Doris J. Whitt | Interview 1 | March 21, 2012

REDMAN: My name is Sam Redman. Today is Wednesday, March 21, and I'm in lovely Pacifica, California, with Doris Whitt. During World War II Doris trained at Douglas Aircraft in Oklahoma City before moving to southern California to find work at an airplane factory. Before getting into her experiences during World War II, I'd like to ask her a few basic questions about her background and early childhood. To begin, Doris, would you mind just stating your full name and date of birth for me.

WHITT: I sure will. Doris June Whitt, and of course that's my married name. My maiden name is Price, P-R-I-C-E.

REDMAN: Could you spell Whitt for me?

WHITT: W-H-I-T-T.

REDMAN: When were you born?

WHITT: I was born June 1, 1923, and my two brothers named me.

REDMAN: I was going to ask how many siblings you had. Did you grow up with just two brothers, or did other siblings--?

WHITT: I had two brothers and one sister.

REDMAN: A younger sister.

WHITT: No, older.

REDMAN: She was older, but it was the brothers that named you.

WHITT: Yes. They said if I was born in May I would be named Doris May, and if I was born in June I'd be named Doris June. I was born the first day of June.

REDMAN: That's a lovely story. Can you tell me a little bit about your family?

WHITT: My mother was born in Indian Territory in 1890, in Oklahoma. They later 00:02:00named that place Atwood, Oklahoma. Let's see; what can I tell you about her? She was a great person. She loved history. She loved America. She loved politics.

REDMAN: What were some of her political viewpoints when you were growing up? Do remember what some of her views were on politics?

WHITT: She was very conservative. She liked President Roosevelt. She worked in what they called sewing rooms back when I was a child. I don't know if you're familiar with those.

REDMAN: Tell me about sewing rooms. What are sewing rooms?

WHITT: Well, I was born in the nineteen twenties, so you know that we were in a great depression. People stood in line for bowls of soup. It was really bad here 00:03:00in the United States. The government was starting up projects to help, like the WPA. So they started up something for the women, and it turned out to be sewing rooms, where they would put to sew things together. I think they did some American flags. I'm not sure what the other things were, but they could have made some clothing like for men in the CCC camps that were around at that time also.

REDMAN: So the WPA being the Works Progress Administration, and the CCC being the Civilian Conservation Corps, these New Deal programs were sponsored by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, correct?

WHITT: I think so.

REDMAN: And your mom got a job at one of these places, at one of these sewing rooms. So do you think part of the reason that she liked FDR was because of the fact that she'd gotten a job through one of these projects, maybe?

WHITT: Well, I'm sure it helped. I went to work at they called the NYA, the National Youth Administration. I made the large sum of $18 a month typing up birth certificates for the state health department.

REDMAN: Did that seem like an enormous sum at that time for you?

WHITT: Oh, yes. That was great.

REDMAN: Tell me about how you found your job with the NYA. Do you recall? We'll get back to some early childhood memories, but that's a good question.

WHITT: I don't remember, unless maybe they notified us through the mail.

REDMAN: That there were these jobs.

WHITT: Or I may have gone and signed up. Now the way I got in with Douglas Aircraft was I went to the Post Office, and I saw these posters all over the walls. They were asking people to serve in these different projects that were opening up because the war had started. That's how I got connected to that, so I may have got it from the Post Office. But I'm not sure.

REDMAN: Do you remember the other young people that were working with you at the NYA? Was that a feeling of other young people from your area that would get these jobs together at the NYA? Because you hear about these CCC camps where 00:06:00there would be groups of young men working together. Presumably your mom went the sewing room with other young women who were similarly employed. It seems like maybe your job was more of an individual thing, like a young person getting payment through a--can you talk about how that might have been?

WHITT: Well, they were training me. So other girls might--I don't recall anyone, because I was being trained by older ladies, and I don't recall other girls. I don't remember how I got--seems like I rode a streetcar because it was quite a ways from where my home was.

REDMAN: What did that $18 a month do for you at that age?

WHITT: It did a lot. It did a lot. It would buy food for our family. It would by shoes for myself. We walked everywhere we went. There were street cars, and I 00:07:00think they cost ten cents. And bread was a nickel a loaf. So you can imagine how far $18 would go with those prices.

REDMAN: So despite the Great Depression there were these opportunities in some sense. But it sounds like it wasn't easy for your family. Can you talk about what that was like?

WHITT: Up to that time, till we were getting work, you mean?

REDMAN: Right.

WHITT: Well, it was rough.

REDMAN: So the Depression comes along in 1929. You would have been a pretty small girl when that happened. So maybe you could talk about your parents, how they reacted to the Depression and what that brought on for your family in the thirties, then. I presume also that the Dust Bowl would have been something that 00:08:00you would have recalled.

WHITT: The Dust Bowl was really bad. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to go out and play. I was about seven, I think, somewhere around that. So my brothers tied a hanky around my nose. Because you couldn't see your hand out there. You couldn't see your hand, the red dust was so thick. Because our soil was red. So it was a red dust. So they tied a hanky around, and I went outside and took a few steps in the yard, and I turned around and came back in because I couldn't see anything. But I wanted to go out, so they helped me.

REDMAN: For a seven-year-old girl, to see the Dust Bowl, to see these huge 00:09:00clouds of dust, what did you think of that?

WHITT: I wasn't scared. It was just difficult. I wanted to go out and play, and we all had to stay in.

REDMAN: Did it affect the people around you economically? Presumably the farming economy--

WHITT: Oh, yes.

REDMAN: --there. I mean it would have been rough, rough times.

WHITT: They couldn't plant gardens. They couldn't plant their vegetables in the fields. They'd just sit there. I think the basis for that problem, or some of the basis at least--I heard later--was the plowing in the fields was too deep, 00:10:00so it blew--and the winds came, of course, living on the plains like that. And it blew the dust all around. Everything turned kind of reddish.

REDMAN: So that was the scientific explanation, that people caught onto, it sounds like, later. [Only later did] they really [understand] that.

WHITT: I don't think at that time they understood it.

REDMAN: So how did people try to explain that at the time? You can also talk a little bit about religion. Did your family go to church services on Sunday?

WHITT: Oh, yes. I was raised in church.

REDMAN: What sort of denomination were your parents?

WHITT: We were Pentecostal, what they call Pentecostal, very conservative people.

