>> Good morning. Today is Thursday, June 8, 2017.
We are at the Sturgis Library
at Kennesaw State University,
and my name is Adina Langer.
First of all, Mrs. Gather,
do you agree to this interview?
>> Sure.
>> Good.
>> Whatever you can get out of me.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Could you please start by stating your full name?
>> Earline Wood Gather.
>> And what's your birthday?
>> October 5th, 1925.
>> And where were you born?
>> In Fulton, Mississippi.
>> And what were your parents' names?
>> My mother's name was Alice Gurley Wood,
and my father's name was Lester Colin Wood.
>> And did you have a big family?
>> No, I had two brothers,
one older and one younger.
>> And can you tell me a little bit about your childhood?
What was the late growing up in Fulton, Mississippi?
>> We lived on a farm and it was
just a nice, happy home.
[LAUGHTER]
>> What kind of a farm,
what did you grow?
>> We grew cotton and corn.
My father did do logging work too.
>> So let's see. So then if you were born in 1925,
then the Great Depression began.
>> I remember it quite well.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And so what are your memories
of how that affected your life?
>> We did not have electricity.
We did not have a refrigerator, so to speak.
So when we had meat,
it had to be cured meat or they had to kill,
like a beef,
calf and share it with
all the neighbors because we
couldn't take care of the meat,
unless my mother can a little.
>> And that was true of everybody.
>> Yeah. We were poor, but we didn't know it.
Everybody else was, too.
>> And was there this sense,
you mentioned sharing meat
of people helping each other out.
>> Oh, yes. We didn't
have close neighbors like we do now,
but close enough, everybody knew everybody.
It was small place.
>> And where did you attend high school?
>> Fulton, Itawamba County High School.
>> Was it a big high school?
>> Oh, yes. There was
one other high school in the county.
>> And did your brothers go there too?
>> My older brother did.
My younger brother.
My folks moved to Arkansas when I think I was
13 and my older brother
and I were in high school at the time,
so we stayed with grandparents.
>> And you were in
high school when World War II started, right?
>> Oh, yes. What are
your memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?
>> They attacked December 6,
and it was a Sunday.
And after we came home from church,
I had a friend and we sat outside.
It was Sunday afternoon in December,
but a nice day like today.
And we sat there and we only had
a battery radio we could hear.
And my grandfather, let us take it
outside, and we sat outside in the afternoon
on December 6 to hear all that was happening in Hawaii.
I remember it very well.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Were you surprised?
>> Oh, yeah. Everybody was, even at church.
It had just happened during
the night in our area of the country in Hawaii.
It was during the morning hours, I think.
Everybody was so surprised, so upset.
Then on Monday morning,
I got up went high school and we had to gather in
the study hall for President Roosevelt to declare war.
And I don't remember all he said,
but I do remember his voice saying,
and this day will go down in infamy.
>> Was I in the shot for what she just said?
>> It was just in the middle of it.
You could see there.
>> Sorry.
>> That's fine with me.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So you're describing
listening to President Roosevelt's speech.
Did you gather around your radio?
How did you hear it?
>> His speech, he was on the front of the study hall.
They had him elevated so we could see.
I don't know how they made his picture
then because we certainly didn't have television.
But we heard it, I know.
And when we would see things about the war,
we had to go to the movies on
the weekend and they always had newsreels.
Now they have other things,
but we had to see newsreels.
That was our way of keeping up that and life magazine.
Once in a while, there'd be something in the newspaper,
but we had very little except that battery radio.
[LAUGHTER]
And we would hear Walter Winchell.
I remember him every night going off saying,
good night Mrs. Calabash and
all the ships at sea.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And among your family and your friends,
was there a sense that everybody needed to
chip in and start to do something for the war effort?
>> Yes. And we were rationed with just about everything,
food, gas, tires, everything was rationed.
>> And did that affect you
differently than it had
living through the Depression before?
>> Not a lot because we were not used to a lot.
And my parents had their own.
My mother even made our cheese.
So we were not restricted with food.
>> Now, at this time,
you had already met your husband, right?
>> Oh, yes.
>> Can you tell me about how you met
him and what was he like?
>> He's six years older
and he was already out of high school, of course.
And I was dating his younger brother
[LAUGHTER] and he came home one weekend from work.
My husband had a car then,
but he did not have it off with him.
