Interview with Roberta Ellison by Greg Lanza for the Voices From the Second World War Oral History Project, Center for Oral History, University of Connecticut, June 15, 2001.

Lanza: My first question is when and where were you born?

Ellison: I was born in New York City, on November 4th, 1925.

GL: What can you tell me about your childhood?

RE: Well, I had a very happy childhood. I was the only child in a small family, but my grandmother lived with us. And we moved from New York when I was small after living in a couple of other towns in Connecticut. We moved to Elmwood when I was probably seven. Elmwood, Connecticut was part of West Hartford as it is now, but really quite rural compared to anything in New York. So, my mother and father had quite a lot to do getting used to living here. I remember coming up with my grandmother on the train and then going to the house that Dad had rented. It was wintertime. He had never built a fire and we'd never had a house. We lived in apartments. So we were very excited about that. And the neighbor next door had the furnace going, had warmed things up for us and came over and showed Dad how to build a fire in the fireplace and how to run the furnace. So that was our introduction to life in rural Connecticut. And it's really changed a lot, but when we grew up there it was really a small town. We went to the Elmwood school and our life was in the community, the church and the school. Everybody knew each other, you knew your friends' parents and they knew you. So, it was just kind of a family community.

GL: Why did your family move from New York?

RE: My Dad was a salesperson. He worked for Liquid Carbonic in the New York office for some years, but then he was assigned to the field and Connecticut became part of his territory, although he commuted to New York quite a bit. And later [around] New England. So, we did not move, my dad did the travelling. But when we moved here I started in 2nd grade because my mother had taught me at home due to the fact that Dad was on the road. Once we got here and got established, then we stayed put.

GL: So, he was a traveling salesman?

RE: He was a traveling salesman. My thrill when I got older was going with him in the summer. And we'd stay gone two or three days, and I'd go visit the bottlers and always bring something to read or something to work on, write [when he was busy]. I had to amuse myself, but lots of times the bottler's wife would ask me in or there'd be a bottle of soda. I had to stay out of the way, mind my Ps and Qs, but I really loved going with him, and being at work with him, seeing what he did, meeting the customers, seeing the whole operation, the bottling plant and the small businesses, family businesses. And I met some of the families and saw the trucks come in and unload and load. And then, of course, we'd stay in a motel and I'd be taken out to dinner. As I got older I could shop in some of the towns and then meet Dad later. So it was always great fun to do. We always talked about everything because I didn't see much of him during the week. But when I got to go with him, we talked about all kinds of things and he gave me a liberal education. He knew so many people from different backgrounds, religious and otherwise, different nationalities, and I just learned a lot about the world from him. He was always very urbane.

GL: What exactly was he selling for Liquid Carbonic?

RE: He was selling flavorings for carbonated beverages.

GL: Not the gas, just the syrup?

RE: Yes, he did sell some machinery too. He did. Probably in the early days, because I remember that. Some of the bottling machinery that was used was distributed by his company too. Later he went into the flavorings exclusively.

GL: He remained busy throughout the depression?

RE: Yes, that's interesting. He took cuts in his salary, but he was always working. And I know that many families were much harder hit than we were. I can't really explain that, except that I was aware of it at the time. I didn’t hear a lot of discussion, but I knew that we had to make some cuts at home. And I knew that his salary had been cut. But back in those days lots of those things were not discussed a great deal in front of children. I was aware of it, but not painfully so. And some families suffered certainly a lot more than we did.

GL: Were you aware of that suffering as a child?

RE: I became aware of it, probably as I got older. I knew in Mason's [her husband's] family it was very different and his Dad didn't have steady work and the boys had to help in their own ways to get food on the table by selling honey and other things that they could do at home. His mother took in washing and took in ironing. So, I became aware of it, but not so much when I was a child myself. I know that one of my uncles in New York was having trouble because the family sent him things [to help out]. And their family was really hurting. But my childhood was really undisturbed by that. And, while I can't really explain that, we did keep going, we were able to keep paying our monthly rent and my mother was unemployed.

GL: Did she choose not to be employed or couldn't she find work?

