Oral History Program Joyce Cotton Interviewed by Alyssa Chaffee 1 August 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Joyce Cotton Interviewed by Alyssa Chaffee 1 August 2017 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The World War II "All Out for Uncle Sam" oral history project contains interviews from veterans of the war, wives of soldiers, as well as individuals who were present during the war years. The interviews became the compelling background stories for the "All Out for Uncle Sam" exhibit. The project received funding from Utah Division of State History, Utah Humanities Council and Weber County RAMP _____________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Cotton, Joyce, an oral history by Alyssa Chaffee, 1 August 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Joyce Cotton as a child circa 1920s Joyce Cotton and Family Joyce is on the back row, second from the right. circa 1940s Joyce Cotton 1 August 2017 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Joyce Cotton, conducted on August 1, 2017 in her home, by Alyssa Chaffee. Joyce discusses her life and her memories involving World War II. Michael Baliff, the video technician, is also present during this interview. AC: Today is August 1, 2017. It’s about 1:30 p.m. We are in the home of Joyce Cotton, speaking with her about her life and her experiences during World War II. My name is Alyssa Chaffee and I’m here with Michael Baliff. I wanted to ask you, first of all, where and when were you born? JC: I was born in 1935 in London. It’s like the outskirts of the city. I worked up there in Hanover Street up in the city when I was fifteen. I had made it. It’s not too far in Trafalgar Square, where all the pigeons are. AC: What were your parents’ names? JC: Babs and Jack Smith. Very unusual name. Dad worked on the subway. He started out as a bookie clerk then he got to be station master. He had his office at the end of the platform there. I got in trouble a couple of times because I was at an all-girls school and wore uniforms. While I was waiting on the platform, I didn’t know that dad was on duty, and when the trains come in it’s a big ole thing of wind, and my hat came off. I had a felt hat with a badge and stuff on it, but that fell on the railroad on the line and this other man came, a porter, he said, “Smitty, there’s some kids hat on the line.” It was mine and he was mad because it was torn up. AC: Interesting. You said your mom’s name is Bab? 2 JC: Yes, and she worked at this beautiful hotel not too far from us. I think she worked there like twenty years. She use to ride her bike and it was quite a ways she had to go. It was so cold—our weather is terrible. She cut off some sleeves from her sweater and put them on her legs and rode her bike to work. She did that for quite a long time. AC: That’s clever, is Bab short for anything? JC: I think its Barbara. But they called her Babs. Wonderful woman and a wonderful mother. AC: Back to that story of the train, were you on your way to the girl’s school when your hat flew off? JC: I was on my way home. I usually took the bus, but I thought, “Well, I’ll take the subway with all the other girls.” Sometimes we take the bus, sometimes we take the subway. MB: Did you have any siblings growing up? JC: I had a brother and sister. My mom was carrying my sister during the war. Then my brother was born two years after the war. So there’s nine years between my sister and I. I was the first. AC: You were only four years old when England entered into World War II, is that correct? JC: I was ten. AC: Oh. You were 1925 then? JC: It was 1942. AC: Oh, okay. You said you were born in 1935? 3 JC: I was born in 1935. MB: That would make you ten at the end of the war, because Germany surrendered in 1945. JC: We were still in the war because the bombs were dropping. We had an air raid shelter. There was thousands of people that slept on the platform of the subway. We all got our blankets and stuff, some candles for the kids and it was very hard to do all that. I think it was a couple of weeks later, the bombs dropped on what’s called Balham station. It’s just a station past our station. It could have been us, they were all drowned and killed. Terrible. Sometimes we would be in bed and the sirens would go off and then we’d have to go from our beds to the air raid shelter. Anybody we could fit in there—neighbors that didn’t have any shelter. Once I had to literally run home from school. The siren went off that the bombs would be dropping and I ran home. I tried to make it before it happened. It was very scary. The scary part was when the groaning stopped, and it was dead silence - because we knew the buzz bomb was about to hit. As long as the bomb roared and groaned. We knew we were okay. We had gas masks. We had to have drills in case that bad gas come from the bombs. But when my father, who was in the air force, he was in Middlewich Cheshire that was a few hours away by train. He met Mrs. Brombley, she was picking some flowers on her driveway. She asked