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[[Category: Documents]] (Oral history taken by Steven Inglis Law while visiting Jean Inglis Law at 203 South New Rd., perhaps late 1990s.) SL = Steven Law<br> GJ = Grandma Jean Law<br> <br> SL: Do you want to tell me your earliest memory?<br> GJ: Well, is it enough that I remember that when I was two or it must have been three years old I had a memory of lying in my crib-not my crib but my baby carriage-I remember two ladies looking at me. I remember that. Do you want something sort of off-color? I guess I was four. I had to break wind, and it was unwanted. My mother got quite angry. I got scolded.<br> SL: Did you know that you were going to get in trouble for that?<br> GJ: No<br> SL: I see. We'll move along. Do you remember your first school?<br> GJ: Once again, in my first grade at school, I was standing at the .. and I wet my pants.<br> SL: Well, this isn't going quite the direction I expected, but what about<br> GJ: No, it was about five miles away. It was Mount Vernon School. It was only because we lived.. there.<br> SL: Why was it so far away?<br> GJ: We lived on Mansfield Terrace. No, no, we lived on Home Avenue till I was seven. Then we went to a private school on South Main Street and I walked it. I have a memory of that. My teacher thought that my mother didn't dress me warmly enough. I only wore knee socks through the winter and it turns out that my teacher thought that my mother should have full-length stockings on every day.<br> SL: Oh, so you wore dresses every day.<br> GJ: Yes, nobody wore pants then<br> SL: Did you wear dress-up shoes or what kind of footwear did you wear?<br> GJ: I think they were called brogans, brown lace-up shoes.<br> SL: Oh, and would you have any decorations in your hair? I guess you had your hair short and straight.<br> GJ: Right. They called it a Dutch bob, yes: straight bangs, and straight tresses. That was for two years. Then I went to Central Grammar School.<br> SL: So Mount Vernon was first grade, then Stillman private school was three years…<br> GJ: It was only two years, since Stillman only went to third grade. Then I swent to Central Grammar School. That was a walk. All the girls on Mansfield Terrace walked with me. That was almost a mile. High school was a full mile, I think. Grammar school was a little bit nearer.<br> SL: So you went to grammar school fourth through sixth, and then to high school?<br> GJ: Fourth through eighth. Then to high school. [opens yearbook] Let's see if this brings back anything.<br> SL: Do you have anything from grammar school? I don't think so.<br> GJ: Larry Hertz has something, a picture of us all in a pageant.<br> SL: Do you remember anything about the pageant?<br> GJ: No, I don't. Seeing the pictures that Larry Kurtz sent me, I remember posing and the flash going off.<br> SL: Well, what were the days like at the grammar school? You were in classroom all day, with children from the same grade only?<br> GJ: I don't know. I think we had grades. Yes, we did. We had grades. Everybody at that age had every subject. It was when I got to high school that we had to go round.<br> SL: So you had one teacher for the whole year and the teacher taught all the subjects.<br> GJ: Yes.<br> SL: OK. So that was right up through eighth grade.<br> GJ: Then there was high school, and I have a picture of the woman-algebra was a large (fat) woman. Geometry was a man I can see clearly in my mind but I can't remember his name.<br> SL: Well, let's go back to the first couple of schools for a while. When you were in the private school and grammar school, did you have friends that you kept throughout those schools, or did you have to make a new set of friends when you moved from one to another?<br> GJ: At first, up to high school, they were friends from Mansfield Terrace. Lou Pauli Mary Lou Crowe she was on Mansfield Terrace. Used to visit. Marge Trevithick. As a freshman in high school, on the first day, one girl, a stranger to me spoke up and said, 'You must be Jean Inglis.' Her mother had moved back to Middletown. People she knew there had described me to her, and from then on she and I were very close, then another one was Liz. They used to call us the 'three musketeers'. Liz was a harridan. She was a terror.<br> SL: What kind of things did she do?<br> GJ: Well, she sat behind me in history class with Mr. Johnson, and she jiggled the back of my chair to make me move. And she pestered me in any way that she could. I think she thought it was funny. And that nice Mr. Johnson. Liz was trying to get me to talk. And Mr. Johnson came by and asked about her paraphernalia. He wanted to know why she didn't have her paraphernalia in class.<br> SL: Oh, I see.<br> GJ: She was mischievous<br> SL: Oh, yeah. You don't remember her playing any pranks on the school, for example, like painting things or-<br> GJ: No, nothing like that. However, she induced us to go out on Halloween and let the air out of the tires of the fraternity boys. I think that was pretty bad. And she did other things to the fraternity boys. One time we were doing something to their house, and they came running out with their paddles and chased us. We ran up Long Avenue, and they were getting closer and closer, and I ducked into some bushes beside a house and crouched down and they went by me.<br> SL: That was at night, on Halloween.<br> GJ: At night, on Halloween. So we did bad things I'm afraid.<br> SL: Oh, I see. What was your home life like at that time? You acquired the twin bed from your sister when the twins were born. Do you remember their being born?<br> GJ: Yes, here's a picture of Home Avenue. I came home from school one afternoon and was met by a woman in white at the back door who said "You can't come in." Oh, that morning before I went to school Mother was in her bathrobe at the door of her bedroom and she said she felt under par, she was going to stay home. When I got home the woman in white was at the back door telling me not to come in, so I sat on the back step all the time wondering what was going on.<br> SL: Did you know that you were due to get a baby brother and sister?<br> GJ: No! And I was angry that Mother hadn't told me.<br> SL: Did you notice a change in your mother that-<br> GJ: No, apparently not. She said later that she was always very small.<br> SL: Even twins.