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[BEEPING] OK, I'm Deanie Parrish, and we're in the home of Rosina Todd in Golden, Colorado. It is the 9th of September, 2000.

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OK, Rosina, if you will tell us who you are, where you were born, when, and what's your family, who they were. Well, I'm an older person at this point in time,

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and I live in the outskirts of Denver, Colorado. I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. I went through the public schools in Salt Lake, and then I went to the University of Utah,

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at which time I got very interested in flying. And I paid for my own flying lessons instead of joining a sorority. I only had so much money, so it went to flying.

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And I had a great time learning to fly. I did not have a driver's license. My father had had a heart attack before I turned 16, and we sold the car.

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My mother never drove. My mother wouldn't let me drive anybody else's car. So I had a pilot's license, ultimately a commercial, multi-engine instructor's license,

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and I still didn't have a driver's license. Wow. Rosina, let me back up and ask you, who your family-- who were your mom and dad?

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Well, my mother was a housewife, and my father was a civil engineer. He worked for the Utah State Road Commission. And I'm an only child.

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OK. And where did you grow up? I grew up in Salt Lake City. OK.

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What is your earliest recollection of school? Well, I can remember when I was in kindergarten, but I just snaps and snippets of it. OK.

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Did you go to the same school all 12 years? Well, no. I went to kindergarten in one school, and then I went to first and second grade in another.

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And then I went to another school through seventh grade, and then I went to junior high for two years and senior high for two years. OK.

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All in Salt Lake City. When you were in school, what was your favorite subject? That's kind of hard to say. I didn't dislike any of them.

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Do you remember any special teachers that you had? Not really. OK. When you were in junior high and high school,

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what were your outside activities like? Well, I liked a lot of sports. So I skied a lot. I liked to play baseball and almost any sport.

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I also belonged to the literary club, the debate club, several others, the drama club. Tell me about the drama club. Well, drama club was fun, but I never starred in anything.

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That was for some of the others. I did mainly prompting and working behind the scenes on sets and so forth. And as far as your social activities in high school,

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what did they consist of? Still primarily skiing and hiking. I was not a good dancer, so I didn't do much as far as social dancing.

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I loved square dancing. I did a lot of that. I played tennis. Was your mom and dad involved in your school activities?

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Tell me about your high school prom. I didn't go. That's simple. [LAUGHTER]

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What was your ambition when you were in high school? What was your ambition? Well, I knew I was going to go to college. So I don't think that I had settled

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on any particular thing. I played around with the idea of becoming a famous novelist. Oh, were you in a literary club? Yes.

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OK. In high school, were you on the school newspaper? Did you do any of those activities? I worked with the dean of women on some activities,

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and I was in the debate club. I was not on the newspaper, not in high school. Do you remember any special debates that you had while you were in high school?

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No. OK. Tell me about your high school graduation. Well, it was pretty standard for what everybody else

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went through then. We wore formals. We didn't wear cap and gowns. We wore formals.

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So I had a pretty lacy formal. I think that I've only worn one other time. And where was the prom? You mean the graduation?

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The graduation. It was at the school in the auditorium. OK. While you were growing up, who were your role models?

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I did not have a role model. I just plain grew up with my friends. OK. What was your activities with your friends

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outside of school besides skiing? Well, we gave some parties in one or another of our houses. We did some hikes. You said not skiing.

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When we did hikes, we went ice skating. OK. Were most of these things in a group activity rather than just two people?

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Yeah. Tell me about your grandparents. I didn't know them. Didn't know them.

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What were summer vacations like for you? We didn't take any. [LAUGHTER] All right.

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OK. What did you do in the summertime? Well, we called it play out. But I just played in the neighborhood with my friends.

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And I spent some time trying to write the Great American novel, but I never got very far. And that was it. Do you remember the first time that you saw an airplane

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or that you became interested in airplanes? They always were there. I think I saw Lindbergh. I think I went to a parade for--

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I think he came through someplace where I was. And we stood and watched him go by. But I wasn't inspired. Right.

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What year would that have been? I have no idea. OK. Once you graduated from high school in your formal gown,

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then that summer before you started college, why did you select that particular college? Because it was close by and didn't cost a lot of money. I didn't have a lot of money, and I could live at home,

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which I did. So in the fall when you started school, did you still live at home? Oh, yeah.

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All through college, I lived at home and walked to college. Most of the time, I walked to school. What did you do in the wintertime when it was really cold?

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Walk to school. Once in a while, I could take a bus. But the way the bus route was, I could walk and get there as fast as the bus because it was a very circuitous route

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for the bus. In college, did you make lasting friendships? Yeah. I still have friends that I went to college with.

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When you were in college, did you have any particular teacher that inspired you? I had several very good teachers, not any one in particular.

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I had a good novel teacher who was excellent as a teacher. He had some other problems, but that's not my bailiwick. Speech department, I had some great teachers. I took aerodynamics because I was interested in flying.

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And I had a good instructor for that course. Do you know why you were interested in flying? Because I couldn't drive a car. And how old were you at that time when

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you were taking aerodynamics? 18. Did he encourage you to learn to fly? Who?

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This particular instructor? No. He knew I was going to. In fact, he also taught me to fly as well as took

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the classes at the university. Do you remember where you were when Pearl Harbor happened and how you felt? I was standing on the kitchen table,

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and my mother was hemming a dress for me when my father walked in from the living room and told us that the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor. Do you remember what effect that had on you?

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Well, we knew we were going to go to war. I mean, I think all of us knew that this was going to happen sooner or later. I guess we weren't ready for this sooner.

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So at that point, you were what, a junior in college in '41? I think it was '42, wasn't it, when they bombed Pearl Harbor? No, I guess it was '41. Yeah.

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I'm not sure. I thought I was a sophomore, but maybe I was a junior. I'd have to really think it over. OK.

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When did you start taking flying lessons? When I was 18. As a junior in college? I don't know.

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I haven't tied those two together. Right. Tell me about your first solo. Do you remember what it was like?

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Do you remember what it was like? Well, I'd had trouble landing. I leveled off too high or I'd run into the ground. And so I had a lot of trouble landing, not on my solo.

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But I was getting very despairing. Why couldn't I figure out the landing? And so then I switched glasses. And the instructor said, I was wearing dark ray-ban glasses.

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And I took the glasses off, and then the ground was where it was supposed to be. So then I soloed. And then I didn't wear those glasses anymore.

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Were there other girls flying at the same time? Off and on. There were two or three others down at the flying section of the airport, but no great number.

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I had a friend who became a WASP who, even by then, I think, had her instructor's rating. When did you first hear about the WASP training program? Well, sometime when I was a senior in college.

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I don't remember exactly when, but I guess I heard at the airport that Jacqueline Cochran was coming through to interview people for her program. And so I went, and she interviewed me.

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What did you think about that interview? I don't think I was impressed one way or the other. I don't think that I thought she asked enough questions. But other than that, I was accepted.

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And at that point, did you have to wait some time before-- Yeah, because I wasn't old enough. You had to be 21. And so I was accepted, and they gave me orders to report.

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And then they took another look at my birth date and sent me another notice and said, you have to wait. Forget this. So then I waited till I was 21.

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And in the meantime, I got my college degree. What was your college graduation like? Well, this time we wore caps and gowns. Oh.

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[LAUGHTER] And other than that, it wasn't any more impressive than my kids' graduations. I mean, you marched down, and they hand you one.

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Then you go out, and you pose with your picture. And once you graduated, then that summer, what did you do? I came to Sweetwater and started my training. I had about five weeks between the time I graduated

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and the time I reported for WAS training. How did you get to Sweetwater? By bus. What were your first impressions when

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you arrived at Sweetwater and went out to Avenger Field? What were your impressions? Well, it was exciting. It looked really great that I was going

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to get to fly those big airplanes. I don't remember any particular feeling other than excitement. When you got out to Avenger, tell me what happened as far as being assigned a place to stay

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and so forth. Well, we were assigned to what we called bays. There were six students in each bay, and there was a connecting large bathroom between two bays.

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So there were actually 12 of us using the same bathroom facilities, which had several toilets, a couple of big group showers, where the shower came in from several directions, as I remember.

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And it worked out very well. We got our ablutions, as they call it, without any problems. And we had to keep our bay neat and clean. They had an inspection all the time,

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like a white glove inspection. So you couldn't have any dust anywhere, and you had to have your beds made so that they couldn't bounce a dime on it or something.

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Tell me about the girls who were your bay mates. We were very compatible. We all became good friends. We had been told-- we were in B2--

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we had been told that no one ever washed out of B2. And so we-- but eventually, some girls were washing out, and they were going to reconfigure the number of people of the bay so that they would fill them up all the way.

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And two of our bay mates were having some difficulty, and so we wouldn't move. We stayed there an extra day so that they could have their check rides before we moved out of B2,

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but it didn't help. How did that make you feel? Well, we were sorry for them. I think that we thought there was a good chance

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they weren't going to make it. They had been having some trouble flying. But we thought, we'll do what we can and see if superstition helps, but it didn't.

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What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make when you got to a venture? Well, I didn't have any adjustment then. I thought it was fun, but we didn't--

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we couldn't go out-- we couldn't date, and we weren't supposed to-- we weren't supposed to pay any-- well, I don't know how you'd word it,

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but we certainly weren't supposed to date anybody that worked at the field. So that made them kind of glamorous. Talk about ground school.

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What did you enjoy about ground school or hate about ground school? Well, ground school was interesting, and it wasn't hard.

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But the thing that-- I think I wasn't the only one-- thought we would never learn Morse code. Never, never.

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We were just swimming. You'd go in there, and it was just all dots and dits, and I couldn't figure anything out. And everybody said, just hang in there.

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Just hang. It will come. And this is what the teacher kept saying. And that was right.

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All of a sudden, it did come. I certainly wasn't the first one that got excused from that class, but I wasn't the last one either. On the weekends, were you allowed some time off?

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And if so, what did you do? We weren't allowed time off for the first few weeks. Sweetwater set aside a fairly good-sized room someplace-- I can't remember which-- was sort of a gathering place

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for us where we could go and meet people. And the cadets from all the other flying schools around had heard that there was a flying school for girls, so they all descended on Sweetwater every weekend.

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So we had plenty of men around to entertain us or whatever. Tell me about the auxiliary fields that you flew out. Oh, we had what we called a cattle truck, which it was a great big--

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about the size, I guess, of a semi with seats in it and no shock absorbers. And they hauled us over to this other field, which was uneven dirt.

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And that's where we practiced landings and takeoffs so we wouldn't interfere with the rest of the students over at the main field. There wasn't, as I recall, there wasn't even any water

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over there, but I'm not real sure now whether it was really that bad. While you were at Sweetwater, was there ever a time when you were flying when you were really afraid?

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No, but I was very frustrated about instrument flying. I found it very, very difficult for me. I had-- I have a very poor sense of direction. I have a very poor sense of up and down, forward and back.

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I can use my ears and tail. But I think I had a much harder time making myself believe the instruments because it went against my instincts.

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So it was tense to go through the instrument program. Once you got through instruments and went on into advanced training, tell me about any cross-countries you might have made.

