00:00:00.900 - 00:00:15.580

Oh my goodness. And I'd forgotten what scripture I found, but I found a scripture that would fit. And when she came downstairs for breakfast, I read this scripture to her. And then I said, "Teresa, the paper."

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"You're in the paper." I gave it to her, and she said, "What's this?" She said, "I told you guys." In Austell. Actually, he was born at Quitman.

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I don't know where either one of them are. She's trying to make us quit. Kelly: You're having way too much fun. Okay, I'm ready.

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Hi, I'm Deanie Parrish, and we're in the home of Marion Hodgson in Wichita Falls, Texas. Today is the 5th of April, 2000. Wow.

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Stegman-Hodgson I'm Marion Stegman-Hodgson, and I was born December the 16th, 1921. I hate it that I have to tell that. >> You can just look at her, Mary Ann.

00:01:02.280 - 00:01:15.600

Just pretend I'm not here. >> All right. And I was the third child of Dorothea Washburn Stegman and Herman James Stegman, my parents. My brother and sister were three years older than I was.

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I am. And they are twins. And my brother, do you want to know the background of my brother? He was a doctor and a writer and a historian.

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And my sister is, well, I don't know, she's just full of good works. She isn't anything in particular, but she writes lots of letters to the editor and does lots of things for education in the South. And we lived in a little house on Springdale Street in Athens, Georgia.

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That's my earliest memory. And then we moved into a great big barn of a house that I loved on Lumpkin Street in Athens, Georgia. And that house was always full of people.

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It was during the Depression, and all the professors had had their salaries slashed. My father was not a professor. He was a coach. He started out coaching football, baseball, basketball, and track at the University of

00:02:10.600 - 00:02:24.380

Georgia, all of them. And he put the university on the map as far as athletics were concerned. And I think at that point, when we moved into the big barn of the house, I think he was still coaching basketball and track.

00:02:25.040 - 00:02:42.360

He later became dean of men and director of athletics. But anyway, as I say, it was during the Depression and everybody had had their salaries slashed. So we rented out two upstairs rooms to college students, which was always exciting as we got older because it was usually men.

00:02:42.440 - 00:02:53.640

In fact, I think it was always men. My sister and I would always look over the crop every year to see if there was anything there for us. And sure enough, her husband came from that crop of borders -- not borders, they didn't

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eat with us, but renters. In fact, I remember when he arrived at our house, she saw him first, and she came and got me and said, "Marion Stegman, this one is mine." I saw him first.

00:03:09.880 - 00:03:21.960

So they were married for 55 years. He just recently died. Anyway, it was a house full of love. I had wonderful, loving parents, and my brother and I were very close.

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My sister and I fought like cats and dogs and didn't really become best friends until we were grown. But my sweet brother was just an angel to me all my life. He was three years older, as I said, and he would always look out for me.

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And I adored my sister and looked up to her, but we clashed frequently. In fact, the way we clashed physically, Mother always laughed at the way we fought. We would slam into each other and then beat each other on the back. We got mad.

00:03:53.400 - 00:04:05.720

And let's see, we played paper dolls a lot. Things were so simple in those days. We didn't have a lot of toys or anything, but we would cut out paper dolls and make our own costumes for the dolls.

00:04:07.320 - 00:04:23.780

And gosh, we'd take clothes pins and dress them up, those old wooden clothes pins, and dress them up like dolls and play by the hour. I had a bicycle that we bought at the Salvation Army for two dollars and painted it bright blue and I stayed on that most of my childhood.

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That or skates. I usually was reduced to one skate. There was always something wrong with one skate, but you can skate on one if you have to.

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And let me see. I started school when I was five and started first grade when I was five. And I was very bored in the second grade and the teacher said, "Look, I think this child is making poor grades because she's bored to death and we need to let her skip the third

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grade." And so my brother, who was three years older, let's see, I was then six or seven. What would it be? I started when I was five and I became six in December.

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So anyway, when I was seven, my brother taught me in one month the third grade. He would stand at the top of the stairs and ring a little bell every day, and I would run up the stairs and he'd have all my books and my homework laid out for me, and he would drill me on what he knew I would be examined for.

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He got me through the third grade that way so that in the fall, at age seven, I went into the fourth grade. So that put me in high school when I was eleven, and by the time I graduated from college I was only nineteen.

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So that made me a little bit different in that I was socially very immature, but didn't know it. You know, I thought I was just as big as anybody. And I was.

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I was pretty big, although I didn't do my growing until I was a senior in high school. Basketball was my whole life when I was a senior in high school, and I grew that year and made the first string. So that was an ambition realized.

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So instead of hating being tall, I loved it because I had made the basketball team. Then I went off to college, to junior college in Gulfport, Mississippi, Gulfport College, which is now extinct, on the Gulf of Mexico near Gulfport, Mississippi. That was a wonderful year.

00:06:16.460 - 00:06:33.660

In fact, I still dream that I'm back there because it was so beautiful and so much fun. We could take sailing and aquaplaning and get college credit for it, which I loved. And then I went back to Athens, Georgia and finished up college, my sophomore, junior, and senior years at the university.

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And it was during my senior year at the university that I was offered a chance to fly as a civilian pilot training--CPTP, Civilian Pilot Training Program trainee. And I wanted very much to do it, but since I was not yet twenty-one, I had to have my mother's written permission.

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And she burst into tears because she had lost her husband when I was a sophomore in college. And all the responsibility was on her, and she felt as if she was signing my life away. And she cried and said, "I feel like I'm signing your death warrant." And actually, she wouldn't sign it.

00:07:09.880 - 00:07:25.320

So there was an old friend, family friend in Athens named Ned Hodson, who was flying for the airlines at that point. This was just before World War II. It was in 1941, in May of '41, when I finally got to fly.

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But Ned was an airline pilot, and his brother was a pilot in the Air Corps, and he was off flying somewhere for maybe he was with United Airlines by then. But anyway, Ned was with Eastern Airlines, and he was home for the weekend, and he brought his mother and his dad over to see us to talk to mother and to tell her how safe flying

00:07:46.580 - 00:07:59.600

was if you got good training, not knowing Ned was going to crash and be in the hospital for a year and a half later. So they convinced her that it was safe, and she signed my death warrant, as she called it, tearfully.

00:07:59.960 - 00:08:15.960

But she did give permission for me to learn to fly. So I got five hours college credit for taking the CPT course, and for the ground school part, and my private license, all at no expense to me except insurance. We had to pay, I think it was $21 for our insurance.

00:08:16.520 - 00:08:23.160

That was big money in those days. In fact, it was--. EC: Yes, were there other girls? VD: There were five of us in all.

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I think they were allowed to take one girl for every ten men. They were men and we were girls. That terminology carried throughout the Air Corps days. So I went to work.

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It was really hard to get a job in those days. I had a degree in journalism. >> Tell me about the airplanes you flew. >> They were Cubs.

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Is it J3F or 3JF? J3F, okay. A little yellow Cub. I was a terrible pilot.

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I never could land the thing. I would always come in too fast because I was afraid of stalling out, and then I would bounce and start to take off again. It was terrible.

00:09:00.780 - 00:09:10.880

I don't know how I ever got my license. Anyway, I went to work. I couldn't get a job. I had a degree in journalism.

00:09:10.900 - 00:09:24.560

and nobody was hiring reporters at that point, especially not women, girls. And so I bought a, in fact I think I rented for $2 a month a typewriter.

00:09:25.440 - 00:09:35.480

And I put adhesive tape on the keys and I bought a secondhand typing book and taught myself the touch system. And then I bought a shorthand, secondhand shorthand book

00:09:35.480 - 00:09:49.620

and taught myself what I call shorthand. It was really the first speed writing I think anybody ever did, but I got a job as a stenographer. And I think I made $81 a month, which was pretty good pay.

00:09:49.780 - 00:10:05.940

No, I think it was in the '70s. I got raised to 81, but that's what I lived on. I moved into a room in a, not a boarding house, but a woman's house in Atlanta and shared the room with one of my sorority sisters, who was also a working girl.

00:10:06.840 - 00:10:25.820

I stayed there in Atlanta for about a year, working as a stenographer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. And then I fled to Chicago to get away from my man and went to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in the War Department office, the liaison office there, because World War

00:10:25.940 - 00:10:41.720

II had broken out, of course, in December of 1941. So after a year in Atlanta at the Fed, I went to Chicago and worked at the Fed there. And that's when I first heard from Jacqueline Cochran about joining the WASPs. Is there anything about my childhood or growing up?

00:10:41.750 - 00:10:52.480

>> No, did you keep flying? >> Oh, no. Now, who could afford it in those days? In fact, I wanted to join the CAP because they did patrol work out in the Atlantic and

00:10:52.580 - 00:11:05.620

were really helping the war effort. But you had to either have your own plane or give your time free, and I had to support myself, so there wasn't any way I could fly for the CAP. >> Do you know where your love for journalism came from?

00:11:05.970 - 00:11:15.060

>> Well, it's in my family. It's in the genes, I think. My grandmother was quite a famous writer in her day. Mother had the talent.

00:11:15.160 - 00:11:23.900

She never used it. Who else? My uncle and aunt were always visiting us on one of their trips. They would travel around the world and write books about it.

00:11:23.960 - 00:11:32.080

I always thought, "Oh, how wonderful. That's what I want to be when I grow up." I always wanted to be a writer. I didn't have much native ability.

00:11:32.220 - 00:11:46.860

I had to just sort of learn the craft the hard way and practice and learn. I still go to school and take short courses and things about how to write. You'd think I'd know by now, but I don't. EC: Okay, now you're in Chicago.

00:11:48.670 - 00:12:02.460

You get a letter from Jacqueline Cochran. How did you find out about her? VD: I can't remember if it was a letter or a telegram. I've gone through all my old boxes of things to try to find some record of it, and I can't

00:12:02.620 - 00:12:14.860

remember. I think maybe it was a letter, probably a mimeograph. >> Do you know how she found out? >> Yes, I understand that she got names of all the licensed women pilots and got in touch

00:12:14.940 - 00:12:25.940

with us that way. The old CAA, the forerunner of the FAA, had records of everybody, of course, that had a license. I think that's where she got her names of people to contact.

00:12:26.480 - 00:12:40.680

>> And that was your first knowledge about her trying to-- >> Well, I had--yes, my first knowledge of her trying to get people to train, I had read about Nancy Love, and in fact, I think she had written me, too. But I didn't have near enough hours.

00:12:40.840 - 00:12:58.020

I think she was requiring several hundred hours at that point for people to join the WEFs, the Forerunner of the WASPs. I only had fifty-five hours in a cub, so of course I came nowhere near qualifying. And then when Jacqueline Cochran first contacted me, I didn't have enough hours for her either.

00:12:58.160 - 00:13:13.380

I forget how many she required, but it was a lot more than fifty-five. And finally she came down to my level, and when she got there, that's when I signed up. So I joined when I was in Chicago. >> When you first got that letter, were you interested?

00:13:13.840 - 00:13:26.320

>> Yes, I would have done anything to get out of Chicago. They were having one of the coldest winters on record, and there I was right out of Georgia, missing my grits and freezing to death. And I hated it.

00:13:26.720 - 00:13:40.820

People in those days were very rude in Chicago. It's not at all like that now. But everybody was pushing and shoving and rude, and nobody had time to be polite, it seemed like, if you were riding the bus to work, which I was every day.

00:13:41.480 - 00:13:51.880

And I just hated it, so I would have done anything to get out of Chicago. So yes, I was interested. I wanted to help. I was helping the war effort, I felt, working for the War Department, but it wasn't enough

00:13:51.900 - 00:14:03.420

action for me. I wanted action. >> I was going to ask you what you felt the mood of the country was at that point. >> Well, the mood of the country at that point was united, totally united.

00:14:03.600 - 00:14:21.520

We all were patriotic, and we all wanted to serve our country in some way. People just were beating the doors down, signing up to be in the service, men and, of course, a lot of women, too. We were pulling together in a way that I've never seen since then, and probably will never

00:14:21.560 - 00:14:34.080

see again. >> Then once you got the letter, then what happened? >> Once I got the letter, I was very interested and kept waiting for them to lower the requirements so I could sign up.

00:14:34.140 - 00:14:43.720

As soon as they lowered it enough, I went down and took my physical at the Palmer House in Chicago. I was in. They got me to Sweetwater real quick.

00:14:44.600 - 00:14:58.500

>> Were you interviewed? >> I was interviewed by Ethel Sheehy, who was Jacqueline Cochran's right arm. She's now dead, too. >> When she came to Chicago to interview you, were there other girls?

00:14:58.800 - 00:15:09.180

>> Shirley Slade was there at the same time. I remember her. She was sort of a Rosie the Riveter. She had on that beautiful ring that I was showing you a minute ago.

00:15:10.260 - 00:15:20.620

I remember thinking, "Oh, that's a stuck-up society girl there." She was thinking the same thing about me. She said, "Oh, that's a snooty girl over there." We became best friends.

00:15:21.420 - 00:15:40.680

But she's the one that stood out that I remember from the interview, and also the physical. Kelly: Then once you had the physical, what did you do? Buckingham: Well, I got the orders right away to report to Houston. I went to Georgia to tell my family goodbye and got a telegram in Georgia changing my

00:15:40.720 - 00:15:50.020

orders to Sweetwater. I was terribly disappointed. I wanted to go to Houston, and I had never heard of Sweetwater. But it turns out it was wonderful to be in Sweetwater.

