00:00:00.000 - 00:00:17.280

really want me they didn't want me. Well you know if you're in love that's different. So I didn't really care where we were spending the night. In fact I wonder you know of course it was the year before we got married so I would have stayed that year

00:00:17.560 - 00:00:32.040

probably. But I don't know eventually you know if I would have stayed or not. Well now did you meet him at the base where you were? Yeah. A lot of the girls did. Yeah he was I was flying the B-24s, the Gunners, and I was flying 26 Stowaghton Tigers.

00:00:32.990 - 00:00:46.400

So that's where you—Jack, want to— [Slide changes] Okay. I'm Deanie Parrish. We're interviewing Mary Helen Foster, a WASP, Class 44W3.

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We're in the studios of KWBU on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Today is the 3rd of October, 2000. Okay, Mary Helen, if you would tell us your name and when and where you were born and who your parents were. Okay, I'm Mary Helen Foster and I was born in Quero, Texas, August 5, 1921.

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And my parents were Sally and Tillman Thomas. I'm going to have you start over. Just say my name. My name is Mary Helen Foster.

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I was born in Quero, Texas, August 5, 1921. My parents were Sally and Tilman Thomas. >> Okay. Tell us about Quero. Where is Quero?

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>> Quero is near Victoria, Texas, which is toward the Rio Grande Valley. Not quite to the valley, but it's that direction, south Texas.

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And I don't know much about it because we left there when I was about four years old. My father worked in the cotton mill and he didn't like it, as most people don't. And he decided that we would go to the city where he could do something better. So we moved to San Antonio and he got a job with the electric company.

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What are your earliest remembrances of your childhood? You know, it's strange, but one of the earliest things I can remember is lying in bed early, early, pre-dawn, and hearing the milk wagon. And they used horses, and the horses went clickety-clop, clippety-clop on the pavement.

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And then he would stop, and I would hear the glass bottles rattling as he brought milk to the porch. And that was a wonderful sound to me. It just was so soft and so reassuring, comforting.

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I don't know why, but every morning I would hear this milkman, and I loved that. Did you have brothers and sisters? I had two brothers, younger. One was...

00:03:03.000 - 00:03:13.940

Tell me about growing up with brothers. Oh, I always said to my mother, "I'm never going to have any boys. I may not get married. If I do, if I have any boys, you can take them.

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I don't want them, because they were, you know, always into things. And they would go in my room and just move things on my dresser so that I'd know they'd been there. And then I could throw a fit about it, you know.

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Tell me about starting school. Okay, I started school in San Antonio. I was seven years old. That was the time we started then.

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I guess another year or two they moved it back to six. But I had a cousin whose mother was dead, and he lived with the first one of the families wherever his father was working. He lived with us that first year, and he was my age.

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We started to school together, and that was fun. We rode the city bus. We were about two miles, I guess, from school, something like that, between one and two miles. And my mother would dress us warm.

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She made us wear long stockings and high-top shoes. And every morning we'd race to see who could get their shoes laced first, you know. And we'd walk, we had about two blocks or so to walk to the main street where the bus came.

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Mother would give us each two nickels, one to go and one to come home. And as soon as we got out of her sight, maybe a block away, we'd sit down on the curb, take off those shoes and stockings and carry them until we started home. I guess the teacher just thought if you're comfortable. She never said anything to us, I'm sure, because I would

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have remembered. But we went barefoot all day in cold weather, whatever. Do you remember that teacher? Yes, my first grade teacher is the only one I can call by name, Miss Ruby Gibson. She was single, beautiful lady, and she had this soft voice. She never raised her voice. She just was so sweet and kind. Even when she

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caught us, she went out of the room one day and there was a little boy the same age who walked the same direction. Lots of us would walk to school and spend our nickel for candy. But he always was with us whatever we did. Well, he and my cousin had rubber bands and I guess they handed me one and we were shooting paper wads at each other and wherever when

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And she walked in. Well, she didn't raise her voice, but she said, "I think you three had better stay in instead of going to recess every day this week." So we did.

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That was your punishment. Yes. In growing up in this school, how many children were in your class? Do you know?

00:05:56.940 - 00:06:11.180

Was it a large class? Now in the elementary schools, it was pretty much, it was larger than they have today. I don't know how many, but it was not so many. When I went to high school in San Antonio at Brackenridge,

00:06:11.980 - 00:06:24.100

my class was a little over 800 that I graduated with. Now that means there were more than that who began who dropped out. - In your early childhood, how did you spend your vacations?

00:06:27.260 - 00:06:42.400

- After I was older, now at first, I took care of my little brothers. My father left us and my mother went to work and I took care of the little boys while she worked when I was not in school.

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How old were you when your dad left? Nine. Nine. And so I was an early little mother.

00:06:48.500 - 00:06:58.540

Right. Tell me about your grandparents. Okay, I didn't know my father's, my father's father had died before he married my mother when he was 14.

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His mother I remember seeing a few times, but after he left us, his family did not contact us and I didn't see her anymore. But my mother's mother, and this is strange too, my maternal grandmother, grandparents were divorced and that was a long time before I was born and that wasn't very popular at

00:07:24.940 - 00:07:34.960

that time. But my grandmother did not marry again, but my grandfather did. So my mother couldn't remember him. She was preschool when he left.

00:07:36.840 - 00:07:53.960

And so my grandmother was alone, and she had no income after her children grew up and stopped supporting her at home. And so she went to live with first one and another for a month or two or however long at a time.

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And I always dreaded to see her come because she took over and everybody dreaded seeing her. She was, you know, very assertive. She took over the household, actually.

00:08:05.650 - 00:08:15.800

She took over my bedroom. She played country-western music, which I hated. And she listened to W. Leo Daniel and his politics. I didn't like that either.

00:08:18.060 - 00:08:40.120

But, you know, that was about it. would come and then she would leave and we'd see her in a year I guess. As a nine-year-old, tell me how you felt when your dad left. I used to say to myself I wish he had died because I didn't like for people to know that I had a father that I didn't live with. I thought

00:08:40.140 - 00:09:10.980

it was so bad that he disliked us so much that he had to leave. And I thought I was ugly. That was probably one reason. And maybe not real smart, but he didn't ever seem to like me. When we lived in San Antonio before he left, we lived just about two blocks from where he worked. And I would go down to meet him when I heard the whistle, and I would

00:09:11.000 - 00:09:35.560

just walk to the street. I couldn't walk across the street. And I would grab his hand, and he'd push it away. And he never touched me. And he'd sit on the couch and if I sat down by him he'd say, "Be careful, don't mess up my clothes. I don't want my suit wrinkled." So that wasn't very good.

00:09:35.730 - 00:10:05.060

No. As a young child having to come home and take care of your other siblings, how did that affect you? Oh, it just made me love those little boys. I enjoyed doing it. And you know, I'd play with them. Mother didn't get home until after dark, seven o'clock or so, and I'd feed them supper and see they got their baths and see that they got in bed

00:10:05.380 - 00:10:21.160

and they were all in bed when my mother came home. And it made me very, very close to them 'cause I felt almost like a mother to them rather than a sister. And things became very hard for my mother

00:10:21.300 - 00:10:33.880

because she had no education and her jobs paid so little. And it was hard for her to pay someone to keep the children when I was in school. And so we went to the Baptist Church

00:10:34.620 - 00:10:47.520

and one day the Baptist minister talked with her and he had found out something about our circumstances. And he said, you know, it would be a lot easier for you if you would put those children in the Protestant orphanage.

00:10:48.640 - 00:11:02.980

And mother said, oh, I can't do that. And he said, yes, they have an arrangement that if you, particularly for single parents, that if you pay what you can for these children, then you can take them out whenever you're

00:11:03.120 - 00:11:10.160

ready. They're not up for adoption. It's just to give them a home where it's safe and secure. So, we did.

00:11:10.320 - 00:11:19.780

He did the arranging for us because I'm sure there were a lot of children that needed it too. But he.. I don't know what his position but he did work with that

00:11:20.020 - 00:11:26.620

orphanage. And so, we went there. And it was fun. I mean, I didn't have responsibility.

00:11:28.360 - 00:11:36.920

Each of us had a job. And my job was setting the table, putting the knives and forks out. You know.

00:11:37.140 - 00:11:52.280

On the tables we had tables of, I don't know, six or eight people at the table. And so my job was to put the knives and forks and the napkins out. And then my little brother got sick. You see, he was not two years old, about a year and a half.

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And he separated each of us, you know. I was with the girls my age, and Bob was with little boys his age. He was about five by then. And Jay was in the nursery, and he didn't know anybody.

00:12:07.120 - 00:12:20.840

And he became very ill. He wouldn't eat. And the doctors contacted my mother, and they said, "This child thinks he's been rejected. He's all alone in the world."

00:12:22.100 - 00:12:41.780

So he asked if he could have me come over every day. You want to stop for a minute? Oh, wonderful story. But so every day after school, I would go to the nursery and take him outside and play

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with him, swing him, you know, whatever, and stay with him while he had his dinner and got ready for bed. And he got well. Wow.

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He just had been with us, and he all of a sudden didn't have any family. And we were always very close. Both my brothers, but especially the younger one, Jerry. And when he became ill, he wanted me by him.

00:13:11.140 - 00:13:29.480

And I went to see him in the hospital every weekend. He was in Dallas at the VA hospital. We were in Mount Pleasant, a hundred miles away. And when he was dying, and I knew he was, he couldn't talk.

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He had lost his voice. And he'd motioned for me to sit by him. He'd pat the bed up close to him and hold his hand. And I sat there while he died.

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And how long, when was this? This was in '91, November, right? The day after Thanksgiving was when he died. And one of my sons, the second son, Bill, was with me.

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And I would get up to go to the restroom or get a drink or something. And the minute I walked in the room back in, he'd mush me. He'd want me right there. And I told him before he died, I said, "Jay, I'm older.

00:14:09.540 - 00:14:20.340

You're younger. You were supposed to get old, younger than I, and take care of me in my old age and look after me." And he just smiled and died.

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But it was, I'm glad that I could be there. How long were you in this particular home? About a year. How often would your mom get to visit?

00:14:32.500 - 00:14:46.280

Every weekend. She came every Sunday and visited us. And then she met my stepfather, whom she already knew. They ran into each other in San Antonio and started seeing one another.

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So before they got married, she told me that they were going to get married. Well, he visited with her two or three times, and my brothers just loved him. They'd hold his hand. They didn't have a father.

00:14:59.640 - 00:15:19.360

And he'd pick up Jay and put him on his shoulders and hold Bob's hand, and they'd walk, and Bob would tell him everything, you know, about the place. And one day Bob said to him, "Why don't you marry my mother and get me out of this place?" He said, "You know, that's a good idea."

00:15:19.360 - 00:15:30.460

But he was a good father to us. And it was much better after that. He was an athletic man. And the first summer, they married in February, I believe.

00:15:31.500 - 00:15:43.920

As soon as it was warm, he said, "We're going swimming." My mother said, "We don't know how to swim." He said, "Everybody will learn to swim." So he proceeded every time.

00:15:43.920 - 00:16:03.900

He was a railroad man, and he'd be gone for a day and a half and come back, and he'd be home two days or so. And as soon as he came home, Mother would have to fix a picnic lunch and take our suits and everything, and we rode the streetcar to Bracken Ridge Park, and we'd go swimming.

00:16:04.020 - 00:16:15.440

And he taught us, everyone, even my mother, who was scared to death of the water, he said, "You have to learn to swim, too." What was your swimsuit like? Oh, it was just a one-piece.

00:16:15.500 - 00:16:26.800

It was not, you know, it wasn't quite as high as they are today, but it didn't come to my knees either. No, it wasn't quite. It was just a, you know, swimsuit.

00:16:28.140 - 00:16:50.380

Once your mother remarried, tell me what Christmas was like at your house. My mother loved Christmas always. And even when we were alone, my mother took the money that she would have bought groceries and went to town at the dime store and bought all these little presents.

00:16:51.540 - 00:17:04.380

And somewhere she found a little tree. And she said, "These children have to have Christmas." And she said, she told me, she talked to me like an adult, you know, she said, "I don't care whether we eat or not.

00:17:04.520 - 00:17:22.660

I think it's more important that these little boys remember they had Christmas." And so we didn't have any food in the house, but the Baptists came through. On Christmas Eve, they brought this big thing of groceries, you know, ham, turkey, everything you can think of.

00:17:23.400 - 00:17:42.280

So we had food and Christmas. But she always decorated and bought presents and just loved it. Do you remember any church activities that centered around Christmas? No, not really.

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I mean, we went to, you know, they'd have a pageant. We were in the Baptist church at that time and we'd go to their activities. But I guess I wasn't too impressed with them. I don't remember any in particular.

00:17:56.120 - 00:18:07.880

- But as far as church activities, were you into Sunday school? - Yes, we went everything, Sunday school, evening, mornings, everything they had, we went.

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And my stepfather was not a church person when he married my mother. And after we went to church one Sunday and left him alone, he said, "I'm not staying here.

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I'm going to go to church too if you're going." And so he did. And he became such a devout Christian. And he was 15 years older than my mother.

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But he carried his Bible all the time, everywhere, and stopped and tried to convert everybody. But he was a wonderful Christian man. And so we all went to church all the time then. Once your mother remarried, did she stop working?

00:18:49.600 - 00:19:09.160

Oh yes, she didn't work. She stayed at home. Okay. Tell me what your activities were while you were in junior high school. What were your social activities like? The only thing that I think I did--I had a best friend that I--

00:19:09.260 - 00:19:29.320

I was only in eighth grade there because we had moved to Sanderson out in west Texas for sixth and seventh grade, and we came back. There was a man on the railroad whose wife was ill and he needed to take her to San Antonio. And so he arranged for my dad to take his place so that he could be away that year,

00:19:30.020 - 00:19:40.140

two years. And so then when we came, and I didn't like it out there. >> I was going to say, how did that affect you, having changed schools? >> I hated it.

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Because they were different, you know. I was a city kid and they were ranch people. little town, you know, way out by itself. And I did not like it at all.

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I had one good friend. And, you know, I would go to her house or she'd come to mine. And she lived -- they were wealthy and they had a house in the middle of a whole block with a sidewalk around it. So we'd go there to rotorskate.

00:20:11.760 - 00:20:25.260

But I think she was my only friend. And but then after we came back in eighth grade was the one year that I walked to school all the time because it was nearby. And I met Carolyn.

