Oral history interview with Jane Hydes Council, 1999

WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECTPRIVATE

ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

INTERVIEWEE:Jane Hydes Council

INTERVIEWER:Eric Elliott

DATE:June 16, 1999

[Begin Interview]

EE:Today is June 16, 1999, and I'm in Greensboro, North Carolina. My name is Eric Elliott, and I am with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I'm at the home of Jane Council this afternoon. Thank you, Ms. Council, for having us here at your home. This is going to be an interview for the Women Veterans Historical Project at the university, and as I told you, we've got about thirty questions that we ask folks, give or take a few, depending on your answers. The first question I hope is not the most difficult--that is, where were you born and where did you grow up?

JC:Well, I was born in Pennington, New Jersey, June 4, 1922, and that's where I grew up.

EE:Happy birthday, a few days late.

JC:At the age of twenty-one, I couldn't wait to get in the Women's Army Corps.

EE:Oh, okay. Well, you did have to wait to twenty-one, I think, unless you wanted a signature. Did you have brothers and sisters there?

JC:I have one sister, Sylvia.

EE:Is she older or younger?

JC:Younger. She lives in Roswell, Georgia, and they live in a beautiful antebellum home called Mimosa Hall. We just finished a trip down there to see them. It was a hospital during the war and really carries an aura of mystery and romance, and it's absolutely gorgeous.

EE:So you both came South.

JC:Yes.

EE:What did your folks do in New Jersey?

JC:My father was retired. He was a gardener and horticulturist as I grew up, and then he retired and died at the age of fifty-five, and that's a story in itself. I don't know if you want me to pursue on that or what.

EE:How old were you when he passed away?

JC:Twenty-one.

EE:The same year you joined the service. So tell me about that.

JC:When I enlisted, we were sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, in the Women's Auxiliary Corps, and I had two weeks of that. The opportunity was given to get out of that or re-enlist into the Women's Army Corps, and I re-enlisted. So we were all packed on a troop train and sent to Daytona Beach, Florida, a typical troop train--wide open cattle cars, the whole nine yards. That train was in Trenton, New Jersey, seven miles from my home in Pennington when my dad died, and because of security, I was not allowed off the train, nor did I know my father had passed away. And then when we arrived in Daytona Beach, they started calling for me right away, and I thought, "Oh, my god, what have I done yet already?" [laughs] So I took out on a civilian train. They turned me around and put me on a civilian train, and I headed home. I missed two weeks of basic training to get my family through this ordeal. I left my mother and sister, returned to service, and they let me stay with the same group that I enlisted in, and I'll always be grateful for that. That was very humane and very considerate. Some of that did exist in the service, you know.

EE:That's good that they weren't sticklers, because they could have been sticklers right there with the first group that went into the WAC.

JC:I was a little greenhorn, first time away from home.

EE:In that two weeks, you say you joined the auxiliary and then two weeks later they switched the rules on it. So you had joined, where, at Fort Devens?

JC:I joined in Camden, New Jersey. I had to go down there to do all my enrolling and physical and everything. Then they sent me from there to Fort Devens.

EE:Let me fill in just a little bit about how it was that you got to that decision at age twenty-one to join the military.

JC:Well, I met a man. [laughs]

EE:Hold on a second. Let me get you there. I'm going to tease it out from you.

JC:Typical wartime romance.

EE:Well, I'm ready to listen. Your dad was a horticulturist. Your mom stayed at home with you guys or did she have a--

JC:Yes. She was a mother, and she stayed home and baked and cooked and canned and did all the things that ladies did back then.

EE:Pennington, what part of Jersey is that in? Is that north, south?

JC:Central. It was right between Princeton and Trenton. George Washington slept there one time. We were seven miles from Washington's Crossing.

EE:Small town?

JC:Small town, 7,000 population. Strictly country. Beautiful, beautiful. I didn't appreciate it enough to know just where I did live, you know.

EE:[Were] you somebody who liked school growing up?

JC:No. I got through with the skin of my teeth. I didn't like it.

EE:What did you do after you graduated from high school?

JC:I didn't go to college. I was eighteen when I graduated. I worked for the war effort in an airplane factory, in the office, which was great. I made good money there. They gave us roller skates to get around the plant in. Then I left there and went to a gyroscope plant in Hopewell, which was nine miles from Pennington. I worked there, and I did all this between eighteen and twenty-one, killing time till I could get in service.

EE:So you were pretty clear you wanted to join the service?

JC:Oh, definitely. I wanted to get away and do something constructive.

EE:Were you living at home when you had these jobs?

JC:Yes.

EE:That'll make you want to go after a while. [laughs]

JC:Well, it was a different, it was an era--I lived in a very proper town, where it was very Victorian. You had to be very wealthy, and my people were not wealthy. They were well-off, but not wealthy. And the social structure was not my style. I did not like it. It was false. It didn't give me anything to satisfy my creativity or my particular personality. I was heavy into sports, which was a big relief for all of that. I grew up with people

that--

EE:So you played on team sports?

JC:Yes, in school.

EE:Do you recall where you were when you heard the news about Pearl Harbor?

JC:Yes. Oh, my goodness, that's way ahead of my story. It was in Richmond, Virginia. We were at a movie, and they interrupted the movie and announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

EE:You were there on a family trip or just yourself?

JC:No. I had married.

EE:This is in '41.

[recording paused]

EE:You were telling me you were in Richmond. You met this fellow and got married and were in Richmond in '41?

JC:No. Back up on my story a little bit, because a friend of mine interested me in the USO. So I joined that, and we were having a party for the soldiers from Fort Dix, New Jersey, a dance. During that dance, we were doing something called the Paul Jones, where somebody blows the whistle and the girl and the boy each find partners. Well, I was looking around for somebody tall enough to dance with, and there he was.

EE:That sounds good.

JC:We courted for six weeks. He went overseas. He was in the African campaign, one of the first to go over there.

EE:Was this in Richmond where you met him?

JC:No, this was in Pennington, when I was a young girl. I'm backing down to where I was eighteen and how I came to join the Women's Army Corps.

EE:So at eighteen, which would have been 1940, or '41, I guess.

JC:Forty-one.

EE:And he joins the service, the army.

JC:No, it was later than that. It was about '42. See, I'm lost in there. There's a few periods of time--. It was after I had graduated from high school, so it was between '41 and '42. And then I had to wait until I was twenty-one.

EE:So the fact that you had a fellow that--you had married him before he went overseas, or when did you get married? You were just courting?

JC:No. No. He went overseas. He would not take it upon--

EE:He didn't want an entanglement.

JC:An entanglement or commit [to] somebody, because of all the known reasons. As it turned out, he came home [very ill]. They did not care for our men. There were no rehabilitation centers for these boys. It was terrible. He couldn't write his own name. He was all in one piece, but he was shell-shocked.

EE:What was his name?

JC:[Unclear] was his name. He was a Southern boy. He was from Georgia. It's a sad state of affairs, my dear. I'm not proud of that. But nevertheless--Huh?

EE:I talked with some people who worked in army hospitals who talked about that, that they really did not [know?] what they were doing with treating those folks.

JC:Well, they discharged them and turned them loose on the public, and those poor guys fought the war. I mean, he used to wake up in the middle of the night choking me. He was fighting Germans. He had all kinds of nightmares. He slowly but surely outgrew that, or overcame it, I guess is a better word. But he turned to drink and he became an alcoholic. And in the course of events through the 00:10:00years, this is what killed him. So I lived through that. Now, I'm no better in my philosophy and my belief and faith in life that you look for the best in any situation. It's not what you've lost; it's what you have left. Al-Anon and AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] opened my eyes to many things, not just that particular situation, but life in general. It's good for anybody.

