Difference between revisions of "Eva Haynes"

Latest revision as of 09:53, 15 July 2007

Interview: Eva Haynes (eh)
Medium: audio tape
Date: Sunday, April 5, 1998
Place: Home of Eva Haynes, State Road 6614, Roann, IN
Collected by: Andie Gehlhausen (ag) and comments by Maureen Gehlhausen(mg).

ag: State your whole name and where we are.

eh: I'm Eva Haynes and I live State Road 6614 W State Road Indiana, Roann Indiana.

ag: OK and what's today's date? (April fifth...this is April fifth)

eh: This is April the fifth

ag: OK

eh: Palm Sunday

mg:1998

ag: Do I have permission to tape you with an audio tape?

eh: Sure

ag: And do I have permission to submit this information to the Marion Public Library?

eh: Sure

Oral History of Eva Haynes

ag: all right Well Eva Lets start talking about maybe your life um before World War Two began. Like during World War One and your Family.

eh: well I was the oldest of six children and uh I remember it was about 1918 when my uncle joined the service and went to France. I believe they went to France first. and he was in.. I don't know what the shell shock was something about ??? woods. I wasn't very old. I was about 9, 8 or 9 years old when this happened. uh um he was in that terrible war there and it was something about going over the top. And if I remember right he and a group of men were standing together and his dearest friend's name was Forrest and I know his friend Forrest was killed and I think all the rest were. He said the last thing he remembered was he said they was going to get the Hun at the forest but um. he must have lost his memory and for months and months he was missing in action and they thought, the family all thought he was dead

ag: Did they find him?

eh: Finally they found him located in a hospital I don't know how. I don't how they were numbered or anything and oh how we all rejoiced and when the boys came home he wasn't the only one on the train. But there were crowds there in Peru Indiana to greet them and uh he wasn't injured except he had been shell-shocked. and it stayed with him for years.

ag: Now what was he like? How did he act with the shell shock?

eh: Well he'd be all right part of the time and then this would get on his mind he'd have flashbacks I suppose you would call it. Um he'd get to thinking about it and he didn't want to talk about the war but this would get on his mind and he'd just talk about it and tell how awful it was and uh shortly after he came back he met a young lady in Kokomo. She was a neighbor of his sister where he stayed and they were married and uh she was a great help to him um they had a wonderful marriage and um he when this would come up on him, these flashbacks they'd be in the middle of the night and they'd get in the car and they'd drive for miles and miles until he'd get over this. But as time went on they had a large family and as time went on it just got less and less

ag: So he was able to go on with his life?

eh: he went on with his life and yes he was the I believe he was chief fireman of the city and um yeah he was the he was very patriotic about things you know about the community and everything like that.

ag: Um Um

eh: they moved to Kokomo

World War I

ag: Talking about patriotic, How did the community react to the First World War and how was the family life and entertainment?

eh: When we first went to war it was wonderful and there was great heroes and they couldn't do enough. It was at this time the women started working in factories. Before that, women, they always said a women's place was in the home, and they began to take a lot of the work places that men had taken in offices and factories especially, and then when the men came back they were supposed to have gotten a lot of them were supposed to have gotten there same jobs back.

A lot of them would be maimed maybe or crippled and uh shell shocked and couldn't think or there minds was just wasn't quite right I know there was a hired hand that came to work for my dad and he had, had had a brilliant mind at one time he could name every state in the union and the capitols but there was a lot of things that he couldn't remember uh I don't, It did something to him. But my Uncle he got over the shell shock in years to come by having his family and all of his loving relatives and everything. But when the boys first came back they made great heroes over them and they couldn't get enough but it seemed like some people would forget. And um um I know they wrote a song, I used to sing it "I'm a Man who's been Forgotten". People wasn't very kind to some of them. Most of them they were but there was a few like that. And before that, while the war was going on people were very uh. It's kind of hot in here isn't it?

ag : yeah a little bit

eh: Do you want to stop that so I can turn it

ag: Okay we had to stop there for one second.

eh: There was a man and people were very scared of the Germans you know and this man was probably of German descent . I think he was some relation but I don't know what. but people somebody said he was a German sympathizer and they painted a yellow streak clear around his house. And I thought that was terrible. But they tried and um when it came to saving things and rationing um you couldn't hardly get flour, white flour, and my mother always made such good bread. I don't know what it was but it wasn't very good and if you did get flour you had to sift it for worms. White flour. And gasoline, they rationed gasoline you couldn't use it to go on trips or anything like that just emergencies and on Sunday you could use it to go to church. So if you wanted to visit somebody you would go to church and then go home with them for dinner.