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[LAUGHS] Well, I went-- I loved acrobatic flying. I really liked it a lot. Far more than you were supposed to do.

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So we went on a cross-country to Mineral Springs. I think that we had some other stop before that, and then Mineral Springs. And then we were supposed to come back.

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And I figured that I was ahead of my timing. So when I took off from Mineral Springs, I flew a ways away out of everybody's sight and spent 10 minutes doing acrobats, acrobatic flying.

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And then I took the wrong heading. I misjudged, and I got lost. I got really lost. And so I should have been able to figure it out,

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but I didn't figure it out. And when I started running out of gas, you had an accelerator tank that gave you, I don't know, 15 minutes or something at the end.

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And so I flew to the closest town, which was Jaton, J-A-T-O-N, because I saw it on the water tower. And I buzzed the town twice so they'd know I was going to make a landing.

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And you're supposed to land wheels up, but I knew I would be in trouble if I wrecked a plane, because I shouldn't have gotten lost. So I landed in a cornfield, wheels down.

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And I did not hurt the plane at all. So then I sat there, and nobody came. And you weren't supposed to leave your plane. Nobody came.

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Nobody came. Finally, I got up and walked over to the farmhouse closest by. It was really hot.

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And I knocked on the door, and a woman came. And I said, I'm sorry to bother you, but I landed in your field over there. And she says, I know it.

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And I said, well, I need to let my base know. Could I use your phone? And she said, we don't have any. And I said, well, would you go to town for me, please?

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I'll give you some money and write down what to phone to tell them. And she said, yeah, she would do that. So then I said, may I use your bathroom?

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And she said, we don't have any. This was a long time ago in a very rural part of Texas. So I went back and sat in my plane. And the highway wasn't very far away.

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And cars were going up and down. And they certainly could see the plane. Nobody stopped. Nobody stopped.

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Pretty soon, the woman came back. And I went back over. And I said, did you phone them? Yep.

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You give them all that information? Yep. OK, thank you. And I went back and sat in my plane.

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And then pretty soon, one pickup truck stopped. And the guy walked over and talked to me. And I asked him if I could have him-- if he'd get me a milkshake, because I

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was thirsty and starved. And he said, sure. And he left. And about five minutes later, the whole town emptied out.

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All these cars came all over. They were like mad. And they all stopped. And they all came running over to the plane.

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And I said, what's this all about? Why now? And one of the guys says, well, you know that guy that stopped to talk to you?

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And I said, yeah. And he said, well, he went in. And he went to every bar in town. He said, you know that plane that landed?

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There was a gal flying it. And they all came. [LAUGHTER] And then about that time, an instructor and an Army captain

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came from the base in a BT. And I was in an AT-6, which has a narrow landing gear. And the BT landed. And they decided-- they said to each other,

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she could get this down. We can certainly get at least the BT off from here. She can get it in. We can get it out.

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So the civilian instructor got in the BT and ordered the Army captain and started trying to roll down the cornfield. And he flipped the plane over upside down.

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So then he had to stay with that plane. And so then we taxied over to the highway. The highway patrol came. And they blocked the highway.

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It had a turn in it. But the captain wouldn't let me fly it. But we took off. And we got back OK.

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And they didn't wash me out. I hadn't hurt the airplane. Wasn't my fault that the BT turned over. Where did you get gas?

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They came with gas. When you got back to Avenger, did you have to meet the board? Nope. Wow.

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Nope. Nothing. Good. Did you get a milkshake?

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Yeah. I wondered about the milkshake. I didn't get it. I had left before they-- and when I got back,

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dinner was over. But I did use the bathroom when I got back to the base. Thank you. Were there any accidents that happened

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while you were in training? Oh, yeah. Could you tell us about that? Well, a gal in W8 was killed.

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And as I told you before, two people in the bamboo bomber, plus the pilot. And I don't remember whether that was 43-4 or 44-- or 43-5 was killed.

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Nobody in our class was killed in training. One girl had trouble landing into the sun and slammed into-- she had landed, but just on a landing roll, she slammed into a row of planes and she was washed out.

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But we got clear through training without any fatalities in our class. While you were in training, were you aware of what the girls who had graduated,

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what they were doing? Well, we thought they were all in the ferry command. It took a while before we learned about the training command.

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So we thought, oh, good, we can fly all these fast pursuit planes. And so that was the goal of a lot of us. When we graduated, they had us fill out a questionnaire.

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And they asked us, rank one, two, or three. One, where you want to be stationed. Two, what kind of planes you want to fly. Three, what kind of wasps or friends

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you want to be stationed with. And excuse me, I have an itchy nose, like I've gone to the dentist or something. And so I filled out that I wanted to fly a single engine.

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I didn't care where, but I didn't want to be stationed in Las Vegas. I put that down. And I didn't care who I was stationed with.

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So I got my single engine, but I also got Las Vegas. Can you tell us about graduation itself? Well, that was very interesting, because as I think I said before, we weren't supposed

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to have anything to do with the faculty, which the pilots or even the mechanics or any of them. And that made it very interesting. And so on graduation night, it was very interesting

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to see who came and left with whom, because then it was all out in the open, including me. [LAUGHS] Tell me about including you.

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Well, I liked this meteorologist that was on the base. And I hadn't been very overt. I mean, we hadn't been very overt about it. But we had done some things, and we certainly

00:26:47.540 - 00:26:58.300

had a good time at the graduation party. It was great. I never saw him again after that. He was interested in getting married,

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and I was interested in an airplane. Never the twain would meet. At your graduation, what dignitaries attended? Well, Jackie Cochran.

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I'd have to look up the rest of them. Can I turn it off for a minute and get my book? If you want to, sure. Before graduation, what kind of uniforms were you wearing?

00:27:22.780 - 00:27:39.100

Oh, we got our uniforms at graduation. They had just been done. Before that, we wore what they called suntans. They were dark, fairly light tan, and a white blouse,

00:27:39.100 - 00:27:55.660

and a military cap like the soldiers wore. But most of the time, we were in zoot suits, which were these big L-fitting overalls that we wore everywhere when we were in training.

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And then at some point, did you find out you were going to get new uniforms? Well, we had been told that we would have the uniforms. In fact, I think that the class ahead of us

00:28:07.820 - 00:28:18.500

was expecting that they were going to get the uniforms, but they didn't arrive on time for them. But we got them just before our graduation. We didn't wear them anywhere before that.

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What were they like? Well, they were Santiago blue. And they were designed by some department store in Dallas. I don't know whether it's Neiman Walkers, probably.

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And we got new style wings then, too. They had a diamond on them, where before they were more like the men's wings. And we had a different kind of hat.

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The hat was-- than any other service, it was sort of like the green berets, I guess, sort of a beret cap, which was kind of nice, because it looked different, not so completely military.

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And then we had a gray trench coat. Do you remember how you felt once you put that uniform on? Well, I thought it was kind of neat. Sure better than the suntans we'd been wearing.

00:29:14.220 - 00:29:27.420

They didn't fit, and we were afraid they were going to break out in the seams. When you-- what was the best thing about training? What was the thing you enjoyed the most about training?

00:29:27.420 - 00:29:35.700

Acrobatic flying. And what was your least favorite thing? Instruments. [LAUGHTER]

00:29:35.700 - 00:29:43.540

OK. After you graduated, then how did you get from there? Did you go home? Yeah.

00:29:43.540 - 00:29:54.700

There was another WASP from Salt Lake City that was in my class. And so we-- I guess we went-- I can't remember whether we went to Lubbock,

00:29:54.700 - 00:30:08.260

but we went someplace by bus. And then we got a flight, a plane, then. And it was an airliner, and things were much looser, shall we say, in those days.

00:30:08.260 - 00:30:15.700

So we went up and spent the whole time in the cockpit with the pilot. And I flew up part of the time, and she flew up-- my friend flew up part of the time.

00:30:15.700 - 00:30:24.220

And we got close to Salt Lake, and there was a storm, and it looked like they were going to do a flyover, and we'd end up in California. And we kept saying, oh, no, you can't do that to us.

00:30:24.220 - 00:30:34.580

No, you've got to find a way. And eventually, the tower did clear us to come in and land. And did your family meet you? Oh, no.

00:30:34.580 - 00:30:43.060

I don't think so. I don't remember, but I think I took a taxi. They didn't know when we were coming. Communication wasn't like it is now.

00:30:43.060 - 00:30:54.180

They knew I was coming, but they didn't even know how I was going to get there, because I didn't either. I mean, we just went out to the airport and lucked out and got a ride on one of the airlines.

00:30:54.180 - 00:31:06.060

How did your mom and dad feel about your flying? Well, my father thought it was pretty great. My mother was a worrywart, so she didn't. But she knew that if she didn't OK me--

00:31:06.060 - 00:31:17.660

I had to have somebody sign my student pilot's license. And I went up to her, and I said, if you don't sign it, and you know my dad will. So she didn't want that, so she signed it.

00:31:17.660 - 00:31:35.260

While you were at home, were you able to meet some of the students that you had graduated with from college? No, I think I just went out with the pilots that I knew there. Oh, any special pilots?

00:31:35.260 - 00:31:45.020

Oh, sort of, but not-- I knew quite a few pilots. Last year I was in college, I mainly dated the pilots, not the college kids.

00:31:45.020 - 00:31:56.820

Oh, maybe we should back up to college. No. At the end of your leave time, then where did you go? I went to Las Vegas, Army Air Base.

00:31:56.820 - 00:32:07.740

I rode down with a WASP friend from Wyoming who was going to Chico, California. And she decided that we should-- that she would like some company for part of the way.

00:32:07.740 - 00:32:13.260

And then she also said, you can fly a plane, you can drive a car. And I said, I cannot. She said, well, you know how to steer.

00:32:13.260 - 00:32:20.100

I nearly wrecked us. I nearly wrecked us. Because several times there were signs that said slow and sharp curve, and they

00:32:20.100 - 00:32:30.420

turned to be just nothing. So I stopped slowing down, and one was a really sharp turn. We went off the road, we went to the side, and we skidded sideways, but we didn't turn over.

00:32:30.420 - 00:32:40.100

And she drove from then on. When you got to Las Vegas, to whom did you report? I don't know. I don't remember.

00:32:40.100 - 00:32:50.260

OK. What were your quarters like? Well, we were quartered with some of the WAC officers. And that worked out OK.

00:32:50.260 - 00:33:04.420

We each had a room that had had a cot, and I think I bought an unpainted chest of drawers and a little rug, and probably a bedspread. When you arrived at Vegas, were there other WASP already

00:33:04.420 - 00:33:10.140

stationed there? No, we were the first contingent. OK. So when you reported into operations,

00:33:10.140 - 00:33:21.900

what was your first assignment? First assignment was to be an instrument instructor. OK. And what kind of airplanes were you--

00:33:21.900 - 00:33:28.140

Those were AT-6s. OK. And who were you instructing? The kids that had come back from overseas,

00:33:28.140 - 00:33:38.540

but didn't have an instrument ready, which didn't go down too well, because here we didn't have anywhere near their hours, and we were telling them what to do. Do you remember any special things

00:33:38.540 - 00:33:56.140

that happened while you were an instructor? Two guys-- you weren't supposed to play around, of course. And two hot shots, who were my students, when they were up practicing.