00:15:50.220 - 00:16:01.880

I would much rather be there. Kelly: What were your mother's feelings? McClendon: Mother's feeling was, "There goes my baby child." She was pretty tearful about it all.

00:16:07.160 - 00:16:17.160

You need to stop. No, I'm fine. Okay. Then when you came home, then how did you get from Athens to Houston?

00:16:18.580 - 00:16:34.440

Well, by then it had been changed to Sweetwater by a day coach, a very crowded day coach. And what were your expectations? I didn't know what on earth. Nobody had ever heard of Sweetwater.

00:16:34.540 - 00:16:46.820

Nobody knew how to prepare me for it. It looked like it was out in the middle of nowhere. You know how it is when you ride across the terrain in Texas. You go for miles and miles and miles and you don't see anything except maybe sagebrush

00:16:46.980 - 00:16:58.380

and sand. West Texas was really bare in those days, barren. They planted a lot of trees and they have man-made lakes and things now. It was the wilderness then.

00:16:59.720 - 00:17:11.900

But I was so excited. It looked like the most exciting place on earth to me. EC: Did you meet other girls on the train who were also going? VD: I can't remember too much about that train trip, but I know I did meet some other

00:17:11.940 - 00:17:21.880

ones. I remember thinking, "Boy, we're a motley crew." We had a little bit of everything. EC: And when you got to Sweetwater, what happened?

00:17:22.440 - 00:17:32.360

Did you know Shirley was going to be there? VD: Let's see. No, I didn't know she was going to be there. I didn't see her until later when we turned out to be roommates.

00:17:33.120 - 00:17:55.080

Sandy, our mutual friend later, is the one who got Shirley to say she would room with her, and then she got me to say I'd room with her, and then she got us together. And so Shirley and I kind of looked at each other like, "Oh, do we have to do this?" But when we got to Sweetwater, we had to go to the Blue Bonnet Hotel and wait until the

00:17:55.240 - 00:18:10.480

next morning for the cattle wagon to come pick us up. The cattle wagon was a truck pulling a big kind of trailer that actually I think they used to haul cattle in. But they had put little wooden seats along the sides for us to sit on, and that was the

00:18:10.480 - 00:18:25.620

way we were transported to and from wherever. Our auxiliary fields or the swimming pool, if they were going to let us go swimming downtown or wherever we were going, we went in the cattle wagon. Kelly: Tell us about the mixture of girls at the Blue Bonnet.

00:18:26.600 - 00:18:39.420

Well, there was a schoolteacher. I'll tell you about the ones that I wound up in the room with. One was a schoolteacher. That was Sandy, who turned out to be one of my very dearest friends, and Shirley, who

00:18:39.520 - 00:18:57.820

had been from this wealthy family in Chicago and had done her bit for the war effort as a sort of Rosie the Riveter. And Birdie, who later dropped out to marry her lieutenant colonel who was going overseas. She just went all the way through primary.

00:18:58.520 - 00:19:12.700

I think Birdie was a businesswoman. I can't remember in exactly what capacity. Women didn't get paid nearly as much as the men in those days, so no matter what her job was, she was pretty low on the pay scale.

00:19:14.820 - 00:19:37.320

Hattie had been a schoolteacher, and Jill had been a link trainer instructor. Is that seven? See, Shirley, Sandy, Hattie, Jill, Bertie, somebody else. Oh, Jane Chapman, who washed out, was just a precious gal and full of fun.

00:19:37.900 - 00:19:51.980

She was thirty-six years old, so we thought she was an old lady. She had a twelve-year-old daughter that her husband and her sister were taking care of in her absence. She washed out after primary and just broke everybody's heart.

00:19:52.240 - 00:20:04.660

But she at least had a husband and a child to go back to. A lot of the gals who washed out didn't have anything to go back to. Their lives, they felt like were over. EC: Take us from when you got on the cattle truck.

00:20:05.630 - 00:20:18.460

Where did you go? VD: We went to sweep to the administration building on the base. Well, first we had to go through a gate where there was a guard wearing a gun. And I realized then, this is for real.

00:20:19.800 - 00:20:35.580

This place is posted, and we have to clear the security before we can go in." So I realized there was a war on. So we went winding around this Caliche Road up to the administration building, where a flag was flapping in the breeze.

00:20:37.320 - 00:20:59.040

I can't remember if anybody was waiting for us or not, but we marched into the building where we were fingerprinted and photographed and given our IDs. And then we had to stand in line and wait, stand in line and wait to be issued our sheets and towels and two zoot suits that we were going to live in all day, every day.

00:20:59.540 - 00:21:16.100

They were coveralls made for men. And of course, they didn't fit most of us, and people had to wrap the belts around their waist twice to fit inside the zoot suit and roll up. Most of the ones who weren't as tall as I was had to roll up the pant legs and the sleeves.

00:21:16.980 - 00:21:32.560

It didn't look very military, for sure, but that was all we had that we were issued. Of course, we went to town and bought a pair of tan slacks and a white shirt to wear as our Sunday uniform when we would march on Sunday. EC: Did you take the oath?

00:21:32.560 - 00:21:46.300

FL: In an overseas camp. Yes, we had to take an oath, but I can't remember what it was. EC: Once you were in this administration building, then how did you find out who you were going to have as buildings?

00:21:46.700 - 00:21:59.740

We all had all these forms to fill out, forms, forms, forms, and we were all sprawled around on the floor in the recreation hall. And Sandy came up to me and said, "Scarlett, we can choose our roommates." Well, she wasn't calling me Scarlett then.

00:22:00.340 - 00:22:09.940

She gave me that name later. "Marion, we can choose our roommates, and I choose you. Would you room with me?" And I said, "Sure, I'd love to," because she was the only one that I really had met at that

00:22:10.020 - 00:22:20.440

point. And then when we -- she said, "Well, I've asked some other people, too," and Shirley She was one of the other people, and that's when I--. I guess I met them right then in the administration room.

00:22:20.960 - 00:22:35.320

That's when Shirley and I were sort of looking at each other over again, not thinking we were going to be friends at all, which is such a joke, because we just hit it off perfectly almost from the beginning. I found out she was lots of fun and not a bit snooty or stuck up.

00:22:36.760 - 00:22:51.420

She was a rascal, in fact. What were your expectations as far as military? Well, I'm different from most people. I was not told that we were going in the military, and I didn't expect to go in the military.

00:22:54.660 - 00:23:14.020

Nobody said anything about that to me. Once you got your linens and things, then where did you go? We were assigned our bays, rooms, and ours was D5, barracks D5, room 5. We went to the room and picked out which cots we were going to have.

00:23:14.060 - 00:23:30.440

I think we flipped a coin so that there wouldn't be any favoritism. And made up our cots and tried to figure out how we were going to get all our clothes in that little tiny locker. I remember the mirror, I had to bend way over to be able to see in the mirror on the back

00:23:30.480 - 00:23:42.500

of the locker door. And we were allowed a foot locker at the foot of our bed, and then we had to store our suitcases underneath the bed. So there really was very little room for all of our worldly belongings.

00:23:44.020 - 00:24:00.220

And that room, there were seven of us crammed in that room. And there was another room with six in it, and we had to share a bathroom, a latrine as the Army called it. And we had to make out a tight schedule, because in the morning we just had a few minutes to

00:24:00.140 - 00:24:14.140

get dressed and brush our teeth and do what we had to do and fall in for a mess formation. So we had to make out this tight schedule of, I think we each got two minutes in there to brush our teeth and do our thing. And that was pretty hectic.

00:24:14.760 - 00:24:27.320

But we really adhered to that schedule, except for dire emergencies. And that way, we could all share the same bathroom and still make it to formation on time. Kelly: What were these barracks like?

00:24:27.320 - 00:24:47.820

They were one board thick and facing so that they could not catch the prevailing breeze. So it was very, very hot in the summertime, much hotter inside than it was out. So we learned to drag our cots outside between the barracks and anchor our sheets down, because there was nearly always a breeze outside.

00:24:48.100 - 00:25:04.880

If the barracks had been faced the right way, we could have opened our windows and gotten some breeze through there at night, but they weren't facing the right way. So they were just still stifling air inside when it was hot. We had a little pot-bellied stove for wintertime.

00:25:06.140 - 00:25:16.360

And when we first got to Sweetwater, there were still cadets there, which made it very interesting. Their barracks were right next door to our barracks, and there were no shades on the window.

00:25:17.300 - 00:25:37.320

And if you stood up at night in a state of undress, came in through the window. So we had to learn how to duck down and walk around all crouched over like Groucho Marx. And the CO got wind of this and found out that there were no shades on the windows. Of course, he knew that.

00:25:37.400 - 00:25:51.820

But he had the windows painted black, thinking that would solve the problem. Well, we had to open the windows to get some ventilation, so the problem never went away as long as the cadets were there. But we only overlapped by about two weeks, and that was kind of fun.

00:25:53.980 - 00:26:09.380

I remember marching past the rec hall when the boys were pressed up against the screen watching us march past. Somebody had on some very exotic perfume, and one of the boys went, "They'll never be a government issue."

00:26:10.460 - 00:26:27.000

So we were women. Kelly: When you arrived, what kind of airplanes were on the tarmac? The primary trainers were the first things we saw, and they looked like the biggest bomber I had ever seen compared to a cub.

00:26:27.440 - 00:26:33.660

They were open cockpit, two-seater, tandem style. Tandem? Is that front and back? Yeah.

00:26:34.880 - 00:26:48.640

And a monowing plane, and sleek and silver and beautiful. And they looked huge to me. Those were the ones I remember seeing. I'm sure they had some BTs and later on ATs, but I didn't see them then.

00:26:49.480 - 00:27:07.940

Kelly: Go through a date for us. McClendon: Well, first of all, the bugle would sound, and Nell Carmody was our buglist. She had played—in fact, she had her own band, I believe. She could jazz up anything, and she jazzed up "Reveille" like you wouldn't believe.

00:27:08.380 - 00:27:21.860

Almost made it a pleasure to get out of bed. The first thing I would hear when I woke up in the morning was those airplanes being warmed up outside on the flight line. To this day, it gives me chills to remember what a thrill that was to hear those big,

00:27:22.140 - 00:27:42.080

powerful engines warming up. There was an air of mystery about it and excitement that I can hardly describe. So then the rush began, and we would look at the schedule to see at what minute we could go into the bathroom, and we'd comb our hair and splash on some lipstick real quick, and

00:27:42.240 - 00:27:58.120

jump into our zoot suits. That's what we called our coveralls, zoot suits, and run outside and line up. And then we would go to the mess hall and eat off of tin trays, and we sat on wooden benches at long tables.

00:27:59.120 - 00:28:13.240

And actually, I thought the food was good. I was always surprised that the food was as good as it was. We ate a lot of French toast, because of course eggs were in short supply then. I think they were rationed, along with meat and sugar and all kinds of things.

00:28:13.480 - 00:28:31.940

Shoes, we only got two pairs of shoes all year. Those wore out real quickly when you were marching. So we would eat our French toast for breakfast, and then march back to our barracks and gather up our books and things if we were going to go to ground school that morning.

00:28:32.960 - 00:28:47.380

One flight, we were divided into two flights. One flight would fly in the morning and go to ground school in the afternoon, and it would be reversed for the other flight. So assuming that I was to go to ground school in the morning, I'd get all my books together

00:28:47.460 - 00:29:07.820

and then line up for ground school, and then sit through these interminable lessons, some of which I didn't understand, especially when we got to aircraft engines. I never could have passed any of that without Sandy. I was not good at math, and Sandy would always drill me at night and help me with my homework.

00:29:08.420 - 00:29:22.560

We had lots of homework. We had a table in the middle of the room in between the cots that we all sat at to do our homework. And let me see, after that, then we would go to lunch, lunch formation.

00:29:22.820 - 00:29:40.440

I can't remember what we would have for lunch, but I always thought the food was good, and I was always starving. After lunch, I think we would have physical training, which we called physical torture. And of course, all the exercises and things were made for men and not for women, so they

00:29:41.000 - 00:29:55.380

gave us no quarter. And then, well, then the physical training must have been in the morning, if I had ground school in the morning. And then we flew all afternoon, but we didn't actually fly.

00:29:55.520 - 00:30:12.020

We would sit around and wait for our turn to fly. And we were issued one parachute for every five girls, so they lined up the girls according to size and gave five of us the same instructor so that we could share the same parachute without having to adjust it every time.

00:30:14.540 - 00:30:36.200

We looked over the instructors very carefully, and they were looking us over very carefully. We were not allowed to date the instructors, we were told, but a lot of us did. Sub Rosa. And let me see, we would fly and we would wait, and we would fly and we would wait.

