Dorothy Kugel | Interview 1 | May 21,2012

RIGELHAUPT: It is May 21, 2012. I am in Arlington, Virginia, doing an oral history interview with Dorothy Kugel on the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front Project. To start, if I could just ask you to say your full name and the year you were born.

KUGEL: Okay. Dorothy Annetta Bowdle, B-O-W-D-L-E, Kugel. And I was born on May 3, 1923. The youngest of seven children. My mother had one boy and then six 00:01:00girls. And I was born at home, of course, and my older sister always said I was the cause of the Depression because they had many more things before I was born. And I was in the sixth grade before I knew I didn't cause the Depression. My father had been the president of the local bank and, of course, it folded. But in the community there he was on the board of the tile mill and the telephone company and all of those things collapsed during the Great Depression, so there was not much left in that community except farming. And for kids who graduated or who were in grade school, we worked after school, and one of the things that I did was pick tomatoes for one farmer who raised fields of tomatoes. We got 00:02:00paid three cents a hamper for those. And then for another one who raised potatoes I cut potatoes for planting, and I got ten cents an hour for that. So that was big pay at that time. I graduated from high school in 1941, and I had one sister who was in her senior year at Bowling Green University. My parents couldn't send two to school at one time so I had to stay out, and I worked for a year. Well, I got a job at Woolworth's in Lima but it was only on Saturday afternoon, a half day. I worked in the hardware department, and we sold wire screening because people screened their own windows and screen porches and that sort of thing. But I learned to cut wire. And around the corner from the 00:03:00hardware department was the record player. The Andrews Sisters were popular, and "Apple Blossom Time" played day after day after day. I got a little tired of that. Where were we after that?

RIGELHAUPT: Well, do you mind if we go backward a little bit in time?

KUGEL: Go back.

RIGELHAUPT: So you were born in 1923.

KUGEL: Uh-huh, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And the town?

KUGEL: Oh, the town was--it was in the country and it was outside Waynesfield, named for Mad Anthony Wayne. But also it was Wapakoneta Rural Route Six, and that was Chief Wapa and his daughter Koneta and they were Iroquois or Shawnee. Shawnee. And all the roads around there were very curving. My dad always said 00:04:00they were Indian trails, which they probably were.

RIGELHAUPT: What's the closest city to Waynesfield?

KUGEL: Lima would be the closest city, yes, and Lima was a population of like 40,000. That was a city and they had the Lima Locomotive Works and they had a big Westinghouse plant, and we had a wonderful--we used to call--personnel now but it was a woman from Waynesfield who ran that human resources office. So she hired anyone from Waynesfield who would come in from that community. That, I know, is how I got the job. And I was probably more honest than I should have been, but I told her I didn't want to work but one year because I wanted to go to the University of Michigan. I got hired, and we did drive and we commuted. I rode with one of the neighbor kids, and then we all rode with a man named Bill 00:05:00Steele, and Bill was fine. He had a new Chevy, which he could get six people in, and he drove. But on Fridays, which were paydays, he always got a little drunk, so I would drive home and deliver all the people, and then I would go to his house. His wife would say, "Not again," and I would say, "Yes, again." Well, she was very embarrassed. But then she would take me home and that was the end for the weekend.

But when we went into the factory, we had a clipboard that had our names and our numbers on it, and you had to take those off and wear them on your uniform all the time. And I had a pair of blue denim overalls that had Westinghouse written across the top on a diagonal. And the dynamotor armature itself is, oh, about eight inches and it goes in the--let me tell you. You wind them to make the 00:06:00electricity, and you wind a copper wire and you wind it. And when they are wound, they are not all wound the same. So you put them in this machine, which stood about as high as that TV is from the floor, and it had sides on it so that you didn't spatter any hot solder on either one of them, anyone passing by. And you would put it in that machine and step on a pedal and it would flash a light and show you if it was an imbalance. If so then you put it in the box. When the box was full you put it on a conveyer belt and it got shipped off to Willow Run, where they were used in liberator bomber engines, the B-24s.

RIGELHAUPT: So we'll come back in one minute to your time at the factory. But in 00:07:00terms of growing up in Ohio. So you said you were one of seven?

KUGEL: One of seven children.

RIGELHAUPT: And where were you again in the birth order?

KUGEL: Where was I? I was the bottom. I was the last one. I was the "last hatch of the setting." One sister died of meningitis when she was twelve. She was my older sister. I never knew her. But I knew the rest of them. I had one sister who died a year ago and I have one still living who is ninety, excuse me, ninety-two and doesn't hear, doesn't see, but she has full-time live in help at her house. And it's hard to talk to her because you just don't understand anything she says, and you have to call when her caregiver's there. You talk to 00:08:00that person and that's the way you communicate. So--

RIGELHAUPT: Were your parents natives of Ohio? Where were they born?

KUGEL: They were natives of Ohio, yes. My dad taught school at one of the country schoolhouses. I have a picture of one right around the corner on the wall that I can show you. And he taught school for fifteen years, and then he married. But my mother had her own horse and buggy, and she toured around the country giving piano lessons because she had gone to Ohio Northern for a six-month course in piano that made it possible for her to teach piano. My siblings all had formal piano lessons, but not me. I had her. And I hated it. 00:09:00And so I got to choose when I would have my piano lesson, and I would take Tuesday afternoon because I know she would be tired from working all morning and doing laundry and she'd go to sleep and then I could sneak away and never--I never played piano.

RIGELHAUPT: What year was your mother born?

KUGEL: My mother was born in 1880. My dad was born in '69. His father was a captain in the Civil War and in the Ohio infantry and was with Sherman on his march to the sea and also up the East Coast and with Grant upon Grant's triumphal entry into Washington and part of that group. So he had a pension and that kept the family going. There were four children. My dad had one older 00:10:00sister, one younger one and then his youngest one was a boy. So there were two girls and two boys in that family. And they all depended on Grandpa Bowdle for a little extra cash because they all lost jobs. And most of them were farmers and they didn't make much money.

RIGELHAUPT: And when you say they depended on your--

KUGEL: My paternal grandfather. Yes.

KUGEL: He was a Civil War veteran, and he had a pretty good pension apparently because he was a captain. He went into the Army--I think he went in when he was eighteen.

RIGELHAUPT: So your father's generation.

KUGEL: That's my father's generation.

RIGELHAUPT: You said his siblings counted on your grandfather for some 00:11:00occasional financial assistance.

KUGEL: That's right; that's right. They all did that.

RIGELHAUPT: Was that something that happened throughout their life or was that something that changed?

KUGEL: No, that happened after the Great Depression when they all lost their jobs and the farm prices were so poor for everything. And a lot of them were losing farms due to lack of income. The husband of one of my aunts committed suicide because he couldn't pay for his farm, and another--one aunt died of cancer. And two lived in a little community called Roundhead, which again was an Indian name and down by Indian Lake, which is--it's in another county but it's near Jackson Center, in sort of that area. And Jackson Center now makes mobile 00:12:00homes. It has revived, but it wasn't then. What else? Oh, none of my immediate family worked there, but there is a little family gravesite down there, cemetery, and it has I think two Bowdles in there now and that's all, and I have not been able to trace where they're from. Because I have one cousin who does a lot of this but he's in Chillicothe, and that was south of--east of Columbus in another county. But that's where--two Bowdle brothers came from Maryland. The Bowdles came to this country in 1566 and from Shrewsbury, England, and sailed up the Choptank River on the eastern shore of Maryland. I have a picture of that map, too, on the wall in the next room. And he was a ship's--what's a bookkeeper 00:13:00called? I'll tell you. I didn't write that down. I'll think of it, if I think long enough. It was eight generations ago! A ship's chandler.

RIGELHAUPT: You mentioned that your father had been a teacher?

KUGEL: Yes. He taught school. One room schoolhouse and would walk forever because he lived at home with his parents. Every mile there was a country schoolhouse and it was all divided up. It was square. And Cherry Grove, Walnut Hill and all names like that. Do you want me to show you the pictures?

RIGELHAUPT: We can do that at the end.

KUGEL: We'll do that at the end. Okay.

RIGELHAUPT: So you said that he left teaching when he got married.

KUGEL: When he got married and then he went into--well, he had a--I think it was a six--eight week course in Valparaiso in Indiana. He had a big certificate that hung on the wall in the bedroom. Then he was qualified to be the bank president. So didn't take much education for that. But it says Valparaiso.

RIGELHAUPT: So had he attended college before being a teacher?

KUGEL: No, he had not. No. Didn't have any college until afterwards, which is interesting. The same as my maternal grandmother on my mother's side. She taught school and the same thing. She was in another county, and that's where the 00:15:00Walnut Hill came in, that was--but she taught school and started when she was sixteen. You know, when she graduated, "There's no more schooling for you, and you can teach the next generation," and that's what they did. They've all been educators. And my kids still are.

RIGELHAUPT: I have heard, and certainly read, that women who were teachers often had to leave the profession when they got married. [phone rings]

KUGEL: Yes, they did.

RIGELHAUPT: Why don't we pause for--?

RIGELHAUPT: Okay, so we're back on.

KUGEL: Where were we?

RIGELHAUPT: Your father leaving.

KUGEL: Oh, at Valparaiso and then he taught school until he became the bank 00:16:00president, and then the bank collapsed during the great upheaval. Sort of like now.

RIGELHAUPT: How long was he bank president before the Depression set in?

