Gloria Magleby | Interview 1 | July 9, 2010

ARBONA: This is Javier Arbona, and I'm here with Gloria Magleby on July 9, 2010. We're here today for an oral history interview. You were just mentioning that you wanted to start with--

MAGLEBY: Coming to California.

ARBONA: Coming to California. And that's actually the same thing I had on my outline. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

MAGLEBY: I will indeed. I was born in Southern Utah. My father was a contractor and we moved around a little bit in Utah, and then ended up in Elko, Nevada, where my father was a contractor and built houses there. Then came 1941. December 7, 1941, and there came the Pearl Harbor debacle. That was a terrible 00:01:00thing to happen. I lost a cousin in that bombing of Pearl Harbor, but it changed our lives, and of course it changed the lives of everybody in America. It's interesting because--I'm just going to throw this in--the number of people killed at Pearl Harbor on that bombing escapade of the Japanese at that time was almost the same number that were killed on 9/11 at New York. That's just plain interesting to me because when it happened, we heard it on the news of course. And it was a Sunday. It was a little scary, very scary, especially when we realized that we had a cousin that was killed, who was in the Navy band at Pearl Harbor.

But that started the move to California. My father found work in California and 00:02:00the entire family came here. Now entire family at that time was only two children, and that was me and my twin brother and my mother and father, although I had four other siblings at the time. But they were older and married and moved their way. But they all ended up in California anyway. So, 1941 was the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and that started the movement of our family to Pittsburg, California. And we said Pittsburg because this is unincorporated area where I live now named Bay Point, but at the time we moved we thought we were coming to Pittsburg. Now it's interesting to look back on it because I say I'm from Bay Point, not Pittsburg. But when we first moved, we moved to Pittsburg.

ARBONA: Where did you say you were moving from?

MAGLEBY: Elko, Nevada. We only lived in Elko a couple of years, but it was an interesting town. Very interesting, and I'm just going to throw this in. When we ran for election in high school, the one that won the most votes gave the most beer and pretzels away in Elko, Nevada. That was unheard of in my family and life, but even so, while we lived in Elko, it was a lot of fun.

Moving to California was totally different for me. Remember, I was only about fourteen so things didn't dawn me until later. When I look back, it's a lot of fun to look back because as I'm older, I realize that I was going through tremendous history at the time, but didn't realize it at the very moment. My twin brother and I took a bus from Elko to meet my family here. My mother took 00:04:00another bus to Pittsburg to pick us up. We couldn't drive cars a lot because gas was hard to get. You couldn't buy gas; you had to have a coupon, and you could only give gallons at a time. It was important to use that gas expeditiously and not just waste it. Everything we did we tried to find ways and means to get there by bus.

So we got to California and my mother and father bought a house. It wasn't going to be ready until 1943, so for one year we lived in a motel in California, here in Bay Point. That was interesting living because it was no different from a house. Because we had two bedrooms--no, we had one bedroom and used the living room for the other bedroom. We lived for one year in a motel. My twin brother 00:05:00and I took a bus to school at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord. And so that one year, 1942, was one where we lived in a motel.

1943 we moved into this house where are we sitting right now. That means that I've lived in this house since it was built, and that was 1943. That makes it about--what? Sixty-seven years, something like that. So here I am, and I just had a birthday, so I am now eighty-four years old. And I don't feel older than thirty-nine, Jack Benny [laughter]. It's incredible how time flies, but this is the house that we moved into finally. It was built brand new by the Enes family. It was called Enes tract. All of the houses around here were Enes tract. We 00:06:00moved in, and my father built a little attic room for my brother. Although it's a two bedroom house, my brother had a room, I had a room, and my mother and father had a room. So that's interesting because in 1943 we were in this brand new house. We didn't have much furniture, but we moved in and loved the idea that we had our own house. This is 1943.

ARBONA: I want to get back to 1943, but I'm also interested if we could rewind a little and go back to Elko, because you lived there for fourteen years.

MAGLEBY: No, two years.

ARBONA: Oh, two years. I understood wrong.

MAGLEBY: We had moved around in Utah. We left Monroe when we were about eleven years old. Then we moved to American Fork. Everywhere we went it was because my father had work. If he didn't have work, we had to find work--he had to find 00:07:00work. And we moved wherever he found work. So, Monroe is where we were born, for about eleven years, and I say that's where I grew up. Then we moved to American Fork, Utah. Then Salt Lake City, Utah. Then Elko, Nevada. Then Pittsburg, California. We were used to moving around. We did it quite well. My twin brother and I found friends no matter where we went. We still have those good friends. We still remember and keep good friends. But Elko was just a stopping place, and we didn't spend that much time there. But that's where we were in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and that's what brought us to California. Because my father found work in California, and that's how we got to buy a house, because 00:08:00he finally had a job where he got paid, not a job where he gave everything away. He'd build a house and then the wife would come in and say, "Well, could you redo this a little?" He'd say, "Oh, of course I can." So we didn't make money. He was just too good and too kind. But he built some magnificent homes for people, but he wanted it to be just right for the wife especially, because she's the one that lives there most of the time and is there. So we didn't make a lot of money while he was contracting, but finally got a job at Shell Chemical. That's interesting because I also got a job there later on. But 1943 is when we moved into this house.

Now, my twin brother and I went to school Mt. Diablo High School in Concord and that was a magnificent school in those days. It was one of the best in California, accredited. It was one of the best in America. It was such a good 00:09:00school that it was well known to be one of the best--of course in California--and all of California and even wider than that. So we felt honored to be able to go to that school. When we went to school, we took the bus every morning. We loved it there. For the first time in a long time, we had homework. Seemed like we didn't have homework in other towns. But at Mt. Diablo we had homework and we did it every night. We were glad to do it, we were glad to learn. There was an attitude at Mt. Diablo that you were at a special school that you paid honor to that school by doing well, and we did. We tried to do well.

I was very active in the school. As a matter of fact, I loved going to school there so much that I never missed one single day. We went as juniors, and then 00:10:00seniors. As a junior and senior, I didn't miss one day of school because I loved that school, Mt. Diablo High School. And even today, I give honor to that school. It was a place where we truly enjoyed the teachers and enjoyed the curriculum. I learned Spanish for the first time in my life. My twin brother took some--I think he took Latin or maybe a little Spanish, I'm not sure. But later on, as we graduated and when you realize that this is 1943 and 1944, the war is going full blast, World War II. And as we graduated in 1944. Remember, July 1944 was when the big explosion came.

We didn't graduate until June of 1944, and the morning after graduation my twin 00:11:00brother and a bunch of our high school senior boys went in the service because we were at war. Either you got drafted or you decided to join. They decided to join the Navy. A bunch of boys from my class went in the Navy and they took off that morning, the next morning after we graduated for San Diego to be in the Navy, and they certainly were.