him if she could help him. He said, “Well I’m looking for someone that could take my family in until the war was over.” She said, “Oh, don’t look any further. You get your family and you stay with me.” We were with her for two years. She had a beautiful mansion. She had 4 horses and we’d go horseback riding and I wasn’t used to all of that. But it was wonderful. Then after the war, we met this mother and father and daughter— Janet. She became my best friend up in Middlewich Cheshire, and after the war they came and lived right next door to us. So that was exciting. AC: How did the wartime in the countryside differ from wartime in the city? JC: You didn’t get any of that. It was all in London. It was always in the city. The countryside they never bothered us there. AC: Interesting. So what did you guys do to help with the war effort while you were in the country? Was there a lot of talk of the war while you were over there? JC: Oh yes, and Mrs. Brombley, she did a lot. She was very wealthy and she did a lot for churches and hospitals. Every Christmas she’d have some of the village people come in and sing carols. She had a beautiful foyer. I wasn’t allowed to watch that. It was too late and I should have been in bed, but I always crept down the stairs and peeked through the banister and then I went back up just before everybody was leaving so I wouldn’t get into trouble. A beautiful choir she had. A beautiful woman. AC: What were you parents doing while you were out living in the countryside? JC: My dad was in the Air force police and he had a police dog, Rex. He used to bring it home sometimes. They believe that some German or somebody had poisoned the dog. I was so sad, a beautiful German Shepherd. We called him Al Sassions. After the war, I developed a heart problem, and it was an unusual one. They discovered it when I was seven but they couldn’t do anything till I was 5 thirteen. I was the second one in the world to have this heart surgery. They were just kind of practicing and stuff, they didn’t know if it was going to work. A young girl had the same thing done and she didn’t make it. We became friends because we were in the hospital for two months to build us up so that we would be healthy. I was thirteen when I had this surgery, otherwise I would have just made it to my early twenties. Dr. Cleveland, he saved my life. He was wonderful. Then when I grew up and came to America I had one boy and eleven months later I had twins. The doctors here had to have a letter from my surgeon. It had been so many years that we didn’t know if we could find him. They found him and he said, “My little Joyce had one and eleven months had twins? That makes my heart proud.” My growing up, the best part was Mrs. Brombley’s. She gave me a set of marbles—those days the kids played marbles. I lost a whole bag of beautiful marbles all in one day. I was afraid to go tell her. So that was quite an experience. AC: So during the time that you were at Mrs. Brombley’s, did you have your sister during that time period? JC: Mother was expecting her. I think it was about six months later she had Jillian. AC: Did your mother stay back in London while you were sent off to the country? JC: Oh no, she went too. Mrs. Brombley said, “No, bring the rest of your family.” So it was just my mom and sister and I and our dad, and then Howard came two years after Jillian. He came after the war. MB: What would you do for school while you were at Mrs. Brombley’s? 6 JC: Oh, I went to a Catholic school. I wasn’t Catholic but she put in there with the nuns. That was nice, I thought they were really good. It was an all-girls school, and we had to wear uniforms again. I joined up for the Girl Guides. What do you call it here? AC: Girl Scouts? JC: Girl scouts. We wore blue. That was fun, and they teach you a lot. AC: What was your first girls’ school called back in London? JC: It was Ravenstone School. The colors were red, white, and black with badges everywhere. A badge on your blazer, a badge on your tie, a badge on your hat. Back star pins, black shoes, a jumper like dress, black with red and white shirt and a tie. I hated it. But now, I think it makes sense. Then we could concentrate on school and not what you’re going to wear. That’s sounds like a grandma saying that. AC: So is that school located in London. JC: Oh, in London, yes. On the way home from school I spent two hours with my grandmother Child. Her and her husband were very wealthy and he gambled all of his money away and left her poor. She stayed in this little dingy house, it was a two story house, so she rented it out to two old maids. They were there for years. When I go to see her, I have to put a shilling in the gas meter because that was their only way of light. I always spent two hours with her after school every day and played dominoes. When I started making hats I did the same thing and I’d make all her old hats into new. I just loved her. She was just darling. I felt so 7 sorry for her. I had another grandmother, my father’s mother who was really