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>> I will start off and do a little read in to say who I am and what day it is and that kind of thing. And then I'll turn it over to you and you can tell us who you are, when you were born, where you were born,

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who your parents were, who your siblings were. And we'll just start from the very beginning. >> Well, honey, my birth will take up the whole tape. >> That's okay.

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Well, we've got lots of tape. And even though you're the last one on this trip, we've got lots of saved tape for you. And anyway, we're just going to go through your life.

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And if you think of something way ahead and tell about it, that's OK. I will eventually bring you back. Just don't use your hands like that.

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Yeah, I'll be right back. I will eventually-- They think you're giving me the finger. Yeah.

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This is your story, so. OK, we're rolling. Do I look all right? I'm good, yes.

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Just leave it alone, then. Can't improve on it. I'm Deanie Parrish, and we're interviewing Charlene Crager at her residence in Shreveport, Louisiana.

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She was a WASP, Class 44W10. Today is the 14th of August, 2000. Okay, Charlene. Well, I'm Charlene Prager, and I was born in a little town in Noble, Oklahoma.

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Between 300 and 350 people had kinned all of them. You couldn't get in any trouble because they tattled on you. But anyway, they said that my birth was kind of unusual. Papa was a blacksmith.

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When? December 24, 1918. Papa had a contract with the Army to keep their horses shod and keep their wagon wheels in good shape.

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and when the armistice was signed, he no longer had a job. So then the only income he had was whatever the farmers would give him for sharpening their plow shears and that sort of thing. And the flu epidemic was in effect at that time.

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Well, they said there was a blizzard when I was born, but Papa had half of a hog and his neighbor helped him render out the lard and cut it up and make it into sausage and stuff, and then throw the skins over in Mama's wash pot, get the lard out of them, the pig cracklings, and Mama just stuffed with them.

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In the middle of the night, she had a baldacious bellyache, and Papa had to walk to get the doctor, which was about three blocks away. He said, "Dr. Howell," he said, "Rosie's got the most baldacious bellyache you ever saw."

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So they went on down the road to the house, and he said, "Now, Charlie, you know after three kids, you know that ain't no baldacious bellyache. a kid and I was born Christmas Eve morning so they should have named me pork rind. Well I was into everything actually I really what they said I

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crawled to the bank in a diaper and just had more fun jumping cotton bales and getting into all kinds of mischief and getting all kinds of weapons. The older the older child was a male Bill and he was just about as bad as I was. He'd pull all kinds of stunts on me. I was his gopher. Then there was my sister

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Virginia that was just as sweet as she could be, and she took music lessons, always played the piano when it was time to wash the dishes. And then Violet was appropriately named very shy and very pretty, and she always said that her growth was stunted because she was weaned think it's time you got some solid food. But anyway, she really was very shy. Then

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I came along and it just tore up everything. Then my little sister was born as a premature. She was only three and a half pounds. And you know in a town of that size, well mama just, it was the star of the town. And I was just left just just a poor ugly kid, you know, that's always getting into trouble. And she

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She claimed she had some kind of fits, St. Vitus dance or something like that. But Mama put her out in the yard one day, told me to look out for her. She had one of those seizures, and I just put her under the lilac bush and hoped she'd die.

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But she didn't. And then my brother was born, and he was such a cute little thing. Just loved him to death. He had all these sisters, you know, that doled over him.

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And we got addicted from that house because we couldn't pay the six dollars a month rent. You had to go in the back door because the front porch had so many holes in it you might fall through it. So we moved to Norman, Oklahoma, which was a real city.

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Kelly: How old were you then? Lowdermilk Horton I was seven. Kelly: Had you started school?

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Horton Yes, I had started school. Kelly: Tell me about that first school you went to. Horton

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Oh, my lambdog knew I was there. Mama made me a dress out of two old coats, and I worked school backwards. told me and I knocked them down, knocked their two front teeth out. So and I was just in mischief all the time, get a whipping.

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I still go back and have a good time though. Do you remember what they whipped you with? It was a paddle, a wooden paddle. But one day the teacher said, my favorite teacher too, said any kid that talks out loud

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without permission is going to get a whipping. And I said, what did you say, Miss Jeffers? She said, go get the paddle, it's in the seventh grade room. Well, my sister was in that class.

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And so, Jose Bradshaw said, "I'll go get it." She said, "Get it for yourself, too." So the teacher said, "Who's going to get a whipping?" She said, "Old Charlie and Craig are going to get one."

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My sister started crying. Well, they had a party that night at our house, and it was something like they would blindfold people and feed them something, let them guess what it was. Well, when it came time for Miss Jeffries, she was going to get a dill pickle, and I

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soaked it in castor oil." She said, "I really do like that. I want another one." I said, "I don't know whether there's any more castor oil." "Well, I got a whipping for that." It just seemed like I just stayed in trouble all the time. But my sister, and I probably shouldn't tell this, the banker in town had a child that

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had real bad cerebral palsy. He just writhed, and they took him to everything. We just knew about things like that early. So they bought him a pair of those Roman sandals. Oh, I wanted a pair so bad. Mama said, "You know, we don't have that kind of money. We can't buy you that." Well, they bought Clarice some. And there she was strutting around, "I got me

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some Roman sandals." I said, "Yeah, and you and Charles Ellinger." She never did enjoy them after that. That's terrible, isn't it? But we moved to the city, and we had desks were two people sitting in the same place. I had to adjust to a lot of things.

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Of course, I got in trouble there, too. Wore Papa's glasses to school, and it didn't have any lens in them, and the teacher said, "Take those things off." I said, "I can't see without them."

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She said, "You can, too." I said, "There's not any glass in there," but she slapped my hands with a ruler. I did make good grades. I don't know how come.

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Kelly: What was your dad doing at that point? He was still a blacksmith, which kind of put you low on the totem pole. But of course we loved him and it didn't make any difference what he was. Mama almost married the dog catcher.

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I was glad she had married a blacksmith. But we moved to this nice house and all of us got real sick. My sister had what they called a membranous croup, which was diphtheria. And see, times were kind of hard then in the '20s.

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And Papa had to work in an oil field somewhere, and they had this quarantine sign on the front of the house, and he'd slip in the window. Mama put food in the bedroom so he and my brother could eat it. But one day the leg fell off the stove in the living room and fell on the oak floor

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and burned the house, but not bad. But then she got ice cream, so I think I got a real mild case of diphtheria, so I could ice cream, but she treated me with some whiskey with sugar in it. I said, "Mama, you don't have to worry about me drinking when I get older.

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That stuff just tastes terrible." But Grandma O'Haver lived across the field, and she'd get out on the porch, and she'd holler across there, "Rosie, come up here. I need your kids to churn for me."

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Well, we'd go up there. Now, she had twin daughters that could have done it. Mama would make us go up there, trying to make favors with Grandma. Well, I decided I was tired of that churning, so I tied a bottle of that stuff on a washing

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machine dasher and turned it on. Broke glass and milk and everything else. I never did have to go back and do that again. But anyway—

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Kelly: What did your granddad do? Evans: He had a dairy. That didn't mean we got any of the milk. But he was a pioneer from Texas.

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He started out with my grandmother. Her name was Orlena Mae Mills, she was part Indian. They loaded their wagon up, they had a son, and they headed for Indian Territory. They had a team of oxen.

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They went across the Canadian River, and the oxen got caught in the quicksand, and they all drowned. They didn't have a thing. They dug a hole out of the hillside, and they called it a half dugout.

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They put an animal skin over the door. Well, Grandma was about eight months pregnant, and with my mother, they had a cot that they put the legs of it in coal oil so that varmints wouldn't crawl up in the bed with them. And when she went into labor, Grandpa went to town on the horse to get some help.

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And when he came back, Mama had been born, and the coyotes had been pacing out in front of the opening there, and Grandma got up and shot them. She was just five feet tall, but she was a holy terror. I think probably that I may have a little bit of that in her, in myself, because more

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of Papa's people sure are, they're meek and mild people. Where did those grandparents live, your mother and dad? From Tennessee, from Sevierville, Tennessee, right on the Pigeon River. They're fine people.

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I found them in 1958. Papa talked about it like it was heaven. I thought, "I've got to find them while they're still living." I didn't get any responses to letters, so I advertised in the newspaper for relatives.

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They said, "My grandmother, I never knew her. She died before I was born. Died of pellagra from starvation." I advertised in the spirit world paper, "If anybody is kin to Virginia Ketura Sims, please

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contact me." Well, I got answers from them. And so one of them said, "Well, we live around the corner of Pigeon Forge, right next door to Pickles Supermarket, but we go to church and we won't be home till after one o'clock."

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Well, Land Papa got me up before o'clock to take him up there. I said, "Papa, let's slow down a little bit. We got all kinds of time." We ran to that corner of Pigeon Forge in my land, thought they were having a flea market.

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There were ice cream freezers and card tables and people galore. I think it was the whole population. And my father just cried. He just really cried, because they went back in 1925, I think, and the men had to work

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their poll tax off by working on the road, so there was nobody there. They got in the car and drove right back. Didn't wait to see when they were going to come home. But I took him back every year.

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And those people, they were just so funny that I could just sit and listen to them all day. One of them said, "You know, I done had a heart attack." Said, "You know, those doctors make so much money.

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They have these little boys take care of their practice while they're gone." And this one doctor said, "Mrs. Sims, I think you done had a heart attack." He said, "Well, I don't know whether I had a heart attack or not." He said, "They put that paper on me and it's stuck from here to the barn."

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He said, "You come back?" He said, "Yeah, you done had a heart attack." He said, "We're going to put you here in the hospital." He said, "Oh, you can't put me in this hospital.

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I've got to take care of my wife. She's got the diabetes and I have to give her shots." He said, "Well, she's over 65. We can put her in here."

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He said, "She ain't sick. I've got the money right here in my pocket." And so he said, "I did have that heart attack." He'd gotten up on the roof to paint it with aluminum paint, a tin roof.

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Because we were coming. And then I told him also about—that Reagan was president at the time. I said, "I'm going to write to him and tell him he needs to come meet you." And he said, "Well, I'll sure talk to him."

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He said, "The doctor took my cigarettes away from me. I'm just a charterback and spit off his shoulder." So anyway, that's enough about my cousin. Let me ask you, how long had it been since your dad had seen his mother and dad?

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Over thirty years. Nobody had moved. The last place they lived was Kodak, Tennessee. Well, see, Grandpa stabbed a man in Tennessee for insulting my grandmother.

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Didn't kill him, but the length of the blade was illegal. So he hid out in the mountains with the three oldest kids, and I don't know how they got to Oklahoma. Must have taken the Trail of Tears or something.

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They ended up in a cotton patch down in Oklahoma with a blacksmith shop and living in it. They must have thought they'd gone to hell. They took the three oldest kids, and then when they got enough money, Grandma came with the other kids.

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It was rough. Because my father was a Tennessee bluegrass fiddler, and all those people were very musical. In fact, one of them was one of the big time bluegrass fiddlers. He was very musical, too.

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He had a violin that burned up in my aunt's house, so he never was able to show us his talents. But he kind of looked on us kids, we were all so different. He made us each a little stool we could sit on.

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Mine was oak with a square thing, and at night he'd put our little nightgowns on us and kiss and tuck us in, cousins that all come down to visit because of that warmness, and we sleep under library tables or wherever, and I wrote a poem. I always wished that I was dead when eleven or twelve of the kinfolks were there, because I got to sleep at the

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foot of the bed, maybe a toe or two, pulling my hair. One time I was dreaming, my loved one was in my embrace, and suddenly I saw something gleaming. It was a foot stuck in my face. I think I was about eight. Anyway. Kelly: Okay, we'll take up where you have moved into town, and now you're in what,

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junior high school? Rowland: No, no, I was just in the third grade. But there was an advertisement that Wiley Post would take people up to fly for a penny a pound, or there was a bakery that was advertising by if you got ten bread wrappers, you could

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go. Well, shoot, we didn't have bakery bread, but I went around the neighborhood and got it. And I was barefooted and pigtails took my cousin Dorothy and we walked out to the field and he was getting ready to leave. I held up my bread wrappers and he said, "You

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know you're too little. You can't ride in here because the strap wouldn't fit across my waist." I said, "Well, how about dragging my cousin up here with me?" He said, "Okay," and we fit in there. He took us up for a ride around town. I tell you, I was just, I was I was hooked, I really was hooked.

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How did your mom and dad feel about you growing up? Mom and papa, they didn't know about it. They didn't know about it until I was grown, out of the wasps. And, you know, they didn't have to have license then.

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And Wiley Post, he had lost his eye at that time. But he was a barnstormer and a born flyer, really. And then I got to where I jumped cotton bales, and then I dragged the mattress in the springs outside, jumped off the house. I just was airborne.

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And I have something that I think probably would be of interest to somebody. Baby Ruth was trying to get into the business of making chewing gum. So in 1928 or 29,

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They dropped little parachutes from an airplane with a little tobacco sack on the bottom with baby Ruth chewing gum in it And I beat every boy in the neighborhood and got it. I Still have it So I was just sort of a maverick I just

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In those early years Charlene, what was a Christmas like at your house Well, I think people would think that it was awful poor, but we'd go out and cut down a tree You know, not till the 23rd or 24th of December. And in the meantime, we'd been making little red and green, little colored paper things,

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you know, to make chains. And we'd pop popcorn, and that's about all that was on the tree. And Mama usually would make us new doll clothes, and we'd order some candy from Spiegelmay Maystern.

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And it had divisions in it. There'd be peanut brittle and that awful tasting waffle sweet stuff, and chocolate drops and orange slices. And we got one orange a year, one orange a year.

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But that was big for us. We might get a new toboggan. And we didn't expect anything, because nobody in town got anything anyway. You know, the '20s were hard.

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Did you hang up Christmas stockings? We didn't have any stockings to hang up. We had those old Lyle stockings that go up and fasten on your little waistline, you know. I hated them.

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Just hated them. No, we didn't have Christmas stockings because if we'd hung them up, there wouldn't have been any place to hang them. Because in those days, you moved into little rent houses, and maybe there'd be this newspaper

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for wallpaper, and then you had to peel it off to get the bed bugs out. I won't forget that. Mom would make us go out in the yard with the bed springs and burn the bed bugs off and I just loved to hear them snap.

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That sure is hard up for entertainment, isn't it? But I'll tell you, my brother, he was a real honyuck. A real what? Honyuck.

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Papa says that's just somebody that's not worth a hoot. But he was always pulling things on me. One time he filled a bucket full of water and hooked it up to a battery and there's a dime in the bottom.

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He told me I could have it if I'd get it. I just gritted my teeth and jerked and snorted and everything else and got it. He took it away from me and Mama made him give it back to me. But he was always pulling things like that.

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He had a motorcycle with a side saddle, and he was the lamplighter in town. He was always being picked up for speeding. He'd tell them his name was John D. Rockefeller, and people didn't know who that was, so he never did have to pay a fine.

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But finally Papa made him sell it because he was just breaking all the laws. And I think I must have been in competition with him. I know Oklahoma gets cold in the winter. How did you heat your house?

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We had a pot-bellied stove, but we had a lot of those heavy comforters. You know, it was made so heavy that you couldn't turn over really very easily. But I had to sleep in the little brother, and he had wet the bed and then rolled me over in it.

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And that made me mad and it'd wake me up too. Finally he got a dog and he slept with the dog instead of me. The dog tolerated him better than I did. Let me ask you, Charlene, of the other children in town that went to school, how did you feel

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about them and how did they feel about you? Well, I don't think I got invited to too many parties. But I really can't remember anything. I know that I was bad to talk without permission.

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I ended up with my nose in the ring, the blackboard. And there you could go to school and you have two grades in one year if you're smart enough. I probably was smart enough, but my attention span must have been awfully short. I'm just thinking of the next mischief I could get into.

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Did you ever feel that you were poor? Oh, no, because everybody was poor. There were only two people in town that had any money, and that was the banker and the grocer.

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And people were awfully good about sharing things out of their garden. You know, we felt no taint at all. And that's good, because we had so much love in the family. I know Papa would keep a chawdah back in his mouth all the time to kind of put on our wounds,

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like if a horny toad stepped on us, something like that, because he always would wrap it up with a rag. Let me ask you about your early religious affiliation or training. Were you involved or were your family involved?

