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You've been a Marine. Yeah. I was in the Marines, yeah, right. Yeah, and you've got a son.

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Yeah, right. Well, like Gloria, never married. And I have two grandchildren, a granddaughter and a grandson. Both of them so handsome and nice, you know.

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And my granddaughter's picture's on that glass top table there. Good. How old is she now? She is 33.

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OK. I'm Deanie Parrish with Wings Across America. Today we're interviewing Mary Ann Nutt. She was a WASP class 43-5.

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We are in her home in Jensen Beach, Florida. Today is the 29th of April, 2003. The videographer is Nancy Parrish. Okay, Mary Ann, it will start off, give us your full name and when and where you were

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born. My full name is Mary Ann Irene Beard, and then when I married it was Nut. I was born on August 22, 1920, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tell me about your mother.

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What was your mother like? My mother was a trooper. She was wonderful. She was a real mother.

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>> Was she involved with you when you were in school, with school things? >> She helped me so much in school, and my brother and my sister too. My mother, see, had graduated from a business college in Milwaukee. She was a national champion typist with 102 words a minute with an old machine.

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She got a gold medal for that. She was very, very smart and really knew about everything it seemed like. And of course going through the depression, it was really hard for her and my father too. Tell me about your siblings.

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I had one brother and one sister, and they were both in the Army. My brother was in the Army National Guard, and my sister was a link trainer instructor at San Antonio, Texas. Where are you in that? I'm the oldest of the family.

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When you were born and growing up, those early years, where did you live? Did you live in town or on the outskirts or in the country? We lived along the shore, south shore of Milwaukee. I went to kindergarten there.

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Then my father became ill. He had his own dealership with automobiles. He was a master mechanic, really. He got ill, like pneumonia or something,

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and the doctor said, "You really have to get out of this climate because you just have one cold after the other." Mom said he was just getting thinner and thinner, weaker. So we moved to Augusta, Illinois,

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where my grandmother and grandfather had a house in town. And that town was about 1,500 people. And they also owned three big farms outside of town. So we lived in one farm.

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My aunt and uncle lived in another farm, and another aunt and uncle lived in the other farm. So during the Depression, thank God, you know, really were able to grow our own food, more or less.

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Did you grow things to sell? No, we grew things to just live, more or less. My father, one time, after he milked the cows, he put a big five-gallon can of cream out on the road for pickup, and that would have been sold.

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would pick it up because people were not buying cream. They were just, you know, and he had to bring it back in and so the cream was given somewhere to our animals. How many cows would you have? We had about ten cows, and we had three or four horses and a mule, and we had a lot of

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pigs and about fifteen hundred chickens. We were able to grow our vegetables, carrots, onions, potatoes. built a big hive right in the side of our house and we had honey, homemade biscuits, but thank God we were able to live. A lot of so many people during the Depression not

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only didn't have jobs, they didn't have food. My father was without work outside of the farm. It was bad. What kind of chores did you children have? We had lots of chores. My chore was, because I was the oldest of the children, I used to haul in a couple gallons of water every morning.

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This is before school. I had to make the bed. Where did you haul that water from? from a well out in the yard. We had no water indoors, no running water inside, and no electric. So we just did everything with our hands. But it was a good, I mean, because of the

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family, we had such a loving family, and I think that's so important. How near were you to your grandparents and to your aunt and uncle? I'd say within four or five miles we were all, you know. But that wasn't close enough to walk.

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Oh no, no, no. Did you have transportation? How did you get around? Mostly walk, mostly walk. And once in a while we would get a ride into town. my father would give us a ride into town, like on Saturdays.

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But going from school, I had to walk quite a ways to school. I could have used the school bus. My mother one time bandaged my legs up with my father's leggings from World War I. They were woolen and they were about three or four inches wide.

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There were just strips of wool that you wound around your legs because the weather was so cold. She bundled me up and put hot rocks in our pockets. She heated them up on the stove, put them in our pockets.

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We walked to school. We were so glad to get in school because it was warm. What kind of stove was that? What kind of what?

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Stove. Stone? Stove. Where she heated the boxes.

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Oh, it was just a cold stove. Where she put coal or wood. I don't know where my mother learned all that, but she was a good mother. After graduating from business college and she was doing this, you know.

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But many people were worse off than we were. What is your fondest memory of your grandparents? My father's memory? No, your fondest.

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Oh, my fondest memories of my grandparents. Well, my grandmother--my grandfather didn't live very long. He was--he passed away about a year after we moved down to Augusta. But my grandmother taught me how to embroider,

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how to pick hickory nuts, how to pick the nut meats from the shell. My grandmother taught me a lot of things. She teach you to cook? A little bit, yeah. I was still under ten years of age then. We would go out berry picking and nut picking out in the woods with my mother

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and that time of the year and we just get a bucket full of things and bring them home. Would you spend the night with your grandparents? I spent, I spent, sometimes if the weather got real bad, my mom and dad let me stay in town with my grandparents, you know, with my grandmother, you know. She had a nine-room house,

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a big house, big old-fashioned house, you know. How about your other grandparents, your father's parents? Oh, those were my father's parents. Okay, your mother's parents?

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My mother's parents, my mother's father was a chief engineer in the waterworks at Whitewater, Wisconsin. Her mother had been a practical nurse. We didn't see them all that much because they were in another state, even though it was

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just in Wisconsin today. It wouldn't take long to drive there, but they were always pretty busy. I never knew my grandfather, my mother's father. He had been killed in a motorcycle accident when he went out to see his sister in New

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York, Alfred, New York. He went out to help her and his only grandson and one granddaughter and a neighbor girl, they were riding in the sidecar. They were all killed by a drunken driver in 1919.

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So I never knew him, you know, I never knew them. My aunt lost her only son. She went back to teaching and raised three girls, put them all through college. My mother's family, they were Rogers.

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Their last name was Rogers. They were very much into higher education because I think they had a little more money than my father's family. My father's family were property rich, they had property, but they weren't all that wealthy.

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Mary Ann, tell me, what was Christmas like in your home when you were growing up? What was Christmas like? It was the best day of the year. That's when we all got presents and we made our own, during the Depression, we made our

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own gifts. We used popcorn for trimming the tree and everything was made for the tree. We didn't have ornaments. We made our own.

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We cut out paper dolls and put them on chains. Where would you get your tree? We got our tree out in the woods. We went in the woods and my father would say, "Well, we're going to go get the tree today."

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we did. But see, my parents always were supportive of what we did. I mean, we did things that were wrong, but my father would say, "All right, I want you to line up now." One of us was standing, we would stand up for each other. If my brother made a mistake, I would be, you know, stand up for him. So my father would say, "All right, you're all going to

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get punished because you won't tell. You won't tell." We always stood up for each other. We were only 15 months apart, so we always, we either laughed or we cried together. Would your grandparents, your grandmother, come over and spend Christmas with you? My grandmother, oh yes, she did.

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Or many a time we went to her place too. She always had all her work done by 9 o'clock in the morning. She had that big house. And your aunt and uncle who lived on a farm, would they spend Christmas with you?

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Oh yeah, we would go to their place and they would come to our house. It was visiting week, all of Christmas, not only Christmas Day, but the whole week before and after there would be Christmas more or less. We would visit a lot.

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Did you, were you involved in any church so that you went to Christmas pageants or play anything? No, we didn't. See, that was out in the country and we didn't have the transportation.

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Although we had a Christmas get-together a couple times at a little church in town. There were three churches, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, and the Christian Church, it was called, all on the Main Street. And you could drive through Main Street in Augusta, even today.

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The last time I went out and visited was in '88, and the town looked the same to me. It hadn't really grown that much. The big tree was out in front of my grandma's house where us kids used to play around the roots of the tree.

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They believed there was garages and all that. But her house was gone. It was probably eaten up by termites or whatever. In your town, did you have a bank?

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We had a bank, oh yes. We had one bank. We had one drugstore, one little post office. Did you have a movie theater?

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We had a movie theater with silent movies. My mother played the piano. My mother could play the piano. She played jazz piano.

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My mother did. But see, my mother, when she was going to college in Milwaukee, she roomed with a gal, a friend of hers that was a real musician. She was a real pianist.

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She would come home and be practicing on the machine. My mother could copy whatever she was playing after she heard it. And then after seeing the movie years ago of Amadeus and how he could listen to something being played and memorize everything in his head and without any music play the complete

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piece. My mother did the same thing, only I don't know what kind of pieces she would play. But this woman told my mother, she said, "You're the one that should be going to music academy." Because that woman was in music academy, my mother was in the business school.

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My mother could play the piano and she never had a teacher. How do people do that? But see, my mother was a gift from a higher up, a gift from God. I think some of the girls that flew had a gift from God. A few times I did get a help, a few times I did get some outstanding help.

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In the theater, was there a piano or was it an organ? Just a piano. Oh yeah. My mother would play rinky-tink piano. Okay. Before the movie started? Before the music started, yeah. Before the show would start, my mother would play the rinky-tink piano.

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And us kids would get in free because Mom was playing. But that was, you know, and then they had a high school there in Augusta, a small high school. And they had a fair, a little town fair, once a year. And sometimes they would have like a circus, or performers that would perform on the main street in Augusta.

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trapeze artist and that. Then I got the idea, and that was before I got the idea about wanting to fly. I thought I would like to be a trapeze artist. Anything stupid, anything. EC: Let me go back and ask you, when you started school, was the school close enough for you to walk? How did you get to school?

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I walked, I walked to school. What kind of school was this? Was it a wooden building? Oh no, it was the only brick, really only brick building in town except the Presbyterian Church was brick. But it was a public school. We had like three grades in one classroom.

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There was only like three or four big rooms. And we had like for third grade, there was fourth and fifth grade also in my class. So that's why I didn't get a lot of work done, because I would listen to what they were doing. I would try to be smart for them, and then I couldn't finish my own work.

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Since you were the older, you started school first. Did you walk to school by yourself? How far was it? Oh, I don't know how far. It seemed like a long way. I wasn't really old. I'd say it was about a mile, though. I'm guessing. But I was in kindergarten in Milwaukee, and when

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we went to Augusta, Illinois, they didn't have any kindergarten. And I was so mad because I couldn't go to school, but then they had a first grade. My mother, actually my mother taught us, she used to read to us before we'd go to bed at night.

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My father would always come and tuck us in and give us a big hug and kiss and goodnight. They were always supportive. Even when my brother went away in the National Guard, he was signed when he was seventeen years old, my mother and father signed for him because he wanted to go.

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Signed from my sister when she wanted to do things, the same with me. They always were supportive. As long as it wasn't something that was bad or illegal. When you were a child, where did you get your clothes?

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Where did we get our clothes? My mother made them. What kind of sewing machine did she have? She made them. She made all our clothes. I don't know if she made my brother's. I think she used some of my father's old suits that he had.

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See, my father had, when we were in Milwaukee, apparently, I don't remember a lot about kindergarten and that, but I knew I was in school, and I thought that was great. But my father had a dealership there and mom said he wore silk shirts and had, you know, it was making big money then, you know. But-

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Did your mother teach you to sew? No, my grandmother really, my father's mother, taught me how to sew and embroider and knit, all of those little things. I learned how to do before I was ten years old.

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In elementary school, do you recall any teacher that might have had an influence on you? Not in elementary so much. Because in the school I went to in Augusta, we had teachers that would use the ruler or yardstick on the pupils to maintain order.

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How did they use those? On the hands or on the behind? Well, yeah, you'd hold out your hand. I chewed gum one day and then she said, "Mary Ann, come up here." I had been chewing gum, I swallowed the gum. I knew I was going to get caught. And she said, "Were you chewing gum?"

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And I said, "Oh no." She said, "Let me smell your breath. You were chewing gum. Now, you're going to get punished for lying, but not for chewing the gum, but for lying

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to me." So I had to hold up my hand and I got a rap with a ruler. But see, they didn't really beat up on the kids. They maintained order, which they don't today.

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You can't really learn unless there's order in the classroom. You can't really learn unless there's—you go into a library and it's quiet and you can study and you can get a lot done in the library. Why is that?

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Because there's no noise. I mean, there's nothing drawing your attention away from what you need to be doing. But that teacher, she was strict. But we always had a prayer in the morning.

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We'd do a couple little exercises. She'd have us open up the windows and then we'd say, "Good morning, dear teacher. Good morning to you." We would sing "Good Morning" to the teacher.

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And then would you have the pledge? The Pledge of Allegiance. We always had that in school. And we never thought that that was a bad thing, because that was our country.

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And my father told us a lot about it, because he was in France in World War I. He was there in France for fifteen months. It's just a picture of my father over there in his uniform. So patriotism was important to him?

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Oh yeah. He said, "You know, this is your country, our country." And "Nowhere in the world," he used to say, "Nowhere in the world is a country as free as we have it."

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But he says you have to work at that every day. You've got to work at the freedom. A lot of people think they come here and they're free, but that doesn't mean they can't do anything. They don't do anything. Free doesn't mean you stand in line and get something free.

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It means you work all day and then you eat. When you would come home from school, then would you have chores to do? Not so much when we come home from school. We had homework, mostly from school. And once the homework was done, we could go out and play.

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Since you didn't have electricity, what did you use to see by at night? Gas light. A Coleman gas light. They would light those things. I used to get so scared of them because they could blow up. We had oil lamps.

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We had an oil lamp in the kitchen and a gas lamp in the living room and that was it. And- Why don't you just hold it a minute and let me go. I'm leaning forward, that's why.

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I'm not sitting. My doctor, I have a woman doctor now and I never had a woman doctor before. She is simply wonderful. She is simply wonderful.

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If I tell her something that is not so good, she'll just sort of chuckle. She'll say, "Well, you know." In school, did you have some male teachers as well as female teachers? We had an elementary school.

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I don't recall any men teachers, all women. In high school, I had two or three men teachers. One was a doctor, Dr. Fox. He was so good.

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He taught us English in senior year in high school. He was a brilliant man. I forgot what her name is, Miss Thomas. She was a home economics teacher, and she took me aside a couple times and gave me some

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good advice. I always remember her. I first started high school and only had two dresses to my whole name. I would exchange back and forth.

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When you don't have the ones that have sometimes, children can be kind of cruel with what they say. And one time I felt bad about something. And when I went home I told my dad and he said, "Whatever you don't want to hear, let

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Let it go right in here and right out here, and don't let it bother you. Because whatever that people say is not what you are. You are your own person." You know, and he always stood up for us.

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My brother got in trouble a little bit one time in school because he said he had lost his homework or something and he had to go see the principal or something. And then they called me, his sister, and asked me if my brother had done his homework. So I said, "Yes, he did."

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I always stood up for my brother and my sister, but he hadn't, he'd been playing baseball. But they forget, you know, brothers and sisters. We were very close, you know. When my brother went away, he was the first one to go away in the service, and he went

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through hell, you know. Let me ask you, when you were a child, what were some of the games that you played? Oh, we used to play tag and hide-go-seek, and I guess now you can't play tag because to touch somebody. Isn't that a cruel thing? So I don't know how any children are born,

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because I think there's touching involved. EC: When you were young, did you have some favorite girlfriends? Might you have gone and spent the night with them or anything like that? AM: No, no, we never. My mother never believed in letting us kids sleep over at anybody's

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house. When you finished elementary school, how many grades was that? Was that through sixth grade elementary? Then did you have a junior high school? No, we didn't have any junior high. No, just first grade through eighth, and then we went

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into high school, which I think is really better. You grow up too soon. It seems like a long time, but you grow up, it's a long time. When you finished eighth grade, then did you have to change buildings, school buildings? When I finished eighth grade, I was in Milwaukee. We went back to Milwaukee then. My mother

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had to go to work, really, because things were, my father, he got sick again. He got, Oh, he had scarlet fever in Augusta. They closed the school down there because all the kids were getting scarlet fever too. I had it.

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We all had it. How many doctors did you have in town? In Augusta? One doctor, I think.

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And a veterinarian, a man that took care of the cattle and that. So where were you in school when you moved back to Milwaukee? I was, let me see, I was twelve years old when we moved back to Milwaukee. Of course, my sister being the youngest, she suffered the worst because she had a lot of

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little friends. But when we moved back to Milwaukee, we had to walk quite a distance to school. We had a mile and a half to walk to school. The only school buses they had was for the disabled children, which is right.

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Of course, our schools today, there's more people today. And the schools today are further away from the immediate area, and the children need a ride to school. What did your mother, what job did she get?

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She worked for, she had a part-time job with Sears Roebuck as a clerk, and because she spoke fluent German, she wasn't German, but she studied German in school, and she spoke fluent German. So whenever the German ladies would come in, in Milwaukee, a lot of, half of Milwaukee

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was German, the north side was German and the south side was Polish mostly. They would call my mother up, they would call her to talk to the customer in German. My mother was making six cents an hour. She retired from Sears Roebuck after 35 years.

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She got $50,000 of stock. And they gave her a big getaway. But see, she worked her way up in there at Sears, from clerk to managing one department.

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Then she was managing three departments. And she was in charge of payroll and accounting. She moved right up. Well, because she'd had business college and she knew.

