TRANSCRIPTION
Where you and what were were you during when America entered World War II?
I myself was in West Virginia and we just got back from church and everybody had their radios on and we at my sister's house and we were fixin' lunch and all the sudden it come on. It was still for a minute and the president and said the United States is now in WAR. Every one said "what did he say?" and he said it again, "the United States is now in war." And everybody just stared cry and I was bout 17 and a half when that happen. You know I wasn't no kid, but I still didn't understand exactly what they were talkin' bout and yet I could understand why everyone was crying because everyone was so content that day and it just seemed that it couldn't be that everyone was crying. What they were cryin for was because they figured that all the young guys around was gonna be sent to the war right away and we were gonna be short on all kinds of commodities that we wouldn't be able and there would probably be a lot of people dead from it even here, so it was a sad time. We didn't sleep to well that night because see I had two brothers who would be eligible and I had two brother in laws who just missed it by a hair because they were just old enough where they didn't have to go. It was just a very very sad time and it was just a shock because the older people knew that there were plenty of things going on and claimed there wasn't going to be war, but then that day it was almost too sudden and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor…. It was a sad sad time.
Did your family actually enter the war?
Yeah, I had two brothers that went into the navy. My brother in laws was just barely old enough where they didn't have to go.
When the war broke out when did you go to work at Goodyear Air Craft?
We'll see they set up this good year thing and had four big hangers and they filled these hangers with blimps. They generally started this one with just putting the thing together then the next one went inside an started and by the time we got that it was ready to put the inside and finish the inside up and do the front and front panel. Then they would send it to the next guy to finish it up.
What exactly did you have to do?
I was a riveter, I did the rivets I didn't have to do the buckin' somebody else did that. What you did was you had this machine you had to put the rivet into the hole that was already drilled we didn't have to do that and put that in there and hold it with the machine and the guy on the other side had a bar and they would hold it up there to hold it tight and seal it and would set it right into the skin on the blimp there.
Where did you live and was there anyone living with you?
I lived in town in Akron, Ohio in an apartment and in that time the apartment had four bed rooms on the upper level with one kitchen….. Each one of those rooms had two girls in it we all had the kitchen, but we had some many minuets to have breakfast we had to have it perfectly clean when we left………the washing of clothes was down stairs and you had to watch the schedule to see when it would be free to use the wash and it made it nice to have the washer and drier down there.
Did ya'll live pretty good was you pay alright?
In the begging you went to school you had to go to school the thing of it was when alias and I first got there we went and signed up and they told us that we were on their list and as soon as they had an opening in school they would let us know when a class was open. We were there two day when we got the call to come to class at a certain time and we got50 cents an hour to go to school. You had to stay in school until you until they called you to work in the blimp. They called alias in a week and a half because she was little and they needed someone to crawl inside in the wing and they didn't take anyone as big as me I was too big to get in there and she had to crawl in there to buck the rivets. In two more weeks I was called, but I can't remember for the life of me what we were paid an hour, but we were only making fifty cents an hour so you can see we were eaten three times a day and we had chicken noodle soup because that all we could afford that and a box of crackers. We got so tired of that at Christmas time we got a package from home that had a box of candy and stuff in it we were so happy to get that and it really did taste good.
Was you family worried about you going off to work?
O they didn't like that at all we had to coax my mother to go. Alias's mother was different she thought that alias was going to be what she was goin' to be where ever she was and there wasn't anything the mother could do about it so there wasn't any use in her fussin' about it. My mother was different she was scarred because none of her children had ever been that far away from home when they were as young as I was. Finally, my grandmother came along I coaxed grandma to tell momma to let us go and so grandma did so she said it was an opportunity from them to get out and see something different. I was working in the paper mill and alias was working in the meat cutting place so we moved……we were never sorry we went and the work that we done was more noisy that anything all you could hear was rivet guns goin' off. We learned a lot and there was 45,000 people working in those hangers. ME:" where most of the workers women?" yes there were very few men working of course the personnel were older men, but there were very few men. "How old were you when you started working there?" 18 you had to be 18 when you started working.
