Shirley Henderson | Interview 2 | April 10, 2012

THOMPSON: This is Travis Thompson, and we're here with our second interview today with Shirley Henderson. It's April 10, 2012. Shirley, I'd like to start off by you just explaining to me maybe a little bit more about your parents' involvement with World War II and how that differed with, say, other parents in the Bay Area during the time.

HENDERSON: Well, my parents were active in the war immediately. Our house was a big house. It had been built by a doctor with nine children, and so it was a big house. Mother went immediately, helping at the new USO and chatting, with her usual way, and got to know boys and would invite them home. Would invite them 00:01:00usually for Sunday dinner. After getting acquainted, she might invite them to come live there.

THOMPSON: At your home?

HENDERSON: At our home. Well, my brothers were not using the bedrooms anymore. For a little while before I got married, I was still in the house, so I remember some of those boys. After I moved out, which was fairly soon--. Some of these boys were engaged to be married or were married, and they sent for their ladies. 00:02:00My wedding gown was worn four times, in the living room, by girls of entirely different body shapes. It was kind of amusing. [laughs]

THOMPSON: So they would get married inside your parents' home?

HENDERSON: Yes. My mother's minister would come and marry them in our living room.

THOMPSON: Now, could you say a little bit more why that was? Was it a spur-of-the- moment kind of a more deal? Or did they want to get married before they went back to war?

HENDERSON: Well, they were in the war. These were fellows who -- some of them were Navy V-12s. V-12s, they called them, and they were on campus. Well, they sent home for their sweethearts, and in one case, sent home for their wife. It made 00:03:00for a very busy house, because a worried lady from Maryland might not get along too well with another worried lady from Michigan or Texas. I remember those three states, in particular. It was because it was getting complicated at home, why my father, who had been driving off every morning at 5:15, to a Naval air station where he was an engineer, doing propeller design, which wasn't much fun because they were already designing jets, and the younger men got to work on the jets, and my dad was doing propeller design. But Mother went with him every morning and became a messenger girl and 00:04:00file clerk, during the war.

THOMPSON: So both of your parents, during World War II, worked at the Naval Air Station in Alameda?

HENDERSON: That's correct.

THOMPSON: And your father worked on propellers for airplanes.

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: And your mother was a file clerk at the station, as well.

HENDERSON: Right.

THOMPSON: So was this something that was normal, that you knew of for, I guess, parents of your generation, to do during World War II in the Bay Area?

HENDERSON: I didn't know any others who did that.

THOMPSON: So your parents were rather unique.

HENDERSON: Well, I do remember my parents' best friends. I had grown up calling them aunt and uncle, that kind of friend. He took a leave of absence from the 00:05:00Farm Credit Administration and went up to Tule Lake, where the Japanese were interned, and they worked there at Tule Lake.

THOMPSON: Did they ever talk about their experiences?

HENDERSON: Oh, my yes. Yeah.

THOMPSON: Could you share a little bit about why -- ?

HENDERSON: Well, I didn't hear about that until after the war. It was that they found that we didn't understand our own Japanese. They had been sufficiently private, maintaining their own ways. Which may be one of the reasons they were incarcerated, is that we didn't know them.

THOMPSON: So the Japanese, to you and to this very close family couple that you knew and you called aunt and uncle, 00:06:00the Japanese maintained a level of privacy that was suspicious, do you think, during that time?

HENDERSON: It wasn't that it was suspicious. One, their English was poor. Especially the women's. It was enough to carry on a business transaction, if they had something to sell you. I remember a Japanese woman who had a little florist shop on Telegraph Avenue, that my mother bought flowers from. But I had gone to school with maybe half a dozen Japanese, at Berkeley High, and I don't remember them at all. When I look at my yearbook, I could see that they were there.

THOMPSON: Do you think that was because they maintained their own privacy, or that maybe the majority of Caucasians at the school never reached out? Or was it a two-way street?

HENDERSON: Well, it's just that they didn't participate in school activities. They didn't work on the school paper; they didn't go out for teams. Probably because they were going to Japanese school after the regular school day.

THOMPSON: I see. When you were at Berkeley High, did you ever have any acquaintances at the University High during the time?