00:30:37.580 - 00:30:53.300

And I can't remember. I guess we would probably study some of our ground school lessons while we were waiting. I can't really remember, but we would write letters home and have a bull session with the gals that were sitting around waiting also while we were waiting for our turn to

00:30:53.340 - 00:31:07.640

fly. Kelly: When you arrived at Avenger, were there other trainees already there? Michelle: Yes, there were. And I'll never forget the first time I saw them marching across the Kalichi, the hard-packed

00:31:07.700 - 00:31:28.240

ground, in unison, going "Hup, two, three, four," and all in perfect step. And then they started singing a song, and they just looked so wonderful to me. They were all sunburned and looked so capable and self-assured. I thought, "Oh, these upperclassmen, aren't they wonderful?"

00:31:28.240 - 00:31:40.120

But that night, I didn't think they were so wonderful. Our first night there, they came in to sort of do a little genteel hazing, only it wasn't too genteel. A couple of tomboyish types really gave us a hard time.

00:31:42.140 - 00:31:56.880

After they had left us, they'd have us do all kinds of standard attention and do all all kinds of stupid things. After they left our room, a very nice young upperclassman came in and said, "I just want you to know we're not all like that."

00:31:57.740 - 00:32:09.420

She explained to us what we could expect and answered all our questions about the kind of planes we would fly and so on. Two weeks later, she was killed. That was my first shock at Sweetwater.

00:32:13.100 - 00:32:19.280

Kelly: That's the end of the story. Good girl. Oh wow. - Oh that's great.

00:32:19.300 - 00:32:25.200

- How do you feel? (beeping) - I tell about my two classmates that were killed with their instructor.

00:32:28.080 - 00:32:45.680

(beeping) - Art that she did that book. You know we wouldn't be able to look up and say. I don't know any time anybody tells me

00:32:45.680 - 00:32:52.340

I know so and so, she was a wasp. I look it up. I'm sorry. - Although Bert's book was full of errors.

00:32:52.440 - 00:33:00.100

- Oh yeah, true. - They corrected a lot of them. - Well that's why Nancy will never tell one. You wouldn't tell this lady, you really weren't.

00:33:00.260 - 00:33:08.160

- Yeah. - Oh no, I would do that anyway. - Let's take the first time to go up in the airplane, your first time solo, the auxiliary fields.

00:33:08.500 - 00:33:15.140

- Yeah, okay. - Tell us about those, okay. And get through primary and then tell us about We got plenty of time.

00:33:20.220 - 00:33:28.960

What month are we in? We need some more sweet water. Kelly: Well, we're March of '43. How many classmates do you remember?

00:33:29.200 - 00:33:48.880

Kelly: I think there were about 135 of us, something like that. I'd have to look in the book to be sure. My first instructor was named Bill Wade, and he was a cutie pie. He was very bashful and attractive, and I remember that we sort of rattled him.

00:33:49.320 - 00:34:03.880

Having all these big women, we were all the same size because we had to share a parachute, as I said. He took me up and rung me out in that airplane. That was the first time—no, it really wasn't the first time I had done acrobatics, because

00:34:03.800 - 00:34:21.800

I had a boyfriend in Atlanta that used to hang me upside down all the time. So I had done that before, but he did spins and stalls and wing overs and everything but a loop. I never got to loop an airplane, and all the WASPs that I read about did loops with their

00:34:21.820 - 00:34:35.920

instructors, and for some reason I never did. I'll have to write Bill Wade and find out how come we never got to do a loop. But we did everything else. I remember when he hung me upside down, all the dust and sand and everything in the bottom

00:34:35.920 - 00:34:45.760

of the airplane came and got in my face. It seemed as if the safety belt gave at least that much so that I was just hanging like this. It scared me to death.

00:34:46.460 - 00:35:00.560

But by the time I got down safely, I knew I was hooked. And then from then on, he was very patient and a wonderful instructor. He didn't cuss like some of them did and didn't bawl me out like a lot of them did. I just loved him.

00:35:00.890 - 00:35:11.380

He was a good instructor. And I'm trying to think, what was the other thing you asked me to tell about? Washout? Well, that was at the end of—

00:35:11.380 - 00:35:25.380

Kelly: Yeah, and about the Army personnel who were on the base. Michelle: Oh, well, the Army personnel who were on the base. There was one called Lieutenant Garin that we all just loved. He taught us to march, to drill, and he was just a darling.

00:35:25.840 - 00:35:38.800

We were all in love with Lieutenant Garin. And later, he committed suicide, which was so sad to hear about. He jumped out of a building. I can't remember if it was—surely there wouldn't be one tall enough in Sweetwater

00:35:38.880 - 00:35:53.660

for him to have jumped out of. I don't know where it was. But he was real nice and very helpful to us and patient. Contrary to the way the Army check pilots were, they were a holy terror.

00:35:54.880 - 00:36:08.640

And there's one who lives in Fort Worth now that goes to the church that I belonged to when I lived in Fort Worth. And I really got even with him. I would introduce him to people as the meanest SOB that ever lived.

00:36:09.780 - 00:36:20.700

He was so hateful. I think he hated women pilots. I think he still does, although he's friendly enough to me now. In fact, we used to go out to breakfast after church sometimes with him and his wife.

00:36:21.760 - 00:36:38.060

And anyway, he gave us a really hard time. He didn't think women belonged in the cockpit, and he let it be very obvious. And it was hard to get past him, although I did pass his checkride. But I didn't know until the things were posted on the blackboard that I had passed, because

00:36:38.100 - 00:36:49.720

he wouldn't tell you when he got through how you had done. EC: Tell us about your solo. MI: My solo? I can't remember too much about it, except that it was such an unreal feeling.

00:36:50.520 - 00:37:03.640

I didn't feel like I had control. I knew I did, but I didn't feel like I did. And there were all these other planes in the sky. That's the thing I remember the most, was planes on my right and on my left and above

00:37:03.660 - 00:37:09.360

and below me. It was a zoo out there. It's a wonder we all survived. Some of us didn't.

00:37:09.820 - 00:37:20.760

Kelly: How about the auxiliary fields? Mildred: We had auxiliary fields that we flew from when the field at Sweetwater was getting too crowded. I never could spot them from the air.

00:37:20.900 - 00:37:31.860

I would just have to find where the airplanes were circling around and then go to that place. But all the fields looked alike to me. I never could find Easter eggs either when I was a little girl. I would go on an Easter egg hunt.

00:37:32.880 - 00:37:47.620

So when I would be sent to, say, Auxiliary Field Number 2, I would have to wait until I saw a lot of planes circling around, and then I would know that's where it was. I could see it when I got right on top of it, but I never could pick one out. There's nothing distinctive about it.

00:37:49.420 - 00:38:05.760

So we would practice from the auxiliary field. We would take off and land there, and then go out and practice in our zone where we were sent to practice. EC: During primary, did any of your baymates wash out?

00:38:06.020 - 00:38:27.680

FL: Not during primary, but at the end of primary, when we had just started basic. My roommate, Jane Chapman, the one who was 36 and had a 12-year-old daughter, we didn't know she was having trouble, although she always talked defeatist. In fact, we used to tell her we had a little kitty where if we cussed, we had to put a

00:38:27.680 - 00:38:44.100

nickel or a dime in the kitty, and we were going to spend that for a party at the end of primary or basic or whatever stage we were at. We would finally make her put a dime in every time she said something negative or defeatist. So she did always have that attitude that she wasn't going to make it, and yet she

00:38:44.220 - 00:38:56.740

seemed to be a really good pilot. So we thought all her trouble was in her attitude. But she did wash out, and it was a great shock and surprise to all of us. We cried for days because we just adored her.

00:38:58.020 - 00:39:14.020

We were grateful that she did have a husband and a daughter to go back to, but still it was a terrible loss for us. It just left a big hole in our bay because she was more fun than anybody. She had wonderful jokes and a terrific sense of humor, and just a great gal.

00:39:15.040 - 00:39:26.820

But she just couldn't fly the BT. It was just too much airplane for her, the Volte Vibrator, as we called it, the basic trainer, which was a Volte. I forget it.

00:39:27.160 - 00:39:38.580

The horse-- Kelly: You were finished primary before you went into basic. Mildred: That's when she washed out, when we went into basic. But when we finished primary and went into basic, you wanted to know what we did.

00:39:40.000 - 00:39:56.560

We had not been given any time off, and we were all exhausted and ready for a fling. And we were told we weren't going to have any time off between primary and basic. And so we mutinied. We just were furious, and I think we made such an uproar that it got all the way back

00:39:56.640 - 00:40:12.300

to Jacqueline Cochran. And the Army relented then and let us have from Thursday to Sunday. I remember one of the people, one of the workers in the mess hall said, "Lord God, they just announced these gals could get off and look at them."

00:40:12.300 - 00:40:28.540

We were bumping across the field, pulling our suitcases behind us ten minutes after it had been announced that we had opened post. We were headed for Dallas, and that was the big city. We just couldn't wait to leave Sweetwater behind and get to Dallas, so that's where

00:40:28.640 - 00:40:41.120

we went. We stayed at the Adolphus Hotel and all jammed into two rooms and just had a marvelous time. Kelly: How did you get to Adolphus? Rose: One of our roommates, Ruth Hegeman, was her maiden name.

00:40:41.120 - 00:40:51.760

I'm trying to think what her name is now. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. It's in the book. Her fiancé let her have his car, and so we all got into her car.

00:40:52.960 - 00:41:02.680

I think there were five of us. Jane had washed out and one person couldn't go. So there were five of us with all our stuff in her car. What a time we had.

00:41:03.820 - 00:41:14.740

Kelly: And then when you got back to--. Kelly: I want to know what they did. [Laughter] McClendon: Well, Shirley had a Navy lieutenant friend that we nicknamed "Bacchus," the

00:41:14.880 - 00:41:31.020

God of Wine. And he brought all these Navy lieutenants, who were also pilots, to see us at the Adolphus Hotel where we were. And so we partied half of the night, swapped flying stories and getting acquainted.

00:41:31.720 - 00:41:42.960

Believe it or not, nobody paired off, not even Shirley and Bacchus. So it was innocent enough, but it didn't look innocent. I'm sure the red--not redcaps, what do you call them? Kelly: Bellhops?

00:41:43.040 - 00:42:01.260

McClendon: Bellhops must have had eyebrows up in their hairline. But we were ready for a fling. We were tired and wanted to get away from it all, and we did. What was basic training all about?

00:42:01.380 - 00:42:19.080

Buckingham: Well, basic training was the "Voltee Vibrator," as we called it. And I think some of them were 400 horsepower and some of them were 450, but they were underpowered either way. And they did vibrate a lot, but they were awfully big and they had radios.

00:42:19.180 - 00:42:38.400

We had not been taught how to use radios until that point. And to me, that was the hardest thing of all. In basic training, two things came up, three things. Did we do night flying in basic?

00:42:38.510 - 00:42:43.540

I'm trying to remember. We did, didn't we? Kelly: I didn't, but I wasn't in your class. Mickens: Okay.

00:42:44.360 - 00:43:01.180

Well, we had the big plane, the big heavy plane that was going to prepare us for the AT-6, the advanced trainer that we all loved. And we had the radio work to learn, which was the hardest thing of all for me, to learn how to fly this new plane and work the radio at the same time.

00:43:01.980 - 00:43:07.440

And what was the third thing? Night flying. I think we had night flying in basic. I'm almost sure.

00:43:08.400 - 00:43:19.480

I'll have to read my book again and see. Oh, and instrument training. Yeah, we had to learn to get under the hood and fly by instruments. That was hard.

00:43:22.000 - 00:43:37.820

So basic training was the hardest, I think, of all, because suddenly you had this big, heavy airplane, and you had all these new gadgets to learn about and to learn how to work. Not only had to learn how to take it off and land it, but you had to work the radio when

00:43:37.840 - 00:43:49.180

you were coming into the traffic pattern to land. Then you had to learn how to fly it at night, and then you had to learn how to fly it blind under the hood. So basic was pretty tough.

00:43:49.780 - 00:43:56.620

>> Okay. Explain what "under the hood" means. >> "Under the hood." We would sit in what cockpit?

00:43:56.670 - 00:44:04.500

The front cockpit? >> Mm-hmm. >> And I can't remember what kind of a curtain we had there. >> The thing that pulled over the top.

00:44:04.500 - 00:44:19.120

>> Was it a hood sort of thing? And so we could see our instruments, but we couldn't see out. And the instructor would be sitting behind us, giving us maneuvers to perform by reference to the instruments only.

00:44:20.260 - 00:44:33.580

And that was really hard at first, too. Kelly: Do you remember how many hours flying time you had in each section? Beall: No, I have it written down in my logbook, which I can't find, but I can't remember exactly how many.

00:44:34.080 - 00:44:44.560

Kelly: Do you remember what the total time, flying time, and training? Beall: Wasn't it around 200 hours, something like that? Kelly: Okay. And kind of equally divided?

00:44:45.500 - 00:45:03.600

Beall: I think so. I would like to get my logbook and refresh my memory on that. Kelly: In basic training, were there any problems as far as check rides? Bulker: There was always problems as far as check rides were concerned.

00:45:05.900 - 00:45:21.560

There were always problems as far as check rides were concerned. It always hung over your head like the sword of Damocles. It was terrifying, and most of the Czech pilots were ugly. I know they weren't all that way, but the ones I had were.

