Oral history interview of Sally Bishop Gusa

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Sally Bishop Gusa
Creator:: Lacy, Margaret
Gusa, Sally Bishop, 1929-
Date of Original:: 2004-05-26
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Georgia--Marietta
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Dawson, Robert Louis, 1921-1944
Bell Aircraft Corporation
V-mail
People:: Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
Location:: United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Cobb County, Marietta, 33.9526, -84.54993
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: MovingImage
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Sally Gusa describes her life in Marietta during World War II. She recalls hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor and desribes many experiences she had during the war including watching the construction of the Bell Bomber Plant; seeing local boys leave to serve in the military; rationing; rolling bandages for the Red Cross; and seeing the reactions of family members upon hearing that a loved one had been killed in action.
Sally Gusa was a civilian living in Marietta, Georgia, during World War II.
Sally Gusa Interviewed May 26, 2004 by Margaret Lacy at the Atlanta History Center Interviewer: This is May 26, 2004, and we're at the Atlanta History Center. Mrs. Sally Gusa is going to tell us about her memories of Pearl Harbor before and after. Thank you for being here. Sally: Thank you for asking me, I'm thrilled to be here. Those were important times to me. I was 12 when Pearl Harbor was fired on. And that was a time when I did not know anything was wrong in the world, we just played and had a good time. I was actually in the seventh grade at that time. I grew up in Marietta and I think the population was about 8,000 when the war started. Pearl Harbor, the first thing I knew—my family always went for a Sunday ride in the car. My mother and daddy and my brother and me and my grandmother. We must have not had the radio on during the day because it was not until we started out on our ride and Daddy stopped at the gas station for gas. And in those days, the person at the gas station came out and filled the gas and washed your windshield, checked your tires. And I heard Mr. ____ say to Dad, “That's an awful thing in Hawaii, isn't it?” Until my daddy got back into the car because I asked him and mother had already started telling us about it. The next day at school really stands out in my mind because I was in 7th grade and they had a radio broadcast, I'd say about 11 o'clock when they brought in at least one. The other 7th graders, we only had two, and I think that was probably all that—we all listened to the radio in this particular room and I can remember having to sit up on top of the desk while two people sat in the bottom, in the seat, the old fashioned seat desk. That was the day that President Roosevelt gave his “Day of Infamy” speech. That was real, real touching and something I'll remember forever and ever. Also almost immediately young men started volunteering for the Army or other services, and it was real poignant to me when they left with a little suitcase, little satchel, some of them with just sacks of clothes to go to Fort Mac or wherever the induction center was. The bus left from in front of Hodges Drugstore, which was one of about three drugstores on the square in Marietta and it was one of the places where we hung out. So when the bus left there were many people there seeing these guys off, not just their families but other townspeople. Also in Marietta we had street cars. There used to be street cars that ran back and forth from Marietta to Atlanta and this was just taken for granted. They would come into Marietta and stop in front of the Courthouse and people would get on there and go around the square and then back out Atlanta Street down what is, gosh, I can't remember what they called it, it was Old Atlanta Highway down through Fair Oaks, and Smyrna and Bolton and then come into Atlanta to the Walton Street station. So that was the only mass transportation to Atlanta, I guess, but it worked well. I think it was a dime to go to Atlanta. We rode it to the Southeastern Fair. My grandmother took my cousin and me to the Southeastern Fair. We'd go spend the day and ride the street car down to the Walton Street station and then change and go out to Lakewood. But besides the boys leaving then, in high school, which was the next year, we had a favorite English teacher, Mr. Callison. His wife had been our teacher in junior high which was the 6th and 7th grades, and our high school was only comprised of 8, 9, 10 and 11; we did not have a 12th grade, but I think we got an education that's as good as anything we've got today. So Mr. Callison was our English teacher and we just adored him but we also adored his wife. We dedicated our yearbook in '46 to her. And he got called up or he volunteered and we all went down to the train station. By then, they were leaving on the train. We went down to the train station to see him off. Another thing, the way trains entered in, was that there were troop trains during the war. And I worked at the swimming pool. My Daddy was the director of recreation and I started real young selling tickets to the pool and the ballgames. But this was—I had to walk home and come up Hope Street where there was a railroad crossing. And during those war years, there were often many times that troop trains would be stopped, I don't know for what purpose, but they were there for a pretty lengthy time, and the boys would just hang out the windows. Now I'm getting older—I'm up to 15 and 16 then—and they would just hang out the windows and call us over, and I didn't hesitate to go over there to talk to them. They were on that train. And they were serving our country. They were great guys. And we'd exchange addresses and I had several pen pals that I wrote to through that. Also, I'm not aware of people bringing things to the train and maybe they did, people who lived by the tracks. But the main street, Highway 41, was Church Street in Marietta, and that was a block from my house. And they would have, not two trains, it was like a cavalcade of them, and they would stop. They would get to the Square for some reason and would be backed up way out, and then the ladies would, you know, bring what they had. If they had cakes made or they would hurry and bake some things because they knew others would be coming. The ladies were so good about taking things out to those boys there. When rationing began—first of all, let me say I lived in a great big house with my grandmother who ran a grocery store in the house. It took up about half of our