KUGEL: Oh, gee, I don't know but I can tell you roughly. I learned to drive on a Dodge Phaeton that had Isinglass curtains on it. Our driveway had a little bit of a slant, and I would put the car in neutral and let it back down, and then I could start it and drive it up. That's how I learned to drive. And he traded that because my mother didn't want to be seen in that car. She had a lot of pride. So he bought a 1928 Dodge, and it was a great big boxy thing but we could 00:17:00all fit in it. My grandma in the front seat because her arthritis was such that her knees didn't bend very well. And we all would pile in on Sunday morning and go to church, Methodist church in Waynesfield, which was the nearest one. It was big-town stuff. But my dad taught Sunday school for years, and my mother usually stayed home and got Sunday dinner ready instead of going to church because she'd sleep when she went. That was a good thing to do.

RIGELHAUPT: So was church one of the community organizations that was a big part of your life growing up?

KUGEL: It was a big part of our lives. Yes, it was. I sang in the choir. I sang in church choirs everywhere. The most recent was in Greenwich, Connecticut. I still keep in touch with people from there and still belong to a congregational church in Greenwich, as a matter of fact, because I don't want to join any here. 00:18:00So that was pretty much the community life. In the wintertime they always had--the Farmer's Institute would bring in outside speakers, and it was a big two day celebration. Kids in school would make posters, and they would all be displayed in the storefronts in the various little community stores.

We had three general stores and a funeral home in that community. The funeral home, of course, sold furniture, as well. And one by one the grocery stores disappeared. But my grandmother used to be able to walk from her house downtown to the grocery and it was about half a mile. And the man who owned the store 00:19:00would always put a bag of peppermints in her grocery bag which she would carry home. I remember that. And his name was Frank Steinmetz. He was an orphan from someplace. And a man named Butcher sort of adopted him. So it was Butcher-Steinmetz, and they sold dry goods and cloth, material that people--women would buy to make their dresses and that sort of thing. And how long they lasted I am not sure. But he had a beautiful tenor voice and his wife sang alto, and then there was another couple that had the hatchery in town and they both sang. So this was a full quartet that sang at a lot of funerals. It's like being here. Spent our time going to church and going to funerals, and 00:20:00that's what we do here now. We go down to Arlington Cemetery.

RIGELHAUPT: So your father's siblings. They were farmers?

KUGEL: They were all farmers. They were all farmers, the whole lot of them.

RIGELHAUPT: And did they live relatively close to you?

KUGEL: Well, probably eight miles would be the farthest distance.

RIGELHAUPT: But that was close enough to see each other frequently?

KUGEL: You could see each other if you wanted to but he always went home on Sunday to see his dad near Lima, and as long as he lived he did that. And there is a place in Auglaize County called Bowdle Road, and that has the relative buried from the War of 1812. Henry Lee Bowdle is buried there. And that was it because my grandfather, who is Thomas Henry, was buried in Fairmount and 00:21:00that's--and his stone is a big one and it says captain on it. Captain. What did I tell you what his name was. Thomas Henry, yes. And my parents are buried there, and we have a stone there that has our name on it. We did that long ago and the ashes can go there at some time or another because--my older brother had a massive heart attack and died and he was sixty-four. One sister died of cancer at sixty-four. Another one lived to be eighty--seventy-two, I guess, and she also had cancer. So there's been a lot of that. I fought the big C for a lot of things. I've had a colectomy, I've a thyroidectomy, and anything that can be removed is over at Sibley Hospital right now in their Anatomy Department. They 00:22:00have more of me than I have.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, to go backwards in time. What did your father's siblings grow? What did they farm?

KUGEL: What did they farm? Just plain everyday meat and potatoes, that sort of thing. You raised your own meat, of course. You had pigs and you had cows and you butchered in the fall. I remember one neighbor named Austin Heffner, who was a beautiful shot. He could hit an animal right between the eyes and kill him with one bullet. And we always had him come and kill the animals. There was a big tub-like thing that they would fill full of hot water and scald in that, skin. And I liked butchering day because that was always exciting.

RIGELHAUPT: So this is in the 1920s still. You can remember this as a child?

KUGEL: I remember this as a child, yes. Twenties and early thirties. It would be before 1932, I would say.

RIGELHAUPT: And so your uncle's farms, they were not large in the sense--

KUGEL: No, they weren't as large. My mother had inherited property. She had a half section of land. I think it was probably a land grant, but I'm not sure about that. She only had one sibling, and it was divided evenly between the two of them. Well, Uncle Rob lost his farm early in the Depression, and he was married and had three children. One died early. And Thelma never married. 00:24:00Hardman didn't. He was in the Army in World War II, and I kept up with him for a while but then he died. He did marry but he had no children. So that whole family's done. And the Bowdles are all done, too, in Waynesfield. The last one died there a year ago. So that family's all--name is gone. No more there.

RIGELHAUPT: So that was your maternal uncle, lost his farm in the Depression.

KUGEL: Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Did your paternal uncles also lose their farms?

KUGEL: Eventually they all lost their farms, yes they did. As I say, the only thing left was that area called Bowdle Road, which was another cousin that was there. His name was Holmes. H-O-L-M-E-S. And that's Bowdle Run. Bowdle Road is 00:25:00over there off Route 117 outside Westminster.

RIGELHAUPT: So when--

KUGEL: All the little towns. There was one on every corner.

RIGELHAUPT: So when you say they lost their farms, was that because they were in debt to banks?

KUGEL: They were in debt. They were in debt, and they couldn't pay them. They couldn't pay for them. They couldn't keep up the taxes or whatever it was. That's it.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you know what they had gone into debt for? Was it seed?

KUGEL: I think probably just the old ADL, activities of daily living. I'm sure that's what it was.

RIGELHAUPT: So they were dependent upon these farms for income, more so than a family farm or subsistence farming?

KUGEL: That's right. They needed it for an income. And would raise grain and that was a cash crop. And livestock, and you would sell that when you could. Of 00:26:00course, there were those who would mortgage their animals and then try to sell and that was not good. They would get in trouble and then their farm would go. Never did that, but I know some who did.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, do you know or have any memories or hear if the farms were foreclosed by banks or was it by a county or--

KUGEL: I think it was probably by banks until the banks folded, and then what was left? I don't know. So if there's no bank and there's no place for the mortgage, no Freddie Mac, no Fannie Mae.

RIGELHAUPT: So in these years leading up to the Depression, your father's a bank president.

KUGEL: Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And it sounds like both maternal family of that generation were also farming and paternal uncles were also farming. Do you remember if there was a distinct difference in the standard of living between a bank president and a farmer?

KUGEL: Well, yes. My dad always wore a blue pinstriped suit. He did not look like a farmer, and he did not want to look like a farmer. And he always wore dark suits. They were either black or they were navy blue with a little pinstripe through. And he did not wear overalls.

RIGELHAUPT: So the clothing symbolically carried meaning.

KUGEL: Clothing. Yes, it did.

RIGELHAUPT: But in terms of owning a home, owning some property leading up to 00:28:00the Depression, it sounds like in terms of assets, net worth, there was more similarity than difference.

KUGEL: Yes, there was, I think.

RIGELHAUPT: And then the Depression changed that.

KUGEL: The Depression changed that, yes. And he, of course, had his own farm until then. But when he had to mortgage all of his farms, which he did, my grandma, maternal grandmother, was north of the little town of Waynesfield, and my brother took over her farm. It was only forty acres, but the interurban ran through one section of the woods there going from--it's DTI, Detroit, Toledo and Ironton, and they paid so much each year for the property rights to go through there. I don't know how much it was, but I know that it was some. And they paid 00:29:00for that.

RIGELHAUPT: And those payments, the sort of leasing or the easement for the railroad--

KUGEL: The ease for the railroad to go. That's right.

RIGELHAUPT: And did that help sustain that farm and the family during the Depression?

KUGEL: That helped during the Depression. It was a little bit but it helped, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And enough to keep the farm.

KUGEL: And enough to keep the farms.

RIGELHAUPT: And so you mentioned that your father was president of a bank that went under during the Depression.

KUGEL: That's right. The bank went under.

RIGELHAUPT: And so you were probably roughly ten? Nine, ten, depending on how quickly it happened?

KUGEL: I think probably younger than that, but my guess is I was about--between eight and nine. I'm not sure. I would think that's probably when it was.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you have a sense that this was coming? Was there--

KUGEL: I had no idea. No idea.

RIGELHAUPT: You were young enough you couldn't see the stress it would have caused.

KUGEL: I couldn't see what was going on.

RIGELHAUPT: Did your older siblings? Did they have a sense of what was happening?

KUGEL: I think some of them did because my older sister, for instance, went to college. She went to Muskingum College, which was a Presbyterian School in New Concord, Ohio. And then they paid for the one to go, and my sister Grace went to Bowling Green. Florence didn't want to go to college. She wanted to farm, so she raised chickens and worked with my mom on the farm raising chickens and eggs and sold those. And Lenore went to Bowling Green again, and then she went on to Ohio State and got her master's in music, taught public school music in various 00:31:00places. Ended up in Wooster, Ohio, which is another little college town. Ohio is full of little college towns. And they're usually pretty good.

One of the better ones right now is Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. That is becoming very popular with kids in this area. David Wessel, who's on the news, you see him, and he has a column in the Wall Street Journal. His son is there. And who was it told me someone had just--oh, our ophthalmologist, his daughter is there. And somebody else told me just recently. {Narrator addendum: The only son of my primary physician, my internist is at Kenyon College as well.}

RIGELHAUPT: So after the bank went under, did things change in your family?

KUGEL: Things changed. Definitely. We just did not have the cash to spend that we did have at one time. And that's when I started doing the various little jobs that I told you about in the beginning. If I had any spending money at all, that's what I had to do. I had to earn it.

RIGELHAUPT: Was the expectation that some of that money would be contributed to the family?

KUGEL: No, it was not. That was mine. Never made very much but if I wanted to spend it, I could, and that was it.

RIGELHAUPT: But your parents kept their house?

