Johanna Roman | Interview 1 | September 18, 2015

FARRELL: This is Shanna Farrell with Johanna Roman on Friday, September 18, 2015, and this is our interview for the Rosie the Riveter project. Johanna, can you start by telling me where and when you were born, and a little bit about your early life?

ROMAN: I was born in Breslau, Germany, July 28, 1925. My family emigrated in 1928, when I was three years old, to New York City. I’ve spent most of my life in New York City. I grew up here, I was educated here. Of course I’ve been away from New York as well, traveling around much. I’ve lived here, I married here, had a child here. I’m a New Yorker, with one foot in Europe.

FARRELL: Do you have any memories from Germany, when you were younger?

ROMAN: Yes, I do. I suppose, I don’t know whether it’s called gifted or lucky or not, but I do have, considering my age, what’s considered an excellent memory. I have very good recall, and you don’t want me to recall everything, it’ll be much too long. But I do remember particularly at my paternal, and maternal, grandparents’ home, little incidents. Nothing traumatic, always very pleasant, very pretty, the surroundings. I also remember where I lived. We lived in a very contemporary, at the time, modern garden apartment. In the back was a playground for children. I had a nanny. There was a beautiful park across the street, I have a picture of it in my mind. It was very 00:02:00pleasant. I also remember the trip coming over here on a ship called the Deutschland. It was a Hansa Lloyd ship. One incident is very, very clear in my mind. I had a huge teddy bear -- of course we remember things sometimes bigger than they are -- it was one of those wonderful German old teddy bears -- I forget the name of the company but it was very famously sold here too -- almost as big as I was, and when we left the ship, it was lost. I never took it with me. And I remember crying about that. Okay, that sets a pattern for fear of loss, right? Page Freud. [Laughs] I’ve always spoken two languages. I don’t 00:03:00remember a time when I didn’t speak German or didn’t speak English. I’m still fluent in German because we spoke German at home, and I’ve traveled to Europe a great deal in my adulthood, I have friends in Europe. Mostly in the German-speaking countries, like Austria, Switzerland, parts of Czechoslovakia. My mother was part Czech, part Austrian, so I was always interested in those countries. We lived in the Bronx. I went to local schools there. Because I was artistic, I mean artistic as a painter, so-called, gifted and painting, I applied for a special high school. Even in those days there was some form of 00:04:00open enrollment. It was a school called Washington Irving High School, which had an academic art department. Half of it was commercial, half of it was for students who wanted to study arts. My ambition was to be a designer for theater and stage. That was a highfalutin’ ambition. I was about fifteen when the war started; I was still in high school. In 1943 I was graduated from Washington Irving. I didn’t go to college then, the war was on and there were a very strong desire on everyone’s part to do something for the war effort. I took a temporary job, using my art. I was painting -- coloring photos, when somehow, I 00:05:00don’t remember where I saw a listing for examinations for training women, with many kinds of men’s jobs among them, aircraft mechanic. I always had a great interest in aviation. Also, I had good mechanical abilities. I passed an arduous test where your, I’ve forgotten the word, for your mechanical ability -- aptitude is the word, thank you. Aptitude, mechanical aptitude was excellent, so I was accepted in the program, along with a close friend. Of course we did everything together as teenagers, and she got in too. The program had a training 00:06:00point at the Academy of Aeronautics, which was just across from La Guardia Airport, sort of an extension to La Guardia Airport. There was a three-month, only a three-month training program, I did that. When you signed up, it was like signing up for the military. As a matter of fact, I should go back, that I wanted to join the WAVEs or the WACs at the time, the women’s military corps. But I was very petite, I didn’t weigh 110 pounds, there was a prerequisite for a certain weight and height then, of course. I was not eligible for that, but I certainly was eligible for training as aircraft mechanic. But when you signed up, you had no choice of where you were being sent. You were going to be sent to 00:07:00one of the major airports. We were sent to Presque Isle, Maine, which was the last point of flying off in the United States. I went up there in the spring of 1945, the war had not ended yet in Europe, it was just about to. We were based at a normal school, which was a teaching school at the time. We lived in the dormitories, it was all very pleasant, and we were assigned to different hangars. And there’s an interesting little side story to that. Since a lot of the mechanics were women, there were a few fellows. We were not at first given 00:08:00the jobs we were trained for. We were washing parts in kerosene. We had no gloves to protect our skin. We were doing what I would consider the menial jobs. So a group of us organized a strike, a protest, shall we say. We wouldn’t work -- it only lasted a couple of days. I mean, we demanded and then negotiated that we would be given the proper jobs we were trained for, that washing parts should be done on a rotation basis. So we won that one.

