Oral history interview with Elsie Prevatt Pickett, 2009

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Elsie Pickett
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: April 21, 2009
[Begin Interview]
TS: Well, good morning. This is Therese Strohmer and it is April 21st, 2009. I’m in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I have Elsie here with me: Elsie Pickett. Could you state your name, Elsie, the way that you would like it on your collection?
EP: Elsie P. Pickett.
TS: Elsie P. Pickett. Okay. Thank you very much.
Well, Elsie, why don’t we start off? Why don’t you tell me where and when you were born?
EP: I was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, December the 25th, 1936. Christmas baby.
TS: [chuckle] That’s right—Christmas baby. Now, what kind of a family did you grow up in?
EP: Well, my father worked for the state, but he was in a hunting accident. So he died, and my mother was left with three small children, including one in diapers.
TS: Was that you? No?
EP: Pardon?
TS: Where do you fit in the hierarchy?
EP: I was the middle child—the responsible child.
TS: Oh, is that right? [chuckle] Okay. So, how was that for your mom? That must have been pretty tough.
EP: Well, I think I probably assumed more responsibility, because she worked. She was a nurse. You know, after World War II it was difficult for everyone. We had limited 2
supplies, limited housing. So, anyway I grew up in Robeson County and I went to Lumberton High School, where I played basketball and was very active. I coached for the recreation department. I coached their basketball and softball for the kids.
TS: Oh neat. Well, let me back up a little though.
EP: Okay.
TS: So, you’re growing up—how old were you when your father died?
EP: I think I must have been around nine years old.
TS: Nine years old? Okay, so that’s right at the end of the war then?
EP: The war had ended, right, but I know it was very difficult to find housing. We were living in Rowland, North Carolina, at the time. I do remember it was difficult finding housing. We later moved back to Lumberton.
TS: Okay. So, did your mom, she worked as a nurse throughout the war then?
EP: Right.
TS: Okay. Your two other siblings, are they boys or girls, or—
EP: Okay, I had an older sister.
TS: Okay.
EP: And she had a lot of health problems.
TS: Okay.
EP: And then when my father died my kid brother was in diapers. I remember that quite well. [chuckle]
TS: Yeah.
EP: It’s funny how you remember kids. I remember him in diapers, and I remember him learning how to walk. You know, we dangled keys in front of him.
TS: [chuckle] Oh, okay.
EP: So anyway, I was very fortunate. I had grandparents who were really great. They lived on a farm, so every chance I got I was with my grandparents. At that time there was no grandson, so my grandfather took me fishing and hunting. And I just enjoyed these very, 3
very nice grandparents out in the country. I had a lot of fun. I got to know the Indians in Robeson County—the Lumbee Indians.
TS: Really?
EP: I made some very good friends. We remained friends. That was quite interesting, getting to know them.
TS: What was interesting about it?
EP: Well, if you remember the time, they had the Ku Klux Klan rally, I think in Maxton, North Carolina. The Ku Klux Klan had it, and the Indians broke the rally up. [January 18th, 1958, following a lengthy period of Ku Klux Klan harassment, a group of approximately 500 heavily armed Lumbee Indians surrounded a Klan rally, and routed the Klan members after a brief period of gunfire. There were no serious injuries. The event later became known as the “Battle of Hayes Pond”, and is now seen as a defining event in Lumbee history.]
TS: Oh, is that right?
EP: Yeah. The Lumbees, they were interesting. A lot of them were tenant farmers. A few of them owned their own farms. A lot of them did moonshining. [chuckle] I just to got know them. And it’s funny, they said—well, you know, the Indians, if you’re their friend, you have a friend for life. I did get to know Dolly Strickland and her husband real well, and their children. And their children did all end up going to college, getting professional degrees. They were just very intelligent and very nice. We just remained friends over the years.
TS: Well, that’s real nice. So, you are out, you get to hunt and fish with your grandpa?
EP: He would—I wouldn’t carry a loaded gun, but he would let me carry a gun unloaded. He trained bird dogs.
TS: Oh, okay.
EP: So, he had bird dogs, and I could wear a whistle.
TS: What kind of bird dogs did he have? Do you remember?
EP: I don’t remember. But he was an avid sportsman—fisherman and hunting. He had a lot of people come down from the north, and he would take them quail [hunting and] fishing. It was a big thing.
TS: So, he was like a guide?4
EP: Well, to be with them, right. So, I will never forget that one of his friends left him a thousand dollars when he died. He really enjoyed coming down with those trips.
TS: Oh, I guess so.
EP: My grandfather was just a really, really good hunter. He was really good at cooking things: like when they would have the catfish stew, he would always be invited to fix the catfish stew. But he taught me how to fish and how to clean the fish. I just enjoyed being out on the farm.
TS: Yeah.
EP: I got to feed the chickens and stuff like that. My grandparents—when I look back—they were very poor, but they were very good. I will never forget that when someone was sick, my grandmother sending eggs over. She had a nice garden. They grew things practically year round.
TS: Did she do a lot of canning?
EP: A lot of canning. And she—oh, she was great at making pies, and what we called the potato pies. And it was really nice. You know, looking back, I thought they were very wealthy. But in retrospect—but they raised so much and they were very, very good. She had—My grandmother had lost another child plus my father. I thought they were really good to the grandchildren. I just really enjoyed heading out in the country.
I also had a goat. I had a billy goat. I wasn’t able to keep the billy goat in town though. But anyway, it was a lot of fun out in the country. I think people are more self-sufficient out in the county and you’re able to do things. I was able to drive the wagon and the mule.
I enjoyed getting to know the Indians. The Indians liked my grandfather. They liked him a lot. So I got to know them, and some of the Indians were pretty notorious. You may remember when an Indian took over The Robesonian, the newspaper office down in Lumberton one time.
TS: When was that?
EP: This was back—I’m trying to remember—this was not too far back. This must have been in the eighties.
TS: Oh, okay.
EP: What happened was, he agreed to surrender if they would let him come to the Orange County jail, because Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass had such a reputation of being such a fair and just sheriff that the young man surrendered on that basis. I will never forget it, because one of the newspaper reporters was a good friend of mine. She was really nice. When I worked with the recreation department she was really good about getting us great 5
publicity for the recreation program. This was an Indian, and he was— he did surrender— but he was holding people hostages in the newspaper office.
TS: Do you remember what happened to him after?
EP: Well, I think he was convicted and sent to prison. But it was pretty scary.
TS: Yeah.
EP: He was protesting. I don’t know what he was protesting. [In 1988, Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs, both Tuscarora Indians, took hostages in the offices of The Robesonian, protesting government corruption. Both served prison sentences.] There is a lot of turbulence in Robeson County, and a lot of turbulence with the Indians. They now have—I think they now have an Indian sheriff and a clerk of court. But there was a long time there that the Indians were exploited, and lot of them did do the moonshine business. And then a lot of them went to Detroit to get good paying jobs. You know, North Carolina—Robeson County was very poor, and it wasn’t like living in the Research Triangle Park, or in the cities. Life was interesting because we had the Indians. We had the Smileys [sic, Smilings]: a mixture of Blacks and Indians.
TS: The Smileys?
EP: Yes. The Smileys was [sic] a mixture of the Black and the Indians. We had four school systems down there at one time. We had one for the Whites, Caucasians; one for Blacks; ones for Indians; and then the Smileys. And eventually—well, that was—remember, that we didn’t integrate. When was integration—was Brown versus the Board of Education—and we started integrating and I think Attorney General Malcolm Seawell said “we will follow the Supreme Court ruling”.
I said, “Malcolm, you’re not going to be elected governor”. You know, that did it. He was the attorney general for [N.C. Governor] Terry Sanford, and he was from Lumberton and a family friend. His son and I went to school. Anyway, Robeson County, I guess, was turbulent. I will never forget here in Chapel Hill. I said “I know a lot about politics; I grew up in Robeson County.”
I had a cousin that ran for the legislature. He put on his overalls, took off his shoes, got in his Cadillac, and with a PA [public address] system and went out. This was way back—way back. They always talked about it—how he campaigned in his Cadillac and a pair of overalls, barefooted. But he won!
TS: [chuckle] Oh!
EP: That was to the North Carolina House of Representatives.
TS: How about that.
EP: Joe Hackney probably wouldn’t appreciate me saying things like that.6
TS: Is that who he is, Joe Hackney?
EP: No. Joe Hackney is our current speaker of the house.
TS: Oh, I see.
EP: And he is from Chatham County next door, and he represents Orange County too.
TS: So, who is it? What’s the fellow that did the—
EP: His last name was Page: P-a-g-e.
TS: Page.
EP: He was a cousin. My mother’s side of the family—the Pages—and they were active in politics. I think later on we did have one cousin who was a congressman years ago.
Malcolm Seawell probably would have been governor of North Carolina, but he abided by the Supreme Court ruling. You remember how integration was—how turbulent it was. You remember the situation in Little Rock [Arkansas], when [President Dwight] Eisenhower called out the troops. So, but anyway, it was interesting.
