>> This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Jane Tucker on May 19th,
2015, in the Social Sciences building
at Kennesaw State University.
And Ms. Tucker, do you agree to this interview?
>> I do.
>> Thank you.
So let's start at the beginning.
When and where were you born?
>> I was born on May 27th,
in 1927 in Jasper, Alabama.
But I grew up in Lineville, Alabama.
>> Do you have a birthday coming up?
>> I do.
>> That's right.
And how old will you be?
>> I'll be 88.
>> And what is your full name, your birth name?
>> Lucretia Jane Tucker.
>> So tell me a little bit about your family.
What were your parents' names?
>> Well, my mother's maiden name was Parker,
and her family name were Hanes
and my great grandfather fought in the Civil War
and he really was pretty much
a founder of this town of Lineville after the war,
it never was still a population of 1,000 or 1,200 people.
But it was a large family.
My mother came from a family of about seven children.
And my mother and father were
married for 10 years before we were born.
My sister and I.
And then when the Depression came,
we were still living away from Lineville
but my father couldn't find work.
And so like a lot of other people,
he went to Texas or to other places looking for job.
And he didn't come back.
So my mother became a single mom she took my sister and
I and we went back to Lineville to
live with her parents in their home,
and it was a very difficult time
for everybody because of the Depression,
the era that we were in.
We were poor and everybody else was.
But actually, my grandparents didn't have anything.
And my mother, when we went back,
and she was able to get a job,
which is unusual in a town that size.
She worked as a telephone operator.
We call them switchboard operators.
[LAUGHTER]
And that's what it was.
And the telephone company leased
the bedroom in a private home
and had the switchboard in there.
And they also had a bed in there so the operators
could sleep there because they worked 12 hours a day.
And she made $25 a month.
And if the the persons
who had telephones couldn't
pay for the service that month,
then the owner of the telephone company
frequently wouldn't have the money
to pay the salary of the two women who worked for him.
So we struggled a lot,
but we didn't know that
[LAUGHTER]
most everybody else in the same circumstances.
>> And you had one sister?
>> One sister. Older than I.
>> Her name was?
>> Betty.
>> So you were growing up and
living in your grandparents' home?
>> Home.
>> And so what did your grandparents do for a living?
>> Well, my grandfather had a small farm.
And I said he had a farm and I
can just remember going
there with him once or twice as a small child.
I was probably 2.5 when we went back to live with him.
And the thing that I remember most is he had
a very small store near the railroad station in town.
And he just sold staples and canned things.
It was very small, and candy,
and I would stand on the porch in the afternoon hoping
that was the day he was going to bring me
a little brown sack with candy in it.
[LAUGHTER]
I could see when he turned
corner to come up the hill,
whether or not he had candy.
But my grandmother, of course, never worked.
And so they really did not have any income.
And I can't imagine being
65 and having two little girls to take care of,
and my grandmother really raised us
because my mother worked so much.
Seven days a week.
>> And what kind of caregiver was your grandmother?
>> Wonderful. I'm so
blessed to have had her for a grandmother.
She was a gentle,
kind, positive, Christian lady.
And she loved everybody and she
taught you to love everybody. She taught me.
Somehow, my sister had the opposite.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know
what triggers us to be so different.
>> What was your sister's personality?
>> Well, my sister's personality was if
you say I can't do it or I shouldn't do it,
I'm going to show you that I can do it.
That's kind of her personality always.
And we never know what happens to us when we
were real young that creates different ways that we feel.
She was angry.
As she got older, she became more angry and
never talked about what really her source of anger was.
She had five wonderful children.
Has five. And I have enjoyed them.
I've been single, of course,
and didn't have children of my own,
but I have enjoyed
my niece and nephews and their children.
>> Well, did you attend
local schools there in Lineville?
>> Yes, I did.
>> And can you tell me about
the quality of those schools?
>> It was very poor because there again,
the Depression had a tremendous effect on it.
I don't recall ever going
to school a full session of nine months.
Most of the time we made it seven months.
In the elementary school,
I think we had pretty good teachers,
but especially after the war,
a lot of the teachers didn't
even have four-year college degrees.
They may have two years. I had
a ninth grade teacher who had never been to
college and had taught third grade,
I think, in some little rural school.
But it was because of the circumstances of
the finances and the town
was not able or the people
weren't able to support the schools.
So not only were there
was a shortage of funds for teachers,
and there was a shortage for equipment and things too.
So I think our one thing
that we looked forward to in life was football.
[LAUGHTER]
That was our entertainment for the year.
And I can remember the feeling of
sadness when football season was over,
because nothing else was going to
happen good until the next fall.
But I agree with that. My sister never did.
She's a huge Alabama fan.
[LAUGHTER]
I say a rabid, not avid, but a rabid fan.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So did you have a job as a teenager?
>> I did. When I was 14,
I got a job in the five and dime store.
Mr. AJ Parker owned it.
It was called Parker's Five and Ten Cent Store.
And I worked after school and on Saturdays.
And I just enjoyed earning money.
I hated the sensation I guess because
whenever we ask our mother for
something so often, she couldn't do it.
And it bothered her,
but it also bothered me to ask,
I had a sense of guilt about having to ask for anything.
And I used to think, if I ever can earn my own money,
I'll never ask anybody for anything else.
So anyway, I did work there and I made
$1 on Saturday when I worked all day.
Sometimes in the afternoon I'd
make $0.50 if I went after school.
And it's interesting because
I didn't have a Social Security card.
And the little man was very nervous,
little man that owned the store.
So when I went to work there, he said, "Jane,
if a man comes in here that you've never seen before,
and he's dressed up in his Sunday suit
like he's going to church,
you pretend you're a customer.
Don't stay behind the counter.
Get out from behind
the counter and start
acting like you're buying something.
He might be from the Social Security board."
[LAUGHTER]
Who was ever going to find Lineville,
Alabama to check on.
But anyway, that was a funny story to me.
Even then, at 14,
I wondered how that was going to happen.
And that was a wonderful experience.
It certainly wasn't a very exciting job,
but I've always liked people,
and I learned so much about people
just working, selling things.
And I enjoyed it because I enjoy people.
>> So you said obviously a small town, 1,000 people.
How much did you know about world events?
>> Not much. Very little.
We really weren't concerned too much about
world events until Pearl Harbor.
And that got everyone's undivided attention,
of course, because it was such a huge thing.
And I remember exactly where I was.
I was 14 then and we had a radio.
There was no other radio and movies.
On Saturdays had the news reel.