KUGEL: They kept their house. They kept their house. And it did not sell until 00:33:00after my mother died. She was able to die in that house. And so did my dad. He had hardening of the arteries, developed gangrene in one foot and could not walk and so forth. But fortunately he died before the foot had to be amputated. He was eighty-seven when he died, and my mom was seventy-eight when she died. She just had a massive stroke and lived about three days afterwards and that was it. But she had moved in with my sister Grace because she didn't think she could keep her house going anymore.

RIGELHAUPT: And you said your mother went to college for--

KUGEL: I think it was for about three months to study piano. She studied music. So that she had her own horse and buggy.

RIGELHAUPT: Did she ever talk about if that was unusual for a woman to be in college? Did that--?

KUGEL: No, she didn't but she had a friend that she kept in touch with all the 00:34:00time. His name was Jason Wray, W-R-A-Y, and she wrote to those--she and his wife communicated for years. They would write letters. Maybe once or twice a year we would hear from Mrs. Wray, and then Mom would always answer that letter because she didn't have too many friends. Well, through the church, again, the ladies aid society, where they made quilts, and they quilted them and that was on Thursday and they had a potluck noontime meal, which was always good. And then they worked, of course, on election day and sold tickets to eat at election day because they made money that way. I don't remember what they charged, but it wasn't very much.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, it was in your mother's lifetime that then women were able to vote?

KUGEL: Yes, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Did she talk about ever what that meant?

KUGEL: She was a lifelong Democrat, and my dad was a Republican, but they both always voted. And when Eisenhower was running for President she couldn't vote for Adlai Stevenson because he'd been divorced. But then she counted all the people who were going to vote for Eisenhower and thought, well, she might as well do it, too. So she did. I think that's the only time she voted for a Republican. And I was in Ohio with my one sister, Lenore, who's older than I, when John Kerry was running, and I convinced her that she should vote for him. And she always blamed me for losing her vote. First time she ever lost a vote. It was my fault. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: That's funny.

KUGEL: But my Grandma Horn did a lot of home nursing because she was very good 00:36:00at that and she took care of a lot of people in the area.

RIGELHAUPT: So going to your schooling. What was a typical day like for you in elementary school?

KUGEL: In elementary school? Well, in the first grade I think we had twenty-one children or something like that, and I had not missed any school and it was almost the end of the school year. And, of course, we were always--we were promised a prize if we didn't miss any school. And I got up in the morning and I had one pox. But it didn't show. It was under, on my neck, and I just went to school. One of the kids said to me, "Do you have chicken pox?" "No, I don't think so." I got home. I never had but about three or four pox. That was all. And they were gone by Monday. So I got a prize. I had a little coin purse that 00:37:00had a mirror in it and it had a penny in it.

RIGELHAUPT: That's great.

KUGEL: And that was enough to I guess make it so I didn't get shingles but I got the vaccine this year.

RIGELHAUPT: Okay. So was this a one room school or--

KUGEL: No, no.

RIGELHAUPT: No.

KUGEL: This was a consolidated school, and it was eight grades. And then when I was in the eighth grade they built a new school, which was north of town, and it was even fancier, of course. And my sister, the one that still lives, was in the first graduating class from there, and I was in the first class to go in as freshmen. But we had the lockers in the hallway, and we'd never had those before. I remember that. And a very poor history class because the school 00:38:00superintendent was our history teacher, and he was always out doing other things, and we had very little history.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, so if eighth grade--thirteen? You were about thirteen?

KUGEL: Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: So 1936?

KUGEL: Well, I graduated in '41, actually, and my sister graduated in' 38; '38, '39, '40, '41. And--

RIGELHAUPT: So you said--

KUGEL: No. I graduated from high school in '41. Then I went to--I graduated from Michigan in '45.

RIGELHAUPT: So the school opened, it sounds like, around the mid-1930s.

KUGEL: Yes, it was about the mid-thirties. It was about the mid-thirties.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you think the school being built was part of New Deal programs?

KUGEL: I think it was. And my dad went back to the woods on the property where he and my mom had built their first house, with cherry and oak wood from there. He brought trees and planted them. Every Arbor Day he would plant a tree outside that school building. I think that building has now been torn down. It was a consolidated school for three different townships.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you see any other instances of New Deal programs affecting your community?

KUGEL: Yes. The man that I rode to work with at Westinghouse had a son who joined the CCCs and a good thing that happened to him because he dropped out of 00:40:00school and he went to the CCCs and worked out that way. And several in the community did but not too many. And in my high school graduating class one girl went to Lima Memorial Hospital to become a nurse. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to get away from home. She went there and it was somebody else. Two boys went to Ohio State and then went in the Army, of course, afterwards. One never went. He started trimming windows at Lazarus Department Store. He never had any education beyond the eighth grade, but he succeeded very well and he made a very 00:41:00good living doing that.

RIGELHAUPT: When you describe young people not necessarily finishing high school, or not finishing high school, in looking back do you think that was more common, or was this because of the Depression? The need to go out and work and support a family.

KUGEL: I think they needed to get out and find work if they could, and I think that was the Depression. And, as I say, there were good factories in Lima at that time. There was Westinghouse and there was Lima Locomotive. What was the other? Ohio Power had some. And the state hospital hired people. And that was State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Isn't that awful? But that's what it was. And also near Findlay they raised a lot of tomatoes, and Heinz had a factory there. So there was some work available, but it wasn't very plentiful, 00:42:00and it didn't pay very much.

RIGELHAUPT: And this was during the Depression? All these factories?

KUGEL: During the Depression years, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember any factories or corporations that--other than the bank that closed down during the Depression?

KUGEL: No, I don't. I don't.

RIGELHAUPT: In terms of images that we see of the Depression, bread lines, stories that are commonly told in the country's history now of families needing to share food, did you see that?

KUGEL: No, I did not because we sort of took care of our own, and I think that was a big thing. As I say, we raised what we ate, and there were times when you didn't have whole lot, but you had food. And I can remember when after you butchered and you would--my dad would mix up his own stuff to cure the hams, and 00:43:00then they had to hang and smoke for a while. And then when it got to the middle slice of ham my mother could cut that in eight pieces. So you know they weren't very big.

RIGELHAUPT: So it sounds like in your community the standard of living for most people went down.

KUGEL: It went down. I think it did go down. Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: But it was not the sort of destitution you see in some of the images.

KUGEL: We weren't destitute. And people would go to Indian Lake and fish and bring home fish for dinner. Lake St. Mary's. Not too much because it was pretty windy over there and they were afraid of it and it was deeper than Indian Lake was. And there were those who had dairy farms, and that was a different thing, 00:44:00too, because they could sell the milk.

RIGELHAUPT: Because you had a family connection to the bank, did you ever have a sense that there was any tension from community members towards the bank? If banks were foreclosing, people obviously who were being foreclosed on probably weren't happy. Was there a sense of disconnect between financial institutions such as banks and people living in the community?

KUGEL: I think probably so because my dad always blamed one man in the community for saying he had lied on--he was on the board of directors on the bank and he had manipulated funds so that he got paid and my dad did not, and he accused my father of doing things. Of course, he won. So that was another thing. So I would 00:45:00say there was some animosity in that.

RIGELHAUPT: But there wasn't the kind of images from like It's a Wonderful Life of bank runs?

KUGEL: No, no. It wasn't like that.

RIGELHAUPT: So a more fictionalized account in a movie like that than what you saw.

KUGEL: That's right. Last night we saw Charles Laughton and, what's her name, Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution. And, oh, that's a great movie. We have a lot of old movies here, and I think the people all remember them. But that's when they made good movies. No one gets in bed with people all the time. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: So if we jump forward a little bit out of the Depression. How do you first remember hearing about World War II?

KUGEL: About World War II? Well, some of the children in my class went into the military because that was guaranteed income when they could do that. And we had one family--well, it was the same man who used to kill all the hogs when we butchered. They had five boys, and four of them were in the Army. I remember the 00:47:00first one to be killed, when he came home his mother said, "I didn't open the coffin. I didn't look. If he's not my son, he's somebody son, and I will give him a decent burial." And that's what they did. I can remember that story.

RIGELHAUPT: So families with many siblings. I mean--

KUGEL: Many siblings, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Together serving.

KUGEL: Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: I mean maybe not together but in the service.

KUGEL: They weren't together. And then one of my favorite places to stop, coming home from Waynesfield when I would have to go buy a loaf of bread for eight cents, was at the blacksmith's shop because I loved to watch him shoe horses and use the bellows and pump up the fire. George Agnew, and that was it. He had a son who worked as a funeral director in town. We had one neighbor across the 00:48:00road from us who suddenly decided she would not speak to my mother anymore and I never did figure out why, but they feuded. So I was walking home, and George Agnew stopped and gave me a ride in the hearse and took me down to my driveway, and I got out. Well, she called to see if everything was all right at our house, and it was. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Some of your first memories of World War II are young men from your--

KUGEL: From our community.

RIGELHAUPT: Leaving.

KUGEL: Yes, they did. Came home, most of them did, but not all of them did.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, do you remember hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor?

KUGEL: Pearl Harbor. Yes. Where was I? Now I'm mixed up. Japanese, "made in 00:49:00Japan." We didn't like anything made in Japan. That was taboo really. And Pearl Harbor. I'm going to confuse you with the book that I have here called Women in Wartime that tells where they were during the war. And we have one very good friend here who was stationed--her dad was in the Navy, and they were stationed at Pearl Harbor. And, of course, they couldn't get home. So they were kept inland for a while, and then finally they got on a ship with her dad and they went to San Francisco and had no idea who was there or what they were doing. But at least they got out of Pearl Harbor. We didn't lose anyone in Pearl Harbor.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember, was it on the news? Did you hear about it on the 00:50:00radio? Did you see it in the newspaper?