A lot of people, though, who graduated from Lumberton High School went on to college. We had a principal who stressed education, and taking the proper courses to be admitted to school. We had a lot of students to go to WC—UNCG [University of North Carolina at Greensboro, formerly Woman’s College]—and to University of North Carolina [at Chapel Hill]. We had a few who could afford to go to Duke [University]. And had a few who would go to schools like Princeton [University], but primarily most of the students went to [UNC-] Chapel Hill, East Carolina [University], or Woman’s College.
TS: In the Carolinas, mostly.
EP: They stayed in the Carolinas. Well, the in-state tuition, it was so good back then. It cost so little to go on to school, providing you had the academic background to hack it as a student. I think that was one thing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, academically it was sound, and a lot of students did not remain after freshman year; because of the demands for a liberal arts education—that you had to take a broad number of courses.
TS: Well, let’s back up a little bit. In your high school, you were talking about your principal really, you know—
EP: Yes, Mr. White—Thomas White was very, very good. I was an office assistant for two years, so I got to know him very well. That was a free period. Students were selected to be office assistants, and I served two years as his office assistant. And you learn a lot about administrative stuff and problems. And then I was working for the recreation department on weekends and afternoons. I stayed fairly busy.7
TS: Sounds like it. Now, how did you like school?
EP: Oh, I liked it. I liked it.
TS: Yeah. Did you have a favorite teacher or class or anything?
EP: Well, I had some excellent teachers. We had one who went on later on and was professor at Pembroke College. Well, I should say the University of North Carolina at Pembroke now. We—I guess our chemistry teacher; we liked her a great deal. She was everyone’s friend, and she worked in the summer at the recreation department. So I got know her extremely well, and she was an advisor to the basketball team. We were very fond of—we called her Ms. B. But she was very nice. She taught biology and chemistry.
I will never forget one day that Mr. White had a terrible headache—a terrible headache. He sent me out to get an aspirin, and I couldn’t find any aspirin. So I went to Ms. B and said, “Ms. B, Mr. White has a terrible headache. Do you have any aspirin?”
She said, “No, but I’ve got a Tylenol—a Midol [a medicine for menstrual cramping and pain]. We’ll just scrape it off a little bit, and you give him this Midol.”
It was really hard for me to keep a straight face, because later on his headache was fine! I didn’t tell him what kind of pill. He just thought it was an aspirin. He just took it down, because I got him a cup of water and gave him the pill. I said, “Ms. B said for you to take this.” Anyway, it took care of his headache.
She, I guess, was one of my favorites. But, I thought that Ann Wells, the English teacher—I was pretty close to much of the teachers. I gave the poor language teacher fits. I mean, I was just horrible in languages.
TS: What language were you—?
EP: I took French, and I was horrible. When I was in France I tried to study French. When I was in the military the southern drawl just bothered all of these speech professors. I said, “I’m sorry. I’m from Robeson County, and we don’t speak English very well.”
TS: [chuckle] You speak English fine.
EP: So anyway, but high school was a great experience. I liked the school, but I did not like the school board.
TS: Why?
EP: Well, Mr. White failed to get the paperwork in for a scholarship for a young man. His mother was on the school board. This young man was very, very wealthy. And she wanted Mr. White fired. And part of the school board wanted to keep him and Mr. White did not want a split school board; he resigned.
This really bothered me, because this was an extremely wealthy, wealthy family. Somewhere along the line, he didn’t get the paperwork in to Princeton in time for a scholarship; because he was so busy helping so many students. So many students were 8
what we called “diamonds in the rough”. So many students don’t have—their finances are extremely limited. A lot of them, their parents didn’t go to college. They had limited funds. He was really great about getting deserving students scholarships. In some way he goofed, but he didn’t have a secretary. He had office assistants. He had students who were his office assistants. You know, I guess at the end of the year with so many applications for college and all this—that bothered me a little bit. That bothered me more than a little bit. But Mr. White did not want the school torn apart, so he resigned and went to another school. Luckily, I was a senior.
The young man that the scholarship had occurred, he and I were friends. His folks owned the drug store—a lot with other property—and his grandparents were millionaires. This really bothered me that this woman would use her position as a school board—I think she must have been chairman of the school board—to axe him. He had worked so hard for the school. He just didn’t want the turmoil of a split school board, and he resigned.
Now, that’s my version of it. That was what I heard as a student.
TS: Right. About how many students were there in the high school?
EP: In the high school? Gee, you know, I don’t—I really, really don’t know. I guess, I don’t know. We must have had seniors, I guess, close to a hundred. It was a fair sized school. We played—we had basketball teams, football teams. I played on the girls’ basketball team. I was co-captain of the girls’ basketball team. That was when I coached for the recreation department. The captains—co-captains of the basketball team were offered that position—
TS: Oh, nice.
EP: —to coach younger kids. Not that we knew that much about basketball, but at least they were dribbling up and down the court, shooting, and getting some exercise.
TS: So, I was going to ask you about basketball. Now which basketball did you play at that time, because I know—was it the girls?
EP: I played girls. I was guard.
TS: Can you describe how it is different from basketball today?
EP: Well, basketball today. I mean, girls—we have professionals. We have the collegiate ball teams. Come on, what you have—
TS: Just in high school, I mean.
EP: Just in high school?
TS: Sure.9
EP: Oh it wasn’t—it was fair to be a basketball player. There was a lot of competition to be a cheerleader. A lot of the school leaders were—and the academically sound students—were basketball players. Penny Fuller—who is an actress that you see on “Murder She Wrote” every now and then—she was on the basketball team. The mayor’s daughter was on the basketball team. She had a car. We liked her. She had a convertible. So we really liked the mayor’s daughter, because she had a car.
TS: Now—
EP: A lot of us didn’t. We didn’t have our own cars.
TS: So this is the fifties?
EP: This is the fifties, yeah. Right.
TS: But the type of game that you played was different?
EP: Oh, the type of game, right. You played half court—you were half court—and pretty much a forward was a forward, and a guard was a guard.
TS: How many dribbles did you take?
EP: I think at that time we were unlimited as long as we stayed in the half court. I don’t think that we had the time. I think that we could hold the ball indefinitely. I guess it was [UNC basketball coach] Dean Smith who changed that with the four corners [offense strategy]. It was something that—the school life was geared around football games, basketball games, and parties afterwards. It was just part of the social life, and encouraged by the school.
TS: What kind of parties were afterwards?
EP: The recreation department lots of times had a place. They had a room and jukebox, and you could dance. Now, when we played basketball—especially out of town—we rode the bus together. The boys’ team and the girls’ team, we were on the activity bus together. That was another thing that I did. They needed an activity bus driver, so I got my bus license so I could drive our bus over to practice in the gymnasium; where we were playing for some reason. We couldn’t play there, so someone talked me into getting a bus license. That turned out to be quite adventurous, because every now and then they would need an activity school bus driver, and they would ask me if I would do it.
TS: So you got to go different places and—
EP: One time we went out to Greensboro. I group of students who were going up to Greensboro—UNCG—WC—I should say. I got acquainted with the campus then, because I drove. And then of course, later on, then I went to Girl’s State. I was a member of Girl’s State. I went there for their summer program. 10
TS: What did you do at Girl’s State?
EP: Well, this is training for—I guess for trying to get young people interested in politics. We had lecturers. We went to visit the legislature in Raleigh. We visited the UNC campus here at Chapel Hill. It was more of a civic thing. But I met girls from all over North Carolina. We had two representatives, I think from every county from all over the state.
I don’t know how this came about, but they had distinguished professors to lecture. Dr. Alexander, who is quite famous, she taught political science at WC. She was very active in the Democratic Party. She was the first Clerk of Court—the first woman—female—clerk of court. She had been to the national democratic convention with Harriet Elliot, who was the very famous dean of women who helped President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt set up—helped him with, I think with the WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service] I think helped him with that. You know, there was—we got to meet, individually, a lot of individual professors and students. We visited— I think they took us—I can’t remember. I know we went to the legislature. It was education, but it was more or less of the political—how government worked in North Carolina.
But I was active as a student in town politics, too.
TS: How did you do that?
EP: Well, we had a candidate who was running for the council. We needed more playgrounds, so I got out and I took pictures. I found some children playing under boxes in the streets. They were under boxes playing in the streets. We got the newspapers to run a whole page of pictures on the need for playgrounds. And, of course, the recreation department—our budget was determined by the city council. What we were trying to do here is to help this one politician, because he had promised more playgrounds for children in the summer.
I was working for the recreation department, not only as coach, and then later on as the advisor for the nature club, but I worked in the summers. Eventually, I worked helping set up their summer playground program. When I was in college I came back during the summer break, and ran the program for—we had about eight or nine playgrounds. And I was the director for all of the playgrounds for them.
TS: So that worked? Your pictures helped get you the—
EP: Right, I don’t remember if the guy won or not. But I was interested in politics and because of the council giving us money for the department—I was just interested in politics. But I’ll never forget, you know, that we didn’t know that the newspaper was going to do a whole spread. It was just fortunate. I was out taking pictures, and there were these children in the street—under boxes—playing in the street. The editor of the paper liked it. Of course, my friend down at the newspaper, she liked it too. And she supported the recreation program. And so, I got to know some of the politicians. And, of course, Malcolm Seawell I knew, because my mother married the retired police chief of Lumberton. He was my stepfather and he was a good friend of Malcolm Seawell. So Malcolm Seawell was mayor of Lumberton when my stepfather was police chief. 11
TS: Oh.