And so my uncle and aunt who did not own
a radio would come on
Sunday evening to hear Walter Winchell.
[LAUGHTER]
He was a great newscaster
and he talked so fast.
And so I was outside doing
something in the yard outside the bedroom and
I heard all the adults
talk like something horrible had happened.
They were hollering.
And I thought, oh, somebody's had a stroke,
and I never did want to be around sick people.
I was afraid to go inside to see what it was.
This was a si o'clock news,
and it had happened earlier that day,
of course, the Pearl Harbor event.
But we didn't hear it until six o'clock news.
So I couldn't understand what that meant, really.
And I did, when we got to school,
have a clear picture of part of
it because all of the young men who were
18 or over and
the buses were just taking the guys coming,
the ones that volunteered,
and they took them from school.
That's probably where they just assembled them.
>> Immediately.
>> Immediately. And so that
helped me to know
something had really changed in the whole world.
But you could go to the theater and
the movie and see the news reel,
and that was all you saw.
Or the newspapers.
>> So beyond those boys
leaving and hearing of the announcement,
how much did life change after the war was declared?
[OVERLAPPING]
America declared war.
>> Okay. Well, for me, it didn't change.
Personally, it didn't change a lot.
I didn't have any brothers and
my father wasn't involved in the war.
And of course, some of my friends in school,
most of them were too young.
You had to be 18, and a lot of young men,
of course, lied about their age
or got their parents to sign.
So I don't remember really
feeling the impact of it very much.
I do remember, and this is
the only time I remember the rationed books that we had.
That food was rationed.
The gas wouldn't matter to us if it's
rationed or rubber because we didn't own a car,
so that I wouldn't have paid too much attention to that.
And we wore silk stockings in those days,
and you could no longer buy those,
and I was just starting to wear
high heel shoes and silk stockings.
So I was very careful,
if I had a pair not to ruin them.
But I don't really remember feeling
too much change until 1943 when we went to Savannah too.
>> Right. So what brought about that decision?
>> Well, my mother was just so wary,
she was wary of being in that small town and of
having to be dependent on her parents.
And also she never paid
the grocery store owner a total bill.
She just pay him what she could each month.
And the clothing store was owned by Jewish family.
She just paid him what he- and they accepted that.
They understood her circumstances,
which is a good thing about being in
a community where you have community support.
But she was eager to do something else.
And mother had a cousin who lived in Savannah, Georgia.
And she called mother.
So it's important.
If you made a phone call, that costs $1.
It was important.
[LAUGHTER]
Something you wouldn't use the telephone
unless it was an important need for calling.
But she told mother, said,
you can bring your girls and come down here and all
of you can get a job working in
a shipyard and make lots of money.
So all of us was ready to go.
In two weeks we left.
I had turned 16 in May
and my sister had graduated from high school in May.
So I was just going to work for
the summer and go to school in Savannah.
But anyway, I guess one of the event
that made the reality of the war come to
become more clear was I
had traveled on the train as a child.
All my life, we'd go visit my relatives in Birmingham,
and the train was never crowded.
It was a steam engine, in fact.
Put the windows up and the smoke would puff.
I still can see the train coming around the bend with
the headlight on it and
the smoke puffing up out of the top.
But it was the event.
We love to travel on the train,
but we went to Heflin,
Alabama on the train to go to Savannah.
And when we stepped on the train into that coach,
there wasn't a seat anywhere,
and it was filled with young men in khaki uniforms.
It was a troop train.
Everything was a troop train.
And we sat on our luggage to Atlanta.
And it took about 18 hours.
I don't know how long we stayed in
Atlanta as the layover there,
but we changed trains in Atlanta,
like you get a plane where you go to go to Atlanta first.
[NOISE]
But I realized that something had changed drastically,
and this made it start becoming more real.
>> So until then,
did Savannah seem like a faraway place.
>> Yes. Yeah, I never even heard of Savannah.
My mother didn't talk about it
and her cousin grew up in [inaudible].
Yeah, it seemed like a far away place.
>> Well, tell me about first
arriving in Savannah and what you did
to set up a house temporarily, more permanently.
>> Well, we were fortunate we had a cousin,
my mother's sister's child,
who had five little boys,
and they certainly didn't have
room for three more people,
but they made room and we
stayed with them for three weeks.
And we were also fortunate in
Savannah that they had good housing.
Now, they had a lot of housing near
the shipyard where you could just get
on a bus or else walk, even, to work.
The government built them there.
The shipyard where I worked was
built for World War II ships.
It had not existed before.
But we lived in a nice section of Savannah.
And those houses are still
there the last time I went to Savannah,
which about for 12 or 15 years ago,
but they were duplex apartments.
And I remember the worst part
was the mud in the yard because they
hadn't planted grass or anything, but guess what?
We had running water.
I didn't have running water until I was
16 in the house, that is.
And that's a real convenience.
>> Two bedrooms?
>> Two bedrooms.
My sister and I shared a room and
my mother had her own room.
We had electricity growing up in the house,
but we never had the money for a refrigerator,
so we just used ice box where
you buy the ice from the iceman,
but we were blessed that we
had a place to stay with someone that
knew us and that we also had good living quarters.
I've heard so many stories where
the living quarters for factory workers,
especially were just horrendous, really.
All kinds of different places to live.
So we had a good place to live.
>> And what was the first thing you did?
Did you sign up for school?
Did you go look for the job?
>> We went for the job,
of course, and I guess we went immediately.
Really, I can't remember too
much about how we got to work.
And I'm sure they had buses from downtown Savannah,
but we went to work at
7:00 and the only thing I remember about
how we traveled to work was my mother where she works,
there was the man who lived in our neighborhood that
had a Ford convertible.
It was about to fall apart and
the roof leak when it rained.
So my sister and I being silly teenagers,
we'd open the umbrella in
the back seat like he couldn't see it,
he laughed the whole way to work.
But anyway, we rode with this man to work,
but your question, obviously,
I lost my train of thought, I chased a rabbit.
>> How did you go to apply for the job?
>> We went to apply for the job and we
waited for hours to be called for an interview.
And so when the man
was interviewing us and
telling us that we could have the job and he said,
"Your starting pay while you are in training."
They trained us for six weeks in
a welding school that they
had that was owned by the shipbuilding company.
He said, "Your starting pay will be $1.26 an hour.
Can you believe it?"
And I said "I've been making a dollar a day."
So I thought I was going to be
wealthy before the year was over,
I guess but anyway,
the school was interesting.
I can remember just little bits of it.
And the thing that puzzles me though is I have no memory.
