Mrs. Ann Noble Dean
[b. 4/2511920]
[002]
SM: Today, today is Tuesday, December 9, 2 days after December 7th and this is the
beginning of an interview with Ann Dean at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis,
Indiana. Mrs. Dean is 83 years old, born on ...
AD: Want me to say it? Born on April 25t,\ 1920.
[012]
SM: Okay, and she is [was] a civilian during World War II. What was your maiden
name?
AD: Johnston.
[116]
SM: What was your family background?
AD: ... The men in the family were sergeants, in my family and my grandfather was a
surgeon, four generations worth, and they were also farmers in those days, and my uncle
was a very well-known surgeon.
[025]
SM: What was your educational background?
AD: I went to Orchard School, and then I went to Shortridge Hi~h School.', and then I
transferred to Tudor Ha1l2, and then I went to Skidmore College.
[029]
SM: What is your current occupation?
AD: I enjoy being grandparent to lots of children who unfortunately, for them, they do
not have any grandparents, or they don't know their grandparents, or their grandparents
live someplace else, and they have asked if! would serve in that capacity, and I'm only
too happy to do it. I've met them through the ... my neighbors and also young
chilo .. young people that I knew and that my children grew up with. They have kept in
touch and so they've said, "Oh please could you be our children's grandmother." So
that's basically what I am.
[041]
SM: What is your current address?
AD: Do you want me to give you my street address? Alright, I've lived there 50 years,
and another few months. 7905 Ridge Road in Indianapolis and the author Kurt Vonnegut
Jr.4, we called him "K", his father, was the last house for his family that his father built.
Kurt Vonnegut Senior, he was an architect and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., I'm sure I, don't,
shouldn't say that anymore, but I would assume you were all familiar with his books.
[055]
SM: At the time of the war, were you in a relationship, married, or single?
AD: What do you mean when you say was I in a relationship? How do you define that
word? What is that suppose to imply?
SM: Were you ...
AD: I got married, after. .. well, no.
SM: Did you have a boyfriend?
AD: I wasn't allowed to have boyfriends. I could have lots of boyfriends, but we were not
allowed to go steady. My mother said, " That's the start of a lot of trouble. So you may
go out with as many different young men as or around, but you cannot just go out with
one."
[069]
SM: What was your spouse's or partner's name?
AD: Noble Dean Jr.
SM: And wartime occupation?
AD: He flew Spitfires, which are- that's a single engine pursuit plane, manufactured by
the Brits. He flew that. He was ... he went over to Great Britain on a single boat, no
convoy, so they could zigzag and avoid the wolf- packs of submarines. He was one of a
squadron of twenty-two, twenty-two pilots, who were sent as and called, they were land
and resume, and those twenty-two pilots were sent over to England, and they were trained
in spitfires and then sent down and took part in the invasion of North Africa and they
flew then [there] and then in Sicily and Italy and then he was brought back. After his turn
of duty was finished, he was brought back to this country to teach American pilots the
method that the British had their pilots, it was called Ground Control ... GCA, Ground
Control Approach, and so someone on the ground, by radio, could talk to the pilots and
bring them down, no matter what the weather was like, or if they'd get lost, they could
get on the right lane that they're in, and so he came back to this country and then trained
pilots.
[096]
SM: When and where were you married?
AD: Well, when he was drafted [in] April, I can't answer that in a short way at all- he was
drafted April 9th, 1941 [42] and into the field artillery and the minute he got into the field
artillery, and of course you were only suppose to be drafted for only a year. He knew that
wasn't going to work, and by then he and I, we had one of those amazing situations
where we had known ... we knew each others children ... just because of going to the same
school, but he was a few years ahead of me, so I knew who he was, but that was all. I
thought he was an old man. Anyway, ... he cut in on me at big dance where we were and
it was just fireworks, that's all. We spent the rest of the evening together and he wanted
me to go out to breakfast with him and I said I couldn't. I had a friend who was spending
the night, and she and I had come together, because I was suppose to be a hostess at this
ball and so he said, "that's alright I'll follow you home and we'll have breakfast at your
home. I'll cook it." Anyway, so we ... that was ... and then he was ... he got his orders to
April 9th and so that was the 22nd of February and so April 9th he was drafted and went
into the army and immediately applied for the Air Corps, because he wanted to ... we
wouldn't have had enough money to get married, so ifhe had an officers commission
then we could afford it, so he joined the Air Corps and it took awhile before those orders
came through. So just before Pearl Harbor, he was accepted and assigned to this primary
air base in Alabama, and you could not get married in the Air Corps if you could ... you
could join the air core if you were married, but if you wanted to get married after you
were in training, you had to wait until you got your commission. You couldn't go through
training and get married. So, we had to wait until he got his wings. And he got his wings
August s", 1942, in Selma, Alabama, which was a little place nobody had ever heard of
at that point. (And I won't ask you what was important about Selma, Alabama, because I
don't know whether you'd know that either, if you didn't know about December i'\ but
anyway.) We were married there and then transferred to Sarasota, Florida where he
trained and P-39 which was a dreadful plane and he was there until October 9th, so we
had from August 5th until October 9th and then he was shipped out and went over seas.