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They said she was an excellent payroll, and payroll on that. When you moved back to Milwaukee, what happened to your grandparents? Did they stay? My grandmother, she passed away, oh, let's see, we were in Milwaukee about, I'd say three

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or four years, and she passed away. She was a very tiny woman, she was just about five foot tall. She got sick and then she passed away. My father went down for the funeral.

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My father finally got work in Milwaukee, but the first year he was there, he was helping me in the house with chores. I was making the bed and that. And I looked over and my father had tears in his eyes.

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He said, "You know," he called me "sis." He said, "You know, sis, it's terrible when a man can't take care of his family and afford to take care of his family." And he used to go out every single day to the automobile lots and that, and he'd only

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make money if he sold a car. Well, there weren't all that many people buying cars after the Depression either. Slowly it came about. He would go early in the morning, come home about nine o'clock at night, and he wouldn't

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be eating most of the day. He'd have maybe a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. The last $28 that he had when I went in the WASP, that was what he had in his pocket for the week, $28.

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And that went for my ticket to Sweetwater. He never said, he and Mom come down to the train station and saw me off, and never said a thing. And my mother told me later, she said, "You know, your dad went without for the week to

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get me on that train." Let me ask you about high school. High school, yes. What was your favorite subject in high school?

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In high school, my favorite subject was history, American history, ancient history. I loved ancient history. What else did I like? I like physics, even though they advised me, "Oh, you're not doing too well in science

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and that," but I said, "I want to take physics because I like that." I used to visit the library all the time, the city library, Milwaukee County Library. We'd walk down Wisconsin Avenue to the county library, and they had so many books. I loved reading about physics, even though I didn't know what I was reading.

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What kind of student were you? I would say average. It was my job to read to my brother and sister at night sometimes, before they'd go to bed. That's when my father was without work and he would be walking the streets looking for

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work and I would be reading stories to them. Not only fairy tales, but stories I would be reading. And therefore my grades would go down because I became a slow reader. When you read aloud, only read aloud, you become a slow reader, because you are reading

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aloud. So, my brother and my sister were excellent students, and I was not, because it took me so long to do one chapter in a book. son when he was growing up. He was starting to have problems with reading and I thought,

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"Oh boy, I'm getting Mrs. King, she's a reading expert, and I'm hiring her for the summer and my son can read 1,200 words a minute." He's a fast reader, he'd go through the USA today, every day, in an hour. And thank God he's able to do that. I think you need to read. I think reading is so important. Reading and writing. Very important. I got a gold

00:37:59.400 - 00:38:20.500

medal for writing when I was little. I got a gold medal. I copied the whole Palmer Method book. But see, my mom and dad taught us how to... Penmanship. Right, we did. They taught us, my mom and dad, before we went to school. And then if

00:38:20.540 - 00:38:43.080

my mom and dad were looking at our work at home, they'd say, "You write that again and make it legible, you know, make it so that we can read it." When you moved back to Milwaukee, did you live in town then? Oh yeah, we lived in Westside, Milwaukee. Today it's a very bad neighborhood.

00:38:43.360 - 00:39:05.080

Yeah. But, well, they were all railroad workers that lived there, and the homes were beautiful. They had stained glass windows in many of the homes, and they were really built. My one uncle, Uncle Walter, he was a railroad engineer and when we went back to Milwaukee, he was the only one working.

00:39:06.720 - 00:39:28.740

So they made space for us in their home for a couple months so we could get going, you know? Thank goodness. And, my mother, she had no way to get to Sears Roebuck, to the store. She would walk like three or four miles to the store. I know how she did.

00:39:29.210 - 00:39:53.860

She got frostbitten on her legs a couple times. But you see, if you have love at home, you can do anything. If you have love at home, you can do anything, because you have that support, you have that gift, and you have that security.

00:39:55.200 - 00:40:10.940

I cried when my mother was at work, because she'd always been home with us. And the first time I'd come home from school, and she wasn't there, I went in the bedroom, and I just cried. Because there was no security.

00:40:11.200 - 00:40:24.160

There was nobody. Mom wasn't there. That's why I think it's very important for especially the woman to be home with the children for a while.

00:40:25.080 - 00:40:44.560

So I didn't go to work until my son was nine years old or ten years old. And even then I had some trouble. But my mother-in-law, I lived with her 16 years. So she was always there and always had that door open, and that was his grandmother.

00:40:46.620 - 00:41:00.540

Sometimes he'd call me up and he'd say, "Mom, Grandma said I can't do this." I said, "That's right. When I'm not there, Grandma is the boss. And when I come home, you can tell me.

00:41:02.260 - 00:41:25.300

Oh yeah, you've got to help each other." asked me did your parents object to you learning to fly or anything they said no. No. No. Because we need to change the tape. Yes all right. Okay. I'm talking too much. No you're not. No listen. You're wonderful. You are great. And glow from within.

00:41:25.640 - 00:41:46.340

[Beep] Support and you pray for each other you know. I always prayed for my mom and dad because I didn't want them to disappear. When you were growing up in high school especially, who were your role models?

00:41:47.220 - 00:42:04.720

My role models when I was in high school, you'll laugh. Sonia Henney, the ice skater, was one. I didn't even own a pair of ice skates, but I wanted to. I wanted to skate like she skated.

00:42:06.370 - 00:42:18.880

She was wonderful. And that made her special to you. Made her special to me, yes, because she was so good at doing that skating. And another person was Amelia Earhart.

00:42:19.370 - 00:42:38.700

I went out to Milwaukee Airport one time, and I saw her in an auto-gyro, Not a helicopter, but an auto-gyro. And it had "Beach Nut," the name "Beach Nut" on the side. And people wouldn't let me get near the fence so I could see her real good.

00:42:40.120 - 00:43:05.040

The adults wouldn't let the little kid get near the fence, so I had to do a lot of running around, but I did see her, and she was a good example. I don't know, so many. And our landlady, the last place I lived, she was so wonderful to us.

00:43:05.700 - 00:43:18.560

What year was that that you saw Amelia Earhart? How old were you? Oh gosh, how old was I? I might have been about fifteen, fourteen or fifteen years old.

00:43:21.640 - 00:43:43.160

What was your ambition when you were in high school? What did you think you wanted to do? From the time I was seven years old, I wanted to fly airplanes. What happened when you were seven? And I said, you know, my dad took us, we were in town in Augusta, and that weekend there

00:43:43.160 - 00:44:14.440

was some man that was earning a few dollars flying people around. For five dollars you could get a ride in an airplane. My father wanted to. Because my one uncle flew in England years ago. So my father wanted to see what it was like to be in an airplane. So then he ask, "Marion, you want to come with me?" "Oh yes, yes, yes, I want to go, I want to

00:44:14.500 - 00:44:44.260

go." And I didn't know. I'd never been up before. And I sat on his lap in this biplane. I don't know what kind of plane it was. It made a lot of noise, was bouncing around. It wasn't an airport, it was just a field, a farmer's field. And the man just flew us around one time and then landed. That was $5. So when we got out, I said, "Daddy, I

00:44:44.340 - 00:45:12.220

want to fly. I want to fly airplanes." And then my brother, he was two years younger than me, he said, "Girls don't fly airplanes." As young as he was, look he was five years old, "Girls don't fly airplanes." Well, he had only seen a man fly, so he knew. He But from then on, nothing stopped me from thinking about that.

00:45:13.420 - 00:45:27.560

In the back of my mind, I thought, "Well, I'm going to the library. I'm going to get some more books on aviation." And that's all I did. I got a lot of books on aviation and physics, mathematics, navigation.

00:45:31.100 - 00:45:55.820

When I was a senior and we were getting ready for graduation, Dr. Fox said, "Each of you are going to stand up and tell me what you'd like to do in your life." He just wanted to see what we were going to say. When it come my turn, I stood up and I said, "I'm going to fly Army airplanes."

00:45:55.820 - 00:46:08.180

If you wanted to have people laugh at you, they all laughed, "Ha, ha, ha, ha. There is no such thing. You can't do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah."

00:46:08.640 - 00:46:32.520

And that made me all the more – my father, I remembered what he said, "Let it go. Let the criticism go in here and right out here, because if you want to do something, you can work for them." So when I first started taking lessons, I was making $16 a week, and one lesson was

00:46:32.620 - 00:46:50.100

$15. So I had a dollar. Oh boy, I was so happy. And my father said, "Now you know, you may be studying that, but you may not be rewarded.

00:46:50.940 - 00:47:08.300

You may not achieve what you want, but go for it as much as you can if that's what you want." But he said, "We don't have the money for flying lessons and that, and you're going to have to do it on your own."

00:47:08.300 - 00:47:30.460

Well I scrubbed airplanes. I cleaned grease off of airplanes. On the belly, years ago grease would be on the belly of the airplane, and the airplanes all had the fabric wings with the wooden spars. I don't know, I'd do that and I would get

00:47:30.860 - 00:47:58.660

two dollars maybe toward my lesson. But they told me when I was going to fly at the flying school, they said, "If you're going to come out here and think that you're going to do something and you're not going to pay attention to what we tell you and you're just out here for the fun of it, then we don't want you as a student."

00:47:58.660 - 00:48:14.880

And I said, "No, I want to be a pilot." And they said, "Well, then you're going to have to work at it and listen to what we tell you." And there were three brothers that ran that school and the building is still there.

00:48:15.380 - 00:48:30.100

Let me go back and get you through high school. In high school, and then we'll come back to the flying. In high school, did you have extracurricular activities? Were you into sports or music?

00:48:30.700 - 00:48:43.720

Tell me about that. We had baseball teams. I played in one of the teams for a while. And we had a photo club. I joined that. I don't know why, because I wasn't good at taking pictures.

00:48:43.720 - 00:49:07.720

but I thought I'd try to learn. I still don't take too good a picture. And let's see, what other groups? Gymnasium. Now I took gymnastics for four years in high school, all the way through. And I think the children today, they should have their gymnastics

00:49:07.720 - 00:49:40.240

because your mental health and your physical health should be matched, should be good. If you're just going to read books and be a terrific student and not move around much, you're going to be sick. What were your social activities like in high school? Friday nights, Friday from school, right after school Friday, we would have ten cents.

00:49:40.240 - 00:49:55.080

We would pay ten cents and we would go to have the dance. They would let you have it. And they had the Nickelodeon, the record player. Where would they have these dances?

00:49:55.400 - 00:50:16.480

In the gymnasium. And they always had teachers there as supervisors to maintain order. We had fun that way. Do you remember any special boy that you might have liked?

00:50:19.180 - 00:50:34.940

I used to get a crush on somebody, but they didn't know it. Like the boy used to live across the street in that one house we lived in. I thought he was so nice. I didn't even know his name, but I would watch for him.

00:50:35.020 - 00:50:53.040

I'd sit on the porch and watch for him to come home from school. I did, yeah. I don't know what his name was. But when I was in the WASP, I met this fellow.

00:50:53.050 - 00:51:18.600

He was flying the Snafu Airlines. He was taking us back and forth. After we delivered planes, there'd be several men that would pick us up in C-47s or C-46s. I got to meet that one pilot and he asked me if I'd like to go bowling sometime.

00:51:19.540 - 00:51:34.820

I said, "Sure, I don't care." I never even knew what bowling was, but I never played. I never got into bowling matches. I went out with him a few times.

00:51:35.900 - 00:51:58.140

And then it was funny because I developed a crush on him, but he didn't know I lived. I mean he would just say hello or that. He had been a combat pilot in North Africa, and then when he came back to the States he was assigned to ferry people back and forth.

00:52:00.200 - 00:52:20.900

When you were a senior in high school, did you have a high school prom? We had a prom, but I never went to a prom because we never had the material, we never had the money to go. In fact, I never got a yearbook because we didn't have the money.

00:52:22.500 - 00:52:41.940

We didn't, and I never had a class ring. I never really felt bad, and I didn't. I started flying, I didn't care. Did it make you feel inferior to the other kids who had more money?

00:52:42.080 - 00:52:53.960

Oh yes, oh yes. That made me work harder too, all the harder. When you graduated, did you have caps and gowns? They had caps.

00:52:54.580 - 00:53:05.720

Did we have caps and gowns? I don't think so. When you were in high school? I don't think I did.

00:53:06.000 - 00:53:19.080

Maybe I did. I don't know. Were your mom and dad involved in any of the school activities that you did or PTA? No, because they didn't have time and had the money.

00:53:20.120 - 00:53:27.340

When you graduated, what were your plans? How old were you then? What year was that? 1937.

00:53:28.180 - 00:53:51.660

And I started flying in 1938. See, I went to, after I graduated, my dad said, "What would you like to do?" He knew I was wanting to fly, but there was no money for that. Anyway, I said, "I think what I'm going to do is go to University of Wisconsin Extension

00:53:51.820 - 00:54:20.220

in Milwaukee and take classes, take college English." I took college English and college economics just to be studying, to be in a class. Because I felt that if I didn't have a job and I didn't have any more education, that would be a stopping point in my growth, whatever.

00:54:21.800 - 00:54:40.420

They had a board in that college. Well it was a wonderful place. They had barber shops and everything there where students were learning to be barbers. It was a wonderful school.

00:54:40.810 - 00:55:00.240

Did you have to pay to go there? I only had to pay for my books and that. I bought used books. And I looked one time at this big board, like a chalkboard, and they had job offers.

00:55:00.890 - 00:55:22.160

And I thought, "If I have a job, I can get flying." And that was in the back of my mind. They had this job at Falk Corporation in Milwaukee. They made turbo generator drives for aircraft carriers, and they made machinery for the

00:55:22.440 - 00:55:48.860

diamond mines in South Africa. They were the place in the United States, but I didn't know that. So I applied there, and they gave me a job as tracing. I had a trace on big linen sheets and paper on a drafting board, and I was in the engineering

00:55:48.960 - 00:56:10.340

room with ninety German engineers. They mostly all spoke German, so that curtailed my friendship up there, you know. And in fact, the boss said, "Now, I don't want you talking to anybody up here. you're working, doing your work, do your tracing."

00:56:10.340 - 00:56:32.020

I had to do hand lettering. He said, "At the end of two weeks, I'll tell you if we want you as a permanent person." I passed. I had to walk down, take a streetcar, and walk down, that was Tencent's Fair, and walk

00:56:32.020 - 00:57:01.080

down a big, like about five or six flights of stairs all out in the open off of the viaduct in the winter or the summer months. It was really scary, but I did I did it though. I said, "Oh, the heck with it. I'm just gonna do it." I could look down on, I could look down. I was like on the top of a mountain. I could look

00:57:01.060 - 00:57:23.500

down on all the buildings in the river, the Kinnekinnick River, and that's where I worked. Were there other girls working there also? Oh, there were other, yes. There was secretaries and a nurse. That one nurse was so kind to me. A couple times I got hurt, but she was very nice to me.

00:57:23.920 - 00:57:38.500

How long did you work there? I worked there three years, just long enough to get some flying time. Did you share your paycheck with your family? No, not in the beginning because it was all going...

00:57:38.620 - 00:57:57.580

I was taking a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Let me ask you how you discovered where an airport was. Oh, I found that out right away when I was in high school. I found out when I went to see Amelia Earhart that time.

00:57:58.740 - 00:58:07.280

I got a ride out there. Oh gee, it was so wonderful. Tell me about that first time going out to the airport and seeing those airplanes up close.

00:58:08.200 - 00:58:18.980

Oh, I just, I don't know. It was just like my answer in heaven. Were you by yourself? I was by myself, yeah.

00:58:19.560 - 00:58:33.580

I'd ride to the end of the streetcar line and then walk a mile and a half to the airport. And then sometimes I'd get out there and it'd be so fogged in, you know, Milwaukee, and the fog and the snow. Tell me about your first instructor.

00:58:33.880 - 00:58:52.820

How did you find him? I was assigned him when I went to that flying school. I'm trying to remember. Oh, and I went into the office and I told him I would like to try to learn how to fly,

00:58:53.820 - 00:59:22.160

I guess the guy, he gave me a look like, "Oh, not another one." But, then he told me about, it wasn't a game, that I wasn't playing a game or nothing, because it was flying with a serious business, and I'd have to do what they told me. I said, "Oh, I'll do."

00:59:22.200 - 00:59:38.240

I said, "I'll do anything. I just want to learn how to fly." So then they assigned me and they told me how much it was. I said, "I'm making $16 a week," and one lesson for our duel was $15.

00:59:39.520 - 01:00:04.420

So they assigned me Henry Dohm, and even he told me, he said, "Unless you really mean what you are saying, we don't want you as a student because you won't make it if you're not serious about it." And I said, "That's all I want to do is learn how to fly." Were there other girls flying?

01:00:05.460 - 01:00:33.540

No. They didn't even want me there. I know they didn't. Because they used to send me in all kinds of little odd jobs. Well, they knew I didn't have anything. I didn't have a lot of money. So, they'd send me for sandwiches for everybody, or I could sweep up the floor. They'd give me odd jobs to do, figuring I better do them or else.

01:00:34.580 - 01:01:08.600

Would you do those after you finished work, or on Saturday? I'd do that on a weekend. That's what took me so long to solo. I had about 37 hours before I even soloed. So that's why I sort of stayed in the background at the WASP, because I knew I didn't have that much flying time. And I was not that good to be smart there, you know? I could learn.