downstairs. And the store was not big by any means like what we have today, just one aisle and cans stacked on each side, but there was one candy counter that I could help myself to all I liked, silver bells and stuff like that. So, when the war began, rationing started. And we didn't feel it, I think, as badly as others because we had chickens and cows here in Marietta, a block off Church Street. We had chickens and cows and pigs and we had hog killings, so we always had meat, which a lot of people didn't have. We had milk from the cows, so we had cream and butter, which a lot of people didn't have. Chicken, we ate a lot of chicken. Beef was scarce, we didn't get a lot of steaks or beef. But prior to the war, we had beef roast, but during the war we didn't have beef roast. When rationing began, the things that I can remember being rationed—and I hope I'm remembering correctly—I know that gasoline was rationed. We had ration books, and unless you were a doctor or you worked for something that was really pertinent to the war effort or for some other reason that they deemed necessary, you had an “A” ration book. And this is what we had. There was a sticker that went on the windshield and you only got a little bit of gas, I don't know how much. But these were high school years for me and the ration did hurt in that we could not drive down to our ballgames. We played teams in basketball and football. We played teams like Canton and Cartersville and teams just north of town, but we also played several of the schools in Atlanta—Decatur, Druid Hills, Fulton, North Fulton, West Fulton. And you've got to get a football team player that's A and B to junior varsity and regular varsity and you've got to get people who want to go there to see the kids play, us kids who wanted to go. Interviewer: Were you on one of those teams? Sally: Later on I was on the girls' basketball team. And then I was a cheerleader in my senior year, and so they had to get us down there, too. And so we had to use the coupons. Everybody would pool the cash coupons to go to those places. I was not on the bus going there; we always went in private cars. But for the Atlanta ones, we used the good old street car. We'd go down and change, just like we did when I said earlier, at the Walton Street station, and go to wherever we were playing, whichever of the Atlanta teams. And that was just great, great fun. Of course, there were other people on there too. There were adults. And smoking was terrible. I mean it was so much smoke—it was not the kids smoking because we didn't smoke then—but there was so much smoke you just thought you were going to choke to death. And I think one reason I started smoking in high school was self-protection on the street car. That's an awful thing to say. I was never a heavy smoker. Thank goodness for that. The other thing that was rationed was food. In the grocery store I had to help my grandmother put up how many points were required for different types of food that were on the counter. I don't have any memory of what the point values were with every thing. I just remember having to put up the signs saying how many points it took to buy those. Shoes were rationed because leather was hard to get, and in the summer we wore sandals. I guess our good shoes really were saved from year to year if your feet didn't grow too much, but I just had big feet. And in the summer, we walked everywhere in those days even before the war. Gas had nothing to do with that. So, I was working at the swimming pool and the ballpark which is, I guess, six or eight blocks from my house. And walking to work over there or just to go swimming or whatever, if the rain came we'd just take our shoes off because you had to save those shoes, and walk barefoot. It was on a farm. You could walk by the curb. But you needed to save the soles. I swear I think they were cardboard. Let's see. I don't know the exact time that it was announced that the Bell Bomber plant was coming to Marietta. I know that Rick Whales [check] was mayor of Marietta and Joyce McMillen [check] I believe was the county commissioner. And they along with others were instrumental in getting Bell Bomber to Atlanta, or to Marietta. The four-lane highway which is now Highway 41 was not built at that time. I'm not even sure if it was a two-lane road, maybe it was but I'm not—I didn't drive and I don't know if it was or not. But, that was primarily why they made it into a four-lane, to get people into the Bell Bomber. And as a young teenager, I had a friend who lived down East Dixie Avenue which was down in that direction, and they had graders out there grading the land and they went around the clock, 24 hours, around the clock. And many nights, you know, I'd spend the night partying and didn't always go to sleep, though, and we'd go out and sit on the steps and just watch those big old machines grading under the lights all night long. They just kept going. Interviewer: I know, I was told during the war [inclear] round the clock shifts. Sally: Absolutely. My aunt worked there and I had two brothers who were younger than me, so we didn't have to worry about them being drafted or anything. And my dad was past the age of it and he was too old to even volunteer. He'd always been in the National Guard up until, I guess, the late ‘30's. When Bell Bomber was announced that it was coming, I think, as I said, we had about 8,000 people in Marietta, and then I believe the population grew so that by the time I graduated from high school in '46 it was up to about 30,000. Now, I know that you can't imagine Marietta. It was just mainly the square and about five or six blocks in each direction off of it. In school, kids would ride the street cars from further out. Some of them we went to school with all through the years but others, I guess their high school came in and some were consolidated schools. And the ones that were north, of course, did not have the street car to ride on. I don't know how they got in because I don't think we had bus services to our school even then. But Bell Bomber was big news, and, of course, it was just the wrong thing to us. The bomber plant thing. All of us had grown up in Marietta. We all spoke the southern language and then when it came time to go to high school, we weren't expecting it. We knew everybody and it just only us so it was just like it's always been. Well, I went into my first class, I wanted to take typing, and I went into the first class, all the desks were taken. Sometimes there were two at a desk and people were standing around the walls and we didn't know a lot of them. Well, they had come with the Bomber plant and some of them came from other towns in Georgia and other states in the south, but