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Well, there wasn't much else to do. We had a movie once a month. It was just understood. You know, if you grow up in it, you don't...

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Like when I was in China in 1980, I had a rap session with the college students and they said, "Are you a Christian?" I said, "Well, yes, I am."

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"Well, when did you become a Christian?" I said, "No one's ever asked me that." I was just born one. And I said, "Well, who do you believe in?"

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Of course, I knew that I'd studied world religions in college. Confucianism, of course. "At least you believe there's someone greater than you are." They said, "Where do you pray?"

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I said, "I just may pray anywhere." And it's just a part of me, like A positive blood, you know. And I enjoyed visiting all the cathedrals and the little churches all over the world

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and learning about them and feeling how fortunate we were, which we were. But I had no training. I know they had little, what they called cradle roll.

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I still have that. Well, I wondered about social activities, if that centered around your church or if you had social activities. That at school.

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The school would have pie suppers and things like that. You know, you'd sell your box and shoot, old men would buy my box because I knew there wasn't much in there. Pay fifty cents for it."

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But I had a—there was a boy next door to us named George K. Howell. His father was a doctor, and incidentally, I think they still owe for my birth. But there was no—we lived in a very poor place, but they lived in an iceberg house. But they would maybe invite me over.

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I had my first steak there. I didn't know how to eat steak, and I got choked on it. They had to take me in the bathroom and pull it out with a hemostat. But one day I was walking out to that house with a hot biscuit, butter just running down

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my fingers. "Oh, George K." said, "I want one of those." I said, "Well, I'll ask Mama if she's got any more." And so I went and I said, "George K. wants a biscuit."

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She said, "Well, I think I got another." So she put some butter on it. On the way out there to give it to him, I found a woolly worm. And I put it on there, live woolly worm.

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And he ate it and he said, "I want another." I said, "I don't know where there's another woolly worm." "Well, I sure got a whippin'. I think they washed him out, gave me a colonic irrigation and everything else to get rid

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of that woolly worm. But I wasn't bothered to him until I was an adult. And he called and wanted to take me out one night, and I said, "I don't want to go with you, George K. I didn't like you when you were a kid, don't like you now."

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Mama said, "You're going with him. He's a doctor's son." I said, "I don't care what he is." She said, "Well, you go with him."

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Well, I went with him, and he took me out on the Country Club Road, dark as it could be, three miles out of town. He got out fresh. I took him, threw him over my shoulder down in a rut and stomped on him.

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He said, "You're going to walk back," and I did. That's the last I saw George K. He ended up being a pilot, too. Can you remember in school, what did you enjoy studying? I was crazy about my English teacher.

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She was really very influential in my life. She kind of knew I was a little neglected because there were just too many kids, and I love my home economics teacher. I was interested in dramatics, but I worked all the time I was in high school.

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I didn't have time for many extracurricular activities. I thought my day was going to come. I worked at a drive-in. I was elected the president of the Girls' Reserve, which was a junior organization of

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YWCA. There was a little opposition because she works at a drive-in. My Spanish teacher said, "Well, she's working to help her family." I think my sister and I both worked there.

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We made $2 a week, and we took all of our money and bought my mother an Electrolux. We did well if we got 20 cents' worth of tips, but that was big money then. I thought, "Oh, boy, I wish I could go work at the Copper Kettle." It was a place out of the university.

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They made $7 a week. Well, that was a lot of money. But there really weren't any jobs. If you didn't have a college education, there were no really lucrative things.

00:26:26.160 - 00:26:47.180

I did work for a studio taking photographs and things like that. And so the war came along, and it provided a lot of opportunities for us. Now, I accidentally got this job as a lingerie model. I had just washed my hair, and a woman at a department store downtown called me and

00:26:47.180 - 00:26:55.680

said, "Charlene, would you come down here and model some coats for the Herskowitz brothers?" I said, "Well, I've just washed my hair. I don't look too good." She said, "They're not going to look at your head.

00:26:55.680 - 00:27:08.740

They want to see the coats on you." I went down there, and he said, "We're going to have market in Fort Worth pretty soon. Would you be interested in going there?" I said, "Well, I'll think about it."

00:27:08.740 - 00:27:25.840

I went to Fort Worth, and it was kind of like a parade of meat. You get out there and somebody picks you out. I wasn't picked out by him, though. I was picked out by a little short Irishman from Brown, Texas, that was a salesman for

00:27:25.920 - 00:27:40.900

Kickernick Lingerie. He had a woman working with him that worked at Tite's Gettingers. She must have been seven feet tall. She interviewed me and also saw how my body looked and the things, and she said, "She's

00:27:41.060 - 00:27:53.020

okay." So they gave me the book of all the different things they handled. By the time I was at work the next morning, I knew all the stock numbers and the prices. I was athletic.

00:27:53.280 - 00:28:11.080

I'm an acrobatic dancer, and I could do dances and flips and girdles, and they didn't ride up. I worked with them until the seven southern states. We were driving along the highway in Florida on December 7, 1941, and this announcement

00:28:11.220 - 00:28:22.900

came over the radio. We were shocked. We just drove off the highway and didn't know what we were going to do. Of course, nylon went to the war, so there was no need for my work anymore.

00:28:24.600 - 00:28:39.300

I thought, "What am I going to do?" Every old maid in town had joined the service, but I wasn't interested in the WACs or the waves or anything like that. Then my younger brother joined the Marines, and I said, "I've got to do something to kind

00:28:39.320 - 00:28:51.340

of support him." But I didn't know what I was going to do. Then when there was an advertisement in the Oklahoma City paper saying they wanted women flyers, I was working at Douglas Aircraft at that time at night.

00:28:53.200 - 00:29:06.920

I would go to work at night and work my shift, go home with my ride, get our old car that was absolute dis. It was on its last leg. It would have a vapor lock and you would have to carry a gallon of water with you so you

00:29:06.940 - 00:29:19.380

could pour it on the motor. And go to Oklahoma City and take my lesson. Then come back home, try to sleep a little bit, and go back to work. And when I got my thirty-five hours, then I could apply for an interview.

00:29:19.480 - 00:29:36.960

Let me back up, Charlene, and ask you, as you were growing up, what was your dream? Oh, it was bound to be wild, I'm sure. Something great and grandiose, like all children. You know, you're going to marry and have kids and life's going to be wonderful.

00:29:38.780 - 00:29:52.740

I just wasn't too much interested in that, though, when I got to be an adult. In high school, what were your social activities? I did not even have a date in high school. I did not know how to dance.

00:29:53.730 - 00:30:02.560

I did not know—well, I worked. I worked. I know eventually then you did dance. So where did that love of dancing—when did you first start dancing?

00:30:02.940 - 00:30:15.460

I could not even dance for the senior prom. How did that make you feel? I felt like a wallflower. Of course, the fellow I went with was half Chinese, and he was about a foot and a half

00:30:15.360 - 00:30:25.980

shorter than I was. So I just was busy keeping the seat warm there. My sister made a beautiful dress for me. It blew organdy with pleats and everything.

00:30:28.200 - 00:30:46.700

My sister dated a young fellow, though he was in college. He was crazy about her, but when he couldn't go with her, he'd take me someplace, just kind of tokenism. The country club would have some dances, and I went, and that's where I learned to dance.

00:30:47.060 - 00:30:58.700

And then also there was a club out at the campus that for twenty-five cents you could take dancing lessons. Of course, my Sunday school teacher said I was sinning every minute. At least I wasn't out behind the barn doing what her daughter was doing.

00:31:00.540 - 00:31:11.840

You want to tell us what her daughter was doing? Well, she had a child. She had a child. How did it make you feel that somebody asked you to the prom?

00:31:14.060 - 00:31:36.400

Well, I was glad to go because I heard the food was going to be good. I really wasn't very mature. I had a bicycle that I'd earned the money for myself, and I got that for my present from high school, but I paid for it myself. I might go out to campus at OU and ride my bicycle until I get hungry.

00:31:37.200 - 00:31:45.940

I went to the back door of one of the frat houses and said, "I'm supposed to eat with y'all." They said, "Oh, she's one of those high school sorority pledges." I didn't say a thing.

00:31:46.000 - 00:31:59.000

I sat at the head of the table and ate like a bird, you know. I had a good meal, and then I got home. Tell me about your high school graduation. The only person to march with me was a boy with one leg.

00:32:03.100 - 00:32:14.900

But he was real nice. And you know, kids, that was really important to me, you know. You're the only one that had a one-legged man. But somebody had to walk with him.

00:32:17.930 - 00:32:30.260

Did you have caps and gowns or what? I don't believe we did. I don't believe we did. I wouldn't have had one if they had had because we didn't have the money to do that.

00:32:30.760 - 00:32:45.500

I don't believe we did. Who was your favorite teacher in high school? Her name was Edna Muldrow, and she was my English teacher. Actually, it was just almost worship because somebody paid attention to me for a change.

00:32:48.940 - 00:33:04.060

I didn't favor too much. I really didn't, just freckles. But anyway, after twenty-five years, I went to England with a friend of mine. It was thirty years.

00:33:05.400 - 00:33:20.420

My mother sent me an article out of the paper, said, "Edna Muldrow is studying in the British Museum, studying Joseph Conrad." I said, "Oh, boy." So my friend and I went out to the museum, and I asked one of the guards if I could go

00:33:20.240 - 00:33:31.800

in the library to find her. He said, "Oh, no, anyone that's there is very serious. They don't need any distraction whatsoever." I had nothing to write on, nothing even to write with, and he gave me a little tablet

00:33:31.920 - 00:33:47.780

paper and I wrote her name. I described her as I remembered her in 1936 and told her that another student of hers was with me in England. She was the first person he contacted the next morning.

00:33:48.000 - 00:34:02.680

She was thrilled, and she called and said, "Come and have lunch with me." Well, I had changed considerably in thirty years. No, it was just twenty years. And she said, "Well, you've grown into a very handsome lady."

00:34:02.680 - 00:34:22.040

And then I have twenty-two letters she wrote to me after that, and I was invited to her retirement party when she was retiring from college professor. We just had a great time because I was full of it. I was more sure of what I had done and what I did.

00:34:24.040 - 00:34:41.680

But I've had so many wonderful experiences. When you graduated from high school, then what was the first job that you got? I think that's when I started dancing with Catherine Duffy's because I really, I guess I wanted to be on the stage.

00:34:43.040 - 00:35:00.340

In high school, were you able to take any type of classes? Well, in physical education, we could have something, because on my own, though, I was doing back bends and splits and I don't know what else you'd call it. I would be on the program for the assembly when they'd have it once a week.

00:35:01.000 - 00:35:18.980

Like I could do a back bend and a girl standing on my belly. Now, isn't that interesting? But anyway, I did learn to do what was necessary for this, the Katharine Duffy Productions, and it was high class.

00:35:20.100 - 00:35:38.140

We danced at the automobile conventions in Colorado. In fact, we were to go to Mackinac Island, Michigan, when I didn't have any money. I'd been working all this time, and she sent me a check for $7 for a whole year's work. I said, "Well, I can't make it on that," so I had to give it up.

00:35:40.240 - 00:35:48.260

She was a tough person, but she taught me a lot. She really did. What kind of dancing? Every kind, but I wanted to be a comedy dancer.

00:35:49.060 - 00:36:05.660

I was good in acrobatics, and I wanted to do some crazy acrobatics and end up into the man's arms to catch me. She said, "You're going to be graceful if it kills you." I think we were doing something in San Antonio, a drum dance.

00:36:07.140 - 00:36:22.660

I beat the hell out of that drum and it knocked off and I just pantomimed the rest of it, you know, beating on my stomach. She said, "My gosh, she's doing her solo." So well, also, but we danced, Paul Whiteman's orchestra was playing for us in Colorado.

00:36:23.700 - 00:36:42.660

The stage was real high and I remember they were playing the Rhapsody in Blue and oh boy, I had this big ostrich fan, you know, do a da-da-da-da. went over an orchestra through the music everywhere and they just had to stop everything. It was short-lived, very short-lived.

00:36:43.260 - 00:36:53.200

But I did win a bathing contest. Tell me about that. Well, it was just a part of the program. And I went across, I borrowed the bathing suit because I didn't have a decent-

00:36:53.200 - 00:37:06.580

What was the bathing suit like? It was kind of dark blue velour, beautiful thing. Somebody loaned it to me because I didn't have anything suitable for that. Well, when I found out I was picked, girl, I was so excited.

00:37:07.200 - 00:37:22.280

I took my lovin' cup and held it over my head and was walking across the stage, and there was a plank that was just a little bit up, and I tripped and fell flat on my face. I said, "Well, I'm going to do my act regardless." It didn't last long.

00:37:23.700 - 00:37:43.180

So after that, I worked for this lingerie firm. And after I got out of the WASPs, I presented this idea to them, since I was a pilot. How about buying me an airplane, let me fly all around the United States and model their clothing and sell it?

00:37:43.640 - 00:37:57.020

Well, they hadn't caught up with the loss of the war materials, so I think they thought I was a little far-fetched. I even flew to Minnesota to talk to them. I thought, "Well, that's another one gone down the drain.

00:37:57.100 - 00:38:09.640

Now what am I going to do?" Let's go back when you first heard about the WASP. About two minutes on this date. Okay, and tell me what you did when you heard that you were training.

00:38:10.200 - 00:38:27.620

Well, when it was in the paper, I immediately contacted the person, and there was an appointment for me to meet her. I can't remember her name now, but it was not Ms. Cochran. And so, you know, they got so many applicants at that time that they had to weed them out some way.

00:38:28.420 - 00:38:45.400

So they made us go and take a full day of tests in physics. Well, I've said this before, I thought physics was a laxative, but I found out different. We got up there and a whole bunch of Navy pilots were taking the same test, and I hate to say it, but they helped me.

00:38:45.940 - 00:38:55.780

Where did you go? Where were you? It was someplace in Oklahoma City. And I think really they were—it was a tactic some people maybe not would be interested

00:38:55.810 - 00:39:07.780

in doing, going that far. But you know, they had 25,000 applicants. Then when they got it down to 35 hours, my level, they just had so many they didn't know what to do with them.

00:39:08.280 - 00:39:27.980

Let me back up to when you first started to fly. Tell me about—why did you think you could fly? Well I thought, "Why can't I?" I had the desire, and I was, for me, making $56 a week was a lot.

00:39:28.800 - 00:39:38.900

And my lessons were $6 an hour. Okay, so where did you go when you first started learning to fly? Where did you go? What airport?

00:39:39.420 - 00:39:55.400

Well it was called Knuckles, N-U-C-K-O-L-S, Knuckles Airport. Were there other girls learning? They had a lot of them, a lot of women. He welcomed anybody, because the men had all gone.

00:39:57.840 - 00:40:07.320

The women were his mainstay. I remember one day I was up there in shorts. I was barefooted and pigtails and came down. His name was Lloyd Catlin.

00:40:09.280 - 00:40:19.400

Lloyd said, "Charlie, I want you to meet this gentleman here." He said, "This is Charlie Craigor." This man said, "I'm Jose Eterbia." I said, "Yeah, and I'm Eleanor Roosevelt."

00:40:19.720 - 00:40:31.820

Didn't believe it, but he was there for a concert, and he was an amateur pilot, and he just came out to relax a little bit. So I said, "Well, I lost my opportunity there." Kelly: Another one.

00:40:32.240 - 00:40:44.360

Okay, you want to cut? We're going to change tapes. You're doing great. Tell me about your first flight, your first solo, and about your instructor.

00:40:46.200 - 00:41:01.640

Do you remember? He was a very patient man and he was very thorough. He sure gave us a lot of emergency, I know he did the rest too, emergency procedures like cutting the motor off on takeoff and that sort of thing.

00:41:02.360 - 00:41:16.880

I can't remember anything much except that he just was constant and he had told me that I could bail out because I really wanted to do a parachute jump. I had the door open, my leg out, he said, "Where are you going?" I said, "You told me I could bail out."

00:41:16.880 - 00:41:21.940

He said, "You had to have permission. Sit back." But now you couldn't push me out. You could not.

00:41:22.620 - 00:41:31.100

Did you have a parachute? Oh, yeah. We never went up without a parachute. But my first cross, my only cross country was to Holdenville, Oklahoma.