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And she had not been to public school. Her parents were ranchers. And they had had a tutor on the ranch. And they had just moved into town and decided to put the two

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daughters in public school. Evelyn was younger. And Carolyn and I became best friends. And we could walk.

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We were about a block apart. and we could walk to each other's houses. We spent weekends together. She was a Catholic who wasn't supposed

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to go to any other church, but when we'd spend weekends together, I would go to mass with her and then she would go to church with us.

00:20:59.760 - 00:21:15.400

So we had a lot of religion. But we just, you know, we do things together. And Brian, my brother's bicycle, I didn't have a bicycle. In school, what was your favorite subject?

00:21:16.680 - 00:21:26.180

English, probably. Do you remember any outstanding teachers or anyone who influenced you in that period up through eighth grade?

00:21:26.180 - 00:21:36.680

I remember in fourth grade, there was a teacher who taught us music appreciation and art appreciation. And I learned then to recognize--

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we had to recognize painters, you know, games for different ones. And I became really loving the French impressionists, Van Gogh especially.

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But she would show us pictures and tell us about the artist and that. And then she would play records, and we'd learn to recognize the symphony, the music.

00:22:05.040 - 00:22:23.220

And that was the happiest time, I think, for me in school, that period, that hour a day that we spent in appreciation. So that was a good influence. That same school also, in elementary school,

00:22:23.220 - 00:22:36.260

in the mornings before we went into school, we'd play in the yard. And then when the bell rang, we'd gather at the flagpole. And we would sing the national anthem

00:22:36.480 - 00:22:46.480

and have the Pledge of Allegiance. And then one of the teachers or principal would lead in prayer for the day. And I remember that was a good time, too.

00:22:47.140 - 00:23:00.160

And then we went on into classes. And that wouldn't be allowed today. No, I'm afraid not. Another thing that's not allowed when children are either hurt

00:23:00.160 - 00:23:10.540

are unhappy or something, the teacher would put their arm around them and pat them and say, "It's going to be okay." They aren't allowed to touch children now. My daughter teaches kindergarten.

00:23:10.590 - 00:23:26.320

She does it anyway. >>When you were in school, what kind -- did you have outside activities, sports, or anything? >>Not anything, no. And I was not popular.

00:23:27.480 - 00:23:44.480

I still thought I was ugly. I did not talk to the boys and they did not talk to me. As you look back, do you feel it might have been your feeling of rejection? Probably.

00:23:46.200 - 00:23:58.340

My mother was so pretty. Of course, my stepfather told her all the time, "You are so beautiful. You have always been beautiful." That made me contrast her with me.

00:24:01.140 - 00:24:12.360

When you went on to high school, did you change schools or was it in the same way? No, that was at Brackenridge. I stayed in high school there. What kind of student were you?

00:24:13.780 - 00:24:24.860

A's. I was a good student because they didn't divide us into groups and everything was kind of slow for me. I mean, the other students were too slow for me.

00:24:24.940 - 00:24:35.900

And I always had a library book, and I'd put it behind my math book or history or whatever we had, because I would have already studied. I knew what was going on.

00:24:35.960 - 00:24:46.780

And then I'd just read my book. As you were growing up, what were your ambitions? What did you want to be? I thought I'd like to be a teacher.

00:24:47.460 - 00:24:55.140

That was all I thought. For a little while, I thought maybe nurse, but I gave that up soon. We lived next door to a doctor

00:24:55.340 - 00:25:02.640

and I babysat his children. He was a very nice man. He had three little girls and I would go over when they went out

00:25:02.760 - 00:25:09.840

and stay with the little girls. And I loved them. And I loved him and his wife. And that's when I thought I'd be a nurse

00:25:10.080 - 00:25:22.220

and work with people like him. But that lasted maybe half a year. As you were growing up, who were your role models? My mother, primarily.

00:25:24.600 - 00:25:34.200

Do you remember in high school, your high school prom? I didn't go to the prom. I didn't go to anything in high school. I went to one--

00:25:34.200 - 00:25:44.940

when I was a senior, a group of my girlfriends and I decided that we would go to one football game, the last one, homecoming game. And we went, and we watched the halftime,

00:25:44.970 - 00:26:03.840

and then we went home. I didn't care and didn't participate and so it wasn't anything for me. Tell me about your graduation. Well, as I said, there were 800, maybe a little over, and we had our ceremony at the municipal

00:26:04.060 - 00:26:16.040

auditorium because there were so many of us. My parents went and I guess my brothers, and it was just walk across the stage, get my diploma. Did you have caps and gowns?

00:26:17.740 - 00:26:32.320

I don't believe we wore, I think that we wore long dresses and the boys wore slacks and a tie. When you graduated, did you have something in mind to do? What were you planning to do?

00:26:32.320 - 00:26:57.320

I wanted to go to college, but there was no money for that. My stepfather said he didn't really believe in college for women anyway. So when I was in eighth grade, my mother told me, my father had remarried and this woman wrote me letters and I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd even read them.

00:26:58.660 - 00:27:10.020

And she told me one time, she said, you know, she would open the letters and read them. She said, "She sounds like a very nice woman and she wants you to come and visit. I think you should do that. you'll feel better about your dad.

00:27:10.760 - 00:27:26.660

She said, you know, everybody has reasons for what they do. So, that summer after eighth grade, I went to Waco and I rode the bus and he met me. And they were very nice to me.

00:27:27.000 - 00:27:43.380

And then he and I together drove up to East Texas to get his wife's sister who was about my age so that we'd, have someone to do something with. And so for several days we had a good time.

00:27:43.520 - 00:28:07.040

We went roller skating and we, I may have gone to the movies, I don't know. But one morning when I went to breakfast, my stepmother had breakfast ready, and we sat down to eat, my father, somewhere in the conversation, said, "You know, we could have had a happy home if your mother hadn't been such a nag."

00:28:07.040 - 00:28:20.360

"You can't talk about my mother." I said, "She's a wonderful woman. "She took care of us when you didn't, "and I won't stay here another day, not another minute."

00:28:20.360 - 00:28:28.380

I said, "You can either take me to the bus, "or I'll call a cab, I'm leaving." And they couldn't talk me out of it. So I left.

00:28:29.320 - 00:28:45.460

And I didn't see him anymore to talk with him until after my mother passed away, and I felt I needed to get rid of some of that bitterness if I could. And so I did go and visit my brother Jay and I went together to Waco.

00:28:47.600 - 00:29:00.560

And so, you know, I tried to be nice to him. And his wife was very anxious to love me. They had no children. She had never had children.

00:29:01.820 - 00:29:16.080

And she'd say, "Why don't we go down shopping? I want to buy so and so." So we'd go shopping, and all the clerks she knew in Waco, the stores, and she'd say, "This is my daughter who lives in Houston."

00:29:16.420 - 00:29:34.220

And then my father had a heart attack, and I went up, and she told all the nurses and the doctors, "This is my daughter who lives in Houston." So she was very pleased, and he seemed to be pleased also, but he was not a happy man. He just wasn't happy at all.

00:29:34.380 - 00:29:46.680

You could see it in the way he talked. And I always went to church that weekend, you know. That's my priority. And there was a Church of Christ just down about two blocks from where they live.

00:29:47.560 - 00:29:58.400

So on Sunday morning, we'd have breakfast, and then I'd go to church. He said, "You're going to church?" And I said, "Yes." And almost every time we had this conversation, he'd say, "You didn't come to go to church.

00:29:58.480 - 00:30:11.540

You came to visit me. Why do you have to go to church?" And I said, "Well, I have priorities in my life, and God is my first priority, so I will go to church, and I'm sorry if you don't want to go with me."

00:30:11.540 - 00:30:22.000

"No, I'm not going to church." He said, "Just remember, when I die, don't take my body in a church. I haven't been in one before. I don't want my body in a church."

00:30:23.220 - 00:30:45.180

So that was sad, but he said some other ugly things I don't like to even mention about Not religion, but I think maybe that's why he was so unhappy. When you graduated from high school, then what did you do? What did you do that summer?

00:30:45.820 - 00:31:03.580

Oh, I looked for a job. I started before school was out, but it was the middle of the Depression. I graduated in 1939, and there were no jobs. As we'd go downtown, you could see long lines of men just holding their cup to get a cup

00:31:03.640 - 00:31:17.080

of soup and a piece of bread. And they'd come to our house and ask if they could do yard work for a meal. And my mother said, "You know, we do our own work. I don't have any work for you to do, but I'll surely fix you a meal."

00:31:17.080 - 00:31:36.460

And so she'd fix them a meal, and this was a very frequent thing. And so everywhere I went, you know, the dime stores and other places in town, they said, "Oh, no. Well, you can leave an application, but if a man comes in and needs a job, he will have

00:31:36.460 - 00:31:55.380

the first job, but we don't have any openings." And so I went out to the state hospital where my mother had worked for a while. And they said, "Yes, they needed help." And so I, he asked me how old I was and I said, "Well, I'm 17 but I'll be 18 in August."

00:31:55.380 - 00:32:07.040

He said, "Well, come back when you're 18." So I went back when I was 18 and went to work that day. And it was, it was kind of fun. You know, you can see fun in anything if you look for it.

00:32:08.020 - 00:32:25.100

There were about six of us about that age, 18. And we lived in a dormitory room. That was part of our pay, was room and board. And we had separate beds and we had little closets and all that, you know, and a bathroom

00:32:25.220 - 00:32:39.940

down the hall that we shared with some other people. But we laughed and we cut up. We just had a good time. One of the girls and I decided we'd dye our hair red, and it turned out to be an awful

00:32:40.120 - 00:32:53.020

orange, awful, just terrible. But we just left and we went around saying, "Look at our dye job." And they had a bowling alley there that we could go and bowl and buy a hamburger or something, you know.

00:32:53.480 - 00:33:10.940

So we did that, and I fell for a young man that was working. He was an A&M student who was there working summers and Christmas holidays. And he would come to the dorm where, the building where I was and wait downstairs for me, and he had a banjo.

00:33:10.940 - 00:33:18.100

So he'd play the banjo. And we'd go bowling. We didn't even, at that time, he didn't have the money either. He was saving money for school.

00:33:18.220 - 00:33:31.300

His parents were farmers. And so the two years, one year that I worked there, I had a very good time. Did you get to visit home very much while you were there? Oh yes.

00:33:33.560 - 00:34:01.700

You know, San Antonio had a good transportation system, and I'd just ride the bus and visit. sometimes for the weekend. And then what made you decide to stop that job? Well I saved every penny. They furnished us uniforms and laundry, food and a place to live. We changed the linens, we took them off the bed and put them out in the hall and they put fresh ones

00:34:01.780 - 00:34:19.620

out and towels. Everything was furnished. So I didn't really have much of a need so So I saved almost every bit of my $35 a month. And so by the end of that year, my stepfather went home one time and he said, "Have you considered going to business college?"

00:34:19.660 - 00:34:31.240

I said, "No, I don't think I'd like it. I want to go to college." And he said, "Well, you know, it would help you to go to college if you decide to. You could work and make enough money to go to college."

00:34:31.700 - 00:34:45.500

And he said, "Why don't you look into it?" I said, "Well, I guess so." So he called Drohn's Business College. The next time I came home, he came to -- a man from there came to call on me and talk

00:34:45.600 - 00:34:57.340

to me there with my parents. And he said, you know, same thing really that my dad had said, "This will help you do anything you want to do." And so I said, "Well, I guess you're right."

00:34:57.340 - 00:35:09.040

Well, I had enough money to pay for it. And so I paid for that and stayed at home with my parents and went to work, you know, to school every day. And what courses were you taking?

00:35:10.600 - 00:35:23.220

Typing, shorthand, I guess a little simple bookkeeping, filing, the other things that go along with office work. And I really didn't like it. It was a nice school and I made another friend who lived not too far.

00:35:23.220 - 00:35:39.680

We rode the same bus. And you know, I liked the association, but I did not like typing. I liked the shorthand better, but I never was a good typist. But I managed to get my 60 words a minute, you know, before I was prepared to get a job.

00:35:41.040 - 00:35:56.200

And next door, the doctor and his family had moved out, and a lieutenant, first lieutenant, and his wife had moved in next door. Well, he and my dad talked and he asked my dad one time, he said, "Where does your daughter work?

00:35:56.340 - 00:36:09.400

I see her going every morning early as I'm leaving, I see her leaving and coming in after I get home." And he said, "Oh, she told me what, he told him what I was doing." And he said, "When is she going to be able to go to work?"

00:36:09.400 - 00:36:26.980

And he said, my dad said, "Well, I think she's about finished." So then he waited and talked to me, the Lieutenant, Lieutenant Rose, Tony Rose. And he said, "You know, we need help at Fort Sam where I work." He said, "Would you like me to make an appointment?

00:36:27.180 - 00:36:44.320

You can go out with me." I said, "Yes, sir." So I went out with him that whatever morning it was, and the Colonel Deavers was the head of the medical section, commanding officer of the medical section of the San Antonio

00:36:45.400 - 00:36:53.540

General Depot at Fort Sam. And so he talked with me and he said, "Can you take shorthand?" I said, "Yes, sir." "How fast?"

00:36:53.860 - 00:37:00.540

I said, "120 words a minute." He said, "That's mighty fast. Can you take a letter right now?" I said, "Yes, sir."

00:37:00.540 - 00:37:09.460

So at about 50 or 60 words a minute, he dictated a letter. And he said, "Read it back to me." So I did. He said, "You know, that's pretty good.

00:37:09.840 - 00:37:17.660

Can you type it?" I said, "Yes, sir." So he took me over to a desk and had me sit down and type it. He said, "That's fine.

00:37:17.860 - 00:37:39.300

can you start to work?" I said, "I have nothing else to do, sir. Can you start today?" I said, "Yes, sir." So I went to work that day. And until I was able to buy a car, I rode back and forth with Tony to work. At this point, what was the world situation like and what were the rumors of?

00:37:40.260 - 00:38:01.620

Well, there were rumors of war, yes. And I think we all knew that it was. The cousin that had lived with us in first grade also lived with us out in Sanderson. We were there. In fact, he, my mother, stepfather, and I were all baptized at the same time. As Baptist? Church of Christ.

00:38:02.630 - 00:38:22.180

We started going there at the insistence of a neighbor of mother's. And he was in the I don't know whether he was a certified mechanic. He worked on airplanes. And he was a sergeant.

