Sarah Marshall and Patricia Marshall

[00:00] SARAH MARSHALL: Thursday, September 2, 2021. I'm 57 years old, and I'm here with my mom, Sarah Sarah Patricia Marshall. She goes by Pat, and she is my mom, and she is 93 years old. And we're going to be talking today about her young adult life, where she lived in Jackson, Mississippi, and talking about world War two and her memories of World War two. So, mom, I have my first question for you, is when you first remembered or first recalled that there was a war, that we were going to war, what did you, were you in school when you heard that? Were you at home with your parents? What was the first thing you thought of when you heard that we were going to war?

[00:52] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I just remember, it seemed to me like I was at church. We did a, in those days, we were, went to church a lot.

[01:02] SARAH MARSHALL: So you might have been at church and was the pastor talking about it.

[01:05] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Then, or did I think he must have been. And my older brother was in. Your uncle Dan was in service.

[01:17] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay.

[01:18] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: So he was already service. He had not gone to service or he did go before the war started.

[01:24] SARAH MARSHALL: Before the war started, he was in the.

[01:26] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. Army Air force. It was army air. And when the army. The army air force. Is that what. Army air Corps.

[01:36] SARAH MARSHALL: Army Air Corps, yeah. Okay. So. So do you remember, like, when he first got the message that he needed.

[01:43] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: To go, he, he went on his own? He didn't have to. He was not a drag draft or anything. But I, it was not an easy time for young people, I guess, growing up. And he had a, my daddy was pretty hard on him.

[02:04] SARAH MARSHALL: Was he already out of high school or was he still in high school?

[02:06] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He finished high school. And so then he, and he was, during his high school years, he had worked at a mechanic shop.

[02:17] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay.

[02:18] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: There was a man in our church that owned mechanic shop, and he had worked from him when he was, you know, younger, maybe even in, probably in high school, but maybe at that time, I don't know whether we had junior high school or not.

[02:42] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you, do you remember when he, did you all go to, like, the train station to see him off or where did you go to? Do you remember saying goodbye to him?

[02:52] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And I'm not sure I remember that. I would have thought I would remember that, but I don't.

[02:59] SARAH MARSHALL: And then did, while he was gone, did you, were you able to write letters to him?

[03:05] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yes. And, and we also, I remember he probably gave us some other people to write to. I remember him writing one time and telling my sister, who was two years younger, that she was being silly. I don't know what she had done. But we wrote a lot of letters during that time to service people that you knew or just that we didn't know, but we lived like three or four blocks from a main street that came into Jackson, and we would go over there when they would have soldiers, people coming in to, and they would throw out their names and addresses and we'd get it in. I think we didn't have to put a stamp for some or another, because I'm thinking that we didn't have any money. I wondered where we got money to get this. Maybe it didn't cost anything. I don't know. There'd be something interesting to find out or if maybe, you know, they. Well, I can tell by the address, but we wrote to a lot of people.

[04:20] SARAH MARSHALL: You and Aunt Dow.

[04:22] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, I know I did. I'm not sure.

[04:24] SARAH MARSHALL: And your girlfriends?

[04:25] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah, girlfriends.

[04:26] SARAH MARSHALL: So how old were you about that time?

[04:29] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I probably was maybe 8th or 9th grade.

[04:34] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay, so still pretty young.

[04:36] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah.

[04:36] SARAH MARSHALL: And Uncle Dan was how many years older than you?

[04:41] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Four.

[04:42] SARAH MARSHALL: Four. So. And so would y'all wait for his letters to come?

[04:49] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Would it.

[04:49] SARAH MARSHALL: Would you, would grandmother get the letters and you all read them, or how would y'all?

[04:54] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And it kind of was like maybe when anything happened, the whole neighborhood knew it. You know, if somebody got a letter, if you got a letter, you were waiting to hear if your brother or your son, Washington being moved or where he was going, you know, when they knew, everybody knew, kept up with each other.

[05:17] SARAH MARSHALL: So do you remember if granddaddy and grandma, if they were, how they felt about him going off to war? Were they proud? Were they scared? Were they.