00:41:32.080 - 00:41:41.760

And the first leg, the map blew out the window. But I managed to get there and back. Some friends met me out there, because you had to have somebody who could turn the prop for you after you landed.

00:41:43.100 - 00:41:57.080

back and just, it's easy to fly in Oklahoma because all of the section lines are north, south, east and west, there's no mistaking about it. And he let us do just a little port-a-feel, he let us do anything we felt like we wanted to do.

00:41:57.280 - 00:42:16.000

In fact, he loaned us an airplane, Dixie and me, she was in W-9, loaned us a little airplane to fly to Sweetwater for the first reunion. And we got caught at dark and had to land somewhere short of Sweetwater, and we were just nervous as we could be, and I had some phenobarbital, so we both took a phenobarbital

00:42:16.300 - 00:42:29.900

so we could sleep and start in the next morning. Kelly: When you first started flying, did you know what the girls were doing who had finished training? Steele: I don't think I did.

00:42:31.580 - 00:42:45.060

You know, Miss Cochran didn't want publicity. I didn't know anything until I got down to Sweetwater. Kelly: But your ambitions were to do what? I was hoping to be able to fly in combat.

00:42:47.010 - 00:43:11.880

I really was. I don't know why, but I never was afraid of too much. But I felt so serious about World War II that I wanted to do as much as I could. Kelly: So when you got your thirty-five hours, did you then apply or had you already applied?

00:43:11.880 - 00:43:30.900

Rowland: No, you could not apply even, unless you had a private pilot's license. And I found out later that they lowered their requirements because those women that had so many hours, they could not break them of their old habits, and we were just relatively virgins, because we were very malleable.

00:43:31.300 - 00:43:47.940

And so glad to be there, so grateful to be there. So once you had your hours, then you took the written exam, and then what did you do about a physical exam? I had to go to Oklahoma City and the doctor hadn't had any females to examine since

00:43:48.220 - 00:44:07.980

internship and he hit the wrong target. And I went up the side of the wall, let me tell you, he said, "Oh, I'm so sorry." like being Goose on the table. But I passed. My profile was A1. I didn't wear glasses. I didn't have any problems with anything that I knew of.

00:44:08.920 - 00:44:28.100

And then how were you notified that you were accepted? I had noticed that I was to be accepted in a class that started two classes after I got in. I was asleep in a double-decker bed one night, and the phone rang and said, "Can you be

00:44:28.100 - 00:44:37.780

at—Saturday night, can you be at Sweetwater Monday?" I said, "I sure can." But I jumped out of that bed, and I could have broken a leg, and that would have ruined my career right there.

00:44:38.350 - 00:44:58.420

Kelly: At that time, did you have a job? Jones: I must not—yes, I did, because I was working at the Douglas Aircraft, and they They would not relieve me from duty. They said I was in very important work.

00:44:59.280 - 00:45:06.840

I went down and met a board. I said, "I'm a civilian. I can resign. Now, you either let me lose or I quit."

00:45:06.840 - 00:45:15.420

So they let me lose. What were you doing with Douglas? They had a title this long, "Production Control Booth Expeditor." I counted the screws that came through.

00:45:18.710 - 00:45:34.340

I wanted to be an inspector. But see they would divide there maybe five nuts would be missing and we'd have to split the order Then you'd I'd get on a bicycle chase that whole Place to try to find those darn five screws. I made a suggestion that we put a little

00:45:35.480 - 00:45:52.780

staple of where all I'm were and Do away with that and they sent me a check for $13 after I got to the wasp for that suggestion I said man, and I was pulling up. I think there must have been about 20 tailwheel assemblies that I was to move someplace.

00:45:53.180 - 00:46:02.340

And stupid me, I got in front of it and pulled it, and it knocked me down and I got a head injury. And I thought, "Oh, that's going to knock me out." But I came out of that okay.

00:46:03.020 - 00:46:10.600

So— Kelly: While you were at Douglas, what was their main product? What were they doing? Steele: They were making the C-47s.

00:46:11.420 - 00:46:20.840

I don't know what else they were making, because I felt so unimportant. It kept the damn nuts and bolts. Were there a lot of other women? Rosie the Riveter, yeah.

00:46:22.180 - 00:46:33.460

I would have rather been Rosie the Riveter, but I was grateful to make $56 a week. You know, that was a lot of money. Were you still living at home? Yes, and I commuted.

00:46:35.200 - 00:46:39.800

How did you commute? Did you have a car? No, heaven's no. I didn't even know how to drive.

00:46:41.760 - 00:47:01.660

Some man had taken a pickup and put seats in it, like a covered wagon, and about eight people could ride back there in that. So I don't remember how much it cost, but it must not have been a great deal. Kelly: So when they called you and asked if you could be at Sweetwater, how did your mother

00:47:01.780 - 00:47:11.180

and dad feel about that? Lowdermilk Honstein If they felt anything, they never expressed it. But they knew better, because I usually did anyway.

00:47:11.660 - 00:47:26.440

Kelly: By that time, had your brother already gone into service? Rowland: He was in the Marines, and he was in the Pacific, and so young. He came out of the OK. But I think I took the bus to Sweetwater or a train.

00:47:26.580 - 00:47:42.560

I can't remember even how I got there, probably by my own juice. And I thought, "My land, when I got there, this is it." It's very desolate, as you know. And when I've spoken to the, especially at Barksdale, I said, "You girls would have

00:47:42.640 - 00:47:56.020

never signed up for anything if you had lived like us." But it was a different time, and we were different people. I was going to ask you your opinion, how you felt when you got to Avenger itself, out to the field.

00:47:56.500 - 00:48:08.460

Well, of course, living in Oklahoma, you know, it wasn't much different. But it sure does look barren. It did. I think there was a plane crash that we had to go look at as soon as we got there, and

00:48:08.460 - 00:48:29.920

two girls had been killed. How did you feel? Well, it's not going to happen to me, but it did weed out some. But my class—see, I started out in W-8, and over half the class was gone very shortly.

00:48:30.760 - 00:48:41.320

And our instructor, I remember that first day, there were five of us under his tutelage. He said, "Take a good look. In two weeks, there'll only be two of you left." Now, isn't that a great way to start it?

00:48:43.020 - 00:48:59.380

He had the hots for one girl, and she got an hour's time, and I got 15 minutes. They found me out sitting in the cockpit doing my cockpit check at night, just trying to be as efficient as I could. And there was one instructor that had a crippled arm.

00:48:59.380 - 00:49:09.360

Do you remember him? I don't think he liked us much, but he was a very good instructor. Also he was a Czech pilot. I asked for a Czech ride.

00:49:10.920 - 00:49:24.260

I felt I was not getting good training. He took me up, and I did very poorly. He hit the side of that airplane. He said, "Nobody could fly that bad unless they'd had a bad instructor."

00:49:24.420 - 00:49:38.220

Then he gave me a barnstorming pilot. He had me fly to the auxiliary field for those little checks, those landing things. Got out of the airplane, he said, "Now you're on your own." I didn't do a thing except fly it over there.

00:49:38.860 - 00:49:54.520

I did those little things, and I did perfect on every score. I never saw an instructor again in primary. I got confidence, but I think I had fifteen hours before I soloed. Did they ever duck me in that pool over there, I'll tell you.

00:49:55.180 - 00:50:09.600

I think they thought I was going to be gone and nobody else would have a joke to tell. Kelly: Tell me what a typical day was like while you were at the Avenger. Rowland: Well, of course, sometimes I slept on top of the locker so I would not have to make up my bed.

00:50:13.280 - 00:50:30.280

It was rough getting used to, you know, because that was early. We always stood at attention and marched in unison and sang. I enjoyed that. But those dad-blame old Urban's Turbans, putting those things—of course, it didn't

00:50:30.410 - 00:50:45.940

keep you from having to comb your hair. I was going to ask you, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make to— Twelve women using the same john in the shower. It took me six weeks after I got out of the WASP to be able to take a bath by myself.

00:50:47.540 - 00:51:04.160

I don't know how, we really did, we certainly were great, you know, with, because some of those girls were accustomed to a lot of luxury. And we just managed. Describe for me ground school, what that was like.

00:51:04.220 - 00:51:23.140

Can you hold that thought, Charlene, while I put it on? She'd have to tell me when. I think my sense of humor got me through more than talent, because I just refused to, to be put down in any way. And actually by washing back from 8 and through 9 and then to 10,

00:51:23.780 - 00:51:40.500

that they really didn't know I was still there. Right. I was going to ask you, why did you wash back? I had headaches and that's a pure, that is the first thing to get rid of anybody, it sounds neurotic. But they sent me to, they couldn't do anything there at Sweetwater because

00:51:40.560 - 00:51:56.460

you know we just had the little clinic. They sent me to Big Spring and I was under the care of a flight surgeon that cared. And he said I had neuralgia of the sphenopalatine nerve in the face. And so they cocainized, and I know now why people get on cocaine. Ha ha.

00:51:58.200 - 00:52:14.520

And I didn't, my headaches were gone. But when I got back I was at the wrong stage to get in W-9. So I had to wait for W-10. So they utilized my talents to make slipcovers and curtains and everything else for the

00:52:14.520 - 00:52:30.460

room there, you know, we went to for entertainment and made myself useful. But anyway— How did you feel about having—your baymates went ahead and were beyond you. Did you stay in the same bay with them or did you have to stay—

00:52:30.460 - 00:52:42.760

No, no. They put me back with the class that I was—they put me back with W-9, and there I knew those girls. But in the meantime, I was doing this refurbishing of the ready room or whatever you want to

00:52:42.640 - 00:53:09.320

call it. And then they put me in W-10. So there's so many of them knew me. And that may have helped me stay in too because, well, I was, that was entertainment. So I went back to the '72 reunion in Sweetwater, had a headache like that, allergic to something in Sweetwater. And wouldn't have been terrible to have been washed out because of a damn allergy.

00:53:12.120 - 00:53:31.800

Tell me about some unusual roommates that you might have had. Oh, Lossie, everybody was unusual. But I did have this one person, isn't that terrible, like Emily Chapin. She was a WAF, a very seasoned pilot, and she was a wonderful person.

00:53:31.810 - 00:53:43.460

She was in my bay. I've read her excerpts of her time when she applied to go to England and all of her trails and everything to go over there. It was very interesting.

00:53:43.620 - 00:54:02.160

Of course, they have that at Denton. Of course, I know people that were unusual people, like in W-8, I believe it was, they had that SMI, you remember that. You had to have your bait clean, and the Saturday morning inspection, they came by.

00:54:03.020 - 00:54:14.160

I've been told this. I didn't see it, but they just gave up because this one girl had a date in town. I think there was one man still living in Sweetwater. And so she got in the shower and she was naked as a jaybird

00:54:14.320 - 00:54:23.880

when they said attention. She just stood there, blue eyes and everything, you know. And I think they got the prize that day. And then there was another one, Gail Snail.

00:54:24.140 - 00:54:34.480

She's all legs. She looked like a grasshopper when she got around, you know. And she just didn't like to see nude bodies. And one of the girls in her class got naked as a jaybird,

00:54:34.600 - 00:54:46.520

stood in front of the screen and hollered to her. and she just almost skidded off. Those are such simple little old things, you know. Of course, I had a wonderful roommate, too, Alsa Conley.

00:54:50.440 - 00:55:04.000

Most of them were younger than I. Well, I shouldn't tell this. The Catholic girls could go out, just say who it was, would slip off the flight line at night and go into town and do their sinning, you know, and came home and talked to the

00:55:04.000 - 00:55:11.640

priest. old Christian me, I said, "Why do you do it in the first place? You know it's a sin." "Oh," she said, "you're just so naive, it's pitiful."

00:55:11.640 - 00:55:27.720

I guess I was. I just wasn't mature until I got out of the WASPs. Kelly: Do you remember some of the regulations they had? Lowdermilk Honstein Well, you know, we weren't called Cochran's

00:55:28.040 - 00:55:42.760

Convent for nothing. It was just—well, we were tired, it didn't make any difference. We wanted to go to bed early, but you know our class, we had got no new equipment, so we'd have to get up at four o'clock in the morning to get in that idiot box.

00:55:43.700 - 00:56:00.620

And you know, you don't really have good sense in there anyway. And all the equipment was old because there were no more people coming in. And I don't think the regulations bothered me, but they had me as OD one night. And I got up and put the Andrews sisters on the next morning.

00:56:00.760 - 00:56:12.100

They didn't ask me again. Well it woke everybody up. They got up. Tell me about ground school.

00:56:12.860 - 00:56:27.360

What was your favorite thing in ground school? I don't think I liked anything about it. Well of course I enjoyed navigation, but meteorology I didn't care too much for. But I sure did like our instructor.

00:56:27.390 - 00:56:41.320

He was really good. I can't remember his name, but—and I liked code. I liked the Morse code. We'd tap on the sides of the—to the next bay, you know, send messages at night.

00:56:42.420 - 00:56:54.040

But we'd learn dirty words, you know, to this—like "balls and all" means "king," you know, "K," "king," "balls and all." And then "no balls at all" was a "queen," that sort of thing. We could remember that.

00:56:55.780 - 00:57:14.980

But now that's so simple, you know, that we really thought we were saying something dirty. Was there ever a time when you were in training when you were really frightened? Well, yes, on our cross country, our long cross country in advance. We landed in Deming, New Mexico, and the boys had a party for us.

00:57:15.780 - 00:57:30.000

And you know, we always had to be real strict about getting enough rest. Well, I got no rest at all. They had a party for us, and unfortunately I had had a drink or two, and I don't drink very well. We were supposed to follow the water line out of there and I followed the

00:57:30.160 - 00:57:56.560

sewer line. I mean, I was by myself. Overcast and mountains on either side. Well, I just trimmed my airplane so it would fly by itself because I didn't know what else to do. I thought, "Well, maybe it will run out of gas around about the Pacific and I'll wake up." But somebody had there was a little opening in the clouds right over Safford, Arizona, and I

00:57:56.700 - 00:58:14.720

saw it on the top of a garage, and I tell you I came down in a hurry, and I was going to re-plot my course. We were supposed to go to Tucson, and my pen fell in the bottom of the plane. I took off my shoes and tried to get it barefooted, and I couldn't, so I just hoped and prayed the Lord to lead me the right place, and

00:58:14.760 - 00:58:35.800

He did, but I tried to land at David Monthan. It was military, and they flashed me off. I was in a six and I finally go over to where I was supposed to and honey when I got down I kissed the ground. You know, Clintie Loveren, remember her? She was rooming with us. She was one of the house mothers I call them. And she came over and said, "I

00:58:35.800 - 00:58:53.320

don't want to smell your armpits. I know they're bound to stink." I said, "I sweat, but I said, I don't, just get your nose out of my armpit and get me a drink." So I had a salty dog, I really was grateful, I tell you. I never did tell that tale to anybody.

00:58:54.360 - 00:59:12.860

What was your favorite thing about flying? What did you really enjoy doing? I felt as if I were very insignificant in this world of people. You could look down and see how insignificant you were and how wonderful it was to be in

00:59:12.660 - 00:59:31.960

the clouds, and you just sort of felt ethereal. A serious thinking for me. And I just loved it. I was really very disappointed when we couldn't follow through with the training we had gotten.

00:59:33.550 - 00:59:56.620

Kelly: I was going to ask you, do you remember when you first heard that the WASPs were going to be disbanded and how that made you feel? I can't really believe that they would have given funds to let us continue or even take us in because they knew in June that we were not to be militarized.

00:59:57.740 - 01:00:11.260

To spend that money, I'm surprised except I guess they had the contract with the civilian people that owned the, that were doing the teaching because they could have just chopped us off right there. I was grateful that I got to finish.

01:00:13.120 - 01:00:27.640

At our graduation, they said there would be no applause for any single person. Well, everybody knew me in the audience, and my mother thought I'd done something so special because they clapped for me. I said, "Mom, it's just because they didn't think I was going to make it."

01:00:28.000 - 01:00:50.020

Kelly: Why do you think they did not militarize the WASP? Well, there were all these civilian pilots. See, it changed from the Air Corps to the Air Force, and the fatalities were so much greater in the ground forces and so much less in the air forces that they needed every available

01:00:50.140 - 01:01:07.280

man to be in the ground forces. So I don't know how many young pilots, would-be pilots, were switched to the ground forces. The fellow I was so crazy about, he was so angry because it changed it. He had to go considered a part, really, of ground forces.