<br> GJ: They were very small. Will Foy said he remembers being brought by Mary Goodrich to see the twins. And later I was allowed to go into the room and see the twins. They were so small that they got their baths in a handbasin.<br> SL: Oh? What number on Home Avenue was that?<br> GJ: 37 Home Avenue.<br> SL: So they were born, and did that change your life very much?<br> GJ: Because of them Mother and Dad built the bigger house on Mansfield Terrace. I was six ready to go on seven when they were born, and next spring, when I was seven, that's when we moved to Mansfield Terrace.<br> SL: Now, at Home Avenue did you have your own bedroom, or did you share a bedroom with Marion?<br> GJ: I remember my bed and the window that I looked out. I think Marion must have shared it too, because we had only four bedrooms and we had a maid. There were three children then. Mother and Dad had one, and the maid had one, and Tom had one, and Marion and I must have been together. We had a live-in maid at the time.<br> SL: Yes. What were the maid's duties?<br> GJ: Cooking and cleaning. Then when the twins were there we had another one to take care of the twins.<br> SL: Oh, with the maid there did you get to spend much time with your mother, or no?<br> GJ: I don't remember it, and Marion said "You don't remember when Mother was still active politically," and I believe she was the first committeewoman-<br> SL: What party was she?<br> GJ: Republican.<br> SL: So she was a town committeewoman?<br> GJ: I guess so.<br> SL: Of course, that was before your time to remember.<br> GJ: Yes, yes. When I knew Mother she was having nervous troubles, and Marion and I never knew her as active.<br> SL: Yeah, that's too bad, but then again you probably wouldn't have seen much of her then. So who did you spend most of your time with, when you were at home? With Marion?<br> GJ: Marion, yeah. She sang and she practiced the piano, and I would watch and sit with her sometimes after school. Mother played the piano, and evenings we would sing songs, and maybe it was Sunday evenings we would sing hymns.<br> SL: Oh, and other evenings you would sing popular songs?<br> GJ: No. I don't think so. Marion knew popular songs.<br> SL: Oh, would they be songs that we would think of as Jazz Age songs?<br> GJ: Well, do you know Nola?<br> SL: No.<br> EL: How old are you?<br> GJ: Seventy-nineght<br> EL: Wow, that's very old.<br> GJ: That's old enough to be eccentric.<br> SL: That was Elizabeth doing an imitation of me. Oh, and this is Steve Law interviewing Jean Law, and it's November 25, Thanksgiving Day 1999. The three voices in the background are Charles, Erica, and Elizabeth, and this is at 203 South New Road in Hamden. I guess that's enough.<br> GJ: And do you want to say that Nancy's in Peru right now and that you're married?<br> SL: Yes, Nancy can't be here right now because she's gone to visit her mother and family in Peru.<br> GJ: Who do you expect to send this tape to?<br> SL: Well, I might send it to Gwil. I don't know. 'Posterity', whoever that may be. Maybe my children at some stage, or Gwil's children. Well, getting back to how you spent your time at home. You didn't have much schoolwork to do at home until you got to eighth grade, did you?<br> GJ: That's right. However, still on Home Avenue, this stands out in my mind. My sister Marion was doing homework on the couch in the living room and I stuck a pencil up my nose, and I started to bleed, and I bled on her homework and I had to be taken to the doctor.<br> SL: Now, was your intention to distract her?<br> GJ: No, my intention was just to stick the pencil up my nose. (laughs)<br> SL: When did you move to Mansfield Terrace?<br> GJ: 1927.<br> SL: So you would be seven years old.<br> GJ: Yes, I'm easy like that [being born in 1920]<br> SL: Now at Home Avenue did you have a play area or something like that? Or just your room?<br> GJ: I think I was outdoors quite a bit.<br> SL: When you were outdoors, you played with friends, I suppose. Neighborhood children?<br> GJ: Through the back yards-two blocks away but through people's back yards-was Mary Goodrich. She was my best friend. It was the Mansfield Terrace friends in grammar school, but in high school I walked home with Mary. Well, Liz was in that neighborhood too, Liz Andstrom. Yes, Mary and Liz are probably here.<br> SL: Yes, they are here in the Journalists' Guild photo.<br> GJ: Here's Betty Bishop is here. [pointing] He's still around.<br> SL: She's pointing to-Louis Bertuccio?<br> GJ: Berruccio. Last I knew, he was a hairdresser in Hartford, and Nancy went to him I think.<br> SL: Mm-hm.<br> GJ: He speaks Spanish I think.<br> SL: Yes, so Mary Goodrich, you used to play with her back on Home Avenue.<br> GJ: She's the one who took Will Foy to see the twins when they were born. He lived across the street from her. When I said that about the back yards: I went through one back yard to get to the next street over, which was Brainard Avenue, and my grandfather and grandmother lived there, and I spent a lot of time with them.<br> SL: Was this your mother's parents? The Thompsons.<br> GJ: Yes, the Thompsons. Grampa Thompson would make pancakes for us three children every Sunday morning. That was a treat. And I was sent there overnight the night the twins were born. I was afraid to walk through the back yards then, because I was afraid there might be ghosts, because it was near Halloween.<br> SL: Oh. So would you often stay overnight at your grandparents' house?<br> GJ: Not often, but Sunday mornings we wouldent go over there.<br> SL: Would the whole family go over there?<br> GJ: No. I think it was meant to let Mother and Dad be alone Sunday mornings.<br> SL: So this was just you and Marion and Tom.<br> GJ: Yes.<br> SL: I see. Would that be the maid's day off?<br> GJ: I guess so. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she didn't have to get breakfast. I don't know.<br> SL: Would the maid become part of the family?<br> GJ: I don't remember. I do remember that at Mansfield Terrace the maid went up to the attic after getting breakfast and I felt dreadfully sorry for her.<br> SL: Oh, and I imagine she didn't mind it at all.<br> GJ: Well, I don't know. The maids were from Niantic. Do you know what Niantic is?<br> SL: Well, I know there's a female correctional institution at Niantic.