[05:29] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, they were, but it was. I don't even like to talk about this. He left after he had had an argument with my daddy.

[05:42] SARAH MARSHALL: Granddaddy. Yeah. Well, did a lot of his uncle Dan's friends go to.

[05:49] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: A lot of them joined at that age.

[05:52] SARAH MARSHALL: And was he, was he in boot camp somewhere in the United States before he.

[05:57] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I'm not sure about that. I just. It seemed to me like he left, and now I can't remember. He was. I know he was supposed to come home on leave, and I don't know how long he had been in whatever boot camp, but anyhow, he was coming home and my granddaddy died.

[06:21] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay.

[06:21] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And so mother and daddy decided not to let him know because he was coming home, and I was left at home to wait for somebody to answer, somebody to come into town to take them out into the country where the service, funeral service was going to be, and the telegram came, then they delivered them. A person. Yeah, it was a telegram saying his leave had been canceled. So then he never, he didn't get to come. He never got to see him again.

[07:08] SARAH MARSHALL: And where was he, where was he stationed? I know who's in the arm? Army Air Corps.

[07:15] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I forget one of the first places. But then I think he ended up in California. I have to think when he was.

[07:23] SARAH MARSHALL: Was hedged stationed somewhere in Europe or was he on aircraft carrier?

[07:27] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He was, uh, you know, flew. Okay, so I don't know where they flew. Right. Do you remember where he flew out? He was in Aleutians, but he was trained out in California somewhere and then sent to the illusion. That's right.

[07:44] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, um, so just like, which, since you were in school, did, would they have, you know, updates in school or how do you remember hearing about news about the war? Did y'all sit around that? Did y'all listen? And.

[07:58] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No, I guess it was the radio. Mainly the radio. Cause we didn't have tv then, and it was sad because whenever you saw it makes me cry. It's okay that you saw what? The telegrams, they came by somebody on a bicycle. So when you saw.

[08:27] SARAH MARSHALL: No, you knew that what was, what was going on? Well, look, let's change, let's change topics into some of the happy times. So when did you, when did you know the war was over? When did you know that? Like, when did, like, Uncle Ray went and came back?

[08:44] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah.

[08:44] SARAH MARSHALL: And when I. Did he go after Uncle Dan was gone? Did Uncle Ray go before Uncle Dan?

[08:53] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah, he went soon after he left.

[08:55] SARAH MARSHALL: And so do you remember seeing him off or not?

[09:00] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Not really. I can't. I don't even know. Like, remember telling both of them goodbye? Anything? I'm trying to.

[09:12] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you remember when he came home? When Uncle Ray came home?

[09:15] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah.

[09:16] SARAH MARSHALL: And did you go to, like, the train station to welcome him home or do he.

[09:25] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I'm not even sure how he got home. I guess he got on by bus. I don't know. I can't remember.

[09:32] SARAH MARSHALL: And then. So did you have a lot of other classmates that were also gone, like brothers of your girlfriends?

[09:44] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I'm sure. I'm sure they did. There were number in our neighborhood, like my good friend's brothers that were in service.

[09:56] SARAH MARSHALL: So how was, how were things different during that time, like, from just in the neighborhood? And, I mean, I know you talked about the knowing that the telegrams were coming, but how did you know? I mean, like, did you all. You went to school like you normally.

[10:14] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Did, but I think what did maybe the church played a big part because we had services on Wednesday night. But Daniel also, uh, worked with the preacher. He did a lot.

[10:33] SARAH MARSHALL: What did he do?

[10:34] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He drove him.

[10:35] SARAH MARSHALL: Oh, okay.

[10:36] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Take him places. He was his driver, like, from maybe the time he was in about the 8th or, you know, whenever he would. He might have even gotten his driver's license early. I don't even know then what.

[10:52] SARAH MARSHALL: How old.

[10:52] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: How we have to be then.

[10:54] SARAH MARSHALL: Um. So did.

[10:56] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And did.

[10:57] SARAH MARSHALL: During that time, did. Did grandmother drive. Am I remembering this right? The grandmother went to, um. Like, went to work during that time.