EE:I sometimes think they ought to teach the twelve steps in high school to everybody rather than wait to the end of the day when you need--to avoid the critical situation and be prepared for them.

JC:I'm a firm believer in my Lord and Jesus Christ. That's where I live. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here. I've been through too much. Many miracles have happened in my life. And my mother never taught me anything, because she was a little old Victorian lady, you know. She gave me a book to look at once and that was it, about how dogs do it, and that was my education.

EE:That was your adult education right there.

JC:And then, of course, the girls in school snickered and twittered behind the doors and looked at these magazines, you know.

EE:And then you joined the WAC.

JC:Yes, there's where I got straightened out. That's where the education started. It's wonderful, Eric, just wonderful.

EE:You wanted to go join the service because you had somebody there that you cared about. You wanted to do your part since you couldn't be with him?

JC:Well, I wanted to get overseas. He was going over there, and I thought they'd send me over there.

EE:My question is, why, of all the branches of service, did you pick WAC? Was it because WACs were going overseas?

JC:It was the only one that was available at the time. That was the one that was promoted to the young girls in my area.

EE:WAAC was the first? Auxiliary was the first? That would have been '42, I guess, they started doing that.

JC:Yes. Yes, actually.

EE:You joined in the summer of '43, it looks like.

JC:Yes.

EE:July of '43, the 7th of July until the 4th of August, when you switched out. You told me that you signed up at Camden. You went down to a recruiter there.

JC:That's where they send all the new recruits for physicals and signing up and everything. And then I came home to wait till I was called, went to Trenton. They put me on a train, and I was off. The last time I ever saw my father.

EE:Had he been ill before that?

JC:No. Just ran out of time, just worked himself hard, smoked too much.

EE:Well, you see things in retrospect you don't in advance.

JC:I don't know if it was a family trait or not. But he just died in my mother's arms, and there wasn't a thing that could have prevented it. It was a massive heart attack. That's the way he ended. But in a way, who's to say? It's a--

EE:Compared to a lot of ways, everybody has an exit. That's probably one of the more pleasant ones, actually.

JC:Yes. But back then it was bad because nothing was set up. He didn't have the proper insurance. He didn't have a business that he could turn over to my mother or to us. I don't think social security. I don't remember.

EE:Might have just had a death benefit. I don't know.

JC:Yes, he had a death benefit, but nothing of any consequence, nothing that would support my mother afterwards. So good grief. She went to work as a practical nurse. Our family doctor taught her to care for babies, and that's what she did, and she made a mint. We're doers, we Hydes.

EE:There's the ideal way, and then there's just the way to get it done, just go do it.

JC:Yes. Well, she made no bones about it. It was just something that happened for her benefit. We saw later just how wonderful it was, because I believe in out of suffering is better understanding. You find out what life's all about, and you're better off for it. So don't ever say the silver spoon does you a lot of good. It doesn't.

EE:You say when you joined and you went on that train, that was your first big trip away from home.

JC:Oh, yes. It was wonderful, Eric. It was wonderful, I'll tell you. I had a ball.

EE:It started out as an adventure.

JC:Oh, everything's an adventure.

EE:You didn't know a single other woman on that train?

JC:No. But I had a good time. I was free. I was away from home.

EE:Did you meet Willie on the way down? Where did you meet her?

JC:We met in basic training.

EE:What was her name?

JC:Wilma Spruill.

EE:And she was from Battle Creek.

JC:Yes. I don't know what ever happened to her. We've lost touch.

EE:Was she your bunkmate or something?

JC:We just hit it off.

EE:Just hit it off. Had the right personalities.

JC:Yes. You know, that happened in the service. Everybody had a buddy. There 00:15:00were a few loners, but most people had a friend. And you get attached, and you're doing the same thing and you enjoy things. Your personalities click. It was just a beautiful friendship. It helped us become a part of the unit itself because we could share experiences and problems and things.

EE:They probably told you, when you were signing up, the kinds of work that were available for you. Did you know right off the bat that you wanted to do motor transport?

JC:No, because we went through the rudiments of basic training, of self-discipline and all the good stuff that you have to learn to become a--

EE:Drill, KP [kitchen patrol]--

JC:Oh, everything, everything.

EE:What was a typical day like for you guys? You were at Daytona. Your housing, you said, wasn't in the tent city, but was a nicer--

JC:They were huge two-story barracks, very clean, very polished, all coquina-shelled streets and sidewalks and beautiful shrubbery and pine trees and high cyclone fence all around the whole area.

EE:This was in the middle of summer. Your basic was in August, and you're coming from New Jersey. Were you a little hot?

JC:If I was, it didn't bother me. And we'd line up every morning, you know. A typical morning was waking up to reveille. You jump out of bed and you get your duds on, and, of course, the duds were fatigue uniforms, as they were called. They were seersucker dresses.

EE:Seersucker is more your summer formal, isn't it?

JC:That was the coolness. You worked out in that, and you did all your marching in it and all of your duties in it. And we had high-top brown shoes and long stockings. That was the worst of it.

EE:It doesn't sound very attractive.

JC:These little form-fitting seersucker dresses that came to your knees, with short sleeves, and this little fatigue hat with a brim on it. I have the cutest picture somewhere, and I don't know where it is. I was going like this on a tree.

Anyway, we all lined up for formation in the morning, where we would disperse to go to our various and sundry duties for the day, whatever they were logged on the wall in the day room that you went and checked out to see what you were going to do that day. And there was a copperhead snake coming our way. We were very well disciplined by this time, and we stared at that thing, didn't move a muscle, but every eye was on that snake. The sergeant yelled, "Break ranks!" and we all picked up something. That poor little snake. Didn't even know it was a snake. Little things like that creep into my mind, you know.

EE:I would guess, with the way that that happened to you, that you leaving and coming back probably was a team-building thing for everybody, because I guess a lot of people wanted to help and make sure you were okay, and you probably benefited from that.

JC:Yes.

EE:Were your instructors mainly men, women?

JC:Women. All women. No men. The first time entering into -- no, that's ahead of my story, but I will say that entering into motor transport school, we were housed in the Pink Coquina Hotel in Ormond Beach, strictly WAC, stripped-down hotel. The only thing left were pink blankets and Beautyrest mattresses. No elevators, no nothing. No air-conditioning, no nothing. It was my first exposure to lesbianism. When I went in, oh my God, I'm telling you, I got my eyes opened. God has a plan.

EE:You didn't know what that was? No one ever--

JC:Never heard of such a thing.

EE:It certainly wouldn't have been conversation in a Victorian household.

JC:Oh, no. And my first sergeant was fooling around with one of the girls, and, of course, they were in the process of a dishonorable discharge, and it was the talk of the unit. So that was an explosion. That gave me--it opened my eyes to watch out.

EE:You had a pretty full six weeks.

JC:That's okay. That's okay. It was there. It was happening for a reason, to me. Everything you do, your pathway is led and directed. It's up to you to walk it or not walk it.

EE:True.

JC:So, of course, we were all talked to about that, and that was all in the class and all that stuff about it, you know. We walked out of there with wide eyes and tight lips, questioning everybody for a long, long time.

EE:Didn't trust your neighbor, I would guess, for a while.

JC:No, not really, because you're doing everything together.

EE:You're bathing together.

JC:Your latrine. Everything, you know. Some girls just brazen as they could be. 00:20:00Others very proper. And you found your own. That's how Willie and I met.

EE:Same temperament about what was going on.

JC:That's right. Some people call it cliquey. I don't. I call it standing up for your values.

EE:Probably survival skills. That's true. That's true. That's true. How long was your basic, then?