00:38:23.780 - 00:38:35.920

And his, I think he had enlisted for three years. I think that's what they did at that time. And we wrote back and forth and he said, "You know, my enlistment is going to be up very soon but I don't think they're going to let us leave."

00:38:36.560 - 00:39:00.920

And his enlistment time came, his time came up but they did not let him leave. And he was captured by the Japanese. went to prison. But he told me later he escaped, which was unusual. Anyone escaped from the Japanese. They were moving their prisoners from one island to another, and one of our

00:39:01.020 - 00:39:23.080

planes bomb sunk the ship. And so they were trying to kill, the guards were trying to kill the prisoners and to keep them from going somewhere else. But my cousin was young and healthy and a good swimmer and he managed to fight his way clear and swam. He didn't know where, he was just swimming away.

00:39:23.810 - 00:39:47.480

He came to some little island and he was just exhausted. He said he just fell on the beach and friendly people found him and recognized that he was American with his dog tags and hid him. They had a radio, they radioed the troops in Australia, and they brought a ship and

00:39:47.620 - 00:40:02.460

picked him up and brought him home. But he couldn't tell his story until after the war. But they let him make one phone call in San Francisco to his dad, and then they took him to Washington, you know.

00:40:03.620 - 00:40:31.720

But do you remember— You were the leader. If you could remember where you were and how you felt when you heard about Pearl Harbor. Yes, it was a Sunday afternoon and I was going with a lieutenant in the infantry at Fort

00:40:31.720 - 00:40:58.680

see him. And on Sunday afternoons, he would get his pistols, his target pistols, and gather up all the bottles and the BLQ and put them in the car and pick me up. And we'd go out in the country and he'd put these bottles on fence posts and he taught me to shoot and we'd shoot those bottles. So we'd been out. I don't know if that's what we'd been doing

00:40:58.680 - 00:41:10.560

that day, but usually we did on Sunday afternoon. And so we were driving in the car, and I don't know when, what time of day it was when we heard this. Was it before afternoon?

00:41:11.760 - 00:41:26.640

I think it was early afternoon, if I recall. And we were in the car, and it came on the radio. All military personnel report immediately, "Pearl Harbor's been bombed. We're at war."

00:41:26.640 - 00:41:37.640

And so he took me, he said, "Oh, this is terrible." He took me home right quick and left. And after that, he only could be in uniform, you know, they couldn't, he'd wear slacks or something the rest of the time.

00:41:37.760 - 00:41:55.960

But that was the last time that he could dress in that kind of clothes. What impact did that have on your life? Well, it did have an impact. Of course, I was working at Fort Sam and they knew the war was coming.

00:41:56.120 - 00:42:12.100

It was a buildup and we were very busy. We worked long hours. We worked a lot of overtime. And so I remember when they put time clocks in and we were so insulted.

00:42:12.170 - 00:42:27.620

We said, "All this time we've been working over and now they don't trust us. We have to check in and out." But what they did was monitor the hours that we were working and they gave us all retroactive bonus checks.

00:42:28.630 - 00:42:41.780

And that was nice. So you know what I did with mine? I bought a full length mink, not mink, muskrat fur coat. It was beautiful.

00:42:44.440 - 00:42:55.080

Silver muskrat. I love that coat. But that's what I did with my bonus money, something practical. Tell me about your social life when you were working at Tuck.

00:42:56.020 - 00:43:17.020

Well I had, we were not allowed to date the officers that we worked with, but at different places I had met a lot of infantry officers and some Air Corps men too. And you know I just went out, I'd go to the officers club on Saturday night to their dance And I didn't drink, so they--

00:43:17.020 - 00:43:29.420

I tried it once, and it didn't suit me. So partly my conscience, I was told, you don't drink. But I didn't like it. And so, you know, depending--

00:43:29.420 - 00:43:35.700

I know one time, this young man picked me up, and my mother said, I've been trying to get her to eat supper. She won't eat.

00:43:35.760 - 00:43:43.000

She says she doesn't have time to eat. And he says, don't worry about it. I'll feed her. And we got to the club, and everybody was ordering drinks.

00:43:43.020 - 00:44:02.560

and he ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk for me. But I would drink a Coke or coffee or whatever, but I had a good time. >>Right. Tell me how World War II changed America, changed the feelings of the people of America.

00:44:03.320 - 00:44:24.300

>>Everyone became patriotic overnight. Everyone wanted to be part of the effort. went to work when the men went away. They went to work in plants, as everybody knows. And before the war started, I had started flying. The minute the war started, there

00:44:24.300 - 00:44:38.620

were a lot of people wanting to fly. Right. Tell me the first time you ever remember seeing an airplane. Oh, I don't know, because, you know, they were all over San Antonio, so I had seen them, but I was not interested in them.

00:44:39.700 - 00:44:52.000

And my girlfriend Carolyn, that I still was friends with after we graduated, worked downtown, and she had not had a day off, I mean a week, or a vacation for over a year, and I had not.

00:44:52.420 - 00:45:02.800

So we talked one day and said, "We need to have a vacation." So we arranged to have a week off at the same time. And we thought we'd go to Carpus Christi and just have a good time.

00:45:02.900 - 00:45:12.560

And we were going to ride the train, that's what my family did. Oftentimes we'd ride the train overnight to Carpus and get all sunburned and come back on Sunday night.

00:45:13.640 - 00:45:23.840

So that's what we were planning. And one day before we left, she said, "Why don't we fly to Carpus?" I said, "Why would we do that?" And she said, "Well, it's another experience.

00:45:23.940 - 00:45:31.440

It's a new experience." I said, "Okay." She said, "I'll buy the tickets at the office downtown." I said, "Okay."

00:45:31.440 - 00:45:47.760

And then one of the girls in the office where I worked asked me if I knew anyone there. I said, "No, just Carolyn and I just going." And she said, "Well, there's a young man that I know from my hometown who is a Navy pilot. Would you all go with him if I call him?"

00:45:47.760 - 00:45:56.160

And he went. I said, "Sure." You know, she said, "You know, he can show you around or something." So she called him and she said, "He told me to tell you, as soon as you check in the

00:45:56.320 - 00:46:04.020

hotel, call him." So we did. And the very night he came with a friend and took us to dinner at the officers club at Carpus.

00:46:05.200 - 00:46:15.300

And all we heard was, you know, what they always talk about. Pilots get together, they talk about, you know, doing this and that, and it was all the flying. And it sounded so exciting.

00:46:15.920 - 00:46:32.560

And every day we'd be down on the beach and he and this other guy would fly over the beach and wave their wings at us, you know. And I thought that was exciting too. And so that whole week, they took us out every night to the club, and we just had such a

00:46:32.620 - 00:46:43.420

great time. And so we came home, and I said, "I'm going to learn to fly." Carolyn said, "You're going to learn to fly. Why would you do that?"

00:46:43.420 - 00:46:59.440

I said, "Another new experience." So I went after work one day. I borrowed my dad's car and drove it to work and went out to Stinson Field. And I knew they taught flying, and I saw flying—Brown's Flying School.

00:47:00.140 - 00:47:12.040

So I walked in, and I said, "I want to take flying lessons." And he said, "I don't think you're the type." I said, "Type or not, you're going to teach me to fly." "Oh, I don't think so."

00:47:12.060 - 00:47:21.120

I said, "I've got money in my hand, and you're going to take it, and you're going to take me up today." He said, "You're not dressed for it." Of course, I had on heels and a suit.

00:47:21.880 - 00:47:35.460

I said, "That's all right. I can go up this way anyhow. going to take me." So he took me up, you know, and it was so wonderful. I guess it was a Piper Cub. And we came down and I said, "Oh, that was wonderful. When can I come back?"

00:47:35.460 - 00:47:54.520

And he said, "Well, I don't think you need to come back." He said, "This is not the kind of thing that you can learn to do. I just think you're not the type." I said, "I'm coming back. I'll see you Saturday." So he said, "Well, don't wear those clothes when you come back. I said, "Okay." So I went on Saturday wearing slacks, you know, and low-heeled shoes.

00:47:55.520 - 00:48:16.160

Every time that he took me up, he said, "You're not going to ever learn to do this. This is not for you." I said, "It is for me, and you're going to teach me." So we had this argument each time. Finally, he soloed me. He got out of the plane. He said, "Well, you probably will kill yourself and wreck my airplane, but go ahead. I'm not going to sit in this

00:48:16.020 - 00:48:42.660

airplane any longer. You just gone by yourself. I did and he waved me to do another landing you know I did too then he waved me in and he said well at least you didn't wreck the airplane and so you're okay. Did you know any other girls who were flying? Yes there were a lot of us out there learning to fly and we had a wonderful

00:48:42.660 - 00:49:31.040

time. And when was this? This was in, I guess it was before the war, probably early '41. I don't know for sure, it may have been after, but it was right around the time that we went to war. And I can't remember just when it was, but there were a number of us and we decided, there were about ten of us that got to be pretty close friends because we'd go out to fly, we had to sign our names and be on a list and we could fly to the air force. And we had to fly to the air force. And we had to fly to the air force. And we had to fly to the air 30 minutes and we got back, we could put our name at the bottom of the list and start over. So we'd spend all day long, you know, to get an hour. And so we would sit around and talk and we decided that we were going to organize a women's

00:49:31.140 - 00:49:39.560

flying club. So we talked about what we'd do and one of the girls said, "Well, we don't know how to do this. We need some help."

00:49:39.560 - 00:49:46.240

Somebody else said, "Why don't we call Jacqueline Cochran? She knows all about flying." So-- Did she know who she was?

00:49:46.460 - 00:49:53.500

Yeah, we'd heard of her, you know. Everybody knew who she was. I mean, we did. So one of the girls called her.

00:49:54.360 - 00:50:02.280

She said, yes, she'd be happy to come and talk to us about organizing a flying club. And at that time-- this was after the war, I'm sure,

00:50:02.540 - 00:50:23.920

because we were learning-- one of the girls' uncle, father, somebody, was commanding general of Gulf Coast Training Command, Air Force, and he persuaded the officers at the Cadet Center to teach us the ground school, the pre-flight that the cadets were

00:50:23.920 - 00:50:36.660

learning. And so he asked for volunteers, which he had many. And so we went out, I don't know, whether it was every night four nights or five or whether it was two or three times a week, frequently.

00:50:37.940 - 00:50:51.300

I think about three nights a week from six until ten, I think. And we learned all the pre-flight things, Mars code, engines, the whole thing. Theory of flight.

00:50:53.240 - 00:51:09.060

And so we were out there the night that we told Cochran when we'd be out at Lackland, which was just above Kelly Field. So she flew herself into Kelly Field and waited for us. And we sat in a hangar with her almost all night,

00:51:10.080 - 00:51:16.240

talking to her. She was so wonderful. Of course, we didn't know she was organizing women at that time.

00:51:17.180 - 00:51:25.180

But she talked to all of us and encouraged us and told us what we could do. Mostly, she just encouraged us. Said, you can do it.

00:51:25.220 - 00:51:39.920

You can do whatever you want to do. Just keep it up. And we just sat and talked with her. hours and it was, when I look back, it was so egotistical of us to think that anyone

00:51:40.000 - 00:52:02.140

of her status would come to San Antonio and meet with women who weren't doing anything. I mean we were just starting to learn to fly. And for her to spend her time and fly herself and talk with us was a wonderful thing because Because we thought it was great then, but I can look back and see as busy as she was,

00:52:02.220 - 00:52:25.380

as important as she was, and to come and talk to us, unimportant people. But then we read in the paper that she was organizing women pilots. And so a number of us decided we'd apply. So I guess we wrote and found out we got applications and found out we had to have the 35 hours

00:52:25.480 - 00:52:41.780

first. So my good friend, Starley Grona, I don't know if you knew her, she was in my class. She was one of my close friends there. And she and I went in the same class.

00:52:42.740 - 00:53:06.060

And another one of the girls, Geneva, I can't remember her last name. But when we got to Sweetwater, Starley was chosen immediately to be flight leader of our flight. And at the end of that month, I guess it was a month, they changed, I was chosen for the next time. And we just were together all the time.

00:53:07.000 - 00:53:22.540

What did your mom and your stepdad think when you told them that you wanted to learn to fly? They didn't think that was such a good idea, but you know, my mother had found when I was very young not to say you can't do that to me.

00:53:24.000 - 00:53:41.380

Because that just gave me more reason to do it if I was told I couldn't and shouldn't. As long as it wasn't immoral, I did it anyway. And so... How did the war affect your family?

00:53:42.460 - 00:53:58.180

Well, I guess all of my cousins of age went to war. Only one was lost. Now, my grandmother had 13 children that grew up to be married and have children. And my father was one of 11 that had children.

00:53:59.190 - 00:54:12.360

And on both sides of the family, we, my cousin and I tried to count them once, but there were many that were serving everywhere. And we only lost one. He was from Waco.

00:54:13.680 - 00:54:32.020

And he was on a bomber that was shot down and he was lost over Germany. As far as your immediate family? Well, it was a little hard for my parents because of the rationing. But as long as I was in San Antonio, whether I lived with them or I had moved out, I could

00:54:32.120 - 00:54:41.840

give them my ration tickets because I ate out a whole time anyhow. So they had plenty of sugar and gas. I used the gas too to go back and forth to work. But I had enough.

00:54:42.300 - 00:55:01.800

And tires. So I was able to help them because by that time my dad had heart attacks and he had to retire so they were on a smaller income. And as I say, it was kind of hard to buy some things, but I shared my tickets with them

00:55:01.840 - 00:55:12.080

and they had plenty. As far as your brothers? My brothers immediately went to the war. Bob joined the Marine Corps.

00:55:13.360 - 00:55:33.740

Actually before war was declared, he had decided he wanted to be a Marine. So he joined the Marine Corps and was—had learned to be a bombsight mechanic. And he—when the war came, he was teaching bombsight, whatever, to students in South Carolina.

00:55:34.980 - 00:55:49.760

And Jay was going to Baylor, he was going to be a doctor. He went three trimesters, and then he called me and said, "Guess what? I just joined the Merchant Marine." I said, "Yes, if I could get you, I'd kill you, too."