[11:06] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I think that was when she was after the war. I think it was during the war that she.

[11:12] SARAH MARSHALL: During the war, she went to the overall factory.

[11:14] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. Because.

[11:15] SARAH MARSHALL: Because there was a need for.

[11:18] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. They. They were begging to. A lot of people came in from the country, and I don't know whether my cousin Ethel and Grace, who married another one of my cousins at that time, they. I think they both lived with us for a little while. We had someone living with us just because people. Just a room. Yeah.

[11:49] SARAH MARSHALL: Just to make.

[11:50] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. I don't know how. I've wondered since how we went to the bathroom, but I'm not even sure bathroom was. Well, it was in mother's and daddy's room. Y'all don't remember? Yeah.

[12:03] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah.

[12:03] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Do you? You know how you. But I know they stayed in the front room, and that house always had the two doors. People always thought that was odd, but it was. Cause daddy, I don't know why. Well, I do know it. Why is because they rented that room for a long time, and so they had a separate. Yeah, before. Before we were. It was a porch. You don't remember? Well, you came up on the porch and there was a door here and a door here. It was a shotgun house. You know how the houses in New Orleans, they called, shot like three rooms? Well, daddy's brother lived across the street, so I guess they had bought. His brother bought this house across the street, and he bought this little house, and then later on when he got married, he added the room out. Y'all don't remember it, do you?

[13:04] SARAH MARSHALL: I kind of. I mean, I sort of like, from.

[13:06] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: The middle bedroom, they added a door and put a room and put a bathe. We didn't at first have a toilet. Well, and I don't think so did.

[13:20] SARAH MARSHALL: So you.

[13:20] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: When.

[13:21] SARAH MARSHALL: When you first met dad, you. When y'all were in junior college, you know, he had just come back from service.

[13:30] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. Was that an attraction? Yeah, we had a ball, didn't we? Do you remember thinking over here where I can see you, can't see you over there. You're making me look at the light.

[13:46] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you, do you remember, were there a lot of boys at the junior college that had come from, that were in this had been in the service?

[13:55] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: There were a lot to came back. Yeah.

[13:57] SARAH MARSHALL: And so do you remember thinking, oh, he's a man in uniform, but he wasn't wearing his uniform when you first met him, though.

[14:08] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: That light over there is bothering me. That one. I'm trying to remember when I first saw you or you waited on my table. Is that what it was?

[14:21] SARAH MARSHALL: So he was, he was, you were serving meals. This was at Hines, this at junior high school.

[14:27] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: When we were down there, we had to do this ever so many, maybe a month at a time. I don't know whether we did it two months.

[14:36] SARAH MARSHALL: You had to be a wait wait person.

[14:38] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Everybody had to work. A lot of the kids that came there had to work farm to pay their tuition. I was lucky. And daddy could pay.

[14:50] SARAH MARSHALL: He could, he could pay your tuition.

[14:53] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: But we still had to work. Everybody had to work. Okay, so I don't know how many, how many weeks out of the year, but everybody had to work as well as.

[15:07] SARAH MARSHALL: Did you get to choose what, what job you had?

[15:10] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, I think we all had to work on tables. You had different things. Maybe. I'm trying to think of what else I did.

[15:19] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah.

[15:20] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: So we're like all kind of job like. Well, I don't know if we did janitorial where we might have had to do some of that, but we did. I know the men, the boys would do a lot of outside work, you know, tree trimming, because that, that would cause our. It didn't cost a lot to go to school.

[15:47] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you remember how much.

[15:50] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: It was? Not much.

[15:52] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay.

[15:53] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I would say maybe, maybe less than $100 a year or something.

[15:58] SARAH MARSHALL: That's pretty.

[15:59] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: But. Well, because we didn't, my family didn't have it, except my daddy was such a, what do you call people that don't spend their money? He was cheapskate.

[16:16] SARAH MARSHALL: No, he was, he was frugal.