FARRELL: Before we get into a little bit, because I want to talk to you a little 00:09:00bit more about your training, I want to back up a little bit and ask you a little bit more about your parents and some of your early memories. Can you tell me about both of your parents, what their names were and some of your early memories?

ROMAN: Yes. My mother’s name was Frieda, my father’s name was Louis, changed from Ludwig. My father was very militant about the war. We were German Jews, by the way. Nevertheless, I had a brother, who’s since died, died a few years ago, my brother was very self-conscious about our speaking German if he had friends up. He’d say, “Please don’t speak German” -- he was born here, in the States. “Please don’t speak German when my friends are here, they’ll think we’re Nazis!” [Laughs] It was a very sensitive time, of course. Both my parents were very well educated. My father had been in textiles. 00:10:00We came here just in time for the Great Depression. Lost everything. My mother was more upper-middle class, my father was a good middle-class family. My paternal grandmother did something very unusual for her time. She was a midwife and a career woman. In fact, she came here a couple of years after we had emigrated to see us, of course, but to visit New York hospitals, maternity departments and so on. So she was quite an advanced person. My mother was an early flower child. She was the dreamer, my father was the practical one. I would say now I was a father’s daughter. I had the play ethics from my mother 00:11:00and the work ethic from my father, so there’s a nice balance there and I’m still that way today. We had a lot of music in my home. My mother was a pianist, that is, not a concert pianist, but she was very well educated musically, and my father too. The big memory I have is that there was always music in our home. My parents were very compatible, everyone called them Romeo and Juliet, they were lovely. And I thought everybody was that way at home. That was my vision of marriage. My father came here, as I said, lost everything, could not find work, and through an uncle who had been here, he became a house painter and became 00:12:00involved in, in those days, union activities and enjoyed his life that way, and still was able to take care of his family. During the war my mother, who had had some basic nursing training in Europe, volunteered for some hospital work. My father, I don’t know how many pints of blood he gave, because he had O type blood. In fact, recently, I sold at an auction letters tom my father from the mayor’s office here at that time, La Guardia, signed letters by Fiorello, commending him. And he had a letter from the White House at the time, too, signed by McIntyre, representing President Roosevelt. I was very proud of those. 00:13:00I don’t know if I can call it poverty, but we lived on the thin line. When the war started -- well, if you know the history of the Depression, I lived through that, I grew up in that time here. We had food, we had clothing, we had shelter. That was it. I never asked my parents for allowance, because I knew things were slim. What I remember best about my youth is the culture. It’s what made me what I am, I guess, till today.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about that: what you remember, the culture, or how that influenced you?

ROMAN: Early on, my parents were reading Shakespeare to me, they were very well read. I always read a lot. I realize now I was probably a nerd kid, but I was also very pretty, and a conflict came in because I got more attention than I really should have, and I didn’t even want it. People pay a lot of attention to looks. I was maybe a little prettier than most pretty kids are when I was very young, and that always bothered me, too, so I sort of ignored that part of it. I’ve never let looks interfere with what I wanted to do or how I reacted to people. Because I know that passes. I knew that somehow, even very young, that you don’t rely on that. In fact, as I was growing up and looking for jobs, I would dress down so that people wouldn’t pay so much attention to how I looked. I wanted them to pay attention to who I was and what I knew, that was 00:15:00important: what I knew. So the intellectual aspect of life was also very important in our home. My mother knew an awful lot. She was so well read. She collected every book of Dickens and read every book Dickens ever wrote. Of course they were both bilingual, that’s another thing, once they came here. She was a wonderful baker, I learned to bake and cook from her. They loved theater, drama, opera. Even the little we had, they managed somehow to do that. And also to develop a love for that in me. My father was very strict. I was brought up in a very Germanic way, with all that love and everything, you know, nevertheless he was very strict. Actually I think my father brought me up more 00:16:00than my mother; my mother, being bohemian, took an easier view of life. So as I said, I guess in a way I had the best of both worlds. My mother told me something very early on; I must have been twelve or thirteen. She said, “Remember this: you can do anything you want to, even anything a man does, you can do. Do not become a housewife. It is not rewarding.” So you could say that both parents had strong feminist views.