KUGEL: It would be the newspaper because we didn't have a radio. We did not have a radio. And when I worked at Westinghouse I bought my mom a refrigerator because she had an icebox and that was it. That was what I bought before I went away to school. I'd saved enough money that I could do that, and bought her that. And I had a new red radio that I bought and I took with me when I went to school. But Pearl Harbor, I would say it had to be newspaper. It had to be the newspaper. Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And was there a sense of shock? Do you remember your parents and you talking, as far as reading that paper in the morning, perhaps? That there had been that kind of attack in Pearl Harbor?

KUGEL: No, I don't remember really that they talked much about it. I can remember one conversation that my mom and her brother had about China, saying that they were afraid of what the Chinese were going to do. No, that was the wrong time. That was Chiang Kai-shek, way back. But I can't remember anything more than that. Because I didn't know who he was and I barely knew where China was.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, certainly World War II was a big part of the United States coming out of the Depression.

KUGEL: It was. That's what brought us out really. It's what they thought would do--happen again but it doesn't. High tech is not doing it.

RIGELHAUPT: But I feel like I've read a little bit about--that there was some 00:52:00increase in industrial production before Pearl Harbor and before the US entered World War II. Do you remember things getting better before Pearl Harbor in terms of jobs and the economies?

KUGEL: I do because there was, as I say, the Ohio Power Company, and there was an oil company in Lima, Marathon Oil. And they'd hired and that was where a lot of people worked. So there was nothing in the Waynesfield area or Wapakoneta where I grew up. And Wapak didn't have much of anything. Because it was a county seat and if you weren't in the government you didn't have much. Worked for the railroads. People liked to do that. Because there were three trains that came through there every day. And you could work for the railroads, you could work 00:53:00for the power company, you could work for the state hospital, and those were the main sources of things.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you ever talk with your parents or your siblings or friends about the growing conflict in terms of the potential for the United States to enter war again? In '39 Hitler had--

KUGEL: I don't think so because somehow that surprised us completely I think. And I don't remember if we talked about that.

RIGELHAUPT: So there was a kind of surprise that the US was going to enter World War II?

KUGEL: It was that, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember reading about any of the things happening in Europe or in Asia leading up to World War II?

KUGEL: No, I didn't a whole lot then. No, as I say, I wasn't interested in history. And I don't know what I did.

RIGELHAUPT: Was there any discussion in school?

KUGEL: Not much. Not much that I can recall.

RIGELHAUPT: And so you graduated from high school in--

KUGEL: Forty-one.

RIGELHAUPT: This is actually a good place to pause and change tapes so I'm going to pause for one second.

RIGELHAUPT: I'm on tape number two with Dorothy Kugel and still on May 21, 2012. 00:55:00So while we were paused you had mentioned that African Americans weren't able to purchase gasoline in your county.

KUGEL: That's right. They couldn't buy food, they couldn't buy gasoline. They'd say, "Go on to the next county."

RIGELHAUPT: So does that mean there were no African Americans living in the county?

KUGEL: They were none living in the county. There were none in the county. They weren't allowed. When I worked at Westinghouse I saw my first black people. But before that--it was an elevator operator at one of the department stores in Lima, and he was black. And I think he's probably the first one I ever saw. And then, as I say, the man who swept the floor in the Westinghouse was black.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, so that's actually where I wanted to go next, was to your 00:56:00employment at Westinghouse.

KUGEL: Okay, Westinghouse.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, you said you graduated from high school in 1941. Did you more or less go straight to Westinghouse?

KUGEL: I went straight after my little stint at Woolworth's. Yes. Then I went right to Westinghouse. I started on Saturday. Oh, no, that's after I joined the union. When I joined the union I made more money. United Electrical Workers. And I earned more. Like on Saturday you could get one and a half times your pay if you worked, and on Sunday you got double pay. I was making nearly eighteen dollars an hour when I quit. It hurt to give up that kind of money to go to 00:57:00school, but I knew I had to because I was going to get out. And I probably did not--I was honest but I told the woman who hired me. She was from Waynesfield and her dad had worked with my dad on the school board and so forth. Anybody from Waynesfield who walked in there, she found a job for them, and she was very good to all of us. But I told her I only wanted to work a year because I had to save my money to go on to school, and she said, "Good for you," and she helped me. And she really did. That's right.

RIGELHAUPT: So how did you know to go to Westinghouse to apply for a job? Was it this person--?

KUGEL: My brother-in-law, Lester Smith, worked there. He conducted the band, and 00:58:00that's how he knew about it. And he thought that would be good for me to work there. And he suggested that I talk to Eileen, and I did. As I say, she hired me and that's what we did.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, did you commute from home to the factory?

KUGEL: From home to the factory, yeah. And I drove first with Helen Jacobs and then with Bill Steele, who was the one who used to--I had to drive home for him on Friday nights.

RIGELHAUPT: Because every Friday was payday?

KUGEL: Just about every Friday night I would drive home. His son went into CCC, as I told you. And his sister and my sister were classmates, and they never got along very well together, but they did do one trip together to England during the time that we were there, and they traveled with us. Two more sour women you've never seen in your life. We went to Scotland and of course we had to go 00:59:00to a distillery and have a little bit of scotch. They wouldn't even get off the bus. They just sat there. [laughs] So that's it.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you get a sense when you first started at Westinghouse that they were hiring lots of new people?

KUGEL: Yes, I did. And they kept hiring right along.

RIGELHAUPT: And do you know how people heard about the jobs or the opportunities to work there?

KUGEL: I don't know whether they advertised in the newspaper or not. They might have. Because I do not know. Now, I learned to read before I went to school by reading the letters on the Range Journal in the kitchen, the cook stove, but I 01:00:00never--the Wapakoneta Register, the headlines in the newspapers. I used to read those. And the Lima News, and that was it.

RIGELHAUPT: So Lima was a little bit bigger, right? You said it was about--

KUGEL: Lima was bigger than Wapak, yes. And Lima was more progressive, really. It had more--it had the steel mills, and it had the trains. The locomotives. And Lima local.

RIGELHAUPT: So steel, locomotives and Westinghouse. Lima--

KUGEL: Right. All together they needed those because the dynamotors, once they were finished from Westinghouse, were loaded onto the train and taken to Willow 01:01:00Run, and that's where they where were put in the liberator bombers, the B24s. There's a man here, and I asked him yesterday if he flew bombers, and he said, no, he flew on them but he was not a pilot. He's another one who's a good source. But he likes to play bridge now. He does a lot of that.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, is this something that you noticed as you--well, let me ask the question this way. Did you notice if there were a number of people who had left more rural communities to come and work in Lima at the beginning of World War II?

KUGEL: Yes, they did. Because, as I say, when the farms were so poor and people were losing, poor, and they had no place for their children to work, they would send them to Lima for jobs.

RIGELHAUPT: And was it mostly people in Ohio or was it nationwide?

KUGEL: Well, I don't know about nationwide but it was in Ohio, in that area. Auglaize and Allen County that took care of a lot of them. Lucas County was Toledo, and they didn't have anything up there. Well, Fort Meigs. So that was again military. Now there's a big mosque up in that area.

RIGELHAUPT: So you mentioned that you worked with an African-American man who was a janitor at Westinghouse. But that was one of the first times that you had worked with--

KUGEL: With any blacks.

RIGELHAUPT: Was he only African American working at the factory, or were there more?

KUGEL: No, there were more. But we got to know him. I don't remember what his 01:03:00name was, but he had our floor and he kept it cleaned up. Because there would be little scraps of metal and things on the floor that he always kept swept up so it didn't stick to your feet and carry them home.

RIGELHAUPT: Were there African Americans working in similar jobs as you, or were the different parts of the factory--

KUGEL: No, no. They did not do anything electrical. They did the menial jobs.

RIGELHAUPT: Even if they had been there for a long time or--

KUGEL: That's right.

RIGELHAUPT: The workplace was still segregated?

KUGEL: That's right, it was. And the Ohio Steel Company, for instance. I remember visiting that. And my dad had a cousin who worked one of the trolleys that would take the big bucket of steel up and dump it. And I remember being fascinated by that when I saw it because I just had never seen anything like that.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember working with any other people that had different backgrounds or different religions at Westinghouse?

KUGEL: Yes. I worked with a girl from Ottawa, Ohio, who was Catholic. And she wanted me to come spend a weekend with her, and I did. And my mother said, "You don't have to go to church with her." But then she spent the weekend with me, and her mother very definitely said, "You don't go to church with her because she's Protestant."

RIGELHAUPT: So this was something new to--

KUGEL: That was new.

RIGELHAUPT: --meet people with different religions.

KUGEL: Finding different religions. That was very new to me. And I worked with one woman named Helen Honneger, and she ended up living in Shawnee and going to 01:05:00the same church that my niece did. So she always kept me informed about her. Helen would ask about me and so forth, and that went on just until--a very short time ago she died. She was my age. So that was it.

When I left Westinghouse--when I retired from there to go to school, and I went to Michigan because they accepted physics and I had had physics in high school and not algebra, and they accepted that as a math. So that's why I went there. And we all had to have our pre-employment things, and exams and so forth. And I had to go to Toledo for that, and I met a girl in Bowling Green and, by George, we ended up being very good friends. She and her husband were married the same 01:06:00day we were but a year earlier. She died just last year. But we always kept in touch with her. Phyllis Marsh Dodge. And her dad was the sheriff of Wood County. And so we went down to somebody else's wedding in Findlay, and I had to write on my overnight slip from the nurse's dorm in Ann Arbor where we were going and why. I just said we were going to the Wood County Jail. My housemother wrote back on mine, "Wouldn't hurt you to spend a weekend in jail." [laughs] Probably wouldn't have.