HENDERSON: With Cal?

THOMPSON: No, the other high school.

HENDERSON: Oh, the one in Oakland. Yeah. Well, sure, my cousin went there, because they -- well, my cousins were far better placed socially than my parents 00:08:00were, and it was a very socially desirable thing, to go to University High, which was considered to be a more progressive school.

THOMPSON: Progressive.

HENDERSON: And experimental and -- my parents were not too thrilled with the idea that there were classes in contract bridge. Well, they played contract bridge all the time, but they didn't see that as a valid high school course to take.

THOMPSON: I see. So I want to change hats real quick. It has to do with something we were speaking about off camera. Before World War II, there's a 00:09:00major historical event in the Bay Area, and that was the building of not only the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Bay Bridge. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your experience, as to whether or not you actually visited the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge when they opened, or maybe tell me about your family's experience s when they did open.

HENDERSON: Well, let's back up. My parents were very opposed to the building of the Golden Gate Bridge. They thought it was going to destroy the beauty of the Golden Gate. There was a picture that hung in our house always, of the Golden Gate, with the setting sun.

THOMPSON: Without the bridge.

HENDERSON: Without the bridge. But we all saw how beautiful the bridge was when 00:10:00it was built, and it was built in less time than planned, estimated. Despite the loss of life of workers on the bridge, there's terrific pride in what we knew was a world-class bridge. My brothers, they walked across it on the opening day.

THOMPSON: The Golden Gate Bridge?

HENDERSON: The Golden Gate Bridge, yes.

THOMPSON: Now, did you walk across it, as well?

HENDERSON: I have never walked across it. I've walked out onto the span and gone back, from both directions. But no, I've never walked the bridge totally.

THOMPSON: Now, how about the Bay Bridge. Can you tell me any experiences about the Bay Bridge? And if so, how did your parents feel about the Bay Bridge?

HENDERSON: Well, our house was situated where the Key System trains went through a tunnel, avoiding a hill in Berkeley. Consequently, we knew that was going to be on the bridge. That may have added to our just being aware that the bridge was being built. Again, my brothers rode on the first train that went across the bridge. There was a lot of pride. We kind of felt like San Francisco was becoming a more important place, with our bridges.

THOMPSON: Just because the bridges had recently been constructed. Did you feel 00:12:00closer to San Francisco in a way, because you now had a much easier way to get there?

HENDERSON: We hardly ever went to San Francisco, when we had to go by an auto ferry. I do remember going, and riding other ferries, as well, to Marin County. But that was a very unusual, festive thing to go do.

THOMPSON: It was.

HENDERSON: My parents never went shopping in San Francisco. One, we didn't have any money to go shopping with during the Depression, anyway. But I saw Golden Gate Park. I don't remember the zoo. Must've been there.

THOMPSON: The San Francisco Zoo?

HENDERSON: Yeah. But I don't remember seeing that.

THOMPSON: But going to San Francisco before the Bay Bridge was a very festive event. Do you remember how long it typically took?

HENDERSON: No, I can't. The ferry-boat ride itself wasn't very long. When we were going on the auto ferry, you just sat in the car. Because it didn't take very long. If you look at the Berkeley Pier, it extends way out into the bay. So it was not a long ferryboat ride.

THOMPSON: So you caught the auto ferry at the Berkeley Pier?

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: Now that we're about in the same time period, with regard to the Depression, I'd like to talk about how maybe Prohibition affected your family's life, if it did or did not. Let's start with one question, whether or not 00:14:00alcohol was ever in the home, growing up.

HENDERSON: No, my family was a teetotalling family. I can remember that my father disapproved of Prohibition.

THOMPSON: Could you talk about that?

HENDERSON: Well, he saw that it created an underworld, diverting money; that it was expensive; and there was a criminal element involved. I never heard the word mafia in my youth at all, but after the fact, I understood that it was here and that that was involved with Prohibition. But my father was opposed to any kind 00:15:00of law that prohibited anything of just ordinary life. One, that it wouldn't work, and would create tensions. But he himself would never have the stuff in the house.

THOMPSON: He wouldn't?

HENDERSON: Never.

THOMPSON: Do you know of any close family friends that would have alcohol in their homes?