[16:19] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He really would. And it was like it was always his money. So when I was in about the, I think 9th and 10th grade, mother went to work. It's overall factory, you know, which was just around the corner and which a lot of them, my friends mothers work there. Seemed like most of my girlfriends didn't have a daddy. I was lucky I had a daddy, really, even though he was very sick. We, you know, so back then, I remember, you know, one of my Marjorie, one of my very best friends for years, and then she and her husband were friends of ours. They're no longer here. But afterwards, her daddy had left them and the mother, they lived behind us in a little shotgun house. And about four families lived in those three rooms in the one house at one, one time. But her mother had a little garden. My daddy had a garden. So they methadore back on the back.

[17:33] SARAH MARSHALL: So did you during the war, did you have then, since you had a garden, did you have.

[17:38] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: We had a garden. We had a good garden. We also had a cow at that time. You could have. Not very many, Adam, but we had a cow. And we take her around. We had to walk around the block and go back and put her in this lot behind our house part of the time.

[18:03] SARAH MARSHALL: So she was a dairy cow.

[18:06] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. I never, when it got to be my time to milk, I was not very good, but they outlawed having animals in town when I was in the 12th grade. So you were up until that time. But we had a, that cow produced a lot of milk. And I churn, you know, I've got the churn in there that I churned. And we would, you know, have. At that time, we didn't have a refrigerator. We just had a little ice box. So any milk or anything, you know, like that we had left over, you'd share it.

[18:49] SARAH MARSHALL: Share with the neighbors. So you talked about the, the church. It was at the baptist church there. Or was it a Presbyterian church?

[18:58] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Okay. And it was around. About behind where our house. It was on Congress. It was on President street. Okay. Just right there and down the church and the manse.

[19:10] SARAH MARSHALL: So I'm gonna ask you one more question about. So when you first met dad, was he, did he go by Freddie or had he.

[19:17] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No, he went by Raydhe. Yeah.

[19:20] SARAH MARSHALL: His name is Freddie Ray Marshall. But he wasn't going by Freddie at that.

[19:24] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No, I don't think I knew Freddie.

[19:27] SARAH MARSHALL: He hid that name from you.

[19:29] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No.

[19:32] SARAH MARSHALL: So back to, like, thinking about during the time of the war. Do you remember when you heard that the war had ended? I mean, were people.

[19:45] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Seems to me like it was on Sunday, so it was kind of wild and there was a lot of noise going on.

[19:53] SARAH MARSHALL: And do you remember here? Did you hear it from friends or people or did you hear it from the radio or did you.

[19:59] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I guess we just heard it from the radio or, you know, people talking. Yeah. You know, you did it back then. You didn't. I don't even know if we had a telephone or not. I can't remember when we got a telephone.

[20:13] SARAH MARSHALL: So were there other memories to you just during that. Specifically the wartime that kind of stood out to you?

[20:22] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I know we when it was over, we went up to concrete street. Everybody. It was just, you know, people were all out celebrating. Yeah. I can't remember what time of the day we found out about it. I used to know all that.

[20:40] SARAH MARSHALL: And then was it off? Was then was it just joyful because so many people. Yeah.

[20:45] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Everybody got out. We wobble up on town, up on, you know, which wasn't too far from the house, so and then did people.

[20:53] SARAH MARSHALL: Come back pretty, um pretty quickly from the war?

[20:57] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah, some people did, but I took yeah, I can't remember too much about people coming back.

[21:07] SARAH MARSHALL: When you first met dad, did he talk about his experiences on the ship?

[21:13] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Some. He might. But you didn't talk a lot about it. Or you didn't want me to ask you questions about it, did you?

[21:23] SARAH MARSHALL: Huh?

[21:24] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No. Well, um so that light is bothering me. Maybe I pulled up something. Maybe I should sit over there.

[21:35] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, we're still doing our interview, so we keep going. But so what other what other lessons just from war in general now that you've lived through a number of them?

[21:49] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: What did I learn?

[21:50] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah. What do you just what do you want this, since this is an interview, that. What would you want people to know or what would you want people to.

[21:57] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Just in general, to try to get along. There's no point spending all that money. And losing all those lives and things and and it just ruins everything.