FARRELL: How did that influence you later, that statement?

ROMAN: Well, the fact that I actually applied to do a man’s job as an aircraft 00:17:00mechanic, that’s the result of all that.

FARRELL: So you were in high school when the war started. Do you remember any conversations that your parents had about the war? Were they in favor of it or against it, or it was just part of life?

ROMAN: No, they were worried because my father’s parents were still alive, and so was his sister and husband and children, and of course they were killed by the Nazis. My mother’s family -- my mother had four brothers, and one of them went to Israel, although they were not very Jewish, my mother’s family’s sort of mixed, watered-down Jews, I call it. Let’s see, one went to Israel, and I think the three others were gone, except one who had emigrated here before my parents came, my mother’s brother, my uncle Bert. And my aunt Ruth, who 00:18:00lived to be 102. But she was part of the family, she was a second cousin.

FARRELL: Thinking about, you were from Germany and you had family there, so the war started when you were in high school, can you tell me about your initial reaction to the war or your early thoughts before you joined the ATC?

ROMAN: I don’t know. I kind of stuck my head in the sand about being afraid. But of course my purpose in doing something for the war effort was clear. This country was very unified during the war. It was a wonderful feeling of, let’s 00:19:00all take care of this together and take care of each other. When I say I had a good time during the war, because I grew up in it, it’s a terrible thing to say, but I did. It was a wonderful time for me. Also, Americans just worked together. When you hear things about that, it’s absolutely true; I can verify that. There was a very hopeful environment here that we were going to do this, we were going to win this thing. And we did, of course. And my father was an air raid warden. My mother worked, as I told you, volunteered working in the hospitals. And I join the ATC.

FARRELL: When you were in high school and the war started, had you always known 00:20:00that you wanted, as soon as you graduated, to go help the war effort?

ROMAN: Yes. As I mentioned, I tried to join the women’s armed forces but was rejected due to the reasons I’ve already mentioned.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about what that was like for you, being rejected and then having to find an alternative plan?

ROMAN: I accepted it. I didn’t have a problem with it because if those were the rules, what was I going to do? I wasn’t all gung-ho, I just thought it was practical, that’s what it was.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit about when you initially joined the Air Transport Command, which is also known as the ATC? Maybe you’re being interviewed, taking the aptitude test on your first day?

ROMAN: I don’t remember much about that. I remember going to a specific office, and there was a room full of people like myself. My friend Molly and I 00:21:00did it at the same time. We took the test and we read the rules about if you got in, where you’d be placed. It was fine, because I guess we had a great sense of adventure about this whole thing, too. I was kind of pleased that we were going to be on the east coast. I didn’t realize how vital a spot we were being sent to, and I’ll tell you why later. It was, as I said, the jumping-off point from the States. The first place the planes landed from there was Goose Bay, Greenland, and then they went off to Scotland, to the base in Scotland. You know what the Air Transport Command did, don’t you?

FARRELL: I do, but for future listeners, do you mind explaining that?

ROMAN: Air Transport Command were cargo flyers, supplies, cargo. The planes they 00:22:00used, at least the planes we worked on -- shall I go into that now? -- were mainly the C-54s, they were huge transport planes, propellor. No jet in those days, yet. They were big empty dugout things, the planes themselves, I learned, of course, when I started working on them, for supplies they carry over. It was not manpower that they were flying, but cargo.

FARRELL: You had three months of training at the Academy of Aeronautics in Queens. Can you tell me a little bit more about your training, what you learned, 00:23:00the types of things they were teaching you?