01:01:08.120 - 01:01:24.240

He was a surgeon in a MASH unit, and mad as a hornet. Well, these men that were older, that couldn't pass the physicals for flying, they had lucrative jobs. They could teach the little Air Corps men to fly, and they could do all of those non-combatant

01:01:24.340 - 01:01:38.120

things, and they were thrown out of jobs. We were taking their place. I can sort of understand that, but what a waste, because there are several of us that would have been happy to have flown in combat.

01:01:40.180 - 01:01:49.200

We knew how to fly. The statistics were that we really were excellent pilots. You know all those statistics. We were serious.

01:01:50.850 - 01:02:07.440

At least I was. I wasn't going to do anything that would have caused me to get kicked out or cause anybody any harm. Kelly: While you were in training, did you have some time off to leave the base?

01:02:07.580 - 01:02:18.960

If so, where did you go and what did you do? Lowdermilk Honstein I don't remember being off the base more than four times. One time we had a little officer's club.

01:02:19.140 - 01:02:32.460

You remember that? So I got the girls together and we worked a dance routine. We didn't have stocking, so we used an eyebrow pencil to paint lines up the legs, you know, made the costumes, and we just had a great time.

01:02:32.800 - 01:02:40.620

Wow, we had a—I was the emcee. Well, whoever was in charge asked me if I'd get out of the WASP and go with the USO tour, and I said, "No, sir. No, sir.

01:02:41.210 - 01:02:59.260

You saw all of my talent right here, and ain't no more." So that was a place where you could have a drink, too, but I was not a drinker. I wasn't going to be anything that I shouldn't be, but I wasn't a drinker anyway. Kelly: While you were in training, did Ms. Cochran visit?

01:03:01.400 - 01:03:21.760

What is your opinion of Ms. Cochran? Jackson: It's not too high. I felt that we probably would have been militarized had it been Nancy Love or someone else. But Ms. Cochran, according to what I have heard or read, she wanted to be the highest

01:03:21.880 - 01:03:42.940

ranking Mormon officer. How can you compete with Olvita Culp-Halby, who is a diplomat and a very educated person? And by Ms. Cochran not even having the fatalities investigated, seems just because of the fact she didn't want any taint on her program.

01:03:44.180 - 01:04:01.140

They had a cocktail party for her at Barksdale, and we who lived in Shreveport were invited. I went, and she said, "Oh, you're very handsome." She said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm an anesthetist."

01:04:01.840 - 01:04:16.520

"Oh, I have the perfect job for you." About that time, somebody interrupted us, and I never knew what it was. When we had the reunion down in Indio, she had that big party, "Did you go?" Oh, it was really put on great.

01:04:17.220 - 01:04:32.620

I said, "Miss Cochran at Shreveport, you told me you had the perfect job for me." She said, "I can't take care of your old broken down wasp." I said, "Well, I figured as an anesthetist, you might faint at the wheel and you'd want me to resuscitate you."

01:04:32.620 - 01:04:49.840

That's what I thought. But she was a—I guess if it hadn't been for her, we may not have ever existed. I can be grateful for that. And she was a very attractive woman, but she made a lot of enemies along the way.

01:04:51.960 - 01:05:08.940

And did you know that Chuck Yeager found out who she was and what her name was and what she came from and he burned it up for her. She didn't want to know. She may have known.

01:05:10.720 - 01:05:20.140

It was a good story about the doll. I'm sure you've heard that. Tell me about your graduation. That was special.

01:05:20.660 - 01:05:30.840

Tell me about it. Well, of course, that's on tape. General Arnold was—I thought he really expressed everything so well, but he pinned my wings on me.

01:05:32.040 - 01:05:44.620

I think he thought that I was something special. I just said, "It's only because I've made it." Because I didn't know how to put it on. In fact, Colonel Arnold had to put the necktie on me.

01:05:44.760 - 01:05:58.920

I didn't know how to put a necktie on. Kelly: I'll back up a little bit and tell me about how you felt when you got your uniform. Lowdermilk Honstein Girl, I must have tried it on fifteen times.

01:05:59.760 - 01:06:16.160

It was really beautiful, wasn't it? We had to have our class pictures made, though, without any wings, and I regret that, because they didn't have them for us. Of course, I didn't know what I was going to do after that, but I did get a few flying

01:06:16.260 - 01:06:32.620

jobs, and jobs that no man would have wanted. Kelly: Before your graduation, tell me about your getting your orders. I still have that copy, too. We didn't even know we were going to get any orders.

01:06:35.820 - 01:06:48.740

My baymates, we were all sent the same place, to Waco. Of course, you know that none of them wanted to fly. Really, I did. I just stayed out of the flight line and flew everything I could get a hold of, because

01:06:48.800 - 01:06:57.620

I knew it was short-lived. But, you know, we had no way home. We had to provide our own transportation. a heavy heart.

01:06:59.020 - 01:07:12.940

Now some of them, I don't know how they managed to get a flight home, but they did. It was probably with somebody in the Air Force. I did get an assignment at Waco, for which I was very grateful. I flew a VIP back to Sweetwater in an AT-6 with six hours on it.

01:07:13.980 - 01:07:32.060

And I know that man must have been making buttonholes, scared to death. But I did have one of the best landings I'd ever had. I wanted to ask you, while you were in training, did some of the WASPs who had already graduated come back to Sweetwater for training, for additional training?

01:07:32.720 - 01:07:43.260

After I graduated? No, while you were— Oh, yeah, Emily Chapin was one, that was a WAF. And what did they come back to train?

01:07:43.440 - 01:08:04.480

Well, they had to go through the complete program, starting just as we did, because of the lack of instrument training. And they were, you know, they didn't, there was another one in W-8 too, I can't remember her name, but she was kind of a, she was not, she looked on us as if we were peons.

01:08:05.660 - 01:08:26.880

But was there, say, an instrument school where a lot of ex-WASP or WASP who had already graduated where they came back and went through just instrument training? I can't remember that. That last group, they probably had it maybe in earlier groups because they were really

01:08:26.880 - 01:08:37.100

nailing the door down. At your graduation, were there other special things? Did you have a banquet? What did they do for you?

01:08:39.080 - 01:08:55.460

My mother came down from Oklahoma, my sister and my niece. Our lunch that day was beans and cornbread, because that's all they had left. And that's some graduation party. We had nothing special that I can recall.

01:08:55.960 - 01:09:08.020

Kelly: Then how did you—did you drive back with your mother? Reid: No, my mother and them went back. We still had to put in some flying time after we graduated. Kelly: At Avenger?

01:09:08.020 - 01:09:20.160

Reid: Yeah, yeah. So it was just a few hours. We didn't have quite the 200 hours that we were required to have. So Alisa Connelly and I filed a flight plan.

01:09:20.240 - 01:09:31.100

We went someplace that we didn't fly for. Flew out to New Mexico and turned around and came back, and she about ran out of fuel. She said, "I'm about out of fuel. I'll stay with you.

01:09:31.140 - 01:09:52.420

I'll go down with you." But we chugged her in, and she ran out of gas just as she turned to park the plane. Kelly: Then after you graduated, how did you get to Waco? Steele: Gosh, oh, one of my classmates had a car, Tweedy Seller, she had a car.

01:09:52.470 - 01:10:10.260

Kelly: How many of you came to Waco? Steele: Betty Fulbright, Tweedy Seller, Yossa Conley, me, and Elder Collins. They were all baymates. Kelly: When you arrived at Waco, to whom did you report?

01:10:11.430 - 01:10:26.680

Steele: I'm sorry, I don't believe I can recall that. Kelly: Where did you stay? Steele: Well, Elsa and Eleanor and I had the quarters next to the CEO, and he'd rap on the wall every night, wanting us to come over and drink with him.

01:10:29.900 - 01:10:40.440

Yeah. Well, as I say, I didn't drink. But Allison and Eleanor were party girls. And Betty Fullwright was serious, too.

01:10:40.440 - 01:10:54.220

She was a very good pilot. Kelly: When you were disbanded at Waco, did the officers who were there, did they give you a special party or anything? Steele: No, nothing.

01:10:55.080 - 01:11:04.360

Nothing. Kelly: So you just packed up your bags? Steele: Just packed up our bag and left. Kelly: And then where did you go?

01:11:04.690 - 01:11:19.440

Steele: I don't even remember how I got home. Must have been by the bus. Kelly: How did your mom and dad feel when they saw you in that blue uniform? Steele: They were not very demonstrative people.

01:11:24.420 - 01:11:41.440

I think they thought I was in a man's world, and that had a different connotation, too. Kelly: Did your brother, who was a Marine, ever see you in your uniform? Jackson: I don't think he did, because he didn't get back home until after the war was over.

01:11:42.140 - 01:12:06.680

Of course, my war was over, too. We had even moved to Louisiana, and I went to school in Texas. When you got back home after you were disbanded, what did you do then? I went back to my old pilot, the one that trained me, and he would let us have a few

01:12:07.200 - 01:12:20.640

training students to take up. But not very many of them were too anxious to go up with a woman. Kelly: Did you get a job in Norman again? Rowland: No.

01:12:21.640 - 01:12:36.100

There was a salvage company that was—they were buying pickled airplanes, I call them, from different airfields. Maybe they had been pickled for four or five years. So my friend Dixie and I—she was in W-9—we got a job.

01:12:36.180 - 01:12:51.320

We had to get to West Helena, Arkansas, and pick up the planes there and fly them to Nevada. They were PT-19s, which I'd never flown. There was one lead plane with a good compass. The rest of us, they were kind of iffy.

01:12:53.040 - 01:13:06.840

We weren't too sure about the parachutes either, but we went. That high altitude, I wasn't used to flying in that, so we landed airports at altitudes, you know, 6,000 and 7,000 feet. Of course, I was the second left wingman.

01:13:06.980 - 01:13:23.900

I'd have to get to the end of the airport, put my feet on the brakes, and rev that thing up as far as it's going, and then turn loose and jerk in the sky. Being left wingman, sometimes I'd almost scrape across the back of a horse. We'd get out there, and then the airplanes would go for sale, and then the company paid

01:13:23.960 - 01:13:33.420

our way back. We flew on commercial airlines. Don't you know we were real welcome with a parachute over our back going in there in an airplane that was a commercial?

01:13:34.460 - 01:13:49.340

But those played out too. After a while, you know, the planes were in such bad shape it wasn't really safe. Now I did get a chance to fly—or rather to sail—a C-47 in Bolivia, but I had to buy it and fly it there.

01:13:49.980 - 01:14:01.920

And I said, "I don't think so." I didn't have enough money to even buy the gas for it. But it was just jobs that men didn't want to take, didn't want to do. Kelly: And then what did you do next?

01:14:01.920 - 01:14:15.600

Well, I had to face reality, quit hanging around the airport. So I wrote, "I don't have any schools." I know this sounds awfully naive for a 25-year-old woman, but as I said, I matured later than most.

01:14:17.900 - 01:14:30.820

I would write and say, "I figured I have a dollar and 20 cents a week to spend for three years. Do you think I can make it?" Now I went to work in Oklahoma City Crippled Children's Hospital because I wanted to be

01:14:30.640 - 01:14:46.040

sure that I wanted to spend three years in training because I was 25. And of course those words just floored me. I'll never learn those, a colodopo-jejonostomy, you know, that sort of thing. What I did was wash instruments and sterilize them for the next case and that's it.

01:14:46.980 - 01:15:06.440

And they'd let me sit in the balcony and watch the surgery. So my friend that was the mass surgeon, I'd call him and tell him what I was doing and I wanted to be in nurses training. So only one school answered me and said, "We think you can make it, but you must come to

01:15:06.660 - 01:15:23.360

Houston from Oklahoma and take what is similar now to the SAT." And I wrote back and said, "I'm sorry, but I would have to hitchhike." But my sophomore class at Norman, Oklahoma took that test as guinea pigs, and all those tests are on file at Oklahoma University.

01:15:23.480 - 01:15:35.000

Will that do? And they said, "Yes, it'll do." I got down there the next day, they gave me a full scholarship from the Telegraph Delivery Association and they paid my entire three years.

01:15:35.900 - 01:15:46.040

I thought I had to eat the books. They finally took them away from me. Before I was through it, I was teaching physiology and anatomy and everything else. What was the school in Houston?

01:15:46.060 - 01:16:01.000

Herman Hospital. We had our academics at the University of Houston. That's when I said, "We need a new class, a new book, and a new teacher, because the chemistry that's necessary for a nurse doesn't have to be this deep."

01:16:01.040 - 01:16:19.400

I never had chemistry, and it was just a foreign language. So we got it, and we did okay. Kelly: At the end of the three years, when you graduated, what did you do then? I was assistant director at the Shriners Hospital and Street Board.

01:16:19.880 - 01:16:37.040

And the reason for that, see I did not have reciprocity yet. When my license was in Texas and I was in Louisiana, I didn't have the $20 to send for the reciprocity. I could have worked at the big charity hospital, which would have been a marvelous experience,

01:16:37.920 - 01:16:57.340

but the lack of money made me pursue elsewhere. So when I went to the Shrine Hospital, it happened that one of my professors at Houston, her sister was a big wig in the Shriners Hospital unit, not Shreveport. So I went there and applied and I told them my dilemma.

01:16:58.240 - 01:17:09.280

And they gave me the $20 to apply for reciprocity and then they said, "We'll pay you $350 a month." I said, "I'm not worth that. I just got out of school.

01:17:09.760 - 01:17:17.660

Ain't that stupid? I've learned a lot since then." She said, "Well, we think you're worth it." I went to work there.

01:17:18.280 - 01:17:35.620

I said, "Now I'm applying for admission into the Air Force, the Korean conflict, because I'd like to use what I learned thinking I could be a pilot, not a pilot, but a nurse on the flights for that. Or else maybe the pilot might get hurt and I could take over.

01:17:36.380 - 01:17:47.260

Isn't that something?" So anyway, I was there about five months, and then they took me in the Korean conflict. And I was first— In the meantime, you had joined the Reserves?

01:17:47.820 - 01:17:57.880

No, I had not. I was going to be in the regular, because I was too old for the Reserves. I think there was a cutoff time, and it's just almost my time. I was thirty-two.

01:17:59.100 - 01:18:12.540

I think twenty-eight was the cutoff time, I'm not sure. But I went to Houston, and I was glad to be there. Of course, I hated when I left Houston, I said, "I hope I never see this place again because it's so humid and hot."

01:18:12.540 - 01:18:23.260

They sent me to Ellington Field. The first new nurse in two years, and you talk about some tough old biddies that were there. And they just gave me such a hard time,

01:18:23.320 - 01:18:33.640

I thought, "What am I going to do with these people?" I had the night shift most of the time, had to cook for the patients, and I'm no cook. Didn't have any money, trying to pay for a car

01:18:33.640 - 01:18:49.920

because my brother had bought a car and it immediately was shipped overseas so I was buying it. So I'd go in when I wasn't working at Ellington, I was in Hermann doing private duty nursing. So the chief nurse came to me one day and she said, "Lieutenant, what haven't you done?"

01:18:49.920 - 01:19:01.280

She had my 201 file. I said, "Well, Captain, I've never played a piano in a whorehouse." She said, "Why?" I said, "Well, I don't know how to play a piano."

01:19:01.280 - 01:19:11.180

So she left me alone. And the girls gave me so much trouble. And finally I said, "I didn't want to pull this rank, but I'm Harry Truman's niece. Now you better leave me alone."

01:19:11.180 - 01:19:19.640

And they did. And I didn't know Harry Truman except I knew he was the president. Where were you living? In the dormitory there.

01:19:20.500 - 01:19:31.540

And they had this big inspection. They'd open your mail, try to see if you were a fruity or anything else, you know. And they said, "Well, you don't ever have a date." I said, "Hell, y'all don't give me any time to have a date."

01:19:31.540 - 01:19:52.080

So I broke my neck in the service. We had this—well, I was a night nurse as usual, and this Mexican patient had—he was in a full body cast, I guess from a fracture or something. His family brought him a pot of castor oil, and he took the whole thing, and the fit hit

01:19:52.140 - 01:20:03.900

the shan. The orderly weighed 120 and I weighed 121. We picked him up in that damn body cast. He put his arm around my neck and I heard my neck crack.

