Bernadine Swadley | Interview 1 | December 14, 2011

REDMAN: My name is Sam Redman, and today is December 14, 2011, and I'm in Oakland, California today with Bernadine Swadley. This is our first tape today with Bernadine, for the Rosie the Riveter World War II American Home Front Oral History Project. Bernadine, the first question that I'd like to ask is very simple; I'd like you to just say your name aloud for me and then spell it.

SWADLEY: Bernadine Hatch Swadley. B-E R-N-A-D-I-N-E, H-A-T-C-H, S-W-A-D-L-E- Y.

REDMAN: Where were you born?

SWADLEY: Paso Robles, California on a ranch where Camp Roberts took over. The house that my father built, that I was born in, is still there, up on the hill. 00:01:00Just north of the city of Paso Robles.

REDMAN: Now would this have been in nineteen twenties that you were a very young girl?

SWADLEY: 1917.

REDMAN: You were born in 1917.

SWADLEY: Right.

REDMAN: What were some of your earliest memories of--?

SWADLEY: Of what?

REDMAN: Of growing up in that area. Did your parents live there a long time?

SWADLEY: Certainly. We are sixth generations Californian.

REDMAN: Wow, that is a pretty amazing thing. So do you know a little bit about that past history of your family?

SWADLEY: Well, it's been written up so many times. My grandfather on my mother's side is in San Luis Obispo County; all the records are in there, because he was a very important man. He was head of the school, he was a judge. Everything closed down for twenty-four hours when he died. He was my mother's father, and 00:02:00he came out from Connecticut to California when he was ready to go to college to live with his cousin Asop E. Muster in San Mateo. He went to live with an uncle down in San Mateo that was running a school in the Episcopal church down there. What else do you need to know? And he married my grandmother--he brought the first train to San Louis Obispo County Railroad. He married my grandmother, and I have a picture of her in the house. He built her a home on the ranch, which I was born in, in the upstairs bedroom on the day of the harvest festival. They went on their honeymoon down on the train to--they actually ended up in Templeton, California, which is just south of Paso Robles, and they lived in the 00:03:00train car. I was not born down there, but some of my uncles and aunts were.

REDMAN: Did you have a number of siblings then too? Did you have siblings?

SWADLEY: No.

REDMAN: You were an only child?

SWADLEY: I had a sister, Ruth. She's now is a nursing home, and she shouldn't be. But I didn't have anything to do with it.

REDMAN: Tell me a little bit more about your parents, what was your mother like?

SWADLEY: Very strong lady because she loved to garden like I do, and she took care of a brother that had TB, so my grandfather and my grandmother could work in Paso Robles. You walked everywhere!! There was no taxis, no cars. If you didn't have a buggy and a horse--I came into town with my mother when we bought 00:04:00the house in Paso Robles, and she drove a wagon and a horse. We went shopping, we bought the house--the house is a historical marker in the city. I don't know whether call it a historical marker, but it's one of the official houses in that area.

REDMAN: Still to this day?

SWADLEY: It is there, and I have a picture of it in the house.

My father was the oldest boy of a widowed mother, whom we called Grandma Hatch. She was a good cook and took in sewing in Paso Robles. In later years she remarried. During the Depression my father would go out to the ranch and work, only coming home on weekends. He had architectural drafting training at Stanford and was able to draw house plans.

REDMAN: Do you remember what sorts of things you would eat growing up, what sorts of food?

SWADLEY: Very little food because I went through the Depression when I was growing up, and money was short. We fished and always had venison in the freezer.

REDMAN: Can you tell me about the Great Depression--?

SWADLEY: I didn't have a boughten dress until I graduated from high school.

REDMAN: Did your mom make your dresses?

SWADLEY: My grandmother did, by hand. Grandmother Brewer. Brewer. B-R-E-W-E-R. Her father was a California gold miner who came to California to live with his uncle in San Mateo. She's the one that came down on the car with my grandfather 00:05:00when they came down on the first train load into Paso Robles area.

REDMAN: How would she find the designs for different dresses that she made? I know some people would take the Sears & Roebuck catalogue--

SWADLEY: Oh no, no not her--

REDMAN: So she would just do it from her mind--?

