00:00:01.400 - 00:00:05.980

and another was a little different. >> Yeah. >> You know? So --

00:00:05.980 - 00:00:17.500

>> I've noticed that in reading various of the books and that some of the WASPs have written and then they say, "This is the way it really was." >> Yeah.

00:00:17.570 - 00:00:36.320

>> "We were not like those others that was in such and such a book." >> Right. And I'm sure a lot of cases, it's our personal memory of what it was that our memory may not be like somebody else's, but who's to say which one is correct, you know?

00:00:37.920 - 00:00:42.840

So -- >> Mine is correct. >> Oh. >> You're a wasp.

00:00:43.180 - 00:00:48.640

>> You're a tempered-throw wasp. >> You're a wasp. Not a doubt about it. >> Roll.

00:00:48.640 - 00:01:05.200

>> Okay, let's roll. >> I'm Deanie Parrish with Wings Across America. We're interviewing Mildred Rex-Rote in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was a WASP, class 44-7.

00:01:05.920 - 00:01:17.960

Today is the 20th of November, 2001. The videographer is Nancy Parrish. Okay, Rexy, if you will tell us your full name and when and where you were born.

00:01:19.580 - 00:01:37.260

Oh, my name is Mildred Rex Roat, and I was born in Argonia, Kansas in 1917. And what month and what day? Oh, August 29th. Okay.

00:01:37.680 - 00:02:03.160

And just— Rexy, tell me about your mom and dad. My mother was Clara Peck, and she was from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, up around Wakwamunee. Did she live on a reservation?

00:02:03.620 - 00:02:21.800

Yes. And my father was Ulysses Stuart Rexroth. He was considerably older than my mother. He was a printer by profession.

00:02:22.940 - 00:02:36.640

He published the Winona Free Press. That's Winona, Oklahoma. We were living there for quite some while. Do you know why your family moved to Oklahoma?

00:02:38.800 - 00:02:56.720

No, I don't know. I think it had something to do with my father's work as a printer. I think that he went wherever his services could be of use. How old were you when they moved?

00:02:58.500 - 00:03:15.000

I must have been anywhere from zero to maybe three or four. Okay. And in Oklahoma, where did you live? Did you live in a town?

00:03:15.660 - 00:03:26.800

It was a little town. It was called a boom town. It was an oil boom town. And it isn't there anymore.

00:03:30.220 - 00:03:47.340

It was Wynona. And my sister that was born there, about a year and a half after my birth, was named after the town. She was named Wynona.

00:03:48.020 - 00:04:11.780

What was the population of that town mostly? Were they white Anglo-Saxon people? Were they black people? They were mostly white Anglo-Saxon, but I remember there was one family that was Syrian

00:04:12.300 - 00:04:34.820

or something like that. They were a little bit darker, but my family was usually the darkest one. There were quite a few Indians around there, but they were not the same kind of Indian that I am because we were from South Dakota where the Lakotas are.

00:04:37.860 - 00:04:58.820

The ones around in Oklahoma were the Osages. We were good friends with one Osage family named Quentin. I went to school with one of the girls. Let me ask you to tell me about your grandparents.

00:05:00.360 - 00:05:24.440

I don't know very much about any of my grandparents except my mother's mother. Her name was Julia. She had several different names because I think she was married about three times. I think her name before she ever got married was Last Horse.

00:05:25.360 - 00:05:47.280

Julia Lasthorse, and then she married somebody named Sauchet. That was French, and it begins with C-H-A. I don't know how to spell it. And something else, and then finally she married somebody named Peck.

00:05:48.380 - 00:06:07.720

But I didn't know him. I do not know if he died or if he left. Levy: Were you close to that grandmother when you were growing up as a child? Steele: Yes, she was a real nice lady.

00:06:08.780 - 00:06:33.360

Everybody liked her and she was good to me. She was fun to be around. She let us help making butter with a churn and do other things. She made teepees for us out in the yard of her house.

00:06:34.380 - 00:06:57.600

She used for the poles, she would use those tall sunflower stalks. She knew just how to put it together, and I bet you I could make one today. Did she live there in Winona with you? No, she was up in South Dakota on a reservation.

00:06:58.940 - 00:07:18.520

And when you would go up to visit her, how would you travel? Did you have a car? How would we travel to get up there? There was an aunt, a sister of my mother's, that was working in Arizona.

00:07:19.780 - 00:07:38.020

She and her husband had a car, and I think they would come by and pick us up in their car. That's how we would get up there one time. I can remember when I was little, sometimes we would travel someplace by train, but I

00:07:38.040 - 00:07:49.920

can't remember where we went. Let me ask you, where your grandmother lived on the reservations, what kind of a house did she have? Did she have a canopy?

00:07:52.450 - 00:08:23.100

No, it was made out of wood. I remember the time when one of her sons, my uncle, put in a pump so we had water in the house, but it was a little thing that you pumped with your hand. It wasn't hot, it was cold, but you put it on the big iron stove and they had a reservoir

00:08:23.520 - 00:08:53.600

in there where the water always was at least warm. When we were up there, the way we traveled to get around was either on horseback or in a wagon. Did your grandmother, did the whole reservation, did they farm or how did they make a living?

00:08:55.800 - 00:09:25.580

Well, some of them didn't hardly make a living because the way of life had changed so much from the way they grew up. The government wouldn't let the Indians practice their religion, and they came and took the kids, the little kids.

00:09:28.100 - 00:09:44.400

Maybe some of them didn't mind going, and maybe some of them did, and the parents always minded. And they took them far, far away to places like Shellaco, Oklahoma, from way up in South Dakota.

00:09:46.020 - 00:10:20.380

And they sent a lot of them to some school over in Pennsylvania. They did it on purpose because they were trying to get them to not be Indians. They wanted to raise them up to be white people. They did not allow the kids to speak Indian, and some of them, well, that was the only

00:10:21.040 - 00:10:46.800

language they knew. So they were, you know, more or less forced to become without speech. And they had to learn to talk English. And they didn't want them to hardly talk to each other if they talked Indian, and they

00:10:46.860 - 00:11:13.000

got punished for it. And punishment back in those days was—well, they didn't behead them, but they got whippings and things like that, and a lot of restrictions. Do you know if a lot of those children, once they grew up, if they came back to the reservation

00:11:13.240 - 00:11:26.900

then? Yes, a lot of them did. I think I would say probably 85 or 90 percent of them came back to the reservation. Some of them didn't.

00:11:28.260 - 00:11:48.760

a few of them, like if they went all the way through school, maybe they got a job someplace or maybe they got married. Did your dad grow up on that reservation where your grandmother was? Not my dad.

00:11:49.040 - 00:12:01.200

He was a white man from Kentucky. Oh, I didn't know that. - That was your mother's mother then that lived on the reservation, okay.

00:12:01.880 - 00:12:14.540

And you never knew your dad's parents? - No, I never did. I think that there was an old lady that lived with us in Oklahoma for a while

00:12:15.120 - 00:12:30.820

and I think she was either ill or maybe just elderly and I didn't know the difference at the time. I must have been around three or four And I think maybe that was my dad's mother.

00:12:32.820 - 00:12:48.280

'Cause see, he was already quite a bit older than I was, and then his mother would have been that much older because she seemed quite frail, and sometimes we would carry her food to her

00:12:49.400 - 00:12:56.360

wherever she was. - Do you know how your mom and dad met? I don't know. I don't know.

00:12:56.500 - 00:13:13.580

People are always asking me that, but I don't know. And every time we'd ask Mom anything at all about that, I don't know if I ever did. She'd say, "We're not going to talk about that." I don't know why.

00:13:15.760 - 00:13:31.760

Maybe they just didn't—maybe people didn't talk about that. I don't know. Okay, when you were living in Oklahoma and living, do you recall when you first started to school?

00:13:32.970 - 00:14:13.940

I don't know what year it was, but I started in the second grade because I already knew how to read and write, and I could do some addition and subtraction a little bit. Mother taught us at home, all three of us kids. Later on, she started teaching other ladies in town would send their kids over to her.

00:14:14.700 - 00:14:42.880

It was something I guess like they have had recently called Head Start or something like that, but it wasn't called that then. I think maybe some of them paid my mother a little bit to do that for their kids. They always did better in school after Mama had been teaching them.

00:14:43.460 - 00:15:01.100

But finally, after I don't know how many years, after she'd been doing it for ten years, somebody told her that she couldn't do that anymore because she didn't have a license. Oh, wow. Rexy, was your mother full-blooded Indian?

00:15:01.920 - 00:15:16.920

No. My mother was, I don't know, half maybe. Oh, that's interesting. When you started school, what kind of a school?

00:15:17.200 - 00:15:37.160

Was it a very small school? Well, it was pretty small, but they had elementary school and four years of high school in Winona. In elementary school, do you recall any of your teachers? Yeah, I remember.

00:15:38.460 - 00:16:00.140

What did you like in elementary school? What subject did you like? Well, reading and I used to like arithmetic. The only thing I didn't like very much was history.

00:16:00.970 - 00:16:26.140

I liked geography fine, but I didn't like history much. I was always getting everything wrong, the dates and the reason for different things like the reason for the Civil War. And they'd ask me occasionally, something would come up in a book about Indians, and

00:16:27.340 - 00:16:40.100

what they had written in the book wasn't right. And I'd answer it wrong. I'd answer it how my grandmother told me. And I got in trouble for it, too.

00:16:41.140 - 00:17:09.240

Rexy, when you were growing up in Winona, what was a Christmas like in your home? Well, that was the Depression time. At first, it seemed like we were doing pretty good. My father had, we called him "Papa," had this printing business.

00:17:10.080 - 00:17:25.320

We even had a car. It was one of those Model T cars at one time. But then, whenever the Depression started, I wasn't old enough to know what it even meant.

00:17:27.680 - 00:17:59.560

But then, I guess how my father got money for whatever he was doing must have been advertising, but I did not understand that at the time. People had less and less money, so they advertised less and less. We got less and less money, and we couldn't pay the gas bill for heat or cooking in our

00:17:59.660 - 00:18:19.160

house, and so they would turn it off. So we didn't have any heat in the house. So how did you keep warm in those cold Oklahoma winters? We just put on more clothes and all huddled up together.

00:18:21.440 - 00:18:33.380

It was hard. I can remember being cold. It was cold all the time. Some days we did not have anything to eat all day long.

00:18:35.340 - 00:19:05.020

Everybody was having kind of a hard time, but it seems to me that we were kind of maybe worse off than some because one Christmas, I think, some of the people in the community, or maybe it was people that were mom's friends or something, they brought us sacks of food. I don't know what, flour, sugar, I don't know.

00:19:06.100 - 00:19:34.380

That is how we got that one or two years. I remember having to ask the teacher if I could have the classroom Christmas tree after they got through with the little classroom Christmas party because we did not have any and couldn't afford to buy any.

00:19:36.500 - 00:19:56.640

We couldn't go far enough where there was any of those kind of trees. So she let me take it, and I dragged it home. Oh, that must have been a wonderful Christmas. Well, it was nice once we got it home, but I was embarrassed all the way home.

00:19:56.700 - 00:20:14.620

I was embarrassed to ask her and I was embarrassed dragging it home for fear somebody would see me and they'd say, "Oh, there goes those Rexroute kids. They haven't got any money." And yet, they were always making fun of us because we were Indian.

00:20:19.480 - 00:20:38.360

At where you lived, did your mom, did you have a garden? Yes. We had a big garden and we grew potatoes and tomatoes and turnips and corn and all those kind of things.

00:20:38.360 - 00:20:49.620

It was really good. Beans and peas. In Oklahoma, it rains enough, you can grow things like that. Would your mom can stuff?

00:20:49.740 - 00:21:04.380

Oh, yes, she'd can. Did you learn how to can? Did you learn how to can, how to help? Well, I helped enough that I had some kind of an idea, but I think I must have made up

00:21:04.460 - 00:21:12.660

my mind that it was too much work. Did you also have a cow? No. Didn't have a cow.

00:21:12.840 - 00:21:24.540

No cow. Had chickens? We had chickens. And in the wintertime, they stayed in the back room so they would not freeze to death.

00:21:25.160 - 00:21:51.760

Because sometimes we sold eggs and occasionally a chicken. And all of our chickens had names. They all had names. And one of them got caught in the screen door one time and its leg was broken so it limped

00:21:51.820 - 00:22:04.020

all of its life, but it got over it, you know. And we called—its name was Cripple Chicken. And we loved it. And—

00:22:06.060 - 00:22:20.260

Did you also—did you have kittens or dogs? - Yes, we always had this old black cat. We didn't have any dogs. I think one time we had a dog for about three days,

00:22:20.440 - 00:22:29.360

but either it didn't like it or the cat ran it off or I don't know. - Did you have a horse? - No.

00:22:29.600 - 00:22:43.140

- No, or a wagon? - No, we just had our feet. - Okay. After the Depression started, well, then we didn't have a car anymore.

00:22:43.460 - 00:23:02.880

I don't remember anything much about it. In school, would they have little pageants at Christmas or little plays? Sometimes, yeah. When you finished elementary school, did you have to change to a different building or

00:23:02.980 - 00:23:10.980

was the junior? I think we did. I think it was a different building, yeah. And then you went into junior high school.

00:23:11.720 - 00:23:17.500

Do you remember? They didn't call it junior high. They didn't use that word then. It was just high school.

00:23:18.420 - 00:23:26.360

And was high school six years? What? Did it last, high school, six years and six years in elementary? Four years.

00:23:26.540 - 00:23:35.380

Four years. When you started, you were a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. Wow. >> Okay, so you--

00:23:35.380 - 00:23:44.900

>> After you finished the eighth grade, then you graduated and next grade was high school. >> Okay. So, eighth grade was still elementary or-- >> Yeah.

00:23:45.240 - 00:23:59.020

>> -- lower school. Okay. When you got into high school, what did you really-- what subject did you really enjoy? >> I liked algebra.

