Marilyn Pursley | Interview 1 | April 19. 2011

REDMAN: All right, my name is Sam Redman, and today is April 19, 2011, and I'm here in Berkeley today with Marilyn Pursley, and as you can hear in the background, we're sitting right next to an elementary school and they have recess right now. First of all, Marilyn, would you begin by sharing with me your full name.

PURSLEY: It's Marilyn Pursley.

REDMAN: Okay, and how do you spell that last name?

PURSLEY: P U R S L E Y.

REDMAN: Okay, perfect. Marilyn, where were you born?

PURSLEY: I was born in Missouri.

REDMAN: In Missouri, okay, and what part of Missouri.

PURSLEY: It's southwest Missouri, born in Ritchey a small town, less than a small town, a village.

REDMAN: Less than a small town, okay, okay, so what type of a region was that? What was the important economy in that region?

PURSLEY: I guess agriculture in this little town. My mother was born there also, 00:01:00and her father had a grain elevator.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So I remember all the grain being brought in on the railroad, and my father was a station agent there, which was all really pretty much next door to the grain elevator.

REDMAN: I see.

PURSLEY: Also nearby was a big canning factory, so tomatoes would come in on the railroad cars, and wheat would come in.

REDMAN: So even though it was a small center, or a small village, it was kind of a center for the rail and some of the agriculture that would come through and maybe be canned or --

PURSLEY: Right. It had been, but when my mother was a girl it was a pretty thriving little town, but I went back there to visit maybe twenty years ago, and 00:02:00there was nothing there anymore. The railroad station wasn't there anymore. None of those things was there that had been there.

REDMAN: Okay, so how about your mother? What did she do when you were growing up?

PURSLEY: She never did work outside the home.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so she was a homemaker?

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Now what do you remember, so you stayed in that small little town, and then did you move to a bigger city in Missouri?

PURSLEY: Well, we lived in, we moved to Neosho which is still a small town. My dad, being an agent for the railroad, we went to Neosho and then we went to Okmulgee Oklahoma.

REDMAN: Oh, really, okay, okay

PURSLEY: Then after that Joplin.

REDMAN: Okay, so then how old were you when you ended up in Joplin, Missouri?

PURSLEY: It was, well, I was sixteen when I graduated from Okmulgee High School, and then I must have been eighteen or nineteen, something like that.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I got married when I lived in Joplin. I married an attorney, and then the war broke out.

REDMAN: Okay, so let's step back and let me ask about going to elementary school and middle school and high school. Can I ask you just in general what are some of your recollections about your teachers? Do you have particular memories about going to school or things like that?

PURSLEY: I really don't have a lot of memory of school days. I remember an 00:04:00elementary schoolteacher {sniffing?}, I guess she had post nasal drip or something. Kids notice things like this.

REDMAN: Right, exactly.

PURSLEY: We would always wait for her to do her thing, and she was totally oblivious to the reaction she was getting.

REDMAN: So were most of your teachers pretty friendly? Would you describe them as, or were they pretty strict?

PURSLEY: I don't recall their being unfriendly. I wasn't a very good student. I wasn't much interested in school.

REDMAN: Okay, and why was that? Did you have other interests at the time, or what sort of other things, I suppose later on you started dating. Was that a distraction from school, or -- ?

PURSLEY: I guess it was. I just have never been able to understand why I was so rebellious.

REDMAN: Okay, so what sorts of things would you do when you were being rebellious? What kinds of -- ?

PURSLEY: Stay out late, things like that.

REDMAN: Sure.

PURSLEY: I had a curfew, but paid no attention to that.

REDMAN: Okay, okay. I'm just wondering what kind of trouble kids would get into in the thirties and forties in Missouri and Oklahoma.

PURSLEY: I suppose if I were the same kid nowadays I'd be considered a juvenile delinquent.

REDMAN: Okay. They'd have to put you into the system, yeah.

PURSLEY: Right. Fortunately, I can remember I did a lot of swimming in the summer, loved to swim.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So I'd spent all day at the pool, the community pool in Neosho.

REDMAN: Now what year did you graduate from high school, do you remember?

PURSLEY: Nineteen thirty-six.

REDMAN: Nineteen thirty-six, okay, so that would have been at a fairly tough 00:06:00time in Oklahoma and Missouri was far as the economy goes.

PURSLEY: It was. My dad, of course, was employed since he finished high school, he went right to the railroad, so he was always employed. But I remember walking home from school with classmates, and we would be talking about how poor they were, their fathers weren't working, which I didn't really understand because my dad had a pretty nice job with the railroad.

REDMAN: It sounds like that job was pretty stable even though he moved to different locations.

PURSLEY: It would be his choice to move anytime he moved.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: He wouldn't be forced to move. He would just apply for the job.

REDMAN: Okay, but some of the other dads, some of the other fathers weren't' so lucky to have a job like this.

PURSLEY: That's right, because as I recall they were talking about, one of them 00:07:00said to me how much does your dad make? I said, "I think he makes $200 a month," and she said, "You're lying."

REDMAN: She didn't think someone could make that much --

PURSLEY: That much money.

REDMAN: Wow, okay. But you didn't think of yourself really as wealthy, did you?

PURSLEY: No, not at all. My mother was very frugal, and we did build a house in Neosho.

REDMAN: Did most of the other kids, were their parents, were they farmers?

PURSLEY: No, none of them was a farmer. They were all town kids.

REDMAN: Okay, so their parents might have worked in shops or --

PURSLEY: I do recall one of my close friends had a father who was in auto 00:08:00repair, he was a mechanic and had a shop. Another was an attorney.

REDMAN: Okay, okay. So did you have any siblings?

PURSLEY: I had a brother, six years younger.

REDMAN: You had a brother, okay, twin brothers, or -- ?

PURSLEY: One brother.

REDMAN: One brother who was six years younger, okay, okay, and what was his name?

PURSLEY: William.

REDMAN: William, okay, and how about him? Did he take after some of your delinquent influences?

PURSLEY: Well, he was, I feel sorry still thinking how he tried to always follow me and my girlfriends.

REDMAN: Right.

PURSLEY: And I would always tell him to get lost.

REDMAN: Go away, exactly.

PURSLEY: So we didn't treat him well.

REDMAN: I had an older sister that was seven years older, so I feel like I can kind of identify, I can relate to that.

PURSLEY: Can you relate to that?

REDMAN: Yeah, I can relate to that. So what were your parents like personality-wise? What were they in terms of personality what -- ?

PURSLEY: My dad was a very outgoing person. Later on he stopped being a station agent and became a, I guess PR. He would go around getting people to ship by rail.

REDMAN: Okay, for the railroad company.

PURSLEY: For the railroad company.

REDMAN: And your mother?

PURSLEY: My mother was a very quiet person who, she read a lot.

REDMAN: Was she pretty intelligent?