<br> GJ: Yes. Well, some of these women-girls-were allowed to go out and earn money if they wanted to. The institution liked to send them to my mother and father's house because there was no liquor. They were restricted. They could go to the movies once a week, but somebody had to go with them.<br> SL: Presumably they were all convicted of some crime.<br> GJ: Yes. My mother used to say to people, "It's either men or liquor."<br> SL: Oh, yes, so you had to supervise their connections with men too. They couldn't just go out.<br> GJ: That's right, and every once in a while we'd wake up in the morning and find them gone.<br> SL: I see. Getting back to your family, what do you remember about your grandparents?<br> GJ: My mother's mother, on Brainard Avenue, she was a motherly little thing, but she got cancer and died when I was about six. From then on, my grandfather lived with us.<br> SL: So there's another indication that there's been a greater than proportionate amount of cancer in the family.<br> GJ: Well, she's the only one in that generation. My father's mother and father lived on a street in Middletown. He died, I don't know of what, I don't remember him, but every Sunday afternoon we'd be taken to his mother, to my father's mother.<br> EL: How far away was that?<br> GJ: About a mile. That was in a car. And we'd be put in the dining room to play games, and Mother and Dad…<br> SL: Ooh, a car. We'll have to come back to that. First, let's finish with the Thompsons. Now, Grampa Thompson was a postmaster while you knew him?<br> GJ: Yes, he was a postmaster, and then retired. I don't know what he'd done before.<br> SL: And were there hobbies or things that he liked to do?<br> GJ: Stamps. He did a lot with stamps. And I think when he died Uncle Wilkie got his collection. Uncle Wilkie was the husband of one of Grampa Thompson's daughters.<br> SL: I see. And when you say he did a lot with stamps, you mean he collected a lot of stamps from around the world?<br> GJ: Yes, he had a big collection and he spent a lot of time with them. Yes, they were from around the world.<br> SL: And you said a little bit about your grandmother.<br> GJ: She taught Marion and me to sew.<br> SL: Oh? Was she something of a seamstress herself?<br> GJ: Nothing special, but everybody sewed in those days.<br> SL: Did she have any other hobbies or pastimes?<br> GJ: I don't think so. She just took care of me and Marion. And she and Grampa Thompson brought up the three children.<br> SL: Yes, they were Mary and Agnes …<br> GJ: … and Harold. Harold came into my life later in the Depression. Harold couldn't get a job and he lived with us. His wife and two daughters lived with my Aunt Mary.<br> SL: I see. We'll have to get back to that later too. Your grandmother lived to be quite old, didn't she? I'm sure I have the date around somewhere. [I have dates of 1852-1928.] And Henry Dick Inglis was your grandfather?<br> GJ: I'm not sure.<br> SL: That's what it says in the letter. [From Agnes to Gwil]<br> GJ: Oh, uh-huh.<br> SL: Yes, your father's father [reading from letter] "was born in Scotland, where Inglis is a common name…he came to the United States as a baby…your father's mother was born in Connecticut, but I don't know much about the family. His father was Henry Dick Inglis." And then she goes on about her family.<br> GJ: And also someplace I know about all my father's brothers. I think he had mostly brothers.<br> SL: So anyway your Grandfather Inglis and grandmother were living in another part of Middletown.<br> GJ: Yes, I can picture the place… I think it might be William Street.<br> SL: And do you remember what your Grandfather Inglis did for a living?<br> GJ: No, I don't.<br> SL: Was he retired at the time you visited him? Oh, perhaps you didn't even know him.<br> GJ: No, he died. I didn't know him.<br> SL: I want to stick to things you remember. We can go back to things that are on paper afterwards. So, let's get back to the car. What type of car did your family have when you were young?<br> GJ: I think it was a Buick.<br> SL: OK. Do you know when the family first acquired a car? Or was it before you were born?<br> GJ: It was there from my earliest memories.<br> SL: OK. And your father would certainly have to drive quite a bit, wouldn't he?<br> GJ: Yes, and we had a cottage on a lake where we went, and we drove a long country road to get there. The car had a round thing on the front where the hood ornament would be, only it was a thermometer. It boiled over, the car boiled over. From then on I was always nervous about seeing that thermometer go up.<br> SL: That's something that someone who knows about cars would be able to relate to. I might even ask Dave [Johnson] when thermometers on the fronts of hoods were in use and how long. So there was no Ford in the family. You don't remember having a Model T or a Model A around.<br> GJ: No. If you want to know this (stop me if you don't), when my father and mother were courting he hired a horse and carriage to take my mother out and that was a big event for them. I guess they'd been on foot other than that.<br> SL: At the time he was a judge he had to commute to Hartford, essentially.<br> GJ: When he was a judge he had to do this all by car: he would hold court in all the different county seats.<br> SL: Oh, yes. So he would go to each of the county seats.<br> GJ: Yes, he would go to Winsted. … Sometimes it was a long drive. When he was on the Supreme Court, then it was Hartford.<br> SL: OK, and do you remember anything more about this cottage on a lake? What direction it was in?<br> GJ: I know we started going southwest out of Middletown. It was a sort of gift. There was a family that owned a whole lake, and my father did some kind of favor for the man, they were rich people and in exchange for what my father had done, they offered us a chance to build a cottage on their lake. It wasn't a place where we stayed overnight; it was just one building with a partition just a place to change into your bathing suit. And it had a porch where you could eat a picnic and there was a fire out on the beach. And we loved it.<br> SL: Oh, so you went for day trips only. You'd pack up the swimming togs and go out to the cottage and have a barbecue and come back.<br> GJ: Yeah, have a swim, we had a canoe there. The bad part about it was that my mother was so gregarious that she always wanted to invite other people to come with us. I always wished that the family could go by ourselves but the only times we ever went by ourselves were in the spring and the fall to clean it up. It was always people.