00:24:00.920 - 00:24:21.560

>> Good. And I still didn't like history very well. Do you remember a teacher in high school that might have been an influence on you? Well they must have been, but I don't remember them very well.

00:24:21.920 - 00:24:48.120

I think I was sort of forced into taking something called home economics that I didn't like. I didn't mind the sewing part of it so much, except I was so damn polite that I would wait while everybody else asked questions and talked to the teacher. That way I didn't get much done because I was waiting to ask my question.

00:24:52.940 - 00:25:20.460

I did not get a very good grade on getting things done, but she liked my work. I did not like the cooking part of it either. In high school, did you get involved in anything outside of academics, for example? Sports or speech or music, any of that?

00:25:20.980 - 00:25:50.420

I never was very good at music. I guess maybe they had some kind of speech. But we were always told, "Come straight home after school." Maybe we got permission to go and visit some other kids after we once got home, but we

00:25:50.420 - 00:26:08.480

we were supposed to go straight home from school, and so we never got into anything that, you know, - Social stuff. - Caused you to stay after school, unless you were being punished for something,

00:26:08.640 - 00:26:33.160

but I didn't get into that very much. - Tell me some of the games that you played as a child. Oh, just the ordinary things like hide and seek and snap the whip. But at home, when we were at our own house, we had kind of a big yard.

00:26:35.920 - 00:27:05.500

We were always organizing things like circuses. get some of the other kids that were our friends from town to do different things. I guess they call it tumbling or some kind of acrobatics or something like that because we were always doing that, like walking around on our hands and standing on our heads and

00:27:06.240 - 00:27:25.080

doing flip-flops. We would even build some kind of things so we could walk across like a ladder, you know, with our hands. And we would get the other kids to take part in it too.

00:27:26.640 - 00:27:48.040

So we were always very active in things, but not organized sports. But although I can remember one time playing a game of football, but they did not like the way I played it. I think we were too rough for them.

00:27:49.090 - 00:28:17.200

Did you make some lasting friendships with children that are still your friends growing up? Well, I did have one friend named Dora Lindsey, but she died some time ago and I had not heard from her for a long time because after we moved back to South Dakota, I'd write for

00:28:17.200 - 00:28:44.960

a while, but that was when I was pretty young, you know, and you just don't keep up those—I thought about them a lot. And occasionally I'd get a letter from her. And there was another Indian family, they were Osage, and their name was Adams.

00:28:51.800 - 00:29:18.400

I was friends with this girl named Florine, she was in my same class. Several times I got to go home with her and spend the night out at her house. They lived out from town a ways. They had land that was like an oil lease, and how they spoke of it was they lived out

00:29:18.460 - 00:29:36.660

on the lease. And Florine was the smartest girl in school. She always made straight A's in everything. What was fun about going out to her house and spending the night? What did you girls do?

00:29:37.840 - 00:29:54.280

I don't remember now But it was just fun to go and be someplace else and be with her. She was a quiet girl and Had nice parents And

00:29:55.100 - 00:30:20.560

We didn't do so much. I don't think I ever got into too much Playing with dolls and stuff like that. I I had a couple of dolls, but I Wasn't you know real attached to them. When did you move back to South Dakota? When I was about 12 or 13

00:30:22.380 - 00:30:37.000

We went back to South Dakota with my aunt that had come from Arizona again, and we went up there because Well, I guess

00:30:37.870 - 00:30:53.060

We didn't have enough to eat and my father would be gone a lot in another town if he could get some work over there and Mama used to go and take care of other

00:30:53.960 - 00:31:13.520

Ladies in town if they were sick or something and sometimes she'd go someplace and clean their house I guess they must have given her a little bit of money But it just wasn't enough and I guess she was lonesome, too and

00:31:14.460 - 00:31:35.560

So did the whole family move back or well? Yeah, mom mom and took us three kids and we went back up to South Dakota And then I lived at my aunt's house for a while When we first went back up there, and we were living with my aunt Dora in Martin, South Dakota

00:31:38.620 - 00:32:00.780

They had a log house and it had a dirt floor They put rugs and stuff down on top of the dirt. And then did you go to school there? Yeah, we went back to South Dakota two or three times and then went back in between

00:32:01.480 - 00:32:19.500

to Oklahoma. I think I went to the sixth grade in Martin, South Dakota. Then we went back to Oklahoma for a while, and then we came back again when I was about thirteen.

00:32:24.320 - 00:32:50.680

I had one more year of high school to finish, but my mother wanted me to go to school in Martin. I don't know what her reason was, but I got transported across the state to St. Mary's School.

00:32:51.320 - 00:33:17.900

an Episcopal school. Maybe she thought I didn't have enough training in church or something. And we had been baptized as Episcopal, so I went to that Episcopal school for my senior year of high school, and that was in 1932.

00:33:20.180 - 00:33:27.120

Where did you live when you were going to that school? Did you live at home? We lived at the school. It was a morning school.

00:33:28.240 - 00:33:42.220

Did you have a roommate? Yes, I had a roommate. Her name was Alice Kimrey, and I think she's living in Hot Springs, South Dakota now, I think.

00:33:44.580 - 00:33:53.900

Didn't you have to make some adjustment to go away and live at a school and not be with your family? I liked it. Did you?

00:33:56.400 - 00:34:15.020

I liked it because my mother was working and it seemed like even if I was with her I was always in the way. And when we were living at my aunt's house, I kind of felt in the way there, although she was very good to me.

00:34:16.480 - 00:34:30.200

And— Did she have children? Yeah, she had a bunch of children. And it was fun to be with them, but it was also fun when I went away to St. Mary's

00:34:30.320 - 00:34:44.360

School. And that was the first time I'd ever been at a boarding school. Oh, you had to work there too. You got assignments, you know, like you worked in the kitchen or the dining room or some

00:34:44.400 - 00:35:04.080

other part of the school. You know, you cleaned the floors and worked in the laundry and different things like that. Were some of the students there from wealthy families? No, not very many.

00:35:04.260 - 00:35:29.440

I don't think hardly any of them were, they were all Indians. It was a St. Mary's school for Indian girls. And so we were more or less all on the same financial level. Maybe I had less than most of them, but some of them were just about like me, that were

00:35:29.580 - 00:35:39.900

back from Pine Ridge Reservation. They did not have any more than I did. Do you remember some of your teachers there at that school? Oh, yes.

00:35:40.700 - 00:36:02.520

Were they Indian also? No, I do not think any of them were when I was there, but later on they got some. Later on, one of my cousins was a cook there for a year or two. How large a school was that?

00:36:02.640 - 00:36:20.280

How many in your class as a senior? There were seven. Were you the star pupil? I remember, I guess they went by your grades.

00:36:23.680 - 00:36:49.600

According to your grades, I was going to be the valedictorian, but they didn't think I should be, because that was my first year there. One of the other girls got to be the—they assigned me to be giftorian. I was supposed to give a present to each one of the other girls, and I did not have any

00:36:49.880 - 00:37:09.200

money. I do not remember what I gave them. That was in 1932. I was fourteen and we all graduated.

00:37:09.340 - 00:37:22.380

I still have pictures of our graduating class and I remember all of their names. Do you remember what you wore? To graduate? I don't know.

00:37:22.520 - 00:37:44.420

I think maybe we got cap and gown that they must have rented from some place. I don't know. Did your mom and dad come to your graduation? No, my father was ill, I think, or living in Oklahoma or Texas or I don't know where.

00:37:44.660 - 00:37:59.520

I had lost track of him. I guess mom knew where he was, but mom didn't come either because they didn't have any way to make the trip. That was clear across the state.

00:38:00.520 - 00:38:18.780

Did your sister go to that same school? No. My younger sister went to a college called Baycone College, and that's in Oklahoma, too.

00:38:19.840 - 00:38:37.120

I think it's in Muskogee, Oklahoma. But I never did go there and I am not sure where it was. And it was a college. Kelly: Was it for Indians also?

00:38:37.120 - 00:38:56.340

Ritz: Yeah, it was for Indians. But I do not think it was Episcopal. It was some other. Rexy, when you were living in South Dakota again, did you live near your grandmother?

00:38:57.960 - 00:39:21.240

Well, sort of near, but not near enough to walk from where – except sometimes in the summer we would go out there and stay at her house. And they had horses, you know, for the wagons and for things like haying and stuff like that.

00:39:21.420 - 00:39:37.700

And they had cows and chickens and— Kelly: A garden? Steele: I think geese and garden and I think they even had pigs. Kelly: What do you remember that you loved about going to your grandmother's?

00:39:39.200 - 00:40:08.380

Well, her cooking. And they had—there's not lots of big tall trees around that part of South Dakota, but there are places where you can go and get buffalo berries. Well, I think almost all Indians know what buffalo berries are.

00:40:09.720 - 00:40:30.760

I got a buffalo berry tree out of my backyard that was transported from South Dakota. And little tiny orange or red berries, and they're kind of real tart, but they're good too. And chokecherries, do you know what chokecherries are?

00:40:32.320 - 00:40:59.440

wild plums, oh there's nothing as good as wild plum, and wild grapes, and all these things were around within distance of where you could go to in a wagon. And we'd go and gather all these things and some other things that grew in the ground. I think people call them wild turnips, but we called, they were temsulas.

00:41:00.800 - 00:41:13.760

And we'd go out and dig those up. And they would be a vegetable? Yeah. I guess they must have been something like a turnip because that's why people call them

00:41:13.800 - 00:41:33.080

wild turnips. But we just called them timsulas, but their roots go down to China and you have to dig them and then pull. You can't just go out and pick them, you know, like a tomato or dig a little bit like a potato

00:41:33.300 - 00:41:37.040

or something. I mean, it takes work. Dig deep. Okay.

00:41:37.540 - 00:41:44.300

We've got to stop a minute and change the film. How are you doing? Oh, you're doing great. You're doing great.

00:41:44.300 - 00:41:54.640

I think I'm talking too much. No, you're not. This is so fascinating. Oh, you're just not going to get them out.

00:41:54.940 - 00:42:04.720

And you dig and you pick them. and dig and dig in there. And when you do finally get one out, they got roots that go on and on and on.

00:42:05.160 - 00:42:20.000

That's why we always say their roots go down to China. - When you were in, even as a senior in high school, who were your role models? As you grew up, who were your role models?

00:42:29.240 - 00:42:55.200

Well, I don't know. Anybody that you admired? Well, of course I was female and there was this Indian boy that was one of the Quintins, Felix Quinton, and I just thought he was wonderful, but I was much younger than he was.

00:42:56.000 - 00:43:20.360

And it wasn't anything like, you know, trying to get him to notice me or anything like that, because I wasn't old enough yet. But he was just so good looking. He played basketball and football and was at track and everything.

00:43:21.200 - 00:43:53.860

He was the best in everything he did. I admired his sisters, too, but they were not outstanding. They were fine, they were smart and everything, but I don't remember of any particular girl or anything like that that I wanted to be like, especially.

00:43:55.140 - 00:44:14.360

Roxy, what were your dreams when you were a child growing up? What did you dream about doing when you got out of school? Well, at that time I didn't even know whether I would ever get out or not. It seemed like school went on forever.

00:44:15.680 - 00:44:39.520

We really enjoyed vacations. I kind of liked school. I did not dread it. I do not know what I wanted to do.

00:44:40.880 - 00:45:17.440

I kind of enjoyed fooling around in the printing house that my father had where the big presses were, you know. And we were always building things with leftover pieces of board. We made a playhouse one time out of a little shed that had been the chicken house before

00:45:17.620 - 00:45:37.220

that. We cleaned it all up. Oh, I wanted to be able to roller skate real well. The first thing I bought with my first paycheck that I actually got paid for was I sent away

00:45:37.280 - 00:46:01.920

to Montgomery Wards and got a pair of roller skates. I don't remember, I just wanted to do something real active and I didn't want to be a teacher. I didn't want to be in home economics. I didn't want to be a cook.

00:46:05.480 - 00:46:24.360

In South Dakota, it gets so cold in the winter. Did it snow a lot? Oh, it snowed a lot. When we were little kids, a lot of times we had to walk to a little school that was up

00:46:24.480 - 00:46:34.820

there. It was one of those one-room schoolhouses. The snow would be almost up to here. Of course, we were short.

00:46:37.980 - 00:47:01.700

Every now and then you just take a bite full of snow. But it was cold and I remember when we were going to go someplace. They had newspapers, but I do not remember anything about the news or if they came from any place around there or were sent in.

00:47:02.380 - 00:47:31.020

The people used to use them for wrapping up things they mailed. We did not have over shoes and stuff like that. We just had on our ordinary shoes and they would put down several thickness of newspaper and then you put your foot there and they would wrap the newspaper and tie it around

00:47:31.160 - 00:47:46.620

your foot. And that was our over shoes. And also just to keep it warm, even if we weren't going to be walking through snow, that would keep your feet warm, because paper is a good insulator.

00:47:48.850 - 00:48:03.440

Do you know what year you went to that one-room schoolhouse? I don't remember. Was it early elementary? I must have been around seven or eight.

00:48:05.540 - 00:48:36.800

Do you recall anything about that schoolhouse, how it looked? Yeah, just all the kids in one room and they had a wood-burning stove in there that one of the boys was supposed to come early and start a fire in it. Of course, they had outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls.

00:48:39.520 - 00:48:58.640

Other than that, I do not remember very much about it. But I often think about that teacher. How could she manage one teacher for all these different grades and these different subjects? But she did, just one teacher.

00:49:01.380 - 00:49:14.100

When you graduated from high school, what did you do then? What did you do that summer? Did you go— I washed dishes at my other aunt.

00:49:15.320 - 00:49:44.600

She had a café in Martin, South Dakota. I could eat there and I paid for my food by washing dishes in her cafe. I also made the coffee. She liked the way I made coffee and all the customers liked it too.