00:55:49.760 - 00:56:05.300

I was paying his college expenses. He said, "Oh, but they need me." He went across the Pacific, I think, twice, possibly three times, but I think only twice. His best friend was killed and, you know, he saw things happening that he didn't like

00:56:05.300 - 00:56:19.620

at all. He said, "Well, if I'm going to be in this war, I'm going to be in it." So he left the Merchant Marine and joined the Army at Fort Sam Houston. And you know, we worried about him because he was not a macho type.

00:56:20.320 - 00:56:33.520

He was a quiet man. He liked music and reading and things like that. And Mother and I worried so about him. Before he had moved to Luling, they had moved to Luling, and I was going to school in San

00:56:33.820 - 00:56:43.660

Marcus. And so as soon as Jay wrote and said that he had a weekend that we could come visit, we went. And Mother and I said, "Oh, we just don't know what we're going to see.

00:56:43.840 - 00:56:56.740

Jay is just going to be so unhappy." He was his old happy self, and Mother said, "Well, what do you do, honey?" He said, "I'm a chaplain's assistant." And he was the one we had to make go to Sunday school.

00:56:56.920 - 00:57:05.800

He'd always say, "I'm too tired." She said, "You are a chaplain's assistant. What do you do?" She said, "How did you get to do that?"

00:57:05.800 - 00:57:14.520

And he said, "Oh, they had a thing on the bulletin board, somebody to play the organ." And we said, "But you can't play the organ." "Oh, sure I can." He played by ear.

00:57:15.140 - 00:57:26.820

And he always, that was one thing I always got mad at him about. I took piano lessons, and I worked so hard. And he'd come in and play the same thing. So he said, "Sure, I can play the organ.

00:57:26.940 - 00:57:35.120

I can play the piano. An organ's not much different." So he played the organ for chapel services. He said, "I know all those songs by heart anyway.

00:57:35.300 - 00:57:50.080

We've heard them all my life." That's what you and I had said before. And so then they sent him to language school to learn Japanese. And when the war was over, he went with the Army of Occupation to Japan.

00:57:51.480 - 00:58:00.580

And he loved that. Tell me why Jay chose Baylor when you were having to pay and Baylor was more expensive than a state school. I don't know why.

00:58:00.760 - 00:58:15.700

He just had decided that was the best school for him. He wanted to go pre-med and he had looked into difference, I guess, with the counselors and he said, I said, "Now Jay, I'll pay for your school wherever you want to go." And he said, "I'm going to Baylor."

00:58:15.700 - 00:58:22.320

I said, "That's awfully expensive. Can't you go to a state school?" "Nope. I'm going to go to Baylor and I'm not going at all."

00:58:22.320 - 00:58:35.480

I said, "You're going to Bailey." And so, you know, I didn't leave my money anyway. When you decided to go into training for the WASP, were you still working at Fort Sam? Oh, yes.

00:58:36.940 - 00:58:53.060

And it took a while, you know. I don't know about other girls, but it seemed to be an eternity from the time that I finally passed and had everything ready and hearing that I could go. One thing, I failed my first physical.

00:58:53.810 - 00:59:05.020

I was underweight and my blood pressure was too low. So I called a doctor and he said, "Take a cold shower every morning when you first get out of bed. That'll raise your blood pressure."

00:59:05.060 - 00:59:15.980

It raised it enough points to get me over the line. And I ate everything that I could. I never had a big appetite, but I just eat, you know. And they teased me at work about how much I was eating.

00:59:17.320 - 00:59:31.280

I ate bananas, and before I went out for my physical, I drank water. And I failed the first time, and then the second time I made it. But— And then how did you get from San Antonio out to Sweetwater?

00:59:31.340 - 00:59:44.520

Well, by that time I had a car, because I was taking those flying lessons, and my dad needed his car part of the time. And so I didn't have time to go look for a car. And so he said, "Well, I'll get one for you.

00:59:45.260 - 01:00:01.140

I'll take care of it." So he went to where he had bought cars and chose one that I could pay for. It was a '35 Ford, two-door, just a roadster, and brought it home. And I thought it was quite beautiful.

01:00:02.000 - 01:00:16.540

And he brought the papers and I signed them and he took them back and I made payments to what was paid for. So I drove to Sweetwater. Give me your first impressions when you went out to Avenger Field.

01:00:19.680 - 01:00:40.580

Hot, dry, dusty, not pretty. And they put us all in a room and talked to us, you know. And we had a WASP who was assigned as our big sister who told us some things, too. And she told us where she was, her barracks, and that we could call her any time.

01:00:42.440 - 01:00:57.800

And so, but they gave us all the rules and all this stuff, you know. It sounded pretty formidable. And of course, they had told us what we could bring, which wasn't very much. I took a red suit and a black suit and two or three white blouses.

01:00:58.620 - 01:01:13.280

And then, of course, the khaki slacks and white cotton shirts for daytime. And then when they showed, they put these zoot suits for us, these coveralls that hung, you know. And my hundred pounds didn't do much for those.

01:01:13.960 - 01:01:28.300

But you know, we all laughed about it. And then when they introduced those turbans, we didn't like that either. >>Describe for me the barracks where you lived. >>I think there were six of us in a room.

01:01:29.400 - 01:01:41.420

Four and two cots. Desk in the center. a bathroom that we shared with the six people next door, two potties, a shower with two heads,

01:01:42.110 - 01:01:52.760

and two wash basins with a mirror above them. So 12 of us using those, we didn't linger very long in the bathroom. And that was kind of hard, but you do it.

01:01:53.600 - 01:02:10.360

What was the biggest adjustment you had to make when you went into training? I guess probably the living with so many people. But you see I had done that out of high school so it wasn't really so new to me.

01:02:11.220 - 01:02:27.120

So I adjusted pretty well to it. And then I guess that was probably, you know, we just took everything as it came and it was a great time. Tell me about your bay mates.

01:02:27.880 - 01:02:49.720

Okay, my best friend was Betty Chambers and she slept in the cot next to me the whole time we were there. And on Sundays we would go to town, I had my car, and we'd go to town and have breakfast. In the meantime, that first weekend we were there that we went off the base, the upperclassmen

01:02:49.780 - 01:03:12.020

I guess it was, arranged a party, a dance, upstairs in a building. And we went and we met two lieutenants from Big Spring who came over and sat with us. And so they came every weekend and we'd meet them at the Blue Bonnet Hotel and we'd have breakfast.

01:03:13.120 - 01:03:30.520

And then the young man that Betty was dating was a Baptist as she was. The young man I dated was a Catholic. But the churches were the same direction. So we walked to church, and the Catholic church I think was a block above the Church of Christ.

01:03:31.380 - 01:03:44.880

So he'd leave me there, he'd go on and then he'd come back by the time we'd walk back and have lunch together. And sometimes we'd go to Abilene or do something else, you know. And who else was in your bay?

01:03:46.500 - 01:04:18.260

brothers, Ann Darr. Shirley Bush started with us, but she washed out after a few weeks, very short time. How did that make you feel? Oh, we were so sad for Shirley. We cried as much as she did. We all sat on the cot with her and cried and cried. And she was so broken hard and so when everything quieted down and everybody gone about their business, I got

01:04:18.300 - 01:04:36.940

my Bible and read to her. Do you know why she watched out? Well she had air sickness, inner ear thing, and they told her that you just didn't get over that and that she would just have to go.

01:04:38.320 - 01:04:59.920

you entered training, what were your expectations? I don't know because I didn't know what to expect. I just wanted to learn to fly and I'd already started learning and of course they told us to forget what we learned and start over and I wanted to conquer this thing. I wanted to finish, graduate and be a

01:04:59.980 - 01:05:17.640

military pilot and so whatever they said do I jumped and did it. Describe for me What ground school was like? Ground school was a piece of cake, because I'd had all that in pre-flight at San Antonio, the Cadet Center.

01:05:18.420 - 01:05:27.960

So all I had to do was one day a week go in and take tests, and then I could go. I had that time to myself. And Starley, too.

01:05:29.040 - 01:05:42.940

Starley was in the next bay. She was G, so she wasn't in the same bay. But we saw a lot of each other. And of course the thing I guess that was probably hardest for me was the calisthenics.

01:05:44.180 - 01:05:56.860

I never was active except swimming. And then to have to do these jumping jacks and all this stuff, that was hard. Were you ever able to chain yourself? Yeah, I did it.

01:05:57.900 - 01:06:12.820

I didn't like it, but I did it. Talk about the auxiliary fields. What would happen? We'd ride in a, we called it a cattle car, a bus that was all rickety and had windows

01:06:12.920 - 01:06:27.400

that were open and dust flew in. We rode out to the auxiliary field and flew. So that was fun. I had an instructor, the first in the primary that I remember, and I can't remember his

01:06:27.300 - 01:06:54.700

his name, but he was a rancher type, macho rancher. And whenever I'd make a mistake, he'd say, "If you do that again, I'm going to take you out behind the barn and beat you with the wet rope." Of course, you know, he talked so bad, but he was a sweet, gentle man. But that was his favorite expression. "I'm going to beat you with the wet rope."

01:06:54.700 - 01:07:09.600

I don't think anyone was afraid of him, but that was his expression. Describe what a typical day of training would be like. One week, we went to classes all morning. And as I say, I didn't always have to go.

01:07:10.480 - 01:07:26.360

I did go part of the time, but anyway, just taking my test was all I really needed. And then we'd go to lunch. Well, we went to breakfast, you know, hut, two, three. And then we went to lunch the same way, went back to the barracks, went to lunch, came back.

01:07:27.040 - 01:07:48.820

Of course, we had to leave the beds made and everything clean before we left, clothes out of sight, all that. But my mother had trained me to do that anyway. That was not too hard. And then in the afternoon that week, we would fly. Sometimes we would do some there at Avengers, most of the time at the auxiliary field.

01:07:49.700 - 01:08:04.740

And some of it was good, some not. You know, there were times when I was just sure they were going to wash me out because I didn't do everything just right, you know. And I also had an experience.

01:08:04.740 - 01:08:22.380

I had a forced landing on our cross country that we took. Just before graduating, we had two cross countries solo. And, of course, the instructor went with different girls along the way. he'd fly with one and then he'd fly with the other and that.

01:08:22.500 - 01:08:30.300

So we weren't all alone. But they made us take off in intervals of about ten minutes, so we couldn't follow one another. We had to do our own navigating.

01:08:31.440 - 01:08:49.860

I think we flew first to Amarillo, and from there straight across to Oklahoma City, spent the night, and from Oklahoma City to, I think, Greenville, Texas, and then Sweetwater. Was this your 86th cross country or the PT? No, PT.

01:08:50.380 - 01:09:03.200

And this plane was so bad. It was a PT-13. And it didn't want to run. And I'd get up there and it would cough, cough, cough, you know, and almost stop and I'd

01:09:03.620 - 01:09:18.540

fool with it and put the nose down and get it going again. And I'd be the tail end coming in. So after the first leg, I said, "Please, everybody, let me take off first. And then if I go down, you'll see me."

01:09:18.540 - 01:09:36.760

And so they'd let me go first, and then everybody would wave as they passed me, because I just couldn't move very fast in that thing. And finally, on the last—from Greenville to Sweetwater, at Cisco, Texas, it just quit, and I couldn't get it going.

01:09:37.800 - 01:09:57.720

So I landed in a peanut field in the middle of a dust storm. I landed and on the way in, there was a telephone wire strung between fence posts, which I didn't see a single wire, and I clipped it with the propeller. Of course, it didn't hurt the airplane and didn't make any—I didn't really quite

01:09:57.960 - 01:10:15.320

realize I had done it. And so here I was, and a couple of young men, high school or junior high, I don't know, probably years old, were on their horses. And I do not know if they had cut school or if they were out early, but they were out

01:10:15.580 - 01:10:28.340

in the country on their horses. And they saw me go down and they came over. And I was writing up my little report, you know. So they came over to the plane and they said, "Hey, mister, are you okay?"

01:10:28.720 - 01:10:39.360

I said, "I am okay, but I am not a mister." I took off my helmet, you know, and came out. Well, they could not believe that. And so I said, "Where's the nearest telephone?"

01:10:39.360 - 01:10:46.820

And they told me. And I said, "Well, I'll walk over there." "Oh, no. Ride one of our horses."

01:10:46.820 - 01:10:53.720

I said, "I don't ride horses. I'm afraid of horses." "You're afraid of horses?" I said, "Yes, I don't ride horses."

01:10:53.720 - 01:11:01.640

And one of them said, "But you can ride up with me and I'll hold on to you." I said, "It's in the air. I don't like it. I can't ride a horse."

01:11:01.640 - 01:11:08.220

So I said, "I'll walk. I'll tell you what. You two guys guard my airplane. The government says we must leave a guard on the plane.

01:11:09.120 - 01:11:20.000

So you all watch it. If anyone comes, don't let them fool with anything. Just stay here and guard it, and I will walk to the farmhouse." Well, it was a plowed field, and it was quite a walk.

01:11:21.500 - 01:11:32.440

And so I went there, and the farmer and his wife were at home, and they welcomed me and said I could spend the night. They let me use the phone to call the field. By that time, it was afternoon.

01:11:34.040 - 01:11:46.760

And so they said, "Well, we'll come and get you tomorrow morning." And I told them, "Where are you now?" So the next morning, oh, I slept on a feather bed. It was cold and that was -- it was wonderful.

01:11:48.180 - 01:12:01.280

And the farmer's wife fixed this huge breakfast, which I ate every bite of. They were such wonderful people. I wish I knew their names now, but I don't. And so the next morning, I went out.

01:12:01.920 - 01:12:21.500

We heard an airplane, we went out and looked, and one of our trainers was flying over, and he landed—well, first he dropped a note and said, "We'll land there." He had a rock in it with a note, "We're coming in, right beside your plane." So they did, and so they asked me how the plane was, and I told them, "It just quit.

01:12:21.840 - 01:12:39.340

It just kept on quitting." And so they said, "Well, one of us will fly it over to Fort Worth, and you can fly—" I had to fly it, and one of them with me. "You have to fly it out if we can get it going, and we'll go to Fort Worth and have lunch,

01:12:39.920 - 01:12:55.280

and then you can go on to Sweetwater." So it went better than it had been, but it still was coughing most of the time. We got over there, and they took me to the officers club and fed me, and said, "Okay, go."

01:12:55.280 - 01:13:07.480

So I did. And you know, I didn't get in until right at dark. Dark almost caught me. I was so tired and my feet had blisters from that plowed field.

