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Charles W. Capps, Jr.
Archives and Museum

DSU Oral Histories

 

Sanders, Viola 8/12/99 Tape 1 of 2
By Shana Walton

This is an interview for the Mississippi Oral History Program. The interview is being recorded with Ms. Viola Sanders at the Capps Archives on August 12, 1999. The interviewer is Shana Walton. Also present in the room is Tara Zachary, Lisa Alford, and Molly Shaman.

VS: It is absolutely delightful to be over here and to hear about the progress that is being made.

SW: When and where were you born for the record?

VS: I was born in Sidon, MS on twenty-first day of February 1921. I was born about eleven fifty-five at night. Dr. Scott who birthed me said Viola I can put this back six minutes if you want her born on Washington's birthday. Mother said let her go on her own. That is the strangest thing. I was going through some papers just last night, and I found a letter from this same Dr. W. W. Scott. How many years have seventy-eights years after the fact that I have just been appointed director of the WAVES, and he wrote me. He said, "Since I am the first person who ever laid eyes on you, I just want to write and tell you how grand I think this is." Isn't that wonderful?

SW: That is great.

VS: It just brought tears.

SW: You were just seeing the letter again last night?

VS: I just saw the letter again last night. I probably got it let's say thirty years ago.

SW: Yeah, let's not jump ahead in time. Tell me about where you grew up?

VS: I grew up in this very small town. As I recall, there was about four hundred and twenty-one people in it. I used to say when anybody ask even when I am in the Navy they counted me. I was born into a wonderful little family. Unfortunately we lost my father when my brother, Staney, was about eleven, and I was about nine. I had a wonderful grandfather. His name was Solon. Most aptly named man I ever had seen the wisest man. Solon, S-O-L-O-N, Solon Irvin Brown, was a marvelous man. I wished I could talk about him all day.

SW: Sure

VS: We were happy. We played. Of course nobody had cars. We still have a reunion every year in Sidon, MS. It is the only town in the world, I think, that has its annual homecoming under of the edges of a cemetery association. We have a beautiful Sidon cemetery. We put a building on it, and we come there and convene. You would be surprised we had about two hundred fifty this last May to our homecoming. We are very close. You would be amazed at the people Frank Smith who became a congressman, and head of the TVA. He was born there. He and I were born on the same day. He was three years older than I was. Preachers, my brother at one time at that time was the youngest district attorney that Mississippi had ever had. We have had several little bank presidents. One of them lived right behind me. We grew up good.

SW: How come were you all was able to get such?

VS: I don't know. I think the smallness of it. We had strict discipline. We were disciplined then.

SW: Tell me about that.

VS: Well I could tell you this when I was a sophomore in college thinking I was the smartest kid on the block. One of my vivid recollections was my mother chasing me around the big oak table in the dining room because I had sassed her. That is the truth, and she caught me too. Mother was wonderful, but she demanded respect. My mother was one of those people who studied. She had a curious mind. She knew a lot, and she wanted to teach everything she knew to everybody else. I can remember at night after we had gone to bed. I can hear mother saying, "Okay what was the name of Alexander the Great's horse?" Just she wanted us to know things.

SW: Where was she from that she had?

VS: Let me tell you this, my granddaddy, Solon, came from Texas. He bought this little plantation which I still have out at the foot of a creek. He found when he got there that there was no school. He sent my mother at the age of fifteen to Ward Seminary in Nashville, summer schools at Grenada College, Ole Miss, State. She would learn history, biology, English literature things, and he established a little school out on this creek. My mother was teaching at that age. Then when we finally built this little school in Sidon, we had Ms. Judson that was another wonderful thing. My mother at the age of fifteen was teaching school in Sidon with Judson Defore, and when I got to be in the eighth grade the same Judson Defore was my teacher.

SW: Oh that is great.

VS: There was three in the class in the eighth grade. That is as far as the school went, and we had to go up to Greenwood on the busses. I got up there in the ninth grade those city slickers they were out of their class.

SW: You just showed off.

VS: I just showed off all the time. It was grand. I went on and graduated from high school. We studied and did well. We learned a lot.

SW: Let's back up, tell me about this grandfather you loved so much? What was he like?

VS: He was wonderful. I can remember this I think the Saturday Evening Post as well as I can remember was the first magazine ever to appear in the South. He had one of those kinds of minds he would lie down, and at exactly at six thirty when the news came on he was receptive. He got up and turned it on. He was subscribing to the Saturday Evening Post and reading it. I doubt Solon ever went past the fourth or fifth grade. He became one of the first supervisors. You know every county in Mississippi has little beats, and you have supervisors. He laid out every road in Beat 5. We still have plaques with his name on it where he laid out the roads. Solon wanted me to debate. Now you know we had a lot of boys. He felt that every man in the family should go to law school. I was a girl, and he never entertained the thought of my being able to go to law school. He told me I could be a legal Stenographer. He a least thought I was that smart. One moment I was debate with Fred Witty. He grew to be one of the lawyers in town. We were debating on the subject of "cotton acreage". I can remember Solon came in. He said, "I want to hear your debate." I was getting ready to go. I went through my debate. Now he said, "Viola Brown that is good, but when you are through I want you to tell the judges that you will be back tomorrow. You will debate on the other side." He did not agree with the side I was on. So you see he thought I could get up there the next day and go the other way.

SW: And did you?

VS: No

SW: No

VS: Solon always saw to it that we got somewhere on weekends and during the summer. The reason this was so new in my mind on my way to Biloxi, he took us down to Biloxi when we were thirteen and fourteen. I had not been back. We always went to Pensacola. We got to Collins, MS, and I told my friends with whom I was riding that we broke an axial right there at Collins, MS. We spent the day, but we had a grand time. On the way back we got into Yazoo City to stop to eat, and someone stole our little car. We were in a little old Chevrolet. I can remember we were all sitting in this little hotel out in the lobby Papa walked up. We called him Papa. He said, "We found the car. Let's go home." Well half way home it got dark as pitch and the lights in the Chevrolet went out. Papa took my brother, Stany, and my first cousin, Gordon, each had a flashlight. He set them up on the fenders, and we drove to Sidon with them on the fenders of that Chevrolet with those flashlights. That was the kind of man, Solon, was. He was highly regarded. He wore a black Stetson hat in the winter and a white Stetson hat in the summer. He walked around town and always singing "Amazing Grace". He taught us how to drive, and he would come by everyday and take me out to Elder Grove. I was at the Great Lakes when he died. It made me very sad.

SW: He lived to a ripe old age?

VS: He lived to a ripe old age, and so did my grandmother. My mother would have been ninety-six years in three days when she died back in 1988. That is the reason I came back to Mississippi from the Navy.

SW: You have a history of strong healthy people in your family?

VS: Very, I am going to live forever. I am counting on it. I will tell you with everything that is going on that I would not be a bit surprised if we did not obtain biblical ages here before long.

SW: That may be very well true. Tell me something about what is was? I got a feel for it about growing up. But what was every day like?

VS: Okay every day of course we went to school and came back on the bus. It was almost by our by our britt, everybody put on his or her skates. You had to skate on every sidewalk before you could go home. Everybody always came to Staney Jr. and Viola Brown's house because we had a black mammy and black pappy. Emma and Leslie who lived right in the back of our house because mother could go to the store and get a chicken or hen for twenty-five cents. Emma could make the best chicken and dressing you have heard of in your life. The kids would just flock with us. We would play capture the flag. We play kick the can. We just played all sorts of things. Emma and Leslie had some little grandchildren. I remember Junior and Dot. One day I heard them out in the back playing, and I heard Dot saying, "I am going to be Staney Jr. today. You were Viola Brown all the time." They were playing each one of us out in the back. Then we had square dances. We had an old empty store in Sidon. We all danced. We loved to dance. We would do round dances and then square dancing. I was quite a dancer. I had a little beau named John Kelly. I just loved John Kelly to death, and we jitterbugged all of the time. Well one Saturday night on Christmas Eve we were jitterbugging down in Shrock's Restaurant in Tchula. I am telling you the gospel. We were doing the shag. We were jumping a chair. We jumped that chair, but I landed on my ankle. I broke my ankle. I have the first jitterbug break in medical history. I broke my leg jitterbugging on Christmas Eve with I was a sophomore over at MDCC. I had one beau named Vernon who loved to dance. Back in those days we were able to do it. We would dance every night, but then on Sunday night was closed up. We would stop on the bridge. There were several little bridges between Sidon, Cruger, and Tchula. We would stop on the bridge turn on the radio and dance on the bridge. There was no traffic at that time of night.

SW: Your parents were not worried?

VS: Of course my daddy was gone. Oh mother worried. This same John Kelly mother was always, you know back in those days the Victorian element, and mother was you got to behave. I remember one night I was out a little late, and she picked up a good friend of hers, and went looking for John Kelly and me. All we have been doing was just dancing at a juke joint. She was out looking for us. I minded my mother. I did not dare.

SW: I was wondering about all the dancing and going out that you are talking about because it sounds like you mother was pretty strict at that time?

VS: Well no she really wasn't. Back in those days mothers are worried about their daughters. Don't do something you shouldn't do.

SW: She didn't mind you going out dancing?

VS: She didn't mind my going out and dancing at all. She would chaperone sometimes. We had a wonderful relationship. I just adored my mother. I thought she was just great. Anybody who knows me would tell you she was just really the greatest role model in the world. You ask me a question. How do we all go out? The thing about it I think we in Sidon, all of us, represented happiness. I think we grew up happy. Nobody had any money. You see there was no pressures because you youngster don't like to hear about the great depression. We couldn't even see movies. People didn't have cars to drive to Greenwood to see a movie.

SW: The closest movie house was in Greenwood?

VS: Right. I have a wonderful memory of this, which is grand. Mother, I don't know where she got them, we have two huge encyclopedias in our house that ought to be bound a hundred and fifty years old A through K, and L through whatever. I can remember when I was very young; mother would be sitting in the middle of the living room floor with the children the girls that lived down the street teaching them. I would be listening. I think a lot. I am blessed with one of those memories. My grandfather had that memory, and my mother had this memory. I think by osmosis. I heard what she was teaching them. Everyone came to Ms. Viola.

SW: How many siblings did you have?

