] >> What qualities did that young man have that made you fall in love with him? >> It'd be hard to say. We had gone, he was from Lima.

00:35:05.800 - 00:35:16.560

The same boy that was in the car with us had gone to Bluffton College and had ruined Beth Earl. Didn't like him at first because he was a know-it-all. He's always been like that.

00:35:16.560 - 00:35:33.520

And then they thrashed it out and they became very good friends. So on Memorial Day of 1941, this fellow who lived near us came by the house, wanted to know if we wanted to go someplace, and we said sure.

00:35:34.680 - 00:35:48.680

So we went to Lima and pulled up in front of Earl's house. And he came running down the steps and said, it was supposed to be, he thought Bob was coming up to the race to listen to the Memorial Day race. So he said, hi, you old, how are you?

00:35:48.680 - 00:36:02.920

And then he looks in the back seat and sees three girls sitting there, so he kind of backed off. We went to Bluffton that day and got sodas or something, and we came back. And he told his mother, he said, that was Bob and some girls, and

00:36:02.920 - 00:36:16.240

that one in the back seat I'm gonna marry. Isn't that strange, because I knew that when I saw him too. And we were married 38 years. You don't believe that happens, but it does happen.

00:36:16.240 - 00:36:30.480

>> And you were a senior? >> I was in my junior year in high school. And at that time we went to a lake, Indian Lake in Ohio, and all the big bands came, and Earl loved them.

00:36:30.480 - 00:36:48.480

He loved the music, and I think I saw Glenn Miller four times. And I'm standing around waiting on him to dance with me, and he's standing around watching Miller and talking about the people in the band. And the typical thing we were all interested in at the time.

00:36:48.480 - 00:37:10.640

And when the war started, he enlisted right away and didn't go right away. He got into the Navy Air Corps, and they sent him to Ohio Westland. And he had this great looking cadet uniform, and then he went from there to Ohio State, and they housed him in the sorority houses.

00:37:10.640 - 00:37:22.880

And the sorority girls, or maybe it would have been the fraternity houses, and the sorority girls thought those guys were just great. And I didn't see him for about three years after that, because he was getting a big rush.

00:37:22.880 - 00:37:33.640

Betty Leveque, did you know her? She was a WASP. And she was from Columbus, and her folks were quite wealthy. And she would drive an open touring car.

00:37:33.640 - 00:37:48.840

She'd pick these guys up and take them out to Sullivan Field where they were doing primary. And of course, he just, well, I was some poor little country girl. [LAUGH] But he got it out of his system, I hope.

00:37:48.840 - 00:38:04.520

>> When you were going through school, who were your role models? Who did you admire? >> Be hard to say, my father probably. I was always close to him, much closer than I was to my mother.

00:38:04.520 - 00:38:22.240

And then, I don't know. I didn't, I remember, because I like mechanical drawing, I would say the teacher that taught it was a big influence on me. Because if it hadn't been for him and what I'd learned from him,

00:38:22.240 - 00:38:36.520

I would not have gone to work at Waco. I would not have taken flying lessons. I would not have been in the drafting, which was the other part of my life. But I wouldn't have said he was a role model,

00:38:36.520 - 00:38:47.560

it's just simply he had a great influence. And I had an art teacher that I liked. Because again, up until I was out of high school, I thought I could be an artist, and I just simply was not good enough.

00:38:49.240 - 00:39:07.440

But you can tell yourself you're anything when you're a kid. >> At the time you graduated, what were your ambitions? >> Well, that was the war had started. And I really hadn't thought much about college, and

00:39:07.440 - 00:39:16.040

everybody else was going to college. And I thought, gee, I guess I better, that was just about as much consideration as I gave it. And I went to Ohio U for a year.

00:39:18.720 - 00:39:35.960

And by this time, drafting was a great interest. So I got into the engineering school, which again, women didn't do. I was the secretary of the engineering club, and there was all guys and me, and that sounded pretty good.

00:39:35.960 - 00:39:53.160

But my interests were never, I won't say they weren't feminine, they were feminine, but housework didn't talk to me at all. You never saw on anybody's tombstone, she was a good housekeeper. And you won't see it on mine.

00:39:53.160 - 00:40:01.040

[LAUGH] >> Okay, we need- >> No, you still got a good team. >> Okay, I thought we needed to change tapes or do it now.

00:40:01.040 - 00:40:16.600

Tell me about your graduation from high school. >> Just the girl was there, because I had met him by then. And my grandfather gave me the roses, and outside of that, well, there was a, I don't know whether it's,

00:40:16.600 - 00:40:27.800

in the procession going in to graduate, there was this black guy behind me. And he kept saying, I got a bottle of gin here, you wanna share? And I said, not here, and not now. [LAUGH]

00:40:27.800 - 00:40:44.920

But outside of that, it was pretty straight. >> Let me ask you, was your high school integrated? >> Yeah, and Troy was, I would have said everything was fine. I never had a problem, never had a problem with my children.

00:40:45.640 - 00:41:06.360

I never had a black, I wasn't prejudiced. But when the riots came, and we bought a house one time, Earl and I. And we were showing it, and we ended up selling it. We were showing it to someone else, and he said, Earl, as far as Troy's concerned,

00:41:06.360 - 00:41:25.600

this might as well be Alabama, because the man was black. But if it was true in that town, it was very well kept. And when my father became mayor, the black community supported him. And they kept Troy from being destroyed, and the riots had hit Dayton.

00:41:25.600 - 00:41:43.160

So, but it still is, the black people still live in certain sections. >> Okay, got to change the tape. Move to another tape, you're doing great.

00:41:43.160 - 00:42:03.640

>> Oh, kids, it didn't happen to me or anybody I knew. Well, I suppose it happened in my town, but I certainly didn't know it. So here's this little nobody from Ohio, safe and sound. >> Then you backed up in your high school.

00:42:04.960 - 00:42:18.760

When, where were you, and what do you remember about hearing about Pearl Harbor? >> We had gone to the movies, a friend of mine. And we came out of the movies, and the Western Union office was right across the street from the movies.

00:42:18.760 - 00:42:37.160

And why we crossed the street, I have no idea. But it was on the window, and I forget whether it was a paper sign or a ticker tape, but anyway, it said the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. And I went home, and I don't remember anybody saying too much about it.

00:42:37.160 - 00:42:49.320

I suppose they were listening to the radio. But the next day at noon, when Roosevelt announced that we would be at war with the Empire of Japan, I had gone home for lunch, and we listened to it on the radio.

00:42:49.320 - 00:43:01.720

So, and I would have been a senior in high school. No, 41, I would have still been a junior. And of course, everybody was wondering what would happen, and the usual things that went on.

00:43:01.720 - 00:43:17.920

But out of my high school class, which was very small, about 112, eight of eight boys were killed. They just simply came right out of high school, got in the service, dead. And I just despise war, partly for that reason.

00:43:17.920 - 00:43:32.520

And granted, we were attacked at that time. But I'm afraid wars are fought for other reasons, and for economic reasons, which I think is terrible. I remember asking my dad, how long is this war gonna,

00:43:32.520 - 00:43:44.040

cuz it was keeping me from living high, no gas. I said, how long is this war gonna last? And he said, till they stop making money off of it. And that stuck with me.

00:43:44.040 - 00:44:05.480

And also, my husband said about my dad, he's probably the only man in the country didn't make money off of World War II, because he stayed at the grocery with his in-laws, and instead of going into a manufacturing plant, he stayed at the grocery, and he did that until he took public office.

00:44:05.480 - 00:44:28.120

>> As you look back, how do you think the war changed America? >> Well, if you look back from my point of view now, a great deal. At the time, I didn't think very much about it, but I had worked in California. The boys that were stationed there, a lot of them stayed there or moved there.

00:44:28.120 - 00:44:50.240

And I was in mapping and tax mapping and that sort of thing, title search. And all of the little small California towns immediately grew into great big towns, and for instance, Santa Clara, California, just south of San Francisco, was beautiful orchards and fruit farms.

00:44:50.240 - 00:45:05.040

And all of a sudden, it's just paved over. The same way with Los Angeles. But it was such a gorgeous place, say in '36 or '38 when I went out. I remember orchards, I remember oil wells in Los Angeles,

00:45:05.040 - 00:45:17.920

I remember how beautiful the whole state was. And then I go back to live there in, well, I had been there in between, but I went to live there in '84. It was an entirely different place.

00:45:17.920 - 00:45:35.080

And the growth was so rapid. I still wouldn't buy real estate in California, because you can't get a real clear title to anything. I think the migration of people was brought on by the war.

00:45:35.080 - 00:45:44.000

[COUGH] Excuse me. And I think we must have been very, very innocent. Much more innocent than kids are today.

00:45:44.000 - 00:45:59.080

I mean, as it seems like I've been telling you, I grew up in a little town where everybody, you could leave your doors open. When we took these trips and came to a strange town, we'd eat dinner and I was allowed to walk around town and see what I could see.

00:45:59.080 - 00:46:09.880

I'm gonna have to get a drink of water. >> I stayed clear of her, because I said I was scared of her. >> [LAUGH] >> All it is, just tell yourself, and so

00:46:09.880 - 00:46:22.680

focused on what I was doing, that I think I drove people off. And then I married Jack, and he said, smile. Relax. And I thought, well, I'll give it a shot, but

00:46:22.680 - 00:46:31.600

I didn't think there was anything to it. >> [LAUGH] >> And so in my spare time, I tried a little of it, and then people started to speak to me.

00:46:31.600 - 00:46:36.640

Strangers. And Jack and I were walking down the street, and I said, you see that guy coming? He's gonna speak to me.

00:46:36.640 - 00:46:42.520

He said, do you know him? And I said, never saw him before in my life. He said, then why would he speak to you? I said, watch.

00:46:42.520 - 00:46:57.580

And he does, and people still do it. So somehow, somewhere, and I really give Jack credit for it, I've changed the whole, but Caddy gives that same thing. Okay.

00:46:57.580 - 00:47:15.080

>> Were you still in high school when your dad became mayor? >> No, he was still at the store. He stayed at the store until they all retired. They decided they're younger again because of the war.

00:47:15.080 - 00:47:28.920

The boys, there were only, I think, three or four male descent. This was the German side of the family. The males inherit the business. And Grandpa, at one time, it was a butcher shop.

00:47:28.920 - 00:47:36.840

And then eventually, they took in groceries, but my grandfather didn't think that was right. He thought meat here next door is the grocery. Of course, that's European.

00:47:38.080 - 00:47:48.280

And then the younger, my generation, didn't want to be grocers. That was a come down. So they did other things. So there wasn't anybody to inherit it.

00:47:48.280 - 00:48:00.240

And nobody, they weren't smart enough to put it into, like bird's eye, freezing stuff. I can remember one time my dad took a loaf of bread and put it in the ice cream freezer and we went to Florida.

00:48:00.240 - 00:48:12.240

And we came back maybe six weeks later and he took the bread out and let it thaw and he said, see, that does work. Now, why wouldn't this little light bulb go off and all the things you could do as frozen food?

00:48:12.240 - 00:48:28.800

Nah, we didn't do a thing with it. But so they just ran a small town butcher shop. It was the best meat in town. I mean, it was perfect, but when they, the younger men didn't want to do it,

00:48:28.800 - 00:48:46.000

so it closed down, and then my dad, he was ready to retire. But he had gone into politics and got elected mayor. He said, my advice to you is if you're gonna run for office, pick an office where nobody's gonna run against you.

00:48:46.000 - 00:49:04.960

He said, once you're in, if you're honest and good, you'll stay in. And by the time he got to be mayor, nobody would run against him. >> After you graduated from high school, then you went, did you go directly then to college that fall?

00:49:04.960 - 00:49:14.160

>> I went one year to Ohio U, and I took my ground school there. >> How did you select Ohio U? How did you select, why did you select? >> It was a state school.

00:49:14.160 - 00:49:25.120

I didn't even think too much about college. Actually, I didn't think a whole lot about anything except having a good time when I was that age. And all of a sudden, all my friends were going to school, and

00:49:25.120 - 00:49:37.240

I thought maybe I better do that too. And Ohio U was a fairly reasonable school. And actually, it was a very good school. I live 50 miles from there now, and I would love to go back.

00:49:37.240 - 00:49:47.640

I'd like to get my degree from there. But so far, I haven't settled down enough to do it. >> When you went there, what was your major? >> Engineering.

00:49:47.640 - 00:50:01.320

>> And in the meantime, your boyfriend was where? >> He was at Ohio State kicking up his heels with the girls. So I was losing my romance. So I had, like I said, there's more than one fish in the sea.

00:50:01.320 - 00:50:14.760

So the president of the engineers club was, I went with him for a while and a couple other guys. And often wonder how he turned out. [LAUGH] But I still, Earl was the only, and once I met him,

00:50:14.760 - 00:50:30.000

he was the only one I was serious about. I had a lot of in-betweens, but only Earl was. And I guess I can believe what he says, he felt the same way. Anyway, I'd gotten to the WASP, and

00:50:30.000 - 00:50:42.080

along the line someplace I saw some Navy officers cufflinks. And I bought them. And at this time I wasn't hearing from Earl. So I sent them to him.

00:50:42.080 - 00:50:53.560

I said, you should be graduating by now. I'll send these on to you, cuz I can't wear them. And he met me in San Antonio. We got a weekend from Sweetwater.

00:50:53.560 - 00:51:09.760

We went down, one of the girls lived in San Antonio, and we went down. And we stayed at the Gunner Hotel, do you remember that? That was a swinging place. And Earl came up from Corpus Christi, and he came up.

00:51:09.760 - 00:51:24.440

And I remember we sat on the floor in the hotel room all night long talking. And what's the quote? It's from the Ruby Odd, I think. Every man kills the thing he loves.

00:51:24.440 - 00:51:39.520

The coward does it with the word, the brave man with the sword. And I've dropped a line in there, but that always stuck with me. And that was Earl's, that's the way he glossed over what he'd been doing for four years.

00:51:39.520 - 00:51:55.720

But I was, that was so romantic. You know, suck it up, just, I just ate it up. Anyway, after he had this go around with the Navy, he was in Tower School in Banana River, and I went there then.

00:51:55.720 - 00:52:07.680

And we were married right after I got out of the WASP. >> Okay, let me back up and ask you. >> Okay. >> When you first felt that you had a love to learn to fly?

00:52:07.680 - 00:52:25.600

>> Oh, I was about five, and my mother was taking Grandma and I, she took Grandma a ride every day that she could. And we went by the local field, and they were giving rides, five bucks. And Mother wouldn't go near it, but Grandma would.

00:52:25.600 - 00:52:40.520

So Grandma and I got in the seat together, and it was an old biplane, I couldn't tell you what it was. But I do know the guy that was flying, his name was Daredevil Brussman. Well, as time went on, that little bitty town was right on the interstate, and

00:52:40.520 - 00:52:55.680

it became a big town, and because he was just a landowner in that area, he became a very rich landowner. Then he got on the council of his town, and then he would strut around and say, well, 70 years ago, I was Daredevil Brussman.

00:52:55.680 - 00:53:14.000

And by this time, I was working for the city as a draftsman. And he'd come in the office and blow off about how he used to fly airplanes. And I thought, we've come a long way, both of us. But he took us up, and I remember thinking how wonderful it was.

00:53:14.000 - 00:53:31.960

I guess like everybody that liked to fly, was the feeling when you left the ground. I can't describe it, but if you don't know what it is, you were there too. And then I went to Waco, and Waco was, and

00:53:31.960 - 00:53:43.320

I know this is Waco, but there it's Waco. That's Western Aircraft Corporation, or company at the time, and it became Waco Aircraft. And it was in my hometown.

00:53:43.320 - 00:53:57.320

It was invented by people that I've known. And they took us out of high school. The mechanical drawing class, they picked the four best draftsmen, sent us out to Waco.

00:53:57.320 - 00:54:09.760

This was the war had started, and of course, they couldn't get any help, and they needed tool designers. What I knew about tool design, you put right in your ear. But nevertheless, we got to go, and we worked.

00:54:09.760 - 00:54:28.680

And it was above the tool room, and there were drafting tables. And it was my first introduction to a drafting room. And of course, I made my life drafting after I left the WASP. And we drew, I can remember drawing, it's called lofting.

00:54:28.680 - 00:54:45.360

You draw an airfoil, a wing, and you do it on linen. And this was the old way, you don't do that anymore, they do it by computer. But it was so fascinating to see some of that linen and some of the beautiful drawings that planes were designed on, and

00:54:45.360 - 00:54:59.840

Waco being one of them. And I guess I was too immature to appreciate what I was seeing, stuff that I should have hung on to. But I was more interested in the flying part about it.

00:54:59.840 - 00:55:16.360

But people would bring their Wacos in to get a 50 hour or 500 hour check or whatever they needed or any kind of repairs. And one man came in, his name was Stuart Hartshorn. And his father invented that little doodad that makes a blind go up and

00:55:16.360 - 00:55:24.960

down, that little thing that makes a blind go up. So he came for money, and he had an airplane, which I thought was pretty exciting. [LAUGH]

00:55:24.960 - 00:55:45.680

And so he just worked in our department while they were working on his plane. And we were driving at the time, we were going over from Troy to Greenville to fly. So he would go with us, and he'd say things like, boy, this would be a great night to fly over Wright Field, to buzz Wright Field.