RE: I think that was just more not the thing. Most of my friends' mothers were at home as well. It was very much the thing. I guess you'd have to have been much more in need to have the mother go to work outside the home. Later on, she worked for many years at the Elmwood Library, but that was after I was grown. And [she] loved it. She loved that job and she also worked in a department store in Hartford, but those were in later years. But during the years when I was small she and Granny were both at home, so there were 3 women in the home and Dad had a bunch of women when he came home. And he used to kid about us talking to each other, getting going on something. And he'd say something and mother wouldn't hear him the first time and she'd say, "Oh, did you say something dear?" [He'd respond,] "No, no. That's all right. How do you like talking to yourself?" But he would kid about it. And when he came home weekends we had nice meals, and then Granny and Mother and I had the leftovers during the week. So, it was a cozy household, three generations, but very amicable. Mother and Dad always made a home for my grandmother, who was my mother's mother. And she lived with our family from the time I was age 2; she was always a part of the family. Her husband had owned a hardware store in Greenwich Village, [but] when he died the business was sold. Granny had always helped in the store, but not having had income of her own, Dad and Mother made their home her home and she came with us. So, I always had a live-in grandmother. That was neat. And although I was an only child, I had lots of friends, and I never realized it was considered unfortunate to be an only child because I had a wonderful time, wonderful growing up. I was very secure, my girlfriends were in and out of the house all the time. I was given a lot of independence. When I was growing up we were able to go downtown to the movies together and do a lot of things together. Ride bikes and go over to the pool in Elmwood. Go to each other's homes after school. I took dancing for ten years, and that was really a part of my life. So, I had a lot of variety. We were close to the church, although my dad didn’t join for many years. He joined on Pearl Harbor day, December 7th, 1941. He said he knew he'd been out of the church for some years and that there would be a lot of notice when he did join, but he didn't expect all hell to break loose! [laughs] And my mother was a pianist, she played in the Elmwood church for many years in the Junior Department. Granny taught me many of the old hymns and some times after youth group [we] would go back home and mother would play the piano and we would sing again those songs we'd been singing. So it was a good growing up, very happy. And my mother would have been a great teacher. She taught me first grade. What a background. She taught [from] the Calvert's School Correspondent's [Course] and we had regular school hours [so] I was all set for [second grade in] public school. I have lots of happy memories growing up in Elmwood.

GL: And then you went on to college. You graduated high school in what year?

RE: I graduated from William Hall High School in West Hartford in 1943. The war hadn't influenced us a great deal by that point, [but] I can remember a few things about changes during my high school years. One was that I helped my mother enroll people for the ration cards that we all had to have. And that was a big operation and I felt very proud to have been trained to do that. I think I must have been, maybe I was a senior. We met in the lobby of the Elmwood Elementary School. And we were giving out cards and doing information for families that needed clothing rations, ration cards, shoes, gas, and I remember that my dad, because he was a salesman, had a C ration card which was the highest you could get because you needed gas for business. But many didn't have that much, so you didn't do a lot of traveling in those years. And I remember going to the movies with my friend Joan Kane. Our news of the war, this was in high school, [came from], of course, radio, and movies, and the news shorts before the movie. There you would see troop movements and so forth that were sent stateside so people could see what was happening. I remember going with Joan one time. Her brother Tim was in the service and it showed American servicemen wounded in Germany. It showed some barbed wire fences and they were pretty startling shots in the newsreel and we had to get up and leave because Joan couldn't watch. And later the word came that Tim had died of wounds in one of the battles nearby what we had seen. So, the war came close in those ways. We knew that some of the guys that graduated before we had were enlisting. I think a few guys left our class. We had certainly many alumni of Hall High School in the service by that time. When I was still at home in the high school years, it became apparent that other people had members in the service, because there'd be little flags in the window, particularly made for windows, they were square. They had a star in the middle if you had a member in the service, a gold star if you had someone who had died. And those began to appear in all the windows. When I was still living home on Grove Street. We had a big victory garden and my job was to keep it watered and weeded. And kill Japanese beetles that collected there. [laughs] Everybody did something, there was a great, great feeling of unity. Mason's aunt worked at one of the plants in Hartford and Mason's mother went to work too. And they had big letter Es flying on, for instance, Pratt and Whitney. E for efficiency, and everybody vied for having [their] plant be eligible for that kind of thing. Those were some of the things that were apparent even before I left home to go to school [at] Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. I was the first member of my family to go on to school. Although my mother and father didn't finish high school, they were some of the best written and best read people I knew. All my family were readers. And they read widely, and always were interested in things beyond just home. My dad through his travels, my mom through her reading. And I think I picked that up from them. And my dad was very anxious that I should try college. I wasn't sure what I wanted but he wanted me to see the person who came to the door who was Professor Holmes from Green Mountain. This shows you that a lot of the guys had left the year before, in fact all of them from the previous class had left to go to the service. And Green Mountain was hurting. And I'm sure they had never before sent professors into the field to solicit students. We thought that this was the norm. And when he came to the house, I didn't really want to see him. I felt strange and I didn't know what was expected of me and I went up stairs. But my dad told me [Professor Holmes] had come all this way to see me and I owed him at least the courtesy of talking with him. So I went downstairs and met with him, a personal visit, and he told me about some West Hartford girls that I had known who had gone there the year before. I know that the visit was instrumental in getting me to change my mind. Because I really didn't have any other options I was set on doing, it was just the whole prospect of leaving home and going to college was really kind of daunting. But, I did eventually go to Green Mountain and had two wonderful years there. It was a small college in the Vermont hills in Poultney. A wonderful feeling of closeness there. The faculty, there was a good ratio of faculty to students. I think we were only about in our sophomore class about 85 or 100 girls who graduated. But the college as a whole in those days wasn't 200, and the whole sophomore class of men had left. So those girls were constantly telling us freshmen how great it had been with all the men there for dances and so forth. But actually, men were imported from Dartmouth so that we could have our dances. And we had many college guys there from Dartmouth, so we didn't lack in that. There were no men on campus, but frequently there were visitors in uniform. Mason visited when we were engaged. And we [girls] had our own fun, we did our own things. We couldn't travel a lot because that was prohibited. The space was needed for the servicemen home on leave. But we had lots of fun doing things [at school]. When we came home on the few times that we were allowed, for instance Christmas, not Thanksgiving, there was a big meal there [because] we were advised not to go home. I remember riding the trains which were always packed with servicemen. We girls would sit on our suitcases in the aisles. The guys had the seats and they also had the luggage racks, and many of them slept in the luggage racks. And sometimes you'd have a tired serviceman slumped over on your shoulder. [laughs] We would all talk and move around. The guys were very courteous. They were often too tired to do a lot of visiting. They had either been home or were going home. If they were going home they were excited, if they had been home, they were tired. But those were memorable trips because we got to talk to people who were actually in the service. Many of the girls had brothers in the service, even fathers, and most of us were writing to servicemen, but this was a different kind of contact.