But then of course, V-E Day came, and that was shortly after. I can't remember VE Day to be honest with you, because that was 1945, so they were only in the service for a little while and really didn't get into action. They were called to do various things, but the boys I graduated with all came home safe. One of 00:12:00the boys that went in the service early was killed in action. So we knew what it was like to be killed during World War II, having gone through it with one of our classmates. But the boys that went into the service right after graduation, they all survived the war. I don't think any of them got into actual combat of any kind.

ARBONA: What was the atmosphere in the high school in that period of the 1940s?

MAGLEBY: Well, remember now, we're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. We had fun. Despite the war, despite the fact that we couldn't buy cars, we couldn't buy gas, we couldn't buy sugar, we couldn't buy shoes, we couldn't buy some clothes. We still 00:13:00had a fabulous time going to school. It was like we existed despite the war. And we laughed and played and had football games and baseball games, and went to the games. We'd collect a coupon for five gallons of gas and go to a ball game. So we didn't really suffer a whole lot. People nowadays say, "You couldn't buy shoes?! You couldn't buy gas?" No, we couldn't. But we had a lot of fun anyway. And we had our senior ball and our senior prom, and we put on plays. We had a great time going to school, truly a great time. I guess it's because you're young and you don't realize that things were that bad.

Because after the bombing of Pearl Harbor the adult people--not us, because we 00:14:00just didn't realize how serious it was--adult people felt like they were coming for America. That the Japanese weren't--that was the first bombing in Pearl Harbor, that that was just the first step in them coming to America. So when we got to California, we knew what it was to have air raid wardens. We knew what it was to have our parents go to buildings and identify any aircraft whatsoever, and they would and learned how to identify aircraft. Because we felt confident that the Japanese were coming, and first off it's California, we're right in the line of fire. We had brownouts. We pulled all the drapes. We were checked on. Air raid wardens were checking to making sure there wasn't one single thing that showed light in the house. We were sure that the Japanese were coming to America 00:15:00to bomb us and take over America. And lo and behold, they did not. They didn't come close to America as far as I am aware. And so although we were very aware that they could, they didn't come, and so we were saved in that regard.

But we were very aware that there was a war going on. I had four brothers. All four brothers were in the service and interesting enough, my twin brother was in the Navy, and the next brother up was in the Marine Corps, the next brother up was in the Merchant Marine, the next brother up was in the Army. So we were participating in the war effort for sure. My Marine brother was in Saipan or Saigon. I can't remember what the name of that was, where he spent a lot of time and actually was in some combat. But we were all part and parcel of World War 00:16:00II. But we didn't mind it. We knew we had to hurry and get things together because we were not anywhere near ready for a war. We didn't concentrate on the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps. We didn't concentrate on supplies. And all of the sudden everything stopped, and everything turned to the war effort. We couldn't buy a lot of things and we didn't care because it had to go the war, and we were happy to do it.

ARBONA: When your brothers left for war, what would a day like that be like?

MAGLEBY: It was one of sadness, but we knew it had to be. We straightened our shoulders, even as young people, and said, "Goodbye. Do a good job." There was 00:17:00not a whole lot of mourning because we knew had to be done. We had to go protect our company, and we had to protect it mainly from the Japanese. But remember we had already joined the war in Europe. We were already part of that. My older brother was drafted into the Army, and he was part and parcel of that war. We called it the European War. And now we're involved in another war on the other side of the world. So our family was deeply involved in World War II, both in Europe and in the Pacific. But nobody really mourned a lot about people going to war, because we knew they had to do, and they were proud to. They were delighted to be a part of the fighting force. It wasn't like, "Oh, I got to go to war. How can I get out of this?" Nobody tried to get out. Except conscientious objectors, 00:18:00and they had every right to get out. But as far as going to war, that was just part and parcel of our thinking. You had to go. You didn't argue. You went because it was the right thing to do, and we felt like it was right.

ARBONA: When I've read about the period, I've often times heard references, or seen references in books to places like Fort Mason where the soldiers would depart from. Would the family go there the day of the departure?

MAGLEBY: No, no. As a matter of fact, I'm going to tell you a story about Pittsburg because Pittsburg had a huge camp. It was built at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We knew we had to build some camps in a hurry to hold our servicemen. So in Pittsburg it was called Camp Stoneman. That camp held at 00:19:00one time 153,000 troops. It was a huge camp, and they embarked from Camp Stoneman down to the waterfront where the ships would come to take them to World War II. Bear in mind that Pittsburg is not a big time and Camp Stoneman was just off to the side of the town. We all knew Camp Stoneman was there, and we all knew that there were boats waiting for them at the waterfront in Pittsburg. So when we went to Pittsburg and we knew fellas were going to the service, nobody said anything because "loose lips sink ships." That was one of the things we'd always say. Just don't talk about anybody going anywhere. If we went to church, 00:20:00and some servicemen came to church, we didn't mention that there was a chance that they would have to go to war or when. We just didn't talk about it because were afraid that maybe there were spies that picking up on things like that. But let me tell you, there were times in Pittsburg when thousands of men left the camp in the middle of the night, walked down Harbor Street--bear in mind that they didn't make one sound--there was nothing to do.

[Phone interruption]

ARBONA: We are back from the phone call pause. This is still tape one with Gloria Magleby. You were just telling me a little bit about the fear of spies and the knowledge that if there were soldiers at church or somewhere, you didn't really want to talk about the war.

MAGLEBY: We didn't much about anything that was going on at Camp Stoneman because we did not want anybody--we didn't want to be a part of any spying, or as you say, loose lips sink ships. We didn't want to be a part of that. It's interesting to realize that as the men left Camp Stoneman in the middle of the night and walked down Harbor Street, nobody in Pittsburg knew they were doing that. Nobody talked about it because they didn't know it was happening. Here's thousands of men walking down Harbor Street in Pittsburg to the waterfront where there were huge ships docked waiting for them to board and ready to go the Pacific war zone. When you think back on it, it's incredible to believe that night after night that happened. Not just one night, but many, many nights in 00:22:00the middle of the night here are army personnel, soldiers, walking down Pittsburg's streets as quiet s they could without saying one single word, and nobody knew about it and nobody told about it. And if they did know about it, they wouldn't tell about it because it was something we knew we shouldn't talk about. But it was interesting now looking back on it, that's how they got to the ship. They had to walk down the street to get to the boat. And they did. Off they went to the war, some of them never to return because there were lots of deaths in the Pacific, too. Those days are filled with almost, like it didn't happen, when I think back.

When you're young, those things don't count as much. You live your life; like I 00:23:00say, when we went to high school, we had a great time in high school in the middle of the war. We didn't let it stop us from doing much of anything. We saved our money for war bonds or war stamps, and you bought a war stamp every Monday for twenty-five cents, and that was great if you had a quarter. A quarter was big money in those days. We'd buy a war stamp on Mondays and then save them, and eventually you could redeem them. If you bought a war bond, it was more like fifteen dollars, and that was worth about twenty-five dollars before you knew it, or maybe more. If you still had those today, you would be very rich if you had kept them and saved them. That was part and parcel of what we went through during World War II. The war was going strong, but our lives were still going 00:24:00on, too.