<br> SL: I see. I didn't realize how gregarious she was. I don't think you mentioned it before. And were there other places that you especially liked to go in the summertime?<br> GJ: They used to rent a cottage for a month at Kelsey Point, the month of August. That's the reason Marion and Deryck for many years rented and then bought a cottage at Kelsey Point.<br> SL: Was the cottage where they lived the same as the one Marion and Deryck rented?<br> GJ: The answer is no. As you know, Marion and Deryck rented one cottage and owned another. We never rented either of those. We rented others.<br> SL: And you perhaps moved around, rented one house one year and another one another year?<br> GJ: Yes.<br> SL: And the whole family went down there?<br> GJ: Yeah.<br> SL: Would your father have to go to his different courts in different towns?<br> GJ: Mm-hm. He did. They didn't hold court in August.<br> SL: Oh, so if you rented in August he didn't have to go.<br> GJ: No, but I know sometimes he did have to go to court. Maybe he did commuting when he was still a lawyer before going on the bench.<br> SL: And what were his hobbies? What did he use to occupy his spare time? We talked about the cottage…<br> GJ: Only the law. He belonged to what was called the Conversational Club.<br> SL: The Conversational Club?<br> GJ: Yeah, that was a big thing in their lives. One year the members' wives would have to entertain; I mean, Mother would have to entertain the whole group. My father would have to give them a paper; that is, they alternated.<br> SL: It sounds a little like Toastmasters.<br> GJ: Probably. I have one of my father's papers that he did on Peru.<br> SL: Really.<br> GJ: I always meant to show it to you. When my mother had to have the conversational group, the whole family had to get together and polish silver and set the tables.<br> SL: Yes, I guess the maid couldn't do it all by herself.<br> GJ: That's right. I think they got in an extra one to serve.<br> SL: Did you go farther afield anytime before you went to high school? Or was that only later?<br> GJ: Well, when I was eleven years old, my mother and father and Dr. and Mrs. Chedel and the children all went across the country.<br> SL: That's right. I remember your showing me pictures of that. And how long did you have for that? A month?<br> GJ: Two months at least, the summer.<br> SL: 1931, then.<br> GJ: That's right.<br> SL: And Dr. Chedel was a medical doctor?<br> GJ: Yes, he was our family doctor too, and friends, good friends. They were friends with the Chedels and with the minister and his wife, with all of them. They were gregarious there too. Oh, and we had an institution called the Coffee Club in the afternoons. Every Saturday afternoon people would have the rest of them in for coffee and donuts. I don't know how everybody managed to do the same thing every Saturday, but from five to seven that's what they were doing.<br> SL: Yes, I suppose this was a period when already the workweek was just five days. It was pretty well defined for your family and his associates as five days.<br> GJ: No because even when I went to work in 1942 I was working Saturday mornings.<br> SL: Oh, did your father go and hold court on Saturday mornings?<br> GJ: No. Most people worked Saturday mornings. I don't know whether he did or not.<br> SL: I see. Anyway, Saturday afternoons were free, and all day Sunday. So you'd be able to do things on Saturdays like the Coffee Club or the Conversation Club. And I suppose there wasn't very much else to do on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.<br> GJ: That's true; we listened to opera on the radio. Every Saturday afternoon we could listen to opera on the radio. I didn't like it, myself.<br> SL: Then there was music; you mentioned that. Marion could always play and you could always sing.<br> GJ: Saturday afternoons was opera; Sunday afternoons was symphony.<br> SL: That was on the radio. Would those be the only things you were likely to listen to on the radio during a week, or would you also listen to evening programs?<br> GJ: We must have listened to evening programs. I don't remember listening to evening programs on the radio. I do remember that when Marion and Tom and I were teenagers we would buy records and play them on the phonograph on the porch and dance.<br> SL: These would be 78s?<br> GJ: Yeah, 78s. Seventy-five cents.<br> SL: I see, and they must have had new dances that would come out and you practiced the new dances?<br> GJ: We made up dances.<br> SL: Well, Erica and Elizabeth do that now.<br> GJ: Some things stay the same, don't they?<br> SL: I guess that's fairly predictable. You must have also learned about different dances that became popular.<br> GJ: Yes. Dorothy taught me the Lindy.<br> SL: Oh? How did she know it?<br> GJ: Dancing school.<br> SL: Did she go to dancing school pretty regularly?<br> GJ: I don't know about her. That was a big part of my life. I went to dancing school once a week<br> SL: And was this couples dancing?<br> GJ: It was both. Maybe not at the same time, but Saturday mornings it would be ballet, tap, and that kind of stuff. Then Friday evenings it would be social dancing. I was so tall. We would line up, and I would often get left dancing with another tall girl.<br> SL: Because you were ahead of the boys in growth.<br> GJ: Yes, one was particularly short, Paul Camp. He's still living, and Will Foy still sees him, but I don't. He lives in Maine. I remember being with him, and he had to hold me around the waist, and he had to lean out around the side of me to see where he was going.<br> SL: Yeah, I see in the high school picture that you were the tallest one in the Journalists' Guild. And there must have been a shortage of suitable boys for these dancing classes anyway; it's always been hard. There's another thing that never changes. Any other dances that you remember?<br> GJ: Well, I went to a couple of proms in high school.<br> SL: Yeah, I'm just thinking of the early days, the grammar school days.<br> GJ: No, I don't remember.<br> SL: Any other music that you remember from then?<br> GJ: No… We had music appreciation in grammar school with Walter Damrosch, I don't know if you've heard of him.<br> SL: Oh, sure. And Walter Damrosch would do the symphony programs on the Sunday symphonies that you would listen to, right?