00:45:23.540 - 00:45:42.440

It just destroyed your self-confidence, but you always were thinking ahead to a Czech ride and wondering how you would do. You had a civilian Czech ride first, and then you had routine spot Army Czech rides, unless you got in trouble with your civilian Czech rides, in which case you were given an Army

00:45:42.420 - 00:46:04.020

check ride, and if you flunked two Army check rides, you were out. Kelly: While you were there, do you remember the first graduation and what happened? Mickelson: I remember that we marched at the first graduation, and we were so proud. And WASPs could really march well, I thought.

00:46:04.840 - 00:46:22.720

They all seemed to have rhythm, and I don't know if women are better dancers than men or what, but I thought we marched extremely well. I just remember the band from Big Spring played, and it was so much fun to march with music. It was a bright, hot, sunshiny day.

00:46:23.560 - 00:46:36.400

Kelly: Did Miss Conway come in? McCormick: I don't think she was there for the first one that I was at. I don't believe she was. Kelly: What happened to those girls once they graduated?

00:46:36.820 - 00:46:50.380

They went to ferry bases. There were four different ferry bases, and they were assigned to one or the other. That was the only thing we did at first, that the graduates did. Then that changed with my class.

00:46:50.910 - 00:47:10.700

EC: Once you finished basic training and it moved on to advanced training, tell us about those airplanes and what you did in advanced. Advanced, we flew two different kinds of airplanes, the AT-6, the North American Texan, which was an absolute dream boat.

00:47:10.940 - 00:47:22.620

Everybody loved to fly that plane. Had a retractable landing gear, and the BT, the basic trainer, had really prepared us for that. So it was easy to fly the AT-6.

00:47:22.660 - 00:47:41.340

I just adored that plane. Then the other plane we flew was a twin-engine Cessna, which we had a lot of nicknames for, The flying boxcar, the double-breasted cub, the woodpecker's delight. Anyway, I didn't like that plane because it was hard to land for me like the Cub was.

00:47:42.120 - 00:48:00.420

We didn't have tricycle landing gears in those days. Trying to make a three-point landing in a plane that wanted to take off again and flew like a kite was hard for me. So I felt like that was my nemesis, was landing in a light plane.

00:48:00.880 - 00:48:12.980

It was so much easier in a heavy plane. But we did learn twin-engine procedure that way. And I remember at first it was so hard for me to learn how to taxi with engines instead of with rudder and brake.

00:48:14.680 - 00:48:34.080

And I went around and around in circles at first, trying to get the technique down. Then after a while, it was a snap. the landings. Finally, I ferried so many of them, I finally learned how to land one, sneaking and using a little bit of power. You know, we were taught power-off landings only. We

00:48:34.180 - 00:48:46.880

weren't supposed to use power on landings, but I found out with the twin-engine Cessna if I used a little power, I could land it pretty smoothly in the ferry command. So that was the way I got around my nemesis. EC: Tell us about cross-country.

00:48:47.570 - 00:49:00.980

VD: Well, I didn't really get to go on any cross-countries until I was in basic, and And then they sent me out solo over this long route. I was supposed to have been checked out with an instructor first, but something happened and I never was.

00:49:01.780 - 00:49:11.840

And I felt as if I was lost the whole way. I wasn't, but I always felt as if I was. And it was terrifying to me. Kelly: Where did you go?

00:49:12.180 - 00:49:34.640

I can remember things like Big Springs and Wichita Falls was one place. And gee, you'd think I'd never forget. Wichita Falls was the main thing I remember, and now here I am living here. Kelly: And then on a long cross country, where did you go?

00:49:34.640 - 00:49:45.900

Bell: We didn't have such long cross countries in training. I think you did, but we didn't. So when I got in the Ferry Command, that's when I took my first really long ones. I think ours were usually just two or three hundred miles.

00:49:47.180 - 00:50:14.500

Kelly: Tell us about your classmates who were killed. Mildred: When I was in advanced training, yeah, because they were in a Cessna, twin-engine Cessna, one night these two girls, Peggy Sipe and Joe Severson, and their instructor didn't back. All the planes were landing and their plane never showed up. And so everybody was

00:50:14.540 - 00:50:34.820

in turmoil about that. And they sent out scout planes to see if they could find them in trouble. They hoped they were down somewhere with the forced landing, but they couldn't find them anywhere. So we went to bed that night not knowing where they were or whether they were alive or dead. And I remember waking up early in the morning and seeing a huddled figure,

00:50:35.800 - 00:50:44.720

a huddled group of figures. At the end, we were sleeping outside. It was real hot. And we pulled our cots outside and were sleeping out there.

00:50:44.920 - 00:51:00.140

And at the end of the row of cots were these huddled figures whispering, and I knew then what it was. And sure enough, word filtered down throughout the whole post that they had crashed and very little remained of them.

00:51:01.080 - 00:51:19.720

And by breakfast formation, you could have heard a pin drop. We were just marching to the mess hall for breakfast, and it was tough. They were very popular, attractive, nice, good girls. Kelly: Do you know what happened to their lives?

00:51:19.930 - 00:51:38.640

McCormick: They've never ascertained what happened. There was talk of sabotage, but they never could prove it. But we did have several planes sabotaged where cables were cut and where rags were stuffed in the fuel system or where sugar was in the fuel system.

00:51:39.600 - 00:51:50.640

So there was sabotage. Kelly: For those bodies to go home? For their escorts? Burkett: When the bodies were to be sent home, there was no provision for that in the budget.

00:51:51.320 - 00:52:14.580

And we passed the hat and had to take up a collection to send the bodies home. And the escort would be a volunteer, usually a friend, who would sit up all night in the boxcar of a train with the casket of her classmate or her good friend. And of course in the summertime it was stifling hot, and in the winter it was freezing cold.

00:52:14.740 - 00:52:33.200

But there was always an escort that would take the casket home after we had passed the hat to raise the money for this. And then when they got the body home, the family could not display a gold star in the window. They could not put a flag over the casket, and there was no insurance. So, it

00:52:33.240 - 00:52:54.140

was -- the situation was pretty tough. People talk about it now and say, "You know, it was so unfair, and you were so discriminated against." But the funny thing was, this was the '40s, and we just felt so lucky to be given the chance to do something for our country that women had never been allowed to do before.

00:52:54.960 - 00:53:18.040

And the fact that we could fly these big, beautiful planes when women had never been able to fly those planes before, we just felt like we were the luckiest gals in the world. So the little discriminations we just overlooked. Kelly: When you finished Advanced, tell us about graduation and about assignment.

00:53:18.800 - 00:53:35.980

Well, graduation was wild. I'm not sure you want this. We had a wild and woolly party. They say the party that 43W4 gave the party for 43W5.

00:53:36.840 - 00:53:54.160

And we had our wings, and they couldn't touch us anymore, and so we just let it all hang out. And we were very naughty girls. And among other things, we dumped all our sleeping--not classmates, but the underclassmen--dumped

00:53:54.160 - 00:54:11.160

them out of their beds in the middle of the night, and we ran all over the post. And I had an establishment officer chase me up on the roof of one of the barracks. And I ran away from her. She never did catch me, but I think she knew who I was because I left my slippers stuck

00:54:11.160 - 00:54:23.760

and the latticework things that I had used as a ladder to get up on top of the barracks to run away from them. Anyway, I'm afraid there was a lot of hail raising that night. Of course, there were a lot of girls that didn't even drink, but I was one of the bad

00:54:23.840 - 00:54:36.800

ones and we were wild and woolly. I'll admit it. I'm sorry, but that's the way it was. We had been six long, hard months and we had worked our hearts out and we had flown night

00:54:36.860 - 00:54:51.000

and day and sometimes we didn't even get the weekends off. We had been through 108-degree weather and living under very spartan conditions, and we were just ready to let go, and we did. Kelly: Was graduation in the daytime?

00:54:51.300 - 00:55:03.660

Mickens: It was in the daytime, uh-huh. And a general--no, Jacqueline Cochran actually handed us our wings. There was a general there. I guess he handed us our diplomas, and Jacqueline Cochran handed us our wings.

00:55:04.200 - 00:55:13.260

Kelly: And the underclassmen marched? Mickens: They marched past General Bannon. Yes, we had a band. I'm sure it was the band from Big Spring again.

00:55:13.720 - 00:55:22.880

They always came to our rescue. EC: And how did you find out about your orders, where you were to go? MIXON: They posted them on some kind of bulletin board. I can't remember.

00:55:22.980 - 00:55:38.040

I can remember seeing it there and squealing with delight because Sandy and Shirley and I were all going to be together at Love Field. But I can't remember where the bulletin board was, but that was just the happiest day of my life when I saw our three names together at Love Field.

00:55:38.640 - 00:55:52.060

And then after we got to Love Field, they got further orders, ordering them to B-26 School in--where was it? Dodge City, Kansas, I guess. Is that where Dodge City is?

00:55:52.620 - 00:56:01.860

I think it is. And that was the saddest day of my life. I cried my eyes out. EC: When you got your orders, did you get some leave time?

00:56:01.930 - 00:56:14.000

FL: Yes, we had some leave time. And Sandy and Shirley and I actually got tickets on an airliner, and we all went to Chicago. where Shirley lived and Sandy lived in Peoria, so she had to fly to Chicago and then get to Peoria from there.

00:56:14.620 - 00:56:30.380

And my mother was up there visiting her brother in Winnetka, Illinois, so that's how we all got to go to the same place. And we got to sleep late and eat all the steak we wanted. Well, not all we wanted, but they had saved up their ration stamps for us, and so we got

00:56:30.520 - 00:56:47.540

all kinds of good things to eat that we hadn't had for six months. And as I said, we got to sleep late and just slop around. And by the end of about two days of that, we were ready to go back and fly those airplanes. Kelly: At this point, how did your mother feel?

00:56:48.100 - 00:56:55.320

Buckingham: Oh, she was pretty proud. She was very proud of me. And she was still scared. I think she stayed scared the whole time.

00:56:55.400 - 00:57:03.080

As a matter of fact, I did too. I was terrified a lot of the time. Kelly: At this point, did you have uniforms? Buckingham: No.

00:57:03.600 - 00:57:23.600

In the Ferry Command, the original WAFs had a uniform. Of course, they were all in the Ferry Command when we graduated. But we just wore the same pants and shirts that the men did, and the same insignia on our sleeve and wings on our chest, and wore just like the men's uniform.

00:57:24.300 - 00:57:42.200

And that's why we got stopped often by a military police, an MP, in order to show our identification, which we were glad enough to do and proud to do. But sometimes the MPs wouldn't believe us. And I had one military policeman be quite rude to me.

00:57:42.340 - 00:58:04.220

He came up to about here on me, but he had a billy gun and a.45, I guess it was. So he had authority, and I was very respectful to him. But when he wouldn't believe my ID, even after I explained to him what I was, I had just had enough, so I pulled myself up to my full height and I said, "Say, 'Sir,' when you

00:58:04.320 - 00:58:14.860

speak to me." And he said, "Yes, sir!" I saluted. Of course, he didn't have to salute because I was a civilian, but anyway, I called his

00:58:14.900 - 00:58:24.880

bluff. Three girls had to spend the night in the brig in America's Georgia for impersonating an officer. The CO came and got them out the next morning.

00:58:25.320 - 00:58:46.680

But since we were dressed just like the men, it was confusing, and nobody knew what we It had never been anything like us before, and hasn't been since, I might add. Kelly: When you got to Love Field, to whom did you report and tell us then what you did? Mickens: Well, I can't remember exactly where we checked in, but we had lots of forms

00:58:46.780 - 00:59:01.180

to fill out, as always, and lots of equipment to be issued. And it was a real thrill when we got that equipment, because we had our own private parachute with our name on it. We were issued B-4 bags, which to me are still the best suitcases ever made, except I wish

00:59:01.260 - 00:59:19.740

they had wheels on them. If somebody could make a fortune if they'd make a B-4 bag on wheels. And goggles and winter flying equipment, and even a watch. And I'm trying to think.

00:59:21.140 - 00:59:48.820

We had a long list of things that we were issued. wool-lined helmets, goggles, jacket, wool-lined pants. And then we had to buy our own slacks and shirts, like the men's. And then we wore sort of a trench coat that we had to buy ourselves on top.

00:59:49.750 - 01:00:00.600

Kelly: Do you remember to whom you reported? I can't remember who we reported to. Would it be the operations officer, or who would it be? I can't remember.

01:00:02.060 - 01:00:10.960

And then we were sent to the WASP squadron. We had a WASP squadron by then. Kelly: Did you have someone in charge of you in the WASP squadron? Mickelson: Uh-huh.

01:00:11.120 - 01:00:18.100

There was a CO, and it was Florine Miller. That was her maiden name. Florine Watson is her name now. And I just loved her.

01:00:18.200 - 01:00:32.820

She was an original WAF. And she was very fair-minded and friendly and warm and helpful. She was a great gal. So see, they had preceded us there, and they had things under control.

01:00:33.200 - 01:00:45.040

Kelly: Where did you live? We lived in barracks. T-11 was the name of my barracks. It was a big, wooden, two-story building, and the bathroom was downstairs, a communal

01:00:45.180 - 01:00:58.140

bath with no shower curtains, no privacy whatsoever. And still, you had to sleep on cots that were even worse than the cots we had at Sweetwater, you can imagine. And no furniture except the cots.