[22:09] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah.

[22:11] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: How many wars now have I lived through?

[22:14] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, there's been a what?

[22:15] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: They keep on having them, so, yeah.

[22:17] SARAH MARSHALL: They keep on having them.

[22:18] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah.

[22:19] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, um, are there, um, other things about, like, when you went to work. Did you go to work during the I worked.

[22:32] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I think I must have started. I'd have to figure out. You had to be, I think, 14 or 15. And I went to work for a ten cent store. What they called a ten cent store. Uh huh.

[22:49] SARAH MARSHALL: A dime store.

[22:50] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And I think I probably made $2 a week. I worked some after school. And on Saturday. And Saturday, it was, like, from early in the morning to late at night.

[23:10] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you remember, like, what were the things that were for sale in there? What what kind of things were for sale in there?

[23:18] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, one funny thing that happened to they had a candy section. It was, like, about ten shells. It was a nice section of that store. And I was working in it one time. And this wreck came out, got into candy and this other girl and I were trying to get it out, and we made. Caused a big disturbance. And they almost fired us because we didn't just let the rat go. But anyway, we had candy. I think we broke some cases and ate some candy. It was a big rash. They thought we should just let it go. Well, it was, you know, people not gonna want to come in there and buy candy, but they did. People wanted candy more there because for a while, we didn't have candy and stuff you didn't during the war, a lot of stuff you didn't have, like candy. But now I can't. I can't. I just can remember that. But what? One thing we had was popcorn, y'all.

[24:33] SARAH MARSHALL: You saw popcorn?

[24:34] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. And with the candy. Okay, so. But they got bought. Got the manager got mad at us. Cause we were kids. Made a disturbance.

[24:50] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you remember what you did with the money?

[24:53] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, it was only made, like, maybe $2 a week. On Saturday. I bought probably a whole pair of hose or something with them because I didn't have very much clothes. The only thing I had was what mother made.

[25:10] SARAH MARSHALL: And she made all your.

[25:11] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: She made my clothes or hand me.

[25:14] SARAH MARSHALL: Downs from other of your cousins?

[25:19] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. Yeah, we all. We place clothes, so it's always kind of funny you say, that used to be mine. Maybe you wouldn't see it for a year or two. Then you'd see some, you know, maybe another family would have.

[25:34] SARAH MARSHALL: But that did people. Did you. That make you feel good rather than, you know, were people? That was common. So people weren't embarrassed to be.

[25:43] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: No. And we made. People made their clothes. Luckily, mother made ours. She. Someone had given her an old coat. It was a light gray coat. I think I've told you about this.

[25:57] SARAH MARSHALL: I don't know.

[25:58] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And so she made me a little jacket. It was light gray, and she had got it made, and she had had the lining basted in. And it was basted in with red thread, which I thought was pretty, like it wasn't completed. But she got sick and had to go. I think she got appendicitis, and she didn't finish it. And the little coat was just basted. The gray part in it was basted with red thread. I think I've told you all this.

[26:32] SARAH MARSHALL: But I think that sounds kind of pretty.

[26:34] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, it did look pretty. It was gray with the red thread. You know, Gray is not good for kids, you know. Anyhow. But somebody had given her a coat, and she made me this. And then she had. She got appendicitis, and she had to go into the hospital. So it was Easter or anyhow, church. We went to church. And I wore that little coat to church with it, basically. You know, it had one finished. And then they took us on out to the hospital to see mother. She was so embarrassed that you were.

[27:09] SARAH MARSHALL: Wearing a little jacket that was.

[27:12] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I wish I had a picture of that. That was the prettiest little coat. I thought it was pretty with the red.

[27:19] SARAH MARSHALL: How old are you then?

[27:21] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, I probably was first grade or not even maybe five years old or something. I can't remember. But she used to make all of our clothes, and usually they were made. A lot of them were made from other people's clothes.

[27:38] SARAH MARSHALL: So did she did since she worked in the overall factory. Did she, was she.