[146]
SM: Where did you live during the war?
AD: I lived at home with my family until he got back and he got back a year and a
month, after he had left. So I was at home with them and then I got a letter one day that
said as soon as you get this letter, leave right away for Miami, Florida. I'm coming home,
but I don't know when I'll get there, so when you get this letter find a hotel room and
then go and leave the address at the main post office, and when I get in, I'll go to the
main post office so I will be able to find you. And he said, I may take a week to get there
and it may be longer. . .it may be a week, it might be ten days, but I don't know how long
its gonna [going to] take me, so you leave as soon as you can and I'll see you in Miami,
Florida. Well, I about had a fit. My mother wasn't home at that point. My sister was away
in college, and this dear friend of my mothers, who was just like a second mother to me, I
called Aunt Julia and I told her. She said, "Well pack a suitcase. I'll come get you. I'll
just tell your mother what happened. We're gonna [going to] leave right now."
So I ... and I could not get a berth on the train at all, so I had to sit up and she took me
down and I jumped on the train that went to Cincinnati and we changed trains in
Cincinnati, and I got a through one down to Miami and I rode up, sitting up. It was a
coach. There were no berths available, and I sat up and it took me that day, that
evening .. .late afternoon ... early evening by the time I got to Cincinnati, and the red cap
on the train said, "We're just barely gonna [going to] make the connection to Miami. I'll
help ya [you]." And we grabbed myoid suitcase and we got off the train and got down,
we just cross the tracks and then the other train was getting ready to pull out. We didn't
even go down to the station. He just boosted me up on to the train track, and got [was]
yelled at the conductor and they got me onto the train and we took off and I shared a seat
with a nurse who had survived Pearl Harbor, and of coarse sitting ... there were seats that
faced each other in this old train, and sitting next to us was a soldier who was on leave.
He was going home to Texas, and he had the biggest feet in the world and our knees were
just bumping, because it was coach and it wasn't the most comfortable place in the world,
but anyway, so he wanted to put his feet up on the seat so the nurse sat there (thump) and
then there was his foot and then I sat here and then his other foot was over here and he
just went to sleep and we rode like that.
That day. That night. The next day. The next night. And then at six 0' clock the next
morning, (and the nurse lived in Miami,) and she said, "You can't go meet your husband
and go any place when you've been sitting up in the train this long. You come to my
house with me and I'll fix you some breakfast." And I said well Noble had said that his
... he knew somebody in Miami and that I should call him up, because it was his
wingman's family. Well they wanted to come and pick me up ... right away and I said
well I was having breakfast with this girl and this woman said, "that's alright we know
where she lives. We'll come pick you up. I have a son-in-law who's in the ATC,
American Transport Command, and they fly in from South America and he will know
what the schedule for airplanes is, and so we'll come pick you up and we'll go to the
airport and I'll find him and we'll talk to him and you'll find out, you know, whether
you'll be waiting 2 weeks or I week or whatever." And then she said, "You can stay with
us instead ... "and I said I can't. I'm going to do just what he said. And so we did that.