HENDERSON: I didn't know anybody. No, we were very strong in a particular, very conservative church, and blue laws applied.

THOMPSON: So can you tell us a little bit more about how your family might have reacted to the end of Prohibition? Do you remember that?

HENDERSON: No, don't remember that at all. I just remember seeing it in the newsreels.

THOMPSON: I want to fast-forward a little bit to your time at Cal, and talk a little bit about your experiences with going to Cal football games and athletic events in general. Did you attend Cal football games? And if so, could you talk about your experiences at Cal football games throughout your life and what it meant to you?

HENDERSON: Well, I joined a sorority. If you were a member of the sorority, you were expected to be at such events and sit in the rooting section.

THOMPSON: In the student section?

HENDERSON: Yes, in your white blouse. It was just expected. I don't remember 00:17:00that this was true for any other sport, besides football.

THOMPSON: Wearing the white blouse or --

HENDERSON: Wearing the white blouse to the ballgame.

THOMPSON: Now, why did you have to wear a white blouse?

HENDERSON: So that the whole rooting section -- the fellows were in white shirts and the girls were wearing white, as well.

THOMPSON: I see. So when you were at Cal, every student wore white to the game?

HENDERSON: That's what I recall.

THOMPSON: And as a sorority girl, you were required to go to the games?

HENDERSON: Yes, unless I was sick.

THOMPSON: Could you tell me a little bit more about your experiences at the Cal football games and whether or not you attended them after you were at Cal, and what those experiences were like?

HENDERSON: Well, I've gone to every Cal game I could manage to go to. Yeah, I 00:18:00loved watching Cal play.

THOMPSON: You did?

HENDERSON: When Cal went to the Rose Bowl, my family went to the Rose Bowl.

THOMPSON: So you actually went to the last Rose Bowl Cal played in?

HENDERSON: Well, I think it was 1937. That's the date that kind of sticks in my mind. I think they were playing Arkansas, and lost.

THOMPSON: But you attended.

HENDERSON: Oh, yes.

THOMPSON: Do you remember much about the experience?

HENDERSON: No. Not really. I remember seeing the Rose Parade before the game.

THOMPSON: In Pasadena?

HENDERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: How important, do you recall, was baseball in the East Bay, for you and your family, growing up?

HENDERSON: I don't think my family paid much attention to baseball. It just 00:19:00didn't loom large in our -- I was aware that there were baseball teams. I might have had an Oaks game on in the background, as I was doing something else.

THOMPSON: That would be the Oakland Oaks --

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: -- that played in Emeryville after --

HENDERSON: I didn't even know where they played. [laughs]

THOMPSON: But you would listen to the Oakland Oaks games in the background, when you were doing other things during your day.

HENDERSON: Yeah. I always had the radio on.

THOMPSON: Were you ever aware of large baseball figures during that time, like Babe Ruth?

HENDERSON: Oh, sure, we heard about those.

THOMPSON: Or Joe DiMaggio.

HENDERSON: And we might even listen to the World Series on the radio.

THOMPSON: Okay, so the World Series was a bigger event --

HENDERSON: Sure. We knew about that as a national event, yeah.

THOMPSON: During World War II, Richmond grew significantly, because of the 00:20:00building of the shipyards, by Henry Kaiser. I was wondering if you could recollect what the increased population in Richmond was during World War II. What were your initial feelings toward that population increase? And how do you think it affected the surrounding cities, if any?

HENDERSON: Well, it started before World War II, the change in social demographics. The Dust Bowl effect in town brought some people who talked funny. I can remember as a girl being afraid of some of them because I didn't 00:21:00understand their lingo.

THOMPSON: Now, when you say "talk funny," they had a certain type of accent, like a Southern accent? Or they just talked funny?

HENDERSON: I didn't understand what they were saying.

THOMPSON: I see. How would you classify their accent now, if you looked back on it?

HENDERSON: As I look back on it. I think I only understand it now because I've lived in the South since then.

THOMPSON: But it was a Southern accent.

