Marian Frances Clark (nee Holden)

Dependable, Good Communication, Helpful, Loyal, Trust Worthy, Caring

San Antonio, Texas

April 5, 2015

Eric Clark

Palo Alto College

History 1302 - Spring 2015

Do you have a fondest childhood memory?
I learned a bible verse, but can't remember what it was. A psalm I believe. I sung in church. May have been Christmas song. A solo in church.

What do you remember most about your childhood?
I guess we had good times with my parents, father reading to us. My mother knitting, listening to radio together. The programs were, "Amos and Andy," white people with black accents. Listen to the Lone Ranger. Long walks with mother and father. Great walking people.

How was your relationship with your brother?
Good in those years. Was always to protect, watch over me. Boys and girls played together, a select group. Climb trees, cross street to play with old car. Brother was suppose to help when I went to get out of tree. Mother called for dinner brother didn't wait. I fell out of tree, was about 5 years old. Went swimming in river. Always kept mouth shut didn't know what was in there. One time kid chased me with a dead snake. I was terrified. My brother chased the kid away. Another thing we did was take the silk off corn, dried it and smoked it in a corn cob pipe. Mother knew about it, was about 6 years old.

What were some of your worst memories as a child?
I guess when my brother got scarlet fever and they put house under quarinteen. No one could get near him but mother. She had to get dressed in certain clothers. I couldn't go to school. The day before we knew what he had, I had kissed him before going to school. Mother didn't know it. I didn't catch it. World War II broke out with the Japanesse bombed Honolulu, HI. Mom rolled bandages and knitted scarves and sweaters. We practiced air raids. Everyone had to have black shades. Aircraft would fly over they had teeth. Everything was ratoned. An example was shoes, meat, and sugar. Could not by nylons(hose), and that was the beginning of leg make up. Its come back now. For vehicles gas and tires. My mode of transportation was my two feet. One of my friends would let me ride on handle bars of bike. I was only 12 years old. I asked him how he liked my nylons and he said, "I never saw nylons with hair on them." I went home that evening and told my mother I was going to shave my legs.

Any lasting memory from World War II that stands out?
S. New Berlin was considered a village. I knew one fellow named Walter Mcintire. He was clerk in Victory Chain Store. He was killed in France, stepped on a land mine. He was first one to go. Came from a family of six. Girls very pretty and boys very handsome. I remember seeing a picture of him. I bought a gold star and put it on his picture. In 1945 when the war ended, one of the boys from the Victory Chain Store brought out toilet paper. The boy borrowed a funeral directors van and we drove around throwing toilet paper everywhere.
Response

How was your relationship with your mom growing up?
We had our differences. She wanted me to sew and do girl things. I new how to set the table and cook, but prefered time with my dad. I would tell her wasn't going to sew, that was going to peddle milk with daddy and did. If we back talked she would swat our mouths with brush or get a limb and swat us. I never cursed my mother. My father would leave discipling to my mother.

Tell me a good growing up story with you and your mom?
She learned to be a hair dresser and practiced on me. I was always very fussy about my appearance. My hair had to be just so. When she'd cut it I would complain about it to short one side, too long the other. She would give me a perm with big old clamps. Take a rod, put in water, put hair around roller, put in sack with chemicals, dip in water and over blower and add another clamp. Things would get hot and heavy. I complained the whole time. When she would comb it out I would complain and she would say, "you are my worse customer." Other wise we had a good time. We would go to county fair with friends in Norwich. Even though we didn't have money. We would find ways to entertain ourselves at home.

How was school life?

In the school choir. Not much activities for elementary. We went around to compete different schools. Was on the school council. Typed the school year book. Got along with students and teachers. All grades in one school. In S. New Berlin the whole 12 yers. Senior trip to New York City. for a week Had to earn our own money. I walked to school all types of weather. Lived in the village only rode bus when choir would get together once a year to compete in Norwich.