No sense of how I felt the
first time I walked into the shipyard.
And they had cranes in there
that were three stories tall.
And they were swinging
these huge sheets of metal all over the place and
picking up parts of the ship that had been
welded down and built down on the yard and moving it.
I don't remember how
stunned I must have been. I don't know.
I just don't remember thinking.
And noise oh, it was horribly noisy.
>> Do you remember any type of closure?
>> Yeah, I do. We never wore any pants.
Women did not wear pants.
Maybe they did in California and New York City,
but not in Lineville, Alabama.
And one of my friends who was
a Rosie applied for
a job and she got it and she went home.
She lived in South Georgia.
She said, "Mama, they're going to make me
wear pants to work.
I don't want to do that."
Well, her job was to climb up on the plane,
it was a fighter pilot and they were
training British pilots before we got into the war.
This was in '39 but she said,
"They're going to make me wear pants.
Can I do that?" So, "Yeah,
you can do it because it's our only source of income."
So anyway, we did wear pants and they were thick pants,
we wore boots just below our knees with
safety toes and long sleeve shirts with button-up necks.
And if you were welding,
we were rod welders,
and the sparks, of course,
would fall back on you a lot
of times you couldn't get out of the way of them
so you had to wear
a leather jacket and
they supplied those we supplied our other clothes.
And Savannah is a very hot city
and we worked in the sun all day long.
Sometimes we were inside a room,
and that's actually what we were doing.
We were welding the building.
It was prefabbed the kills
and all the things were brought
in and put together and then we welded them together.
And I guess one of
the most painful injuries and it wasn't critical at all,
but when you weld with the rod, it forms a slag
on the welding thing and you had to chip it off.
And some places they had
people employed just as chippers,
but the only reason I remember
doing it was a piece of that slag,
the size of my thumbnail went down in
my boot and it was red
hot and I couldn't get it unlaced fast,
but that was not a big thing because a lot of
people were critically injured.
And I don't think Americans realize
the cost of lives for defense workers.
I read in one book, and of course,
whether it was accurate or not because everything
that's written in books about things is not always true,
but said 34,000 defense workers had died by 1944.
So it was dangerous work
and it was especially shipbuilding.
Some of the jobs were not so dangerous.
>> So describe a typical work shift for you.
>> Well, a typical shift was
to be at work at 7:00 and get off at 8:00.
We worked 10 hours.
That would be 4:00.
And we had 30 minutes for lunch.
And I think the 15-minute break in
the morning and afternoon came during World War II,
I haven't ever read that.
In my mind, I think that
because if you work such long hours,
you needed to take a break and so that's what we did,
but we just had a half hour for lunch and we
worked six days a week
almost every week and sometimes seven days.
So it was a lot of long hours.
>> And you were a rod welder?
>> I was the rod welder.
>> Okay. So could you explain that in
a little more detail as if I'm completely eight?
>> All right. When you weld the rod,
it's attached to a large machine that
controls the temperature and
it wasn't portable in those days,
I'm sure they have much different things now,
but that was one
of my greatest frustrations as being a welder.
You had to get the temperature on
the machine set exactly right.
If it were too hot it'd burn a hole in the metal.
If it's too cold it stick so you couldn't make a seam,
you couldn't just keep it.
The rod was in a
handle-like and that's where the electricity came from,
and it would melt the rod and
you had to keep a steady flow
to make the seam strong.
And they said women made better welders than
men especially if they like to sew.
Well, I didn't like to sew,
but I hope I did weld better than I
sewed because that was never something I liked to do.
>> It was precise work?
>> It was precise.
Have you ever noticed
athletic equipment when you're working out at the gym,
it's welded together it has those
little so it's precise,
and sometimes in very close places?
The hardest place, I guess, that I worked,
and they did not make women
work in the inner bottoms of the ship,
that was where all of the pipes and
all the equipment and I showed you a picture of it.
It was upside down,
but you had holes like this going through the ship,
and you just have to get down on
those pipes and shimmy back
there to wherever how far
back or down you were going in the ship.
Well, when the war ended,
a lot of people had already quit because they
knew the shipyard was going to close.
Well, I have stayed out of high school the 2.5
years and worked instead
of going back to school while I was in Savannah.
So I wasn't in a hurry to leave and I was saving my money
because I knew I was going to need it
to get my last year of high school.
So I worked.
My sister and mother had both quit,
but I worked in those center bottoms and
it was very treacherous.
It really was, people liked to scare you and
tell stories and they talk about how you'd be sexually
molested in the back when you got way back there,
but the worst I wasn't so worried about that as I was
about the smoke and the breathing.
And then you get all the way back and you'd find out
your machine wasn't going to work the right way so you'd
have to slither back out of the canon.
That was the hardest part.
>> And you continued to do that,
you're saying after the war?
>> Yeah. Let's see.
I probably just did it for 6-8 weeks.
That was about all.
>> So when you were a rod welder during the war,
how close were you to other workers on the board?
>> We're pretty close.
Yeah, you could talk to them sometimes
and sometimes be in the same section,
but not as close
as we are probably in this room together,
and I can't remember that too much.
I remember when we get inside the rooms,
there probably would not be anybody but
maybe one other person on the opposite side.
One of the most painful things
that happened to welders still
happens today and of course,
wore the heavy shields with the glasses
that protected your eyes from the rays of the welding.
You were cautioned all the time
and you have your shield inspected to be sure
you didn't have a leak in the glass or
around the opening where the view box.
So if you had a leak in the
shield or somebody weld it over here,
And you took your shield
off and you weren't aware they were close to you,
then you'd get a burn.
It has a name.
I can't get it to come up.
But anyway, it would you get your eyes would get a burn.
And it's a funny humorous story.
I had a date with this young man.
I don't think I ever saw him
again and probably had never seen him before,
but I know I'm sure I didn't see him again.
But we went to the movie on the bus.
And you wouldn't know that you'd had
a flash burn until all of a sudden,
the tears would start pouring.
Well, it was a funny movie.
There was nothing in it sad to make you cry.
And all of a sudden,
the tears just started pouring off my cheeks.
Well, it was okay in the movie because it was dark.
But when we got on the bus and had to go
home on the bus with all these other people,
they kept looking at that young man like,
what have you done to that sweet young lady?
Oh, it hurts so bad.
And the only thing you could do to get relief.
It felt like you had taken sand from the beach and
just rubbed it in your eyes as
hard as you could rub a handful.
But the only thing you could do was to grate
a potato and just pack it on each eye.
And it would give you some relief.