wealthy, but she was kind of mean with it. AC: You said that when you were living in London so you had a lot of air raid drills. Were the air raid shelters community ones, or did people own their own air raid shelters? JC: No, they made them for us. They were just brick with steel all underneath them. We had six steel bunks and we’d just take our pillows and blankets out there, it was very cold. You couldn’t have a door because of the blast, if they came down. AC: Were they all located underground? JC: No, it was above. They were pretty safe, because that didn’t get damaged but our house did. AC: Your house got damaged? JC: Ya. We had to kind of rebuild and stuff. There was no money those days. It was really hard. You couldn’t go out to dinner those days. We were really struggling. I had my own ration book, everybody got their own ration book. I brought it here with me but I can’t find it. I had to put my stuff in one of those storage places when I came to Utah four years ago. I don’t know what happened to it but I was going to frame it. It has my name on it and I still had some coupons left. That was for the grocery store. You were only allowed so much and I think they had the same problem in America. AC: How long were the air raids typically? Do you remember? JC: They would last a good hour or more, sometimes two hours. We all cheered when we were all cleared. It seemed like that’s all I really knew, I don’t remember 8 too much before that. It seemed like that was my whole life. That’s all I knew then. But after the war, we had dancing in the streets and our flags flying and cheering and everybody had all kinds of food. It was fantastic, we couldn’t believe that it was over. AC: Where were you at the end of the war? JC: I was still in London, our house we had that I was born in. AC: So you went back to London for the end of the war then? JC: Yes. MB: So how long were you at Mrs. Brombley’s? JC: Two years. AC: How long did you spend in London after Mrs. Brombleys’? JC: I left London when I was twenty-four. I married an American and I came over I think in 1958 or 1959 on a big army ship. He lived in Fresno California. I was on the ship for seven days and it was in November. Oh my God, it was the roughest crossing they had in ten years. Couldn’t take a bath, the water was like this, choppy. I got sea sick every lunch time. The only time I could eat was the last day, the seventh day, and then everything came rolling off the tables. I might go on a cruise but not an army ship again. It was scary because I didn’t meet my husband until Fresno, he was already home. I got into New York and there was nobody greeting me off the ship. I was crying and I was hanging on this brick wall in New York. It’s a busy place. It was in the afternoon and this little man came up and he was calling for a German lady, “Where’s so and so?” I thought, “Maybe it’s me?” She never showed up so 9 he said, “What’s your name?” He saw me crying, and I said, “I’m Joyce and I just got off the ship that just came in.” He said, “Oh good, we’ll go get your luggage and we’ll change your money. I’m going to take you to lunch.” He could have lead me off the garden path but I just went with him in his little bus. I had my first huge hamburger and pickles and a huge apple. I’d never seen such a big apple. I had a big milkshake and fries and thought, “Oh, this is nice!” He was wonderful, just a little guy, and he had a little ticket in the band of his hat and so I guess the German lady never showed up. He took me and he put me on the phone to my mother-in-law, the first time I had spoken to her. That was scary. By the time I had gotten to Fresno, I was very pale and I had these heavy English tweeds on. Here’s my husband—short sleeves, nice and tan. I thought, “Oh dear Lord, he’s going to take one good look at me and say, ‘what did I marry?’” I looked so white, I had been sea sick for a whole week, but he was very nice. I took a shower and I took a nap and then he said, “In the evening, we are going to meet my parents.” That was an experience. He took me out to dinner, then after we went to meet his parents he said, “Before we go in, I’ve got something to tell you.” He said, “What?” I was getting scared. He said, “Well, my parents are not the easiest people to get along with.” What a thing to tell me! I got ready to go back. Then they were questioning me and it was all quiet. My cup and saucer was wackling. All these twenty questions. They told me to speak louder because I was too quiet. I felt that they were shouting. It was loud and it was scary. You leave your country, leave your family, and take a chance. She was very hard to get along with at first. She didn’t like me at first, but when 10 the children came along, we just loved each other and we had a good relationship. AC: That’s good. So, I want to go back to the war a little bit, if that’s alright. While you were out in the countryside at Mrs. Bromley’s did they have the scrap metal drives, or a victory garden or did you have anything like that out there in