JC:Six weeks. Actually, I had four.

EE:At the end of that, I assume you probably take some tests or something at the end to check on aptitude or whatever, or did you just go straight, say, "I want to go to motor transport"?

JC:No, that was done. We were just given the opportunity to decide which--what would you call them? Which parts of the service we would like to participate in, and the only ones that were open then were those three--OCS [Officer Candidate School].

EE:You had turned twenty-one, but how did your folks feel about you being in the service? Your dad obviously passed away just after you started.

JC:They didn't like it. They didn't like it, no.

EE:What was it they didn't like?

JC:It was "not ladylike."

EE:That was a real concern of theirs?

JC:They were afraid of their little girl going so far from home and what might happen to me. I did not have parents who allowed me to experience things in life and learn from them with their protective arms. Mother wouldn't even let us listen to the news on the radio, that type thing. Daddy smoked his cigarettes in private.

EE:After this last year, I may agree with her. [laughs]

JC:No, it was too--

EE:Too much. I know what you mean.

JC:I mean, then all of a sudden you go out in the world and you see these things, and they're a shock to you. You don't know what to do with them, because nobody ever brought you up to tell you what to do with them.

EE:Did she have second thoughts after your dad passed away about wanting you to go on? Did she say, "Maybe this is a sign you should stay home?"

JC:I don't remember. Well, she couldn't, really.

EE:Because once you sign on that dotted line, you're--

JC:Actually, Eric, she had many friends in Pennington, and they sort of looked after her. And I couldn't get out if I wanted to. I was in the service. Back during the war, you had to stay in.

EE:And that was for the duration, wasn't it?

JC:Yes. You could not wear civilian clothes during the duration. You had to dress full uniform everywhere you went. So I was committed, you know. She still didn't like it, but I was committed.

EE:You finish up at Daytona. You're at Ormond for the transport school, right?

JC:Once a nice thing happened to me, though. An interesting thing happened to me while I was in the basic training. We were taught how to walk guard. The women always walk guard in twos. We didn't carry guns. We had billy-sticks and we had a chain. I've forgotten what in the world the chain was for. It's gone from me. But anyway, this particular night I was walking guard and it was on the midnight shift. It was beautiful. The stars were in the sky, a lot to look at, the roar of the ocean, and yet you were tempted to look at that and not what you were out there for, you know. We were being sleuths. And lo and behold, these two airplanes--the naval air base was right near by--and these two planes were flying head on, headed for each other, and in a quick blink of an eye, they crashed, head-on collision, the whole thing just like you see, big ball of fire in the air and crashed, gone. I kept my head. I ran to the nearest phone. I was the first to report the accident. I don't fly off the handle in an emergency. I go to pieces afterwards, you know. So for a reward, I got to raise the flag at reveille the next morning, full regalia, everybody dressed out, and I got a citation for it, not a written one, but that went down in my records. I think that's one reason why I got to drive officers, because I kept a cool head. Isn't that nice? I mean, that was just the biggest thrill of my life. Can you imagine that? You know how the setup is, a big, square concrete podium and this huge flagpole and all the officers. They sang--what did they sing? Gosh, I've forgotten.

EE:They didn't sing "Star-Spangled Banner." What was it?

JC:No. I've forgotten what in the world we did sing. The trumpet played 00:25:00reveille. I hooked up the flag and pulled the cords and the flag went up, and all the while they were playing the "Star-Spangled Banner." That was it.

EE:You might remember, you might help me remember, were there some special songs that you WACs learned?

JC:Yes.

EE:Do you know any of them? Hum a few bars, sing a few bars. How good is your voice?

JC:You wouldn't want me to do that, would you? [sings] "I've got sixpence, jolly, jolly sixpence. I've got sixpence to last me all my days. I've got sixpence to spend and sixpence to lend and sixpence to send home to my wife, poor wife."

EE:That's what you guys were singing? [laughs]

JC:Yes. [laughs]

EE:That's pretty good.

JC:[sings] "I've been working on the railroad." You know, all the usuals.

EE:And you would sing these when you would drill.

JC:That's right. Oh, it was such fun. Yes, it was unison.

EE:Did you all ever sing to "Colonel Bogey March," a song called "Duty"?

JC:I don't remember that.

EE:Was there an official WAC song?

JC:Yes. [sings] "Pallas Athena, goddess of victory, history tells her part in war." I've forgotten the rest of it.

EE:That's more than I've heard. That's good. That was actually on the little lapel?

JC:Yes, our hardware.

EE:Was that for the Auxiliary or for the--

JC:No, that was the WAC's insignia, the Pallas Athena. It was a helmeted woman.

EE:That was the one thing that was on the general's front door, was that Pallas Athena.

JC:That's right. And I took my wonderful, beautiful uniform. We were allowed to buy uniforms when you got out in the field. So I purchased a beautiful gabardine uniform, and it was very tailored, very nice. And when I got out of the service, I took all the hardware off and made a civilian suit out of it. It's gorgeous. Such fabric you'd pay a fortune for, you know.

EE:That's true.

JC:Actually, basic training was pretty matter of fact. Nothing really happened. I didn't have any experiences until I got into the motor corps, and then I had some interesting, funny things that went on.

EE:The motor corps training was at Ormond Beach, and it was for, what, another six weeks?

JC:Yes, another six weeks.

EE:Were they teaching you, making sure you know how to drive? Did you get a chauffeur's license?

JC:I didn't know how to drive a car, much less back it out of the driveway or anything. I was a greenhorn from the word go, a real new little girl to the world, learned everything. I had wonderful classes, took all kinds of tests to prove your adaptability.

EE:Were you driving just jeeps, trucks?

JC:I drove everything, two-and-a half-ton trucks, command cars, the big--what do they call those? Big cars, they look like a big bathtub on wheels. I've forgotten the name of them. Oh, gosh. The command car was the staff car that I drove when I finally ended up in a car. We didn't do tanks or anything like that, but I drove that big, big heavy-duty vehicle. I wish I could remember the name of it. Anyway, I drove officers around. We were assigned each day to a vehicle.

EE:That was your training, was driving officers around?

JC:That was our training, yes, around on the base.

EE:You had, what, somebody in the front, like driver's ed[ucation], where you have somebody in the front training you?

JC:Right, on the right side, and of course I crashed into every telephone pole when I backed up, and you name it. Going down to the range one day, where the men were making the bridges, the engineers were building the bridges, there was a huge snake in the pathway. I mean, that thing was as big as your arm, coiled up, and I ran over that and back and over it and back, until it was smashed to pieces. Me and snakes. And I broke the governor on the car. We were controlled on speed, you know. And so I had that taken away from me, and that's what put me down, I went down into a command car then. They didn't do that, because I was having fun.

We had a convoy. We had a blackout one night and drove in a big convoy all the way from Daytona Beach to St. Augustine, Florida, in a blackout state. That's where the only lights are the little slits on your headlights. That's all the lights you had, and you learned to drive by the mark of the trees along the highway, where the sky and the trees came so you know where the road was. That kept you in the road. That was quite some distance, too. I drove a two-and-a-half-ton truck all the way up there on that day.

Then we had a WAC Day and we marched in a parade. I was a pretty good marcher. 00:30:00I've got a lot of rhythm. I carried myself well, and I was very proud. So I was given the privilege of being the guide-on. Here's the column, and I'm out here all by myself carrying the flag, and I step everybody off according to the music and the calls from the sergeant. My garter belt broke. My stockings crashed to my feet. I didn't blink an eye, didn't move a muscle. I just kept right on marching. My eyes are going like this. Everybody watching, you know. The streets were lined. Two little kids laughed at me. Nobody else picked it out. Isn't that amazing? Now, if I would have made a big fuss, what would have happened? The whole thing would have busted up, right?