a lot of these people talked funny. They were Yankees [laughter]. And they even looked different. But we didn't have many other nationalities. I think a lot of them were—we didn't have nationalities that were different. But there were a lot of really cute, nice people and we had a lot of new friends which really added to our high school years. As I started to say, my aunt did work at Lockheed, I'm sorry, Bell Bomber, and I can remember women didn't wear pants, but when the Bomber plant came, they started wearing pants to work. And they wore nets or snoods on their hair to contain their hair. And snoods were something you thought about in sort of Gone With the Wind days because they wore snoods back then. People probably don't know what I'm talking about. Interviewer: I never saw a man that didn't hate snoods. They keep you from being scalped. Sally: Absolutely. Absolutely. I wish I could remember. We had a friend whose father worked at, was a higher-up person at Bell Bomber. One of these Yankees that came in, and he had two daughters our age. And they lived on the location now where Dobbins Air Force Base is. I think Dobbins came in maybe towards the end of the war. But some of my memories are of changes in rationing and all the influx. There was a whiskey store. Stonewall whiskey store, liquor store, was two doors down from the courthouse, and on payday there would be a line from the liquor store, past the café, past the courthouse and then down Washington Avenue. The people had just gotten paid and they wanted their booze. Interviewer: Wow. I'm surprised at the business. Sally: These people, you know, I'm not surprised. Bootleg was still popular. But the bootleggers couldn't keep a supply. And these new people didn't know the bootleggers. I don't know if they didn't have friends yet who could tell them about them, or maybe they were cracking down on—maybe the bootleggers were working for them. We just didn't know it [laughter]. Interviewer: Maybe the bootleggers got drafted. Sally: Well, it could well be, the younger ones anyway. Let's see, I'm getting ahead of myself. Interviewer: Your aunt worked at the bomber plant. Sally: Yes, my aunt worked at the bomber plant, and she had two children so all of us lived in the same house. It was a zoo. And we never had babysitters because my grandmother was always home, and for a number of years my great grandmother was there. And the store was always busy so we—my mother worked downtown. She was a bookkeeper. But despite the war, we had a lot of fun at home. We had a teenage canteen which my father was instrumental as recreation director in starting. You heard about the Hollywood canteen and the canteens they had for the boys. Well, they let us, they got the kids together to help decide what we wanted to do in the upstairs of the City Hall. And I think it had maybe once been a Masonic Hall or something like that, so it was a great big Hall. We painted, the kids painted furniture and the boys that were in shop knew how to do a little carpentry, and they put some things together and we had a counter for a snack bar where the director could work. We had a snack bar, we had two pool tables, two ping pong tables, and we learned to dance up there. We had a juke box, we had a reading room where people donated a couple of sofas and books and magazines for the canteen. And our director was Mrs. Langley and her husband would help her. He worked at the bomber plant, but when he was not working he went to our dances at night. We'd have dances after the ballgames, just great times. I think that's something we need today and I'm sure the kids would never go for it. It would be too structured for them but we loved it. We called it the TAC, for the Teenage Canteen. I mentioned some of the things that were rationed besides shoes and gas. Butter was rationed, as was meat and coffee. I didn't drink coffee but . . . I guess cigarettes were rationed. I don't know if they were rationed or just hard to get. Oils, cooking oils and things like that were rationed. Metals were hard to get. It was all going to the war effort, as was rubber. Tires, I guess if your tires ran out on your car, wore out on your car, you just had—a lot of cars ended up on blocks during the war. And a lot of the metals were used. We saved tin cans for one thing. And I was trying to think—it seems like aluminum foil has always been around but I don't know if we had tin foil. We had tin foil like in gum and things like that where you'd peel the paper off of the tin foil and save just the foil, and you'd donate that. We had regular collection days. One thing we had that we saved were the tin cans, rubber and the grease and metals. Somewhere in there, margarine came in. And when it first came in, it had a little packet of orange powder that you had to work into this block of light margarine. And you'd work it almost like with your hands or a meat [pounder], something to mash it. And then you might even try to shape it nice like you did when you had a butter press. Shape it like that. Interviewer: I understand that was because of the dairy interests. Sally: Is that what it was? I didn't really know what caused it. Interviewer: It was competition. Sally: Oh. It's why we had to do it and ration ourselves. Some of the things that I did and other girls and certainly the women of the town did do it, we often volunteered for the war effort with the Red Cross. Our Girl Scouts and many individuals too would get squares to make afghans or wrap rolls for the boys in the hospitals. We would knit socks if we were able to knit that well, we could knit socks for them, and they would give you the yarn, and you'd take it home and finish the socks and you'd take them back. Some of mine I'm not sure they could wear, but the effort was there. Interviewer: So you learned to knit socks? Sally: Just squares. We did the squares first and I learned to do socks. There was one lady who came to the movies really often. The movie was a big part of our life. And she had one seat that she always sat in but throughout the movie and everything, she would continue knitting. She was very active in the Red Cross. That was very skilled. She just amazed us all. I thought that was wonderful. Oh, we rolled bandages at the Red Cross. You'd go to the Red Cross building and roll bandages. In my memory these were not gauze, these were some sheets and other items like that, that they would cut up and they would use them later, after they were sanitized, and use for bandages. Did a lot of that. My mother along with many other ladies were active in the canteen to provide entertainment for the soldiers. And I said I didn't know that Dobbins had come in, but it was there during the war