ARBONA: Tell me a little bit about the stamps, too. If you would get together with friends, you'd go out to do something and spend them where?

MAGLEBY: Well, the stamp was a war stamp. You saved them. You didn't spend them. You could redeem them for money, but it was just exactly like today. If you bought a treasury bond you saved it. You didn't go out and spend it. Too many times we felt like we needed the money, so we'd spend them anyway. You know how kids are. If you needed money and you had a dollar in stamps, you collected the dollar because that would buy lots. That would buy a lot of stuff. As a matter of fact, I remember one time when we lived in Salt Lake--

[Phone interruption]

MAGLEBY: --interested in history and so on and he and I collaborate on lots of things, but we can talk about it later.

ARBONA: Don't let me forget. If there are other people that you know who would be interested in an oral history, we could get contacts.

MAGLEBY: He only came here since 1996, so it's not somebody that's older, but nevertheless there are very few that remember all of this left. Very few. My classmates remember, and that's kind of fun. Let me tell you what my classmates do. This is interrupting the story a little bit. Remember we graduated in 1944. The explosion of Port Chicago happened in 1944, so we all remember it. But as a class, we've stayed together pretty much. As for me, I never married. I lived in 00:26:00this house ever since it was built.

I've kept in touch with classmates for these sixty-seven years, and now we meet in the school, in the term of school, like September to June, every month at Mt. Diablo High School. They have an on-campus restaurant called Serendipity. We go over there once a month, and we are in collaboration with the school, the principal, and the faculty. They bring class members of the school, current kids that go to school, to the Serendipity restaurant, and we treat them to lunch. They bring the kids that are kind of on the edge, that could care less about going to school, who could care less about a teacher or learning anything. Then 00:27:00they sit with us and we tell them what it was like going to school during World War II. If we tell them that we couldn't buy shoes, they say, "You couldn't buy shoes?!" They can't believe it. Then we tell them how much we loved school. And before they leave, they put their arms around us--because some of them don't even know what a grandparent is--and we're like their grandparents. It's incredibly interesting to see them as they come in and sit down and say, "Oh, we're going to have lunch with some old fogies. This ought to be fun." And before they leave, they are in the palm of our hands because we love that school so much. They feel it, they know it, and they respect it all the more. The faculty and the principal say, "Please don't stop coming because this is making a world of difference to some of the kids who used to care less about school."

Our class was, to me, still very important. Although many of us have died--we 00:28:00had only about 102 graduate, and there's maybe thirty or forty of us left--we still get together whenever we can, and we do once a month, during the school year, to enjoy lunch with the kids who go to school now. We tell them what a great school they go to. "If you don't like it, you better because you'll have to speak to us. You'll have to apologize to us." But they love to have lunch with us, and it's a free lunch. We get the Bay Point Chamber of Commerce to supply the money for their lunches, and so it just makes a world of difference because they understand how much we loved school. How much we didn't ever want to miss school.

Now we've reached about 1944 and Camp Stoneman, but we can go on.

ARBONA: You mentioning the high school there, even though that came a bit from a 00:29:00detour, I wanted to pause on that for a little bit too and talk about it. The school--I'm curious, when you came to California and went to Mt. Diablo High School, was the school recently built?

MAGLEBY: It was an older school.

ARBONA: It was older.

MAGLEBY: Yes it was. And it was the only one, virtually, in almost all of Contra Costa. There were very few other schools. Richmond had a school. Oakland had a school, but not Contra Costa. Mt. Diablo was where there are about seventeen high schools now. It was the only one. It still wasn't that big. There were maybe 1,700 students in the whole school. Maybe not that many. I'm thinking more like 800 in the whole school because in our class there were a little over a 00:30:00hundred. Although there were bigger classes underneath us; it wasn't a huge school, but it was the only school in the area.

ARBONA: In the area.

MAGLEBY: And the principal, Ms. Bertha Romaine. They named a building after her. Bertha Romaine was our principal. We were so respectful of her that there is no way in this world that we would ever accost her or call her names. Today kids have a tendency to say anything they want to teachers. We did not. We were very respectful of teachers and especially the principal. We had a dean of girls, Miss [Irma] Bromley, and she also was respected so much. Our coach, Pete Kramer, we would have walked to Missouri for him, or crawled to Missouri if that's possible, because we respected them so much. When I look at our yearbook now, I 00:31:00realize what great faculty members we had. The Spanish teacher, Ms. Witt. We didn't know she was married. Women didn't get married as teachers in those days. You really weren't supposed to get married, and if you did you better keep it quiet because that wasn't something you do and you might lose your job. But Ms. Witt was married, and we didn't even know it. Married to Mr. Cox. Her name was Mrs. Cox, and we didn't even know it. Knowing her afterward we finally realized she was married the whole time we were going to school.

ARBONA: Why was that you couldn't get married or that the teachers were expected not to--?

MAGLEBY: I have no idea. I have no idea. It was more of a culture than anything I think. There was no law. It was just something you didn't do. If you were a woman teacher, the last thing you did was get married. That was not right. You 00:32:00shouldn't be married as a woman teacher. The men could be married, but not the women. The men could be married, and we knew that. We thought all the women that were our teachers were not married. Many of them were not married, but some of them were and didn't tell us. But it was kind of fun afterward to realize that was just something the women teachers didn't do, and that's marry. So whatever happened happened.

ARBONA: Do you have any recollection of how old she was?

MAGLEBY: She was like in her thirties, and she stayed for a long time and taught for a long time and lived for a long time. I was pleased to go to lunch with her many times after I graduated, years and years after I graduated. She lived to be 101 and was sharp as a tack right up to the last. That was our Spanish teacher 00:33:00Irmgard Witt. She was a very, very interesting teacher, and we loved her. But I got to know her even better after graduation.

ARBONA: Did she mention something about her marriage?

MAGLEBY: Oh, yeah. She said she didn't tell anybody that she was married, but she was. She didn't have children, but she was married. It was interesting to note that I don't know that there were any others that I can think of that were married, but I think there was one other woman that was married. But if you got married, you left school and got married. But you didn't come back and teach. That was a no-no for some strange reason. Things have changed now for sure. They can be married and divorced and married and divorced sixteen times if they want 00:34:00to be, and still come back and teach. But school was important to me growing up, and I'm so grateful for Mt. Diablo High School for the good education that it gave us.

ARBONA: You also mentioned that the class sizes were getting bigger and bigger.

MAGLEBY: Yes, they were.

ARBONA: Was that because of people coming to the state or the area?