01:01:09.340 - 01:01:36.120

What kind of airplane did you start flying? The first time I flew was an Iriwin Sportster. It had a tail skid and no brakes. And then, you know, I think that's a good way to learn to fly, because you can, you know, you can adjust. When you see how fast you're going, you know that you can't stop, so you're not going to go too fast.

01:01:37.700 - 01:01:52.980

And then I went from Rearwind, I went to the Piper Cub when they got... Well, they didn't have a Piper Cub when I first went there. They had the Rearwind and that's all, and a Taylorcraft. And I didn't want side-by-side, I wanted tandem.

01:01:54.620 - 01:02:13.600

I figured I could learn better that way, rather than somebody sitting next to me. Which airplane did you solo? I soloed the Rearwind Sportster, was the first solo. And then I went into the Piper Cup because it was cheaper and I could get a little more hours that way.

01:02:14.300 - 01:02:39.860

How did you feel? Tell me about that solo flight. The solo flight, I didn't think I was ever going to solo. I figured I was a permanent fixture at the airport, a student. And one day, it was a Sunday morning, I had been to church, and I went in the ladies' room and changed my clothes, got on the streetcar, went out to the airport.

01:02:41.940 - 01:03:05.920

I couldn't make a reservation because we didn't have a phone. So when I got out there, it was a nice day, beautiful day, hardly any wind. I guess the instructor figured, "Well, I'm going to try to let her go." He was always giving me forced landings.

01:03:06.300 - 01:03:31.620

Every time we went up, he'd say, "Okay, pull back the throttle in the forced landing." Every time, and he said, "Always remember when you're flying to have in mind if your engine quits or you have a problem, you've got a place to go. Because you're up, you're not down here." And, oh, he was very good. Gosh, he was.

01:03:32.480 - 01:04:13.540

Many a time if I had a little problem later on in the fairing, if I was having a problem landing or something, I'd think of him. I could hear his voice telling me, "Hey, you got a crosswind." In case you forgot. But he was always so good. We taxied out and we took off and we made a couple touch-and-go landings, I guess, or full-stop landings. Then he got out, and I thought, "Gee, that's funny. He's getting out and we're not up on the ramp."

01:04:14.440 - 01:04:30.320

He said, "You're going." He said, "Just stay in the pattern. I want to see how the first landing is. See how you do." "Just relax and set your trim and you'll be alright." And he said, "You're okay." You know, see.

01:04:31.100 - 01:04:44.020

I bet he said a few prayers for me because the first landing I made sort of bounced a little bit, you know. And then he came running over and he said, "You do two more landings."

01:04:44.720 - 01:04:59.520

And then the other two were real good landings. Oh, I was so happy. I wanted to walk home and I lived, oh gosh, in North Milwaukee. I lived about ten miles from the airport, I guess.

01:05:00.200 - 01:05:09.860

I was ready to walk home. I'm so happy. Mary Ann, let me ask you. Do you think, why do you think it was so long before he let you solo?

01:05:10.210 - 01:05:29.020

Do you think it was because you were a girl? No, not, I don't think that. I think it was because I could only fly on a Saturday. Some weeks, the weather was so bad, you couldn't fly at all.

01:05:29.940 - 01:05:48.840

So it would be like three or four weeks before I would have another class. I didn't really have the consecutive days of experience. He wasn't about to let some dopey woman go. He was alright, he was nice.

01:05:49.400 - 01:06:10.260

He said, "I'm proud of you, now we're going to do some work." Now we're going to do some work. That's what he said and I thought, "Oh gosh, that's not it, that's not soloing." I thought I'd never solo again because for the next five or six trips out we flew duo.

01:06:10.960 - 01:06:34.080

I guess he wanted to make me really understand it better. But we flew in winter in the skis, snow skis. We landed on the ice on the lakes. But years later, a few years later, he was killed with a student down in Texas.

01:06:35.590 - 01:06:59.740

He was in the Air Force Reserve at that time. He was teaching me. He had a student with him in an AT-6 and they hit some wires coming in. But I could understand how he did that because he used to let me fly between trees to land

01:06:59.780 - 01:07:14.160

on a field. Years ago you could land on a field, nobody would arrest you. One day he told me, "Okay, forced landing." I looked and I thought, "Oh, gee."

01:07:14.700 - 01:07:29.420

Then I remembered one field behind me and I turned and there were two trees, one here and one along. I went right between the trees. I didn't miss them by much.

01:07:29.880 - 01:07:44.240

I went between the trees. I thought I could make it and I did, and I landed. And he said, "Well, the trees were a little bit close." But I think he let that student get too close to the wires.

01:07:47.100 - 01:08:00.240

I felt so terrible. But see, that's another thing. He wasn't married when I first had him as an instructor, and then he got married to a woman that was a teacher.

01:08:03.340 - 01:08:17.800

I don't know why he told me. He said, "Well, I don't know if I can teach you much longer. My wife wants me to quit flying." He said, "You know, that's been my whole life flying."

01:08:18.360 - 01:08:43.740

In a year, he rejoined the active Army flying and was teaching down in, not San Antonio, one of the Texas airfields. I just felt so terrible because it was because of her. He could have still been teaching out at that school, and he loved it.

01:08:44.330 - 01:09:10.980

He loved the flying. Of course, he'd been an Army airmail pilot, so he was really good. He warned me about propellers, and he said, "Never, never take your eye off of a propeller if it's turning, because you never know," he said, "it'll kill you quicker than anything."

01:09:11.560 - 01:09:24.820

He really warned me. And let me ask you, what is an Army airmail pilot? What would they do? They flew the airmail.

01:09:24.980 - 01:09:47.680

They flew the mail for the United States Army. And years ago, that's what they did. Now you know, Teresa James flew the airmail. She used to fly the plane down low enough between a long wire hook between a couple poles with a bag of mail on it.

01:09:48.660 - 01:10:06.540

And she would reel that in in the airplane. She picked up air mail at these little fields. And she did that. She was designated as a pilot. Is there anything else unusual that happened to you when you were taken before you went

01:10:06.580 - 01:10:28.180

into training to be a WASP beside that one force landing? No, mostly good times. I joined the Civil Air Patrol as soon as the Civil Air Patrol was activated. I was in Headquarters Squadron based right at the airport.

01:10:29.600 - 01:10:56.040

And they were a lot of plane owners that donated their airplane to the war effort. There were Luscombe's and Waco's and Beechcraft and everything, beautiful airplanes that they maintained privately. And many of them joined the Civil Air Patrol, so I figured, "Well, I'll join because it's

01:10:55.880 - 01:11:16.240

aviation, you know, search and rescue. I think that was when, I'm trying to think, there wasn't much flying after Pearl Harbor, was there, privately. I think they closed down a lot of flying, if I remember right.

01:11:16.630 - 01:11:49.020

QF: Where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor and what did it mean to you? Where was I? I and a friend of mine, a boyfriend of mine, he was an engineer at this plant, but he wasn't German, he was Scotch. He and I were driving around that Sunday morning when we heard about Pearl Harbor.

01:11:49.860 - 01:12:00.380

So he said, "Let's drive down Wisconsin Avenue." So we're driving down the avenue. You know, people all over. They were going to the recruiting office.

01:12:01.440 - 01:12:23.700

There were people standing in line for blocks in single file, waiting for the recruiting office to open because they wanted to get in and get after, that was after the attack at Pearl Harbor. I mean that whole Wisconsin Avenue was filled with people.

01:12:24.680 - 01:12:36.720

Tell me what else, how else did America change besides just those people that could go into the service? What did other people do? Other people, they all wanted to do something.

01:12:37.300 - 01:13:04.320

They didn't care what it was to help the war, to help the country. When Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear except fear itself," the women, the kids all wanted jobs. The women went into many places, factories and that, as riveters and whatever.

01:13:06.540 - 01:13:27.660

I tested superchargers even at Alice Chalmers when I was waiting to hear from Jacqueline Cochran. But see, Alice Chalmers was where my father was in charge of security. My father died of radioactive radiation.

01:13:29.260 - 01:13:43.080

He got exposed to radiation. They were working on a secret project, Manhattan Project. He didn't know. He was in charge of the guards, the security, but he wasn't told what they were doing.

01:13:44.660 - 01:14:03.400

Camille: And that Manhattan Project was at Milwaukee? Ruth: It was several places in the United States that worked in conjunction with building the atomic bomb. They had plutonium, they had uranium at Alice Chalmers.

01:14:04.200 - 01:14:17.240

Then the guys all figured, "Oh, they make us work overtime and that. We're going to go on strike." They were wanting more money, see? They didn't know what was behind all this work.

01:14:18.220 - 01:14:36.980

They were working on switches and all that. Anyway, they went on strike and they called up the National Guard. And there were several people that were there in the company that were shot and killed in the parking lot.

01:14:39.140 - 01:14:57.360

And that was working on the atomic bomb. But my father didn't know that. He got exposed accidentally. One day my father said, "Well, he had to go in early because they had some kind of a meeting

01:14:57.480 - 01:15:15.440

going on, see, on account of the strike." For about four or five days he couldn't come home because people were shooting each other in the parking lot, you know, disagreements. And my father went to work that day.

01:15:16.520 - 01:15:46.340

A train pulled up in the backyard of Alice Chalmers in Milwaukee, and one of the cars was pushed into the plant, and the doors were closed, and President Roosevelt got out. My father was in shock. I mean he knew there was something going on, but he didn't know.

01:15:47.020 - 01:16:07.260

And President Roosevelt, of course he was in his wheelchair, and he said, "We realize you're on strike and you have your differences in that, but your differences are hurting the United States." And he said, "I want you all to come back to work."

01:16:07.260 - 01:16:37.560

He said, "We've got to finish, you've got to finish that project. very important to our country. And the strike was ended. That was the end of the strike. Roosevelt got back into the car and the car was on the way they went. But then it was after that strike thing that my father one night had an emergency signal from some building

01:16:37.560 - 01:16:53.140

And he told the guy in the car, he said, "Just drive me over to that building. Wait outside for me. I'm going to just check to see if anybody broke into that place." There were scientists that had worked in there, in this building.

01:16:54.560 - 01:17:26.820

And they worked through glass with long things, maneuvering stuff inside of the – because couldn't touch this radioactive stuff. And evidently it was a mouse or something that tripped and sent out the signal. My father opened the door and looked in, saw nobody, and closed the door.

01:17:28.790 - 01:17:52.960

He was exposed to plutonium or that radioactive. Within three years, he was dead, but he had a hundred blood transfusions. My mother had gotten Blue Cross Blue Shield just about two years before that. My father said, "I don't need any insurance.

01:17:56.100 - 01:18:09.140

I don't need any insurance. I feel great. You're wasting your money in this and that." It wasn't all that much per month that took out of my mother's payroll, that's all, see.

01:18:10.700 - 01:18:29.420

And thank God for the Blue Cross Blue Shield, because my father needed that for the three years he was there. What year was that that Roosevelt came? I don't remember, but of course, it was right after Pearl Harbor, of course.

01:18:30.980 - 01:18:40.180

I would say- But it was before you left to go into training. I'm just wondering if it was before I left. I think it was, you know, before I left.

01:18:41.600 - 01:19:02.600

But see, I didn't know, my father didn't know he was exposed. There had been open containers inside that area. And my father wrote it up as, well, we think it was a mouse or something set off the alarm. And he wrote it on his report that night and that's it.

01:19:03.980 - 01:19:20.940

But Alice Chalmers, they were good to him. They paid him full salary the whole time he was in the hospital. When he found out what had caused his sickness, was he bitter? They never told him.

01:19:22.700 - 01:19:44.700

He never really found out. He deducted the whole thing himself because he got John Hershey's book on Hiroshima. And everything in there, I've got that book right out there. And in there is about people that show symptoms of leukemia or cancer of the blood.

01:19:45.900 - 01:20:03.040

Well when my father first, all of a sudden he started feeling weak and weaker and weaker. And he said, "You know, I feel, I'm not," he didn't tell me this, he told my mother, you know, and she told me. He said, "You know, I don't know if I can go to work.

01:20:03.740 - 01:20:23.380

I'm just so weak." She said, "I think we should go to the doctor and see if, you know, what's the problem." He had no red corpuscles hardly left in his bloodstream. The red was mostly gone, the white was overtaking, and the red takes the oxygen to the, you know,

01:20:23.480 - 01:20:43.700

And so the doctor said, "Oh my, what happened now?" And he thought, the doctor thought it was something that he knew something about, like cancer of the blood or whatever. He wasn't, he didn't know what my father had done.

01:20:45.740 - 01:21:09.880

And within five months after he went to see the doctor, my father blew up like a balloon. His body, he looked like he weighed 500 pounds. Then after that, his body started to recede and fall back on itself. It was bad.

01:21:10.510 - 01:21:19.960

Was this before you went into the WASP? No. I don't remember my father being that way. I didn't see him that way.

01:21:22.640 - 01:21:46.320

I was in the WASP, my father had symptoms, but it wasn't too bad. He and Mom came to my graduation, and my mother said he had a lot of swelling and everything. So, all this was working on him. The younger you are when you're exposed to something like that, the quicker you go.

01:21:51.480 - 01:22:01.540

My mother said she didn't know if he'd get back to Milwaukee safely, but he made it. Good. We're going to change the tape. I'm talking too much. No, you're not.

01:22:01.800 - 01:22:06.780

You need some water? Not unless it's tiring you out. We don't want to... [Laughter]

01:22:08.780 - 01:22:26.740

Eventually it was looking better. Oh yeah, he found out. They wanted him to make it down to Chicago because a bunch of scientists and doctors wanted to look at my father. My father was bad. That was before we could sue.

01:22:27.200 - 01:22:39.860

It's a shame, you know, it's a shame what happened. But you know that's only one person. See, there's a lot of people. My father was at the gate one day, this is before his incident,

01:22:40.740 - 01:22:59.100

and he said, and he got to know everybody that came through the gate by name, and then they had to show their badge besides. And he said, "I wonder where..." He mentioned this guy's name, he was one of the scientists, a young man in his 30s.

01:23:01.140 - 01:23:23.200

And my dad said, "I wonder what happened to him. He couldn't have been fired, he's one of the experts or something." And he found out that guy had been exposed somehow. They wore red, they wore the little tags that show if you have radiation.

01:23:25.460 - 01:23:47.000

Security guards weren't given any, and they should have had it because they were walking around this area. They paid, the company paid for that guy and his family to move to a place in Michigan. So when this fellow passed on, nobody would find out.

01:23:47.140 - 01:24:06.320

My father found out. My father said, "I'm going to find out where that guy went." And he found out from somebody that worked in the records of that place. And they found out that they paid for his going up to Michigan to die.

01:24:07.640 - 01:24:33.420

And he had two little children. See, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I dialed that 800 number in Washington, maybe ten years ago. There was an ad in the paper. "Anyone with experience or a story about radiation we'd like to know about." I thought, "Hey, I'm going to call that 800 number and I'm

01:24:33.160 - 01:24:59.280

going to give them my father's story." And they thanked me so much because they said, "All these stories would be put together, we'll find out." Radiation. And many of the Japanese of course that were able were brought to Long Island, New York, and were treated for radiation.

01:25:02.300 - 01:25:30.960

You kept on flying and kept your job. When did you find out and how did you find out that there was a training program for women to learn to fly military aircraft? Well, I did hear that they were forming a group and I thought, "Well, all right." Everybody I asked didn't seem to know who to contact, so I wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt.

01:25:31.840 - 01:25:43.940

And she answered me and said, "Contact Jacqueline Cochran," and she gave me her address. >> Mrs. Roosevelt, the President's wife? >> The President's wife, yeah. She answered me.

01:25:44.060 - 01:25:50.380

>> What made you think she would answer you? >> I just figured she was. She was the President's wife. She would do it.

01:25:51.780 - 01:26:02.260

She was that kind of a woman, too. Eleanor Roosevelt was a very compassionate and brilliant woman. She was very... Do you still have that letter?

01:26:03.280 - 01:26:09.940

That's what I've been looking for. I've been looking for it. I thought maybe I'd have it. I do have it.

01:26:10.040 - 01:26:19.400

I have it somewhere. And did you know who Jacqueline Cochran was at that time? I know where she was? Did you know who she was?

01:26:20.080 - 01:26:31.240

Did I know who she was? Oh sure, yes. I used to read about her all the time. She won the Thompson Trophy, or the Bendix Trophy, in '38.

01:26:31.690 - 01:26:55.600

EC: Then what did you do after you got the letter from Mrs. Roosevelt? AM: Well, then I wrote to Jackie Cochran, and then within one month, I got the request. I should go to Madison, Wisconsin and take a physical, and they were going to interview me and that's it. So I did.

01:26:55.820 - 01:27:05.280

At that time did you... That was January of '43. At that time did you have enough flying hours to meet the requirement?

01:27:06.060 - 01:27:20.260

I had enough flying hours, but I didn't have a license. I had enough flying... I had 67 hours. But I wish I really knew the total number of hours that each of the gals in our class had.