They came and picked me up. We went to the airport and she said, "Now I'm gonna go
to the main desk and see what I can find out." And I walked in to this big room to wait
for her. This big waiting room and it was packed with ... men in uniform .. The planes
were landing, and there were people that were all lined up and going through customs,
and I didn't see any place to sit down, so I thought I'll go find her, and I started to leave
that room. I got to the door and I thought I'm ... .1 started to get sick .. .I just
thought. .. What's the matter me? My insides were just tide in knots. And I turned around,
and started walking across that big room and there was a long line of soldiers, and I
walked up to one of them and I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, "Hello." And it
was Noble. His plane had just landed, after my train had landed. He was then going
through customs, and he said ... well it was just wonderful, and totally unbelievable. I
nearly had walked out that door and something made me turn around and just go back,
and there he was. And so he had to go report to the base and go through all the red tape
and so he said you ... The Tubers had already told me of a hotel that would be nice to stay
in, because I didn't want to stay with anybody, and so I said that's where I would be and
he said, "I'll get there as soon as they let me off." (Interruption) And that's how he came
back.
[231 ]
SM: Did you work during the war?
AD: I did volunteer work. You know, Red Cross work, and I worked at city[the] hospital,
which is called what now, Wishard, I guess, and ... my grandfather's mother's name was
Wishard, and that's the name for. .. son of the founder. Anyway, I did volunteer work,
and then when Noble got back from overseas, then we traveled ... he was in the Second
Air Force, and the Second Air Force was from ... went from the Mississippi to the
Rockies, so that central part of the country was the second air force, and we zigzagged.
Our first station was in Colorado Springs and he had a little convertible and we drove that
back and forth. We were transferred sixteen times in a year and a half. The longest we
ever stationed in a place was three months in Landover, Utah and they moved us out of
that place when the Enola Ga/ ... Now do you know what the Enola Gay is?
SM:No.
AD: No? That's the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima". And they were sent in to
Landover (base ).It' s on the salt flats, and so they sent that plane and its crew in there to
train and ... it was late at night. .. we just got orders to vacate the base ... and didn't know
why. We were just told and got orders to ship out and go to Sweet Water, Texas. So we
drove from Landover, Utah down to Sweet Water, Texas. Anyway, when we first got
in ... our first base was in Baton Rouge and then we went to Pocatello and then we just
transferred ... well, no. We were in Salt Lake City, briefly, and then Colorado Springs and
thirteen times ... sixteen times. [Chuckles ]You get me started on those stories and I just...1
relive them, because when he was overseas, I just went through this so many times. I'd
know it all by heart.
[260]
SM: Did you develop friendships during, urn, your work at the Red Cross?
AD: Oh, always. You meet people, sure, but you're busy. You don't have time to accept
[a] "Hello. Hello". "How are you today?" "Fine." "Fine." "Have you heard from your
husband yet?" "Yes, I have." "No, I haven't." Nobody gets any mail. Takes months for it
to get over here. You know that kind of thing.
[264]
SM: Did you have family or friends in the service or doing war work?
AD: Well, most everybody did ... their social life was mainly entertaining soldiers at the
U.S.07. at night. This was when Noble was overseas ... And then what ever I did during
the day and then, also, we had, (now I forget what we were called) [spotters]. .. You were
suppose to keep an eye out for (pause) airplanes, enemy airplanes, and you were suppose
to watch out for spies that might be around, and they had naval armory, and somebody
thought, "Gosh with that with naval armory, you know, somebody might attack
Indianapolis. So the ... state police had a firearms course. My grandfather was a great
hunter. That was his recreation, to hunt and fish. And I thought I'd like to learn how to
shoot a gun. I'd be a great assistant shooting at an airplane with a pistol. Anyway, I went
down took the course, the first. The only reason I remember it was, because it was written
up in the paper, but the first 10 bullets I fired out of that gun, 9 of them were smack in the
bulls eye, and the other one went into the bullet hole, one of those had made, and nobody
would believe I 'd never fired a gun before and I went home, and told my grandfather,
and thought he'd be very proud of me. He just laughed. He said, "Sis, it runs in the genes.
That's all. It's just the genes. He said, "You got a steady hand, and a good eye, and they
told you where the target was, told you how to aim, told you how to pull the trigger, and
told you how to look. And he said, "You couldn't miss."
[287]
SM: How did you feel about the war?
AD: I knew we were going to win and I knew that Noble was going to come home. I just
knew it and I was scared to death that he might not, but I knew he would.