PURSLEY: She was. She was very intelligent. Her dad, the man who had the grain elevator, had made I guess quite a lot of money, so he sent his girls, his older girls he sent to Stevens College, I think it still exists in Missouri. It was a well- known girls' school. He sent my mother to a little school called Harding 00:10:00College, a boarding school that was a high school, and so she was very quiet, didn't have a lot of friends or social life and didn't want to have. Strangely though, I still remember the name of my mother's college roommate. It was Bernice Friedman.

REDMAN: Okay, so she didn't reach out for that sort of thing.

PURSLEY: She chose only, well, she was always friendly with the neighbors, but I think her main social life was when relatives would come to visit. We had a lot of contact with cousins who lived either nearby or maybe in Oklahoma, a short distance by train.

REDMAN: How about religious background? Did either of your parents grow up religious? Were they religious when you were a kid?

PURSLEY: My dad always went to church. It seemed to me it was more for the 00:11:00social aspect of it.

REDMAN: Since he enjoyed people so much.

PURSLEY: Exactly.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: My mother never went.

REDMAN: Okay, but she was more of an introvert.

PURSLEY: So in later years I felt very good that my mother had not gone to church.

REDMAN: Okay, because you then would grow up --

PURSLEY: My dad would drag me to church, to Sunday school, until I was about thirteen when I refused to go.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I said, "That's it. I'm not going anymore."

REDMAN: Okay. Did you remember what denomination?

PURSLEY: It was called First Christian Church.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: My mother was a Presbyterian, and I never really talked about religion to my mother in all those years. Now that she's gone, I've since questioned whether she believed in God, things like that. But I don't really know that.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, interesting. How about yourself? What are you sort of left with?

PURSLEY: Oh, I consider myself if not an atheist, an agnostic.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: It doesn't play any part in my life.

REDMAN: So we talked a little bit about what other families did for work. I was curious if you knew anyone who participated in any, during the New Deal there were all of these new programs that came out, the Alphabet Soup agencies like the WPA, the CCC, and did you know anyone who either was employed or their parents were employed --

PURSLEY: Well, we had relatives who were in WPA.

REDMAN: Okay, and do you know what kind of things they did in --

PURSLEY: I don't recall that.

REDMAN: Okay. Did the family ever talk about their jobs at the WPA, or how was it thought of in the family?

PURSLEY: I don't remember that.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, that's fine. So did you have any early jobs growing up as a young girl?

PURSLEY: Once I went to work at the five and dime. I think we got paid twenty-five cents an hour, and I didn't like it, and my dad didn't want me to work, but I wanted to.

REDMAN: Do you know why he didn't want you to work? He wanted you to be like your mom and stay at the home or -- ?

PURSLEY: Well, he didn't really forcefully not want me to work, but he just thought it was kind of, "Aw, if you want to do it, okay, but why?"

REDMAN: I see, what's the point? Okay, so did you eventually, so what did you do with that even that early money? Were you contributing to the house, or did you have a little more spending money for yourself?

PURSLEY: No, I did spend it.

REDMAN: Okay, do you remember what sorts of things you might have spent it on?

PURSLEY: Probably cosmetics.

REDMAN: Cosmetics, okay, okay. So now let me ask about, since you had graduated from high school, then you meet this attorney who you get married to.

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: How did that come to pass? How did you meet this man?

PURSLEY: Well, I was twenty-one when we got married, and he was thirty-one.

REDMAN: Okay, so he was a little bit older.

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: How did you meet?

PURSLEY: You know I don't remember that.

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: I really don't. Good question. Well, Joplin's a small town.

REDMAN: Everyone kind of knows everyone.

PURSLEY: I think I might have met his sister, who, but I don't know how because she was deaf. As a child she was sent here, to Berkeley. There was a deaf school here.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Her family sent her here to school. When they came to visit her they found her hair had grown down over her eyes, nobody had bothered to cut it, and so they immediately took her out of school.

REDMAN: Wow, okay.

PURSLEY: Later on she and I, while I was married to Burton, became very good friends. She learned to speak. Her mother wouldn't allow her to do sign language.

REDMAN: Oh, is that right? Okay.

PURSLEY: Her mother had been a Dean of Women on an Eastern college campus. We lived with her.

REDMAN: Your mother-in-law.

PURSLEY: My mother-in-law.

REDMAN: So this is just after you were married?

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: My husband sort of inherited his father's law practice, which he let 00:16:00dwindle away.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So that wasn't a very good time, it was a nice time only because his mother and his sister were nice, but when the war broke out I said, "I'm out of here."

REDMAN: Okay, so Pearl Harbor happened in December of 1941, Pearl Harbor's attack, and the war breaks out. Is your husband drafted, does he go in the service or does he stay in Missouri?

PURSLEY: No, he kept saying he would go to Officers' Training School, but he didn't ever get around to it. He wasn't drafted. So we weren't getting along well, and I said, "I'm going," there were recruiters coming through that part of the country recruiting people to work in the shipyards.

REDMAN: Right, now you had already been, had you already had some familiarity with the Bay Area then?

PURSLEY: No, I hadn't. When I was a child we spent, my mother, and my brother and I spent a few, I guess a couple of winters in Los Angeles to get away from the cold.

REDMAN: I see, okay, okay.

PURSLEY: But not, we hadn't been to Northern California.

REDMAN: Okay, so then what sorts of things would the recruiters say to people like you when trying to convince you to come to California?

PURSLEY: I don't recall really except --

REDMAN: What did -- ?

PURSLEY: There will be a job for you, we'll train you to be a welder in this case, and we'll find a place for you to live, and we'll pay your fare.

REDMAN: So it was all there, they --

PURSLEY: Right, who wouldn't take that if you were living in Missouri and not 00:18:00very happy in your marriage, so my girlfriend and I just sort of hopped on the --

REDMAN: Okay, so you signed the divorce papers and then hopped on the train with some girlfriends.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, do you remember how many girlfriends?

PURSLEY: Just one girlfriend.

REDMAN: One girlfriend, and do you remember her name?

PURSLEY: Jody, but I remember her name because I was Marilyn Arnold, and she was Jody DeWitt. It so happened that two big generals were DeWitt and Arnold.

REDMAN: Oh, really? Okay.

PURSLEY: So we were on the train. Of course, the train was full of soldiers, and we told them our names and we said, "We're the daughters of," and they believed us.

REDMAN: Okay, so there again you were having a little bit of fun and maybe a little delinquency there playing tricks on people, right?

PURSLEY: Right, exactly.

REDMAN: That interesting, okay, that's fun. But so then even though it's easy to 00:19:00see why you would want to come out here, there's a job, there's housing, there's money, it's still a big decision to leave the place that you've grown up and go to this place that essentially you'd never been. Was it a tough decision for you?

PURSLEY: Not at all.

REDMAN: Okay. It seems like a big choice. I can see why you'd want to make it, but, yeah.

PURSLEY: Of course, people all over the United States were gravitating here.

REDMAN: Right, yeah, okay, so Kaiser would pay your train fare, but on the train car itself you said it was mostly soldiers.

PURSLEY: Well, there were a lot of soldiers.

REDMAN: There were a lot of soldiers, okay. So it wasn't exclusively Kaiser people or people coming out --

PURSLEY: No it was just a regular train.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, and what were you expecting to find when you got out here? What do you think you imagined at that time that California would be like?