01:27:20.320 - 01:27:34.720

And I presume that mine was about the lowest. Mine was the lowest. Mine was the most determined, but mine was low. And when you went for your interview, where did you have to go?

01:27:36.260 - 01:27:57.320

I had to go to a suite in the Hotel Schrader in Milwaukee. And I think it was Mrs. Sheehy, or she, It was either her or another lady that talked to me. But Jackie Cochran knew who to pick.

01:27:58.340 - 01:28:16.500

Well, I mean, and many of the gals, they owned airplanes. That's why I figured she might have made a mistake when she picked me. Because I wasn't really... At the interview, did they know that you didn't have a private pilot's license?

01:28:17.540 - 01:28:38.920

I don't think they did. They knew I had the number of hours. They said, "How many hours do you have?" And I told them, "That's all." They must have presumed that I had a private license. Then you had to take a physical. Where did you go for the physical?

01:28:39.320 - 01:29:07.440

in Wisconsin, Trumax Field, and I passed my flying physical there with flying colors. But I blame all my gymnastics on that too, because I used to go across a ladder and back without stopping easy. And I always tried to do the impossible.

01:29:09.040 - 01:29:24.060

In the meantime, did you know any girls who were going to do the same thing? Any girls that were flying? No, I met one gal, Margaret Sipe, and she was killed in our class just two weeks before graduation.

01:29:25.860 - 01:29:41.260

She was teaching link trainer at Mitchell Field, and she already had a private pilot's license, I'm sure. Maybe a commercial, I don't know. But she was a lovely person.

01:29:41.400 - 01:30:01.400

I spoke to her before going down to Sweetwater. I happened to be out at the airport and I heard she was, had an office, was teaching instrument flying. And she said, "You know, I'm going to be in that class too, I think."

01:30:01.400 - 01:30:15.720

And she said she had taken her physical and passed. And I said, "Well, I'll see you later then." Next time I saw her was at Sweetwater. Is there anything about your learning to fly or being in the Civil Air Patrol, any stories

01:30:15.840 - 01:30:26.980

that you would like to talk about? Anything you left out? I don't know. With Civil Air Patrol, it was wonderful.

01:30:27.880 - 01:30:41.740

All the people in Civil Air Patrol, they were all volunteers. There was nobody paid. They did a wonderful job. Do you recall any search missions that you might have gone on?

01:30:42.240 - 01:31:10.740

I didn't go on any search mission in Milwaukee, but I took a part-time summer job. I told people at Falks that I was probably going to be flying, and so I quit work there. I really shouldn't have quit when I did, but I did. I went up to northern Wisconsin, Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin.

01:31:12.780 - 01:31:38.400

I worked at the airport there, mostly putting bottles of Coca-Cola in the machine and sweeping the floor. Then I took temperature, barometer readings. There were several kinds of things I was doing up there at the airport.

01:31:40.020 - 01:31:54.680

I flew a little bit up there. I got a chance to go with one search team on the Civil Air Patrol mission from Lambda Lakes, Wisconsin. I told them I was a member of CAP, so they let me go along as an observer.

01:31:59.280 - 01:32:18.920

We were searching and there was supposedly a spy or somebody cruising around in an airplane in northern Wisconsin and Michigan, and they were taking pictures of the iron mines. See, we have iron mines. Well, there's Ironwood, Michigan.

01:32:21.180 - 01:32:43.200

Iron mines were up there. But we flew around, we didn't see anybody. When you told your mom and dad that you were going into training, applying, what was their reaction? Well, they just said, "When are you going? When is it?" I guess they were glad to get rid of me. No.

01:32:44.220 - 01:32:59.760

In the meantime, had your brother gone into the service? Oh, my brother was already in a long time before. He was in the National Guard when he was seventeen years old. And your sister, what was she doing?

01:33:00.580 - 01:33:35.540

My sister, when she graduated from high school, she went into the University of Wisconsin. My sister was such a brain. She could have been president. She did. She had a photographic memory. She was taking calculus, advanced. She was taking two major math programs and English the first year,

01:33:36.180 - 01:34:11.880

And she finished the course in six months with all A. I told her, I said, "You were smart because I always was reading to you guys." And then she got a job. She was hammering nails in boxcars on the railroad and telling the people how many boxes

01:34:11.960 - 01:34:28.340

would fit in each of the cars and that. She did that. Then as soon as she was of age, she joined the WACs and went through training and became an instructor at San Antonio, teaching link training.

01:34:28.560 - 01:34:51.900

Did you ever have any desire to join the WACS also? No, no. I really didn't because I just knew it would be nothing in aviation. And I figured if I joined the Marines I might get in a tower or something. I did. I was hoping I'd get in.

01:34:51.900 - 01:35:16.780

But the first time I tried out for the control tower, I couldn't say anything. I couldn't say anything because I had been used to talking from the airplane to the tower. And I didn't know what the tower said first before the... And this guy that was checking me on the recorder, he had me record this whole thing.

01:35:17.660 - 01:35:31.060

And he said, "What did you say?" I said, "I didn't say anything." I couldn't say anything. And then he gave me a booklet to look over and he said, "Come back in two or three days

01:35:31.540 - 01:35:40.700

and then we'll go over this." So then I was okay. He said, "You're not used to talking to the plane." I said, "No, I wasn't."

01:35:41.700 - 01:35:53.440

How did you get notification to report for training for the WASP? How did I get? Telegram. Was it from Cochran? Yep.

01:35:54.180 - 01:36:08.460

Then how did you get from Milwaukee out to Sweetwater? By train. My father's last $28. I rode the train. And when I got into, I don't know, it was St. Louis.

01:36:10.520 - 01:36:35.100

I guess it was St. Louis that stopped. And there was a USO there and they were handing out anything like a little package with little gifts inside for anyone joining the service. I said, "Oh, I'm joining.

01:36:35.340 - 01:36:43.380

I guess I don't know what I'm joining." But I said, "I'm on my way to Texas." So they gave me one. I still have that bag.

01:36:45.120 - 01:36:57.260

That was from the lady that was handing them out. Then when you got out to Sweetwater, had you ever been to Texas? No. I had never seen the great state of Texas.

01:36:58.520 - 01:37:23.100

Tell me what you saw when you got to Sweetwater. just a lot of sand, a lot of sand and dirt. And I didn't care. I was there. Blue Bonnet Hotel and then out to the airport. How did you get from the Blue Bonnet Hotel out to the airport?

01:37:23.860 - 01:37:34.920

I'm just trying to remember. I think by bus. I think by a bus. Did you go by bus? Do you remember? Cattle truck. A cattle truck, it was, yeah. That's probably what we had too.

01:37:35.100 - 01:37:57.740

When you got out to Avenger, tell me how you felt when you saw all the airplanes. Well, what amazed me was, "What are all these women doing?" [Laughs] And I thought, "Can I fit in with this group?" You know, everywhere.

01:37:58.140 - 01:38:24.140

I'd see them marching and I said, "Oh my gosh, oh, what do I do now?" And then when I didn't see the airplanes right away, you know, then I saw the airplanes and I said, "Oh my gosh, what are they doing? What is this place? It looks like a rat's nest. It almost looks like the old house we lived in on the farm."

01:38:24.140 - 01:38:50.640

Because there was no air conditioning, no fans, right? In the summer. I remember going to Brownsville, Texas. They sent me there in July and August, the hottest months of the year. I didn't care. I didn't care. If they want to send me there, I don't care. When you got to Avenger, where did you live?

01:38:52.140 - 01:39:35.080

I lived in the barracks. They assigned us, after we got out of this vehicle, they assigned us barracks to go there and unpack. Describe these barracks. BENNETT: The barracks. They were just long wooden buildings with several doors and windows, wooden buildings and six women to each barrack, six women to each bay. And they assigned us

01:39:35.540 - 01:40:07.240

what cots, there were six cots, three cots here, three cots over here, and a clothes container for a hang in our clothes. And we could put a footlocker, I guess. Did we have footlockers? I don't remember. No, we didn't have footlockers. That was in the Marine Corps. We had the footlockers. Anyway, we had to unpack. And then after we unpacked, they told

01:40:07.320 - 01:40:23.960

us the hour we were supposed to come out of there and walk down to where the cafeteria was, I guess. And then we had a meeting. I don't remember everything there. Was Miss Cochran there when you got there? What?

01:40:24.560 - 01:40:43.060

Was Miss Cochran there? I didn't see her then, no. She may have been. That was the first class and the gals were flying in from Houston. She may have been down there. Tell me what they told you about the program itself.

01:40:44.040 - 01:40:54.580

What were the rules and what would you be doing? They gave us a booklet with all the rules, I believe. I don't have that. I don't think I have that booklet.

01:40:57.220 - 01:41:13.540

What were some of the no-no's? No-no's? Oh, we were allowed to have a cigarette in the barracks, but the ashtrays had to be spotless if they had an inspection.

01:41:14.860 - 01:41:47.040

No ashes in the ashtrays. They had showers, a couple showers and toilets between the bays. shared I guess, didn't they? When I saw that I was really shocked because I was more or less what you call a private person. I never, even when we were in light housekeeping rooms

01:41:47.080 - 01:42:14.100

and we just were living in two and a half rooms in Milwaukee, my mother always said, I want you girls dressed because your brother is sleeping over there." She always made us observe the privacy and respect the privacy of the other person. But of course in the service, your privacy is not really protected.

01:42:14.670 - 01:42:31.260

I had too much. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make? I think that was it, getting to be part of the team, part of the group, and part of the family.

01:42:31.900 - 01:42:57.340

It was like being a family there. Tell me about your bay mates. My bay mates was Marge Logan, Callie Curtin, Ruth Mary Buckley-Cole, Lucita Wiley, Ethel Squeaky Meyer, but we had little names that we called each other.

01:42:58.570 - 01:43:41.720

They called me Beardo and Ruth Mary was Bucko because her last name was Buckley. Ethel Meyer was called Squeaky because her bed squeaked. called Squeaky? Marge Logan. We used to call her Logie Logan. We just never thought anything of it. I never grew up with nicknames, not with nicknames. But it was like a family there.

01:43:41.810 - 01:43:46.540

It was wonderful. Were you all from similar backgrounds? No. Or was there a variety?

01:43:46.860 - 01:44:01.480

No. Most of them. In fact, now, I would say four out of the six of us were college graduates. So that's a difference.

01:44:03.160 - 01:44:22.120

And this one gal, she had never made her bed up in her life. They always had help in their home and that. And she would walk out, we'd get in formation, go have a bite to eat and get back. And we had to have our sacks made by a certain time, you know.

01:44:23.260 - 01:44:42.920

She wouldn't do it. I made her sack the whole time we were there. I made her sack and mine knowing that she wouldn't do it and we'd get all demerits, right? So on graduation day I put a little note on her sack. I said, "Your bed making is over with."

01:44:43.380 - 01:44:57.320

I won't say who it was. Her folks owned a big company and five airplanes and stuff and she had never made her bed in her life. So I made it.

01:44:58.100 - 01:45:08.800

I didn't care. I wasn't going to get a demerit because she was going to be dummy like that. I said, "Your bed-making days are finished." [Laughs]

01:45:09.310 - 01:45:22.420

And I said, "Lots of love, lots of love from your baby." And I signed my name, you know. And, uh, it's funny. She said she always would remember that note that she got from me.

01:45:22.470 - 01:45:36.840

And she said she was so sorry, you know. And we became the best of friends. I knew her. We went places together after the WASP. Oh gosh.

01:45:37.350 - 01:46:03.520

Tell me what the mess hall was like and the food. What do you remember? The food? I'll tell you. I think the food was the best diet I ever had. Because we were very poor and we just ate what we had and that's all. And we would have one pound of ground round for dinner for five of us.

01:46:04.340 - 01:46:18.800

So, you know, I appreciated their food. It was so good. And the way they served it, they gave us time to eat. I think they gave us enough time to eat.

01:46:19.640 - 01:46:40.720

Not like in the Marines. and the Marines we had, we got over there and we had to stand in line for so long, then you had ended up with ten minutes. Now that's not enough time to eat. You're better off taking the candy bar than the, you know, not the... Tell me what a typical day was like in training.

01:46:40.780 - 01:47:29.420

in training a typical day. Up at bugle blue at six o'clock. Is that when you're bugler blue? They would say try to kill a bugler. Anyway, six o'clock and then you got ready. You know, took a shower, put on your old men-sized dungarees. and formed in formation, marched over to the mess hall, had breakfast, marched back, got your books and stuff ready for ground school, if you had ground school in the morning, or somewhere on flight status in the morning.

01:47:30.600 - 01:47:49.680

We weren't all on the same thing. But it was nice. In the morning, ground school, in the afternoon, flying. Or in the evening, later on in the evening, it was flying too. The first time I flew at night, I didn't really...

01:47:50.560 - 01:48:25.740

I was a little bit leery about where everybody was. Because we were stacked up in four corners, three high, and if you missed your altitude, you'd be in the other guy's pattern. That girl that was a controller there, she was, our girls, they were very good. They were very good air traffic controllers. Don't you think so? Was that, was her name Young? Her last name Young? No. I don't know the name.

01:48:26.900 - 01:48:43.660

When you mentioned marching, were you given a special duty? Were you one of the commanders or lieutenants? Yeah, they made me squadron commander of my class. Do you know why they did that?

01:48:43.680 - 01:49:13.360

I know why, because they had asked a question, "Does anybody know the Army drill manual?" I knew it practically by heart, because my brother, when he was in the National Guard, he and I would take turns, so he could learn the drilling and all the rules and regulations and everything. And I would answer the question and he would answer the question and we would take turns

01:49:14.080 - 01:49:29.160

sitting on the steps in front of the house and go back and forth. So I knew all the Army things. And I stuck at my hand and I looked around. I didn't see anybody else and I was starting to pull my hand down and they said,

01:49:31.780 - 01:49:51.720

"Mary Ann, you're in charge of all the marching and all the drilling and that." And Civil Air Patrol I had too. I thought, "Oh my gosh, what the heck is this?" I thought, "Well, if they ask me to do it, I'll just try to do it.

01:49:52.390 - 01:50:08.240

If I'm not good, they can kick me out and have somebody else do it." So I did. What was your job then? My job was to get everybody in formation before we marched from the mess hall and marched back in the morning.

01:50:08.900 - 01:50:34.600

And then where would you be in relationship to their marching? Would you be out in front? Off to the side or out in front. And did you do the cadence for them? I did. That's stupid. I don't know. When I was going to want to fly so bad, I didn't think I'd be doing that.

01:50:36.540 - 01:51:09.320

Tell me about ground school. What was ground school all about? everything, meteorology, air regulations, navigation, radio. We had to learn code, Mars code. I was just telling my son the other day about a guy that used to live right over here, and in the middle of the night, He had fallen and he couldn't get up.

01:51:10.040 - 01:51:24.160

He's right near the glass. He had glass louvers on the front door. He was sending SOS. That woke me up. Isn't that strange? After all those years. But of course SOS.

01:51:25.820 - 01:51:42.160

I wondered, "What the heck is that?" This is the middle of the night. I'm wondering, "Where the heck is that from?" I put my robe on. I took a flashlight and I'm walking around and I heard it again and it was from his house. So I thought, "Uh-oh, something's going on."

01:51:42.180 - 01:52:07.300

So I called, I came in and I called their number and his daughter and granddaughter were asleep in the other bedroom with the fan going and they had driven from New York and they were so tired out they never heard him calling for help. had fallen in the dining room. He hadn't really hurt himself that much, but they did get an

01:52:07.500 - 01:52:34.720

ambulance. I let the phone ring and ring, and pretty soon this woman answered and she said, "Oh, thank you for calling. Was that you that I said, I'm the neighbor, I heard him send SOS." So she called the ambulance and they came and took him back. They gave me a great big bouquet with a lot of beautiful flowers. And I thought after all those years,

01:52:36.180 - 01:53:01.780

that code come right out. I could hear it in my bedroom. Of course I had my windows open then, see? In fact, I lived in here without any air conditioner or any fans for years and I got used to the weather. I got used to it. I just figured, "Oh, to heck with it." Did you get used to it because of Avenger? Did that help you get used to it?

01:53:01.780 - 01:53:13.720

That helped me get used to it, yeah, right. It got so hot that I ended up sleeping outside. Did you sleep outdoors too? Down there you didn't? I was there mostly in the winter.

01:53:14.260 - 01:53:38.880

Oh yeah, mostly in the winter. Oh yeah. Yeah, we slept outside. You couldn't hold your hand against the building. It was so hot. Tell me about, what was the first airplane you flew in training? PT-19. Jim Hill was my flight instructor, Jim Hill. But I don't know if he's still flying. I don't know.

01:53:41.280 - 01:54:16.540

But I just loved it. Oh, I loved it. The only thing, I couldn't figure out how you started an airplane by cranking it like that. because the rear went in the cub and that, you know, you didn't, you propped the prop, you know, see? But, uh, we had to crank it and then start it, you know? I thought I'd never get used to doing that. Oh, God. When you were at Avenger in training, did you have time off on weekends or anything?

01:54:16.760 - 01:54:38.880

I don't remember. I guess there was some time off. I don't know. Do you recall? I recall one time I went into town and I went to the USO. I don't know where that was. But other than that, I know some of the girls did take time off.