SWADLEY: Yeah, probably and most of it by hand. That's how I learned to knit and things, just watching her.

REDMAN: Did you learn to sew?

SWADLEY: And sew, yeah. Well, I actually learned in the schools down there. Eventually I had sewing classes in high school, but mainly I just watched my family knit.

REDMAN: You had mentioned that food was hard to come by because of the Great Depression.

SWADLEY: Well, my mother fed four of us: my sister, and my father, and her and me on forty dollars a month. I can remember going to the grocery store once a week and paying with it, and I went with her because I got a hot dog or 00:06:00something. The person working in the grocery store always gave me something to eat. [laughs] That's kind of crazy.

REDMAN: Did you get the sense that a lot of other kids in your neighborhood, pretty early growing up in or near Paso Robles, were also going through a hard time--?

SWADLEY: Oh, I was a very strong-willed lady.

REDMAN: You were a very strong-willed young girl--

SWADLEY: The high school is a mile out of town, on the edge of town, and I used to use a scooter to go back and forth--one foot is bigger than the other because I used a scooter to go back and forth to school.

REDMAN: Now what were the other kids like in school? Did you make a lot of friends?

SWADLEY: Well, I went from kindergarten right through high school with the same people.

REDMAN: Is that right, so like a one-room school house sort of set up--

SWADLEY: No, it was a school, a very nice school. We had a brick school and a couple of other schools in town, but you went into kindergarten, and you went right through school and graduated from high school with the same people.

REDMAN: Do you remember the number of students that would have been in any class--?

SWADLEY: We had thirty in our class most of the time, and you know, they fight today because they don't want thirty kids in a class.

REDMAN: Did the students in your class, did they have similar backgrounds to your own, in terms of religion and ethnicity?

SWADLEY: Well, I was raised an Episcopalian because my grandfather Brewer was the one who started the church down there. I mean it was the lay people that brought the church to Paso Robles. But my father's family, I can't tell you 00:08:00really what type of religion they were, probably southern Baptist, I'm guessing.

REDMAN: Tell me more about Paso Robles in those days, what that area was like.

SWADLEY: Oh, that's the town that everybody from the farm land came in to buy their things and do their business in.

REDMAN: What crops did the farmers grow around there?

SWADLEY: Wheat.

REDMAN: Now there's a lot grape and citrus of course, there is a big wine industry--

SWADLEY: Oh yeah, but that came after World War II, when the people who had the money in Hollywood came up and bought these old ranches, {Patteriski's?} Ranch and all of them.

REDMAN: So that was a big transition after the war in Paso Robles.

SWADLEY: Yes, it was. I was gone by then. See, I went to Stanford in--the end of 00:09:00the thirties.

REDMAN: There are two things, big things, that happened in the Bay Area around this time in the nineteen thirties.

SWADLEY: Camp Roberts?

REDMAN: The opening of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay Bridge--

SWADLEY: Oh, I came up and walked it.

REDMAN: You came up and walked the Golden Gate Bridge?

SWADLEY: Oh, yes.

REDMAN: Can you tell me about what that opening ceremony was like? There were a lot of people there?

SWADLEY: I don't really remember that much about it; I really don't. I just know that the Bay Bridge--and that I walked them.

REDMAN: What did you think of the Bay Bridge when it opened? Before they had to have a ferry system to get people around the bay--

SWADLEY: Yeah, I don't remember much of that. See, I was down at Stanford during that period of time, and my father never missed a game, the Big Game.

REDMAN: Now your father had been pretty well educated. Was it always assumed 00:10:00that you would go to college as a young girl--?

SWADLEY: Well, see, you couldn't get into Stanford, a girl couldn't get into Stanford if she didn't have somebody like my father to sign for her. Everybody says, "How did you get into Stanford?" My father was a Block "S" Man, and his picture is right in that catalogue.

REDMAN: So he helped facilitate that--

SWADLEY: Well, he just signed for me when I was--

REDMAN: Did you know then, when you were in high school, that you would ultimately go to college?

SWADLEY: I graduated in 1935, but I had never thought about college.

REDMAN: It never really occurred to you?

SWADLEY: But I was always interested in art and sewing. I could shoot a twenty-two; we'd go out shooting squirrels in somebody's backyard probably.