PURSLEY: Well, having been to California --

REDMAN: You thought it would be like LA.

PURSLEY: I thought more or less it would be like that.

REDMAN: Okay, and what did you find when you got out here? You step off the train, and what happened?

PURSLEY: I do remember, I remember coming, was the bridge there?

REDMAN: Yeah, you must have been there, the Golden Gate Bridge would be pretty grand.

PURSLEY: But I guess we came to Oakland, so we couldn't have been crossing the bridge at that point.

REDMAN: Let me ask about the bridges though. Do you remember your first reaction to seeing, because the Bay Bridge was fairly new at that time as well, but the Golden Gate Bridge was just so stunning and gorgeous, and it was painted this beautiful orange color, and it was a pretty new structure?

PURSLEY: It was spectacular, yeah.

REDMAN: Yeah, okay, so you thought it was pretty spectacular.

PURSLEY: Yes, I did. I do remember the first time I crossed the Bay Bridge and could see the city. It was really a thrilling sight, and I never did, even when I would go back to Missouri to visit my parents and I was living in San Francisco, I would always get a thrill out of crossing the Bay Bridge. It was like coming home.

REDMAN: So in 1942 with this brand new structure, and you remember the first time crossing the Bay Bridge --

PURSLEY: The Bay Bridge, not the Golden Gate Bridge.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, but you remember how spectacular that must have looked brand new, okay, wonderful. Then so some of the natural environment it must have been so different from Missouri. I remember coming here from Minnesota, and the 00:22:00winters are different, it may be not warm in Richmond, but it was probably warmer when you arrived than in Missouri in the wintertime, but not the extremes --

PURSLEY: Yeah, I got here, I didn't realize the significance of it then, but we arrived on Cinco de Mayo.

REDMAN: Okay, it's funny you remember that. That's interesting. So then you arrive, tell me about what your first impressions were of the shipyards. I know when people began work their pictures were taken for an identification badge, and then they were asked if they wanted to buy war bonds, and they were offered a chance to buy health insurance through Kaiser.

PURSLEY: I belonged to Kaiser.

REDMAN: So right away you signed up for health insurance.

PURSLEY: I still belong to Kaiser.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so my understanding is that Kaiser, you weren't required to 00:23:00sign up for health insurance, but something like 98 percent of people signed up to be a part of it.

PURSLEY: Is that right? Yeah.

REDMAN: So it must have been -- I'm just curious that it must have been kind of a no-brainer for you to sign up for health insurance at that point.

PURSLEY: Yes, right.

REDMAN: So do you remember signing up, maybe getting -- ?

PURSLEY: I don't remember.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, now how about welding? You were offered a chance to train to learn --

PURSLEY: They trained us. I don't recall how long, maybe, I want to say six weeks, but I'm not sure about that.

REDMAN: Okay, now was your training on site at the shipyard? Some people trained at Oakland.

PURSLEY: I have no, it must have been right on the site.

REDMAN: Right on the site, okay. So what do you remember about going to work and just kind of your impressions of what it was like there? I'm trying to think of what it would be like to go from a small village to this massive humming 00:24:00shipyard with people and whirly cranes spinning around and welding --

PURSLEY: A lot of activity.

REDMAN: A lot of activity, so do you remember sort of what that felt --

PURSLEY: I had been to various places. I spent a lot of time in Tulsa and Oklahoma City and I wasn't quite a yokel and Joplin wasn't a village.

REDMAN: Right.

PURSLEY: So I enjoyed the activity, just people being busy, and I recall how segregated it was.

REDMAN: Interesting, okay, tell me about that, so at that time you would have had a large number of African American people coming in from the South, and then 00:25:00a lot of white folks from the Midwest and the South, and then a lot of Californians, a lot of people from Mexico, and the Japanese had been removed so --

PURSLEY: But there were a lot of Asians there, Chinese there.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Always considered to be the best crafts people.

REDMAN: Interesting.

PURSLEY: Everybody thought the Chinese were better welders, better everything.

REDMAN: Is that right? Okay, interesting, and there were also a large number of Native Americans, I know, that came from different reservations around the country.

PURSLEY: I don't have any recollection even of people from south of the border.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I don't remember any Mexicans --

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Standing out in my mind that they were there as a group, but I do recall the African Americans.

REDMAN: Okay, and what were some of your impressions of these different groups 00:26:00of people? You said that there was, it was segregated.

PURSLEY: Well, I don't recall the crew being mixed.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: But I may be wrong there.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I probably am wrong; it just happened that our crew didn't have any.

REDMAN: I know that some of the unions at that time, at first they wouldn't let in African Americans but then later on --

PURSLEY: Out of necessity probably.

REDMAN: Out of necessity, yeah, that they were let in, so do you remember, did you join a union right away?

PURSLEY: We all had to join the boilermakers.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: As soon as the war was over, out.

REDMAN: Okay, yeah, so what did you think about joining the boilermakers? Then did you have any impressions of the union during your time at Kaiser? Then also let me ask how long were you at the shipyards?

PURSLEY: I went in '43, and I was there until the war ended.

REDMAN: Okay, '43 to '45.

PURSLEY: I was happy to join the union because my father and grandfather had been very strong union people. Even though my dad hadn't had a union job for many, many years on the railroad, he still continued to pay his dues and keep his membership.

REDMAN: Wow, okay, so he felt a very strong connection to his union.

PURSLEY: So I felt very positive about unions.

REDMAN: Okay, great, great, but then at the end of the war a lot of people were asked to leave the union.

PURSLEY: Well, there wasn't any work actually for welders --

REDMAN: Right, especially female welders I recall --

PURSLEY: Exactly.

REDMAN: A lot of people had been trained in this but then couldn't get, continue on that. Let me ask about welding. When you're taking this course, because I've had a lot of people describe to me welding is an art form. Did you particularly 00:28:00enjoy welding?

PURSLEY: I loved it.

REDMAN: What about it did you love?

PURSLEY: You could do a day's work and see what you had done.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So you had a sense of accomplishment. Wow, this is all I've done, I've worked various places on the ships. I've worked on the double bottoms, and I was the welder for the, I don't know what they were, ship fitters? It was a crew of men who were not welders, but they had one welder working with them.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I was that welder on this particular, with this group, and so they treated me like the princess, except you had to crawl around on the double bottoms. I don't know if you know what the double bottoms are.

REDMAN: Yeah, so I wanted to ask that question because my understanding is that you'd climb in there and do some spot welds, but it was fairly enclosed so every once in a while you'd need to come up for air.

PURSLEY: I'm sure my lungs were black from the smoke down there.

REDMAN: Okay, yeah, there was nowhere for it to really escape then.

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Okay, now what would you do for light down there, were there lights down there? Do you remember -- ?

PURSLEY: There were lights, but I don't remember from what source.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, now the next question I was going to ask about how men and women interacted, so it sounds like you were considered one of the favorites of this male crew that --

PURSLEY: In this case I was treated very well. On my birthday they gave me some welding gloves --

REDMAN: Oh, wow, okay.