00:55:45.680 - 00:55:53.920

Wright Field, of course, was closed, it was restricted, you weren't supposed to be flying over. But he was that kind of a daredevil. Man, I thought he was fascinating.

00:55:53.920 - 00:56:03.880

I didn't consider him romantically, but I just thought this guy has been all over the world. He talked about riding a motorcycle. He lived in Philadelphia.

00:56:03.880 - 00:56:15.240

He wanted to take this girl out to a formal dinner. And he said, well, I had that hat that pops up, the top hat. He said, I had it flat, and I pulled up under the Porsche, my motorcycle, to pick her up.

00:56:15.240 - 00:56:25.840

And her father wouldn't let her go with me. And so, just little vignettes like that make you wonder, what's it really out in the world? >> Right.

00:56:25.840 - 00:56:39.520

>> Anyway, the men in the department were flying at Greenville, Treaty City Airport, which is a little dirt run on this field. And they were all taking flying lessons. And I said, I want to do that too.

00:56:39.520 - 00:56:51.960

Well, they didn't want to deal with me. You know what this smart high school kid, they'd have to drag along. I kept after them enough that they finally let me go. I had taken ground school at Ohio U.

00:56:51.960 - 00:57:02.560

Well, let's see, okay. Went to work at Waco, right out of high school, right in high school. So I was working there while I was still in high school, over the whole last half of the year.

00:57:02.560 - 00:57:17.960

I had enough credits really to graduate, so I could take half a day off and work. And then in summer, I worked full time. And then in winter, I went to Ohio U and took ground school. And then- >> Was that under CPT?

00:57:17.960 - 00:57:28.680

>> Well, I guess it was. Everybody asked me that. I don't remember specifically, but I'm sure Ohio U probably had some sort of a program, because they did have a field.

00:57:28.680 - 00:57:41.520

Now, I never flew there, but I took the ground school first and took the tests for past the ground school before I ever got in a plane. >> And that was a college credit. >> Yeah, it was a college credit.

00:57:41.520 - 00:57:59.880

And then I came back and started flying again with these guys at Treaty City Airport, and we had a CPT group. But it was more like a, well, not really a social group, cuz we thought we were doing important things.

00:57:59.880 - 00:58:19.800

I don't know what you could do in Western Ohio that would affect the war effort, but in any case, it was military-based. And so it was CPT, but they always asked me that. I can't tell you, I can't remember anything specifically with it.

00:58:19.800 - 00:58:31.480

>> But at that point, you had to pay for your lessons. >> Yeah, I had to. When I said I wanted to do it, mother didn't want me to do it, but my dad said, let her do it if she wants to.

00:58:31.480 - 00:58:45.240

So I went over to the field and I talked to the guy that owned the field. It was $300 to get enough time for a private license. And I talked him into taking the maturity value of a bond. I bought a bond, a paycheck.

00:58:45.240 - 00:59:05.040

So the bonds were $1,850 or something like that. And he took the maturity value, which was $25, to get the whole $300. Well, it turned out he was kind of a questionable character. And he eventually died before the bonds matured, and

00:59:05.040 - 00:59:19.640

his wife got the money, and I was tickled to death. Anyway, he took the $300 at the price of the bond, so it took my whole paycheck to pay for it, which meant I couldn't go and do anything else, but that's how I paid for it.

00:59:19.640 - 00:59:28.320

I paid for it myself. >> What was the first airplane you flew? >> Taylorcraft. I flew all of Taylorcraft until I got a license.

00:59:28.320 - 00:59:41.680

And- >> Do you recall your solo flight? >> Yeah. Well, in the first place, this guy that owned the field went up with me, and I think what he saw was this, I won't say cute, but

00:59:41.680 - 00:59:54.360

let's say this healthy 18-year-old. And so he takes me for a first flight, and he runs his arm around the back of the seat, and I said, how would you like me to dive this airplane into the ground?

00:59:54.360 - 01:00:08.840

The hand came back, and that was it. We landed, and he got out, and he wouldn't go up with me anymore. But he had a friend who was a farmer, Frosty, and Frosty taught me to fly. And he would go up, and he'd say, well, let's go out and look at the cows.

01:00:08.840 - 01:00:23.400

So we'd go out and look at some cows someplace. And we learned to spin over farm ponds. And I think Frosty told me he soloed at two hours, and I soloed at six. And I just came in and landed, and he says, you can do this.

01:00:23.400 - 01:00:37.360

And he says, I'm getting out. So I did. I don't know where the nerve comes from, but you just say, today I'd say. [LAUGH] Anyway, Frosty truly taught me to fly.

01:00:37.360 - 01:00:51.880

And then after I had the time in the cross countries, then Bill had to fly with me again before I could go down and take a test. He said, well, you're probably flunk. He said, but I suppose you can take it if you want to.

01:00:51.880 - 01:01:06.360

People should not tell me I can't do something, ever. And I passed, first time. >> Do you recall how you heard about the WASP training program? >> Yeah, we got Life Magazine.

01:01:06.360 - 01:01:20.840

I'm like everybody else, I read it in Life Magazine. But the age limit, I guess I must have known about it. But the age limit at the time was, I think, 25. And then they dropped it to 18, and when they dropped it to 18 and a half,

01:01:20.840 - 01:01:32.600

I was eligible. I used to think I was the youngest, but there are two other younger than me, maybe three. Right now, I know of one, Nancy Burnside was in my class, and

01:01:32.600 - 01:01:47.920

her birthday's in August, mine's in April, so she's younger than I am. Dottie Nagle was younger, but she's died. Anyway, when they dropped the age limit, I applied immediately. And that must have been the summer of 43.

01:01:47.920 - 01:02:06.320

And I went to Cleveland for an interview with Mrs. Sheehy, and my folks went with me. And I still think that's why I got in, because I probably looked so straight and so locked up that I couldn't get very trouble.

01:02:06.320 - 01:02:13.480

>> Do you remember your feelings? Did you get all dressed up? >> Yeah, we went out of town. You always get dressed up.

01:02:13.480 - 01:02:26.640

I wasn't allowed to even go to the public square with blue jeans on. My mother wouldn't let me. I mean, I can see this looking back. Gosh, when I was a kid, you didn't wear pants uptown, ever.

01:02:26.640 - 01:02:38.360

And you had to have a reason for being up there. A lot of people walked around the square on Saturday night. I wasn't allowed to do that. I could sit in the car and watch them, but I couldn't get out and do it.

01:02:38.360 - 01:02:53.720

>> When you went in to be interviewed, did your mom and dad go in the room? >> Absolutely, they were with me the whole time. And I think I told you this, when we went up the elevator to the room, there was somebody else in the elevator.

01:02:53.720 - 01:03:07.000

And we got out, and mother said, that was Boris Karloff. And I didn't recognize him. I didn't know who it was, so that was my brush with the celebrity. And I don't remember a whole lot about it, except it was a regular room, and

01:03:07.000 - 01:03:17.520

she just talked to us. And I got home shortly after, I got a telegram to get a physical. That was another joke. They sent me to Wright Patterson Field.

01:03:17.520 - 01:03:31.080

And the doctor, I'd never had a physical like that. [LAUGH] And when the doctor got done, he said, well, he says, you kids, he says, you're just all playing at war.

01:03:31.080 - 01:03:41.700

He said, you just remember when this war's over, that a doctor at Patterson Field told you that you'd probably have difficulty having children. I thought, now I wonder what's the matter with me? You know.

01:03:41.700 - 01:03:57.400

And he had told me I had a retroversion, which is a tilted uterus. And it worried me, because I thought, eventually, years later, when I wanted to get married, I thought I better tell Earl that. And Earl said, I know more than a doctor at Patterson Field.

01:03:57.400 - 01:04:06.320

[LAUGH] He said, I'm not too concerned. [LAUGH] >> In the meantime, Earl was in the Navy.

01:04:06.320 - 01:04:11.160

>> Yeah, he was in Navy Air Force. And he wrote me. >> Were you corresponding all that time? >> Some.

01:04:11.160 - 01:04:23.240

Again, he was, like I said, he was kicking up his heels with all these girls that thought he was so cute in that uniform. He did go to Olathe, Kansas, and he told me one time a tornado came in. And he said there were a whole bunch, of course,

01:04:23.240 - 01:04:33.400

the Navy called them yellow perils. I had to, after I married him, I had to learn the Navy name for planes as well as the Army names that I already knew. So it was an SNJ.

01:04:33.400 - 01:04:47.520

No, an 86 is an SNJ. And anyway, he said they had this whole row of PTs, and the tornado came along and piled them up all in the corners of the field. [LAUGH]

01:04:47.520 - 01:05:00.080

But he was just a little bit ahead of me in pilot training, so we had something of interest. Of course, he didn't think at any time that I'd know as much about it as he did. And I didn't argue with him.

01:05:00.080 - 01:05:13.240

It's just that, you know. >> Man's world. >> Yeah, he said, you think, most sentences start, we only ever had one fight. He'd say, you think, whatever.

01:05:13.240 - 01:05:22.760

And I'd say, how can you tell me what I think because you're not in here? Only if you're in here can you know what I think. Well, I still know what you think. That's the only argument we ever had.

01:05:22.760 - 01:05:39.280

>> Mm-hm. >> From the time you took your physical, had your interview, then did your physical, how long was it before you actually reported to Avenger? >> Well, it must have been shortly after that because I went down in May.

01:05:39.280 - 01:05:54.080

>> Okay, did you know any other girls who were going into that class? >> There was a girl from Dayton who had been, she made the papers because she sold when she was 16. And they talked about how young she was and

01:05:54.080 - 01:06:09.000

the usual press about a young kid flying. And we went down together, but she didn't last very long. She was pretty immature. And I don't know whether it was the flying or the schooling or whatever, but

01:06:09.000 - 01:06:15.640

she didn't last very long at all. I don't think she got through primary. And she went home. >> How did you get to Sweetwater?

01:06:15.640 - 01:06:22.240

>> With her. We went down the train. >> Okay. >> And I probably, this sounds bad.

01:06:22.240 - 01:06:34.480

We were gonna stay for a week in Dallas with some friends of hers. And I felt like a fish out of water because I didn't know her and I didn't know her friends. But I had a boyfriend in New Orleans from back home.

01:06:34.480 - 01:06:45.280

I thought, I believe I'll go down and see him. So I took every bit of available money I had and rode the train down to New Orleans. And he knew I was coming, and then he couldn't get leave.

01:06:45.280 - 01:06:58.480

So he sent this other guy out, and here I am in a town I don't know a soul. I was sitting in the lobby of the Mont Leon Hotel. And the only reason I knew that was because I had traveled, as a child I had stayed there.

01:06:58.480 - 01:07:10.400

And I'm sitting in this lobby, there are no rooms, it's dark, and here I am lost. And this guy comes up to me and asked me if I'm there to meet my friend from home, and I said yes.

01:07:10.400 - 01:07:18.800

And I started to cry. And he said, what's the matter? I said, I don't even know where I'm gonna stay. So we went to the Y, and I stayed in the Y for

01:07:18.800 - 01:07:30.760

three days until I could get the train to go back to Sweetwater. And he took me to a dance at Lake Pontchartrain. And there were three girls there and this whole army troop. Man, I danced all night.

01:07:30.760 - 01:07:41.080

I just danced with everybody. And here's this kid right out of Ohio. My mother would have died. She would have joked me back from Texas if she had known it.

01:07:41.080 - 01:07:55.080

What business did I have doing that? So as a consequence, I didn't have any money at all when training started. And until we got paid, I still didn't have any money. It took three or four paychecks before I could catch up

01:07:55.080 - 01:08:09.960

with the kids I borrowed money from. But God must be watching over me when I was that age. >> In your travels, you had been to Texas before, but what was your opinion of Sweetwater when you got there?

01:08:10.960 - 01:08:22.160

>> Oh, I don't know. I guess I don't remember a whole lot except going into the hotel and meeting the other girls. And I didn't think about the town much at all.

01:08:22.160 - 01:08:36.840

Of course, it was the same dry, dusty. The trouble is we all think of it as being like that. And I suppose, well, I did think at one time, this is something like Troy, because there were some trees and greenery and a swimming pool and a church.

01:08:36.840 - 01:08:49.200

The things I was used to at home. So I remember thinking it's about the same size town. >> How did you get from downtown out to the air base? >> That I can't tell you.

01:08:49.200 - 01:09:05.280

We must have gone out in one of the cattle cars, cuz I can't believe we'd gone any other way. >> What are your first remembrances of a venture field? >> Well, they put us in bays and they told us two things.

01:09:05.280 - 01:09:18.960

The first thing was they pulled us into a reception hall, talking about what we were gonna do. And they said, there are 121 of you here, and only half of you will be here to graduate.

01:09:18.960 - 01:09:31.480

There again, somebody told me I couldn't do something. And in that point, I said, I will not open my mouth, I will behave, nobody will know who I am until they hand me my wings. And that was just about the way it went.

01:09:31.480 - 01:09:46.080

I behaved myself for six months. Surely, I can't believe I did it yet. But I just said I will do it. And then I remember getting shots in both arms, and

01:09:46.080 - 01:09:58.400

you couldn't sleep on either side. You couldn't sleep anyway except flat on your back. And then they jerked everybody out of bed at 6 o'clock in the morning. And this is a child who didn't have to get up till 9 if I didn't want to.

01:09:58.400 - 01:10:06.640

Of course, my mother said the only good I got out of the Army was I learned to make my bed when I got out of it. And I still do. I make it the minute I get out of it.

01:10:06.640 - 01:10:23.360

And thanks, Sweetwater, for that. >> Describe for me the bays that you lived in. >> Well, they put us, my name was Terrell, so I was the second to the last unit. And we were in the last row of bays.

01:10:23.360 - 01:10:39.480

And from day one, they kept, well, no, that's not true, because it was after June 6th, after D-Day, when the war started going better. And we didn't get military support. We didn't get militarization.

01:10:39.480 - 01:10:52.600

Then they said, well, this is gonna shut down, so your class won't get to finish. And we saw W45-1 come in, and they sent them home. So we were always the last class,

01:10:52.600 - 01:11:04.600

always the ones that didn't think they'd get to finish. So we really didn't have a whole lot to lose. >> So you knew immediately after you got to Sweetwater that you were- >> Well, let's say about a month after we got there,

01:11:04.600 - 01:11:14.440

after the legislation went through and it didn't get passed. >> Did they make a formal announcement? Did they call you together? How did you learn about that?

01:11:14.440 - 01:11:26.160

>> I don't remember anything being formal. If you turn the sound off, I'll tell you something about it, though. >> [LAUGH] >> That I don't wanna, it's not for the record.

01:11:26.160 - 01:11:43.320

>> [LAUGH] >> Not on camera. >> Tell us tonight then, cuz- >> Okay, I'll tell you later, okay. Anyway, we were in the last bay, and my name was Terrell. There was a bay behind me, and eventually as everybody washed out,

01:11:43.320 - 01:11:58.840

we worked into one bay, and that would be Frankie and Peggy and me and Tommy Thoits and Pat Van Syke. Pat was about ten years older. I didn't know at the time how young I was, and Pat was ten years older than I was.

01:11:58.840 - 01:12:10.880

I didn't know that she had to get a waiver to get in because she was at the top age limit. And so was my other friend, Jack Riley, who has died since. Two of them were much older and had been married.

01:12:10.880 - 01:12:26.960

Riley's husband had died and Pat Van Syke was separated. I didn't realize that some of these women were married. I don't really know what I thought when I got down there. I wasn't well enough read to know.

01:12:26.960 - 01:12:43.360

But I just determined that if I studied every day and did what they told me to do, I'd graduate. And we got down to about the last week, and I didn't have any demerits. And they made so much fun of me, the guys just teased me unmercifully about it.

01:12:43.360 - 01:12:50.240

So one morning I deliberately stripped the bed and just let it lay there and walked out. I got three demerits for that. I said, now I hope you're satisfied.

01:12:50.240 - 01:13:03.360

And that was the only demerits I got. >> When you went into training, what were your expectations as far as what you would be doing when you graduated? >> First, I wanted to graduate.

01:13:03.360 - 01:13:13.960

That was the goal, and that stayed right there for the whole time I was down there. And I would have, like anybody else, would stay that long. I wanted to fly.

01:13:13.960 - 01:13:25.240

Anything they would give me, I wanted to fly. And when they told us that we could go into the military if we went out, my first question was, can I fly? And they said no, and I said, then I'm not gonna do it.

01:13:25.240 - 01:13:40.200

So flying was the draw. It was the interest. And I suppose it's hard to tell anybody that doesn't fly why you wanna do this. But that's why.

01:13:40.200 - 01:13:54.960

>> When they told you in the beginning that half of you would wash out, did that actually come true? >> 63 or 4 graduated in our class. We just watched them one by one.

01:13:54.960 - 01:14:05.280

But again, we were under the gun. We didn't think any of us would get to finish. And each time they'd say, okay, we can go another week. They said, you'll never get uniforms.

01:14:05.280 - 01:14:17.960

We got uniforms. We got the entire clothing allowance about a month before they disbanded. So they must have had the clothing there. And they said, you won't get the long distance trips.

01:14:17.960 - 01:14:26.400

We got them. But as we looked ahead, everything we looked ahead to, they said we wouldn't get to instruments. We got to instruments.