because—Dobbins Air Force Base is what I'm talking about. I know it was named for a young man that was killed in the early part of the war. But that's what the U.S. Army was for. We did have it in Marietta and the ladies—I can remember the parties and the guys coming in. It probably was in, I was too young to actually dance with them and entertain them, but we might go there and serve punch and that kind of thing. One thing I remember due to Bell Bomber, during the war they had parts of the planes that they would sell, excess stuff that they couldn't use or something. Maybe this is after the war. But what were particularly liked were the nose cone-like things. They were plastic, early plastic, some sort of material. But they made wonderful punch bowls for big crowds. And they also, they sold, this may have been after the war, I'm sorry. But they sold the cots that were in the B 29's. They had cots, they were attached on one side so it only had legs on one side and they were attached to the body of the plane on the other. Some of my memories—I've already talked about the Pearl Harbor days—that was really an important time and very touching to us. And then all the boys went off to the war. As I got older in high school, the boys who were seniors, many of them volunteered immediately. Others went into college where they had the B-12 and those programs. But then others were drafted, too, because they started needing them younger and younger. And so, by the time I was a junior, the guy I dated was a senior, and he went off. He did not have to go overseas, I think, because it was so late in the war maybe. But he was in places I've never heard of, like Arlington, Texas. A place like that … I know now where Arlington, Texas, is. But that hurt. You'd get really attached to these fellows and you wouldn't see them in years. With mine, it was just one. Oh, one thing we had, back to recreation, we had ball teams that would come in, this is like some baseball, some softball. The baseball teams, we had players who were too old to go to the Army, but they would be working maybe in different work in the community. Some at General Depot. They had a team, and I can remember them coming up, and I don't remember the fellow's name, but he was a real popular baseball player. He was older than for the war but he was, I don't know, maybe he was, maybe he was in the war. But he wore the baseball uniform, and I don't know if he was in the war. It was always big news that he would come to play. The blackouts, they would have drills. My uncle was air raid warden. He had the helmet, which was later found when we sold his house, and other insignia and whatever he needed. But the blackouts—it was just drills, and we'd put blankets over our windows in one room, usually it was our living room. But we had French doors going into the hall so we had to black out those French doors as well as the glass in the front door and the two windows. We really could not then go out of the living room because we had a big window up at the top of the steps that we couldn't black out. So we all stayed in the living room while it was blacked out. For those drills, like I said, it was never real. A little bit more real was trying to go on vacation, and we had gone traditionally to Daytona Beach every summer. And the first time we went, it was not very glamorous. We went to Jacksonville Beach then. This was not during the war but we sort of looked like the Jones family. We had piles of stuff piled in the back seat of the car, and the car was old and it sort of limped along and . . . . Down in south Georgia thankfully, when you stopped to get gas, they would bring trays up with a pitcher of ice water and some glasses for you to drink in the car, which I thought was wonderful. It was marvelous. But we stayed in some little tourist camp, this was maybe '39, something like that. I just remember it raining and at the tourist camp, I wanted water that wasn't sulfur water, and I didn't know to call it sulfur water. We would just go up to the desk and ask the man for some good water, so I did and he said, “Good water, you can drink that fine water coming out of that tap. That's good water right there.” And I wanted this apple [?] water that doesn't smell bad. Then later we did go to Daytona several years. And then during the war mother took us on a train to Jacksonville. And my friend, girlhood friend, went with me. And we had the Pullman [train sleeping car] overnight to Jacksonville. My friend was in the room with me, and since it was night we didn't want to raise our curtain until we got into Macon, I believe. And there were no troop trains down there, but in Jacksonville when we came into Jacksonville for a 15 year old it was heaven. It was all these sailors, sailors every where. We had to wait for our buses to get to the beach, and the beach was blacked out. When we got out there we were supposed to get a place to live, and you always went to the boardwalk where all the activity was. But they had blacked it out. They had big doors closing it from the sea side so that you couldn't get out to the boardwalk without going to a back door which had some type of construction where you came out. When you came out the door, you didn't go out immediately into the evening even though it was the back side. They had maybe a black curtain and then there was an angle so that the rays wouldn't come out the back. So the rides were not running, but you could go inside and play the games that you play, you know, Skeeball. We [got news] from papers and magazines. Life Magazine was one that kept us abreast of what was going on in the war. And in movies, after the movie we had newsreels, and some of our most important, I guess, was just scores of prisoners of war being marched into prisoner of war camps. And dog fights with the fighters fighting in the air. That's, I've seen that in movies of some of the war years like that, and I thought oh, yeah, that was just like that newsreel we saw all the time. We, the Jacksonville thing was just a really good excursion for us, because we didn't really know a lot about what was going on. We needed a radio in those days. But we did not know that there were 10,000 sailors in Jacksonville, Florida. Interviewer: I'm sure that was heaven as well as walking [?] must have been for a lot of lonely ladies? Sally: Well, our city was not affected too much except for not being able to drive when you really wanted to go, and a little bit of rationing. The boys that went—my next door neighbor had two sons in the war, Bob and Jim Dawson. Jim was in the South Pacific and Bob was in the D-Day landing. He was a paratrooper, and he was killed. That was one of the saddest things, because I saw the