01:13:08.360 - 01:13:21.220

And I walked in and checked in and the girl at the desk said, "Here are all your maps tomorrow morning. Early you take off Blythe, California." So I had to go home and figure all that out.

01:13:24.000 - 01:13:41.960

Of course, that was another experience. The class just before me, one of the girls had a gas leak and her plane caught fire and she bailed out, but she was hit on the head with the tail section or part of the wing or something.

01:13:42.830 - 01:13:59.640

She got her parachute open and some miners saw her come down. The fire extinguished itself and the plane flew until it ran out of gas some distance away, but she was killed. They came and they put her in their truck to take her to the hospital, but she died

01:13:59.740 - 01:14:11.820

before they got there. How did that affect you? It affected me because when I was over those same mountains, I began smelling gasoline. And I said, "It's gin in your mind."

01:14:11.820 - 01:14:34.640

But I felt all around, you know, in the cockpit, I couldn't find a thing wet. And so, you know, I got onto the, I guess some Phoenix, Arizona or Tucson, I've forgotten which, Tucson maybe, is where we landed. And so the, I told them, the man that took the planes, what do you call them?

01:14:37.500 - 01:14:48.880

The man who was putting the planes, servicing them, maintenance, I said, "I smell gasoline all the way. I'm afraid I have a leak. So will you please check it?"

01:14:48.880 - 01:14:59.980

"Oh, yes, ma'am. We'll check it." So there were some Navy pilots came in the same time. So we all rode the bus together into town and stayed at the same hotel.

01:15:00.760 - 01:15:10.280

And we talked flying, you know, with them and laughed and had a good time. Just a coincidence. Just a coincidence. And so the next morning we all went out to the field.

01:15:10.390 - 01:15:25.360

Of course, they had to take off first. But the funny thing was they were flying fighters that the wings fold up, and they taxi them with the wings folded, and then they put them down. This one guy was so anxious to show off that he didn't put his wings down.

01:15:26.000 - 01:15:41.300

He went running down the runway without wings. If he is still alive, I'm sure he still hears about it, because he had to put his wings down and go back and start over. And that was a terrible thing for him.

01:15:42.240 - 01:15:58.540

But you know, they were telling us what hot pilots they were, you know, and everything. And of course, we didn't have anywhere near good stories to tell them, but we had a good time. But when I went out to my plane, on the way out I stopped the same lineman and I said,

01:15:58.760 - 01:16:17.340

"Did you service my plane? you check it? Oh yes ma'am, we've checked it, there's no gas leak. And we've got it all filled up ready for you to go." Went out there and all my gasoline was on the ground under the plane. It was covered with gasoline. I said, "Well, this gasoline came from somewhere."

01:16:17.340 - 01:16:37.380

He said, "Yes ma'am, we'd better check that again." So I hoped that it was fixed, but I could smell gas, you know, all the time. And over the part when I knew she'd gone down, it was only mountains, you know, I thought, "Oh, this is how she felt." But, you know, made it back okay and graduated the next week.

01:16:38.440 - 01:17:02.120

Do you remember any instructors that were outstanding to you? Only the first one, and I don't remember his name. Others, you know, I had from time to time, but, you know, there wasn't. Oh, I caught a plane on fire. That was another experience I had. '86, one morning it was cold, cold, and we went out to get me. We were all flying

01:17:02.400 - 01:17:28.720

solo at that time. Went out to get in the plane and started it. And to get it started, I primed it a little. But anyway, fire started coming out of the engines around the cowling. So I called the tower and I said, "I have a plane on fire. I'm on the..." And they said, "Where are you?" and I said, "On the line. My plane is on fire. There's fire coming out of the engines."

01:17:28.720 - 01:17:44.960

And they kept saying, "Airplane on fire. What is your position?" And I tell them, "I'm on the line, parked." And finally an instructor saw it as he started out there with the students. So I had taken out the fire extinguisher in my form that you never leave,

01:17:46.260 - 01:18:11.380

I climbed out of the plane and was about to use the extinguisher when he ran up and took it from me and put the fire out. So, you know, immediately it was my fault. So I was restricted to the base for that weekend and I had to go before a board of officers and explain. And they said, "Well, you probably over-primed it. It's the reason it did that."

01:18:11.820 - 01:18:32.340

So, after they talked a while, when I was out of the room, I came back in and they said, "Well, you have to, you'll give up, I think, two weekends, and you will write a 1,000-word thesis on how to properly start the AT6." I said, "Yes, I was glad they didn't throw me out."

01:18:32.340 - 01:18:52.120

So I did that. It was hard to write 1,000 words on that subject, but I kept counting and I got 1,000 words. So they, but one day after that, when I walked out to my plane, one of the men from the hangar came out and he said, "Aren't you the one that had the plane catch fire?"

01:18:52.120 - 01:19:06.480

And I said, "Yes." He said, "It was not your fault." He said, "They said that it was because they have to do that." But he said, "Someone in the hangar over, put too much oil and oil overflowed in the

01:19:10.160 - 01:19:23.980

engine." So don't worry about it, it wasn't your fault. What was the most difficult thing that you had to do in training? Probably writing that thesis. I can't think of anything harder.

01:19:24.280 - 01:19:50.820

It was all hard, you know, but you took it a step at a time, a day at a time. And how long were you in training? I guess it's about six months from October to March or April. I know at one point you became, got an assignment of a responsibility for another class.

01:19:51.120 - 01:19:56.880

Tell us about that. Yes, when W7. We're going to need to stop and let her tell us. Oh, okay.

01:19:57.400 - 01:20:12.380

On the next page. Okay. Okay. >> Okay, tell me about a special assignment that you got while you were in training.

01:20:12.930 - 01:20:31.400

>> Well, I was very privileged to be assigned to be the big sister for class 44W7. >> What did that involve? Well, I had to make the introductory speech to them along with other people that were talking to them, tell them a little bit about what we do.

01:20:32.300 - 01:20:51.660

And then I'd go down and visit different barracks, you know, and the different groups of them and just talk to them about how things were going. And you know, one thing that I had forgotten completely, and I'm not sure, it may have been Dorothy, is it Dorothy Lucas?

01:20:52.720 - 01:21:11.140

I think it may have been she. Was one of the girls in that group. Someone came and told me that her brother had just been killed in action. And so I went down with my Bible and talked with her and cried with her.

01:21:11.820 - 01:21:33.600

And I read scripture, and I don't know what, Psalms probably. But we read the Bible and we talked, and I don't know how long I stayed with her. But then I went about my job, you know, and I'd completely forgotten that. One time, it may have been when we were in Washington, it was at one of the reunions

01:21:33.700 - 01:21:53.720

in the last ten years or so, she came up to me and she said, "You may not remember me," and she told me her name. And I said, "Well, just like I never saw her after training." "I'll never forget you. Do you remember when my brother died and you came?" And we prayed

01:21:53.900 - 01:22:09.380

together too. I prayed for her. And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't remember." And she said, "Well, I remember." And she told me about it. Then I remembered. But it was just the thing to do. Do you know why you were selected for that job?

01:22:09.820 - 01:22:37.080

No I don't. I think the women officers did the selecting. So I don't know why. Eventually when you were in training, new uniforms were issued. Tell me how you felt about that. Oh they're the most beautiful things I ever wore in my life. They came from Neiman Marcus and fitted us. And then when they came in, it was just wonderful.

01:22:37.180 - 01:22:47.440

And they checked them to see they all fit right. - Describe it. - I could hardly wait to put it on for good. Well, it was the Santiago blue, made especially for us.

01:22:48.180 - 01:23:01.200

Straight skirt, jacket. I guess, were they double breasted or single breasted? I think they were double breasted, I can't remember. But white shirt, black tie, and the shoes.

01:23:01.960 - 01:23:15.660

Oh, and the Montgomery beret. Oh, it was so beautiful. And I could just hardly wait to wear them, graduation day. And my parents, of course, came to graduation.

01:23:16.680 - 01:23:25.400

- Tell me about graduation. - But it was just so exciting. Cochran was there to present us the wings. And I don't think General Arnold was at our graduation.

01:23:25.580 - 01:23:40.220

He came sometimes, but I don't think he was there when we graduated. It was another general. But it was so special, all the cadets marching and the band and the speeches and then getting

01:23:40.320 - 01:23:54.580

the wings. It was just really wonderful. Were you ever able to ask Miss Cochran if she remembered about meeting with you girls? No, but I'm sure she did because the last thing that we had to do before we could enter

01:23:55.220 - 01:24:09.900

after we passed everything else was to have an interview with her. And was it at Fort Worth or Dallas? I think it was Dallas that she had an office. And I rode the train anyway and walked from the train station to the building where her

01:24:09.960 - 01:24:20.820

office was. And she always acted like she knew me, you know. And we just had a short conversation. She welcomed me and said, you know, that I'd get orders soon.

01:24:21.820 - 01:24:37.280

And then sometimes when she was there, she would recognize me, you know, when she'd be at the table and we'd come in the dining room, she'd speak to me. But we never discussed that first meeting. Kelly: But that must have been a thrill.

01:24:37.470 - 01:24:58.960

Lowdermilk Honstein Oh, yes, it was a great thrill. Because, you know, as time went on, I realized what an important person she was and how privileged we were to have her visit us and encourage us. When you received your orders, were you given a choice of where you would be stationed?

01:25:00.260 - 01:25:12.960

No. They told us ahead of time, before graduation, maybe a month before, they said, "You know, if you haven't had too much troubles in this, if you've done a good job, then you may get your choices."

01:25:12.960 - 01:25:27.940

We had three things that we could choose. Of course, I wanted to be in Texas, preferably in the San Antonio area. I wanted to fly twin-engine airplanes, and I wanted to be a hurricane hunter. None of that happened.

01:25:28.440 - 01:25:50.020

So what did your orders say? Malden, Missouri, which I'd never heard of, basic training field. Only airplane I didn't enjoy flying was the BT-13, which I was glad to go. Were there other girls assigned to that air base?

01:25:50.480 - 01:26:01.380

No, never. I was the only one. Tell me about vacation, leave time from the time you graduated until you reported. Did you go home?

01:26:01.620 - 01:26:12.500

I went home, and by then my parents had moved back, I think, to Santa -- no, I guess they were still in Kerbal. But I went to Santa Antonio, then I went to Kerbal and visited with them, and the week went fast.

01:26:13.100 - 01:26:26.180

Do you remember how you felt in that uniform? Oh, special. And I just, you know, so I could win the war single-handed. At this point, where were your brothers?

01:26:28.780 - 01:26:38.820

In the Pacific. And what did they think of their big sister? They didn't like it. They said they had met women in service and they didn't really think, when I went in,

01:26:39.080 - 01:26:46.900

they didn't like that. But then, you know. Eventually, did they change their minds? Oh yes, they were proud of me.

01:26:46.940 - 01:27:07.680

Did they ever see you in your service? uniform? I don't know. I don't think so. Tell me about reporting to Malden Air Force Base. Okay, I wrote I rode the train. I sold my car to an instructor because I wasn't sure where I'd go. I should have kept it. I regretted it the minute I

01:27:07.820 - 01:27:32.960

sold it, but anyway it was gone. And so I rode the train and spent the night in the hotel, got in 10 or 11 o'clock at night and went to a hotel there in Malden, which wasn't much, and then went out to the airbase in a taxi cab. And I was so proud, and I thought, you know, they're going to be so glad to have me here.

01:27:33.300 - 01:27:52.780

I'm going to do such wonderful things. And I reported to the sergeant out in the commanding officer's office, in the outer office, and he went in and told him I was there. So I waited a few minutes and finally he sent word that I could come in.

01:27:53.430 - 01:28:20.660

And so he had two other officers in with him for support. So I gave him my snappiest salute, reporting for duty, he gave me my name. And he looked at me and he said, "I didn't ask for a woman pilot. I said, 'I didn't ask to come to Missouri, sir.'"

01:28:20.880 - 01:28:33.560

So he said, "Well, what can you do?" I said, "I can fly anything that the Air Force has, sir." He said, "We'll find out about that." And he said, "But I don't know what we're going to do with you.

01:28:33.740 - 01:28:54.860

no place decent in town to live, told the sergeant, "Go find out if the nurses have room." So he said, "We don't have any other women here except WACs, and I don't think you want to live over in the WAC area." I said, "Preferably not, but whatever you say." Sergeant came back and said, "Yes, I have a vacant room. The nurses will be happy to

01:28:54.940 - 01:29:11.780

have her." So he said, "Well, get a car and take her over." And he said, "Report down to operations to major somebody. And so he said, he'll tell you what to do. So I dropped my things and the young man took me

01:29:11.780 - 01:29:28.380

to the operations and left me. And of course I was in dress uniform with heels and the major was up flying. So the sergeant took me into his office and had me sit

01:29:28.380 - 01:29:44.260

down in a chair that was kind of out from the floor, it wasn't up against a wall or a table or anything, to wait for him. In a few minutes he came and he just looked at me and he walked slowly all around me and looked at me from every angle.

01:29:45.700 - 01:29:59.040

And he said, "What can you fly?" I said, "I can fly anything the Army Air Force has, sir." And he said, "I doubt that." I said, "I'll be checked out.

01:29:59.340 - 01:30:11.680

You can check me out right now if you'd like. I'd be happy to go up with you." And he said, "You aren't dressed for it." I said, "I'm sure there's coveralls here somewhere in the building that I could slip on.

01:30:11.760 - 01:30:20.260

I'd be happy to do it, and you can see whether I can fly." He said, "I'll just take your word for it. Go down." He said, "You have two choices.

01:30:20.620 - 01:30:37.660

You can be an instructor or you can go down to maintenance hangar and test." And I said, "I don't want to instruct young men that are my age. I want—I'd rather go down to the maintenance hangar." So he told me how to get down there, and the young man that was test pilot.

01:30:38.480 - 01:30:52.700

And he said, "He'll check you out, give you—tell you what to do." So this young man was a lieutenant. He was very sweet. He was married and his wife lived there on the base, or in town, I don't know which, but they were together there.

01:30:54.480 - 01:31:14.080

He said, "We'll just go up and see, and I'll show you what we do when we test." We did aerobatics and that. He said, "We'll just divide up the work. I'm glad to have you, because it's been too much for me to do by myself." So we did that. I'd fly one, he'd fly one, get them all done.

01:31:17.400 - 01:31:33.180

Anyway, we flew together, I mean separately, but you know, every morning I'd report and we'd go over what was on the board to be flown and talk about it and then he'd take one, I'd take one. We'd get through the day that way.