01:14:26.400 - 01:14:39.480

Then the cross countries. You'll never get to go on the cross country. Well, I got to fly to California, so I did get to do everything that was available. And then you still won't have graduation, but we did.

01:14:39.480 - 01:14:51.600

And of course, our graduation, others came back. Did you come back to it? A lot of the other classes came in. I don't know, I've always been pretty tunnel vision.

01:14:51.600 - 01:15:07.920

I'm only looking at what affects, I suppose that's sociopath. You only think of how life affects you, especially if you're an only child. So I could only see how it was affecting me, not the whole group as a unit. And until I got my family raised,

01:15:07.920 - 01:15:25.440

I didn't think of it as an organization I belonged to. I thought of it as a goal that I had, and I was kept from furthering it because it ended. Describe to me a typical day while you were in training.

01:15:25.440 - 01:15:42.600

They got us up before daylight or the crack of dawn, and we marched off to do something, either to fly or to school. And we ate in the mess hall, and I went home and studied. I know some of the girls played bridge.

01:15:42.600 - 01:15:55.640

I didn't know how. And I didn't do anything socially other than write letters until we could get off the base, and then we got to know our way. Peggy and Frankie talked.

01:15:55.640 - 01:16:04.120

Frankie didn't really date, but Peggy did. And I thought, this has all gone on and I'm missing it. (laughs) All this excitement went on.

01:16:04.120 - 01:16:12.960

I didn't know about it. But... What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make going into training?

01:16:12.960 - 01:16:25.840

Make my bed? No, I had to learn that I was not the only fish in the sea. When you're an only child, everything is geared towards you. And it was a physical thing.

01:16:25.840 - 01:16:37.640

I had to do what they said, or quit. And I wasn't about to quit, so I did what they said. And the physical training, I thought, was just one big waste of time,

01:16:37.640 - 01:16:48.400

as much as I should have done it. Now I know what I should have done. Peggy and I did not like PT. We just got just as far back in that row as we could get.

01:16:48.400 - 01:16:59.400

And you know, you push up, you don't have to go so high if you're going back and back. And so there wasn't a whole lot of physical effort going on. We did take swimming, and we did have to...

01:16:59.400 - 01:17:13.400

I remember taking a life-saving class. And so I was telling Nancy today, I remember you have to dress and jump in with your clothes on, get your clothes off underwater, and then haul somebody in.

01:17:13.400 - 01:17:25.400

And like I said, I just barely reached my toe on the ground, and that steadied me enough. I cheated, which is the only time I ever cheated on anything in my life. But I can remember doing it.

01:17:25.400 - 01:17:43.400

So I guess when you do something bad like that, you never forget. Did you get awfully homesick? Oh, no, because I had been away from home at school. Not really, because I was more restricted at home.

01:17:43.400 - 01:17:58.400

And here I felt like I was on my own, which I wanted to be. Believe me, I didn't have any business being on my own, but just the same, I thought I was smart enough. During your primary training,

01:17:59.400 - 01:18:15.400

does anything stand out that happened while you were in primary? Well, one time, the wind shift changed. There was a lot of construction on the runway when we were flying PTs, and I ground looped, and I thought, "Oh, God, I'm out."

01:18:15.400 - 01:18:27.400

But so did everybody else. It was just a wind shift, and quite a few planes came in that way. And I just took a flight with a checkpile the next day, and it was over with.

01:18:27.400 - 01:18:38.400

So there wasn't any real worry. I didn't really understand engines. I don't think I ever will understand engines. You know, that's a guy thing.

01:18:38.400 - 01:18:52.400

But the flying itself, I can still do it. I still think I can do it. I know it takes 150 miles an hour to take off an AT-6. That was the airspeed, wasn't it, to pull it off the ground?

01:18:53.400 - 01:19:11.400

I went up with a woman in California, oh, maybe 15 years ago. She was a stunt pilot, and she said she would take me up. She was flying a souped-up six, and I was sitting in the back seat, and I was watching what she was doing.

01:19:11.400 - 01:19:22.400

I was thinking, "You know, I could do an Immelmann. I know I can do one." And she said, "Do you want to take the controls?" And yet, when she let me do that, I just made a right turn and a left turn.

01:19:22.400 - 01:19:33.400

That was so boring for her. And then she said, "Are you all right back there?" And I said, "This is déjà vu." I said, "I can't tell you what it feels like to sit here

01:19:33.400 - 01:19:50.400

and know that I can do that and not do it." I mean, am I crazy enough to try to do something that I haven't done for years? But there's something about flying that you're part of the ship, and you're flying. So, I don't know.

01:19:50.400 - 01:19:59.400

I don't know. I just loved it. Just loved it. Describe for me what link trainer is about. It's about torture.

01:19:59.400 - 01:20:18.400

[Laughter] It was pretty tough, but he told us at the end, he said, "You really can't cram this much instruction in 30 hours flying." I don't know that I did better than anybody else.

01:20:18.400 - 01:20:31.400

I did as well as everybody else. I know that we were up flying under the hood one time, and whoever was flying in the front seat was supposed to be looking around. And I finally came out from under the hood, and she was reading a comic book.

01:20:31.400 - 01:20:46.400

Instead of watching what she was doing, I said, "Hey, pay attention." But you come back down from that, and you could hear that A and N in your ears all the time, you know, from the radio. And now when you describe that, they don't use radio like that anymore.

01:20:46.400 - 01:21:03.400

They don't use a cone and the approaches and the instrument training. Boy, I'd go to bed at night, and I could hear that just as plain in my head. But I enjoyed it. I thought it was very difficult. And I know that learning code was difficult.

01:21:03.400 - 01:21:18.400

And when I finally hit the 30 words a minute, I was happy to quit. And then they made me mad when they changed all the terms. Just shortly after that, maybe 5, 10 years after that, we had, what, Abel, Baker, Charlie, and they just changed all of them.

01:21:18.400 - 01:21:34.400

I said, "Just tell me the point to that." What was your favorite thing about training? What did you enjoy the most? Night flying. '86 night flying. And I don't know why, but I thought it was beautiful. I still do.

01:21:34.400 - 01:21:54.400

Cross country. I would just--I think I could go forever. But then I think I was born on the side of a wheel anyway, so bicycles, cars, planes, I've always been able to move. Do we need to change?

01:21:54.400 - 01:22:07.400

Well, you have about two minutes. Okay. While you were in training, did any of the girls in your bay-- two of them--did wash out?

01:22:07.400 - 01:22:21.400

What would happen when a girl would wash out? Well, the other guys talk about this. They'd say you'd come back and there'd be a bed roll and the bed, it'd be gone. The mattress would be rolled up and that was it.

01:22:21.400 - 01:22:35.400

And I suppose that's pretty much the way it was. I wasn't really close to-- Again, for once in my life, I was doing what they told me to do, and I didn't--other than one or two people, I wasn't really attached to anybody.

01:22:35.400 - 01:22:54.400

And those two stayed with me all the way through. And although we were sorry to see them go, I wasn't close enough to them to be emotionally affected, I suppose. One of them left because her mother was sick, and we knew that when she left.

01:22:54.400 - 01:23:09.400

Now, a couple of the guys talk about remembering them and missing them, but I don't think I did. I wasn't that close to them. Peggy and I did a class--they also told us we couldn't have a class book.

01:23:09.400 - 01:23:26.400

So Peggy and I said, "Oh, yes, we can." So we went to San Angelo where they published those books, and I don't know how I got to San Angelo, but we still went down there and talked to the publisher, and we said, "How much would you charge us for X number of books?"

01:23:26.400 - 01:23:37.400

He said, "$462." And we had that written on everything because that was how much money we had to come up with, and she didn't have it, and I didn't have it. So we started doing our own class book.

01:23:37.400 - 01:23:51.400

Now, they had to know we were doing this. They couldn't--you could hardly do this without letting somebody know it. Anyway, when we got done flying, when we got done eating and studying and everything else, we worked on the class book, and we got it out.

01:23:51.400 - 01:24:04.400

And the guy printed it, and we sold them for $422. We didn't think we'd get a station. They said, "You won't get a station." And are you back-- Tell me about--

01:24:04.400 - 01:24:17.400

Oh, the yearbook. After we raised the money, then we figured the boss didn't have anything in that book. We did, so every time we sold another book, we went to town, had a steak. Boy, we lived high for a while.

01:24:17.400 - 01:24:33.400

And then she--at the D.C. reunion, Peggy said, "I think we ought to do another book. We ought to do a reprise." And because I'd had a couple drinks, I said, "Sure, I'll do it." Never volunteer--never ask me to do something when I've had a drink,

01:24:33.400 - 01:24:44.400

because I'll say I'll do it, and then I have to end up doing it. Anyway, we got out that second book, and it sold, too. It sold just great. I think I sold 500. We had two printings of that.

01:24:44.400 - 01:25:01.400

I've got about ten left, and that's it. But anyway, we were pretty much on our own. Everything was like that. Let me ask you, Jean, since I wasn't there when your class was going through,

01:25:01.400 - 01:25:18.400

as classes would leave, how would that change the overall personnel of the base? Were you aware? Was it getting smaller? Well, again, I had this tunnel vision. I'm only looking out for Jean.

01:25:18.400 - 01:25:29.400

There was somebody there to teach me. And Peggy would talk about the instructors and the people that worked in the offices and the kitchens, and I didn't remember any of them.

01:25:29.400 - 01:25:46.400

I remember the instructor that I had--maybe not by name, but I remember what they were like, and I did what they said. But I don't--we apparently got down to just a few bays. We would have had to have, because there were only 60-some of us graduated.

01:25:46.400 - 01:26:06.400

And so I'm sure things were shutting down, but I just never considered it. We still made the AT-6 trip, and we made the trip to-- I had a cross-country trip in a Stearman, and I'd been flying sixes with the canopy and sitting up there in perfect comfort.

01:26:06.400 - 01:26:22.400

It was summer flying, you know, and I could take my checklist, and I couldn't read anything. So now we'd take the PT trip to Houston, so I'd get up on that fur suit and the boots and everything, and it was hot.

01:26:22.400 - 01:26:32.400

I thought, "This is going to be too hot." Well, when I got up there, it wasn't hot. So I'd get out my map to look at it to see where Houston is, and the map just went right out the plane just like that.

01:26:32.400 - 01:26:49.400

And I was up there wondering what I was going to do next. But they used to say at that time, "All train tracks lead to Houston." So I just followed the iron beam. Pretty soon I saw more planes that looked like us.

01:26:49.400 - 01:27:09.400

Man, that was a real sensation to see that thing go sailing out. But the things that happened to us, we kept pretty much to ourselves. We thought it was pretty funny, but we didn't go run into the office about it or anybody else. It was almost like our own private flying school.

01:27:09.400 - 01:27:27.400

So things had happened, and then towards the end, it was getting close to Christmas, and we thought it was going to shut down, and some of the kids wanted to go home. My best friend, she didn't care whether she washed out or not. She had a check flight, and we walked with her down.

01:27:27.400 - 01:27:36.400

We stood there the whole time, and we said, "You are going to pass this. There's no such thing as you not finishing. You'll stay with us." And she did finish.

01:27:36.400 - 01:27:49.400

But they were losing the urge. They knew there wasn't going to be anything there. But we all did graduate, my immediate friends. What do you remember about the mess hall and the food?

01:27:49.400 - 01:28:01.400

Well, as a result of it, I ate in the— there was kind of a soda shop or something that wasn't the regular food. A canteen. I guess.

01:28:01.400 - 01:28:26.400

And I ate there, and I got gingivitis, trench mouth, from whatever. And they sent me to town to a dentist, and he said I had—I forget what he said I had to do, but they said I couldn't eat there until it was cleared up, so I had to eat down in the dispensary. Well, I didn't get done flying until 6 o'clock, and the dispensary didn't have anything to eat after 6 o'clock.

01:28:26.400 - 01:28:38.400

So I put up with that for about two weeks, and then I just dropped it and went back to eating the way I always did. And it didn't cure up the situation. I went to Randolph Field from Sweetwater.

01:28:38.400 - 01:28:50.400

When I got my physical, the dentist looked at my teeth and he said, "You've got a problem." I said, "Well," he said, "I'll fix that." So he put chromic acid on the tops of all my teeth. As a result, I lost my teeth.

01:28:50.400 - 01:29:02.400

It took me about ten years, but I lost them all. But, you know, I don't have to go to a dentist. Never have a toothache. Anyway, that was my experience with eating.

01:29:02.400 - 01:29:21.400

I don't remember objecting to food or anything. I didn't like peaches on mashed potatoes, but, you know, I'd start slopping that stuff out. But it didn't hurt me. When you went down to San Antonio and your boyfriend came up from Corpus,

01:29:21.400 - 01:29:41.400

at what stage were you in flying? Well, we wouldn't have had a weekend pass unless we were pretty well up there, I would say. It must have been warm weather because we went to some kind of Mexican cantina. Like I said, my one bay mate lived there, and we stayed at her house.

01:29:41.400 - 01:29:58.400

And then I had a friend from home was there, and I stayed with her in the hotel room. So I saw there were quite a few people I knew, and I have a stepbrother that came, too. So at that particular time, there was a group of us, and it must have been late summer. How did you get down there?

01:29:58.400 - 01:30:12.400

In a car, and don't ask me where that came from. I have no idea. Some parts, I just can't tell you. But you do know that your boyfriend came up to get you. Absolutely, and after that, everything was rosy.

01:30:12.400 - 01:30:32.400

And is that when you became serious with him? Oh, we had talked about marriage before the war, but we were both too young to even think about it. We were in high school. He's two years older than I am. So when I got out of high school, he was 20 and I was 18.

01:30:32.400 - 01:30:51.400

And this military bit came up, and we didn't think about marrying, as you might have now. So when I was in San Antonio and I was talking to him, and he said, "I bet you won't come here." He was asking me what I was going to do. And I said, "I bet you I will."

01:30:51.400 - 01:31:15.400

So I bummed a ride with some guy that was flying to Florida, and he took me to Orlando, and then I had to sit on a bus for about ten hours before I got to Earl's Station at Banana River Naval Air Station. And so I got there, well, it was December 20th, just before Christmas. So you were graduated and that's where you went?

01:31:15.400 - 01:31:29.400

We were married the 9th of January. We called home, told our folks we were getting married, and my mother said she was coming down, and his mother said she was coming down. When they both got there, they tried to talk us out of it, and we said, "No, there's no question we're going to get married."

01:31:29.400 - 01:31:43.400

So they were there, and that was the only one that was there. Did you get married on the base? On the base. There was a Catholic chaplain. And Earl was supposed to go to instructions, so he came back and he says, "Well, I don't have to go there anymore."

01:31:43.400 - 01:31:58.400

I said, "Why not?" He said, "Well, I knew our father." He said, "The priests told him that's more than most non-Catholics knew." And when we got married, they still wore the cast sock that's got all those buttons down the front.

01:31:58.400 - 01:32:15.400

And Earl said, "You know, he doesn't button all those buttons." I said, "I never knew that." Anyway, it was very low-key, because that was wartime marriage, you know. And that was the 9th of January. You had graduated on the 20th of December.

01:32:15.400 - 01:32:23.400

Of December. Or on the 10th of December. And then had ten days at Randolph Field. Where were you stationed?

01:32:23.400 - 01:32:32.400

Randolph Field. And we went— Let's back up and talk about your graduation, because it was very special. Yeah, it was.

01:32:32.400 - 01:32:49.400

Tell us why it was so special. Well, because all the big shots were there. And, of course, Cochran was there, and General Arnold. And I don't know why I do this, but when something like this—I sort of pull back from it.

01:32:49.400 - 01:33:08.400

Barton Yount, who was there, was from my hometown. And his niece was a very good friend of mine. Now, why wouldn't I walk up and say, "Hi, I'm Jean Terrell from Troy, Ohio," but I didn't. Each time that opportunity has come up, I've stepped back.

01:33:08.400 - 01:33:22.400

And I was thinking about it today, and I saw a picture of him here. And I thought, "Why didn't I say something to that man?" But I didn't. And the generals were sitting in the mess hall laughing and talking to one of the real cute little blondes.

01:33:22.400 - 01:33:35.400

And she was just—she had her hair up and curled, all ready for graduation. And she was embarrassed, but she still was so cute. And here I'm sitting in the back like a stone. I don't go up and say a thing.

01:33:35.400 - 01:33:49.400

And there were a lot there for graduation. Now, of course, all the older girls came in. And I knew that's who they were, but I didn't know any of them personally. And I didn't think any of them gave a damn about me.

01:33:49.400 - 01:34:04.400

Again, there's something about being an only child. You only see things this way. You don't see things everyplace else. And it's—I think I learned later—it's sociopath.

01:34:04.400 - 01:34:26.400

All you see is how things affect you. And until years and years later, and the raising kids a test of fire, then I finally decided there were other people in this world besides me. Well, even before your graduation, was there not a time when some of the WASPs who had already graduated

01:34:26.400 - 01:34:36.400

came back to Avenger for instrument training? And how did that affect— It's very possible that they did. But if they did, I didn't know them.

01:34:36.400 - 01:34:53.400

And I was pretty busy keeping my own nose clean. So I really didn't have time other than just go through step by step. And I took it a test at a time. I figured if you did your work every single day, you could pass it.