REDMAN: But things were a lot more open then? It sounds like--

SWADLEY: Oh very much, we took the dog for a ride out in the country because it was a hunting dog. In fact, I think these are pictures of my father and the people he--

REDMAN: Would spend with?

SWADLEY: Well, would do the hunting every year--

REDMAN: So he was into hunting and fishing and--

SWADLEY: Yeah, he did everything.

REDMAN: He did a lot of outdoor activities.

SWADLEY: Yeah.

REDMAN: But your mother, was she the primary breadwinner for a little while there during the Depression?

SWADLEY: No, she never worked. She took care of her brother that had TB, and I don't know where they lived. They had a house in Paso Robles. My father built the house that they--it's still in Paso Robles. All these houses are still up.

REDMAN: Let me ask, Herbert Hoover became President, but he was a big figure in California.

SWADLEY: Not in that part of the country.

REDMAN: Did your parents have a particular thought on Herbert Hoover?

SWADLEY: No.

REDMAN: Did they talk about that at all?

SWADLEY: I never heard them even mention it.

REDMAN: How about FDR, Franklin Roosevelt when he came along?

SWADLEY: Well, see, I was away at college at that time.

REDMAN: What year did you enroll at Stanford? Do you remember what year you started--?

SWADLEY: Let's see, it was '40--1936, actually. See, I graduated from high school in '35. And I went off to Stanford in the fall.

REDMAN: What was that experience like? When you arrived at Stanford what did you think--?

SWADLEY: Well, there was no place to stay. I had to stay in a private home where my family-- my father knew these people. He always came up. I just never thought 00:13:00anything about it.

REDMAN: So there wasn't a place to live so you lived with--

SWADLEY: I had to live in families, and I broke out in hives due to food allergies. I lost a quarter of my education because they had to take me to Los Angeles to get all those little allergy things done up and down your arm. There wasn't any place in that area to get it done in those days.

REDMAN: Were there almost exclusively men in your classes? Or were there a few other young women?

SWADLEY: Yes, I remember sitting with those rows of boys in class all around me, all skinned up from what I later found out was from football. They were on the team. I can remember sitting on the bleachers in some of the rooms. I always had all the football players in the same classes I was in. Stanford had a lot of good teams. My father was on the rowing team. I heard him talk many times of his experiences at Stanford.

REDMAN: You had mentioned you liked art when you were a younger student. What 00:14:00subjects did you study at Stanford?

SWADLEY: I think I just did the normal things because my family believed that you had to have a rounded education. When I went one year to Rudolph Schaffer's in San Francisco after I graduated. Some of the pictures are over there. It was more or less to get my teachers certificate so if I wanted to go in a museum or work I would have it. But I didn't ever use it.

REDMAN: Did you have any jobs growing up, any odd jobs or anything like that--?

SWADLEY: Yeah, I used to work in the ice cream parlor in a drug store when I was a senior. My father didn't believe in his daughter working.

REDMAN: So it wasn't until you were a senior in high school that you got that 00:15:00job--at the ice cream parlor.

SWADLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Do you remember what that experience was like? What was it like to serve ice cream to people?

SWADLEY: Well, the people that were going through it was down on the main street in town, and we would wait on the people coming through to town. We'd stop at many times and pick up ice cream, or sandwiches, or cookies or something. There was grocery store next door to the ice cream parlor.

REDMAN: At the ice cream parlor did you sell other kinds of dairy products? Was it a creamery? Could you also buy milk and butter there?

SWADLEY: No I don't think so. I think it was just a drug store.

REDMAN: As someone who wasn't around in the nineteen thirties, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to explain to me a little bit about how young men and women might have dressed, what people would have worn.

SWADLEY: Very poor clothes [laughter] I can't really remember much of--my sister was the athletic one and played all these games at night in the heat down in there. But I never did. I would either end up drawing or sewing or fixing my fingernails. I remember I used to do that a lot.

REDMAN: During the Great Depression there were a bunch of programs associated with the New Deal. So this would have been in the mid-1930s. Have you heard of programs like the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Core, or the WPA or NRA?

SWADLEY: [sigh]

REDMAN: None of those FDR programs were really--

SWADLEY: My father had a tough time. He'd go out on the farms and help build 00:17:00things because he had an architectural background also.