<br> GJ: I don't think so. I think the only time Walter Damrosch connected with me was in school.<br> [That was the end of the tape. We continued on another day with the following conversation.]<br> GJ: Well, it was in the spring of 1942 that I met Reed. I'm starting back, but pretty soon I'll get to World War II.<br> SL: Well, World War II started before then. What would you hear about it?<br> GJ: Oh, I remember riding in the car from Hartford to Middletown when I heard that the Germans had invaded France, and I felt, what shall I say? Dismal. And I guess the next thing was that there was that Sunday afternoon when we were listening to the symphony. It was interrupted to say that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. That changed everything. Before that I was going to secretarial school in New Haven and coming home weekends with Marion. She was working at Yale and we were living with another girl in an apartment. So I remember that Sunday and realizing that-well, I knew that it would affect Tom the most. I hadn't even met Reed then. So that's when it started. So then I graduated from school, and …<br> SL: So what other effects would it have had on you? Did you know any other young men that you expected to be called up by the draft?<br> GJ: I did know a young man that I had met in the summer of '41. That was a fairly serious thing. And after Pearl Harbor he soon went into the Army. He was writing me during the spring of '42 and went in as a private and became a corporal pretty soon. He wrote me through the summer, but I met Reed, and my letters to him were getting more and more sparse. And just at the time I got engaged to Reed, I guess in September of '42, Ted was due to come home on leave, and I wrote him I guess to his home in Boston that I had gotten engaged, and he wrote me back a very angry letter saying that all the way home on the train he was thinking about the engagement ring he'd buy for me. He told me in the summer that he didn't object to my going out with Reed, but he hoped it wouldn't keep him from writing. Am I getting too detailed?<br> SL: Where was this other fellow, Ted, serving?<br> GJ: I don't remember; just plain Army, someplace in the South.<br> SL: So he was in training somewhere in the United States.<br> GJ: Yes.<br> SL: And what other effects were there on you? In early 1942, you said it changed things.<br> GJ: There was food rationing. I don't know exactly when it started, but my mother and father spent a long time down in the cellar. You had to report how much canned goods you had on hand, and it was Mother's habit to stock up a lot on canned goods in the summer in the fall (?) when prices were low, and use it through the winter. And when rationing started, they spent a long time down in the cellar writing down what they had, and they had 293 cans, and it came out in the paper that when rationing started one family had 293 cans. [GJ later changed this; she said it should have been 193.] It looked as if they had been hoarding, but it was Mother's usual practice. But the paper made it look as if they'd started hoarding because the war was coming. But it didn't give their names.<br> SL: That's good.<br> GJ: Then we started having gas rationing; then my brother had to go in one time, when I was still in secretarial school, and he let me have his car, an old Ford. So we had gas rationing then. There was always sufficient gas for my needs, even in the war when Reed was gone and I had the baby and I was living in Middletown and driving to Forestville to visit sometimes. There was enough gas for me in the rationing.<br> SL: So you drove to Forestville instead of taking trolleys or buses?<br> GJ: I did, yes.<br> SL: OK, so the gas rationing didn't really affect you. The food rationing: did you get your own ration when you were living by yourself, or did you just eat at home and live under your family's?<br> GJ: I had my own rationing, but when I went to an apartment then I took that with me. Cigarettes were scarce, but in that apartment at the grocery store on the corner where my mother had always gone they knew me, and they'd quietly put in two packs a week, which was more than I needed, but they didn't want other people to know, because cigarettes were so scarce. And anyway, I wanted to build up a supply, knowing that I would be in the hospital after I had the baby and not getting around so much. But anyway that's too stale.<br> SL: Oh, I see. So all the things like butter and cream, did you have to lack for those at all?<br> GJ: I hardly ever had any butter, I don't remember having any butter. We had to buy margarine, and we had to mix it up. It was a little chore that I had, mixing the margarine. It was a little bubble of yellow, and you'd have to take your hands and mix it and mix it until it looked like butter. And meat was rationed, but I got sufficient.<br> SL: And did you take part in anything like savings bond efforts, or metal recycling?<br> GJ: Yes, we had to recycle everything, and I did that from that apartment, and I have a picture of that, I don't know where the picture is. What other did you ask? Oh, I did buy war bonds. Reed sent me money, or the Army sent me money, and I bought lots of war bonds. One time I sat in the lobby of a theater with another girl my age, and we sold stamps as people went in.<br> SL: When did you graduate from college, which year?<br> GJ: Forty-one.<br> SL: And in the fall of '41 you were in secretarial school in New Haven? And that's when you met Deryck for the first time. Is that right?<br> GJ: I met Deryck for the first time after Gwil was born, in 1945. I was still with Marion but I guess she didn't meet him till later.<br> SL: OK. So you commuted to secretarial school from your apartment in Middletown?<br> GJ: No, Marion and I and a girl named Jean Chalmers lived in an apartment in New Haven on Linwood Avenue. But we usually went home Friday nights and back Sunday nights from Middletown. Sometimes by bus but then when Tom left and let me have his car sometimes by car. Hardly ever by car between Middletown and New Haven. I used the car to go to school because it was a good long walk.<br> SL: When did Tom leave, and where did he go?<br> GJ: I don't know where he went. He ended up at Champaign, Illinois. Does that sound right?<br> SL: Yes, Champaign-Urbana is..