EP: So, anyway I got know Malcolm Seawell’s son Buie. We were all close in high school. We were a very close knit group—especially ones if we were active in sports. A lot of us did extra projects. We helped with plays and various school projects. We were very active. We had one football coach, and he said that there wasn’t much team spirit. So we put banners up all over the school. And Mr. White, he said, “Next time would you check with me before you do something like that?”
TS: [chuckle]
EP: This coach, he didn’t stay there long, but he said “There is no school spirit here. There is no school spirit.” He was trying to perk up the football team.
TS: Sure.
EP: I stayed fairly active.
TS: I’m thinking that you did stay pretty active. Now, did you have an idea, when you were in school, about your future? When you were a young girl, did you have a vision of what you could be in the future?
EP: Well, at the recreation department—naturally—I was recruited. They were encouraging me to go ahead to school and come back. Because I worked—well, I was even helping with annual reports and lots of things. The directors—one director had graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and they helped recruit students. So that was why they were letting me do stuff like annual reports. I didn’t know it at the time.
TS: It was kind of an internship, really.
EP: Right. And helping to take care of the petty cash fund. Well, I did a lot of things. They set up a nature club. So, I went to Wilmington to meet this lady and what to do— nature club. Then it opened doors. When I went to WC because I met this lady, and she wanted me to meet Doctor So-and-so—Doctor Shaftesbury. And you know, I will never forget, freshman year, that I went in to see Doctor Shaftesbury, and he’s the terror of the biology department. He put on the Bunsen burner and fixes us some coffee. People said later on said, “What? You had coffee with Doctor Shaftesbury?” He was known as the terror of the biology department, and I took his ornithology course. It was because there was this lady down in Wilmington, and part of the nature of thing was birds and nature and hiking and an aquarium. I just kept meeting a lot of people. And I met a lot of people in Lumberton because their kids participated in the program. I got to know them extremely well. It’s amazing.
And the basketball players, we were very close. And the parents were very supportive. And the parents came to the ball games.12
TS: Did you say to yourself, at that age, that “This is what I want to be when I grow up”? That sort of thing—
EP: I always knew I was going to go to college.
TS: Did it matter what you did?
EP: Well, I was interested in recreation and leisure. I was very interested in that. I guess working at the recreation department I really liked these two different directors. They were very fine men. I enjoyed doing it. It was a lot of fun. And I was paid for doing it too.
TS: I was wondering how you got into sociology, I guess is where—
EP: Okay, sociology. I went to WC. And I started—I finished high school in June and I went to summer school. I was straight into college. Straight into college. I didn’t wait, I went directly into summer school. And I was an inter-departmental recreation major. That was split between physical education and sociology. Well, the physical education department took one look at me, and they wanted to turn me into a physical education major. I was taking some of their courses, and luckily I was making some pretty good grades. But, you know, I had all this experience. You know, I had done all this stuff. I had coached. I had done so many things in the recreation department.
There was one class in particular and I think were three or four “A’s” and I made one. And all of the physical education majors were in there. Unfortunately, my class advisor for that class was a professor in physical education. She was trying to exert a little influence there. But I had met Doctor Shivers—head of the department of sociology—because I needed to take a sociology course, and I hadn’t had the introductory course—the preliminary course. I went to see her get permission to do it. She told me it would be more difficult, because of the terminology and a lot of the concepts you learn in the introductory course. I said, “Well, I am willing to take it on if you will let me take it.”
She said, “Fine. Whatever you want to do is fine.”
So, I took it. I liked her for that. I signed up for some more sociology courses. Doctor Shivers was great. She had a LLB [Bachelor of Laws] before she got her PhD. Her father was a judge in Mississippi, and she was brilliant. The first thing we did in criminology class was she sent us down to the courtroom to observe. I liked that. And then another course I was taking with her, she took us to one of the institutions where people were kept. She let us see what we were dealing with. It was the same way with court—to see the drunks come in every Monday—the problems there. So I liked Doctor Shivers a lot.
There was more and more pressure to become a physical education major. I walked like a physical education major, I talked like a physical education major. I was doing all of this stuff, you know, I was taking the life guards’ course, I was auditing all these recreational sports, I was doing a lot of things, but I didn’t want to major in physical education. I wanted the inter-departmental major with recreation. Finally one day—I don’t know what brought it about. I don’t know what brought it about. I said, 13
“Well, I’m going to change my major to sociology.” Because I had taken enough courses. I took the exams on courses even though I hadn’t taken the course—the proficiency exams. I tested out on a number of those: one on political science, local and state government, no problems there. One in health education: no problem there. So, I said, “I have enough credits here to graduate. I don’t need to go to a fourth year. I can go on to graduate school”.
Meanwhile, at that time, Doctor Meyer from UNC had taught one of these sociology courses. And I liked him a lot. I didn’t know, at the time, that my name had been given to him. I didn’t know at the time what Dave Burney had done. All this stuff I had done at the recreation department was being sent to Chapel Hill as a potential future student. So anyway, I decided to go to graduate school. And I went in to see Doctor Shivers. I asked Doctor Shivers, I said, “Will you give me a recommendation for graduate school?”
She said, “Yes.”
Luckily with Doctor Shivers—I wasn’t a very good student at WC, but I had made straight A’s with her, because I really liked her. I liked her criminology course, I liked her family course, I liked her sociology—the second part of the introductory course. I liked her. I really liked her. She was brilliant. She walked in with no notes, and she could give a lecture. She was great. I really liked sending us down to the courtroom—letting us observe—it was more meaningful. She just gave such a good lecture. What I liked about her was that students—she would let me do what they wanted to do. You could take the course; it would be more difficult.
It was the same way— that I took courses later on, I took courses with Ms. Alexander—Ms. Alexander, the political scientist. She—I took a proficiency exam with her. I said, “You offer this particular course—political parties—for juniors”. I said, “I’m only a sophomore, I’d like to take it.”
She said, “Why?”
And I said, “Well, I took the proficiency test, and I passed it with you.” I said, “I hear you may retire,” I said “I heard you speak at Girl’s State, and that’s one of the reasons why I came to this college—was so I could have classes with you.”
She said, “Okay, you’re in.”
I was able to do that with a lot of courses. But anyway, I was able to graduate in three years with the exception of the theory course in sociology; which, I took later on as a graduate student at UNC. I guess if it wouldn’t have been for the pressure of my class advisor wanting to get me to be a physical education major— And let me tell you, the department of the physical education—the head of the department—knew when I had been accepted to graduate school. She stopped me one day and said, “I hear that you’re going to Carolina.” But these women shared a house together. They shared a house together. So I was surprised. Here’s a department head that knows that I’ve accepted at Carolina.
So anyway, it was funny. I sort of clashed with this class advisor and then she ended up in Carol Woods [Retirement Community] here in Chapel Hill. And I donated some money and half of it went for a scholarship in her name, and half in for Doctor Shivers’ name.
TS: Oh, how neat.14
EP: Because, if she probably hadn’t given me such a hard time I probably wouldn’t have gone to graduate school. Of course, I had met Doctor Meyer. I had met Doctor Meyer.
TS: Yeah.
EP: He wanted me right out—as soon as—classes ended at regular session—spring session—I was over to Chapel Hill—summer school—to start graduate program.
TS: Why was it that you wanted to go to graduate school? Was that usual for women at the time to go to graduate school?
EP: Well, I had met Doctor Meyer. And Doctor Meyer was a legend. He was internationally known as the father of recreation. He helped years ago putting through roads. “All right, get enough space for highway parks—roadside parks”. You know, he was ahead of his time. He had—he was the editor of the North Carolina recreation publication. He was so well respected, and he was a consultant, and he had written so many books. He had encouraged me to come. And he—I was at the time looking at the possibility of going to the University of Illinois for graduate school, and Doctor Meyer convinced me to go to Chapel Hill. I had lots of friends at Chapel Hill. As a high school student, we used to think it was great to come up for journalism conventions and different things at Chapel Hill. It was a fun place to come to. And of course, I knew former students who were students at Chapel Hill.
But at the time, if you recall, at the University of North Carolina, women were not admitted until junior year. They had no women here. So they started accepting women junior year, with exception of nurses—I think the nurses were exceptions—and maybe some day students. Then they opened junior year. So we had a lot of UNC students dating students over at WC—a lot of them. The campuses were very close: NC State [North Carolina State University], Carolina—I should say UNC-Chapel Hill, and WC—or UNCG.
Well, anyway I ended up, it was just ironic— But part of the motivation came was that I could go ahead. I had enough work between summer school and taking these proficiency exams. I had enough to graduate with the exception of the theory course—that I could do it in three years. I had not planned to do that. I had planned to—my senior year of college to take only the courses that I really wanted to take; with, the exception of the theory course, which I had to have to get a degree in sociology. So anyway, that’s how I ended up as a graduate student at Carolina.