MAGLEBY: People coming to California because of the war. That's why we called the people from Oklahoma Okies and people from Arkansas Arkies, because lots of them--and you know the stories of people that came during the Dust Bowl and so on. There were jobs in California during World War II. Lots of people from Oklahoma and Arkansas came to California to live and get work. There was some kind of a stigma attached to that, and we called those from Oklahoma Okies and 00:35:00from Arkansas Arkies. It was not a good name. You're a little bit underneath the high-class California people, which was so unfair, so very unfair. But that's what happened. So many from Oklahoma came to California, all over California, not just Northern California. When I think about it now, that was the rudest things we could do, is call somebody an Okie. That meant they couldn't make a living, they had to come here. They never called me that, although I came in World War II. Because I wasn't from Oklahoma. It's a strange story. Strange, strange story.

ARBONA: Did you ever identify as coming from somewhere else?

MAGLEBY: Well, yes, we all did. But it was different coming from Oklahoma for some reason. I don't know what that was, unless it was because there were a lot of them that came. But they integrated into California, and now you don't even 00:36:00realize that many, many people living next door to you started out in Oklahoma. But that was a stigma attached somehow. I don't know how it came about, and I don't care, but I didn't like it. It's so unfair. Very unfair. But going to school was lots of fun.

ARBONA: And you learned Spanish.

MAGLEBY: And I learned a little bit of Spanish. We had a lot of fun in her class because she was a very interesting teacher. I had two years of Spanish, and then after we graduated and my brother--I told you my brother went into the service--after that he was called on a mission by our church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was called on a mission to Mexico, and boy, did he learn Spanish fast there. As a matter of fact, he'd rather speak Spanish than English. He could speak it fluently. When he came back from his two 00:37:00year mission to Mexico, he purposely found people who could speak Spanish and related to them. They'd go out and have breakfast together, and their entire conversation would be Spanish. Spanish in California is a second language. It just is. And now we almost print everything in English and Spanish because of the fact that so many Latinos live in California and it's only fair that they have some communication with every community.

I'm very active in this community in Bay Point. As a matter of fact, the thing that I'm noted for here is organizing groups and organizations. I'm good at that, and I enjoy it. So one of the first things I organized--and, by the way, I was elected to the Municipal Advisory Council, which is like the city council, 00:38:00but it's unincorporated, in 1998, and from that time on, I became very active in the community. Before that, I had a job and I worked in my church, but I wasn't active in the community. But in 1998, I became a member of the Municipal Advisory Council [MAC] and it started me on a quest to get more people involved. I was a member of the board of directors on the MAC, as we called it, and in 2003 I was elected as chairman of the board of directors for the Municipal Advisory Council.

And so I felt like I had a little bit of clout, and I thought to myself, "What we need in this community is to revive what was the West Pittsburg pride into 00:39:00the Bay Point pride." We changed the name of West Pittsburg to Bay Point. I was part and parcel of that because I thought it was a good name. I organized the Bay Point Pride. That was simply to keep the community clean and tidy. As a matter of fact, it is now ten years old, since I organized the Bay Point Pride. Having been successful doing that and getting more people involved in cleaning the community, cleaning vacant yards, and then we started a program of yard of the month. You have the prettiest yard, you get a reward. That has been going and been so successful I figured, "Well, lets' see, what else do we need in Bay Point?" And I organized the Bay Point Historical Society. I was the organizer of that because I felt like we needed one. And lo and behold we had one before you 00:40:00know it. Such as today I am interested in history. I am very interested in The Bancroft Library, and that I'll tell you about in a minute. But I organized the Bay Point Historical Society, which is still going strong. People are still coming to it. We have luncheons once a year and talk about the history of Bay Point.

Then I said, "Well, Bay Point's a pretty good-sized town. We should have a chamber of commerce." So I organized the chamber of commerce. Lo and behold, we have now a chamber of commerce, organized in 2003. I did all of this in 2003.

Then in 2004 one more thing I organized was the Bay Point Garden Club. I said, "Every community needs a garden club." Because I was successful in the others, I figured I could organize anything. So I organized the garden club. Since that time, all four of these organizations are very active and going 00:41:00strong.

ARBONA: I can see why you have so many appointments and you are so busy.

MAGLEBY: I have many, many appointments. This house is not a house; it's an office. It holds the materials for all of those organizations, because I am available, this house is available to store things.

ARBONA: What do you think if we actually come back to these things because I think this is very important local history from the recent past? But I was thinking we could go back to the high school, and you were talking about Spanish speakers in California. Is there anything else that you can add to the population of the high school, and were there Latinos in Mt. Diablo High School?

MAGLEBY: We did not have Latinos in high school. That movement did not start in 1944. We did not have people from Mexico to California. We did not have any of that. We had one or two who were Latino, but they were here for a long, long 00:42:00time, had been here for a long time. The movement of Latinos, or the Mexican people, did not start until way later. And to be honest with you, I can't begin to tell you when it started, such as it is now, like the border is being inundated with people coming from Mexico. Not in 1944. When I was going to school, there might have been two or three kids in high school who were Latino. We did not have to have things printed in Spanish. We didn't, because there weren't that many Latinos going to school. There were very few, as a matter of fact. That movement didn't start until way later. I'm thinking it had to be the sixties, seventies, maybe even as late as the eighties before this influx of Mexican people came to California. So there wasn't any reason for us to have to 00:43:00learn Spanish, because we didn't have to; we just wanted to because it was a good teacher, and we loved the language. So the only reason we took Spanish is because we wanted it to be part of our unit credit, so we did.

ARBONA: I have another question the geography of this area where we're in right now. You've loved in this house pretty much most of your life.

MAGLEBY: Right.

ARBONA: And we're in Bay Point. So what was it like to--well, back then it wasn't Bay Point, right? It was called--

MAGLEBY: West Pittsburg. And a few other little names. We called it Enes Track and Bella Vista, like that.

ARBONA: Did you get out to Port Chicago? Did you get out to the other neighborhoods?

MAGLEBY: As a matter of fact, some of my classmates lived in Port Chicago. And 00:44:00Port Chicago of course was where I got my first job. My first job was at the Naval Magazine in Port Chicago. The people from the Naval Magazine needed people to work there so they came to our school. They came in April or May of 1944 and solicited people that need a job at the Naval Magazine. I thought to myself, "This is ideal. This is perfect. I can get a job at the Naval Magazine and help myself with some money to get to college. So I signed up immediately to work at the Naval Magazine at Port Chicago right out of high school. Two or three days after I graduated I found my way to their employment office and was signed up as an employee of the US Navy that I worked for. I think we went to Mare Island 00:45:00first to sign up, but then we ended up where we were called to be and that's Port Chicago, and I worked in Port Chicago.