REDMAN: Did they interpret the Dust Bowl through that understanding, through 00:11:00that sort of framing of church and the Bible? Did they reference that when the Dust Bowl was happening? Or the Depression?

WHITT: No, not at that time. Not that I know of. Maybe later.

REDMAN: Can you talk maybe about your own personal relationship to the church growing up? Did you go to Sunday school?

WHITT: Oh, yes, we went to church. My oldest brother was a minister. He had his own church for a while. His wife played piano. When he got married, he got a girl that did that. And my other brother played guitar, a steel guitar. Some people call it a Hawaiian guitar. I was taking lessons; I took lessons from, I 00:12:00think it was the Salvation Army in a sort of a church atmosphere, I can remember. So I learned how to play some chords and things on my guitar. So we would play in church.

REDMAN: Did your mother or father encourage the musical side of things, or did they both sort of encourage that, or did that just kind of come about?

WHITT: It came about. One of my brothers was in an accident. They were looking for work. My oldest and youngest brother and a cousin of ours were walking looking for work--they went out almost every day looking for work--and an old brick building, which was a drug store, started falling. The bricks started falling. My oldest brother was ahead, and the cousin. But my youngest brother 00:13:00was behind them, kind of lagging behind, and he's the one that got hurt. So consequently, it crushed his skull. I remember going to the hospital to see him. I don't know how old I was, probably maybe about eight, eight or nine. Seeing him at the hospital I was very sad because I didn't know if he was going to live or die.

This is how the guitar came about. My mother and father separated when I was two years old. So I didn't see him much after that. Anyway, my mother sued because my brother was in the hospital quite a while. And then he finally got home. Then the attorney did not want him to work, any at all, because he had had his skull 00:14:00crushed. So he had to take care of himself and wasn't allowed to work. Young boys want to do things and have a lot of energy, so he started taking guitar lessons from a Hawaiian teacher. He really went to town on that.

REDMAN: It must have been really unusual to have a Hawaiian teacher in town like that.

WHITT: But he was there, and he was giving lessons.

REDMAN: That's an amazing stroke of luck, in some sense, for your brother--

WHITT: Wasn't it though?

REDMAN: --who needed an activity.

WHITT: And he can make a train whistle too. Boy, he was really good.

REDMAN: So he used that time recovering to learn and pick up a new skill. That's an amazing story.

WHITT: It took--I think it was about four years.

REDMAN: Was that a toll on your family? I suspect your mother was already 00:15:00strained to be finding work.

WHITT: Yes, it was a strain, but he came out of it pretty good. But could never do any difficult work after that because of that, you know.

REDMAN: Just out of curiosity, how old was he when the accident happened?

WHITT: I think he was about eighteen.

REDMAN: So presumably when the war came along, he still would have been of age. Did that affect--out of curiosity--his status, his health status?

WHITT: Well, I don't know, back in those days, about that too much. But he went in the Navy.

REDMAN: We'll get back to that, but first I'd like to ask if maybe you could 00:16:00just tell me what a typical day would have been like for you when you were a young girl in elementary school. You would have woken up in the morning, and what type of chores would your mom have been doing? What would your brothers have been doing? Talk about going to school in the morning, if you would.

WHITT: Grade school was called Emerson Elementary School. I have pictures of it in my room. I went back and visited it and took pictures. I started there in the first grade. I can't remember my teachers' names. One was named Ruth, and that's about it.

REDMAN: Did you have any favorite subjects in school or subjects you didn't like 00:17:00for one reason or another?

WHITT: Oh, yes. I loved history. But I did not like math at all.

REDMAN: I can understand. I'm the same way.

WHITT: That's my worst subject, math.

REDMAN: Any other strong memories from going to school? You said you walked to school each day.

WHITT: I walked to school, and it was very cold.

REDMAN: Cold!

WHITT: It was so cold.

REDMAN: And not the same type of cold that we have today [in Pacifica, California], I suspect.

WHITT: No. One thing I remember very much was one day they called me and several other girls out of the classroom. We went up into another portion of the school, and there was some official looking people there. They took us in and gave us new shoes, and they gave us all a coat. So evidently I showed that I needed 00:18:00shoes and a coat. I can remember that much.

REDMAN: Would you describe your family, growing up, in a struggling economic circumstance?

WHITT: Definitely.

REDMAN: Compared to the other families, would you say you grew up poor?

WHITT: Oh, yes. Definitely.

REDMAN: Would you mind talking about that a little bit in terms of your experience?

WHITT: I can remember my brothers walking all over town looking for work. Evidently, the family got enough money together to buy flour. Because people in those days baked. They didn't go to the market and purchase a loaf of bread. They baked at home. So they took their flour and corn meal and made corn bread; they made biscuits every morning. Everyone that we knew would use flour. Then they would plant gardens if they had the space. We didn't where we lived.

REDMAN: Did you learn to bake and cook?

WHITT: No, I didn't, not too much. I don't recall doing much of that.

REDMAN: What would your mom have done on a typical day? Your brothers were out looking for work. When they were of that age, were they the main breadwinners; would your mother stay home most of the time? But then there was this opportunity that she had to be in the sewing room doing a job.

WHITT: Well, before the sewing room there was really bad times. She would clean house for people. I would babysit for people. We would do anything that we possibly could to make a little bit of money so that we could buy groceries.

REDMAN: Did people think the Depression would ever end?

WHITT: I don't know what people thought about that, but I know everyone in our neighborhood seemed to be much in the same--there was a man who lived down the street who drove a large truck. I would see it come and go; he had a job. So we 00:21:00all felt like they were rich. He had a job, so they were rich. Mom would babysit, clean house for people and things like that. There was no definite job to go to every day.

REDMAN: You described your mom as patriotic, as someone with a lot of patriotism. Was it hard, do you think, for her at that time to be patriotic for a country that's struggling so much, or did that almost make the patriotism stronger in a sense? How do you think she felt about the country as it went through this? Did she have any sort of feeling about that?

WHITT: She didn't have any bad feelings. We were very proud of our country.

REDMAN: Was there anyone else in the community, do you think, that felt 00:22:00differently about that, or was that something that you didn't observe?

WHITT: I don't think at that time in my childhood that I thought too much about it. I do remember when sons would go to war there was something that people would put out in their windows, a display. I think it was a flag, something like that.