the countryside? JC: Well, Mrs. Bromley did a lot of charity work for the people that were in the war. She gave a lot of her money to hospitals, churches, and people that didn’t have anything. It was hard during the war and she was like a guardian angel—very generous. AC: What other kinds of charitable things did she do besides giving money? JC: She would have garden parties. They were very big over there. Have you ever gone to one? MB: I have been to a garden party before. JC: Yes, did you like it? MB: Ya, it was an experience. It was interesting. JC: I didn’t mean to interview you. We did that for charity and stuff and to get money. They were lovely. They would be out on the lawn and they would have their tea and their little cakes. AC: During a lot of this time period, you were in your girl’s school. Did the girl’s school do anything to help with the war effort as well? JC: I’m sure the nuns did do something. I think a lot of people in that village was helping. 11 AC: Did the children help with any scrap metal drives or anything like that? JC: No, they didn’t have to do that then. MB: Just curious, what sort of adjustment was it going back to London from Mrs. Bromley’s? JC: A very big adjustment, huge because the house was all shaky—and the wiring. We had to get it all back together, but we never got it like it should. It was hard because it was a lovely life there for two years and then you had to go back to all the cleaning up, getting everything back to normal, and no money. It was very hard, everybody struggled. AC: What year did you move back to London from Mrs. Bromley’s? JC: Well, we spent two years there, but I’m not sure when we went, but the war was all over and Mrs. Bromley didn’t want us to leave. We had to because that was where our life was. AC: So, as a child, were you pretty aware of the war. Did they try to keep you well sheltered from all the realities of it? JC: Oh no, it was all there. We had to practice every day with the gas mask, and they smelled like burning rubber, but we had to in case they would release something poisonous. So we had to do that, and it was just going back and forth, shelter and then the subway. That turned out to not to be a good idea because those poor people got trapped in there. I still can’t believe that we were all just strangers, everybody on the platform. The platforms are huge but you were with all of these people you’ve never seen before, but we all knuckled together and just tried to make it fun. Everybody would bring their own blankets and we’d take 12 some games down, cards or something. We did play a lot of cards during the war to keep our spirits up and to keep you thinking of something else, because you couldn’t go out much. AC: Did they have blackouts at night? JC: Oh yes, we had blackout curtains. AC: What were some of the ways that you as a kid had fun during the war time? JC: Well, I was a very sickly child so I didn’t get to do a lot. I couldn’t ride a bike, I couldn’t do a lot of things that other kids could do until I had my surgery. I was in an Air Force hospital because my dad was in the Air Force. I was in there two months before, and two months after the surgery. The little girl that didn’t survive before me, they said she moved to another hospital because I was asking for her and I wasn’t strong enough I guess. My parents told me later. There was a boy who had it done. He was in the hospital when I left. It was at Brompton Hospital. I even know what I had done, this is the only time I feel really smart. The doctors asked me, “Well, what was it you had done?” Well it was, and this sounds like a mouthful, persistent ductus arteriosus. That’s a leak in the heart valve. Here I am eighty-two, so I’ve made it. AC: Was there a shortage on things like nylon and rubber? JC: Oh yes. The Americans, when they came into London, they gave people cigarettes, gum, nylons and all that good stuff. It was instant potatoes in a packet. My husband got a cake out of a box. My mom did everything from scratch and she said, “Oh my, a cake in a box?” I had never seen anything like it. My husband introduced us to a lot of things—a nice mop for her. Mom didn’t 13 even have a decent mop for her kitchen and everything. Things were bad then. But the Americans had all this fancy stuff like cake in a box. We couldn’t wait to have it. AC: So did the women over there paint their legs during the nylon shortage like the American women did? When they couldn’t wear nylons they would paint their legs with a tan colored paint. JC: Oh, I didn’t know that. AC: I didn’t know if British women did that. JC: No, but we wore picture frame nylons. Have you heard of those? These are all markets that we would go to get our shopping in London. They had these stockings with a black seam up the back and then it had a butterfly on each side of your ankle embroidered on the nylons. They were only fifty cents a pair then. In this old market they would start high and then they’d go down, “Half a crown, two or six.” Then you’d have to grab them because