00:33:56.140 - 00:34:09.660

So the one was under the hood, and the other was observing. And they got a little frisky, and so they did a loop over my plane, where I had a student in it, which they're not supposed to do.

00:34:09.660 - 00:34:23.340

And then I took after them. And lo and behold, there was a third AT-6 in the sky. And that third AT-6 happened to be the commander of operations coming back from California.

00:34:23.340 - 00:34:48.020

And those two guys got court-martialed. And I was supposed to testify, which I didn't want to do. And sources switched my orders. And I got sent to Orlando immediately.

00:34:48.020 - 00:34:58.660

And I had to sign off the post. And when I did the last sign off, a guy from the Adjutant General's Office, whatever, the military, walked out and said,

00:34:58.660 - 00:35:05.580

what are you doing here? And the officer of the day that was with me said, you can't talk to her. She's already signed off the field.

00:35:05.580 - 00:35:11.940

He said, she can't do that. We need her. And the guy said, she's already signed off the field. There's nothing you can do.

00:35:11.940 - 00:35:27.980

And so that's how I got to Orlando ahead of my schedule. Tell me about the training in Orlando. Why were you sent there? We were sent there because if we were to be made military,

00:35:27.980 - 00:35:40.820

militarized, they thought we needed more background in the way the military operated. And this was still when there was a great big boo-ha-ha on whether they were going to make us military or leave us

00:35:40.820 - 00:35:54.780

as we were or deactivate us. And so we had classes and the type of things that I presume that the officer cadets get. The only one I remember that I really liked

00:35:54.780 - 00:36:09.600

was the military law one. And the guy that taught that, I think it's idemic imagery. Anyway, he never used a note. Some people, rare, can see a page in front of them

00:36:09.600 - 00:36:20.600

without having to look at any notes. And he just rattled off for an hour every day exactly what he wanted us to know. He was great.

00:36:20.600 - 00:36:31.920

It was well organized. And I got in an argument with him on the final exam because I didn't agree with something that he said. But other than that, that was the program

00:36:31.920 - 00:36:46.120

that impressed me the most. Then we got to check on some things like the fix of radar and some other things and the way they operate on the shore patrol and so forth.

00:36:46.120 - 00:36:59.120

And they said, we can't take any notes. And I said, if I took notes, it would sure help us because I have the slightest idea what's going on. And if the enemy tried to find anything out from my notes,

00:36:59.120 - 00:37:11.380

I couldn't figure out backward and forward what they were telling us. But anyway, we were introduced to the way that they patrolled and the way that they guarded the ships

00:37:11.380 - 00:37:21.840

and the way that they guarded the shores and where this dot meant this and this light over here meant that and so forth. So that, as far as I was concerned,

00:37:21.840 - 00:37:33.680

that part of the program was a washout because I couldn't follow it at all. Did you have some high altitude chamber? But that was not in Orlando.

00:37:33.680 - 00:37:42.880

That was back in Las Vegas. Yeah, we went up to, I guess, 38,000 feet. Maybe it was 18. I don't remember anymore.

00:37:42.880 - 00:37:52.040

I just know that I certainly got bloated. And a couple of others got out of the chamber before we got up all the way up. They were so uncomfortable.

00:37:52.040 - 00:38:04.040

And then when we got up there, they gave us a test. And we all had the giggles. So I guess that was also because we didn't get enough altitude. We just thought everything was hilarious.

00:38:04.040 - 00:38:13.360

How long did the course in Orlando last? I don't know whether it was a month or six weeks. I don't remember. So when you finished that course, where did you go?

00:38:13.360 - 00:38:20.880

Back to Las Vegas. But by then, the court martial was over. And then did you start-- what did you do then?

00:38:20.880 - 00:38:39.080

Well, before that, I was only instructing some. And I was doing the pursuit curve some. Tell us about the pursuit curve. Well, we took AT-6s and P-39s, went up above the B-17s.

00:38:39.080 - 00:38:53.040

The B-17s had gunnery students in them. And then we would go up to the sun and dive down from the sun on a curving route. We called it the pursuit curve on the B-17s.

00:38:53.040 - 00:39:03.600

This was supposed to mimic the way they actually did it over in the war zone. And the gunnery students were supposed to shoot film at us. Later, it was plastic bullets.

00:39:03.600 - 00:39:13.920

But to start with, it was film. And then they could figure out when they played the film back how well they were learning their job.

00:39:13.920 - 00:39:26.800

So one time, they took us up in a B-17 so we would see what the gunnery students were up to. And we got one at a time into the belly turret. And that was more fun.

00:39:26.800 - 00:39:36.080

I mean, you were right. The whole world was below you. And you were just sitting in this glass cage. And then they'd tell you, plane at 12 o'clock.

00:39:36.080 - 00:39:40.720

And 12 o'clock? Where's 12 o'clock? And I'd have to go look around to find where the front and back of the plane

00:39:40.720 - 00:39:51.520

was because I was so disoriented. But it was interesting. Excuse me. How long would these missions last?

00:39:51.520 - 00:40:01.760

I don't remember. I think that they were more than an hour and less than two. But maybe closer to two hours than one. Because we did two of them a day.

00:40:01.760 - 00:40:11.480

OK. Change tape? Time for change tape? You should have added that.

00:40:11.480 - 00:40:19.520

Well, I thought this is just getting too-- Well, they had an outhouse, though, right? No, they didn't. And I didn't go anywhere.

00:40:19.520 - 00:40:27.240

I went back and sat in the plane. It was all uncomfortable. I was really modest in those days. OK, we're rolling.

00:40:27.240 - 00:40:36.920

OK. OK, you're at Las Vegas. And you're flying the pursuit curves. Were there times at Vegas when you

00:40:36.920 - 00:40:45.440

might have flown administrative personnel to other-- Not very often. But yes, they did once in a while. And they were in twin engine.

00:40:45.440 - 00:40:52.960

I think they were C-45s. But I don't remember the civilian name for them. OK. Did you have to take some additional training

00:40:52.960 - 00:41:00.360

to fly at C-45? No. I just flew co-pilot first. And then I flew first pilot.

00:41:00.360 - 00:41:17.000

While you were at Las Vegas, did you make some lasting friendships among the WASP there? Well, the first group went in were all my classmates. The first 10 that came there were all members of my class.

00:41:17.000 - 00:41:33.720

So we already were friends. When the others came, they came later. And I guess we were a little bit cliquish. Because we were the oldies.

00:41:38.200 - 00:41:46.260

While you were there, do you remember any unusual-- Well, now, you asked me before if anybody in our class was killed. No.

00:41:46.260 - 00:41:57.400

But in Las Vegas, a member, not of my class, but of the WASP that were stationed there was killed. Could you tell us about that particular accident? Her name was Beverly Moses.

00:41:57.400 - 00:42:09.960

And she was up in-- there's still some debate about it. But she was co-piloting, apparently, a C-45, but I'm not--

00:42:09.960 - 00:42:24.360

I said that there's all kinds of strange things about it. Because there wasn't a flight plan filed. That night, her bed wasn't slipped in. And her close friend, who was in her class, the next day

00:42:24.360 - 00:42:36.320

went and said, what's happened to Beverly? She wasn't here last night. And they said, well, maybe she spent the night in town. And this girl said, she would not.

00:42:36.320 - 00:42:48.480

She's not that kind of a girl. And I guess it was still several hours. And then they thought that the plane had flown to Reno. But it hadn't.

00:42:48.480 - 00:42:58.160

And then I guess maybe it was later that day, probably late that day, before they finally decided they had a missing aircraft. And I don't know.

00:42:58.160 - 00:43:07.560

And I don't know what the official record shows eventually, because I know that a relative of Beverly's has been interviewing a lot of us, but he didn't interview me.

00:43:07.560 - 00:43:21.840

Because he thinks that they don't know the whole story. And I don't know what he thinks should have happened. But it took several days before they found the crash. And was she with an instructor?

00:43:21.840 - 00:43:34.040

No, no, she wasn't with us. She was co-piloting a plane with several other people in it. And I don't even know whether they were gunnery students. It wasn't a gunnery mission.

00:43:34.040 - 00:43:46.080

I don't know why they were flying, where they were supposed to be going, because there was no flight plan. While you were at Las Vegas, at some point,

00:43:46.080 - 00:43:56.040

did you get orders to go someplace else? No, I asked for a transfer. And then they said, how did you swing that? Why did you ask for a transfer?

00:43:56.040 - 00:44:10.480

I was getting kind of demoralized. I'd crashed a P-39. And they said it was 90% pilot error, which I agree with. I came in too fast, too hot, and tried to do a go around.

00:44:10.480 - 00:44:25.000

And those engines overheat very fast. And the engine conked out on me. It was my fault. And I was feeling badly about that. I was having some difficulties with a particular guy.

00:44:25.000 - 00:44:40.440

And I thought it's best I get away from him. But it was mainly the fact that at that point, I just felt-- demoralized, I did. So I called up Jackie.

00:44:40.440 - 00:44:48.400

I didn't go through. Because I know others had asked for transfers and were turned down on the base. So I didn't go through anybody at the base.

00:44:48.400 - 00:44:57.440

I just called up Jackie and told her I'd like to transfer to another field. And so I got my orders. And my CEO said, how did you swing that?

00:44:57.880 - 00:45:10.920

I said, you should be glad to be rid of me. And he growled back. About the P-39s, what were they using those for? We flew the pursuit curve down on the gunnery students

00:45:10.920 - 00:45:18.400

in them. They had a terrible reputation, which I think is somewhat undeserved. Victorville had them.

00:45:18.400 - 00:45:27.560

And we kept hearing horrible things about them. But they weren't the kind of a plane you should fly in a 110, 15 degree temperatures on the ground.

00:45:27.560 - 00:45:33.640

Because they did cut out. The engines did cut out. They overheated very easily. And we all knew this.

00:45:33.640 - 00:45:41.880

And I knew it. But I still felt that-- Did you take special training to fly the P-39? Nope.

00:45:41.880 - 00:45:53.360

Sat in the cockpit, read the tech orders, looked at all the instruments, memorized where they were, what they were. Yeah, when I read about the Ferry Command and all

00:45:53.360 - 00:46:04.520

of the training they got to fly different planes, it was much different than us. We just did it. That's what he did on the multi-engine and the B-17,

00:46:04.520 - 00:46:10.680

all of them. We just did it. We didn't have any. They just sort of turned us loose.

00:46:10.680 - 00:46:22.000

And when we thought we were ready, they said go. How many hours did you have on the P-39? Not very many. Yeah.

00:46:22.000 - 00:46:29.840

Did you do acrobats in that P-39? No. No. I wasn't that familiar with it.

00:46:29.840 - 00:46:38.760

You weren't supposed to ever spin it. And one of my friends did later. She took it way up. And she said she would never do it again.