00:49:45.120 - 00:49:59.060

She said, "Okay, you can be the dishwasher and the coffee maker." I did not drink coffee, so I did not know. Did you live at home with your mom? No, I lived at my other aunt's house.

00:49:59.700 - 00:50:23.460

She had a bigger house, so we lived there. She had moved by that time. She had married some man, and he built a house or had one built, and we lived there. From this one I told you that was a log cabin and had dirt floors, well, then she had another

00:50:23.580 - 00:50:36.140

house by that time. Kelly: So how long did you live there and work in the café? Steele: Oh, about a year, I guess. Maybe I lived there for two summers.

00:50:40.000 - 00:51:00.400

Kelly: And then what did you do? Well, that was in Martin, South Dakota. I went up to Pine Ridge about fifty miles away and my mother was working. She got a job up there as a little girl's matron at the Indian School at Pine Ridge.

00:51:01.320 - 00:51:25.520

They called it Ogallala Boarding School because we are Ogallalas. Ogallala Lakota. That's the name of an Indian tribe, Oglala? Lakota, I think, would probably be the name of the tribe, and then Oglala is the like

00:51:25.880 - 00:51:42.720

clan or something. We were Oglalas. Did that make you real special? Well, I don't know, I guess it's just like anybody feels about their own.

00:51:44.420 - 00:51:52.420

Oh, it's okay. You're fascinating. Okay. Okay.

00:51:53.170 - 00:52:17.900

So you moved then up from living with your aunt. Where did you move to? Oh, well, my mother was working there and she had an apartment at the girls' building at the Ogallala Boarding School, and I just lived in the apartment with her.

00:52:19.940 - 00:52:51.360

I also went to work in the dining room at that boarding school. I worked in the dining room and in the kitchen, meaning I washed dishes, set the tables and waited tables and swept out. Part of the time when I worked in the kitchen, I was supposed to help prepare food, but my

00:52:51.480 - 00:53:11.420

aunt, another aunt, was the cook there. She did not like the way I prepared food very well or she did not think I was very adept at it. And she would usually find one of the other girls that could do it better than I did.

00:53:13.320 - 00:53:27.100

So I just did whatever I could do. I was pretty good at waiting tables. Did you ever learn to ski? Yeah, I did.

00:53:30.620 - 00:53:54.060

That was after I got out of the WASP. Okay, we'll come to that then. How long then did you stay there with your mom at that school? Well, at least two to three years, maybe two and a half years or something like that.

00:53:54.740 - 00:54:22.140

And then where did you go? Well, I wanted to go to college, but the only thing that was even within consideration was in Nebraska, at Shadron. And I think that was probably about sixty miles away.

00:54:24.100 - 00:54:59.380

And there were a few other Indian girls that were going to go to school over there. And under some kind of an appropriation like education of the Sioux Nation or something like that, they got an apartment for us. And there were about one, two, three, four, about six of us Indian girls stayed in this

00:54:59.440 - 00:55:22.080

apartment and attended classes at Shadron. It was a teacher's college, but that was the only thing that was, you know, within reach, I mean mileage-wise and money-wise, because they didn't charge us very much for tuition.

00:55:22.230 - 00:55:36.160

I don't remember what it was, but not very much. Did you live in a dorm? Did you live in a dormitory? No, we lived at this apartment.

00:55:37.200 - 00:56:02.500

It was a basement apartment and it was really not very fancy. There were always two to a bed and sometimes three. We had to pay if we were to wash our clothes and we wanted to iron. We had to pay a dime every time you plugged in the iron.

00:56:04.140 - 00:56:30.900

The old irons we had then, they just heated up, and then when it got too hot, you unplugged it so you would not scorch your clothes. Kelly: What did you study at that school? Steele: Well, I was kind of forced into studying some more home economics, and I did not like

00:56:30.960 - 00:56:49.600

it at all. But I made a couple of dresses, and I do not remember much about the cooking because I did not like that. I took a course in Spanish because I think everybody was required to take some foreign

00:56:49.700 - 00:57:06.080

language. I did all right in that, but I was not just really crazy about it. I do not even remember what else I took. In growing up, did you speak any Indian languages?

00:57:06.780 - 00:57:38.740

I spoke a little bit of Lakota, but not too much. Some of my uncles talked Indian almost all the time, but they could also speak English. My grandma spoke Indian, but she could speak English, too. My mother, after going to school down at Shellaco, she talked English almost all the time.

00:57:38.860 - 00:58:00.920

Of course, she could understand Lakota. So I learned English mostly because I went to school, but I knew a lot of Lakota then too. I've forgotten a lot of it since then, too, and I've been living away from there.

00:58:02.750 - 00:58:33.560

How long did you go to this school where you lived in the basement? Oh, I just went there one year. Then what did you do when you finished? After we got out, I went back to Pine Ridge and I worked there that summer in the dormitory

00:58:33.680 - 00:58:58.840

and in the kitchen again like I had done before. And then when it was time for school to start again, I wanted to go on to college, but I want to go back to Chadron. I liked that place where I had finished high school in Springfield, South Dakota.

00:58:59.780 - 00:59:26.380

They had a teacher's college there, so I managed to go there for my second year of college. I stayed for a while with an Indian family, but they already had two girls and they had a small house.

00:59:29.580 - 00:59:59.160

Their father, he was all right, but he had some kind of—I cannot remember the name of that disease where sometimes you have a seizure. And whenever he wasn't having a seizure, well, he was just perfectly all right. And they were really good to me.

00:59:59.360 - 01:00:22.680

And the girl and I were both going to the college. She was real smart, too. Her name was Sunbeam, and the family's name was Necklace. That's N-e-c-k-l-a-c-e, that kind, not L-a-s-s.

01:00:25.680 - 01:00:44.660

She had a sister, too, Bernice. We got along real well. I really did like those people. But eventually I got a job working for the president of that school.

01:00:46.860 - 01:01:12.060

I think I just worked in his house, you know. And so I moved to the dormitory up at the school. And there was another Indian girl there from Pine Ridge named Blossom Steele, and I roomed with her part of the time.

01:01:13.700 - 01:01:36.280

And we were very good friends. She later married a guy that she had met when we were both going to that St. Mary's High School. And he later became a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

01:01:38.900 - 01:01:58.540

I saw them. They came to Albuquerque, oh, I guess probably about fifteen years ago and called me up. She said, "This is Blossom," and told me they were here to visit somebody and everything. They were at some motel, so I went over there to see them.

01:01:59.140 - 01:02:14.160

I kept calling this bishop, I kept calling him Harold, and I said, "I know I shouldn't be calling you that. I said, "What do I call you?" He said, "Oh, just call me Harold."

01:02:15.280 - 01:02:32.940

But he was real nice and he was real smart. But I think that's wonderful that he was just off the reservation like the rest of us and he became a bishop. Did you go ahead and finish that teacher's college?

01:02:34.580 - 01:02:54.260

No. I just finished that year there, and then I just ran completely out of money, like for tuition and board and room and the things that you have to have, books and everything. It seemed like every place you went, it was getting more expensive.

01:02:55.880 - 01:03:15.180

So I decided I would stay out for at least a year and work. I got a job working at the Indian Agency at Pine Ridge, but I was still staying with my mother up at the boarding school. That's where I slept.

01:03:20.300 - 01:03:48.540

And what was your job there when you were working? I worked in an office and I had learned to type years before. My father had a typewriter when he had that newspaper and we learned how to type on that. It was an old L.C. Smith.

01:03:50.100 - 01:04:16.580

We knew something about typewriter from that. When I was in high school in Winona, Oklahoma, I did take a course in typing and shorthand. So I learned that, and I guess that was the basis on which I got this job down at the agency.

01:04:16.840 - 01:04:32.220

And that's what I did. I just did whatever work there was to be done. And you worked there for how long? I worked there all that summer.

01:04:33.520 - 01:05:00.000

No, I worked there for a whole year and a few more months until I finally managed to save a little bit of money because I wanted to come down to New Mexico, to the University of New Mexico. See, by that time I already completed two years of college, and then I stayed out a

01:05:00.080 - 01:05:11.280

year working. Then I came down to New Mexico, I think it was 1935. Did you know anybody in New Mexico? No.

01:05:12.680 - 01:05:43.440

But several of the boys and girls that I knew at Pine Ridge had gone to school at Santa Fe Indian School. They liked it real well. They were kind of interested in art and painting and different things.

01:05:44.880 - 01:06:07.620

They would talk about it. How did you get from South Dakota down to New Mexico? I came part of the way on a train and part of the way on a bus. So when you got to the University of New Mexico, what did you enroll?

01:06:08.900 - 01:06:32.880

And then what did you study? Well, I guess they thought that since I had gone to these two teachers' colleges that I was interested in education and they kind of guided me into taking some education courses But I didn't like it very well.

01:06:36.900 - 01:07:00.140

I had also taken a course at South Dakota Teachers College. One of my courses was mechanical drawing and one of them was woodworking. Of course, I was the only girl in the class, but they let me do it and I did it. I liked it real well.

01:07:03.040 - 01:07:31.480

So I just took things like psychology and constitutional history of the United States. Where did you live, Rexy? I lived in the dormitory part of the time, but before I moved to the dormitory, I lived in different people's houses.

01:07:33.460 - 01:07:58.700

I was supposed to take care of their kids and help, you know, just things like washing and ironing and things like that. I did not mind the washing and ironing, but I did not like to take care of kids. Did you go ahead and finish at the University of New Mexico for two years?

01:08:02.240 - 01:08:38.820

I had kind of lost a few credits transferring around from college to college. It took me three more years to get up enough credits to graduate. I graduated in 1938. I guess I had actually gotten my credits at the midterm, but they only had graduation

01:08:39.020 - 01:08:52.440

once a year. So I took that extra semester of graduate study. Did your mom get to come to that? She came that time.

01:08:52.480 - 01:09:15.540

She came from South Dakota. I do not remember if she came on the bus or the train. We took a little trip on the bus out to Grand Canyon. Then did you get a job in Albuquerque after that?

01:09:15.840 - 01:09:37.940

Yes, I was working at the Indian Hospital. It's still there, the building is still there, but it's changed quite a bit. They still have what they call an Indian hospital, but it is somehow connected with the university hospital.

01:09:42.780 - 01:10:18.320

I worked there for about six months or something like that. And then the doctor that I was working for knew some doctor out at Winderock, Arizona, which is headquarters of the Navajo Nation. And he said that I could get a job out there on a temporary basis if I wanted to do that.

01:10:18.320 - 01:10:42.600

And I did. I had heard of Winder Rock before and I wanted to go out there, so that is what I did. I went out there and I worked for the Navajo Service for about two or three years, most all of them on temporary appointments.

01:10:43.920 - 01:11:09.480

They could also extend your thirty-day appointments to sixty days and sometimes as much as a hundred and twenty days. But they were not giving very many people any permanent appointments then because I think it was still kind of depression times and the Civil Service was not doing an awful

01:11:09.320 - 01:11:27.620

lot of hiring, especially permanent employees. I got those on the basis of civil service examinations that I had taken and passed, and they put your name on a list. But I liked it out there.

01:11:28.920 - 01:11:48.980

I worked at Winder Rock and Fort Defiance and Tuba City, Arizona. I liked all of those places. They were sort of remote, way out in the boonies. But I liked it.

01:11:49.600 - 01:12:03.440

You were doing more or less social work. I was doing work in the office. I didn't do any social work. I thought it was social service kind of work.

01:12:04.280 - 01:12:17.560

No, I didn't do any of that. I don't think they even had that then. Maybe they did. And then after Wendell Rock?

01:12:18.360 - 01:12:53.100

After Winter Rock, I got an offer of an appointment in Washington, D.C., so I went up there. I worked up there. This was kind of like right before the war. I worked up there for a while, and actually it was only about five or six months.

01:12:54.060 - 01:13:22.260

Because then I also got another offer of a job with the United States engineers in Roswell, New Mexico. When I saw that Roswell, New Mexico, I thought, "Oh, I want to go back." So eventually it ended up that I did go back.

01:13:23.700 - 01:13:50.160

Did you work at a military base there? Where did you work at Roswell? In Roswell, they were building the military base. Almost every place I went for about a year or two, they were building these air bases.

01:13:51.780 - 01:14:21.400

But they were still the U.S. engineers, because the military hadn't moved in yet. They were doing things like, they called it clearing and grubbing. They would go on bulldozers and take out all of the scrub, you know, and finally get around to making a few roads and putting up a lot of those temporary buildings.

01:14:21.580 - 01:14:51.300

You remember those two-story things, you know. And so you stayed with the engineers at Roswell? I stayed with the engineers and I moved from Roswell to Hobbs to Pecos, Texas. They were building airfields at every one of these places.

01:14:54.540 - 01:15:06.720

Did you stay with the same boss? Did he move or why did you move? Steele No, I just moved because I was offered a different position down there.

01:15:07.660 - 01:15:25.620

If I wanted it, I could take it or stay where I was or something. I finally got to El Paso, Texas. They were enlarging that airport down there. The big field was right on one side of it.

01:15:26.480 - 01:15:41.460

They were enlarging that. So I worked there quite some time, and that's where I first started flying. Let me ask you where you were and what you remember about Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor?

01:15:41.560 - 01:16:04.200

Oh, I was still in Washington, D.C. then. I was rooming with two Indian girls. One of them was from Montana and one of them was from South Dakota. She was Secretary to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

01:16:05.260 - 01:16:23.480

Her name was Amelia Skye. She was a wonderful woman. Well, in all your working then after Pearl Harbor, you were in an essential business government-wise.

01:16:23.880 - 01:16:56.980

Yes, I worked for the government almost all of my working career, almost all. There was one stretch of about a few months, not even as much as a year, where I worked for a private contractor and they were the ones that were making those igloos for storage of ammunition out at Fort Wingate.