HENDERSON: It was a Southern accent, but it was more that the grammar was different. I really can't duplicate it because -- it didn't seem that they talked 00:22:00except in the present tense. I don't remember their having a past tense. But I didn't really hear a whole lot. If they showed up at my school, I don't remember it. I have a feeling that if you were different in the high school, you kind of kept quiet.

THOMPSON: So before World War II, as a young girl going up in the Bay Area, you saw an influx of people from the South.

HENDERSON: Yes, but they were all white.

THOMPSON: And you remember that very distinctly?

HENDERSON: Oh, very much so, yes.

THOMPSON: So with the coming of World War II and the building of Richmond, how 00:23:00did things change?

HENDERSON: Well, the only thing I knew about Richmond before the war was that they had a natatorium, where there would be swim parties. For twenty-five cents, you could go swimming out in Richmond, up in Point Richmond. Richmond itself, I was totally unaware of, just because there wasn't any reason to go there. When I married, I married a man who was working at the Richmond refinery, and I very quickly was conscious of Richmond; conscious of the wartime housing; what was called the shipyard highway, which didn't get converted to a freeway until, 00:24:00I think, 1980 or something along in there. So all his career, he was on that shipyard highway, going to work.

THOMPSON: So your husband, he worked at Standard Oil --

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: -- in Richmond, a little bit before the war and during the war, right?

HENDERSON: He graduated from Cal in '42, and immediately went -- the next Monday morning he reported in Richmond.

THOMPSON: So I'm curious. His relationship with Standard Oil during the time, how did he interact with the shipyard, if at all?

HENDERSON: Just that the traffic was -- no, the shipyard activities and their personnel, he had no connection. Believe me, he was too busy. The refinery, 00:25:00during the war, was at high gear. The work week was fifty-six hours a week. Always a shortage of engineers and a heavy workload.

THOMPSON: He was an engineer at the plant.

HENDERSON: Yes, yes.

THOMPSON: Did he talk any more about his experiences at the plant during the war?

HENDERSON: Well, he talked about it, I guess. It was the excitement of developing new products. Jet fuel hadn't been developed. And jets, of course, in the course of the war, they had to learn what to use and how to make it. I can 00:26:00remember that that was part of the gas rationing problem, is that there's only so much in a barrel of oil. If you make jet fuel out of it, there's less gasoline for other purposes.

THOMPSON: So making jet fuel consumed most of the oil in the barrel.

HENDERSON: A lot of the oil. It's essentially kerosene.

THOMPSON: He remembered that distinctly?

HENDERSON: Oh, yes.

THOMPSON: Was he involved in the development of jet fuel?

HENDERSON: Only in the construction of new facilities to handle what the research -- Chevron research was doing the development. But it had to be realized in the refinery, and he was dealing in the realization.

THOMPSON: So with Richmond growing at an exponential rate during World War II 00:27:00and the social demographic changing before World War II, primarily with an influx of white citizens from the South, or the Dust Bowl, as you said, how did the demographic change during World War II with the increase in the shipyards? And how did that affect the surrounding cities, if any?

HENDERSON: Well, of course, the very few black families were eclipsed by the -- well, whole trainloads of blacks were brought by Kaiser. And the housing 00:28:00need of those new workers -- when I say eclipsed, I felt sorry for the few families that I knew, that I had not had any exposure, except in high school, because their parents probably had been here a long time, some of them, from the time of the Gold Rush. Even though they were separate, there was a -- let's just call it respect. They were different, but they were respected. When people who didn't know our ways of how to behave, and who we couldn't understand when they 00:29:00spoke -- . But they looked alike. Consequently, the blacks who were here were overwhelmed, and a prejudice against them, that hadn't existed before, was applied.

THOMPSON: So the influx of black Americans from the South, during the population increase in Richmond, had an effect on black families that already lived here.

HENDERSON: Right.

THOMPSON: So much so that a new type of stereotype was applied --

HENDERSON: Exactly.

THOMPSON: -- to blacks that had already been in the Bay Area, when blacks from 00:30:00the South arrived. You said that was a negative effect.

HENDERSON: It was for them.

THOMPSON: Do you remember any specific instances, or can you recall any specific instances that might relate to that?