Growing up on the farm

ag: Now can you briefly explain how you grew up? Just that can you explain that you grew up on a farm?

eh: Yes I grew up on my on the farm where my great grandfather had come from Ohio, he and his sister road horseback and came down the canal and uh road horseback along the canal and homesteaded where we lived and oh they had falls and creeks and limestone cliffs and it was just like paradise for us kids. We'd go over there and we'd gather flowers in the spring and mushrooms. There was several field s and we'd go get the cows and you didn't know where you'd find them. We had a great big pasture field and they'd go up in the woods and before we'd leave a lot of times mom would bake these big loaves of bread and she'd slice a big loaf longways and fill it with bread and apple butter. and um we had a lot of cousins and our grandparents, one grandmother lived about a mile and half across the river and grandfather.

And you could stand on our porch in the night and see there lights in their window and if you went around the road about six miles but cross the river about a mile and a half then another great grandmother where we had all this fun lived right across the field from us and um oh there's all kinds of fruit trees and garden and you could make sugar water and um molasses out of sugar water. My dad would tap the trees in the spring and um we had a big container and he'd pour that sugar water in there and daddy and sometimes the neigh neighbors and sometimes a grandmother and some us we'd set up and boil those molasses till you gets the best maple syrup you ever tasted. Then sometimes on Sunday um some of the neighbors would come in for dinner and um go over there and boil this juice down. Then they'd come back and the maple syrup we did have we'd make taffy, candy, maple sugar, and oh we just had such wonderful times. And um..

The Homefront during World War I

ag: Was your father affected by the first World War at all? I mean was..

eh: Well yes. My dad said he'd never give five dollars for a pair shoes, when you think of how high things are now but he..

ag: So prices went up a lot during the war?

eh: Oh my, he had to give $4.98 for a pair. He thought that was awful. And eggs came up to (??) cents a dozen, we thought that was awful high. some (??) to get the money. He said that money (??), eggs tasted to good to him that it did to the other people and that he was going to have his eggs anyway. And um we had a big hickory nut tree right out in the middle of the field. And um sometimes the hickory nuts would be wormy well you saved all those hickory nuts, the wormy ones and the ones you cracked you saved those shells and take them down to Peru and put them in a barrel and they said they used them to make gas masks. And did I tell you on here about the bread

ag: Yeah you said, you talked about how the flour was gross. Um now what happened to you between the time period between world war one and world war two. What changed in your life? Because you made the comment um earlier to me that that was supposed to be the war to change all wars.

eh: Well, at school we was taught that in this first war you see the fighting was all together different they didn't have a lot of things they had to use in the Second War. And our school they taught that there would never be another war and um then on decoration day we'd go to a place, a park, that later my husband's that I married the boy I married his folks owned this park and the great crowds would gather there and they'd have speeches and um go down to the river the kids would march in a line and throw flowers in the river in honor of the soldiers that had died, and there were, they had flags on the soldiers graves memorial. And what else did you want me to tell?

ag: Um how did you, how did your, like, um what happened with your family between those two wars? Like with your father?

eh: Well, when I was eleven years old I had the flu and I was just getting over the flu and the kids in school, the whole school got, got it's called pink eye

ag: What school was this ,also?

eh: What?

ag: What was the name of your school also?

eh: The Sommerset School. And um I had to miss two months of school but they promoted me anyway because they said that I had studied hard and my little sister Barbara, my mother told me I was going to have a little brother or sister, and they had, that's the only thing that I had to look forward to. And also I, I had gotten rheumatism I couldn't walk, and I couldn't see and I had to stay in a room that was real dark, pitch dark, they even had to put a comfort in front of the stove where the, where you open the damper, they'd have sort of like...

ag: Sort of like a humidifier? Like where it puts warm air into the ...

eh: No cause I couldn't stand a speck of light.

ag: Oh, OK.