01:34:53.400 - 01:35:13.400

And I guess that was the point of view I took, because that's what got me through. Do you recall when you got the dress uniforms? Yeah, they gave us—they had a sort of a dispensary at the end of the— not a dispensary, but stores at the end of the bay.

01:35:13.400 - 01:35:29.400

And they handed us—started giving us all this great-looking stuff. We knew we were going to be—the thing was over. But we got socks and we got everything. And you graduated in the dress, Santiago Blue uniforms.

01:35:29.400 - 01:35:52.400

Because that picture of the class singing is our class. That one where they're singing—I can't remember the song now, but it was "Lost Last Class." And that's our class. Do you recall anything about General Arnold's speech that impressed you?

01:35:52.400 - 01:36:10.400

I thought he was pretty cute. He had apple cheeks, you know. I'm sorry to sound so—I guess I didn't think of the war except in personal terms, okay? I respected authority.

01:36:10.400 - 01:36:23.400

I thought he was up there because he belonged up there. But, you know. Before you graduated, did they give you a choice of assignments? They just told us.

01:36:23.400 - 01:36:33.400

They said, "You're going to get an assignment." Of course, we didn't think we were going to get anything. And when they said we were going to get one, we said, "Gee, where?" And they sent me to Randolph Field, which I thought was just great.

01:36:33.400 - 01:36:46.400

There's a picture that's in all the books of a group at Randolph, and I'm in it. And I didn't even know they took the picture. My other friend who was in it sent it to me. And she says, "Here we are."

01:36:46.400 - 01:36:58.400

And I said, "Oh, yeah?" I said, "Where am I?" "Oh, there I am." Anyway, B.J. Williams was apparently in charge, and I do not remember her at all.

01:36:58.400 - 01:37:05.400

But I did ask her later. I said, "I didn't give you a bad time, did I?" And she said, "Oh, no." She said, "You don't know what a bad time is."

01:37:05.400 - 01:37:22.400

But she said all we did was pick up planes from one side of the field to the other side. But that's not true because I took one up for a radio check. And I remember when I went out to get in the plane, here's this little wack sitting in there with the headset on just like she was flying.

01:37:22.400 - 01:37:33.400

And I tapped on his shoulder. And she got out, and I got in the plane, and I took it off, and I flew. And it was on fire. I saw smoke come around the cow.

01:37:33.400 - 01:37:46.400

And I looked at it. In Sweetwater, we tried to decide if we had enough nerve to jump if we had to because, remember, we wore parachutes. And we talked about it quite a bit.

01:37:46.400 - 01:37:59.400

And I saw that fire around that cow, and I had plenty of nerve. Boy, I was ready to leave. I had the canopy back, and I took my seat belt off. I stood up on the seat, and I was ready to go.

01:37:59.400 - 01:38:12.400

And I looked down, and I saw houses. And I thought, "Dear God, if I jump out of this plane, it's going to go into those houses, and then I'll be in big trouble." So I sat back down, I took a stick and pushed it forward and pulled it back.

01:38:12.400 - 01:38:24.400

Now, I don't know how I knew to do that. I still wonder if I'd been taught that because I don't remember it. But anyway, it pulled the nose up, and it put the fire out. And I was so close to the field, I just went right back in and landed it.

01:38:24.400 - 01:38:36.400

The worst thing I did was I didn't tell anybody. I was afraid they thought it was my fault. See, everything is your fault. The whole world affects--see?

01:38:36.400 - 01:38:51.400

Did your mom come down for graduation? No, but they sent me $50 and a piece of toilet paper, and it said, "Congratulations, this is the end," which I suppose was all they were going to send me.

01:38:51.400 - 01:39:01.400

They came down in the summer. My mother and dad came down. Oh, before you graduated. Yeah, and they brought beer, which we couldn't get our hands on.

01:39:01.400 - 01:39:13.400

And they brought--my dad, of course, being a butcher, they brought summer sausage or Lebanon bologna things, especially German meats and crackers and things. And we sat up in the hotel and ate it.

01:39:13.400 - 01:39:24.400

But my dad always did things like that, and the guys just thought that was so cool that they could send that stuff down there so that we could eat it. And then I think I told you we walked--we couldn't have walked,

01:39:24.400 - 01:39:41.400

but somehow or other we were in another hangar, and I saw that Jenny in another hangar on the field away from where we were, so it must have been at the other end. And I can't tell you how I got there, but I did see it.

01:39:41.400 - 01:39:51.400

Anyway, the kids were impressed. They remembered my folks and thought that was just really something for them to bring all that down, but that would have been my dad. That's the way he did things.

01:39:51.400 - 01:40:03.400

Would they come down on the train? Mm-hmm. When you got down to Randolph, after you graduated, went to Randolph, where did you live?

01:40:03.400 - 01:40:14.400

In the Adolphus Hotel. We lived very stylish. Not the Gunner. Now we'd been promoted. We went to the fancy one.

01:40:14.400 - 01:40:26.400

There were three of us in the same room, Pat and Sue and I, and Sue Vandahl was from New York State, and she was also going with a Navy pilot, and she wanted to go home and get married.

01:40:26.400 - 01:40:40.400

She wanted to go home and see Tom, and I wanted to see Earl. And that was just about 95% of our conversation was what we were going to do when we left. And Pat already had a gentleman friend,

01:40:40.400 - 01:40:55.400

and she intended to go back to Kansas City, and she did, and she married him. This was her second husband, and they've been married 50 years. He's now in a hospital, and she's taking care of him. It's pretty sad.

01:40:55.400 - 01:41:08.400

Sue's husband dropped dead playing tennis, and mine died of cancer. So we've kept in touch, but we were very close at the time. But most of the time we sat in the hotel room

01:41:08.400 - 01:41:17.400

trying to talk Sue out of going home. I said, "You can stay a couple more days. You're going to leave anyway. Don't quit." So we didn't quit.

01:41:17.400 - 01:41:30.400

So when we were disbanded, did Randolph do anything for the Wasps to honor them? Not that I remember. I remember my ride to Florida from some guy that was a pilot that was there.

01:41:30.400 - 01:41:48.400

They said we could go out if we had somebody that would take us. So I couldn't begin to tell you his name. So then you flew to Florida, and you spent Christmas in Florida? Well, I got to Florida just before Christmas, and I met Earl.

01:41:48.400 - 01:42:03.400

We went clear out to Cocoa Beach and found an old run-down hotel that had been-- It was on Duncan Hines' hotel list. Back then he recommended hotels for food, and it was the most run-down place I've ever heard of.

01:42:03.400 - 01:42:18.400

But we got a place to stay there, and then because he talked to other guys, they came--Navy families came to stay there. And then my best friend got married back home, and he was stationed there. So my best friend and I were together,

01:42:18.400 - 01:42:35.400

except her husband was an officer and Earl was the only enlisted man. Of course, at that time, that was a big rub. I got a job at the base working on the switchboard. I was one of the first people to hear the news about Franklin Roosevelt dying

01:42:35.400 - 01:42:53.400

because there was a Navy switchboard just down the hall from me, and it came over the Navy teletype, and then it came over my switchboard. We lived there from Christmas till May. By then I was pregnant, and I wanted my mother.

01:42:53.400 - 01:43:13.400

I hadn't toughened up yet, so I went back home because he was supposed to be going to NAV school in Oklahoma or someplace, and the war was just--everything was changing overnight. So I went home, and five minutes after I got home,

01:43:13.400 - 01:43:30.400

I wished I'd gone back to Florida, but my mother wouldn't let me. She said, "You're pregnant now. You're going to stay home and be healthy and do this right." So I did. How long after you got home did you have your baby?

01:43:30.400 - 01:43:42.400

I got home in May, and I didn't have the baby till November. Then did your husband come up? Yeah, he was there. He was getting mustered out. We weren't sure what day he would be home,

01:43:42.400 - 01:43:57.400

and I actually had the baby before he got home, but I had just come home from the hospital, and he came home. It was Christmas again, or New Year's, and I wanted to go out. I'm feeling better. Things are looking up.

01:43:57.400 - 01:44:10.400

He said, "No, I want to stay home with the baby." I thought, "Something is going to change in my life right about now. The party girl is going to stay home." But after that, it was family all the way.

01:44:10.400 - 01:44:25.400

We didn't have much social life. We really didn't need one. I suppose I should tell you how much of "After Wasps" you want to hear. All of it.

01:44:25.400 - 01:44:38.400

Well, we'll start at the beginning then. I had Martha, my oldest daughter, November, the last of November. I really wanted to have her on the last of November because I knew the school year started on the 1st of December,

01:44:38.400 - 01:44:56.400

and she would have missed school year by a whole year. So I had her on the 30th of November, just made it. Earl came home about two weeks later, I think the 20th of December. Most people were hunting housing.

01:44:56.400 - 01:45:11.400

You couldn't find a place to stay. I was at my mother's house, and his family was in Lima, and he wanted to run a bowling alley because that's what his father did. Lo and behold, his aunt knew somebody that wanted somebody to share a house.

01:45:11.400 - 01:45:24.400

She was married and her husband worked in another town, but she didn't want to give up her house. So she was looking for somebody that would stay there when she was gone. So we shared a house at the end of the war.

01:45:24.400 - 01:45:39.400

So all of a sudden I had a house and a baby and housekeeping to do, which I knew zero about. Believe me, I didn't know anything about housekeeping. And I was going to pitch in, boy, and be family.

01:45:39.400 - 01:45:55.400

And about that time--it wasn't much longer after that, I was pregnant again. And I ran into this woman at church, and she said, "You know, if you're going to keep having kids like this, you should read this book on rhythm."

01:45:55.400 - 01:46:04.400

I said, "Okay." So she loaned me the book, and when I read a book, I read the beginning and the middle and the end, and if it's any good, I read the rest of it.

01:46:04.400 - 01:46:14.400

If it's not any good, I don't bother with it. So that's all I read, and I had to get the book back to her. And I thought, "Piece of cake. Anybody can do this." So I gave her the book back.

01:46:14.400 - 01:46:25.400

And then I'll jump ahead 15 years. I'm sitting at the swimming pool, and I've got ten children, and they're all in swimming, and the lifeguards are sitting there talking about rhythm.

01:46:25.400 - 01:46:33.400

And they said, "Jean, you're Catholic." And I said, "Yeah." They said, "What is rhythm?" I said, "Oh, it's this, this, and this."

01:46:33.400 - 01:46:42.400

They said, "Nuh-uh. It's this, this, and this." I said, "Oh, no." And they said, "You had it exactly backwards." I had it exactly backwards.

01:46:42.400 - 01:46:53.400

Rhythm works perfectly. I got pregnant just about every time I tried not to. So, you know, there they were, all ten of them. Wouldn't you think after five or six, I would say,

01:46:53.400 - 01:47:04.400

"Jean, maybe you've done this wrong?" No. I just had ten. Tell me, Jean, when those children were growing up, how were you involved in their activities?

01:47:04.400 - 01:47:17.400

Actually, we were--they're mother and father every day. I didn't belong to any women's clubs. I didn't--we kept house and raised kids. We didn't keep a whole lot of house, but we did stuff together.

01:47:17.400 - 01:47:30.400

He didn't go out and do things separately, and I didn't either. Obviously, there was a money problem. They didn't have pop. They didn't have snacks. Maybe once in a great while, I'd buy one carton of Coke,

01:47:30.400 - 01:47:42.400

and they'd share it. But we stayed home. We did stuff with them. Summers were involved at the swimming pool. It was a country swimming pool, and all my kids were lifeguards

01:47:42.400 - 01:47:51.400

at one time or another. And because they worked for the pool, the lady that owned the pool, the lady and man that owned the pool, believed that you should eat regular meals,

01:47:51.400 - 01:48:07.400

so they cooked a meal for them at the pool and part of the office. So they were very, very good to their help. So they were a part of our life for a long period of time, as long as we lived in that area.

01:48:07.400 - 01:48:18.400

And the kids were all born knowing how to swim. I've always had big swimmers. To this day, I'm always amazed at how good the girls swim, and they're, of course, in their 50s.

01:48:18.400 - 01:48:30.400

But we did things. We went to the drive-in. There was a drive-in connected with the pool, and so we could go to the drive-in free, and we swam.

01:48:30.400 - 01:48:42.400

So that was their pleasure. Earl's folks had a cottage at Indian, this same Indian Lake, and once in a while we could go up and stay there, but we had too many kids.

01:48:42.400 - 01:48:55.400

Nobody wanted us. We weren't really too welcome in any place but, say, mothers. And she'd starve to lose her hearing if she'd see the kids coming. She'd take her hearing aid out or throw it off.

01:48:55.400 - 01:49:07.400

But she really loved the children. I didn't--after about the fifth one, I was getting pretty embarrassed about telling her about how lucky I was, so I just didn't tell her.

01:49:07.400 - 01:49:21.400

She'd pretend like I wasn't pregnant, and I'd pretend like I wasn't pregnant. But after the baby was born, she loved them. She just couldn't get enough of them. And even in her 90s, they would play cards with her,

01:49:21.400 - 01:49:38.400

my sons and my sons-in-law, even when she was fading fast. And they'd say, "Grandma, you're cheating again," but they still let her play. I've got pictures of her playing cards with them. She lived to be 94, so she really enjoyed seeing--in fact, she lived beyond Earl.

01:49:38.400 - 01:49:54.400

Earl died before she did. So she was a great part of their growing up. And what I want to know is, my kids forgive her everything she did. She was pretty bossy and pretty set in her ways.

01:49:54.400 - 01:50:13.400

They don't forgive me, but they sure forgive my mother. It's all right for her. Jean, in knowing that Earl died, what got you through that sad time? I suppose my family.

01:50:13.400 - 01:50:27.400

We had been to the reunion in Cleveland, and everything was fine. And we have pictures of that reunion. And we went back home, and it was in October, and he woke up in the middle of the night, and he said, "I'm cold."

01:50:27.400 - 01:50:45.400

So I hurried around and got some blankets, and I thought he was getting the flu. And he acted just like the flu, but he didn't throw it off. And by December, he was coughing all the time, wouldn't go to the doctor. And people at work were after him to look into his condition.

01:50:45.400 - 01:51:04.400

And I remember they just began to talk about AIDS on television. And I was watching it, and I said, "You know," I said, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you had AIDS," because he was just falling away with his health and his weight. And he said, "Well, that's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard."

01:51:04.400 - 01:51:21.400

I said, "No, AIDS is an immune deficiency." I said, "And you are not immune to whatever is after you." I mean, that made perfect sense to me, but I didn't associate it with what caused AIDS. Anyway, by March, he just would not go to the doctor.

01:51:21.400 - 01:51:32.400

His mother was after him, the people at work were after him. And finally, I said, "Let's sell tickets, chances on what's the matter with you, and maybe we can make some money off of it." He said, "What does Martha think?"

01:51:32.400 - 01:51:42.400

Now, Martha was a registered nurse by then. And I said, "Cancer." And he said, "Get me an appointment." So I had an appointment the next day.

01:51:42.400 - 01:51:58.400

I had him in the doctor's office. The day after that, we had him in the hospital to do exploratory surgery. And the day after that, they did the surgery. The doctor came down and told me, he said, "This man won't live to the 4th of July."

01:51:58.400 - 01:52:07.400

This was in March. He'd never been sick, never been sick a day in his life, never took a day off, didn't take a vacation. He worked for his family.

01:52:07.400 - 01:52:19.400

And I said, "What's the matter?" And he said, "Well, he has cancer the size of a football in his abdomen, but it's not attached to anything." I said, "Well, I hope you took it out."

01:52:19.400 - 01:52:34.400

It was a dumb thing to say, but that was my first reaction. He said, "He's got 50 more all seeded through his abdomen." So anyway, they sent him back to the room, and I was sitting there in a dark room. And I was the one that got to tell him that.

01:52:34.400 - 01:52:52.400

And he started to come to out of the anesthetic, and he said, "What did they find out?" And I said, "Well, I wish you had died on the operating table, but you didn't." I said, "It seems to me you have two things to do." And he said, "What?"

01:52:52.400 - 01:53:06.400

I said, "You've got to make peace with your kids, and you've got to teach them how a man dies." And he said, "I can do that." And he did. That was his whole premise. And the kids--you know, children don't see death.

01:53:06.400 - 01:53:23.400

They don't see somebody wither away and die like they used to years ago. And so my kids had to watch it. That's when we got our money back. We found out how good they were because they all came.

01:53:23.400 - 01:53:38.400

I had to put two phone lines in. They called so much. And he wanted to be back up at the lake because he loved the lake. And he worked a crossword puzzle every day. It used to bother me, but after he was sick, I didn't care.

01:53:38.400 - 01:53:51.400

So we'd go send the little kids down to pick up a paper, and we'd all sit around the bedroom and work the crossword puzzle. And, of course, crossword puzzles have some of those dumb answers that people that do them all the time know what they are.

01:53:51.400 - 01:54:06.400

So if we didn't know those, the voice would come from the bed, and the words that you couldn't pull up. And the kids told me later, they said, "In spite of all this, it was one of the best summers we ever had."

01:54:06.400 - 01:54:26.400

And I told him, I said, "Actually, you're a lucky man. "You've seen your children grow up and have productive lives, "and you know how much they love you." And he said, "Yeah, I guess you only get so many years, and that's all he got."