Note: Roberta says they went home for Christmas, but even then were advised not to go unless necessary.

GL: What did you learn from these servicemen?

RE: They couldn’t tell a lot. I was writing to Mason at that time, of course, and many of the girls were writing to servicemen. They could not tell a lot about where they had been or where they were going. But they managed in some way to convey a lot of what was going on, and for us who were kind of restricted and in a small town, it was a great feeling of being in touch. I remember Mason's letters in particular. I was thinking about them today. They were little tiny letters, much of the time. They were airmail of course, and then there was something called V Mail which had red, white, and blue borders. They were very small, not much space for writing, but they were light. And the summer after graduation from Green Mountain, that would be '45, when I was working for the Vermont Church Council living in another very small rural town. And the lady where I boarded knew all about Mason, saw his picture. By that time we were engaged, and anytime the mailman would leave a letter from Mason in her postbox, she would put up the red flag. And coming home from vacation church school and things that we were doing in the community, I would see that coming down the hill. So the family was very involved also, very interested. When I was finished with school, I worked for a little while in Hartford at Travelers [Insurance] and we were married in 1946. There were a lot of service weddings, lots of the guys married either before they left for the service or right afterwards wearing the discharge button. Many of the young women in our church were married during those years '46 or '47. And after, Mason worked temporarily here also, the next fall, we both went to Springfield College and I was able to go too, because I had had two full years of college, so was able to transfer and was very fortunate; all of my credits transferred. I was also very fortunate because it was not a unified college at that time, it was an all men's college, so it was not co-ed. This is Springfield College in Springfield, Mass[achusetts]. So, if I had not been an upperclassman I could not have attended because no women were attending at that time, [only] a few graduate students. And [there were] only three women in our graduating class, of which I was one, so that was kind of a distinction! And Mason was going there because he had his GI Bill when he returned. So, that's how we finished our college education together.

GL: What was your major?

RE: I was majoring in group work, which was a wonderful preparation for teaching and many other things. But my degree was in general education because I retired, having finished classes in December and our daughter was born in April, so I couldn't take a couple of group work courses, but still enough to call that my major.

GL: And get your degree.

RE: Yeah, right. So we actually graduated together, so that worked out really well.

GL: Getting back to the professor. Did someone put him on to you or was he canvassing Elmwood that day?

RE: I'm sure that somebody must have. We didn't have a lot of guidance in the high school that I can remember, but I think I spoke with one person briefly in the guidance office who may have put my name in because I also remember going to visit [Centenary Junior College], and maybe Hartford College for Women in Hartford. So, I'm sure some connections were made for me. I don't remember that exactly. Professor Holmes was so impressive because he came to the house. I think this must have been arranged, I just don't remember those details or that he was even coming. Maybe the family had been alerted that he would be in the area. I don't remember that, but the fact that here was a college professor on our front door step was really quite amazing. And he was a lovely person whom I got to know later. As was our faculty at Springfield [College], they were wonderful folks too. And Mason may have mentioned how President Paul Limbert [of Springfield College] came down to [the] little government housing, veterans' housing because he had heard of a job that Mason might be interested in in Wisconsin. He came down to our little apartment and had a letter from the pastor from the First Presbyterian Church in Wausau, Wisconsin looking for a director of religious education. The president came himself to our apartment to ask if Mason might be interested. So, we had very personal contacts with professors in those days. And we did go to Wisconsin as Mason probably... may have mentioned that, I don't know. And then, we had two more children born there, two boys, and had great years in the church there. We moved around to different other churches. Mason went back to seminary in New York. When we lived there in New Jersey, he was commuting from New Jersey doing religious education and the children and I were living in New Jersey. A very nice place for women and children because all the men commuted to office jobs in New York and other communities. There was lots of support there and people were interested in Mason's seminary career. After the years there we moved to New York, and the children really grew up there. One of our sons was born there, the youngest. They all went to school in Glens Falls, so that was really their home. And Mason pastored a small missionary church there the Glens Falls Community Chapel. We had great friends there, it was really hard to leave, but after ten years, Mason was feeling he probably needed some new approaches. It's not like classwork because your congregation is somewhat static and most ministers feel that that's a good time to move on. That is when we moved to New Hampshire. And one of the first things that happened to me that was rather interesting and certainly changed my life a lot [was] we went to be interviewed. And the search committee from churches always like to meet the wife also, and children. One of the members, a deacon who became a close friend later, asked me what I was looking to do when we arrived in town. And I said, "I'm going to look for a job," which probably was not quite what they were expecting to hear. [laughs] But I had just begun to work while we lived in Glen Falls and I was enjoying what I was doing working for Head Start. And I didn’t know what was available in this small community which was a town that had a private school, but no industry or much other business. People commuted to Hanover [or] to Lebanon. So, that evening when we got home, Steve Beaupré who was the school principal and the one who had asked the question, called up and said, "I understand you're looking for a job. Have you ever considered teaching?" I never had considered teaching. And he said, "We have a part-time opening in English and Literature. How would you like that?" And I immediately said, "Yeah, I'd try that." And that was probably the best decision, other than getting married to Mason, that I made in my adult life. I started out with junior high kids and it was not easy. My practice teaching was the day I turned up in the classroom. And I needed to take some classes after that, of course, to be certified. But I had a wonderful five years there. So that when I came to Hartford, when we eventually came back here, I had been teaching and through happenstance, and Providence I'm sure, was guided to do some subbing for adult ed. And that's were I met Kay Stark, who has been a teacher in adult education for many, many years [and] retired from that an excellent, innovative teacher. And I was fortunate enough to sub for her. And that's how I started in adult ed. And so, it's been a long teaching career and I never would have expected to do that. And it's interesting that in high school I was never guided to that. When I was at Green Mountain I did take speech and dramatic arts. But no one ever suggested teaching, and I always loved English, liked to write poetry, loved to read, did well in English, math was my nemesis, but English I always loved, and no one in guidance ever suggested that in particular. So, it was really through meeting this person who asked this leading question and got probably a rather unexpected answer [laughs] that I was guided into teaching. I always call him my angel and he was my boss for five years. So, I got a great start in that.