REDMAN: So you were interested in architecture and drawing as well, eventually?

SWADLEY: Well, I wasn't interested in it, but I usually hit most of the art classes because--you know, they felt it was a waste of money and education not to take reading, writing and arithmetic.

REDMAN: But you were interested in some of the art classes--

SWADLEY: I took all of them, and my teachers went between San Jose State and Stanford. They would go back and forth, and kids that went to that class would get on a bus and go over.

REDMAN: All the way over to the San Jose State campus or--

SWADLEY: Yeah, because that's older than Stanford.

REDMAN: I'd like to turn to the start of the war. Do you remember December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked?

SWADLEY: Yes, I was standing in my mother's kitchen when that was coming over the radio.

REDMAN: And tell me about what that was like? Was that a scary time?

SWADLEY: Well, I didn't think much of it. It was just a sad thing happening. I don't know, I never thought much of it.

REDMAN: What about, then, the start of the war? Then a couple of days later--

SWADLEY: Well the boys that I was engaged to, or knew in high school, they were going off to war, and it was kind of sad. But you didn't think much of it.

REDMAN: How about the teachers at Stanford? I wonder, did you see the faculty as being affected by the war in any way or another?

SWADLEY: If it was I wasn't aware of it because I was fighting hives and things 00:19:00and various--all the food that they served were things, I couldn't touch.

REDMAN: All the food at Stanford, it seemed like you were allergic to.

SWADLEY: No, I was placed in the home of a friend of my father's, and I can't remember a thing about this home.

REDMAN: During the start of the war, then, or during the war, things would have been rationed, like milk, and butter and things of that nature.

SWADLEY: I was drawing plans in a lumber yard and working, so I always had cards.

REDMAN: You got a job at the lumber yard?

SWADLEY: I walked in looking for a job.

REDMAN: Now this is after Stanford?

SWADLEY: Yeah, I was out looking for--I wanted to stay in the Bay Area because there was no men down around Paso Robles. They had all gone to war, or they were building Camp Roberts. So I just wanted to stay in the city.

REDMAN: What was it like, being on campus in particular? You had said that mostly it was other young men, and then when the war started--

SWADLEY: I never thought about it--

REDMAN: Yeah, then when the war started--

SWADLEY: Yeah, I know that it happened because I can remember my father when I was young talking about the chimney at Stanford. They were in a frat house or something, and a chimney went down and took off the bottom of his bed one night, during the earthquake. That would have been '06, wouldn't it?

REDMAN: That's right, wow. So he had memories of being a student at Stanford--

SWADLEY: My father used to talk about being at Stanford, yeah.

REDMAN: And then the 1906 earthquake--

SWADLEY: And who he roomed with; he roomed with the people around the Bank of America, their two sons. He said he was a poor farmer going home to cut the 00:21:00crops when his mother was a widow, and he would say they would come in with this five-pound chocolates and put it in the room. He said it was wonderful to have it, but he didn't have anything like that--he had a widowed mother.

REDMAN: So even at that time his economic situation was pretty tough--

SWADLEY: He would come home, and put the wheat in and cut the wheat when it was time to go.

REDMAN: Do you remember when the young men enlisted in World War II? Did that change the campus at all?

SWADLEY: Oh no it was after that it happened.

REDMAN: Tell me about when you graduated, finding work--oh, I'm sorry; I want to ask one more question about Stanford. Do you remember any uniformed students, 00:22:00students wearing U.S. Army uniforms or Navy--?

SWADLEY: Oh honey, I don't remember that. And I never wore anything other than my regular clothes.

REDMAN: Did you mention earlier, eventually you started doing some work with the Red Cross? Was that later on in your life--?

SWADLEY: Oh honey, Alameda County, there's the article in the newspaper over there. I was head of the Red Cross in Alameda County.

REDMAN: Now that comes later though in your life, is that correct?

SWADLEY: Yeah, that was after I was married, probably.

REDMAN: Can we talk about life in the lumber yard? That's what I'd love to hear some--

SWADLEY: Yes, I started putting paid-in shelves when I first started learning to draw the house, and I ran the home service department in the Builders Emporium.