01:16:59.640 - 01:17:19.700

But then I went back to working for the government and sometime in—I do not remember exactly where it was, one of those was a permanent appointment, which is probably the reason why I took it, because it was going to be permanent rather than temporary.

01:17:20.520 - 01:17:41.140

And I was with a couple of my girlfriends. They were Indians, too. And I heard something about it on a radio. It wasn't my radio, somebody's radio about Pearl Harbor.

01:17:44.980 - 01:17:59.240

I didn't really know where Pearl Harbor was. I didn't. Even though I had liked geography, I didn't like history. I did not really know.

01:18:00.400 - 01:18:19.380

So I said, "Where's Pearl Harbor?" She says, "It's in Hawaii." Oh, I said, and it wasn't a state then, you know. And I said, "Well, how can the Japanese be bombing it?

01:18:19.940 - 01:18:37.680

They're doing it. They're just doing it. They decided to do it." I thought of all of those tin cans and other things that we had all been saving to contribute

01:18:37.840 - 01:18:55.160

to the metal that everybody was collecting. And I said, "You mean that we sent all that metal over there and now they've made bombs out of them and bullets and now they're killing us with them?" Yeah.

01:18:55.880 - 01:19:20.680

Let me ask you, when you first became interested in flying, when you were near Bixfield or in that vicinity? Well, they had already established this wax, you know, the wax. And then I had also heard about waves.

01:19:21.800 - 01:19:45.120

I kept thinking and thinking about it, and I thought, "Maybe I should be a WAVE." Somehow I wasn't really attracted to the Army, but then I thought, "Well, maybe I could." And then I heard they had Marines even, women Marines, and I thought I really wanted to

01:19:45.220 - 01:19:57.340

do that. So I sent them a telegram at their headquarters. I found out where that was someplace, and I asked them if I joined what kind of work I would be doing.

01:19:58.960 - 01:20:23.860

They answered me and they said, "Wherever you'll be able to help the war effort the most." And I thought, "Oh, no, another typewriter." It wasn't that I hated typing, but I wanted to get out of an office and do something active

01:20:24.260 - 01:20:48.700

and just something else. I thought, "I can't even drive a car." I said, "What could I do?" I thought some of those places I was working for the engineers and we were building airfields,

01:20:49.440 - 01:21:16.820

I thought, "Now if I could fly a plane, they would probably be glad to have me." I decided I would just learn how to fly and then I could have something to put on my application that was not a typewriter. I called up out to the airport and asked if there was some place out there where I could

01:21:16.840 - 01:21:45.480

learn to fly. They said, "No. The only people that can learn how to fly now on account of the war is if you are in the Civil Air Patrol and own your own airplane or something else about the Civil Air Patrol,

01:21:48.420 - 01:21:58.820

or if you are going to be a WASP." I said, "A WASP? What is that?" They said, "That is the Women Air Force Service Pilots."

01:21:58.880 - 01:22:19.920

I said, "Well, what about it?" They said, "Well, you have to pass the Army flight physical and you have to have two years of college." At that time, when I made my application, they required two years of college.

01:22:26.220 - 01:22:45.200

And then you have to have thirty, I think it was thirty-five hours of flying time. And I said, "Well, I don't have any flying time. Where can I get it?" And they said, "Well, you have to be one of these things, you know, Civil Air Patrol,

01:22:45.500 - 01:22:59.800

or you're going to be a WASP." So I said, "That's what I'm going to be." And that's how I got started. So I went out there and started taking instruction in Luscombe.

01:23:01.880 - 01:23:15.640

Did you know any other girls who were flying? No, I did not. Not until I already started, and then I found out. Okay, we're going to stop and change the tape.

01:23:16.260 - 01:23:21.900

Oh, good. Wow. That's an amazing story. That is.

01:23:21.900 - 01:23:35.860

I almost got in the Marines. Oh, I'm glad you didn't get in the Marines. No, she doesn't. I tell them they do a good job.

01:23:38.540 - 01:24:01.200

When you went out to the airport and found an instructor, do you remember who that instructor was? Yes, his name was Joe Miller. He was one of four brothers and they had four Luscombes and they gave instruction and did

01:24:01.200 - 01:24:22.620

other things. They also operated some of that Civil Air Patrol stuff. I guess that's how—you know, it was real hard to get gas, and especially aviation gas at that time.

01:24:22.720 - 01:24:54.480

But they did a lot of work with the Civil Air Patrol and went on those searches and hauled a small freight for the Civil Air Patrol for the military. And so that's how they could stay in business. Did your mom, did you write your mom and tell her what you were about to do?

01:24:55.480 - 01:25:15.980

What was her reaction? She didn't have much of a reaction. She wasn't for it and she didn't say, "You can't do this." But she didn't say, "That's wonderful," or anything.

01:25:18.400 - 01:25:56.500

I don't think she liked the idea too well, but it wasn't because she felt that I might be going to war and that she was worried about my safety or anything like that. I think it's because Mama had become a Jehovah's Witness and they don't believe in violence. And so that's why she just wasn't really eager about me having anything to do with any kind

01:25:56.540 - 01:26:17.100

of violence. I think quite a few of the Jehovah's Witness men were conscientious objectors. Do you recall your solo flight? Do I recall my solo?

01:26:17.760 - 01:26:28.020

Yes. Tell me about it. How did you feel? You mean in the Luscombe?

01:26:31.520 - 01:26:55.340

It seemed like there was this big empty space over where the instructor was supposed to be sitting, and he was not there. The plane felt so light. If I just barely touched the stick or something, it would just respond immediately.

01:26:56.540 - 01:27:28.200

I had to get used to just having only my weight and my touch on the controls up there. Mainly I was not elated or real happy until I finally got it back around and down on the ground and realized I had done it myself without rolling it up in a ball. It is just that I felt so alone.

01:27:28.380 - 01:27:47.640

There was too much space up there. I got it around there all right and got down okay. It was all right. And then when I came to where he was standing, you know, and he went like this, you know,

01:27:47.840 - 01:28:00.620

"What does he mean?" And I was just already stepping on the brakes to stop and pick him up, but he wanted me to go on again. Finally he went like this.

01:28:03.460 - 01:28:23.420

So I went up again, and the second time around it was better. And the third time around I began to really enjoy it. While you were flying in that Luscombe in those early hours, anything unusual happen? Were you ever afraid?

01:28:26.560 - 01:28:29.940

No. No. Okay. I was never afraid.

01:28:30.640 - 01:28:57.960

When did you first make an application to join and enter training for the WASP? That was while I was still working for the U.S. Engineers, and I was working at Biggs Field. I had an interview with somebody, but I do not remember who it was.

01:28:58.200 - 01:29:21.020

I had to go like downtown probably to some hotel or something like that, or where they were. I just had this interview and I did not know whether it came out good or bad or what. She gave me the application, I filled it out and sent it in.

01:29:22.440 - 01:29:57.260

In the meantime, then, after I had sent it in, I transferred from the U.S. Engineers to Washington, D.C. Again, that was my second time at Washington, D.C. I guess the main reason I did that was because both of my sisters were working in Washington,

01:29:57.450 - 01:30:20.020

D.C. at the time, and my mother was up there too. They had told us that after we started training, we would not get any time off. You did not get time off to go and visit, you did not get a vacation or anything like that.

01:30:20.700 - 01:30:40.160

If you graduated, you had what, ten days? Ten days. You could do with that whatever you wanted, but you had to be back wherever you were going to report for duty, operational duty.

01:30:40.380 - 01:30:56.320

You had to be back there whenever they told you. So I figured that might possibly be the last time I'd get to see them, at least for a long time. So I went back to Washington, D.C.

01:30:58.250 - 01:31:11.940

Kelly: When you left to go back to Washington, had you accumulated enough flying hours to get in to the wall? Steele: Yeah. Just barely enough, because it cost money.

01:31:12.000 - 01:31:34.560

And in the meantime, did you meet any other girls who were interested or who were flying? No. I had one girlfriend that I told her what I was going to do, and she was somebody I had worked with in the engineers for a long time, ever since Pecos, Texas, and then Hobbs,

01:31:35.460 - 01:31:59.380

and then El Paso. She wanted to get in it too, and she actually went and took some instruction. But she met a man, and he was a pilot, and she married him. So that was kind of the end of that.

01:31:59.820 - 01:32:14.700

But I didn't meet any other girls beforehand that were going to be in. And this other girl, Mary Reddick Wells, that lives here in Albuquerque, I had known her before.

01:32:14.940 - 01:32:27.680

In fact, she was going to the University of New Mexico at the same time when I was there. And we were not real close friends, but I remember her and I remember seeing her

01:32:27.680 - 01:32:52.640

and talking to her and everything like that. So, when I got down there and I found out she was in the class ahead of me. Oh, when you went back to Washington, did you transfer back in a job? I meant it was handled as a transfer because it was instead of working for the U.S. Engineers,

01:32:52.860 - 01:33:08.960

it was working for the Department of the Army. I think that's what they called it then. They keep changing it around. The Air Force was not separate, it was the Army Air Forces at that time.

01:33:10.000 - 01:33:47.200

So I was working for the Department of the Army at the Army War College. I worked for a General Hisong, and he was the head of personnel for all of the Army at the time. I told him before I accepted the position that I had my application in for flight training

01:33:47.380 - 01:34:07.740

at Sweetwater, and that I wanted to be assured that they would let me go. What I mean by let me go, at that time, there was sort of a restriction on going from one job to the other,

01:34:08.000 - 01:34:33.400

because I guess many departments got personnel who would stay maybe a month and then leave for a better job or something they liked better or something like that. And I said, "If I can't be assured that you will release me, then I'm not going to take

01:34:33.400 - 01:34:50.020

the position." As they said, "Okay, we'll let you go as long as you're going to some other defense." At that time, where was the War College located? Was it at the Pentagon?

01:34:51.080 - 01:35:15.280

No, they didn't even have the Pentagon then. It was way out—I don't know where to say. I had to take three different trolleys or buses or something to get there. Then I had to walk about half a mile from the gate to my building.

01:35:16.820 - 01:35:35.880

In order to go into training, did you have to take a physical? Oh yes. We took it, I think it was at Bowling Field. And that's where I met some of my classmates, Dorothy Ann Smith and some of the others.

01:35:36.160 - 01:36:01.620

And we were all out there taking our physical together. And then how were you notified to report for training? A telegram I got while I was working at the War College. I was so happy and everything, but the first person I showed it to at the War College wasn't

01:36:01.680 - 01:36:27.420

going to let me go because I guess he had not been present when I made them promise they would let me go. I was just about to cry, you know, and I said, "I have got to go." I finally went to the general himself and I told him, I said, "General Hissong, sir,"

01:36:27.740 - 01:36:58.260

I said, "When I came to work here," I said, "I let everybody know that I had my application in to go to flight training and now I've got my orders to report for training and I want to go, and this captain, so-and-so, said that they were not going to let me go. He just gave me a big smile.

01:36:58.520 - 01:37:11.820

He said, "Oh, that's all right, Ruckschrug." He said, "I'll talk to him." Good. So then how did you get from Washington out to Sweetwater?

01:37:15.780 - 01:37:28.660

How did I get there? On a cloud? I think I went on a—I must have gone on a bus. I do not know.

01:37:28.860 - 01:37:45.140

Kelly: Describe what it was like when you arrived at Sweetwater. It was cold. I got there in February and it was cold and bleak. And I don't know.

01:37:46.520 - 01:38:01.800

Do you remember going out to Avenger Field? I don't remember much about that either. I guess, was there a bus or something that picked us up? Or did we have to go in a taxi?

01:38:02.840 - 01:38:14.220

I don't know. I don't even remember. Well, tell me what you remember about when you got to Avenger. What you remember about how you felt when you saw all those airplanes?

01:38:17.720 - 01:38:40.900

Well, I noticed right away that they didn't have all of those beautiful gray-looking uniforms that I had seen one girl at El Paso. She was just passing through and she was with some men pilots and they were ferrying some planes.

01:38:42.580 - 01:39:02.120

And either somebody told me or something that she was in the ferry command in this beautiful uniform and it was gray. >> Okay. Tell me about what you remember about flight training or the training program at Avenger Field?

01:39:02.760 - 01:39:25.860

Well, I—of course, I had talked some with the girls when we got assigned to our bay, you know, our barracks and our bay. And you know, just look around at them and say, "I wonder if I'm going to like her or what they were going to be like.

01:39:29.180 - 01:39:47.760

But they were all in the same boat, so I don't know. I just tried to keep my ears open and do as I was told so I wouldn't get washed out immediately. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make?

01:39:52.900 - 01:40:27.120

I do not know, the biggest adjustment it seems to me was just it was a bigger airplane, the PT-17 as compared with the Luscombe. As far as living conditions or anything like that, that did not phase me at all. It didn't bother me living in, you know, cramped up or anything.

01:40:28.860 - 01:40:45.760

I lived in dormitories and stuff, and I'd lived in worse places than dormitories. So it was all right. It didn't bother me at all. Do you recall your solo in a PT-17?

01:40:47.400 - 01:41:14.020

Yes, I did, because I thought I was never going to be able to solo, but I did. I guess I did it in eight or maybe it was nine, I don't remember, hours, something like that. But it seemed like I was having trouble bouncing and I couldn't get used to all that horsepower,

01:41:14.680 - 01:41:38.340

You know, because if you pulled back on the stick, if you did not watch out, you were going to go back up in the air. I was afraid it would do the other thing if you did not pull back on the stick. I had trouble with my climbing, with my level turns, because I climbed in every one of them.

01:41:41.120 - 01:42:07.820

One instructor figured out that the plane I had learned to fly in, a Luscombe, that they told you, well, after you establish the turn, that you put back pressure on the stick to maintain level flight. And a steerman, you do not do that, at least not very much.