GL: Going to college in '42 or '43 for a woman was unusual, wasn't it?

RE: I think it was probably more unusual than it is now, certainly. As I look back on my friends from Hall High School who did or didn't go to college, some did, but not most. And most of the young women who graduated around the time I did went into business in Hartford and had taken commercial courses and went into the big insurance companies. A good friend worked for a judge. A few of us went to school, but I really felt like a pioneer to do that. So, I think that feeling reflects the fact that not very many people did that, girls, at that time. And then during the years at Green Mountain Mason visited there. And my girlfriends gave me all [kinds of support], I say girlfriends, we were all girls together in those years, but we had our 55th reunion and I'm still very close to some of those people who were my best friends then. They were very supportive, lots of them were writing to servicemen but in my second year there I was engaged. And I knew Mason was shipping to the Pacific. We elected not to be married at that time, although he had quite a long leave. And my mother told me afterwards she thought perhaps we would have chosen to [get married then]. I think I just didn't feel ready, but when I got back to school I was terribly depressed. And I thought I made a real bad decision.

GL: To go back to school or to not get married?

RE: To go back to school was hard [but also not to get married]. I never thought of not finishing my class. I was very depressed and blue. And when I got to Rutland, [Vermont] we then had to transfer to get a bus or a taxi to go the nineteen more miles out to Poultney. And it was evening, and it was after the trip back and I began looking around for a cab thinking, "Oh, my goodness" and just feeling kind of lost [when] one of my best friends came up and put her arm around me, took my suitcase and said, "Come on, I've got a cab waiting." And that is when I cried. And I still think of that gesture. I wasn't expecting her, I didn't know she was coming, I don't know how she found out what train I was on, but she knew I'd be blue. And the first few weeks back I was really sunk thinking, you know, maybe I should have married Mase (Mason), maybe he will never come back. I had all those thoughts. And we were putting on the sophomore show and that saved my sanity. I had always liked to dance. And another good friend of mine loved to jitterbug, never mind that there were no guys there, we did our own routine. And we were asked to be in the sophomore show. I remember saying, "Oh, Gin, I can't, really. I don't feel..." She said, "Yes, you're going to do it. I've got it all worked out. I've got our costumes. Come on, you've got to do it with me. I'm not going to do it alone." And this was a close friend, we're still in touch, I saw her not too long ago, and we just let it rip. And we had such a good time getting it ready, at having our special turn that it just pulled me out of the doldrums. By the time graduation came I was feeling more myself, and things had turned around. I was one of the fortunate ones whose fiancé did come home. We were married and have had a long marriage, so I never overlook the great fortune and blessing that that has been. But all those things, and thinking about this are just as close as they were yesterday. I'm going to write to both of these people again to tell them, the friends from Green Mountain, [that] I've mentioned it before, but you just don't forget those things that people did for you when you're having a down time in your life. I remember a couple girls at the school lost brothers in the service, so the war was close to us even though we were very isolated. Because there was a whole half a class missing, [and] a couple of the profs left to go into the service. Many of us had certainly serious boyfriends or were engaged. Two girls, I think, married before the end of the year. So, there was closeness to the war certainly.

GL: To go back in time, in the late 30s, how aware were you of what was happening with Germany and Japan?