PURSLEY: I forget what else, but it was a very nice experience.

REDMAN: Okay, now let me ask about do you think that that was pretty typical that the men and women who were working got along pretty well -- ?

PURSLEY: Well, there was a lot of resentment. There were all kinds of rumors starting about how women had been found dead in the double bottoms. In other 00:30:00words, trying to drive the women out of the shipyards.

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: Just a lot of rumors and, of course, a lot of sexism, a lot of remarks.

REDMAN: Okay. I'm curious about the sexist remarks in particular, and I wonder if was there anything that today we would call sexual harassment?

PURSLEY: I think there was a lot of that, it wasn't against the law then.

REDMAN: Yeah, so there weren't the strict laws in place at that point, so people would --

PURSLEY: Felt free to --

REDMAN: Felt free to kind of say whatever.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, and there weren't people who would maybe go out of their way to say, "Hey, that's not appropriate," or "That's not okay." At the same time it also isn't very gentlemanly right? So I'm just kind of curious.

PURSLEY: I don't recall anyone really objecting or saying, "You shouldn't say 00:31:00that," but --

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: It wasn't rampant, and certainly not where I'd worked, and I worked other places, too. I was welding the door frames on the bulkheads, and my lead man came around and said, "Well, that's pretty good for a journeyman."

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: That's pretty good for a journeyman welder. That's how he told me I'd passed my journeyman's test.

REDMAN: Wow, okay, yeah.

PURSLEY: And gave me my card, I wish I still had, but I couldn't find it, I was going to show it to you.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: It's a little laminated card with my picture on it. It said, "Journeyman Welding, American whatever Welding" and the date and everything.

REDMAN: Wow. So you did find some folks that were very friendly and nice to you 00:32:00at the shipyards.

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Some of the other women as well? Were they quite friendly and nice? Did you make some friends there, or did people kind of have their own --

PURSLEY: Oh, I didn't, see by then I had moved over to San Francisco because my girlfriend and I didn't want to stay in Richmond, although we had a nice little house there.

REDMAN: Let me ask, so they did follow through on that promise.

PURSLEY: They did, they did.

REDMAN: Okay, but then eventually you decided --

PURSLEY: We wanted to live in the city, so we would go over there, there was somebody we, I'll tell you something else interesting, too. We got a ride to the shipyard every day with some Filipino people who were --

REDMAN: Oh, is that right? Okay.

PURSLEY: So we didn't see them outside work. They just picked us up and we'd ride over and at night we'd drive back. But they'd begin to get nails put in 00:33:00their tires, and one day in San Francisco, one night because they were leaving us off, the cops pulled us over and they said, "What are you doing with those white girls?"

REDMAN: Wow.

PURSLEY: So we had to quit riding with them because they were putting so much pressure on them.

REDMAN: Is that right? Oh, my gosh. So do you remember how, because I know there were share the ride programs where they encouraged people because of rationing on tires and because not everybody had a car --

PURSLEY: Well, we took the ferry then.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so do you remember how you got hooked up with the gentlemen from the Philippines who were giving you a ride as far as --

PURSLEY: I don't have any recollection except they were probably working by us and we said "Hi" every day and found out we all lived in San Francisco.

REDMAN: Okay, and they just offered a ride, yeah.

PURSLEY: Sure.

REDMAN: So do you have any idea why people would put nails in their tire?

PURSLEY: They resented any kind of association with Caucasian women.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so the idea that these gentlemen could give two white girls a ride to work was not appropriate.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so but then you described, so eventually you would take the ferry into work, and I wanted to ask about San Francisco at the time during the war, what was San Francisco like during World War II? There was a lot going on, there were a lot of new people here, but at the same time a lot of the young men were away. So I'm curious what the dynamic would have been like in San Francisco?

PURSLEY: I don't know if I even had any awareness of it, what that was like. I know that we had only, we had one day off a week, and so I think my day off was Wednesday, and the Golden Gate Theater had a lot of famous musicians who would 00:35:00come through, so we would always on Wednesdays go to the Golden Gate Theater.

REDMAN: Oh, wow, okay.

PURSLEY: And see all kinds of people that you probably never heard of like Fats Waller and Count Basie and various well known musicians in those days.

REDMAN: Okay, and what type of music generally were you, were you more into blues or jazz, or -- ?

PURSLEY: Just about --

REDMAN: Just about everything, okay, okay, so pretty much no matter what the concert was, you'd want to see it.

PURSLEY: Want to see it, yeah.

REDMAN: Okay, and what sort of a crowd might have gone to an event like that? I know there were a lot of servicemen who were stationed in San Francisco at the time.

PURSLEY: That's right.

REDMAN: So would you have seen a lot of people like yourself who were maybe working at the shipyards, or a lot of servicemen, or a lot of people doing other types of work?

PURSLEY: I have no recollection who the audience might have been.

REDMAN: Right, yeah, okay, okay. So then let's see, okay, I'm curious if because 00:36:00it would have been just right before your arrived that a lot of people were asked to pack up their things, the Japanese in particular I'm talking about, and they were told to meet at particular locations and go to these camps. Was that ever mentioned or talked about during the rest of the war, say from '43 to '45? Did you hear anybody talking about internment camps in California?

PURSLEY: Well, I certainly heard a lot about it because I made friends with a lot of people who were progressives.

REDMAN: Is that right? Okay.

PURSLEY: So from then on that was sort of my orientation.

REDMAN: Okay, tell me about the people you met who were progressives.

PURSLEY: I worked alongside a woman in the shipyard who introduced me to all 00:37:00kinds of literature and essentially recruited me into the progressive movement.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So there was a lot of talk about, awareness about what had happened to the Japanese, and very interesting times.

REDMAN: Okay, yeah, so what sort of, what kind of radical literature might you have been reading at that time, or what was circulating around the shipyards?

PURSLEY: I'm trying to remember the name of this book that she gave me, oh, we used to go to the bookstore in San Francisco and get a whole armload of books, I can't remember where the bookstore, it was a radical bookstore.

REDMAN: Okay, what would you say that some of this literature was, communist literature or labor, pro-labor?

PURSLEY: Both.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Was it the Bishop of Canterbury?

REDMAN: Okay, yup.

PURSLEY: That wrote this book about the Soviet Union?

REDMAN: Sure.

PURSLEY: I can't remember the name of it. I was so impressed by this that I thought that my parents would be impressed. They weren't.

REDMAN: Right, okay, so you'd maybe tell your parents about the stuff that you were reading, and they didn't care to hear it. Okay, yeah. I mean that's the way it goes sometimes. Now let ask, I'm curious then particularly about these friends because in 1944 there was a big event that actually not a lot of people talked about. There was an explosion at Port Chicago, and it killed a lot of servicemen, and a lot of the servicemen were African American. Do you remember hearing about that event?

PURSLEY: Oh, I heard about it, but I don't recall really what we talked about other than they thought that was negligence because of the number of African 00:39:00Americans who were I guess working there.