01:31:33.810 - 01:31:54.540

Let me ask you, why did these airplanes need to be tested? An instructor, our student, had found something wrong and reported it and they were taken the maintenance hangar. Well before it could go back to the student hangars, then they had to be flown to be sure

01:31:54.640 - 01:32:14.180

they were ready. So we'd look at what had been done and then fly it and do whatever we needed to do to be sure that it was okay and then sign them off. But only a short time after I was there, just a matter of a few weeks, two, three, something,

01:32:15.420 - 01:32:33.940

the troop carrier command decided to take that base. And all of the training command people left. But what they did, they sent a group of officers down to decide who stayed and who went, you know, more or less, to see what they needed to do.

01:32:34.460 - 01:32:51.020

Well, these men, there were about three of them, I think, and they stayed in the doctor's quarters next door to the nurse's quarters. And we had a walkway between. There was a big kitchen and recreation room, which we had, they did not have.

01:32:51.800 - 01:33:06.740

So every evening, they'd come over and we'd cook in the kitchen. They'd go to the hospital kitchen and find something, you know. We'd have bacon and eggs, whatever, and coffee. We'd sit around and eat, listen to music, somebody would play the piano.

01:33:07.080 - 01:33:26.180

We just, you know, had a good time. So these officers who had come from headquarters came, fell into the pattern. And so if we had a phonograph record, we'd dance if we wanted to. So I was dancing with the man that I knew had to determine which pilot stayed.

01:33:27.280 - 01:33:42.140

And I said, "Sir, please, please put my name on the list." He said, "I'll put your name on the list, but we don't have women flyers in troop carrier." And you know, the general, "Either take it or leave it." He said, "That's the best I can do."

01:33:42.140 - 01:33:48.060

I said, "Well, that's good. Just do it." And he said, "Okay." So then they let me stay.

01:33:48.660 - 01:34:05.720

They didn't ask me to leave. And so when a troop carrier came in full force, of course, they brought in C-47s, and I had to be checked out on twin engines. Again, I had a nice First Lieutenant, sweet man, and he checked me out the very first

01:34:05.840 - 01:34:23.940

day and we talked and we just got to be good friends. And the commanding general came and he asked me to come over to the table. We were in the Officer's Club for lunch. He sent an aide over and said, "The general wants to speak with you."

01:34:23.940 - 01:34:37.500

I went over and he said, "Well, you like it here?" And I said, "Oh, yes, sir, and I'm so glad you let me stay. That is, if you saw my name." He said, "You think I'd sign a paper and not know who was on it?"

01:34:38.140 - 01:34:56.580

I said, "I would think not, sir, but I'm so glad that you did sign it and let me stay." And he said, "Well, I hope you like it." So then he'd come about every other week, he'd come down inspecting everything. always call me over to his table at lunch. And in a loud voice where everyone could hear,

01:34:56.700 - 01:35:20.800

he'd say, "Tell me, how do they treat you here?" I'd say, "Oh, fine, sir. No one's being ugly to you, not mistreating you?" "Oh, no, sir." He said, "Well, in case anyone does, you know how to get in touch with me." Of course, no one ever did. >>However, there was an incident, tell us about, when perhaps someone didn't want to

01:35:20.800 - 01:35:35.420

>>A man that did not want to go with me. He was a crew chief on a plane that I had to test, and it was my turn to fly first pilot. We alternated. And so Chuck said, "You go on out and look the plane over, and I'll be along.

01:35:35.500 - 01:35:43.480

I have to do something else." So I did. Well, the crew chief was standing there with the farm, and I said, "May I see the farm, please?"

01:35:43.500 - 01:35:55.120

And he said, "I'm waiting for the pilot." I said, "Okay." So I went on around, checked the plane out, the visual, you know, and kind of stalled for time until Chuck got there.

01:35:55.780 - 01:36:02.240

And he said, "Well, what was it? What's on the farm? What did they do to it?" I said, "Well, really, I haven't looked at it.

01:36:02.380 - 01:36:14.460

The crew chief here says that he's waiting for the pilot." And Chuck said, "Do you mean that you have not given Miss Crane the information about this airplane?" "No, sir.

01:36:14.620 - 01:36:22.540

I ain't never flown with no woman." He said, "You're going to fly with one today." "I ain't never flown with no woman." He repeated that over and over.

01:36:22.800 - 01:36:37.040

And Chuck said, "You give the farm to Miss Crane. You explain to her what's been done to this airplane. And you treat her as you would any flying officer. If you don't want to do that, then that's all right.

01:36:37.160 - 01:36:50.160

You just go and turn in your flying status now, right now." So he started talking to me. But as he got on the plane, he said, "I ain't never flown with no woman." But he made it.

01:36:50.200 - 01:37:03.620

He found out that it was safe. And I don't think I ever saw him again, but, you know, he was an older man, and he just didn't believe we belonged there. He was frightened, I'm sure.

01:37:04.400 - 01:37:16.920

But anyway. >>Were there any outstanding incidents that happened while you were? >>Oh, lots of things. One time a plane caught fire, engine on fire.

01:37:17.670 - 01:37:33.780

We had just taken off and Chuck was flying first pilot, I was co-pilot, and I was doing the wheels and the gear, you know, all the other stuff, flaps and everything. And I had the headset on. He didn't even have on a headset.

01:37:34.060 - 01:37:45.500

And the tower called and they said, "You have a fire in your left engine." And so I told Chuck to look out. He went crazy. He went berserk.

01:37:46.290 - 01:37:53.020

He said, "I always knew I was going to die in a fire. I knew it was going to happen. I just always knew that was going to happen." And that's all he could say.

01:37:53.040 - 01:38:10.100

He didn't do anything. The tower was saying, "What are you going to do?" And of course I was putting on the fire extinguisher and put that engine off, feathered, you know, and redid the whatever.

01:38:11.520 - 01:38:19.900

The controls so that it would fly more easily. And we were still taking off. I guess by that time we were airborne. They said, "Are you going to jump?

01:38:20.260 - 01:38:32.360

Are you going to come back in?" I said, "We'll fly normal pattern, just as we always do." And I should have said, "I'll fly," because he didn't do anything. He just wrung his hands.

01:38:32.440 - 01:38:47.020

I knew that I was going to die in a fire. I knew that was going to happen to me. And so I got the plane on the ground, but I looked out, and here were ambulances and fire trucks waiting to see what was going to happen.

01:38:47.280 - 01:39:00.080

And when I came to a stop, they were right there and got us off the plane, but the fire was already extinguished. And so we got out, you know, and went. That evening in the club, everybody had heard, you know.

01:39:01.200 - 01:39:14.620

So all the men came over and said, "Chuck, we told you this was going to happen someday, that you were going to have a hysterical woman on your hands, and something big happened. Tell us about it. Was she hysterical?"

01:39:14.620 - 01:39:33.940

He said, "No, I was hysterical. She flew the airplane, and that was a big man." But you see, he had been shot down in a burning plane over Yugoslavia and had the responsibility of twenty nurses and his crew, and they walked across the Balkans in and out of German prison

01:39:35.120 - 01:39:52.440

and managed to get to France and got in touch with English, who sent for them and got them home. So it was such a—he was reported missing in action, presumed dead because the plane and blew up, but they were none of them hurt.

01:39:53.920 - 01:40:06.340

But that's why he had such a fit over it. But that was one experience. Another experience I remember, we had this little old, old PT. I don't even know what they were.

01:40:06.390 - 01:40:15.680

They were so old, I'd never seen one before. They were older than the ones we had at Sweetwater. Well, someone had bought them, different people perhaps. We were going to sell them.

01:40:15.960 - 01:40:34.260

And so we had to test them after they worked on them to see if they would fly. So one of the men, one of the other pilots told me, he said, "I've never flown one of that." I said, "Nobody else has either, you know, still living." But he said, "I'd like to go with you sometime and shoot some landings."

01:40:34.260 - 01:40:44.280

I said, "Okay." So we made a date. He came down. It was so old, I don't know, it's Sweetwater. Did we have to crank? Did they have to be cranked? This one did too.

01:40:45.420 - 01:41:01.020

And the lineman would crank it and then put the crank in the compartment on the side. So we got in the plane. He got in the back and I was in the front and we took off. Well, we flew and shot landings in an auxiliary field for a while. It was a hot day.

01:41:01.800 - 01:41:14.460

And finally he leaned over and he said, "Let's stop." Well, we landed and he said, "Let's stop for a few minutes in the shade." I said, "Okay." "There's a grocery store across the road. I'll run and get us some Cokes."

01:41:15.160 - 01:41:35.680

And I said, "Okay." So we turned off the engine and he said, "You sit here in the shade of this tree and I'll be right back." So he brought Cokes over and we sat there and drank Cokes. Well, we rested a few minutes, decided it was time to go back. There was no crank. I don't know what happened. The lineman didn't put it in the compartment.

01:41:36.020 - 01:41:54.280

So we couldn't start the airplane. So he said, "Well, this is going to make a good story, but I've got to call someone to come and bring us a crank." So he took the bottles back across the road and called, and someone came and brought us a crank and started it. Of course, everybody learned about that right quick.

01:41:54.760 - 01:42:13.000

They'd heard all kinds of stories about running out of gas, but they'd never heard about a story where you didn't have a crank to start the airplane. So anyway, that was kind of fun. I was embarrassed. You know, they always were doing something to embarrass me because I blushed, you know.

01:42:13.300 - 01:42:30.720

And every time they could do something to make me blush, they thought that was fun. On Saturday nights when we had a dance, and the minute I walked in, the orchestra would quit playing what they were playing and start playing San Antonio Rose. And of course I'd be embarrassed then.

01:42:31.500 - 01:42:46.440

But, you know, it was all good stuff. And they were good to me, but it was good, clean fun. We had a good time. Were there any other incidents that you would like to tell us about while you were there?

01:42:48.020 - 01:43:01.500

What was your social life like? Just every Saturday night dance. At one time I had to go to South Carolina. One of the pilots was on duty that weekend, but he did a no-no.

01:43:01.620 - 01:43:09.620

he went to the club and drank. And so he called me. I don't know. We didn't have a phone, but he got hold of me anyway.

01:43:10.540 - 01:43:21.080

And he said, I'm supposed to go to South Carolina in the morning to Columbia to pick up one of our pilots that had emergency appendectomy there. And he's well now, and we're supposed

01:43:21.140 - 01:43:30.240

to go pick him up tomorrow. But he said, you know, I just can't fly in this condition. So how about you go along with me? And I said, sure.

01:43:31.300 - 01:43:44.780

So I got my purse and took off with him. And he went in the back and lay down to get rid of his hangover. And the crew chief sat in the co-pilot seat and we flew.

01:43:46.140 - 01:43:56.240

Well, we got to Columbia, South Carolina. And I called in. And that upset the tower. He had never talked to a woman pilot.

01:43:57.060 - 01:44:10.160

And he said, "Who is the highest-ranking officer aboard?" And I said, "First Lieutenant so-and-so." And he said, "Who's flying the plane?" I said, "I am, sir.

01:44:10.240 - 01:44:19.980

I'm a WASP." He said, "You better be very careful. We have jets in the air. We have jets here, and they're all over the place.

01:44:20.660 - 01:44:29.400

So you be very careful." And so he told me where they were landing, and I had knowledge and started around. Remember, be very careful, we've got jets."

01:44:31.040 - 01:44:41.280

And I overshot the airport. It was a shorter runway, I guess. Anyway, I guess I was kind of nervous hearing this in my ear all the time.

01:44:42.280 - 01:44:51.100

And just as I pulled up, he said, "Pull it up and go around, go around, watch for the jets." Anyway, I landed. I'll write the second term.

01:44:52.000 - 01:45:02.880

And by then it was evening because we had stopped. There was a weather system. And we had to stop one place and wait for that to pass. And so it was night by the time we got there.

01:45:03.020 - 01:45:18.660

And so again, I went to the nurse's quarters to stay with them. And of course, all I had was my purse with a little makeup. And so they were so sweet. Somebody brought me a nightgown to sleep in.

01:45:18.740 - 01:45:32.020

Someone else brought me towel and washcloth and soap. And they even brought bath powder and toothbrush and toothpaste. Is there anything else we can get you?" We had a nice visit, and then I took off the next morning.

01:45:32.940 - 01:45:43.860

But it was a fun trip. Kelly: While you were stationed there, when did you learn that the WASPs were going to be disbanded, and how did that happen? Lowdermilk Honstein

01:45:44.000 - 01:45:58.440

I did not even know. I never read a newspaper during those days. The commanding officer sent for me to come to his office. He said, "I hate to tell you this, but Congress has decided that with men coming back from

01:45:58.680 - 01:46:18.480

Europe they don't need you girls anymore." So he said, "December 20th will be your last day." And he said, "In the meantime, you feel free, you select an airplane and someone to go with you and go wherever you want to and get your commercial license."

01:46:19.320 - 01:46:25.320

So we made a date. Chuck, of course, went with me. He chose Louisville, Kentucky. I said, "I don't know where to go.

01:46:25.430 - 01:46:34.760

I don't care." He said, "Let's go to Louisville." I said, "Okay." So we flew to Louisville, and of course it was December by then, and they were having

01:46:34.820 - 01:46:54.700

snow in Louisville. I took my instrument test in snow. It was snowing the whole time, and the man that was the inspector said, "Well, we don't need to put up the blinds because you can't see anyhow. So we just went on up in the snowstorm.

01:46:55.460 - 01:47:27.620

And it was so beautiful. It's like being in one of those little glass things, you know, that you shake in the snow. That's what I felt like. It was the most wonderful, exhilarating, and it was so quiet, you know. And so I did my instrument thing, and we came down, and He certified me, qualified multi-engine instruments, and I was all ready to go out and set the

01:47:27.660 - 01:47:41.400

airlines on fire. But they didn't want me. The commanding officer told me, he asked me what I would do, and I said, "Well, I'd love to keep flying, and I'd like to fly the airlines," because they were flying C-47s at the time.

01:47:42.640 - 01:47:59.120

And he said, "Well, I don't think they will take you because of the fact that you're female." But he said, "If anybody would hire you, it would be my brother. He hires pilots for Eastern." So he gave me his address, and I guess he contacted him also.