everybody is trying to get the nylons. If you wore a pair of shoes out you couldn’t just go and get a new pair of shoes. You had to go to the cobbler to get your shoes sewn and repaired. Not like now, you can just go and get a new pair of shoes. But things were tough. For my interview for my job, this would be hard for the kids today, I had to wear my mother’s dress, a pair of her shoes, and her coat to have my interview to be a milliner. I was so embarrassed. As time went on and I started working I gradually could buy myself a pair of shoes and my own coat. AC: That’s really cool. 14 JC: This is funny. You’ll never guess what happened to me in the subway. I was coming home and I’ve got my first new raincoat and we were packed like sardines coming home. I didn’t know what had happened, I had never felt anything. I was going up the escalators, and this man had cut my coat pocket out with my week’s wages. I lost all my money that I had earned. They never caught him, I had to have a detective travel with me on the subway for a while. But they never caught him. I was so embarrassed. This lady said, “Hi, I think you should know the whole back of your raincoat is like rags, you ripped it.” So instead of going home the front way, the highway, I went all around the back turning so no one would see me. I couldn’t take it off because it was raining. AC: How old were you? JC: It was horrible! I was seventeen, I think. I started at fifteen being a milliner. Three years of apprenticeship. AC: Okay, interesting. What made you decide to do that? JC: I wanted to be a hair designer, but with my asthma I couldn’t take the fumes, and I wanted to do that so badly. I wanted to do something artistic with my hands. There was an opening, so my mother took me up there and I got the job. I loved it, but you do it all from scratch. You had ovens and steam and then you got your sewing thing and you had the truddle with your feet. We didn’t have very nice sewing machines then. You had to sew like this, you had to get them all the same, the stitching all around the brim. It was ruining my hands and I think it would have ruined my eyes, so I quit after five years. I went into my first retail job 15 ten minutes away from my house. That was wonderful because I had been traveling the subway for five years. I stayed in retail ever since. AC: So, you said you started millinery work when you were fifteen. Were you still in school during that time? JC: No, I had left school. AC: How old were you when you graduated your schooling? JC: Well, we went to high school and those days it was very expensive. I graduated from high school, secondary school is what we called it, but we couldn’t afford to go to colleges, so that’s when I went into a trade. MB: What was the apprenticeship portion like? JC: It was good. After three years you make much more money, then you can be on your own or become the head milliner. I had to leave because I felt that I would either be blind or have stuff all over my hand. It’s very hard on you. AC: Because of the chemicals? JC: Yes. You had to steam the brims. They were on a wooden thing with a hole in the middle. Then you have to steam them, get them damp, then you have to press them very firm, and put thumb tacks all around and then you have a wooden dome for the head. Then you have to block that and then you put both in these ovens to dry, then you put them together. The exciting part was my boss, she would take me down to the wholesale roads to pick out feathers, like for winter, feathers and felts. I don’t know if you know Petersham, it’s a real kind of ribbon. Winter time was more like feathers and stuff. In the summer time you’d get like a 16 straw hat. Then you got flowers and all kinds of stuff. I really enjoyed it because I like fashion. I like doing stuff like that. AC: Where was your apprenticeship at? JC: It was up in the city, on Hanover Street, which is really close to Trafalgar square. It was a wholesale, it was all like making hats and men’s bowler hats. It was very interesting. We used to go out by Trafalgar square and on the grass and eat our sandwiches for lunch. It was nice. AC: It seems lovely. MB: So, were you part of a shop? Like a larger millinery shop? JC: Yes, it was just a big work room upstairs. It was like on the fourth floor. You had a big long table and you have your head milliner and then us girls on each side of the table and she would have to check everything you did. You had to get at least seven hats out of the day. Oh, it was hard. My first hat I absolutely ruined it because I was only fifteen and I didn’t know anything about it. So I had to pay for that, but that was the only one I ruined. That was scary, they’re all watching you cutting into your felts. It was lovely though, I loved doing it. AC: Was it typical for girls to start their careers so young? JC: Ya, they did a lot of apprenticeships when they left school. AC: Were you able to talk with the other girls that were working with you? JC: Oh yes, it was quite an experience and then we had one day