REDMAN: Right, and I know they were loading up munitions --

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: In a dangerous work environment, so that would have been something that your friends might have mentioned around the shipyards, or things like that.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. Now let's see so do you remember anything about the other people who would be in this sort of circle of people who would read the radical literature and pamphlets being handed around versus those who might not have wanted to read it. Were there people who reacted more like your parents to this type of thing?

PURSLEY: Well, once you become involved in the progressive movement, pretty much all your life and activities revolve around your friends.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: You acquire a huge number of friends because there were a lot of people 00:40:00who were progressives in those days.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So that sort of leaves other people out.

REDMAN: Right, yeah. So what sorts of activities would they, were there meetings or were there --

PURSLEY: There were meetings; there were a lot of dances and social activities.

REDMAN: Okay, so you'd be in sort of this intellectual and social network, you'd maybe describe as of people reading different books and talking about books, but then also go in to dances together and things like that, so were you sort of in this circle from you'd say most of your time at the shipyard?

PURSLEY: Um hm, most of the time.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Well, I got a really nice apartment on Nob Hill. It was very hard because in those days people actually went in shifts. The day workers would sleep at night and then the people who work in the night would sleep during the 00:41:00day in the same place.

REDMAN: I know that was definitely true in Richmond. Was that also true in San Francisco?

PURSLEY: I don't think so.

REDMAN: Okay, so was it a little easier to find an apartment in San Francisco?

PURSLEY: It wasn't easy at all. A friend of ours a couple of Saturdays drove us around all over Nob Hill and up and down, and finally we saw a tiny little scrap of paper in an apartment building. We got out to look at it, and it said, "Apartment for Rent," and so we actually got to, we rented this place from this very eccentric woman.

REDMAN: Which that's what San Francisco is wonderful for, right? Is that you have these eccentrics.

PURSLEY: So we had that apartment until I moved back to Berkeley.

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: At that time I had a Chinese boyfriend that I had met in the shipyard.

REDMAN: So how about now you had mentioned that even people giving rides to white women was in substance frowned upon, if not aggressively attacked. What about then dating someone who was Chinese? What was -- ?

PURSLEY: I don't know, I don't think there was a stigma against the Chinese the way there was against Filipinos.

REDMAN: Oh, interesting, okay. Do you have any idea why that might have been? Maybe the history of their being here significantly longer in the Bay Area with a larger population, or -- ?

PURSLEY: I guess I didn't really understand it, although there were a lot of negative rumors about Filipinos that there weren't about the Chinese.

REDMAN: Oh, interesting. Do you remember any examples of what people might have said?

PURSLEY: Oh, that they might be murdered by, I'm not sure, they were ridiculous --

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. So then I wanted to ask one more question. I asked about how men and women related and I asked about the sexual harassment, but was there any hanky panky or fooling around at the shipyards?

PURSLEY: I'm sure there was, but I wasn't really aware of it.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so it might have been out there --

PURSLEY: You know we got off the ferry, we did our shift and we got on the ferry and left.

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: We didn't really know about people who maybe lived in Richmond for example.

REDMAN: Okay, so I know this was a taboo topic back in that area, but I'm curious if any women ever discussed the subjects of unwanted pregnancies or having children out of wedlock?

PURSLEY: I don't recall any discussions. I know people had abortions then.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: But they were illegal. I had a friend who went up to Portland to get an abortion, and then, of course, people did abortions I guess, but I only knew one person who had an abortion.

REDMAN: Okay, they might have to go, I'm curious then how they would, I mean you may not know the answer to this, but how you'd find out that someone in Portland might be willing to do this illegal operation.

PURSLEY: I'm trying to think of this woman's name. She asked a pharmacist who gave her this man's, the man was a chiropractor.

REDMAN: Interesting, okay, so there might have been these kinds of underground 00:45:00networks where a pharmacist might know of a chiropractor, but you'd have to kind of ask around, but it's interesting because it was a taboo topic at that time. It was something that would be hard for people to discuss. So I mean would you know to sort of ask your pharmacist? It's amazing to me that you'd be able to find the person.

PURSLEY: I don't know how she, maybe that was her pharmacist, that was probably how.

REDMAN: Okay, yeah, okay, interesting. So I know we'd mentioned Richmond, well first of all can I just clarify, you were on the day shift, is that correct?

PURSLEY: No, I was on the swing shift.

REDMAN: You were on the swing shift, and so that paid a little bit more than the day shift but a little bit less than the night shift, is that correct?

PURSLEY: I don't remember that.

REDMAN: You don't remember that, yeah, okay. Some people can recall their salaries, and I'm not even sure I exactly know how much I make now.

PURSLEY: I think we got sixty-five cents an hour when we started.

REDMAN: Okay, and did you feel like that was big money at that time?

PURSLEY: Actually twenty-five cents was, no I worked for fifty cents an hour at the radio station in Joplin, all the men went off to war.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I did, they called it an engineer, but I just switched, I don't know how to describe it.

REDMAN: Sure, okay, but you were working sort of production for a radio station.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so then it would have been a raise to come out to California, in addition to being in this new, fun, interesting environment. Well, it sounds like you were having a, I hate to say this in sort of the background of this terrible war, but it sounds like it was a fun time in your life. Is that an accurate sort of -- ?

PURSLEY: Well, it was, I was on the ferry everyday going to work, not to 00:47:00stereotype, but Chinese are gamblers.

REDMAN: Okay. So was there gambling on the ferry?

PURSLEY: On the ferry every day going and coming, we all played, I forget what we played, but we gambled.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Me and Kibby.

REDMAN: Okay, so some of the juvenile delinquency behavior had totally followed you out to California apparently.

PURSLEY: That's right.

REDMAN: So my understanding is that you could go to El Cerrito back in this time and you could gamble, it was basically Las Vegas, like you could gamble, you could drink, you could get into all sorts of trouble, but even on the ferry you could get into all sorts of trouble. You could --

PURSLEY: I didn't know about gambling there.

REDMAN: In the East Bay.

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Okay, okay.

PURSLEY: I didn't know about that at all.

REDMAN: But it was understood that the Chinese community in San Francisco, you could gamble pretty easily, okay.

PURSLEY: Oh, yes.

REDMAN: Were they playing dice games, or card games, or -- ?

PURSLEY: They played, when I was dating this Chinese guy, after we got off from work at midnight we would go to Chinatown, and the restaurant, Universal Cafe was called, but Kibby and I would go downstairs where all the help, the waiters, the cooks, and they would have a huge meal, after the restaurant was closed.

REDMAN: Wow, okay.

PURSLEY: And we would all eat together. I was the only Caucasian in the bunch.

REDMAN: Could you say his name again, what was his name?

PURSLEY: Kibby.

REDMAN: Okay. Actually, could you spell that for me, I'm sorry.

PURSLEY: That wasn't his actual name but he called himself Kibby for some reason. It was his idea of an American name.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay. So what was that experience like being the only Caucasian in Chinatown in sort of this behind the scenes buffet that the waiters 00:49:00and the chefs might do at a restaurant? That must have been a pretty amazing experience.