01:54:26.400 - 01:54:41.400

Part of it was he wanted to have his ashes put in the Indian Lake. He wasn't Catholic. He didn't want any kind of a service. And I told him, I said, "I'll do whatever you want, but tell your folks," I said,

01:54:41.400 - 01:54:50.400

"and tell them more than once." And he did. He told them and told them. There would be no service. There would be nothing. He donated his body to the University of Cincinnati.

01:54:50.400 - 01:55:04.400

We both did. We did that in the '60s because, I guess I read it in the paper, they were asking for people to donate their bodies. So we did it, and you really have to give a notarized statement.

01:55:04.400 - 01:55:18.400

You have to have it signed and witnessed in order to do this. And then they give you a little card to carry. I've still got mine, and of course he had his. So he told his folks, and he told them again.

01:55:18.400 - 01:55:38.400

They didn't believe him. Anyway, when he died, we made a flying trip into the hospital. Well, see, I can tell you that. We had him at Indian Lake, and he wanted to stay there as long as possible,

01:55:38.400 - 01:55:51.400

and he hated hospitals. He thought, "I don't want to take him in before it's too soon." So we finally got in an ambulance, and I doubt if he knew the ride in. He was pretty unconscious.

01:55:51.400 - 01:56:01.400

We drove from Indian Lake to Dayton. That's a distance of about 75 miles, and the ambulance didn't have any air conditioning in it. It was just one of those hairy rides.

01:56:01.400 - 01:56:14.400

My kids were coming in different cars, and they were following. I remember coming out of the bedroom. He seemed to be getting worse that day. I had given him quite a bit of morphine.

01:56:14.400 - 01:56:31.400

I had morphine to give him, and I probably killed him, but just the same, I knew he wasn't going to have any pain. He said, "I'm not afraid to die, but I'm worried about the last two days." I said, "Well, I promise you, you won't have any pain," and he didn't.

01:56:31.400 - 01:56:48.400

I want to look back on it, and I think it's probably what he would have done for me. Anyway, my brother-in-law kept saying, "Jean, call the ambulance," but I was waiting on a hospice nurse to come. About two years before that, I had started doing volunteer work for hospice,

01:56:48.400 - 01:57:07.400

which helped a great deal when it came to be my turn. I still work from time to time for him as a volunteer. Anyway, the hospice nurse was trying to find us, and she couldn't find us, and I was trying to put it off because I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't take him in too soon.

01:57:07.400 - 01:57:18.400

She never did find us. My brother-in-law said, "If you don't call that ambulance, I'm going to call them," so we called them. When we went out of the place where we were staying, there were all these people standing around.

01:57:18.400 - 01:57:32.400

I never wanted to say, "Go home," so much in my life, but I suppose that's what you do if you see an ambulance. Anyway, we put him in the ambulance and took him. There was a WASP connection here, too.

01:57:32.400 - 01:57:42.400

About the last week or so, he was at Indian Lake. I was still working in Vandalia. It's a distance of 75 miles. I worked two days a week.

01:57:42.400 - 01:57:57.400

My daughter came down and stayed all the time with him. Her husband was in the Coast Guard in Cleveland, and I don't know how he got by with this. He told the Coast Guard, "My father-in-law is dying. I'll be back when it's over." So they just moved into the house so that I could continue to work,

01:57:57.400 - 01:58:22.400

and I worked, I think, two days, and then I'd come up to Lake, and then I worked two days. Jack Riley, who had been in my bay, or in with all of us because we were all mixed up together, lived in Florida, but she was from Michigan, and I hadn't seen her from graduation. About a week before Earl died, I was getting ready to go up to Lake again on a Thursday,

01:58:22.400 - 01:58:39.400

and she stopped--I worked for the city--and she stopped and asked for me, and I was not where I was supposed to be, so they started calling around looking for me. And I finally connected with her, and she said, "Hi. What are you doing?" I said, "Well," she knew Earl.

01:58:39.400 - 01:58:54.400

I said, "I suppose you want to see Earl." I said, "He's up the lake, and I'm--" she said, "I'll take you." And so she took me up to Lake, walked in, said hi to him, and then she went on to Michigan and came down about three weeks later.

01:58:54.400 - 01:59:17.400

And when I died, picked me up, took me to Florida for a week. And I don't know why that happened like it did, but the WASP came through and I needed him. Anyway, we get him to the hospital, and they grabbed that cart and go running in the room, and he said something about putting an IV.

01:59:17.400 - 01:59:31.400

I mean, I was right beside him, and they said, "You can't go in." And I said, "Why not?" And he said, "Because we're going to put an IV in his neck." And I said, "No, you're not." I said, "He's dying." I said, "He doesn't need that, but I didn't know that you have to tell them not to do that,

01:59:31.400 - 01:59:45.400

or they'll do it anyway." So he was laying in bed unconscious, and I'm on one side and his father's on the other. My daughter was behind me and my brother-in-law and my-- standing at the foot of the bed and a couple of my kids.

01:59:45.400 - 02:00:05.400

And Earl, my dad had died a couple of years before that, and I was pretty emotionally upset, and I thought, "I wonder if he'll see somebody," because of all that stuff you read. And I looked at him just as close as I could, right in his eyes, right in his face. I didn't see anything except the man unconscious.

02:00:05.400 - 02:00:21.400

And my brother-in-law is true agnostic. He doesn't believe in anything. He also has a pretty wild sense of humor, and he's the worry of us all, let's say that. And he's standing at the foot of the bed watching Earl.

02:00:21.400 - 02:00:39.400

He was born when Earl was 18 years old, so he looked on Earl more or less as a father. Anyway, I'm looking at him as closely as I can, and I watch him, and the doctor came in, and I said, "I hope I didn't bring him in too soon." And the doctor threw back the covers, and his legs had all turned blue, and he said,

02:00:39.400 - 02:00:58.400

"No," he said, "that's liver mortis. The blood has stopped circulating." He said, "The only thing that's keeping him alive is that strong heart." And I looked at his heart, and it was just leaping. It was just moving like this, and it stopped, and it did it again, and it did it again, and it stopped.

02:00:58.400 - 02:01:14.400

And we left, and we went home, and my brother-in-law came in, and I said, "You know," I said, "I was so sure he would see somebody." I said, "But I suppose I was just overwrought. He didn't see anybody." And my brother-in-law, who stood down there, he said, "Yes, he did."

02:01:14.400 - 02:01:33.400

He said he looked to the corner of the room, and he saw somebody. Now, why did he see that and I didn't see that? I have never forgotten that. That was—I just—I couldn't believe that that happened. So anyway, the next spring, my daughter had a baby in California.

02:01:33.400 - 02:01:54.400

The next January—this was August—between January and Christmas, three of the girls were pregnant. It was almost as if her went to heaven and said, "You, you, and you." But anyway, three of them were pregnant. And so in the spring, I went out to California for my granddaughter to see her be born.

02:01:54.400 - 02:02:15.400

And this time, it's not—I'm not the whole show. I'm just Mother out in the other room. And she was—she had a coach, and she had her husband with her, and all the new stuff that California does. And I'm just—and the nurse comes out and runs in the room and runs back out and goes and gets some oxygen. And I'm getting like this. You know, when it's not you, you worry twice as much.

02:02:15.400 - 02:02:30.400

And then I heard my son-in-law laugh. And I thought, "If it wasn't—it isn't bad, or he wouldn't be laughing." And the nurse said, "Come on in, Grandma." And they handed me Katie, and Katie was all blue, and all of a sudden she went to pink.

02:02:30.400 - 02:02:47.400

Earl went from pink to blue, and Katie went from blue to pink. And it was death and life. I just absolutely could not believe that happened in that time period. But after that, then you found someone else.

02:02:47.400 - 02:02:58.400

Oh, yeah. Very, very strangely. I've had such a strange life, really. I went back to work.

02:02:58.400 - 02:03:14.400

Oh, as the kids were hitting high school age, and of course, like everybody else, we didn't have enough money. We didn't—things were tough. So I thought, "Well, I'll get a job." So—and then I thought, "Who would hire somebody as old as me, with all these young people around?"

02:03:14.400 - 02:03:25.400

And the Catholic school wanted a school bus driver. So I said, "Sure, that's something I can do." So I drove a school bus for five years, and I was allowed to take my kids with me. I took my three youngest children.

02:03:25.400 - 02:03:47.400

My very youngest child took his naps on the back of the school bus ledge, back in the back seat. And, of course, that's where the seniors sat, and he learned more before he was five years old than any kid ought to ever know. And I also was allowed to take the dog. Of course, that didn't work out too well, because the kids would put their sandwiches on the floor, and the dog would have lunch.

02:03:47.400 - 02:04:04.400

Anyway, I drove a Catholic school bus for two years, and then I drove for public school. I drove for about five years, and then I got a job delivering rural mail, because they couldn't get anybody that could work that sort of hours, whenever the regular mail carrier wanted to be off, and Saturdays was—

02:04:04.400 - 02:04:26.400

but the two jobs just worked real well together, and I made pretty good pay at it. And I learned a whole lot about kids on school buses. You think you have the only kids in the world until you drive a school bus, and you find out what driving a school bus is really like. Now my daughter has just started driving a school bus for Rocky River.

02:04:26.400 - 02:04:48.400

She had worked in a kitchen in Virginia as a cook, and she was making about five, six dollars an hour, no money at all. And she goes to Rocky River, and they don't need a cook, but I said, "Well, see if you can drive a school bus. It pays ten dollars an hour, much better than cooking." So she's taking her test, I think, tomorrow.

02:04:48.400 - 02:05:08.400

Anyway, everybody else said, "Oh, that's hard." I said, "That's not hard. Just once you learn to stop listening to the racket behind you, you're fine. She can do it." Anyway, I drove a school bus, and I delivered rural mail. And, let's see, I delivered rural mail for three or four years,

02:05:08.400 - 02:05:28.400

and one winter day, it was in December, the road was pretty slushy, and I was pulling up towards the mailbox, and I thought that a bird was flying into my windshield. Well, actually, it was a young woman was driving the other direction, and she dropped a wheel, and she hadn't been driving long enough to know not to crack suddenly.

02:05:28.400 - 02:05:50.400

So she cut the wheel back, and her car started to roll, and I just happened to be in her way. And she hit me and totaled my car, and it tore my foot off. And I saw my pretty car, the windshield cracked, and the radio went "psst." And I reached over and turned the ignition off, and I thought, "Well, I guess I'm all right. I'm still alive."

02:05:50.400 - 02:06:10.400

And I looked down, and I saw two bones sticking out, and I thought, "Well, I'm not as good a shape as I thought I was." So the ambulance— Change the end of the tape. Change the tape. Field trip for cemeteries. Cemeterys are my big interest. I managed one for about five years.

02:06:10.400 - 02:06:32.400

Anyway, we went on this field trip, reading old cemeteries in my county, which is the first county in Ohio, the Northwest Territory. Here are all these women are 20, and they're very young. They're under 25. If I go to heaven and I'm 78, I don't have a chance with those kids, but everybody's going to be 30.

02:06:32.400 - 02:06:44.400

Oh, good. That sounds pretty good to me, too. So anyway, you banged up your leg. Yeah, and that put me in the hospital, and that was the first accident.

02:06:44.400 - 02:07:07.400

But they put it back together again, and he said, "I couldn't do much. I put the bones back." But he said, "I can't do a whole lot about the nerves," and he said, "You may not be able to walk on that foot." And I thought, "Don't say I can't do something." So I did walk, and I did go back to driving the bus, and it was a clutch, so I had to be able to do this with it.

02:07:07.400 - 02:07:26.400

I have a disability in it, but it doesn't affect me much. But then at some point, you started doing your engineering stuff. Oh, yeah, well, I saw an ad in the paper. I was still driving the bus, and I was still delivering mail, and there was an ad in the paper for a draftsman for the city of Dayton.

02:07:26.400 - 02:07:40.400

And I thought, "You know, I used to do that. I can do that." And I went down, took the test, or talked to the woman, and it was a woman who was in charge, and she thought women ought to be able to do that sort of thing. And I thought so, too, with that, you know.

02:07:40.400 - 02:07:58.400

So she gave me a drawing copy, and I went home and copied it and brought it back, and she gave me a job. And I couldn't believe it that I got it, and after I was in there, I thought, "Maybe I better go back and get a little schooling." So I went to a junior college and took surveying and physics that I almost flunked,

02:07:58.400 - 02:08:13.400

but I just happened to study the right book at the right time, and I aced a test that I couldn't have passed any other conditions. Just lucky. And I took some other mapping, I guess.

02:08:13.400 - 02:08:31.400

Anyway, that's my secondary education. I didn't finish there because I was only interested in those courses. And I took some computer courses. And I worked for the city of Dayton for two years, and it was a special program to draw alleys.

02:08:31.400 - 02:08:51.400

And I liked it so much that I thought, "I really need to build this into something." And the program shut down, so I knew I was going to lose that job. And there was an engineering firm starting up, Kraft-Schoen-Weiss. David Kraft was head of engineering at the University of Dayton,

02:08:51.400 - 02:09:06.400

and he wanted to start his own company. He was a professor, but he wanted to see what it was like in the real world, so they started this consulting firm, and they needed a cheap draftsman, and I was it. But they were all teachers, so they actually taught me what I was doing.

02:09:06.400 - 02:09:23.400

And for four years, it was the benefit of a civil engineering course. I've had the instructions. I don't have the degree, but I've had the instructions that went with it. And I worked for them for four years in Dayton, and I still had the kids.

02:09:23.400 - 02:09:51.400

I mean, their kids weren't raised yet. Then I had a chance to--I was interested in tax mapping, looking up real estate. And in Ohio, if you transfer property, you have to show the property, and you have to have a map of it, and it has to do something that's called "closing."

02:09:51.400 - 02:10:06.400

You have to be able to follow a route all around it and have it come back to exactly zero. That's called "closing." If you have just a lot in town, your lot one of section so-and-so, and those are cut and dried because they're platted properties.

02:10:06.400 - 02:10:25.400

But the tax mapping that I was interested in--there was a company in Dayton. In 1975, the government had a tax equalization law passed, and everybody that paid taxes were going to be taxed equally for real estate. It never panned out because there were states like Alabama and Mississippi

02:10:25.400 - 02:10:37.400

that some of them had never been mapped and still haven't. They sent me to Tennessee, where only two counties had been mapped, and those were the ones at Oak Ridge. But the rural counties hadn't been mapped,

02:10:37.400 - 02:10:57.400

and they sent me down there to work for a year in 1975. And those are called "meets and bounds descriptions," and they're done in chains and links, which is an early measurement. Now most states and governments are into meters, and many in feet and inches,

02:10:57.400 - 02:11:16.400

but chains and links go back before that, so I can jump from one to the other because every place I've ever worked I've had to do it. Anyway, we mapped Sullivan County, and I did that for probably a year, but I found that was where my real interests lie.

02:11:16.400 - 02:11:31.400

At the time, Earl was--let's see, this would be '75, that's before he died. I said, "What do you think about me working away from home?" And he said, "Well, it's in a nice area," and work was slow for him. He said, "I'll just come down when I can.

02:11:31.400 - 02:11:45.400

A lot of the kids have left home, and the younger ones can come with us." So we lived on a lake in Tennessee, and we had a wonderful time. I met absolutely wonderful people. I also met--in Sullivan County, they have two courthouses,

02:11:45.400 - 02:12:01.400

and so property is listed in two different places. They also had at that time a law that--they called it a "pocket recordation." You could record your deed, but you didn't necessarily have to keep it in the courthouse. You could keep it in your pocket.

02:12:01.400 - 02:12:16.400

So that meant if you wanted to go find out what somebody owned, you had to ask them. You'd say, "Well, I see you have so many acres here, maybe 50, 60 acres." "Well, maybe not." So you had to talk these--I wouldn't say hillbillies,

02:12:16.400 - 02:12:33.400

but I would say remote people who weren't interested in being taxed for anything. You had to get a legal description and get it on paper so that the state would accept it to be taxable. That took a lot of skill, and I really enjoyed doing it. I just loved it.

02:12:33.400 - 02:12:52.400

At the time, the people next door to the courthouse, the lady had-- if you've ever heard of the barter system, in that part of Tennessee during the Depression, they didn't have any money, so they had barter. This woman had a post office and this little store, and they had a hole in the floor that was wood.

02:12:52.400 - 02:13:10.400

It was called the barter hole. And you could take--you would sew together two sheets and fasten them to the hole, and people would come in with down from ducks and feathers and put down that hole, and that counted as--that was a viable property.

02:13:10.400 - 02:13:29.400

And then when you had it filled, you had a featherbed. And she also--her husband had been a lawyer, and her big thing was she bought up log cabins. And in her backyard, she had a whole row of log cabins running down the yard. And she gave me a short course in log cabins and how they're built and what--

02:13:29.400 - 02:13:52.400

some of the earlier ones, there was a door front and back so that you could drive a horse through it and roll the log into the fireplace, which just absolutely fascinated me. And the house--the next house was a lady by the name of Miss Birdie Anderson. Anderson is a family name of mine, going back through my father's parents and grandparents.

02:13:52.400 - 02:14:09.400

And I said, "I'd like to go through your house." So she showed me through, and she had pictures of the same vintage as mine. It looked like they'd been done by the same people. I have two pictures of my great-grandmother that were done by an itinerant artist,

02:14:09.400 - 02:14:27.400

and they would come into your home, and for room and board, they would do pictures of the people living there. Well, okay, this was in Ohio in my great-grandparents' house. In Tennessee, in a different house, were the same kind of pictures. And I said, "This looks like there's some relationship here."