01:00:58.240 - 01:01:13.580

So I took two orange crates and got a piece of plyboard to go across the top and made a skirt around it for a dressing table. And there was a little sort of cabinet-like closet. And that was it.

01:01:13.900 - 01:01:29.240

I bought some material and swapped it around the window to make curtains and got a bright bedspread, but there wasn't too much you could do with that. But of course, the gals were in and out all the time, so you could be in an empty building sometimes.

01:01:29.620 - 01:01:48.540

And one time in the middle of the night, a man came in my room and scared me to death. I thought it was a mad rapist or something, and I was just ready to jump out the window. And then all of a sudden, when I was just frozen there in my cot waiting to see what He was standing in the door with his B-4 bag.

01:01:49.100 - 01:02:01.700

And then I saw him scratch his head and he said, "I could have sworn this was T-11." And he turned and walked off. Well, he had been overseas on a ferry trip, and he hadn't known that we had taken over the men's barracks, T-11, as it was called.

01:02:02.500 - 01:02:17.320

And so he was innocently returning to his old room, and there was a woman in his bed. So I never did see who he was, but he exited. EC: Did you have roommates? We had our own room there, which was heavenly.

01:02:17.710 - 01:02:34.600

Kelly: Do you remember the first assignment you had? Bell: I think the first assignment was in a stearman, which was a biplane trainer. You probably trained in those, didn't you? But see, we had never flown one before, so they were going to check me out in the stearman

01:02:34.660 - 01:02:51.500

that I was to take to the West Coast. And they gave me an Eighth Air Force pilot who had just returned from England and had B-17s, and they said, "He'll check you out in the Stearman, so you'll know how to pick it up at the factory and deliver it."

01:02:51.500 - 01:03:05.060

And I not only had never flown the Stearman, but I had never been on the route that they were sending me on. But they did send a flight captain, or whatever we called him, group leader, or something. I can't remember what we called him, on the first few flights that we took, so I knew

01:03:05.140 - 01:03:22.080

that I would at least have a shepherd. But this man, good-looking young Air Force officer, he said, "I've been flying B-17s, four-engine bombers, and I can't remember how to fly a little bitty matchbox like this." We said, "Come on, get in.

01:03:22.270 - 01:03:38.500

Somehow we'll figure it out, and I'll check you out." So he went around to demonstrate landings to me, and there was a bad crosswind. So when we came in to land, he lowered his wing into the wind and sort of turned into the wind and did everything correctly.

01:03:39.280 - 01:03:53.160

And then you land on one wheel sometimes in a crosswind to keep from getting blown over. He did everything he was supposed to do, but as soon as we got on the ground and he had to straighten out as we touched ground, the plane just ground looped and caught a wingtip and smushed it.

01:03:53.760 - 01:04:06.120

So that was my checkout. He said, "Okay, consider yourself checked out." So I had to go get in a Stearman that I'd never been in before and fly it to California. So that was kind of a rough indoctrination.

01:04:06.940 - 01:04:20.320

It was a challenge. And on the way to California, one of the guys nosed over when he landed, so it was not without mishap. Kelly: Were there Air Force pilots as well as WASPs on that flight?

01:04:20.320 - 01:04:29.620

McClendon: There were Air Force pilots, and there were also civilian pilots, men civilian pilots. Kelly: How many were in your group? How many airplanes were you in?

01:04:31.360 - 01:04:42.640

Probably ten or fifteen of us that first time. Kelly: Where were you taking these airplanes? Belcher: I think to San Bernardino, California, I believe. Kelly: To a flying school?

01:04:43.570 - 01:04:47.800

Belcher: Uh-huh. Kelly: Okay. I think that's the end of that. Belcher: Okay.

01:04:47.800 - 01:05:09.640

Kelly: Oh, we're just going to go. [Laughter] for the first time and how gorgeous it was. The mountains were covered with something that looked like sugar, and the clouds were

01:05:09.720 - 01:05:25.500

puffy and white against a blue, blue sky, and the orchards were all laid out neatly below. I was not a believer then, but I couldn't deny God at a time like that. Kelly: Then once you got to San Bernardino, what did you do?

01:05:26.440 - 01:05:43.220

Well, what we did on every trip was turn in all these papers and sell the airplane to the base that we were taking it to. They had to sign many, many copies of everything, I think some of which we took back with us, I feel sure we did, and turned it in.

01:05:43.740 - 01:05:57.980

All that's kind of fuzzy in my mind, because the paperwork didn't interest me. Kelly: Same with response. Then once you turned the airplane in, then you took your parachute and your B-4 bag, and what did you do?

01:05:58.010 - 01:06:15.880

We were supposed to get the first available means of transportation back home, which usually meant catching the airline somewhere. We had a War B.B. priority, I think it was called, that bumped anybody off of an airplane except the White House.

01:06:16.720 - 01:06:34.100

And a senator got bumped once and was so furious that he had our privilege taken away from us for about two weeks. But the airplanes began to stack up so terribly, and we were really getting behind in the war effort that they had to quickly reinstate our priorities so they could move those airplanes.

01:06:34.580 - 01:06:50.540

You see, a lot of the planes not only were used for training and everything in this country, but a lot of them were scheduled to go overseas. So I would ferry planes, say, to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and they would be dismantled and put on a ship and sent overseas because there wasn't enough gas for them to make it under

01:06:50.620 - 01:07:08.820

their own power. So the priority was reinstated after two weeks, and we would be given a jeep ride or a bus ride or a train ride to the first available airliner and then fly it back to your base to pick up your orders to go out again and pick up another airplane.

01:07:09.660 - 01:07:32.660

Or sometimes the Air Force—I mean, well, it was then Army Air Corps—airlines, as they called it, named TARFU or SNAFU, would pick you up. Now, those were converted DC-3s that had metal bucket seats in them, and you'd either sit on the floor on your parachute and play poker with the guys, or you could sit with a book

01:07:32.880 - 01:07:51.740

in one of the bucket seats and return to your base that way. So we would go by bus, jeep, train, or plane, whatever would get us back to our base the fastest. Kelly: Were you limited in the number of flights that you could take per week?

01:07:52.070 - 01:08:07.280

Buckner: There didn't seem to be any limit. We were supposed to be given a night's sleep in between trips, but frequently we'd come in at two o'clock in the morning and be sent right out the following morning. And you didn't have time to get your laundry or you didn't have time to snatch your mail

01:08:07.260 - 01:08:20.680

out of the box, and that was about it. But they needed us so desperately in those early days. It was just amazing that such a short time later they would say we were surplus and they didn't need us anymore.

01:08:21.000 - 01:08:41.700

But of course, training schools were turning out pilots by the hundreds every day, and the men were coming back from the European theater as the war wound down, whatever the the past tense of that word is. So things changed very abruptly, but in the beginning we were just desperately needed.

01:08:42.330 - 01:09:01.600

Kelly: Once your three or two best friends were given another assignment, did you make other concrete friendships? McClendon: I did, but you know, you were moved around so much so fast and sent in opposite directions that it was hard to form a real lasting relationship unless you had a lot

01:09:01.380 - 01:09:11.680

of the same flights that your friend did. And there was one friend named Ruth Lindley. What is her name now? Gosh, my memory fails me.

01:09:12.580 - 01:09:24.100

But she and I got to be quite close because we had so many of the same orders to the same places with the same type of planes. And sometimes if there weren't enough hotel rooms to go around, we'd double up, share a room.

01:09:24.840 - 01:09:37.640

We had lots of fun together. Ruth Muller, that's her name now. Kelly: In the meantime, did you have any special friend? Buckingham: You mean of the male sex?

01:09:38.440 - 01:09:51.960

Yeah, one named Bob. If you read my book, you know about him. Kelly: Let's talk about that. Buckingham: Well, the one that turned out to be the most special was the one I was writing

01:09:52.080 - 01:10:04.500

to nearly every day, who was Ned Hodgson. We had not had a romance of any kind. In fact, we just had one date in Chicago when I was working for the Federal Reserve Bank. He came through Chicago in a Navy plane.

01:10:04.720 - 01:10:25.060

He was ferrying around some war heroes, and they were on a bond rally, war bond rally. They were trying to raise money for people to sell war bonds. He had some of the first aces of the war. Let's see, John--somebody Smith?

01:10:25.340 - 01:10:38.560

Was it John Smith and Foss and some other people who--World War II veterans might recognize the names. I've forgotten now. But anyway, he had these heroes that he was bringing to Chicago for a war bond rally.

01:10:38.780 - 01:10:55.700

And he took me out to dinner that night, but his first cousin was along with us, so you couldn't even call that a date. And that was as intimate as we had ever been. And then I got word from my family that he had crashed and had this awful plane crash

01:10:55.700 - 01:11:08.180

and wasn't expected to live. And he had been a longtime family friend, and as I told you, he was the one that talked my mother into signing the papers to let me fly in the first place, telling her how safe it was before he went off and crashed.

01:11:10.260 - 01:11:34.900

And anyway, his family and my family had been very close through the years, and he had always been somebody I had looked up to because he was just a fine specimen of American manhood. He was a great athlete and just a really nice, fine, upstanding young Christian man. And so I admired him from afar, but I was eight years younger, and so I had never had

01:11:34.940 - 01:11:46.720

a chance with him before. But when he crashed, I started writing him every day to try to keep his morale up. And since he wasn't expected to live, I just let it all hang out, whatever I wanted to tell him about.

01:11:46.800 - 01:12:04.160

When I was in training, I wrote all the details and how I felt when my classmates crashed and were killed, and just shared all my emotions with him, as well as all the flying details, which I knew he'd be interested in being a pilot himself. Well, this went on and on and on, and he didn't die.

01:12:04.500 - 01:12:25.920

And he stayed--he was in the hospital a year and a half, so I have a year and a half's worth of letters, all of which he saved, and that's the basis of my book, his letters to me and my letters to him, because I saved all his letters too. So in the Ferry Command, I made some illegal landings in Norfolk, in Richmond, actually,

01:12:26.040 - 01:12:40.500

and then took the ferry over to Norfolk, where he was in the Naval Hospital. And that's when the romance started. We started getting interested in each other through letters, but it was when we got face to face, and they let him out of the hospital long enough to be gone out on a dinner date.

01:12:41.940 - 01:12:53.800

That's when we fell in love. Is that the one you want me to tell you about, or do you want me to talk about somebody else? There was one named Bob that I always wondered what happened to. I was crazy about him for a while.

01:12:55.160 - 01:13:10.320

He was at Ballinger, and he would fly over to Love Field. We had a terrible time getting together, because he would come to see me, and I would have just been sent out on orders, so we kept missing each other. We connected every now and then enough to keep Romance alive for a while.

01:13:11.540 - 01:13:29.180

Kelly: Okay. And as you continued flying at Love Field, what happened between you and Ned? Melton: Ned got out of the hospital and was sent to Eagle Mountain Lake in Fort Worth. The Marine Corps had an air station at Eagle Mountain Lake.

01:13:29.240 - 01:13:45.000

It was sort of a stopping-off place before people went overseas, and Marines, Marine pilots mostly, a few Navy pilots. He was sent there as executive officer when he was still just fresh out of the hospital and still very weak.

01:13:45.740 - 01:13:59.340

But they needed all the manpower they could get, and with his experience and everything, he made a good executive officer. That was when I was stationed at Love Field, and so I could get back and forth to see him in between flights sometimes.

01:14:00.020 - 01:14:13.200

Sometimes I could, and sometimes I couldn't, because they'd send me right out. Often it's not. Kelly: While you were at Love Field, in your book, you mentioned something about three girls washing out.

01:14:14.240 - 01:14:23.260

Could you tell us about that? Beall: Yeah, that was still a mystery to me. The rumor was that Nancy Love was trying to prove that there was a deficiency in Jacqueline Cochran's training program.

01:14:23.880 - 01:14:39.840

And so she had all of us given test rides on planes that we had just graduated from at Sweetwater. We were checked out as if it were a test ride, an Army check flight. And three of the gals didn't make it.

01:14:40.540 - 01:14:57.240

They were tested on BTs, which of course we hadn't flown for a while. And then we had had a two-week—was it that long? Anyway, we had some time off before we were assigned to our bases. So we had all gotten a little bit rusty in that length of time.

01:14:58.000 - 01:15:12.940

I'm sure these girls were good pilots, but they were washed out of the Ferry Command, and then they were assigned other duties to do. They probably wound up as instructors or something like that. I still can't believe they got washed out, because I know they were good pilots, the

01:15:12.960 - 01:15:30.380

ones that I knew about. But there were three at Love Field that were ushered out of the Ferry Command for insufficient Tell us about the different airplanes that you ferried. Well, there's a saying in the WASPs that if you weren't in the first class, if you

01:15:30.540 - 01:15:48.480

didn't fly a B-17 or a B-29 or a P-51 and you weren't killed, you were nobody. Well, I was a nobody. I was just a drone. I flew the PT-19 that we took our primary training in, the low-wing monoplane, and the

01:15:48.480 - 01:16:09.900

The Stearman that I just talked about, also an open cockpit, but a biwing plane that was a ground loop and so-and-so. And the BT-13 and the BT-15, the Valti basic trainer, and the AT-6, which we had our advanced training in and which was the last stop before you flew fighters, and which rumor had it

01:16:09.940 - 01:16:25.280

that the Japanese copied for their Zero. And whenever they make a World War II movie now, they always use AT-6s as the Zeros. They put a tri-bladed propeller on it and paint the rising sun on the side and call it a zero.