<br> GJ: Yes, Urbana sounds right. He was in the Air Force but he didn't fly. He had a patch on his sleeve that was like the Air Force, I think. I don't know. I don't think he ever went out of the country. That's right, he instructed pilots on the Lake Trainers. Have you ever heard of Lake Trainers?<br> SL: No.<br> GJ: Well, it's something you get in and it acts like a plane.<br> SL: But it doesn't leave the ground.<br> GJ: No, it doesn't leave the ground. (laughs) No, it was to teach them how to fly. I guess you'd know something about that.<br> SL: Well, nowadays, of course, that's all on computer. You hook up things that look like a cockpit to a computer screen, and do the activities, and the computer has programmed into it even the terrain, and the airports and so forth, so you'll see the horizon and the terrain and the airports according to what you do on the controls. So I image a Link Trainer must have been something like that. Not computerized of course.<br> GJ: The Link Trainer did move around. I've seen these things in newsreels, and they tilted and swerved and all that. They weren't stationary.<br> SL: I see; at least I'm trying to see. So he was a trainer. And what about Sandy and Dorothy? What did they do when the war started in late '41 and early '42?<br> GJ: Well, they just went to school, I think, as far as I can remember. If I was 21 and 22, they would have been six years under that, in high school.<br> SL: Yeah, they would have been in high school.<br> GJ: I was thinking of going on to the fall. Reed and I got engaged in the fall, now I was working at the University of Connecticut, and then he had enlisted in the Air Corps, and didn't know when he'd be called. I left my job about the middle of December and we got married the middle of January. He did get his call about five or six weeks after that. He went. We were living with his mother and father on Kenney Street those six weeks, and I went home and came back and visited sometimes.<br> SL: We skipped over all of 1942 here-the rest of 1942. Well, maybe the rationing and so forth applied to that. What about events overseas? Were you seeing newsreels about events overseas and hearing about them on the radio and seeing them in the newspapers?<br> GJ: Yes, all of those. I think Edward R. Murrow was broadcasting from London then. His broadcasts were famous, and I guess you've heard of them. Most of it was in the newsreels and in the movies. They always showed things about the war. I remember once going to a movie with my mother and my father, and it showed the invasion of Italy, and that was justification for me because earlier my father had said in a scornful way, "The young men nowadays are soft." And I said to my father after seeing this shot of the invasion of Italy, "Now do you think they're soft?" and he said, "Well, you can become hard." That sticks out in my mind from those days.<br> SL: I see. Did you feel a sense of confidence that it was all going to come out all right, or were you scared that there would be an invasion of our shores? How did you feel it would come out? Or perhaps you didn't form an opinion.<br> GJ: Yes, I thought we'd win in the end, because I felt that God was on our side, and I knew it would be long and hard, but I thought we'd win in the end, I just didn't know how long.<br> SL: And of course you must have been not so confident about your loved ones who were in the war.<br> GJ: That's right. There was a time when I was pregnant, heavily pregnant as they say, and I didn't get any mail from Reed for three weeks, and I thought, "They might as well bring the telegram and get it over with." That was the way the mail went. I got a whole bunch of letters.<br> SL: Actually, Reed was the only loved one you had in the war, wasn't he? Because Tom was in the United States, Sandy was studying, your sisters were in the United States, everybody was in the United States except Reed. So in 1942 when was it that Reed graduated?<br> GJ: The previous spring.<br> SL: June 1942.<br> GJ: I guess that's right. Yes, I didn't even meet him until that spring, June, and then in June he graduated. It should have been in 1943, but he went through in three years.<br> SL: Was he working on his senior thesis? I think he was writing a senior thesis on Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.<br> GJ: Yeah, but I wasn't aware of it. I guess it was all done by the time I met him.<br> SL: So did you have the feeling he was terribly busy until he graduated, or did he also have spare time and was able to come and visit during that time before he graduated?<br> GJ: Well, it was late spring when I met him. I know that our first date was going to Lake Compounce, and it was warm enough so I wasn't wearing any coat, only a dress. Reed had a car, and my cousin Larry [Wilkinson] introduced me to Reed, I guess I've told you this before, so that we could go someplace in Reed's car. So, it was three couples of us that time when Reed was my date. But that was late in the spring. And the next thing that happened was that he graduated, and then there was the dance for his graduation. Anyway, I had one date and then he was through with Wesleyan.<br> SL: He didn't seem to have much of a problem with gas rationing, did he?<br> GJ: It may not have started then. Yeah, I think not. Anyway, there wasn't any question of our not being able to go to Lake Compounce. Anything like that that people wanted to do they could do.<br> SL: Yeah, and so in the summer of '42, was secretarial school going at that time?<br> GJ: Well, I finished late. You had to continue at school until you got your right speed for speedwriting and dictating, but it continued into early July, but then I was free. I was free through the summer and pretty soon started looking for a job.<br> SL: And what places did you and Reed go during the summer?<br> GJ: Well, there were picnics in Forestville. He had friends in Forestville, and there was one time when he took me to meet his mother and father, and I guess we just kind of hung around with his friends.<br> SL: And with your cousin Larry.<br> GJ: Well, Larry left Middletown after Wesleyan ended for the summer.<br> SL: Did he go into the war?