RE: Now that's an interesting question, Greg. We weren't. We listened. My dad was very informed. And it was one of the things that I talked to him about. Mother, Granny and I were probably pretty sheltered. We did listen to the wartime news [but] the war did not impinge a lot when I was in high school. [I didn't listen to it with the concentration my father did.] Although as I mentioned, we knew of people leaving to enlist and certainly in Elmwood and in our church, there were many service families. I remember hearing in English Literature, I don't know if I've got the title right, The Murder of Lidice, which was a Czechoslovakian town. That was my introduction to war. I've never forgotten that. I've tried to find the title more exactly but I think that is close.

GL: And this was written during the war?

RE: It was written about an episode during the war.

GL: But when did you read it?

RE: When I was a senior in high school. The teacher introduced that and I was absolutely flabbergasted. It was about murder, rape, killing children in a small Czechoslovakian town. I've never forgotten it. I don't think I've found or ever read it again, but it left such an impression. It's surprising that during the war that even though the war touched us, there were many, many things I didn't know. When I read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time, after the war, just after the war, I remember looking back and reading some things of the playwright Lillian Hellman and thinking, "Why didn't we know these things?" I think it was because so many things were kept from us. We would see the war in newsreels in the theater, but abruptly, they were short, and unless like my friend Joan you had some reason to be tremendously moved, you were quickly into the double feature of the day. You saw it, but it didn't claim your attention as if you'd had a TV in your own home, which we didn't have at all. And the war broadcasts were short, very factual. President Roosevelt would speak to us in the fireside chats, I certainly remember listening to those at home with my family. And he would introduce that with "My friends..." and then he would tell us what was going on. My grandmother was a great champion of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We're going to see his home next week, we've never been to Hyde Park. He was our wartime president, and it's not that we didn't know what was going on, but our life in high school in those last few years was quite unchanged. We finished our graduation, only a few guys had left the class at that point, but we were young, so it was the class before us that was enlisting. But all the fellows in our class, many of them were deferring going to college, many of them were going to enlist. We certainly knew that. So colleges in those years were heavy on women, except that the men would take ROTC training on the college campuses, Dartmouth, for instance. So, there would be servicemen there. But, but by and large, the guys were deferring their college. The things that I remember more clearly about the wartime, my wartime exposure would be service flags in the windows of people who had servicemen in the family. Everybody had victory gardens. There were certain restrictions on clothing, food, gas. Those were very apparent. You had to line up. If some kind of meat came into the store you lined up to get it.

GL: Did you have black outs?

RE: No, I don't remember that at all. I think that was going to happen because I do remember finding out about how to do it. I don't remember having that. Everybody was expected to "wear it out, use it up, make it do." That was one of the mottoes. You didn't buy new things. I can remember knitting like mad, helping my mother, my grandmother, just before we were in war sending 'Bundles to Britain.' That was a big thing. We did a lot of that kind of thing. And everybody was sending boxes, whether you had a serviceman or you didn't. You were involved in sending things overseas. We would often write to servicemen. Trucks would go through on New Britain Avenue with Army personnel in these big troop trucks and they would throw addresses to the street. And we girls would scramble for the addresses. And I remember for a long time in high school writing to a young fellow whose name was Stanley. And quite a few of us had penpals in the service. But we were young, and unless you had a brother or uncle in the family, which I did not, [you might not be directly affected by the war]. Many of my friends were more affected probably than I was. My dad's territory was curtailed, he had to plan his trips very carefully and get special coupons for gas. And I do remember some curtailing of food. Menus were rather hard to plan because there wasn't much meat available. Meat and fresh vegetables, many things, were sent to [the] service[s], to the training camps for the sailors and soldiers, of course, of the armed services. We had a large [garden]. I can remember my mother canning for the first time in her life. Everybody had victory gardens and everybody had directions on how to save food, how to make simple dishes, how to can. So that was something that happened in the home. And everyone was very interested in picking up servicemen on the highway. Now this is something you wouldn't do now, but we were encouraged to do that because they were trying to get home and they had limited leave. So we did that a lot. My dad in his travels did it a lot. I remember him telling us about that. He'd come home and tell us about the guys that he had met. And because he was from Australia he knew something about travel. He would love to hear of their service experiences, [so] that was something that touched us at home. And the gardens. The news clips, which was the only chance we had, when at the movies, of seeing anything about the war live. And the daily broadcasts, the newspaper reports.

GL: Did you know about the censorship?

RE: Yes, indeed. Especially when Mase was in service. There was heavy censorship. Nothing was mailed from the ship until it was censored.

GL: And on the newsreels, did you realize you were not seeing a lot of the war?

RE: Yes, I'm sure we did. Yes. And nothing much was said about that. Unless you had contact with someone in the service you weren't as aware of that. And you'd always have to guess where your serviceman might be from all the little clues that he would let drop. But I do know that we were very aware that Mase was going to be shipped to the Pacific [but] I didn't know until later that they were preparing underwater demolition and for the invasion of Japan. However, there was so much going on in the Pacific, we didn't question that too much anyways. The ship was being renovated to be a completely different kind of ship so we were very much aware of that on the homefront too. And that's why I think I was feeling so depressed when I got back to school. Mason didn't put a lot of pressure on [me] to get married, but I'm sure he would have liked to do that. And I was the one who was kind of not quite ready. Fortunately, he did come back [and by] 1946 we were both ready. So, there was no hesitation then. And we were married on our home church. With many other returned servicemen having been just married, going to be married, there were a lot of men in that age group.