And ... [interruption]
SM: What were your family ... l'm sorry.
AD: No, go ahead. You have to interrupt me. My mother said if you don't interrupt her,
you'll never get in a word inch wise.
SM: What were your family's or friend's feelings?
AD: Were what?
SM: Your family or friend's feelings.
AD: Well, when I got home, I'd left the car, when Noble went overseas. I'd left the car in
Tallahassee and jumped on the train ... the troop train he was on. There was just one car
that had the soldiers in it, the airmen in it. And he'd signaled that he was on that train and
what car he was in, so I got on that train and got on the car and got to ... ride with him to
New York. We didn't know ... which post he'd be going to. We didn't know where'd he
be or anything. So it was just a matter. He said, " don't get on the train unless you see
me, and I'll signal." You know he signaled me and I got on. And uh ... now why am I
telling you that? Wait a minute. I'll waste time. Now what, what was the point of
that? What did you ask me?
SM: What were your family or friend's feelings?
AD: Oh, sure! How could I forget? By gods. I drove the car home after Noble ... He came
home every night. We had thirteen nights together. He'd get in about 4 o'clock. 4 or 5 in
the afternoon, and he'd have to leave at 3 o'clock in the morning to go back to the airbase
in Brooklyn and the staging area was and so his brother met me then in Tallahassee and
drove ... and he and I drove the car back from Florida to Indianapolis after Noble had left
and I got in the house that first night, and it was dark. And my grandfather was, and my
mother were waiting, and my sister was there, and my grandfather said, "Sis, You better
face facts. I don't think you'll ever see that boy again." And I thought, " How dare you
say anything like that!" I'd never been mad at my grandfather. He was my most favorite
person in the world, practice [practically]. And I said, "Pop, you don't know what you're
saying. You do not know what you're saying. He's coming home. Well, he said, "it's
always better if you prepare for the worst." That was the cheerful note. He never said it to
me again.
SM: What did he say when Noble did came [come] home?
AD: He thought it was just perfectly wonderful. He said of course, of course he'd make
it. Absolutely. He never admitted that he'd said to me what he did.
[321]
SM: In what way did the war change your activities or habits?
AD: It didn't change any of them, except I'd ... never seen the Mississippi before and I got
to see that, and I'd never seen the Rockies before. Never been across the United States.
Noble had. He traveled a lot, but I never had. And I just loved it. I just thought it was the
most terrific, huge country. When we were stationed in Landover, there were only thirty
civilians there. There was, there was no, no theater. There was nothing. It was a strip,
what was called, what is now called a strip mall. There was only the airbase and a hotel
called the State Line Hotel, because half the hotel was in Nevada and the other half was
in Utah, and the half that was in Utah, had the bedrooms in it, and the half that was in
Nevada had the dining room, which was sort oflike an amber counter, and a bar, and slot
machines and ... there was nothing ... there was nothing to do. So, he and I played cards
with ... that was our recreation. We'd played cards or games. We read a lot. We both had
always been read to. So we read to each other or separately, but we did a lot of reading,
and then walking when ever he got off from the air base. And uh, we made some fast
friends. There we were ... we weren't always stationed at the same place, but every now
and then our paths would cross and we would be stationed at the same place with these
other couples and so you got to know the .. all the other officers.
[344]
SM: What were some of the first changes in your life after the war started?
AD: Well, uh I'd grown up in a three generation household, and uh, when the war was
over, when V -E day'' came in May. That was just before Noble ... Noble was let out. He'd
done all his service and everything else. They let him out June 25t\ 1945. And uh ... we
were stationed in Temple, Texas, and so we had to drive back to Indianapolis from there.