<br> GJ: Yes, but later. There was a time when Larry wanted to get married, and we all felt it was just because Reed and I had gotten married. I remember Larry-this must have been when he was back at Wesleyan after the summer vacation-having a heavy discussion with my mother. Larry wanted to get married, and my mother felt it was just because he saw Reed and me getting married. She said to Larry that she and my father had waited, I don't know, years-maybe they knew each other for eight years. She couldn't ask for any better marriage for any of her children, and she counted Larry as one of her children. However, he did eventually get married. And divorced. Many years later.<br> SL: I think you told me before how Larry inherited the stamp collection from your grandfather.<br> GJ: No, it was Uncle Wilkie<br> SL. Oh, I'm sorry, from Uncle Wilkie. OK. In the fall of '42 what were you doing and what was Reed doing?<br> GJ: I started my job at the University of Connecticut, and it was very, very hard for me. It was too hard for me for a first job, and I'd be working from 8 in the morning often until 7 or later. Not only that, but the campus was very crowded, and the eating facilities weren't enough, so for lunch instead of going someplace and sitting down I'd have to stand in a long line in a cafeteria and only get my food just in time to get back to the office. On top of that, my boss, Mr. Hagen-he was the personnel man-he took on the job-I guess he was given the job-of handling things when the recruiters came to recruit the students. Part of my job was setting up appointments all day and oversee these appointments and the kids would come in to interview the recruiters, and on top of that-this one he took on voluntarily-athletic director. So another part of the job was getting ushers for the Saturday football games, and I had college helpers to help me. Not all at once but five students under me that I had to manage, so perhaps you can get the idea that it was too hard a job.<br> SL: So I gather that you didn't really have time to think about all of the international affairs going on at that moment.<br> GJ: That's right. Yes, and another hard thing was that although Reed and I wanted to be together, there was nothing we could do at Storrs: no movies, I had a room in a private house, and of course he wouldn't have been allowed in there. All we could do was go to my office and talk. So that wasn't very satisfactory. So to have dates-I worked Saturday mornings too-I would have to drive back to Middletown and Reed would come to Middletown, and Sunday I'd have to drive back to Storrs.<br> SL: So did he come to Storrs sometimes to visit during the week, or are you just saying that if he had gone to Storrs there wouldn't have been anything to do?<br> GJ: Not during the week, but on weekends occasionally he would come, and it would mean I wouldn't have to pack up and go someplace, which was a great relief. Yeah, he came up some weekends but there was nothing to do but sit in my office. It was too cold to go out. Sit in my office and talk.<br> SL: OK, and what was he doing the rest of the time during that fall? He wasn't studying any more; did he have a job?<br> GJ: Yes, he was working for the Bristol Press. I guess you've heard that.<br> SL: Yeah.<br> GJ: That's what he was doing until he was called up.<br> SL: Your father became a judge in 1930, is that right? That's when his court sessions in different county seats started. That continued until he went on the Supreme Court?<br> GJ: That's right. He went on the Supreme Court in 1952. No, he became Chief Justice in 1952. He went on the Supreme Court before that.<br> SL: During the war years he was still on the Superior Court circuit.<br> GJ: That's right. And as for gas, I suppose he had a better ration card. There were A and B and C and I was A. I suppose he had B.<br> SL: Oh, B was better than A?<br> GJ: You got more gas with B.<br> SL: So, I guess we've accounted for all the people we care about during the fall of '42. (GJ laughs.) SL: What's funny about that?<br> GJ: It's just that we have how many more years of the war? And we've taken, however long it is. Three quarters of an hour. He hasn't even left.<br> SL: When did you get engaged?<br> GJ: In November of '42.<br> SL: OK, and then there were the holidays and then you got married, and then six weeks later he was called up. Where was he called up to?<br> GJ: He went off on a train. I think he went to Fort Devens; I'm not sure. After his initial place, he went to Nashville, Tennessee, and I went to Nashville.<br> SL: When was that and how long was that?<br> GJ: I don't remember, really.<br> SL: Had he decided he was going to be an airman already?<br> GJ: Yes, he went into the Air Corps and in later years told me because he thought he'd have more freedom, and he wanted to be a pilot most of all. Does that answer what you had asked?<br> SL: Yeah, and in fact you had answered it before because he enlisted for the Army Air Corps back when he first enlisted in '42. That was already set.<br> GJ: May I tell you something else about enlisting? One of the things we did that summer. It was a good idea he had. We went to Tanglewood; he took Marion and me up to the Berkshires, and we went around and found a rooming house, and when he was with Marion and me up at Tanglewood, he said, "Well, I told my mother and father last night I'd enlisted in the Air Corps and it went over like a lead duck." They didn't like it at all. His mother said something like this, "Look at what your son's done." Because I think they thought it was more dangerous.<br> SL: I guess there was no way of telling which branch of the service was more dangerous at that point, was there?<br> GJ: But, if he hadn't enlisted, he would have perhaps had longer until he was called, a little longer.<br> SL: But it sounds as if what they were thinking was that they would have preferred him to enlist in some other branch of the service where the survival rate was greater, whatever that might have been.<br> GJ: That's it, that's it.<br> SL: And what was his state of mind when he went off to Fort Devens or when he went to Nashville?<br> GJ: It was good. He didn't dread it. I don't know whether he was exactly happy about it, but I think he was glad to be in the Air Corps, and glad to get that waiting over with. I think that's about it.<br> SL: Of course, this was a step toward adulthood for him too, because he had never been more than an hour away from his parents' house before then. Did he come every weekend when he was in Wesleyan, or most weekends?<br> GJ: I don't think he did that. He had been farther away from his parents; he went to camp. Do you want to hear about that?<br> SL: No, let's skip that now.