01:54:39.140 - 01:55:01.460

Did you meet any of the citizens of Sweetwater? Oh yes, yes. They were working in the USO and they were very kind to us. They found out what church I went to and they said they would pick me up if I was going to go and they would take me. I thought that was so kind of them.

01:55:02.420 - 01:55:22.480

Did you ever do that? Oh yes, oh sure, yes I did. I went to church a couple times with them. Which particular church do you recall? I don't know. It was a Catholic church, I guess. I think it was. I just don't remember

01:55:23.260 - 01:55:37.920

that much. Do you recall anybody's name? I don't. I wish I did. I don't. How many hours then did you have to get in primary?

01:55:41.580 - 01:55:58.120

When you were in primary, do you recall your solo flight in that PT-19? I don't recall. No, I don't. Anything unusual happen when you were in primary training? No, not really.

01:55:58.120 - 01:56:38.960

Oh, wait, yes. I learned some acrobatics in primary training that I had never had. We didn't do the acrobatics in the Sportster, but we did spins in them. But I was amazed that PT-19 could, what it could do. That's why I bought one after the Marines. I bought a, on our honeymoon, I bought the airplane. Well, my husband was a civilian pilot.

01:56:41.440 - 01:57:10.820

Did any of your baymates wash out? Yes, oh not my baymates? No, not of my baymates. One of the baymates got sick. Now Marge Rall, Marge Logan Rall, she was sick or something. I think she graduated in '43/'46, but she did graduate. I don't know if she had appendicitis or what, you know? But has she passed away? Do you know Marge Rall?

01:57:11.870 - 01:57:35.540

She married a guy in the FAA, and they lived in Billings, Montana. I used to write to so many of the gals. When you finished primary training, then what phase, what airplane did you fly next? Bethel 13.

01:57:37.160 - 01:57:53.360

What what was the purpose of flying? Well to put us in another category Horsepower category, you know The Valte vibrator and it did vibrate. And what did you learn mostly when you were flying that airplane?

01:57:54.340 - 01:58:22.520

That airplane I think we had Yeah, did we fly instruments? Yeah, we practiced instrument flying in the BT 13 not the PT 19 I don't know. We didn't do that much of acrobatic work with the BT-13. I think it was mostly instrument flying. What month did you arrive at Avenger?

01:58:23.280 - 01:58:36.420

March of 1943. So you were there during the summertime. Tell me about the weather at Avenger Field in the summertime. Hot, hot, and hotter. [Laughter]

01:58:37.800 - 01:58:47.240

Yeah, but... As far as flying? That's when we could sleep outside. We were allowed to take our bunks and pull them outdoors and sleep outside.

01:58:47.680 - 01:59:02.900

As long as the flight surgeon said, as long as we tucked in our blankets along the side because of the black widow spiders. And there were a lot of black widow spiders. Well, not only that, but there were a lot of rattlesnakes around there too.

01:59:04.100 - 01:59:15.940

They killed 27 rattlesnakes a day. They are bus pulled in. And the guards, you know, the guards were real sneaky. They used to leave the dead snakes on the walk so we could see them.

01:59:17.500 - 01:59:27.880

Did you ever encounter a live snake while you were out sleeping? No. No, I never did. How about wind or sand?

01:59:28.460 - 01:59:52.280

No, not really. It was just hot and it was comfortable. It was wonderful outside because you could look up at the stars and that. It was really great. I think I had the best health living there on that plateau than I ever had. You felt good. Tell me about the auxiliary fields. What were they used for?

01:59:52.940 - 02:00:12.260

The what? Auxiliary fields. Oh, the auxiliary fields. They were used for landing practice. They would take us out there by bus sometimes and practice at the landing fields. We practiced landing.

02:00:13.020 - 02:00:30.160

Then when you finished your basic instrument training, then what airplane did you fly? into AT-6 and the AT-17, the twin engine. Did you get... I fought that twin engine airplane all the time.

02:00:32.300 - 02:00:55.840

I would go like that and I would move up and I was going faster. I didn't want to go fast. [Laughs] And I had a--one time I had a fire, I had a--not an ignition fire, it was a fire in one of the--it went on fire typically anyway.

02:00:56.720 - 02:01:10.300

And the people are running toward me with a fire extinguisher, and I'm taxiing, I don't even know, "What the heck is those people doing? They're running toward my airplane." And the thing had a little fire going in there. [Laughs]

02:01:13.600 - 02:01:26.620

Were you flying with another WASP as co-pilot, trainee? Yeah. I said to her, "I wonder what those guys are doing. They're running toward us with the fire. [Laughs]

02:01:26.620 - 02:01:38.820

They could see something wicked." [Laughs] It was a choke, the choke fire or something, I don't know. But they put it out and the airplane was running.

02:01:39.430 - 02:01:50.760

We just kept going. Tell me about a favorite cross-country trip that you might have made. Oh, favorite cross-country. Oh, I know.

02:01:52.240 - 02:02:14.240

When I was in the AT-6 and I wanted to go over to Abilene, well on a cross-country. I had plotted Abilene and a couple other places. Because my cousin had a P-39 squadron over there, my cousin, the guy over there with the goggles on, that's my cousin.

02:02:16.320 - 02:02:36.920

I wanted to go over there with the AT-6 to show him that his cousin was flying too. So when I got over there, oh gosh, it was so good to see him. And he introduced me to all the members of his squadron. And then when I went back out to the airplane to take off, I thought, now I'm going to really

02:02:37.060 - 02:02:51.340

show him how nice I can take off, right? I forgot to raise my gear. And I flew all the way back to Sweetwater with the gear hanging down. Like a dummy.

02:02:53.700 - 02:03:08.920

I was going to show him, like, you know, and then I wouldn't care. But I got a note, a postcard or something from him and later on, and he said, did you have trouble with the wheels on your airplane?

02:03:10.100 - 02:03:18.880

And I said, no, the pilot had trouble. I forgot to raise the wheels. You know, I don't. And he said, no, you didn't do that.

02:03:18.940 - 02:03:28.120

And I said, oh, yes, I did. I flew all the way. And I wondered, the plane seems to be going a little slower. [laughter]

02:03:31.720 - 02:03:39.640

How can you be so stupid? You know, I wanted to show... See, when you're trying to show off, it doesn't pay. [laughter]

02:03:39.640 - 02:03:48.940

The only thing you show off is how stupid you can be. [laughter] Okay, she's got to change tapes. Oh, that's funny.

02:03:49.340 - 02:04:11.240

That's funny. You know, around. And one week later he joined the Caterpillar Club. He had engine failure in a P-39 at 1,500 feet and he bailed out. Really? Wow. And I said, "I see you practice what you preach."

02:04:11.240 - 02:04:46.780

But I never heard of anybody getting out of the 39 at that low altitude because of the door. He must have kicked the door and jumped, that's all. When you were in training, were you aware of what the girls were doing who had already graduated? Yes, I was aware that they were fairing. I also was aware there was a B-17 group, I think in Ohio.

02:04:48.420 - 02:05:08.520

They were ferrying in Dallas and Long Beach and Romulus and Wilmington. I think there were six ferry groups. Were they ferrying out of Palm Springs? I don't know. I don't think so. I think it was Long Beach.

02:05:08.760 - 02:05:30.360

I think it was Long Beach, yeah. That's where I got checked out in the Mustang, in the P-51. Because down at Brownsville, there were two P-51s on the line and the guys cracked them up. One guy did end over end on the runway and walked away from it.

02:05:31.300 - 02:05:58.080

And then told the supervisor, told the safety officer, "We didn't have enough backseat time in the AT-6." So they canceled all fighter flying and we had to all get back in the 86 and fly that some more. Because that guy said that. He said that to cover what he did. There was a mound just before the approach of the runway.

02:05:59.040 - 02:06:22.800

And they had a big mound of dirt or sand or something there. He said he felt like one of his wheels, main gear, tapped that mound and he started out of control. He went end over end. The plane never even caught fire. I mean, I said, I think, you know, he was very lucky to get away.

02:06:23.380 - 02:06:51.300

And then another guy, he had an accident with the other P-51, so there weren't any left for us to check out, for the rest of us to check out in. So, they didn't put it on my card. So when I went out, I took a P-47, I delivered that out to California. Then they assigned me a P-51, but I'd have to get a check out in that airplane.

02:06:52.140 - 02:07:08.320

Well, I hadn't even read up about the darn plane because I hadn't been able to fly it. And so I said, "Well, how soon?" And they said, "How about tomorrow?" And I thought, "Okay."

02:07:08.440 - 02:07:34.580

Went from a P-47 to a P-51, a little different. And I got the manual on the 51, and I sat up until almost two o'clock in the morning going over the manual. The guy that checked me out, it was starting to rain, and he said, "Make two or three landings."

02:07:37.360 - 02:07:48.860

I did. It was raining harder on the third landing, and I come in, and I taxied in, and I'm looking. My instructor is gone. I either scared him or he got too wet.

02:07:49.980 - 02:08:01.500

So I go in operations, and there he is. he sitting having a cigarette just as calm as anything?" And I said, "I'm back." He said, "It got too wet out there."

02:08:03.020 - 02:08:16.260

And he said, "How did you do?" And I said, "I don't know. I tell you, they said to open the throttle wide open, but with the throttle half open I was off the runway already.

02:08:16.360 - 02:08:25.200

I was climbing." So I said, "Well, I don't need that much power. I'm flying, so the heck with it. I never did go full throttle.

02:08:28.400 - 02:08:39.080

Oh, God. Let me back up and ask you, tell me about your graduation. My graduation at Sweetwater. Tell me about the people that came, your family.

02:08:39.320 - 02:08:46.640

My mom and dad come down. How did they get there? By train. They came down for their graduation.

02:08:49.800 - 02:09:07.300

We got into, on the flight line, we got into an AT-17, you know, the twin. And my mom and dad are sitting in the back seat. And I sat up in front and I flipped on one of the toggle switches to show them that, you know, the battery switch.

02:09:08.480 - 02:09:19.360

And my mother said, "Should you be doing that?" I said, "I've been doing this for night and day." She got scared. My mother got scared.

02:09:21.380 - 02:09:38.640

I guess maybe she figured I was going to go, but that was so comical. Where did they stay? They stayed in, I think they stayed in the Blue Bonnet Hotel. Was that the only hotel?

02:09:38.780 - 02:09:43.940

I think so. I think the only one, I think. Is it still there? I guess no, it's gone.

02:09:46.960 - 02:10:12.340

All good things fade away, like General MacArthur said. DC: Were there any girls in your class killed while you were in training? Tell me about that. EF: Well, one of the gals was my friend from Milwaukee, Peggy Seip, and Helen Sebrinson

02:10:12.500 - 02:10:46.200

was the second one. the instructor. I don't know what his name was, but there were three of them in the AT-17. This was a night flight, and in the morning we only heard that they were missing or something. I never really did find out what happened, but my own personal feelings is...

02:10:46.200 - 02:11:11.120

Now Peggy Sipe was an expert as an instrument flyer. The instructor was too, and Helen probably was, but they were right on the bombing range of Big Springs, the bombing range where they practiced bombing. I think there had been an accident rather than them just crashing or that. I don't think

02:11:11.260 - 02:11:28.080

they just crashed. I think something happened and that nobody said, "Oh, we weren't supposed to talk about it." I just felt so bad. QF. Tell me about Evelyn Scythe as a person. A. What's that?

02:11:28.080 - 02:11:57.260

QF. Peggy Scythe as a person. Oh yeah, she was wonderful. And she taught link trainer in Milwaukee at Billy Mitchell Field. She was teaching there when I met her. And she already had her license and that. College graduate. At your graduation, were there some celebrities or generals present? Who came?

02:11:57.440 - 02:12:27.820

There were a couple of generals there and there was a military band and Jacqueline Cochran. I don't know who pinned my wings on, but the first time I encountered somebody when I was faring, they said, "Oh, where'd you get the wings from?" or something like that. I said, "I can't take him off.

02:12:27.880 - 02:12:35.760

The General put him on." I don't know if the General put him on or Cochran did. I don't know. She didn't put him on.

02:12:36.830 - 02:13:01.300

When you got your orders that day, what did your orders say? My orders were, let me see, I'm trying to think. I'm not sure if I went to Dallas to pick up an AT-6 and take it somewhere. I remember that.

02:13:02.220 - 02:13:26.760

And then I think, "I don't know if I flew to Wilmington, Delaware then." I can't remember that. Everything just seemed like it happened so fast. I requested going to the Ferry Command because mainly I knew there were people stationed

02:13:26.860 - 02:14:04.140

there that had a lot of flying hours that I could learn the system easier that way. I think just like a piano student or anybody that's a student, if you are near where the teachers are or the ones that had the most experience, you benefit greatly. I didn't mean that to be just for me. I wanted to learn more than what I knew. I needed more time,

02:14:04.220 - 02:14:17.280

more hours. It was nice. Then I got to Wilmington, they assigned me a room. I thought, "Gee, I've got a room of my own."

02:14:18.520 - 02:14:37.920

What is this? No sharing with five other women in the bathroom and hanging up stuff, hanging up pants and stuff in the middle of the night. Let me ask you, with your mom and dad at your graduation, can you describe how you think

02:14:37.920 - 02:15:01.680

your mom and dad felt about you being up there getting your wings? Is there any way to describe that? No, I can't really describe it, except that they both thought it was wonderful. My dad said he said, "I never thought I would ever see anything like this." You know when you

02:15:01.780 - 02:15:27.300

think of it, and I know your class did the same thing, when you see pictures of the gals They're all in step, they're all in line, and they hadn't had Zippo experience. I think they did wonderful in marching. You get a bunch of men and half the time they're out of step and everything else.

02:15:29.700 - 02:15:34.020

[Laughter] >> Well, you were a good squadron commander. >> Oh, no. I don't.

02:15:35.380 - 02:15:47.360

When you left that day, did you have some time off before you had to report? Did you go home with your folks? No, no. I was assigned right away to a base.

02:15:48.500 - 02:15:58.980

As I say, I think I went to Dallas. I don't know if it was by train. Probably by train. It's not that far from Sweetwater.

02:16:01.860 - 02:16:15.040

up an AT-6 and took it, I think, to Alabama or something. I don't know. Dothan, Alabama. That sounds familiar. [Laughs] But your duty base was Wilmington?

02:16:15.660 - 02:16:30.120

Wilmington was second ferrying group, yeah, Air Transport Command. When you arrived at Wilmington, to whom did you report? I had to report to, I think it was Betty Gillies. Betty Gillies.

02:16:30.160 - 02:16:37.720

Who was what? She was second in command to Nancy Love. And she was a WAF? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

02:16:38.580 - 02:17:02.560

She had two children, and she flew and flew. She had so many hours because her husband had been a vice president, I think, at Grumman years ago, Grumman Engineering then. And she used to fly him to Washington in a Grumman-Widgen airplane.

02:17:04.000 - 02:17:24.840

Therefore she had flown a lot, had a lot of time. Her son, when they had a power failure, her son was a teenager and he built a generator and everything to run the house, the power in the house. That's how they were very smart, mechanical-minded people.

02:17:25.600 - 02:17:48.080

Betty was excellent. How was your relationship with the WAFs? They didn't really like to see the newcomers coming in, the dummies from Sweetwater. Well, not that, no. They put up with us.

02:17:50.500 - 02:18:14.480

But there was a superior attitude? No, they were too busy to be around us much, which was good because they didn't know what we had gone through and I didn't know, we didn't know what they had been through. They had been through a lot of stuff and a lot of discontent about women flying and all

02:18:14.500 - 02:18:33.160

that up there. barracks in Wilmington was like a mud hole and we didn't dare complain because I mean we were there. We didn't want to complain that much. What was your first assignment at Wilmington?

02:18:33.760 - 02:19:03.040

At Wilmington the first was a PT-19 and practicing landings at DuPont's private airfield. The DuPont family had that nice airfield. And it was all grass and very nice. Heated hangers, everything nice. And they allowed us to practice our landings at their field. So that's what we did, we practiced there.

02:19:04.080 - 02:19:25.560

Then my first fairing assignment was a PT-19 out of Hagerstown, Maryland. And it was snow all over the place. Gee, there was a Lieutenant Brooks in there that was the Army, and he was briefing us on the airplanes and that.

02:19:25.720 - 02:19:48.380

And then, you know, years later, as a controller at Bethpage in the tower, and I'm talking to this guy, and he wanted to get me a flight plan on the air. And I said, "All right." I copied the flight plan and his name was Brooks. And I said, "You're not Lieutenant Brooks, are you?"

02:19:49.320 - 02:20:04.260

It was the same guy who was flying a Gulfstream. He was flying a Gulfstream I. It was the same guy that had given us a check out on the PT-19s in Hagerstown, Maryland years ago. I could not believe it.

02:20:04.360 - 02:20:20.320

I said, "Just a minute." I called up one of the guys who was taking a break downstairs. He took my place in the tower and I went downstairs to see Brooks. I said, "You look the same." He said, "How did you remember?"