00:46:38.760 - 00:46:49.080

She said it was terrible. She fought it and fought it and fought it to make it come out of the spin. When they would do-- how were the missions different

00:46:49.080 - 00:46:59.040

in the P-39 than in the AT-6? Same. Same. When these officers would finish this training,

00:46:59.040 - 00:47:04.600

what would happen with them? Do you know? You mean the gunners? The gunners weren't officers.

00:47:04.600 - 00:47:14.360

When we trained the pilots in the instrument training, they were pilots. They were officers. But the gunnery school, these were gunners.

00:47:14.360 - 00:47:23.120

And the officers were assigned to come back and fly planes like we were flying planes for the gunners. But they didn't have an instrument rating. We had an instrument rating.

00:47:23.120 - 00:47:32.120

And the colonel in charge of the field decided they should have an instrument rating. But other than that, even my students were doing the same thing I was doing

00:47:32.120 - 00:47:45.480

when I wasn't instructing them. We were all flying the pursuit curve on the gunnery students. Except that I also did it on that job on the ground, which I told you about before.

00:47:45.480 - 00:47:51.280

I don't know whether I told you on the video. Go ahead and tell us again then. Did I or did not? No.

00:47:51.280 - 00:48:02.480

OK. We had an auxiliary field called Indian Springs. And up in Indian Springs, they had a program for the gunnery students where they went out to a field.

00:48:02.480 - 00:48:12.720

And they were under a shed. And they would aim at an AT-6 that would fly down on the pursuit curve and fly just over them in the shed.

00:48:12.720 - 00:48:27.400

And then we'd pull up, do a tight circle, and come back down and do this over and over and over again. And there weren't any women on that auxiliary field at all. Even the nurses were male.

00:48:27.400 - 00:48:34.040

But finally, they lost several pilots. They crashed. And so finally, they decided, well, women are more expendable.

00:48:34.040 - 00:48:39.520

We'll try a woman out. And I had more hours than anybody. So they sent me up. I flew up every day.

00:48:39.520 - 00:48:45.240

And I flew back every day. I didn't stay overnight. It was kind of funny because they weren't ever used to a woman.

00:48:45.240 - 00:48:55.760

So in the ready rooms, they just walked around in there all together. And I'd have to go to the door and say, come in, and wait three or four minutes till they could all

00:48:55.760 - 00:49:06.400

grab a towel or something for me to come in. And at first, they watched their language very carefully. And then they got used to me. So then they talked the way they always talked, which is OK.

00:49:06.400 - 00:49:13.840

I didn't pay that much attention. But I figured out what was wrong, why people were-- why they were losing pilots.

00:49:13.840 - 00:49:25.280

And it was the hardest thing I ever did. We flew this very repetitive, tight pattern. And it became hypnotic. And I got so sleepy.

00:49:25.280 - 00:49:33.200

No, it didn't matter how much sleep I'd had. So sleepy, I couldn't keep my eyes open. And I would close them and say, I've got to open them after the count of five.

00:49:33.200 - 00:49:39.920

I have to. And I'd force my eyes open. But I'd never had an experience like that. So I didn't crash.

00:49:39.920 - 00:49:50.040

But I know that's what happened to the guys, that they just got hypnotized. And it put them to sleep, and they just flew right into the ground.

00:49:50.040 - 00:50:05.080

On these assignments, Rosina, would you get one type of assignment one day, and then another type-- No, I did the one up at Indian Springs for maybe a month. And then they spelled me off and sent--

00:50:05.080 - 00:50:19.920

I think they sent Marie up next. But no, I didn't have to do it forever. I was up there for usually a half a day. I didn't stay.

00:50:19.920 - 00:50:31.280

But it was kind of interesting, because they weren't used to ever having a woman around. When you got your new orders, when you requested a transfer, where were you sent?

00:50:31.280 - 00:50:40.440

I was sent to Luke, Army Airfield, down away from Phoenix, in the suburbs. Did they fly you down? I think I flew myself down.

00:50:40.440 - 00:50:53.160

I don't remember how I got there. Maybe somebody flew me. When you got to Luke, were there other WASPs already there? I think there were.

00:50:53.160 - 00:51:01.160

I'm quite sure they were. But I had more hours than anybody that was there. What were your living quarters like there? Well, there we had--

00:51:01.160 - 00:51:16.280

they called it the WASP nest. And we had one building all to ourselves. So we didn't have any WACs that we had to associate with. And what were your assignments there?

00:51:16.280 - 00:51:28.480

We flew engineering test runs. When a student would come down and write something up wrong with the plane, they'd been flying, we'd take it up to see if there was something wrong.

00:51:28.480 - 00:51:37.960

If they had to do an engine change, we would take it up and slow time it to get the engine broken in. If they did a wing change, we had to take it up.

00:51:37.960 - 00:51:47.800

That's the one that was fun. Take it up and we called it ring it out. Put a lot of Gs, do a bunch of aerobatics, and make sure that the wing was behaving properly.

00:51:47.800 - 00:51:57.360

What kind of airplanes were these? Those were 86s. Anything interesting happen while you were at Luke? Not really.

00:51:57.360 - 00:52:13.720

I asked to go on a cross country. They wanted everybody to keep up their cross country skills. And so I guess three other WACs asked to go. And since I had most hours, I was the leader, quote unquote.

00:52:13.720 - 00:52:21.320

And we flew to Texas. And I don't know whether we flew beyond that. I can't remember. But I wanted to see Carlsbad Caverns.

00:52:21.320 - 00:52:33.520

I'd never seen them. And on our way back, there was something wrong with my plane. So that I could land and have it written up, or I knew I could get back.

00:52:33.520 - 00:52:43.320

But I decided I would land. And if I landed, the others had to land too. So we all ended at Carlsbad. And then I wrote it up.

00:52:43.320 - 00:52:55.920

But after I wrote it up-- and I didn't find out until after I wrote it up that they didn't have the piece there that they had to use to repair it. So we visited Carlsbad Caverns.

00:52:55.920 - 00:53:07.420

And that was great. Rout froze, because I didn't think it was going to be as cool as it was. But two or three days later, my piece hadn't come yet.

00:53:07.420 - 00:53:17.680

So then the powers that be decided that the other wasps should fly on without me and go home, go back to Luke, which was no big deal. Except then I was all by myself, sitting there

00:53:17.680 - 00:53:29.360

on the flight line every day. And finally, they sent a B-17-- a B-17 was going someplace. And he was going to detour to Luke. Only he didn't.

00:53:29.360 - 00:53:35.600

He flew to Florida and said, well, he'll stop on the way back. In the meantime, some other plane from someplace flew my part in.

00:53:35.600 - 00:53:47.560

So then I had two parts. But then I got back to my base. But I missed about four or five days of flying. But I got to see Carlsbad Caverns.

00:53:47.560 - 00:54:00.240

While you were at Luke, did you have time off on the weekends or any time off? I think so. I don't remember.

00:54:00.240 - 00:54:09.980

We were limited to a certain number of hours a week to fly. And I always got all of that in. Every week, I flew the max. I logged the max.

00:54:09.980 - 00:54:19.400

I always flew more than that. But I logged the max. So I think we had time. I know I went into town.

00:54:19.400 - 00:54:26.240

Do you remember when you first heard that the wasps were going to be deactivated? No. I'd heard rumors for quite a while.

00:54:26.240 - 00:54:42.800

So when it was finally so, it wasn't a shock. What were your plans? What were you going to do after the wasps were deactivated? Did you have plans?

00:54:42.800 - 00:54:56.560

I was going to think about what I was going to do. When the wasps were deactivated, did the personnel at Luke do anything special for the wasps? I don't think so.

00:54:56.560 - 00:55:05.120

I read where they did on some basis. But I don't remember they did anything for us. And a couple of them left ahead of time. What's-- bird.

00:55:05.120 - 00:55:23.240

Oh, we have deer that come through here time to time. When you left Luke, how did you get back home? Tell me about flying some of the other girls. Well, for two or three days before the date,

00:55:23.240 - 00:55:33.720

the 10th of December, I think, that we were deactivated. Why, I flew some of the other girls to their different hometowns. But then when it was time for me to go,

00:55:33.720 - 00:55:46.320

there wasn't anybody to fly me. So I took a bus. And when you got back to Salt Lake City, what did you then do? I think I started working on my instructor's rating.

00:55:46.320 - 00:55:56.960

Back at the same airport where you had learned to fly? Mm-hmm. Do you know at that point what kind of airplanes you were flying?

00:55:56.960 - 00:56:11.720

I don't remember. As you continued doing that, did you also get a job? Then I took a trip. I went back east to visit to see what some of the other WASPs

00:56:11.720 - 00:56:19.760

were doing. I stopped to see an old boyfriend that was stationed at a base-- had been stationed where I was in Las Vegas,

00:56:19.760 - 00:56:30.840

but now was stationed back east. And I visited several WASPs and thought about it. And then I decided I would-- couple of them were debating going in the Red Cross.

00:56:30.840 - 00:56:37.440

And I thought that sounded kind of interesting. I hadn't been overseas. So I applied for that. And then I came back.

00:56:37.440 - 00:56:46.560

And I think I already had my instructor's rating and started teaching. Then I was offered a job in Ely, Nevada, teaching. So I went over there.

00:56:46.560 - 00:56:58.960

And then I guess the last part of August, I got my acceptance for the Red Cross and left in September, which was a good time to leave anyway, because I thought it would be pretty boring to be

00:56:58.960 - 00:57:06.080

in Las Vegas in the winter. It's a small town. And it had a lot of snow. And--

00:57:06.080 - 00:57:15.560

When you-- I ended up in Las Vegas, Ely. When you left to go with the Red Cross, where did you go? And how did you get there?

00:57:15.560 - 00:57:27.400

Oh, well, we had three months of training in Washington, which was a lot of fun. What were they training you for? Training to be a recreation worker.

00:57:27.400 - 00:57:39.920

And we were out on-- we were assigned a base. I was assigned two different bases. So I spent probably three weeks in each base doing

00:57:39.920 - 00:57:55.240

what we would do overseas. And then we took a tube train from Washington to an embark, debark place up close to San Francisco, a place called Pittsburgh.

00:57:55.240 - 00:58:04.640

But it wasn't anything like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. How many of you were there? Probably 100. I'm not sure anymore.

00:58:04.640 - 00:58:12.240

Did you wear a uniform? Mm-hmm. It wasn't as pretty as the wasps. So when you got to San Francisco or--

00:58:12.240 - 00:58:18.720

Well, it was Pittsburgh. San Francisco was a commute away. Right. Then what happened?

00:58:18.720 - 00:58:30.000

We got on a troop transport called the General Billy Mitchell. We left on the 22nd of December. And where were you bound for?

00:58:30.000 - 00:58:39.960

Well, on a zigzag course to the Philippines. Tell us about that trip. The trip was in the winter. And we went on the North Sea because there was still

00:58:39.960 - 00:58:53.520

even though it was after VJ Day, there was still some problems. And they thought that they should be in the less traveled shipping lanes. We had a very bad storm.