02:14:27.400 - 02:14:46.400

And this lady said she had--she was probably in her 80s. She said she had never left that house, but that they had an uncle that had gone on to the Ohio country, and they'd never heard what happened to him, and his name happened to be John Anderson. Well, anyway, there was almost a connection, but my dad was supposed to come down

02:14:46.400 - 02:15:02.400

because he would have been the one that could have said, and that was the week he got sick and his cancer. He never got to go anyplace again. I went back to that town in Tennessee a couple years ago, and here's the house with all the windows knocked out of it, everybody gone.

02:15:02.400 - 02:15:20.400

To me, that's the history of that. She said she remembers sitting on her front stoop, watching these people every day walking past her house, headed for the Ohio country. They would be coming from Maryland to Virginia, going up through Cumberland Gap.

02:15:20.400 - 02:15:33.400

And she said Mother would put a bush of apples out there, and we'd hand out apples to these people as they went by. So here's this link to all the generations. That sort of thing just absolutely fascinates me.

02:15:33.400 - 02:15:49.400

How many years then did you work? Oh, I started working, started driving a school bus the year Kennedy died, because I remember very well I was on the bus, and this one little kid said, "Bus driver, I want to go home. Somebody shot my president."

02:15:49.400 - 02:16:05.400

So I took him home. Anyway, I started that year driving a school bus, and then I worked until I was 76. So I would say 30 years. I started in on the--they call it back on the board, drafting.

02:16:05.400 - 02:16:21.400

I worked for the city of Dayton. I worked for the engineers. Then I started working for the tax mapping company, because that was my real interest. And then after Earl died, I went to work for the city of Vandalia, and I worked for them for seven years.

02:16:21.400 - 02:16:43.400

And after he died, my daughter asked me to come to California because she was working, and she wanted to know if I'd be there and I could get a job. But I saw babysitting more than job, so as soon as I got there, I applied for a job, and I wasn't back at the house until there was a phone call that I had a job.

02:16:43.400 - 02:17:02.400

That's when I learned I could get a job someplace in the country, and it paid better than--certainly paid better than babysitting. I worked as a draftsman in California for, I think, two years, two or three years. I worked for a tax mapping company.

02:17:02.400 - 02:17:23.400

Out there, they do a lot of title search. It was a title company. You're crazy if you buy land in California and don't have the title searched. So I mapped all of the counties around San Francisco. But the land in California started out as--of course, you know this--

02:17:23.400 - 02:17:42.400

the Spaniards, the Mexicans, first the Indians, and then the Americans. And it was based on land grants. Say the area around San Lorenzo, which is a small town near San Leandro, was actually the San Lorenzo Ranch, thousands of acres.

02:17:42.400 - 02:17:57.400

It was lost in a card game, and it eventually became a town. That's why at the time I was pretty interested in that development of California and some of the land disputes. And I don't know as much about it.

02:17:57.400 - 02:18:16.400

I don't remember as much now as I did then, but I knew a great deal about it then. All those orchards and beautiful, beautiful areas that they immediately planted off in the houses. And it would be what they call the East Bay, the Oakland area of California.

02:18:16.400 - 02:18:31.400

Not so much San Francisco, but the area on the East Bay, and then all the way down to San Jose. Anyway, I worked for them for a couple years, and then my son in Arizona called and wanted to know if I could come

02:18:31.400 - 02:18:46.400

and be there when--they had been on the Indian Reservation in Kayana. And he was a dynamite superintendent for Peabody Coal. This was my wildest child. I wouldn't give him a stick of dynamite if it didn't have anything, if it was wet.

02:18:46.400 - 02:18:57.400

But he got it anyway. And he still has a national--that's a national license, by the way. Very hard to come by. So he said, "Could I come?"

02:18:57.400 - 02:19:14.400

Because living on the reservation, the kids were in Indian schools, and they were the minority, and they really wanted to come off the reservation and get to go to Phoenix and be in Anglo schools. And in order to do that, my daughter-in-law, who had a degree in--

02:19:14.400 - 02:19:36.400

she was a lawyer for the Navajo Nation. She was from Michigan. She wasn't Navajo. She was from Michigan. But she had a law degree, and she said the quickest way to make more money is accounting. So she got a master's degree in accounting over one winter at Northern Arizona University.

02:19:36.400 - 02:19:55.400

So I babysat for the kids, but I said, "If I can get a job, I will." So I worked at the same time. I went to work for a mapping company in Arizona. And they were building houses, and I learned to draw sewers. And the sewer system is fascinating in that part of the country,

02:19:55.400 - 02:20:10.400

if the sewer system can be fascinating. And then she got through the course, and she graduated with honors. They went on to Phoenix, and I just assumed that I'd be part of their family. And my son said, "Well, Mom, what are you going to do next?"

02:20:10.400 - 02:20:26.400

And I said, "I think I've been fired." So I stopped in Payson, Arizona, because somebody had told me, "If you go up through there, there's a good engineering firm there. You might like them." So I stopped and talked to them, and they said, "Why would you want to come here?"

02:20:26.400 - 02:20:41.400

I said, "Oh, I don't know. I'd be farther out in the sticks than I-- I'd just like to get as far away as I can get." So lo and behold, they called up and offered me a job. And so I went back down to talk to them,

02:20:41.400 - 02:20:56.400

and on the way home, I stopped at a little inn in Strawberry, Arizona. And the woman behind the counter was just talking away a mile a minute. She pours me a cup of coffee, keeps right on talking. And finally she said, "What do you want?"

02:20:56.400 - 02:21:07.400

And I said, "Well, do you know a place to live around here?" "Oh," she says, "as a matter of fact, I do." And she said, "I have a friend." And she called this other lady, and we went over to look at it.

02:21:07.400 - 02:21:20.400

And this lady had a cabin. I had a cabin, a job. And I thought, "This must be what I'm supposed to do." So I moved there, and I lived in a cabin alone for a whole year. We had a blizzard. The power went out.

02:21:20.400 - 02:21:33.400

I had to build my own fire. I had water, but I had to keep it running. I had to get up in the middle of the night and put a fire on the-- But you know, after that winter, I found out I could live any place, any time,

02:21:33.400 - 02:21:49.400

and I can take care of Gina, and I don't need anybody, and I don't need kids, I don't need anybody. But a lot of it is--you don't grow up being self-sufficient or independent. It comes a little at a time, all the way back down the road,

02:21:49.400 - 02:22:03.400

all the way back to the WASP, and what I learned there. And at the time, I just thought, "Okay, that was a wonderful experience. It's over. Now I'm raising a family." Well, then that was over. Now I'm taking care of myself.

02:22:03.400 - 02:22:19.400

I worked there on the mountain for a year, and the kids were in Phoenix, and I had contact with them. I went back and forth a lot. And their mother called and said she had breast cancer, and I thought I'd better go back to Ohio and be with her.

02:22:19.400 - 02:22:37.400

So I asked--the company that I was working for was a branch of an Ohio company, which was a big surprise, so I asked to be transferred back to their home office in Columbus, and they let me do it. And I said I needed to be close to my mother.

02:22:37.400 - 02:22:52.400

So I had an apartment in Columbus, and I'd go back and forth to Troy. I didn't want to move back home. I just did not--I didn't want to do that. It wouldn't have worked. And so they were just keeping me occupied, and I'm taking care of Mother,

02:22:52.400 - 02:23:03.400

and they said, "Would I mind going to Marietta, Ohio, to buy some easements for the telephone company?" I said, "I don't care." So we go down and have a look at Marietta,

02:23:03.400 - 02:23:18.400

which is the first settlement of the Northwest Territory. History again. And they sent me to the Parkersburg office of the same company, and still again buying easements.

02:23:18.400 - 02:23:34.400

And so I was working in and out of both offices, and then the courthouse in Marietta. And I had to stop and buy easements for every house for 20 miles on-- they were putting fiber optics telephone line all over Ohio,

02:23:34.400 - 02:23:47.400

and this was a connection that was going down to pick up another connection along the Ohio River. So I had to map every property along that road in that county. I had to draw it. I had to research it.

02:23:47.400 - 02:23:58.400

And then I had to go to the people and ask to buy an easement to put this telephone line in. And when I walked up into this one yard, it turned out to be my second husband,

02:23:58.400 - 02:24:08.400

Jack was standing in the yard, and he looked at me, and he said, "How would you like to go to China with me?" I hadn't thought about guys. I hadn't thought about China. I hadn't thought about anything.

02:24:08.400 - 02:24:20.400

I said, "Gee." He said, "No, I don't think I'd better." He said--I found out later he wanted me to pay for it myself. Now the greatest compliment after we'd been married five years,

02:24:20.400 - 02:24:34.400

he said, "You know, if I knew everything I know today, I really would have paid you a way to China." I thought that was pretty nice of him. I was going to Portugal with a WASP friend from California.

02:24:34.400 - 02:24:47.400

Okay, while we were in California, the Northern California Group, they knew I was there, and my friend did anyway, and she asked me to come to meetings. So I had lost total contact pretty much,

02:24:47.400 - 02:24:57.400

except for just my very close friends. So I started going to the Northern California Group, and I had a very nice time with them, a nice bunch of people. We did quite a few things together.

02:24:57.400 - 02:25:09.400

We went to the Gold Country. We went down to Asilomar, which is a beautiful place on the West Coast. They took us in just like they do. Every time we get together, we get to see fascinating places

02:25:09.400 - 02:25:20.400

that I never would have seen any other way. Anyway, she called and asked me if I wanted to go to Portugal with her. She wanted somebody to go along. I said, "How much?"

02:25:20.400 - 02:25:32.400

She said, "Well, you're going to have to put $500 down." I was thinking the other day, I think she must have paid for the rest of it for me. She was pretty wealthy. I did get the $500 to her, and I kept saying, "How much more do I owe you?"

02:25:32.400 - 02:25:44.400

and she wouldn't tell me. So we went to Portugal on a cruise, and it was wonderful. We got in the back country. She couldn't drive.

02:25:44.400 - 02:26:01.400

She was kind of crippled up, and I said, "Well, I can drive. Just go ahead and volunteer that you can do something whether you can or can't." We just had a marvelous time. We came back, and I was still working in Columbus,

02:26:01.400 - 02:26:20.400

and I still was in contact with Jack because we took some time to work out these easements. Anyway, the first day that I met him, he said, "Well, let's go in the house, and I'll look at your papers." I had another young man with me because you don't go alone when you do that sort of thing.

02:26:20.400 - 02:26:38.400

I walked in his house, and there were clock parts all over the dining room table, little bitty clock pieces, and there were pictures of children. I thought, "There isn't any woman here, or this would not be the mess it's in." I asked him about the pictures, and I said, "Are those your grandchildren?"

02:26:38.400 - 02:26:51.400

He said, "Those are my late wife's grandchildren." I said, "Oh." I looked at the clock parts again, and I said, "What did you do for a living?" He said, "I was a tool and die maker for 44 years."

02:26:51.400 - 02:27:04.400

Then the third sentence, I said, "Just what I need, another damn know-it-all tool and die maker." He started to laugh. He said, "Why did you say that?" I said, "Because I've been married to one for 38 years." I said, "I know all about you guys."

02:27:04.400 - 02:27:25.400

He started to laugh, and we had dates after that, and about six months later, we were married. Again, it was something he knew when he saw me. I can't imagine there are two men on this earth that would think I was worth dropping in. They're up there having me for lunch right now.

02:27:25.400 - 02:27:43.400

That was a happy marriage, too? Oh, absolutely. My kids loved him. The last one to warm up to him was my son-in-law, who had taken care of my husband until he died. I should tell you another thing about Earl.

02:27:43.400 - 02:28:09.400

He gave his body to the University of Cincinnati, and you get your ashes back in two years. They did write and ask me that the University of Cincinnati has a place in the cemetery there for people who donate their bodies. I said, "No, he wanted his ashes. I want them back." I got them back in the fall, and the kids wanted to wait until they could be there, so we kept them until spring.

02:28:09.400 - 02:28:38.400

We went up to Indian Lake, and I felt like I had done everything for Earl. I really felt like I had given it all, so I didn't go. Two of my daughters went, my son went, my brother-in-law, the same brother-in-law, and my grandson. What Earl wanted them to do was to go out in the boat and sing songs and drink beer and eat donuts and put ashes in the lake.

02:28:38.400 - 02:28:54.400

His dad really wasn't in favor of this, so we just said, "Okay." He never said anything to me, so I said, "I'll just pretend like I don't know that." They put his ashes in a six-pack, which is pretty appropriate. They go out in the lake, and they're singing. They're having a wonderful time.

02:28:54.400 - 02:29:10.400

They're trying to decide where to put the ashes. They said, "Well, he never got his boat any farther than 1,500 yards out before it broke down, so we'll put some right there." So they put ashes there. Then they put them—there was a place where a band played '40s music, so they put ashes in there.

02:29:10.400 - 02:29:33.400

Then they went back in an old fishing hole where everybody went, and they put some ashes there. By then, they've had lots of beer, lots of donuts, and they're having a wonderful time singing, which is exactly what Earl wanted. Then they go back, and the next morning, my son and my daughters thought, "Maybe they better go out and make sure that boat was totally cleaned out and there weren't any ashes still in the boat."

02:29:33.400 - 02:29:56.400

So they go back, and sure enough, they found some more ashes. They go back out on the lake. This is Memorial Day, and there's a man who has an airport in Urbana, Ohio. Every Memorial Day and Labor Day, he flies over the lake as a memorial to people, and he has a military thing.

02:29:56.400 - 02:30:12.400

Anyway, he had two planes, and my daughter told me that just as they threw those ashes in, the second plane did that Navy peel-off thing, and she said, "Mom, my skin crawled." But as far as I was concerned, it was just perfect. It was exactly what Earl would have wanted.

02:30:12.400 - 02:30:32.400

So we felt that that really worked out well. The only thing is, a couple years later, Jack and I went up there, and we were sitting drinking beer in the same place, same music, same thing. I said, "You know, it is the weirdest thing in the world to know your first husband is laying out there on that channel, and your second husband is sitting here drinking beer with you."

02:30:32.400 - 02:30:40.400

Jack said, "You're a sick woman." Anyhow. Tell me about your children. Okay, what?

02:30:40.400 - 02:30:51.400

Tell me where they are and the grandchildren that you have. Okay. Martha is my oldest. She is a nurse, or she was a nurse.

02:30:51.400 - 02:31:12.400

She married a man who has—she put him through school, and he got his degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Nebraska. Became a big oil man. They have had—owned an oil company. He was sent to Africa to do offshore drilling in Africa, and so she—they didn't feel it was safe for the girls,

02:31:12.400 - 02:31:25.400

so the girls were in school in Europe. She has two daughters, and she and Brad lived in Africa for five years. And he turned down a million dollars to go back. He said he wouldn't do it.

02:31:25.400 - 02:31:41.400

So they came back to this country, and they live in Houston, and they're about ready to retire. My one granddaughter has a horse farm. She has always liked horses, has never wanted anything but horses. And so she runs a horse farm in Ohio, and Martha helps her.

02:31:41.400 - 02:32:01.400

She is some of the money behind it, but she is also involved in it. My second granddaughter lives in Houston, and sells real estate and lives at Clear Lake, which is the kids bought some property they were developing there. So she told—the last time I saw her, she said that, "Grandma, this is where it is, Houston, Texas."

02:32:01.400 - 02:32:25.400

You know, she said, "I'll never live anyplace else." I have a great-granddaughter, Grace Alexandra. Grace is for my father's mother, the one that died back when he was a year and a half old. Karen and Grace, though she is divorced, she was briefly married to Charles Keating III, if you know who that is.

02:32:25.400 - 02:32:43.400

We had a WASP reunion in California at my daughter's house in Santa Ana. I had the whole class come in for a class dinner. I had a catered dinner. This was the same weekend that Charles Keating was released from jail. On the paper, big headlines, on the TV, pictures.

02:32:43.400 - 02:33:00.400

All my friends are sitting there, a lot of them invest a lot of money. Here comes Karen and Charlie walking in the kitchen. I said, "I want you guys to meet my granddaughter and her husband, Charles Keating III." One of them said to Jack, "Is that the one?"

02:33:00.400 - 02:33:15.400

Jack said, "He ain't getting any of my money." But he was charming. It's just they were too young, the same reason. Anyway, Karen has the baby. My WASP friends had a part of that.

02:33:15.400 - 02:33:38.400

It just seems like everything I've done in my whole life, here come the WASP when it's intermingled. My oldest son was in the seminary until the end of his high school years. He has really a classical education. He was a very intelligent man, but I believe he's out of touch with the world.

02:33:38.400 - 02:33:58.400

He manages a good job. He manages the traffic lights in Dayton, Ohio. But his mind is in the clouds someplace. I can ask him anything I want, and this kid has got a background that he can tell you. He has three children. His wife is blind.

02:33:58.400 - 02:34:12.400

So we're learning some things about that. My grandchildren are getting older. My granddaughter is 13, and I'm very close to her. There's apparently a relationship between us. There's some similarities.