02:20:20.360 - 02:20:31.320

I said, "Hey, when something happens that's important in your life, you remember." It was a nice guy. Then what was the next airplane after you-- Blew the PT-19.

02:20:31.760 - 02:20:52.380

Right. Then what did you start, ferrying? Mostly PT-19s for quite a while. In fact, on New Year's Day one year, '44 I guess it was, I was assigned to take a PT-19 to Winnipeg, Canada.

02:20:54.220 - 02:21:14.200

Open cockpit in the middle of winter. This had happened with the West when they first were in Wilmington. the Army, I guess the Army figured, "We'll get rid of these women fast. We'll put them on a trip, three or four of them together, in the middle of winter, and they'll freeze

02:21:14.260 - 02:21:41.820

their can off and they won't want to come back." They flew, I forget, a long trip, a long trip through bad conditions, snow and runways and so on, and they delivered their airplanes and flew back and said, "Here we are." But they really did suffer. I understand they suffered on that flight.

02:21:42.560 - 02:22:08.080

When did you finally break out of the PTs and go to something bigger or better? I flew PT-23, 26, no. I think what they figured I needed a little more flying time before I moved up to a higher horsepower.

02:22:08.440 - 02:22:31.820

I think that's what they—they probably were right, you know? They sent me to Romulus, Michigan, Detroit, and they assigned me to re-up on instrument flying. So I had another instrument flying course, and I passed that at Romulus.

02:22:32.940 - 02:23:06.700

Then I was flying co-pilot B-24s, C-46s, C-47s. I flew an L-5 liaison P-40. I picked up a P-40 and flew that. Before you could fly that P-40, did you have to go through training? No, that was afterwards. After Brownsville, I flew the P-40.

02:23:08.120 - 02:23:31.940

Did you get temporary orders to go to Brownsville to go to school? Yeah, to go to school from Romulus, yes I did. The P-40 was after I was finished at Brownsville, where we flew everything but the P-38. Well, we didn't fly P-38 there. How long did that training last?

02:23:33.420 - 02:23:52.820

I went there, I think the first part of July, and graduated. I was the only woman in the class. I had a lot of fights, a lot of fights in the air and on the ground, too. And then did you go back to Romulus?

02:23:53.300 - 02:24:16.800

I went back to Romulus right out of pursuit school. I think I flew back. But at Brownsville, we graduated September, I think it was September the 11th or so. These fights that you had in the air. What?

02:24:17.300 - 02:24:25.080

These fights that you had in the air. Yeah, right. Oh, these fights I had in the air. Yeah, tell me about those. You want this to be

02:24:26.140 - 02:24:35.680

public info? Sure. Well, sometimes the guys would chase me in the air.

02:24:41.160 - 02:25:00.360

And we flew formation. with like T6s, lead plane and wing on each side, wingman on each side. That's how that Alice Lovejoy was killed. One of the wings on one of those planes went right through the cockpit.

02:25:01.290 - 02:25:27.100

Were you there at the time? This happened before I went there. Were you excited to be going to a pursuit school? Oh yeah. Some of my friends said, "Mary Ann, if I were you, I would not go down there because it's tough."

02:25:27.100 - 02:25:52.180

I said, "I don't care. I'll try it. I'll try it. If I don't, I don't." We had ground school though. We had lots of ground school there. Men came from factories, like from the P-40 plant and the Bell plant and all that. They all came there and were instructing us on the airplanes.

02:25:54.080 - 02:26:13.880

They were so enthused with their airplanes, they gave us all the good news, none of the bad. It was nice. Then when you finished that, were you sent back to Romulus or back to Wilmington? I went back to Romulus to get my belongings and that.

02:26:15.100 - 02:26:31.680

And I don't know if I, no, I don't think I got my belongings right away. That's when I was assigned a P-40 trip and then a couple more co-pilot trips. I had a lot of co-pilot trips. when I was in instrument school.

02:26:32.780 - 02:26:49.560

I flew a B-19, but I don't know what the airplane looked like. My son had a picture of one. It was a twin engine. I got checked out in that in Lansing, Michigan, right after I was finished with the instrument

02:26:49.720 - 02:27:01.340

flight course. They wanted me to get a twin engine check out in that B-19. I never saw that thing before in my life. Looked like a big clunker, you know?

02:27:03.180 - 02:27:25.860

I thought it was a clunker. Anyway, we went over there and I shot a couple landings and the instructor got out. But I had to have, it was not made for a woman's figure in there because I had to have two cushions behind me and I'd sit on one cushion so I could reach the brakes and the rudders

02:27:25.860 - 02:28:02.800

airplane. And the instructor, I don't think he was too happy. He wasn't too happy with me. On takeoff, he would pull a throttle on one engine and he'd say, "Do a single engine takeoff." And it was a lot of hard muscular work. Whereas today, women captains on the the big airlines, they don't have to worry about using a lot of force on the controls

02:28:03.020 - 02:28:29.500

because they're all automated. But I think you really should practice in airplanes that have no special controls, because If that thing fails on one of those big airplanes, you'd need two people or more to control the turn and that, you see.

02:28:31.780 - 02:28:47.560

On the B-24s, the things that you were doing, co-pilot, where were those mainly going? Where did you take them? Mainly from Willow Run, the Willow Run plant where they made the B-24s. That was one of the plants.

02:28:48.420 - 02:29:15.360

We went from there up to Minnesota to pick up the bombsight. That's where we had one incident, one little incident, in the middle of the night. I saw a red glow up ahead of us. I poked the bomb and it went, shoved everything down.

02:29:16.740 - 02:29:46.260

There was a B-24 coming at us head-on, because they had given us the same altitude on that range as this other guy. Of course, they didn't have the recording thing, but it was a man's voice. He got the special permission to lower his altitude.

02:29:46.580 - 02:29:59.500

Thank God, because the other guy, he just kept on going. He was inbound to the range and we were outbound, I think. We were either outbound, one or the two. We should have not been at the same altitude.

02:30:00.120 - 02:30:15.740

That was a controller in the tower or on the range. So when we got in the airport, oh, this pilot, I looked over and the sweat is pouring off of him. I thought, "Oh, gosh."

02:30:15.740 - 02:30:38.120

I wondered what kind of a landing we were going to end up making. My pilot was looking for this other guy, and he said, "What altitude were you flying on the range?" The guy told him, "6,000 or 3,000, whatever it was."

02:30:38.120 - 02:31:20.020

He said, "We were assigned that altitude, and let's find the controller." because they didn't have recordings. I guess there was almost punches flown. I stayed out of this because I figured I'm just lucky to be alive. Well, we picked up the bombsight and we had about three hours' sleep. And we were supposed to go back to the field, pick up the airplane after it was refueled,

02:31:20.580 - 02:31:45.400

and fly it to Langley, Virginia. So okay, I shouldn't have gone to bed because I was so tired and tired out. They had to practically crawl in the thing that used to be above the doors of the rooms in the hotels, the window, the spy window.

02:31:47.480 - 02:32:00.760

And they had a busboy or somebody had to be pushed through there to wake me up. I was so sound asleep. And they called the room, but see I was in a suite of rooms, I shouldn't have been in it.

02:32:01.520 - 02:32:23.920

I was by myself and I didn't hear the phone or nothing, I was so out. So anyway, I got my stuff together, I got downstairs in a hurry and my pilot said, "Well, we just made the bus and the bus just pulled up in time. Otherwise, I would have been A-W-O-L without...

02:32:24.920 - 02:32:43.440

Anyway, so my pilot, he laughed, he said, "Oh boy, sleepy time gal." You know, he didn't care. Well, when we took off, it was about three or four in the morning. Dark, it pitched dark.

02:32:43.900 - 02:33:01.680

We get out to the airplane, we get everything going, we're taxiing out. The pilot didn't tell me what was going on. So we take off and they took the longest run on the runway and I thought, "Oh gosh," because we got a load of fuel.

02:33:03.500 - 02:33:20.540

I figured, "Oh well, a load of fuel is going to take us longer to get off the runway." Just cleared the end of the runway and out toward the Mississippi River and I thought, Oh my God, what the heck is this?" And the airplane starts doing this, shaking and shaking.

02:33:21.040 - 02:33:36.820

What the heck is it? Full throttle on all four engines and it's going like that and I thought, "Ah." And here's the First National Bank blinking their lights on, on and off, on and off. We're aiming right for the bank building across the river.

02:33:40.380 - 02:33:57.200

And then we just start to make a slight turn to the right, and the pilot then he tells me the secret. They didn't have our gas, we got 90 octane. And we flew on to Langley Field with 90 octane in the B-24.

02:33:57.900 - 02:34:09.340

It probably didn't do too well in combat. Can you imagine? They had put 90. You put that in the PT-19, not in the B-24 with the supercharger.

02:34:10.760 - 02:34:20.140

[Laughs] And a scared co-pilot. "Oh, God, the plane is going like this." I said, "Just hang on, just hang on."

02:34:20.280 - 02:34:31.220

I think we had about, we went, I don't know, we might have gone, I forget how many miles we went, at about 400 feet. [Laughs] In the middle of the night at, well, 4 o'clock.

02:34:32.380 - 02:34:53.560

Mary Ann, of all the airplanes you flew, what is your favorite? My very favorite. The one I really liked, AT-6. [Laughter] Is that what she liked too? I wonder why that is, because it just fits so nicely in that airplane.

02:34:54.380 - 02:35:44.220

It was nice. When we were practicing for fighters, they put us in the back seat of the T-6, the instructor in the front seat. And after you turned toward final, you got on final, approached 10-degree flap only. They wouldn't allow you any other flap, 10 degrees. You couldn't see the runway. It was sneaky, but it was wonderful for a transition aircraft because it really helped you get along. But none of the fighters I flew were like that. I think the T-6 from the back seat was hardest, because all you saw when you got over the runway was this.

02:35:44.380 - 02:35:54.700

Nothing in front. Anything else unusual happen to you? No, I think I took too much of your time up. That's fine.

02:35:56.440 - 02:36:16.880

How were you notified that the WASPs were going to be disbanded and how did it make you feel? I was in Evansville, Indiana, waiting to pick up a P-47 and I heard that. I said, "What? We just got here, now they want to get rid of us?" It just seemed like we got there.

02:36:18.160 - 02:36:47.160

And then I heard more about it. I didn't really know that much about it. I said, "Well, I don't know. The war is still going on." And what was the bad part? I mean, they said pilots were coming back, okay. But the worst battle our troops had was the Battle of the Bulge. besides Normandy, Battle of the Bulge with Rommel's Army. That was going on when we were

02:36:47.600 - 02:37:17.900

dumped. My sister's boyfriend at that time, he was killed in the Battle of the Bulge. Did you meet anybody special while you were in the WASP? This one fellow, I thought he was real nice, but we never really got it serious. In fact, he had said to me, "I don't think you should go to Brownsville."

02:37:18.200 - 02:37:38.600

He said, "First of all, the airplanes are quite used airplanes. They're used for training. That's not the right thing to do. training you should have some decent airplanes, you know, because if they're war-weary or bad,

02:37:39.760 - 02:38:08.000

the student is going to wear them out or get killed. But I went anyway and he wrote me a note. He said, "Well, I'll see you sometime." He was from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I remember that. He was such a nice guy. But he didn't, it wasn't serious. Did Romulus do anything special for you girls when you were disbanded?

02:38:09.260 - 02:38:27.120

Wilmington, Delaware did. See, I was sent back to Wilmington. I was sent back to Wilmington to fly the fighters mostly. Flying P-47s from Farmingdale to Newark. And we would fly like three airplanes a day.

02:38:29.260 - 02:38:49.360

And then, you know who picked us up? Gertie Meserve and either Nancy Batson or Teresa James. And Teresa James, they were flying the C-60, the Lockheed. Now that was an airplane, that was a hard airplane, I think a hard airplane to fly, but Teresa said no, it was easy.

02:38:49.360 - 02:39:15.680

But she used to say, okay, she'd be sitting in the left seat, she'd yell back, "Are you girls ready? Alright." Then we'd take off. That's the captain yelling to the kids. Why would you take them to Newark? The port of embarkation. They would either, I don't know, I guess they shipped them out, put them on ships, board ships.

02:39:15.680 - 02:39:43.580

I don't know all that. I know there were P-47s that flew in a group to England one time. In fact, that one guy that was the leader of that flight, he picked up my airplane and banning California when I ran out of gas, so P-47. Tell me about that.

02:39:46.190 - 02:39:53.560

[Laughter] Another stupid trick I had. That's why I say God really stepped in and helped me. He said, "No, you're not going to go yet."

02:39:54.560 - 02:40:18.320

[Laughter] I ran into a problem because I was ferrying the P-47 to Long Beach. Then I was supposed to pick up a P-51, get checked out there first. So I'm going along in Texas and I noticed, I thought, "Gee, I'm still over Texas."

02:40:18.320 - 02:40:38.360

So I figured, well, that's, you know. So I was wearing that little computer. I figured, my airspeed and all that, you know, and I figured, "I got an airspeed of 90 miles an hour in the P-47." And I thought, "Hey, there's something wrong.

02:40:38.790 - 02:40:58.640

I did something wrong." I didn't believe myself, so I calculated again, did the same thing. I got 95 miles an hour, 90, and I thought, "I'm doing something wrong." So I just kept on flying, but I was burning up fuel and I was in the jet stream.

02:40:59.520 - 02:41:19.360

But you know, we didn't hear about a jet stream. We didn't know about jet streams then. But later on I knew how stupid I had been because I didn't believe myself. I would have landed at Palm Springs and gotten fuel even though I hadn't planned, but I was

02:41:19.400 - 02:41:35.760

running low on fuel. I passed by Palm Springs. I look at my fuel and I thought, "Gee, it's burning a lot of fuel." So I must be doing something, whatever it is.

02:41:37.840 - 02:41:50.000

So the red light comes on, I got 20 minutes left. So I thought, "Oh, God." And here I had never seen the Rocky Mountains in my life before. I thought, "Oh, God, look at this."

02:41:50.420 - 02:42:05.900

And here's Mount Asinto over on one side and another mountain sticking up over here. And I'm right in the middle coming down. I look over, "Holy crow, where did I get this dumb thing? Got to get it down."

02:42:07.650 - 02:42:18.320

And I circled. I looked down, there's that strip at Banning right there. There's that airport. That's where Cochran had her ranch, didn't she?

02:42:19.380 - 02:42:32.220

Banning. It just had one runway, east-west. Well they built that for the airliners. In the event they had problems, they could land there because they would always be into

02:42:32.220 - 02:42:49.680

the wind. The prevailing westerlies come right through there. But I was getting a jet stream because normally it would be reading 220, 240 miles an hour, not 90, but I got the jet stream.

02:42:51.340 - 02:43:08.540

I thought, "Well, I'm going to land on that little strip down there. Oh God, and I'm rolling my wheels around the mountaintops. I said, "Oh my God, how did I ever get in this dumb situation?" You want to get out of it quick.

02:43:09.400 - 02:43:23.240

I come around and I just land. I made a beautiful landing. And just as I taxied in, my problem went. I had total fuel exhaustion.

02:43:24.900 - 02:43:42.380

I was up the creek without a paddle. So anyway, a guy come running out of a little trailer there, he was Civil Air Patrol. And I got off the wing and he said, "Oh, you're a girl." I said, "I've been there since I was born."

02:43:42.380 - 02:43:55.400

And I said, "What can I do for you?" I said, "I think I'm out of fuel." I said, "I think so too." So I said, "You have a phone here?" and so he let me use the phone and I called Palm

02:43:55.580 - 02:44:15.580

Beach, Palm Springs. I got the safety officer on the phone. And it was the guy, the guy that answered the phone was the guy that led the first P-47 group across the ocean years ago, years before.

02:44:16.220 - 02:44:31.340

I found out later from Betty Gillies. She said I did a good job. I said, "No, the airport was there, otherwise I wouldn't have done a very good job." So the guy said, "Oh, you can't fly it out of there.

02:44:31.980 - 02:44:41.440

We're going to send a fuel truck over. It'll be about an hour." And I thought, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Who's going to fly it out?"

02:44:41.440 - 02:44:57.820

I said, "I flew it in. Can I fly it out?" "Oh, rules and regulations, you know, if you land." The fighters, the spiders were, if you landed in some... and yet somebody else had to fly it out for safety reasons.

02:44:59.100 - 02:45:14.140

They didn't want to scratch your airplane up. So I didn't put a scratch on it. So this guy came in and he said, "I'm going to fly it out." I rode back with a gas truck after they fueled up my airplane. I said, "Where are you going?"

02:45:14.140 - 02:45:40.140

He said, "We're going back to Palm Springs, and then you can fly it out from there." After I got a good balling out. That guy said, "Oh, if you read '90 or '95, learn to believe what you calculate. You gotta believe, it's like your instrument flying, you gotta believe it or leave it."

02:45:41.580 - 02:46:10.020

And so he said, "Well, you're lucky this time." So he talked to you? He was surprised I got it in all that. Because I had been at about... When you left Wilmington, how did they treat you girls when you left?