01:20:06.500 - 01:20:19.920

I don't spread those fingers yet. Well, I reported to sick bay and they took x-rays and said, "There's nothing wrong. You'll get to work." In the meantime, my brother had been terribly wounded in Korea.

01:20:20.640 - 01:20:36.480

My mother was having esophageal hemorrhages and swift sheathed port. I didn't know what to do. So after six weeks, I tried to get a transfer to Barksdale so at least I could be with my mother and my father.

01:20:38.640 - 01:20:53.020

It was approved all the way to Washington. Some two-headed lieutenant said insufficient reason for transfer. So I didn't know what to do. The nurse that was in charge of all the Southern Division recommended that I apply for hardship

01:20:53.020 - 01:21:12.140

discharge, which I really didn't want to get out of the service, but I had no alternative. So I did. And thank goodness the military does not take just the military's word for everything. So they called in a civilian orthopedist with whom I had worked, and he called for my x-rays

01:21:12.180 - 01:21:22.340

and there were no bones on them. He said, "No wonder it was negative." He ordered some more x-rays, and I said, "Just let me go, Dr. Price. Just let me go."

01:21:22.340 - 01:21:35.180

He said, "You're going to thank me someday. We can't just let this go." So he took other x-rays and he said, "You have a severe injury." And they sent me down to Brooke, but they were going

01:21:35.180 - 01:21:47.760

to send me to Biloxi, Mississippi. But my brother was a patient down at Brooke. And I made a request to be sent to Brooke. And they said, "Well, that's highly unlikely."

01:21:47.760 - 01:22:00.600

I said, "Well, look at all these problems. I think I'll be better off in Brooke." And they said, "Well, okay," and gave me permission. Of course, I knew that if it took you past midnight, you'd get per diem.

01:22:01.120 - 01:22:10.640

So I drove my car to San Antonio and sat outside the building until 1230. So they had to pay me per diem. So I was put in— We're about to run out.

01:22:10.800 - 01:22:14.180

Hmm? We're about to run out. Okay. So they had to pay you per diem.

01:22:14.640 - 01:22:35.680

Man, if the pilot had been shot or something, you know, then that's dramatic. So anyway, they put me in a ward, a great big ward with neuro patients. Of course, they give everybody a job. There was a colonel there that had to clean the johns, but my brother was in the next

01:22:35.740 - 01:22:49.660

ward so I could be with him. And they sent me to someplace. They were supposed to inject my back. They said I had New York City Taxi Driver Syndrome, from my head always being turned

01:22:49.740 - 01:23:03.680

one way. Anyway, they injected my back and I went into shock. I had respiratory distress and I was really kind of real sick for about two days. They called it hysteria.

01:23:05.980 - 01:23:18.720

I would visit my brother, but he had to have an eye removed. They did not look at it post-operatively. I noticed that it did not look good and I asked somebody to look at it. And they just had neglected him, and so he lost the prosthesis.

01:23:20.900 - 01:23:35.020

And one of the sergeants there said, "Lieutenant, I think it is so nice of you to go to eat with that poor disfigured man." I said, "That happens to be my brother and he is only twenty-four." And I said, "That is all right.

01:23:35.140 - 01:23:50.760

I can understand that he is going to look better." And I was glad that I was with him. Were your mom and dad able to visit you and your brother in the hospital? They came down when they initially got home from Korea, and I thought my mother was going

01:23:50.780 - 01:24:02.640

to faint, and I said, "Mama, you faint, I'll slap you." So she didn't faint. And he did look awfully bad. He was twenty-three and his hair was just as white as mine.

01:24:05.140 - 01:24:27.160

So I was with him for several months and we did a lot together, usually non-coms. We'd go down to the zoo or anything, you know, to see things. And it made it easier on him and then Mama didn't have to worry about him. But see, I had to go before a PE board, a physical evaluation board.

01:24:28.440 - 01:24:51.280

And I went to the place where I was to be held and they said, "Who is to vouch for your condition, I said I'm my own mouthpiece. Well here came a little fart, PHART, that I knew in training, in nurses training, he didn't have any sense then. I knew he didn't have any more in the service. So they said he's going to be

01:24:52.260 - 01:25:12.040

testifying for you. I said well I think I have the right to refuse. They said well they haven't changed an opinion in seven years, not up to if you don't have anybody to represent you. I said, "Give me a chance." And this board of seven men listened to me and they said, "We feel that you've had maximum benefit of hospitalization. So

01:25:12.080 - 01:25:29.200

we're now going to put you on 50% disability for five years and those symptoms should be evident by that length of time." So they did that and then I applied for education on the disabled GI bill. And got to go to Baylor and Dallas for anesthesia.

01:25:30.740 - 01:25:43.400

And they paid everything for me. I didn't make very much money, like I think $50 a month. But where did I go? But I did apply for medical school at that time.

01:25:43.400 - 01:25:53.740

And they said, well, you're 35, or almost 35. You'll take the place of a man, and then you'll get married and have children. "Don't you think I would have done it already?"

01:25:53.740 - 01:26:06.660

But they refused to take me at Parkland. So they gave me a battery of tests, and they said, over at Fort Worth, said, "Well, you should really be an oral surgeon."

01:26:07.460 - 01:26:14.080

I said, "I don't wanna look at anybody's mouth, "but I wanna know how I'm doing, "if I'm in this anesthesia business." And they said, "Well, it's okay,

01:26:14.200 - 01:26:27.680

"but it's not your first abilities." I said, "That's gonna be enough ability for me." I liked it very much, and through them, then I was able to go to London and study under the Queen's anesthesiologist.

01:26:31.640 - 01:26:44.840

Were there other Americans who went with you, Dr. Lyman? No, no, no, I was it. Well, it was through my efforts. The instructor at Baylor was British, and I told him what I wanted to do.

01:26:45.460 - 01:26:55.180

So he contacted this person and I was accepted and I went over and stayed three months. And realized how— What was that like? It was really a kick.

01:26:56.460 - 01:27:05.720

They—oh, their costumes, their costumes, really it was a costume. Looked like it was made out of BVD material. And they had belts for the women. They were about this wide and stiff starched.

01:27:05.820 - 01:27:17.460

You know you can do a lot breathing with that thing tied around you. And they had caps. Actually, they looked like clowns. I wouldn't want them to hear me say this, but one day the woman in charge of surgery

01:27:17.560 - 01:27:29.980

was named Lovettie Smith and she looked the part. And she grinned at me one day and said, "I know how you Americans love salads. Just wait until you see what I've sent you." I took the lid off that thing.

01:27:30.060 - 01:27:38.740

There was a whole damn head of lettuce with nothing with it. And she watched me chomp down the whole damn thing. I thought it would croak. And I had to grin after every bite.

01:27:39.880 - 01:27:54.300

But then I was, this surgeon was, this anesthesiologist was putting a patient to sleep in there, this kind of an alcove before you go into the operating room and they were going to do chest surgery on it and I just got the ants, I just was antsy. They didn't have a gas machine in there, nothing.

01:27:55.400 - 01:28:11.020

Oh, he said, "Drag a gas machine in here before this woman has a hissy fit." They did, so I got to breathe for the patient and we went on into the operating room and they didn't put an IV in, they didn't put a blood pressure cuff on, nothing. I said, "Well, aren't you going to put a knife in?"

01:28:11.560 - 01:28:27.020

He said, "Well, we will if we get in trouble." In a new environment. But you know, you need somebody to listen to you once in a while. How long do you speak when you speak to a group, usually?

01:28:28.300 - 01:28:34.680

I said, "May the girls cry." I said, "What were you crying about?" Are we on? Yes, we're on.

01:28:35.340 - 01:28:45.460

That's okay. You may have said something interesting, so. Well, I said, "I can't imagine anything I said would make you cry." Let's see, where were we?

01:28:45.500 - 01:28:54.400

We were in England, okay, and you're going to school again, right? Yes. And how did you enjoy that? What was that like?

01:28:54.780 - 01:29:15.340

Well, of course, you know, I was comparing the difference in socialized medicine and ours, and ours is so far superior. I was given an Irish resident that was in his eighth year of residency to answer my questions was more than I answered his than mine.

01:29:16.460 - 01:29:24.120

And he said, "How much experience did you get? What was your training?" I said, "One year." He said, "Oh, Evans, that's terrible.

01:29:24.580 - 01:29:37.040

How many cases did you get in a year?" I said, "115." He said, "I won't have that when I finish my career." of the fact, he said, "We have 24 operating suites and 25 residents. How are we going

01:29:37.040 - 01:29:59.060

to get experience?" And I said, "Well," he said, "Now you know you mustn't give any anesthesia here." I said, "Yes, sir, I know that. I didn't come to work. I know they're illegal in England, but how do you rationalize the fact that you use them in Africa?" He said, "Well, they're needed." I said, "Well, in other words, they're needed, they're legal." He said, "Oh, you

01:29:59.020 - 01:30:09.360

colonials are so quaint." I said, "I believe we fought and won that war." He didn't talk to me too much. Where did you live when you were in England?

01:30:10.180 - 01:30:24.080

My friend was a neurosurgeon. She was studying at another hospital, and we rented a flat from a psychiatrist from Australia. It was out in the suburbs, kind of a trendy area, and we could watch the drug addicts

01:30:24.140 - 01:30:33.420

come in at midnight and get their dope. That was interesting. Judy Garland was one of them. And they'd drop their narcotics on the cracks and they'd pick it up and take it.

01:30:34.840 - 01:30:48.080

I said, "Aren't we glad we're who we are?" At the end of the three months then, what did you do? Well I didn't stay there all that time. Stayed about a month and then bought a Volkswagen in Germany and then we just went everywhere.

01:30:49.280 - 01:31:05.280

Put enough mileage on it to be turned in almost. And had a good time, met some friends in Austria and skied together and played together and just had a good time. And then did you come back to the States?

01:31:05.800 - 01:31:22.620

Yes, I had put in enough overtime at my hospital that I had three months of K-time, compensatory without losing pay. So of course I met a fierce look of jealousy when I came home. "Oh, you're so fortunate to do this."

01:31:22.620 - 01:31:35.740

I said, "Well, you have your fortune and your children. I don't have that." Was there ever a time when you had a special boyfriend? Oh my, yes, honey.

01:31:37.080 - 01:31:49.280

I'm going to give him to some museum about 350 pages of love letters. He was a mass surgeon. Don't let anything happen to this, to us. He came home and married his nurse.

01:31:50.520 - 01:32:09.800

Didn't even tell me. So I made a lot of lemonade, but I decided, "Okay, you bastard, I'll show you." I wasn't very educated, and a doctor's wife has a lot of social obligations, and I would have absolutely changed the medical society completely upside down if I'd have been around

01:32:09.880 - 01:32:22.620

there. But after 22 years, no, 52 years, he said, "I really made a mistake, didn't I?" I said, "No, you really didn't. You're not going to like what you hear.

01:32:23.740 - 01:32:40.640

You were my catalyst. I was determined to show you that I was intelligent enough to be your wife." I said, "I sure have had a good time, and I like this person. I wouldn't be this person if I hadn't done that, so thank you very much."

01:32:40.640 - 01:32:56.900

So that's the story of my love life. Where is he now? Dead. When you came back to the States, then you went back to what hospital?

01:32:58.160 - 01:33:14.580

To the big state hospital, LSU Medical School. Oh, during the war, I wanted to fly so bad that I tried to get somebody to smuggle me into England. There was a barnstorming pilot back in Norman, Oklahoma, named Rooster Haynes, and he all

01:33:14.580 - 01:33:26.240

but said he would do it. And I got as far as Chicago and went to somebody to give me some information of what I could expect. They said, "Young lady, don't you realize you are a civilian.

01:33:26.680 - 01:33:39.360

There is a war on. You're a person without a country if you do that. They put you in jail so far they had to shoot the beans to you." So I decided that wasn't very wise, besides I had a letter from him saying, "Don't come."

01:33:39.360 - 01:33:54.880

And he changed a case of champagne for a seat to get to leave early. And I was working with the Red Cross at that time in Washington, and he had a reservation right down the hall. What did you do with the Red Cross?

01:33:55.510 - 01:34:12.840

I was going to go over there, I guess, hand out coffee and donuts. I don't know what else, because I had no particular skills except conversation. But I was that sure that this was it. I was going to get married, you know.

01:34:16.240 - 01:34:28.880

So... And then where did you practice when you finished your anesthesiology and became proficient? Well my first job was, my picture was in the paper. My mother always wanted publicity for us, whatever we'd done.

01:34:29.500 - 01:34:39.020

We'd been to the bathroom ride even. So this little hospital in Shreveport now is Willis-Knighton. They had trouble in their anesthesia department. Somebody had to have surgery and they were short.

01:34:40.200 - 01:34:48.260

And so they asked me if I'd come and work until, you know, that person was able to come back. And I said, "Sure." But I looked—thank goodness I had my own equipment.

01:34:49.740 - 01:35:03.980

But all the big cases were given to me, like a radical neck procedure and big things like that. And I looked around for the endotracheal equipment and all that stuff. They said, "Oh, it's locked up in the safe downstairs."

01:35:03.980 - 01:35:13.120

I said, "What do you do if you have an emergency?" "Well, they unlock the safe." There was a doctor that came over and did the big cases. Well, I had my own, so anyway.

01:35:14.560 - 01:35:25.860

We had—Beta was considered number one. So they—I think I worked for $35 a day. Maybe it was less than that. Anyway, one of the doctors said, "I want you to hire that woman.

01:35:26.000 - 01:35:38.780

She knows what she's doing." And so they offered me a job. I said, "No, this is not what I want to do." So at that time I went out to work at Lubbock.

01:35:39.440 - 01:35:52.720

I did first work after the work that time was in the paper. I went to Longview and worked a few days. My sister was there. And it ended up that I was doing all the anesthesia because I had the training.

01:35:53.940 - 01:36:03.960

And one doctor said, I just was cleaning the arm with an alcohol sponge. He said, "You're not going to stick a needle in there." I said, "I'm not." He said, "No, it's contaminated."

01:36:04.480 - 01:36:17.040

I said, "Doctor, that is nothing in the world but wiping off the surface dirt." Now that's considered sterile. He took up a pair of forceps and then I said, "Well, you're welcome to do this case. I'm not working for you."

01:36:17.560 - 01:36:35.420

He told my brother he's the toughest woman he ever saw. I never had to give another case for him, but nonetheless, I did do an awful lot there. Then I went to work at Kilgore, and I took a call at Kilgore and Gladewater. And at Gladewater, it was strictly freelancing.

01:36:36.500 - 01:36:50.420

And I rented a house from a lady next door. I had to wash my sheets by putting them in the bathtub and stomping on them. But anyway, somebody had a little place called Hancock Clinic, I believe it was. And he called me one night and he said, "You the gas passer?"

01:36:50.420 - 01:36:57.460

I said, "Well, yes, I am. What do you want?" He said, "I need somebody to pass a little gas." I said, "We got a girl over here who got a hot appendix."

01:36:57.460 - 01:37:03.700

I said, "Well, you know, I don't work for you. I work for Leakes Clinic and I work for Gladewater. So I don't care. Why don't you come?"

01:37:04.420 - 01:37:11.820

I said, "Well, I'll have to call him." He said, "Don't call me then." So I went out there and got out of my car and these people were sitting on the front porch with rocking chairs and everything.

01:37:11.940 - 01:37:21.500

"You're the gas passer?" I said, "Yeah, sure am." So I got in there and here was somebody who looked like Santa Claus. He had a stocking hat on his head and he said, "You're the gas passer.

01:37:21.580 - 01:37:29.620

How much you going to charge me?" I said, "Well, $35 for the first job. "Hit a woman, it won't take me eight minutes." I said, "I don't give a rat's ass, I don't work for this."

01:37:29.700 - 01:37:39.380

So I got up there and I said, "Well, I need a cap and a mask to go in there." He said, "We ain't got no more, they only had three." I said, "Well, give me a diaper or anything

01:37:39.560 - 01:37:49.200

"to hang around my face and a pair of underwear "or something on my head." So I did, I went in there and I looked at the gas machine, opened it up, I said, "Here's what you're doing."

01:37:49.200 - 01:38:00.960

I said, "Well, I want to see if the soda lines changed." Somebody said, "We ain't got none." I said, "Well, this better not be more than eight minutes." And I said, "I need an IV solution."