02:34:12.400 - 02:34:38.400

I'm interested in how—I think I would be interested in genetics if I had the background for it. Because to see the things that pop up in these kids that relate to either Earl or me or my parents or his parents. And here's this granddaughter who is so much like me, I'm so comfortable with her. Anyway, my third child is the one that lived on the Indian Reservation, whose wife was a lawyer.

02:34:38.400 - 02:35:01.400

Now she's an investment banker. She's a partner in Duluth and Tesh. Since I can't invest five cents and not lose it, I don't know. But anyway, they live on Long Island, and my grandchildren are—one's in school in Austin. I think he's going to be in school forever. He's a perpetual student. He loves school.

02:35:01.400 - 02:35:24.400

But he is doing some work with handicapped kids, so he's doing something worthwhile. My granddaughter is in school at Cornell. She's in pre-vet school. She's drawing straight A's, and she's fascinating when I hear her stories. And the oldest of the three is running a bar in Reno. He doesn't think he needs to do anything else.

02:35:24.400 - 02:35:46.400

So, you know, you just get this whole bag full of characters when you have this much family. The next one is my daughter, who you both met in Omaha. She was an engineer for the Southern Pacific in California. The Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific, in all their wisdom, decided to merge and said everybody would have to move to Omaha.

02:35:46.400 - 02:36:09.400

Now all the people that lived in California and owned real estate had to get rid of it if they had retirement. A lot of them lost their retirement. Emmy transferred from the Southern Pacific to the Union Pacific and said, "My job is an engineer." She drove the trains in California. She was president of the union in California.

02:36:09.400 - 02:36:24.400

Omaha said, "No, women don't do that." She actually sat in the train and drove it? She drove the train, yeah. As a matter of fact, she said people would be taking pictures of the train, they'd see her there, and they'd forget to click the shutter.

02:36:24.400 - 02:36:44.400

But she also got elected president of the railroad union. They said, "No, that can't be," so they threw it out. They had a re-election again, and she won the second time. Then the officers of the union called her in and said, "Now, this is how we want you to represent us to the membership."

02:36:44.400 - 02:37:02.400

She said, "You got it all wrong. I represent the membership to you. I don't represent you to the membership." It was pretty much that way all the time. Emmy got a little of my spunk, but anyway, she went to Omaha, and they said, "No, we can't do that."

02:37:02.400 - 02:37:17.400

They tried to bust her. They made her a fireman. Now, this means in Nebraska weather, she's out on the end of that train, catching the train with a light, with a lantern, and swinging up on it. I said, "Emmy, it isn't worth that. Don't do it." She said, "I will not quit."

02:37:17.400 - 02:37:31.400

She said, "They're not going to make me quit. I will do it." She said they were standing out one time in this little hut. She said it was 30 below, and she said, "The guys are standing out there. It's icy cold. They're all complaining. There's not much heat."

02:37:31.400 - 02:37:46.400

They said, "Aren't you cold?" She said, "No, I'm having hot flashes. I'm fine." They finally had enough pull. The railroads are still pretty—there's a lot of nepotism there with families, higher families.

02:37:46.400 - 02:38:06.400

That's how she started working there. She married a man who was in a railroad family. Now she runs the big direction boards that shows all the routes. Every time I hear of an accident, I call her up and say, "Is that you? Do you know anything about this?" Those boards cover the whole country, and she has certain sections.

02:38:06.400 - 02:38:24.400

She does work indoors. She didn't back out on the train, but they would not let her do it. I said, "What about the Union?" She said, "They never heard the meaning of the word." They just were not going to let her do it, but she wouldn't quit, so she's still there. She has three children. One just started Teacher's College in Nebraska and is very happy with it,

02:38:24.400 - 02:38:44.400

which is great because I was worried about her. My oldest granddaughter, her oldest child, had spina bifida. She has some residue from it. She is a beautiful young woman, but she's dyslectic. She can't read. She had a tough time getting through school. She finally got through high school.

02:38:44.400 - 02:39:09.400

Emmy says that if she were in a wheelchair, everybody would say how wonderful she gets around for a handicapped child. She is a beautiful woman that looks like every other lady on the street. Emmy said she had a brain in her hand, but she still managed to stay out of trouble. She's 22 or 23, and they have a son who's still in grade school.

02:39:09.400 - 02:39:38.400

He's fascinating, too, a very intelligent child. Then comes Meg. Meg has two boys, and she lives in Southern California in Santa Ana. She works for Wonderware, and she goes around and sets up offices all over the world for them. If they decide to have a branch in Belgium, she goes there and sets up the office,

02:39:38.400 - 02:39:56.400

and then she comes back, so she does a great deal of traveling for them. One of the kids just graduated from high school, and the other one is in high school. Big sports, that's because their father is big in sports. I'm not aware of any leanings that they have so far, but I'm sure it will pop.

02:39:56.400 - 02:40:12.400

I just want them to stay out of jail until they graduate. My next child is my daughter, and she lives in Troy. She's always liked Troy. She never had any reason to leave. She was close to my mother. She runs a pet store.

02:40:12.400 - 02:40:24.400

She works for Super Pets. Every time they get a store that's going downhill, they put her there, and then it comes up, and she is doing a beautiful job. I keep saying, "Go back to school. Get a degree."

02:40:24.400 - 02:40:34.400

"Why?" "I make plenty of money," and she does. She says, "I don't want to do the arithmetic." I said, "You do books. You keep track of stock." I said, "What is arithmetic?"

02:40:34.400 - 02:40:45.400

She said, "I don't care. She's a people person," which she has inherited from her grandfather. I can see a lot of my dad in my daughter. She has two children.

02:40:45.400 - 02:40:59.400

One of them put himself through college at Wright State, and he's an auditor for the state of Ohio. He's my oldest grandson. He is, I think, going to get married next year, I hope.

02:40:59.400 - 02:41:12.400

He's 25 or 26. My granddaughter works in Louisville. Both of her kids are out of school and both working productively, I guess. Then after Wheezy comes Joe.

02:41:12.400 - 02:41:30.400

Joe went to Ohio State. He's always had--he's really, really bright. His interest was herpetology, etymology, bugs, and snakes. One of the first times I went to stay where he was, after he got out of school,

02:41:30.400 - 02:41:42.400

he said, "Mom, we put you and Dad in here. Don't worry about the rattlesnakes. They won't get out of the cages. In the same room I'm sleeping in." Rattlesnakes, real ones.

02:41:42.400 - 02:42:00.400

Anyway, he graduated from Ohio State, went to California. For a while, he was working disposal of dangerous, hazardous drugs until the rest of the kids said, "You're not bringing that stuff back here. You're going to get a different job."

02:42:00.400 - 02:42:10.400

So he finally quit that. Right now he's in Modoc County, which is Alpherus, California. He's the county agent. He has 160 acres and a whole flock of cows.

02:42:10.400 - 02:42:23.400

He has more land and more animals than any of the rest of the kids. But I said, "Why do you live in such a godforsaken hole? It's 12 miles or 12 hours from anybody." He said, "Because I can see bald eagles every day."

02:42:23.400 - 02:42:34.400

I said, "Well, good." That's Matt. Then there's Joe. That's Joe. Matt is the next one. He lives in Santa Rosa.

02:42:34.400 - 02:42:49.400

He perfected a way to check heavy equipment. In California, if you have, say, a cherry picker or heavy operator's equipment, they have to be inspected by the state. He has the know-how and the equipment to do it,

02:42:49.400 - 02:42:59.400

and he's trying to get his own business going. He's doing pretty well, but he's still working on his own business. So I help him a little. I wish him all the luck in the world.

02:42:59.400 - 02:43:17.400

He's got two daughters. I think the oldest is--she must be about 12--and the younger one, they're both still in school. Next is Maude. Maude's my ninth child, and she's probably the one I'm closest to. Now this is the one that put all the white in his head.

02:43:17.400 - 02:43:36.400

When she was in school, she gave me fits each and every day. She gave the whole family fits. And all of a sudden, when her daddy got sick, she dropped everything and took care of him. She went from being the worst to being the best.

02:43:36.400 - 02:43:52.400

I won't say she's my best child because I wouldn't say there was one of them that was best, but she had the touch with him that her sister, who was a nurse, didn't have. And she would say, "Dad never said goodbye to me." And she treasured that.

02:43:52.400 - 02:44:08.400

She took care of him when nobody could take care of him. And she's married to the command master chief of the Coast Guard. He's exactly that. He's been in 20-some years--this kid is only 47 years old, and he's old enough to retire.

02:44:08.400 - 02:44:29.400

Now the Coast Guard--and he won't retire. He doesn't want to. And everybody suddenly wants him to because he's so nasty. Anyway, he told me, he says, "You know, when I met Maude, I had a guitar and a sea bag." And he said, "Then I met her, and she's got more junk than we--he said, "All of it she got from you."

02:44:29.400 - 02:44:44.400

They have two children, and the oldest is a boy, just graduated from high school in Virginia, and he just got accepted to the Coast Guard Academy. So we are going to get back into this sort of thing. He loves it. He's doing very well.

02:44:44.400 - 02:44:59.400

He's a very self-contained, self-directed boy. This is--you know what they say about the fox makes the best hen housekeeper? She's got the two best--I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but she's got the two best kids, and they behave better than anybody else's kids.

02:44:59.400 - 02:45:16.400

And she was my worst, you know? I'd explain that. My youngest is the artist that I always wanted to be, and there he was, number 10. If I hadn't had him, I wouldn't have. Beautiful artist and just as hard to live with.

02:45:16.400 - 02:45:28.400

We sent him to Berkeley, California, mostly because the other kids were living out there and he had somebody to live with. And we went out to see him, and he took us around, and he says, "You know," he said, "they can't teach me anything."

02:45:28.400 - 02:45:40.400

I said, "We're throwing money away. Forget it." So he came back to Lexington, Kentucky. He's been working for the city of Lexington for 20 years. They wanted somebody to paint murals,

02:45:40.400 - 02:45:53.400

but they didn't have a classification to pay him for that. So by chance they had this big park that they bought. It has a barn in the middle of it. So they called him--he's in charge of the park.

02:45:53.400 - 02:46:07.400

He builds picnic tables sometimes, but mostly he paints murals. And since they leave him alone, he leaves them alone, and everything's great. He paints, and he does exactly what he wants to do. He's a supervisor.

02:46:07.400 - 02:46:24.400

He's got seven or eight people--I can't believe this kid has all these people underneath him. I'll tell you a funny story about him. He got a job in high school when I was working for the city of Andalia. The city manager hired him, probably because he knew me.

02:46:24.400 - 02:46:38.400

And so Tad's supposed to be cleaning sewers, and that's what he did for the summer. He was a junior in high school. And so what that amounted to is you go turn a hose down and clean out the sewers, and then you mark the top of them, and then you go to another one.

02:46:38.400 - 02:46:51.400

So he's on the street, and this woman comes out and says, "You clean those sewers?" "Yes, ma'am." She said, "I want you to take that hose, and I want you to point it up towards the house." He said, "Ma'am, I don't think you want me to do that."

02:46:51.400 - 02:47:01.400

She said, "I said do it." She said, "If you don't do it, I'll call your supervisor." Tad said, "Okay." And he said, "I took that hose, and I pointed the pipe towards the house."

02:47:01.400 - 02:47:15.400

He says, "I looked at that house, and all of a sudden the windows went all brown." He blew everything back up in the bathroom. He said, "I just shut it off, put the lid down, and left." [laughter]

02:47:15.400 - 02:47:23.400

Oh, what a good story. Oh, God. [laughter] When she's done, she's going to change things.

02:47:23.400 - 02:47:43.400

The only real truth anybody ever told me--everything is perception. It's how you see it. If I were to tell you how I saw my children, they'd say, "Mom wasn't like that at all," you know, because you don't see it from my point of view or from their point of view.

02:47:43.400 - 02:47:56.400

Another story about the kids. Joe and Matt collected bugs in high school. They loved bugs. They had these magnificent bug collections, and they got straight As every time they took them into the science classes.

02:47:56.400 - 02:48:10.400

So here comes old Tad, following behind, and he has a bug collection just like his brothers, and the teacher gives him a D, and I get hot and go in, and they said he used the boys' collection. I said he did not. I said, "I'll bring all three sets in, and you can see them."

02:48:10.400 - 02:48:27.400

So they changed the grade. So now the teenagers are sitting in the house on Friday night drinking beer and laughing, and they used to get--they'd say, "Let's go out to your house and listen to your dad's war stories, listen to your Navy stories," and I figured that as long as the kids were in my kitchen,

02:48:27.400 - 02:48:49.400

they weren't out on the road, and I kept them there, and if I thought they were going to be drinking beer like they shouldn't, I would feed them before they left, because if you do that on a full stomach, it doesn't really bother you like it does if you haven't had anything to eat. So first I feed them, and they run around for a while, and then they come back to tease Earl about the Navy,

02:48:49.400 - 02:49:05.400

and they stay up until 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning. Well, Tad wasn't quite old enough to do this, so he's out bug collecting in the summertime. And two of Monk's Navy friends came on leave and were sitting in the kitchen. Earl is there.

02:49:05.400 - 02:49:20.400

Monk was my third son. The nickname is from my father, whose nickname was Monk, and he's named after him, so that's his nickname. And he's two Navy friends. They were in submarines together, and so they had stopped to see him.

02:49:20.400 - 02:49:38.400

So everybody's sitting around the table partying, drinking beer, and the youngest kid is out catching bugs again, summertime, in big lights like this, and he comes running in the house with this moth, and he said, "Look, look, a cecropia!" And the one Navy kid says, "Let me see it."

02:49:38.400 - 02:49:45.400

So he shows it to him. The kid picks it up out of his hand and swallows it. And Tad, the scream woke me up. I always went to bed.

02:49:45.400 - 02:49:59.400

I didn't sit up when this was going on. I went to bed. And every time I tell that story, Tad says, "And you know, that son of a bitch ate my bug." He would just nibble it.

02:49:59.400 - 02:50:12.400

We had bugs to this day in his freezer. There are bugs. If you open it, you've got to think before I open it, there's going to be a bug in there because there's always a frozen bug that he's keeping for some reason or other that he's going to mount.

02:50:12.400 - 02:50:24.400

He has gorgeous collections of bugs. Joe turned in a bug one time that he made out of parts of other bugs, and the teacher said, "Oh!" She said, "I've never seen one like this.

02:50:24.400 - 02:50:36.400

It was so perfectly done." She had not seen it. I finally told her. They had a wonderful time, and their dad encouraged them.

02:50:36.400 - 02:50:49.400

So did I. We went to Mexico. Again, this was a WASP connection. We went to the WASP reunion, and this was the first time I had come back,

02:50:49.400 - 02:51:06.400

the one that was at--oh, shoot--California, Palm Springs. It went to Cochran's Ranch. I had just gotten the money from the leg accident, or I wouldn't have had the money to go, and I wouldn't go unless Earl went with me, so he and I both went.

02:51:06.400 - 02:51:20.400

I ran into some of my old bay mates. Ruth Reese Phillips, who was in our bay, lived in Mexico, and she said, "I want you to come down for Christmas next year." I said, "Well, I want you to go home and sober up

02:51:20.400 - 02:51:32.400

and then ask me if you want me to come down for Christmas." She wanted me to bring all the kids. So the next Christmas, I took five of the kids, and we drove to San Antonio. We had to drive straight through.

02:51:32.400 - 02:51:47.400

It took us 12 hours. Jack Riley came down from Michigan. We met in San Antonio, and we drove to the border, went into Ruth's ranch. Ruth had a plane. She didn't have a car. She had a plane.

02:51:47.400 - 02:52:04.400

They flew out to get us, she and her husband. They took the boys--let's see. It just took five kids, so it must have been three boys. Earl flew in, and then they came back and got me and the girls,

02:52:04.400 - 02:52:14.400

the three youngest girls. We stayed there for all of Christmas vacation. It was absolutely the most wonderful vacation the kids ever had. They didn't get a gift.

02:52:14.400 - 02:52:31.400

We played charades all week, which was fun, the adults and the kids both. On the way out, I flew with Duke coming out, and my daughter was in the back seat. We started to land, and he said, "Do you want to land it?" I said, "Well, yeah." It was a dirt runway.

02:52:31.400 - 02:52:44.400

I said, "I'll see if I can do it." He said, "Go ahead." So I'm working this plane in. I made it. Perfect landing, believe me. I'm coming in just right. The kids are sitting in the back seat saying, "Mom's going to kill us all!

02:52:44.400 - 02:52:57.400

Mom's going to kill us all!" They didn't have much contact with flying. Then I still went back home and lost contact. I started writing to them again, though. I started talking to everybody.

02:52:57.400 - 02:53:14.400

When I got to California, I got with the Northern California WASP. Then after I married Jack, he was real interested in it, so we started going to reunions. There was one in Ohio, and they called up and said that since I lived there,

02:53:14.400 - 02:53:30.400

I had to work, so I had to go up and help out. From then on, we had taken those pictures of Earl at the Ohio reunion, went to the San Diego reunion. In the meantime, Earl had died. This one friend, and I've only seen her once at a reunion,

02:53:30.400 - 02:53:43.400

her name is Martha Blair, and she has had a colored career, too, but I don't think you'll ever pin her down. Anyway, she showed up at the San Diego reunion. She had these marvelous pictures of Earl, and I didn't have anything of him.