00:58:53.520 - 00:59:06.640

To hear the first mate tell it, while the captain was partying and drinking and wasn't any help at all. And the first mate saved us all. Anyway, he didn't sleep for 36 hours or something,

00:59:06.640 - 00:59:15.400

getting us out. And the ship went really, really rock. And at one point, the piano-- they had a grand piano, I think.

00:59:15.400 - 00:59:23.760

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was an upright. But anyway, it broke loose from its moorings in this big inner room where they had the entertainment.

00:59:23.760 - 00:59:33.240

And it would go from one end to the other and make this horrible crashing noise. Then it would go back the other way. And there was a group of sailors

00:59:33.240 - 00:59:39.920

that were chasing it, trying to catch it, trying to figure out how to get a hold of it and not get killed. And it was a great show.

00:59:39.920 - 00:59:48.000

We finally got it tied down. How many days did it take you? I don't remember. I'm thinking 11.

00:59:48.000 - 00:59:58.240

It took a long time, because they didn't go direct. And then we got into Manila. And what happened after you got to Manila? Well, it was a whole different world.

00:59:58.240 - 01:00:15.360

It was a real culture shock, I guess you'd say. We stayed out on an army base in tents. You had to flash a flashlight at night to make sure you didn't have any scorpions

01:00:15.360 - 01:00:34.680

or other poisonous spiders within your mosquito netting. You all had mosquito netting. We took adebrin, which turned us all yellow. That was supposed to take care of the symptoms of malaria.

01:00:34.680 - 01:00:43.800

So anybody coming from the States looked like-- I would have forgotten what they called them, pale faces or something more derogatory than that, because everybody there was yellow,

01:00:43.800 - 01:00:59.440

including the whites of your eyes were yellow. And there were signs that you went-- Manila was really shot up. First it was shot up by the Japanese,

01:00:59.440 - 01:01:09.740

and then it was shot up by MacArthur. So there were shell holes everywhere. You couldn't go anywhere without breathing this heavy dust and bouncing all over and zigzagging.

01:01:09.740 - 01:01:29.480

So it was really a war zone, even though the war was over. And we were there probably three or four weeks while they were processing us, where to go next. And there were signs all over, don't buy the liquor,

01:01:29.480 - 01:01:41.640

don't drink the liquor, because the Filipinos would use wood alcohol. They'd take a wire band and heat it and put it at the bottom of the liquor bottle.

01:01:41.640 - 01:01:52.920

And they'd drain out the real liquor, the good stuff, pour their stuff in, and then glue it back on. Well, the seal was still on in the top. So it looked on.

01:01:52.920 - 01:02:02.000

And we'd heard that several of the troops had gone blind by drinking it. So it was a good alcohol. So it was a different world.

01:02:02.000 - 01:02:14.060

And then from there, we went to Japan, where it was maybe 30 below. It was really bitter cold. And we'd come from the tropics, and our blood was thin.

01:02:14.060 - 01:02:21.920

And I'd never been so cold in my life. In fact, for three or four days, all we did is sit around a potbelly stove. We didn't wander at all.

01:02:21.920 - 01:02:30.800

We just were freezing. In going from Manila to Japan, was it the same troop ship? No, we flew. You flew.

01:02:30.800 - 01:02:39.800

What happened to-- The planes were caught on fire in Okinawa, too. Tell us about that. [LAUGHTER]

01:02:39.800 - 01:02:52.560

Well, they flew those poor planes to death. And they loaded them so full, and they didn't pay any attention to the rate restrictions. They just put everything on you possibly could.

01:02:52.560 - 01:02:59.240

You had this great big pile of stuff in the middle of the plane, and then you sat around on the side. So the planes were--

01:02:59.240 - 01:03:10.760

the poor engines had to really work like mad. And it went and sprung a leak. And fortunately, we weren't very far from landing in Okinawa. And we had one of the two engines

01:03:10.760 - 01:03:24.240

was on fire when we landed. Well, that must have been a thrill. Well, the chief mechanic had the delirium tremens, and it scared it out of him.

01:03:24.240 - 01:03:41.440

He stopped shaking and started doing things. Once you got to Japan, what did you do? Well, we were in two different military bases. And this was shortly after the Japanese had capitulated.

01:03:41.440 - 01:03:56.240

And they still had their culture, which they don't have much of now. And so there had never been any women on this base. So this was another holding point for us.

01:03:56.240 - 01:04:04.600

And so they found one little-- one single bathroom. Most of them were a whole bunch. They had one single bathroom, and this was for the women.

01:04:04.600 - 01:04:14.240

And it had a toilet, a basin, and a shower, but no shower curtain. And I was in there taking a shower, and a little Japanese janitor came in, walked in.

01:04:14.240 - 01:04:19.520

They don't knock. It wouldn't make any difference. You can't tell them to stay out. We don't know Japanese.

01:04:19.520 - 01:04:35.880

He walked in, turned to me in my nudity, bowed, cleaned the toilet, cleaned the basin, turned back to me, bowed, and left with my mouth open. How long did you stay there?

01:04:35.880 - 01:04:46.920

I think about two or three weeks. We got so that we weren't totally frozen by the time we got ready to leave, which was a good thing, because Korea was even colder.

01:04:46.920 - 01:04:53.440

How did you get them from Japan? We flew. And were there still about 100 of you? Oh, no.

01:04:53.440 - 01:05:06.720

They split us up all over the Far East. There were maybe six or seven of us, not many, that were headed for Korea. Were you all females?

01:05:06.720 - 01:05:18.200

Yeah. And when you got to Korea, what did you do then? I was assigned to military government. So I worked on two different military government clubs.

01:05:18.200 - 01:05:27.800

And that was kind of nice, because military government, as opposed to the rest of the Army, didn't have the class consciousness that they did in the other places.

01:05:27.800 - 01:05:37.880

So there were officers and there were enlisted men. But the officers and enlisted men could talk to each other. They could play bridge together. They could mingle in our club.

01:05:37.880 - 01:05:51.080

Where other places, the lines were more drawn. How long did you stay there? I was there about 10 minutes. Any unusual experiences while you were in Korea?

01:05:51.080 - 01:06:00.120

Oh, I had a lot of fun. All kinds of things. I learned, I guess you'd call it, pigeon Korean. I had a tutor.

01:06:00.120 - 01:06:11.640

And I was the only one that tried. And I got so that I could express myself. I could translate for the Koreans. I knew enough Korean so I could ask

01:06:11.640 - 01:06:20.440

them to say something another way if I couldn't understand what they said. But I know my accent was horrendous. In fact, my tutor kept saying it's horrendous.

01:06:20.440 - 01:06:31.340

It was terrible. So I led hikes and trips. And one time we took a Jeep and decided we'd see if we could get over the 38th parallel.

01:06:31.340 - 01:06:41.880

So we went way out in the boonies, way out in the boonies. And with a Jeep, you can go almost where there isn't a road.

01:06:41.880 - 01:06:54.760

I did get a driver's license by then. My first driver's license was a military license. And so we were driving along. Pretty soon we decided we'd better find out where we were.

01:06:54.760 - 01:07:04.800

So we stopped the Jeep and asked a farmer where the 38th parallel was. And he pointed behind us. So we decided we accomplished our mission.

01:07:04.800 - 01:07:20.120

We'd better get the heck out of there. So when you left Korea, where did you go? I went on a troop ship over to Japan. And there were maybe 10 of us, 12 of us.

01:07:20.120 - 01:07:29.240

And they had put us in quarantine quarters because they didn't have facilities for women. It was a smaller ship. It wasn't even a troop ship.

01:07:29.240 - 01:07:41.080

It was another kind of ship. And-- but they were hauling troops. And it was really rough going over. I found the difference between a big ship and a small ship.

01:07:41.080 - 01:07:47.760

It really bounced like a cork. We got to Japan. And the admiral in charge of this whole operation blew a fuse.

01:07:47.760 - 01:07:56.320

He said, what would you do if you had a-- had somebody who had to be quarantined? You've got all those women on that ship. You get them off.

01:07:56.320 - 01:08:06.360

So we got pushed ashore. And then they were checking to see when there would be a ship that could take us back to the States.

01:08:06.360 - 01:08:19.800

And there wasn't a ship scheduled for several weeks, believe it or not. So they decided they'd fly us back. And then they said, if anybody's afraid of flying,

01:08:19.800 - 01:08:32.120

you won't need to go. And I suddenly got afraid of flying. And I spent two weeks. And another Red Cross girl joined me.

01:08:32.120 - 01:08:41.720

I don't know that she knew my background. But anyway, she joined me. And we went sightseeing all over Japan, the main island. Had a great time.

01:08:41.720 - 01:08:49.560

And no ships came. No ships came. And then one day, when-- we checked in every morning.

01:08:49.560 - 01:08:59.880

We had to check in. One of my old flying buddies from Las Vegas had been transferred over. And he said to somebody, what's she doing here?

01:08:59.880 - 01:09:08.520

And they said, well, she's afraid of flying. She's waiting for a ship. And he broke off. He just about died.

01:09:08.520 - 01:09:23.960

I was on the next plane out. -When you came back to the States, then eventually you met somebody special. -Well, not for quite a while.

01:09:23.960 - 01:09:32.800

-What did you do in the meantime? -Well, that's when I worked. I worked at the propaganda factories. I worked for Safeway Library Systems,

01:09:32.800 - 01:09:44.280

where I found the kind of material that should be sent out to their managers. And then I went to work for two different advertising agencies. By then, I was down in Los Angeles.

01:09:44.280 - 01:09:55.120

And I joined the Sierra Club, which was a hiking, skiing, rock climbing, naturalist group. So they didn't just do things for the environment. They did things with the environment.

01:09:55.120 - 01:10:08.960

So I joined them, started my skiing again. And then I started to learn about rock climbing. And that's where I met my husband on a rock climb. -And what attracted you to him?

01:10:08.960 - 01:10:19.680

-Well, I think I was attracted to him when I first saw him. I think I was attracted to him immediately. I was with another guy. And he paid no attention to me that day.

01:10:19.680 - 01:10:27.560

I didn't know that he even knew I existed. When I got home, my mother said, do you have a good time? I said, yeah, I had a great time. I met the man I'm going to marry.

01:10:27.560 - 01:10:41.280

And she said, well, that's the dumbest thing you ever said. So then the next time I went on a rock climb, I went with a bunch of kids. And we threw down our sleeping bags and ground cover

01:10:41.280 - 01:10:48.880

and went to this fire where everybody was gathered to see who all was there, because we were going to climb the next day. And I had taken about three steps

01:10:48.880 - 01:11:00.560

before this guy was at my shoulder. And he was there ever since. So he was impressed, even though he didn't show it before. But he told me he thought I was with the other guy.

01:11:00.560 - 01:11:10.160

And I said, well, yeah, but so what? -Was this near Salt Lake City? -No, this was in California. -Had your parents moved to California?

01:11:10.160 - 01:11:20.280

-My father had died while I was in the Wasp. And I moved my mother to California. -When your father died while you were in the Wasp, were you able to go home?

01:11:20.280 - 01:11:27.440

-Yeah, I took a leave to go home. But I didn't get there before he died. They called me and said he was dying. By the time I got there, he was dead.