Of course, as you well know, if I graduated in June of 1944, and I started work in early July of 1944 at the Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, the explosion came only seventeen days later, July 17, 1944, 10:17 at night. I was in my house, and when the explosion came it was the loudest noise I have ever heard in my entire life. I don't think my ears will ever be the same. It was absolutely, totally so loud that you cannot explain it. That was the first explosion, and then came the second one. I was in the bathroom at the time, ready to get ready for bed and I 00:46:00don't think I was jolted as much as I was shocked at the noise. Then here came the second explosion, and then I was truly shocked. My mother and father were in the front bedroom of our house, windows right there. Not one window was broken at their bedroom. But in this room where I'm sitting, all the windows in the front were broken. The door was blown across the room and ended up over on that side of the room. The garage door was broken and open. All the nails in the ceiling came out half way. Dishes were all broken. We knew it was bad.

But to my mind, my mind didn't go to Port Chicago at the moment. It went to the Japanese. I figured the Japanese had dropped a bomb across the street from my house. I figured that it was an airplane that had done, so there weren't going 00:47:00to be any Japanese out there, but that was the first experience I had, the first thought I had, "the Japanese have come to America, or California, and they've dropped a bomb right across the street from my house." It was that loud. It wasn't that loud. And it didn't take long at turning the radio on and listening to the news to find out. I thought, "Oh my gosh." I had just helped load one of those ships completely full of ammunition and both of them had exploded." I knew my job was in jeopardy. But guess what? Three days later a knock at the door, and here's somebody from my job saying, "Come back to work. We've got to clean up the mess. We're going to be in business again." So I went back to the Naval Magazine and said, "Wow. Look what happened."

Let me tell you the most horrific thing that happened going back to work was the smell of dead bodies as you're driving down Port Chicago Highway to get to work. There were lots of bodies around. They had not all been picked up. And the smell of dead bodies is something I don't ever want to smell again. But they did finally recover the bodies, and of course the story of Port Chicago becomes world renowned. But I was part and parcel of the working force at the time. Nobody that I knew intimately was killed that day. Some of the men that I knew that we worked with were killed. And the black sailors, a lot of black sailors were killed. But I did not know anyone personally that was killed at Port Chicago. All I know is that I smelled their bodies, and it was not a good smell. 00:49:00The odor was terrible. But we did clean up. We started cleaning up, and then we started loading ships again. And at that time, it was like we survived, we're ready to go back to war.

ARBONA: What did your job entail?

MAGLEBY: Just clerk. A clerk typist. You'd get information from where the ammunition was, and you'd write orders to have certain ammunition come and be placed in a certain location of Port Chicago. Then the next paperwork would be loaded on the ship. A funny thing happened when we were working. You could buy a war bond or war stamps there too. I bought a war bond one time, and when you bought a bond, you got to go down in the basement where there were a lot of 00:50:00bombs. In the basement of our building, as a matter of fact. There were all kinds of bombs down there. You got to stencil a message on a bomb. Of all the horrible things I ever said in my life, I stenciled on one of the big bombs in the basement or the lower half of my building, "Here's one for you, Tojo."

And that makes me think now of what war does to people. You write on a bomb, "I hope this hits you, Tojo, and kills you." That's what war does. You forget what you're saying because you hate. Wars kill people and you're glad that they're dead when they're on the other side. That's one thing that wars can do is change your heart and soul into something bad, and that's why I hate wars, too. People who hate wars usually have been to war. I felt like I had been to war. Taking a 00:51:00stencil and saying, "Here's one for you, Tojo," makes me sorry that I did that. But we did it because--and if you went to the movies and you see news of a Japanese plane going down, everybody in the theater clapped and yelled, "Yeaaa! Another Japanese going down." Wars do terrible things to us. As I think about it now, and we clapped and hollered when a Japanese plane was shot and going down 00:52:00and men dying, we still cheered. That's what war can do to you. It's a sad thing to think about. It really is.

ARBONA: Tell me a little bit more about going to the movies. As a parenthesis, you mentioned the films.

MAGLEBY: Before the movie, we always had a preview kind of--it was a news preview. We didn't have TV, of course. We didn't listen to the radio all that 00:53:00much, but we learned what the news was going to the movies. You'd find out President Roosevelt signed this, President Roosevelt did that, President Roosevelt declared war on the Japanese, and you'd get to see it in the movies. As a matter of fact, come to think about it, we were in school in Elko, Nevada, and we had a paging system. We got to hear President Roosevelt on that paging system as he declared war. I remember he said that--it was probably the Monday or Tuesday after the bombing when we declared war--and he said something like, "That dastardly event." And I thought, "Oh, that's a bad word, isn't it? Dastardly." Because I was thinking of bastard and not dastard. But no, it's a good word. But we heard President Roosevelt declare war on the Japanese while we were in school. That's when I was fourteen years old. That was quite a day. I 00:54:00will never forget hearing his voice.

In the meantime, the explosion happened, we continued on with the war, and when V-E Day came early 1945, we were delighted that it had come, but when V-J Day came, it was right here at home. We were so delighted that the war was over. And both of them happened in one year. V-J Day late in the year and V-E Day early in the year. Both wars ended 1945. From that time on, we were free to live as free people and our freedom was secure. We were very delighted that the war, the war, which was world war, was over. World War II was truly world war. I will always be glad that I lived through it because it reminds me of how you can survive 00:55:00with people dying in your own family--not my family, but in many families. You can live through it. You survive. You can even survive horrible wars and go on and go to college and get jobs and live until you're eighty-four!

ARBONA: Actually, we are at fifty-four minutes right now, almost fifty-five. So that means there's a little bit left in the tape, but there's so much to talk about in terms of Port Chicago. Maybe if we just talk briefly about something. If there's anything else that you want to expand on that you've just mentioned so that we can almost get to the end of this tape.

MAGLEBY: Well, let me think. Our classmates were part and parcel of the war too. So when we look back on it now, as I talk to my classmates, we tell these kids 00:56:00that come to eat with us that World War II didn't stop our lives. We went on with our lives. We got married, or many did. I didn't, but many did and had children. So you can survive wars by living your life the way you wanted it to be lived. There was no scarcity of jobs. When you got out of high school, you almost had a job before you left school. It was rare that you looked for a job because they were very, very plentiful. It's different today. When you get out of high school, it's hard to find a job. When you get out of college, it's hard to find a job. But not in those days. Jobs were so plentiful. And then in the early fifties, the United States became like in good shape. We had money to 00:57:00spend, and we spent it. But those days are precious to me because they're part and parcel of my life to kind of balance things out. If things are good, there were some sad times too. But that's the balance that you take and you make. You have sadness and gladness. If you can look for the gladness, the sadness drifts away.

I am delighted to be here today, but let me say one more thing. While I was going to college, I went to the University of California for a semester, and the best thing I ever did was go to The Bancroft Library. I did find there some original papers from my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, from a very, very prominent woman in the church, Eliza R. Snow. She wrote a poem after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and her brother, and I found that poem at 00:58:00The Bancroft Library. So if anybody says they don't have stuff that's great, I would challenge anything because I asked if I could look at it, and they said, "Put all your pens away. Put everything away. You may have a pencil, but nothing else. Put everything aside. We do not want this material to be damaged in any way." I took that from their library, copied that poem in pencil, and it was quite a long poem. When I finished it, they took it from my hands and put it back in the library, and there it still is. But I will ever be grateful that I got that poem copied and I still have copies of it.