HENDERSON: I wasn't aware of them at the time. I just feel that in retrospect. I don't think I was aware at the time. One thing, very few blacks worked at the refinery. The refinery had high-pressure and high-temperature equipment. Unless you could pass a safety test, a written safety test, you couldn't be employed there. That was just a matter of everybody's safety.

THOMPSON: But a very few amount of blacks worked at the refinery, just not many?

HENDERSON: I didn't hear about them. The jobs at the shipyards, they learned to do what they did on the job. You can't do that much in an oil refinery.

THOMPSON: Another event happened during World War II, a little bit after --you might've been at Cal at the time. In July, 1944, there was a really large explosion at the Port Chicago munitions depot.

HENDERSON: I remember it vividly, because I was at a kitchen sink and the kitchen windows were open, and the kitchen curtains came in my face.

THOMPSON: Really?

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: Where were you during the Port Chicago explosion?

HENDERSON: I was in my husband's aunt's house in Kensington and was working in the kitchen while she was away. We were taking care of their two boys. I was just working in the kitchen. We didn't hear it; we just had that air push that obviously was an explosion of sufficient force to change the air pattern.

THOMPSON: So you didn't hear the explosion in Kensington, but you felt a huge rush of air.

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: Because the window was open.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: So when did you finally learn that it was an explosion?

HENDERSON: Oh, I think we turned the radio on. We figured something had happened.

THOMPSON: I see. Do you remember what was said on the radio?

HENDERSON: No. In fact, I think it was very terse, not giving us any details.

THOMPSON: Do you recall them asking for medical personnel to report to Port Chicago?

HENDERSON: I don't remember that.

THOMPSON: But you definitely remember the event.

HENDERSON: Oh, yes.

THOMPSON: After that, was it spoken much about in the community or amongst close friends?

HENDERSON: No, it was more something you read about in the newspaper, because there was controversy.

THOMPSON: Afterwards.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: During World War II, the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, per Dr. Loper, converted the church into a civilian control center for Japanese Americans.

HENDERSON: For them to register before evacuation.

THOMPSON: For them to register before evacuation. Many of those Japanese then went on to assembly centers that were at different racetracks and --

HENDERSON: Well, they only went to Tanforan, from Berkeley.

THOMPSON: Okay, so Tanforan. You later took up the subject of the First Congregational Church converting the church into a control center, for a project you were doing.

HENDERSON: I was training to be an Oakland docent, at the museum.

THOMPSON: Can you talk to me about your experiences in research, for your 00:35:00project about the First Congregational Church, and why you decided to take up that subject, and just provide more history and context to it?

HENDERSON: Well, I had joined that church in 1943, with my husband. It was obviously an event that the church was proud of, so it was mentioned from time to time. When I was training to be a docent in 1970 -- or '72, something like that -- I had to write a paper about some research project, in order to be a docent. I happened to be on the history committee of the church at the time. It was the 00:36:00first church in Berkeley. The professors that came to Cal from Oakland sort of were the charter members of the church. Berkeley was farmland at the time. I thought there'd be something in the church vault that would be source material to write something for a paper for the Oakland Museum project. I discovered a manila envelope that had tidbits in the envelope -- a number of photo negatives, some notes written in a vest. Well, if a man carries a little notebook in his 00:37:00vest, if it was a loose leaf, you can take those out. Well, the pastor had had such a notebook during the evacuation experience. So the notes that he jotted down, those very few days, were in this envelope.

THOMPSON: And this pastor was Dr. Loper?

HENDERSON: This was Dr. Loper?

THOMPSON: And his full name?

HENDERSON: Dr. Vere Van Loper, a good Dutch name.

THOMPSON: Before you move on with your story, could you talk a little bit more about Dr.

Loper and what type of person he was?

HENDERSON: Well, he was an old-fashioned pastor. Nowadays large churches like that church have big staff, big professional staff. In 1939, he came to town, 00:38:00and he had as a staff, a part-time secretary and a part-time assistant, who was a young clergyman, fresh out of seminary. So he had the whole job to do. There was a terribly nice music teacher in town, who played the organ and conducted a choir. A remarkable woman, actually, who had a stroke at the organ and managed to finish the hymn with one finger playing the melody.

THOMPSON: This was at the church?

HENDERSON: This was at the church.