GL: Did you worry much about Mason and your penpals? Did you think a lot about what they might be going through?

RE: Well, my penpal didn't last too long. And another guy from high school to whom I was writing was also in the Navy. But then Mase and I got serious and became engaged I just had to sign off. And one of those was a hard letter to write, but needed to be written. And, yes, we were certainly very concerned because you really knew a lot about what your serviceman was doing. I think now about the freedom with which we talked about that. And I knew Mase was on North Atlantic patrol. And my girlfriends who were writing to fellas or were engaged to fellas, or were serious about fellas in the service basically knew a lot about what they were doing, because I remember talking to them about that. And then particularly in my last two or three months at school when I returned I was very worried and that summer also because the ship had been converted [and]I didn't know how serious the Japanese invasion was being taken. They were still doing all sorts of convoy duty and very much vulnerable to attack. So, yes, I think we all were very concerned. When word came that a couple of brothers had died that brought that very close and a couple of girls left school to be married. So, yes, there was always that concern. And I think the concern was part of my feeling of guilt in not having at least done that [married Mason]. [But] we both got married, we were both happy [that] we waited and he [said] afterwards that he was fine about it too. But I think I thought maybe that would have been appropriate, helpful, whatever. [At the time of Mason's last leave] I didn't feel quite ready to be a wife, but afterwards I went over and over that in my mind and it took me quite a while to shake that off. All of us had different kinds of worries and apprehensions. Whether [a relationship] was serious, whether you were going to marry the person you were going with in the service. But there were lots of wartime marriages in our class at Springfield. When we went back to school after the war, most of the guys were married. And the people we're close to are still married to the same [spouses]. And most of us lived in government housing and shared those years together. And it was true that most of us had been going together or married during the service. And the group from the ship, all of those were early marriages and those are the same person. So, those years were serious, you didn't fool around a lot. If the person you were going with was someone you really cared about, I think you stuck with that person through their service career. And a lot of us were going with somebody when they entered the service. And I had met Mason many years ago when I was just a kid, so ... We went to the same schools and knew each other forever. And went to church together, so I think we were, were rather serious young people as I look back on it. And already had commitments.

GL: It was easier too.

RE: Yeah. We knew each other's families, we enjoyed talking about our school days together, and our families. Which was wonderful, small town background we shared within the church and the community. It was great.

GL: When you were talking about what you knew about the war and such, when you heard about Pearl Harbor, what meaning did that have for you?

RE: I remember the day so well. I knew right away that it was bad and serious. I came right home from church, I don't remember if we knew about it in church, but I remember spending all Sunday afternoon that day in the living room with my family listening [to the radio]. My father was the one who always knew everything. He was always cosmopolitan. He always knew what was going on. And I never saw him so disturbed. He knew immediately, and I think we women had to be kind of brought into that picture. But the announcements went on all day long. And it was so alarming. It was such a departure from our quiet kind of sheltered life in a small family. But the man of the house was home, it was Sunday. I think he interpreted a lot of that to us, explaining the significance and about the fleet. He was so knowledgeable. And I think that's how we became aware of the great seriousness and weren't as confused as we might have been otherwise.

GL: So he gave you an understanding if you didn't already have one?

RE: Yes, I know he did, I know he played a large part in that. And the fact that he was home [helped].

GL: Did you have any fears that your Dad might go off to war?

RE: No, he was already too old. He almost was in World War I, but I think there was a problem that kept him out of the service, I think it was eyesight. He had gone to enlist not too long before the armistice but didn't fight. But he had always been a student of history. And our whole family was devoted to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So knowing about that and that Congress declaring war was the step to be taken. People were glued to their radios. I don't remember much about footage about Pearl Harbor. There could not have been much. And I don't remember what we ever saw of that that was actual, because there wasn't much. But we did begin to see actual footage taken by reporters and photographers; as the war went on there was more available.

GL: Did you notice any change in the reportage as the war went on?

RE: [pause] Probably I didn't pick up on that as much as I might have. It was my senior year in high school. I was totally immersed in my senior year in high school. It was in the air, you knew a lot, but I didn't sit down and read the newspapers as an adult at that point in my life.

Note: The interview was briefly interrupted here when the tape recorder jammed.

GL: So most of what you heard was hearsay? It [the tape recorder] seems to have jammed.

RE: Yes, Mason was enlisting at the end of my last year in high school. So we were more caught up actually in Elmwood, in who was going, what was happening in the families, what changes were happening at home. There weren't a lot of fellas in my high school class, but, Mase was two years before me, and there were a lot of fellas new in town who were enlisting or were drafted. So, the things that we found out about, talked about, were immediate things, much more than logistics and how the war was being carried on outside of Elmwood. We were just so immersed, I guess, in our own lives ... very provincial.

GL: And when victory came in [Japan], what was your feeling?