ROMAN: Well, let me see. We had training in electricity, electrical work. Basics of flight, math. God, I wish I had a record of this. And of course the breakdown and build-up of engines, that was the most important thing, breakdown and build-up. That’s what we did, actually. The planes would come in to the base, and you would have to change spark plugs, balance them -- these huge engines were taken down, taken off, and refreshed for the next flight.

FARRELL: Can you explain a little bit more about what refreshing meant? Was that taking things, cleaning them in kerosene, or making sure that they worked properly?

ROMAN: Yeah, cleaning, oiling, spark plug change. You cannot compare the flying today to what it was then. We only had the prop planes. There was timing of the spark plugs, making sure they shoot off at the right time. Let me see, what else? It’s been so long. Of course, cleaning the parts. You took things apart on the engine itself. Really working on engines was the basic thing.

FARRELL: How was that for you, to learn how to do that?

ROMAN: Oh, I loved it. I took to it very quickly. I still do all my mechanical 00:25:00work. In fact, in my marriage with a pilot, as I mentioned, we were very compatible, we always said the only thing we’d ever fight over is who’s going to do the work, that is, the mechanical work around the house or [Laughs] --

FARRELL: So you lived in a group housing for your time during training. What was that like for you, leaving home and being relatively close to home, but living in a new situation?

ROMAN: You mean during the Academy of Aeronautics, because we lived off base, as you know. The government rented space in private homes around Queens, maybe a walk away or a bus ride away from the academy. I liked it. I enjoyed it very 00:26:00much, because it was my first time away from home. When I think of it now, I was pretty courageous for doing that, being independent.

FARRELL: Were you living with -- it wasn’t a coed --

ROMAN: It was a group home. It was coed, but a group home. I shared a room with Molly, because we knew each other since we were kids. We had our meals there, our major meals, breakfast and dinner. I can’t remember what we did when weren’t at the academy. I suppose we just hung out or went to a movie or studied. We had to study, of course. That’s all I can recall about that time.

FARRELL: So there was ongoing training and education while you were there, and 00:27:00you were -- were you taking tests?

ROMAN: Oh yes, you had to pass your tests.

FARRELL: What kinds of things were you being tested on?

ROMAN: Well, your knowledge of electricity that they had tried to teach you. The basics of flight. The plane parts. That’s what we were being tested on.

FARRELL: So while you were in training, you got word -- you knew that you were going to have to move to a new location --

ROMAN: Well, we were going to go to an air base, to an ATC base, and they were all over the country. But the biggest ones were probably on the east coast.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit about getting the news that you were going to Maine, how you felt about that?

ROMAN: I was thrilled. I was also thrilled that -- that’s where we met Lois 00:28:00Benvenuti, Molly and I. So we became a threesome, and we were all sent to the same place. In fact, we begged to be sent to the same place, and they were able to fulfill our request.

FARRELL: What was it like leaving New York and going to Maine?

ROMAN: Exciting, because they flew us there. It was my first flight in a C-47, a smaller plane. It was very exciting.

FARRELL: When you got to Maine, can you tell me a little bit more about what you were doing and what the base was like?

ROMAN: Presque Isle was what we used to call potato country, russet potatoes, Maine potatoes. The normal school where we were housed was just at the edge of a huge acreage of farmland, potato farms. That’s all there was up there. We were 00:29:00right at the Canadian border, as you probably know. We had a foreman, a black American, John, and he was our father, our protector -- we were all quite young, you know. I don’t think anybody was more than twenty-one years old. He had worked at Pan Am, had a major job with Pan Am in the aircraft mechanics division, and this is what he did during the war. So he was the foreman up there. He’s the one we went to when we had any problems, he’s the one we discussed sexism about just letting women wash parts. The town was very nice. It was a small town, maybe fifteen blocks long, but it was lovely. They had diners 00:30:00to eat in, we’d do that. The base was huge and it was very thrilling to be in an aircraft base. The first time I saw it, I was just thrilled. I just loved it. They also had an NCO club, noncommissioned officers’ club there, and we were able to use it. Molly and I, who loved music due to my family’s influence, at our lunch break would go to the NCO club with a sandwich and sit there and listen to records, music. That’s all we did. We also had fun getting into the planes when they were in the hangar, to examine the whole airplane. There were 00:31:00C-rations there. C-rations were the boxes of food that they kept on the plane that they also dropped down for military as well as people in any village, but mostly it was for the military, it was food. Famously, dried eggs; it was kind of disgusting. Cheese, everything was dried but we’d eat it just for fun, see what it was like for the soldiers. We’d examine the plane quite thoroughly, got to know the innards a little bit. Hangar 2 was where I was posted. And upstairs, above the hangar, there was an office and a contingent of signalmen, soldiers, Army soldiers. In those days, there was no distinction, there was no 00:32:00Air Force, that came right after the war. There was the Army Air Force. It was only maybe ’45 or ’46, I don’t remember when it became the United States Air Force independently, as a fourth part of the military. So we had the Army, the Army Air Force now, Marines, and the Navy. Before that we only had three, until flying became such an important aspect of our lives. Did I veer away from what we were talking about?