REDMAN: A blue star perhaps, some sort of symbol?

WHITT: I think it was an American flag. Someone in the family was in the service.

REDMAN: Let me ask what the other kids were like at school. Do you have any particular memories of what the kids were like at school, the other children?

WHITT: They were just like me. We played at recess and went thought the snow when it was cold and ice was on the rings and things. They had rings that hung down that you could swing on at that time. It was a large playground. We were glad when recess came. Everyone took their lunch.

REDMAN: You mentioned some of the things that you were eating. Could you talk for a minute--do you remember what you would pack in your lunch, what sorts of things would go in a lunch at that time?

WHITT: It would be something that we had at home there. We didn't get very much fruit. Bananas and apples and things like that, you just didn't see, except 00:24:00maybe at Christmas.

REDMAN: Christmas would be a holiday when maybe you'd have some fruits.

WHITT: Yes, and the Salvation Army gave us a basket one year. It had a large turkey in it. It had dressing; it had flour, cornmeal. All kinds of good stuff in it. Cranberry sauce. A good Christmas dinner. And that was free from the Salvation Army. I'll never forget them.

REDMAN: So they have a special place in your heart, it sounds like.

WHITT: They do, and I give to them when I have anything to give, I'll tell you.

REDMAN: That's an amazing connection, an interesting connection.

WHITT: And then my oldest brother went into the CCC camp, and the Salvation Army paid our fare on the bus, Mother and I, to go up and see him. He was up in another place.

REDMAN: I know that the CCC boys would do things like plant trees or cut paths--

WHITT: Build bridges over creeks and things like that too.

REDMAN: Is that the sort of thing your brother was doing; do you recall what types of tasks? Did he talk about any of that?

WHITT: No. I know he had trouble with one of his eyes, detached retina. That kind of fixed him up for not being able to go in the service or anything. He had a lifetime of that problem. But we took the bus and went up to see him. They had him in--I don't think it was a hospital, but it seemed like maybe it was something like that at that time. I guess they were doing something to his eye. I'm not sure; I don't remember about surgery, but it could have been.

REDMAN: Health care, I imagine, would have been a struggle in those days in terms of money.

WHITT: Yes, we just didn't get health care. None of us, as far as can remember at all, ever got to see--I was taken to a dentist, but I don't remember about the charges or anything like that, for extraction and things like that.

REDMAN: When times were tough, it seems like that would be an area where you would notice it, and also putting food on the table. Were there other obvious struggles?

WHITT: Actually, there were struggles with everything that would require money, and just about everything does.

REDMAN: So it's sort of all-encompassing; it's sort of all around, this Depression

WHITT: Yes, it was all over. All over. I'm sure it was other places beside Oklahoma. We were really pleased that a sewing room opened up, that Roosevelt did some things like that for the country. It certainly helped.

REDMAN: Before World War II officially arrives, the United States enters an agreement to help England, our allies over in Europe, to start building ships and planes and things like that called Lend-Lease. I understand that around that time there would have been a lot of conversations about should the United States go to war, before Pearl Harbor. I understand a lot of people in places like 00:28:00Oklahoma, they wanted to stay out of the war; they didn't think maybe that was a good idea. But attitudes changed overnight when Pearl Harbor came. Do you have a thought on that? Did people talk about the war in Europe and wanting to stay out of it? Did that ever come up?

WHITT: I don't have memories of that too much. We were very worried and scared. I got married at the age of eighteen. My husband had a job in a service station as a mechanic. It was certainly a dirty job. But I presume that was all he could get at the time. But when the war came things picked up as far as work was 00:29:00concerned, because a lot of the young men went into the service, and it didn't leave too many behind. And of course they put out songs to the effect that all the good looking guys were gone. [laughs]

REDMAN: They're all either too old or too young.

WHITT: Or too gray. Either too old or too gray. They opened up USO clubs.

REDMAN: What are those?

WHITT: I don't remember what that stands for, actually, to be truthful about it--

REDMAN: So it's a service club where the service men could come and [have] some relaxation. Sometimes there were dances.

WHITT: We danced with them. They had Coca Colas. They had drinks in there, maybe sandwiches. And they had them in different places around the towns. The boys 00:30:00that were on leave would go into those places to just relax.

REDMAN: Can you talk, just for a moment--how far along, first of all, did you go in school?

WHITT: I had to walk so far. We lived in the country at that time. When my brother got his money from the accident, my mother--they got about four acres out at the edge of--this was a big mistake--Oklahoma City. It put us so far out that I had to walk about a mile and a half to the bus line, which was the highway. Then, after that, having to pay fare to get to my high school, after I 00:31:00graduated, we just didn't--I just couldn't keep up with it, because walking through the cold, when it got to catch the bus, it had to go a long ways after that.

Anyway, they built two homes out there, one for each brother in the country. Each brother had their land so that they could grow plant gardens and things like that. One brother went to work for the Park Department and was supervisor of the park. The other brother couldn't work. I told you about that. So it was still rough for us after they built the houses. We ran out of money, so there we were again. But I made it to the tenth grade, and that was it.

REDMAN: And then you had to start working.

WHITT: And then I had to go work, yes.

REDMAN: Could you talk about what your first job was, then, after that.

WHITT: My first public job, or my job taking care of children? That was my first job.

REDMAN: You'd mentioned that you'd done babysitting in the past.

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: So you were used to working in that regard, certainly. Then the NYA job, how old were you when that came along? Was that about the same era?

WHITT: Well, I could type, so I don't know when I went into that for sure.

REDMAN: That was an important skill, typing.

WHITT: Probably about seventeen. Sixteen, seventeen.

REDMAN: Then before too long, you had met your future husband. Can you talk about how did the two of you meet?

WHITT: Oh, we met at church. In a church.

REDMAN: Had you known him for some time?

WHITT: I knew his sisters; I knew his family. That's how I got acquainted with him.

REDMAN: When the war comes, he goes into the service.

WHITT: No, he didn't go into the service, no.

REDMAN: So he stayed stateside.

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: I am going to change tapes before we talk about Pearl Harbor, and then we'll talk about the war. But are the any other final memories that you'd like to share about what it was like to grow up in that era for you?