EE:Well, you showed already you don't get panicked, you just go ahead with it.

JC:That's right. Exactly. Then when I got out of the service, we were in Washington, D.C., going to a movie, a bunch of us one night, and the same thing happened again. Army rubber was rotten. [laughs] So I stepped behind--you remember those, in a five-and-dime they had those scales that used to stand up? I stepped behind one of those and stepped out of--it was my panties that time--stepped out of them, put them in my purse, and went right on.

EE:[laughs] That work was work that was done, I guess, before the WAC by men, that transport work.

JC:Women's Army Corps, the auxiliary?

EE:What I'm getting at is that they had a campaign for the WACs that said "Free a man to fight," and that really was what you were doing when you did that job.

JC:Yes, sure.

EE:How did you feel about that?

JC:It was wonderful.

EE:Did you ever feel guilty?

JC:No. I just wanted to get overseas. We were being issued helmets and everything.

EE:Is that where you thought you were going?

JC:Yes. We were going to somewhere in the southern part of Germany. That's all they'd tell us.

EE:This would have been late '43.

JC:Forty-three, forty-four.

EE:Early '44. Where did you go after you left Ormond Beach? What was your next stop?

JC:Fort Belvoir, Virginia. That was what they called going out into the field. I used to ride my jeep down the beach. Have you ever been to Daytona?

EE:Yes.

JC:Have you ever experienced the jellyfish on the beach?

EE:A mess.

JC:Oh, they're huge. Beautiful pink things. I'll never forget them as long as I live. And I'd race through those things and smash them to pieces, and they'd fly up in the air like rainbows. Oh, they just couldn't stop me from doing things like that. And we'd tear up into the sand dunes.

EE:Did you have trouble getting car insurance later? [laughs]

JC:No. Every time I'd get off KP, a break, I'd go to the ocean and swim. I was out beyond the breakers one time, doing my stroking, and something kept bumping me. There was a lot of driftwood coming in from wreckage and that type thing. But I looked back on one of my strokes, and there was this creature. It was a porpoise pushing me to shore, bumping me with its little snout. I thought it was a whale, something. It didn't look like a porpoise to me. And I walked the waters, Eric. I was scared to death. And all the lifeguards were coming at the same time, and I was swimming and walking and whatever I could do to get to shore. And that little creature bumped me all the way to shore. Come to find out, the waves were full of sharks. You know they're a friend to man.

EE:Well, you found that out.

JC:So that was another experience I had. [laughs]

EE:You and nature seem to have lots of stories together, I can tell.

JC:Yes. Well, anyway, I did not have any extreme things happen. The blackouts made me feel protected, because it made me feel--I mean, they frightened me, because the ships would come within sight of the mainland where we were. You could see them. The submarines were constantly coming up at night.

EE:These were German submarines?

JC:Yes. We don't know the half of what went on. And they'd infiltrate onto shore. They'd come in as frogmen and come in in the dunes and dress and infiltrate with the people.

EE:Just trying to find out [unclear].

JC:Yes, sure.

EE:So every night for you down there was blackout conditions?

JC:We had blackout, huge blackout curtains that had to come down, and you learned to be very careful about creasing out every ray of light. Then when we got behind those things, we'd turn the jukebox on and have a blast. [laughs]

EE:It didn't matter the sound. It was the light you were worried about.

JC:We just did what we had to do and just went on living. The beauty of youth, Eric, the freedom of youth.

EE:Were you still writing, I guess, to Gober overseas?

JC:Oh, sure.

EE:Getting the V-Mail back and forth.

JC:And I met several fellows that I grew up with at home who were stationed nearby in the [U.S.] Navy and one in the Marines, one in the [U.S.] Army, just good friends.

EE:You were at Belvoir until the time you were discharged, is that right?

JC:Yes.

EE:They had separate WAC housing, I guess, there at the base.

JC:WAC containment area there, too. Everybody was restricted. That was off limits to men and their barracks were off limits to women. We were very governed. We were very well governed.

EE:You could meet only where, the NCO [non-commissioned officer] Club?

JC:Yes. You couldn't go with officers. No soldier could mix and mingle with the commissioned officers.

EE:In a typical week, how did you get your assignment? Did you have a woman CO or were you assigned--

JC:Yes, woman commanding officer, two of them.

EE:And then they would tell you which officer you were--? Were you assigned to an officer or assigned to a location in your assignments?

JC:Well, I, actually, in the motor corps, remember only being assigned to the motor pool, where the cars were kept, and that's where we reported every day. We had our own car, and we were responsible for keeping it up to date, clean and maintained properly.

EE:So you might spend half a day there waiting to be called upon?

JC:Then we'd have our rules for the day, our assignment for the day, who we were driving, where we'd go pick them up, and off we'd go. And I got to go to Quantico, and Mount Vernon. That was one of the loveliest trips I got. And did you know there are underground tunnels the military used during the war, all kinds of secret tunnels under there?

EE:I knew there were secret passages at Greenbriar. I didn't know there was at Mount Vernon.

JC:Yes. So I had that whole place to myself one day, the whole house, everything, the grounds. You talk about George Washington walking with me. Wow, I had some conversations.

EE:I bet.

JC:Oh, it was a thrill. It was a real, real thrill. Very special.

EE:They had closed that to the public because the military had taken over?

JC:It wasn't open during the war.

EE:Because it's right there in the D.C. area, you talked earlier about some of the different people that you got to take around. Were they names that I would remember?

JC:They were foreign officers. I was assigned to take care of the foreign officers. My parents are British. I was first-born here. And we had a protocol and a demeanor and a decorum that most Americans lack. I hate to say that. I'm not saying that in a snobbish way, but it's just that I was brought up that way. We're very dignified people, and I like to lose it once in a while, because it's no fun being stuffy all the time, you know. But I had that quality of character and good manners that I could take care of whatever situation they were in. I couldn't speak their language, but I had an interpreter with me.

And then one time this Frenchman decided he wanted to date me, so I thought, "What the heck." So we went to dinner in town. I was talking with my hands. He knew a little and I knew little, you know. But it wasn't good. I learned a rude lesson there--I think it still exists--to be careful who you communicate with. Coming home in the taxi, he stuck his tongue in my ear, and he thought I was his girl, and he had a time. I was just terrified of that man. Terrified of him. I was unhappy. I love people.

EE:You gave him some signals he read the wrong way.

JC:We had a good time.

EE:And that was all it was.

JC:That was with a crowd of people. So it turned out that, oh, he wrote me the most beautiful letter of apology. My sister stole it from me. He was just told--he was communicated with good and proper--what he had done wrong, that you did not do that when you were in this country, blah, blah, blah. And so he realized that he'd made a big one, so he came off his high horse and it all ended very well. But it taught this girl a good lesson.

EE:What did you do for social life up there? Did you go out with the other WACs?

JC:Yes.

EE:There was a lot to do in D.C. during that time.

JC:Well, during the war there wasn't. We just explored a lot of historical places, whatever we were allowed to come into. Security was tight.

EE:What was your shift like for you? Did you have to work seven-day weeks?

JC:I don't remember.

EE:Six days on, one off?