VS: Just Staney and me just the two of us. One thing I want to say about my mother, I can remember. This is back with the African Americans. Mother was way a head of time and the superintendent of education and his wife were good friends of ours. I can remember mother saying to him one night when I was very small, "If we don't put some desks in the schools, and if we don't take the orange crates out and puts some panes and get them some place and busses to ride we are going to pay for it down the road. I can remember J. D. I can remember his name from right now. The superintendent of the black school right there in Sidon named J. D. Montgomery. He would be at my mother's backdoor getting advise from her, and she was helping him teach. She would help our black friends with their social securities and letters and little things like that. I just grew up in a wonderful atmosphere like that.

SW: Your mother understood the phrase "you reap what you sow".

VS: She absolutely did. Right now a lot of little communities the size of Sidon had died away, but not Sidon. Race relation is absolutely wonderful. About two weeks ago we had this joint venture with Freddie Jackson White, it is a teenage pregnancy program. We were over there, and we just had a wonderful time. We made the front page of the Commonwealth. We are thriving really. The little black churches and white churches are doing well. We only have Baptist and Methodist of course.

SW: You said your mother was ahead of her time?

VS: She was ahead of her time.

SW: Your family was just so, obviously you were raised in your family with this some enlightened attitude, but you were in a larger culture. Do you want to talk about this larger culture? What was it like?

VS: I don't remember any of that right now. All I remember was growing up, and Mother told me early on that I was going to Moorhead for two years. When I graduated from there everybody else was going to the W. Mother says Viola Brown is going to Cleveland, Delta State. That is the reason I am so delighted. That is the reason I dedicated my stuff over there to her. It never occurred to me, image this going on today, to question my mother. She says you are going to Delta State. You could not do that today. No kid would take that. Maybe I was naïve, or maybe I was dumb. I don't think I was non-aggressive. I just trusted her judgement so. That is what happened. We had small classes, wonderful relationships. I don't have to tell you about all of that.

SW: Before we get to Delta State let's back up.

VS: Okay

SW: Tell me a little about the depression.

VS: It was bad, but it didn't hurt us. Because we lived in a rural area, and we had tomatoes, potatoes, and twenty-five cent hens.

SW: You had lost your father. How did your mother support you all?

VS: I will tell you. She started out selling the Commercial Appeal. I remember she made eighteen dollars a month selling the Commercial Appeal just driving from door to door. This is the great part; she established a little icehouse. The blocks are still way back. I live in the same house. I just ask the Lord everyday just let it stay up till I pass because it has already been through a millennium. I love it. The blocks are still out there. Do my hands bother you? I always talk with my hands.

SW: I love your hands.

VS: Leslie would drive the car. We would sell ice, a hundred pounds, for twenty-five cents. I can remember mother had this huge leather purse. I still have this leather purse. On the fourth of July oh did we take in the money. She would sit on the front porch in the rocking chair and count that change over and over in this great big purse. Every once in a while I would run into people like Bo Branch, and a lot of the kids that was a lot younger. He said, "Viola Brown, every Sunday in Sunday school if said my verse right, Ms. Viola would give me a quarter." and I said, "Yes, that is the reason I would get to Greenwood to school on Monday, and my lunch money was gone." Because mother gave all my lunch money to you all kids in the Sunday school now mother loved Sidon Methodist Church. She did. She would count the cars at the Baptist Church. She was a militant Methodist. The Baptist church was right next door to me. Now the little church, I can see her right now. We had a little pot-bellied stove, and I can see Bro. Mckelily and mother shoveling little pieced of wood into that stove. Of course now we have central air and heating. One thing to do with this church it is a wonderful story. I wrote an article for the "Clarion Ledger" picked this up. Mother had a brother. I called him my drinking Uncle Dewey, the best bridge player in the world. He did love to drink. Dorcy, the town drunk that named my Pinkie mother could not get them into church. Over the years she begged. One Sunday here came Dewey and Dorcy to church. I know you think this is not true, but so help me you can check the church. It caught fire and burned. Nina Redale, who was the pianist grabbed the collection plate and saved the collection plate. So I wrote this up for the paper, and I said, "Dewey and Dorcy got to thinking that next week. You know they talked about it. They were wondering if it was rank coincidence or was somebody really trying to send them a message. I ended up my little piece by saying; "I think that a lot more than the collection plate was saved that day."

SW: Oh really.

VS: Yes, that was a true story, and it is still the talk of people who still long enough to remember it.

SW: Did he come back to church?

VS: Oh yes

SW: He was a believer.

VS: He was a believer. He did not give up his little white lightening. He sipped it. He was a believer. That church is still thriving to this day.

SW: You whole family moved to Sidon, but your mother after she lost her husband had two small children. She didn't move in with her father?

VS: Oh no, no, no.

SW: She maintained.

VS: She maintained our own.

SW: That was unusual.

VS: Oh listen she was, and everybody was surprised. They didn't think my mother, see my daddy had been the tax assessor of Leflore County. She moved right in. I remember this she was wondering whether to move out to the little place with Staney and me. Or else buy the house. Daddy had three thousand dollars worth of insurance. I can see her walking up and down the hall. All of the sudden she made up her mind. She sat down at this little antique desk in which I still have. She loved antiques. How she collected, I don't know. I will tell you another little story about that. She wrote this check for three thousand dollars and bought that house, and here we are.

SW: Left her no money to live on?

VS: We bought that house. That was security. Mother when she had this purse. She used to say, "Now Viola Brown I want to tell you something." I learned this lesson well. "I really sincerely believe the more money I give away for good things, the more money God puts in my purse." I had my two little nieces, great nieces, from St. Louis to visit a couple of summers ago. The one that is coming over here to school, they needed some crayons. I said, "We will go out to Wal-Mart." I got out there, and they said, "Pinkie, Mother has given us some money for these. I said, "You don't spend your money when you are Pinkie, you just save it." All of the sudden I saw this wonderful whole cigar box full of crayons. I said, "We will get this, and you will not have to bother your mother anymore." Margo said, "Oh that is too much." She found this little dollar nineteen-cent things. She said, "Oh don't spend that much, we will get this one." Julie, the baby one, said, "Margo let Pinkie spend the three dollars and ninety cents and God will put more money in her purse." They listened. I believe that to this day.

SW: Giving away money is.

VS: You see I talk so much. People wonder how I remember all these things. I said, "I can remember listening." I can see my big momma right now. She had this old house. It was just beautiful. It should have been in the National Register because it was one of the earliest. As a matter of fact they had marble. They sent to France and got two marble mantle pieces. It just breaks my heart. I can see big momma. Of course I tell people all of the time. Now look at us, here we are nearly eighty years old, and we are running around like teenagers. The grandmothers did not have a car. So all they did was stay home all day. Momma churned and made butter and sold buttermilk. She had this porch, this swinging porch. She had this a little tie, a little ribbon, tied to it with a fly swatter. She would swing like crazy and swat those flies all day long after she got through with her churning.

SW: I thought you were going to say she hooked up her churn to it because I have a friend that who hooked up her church to her rocking chair. So when she rocked her churn would shake the butter. As she went it would hit the churn. It wasn't a churn. It was it shook the butter.

VS: Yeah that is great. Anyway as I told you all the kids were lawyers. My brother was a lawyer. Gordon was a lawyer. Dewey was a lawyer. Barry was a lawyer. Papa sent all of them.

SW: That was his sons?

VS: Grandsons.

SW: That was all of his grandsons.

VS: All of his grandsons. He lost his boys like flies back in those days. Mother was one of eight siblings. As we were growing up only two of them left mother and this pressure drinking Uncle Dewey. They all died. I used to sit listening to them all talking law. Just by osmosis I have learned the law. At one time I contemplated before the Navy came along. I contemplated going to law school.

SW: So he had, your grandfather wind up with a lot of daughter-in-laws that didn't have husbands. His daughter lost her husband.

VS: That is right. Now Dewey didn't marry until he discovered he had TB. He went down to Sanitarium and met a lovely lady down there. He married her. Well I wasn't that crazy about her really. I had to take care of her. I buried her several years ago.

SW: All of your other uncles died.

VS: They died. See they were too young. Barry, one of the lawyers, is one of the grandsons' of his daddy that died. Most of them died before they had children.

SW: Oh they all died before they had children.

VS: Oh yes, the grandsons. Staney, my brother, died and left me those three lovely nieces. We don't have a boy in the bunch. The three nieces, who have had seven children, I have seven great nieces and three nieces.

SW: Girls

VS: All girls, they all promise me. One just got married, and she promised me see was going to have me a little boy.

SW: Oh okay.

VS: Let me go back to my childhood. I just remember it as a busy time. I was always busy. I just run all of the time. I still do. I was happy. I studied and read. Every summer I would read three of four books a day. I am sure. I love reading. I love knowledge.

SW: Did you all have a library?

VS: Well we had Greenwood Library. Then during the WPA, there was a wonderful library. My mother worked for the WPA and made out D.O.'s, direct orders, for our numbers.

SW: Tell me about the WPA?

VS: Well you know that was Roosevelt's way of getting money to people who were starving. I think they made something like six dollars a week. Orders, we would go around to find out who didn't have any food in the house. We made an order for them for six or seven dollars worth of groceries.

SW: Did you go on her home visits with mom?

VS: I went a lot of times.

SW: What did you see?

VS: I saw poverty, flies, and sick people. Mother went with Dr. Kelly a lot. We had a doctor, John Kelly, my beau. I guess I would have married him, but he killed himself. We don't want to get into that. Dr. Kelly and helped him. Mother just loved everybody. She wanted to take care of everybody. See, I told you I had a wonderful life. I just grew up with that wonderful manifestation of love for everybody, Christianity, and love of knowledge.

SW: You were a little girl during the depression?

VS: I was. No, no I was not a little girl. We had almost depression when I was over here at school. Now I will tell you this I went through four years of college, and it never cost mother a nickel. Staney in law school that was something different.

SW: Your grandfather helped pay for that.

VS: No, no, no

SW: Did you say your grandfather ran a small plantation?

VS: No, he owned a small plantation.

SW: He owned a small plantation.

VS: He was able to help a little with that. You didn't get any rent back in those days.

SW: Oh he rented the land?

VS: Well afterwards, but when he farmed he did not make a whole lot of money with cotton. Cotton was only twenty cents a pound.

SW: Especially during the depression the bottom dropped out.

VS: Oh that is exactly right. It was just the icehouse. As I say it didn't cost a lot. Gasoline was twenty cents a gallon. I can remember we never got over a dollar's worth. You drive up an order a dollar's worth of gas. Sometimes growing up that way is the best. I see kids today. When I see all my friends and my kids they own telephones in their cars. They own telephone I. D. 's. They own stereos in their college dormitories. Each his own car. I think they are not as happy as we were.