eh: And so I liked pretty flowers and my mom put them, kept them out in the kitchen for me and then when I got so I could see they took me to one doctor and um There was a doctor that we would usually go to, he was in war at Germany,

ag: Really?

eh: And then when he came back they took him to me that's doctor and he was the one who got me so I could see and his daughter had given me a little silver purse and it was on a little chain on a bracelet, and you'd put dimes in the purse and hold it on your arm and I hold it, one day I was holding it up, swinging it an I thought I just caught a glimmer of light and it kept getting brighter and brighter and I told the doctor about it and he said, "Oh don't use your eyes." but you come that near seeing, you can't help it and I got so I could see shortly before my little sister was born.

Blindness

ag: Now what had stopped you from seeing? What happened with the previous doctor?

eh: Well he put too strong of medicine in my eyes. He didn't do it on purpose he just he just did it. He just got to strong of medicine my pain was so terrible that we didn't have ice water but I kept cold clothes on my eyes and um I just um um um face in my hands on my hands and knees and pressed my hands against my eyes. It hurt so bad. But I got so I could see and and that fall I was able to go back to school, I couldn't see good but I went back that fall and they promoted me on to the sixth grade and then there my first little sister was born there in 19- I had one little sister born before this in 1916, Flonnie and then I had a little sister the one that was born while I was blind, oh uh getting so I could see, was in 1921 and then I had a little brother born in 1923 named Jim and 1924 yeah my sister Mary was born in November the 28th and then we had a little brother in 1926 and he died at birth and his name was Robert Lee.

And then I went on to high school but I couldn't see to read on the board at that time we had examinations they put them up on the board and I couldn't see to read. When I was in sixth grade I had a wonderful kind teacher and he had the questions written on paper and he'd bring them to me and let me read them there other times, other teachers I'd have to stand up close to the board to read the questions and I'd stand clear over at the edge and the kids didn't mean to be unkind but they'd say " Get out of our way, we can't see through you." and make me feel awful bad but I I never let on and then after I finished high school well...

ag: Now your father died during that period also. How did that change your family life?

eh: yeah, three months, in Feb.6 1928 my father died. He'd had the flu when the rest of us had it and it'd left his heart weak. And he was a wonderful father, no sacrifice was too great for my mom or dad to make for we children. And they taught us obedience and they taught us the way of the lord. they kept us in church when they was able to go at all and they taught us to be good citizens well they just brought us up in a good life, we had a good life. We had so many loving relatives, neighbors and friends.

ag: When he died you had to leave the farm you were living on didn't you?

eh: Yeah and then my father died February the sixth before I graduated In April and the night when he was dying, he thought he was dying that night (Do you want this?) He called us to his bedside and I'd never seen my father cry but twice but he was crying like his heart would break and he knew he'd have to leave mom and we six children and he, mom read the 23rd Psalm to him and we had prayer and he, mom promised him that she would keep the family together. and um I had a younger brother, he was 19 months younger than me and then the other children were all small. I had a little sister in the first grade and the others hadn't even started school yet And he asked me if I'd promise to be a good girl and set an example to my other brothers and sisters and I promised him I would. After I graduated from high school we had some insurance, I think he had two thousand dollars insurance, that was a lot of money at that time and he'd always kept his bills paid. He taught mom all about the business. we were living on my grandmothers farm. Well my mom sent me to business college and um they had a sale and sold everything they could do without and bought a farm near Amboy, IN. And that's where they raised there children, my mom. My brother he won a scholarship he was a very bright student he could have gone on to college but he.. his eyes were not to good and he preferred to stay home and help mom raise the children. I don't know what she'd have done without him. I only went to business college for three months and I worked for my board and room and um I decide that I didn't want that for a career because it was hard to see and the lady I stayed with, they were very wonderful people and I and she had three children, they had three children and she had gone to South Bend and um her brother in law was a surgeon up there and she had a forth baby and I just loved that baby like, I loved those children and I wrote and told her that, while she was up there, this was Marion where I went to business college, and I wrote and told her that I decided to go home. I was going to quit business college. She got a hold of her husband she says whatever you do don't let Eva leave. So I'd already gone home and by that time you see out on the farm we didn't have electricity or anything like that and when I went to Marion they had everything electric and it seemed wonderful and the first day I went I was standing by the refrigerator and this lady had gone downtown the motor started running and I thought "Oh my land what have I done?" Well anyway, I'd gone home, the first day I went home I HAD TO GO OUT AND truck patch ,help take, can the coil in the hot sun and I decided I didn't like that, after I'd been gone that long. I was homesick at first but um I decided to go to Kokomo, I had a lot of relatives there, and find a job in a factory. Well the day before I went here came the lady this Mrs(??) where I had stayed, here came her mother, her grandmother, her aunt, her sister, and her daughter and um they wanted me to go back and work for her and they promised me five dollars a week, well that was good wages then of course my board and room and I said well if I go back will I get my washing done with yours? They said yes, I think they'd have promised anything and I went back and I stayed for two and a half years and then they moved to California. And they wanted me to go to California with them and that was about the time the depression started and they said they'd but they wouldn't promise to pay my way back and I was afraid I'd get to homesick and I wouldn't go and there was about oh I spect four or five families of their friends that knew me and that they liked me and they wanted me to stay and be their mothers helper. And I finally chose the (??) Rhetts family. And I stayed there till for about another two and a half years.