messenger when he went to the home. Katherine, there is somebody from the military. There is a messenger boy came. I saw him later go up to Mrs. Dawson, and I just got chills. And then I just heard her scream. And that was just one of the saddest things to me. But he was young though. He probably was 19 and just real, real young. We were fortunate. We didn't have people in our family, but just the neighbors and the boys that went off to school. And there were not many of them, but I know I didn't even know many of the people that were graduating when I came into school who had different classes. Interviewer: My main idea was thinking about the coast, New Jersey, Florida—the folks around there during the war. I remember a report, hearing of some German soldiers coming up from the subs. Did you hear anything about that? Sally: Yes, I knew about the subs. I believe it was in New Jersey, but they actually came ashore. Some were arrested. They brought some off of Florida, but they were in Jacksonville and then farther down they were sighted. Interviewer: That many. Sally: Isn't that something. And then over in the Gulf there are still remnants of—I don't know, maybe it's from the Civil War, but there is, and I think also on the East Coast they had some remnants of light fortifications where you could look out to see if there was anything approaching from out there. Interviewer: We are lucky they didn't have aircraft carriers, aren't we? Sally Oh yeah. _______ They were up in North Carolina, I'm sorry up in New Jersey. I believe that they actually came ashore. It seemed to me like there were maybe five or six of them. Interviewer: Do you want to mention the Hawaii experience? Sally: Oh yes. In fourth grade, my teacher had us correspond with a group of fourth graders in _______, Hawaii, and my friend's name was Kunchita Cartridge [check]. I just thought that was so intriguing. And we kept writing to each other for a number of years. So that when Pearl Harbor was bombed, I did not know anything about the geography. I just knew that ______ was near Honolulu, and I was very concerned about Kunchita. Interviewer: It was Japanese? Sally: It is Japanese. One of things that she wrote about was her schooling, that she would go to school all during the week. On Saturday, she would go to Japanese school, and then on Sunday they would go to Sunday School. I have carried these letters. Okay, I have two letters from her. I think this is really interesting—the logo of the Hawaiian Islands is there. Interviewer: She was maybe about 10 or 12. Sally: Probably about 12 now. I mean when these were written. And then on the back it was plain. It was nothing. This was a letter in November of '41 before Pearl Harbor. This one came in February of '42. Interviewer: I would fix '42 ___________________. Sally: Yeah, okay. And then it's been censored on the back. “Released by ICB number 143.” Interviewer: All right. Sally: Let's see. “Dear Sally, I first want to thank you for the beautiful necklace. I enjoyed wearing it.” Apparently, I sent it for Christmas. “I am very fine. Thank you again. So is the family. I have two brothers and one sister over 18. You are telling me what fun you are having playing with snow, making me jealous, huh? But I understand you. You don't need to make me jealous but you want to tell me the news over there.” Oh, and then she writes—“Remember Pearl Harbor.” Interviewer: Oh my. Sally: [reads letter] “Upon the happening on December 7th, school was closed the next day. It was open again on January 2nd. Because we are going by war time, school starts at 8:30 and closes at 2:00, and I don't think we will have to go to school on summer vacation. We don't have school on Saturdays. I got a mask and was finger printed. Black out every night and I am not having much fun. But if I don't obey the law, you know where that will lead me. Hawaii didn't have enough trees this year”—Christmas trees she means—“but we enjoy a merry Christmas just the same, and I hope you have a merry Christmas, too. Wai Hoo Hoo is 15 miles away from Honolulu. Your pal, [name unclear]. Remember Pearl Harbor.” Interviewer: What was her citizenship? What was she? Sally: She was a U.S. citizen. Her family, I think even her family were both born in the islands. That was something that we carried on all during high school. I guess it must have been in college when we stopped writing each other. But that was a fun thing to do. Something that was really lots of fun and joyous was the day the war ended. My dad was out of town, and by then I am 16, so I am the one who would be closing up and checking out the money and everything—the swimming pool receipts. Interviewer: Four long years at war. Sally: Yeah, four. And President Roosevelt—I should mention this before we talk about the end of the war. President Roosevelt was my hero. He was President for three terms. He was the only President I ever knew really as a youngster. One thing they had during the war, and before the war—polio. What we call infantile paralysis was very prevalent in those days. We would not be able to leave our yards if there was a polio epidemic. We had to stay in our own yard. I think I remember as a younger child throwing jacks and playing jacks on the wall, and playing with my dollhouse all by myself with no friends, because you couldn't do it. Certainly the swimming pool was closed. You couldn't go swimming. Then later, one thing during those years, they would have a ball or a dance on President Roosevelt's birthday, January 30, somewhere in that vicinity, and that was always lots of fun. It was a fundraiser to raise money to fight polio. Dr. Jonas Salk, we had never heard of, you know. With him coming to Warm Springs, it would make it more personal to us. It was just us you know. I don't remember those dances, might have been too young, but later on I was old enough to dance and enjoy it. My brother and I liked to jitterbug. And jitterbug was the dance. And with my dad being responsible for that building, we didn't have to pay to go to any of the public dances they had there. They would have dancing contests. We would always win the jitterbug contests. But the prize was you got in free at the next one. We got in free anyway [laughter]. That was interesting to me that President Roosevelt—and then, of course, we came home one day, and my neighbor said, “Sally, did you hear about the President?” They didn't have announcements made in school over the intercom back then. And I said, “What about the President?” “He died.” And that was just something that couldn't happen. I just didn't think that could ever happen, and it was so sad. I had this picture that was published in Life magazine of Graham Jackson playing his