SW: You did not have that much it sounds like, because your mother insisted on being so independent. When she took you on these house visits I am sure you saw some really.

VS: Worse than I

SW: For people, who don't remember, hundred years from now, do you want to tell us what is was like? What did you see?

VS: Well you see, everybody got through it. We were in it together. Then I realize seeing other people who was not near as fortunate as I. Most of the most poignant moments of my life as I remember is mother had finally saved enough to buy Staney a brand new suit of clothes. He got over to catch the school bus, and a big old dog jumped on him and ripped his pants. He came home, and mother got in the closet and cried like a baby. I remember that to this day. I could cry right now. On a happier note, growing up with a boy in the family. I always thought everybody loved the boy better than they did me. I know one time Staney got an old bicycle for Christmas. It was a second hand bicycle. I had a little buddy named Willie Oldie Moore. I didn't get a bicycle. So William Oldie Moore (tape cut off)

VS: Of course I would have blocked out not had it been. I am talking about fifty, sixty, seventy years ago.

SW: That sounds like it had a good.

VS: I just was happy. I was happy. Even though we always managed our little trips, but of course if you think of the money today. What things cost you could go for almost nothing. We learned. We went to church. We were around good people. We never locked the door of course. We never lock a door. Those were the good old days. We didn't have technology. I remember daddy was still living when I remember when we got the first radio in town. When daddy got this radio. What was the name of that song, "Glow" was the first song I ever heard on the radio. "Shine little glow worm…" First little thing I ever heard over it. We were all political animals. We were into politics. We did not get to vote until twenty-one. I think any woman who does not go to vote today should be hung up and pealed.

SW: Was that the year you were born?

VS: The year I was born we were allowed to vote.

SW: So you waited to your were born till you knew you could vote.

VS: That is right. I said I was not going till they let me vote. How do you like that? I would not vote when I was in the Navy. Of course mother ran the local elections. They swear that at every station there was eight absentee ballots, of course there weren't from Sidon for me to vote.

SW: So did always

VS: Oh we voted. We were big on that down in our little town.

SW: Do you remember listening to live

VS: Listen in 1940, I was crazy about F. D. R. Oh we sat and listen.

SW: So you were pro- F. D. R.?

VS: We were pro- F. D. R.

SW: Because people felt passionately about him one way or another.

VS: Oh indeed they do, just like they do most everybody. I remember this, and it fits in today's situation. I loved what Wendell Wilkie had to say. You don't remember this of course. As I say even your mothers had not opened there. My mother used to get up and say, "Viola Brown just so I get up every morning and open my eyes on this earthly circumstance." She loved that "earthly circumstance". Well Wendell Wilky taught one world, and we are now global. Fifty years after the fact we are global. It was there all of the time. That is the reason all of my kids I am pinching them on the head are having to learn every language possible. I was stationed in Japan for three years. We could never learn Japanese. Those kids this high was speaking fluent Japanese in sixth months. Why don't we teach children the languages down in grammar school?

SW: I don't know. That is when children learn.

VS: Of course

SW: It is very hard for adults to learn languages. You remember when you got that radio. You all probably listened.

VS: Oh we listened all of the time.

SW: Do you remember Roosevelt's talks every once in while?

VS: Oh of course I remember Roosevelt's talks. I remember the fear. We have nothing to fear, but fear itself. You know Time magazine is trying to pick out the man or woman of the millennium. If they were to listen my very sage advice we should have a double, a co-thing. Franklin D. Roosevelt and William and Winston Spencer Churchill those two should be it. Churchill I read every word. I love words. I love the correct use of words. I will have to tell you a good story about that. He was just magnificent to me in every respect.

SW: Well tell me about Eleanor Roosevelt?

VS: I admired her. Listen we have knowledge of it right down inside me. You have heard of the rehabilitation product. She had forty. She would set aside, and she did this herself. She made Franklin do it. Forty acres as the depression was ending. We have Phillipston Plantation now which was that. It was established. They bought a plantation that had gone defunct, and they gave many families forty acres. Right till this day those same families, their kids, and their grandkids are running those plantations. They are all very lovely people. They worked hard and successful. The Macombsons was a family. Now they own a lot of the land around there. That was Eleanor. I think Eleanor had a true desire to help people. You right now I have got to try to see, and of course the way people feel about Bill Clinton and Hillary is passionate. It is inexcusable. Deep down in both of their hearts there is no question in my mind that they want the little person helped trying to do it. I have to give them credit for that. I think you can spot it in a person.

SW: You know a lot of people, you know Eleanor Roosevelt was a. I brought it up because you mentioned the voting in women because Eleanor Roosevelt was a strong woman at a time when a lot of people hated her.

VS: I know they did. Let me tell you one of the greatest moments in my life. I worked one of my wonderful tours of duty, one of my wonderful assignments. I was called into Washington after I had just got back from abroad to set up an administrative office for Admiral Richard Evenlen Bird during the international geophysical year. He was going back to the Antarctic. Right before he left he had big to do at the Waldorf Astoria. Ms. Bird was ill, and she could not go. I went as a hostess. I was a lieutenant commander. I had my beautiful uniform. I was trying to see to everything. All of the sudden I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up, and there is the great lady herself. She says commander would you take me to the Admiral please. I took her the long way around. It took me a long time to find the Admiral. That was she.

SW: You met Eleanor Roosevelt.

VS: I did indeed. I spent a half-day with Lucille Ball.

SW: Did you really?

VS: I did indeed

SW: We haven't got there yet, let's back up. You all listened to all the politics. Your family talked politics.

VS: Honey listen I came from some smart folks. They were interested in everything. We talked politics. We talked law. We talked jury. I don't know if you remember about the Dickinson trial over in Leland. My brother was a district attorney when that was going on. We were in to everything.

SW: So the time came you got old enough you mom said you were going to Delta State.

VS: Well I went to Moorhead first.

SW: You went to Moorhead first for two years

VS: I loved Moorhead, Sunflower Junior College. Here is what was so marvelous. We still had a Chevrolet seems that we always had a Chevrolet. Most of the time we didn't have a spare tire. I can get to Moorhead now if I was in a hurry in twenty minutes. It was an all day trip. We had gravel roads, and mother getting Staney and Viola Brown off the Moorhead to Sunflower Junior College. The depression was still on then. People, now Van Burin who was a doctor over at Clarksdale was one of my best buddies. Pete Wood, a girl, who is up in Canada. Then I mentioned Bill West who was the principal's nevia. Billy Wilkason, Lela Lyres brother, Nathan Wise, son of the local merchant. Are some of the loveliest people who had ever seen. A lot of those little boys went off to the war and got shot down right off the bat. Before they got went off and got shot down, we had a wonderful time. We had two societies, the Wilson and Lee society. Staney was president of the Lee Society. Naturally when I over I was president of the Lee Society. We beat the stuffings out of the Wilson's.

SW: What were the societies?

VS: Well for Woodrow Wilson and Robert E. Lee. You had competition for everything, singing, and sports.

SW: They were social clubs.

VS: Social clubs, who put on the best tableau and those kinds of things.

SW: Both men and women could join?

VS: Oh everybody, when you went everybody was either a Wilson or a Lee. It was kind of like they rushed you. The minute I went over there everybody knew because of Staney that I was going to be a Lee. Jack Harper who has been the Chancery Clerk of Sunflower County I know for a hundred years. He was the president of the Wilson. I beat him, and to this day he is mad. To this day he is mad. Really he loves everybody but me. Don't tell Jack I told you that. There again I got up every morning a lot of the times waiting on tables. Every morning of my life I swept out the dormitory top and bottom for my scholarship. Mother could have not sent me to school. Then every night, this was glorious; I worked in the Library. I would get over to Delta State, Dr. Dockery said I am trying to think of a book by Otto Spangler. I said I think Decline of the West. See just by osmosis. They just thought that girl was brilliant. It was not brilliant at all. It was just.

SW: You worked at the Library every night.

VS: I did the same thing at Delta State.

SW: What years were you do you remember?

VS: I was at Delta State for

SW: No Moorhead

VS: I was at Moorhead from 1937 to 1939 and Delta State from 1939 to 1941. Then I taught school for two years in Glenn Allen. Staney was already in the Navy.

SW: When you were at Moorhead that was you graduated with a two-year degree?

VS: Yes, two years that is a junior college. I got an Associate in Art.

SW: It was in art.

VS: Associate of Art.

SW: You just got a broad liberal education. You didn't specialize.

VS: No I did not specialize. I loved English. I always loved English. I loved Shakespeare and the proper usage of the English language. I bet you I have taught more people the correct usage of lie and lay. I wait till the preachers leave then I tell them. I don't embarrass them until go. I love Shakespeare. I majored in English and Lit at Delta State. I taught school two years before I joined the Navy.

SW: So how many people were at Moorhead?

VS: Oh gracious, I don't know. Now I am saying we had about two hundred and sixty-seven. I would imagine we had the same number at Moorhead.

SW: I am guessing we got to know basically every student there?

VS: Oh God yes I can see them now. They honored me. I went back. To show you how everything comes around. You have to be careful in an interview not to be self-serving, yet you do not want to be self-effacing. You want to know about me don't you?

SW: Absolutely

VS: Okay well let me tell you this then. I was the very first ever Alumnist or Alumni for Delta State. They did not start it until 1963, and I was the first choice. I thought that was absolutely marvelous. I was in Washington D. C. Moorhead did the same thing for me last December.

SW: They named you the

VS: The Outstanding Alumni for I had full circle. I had a wonderful time. I went over there during Homecoming and saw so many people. You can not remember how many are still alive. It was just if the hiatus was not there. We just ran right into it. I was still Pinkie, you know. It was just wonderful.

SW: When did you find time to study with working in the morning and working at night?

VS: We had to be in the dormitory by five thirty child. Everybody was in that dormitory at five thirty.

SW: But then you had to go to the Library and work.

VS: Well I could study over there. Study in between checking books in and out. I studied. You see Staney and I respected mother so much aside from loving her. We didn't dare not make top. It wasn't that she would have taken a belt and hit anything or us. It was just like "Saving Private Ryan" you know. I just saw it last night. She had earned it, and we did it. Staney was over there, and he was editor of the law journal. I got top honors and Ms SJC. I was president of student council at Delta State.

SW: Well then you came to Delta State in '39?

VS: I came to Delta State in '39, and it was grand. Old wild Bill Kethley was the president, and he was a bird. You have heard of Wild Bill. He was a bird.

SW: That was during the years of the Bilbo Purge right or was that right after the purge?