PURSLEY: It was. It was really, it was a nice experience.

REDMAN: Okay, so you liked being --

PURSLEY: It was like I was the Queen of the May.

REDMAN: Really, okay.

PURSLEY: We got invited to wedding dinners two or three times.

REDMAN: Wow, okay.

PURSLEY: I was just treated really well.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay. So then eventually the two of you broke up. It didn't end up working out? Do you recall sort of how that came to pass?

PURSLEY: I don't remember. It was probably when I moved to Berkeley. The Chinese couldn't bring their wives with them at all. They had an exclusion policy, so he 00:50:00actually had a wife in China. The men in Chinatown sent money but many didn't expect to see their families again. Support was more important.

REDMAN: Is that right, okay.

PURSLEY: So he could never bring her here, or so he thought. Actually, after the shipyards, he went to work in this restaurant, and it must have been twenty or thirty years later that I went in and we hadn't seen each other from the time we were like in our twenties until the time we were in our fifties.

REDMAN: Wow, okay.

PURSLEY: He told me that his wife had been able to come here, that his two children were in Cal. The Exclusion Act had been abolished late in 1945.

REDMAN: Wow. Oh, my gosh, okay.

PURSLEY: It was really a nice story.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, yeah, that is very nice, that's interesting. So you had no issue spending time with this guy while he had a wife away in China. It was just sort of understood that she couldn't come.

PURSLEY: She wasn't "away" in China. She was in a village in China where there was a famine and starvation. Her survival and that of thousands of others depended on the money their husbands sent. Romance and sentimentality weren't paramount when you're starving. Money is all that matters.

REDMAN: Interesting, okay. So I know there was a lot of patriotism during the 00:51:00war. Do you think living through that wave of patriotic feeling, how did radicals feel about that as there was this real loud war posters and patriotic songs and music, did radicals identify with this in a particular way?

PURSLEY: I think they expressed the same kind of patriotism that everybody else did.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Don't have any real recollection, no, I don't know.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, so with that I'm actually going to change the tape and go to the new tape. We've filled up all of Tape 1.

REDMAN: All right, my name is Sam Redman, and I'm back with Marilyn Pursley, and this is our second tape on April 19, 2011. All right, so when we left off I asked about this wave of patriotic feeling that was taking place and part of this during the war were movements to do things like Victory Gardens and movements for people to start canning. Now I know that most people in urban places like San Francisco weren't able to do a Victory Garden, but do you remember people doing this sort of thing in their back yard or canning or Victory Gardens, do you remember any of that?

PURSLEY: I think I was aware of that when I moved to Berkeley.

REDMAN: So you were in San Francisco for a couple of years at the end of the, or 00:53:00maybe '44 or '45, and then you came over to Berkeley. What year was that? Did you come over to Berkeley before the end of the war?

PURSLEY: I guess just at the end of the war I moved into war housing in Albany, it's now student housing.

REDMAN: Okay, I live right across the street from there, so, okay, yeah. So you were in what looked like barracks that were --

PURSLEY: There were four apartments to a building.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Four units to a building.

REDMAN: So what was that experience like? That must have been pretty inexpensive, that housing.

PURSLEY: It was, and it was interesting because the manager of that Codornices Village decided to integrate the whole, the other manager had like African 00:54:00Americans in one building --

REDMAN: Oh, interesting.

PURSLEY: This man, he was Dunleavy, I believe.

REDMAN: Doug Leavy.

PURSLEY: Dun, Dunleavy, that was his last name.

REDMAN: Okay, Dunleavy, okay.

PURSLEY: He decided to integrate Codornices Village, so every new person who came in, he would place him in a building so that eventually he had African Americans and white people in every building, and it was really interesting because I've had people say to me, people from the South, "I never thought I would live next door to a black person, but I just love her to pieces, and things like that.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay.

PURSLEY: They just learned so much from this experience.

REDMAN: Yeah.

PURSLEY: That they wouldn't have, they got an education they wouldn't have been able to ever get --

REDMAN: Right.

PURSLEY: by listening or reading. Real experience where the kids played together, they discovered they had the same problems, the same interests.

REDMAN: Yeah, yeah, and so that, it sounds like that was a good time in your life. It sounds like people were neighborly and --

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Were most people working at the Richmond shipyards, or were people also working at --

PURSLEY: By then the war was over.

REDMAN: Okay, so let's talk about the end of the war. Do you remember VE Day, the day that the German's surrendered? So I know a lot of --

PURSLEY: No, I don't.

REDMAN: Okay, and then VJ Day, the day the Japanese surrendered, I know there were a lot of big parties, a lot of activity in the street, and celebration. Do you remember that?

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, how about the bombing, the dropping of the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? At that time was that something that people talked about in any different ways?

PURSLEY: Well, the group I associated with were horrified.

REDMAN: The radical circles in --

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: Specifically those at the Kaiser Shipyards were horrified at what had happened.

PURSLEY: Well, my friends mostly were not at the shipyards.

REDMAN: Okay, so through the radical circles that you were introduced to in the shipyards, you met a lot of people that were outside of the shipyards.

PURSLEY: Yeah, I just met one person at the shipyards who introduced me to lots of people in San Francisco, but they were not shipyard workers.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, and then how about in Berkeley? I assume that those circles were there in Berkeley as well.

PURSLEY: Yes.

REDMAN: And it would have been fairly easy for you to find like-minded people who were leading the same type of thing in Berkeley.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, so then let's go back to their reaction. You said they were horrified at what had happened in Hiroshima and Nakasaki. What do you remember about people talking about that? Do you remember any -- ?

PURSLEY: Just outrage that they would murder so many people.

REDMAN: So as the news reports came in, some people may have been saying it was necessary, but you thought of it as an unnecessary act of violence.

PURSLEY: That's what we thought, right.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay. Now how about, now I know in Berkeley at that time there may have been a large Quaker population or anti-war folks, but most people were in largely wanting to see the war ended, so that may have been a minority opinion at that time, but there were some people who were pretty, who were bothered by these images right away. So did you feel like you were kind of in a minority opinion as far as -- ?

PURSLEY: I don't recall feeling that.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay. Especially since you had other friends who felt the same way, okay.

PURSLEY: Mostly the people I associated with.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. All right, so let's see, can I ask what your life was like then at the end of the war? When the war ended you were living in this war time housing in Berkeley. Were you allowed to stay then at that apartment?

PURSLEY: We stayed quite a while until they began to vacate it.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, but you stayed and you lived there quite some time.

PURSLEY: I remember I was, I believe I was the last person out of my particular building.

REDMAN: Oh, is that right? Okay, so you stayed there for several years then.

PURSLEY: I'm not sure exactly how long, no I don't remember.

REDMAN: Okay, so then how was Berkeley changing at the end of the war?

PURSLEY: In what respect?

REDMAN: Well, one of the things that I'm curious about is that actually in late 1946 I know there was a big strike in Oakland, and it's known today as the 00:59:00Oakland General Strike and there were waves of strikes across the country, but in 1946 in December there was a big three-day-long strike in Oakland. Do you remember anything about that by any chance?