ARBONA: That's wonderful.

MAGLEBY: Eliza R. Snow's original writings.

ARBONA: Why don't we pause right there with that thought, and we can take a break and maybe change tapes here.

ARBONA: Once again, this is July 9, 2010, and this is Javier Arbona speaking. I am here with Gloria Magleby, and this is tape two of our oral history today. And we were talking a moment ago about Port Chicago and your work there as a clerk. One of the things I was just wondering about, I was curious about was, were you unionized?

MAGLEBY: No, no unions. None at all.

ARBONA: With the Navy.

MAGLEBY: With the Navy.

ARBONA: And I also was interested to ask you, then, a broader question, just before the explosion. We read so much about today, the conditions at the base. And was there any discussion or a consciousness that perhaps conditions were unsafe? Or how did you feel about that?

MAGLEBY: Not at all. There was no talk ever about any conditions that were unsafe. Not with us, anyway. We loaded ships, and we did the paperwork for the ships; we saw the personnel come in the office periodically. We'd see the officers, the Naval officers, and we'd see some of the workers, black and Caucasian. But never any talk about, "I don't think we should let this condition go on." Never anything like that was--nothing ever mentioned about unsafe conditions. It was a boat, we were loading it, and we were doing well; that's all I know.

ARBONA: In terms of doing well, you mean my measure of the success in the war?

MAGLEBY: We were doing it on time; we were getting the boats loaded on time. Remember that before I came to work there, they had loaded many boats to send 01:00:00them off to the Pacific. This is just one of the boats that was ready to go, that blew up. And for what reason, no one will ever know. And another one partially loaded. So no, never any thought whatsoever of anything so drastic happening, or anything ever unsafe. Maybe they did on the waterfront, but not in the officer workers, not with--the general consensus or feelings there, never any word whatsoever about unsafe conditions.

ARBONA: As a clerk, it sounds like the work that you did had to do with knowing where munitions were--

MAGLEBY: Right.

ARBONA: --in the base, in the space of the base. Can you describe that a little bit? Were the munitions stored in boxcars?

MAGLEBY: Well, interesting enough, in Henderson, Nevada, there were lots of munitions that we had to transport to Port Chicago. What they were doing in 01:01:00Henderson, Nevada, I don't know, whether they were being made there or manufactured there or stored there. All I know is a lot of my paperwork for stuff that had to go back to Henderson or stuff that had to come from Henderson, Nevada to our loading docks; that was an important place that we thought about. And where the ammunition came from had to be from big manufacturing plants. And that could very well have been in Nevada, because we were not afraid of things in Nevada; Nevada was out of the way of anything. Japanese wouldn't bomb Nevada because they couldn't find anything there. But of course, the first A-bomb explosion happened in Nevada, too I'm understanding. But no. When we worked, the ammunition was somewhere and we made the paperwork possible for it to be loaded 01:02:00on the boat, so that they knew how much was on that boat; they knew how many bombs were on the boat, they knew how much ammunition of any kind. Mostly bombs, because I had the feeling that they were going to go to aircraft stations and aircraft were going to drop the bombs. You didn't have a bomb on the ground; bombs come from the air.

ARBONA: You described for us the explosion before, and then you went back to work there. Did you feel that things were unsafe at that point? Or did you feel that it was just as before or what?

MAGLEBY: Well, I can understand you asking that question, but remember, I'm eighteen years old. And I felt as safe as sound. I didn't have one concern about no safety. The explosion happened; it was tragic. But we were there to clean it 01:03:00up, not be afraid of it. No. No worry whatsoever about unsafe conditions, or us being unsafe for any reason. None at all. None at all.

ARBONA: And your parents at the time--you were living in this very house?

MAGLEBY: I was.

ARBONA: And in the house, were there discussions about that? Did your parents ever mention anything about the base?

MAGLEBY: No. They were just glad that I had a job. And of course I only worked till December, and then went to school at the University of Nevada. But while I worked there, they were very glad that I had a job and very glad that I was getting paid, which I was. But when you think about--when I went to the University of Nevada, I was out of state. And so I had to pay out-of-state dues. That was $75 for a semester. So when I saved up $75--remember now, I'm working from July through December, and I saved up $75? That was a lot of money in those 01:04:00days. But I had it ready to go. And my sister lived in Reno, so I went to live with her and go to school at the University of Nevada in Reno, and kind of helped take care of her one son. Her husband was in the Army. And by the way, he was injured, to a degree, as he was in Europe. And so he had some injuries, but not life threatening. But when you think about it, $75 a semester is quite a bit in those days.

But after 1945--and I was in the University of Nevada from January to June or July 1945--V-E Day happened in Nevada, for me. Then the GI Bill came in the act, 01:05:00and that happened right away. The Congress passed the GI Bill in 1945. Because when I went to go back to school in the University of Nevada starting in September, the charge was $150 a semester. I could not afford that. And so I had to come back here and go to school at the University of California. Not that I didn't want to go to Cal at the time, but it was just something that--a friend of mine and I had family that lived in Reno, and so we both went there to school. But in September, I went to school for free at the University of California, not being an out-of-state student. And it was so easy in those days. There wasn't a dime that I paid to go to school. I had to buy books, but even then, it wasn't that much, didn't cost that much. And I enjoyed going to school 01:06:00at Cal. I didn't feel a part of the Berkeley group because I lived at home and not in a campus, not in a dorm or anything. So I missed that part of going to Cal. But I'll always be a Cal favorite. If there's a team and it's from California, Berkeley, I'm cheering for it all the way.

ARBONA: What happened next? Can you refresh that memory a little bit? You were at Cal for how long, in total?

MAGLEBY: Only one semester.

ARBONA: One semester.

MAGLEBY: One semester. Then I had to get a job.

ARBONA: And then you went to work not back at Port Chicago?

MAGLEBY: No, I didn't go back to the Naval Magazine. I got a job with a man who had a printing business. And as a matter of fact, he sold the business to me, so I became a business owner. But I was so young that I didn't realize what a 01:07:00business owner was. I didn't realize that you had to save your money, not give it away. And so I didn't last in business that long because I was too free with everything. If somebody said, "how much is it going to cost?" I'd say, "Oh, for you--" And so I gave too much away. And finally, actually sold it again to someone else and went to work at Shell Chemical Company, right two minutes from where I live. And it's right down on Willow Pass Road, and now it's called Henkel Corporation.