VS: That was a strange thing about my mother. Billy Pickett who used to live in Sidon, who live in Greenwood, and you talk about the Purge and Bilbo. Billy has told me if he said to me once he had said it a hundred times. I can remember one thing your mother said to me. Years and years ago I have never forgotten I was kid so it must have registered. She said, "Billy you got to look sometimes, but in every person there is something good." I have told so many people my mother made good folks out of bad ones. She found every bit of the good that was in a bad person. She found the good in Bilbo.

SW: Your folks were pro-Bilbo?

VS: I don't know if she was pro-Bilbo. I don't think she agreed with his racist attitude. She thought he was for the little person.

SW: He was certainly a populist.

VS: Yes he was, and that she liked. She overlooked the bad parts and picked up the on the goods parts. We were not Bilbo purgers or haters in my house.

SW: That is good. I know you were political active so I thought since Bilbo was the big political figure.

VS: Yes, Patt Harrison let me tell you this talking about politics. Pat Harrison died on the coast Staney Sanders, my brother, Frank Smith, Staney's best friend, Gordon Smith, my first cousin who is double first cousin to Frank Smith. So Frank and I always claim kin. They got busy and helped elect John Stennis. John Stennis used to call me "Hello Admiral". After I retired. He would call me to find out things about the delta. I just read a beautiful tribute he paid to me on the floor of the Senate. He had me over there. As he was very instrumental, well that is getting up in the navy now. You know when I first got into the navy lieutenant commander was the highest rank that was temporary. That was only for who ever was the head of the women in the navy.

SW: Women could not go any higher.

VS: Then it got to be where women could be commanders. It got to be when I got to in the Navy you could have one captain. It happened to be me. I got to be

SW: I want to hear the story.

VS: I am coming back to that. Anyway this is relevant. All of the other directors and all of the other women services, and I with a lot of men by that time we had one some it was hard. You never seen the fighting we had to do. Those little old girls running up there with those stars on better thank us. It was scratch all of the way. We were fighting first just to get numbers to promote also to remove all of the restrictions. About three or four years with John Stennis's help after I retired. He was chairman of the arms services committee. We removed all promotions for women. My protégé from Alabama, Fran McKee was our first admiral. I was on the selection board when she went from lieutenant to lieutenant commander. Some of the men on the board because she only had one kidney wanted to put her out. That is the business of the bureau of medicine and surgery. This is the business of naval personnel. As far as I am concerned she is qualified. She is it. I have followed her all the way. I went over to Birmingham when they honored her not to long ago. She is still living by the way with that one kidney. Since we were the ones to instigate all of this I have the picture right now out at Cottonlandia Museum. Linden Johnson had us at the White House, and I have a picture of me shaking hands with him. He had just some bad news about Vietnam. He was saying some ugly words right as I got there. I never was an aficionado of Lyndon Johnson anyway.

SW: Well this is for history. You can say anything you want. You can put it all down.

VS: Of course I knew a lot of people. A lot of people came over from Moorhead.

SW: Some came with you the same year you came?

VS: Well I am not sure. Yes, Mary Olive Evans I remember from Greenwood who came. I loved Delta State. I got a scholarship over here. Oh I did I came over here after my first year I got the Winston Scholarship for English. It was three hundred dollars. We couldn't believe it. Three hundred whole dollars that would be thirty thousand today. I was an English Scholarship.

SW: You didn't pay your tuition?

VS: I didn't have to pay them a dime. Moorhead, I never paid a dime anywhere for the four years of college. That I can recall I don't think mother ever had to pay a dime. I worked in the Library over here. I loved it. For little Ms. Myra O'Brian when it was cold over here she would take her fur coat and cover her car up. Elizabeth Daikin who just died, on one of our homecomings she was riding by me. I tried to take care of her. She said the first day I ever went into the library. She was the Librarian for years. She said Ms. O'Brian brought me up to you and said you show her around. I was helping Ms. O'Brian in the library. Elizabeth Daikin remembered that. It just pleased me so. I inaugurated her first day in the library. She was a dear person who just died the last few weeks. I studied hard at Delta State. I had Dr. Dackerty. I just adored him. He taught me English. Evelyn Hammit, Shakespeare I sat next to old Pixie Gilbert. She comes to every homecoming. She is from Wiggins. I just passed her house. Mary Francis Fox, I talk to her all of the time. She was my suite mate. Delta State I don't know maybe we were older because I don't remember running around near as much over at Delta State. We had a good time.

SW: Not as much society, social society?

VS: Not as much social stuff as I recall.

SW: Were you seriously trying?

VS: I think I was really serious in academics over here. I had a lot of studying to do. That is the reason I can quote so much Shakespeare right to this day. We had to study a lot. Then working in the Library at night. I was pretty much tied up. Of course the football games.

SW: You did go to that?

VS: I was head cheerleader.

SW: Oh you were great.

VS: I was head cheerleader. Listen honey, I am seventy-eight years old I am cheerleader to this day. I am a balcony person. I am sitting up in this balcony exhorting the troops to get across to get across that finish line. I was head cheerleader at Greenwood High School. I was head cheerleader at Sunflower Junior College. I was head cheerleader at Delta State University. We had a wonderful basketball team in both places. Oh Michael Stone this is the strangest thing we got two new people in our church about this time last year. One day this woman brought her parents into the church, and all of the sudden this big good looking guy looked at me, and said are you Pinkie. It was Michael Stone who was the basketball champion up in Baldwin and places up in there. Oh yeah we had spirit.

SW: Were you athletic as in high school?

VS: I was a tennis player. I can play tennis. I ran track some.

SW: That was in high school right.

VS: In high school

SW: As in Greenwood

VS: In Greenwood right.

SW: There were not many opportunities for women to.

VS: No, and isn't it wonderful now that soccer team. It also helps that they are all gorgeous looking.

SW: So then you went to Moorhead you were a cheerleader as well?

VS: Oh yes I went out for cheerleading. We don't do all of the things they do now. Delta State had won the nationals twice. I guess I could have done that. We didn't jump up in pyramids.

SW: Was cheerleading as athletic as it is now?

VS: Oh well no it was not athletic then. It was not. It was athletic enough. We were boisterous. We were loud.

SW: Do you remember any of the cheers?

VS: SIS BOOM BA, SIS BOOM BA, DELTA STATE, DELTA STATE, RA RA RA, ARE WE IN IT, WELL I GUESS, DS DS, YES, YES, YES

SW: Oh right.

VS: Mercy.

SW: You were quite busy then?

VS: I was always into something. What else was in Student Council took a lot of time.

SW: Tell me about Student Council?

VS: Well it was keeping everything, listening to the students. You know Wild Bill sometimes was administration. Now they go over and boycott the administration building. We just kind of very deferential suggested things. One time the only time I remember we had a real upheaval. The picture show went from a dime to fifteen cents. We boycotted. Well Wild Bill was having a fit.

SW: When you say you were boycotted

VS: We didn't go to the movies. So Wild Bill called me in. He didn't like this trouble with the school and the town. Honey I knew your daddy, I knew your granddaddy. You go down there and do something with that guy at the movie house.

SW: You were head of Student Council.

VS: I was president of the Student Council.

SW: Well go ahead and tell me about that deal?

VS: We went down, and he went back down. I think the boycott scared him. I had one; this was at the time very unusual thing to happen. I know what you were going to ask me, was it unusual? When I came over here, and I transferred from most everybody over here were four year students. The first thing you know they were having an election for president of the student body. Guess who won? A girl, a transfer, well a few of the boys did not like it. So they organized a recall, and voted me out. My little precious H. L. Nowell you have heard of H. L. Nowell just about killed him. He was on my side. Any way at the time it made me feel bad. I don't remember.

SW: Were you reinstated?

VS: Well no but anyway in no time at all I was elected president of the student council. I don't know that was a little pay off.

TZ: So there was Student Council and something else?

VS: President Student Body that would be the first. To show you how long it had been. That would have been the first president woman ever.

SW: Well what were the responsibilities of the President of Student Body?

VS: Well you just got more prestige than anything else. Students fuss all of the time.

SW: Right, Student council had a real function.

VS: That is like being the lieutenant governor of Mississippi instead of the governor.

SW: Actually yes

VS: To tell you how long it was before Vicki's daughter was the first kid ever president of this student body. I reminded

SW: That was the big public prestige thing.

VS: I reminded Vickie. I said, "Vicki do you remember when I first came back from the navy, and you all came over." Hugh Ellis Walker and Vickie got me back to Delta State. I reminded Vicki about that horrible little incident when I came over. That long for a girl to be elected. Isn't that amazing.

SW: I think it was amazing that you got elected.

VS: I do to. I really never had understood how that happened. Unless my reputation from Moorhead. I don't know. I just loved to get out and do things. As I say I don't want to sound self-serving or self-effacing in between. I don't know.

SW: It was a pretty remarkable achievement.

VS: Anyway that was one of my bumps in the road. That was a little trauma.

SW: You handled it okay.

VS: Well listen, you know humility I have a fabulous story about how I got my humility in the United States Navy.

SW: Well tell me about the end of Delta State? So this was you graduated in 1941?

VS: I graduated in '41. I was three months pass my nineteen birthday when I graduated.

SW: In 1941 we had not entered the war yet. Though it was pending. What were you all thinking? What did you think about Hitler?

VS: We weren't really. We frankly did not pay much more attention to it than did our officers and leaders.

SW: You were so far away.

VS: We were so far away, and nobody thought it would happen. I remember getting interviewed for teaching school, which was all I wanted to do in this world. A guy name Sanders, the principle at Glenn Allen came over here and interviewed me. I got the job, and I was happy. I could not wait. I went home that summer just excited to death. I got over to Glenn Allen, and I taught school a year. I loved it. I taught seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth grades in Literature and English. I sponsored the senior class. I sponsored the senior newspaper. I put on "Ramona". I was a director. The top guy quit. George Wade was going to play the guy that was Ramona's boyfriend. I had to get a little junior to come in practically overnight to play that role. Oh responsibility I had just forgotten about that to right that minute.

SW: that is great.

VS: Isn't that something.

SW: So you started right off teaching.

VS: I started right off teaching. I loved it. I loved. You know schoolteachers have to have a calling. If not you should not be in the classroom it was a total calling to me. My mother was a schoolteacher. I was schoolteacher. Mother wasn't really, but she substituted and all of that. She started when she was fifteen.

SW: So tell me what they were paying in 1940 for a schoolteacher?