JC:Yes, sort of thing. It depended on what was going on. There were a lot of training areas around Fort Belvoir, rifle ranges. That brings up another story. I took these officers down there to learn to shoot the bazooka and the machine 00:40:00gun, and I was allowed to fire them, too. I laid on my belly, and you know what they use for elbow supports? Kotex. [laughs] They opened these great big boxes. I was mortified. Out comes the Kotex, and everybody slips them in their sleeves. So I sucked up and did the same thing. [laughs]

EE:I could see your mom. [laughs]

JC:Oh, my god. My poor mother would have turned over in--she probably does now. But anyway, this one girl who was our problem child in the barracks--I had a lower bunk and she had an upper bunk just diagonally across from me. She was a woman who was having trouble with her person. She would not wash her clothes. She would not take a shower. We tried everything in the world to get her to conform. But she had a sense of humor that just kept us in stitches all the time, which made her acceptable. We'd take her clothes down and throw them in the tubs in the laundry room, and she'd take them out filthy dirty and hang them up, didn't wash them. Anyway, she brought a cherry bomb into the barracks one night. I was down in the latrine, getting ready for bed, and I heard this explosion. She threw it. It was after lights were out. She threw it, meaning for it to land in the aisle. It landed on my pillow and it blew a hole like this all the way through. If I had been in that bed--

EE:It would have gotten you.

JC:Well, they court-martialed her. She came to me on bended knee. Oh, she was just remorseful, Eric, and I could not. I could not. I could not.

[telephone rings]

JC:That's my sister in Atlanta. She has a daughter in Guam. Three children, her husband's a banker, and they're home for six weeks. Three little boys and one fourteen-year-old girl. So she's calling for some courage. [laughs]

But anyway, that girl became a model WAC. They gave her another chance. We all stood up for her in court. We knew how she was. And that always amazed me, Eric, that we could actually get that done for her in front of a bunch of brass, the big boys, the big gals.

EE:That's the second time you've showed me in a story that there's a little heart to the military.

JC:Yes, I think I was put in the right place at the right time. But anyway, that was such an experience.

EE:Other than this one little episode that you talked about with the French fellow, did you feel you were treated with respect by most of the men in the service?

JC:Definitely. I commanded respect. I still do.

EE:So you didn't have that problem?

JC:No, I didn't have that problem. I wasn't looking for those things. I don't have that character.

EE:You didn't invite it.

JC:I didn't invite it.

EE:You snipped anything that--

JC:I love people. I sometimes rubbed shoulders with maybe the person that had other intentions, but I got myself out of it beautifully. I didn't have any problems with men, and it was a blessing, in a way, you know, because I mixed and mingled with all kinds of people in the situations I was in.

EE:For many people, the biggest thing about their experience, I think, is that they learn to become independent, that they can mix and mingle with all different kinds of people. You're thrust into a situation with folks. Very few, if any, have your same background, where you're from, experiences are all different. And yet you--

JC:Well, you see, it wasn't all bad how I was brought up. I was given that knowledge of how to conduct myself. You know, Mother's attitude always was "Find a rich one and marry him." That wasn't my idea of things. I loved people. I loved all the stray dogs. I loved all the stray cats. I love people, you know.

EE:And, of course, they said one thing, but then, in fact, they came over to this country, and they could have stayed where they were, I guess, if they wanted to. But they did something new and different.

JC:John, don't do this to me. [Referring to someone in the room.]

EE:Does he have a request?

JC:What's he saying?

JOHN: Don't be modest.

JC:Talk about my what?

EE:Don't be modest. Talk about your modeling.

JC:My modeling?

EE:Yes. Did you do modeling when you were in the service?

JOHN: In the WAC.

JC:I didn't model in the WAC.

JOHN: You said you did.

JC:I did not. I modeled before that.

EE:Aha! Time line. Was this when you were at the gyroscope factory?

JC:Through the church, the Methodist Youth Fellowship, we had a fashion show, and I was asked to model, and I was taught a little bit about it. My sister was very impressed with that all her life. So excuse the interruption.

EE:Having been in Methodist Youth Fellowship, I'm glad to know someone graduated with some modeling experience. Good. They didn't call me to do that when I was there. What about your time in the service? What was the hardest thing for you?

JC:The hardest thing was when Gober came back from overseas, it was a struggle for me, Eric. I had seen some of the world. I'd met people. And I wasn't quite sure if I was doing the right thing, and that was bothering me.

EE:As far as getting married?

JC:I didn't know if I wanted to or not, because I didn't know that life could be so wonderful and there were opportunities out there and I hadn't had a chance for them. Yet on the other hand, I had made a promise and I couldn't back down on it. So I went ahead and got my emergency leave when he came home from service, and we were married. We were the first ones, the first people in uniform ever to be married by this minister in Atlanta. And went to New Jersey and told--

[End Tape 1, Side A--Begin Tape 1, Side B]

EE:You were telling me about your mom did not like what was going on.

JC:No, no, no.

EE:Had you been keeping her up to date on what you had been doing in the service?

JC:Oh, sure. Letters. Oh, yes. I supported her. I mean, I sent money home, because we had an allotment we could send, and then the government matched that, you know, back then. It wasn't much, but it was enough back then, according to their standard of living--I mean the economy.

EE:But surely she knew that you--

JC:Well, see, Gober couldn't find me. He didn't know exactly where I was.

EE:When did he get home? Was it before VE [Victory in Europe] Day?

JC:Yes. Well before VE Day.

EE:That was March or so of '45?

JC:No. He got home in the fall--

EE:Fall of '44.

JC:November, because we were married in February. So he got home around Christmastime, along in there. I don't remember the dates, exactly. Actually, I was going through too much emotional stuff to even pay any attention to dates. My mother wrote me a sixteen-page letter why I shouldn't have anything to do with this man, just the stuff I had left home to get away from. And now the control was coming back in and I wasn't going to submit. I knew it all. So I tore the letter up and told her very politely, "I'm sorry, Dear, but I'm free, white, and twenty-one. This man cares for me, and I care for him. Blah, blah, blah." So we married. We went home, and it was like a fireworks display. So that's the way I lived for quite a few years.

EE:Is that why you ended up being down South?

JC:Huh?

EE:That helped contribute to the idea of wanting to stay down South?

JC:No, I just--

EE:Where did you all settle after you got married?

JC:We went to his home in Madison, Georgia.

EE:Is that near Atlanta?

JC:It's south, southeast of Atlanta. They were farmers. They were very high-quality, big cotton farmers. I mean, I learned to drive mules. I learned to pick cotton. I learned to sing darkie songs. I learned to have dinner on the ground and all day singing and dinner on the ground, and loved every minute of it. I had a wonderful time with those people. They were absolutely delightful. Delightful!

So the time came my mother had to get rid of the house, well, lo and behold, she comes South, too, and she has to live with this, and it was more than she could bear. She was not a happy camper down here. She just went through some--her austerity, her demeanor was just too much. I mean, it was just too much for her. She was too top-drawer, high class, stupid and high class English culture crap. It didn't go over here. You didn't do that sort of thing. So it was a struggle trying to manage this lady and take care of her. And I was married to a good old earth-dobber, you know.

EE:But again, you personality-wise were talking about the things that happened, 00:50:00number of crisis situations. To be able to handle a crisis means that you don't have pre-set categories for your experience today that have to happen. You take it as it happens. You deal with it.

JC:I guess I did, yes.

EE:You dealt with it.

JC:But then I did have a background. Mother taught me a lot. I knew a lot of the things of the beauty of the world and the properness of the world. I didn't know anything about the tragedy of the world. Life after the WAC happened because we married while I was in the service and I got pregnant three months after we were married. That's how I got out of the WAC.

EE:Because being married itself wouldn't automatically have gotten you out.

JC:No. He was stationed at Camp Lee [now Fort Lee] and I was at Fort Belvoir, which was just about an hour away from each other, and we met.

EE:Did you live off barracks?