REDMAN: Now this was in El Cerrito?

SWADLEY: Yes it was.

REDMAN: So you wanted to stay in the Bay Area?

SWADLEY: I did want to stay in the Bay Area.

REDMAN: I understand that El Cerrito had quite a bit of a reputation during World War II.

SWADLEY: Don't remember anything about that.

REDMAN: The ship yards had come in, and people would go out and party in El Cerrito. They would go to the saloons and there was some pretty active night life.

SWADLEY: Well--if you want to call those bars and things that came up around there, yeah.

REDMAN: That was never anything that was of interest to you?

SWADLEY: No. I was a poor girl, and I walked for instance on Grand Avenue here in Oakland, I would walk clear down to the other end of town and take a bus out to where they had the horse races, no, the dog races. Dog races. Then change and 00:24:00get on another bus and go to El Cerrito.

REDMAN: Were there trolley systems? Were there trollies to get around there in addition to the bus?

SWADLEY: I never used anything like that. I was always using a bus.

REDMAN: Now, to get over to San Francisco, did you ever take the Key Train over the Bay Bridge to go over to San Francisco?

SWADLEY: I don't remember doing that because I always had transportation.

REDMAN: I see, so you would maybe borrow rides with someone or things like that, or take the bus--

SWADLEY: I don't remember, I don't remember much about that. I just know I came up for the walking the bridge with some of my friends.

REDMAN: How about finding work at the lumber yard--?

SWADLEY: Well, see I walked into a job--and I had that for twenty years.

REDMAN: You had that job for twenty--as you were stocking paint shelves you were 00:25:00learning to draw, is that right?

SWADLEY: Well, I was learning to do FHA plans.

REDMAN: Can you tell me, so FHA--

SWADLEY: I even have pictures of those somewhere around here.

REDMAN: Being the Federal Housing Authority, is that right?

SWADLEY: FHA.

REDMAN: Let's pretend for a moment that I know nothing about the FHA, or what it is or does, tell me a little about what you did for the FHA--

SWADLEY: Well you had to send the plans away to FHA, and they would approve them. The first set of plans I drew, I never lived it down. I had the vents in the foundation about the floor line, and they kidded me for years. [laughs] People that were still alive kidded me because I could go and sweep the dirt out the --but, see, I was learning to draw plans. Then I worked over to Treasure 00:26:00Island during the war years and night on weekends and things doing kitchens!

REDMAN: Drawing kitchens?

SWADLEY: Kitchens, and handing them to people. You know when people were going through these different rooms and looking at the fair over in San Francisco, I was over there drawing kitchens and giving them a copy of those.

REDMAN: So this was at the 1939 World's Fair in Treasure Island, is that right?

SWADLEY: Yes, right.

REDMAN: Tell me a little more about that.

SWADLEY: Well I had a car by then. My father bought me a second-hand car of some boy in Paso Robles; he went off to war, I guess. I think there's a--maybe it's in there--there is the original check that we bought that car with. But it was 00:27:00kind of fun to go over and meet all these people that would be touring the fair in that time.

REDMAN: Now the fair was really popular, so popular that they extended it in 1940--

SWADLEY: For two years.

REDMAN: Do you remember, was that an exciting place to spend time on the fair- grounds?

SWADLEY: Yes it was.

REDMAN: What was exciting about it?

SWADLEY: Well, they had the follies from Paris, and all kinds of stuff. And you didn't miss much.

REDMAN: It was a pretty small space, so you could see it all?

SWADLEY: No, it wasn't, it was on the island over there.

REDMAN: So the fair was pretty big is what you're saying.

SWADLEY: It was!

REDMAN: So seeing traveling acts from different countries, that was pretty impressive--

SWADLEY: Yeah, we did. But we didn't miss much because you got off work, you didn't work too long you know, it was time somebody else come. You'd stay over for all the programs if there was stuff that was good.

REDMAN: So going to the fair, it sounds like it was the type of thing where you could go back again and again because--

SWADLEY: Oh, we had a pass. You had a pass that you could go and come to work every day. I was working, honey! I was drawing kitchens.

REDMAN: So tell me about what--

SWADLEY: They would sit and talk to me, and I would draw what they want in their kitchen--put a little color on the back of it or something and give it to them.