TS: Did you have a sense of what you were going to do with this education?
EP: No, no, I really didn’t. I had thought that I would be working for a recreation department. But in college with Dean [Mereb E.] Mossman—she was the dean of instruction—she taught a course for the sociology majors. And I did a term paper for her. She was one, we did a lot of term papers in the semester. One semester she gave us four term papers. Anyway, I did a term paper and I was doing it on the welfare state, and I concluded that we were a military state. By the amount of money that we spent, we were a military state. 15
So I got started getting interested in the military. And Katherine Taylor, our dean of women, had served in the navy. We had several faculty members who had served in the navy. So nearing the end of my graduate year I had a lot of job offers. I had job offers right and left. I was on a panel of graduate students and others. And one day I got three jobs offers, because I was Doctor Meyer’s student.
So anyway, I spoke with the Alumni Director over at WC: Barbara Parrish. I knew her real well, because I did a lot of photography in college. I was also the college newspaper’s photographer. I used to help her take picture of the reunions—what do we call it—of the classes coming back. And I also worked as a photographer for the news bureau at WC. So anyway, I knew that we had many people—graduates—who were in the military. So she set up an appointment with Mildred Bailey. She was the first general in the Women’s Army Corps. She was [EP corrected later--lieutenant colonel] at the time. So she said, “Mildred Bailey will be here, and I will arrange for you to talk with her if you’re interested in a career.” I had decided army. I didn’t want navy, I wanted army.
TS: Why?
EP: I wasn’t that much of a seafaring type. And I thought that there would be more opportunities for a woman in the army rather than the navy.
TS: What about the air force?
EP: You know, at that time, I don’t know if there were that many in the air force at that time. This was way back in 1958-‘59—well ’59. So anyway, I met with Mildred Bailey, she was a [EP corrected later--lieutenant colonel]. And I chatted with her. I liked her. She talked about the challenges and what you would be faced with in service and the need to be adaptable to constant change and the different jobs that you would encounter. So I applied for my commission while I was a graduate student. And I told all my neighbors. I was living in a condo. I think it was an apartment at that time. I told all my neighbors that the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] would be checking. Doctor Meyer was very upset when I accepted the commission and went on active duty. He was very upset!
He said, “How could you? How could you?”
I said, “Well, I think that this would be good for me to travel and meet more people.” I really didn’t like the idea of getting a super-duper job and all the demands being placed at once, because I was Doctor Meyer’s student. For the longest time I didn’t realize that the publications that I had helped with—the annual reports and stuff like that—was being sent to Doctor Meyer and Doctor Sessoms. I was being recruited all along to eventually to go to Chapel Hill. But anyway—
TS: May I ask you about Doctor Meyer then? When you—so he wasn’t so crazy about it?
EP: Oh, no!
TS: How about your family?16
EP: Horrible! Horrible! My stepfather, who was the former police chief of Lumberton, was horrified. You know what they thought of women in the service—the reputation of women who served.
TS: What did they think?
EP: Well, at that time, a lot of people either thought that you were a lesbian or a whore. You know, the reputation. But I know different from WC, where our dean of women—and so many faculty members—had served. Harriet Elliott, our dean of women, had helped President Roosevelt with WAVES. So many of these women had served, and these smart, smart individuals.
I liked Katherine Taylor, the dean of women, I liked her a lot. She never really got out of the navy. I mean she was a strict dean of woman. Of course, we clashed a few times. I mean I managed too—I was fairly independent now that I think about it. We respected each other. The director of the student union over there—the student—Elliott Hall—she was a former navy person as well. So we had a lot of women who had served whom I respected, and whom had contributed to the country.
I thought that there was an opportunity to travel and to meet people. And I met a few people in college who were from out of state, but most of them were in-state—a few out of state and I enjoyed it.
I got a job as a summer camp program director. I met this one parent who came in from Springfield, Massachusetts. I was coming in and I had my terrarium in hand, and we started talking. And she said, “Would you like to come to my camp and work?” I forget in what capacity.
I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m running the playgrounds for Lumberton. And I can’t. I’m tied up this summer. I told Bill Saap —I guess that is what his name was— “that I would do the summer playgrounds for Lumberton.” I said, “Check with me later on.”
Later on she said, “Would you like to be my assistant camp director in New England?”
I said, “Great. New England in the summer time? Sturbridge, Massachusetts? You bet!” So anyway, I couldn’t finish my thesis, and I went and was assistant camp director. I met this lady. She was the director of the Springfield Girls’ Club. Her daughter—Jenny Leslie was a student at WC—UNCG. I knew a lot of people there, because of the reputation of the physical education department there. They had one of the best physical education departments in the country. Her daughter was majoring in physical education, and we became friends. Her daughter was very talented. She co-edited the junior show; she was president of the senior class. She was very, very talented. Her father was the director—conductor—of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. I liked her mom a lot. We called her Bunny. I said, “Bunny, I’d love to be your assistant camp director.” But unfortunately, I didn’t get to finish my thesis until later on.
But getting back to the military, Doctor Meyer—bless his heart—but when I accepted the position with the University of Central Arkansas as a instructor of sociology, he was so happy about that.
TS: [laughs] Later, right?17
EP: Later. And, of course, I started working on my doctorate. I was admitted to the doctoral program. And he was happy about that. I think he had plans—plans. And he was so dedicated, and he was a leader. And I had just lucked into these jobs at the recreation department. I liked coaching. And I loved the nature club, because I loved being out on grandfather’s farm—hiking in the woods—I knew directions.
TS: I remember the first thing coming in here, we were talking about birds.
EP: Right. We talked about the birds, about the bluebirds. And you see my bird here on my shirt.
TS: That’s right.
EP: So anyway—
TS: Well did you—
EP: My hometown, they were horrified.
TS: Your hometown?
EP: In Lumberton, what happened in Lumberton—was right near Fort Bragg. There was reputation then. You know, there was a lot of propaganda put out by the Germans—if you remember—because every woman that they could keep out of service would be—a male having to be occupying that position. So, naturally, there was a lot of propaganda put out.
TS: During World War II?
EP: Yes, during World War II, right. So this was carryover. Of course, we had so many patriotic women—especially the navy nurses. I had friends that were navy nurses, and how they served.
TS: How was your mom about this idea?
EP: She was—she didn’t say too much, because I had always done things, I always had good jobs, and I had been paid well. I always lucked into these jobs, and was really paid well. One year I cashiered at a grocery store and this man had never hired a [EP corrected later: student] cashier before. I made three or four times what other kids were making clerking at Belk’s or somewhere like that. Then of course, later on I was working fulltime with the recreation department. Mr. Swain, who owned some grocery stores, he always hired me over Christmas and Thanksgiving. He said “You go around and talk to the customers and do this and this.” And he paid me real good. So as a college student this was really, really good.
TS: Yeah.18
EP: So it was a good paying job. I cashiered just that one summer, but he did let me work later on. He asked me to just walk about, talk to the customers, keep an eye out for shoplifting, and just—well, I knew a lot of people in Lumberton. Lumberton is a small town, and because I played basketball I ended up with a lot of publicity, because of this lady at the newspaper. My mother said one day. She said, “That person in that picture in the newspaper has a shirt that is just like yours,”—it was a zebra shirt. I said “that is me!” I was teaching an archery course. They had a picture there. They were great publicizing our programs that we had for kids.
We tried to do a lot of for the children for different programs. We ran programs in parts of Lumberton that I had been told to never go into. We had an area called Moccasin Bottom, and it was a bad area. My stepfather, who was a retired police chief, told me to never drive down in there. We had a mission. We had a mission to set up a place, and we provided a recreation program for the children. I took the children swimming. It was a special time. I would always take a first aid kit and shampoo with us, because there were horrible conditions in this part of Lumberton. They called it Moccasin Bottom.
TS: Who was it that lived there?
EP: Mixed breeds.
TS: Mixed breeds of whom?
EP: Of part Indian, part black, part white. Prostitutes. Cheap—I guess it was sort of a red light district—cheap housing—very cheap housing. There was a church that had the mission there. The fortunate thing was for people who owned part of this property. I had been told “Don’t ever go down there! Don’t ever go down there!”
We had the mission and I went down, because I will never forget what fun it was to take watermelons to the children. I would take them— it was just a small room. I remember taking them swimming—we’d swim in Lumber River of all places. I’d take the first aid kit with me. I would get shampoo for them, and I would doctor their sores. We did some programs like that too. We really tried to have a recreation program for the entire city. I don’t know who got us in with the mission, but one of the churches had a mission there. This lady was very devoted. This was sort of a mixed breed, unaccepted, women without husbands. It was just, I guess, sort of a slum area. We called it Moccasin Bottom, you know, it was a slum area. Part of it was a red light district too. But believe it or not, we had some very talented children there. Very talented children. They enjoyed the music. We got a piano for them.