So the younger brother used to.
And my husband came home
one weekend and I had to date with the brother.
And instead of going with the brother,
I went to the movie with both of them.
[LAUGHTER]
And after that,
I started dating Ralph, the older brother.
[LAUGHTER]
And that's how we got along.
>> So what's his full name?
>> Ralph Norman Gaither.
>> And how did the younger brother feel about that?
>> Well, that we put him out one night at the,
they played not poker,
but some shooting game they were playing.
And we put him out there and he took
my hand and kissed it and said good night,
and I never dyed him again.
That was the end of that.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Can you tell me about your wedding to your husband?
>> Oh, that was a long story.
We had planned to be
married couple of weeks before we got
married because I had an uncle in Texas and he died.
And then there was no planes to transport people.
It was only through a train that they could
get his body from Texas back to Mississippi.
So we had to wait because
the soldiers were taking up train space.
And my mother and father had to wait in Arkansas
until they got his body
back to Mississippi so
they could come over for the funeral.
And while they were there,
that's when we married.
[LAUGHTER]
It was during the Christmas holidays.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Did you have just all your family there?
>> Yeah. It had some fun and not so fun.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And when did you graduate from high school?
>> I did not graduate in class
because then you could either
go to work in
a war effort because they
were begging for people to work.
And most of the boys were when Roosevelt declared war,
a lot of the boys in
my high school volunteered right then.
They couldn't wait to go.
And so you could take a test and pass
it or you could stay
there and graduate in the spring with the rest of them.
>> So to graduate, you took a test?
>> I took a test.
>> And then got married right after that.
>> In December.
>> And did your husband go into the military?
>> No. He was turned down three times
because he had a heart murmur and high blood pressure.
And they refused him three times.
He did have a twin brother that went. He had to go.
>> And had they ever been separated?
>> [OVERLAPPING] Never been separated
not even a night before. No.
>> And what about your brothers and
your husband's brother, his younger brother?
>> His younger brother.
I guess he must have been about 21 or 22
when they finally took him in.
And he was a Marine and they wanted him
to go to officers training
school and he did not want to leave his outfit.
He wanted to stay with his buddies and did.
And he came home one weekend while we were in
Michigan, and Ralph and I
took him to Memphis he and his buddy
to catch the train to go back to,
they were in California ready to ship out.
And when he said goodbye to me,
he gave me a hug and
a kiss about like my husband would have.
[LAUGHTER]
And he said bye, Erline, someday, I'll see you again.
And I think he knew all the time he'd not be back.
He went through the battle of Guam,
but he did not die from a shot.
He got an infected hand during the battle,
and he had a buddy that came when
his mother had his body returned
and the buddy told us that he died from
an infected hand that they had nothing then to,
no penicillin, no antibiotics.
So he died from the infected hand.
And my brother was,
he was about the same age,
but I think he was in the battle of
Okinawa and he was later
coming home after the war than a lot of the boys were.
Why? I don't know.
He was in the signal corps and they
did wiring and putting up poles and things.
So maybe he had to stay and work more.
I don't know. But he was later coming home.
>> And what was Ralph's younger brother's name?
>> My younger brother? The other.
>> I'm just interested in everybody's names.
But the one who passed away, the one who was killed.
>> His name was Stanley Earl Gaither.
>> And what about Ralph's twin brother?
What did he do during the war?
>> He was in an engineering group,
and he was in New Guinea and Australia.
And when they took him,
he was gone three years,
three months, and eight days
that he did not get a furlough or anything.
And he had malaria real bad when he came
home because he had mosquitoes so bad in New Guinea.
And they sent him direct to a hospital in North Carolina,
whatever hospital is there.
And he was there for quite a while.
And when he died, he still was having trouble with
malaria and he was 92 when he died.
[NOISE]
>> So what did
your husband and you do
in Mississippi right after the war started?
>> After it started? We left.
Within two weeks, we were gone.
>> And how did you end up in Michigan?
>> I asked my husband that the other night and he says,
I think we saw advertisements in the paper
where they were asking for help.
And he and another friend,
they went ahead of me and I left about two weeks later,
rode the bus all the way to Michigan.
>> And where were you headed?
>> Where?
>> Which company or
which place were you specifically going to?
>> This was Ford Motor Company had turned
their big automobile factory into
Willow Run and they were hiring anybody to come along.