And he was going to go to work for his uncles, who had a pump company in Indianapolis
that had been established here in 1864. It had been founded in Deansboro, New York, and
they decided Indianapolis was a good place to expand to, so they put the plant on it, ? ... on
here back in 1864. So he was going to go back to work for them. He'd worked there,
worked at the pump business when he was ... before he was drafted. He had gone to
Wabash, and for college ... well he went to Park[School] as a matter of fact for one year,
but he went to Shortridge the rest of the time, but because of the Depression he went back
to Shortridge, and then he went to Wabash and then he went to Harvard". And he said the
biggest mistake he ever made was transferring out of Wabash, because he really did love
that place, but his family ... his mother thought he ought to go to Harvard. Anyway, it was
the fact that we weren't going to have that much money and I didn't have any idea about
running a house. I knew how to cook. My mother had made my sister and me, we learned
how to cook at home, and when [it was] the cook's night out, we would cook the dinner
or breakfast whatever was needed and she also made us go to sewing school. We felt
terribly put upon, because we went to sewing school and learned how to make our own
clothes and my mother said, "And what's more, you're going to wear what you make so
you had better like the material that you pick out, and make it very well, because you'll
be wearing it, and if it comes apart at the seams it will be embarrassing." So we really did
learn how to sew and make our own clothes. And we didn't know anybody else that had
to do that, and we felt very put upon. That was during the war. And I took a secretarial
course so I could take typing and shorthand, just in case. But he got home before I needed
it. But then I used that you know, when we were in Landover, I would go down to the
base if they needed ... you know and just say, "Can I help type anything or do." And the
main thing, the waitresses had nobody do their laundry, so they would wash their clothes,
and then I'd iron them for them, because my grandmother had taught me how to iron
when I was very small and I washed and ironed all my own doll clothes, and all that. I
loved ironing. Still do.
[383]
SM: What social activities were you involved in?
AD: Social activities? What? Like what?
SM: Like during, after your work, like at the Red Cross.
AD: Oh, I don't remember ... When it was summer we played golf, uh I loved to play golf
and Jan and I played tennis. We belonged to a country club. Belonged to WoodstocklO•
And ... those were the sports things, and also, oh, we loved to ice skate, and when ever
we said, "Oh gosh! There's nothing to do. My mother would go and take us into our sun
room ... The walls were lined with books, and she'd say, "Well, you just better start
reading." And she'd go and look at the titles and she'd look at them and she'd say, "Oh, I
don't want you to read that yet. And she'd push the book back in. She didn't push the
book back in very far, and what she'd done, in which she told me years later, the ones
that she'd hope we'd read, but she figured we might not if she said we ought to, she'd
leave them sticking out a little bit and tell us that something we shouldn't read just yet
and then of course we'd think, "Oh gee, I wonder what that's all about." So we'd go pull
out the book and read it and so that's how she got us to do that.
[393]
SM: How did you entertain yourself outside of work?
AD: Well, doing just what ... all the things I just said. There was never any ... children
now ... young people seem to have to have something planned you know, and they take
all kinds of lessons and all kinds things. We were brought up to learn and our kids were
brought up that way and so are my grandchildren. You got to learn to live with yourself,
and I always think if you say "you're bored" that means you're boring, so you better do
something to change, surroundings and the best place to get interested in other people and
find out what they're doing. Talk to them.
[407]
SM: Did others get married during wartime?
AD: Mmmhmm. Sure.
SM: What were their weddings like?
AD: Well, mine, since it was in Selma, Mom just put... my mother put our. .. my wedding
dress and my sisters and two big boxes and drove them down there and we were married
in a little Presbyterian church in Selma, Alabama. And their weddings were (cough) they
weren't big. Oh, no. I take that back. A couple of them were. They were very elaborate.
And of course, the biggest difference is in the way wedding are announced. In those days
when you are engaged was announced, there was a big picture, and a big write up and
then when your wedding came along there was a great big write up then and lots of
pictures and that kind of thing. And now there just small scribs, for the most part so that
nobody will feel left out I guess.
[417]
SM: Did you worry that our side might not win?
AD: No, I did not. It was scary. You were worried all the time, because we didn't get any
news. The thing that was so terrible about the war, we're in right now, which is war, is
you have got twenty-four hours constant T.V coverage, constantly. They have got to be
talking, all the time, and so they're inaccurate, then they don't bother to straighten things
out. They can use they're own vocabulary. Its wonderful, because its free, but in those
days, there were signs that said, " He may be listening." You don't talk about it. What
you know about troop movements and Noble's mail was censored. He was an officer, so
he censored his own, but nonetheless, they had spot censors, and you didn't talk about it.
What ever you were able to learn ... it was ... and nobody criticized the way people talk
now about President Bush, which I think is shameful. I think what they is ... I have no
objection to what they're going to do, but for them to get on their television and say the
things they do about him ... it disgust me. I think this is a wonderful country and freedom
of speech ... you also have to be responsible for yourself, and there are too many people
aren't.