This was interesting. I will never forget—they had the—the army had sent an article about I had been, you know, the recruiting angle. They had my picture and that I had joined up and I mean, my stepfather—he was a nice guy and I liked him a lot. But the rumors he had heard, and the people that he had met. You met all kinds of people anywhere, in any walk of life. So anyway, he was not happy about it. My mother, she never really said much. She pretty well let me do my thing. I was driving at age fourteen—illegally, naturally. But you know, out in the country, where I was able to learn 19
how to drive. I looked older and I acted older and I drove responsibly. I did a lot of things. I was—because my older sister’s health was very bad.
TS: What was her health issue?
EP: Well, she had had pneumonia and they had given her too much sulfa and her health was very bad. I was always the one to do this. I just did it. I helped look after my kid brother. I just did it and for some reason it was no problem for me.
TS: Yeah.
EP: It was the same way—I don’t know why—because my brother being so young—older sister being so unhealthy—I guess I was the only one around to do it.
TS: Yeah, maybe so.
EP: So anyway, but you know, out on the farm at my granddad’s farm, you would do all kinds of things, and everybody would pitch in. You would have a good time. I think that’s one thing that, you know, living in the country and growing up in the county. And then I got to do a lot of work for pay, too.
TS: Right, well—
EP: I enjoyed that. I will be real frank. I was real mercenary about some things.
TS: What do you mean about that?
EP: Well, I enjoyed making money, saving money. You know, when I started college I had the money for summer school. Later on my mother helped me out some, but, you know, I was able to pay for it. It was hard to turn down, I looked at an MG [Morris Garages] convertible, and that was the prettiest little sports car. I said, “I know I can’t afford an MG convertible and go to college”. So I turned down the MG convertible. But it was a sweet looking little car. But needless to say—
TS: [chuckle] What color was it? Do you remember the color?
EP: I think it was blue, I think. But my first car, when I did get a car, was T-bird convertible: a [Ford] Thunderbird convertible.
TS: So you did get your convertible. Well, let’s talk about the military for a bit. So you were commissioned in the summer of—
EP: Fifty nine.
TS: Fifty nine, right.20
EP: I think it was August ’59.
TS: Okay, so you went to Fort McClellan [Alabama]?
EP: Fort McClellan for the officer’s basic course. I think that was twenty weeks, I believe. It was five months I believe.
TS: Talk about how that was for you. Where you comfortable with that? Was there anything that you didn’t like?
EP: Well, this was very rigid. Of course what they’re trying to do is see how much harassment you can take. You have academics and there you learn how to march.
TS: You’re making a frown when you say that [chuckle].
EP: And march. I had the hardest time hearing the beat of the drum. I don’t know, musically I wasn’t worth a hoot. I had a deaf ear.
TS: I see.
EP: I got bad blisters on my feet. I will never forget that. We marched. I mean, I had terrible blisters, they were bleeding, and it was terrible.
TS: You haven’t frowned the whole time, but when you started talking about marching you did [laughs].
EP: Well, I finally got it down pat. Well, anyway, this was a form—you met people from all over the world—I mean, from all over the United States. I mean part of it was, of course, that you were taking map reading and military history and military writing and public speaking—a variety of courses. Map reading was a lot of fun. You know, they turn you loose and you’re out and you’re having to use the compass and stuff.
The military writing, I didn’t care for that at all. It was unfortunate. The instructors I liked I did well for. The instructors I didn’t like—I will never forget, the commandant of the school was a graduate of WC. I got called in about my poor grades. It was military writing. And you know, I was real frank with her. I said, “You know, I passed everything really well except this writing course. I didn’t realize I was supposed to memorize all these details, because I figured that I would have a clerk”. I said, “When I was in school I didn’t take typing, because I always thought that I would have a secretary.”
And Colonel Royster looked at me and I assured her that I would do better. She said, “You graduated from WC and I know you should do better.” That was a mild way of putting it. So the second set of exams came around, and I was the second highest in the class. We had some really bright students in there—a lot of them with master’s degrees. I think in that class we must have had about—I think we had two platoons. [They were] very talented individuals; some of them with, of course, personal problems. We had a cubicle. And we had inspections. We had to have everything aligned. That’s where you 21
learned to use alcohol to clean the lavatories, and alcohol before an inspection. We did have the inspections, and there was a fare amount of harassment. We did not get a lot of sleep.
Eventually, when it came time for us to decide what we wanted to do, I decided to become a platoon officer for when the trainees come in to the WAC battalion—where civilians come in. I signed up for that, to become a platoon officer. It was interesting. I stayed, during Christmas a lot of the people left, but I stayed. I got to know the people very well. I will never forget going through the mess hall. I will never forget in the mess hall, this sergeant looks at me and I’m standing there with my tray. Well, at WC you didn’t serve yourself food, they had a certain portion. Well, I’m standing there and this sergeant looks at me. And the sergeant says “Lieutenant, God helps them who help themselves.”
I said, “Oh, sorry Sergeant, I didn’t realize that I was supposed to serve myself.” I said, “You know, you might end up in my company some day. Who knows?”
But I got to know a lot of the people quite well, and when I graduated —when I completed the course successfully—some did not complete the course successfully. We did do a lot of parading though, and military formations and—
TS: Well, you must have wanted to be a platoon officer.
EP: Eventually. You know, I had a hard time there. I made friends with a non-com [non-commissioned officer]. She was an officer candidate. And we became friends. I said, “You know,” I said, “my cousin, who is a drum major for a college band. He has tried to teach me, and I cannot hear the sound of things.”
She said, “No problem. The day that you get to march us around, I’ll call the commands.” She said, “No problem. They won’t know it. You just mouth the command and I’ll call them.” That was a lot of fun too, so I got through that alright, but I was having problems with the blisters on my feet.
TS: Oh sure.
EP: I enjoyed the field training. I enjoyed that. But anyway, I just thought as a platoon officer that I would learn more. I was a sociology major and I liked working with people. In the recreation department I enjoyed working with people. I had a—I did have that degree in sociology and said, “Well, I’ll be a platoon officer”. I had met some of the enlistees coming in. And I thought that that was a good assignment to learn more. I wasn’t very good paper pusher. So anyway, I signed up to become a platoon officer.
TS: I forgot to ask you—the first time that you put on your uniform, how did that feel?
EP: It was sort of strange. It was—I was wondering “what have I done here?” Because, my family was very upset—very upset. Doctor Meyer was very upset. All of my friends were horrified. They said, “You’re doing what?!” I had to explain to them that the FBI would be coming around asking questions, because I had to have a security clearance. It was—sometimes it was exciting. I had known these women who had served, and some of the 22
places they had been. I was really looking forward to meeting people from all over the country—for traveling.
TS: It sounds to me like, Elsie, you had unlimited opportunities before you for what you could chose to do.
EP: Right. Right.
TS: It seems like—So, you chose a military path at this time.
EP: It’s funny. I did that paper for Dean Mossman. And I started thinking about it. I started thinking about it.
TS: That’s the one with the welfare state or military state?
EP: Yeah. I concluded that we were a military state where we were spending—where our money was going. Of course, if you remember Eisenhower was reelected president. Of course, I was for [Adlai] Stevenson. I was a “student for Stevenson” and Eisenhower turned out to be a great president. But I just thought that this was an area that appealed to me.
I guess it seemed like too many doors had been opened, because I had been recruited. In Lumberton, okay, I had got to help with the annual report, I got to help with the finances, I got to do this, and I got to do that. Then I get up to graduate school and Doctor Sessoms [professor of sociology—EP added later] lets it out that they had seen all the work that I had done. I said, “What!?” He was my advisor. Doctor Meyer was the department head, and [Doctor Meyer] and Doug Sessoms were great, great friends. They remained great friends. So he happened to mention it. I guess, anyway, I guess Doctor Meyer was more upset than anyone. But my stepfather was not happy about it.
TS: But for you, how were you feeling about it? What were you—what were you feeling that drew you more to have a commission in the army, than all these other opportunities? That’s what I’m trying to get at, I guess.
EP: Oh, oh, I just thought that it was an opportunity to meet a lot of different people, to do a lot of traveling, and be in different assignments. Because, in the military you don’t do one thing and remain in that one thing—you do many different jobs. This appealed to me.
And also, I had a small debt when I went to graduate school. It was not a large amount, but a small amount. I think it was only five hundred dollars, but I did not want to live in a dormitory. So, we’d sublet Dean Carmichael’s apartment. Kitty Carmichael—the dean of women—we would sublet her apartment. She was going to write a book, and she didn’t want to have to entertain. She let us have all of her stuff. The first thing we did, I said, “We’re going to lock up that silver. I’m not going to responsible for this.” You know, I met so many people like Kitty Carmichael, the dean of women. She was here at Carolina. I did my thesis on undergraduate students at Carolina and I got to know her real well. She had done a lot of traveling and her apartment was amazing with everything that she had collected all over the world. I just looked forward to it. You know, it was not—23
The responsibility came later on, of course, when I was assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps during the Cuban—I was assigned to Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps was located there and the Cuban Missile Crisis. You start waking up real early.
Of course, when we underwent the WAC officer basic course they showed us combat films. You could see when a camera had been dropped that the cameraman had been shot. And you see this. You just hope and pray that we never encounter that type of thing again. But you remember when you would go in the chlorine chamber, and taking off your mask and giving you your serial number and clearing your—putting back on—clearing. I guess I was—it’s hard to say how I felt. I guess I was excited, but at the same time I was exhausted.