How was your relationship with your father growing up?
Well he was very protective. I used to bite my fingernails when little. When I started letting them grow and putting on red nail polish and red lipstick he didn't like it. So what I would do is put lipstick on and blot it by kissing him on the forehead. My dad was a bit of a biget like Archie Bunker in the show. One time some friends that had originated in Denmark, their two nephews came from Denmark for a visit. They asked me to take a ride with them. After I returned home he called the nephews "Danish Pups." He would call another friend who was Italian a "Dago" or "Wap" can't remember. But my friend Susie he never called anything and she was Italian.

How did you respond?
We were at the dinner table, I was about 18, I threw a glass of water at my father. My father got up, my mother go up, and got between us. I thought was going to get a whoopin. My father was of British Ancestry and very strict in his thinking when I became engaged to my future husband. When I showed my father my engagement ring my father didn't say a thing. Later on I found out he said to my mother, "who said she could have that." In other words my future husband should have asked him for my hand in marriage, I guess.

How did you meet your husband?
He was in the United States Air Force. He went in 1942. He was a career military man. He came back from Iwo Jima and was working in a smoke shop with a friend of his. Well my friend Susie and I whom I worked with at the insurance office, went to Grow Park Inn, which was a restaurant and bar. We ordered a pizza and were sitting in the restaurant near where we could see who was standing at the bar. There was a window area where the waitress picked up the drinks and I was sitting with my back to the window, Susie sat facing it. She said, "there's the guy from the smoke shop, he's with another fellow and they're coming over." My future husband sat with me and other with Susie. My comment before they got there was, "it never fails when you order food." Afterwards we went for a ride. During those time you didn't worry about being left out in the woods. They told us, not asked us, that two days later we were going to the movies. Susie's brother was in the Air Force and needed to catch a train back to Bingimton and we were late. We had made arrangements with smoke shop man because he was familiar with area. 2 days after movie went to Oniada and went to a grill. On the way Susie said, "stop Walt going to run into fence." I had bought a new dress. The smoke man was William E. Clark and he spilt his drink in my lap. I was afraid dress might shrink. We went to restroom to sponge off. While in there was a machine with little bottles of cologne and we bought different fragrances. When we came out Walt was waiting and said, "hurry up Clark is passed out at the bar", but he wasn't. Susie said to Walt, "how do we smell" and Walt said, "you smell like an out house." That night Bill Clark and I took a walk on the street. He looked in the window of a store and saw a refrigerator. I asked him if he was getting married. Two days later he asked me if I would marry him. I said, "I'll let you know in two days." I did tell him yes and as you know Eric Clark is my son. The smoke shop clerk is his father. His mother told her that when he told her she almost had a stroke. That he had told her, "he was not going to drag a woman around while your in the military." but he did. I was dragged around for 9 years. The majority of the time we got along well when I let him have his way. But when I did argue, he would say, "you go back 20 years," I would say, "not my fault have a memory of an elephant." I have been a window now 28 years this June. I have had gentleman friends, with benefits, hahaha.

How have the lives for women changed in your life time?
Well for my grandmother I don't believe women were prone to work outside the home very much. But during my mothers time women worked as waitresses and nannies for people with money. My mother did while in Morris, NY. Some southern people would come and my mother would work as a sitter for a nephew of some people at 15. When I was growing up she was a hairdresser. Women worked as a stenographer and secretaries. Women were suppose to stay home and have babbies. 1920 the suffrage movement. Men worked outside the home. Women supposedly had pea brains. My mom taught me to be independent. In my mothers time if the men said no you didn't. If my husband said no I still did it. I had friends growing up whose boy-friends or husbands would beat them up if they didn't listen. I would tell them you must like it you're still with them. Your father never hit me. Women worked in the defense department during the war. Rosie the Riveter they were called. They would rivet the parts on airplanes. They would fly planes also. If women didn't marry they didn't. Women have own businesses and expect to be treated equally. One day a man said, "let me hold door open for you," I told him, "use to doing it myself." At second door I said, "let me hold door for you." Your father told me, "after were married this will be last time I open car door for you," and that was that. Only man that can tell me what to do is the man that signs my paycheck.

ANALYSIS