01:16:26.260 - 01:16:42.640

And then we flew -- I ferried the UC-78, the AT -- what did they call it? Was that it? No, I think that was the Twin Beach. The UC-78 was the twin-engine Cessna --

01:16:42.640 - 01:16:58.160

Kelly: AT-17. That was it, right, the twin-engine Cessna, the flying boxcar. And then I ferried C-45s. That was probably the fastest thing I ever flew, and AT-11s and AT-7s, which were twin-engine

01:16:58.320 - 01:17:14.060

beachcraft. And I guess that's about it. Once you ferried an aircraft, were you sometimes then sent on another ferrying trip before you returned?

01:17:14.090 - 01:17:27.520

Vicky? No, you had to return to your base or your--. I was on temporary orders to Wichita, Kansas, and I spent almost as much time there as I did at Love Field, because there were three aircraft factories at Wichita, Kansas.

01:17:27.660 - 01:17:44.880

There was the Beechcraft, the Cessna, and the--what was the other one? Boeing factory, all in Wichita. So I'd stay at the Alice Hotel there, and that was my home away from home for a lot of the time, because I ferried all of those planes.

01:17:45.700 - 01:17:58.420

Kelly: Once you delivered an aircraft, then would you fly back to Love Field and then go back? Bell: Unless I had been ordered to return to Wichita, Kansas. It would state in your orders where you were to return to.

01:17:59.140 - 01:18:16.980

And sometimes it would be Love Field and sometimes it would be Wichita, if they had another plane waiting for me there. Kelly: While you were at Love Field, tell us about the rumors or the possibility of the WASP being deactivated and what that did in your life.

01:18:16.980 - 01:18:31.420

Burkett: Well, I didn't hear about it at Love Field, really. I heard about it when I was out on the road, so to speak. There would be something in the paper about the civilian pilots, the men up in arms because we were taking their jobs away from them.

01:18:33.500 - 01:18:48.140

I think some Air Force men were jealous because we got to fly such a variety of planes, and they'd be stuck in one type. There was just resentment among some people because all of a sudden there was a surplus of pilots.

01:18:48.720 - 01:19:04.880

It had gone from a shortage to a surplus in a year's time. They really had more pilots than they needed, and so they wanted to utilize the men that were already in the service and not have to pay these civilian women to fly the planes that the men in the service would like to be flying.

01:19:07.040 - 01:19:24.560

So I would just read something in the paper about how we were surplus goods, and it would make me mad, but I wouldn't think too much about it. But then the ball began to roll, and there was this letter-writing campaign to Washington where people were writing their congressmen.

01:19:25.260 - 01:19:47.540

I think the American Legion got up in arms about us. There was a lot of resentment that we were taking jobs away from the men. Because in those days, the men were the breadwinners, and the women's place was in the home. We weren't there to replace men.

01:19:47.620 - 01:19:59.620

We were there to release men for overseas duty, for overseas combat duty. And we understood that from the beginning, that we were to release men, not to replace them. So I didn't have any bitterness about that.

01:20:00.660 - 01:20:15.460

I felt like we had done our job, and if the time was up. Besides that, let's be honest, I was madly in love and wanted to get married. So that made it easier to accept. For the girls who had nothing to go back to, it must have been a bitter pill to swallow.

01:20:21.760 - 01:20:42.500

Tell us about when you made a life-changing decision. About to get married and to resign from the service? Well, by then it was plain that, in fact, General Arnold had stated openly that he had too many pilots.

01:20:43.400 - 01:20:58.600

And it was a known fact that he didn't need us anymore. And Ned was pressuring me to marry him, and so that was my life-changing decision. I thought, "Well, if General Arnold says it's okay, I'll just take off my hat and put on my apron."

01:20:58.600 - 01:21:12.400

So that's what I did. Never regretted it either. Kelly: Do you want to tell us about your wedding? Mildred: Well, we were married on the Van Zandt farm outside of Fort Worth.

01:21:14.020 - 01:21:30.800

I'm sure you've heard of General Van Zant. And the night before my wedding, I slept in General Van Zant's bed, and then we had the ceremony in the living room in front of the fireplace there. And my best--my matron of honor was Mary Van Zant.

01:21:31.720 - 01:21:41.700

Her name then was Mary Van Zant Violet, later Williamson. And she was General Van Zant's granddaughter, I guess. A great-granddaughter? I'm not sure which.

01:21:43.100 - 01:21:57.620

Anyway, it was a very delightful place to be married. She had picked gardenias off of somebody's bushes at their invitation and tied them onto some greenery that she had arranged in front of the fireplace. It was just a bower of flowers.

01:21:59.800 - 01:22:17.200

And she had bought a great big wedding cake for us, and Ed had given her a check for champagne. So we had all these strangers at our wedding. We didn't know half of the people that were there. Ned had met a lot of them in the service, but he just invited the ones that he had met

01:22:17.280 - 01:22:31.980

at Eagle Mountain Lake. And so we ate wedding cake and drank champagne and had a great time. Kelly: What was Ned's job at that point? McCormick: He was the executive officer at Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station.

01:22:32.000 - 01:22:49.220

So you became a serviceman's wife. Right. And then what happened, how long did you stay there? We were there about a year, and then he was transferred to Miramar, California, another

01:22:49.300 - 01:23:00.760

Marine Corps air station. And so we moved out there and lived within walking distance of the beach near Delmar, California. Delightful place to live.

01:23:00.840 - 01:23:11.760

We lived in a condemned area in a condemned house, but we just loved it. We fixed it all up. We went back on a sentimental journey about fifty years later to see if the house was still there.

01:23:12.300 - 01:23:24.240

There were all these expensive condominiums. The place was no longer condemned. I think it was flood area, but they must have built some dikes or something, because it was no longer condemned, obviously, because there were all these expensive condominiums

01:23:24.280 - 01:23:34.100

and apartments and things there. We couldn't find our house, and we thought, "Well, surely it's gone." All of a sudden, there it was right in front of us, this little garage apartment that we'd been so happy in.

01:23:34.560 - 01:23:48.660

And it was still in surprisingly good shape. We had painted it and planted flowers in the yard and had fixed it all up. But somebody had fixed it up even more and had spent a lot of money on it. So it's still there out near Del Mar, California.

01:23:49.940 - 01:24:05.500

EC: At the end of that year, where did you go? Then, the war was over and he went back to Eastern Airlines, but he could no longer fly for them because of his stiff ankle as a result of the airplane crash. All the bones were messed up in his ankle.

01:24:06.340 - 01:24:26.400

He had had surgery on it after V-J Day at the Navy Hospital in San Diego. They had made a stiff joint out of his ankle so that he wouldn't be able to use enough of rudder pressure under emergency situations to ever fly as a captain. They said he could fly as a copilot if he wanted to, but that he could never be a captain.

01:24:26.900 - 01:24:43.300

So he got a job on the ground as an aircraft dispatcher, and that was shift work. And I would frequently keep his hours, and we would have breakfast, say, at midnight, and I would sleep when he slept and get up when he got up, which worked out fine until I got pregnant.

01:24:43.540 - 01:24:59.360

Then I had to keep the baby's hours. We knew that shift work on the ground job with Eastern wasn't going to be his life profession. When an opportunity came up to move to Fort Worth, Texas, he took it and went in the life

01:24:59.380 - 01:25:09.020

insurance business and did very well. Kelly: Tell us about that first baby. Mildred: Well, we waited a long time for him. We just were beginning to think we might have to adopt one.

01:25:10.580 - 01:25:21.160

He was just a miracle from God, and that's when I got my faith, was when they placed that baby. I'll cry when I talk about it. Can't do it.

01:25:21.200 - 01:25:32.100

Kelly: It's okay, we're doing it. Oh, my goodness. Okay. All right.

01:25:33.360 - 01:25:41.560

I'll stop for a second. Now I've got my nose all stuffed up. >> Yeah, I heard that question again. Did you work from the time you were married?

01:25:41.830 - 01:25:57.640

>> Well, I had supported myself from the time I was 19 until I got married. And then after my husband got out of the service, I worked all the time at little odd jobs. Like I did everything you could do. I painted signs. I sold encyclopedias.

01:25:57.760 - 01:26:11.600

I was a welcome wagon hostess. I did secretarial work part-time. I did a little bit of everything just to get a little extra income. I was always writing and trying to sell stories, but it took me a long time to sell that first

01:26:11.800 - 01:26:21.420

short story. What was that first short story about? The first short story, I hit it big time. When it hit, it was to McCall's magazine, back when it was a big magazine.

01:26:21.660 - 01:26:34.580

Do you remember how big it used to be? And they paid me $1,000, which was great money in those days. Then my next sale, I guess, was to Good Housekeeping. I sold them a couple.

01:26:35.700 - 01:26:50.860

Then I did articles for regional magazines and newspapers, and series of articles about women pilots for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I was always writing on something. I started this book more than fifty years ago.

01:26:51.620 - 01:27:04.720

Ed would pick it up and put it down, and add a little bit to it and change it, and put it away and then get it out again. So it had actually been in the works for about fifty years when I finally found a publisher. Kelly: Okay.

01:27:04.800 - 01:27:12.220

You had your first son. Where were you? Buckley: In Atlanta, when my husband was still with Eastern Airlines. Kelly: Was your mother there?

01:27:12.690 - 01:27:20.920

Buckley: Uh-huh. She was there. Rode home in the ambulance with me. In those days, you stayed in the hospital for a week or two and rode home in the ambulance.

01:27:21.120 - 01:27:29.980

Can you believe it? Now Princess Di and everybody else goes home the next day. Was your mother living in Atlanta? Was she living in Athens?

01:27:29.980 - 01:27:44.120

Buckingham: No, she was living in Athens, but she came over to stay with us right at first. Kelly: And then you had your daughter in Fort Worth? Buckingham: Had my daughter in Fort Worth and my third child, my second son in Fort

01:27:44.220 - 01:27:52.000

Worth. Kelly: Okay. At the time you were living in Fort Worth? Buckingham: And I should say that my first son is still bitter because he's not a native

01:27:52.100 - 01:28:02.140

Texan. He's the only one that's not. Kelly: When you were living in Fort Worth after your daughter was born, then you were writing?

01:28:03.150 - 01:28:10.700

McClendon: Always writing. Not making much money, but a little bit. Always trying. Kelly: In the meantime, what was Ned doing?

01:28:11.150 - 01:28:21.780

McClendon: Ned went to Fort Worth at the invitation of Thomas Ryan, who was a successful real estate man. I think that's my daughter calling me on the telephone. Okay.

01:28:23.540 - 01:28:28.460

We'll stop. Okay. And who they are and what they're doing. Okay.

01:28:28.460 - 01:28:38.040

All right. So tell us about your children now. Where are they and what are they doing? And about your grandchildren.

01:28:38.360 - 01:28:51.040

Okay. Well, the one I got so emotional about, my firstborn, is named Sheldon, and he lives in Houston, and the only job he's ever had is with Southwestern Bell. Don't ask me what he does, because I couldn't tell you.

01:28:51.060 - 01:29:05.160

I think he somehow has something to do with computers and he's some kind of a manager, district manager or something like that. Anyway, he has a good job with Southwestern Bell. And he has a wife, a lovely wife, just one wife.

01:29:05.900 - 01:29:24.140

None of my children, knock on wood, has had any marital discord other than the normal. And they have two sons that I'm very proud of. Clay is the oldest. He's about twenty-three, I think, and then three years younger is Stephen, who's at A&M

01:29:24.460 - 01:29:35.180

as an engineer. His dad's an engineer, too. In fact, both of my sons are engineers, and one grandson is an engineer. And then my secondborn was Marjorie.

01:29:36.280 - 01:29:51.020

She's a writer, too, and she lives next door to me. I live next door to her, I should say. And she's married to a rancher and a banker, and they have two lovely daughters, one in college and one who's a junior in high school.

01:29:51.860 - 01:30:06.600

And then my baby boy that I had when I was forty lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and the only job he's ever had is with UPS, United Parcel Service. And don't ask me what he does, because I can't tell you either. Computers always figure into it some way.

01:30:06.920 - 01:30:24.400

But he's also an engineer and has a lovely wife and a boy and a girl. Kelly: And do any of these grandchildren fly? Burkett: None of them fly. But my oldest son got his license when he was eighteen, beat his mama out by a year.

01:30:25.300 - 01:30:40.260

Kelly: Does he still fly? Burkett: No, he just did it because his girlfriend at the time was going to Texas Tech in order to get back and forth to see her frequently or to go back and forth with her when he finally went to Texas Tech, he thought it would be a lot easier to fly.

01:30:41.080 - 01:31:00.380

So he got his license, and then she ran off and married somebody else. Thank goodness, or I wouldn't have gotten Marlene for a daughter-in-law. But that's how he got a license. I know you've had one overseas experience in the past few years with a group of WASPs.