01:11:27.440 - 01:11:39.360

-At what stage were you in training? -I'd only been in Las Vegas maybe a month. -And then when you were in California, were you living, your mom?

01:11:39.360 - 01:11:54.000

-I was living with my mother, because my mother didn't have any other children. And she was kind of clingy. -After you met the special man, tell me about the romance.

01:11:54.000 - 01:12:05.440

-Well, he taught me how to be a good rock climber, because I was a really great beginner to start with. And he was impressed that I didn't panic. And I said, oh, Clem, for heaven's sakes,

01:12:05.440 - 01:12:19.600

if I was the type of person that panicked, I'd be dead by now. So we rock climbed. I took him skiing. And he'd done some cross country.

01:12:19.600 - 01:12:30.960

He hadn't skied much. And he fell all over the mountain. At this point, he was a student at UCLA, because the Army had interrupted his education.

01:12:30.960 - 01:12:41.760

And so the next Sunday, we went skiing. And he didn't fall. He could keep up with me. And it took me a long time to figure out-- he cut classes

01:12:41.760 - 01:12:54.520

half that week and took lessons. -And then how long before you got married? -A year and a half. -What did you do during that year and a half?

01:12:54.520 - 01:13:08.200

Where were you working? -I was working in the propaganda factories, the agencies. -Tell me about your wedding. -Well, it wasn't anything particularly fancy.

01:13:08.200 - 01:13:18.360

We found out that a couple of our skiing friends were going to get married the same night. We scheduled it in between semesters at UCLA. And that's what they did, too.

01:13:18.360 - 01:13:28.480

So I stayed up half the night sending out wedding invitations, because I'd been told that you're supposed to go to the first wedding you get an invitation to.

01:13:28.480 - 01:13:43.080

So I don't know how many knew that rule. I certainly didn't until then. The kind of friends we had, I don't think they knew it anyway. So we spent several Sundays going to churches

01:13:43.080 - 01:13:55.600

to see if there was a church that we could feel comfortable in, because neither of us went-- I didn't feel comfortable in his church at all. And we finally found one that we thought would work.

01:13:55.600 - 01:14:04.040

And it was a pretty Hollywood Presbyterian on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. It was a pretty church. So we had the wedding and the reception there.

01:14:04.040 - 01:14:13.560

The minister was going to have a conference with us, but he put it off, and that was fine with us. We didn't want a conference anyway. So we just saw the minister for the rehearsal.

01:14:13.560 - 01:14:24.900

And I had a very strange wedding ring. It sort of coiled and came up on one side. And he hadn't seen it. And in the wedding service, there

01:14:24.900 - 01:14:37.920

was a line that said something about, will your love be as true as this ring is round, something like that, which I thought, oh, this is going to be great.

01:14:37.920 - 01:14:50.760

So when he saw it, he never missed a beat. He just skipped over that phrase completely. And then where did you go on your honeymoon? Skiing.

01:14:50.760 - 01:15:00.960

We took a lot of friends with us. We went up to Sun Valley. Had a great time. Tell us about your children.

01:15:00.960 - 01:15:17.640

Well, we have three boys. They all-- well, one's a lawyer. One is an entrepreneur. I guess he works on different inventions.

01:15:17.640 - 01:15:30.840

And one is a computer engineer, I guess you'd say. He does various esoteric things with computer programs. Are there grandchildren? I have two.

01:15:30.840 - 01:15:43.560

That's all I'm going to get. As your children were growing up, tell me about some of the things you volunteered doing. You know what went well?

01:15:43.560 - 01:15:53.320

I was a volunteer. Well, I was very involved in the Civil Rights Program and the Human Relations Commission. I was president of the local League of Women Voters.

01:15:53.320 - 01:16:06.480

I was-- what was my title? And then the United Nations Association. I've forgotten what kind of a title. But anyway, I was the administrator.

01:16:06.480 - 01:16:17.200

So I did all the work. But we had a figurehead president who was better known in the community than I was. I got very involved in--

01:16:17.200 - 01:16:36.600

against the House Un-American Activities Committee. They were calling in some of my Hollywood friends I was working with in the advertising business. We had a lot of movie contracts, contacts and contracts.

01:16:36.600 - 01:16:51.520

And so I was very involved in that. I've answered this question by the FBI several times. But I didn't get on any lists that I'm aware of. My husband had high security clearance

01:16:51.520 - 01:17:11.240

for the type of work he was doing. And he kept his high security clearance. So I guess it was OK when we moved to Virginia in 1965, right after Norfolk had been ordered to open their schools.

01:17:11.240 - 01:17:26.040

They closed them because they were ordered to integrate them. And a friend and I opened a preschool, our first preschool in the state, to be integrated. We were located in a black Masonic lodge that

01:17:26.040 - 01:17:37.640

was next to a trailer court that a lot of the sailors, white sailors, lived in with their families because they couldn't afford anything better. So we got those kids.

01:17:37.640 - 01:17:48.800

And we got the kids in the rural farm areas into our preschool. We got a lot of publicity. We got death threats.

01:17:48.800 - 01:17:57.720

It was fun. But that didn't deter you. Oh, I thought at the time-- and I still think in the time-- it was just harassment.

01:17:57.720 - 01:18:11.920

When your children were in school, what activities at school were you involved with? Not much. They were pretty independent.

01:18:11.920 - 01:18:23.480

They did their thing, and Clem did his, and I did mine. I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but the House Un-American Activities-- don't leave that yet.

01:18:23.480 - 01:18:33.840

I want to know some more about that. I'd love to know. Well, that was the time in the McCarthy era. And it got to be like a fever.

01:18:33.840 - 01:18:46.440

Everybody was afraid that-- and there were communists in the movie industry, sure. And there were a lot of people that were misled as to what they thought the communists stood for and to do.

01:18:46.440 - 01:19:01.280

Communism is one thing, and the kind of dictatorship-- I think of communism as socialism. And even that doesn't work, because if you-- each to his own ability and get paid what he needs,

01:19:01.280 - 01:19:09.880

nobody's going to have enough incentive to work to their own ability if they're not going to get paid any more than this slacker over here that sweeps floors.

01:19:09.880 - 01:19:20.760

So it doesn't work. But it was an idealism. And a lot of those people were really idealists. And for a while, they got really persecuted.

01:19:20.760 - 01:19:32.080

And a lot of their friends, who didn't agree with them at all, got persecuted. And it just got to be a real go-round. And everybody was suspicious of everybody.

01:19:32.080 - 01:19:42.840

And it was a real fever. That's the only way I can describe it. And it was terrible. And then finally, some organizations--

01:19:42.840 - 01:19:50.520

and I think it was Time magazine, some of them started to look at it and really take a stand and say, what are we doing? What is this?

01:19:50.520 - 01:19:59.600

This list that supposedly has all these terrible things and all these people on it. And a lot of them have been cleared. And a lot of them we've never even heard of.

01:19:59.600 - 01:20:10.320

And so it sort of died of its own weight. But for a while, it put a lot of anguish on a lot of people. -Were you ever scared? -I was mad.

01:20:10.320 - 01:20:18.280

No, I wasn't scared. I had never been to a communist meeting. I didn't believe in them at all. I thought this was unworkable.

01:20:18.280 - 01:20:29.760

I would argue with some of my friends. And sometimes we had a couple of friends that are very persuasive. And so we always sent somebody with them

01:20:29.760 - 01:20:42.800

so we could talk the other way. But I just thought the whole thing was terrible, the way they were putting people through. And so I used to say, why don't you just go and say

01:20:42.800 - 01:20:52.380

you don't know anything about it? None of these people that you know are communists. And they'd say, but, but, but, if they show that one of them is, then I've perjured myself

01:20:52.380 - 01:21:04.920

and I can go to jail. So a lot of them just refused to appear and took the fifth when they hadn't got anything to take the fifth for. -Were you ever asked to come to Washington to--

01:21:04.920 - 01:21:09.720

-Get change tape. -Oh. Get change tape. -I got change tape.

01:21:09.720 - 01:21:19.440

-I think these stories are very interesting. -Well, we've lived a long time. [LAUGHTER] -No, no, no.

01:21:19.440 - 01:21:32.680

-No, but I think it takes a certain amount of courage to swim upstream. -But I had loads of friends who were not part of this culture. So I wasn't alone at all.

01:21:32.680 - 01:21:41.200

But boy, this was a different culture that I walked into. And I said, I'm getting out of this culture. -OK. How did you feel when that was all over with?

01:21:41.200 - 01:21:46.640

-What, the trip? -The McCarthy, the whole thing. -Oh, indeed. I thought, it's about time.

01:21:46.640 - 01:21:55.120

Yeah. And of course, some people have wounds that went on for a long time. But about that time, I also got out of the ad agency business.

01:21:55.120 - 01:22:01.720

So I lost contact with them. -OK. I'm sorry. -I didn't mean to--

01:22:01.720 - 01:22:09.160

-That's OK. What other kind of controversial-- [LAUGHTER] -Did you get into?

01:22:09.160 - 01:22:22.120

-Well, a lot of stuff in the civil rights. But things have been calmer these days. I just was a welfare advocate. So I advocated and lobbied for a lot of programs

01:22:22.120 - 01:22:29.640

that would help the poor. -I want to ask you on the school that you helped start in Norfolk. Did that continue?

01:22:29.640 - 01:22:36.080

-Yeah. We eventually got under the Head Start program. But we started it before. There was a Head Start program.

01:22:36.080 - 01:22:44.880

But eventually, yeah, it was taken over by-- well, it was taken over by the Head Start program. We got the funding. But we stayed as directors for a while.

01:22:44.880 - 01:22:57.040

And then we got in a squabble with Head Start. And I went to Washington. And I argued about the way they were doing it. And so then we started another school

01:22:57.040 - 01:23:06.520

and gave the Head Start run that school. And it was a good school. And they did the Head Start run that school the way they wanted to.

01:23:06.520 - 01:23:14.800

-Of all those children, have you kept up with any of them? -No. I did. For about the first 10 years, we were here.

01:23:14.800 - 01:23:27.600

But that was 20 years ago. -What are you involved with now? -Not much. I still do different special projects

01:23:27.600 - 01:23:42.840

for the League of Women Voters. Active in voter education, I do speeches on the issues-- not the candidates, but the issues that come up. -What issues are important to you?

01:23:42.840 - 01:23:55.640

-Oh, they're local. Primary-- well, no, I wouldn't say that. I have a lot of local issues. But in the longer ones, my big issue is population control.

01:23:55.640 - 01:24:08.900

I've been in many countries where life is so cheap, starting with when I was over in Korea. And so I feel very strongly that we have to control the population.

01:24:08.900 - 01:24:26.000

We can't keep multiplying. So I do what I can to raise awareness on the situations overseas. And I get mad because the government cuts down any funding

01:24:26.000 - 01:24:42.800

for any kind of Planned Parenthood, for any program that the United Nations tries to put forth. The right to life people are so strong politically that they get these programs cut down or killed

01:24:42.800 - 01:24:55.240

as much as possible. They try to get people to be able to come here on a hardship visa from China, because China only lets you have one child.