ag: Do you know what street they lived on?

eh: Yeah it was um Nelson avenue, no west , I went on west first street was the first one and um Spencer Avenue

ag: Oh OK.

Eh: It was on Spencer Avenue. And they were society families both of them but they treated me wonderful. And during this depression I I was earning when I got to the Rhetts family I earned from eight to ten to twelve dollars whatever I did you know I'd do extra work sometimes. But we usually had our work done, in the meantime when I first went to Marion, I didn't know anybody hardly but several girls from Sommerset High school when they'd graduate they'd come to Marion, some went to college and some worked. Well in the afternoon, we girls would go downtown and window shop and oh we had, before I knew it they'd have friends and I'd have friends, oh I had an awful lot of friends. And I attended the Christian Church and I'd go to church on Sunday, about all the time and sometimes I'd go home on weekends but it helped me to sort of oh it gave me a greater outlook on life. At home I had just been the little country girl and I get up there and I don't know I got a lot more confidence in myself and I had so many friends and I'd liked a boy when I was in the fourth grade, No I was in the fifth grade, and Johnny was in the fourth grade. He brought a little boy home with him one night and also his cousin to stay all night. His name was Floyd Haynes. Well Floyd was six months older than me but his mother had died when he was three days old and his aunt had raised him and she didn't let him go to school till he was seven so he was a grade behind me. And then I just thought he was great. I was kinda bashful around the boys but I really liked him, I never dreamed that someday he'd be my husband. And um we was in the same room at school one year and I don't even remember paying any attention to each other. But um I always liked him and when he was in the eighth grade he quit school and um worked for his uncle. When you quit the eighth grade it would be like quitting, he didn't quit the eighth grade he graduated from the eighth grade and then worked with his uncle. And his folks owned this Pearson's Mill where he lived and then the uncle lived up the road.

Ag: Where did he live?

Eh: Pearson's Mill, that was the it was down there by Sommerset and Wabash County. And when he was in the eighth grade I went on to high school. But back then to quit, to graduate from the eighth grade and go on to col.., high school would be like now to graduate from high school and go on to college. So I continued through high school and um I think it's when I was probably a junior or senior I sent Floyd a Valentine and I sent it with his cousin. He said well he guessed he'd have to come down and see me. Well I was really thrilled. Oh why one night here came Floyd and my cousin Clarence and uh Clarence was going to have a date with my girlfriend, Martha Arrick and and Floyd was supposed to ask me for a date but he chickened out he led on like he came to visit the family. And they all liked him but I's sure disappointed. Well I went on to Marion and while I was up there at the Mc ?? home, One afternoon Floyd and Clarence stopped by to see me and then I saw him uptown one day and we stood and talked. He had a nice head of hair then and and he was a nice looking boy and his hair was sort of a reddish cast. I was I was pretty thrilled but he didn't know it. Then in the meantime um while I was in Marion he met a another girl and when he was 19 and she's 15 they got married. Well I thought no use of thinking of him any longer and in the meantime I'd met a young man at the church named Everett Hampton. And um oh I'd go with him just off and on. First I'd go with him and um I'd get tired of going with him and he'd go with some of my girlfriends then we'd get back together and about

ag: And what would you do on dates?