And it's interesting a few years ago,
I was telling this young man I
had been a welder. H
e was a welder.
He didn't believe a woman had been a welder
either, but I said,
how you what do you do to treat a flash burn when
he said you grate a potato
and so they haven't made any improvement.
But that just happened to me once.
I really don't remember how it happened,
but there were so many things about.
And I know I didn't and I
don't know if anybody else did any real sense.
I had a sense that we went to work and most people that
you talked to women went to
work because of the financial need.
They were just like my mother.
They were tired of not having anything.
And of course, the World War two was
the beginning of the end of the Great Depression.
I read somewhere not too long ago that
the Great Depression didn't end until.
Well, they shouldn't have started that
because right now, I can't remember.
But years later that it really ended.
>> Fully.
>> Well, I want to talk a little bit
because I know your mother and
your sister were also working these similar jobs.
>> What?
>> What was your sister doing?
>> She was welding and she worked up on the way where you
assembled the ship on the right on the water.
And we built the ship out
on the ground in front of the ways.
There were six ways that the ship yard where I worked.
And you had to volunteer to go
up there as if you were a female.
And so she volunteered.
She thought that'd be more interesting, I guess.
So twice she had she almost lost her fingers.
She has written her story,
but they were bringing
a huge bulkhead of steel and it came from around
behind them and they were getting ready to put
it on the side of the ship and
she was leaning over the ship trying
to get them to set her machine,
and somebody screamed at
her and she got her hand out of the way.
She said just in time to keep
that thing from going down on her fingers.
But it was a lot more dangerous.
I don't remember people getting hurt,
but she remembers people.
And she said, Oh, people died.
They had accidents that they died from where I worked,
and I don't remember that. Okay.
>> And she also nearly fell?
>> Yes. She was working on the deck and probably somebody
moved a cover off of a sell cover anyway,
she didn't it wasn't there
and she turned around and she almost
fell from the top deck down into the ship,
which would have been probably disastrous.
I don't know if it would have been fatal.
You never though, but she would've been hurt bad
because everything on the ship is still.
So but she said the ambulances were coming all the time.
And another thing, I can't believe I I'm not
a curious person in many ways.
I never went to see a ship launched.
I cannot believe that.
And they would let us,
I can remember them saying you're free to take
the time to go over there having a launching today.
But Betty saw them
that happened because she worked on the way.
But it always, I guess,
seemed like too much trouble.
I don't know why I didn't go.
>> Maybe you retired from work.
>> I don't.
>> Okay.
>> It would have been a break from working,
but I didn't see one launched and
it's we built 88 ships and in four years in Savannah.
And the recent history is so important,
the people in Savannah,
Georgia, don't even know that shipyard was there.
I mentioned a book to you working on
the swing shift that was written by Tony Cope,
and he wrote it about
Southeastern Shipyard where I worked.
And he was a little boy nine years old.
He said, I didn't live I lived close enough
to the shipyard when I went to bed at night.
I could see the lights.
And I could hear the whistle blow for the change of
shifts and I could hear the noise of the shipyard.
But he said it occurred to him when he was about 55,
I guess, 50 55, that people in Savannah rode
by there all the time and never even knew
it existed and they employed 45,000
people during World War in those four years,
plus it contributed immensely to winning the war.
So it's too bad how people let history go.
So I'm glad and he
interviewed a lot of people who worked there.
I wish I had known him.
I would have gone to Savannah to tell my story,
but I didn't know about the book until later.
>> What about your mother?
>> Well, my mother welded and she
worked just like I did on the yard.
And it's very interesting.
I wrote my story, my sister wrote her story.
American Rose the Ritter Association has four books
that have been published by them or for them,
and for sale about women who worked in World War II.
And I I keep trying to write
my mother's story and I think
I didn't even talk to my mother.
Several, but when you were a teenager, of course,
I talked to her, but I wasn't interested in how she felt.
I wasn't interested in how.
And I know she was lonely because she was 44,
and she certainly didn't want to
go dancing at the US with
those good looking hair force men
that we didn't like to entertain.
So but she was happy,
I'm sure to be able.
And the first thing we did was and she
called the person who owned
the grocery store and the person
who owned the dry goods store.
That's what we called them in those days.
She called them before she left home.
And I don't know if this happens often.
I guess it does, but
people paid their bills and they were honest,
but she called and she told
them that she would be sending
them money that she was leaving that she was moving,
but she was not going to forget what she owed them.
And I find it very interesting because in a small town,
and this is a piece of history in America,
the Jewish immigrants so often settled in
small towns and most often owned a clothing store.
And this couple, they were the only Jewish family in
that area and we didn't know anybody out of
the county unless it was a aunt or uncle somewhere.
But they were the only Jewish people in
that town and people talked about them.
Towns I never wanted to live in
a small town again after I got out of vile,
because people have so little to think
about that they just are critical.
I guess is the thing
and if you don't think like they think,
then they think something's odd,
you know, and one thing I remember growing
up about Jewish people that people
said is they just greedy.
All they want is money.
Well, guess what?
Mr. Miller told my mother when she called him.
He said, miss Iris, you've already paid me enough money.
You don't owe me anything.
Well, she paid him anyway because
she felt like she owed him, but see,
he was a lot more generous than the other guy.
So and I never have forgotten that.
So but we did that and after that,
we just divided up our expenses with
our money and we bought war bonds,
the government the only way they had
money to build equipment,
the things that we had to do to
fight was with war bond money.
So I bought $25 war bond.
I think every two weeks was payday,
and I didn't use any of
that money until I went back home to go to school.
So I learned lesson about saving
and the advantages of
saving your money and not just spending it.
Of course we didn't have much time to spend money.
You work 10 hours a week,
seven days, six days a week,10 hours a day.
>> Well, I was going to ask question.
So on a regular day when you heard that bell ring,
how did you feel to get off work?
>> I don't remember.
Really. I'm sure I felt
glad but probably the first thing
I want to do is take off
those hot clothes but it was cold in the wintertime
too on that river
but we didn't have as much cold as we did.
But well I felt eager to get home because we always
had dates to go dancing or to go to the USO,
we could go downtown to the USO and
the USO bus would take us out to the Potter air base,
which would be 17 and that was a bomber
that and they went to Europe
and it was a jump off for those guys.
They were there six weeks and some of them,
of course, a lot of them never came back.
The gunners on those planes were just,
they did go out with a crew of 14, I think,
wrote this thing when I visited
an Air Force Museum outside of
Savannah and they'd come back
with eight or 10
because they didn't have any protection to start with.
We didn't have enough fighter planes.