[432]
SM: Did you know anyone who was killed or wounded during the war.
AD: Oh, yea. Oh yea. Noble's best friend ... two of his closest friends were ... they were
pilots, and they were killed. And the young man that was bringing my sister's
engagement ring home to her. He was B-1 7 pilot and he was on a final test flight for his
plane out in Nebraska somewhere, and his plane just exploded in the air. He was blown
up. It was terrible.
[437]
SM: Tell me about corresponding via letters or otherwise with friends or family in
the service.
AD: ... Well I had one ... one of the ... uh lets see ... well, the young men that uh ... the nice
thing about the way things were, I had some very good friends ... young men who
remained friends all our lives, and they thought Noble was great and when ... and then ..
gosh, there's one of them ... he's married and is living in Texas and I hear from him
periodically and he's still alive. He's pretty old now. Of course, he's older than I am. And
when you're my age, a few years makes a big difference [chuckles]. He's closer to 90
than he is to 80, but another one was in the Navy and he has since died, but he was a
good friend of Nobles and we corresponded, after, so I knew where they were and what
field they were in and ... we just kept in touch that way. News was so different. News
then was only, you know, fifteen minutes long on the radio in the evening or half an hour,
but everything was, you know, newspapers ... and this city had three independently
owned newspapers- Three of them. I think just to have a single one out, outside of the
state, I think its disgusting.
[456]
SM: What effect did the war have on your physical and mental health or others you
knew?
AD: What affect did it have? I just kept going on.
SM: Do you think that medical care changed because of the war?
AD: .. .I don't think it changed. It developed. The same as its developed tremendously,
because of our. .. exploring in space. Everything we've done has uh ... on the other hand,
my uncle was a surgeon, very young in World War One, and he was sent.. .Oh ... that's a
fascinating story, but its got nothing to do with this so I ought to get on that because it'll
take up ... Anyway, he invented the cure for pharyngitis!'. He came from that war with a
cure of it and told the medicals ... the local medical society in the '20s, that he had and he
was very excited and had all ... description of the operation which he'd perform many
times and was very successful and the doctors just laughed at him and said there's no
cure for pharyngitis. He said, " I have it right here." By operation and it's called, ? And
of course, that was all in the days before they had anything like sulfa or penicillin or any
of the antibiotics. Sulfa 12 was one of the first ones. So all those things have changed and
they've all changed so rapidly.
[471]
SM: Did you have any worthwhile experiences because of the war?
AD: Worthwhile? I think everyday I lived was worthwhile.
[472]
SM: What was the most memorable experience?
AD: Most what?
SM: Memorable?
AD: Memorable one? The most memorable one? [Laughs ]Oh, when he got home. In the
airport.
SM: Most humorous experience?
AD: Humorous? Oh, uh, well we just had friends who were funny, they were born
clowns, and when we'd be together there was just an awful lot of ... we just had a good
time being together, and there was not the kind of ... we drank, but we didn't drink the
way people drink ... the way young people drink now. And don't you start it or even think
about it. This binge drinking is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. That will wreck your
li ver ... drinking, if you have a glass of something, or one or two, if you have one and the
feeling you have is just great, but now young people seem to think you drink with the
idea of falling down drunk. You drink to get drunk, and that's just insane! And how do
keep somebody from do it? How do you when your friends say, "Aw come on, don't be
a sissy!" You better have the guts to say, thank you, but no thank you." I've never been
drunk in my life.
SM: That's good.
AD: I never had anything to drink either except champagne on New Year's Eve, and I
always went to these wonderful New Year's Eve parties that friends gave. I came from?
and I told my mother I had my first glass of champagne, and she was horrified! And I
guess I was just eighteen at that point and she said ... she just thought that was dreadful.
[491]
SM: Was there a lack of social opportunities and friends because of the war?