FARRELL: No, not at all. I’m curious, so the side story you were telling about you weren’t given gloves and you had to wash parts in kerosene --

ROMAN: Yeah, our hands broke out.

FARRELL: -- that was in Maine.

ROMAN: Yeah, that was at the base, our working place.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about how you were able to organize the other women that were working there?

ROMAN: Several of us had skin problems as a result of that, and the guys were given the other jobs. The couple of guys that were there, even, three or four of them. We just banded together and talked about it. We said, “We’ve got to do something about this.” Just about three of us, Molly and myself, maybe Lois, too, we spoke to John, and we said, “John, there has to be a change. We can’t do this.” You know, women were much less outspoken in those days. I think I was one of the nervy ones because of my upbringing, probably. I always 00:34:00spoke up if I had -- not if I didn’t have to, but if I felt I had to. It’s still that way today. Only if one has to. Keep it important. Yeah, we said, “We can’t do that and we’re not going to. We’re not going to work unless you put us on -- we had training at the academy to do all these other things and we’re not being used that way.” It took a lot of nerve to do that in those days. And he was kind of our rep in this. And they said, “Okay, we won’t be doing that anymore.”

FARRELL: So it was a couple of days that you refused to work. Did that garner any attention from any of the other officials?

ROMAN: No, I think it was quite private. They kept it quite private. They realized that it was not fair. It didn’t turn into a big hullabaloo, it didn’t.

FARRELL: Did your relationship with John change after that?

ROMAN: No. John was our friend for a long time, even after the war. He lived in Queens and went back to work for one of the big airlines. He’s gone now, of course; he was older than we were.

FARRELL: Yes. You mentioned that there were only a few other men who were working on the base, so it was mostly women that you were working with?

ROMAN: Yeah.

FARRELL: And you had also mentioned that the women and men had different jobs. Can you tell me what -- do you remember what the difference in the jobs were?

ROMAN: No.

FARRELL: Okay.

ROMAN: Only what I’ve mentioned.

FARRELL: So it was a government subsidized program and you were getting paid. Do you remember the wages?

ROMAN: I have no idea. Isn’t that funny? Those things weren’t important in 00:36:00my memory anymore.

FARRELL: At that period of time, do you remember the type of housing that you were living in?

ROMAN: Yes, of course. It was a dormitory, two in a room. It was, let’s see, we took a bus from there, because that was, as I said, near the farm just at the edge of town, that was the last block of town where the normal school was. There was a teachers’ college there.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about -- well, I guess I’m sort of interested in how -- you know, life had changed so drastically for you. You were in high school and you were living with your parents, and then all of a sudden you’re in Maine living in a dormitory, working. Just some of the -- I don’t 00:37:00know if you remember some of how that felt or some of the differences.

ROMAN: I don’t have any memory of being sad about it, or “Mommy and Daddy, I’d like to come back.” Nothing like that. I was eager to fly, I mean not literally, but to fly on my own, so to speak. I felt it was so worthwhile. I don’t want to sound phony patriotic, but I felt I was accomplishing something. I was contributing something by doing this. This was the mentality of the day for so many of us then. I was very interested in flying, and became more so then. I had one break during the time we were there, and we decided to go to New 00:38:00York, of course. We were able to hop a ride on a C-47 again, and then we were let down because something happened to the plane, we were let down somewhere around Boston and we took a train the rest of the way. That I do remember. And then went back, of course. We had a few days off. That was another memory. Also, we dated some of the soldiers, if that’s of interest.