So that maybe that's
one of the don't there are a lot of reasons why we
make choices in our lives and I chose to stay
single because of a lot of other reasons.
But I also think that at that age and you
read stories all the time and it still happens.
But the war caused it to happen more often of
romances that lasted three or four weeks
and then they'd get married.
But I was just going to protect
my heart all the time because I thought,
I'm not going to get serious
with this guy even though I like him
a lot because I probably never see him again.
I know I said that a lot of times to myself.
And probably a part
of the picture of making the choice to be single.
But one thing, I think it
was such a wonderful help to me.
My grandfather was seven years old during the Civil War.
And when he said damn Yankee,
he meant it because he
remembered the reconstruction days.
I don't remember him ever talking about it.
I wish I'd ask him questions,
but I didn't, you know,
as a kid I didn't think about it,
but he didn't like Yankees.
And so we met guys.
And this is the way
the social structure was in this country.
We lived in small towns,
we didn't meet people from Georgia
much or Tennessee much less from a large city.
I remember my aunt marrying
a guy from Connecticut and they came to visit us.
I couldn't understand one word he said.
Because he talked like a Yankee.
But anyway, meeting those guys and
seeing that they were wonderful kind people,
just like all of us,
like our people are the same.
That's a lesson I learned.
Well, then I didn't know it at the time,
but when I graduated from high school,
I went to dental hygiene school
and I went to Chicago to school.
And I would have been terrified of Yankees if I hadn't
already known and found out that they were just like me.
So that was a wonderful lesson.
It doesn't matter how What's going on in our lives,
there's always something of
value that we learn that we don't ever forget.
>> So working in Savannah,
working in the shipyards and
meeting servicemen was an eye opening experience?
>> Yes, right. And meeting
other people from other places at work.
>> And you said there
were also men working in the shipyards.
And so what was the ratio of men to women about?
>> Well, I would say about 60% were women.
>> How did many of the men view women working those jobs?
>> I've heard horror stories about that in other places,
but maybe it was because I was so young.
I don't know, but I was never shunned or mistreated.
Of course, men like they're always boys.
Men never grow up.
They always like to play jokes like sending you
off some tool that doesn't exist.
But I didn't think that was being cruel,
but I've heard some
really bad stories about how women were
treated because the men
did not want them working where they did,
but I didn't experience that,
so I can't tell you, in fact,
I found them all to be very kind
and protective and helpful.
>> And you had a Lederman what is that?
>> Lederman would be,
well, I guess he'd be similar to a supervisor.
He was in charge and he was a trained welder and and
probably had been a ship builder
somewhere in his experience.
And then over maybe
six or eight of what we call
the slabs and they were numbered.
There would be a quarterman who was in charge of all of,
he would oversee the whole job to see
that he was moving along correctly.
But the man that was
my immediate supervisor was he was great.
He was a great man and very kind.
And he was probably in his 40s.
And a number of the people who worked well, of course,
some of them were deferred because of the job.
I mean, they had to have people
who knew how to build shifts.
They couldn't but it's a miracle when you think
about people I never
had seen it wouldn't matter about this,
but I didn't have any idea about constructing anything.
I never seen a boat or ocean or anything where I grew up.
But for us to be able to go and build
ships and not just us but for
people in all of the jobs and women got on
buses by themselves and trains
and went across the country and
they'd never been anywhere.
But they did it well, when you're young,
I just think you have some sense
of adventure and want to do,
but we all wanted to help win the war.
And I mentioned earlier that we did it
primarily at the time that we
went because of the financial need,
but it didn't take us long to understand that we
were helping in a great cause.
And I think one of the reasons and I
had this I read this quote
from the American Rosie
the Rivers Park that's in Richmond, California.
And it prompted me to
start telling my story, but it said,
"You must tell your children putting modesty
aside that without us without the women,
there would have been no spring of 1945."
And I thought, I didn't know that.
And I just read that 10 years ago,
or 12, I didn't know that.
And I understand this young people
the huge majority of them.
And when I say young,
I'm talking about up to 50 years of age 40 or 50.
But so you're so busy living
your own lives and
taking care of the daily needs that you
forget about what you did
and what you were doing and for the veterans,
of course, a lot of times it's more
too painful to even try to talk about it
because they don't think anybody understands
what they say and they don't because we
don't really understand anything
that we haven't experienced.
>> Let's go back to this period in Savannah.
And so you're working,
did you work alongside African Americans in the shipyard?
>> No. There were some there,
but we didn't work alongside of them.
That was the south.
>> So that remained even in these federal corporation.
>> It wouldn't have been true in Detroit
because it was already an exodus of
Afro Americans to Detroit to work in
automobile places and so but they did employ them,
but they just didn't work alongside and
sell and I just can't imagine.
But when you grow up with
circumstances like water fountains that,
well, we didn't have water fountains and then
libel so I didn't ever encounter that,
but restrooms and things with marks on
them for whites or for blacks,
then I just didn't think about that much.
I mean, it seemed like a normal thing until I moved to
Savannah and then I got the picture
because I began to see the difference.
I could see the black only, the white only,
the people going to the back of the bus to sit.
>> And was the work unionized?
>> Yes. And we had a strike.
And I said I will never work in a place
again where I have to join a union.
The machine struck, but
that meant nobody else could work.
And it was for more money.
And the Savannah newspaper headlines said workers
strike Southeastern shipbuilding for more money
while their sons and fathers are dying on the front.
I mean, it was really
a bad feeling and it didn't last but a week or two.
And I don't know how much my pay was when I but I think I
made was never never kept things, save things.
A lot of women have their last paycheck stub, whatever.
But I think it seems
like they were striking for 240 an hour.
>> So it shut the entire thing down.
>> Yeah.
>> And you did not feel good about that?
>> No. I did not feel good about that.
>> Because you're faced with the deadlines.
>> Well, I didn't feel good about it anyway.
I mean, you don't want anybody
to tell you can't go to work.
I had no understanding about what the union was about.
I just knew I had to pay dues and they could tell me
what I could and could not do
and and I did not like that.
When they say I couldn't go in that shipyard and work.
Another frustration about that job,
this is just a penny but it was
very frustrating and the weather was always
such a factor because we couldn't work if it rained.
But if you didn't go clock in,
and it stayed home because it's pouring down rain
and we didn't know about the forecast either then.
So we couldn't check that very well.
But you'd have to go to work or
else if you worked over 40 hours,
they wouldn't give you time and
a half if you had missed a day.
And they had a hard time getting.