AD: Well, uh, I don't know what you mean by social opportunities. Urn, when it was
terribly hot. I can't remember whether the movie theaters were just beginning to be air
conditioned, I think. Of course they were, because Landover, Utah ... the reason that hotel
was so nice, we were in the desert, where it got to be one -hundred sixteen degrees and
you thought nothing of it. You were just hot. That's all. But the hotel itself was air
conditioned, and they allowed us to stay in that hotel, because even though Noble was a
pilot, because the last bunch of pilots they'd had, had tom the place apart. They'd been
rowdies and he was not and so man would say, "Yes, I'll rent you this place for a week
and then I'll inspect it. Well we had one room and a bathroom and it was just great and he
came everyday inside, he found we didn't tear it up and it wasn't hurt or anything so we
got to stay there the whole three months we were stationed in Landover. Everybody used
to come and stay in our hotel room because it was so nice and cool.
[502]
SM: Did child care activities change for mothers?
AD: Child care is entirely different. Uh, there began to be places where you could leave
children when you went to work in a factory. But usually children were left with
relatives. The relatives did the sitting.
[506]
SM: Tell me about shortages and rationing for food and gas.
AD: Well, you had gasoline credit card you had a gasoline ration card, but my
grandfather being a surgeon, he had a way before the war when the house was built,
which was back in .. .I guess it was finally finished in 1911, now this big old church out
on the northwest side .. he had a gasoline tank installed under the garage floor, so we had
a regular gasoline tank with a gasoline pump and so his car would always be full of gas
and ready to go, because he would go. The telephone in the house was always by the
dining room table, the other one was upstairs in his bedroom and then there was another
one some place else, but that was where the telephone was and at dinner he would get
telephone calls from people who were sick or other doctors who had a patient that had to
be operated or any emergencies or anything like that. During the night he'd get calls and
he'd get up and go on an emergency when ever he was called. House calls were a natural
thing to do. When Noble was over seas, I used to- and I was there- when Pop would get a
call in the middle of the night. I'd get up and drive him, which I loved to do, because he
always had. He was a wonderful story teller. He had wonderful medical stories to tell. ..
SM: What about recycling or rubber, grease, or other commodities?
AD: Well, bacon was ... but also Pop had a farm though see ... so he had, and we had a big,
old freezer that looked like a coffin. It was ... none of the freezers aren't the way they are
now, but this just great, big thing stood on your head to get down in it. And we used to
say ... Jan and I would learn we had to freeze the vegetables, "What are we having for
dinner?" "Com and beans and beans and com. Com and beans and beans and peas and
com." [Chuckles] We always had to sacrifice that. And then we would have pot roast, all
the cows that were ever butchered. Okay, we had pot roast, was a standard. Things you
just didn't-there were things you just didn't have. Butter was rationed. The yuckiest thing
was margarine, which was the color of that white piece of paper. It was white, and then
you got a little envelope to reveal the coloring and then you mixed them up until the
yellow coloring was all through the white stuff, so then it looked like butter. Didn't have
much flavor, but all those things were rationed, but you didn't ... it was wartime and you
didn't have .. .if you didn't have it, you didn't have it. And one thing people talk about
hoarding. I had a horror of that. My whole family did. I never in my life took ... you
know the way they do now, and they say, " Oh!" All these people rush to the store and
stock up if they ... if there's going to be a storm or blizzard or something, and I think take
precautions when they said, you know, the year 2000 was going to, everything was going
to stop. The computers were going to blow up. Nothing was going to work. All I did was
to get in water. I got bottled water just in case. Always did that. And we've had power
outages in our house over the years and we would cook out of the fireplace, and we used
to do that at home anyway. We loved to camp and to have cookouts and so it would be
fun. We'd have [interruption] a grill in the fireplace.
[538]
SM: How did you feel about war news from newsreels or radio?
AD: Oh, I'll never forget when Mussolini ... when Italy invaded Ethiopia's country and
that man had to flee to England. I remember that and thinking war is coming and that
means people are going to get killed. It was horrible. And you couldn't believe it was
going to happen to us, because here we were, you know, we were safe. We had two
oceans. So that was what was so shocking to everybody about Pearl Harbor, totally. This
is the same as when the Twin Towers were blown up by those air plane hitting them and
they were ... you just couldn't believe that it had (stutter) actually happened. And when ..
during the war which is something people don't know and you won't know unless you
study it and then if you read some books they will have omitted it, so I'm telling you.