[27:43] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: After Dan was missing, she decided to go to work. Daddy wouldn't give her any money. Bane was the main reason, because he was real. He was stingy. It was always his money, you know. And she got up every morning and cooked him ham and eggs and made his lunch and washed all those heavy clothes.

[28:21] SARAH MARSHALL: And what was he doing?

[28:22] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He said, what do you, you know, my money. It was always his money. I hope you were having a good time.

[28:32] SARAH MARSHALL: Where did, where did he work?

[28:33] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: He was a carpenter. Yeah, he worked hard. Notice no telling Bob. He got up and worked hard, but she had to get up and cook his breakfast before he went.

[28:45] SARAH MARSHALL: When she was at the factory, was she a seamstress there? Is that where she learned to sew.

[28:49] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Or she already knew how to sew? Well, Sarah has a sewing machine. She got a sewing machine.

[28:58] SARAH MARSHALL: And. Did y'all ever get overalls?

[29:01] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Did we get overall from the overall factory? I don't know if we ever got any or not. They were making, I don't remember making for the.

[29:11] SARAH MARSHALL: They were making for the soldiers.

[29:12] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah, but they was already an overall factory anyhow, and it turned into assault uniform uniforms, I guess.

[29:21] SARAH MARSHALL: Were there other stores that changed what they were doing because of the war?

[29:27] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I don't know if they did or not. I don't know about that.

[29:31] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah. Well, why don't we take a break for just a second, Kevin.

[29:37] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Oh, I forgot you.

[29:39] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah, Kevin's. He's been so, I know you shared the story about wanting to be a nurse. So did you decide that when you, during the war, was it because of the war or.

[29:53] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I had always, ever since I'd been a little girl, wanted to be a nurse. And I think probably, maybe at that time, there were, like a lot of home nursing and things, you know, they're not like now the hospitals and nurses and so maybe that's why. But I'd always wanted to be a nurse.

[30:20] SARAH MARSHALL: And so did you sign up for.

[30:22] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I was going into the cadet nurses. That's the only thing I could get in on my own then, without mother and daddy allowing me.

[30:33] SARAH MARSHALL: Were you in high school then or were you?

[30:34] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah, I was in high school and I was. I finished high school, but they. That's when the war ended, so I was going into the cadet nurses. I don't know what. I've done some papers and things, but that's the only thing I could go in because I was still, I think, just.

[30:53] SARAH MARSHALL: Were you disappointed that you couldn't do that?

[30:56] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I was, but then it didn't last long because you went to. Went to Hines. Hines and then met your daddy. And that was it.

[31:05] SARAH MARSHALL: And that was it. And that's been 75 years ago, and y'all will celebrate being married. 75 years.

[31:12] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Doesn't seem like that long, does it? Does it?

[31:19] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, I think that's all. So I want to go ahead and do a wrap up. And so unless there's anything else you want to share, anything else you want to. Just a memory or anything, let's don't.

[31:36] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Have any more wars.

[31:38] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay. That's a good one.

[31:40] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Seems like we keep on having them, so.

[31:43] SARAH MARSHALL: Well, thank you for letting me interview you. And I find every time I hear questions, I hear something new. And so thank you for letting me spend time and ask you these questions.

[31:57] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: You're welcome. I'll send you a bill. Okay.

[32:06] SARAH MARSHALL: Three, two, one.

[32:09] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: It was a different time at this junior college that I went to that when the men came home from service, it was just a real. I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't just. It just like overnight everything changed. Not like you usually know of things changing, and it was just kind of exciting. And a lot of. A lot of things that you went through after the war was over, like, you know, people didn't have a lot of stuff still. It took a while, you know, before a lot of things that we had to do with that during the war. I'm trying to remember some of the things. We didn't have a whole lot in here. My family was. I shouldn't say we didn't have a lot. My daddy didn't make much money, but we did have a home and we had a garden, and he took real good care of us. And then my mother went to work when I was in about, I think, the 10th, 11th grade. And she could provide a little money. She didn't make very much money, but at the time, they probably were things we didn't have at all. Like, all my clothes were homemade, my mother was very good at sewing, and we just grew up. We were really very, very poor, but we didn't know it.