Were ya'll afraid of being attacked while working?
O no I don't think so I don't think that anybody thought of that at that point because we were shipping stuff out at that point I doubt that they were thinking in that line we were just making stuff and getting it out of the country. The blimps were kind of a scout for a long time but I can't remember exactly what they were used for.
How were women treated in general in at your work place?
O we were treated fine we were treated very well of course we had to obey the rules of the company. As long as you obeyed the rule you were treated great.
Did you get any off time or vacations?
No that wasn't thought of at that ping because that was a new company set up an by the time we went in the war was almost over and see we didn't work there that long till the war was comin to a close and I don't know really how long the company was in business there by the time we went it in it didn't seem like there was no grieving over what we had to do and of course there was no complaints about the pay because a job was a job.
Where did you meet you husband?
At the Good year plant I was working on the east side and he was working on the west side, there was a tool shed in the middle where we had to get our tools. I never noticed him but he told the tool man to ask me what my name was and when I went got get a tool he asked me and I thought it was strange, but I never thought of it. In a day or two I noticed he was looking at me and wanted to date me and I thought I don't want him I don't know him. One night coming out of work it was a terrific crowd coming out because everyone rode busses because if you drove you would get caught in a traffic jam so he was standing out by the gate were we came out and he grabbed my arm and said, "I want to talk to you," so we stopped an listened and he wanted to know if he could take me to dinner and I said, "I will go as long as you take my girlfriend with me because we don't go anywhere without the other" so we went an talked and had fun. The next week it happened again so we got a lot of dinners off him and we started to like him. Then he asked me if I would like to go to Cleveland to go to a ball game and alias didn't wasn't to go it was a Saturday afternoon and I had nothing else to do so I went. …..then he asked me if I wanted to date him I thought I don't know about this alias didn't have boyfriend and I thought that's not fair and he kept pestin' me so we started dating. Then he went into the service before long, he was stationed in South Carolina and asked me if would stay down there while he was in training, so I went down there and we got married in the Carolinas. Me:"did ya'll buy a house down there?" This lady had a house that was real pretty that sit on a hill everything around there was so beautiful. Her husband was in the service and two kids if she was going to rent out the bed room in the house the person that was staying there would have to take care of the kids and get them ready for school. She would make boiled okra for breakfast I looked like snot and I couldn't eat it because it tasted so bad. So I told John that I could not eat that that's all there is too it so I got jelly, butter and cereal and I had to share that with the kids. They weren't used to food that tasted like anything. John came to the house when he had breaks from the base, but he had to stay there a lot. Then he was shipped over sees and I went to his parents how in Pennsylvania to help his mother with the garden and such. One day my son bill slipped out of the house and got on the road and a man walked him back to the house so I knew I couldn't stay there. So I went back to mother's house in West Virginia until John was discharged.
How did the rationing affect you?
I remember sugar was rationed and butter,but I can't remember anything else. It was the most important thing I remember we had fruit,but we couldn't make jelly because we didn't have enough sugar.
Where were you when the war closed and what did you do?
When the war was ended and they made the announcement on the radio my husband was in the hospital ye t in St. Charles Virginia and I got a shot gun that was my dad's and I put a shell in it and I went out to shoot it and when I shot it the barrel blew up and kick my arm so bad. It tore my thumb and the blood was just a pour and my mother came around the corner and said, "Where did you get that gun" and daddy said, "You shouldn't have tried to shoot that gun. Anyhow daddy was upset because the gun messed up. When mom came over she said, "What did you do to yourself" and I said, "Nothing" and she said well how come there is blood droppin' on the ground" and I said "o is it, my goodness". In the mean time John was able to come home from the hospital and he managed to hurt his hand so we both had bandaged hands. So we both remembered the celebration and everyone who drank had something to get drunk over.
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
No, thats about all I'd like to say about that.