eh: Oh, sometimes we'd go to the show, sometimes we'd go out home or see some of our relatives or sometimes we'd just drive or go to some other town or we 'd just had a good time together. There'd usually be sometimes we'd go out and get my girlfriends but sometimes we'd go down and see my mom. We always found something to do. And he was a good Christian boy but, I didn't love him but he thought quite a bit of me. I like him all right but I was afraid I might marry him someday. And one day we went down home I went down home and we was going to Pearson's Mill the next day. And my brother said did you know Floyd was divorced? I said why No! I hadn't heard anything about it.

ag: Now was that odd at the time to get a divorce?

eh: Well not like it is now, um it was more so then it is now, but no several people were divorced

ag: OK

eh: And a lot of people thought it was wrong. I didn't because he wasn't the one that did the, his wife um cheated on him. In fact she run off with his brother.

ag: Oh that's not good.

eh: his, his brothers wife died and um Floyd and his sister, took his sister and his wife down there and they was supposed, after the funeral to sort of straighten up the house and things. And the Floyd went to get his, and they had they had this little girl Betty, she was about, they was married in February and a year from the following June the 21st she was born Betty Jane. And um she was just a baby and when he went to get his wife she informed him she wasn't coming back with him and it nearly broke... (pause). Ask a question you've got if I'm not telling you the right thing.

ag: OK well let's go ahead and maybe you can talk about when you got married and then we can start talking about W.W.II.

eh: I was going to say there about I had to go down there before Christmas and get gifts for the children. And um have laid back and so they'd have a nice Christmas, my brothers and sisters. And then for the kids I'd worked for and then the lady I worked for besides sending nice clothes to the children at Christmas I remember one year she sent a big five pound box of chocolates

ag: Oh wow.

eh: Well Floyd and I were married in the home, my mothers home, and we went to housekeeping where he was farming on his grandfathers farm and I had to get used to the farm again but that was all right. We had coil lamps and I first went out there I could, it was hard to see but I soon got used to them and I went out and I'd milk the cows, and work in the garden and his mom was nice to help me. And we'd put up fruits and vegetables and things like that. And then um, We was married February the 19th 1933 and April 11 1934 our first son, John Bill was born. and then in 1935 we went, moved to Lagro. His parents sold Pearson's Mill and bought a farm and give us a third interest in it. And we moved to Lagro in a house that could easily be divided for two families. And then in 1937 our second son Arthur J. was born. And um, but, in the mean time his mom had died. We'd been there about a year when she died. And then, in 1939 we bought, sold that farm and had bought a farm near Roann IN and just before it was just before Judy was born and just before we was ready to move Uncle Jake got pneumonia and he died. And three weeks after we moved to Roann, I believe it was three weeks, Judith Anne was born. And we lived there on that farm until well we moved here from that farm over there in 1940, 39 after Judy was born and we moved to Peru for about two years and then we came back to that farm and lived till we moved here in 1955. And we've lived here 41 years. Now you want to know about what? World War Two...

ag: W.W.II and just how it affected your family and how the community, how did the community react to this war?

eh: Well about like they did in 19.., the first world war. There was a lot of sacrifices had to be made we at one time while we were living in Peru, Floyd liked coffee so well, I was in the hospital and my mom was there and um she let him have her ration of coffee, I think we got a pound a week, it wasn't very much, and he like coffee and he'd put water in the coffee pot and keep adding water and you you couldn't buy farm equipment and stuff like that hardly and I needed an electric ??iron and um um I finally found one and when I got it home I dropped it and broke the regulator on it so you couldn't, you just had to plug it and unplug it when you used it. And you couldn't buy a stove, you couldn't buy anything like that hardly. I bought a second hand cook stove for $35 dollars and we stayed there until um and then Floyd wanted to um wanted to we wanted to come back to the farm we didn't like town for the children. But they wanted him to stay at the factory and um he thought maybe if he'd go back to the farm they might out him in the army and leave the children and me alone. we took the, we moved to the farm anyway because they needed farmers and they never called him into the army and that was in um about 1941 I expect.

ag: Now what happened with your brother in the war?