01:38:02.360 - 01:38:15.300

They said, "Well, hell, we just want so many things. We're not going to get this case done before night." Well, anyway, they told the patient in there on a stretcher and the nurses were in nylon uniforms with explosive mixtures, you know, on the machine, their hair hanging down to

01:38:15.340 - 01:38:26.980

here. I said, "Good land y'all are contaminating my operating room." She said, "That's all we got." put the girl over on the table and I was going to put her gown up over the ether screen and

01:38:26.980 - 01:38:48.620

I looked, ants were crawling across her chest. I said, "My lady, somebody knocked those damn ants off there." So anyway, I said, "Well, I need a tourniquet." I got to Starbucks and IB. They brought me a piece of inner tube and they brought me a syringe, 50cc syringe, to mix my pentafol in. And the thing, you had to turn a wheel to get it to give the

01:38:48.540 - 01:39:07.800

solution. Well, the damn thing fell apart. I said, "Well, I got to have another syringe." Well, they looked all over the hospital. They didn't have another syringe. The doctor said, "I'm ready to cut." I said, "I'm not ready for you." So anyway, I turned on the gas, the explosive gas, ethylene and oxygen and knocked her out. And by golly, he was right.

01:39:07.860 - 01:39:22.780

It didn't take him three minutes. And so I put this story in writing and sent it back to my instructor over at Baylor. We got through and we put her on the elevator and it was one of those that you pull with a rope and we went down too far.

01:39:23.220 - 01:39:32.520

We could not get the stretcher off of the darn thing. Finally we got it back up and then we took her to her room and the bed was so much lower than the stretcher. She crawled off and got in the bed.

01:39:33.300 - 01:39:48.460

So he announced in church the next day, he said, "If you all need any gas pass, Miss Mickles got the best gas pass living over there in her house. I just want you all to know that we just tie up over here. I said, "Boy, I'll never have another experience like that, never."

01:39:48.460 - 01:40:13.120

But from there, then I went to Europe. -Charlene, let me ask you about connection with the WASP. Once you had graduated, then when was the next time that you were connected doing something with the wasp, with other wasps, or something about the wasp, walk us through that.

01:40:13.580 - 01:40:37.640

Well, my friend and I, we took those planes to Nevada, but I became very active in newsletters to my, to the wasps that we were having reunions. We had one in Dallas, and so many people came, and I, Mrs. Carmichael, Mickey's mother, brought a whole lot of jasmine and put them in everybody's bed, and I thought I was going to die from

01:40:37.660 - 01:40:54.000

an allergy. But anyway, when I would write a newsletter to the girls, I said, "You're going to have to pay your dues," or, "I'm going to have to go in the hospital in shock." Well, I did get a few good responses from that, but I stayed active in all of that.

01:40:55.010 - 01:41:19.840

All through the years, I was not able to go to some of the things that they had, but they air show the day we were in Dallas for that one convention there, just for the locals. And little Annie Jean Henry was there, and she was flying a little popper cub with a little enzyme in it, and somebody cut her tail off and she crashed and died. And I had

01:41:19.860 - 01:41:44.400

taken the very last picture of her, and it's strange. It's almost as if her head was coming out of a cloud? Well, one day at LSU, I was there for anesthesia, and they said this new doctor is coming here, he's a pediatric cardiac surgeon, and his name is Henry, from Arkansas. So when he came in, I said, "Dr. Henry, did you have a sister named Annie Jean?"

01:41:44.400 - 01:42:03.560

He said, "Why do you ask?" I said, "Well, I was a WASP, and I took the very last picture of her in Dallas before she was killed." He reached in his back pocket and pulled her picture out. And from that day on he wanted me to give all of his anesthesia. I said, "I am not trained in pediatric cardiac surgery. You need the very best."

01:42:03.560 - 01:42:21.000

He said, "I know if you flew you can handle all of this." I said, "Don't put that on me." I had to do one with him one night and the child died, but the anomaly was too great. But he wanted me to be his private anesthesiologist. I said, "Uh-uh, thank you. I don't know.

01:42:22.300 - 01:42:37.940

But he was a fine fellow, and he said when Annie Jean was killed, they were so poor that they lived in the attic of their house. They had to go up by a ladder, and she rented the bottom part out. And so Ava Hamm loaned them a uniform for her to be buried in.

01:42:39.800 - 01:42:54.040

And when I was going to Hot Springs for the reunion, his mother loaned me her parachute and some of the things. I took them back to her because I thought Fierce alone. I told Dr. Henry that I had.

01:42:54.040 - 01:43:02.760

He said, "Why did you take it back? You could have it." I said, "You didn't tell me it was mine." But they wanted it at Denton, and so I did get it back.

01:43:03.420 - 01:43:13.360

Then Denton wrote to me and said, "Thank you very much." I said, "Thank the Henrys. It is not my gift to give." But I got involved in everything pertaining to the wasps.

01:43:14.220 - 01:43:33.860

And fortunately at the hospital, being on call, I had time to type up letters and Xerox things and send them off on the state's time. But since I didn't have a case to do, I wasn't wasting anybody's time. Tell me about the beginning of trying to secure a veteran's status for the WASP and how you

01:43:33.940 - 01:43:49.500

were involved. Well, I became a disabled veteran of their organization. I became a member of the American Legion. I couldn't get—that's all I could belong to, and I would go and talk to them.

01:43:50.420 - 01:44:04.460

And they—of course, I was a rare bird, and of course they approved of anything I had to say. And with that, then I went on to the state, and I still wrote letters all over the country. And—

01:44:04.860 - 01:44:25.040

Okay, and why were you writing letters? to try to get different organizations and people to know who we were, because there were men in the service that didn't know what we were, and to approve of it so they could go into a higher, like from state to national, and national to total.

01:44:25.900 - 01:44:42.460

Was that to try to get the WASP veteran status? Well, this worked toward that, because in '69 when we were in NDO, that's when it was in the paper that said, "First women to fly military aircraft graduated from the Air Academy."

01:44:42.460 - 01:44:56.320

We got our heckles up, and we decided this is not good. We had to do something about it. We started to work immediately. At that time, Bea Hadu was president, and she had presidency for two terms because we're

01:44:56.340 - 01:45:08.160

in the midst of this. We had a good system. You know that the Army-Navy Club gave us an office in Washington, and the girls from Washington manned that office.

01:45:09.760 - 01:45:21.560

When we finally got our militarization, some high-up officers said, "How much did it cost you girls to get this?" They said, "Fifteen hundred dollars." That was the telephone bill.

01:45:22.460 - 01:45:38.880

He said, "Do you mean the system really works?" Well, I know we had a cocktail party for the congressmen and senators there in Washington. The only one to show up was Fulbright. And I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, "Senator Fulbright, Betty Fulbright says

01:45:38.940 - 01:45:54.980

you listen to me." And I told him about the fact that the American Legion was not out of committee, so they were not telling the truth. And he turned out to be a pretty good worker for us.

01:45:55.580 - 01:46:14.920

Could we back up and tell us about the American Legion, about that committee, how that happened? Well, I could not find an airline that could fly me free. I did not have the money to fly, because there is a law. It has to be a Class B airline.

01:46:15.680 - 01:46:28.920

And so Royal Airlines was very prominent here. So I called them and told them my dilemma, and they said, "Sure, we'll fly you down to New Orleans." I went down in full uniform, and Governor Edward Edwards was speaking, and I had a captive

01:46:29.000 - 01:46:44.620

audience, and nobody left. So it was an American Legion meeting, and they said, "Well, we think this is worthy of our attention," and they voted for it, and then with that it went to the National, which was in Colorado Springs.

01:46:45.820 - 01:47:03.320

I flew up there. One of the girls in my class, Davis, paid my fare up there. And then Betty Striff, she and her husband, I think, had ten McDonald's, and she was a corporate jet flyer for them.

01:47:04.440 - 01:47:16.140

And she footed the bill for the hotel. B.J. Williams and I shared a room, and this meeting occurred. And then the three from— Let me ask you, this was a meeting in December?

01:47:16.140 - 01:47:29.140

This was a national meeting of the American Legion. And I marched in the parade, in the rain. I didn't have a uniform, but somebody got one for me so I could march in it, right in the front line.

01:47:29.860 - 01:47:44.080

And you were there to present? This to the national committee. I'm getting ahead of myself. But as we went into this National Committee and the MC said, "What are these women doing

01:47:45.260 - 01:47:54.280

here?" And the Louisiana representative said, "They've traveled far at great expense. They should be heard." And he said, "Well, this will have to be 100 percent.

01:47:54.340 - 01:48:03.520

I don't mean a majority would have to approve of hearing them." And nobody said anything. So with that, he had to let us speak. He said, "Okay, you have two minutes."

01:48:03.520 - 01:48:18.660

And I grabbed B.J. Williams by the hands, because she is a spokesperson. I probably would have lost my spit, couldn't smile or anything. So she got up there and just like that she put it off and one old drunk holler, "We're going to have to listen to this, you know what?"

01:48:19.340 - 01:48:28.600

And that didn't last long. So another person said, "I don't think we're wise enough or know enough to vote on this issue. It should go to Washington," which it did.

01:48:29.620 - 01:48:43.600

And then at Washington was when the representatives said that we didn't fit the definition of a veteran. Kelly: Okay, when it went to Washington, what happened as far as WASP going to Washington, and did you participate?

01:48:44.090 - 01:48:57.660

Steele: Well, I just participated as an audience. It was full of WASPs. I do not know how many were there. And Dora Dougherty spoke, and she is an excellent speaker, you know that.

01:48:57.910 - 01:49:11.660

Kelly: Let me ask you, was this in front of an American Legion committee? Steele: No. This was at the congressional hearings, of which Alan Cranston was supposed to have manned that, but he absented himself.

01:49:12.300 - 01:49:27.860

Do you know how it got from American Legion into a congressional hearing? Who was responsible? Well, Lindy Boggs was sponsoring our bill, a Louisiana person, Hale Boggs' widow, a very fine lady.

01:49:31.620 - 01:49:51.380

I guess that was, since it was presented, they had to let us have a hearing. And so with a hearing, you had to have like a trial, both sides of it. So the American Legion had three people there, I believe, that represented in total the American Legion all over the United States.

01:49:52.360 - 01:50:04.400

They said, "We just didn't meet the definition of a veteran. What do you have to do?" But anyway, Barry Goldwater said, "You're all a bunch of son of bitches. I've flown with these women."

01:50:04.400 - 01:50:18.600

And by God, they knew what they were doing. And so I sent a note to Margaret—well, shoot, she was from Connecticut. Kelly: Margaret Heckler? Reid: Heckler, Margaret Heckler.

01:50:19.200 - 01:50:37.680

I asked them where they get their count, because they were not out of committee. And so she asked them, said, "How did you get this saying that they didn't approve of them because they didn't match the definition of a veteran?" And they said, "Well, we just took a vote."

01:50:37.680 - 01:50:47.980

She said, "When did you take this vote?" They said, "Well, we just know what they think." Well that's very, you know, that's no good. So they really lost their impetus there.

01:50:50.320 - 01:51:06.200

And I'm not one of the Tippetts, Marion Tippetts, which was what she spoke, and that door's Tanner. And see, all this time, Fulbright was just patting his foot. And he said, "I'm sorry, ladies, but I have business in the back room.

01:51:06.210 - 01:51:13.760

I must leave." She said, "Yeah, I'll follow you to the elevator. You will hear what I have to say." He said, "Well, I guess I'd better stay."

01:51:13.760 - 01:51:32.400

So he did. But there were so many people who didn't really know what all we did. Let me ask you, Charlene, do you know how Lindy Boggs became interested in this? I wish I knew.

01:51:34.100 - 01:51:48.380

I'm sorry, I don't know that. How did you feel sitting in the audience at a congressional hearing? Well, I said, "This is it. You know, either we deal or don't."

01:51:48.380 - 01:52:00.340

But you know, there's so many people wanting to get on the bandwagon, like the Coast Guard, which were paid high money and knew they were taking risks, but they were also being paid more money for it. And the telephone operators.

01:52:01.280 - 01:52:22.600

Every time we had a bill, they attached themselves to it. Well, what got me was when this came up once before, the Polish pilots were put on as amendment, and they got the benefits that the Americans got. You know, I guess we still, women didn't count for very much.

01:52:22.760 - 01:52:37.500

We were supposed to be wives and mothers. Kelly: At this congressional hearing, did Barry Goldwater have a chance to speak? He sure did. Kelly: And how about General Arnold's son?

01:52:37.680 - 01:52:54.700

Reid: As far as I know, he was not there. He was not there. Kelly: And at the end of the day, after Barry Goldwater had spoken and Lindy Boggs and Margaret Heckler and the WASP, what happened?

01:52:55.700 - 01:53:16.640

Reid: I do not think anything happened immediately, but you know we had a pretty good system up there that's, they would notify, I was on that committee, they would notify, it's like a chain letter, red alert they called it. I was the red alert for my section and somebody else wrote, within 24 hours we knew what was going on and

01:53:17.300 - 01:53:38.120

everybody responded beautifully and it just worked well. Right. In that committee, was Fulbright the chairman of that committee? He was all there was there that represented Congress. I said, "Alan Cranston's a dirty dog to not—you know, if he's in charge of the

01:53:38.220 - 01:53:52.080

Veterans Affairs Committee, he should have been there." But his mind was set pretty well. Kelly: Was this in the—Fulbright was the senator, right? Steele: Yes, from Arkansas.

01:53:52.270 - 01:54:04.740

Kelly: Right. So this was in the Senate building. As far as I know, I just went with the crowd. We stayed with somebody out in the boonies that was nice enough to turn their house over

01:54:04.900 - 01:54:13.680

to us. Kelly: How many days? Did you do it all in one day, or what happened? Reid: For that part of it, but of course we had to go earlier so we would not be quite

01:54:13.780 - 01:54:24.280

so worn out. I think it was about three days. Kelly: Okay. And then at the end of that time, you came back to Louisiana, and then what happened?

01:54:24.780 - 01:54:43.540

I can't even remember when we heard the news. I regret that the first part, that we didn't get militarized in '44, but it was so important. D-Day was the 6th of June, and our bill came up the 15th. Anyone that could have helped us was over there.

01:54:44.600 - 01:55:07.680

And of course, I think everybody felt the same way. Thank God that the war may be over, and that was it. Then we go back to our lives, which became quite mundane. Kelly: Charlene, for you personally, what did it mean for the Congress to recognize

01:55:07.800 - 01:55:24.720

the WASP and give them veteran status? Rowland: There was one girl that had eighteen and a half years in teaching flying and navigation all that at Purdue University. And she was ankylosed all over.

01:55:24.800 - 01:55:37.920

She had arthritis so bad. To get her to meetings, they had to put her in like a cadaver lying down, because she couldn't bend any joints. She needed one and a half years of military time to at least get medical care.

01:55:38.700 - 01:55:46.240

And I was fighting for her. Jill McCormick, remember her? And so she got it. I had it.

01:55:46.880 - 01:56:05.580

I had it for having been in the Korean conflict. So I was fighting for others, not myself, but I felt just as strongly about it as if it were me. And so I was just, thought, well, finally somebody recognized the fact that we did have

01:56:05.580 - 01:56:27.720

an important part in World War II. In addition to medical coverage in some cases, what else did that veteran status give? You know, this is my personal opinion, I think they waited until we went through the menopause. Because then we're too late for education and that sort of thing.

01:56:28.820 - 01:56:42.080

But even the VA, the VA is a wonderful source if you need it. Now one of my classmates is legally blind. They have given her everything there is available at this time. A TV that enlarges things.

01:56:42.660 - 01:56:57.820

I don't know how many things. She went to the VA hospital in Arizona. And all those things were very expensive. And in fact, I wouldn't have to have known that I had these benefits.

01:56:57.980 - 01:57:10.400

I had some, but they were very--nothing. And I was asked to speak at an American Legion barbecue in a little old town that's a mile in. I didn't even know it was there. And I thought, "What am I doing out here in the boonies?"

01:57:10.960 - 01:57:23.960

And they were so open and so warm. And this man got up. He was from the VA. He said, "Some of you women may not know the benefits that are for you." He was speaking for everybody, whether they were military or not.