02:46:10.740 - 02:46:37.300

When we left, I got a ride home in an airplane, but some of them didn't. Did they have a parade for you or a dinner? No. Well, the officers club, they were going to have a big party for us, see? And they had planned on that, but the officers club burned down. Burned down, that was another

02:46:37.380 - 02:47:04.380

help from God. But no, as I say, I looked out of the window when I was taking a shower and I saw flames around. Drapes were flying out the window and I could see the piano and hear these flame dynasty, "Oh my gosh, the place is on fire!" And it was right next door to our barracks. So within five minutes, well they couldn't, they tried to hook up

02:47:05.300 - 02:47:35.560

the hoses out front and they were frozen. The pipes were frozen or something, the fire hydrants were frozen and they didn't get the water up to the club right away. And they ordered us to evacuate the barracks. Thank God I got dressed before that. As soon as I saw the fire I got dressed quick. When we were ordered to evacuate, I ended up carrying my footlocker,

02:47:36.740 - 02:48:02.660

which I don't know how much it weighed, but because of the fire and that, in order to evacuate. I pulled that darn footlocker down the hallway, down the steps out the front in the snow. When it was time to bring the footlocker back in, I couldn't move it. What did you have in that footlocker that was so special?

02:48:03.680 - 02:48:29.240

I just had odds and ends of stuff. Mostly equipment. I forgot to ask you, while you were, after you graduated from Avenger, eventually you got some new uniforms. Do you recall getting new uniforms? Yeah, in Wilmington we got a new uniform. Instead of wearing khaki trousers and a white

02:48:29.240 - 02:49:08.040

blouse, we wore officer's slacks. We wore those greens at that time. Then they changed them again to the blue. That's how I got the ATC wing. I wasn't really an original laugh, but that wing was still valid up there. That's why I gave it away, because that didn't belong to me. When you left Wilmington, you got a ride in what? Where did you go?

02:49:08.420 - 02:49:34.760

got a ride in a C-47 and flew us to Milwaukee, and I went back home. I helped my mom and dad redecorate their apartment. Then I said, "Okay, the war is still on. I'm going back in the service." I went down to the Marine Corps. I don't know why I went down to the Marine Corps, because the Army had kicked us out. Well, I felt associated with the Army.

02:49:34.860 - 02:49:53.820

I didn't want to bother with the Army anymore. So then I joined the WASP. You joined the Marine Corps. I mean I joined the Marines. Yeah, right. See, I'm getting tired. Anyway. What was your assignment when you went into the Marines?

02:49:55.340 - 02:50:13.640

To go to Camp Lejeune, when was that? February 1945. And went to Camp Lejeune for boot camp. How did that compare to training in the Wasp?

02:50:16.000 - 02:50:43.860

Well, it was a little different being the Marine Corps. they had their own system, and they claim it's better than any. And if you dare say, if you're a Marine and you dare say, "Hey, you're really paid by the Navy, and they don't have a hospital, Marines don't have a hospital, the Naval hospitals, you're paid by the Navy."

02:50:43.860 - 02:51:05.280

You better not say that, because I don't want nothing to do with the Navy. It's so funny, but that's the way they are. The one kid that was our drill instructor at Camp Lejeune was from Guadalcanal. He had been in the Marines, first Marines.

02:51:06.630 - 02:51:26.520

He had been shot up and rehabbed and all, but then they gave him the job to go to Camp camp Lejeune and train women to march in the Marine Corps. Did you tell him you'd been the squadron commander? No! No, no, no, no.

02:51:29.760 - 02:52:01.460

And he was in the—apparently he said he was a nice guy, but really tried to show his authority over women. I mean he wasn't really that way, I don't think. He was in the barber shop in Camp Lejeune. He was in the barber shop and the barber said, "Oh, you're going to have fun drilling those women Marines." And he said, "What women

02:52:02.420 - 02:52:27.760

Marines?" They said, "The women Marines. They sent a bunch of women for you to, you're going to be your drill instructor, you're going to be teaching them marching." He said, "Oh." He denied it because he didn't know. He didn't know yet. He had never heard of a woman Marine. He had been a Gwonk. And he had all kinds of awards, you know. A young guy.

02:52:27.760 - 02:52:44.700

How long were you in boot camp? Oh, gee. I forget how long. Just a month or two months, that's all. When you finished that, where were you sent?

02:52:45.300 - 02:53:04.360

From boot camp, I was sent to Kinston, North Carolina, Auxiliary Airfield. What was your job? control tower operator. I mean, they started me out on that. They had trouble. Were there other girls also that were tower operators?

02:53:04.740 - 02:53:28.640

Yeah, there was a woman that was a sergeant. She was very, very good. She saved some people's lives. That I know of. What did your mom and dad think about you going into the Marines? My mother, she was astounded. She said, "I can't believe you want to go back in." I said,

02:53:28.720 - 02:53:50.460

"The war is still on, isn't it? I didn't hear they closed the war down yet." "No, the war is still on." And she said, "Oh, I could just shoot those Marines because she enjoyed me being at home," she said. "Well, I did a lot of dirty work at home, painting walls and scrubbing and cleaning. That's all right.

02:53:51.580 - 02:54:09.320

How long were you then a tower operator? I was a tower operator in the Marines until they discharged me because I was expecting a baby. I married a Marine. Let's go back and find out how you met that Marine.

02:54:09.660 - 02:54:40.700

Oh yeah, I met that Marine. He came up in the tower one time to visit the tower. He synthetic training in the Marines. It's a link trainer and all of that stuff. Deep-sea diving, that's a synthetic training. And, anyway, coastal shooting and all that. What did he come up in the tower for?

02:54:40.700 - 02:54:57.780

Well, he just came up there in the tower to visit, you know, as a visitor. There were many people that visited the tower, and they had to have special permission to come up there, you know. And we got to talking. Was it kind of love at first sight?

02:54:59.720 - 02:55:03.860

No. No. No, not really. Okay.

02:55:03.860 - 02:55:31.940

No. And one time I'm walking toward the mess hall and I see this guy and he said, "Oh, you're from the Tower, aren't you?" And then he came over and walked with me and we went over to the mess hall. And we sat down and had a bite to eat, started talking about flying. And he said he just always loved flying. He had been flying at Floyd Bennett Field years

02:55:31.940 - 02:56:02.140

before, and we just got to talking. And then he said, "Some night, Emil, the tower chief, and I walk into town sometimes." We'd walk into town. The town wasn't that far away. And we'd go to a movie or whatever, you know, "Would you care to come along?" I said, "Sure, I guess so, as long as the other guy doesn't care.

02:56:03.140 - 02:56:31.900

So there was Emil and David and I, we would walk into town. I think we went bowling one night and another time we went to the movie. It just got so that it became like, "Hey, he's all right." So then we fell in love.

02:56:32.320 - 02:56:53.960

Oh, we fell in love there, and we were married in Kinston. He wanted to get married just two months after I met him. And I said, "David, as long as there's a war going on and we're in the service, the day after your wedding you can be here and then we'd be shipped over here and we would be

02:56:54.500 - 02:57:10.220

not together as married people, we would just be expendable." I mean, you know. What were the qualities? Well then we got married in October of '45 instead of, it would have been in August.

02:57:11.440 - 02:57:31.920

Mary Ann, what were the qualities that he possessed that made you fall in love with him? The qualities were much like my father's and my brother's. Very respectful and nice. He never made fun of me flying or that.

02:57:35.900 - 02:57:55.400

I don't know, just that's the way it turned out. Tell me about your wedding. Our wedding, we had a military wedding with the Kinston Base Commander York. He was at the wedding and all these Marines and I said, "Oh, who's watching the store?"

02:57:56.620 - 02:58:13.740

Did you get married in the chapel in the base? No, I got married in a church in town. Did some of your Marine friends were in your wedding? Yeah, oh yeah.

02:58:15.600 - 02:58:30.840

Gals that worked in the weather station and gals that worked in operations and that, they were there with their boyfriends and so on. Did you have a white gown or what did you wear? Oh, what did I wear?

02:58:31.060 - 02:58:51.460

Oh no, I didn't have a white gown. I said I didn't have a gown, but I had my regular military uniform. I wore a white shirt, a white shirt, and my husband wore the dress uniform of the Marines. It looked really nice.

02:58:52.640 - 02:59:14.160

Did your mom and dad come down? No. My father was very ill with leukemia, the tail end of it. Had you met David's parents before you married? No. David's father went to work one time. He worked on, not Wall Street, but he worked

02:59:14.160 - 02:59:40.100

for J.R. Wood, the jewelers. He used to buy diamonds. He used to go to Europe and buy diamonds from a place in Amsterdam, I think. Anyway, that's what he did. But one morning he went—I never met him. One morning he went to work and he just hung up his hat and dropped dead.

02:59:40.440 - 03:00:06.900

I worry about my son because everybody in that family has all passed away before they were sixty years old. And my father, of course, he had that radiation. On my father's side of the family, my grandfather, his father died.

03:00:09.620 - 03:00:26.300

His hair wasn't white. I would say he died in his late 60s. Now we just went to the eye doctor and found out that my son has macular degeneration. He is just 56.

03:00:28.200 - 03:00:48.260

So we've been—that's all right. This doctor from Sears, oh God bless him, I mean, David was, he kept looking at everything. And he'd turn on the lights all the time. And I got to thinking, he needs an eye exam, he needs new glasses.

03:00:48.950 - 03:01:12.340

He was just using regular reading glasses that people have. His glasses were $500. The doctor was so good and he said, "Change your diet. Eat a lot of spinach, asparagus."

03:01:13.720 - 03:01:41.700

He said, "If you have any problem," he gave him some kind of a scope to look at, a pattern, and he said, "If you look at that every morning and if that starts moving, those lines start moving around you call me up. A new doctor at Sears. Thank God we went because he never mentions that. And another thing, he gained all that weight on his stomach. Now that looks

03:01:41.760 - 03:02:00.720

like a beer belly, but it's not. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke. He used to smoke, and he quit. He's going to be alright, Mary Ann. I hope so, I hope so because, you know, and he goes out kayaking and he builds stuff and

03:02:00.760 - 03:02:14.280

he does a lot of reading. Then he'd go back and ask you, "Where did you go on your honeymoon?" We went to, where the heck was it? I can't think of the name of the place.

03:02:17.020 - 03:02:32.860

It's a little town in North Carolina. But you both had a few days off? We got a couple days, I only had three days off from the Marines and he did too. And that's when I bought the PT-19 from this guy.

03:02:33.340 - 03:02:44.860

Then I found out there was a lien on the airplane. So somebody else really had work done on the airplane and they owed him money. But that's all right. I got the airplane for $1,100.

03:02:45.880 - 03:03:06.420

It was practically brand new. The engine had like 200 hours on it. It was very good. David and I, we flew around. I helped him get his license. He got his private license. I gave him everything that's required for the commercial. I gave him the thing.

03:03:08.020 - 03:03:28.980

He did so well that on his final landing, I dumped the flaps on him. He had the flaps all set, and he's all set for landing. And he was so mad, and he still made a good landing, and I said, "Oh," he said, "I could just kill you for doing that."

03:03:28.980 - 03:03:42.400

And I said, "No." I said, "You were doing so well, I knew you could handle it." You know? And he said, "We just got married, and you're doing something like that to me."

03:03:42.740 - 03:03:52.540

And we flew that airplane a lot. We flew it a lot. We used to land on the beach off of North Carolina. We flew to Milwaukee.

03:03:52.780 - 03:04:09.500

I took my father for a ride. But see, he couldn't come to my wedding. My father was dead in less than a year. Then when we come down, he told me, "I'll ride with you when you have a thousand hours."

03:04:09.500 - 03:04:20.540

I said, "Oh, I have over a thousand hours now." He said, "Well, then I'll ride with you." He rode in the backseat of the PT-19. We come down, he said, "Oh, that's easy.

03:04:20.680 - 03:04:27.200

Anybody can do that." I said, "That's what you say." So good. So good.

03:04:27.200 - 03:04:36.520

Then you got pregnant and you resigned from the Marines? I was flying. Oh yeah, I flew every weekend. We took walks almost every evening after dinner.

03:04:38.320 - 03:05:00.780

We had a cat that used to climb the pine trees. The night that David was born, I walked to the hospital a mile and a half away. We had been to a wedding reception, and I said, "I ate so much. I shouldn't have eaten.

03:05:01.360 - 03:05:11.520

I ate, and I ate so much." I said, "David, I've got to take a walk. I can't, I'm getting a pain, you know. So anyway, I was getting a couple pains.

03:05:12.400 - 03:05:23.960

So we walked over to the hospital and the nurse said, I told her a couple things, you know. She said, "Oh, you're not going anywhere, you're staying right here." And I said, "What?"

03:05:23.960 - 03:05:44.320

I said, "I walked over here and don't have the car with us." So they sent David home, back to the barracks where we lived. No, we lived in the housing, housing on the base. So anyway, the nurse said, "We'll put you up there in the room as the first baby.

03:05:44.730 - 03:05:53.740

Oh, it'll be hours before your baby is born and that." So I said, "I don't care. I don't care. I'm here."

03:05:53.740 - 03:06:19.280

So I went up to this labor room, and I'm sitting in the bed reading a magazine. And all of a sudden I thought, "I need to go to the ladies' room." The baby was getting to be born. And when I saw what happened when I got to the ladies' room, it was a bad thing, you

03:06:19.280 - 03:06:30.440

know, and I pushed the button to ring for the nurse and she came in. "Oh, get off of that toilet! Your baby can be born in there!" I said, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

03:06:34.380 - 03:06:57.440

And she said, "You get up on that gurney." I got on the gurney, and they hadn't given me the shots or nothing. So within two hours he was born after I walked over there. And then she said, "Oh, and they called my husband. He just got in. He had just walked back." Then he had to go back to the hospital. And then everybody told me, "Oh, you're going

03:06:57.440 - 03:07:20.740

to have a girl. You're going to have a girl." And then when my husband was walking down in the hallway, the nurse walked with him. She said, "Here is your son." And he said, "Oh!" He couldn't believe it. Because everybody had said, I said, "You don't know what it is going to be, as long as it's healthy." He was a wonderful baby.

03:07:20.930 - 03:07:33.500

Oh gosh. How long did you live there then before you were transferred? We lived there just, I tell you, he was born on the 29th of December, and I was in the hospital ten days.

03:07:34.320 - 03:08:02.040

So before the 15th of January, David's enlistment was up, so he got out of the Marines. So we had money from his discharge, and we had a car. A neighbor loaned us a car, and we put our cat and the new baby and our belongings into the car, and I was driving the car, and I took a bad chill. I took a chill, I got a

03:08:02.100 - 03:08:32.260

cold or something, I don't know. But I had no business driving the car, I paid later, but that's all right, I'm okay. But David was fine, the baby was fine, thank God. I said, "I don't care about myself." So we spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in Washington, DC. That was '46 or '47, yeah right. And then we drove up to Long Island. See, he and his

03:08:32.340 - 03:09:07.540

mother bought a house after his father died, and they bought a model home for $3,400. It They had hardwood floors, plaster walls, an attic, unfinished attic, but it was, all you'd have to do was put the walls in, you know. And a basement, full basement, a yard, 50 by 100 I guess it was. And I lived there, I lived there with his mother for 16 years.

03:09:07.740 - 03:09:23.380

I'm glad to see my husband went back into the service. He was running five gas stations and then he found out all these. Some of these guys were taking the money from the gas station that belonged in the station. He said, "I'm fed up with that.

03:09:23.540 - 03:09:41.560

I'm not going to do that." He said, "Do you mind if I get back into the service?" He joined the Air Force then. He was a crew chief on B-47 bombers, but he joined Strategic Air Command and they were

03:09:41.760 - 03:09:54.080

gone two years at a time. I didn't have any more children. In fact, one of my neighbors said, "Oh, well you get away. You just have one child."

03:09:54.080 - 03:10:11.320

I said, "Well, I guess I could have had a few more," but I said, "My husband's been away in the service." I lived with my mother-in-law sixteen years. Things didn't work out after that so much.

03:10:12.780 - 03:10:38.180

I want to go on to another section. My husband got very sick and I felt sorry that he got very sick. But you moved on then. Where did you go, you and your son? Oh, my son got in the Air Force and he was sent to Germany.

03:10:40.120 - 03:11:02.300

So then I was still a controller at the tower at Grumman. Were you still a Marine at that point? Oh no, no, I'm a civilian. They really booted me out of the Marines when I became pregnant. Right. But then did you join the reserves or anything?

03:11:03.800 - 03:11:30.680

When I was, let me see now, it was about 1950, it was just after the Korean War, about '58, 1958 or so, that I got an automatic commission from President Truman. And I didn't request anything like that. It was just an envelope that came and I opened it up and here it was.

03:11:32.360 - 03:11:47.300

And that was First Lieutenant. And I thought, "Gee, that's nice." And then I found out you weren't supposed to have children if you were in the military. I thought, "Gee, I could go in the military now.

03:11:47.400 - 03:12:05.240

What's to stop me? David's over in Germany." So I joined that reserve unit in Hempstead, Long Island, and I stayed with them until the squadron was disbanded.

03:12:05.980 - 03:12:17.320

I stayed with them. So I just had like three points short of twenty years. I don't know how I did that. But it was just meant to be.