01:48:00.530 - 01:48:18.460

And he wrote me back, and he said that the public wasn't ready for a woman pilot. And he said, "Now, if you would like to be a stewardess, we'll just hire you right off." I wrote him back and I said, "I don't want to be a flying waitress. I want to be a pilot."

01:48:18.460 - 01:48:32.520

But then I read that Alaskan Airlines were hurting for pilots. I wrote to seven Alaskan Airlines. The ones that wrote me back said, "Yes, we need pilots very bad, but we're not hiring women."

01:48:33.780 - 01:48:44.180

So I gave it up. How did that make you feel? Well, it made me feel bad because I knew I could do it, and I knew I was qualified. I had all the license to prove it.

01:48:45.180 - 01:48:56.540

And I thought it was bad discrimination. But, you know, you can't fight the system always. I mean, if I'd had the money to start my own airline, of course, that would have been a different thing.

01:48:56.660 - 01:49:11.440

But I said, "Well, I don't know what I'll do. Probably go back to school." So on December 20, 1944, what did you do? Well, I stayed over for Christmas because that's where my friends were at the time.

01:49:12.560 - 01:49:23.040

And we had a great Christmas and then I left. Went back to San Antonio and my grandmother was sick. My parents had moved to New Braunfels. That's where my grandmother was.

01:49:23.140 - 01:49:34.020

They moved there to kind of watch after her. And she was very ill so my mother would stay with her at night and I would stay with her during the day. And she died in about three weeks.

01:49:35.640 - 01:49:56.620

And then my best friend Carolyn called and said her sister Evelyn was married to a man who was part owner of a wholesale jewelry firm in San Antonio. And they would like me to come and work for them so that he could be on the road. I could manage the office and he could be on the road selling.

01:49:57.560 - 01:50:23.760

And they knew I spoke Spanish. And they said that was real good because he was concentrating on Mexican silver. So I went to work for them, and I would go down to the Mexican market and look at jewelry and bargain with the men that brought it over and make an order for them to ship it to us.

01:50:24.400 - 01:50:34.980

And that was good. I enjoyed that. The other man that was there all the time was a lawyer, and he was on another floor. We were on the eighth floor, I believe, of the Majestic Building, and he was a couple

01:50:35.040 - 01:50:45.520

of floors above us. And he'd come down to see how everything was once in a while. And you know, he was available if we needed him. But he didn't really take an active part in the business.

01:50:47.600 - 01:51:07.320

But that's when I met my dear friend, Warren. She did the secretarial, all of the typing and the bookkeeping, whatever, in the office. So we became good friends. We didn't go to lunch together because one of us had to be there, but we rode the same

01:51:08.630 - 01:51:19.440

bus home. She lived a little further out than I did, and we'd ride the same bus. Sometimes we'd stay over and go to a movie and have dinner in town. We just got to be real good friends.

01:51:20.340 - 01:51:40.440

We both talked about going back to school sometime, but we also talked about little things that happened that persuaded us that this man was not honest. And so one day when he came in to check up on things, he was going over what I had done and he said, "Well, I would have done it this way.

01:51:40.470 - 01:51:50.660

You did it this way. I would have done it the other way." I said, "I'll tell you what you can do. Or twice the money you're paying me, you can hire someone else who's half as efficient,

01:51:51.480 - 01:51:59.460

and you can do it today because I'm leaving." "Oh, no, you're not." I said, "Yes, I'm leaving. I got my purse and my coat and left."

01:51:59.600 - 01:52:08.980

And I went downstairs, and Warren was just coming in from lunch. She was waiting for the elevator. When I got off, she said, "Are you just going to lunch?" I said, "No, I've just quit."

01:52:09.120 - 01:52:19.600

She said, "Wait here. I'll go quit too." So she quit. And so we went out, I had to eat lunch, and she said, "What are we going to do?

01:52:19.920 - 01:52:25.040

Should we go to school?" I said, "Yeah, let's just go to school. San Marcos is not very far. It's a state school.

01:52:25.050 - 01:52:39.720

We can do that." So we went home, packed our suitcase, I guess paid the rent up to whenever, or left it, whatever, I don't know. But we each had a little efficiency apartment, and we did whatever we had to do.

01:52:40.380 - 01:52:54.540

And all we had were our clothes, because they were furnished apartments. So we packed our bags and met downtown, took a bus to San Marcos. We told them we wanted to go to school, but we had to have a job, because we had no money. And so they put us both to work.

01:52:54.940 - 01:53:10.740

She went to work in the business office, and I went to work for the Dean of Women. And it was in the summer. And so we worked all summer and paid our tuition and room and board with what we made, and And then kept working.

01:53:11.000 - 01:53:26.980

Well, before the summer was quite over, my brother Bob came back. And since I was in school, he said that's where he belonged too. He said he was kind of tired of being the low man, you know, as an enlisted man. He was always out in front of the Marines and the officers behind.

01:53:27.210 - 01:53:36.800

He said, "I decided right then and there I need to get some schooling." So he started school. And--. >>What were you studying at San Marcos?

01:53:37.300 - 01:53:52.600

>>Spanish and English. I was going to have a double major, mainly Spanish. I loved Spanish. And so he fell in love with my roommate, and it was not very long until they got married

01:53:52.740 - 01:54:06.280

and I did not have a roommate. But we stayed good friends and still are. But -- >> Could I ask you why it bothered you at that jewelry store that that man was not honest?

01:54:06.580 - 01:54:28.480

Well, I had been brought up to be honest, no matter what. And one time the customs officials called me and they said, "We have some bracelets here for your company and they're marked sterling, but they're not sterling. We've tested them."

01:54:28.480 - 01:54:44.400

And he said, "You know, your owners could get in very deep trouble for that." And I said, "Well, he's out of town, but I'll have him come and see you as soon as he gets in." He said, "Be sure you do, because we'll be looking for him if he doesn't come down."

01:54:44.720 - 01:55:02.960

So I told Guy when he came and he went down and told him he didn't know that it wasn't, you know. But we felt that he did know that he was trying to get something that he could sell for sterling. And there were just other little things that persuaded us we did not want to work for that

01:55:02.880 - 01:55:18.120

kind of man. And she was brought up in a religious home, too. She was taught that you be honest, you don't try to do something underhanded. So we went to school and enjoyed it.

01:55:19.420 - 01:55:29.680

And what did you do when you finished school? I didn't quite finish. I had three and a half years. In the meantime, I met a man and fell in love, and we got married.

01:55:30.380 - 01:55:43.540

What were the qualities about that man that made you fall in love? He was highly intelligent. He was kind. He was moral, very moral, clean.

01:55:44.240 - 01:55:58.980

He did not smoke or drink, never had a cigarette or a drink, had he had either one, ever, until the day he died. And he didn't use bad language. And we had a good time together.

01:56:00.280 - 01:56:11.220

What were his ambitions? Well, he was a chemical engineer. He had already been to school. He was seven years older than I.

01:56:12.220 - 01:56:30.420

And he had already graduated from Ole Miss, University of Mississippi, with a bachelor's degree and then went to Virginia Polytech and took a master's degree in chemistry and chemical engineering and had been employed for some time before. And so he was settled.

01:56:30.510 - 01:56:47.980

He worked for American Oil in Texas City. Tell us about your wedding. Well we were married in San Marcos because that's where my friends were and he was a Methodist and so I said, "Well let's get married in the Methodist church because I want an

01:56:48.040 - 01:56:58.420

organ. We can't have that in the Church of Christ." So we were married in the Methodist church with an organ. And one of my friends from school played the organ, someone else sang.

01:56:58.560 - 01:57:05.500

We had a great time. The dean of women gave a beautiful shower for me. And it was lovely. And your parents were there?

01:57:05.760 - 01:57:14.980

Yes. And my stepdad was a great tease. He was always teasing about everything. And so he said, "Well, you know, I may not live to do this.

01:57:15.020 - 01:57:27.620

You might have to plan for your brother to give you away, one of your brothers." I said, "No, you're going to live and be in my wedding." And he said, "Well, can I wear my cowboy boots?" And I said, "No, you have to wear dress shoes."

01:57:28.160 - 01:57:36.260

And I knew he had dress shoes. He said, "I'm not going to buy a new suit just to be buried in." Because he had a bad heart. He knew he wasn't going to live long.

01:57:36.880 - 01:57:46.980

I said, "You can wear anything you want to as long as it looks okay. Wear your old suit." He said, "I may have to put shoe polish on the back where it shines." I said, "That's okay.

01:57:47.180 - 01:58:12.300

wear your black suit and some dress shoes?" Well, that day we started down the aisle. He put his foot out, cowboy boots. So anyway, he walked me down the aisle with his cowboy boots on, which wasn't proper, but he did it. He told me later he really did forget But he brought his dress shoes.

01:58:12.420 - 01:58:21.920

He just forgot to change shoes. But anyway, that was good. And he died just a month later. He didn't live very long.

01:58:23.320 - 01:58:35.500

Did you have on a long white dress? Oh, yes. My brother was still in Japan, my younger brother. And before he ever went in the service at all, he was single.

01:58:35.800 - 01:58:50.900

I guess when he first went in the service. He set up a bank account, a checking account, with my name on it, that he sent all of his money, you know, that he didn't need. So when he found out I was going to get married, he said, "You've never used any of that money,

01:58:51.980 - 01:59:07.940

so use it and pay for a big wedding." He said, "You buy the most expensive dress that you can find that you like, and you have the big wedding that you want. I can't be there, but I want to be sure that it's everything you'd like to have."

01:59:07.940 - 01:59:20.520

And he said, "Now, I'm going to be very disappointed if you don't do that." So I did. I had a white satin with a cathedral train. I had six bridemaids.

01:59:22.020 - 01:59:33.900

And of course, Maureen was my maid of honor, matron of honor. But the girls that I knew at school. I had a beautiful wedding. Did you remain friends with some of your WASP classmates?

01:59:34.780 - 01:59:47.480

No, because I didn't ever see them after we graduated. I saw Betty one time. We did correspond for a while, but both of us were very busy. And I don't know how many letters passed between us,

01:59:47.580 - 02:00:04.400

but once when I went to pick up something in Arkansas, it was something small that we needed, and I was in a BT-13. And I ran into her. She was flying a B-26, or B-25, B-26, I think.

02:00:05.220 - 02:00:15.340

And we were both checking in and out. And we just had a few words promised to write. And I guess we might have. I don't know.

02:00:16.340 - 02:00:30.360

But after we were deactivated, we lost touch. And I was told that they've tried and tried to locate her, but they can't. They don't know where she is.

02:00:30.620 - 02:00:55.100

She lived in California. Once you were married, then where did you go? We lived in Galveston. Paul had bought a duplex just for an investment.

02:00:56.220 - 02:01:15.360

So we moved into half of it and he was renovating the other half. He had the renters move so that he had already done it for one path. And so the first week we went to church, that first weekend after we got to Galveston, and a young couple came and sat by us and we introduced ourselves after service and found out they

02:01:15.440 - 02:01:25.480

were getting married three weeks from then and that they had not been able to find a place to live. So we told them, you know, Paul said, "Well, I've got an apartment if you want to come see it.

02:01:26.040 - 02:01:49.660

it all painted and everything. So they came over and looked and they said they'd love to have it. So as soon as they married, they moved in the same house with us. And we became very good friends and kept up through the years. Not so much, we didn't see one another very often after we began having children. We were all busy. They moved to Houston, we

02:01:49.740 - 02:02:18.600

moved to Dickinson, and we didn't see them very often. But we always wrote at Christmas time. And then one time when Sally was a senior in high school, I took the children, they were having a special speaker, and I took all the children with me. And Sally and David discovered each other. He was the son of this couple, and he was a year older than Sally,

02:02:20.040 - 02:02:49.120

almost two years older. And they just hit it off immediately. He started coming to see her, calling her on the phone. Right after that, she was diagnosed with hepatitis. And it was so bad that her liver was swollen and the doctor said she must stay in bed because there was, she couldn't get out of bed at all. So we put a telephone by our bed upstairs

02:02:49.120 - 02:03:00.820

And she could walk from her bed to the bathroom, and that was all. Took her meals up to her and let her talk on the phone. And every day I'd go -- or every other day, anyway, frequently, I'd go to school, get her assignments.

02:03:01.700 - 02:03:16.760

She'd do them, and I'd take them back, get others. And this was only about six weeks before graduation. She stayed in bed a month, and David came every spare minute and brought friends with him, found out she was going

02:03:16.760 - 02:03:33.040

to go to school in Florida. He brought a young man friend with him who was going to the same school in Florida to let Sally know she had a friend. And just before she went back to school, the principal of the high school called me and

02:03:33.100 - 02:03:56.040

he said they had decided two years before to not have a valedictorian salutatorian because Because the top students were students who had taken not college entrance courses, but other courses. And they didn't have a point system at that time.

02:03:56.780 - 02:04:10.500

And the parents of students that were taking college entrance courses were very upset about it. And they said, you know, that wasn't fair. So they said, we won't do it for a while, till we work out things.

02:04:11.300 - 02:04:25.560

So he said the student council had decided they wanted Sally to do the student address. And he said the faculty all agreed that she should do it, and that I think she'd be up to it. And I said, "Well, I think so.

02:04:25.680 - 02:04:36.880

She's getting ready to come back to school, so you can talk to her." So we were so excited. And so she made the graduation address. And she is your oldest?

02:04:37.620 - 02:04:49.780

She's the oldest daughter. She's the third child. >> Okay. Let me go back to Galveston and ask you what you did when your husband was working. How did you occupy your time before you had children?

02:04:50.190 - 02:05:10.580

>> Well, I went to ladies' Bible class once a week, and sometimes I'd go shopping with other people. And the ladies at the church had a program where they went out to John Seeley Hospital, where people came from all over the state. And we took magazines that that we had that we had just looked at

02:05:10.700 - 02:05:20.200

were still in good shape. We'd go out there and I joined them. We'd go out and spend half a day visiting patients, giving them reading material.

02:05:20.540 - 02:05:32.780

Those who had eye problems, we wrote letters for them or read to them. And the only thing I would not do was the children. Once I went with a lady to the children's ward

02:05:32.820 - 02:05:48.380

and I couldn't stand that. So I wouldn't go again. And while you were in Galveston, then you had your own first child and second child? Yes, we had moved from Galveston to Dickinson before Bill was born, the second one.

02:05:50.680 - 02:06:14.860

And tell me about some of your activities with your children as they were growing up. Well I mainly just stayed home and took care of them, pretty full time. Because my late husband always had a big garden, so I put things in--we bought a freezer and put vegetables in the freezer.