<br> GJ: And Wilbraham.<br> SL: OK, Wilbraham. So it wasn't so much of a step. And how long was he in Tennessee?<br> GJ: I guess about two months. And then they shipped him someplace. I can't remember where; do you want me to try to think?<br> SL: Well, if you were in Nashville, did you follow him to the next place he got posted?<br> GJ: Well, I didn't because I remember we had an unhappy goodbye, and I got on a train and came north. I guess it was a case of waiting until I knew the next place he was going to be. I think the next place I went was Fort Myers. That was pilot training. So I went down to Fort Myers<br> SL: OK, so he was still planning to be a pilot when he went to Fort Myers.<br> GJ: Yes.<br> SL: I see. And how did you feel about traveling around like that? Was that very difficult in those days?<br> GJ: It was hard, yes. It was almost impossible-very difficult to get a berth for overnight. So sometimes I had to sleep all night on a crowded train. Sometimes I had to sit on a suitcase on a crowded train, on my suitcase. So it was hard.<br> SL: Oh yes, you must have had overnight trips to Nashville and back, and then to Florida. Did you have trouble getting onto a train, that is, being able to get any place at all on a train?<br> GJ: You always had the nervousness of not knowing whether you'd get a seat or not, but usually you'd get a seat.<br> SL: And was this the first time you'd been to the South? During your trip across the country, I don't recall your telling me anything about the South.<br> GJ: I don't recall going to the South. I don't think we did, in that trip across the country. I know we came home by the Great Lakes.<br> SL: Anything about the South: difference in customs that you found when you were there? Attitude toward the military or anything?<br> GJ: Well, I'll tell you one thing when we were in Louisiana, Reed and I went to church and went to some kind of evening meeting, it was a discussion about how they were treating the Negroes. They thought they were doing pretty well about treating the Negroes. Afterward Reed said he felt like saying, "Then why not let them get to the front of the bus?" I remember the atmosphere, but nothing to say about it.<br> SL: OK. When you went to Florida, it was getting on summer, right? It must have been pretty hot.<br> GJ: It was hot. That was a problem<br> SL: It's hard to fly in hot weather.<br> GJ: Oh?<br> SL: Yeah, in hot, humid weather.<br> GJ: Well, another girl and I would sometimes go to the USO and she wanted to go to the beach a lot. Oh, it was late summer because she was going to go home in September, and she wanted a tan. I have a picture of her and me at the beach. That's Dotty Leete and me at the beach in Fort Myers. This is Betty and Robert Lee. This is outside the house-this is the room I had.<br> SL: At Fort Myers.<br> GJ: Sorry, at Monroe, Louisiana. When he washed out of the pilot training, then he went to Monroe, Louisiana for navigation training.<br> SL: How did you learn he had washed out of pilot training?<br> GJ: I guess he came home-once again, it was a room in a private house-and told me and that he'd be going to Monroe. And at that very time, I was sick. Another wife in that same house had wanted to eat home. It did get very tiresome eating in restaurants. They were so understaffed, you'd have to wait and wait to get a spoon. It was such a relief to get home and if I wanted a spoon I could get up and get it instead of trying to get a waitress' attention. Anyway, I've forgotten her name, it might be Becky. She bought stuff, and one of the things she bought was butter. It must have been butter at that time. And we didn't have any refrigeration and it got very hot. The butter melted and I think that butter got bad. I was sick at the time that Reed said he had to go to Monroe, Louisiana, so Reed went on ahead and I had to wait a few days until I got well. So he went to Nashville first. I went by myself. We were in Nashville twice. I think Nashville was just a classification place, and then they sent him to Monroe, with a leave first.<br> SL: Oh, so you didn't go away or anything when he was on leave. You didn't go home?<br> GJ: Sometimes we went home. Oh, he graduated from navigation in Monroe, and they sent him out to Texas. When he got to Texas they weren't ready for him, so that's when he had a two-week leave, and we went home then.<br> SL: Now a couple of months ago you'd told Nancy and me about times when you would wait outside the fence or something. That was in Texas wasn't it?<br> GJ: No, that was in Monroe.<br> SL: Reed and some buddies or something would sneak out; or was it just Reed?<br> GJ: I'll tell you again. The wives were allowed to come on the post every other night or three nights a week, and I think it was every other night, so on every other weekend he'd would be able to come into town. The husband had to request a pass and give it to you to get on a post. Well, he got very sick and one time he went AWOL and snuck under a fence and came to my room in Monroe. When he was due to go back, he had me walk to the place where Bob Lee was staying on his weekend pass and get the pass for Reed to get back on the post. Oh, this is what I told you and I'll tell you again. The wives could go on the post every other night, but our anniversary came on a night when I wasn't supposed to go. And what I did when I was not supposed to go on the post was to meet in the guardhouse and just talk. And Reed sent me a corsage, and we were sitting in the guardhouse, just talking, and the MP there asked about the flowers that I was wearing, and Reed told him it was our first anniversary. He said, "Go to town," and wrote out a pass, and so Reed got to town that night. Then that same MP another time, Reed gave me a forged pass and I got off the bus and as the wives had to do I showed the pass to the MP, the same one, and he looked at it and he said, "This is no good." I don't know to this day whether he was joking or he really knew it was no good. After looking at it he said, "Go ahead."<br> SL: We'll just have to find that MP and ask him whether-as if he would remember. So we've gotten up to January 1944 already. That's doing pretty well. Now this is when all the main events were transpiring overseas; I mean, all the turnaround battles were taking place during 1943, or many of them.<br>
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