03:12:17.350 - 03:12:30.540

You know, I mean, so it's a bad turn. I'm still around, so it's just another bad turn. So what? The sun rises, the sun comes up, the sun goes down, and it gets hard.

03:12:30.650 - 03:12:51.840

How did you end up in Florida? My company sent me down to Florida to open the tower at Whitman Field in Stewart. How long did you work for Grumman? I worked thirty-one years for them.

03:12:52.880 - 03:13:14.500

So I figure I had a couple years of air traffic control in the Marines. I had about thirty-three years of air traffic control. I told the pilots where to go and they told me where to go. I even got a chance to land one of the big blimps, one of the big Goodyear guys going

03:13:14.660 - 03:13:26.440

by. He said, "I think I need permission to come in and sit down." He said, "We're starting to get a windstorm coming in from the north." He was heading up toward Jacksonville.

03:13:29.700 - 03:13:46.100

When you came to the tower, when they helped open this tower, was that at your request or did they just send you? Oh, well, I heard about this maybe six or seven years before. They were talking about opening the tower in Stewart.

03:13:46.700 - 03:13:54.140

I said, "Oh, that sounds nice. I'd like to do that. That would be nice." Everybody's giving me a dirty look.

03:13:56.180 - 03:14:09.660

How dare I ask for that? I said, "Well, if there's a tower open, you let me know. I'd be glad to do that." Well time went by and I just figured, "Oh well, they forgot all about that whole bit."

03:14:09.660 - 03:14:25.600

And finally, I got word. My boss from Calverton, he called, big boss out there, he said, "Are you still interested in a tower job in Stewart?" And I said, "Oh, how about tomorrow?"

03:14:25.600 - 03:14:48.680

I said, "Great, yeah, that sounds good." "Well, we'll be in touch with you." And the next thing I knew, they moved me down here. And I paid, I went to the Holiday Inn. They treated me so nice. And I was only there like three nights and I already found a place to live. I was lucky.

03:14:49.520 - 03:15:20.720

And the lady that worked upstairs in the loan department, they said, "I think she has a cottage." a place for some of my furniture. I didn't have that much furniture. I don't believe in... furniture is just something that you sit on or you go to bed on or whatever. I went up there and I said, "They sent me up here. Do you have a cottage that I could

03:15:21.790 - 03:15:40.000

use for a while?" I said, "I'd just rent for a while probably." She said, "Yes, I just happened to have one cottage left." So she was right over here, just three blocks away. And I took my bicycle one day after I was in there, and they were so kind to me.

03:15:41.070 - 03:15:58.720

She was suspicious I had a New York State license plate. So she figured I wouldn't stay too long. Anyway, I didn't. And I lived there 18 months. I was riding my bike one day and I come down this road and it said private.

03:16:00.540 - 03:16:14.180

I thought, "Oh gee, I'll get arrested if I go down. Well, I'm going to go down anyway." So I rode the bike down the road and I saw a lady raking the yard and she said, "Oh, that house there is for sale."

03:16:14.180 - 03:16:34.140

And then sure enough there was a sign out there and I said, "Oh gee, well I wonder how much they want for that." And I'm walking around the house and this wasn't here, just the glass was there. And I'm looking in, hey, there was no furniture in here, everything looked so nice, I like

03:16:34.240 - 03:16:49.320

that. And then I called those people and the guy said, "Well, I can take you on a tour through the house if you'd care." Then he told me how much they want for it, $26,000, just imagine.

03:16:50.040 - 03:17:19.300

But that was a lot then, that was over 27 years ago. 26, I can get a little more than that. Anyway, I tried and then they weren't about ready to, at the bank, they weren't about ready to let me buy the house. But you've been here 27 years?

03:17:19.580 - 03:17:26.040

I've been here 27 years, yeah. Wow. Let me ask you, Marianne, in the tower— Is it time for me to go to Tucson? Huh?

03:17:27.100 - 03:17:37.140

That's where my son wants to go. As a tower operator for all those years, 30-something years, anything unusual happen? Oh, while I was in the tower? Uh-huh.

03:17:37.940 - 03:17:53.240

Nothing, you know, nothing really too bad. Right. A few forced landings, a few stuff, you know, usual stuff. You know what though, the airlines and everybody is having infringement on runways.

03:17:54.220 - 03:18:28.520

And I said, "Why are they paying for all these committees and all these research programs about going on the runways?" There's one, I have a rule, if you go on the runway, it costs you a thousand dollars. And as soon as you do that, it stops all this infringement on the runways. Now, when we were landing at St. Louis one time, I saw a car just skip across off of a taxiway.

03:18:29.740 - 03:18:42.140

And we were rolling, you know. That's not right. That's not right. And that guy, I'm sure, if he was in a car on the field, he must have had a radio. He must have had a radio.

03:18:42.720 - 03:19:00.200

And that's a no-no. But as I say, if you start fining him, make it $5,000. You pay $5,000, you go on the runway. We had a lady drive a Cadillac right down the runway over here, and I had an airplane

03:19:00.300 - 03:19:14.140

on final approach. A jet. It was a corporate jet, and I think it was Mobil Oil. I said, "Sir, prepare to go around.

03:19:14.780 - 03:19:36.700

We have an unidentified vehicle, non-radio, on the runway right in front of you." He said, "Oh, they live well," or something he said, and he went around. Then we chased with a fire truck and got a hold of them. The woman said she got lost or something, and she was driving on the runway.

03:19:38.480 - 03:19:57.660

And she had this great big car, you know, beautiful car. And I thought, "Yeah, there's one way to stop all that." And there were signs all around the airport saying, "Do not go on the runway." It cost you $5,000, you just put your wheels on that runway, and that'll stop the whole

03:19:57.760 - 03:20:08.740

thing. Every time I pick up a magazine, a flying magazine, it's about infringement on the runways. They still got it. And they don't take my advice.

03:20:08.820 - 03:20:24.620

I wish they would. >> Tell me, what do you do now, Mary Ann, to keep busy? >> What do I do now? Right now I'm trying to recuperate from injuring myself, but injuring my back and my legs.

03:20:25.540 - 03:20:47.740

But before that, before David come down here, I was working three volunteer jobs. One at the hospital, one at the thrift store at church, and the Bread of Life kitchen where we fed maybe 80 to 100 people every Friday night. And every church, it's so wonderful, every church around here, the Lutheran Church, Episcopal,

03:20:47.880 - 03:21:03.820

Methodist, the Catholic Church, and they all got together. And the ones that have kitchens, they serve a meal. Monday is Methodist, Tuesday is another one, Wednesday is such and such. And Friday was our day.

03:21:05.100 - 03:21:24.560

Every day of the week and a wonderful meal. So somebody could, you know, that didn't work, that didn't have a job, they could have a meal every day. And then they allowed take-home, take-home of the bagels, bread, extra clothing.

03:21:27.240 - 03:21:42.780

And if you asked for extra food or canned food, canned food or macaroni or that, we'd give them a whole box of stuff. Like one lady came in, she had two little children. She said her husband had just walked out on her two days before and they were sleeping

03:21:42.780 - 03:21:52.040

in the car. And the kids were barefoot and that. I said, "Oh my God, how did that happen?" I said, "I'll tell you what."

03:21:54.000 - 03:22:10.440

I said, "You go in and you take, at the thrift store, I said, "You go take whatever clothes that you need, that you feel that you need, and shoes for the children and that, you know. Take whatever you can." And the boss wasn't even there, Peggy wasn't even there.

03:22:10.600 - 03:22:39.080

When she came in, I told her that and she said, "That's what I would have done, too." I said, "Tonight, if you can get over to the church, we can have a good meal." They fixed better meals than I fixed a home for myself. They had roast beef one week, chicken the next, and everything from mashed potatoes,

03:22:39.340 - 03:22:55.740

fresh salad, everything. Just everything. would feed a lot of people. One man came in one time and he said, "I haven't eaten for two days." I said, "This is the United States. You should not have to say, 'I haven't eaten

03:22:55.860 - 03:23:11.320

for two days.' There's plenty of food around." And I said, "You take what you want." He hadn't eaten. He'd lost his job. He said he'd lost his job and he hadn't eaten in two days. And he looked it too. What makes you happy?

03:23:12.300 - 03:23:42.420

makes me happy. Just looking out and seeing that old sun shining and being alive and meeting you folks and talking my head off. I'm going to have a long nap. Tell me, of all the things that you have done in your life, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? Beside your son?

03:23:42.980 - 03:24:20.160

I was going to say my son. I don't know. The most thing, what I've been able to do for my country and for God, and a little bit of what has been given me. So much has been given me, the opportunity coming from the background I had. You don't have to be rich to get ahead, and you don't have to have the best of everything,

03:24:21.500 - 03:24:39.300

but keep working and keep your dreams, have your dreams, and believe in yourself, and Do the best you can, that's all. We're only people. We're only here on the earth for just a little while.

03:24:39.840 - 03:25:06.700

I saved—I don't know where that is now. I saved the thing that that woman astronaut said on Friday before they went in on Columbia. She wrote such a nice thing about how the planet looked so beautiful and everything looked so nice.

03:25:08.360 - 03:25:21.100

There she's gone in a second. They say, "See that thing that fell off of that thing?" Those tiles. Oh yeah.

03:25:22.220 - 03:25:44.400

Let me ask you this. During your lifetime, you've had good times and bad and happy times and sad times. Oh yes. What has gotten you through those sad times? Great faith and knowing that, first of all, God is in charge and we're just people and we move around at His convenience.

03:25:45.460 - 03:26:13.860

And when anybody says to me, "Oh, why did God cause that?" Hey, no. Like the shuttle. God didn't cause that. Somebody caused it. Some people caused it. We are not perfect. We're just, you know, we're just little... And I don't like being called another animal either, because if we are animals we cannot speak.

03:26:15.720 - 03:26:40.440

And we cannot do anything if we are animals. Animals are totally dependent on man. But except the animals that Goble Williams trained. Did you ever see him perform in the circus? What is your opinion of Jacqueline Cochran?

03:26:41.180 - 03:26:55.080

My opinion of Jacqueline Cochran? She took the best she had, gave the best she had. She took the best and gave the best that she had. And she started with nothing.

03:26:57.340 - 03:27:14.920

And she, I mean, she may have had a bad habit or bad habits or something. And do we not all have habits that are not always good? See, I used to bite my fingernails. Now I can't bite them because I have false teeth.

03:27:16.900 - 03:27:48.420

See, God punished me. But you see, I think she did wonderful. Well, I'll tell you, anybody that says, "Oh, I think somebody, some people say, well, Cochran was this and that." No, I read her life story just a couple months ago. I wanted to read it. I never had read it. And hey, she took every opportunity that she had and made it a goal to do the best that

03:27:48.420 - 03:28:03.440

she could do. She always tried to do the best. If she was denied something, she tried another route to get ahead, like when she took the F-86 and flew and did the world records.

03:28:04.000 - 03:28:21.220

And some of those records still stand to this day. And they said, "Oh no, you're not going to get that airplane." And so she went to Canada and bought one. Only because her husband was very, very wealthy.

03:28:22.260 - 03:28:48.280

But that was not just the reason that she was doing that. He was supportive of her, and she was supportive of him. And then, according to her book, they did have disagreements, but not anything that was—she said she was always so glad to just be home with Floyd and to have some spare

03:28:48.400 - 03:29:08.480

time. I don't think she had many spare hours. I remember when she went to come to Sweetwater to our reunion that time in her van, RV, and it had "N13V," 13-V for victory.

03:29:09.700 - 03:29:31.460

She always had 13-V for victory. Now her airplane that crashed at the Cleveland Air Races, they had another symbol on the airplane and they didn't put 13-V for victory, her sign on, that's the one that crashed. That was her airplane.

03:29:33.660 - 03:29:46.740

I don't know what really happened. I went to the Cleveland Air Races once years ago, but it wasn't then. What do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be? A legacy.

03:29:47.800 - 03:30:08.600

Well, they sometimes say, "Save the best for last." No, save the best for first. The best come first, and the others that follow will do their best too. I think some of the girls that are flying jets off of the carriers,

03:30:11.260 - 03:30:26.780

I couldn't do that. I don't think I could try it, I would end up in the drink. But you know, I think it's so wonderful. And then of course I read the story of that woman that she was so wonderful and such a

03:30:26.900 - 03:30:52.800

wonderful pilot and lost her engine just before she touched down on the carrier and therefore she went into the drink and went, "Oh, it was a woman pilot, that figures." And now they say, now they say any pilot, man or woman, would have had the same thing happen that happened to her.

03:30:53.220 - 03:31:06.160

Not because it was a her, no. I just hate that. I hate that. But I don't think women should be in combat on the ground, especially on the ground.

03:31:07.760 - 03:31:29.520

I hope they find that guy that was shot down from the Gulf War in '91. I hope they find him, but I doubt it. They think his initials are in some cave or that. And that girl, that Jessica Lynch, we'll find out her story sometime, the truth.

03:31:30.880 - 03:31:42.400

They showed a picture of her, it was so cute. She looked so cute, she looked just like a teenager. She was a teenager. She just had a birthday, she was 20, and she's been through all of this mess.

03:31:43.420 - 03:32:01.120

And you know that man, that Iraqi that was hitting her and that? He probably already had assaulted her. She had both legs broken and her back. And the people that were in there, the bodies, the people that she was in the hospital there

03:32:01.260 - 03:32:15.980

with in that room, they were all dead. So they had left her there for her to die too. Let me ask you this one last question. Alright.

03:32:16.420 - 03:32:43.500

If you could say something to children, 50 and future generations, that might inspire or motivate or encourage them, what would you like to say to them? I would like to say whatever your dream is, no matter what your position in life is, go for it. Go for it. Keep at it. Don't take no for an answer. Go for it.

03:32:44.420 - 03:33:04.880

Not anything bad though. Not drugs and that. So many people are on drugs and that. We'll never solve the drug problem until we stop people in Washington from being on drugs. Because I've heard a couple people, one was from the CIA, and one was, you know, and he said,

03:33:05.640 - 03:33:27.000

"There's some people in high places that are taking drugs right in Washington." And I said, "Well then, how can we stop it?" And all the money that we have spent, and we've lost airplanes and that too, but you see. And even if we legalized it, that wouldn't solve the problem.

03:33:27.740 - 03:33:53.400

How do you legalize something that's not so good? That's like the senator the other day that spoke. Did you hear him speak at Santorium? "The truth shall set you free, and I know no matter what." Absolutely. Is there anything that I have left out that you would like to talk about?

03:33:55.520 - 03:34:05.140

I bet you're tired of... This has been wonderful. I have one last question, Mary Ann. Whose bed did you make?

03:34:06.510 - 03:34:12.820

In training? Whose what? Whose bed did you make? Oh, I won't tell you.

03:34:12.900 - 03:34:43.660

Oh, no. You got the recorder on? I don't want to tell because she's since passed away and she was a very dear friend. I would not ever deceive her. But the other gals in the bay knew too. They'd say, "What are you doing that for her for?" And I said, "Do you want demerits?" And because one person would make everybody in that whole bay get demerits? No. So I made the bed. Big deal.

03:34:44.600 - 03:34:58.460

How kind. It's a good thing I knew how to do it. I had been making beds a long time. I want to tell you this has absolutely been a joy. You sure though? Oh, absolutely.

03:34:59.240 - 03:35:28.480

Would you folks, I didn't even offer you coffee or a donut or anything. And some relatives of theirs had gone up to Canada and one was a banker, one became a banker and one became another authority of some kind. Anyway, while one guy was away, the other one signed his name for him while he was away

03:35:28.700 - 03:35:47.720

at the bank. brother signed his name and he said, "Oh, you'll never do that again because I'm taking the mack up." And that was Scotch, oh yeah, that was his Scotch temper. Yeah, that was his Scotch temper. I wish I had the picture, I don't have it handy, of

03:35:47.780 - 03:36:14.740

my grandson, not my grandson, my son wearing his great-grandfather's Scotch kilt. And it was the real thing from Scotland. And all except the socks. And I said, "Well, Grandma, let's find a..." I called her Grandma because she was much older than my mother-in-law. And I said, "Grandma, we got to find some socks to put on him to make him look like he's really

03:36:14.940 - 03:36:47.380

in the kilt." And as soon as we put that kilt on him, and he was walking, and I said, "You cannot deny a guy walking because boys and girls walk different. And David looked so funny walking around with that kilt on. But we found some socks that fit him, but I took pictures of him and he looked like a real Scotch kid.

03:36:49.600 - 03:37:08.620

What a nice young man to come home to be with you when you haven't been doing his work. That tells me how he was brought up. Not every guy, and he got plenty of discipline at home, too. But he was in the Air Force, didn't you say?

03:37:08.620 - 03:37:16.760

He was in the Air Force, yeah. He was in Germany? He was in Germany. He was a radar intercept operator. That was during the Vietnam War, wasn't it?

03:37:16.860 - 03:37:24.800

During the Vietnam War, yes. You have a friend that was stationed in Germany. That was a tough place to be during the Vietnam War. Yes, yes.

03:37:25.280 - 03:37:31.920

Not only that, but you see, didn't, they had an alert over there.