01:31:00.500 - 01:31:16.520

Oh, the trip to Russia. Well, it was while Russia was still the USSR. And that was a really exciting trip because we were guests of the Russian government, paying guests, of course, but invited by them to come meet their women pilots from World

01:31:16.560 - 01:31:30.920

War II who flew combat. And it was just a real thrill. The Gorbachev was in power then, and so the Iron Curtain was slowly being raised. But it was still the USSR, and there were lots of things that were illegal, like taking

01:31:30.920 - 01:31:43.780

bibles into the country. And so I smuggled three bibles into the USSR, and that's a story in itself that I want--a very moving story about the three recipients of those bibles. I'll cry if I tell it.

01:31:44.920 - 01:32:02.160

Anyway, meeting these women pilots was just the thrill of a lifetime. They looked like sweet old grandmothers. You know, you would never dream they had been up there flying combat, but they were just precious people, and even though most of them did not speak any English, we had an interpreter

01:32:02.380 - 01:32:14.280

along with us. They were so warm and welcoming and loving, and they met us with arms full of flowers, and they embraced us, and they cried, and they kissed us, and we cried. It was just instant sisterhood.

01:32:14.940 - 01:32:33.340

So we knew then that the Cold War was over, when we could bond like that, one-on-one. And of course, that's the whole idea of this people-to-people program that Dwight Eisenhower really started. He said if you could have people meeting people from other countries, there wouldn't be any

01:32:33.380 - 01:32:39.660

wars. Kelly: How many of them were there? Bell: In all? I'm not sure.

01:32:40.160 - 01:32:46.560

Kelly: How many Russian women? Bell: At the reunion? Kelly: At the reunion. Bell: We met about six of them, I think it was.

01:32:46.570 - 01:32:58.260

Kelly: And how many American girls went? I'm trying to think, counting a few husbands and one or two friends, I think there were about fifty of us. Kelly: And what year was this?

01:32:58.410 - 01:33:06.760

Bell: This was 1990. Isn't that the year after that's when the Berlin Wall fell? Isn't it? Or was it later in that year?

01:33:07.520 - 01:33:30.900

It was right about a year later, I think, that the Berlin Wall came down. One interesting thing is that one of the men that took us around and showed us the Kremlin and everything was one of the ones that kidnapped Gorbachev. I think it was just the very next month after we had been there.

01:33:30.940 - 01:33:43.400

I can't remember for sure, but he was one of the ones that was holding Gorbachev. Remember when that happened for about, what, five days or a week or something like that? EC: And could he speak English? VD: Yes, he did.

01:33:43.400 - 01:33:50.540

EC: But he was a Russian? VD: I'm trying to think. Did he speak English? I didn't get to go on that tour of the Kremlin, and I can't remember why.

01:33:51.420 - 01:34:04.140

Well, this was when some WASPs were called back to Moscow, after we had just left Moscow and had been up all night on the train. By "up all night," I mean it was hard to sleep. They were on the train.

01:34:04.560 - 01:34:18.960

I'm getting my story all mixed up. But anyway, we had just gotten back from Moscow, and these girls suddenly had to turn around and go back to Moscow because someone had gotten word that the WASPs were in the country and they wanted to interview them and show them the Kremlin and so on.

01:34:19.060 - 01:34:31.480

So that's why I didn't get to do that. It was just three girls. Charlene Krieger and--I can't think of the names of the other ones--the one that was the head of our delegation, and Barbara Lazarski.

01:34:32.320 - 01:34:38.300

And she was head of the delegation. And who was the third one? I can't think right now. Sorry.

01:34:38.860 - 01:34:54.260

How many days were you there? We were three days in Moscow, and three days in Kiev, and three days in St. Petersburg. What were the accommodations like? In Kiev, pretty crude.

01:34:55.220 - 01:35:12.000

But in Moscow, big room. And it was funny to walk in your hotel room and see a gas mask hanging on the wall. But there were great big bathtubs with hot water, and the towels and washcloths and things didn't match, but they were there.

01:35:12.780 - 01:35:27.860

And it wasn't too bad looking. There was a telephone in the room, but it never did work. Kelly: Did the Russian women pilots travel with you to these different places? Bell: We had a different group meet us in each place.

01:35:28.660 - 01:35:37.660

One person went from place to place. I can't remember which one it was. She met us in two different places. But there was a group in Kiev and a group in Moscow, and I don't think anybody met

01:35:37.700 - 01:35:44.620

us in St. Petersburg. I don't remember them. Kelly: And these Russian women had actually been combat pilots? Vicky: Combat pilots, uh-huh.

01:35:46.180 - 01:35:55.740

They lost a lot of women to combat. You see the Germans were right on their doorstep outside of Leningrad. Oh, there was somebody in Leningrad. It's now St. Petersburg, isn't it?

01:35:55.860 - 01:36:09.300

Is that right? It was Leningrad when we were there, and there were some WASPs there, too, I'm remembering now. But the Germans were so close that they could go out and make several combat missions in

01:36:09.380 - 01:36:19.880

one night. They were, of course, called the "Night Witches" at one point because they harassed the Germans to the point that the Germans called them those witches. [Laughter.]

01:36:19.880 - 01:36:35.220

>> Do you know what kind of airplanes they were flying? >> They flew little light training planes with bombs tied on the wings, but they also flew bombers and fighters. But the night witches, they were not all called night witches, just the ones that went out

01:36:35.340 - 01:36:58.180

with these little light planes and harassed the Germans. But they got to fly the big ones, too, and the fast ones. Kelly: Okay, we're going to get to the hard questions now. Buckner: You wanted to know about the three Bibles that I smuggled into Russia.

01:36:58.860 - 01:37:17.300

We were given instructions that we could take one Bible if it was not new and if it was not intended as a gift and if it was not in Russian. I think those were the three things we had to obey. Well, my three Bibles were all new and they were in Russian and they were gifts, so I

01:37:17.340 - 01:37:31.840

was really breaking the law. But the customs people, what do you call them, immigration people, didn't give us any trouble. I think because they knew that we were sort of an official delegation. So they just ushered us right through.

01:37:32.400 - 01:37:52.360

And I had learned a few words of Russian, which I said much to the amusement of the customs officials, so they just said, "Go on." But anyway, the first one, I can't think of the Russian name for the woman that would sit in the hallway right outside your doors in the Russian hotel, and you gave her your

01:37:52.260 - 01:38:05.480

key when you came out of your room, and when you were going to go in your room, you went by her desk and picked up your key from her. And she watched all the rooms twenty-four hours a day. There was somebody sitting out at that desk watching the rooms.

01:38:06.240 - 01:38:25.580

This was before TV cameras, I'm sure, whether they even have them now or not, I don't know. But this was to be sure who was coming in and out. So something in the system must have fouled up, because when I got to my room and opened the door, there were two Russian men, so I had to go back downstairs in the middle of

01:38:25.600 - 01:38:46.500

the night and wait and wait while they got me another room. But anyway, the woman that sat at the desk in the chair facing my room, to give you permission to come and go, I stopped by her desk and showed her this Bible, and she sort of drew up like that, like, "What are you trying to get by with me?"

01:38:46.500 - 01:38:59.320

And I said, "Would you like to see it?" I had a Russian friend who had written out all these different little questions on a piece of paper for me, because he knew I wouldn't be able to pronounce the words. And one of them is, "Would you like to see this Bible?"

01:38:59.320 - 01:39:10.880

And one was, "Could I have a drink of water?" or "Where is the ladies' room?" You know, just everything, all the phrases that I might need. So he had this phrase that said, "Would you like to see this Bible?"

01:39:10.880 - 01:39:25.000

And she looked at that and sort of looked startled, and so I just sort of handed it to her. And she took it and looked at it and turned the pages, turned the pages, and then, "Dah, dah."

01:39:25.080 - 01:39:36.900

So I handed her the Bible and told her, you know, that was for her to keep. I got my little message that said, "This is for you to keep." And so she said, "Thank you," but she was still very stiff and sort of afraid, it seemed like.

01:39:38.500 - 01:39:53.440

So I went in my room, and then in a few minutes the phone rang. And this is the only time the telephone worked the whole time I was there. It was dead all the rest of the time, but it rang that night. And she said in broken English, "Could you have one more Bible, please?

01:39:53.440 - 01:40:07.380

I have a friend." And so I said, "Yes." And so she said, "Be there in just a moment," in broken English. And so I waited, and sure enough this little timid knock came at the door, and this sweet-looking

01:40:07.520 - 01:40:20.620

little Russian woman came in, and she was obviously terrified. She came in and sort of shrunk up against the back of the wall, and I embraced her and handed her this Bible. I can't tell it.

01:40:25.060 - 01:40:38.480

She was just overcome with emotion. This woman had never—she'd wanted one all her life, and she'd never seen one before. This was in modern Russian. It was the first modern translation that they had had since Peter the Great.

01:40:39.620 - 01:40:55.980

Anyway, she backed out of the room just saying whatever the Russian word is for thank you, "Prospichya," or something like that, just backing out, crying and thanking me. And so that was two Bibles gone. I still only had one left.

01:40:56.460 - 01:41:10.380

So when it came time to leave the hotel, I prayed about who should get the Bible, because I knew everybody, if nothing else, it was worth a lot of money on the black market. But I knew these people, that isn't what they were getting them for, you know, you could tell.

01:41:11.080 - 01:41:22.300

And so I was walking down the hall saying, "God, please show me, you know, who should get this third Bible." And I looked, and there was a maid cleaning up a room, and for some reason I felt like I should give it to her.

01:41:22.740 - 01:41:36.500

So I went inside and handed her that, and she just almost fainted, and she reached down in her chest and pulled out a cross, and then put it back in and hugged me, and that was the third Bible. Those were the recipients.

01:41:37.340 - 01:41:45.960

- Oh, wow. - I'm gonna stop reading. - Okay. - Which is what you say bye-bye like a child or something.

01:41:47.720 - 01:41:52.260

- Dasvidaniya for instance. - Yeah. - Okay. - Dasvidaniya is--

01:41:52.260 - 01:41:56.400

- Okay, where do you wanna go from here? - Dasvidaniya is goodbye? - Uh-huh. - Okay.

01:41:58.880 - 01:42:10.640

- Where do you wanna go from here? Wanna go back to North of Bay? - Oh, dear. You want to know about the birth of my baby, my first baby?

01:42:14.120 - 01:42:23.300

We had waited a long time. I think we were married nearly five years when we finally had him. We were so thrilled to have him. Of course, I had never seen a baby until I had one.

01:42:25.300 - 01:42:38.820

I was not a believer in those days. I was an agnostic. The nurse came in with this newborn baby and placed him in my arms. What can I say?

01:42:40.840 - 01:43:03.780

I mean, I felt like I had been partners with God in creation, and of course I knew there was a God as soon as they gave me that baby. I knew I hadn't done that all by myself, even with my husband's help. She was a nine-pounder, and the next one was ten pounds, eleven ounces, and the next one

01:43:03.820 - 01:43:20.980

was ten pounds, and I've forgotten how many ounces, twelve or thirteen or fourteen. They're all big people. My daughter's a Svelt, five-nine, and one son is six-one-and-a-half, and one son is six feet seven.

01:43:22.020 - 01:43:40.280

So when my husband said, "I married you to breed a little size into the family," he knew what he was talking about. He had studied animal husbandry. (laughter) >> Oh, I wish I could have been there.

01:43:44.600 - 01:43:56.080

>> Are you on? >> You need to ask the kind of questions that -- >> Yeah, well, first I want to ask her about her wings. Okay, Mary, could you tell us about your wings?

01:43:56.080 - 01:44:08.380

>> My wings, well, these are sort of unique, if anything can be sort of unique. The first five classes or six classes, maybe, were given these wings by Jacqueline Cochran.

01:44:08.480 - 01:44:24.400

And there was no money in the budget for the wings, and so she just reached into her own pocket and paid for them. And she designed them. I think they're the Air Force wings underneath, and then this scroll on top is 318th, for

01:44:24.500 - 01:44:39.740

the 318th AAF FTD, which is Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment. And then the W5 stands for the 5th Class of Women. I was in the fifth class of training. Kelly: Okay.

01:44:39.740 - 01:44:49.680

And the things on your shoulders? What are they? Oh, these are Ferry Command buttons. We had no rank, of course, being civilians, so these are the Ferry Command.

01:44:49.750 - 01:44:55.600

Kelly: Okay. Only the girls who flew in Ferry Command had those buttons? McClendon: Had those, uh-huh. Right.

01:44:55.600 - 01:44:59.780

Kelly: Okay. And the— McClendon: The Air Force patch. Kelly: —patch, the Air Force.

01:45:00.260 - 01:45:14.880

And then when you were finally given veteran status, then you got— McClendon: The first one. - The two ribbons, one's we call the ruptured duck because the metal itself looks like a ruptured duck.

01:45:16.000 - 01:45:25.740

And one is for being in for over a year and the other one is the American Theater. - Okay, now tell me about your uniform. When did you get a uniform?

01:45:26.300 - 01:45:40.020

- Well, I was measured for a uniform and I never got it. My children had this made for me, which is a good thing because I wouldn't have been able to get my big toe I was so little around the middle then.

01:45:41.680 - 01:45:59.000

I still was wearing the men's trousers and shirts in June of '44 when I got out. They measured me, but I never got it. A few of them had gotten their uniforms and started wearing them, but it was after that that everybody had one.