JC:No. I couldn't get to him. We were in different--I couldn't get a transfer and neither could he. So we saw each other on weekends, and it wasn't a very long time until I was out of the service. See, we married in February. April I was pregnant. Three months after that I was out of the WACs. So it was about six months of that kind of life. That was no big deal. Just par. The best part was, I got to keep the car. [laughs]

EE:Got to keep the car that you were issued.

JC:A big, beautiful diamond. No, we had a good time.

EE:So he was home for VE Day?

JC:Typical wartime marriage. When we did that, he was transferred--no, we lived near--wait a minute. He was still at Camp Lee and we lived in Richmond. When I got out of the service, we moved to Richmond, found an apartment in Richmond, several apartments. And I learned to cook there, poor soul. [[laughs]

EE:Not everybody learns that lesson.

JC:And he received the Infantry Combat Badge. He was the first one to receive the Infantry Combat Badge, that long blue metal with a rifle in it, if you've ever seen it. My son has it. My firstborn was a son, and he doesn't know he was in the WAC for three months. [laughs] It was fun.

EE:When did he get discharged, finally, from the service?

JC:Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Okay. Rick was a baby. He was six months old, and he was born February 8th of '45.

EE:Forty-five or 'Forty-six?

JC:Forty-five.

EE:So you got out--

JC:In '45. And so he got out August or September of '45.

EE:Before the war ended in Japan, then.

JC:Yes. When did the war end in Japan?

EE:August of '45.

JC:Did it? It ended then?

EE:Yes. We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on the 6th, Nagasaki on the 9th, and they surrendered on the 14th.

JC:Of August? Huh. Okay, yes. I remember now. We lived just outside of Richmond, near--oh, gosh, what was the name of that place? McCormick base, something like that. I can't remember. Eric, that's a real hard one for me.

EE:North of the river or south?

JC:Oh, I don't know.

EE:I spent a summer in Henrico.

JC:What's that?

EE:That's the county around Richmond.

JC:Oh, it is?

EE:Yes.

JC:Oh. Well, Rick was born there. And, you know, that's another thing about the war. They learned that women were better off during the war being evacuated. When they had to evacuate hospitals, they were better off for it, because they were up and mobile. Before that--and I was caught in that--you had to stay in bed for six weeks. I literally had to learn to walk all over again. Isn't that something?

EE:You were never, it doesn't sound like, in your work in physical danger, except for maybe other drivers.

JC:No. [laughs]

EE:Were you ever afraid, doing all this brave new world stuff?

JC:No, not a bit. I wasn't the fearful type. It was a big adventure to me. I actually had a couple of dates with some officers.

EE:That was probably pretty scary.

JC:I wasn't caught. Old Don Cunningham from Birmingham, Alabama. I've often wondered what happened to him.

EE:You had an attachment of a heart overseas. Was it pretty much just 00:55:00gentlewoman's agreement, live and let live and we'll get together after the war?

JC:No. No, we were committed to each other.

EE:So you'd be social, but there'd be a limit.

JC:I was a very young girl, very inexperienced girl. A man comes along out of nowhere, you might say, away from all the kids I grew up with, very glamorous, a soldier in this beautiful uniform. He looked like a million dollars. Gorgeous man. Naturally, I was swept off my feet. So I grew up like Topsy, and every step of the way has been nothing but progress and good and advantageous and successful in every way I can say, even through the bad times. And it's drawn me closer to my God, because all things work for good for those who love the Lord. Out of every situation, out of every bad situation is being worked for a purpose, Eric. You don't have to fear a thing, Dear, not a thing. Just get through it and it's going to be all right. There's light at the end of every tunnel.

EE:Well, that's just it. And if you're assured of that, it's easy to walk through the tunnel.

JC:I learned that through this man's suffering with booze. He learned to drink when he was in Africa. He used to write me letters and talk about drinking under the shade of an olive tree and all these wonderful people that he met. I don't know what happened to him there. He told me some war experiences that weren't blacked out in these letters. Everything was screened before you got your mail.

EE:That's right. They blocked out all the locations where you wouldn't know where they were at.

JC:That's right. And if he talked about anything tactical, that was always blacked out. He was a foot soldier. He crept out and saved--he was fighting [Erwin] Rommel in the Tunisian campaign. He used to tell stories about walking through the cactus patches, and he'd knock against a bush and an arm would fall in his pathway from a dead soldier or something, just horrendous things that the normal, average, good old red-blooded American boy never knows about. And he got shrapnel in his back. That was the only injury he ever had physically. He was wrecked mentally. And he rushed out several times in the face of danger and saved some of his comrades and pulled them to safety and got citations for that on hill-this and hill-that all through the campaign. And then they never got supplies. He had no shoes. He was six feet three inches tall. He wore a size thirteen shoe. They did not make shoes that size to issue to the boys. He walked with his boot tops on in a parade for [George] Patton, type thing, and ate C-rations, and it gave him terrible ulcers. He tried to kill the pain with drink, and it wouldn't work because of the ulcers. This progressed and got worse and worse and worse. Finally, he had two-thirds of his stomach removed. That fixed him up fine. He was off and running. He'd already become an alcoholic and it progressed. And it is a progressive disease.

EE:I've got a friend of mine whose husband is going through that and has now got pancreatitis because of it.

JC:He had that, too. That's what had happened to him.

EE:One of the things that I've had more than one woman say is that if she had anything that she felt bad about this time was that she had such a good time when she people she cared about, the men she cared about, had such terrible times.

JC:Huh. No, I never--no. I had no persecution personality. No.

EE:You weren't looking for that?

JC:That didn't faze me, because my reaction to anything tragic was, "Can I help?" I was a fixer, a doer.

EE:Well, that's just it to some extent. And what amazes me about, I guess generally people, in every generation there's different challenges. You all had the unique double-whammy of the Depression and the war.

JC:Yes. Oh, man.

EE:And it required you to survive to be a doer. If you had certain ways that the world is this way and will always be this way, your world is turned upside down with those two things. So you have to get by.

JC:The only persecution personality I developed is, through the alcoholism, the 01:00:00neglect I showed my children.

EE:Because he had so much attention?

JC:No. I was living with an alcoholic. The only thing you learn is how to stay one step ahead of him and teach your children how to do the same thing. So I was father/mother for a long, long time as he got into the worst of it.

EE:How many kids did you all have altogether?

JC:I had two. I had three, and lost a little girl when she was four months old. But they're both successful. My son's a big lawyer in town, Richard Conner with Conner Schenck, just started up his fourth law firm, coming from Patton Boggs. My daughter is in the administrative field with Wrangler and VC. Or Vanity Fair, VF. VC? VF. She's gone up. She even has a window in her office now. She has her own plant.

EE:My wife just got that with Wachovia, so she's real proud.

JC:Wonderful. Wonderful. So life has banged me around, Eric, banged me back and forth and all around. Another thing, too. We're talking about the results of the service, the results of the war. The neglect of the service people. Even today they're treated in ways that make me gasp. I want to cry. The veterans aren't treated right in these so-called Veterans Hospitals.

EE:As a woman, you couldn't even get access to a Veterans Hospital, could you?

JC:No. I could now.

EE:But not then.

JC:No. No. It was unheard of. They were all for the men. I've heard talks of what the nurses went through. Have you ever interviewed any of the nurses?

EE:Yes.

JC:Well, you know what they suffered, the poor dears. It was terrible, the things they had--when they gave their very souls through that. Their lives were one of service. I feel almost minute compared to the stories they have to tell. My experience was nothing. But it was mine.

EE:Right. Everybody's story--the nice thing about this is that it confirms that everybody's story is one of sacrifice and joy and meaning. But in that time, when you look back at it, do you have anybody, men or women, who stand out to you as heroes?

JC:In the service?