WHITT: I think people were more caring; we cared about each other. I think neighbors helped each other a lot and cared about each other. If someone got 00:34:00sick, if someone was dying, or something like that, or in the hospital, we cooked food, took over, baked cakes, cookies, whatever we could. We helped. If they needed dishes washed or whatever, we did that too. So it was very caring at that time; people would seem to care for each other a lot. It still was difficult. There were things going on that I probably didn't notice a whole lot, but the difficult seemed to be all around. It wasn't just in my household. Other people were having problems with finding work and things like that. My brothers had friends who were looking for work, and they would come to the house, and we 00:35:00would all share a pot of coffee because there was nothing else to have. And we'd get together and we'd sing and do music. When my oldest brother got his church and became a minister we all played music together. That kind of started that too.

REDMAN: Was that a good moment for you as a family despite that hardship to be able to play music together?

WHITT: It was great; it was great. People really cared for each other.

REDMAN: What type of music--I imagine that there would have been singing of hymns and maybe gospel of some sort, but was there another range of maybe country western music at all, or blues, or any sort of things like that that they would play, or you would play together as a family?

WHITT: At home we would. We would play whatever would happen to be popular at 00:36:00that time, maybe some Gene Autry songs and like that. But at church, no, we didn't do that. We played hymns, sang and played hymns, more or less.

REDMAN: It looks like we have more time on this tape than I thought, so I'd like to ask, December 7, 1941 is when Pearl Harbor is attacked. I wonder if you wouldn't recall for me what you remember about that day.

WHITT: Actually, I don't seem to remember a lot about it. It came--I think a lot of us didn't know how to feel. We were shocked. We were in shock. It was just a 00:37:00horrible time for us. People would gather together in their homes, and we would talk about how terrible it was. We would hate to see our boys leave and go to the war and fight because we knew they might not come back. It was just a really sad time for us.

REDMAN: Did your family have a radio?

WHITT: It seems to me like we did. I'm thinking about that little house we lived on Lee Street. I don't think we had a radio there, but later we had a radio. But we used to go to other people's houses to visit. They would have us over, and we would all sit around the radio and listen to the news.

REDMAN: So news is something you would listen to. How about FDR's fireside chats or things like that?

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: What was that like for you, to listen to those, or things like that?

WHITT: I think he tried to keep us cheered up. He would cheer us on and talk about things that we liked to hear. Yes, everyone loved those fireside chats with President Roosevelt. Not everyone had radios. Some people would have the little crystal sets.

REDMAN: And certainly no televisions.

WHITT: Oh, heavens no. We didn't even know what that was.

REDMAN: And very few automobiles.

WHITT: Very few people had automobiles, and very few people had telephones. We didn't have a telephone. You have to maybe walk five miles to use the telephone. 00:39:00We didn't see too many airplanes. When we did we would run as long as we could see the airplane. When we were children. We would run until it was out of sight.

REDMAN: Were you fascinated by airplanes at a young age?

WHITT: Oh, yes. Naturally. I'd never seen them before.

REDMAN: It's an amazing contraption.

WHITT: I thought telephones were something. How can you talk to somebody that's way up there, way somewhere else? How can you talk through that little wire?

REDMAN: So your family had done things like receiving a telegram.

WHITT: Telegrams were just about the--letters, mail. US Mail.

REDMAN: Sitting down and writing a letter was sort of a practice, something you might have done.

WHITT: That was a big deal. A big deal. With a three-cent stamp. [laughs]

REDMAN: Talk about writing letters. Did you write a lot of letters?

WHITT: Oh, yes. I loved to get letters. There was a song that came out, No Letter Today. We liked songs that came out like that. Good-bye Little Darling. With Gene Autry. What were some of the other songs? Down Yonder was an oldie. All the songs that would come out, and we would hear them played on the--if you were going by and someone was playing their radio and music we would gather outside and listen. A little crowd would form outside, and we would listen to it.

REDMAN: What about movie houses?

WHITT: We paid ten cents to get in to see Gene Autry. Who else? Hoot Gibson. My 00:41:00brother's talked about Hoot Gibson. They were older than I; I was the youngest in the family. I had a sister, eighteen. Her name was Dorothy, and she was a flapper, what they called a flapper.

REDMAN: Talk about that.

WHITT: She was five years older than I was, so she didn't take me anywhere.

REDMAN: You were the little annoying sibling, right?

WHITT: I was the little shrimp.

REDMAN: So she would go--

WHITT: With her girlfriends, and they would go--oh, Little Doc Tago. They would put up tents in some section of town, and some guy that was selling medications or something, he would come to town and tell you that that potion that he was 00:42:00selling would cure you of all kinds of ailments and things like that. Crowds of people would come. And then there would be entertainment there. People would get up and sing. They called it Little Doc Tago.

REDMAN: Ah, so you'd listen to the pitch of this guy's cure-all, this magical cure-all.

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: But then there would be entertainment.

WHITT: Yes. There were other booths around. Or you could throw a ball and knock down something or other and maybe it cost a nickel or something like that.

REDMAN: And these would come to town for a day or a short period of time.

WHITT: Probably for a few weeks.

REDMAN: How about revivals, tent revivals.

WHITT: Yes. That's where I met my husband.

REDMAN: Can you talk about that, both the revival experience in general and 00:43:00meeting your husband?

WHITT: There was a large tent that was put up, and people would come from all over. We would get there, and everyone would sit down, and there would be music. We loved music. They would start playing music, and they would pass out songbooks. They would pass out literature, give the preacher's name who was going to preach. Maybe there would be large pictures of him around. There would be musicians that came with him. Oh, it was the place to go.

REDMAN: One of these that I've often heard of is Billy Sunday. That name doesn't ring a bell in terms of one of these speakers? And then also there was a radio 00:44:00personality at that time I wanted to ask about, someone named Father Coughlin, who was a Catholic radio personality in those days. Does that ring a bell?

WHITT: No. But Billy Sunday, my mother spoke of him. I think it's just someone that she read about, maybe.

REDMAN: Okay, so go on about tent revivals and the tent meetings in particular.

WHITT: Young people would get to go and see each other and talk to each other and meet, make new friends. A lot of the girls met boyfriends at those meetings.

REDMAN: So it was social as well as maybe being a learning and a spiritual moment for you.

WHITT: Yes, it was a place to go. It was a great place to go and meet people and 00:45:00make new friends. A lot of the girls got married.