I didn't know this either until I read that book,
but the workers were
a lot of them just didn't show up for work.
And well, a lot of them were rejected by the Army.
And they hired old people
one family came from somewhere up east.
There were 17 in one family that
came to work at the ship yard where I worked.
But they just hired just about whoever would take a job.
And then they had to encourage them to come to work.
But that was a problem for me,
my mother gave me some you all don't know about Castro.
One morning I didn't want to get out of bed,
so I pretended I was sick.
And she gave me some castor oil and
a glass of orange juice and I wasn't sick.
I was sick from that,
but I never dared that trick again.
We were told if you're supposed to be somewhere,
you're supposed to be somewhere.
You can't call up and say I'm not coming.
>> So in your uniform and
getting back on the bus to go home,
how did the locals in Savannah react?
>> They shunned us, very much
the locals. But that was okay.
But Savannah in my era,
they called it blue blooded.
They were very snobbish and they had their groups.
But they thought it was terrible for women to wear
pants and women did smoke on the street,
but I never would have smoked on the street or
on the bus or in public.
A lot of the women or some of
them formed some bad opinions and images.
But we felt shunned
but it was a little bit like going away to college.
A lot of the people who came to work in the shipyard came
from small towns all around Savannah and they commuted,
but you had a good group of friends and I never had
a single friend that was a local Savannian.
I hadn't thought of that until just now,
but I don't remember ever having a friend.
>> So you said you would be entertained at the USO and
you had boyfriends who
were servicemen and go to the movie.
And so it sounds like there was entertainment,
there was some spirit of fun,
even though a lot was going on.
So what was the general mood?
>> Well, the general mood was to do and that was
true wherever you were in Rome, Georgia,
I'm sure it was true here in Kennesaw wherever you live,
the general mood was do what you can for the serviceman.
And if they were
stationed like in Atlanta, at Fort Benning,
they would go to Rome where
they had the weekend off anywhere to get away
from the army base and
the atmosphere of being in the army.
And so when they went to the small towns,
people would invite them home if they went to church,
they'd take them home with them to eat, we had canteens.
A lot of places had canteens and they would have
cookies and coffee and things for them to drink.
So I think,
everybody that I knew tried to do what they could
to care for the servicemen
while they were being trained
and before they went overseas.
And one of the interesting stories,
and this is another lesson.
My grandmother always says you
can't charge a book by a cover,
and young people have a hard time learning that.
But my neighbor came over
one afternoon and asked my sister and I, we were busy.
She said my boyfriend,
Joe just called and he's got
a couple of friends.
He wants to bring them.
Can y'all go to eat and to dance?
So we didn't have anything to do,
and my sister instead of saying,
yes, that I bid the tall one.
I never was quick enough for her to get ahead of her.
So they came.
It was the summertime,
I know because the room was full of sunlight.
And not only was the young man short and I mean,
real short, like five feet.
He took off his flight cap
and those flight caps made him so handsome.
We just loved to date
the Air Force mean but when he took his off,
there was not one hair on his head.
And there was no Hill Bruna movie out there.
Nobody had seen bald headed men.
Well, it's hard, silly teenage.
I never looked at either one of my sister or my neighbor.
I just looked at him and kept talking.
Well, we went to this place to eat and dance.
And when we got up to dance,
and on dance floor he was right here on me.
And you could see people just watching.
I probably had on high heels.
But he was there six weeks and
every free time that
he had off he came to see me and we went to the movie.
We really had a good time together.
And he lost his hair because he had already flown.
At first they had to fly like
30 missions before they got leave.
And that's when he lost his hair,
the stress of dropping bombs on people below,
we don't think about that.
We just think about are we winning the war?
But anyway, he was going back to do more missions.
But I think he was just a wonderful person.
And I just will
always be so frustrated with myself that I did not
write down his name or
anyone else's name that I met that I really cared for.
See, I thought, well,
I'll never have another opportunity
to hear from him again.
Well, I could go online
now and find out if they were alive.
But you have the names.
And I tell young people when I talk
to groups of students, I say,
write down things that are important to you that you
think you won't forget because you will forget them.
>> So you remember
the end of the war and where were you exactly?
>> I was in the end or bottoms of that shift.
And I don't remember any celebration
except the whistle started
blowing and it wasn't time for the shift to end.
And we all came out, but we were scattered.
There were not much of it,
it was the skeleton crew there.
But people who were in cities
or wherever there was
a group it was a tremendous celebration.
>> Did it go on for several days?
>> I don't remember that.
>> So you said you continued to work about six weeks.
Make a little more money.
And then at that point,
did you plan to finish your last year of school?
>> I did. And of course,
everybody in the family said,
oh, you're making a terrible mistake.
Now remember how I think.
I am not dropping out of school forever.
I said I'm going back to school,
but I'm going to work during the war.
And I could have gone.
I went to register to go to school in
Savannah and they said, well,
we have your transcripts here
and you finished the junior year in high school,
but you haven't had any language,
you haven't had any math,
and you haven't had any science.
We will let you register and start your school.
It's going to take you two years to do that.
And so I said, I think I'll work.
And everybody else was working.
People were in the army,
everybody's life was disrupted.
It didn't seem like a big problem to me.
>> That was in '43.
And now, of course,
I realized I would have certainly
been wiser to have gone to school
because that college would have been a lot easier if I
had that extra background from high school.
But anyway, it was not a bad choice and
thousands and thousands of Americans stayed out of
school and postponed everything until the war was over.
>> So where did you complete that final year?
>> I went back to Lineville
and completed and the reason we didn't have anything,
of course, that again was because of the depression.
But I went back and I lived with
my aunt and went to school, and I didn't really
think teachers have a way of always telling you,
you better learn that algebra,
you won't get in college.
Well, I always think I'm not
going to college. I don't have any money.
No way we can go to college,
I just didn't have that as a goal in my mind.
There were not all opportunities
that young people have now.
But when I graduated from high school,
my father's oldest sister talked to my father and said,
you haven't been a part of your child's life very much
and she obviously wants to do something with her life.
Would you be willing to finance her going to college?
And he did that.
So I went to liberal arts school just for a year because
when I applied for dental hygiene school,
which is what I wanted to do,
and that's a two year course,
the class was filled.
A lot of the dental schools
closed even during World War II,
because everybody had gone off to fight in the war.
They didn't have the staff,
the teachers, the instructors that they needed.
I did go to college.
From from Lamble,
I went to the liberal arts school for a year,
and then I went to Chicago
to Northwestern Dental Hygiene School.
>> Was that the first contact you'd had with your father?