01:24:55.240 - 01:25:08.000

If you ever went to China and you saw the enormous problems they have with the population they have, and to let people just randomly produce eight or 10 kids, it's madness.

01:25:08.000 - 01:25:20.880

But you can't convince people. Somehow they think, somehow, that this world's going to expand. And with technology, we can have double, triple, quadruple

01:25:20.880 - 01:25:33.040

the population we have now. And you can't convince them otherwise. So I guess you'd say that's my big national, international. And I do work on it.

01:25:33.040 - 01:25:41.600

I do work on local-- What do you specifically do for them? I do work on abortions. I do work--

01:25:41.600 - 01:25:51.680

Are you on a board? I work-- I'm a major contributor to some of the abortion programs. And I work on some of them as a volunteer.

01:25:51.680 - 01:26:09.920

I lobby for all kinds of poverty programs. When I was the crisis counselor at the Action Center, I also was a welfare advocate. And I did a lot of lobbying for what

01:26:09.920 - 01:26:28.480

I thought were the worst issues that needed to be addressed, or the more doable ones to help the poor. It's a terrific problem, because so many of them are so poorly prepared.

01:26:28.480 - 01:26:41.320

And they've had such lousy educational opportunities. They move every second or third month. So the kids never get grounded in any school. The teachers can't even start to know them

01:26:41.320 - 01:26:55.680

before they're evicted and they're stuck someplace else. And so by the time they're about 12, they drop out. And they can't even read. Whose fault do you think that is?

01:26:55.680 - 01:27:13.920

Oh, I think it's everybody's fault and nobody's fault. It's something that happened as our job requirements became more demanding. And so there aren't the peon jobs anymore.

01:27:13.920 - 01:27:22.680

It used to be that everybody with a semi-strong back could have a job. And there are fewer and fewer of them. There's still some.

01:27:22.680 - 01:27:38.720

But to be a truck driver, you've got to know an awful lot of stuff. And to be able to read a lot of the-- whatever you would call it-- the mechanic requirements

01:27:38.720 - 01:27:49.480

and the different requirements so that you can't even drive a truck these days. They've become so thoroughly mechanized and computerized. You've got to have a good background

01:27:49.480 - 01:27:58.880

to be a truck driver. Where for a long time, all you had to do is go down and sign up and get a chauffeur's license. And they asked you one or two extra questions

01:27:58.880 - 01:28:12.320

and that was it. We've got to find a way to educate what we consider the uneducable, which really aren't. It's just that all the circumstances have compelled

01:28:12.320 - 01:28:22.760

up. And I know a lot of teachers who wring their hands a bit. But they don't get the kids for long enough, early enough, to make a difference.

01:28:22.760 - 01:28:35.840

Rosanna, looking back at your life, all the things that you've been involved with, all the things that you have done, what is the one thing you're most proud of?

01:28:35.840 - 01:28:49.720

Oh, I don't know. I've had a lot of fun doing all of them. When we had that school in Virginia, those kids were adorable.

01:28:49.720 - 01:28:58.000

They were more fun. And that was a whole different culture. You had to get used to that culture, too. And that was fun.

01:29:01.040 - 01:29:16.200

What I've done, some of the things I've done at the Action Center were rewarding. I don't have one major thing. If you notice, I'm not putting flying in it.

01:29:16.200 - 01:29:26.680

Flying was a ball. I had a great time. I didn't feel like I was moving forward and making this world a better place.

01:29:26.680 - 01:29:38.600

I was just having a good time. What particular thing at the Action Center do you feel is most important that you have achieved? Well, not big things, but working hard

01:29:38.600 - 01:29:44.860

with some families, we got them. And the same with our program in Virginia. We didn't just work with the kids. We worked with the parents.

01:29:44.860 - 01:30:05.680

And we got some of them in much better living circumstances by the time we finished working with them than when they began. So yeah, we just sort of pulled them out of the deep ditch and got them into a much smaller ditch, one

01:30:05.680 - 01:30:18.360

that will be easier to keep climbing out of, I guess you'd say. What do you feel your legacy will be? I don't have a legacy.

01:30:18.360 - 01:30:30.000

Everybody will have something. Hopefully that we've touched people and made them feel better about themselves. But as far as the legacy goes, uh-uh.

01:30:30.000 - 01:30:42.720

They're my kids. They're fun. What do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be? Well, I hope that the WASP will help open some more doors

01:30:42.720 - 01:30:56.160

so there won't be sex discrimination in jobs. But I think that the Civil Rights Act that included the chapter that said you couldn't discriminate against women was the really big push.

01:30:56.160 - 01:31:11.800

And then we just sort of added on to it as examples. What is your personal opinion of Jacqueline Cochran and the WASP program? Well, I knew Jacqueline.

01:31:11.800 - 01:31:24.880

A lot of people did. She was a great publicist. She organized well. She was an egoist.

01:31:24.880 - 01:31:40.960

I don't know who wouldn't be an egoist. If you want to get something done, you have to be pushy and you have to be an egoist. She was very disturbed at the end when we were deactivated.

01:31:40.960 - 01:31:52.160

There were a lot of reasons why. But the one that got her-- at least what she told me-- the one that got her the most upset were the women that resigned to get married.

01:31:52.160 - 01:32:06.480

And I felt very strongly that if you signed up for this program, you should put-- I don't care whether you got married, but you shouldn't let it interfere with the program. So you shouldn't resign because you got married.

01:32:06.480 - 01:32:18.520

Now, at our Las Vegas base where I was there, there were three women that got married. And our dear CO transferred all three of them out. We couldn't get transferred.

01:32:18.520 - 01:32:25.400

He transferred them out so they wouldn't be at the same base as their husband. They either transferred them out or they transferred the men out. So they separated them.

01:32:25.400 - 01:32:33.320

So they resigned. I think at that point I might have been mad enough to resign too because they didn't have to do that. But they did.

01:32:33.320 - 01:32:46.680

But anyway, there was a large number of WAS that resigned, according to Jackie, simply because to be with their husbands or to have babies, to be with their husbands and have babies.

01:32:46.680 - 01:32:57.520

Some of them, one of the girls in our class thought that the war was going to go on for several years and she might never see her husband again. So she deliberately got pregnant.

01:32:57.520 - 01:33:04.040

But then she couldn't fly. Well, she just took a leave. She thought she could come back after she had the baby. But by then, we were deactivated.

01:33:04.040 - 01:33:21.160

So I think that she did a good job. Nancy Harkness Love started the other program, the fairing program. And I gather that there was a lot of conflict

01:33:21.160 - 01:33:32.480

between those two from some of the books I've read by other WAS. And I never knew Nancy, so I don't have any opinion about her one way or the other.

01:33:32.480 - 01:33:54.560

But I know that there was some competition there. What would you like to say to your grandchildren or children in the future that might encourage them to make this world a better place?

01:33:54.560 - 01:34:04.680

Do the best you can and keep working at it. Be considerate. Put yourself in other people's shoes from time to time so that you can see better how they feel.

01:34:04.680 - 01:34:13.040

And it will help how you can act towards them. You've been great. I like that. Thank you very much.

01:34:13.040 - 01:34:18.960

You're welcome. Now we'll give you an opportunity to say anything else. Are we off?

01:34:18.960 - 01:34:23.640

No. Anything that-- [LAUGHTER] Is there anything that--

01:34:23.640 - 01:34:33.600

I was going to tell you something else, but not on camera. Is there anything that I've missed that you would like to talk about? I don't think so.

01:34:38.000 - 01:34:55.040

I can't think of anything. We always think of things when we leave, so we always-- we will, and I have turned off for a second here. What you think the qualities are that you possess

01:34:55.040 - 01:35:08.760

that make you who you are? Well, for one thing, school was easy. I think that helps. Some people have to work hard at school,

01:35:08.760 - 01:35:23.480

and so then success comes hard, and maybe they have some determination, maybe they get discouraged. And school was always easy for me. How did you feel about reading?

01:35:23.480 - 01:35:33.040

It was a snap. Is it something you did a lot of? Yeah, I used to check out a whole armful of books from the library.

01:35:33.040 - 01:35:49.040

My mother used to complain that I was a bookworm, but I wasn't. I did a lot of other things, too. My mother was an immigrant child, and she lived in a hollow shack with a dirt floor,

01:35:49.040 - 01:36:00.920

and one set of clothes. And some days it was so cold that the kids couldn't get out of bed except to eat, because they couldn't heat the place enough.

01:36:00.920 - 01:36:17.560

She had two years of formal schooling, is all. And the rest of it, she was self-taught. And she was an intelligent woman. She had some superstitions, a fair number of superstitions,

01:36:17.560 - 01:36:35.040

that for a while, when I was a child, I adopted, and then I shed them one by one by one by one. But she had a very hard childhood. It was a fairly large family.

01:36:35.040 - 01:36:49.080

They came over because they were converted to the Mormon church. Men met them at Ellis Island, representing the church, that he was going to be as helpful as possible. They had been a middle class German family.

01:36:49.080 - 01:37:01.680

They had a nice home. They had servants. My mother's oldest sister went to a private school. Then they sold the house.

01:37:01.680 - 01:37:09.480

The family disowned them when they joined the Mormon church. They sold the house. They sold all their assets. They put it in money.

01:37:09.480 - 01:37:19.440

They came to the States. This man that met them said, I'll take your money and get it changed and get your tickets for you. He took their money and came back.

01:37:19.440 - 01:37:29.160

They still-- they were completely stupid, trusting, but also stupid. They didn't even know what the rate of exchange was. They didn't know how the money worked in this country.

01:37:29.160 - 01:37:42.120

They had planned that they would take a year to learn the language, and then the father would go to work, because they had ample money to do this. And he came back and gave them the money and tickets

01:37:42.120 - 01:37:51.600

to Idaho, when they thought they were going to Salt Lake. And said, the church wants you to go to Idaho, to this small town in Idaho. And it took them two or three days

01:37:51.600 - 01:38:09.560

before they realized they didn't have hardly any money. So they arrived practically total paupers. And in this little town, people didn't have a lot of resources. They'd never had any experience farming.

01:38:09.560 - 01:38:27.440

So they lived in this little shack and did the best they could, which wasn't very much. And the 10-year-old girl who'd had all this different life and could really remember it-- my mother was just a baby--

01:38:27.440 - 01:38:38.320

was very bitter, very, very bitter. Because it was a total reversal for her. People looked down on them. They were just scum.

01:38:38.320 - 01:38:55.760

How did they pull themselves up out of that? Well, they'd slowly and not all that well. My mother went to work doing housework when she was 14 and just slowly started working up.

01:38:55.760 - 01:39:07.440

She taught herself. The one thing they did, they wouldn't let the kids speak German. Because they said, we'll never learn English

01:39:07.440 - 01:39:15.560

if you speak German. So they had to speak English. So my mother has no accent. Her older sister still has-- well, she's dead.