REDMAN: Were most of the people that were asking for FHA drawings from you at the time, were they young couples or were they older couples--?

SWADLEY: Oh, I just know that there was people interested in having somebody do a little kitchen plan that they could take home with them.

REDMAN: Tell me about what it was like to commute to the lumber yard at first, 00:29:00in El Cerrito. Did you drive there every day?

SWADLEY: No, I didn't have a car then.

REDMAN: Oh you took the bus, so you would take that bus line then? Tell me what happens then. You start getting a little bit of experience drawing these plan--

SWADLEY: Oh I got good. I could do one a night.

REDMAN: You could do about one every evening--

SWADLEY: I could do one plan a night. And it was--twenty five dollars is what it cost.

REDMAN: So it would cost someone twenty five dollars to get these plans drawn up.

SWADLEY: Mr. {Dybdal?} was--well, he was actually the man that did El--well, let's see, what is the town? Oh, God I can't even think of it right now.

REDMAN: So next to El Cerrito, Albany and Berkeley and--

SWADLEY: No, out further, a little further east. It was all the people in 00:30:00Piedmont had little places out there that they kept their animals. Like horses and--El Sobrante, is that right?

REDMAN: Yes, that's near there.

SWADLEY: It sounds kind of like maybe--but anyhow, that's how I got acquainted with all these people in Piedmont. Piedmont has always been my specialty, where I've lived in this area.

REDMAN: Were most people coming to you for plans, do you know, I understand there was a big housing boom following the end of the war--

SWADLEY: There was, and the houses all in El Sobrante, the original houses were done by a man called Dybdal.

REDMAN: He designed the whole master plan--

SWADLEY: Well, I designed them.

REDMAN: You designed the houses?

SWADLEY: Yeah, and most of them came in on--some of them were pre-fabbed around 00:31:00Salinas area. There was a big pre-fab place down around there, and a lot of those houses came up into this area.

REDMAN: So were there crews then. I know this wasn't part of your job exactly, but were there crews then assembling these houses pretty quickly? Because they could pre-fabricate some of the--

SWADLEY: Well, some of them were already pre-fabricated when they came into the area.

REDMAN: So then, when you would actually draw the plans--

SWADLEY: Well that had nothing to do with that part of it.

REDMAN: So explain that to me a little bit more then.

SWADLEY: Well, like what? The lumber yard was a huge lumber yard, and they sold material to these different contractors that were working in the area at that time.

REDMAN: So their plans would have to--their building, would they have to be approved by the FHA? Or would you streamline that somehow in working at the lumber--

SWADLEY: Well sometimes I drew the plans, and sometimes I didn't. Most of them knew how to--they kind of put them together or they bought pre-fabs or something. They went up awfully fast in that area because these Piedmont people had all their animals and things out in there--they were very familiar with that area.

REDMAN: And they wanted to build new houses?

SWADLEY: Well, make money, sure. I don't remember much about that; I just worked my own deal.

REDMAN: Were there lots of people do you think coming in using the GI Bill to build houses?

SWADLEY: No, I don't' remember that.

REDMAN: So you don't remember a big influx of soldiers coming home to buy houses?

SWADLEY: No, there wasn't any soldiers coming home--come on.

REDMAN: After the war.

SWADLEY: Well maybe after the war, but not during the war.

REDMAN: Right not during the war, of course.

SWADLEY: No, we entertained the twenty-four fighter wing, my boss did. He put me in charge of a couple of things--because he was a Rotarian and belonged to the bank out that way. He put me in charge of Beta Sigma Phi, and we ran the kitchen in Berkeley where you fed the military if they came down on Saturday. We worked that every Saturday, and I'm sure there is pictures around here in that.

REDMAN: Do you remember meeting, even just for a moment or casually, meeting other soldiers then from around--?

SWADLEY: The fella I originally married I met at that dinner that night.

REDMAN: Is that right?

SWADLEY: When we entertained the twenty five--twenty four people, yeah.

REDMAN: Can you tell me that story?

SWADLEY: What do you need to know? I didn't talk to him that night. He found out that my mother was up visiting, and he arranged to have the boy come down and meet my mother and play cards with her the next night. My boss did. And I married him finally.