EE:Service, public life, personal life.

JC:No, not has heroes. I had a high regard for my commanding officer, Lieutenant [Mary E.] Carroll [CO at Daytona Beach]. She was like my second mother. She was a lovely lady. I don't know what happened to her. But she's the one that saw me through my father's death and almost just practically took care of me until I went to Fort Belvoir. I don't even know the name of my commanding officer there, I'm sorry to say, but she looked after me through that French man's experience. So I would say right there, I think the officers, the women officers who were put in charge of the women in the barracks, that were the commanding officers of the--what do you call them -- of the non-coms [non-commissioned personnel] around them, I'm sure had to take--

EE:They had to fight some battles on your behalf, I'm sure.

JC:I'm sure they had some psychiatric training or something about how to deal with all these female emotions, can you imagine? [laughs] I mean, women from all walks of life. I had a girl from the top drawer Boston over me, a girl from the red-light district of Pittsburgh across from me, and then this character--I don't even remember where she was from. But I loved them all. That's the song they wrote. [sings] "Love them all, love them all, the great and the small and the tall." You know, all those songs were written with a heart behind them and experience behind them. I think I missed my calling, too. I would love to have been worked with people in different fields, but I didn't do it.

EE:What's your favorite song from that time?

JC:Song?

EE:Yes.

JC:Of the war?

EE:Yes.

JC:[sings] "I'll be seeing you."

EE:"In all the old familiar places." It's a great song.

JC:[sings] "I'll never smile again until I smile at you." Remember that?

EE:Oh, yes.

JC:Do you remember that? How come you know them?

EE:I grew up listening to those songs. And "Begin the Beguine." My dad still has 01:05:00a wink in his eye every time he hears that one. I don't know what the woman's name was, but she was good. [laughs]

JC:[laughs] Oh, dear.

EE:What did you think of the Roosevelts? You were pretty young for political opinion.

JC:I adored Franklin.

EE:Did you?

JC:Yes.

EE:Do you remember the day he passed away?

JC:Yes. It was raining in Richmond. I had my son, six-week-old son in my arms, standing at the door, rainy night, when he passed away. I'll never forget it. There was a lull in the city. Richmond shut down. It was a sad occasion.

EE:Did the train go through Richmond?

JC:The train? I don't remember that.

EE:The train with his coffin on the back of the train that he went from Hope--

JC:I don't remember that, Eric.

EE:My mom talks about she and her mother, they worked in the mill, went down to the train yard in Concord, North Carolina.

JC:Is that so?

EE:The train carrying his coffin back to Washington. His coffin was on the back of the train, draped with a flag, and people were just standing by the railroad tracks for miles, just watching in honor.

JC:I'm telling you, the patriotism was an all-time high during that war. The love of this country was represented in the American flag. Did you read that article in the paper about the largest American flag?

EE:It's at Gastonia, where I grew up and went to high school. I know they've been trying to do that for thirty years, and I'm glad to see they finally did it.

JC:Isn't that marvelous?

EE:You were--I've lost my train of thought. I had a fascinatingly important question to ask, a follow-up question, and I've now totally blown it off my mind. Occasionally it happens when I'm thinking. You said something that tripped me for some other thing. Do you remember anything particular about where you were on either VE Day or VJ [Victory in Japan] Day?

JC:No.

EE:You were just glad it was all over with.

JC:I don't know. I just don't remember.

EE:What did your husband do after the service?

JC:Oh, he was the rising and shining star of a great mind in the field of insurance. He was a good mind gone down the tube, as Percy Wall put it, my divorce lawyer. He was an outstanding man. He was ready to buy an agency in Pinehurst. We would have been sitting pretty, but he had to cater to his first love. I mean, I'm telling you, Eric, I just cry and bleed for the man to know that I couldn't live with it, that he was the type that you couldn't cope with it. You had to get away from it, because he was violent.

EE:Well, that's the time to get away, because that way you don't argue with him.

JC:He used to stalk me. Oh, my poor little daughter. It was just really bad. I finally had the courage--I went back to him twice, divorced him and married him again because of his promises. I didn't know anything about alcoholism. And my poor son saw me through it all. He was busy being a lawyer. Do you remember Elreta Alexander[-Ralston], the judge here in Greensboro?

EE:No.

JC:The black lady? You don't remember?

EE:Well, I've only been here for ten years.

JC:She just died about two or three years ago. She was magnificent.

EE:I worked with [Judge] Jim Long one summer. He's the fellow that did the Klan-Nazi trial, from Pilot Mountain. He's a nice fellow.

JC:Well, Elreta was a black lady, wore a white wig, heavy jewelry, makeup. She'd sit on that bench, and these arms in that robe. She'd sit like this and she'd glower at you. [laughs] My poor drunk husband got in front of her, and that's the only satisfaction I ever had, because all hell broke loose.

She said, "Mr. Conner, I give you two minutes to get your act together, and if you don't get your act together, I'm calling the bailiff."

And he went purple, and he said, "I have nothing to say."

And she said, "Bailiff, take this man back to jail." [laughs]

EE:[laughs] Savor those moments. They're few and far between.

[Omitted conversation about Elliott's sister's marriage.]

EE:I've got a question for you. You're a person who's got some wonderful stories today. Of all these things that happened to you in the service, [what] was your most embarrassing moment? I can ask you that question, and I know you'll have an answer for me. If not the most--an embarrassing moment.

JC:Most embarrassing moment? I think when that darn French man did that to me. I mean, that was awful, Eric. I can still--oh. You don't get over that. That's a scar. That was terrible, that nasty person. And he wasn't being nasty in his eyes. That's the way they did things over there. I was shocked out of my gourd. I was totally embarrassed. I was totally embarrassed. Even my stockings falling down didn't embarrass me, because I could handle that. I was never admonished, never disciplined. I never got into trouble. I was a model WAC, a model WAC, because I loved every minute of it.

EE:Any of your kids serve in the military?

JC:My son did. He was in Vietnam. He was on the Okinawa helicopter gunship. He was a corpsman in the captain's office. He ran the battles from ship to shore on the board when the captain told him what to do. And he learned a lot. He won't talk about it today. Thank God he was in the navy. And I remember his fiancé, my daughter-in-law--who put me up to this, or got you into this with me--sent him a huge box, big as this table, this size and as tall as this table. And he opened it, and there was this big letter inside that said, "Throw these up in the air and yell 'Go Tarheels!'" and it was full of leaves, in the middle of the China Sea. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful?

EE:I went to Chapel Hill. I find that's a very good story.

JC:You did? He graduated from law school there, and my little granddaughter, my beautiful blonde up there, just graduated with grand honors, straight-A student. She's into museums.

EE:You told me about that, yes. That's wonderful.

JC:The blessings that have come out of all this turmoil. I did something right, didn't I?

EE:You had to. You know, a ship that has a rudder can get through a lot of storms.

JC:I didn't know I had a rudder.

EE:Well, you do, apparently.

JC:Apparently it's in the name of the Lord. I didn't even know it until--

EE:That's the way you think. That's there before you know it's there.

JC:It was always there. My angels were in charge of me. Isn't that what the Bible says, they're in charge of you so you don't dash your foot against a stone?

EE:Did your daughter ever have any interest of joining the military?

JC:No.

EE:Had she, would you have encouraged her?

JC:Yes. It's the best training a woman ever got.