eh: And then I had a young brother, Jim and he wanted to join the service. And he was only a senior in high school and the kids were on a trip in a bus. I don't know where they took the class. But when they started home they got quite a ways and they noticed that Jim was missing. They didn't know what happened to him. One little girl that liked him pretty well, she fainted, they had an awful time. Then they went back and he was walking down the road. He had tried to register to get in the army but they wouldn't take him he , I don't believe he weighed quite enough, and he'd have had to had his mothers consent I think. but later on he did join the Navy and um he had you'd have to talk to Jim. Did you call him on the phone? He could tell you what happened. He had...

ag: Well, how did it affect your family?

eh: Well, we were awful homesick to see him and he was up at the Great Lakes training and um so one weekend, one day, one summer morning Barbara and Lowell, and Leo and Flonnie, and mom, and I and Floyd, I think Johnny Bill and Arthur, my neighbor kept Judy went up, it was at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station and there was a mistake made some way . We got up there and they wasn't going to let us see him. Well, my mom she started to cry, and whenever she'd cry all we girl's would cry. And the boys they was aggravated at us but Flonnie and Mary I believe it was they was determined, it was either Mary or Barbara, and they got it so we could see Jim. And he was homesick too, but he had on his uniform and we brought dinner with us and we all ate together and it was a wonderful reunion. Johnny didn't go, he was engaged to Madge um they had gone some where um he didn't make it. But then after when Jim would get to come home It would just be wonderful. One time he was homesick and he hitchhiked with somebody picked him up and brought all the way home. They went way out of their way to bring him home. And he had several experiences and I you better ask him about that he could tell you.

ag: OK. Um Um now Mary had some experiences.

eh: Um my sister Mary, my little sister, youngest sister Mary um she'd married a boy named um Billy Boxell and he was in the service. I believe she was in the service when she married him and I never met him but once. He was out to our, mom's, we all was out at mom's for dinner and we all liked him. And um she got report that, it was when they went over to Normandy, when they entered Normandy, he was a paratrooper and he was shot down and they thought he was mis.., they didn't know what happened to him um Mary grieved a lot and finally they got word that he'd been killed. And they shipped his body home and um his belongings and in his billfold I had sent him some cookies and sent him a letter, I don't know what I said in it, but in that billfold he had that letter folded up and it was folded and it had been in there so long that when you went to open it up it about come apart. And um Mary grieved she couldn't cry and one day a girlfriend came to see her and she started to cry and she cried like her heart would break and then her grief lessened and shortly after that she joined the WAC's, and we was all so proud of her. She looked so nice in her uniform.

ag: Now what was that can you explain that?

eh: Women of the, I don't know, there was WAC's the way, the WAC's was with the army and she worked in the nurses department. The WAVE's was the navy and WAC's was referred to the army for the women and young girls. And that's, and then some of then were nurses, they had different jobs, office jobs and different things, that's how she met um Eugene McGinnity. I believe he was a patient there and they fell in love and um were married and they had um four children. And they were precious children. And I don't know how many years they lived together before your father(Maureen Gehlhausen) died. You don't want to tell about the .... Do you?

Mg: oh no

ag: no

eh: And we all liked Gene and we had so many family get togethers. I know one Sunday we was out at Mary's and Gene's and he was reading the funny papers to the children. And um I don't know it seemed wonderful. They lived in Sweetser at that time and us sometimes they came to our house and the boys were all back hunting mushrooms, young men, Gene, Floyd, Leo, Johnny. Gene was down on the ground pulling leaves apart trying to find and they were laughing at him but he found them. And uh, Let's see, I don't know just when the war ended but it was great to have Jim and all the boys back home again. And uh neither one of them, I don't know what happened that Eugene was in the hospital, do you know ?

mg: He'd fallen off a truck

eh: He fell off the back of a truck

mg: Uh huh

eh: Well, I didn't know what it was but I knew that's how Mary met him. And uh, they didn't live, I forget where they lived at first.

ag: Now when they came back, when all the boys came back, you talked earlier about W.W.I about how your uncle came back with shell shock, the boys that you knew that came back how did they ..

eh: Well as far as I knew they was treated, I think they were treated fine and I think they got, a lot of them got their jobs back I didn't, I think they were treated, I suppose the government did the best they could with the ...