>> No. We had had contact.
He just wasn't consistent at all in the contacts.
We visited him some when we were small,
and there was a lot of anger with my mother,
especially, and I understand that.
But anyway, he wasn't
consistent at all in supporting us financially.
When we were children, we'd go visit him for a week,
not often, but sometimes.
But you don't bond with people much.
But anyway, he was great to do that and we
became closer together because
I spent more time with him.
>> So moving to Savannah at 15 is one thing,
but moving to Chicago,
what was that like?
>> That was pretty scary
[LAUGHTER]
when I got there anyway.
And the interesting thing in contrast,
my father went with me and he was sales representative.
He always stayed at the best hotel.
So we stayed at the Hilton Hotel
in Chicago on Michigan Boulevard, I won't forget it.
And the students lived at the YWCA.
We lived at the MCA.
So we lived at YWCA and
when I got to that room and it was
on the 17th floor of the building.
And I had requested a roommate.
I thought it was going to be like
the first year of college at Liberal Arts School.
A thousand women there and
about 10 or 12 of us were hygienists.
Anyway, it was a desolate cold October day and
all I could see was downtown Chicago and it was huge.
And I've never forgotten.
There was this Afro American man brought my luggage up.
And I didn't want my father to see me cry.
I was 20 years old, so I kept suppressing the crying.
By the time I got on the elevate,
I was making these horrible gulping sounds.
And I got off and got to the room,
and by the time this man got there with my luggage,
I can still see him, he'd say,
miss, please don't cry.
[LAUGHTER]
Don't cry, it's going to be all right.
He tried to be so comforting.
And I made a friend.
She was on the elevator, a student.
She was older than I was.
She told me on the elevator.
She said, as soon as I can,
I'm coming up to your room to visit with you.
And she did.
And she's 95 now,
I guess, and I still talk to her occasionally.
She's still alive, but she slept in the bed with me.
It wasn't a twin bed, it like a cot,
that was the bed in the room.
But you were home sick,
and I was never home sick again.
Those were the last tears I shed,
which is another lesson and you
just have to have a friend.
>> And the Dental Hygiene College
was in the city of Chicago, not in Evanston?
>> Not in Evanston.
All the professional schools,
we were connected to the dental school and
all the professional schools so downtown in Chicago,
not out at Evanston.
>> So how long was the program?
>> Two years.
>> And what did you do for amusement,
for recreation, entertainment in Chicago?
>> Well, I discovered pizza for one.
[LAUGHTER]
Never seen pizza of any kind in the south.
But we just did what college kids do.
I enjoyed the city and
my friends enjoyed my excitement over snow.
I got on the elevator
one night and it hadn't snowed in Chicago,
growing up in Alabama,
I was always excited about
snow because we didn't have to go to
school was the main reason I guess I was excited about.
So anyway, this lady on the elevator,
she had on a coat with a fur collar and I saw
something on the call and said what is that?
And she said it's snowing.
[LAUGHTER]
I got so excited.
And my roommates and
the friends at Dental Hygiene School
never let me forget that first night.
I made them put their coats on over
their pajamas and go outside with me to see the snow.
But that excitement didn't last
too long because when it snows in Chicago,
nothing changes, you got to get to class on time.
And Chicago is a wonderful city.
I enjoyed seeing the city.
I went home with some of
my classmates to visit one in Michigan, one in Indiana.
It was just a good time.
And I liked learning to do what I did for 55 years,
and that was being a dental hygienist.
>> You said that you had resolved not to form
too lasting attachments to
young men while you were working in Savannah.
So did you maintain that policy in Chicago?
>> No. And I didn't start maintaining it.
[LAUGHTER]
Really I guess having been
a child with single parent
and a divorce and all the things that go into that,
that had a big influence,
and then my sister had two children
by her first husband and they were divorced.
And I could see the children going through what we had.
And I remember making a conscious decision,
I don't want to get married and have children.
I don't want them to be caught up in this.
But I didn't actually stop
having dates and going out with guys and doing things.
But I just decided I really
didn't think it was right for me to be married.
And I continued to feel that way.
And I believe strongly in God's leadership in my life,
and I think he knew that was what I needed,
even though marriage is the normal pattern,
but I can't tell you how many children I've had in
my lifetime or other people's children
that I loved and they needed somebody extra.
I had one Guatemalan family.
There were seven children in Rome,
and they don't have grandparents.
They never saw their grandparents.
They have them, but they're back in their own country
and they don't ever get to be with them.
And so I've nurtured
other people's children and been blessed by that,
and I haven't had
the terrifying responsibility.
[LAUGHTER]
of clothing them and
teaching them all the things they have to learn.
I think I did what was right,
what was best for me,
and I haven't regretted it.
>> So you completed
your education in Chicago in two years,
and then where did you start work?
>> Atlanta. And I've worked in Atlanta for seven years.
>> And then you went to Jacksonville.
>> And I went to Jacksonville.
>> And when did you arrive in Rome?
>> 1968, July 1st.
>> And what dentist did you work in?
>> My first cousin married a dental student.
She was a dental hygiene student at UT.
And so she was married to a dentist and he lived in Rome.
And he told me when he got
out of the service and got his practice started.
He said when I get my practice built up,
I want you to come to work for me.
I don't believe I want to go to work for family,
that was another thing out of
my background that people
didn't think it was a good idea to work with your family.
I don't know where it came from, exactly.
But anyway, that happened and I
did go to work for him and it was wonderful really.
He really was a wonderful person to work for.
And my cousin and I are like sisters.
>> And you worked there?
>> Thirty five years.
So you retired in 2003?
>> Right.
>> So tell me about
the American Rosie the Riveter Association.
>> It's made up of women who worked during World War II,
and the association was formed,
of course, with the purpose to
help educate people to what
women did during World War II,
and to help people
understand not just what we did for the war effort,
but how it changed
the social issues of our lives and how women came to
see that they could count for something other
than just being housewives,
and that's an important thing.
I'd never want to minimize the importance
of being a mother and a housewife but it's just opened.
We'd like to stress that,
and we also like to help
people understand that we can do it.
That's what our icon says.
Women can do, and
still how many women in the world know that?
>> Well, you said in your early work,
for getting other Rosies involved,
you worked with the Rome News-Tribune.
And how did you advertise or recruit?
>> Did I show you that picture? I didn't, did I?
>> I don't think so.
>> I went to a national meeting of
the American Rosie the Riveter Association in Nashville.
I haven't attended many of them.
I don't have it.
It's in the other thing.