But Shell Chemical, in those days, made agricultural--ammonium sulfate. And I started work there in their adhesives department, where they make structural adhesives for the aircraft industry. A very, very interesting job, being a customer service person. And you sell adhesives to the aircraft industry. And so 01:08:00now, starting when I started work there, which would be 1948, it meant that you glue planes together; you bond them. You don't have bolts, nuts, rivets; you have glue. And people still have a hard time believing that airplanes are bonded together, that they don't have a lot of metal in them to hold them together. Because guess what? They come loose. And that's a lot worse than having a strong bond, and a lot lighter weight. So it made it fun to work there because it was something so new and so different. And I was delighted to be able to work there. Of course I got the dates wrong. I didn't start there till 1959, because I was in my business, trying to keep it afloat for about eleven years. But that was eleven years of just learning; I didn't earn anything. I didn't make any money.

ARBONA: Well, eleven years, by today's measures, would probably--

MAGLEBY: Pretty good.

ARBONA: --be a very successful business.

MAGLEBY: Pretty good. But I lasted it, but I didn't make any money. And it seemed like I owed everybody.

ARBONA: Where was the business located?

MAGLEBY: In Pittsburg, on Black Diamond Street. And the building is long gone, since I left. Because Pittsburg has revitalized their downtown, and it is turning out to be a fabulous little community. I am so pleased with what's happening in Pittsburg. It looks like another town. And everything that they've built has been fruitful. And I'm looking forward to more and better from Pittsburg because the downtown Pittsburg is going to be something to behold. But that building is long gone, where I worked in from '48 to about '59.

ARBONA: You used to sell general goods, or what was the merchandise?

MAGLEBY: I was printing.

ARBONA: Printing.

MAGLEBY: But remember now that copy machines are coming out pretty soon, and printers now print specialized things. You don't print forms anymore because you can copy the form. If you've got a form, all you do is put it in your copy machine and copy it. I have a copy machine in my house, right next to my computer. And so printing businesses specialize in printing now, not forms. Because in those days I made the forms and printed them up and sold them. But you can't sell forms anymore because all you need to do is copy them. That's the difference between those days and nowadays, when copy machines are so easy to have and to find and to use.

ARBONA: I had a question going back a little bit to the naval magazine, because I'm trying to imagine--you have these African-American sailors working there. Did you ever see them around town or in Pittsburg when they were off duty?

MAGLEBY: Yes. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. And because we lived in Pittsburg, Pittsburg was amenable to the black people. We had black people that lived in Pittsburg, and in Bay Point. And so it wasn't unusual at all to see black sailors. And on leave, if they went to town in Pittsburg, it was great. I did not go to Concord to spend evenings, even though I went to high school there, so I don't know how much they appeared in Concord. But in this general area, if there was a black sailor, it was a black sailor. What's the difference between that and a white sailor? No difference at all, because Pittsburg was amenable to the black people. And they felt at home going to Pittsburg.

ARBONA: Is that because there was an African-American community also living--?

MAGLEBY: Yes, exactly. I'm sure it was; I'm sure it was. And they were welcome at the churches, and the churches welcomed them. And people invited them to dinner, and they enjoyed having dinner with the black families that lived in 01:12:00Pittsburg. So it was a little different because some of the other communities were proud that they didn't have black people. And that was so unfair and so bigoted, really. But Pittsburg was amenable to black people. And that's why it was easy to watch them; a black sailor that worked at the Naval Magazine was a black sailor. And he was welcome in Pittsburg. And welcome anywhere. I was not a bigoted person. Never have been; never will be.

ARBONA: How do you think that happened?

MAGLEBY: Oh, I think because of my mother and father. They liked everybody. And my church. My church is one that says, like Martin Luther King, you judge people by their character, not their color. And I learned that quite early in life. I was impressed with how they behaved, and I was always congenial with them, but 01:13:00never felt any different from anybody else. Color was lost with me; I didn't see it.

ARBONA: Did that change at all in Pittsburg after the war?

MAGLEBY: Not at all. Not at all. Matter of fact, it became easier and easier in Pittsburg. And then black people moved into the Antioch area, into the Concord area, and finally into Northern California, so black families are everywhere. And it's no different next door to a black family than an Asian family, a Spanish family, or a Caucasian family. I wrote a little poem about Bay Point, or a little song, actually. And one of the parts of it says, "We are Caucasian, black, brown, and Asian. And everybody accepts all of them. All of the above."

ARBONA: So we're here on Marys Road--

MAGLEBY: Marys Avenue.

ARBONA: Marys Avenue. Would that characterize this very avenue?

MAGLEBY: Yes, it would. Yes, it would.

ARBONA: There are various families?

MAGLEBY: We have black families across the street, we have a Latino family next door, a black family up the street. I just can't begin to tell you how many because I don't count them. I don't care what color you are. And if you live on Marys Avenue, you're welcome to live on Marys Avenue; we don't have problems. Once in a while, we have maybe a break-in of some kind, so we get together as a group, on a neighborhood watch, and we all pull together for the same purpose, and that's to keep each other safe. We watch out for each other. And that's very nice, too. I rent to a black family. I have a little rental on the back of my house. And they are sweet, sweet people. I love them.

ARBONA: It sounds like the church is very important, also in your world view and 01:15:00in your person.

MAGLEBY: It is very important. It is very important.

ARBONA: I'm interested to know, were your parents born into that church, also?

MAGLEBY: Yes, indeed. Born in Utah, because that's where the Mormon pioneers finally came, starting out with Joseph Smith in Vermont and moving to Pennsylvania, moving to Ohio, finally to Nauvoo, Illinois. And then being chased out of that area. The LDS, or Latter Day Saints, had to leave Illinois and finally crossed the plains to Salt Lake City. And that's why Salt Lake City is the center for the Mormon Church. But Mormons live everywhere, or Latter Day Saints live everywhere. But it's a very, very real part of my life. It gives me reasons to live and reasons to love. I enjoy life, and I'm very fulfilled, not 01:16:00even being married, because of the fulfilling part that the church plays in my life. And it does a great deal. I teach in church. I've learned to be a good teacher. I teach kids, little kids; I can teach adults, and enjoy teaching. As a matter of fact, it's one of the things that I think I should've been, a teacher. Because I could've, I think, added to a lot. And I added to my own life by being a teacher because I admire teachers so much. I admire what they do and what they accomplish in our local public schools, and wherever they each. I love a teacher.

ARBONA: Have you always worshipped in the same temple or the same church in this area? Or have there been a couple of different ones where you go to?

MAGLEBY: Yeah, well, in this area, we first went to church in the Legion Hall, American Legion Hall, because we didn't have a building. And that was in 1943. 01:17:00As I say, that's when we came to California. We met in the Legion Hall for a long time. And it was a long time, until we finally bid on an Army church. And it was put up for bid by the Army. There were fifteen organizations in our community that put in a bid for the Army chapel in what we called West Garrison, on Crest View Drive in Pittsburg. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints won the bid. And guess what we paid for that whole building. $985. For the whole church building, including a fabulous furnace, which was worth more than that. And so our first church was an Army chapel that we remodeled a little bit. As a matter of fact, we bought a dispensary, a medical dispensary from the Army because that was where the Army was, right there, and we added that to the 01:18:00church building. Then we bought a dental clinic and added that. So we had a cultural hall, and we had classrooms, and we had a church chapel, all because the Army was here. We enjoyed that building for many, many years.