ag: Like you said, W.W.II they fought different because there were more different machines and stuff...

eh: Oh yes

ag: So was there, do you think there was less...

eh: Agent Orange

ag: yea

eh: We raised two little sisters from Whites Institute and one of them married a young man that had been in the service and uh he told about a lot of them that had this Agent Orange or what ever you call it...

ag: Now was that from W.W.II or

eh: Uh huh, I don't believe they had that in W.W.I if they did I didn't hear about it. I hear about the shell shock and things like that but it seemed to me like so much more.. in W.W.II it was like two wars going on at the same time it was terrible, it was fighting the Germans on one side with part of the nations and Japan with part of the nations.

ag: Now was there like, a lot did you see the same type of like hostility towards the Japanese as you did against the Germans..

eh: Oh yes

ag: in W.W.I

eh: yes, there was a, yes, we lived in Lagro part of the time and uh there was a factory called the wool mill, and uh there was a young man stayed at our place, and roomed at our place and he worked there and there was a high fence where they had these Japanese prisoners I don't know what they kept them in.

ag: they kept Japanese prisoner in..

eh: at ..yeah, they was there in Lagro and uh the men yell over and talk so mean to them. And I don't know um nobody, people wouldn't buy anything from Japan and if they had anything from Japan they would paste a stamp over where it said 'made in Japan' and uh the Japanese were cruel but uh I didn't ..you know... they....people .. I don't know if they was guilty of anything they put em in a prisons sometimes.

ag: Now were these people that were actual soldiers or were they just normal citizens that were in these camps?

eh: I really don't know I just know they called them Japs And I really don't know but I just know they didn't have any, this man didn't have toward them because they was Japanese but they happened to be Japanese Americans.

ag: How did the church react to the second World War?

eh: well I never heard any hatred or anything I think they uh

ag: Did they have special prayer sessions or anything?

eh: Oh yes I think they'd make bandages, and do things like that, they'd do anything they could to help the soldiers and fix boxes and send to them and well they get together and work and do anything we could

ag: Did you say the Second World War you remembered songs from or the first world war? Those songs that you told me about were those from the first World war...

eh: uh huh

ag: ...or the second one?

eh: but I can't think what the ones from the second was. Cause I, it was my aunt that would play and sing those because my uncle was there she was...

ag: Well why don't you go ahead and say those because I think that those were very interesting.

eh: Those songs?

ag: yeah

eh: Well, one was this young man was talking to his mother and he said:

Farewell my dear old lady

Don't you cry
Just kiss your grown up baby boy good-bye
Somewhere in France
I'll be dreaming of you

You and your dear eyes so blue

And then "the yaks are coming, the yanks are coming." And "Johnny get your gun, get your gun and it seemed to me like in ..What was the other song I had in my mind? "Oh KKKaty. Beautiful KKKaty. I'll be meeting you at the..."

mg: That was a world war two. My dad liked that song.

eh: Do you know it?

mg: No I just remember the KKKaty. Yeah, he was supposed to be stuttering I mean it was supposed to be...

eh: "KKKaty, my beautiful KKKaty. I'll meet you at the GGGate." But they had a lot of songs and um of course the young women was in this war too. And um we was concerned about them. And when Mary'd come home we'd be so proud of her in her uniform and um when you'd see a , part of the time we lived in Peru, and we'd see one of those young ladies dressed in uniform getting on the bus or or anywhere everybody'd would treat them so nice and they looked up to you. And um I had a neighbor over here and um one of her daughters joined the, she was a nurse, the other daughter said mom I'll never leave you but she went too. And the mother got so lonely and she'd go out in the field, the garden at one o'clock in the morning and um cut down sweet corn and stuff like that. And um at one time the girls both got to come to be in California and the mother went out there and met with them and they was all out there together, had a glad reunion. And um this one girl was one of my dearest neighbors and she just moved away, Katie Fishback. And her sister Betty was a nurse...

ag: We'll stop here for a second.

eh:...It seemed to me like...

ag: so Jim stayed in the, after he um after the war he went to the...

eh: After the Navy he went into the

ag: the army or the air force or..

eh: One of those parts

ag: yeah

eh: and um you know, yeah, He planned to go to the moon if he hadn't have been in that terrible crash. And there was a big article that came out in the paper when he um. Mom didn't know anything about it till they called her up on the paper um on the phone that he'd broken the world record.