REDMAN: How did the boys and girls interact in those days? I'm sure there were rules and protocols for what the boys and girls could do together in those days. Can talk about that?

WHITT: We couldn't go far from home with any of the boys. Maybe they would send another girl along with us or something like that. Or we would all go walking together, boys and girls. Maybe a group, maybe three or four guys and three or four girls. We would all go walking together. Things didn't go on like they do nowadays. Things didn't happen like that, bad things.

REDMAN: How about things like teaching in school? Something like sex ed would be a totally unknown thing in a school environment like you're describing to me. Is 00:46:00that the case?

WHITT: Never mentioned. I never heard the word. I wouldn't have known what it meant.

REDMAN: Pearl Harbor comes along, and you see posters, you mentioned, these advertisements at places like post offices and around town advertising that young women were being hired for jobs. Can you tell me a little bit about how you found a training opportunity with Douglas Aircraft in Oklahoma City?

WHITT: Like I said I went to the Post Office. The Post Office was a place to go in those days also. We would go up there to buy our stamps, and we'd check all the--there would be things all around on the walls so we could go read them and 00:47:00see what was going on. So I saw a poster about training for aircraft. I thought, "Well, I think I'll go into that." So I signed up. I got wherever you had to go; I guess there's a Douglas headquarters. I signed up, and they said you had to have a certain amount of money; I think it was seventeen dollars that we had to have. That rings a bell for me. Money was a big deal in those days. We didn't have it, so it was a big deal.

I went down to my dad. My mom and dad had separated when I was two years old. So I went down to talk to my dad. I said, "Dad, I need seventeen dollars to buy 00:48:00coveralls." They had you wear coveralls to work in. So he says, "Well, here you are, but I'll never get it back." That was my dad. I said, "Well, you will, Dad, when I get paid. You'll get it back." I got my coveralls like all the girls; we wore the same thing. And we had to tie our hair up because it got in the way.

So I started in training for Douglas Aircraft in Oklahoma City. Then my husband's family moved to Los Angeles at that time. So we got kind of anxious to 00:49:00travel. I don't know how long I trained, but anyway I asked them--he said, "Find out if you can transfer and see what we can do because I'd like to go see my family. And I wanted to see California. So I did. And they said yes, they'd transfer me. I had my transfer papers from Douglas Aircraft down to--I either lived in Huntington Park and worked in Long Beach or lived in Long Beach and worked in Huntington Park.

REDMAN: Long Beach rings a bell for me as far as where that plant was.

WHITT: Well, it wasn't a Douglas plant. It may have been a Douglas plant. But 00:50:00anyway they transferred me into this aircraft work, and on the outside of the building you wouldn't have known that there's anything to do with aircraft inside.

REDMAN: How did they disguise it? Can you talk about that?

WHITT: Well, there was a big sign that said Continental Can Company. It was a red brick building, and no one knew from the outside that there was anything to do with airplanes in that building. Los Angeles was camouflaged. The street lights had a piece of metal around the light bub so that it would shine down and wouldn't shine up to alert aircraft that might be from Japan. So all the lights 00:51:00went down.

REDMAN: Bring me back just for a moment to training in Oklahoma City at Douglas. What sorts of things were you learning there? Do you remember?

WHITT: Oh, yes. I learned how to use an electric drill. I learned how to put the drill into the handle and how to lock it. I learned how to drill into metal. I also learned how to rivet and use a rivet gun. I learned how to buck rivets. We had a little bar; as I remember it was a metal bar, and you could buck rivets with it. Because we couldn't always see our partner. One girl had to rivet, and the other girl had to buck the rivet. So we had a code to go by. You'd knock on there for this, maybe more times, or maybe three knocks for something or other. 00:52:00It was a code that we had at the time.

REDMAN: So I presume that sort of task is partly about learning the task, but it's also partly about learning who's bucking the rivets on the other side and getting to work with them a little bit. It seems like kind of a team activity there.

WHITT: Well, it was. We had that code to go by. So we couldn't always see our partner.

REDMAN: You'd mentioned that many of the young men were now going into the service. Were these now lots of young women that were at the training that you went to?

WHITT: Yes. There were men there, but they were overseers and inspectors to inspect our work. I remember this: there was a large chunk of hair up on the bulletin board. Some girl had come in an evidently got her hair hung into a 00:53:00drill. They kept that up there so we would all remember to tie our hair up. We could not work, they would not let us work, unless our hair was all tied up.

REDMAN: Did they have particular restrictions for women about jewelry?

WHITT: Um-hmm.

REDMAN: So they wouldn't let you wear jewelry.

WHITT: No. You couldn't wear necklaces or anything that would get caught in your work at all.

REDMAN: And then you mentioned the coveralls.

WHITT: And we had to wear coveralls, yes.

REDMAN: You'd wear like a work shirt or blouse under that.

WHITT: Yes, we had clothes underneath there.

REDMAN: And then the head scarf.

WHITT: Um-hmm.

REDMAN: And when you were learning these activities, presumably there were safety measure, like safety goggles. Do you remember those starting to be implemented?

WHITT: You know, I think they were. I don't--I'm quite sure there were safety 00:54:00goggles, or glasses of some kind.

REDMAN: Do you recall the length of time that you were in this training? Was it a couple of months?

WHITT: This down there was work. I trained in Oklahoma.

REDMAN: Right. The training first, I'll ask about. How long was the training? Was it a matter of weeks or months or--?

WHITT: You know, I can't recall. Sorry.

REDMAN: No, that's fine. Talk just for a moment about your teachers in Oklahoma City. Was there anything memorable about them, the people who were teaching you how to weld and rivet and things like that. Were they memorable at all, or was it just kind of matter of course.

WHITT: No, it was just work. Go home and come back and work. And learn.

REDMAN: How was the pay there? I imagine it was quite a bit better than you had 00:55:00been making.

WHITT: Yes, it was better. We had to also pay for things out of our check stubs. I have some check stubs from there. I would say the pay was a lot better than anything else I had ever done.

REDMAN: With that I'm going to change tapes now, and we'll move you out to California.

[Begin Audiofile 2]

REDMAN: Today is Wednesday, March 21, and I'm in Pacifica with Doris Whitt. This is our second tape today. When we left off, your husband was interested in moving out to California. You said you had had this wanderlust too, this desire to travel a little bit. What was your first reaction when you arrived out here?