01:42:08.060 - 01:42:29.120

And that is why I climbed after I found that out, well, I did not have any more trouble. What did you enjoy about ground school? Ground school? Well, mostly I think I enjoyed the fact that after you worked some of those problems in

01:42:29.240 - 01:42:58.080

navigation that it worked. You could get the answers and that when you tried to use it, it worked. You know about the checkpoints and the time and distance, it worked. You figured in the wind.

01:42:59.300 - 01:43:16.120

At first I just hated those E-6Bs, but then later on I got to kind of like it because I thought, you know, it really works, it helps. They were pretty cumbersome, though, you know. But—

01:43:17.060 - 01:43:29.660

Tell me about Morse Code. Oh, I didn't mind Morse Code. I kind of liked that, too. What was your flight schedule like?

01:43:31.320 - 01:43:51.840

Oh, well, we either flew in the morning or the next day I guess we flew in the afternoon. It was either one or the other. And then you changed every day. When you went into training, did they tell you why you were training, what you were going

01:43:51.840 - 01:44:12.300

to be doing if you completed the course? No. Because they just told us that we had to be responsible and that we better fly the way the instructors were trying to teach us.

01:44:13.480 - 01:44:40.360

Do you know if there was a difference between the training you received and that the male cadets received? What I always understood was that we got the same training they got, except they got aerobatics. They were not going to teach us that because I do not know if they thought we could not

01:44:40.440 - 01:45:07.360

do it or what. But I have a friend here in town, her name is Julie File, but she married an American Airlines pilot and they got a T-6. In fact, they had two T-6s, but he was sort of recently killed.

01:45:09.060 - 01:45:41.200

She was an aerobatic pilot before she met him. She used to keep it—there was an airport right across the highway over here. I would see her over there sometimes changing oil and just doing stuff. She maintained her own engine.

01:45:41.400 - 01:45:58.080

I guess some of the things she did not do, like changing an engine or something, but she did a lot of it herself. She knew everything about her planes. Then she got this T-6.

01:46:00.980 - 01:46:28.700

All of the—including Ann Noggle—we all went out to the airport one time at Coronado Airport and they took our picture by her T-6. They put it on the cover of some magazine. Albuquerque Woman, did Ann show you that?

01:46:30.050 - 01:46:45.940

Do you have a copy? I have a copy here someplace. When you finished primary training, then what stage did you go to? To instruments.

01:46:47.600 - 01:46:53.860

Did you enjoy it? No, what was that? Maybe the 86th? What was next for transition?

01:46:56.260 - 01:47:34.220

I guess we went to transition right away and then went to BTs for instruments. And that was a big jump too, from a Stearman to a T-6, this huge, heavy airplane with 650 horsepower with retractable gear and all that radio instead of that gospel. When you finished then—no, let me ask you.

01:47:34.900 - 01:47:53.140

Did you have any time off when you were in training, like on weekends or anything? What did you do with that time? Well, sometimes there would be some of them, one or two of them, had a car and they would go out to that lake, wherever it was.

01:47:53.740 - 01:48:13.320

And we just kind of camped out. There was some kind of a building out there where I guess we could sleep over for one night and then the rest of the time was just a picnic or we'd go swimming or something in that lake.

01:48:14.760 - 01:48:34.980

I don't remember doing much swimming, but on the way out there, there was some little juke joint. I used to go out there. There would be some high school kids around there, and I used to really enjoy doing the

01:48:35.200 - 01:48:56.780

jitterbug with the high school kids. I guess they knew who we were, and probably they liked to go with us, I suppose. But they never did talk about it or anything. You did not have a date with them or anything.

01:48:57.100 - 01:49:13.640

You could not go to a movie or anything like that with them, but you could dance with them at that juke joint. Can you recall some of your baymates that you were fond of? Some of my baymates that what?

01:49:14.120 - 01:49:27.740

That you especially liked. Oh yeah, I talked to Muriel Rath. Her name is Reynolds now. She lives in Santa Rosa and I've been out to visit her many times.

01:49:29.640 - 01:49:47.940

Every time we go to a reunion, we always room together. She was my bay mate. Her name was R-A-T-H and mine was R-E-X. So we worked together all the way through.

01:49:49.520 - 01:50:14.200

I remember all of my bay mates. Did any of your bay mates wash out? I think one, maybe two or maybe just one, there was one girl named, I think, Winnie Schultz, but she would have been in the S's.

01:50:14.520 - 01:51:04.660

We had a few S people in our bay, and she was SCHU, and we had a SCHAE and a SHAF. Margie Schaefer and Adele Schaefer, and Betty Pettit and Mary Quist and Muriel and me and Ruth Riley and I think that

01:51:04.660 - 01:51:26.840

Wendy Shultz was in our—but she washed out in primary. How did that make you feel when she washed out? I was scared because I thought it could have been me. But I got there, I guess, to the auxiliary field right after that happened.

01:51:28.900 - 01:51:51.520

He told me that she had ground looped it one way and then in overcorrection ground looped it the other way and then stood it on the nose. So that was pretty traumatic. And anyway, she washed out.

01:51:52.940 - 01:52:14.920

In any of the phases, did you ever have any problems? Yes, I did. We also had another girl that washed out, Jody Richardson. She was married and her husband was one of those war correspondents.

01:52:17.860 - 01:52:38.760

But she washed out, I do not remember when or where, whether it was in primary. I think she did not wash out until the end of primary, because we thought she was going to just go right on through with all of us. Everybody liked her.

01:52:41.300 - 01:53:06.600

I had trouble in primary. In fact, I got put up for E-ride by my first instructor. His name was Martin. And it had something to do with—well, I don't remember.

01:53:06.800 - 01:53:24.680

I think what I told you about climbing turns or level turns that were not supposed to be climbing. I don't know, just something like that. He put me up for E, and we were good friends.

01:53:25.440 - 01:54:05.600

But he told me one time, he said, "Rexrode," he said, "I know you're a smart girl and everything, but you don't seem to be able to get what I'm telling you." And he said, "It seems to me like you leave your brains on the ground." So anyway, I went up with some cranky old man for the civilian checkride, and then you

01:54:05.380 - 01:54:34.460

went for an Army checkride and I was with this Lieutenant Nance. And I'd heard reports about him like he washed everybody out, but he was real nice to me. And I even made a mistake when I was with him because it was after a force landing procedure

01:54:34.460 - 01:54:55.500

I was coming out of it and I didn't pull up the flaps right away. He just kind of mentioned it, just real calm and not harassing or anything. I thought, "Oh my God!" That's what I thought.

01:54:56.460 - 01:55:09.120

My flaps and I hit that power button and jerked them up. And then I remembered, "Oh, you're supposed to milk them up." But he didn't say anything. He didn't say anything.

01:55:09.930 - 01:55:19.300

And he passed you. He passed me. He said, "Oh, Rexrod," he said, "you're all right." You know, just matter of fact to him.

01:55:20.720 - 01:55:29.340

He wasn't scared. He didn't grab the controls. He didn't do any of those bad things. And an E-ride means?

01:55:30.060 - 01:55:50.340

So you got through that. Was there ever any other time that you had any problems that you recall? Well, it seems to me like I had problems all the time. What kind of problems?

01:55:50.780 - 01:56:25.400

Well, I was just scared all the time that I was going to wash out. One time when I was on the cross country and we went from Sweetwater to—I don't know where we stopped, someplace along the way, and ended up that night in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And then we were supposed to go on east to Kearney Field in Nebraska and then further

01:56:25.400 - 01:56:52.200

East and then turn around and go back south, back down to Sweetwater. I do not know what happened, but the next morning my plane would not start. It would not start. So then the instructor came along and he tried to start it.

01:56:52.240 - 01:57:17.200

It would not start with him either. Finally they got some kind of assistance. I do not know whether it was one of those little things they roll out on a cart or something like that, but it gave it enough that it got a jump start and it started.

01:57:20.020 - 01:57:40.160

But I guess I did not have any radio communication for the same reason, but I had not figured all that out. And I finally took off without actually hearing "Clear for takeoff." But they did give me a green light and I knew what that meant.

01:57:41.580 - 01:58:07.900

So I took off. And I remember I was supposed to be going from Cheyenne to Kearney, Nebraska, almost due east. Well, it was time on my climb up to altitude, it was time to pick up the gear.

01:58:09.040 - 01:58:31.120

I had not used flaps for takeoff because I did not need them. I pushed on that power button and pulled that thing up and nothing happened. Nothing happened. And I thought, "Oh my God."

01:58:31.120 - 01:58:54.700

And it would not start. My troubles with starting had made me late getting off, so everybody else was gone. I thought, "God, I've got to get those wheels up somehow." I knew there was a procedure, but I did not know how hard it was.

01:58:58.860 - 01:59:22.580

I tried about five times with the power button to raise up the gear, and it would not budge. I did not get any green light either. I said, "Well, I know I am supposed to pump." So I started pumping.

01:59:24.640 - 01:59:45.080

That is hard to do. And I would sit there and pump and pump, and I think it took me probably twenty-five miles to get that gear up, you know, just working like the devil the whole time trying to pump up that gear.

01:59:45.280 - 02:00:05.220

And it is heavy. And I pumped it up by hand, and I finally got a green light that, you know, it is okay. And I finally was able to work the over-travel. Kelly: And then you had no problem lowering it when you got back to Sweetwater?

02:00:05.220 - 02:00:31.240

Steele: Oh, no, it drops down if you want it to, you know. But I was late getting to Kearney Field, and on the way there the engine kept cutting out. Every now and then. One time I lost two thousand—I think I was going at seven, something like that, and I

02:00:31.280 - 02:00:52.480

lost two thousand feet when the engine cut out. I thought, "I'm going to have a forced landing." But there were lots of nice, smooth-looking fields right along that Platte River. I thought, "I should be able to land in one of those."

02:00:53.720 - 02:01:09.560

I kept picking out another one, and if it would go, it kept going. I would pick out another one up here, and then I would pick them out all the way to Kearney Field. It had cut out for a while, and then finally it would catch again.

02:01:11.220 - 02:01:33.680

Then it would go for a while. So I tried to climb up a little bit, but I did not know then what I was working with, whether I should try to climb up. I thought, "Oh, yeah, I better climb, because altitude up there is not going to help."

02:01:35.620 - 02:02:02.840

I would go along for about fifteen minutes and it would cut out again. It scared me, I guess, pretty badly, although I did not let myself think about it at the time, because I had good places to land. After I landed, I did not know what I would do, but I figured I would find something to

02:02:02.960 - 02:02:24.880

do. Finally, I got all the way to Carney Field and I landed and taxied up and everything. The instructor that came along, he would ride with one girl for a while and then he would ride the next leg with somebody else and everything.

02:02:25.120 - 02:02:43.780

He came over to me and he said, "What are you doing here so late?" I said, "Well, the engine kept cutting out, and besides, it was late getting off because it would not start." "Oh," he said, "what was the trouble?"

02:02:43.780 - 02:02:55.300

I said, "I do not know what the trouble was. It just cut out and then it would not start again." He said, "Well, you finally made it anyway." He started to walk off.

02:02:55.860 - 02:03:17.340

About that time I started to cry. It was just a buildup, I guess, of that whole trip all the way from Cheyenne and everything. But I finally quit crying before he saw too much of it. And then I straightened up and I was all right.

02:03:17.540 - 02:03:28.680

Kelly: And then the rest of the way back it was okay? Reid: It was okay. I think they put a new something in my plane at Kearney Field. I do not know what it would have been.

02:03:28.820 - 02:03:48.300

A new something in there. Battery. I think they put a new battery in it. While you were in training, did you get some new uniforms at one point?

02:03:48.600 - 02:04:00.560

Did I get what? A new uniform? Yeah, about the time when we were just getting close to graduation. What did you think when you got that new uniform?

02:04:00.590 - 02:04:19.940

Oh, I thought that was wonderful. I like that Santiago blue. And there were lots of ladies out there that were pinning and tucking and sewing, and they made them fit so that we looked really sharp.

02:04:20.680 - 02:04:26.820

Good. Okay, we're going to change the tape. Yes, you did. Really sharp.

02:04:27.180 - 02:05:04.780

Okay Yeah, I'm gonna go back to the rest and and and if you ladies would like to go How long did your training last eight months wasn't it February We graduated, I think, on September 7.

02:05:05.680 - 02:05:16.400

Okay. Okay. While you were in training, as a class would graduate, how would your class participate in that graduation?

02:05:17.520 - 02:05:52.940

Oh, we had one girl in our class, Ellen Wimberly, and she used to make up songs. She could make up the words and the music too, and she'd train us in singing, you know. We'd sing. At the outside ceremonies, some of us in my class would do some of that fancy marching,

02:05:53.120 - 02:06:11.120

like to the winds march. You were there during the Easter season. Do you recall anything special that the trainees did at Easter? I do not remember a thing about it.

02:06:12.060 - 02:06:28.400

I guess we had some Easter eggs, I don't know whether we did or not. But you don't recall an Easter sunrise service when Ellen was the Glee Club director? If there was one, I probably didn't go. Okay.

02:06:29.400 - 02:06:53.140

Okay. In your course of training, what were the stages that you did in training? After primary? Primary, transition with T-6s, and then BT with instruments, and then advanced where

02:06:53.140 - 02:07:09.340

we got our cross country. Then that was back in T-6s, except we had one cross country in a PT, a stearman. How did you like instrument flying? How did I like it?

02:07:10.780 - 02:07:35.340

It was hard work, but I liked it. The first time I managed to end up over the cone, I thought that was wonderful. I did not think it would work and I did not think I could keep my orientation without flipping.

02:07:37.020 - 02:07:57.280

and you forget which way you are going or something or you just lose it. But I really liked it. I can just remember sitting up there in that hot T-6, because I think we were in that in July, under the hood.