But when I went,
I had a friend and she had worked as a mail carrier
in Mississippi and she wanted to work at the post office.
So she had me go with her to the post office.
And when I got there, they asked me
to put in an application.
And when it was over,
they wanted me to work, not her.
[LAUGHTER] And I did not want to work in the post office.
I wanted to work with Ralph in the plant and did.
>> What was that trip like to get out there on the bus?
>> Terrible. Because soldiers are everywhere,
you had to really push to get
a seat even on a bus at that time.
And my trip on
the train later was a story too. [LAUGHTER]
>> We've got time,
you want to tell that story?
>> Yeah, I don't know what I was doing.
We would work maybe 4-6 months,
and then we would take a little trip home.
But gas was rationed
and my father was a farmer in Arkansas at
that time and he would give us
his extra gas stamps because he
got extra for having farm equipment.
And Ralph would buy a little used car,
you couldn't buy a new car then.
So Ralph would buy
a little used car in Michigan and we would drive it
home and then he would catch the bus and
go back and later I would go back.
So this one time,
I had to go over to Red Bay,
Alabama and catch the train.
When I caught the train,
it had been converted from a coal car.
I had to sit in a converted coal car to ride the train.
So when I got to Chicago,
I was as black as the coal car.
[LAUGHTER]
I did not know if
they'd let me ride it onto Michigan,
but they did.
[LAUGHTER]
>> That's a great story. So where
did you live when you were working at Willow Run?
>> When we first got there,
it was hard to find a place, extra hard.
And we had to live with this older man and
woman and they had converted one room.
It might have been 10 feet
across maybe and maybe 20 down.
So at the end of that room,
we had a bed and
a little chest of drawer for our clothes.
At the other end,
they had converted a little stove
for us and a little table.
We had no bathroom.
We had to use their bathroom or go outside.
They had an outside bathroom.
And when it was cold,
we did use their bathroom.
[LAUGHTER]
And that went on for about, well,
into the first year we were
there and the government started bringing
in these little buildings they would make.
And it was almost like
the one room we had except just a little bit larger.
But all the bathroom was boxed off in
one corner and it was bad.
>> Did you have a lot of close neighbors when you were?
>> There, we only had room between
each place for two cars to park.
We could park our car,
and they could park theirs next door to us, and so on.
And we were in rows up and down the street
and the rows were marked off by alphabetical order.
We lived on X Street.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Did that designate how far you had
to walk to work? You lived farther away?
>> No, they had buses.
And the buses would stop at the end
of these streets and I suppose there
might have been 10 of those things down each street.
And you could walk up to the end and catch
a bus and we did a lot to save on gas.
>> What did these buildings look like?
>> These buildings? They would fold up and they'd
just be placed in the middle like
this and then either side would fold out.
That's what it was.
>> And were they made out of metal?
>> No. They were not metal.
>> So at Willow Run,
what work did your husband do?
>> He was on the assembly Line 2.
He told me last night what he did.
But I doubt he installed something.
But he worked where they had four assembly lines,
and I worked where they had converted it down to one.
When they got to where I was,
there was only one and we shot a plane out every hour.
>> And did you need
to work for the money or did you
choose to work for other reasons?
>> Well, Ralph was older and he had
worked a few years before,
maybe two, three,
and we were not desperate for money.
So I was in no big hurry.
And that was not the main reason.
>> Can you tell me about what it was like to
apply for your job at Willow Run?
>> You just go to the office and tell him
you'd like to make an application, they were ready.
>> And did you go through training?
>> Very little. We had about three days,
but I do remember the day that we
got the message about Stanley being dead.
I was in a meeting and I remember sitting there
crying through the whole meeting and I didn't know
what the meeting was about when it was over.
I remember that day.
>> And you mentioned advertisements,
telling people that there were jobs.
Do you remember seeing any images of Rosie the Riveter?
>> Yes. Every place.
And, Hitler, I think he said we wouldn't
win the war for all the women working, but we did.
>> Did you feel a connection to
that idea of women being needed in the war effort?
>> Yes. Every place needed help then.
>> Can you describe what the building
was like at Willow Run where you worked?
>> It was a long building.
I could tell you a funny story about that too,
but it doesn't pertain to my work.
[LAUGHTER]
>> What was the Ford Motor Company producing there?
What were you making?
>> Before?