WHITT: Oh, it was great. I remember coming through Arizona and seeing all the palm trees, and those were the first I had ever seen. They were way up in the air, and all I could do was look. I'd just stare at them. It was a beautiful place. Then we got down into Los Angeles, and I was just amazed at the difference in the place. I just thought, "Oh, boy, we're in Glory Land." When I saw the ocean, oh. I just thought that was--and I kept looking for the other side. I was used to rivers, you know? "Where's the other side of that?" [laughs] Of course I was just a kid at that time.

REDMAN: It seems like you were finding a lot that was unfamiliar to you.

WHITT: I was coming from a little country town where I was raised and everything. I came from Indian Territory.

REDMAN: How about the people? The people must have been very different.

WHITT: They were. They were different.

REDMAN: Before we get to the factory in talking about the other men and women you might have encountered there, did you move into a particular neighborhood when you and your husband arrived? How did you find a place? What sort of landing pad did you have?

WHITT: We stayed with his folks for a while, and then he went to work. We found an apartment. I think it was in Huntington Beach. Or Huntington Park.

REDMAN: Do you recall what your husband did, how he found work?

WHITT: I imagine he went to work at a service station. Because that's what he did, pumped gas or worked on the cars, mechanic.

REDMAN: Another thing that had happened, that was a big news story in California, that wouldn't have as big of story in Oklahoma, I assume, was the internment of the Japanese. Japanese and Japanese Americans along the coast had been removed and brought to war relocation camps. Was that something that you thought about at all during the war or that was talked about?

WHITT: No.

REDMAN: Didn't come up.

WHITT: I guess they did what they had to do. I don't know.

REDMAN: Looking back on that now, the decision to put Japanese in internment 00:59:00camps, do you feel the same way about that now, or do you have a different opinion?

WHITT: I feel the same way because if they were dangerous, not to put them in internment--and perhaps we couldn't trust them. I mean, how would we know? How would we know whether we could or not? Yeah, I sort of feel the same way now. Of course, now we have all kinds of people coming into our country, and it's a different time; it's a different age; it's many years from that time. Yes, I kind of still feel that way.

REDMAN: Was there a thought of the Japanese as sort of an enemy, or the Germans 01:00:00as a sort of enemy? Did you talk about Hitler or the Nazis? Was there an idea when you started working in the defense plant of these two particular enemies, or were you more thinking about the Pacific or caught up in one sort of thought or another?

WHITT: Well, we didn't like Hitler, and we didn't like the Japanese, and we were working so our boys could come home. We loved our country, and we wanted to help. We just tried to entertain those boys when they came on leave, came home and did everything we could for them. When a family's son would come home for a 01:01:00few days or a little while, we would all get together at their house and celebrate and talk to them. We didn't like the Japanese. They were our enemy.

REDMAN: Tell me about what it was like to work in that factory in Long Beach. Take me through a day in your life during those years. Do recall what year you arrived there? Do have an idea? Was it '42, '43?.

WHITT: Forty-two, according to my check stubs.

REDMAN: That's pretty early. What was it like? You'd wake up how early? Did you work in the normal shift, or was there a swing shift or a night shift?

WHITT: I worked on day shift as I remember. You know, this has been a long time. You know how old I am? [laughs]

REDMAN: On a typical day how would you get to work? Did you take a trolley?

WHITT: Oh, I walked everywhere.

REDMAN: During those days there was rationing going on. [The government] would ration rubber for tires or rubber for shoes or milk and butter. Was there any rationing that you guys struggled with as a husband and wife and then also in the household with your parents-in-law.

WHITT: I know we couldn't buy hose anymore.

REDMAN: Pantyhose.

WHITT: There was some kind of stamps that were issued. I forget what they called them.

REDMAN: In a ration book?

WHITT: Yeah, something like that. And some foods were rationed. I don't recall which ones, but we had stamps that we would have to take when we bought that 01:03:00special food.

REDMAN: That was never a problem? Or were things tough to get--

WHITT: That's when Oleo margarine came in. We had to mix the butter and I hated it.

REDMAN: So it would come like a plain white, and then you would mix a yellow sort of food color powder with it, and then you'd stir it up, and when I've asked people what it tasted like the response I've gotten was, "It sure didn't taste like butter." Can you describe it any better than that?

WHITT: No. [laughs] no, it did not taste like butter.

REDMAN: So there was no butter to be had, so you had to make do, I suspect.

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: Working at the factory, you'd learned these different skills. Over the 01:04:00phone, I understand that you worked on P-38s. Tell me about the P-38. That's a really unusual airplane. It has two fins and a really interesting shape. But it's really powerful, and it performed really well, I understand, overseas. What did you know about the P-38? What did you learn about that airplane?

WHITT: I didn't--I worked on the covering for the motor, that went over the little motor. And I say little because it was little for an airplane, about the size of an automobile with wings. It was called a maccelle. So that's what I was doing. And of course other people down the line--other girls, women--would work on different parts of the airplane. But that's the only one, as far as I know, 01:05:00that we worked on there.

REDMAN: So the airplane would come through the line, and women would have different stations.

WHITT: No. This piece of aircraft would come through the line. No airplane came through the line.

REDMAN: So the engine would come through, and then you would work on the covering?

WHITT: The covering came through, not the engine.

REDMAN: Just the covering, So you're making covering after covering, and then at a later point they're adding that to the whole airplane somewhere else down the line. Is that a better description?

WHITT: Well, somewhere else. I don't even know if it was right there.

REDMAN: But this was a big building.

WHITT: That's a large building, as far as you could see out there. But I'm wondering if maybe downstairs or upstairs that the Continental Can Company was there too, working, making cans.

REDMAN: Tell me a little bit about this cover that you would work. Was that a sewing type of job? Talk about that job.

WHITT: You rivet. You'd get a rivet, and there were little holes. Someone had already drilled the little holes. You've seen aircraft. It's round. We'd work on a round piece of metal, and someone might be over there riveting. I might be bucking the rivets. Maybe I could see her; maybe couldn't. Maybe I was drilling. I might be drilling; I might be riveting. I could do all of those things. So we would work on that piece that we worked on, and maybe it would go down and someone else would do something to it; I'm not sure about that. I had to do my stuff.