PURSLEY: I don't remember.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so now I know a lot of people had come to Richmond for jobs, but then when the war ended, a lot of people were let go from the shipyards. Was that the case with yourself, as well? Were you let go at the end of the war?

PURSLEY: I guess we were all let go at the end.

REDMAN: They shut down the entire shift.

PURSLEY: Um hm.

REDMAN: So do you recall hearing about that? That you would no longer be asked to work at the, or you were let go?

PURSLEY: No, because I lived in San Francisco, so I didn't really know any of the people who lived and probably were affected by that.

REDMAN: Okay, so you had left the shipyards before the end of the war?

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Oh, okay. So, sorry, go ahead.

PURSLEY: But I just knew I was going to be a secretary, which I was.

REDMAN: So you know that, I know a lot of people really, you really enjoyed welding from the sounds of it.

PURSLEY: I did. I enjoyed it a lot.

REDMAN: So then --

PURSLEY: Creative.

REDMAN: Yeah, it's a creative task that's something you could see at the end of the day what you've been able to accomplish.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: So was being let go, was that a sad thing for you?

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Okay, you just saw it as a reality --

PURSLEY: Not really.

REDMAN: It was time to move on to the next thing.

PURSLEY: And it was a heavy duty job. You carry those welding leads up ladders and, it's just a heavy, hard job, but I enjoyed it a lot.

REDMAN: Okay, so you --

PURSLEY: But I don't recall that I felt any regret that it's ending.

REDMAN: Interesting, so then you went on to the next thing, which was being a 01:01:00secretary, you'd mentioned. So where did you work in Berkeley and San Francisco?

PURSLEY: I worked for a while in San Francisco, but then when I moved to Berkeley I got a job as a secretary in a company of engineers and builders.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: I worked there five years, I got to be a very good secretary, and I was looking for a house, I was married. I was looking in the window of a house and an African American guy came along and said, "Are you looking for a house?" and I said, "Yes," and he said let me show you some houses, which he did, and I actually bought one from him, I was married to an African American, wouldn't you know?

REDMAN: Oh, really, okay, yeah, okay.

PURSLEY: So he showed me a house on Fulton and Russell, a nice big house. He called the listing agent who said, "Well, you know now Caucasians only.

REDMAN: Really, okay.

PURSLEY: This was a black realtor that was really, so he said, "Well, she's Caucasian." [laughter]

REDMAN: A little bit of a white lie there maybe, okay, but so you moved into that place, okay, interesting.

PURSLEY: We did buy that house.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. So then how did you meet your new husband who was African American? Do you remember how that came to pass? Was he -- ?

PURSLEY: I do remember, he was part of the progressive group.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: He said to me, "Margaret and I are getting a divorce and as soon as 01:03:00it's final I'd like to have a date with you."

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: He was very circumspect. He wanted to be sure it was final before he had the date.

REDMAN: Yeah.

PURSLEY: So we had our first date on New Year's Eve.

REDMAN: Interesting, okay, okay, do you remember what year by any chance?

PURSLEY: I'd like to remember, but --

REDMAN: Okay, but after the war so --

PURSLEY: Yeah, it was the early 50's.

REDMAN: Early 50's, okay. Now how did you then end up becoming a realtor?

PURSLEY: Oh, that was the story I was going to tell you.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So the guy who sold us the house was a very personable guy.

REDMAN: Sure.

PURSLEY: So we were sort of friends with him, and he said, "I'm going to open my own office. Why don't you be a real estate sales person?"

REDMAN: Really? Okay.

PURSLEY: So I said, "Well, it sounds interesting." So I studied and got my license and went to work for him.

REDMAN: He was an African American man, okay.

PURSLEY: But I couldn't join the Berkeley board.

REDMAN: Interesting. Because of his race.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: So none of the real estate agents that worked in the office could join the board, okay.

PURSLEY: Yeah, his little office was down on Shattuck Avenue.

REDMAN: Okay, what was his, do you remember the name of that office, or -- ?

PURSLEY: Yeah, it was Vernon Morris.

REDMAN: Vernon Morris, okay, Realty, okay, on Shattuck, okay.

PURSLEY: He's dead now, but we remained friends all of those years. I consider he's the person who really started me on this real estate career.

REDMAN: Right, so he got you started and now that's interesting to me in two 01:05:00respects in that you became a real estate agent before there was this pretty massive increase in the value of properties in the Bay Area.

PURSLEY: Right, you know what we paid for the house on Fulton Street? $13,000.

REDMAN: I don't make a lot of money, but I could probably find $13,000, but to buy a house now --

PURSLEY: The Fulton house sold for over $500,000 a few years ago!

REDMAN: Right, that's right, yeah, exactly. It's just kind of insane, but the other interesting thing is that you would have been working with a black business owner in a diverse environment in an area where people may have been pretty progressive, but like you'd mentioned, there were some pretty old attitudes about race and --

PURSLEY: Well, there certainly were. In the papers house ads would say, 01:06:00"Caucasians only."

REDMAN: Really, okay.

PURSLEY: Things like that.

REDMAN: Yeah, yeah. So did you have a lot of, who were your clients mostly? How did you --

PURSLEY: It was very hard to work under those conditions.

REDMAN: Um hm.

PURSLEY: I took an African American neighbor to see a house. Her husband was a head of a well-known firm in San Francisco.

REDMAN: Oh, wow, okay, so he had some money.

PURSLEY: He had some money, and they were light skinned people. I took her to an open house in North Berkeley one Sunday, and the agent wouldn't let us come in.

REDMAN: Wouldn't even let you come in the house.

PURSLEY: No.

REDMAN: Wow, because of --

PURSLEY: Racism. "We don't sell to black people."

REDMAN: Wow. Interesting.

PURSLEY: So it was a little difficult. We didn't have access to the multiple listing service.

REDMAN: Yeah, so even if let's say you as a realtor were white, and then you 01:07:00would have two white clients, they would say because the person who owned the realty company --

PURSLEY: No, that didn't matter if you had a white client.

REDMAN: Okay, that was fine, okay.

PURSLEY: They didn't know particularly or care.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. But if it was a black client who was looking for a home, that could be problematic or challenging, okay. When did you, that still happens to a certain degree today, but there was a transition there where laws changed and culture changed and society changed. Can you describe in the sort of post war world how that happened in the Bay Area. Do you have some sort of major recollections of, I mean these sorts of things I hope wouldn't happen as often any more.

PURSLEY: No, it's pretty good now. First they allowed a couple of Japanese to 01:08:00join the board.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Big step.

REDMAN: But now tell me about does he, I've heard this name before. I'm not a property owner, but I've heard that Nakamura is --

PURSLEY: They were the first, I guess they're not very active now, they're down on Martin Luther King, just beyond Dwight Way I believe.

REDMAN: He was Chinese or Japanese --

PURSLEY: Japanese.

REDMAN: Japanese, okay, he helped a lot of Japanese folks find homes in the East Bay in the 50s and 60s, so then he was allowed to join the board.