>> No. Before the war effort.
>> B-29 bombers.
>> And as you said,
it was a big building.
What were your duties specifically?
>> I had all the guns.
The plane had a pocket up in the front of it
and I installed the flying instructions.
And then they had little curtains you could snap on
the windows and I had to
snap each curtain on and make sure it fit the windows.
I did have a lady that was my inspector.
She made sure I did it right.
>> And did she inspect a lot of different people?
>> Yes. I do not remember,
but two people that I
worked with other than the inspector.
I remember her name was Grace,
but I don't remember any of the women working with me.
>> So did she supervise men too then?
>> Yes. She was
an inspector for what some of the men did.
And we had a time study on everything.
I had five minutes on
this gun and 10 minutes on this one,
and I had to climb up into the turret to get up there.
So we had time study on everything we did.
And that's when the Union man came by one day and asked
me if I was being taken
care of and not being
harassed about my job and I said, "No."
And he said, "Do they ever ask you to do
something you're not supposed to be
doing to help somebody else out?"
And I said, "No."
He said, "If they ever do,
don't refuse to do it,
just don't do it." I said, "Okay."
>> And what did you wear?
>> Good question.
I was told when I hide in there that you don't wear
clothes that are real noticeable, like loud colors.
You wear a little work shirt buttoned down
and we did not have tight jeans
then so we just had regular jeans,
regular pants to wear
but you could not wear loud colors, no.
>> And jewelry?
>> No jewelry.
>> What about your shoes?
>> We just had little then they were Canvas shoes.
Could not wear boots. No boots.
Don't care how high the snow was.
You couldn't wear boots.
>> I imagine that snow was
unfamiliar having grown up in Mississippi.
>> It was, and I
wouldn't care now if I never see snow again.
We'd get up some mornings and
the snow would be up to the bumper in the car.
No snow.
>> What did you think about your work? Did you enjoy it?
>> I did. It was nothing hard,
I was never pushed at my job.
No, and I only remember two men that I worked with.
I guess I've worked with others.
I'm sure I did, but I can only remember two.
>> What were they like?
>> One of them was a young guy
and he had been in the war.
He had served and he had a steel plate in his head.
He was injured and he had a steel plate in his head.
And he was about 80, 90% normal,
but a little bit funny
and if it was nice weather like the summertime,
we did have two summers there we
would sit outside to have our 30-minute lunch,
but we had to have our drink and it had to be milk.
We didn't have sodas back then.
So we had a little bit a bottle of
milk we could get off the lunch wagon and it was
a little glass jar and we had to put up
a dime deposit every day to get that bottle of milk,
and when we'd turn our bottle back in,
we'd get our dime back.
So this guy, he loved to eat with me,
he'd sit with me and eat and he
wanted to match me for my bottle every day
for my tin and he would
get the biggest kick out of getting my dime.
So I can't forget him and his name was Stan.
So I remember Stan.
And the guy was an older guy,
but he had served in the war too and had gotten out,
I guess, maybe for age or for
length of time or service he'd been.
He was an older guy,
but very nice, but he was kind of my protector,
he looked after me and his name was
Sid Lee and he would tell me that when the war was over,
he was going back to Clearwater, Florida,
buy him a motel and we could come down and
visit his motel anytime for free but if I were his wife,
he would knock me in the head,
sit me on his mantle to be his doll.
I might have weighed 90 pound then.
>> How did your husband
feel about you hanging out with these guys?
>> The only time I ever knew
my husband to be jealous of me to show it
when I told him about Stan getting such a charge out
of getting my milk deposit bottle every day,
getting that dime every day it was always
a big joke where we were sitting about him
wanting to get my dime,
and I told Ralph about it one day and
the next day he had walked the length of that plant to
have lunch with me and I knew why.
He wanted to meet Stan.
But that's the only time I ever knew that
he might have been jealous.
>> How many hours a day did you work at the plant?
>> I think we worked nine hours a day then.
We had a shift breaking.
You won't believe this, but we had
a shift breaking every 30 minutes.
There was a lot of people who worked in
that plant and we put out a plane every hour,
so you know there had to be a lot of people doing it.
And yeah, we had a shift breaking every 30 minutes.
And if my shift broke before his,
he would wait outside for the bus and we'd catch the bus
back together because every shift
didn't break at the same time.
>> That's very rewarding.