RE: I was working that summer in a small town in Vermont for the Vermont Church Council. And when we first heard of my co-worker and I were having breakfast at a little small place in one of the country towns. I was with my team, we worked in pairs, and it came over the radio. It had been noised abroad before, you know, that this might be happening, and I remember thinking, my first thought, nothing about those that had died, the carnage, nothing but, "Mason's coming home." Fact one. That's right where my mind was. I remember jumping up in the restaurant. And the girl I was with was my team mate and friend who later sang at our wedding. I was so excited. I think a lot of Americans felt the very same thing. We had no idea of the horror that had brought that about. We just didn't. Now I think, "How could we have been so blind?" In the years past at such a price that you can't believe, but ... we didn't, we immediately thought of the change in our own lives. And because the friend with whom I was working was a native of Vermont she was able to borrow a small truck. She had her license at that time. She lived in Randolph. And she and I dropped everything, I don't remember what happened to vacation church school for that day [laughs]. I guess probably we met then left. We went over to her home in Randolph and we joined in a big victory parade, a torchlight parade in Randolph, Vermont. They really did it up, and we were part of that. And that was our celebration. Mason told me later that they couldn't celebrate on the ship at all because everything was blacked out, so they didn't even know what was going on. But in Randolph, Vermont we whooped it up. [laughs] Country parade. So that was how we celebrated. And I knew then that he would be coming home and that we would be getting married. That was the big thing. So, you translated everything in terms of how it would affect you personally. It wasn't until much later I began to get a better world view and realize that what was happening to me was tragedy to many others. But it took a while to arrive at that personally. Very local and very personal and I'm sure all the families that had servicemen felt the same way. And really didn't know about the atom bomb to that extent, because we had been hearing about bombs forever. The differences and the size were just, we couldn't accommodate those things in our thought at that point. It wasn't until a lot later.

GL: Have you read much about the war since?

RE: Yes, I would say so. Yeah. And it's come up a lot in teaching.

GL: Like The Diary of Anne Frank.

RE: Yes, one of the first books I taught was that book, but I didn't read that until I was a young woman with a child right after the war. And when I was teaching in junior high the kids were just that age. They would lap it up. They knew nothing about even being Jewish. This was just a small [New Hampshire] town. And it was all new. But they loved it. We acted out parts of it. It was very real.

GL: What were your impressions of the Germans as the enemy and the Japanese as the enemy?

RE: Very remote. I wasn't fully aware [that] people of German descent and certainly Japanese descent in this country had terrible times from neighbors, from publicity From the government, they were shipped away from their homes. [I didn't really know about that until later.]

GL: Did your Dad ever make any distinction between the two, put it in some sort of personal perspective?

RE: He never said anything about either of those countries in a derogatory way. Which is interesting. I never remember that at all. He had many customers of other descents, small businesses, and they would have, a lot of them would have shared the business with their son. So these were not maybe first generation Americans, necessarily, at all. And he came from New York, so he was used to an ethnic mix. They had had very close and good Jewish neighbors in the Jewish store right downstairs from where they lived. And they had German neighbors, and I don't think was ever a feeling of personal animosity, and of course, in our town I don't ever remember experiencing anything like that. Jews and kikes and yellow bastards, and all those expressions that were, that I saw later or read I never heard.

GL: Where was your Dad from, you said he was an immigrant?

RE: He was born in Australia, in Bunbury. He lived in South Africa for a while. And came here when he was probably about twelve or thirteen. Grew up in New York. But their neighborhood was completely ethnically mixed and I used to love to hear him tell about Hudson Street. That was part of my growing up. And my dad through his [business] contacts met so many people. He and mother would go to Bar Mitzvahs. They had many friends of either different faith or a different background. I had a lot of Catholic girlfriends. One of them had to get a special dispensation to be my maid of honor. So, I grew up with that too, you know ... I remember my dad had surgery once. Several men from one of the Jewish congregations in West Hartford came to see him. And one was tall and dignified, oh, he was a handsome gentleman and was wearing his yarmulke. And they went up to meet with [Dad]. It was so dignified. Granny and I were so impressed. And mother worked with a young black man from the Hartford Seminary who directed music at the church. We had, I think for the time, because of my dad's work, and their background in New York, I had a very ethnically mixed exposure, certainly. You know, I grew up that way. Not just at Springfield College which is an international college. There were lots of people on campus from other backgrounds. I feel I was fortunate. And that wasn't true in a lot of other homes in Elmwood, I'm sure. But, just because we were made of the people we were it was different.

GL: So, after you started working in New Hampshire. Your mom did not work during the war?

RE: No, she didn't. She didn't work until probably in the '50s. And our minister knew of her love of books and got her interested in applying for the job at Faxon Library [in Elmwood] and she worked there for eighteen years right at the end of our street. And loved it.

GL: During the war were you aware what was happening in the job market with all the women entering the labor market?