where we had to use our imagination. We didn’t have Halloween then but it was kind of like a competition, you had to make your hat or something. It could be like a house or a cake. I made mine as me and my shadow, it was a song. It turned out really cute. 17 It was exciting, we all could do whatever we wanted. It didn’t matter if we ruined those felts. I loved the part where my boss used to pick me to go and take the hats to these rich ladies up in the city. They’d put me in a cab with the hat box and I’d go to these people’s houses. It always rained it seemed like. They said, “Oh, dear you can’t go back like this.” Oh they would feed me cakes and tea. I loved it, it was fun. I felt like Queen Elizabeth in a taxi with a hat box, and that way I didn’t have to make too many hats that day. I got time off. AC: You said that your apprenticeship was over on Hanover Street, where were you born again? I thought you were born on Hanover Street. JC: I was born in London and I think it was in Balham, Brompton Hospital was the Air Force Hospital. I can’t think of the name of the Hospital. AC: That’s okay. JC: But, it was in Balham, that’s where they attacked the subway. I was born there, it was just like two stations away from the subway. AC: Where all was your dad located during the war? Was he stationed in different places? JC: He was in Middlewich Cheshire and he stayed there. He was like a guard, he was Air Force Police. AC: So he didn’t really move around he just stayed in Middlewich. JC: Right. AC: Nice, did he live with you guys? JC: He’d get to come home. He just had to keep guard in case any of the Germans came in. 18 AC: Okay, that’s interesting. I just want to go back a little bit. You said the end of the war there’s lots of celebrating, did it last for a few days? Since it was London? JC: Two or three days. Isn’t that something? I mean it was so exciting. We couldn’t believe that it was over. We just couldn’t believe it. AC: Were there a lot of American soldiers that were still in London? JC: Yes, there was a lot there, with the big Cadillac cars. My God, it looked like a big cruise ship, this big old Cadillac with the wings. All these English kids, “Look at this car!” They’d go around this car because it was so huge. There was a lot of them that came to London. But mine was a blind date. I met my husband up in the city, away from the pigeons. AC: How old were you when you met your husband? JC: I was twenty three. AC: Were you still a milliner when you were twenty-three? Or were you doing something else? JC: No, I was doing retail at a ladies shop. AC: Ladies clothing? JC: Yes, and that’s kind of a funny story. They put me in charge of the bra bar, right at the end of this little shop. We had a stove because we had no heating. It had flowers all around and all the drawers in the back of the wall. There was nothing much in the front, what a thing to say about a bra shop. I won a contest selling the most Playtex, which was the new thing that came out. This is hilarious. I won a contest, so I treated my mother to this first Playtex girdle that came out and it was made of rubber. It had the holes so you could breathe but you had to flour it 19 first before you put it on because you can’t be wearing anything hot because it would like shrink. But I was so proud because I won this for her. I thought, “Oh, she’s going to love it.” She didn’t powder it first. She got herself as small as she could but it was strangling her. She said, “Get me out of this thing. I’m going to die! Don’t you ever bring anything like this home again.” So we had to take her upstairs and we had to cut it off. It was funny. I couldn’t stop laughing. My mother said, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” I’m crying because, “I brought it home for you because I won this contest.” “I don’t care about the contest.” Then I won, for all of us girls to go and see Judy Garland on the London Palladium. We wanted to see her show. I was proud of myself. I won it so all the girls and I could go out to the city. AC: It sounds like you were really good at your retail job then. JC: I loved it. I say, that’s what I should be in and I’ve been in it ever since. I’m retired now but ya, I did a lot of it. AC: You said you met your husband on a blind date? JC: Yes, up in London. We went to this sandwich shop and he stared at me the whole time. I couldn’t eat my sandwich and then I dropped it, and I thought, “Oh dear Lord. That is so embarrassing.” The second day, he saw me he asked me to marry him. I said, “I don’t know you, we only met just a day ago. Are all you Americans like this? You’re fast movers.” I had to think about it and six months or so I married him. First, I went away to a holiday camp because I had an English boyfriend at the time and he was so annoyed. He said, “Where did this one come from?” His mother owned a holiday camp, so I went away on holiday and when I 20 got home there was a stack of letters and a marriage license. My mother said, “I am glad you are home and you better get on the phone