So other than these guys that you mentioned working with,
what people did you see at the factory?
Were they men, women, people of color?
>> I must tell you that the first race riot
I ever heard of happened while we were
working there and I think it lasted for 4-6 days,
I would say, my memory of it.
And during that time,
they told us that
some of the colored people did not get to leave
that plant for two days
but I'd never heard of that before.
And it was not real bad.
I don't even remember why we had
it but it was nothing really bad,
but I guess people got scared,
got afraid but no,
we never had any problems.
>> Did people of different races
work together or separately?
>> No, they had their own job.
We all had separate jobs.
My husband had to work with a guy.
They were together doing
their job and one day their time study guy came by,
he was going to time
them while they did their job and it upset them,
made them mad and they really got busy and did it in
half the time just to be ugly but usually,
you just had your own job.
Most people just had
their own job and that was the way it was.
>> And the work you did,
you said you didn't really work with other women.
So there were men doing the [OVERLAPPING]
>> I do not remember
working directly any women around me.
It was mostly men.
Most of them were older men,
but that were too old to go into service
or people that had been refused for some reason.
>> And do you remember what kind of
a woman the inspector was,
the supervisor that you worked with?
What was she like?
>> She was a nice lady.
She was very nice.
I never had any problem with her but one day I was
working and I was
told that Charles Lindbergh was flying in.
So I don't know if was the manager of the plant.,
I don't know who he was,
but he came by and asked me if I'd like to go
out to meet him so we walked
out that door and watched
Charles Lindbergh he flew in and then he flew out.
Got in another plane and flew out.
>> Did you shake his hand or anything like that?
>> No. He didn't do that. He just said hi and bye.
>> And you mentioned the union representative.
Did you have to pay union dues?
>> No, we didn't. In fact,
I was surprised that we even had
one come around to check.
Ford Motor Company they tell me was very strict
on the people who worked for
them and took care of them
so I guess he was just maybe I don't
know if he's hired by the company or
as part of the government work. I don't know.
>> How much did you get paid?
>> Good question. I do not remember.
We did not get paid very well.
It was not much money and we had to go for two weeks.
And we'd worked two weeks, days,
two weeks, nights rotating.
>> Did everybody do that?
>> No, everybody did it.
That was just the way they ran the place.
>> Did you have leisure time?
Did you do anything for fun other than working?
>> Very little. I did like the summers up there,
not the winters, but the summers.
As I say, we had to go to the movies on the weekend.
We had to go to the theater to see
all of our pictures of the war.
If we wanted to see anything that was going on,
we had to go there to see it because
it was the newsreel and we would
do that because everybody
was interested in what they were seeing.
It was so little.
I can't imagine a war now.
>> Did you and your husband become friends with
any of the other young couples?
>> Yes. We met
one couple that we were really devout friends with.
And I have always wondered what happened to them.
We stayed friends for several years
but then lost out 75 years,
you can't communicate too much.
I'm sure they're going too.
Most of everybody our age is gone.
>> So about how long did you work at Willow Run?
You mentioned that you had to take a break from that.
>> I had a break. I was not working there when
the plant closed when the war was over.
So sometime during that time when we had let's say
about two other couples from our hometown that
had followed us up there and of course,
we were all friends and did things together,
played cards and all that.
So that was mostly our recreation.
>> Do you have memories of when President Roosevelt died?
>> I certainly do. We had moved at
that time into another home,
and we were upstairs,
we had the upstairs apartment.
And the day he died,
they were having a party downstairs,
just all laughing and laughing.
Couldn't figure out what was going on.
So when I turned my radio on,
I found out what was going
on and they were so excited that he had
died and I was so upset
because he was my favorite and always will be.
But that's just the way it was.
Yes, I remember that day.
>> What about the end of the war?
What do you remember from it?
>> All I remember of the end of the war was,
and I'm sure that was at a newsreel,
seeing the boys that came home in New York that had
this ticker tape parade in
New York and it was
just crowds and crowds and seeing all these.
And when we would go by
the bus station or the train up there,
we would see guys coming in,
and it was fun to watch them come in and
meet their families. It was.
>> And was your husband
laid off from the factory right at the end of the war or?
>> No. He wasn't laid off.
He just went to work one night and came home and said,
we're out of a job.
The factory closed.