REDMAN: What branch of the--?

SWADLEY: That's him!

REDMAN: Was he in the Army?

SWADLEY: Army Air Corps.

REDMAN: Did he eventually get stationed over in the Pacific?

SWADLEY: No, he never went overseas.

REDMAN: Never went overseas. Was he in a situation where he was a little young?

SWADLEY: Well honey, he was because he came from Tennessee. That's where I got the Tennessee families mixed into California.

REDMAN: In 1944, there was a big explosion up near Concord--

SWADLEY: Oh, the black people unloading a boat, yeah. I had to get up there with my boss the next morning when I went to work. I had to go up there with him because he had--I don't how or why or anything, but I did have to go up the next morning up there.

REDMAN: What do you remember about that? What did you see that day?

SWADLEY: Disaster. But I don't remember a lot about it. I just know I had to go up there with my boss the next day because something that he had some connection with.

REDMAN: Up near the base?

SWADLEY: Over there, no, where it happened.

REDMAN: Do you remember feeling the explosion the night before, or the day before?

SWADLEY: We heard a noise. I was down living in Oakland, downtown Oakland, in an 00:36:00apartment. I can remember hearing the noise, and we didn't know what it was until really the next morning.

REDMAN: And when you were there seeing all of that destruction and devastation--because I've seen some old photographs--it looks like it was pretty terrible.

SWADLEY: Yeah, but I don't remember--isn't it terrible, but I went up for a reason with my boss. I don't remember much about it.

REDMAN: You were probably unaware at that time that it was black sailors--

SWADLEY: No, I probably knew it, but I don't remember.

REDMAN: Then later that came out as the mutiny trial got more and more attention--

SWADLEY: Yeah, but I don't know what my boss went up there for.

REDMAN: Some sort of meeting--

SWADLEY: Something to do with his family; he had to get up and check on them. And I had to go.

REDMAN: Do you have anything else you would like to add about seeing post 00:37:00aftermath of Port Chicago of all that disaster?

SWADLEY: [sigh]

REDMAN: No, okay. During World War II the Japanese were sent to war relocation camps.

SWADLEY: Yes, and it was so sad in El Cerrito because that's where they all lived, and had families, and gardens and things. Then to see these places empty--I just remember hearing about it, but it really wasn't affecting my drawing or anything.

REDMAN: What about then, at the end of the war, hearing about the atomic bombs being dropped, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do you remember the end of the war?

SWADLEY: Yes a little bit, but I--you know, I don't know. What did I do at the 00:38:00end of the war? I don't know. I came back, and I was engaged to this Tennessean. He came out in a car from where he was working, and he was supporting a widowed mother too. By then my father had passed away. You know, I just stayed up here. I don't remember much about it.

REDMAN: How about, you continued to draw and do--?

SWADLEY: Yes I did. I worked for Builders Emporium and Lincoln Lumber Company. He was a speaker in California, and I was working for their family, and we moved to East Oakland. But I worked there until I quit. By then I had belonged to all 00:39:00these historical things. I was the Vice President of The Daughters of the American Revolution, and I spent a lot of time back there.

REDMAN: Now how about your husband; was he also--it seems like you get more and more engaged civilly with these organizations.

SWADLEY: Well, he worked for a plumbing specialty company here, Jack Soloman, and--I don't know; he was always busy. He ran the home owners a couple of times up here in this whole area.

REDMAN: Now tell me about what organizations--you mentioned you worked with the Red Cross. You've mentioned your involvement with The Daughters of the American Revolution, and also the Rotary. Can you tell me a little bit about the Rotary?

SWADLEY: Yeah, what do you want to know about it? I don't know how he got involved. I don't remember how he got involved in Rotary, but--I really don't. 00:40:00But we were all over the world. I've lived in homes where dogs have been outside of my door in the bedroom, and you couldn't get to the bathroom unless you went past the door where the dog was--

REDMAN: So you've had a lot of opportunities to travel.

SWADLEY: Traveled the world.

REDMAN: Reflecting back on your time with Stanford, do you have a close relationship with Stanford now, like the alumni association?

SWADLEY: I did the first year my husband died. I went over to Germany, and took the train ride; I have that book on that.