FARRELL: Absolutely.

ROMAN: There was one hotel there where they had dinner and dancing, one little hotel, and that was the place for dates. These were young guys, maybe two years older than we were, in the Army being shipped over. So that was fun. One marriage came out of that. Lois married John Adams.

FARRELL: Were there any other memorable soldiers that you remember from that time?

ROMAN: No, because I had kind of a boyfriend who was in the Army, who I later married here in New York. We weren’t anything steady, but he was sort of in the back of my mind, and I wasn’t too interested in people who I knew I would never see again. I was a nerd. I didn’t know it then. [Laughs] I had lots of fun, though, lots of dates.

FARRELL: So you were seeing somebody that was in the -- was he overseas?

ROMAN: Oh yes.

FARRELL: What was that like, having somebody in your life --

ROMAN: Well, we had a huge correspondence going. But I corresponded with a lot of young fellows. I had a lot of boyfriends. When I was a teenager, there were three fellows who were friends, and we became a foursome, safe. And I married 00:40:00one of them, after the war, of course. I didn’t miss not being home. What I think was remarkable, when I’ve told the story to others, was that my parents were so wonderful. Who would let an eighteen- or a nineteen-year-old girl go off by herself to do this, right? Not my parents -- I mean, they wouldn't object. My father and mother encouraged me. It’s like, go for it, this is an opportunity for you to learn about life. They never stopped me, and I’ve always appreciated it -- I just took it for granted, I’ll tell you. I was very lucky, 00:41:00I was kind of spoiled that way that I didn’t have to fight my way with my parents.

FARRELL: You got support, which is --

ROMAN: They were very, we used to use the word modern, and they were very supportive. I was brought up with a sense of being a free soul, a free person. My father, I remember my father taught me one important thing, sort of almost cliché now. He said, “You can do anything you want, but you have to take responsibility for whatever you do. And try to consider the consequences, and then make your decision.” And that’s how I still live. Take risks if you wish, but consider the consequences. And if you think it’s worth it, then you do it.

FARRELL: Insightful. It’s a good lesson to carry with you, I’m sure.

ROMAN: Yeah, I taught my son the same thing.

FARRELL: So you did mention that you had the sense that you were doing something, that there was patriotism.

ROMAN: Oh yes, oh yes.

FARRELL: Do you remember what the general feeling of the other women and men at the base were? Was there a sense of patriotism there?

ROMAN: There was a strong sense of patriotism, especially being on the base and seeing pilots and soldiers, you felt you were part of the war effort. Those were the big two words: war effort. We were part of it. We were doing something. We were contributing.

FARRELL: When you went into the ATC, you knew that you were contractually obligated to commit until the war ended plus six months. What was that like for you, committing an unknown amount of time?

ROMAN: I had nothing else to do. I had no obligations, I wasn’t going back to 00:43:00school until it was all over.

FARRELL: And you had a sense that you knew it was temporary, but you were committed to it as long as --

ROMAN: Yeah. Don’t forget, I was there the last year of the war. Things were looking differently already.

FARRELL: Did you have a sense that the end of the war was coming? Could you feel that?

ROMAN: That the end was coming? No, not really. Not until May 6, when the Germans capitulated. I believe it was May 6, 1945.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit about learning that, and then your memories of the end of the war?

ROMAN: Yeah. I was a little disappointed that we were shipped home so quickly after the Japanese ended, because I liked the idea -- I liked the whole program. 00:44:00I liked living with everyone, I liked the community feeling. I’ve always been that way. I find it difficult to live alone, as I do now, of course. I still find it difficult. I’ve always liked big community and being part of it.

FARRELL: There was also -- actually, you had mentioned, speaking of community, you had mentioned Molly and Lois. Can you tell me about some of the friendships that you formed there and what that meant to you?