RIGELHAUPT: So staying with your time at Westinghouse for another moment, what do you remember about the union?

KUGEL: I only remember that I got paid very much more by joining the union. And 01:07:00the union dues were not that much. And until we moved here I think I still had my little union label plate. I don't know what happened to it at that point. We probably got rid of it. Or it might be tucked away in a box here because I had a lot of stuff. Genealogy and things that I had no place to put.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, other than being paid better--

KUGEL: I didn't really get anything. I didn't get anything out of that.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you ever go to any union meetings?

KUGEL: No, never went to any union meetings. Didn't have to.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember any of your shop stewards?

KUGEL: Yes, I do remember that. I remember the shop stewards and who they were. And they used to come around and check our work and be sure that we were doing 01:08:00producing and doing what we were supposed to do. I don't remember their names. But one chewed tobacco and used to spit on the floor.

RIGELHAUPT: Did they ever do things like try and make sure that you had a break at the time that you were supposed to have a break or lunch at the time you were supposed to have lunch?

KUGEL: We probably had lunch. I'm not sure. But I carried my lunch, and we had a separate place where we could go and eat. And you could buy soft drinks if you wanted to. But that was expensive and I usually didn't. My mom would pack my lunch in the morning. I had to leave home a little bit after 6:00 in the morning in order to get there and I got home about 4:00 in the afternoon.

RIGELHAUPT: So it was 7:00 am to--

KUGEL: Yes, that's right. We started at 7:00. We started at 7:00.

RIGELHAUPT: Did the factory run twenty-four hours a day?

KUGEL: It did, yes. It did at that point and, of course, those who did work nights earned more. But you had to be twenty-one in order to work nights.

RIGELHAUPT: What would you estimate is the percentage of women that were in the factory?

KUGEL: Women in the factory? Oh, I would say they had all of the office jobs. But in the factory itself I don't think there was any more than a third--not that many. Probably about six.

RIGELHAUPT: But you didn't feel like you were one of a hundred?

KUGEL: No, I didn't feel I was one of a hundred. No.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you and some of your other women coworkers talk about this new 01:10:00experience you were having working in an industrial setting?

KUGEL: I don't know what we talked about. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Did you have a sense that you were doing the work because of the war effort, or was it more personal?

KUGEL: It was more personal, and it was to earn money. Earn money so I could go to the school I wanted to. And that was a big thing. I knew I had to put myself through school, and that's why I wanted to earn as much as I could in the one year's time.

RIGELHAUPT: Was that something that you learned from your parents, from your family members? That this--

KUGEL: Yes. They did not really want me to work in the factory, but they realized that that's what I was going to do and that's how I could do it. And I know on one Sunday afternoon I got home on--when we took our shuttle bus, our 01:11:00carpool to Waynesfield and one of my classmates had saved enough money that he could buy a motorcycle. And he was there, and he took me home on his motorcycle, which was just about a mile away. And my mother saw me ride up on that, and she said when I got in the house, "You don't have to do that again." She was not subtle.

RIGELHAUPT: So part of the World War II story is rationing.

KUGEL: There was rationing, yes. And when we went to Ann Arbor, we had to turn in our rationing books.

RIGELHAUPT: But it sounds as though you were commuting a fair distance to get to Westinghouse.

KUGEL: It was about fourteen miles.

RIGELHAUPT: Was there ever a concern that your ride would be able to buy the 01:12:00gasoline he needed and have the tires he needed?

KUGEL: No, we could do that. As I say, he had a new car, and took very good care of it. As long as he didn't have to drive on Friday afternoon.

RIGELHAUPT: And do you remember rationing at home in terms of butter and sugar or things like that?

KUGEL: No, because I was in Ann Arbor at that time. But we did have to turn in our ration books, and we were rationed. On Sunday evening supper we had a little cup of peanut butter with honey in it. You could make your own sandwich. Because they considered that we worked for our room and board. I paid $110 tuition at the University of Michigan for the three years. You cannot do that today. But I 01:13:00loved being on surgery and being on call because at the end of that you always got to go down to the diet kitchen and help yourself. You could open up those big refrigerators and find all sorts of goodies in there. Meat and milk and things that you weren't allowed to have upstairs. Because we very definitely were limited in what you could have. And what else?

RIGELHAUPT: So could you describe your first day arriving in Ann Arbor?

KUGEL: My first day arriving in Ann Arbor. Yes, I could because my sister drove me up, my older sister Alice. We stopped in Toledo and had lunch with Bill Heffner and his mother. He's the one whose brother had just gone overseas. And Bill did the cooking. And I don't remember what we had, but anyhow he fed us. 01:14:00Then we went on from there, and he got there about mid-afternoon and went to Couzens Hall, which is where we were being housed. And it was on East Ann Street across from the University Hospital.

I met two people there, women who--I've been friends with them for a long time afterwards. And one night one married a full-time military person and spent a lot of time in Japan with him at the Army of Occupation. And yes, that's what it would be, wouldn't it. And who else? Oh, I know. Maryann Parmenter was there, and she was a--her husband had worked at Westinghouse when I did, and I knew him 01:15:00but I had not met Maryann until then. She was from Grand Rapids. Her best friend is also from Grand Rapids, and she married a minister. What denomination is that? Anyhow, his father was a greenskeeper at the country club in that area; he came from England. This boy was told that if he did not smoke until he was twenty-one he would get a car. So he started smoking, of course, the day after he got his car. Philipson was his name. He was in the hospital at one point for something, and I took care of him. I remember that.

But I worked in maternity mostly, which I dearly liked, and that's where I met my husband, in the OB hospital, which is now the Dean's Office for the University. The new dean of the School of Nursing is housed in the delivery room where I had my first child. I had had three spontaneous--they were called spontaneous abortions. Three miscarriages at that time. And I was put on thyroid, and I kept on all this time since. But that way at least I could hang on to a pregnancy. Oh, I know. When I was in the labor room, men were not 01:17:00allowed in the labor room. No fathers in the labor or delivery room. And the nurse who was in charge was Sister Anastasia. I remember that because it was a Catholic hospital. So I said something about could Bob come in and she said, "No, no men are allowed," and I said, "Well, this isn't the first time I've had a miscarriage," and she said, "Having him in here would not mean you would have a live baby." I remember that. So she left, and the second nurse came in and said, "She's gone to mass now, so he can come in during the time she's gone." And he did. Because he had not been at home when I was. We lived in a farmhouse outside Ann Arbor when we were married. It had been the resting place for all the pediatricians as they came through. And after one would leave then the next 01:18:00one would graduate, and they would come here. It was on Zeeb Road. Z-E-E-B. They had a dog named Sally Ann, and Sally Ann used to stay at the bottom of the stairs and growl. Bob hated her. Anyhow, Ed Zeeb died of ulcerative colitis and cancer of the gut.

RIGELHAUPT: So when you first get to Ann Arbor, was the School of Nursing--did you take classes with students who were just there to study history, or did you go right in?

KUGEL: Yes. We took classes. We had classes on the main medical campus. And we also had ward assignments. So we would have a ten-bed ward where you were 01:19:00supposed to give everybody a bath and be in class at 10:00 o'clock in the morning. I missed most of pharmacology because I could never get there in time. I can remember another time when I was supposed to be passing medications, and I was counting out the pills, and a woman was a Polish Michigan graduate from Detroit, Hamtramck, and she said something to me and I guess I smiled. She said, "Wipe that smile off your face." And I said, "If I don't smile, I'll cry." And she didn't say anything after that for a while. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Other than the nursing classes, do you remember any other favorite classes while you were at Michigan?

KUGEL: When I was at Michigan? No. But I had nothing but nursing. And then when 01:20:00we left there--that goes on, on, on, getting back to Nebraska. We were married in Ann Arbor at the--across the street from the Phi Chi Fraternity House in the Presbyterian church. [tape pauses]

RIGELHAUPT: Before we paused you were talking about that your husband got to be in the delivery room because the nurse left.

KUGEL: Then I had worked for this obstetrician after I worked in the labor and delivery room, and then I went to work in his office. The head nurse in OB/GYN said, "What's he going to pay you, peanuts?" And I said, "I don't know." But he paid me more than I was earning at the hospital. And then he was not on call the 01:21:00weekend, of course, when my first one was born. And so when she was delivered--Walt Belsner was the doctor--I said, "That is Rebecca," and he said, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." I said, "That's right." [laughs] Well, she started calling herself Monte way down the road, sixth grade in a private school in Providence, Rhode Island, because we moved there. That was several moves later because Bob was in academic medicine, and we moved many times. So I've had a lot of acquaintances in a lot of places.

But I've always ended up doing something someplace and I've been the Girl Scout cookie chairman. What else have I done? Lived down the street from Warren Buffett, and that was a good one. He never knew me, but I had dinner with Warren 01:22:00many times at a mutual friend's house. That friend's husband died when he fell down--had a stroke and fell down the stairs and he was unable to speak and didn't last much longer than that. But we still keep in touch. She's the only one that I do write to, and that's once a year. But she has great-grandchildren now.

One move that he made was New York for medical college and that was in New York City. We lived out in Armonk, New York, and that's when I started doing home nursing. Before that time, Michigan grandfathered in all of the diploma nurses, 01:23:00because that's what I was. And they said we had a master's in nursing. And that's when I started back to school; that was in Omaha. I had eighteen hours towards my MBA, and we moved twice so I never went back to school. I started at the University of Kansas, and the man who was the Provost there said, "It's unbecoming for the wife of the dean to be working. You will stay at home."

RIGELHAUPT: What year was this?