I just had been an assistant camp director, and we had mono[nucleosis] hit the staff. And I only took one weekend off. Other than that, I made sure that our counselors got away. You know, who were working with kids so closely. But I had really worked hard up in New England, because mono had wiped us out. The camp director said, “If we lose one more person we’re probably going to have to close camp down.” So, I was—I had worked very hard. It was interesting, but as an assistant camp director—when the camp director, on weekends, she would go in Springfield and I had it. That was it. Of course, I knew where the telephone was.
So, I was—but I was ready. I was just ready. I was, I guess, excited.
TS: Now, let’s go to that Cuban Missile Crisis. Tell me a little bit about that. What happened there?
EP: I was at Fort Bragg. First I was a platoon officer down at Fort McClellan. Then later on, after my stepfather died, I requested transfer to Fort Bragg to be closer to home. The Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred on October of ’62, I believe. If you recall, down in Cuba—if memory serves me well—they had detected—or, they had found out these missile sites. At that time the Cold War was going with the Soviet Union. These missile sites were being armed, I guess, with nuclear weapons, and pointed in the direction of our country. And this was scary.
If you recall, President [John F.] Kennedy spoke one night and he told the Soviet Union for the vessels to turn back—to turn back. And around the world—militarily—we were geared for war. We were geared for war.
TS: What did you have to do? Do you remember?
EP: Well, believe it or not, I was—it wasn’t long before I was going to be going Germany. I was going to Germany as a company commander of a WAC detachment. So, I remember this quite well, because when I was at Fort Bragg I had served G-1 [officer attached to Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel]. And 18th Airborne Corps was there. I was post-side, but in G-1—at night—the duty officer—you pulled duty for both the post and for 18th Airborne Corps. Of course, we had alerts coming from the Pentagon, and we never knew if it was for real, or if it was just an exercise.
I had been out to the field where they loaded. They could have a company airborne in a short amount of time to go anywhere in the world. You know, self contained units. That night, as we listened to President Kennedy speak, I didn’t know a lot going 24
on, because it was highly classified. But I knew how serious it was. I knew everything was classified, hush-hush, you didn’t say a word, classified. So we listened to—we listened to the president’s speech. And, I guess, a lot of us were praying that night, “Turn back, turn back!” Because we knew the devastation of nuclear was. If you recall, we had the underground silos. If you remember, we had the air force staffing underground silos with missiles operating around the clock. This was a scary time. This was a scary time. The idea of nuclear war—when you had seen what had happened in Japan—when you had seen films of what had happened in Japan. And that was a scary time. That was very scary. I guess we were in many ways praying “Turn back, turn back.”
But, I respected President Kennedy so much for being so cool, calm, collected, and telling the Soviet Union “turn them back.” But we knew. We all knew that the Soviet submarines could lob missiles in at us at anytime off the coast. We had a lot of submarine traffic off of the coast of North Carolina. I think that night as the 18th Airborne Corps—you think of that, that has the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division—it really hits home, because these are the troops that go first. They’re airborne—some of them are airborne in forty-five minutes. When you’ve seen that—when you’ve been out to see these C-130s [Lockheed C-130 Hercules, heavy transport aircraft] lift off, and these people go—I had been out to observe this when I was in G-1.
I mean, the calm—but a lot was going on. Of course we were coordinating with navy personnel quite a bit, working out navy plans. A lot of that, of course, is classified. But I was dating a man and I knew he had been down to Central America. He used to always go on leave down in that area, and he was checking out the terrain. He was checking out the terrain. You know, making observations and—he was in G-3 [officer attached to division operations]. And I know how many times that he was locked up in a top security place working on war plans. You know, I knew that much. I knew what was going on in the headquarters. It was a tense, tense time.
TS: Were you personally frightened? I mean, do you remember—
EP: I was concerned. No, no being part of the military, you are very optimistic. But you just hoped that nothing like that happens. Do you remember during this time how many people used to have the cellars—the bunkers—they would stock them with food. Remember the thoughts? And then, of course, I had had a friend who had lived in Cuba and lost everything. He left. His family—his whole family fortune—everything—was taken. [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro took it. And it’s lucky that he got out.
TS: That was about the time that you joined up—it was ’59 then.
EP: Right. That’s right. So as I think back, we were concerned. In something like that you pray that there is not that kind of disaster anywhere. But it’s horrifying to think what nuclear weapons can do. We had seen a lot of the movies and pictures. I had a real concern. I wasn’t one of these gung ho people, you know. I’m for peace, no doubt about that. It was a time at Bragg, because these airborne units trained so hard. Everyone has a job to do, and if you don’t do your job well—whether it be supplies or what—if you’re not competent, if you’re not fully capable—people die for it. 25
But it is awesome at Bragg when the C-130s lift off. I have seen them—one C-130 lift off about every five minutes—not knowing where they’re going. I guess—you know, in retrospect—you’re probably more concerned with it, then at the time. Because at the time—whatever it is—you will do whatever it is that you have to do. And, of course, I was getting ready to go to Europe. At that time I was getting ready to go to Bremerhaven [Germany] to become the commander of the WAC detachment there. Germany, as you know, was a hot spot. So, I don’t know—back at Bragg—I guess I didn’t think about it too much. I was just hoping that we didn’t go to war with the Soviet Union. And it meant war. It meant war if the Soviets did not turn back. We could not, with the threat of Cuba—Yes, we could annihilate Cuba, but they could annihilate—look at our major cities—
TS: Yeah.
EP: —that we would have lost.
TS: You had made a comment earlier about [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev.
EP: Right.
TS: Do you want to say what you were thinking of him earlier?
EP: Oh my. Well, I guess with President Kennedy, I had an awful lot of respect, but with the Soviet Union, whoo. You know, the Germans—the Germans were always so grateful to the Americans—especially the American occupied part of Germany. The leaders of the Soviet Union were scary. But look at that history there. Look at that history. Look how they treated their own people. So I guess in retrospect I just have a great deal of respect for John F. Kennedy. I personally did not care for his personal life at the White House. But as a commander in chief, I thought that he did a superb job. I thought he and his wife when they represented us in Europe, I was proud of them. I was proud of them when they met [President Charles] de Gaulle in France. I thought Kennedy was an intelligent, well-spoken individual. And he didn’t have to serve in the military. His oldest brother was killed as an air force pilot, and he didn’t have to serve and he did serve in a combat situation. I always respected those individuals who gone in harm’s way, and a lot of them who have died. I will say the saddest thing that I have ever seen is Normandy—the cemetery out in Normandy, where the D-Day occurred. The film “The Longest Day” was made along the French coast there in Normandy. The cemeteries —those miles and miles of white crosses. You think of the young, young, young people who died, and how brave they were. And how they could keep their sanity in this situation.
So, going back to the Soviets—
[End of CD 1—Begin CD 2]
EP: I don’t know how to treat that history-wise, but I do know the Germans were very grateful and very happy to see the Americans. The French were a little different. The French had been occupied by the Germans and then the Americans came. I think the 26
French— de Gaulle was ready to get us all out of there. So but with the Soviet leader—I’m not that much of a history student. I have a friend down the street. He’s retired air force, and he’s a graduate of Yale [University] and he has a degree in history. It’s interesting to hear him talk sometimes. He knows a lot more, because, you know, I didn’t have as much insight then as I have now. I guess I’ve watched too much military history, and I’ve talked to this neighbor down the street who was a pilot.
TS: Now back to JFK for just a little bit.
EP: Back to whom?
TS: JFK.
EP: JFK, yes.
TS: Kennedy—President Kennedy—do you remember when he was assassinated?
EP: Yes.
TS: Where were you at when that happened?
EP: I was in Orleans, France, and we were preparing a skit—an officers’ skit—to raise money. I guess it was to raise money for the Officers’ Women’s Club [Officers’ Wives Club—EP corrected later]. We had a skit and were going to sell tickets. And I was in the skit. At first I wasn’t supposed to be in the skit, and then my colonel had to be evacuated to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center]. And they said “you’re in it”. I hadn’t rehearsed very much. And the word came about the assassination. Of course, everything was canceled—everything was canceled. We were just taken aback. Because when President and Mrs. Kennedy came to France I was very proud of them. They could converse with de Gaulle.
TS: Were you in the country when they came?
EP: I think I was. I’m not sure. I think I was there. I think I was there. I’m not sure. You see these movies and retakes and the biographies. But I was in Orleans, France. And I said, “Well, I don’t have to worry about being in this skit, but what a way for it to be canceled.” You know, Colonel Burke was medically evacuated. There she was, a light colonel [lieutenant colonel] and they were giving me everything. I hadn’t rehearsed for this skit or anything. The chief of staff was in it. They had all these colonels in it. There I was, just a low ranking captain: the junior officer in Headquarter Communications Zone Europe. I will never forget that we were just stunned by the thing. Of course, the next morning the flag was at half staff. We probably militarily, were more geared then, not knowing the uncertainty when you lose—even though our vice president becomes president, it’s still a tense time. I don’t think that anyone will ever forget where they were and what day that was. It was so tragic, so sad. It was so uncalled for. 27
Anyway, I do know that President and Mrs. Kennedy did a real good job representing this country abroad—that—and he was intelligent. He was very intelligent. Like I said, I don’t approve of his personal life later on.