02:07:57.600 - 02:08:23.680

It was so hot and you were just sitting there with sweat rolling off of you and trying to Figure out where you were and what you were gonna do next and those procedure turns and Timing and still trying to keep your the needle and ball, you know Oh

02:08:25.840 - 02:08:36.840

In the meantime, did you also have some calisthenics We had calisthenics every day, didn't we? Yeah. I think we had it every day.

02:08:39.200 - 02:08:50.860

What was your favorite airplane to fly in training? T-6. You didn't hesitate, did you? I think it's still my favorite airplane.

02:08:53.000 - 02:09:20.680

And I just envy everybody who's got one, like Julie File. When it was getting near graduation, or before you graduated, did they give you a choice of assignments? Yes, they offered us a choice and we could say what we wanted to do.

02:09:21.560 - 02:09:39.460

Not that you would get what you wanted, but you could at least say what you wanted. Kelly: And what did you request? Do you remember? Steele: I requested a single-engine fighter aircraft, or whatever they called it at that

02:09:39.560 - 02:10:11.700

time. I was hoping for a P-51 or something like that. of recall your graduation, what was that like? Well, it was fun, but I kept looking for my instructor, my primary instructor, because

02:10:11.700 - 02:10:31.060

I got changed from one to the other. But one I mentioned previously, Martin, that said I left my brains on the ground, they assigned me to a different instructor. I didn't request it, but they gave me a different one anyway.

02:10:31.340 - 02:10:50.980

This was Kiernan, and I heard he was real mean. He was kind of in he was mean to me too, but I think he's the one that got me through and I

02:10:51.100 - 02:11:11.060

Kept looking around for him because I kept telling Muriel and the other girl that I was walking around there with that when I saw him I was going to give him a big kiss and maybe he heard that and he

02:11:11.200 - 02:11:26.680

just wasn't around. So I never did get to kiss him. Right. Let me go back and ask you, Rexy, when you quit your job as a government employee working

02:11:26.680 - 02:11:37.620

for the War Department and went into flight training. You took a tremendous cut in pay. You didn't? EILEEN HALL: No, I didn't.

02:11:38.720 - 02:11:57.380

They didn't make very much money back in those days. I don't think I took a cut in pay. What did we get, $250 a month? Not in training. We got maybe a hundred and fifty.

02:11:57.460 - 02:12:21.020

A hundred and fifty. Yeah. So you must have been making a lot more than that with the government. Well, I may have made a little bit more, but not a lot more. Well, I wondered what would make you give up money in order to get into training.

02:12:21.460 - 02:12:35.140

anything in order to get into flight training, anything. That's what I was trying to get, was why you must have been a love of flying that can overshadow. Oh, yes.

02:12:35.140 - 02:12:50.240

I mean, that's—well, it's like they say, "What else is there?" Did your mom get to come for your graduation? No, but my sister did. My oldest sister came.

02:12:51.140 - 02:13:11.180

Kelly: How proud did that make you feel? Steele: Well, I was glad that she came and everything, except that she brought her four-year-old son with her. Then she went off someplace and left him with me.

02:13:11.920 - 02:13:41.500

I was supposed to be graduating. I had places to go and places to meet people. So I found some lady downtown that was going to take care of him. Red Roth, another one of my bay mates, she graduated with me.

02:13:42.780 - 02:14:03.540

She and I took him down to this lady to keep for me so I could go to my graduation. Where did your sister go? She went down to Texas someplace to see some guy that was in the Air Force, and that was his son.

02:14:04.180 - 02:14:18.780

Oh, wow. But you did get to go to your graduation. Yes, I did, and I did get my wings, but I did not get to see Kiernan to give him a big kiss.

02:14:18.920 - 02:14:44.220

And if he ever hears this, which I do not know, maybe he is already gone, well, he will know that I was looking for him to give him a big kiss. How proud were you when you got those wings? Oh, I thought it was really wonderful, and I wanted Kiernan to pin my wings on my uniform.

02:14:46.680 - 02:14:56.980

Did some celebrities come to your graduation? Some did, but not too many. Was Miss Cochran there? What?

02:14:57.220 - 02:15:13.220

Jacqueline Cochran, was she there? Oh, yeah, Jacqueline Cochran was there. When you graduated, what did your orders—where were you being assigned? To Eagle Pass Army Airfield.

02:15:14.120 - 02:15:29.200

Were you pleased with that assignment? That's in Texas, I'm sure you know that. Well, I didn't know whether I was or not. I don't remember whether the order said I was going to be towing targets or whether

02:15:29.380 - 02:15:42.860

it just assigned me to the field. How long after your graduation, where did you go after your graduation? Did you go home? I went back to Washington, D.C. just to visit my mother and my sisters.

02:15:43.900 - 02:16:09.200

We only had ten days. I stopped off in West Virginia at Red Roth's house because she wanted me to stay there for a couple of days. Her parents, or her father anyway, had come to her graduation, and so he wanted me to

02:16:09.340 - 02:16:45.640

stay there for a few days too, so I did. And then I went on to Washington, D.C. to see my mother and sisters. And coming back, see, by this time we were eligible to ride on Army aircraft. I went out to Bowling Field or one of those other fields around Washington, D.C., and

02:16:46.200 - 02:17:17.740

got a ride to someplace in Louisiana, and then from there I got a ride to San Antonio in A-26, I guess. Pretty fast. And there were two of us trying to get that ride, Dorothea and Smith and I.

02:17:18.320 - 02:17:33.180

And it ended up we had to draw straws, and I drew the long one, so I got to go. Good. When you got to Eagle Pass, were there already some WASPs stationed there? Yes, there were.

02:17:33.640 - 02:18:03.140

And Ann Noggle had been there earlier, but she had already been transferred to Waco by By the time I got there, there were quite a few there because we were lucky. Our CEO, our commanding officer, he liked wasps. He had asked for more, and I was one of the five that got sent out of my class.

02:18:05.220 - 02:18:30.900

Where did you live there? We lived—they had some nurses' quarters for the nurses, but there wasn't any other place, I guess, for the WASPs, or at least the number that he had there. I think there were about maybe seventeen of us there.

02:18:35.400 - 02:18:53.900

So they said, "Well, there is one ward that is not being used right now. We will just put them in there." So it turned out to be the violent ward of the hospital. And this is true.

02:18:54.680 - 02:19:21.520

There were no doorknobs on the inside of the doors, and if the wind blew it shut, you were out of luck. So everybody made sure that their doors had plenty of door stops around to hold it open, you know, unless they had some other arrangement for somebody to come and open the door when

02:19:21.600 - 02:19:43.740

they were ready. And it was—you had to go down the hallways to the bathroom. And I didn't get in one of those separate rooms without a doorknob because when my class got there, the separate rooms were all taken.

02:19:44.020 - 02:20:01.200

And so they just put us in a ward right at the end of that. And they could close off the whole ward that didn't have the doorknob, but we had it propped open all the time. We were there mostly in the summertime.

02:20:02.060 - 02:20:18.740

Were you in a big room, several of you sleeping in the same room? Yeah, it was more or less like Sweetwater, except it had a wood floor instead of a cement floor. It was just beds lined up.

02:20:20.360 - 02:20:32.980

And then where did you eat? Over at the Officer's Club. I guess they had some snack bars around in town, and I thought it was good. This is what was strange.

02:20:33.140 - 02:20:52.480

I liked the food at Sweetwater, too. All around me, people were complaining about those awful eggs. They even complained about the food at Eagle Pass at the Officer's Club. I thought it was good.

02:20:52.700 - 02:21:09.080

It's a wonder I didn't gain about fifty pounds, because I'd eat. I just really liked it. What was your assignment at Eagle Pass? Towing targets for aerial gunnery.

02:21:10.220 - 02:21:39.240

Could you take us through what one particular mission would be? Take me through what kind of airplanes? to go down in the morning to see what our assignment for the day was. Some of us were assigned to fly in the mornings and some of us were assigned to fly the afternoon

02:21:39.420 - 02:22:01.260

missions. In the morning down there at Eagle Pass, there was usually fog, but it would burn off fairly They would always send up a weather plane to tell how high the fog was or if it was breaking up or getting worse or whatever.

02:22:03.740 - 02:22:37.940

So we would go down there and look at a blackboard in the ready room and it would have your name up there and what the number of the plane you were assigned to. So then you would just go and get in the plane. You had a tow operator that took care of the target, and he sat in the back seat.

02:22:38.400 - 02:23:03.040

What kind of airplane? T-6. I am not sure exactly how all this operated, because I never did operate the tow target. But there was a hole in the back of the airplane where he let the target out.

02:23:07.000 - 02:23:28.920

I don't even know for sure what the procedure was, but these targets had a -- they were made out of wire mesh, just like screen wire, you know? And I used to know the size of them exactly, but they were big,

02:23:30.000 - 02:23:49.540

Probably as long as—probably maybe twenty feet long by about six feet. I don't know, it might have been seven. Were they flat or were they a cylinder? They were flat.

02:23:49.580 - 02:24:17.600

Flat. lot. They had a weight on the end of them to keep them out that way so they would not ripple in the wind. This weight was heavy, so there was a procedure for dropping your target because if that weight hit you, it would drive you right into the ground.

02:24:19.320 - 02:24:39.940

What altitude would you fly? We got assigned different altitudes, but probably none of them were above 10. Maybe our highest altitude would have been 9. Usually, mine was around 8 or 7 or maybe 6.

02:24:41.020 - 02:24:58.820

I don't remember going too much lower than that. And where we were was right down on the Mexican border, so we were always cautioned about, you know, be careful you don't stray from your --

02:24:58.820 - 02:25:17.020

where you're supposed to be flying, because otherwise it might cause an international incident. And I guess once or twice it had. like somebody had lost their target probably

02:25:17.240 - 02:25:31.740

by being somebody shooting through the cable. And then the target would fall over in Mexico. And then they'd have to go through some kind of international something.

02:25:32.220 - 02:25:48.480

I don't think they really did. They just told us that. >> But you get to Alcatraz. They had a place marked out on the ground that they had like bulldozed with all the

02:25:48.580 - 02:26:18.840

brush and stuff, a line they made with bulldozers. And you were supposed to put the wing fairing—you remember that little wing fairing of the T-6, the wing comes on to the fuselage and there's a little bump. The fairing goes—well, we're supposed to put that fairing right on that line down

02:26:18.940 - 02:26:40.180

there on the ground, and that would keep us on a straight course. It was good at any altitude, of course. We would fly down that way, prescribed length, or maybe there was a mark on the ground where you turned around.

02:26:40.660 - 02:27:04.660

You made a procedure turn at the end and then came back the same way. Then you would get down to this end, make another procedure turn, go back again, until The cadets that were flying got through with that mission. Tell me, what were the cadets flying?

02:27:04.990 - 02:27:29.900

Were they cadets? They were flying T-6s too, but occasionally there would be a flight of P-40s. Were they cadets or had they already graduated from flying school? Some were cadets and advanced, and some of them were graduates.

02:27:31.120 - 02:28:01.040

I never did figure out just exactly what the difference was. Maybe the ones that flew P-40s were already graduated. Kelly: Then what would those cadets do in their AT-6? Steele: Oh, well, there was a procedure they had to follow for firing on our targets.

02:28:03.800 - 02:28:43.540

They would be flying the opposite direction of us. And then when they would see us ahead, they had a procedure where they would turn their aircraft so that they estimated when they made a ninety-degree turn and were headed a right angle toward us that then they could begin firing at our target.

02:28:44.200 - 02:29:02.860

They were supposed to fire at the target and not the plane. I know you've heard that joke about that wasp that says, "Hey boys, I'm pulling the target, not pushing it." And what were they firing?

02:29:03.800 - 02:29:13.800

What kind of guns? Do you know? I don't know. You mean like the caliper or something that was mounted in the airplane and they just

02:29:15.900 - 02:29:31.880

– Pulled the trigger. Squeezed the trigger, which was right on the stick. And that's all they had to do. With the people that checked us out, I think they must have told every WASP that came that

02:29:32.400 - 02:30:13.960

sometimes these cadets freeze on the trigger. And they fire at your target. In case they get a little hasty or start firing a little too soon or maybe control their airplane just a little bit under or over control laterally, sometimes all of a sudden you would be flying

02:30:13.960 - 02:30:33.200

along and you could always feel that target back there dragging because I think it weighed about 70 or 75 pounds. You could feel it. And all of a sudden your airplane would just go, you know, fast.

02:30:34.100 - 02:30:56.700

What happened was they shot through the cable and so your target dropped. It just dropped and so you lost your target. How long would one mission last approximately? How long would the ammunition last?

02:30:56.700 - 02:31:09.960

No, a mission. How long would you fly on one mission? One mission would last, oh. A couple of hours or not that long?

02:31:14.420 - 02:31:47.740

Well, now that you mention it, I do not know exactly how they measured a mission, whether it was how long I stayed up during that target or whether it had to do with how many passes The fighters made firing on your target, but it would usually last probably from an hour to two hours.

02:31:50.040 - 02:32:17.960

I never had to quit before they were through firing because of gas. I ran it pretty close because you try to stay up as long as you could, considering when you were going to run out of gas. And I'd sit up there with one hand on the stick and one hand on the wobble pump.

02:32:19.450 - 02:32:44.720

[Laughter] And how would their instructors know whether they had been accurate? bullets, they took them and dipped them in paint, like yellow and red and blue. For some reason, I always remember this color, mud, that they called.

02:32:45.900 - 02:33:05.620

When they would go through this screen, this target, well, then it left some traces of that paint on there. When you got through with a mission, you were supposed to drop your target in a certain place.

02:33:06.880 - 02:33:31.460

It was probably a field of about as big as my whole lot here, or maybe it was twice that big. It was like fenced in, and you were supposed to drop it in that area, no place else, because it was heavy and it could kill somebody if it hit them.

02:33:33.280 - 02:34:04.160

But it was also close to the auxiliary building over at the auxiliary field, and the place where they had the tables where they would spread out these targets to score them. So one time I came in and my tow—when you got ready for the tow operator, you told him when to drop.