EE:I think it was December, just a couple months ago, that the government sent our first female combat pilot into action in Iraq, the first time we've sent a woman into war, in the front line. What do you think about that? Are there certain jobs in the military--

JC:I don't approve. I think they're pushing their luck. I think they're going beyond their call of duty. I don't think it's up to a woman to do those things. If there were no men left, there wouldn't be any choice, but I don't think the female personality and body and psyche and everything is suited to this, Eric. We're caretakers. Women are born to be caretakers. We've got our smarts in their right places, but I don't believe in Women's Lib. I don't think this feminism that's going on today is proper. The things that women are trying to do, breaking into all these male institutions--[U.S. Military Academy at] West Point, the Citadel--is stupid.

EE:That's true, but you told me before we started this that what you did was the start of it all in World War II.

JC:I replaced a soldier, dear. She wasn't. This flyer wasn't. She was showing her stuff, that's all. She was showing she could do it. She was belligerent.

EE:Yours was out of necessity.

JC:Mine was out of necessity. Mine was out of patriotism. I was helping my 01:15:0001:10:00country. If they're going to take the boys, then I've got to do something about getting in there and doing what I can to replace somebody.

EE:But you don't need to be in there trying to push the boys out of the way.

JC:No. I never--I don't think that's--why have male and female? You do your thing, I do mine. I'm not subservient to anybody and nobody's subservient to me. I think my husband's the prince of the household. His wisdom is there. Men have wonderful minds. I'd rather raise a houseful of boys than one girl, any day of the week.

EE:Come talk to my wife. We've got two. We're working on it. [laughs]

JC:But really, boys are delightful, and they're gifted with this marvelous brain that can do male things. And women are wonderful. They're gifted with things that women do.

EE:We need each other, for different things.

JC:Yes. And I would like to say, I wonder in the genetic order of things if there isn't a quirk of makeup that turns women to lesbianism and men to homosexuality. I think it's chemical. I don't think it's entirely a choice. It's sad, because in AA I know a lot of them.

EE:Well, there's too many things environmentally. You'd have to have a really warped personality to want to be that way, I would think, given the obstacles.

JC:It's something. There must be a terrible weak link in a person out of neglect and neglect sort of--

EE:But you're right, the parallels with alcoholism, as far as being a compulsion, almost say biochemical, doesn't it, in some sense that it's something that you don't really have the willpower.

JC:I don't understand it entirely there, because some can drink and it doesn't bother them. Others can't. We know that story well, John and I. He's a recovered alcoholic, too, only he was a different type of person.

EE:Sure. One that could recover.

JC:And we are placed where our lives are an open book for others. I have been to hell and back. I've got one of the worst stories in the world, and you'd never know it to look at me. And I think that's what got my kids through, was the very fact that my quality was there all the time and I never knew it, but I had to work through this thing, out of lack of knowledge, lack of support. There was a blackness in the world back when I went through this. They didn't acknowledge the fact that people needed help. You were a dirty bird if you drank. I was a disgusting--my mother ostracized me. So did my sister. I went through that. They wanted no association with it. And that's okay, because out of suffering comes better understanding. And if you don't walk the walk, you can't talk the talk, right?

EE:You don't know what you're talking about, that's for sure.

JC:That's right. But I'm saying, there are all kinds of people in this world, and we've got to learn how to cope.

EE:And everybody has value, so you don't throw away a life and say it's not worth it.

JC:Right.

EE:In your work, do you feel you contributed to the war effort?

JC:I don't know. I never looked at it that way. I was having too good a time. [laughs] Yes, I was in there full of patriotism. I don't know, because everybody else felt the same way I did, Eric. I don't know that I--I didn't do anything outstanding. I don't know if I touched a life. I couldn't tell you that, except that experience of that poor soul that threw that bomb in my bed. I may have helped her, because I have a forgiving nature and I knew she was just cutting up. She didn't do it intentionally to kill me or none of that. I don't know. I have no--I can't answer that beyond that.

EE:What's the greatest impact you think that the military experience had on your life?

JC:It taught me in two years what my mother never taught me in all my first twenty-one, that's what. I learned more in the service, really. My beliefs were backed up by good training in the service. I had good leadership. My commanding officers were absolutely remarkable women. And I've never forgotten it. It doesn't take a lifetime to learn something. You can do it in that short period of time. I got all the quality of life from my parents, don't misunderstand me. 01:20:00But my mother was raised the same way, and she did the best she could. So I went out in the world, and I was protected. Look at that. Suppose I hadn't had that experience? Where would I be as a sheltered little girl?

EE:You couldn't have got through what you got through.

JC:With the kind of personality I had. I don't know. I don't know. I can only say that, looking back over the years--wisdom comes with age--that I was guided and led in the proper manner. I think you can, too, and I think everybody will, if they get right down to it.

EE:Sure, but you have to want the wisdom. You have to want to be able to--

JC:I was grateful that I have a good mind.

EE:Well, you have to want to be able to be taught and corrected, you don't fear reproof. Isn't that what they say?

JC:Yes.

EE:Proverbs: Don't fear reproof.

JC:Don't fear reproof, that's right. Today I don't, but I did. There was a time.

EE:Of course. Everybody goes through that stage.

JC:Imagine what alcoholics say to you.

EE:That's right.

JC:My mother said once to me I'd never amount to anything.

EE:That could be a motivator.

JC:Yes. That's why I left home, another reason why I left home. It wasn't just that man. I had an excuse to get away from all that, and there he was.

EE:I think we have filtered through most of the ones I'm required to ask you. Is there anything about your service--you had so many good stories just about life. A number of people talk about that time as a learning time about life, but I think you particularly bring it home. But is there anything about your time in the service that we haven't talked about that you think is important for folks thinking about that time to know?

JC:Well, yeah, I certainly can. I'm thinking mainly of the freedom and the quality of freedom and the quality of leadership in this country and the minds of the men and women in the service back then. It wasn't a forced thing. It wasn't some war brought on by some stupid person and we were forced to be a bullet-stopper, and you had to do it whether you liked it or not. It kind of reminds me of these young boys that have to face anthrax shots. We didn't have any of that then, that type of domination. We were defending our country from an evil source, and that's all it was to it.

EE:It makes it very simple, doesn't it?

JC:Yes. Yes, because defense has been the name of the game ever since Eve ate the apple, so you have to look at it that way. I think that's another reason why Roosevelt was such a great guy. He was a good politician and had motives, I know, but I think he was leading the country right. Something good was coming out of that. He got together with the good guys in the world, and they saw to it that right prevailed, and it took a few men and women to do it.

EE:Including yourself.

JC:Yeah. But I'll say, Rick going to Vietnam, he didn't serve any good purpose, my son. He has no feeling of patriotism about that.

EE:But it is different when you actually know you are threatened, when you know that at our beach there's a sub looking to attack you.

JC:Yes.

EE:That put the different spin on things.

JC:Yes. And you know, the Korean War was another one where the patriotism was high, too. Gober was in the Air Force, joined the reserve Air Force, and we were sent to Puerto Rico then for eighteen months. During the first war, those subs came that close. The volcanic islands are built like mushrooms, which all the Caribbean Islands are, you know. And those fools would sneak in under those islands in the submarine. Didn't you know this?

EE:Uh-uh. [No]

JC:And they'd come out in their little frog suits and come up on land and infiltrate with the people and cause more havoc in the government than they're willing to admit. We learned a lot of that when we were over there. So what are you going to do about it? You have to fight.

EE:Sure. Well, the scary thing is, we think that--I'm worried our guard is let down--this is editorializing now--because I think we assume that the enemies are all gone, and they're not.

JC:Oh, man, don't you ever let down.

EE:This is the thing about the Energy Department's secrets to China spooks the heck out of me.

JC:Turn that off a minute. I want you to read something.

EE:This is the end of our interview, and you can cut that last comment. But I thoroughly enjoyed this, and we'll keep talking. Bye.

[End of Interview]