TS: Yeah. Did—were you aware of that at the time though?
EP: No. No.
TS: Yeah.
EP: You know, you hear rumors, but we also heard rumors about General Eisenhower and his driver [Kay Summersby]. You always hear these rumors. You know, there were rumors. But at that time the press kept everything so quiet, and they tolerated so much. I could never figure out quite how Mrs. Kennedy tolerated all of that, but I guess she did. Anyway—
TS: Well Elsie, we should probably take a little break. You’ve been going for a little while here.
EP: All right, yeah.
[Recording paused]
TS: All right, I’m back here with Elsie and I think we’re going to go to Germany, right?
EP: Okay, Germany.
TS: Let’s talk about—what was your assignment there?
EP: Okay. In 1962, I think it was October—October 24th I believe—I reported to Bremerhaven, Germany, where I was to become the company commander. I went as the exec and the company commander was leaving. So the idea there was for me to go to Europe. I had requested this assignment. I went up to the Pentagon and requested European duty. They had an opening as a company commander. And I said, “That sounds great to me.” So I went as a company commander in Bremerhaven, Germany.
TS: So you said that when you went to the Pentagon—to request it?
EP: Oh yeah. I was assigned to Fort Bragg and I made a little road trip—made a little road trip up to the Pentagon. And I went to the Women’s Army Corps section and told them I was interested in going to Europe.
TS: Why did you go in person? Why didn’t you just pick up the phone?28
EP: Well, I have always found that it is better to deal in person. Also, I wanted to see my efficiency reports. I wanted to see my efficiency reports.
TS: How were they?
EP: Well, they were great except for the current guy I was working for. Who was—
TS: Is this at Fort Bragg?
EP: Yes. At Fort Bragg, what happened was the colonel—who had asked me to set up a program for the youth—a youth project—become a youth activities officer for Fort Bragg—he left. He joined Third Log[istical] command. So we got a new guy in and we clashed at times. I worked very hard. The major who was head of—the entertainment officer was relieved from duty. And I took that job in addition to my job. And then this officer—we clashed. We just didn’t get along. The first thing he wanted me do was— he was getting ready to get out of the military—and he wanted me to edit one of his papers. Well, I had just finished my thesis, and I’m not very good at English and I declined. Anyway, he wanted me to become custodian of an unappropriated fund in addition to all the other jobs that I had. I told him I wasn’t qualified. I said, “I do not have the background in accounting or bookkeeping. I don’t crunch numbers well.” And I said, “I really am not qualified.” I said, “I decline to accept that job.” I said, “You’ll have to court-martial me.”
Anyway, we got along like cats and dogs. Anyway, I didn’t get a good efficiency reporting from him. I told him before I left, “I worked for Colonel So-and-so and I worked for Colonel So-and-so, and those were the highest efficiency ratings possible.” So I said, “I did note your efficiency report.” And let it be.
I had done a tremendous job at Fort Bragg as entertainment officer. I have some clippings from newspaper reporters that will verify that. So anyway, I decided that I didn’t enjoy it. What I did was I worked to turn the entertainment officer’s position into a civilian spot. Because you really needed someone to stay there and to have the training to be the entertainment officer. Because they had a playhouse that seated 906 people, and you really needed someone professionally civilian in that spot.
Anyway, I went up to the Pentagon and I was pretty frank that I was looking for European assignment, did they have anything open. They said, “Well, what about being a company commander at Bremerhaven?”
I said, “Great!” I knew the company commander there. I knew Tex Knolley I knew her. So that’s how I went to Bremerhaven, Germany. I requested European duty.
TS: Was there something about the platoon commander that was interesting to you too that you wanted to do? Or was it just where you were going?
EP: Well, first I had been a platoon officer in the basic training battalion.
TS: Oh, company commander, sorry.29
EP: I had never been an executive officer. Normally what you do—you normally—you become an executive officer. You get some experience. But for some reason, they thought I’d be okay. I had been a platoon officer.
TS: I see.
EP: You know, it’s amazing that when you have degrees and you are real young—and you’re one of the youngest people in the army with a master’s degree—it’s—and Dr. Meyer in order to get that thesis finished—he had convinced the whole army that I was brilliant or something.
TS: How old are you at that time then?
EP: Okay, I guess. Okay, I must have been twenty-two I guess. I guess twenty-two.
TS: When you went in the service? Let’s see.
EP: I went in the service— Okay, I was born in 1936. I guess I was twenty-one, twenty-two—
TS: Maybe twenty-three? Right.
EP: Twenty-three, right. So anyway, for the master’s—to be in the military with a master’s degree—there were not that many.
TS: Yeah.
EP: There weren’t that many second—well, I was a first lieutenant then around. Anyway, they needed a company commander.
TS: Okay.
EP: And “Tex” was due to rotate.
So, I went in. I was—I did not like this particular captain. Well, he became a major. I knew his history very well. He was doing things that he shouldn’t have done and I knew that. I’m a stickler about some things. Plus, the fact is that I’m not good with numbers to handle millions and millions of dollars. I don’t care how many CPAs [Certified Public Accountants] you have working for you. You need to be able to crunch numbers and check on your CPAs. You just need to do that. I liked working personnel, you know where— I liked being a platoon officer. I ended up really enjoying that. I finally got that marching down. I finally got the marching down.
TS: [chuckle] I note you’re smiling now about the marching now.
EP: I’m smiling now.30
This one officer—I had done a lot of work at Fort Bragg and enjoyed it a lot. I met a tremendous number of people who had been called up in National Guard units. You know, the assistant coach on the Perry Como [famous American singer, performer, and actor] Show, young man that worked at Lincoln Center. There was tremendous talent with these reserve units from New York who didn’t expect to be called up. But this particular major, he bothered me a lot. I had friends who said, “Listen, you know, if that man didn’t drag General Yarborough’s name in, he would be long out of there. He’s always covering himself. But he does stupid things.”
I said, “You’re right. He does do stupid things.” I said, “You know, I cannot believe the jobs I was holding down, and he wants me to start editing papers for him so he can get a good civilian job.” I said, “I’m already wearing three or four hats around here. I’ve got the entertainment officer’s job turned into a civilian job. I’ve taken care of the paperwork for that.” You see, I knew the people in G-1. I worked with the people in G-1 real well and I had convinced them. I worked with adjutant. I had worked with so many different people when I was in headquarters at 18th Airborne Corps there.
Anyway, I went to Germany because I wanted the assignment. And it’s good professionally within the Women’s Army Corps—they like for you to have command experience. Professionally, they like for you to do this.
TS: Now, what was the hardest part about being a company commander?
EP: Well, I didn’t stay in the job very long. I guess the most difficult things was, you get there and your sergeant says, “This person has attempted suicide two times. And she’s tried it again recently. So you better see her.” So I talked with her, and believe it or not, she was a former platoon—a former member of my platoon. And I—So this was a difficult situation. The young lady thought she was in love, and didn’t think she could get pregnant, got pregnant. She decided that she couldn’t get married. She had tried to commit suicide. So, anyway, believe it or not, I get there and I talk to her. I said, “You know, you do have a responsibility, and these attempts at suicide can damage your baby.” I said, “Let’s see what we can do here. Let’s see what we can work out.” I said, “Meanwhile I want you to make sure that your diet is good, you take your vitamins, you’re not smoking, and let’s think about how we’re going to handle this thing.” I said, “It’s not the end of the world. It’s not the end of the world.”
She said, “I can’t go back home,” she said, “I’m from a small town. I’m the oldest child.” I think “I have four or five or six brothers and sisters. I can’t do it.”
I said, “What relatives do you have? Do you have any relative—an aunt or uncle— that you can go and stay with?” And she did.
And then I went to see the company commander of the young man involved. I just told him I said “There is a paternity suit in progress. And I want to meet with you and the young man responsible.” We had a meeting and I looked at the young man. I said, “Corporal So-and-so had nothing to do this.” But I said, “You will assume some financial responsibilities. You will make out an allotment check to help out—to help out—until she sees her way through. And then she decides if she’s going to adopt the baby—If she’s going to give the baby up for adoption or if she’s going to keep the baby.” I said, “I understand that you don’t want to get married.” I said, “but I also,” I said, “I’m insisting that you assume the responsibility of the paternity.”31
So we did that and the young man was just shocked out of his shoes. But, you know, this was a difficult situation, and that was difficult. You know, when you find out someone has attempted suicide twice. And I talked with her and she agreed, “Okay.” She worked something out with her aunt and uncle.
I said, “You understand what I did?” I said, “You know, on this paternity thing—because there is a child—because there is a baby involved here. And if you—you make the decision later on. We’re going to make sure that you get proper counseling when you get back to your aunt and uncle and you decide later on.” You know, that was difficult.