PURSLEY: I believe then they opened it up to Asian people.

REDMAN: Okay, so that was a step, and then what else do you remember?

PURSLEY: I don't remember exactly how, I just know all of a sudden they did allow everyone to join the board.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: Then one time they had an African American President of the Board.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: You know things moved very quickly then.

REDMAN: Right, yeah, yeah, and so it was a different world then I suppose, if you had African American clients being able to bring them without --

PURSLEY: Well, then I decided, I got a broker's license then and went off on my own so that I could join the board and be in and make a living, which was very, I was working under a handicap working for Vernon, and he said, "I think you should get yourself a license."

REDMAN: And start your own.

PURSLEY: And start your own and just --

REDMAN: So he was supportive of --

PURSLEY: Very supportive, yeah.

REDMAN: Then so now you've worked here, you're a partner here at Thomwell.

PURSLEY: Well, there were nine of us, all women, who worked for several years for a very well-known realtor here.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: He decided to sell out to another well-known realtor, and all of us who worked there said, "Hey, we don't want to be sold out to another company. Let's open our own." I had a broker's license, and I think somebody else did, and there were nine of us. We opened Thornwell Properties.

REDMAN: Okay, and do you remember what year that was, or what decade that was?

PURSLEY: Nineteen eighty-four.

REDMAN: Nineteen eighty-four, okay. So you've been on Shattuck for quite some time then?

PURSLEY: All that time.

REDMAN: All that time, wow, okay, so how has Berkeley changed since the 1980s?

PURSLEY: I don't know, if you're in the middle of things you don't notice change very much.

REDMAN: Right, yeah.

PURSLEY: It would be hard to say how it changed. Certainly it changed as far as buildings are concerned.

REDMAN: Yeah, interesting.

PURSLEY: I'm usually driving, but once in a while I'm riding with someone, I say, "Where'd that building come from?"

REDMAN: Where'd that building come from? Yeah, it just sort of appears. So the last question I want to ask is, I just would like if you'd reflect for me on the Second World War in your life, and what that moment, you'd mentioned it gave you this opportunity to get out of your life in Joplin and kind of start this new life, and it sounds like you had a lot of really interesting adventures during World War II. Can you sort of, when you think back to that time in your life, what sorts of things do you, come to mind mainly? What are the big things that you think about?

PURSLEY: Well, I think of the days in the shipyards and commuting, gambling on 01:12:00the ship, and I sometimes think of those days in Chinatown, pretty happy days, and I guess we felt as though we were really making a contribution to the war effort. That was really an important thing to us. Aside from that, nothing comes to mind.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. Well, I want to thank you for sitting down with me today and answering --

PURSLEY: You're certainly welcome. It's kind of fun to reminisce.

REDMAN: Exactly, exactly, well there are certainly some stories in here that I had not heard before, so I really appreciate that.

PURSLEY: I bet.

REDMAN: Great, so when I paused the tape here at what I thought was the end of 01:13:00our interview, you mentioned that two of your really good friends, two of your good girlfriends during the war were lesbians. Can you tell me a little bit about that, your meeting them early on and getting to know them and what was your friendship with them?

PURSLEY: What do you mean what -- ?

REDMAN: Well, what, can you tell me a little bit about your friendship and your relationship to them and who they were and --

PURSLEY: One of them worked in the GE Lamp Works, and the other one, I don't recall what she did. One of them has been dead about three years. She was the same age I was, and we remained friends all these years. I'm still friends with her partner.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: What was your question?

REDMAN: I was just curious what their lives were like during the war? So they were presumably it was talked about that they were friends, but was it known that their relationship was intimate?

PURSLEY: Oh, yes. Everybody knew.

REDMAN: Okay, everybody knew.

PURSLEY: Nobody cared.

REDMAN: Oh, is that right? So people didn't talk about it?

PURSLEY: Not in our group, we were a broad-minded group of people.

REDMAN: Right, so do you think that had anything to do with their sort of cultivating friendships with radicals, that here was a group that was more open.

PURSLEY: Accepting them.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. So the folks that were radicals, they would come to these meetings and maybe do some of the readings or these dances or things like that in Berkeley?

PURSLEY: Oh, they were very much a part of the group and a part of the activities.

REDMAN: Okay, okay. So it was a pretty normal sounding thing.

PURSLEY: It was.

REDMAN: For that era it's pretty unusual to be out in the open like that, but it sounds like it was surprisingly unshocking to the group of radicals that were there.

PURSLEY: No, we didn't think anything about interracial marriages or homosexuality. It was just taken for granted some people are this way, and some people aren't.

REDMAN: Right, but you must have had an awareness, though, that that was not the mainstream sort of feeling.

PURSLEY: Well, yes, of course.

REDMAN: So I'm just kind of curious about how sort of navigating this really progressive worldview that you had that a lot of people might not have shared, 01:16:00that you might not be able to say in certain company that so and so's partner was a woman.

PURSLEY: I guess we isolated ourselves in a certain way. There were a lot of us in those days. It wasn't as though there was this tight little group.

REDMAN: Right, okay.

PURSLEY: So that we didn't feel the need to have much association with people outside the group. Many associations were with other progressives.

REDMAN: Okay.

PURSLEY: So we didn't feel, we just sort of avoided people who would frown upon our lifestyle or our friends' lifestyle.

REDMAN: Okay, okay, so you may have known that that would have been out there, but it wasn't something that you confronted, or you just wanted to isolate yourself and spend time with your friends.

PURSLEY: Right.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting. So, yeah, any other thoughts on homosexuality or 01:17:00interracial marriage from that period, I mean it's so much more of a accepted either lifestyle or way of life or what you're born to be than it was in that time, so it seems like a lot's changed but maybe for you it's kind of been like that for a long time.

PURSLEY: Well, when Jody and I, Jody was the girl who came with me to California, she didn't stay long at the shipyard and I lost track of her. She moved away. But I guess it was one of the first nights we were in California we were somewhere in North Beach I guess having a bite to eat, and this woman came 01:18:00in, sort of sat down with us and she said, "Well, I just broke up with my girlfriend." Jody and I look at each other like, "What?" I could still remember that --

REDMAN: Right, okay.

PURSLEY: So we look at each other like, "What are you talking about?" She went on to talk about her girlfriend, the intimate details, and we're sitting there like a couple of country girls, mouths agape.

REDMAN: Right, yeah, exactly like, "Aw man, this makes me feel like a rube." Yeah.

PURSLEY: So that was our first experience.

REDMAN: Okay, interesting, okay. That's a great story, though. It totally captures the North Beach 1943. So yeah, so any final thoughts on that? A lot has changed now in terms of cohabitating or --

PURSLEY: Oh, it's incredible how it's changed. People now talk about, they live together, they have children that, "my fiancé and I have two children," you say here, and nobody thinks anything about it but in those days you won't remember, but I guess it was Ingrid Bergman who had had a child out of wedlock. It ruined her career.

REDMAN: Right, yeah, pretty different time in some ways, okay, interesting. Well, once again, thank you for this little bonus.