VS: I made eighty dollars a month nine months out of the year. The second year I made ninety. I was getting ready to go to the navy. Mr. Sanders came and said that if you would stay I will give you one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I said I am going into the navy. Staney had already got into the navy. He called me one day over at Glenn Allen he says, "There are some real cute gals coming down here." You see the boy was started. I remember Pearl Harbor vividly. He said you should see about. So I saw about it. I took my little exam. I got into the navy.

SW: So this much of the two years of teaching. What town were you in?

VS: Glenn Allen, a beautiful little town on Lake Washington.

SW: You moved there.

VS: I moved there. Seven of us lived in this one little home with two little old ladies over there on this plantation. They would switch, and every time Helen would have us we had burned toast. When Helen had the duty we didn't have to have alarms because we smelled the burned toast. Dear little Helen, they are both dead now God rest their souls. The guy who owned the drug store Claude Robinson took a fancy to me, and I took a fancy to him. It was wonderful. He went off to the war. He left me his car.

SW: Cause you didn't have a car?

VS: Oh no (tape cut off)

Tape 2 of 2

VS: We had no money. We absolutely had no money. Every afternoon to Claude's drug store and have a sundae or something. It would cost ten cents or something. We would pay him at the end of the year. We paid thirty-five dollars for rent. I got so skinny from all that teaching and working. I got home and mother put me on malted milks. I was skinny as a rail. Everybody thought I was sick. You know I was just working so hard.

SW: After thirty-five dollars a month for rent you didn't have much money left over for hardly anything else.

VS: Oh we had nothing. I had borrowed as I remember to get to school fifteen dollars. I owed Phil Cooperative Association. I borrowed about one hundred fifty dollars from them. I was paying that back. It was terrible. Clothes you just had a skirt and a sweater and that was about it.

SW: You just wore it.

VS: You just wore it all of the time. I had this cousin who taught school, and sometimes she would give me an outfit to take over for a week. It was hard getting by. It was not able to help mother at all. I eventually got to where I was doing that.

SW: Tell me about the story about you taking the car to Sidon.

VS: I took the car, and I stopped and got this little kid, Jack, who had substituted in my play and to fill it up with oil. Well Jack forgot to put the cap. So I burned up the engine of Claude's car while he was in EsPerito Santas. That car stayed in that filling station after I got into the navy. It would have cost five or six hundred dollars. So they just put it up on blocks.

SW: You made it to Sidon?

VS: I made it to Sidon.

SW: Did you make it back before it burned up?

VS: My cousin from Greenville was at my house and luckily I was able to take her home, and go right on to Glenn Allen.

SW: So you made it home.

VS: See I look back, and I know the Lord is with me every way. Now how was it that Lillian happened to be there from Greenville with a car so I could get to Glenn Allen? I don't know how in the world I would have got back over there. That was one of those incidences.

SW: Well how did your friend take it? Did you write him?

VS: Well you see I was stationed in New Orleans. We started to get married before he left, but something. He was at Camp Shelby, and he called me. I said no. We better not. Anyway after a long time he came back, and he stopped off into New Orleans we just took one look. The melody was not there anymore. I have a pun about that. We just decided we were not going to get married. He and his brother came and got the car I guess after he got back to Glenn Allen.

SW: Well it was not the burning up the engine that made it not want to marry you anymore?

VS: No I don't. Well I think it was mutual. I had met some other people about that time. Glenn Allen was grand. I loved it.

SW: So you were teaching at Glenn Allen on December seventh, 1941.

VS: I was absolutely.

SW: So tell me about that.

VS: I can remember exactly. We were riding in Claude's car out around the lake when we heard the news.

SW: On the radio?

VS: That is right. I remember it as just as vividly as the day I heard John Kennedy died. I have grieved over this J. F. K. Jr. I adored the Kennedys. What else about Glenn Allen. Everybody was lovely to us. We had a wonderful school. The principal audited our classes. It was hard. I was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one years old, and Pete Darnell, if it had not been for Pete Darnell I would never had tires. Pete was in my class. He was a big man, and he had dislexia. I really worked with him. As a result I always had tires on Claude's car because his daddy was a farmer. Pete was big. He was hard to discipline.

SW: You were teaching kids were just about your age?

VS: They were my age. Another rank coincidence when I got back to Sidon after I retired we had a lovely preacher come in. He was a Methodist preacher named Wilson Ray. His wife Jamie had been in both my years in the eleventh and twelfth grades. When I taught in Glenn Allen. It was a hundred and fifty years tops. Isn't that wonderful?

SW: That is wonderful.

VS: I loved it. As I tell everybody who cares to listen if you do not raise teacher's salaries. This is a real project of mine, and I am nagging people so. I am nagging everyone I know on the state legislature. You entrust your children in the most formable stages to these people, and you do not pay them. If you had paid me enough I still would be in the state of Mississippi teaching your children. I was a good teacher. You lost me, and you lost a lot of other good teachers.

SW: I bet you were a good teacher.

VS: I was a good teacher because I loved it. I was like my mother. I wanted to teach those kids everything I knew.

SW: You continued teaching for a year after the war started.

VS: I was in recruit training. I was able to teach along with teaching them. That was the strangest thing. I went into Glenn Allen. This is after, you see I ran the gammit. Everybody thinks if you were in the Navy you were a WAVE of course that is an acronym for "long gone". Women Accepted For Volunteer Emergencies Services, and I ran the gammit. I started in communications. It was top secret stuff down in New Orleans.

SW: Well let me back up. Let's talk about how you first, you were telling a story about how you first heard about it.

VS: Staney called me.

SW: Okay

VS: This is wonderful because this probably wouldn't ever happen again either. When I got sworn in, Staney and his fiancé, who is my sister law now attended my swearing in. I have a wonderful picture of that in New Orleans. He got sent to the Solomon Islands, and I got sent to New Orleans Communications where he was. "WAVE Relieves Brother for Sea Duty" that was even in the New York Times. That was the new thing.

SW: Oh really

VS: It was in all the big newspapers. It was really. Everybody says you seem to live your whole life with rockets going off. Just everything happened propitiously as we say.

SW: What made you decide you were going to join the WAVE? You were there teaching when he called you.

VS: My brother, I adored him. He thought it was a thing for me to do. So naively as my mother going to Delta State I accepted the good advice. Of course I was smart because everything they told me to do turned out grand. I went up to Smith College for six weeks and learned how to be an officer. Then I went over to Mount Holyoke for six weeks, and we got taught in a cave. I mean literally a cave. We called it "Cooking and Sawing". We were learning codes, top secret codes and everything. It was hard.

SW: That was at Mount Holyoke?

VS: Mount Holyoke

SW: How many weeks training was that?

VS: That was six weeks. Six weeks here and six weeks there down to New Orleans. It was one word with a stop in New York. We went to a play "Ethel Merman". We were sitting up here, and we all had our beautiful new little new uniforms on. That was new then. She looked up at us, and she stopped dead in her tracks from her song. She looked up and then she turned over to the orchestra and started it back with her song. Another story about that later. She stayed at New Orleans, and I had a wonderful time. I got into politics down there. Also with all those precious boys I knew along the way. You would think I would have decided on one. There was a precious little boy named Tom Foster. I remember Tom always wanted to live on Park Avenue. I remember after I got chosen director of the WAVES. The first word I got from anything I got from anybody was a telegram from Tom Foster from Park Avenue. So he made it. He was red headed.

SW: He made it.

VS: Though I could not have married him.

SW: Well back up now. You have been living all of your life in the delta of Mississippi.

VS: Yes that is right. The first thing you know.

SW: Then all of the sudden up you are up at Mount Holyoke. First it was Smith.

VS: I am at Mount Holyoke. I was at Smith.

SW: The most prestigious university for women in the United State.

VS: I loved it. They loved my accent.

SW: They did.

VS: I would get out there and say, "The Smith girls have agreed to let us ride their bicycles." Well they would come out to hear morning quarters. I know one time; I got a call from somebody. I had the duty. They wanted to talk to their, and I said, "You have to call 555-9" and something else. They had to get somebody else. They could not understand. Of course my accent really did help me through out the whole Navy. There is no question about it. A southern accent will just get you to glory child. Whenever I thought I was losing it, I came home, and I got it reinhanced.

SW: Your accent is not very strong these days.

VS: Really, well I can sure change into it fast. I had a wonderful time at Smith. Yes prestigious is absolutely right.

SW: So were you intimidated anyway? You know coming from a little biddy town.

VS: No, no and listen there again here I am twenty-two years straight as a die, skinny. They made me the regimental commander.

SW: You were regimental commander?

VS: I am the regimental commander of the troops. They called one day, and said the president was coming up. We got out and practiced. You know on how we had to do everything. We had a wonderful time, but it was frightening.

SW: You were a little frightened about it?

VS: I was a little frightened.

SW: He stepped in to look over you.

VS: That is exactly right.

SW: How many groups of WAVES had there been when you signed up?

VS: I would say about six months.

SW: It had been going on about six months.

VS: Been going on about six months I would guess. We were really just a novelty. We got delighted of course to get back close to home.

SW: Did you choose communication and code work?

VS: I did.

SW: You were offered an option.

VS: I did because that is what I knew from Staney. I knew it was fun. I knew I would have a good chance getting back south to a port. See we had LST's going out there, and arm guard ships and getting blown up by the time they got out to the mouth of the river. It was something else. Anyway people ask me now about all this sexual harassment that is going on in the military. I went into the Cap one day. I had my own little jeep. I would go down to the peer, and all the ships would be delivering top secret messages.

SW: This is in New Orleans?

VS: In New Orleans day and night. You had the eight to four for three days, four to eight three days, and off three days. Boy did we have good-looking Swiss officer, Swedish officer. We would go down to the Jung Hotel and dance all night. We had to cross the ferry. Dancing had played a very prominent role in my life. Jung Hotel you had to cross on the fairy. We could catch a fairy about five o'clock in the morning. You know we dance.

SW: Over on the West Bank?

VS: You see we I was over in Algier's at the naval station.

SW: You were at Algiers, and you would go over to New Orleans.

VS: I would go over that is right. I just had a grand time. Anyway after I had been over there for about three of four weeks I requested to see the commanding officer. I went in there, and I said, "Captain, I am just kind of getting teed off. I get down there in my jeep, and those sailors are cat calling and whistling and at me and yelling." He said, "Now Viola I want to tell you something the day those sailors quit doing that you come see me because then we have a real problem." And so that is the only time I ever felt. I was there for a long time.

SW: You were stationed in New Orleans.