Then they sold it and built a brand new building of the church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in Antioch. And now we have our own building in this area, on Golf Club Road in Bay Point, or Pittsburg, and that's where we go to church now. So we did have different buildings. But as far as the temple in Oakland is concerned, that is our temple; that's where we go to do ordinance work for the dead. And that's a pleasure to do, also. But that's the only temple in our area. There's one in Sacramento, and there's other temples about in California, but that's the closest one to us.

ARBONA: That chapel that you mentioned, that had been a part of Camp Stoneman?

MAGLEBY: You bet it was. It was part of Camp Stoneman. It was where they went to church, where the servicemen went to church. As a matter of fact, our church met with some of the men there at one time, and we had a man from Martinez who could speak very fluent German. And they had German prisoners of war who were imprisoned there. And they took those German prisoners of war and said, "If you want to come and listen to a subject about church, you're welcome to." And five members of that German prisoner of war cadre were baptized in the San Joaquin River by our priesthood and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And when they went back to Germany they were members of our church. And of course they joined in and helped with the church back there. And told their families, "We joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 01:20:00California." And so that was quite an incident because here they are, five prisoners with guards, and priesthood in white clothes, down at the river baptizing by immersion for the remission of sins, these German prisoners of war. It was quite an occasion.

ARBONA: Wow. Well, we are getting a little bit close to what you told me was your kind of--

MAGLEBY: Cut-off time, yep.

ARBONA: --deadline, but to ask you one more question that maybe we can finish on. You said before that the end of the war was an opportunity to ask, how do we want to live? And you felt you had the freedom at that point. How did you see, then, that way that you wanted to live? How would you describe that way that you wanted to live then?

MAGLEBY: Well, it gave us freedom to choose. Before, we pretty well had to do what was available for us. For example, you didn't have cars, so you couldn't 01:21:00drive very many places. But after the war, and we realized that we were going to have cars made, we're going to build some new cars and buy a car, we were able to choose our life a little bit more. And that choice became very precious to us. I had a brother who, as I say, went on a mission, and then he came back and was able to go to school at the College of Mortuary Science and became a mortician and built--as a matter of fact, he hauled one of the buildings--. This is a story. My brother became a mortician. And he needed a mortuary. He hauled one of the buildings at Camp Stoneman, which was a medical dispensary, over to Pleasant Hill. And there it stands today, as the Oak Park Hills Chapel, on North Main Street in Walnut Creek. That was at Camp Stoneman at one time and became 01:22:00his chapel. And it was something that you could do then. Choices were more--they were available to us. And the fact that we didn't have to live under the Japanese rule or German rule, we felt relieved and special. We felt like we came together; we did it ourselves. We fought the war, we won the war, and we were very, very pleased that we were free to do what we did. And we were able to go to school, get jobs, and complete our lives and fulfill our lives.

ARBONA: And you yourself, what was the choice you wanted to make at that point?

MAGLEBY: Well, I didn't have as many goals as men do because--I didn't get married, and so my goals were to earn a living and to participate in the church and in the community. And by the way, finally now, I'm communicating in the 01:23:00community, or involved in the community, more than I ever dreamed. I am more involved in this community than any other person, I'm sure. But it's because I love this community and I love to see it grow bigger and better. Bay Point will be bigger and better. And I'm helping to make it so. And I'm very humble about that because I know that it's not me, but it's from our Father in heaven, who gives me the courage to go ahead and make one step forward again.

ARBONA: Well, I am personally very impressed. And it sounds like you have a lot to be proud of.

MAGLEBY: And a lot left to do.

ARBONA: And a lot left to do. Very good.

MAGLEBY: And I'm eighty-four and still got time to do it.

ARBONA: Well, since I don't want to step on the time that you have to get ready for your next appointment, [laughs] since you're a very busy person, why don't we finish up with looking at those photos that you have of your brothers and 01:24:00your parents and maybe we can--?

MAGLEBY: All right. All right. That would be very nice. That would be very nice.

ARBONA: We can get a little bit of--

MAGLEBY: We can certainly do that.

ARBONA: We can do that. Let me see if I can get the camera.

MAGLEBY: We'll do that, and a pleasure.

ARBONA: I'm going to try to zoom in one these, and you can--I think I'll keep the audio going. So if I can get the camera off of here, and I am going to zoom into the photos.

MAGLEBY: Now, the first one there is my family, and behind them is my mother and father. So you can see what you have there.

ARBONA: I'm going to try to zoom in.

MAGLEBY: Let me tell you who's on the front row. On the left is Gloria, that's me; then my father, Harold Magleby; then my mother, Alta Erickson Magleby; then 01:25:00my sister, Mildred Magleby {Robie?}. On the back row is my twin brother, {Roger?} Magleby; then my oldest brother, Burns Magleby; then the middle brother, Harold Junior Magleby; and then my brother Douglas Magleby. All of them were in World War II.

ARBONA: Those were from left to right?

MAGLEBY: Yes, from left to right.

ARBONA: So Douglas would be the one on the far right.

MAGLEBY: On the far right.

ARBONA: Okay. And then we also--

MAGLEBY: And in back of that is a picture of my mother and father, if you can see that.

ARBONA: Yeah, I think we can get, also a clip of that.

MAGLEBY: And that's a picture that we use all the time, because that was when they were, oh, maybe fifty-one years old. And it's hard for me to believe that my father and mother were only fifty-one at one time, but they always seemed very old. Children always think their parents are old. Now I'm older than both of them were when they died.

ARBONA: Wow. Can you repeat their names one more time?

MAGLEBY: Beg pardon?

ARBONA: Can you repeat their names one more time?

MAGLEBY: Alta Erickson Magleby and Harold, Joseph Harold Magleby. He went by Harold more than Joseph, but JHM. Both of them born, one month apart, in Monroe, Utah. My mother was one month older than my father, and don't think that he didn't remind her of that ever year. "I'd hate to be as old as you are." [they laugh] But we had a great time together. We laughed a lot, we sang a lot together. We did a lot of singing together. And as the families came along, we had family reunions that were incredible. Everybody participated.

ARBONA: Had your grandparents come from abroad? Or were they born--

MAGLEBY: Yes, from Denmark and from Norway.

ARBONA: Which side of the family--?

MAGLEBY: And also from Scotland and Wales, on my mother's side. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm part Danish, Norwegian, Scotch and Welsh. All of the above.

ARBONA: All right. Well, I think we probably should stop there. But thank you so much, Gloria.

MAGLEBY: Oh, you're welcome. You're entirely welcome.

[End of Session]