he is stationed in Bombhoarden, Germany. Go up there and talk to him please because his friends have been calling me, ‘When is she coming home?’” He came to our place two days after and we started getting—we had to go up to the city because you have to get so many forms to get into the states and that’s good. You have to have a physical and we were writing so many things for questions and stuff. That took six months and then we got married in London. In a little old church, a cute church on Oak burn road I guess. I think the name of the church was Ole Saints Church or something. Where we got married in Europe, all the neighbors come out of the houses and they’re in the car and they follow you all the way up to the hill to the church. AC: Okay, interesting. So your husband was stationed in London. Was he like a friend of yours? JC: Well, he was stationed in Germany but he had come over with a friend of his that was engaged to one of my friends. He set it up the blind date. He said, “I married you because you saved me from getting killed from those taxi cabs.” They’re wild aren’t they? You have to move fast. AC: That’s so funny. So once you got married was he in Germany for a little bit longer or was he done with his service? JC: Oh no, he got out and then he went back to Fresno in California. It’s not the best place to live. So we got out of there and we lived in other places. Colorado, Los Angeles, and then Roseville. That’s Sacramento. 21 AC: Okay, interesting. How did you like living in America compared to England? JC: Well, the thing I loved was the solid blue sky. We never saw that in London. There were so many clouds and rain. We used to stand, my cousins and I, waiting for this black cloud to go by so we could see a little bit of blue. Then another black cloud. The weather was not good. If you’re out in the country, it still rains, but it’s beautiful out in the country. I’ve been here since 1959 I believe. AC: Oh wow, that’s a long time. Once you moved over here did you continue to work in retail? JC: I did. Ya. AC: What stores did you typically work for? JC: I worked for Marlene’s, which was in Roseville in Sacramento. I got the job a year before we got divorced. That was the smartest thing I did because I had been a housewife for so long. He didn’t want me to work. There’s an adjustment and I thought, “Oh, I hope I still know things.” I liked the small stores and I saw this manager, I used to go out every day to see her on the bus and ask her for a job. It took a long time and she said, “You know, Joyce, I’m going to hire you. You keep bugging me. Yes, I’ll hire you.” So, that was good. Then my children came up to me and said, “Who’s going to cook our dinner? Who’s going to take the garbage out? And who’s going to do this?” I said, “Well, you do this and you do that. You’ll catch on.” That was the smartest thing I did because I felt I was worthwhile. All I knew was the kids, the dog, the house, and I just wanted more after I had the children. AC: You had three children, right? 22 JC: Yes, one was eleven months when I had twins. I’ll show you a picture. They were just little babies. AC: I’m just going to ask you one final question. How do you feel that your experiences during World War II have affected you throughout your life? JC: Well, it’s made me appreciate life. I try to enjoy my life as much as I can. I wake up very grateful every day. It kind of toughens you up, it makes you more prepared or stuff. I used to be very shy and not anymore. Came to America, you can’t be shy. So now I stick up for myself. I know how to say, “No.” JC: Since I started working it just made me feel good about myself, because you kind of lose your identity. My husband kept me home for nineteen years and what do you talk about? The dog, the dinner, the house, and I wanted to be more interesting. He worked for a home like chainsaws, and the men and women that worked for him had nice things to talk about, they were intelligent. All I had was what was at home. Kids did this, the dog did that, it was nice but my husband didn’t like it when I was working. He said, “You’ve gotten kind of cocky since you’ve been working. I don’t like the girls you work with. They’re a bad influence.” He was jealous. AC: Was there anything else you wanted to cover that was on your list or anything that you can think of? JC: I don’t think so. I know the war brought us all even closer. You enjoy your simple life. It was simple afterwards because we were just simple people. We played a lot of cards and table games and stuff like that just to have fun. We didn’t have a lot of stuff to do, we didn’t go out to dinner because we couldn’t afford it. We 23 didn’t have bowling alleys like we do now. We didn’t have a lot of stuff to do, but we would go to the movie for a couple of dollars. Now it’s twenty dollars for a movie by the time you get popcorn and stuff or whatever you want. Outrageous. AC: Well, thank you so much for allowing us to interview you. JC: I hope that was interesting. AC: So interesting, thank you.