01:46:00.640 - 01:46:29.060

Mary Ann, what would you say is the legacy of the WASP? The sky's the limit, I guess. Just that when you're needed to be there, you can do anything with God's help. What would you like your legacy to be to your children, to your grandchildren, and your

01:46:28.880 - 01:46:57.280

great-grandchildren? Well let's see, put God first, family next, and then whatever you want to do or whatever's needed. Service before self. Do you have any message that you would like to leave to tell your grandchildren? Anything you would like to say to them?

01:46:58.840 - 01:47:15.200

Just love God with all your heart. Everything else will fall into place. That gets me. [LAUGHTER]

01:47:17.700 - 01:47:32.260

Is there anything that we have left out that you would like to talk about or you would like to say, or do you have anything, anything that you would like to say?

01:47:33.400 - 01:47:45.540

- I think you pretty well covered all the bases. You got me crying twice, so what more do you want? (laughing) - Can I ask about books and the things that you still write?

01:47:46.020 - 01:47:54.240

What have you written, what's your passion now? What turns you on when you write, and what have you written about? - Well, I wanna write something that's honoring to our Lord

01:47:54.240 - 01:48:10.080

because I came to him very late in life, and I have a lot of years to make up for. I was forty-two when I finally saw the light, and so I'm desperately trying to make up for all those lost years. And what I want to write is something that will honor him.

01:48:11.000 - 01:48:23.380

So I'm waiting now for a letter from Guideposts, hopefully saying that they've accepted my latest story. Kelly: What's your latest story, then? It's about a sort of—well, let's see.

01:48:23.960 - 01:48:44.460

I don't know how to tell you unless—I had this friend here who was a Marine night fighter and he shot down the last bomber in Japan. He found himself, by a strange set of circumstances, in the same room with one of the Japanese pilots who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor, or at least had led the planes off of the

01:48:44.460 - 01:49:01.360

aircraft carrier that he was on. They had become friends, actually, through the years because this Japanese man had translated some aircraft instructions for him. It's a long story, but anyway, they became friends and they wound up by a strange set

01:49:01.380 - 01:49:18.120

of circumstances in the same hotel room or resort room on a mountainside in Japan. And in the middle of the night, the light had filtered in through the window so that He could see this Japanese man sleeping on a futon on one side of the room while he slept on the other.

01:49:19.280 - 01:49:34.820

He had a lot of crazy thoughts going through his mind, like, you know, 50 years ago, or however many, 40 or however many it was at that time, years ago, we would have killed each other. He thought, "Does he really like me?"

01:49:34.820 - 01:49:49.480

As he seems to. I mean, he bows and he smiles, but, "Does he really have forgiveness in his heart like I hope I have in mind, and is he really my friend?" He sort of shook those thoughts away and didn't appreciate having him because he didn't want

01:49:49.480 - 01:50:08.440

to doubt this man who had befriended him during the years. But nevertheless, he saw the man stir and he thought, "Well, I'm not going to let him know I'm awake," so he just lay there pretending that he was asleep. And the Japanese man got up and sort of quietly tiptoed across the room.

01:50:08.780 - 01:50:24.740

I meant to say in the beginning that it was a really cold night, and what woke my friend up was that he was shivering, because he had dropped the comfort off of his futon, and it was on the floor. But he did not want to reach down and pick it up and let the guy know that he was awake,

01:50:24.920 - 01:50:43.440

because he wanted to be alone with his thoughts and he did not feel like talking. So anyway, the Japanese man was tiptoeing over across the room, and he reached down And picked up the comfort and like a mother covering her baby just gently covered him up with the comfort and then he tiptoed back to his bed and got in bed.

01:50:44.340 - 01:50:58.740

So he thought that was a pretty good lesson in forgiveness and friendship. So that was the story. I don't know if they'll take it or not, but I thought it was neat. Kelly: I'd love to know what your favorite word is.

01:50:58.860 - 01:51:06.340

My favorite word? Jesus. What's your favorite word? Kelly: That's a good one.

01:51:09.780 - 01:51:17.920

Wow. I don't know what else to ask. When we leave here, we're going to be saying, "We should have asked her about it." Kelly: I know.

01:51:18.000 - 01:51:26.400

And I'll think, "Oh, why didn't I say?" Why didn't I--. Kelly: That's why I always like to leave an update. I'm going to turn it off for a second here.

01:51:26.900 - 01:51:35.420

I was going to ask you because you're a good speaker. You're a good speaker. Who was your biggest influence when you were young? I guess my father was my biggest influence and my role model.

01:51:35.520 - 01:51:48.420

He was such a wonderful, incredible man. And my brother and I had written a biography about him. My brother did most of the writing. I did the legwork and the editing and got the newspaper clippings and everything together.

01:51:49.100 - 01:52:10.620

But he was just a bigger than life man. He was sort of an early day Tom Landry, only ten times that, and had a tremendous influence University of Georgia on the people who came under him. He had a heart attack at age 47, suffered horribly for one year, and I had to watch

01:52:10.740 - 01:52:23.240

this and watch him die. I got mad at God, and that's why I became an agnostic for all those years, until God put that baby in my arms. Kelly: Did you happen to name any of your children after anybody?

01:52:23.780 - 01:52:42.760

Well, I named Sheldon, we named Sheldon after a very inspiring cousin named Edward Sheldon who was a playwright and just a wonderful man. He was a toast of Broadway at one point. He had written all kinds of Broadway plays that were made into movies.

01:52:42.880 - 01:53:02.080

One was with Greta Garbo, Romance, and one was with Marlene Dietrich called Song of Songs. But the thing about him that was so wonderful was not his playwriting, which was good enough, but he was such an inspiration because he had crippling arthritis that finally paralyzed him and blinded him.

01:53:03.040 - 01:53:20.440

And he couldn't move and couldn't read or anything except talk. And yet he was such an inspiration to so many people. Ann Lindbergh wrote him up as her most unforgettable character in Reader's Digest. I don't know if you used to see those, my most unforgettable character, and told about

01:53:20.600 - 01:53:30.040

him and what a remarkable man he was. So we named our firstborn after him, Edward Sheldon Hudson. Kelly: And he was your uncle? McClendon: He was a distant cousin.

01:53:31.220 - 01:53:46.620

His mother and my grandmother were first cousins. I don't know what that makes him to me. But then John Foster, my other son, is named for my brother. My brother was John Foster Stegman, and my son is John Foster Hodson.

01:53:47.580 - 01:54:03.060

And then Marjorie is Marjorie Wortham Hodson, and she was named for my husband's sister, Marjorie Hodson Wortham. So that's who the three children are named for. Kelly: How far back do writers go in your family?

01:54:04.300 - 01:54:19.500

I have one of his books. He was a Swedenborgian minister, and I'm not real sure what that is. Kelly: And how far back do pilots go? McClendon: I think I'm the first.

01:54:20.140 - 01:54:36.520

Kelly: What made you—and I'm still not quite sure why you thought you could go do that. McClendon: Well, I've been one to always recognize advantages and not to let them slip away, and this was this tremendous opportunity that was being offered free and with five

01:54:36.560 - 01:54:46.820

hours college credit. How could you turn a deal like that down? It was exciting, and I was always wanting to go where the action was, and there was a lot of action in the sky.

01:54:48.240 - 01:55:04.160

And also, some famous person said, "Do the thing you're afraid of," and I was terrified of flying. So my first flying experience was when a tri-motored Ford came to Athens, Georgia, my hometown, And they were giving us a ride for a dollar apiece, and my mother and father and brother

01:55:04.160 - 01:55:22.900

and sister and I all got on board, for the wild extravagance of a dollar apiece, five dollars total, to fly around town in this tri-motored Ford. And as soon as they revved up the engines, it made so much noise I started screaming and crying, and they had to stop and taxi back and let me out before they could take

01:55:22.940 - 01:55:32.520

off and fly over town. I can still remember my mother saying, "Well, Mary, if your mother and father and brother and sister all killed, don't you want to be with us?" And I said, "No!"

01:55:34.680 - 01:55:44.920

So I had the shame of that. They teased me about that all my growing up years. So I had the shame of that hanging over my head, so I kind of wanted to make up for that, I think, subconsciously.

01:55:45.540 - 01:56:02.700

I don't know, I never consciously analyzed what made me want to fly, but I was scared of it. And I guess I wanted to conquer my fear. Kelly: I wondered if you wanted to take that and do these while she talks about these two

01:56:02.700 - 01:56:05.880

pieces. McClendon: I don't know anything about them except— Kelly: Oh, don't you? Oh, okay.

01:56:09.260 - 01:56:21.940

McClendon: Except that she was a society dame, and she was my grandmother's mother-in-law, and my grandmother couldn't stand her. And then he got mooned—this is not on TV. Kelly: Well, it is right now.

01:56:28.220 - 01:56:40.780

I told you the story about him. Kelly: But you didn't tell us on here. Melton: No, I didn't. Mother would come back and hat me, as we say in Georgia.

01:56:41.080 - 01:56:55.400

Kelly: She'd just give you her little legs and the thing with the little peach trees. How many kids were in your family? A brother and a sister, and they're twins. Kelly: That's right.

01:56:55.800 - 01:57:07.000

That was at the beginning of the day, I remember. What a great story. How about you? Kelly: Ned, my husband, was such an incredible person.

01:57:08.060 - 01:57:22.480

He was burned, third-degree burns over forty percent of his body and not expected to live. And yet he never, ever complained. He never had any bitterness. He never said, "Why me, God?" or "Why?" or anything.

01:57:23.420 - 01:57:37.980

He just quietly went about making the best of a bad situation. And he was such an inspiration to me to see that the children said that they can still see him sitting, wrapping up his legs. He had to medicate them and put ACE bandages on them all the time.

01:57:39.200 - 01:57:51.680

And they said, "You know, Dad never complained." I mean, he had to go through this ritual every day of wrapping his legs and so on, and he He never once complained. They thought that was kind of remarkable and I had never thought of it until they said

01:57:51.740 - 01:58:10.140

that. But he was a terrific person. What has his passing done to your spiritual life? Well his passing, Marjorie and I were with him when he died and it was, she said that's

01:58:10.140 - 01:58:22.500

the closest to God she's ever felt. She was holding one hand and I was holding the other. I can't carry a tune, but for some reason I was able to carry the tune to "How Great Thou Art," and we sang that tune.

01:58:22.740 - 01:58:46.160

We didn't know many things by heart from the Bible, but we both knew the 23rd Psalm, which Ned and I had repeated often at prayer time together. So we recited the 23rd Psalm and sang these songs and just talked him into the kingdom. It was just a spiritual high, really, his death was.

01:58:46.160 - 01:59:00.880

He was supposedly unconscious, but we feel like he heard every word we said and every word we sang. Actually, if anything, it's made me feel closer to him, because I know where he is, and I know I'll see him again.

01:59:00.880 - 01:59:08.120

Kelly: Is that hope? How many years were you there? - '53 when he died. It would have been '54 in June of that year.

01:59:13.880 - 01:59:23.520

- He's got all those rankings too. - Oh yeah. (laughing) - I don't have too much, but you know.

01:59:27.660 - 01:59:30.960

- Adorable. She's adorable. I have a picture. - Oh good.

01:59:31.360 - 01:59:46.800

had been in ROTC at Thaler, so let's see if she won't do it because I'm here all the time. You can never know, you know, and... What did you say about lipstick? She put on her lipstick before she got on. Yeah, she said she put on her lipstick. But she came off and then she was just wonderful.

01:59:47.020 - 02:00:09.020

So the next day she gave this speech to the ROTC generation, the greatest generation, and she said, "I was asked the other day if I felt there would ever be another great generation." And she said, I do feel like, and I feel like it could be this generation. She said, but you will have to- >> Chicago County, zip or

02:00:09.020 - 02:00:21.500

postal code, Cody, zip or postal code. >> Somebody may have to say. >> No, county. It says zip. >> Can you get in?

02:00:21.500 - 02:00:27.660

>> It says zip or- >> Joanna, stick some of your behind your ears. Maybe I'll do that. (laughter)

02:00:28.930 - 02:00:34.340

- Well, your mom has done just great. - Oh yeah. - Just great. Two hours, and they came out and they said,

02:00:34.900 - 02:00:43.720

sorry, the hole's too big. We can't do it. So, at that time we had a motor home, so we brought her--

02:00:43.720 - 02:00:45.980

- Who am I shooting? This is who? - Sarah. - Sarah.

02:00:46.480 - 02:00:54.840

- I want just whoever Dr. Mellon's got. - And Joanna. - It's got to be the best. So we asked her about it,

02:00:55.120 - 02:01:05.320

or maybe she came to us and said, "I want to go to Dallas." So we took her and the surgeon that operate on Dr. Miller. - But no, they've just been, that's one of the reasons I moved back home

02:01:05.500 - 02:01:16.020

because time goes so fast. Those kids grow up and it's too late to be their parents. Well, I'm gonna go back to her. Well, what you can do once this is digital,

02:01:16.720 - 02:01:40.720

then you can save it as a still picture and use it on the internet. put it in a digital record. Ruth in the studio.

02:01:41.700 - 02:01:52.640

And this is one of the TV interviewers. All the fraternities do floats. And it's like - No. - Thanksgiving break.

02:01:52.820 - 02:01:55.040

It is just-- - Let me look at this file. - Okay.