And that's when we left
and went back to Mississippi and he went
to Memphis and got on with McDonnell Aircraft.
I don't remember what they were doing there.
They were not building planes,
but they must have been working on them some way.
And he was there for six, eight months.
Then went to work one night and
come home and said they had closed.
And after that, it got to the place
that if you had not been in service,
you couldn't find a job because they were giving
all the work to people who had been in service,
which was only fair.
>> So you mentioned that you
lived in Arkansas then for a little while?
>> Yeah. We lived there for two years.
Judy was born in Arkansas. She was.
In a little hospital that Mrs.
Roosevelt during Roosevelt's administration,
she got involved.
She was a very good worker.
She worked for him.
And she got this project started there.
It was open country.
And they gave 40 acres.
I don't know if they gave it
to them or if they might have had
to pay a little or I don't know how they got the land,
but to some families,
they would get this 40 acres of land and it was
a little community place
and she had them build a little hospital there.
They did not have private rooms.
When she was born there she was in a,
it was just a long room,
and she and one other little girl
and one little boy were in.
It was strange.
Otherwise, we would have had to gone
all the way to Memphis.
I would have to had her.
So we had her in that little hospital.
I think it cost $50.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Was your husband in Memphis then?
>> No. He was in Arkansas.
We lived on the farm with my father and two brothers.
>> What were you farming there?
>> Cotton. We had our first garden there,
and we planted our first garden
on George Washington's birthday,
February 22nd, I guess.
And my dad laughed at us for doing it.
It was pretty weather like springtime.
And so we planted
our first garden and
my dad laughed at us and that night, it came to snow.
>> So can you tell me
your daughter's name and
what year it was when she was born?
>> Judy her name is Judy Gale,
and she was born in '47.
>> What was it like to be a new mother?
>> Wonderful. We had been married almost five years.
And it was just wonderful for both of us.
And at that time,
you didn't know it was going to be a boy or girl.
And he had threatened to leave
me if he wanted a little boy.
But he was so excited at her [LAUGHTER].
It didn't make any difference.
She could have been anything.
>> So the next place
you went was Memphis?
>> No, that was after Memphis.
This was after Memphis.
>> So then did you move to Georgia next?
>> No. I think we left there and went to Wichita, Kansas.
We did not live in Wichita too long.
He worked for Boeing aircraft
and loved to work for Boeing,
but you couldn't find a place to live there
either and the one summer we were there,
it rained and it rained.
And the next day, it would be a sandstorm blowing.
We did not like Wichita we couldn't stand it.
So when Lockheed opened again out here,
he came in put in his application, they hired him.
So he come back to Wichita
and told him he was leaving in two weeks.
He gave the two weeks notice.
And they said, no, you can't leave.
The offered him a big pay.
He said, no, I've already hired.
I'm going. I'm leaving.
I'm going to Georgia.
And they wrote on his papers
subject to rehire anytime he said,
but I'm not coming back.
So we've never been back to Wichita.
>> What did Ralph do at Boeing?
>> What did he do at Boeing?
He worked on the assembly line, just building airplanes.
That's what they do out there to build a plane.
So he was just on the assembly line.
>> And how did he find out about the Lockheed job?
>> Probably had come to Mississippi and
somebody was working over here, probably.
We came on November 14th, about 1950/'51,
and it was a beautiful day
and we've never wanted to leave [LAUGHTER].
>> And did Ralph work for
Lockheed on their assembly line too?
>> No. He was in mock up.
When they would have something change on the plane,
a change of some kind,
they had to do the first change to make it work.
They called it mock up. I don't know why.
>> And do you remember the trip from Wichita to Marietta?
>> I think Judy and I came on the bus.
We rode the bus,
and I think that might have been my last trip.
I don't remember a car trip back.
But we came on the bus and I remember
riding through the mountains of Arkansas and loved it.
It was so pretty.
>> And where did you live when you first came to Georgia?
>> In Dunwoodie in an apartment.
We could not find a place in Marietta.
>> And did you intend to
go back into the workforce yourself at that time?
>> No.
>> And what about your son? When was he born?
>> In 1954. And then I had planned to go.
I had put my application in at Lockheed and taken
one test and found out I was expecting again.
So I never pursued that.
>> What's your son's name?
>> Ralph Allen.
>> How did you come
to get the house that you live in now?
>> We lived in a little house.