01:57:24.820 - 01:57:39.840

And he said, "If you are considered 60% disabled, when you reach 65, you're automatically 100% disabled." I said, "Well, what if your rate is 60% but you draw 50?" He said, "That's the VA's way of paying."

01:57:39.840 - 01:57:55.020

He said, "Come out to the VA and talk about it." I went out there and he got the paperwork going and I was called out for going through their mill. First was a psychiatrist and he said, "She's not crazy, she just drives you crazy."

01:57:55.680 - 01:58:06.680

Then I got to a doctor that I knew and knew not, and I hope he's dead. No, I don't hope he's dead, I just hope he doesn't hear this. I won't mention his name. He said, "What are you doing here?

01:58:07.360 - 01:58:28.600

bound to have a good retirement because he knew I was an anesthetist. I said, "Well, not really because I didn't work long enough under the Social Security thing. I started when I was sixteen in 1937 and just worked briefly at the Catholic hospital and

01:58:28.600 - 01:58:39.060

they thought I had multiple sclerosis and I didn't get to work for a while." He said, "Well, that should have paid you something." I said, "Well, I worked at LSU." He said, "Well, that'll pay you something."

01:58:39.060 - 01:58:46.820

I said, "14 years of civil service "doesn't pay you that much." But I said, "That has nothing to do with this. "This is compensation."

01:58:46.820 - 01:58:55.780

Well, he was very haughty, but he must have found some positive symptoms because I came back and they said, "We're rating you 90%.

01:58:55.900 - 01:59:03.880

"Now, if you ever can't work because of your disability, "then you'll be 100%." I put it on my paper. I'm not working anymore.

01:59:04.060 - 01:59:12.700

They say the work's too heavy for me, but that wasn't good enough. They had to pay me back pay of about $16,000 for that. So then I represented my papers.

01:59:13.370 - 01:59:21.400

In the meantime, though, I was telling another doctor about this doctor that examined me that was a little bit snotty. He said, "You know when that man came here

01:59:21.540 - 01:59:31.860

"from Duke University, he was the smartest young man "that we'd had in Kettle Parish." Well, the next time I went, he was on the phone. And when he got through, I said,

01:59:31.860 - 01:59:42.700

"Doctor, were you trained in North Carolina?" He said, "Yes, I was. I was trained at Duke." "Oh," I said, "you're the doctor they're talking about that was so smart.

01:59:43.480 - 01:59:55.340

It's the smartest thing to come into Kettle Parish. He almost did a ballet." He examined me a little more, and he said, "Now, you can get help out at the house. Anything to keep you going, we'll just do anything.

01:59:55.520 - 02:00:03.020

We'll bring somebody out there to do it." I said, "I want to be independent as long as I can. Just put this on paper," and he did. And they had to pay me another $10,000.

02:00:04.240 - 02:00:14.280

I couldn't be living where I am if I weren't for the VA. And they furnish so much of my medicine because all of these breathing medicines are very expensive. And they're nice to me.

02:00:14.860 - 02:00:23.300

So it's changed a lot since I first went out there. It was a doubt program before. You know, "What are you doing here? What's wrong with you?"

02:00:24.260 - 02:00:41.700

And I go out there and I just really do pretty good. They know I use doctors because you could break a leg and you have to wait two weeks to get it fixed at the VA. How are you involved with WASP at this point?

02:00:44.380 - 02:00:55.700

Right now we're in our mellow years. Keep in touch. My address book is just WASP, WASP, WASP. We keep in touch with each other.

02:00:55.820 - 02:01:12.680

Now there's one in my class that really has full-blown Alzheimer's over in Fort Worth, and she was quite active. What was the greatest thing about being a WASP? I didn't feel very smart.

02:01:14.500 - 02:01:27.220

I didn't have too much of a future to look forward to because I was swilling, didn't know what I was going to do. It gave me the guts to say, "What do you want to do? Let's tackle it."

02:01:27.360 - 02:01:47.940

I did with that first letter to the School of Nursing to get started on that. It took me from 1936 to 1963 to get a degree from college. I made the dean's list and went on for a PhD, except they said, "We don't hire women." I said, "Well, you know, I've heard that before."

02:01:48.480 - 02:01:59.300

At the hospital, I wanted to be the helicopter pilot for the triage. He said, "You're fifty-five and you're a woman. Forget it." I said, "Well, that's the third time I've been turned in, so I guess I'll just enjoy

02:01:59.420 - 02:02:19.680

what I'm doing." What was the, I guess, the worst thing about being a WASP? Deactivation, really. because I didn't have, I just had such a good time all the time except for,

02:02:23.520 - 02:02:42.620

I didn't even mind check rides. I just wanted to be sure that I was able to do it. That's all, not get killed. I think we better stop. Yeah, I'm gonna stop putting it in the tape, thanks. And I like the hobby. And Prescott is just a town of 35,000 people and Bing Crosby's Pilot lives across the road from them.

02:02:42.980 - 02:02:54.880

Oh wow. There are a lot of wasps out in Arizona. Yeah, we're going to maybe do an Arizona swing sometime. Unless, if we can get funding, we're going to get PBS stations to do it.

02:02:55.020 - 02:03:05.400

Well, this chef we used to have here, multimillionaire, working for nothing, he gave his money to the Boy Scouts. I said, "How about something to the women?" So he said, "Give me a name and an address and I'll send it."

02:03:05.400 - 02:03:13.760

I doubt if he ever did. Oh. Kelly: Why would we like to meet him? Reid: Well, he's in Scotland right now to a wedding.

02:03:16.260 - 02:03:35.200

But it looks like on a website or someplace there'd be some money. I wish that we could get Bush interested in—wouldn't it be nice if we got the Medal of Freedom? Kelly: Oh, Shirley, that's a wonderful idea. Reid: Well, I think we deserve it.

02:03:35.360 - 02:03:51.860

Kelly: I do, too. Well, you know, with thirty-eight people giving— John Wayne got it, for crying out loud. Well, that's a different facet, but you know, I think people are now realizing how

02:03:51.980 - 02:04:05.840

important World War II was. Indeed, I enjoyed what Senator McGovern had to say more than anything. Well, no, there was another one. He was being interviewed on television in Vienna, and someone asked him if he had any

02:04:05.820 - 02:04:27.240

regrets of his actions in World War II. He said only one. He was a B-24 pilot and he bombed the factories in Germany, but one of the bombs didn't drop, so they had to fly out over open field and it came loose and it fell on a farmhouse. He said he felt so bad because that day his firstborn was born and he had destroyed a whole family. Well,

02:04:27.240 - 02:04:44.080

he went to his room and there was a phone call. The man said, "Governor McGovern, or "Senator McGovern, I am that man." I heard the bomb start to come down, and I got my family in a ditch, and no one was hurt. He said, "We hated Hitler, too."

02:04:44.080 - 02:04:49.380

He said that ended the war for him. Kelly: Wow. That just—sure. That was some closing.

02:04:49.380 - 02:04:56.160

Reeves: Well, it gave you cold chills. There was some— Kelly: That was closure. Reeves: Now see, Wos could have been up on that same panel there talking.

02:04:57.120 - 02:05:10.280

And I just think—share some of the glory. I don't know why Lucille didn't call somebody, you know, because— Well, of course, we're getting older, and you know, maybe she didn't think about it, but I sure gave her enough, you know, to think.

02:05:10.500 - 02:05:17.620

Because she said, "You're always a lot of fun at the meetings." Well, I'd have done some talking, you know. And I had on my beautiful uniform. Sure.

02:05:18.840 - 02:05:32.700

Wow. Because there's still people who don't know about us. One man in New Iberia on D-Day, he destroyed all the communications of the Germans and electricity, single-handedly.

02:05:34.660 - 02:05:40.720

No, we stopped to— I'm rolling. Oh. So are you going to chat or are you going to let Charlene talk?

02:05:40.810 - 02:06:02.100

No, no, turn— Okay, I'll turn. Okay, Charlene, let me ask you, what do you think the legacy of the WASP will be? That they had guts and that we didn't mind being called second-class citizens.

02:06:02.760 - 02:06:27.820

We just wanted to get the job done. At least that's the way I felt, but I've never felt like a second-class citizen since. What do you feel your legacy will be? I think that I was fair, and I think I was generous, and I think I didn't miss much.

02:06:30.540 - 02:06:47.700

You've done a lot of things in your life. Of all the things that you have done, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? Oh, well, there's no question about that. It's been so much a part of my life, what, for fifty-some odd years, you know.

02:06:48.660 - 02:07:04.940

And I'm proud. Of course, I kind of cringe every once in a while when Dr. Abdu introduces me as a World War II pilot. And I'm proud of it, but I don't want to let that be the only thing I ever did, you know.

02:07:06.980 - 02:07:38.560

So the one thing you're most proud of is being a WASP. I enjoyed anesthesia. I had a two-pound baby to sleep one night, and she lived. But that's a pretty responsible position. It's very strenuous. But so was the WASP, really, you want to be sure you can pass that next checkride, you

02:07:38.580 - 02:07:53.400

know? Only one time I was on TV, I was in my nursing class, I was one of three that went to the United States meeting for student nurses. And there was a railroad strike at the time and we couldn't get back to Houston, there

02:07:53.400 - 02:08:08.820

were three of us. So we got tickets and went into the Art Linkletter program. he asked a question that I could answer. And so he came to me and honey I'd grinned so big and I got so scared I lost all my spit and I just like an old horse in a note bag

02:08:08.860 - 02:08:23.680

I couldn't get my lip down I finally just took my finger and tried to drag it around there he finally just gave me the prize and shut me up. (laughing) - Charlene, if you could say something to children,

02:08:25.400 - 02:08:37.640

your nieces or nephews, or children that you don't know and will never know, if you could say something to them, say 25, 10, 25, 50 years from now,

02:08:38.360 - 02:08:48.760

that might encourage them or give them the heart. - You mean I'm gonna say it that long from now? I ain't gonna make it that far. - You're gonna be on this tape forever.

02:08:48.820 - 02:08:56.700

- Oh, oh. - And if you can talk to them, what would you like to tell them, say to them that might encourage them

02:08:57.500 - 02:09:10.480

to have faith or to have the courage to do something that they might not think is possible? - Well, I'd like, of course, you know,

02:09:10.480 - 02:09:22.500

we have so many people that don't have the advantages that we do. But I know I've kind of researched my life, and I think I'm so glad I was born in the time I was born.

02:09:23.380 - 02:09:36.980

We had no toys, but we worked our minds and made toys. And happy as a lark. And I tell minorities especially that nothing is really impossible if you're serious.

02:09:37.850 - 02:09:48.440

And if you just talk to enough people, somebody's going to see that you get to do what you want to do. but you have to be serious about it and follow through and not fall back on an excuse

02:09:49.100 - 02:09:58.400

because there are really no excuses. Nobody wants to hear that. They want to hear about your proud moments. And there are many, it may not be very much,

02:09:59.720 - 02:10:10.960

but it's one step on up. And I believe that everybody has that potential in them to do great if they just put their minds to it. Now, I've visited Africa, China, you name it.

02:10:11.860 - 02:10:25.340

And we're all just people. And we're ambassadors wherever we go. And it's best to put forth a good front. Just stay clean and be grateful for what you have.

02:10:28.420 - 02:10:47.180

- I know that in life, everyone has wonderful moments, but we also all go through some sad times. I want to know what got you through those sad times that we're not as good as others? I think I can just say that's faith because I've

02:10:47.340 - 02:11:17.800

always believed in the master plan that there's a reason for everything so let's make something out of it and I think I did. As you know the history of the WASP is not in the textbooks in America's classrooms. Why do you or do you think that is important to have that history remembered and recorded?

02:11:19.290 - 02:11:38.640

Well, it was a rare group at a rare time that had something to offer and offered it, even if it meant they were offering their lives. It was that important. And how important do you think it is for the children of this nation to know that?

02:11:42.080 - 02:12:00.320

Well to think what a small group we were, so much we did with such a small group. Think you multiply that by five or ten, a group larger than that can even accomplish anything. Anybody can be anything if they really want to and strive to find out what it takes to

02:12:00.200 - 02:12:18.880

be what you want to be and stick to it. And I believe that our age now with all the computers and everything, there's no reason for anybody to be stupid. Is there anything that I have left out?

02:12:20.700 - 02:12:37.660

Tell me about some of your travels. One day in 1990, Ruth Flory called me and said, "No, it was the President, Barbara Lazarski, and said, 'Craiger, we can go to Russia, but they say we have to have twenty people to go.'"

02:12:37.660 - 02:12:47.040

I said, "You'd better be afraid you don't get a hundred," because I had been there before. So, Ruth Flory called me and she said, "You going to Russia?" I said, "I want to."

02:12:47.060 - 02:12:57.220

She said, "I want to, too." I said, "Okay, let's be roommates." And we went. It was a wonderful thing, because I had been to Russia at least three times prior to that,

02:12:57.300 - 02:13:11.180

or maybe four. Of course, then it was so protected, and people with rifles and terrible expressions on their faces, and so poor it was terrible. I told everybody to pack a bunch of stuff that they could leave, because they did not

02:13:11.260 - 02:13:28.680

have anything. Ballpoint pens, tag, pantyhose, lipstick, anything. Many people applied and were going, except one girl, Cappy Morrison, got sick and had to have surgery.

02:13:28.820 - 02:13:42.300

She didn't get to go, but forty-nine of us went. It was a wonderful experience. Of course, I saw it in a different light this time. We were met at 1130 at night in the airport, and all of these women came.

02:13:42.550 - 02:13:51.700

We thought nobody would meet us at that hour. They met us with flowers and kisses and hugs and everything. It was such a warm reception. And we just met this everywhere we went.

02:13:52.500 - 02:14:04.540

On prior trips, there was no one, absolutely no one. And they just rolled out the carpet for us. And some of us sent our pictures in Pravda. Pravda.

02:14:05.120 - 02:14:07.240

Prava. Prava. Prava. That's it.

02:14:07.920 - 02:14:15.000

Well, good. Then you would have thought we were Czar Nicholas had been resurrected. But, you know, they just grinned and shook hands and everything. It was wonderful.

02:14:15.320 - 02:14:29.120

It really was. Tell me the purpose of this trip though. Didn't it have a purpose? It was a meeting between the Night Witches. Now they knew about us, but we didn't know about them. So we weren't as good a secret as they thought.

02:14:30.020 - 02:14:43.260

And they were a lovely bunch of women and they, oh, I was glad they didn't ask us what we did because their acts were so brave. Who were the Night Witches? They were young women similar to ours that went through the CPT program

02:14:43.260 - 02:14:57.600

And 17 up, and when the war came along, they went to Stalin and said, "Give us some planes. Let us have some regiments." He said, "No, you're supposed to stay home and have babies." They said, "How can we when our men are away at war?

02:14:58.180 - 02:15:10.720

And if you don't let us have the planes, we're going to steal them." So he did. He let them have it, and they had three regiments. The fighters, the bombers, well, the PO-2 was just almost balsa wood.

02:15:11.140 - 02:15:24.960

65 miles an hour top speed at night. That's why they had to fly at night, carrying a ton of bombs tied with a rope on the bottom wing and had a slipknot. The first girl would go in over Berlin because they were called night witches because the

02:15:25.020 - 02:15:37.860

German soldiers slept at night. So "Nachtwitzen" in German means "night witches." So the first girl would go in and flower and make a lot of noise. And they'd go after her, and here'd come the girls and drop their bombs.

02:15:38.620 - 02:15:51.500

One woman, Yevgenia Jouvelenko, had fifteen missions in one night, and she had over 958 of those missions. And everyone that had anything to do with the armament people, the mechanics, everybody had to learn how to fly.

02:15:52.240 - 02:16:09.960

Because oftentimes, the pilot would be killed, and they'd have to be able to turn the plane and let the body drop out. And of course, the German pilots were after everybody. If any one of them dropped over in Germany and were taken prisoner, they did not want

02:16:09.960 - 02:16:29.440

to go back to Russia because they heard that they were being tortured because they had Western contamination, and they would have to die in prison, starvation. I was sure they were a lot like us, carrying their lipstick and trying to look pretty and working awfully hard.