[33:51] SARAH MARSHALL: So when you were at Hinese junior college and you first met daddy, and y'all went on a first date and y'all had only been dating a short while when he asked you to marry him and did you say yes right away?

[34:08] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Real quickly, how soon was it? Well, we started this in September. 2 week, second week of school. No, second week, second week of dating. We started dating. He had another girlfriend. I had to get him away from her. And then you.

[34:29] SARAH MARSHALL: But didn't you have a boyfriend too?

[34:31] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I had a boyfriend too.

[34:33] SARAH MARSHALL: But you sent them packing.

[34:35] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah.

[34:36] SARAH MARSHALL: And so. And then how quickly did y'all get married?

[34:39] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Real quickly. In fact, one of my teachers called us in and she talked to us. And you remember that, or talked to us separately? She tried to tell me all these things about Ray, and I said, I know all those things.

[34:57] SARAH MARSHALL: And how old were you? Seven.

[34:58] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I was 18 or 19. When was I 19 when we married?

[35:04] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah, 19 years old.

[35:06] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And your daddy was 18, so.

[35:10] SARAH MARSHALL: And then y'all went ahead and got married.

[35:13] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: How did we get the license? Well, I went down the courthouse and lied about it. Didn't.

[35:20] SARAH MARSHALL: Cause did you have to be 21 or age is 18?

[35:25] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Certificate saying I was 21.

[35:28] SARAH MARSHALL: Okay.

[35:29] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: From the Navy since I was under age. But I had. I had one, at least one teacher, maybe two that talked to me and they wanted to know if I knew all about Ray. And I said, yeah, I know all about it. Because they knew things like, you know, he had two different ages and that sort of thing, and they knew he'd been. Yeah, they just wanted to know if I knew all of that.

[36:01] SARAH MARSHALL: Do you remember, was your sister and Uncle Ray? Were they happy with Aunt Dow and Uncle Ray? Were they happy that you were getting married?

[36:10] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: I guess they were. I can't even remember too much about it.

[36:17] SARAH MARSHALL: You're gonna remember all these things later tonight.

[36:20] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: What?

[36:20] SARAH MARSHALL: Just remember all these details.

[36:22] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Well, she was like, dow was two years younger, and of course, Ray was. Had been in the navy. So did we marry before he married or remarried or had they gotten married about same time? Did we marry first? I think so. Well, we married in the church and all, you know, we had a wedding.

[36:48] SARAH MARSHALL: I've seen the pictures.

[36:49] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Yeah. Well, we started dating in September, married in November.

[36:56] SARAH MARSHALL: Yeah, they. Nine weeks, something like that. Well, I think that's probably. I have a couple questions just so that we can get names on the record. So you mentioned Dan. What's Dan's name? Dan Williams. Dan Williams.

[37:14] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And was my older brother. He was four years older, right? Yeah. And then I had a brother two years older than me that was also named Ray. Ray.

[37:27] SARAH MARSHALL: Ray Williams. So that was probably.

[37:29] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: And then I had a sister that was two years younger than me. There were four of us, and her.

[37:34] SARAH MARSHALL: Name was Dow d o w Williams. Thank you. And, um, yeah, although on the record or in the archive, we will have Ray's own recording. Could you just say Ray's name real quick? It's Ray Marshall. Yes. And it's actually Freddie Ray Marshall, but he's gone by Ray Marshall for the majority of his life. Sweet. I think those are kind of all of my questions. Those are just clarifying things that I wanted to make sure about. But, yeah, if y'all are good, then thank you so much. We can go ahead and end the recording. Okay. Thank you so much.

[38:17] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Did you ever explain that Dan was killed in the war?

[38:20] SARAH MARSHALL: Yes.

[38:21] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Okay. Did we talk about that?

[38:24] SARAH MARSHALL: That's when you got upset.

[38:25] SARAH PATRICIA MARSHALL: Okay, we don't want to.

[38:27] SARAH MARSHALL: So now do I need to sign the release forms? Sorry, just 1 second.