Some guy had built this little project of houses,
and we never bought that house.
But when they started building
the little brick houses around,
we put our name in and they were
selling faster than they were building them.
So we finally got one and
we still live in that little house.
We never moved [LAUGHTER] regretfully.
But we figured when we came here,
we would probably be here maybe
five years because every place we'd lived,
it would be no more than five years and
we'd be moving on so we figured that.
And we just never pursued going into
a bigger house and the children loved it.
They were close to school.
Now they don't like it because
it's too close to the school.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And what was your neighborhood like?
>> We had a wonderful neighborhood at first.
Wonderful neighborhood.
All the people at Lockheed were trying to get a house.
We had lovely neighbors.
I don't have anyone that was there when we moved in.
I don't believe. But a couple that
moved not too long after are still our neighbors.
>> And you mentioned it was little brick houses.
>> I have a little house.
And I always thought, well,
I'd like to have one of
those big houses they were building and everybody moved.
Just about all of our neighbors moved,
they'd buy a bigger house and move.
Ralph would say, Oh,
if I go to work some night and
come home and see the plants closed,
what are we going to do with a big house?
So we stayed in that little house,
and now I don't want a big house.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm happy with my little house.
>> Do you have a yard?
>> Small yard. Judy cuts the grass.
>> So when your son was born,
you stayed with him for
a little bit and then [OVERLAPPING].
>> He might have been 18 months or two years old when
Sears built a new store out on
Roswell Street and everybody was going to work for Sears.
So I put my application in for a part time job
and I worked part time maybe I don't think a year,
but then they shoved me on full time
and I worked there for 28.5 Years.
>> And what was your job like there?
>> I liked my manager, very much.
She was really a nice person,
and she taught me a lot about the work.
And when she got promoted to Atlanta,
they gave me her job.
And it was a stressful job
because we did not have computers,
no way of keeping up with
the merchandise, except counting it.
I had books this thick
that I would have to go through the merchandise,
what we had sold, how much we sold,
how much we had left, what sold better.
It was a stressful job.
And finally, after about I don't know how many years,
I was division manager and I had a heart problem and
my doctor told me I had to have heart surgery and did.
And they wanted to put me on a medical leave.
And I said, no, I don't have
one foot in the grave, I'm on job.
So I went to the drapery department and
worked maybe 10 years, I don't know.
And then they sent me back to the children.
I was in the baby department, they called it,
which was next to the appliances.
In Sears' store,
it was the biggest department in the store.
Did more money for them.
So I went back to the Children's Department and finished
up and they moved up to Town Center.
Okay. And I worked there six months
and going home I had to work two nights
a week till ten o'clock and going home
and those big trucks
would be on either side of me and I said,
no, not going to do this.
So I just retired.
I was about 62 then.
But I've enjoyed my retirement.
I've enjoyed my life.
I'll say it that way.
>> You mentioned you were one of
the first women to have open heart surgery in Georgia?
>> Judy May can tell you.
Judy, was I not one of
the first women in Georgia to have open heart?
>> I think you were.
You were the only woman in your roof that day
that others were men that had open heart surgery.
>> I know when they told me I had to have it
Judy went bananas because she had
worked at Grady when they started doing open heart and
the doctors would lose their patients and get
upset and she got tired of seeing that.
So it upset her when they told me I had
to have open heart,
but I had it and my doctors did very well.
I'd get out and race up and down
the halls and my doctors were so amazed.
They'd have me talk to other people.
They would come in needing open heart,
but didn't want to have it.
They were so frightened and they'd have me go talk to
them and tell them you can do it.
>> So did you go to Grady then to have tjhe surgery?
>> No. I had it at the Old St. Joseph.
I was one of the last before they
moved in the New St. Joseph Hospital out there.
Quite an experience.
I was in the hospital with two guys.
Did both of those guys have open heart too,
maybe, behind me?
>> Yeah.
>> But they had us all in the ICU together.
>> What year was this?
>> She was 52 years old,
I can't tell you what year.
>> Yeah.
>> So why do you think it's
important to share your story,
for students especially, to learn about.
>> I don't know that anybody would want to hear my story,
but when I saw in the paper about this lady having
the Rosie the Riveter
story and she was going to have this meeting,
I thought that might be interesting to me.
I've never met anybody
that's had an experience like I had.