01:39:15.560 - 01:39:30.840

Up to the time she died, still had a thick German accent, the 10-year-old. It was 10 when they left Germany. The father, who was a German authoritarian type,

01:39:30.840 - 01:39:43.600

did everything he could for the two boys and practically nothing for the girls. So one of the boys was killed in an accident. The other boy was killed in a jewelry store robbery.

01:39:43.600 - 01:39:58.120

And he wasn't on the jewelry store side. The jeweler had his gun and he killed him. But eventually, your mother then moved to Salt Lake? The family moved to Salt Lake, I guess,

01:39:58.120 - 01:40:11.640

after about 10 years, 12 years. They finally got themselves down to Salt Lake and got in somewhat better living conditions. By then, my mother had a sister that was a year older.

01:40:11.640 - 01:40:31.040

And the oldest boy was maybe five years older than that. They all got jobs. And so they were living somewhat better then. But anyway, so a nice home was a real goal for my mother.

01:40:31.040 - 01:40:42.960

And more so than her sister, who was just a year older, although she had a reasonably nice home. But the family kept criticizing her because we did have a nice home.

01:40:42.960 - 01:40:54.320

My father was a college graduate in engineering, had a good job. But her husband had a good job too. And she had a reasonable home.

01:40:54.320 - 01:41:02.800

But we went up in the Ritzy district. Can I ask you what your favorite books were when you-- to read? What kind of books?

01:41:02.800 - 01:41:11.200

Oh, hmm. You mean when I was in college? When you just-- well, I read a lot of biographies and adventure stories.

01:41:11.200 - 01:41:24.080

I've read practically every climbing story that's been written. A lot of-- I majored in English literature the first time around.

01:41:24.080 - 01:41:31.440

Do you have a favorite book? Uh-uh. No, I like The Perfect Storm. At the moment, I'm rereading it.

01:41:31.440 - 01:41:45.800

I think that's a neat book for several reasons, because my husband was a research meteorologist. And so that's interesting, because that was a very unusual storm.

01:41:45.800 - 01:41:55.240

And so it's interesting, because I had a side interest in meteorology. Had not connected to flying, but it connected to his research all the time.

01:41:55.240 - 01:42:06.680

He did hurricane research. He used to fly into hurricanes. He worked for the Navy weather research. And they had projects outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

01:42:06.680 - 01:42:13.240

And they flew into the hurricanes and took all kinds of measurements. They flew at three different altitudes. The Navy had one altitude.

01:42:13.240 - 01:42:22.880

The Air Force had one altitude. And I don't know whether-- the National Weather Service had another altitude. But these were really well-equipped planes.

01:42:22.880 - 01:42:36.040

And they had all kinds of instrumentation in it. So they took all kinds of data. He also flew into thunderstorms to find out all about what kind of-- and I turned down the job of being the pilot.

01:42:36.040 - 01:42:48.400

He said, one of us in those is enough. We've got three kids. So what happened to the Great American Null? I found I don't like to be alone.

01:42:48.400 - 01:43:03.080

And if you're a writer, you have to work alone. I found I work much better doing things with people. So I compromised and went into advertising and did some writing in the ad agency business.

01:43:03.080 - 01:43:17.240

And then after that, I just started going into-- my graduate work was in psychology. So then I drifted into people problems. Have you ever written anything that's been published?

01:43:17.240 - 01:43:24.960

Uh-uh. I haven't written anything. But you said you lobbied. What do you mean when you say you lobbied?

01:43:24.960 - 01:43:37.760

Oh, I was a lobbyist for the Lincoln Women Voters for two years on education programs down at the legislature here in Colorado. I was a lobbyist in Virginia on different problems that

01:43:37.760 - 01:43:44.640

was near and dear to the Lincoln Women Voters in California. I was a lobbyist. What does that mean? What do you do in your life?

01:43:44.640 - 01:43:53.680

You go down to the-- you study up on whatever laws they're proposing. And you go down to the legislature. And you corner the different legislators.

01:43:53.680 - 01:44:03.920

And you explain to them what's good and what isn't good about the bill that they're studying, and what could be done and what can't be done. And then you testify before committees when they

01:44:03.920 - 01:44:11.200

hold a hearing on the bill. Have you done that? Oh, yeah. But not lately.

01:44:11.200 - 01:44:24.000

When I was working at the Action Center, it's a nonprofit, what do they call it, 409C3, or I've forgotten, 401C3, whatever. Anyway, one of the restrictions is on it

01:44:24.000 - 01:44:37.100

is that you can't take political action. So I went down and testified. But I couldn't lobby. And I could only testify very, this will help,

01:44:37.100 - 01:44:44.180

this won't help from my experience, and this, and this is what-- but you couldn't lobby. So I stopped lobbying when I went

01:44:44.180 - 01:44:57.040

to work at the Action Center. I do a little now. But I couldn't do a lot when Clem had his stroke, because that was 10 years.

01:44:57.040 - 01:45:04.680

He couldn't read. He couldn't read his own work. He couldn't talk. He could say maybe three or four words at a time.

01:45:04.680 - 01:45:14.080

Sometimes they weren't the right words. But he loved to travel. And that was the one thing that kept him going. So we went all over the world.

01:45:14.080 - 01:45:21.540

I mean, I could see these different group leaders moan when they saw us coming. But I took care of him. And we didn't hold anybody up.

01:45:21.540 - 01:45:32.740

Sometimes when we were on tours, the tour people were here. I was here. And Clem was here, because he couldn't walk that fast. And so I had to keep track of where they were going

01:45:32.740 - 01:45:42.860

and make sure that I didn't lose him in the background. And sometimes we got lost. But most of the time, we managed pretty well. What's your favorite place in the world to travel to?

01:45:42.860 - 01:45:54.400

I like a lot of places. So I don't know that I could name one place. I really like, I guess, the places that are further from our culture.

01:45:54.400 - 01:46:06.280

So I like Kenya. I like Morocco. I like South Africa, which I wouldn't go to until they got their act together.

01:46:06.280 - 01:46:23.180

When they had-- until they got rid of their discrimination, I wouldn't put any money there. So we never went there. Japan, China, Malaysia.

01:46:23.180 - 01:46:31.140

All of the places that have a very different culture intrigue me. I mean, I like Europe. We've been to Europe.

01:46:31.140 - 01:46:45.180

We went to Europe a lot. I'm going three weeks again. That's why I have to leave the convention at Sweetwater, because I'm flying to Bulgaria.

01:46:45.180 - 01:46:54.180

Are you going in a tour group? Yeah. Ever since Clem had his stroke, we've gone with tour groups, because I needed a backup if something happened to me

01:46:54.180 - 01:47:04.220

or something happened to him. Before that, we went on our own. We got in all kinds of wild experiences, both in communist countries and in other countries.

01:47:04.220 - 01:47:12.800

We had a great time. Does it not depress you to go to those countries where it is so poor and-- Well--

01:47:12.800 - 01:47:23.980

--that you can't help everybody? Well, see, I started it when I was 23. When I was in Korea, I've seen it forever. Yeah.

01:47:23.980 - 01:47:35.180

It got-- I don't know if it depresses me as much as it angers me. And you feel kind of-- you feel that you can't make the kind of impact you want to make.

01:47:35.180 - 01:47:47.780

And I think back, and I think I could have done a lot of things differently. Particularly in Korea, I could have done a lot more than I did. If you had one wish, what would you wish for?

01:47:47.780 - 01:48:04.580

That we can solve the population problem. I think it's the root of everything else. OK. And you thought we were through.

01:48:04.580 - 01:48:07.780

Yeah. Thought what? She thought we were through. We weren't through.

01:48:07.780 - 01:48:13.180

Yeah. Well, I just-- there are some interesting things that you've done, and I just wanted to know a little bit more about.

01:48:13.180 - 01:48:22.140

Mm-hmm. Well, like I said-- Even working for the Red Cross. I mean, that must have been really interesting.

01:48:22.140 - 01:48:26.140

Yeah. And I said, in hindsight, I think I should have done a lot more. I mean, we didn't--

01:48:26.140 - 01:48:35.140

What would you have done differently in Korea? Well, I would have set up an orphanage. I would have gotten better communication with places back in-- my mother was afraid I was

01:48:35.140 - 01:48:44.440

going to get court-martialed all over again because of the stinging criticisms I wrote about some of the things that was going on over there. But I didn't write them to the government.

01:48:44.440 - 01:48:56.660

I didn't complain about some things. They talk about the death march that we had in the Philippines. And I actually went to some of the trials for that death march in Bataan Peninsula.

01:48:56.660 - 01:49:09.180

But we had our own death march in Korea. The Japanese had taken over Korea and taken over part of-- I hope that's off. No, this is on.

01:49:09.180 - 01:49:11.660

Oh, phew. [LAUGHTER] No, no. I want it.

01:49:11.660 - 01:49:21.860

That's why I was asking these last-- Then once the Japanese lost the war, everybody turned on these expatriates, I guess you'd call them, the people that

01:49:21.860 - 01:49:29.420

were living in Korea and were living in the lower part of Manchuria. And they just herded them out. And they herded them.

01:49:29.420 - 01:49:37.900

They walked all this way down to Pusan, which is at the bottom of Korea. And then they put them in, like, cattle boats in the hold of the boats.

01:49:37.900 - 01:49:52.980

But a lot of people didn't get there. And when they came through where we were in Seoul, they didn't look human. Their eyes were-- and they were skin and bones.

01:49:52.980 - 01:50:02.520

And they put them in fields and de-loused them, because they had so much lice on them. And I think they gave them a couple of shots, because they were afraid they were

01:50:02.520 - 01:50:15.240

going to carry a lot of disease. But they marched the whole way with not adequate food. People stood on the sidelines and spat on them, because they were so mad at the Japanese.

01:50:15.240 - 01:50:29.320

And the Japanese had done some horrible things to them. Maybe some of these people had, and maybe some of them hadn't. But they were all treated alike. And they were-- and I didn't do anything.

01:50:29.320 - 01:50:38.220

I think that I would have tried to do something now. I mean, if I could have gone back there. I'm not sure what I would have done, but I would have explored to see if there was something

01:50:38.220 - 01:50:50.820

that I could do to help those people, if it isn't any more than smuggling food into them. They were behind barbed wire while they were doing these treatments.

01:50:50.820 - 01:51:00.940

Nobody, as far as I know, nobody wrote up about this at all. Was the Korean government doing it, South Korean government? Well, it wasn't the South Korean government. It was the military government of the United States

01:51:00.940 - 01:51:13.260

took over from when we had-- we were trying to develop democracy there. We were trying to develop a government. And it was getting there, but it wasn't there.

01:51:13.260 - 01:51:26.700

And the north part of Korea was under the Russian government. And we had a-- when I went over there, they were working somewhat together. I went to parties where there were both Russians

01:51:26.700 - 01:51:33.500

and Americans, both in this government they were trying to work out. We knew they weren't going to do it. We knew they were going to split.

01:51:33.500 - 01:51:52.380

But they started out trying to work together for this country. But they had so many problems that this was not one of their priorities at all, to take care of these people. And everybody, both the North and South Koreans,

01:51:52.380 - 01:52:05.140

just hated them. Wow. OK, that's something I didn't know was going on. Nancy was in Korea.