REDMAN: So this was a metal cover--

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: --that you would rivet through. I see. I've heard that those riveting guns were not light.

WHITT: No. They're quite heavy.

REDMAN: So would you take turns in terms of bucking versus actually operating the riveting gun?

WHITT: Well, we had to do what we were asked to do, of course. And some riveted, some drilled holes, and some bucked rivets. What we were going to have to do that day is what we did.

REDMAN: What did you think of the work?

WHITT: It was just work. It was just work, and you got tired. We were really glad when lunchtime came. Then we would go to the lunchroom and have our lunch and work until quitting time. You got a break once in a while. I think we got 01:08:00breaks; it's been a long time.

REDMAN: Do you remember, was there a union? Did you join a union?

WHITT: I don't recall a union then at that time, at all.

REDMAN: How about the men and women; how did they interact in the factory overall, would you say?

WHITT: They were all very interested in getting the job done and done right. There was no messing around; there was no cutting up. Everything was very serious and work conscious, labor conscious, yeah.

REDMAN: It was a number of young women you would have been working with quite often?

WHITT: We all had to go in every day and work. I don't recall if we worked in the same job every day or not.

REDMAN: Was it hard, then, to meet people, or were you meeting people from all 01:09:00over at this time? New types of people, I'd imagine?

WHITT: Well, I didn't know any of them because I was just transferred out there. I didn't know them, but I just went in and did my job. You didn't sit and talk to people; you couldn't talk and work because this was very difficult. This was very difficult. You couldn't make mistakes because it was inspected. It was certainly work. There was no play at all. We were tired when it was break time. We were on the job to do a job, and we did it.

REDMAN: Were the supervisors pretty demanding?

WHITT: They were tough. When they told you something to do, you had to do it. We did what we were told.

REDMAN: There were a lot of people moving out to California in those days, a lot of people from places like Oklahoma. I'm wondering if there was any sort of reaction when you told people you were from Oklahoma. Was there any sort of positive or negative stereotype or discrimination against the place that you were from?

WHITT: Sometimes there would be a little, but during wartime people aren't that way too much. Later, there was a lot of it, later when things were over.

REDMAN: You noticed it more, then, after the war.

WHITT: Yes.

REDMAN: That's very interesting.

WHITT: No, we were there to do a job and help our boys come home.

REDMAN: Do you remember war bond drives?

WHITT: Oh, yes.

REDMAN: Was it the sort of thing that part of your paycheck automatically went to the war bond, or did you give as you sort of could?

WHITT: You know, I don't remember. I know that they took--. We had to buy our tools--I still have them, by the way--they took those out of our paycheck. My aircraft tools came out of one check stub, and that's the only way that I can prove that I worked for [Douglas] Aircraft. One of the check stubs was stamped "Aircraft tools. Deducted for Aircraft tools." The rest of them don't say that 01:12:00at all. I think it says, "Continental Can Company."

REDMAN: Really!

WHITT: Yes. This was on the unknown--we were in camouflage. On the outside of the building, like I said, you would not know airplane parts were built inside that building.

REDMAN: That's just amazing.

WHITT: Well, it was important.

REDMAN: Did you have a perception of Winston Churchill in those days?

WHITT: No.

REDMAN: Or Josef Stalin? They maybe weren't characters to the same extent that Hitler was a character in your mind.

WHITT: Well, I heard of their names and everything, but I was young and I didn't make too much out of it.

REDMAN: Did you correspond with your brothers?

WHITT: I corresponded with my mother. One brother went in the Navy, and the 01:13:00other was a minister.

When I left down there, and quit, my sister was up here in San Bruno. She was going to have her second child. So my mother was up here. My husband and I broke up. We broke up; there were some problems there. So Mother came down to see us. I decided that I wasn't going to stay with him because there were some problems. So she and I decided to come back up to San Francisco. My sister lived in San 01:14:00Bruno, and we stayed with them until she had her baby. My mother went to work at San Francisco General Hospital, and I went to work out at Western Pipe and Steel, building liberty ships. We built only one kind of ship, liberty ships. I think there's only one now; it's called the Jeremiah O'Brien. It's up in San Francisco.

REDMAN: Tell me about transferring, if you would. And you can choose not to answer this if you would like. Do you feel like your relationship was affected adversely by your wartime job, or do think it had nothing to do with the fact that you were working. He didn't have a huge problem with your working.

WHITT: No.

REDMAN: Okay, so it was separate from that.

WHITT: Yes, it was personal problems.

REDMAN: Let's talk about when you arrived in San Francisco, and your mother's there and your sister's there. I imagine it was a tough time for you but also I could see some possibilities for some excitement there in moving up and starting a new life.

WHITT: Yes, it was a reunion. I hadn't seen them in a while, so we all got together. Mother and I moved up to Brisbane. Brisbane had little cottages all around in a circle out in the front section of Brisbane. So we rented a little cottage, and she went to work at the hospital in San Francisco, and I went to work out building ships and working out there in the shipyard.

REDMAN: So then this would have been about '43 or '44?

WHITT: It was still probably 1942.

REDMAN: The question I was going to ask, actually, is two bridges in San Francisco, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, were relatively new structures at that time. They'd just opened up in '37 and '36. What was it like for a girl from Oklahoma to see a structure like the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge?

WHITT: Oh, it was fantastic. Fantastic. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was just like going to a whole new country, you know? And the ocean. Telegraph Hill. Oh it was just fantastic.

REDMAN: The Bay Bridge is more of a working bridge in some sense. You cross it 01:17:00all the time, it's a silver color. And then there's this iconic Golden Gate Bridge. I can imagine that the architecture of that must have stood out for you.

WHITT: It did. We took pictures of everything, ran out of film. I wanted pictures of everything so I could show my friends back home.

REDMAN: Did you send snapshots back home? Letters?

WHITT: Oh, yeah.

REDMAN: Talk about what it was like to work building liberty ships. Were you able to say, "Hey, I have this skill of welding." I presume welding in shipbuilding was such a big thing. Go ahead.

WHITT: I wasn't a welder. As a matter of fact, welders leave a lot of metal 01:18:00behind. And burners leave a lot of metal behind. I just went out there and they hired me. My sister went to work too after she got Mother to take care of the baby. We cleaned up. We had to pick all of the metal up. There was a whole crew. Those people left nothing but messes behind. So we cleaned the metal up, put it in large barrels and things that were out there and cleaned. But they were training me to become a burner. I was training to become a burner when I quit working out there.