REDMAN: With the Stanford alumni group?

SWADLEY: Yes I did.

REDMAN: You mentioned your father never missed a Big Game.

SWADLEY: He never did. He was always up to the Big Game. Probably rode a horse; 00:41:00I don't know.

REDMAN: Was that a pretty similar situation with you--were you also following Stanford in football and--?

SWADLEY: Oh, I always have.

REDMAN: That big Bay Area rivalry--

SWADLEY: And my sister went to Cal because she didn't have the push to get into Stanford. My father had died and--she had the grade average on everything. What's the oil company, Standard is it?

REDMAN: Standard Oil in Richmond?

SWADLEY: Which is the one out in Richmond?

REDMAN: Yeah, Standard Oil.

SWADLEY: She went to work for them as she graduated from college, and they wanted to send her for her doctorate. She decided she wanted to go up to Clear Lake or somewhere with a grandmother of somebody, one of the girls she met.

REDMAN: Can I go back to the war for a moment?

SWADLEY: Sure. I don't remember, probably.

REDMAN: When FDR died, and Truman took over--

SWADLEY: Oh, let me tell you the one that I really remember is the one that got shot in Texas.

REDMAN: Kennedy?

SWADLEY: Kennedy! I was on my way up to the Claremont Hotel--I was married-- and up to the Claremont Hotel for a DAR[Daughters of the American Revolution] meeting with Mrs. Harvey Blanchard Lyon. She was the State Regent of DAR at that time, and I was her corresponding secretary, and that's when we heard about it.

REDMAN: What did that make you feel at that time?

SWADLEY: Oh, it was a very sad day.

REDMAN: That was almost harder, more poignant, in some sense it seems like--

SWADLEY: Well, I was older; I knew more about what was going on, and I was 00:43:00involved with DAR, so.

REDMAN: How about when Truman took over? You didn't care so much about that? Or was he an intriguing guy for any reason or another?

SWADLEY: I don't remember much about him.

REDMAN: How about the Korean War? Do you remember, later after World War II--

SWADLEY: Honey, you'd find out more by just going through my books and scrapbooks.

REDMAN: The last question I'll ask today, thinking about the war, in terms of your whole life, you've done so much, you've traveled all over, you've been involved in all of these organizations, what do you think about World War II in the place of your life?

SWADLEY: Well, it was a pretty important part of it. But I don't remember that 00:44:00much about it. I got through it--I had passes to go out on the bay on different boats and--you know, I just was very much in the community.

REDMAN: Now, tell me a little bit about going out in the bay because there were some restrictions?

SWADLEY: Oh definitely, you had to have a special pass. It was like a car pass, you know--

REDMAN: So it was almost rationed in a sense the--

SWADLEY: Yeah, well, of course we were rationed on gas and food and all that kind of stuff.

REDMAN: How did you arranged to get passes on occasion to go out on the bay? How did that come to be?

SWADLEY: I don't know, just somebody I met I guess.

REDMAN: Someone you met had a boat or something--

SWADLEY: Well, no, we went on many boats, but I don't--I've just have always 00:45:00been a busy-body, I guess.

REDMAN: Well, Bernadine, I want to say thank you so much for taking a little time and telling us about this--

SWADLEY: Well I feel like I'm--just take that and read it because that's the Alameda County book, the last one that was written. I was president of it. I don't go to it anymore because I don't believe in some of the things they are doing. That other book is all on my father. And the book I wrote in 1970 when I was on my way into Oakland--I was at a boulevard stop and a truck hit me in the rear. I bothered my neck, so I had to give up work for a whole year.

REDMAN: So that's when you wrote a book?

SWADLEY: That's when my husband bought me a typewriter; I couldn't type--never had in school. It came into Paso Robles school the year I graduated and went off 00:46:00to Stanford.

REDMAN: So you taught yourself to type then?

SWADLEY: Well, I don't know whether--it's hunt and peck I guess, but I had to get it together.

REDMAN: And what's the book on?

SWADLEY: Just my family--bringing my family--connecting my family to the New England and the country in the east.

REDMAN: Great, well I want to thank you again for taking a moment--

SWADLEY: Well I wish I could give you one, but I don't know where they are.

REDMAN: Oh no that fine.