THOMPSON: When did that occur?

HENDERSON: I'm not sure of the date; I think it was '40, maybe '41.

THOMPSON: Do you remember the woman's name?

HENDERSON: Helen Redfield. She was a prominent piano teacher in town.

THOMPSON: Wow, that's an incredible story.

HENDERSON: But the pastor had very little help. And he only got two weeks of vacation, in those days. He was a mature person, my father's age when he came, so to me, he was another father figure. He was unusual as a minister. I was used 00:40:00to very sober-sided, stern clergymen. I guess he had that side to him, but it wasn't the side that I saw. He enjoyed humor and had a radiant smile. Under him, the congregation grew very rapidly. It was a time when churches were growing rapidly all over the country; but few did it at the rate that Dr. Loper brought them in. I can remember when we joined the church there were two rows of people, 00:41:00all the way across the front of the church. There were that many people joining the same time we were. He was approached by a woman at the church whose husband was in charge of Stiles Hall, the University YMCA, who had a young lad on their staff, that was in the Japanese community. She had already found them housing in Berkeley. They'd been living in Alameda, and Japanese were first removed from Alameda. But just as -- you have to move out.

THOMPSON: Because of the proximity to the Naval base.

HENDERSON: To the Naval air base, yes. But when the executive order came out -- and it was very early --

THOMPSON: February, 1942.

HENDERSON: Forty-two. But they didn't know it was going to happen so fast. The evacuation was actually on, I think, the 24th of April. But this woman, Ruth Kingman, went to the US Social Security -- it was going to be a joint military, with this other agency. They had planned to have the registration down on 00:43:00Shattuck Avenue, in a building where there was no privacy. She thought that these people could be better served, and actually the whole project done better, if they could use the church facilities, because it just was a well-equipped church. She went to the pastor and proposed this, and he went to the church council. They thought that was a good idea, although there was one member

of the council who'd said he didn't want to get involved with the Army's dirty business. He was the only negative vote.

THOMPSON: Were there any Japanese-American members of your church at that time?

HENDERSON: Yes, there were a few. There were a lot of friends of the church, 00:44:00because when the Japanese community was going to have a big wedding, they might use our church as the facility for the wedding. A good many had been there before.

THOMPSON: So First Congregational was known to the Japanese community in Berkeley.

HENDERSON: I don't know how well --

THOMPSON: Okay, but they would use the church.

HENDERSON: -- but I know the church had been used for large events. I don't even know what church would've been coming to use our church. I wasn't a member at that time, in the late thirties and such.

THOMPSON: I see. So Dr. Loper went to the council, and all the members except for one agreed --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: -- to use the church as a civilian control center. To your knowledge, what happened next?

HENDERSON: Well, churches had women power, because so few women were employed. It really became a women's activity, not only to recruit our own women, but women from other churches. There was a lot more cooperation, a formal organization of church women throughout the city. So they divided up the days -- it was only a few days involved -- with a morning shift and an afternoon 00:46:00shift, during the registration and evacuation. So it wasn't just the Congregational Church who did this. However, being women and with the times as they were, they wanted to offer as much graciousness as possible. So there was an Oriental rug that was put on the floor; there was a silver teapot and such, silver service, that got polished up; and there were nice candlesticks and candles, to make a gracious -- . "Have a cup of tea while you're here, dear; you're under stress." There were facilities opened up in the Sunday school rooms 00:47:00for little children, and there'd be somebody there to care for them. Because some of these people had to wait for hours and hours. Well, it was just a very stressful time for those families.

THOMPSON: And how do you think the efforts by the First Congregational women, as well as other women from other churches, were received by the Japanese during the time?

HENDERSON: I can't describe that, because I wasn't in on that. When I wrote my paper in the 1970s, I interviewed a few people. I can remember one woman saying, with tears in her eyes, "You fed us breakfast." Well, breakfast was just a few 00:48:00pastries and tea and fruit.

THOMPSON: This was a Japanese-American or Japanese woman that you had interviewed that had --

HENDERSON: When I wrote the paper, I wanted to capture the flavor of the evacuation. "What do you remember?" She said, "You fed us breakfast." That was said with great emotion.