ROMAN: Lois was the one we all became closest to. Soon after the war, we went back to North Adams. She came from a big Italian family, a Massachusetts Italian 00:45:00family. It was from her mother from whom I learned how to make the best marinara sauce. I remember going there, getting there at night, late, rather. She went into her freezer, she had a freezer then, taking out some sauce, defrosting it, boiling up a pot of pasta. Oh, it was so wonderful. And we were always welcome there. Lois and Molly and I were the three. There were other friends, of course, but not on that intimate friendship level. We sort of lost touch. But the three of us kept in touch through most of our lives, as Lois and I are still in touch.

FARRELL: Before we get to sort of the end of the war, did your job and your role, did that change over time? I mean, I know that you had organized the strike, so you got gloves, but were you doing different jobs?

ROMAN: On the base, you mean? Yeah. We started doing the regular work that we were trained for. That is, working on the engines, preparing the engines for the next flight.

FARRELL: So that just -- it all came to --

ROMAN: I don’t ever remember having to go into the kerosene tub again.

FARRELL: So you also had, in a bio that you wrote, you had talked about some of your memories of shortly after V-E Day. Can you tell me a little bit about what you remember of people arriving back at the base?

ROMAN: That was the very most exciting incident that I remember. We were at the field and suddenly there was a roar of B-25s, and they started flying in and 00:47:00landing on the base. B-24s, excuse me, there is a difference. The B-24s. And we saw them coming in, and as the pilots got out of the plane, we ran out, just ran out to the field and embraced every one of them. These were people who’d come back from the war zones. They shipped them back so quickly, within days they were coming back to the U.S. That’s a picture that’ll always be in my mind, all the women running out and embracing the first guys we saw. Almost like that kissing picture in Times Square, come to think of it. [Laughs] That famous one, you know?

FARRELL: After that, were there a lot of other soldiers that were coming back from overseas? Did you encounter a lot of that?

ROMAN: Not too much. It’s that first day, the first group that came over, the 00:48:00B-24s that landed.

FARRELL: Did they stay at the base after they arrived?

ROMAN: I have no idea. I have no idea whether they stayed at the base or if then they were rerouted. I have no idea how the Army did that.

FARRELL: So the war had ended, but you still had -- did you stay there for the full six months after?

ROMAN: No. There was no need. We were disbanded, let go, very quickly.

FARRELL: Do you remember what the time period was?

ROMAN: It was late August, maybe early September of ’45. I got home, and it was over. Had to look for a job. But first, I remember a few days after I came home, I came back to our apartment -- I was living with my parents, of course -- 00:49:00and there’s an Army cap there, just one of those caps, and that meant that my to-be first husband had arrived back from Europe also. He was in Germany -- he was in military in Germany. He’s one of those college boys that got pulled into the Army. He was at Rutgers at the time, and then was drafted.

FARRELL: What was that like?

ROMAN: Exciting. He was the first one back, of the three guys that I’d sent off, literally. They all came back, thank goodness, and went on to marry and live long lives.

FARRELL: Did you have conversations with him when he came home about what his experiences were like?

ROMAN: Oh sure, sure. He was in Germany and was at that famous Battle of the Bulge. He was military police, that’s what he did. Along that road in Germany, 00:50:00I forget what specific place, one of our friends was in the engineering corps, and all these trucks and cars were coming by and he was directing traffic, and coincidentally one of our friends, one of the engineering group, drove by both our friend. Isn’t that weird? It was chilling, you know? Battle of the Bulge.

FARRELL: When you came back, how did you see New York changing, or had it changed after the war?

ROMAN: Well, there was a great spirit of joy, of happiness and future and plans 00:51:00to be made. And of course those who had been in the service were applying for universities, the G.I. Bill was in place. In fact, that’s how my first husband was able to finish college, and then go to law school. I didn’t quite know what to do. We didn’t have any money, so I needed to have a job, but I applied for NYU, English major, and worked and went to school at the same time. My father had said, “I have no money. You have to do it yourself.” INo one has ever supported me. I’ve always contributed equally to any partnership.

FARRELL: You also had mentioned that you had this real interest in aeronautics. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that developed, and then after the war how that evolved?