02:06:15.780 - 02:06:26.320

And I'd buy fruit and make preserves, jellies. And you know, I kept very busy. And also-- >>Were you involved with PTA?

02:06:27.440 - 02:06:44.600

>>When the children started to school, we immediately became involved in PTA. And I was room mother for at least one every year. And that meant I -- we had the Easter party at our house because we had a big half-acre lot with trees and lots of space to hide the eggs.

02:06:45.320 - 02:06:59.060

And the children came out and had their Easter party at our house. And times when they didn't come to our house, I took refreshments and got other mothers to do it. I went on all the field trips every year.

02:07:00.500 - 02:07:11.100

And it was fun. How about the sports activities? Were your sons involved in sports? They went into Little League and my husband and I supported that, though I did not enjoy

02:07:11.180 - 02:07:28.020

it I have to say. Sitting on those hard seats, holding a baby and maybe a toddler. And what I did not like was the parents, what they did, their reactions. They yelled at the children and they yelled at the umpire.

02:07:29.100 - 02:07:39.400

And there was something wrong with everything. And they were so rude to my way of thinking. I would not have said any of the things they said. That was very uncomfortable for me.

02:07:40.000 - 02:07:56.220

But I went and I took my turn at the soft drink stand and my husband did the scorekeeping and we were at every game. But our boys were not sports figured. They did not excel.

02:07:57.340 - 02:08:07.840

they were always the last to bat you. They didn't do very much, all three sons. - What were your children mostly interested in in school? - Oh, I don't know.

02:08:07.920 - 02:08:19.800

Mostly their friends and their studies. They were good students. And we had friends there at the house all the time. And Bill was interested in cars early.

02:08:20.800 - 02:08:33.200

And as soon as he got a little part-time job, long before he could drive a car, He bought an old car that was all broken down, couldn't run, and had it towed to our house.

02:08:33.660 - 02:08:47.100

And it stayed in our driveway, which wasn't a pretty sight. But he and everybody else in the neighborhood came to help, our sons and our son's friends, and the girls, too.

02:08:47.720 - 02:08:57.180

They came. They would find the screwdriver or the wrench or whatever for the boys. And so every night, they worked on that old car.

02:08:58.340 - 02:09:08.500

And finally, there was one boy down the street who was older who had worked on his car. So he came, and he was kind of the leader. And the neighbors couldn't object,

02:09:09.180 - 02:09:22.760

because their children were there and not in trouble. So he finally got that going. And I think he sold it as soon as it was running, because that was the fun, was taking it apart and putting it

02:09:23.440 - 02:09:39.360

But we made a family vacation one time. We went to go on a three-week vacation. Well, we went to go--Paul Jr. was a--he was a junior in high school. Bill was one grade behind and Sally one behind.

02:09:40.820 - 02:09:55.840

And he had to take the SAT. Well, they had it scheduled but at different places. But we wanted to go to Chicago, so they said, "Well, he can take it in Chicago at the University of Chicago." So they arranged that through the high school.

02:09:56.500 - 02:10:09.440

And Bill said, "I won't go unless we go to Indianapolis. I have to go to the Speedway." We always had to watch the Indianapolis 500. And he said, "If we can't go to Indianapolis, I'm not going.

02:10:09.540 - 02:10:19.840

I'll just stay home by myself." So we said, "Well, we can do that." We got out maps, and everybody said where they wanted to go, you know. So we went to Indianapolis first.

02:10:19.760 - 02:10:38.280

first and we took a bus, made a lap around the racetrack and they gave us each a ticket that said we had made one lap on the speedway. Well, he was happy. Then we went to Chicago and we took Paul to the university and left him and told him where

02:10:38.320 - 02:10:55.040

we'd meet him after. And then we visited some friends and I think first we took the L and took a sightseeing trip and we had friends from Paul's work that we knew. They had been transferred to Chicago.

02:10:55.840 - 02:11:20.080

So they insisted we come to their house and we stayed there at their house overnight. And then he had a sister in Detroit, so our plan was to go from Chicago to Detroit. So he called, well, before Detroit, on Lake Michigan, I had a cousin. So we said, "Well, that's on the way to Detroit," because it was on the highway on Lake Michigan.

02:11:20.320 - 02:11:33.260

So we'll stop there just to say hello. So we arrived there, and I called my cousin, and he found out where we were. He said, "I'll come get you." I said, "We really can't stay.

02:11:33.310 - 02:11:39.220

We have to go to Detroit." And he said, "We'll take care of that. You have to eat dinner with us." He was barbecuing.

02:11:39.490 - 02:11:55.140

He came and got us, and nothing we'd do, but we had to stay. And he had daughters the ages of our sons, and they had bicycles with two—double bicycle, what do you call them? Anyway, they rode that bicycle with the girls.

02:11:55.160 - 02:12:05.540

They had a great time, and we spent the night with them. And then he called. He said, "Let me have—" We said, "But Paul's sister's expecting us." He said, "Give me her number."

02:12:05.540 - 02:12:18.260

So he called, and he said, "We cannot let them go. Not today. Maybe tomorrow." So then anyway, when we could tear ourselves away, we went to Detroit and spent a couple

02:12:18.300 - 02:12:26.640

of days there. They had teenagers also. Tell me about your family now, about your children and your grandchildren. Okay.

02:12:27.160 - 02:12:43.440

Otis' son, Paul Jr., lives in Mount Pleasant, Texas, northeast Texas. He is an elder in a small Church of Christ there. He went to Florida and found a girl who was a member of the Church. They got married and lived happily ever after.

02:12:44.040 - 02:12:58.180

He has two grown daughters, married. Sarah is expecting a baby in January. Her husband is an air traffic controller in Kansas City. His younger daughter, Elizabeth, got married last Christmas.

02:12:59.230 - 02:13:10.600

She doesn't do anything. They're disappointed that she won't work. Her husband writes programs, computer programs, and he does very well. So she doesn't have to work.

02:13:10.720 - 02:13:27.560

So she just goes to church and does church things, and she doesn't even cook. They eat out. And her parents are pretty, they said, "Elizabeth is not doing anything." Here she's had two years of college, she started to school in Dallas, but she wouldn't go,

02:13:27.940 - 02:13:40.700

or Fort Worth somewhere. She said, "I don't want to go to school, I don't want to work, I'm going to stay at home." And so that's what she does. And they said, "You know, she ought to be doing something, but she doesn't."

02:13:40.700 - 02:13:59.020

They just moved to Virginia and she said, "I might get a job in Washington, but who knows." And then Bill has been married and divorced a number of times and he is now married to a young woman in Cuba and trying to get her here.

02:14:01.400 - 02:14:20.880

And so he is in a marathon, works in a fishery. And Sally was the third one. She's a very stable, reliable person. And she insisted we move to Alabama because she thought we were too old to be down in

02:14:21.060 - 02:14:30.060

Houston alone. She went to watch after us. As it turned out, we've been able to help them because they have a teenager who's in first-year high school band.

02:14:30.200 - 02:14:42.560

So we go pick her up or take her. That helps because she teaches kindergarten. And David has a very responsible job, so we've been able to help a little bit. But, you know, they've helped us a lot more.

02:14:43.620 - 02:15:02.800

And we finally persuaded his parents, my dear friends, for over 50 years to move also. And so now we go out to eat with them, and we all eat together on Sunday. We go to three different congregations, but we meet after church at one house or the other and have dinner together.

02:15:03.780 - 02:15:17.080

So that's nice and Sally just has the one child at home. She had two daughters and then she couldn't have any more children. She had to have a hysterectomy. So they adopted two children, a boy and girl, who didn't have a home.

02:15:17.080 - 02:15:28.100

They were brother and sister. And then later she adopted another baby. So they have five children. All are married, gone.

02:15:29.500 - 02:15:48.040

Laura married a British sailor, Mark Barrow, and they live in England. And Tanya lives in Houston, has two little boys, precious little boys. Rachel lives on St. Simon's Island. She has one little boy.

02:15:48.900 - 02:15:59.500

Her husband is a lawyer for a bank. Tanya's husband works for Enron. Surely you've heard of Enron. They built the new stadium in Houston.

02:16:02.680 - 02:16:16.480

I guess that's all. Their son, Nathan, the only boy in the family, they adopted him. He was in Seattle, but he's somewhere else, Idaho, I think, now working. He has a baby.

02:16:19.860 - 02:16:32.520

Then the next one down is Steven. Steven is very responsible. He's not an electrician. He's with the Bell Telephone System, and I think he's a troubleshooter.

02:16:32.520 - 02:16:55.580

He goes to see why people's telephone isn't working and that. He married—he was a diver. He went to this school in Waco, became an underwater welder. So he went to Trinidad and did underwater welding there.

02:16:56.680 - 02:17:11.580

And he and some other divers took a house next door to a family that had these beautiful daughters and he fell in love. And so they invited us to come to Trinidad for the wedding. And I have loved Elizabeth ever since.

02:17:11.700 - 02:17:29.740

She is a beautiful, sweet, lovable lady. They live in Miami with their teenage daughter, who is in her second year of high school. And we're going to their home for Christmas. And the next one, the youngest, is Helen, who is divorced.

02:17:30.310 - 02:17:36.380

She lives in Alaska. Just bought her home there. She wants to live there. She likes it.

02:17:37.440 - 02:17:57.040

And the other granddaughter that lives, that's single, that lives in Houston is going to to join her mother and her sister in Alaska after Christmas. They're all going to be in Miami for Christmas. And she has two children, two girls, Autumn and April, both of which are grown.

02:17:58.400 - 02:18:15.520

I know Mary Helen, in life, there are ups and downs, and there are good times and there are sad times, and I know you've experienced that. What got you through that really sad time? Oh, the Lord, that's all.

02:18:17.040 - 02:18:45.800

When my mother was ill, when my grandmother was ill, when my husband was ill, when my dear brother Jay was dying, you know, you get strength from God and from other Christians. And I think that that is the most important thing anybody can have, is faith in God and belief in Jesus Christ and know that you're going to make it.

02:18:46.520 - 02:19:05.540

My mother used to say when we were very poor, "The Bible says that God will not see his children baking bread," which we didn't do. You know, everything that would come up, she'd say, "Well, the Lord will see us through. It's going to be okay."

02:19:06.140 - 02:19:19.460

And it was. And she prayed a lot. And we pray a lot. Of all the things that you have done in life, and you've done so many, what is the one thing

02:19:19.600 - 02:19:38.500

that you are most proud of? My children. And being married for so long to the same man, almost 47 years, and being with him when he died, I was at his bedside talking with him, and hearing him with his very last breath

02:19:40.960 - 02:19:51.440

say, "I love you." And have loving children. They call me. And one day Bill called and they called frequently and I said, "Bill, you know, it's so wonderful.

02:19:51.500 - 02:20:02.240

You call me all the time." And everybody does. And he said, I said, "I'm so blessed to have children that love me and that I love." And he said, "Mother, you know, you and Daddy taught us to love.

02:20:03.300 - 02:20:16.580

We had to love." He said, "We just got it from you. We're just doing what we always knew." I can see I don't even have to ask you what your legacy will be.

02:20:20.100 - 02:20:26.500

It won't be money. It won't be a home. I don't own a home. I have no money, only my pension.

02:20:27.940 - 02:20:39.320

And Boyce gave his home to his daughter. We don't have any real estate. I have a car. I just bought a new car with a five-year payment plan, which I expect to pay for.

02:20:40.540 - 02:21:01.420

So there's nothing to leave them. Maybe a car that's partly paid for if I go before it's paid for. But you know the main thing is that they know to pray, they know to trust in God. This too shall pass away and there's a better day coming.

02:21:02.200 - 02:21:30.340

If they just trust in the Lord and do their best, everything's going to be fine. Let me ask you, what do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be? I believe that it will be a great step for women, and I've had so many women tell me we could not have been able to do a lot of things that we do now if you all had not persevered.

02:21:32.140 - 02:21:49.140

And I think that we did that for them. And I think that the men, too, recognize this, not only the women. I think the men too realize that women can do something outside the kitchen and outside of the school and outside of nursing.

02:21:49.440 - 02:22:04.580

Those were the only things that women could do. But I think women, when they have children, they need to be at home with them. I hate to see them go out to work. And my granddaughters that have children, the two that have and the one that's expecting,

02:22:05.080 - 02:22:22.420

stay at home. In fact, Tanya went to the hospital from her job. She told them, "When I have my baby, I'm not coming back." I think that's one thing that I think my children have learned from me.

02:22:22.900 - 02:22:41.420

Mother needs to be with her children as much as she can, because no one else will love them that way. No one will do for them what mothers will do. What advice would you like to leave for your grandchildren and for children in future generations

02:22:41.640 - 02:23:01.920

that might encourage them to excel? I would say they can do anything they want to do. They can set a goal. And if they keep God first in their life and pray and worship Him, that He will help them

02:23:04.260 - 02:23:23.800

attain that goal. That they work hard, they be honest, they treat other people well, and they can do what they want to do. Is there anything that I have left out that you can think of that you would like to talk

02:23:23.840 - 02:23:44.620

about? No, I'll just say my cup runneth over, and always has. As you know, Wings Across America, in conjunction with Baylor University, has this project. What is your feeling about this particular project?

02:23:44.640 - 02:24:09.680

I think it's a wonderful project, because there are too many people that do not even know that we existed, that we did anything. And I think that we should leave history, we should correct history and let people know what we did because we were a very major part, I think, of the war effort.

02:24:10.660 - 02:24:28.200

And we would all have gone into battle if they would have let us. And I think that that needs to be told and I think this is the only way it's going to be told. There have books been, books have been written, but not everybody reads them.

02:24:31.120 - 02:24:45.560

But the history books do not talk about us. And I feel that this is the one place where the people are going, the children will learn about us. Because so many adults don't know, and they're not telling the children, the teachers are

02:24:45.640 - 02:24:56.000

not telling them. So I think it is a very wonderful program. And I'm so glad you're doing it. I cannot thank you enough.

02:24:56.760 - 02:25:03.540

Thank you for letting me say my piece. You've been just wonderful. God bless you. Thank you.

02:25:04.460 - 02:25:10.840

God keep on blessing you. That's true. We'll pause for a minute. I want to take a picture.

02:25:11.330 - 02:25:12.120

Come on, come on, come on.