accordion when the [funeral] train left, and tears streaming down his face. I get chills thinking about it. Interviewer: A powerful image. Sally: Absolutely. And another one I'm sure you remember as well as I, it was at the end of the war with all the celebration going on at Time Square—the sailor and the unknown nurse. You know, that big hug and kiss. I was here at Marietta. Daddy was away that day, and I was in charge Interviewer:A 16 year old in charge. Sally: I just meant I closed. I locked up everything and put the money in the safe. It was about, I don't know, 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon maybe and we got word. A friend of mind came running over from her house which was—oh, there was a lot of houses built. You know to move people into quickly during World War II in Marietta. And she came running over, she says, “Sally, those boys ought to turn on the radio,” and I didn't have a radio. And she said, “Well, come over to my house.” Well, I couldn't leave. I had to get people out of the pool. So I went out—I called somebody, and they verified it. And I went out and announced to everybody at the pool that we were closing. That I wanted to be in on the celebration. We finally got the pool closed and everything locked up and it's a wonder we made it to get it all secured, because I was so eager to get away. My friend and I and some other friends that had come back to my house walked up to the square, which was Whitlock Avenue, which is really congested now, but it was a lovely residential street then. We walked up to the square, and it was like New Year's celebration in Times Square, wherever. People were going around the square and around and round. It was full of cars, and people were singing. They were doing congo lines. If you don't know, congo is a dance. It was very popular during the war. And long congo lines. You would be dancing with your hands on somebody's waist to give you a one, two, three kick—all around the square. It would be long lines, and then people were still driving with all of us. Especially with going one way, I think at that time the square was two directions. We got into a convertible with Chick and Cotton Hill. Now Chick and Cotton Hill were brothers of Virginia Hill, who was a “moll,” I use that loosely. But a girl friend that lived with one of them, Bugsey Seigel, who was a well known gangster. During the early days of Vegas he was responsible for getting a lot going in Vegas. So, Chick, and it was fun to ride around in that convertible, sitting up on that convertible after we had been dancing around the square. It just seems like the celebration went on for ever and ever and ever. It was just wonderful, but then we decided that we really ought to go to church. I grew up Southern Baptist, and they did leave the churches open at night. We all went to church and said our prayers—and then came back and celebrated some more. It was a wonderful—despite the war, as a teenager, it was a wonderful time to grow up. It was certainly sad for all the losses. We were so fortunate that we were never bombed, and it was kept abroad. I'm sure that President Truman had the most horrendous decision that anybody could ever make. But before that I remember Jimmy Doolittle's raid and how important it was. There was a picture about that later about modern Tokyo. We had a lot of propaganda movies. That's something that ought to be mentioned. The movies were out. We didn't recognize them as propaganda, but they would have a lot of good things in there about loyalty to the country, and everybody would, the guys would all be rushing out to sign up. Everybody was so patriotic. Families hung flags in the window to indicate that they had a son. There were different colors. These were flags about this high. And it would be—mothers who had a son in the service would hang one in their window. Some of them had two or three. If the son was killed, if a person was killed, you know, it was different. It was a gold flag. It was a different color. I have not seen any of those. I guess they are in museums. One thing that I have enjoyed so much—if you haven't seen the D-Day museum in New Orleans, it's fantastic. It's absolutely wonderful. I could spend three days in there. This will probably be ____ someday. But I really encourage everybody to go down there, and I encourage everybody who comes here, you veterans out there, partake of this. We need to know what you went through over there. I just think it's so important. Interviewer: Every veteran's story is really fascinating. Every experience is different. Sally: Yes, it is. I just can't imagine what they must have gone through. The ones in Europe, and the fellows in the jungles. The rocky atolls in the Pacific, there is a different way of fighting over there, but it's just as awful. Interviewer: Do you have any military pen pal letters? Sally: I did. I did not bring one. One of them was a boy that, he graduated. He was the first Eagle Scout in Marietta, Chip Mabry was his name, a fine young man. Interviewer: Two streets are named Mabry. Sally: I don't doubt that. He went on to, down there at Statesboro, that's a Georgia college down there. But he and I were pen pals and I do still have V-mail from him. I wish I had brought it. I'm sure that by now you have heard of e-mail—I'm sorry, that's the modern version. V-mail, victory mail, these were mail, letters that they gave you the forms to write on, and they would be maybe this big and this high. And then they would photograph them and shrink them in size. They didn't go in the form that we received them in. I mean they were done like picture wise and maybe just on a film, and then okay. So they went to Europe, and then they were blown up [enlarged] over there. I guess when they were censored. And they returned them to the guys to read them. And their replies came back. Everything was censored, everything was censored. I got some letters, but I don't have them now, they would cut out the flag ______. Like if they know, this time of year in France, they black out things. They didn't want us to know everything. Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Sally:But the main part would come out again this size, square. And it would say V-mail only, and, of course, it was free for the soldiers. All the soldiers got, all the military men got free postage. Which I think was only fair. So different from now. If you look at old movies, you will see cigarettes being stuck in the mouth of every wounded soldier, it seemed like. he USO handed out cigarettes like mad. All the cigarette companies furnished the cigarettes, of course. And smoking was looked at entirely different. We didn't know that it would kill you back then. Interviewer: Uh hum. Sally: And it's so different now. I would have a hard time to go through Georgia, and if they didn't have a Coca-Cola over there, I do think they got some to the troops. Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Of course. Sally: We was thinking that and maybe this was a man who had arm [?]. I belong to Life Enrichment Services, which is a senior organization in Decatur. We had different programs where you could take maybe four courses, you know Thursday. And several times they had courses where the men came to speak—Veterans Day—to speak and tell their experiences, because the man who was heading it up was in the 8th Air Force and was pilot of a P-38. We had a lot of pilots or men who had flown airplanes. There was this one man who was a tail gunner flying with the 8th Air Force out of England going across the Channel, and I don't know how—of course, they went into France or wherever they were headed, but they had left England. He is the tail gunner. He is sort of back there by himself. He realizes that he is heading along, but it doesn't seem as noisy as usual, and he tried to radio up front and he is not getting any reply. The plane had been hit. They were under fire, so he knew that they were being attacked, but he didn't realize the plane had actually been hit. I guess he didn't feel the vibrations, but he was detached from the plane. He was just gliding through the air until he landed. He was rescued. And I thought how wonderful to live to tell that story. He had some more at the Methodist Church. The senior group had a group of their own members talk and tell about some of their experiences. And you see these gentlemen, and they are such nice, neat, mannerly gentlemen, and they went through horrendous things. To hear what they did is unbelievable. And this commentator on WSB or one of the local stations was also responsible for getting those together, getting the veterans to talk to us. There is a wealth of information out there if we could just [find] it. Interviewer: How could the man, the tail gunner, manage to get down? Sally: Well, I don't know. He came down in the water, but he was rescued. So maybe it must have been out there. So, as I said, it wasn't too far from the French coast. But those tales were interesting. Interviewer: Did you marry a serviceman? Sally: I did, but I went to college, and I didn't get out of college until ‘50. That was another experience. I went to college in ‘46 with the Georgia Bulldogs. But the boys by then were being discharged and coming back. And so there were lots and lots of them. Gasoline still wasn't plentiful, but it was more. And I remember one group of boys, I was ___ campus, where they put the freshmen and sophomore girls. I guess they didn't trust us to be on the main campus, but we had our own cafeteria and everything, we had the best food on campus. The boys would come out to eat. Every Thursday night we had steak. When we were growing up, I never had a T-bone steak. We always had cubed steak. But those boys found out about it. There was one group of them that were in a— I'd be kidding if, it was not a T model, it was a little bit later—but the top had been cut off. It was not really a convertible. They must have had 10 kids, 10 boys in that [car]. But there were a lot of veterans, and to answer your question, yes, I did marry a veteran. I married in '53. He had been a B-24 pilot, and he was stationed in Italy and North Africa. I don't know much about his experiences except that he told me that at one time they were under attack, and this was in a B-24 Liberator. He was a pilot. This must have been horrendous, but his pilot was shot, and his face was just torn up. He was able to bring the plane on in. He did not talk about it much, but he had a lot of leftover things that bothered him. He drank a lot, and he would talk and talk—maybe about the people that he knew—not so much about battles. But talk about when they were not out in combat zone. He would talk about things like that. When he was asleep, he would mutter and struggle and hit, not me, but the bed and things like that. I think he was tormented, and later he was called up. He was in a National Guard unit in California in tanks, and he was called up as a tank commander to go to Korea. There were a lot of the guys that served in World War II who were also called up for Korea. And they certainly did double time. Interviewer: That's too much. Sally: I agree. The mothers, the parents and sisters and brothers of the boys that were lost, who were lost in General Hospital out here. It was a big receiving point for a lot of the wounded after they got back to the states. I guess in pass through. I don't remember much about that. I did go to work for the Veterans Administration in '66, and a good number of the people had worked at ____ when the boys were coming back from overseas. I wish I knew more about that. Interviewer: What kind of work did you do at that time? Sally: I was a personnel manager specialist. I started out as a clerk, but I had my degree. I started after four years merit promotion. I became a personnel manager specialist and did labor relations, employee relations, hiring, taking adverse actions and then later you can do contracts, equal employment opportunity, things that got to be done. And then, you would do a desk audit for a job. Audit the report and see what people were doing, and then classify their jobs according to standards that you had accomplished. You might have two or three different standards on a fixed-duty type job. So in essence I set people's salary, but their supervisors determine what duties where assigned to them. A lot of the nurses had been nurses during the war. Their service was not credited towards their federal service which was such a—was not equal at all. Interviewer: Injustice. Sally: I think now they are being given credit for that service. Then there were some areas for the men that were not credited. I think maybe, I can't specify what that was, but I remember I had one hydrologist who may have had some service relative to the war, and he was still trying to get credit for the war to count towards his federal retirement. But it was the nurses I really felt for because we all know at least from movies and newsreels what those nurses went through. I don't know what else I can add. I know . . . Interviewer: You had quite a skilled job to know all of that. Sally: Well, it was almost too much for me [laughter]. Somebody said, don't you miss it? Don't you miss it? The only thing I miss is the people. I do miss the people. You know, you knew a lot of people by name only, but you also knew many, many people from—some of them had big, big problems and some of them were