VS: In New Orleans and loved it. We were going down to hear Pete Fountain and Mercedes play all that stuff "Roll Me Over" and all that stuff. Bourbon Street, Antoine's, Arinos and then my sister-in-law family was there. So Tommy and I would go over there and visit them a lot and eat.

SW: You were saying about sexual harassment, and they were doing all those cat calling and all that stuff. You said it bothered you at the time you went to talk to him about it.

VS: It bothered me.

SW: It bothered me. He told you that it was no problem.

VS: No problem.

SW: Did anyone ever

VS: It was not ugly stuff, but it was you know embarrassing.

SW: Embarrassing, but no one ever threatened you?

VS: Oh no, no, no.

SW: Or said you can not get promoted unless you do something.

VS: No, no, no never. One time I came close to having a commanding officer that would have tried it if I had not nipped it in the bud.

SW: Yeah, You were always able to control it.

VS: I always, and I think any women can. I don't really put to much stock in too much of it. I think the women can handle it themselves, but I know a lot of women that might disagree with that. I think that. Then I get sent to Great Lakes to Recruit Training, and I wasn't so sure about this.

SW: Now when was this?

VS: This was in about 19 well late fifties.

SW: So the war is over.

VS: The war was over when I was still in New Orleans.

SW: Tell me about V. E. Day?

VS: Well it was absolutely wonderful of course. There again you are into routine, and your life goes on almost the same. Of course we celebrated as much as we could. There was awful a lot of work still to be done.

SW: Do you remember when the soon after that the bomb was dropped.

VS: Yes that was horrible.

SW: What do you remember about that day? Did you all know it was? What did you know?

VS: Well you know we had to defend. A lot of people worried about it. Was it the right thing to do? Of course in the military you defended. To this day I think it saved all kinds of lives lots, lots more lives. I think it took a lot of courage for Mr. Truman to do it. You know he even bluffed them. He said after he did Nagasaki, he says, "if you don't hurry up and get with it I am going to drop another one." Of course he was lying because we did not have another one.

SW: Yeah

VS: Those were the only two we had.

SW: He dropped them. W.W.II you lost so many friends.

VS: I had. I had. You see you are in it, and you are grieving. My Staney was on duty. The night Fredrick Cecil went down on the Juno along with all of the Fellowman boys. He could not tell that. That is Frank's brother. He had to keep that. He couldn't tell that for a long time because it was not published. Of course you see now it has been so long, and we have had so many little inter things. Those were troubled times. We grew up in a hurry. I am still twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five years old.

SW: What would you say you still

VS: Then at that time

SW: Yes, you were a young woman.

VS: I was a young woman when all that was going on.

SW: With a lot of responsibility.

VS: With a great deal. I tell you one thing mother I celebrated my twenty-second birthday right after I had gotten to be a C. W. O., a Communication Watch Officer. Which means you were in charge of all communication for your watch. You have these teletype machines that go over the whole eighth naval district. Everybody has the same message going on. All of the sudden my little yeoman comes up, and here comes this telegram from mother. Twenty-two years ago today the stork brought me a precious package. It was my twenty-second birthday. Here the chief watch officer was humiliated beyond belief. I never lived it down.

SW: They teased you about it.

VS: They teased me about it unmercifully the whole time. You know stories like that get around throughout the navy.

SW: Did you tell your mom to knock it off.

VS: Oh I said, "Mother gracious have mercy". Mother said, "Viola Brown I don't care a thing about that."

SW: You were her precious package, and it did not matter.

VS: Listen I am telling you child after Staney. Staney at the age fifty-two was a very prominent lawyer. He died in his sleep of a massive heart attack up in Southern Pines, North Carolina playing golf. He was retired. I came back to Mississippi immediately. I had twenty-five years with my mother. She had arthritis in her legs, and she could not get out. She was so little. I could easily put her on my hip, and put her in the wheel chair and get her into the car. We rode. We went everywhere. We would stay on the first floor of motels. We would go out to eat. We would go to Grenada Lake. We were always going somewhere. We just had a wonderful time. We changed roles. I think my mother knew me for the first time. See I had left her when I was fifteen practically to go off to college. I left when I was nineteen to go off. Then I joined the Navy. Mother really got to know me the last twenty-five years of her life. She liked me.

SW: How did the war change you? Or did it change you or anyway? You know having be in all that responsibility. It must have been stressful I imagine at times.

VS: It gave me absolutely total supreme confidence in myself. I just felt like I could tackle the world. I think it has played over into my civic life after retirement. I have been able to accomplish things that I am proud of.

SW: After the war was over a lot of women who were WAVES quit the Navy.

VS: Yeah, you see everybody was going home. About 1948 everybody was going home. Then finally they decided look we don't know when this is going to happen again. We have never went over twenty-five years without a war. We want to keep around two hundred and eighty-eight. I even remember the exact number. I was blessed with that. Two hundred women, and they picked me. I turned it down. I really turned it down. I wanted to come back home and teach school.

SW: You had the calling.

VS: I had the calling. I wanted to go back home and teach or what else get married or whatever. Then they broke me again. I said okay. I guess the six weeks in between.

SW: Where were you? Were you still in New Orleans? Or were you back home?

VS: I was in Washington.

SW: You were in Washington. Okay let's step back. Where did you go from New Orleans?

VS: Okay after New Orleans this is where I think I really started getting it. I went to the Great Lakes Recruits. I went, and the I said to the commanding officer, "I will do anything sir, but teach ship and aircraft. I didn't know, I knew of ships I have seen. That is exactly what you were going to do. I had three days. I went without sleep. I got every tape that you could find. I got every book you could find. I had to learn the displacement of a battleship, the displacement of a cruiser, the displacement of a destroyer, the types of ammunition they had to use, and I had to learn F-14's, F-15's, and all these things. I had to learn silhouettes and everything. I had to learn P2V and Neptunes. I had to learn it, and I had to start teaching it to women recruits.

SW: My goodness

VS: Submarines, it was wonderful, and I loved it. Then I got promoted to battalion commander.

SW: While you were at Great Lakes?

VS: At Great Lakes, I was in charge of the troops. Then I got promoted to Regimental Commander. About that time the Navy decided they wanted to send the WAVES to Bambridge. So I was a lieutenant, and Washington says, "Lieutenant Viola Sanders will you please proceed to Bambridge, and advise the commanding officer on the needs and the administration, and the facilities for a whole WAVE regiment.

SW: Was this while the war was still going on?

VS: No the war was over. They decided that they wanted to keep a nucleus of women

SW: That was the two hundred and eighty-eight women.

VS: Women officers, and about five thousand enlisted women. To keep a nucleus where as if a war started because you know Germany then and Russia and all of this that we would not have to start the training all over again. We would keep this nucleus going. Now of course if women were not in the military, we would have to have the draft. That is the reason you don't hear the men fussing. They are thinking about having to start the draft anyway. I loved Great Lakes. It was absolutely wonderful.

SW: So the military was able to convince you to stay in. Even though you wanted to go home. How did they convince you?

VS: They convinced you as I say looking back maybe my plans didn't work out in that six week interval. Then I though well just try it a couple three weeks or three years or something, and see how it goes.

SW: So you signed up for an extend

VS: Signed up on another for another extend.

SW: And you just thought you would see how it would go.

VS: Then things just started happening. Loved Bambridge. I almost had a little problem with him, but it worked out okay. Then I go into Washington.

SW: That is the time you almost had the little problem with the

VS: With the C. O.. I get this wonderful duty in Japan.

SW: Let's back up. When you were in Washington what were your duties?

VS: Well I was just back in Washington from recruit training waiting for assignment.

SW: Oh you were waiting for assignment.

VS: That was the Japan tour.

SW: Oh great.

VS: With the Commander Air Force over in Japan. Of course I had a wonderful time. I lived in this wonderful little Japanese home of my own. I had Terrisaka to take care of me. I had a black cat without a tail. You know Japanese cats don't have tails. You know at the onset I told you I run the gamut in assignments. I had already been in communications, and I had already been in training. That was just wonderful. Through these portals pass the women of the greatest Navy on earth. My little flirky, that is the strangest thing as we were moving to Bambridge. We had to stay. We had the whole troops go a company at a time to Bambridge, and we stayed and closed up Great Lakes. We had this sign. While we were there, Ester Williams and Vivian Blain in "Guys and Dolls" came made the movie "Skirts Ahoy". I had to fool with all of that while I was moving the troops to

SW: Because the Navy helped them make that movie.

VS: Oh the Navy helped to make that movie. Ester Williams were just great. They were all great. Vivian Blain was leaving there and going straight to New York to make "Guys and Dolls", and she sent me tickets for front row. It was front seat to see "Guys and Dolls" on opening night.

SW: So did you go?

VS: They had it didn't they. In the Navy you know anybody ever said you going to the party tomorrow night. Down in Mississippi if anybody ever says are you going to the party. You say they are having it ain't they. So you bet I went. The Great Lakes was just wonderful. I enjoyed. Then I came back into Washington, and went over. I had a wonderful time in Japan. I made several trips to Hong Kong. Then I came back to Washington.

SW: About what year was this?

VS: I was in Japan until '55. I came into Washington, and they said, "Boy, are we ready for you." Admiral Bird came in and we had this wonderful office with him. Paul Siple, the name probably doesn't mean anything to you all, but it means a lot to me. His picture was on the cover of time. He was my dear sweet friend. We rode to work together. I read a letter he wrote me from the South Pole last night. I have got canceled stamps from the South Pole for Christmas and all kinds of things. He died with a massive heart attack. As a boy he went to the South Pole with Bird when he was a kid. Then he grew up and probably one of the leading geologists in the world. He was Bird's executive. He went down with Admiral Bird. I was the administrative officer the whole time.

SW: You came back from Japan and you position was what?

VS: It was administrative officer of the U. S. Anartic programs in the International geophysical year.

SW: How did you wind up in that? That seems so different from?

VS: I had just come back from Japan, and I had loads of administrative work experience. I had to start from scratch. I had to start with a new staff, budget, and they put us right next to Blair House. It was right across from the White House. For three years that was hard to live with I met everybody in the world the guy that climbed Everest first and everybody from "National Geographic" magazines, Dr. Grodman and all of them. Everybody was coming through there that had anything to do with exploration and the arctic or anarctic exploration. It was totally different. So you see my assignments everybody thinks if you have been in the Navy you had nothing but WAVES. Nothing could be farther from the truth than mine.

SW: Because you were no longer assigned to them?

VS: No, I had intelligence, communications, administration work, and personnel. One time I forgot about this. Well it is coming up. I was director of naval personnel for the whole fifth naval district up in North Carolina.