02:16:29.850 - 02:16:49.560

Kelly: So they were your hostesses? Yes, and we went to one meeting that the men thought there were going to be forty-nine men in there for them to lecture to, and one of them was a Sikorsky. He had a wax mustache, and he looked around and he said, "If my wife told my wife I

02:16:49.560 - 02:17:04.220

was going to speak for forty-nine women, she wouldn't have let me come, but I waxed my mustache." But he said he was on a mission, and his other friends, their planes had all been crashed, And they had no way to get back across the Russian border, which wasn't very far.

02:17:05.080 - 02:17:26.300

So he put two in the back seat and tied two to the struts and put the other one in the cockpit and he barely got over the border of Russia and they ran out of gas. So just everywhere we went, just people welcomed us so much with open arms. And I knew how poor everything was when we went into the hermitage, the museum.

02:17:27.760 - 02:17:34.520

when we wanted to go to the bathroom, there'd be just one little square. Well, I had a lot of candy and I had some holes and I passed it out.

02:17:34.520 - 02:17:43.600

Boy, they were raining that toilet paper out like it was $100 bills. But it was such a warm experience and one came to visit me and I'll tell you one thing,

02:17:43.640 - 02:17:52.420

I nearly went crazy. Ooh, she was a case. - How long were you there? - Isn't that awful?

02:17:53.480 - 02:18:02.780

I'm sure it was a week or so. But it was all WASP. We were husbands or family people, you know, with them. And there wasn't any room for anybody else.

02:18:03.340 - 02:18:19.820

But some of us were—the ones that were in Pravda were invited to Moscow for a meeting with the Minister of Defense. And I didn't get to go to the Tomb of the 900s. I've been there five times and I haven't seen it yet.

02:18:20.440 - 02:18:33.240

But we got on the train and went down to Moscow, and he invited us in and said, "It's a and Ken McGuid was there, you know who he is. And I'm so honest, they had pencils out there for you to write with, I put mine back in the pot.

02:18:33.960 - 02:18:47.500

But anyway, the Minister of Defense spoke and he said, "As Minister of Defense, my job is peace, not war." He was the one that started the coup. So that was an interesting experience too.

02:18:47.560 - 02:19:06.260

And he gave us, he and Nadia Popova, who was their top ace woman, gave us a beautiful book of the palaces within the Kremlin and autographed them for us. So I was glad to have that. Is there anything else that I have left out that you would like children who watch this

02:19:06.620 - 02:19:23.860

to listen to and to know about? Well I think with the television there, not the television, but this digital age, if they don't learn anything, it's their fault. But I think it's probably going to take them away from a lot of the things that are not

02:19:23.900 - 02:19:37.280

really good for them right now. And pen pals through the internet, wonderful. And they are supplying them to the schools. And I said, "I wish they'd let me enroll in the kindergarten class so I'd learn how to

02:19:37.320 - 02:19:46.960

use mine." Because they know so much. And they go so fast, you know, and they talk so fast. Have you noticed the young people are talking faster?

02:19:48.000 - 02:20:07.400

else my ears are getting duller, I don't know which. But it's a wonderful age in which to be born. I think I had a wonderful age because nobody had—see, we had the dust storms in addition to the Depression and stark poverty, except we didn't know it.

02:20:07.520 - 02:20:21.240

Kelly: I was going to ask you, Tom Brokaw has called your generation the greatest generation. If you feel it was the greatest generation, why was it the greatest generation, do you believe? You cannot get that kind of education.

02:20:22.640 - 02:20:33.720

You have to live in it. We did not even have an alarm clock. The old jackass crossed the street and bade every morning we got up. And it shows that you can live like a nun, you know.

02:20:34.340 - 02:20:49.240

If you do not have it, you do not need it. You know, and did not know. We did not have catalogs, so we did not know what there was out there. Who was your role model when you were growing up?

02:20:51.220 - 02:21:09.580

My teachers. After I became a teenager, it was pretty obvious that there wasn't a whole lot that I could look forward to. And so I'd read a lot, and of course I worked a lot, too.

02:21:10.840 - 02:21:27.940

And what do you think changed that, that there wasn't a lot for you and yet there was a lot for you? Well, after the war, of course the men were all going to college, you know. I couldn't afford to go to college.

02:21:30.320 - 02:21:46.220

So that took—well, the nurses' training was something I wanted to do prior to the war anyway, but they wouldn't take you unless you were old enough and had two years of college. And then the world is sort of opened up with that. And at times we're in prosperity hit.

02:21:47.660 - 02:21:52.980

-Let me stop for a second. Charlie, what do you think of that? -Well, I think it's wonderful. I don't think we can have too much exposure.

02:21:53.580 - 02:22:10.080

But you know, to think that so many of us are still lucid and still living almost sets a record. -That's true. And I started to enroll in LSU in computer science,

02:22:10.940 - 02:22:20.000

but it's difficult for me to walk anymore. And so to get, I can park over there, but I have to walk too far. Of course, you know that can be an excuse too.

02:22:20.900 - 02:22:30.780

(audience laughing) But there's so many wonderful things you can do with it. - About kids learning, you said, if they don't learn, they're stupid.

02:22:31.560 - 02:22:40.580

That's, what a waste that would be. - Well, they learn the right things. My friends here said, "When are we going to see this on TV?" I said, "You're not.

02:22:41.980 - 02:22:54.740

It's strictly for archives." Kelly: Well, it's more than that. No, it's not for archives, really. We will have the archive of all the interviews we've done, but we're going to take parts

02:22:54.800 - 02:23:06.540

of what you say and put them on the Internet to tell the history of the WASP. And we're going to make a virtual museum where you can go in, you can click on your face— I can't imagine how wonderful that would be.

02:23:07.610 - 02:23:20.560

Your picture, Nancy will probably put on the internet tonight. Well, I'm 81 now, you know. You're a good looking 81. Well, I tell you, I have a good time.

02:23:21.660 - 02:23:36.800

She has a section on the internet, on her website, that she is keeping all of the people who regularly come to that website, up to date on what Wings Across America is doing. So every time she interviews, we interview a WASP.

02:23:37.160 - 02:23:46.340

That night, she gets that picture and puts it up there and says that we have interviewed this WASP. - Now, what you say isn't up there yet. That will be later on down the road.

02:23:46.360 - 02:23:59.180

- But let me tell you how I got this doctor. We were gonna be honored at Galveston, and Liz Stolfa's gonna fly in from Minnesota. I said, "I'll meet you at the airport in White Cadillac."

02:23:59.760 - 02:24:12.720

Well Maggie, I was in the bedroom, I'm not feeling very well. My neighbors all had keys to my house and if they rang the doorbell, Maggie'd go to the door and if she goes to the bedroom, they'd know that that's where I am. So they went in there.

02:24:13.280 - 02:24:18.940

I had a fever of 103. I said, "I can't have it. I'm just going to get in a cold shower." "No, you're not going to do it.

02:24:19.020 - 02:24:25.540

We're going to take you to the hospital." "Oh, you can't take me to the hospital." Liz Stroff is coming in tomorrow. I told her I'd meet her at the airport in White Cadillac.

02:24:25.720 - 02:24:39.240

She said, "Well, a man in a green bauble is going to pick her up." I said, "Well, she's a little redhead," with a smile on her face. So they carried me to the hospital. So they said, "Well, you're going to have Dr. Abduhu."

02:24:39.240 - 02:24:48.880

I said, "Not one of those." They said, "You're going to love him." My mother's a doctor, and she loves him. He came in, took one look at me, and said, "What can I do for you?"

02:24:48.880 - 02:25:00.680

I said, "Get me well in 24 hours." He said, "I'll try." So the next morning I had no fever, IVs full of things, something to me. I was well, but I swole up like a toad.

02:25:01.980 - 02:25:13.040

And he said, "You can't go like that." I said, "Well, just give me ten milligrams of Lasix and let me go." He said, "No, can't do that. I'll give it to you, and if you're well, you know, have lost some of your edema, then you

02:25:13.120 - 02:25:19.540

can go." The nurse called him and said, "She's not swollen any longer." He said, "Let her out." Went home, went to bed.

02:25:20.520 - 02:25:35.420

Liz had been entertained royally by my neighbors. They kept her overnight two nights, took her tour of the town, fed her wonderful meals, and I couldn't get anybody to take me home to the hospital. So I called that house, and she answered the phone.

02:25:36.140 - 02:25:42.120

I said, "Liz, where are you?" She said, "I'm cooking supper. I'm at my neighbor's house." And she said, "We'll put a plate down for you."

02:25:42.120 - 02:25:51.800

And her husband came after me, went to bed that night. We got up and went to Galveston the next day. So I said, "Would you mind taking over my care?" I said, "I'd love to."

02:25:52.560 - 02:26:01.820

Because my former doctor gave me cough medicine with codeine, and I hallucinated so vividly. My bed was in a file cabinet down in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras, and I was selling my dress.

02:26:01.920 - 02:26:10.120

I'd won the Mesoamerica contest, and he said, "You can't go home." I said, "I can swallow around on that floor better than I can stay here."

02:26:10.120 - 02:26:17.540

And then I saw you gave me sulfa drops for my eye, and I'm allergic to sulfa. I said, "I'm going to get me a new doctor." And I did, but I didn't know who I'd get.

02:26:17.920 - 02:26:33.540

And he is just wonderful. It's wonderful. I think I've covered everything. Well, see, since I've been in here, I had that heart stent.

02:26:34.340 - 02:26:50.980

Then I told him, I said, "They're not going to do that colon resection on me until they check my heart and my lungs," because I had a 90 percent blockage, no, 80 percent blockage five years ago. And he called the cardiac clinic and they said, "She's okay for general anesthesia."

02:26:50.980 - 02:27:01.160

I said, "This old bat's not going to take it." Not until they do a— Kelly: Check out the other stuff. Reeder: Well, whatever they do, you know, the catheterization.

02:27:01.820 - 02:27:13.520

So they called the doctor off the golf course and he was just placating me, you know, "This is not necessary." I looked at that monitor and when it got up to ninety-five percent, they shut it off. And they immediately put a splint in.

02:27:14.560 - 02:27:28.400

So I would have died on the table. I said I'm too valuable to die. So then I had my colon resection, didn't have any problem. Then I fell off the commode and broke my rib out at my house.

02:27:28.450 - 02:27:36.640

Did you have some wine before you sat on the commode? No. See the johns here are high. In my bathroom I have the standard.

02:27:37.280 - 02:27:50.260

And I have marble in the bathtub and it's around, there's a 90 degree angle. I hit that 90 degree angle and I heard it crack. "Oh, honey, they had to come up and pull my drawers up for me." I said, "Of all things, it was just before I went down to New Orleans."

02:27:50.260 - 02:28:04.940

I've given it to so many people that I don't really -- all Jesse Jackson has done is be a rabble-rouser. But you know, that thing up there, he wouldn't recognize a true patriot, I don't think. Well, I think it's a wonderful idea to do it as a group, to do it for the group.

02:28:07.680 - 02:28:25.180

We know one of our state senators who is very close to George W. There's a minister next door, Billy, whatever his name, he speaks to our governor every day and I was thinking I was in Texas, I'm not. Wipe that off.

02:28:25.480 - 02:28:33.340

Oh, okay. Do you have a Democratic governor? Who is your governor, Louisiana? Foster.

02:28:35.160 - 02:28:43.060

Is he a Democrat? I don't know what he is. No, he must be a Republican. I don't know what he is.

02:28:43.260 - 02:29:08.860

I know our minister next door went to the Republican convention, and he sure enjoyed it. I listened to every word of it. I think this is a wonderful project that you're doing, and I just--I don't know of anybody else that would do it. Now Mike Dixon that I'm taking I took him to the ground breaking up there or the when the memorial was finished up there

02:29:09.400 - 02:29:22.980

But he asked me what to do with his mother's stuff. I said Send it to Denton because I don't know of any place right now So they have her a to jacket in a glass case. There's he's gonna get to see it now He's squirrely is all get out. He's gay and he's

02:29:23.800 - 02:29:42.660

Homely and he's obnoxious and he wears you out not to say Mike. Shut up now I've known you sent you for and I'll give you a whipping But I take him because nobody loves him but me. Listen, you've got great stories, and you've been wonderful to share them with children

02:29:43.140 - 02:29:59.000

and generations to come. Well I hope so, but you know, I really think the sense of humor carries you through an awful lot of poverty or anything else. I've enjoyed just about all of my life, even if I got a whipping.

02:30:00.540 - 02:30:08.000

And I got a lot of those. They call me No-Butt-Crager because it's flat back there. [laughter] I'm glad I was still rolling with it.

02:30:08.000 - 02:30:17.240

Well, you frightened our day. Well, let's go somewhere and eat. What do you want to eat? I'm going to turn this off. Of course, everybody would fry a bunch of chicken and make pies and everything.

02:30:17.990 - 02:30:27.860

In my land, we still had 51st cousins, you know. and we'd gather down at night ready, and Uncle Clive's had a big farm, and they had a big old horse tank.

02:30:28.200 - 02:30:37.620

They'd put all these hundred pound pieces of ice in there and a bunch of knee highs. And then everybody would sing and play. Pop played the fiddle, Mama played the organ.

02:30:38.780 - 02:30:50.540

Uncle Reef played the jug as soon as he emptied it. And somebody else played the saw, and we all would sing. We all have voices, you know, of every octave. And just sing till we were hoarse.

02:30:51.320 - 02:31:00.180

and we'd pitch horseshoes and plunk washers. And then us kids would throw a quilt under a tree and go to sleep. When we woke up, we'd Indian wrestle, you know, fight.

02:31:01.160 - 02:31:10.700

But they used to have dances at Grandpa's farm. And people would come in their buggies and they'd bring quilts and put them on the ground. And my uncle Cleve taught me how to shottish.

02:31:11.380 - 02:31:19.200

I was just about five, I guess. And I learned that on a plank floor with splinters in it. Because if I didn't get up and dance, they threw us all to bed.

02:31:19.200 - 02:31:30.120

We were covered with quilts and we didn't get to do a blame thing. So the kids were always included in everything. And I loved all of my relatives.

02:31:30.440 - 02:31:41.420

We just had a real good time together. And I still do. I can call them now, and it's just like old times, you know? One of my cousins, when they had this nice article in the paper,

02:31:42.160 - 02:31:52.100

my cousin Winston was in Target. And somebody had to say, hey, Wink, you got a girl cousin that flies? He said, "Oh, Charlie was after it again."

02:31:52.100 - 02:32:03.000

So he called me, he said, "You made us famous." I said, "Wayne, tonight is didn't really, you know." Just was a rare opportunity and I took advantage of it. So then he calls me now and tells me what's going on.

02:32:04.440 - 02:32:12.340

And I like the relationship. - That's great. Priceless memories. - Oh gosh, yes.

02:32:15.320 - 02:32:26.900

Well, they all came down for the funerals. And he said, "It's a shame we have to get together "for a sad occasion." But we made a good occasion out of it, you know,

02:32:27.080 - 02:32:41.760

'cause usually the people should have been dead by virtue of age and debility. So, but it's strange that on my mother's side, all of the second gen, well, my generation,

02:32:42.260 - 02:32:54.520

the females, all have lung problems. So I said there may be a genetic factor. I just as soon done without it. - [Tom] Your bug.

02:32:54.920 - 02:33:05.860

- Oh, well, I just love to dance. In fact, during the war, they used to fill cattle cars and bring military people down to the South base at Norman Old Tech.

02:33:06.040 - 02:33:16.800

Tex Minnick, he was stationed there. Well, you know what kind of music we got out of him? Well, they'd take all the girls out in the cattle wagon to dance, and I mean I ripped the floor.

02:33:16.940 - 02:33:26.060

I had a good time. But this boy that I dated, that took me to Oklahoma City for supposedly, for this contest, and then we didn't have any money

02:33:26.060 - 02:33:36.320

to get in, but he was Indian, and he had no more sense of time than anything. I'd have to tell him the time in his ear all the time. But we wanted to go compete with him,

02:33:37.280 - 02:33:46.920

and we went to have a Coke somewhere, and some friends came in, and they had the motto, You know, where they print your hand when you go out so you can get back in. I took a pen and drew it on our hands.

02:33:47.620 - 02:33:53.840

And we went in free and won the contest. What did you win? A trophy. A trophy.

02:33:55.200 - 02:34:03.020

It was a nice looking trophy. And also we had a lot of fun out of it. Because I mean, we were doing exhibition dancing.