REDMAN: Was it inside or outside where most of this activity would have been done?

WHITT: You know, it was foggy when I came out here, and I had never seen fog before.

REDMAN: Tell me about seeing fog for the first time.

WHITT: It was just different. I had never seen fog before, and it was worse when we worked on the bay. You go out there, and your hair comes down, you're wet. Everybody had dressed for it, and I didn't know that we had to do that. But we caught on real fast. And you could hide anywhere; the ship was so big. I had never seen a ship before in my life. Everybody wore maybe two pairs of clothes, I don't know. But we had to keep warm out there on the bay. We run around--there 01:20:00were little rooms all over, and they would burn holes and leave stuff around. They would burn holes in the floors and holes in the walls, and we had to go around and clean up their messes. It was hard.

REDMAN: My next question was, what did you think of that work? It was tough work.

WHITT: It was difficult work, yes.

REDMAN: Cold and wet.

WHITT: Cold and wet, yes. Miserable.

REDMAN: So you loved being in San Francisco, arriving in San Francisco, this new place--

WHITT: Oh, yeah.

REDMAN: But it was tough work.

WHITT: The work was tough, yes.

REDMAN: You didn't stay there for terribly long from the sounds of it. You stayed there for a while. Eventually you decided to move on to something else, it sounds like.

WHITT: I went into working for a meatpacking company called Swifts. I worked there fourteen years.

REDMAN: Starting before the war had ended, or starting after the war ended?

WHITT: I started there in 1947.

REDMAN: So a couple of years later. Was San Francisco any different in terms of the people you met?

WHITT: Oh, yes.

REDMAN: Similar to LA? But definitely different from Oklahoma.

WHITT: We didn't feel like they were friendly. Because in Oklahoma when you're walking down the street and strangers are coming toward you, we all say "good morning." They didn't say "good morning" in San Francisco. [laughs] Anyway, we loved it here, but mother went back. I got remarried. Mother went back there.

REDMAN: And your sister stayed, or did she go back?

WHITT: My sister stayed. She stayed, and I stayed. So my mother had two sons in 01:22:00Oklahoma and two daughters in California. She went back and forth.

REDMAN: In 1944 there was a big explosion at a place called Port Chicago, Are you familiar with that?

WHITT: I read about it and heard about it. But that's about all.

REDMAN: So you didn't feel the shaking? My last question on the war is, when we get to the end of the war there is the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the announcement that war is over. V-J day has arrived. What do you remember about that time?

WHITT: I know I was very happy. We celebrated. San Francisco celebrated. It was a happy day. Very happy day. I knew our country was safe again, that we had won 01:23:00the war. Everybody went into bars and drank beer and all kinds of drinks and got happy and danced and celebrated. We celebrated. We were happy.

REDMAN: Did you think that the decision to drop the atomic bombs at the time, that that was a good choice, that that saved American lives?

WHITT: Yes, we felt it was a good choice, but we didn't know what an atomic bomb was. I didn't know what an atomic bomb was. I just thought, "Well, it's good." It ended the war. Everyone seemed to be happy about it.

REDMAN: Let me ask if you can reflect on the war in your life, on the place of what the war means for your life. What do you think back on it now and think?

WHITT: It was a war that--I don't know. It's kind of difficult because we've been in wars so long. It seems like there's been one war after another. That war came when I was young. Now we've had more wars. As a matter of fact we've had a war after a war. It seems like there have been for years and years. It's sad that this has to go on and lives have to be given and people have to die. Now we have women going to war. It's very sad. I don't like it. I wish we could have 01:25:00peace. It's better to be more peaceful. So many lives are taken, and families suffer. They grieve for their loved ones. No, I don't like war. I don't like war.

I didn't lose any family in the war, but I know a lot of people who did. So I would grieve friends who died. It isn't a happy time at all. I have a lot of friends that went in the service.

REDMAN: How did you find out about them when they may pass away? Would a friend 01:26:00from home write a letter?

WHITT: Friends would write, and we kept in contact, yes. Then I've been here for many years now, and I made friends here. I have friends here. I've been in Pacifica since 1957.

REDMAN: There have been some extraordinary changes in the Bay Area since World War II. Maybe could you talk about the buildup in this area since that time? When you moved to Pacifica in 1957 this must have been a very different place, I imagine.

WHITT: It was. Now you can look up to the top of the hills around here, and there's houses up there. When I moved here it was unincorporated. It was called Pedro Valley, California. These places back from the highway here were all 01:27:00covered in artichoke plants and different plants. These valleys were all full of plants. Like Half Moon Bay. And they started building, and it's just kept up and built, one house after another, and then condominiums up the hills and then townhouses.

REDMAN: It goes and goes.

WHITT: It's going, going, going. I hated to see the animals have to leave. Because several places they graded and built had water for the animals, and it got wiped out. You'd see the animals roaming around in the streets trying to 01:28:00find new habitat. It's sad.

REDMAN: So the buildup hasn't been all good. There are some bad aspect.

WHITT: Yes. I know people have to have a place to live, but actually it's getting crowded now.

REDMAN: Final question: is there anything else that you'd like to add? I know we've gone over a lot of material. Are there any other things that you'd like to make sure to put on tape?

WHITT: I guess not really. I'm glad I was able to do what I did, which wasn't that great. It was just something I needed to do.

REDMAN: Do you consider yourself a Rosie the Riveter?

WHITT: A little bit. A little bit.

REDMAN: When you see that symbol, the poster or the Norman Rockwell drawing of Rosie the Riveter, what do you think when you see those types of images?

WHITT: You know, it's been a long time since I did that, and in a way it seems like a dream. Or a movie I've seen or something like that. Because I've lived so long since that time, because in two months I'll be eighty-nine. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I did it. I hope it helped. We had some fun too. We got to dance with the guys that came back on leave, and we would have fun standing in line at 01:30:00the stores, and we had good times too. There were good times then also. Sometimes I think they were better times then than we have now, but maybe that's just because I'm getting older; I don't know. Anyway, I think I've had a pretty good life, not too bad.

REDMAN: With that I'd like to say thank you so much for sitting down and sharing your memories with me. Thank you.

WHITT: You're quite welcome.