ROMAN: I would say the only reason I didn’t follow through on that was that we were living in a time when there was no room for women. It wasn’t even an option. Of course I could’ve done it. I don’t know why I didn’t. I have a good engineering skills. But I guess I was influenced and went along with the time. I think my intellectual development was in flux and I didn’t know what I 00:53:00wanted to do. I wanted to learn more, I wanted to read a lot, as I did. I was also a literature minor. That’s how I got involved in the publishing field. I was very interested in writing and so on. Not as a writer myself, just as a critic, I am still today. [Laughs] I don’t have too many regrets, because I do, as I said, take responsibility for what I do. But I do have a regret that I didn’t ever follow through and do something in aeronautics, because I loved it. I just kept up with what was happening in aviation. The great coincidence, 00:54:00as I mentioned earlier on, was my third and last husband. When I found out he was a pilot and we spoke the same language, it brought us together. For him, I was a woman who could understand his language. He was an inventor, innovative and brilliant. I was his mechanical helper. We were in the field very often working on his newest parachutes. So that’s where, forty years later, I was able to use the skills I’d actually started with. It was wonderful for both of us. I did what I loved, I could do it, and he loved having a partner like me.

FARRELL: Did you find that after the war ended, that the workforce had changed?

ROMAN: Oh yes, women -- well, you know what happened in the fifties right after 00:55:00the war. You know that history. We went right back to where we were.

FARRELL: Did you find it, because you had that experience working, was it easier for you to find a job after NYU? Did that help?

ROMAN: Yeah, because I felt sure of myself. I’ve always felt capable, because I’ve -- I never had a problem feeling capable. And of course that experience in Presque Isle fortified that feeling. I’ve never been shy about going to interviews or facing men, which in my time was quite something. Yeah, I think the whole experience certainly made me a stronger woman.

FARRELL: Aside from making a stronger woman, what are some of the big lessons that you learned from your time working for the ATC?

ROMAN: Getting along with people. Working side-by-side with people. Cooperating. It sounds so cliché, but it’s true. Not being afraid to venture out and do something new, certainly. I think that was a big influence, that whole experience, doing something different, or being different. Not many women went out for this. There must have been many, several, because we filled the job. There were just no men there to do this. Either they were rejects from the Army 00:57:00and they did something else. I do remember one young man, and I know now, I knew later, that he was gay, and this was what he wanted to do. Or maybe he wasn’t accepted into the service because of that. We don’t know that, so long ago. Could be any of those things.

FARRELL: What are some of the things that you hope people remember about that period of time?

ROMAN: I enjoyed it. And it made me grow, in knowledge, not necessarily just about aeronautics, but of course it did that. It fortified whatever I knew about how things work, mechanical things. And it taught me not to be afraid of flying. 00:58:00I used to say to people who were afraid of flying, “Why don’t you read something about it, because if you know how it works, you won’t be afraid.” That’s my theory, anyway. I made it all up. [Laughs] B Fear of flying, everybody's afraid of flying.

FARRELL: Is there anything else that you want to add or talk about?

ROMAN: I tell you, if I had not had the experience that I had with the ATC, 00:59:00I’m not sure that my last and happiest marriage would have succeeded. Because in some curious way, it brought David T. Barash and Johanna Roman together. It joined us, that we had that passion, we shared it.

FARRELL: Well, that’s great. Thank you so much.

ROMAN: I hope it was useful.

FARRELL: It was great, yeah. Thank you.

ROMAN: [Break in audio] I’ve always wanted to take flying lessons. Somehow I didn't have the impetus to do it, but being with a flyer, with a pilot, and he flew every kind of airplane, it just gave me the push to do it. We used to go 01:00:00upstate in order to have space to practice on the newest paraglider, the newest invention, and there was a little airport nearby, and I took flying lessons there. And I went to flying school, because you have to have ground school as well. I stopped after about ten hours -- it’s an expensive hobby. I flew in a Piper Cub, by the way. I like small planes, the worst kind, they’re dangerous, of course. I stopped after about ten hours, which is a lot for flying lessons, because I realized that it was a great financial investment, I was already in my sixties. I thought, where am I going with this? Do I really want to do a 01:01:00cross-country solo flight? And how many times am I going to rent a plane to fly? So I got enough out of it and satisfied my need.

FARRELL: Sated that desire to fly.

ROMAN: So I put a couple of hours in, and that was that.

[End of Interview]