02:53:43.400 - 02:53:58.400

We went to the class there, and I burst out crying because here were pictures. I had lost him in between. I just couldn't--those little things happen, you know? All along the line, something has happened someplace.

02:53:58.400 - 02:54:24.400

Then the way we got to the newsletter deal was we went to D.C. for the WMA convention, the one where they dedicated the thing in Arlington. Vi was there, and she was president at the time. I was there with Peterson and a couple other guys from my class and my daughter.

02:54:24.400 - 02:54:35.400

My daughter was driving us around, and we enjoyed it. We walked up after it was over, and we looked around, and Vi was standing there all by herself, and I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "Oh, I don't know." I said, "Are you hungry?"

02:54:35.400 - 02:54:49.400

She said, "I sure am." I said, "Come on, we'll take you to a place to eat," because there's just a great place to eat in D.C. right downtown. It's called Ebbets Grill, the oldest saloon in Washington, and it's absolutely a wonderful place to go.

02:54:49.400 - 02:55:07.400

So we're sitting there partying, and we were supposed to go back for this moonlight or this candlelight march across the bridge at night, and we pushed our luck. We were still sitting there eating, and on the way back, Vi said, "What are you willing to do for the WASP?"

02:55:07.400 - 02:55:25.400

I said, "What do they want me to do?" She said, "How about the newsletter?" I had had two drinks, and I said, "Piece of cake." Never, never--I really, honestly should not volunteer. I learned that in the Army--do not volunteer.

02:55:25.400 - 02:55:39.400

Anyway, we went back, and we marched across that bridge. Because we were late, they had everybody packed in. Did you go? They had everybody packed in different sections-- the WACs, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines.

02:55:39.400 - 02:55:53.400

Since we were the last ones in, we were pushed at the front. As they said, "Here comes the Air Force," they started playing the Air Force song. We stepped off, and cameras just--I don't know, it was just quite a serial. We walked across the bridge together.

02:55:53.400 - 02:56:12.400

All of us too old to walk that far and too stumbling along. Fortunately, Maude was there. She helped everybody. I was real impressed with that whole service and with the whole arrangement. Also, then I come home, and it dawns on me what I said I would do.

02:56:12.400 - 02:56:30.400

So I've had a great deal more to do now with them than I did before. But before, I didn't have the time. I had neither the time nor the money. Now I have the time. I can do it. I haven't gotten fired yet. They have fired every editor they've had so far, every single one.

02:56:30.400 - 02:56:47.400

Now you've had it, what, ten years? I started in Omaha. I've only had it two, four--this will be my fifth year. I'm just a fifth year. But now they're kind of letting me alone, which I should always beware of anybody letting you alone.

02:56:47.400 - 02:57:06.400

That's when trouble starts. Let me ask you, you've done so many things in your life. Not counting your children, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? I don't know. I'm not dead yet. What if I do something else?

02:57:06.400 - 02:57:18.400

Well, we'll come back and ask you after you're dead. Put it on my tombstone. Up until now. And I know that you would say my children are the things that I'm most proud of.

02:57:18.400 - 02:57:30.400

But outside your children, what is the one thing? I don't know. The WASP gave me something that I didn't have. It gave me sisters. It gave me something that I can return and contribute.

02:57:30.400 - 02:57:46.400

Because mostly it's been take with me. I've gotten more than I've ever given. So I can do something back for them. I have sort of a motto, and it's not original with me either.

02:57:46.400 - 02:58:04.400

It's that your reach should never exceed your grasp. So always there's something there, things that I might want to do next. There's still some things I'm going to give up. I did want to do the Appalachian Trail, and it's not going to happen.

02:58:04.400 - 02:58:20.400

The last time I tried to climb a mountain, I was in Phoenix at my son's house. And my daughter-in-law was there. And I said, "Let's go up Camelback," which is a-- People go up that thing. I saw a guy go up on crutches.

02:58:20.400 - 02:58:35.400

I get about halfway up, and it took Jack and my daughter-in-law to get me the rest of the way up. I'm up, and it's almost dark, and I've got to get back down. And the only reason I did it was because her mother did it, which is the other mother-in-law. I really couldn't let her do it, and I wouldn't do it.

02:58:35.400 - 02:59:01.400

But I think mountain climbing is out, so we won't include that. Is there something that you haven't done that you'd like to do? There's some travel that I still like. I haven't traveled as much as I would like. Are you interested in bungee jumping?

02:59:01.400 - 02:59:17.400

You mean like Betty? Not really. I've got too many parts that won't take that kind of treatment. And I've been flying with my friend in Horseshoe Bay. And even though I could say I want to fly, I really don't want to.

02:59:17.400 - 02:59:37.400

I enjoy it every bit as much as I ever did. I enjoy the sensation. I enjoy the simple feeling of being there, but I don't have to do it anymore. Don't you know your limitations? Yeah, if I have some. I'm not saying that I wouldn't try it.

02:59:37.400 - 02:59:54.400

I mean, I could be goaded into doing something like two drinks and I'd jump out of an airplane, but not without alcoholic support. I don't know. When you were talking about the nun, now this is funny. When I was back in grade school, I wanted to be a nun.

02:59:54.400 - 03:00:09.400

I would like to be the same kind she is. They don't really take a man as old as I am, I don't think. I'm cooking for the priests now. I didn't think I'd do that. And I kind of got backed into it because I couldn't find anybody.

03:00:09.400 - 03:00:28.400

I always get into these things because I can't find anybody else that will do it. Newsletter editor, mother, all this stuff. Nobody else wants to do that. And I think, you know, what's hard about it? What can be hard about that? Anyway, I'm cooking for two of them, and I feel like I'm giving back something there.

03:00:28.400 - 03:00:50.400

I feel like I've got some ground to cover. So if I were to do something else, it would be a service field. Well, it wouldn't happen, but for instance, if you saw a child in a car was going to run down, I'd like to be a hero and push the kid out of the way and maybe get killed, but still.

03:00:50.400 - 03:01:08.400

I don't think I've done enough for other people. Too much of this was benefiting Jean and not enough for other people. So I guess I've got some dues to pay. At this point in your life, what do you feel your legacy will be?

03:01:08.400 - 03:01:20.400

To whom? The kids? Well, my granddaughter told me this summer. She wanted to know if I was coming up the lake, and I said, "No, I don't think so. I think the girls are kind of gunning for me."

03:01:20.400 - 03:01:36.400

I don't fit a mold that I belong in. I don't act like grandma. I don't act like mother. And I said, "I don't think your mother and her sisters really want me up there." And my granddaughter said, "I don't care what they want."

03:01:36.400 - 03:02:02.400

She said, "I want my daughter to meet you," because she said, "You have something that she needs to see." I don't know what outside of gray hair, but I think I need to give more service. I really do. I need to finish out some time contributing something.

03:02:02.400 - 03:02:18.400

Now, I've donated my body, but then they're not getting much anymore. But at the present time, you're volunteering to feed these priests to cook for them. Well, they said they'd get hungry, too. They didn't see why they couldn't get a cook.

03:02:18.400 - 03:02:31.400

I said, "You know, I think priests ought to get married." He said, "Why?" I said, "Because you'd have a cook." And I told him, I said, "You're going to show up on time." I said, "You pick the time, and the food will be there on the table exactly right."

03:02:31.400 - 03:02:47.400

But I said, "You're not coming in late, and you're not going to wander around and do something else." I said, "I didn't put up with that at home, and I'm not going to put up with it out of you." He said, "Boy, they're right there on time." I could cook anything for them. I could buy anything. It was pretty funny.

03:02:47.400 - 03:03:02.400

What is your personal opinion of Jacqueline Cochran? She was my boss. She was nice to me. I didn't know her personally as other people did. She came once when her first book came out.

03:03:02.400 - 03:03:16.400

And again, things come to me. I don't necessarily go looking for them. And they called and said that she was going to be in Dayton at a department store signing books, and they wanted me to show up. Also, Cappy Morrison was there, and she was still in the service.

03:03:16.400 - 03:03:35.400

She had little patches on her because she was doing Air Force experiments. So she and I went down, and I took Martha, my oldest daughter, who was about sixth grade. And Cochran was sitting there at the table. She really should have known this. Well, she probably did know it, but she didn't pay attention to it.

03:03:35.400 - 03:03:51.400

If you're running a department store, and your best customer wants to speak to that famous person that you have here, you're going to let her speak to her because she's your best customer. The customer still comes first. So this woman was giving Cochran a bad time.

03:03:51.400 - 03:04:10.400

Not a bad time. She just wanted her attention, and Cochran was getting tired of it. And she kept saying, "Get rid of her. Get rid of her," out of the corner of her mouth. And I said, "I can't get rid of her. What's the matter with you? I can't do anything." But I did try to come between them, try to disrupt it a little bit.

03:04:10.400 - 03:04:32.400

But then one other time I met her in Cincinnati when Betty arranged for something. One of the first times they came, I didn't see the earlier meetings, but this was in Cincinnati. And we were in a hotel room someplace, and Earl and I went down, but we couldn't stay because we couldn't afford it. So we just went to see him, and then we went back home.

03:04:32.400 - 03:04:43.400

And I was sitting on the floor next to her. And she said, "And what have you done?" I said, "Not much. I had six kids." She said, "Well, I think that's more than anybody else has."

03:04:43.400 - 03:05:00.400

But that was before I had ten kids. Where is she now? I need her. Anyway, I had very little contact with her. She was good to me. She gave me my wings. So I don't have an opinion, other than what I've heard from other people, and that's not my opinion.

03:05:00.400 - 03:05:19.400

Well, let me ask you. If Jacqueline Cochran had not done it, do you think there would have been a WASP program? Probably not. It takes--I think it takes people like that, who are perfectly willing to put personal stuff aside for something they really believe in.

03:05:19.400 - 03:05:37.400

Of course, that's a pioneer thing. You're willing to give up your whole life. We're reading Amelia Earhart on tape coming over here, coming across Texas. It's 13 tapes, but it is fascinating, and I suggest you get it from the library and read it.

03:05:37.400 - 03:05:57.400

And there's a point in it where she says she finds she has become famous. She has become a different entity. This sets you apart from other people. It really does. It makes you feel differently somewhat.

03:05:57.400 - 03:06:16.400

And I don't know how I can describe that to you. But I think Cochran had that quality, and probably Earhart did too. I didn't have much of an opinion of Earhart until I started listening to this tape. Now, again, this is somebody's opinion, and I had heard other stories about her.

03:06:16.400 - 03:06:49.400

And again, all of it is opinion. I didn't know her personally. In your opinion, at this point, do you think Earhart was a greater asset to women in aviation than Cochran was? Actually, she was more of an asset to women anyplace because her first interest was settlement work. And if you read this or listen to this tape, it talks about her mother and her mother before her who believed that women could do things.

03:06:49.400 - 03:07:15.400

And each time she says that, when she makes a speech, which gave me a whole different perspective of her. I had first thought she was pretty much of an airhead and had a husband wealthy enough to give her the equipment she had. But if this book is right, it's not that way at all. And again, I'm thinking of people who are willing to step out into the unknown.

03:07:15.400 - 03:07:32.400

And once you do that, you have stepped away from your contemporaries. And you really can't close the hole. You can't go back. It closes behind you. And there you are. You're a pioneer. You're either a success or you're not. Some of the people, they talk about Richard Byrd.

03:07:32.400 - 03:07:52.400

And I can remember as a child thinking what a hero he was. Well, apparently he wasn't. He made lots of errors that cost other people, if not their lives, endangered them. And so if you're willing to step out into the unknown and be a pioneer and lead the way, you put yourself at risk.

03:07:52.400 - 03:08:09.400

First for criticism, first for failure, or second for failure. So you can't--you have to live with that yourself. You're pretty much alone, don't you think? You think I'm wrong?

03:08:09.400 - 03:08:31.400

I think you have to answer for everything you do. And at some point, I'm going to have to answer for my bad behavior, good behavior, whatever choices I made, any place along the line. I came from just plain, ordinary people in the Middle West.

03:08:31.400 - 03:08:45.400

I didn't have anything going for me to get me any place. So every choice I made was pretty much mine. You don't know whether you're making the right choices or not. You have to--there's a lot of prayer involved.

03:08:45.400 - 03:09:07.400

There's a lot of--even though I don't act like it, I feel very strongly about my religion. And I do believe I'm going to have to account for my time. So whether the time in the wasp will mean anything or not, I don't know. I can just say I tried as hard as I could.

03:09:07.400 - 03:09:22.400

It was something I wanted to do. As a 19-year-old, you know, 19-year-olds can do anything, or they think they can. And that's the way I felt at the time. When I had the kids, I thought, "I can raise kids.

03:09:22.400 - 03:09:35.400

I keep doing this all the time. I can do that. What's so hard about that?" What's time to quit that? What do you think the legacy of the wasp will be?

03:09:35.400 - 03:09:54.400

Well, I'm impressed with how much interest you have in it. That surprised me, really, because I'm like everybody else. When I went home, that period ended, and I had another life, and I made another life. For some people, they peaked right there, and that's where they still are.

03:09:54.400 - 03:10:06.400

And I don't feel that way. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience for me. It enriched my life. It just gave me a whole new dimension, facets, that I never would have had.

03:10:06.400 - 03:10:18.400

I've met people. I've been places. I've even met you. I don't mean even you, but you. You understand, it's people that I would not have known. My kids cannot believe the people that I know.

03:10:18.400 - 03:10:41.400

If they hear my voice on television, or if I'm making a speech, they said, "What for?" I'm like, "What do you know?" And there again, you're talking about somebody who's stepped beyond the ordinary. So I guess you have to live with yourself, and if you're not ordinary, you still have to answer to yourself.

03:10:41.400 - 03:11:04.400

You still have to have some integrity. I guess that sounds a little pompous, but you do. If you could say something to those grandchildren, great-grandchildren, that you will never know, who are watching this and listening to you 25, 50 years from now,

03:11:04.400 - 03:11:25.400

what would you say to them that might encourage them or motivate them to do something to follow their dreams like you have followed yours for the last... Earl and I used to have an argument about it. I said, "Anybody can do anything, basically."

03:11:25.400 - 03:11:40.400

He said, "No, they can't." I said, "Yes, they can. If you want something bad enough, you can do it. There's nothing that you can't do if you want it bad enough and you're willing to work for it." And that, through the WASPs, through raising the kids,

03:11:40.400 - 03:11:59.400

through taking care of myself after my husband died, I'm perfectly comfortable with myself. I don't have any kind of bugs behind me or snapping at me or... I'm going to eventually collapse, but outside of that, I don't have any kind of...

03:11:59.400 - 03:12:16.400

I learned to take care of myself living on the mountain. I learned I could raise kids. I learned I could fly. Anything I wanted to do, I could do, and so can anybody else. You just have to want to do it bad enough.

03:12:16.400 - 03:12:36.400

You have to pretty much exclusively keep your eye on what you're after, and not too many people are willing to do that. They don't fail. They're not overachievers. I've had people say my kids are overachievers.

03:12:36.400 - 03:12:51.400

Not immaterial wealth, although some of them are wealthy, but they pick things they wanted to do and they do it. They're all still married to the same husbands. The grandchildren see that.

03:12:51.400 - 03:13:08.400

So even though you don't think you're influencing people, and I certainly don't think I am, somebody's watching you. Don't watch me. Don't look. Nancy, do you have anything you want to ask her?

03:13:08.400 - 03:13:22.400

Do you have a favorite word? I mean a clean one. What's your least favorite word? You can't do it.

03:13:22.400 - 03:13:35.400

Don't. Because don't say it, because I'll do it. It's like diving off the high board. Everything. Everything.

03:13:35.400 - 03:13:50.400

You just out your O's and go. I mean is there anything that I have left out? Anything before you in your childhood, before you became a WASP, when you were a WASP,

03:13:50.400 - 03:13:59.400

what you have done since? Is there anything that you want? This is your life. This is your story. Anything that you want to say?

03:13:59.400 - 03:14:10.400

Anything that you want to say into the camera to say to your children or your grandchildren? Now is the time to do it. I suppose the greatest gift you can have

03:14:10.400 - 03:14:26.400

is peace of mind and peace of soul. If you get those things, you can do anything. I can't think of a better place to leave this. Thank you for being a wonderful--

03:14:26.400 - 03:14:42.400

This has got to be scary, you know, because I figure how many people you've talked to besides me. I'm not important. I'm not famous. I'm not anything. But you are just as important as any other person we have talked to.

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Not as famous. Just as important. Doesn't matter. Because there's going to be some child or some children-- Some child is an only child.

03:14:51.400 - 03:15:08.400

Yeah, that your story is the only one that touches them. Every child is not going to be touched by every single story. But in your background and in your life, there's going to be something that some child will be touched,

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will be motivated, that they wouldn't have gotten from anybody else's story. And I believe that or I wouldn't be doing this. Oh, I think that-- I'd be a real pleasure to think

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that you gave somebody some motivation. Absolutely. And if I didn't think so, and if Nancy didn't think so, we wouldn't spend our time doing this.

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No. And we are inspired, Jean, by every single person we meet. That's been the extraordinary part of all of this. If we weren't blessed by talking to you, if we didn't feel that,

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and if we didn't think this was the right thing to do, we wouldn't be doing it. Because I love to play bridge. Well, I play now. Earl made me play.