KUGEL: This was in about nineteen--oh, shucks. I need Bob's writing because he has all this stuff written out. If I think long enough maybe I can come up with the answer to that one. It was--

RIGELHAUPT: But this was after leaving Ann Arbor?

KUGEL: It was after leaving Ann Arbor.

RIGELHAUPT: And you said you were there for a decade. So--

KUGEL: We were there for ten years. After we left Ann Arbor we went to--did we go to the southwest then? I think we did. We went to another place where they were starting a medical school. He was great for start-ups and things. They always just sort of got the wrong touch because whoever hired him would be leaving. We went to New Mexico, Albuquerque, and the man who had been chairman 01:25:00was a Michigan graduate whose name was Farrell Heady. Of course, three months after we were there he decided he was resigning. So he left and Bob had no support from there. So we left there and went to Kansas. A man at Kansas tried to recruit me to sell life insurance, and I learned more about life insurance than I'd ever known in my life. But that's when I was told that I would stay home. So it's been "keep the women out of things." It really has been.

RIGELHAUPT: If I could ask you to reflect for a moment on that experience in 01:26:00Kansas. Because part of what historians have written about in terms of women entering the industrial workforce during World War II is that it was a transformative experience. And I'm wondering, do you think you reacted differently to someone saying you shouldn't work outside of the home because you had already been an experienced nurse and had worked at Westinghouse? That you had worked quite literally a man's job.

KUGEL: I had done men's jobs, yes, I had, and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. But we lived across the street from the Mission Hills Golf Course, and Mrs. Russell Stover would have a freight carload of salt water 01:27:00brought in once a month to put in her swimming pool behind her house. Ewing Kaufman, K-A-U-F-M-A-A-N, the next door neighbor, came over and brought our dinner the first night we were there and a glass--a bottle of wine and we never saw him again. Because right next door to us was a nice couple and they were both graduates of Davidson College, which is in North Carolina, I believe. And they had a son there. And they had a dog whose name was Brows because he had big blond eyebrows. And Brows liked us and we liked Brows. Plus we also had a German 01:28:00Shepherd that came to our house and needed something to eat. And he was a long time before he would ever let us touch him but he did finally. And so we took care of him until he chased somebody on the golf course because he thought they were on his property. So our veterinarian said his wife liked dogs--she was alone a lot--and he would be happy to take her home. So he did. And she had a wonderful name. I can't remember what it was. But anyhow, they took the dog.

RIGELHAUPT: So to go back to Ann Arbor and your first starting there. Did you have a similar experience as you had had at Westinghouse, where you were working 01:29:00with people who were different religious backgrounds, perhaps different races. That you were working with lots of different people and meeting new people, new people with different backgrounds at Michigan.

KUGEL: Yes, I did. And people of different backgrounds. We all worked pretty well together because we worked in teams oftentimes. And we'd get reassigned every two months, something like that. Three months on a service. Like three months on OB, two months on orthopedics. I was in the orthopedics clinic first, and I liked it so I'd stayed there for a while. And I didn't so much meet different backgrounds there as I did when we went from Ann Arbor to Greenwich, 01:30:00Connecticut. There I had more because I did geriatrics home nursing. There I really did get into everything and into the swells of back country Greenwich. There you would go where they had absolutely no help whatsoever. Or you would go where there was a full staff of maids and butlers and all of the top-notch stuff.

But I worked for General Motors, and I like to say General Motors funded by Ira, because Albert Bradley. After that I had--the one who taught "management by intimidation." He was the second chairman of General Motors. He just had a 01:31:00massive stroke. I knew that's what he was going to do, and he did. He used to go to Florida in the wintertime, and then they came back--well, Marina Del Rey. Everybody went there. They had a whole little General Motors enclave down there. But he came back with a housekeeper, and she used to crawl in bed with him to keep him warm. [laughs] Quite a housekeeper. But his wife was diabetic, and she just absolutely ignored the life, and died of a diabetic coma, before I got on the scene but I know that's what happened. Then after that we came down here. I never got licensed in Virginia because I decided I'd had enough of that.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, when you were in Ann Arbor, to stay back there for just a 01:32:00moment, were there African Americans in the nursing school?

KUGEL: No. We had one girl, and she dropped out after about six weeks. She didn't get beyond that point. But she was the only one. And now since then they've had an African-American dean and they've had all sorts of people. Florence Dungee, she was ahead of me one year, and she went to the School of Public Health in Detroit. She died of kidney disease a short time after she was there. But that's it. They did not have any. So I think I've seen a lot of racism, and I'm convinced that's what our President is facing right now. I really and truly think it is.

RIGELHAUPT: But was Ann Arbor more racially mixed in terms of people that lived 01:33:00there than where you had grown up in Ohio?

KUGEL: Yeah, it was. It was.

RIGELHAUPT: Was there an African-American section of town in the sense of--even though lived in the city but was there--

KUGEL: Yes. It was sort of down by the railroad track.

RIGELHAUPT: And it was known to people that was a kind of African-American--

KUGEL: And you knew that's where it was. But there wasn't a whole lot said about it so it didn't--in Ypsilanti, I don't know. But that was always sort of looked down upon, and it was not the same caliber as Ann Arbor. But if you wanted a drink you had to go in to another county because they didn't--Ann Arbor was dry, and Washtenaw County was dry. With students you can't do that, you can't have those. [laughs] Except for the Pretzel Bell, which was across from the doctor's 01:34:00office where I worked. Well, they served beer and only beer, but that was the hangout for everybody. You bought it by the pitcher when you drank, and that's where I learned an awful lot of songs and a lot of drinking. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: So I'm curious about Ann Arbor during the war years, a college town. Did it have a similar boon in the sense of--was the university expanding? Did they build new buildings while you were there? Did the medical school and the nursing school expand to serve the nation's needs?

KUGEL: The medical school had started to expand. The rapid treatment center was where they treated only syphilitics. This was Udo Wile, and he had perfected the 01:35:00penicillin treatment for syphilis. And that has been torn down since. All of those things on Catherine Street are gone. Couzens Hall is co-ed housing now. One of my classmates had a grandson who lived in Couzens Hall, and that was strictly the girls' dorm. The women's hospital has been torn down, and a new women's hospital is being built, for student nurses. I didn't think they needed to that fast, but they apparently thought they did. So that it has changed considerably.

We haven't been back since Bob's fiftieth reunion. Did I show you that thing? His medallion hanging up there? And that was what he got. And he's going to have 01:36:00somebody come talk to him about the medical school because they want to do a history, too, oral history, and they should. They should. What does he remember about things? Yes. When we were first married we lived in the upstairs of a farmhouse, which was in the middle of an apple orchard. That has all changed. That's nothing but university expansion out there now.

RIGELHAUPT: How did you meet your husband?

KUGEL: How'd I meet him? In the OB department. He was on call as an intern--his last day of pediatrics internship and I was working afternoons, 3:00 to 11:00 01:37:00and no one in labor. So it was very quiet and we could just talk and that's what we did. And he told me sometimes afterward, which I did not ever sus--I suspected something was wrong but I didn't know. The woman who always worked nights as a nurse in the OB department, they always gave the women morphine after they'd had a baby, and she would not quite put all of it in the patient. She'd take it herself. And apparently she'd been doing that for some time actually. That's why she worked nights so she could do this.

RIGELHAUPT: What was courtship like? What was dating like?

KUGEL: Well, courtship, we went to--we would go to Detroit to hear Pat Flowers, who was a black pianist, jazz pianist. We'd carpool with Rudy Reicharts, whose father was the president of the Omaha National Bank. He had a car and no one 01:38:00else did. But he would drive, and we would go into Detroit and hear Pat Flowers. And that was wonderful stuff. We went to Detroit on the bus to hear the opera, which I thought was an awful way to go. It was Butterfly, and he cried. And I thought, "Oh, what is this?" [laughs] Most of the dates were walking or going to other people's houses. Football games on Saturday; we always went to football games. And he said after we got married he didn't have to go to any more football games.

RIGELHAUPT: So a lot of your social life was around the University?

KUGEL: It was around the University. Yeah, it really was. As I say, the people 01:39:00we worked with are the ones that we saw afterwards and ran around with. And we used to go to the Russian Bear in Detroit, which is another good place to eat. Not he and I but the girls would go there. And we had one Jewish friend whose name was Sarokin. S-A-R-O-K-I-N. And she would call her mother and always reverse the charges. And she would say, "Operator, this is Sarokin." Then she'd get on the phone. "Hello, Mama," and the Yiddish would flow and none of us could understand her. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Was that something that was noteworthy, unusual, that there was a Jewish student at--

KUGEL: Yes, it was. It was. Because they didn't have Jewish kids in class.

RIGELHAUPT: At Michigan?

KUGEL: At Michigan, yes}. They did not have. And let's see. You could either send your laundry home or you could do it in the basement. And they had one washing machine and one dryer. You sort of had to take your turn if you wanted to do your laundry there.

RIGELHAUPT: Was that true throughout the nursing school and medical school? Were there more--?

KUGEL: The medical school--Bob was an intern, was paid fifty dollars a month. And out of that, they had to pay forty for room and board. And that gave him ten dollars a month, which was all they had.

RIGELHAUPT: But in terms of Jewish students. Were there more Jewish--well, at this point I don't know if it's a safe presumption. Was everyone in the medical school a man?

KUGEL: I think there were three women. I think there were three women, maybe four.

RIGELHAUPT: In terms of a class of--

KUGEL: The whole school. The whole school. In his graduating class I think there were three women. And I think there was only one other Jewish person. That was Burt somebody. But anyhow, I think he was the only one.

RIGELHAUPT: And did that change over the decade you were at Ann--?

KUGEL: It changed over the time. Yes, it has. There are a lot more Jewish people now and, of course, a lot more women are in school.