When I came back, I called
the Rome News-Tribune and spoke to this young man and
I told him a little bit
about who Rosie the Riveters were.
It's amazing how many people don't
know anything about it.
I said, "Would you like to do a story?"
He said, "Yes, I would."
So I went down,
and he made the best picture I've ever
had made of myself in my whole life.
[LAUGHTER]
And I said, "Don't ask me to pose,
just to shoot it because I can't pose."
But it's a great picture.
And it came out on the 4th of July,
happened to be a Sunday,
so it was in the social section and it's 8*10,
and he put in headlines
across the top, "Searching for Rosies."
And in about a month,
I had found 10 Rosies or more.
But when I went to that meeting,
and this is the purpose of the association,
one of its main purposes of
the American Rosie the Riveter Association.
There were 10 or 12 women,
they had 90 years or older,
who had traveled from all over the country.
And the women told their stories and I thought,
women need to be telling
these stories and I had tried in Rome,
but I don't have a leadership mindset.
And so I just make
feeble efforts and if it doesn't work, I'd quit.
So either give up on it and go to something else,
not intentionally. It's just my nature.
But anyway, as a result of that article,
we were able to form
a chapter of the American Rosie of the Riveters in
Rome and that's why we're here today or how we're here.
We had our first meeting in 2010, I think.
And at that time, we had maybe 12 members and now we
have five that are active, five or six.
Some are deceased,
and others cannot participate because of their health.
>> And what are the daughters of Rosies called?
>> Thank you. The daughters can join and it's very easy.
I ask women and of course when
you get older, you say, "Oh,
I've been part of too many clubs
already, too many groups."
"No," I said, "You have to get past that barrier."
You can join and the initial fee is $10.
That's all you have to have to spend.
There's not an annual fee or anything,
but the daughters can also join and become Rosebuds.
I'm not really fond of that title,
but anyway, it doesn't matter about that,
but they now are the people
who have to do the organizational work.
We can't do it anymore.
It's too much and they're all volunteers. It's amazing.
They start out with five members in 1997,
I think, and now we have over 2000 members.
A lot of those are deceased, of course.
And we get a mail out,
a newsletter every quarter,
and they list once a
year that they have a memorial service
at the annual meeting,
and they list the ones who have deceased.
And last year, I counted them.
It was close to 60.
And I was 16,
most of the women that went to work
or to 18 and in the 20s.
So I'm able still to do more,
and I've had excellent health all my life.
So I'm blessed in that way and I can still drive in Rome.
I don't like to drive when I don't
know which lane to get in,
and especially with other people in the car but I can be
the transportation and we did have monthly meetings.
That's dwindling because we don't have enough people too.
>> So we talked about the changing roles
of women after World War II,
and would you like to share the story of your niece?
>> Yes. I have a niece,
she's 27, and she is a veterinarian.
She's been out of school for a year,
but I went to her, Jessie,
has such a great love for animals,
and people, of course.
But I went to her graduation from University of Georgia,
and I was having a discussion with another parent,
and she was telling me her son was
graduating from an education.
She said, "I hope he can find
a job. Where is your student?
What is she going to do?" And I said, "Well,
she's graduating from the School of Veterinary."
And she said, "Well, I'm from Nashville."
And she said, "In 1952,
my sister came here to this school and wanted
to register as a student to become a veterinarian.
And they said, sorry, but we don't allow women.
We don't take women students in that school.
And so she didn't get to do it."
I told Jessie that story,
of course, that night after graduation.
And that year a week or two,
a few weeks later, we went to Nashville.
Jessie went with me and drove me there
because to the annual meeting.
And at the end of the meeting,
they had an hour or so of time where
any of us could just pop up and
say something we wanted to say,
a part of our story or something
that had happened to us at the convention,
and Jessie is shy.
She's not eager to get up in front of people,
but when I came back after I
had gotten up and said a few words,
she was sitting on the edge of her chair,
just, "Aunt Jane, can I get up there?"
I said, "Well, sure. Go ahead. You can go."
And as soon as that lady sits down,
so she hopped up there.
And I hadn't really emphasized this to her,
and I don't always inject this into my story about
how women became much more independent.
That was a huge part of the World War II, of course.
But anyway, she got up and she said,
"I just can't thank you, ladies,
enough for making it possible for me to be here,
and to tell you that I'm going to become a veterinarian."
And then she's so emotional about it,
she burst into tears.
And the sweet lady, the Rosebud,
that was the president just wrapped her up in her arms,
and gave her a big warm hug.
And so she was able to go on and
finish her little bit of her speech.
But when I invited her to go with me,
I said, "Just say no, if you don't want to go.
It's just going to be a lot of
old people and I don't
know that you'll have a good time."
[NOISE]
She loved it.
She said, and she still says it,
"That's the best trip I ever had."
And she was busy texting my niece at home.
She said, "BJ, these ladies up here doing the jitterbug."
[LAUGHTER]
Not Aunt Jane, I couldn't jitterbug when I was young.
And we had a band and they were dancing together.
And we did that during World War II,
and I had forgotten that we danced together
because they weren't men enough to dance with you.
So we just danced the girls to dance together.
But she enjoyed it and it did.
And there were so many women for years,
and I'm still sure that's still true,
but they were trapped in terrible situations,
abusive situations,
and some people allowed themselves to stay in those.
Today even, of course, I understand that.
But they weren't skilled.
The only jobs you could get as a woman would
be as a teacher.
You had to go to college,
and not many women got to do that.
You either did that or you became a waitress,
or you could be a beautician, or stenographer.
See, I'm always speaking from my perspective.
My father's twin sister went to New York,
and got a job, she was aged 20, and she went by.
Well, maybe she had some friends there,
but she worked as a stenographer,
but she was a non-people usually.
And I think in the south
and certainly in some rural areas,
smaller towns, we didn't know we
could do anything special.
At least I didn't. I know it's not true generally,
but it did open up.
[NOISE]
It gave us a sense of
knowing that we could do whatever we tried to do,
and I don't know why.
And this is another reason people ought to
understand a little bit about or just remember history,
but the men said we couldn't do it.
And a lot of them said that
companies just wouldn't hire women in the beginning.
I have read that in the beginning of the war like 1941,
they didn't want to do that.
But if you look at
the history of this country and of the world,
women have always been able to do things.
They fought in the Revolutionary War,
they fought in the Civil War.
They traveled across the country as
pioneers and gave up their children,
and buried them along with the men.
I'm not minimizing what the men were doing.
But why did they think we couldn't do it?
But we did.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Thank you so much, Ms. Tucker.