THOMPSON: That's a really powerful story. In your research, you came across a woman who the letters were primarily addressed to. Some letters that you found in the manila envelope or folder were addressed to Dr. Loper --

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: -- but others were addressed to a woman by the name of Eleanor Breed.

HENDERSON: Eleanor Breed was the part-time secretary. She was a very efficient woman. She also was a part-time secretary at International House.

THOMPSON: So Eleanor Breed worked at the International House and she worked at the First Congregational Church, as a secretary.

HENDERSON: Yes. An uncommonly -- if you wanted to get something done, you asked Eleanor. You didn't have to tell her how to do anything. I don't believe she ever married, and she was very capable, very bright. When I wanted to get ahold 00:50:00of her, because some of the materials in the manila envelope came from her, Dr. Loper had her phone number. She lived in Southern California by then. When I phoned her, she came up to talk to me. That was a rare experience. She had written, at the time, about the evacuation, calling it "War Comes to the Church Door."

THOMPSON: Those were a series of journal entries that took place during the time of the evacuation.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Yeah. It was a description of the young lads with a fixed 00:51:00bayonet, at the various doors to the church, as if they were going to be needed. Can you imagine? Fixed bayonets.

THOMPSON: Now, do you ever remember meeting Eleanor when you first joined the church?

HENDERSON: No. She was no longer there.

THOMPSON: So she had left before 1943.

HENDERSON: Yes.

THOMPSON: You came across her through your research and through discovering her name in the manila folder.

HENDERSON: In the folder, yes.

THOMPSON: Now, can you talk a little bit more about the point at which you found the manila folder in the basement of the church? And then what happened after that, for you, in your research?

HENDERSON: Well, I went to Dr. Loper, who was retired, in a retirement home in Marin County and asked his permission to use his stuff. Well, he always took a 00:52:00shine to me; he was just delighted that I was going to do this. He said, "I always intended to write that up, but I never got around to it." We all have things we want to do, exactly that, and we never got around to it. So he was very pleased that I was taking this on. I didn't expect it to turn into quite the big deal that it did. But isn't that true of practically anything you do, turns out to be more than you expected? He had the phone number for Eleanor Breed. I called her, and she didn't even remember writing "War Comes to the Church Door." But it all came 00:53:00flooding back to her, and she had quite a bit to offer.

THOMPSON: To your project.

HENDERSON: Yeah, to my project. To give me the flavor of the intensity of it, the briefness of it, the no warning of having to do it. There was no way to do it halfway. You had to organize a pretty good effort, to carry this off.

THOMPSON: Looking back on what you understand, with regard to the event that unfolded at First Congregational, as well as your research and you eventually 00:54:00writing about the subject in the seventies, how would you rate, as far as importance, this event in Berkeley's history? And what do you think now that you've told the story? How do you think that it can shape future generations and how they perceive Berkeley and Japanese Americans during that time?

HENDERSON: Well, Japanese Americans in Berkeley were limited in what part of town they could live. So that contributed to their exclusivity, or separateness. That was because on our deeds of our property, there were exclusionary phrases, 00:55:00specifically against blacks and Asians.

THOMPSON: Those were the deeds in Berkeley.

HENDERSON: Those were the deeds to property in Berkeley. I don't remember what year it was, but it wasn't until Wilmot Sweeney, a very charismatic black man, was mayor of Berkeley, that I was even aware of that exclusionary clause on our deeds, because he was working to have that removed, in order to have an open 00:56:00city. But as far as the Japanese were concerned, I think it worked both ways. They wanted to be together in one part of the community, which wouldn't have been true, I don't think, for any of the other minorities. After the fact, and so many of them lost their properties during the war. And many did not return to Berkeley. But our attitudes -- I think there was a tremendous amount of guilt in 00:57:00the white community, of what happened. Not at the time, but by the end of the war. Of course, the contribution in the war, of Japanese soldiers and the 440th, 444th --

THOMPSON: 442nd.

HENDERSON: 442nd. That really transformed attitudes.

THOMPSON: So during the time of evacuation, maybe the guilt wasn't there.

HENDERSON: No, there was no guilt. No. The Japanese Navy was beating the pants off us, in the Pacific, and we were really afraid.