RIGELHAUPT: You said you were in Ann Arbor from 1942 to 1952. By the time you left did you notice if there were more women in medical school, more Jews?

KUGEL: No, that wasn't as noticeable in Michigan as it was later when we went to 01:42:00Nebraska. It was very evident then. And, of course, the regents did not want women in medical school. But the assistant dean was a woman. They got her to go with them to Lincoln to meet with the regents and tell them that there was good reason to have women in the medical school and that's--

RIGELHAUPT: And do you know about what year this was?

KUGEL: I should know. I didn't write down things like that.

RIGELHAUPT: Sixties, somewhere in the--

KUGEL: Sixties. Robert? When were you in Ann Arbor and when did we go to Omaha? Is your vitae in your desk? That has all this stuff written out. We want to be accurate.

RIGELHAUPT: While he's looking, do you know if, or remember hearing if the expansion in Ann Arbor--well, actually, let me come back to this question. In terms of the medical school and the nursing school, a lot of what we hear about World War II is about rationing, about buying war bonds. There was a real sense of serving the country from lots of different ways. People had Victory gardens, 01:44:00those sorts of things.

KUGEL: Oh, yes. Yeah.

RIGELHAUPT: Was there a sense in the nursing school, in the medical school, that you were practicing new techniques or being trained in a certain way that it was going to serve the war effort and support the country during World War II?

KUGEL: I remember a great big fat cookbook that I had that we sold, The Victory Cookbook, and that was on the market at one of the bookstores in Ann Arbor. And what else?

RIGELHAUPT: But there wasn't a discussion about practicing new types of emergency medicine or--

KUGEL: No, that really came with M*A*S*H and that was the new--I think it did more to revolutionize medicine than anything else because that's when they 01:45:00learned a lot of different techniques. Yes. Emergency medicine. And they're going to show that again here next Friday night.

RIGELHAUPT: Were there any housing shortages in Ann Arbor? That a lot of people were moving there, that it was booming during the war?

KUGEL: Yes, there were, because. Willow Run. Willow Run is what brought in the housing. And we had--again, with Chuck Newton, who was the obstetrician, one of his patients came--one woman who came to him was from the Kaiser Permanente Group, from Kaiser Medical. She, of course, told all of her chums. Then we got a whole bunch of them after that. And they moved out to Barton Hills, which was 01:46:00the more exclusive part of town. It was outside of Main--where Main Street, Ann Arbor.

RIGELHAUPT: So could you say more about the Kaiser connection? How did the Kaisers end up in Ann Arbor?

KUGEL: The Kaisers ended up in Ann Arbor because of Willow Run. That's where they ended up in Ann Arbor when they came there. But they quickly moved. They were from the Pacific Northwest, and then they moved to--well, they came to Ann Arbor and moved to Barton Hills. I don't know where they went from there. That's 01:47:00where they came in. Sue Kaiser was the wife of Henry Senior, and I remember her as a patient. The other woman, I can't remember her name right now, but she was the first one to come. Then the rest of them followed, and then they all took hold down there.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, one of the things the Kaisers are famous for during World War II is starting the employee health care plan.

KUGEL: Yes, they did. They started the employee health care plan. They had Kaiser Permanente hospitals all around here, and a lot of people here belong to the Kaiser plan.

RIGELHAUPT: But was it ever talked about at Michigan in the nursing school or medical school, this idea of a new prepaid health plan?

KUGEL: No, it never was. It never was. It came strictly after the war.

RIGELHAUPT: Could you say more about what you saw in terms of a health care plan after the war that might have been influenced by the Kaiser?

KUGEL: It might have been because the Kaiser family came to Ann Arbor Hospital, the University hospital, for their health care. And then they went and started the plan. They started the health care plan.

RIGELHAUPT: But there wasn't any discussion for nurses or doctors that you guys might have prepaid--

KUGEL: No, we didn't talk about it then.

RIGELHAUPT: It was still fee for service?

KUGEL: The doctors in the medical school, I know they were against it because they said it was socialized medicine and that they did not want this. A man named Furstenberg, AC Furstenberg, was the dean of--the president of the hospital association, and he did not want anything to do with Kaiser because of that, because we don't want socialized medicine.

RIGELHAUPT: And that was talked about in the 1940s.

KUGEL: And that was talked about in the forties, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And was it those exact words? Like "socialized medicine"? It was--

KUGEL: That's right. That was a bad phrase. That's what they had in England, wasn't it, at that time? "We don't want that" and "we don't want anything that this is going to bring."

RIGELHAUPT: Do you think this was connected to a broader sentiment during the early stages of the Cold War? That there was, well, a kind of anti-socialist, anti-communist--?

KUGEL: It could be. It could be that that was it.

RIGELHAUPT: But did you ever hear any doctors or colleagues in the nursing school talking in favor of something like the Kaiser plan?

KUGEL: No, never heard anything about it. They did not talk about it.

RIGELHAUPT: I'm going to pause because I got to change tapes.

RIGELHAUPT: I'm on tape number three with Dorothy Kugel. You grabbed some records just to confirm what year, and we confirmed that it was 1976 in Kansas that you were told that you were not supposed to work.

KUGEL: Yes.

RIGELHAUPT: And that came from high levels of the university?

KUGEL: That's right. Unbecoming for a woman to be selling life insurance or doing any kind of work.

RIGELHAUPT: This was in Lawrence, Kansas, correct?

KUGEL: Well, Kansas City was the medical school. So that's where we lived, yes.

RIGELHAUPT: Was there any sense of pushback on campus or among nurses or doctors to sentiment like that? That a woman shouldn't be working?

KUGEL: No, there really wasn't, except most universities would not hire a woman if her husband was on the staff. And the husbands always had precedent. We had a couple here, for instance. Carl Serni and his wife, Connie was a nurse and graduated. Was early in the Nurse Corps in World War II and in fact got her plot 01:52:00down in Arlington for that reason. But Carl was at Georgetown, and they would not let her work at Georgetown because he was there on the staff. This they did in Kansas, also. If you had a wife on the faculty you couldn't have the husband there. You just did not do this. You couldn't have two from the same family.

RIGELHAUPT: Was it common or do you know other people that met their spouses working together at Michigan or other places?

KUGEL: A good many of them did. A lot of them in graduate school before they ever started working. People in my class, for instance, a lot of them did it. 01:53:00And my best friend who was from Nebraska but went to Michigan nursing; she dated a young man who was with the marching band at Michigan. He wrote all of the fight songs. You know, "Da-da-da-de-la-da-da-da-da-da. Fight." And he wrote those. Caleb Warner. He lived next door to General Patton in Massachusetts. I remember that.

When Bob retired from medicine, the Army needed developmental pediatricians, so that's when we went to Germany for three years. And thoroughly enjoyed it. I went to the Volkshauptschule and took German and started at the University of 01:54:00Maryland and decided I'd have to study too hard. I wanted to have time to do things in Germany. So I went to the Volkshauptschule, and it was really much more fun because we had people from everywhere, and especially the Turks coming in to work in the tobacco fields because there was a lot of tobacco raised in that part of Germany, which is--we were not too far from the Rhine River. Speyer, S-P-E-Y-E-R, was the name of the town. They had a big cathedral there. I remember going Easter Sunday, and I thought I would freeze. I had on my fur coat. But it was cold. And then we would go to the Oktoberfests and all that sort of thing. But mostly just go to various little towns around, on weekends go 01:55:00somewhere. We joined the Mannheim ski club because they went to all sorts of interesting places. And ski resorts in Switzerland and France. We'd go on the bus and you'd take your supper and your bottle and ride the bus down. Of course, you had to get off at the border going into Switzerland, but that was all right. The driver had to have half an hour time so you'd walk around there, there were all these things to buy, and then get back on the bus and pull into your destination in time to sleep a little bit before going out to hit the slopes in the morning. And we did try skiing and decided no longer. And cross country, we did a little bit of that. But you'd get these people who were so fast and they'd 01:56:00shove you out of the way, just like they did on the Autobahn.

RIGELHAUPT: If I could jump back again to Ann Arbor and then even maybe go forward a little bit in terms of what you saw. So we talked a little bit about during the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC, perhaps a kind of Works Progress Administration. Perhaps your school was built. Was there a sense that the federal government became more involved in the medical and nursing professions during World War II?

KUGEL: Let me think. I can't think that the nurses were, except in World War II they all got--if you got accepted into the military you had--it was good pay. It 01:57:00was good pay and a chance to travel for the most part and to a part of the country you hadn't seen before. But I don't think there was any great pressure to join. Can't remember that there was. Because they needed people--oh, I know; there was a big unit went over from Ann Arbor, and it had nurses, anesthetists and doctors. They were based in England, but this was in--I don't remember what the number was, 105th or something like that. But they all stayed together there, and it was a rescue group that brought them in. That's why the student nurses had to run the hospital, because they lost all their staff people. They had gone overseas. So we got pushed into doing things that we never had done 01:58:00before and never would. They used to say, "Do one, see one, teach one." And that's what we did anytime.

RIGELHAUPT: So it sounds like there was a lot of experimentation? That you had to make do with what--

KUGEL: You made do. You made do. And you learned to do--improvised equipment. That's what we had. And a lot of it.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, in terms of what you experienced at the nursing school, it sounds like it was changed by the war. That you had to make do with things. What were--?

KUGEL: You had to make do and you--for instance, you had catheters that you would boil. If they burned dry, oh, that was--or rectal tubes. And for enemas, those all got boiled up. And then some things were sterilized in bichloride of mercury. And these things all got reused. Intravenous stuff got reused. You had 01:59:00to do it because you couldn't get new things.

RIGELHAUPT: So what would you talk about as an example of something going well in terms of making do?