ag: Now what did he break the world record for?

eh: With his jet helicopter went the highest.

ag: It went the highest that any jet helicopter had ever gone before?

eh: uh huh and then he took it away from the French man and then later the Frenchman took it away from him. But um Arthur Godfrey um talked to him on the TV I watched that and um he asked him if...

ag: Now Jim was very patriotic after the war wasn't he?

eh: oh yeah

ag: I mean did that whole, did the patriotic feeling in the community stay for a long time after or did it fade away?

eh: Well we was just glad it was over, It was such a horrible, such a horrible war. And we didn't know what they might go over here you see. Planes and everything um I'd forgotten about the blackouts till um I wished Judy'd have been here. She really could've made it interesting for you. Um we was just so glad it was over, oh people were patriotic I suppose, bit not like during a war but they'd get together and make bandages and um fix all kinds of things for the...

ag: Now was Grissom Air Force base being used at that time?

eh: yes

ag: Was it?

mg: was it Bunker Hill then?

eh: yes because when we lived in Peru we'd go past Grissom air force base to go see Flonnie um yeah. Yes that was one thing, one reason why they had the blackouts

ag: Oh it was because of the Air Force Base being so nearby?

eh: Yeah it wasn't very far

ag: Now what would you do during a blackout?

eh: Well just didn't have any lights anywhere, we didn't do anything.

ag: You just closed all the windows and curtains and...?

eh: lights and I don't think, I don't suppose they had lights in the town. So they couldn't see

mg: Would they sound the siren, and you'd hear the siren?

eh: I don't remember. See I'm eighty. I can remember things when I was two years old, I can't remember five minutes now.

mg: do you remember when Jimmy was in were you ever afraid was he ever missing or anything?

eh: Well I remember one time he was gone for quite awhile. I don't remember what happened. I think he was in Alaska and I don't remember what happened, yes, we was very concerned about him part of the time. But I just can't tell you a lot of the things. I found out the other day, now this is on tape

ag: I'll turn it off. (pause)

eh: There was some kind of a suit in case of fire. And his plane got on fire but he hadn't he at this time he was giving lessons, in the mean time he was giving lessons to students. And the student hadn't come yet so he's just up in the plane and he didn't fasten his suit, this fire protection. And the plane caught on fire and he stayed in the plane because if he'd have gone down then he could kill a lot of people, it'd been in the city. And he stayed in that plane till he got over the city and when he got out of the plane he was all ablaze. And um somebody saw him and Jim, I didn't know this until just recently, oh a year or two ago, Jimmy Alan told me and then Martha told me about it later. Um he was afire but saw an angel standing there and that angel kept a thing from falling on him that would have crushed him to death. And I don't know how many surgeries he had to have, Mary could tell you that too I spect, all that. It was terrible, he was burned terrible and um they just practically had to make his face. And he called mom at home and he said, "Mom, would you be ashamed of me if I come home?" and she said, "Oh my land no Jimmy." And when he came home he'd go out on the porch, he'd hold his coat up so you couldn't see his face. But he got over it, he got over that. They had to make a new ear, I don't know what all. You know what he looks like now.

ag: yeah

eg: I can't see him but I don't think he looks bad does he?

ag: no

eh: But it was awful at first, and he just suffered so terrible. But you know he was always love his fellow men and he loves the lord and I don't know it. Sometimes we have to go through awful, he was always a good kid, but sometimes things like that draws us closer. Gives us greater understanding and compassion and when mom was in the hospital in Indianapolis and we was all down there, there was a little boy closed to her that had been burned. And Jimmy had such compassion for that little boy, cause that little boy'd cry and Jimmy'd try to go in there and comfort him.

ag: That's really sweet. Well Eva, I want to thank you for doing this interview for me.

eh: well if there's anything on that that I forgot that would help you ...

ag: I can always come back and ask you later

eh: No I put it on tape here. Where is it?

mg: Oh yeah we got the tape over here.

ag: oh all right.

eh: You can play it and see if there's anything on there. I didn't take very long cause I was just trying to jot down a few things I remembered.

ag : Well, thanks a lot. So thank you very much.