SW: When did the WAVES become fully integrated with the

VS: Oh we were fully integrated early on. WAVES disappeared from view in '48 I think.

SW: So right after the war you were regular navy?

VS: We were regular navy right away. The WAVES no longer pertained, but people kept calling us WAVES. Now we call them Navy Women. Of course one of the captains used to say women are very essential sometimes is what it really stood for. I got through Admiral Bird. That was wonderful to have a fitness report signed by Admiral Richard E. Bird in your record is pretty nice. That is when the director of women in the Navy called me Winnie Quick called me out of the blue and ask me if I would come and be her deputy director.

SW: Had you known her already?

VS: Very briefly. I had met her at a couple of parties, and she had invited a group to dinner. I guess she was looking at my table manners or what. I went over there, and I was her deputy. I started traveling around for her. One of the greatest things that ever happened to me in 1960 she had just married and just been abroad. We had the first NATO conference for women, ever in Copenhagen, Denmark. I went.

SW: You went in 1960.

VS: As a little old deputy

SW: What was that like?

VS: It was grand. Of course I was over there with the head of the Marines, head of the Army, and the head Air Force. I was supposed to be kind of quiet, but they got into a fickle. I love to tell this. This does sound self-serving, but it happened. Everybody wanted to know how the women in the United State ran their military operations. They talked and talked, and that was great. Well the third day somebody got up and says you all have mentioned. I don't know they probably had to translate it, but you know everybody can speak our language. It is embarrassing they have to speak English because us poor dumb people speak nothing but English. You all have not talked about the Reserve program for any of them. Well everybody looked at each other, and nobody had been prepared. Well I had just gone on a trip for Winnie up to Omaha, which is the center of our reserve, and I was welled schooled in it for the time being. So I could remember Mary Hallerin turned and looked at me and said do you know anything about the reserve program. I said yeah. Well she said please get up and go tell it. Well I got up (tape cut off)

Tape 2 Side B

VS: They probably didn't understand a word you said. It really was. I was so proud of me. They had ignored me as this little underling with all those stripes they had on. I came to the rescue.

SW: So NATO was trying to figure out how to incorporate?

VS: The women into because they were beginning to put their women you see into.

SW: US was one of the leaders.

VS: Indeed we were, but they used to tease me because when the Koreans were coming into town to try to found out to work. They would say every time Korean or foreigner would call you. You thought out loud. You would scream because you thought they would understand you better if you just scream at them. We had lovely Canadian officers come. That is how Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance played WAVES in one of their shows. I don't know if you have ever seen the reruns. So they called me the company whatever. We sent them uniforms. Well one day my yeoman came in and said, "Captain, Lucille Ball is on the line." So she says, "I am coming to Washington next week, and I want to pay you all back for your time and effort. Is there anything I can do for you?" I said, "You bet." Well she says, "Well I will be at the Plaza Hotel. You call me." I did, and I got a good-looking little ensign, a good-looking little seaman, and a WAVE woman chief. The four of us went to the Plaza Hotel, and spent the whole afternoon with Lucille Ball. I took my recruiting people, and she made all kinds of naval reserve things for us. We called it propaganda. I have millions of pictures of her and me. We just had a grand time. She had orange hair, and she was just as down to earth. She was just lovely.

SW: You were both red heads.

VS: That is exactly right.

SW: You had a lot in common. Well let's back up because at this point you were already a captain. But when you were talking about when you were at NATO

VS: I was a commander.

SW: You were a commander.

VS: Guess how many commanders we had in the Navy? When I was a commander in the Navy guess how many women commanders? I am not talking Medical Core. I am not talking about nurses. I am not talking Supply Core. I am talking women of the line. We had four. When I was promoted to commander we had four.

SW: How did you celebrate?

VS: God we went to the Chinese place of course. I went so much. I got to know the proprietor. He owned the darn thing long with World Com. I was invited to their gorgeous home. I fell down one time. They had a step down, and I fell and busted my knee. I tore my hose at his house. I don't know why I brought that up.

SW: What Chinese place?

VS: The Golden Parrot on Connecticut Avenue. It was the place to go. It was gorgeous. Especially on a New Year you know you kind of, and here all this little country girl from the Sidon Junction, MS population four hundred and twenty-one having the time of her life. Then I went to the NATO conference. I came back, and one day Winnie Quick said, "I am going to recommend you for my job when I retire."

SW: Did you know she had been grooming you?

VS: No, but she said, "I can't let you come from here the deputy into here. We have to send you off for a while. Where would you like to go?" They had a beautiful golf course. I loved to play golf in Norfolk, VA. I had a bunch of buddies down there. So I went to Norfolk for a year and played golf.

SW: What was your assignment while you were in Norfolk?

VS: I was director of naval personnel for the whole eight states.

SW: Man that is an incredible job.

VS: Well it is not as impressive as it sounds.

SW: It sounds good.

VS: It had to do with the reserve, and we had to travel a lot. We had to be sure that each area had its reserve people because we could not do with out the reserve and the National Guard. I had lots of record keeping. I had a huge staff, but a lot of it was administrative work. It was a responsible job. I got to know the Admirals and all. You know Norfolk had gorgeous Admiral's row. That stood me in good stead because when I got to Washington as "The Big She" as they call it. I knew these Admirals, and that did help. Anyway to the top we are getting to the end of this now. One day they did call me from Norfolk and said come in for interviews. I thing there were seven or eight of us being interviewed. The Secretary of the Navy, Brad Core, well there was a lot of talk about here the first director of the WAVES was the president of Wesley, Mildred Mckaveheart. The second director of the WAVES was the president of Barnett College. The third director had two masters from Holyo. My predecessor had two masters' degrees from Stanford, and here they have this little girl who went to teachers college in rural Mississippi. I said, "Mr. Secretary I know all those ladies they are good friends of mine. I can assure you my usage of the English language just as impeccable as theirs are. I probably quote more Shakespeare than they can. I have got one thing that they had never had, or they will never have. That is a southern accent. Anyway I was going to tell you about my lesson in humility.

SW: It was that impressive.

VS: Well I hope so. After I got the job, I was coming home to Mississippi on leave because I had been working hard. I was tired. I had moved.

SW: You just gotten your promotion to

VS: To captain the only captain in the United States Navy. I was the only one. When I retired I was the senior woman in the Navy.

SW: That is amazing

VS: It was. It is. When I think about it even now old lady. Anyway here is my greatest lesson in humility. I love to tell this on me. I was driving home, and I have not been on an airplane since I retired. I had two real bad crash. I crashed with Winnie in a trainer at Logan Airport in Boston. The plane was torn up, but neither one of us was hurt. On my way to Japan the plane lost some engines, and we landed at Wake Island. I don't want that third one. I am driving to Sidon, and I get to Mississippi State line. I am beginning to see these little signs, "Welcome V. B. S. ". I thought mother's public relations. As I get to Leflore County "Welcome V. B. S." it is everywhere. It was on the marquee and everywhere you look. I thought, "Well I guess you must be a celebrity just enjoy it." Well I live next door to the Baptist church. I drove into my lawn, and they're these little Baptists running around. I said, "Honey that is Vacation Bible School." I could not wait to I get back to Washington and tell that story on myself. Is not that wonderful?

SW: That would have been, were

VS: My mother

SW: She still thought you were your precious thing, and she didn't care that you were a captain.

VS: She couldn't have cared. All of the reporters had been to see her. She was out in her garden. She loved flowers. She would always say, "You have to go and talk to her brother. I don't know one thing about all of this." They all went up to Greenwood, and talked to Staney.

SW: He was proud of you.

VS: Oh he adored me and vices versa. Well kids you have heard the story of my life.

SW: Oh now we haven't heard all the story of your life.

VS: I have been as busy since my retirement in 1966 as I ever was in the Navy.

SW: Why did you decide to retire in '66?

VS: I had to. I had to go back in ranks. See I was the only captain. As a matter of fact one of the women who had been captain decided to stay on, and she had to revert to commander. I said not this one. I had been in everything, and I had been everywhere. It was time.

SW: It was time to retire.

VS: I was forty-five years old.

SW: You retired in North Carolina?

VS: And I went down to North Carolina. I had been through there on some vacations, and I saw those beautiful golf courses.

SW: When did you take up golf because you didn't do that as a little girl did you?

VS: I tell you when I took up golf. When I was growing up that is one thing I forgot to tell you in Sidon. Scott Ware had this huge pasture for his cows, and he made a nine-hole golf course out of this pasture. We never had to buy any tees. All of us kids grew up learning to play golf out in Scott and his daddy and uncle were great golfers. One of them won state champion at one time. They built this. They had the greens made with sand. We learned how to play golf. I played golf throughout the whole Navy. I was quite a good golfer. I had lots of tournaments. That is another thing we got intramural. We had those things. I got a lot of pictures of me playing in the Navy.

SW: You had a lot of people competing I guess?

VS: Yeah, we had tournaments and everything. We just fully got with it.

SW: So you wanted to retire in North Carolina to the golf course?

VS: Yeah

SW: And you stayed there

VS: I stayed there until my brother died until I came home.

SW: All this time you are traveling around, were you coming back to Sidon?

VS: Oh on vacation, whenever I could. I was always. You know I have told everybody I moved and moved and moved and moved while I was in the Navy, and the greatest move I have ever made in my life was coming back to my root. My life is totally different from what it would have been had I stayed up with the city lights. I am back down there. I am back into my church a lot more. I am back into my roots, and people I know and love. I would not take anything in the world for being back home.

SW: So you don't miss D. C. or the cities?

VS: No, I have not even been back.

SW: Really

VS: Never laid a foot in Washington since.

SW: Now the years you came back in '66 there was some big changes going on in Mississippi that you were hearing about from afar. What were you hearing?

VS: Well mother was still writing, but not a whole lot. Now every sentence she wrote was piffy. She would run. She obvisouly would go down the pew in church. I know how Ms. Gill was. You know when I first got back I would get them in the car. I had Ms. Lula up here. I had Ms. Woods back here and mother. Mother would be sitting next to me. They were all deaf. They would all say, "Viola Brown what did she say?" Mother would say something. Ms. Lula would say, "What did Viola say?" Well I was going into the Baskin Robinns to get them all. They would say, "I want five malted milks." They were screaming. I went groceries shopping with all of them. That was my life when I got back. I was never away from mother. I would go out in the morning and play nine holes of golf while she was getting bathed and dressed and everything. Rest of my life until she died was devoted totally to her. I joined to nothing, and got into nothing until after she died in '88. Then I got busy.