KUGEL: Making do? I learned to organize. You learn to organize. And I can still organize a lot better than he can. I had to find this; he can't. He's having more and more trouble with dementia, on medication for such right now. And I have somebody come in in the morning for two hours so I have a little time to myself. And it's a big help. And he takes him out to exercise, and they walk and they'll go to the bank for me. They'll do this, that and the other, go to the pharmacy if I need it. And I need it more than he needs it.

RIGELHAUPT: But making do then during the war in the nursing school had to have 02:00:00been difficult. Can you recall something that maybe didn't go so well?

KUGEL: Something that didn't go so well. I don't know. I know I almost flunked out, but then when it got to the history of nursing I got an A in that, and I won so many honor points that I was home free from then on. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Some of the things that happened during World War II that were new in terms of world history, right. How do you remember hearing about the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

KUGEL: Okinawa. How did we hear about that? Did that come first?

RIGELHAUPT: The use of the atomic bombs in Japan.

KUGEL: Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think. The use of the atomic bomb in Japan. One of my very good friends in Ann Arbor was a neighbor and a friend, Jim Musselman, and he was on the Baatan Death March. Jim would never wear shorts because his legs were so deeply scarred from having been beaten. He just never would, and it was his kids who finally told us that was it. He had one daughter who went to medical school, and she didn't want him to know that because she knew he 02:02:00wouldn't want her to go. So she got her degree in agriculture at the University of Nebraska and then transferred to Michigan Medical and graduated from there and, of course, married a physician. But she hasn't practiced since because she retired.

RIGELHAUPT: But do you remember hearing about the atomic bombs in the newspaper?

KUGEL: I'm trying to think where I heard about the atomic bomb. I can't remember.

RIGELHAUPT: But that's helpful to know that it might be different than television news now.

KUGEL: Yeah, it is. It would have to be the newspaper that we have.

RIGELHAUPT: Let me ask about that. In terms of hearing about the war, was it different as you look back to learn about what was going on in World War II 02:03:00without a television?

KUGEL: Yes, it was, because you had to depend upon the newspaper or the radio and that's all you could hear. Radio news maybe once a day. And that was it.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember how you learned about the Holocaust?

KUGEL: Yes. When we were in Germany we visited Dachau, and that's how we learned about that. And we visited the Holocaust thing. And I have a cousin who is married to a historian, and he has specialized in the Holocaust stuff. Was on the board at the Holocaust museum here for a while, and they are so short of funds right now that they got down to the place where they only met once a year. 02:04:00And she used to come with him and spend time with me and we did a lot of genealogical stuff together that way. I can show you his book if you'd like to see it because it's right next door.

RIGELHAUPT: Okay, after. So how do you remember hearing about the end of the war?

KUGEL: The end of the war. Well, I know that because I was working at maternity then. And two boys--boys, they were young men in internships--they had gone on the extern staff, as they called them, and they were there. One lived in Detroit. His parents came out, and his mother was from Canada originally, and his father was a physician and they were from--he was from Detroit, I think. And anyhow, they came out with a bottle of booze, and that's what they did. They 02:05:00celebrated the end of the war that night and they went back into--yeah, they went back to Detroit and stayed after driving out to Ann Arbor.

RIGELHAUPT: Did you continue working in maternity, in OB right after the war?

KUGEL: I did right after the war. I continued to work there. And not until we went to Omaha and I went back to school, that's when I started doing MBA stuff and got interested in the business world and found it much more lucrative. Because I learned a lot about investing and had a good mentor who taught the course in money and investing at Nebraska. And I used to call him when we'd gone 02:06:00to Mexico, New Mexico, and talk to him, and he would tell me what I should do and what I should buy and so forth. And he was very helpful.

RIGELHAUPT: So did you stay in maternity, in OB for a few years after the war?

KUGEL: After the war, no, not for very much. Not for very much.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, part of the reason I was asking is we hear about the baby boom starting right after.

KUGEL: Starting right after. Yes. Well, they did have a lot of those and that we had. And I was at the old maternity hospital for that. Where we had run out of bed space and they agitated with the state legislator for money, to get more money to build a new maternity hospital, which they did. And now I think they're 02:07:00even on another new maternity hospital. They only last about fifty years, it seems, or forty-five years, and then they're gone. That old hospital had a grand entrance in front, and that's completely gone now.

RIGELHAUPT: It sounds like it was hard on the nursing staff, perhaps the doctors as well. The baby boom. You were ill equipped to handle right after the war.

KUGEL: We couldn't handle it all. No, we could not.

RIGELHAUPT: Do you remember some of the ways you made do with not enough space and lots of babies being born? In the sense of what you learned from World War II.

KUGEL: One of the things that we learned was you no longer stay in bed for eight days after a baby's born. Because you used to "dangle on your eighth day, get up on your ninth day, and go home on your tenth day" in the hospital after one baby. And goodness sakes, now you do well to get in overnight. So that was a big 02:08:00change. That I think is probably the biggest change that came about.

RIGELHAUPT: And the shorter hospital stay after having a baby was because of a shortage of space?

KUGEL: It was in the beginning. I think it was. I think that had a lot to do with it. Plus a great number of people coming in, and they just didn't have room for them.

RIGELHAUPT: Now, did you have children while you were still--? Not as a nursing student. This is after.

KUGEL: We didn't have any children until three years after we were married. Our oldest is going to be sixty in August this year, and she's this one. The 02:09:00historian at UC Riverside. And then the second one was born in London when we were in the Air Force. And the third one was born in Iowa City and worked for Tom Harkin, and then she worked for--she was sixteen years on the Hill and then she went with the National Democratic Institute for European Affairs and has been in the various 'stans and the Ukraine twice and there for the Velvet Revolution. She's had some exciting things, Moldova, Nigeria was her last post. They were so happy to get her out of Nigeria, and she was happy to get out of there, too. But now they don't want her unless she'll go to Afghanistan, and she said, "I don't believe in that war." So she's unemployed. Living off the "Bank 02:10:00of Mom," which a lot of them do in this place, I have discovered. There are a number of them who do have a little help from the parents. I'm just glad we can do it.

RIGELHAUPT: Were there other organizations you became involved with in Ann Arbor during the war? You mentioned earlier that church life was a big part of growing up.

KUGEL: It was a big part of growing up, yes. And in Ann Arbor, no. We went to the--it was on that triangle of land going out of town. What was that church? The Presbyterian church. That's where we were married. But we didn't go to anything there.

RIGELHAUPT: So when you moved there as a student, becoming involved with the 02:11:00church wasn't a--

KUGEL: That was not. No, that wasn't that important. No, I didn't really do anything again in the church until we got to Armonk, New York, and that was a Congregational church and that, again--it was called Act Two. We collected old clothes and sold them and did a lot of things like that. The minister had been a next-door neighbor in Omaha.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, I feel like we have covered most of my questions. And the way I like to end is to ask two more questions, which are, first, is there anything I should have asked and I didn't, and two, is there anything you would like to add?

KUGEL: Anything I would like to add. Well, in Ann Arbor I lived with the roommate that I had for a long time. We were on the corner of Forest and Washtenaw but south of Ann Arbor and right where the road turns. The upstairs of what looks like just an ordinary house but there were really four apartments in that house, and we lived upstairs. She wanted to buy a car. Across the hall from us, one of the girls--they were all nurses; we all happened to be nurses--and one across the hall had a boyfriend who worked for Ford Motor as an engineer, and he could buy cars. So he arranged for her to get a car. She didn't have money, and I let her borrow, and she paid me back. [laughter] And then she joined the Army afterwards and went overseas.

Another girl who had been a good friend of ours was killed in Wiesbaden in an automobile accident. She had been drinking heavily. Came down the hill and missed the curve, and there was a tree right in the middle of the road. I've seen that spot, where it is, and she hit it head on. She was the only one who was injured, but she was killed. And there were two other passengers in the car, and nothing happened to them. So that was hard to take. Her parents lived in a suburb of Detroit. She used to write two or three letters at one time and then sign at different times and mail them at different times so they thought they had a letter from her just before she died, but it wasn't. It was more long ago than that. [laughs]

RIGELHAUPT: Well, again, I think we've covered all of my questions. So if 02:14:00there's not anything else you'd like to add in terms of your work experiences in World War II, other thoughts you've had on the home front--

KUGEL: Right. Well, as I say, when I worked for General Motors in Connecticut, back country Greenwich, I had Rockefellers, I had General Motors, I had a lot of a group of patients and wealthy people. George C. Scott used to ride back there on his horse. And I got to know all these folks. And Leona Helmsley. She was there.

RIGELHAUPT: Was this something you could have anticipated when you were in nursing school?

KUGEL: No, I had no idea. No idea they were--but they paid extremely well and that's what you needed. But Mrs. Bradley, for instance, always said, "Come swim 02:15:00in my pool; no one else does." Well, she had her own little pool houses down there where we'd change. And I learned to walk again after having my hip surgery there. So that was in '85 that I had the first hip replaced, and then in '95 I had a revision here, and it's held up so far. So we hope it'll keep going. And my internist has ordered a bone density test, and that will be a week from--last week in the middle of June is when I'm going to have that. So we'll see how long I can keep holding up. At eighty-nine I'm not sure. Some days I wonder.

RIGELHAUPT: Well, holding up for a long time I think would be a nice way.

KUGEL: You think that'd be--

RIGELHAUPT: A nice way.

KUGEL: I do, too.

RIGELHAUPT: And I'll turn off there if there's nothing else you'd like to add.

KUGEL: Okay. I think that I could probably let it go.

RIGELHAUPT: Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much.

KUGEL: Well, I thank you very much because I think this has been fun.

[End of Interview]