Someone might tell me, yeah,
I worked out at the Bomber plant,
but they can't tell me a story like mine.
So I thought, well,
I might like to hear this.
So I got in touch
with whatever her name is, I've forgotten.
But anyway, went to the meeting,
and you pursued me there.
>> Thank you. Yeah. Do you think that there are
lessons to take away from
the national experience around World War II?
Anything special about that time as compared to now?
>> Very special.
I'm so sorry.
My children could not know
more about what we really went through.
We bought little books of
Stamps to help pay for the war.
I can remember buying $0.25 Stamps and you
had to buy enough to get a $25.
At that time, they would sell
$25 savings bonds and we would
have to get these stamps till w e got $25 worth.
So after I went to work for Sears,
I did take out money
for savings bonds then
just because I thought it was good to do.
And I'm so thankful I did.
I've done a lot with
that money that I wouldn't have had, had I not done it.
But as far as the war,
I'm sorry the children,
I don't think they're getting
the history they should have about that war.
>> What's missing?
>> Just the details of it and the actual part.
There's so many stories there.
I still hear them on
television and I listen to them on television.
I listen to everything I can
because I even want to know more myself.
It was a different world.
We were living in a different world then.
And these people now,
I even worked with people
80 years old or play cards with them,
and go to church with them,
80 years old and they don't know that story.
They must have been real small then, I guess,
and nothing to remember about it because we didn't
have televisions and no way of keeping up like we do now.
>> What anchors you in the Marietta community today.
What what participation do you have?
>> I just go to church and yeah.
I have friends, and keep up with Judy.
She plays tennis.
She has a lot of friends,
and I go with her.
I don't want to get real old.
But if you had done this 20 years ago,
I could have told you more.
I have forgotten a lot in 75 years.
>> Tell me about your family today.
>> Which?
>> So what are
your son and daughter doing, and your grandchildren?
>> My daughter worked at CDC.
She started out with Grady Hospital and moved over.
Where did you move to Judy?
>> VA and then CDC.
>> Yeah, the VA and then over to
CDC and worked there for
years and years and she
has good stories she can tell you too.
But my son did not
choose to go to college and he was a carpenter,
and had his own roofing business
until he married this girl and she became a doctor.
And she told him if he didn't
want to work anymore, he didn't have to.
And he had worked a lot to put her through med school.
So right now he's in ill health
and he's not occupied with anything.
I have two grandsons
and one is in the insurance business.
I don't know what he calls his job,
but anyway, it's in insurance,
and the other one graduated from
Kennesaw College here a couple of years ago
and he's 36, is he?
>> Yeah.
>> Thirty-six and he works for Dick's Sporting Goods now.
But he graduated with honors,
so he expects to have a better job someday.
>> And great-grandchildren?
>> I have two great-grandchildren,
a little girl that's just turned
11 and a little boy that's turned eight,
and they are both precious.
I said, somebody knew what they were
doing when they said great grandchildren.
They are great.
>> And everybody lives in Georgia?
>> Yeah, we all live in Georgia.
Both my brothers, my kid brother died
about two, three years ago.
And my older brother then died when he was 57,
I believe he had a heart attack and died.
And Ralph is my husband,
is the last in his family,
and he will be 98 in December.
But his mind is what?
Eighty percent, Judy?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. His mind is very good to be that age.
>> And you mentioned that you have
some property down Oconee?
>> Yes. Ralph's father was a banker,
a businessman, and an educated man.
To be his age,
he was one of the few college-educated people
back then, way back.
And he left property to his children and Ralph took his,
the town of Fulton wanted to buy
his property and build a new high school.
And so he sold it,
bought land down and
Greene County for the boys to have a place to hunt.
Now, I wouldn't have
minded moving down in that area for a while,
but we won't ever move down there.
But my oldest grandson, he loves it. Yeah.
>> So is there anything that [OVERLAPPING]
>> Excuse me, but I've had
some wonderful people in my life,
but a lot of them are gone.
>> Yeah.
>> Just about all of them, in fact.
My friends now are mostly younger. Okay.
>> Are there stories that you want to
talk about that I haven't asked you about already?
>> I don't know if I really have,
I've just had an interesting life.
>> You sure have. Thank you so much.
We really appreciate you
coming in today and telling your story.
>> Thank you. I don't mind doing it,
but I've never done this before.
I'm not a storyteller.