coming in to be brought on board and go out to ________ and that type of thing. It was very interesting. Interviewer: How long were you in there? Sally: I had 22 years of service. I didn't go to work for VA until my kids were in school, and I think I was working in '66 and then retired in, the end of the month from the day I turned 60. Interviewer: And you really miss it? Sally: No, I miss the people, but I got busy and I wanted to be—this is not important. I wanted to be a tour guide and a lady—I was volunteering here at the History Center and we had some sort of function where some of the people who worked in the tourism industry were there and she gave me her card and told me to come down and talk to her. So I did, and I took training immediately after I left VA. The next week I went down and started training. It was a week's training, and we ordered our uniforms. They would furnish the uniforms, but we had to buy our shoes and purses to match, so I bought my shoes and purses and they said—I went on a couple of sample tours with other guides and loved it, just loved it. Then I didn't hear from them, did not hear from them. I said well, I just thought that's the way it would be. And so by July I was at the History Center for ____________, Georgia, down at __________ Underground and the gentleman from the Georgia Film Commission sat next to me when I went to have lunch out on the porch in one of the ____________ offices and _________________. Interviewer: That was Marietta Sally: From Marietta, they were right back of our house and I'll come back to that. But we were talking and I was telling him about this experience and he said, “I bet you thought it was you, didn't you?” I said I entirely, really did, and he said no, they went bankrupt. [Laughter] Well, by then I had been staying at home and doing fun things and I didn't really want to go back to work. I was making it financially. But speaking of the Brumby Chair factory in Marietta at the time of the war, Brumby Chair Factory was very well known throughout the country for its Brumby Rockers and still is. But there was a great big factory right in back of our house that was one of main industries in Marietta before Bell Bomber and then up the street was the knitting mill. _______Proof Knitting Mill. All through my growing up years the poultry company would blow a whistle when it was time for their people to go to work and so would Brumby Chair, there might just be 15 minutes difference in the two whistles. So living right there, pretty close to both of them, we knew the noon time whistle and then the quitting time whistle. People walked a lot even before the war because it was the Depression before the war. So we'd see lots of people going to and from these jobs. But that was one way we knew when the war was over, because all the sirens sounded, the factory whistles blew all over town and they continued to blow and blow and blow. And that was one of the announcements at the end of the war that really told us the war was over and this was specific. I don't remember too much celebration, I remember going to church and remember very little about it because . . . Interviewer: We were still fighting. Sally: Still fighting, yes. And we still had a long way to go in Japan. But those—that's something else I touched on, but when the Bomber plant was built, they needed housing for these workers to come in. One of the first things they did was build Marietta Place, which was just one-level apartments, and they were down on Fairground Street, just at the foot of the hill from where the Bomber plant was. People could almost walk up that hill. Some of them are still left but not many. High Forest Homes was another apartment complex that was at the corner of Roswell Road and Fairground Highway. But also between there were a lot of wood frame houses that went up real, real fast that were duplexes, and some single unit homes that were put up really fast to accommodate these newcomers because there was such an influx of people. People rented rooms who never would have thought about renting rooms to men. A lot of boarding houses opened, even in the . . . Kennesaw House, not a boarding house as such but there was—I think it was a tearoom, so they probably didn't sell to the men but to the wives. But we did have the Dixie Cafe and the Marietta Cafe on the square. They'd been there for quite awhile and did well during the war, I'm sure. The town really grew, it grew outward. Where highway 41 crosses Roswell Street now, at that time the Leo Frank case was still very much in the minds of Marietta people, and it was just beyond that intersection at Roswell Street where Leo Frank was hung and that was something we heard about all of our lives. It was such a tragedy. But now it's so built up, I mean the town is way, way out from there. Interviewer: You know time may be catching up with us. Sally: Yes, I appreciate again your letting me come. I don't really think my stories are interesting to people compared to what the fellas could tell but I'm trying to find you something. Interviewer: We can kind of wind it up. I think you were very much a participant . . . Sally: Thank you so much. Interviewer: . . . in all of those events that took place . . . Sally: Well, it was everyday living in those days. Interviewer: You were generous to come in and tell us about it. Sally: My pleasure. Interviewer: It seems you have been enjoying your retirement somewhat, haven't you? Sally: Yes, indeed, I've gotten to travel to the extent that I never thought I would. Interviewer: Do you have any children? Sally: Oh, yes, I have two daughters, one is here, and her daughter just graduated valedictorian last night at Brookwood High and her mom had been valedictorian at _________, so I'm very proud of them. I have two grandchildren, granddaughters here. That granddaughter who graduated, and the 13 year old whose team won the city tournament this year. Then in Arkansas I have a daughter who's married to an Air Force fella and he's going to retire within a year. She's principal of a high school, she has a 23 year old girl who's on her own and works for _____ Insurance Agency. And then there's a 13 year old boy—I do have one grandson, he is just such an athlete. My dad, the recreation director, I hope is looking down from heaven because this boy is good in all kinds of sports. But again, thank you for asking me and taking interest in this interview.
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/180
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 59:35
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Contributing Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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