One day I came in and the sergeant said, “Lieutenant, you better sit down.”
I said, “Oh no!” This was part of having a large company, and men away from home and this does occur.
TS: Yeah.
EP: There was no problem with that pregnancy, because she and the young man were in the processes of getting married. The doctor was a little concerned, because of her due date and getting her on a plane.
TS: I see.
EP: But anyway, that part of being a company commander is—you know, because these people are upset. The very idea of someone trying to—attempting suicide—as we all know, sometimes it’s a way to get attention to try to work something out.
TS: Well, do you think that because of the restrictions for women at that time too—they couldn’t stay in if they had a dependent child. Do you think—
EP: That’s right. If you were pregnant that was a sure way out. If you wanted to get out that was a sure way out—to get pregnant.
TS: But if you didn’t want to get out?
EP: No, you had to get out. You had no choice.
TS: Exactly, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe that’s a pressure too, do you think, that affected some of the women?
EP: I really don’t know. But wherever you have young people and they’re away from home, and hormones raging—you have some of this. Even though you try to encourage—if you’re going to be involved, be involved in safe, safe sex. And certainly the men from days of World War II—or wherever—is protected sex. I don’t know.
You know, that’s something that I hadn’t expected to be hit with. I knew that when we were unloading ships, that everything is geared at the port. My people in my company would be working around the clock. Also, at that time there was the Berlin crisis [The Berlin Crisis of 1961 cumulated in the erection of the Berlin Wall], and we had responsibilities in case we had to evacuate Europe. We had a lot of dependents there. 32
The WAC detachment was quite involved in that plan of evacuation. At that time we always had to keep our cars half full of gasoline. We always had to be in our barracks at midnight. Officers were required to do that. Enlisted people were required to be in at a certain time, because of the tense situation. This was during the Berlin Crisis. So in retrospect, you know, it’s really hard to say there. It’s hard. But these were times—because of the Soviet Union, I guess things were tense in some respects. And you talked with the German people then, and they become even more so, because of what happened to their relatives in eastern Germany. It really, you know, it sinks in here.
With personnel, this was a unit with the ships coming in. That was the jobs. On pay day, I would go down to the docks to pay, so that these people could keep working. A ship comes in, it’s got to be unloaded, the goods have got to be dispatched over Europe. So it was an interesting assignment. I wasn’t there very long, because I met General Tank, and he had me transferred to the Headquarters Communication Zone Europe and the G-1.
TS: We’ll get to that in a second, because I do want to talk about General Tank. So the women—So, you were commanding all women?
EP: Yes, this was an all women outfit. Now when I was at Fort Bragg, and I was the entertainment officer, we had squad rooms and I had men—all men there. When I was the entertainment officer at Bragg—at the Fort Bragg playhouse, which has been torn down since then—we had squad rooms. I was able to have some men assigned to me, and they lived there. In that way they didn’t have to stay in company and pull KP [kitchen police/patrol] and the other stuff. Because of the kind of work we were doing in the entertainment division—especially like plays—Bye Bye Birdie [a 1960 stage musical.] Our work was at night. We would close down at 1 AM in the morning. I would make my safety inspection at 1 AM in the morning.
TS: Well, did you have any trouble with any of the men as far as your authority went over them or things like that?
EP: Oh, no, no problems—no problems at all. No, we got along fine. And primarily a lot of these people were there were especially assigned to the entertainment division. And they were begging me—begging me. We had a way of checking everybody out. We said we only had one opening, “shoveling coal in the furnace—are you willing to do that?” No, with that—in the entertainment division there where I had those men.
These were very talented men, and it’s like one who was the assistant coach of the Perry Como Show. An artillery unit would have ruined his ears. It would have ruined his ears. So I was able to talk his battalion commander into letting him come to me, that we would take the entertainment out in the field for his troops. Some other men—the signal corps men, they didn’t have any equipment—they had been called up, but they didn’t have any equipment. They were folk singers. They were from Indiana, so I was able to put them to work as folk singers. So we did a lot of that. There is a lot of stuff like that goes on in a MASH [Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] unit—trading and swapping—with that battalion commander. We did. 33
We took these low bed trucks—I forget what you called it. Once there had been a parachute drop across the DZ [drop zone], we got a clearance to go across and provide entertainment. We had the singers and Bye Bye Birdie and some of the dancers. Of course we had portable sound, lights, and everything. I won’t forget one guy wrapping up his parachute. He had just dropped in. He said, “Am I seeing things?”
I said, “No, you’re not seeing things. Come see Bye, Bye, Birdie. And we went out—
TS: Where was this at?
EP: This was at Fort Bragg, where I was the entertainment officer. So I worked with men very closely there. It’s like my men in squad rooms. I was just real frank. I said, “Okay guys, this is the way it is. No booze. This is a military building. No booze. If I inspect and I find any liquor—trash can. In certain areas you can smoke.” But at the same time, I was the same person who was getting tennis sneakers for these guys to wear, because I was worried about all the electrical equipment. I would come in with tennis shoes. I was the one who would go to Greensboro and get all this theatre equipment and all this stuff, and requisitions didn’t go through and I would sign for it. We would head up to Playmakers at the University of North Carolina. So we had—
TS: What was it with the tennis shoes?
EP: Okay, in—when you’re doing a theatrical production in an old building and there is so much electrical equipment from your lighting and your sound—this was a safety precaution, because it was an old, old building, I mean the fire inspector was always all over us. And tennis shoes, you know, with your soft [rubber—EP added later] soled shoes, tennis shoes—you’re safer. Or if there are any damp spots and you’re working with equipment.
TS: Oh, I see.
EP: It’s a safety factor.
TS: Oh, I see. Okay.
EP: But these guys, we got along just fine. We did a tour of 3rd Army. It’s the same way we did in Atlanta [Georgia]—they were offered an opportunity to do a gig at a club. They said, “you know, we’ve heard some much about Atlanta—we’re from New York City but we’ve heard so much about Atlanta nightlife.” I told the guys, I said “Okay. I’ll let you use my station wagon, but tomorrow morning I want one sober driver. That’s it.” So we got along fine. I just laid out the course.
It was the same way for inspections. I said, “Okay.” Call Jim in, I said “When the inspectors get here I want you in your uniform. Be sure to get your jump wings on.” We always had these uniforms—I would get them tailored uniforms—you know, [special—EP added later] patent leather boots. And I said “Corporal So-and-so, that sad sack.” We got him because he was messing up inspections for his units. I said, “I don’t care how 34
you do it, but make sure he is clean!” I said, “I will ask no more questions, but he had better be clean, and he had better be in a starched uniform. I’m not saying how to do it,” I said “Just get it done, and then I’m out of here.”
So we got along well. With them—these guys they were in the entertainment business, and as long as they were busy they were happy. I had to keep them busy, because when I took that unit over the CID [United States Army Criminal Investigation Command], they had the telephone tapped.
TS: Why is that?
EP: Well, the young girls chasing these entertainers. And you don’t want general’s daughters meeting privates and PFCs [Private First Class]—entertainment types. It’s like one young man, I had to call him in. I said, “I know, I know, this teenager is really carried away with you.” But I said, “Her father is a general and he doesn’t want her dating any military people—period”. You know, she’s only seventeen years old. And I said, “If you are seen with her again,” I said, “You will end up being sent to the boondocks—the field units—and you will never see civilization until it’s time to get out.”
But these young—the wives were just as bad. They would just chase these guys. I had a sergeant one time. He called me up, he said, “Okay, one of your men is running around with a lieutenant’s wife. He’s out in the field, but when he comes back he’ll shoot him.” He said, “You know, he will flat out kill him.”
I said, “Okay Sergeant, I will take care of it.” I had to call him in and said, “Listen, you’re playing with dynamite here. This is an airborne infantry officer’s wife. I don’t care how great she thinks you are, you better not be seen with her again. I know you can play that piano, I know that you’re great, but you just got to say no to her.”
But it was the same way—My brother was running the officer’s club swimming pool. He said, “Okay, your men are down here with the nurses. I had to get them out of there, because I know who they are and this is an officer club’s pool.” But these were the nurses. These were the army nurses. So it was—these guys were talented and good looking and the productions that they did were tremendous. But, boy did the women chase them. They were very, very talented, and very, very nice.
TS: Since they were in entertainment, were any of them—would you say that any of them were gay or homosexual? Did you ever notice any of that at all?
EP: Oh, we probably had one or two. One or two who were. In okay, like Bye Bye Birdie let’s face it, a lot of your dancers—they’re gay. What I arranged was with the crime reporter for the Federal Observer [Fayetteville News—EP corrected later]—Pat Reese—he was in some of our productions— and I arranged that all parties—everything was off base at his house. I said, “Look, I’ll make an appearance and I’ll give out the cigarette lighters with Bye Bye Birdie on them. I will thank everybody and say ‘nice job done’ and I’m out of here.” We had, but I think—especially with the—but, at that time you didn’t say that you were gay. You know, you just didn’t do it. But a lot of your creative, talented people in the arts are gay. I really didn’t care—I didn’t care. A lot of my men were certainly not gay, because of all the women chasing them.
[Continues in Part Two]