02:34:04.780 - 02:34:35.440

You flew to the right place, hopefully. And when you wanted him to drop, you'd jiggle a stick and he would drop something called a fish on something that went down and released the target. And when the target came loose from your plane, you could just feel that little jump.

02:34:36.800 - 02:34:54.280

And boy, I thought I had this really made that time. I thought I went right down the middle of that field and got right at the right place, right opposite the building. And I jiggled it and the plane went up.

02:34:55.120 - 02:35:13.820

I come around, I landed, and some guys walked up to me, some of the officers, and they said, "Where did you leave that target? Where did you put it?" And I said, "Well, I dropped it right over there in the field."

02:35:13.820 - 02:35:27.180

And they said, "We can't find it anyplace. You better go look for it." And they handed me—oh, they said, "There's the jeep. You better go look for it."

02:35:27.180 - 02:35:53.100

I almost died because I knew something like that would happen sooner or later. I lived in deadly fear for months that somebody would find out that I did not know how to drive. So they said, "There's the jeep, go look for it."

02:35:53.100 - 02:36:19.060

Sometimes when they had to go and look for them here and there and pick up that heavy thing and bring it back, they would take the jeep. I was just on the verge of saying, "I don't know how to drive." But I looked and looked and looked, and finally I saw something over there in that field,

02:36:19.280 - 02:36:36.500

and I started walking over there. I got close enough to determine that it really was a target and not just a cactus or something like that, you know. And so I turned around and I came back and I said,

02:36:38.120 - 02:36:52.660

"It's right over there, not even very far." But I said, "I'm not going to go get it." I said, "The next time, if you'll step away from the table, I'll put it on the table."

02:36:57.280 - 02:37:29.100

Did you have any other assignments other than tow targets? Well, they assigned you to general utility, which meant that every now and then there would be some, as we called them then, a ground pounder around that needed a ride someplace. And I had to take some old man, well, I do not know how old he was, some ground personnel,

02:37:30.340 - 02:37:48.740

he was a captain or a major or something, to Randolph Field. And that is what you were for. If you were not doing a mission, you know, like your tow targets, well, you are supposed to be like on call for whatever else they needed you for.

02:37:49.500 - 02:38:14.960

So I had to take this guy over to Randolph Field. So I went out to the airplane and he was standing around there and when he saw me I think he almost fainted or erped or something. I thought, "Well, if he feels that way about it, he didn't rush up and say, 'Oh,

02:38:14.990 - 02:38:43.760

I'm so glad to meet you,' or anything like that." I thought, "If he wants a thrill, I'll give him a thrill." So I went up to the personnel that had the fire extinguisher that stands by your airplane, And I said, "I hope I remember how to start this thing."

02:38:43.760 - 02:39:05.460

And I said it loud enough so that my passenger could hear it. And I walked all around it and shook, you know, like touch the wings and looked at this and that. And then I would shake my head and everything and try to look real puzzled and everything.

02:39:05.760 - 02:39:30.880

I think he was just about to say, "I don't need to go." But finally we got in and I looked to see that he had his seat belt fastened and he did and I pulled it a little tighter. I got in, I taxied out and I bounced him when we got to Randolph.

02:39:31.040 - 02:39:51.160

I don't think he liked it very well. He did not like having a woman pilot or anything, and he never said a word to me like, "Thank you for the ride," or nothing. So I just thought, "Well, I got even with him."

02:39:51.160 - 02:40:11.880

He was probably scared the whole way. Good. While you were at Eagle Pass, what was your social life like? Never so often, I guess it was once a month, the commanding officer had a big party.

02:40:13.800 - 02:40:29.980

I did not realize this at the time, but you were expected to come. I mean, it was more or less like an order. You just went whether you wanted to or not. I did not drink at that time at all.

02:40:31.440 - 02:41:05.440

There was another girl there from my class and she did not drink either. But we would go to the parties because we were more or less under orders to go. And then after we got there and everybody started drinking and singing and eating and She and I would go in the cloakroom, you know, where everybody's hats and coats and everything

02:41:05.560 - 02:41:21.240

were. We'd sit there and talk and wait until they got ready to go home. And then we'd go home. While you were there, did you have temporary orders to go anyplace else?

02:41:21.920 - 02:41:53.120

Once I did. I was supposed to pick up a PT—not a 17, what was that one you flew with the low wing? Levy: Nineteen. I would pick up a 19 at some place, a Navy field in Fort Worth, and take it to some place

02:41:53.120 - 02:42:20.480

in Oklahoma. So I did that, and I did another ferry mission that was just kind of the same sort of thing. I think I did about three ferry missions, and I think they were all taking airplanes to some airplane graveyard, like in Oklahoma.

02:42:21.530 - 02:42:37.560

When you would deliver that aircraft, how would you get back to Eagle Pass? On the train. had to wait forever for it to get there. And then it was the slowest train in the United States.

02:42:38.440 - 02:42:54.880

And then it stopped at about a hundred places. And I thought we would never get back. Is there anything else about your assignment at Eagle Pass, anything that happened while you were there that you would like to tell us about?

02:42:57.140 - 02:43:17.760

Well, I could tell you about the time I ground-looped a T-6. Why not? Well, it was just one of those hot, hot days. This was over at the auxiliary field.

02:43:21.260 - 02:43:46.080

I was just coming in and I do not really know what happened, but it seemed like I needed an awful lot of rudder. Pretty soon I had it pushed all the way in as far as it would go. I was still pushing and it was still turning.

02:43:48.140 - 02:44:18.860

It went, and I had a tow operator with me, too. It went around and it dug a wing and crinkled up the gear on that side. It scared me, and I think it scared the tow operator, too, but it did not burn. Did you have to go before a board?

02:44:19.230 - 02:44:38.980

Steele: No. But I got a checkride with the flight commander on the way back to the field after that happened. But he checked me out. He said, "Well, and then you don't find out about those things, I guess, until a few

02:44:39.200 - 02:45:01.660

days later after they check the airplane and everything." And then they told me that it wasn't all my fault. They said that they found that tail wheel was in all full swivel and that they couldn't get it out of full swivel.

02:45:01.760 - 02:45:25.300

It needed some work on it, I guess. And sure enough, when they looked at the Form 5, the guy that flew that plane before me, who was tall and had long legs and, I guess, longer feet. But he had noticed and wrote in there that the tail wheel was in full swivel.

02:45:26.280 - 02:45:52.460

But I guess when he noticed it and was having the trouble that maybe if I had applied brake In addition to Full Rudder, that maybe I could have stopped it, but I don't know now. But anyway, they didn't put it on my record. And I don't know why.

02:45:52.660 - 02:46:06.280

They didn't put it on my record, because they said it was more mechanical. Let's stop. We're going to change the tape. Good.

02:46:08.300 - 02:46:22.900

No, well, I'm glad they didn't because— It wasn't your fault. Okay. Anything else about Eagle Pass that—

02:46:23.020 - 02:46:42.280

One time I was coming in and this was the flight commander of the other flight. There was Flight 1 and Flight 2. "I'm sure you have met him, O'Rourke. Did you know a Gershwin?

02:46:42.440 - 02:46:57.160

She was ahead of you, I guess." Well, he married one of the WASPs at Eagle Pass. There were two girls over there that got married to officers there, gunnery officers at the field.

02:46:58.780 - 02:47:22.480

And she had her wedding right there at the field. Maybe there were three of them, but those two of them got married elsewhere. I was flying for somebody else that afternoon. There was one girl that she'd wake up in the morning and she'd been out late the

02:47:23.640 - 02:47:39.740

night before and she'd open one eye and she'd, "Rexy, Rexy, will you fly for me this morning?" Because she flew in the morning and I flew in the afternoon. So finally I would say yes.

02:47:40.020 - 02:48:03.820

I used to fly for her every now and then, plus my own missions. One month down at Eagle Pass, I got in more time than anybody else on the field. I did not know that until I went over to the operations to sign my form that they make for you.

02:48:04.080 - 02:48:36.680

I do not know what it is. Anyway, I was flying for her, so that is why I had a different flight commander that morning. It was getting real hot, it was noontime, and it was just real hot. It gets hard to get the airplane on the ground, you know, to make it really go down and stay

02:48:36.760 - 02:48:49.820

on the ground. So I went around the first time in because I saw that I was not going to make it by the time I came to the fence. So I went around.

02:48:50.660 - 02:49:07.420

Then I came in lower and slower. It just kept floating. It just would not break through that last bunch of air. So I went around again and I was embarrassed.

02:49:07.860 - 02:49:34.500

I had my tow operator in the back, too, and I was embarrassed in front of him and all the guys on the field and everything. I went around and I came in even lower and even slower and it scared me because I said if I get any lower I'm gonna go through the fence and and if I get any

02:49:34.660 - 02:49:57.480

slower I'll stall and I just couldn't make it you know so I I went around around again. This was once, twice, three times that I came around and right in my ear I heard the flight commander O'Rourke.

02:49:57.480 - 02:50:26.840

They call him Salty now, Salty O'Rourke. And he said, "Rexy," he said, "put your airspeed ten miles slower." I kept saying, "Oh, I'll stall, I'll stall," but I did. And he said, "Now put it five miles slower."

02:50:26.840 - 02:50:43.620

And I knew I was going to crash, but I did. And it just kept coming, coming, and finally I got it. And then he said, "The fourth time we shoot them down." And everybody heard it.

02:50:47.440 - 02:50:58.220

Do you remember when you heard that the WASPs were going to be deactivated and how it made you feel? Yes, yes. I felt terrible.

02:50:58.640 - 02:51:17.200

I think everybody did. We were all, oh, we did not know what to do. We were sitting around someplace on the floor and nobody said anything much. And then people started saying, "Well, what are we going to do?

02:51:18.940 - 02:51:41.260

Why?" And then pretty soon everybody got to talking and they said it was because a lot of the instructors there had got together and written letters or sent telegrams or did something to senators or something Congress and told them that they didn't

02:51:41.340 - 02:52:14.880

need us and that and that we should be deactivated and that these instructors who had pretended to be our very best friends and everything were now trying get us out because they were afraid that when we graduated and were qualified to fly, that we would get the flying jobs in the Army and they would be drafted and have to become ground

02:52:15.040 - 02:52:32.200

personnel. And that made a sort of sense, you know, to me, and I guess that's what happened. I don't know. When you were deactivated, did the base do anything special for the WASP?

02:52:34.280 - 02:52:52.800

No. Did they have a party? Except our Colonel Bundy told us that if we wanted to, we could all check out on P-40s. It was up to us.

02:52:52.980 - 02:53:31.140

He did not tell us, and he also told the guys that were giving instrument instruction that they should help us to get all the instrument time we wanted. We could take a T-6, you know, like any time we wanted for what they called individual proficiency.

02:53:32.520 - 02:53:52.340

And I used to do that and just take one out and do loops and I don't remember. I didn't spin it because, you know, they had told us don't spin a T-6. If you ever get it in a spin, it's too hard to get out of, and they thought that us women could not do it.

02:53:53.940 - 02:54:01.300

But— Did you choose to check out in the 47? Not a 47, just a 40. I mean a 40, I'm sorry.

02:54:02.300 - 02:54:13.840

Yeah. And how did you— And that's all the time I got, just enough to check out. And to check out just means you can take it off and land it.

02:54:15.840 - 02:54:41.240

Well, you don't have an instructor. You just sit in the cockpit until you have it memorized. And sometimes there's an instructor or a qualified pilot that you have to recite. Either you blindfolded or you close your eyes and you touch each instrument where it is

02:54:41.400 - 02:55:04.740

by feel, by touch, the way I am now on instruments. Was that a big thrill? Yeah, it was, but it was just kind of like all of the rest of the training. think, "Am I going to make it?"

02:55:04.740 - 02:55:15.560

Kelly: How did you feel? Steele: Afterwards you feel thrilled. Afterwards. Kelly: When you were flying the P-40, how did it feel different from the AT-6?

02:55:15.720 - 02:55:42.740

Steele: Well, it was quite a bit more powerful, and it took a lot more right rudder to keep it straight like down the runway. But after you got up in the air, it was not so much different. Kelly: When you were deactivated, did you already have a job in mind that you wanted

02:55:42.920 - 02:56:05.240

to go to? Steele: Well, I kept wondering what was I going to do. I did not know. I knew that I could not get a flying job, although some of them did, I guess, and some

02:56:05.240 - 02:56:33.700

of them were offered jobs flying nitroglycerin someplace. I did not think I was quite that hot of a pilot. So I didn't get any of those, but they kept saying they needed people in the FAA for traffic controllers and other things, but that you had to go to some kind of a training school

02:56:34.280 - 02:56:55.260

and learn Morse code, which we already knew to a certain extent. Would we have to be able to do ten words a minute or more? I don't know, but for the FAA, you were supposed to be able to do, I think, thirty? I can't remember how much it was.

02:56:57.480 - 02:57:16.600

They had a school for that in Fort Worth, Texas, and there were about five WASPs going to that because they wanted to get a job. Well, I did too, but I didn't know what to do. Finally, I decided, "Well, I guess I better do that."

02:57:19.580 - 02:57:46.860

I visited the school in Fort Worth because Jenny Williams and Esther Starr and somebody else were going to that school. I was living with them, just bunking with them at the time. In the meantime, before I actually got in one of the classes, I heard somehow there

02:57:46.900 - 02:58:19.940

was an opening at Alamo Tower in San Antonio. That was the main tower. Now I think they call it San Antonio International Airport now. But at that time, there was an Army airfield on one side of the runways, and it was called

02:58:20.020 - 02:58:41.860

Alamo Army Airfield. The other side was the commercial where the airlines came in, Eastern, Braniff, American. And I thought, "Well, I guess I'll try it." And they didn't require me to have all that Morse code, whatever it was.