SW: Well there was a small revolution that took place in Mississippi between say 1955 and 1965. You were off in Japan part of that time.

VS: People were talking about Mississippi then as they do now. They thought, "down here we just had the bird dogs and whippings." All you do is disavow. I loved it. I can not help thinking when everybody saw how I loved it, and what my attitude toward all of this was. That I had to someway diminished the onslaw of what was in the papers and all of that stuff. I really got into it in a lot of ways because Frank Smith was one of my favorite people in the world. Frank was just

SW: Frank was one of

VS: He was a Congressman, and they redid. They redistricted him out of Congress.

SW: You correct me if my history is wrong. My understanding of his redistricting out of Congress was that Frank Smith was just a bit too progressive for some folks.

VS: He was progressive.

SW: He was progressive.

VS: That is exactly right. He was ahead of his time.

SW: He was the only Congressman, he voted for a lot of things that people didn't.

VS: Of course.

SW: He was also very progressive.

VS: He was very close to the Kennedy. Kennedy put him on TVA. You know how people felt about the Kennedy's then.

SW: So you were

VS: I would come, and Staney would say. My brother was just as conservative as can be. How we came out of the same womb, only God knows. He was a total conservative. As is his wife right now. That is right. I am not one of these people in the Christian right who thinks if you don't agree with what I say, you are going to hell. I do have. I have to tell you all this. My favorite bumper sticker that I have had until I can not find them anymore. I had one on my car forever. Everybody is entitled to my opinion. That is it. I have learned to listen to others. I have changed my opinion. I am not one of those that I have to be right about everything. I am not a screaming liberal. I have eleven little precious Afro-American children that live close to me. Sidon is by far more black than white. They think I am their grandmother. The little two, three, and four year olds think I am their grandmother. We just get along grand. I know them all, Demaris, Markeith, and Chandrikan, Kareniecha. They are just precious.

SW: Now the Navy and military in general is probably one of the most progressive institutions for equalizing roles among males, females, blacks, and whites.

VS: I know what it is to be discriminated against. We fought tooth and toenail. The idea of being for women commanders in the Navy with the jobs we were doing it was disgraceful. I have a favorite word I use on occasion. It was obscene. I know what discrimination is, and I am against it in any regard. I am also against any excuses for what I am. I think all this stuff about I was abused and all of this. That is bad. Mother taught me early on in life, and it has certainly helped me to cope. I was young. She would say, "You can look up and down on both sides of the roads, but all houses regardless of who lives there, nothing happens to anybody that doesn't happen in someway on the same level to everybody else." We all are going to have lots lot's and lots bumps. God comes in clouds. He never tells you that he isn't going to give you trouble. He tells you he is going to be with you in that trouble. As Paul says and I am a student of Paul as much as probably anybody. I know Paul. In strength you grow, you grow, you grow. The more you slap down. I don't care who you are. I preach this and tell this. As I say everyone is entitled to my opinion. A lot of people do not agree with me, but I respect that to. I have lots of opinions.

SW: That is wonderful. I was wondering if it was ever hard?

VS: It was hard. My brother, I would come home, and we would go some where all of us out. Staney would kind of apologize for me. He says you remember Viola has been up east with all of those Liberal newspapers. You know the Washington Post. I still take the Washington Post. They were all not grieving over Jack Kennedy or anything like that. They knew I was in a ficanato of all the Kennedys. Right now most of my friends are very conservative republicans. That is fine. I still love them. They vote for whom they want to vote, and I vote for whom I want to vote. As I told them I am going to vote for whoever promises me in the presidential election campaign reform. My crusade right now I am so tired of political action committees and those Gucci loafer lobbyists controlling the government. That I don't know what to do.

SW: I bet you saw a few of those in Washington.

VS: Oh they run it. I am not going to start talking about my Mississippi Senators because they might not give us any money. I am crazy about Thad Cochran.

SW: There has been a lot in the newspapers lately. I always wonder especially most people I know who are in the military because it was such a leveling institution. It was very merit oriented. You either made it or you did not.

VS: That is exactly right. It was very disciplined.

SW: Do you think that affected you, or did you think you already had that?

VS: Oh I already had that.

SW: So you found an institution that you kind of fit in.

VS: It fit in. That is right. You had to be as good as you could be. Sometimes you had to be a little better. If you have a calling, you are a little better than you really are with a calling. I think, Mother used to say "Reach for a star, and sometimes you might grab a comet." You never know.

SW: You said that things have been very different since 1988 after your mother passed away.

VS: Well I have been active.

SW: Tell me about that.

VS: Well people laugh and say that there is no committee that I am not on. I have been teased lately about my picture in the paper all of the time. They ask if I have my own personal photographer. I say I absolutely not. I am just where the action is. We are building a monument. I want to help build it. We got a museum, and I want to help the museum. My church, I am very active in church. I teach the adult Sunday school Class. I work at it. I study it. We just studied the book of Romans, and I studied several hours on that for weeks of time.

SW: So you still enjoy teaching?

VS: Oh I love teaching.

SW: I imagine these twelve little children I bet you are doing a lot of teaching to them.

VS: Oh child their grade, of course you grease it up with a little money. I know how to motivate. Their grades, recently at Fred's Dollar Store they must have been trying to get rid of some merchandise they had these packs four books for a dollar. Dickens' Great Expectations, Last of the Mohiechans, David Copperfield, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I bet I bought twenty of those four packs. Every one of my children in all of Sidon have been through the whole. They would come over there some days. I am back in my back room with my television, and I don't hear the door. So they come, and I have this window. They never look in, but they come and knock on my window. I know it is one of my grandchildren or one of their friends. If it happens that I could go I go the front. I told them if I don't show up in three seconds then go. They come down and tell me how many chapters they have read. We sing songs. As a matter of fact we got twins named Danderin and Kenderin, and I brand new little one year old named Viderin. I don't know whether it is named for me or not. I doubt it.

SW: It could be.

VS: Have I told you everything you need to know.

SW: You haven't begun to tell me you know. I think you have some important things. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you really wanted to be sure you told people? They will be reading this one hundred years from now.

VS: I just think that I am a very good example of being anything you can be. You don't have a bunch of money. You don't have to have a bunch of power. You don't have to come from a big city. You don't have to know any very important people. As I go back to my childhood just love everybody and behave yourself. You know when we read Paul, all these variation on conscience and attitude and all of this. Saint Augustine says love God and do anything you want. You are going to do right. You really work hard. I tell those kids. I tell everybody I know, travel through life with a dictionary at your feet. Kids you are going out there in a global world. It is going to be tough. I teach the young men in my church every day that they come in and shake my hand and look me straight in the face. I say now the job interview go in their full of confidence and shake hands and look up and know your vocabulary. Vocabulary can make the difference. Learn those words. Anything I can do to help them.

SW: Sounds like great note to stop on.

VS: Well I haven't been to Great Lakes a week when President Nixon decided he wanted to bring the whole regiment to Philadelphia for Arms Forces Day.

SW: Oh my your regiment

VS: The whole regiment. That is all battalians. That is everything you got. There I am this tall, skinny girl.

SW: You were Patillian Commander right?

VS: I haven't started yet. They made me what you call the Right Guide. You stand right in front of the whole troops that determine the line of march. Well after the parade was over the Marshall came to my commanding officer and said, "What in the world" This story is enhanced. "What in the world was wrong with your Right Guard. It looked as if she was left stepping, right stepping, right marching. One time I saw her do it to the practically do it to the rear march." My commanding officer looked him straight in the face and said, "I can see sir that you have never paraded behind the Calvary." We had a whole horse regiment parading in front of us. We were side stepping. I wrote that up for the Naval Academy. They bought it and paid me for it. I have in my possession given to me by the executive officer at Bambridge long after I have left there the Guide On carried in both John Kennedy's inaugural parade and in his funeral persession. I have it. I was saving it for the day I could give it to John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. for his Library. Oh I grieved over that.

SW: That family has had some tragedy.

VS: Oh haven't they. You know what that has made them stronger. They can take it like nothing you have ever saw. That was one of my favorite people in the United State's Navy was Admiral Ricola.

SW: Oh really.

VS: Okay the Navy could not stand Admiral Ricola because he got all the money for the submarines. I was Winnie's deputy, and I had to go to Boston on a field trip. We were fleet testing as we call it a brand new summer uniform. I have one in Cottonlandia right now. It is pretty light blue. I was walking through the cafeteria, and Admiral Ricola walks up to me and says, "Commander do you need another button on that jacket." I said yes sir. We got to talking. Anyway he was exactly right. When we got all the reports came in unanimously we needed another button on the jacket. Well I called Admiral Ricola to tell him. Well from that day forward I could do no wrong.

SW: You known a lot of very important people.

VS: Not only that I fell in love with the British Ambassador. I have a precious letter, and I read it last night. I have the coin. The letter said, He always called me Britannia. Because I was the ruler of the WAVES. He says enclosing coin with your picture on it. I was Britannia the whole time the Ruler of the WAVES.

SW: Some times we need to interview you and ask you about all of these naval personnel that you have known. In fact I am sure the Navy at some point is going to interview you. They have their own Oral History Program, and I am sure at some point they will interview you.

VS: We only had eight directors of the WAVES before they decided that we were so totally integrated.

SW: Were you the last director?

VS: No, but I was the last one who was the only Captian. See we changed the restrictions. That was the only reason I could retire as the Senior. Well I would have retired as the Senior Caption anyway. The next women director by the time she was Caption she was still Senior but we had many other Captions. Now we even have a three star admiral.

SW: Yes that is right.

VS: I met them. I went to Norfolk to the fiftieth anniversary. They knew my name. I was proud of that. I said you realize you know that Tennison was my favorite person. "To strive, To seek, To find, and not to yield." "Follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utlimous bound of human thought." Do you know how we strived for you? They do. They realized. They knew it was hard.

SW: They do? Well that is good.

VS: You know it is not a bed of roses for them now. It is not a bed of roses in broadcasting that is a woman or you don't see many women in the Glass Ceiling on Wall Street.

SW: Well they certainly don't own banks yet.

VS: Yet we are the wealthiest. Women are far wealthier than men are. We own a lot more money and stock.

SW: Probably yeah. They don't seem to control a lot of the destruction stuff.

VS: I get right today. I get duns every day from this Memorial and this Memorial. The Women's Memorial and the Men's Memorial and the Lone Sailor. You look down the letterhead and there is one token woman on the committee. I ain't the token on any of my committees I will tell you.

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