THOMPSON: So it was almost a feeling of it being necessary? Or was it more the 00:58:00community trusted President Roosevelt?

HENDERSON: I think we didn't question what the government was going to do.

THOMPSON: President Roosevelt and his orders.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: But after the war, after you had found out more about the Japanese contribution to the American effort, there was more a sense of guilt?

HENDERSON: Oh, my, yes. But a lot of people didn't feel it. Well, the attitudes prevail today.

Well, we're doing this interview, with what just happened last month in Florida. There's two attitudes in this building, of old people like me, in a large senior 00:59:00residence, and they don't want to talk about it.

THOMPSON: By the event that happened in Florida, you mean the Trayvon Martin shooting.

HENDERSON: Right. The shooting of a black teenager by an only-twenty-eight-year-old man.

THOMPSON: But the lessons that we could learn from stories like First Congregational's, you think could have impact on future generations of Americans?

HENDERSON: I'd like to think so. I don't know that I really feel that.

THOMPSON: Is there anything that you would like to add, in closing, about your 01:00:00experiences during World War II? Maybe you visualizing the bay at the time of war. Or maybe how important or what impact World War II has had on your life up to this point.

HENDERSON: That's a great big question. Maybe I could bring it down to size for me. My membership in a particular church all these years, is that -- our pastor had been an officer in World War I. But there were a good many conscientious 01:01:00objectors in 1942. He was a big enough man to support those young men, just as he supported the men who were volunteering or who were being drafted. So World War II was a watershed event to the church. It probably was enlarged by the taking on of the evacuation. The church had not done big social action things in town. We had a lot of support for needy places around the world, but we didn't 01:02:00take on local problems very much. Now the texture of our community, there's so many social problems. The church is exceedingly involved in many of them. From that standpoint, I don't think that our church is different from a lot of other churches in the area. I hate to think of the day comes, at which --

THOMPSON: This is Travis Thompson, interviewing Shirley Henderson. Tape two, 01:03:00interview two, for the Rosie the Riveter World War II American Home Front Project. It is April 10, 2012. Shirley, if you could just continue what you were

talking about with regard to First Congregational and how the church changed after World War II .

HENDERSON: I called it a watershed event. I don't know whether I would say World War II was the watershed or whether it was evacuation. I think in some respects, it was the evacuation, which of course, related to World War II. The church, in every way, supported the war effort. There were women rolling bandages, probably 01:04:00every Wednesday or Tuesday or whatever day it was. There were women knitting socks, also. There were care packages being put together to send to sons of the church who were at some APO somewhere. Every Sunday morning, the order of worship -- which in those days was a very simple single piece of paper -- on the back side of the paper was all the APOs of the boys of the church and where they were, so that you'd write to them. We can't think of that for sending letters to Iraq or Afghanistan. It's so much more remote, because there's fewer fellows in the service. But when it's all the boys in town 01:05:00are off and serving -- . And that very act, maybe that had been done in World War I, I don't know. But in World War II, those boys were deluged with mail and stuff. The whole community was stressed with lack of housing. So housing patterns changed with the war. They needed the Caldicott Tunnel, to open the suburbs. The very act of opening the suburbs changed the inside of the Bay Area 01:06:00and who lived here. The war profoundly changed San Francisco. Just as another profound change, when all the military based were closed around the bay. That has changed the labor force and the patterns here.

THOMPSON: Was there anything else that you would like to end with, specifically, that you think would be very important for future generations to know about your life or World War II?

HENDERSON: I don't think the people in the future are going to be terribly 01:07:00interested in -- I don't find people very historical-minded. They may get a little titillation reading about something and say, how pointed or how charming or how dreadful. But I think people live in the now. And that's appropriate. We have a heritage here, and we aren't necessarily aware of how we got to here. And that's a pity. But my husband used to say, "This place is so wonderful. People come here and if they've been here for five years, they're natives." I think that is true in the Bay Area, that it is such a wonderful place. It will never be the 01:08:00rich entertaining area, full of celebrities, that Southern California is. But I wouldn't want to live there.

THOMPSON: Well, with that, Shirley, I'd like to say thank you very much, and I'm going to stop the tape.