02:58:42.000 - 02:59:07.940

So I said, "Okay, I'll take that." So I went down there on the bus, I'm sure, and went to work in Alamo Tower. Levy: What was that experience like? Well, I did not like it too much at first because I felt like it was such a step down

02:59:08.260 - 02:59:35.040

from flying that I was almost embarrassed to tell anybody I was working there. But then I got to liking it and I got to be a pretty good controller. One time I heard somebody saying, "She's a crackerjack." And if they use that term, that means that you're really up there, really operating.

02:59:36.500 - 02:59:44.840

They didn't tell me that. Kelly: That was quite a responsibility. He had control. Well, yes, it is.

02:59:46.740 - 03:00:08.880

And one time, this only happened that one time, some guy that I did not even know, never heard of before, but he had got a T-6. It was one of the surplus someplace and he was taking it someplace, I think Cuba or someplace then.

03:00:09.940 - 03:00:37.940

And he called in and he said, "Alamo Tower," he said, "I'm out here in a T-6 and I'm not very familiar with the airplane and I can't get something to work and I don't have any fuel pressure. I think I'm in an emergency."

03:00:37.940 - 03:01:11.460

So I cleared him to land on the nearest runway, got everybody out of the way, and then I told him where the wobble pump was and to switch tanks to the other tank and which way to turn that handle and to grab hold of that wobble pump and pump. And it got him on the ground, and he was so thankful.

03:01:12.030 - 03:01:29.360

He was very thankful. Kelly: So your WASP training really came in handy. Reid: Yeah. And there was nobody else in that tower that could have done that, because I do not think

03:01:29.360 - 03:01:53.180

any of them knew how to fly, except the chief. But he flew light aircraft and he didn't know about T-6s and so on. And this guy came up to the tower and he was thanking me and carrying on and everything. And then he asked me out to dinner that night and I went with him.

03:01:53.800 - 03:02:32.460

And then the next day he was around the airport getting—I don't know what he was getting, something with the mechanics or the fuel people or something like that. And he asked me if he would give me a check, if I would exchange checks with him, because he was going down to the border and he didn't think he would—something about that.

03:02:32.580 - 03:02:59.160

Anyway, I was stupid enough to give him my check, which he cashed and got the money to his gas, but I don't think he paid for all of it. He still owed them some money because they told me about it. And when I sent his check in to get—when I took it to the bank to get cash, there wasn't

03:02:59.340 - 03:03:24.420

enough money in his account. So in spite of my help, well, he still took advantage of me. And I never did get the money back. He called me up from Cuba and told me that he had had some trouble down there and I do

03:03:24.420 - 03:03:44.980

not know if he crashed the airplane or just some little thing got wrong with it. But anyway, he had had to be in maintenance down there. But by then I was fed up with him. Kelly: How long did you work in the tower as a controller?

03:03:46.060 - 03:04:16.820

Steele: About four years down there. And finally I transferred up here to Albuquerque to the flight service station, not the tower, because I wanted to come back up to this part of the country and there was an opening. And I think I still had to go through that so-many-words-a-minute Morse code, and yet

03:04:16.940 - 03:04:57.540

they were not even using it, but they still had that requirement in order to be eligible for it. So then I transferred up here to Albuquerque, but then I got in the Air Force Reserve here. We went to training about once a month on the weekends, and we got paid for it too by

03:04:57.540 - 03:05:26.720

the Air Force. In the summertime, we got two weeks someplace. I went down to Chandler—not Chandler Field, it was at Chandler, Arizona. But I had to go with a bunch of Civil Air Patrol people, and I did not know much about

03:05:26.840 - 03:05:43.760

Civil Air Patrol. And there were a whole bunch of girls down there, and they had Air Force uniforms only with the Civil Air Patrol insignia and everything. I got along pretty good with them and they liked me pretty good.

03:05:43.920 - 03:06:10.460

One time I came back from having dinner with one of the guys that went too from this reserve unit and I was trying not to wake anybody up so I didn't turn on the lights until I I started getting in bed and it felt like somebody was in bed already there, and I thought, "Gee, maybe I'm in the wrong room," or something like that.

03:06:10.940 - 03:06:42.420

Finally, I did turn on the light, and they had put pillows in my uniform, my only clean ironed uniform and stuffed it up and they had short-sheeted my bed. They were waiting and laughing out there. They were not supposed to be awake then, but they were.

03:06:43.050 - 03:07:11.140

Kelly: How long did you stay in the reserves? Well, the Reserve was recalled as a unit, and there were two women in it, and that was Mary Wells and me that had been in the Reserve. The unit was recalled to active duty, this was during Korea, around 1950 or something

03:07:11.150 - 03:07:34.520

like that. Even after that was over, I was in for some time. Where did you go? After my tour of active duty, I did not go back to work at Albuquerque for the FAA.

03:07:34.640 - 03:07:46.220

I went to Santa Fe. When you went on active duty, where were you stationed? I was stationed right here at Cartland. All the time?

03:07:46.500 - 03:08:00.960

Yeah. Okay. Well, I did get sent down to Panama City for training as a controller. Go to Tyndall?

03:08:02.340 - 03:08:16.780

Fighter interceptor controller is what they called it. Was it at Tyndall Air Force Base? But then you came back here. Yeah, then I came back here.

03:08:17.400 - 03:08:45.940

And then after I was relieved from active duty, I went back to work for the FAA at Santa Fe. Had you gotten a promotion in the meantime in the Reserves? Yeah, I think I got a promotion at some time or another because I think I started as a

03:08:46.000 - 03:09:07.760

second lieutenant and then at some point I became a first lieutenant. I don't know exactly when that was, but I did get one. And then when they relieved me from duty, they promoted me to captain. Good.

03:09:08.860 - 03:09:27.260

So you went down to Santa Fe, and what was your job at Santa Fe? Oh, I was working in the tower there. It was a combined station tower, flight service station and tower. Was that job under civil service?

03:09:29.360 - 03:09:50.280

Then how long did you stay at Santa Fe? Steele: I stayed there until I retired. I do not remember the exact number of years. I think I went to duty there in about 1952.

03:09:53.900 - 03:10:09.500

I do not know when I retired. What made you decide to come back to Albuquerque rather than stay in Santa Fe? Sometime I got married. When was that?

03:10:09.580 - 03:10:27.240

Oh, well that's important. Well, it was like one of those shots you get that doesn't take. I shouldn't have said that, should I? No.

03:10:27.320 - 03:10:50.480

He must have had some good qualities for you to fall in love with. Anyway, I had my son, Forrest, in 1957, so I think that I must have been married in 1956, I think. And—

03:10:50.480 - 03:10:59.440

While you were in Santa Fe? What? While you were in Santa Fe? Yes, during the time when I was already working up there.

03:11:00.900 - 03:11:12.760

And you had forest and did you keep working? Who took care of forest? My mother. She came down to live with you then?

03:11:13.680 - 03:11:38.820

Yeah, she was already living with me. I used to have another house over closer to Central, but I got this house about in 1964 And she stayed over here with me. Kelly: When Forrest was growing up in school, how were you involved with his school?

03:11:39.650 - 03:12:00.440

Were you a PTA or room mother? Steele: Well, I joined the PTA, but I was working. And when you work in the tower or the FAA, you are always working shift work. And you have different days off.

03:12:00.800 - 03:12:20.640

You don't have the weekends off and everything. So I didn't get to very many PTA meetings. I went to some of them, but not very many. How about with his, did he get into scouts or anything, or ball games that you attended?

03:12:23.100 - 03:12:42.720

He was in the West Mesa marching band when he was in high school because he was always kind of musical and I wasn't. So he liked that. I got that piano in the other room for him, but he never did take lessons.

03:12:43.020 - 03:13:04.000

But he learned how to play it anyway, just himself. And in the band, what did he play? Drums. I tried to get him interested in something else, you know, like a cornet or a clarinet.

03:13:04.130 - 03:13:26.220

I had an uncle, a brother of my father, Asa Rexroth, and he used to play with John Philip Sousa's band. He played the clarinet. But of course that was a long, long time ago.

03:13:26.880 - 03:13:41.880

Okay. And now, Rexy, how do you spend your time? How do I spend my time? Well, I see a lot of my friends from the reservation.

03:13:42.180 - 03:14:05.320

Not a lot, but I mean often, I guess. I have some friends that live up at Rio Rancho just about five miles away, and that's Freda and Seth Irving. And they're both from practically the same place I am, out at Manderson, South Dakota.

03:14:07.840 - 03:14:36.180

And there's another lady in town, Carmen Cotier. Well she married and her name is actually Trujillo now. But she was Carmen Cotier and she's from Pine Ridge too and she lives in town. And there's a few other people from Pine Ridge around here.

03:14:36.340 - 03:14:48.560

There was one that I knew quite well, but he died this year about two or three months ago. And -- >> Okay.

03:14:49.400 - 03:15:11.180

Let me ask you, of all the things that you have done in your life, what is the one thing, counting your son, what is the one thing that you are most proud of? Being a Wasp. What does having been a Wasp mean to you?

03:15:12.540 - 03:15:59.860

Well it means that I could do something on my own that took a lot of effort and dedication and involved skill. It just proved that I was able to learn that much and be able to carry it out and do it. Well, there are other things that I liked too, but that was—if you said the most,

03:16:00.080 - 03:16:24.040

that was the most. When you think of the word "wasp," what do you think of? And by that I mean, when you think of all the girls that you knew who were wasp, what qualities do you think of that make up a wasp?

03:16:28.140 - 03:16:56.440

Well, I guess it would be that quality of "We got the stuff." The right stuff. "We got the stuff and we can do it." What is your opinion of Jacqueline Cochran and the WASP program that she created?

03:16:57.420 - 03:17:26.500

I have a very high opinion of Jacqueline Cochran. I firmly believe that Jacqueline Cochran had the right stuff and she had enough determination that she could stick to it, whatever she was trying to do, until she got it in spite of whatever obstacles she ran up against.

03:17:26.720 - 03:17:58.800

And I guess she ran up against plenty of them. What do you feel the WASP accomplished? Well, first of all, they accomplished the realization that women could do something besides just be in a home and raise babies and cook or sew, and that they had brains

03:17:59.200 - 03:18:29.000

and minds and that they could coordinate their arms and legs and bodies to do the same things as men could do, that men always try to make you believe you can't do it because you're a woman. And what do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be?

03:18:29.960 - 03:18:50.640

>> Well, I feel that it is that women are flying again, even though for a while after the WASP were deactivated, they didn't let them fly for a long time. And it took them a long time to finally get back in the air.

03:18:51.380 - 03:19:29.580

And I think that is the legacy that the women in the Air Force today, that is our legacy. That we got it started and proved that we could do it and do it well. If you could say something to children in future generations to encourage them to have a dream and then to go for that dream, what would you say to them that might encourage

03:19:29.740 - 03:20:03.440

them to do something that maybe they didn't dream possible, just like the Wasp did? Well, I guess I would say you can do it, but if you depend or listen to other people that maybe they think they're doing it for your own good, they tell you you can't do it. If you really want it, just go ahead and do it anyway.

03:20:03.940 - 03:20:38.840

You have to train for almost everything and make yourself ready for it. So just make up your mind to do it and to stick with it and do all of the extra little things like studying, writing, practicing until you can do it good and try to do it better than anybody else.

03:20:40.210 - 03:20:56.100

Good. During your life, Rexy, you've had good times and bad times and happy times, but there must have been some sad times in everybody's life. What has gotten you through the sad times and the bad times?

03:21:01.840 - 03:21:38.240

Well, I don't know exactly. I guess just the knowledge that there is something on the other side of this problem that you have now that just because you have a big problem and maybe you didn't deal with it exactly like you should, but that it doesn't have to ruin your whole life

03:21:38.860 - 03:22:21.840

that there's something on the other side. I'm not talking about the other side of life, I mean on the other side of the problem. If you don't want to be sad or embarrassed or even—well, if you don't want to be destroyed by your problem, you've got to do something about it.

03:22:24.100 - 03:22:46.180

You have to. What makes you happy now? Well, I'm happy when I get to see my son or talk to him, and I'm happy to see my friends A lot of my friends are WASPs.

03:22:46.580 - 03:23:13.000

I consider all of them my friends. I have felt closer to WASPs than almost anybody else. There are a lot of people that I have met down here, classmates when I was going to University and I have felt very close to them.

03:23:13.340 - 03:23:34.700

Some of them I still know and I still see occasionally. But aside from those, I think wasps have been my best friends. Kelly: That is because you are such a good friend. Well, I don't know if I am.

03:23:34.780 - 03:23:52.060

I seem kind of inadequate at times. And now that I can't see much, I don't know. I don't want to become a liability to anyone, but I think I'll be all right. I think you will be.

03:23:52.440 - 03:24:24.480

Is there anything that I have left out? Anything at all that you would like to have recorded? Well, one of the things that I had nothing to do with that I like most about my life is the fact that I am Lakota and that I lived for quite some time up around Pine Ridge and

03:24:25.940 - 03:24:48.340

among all those people up there. I think they are wonderful. I know lots of people in the United States have heard all sorts of dreadful things about Pine Ridge and Indians and Wounded Knee and everything.

03:24:49.180 - 03:25:07.600

But to me, they are the best people in the world. I mean, they're my people. Be proud of it. Nancy, anything you want to ask her?

03:25:09.800 - 03:25:21.340

No, I'm just absolutely delighted that you agreed to do this. I'm I think this will touch people. You'll never know. You will never meet.

03:25:21.340 - 03:25:27.540

You will never know. It will touch children. It will touch people. And I just want to say thank you.

03:25:28.560 - 03:25:36.520

And I want to say thank you. So much. For children and future generations, thank you. You're an inspiration.

03:25:36.780 - 03:25:40.580

You're a special lady. You're very special. I'm going to turn this off.