We, as our planes were developed, they got better. We had a fire bomb attack on Japan,
because the Japanese did not take very many prisoners. The Germans, - if you went to a
German prison camp, it was pretty horrible, but the chances were you had a better chance
of surviving. The Japanese simply did not take prisoners, that way, and they were
harming ... they just fought until the death. The Kamikaze raids':' and everything else.
Anyways, the firebombs14 that were dropped, that devastated that country, more people
were killed, by those than the single atomic bombs that were sent in Nagasaki and
Hiroshima. More than ... the horrible thing about those bombs is that it devastates the
countryside and everything, but so did those ... did the firebombs, and killed more people.
[558]
SM: How did you feel when the war ended?
AD: As if you had been wearing the world's tightest girdle from your chin to your heels.
It had squeezed you to pieces and all of a sudden somebody pulled a thread and the whole
thing went "puff." And you just kind of blew up with total excitement. You just
absolutely couldn't believe it. No matter you knew it was coming, you knew what was
going to happen, but when it really happened, you just couldn't believe it. It was
wonderful.
SM: What did you do when you heard the news?
AD: Well, I was in ... Noble and I were in Sweet Water, Texas and were being
transferred, being sent to Temple, Texas, where I knew he was going to ... where he was
going to have to go through a lot of test and physical test before they would let him out of
the ... they did it to all pilots to make sure they were in good shape and then they would
release them, but you never knew how long that was going to take, and uh, so we were
there when V-E day came and that was right after Roosevelt'< had died. And then ... but
you knew that we were going to be in trouble with Russia. You just knew it and so there
was that sense of, beside exhilaration. (How's your time?)
SM: Fine.
AD: There's that sense of dread in the pit of your stomach, because you knew that
something was going to happen and so of course we went into the Cold War16.
Side B
[026]
SM: (Long pause) Is there one thought about your wartime experience that you
want to share with future generations?
AD: Just. .. we were blessed that he came through it alive, but I think, I think we have a
wonderful country and we have to be ready to defend it and we've been very fortunate
that there have been so few incidents when we have been, actually attacked ourselves, but
we have to be willing to fight for our liberty and our freedom the way when we did when
the country was founded and young people ... Our education system really does need to be
given a good shaking. What children learned in grade school, two generations ago, some
of you are only just now getting into high school. Foreign languages are marvelous. I
just. .. I think one dreadful thing is we don't have enough ... no Arabic, and Japanese,
they were learning English immediately. Those young men that came over here. They
came over here so that they could learn to speak it. They could read it and write it. But
they had a hard time pronouncing it, but that's what they were trying to learn and the
ones that visited us in particular. But I think we need to, to take foreign languages to be
interested in other countries, but I think we need to understand and read without the
language being changed. The Declaration of Independence, all the wonderful things that
the Founding Fathers wrote. I could go on and list all those, and I won't do it and I would
ask you if you knew about them, anyway, I just think we're blessed to be here. Count
your blessings kid everyday of the world, and remember something else "Sticks and
stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me."
1 Shortridge High School- Indiana, and Indianapolis, were slow to adopt the idea of free
public schools. The concept gained acceptance largely because of the work of two men,
Caleb Mills and Abram Shortridge. The first free public schools were set up in 1853, and
these included a high school which operated until 1858 but did not graduate any students.
The entire system ran out of money in 1859.
Under Shortridge as superintendent, a new high school was set up in 1864 in two rooms
of a grade school at the corner of Vermont and New Jersey Streets. In 1865 the high
school moved to Circle Hall, the former home of the Second Presbyterian Church, on the
northwest quadrant of the Circle. As the idea of secondary education caught on, this site
became inadequate, and in 1872 the High School moved to the refurbished buildings of
the Baptist Young Ladies Institute on the northwest corner of Michigan and Pennsylvania
Streets. By 1878 there were 502 students and eleven teachers.
In 1884 Indianapolis High School moved into a new building on the same site,
constructed at a cost of $50,000. In the following year a high school for the south side of
town, called Indianapolis Training High School, was split off, and in 1912 a third high
school was set up for the east side of town at the Arsenal. Indianapolis High School
changed its name to Shortridge High School in 1899, but the graduation programs in this
collection used the old name through 1901.
"Shortridge High School."
http://www.indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection guides/sc24829Feb.
2004