RE: Well, not really. Probably more through songs like 'Rosie the Riveter.' That was something that I knew about, but [I had] no contact. Although Mason's mother and his aunt worked in a plant. The girls I graduated high school with and, of course, went to Green Mountain with, we were not part of that. We were in a more isolated situation, [an] academic situation. It was different. So, we were not working or in the service. I had an interesting experience going to Springfield College [after the war] because I was one of very, very few women. But I was married. So, it was very interesting because a lot of the guys knew Mase before he went to the service. And I had the fun of having other wives, young wives, not necessarily students, who were there with their husbands. So I was a student-wife, I was also a student. So, I had a really wonderful opportunity there to get to know a lot of veterans. And I remember being in classes where smoking was permitted, in fact, encouraged. And the prof would say, "Gentlemen, the smoking light is lit," because the guys couldn't sit like that without a cigarette. And they would smoke, it would be very informal; he would smoke with them. He had been an officer. A lot of them wore their Army, old Army shirts and clothes around campus. We lived in Army barracks. So, all the guys were there on GI Bill, just about. I remember taking song directing as part of community organization and having to pick a song out of a hat - this was a class assignment - and direct it, according to the beats, the meter and so forth, the measures. The song I picked was 'Home on the Range.' And the teacher immediately struck that up and I was to conduct the class which was a big lecture section made up of about a hundred veterans. And I was the only woman in the class. None of them ever twitted me. They were, I had just the best, most respectful, enjoyable time there, that, you know, it couldn't have been better. I had never had brothers so I enjoyed, you know, seeing other young men. But they were very respectful, because they knew that I was already married, and that was just it. So, I got up to conduct the song. And first I had to get the beat set and get established and so forth. And da, da, da, da. It started out and they picked that right up. They didn't need me at all. That was a very moving experience, one of the most moving of my life probably. Pretty soon they were all singing three part harmony, and these were all veterans singing about home on the range. I've often wished I had a recording of that day. That was outstanding. And one of my other, not so outstanding events [laughs] was a big Youth Service Agency class with a wonderful prof and there was some question about marriage and ... preparation for marriage was [the] question [that] was being discussed. And Professor DeMarsh said, "Mrs. Ellison, you're a married person, what would be your," he didn't say 'take' [probably] "view on this?" And again I think I was the only woman in class, I was sitting in back. So I spoke up and said, "Well, [laughs] I felt that a lot of people didn't have a lot of preparation for marriage. Too many people [were] going into it without enough thought, etcetera, etcetera, when anybody knows it's not a bed of roses." Well, immediately I said that, I knew I had said the, put my foot into it. Oh, the guys, they laughed, even the professor, Professor DeMarsh, he had to take his glasses off and wipe his eyes. Oh, I was mortified. My face turned all colors. "Well, wait till we see Mason," [all the guys said]. [laughs] And [we] had more ragging on campus that day. All his old buddies got to him as soon as class was over. "Wait till you hear what your wife said about marriage."

GL: That was your first year?

RE: Back at Springfield College.

GL: Yeah, Mason was saying that first year was quite tough.

RE: Yeah, it was tough for him. That was my blooper of the year. Yeah, it was tough for him because he hadn't yet found himself. But when our [president] came down to our apartment to show him this letter and talk with him a little more about what his goals were. And after the summer we worked in Vermont, because we went back there, he probably told you that, he just changed what he was doing and knew he didn't want to be a professional coach. This was in the first year. Yeah, I never made such an error again. [laughs] We still kid about it. So, that was more my experience of the war during the Green Mountain years and that summer when Mase was still overseas. And certainly back at college, when all the guys were looking to, they were either married or were getting married. They wanted to get a job, finish their education, settle down. That was their goal. All of them wanted that. They were through with traveling and with being without people they loved, and they just wanted a home and a job and a life. And that was just so apparent on campus, so I got the ... During Green Mountain I was isolated more with just women, but at Springfield I got the other side of the picture. And sometimes the guys would talk about the service. Not a lot. But it was a wonderful experience for me. Just a wonderful experience. For a young woman who grew up a single child in a small community. Sheltered environment. Went to an all-girls school. Married young. But then to be in an atmosphere where all the guys, almost without exception, had been in combat and were conducting themselves, as I look back on it now, you know, with remarkable reserve and etiquette on a college campus. Many of them were married. That added a ... they were serious, very serious. But it was, I consider it a privilege to have gone to school with them and to be in the class of '49. I really do. That was a big time for me.

GL: You said there was a lot you find hard to believe you weren't aware of. Is there anything you think today's generation doesn't understand about the war?

RE: About World War II? Oh, yeah, probably a lot. One of the things I got from my own kids. I think today's generation's just so much more up front about things. Everything is in the home. No holds are barred. Children talk about things with their families long before they are of age. Everything is discussed in the home. It certainly is in our grandchildren's. But our kids even had trouble when Mase began telling more about his service career, when the kids were young and home, "How come you didn't know what was going on?" They asked us those questions a couple of different times and Mase would say, "Well, you know that information was kept from us." And in lots of ways some of that same information was kept from the home front too. A lot. Because of wartime restrictions. And I think young people today, if they're not going to sit down and peruse the newspaper, they're going to hear it at suppertime or anywhere anyway. It's constantly on in the home. You'd have to be deaf not to pick up. They may not be interested in everything, but they certainly know what's going on.

GL: Do you think there is anything about the Second World War that they don't understand?

RE: I think they don't understand how America could have pulled together the way it did. I think that's the biggest thing. They can't picture the spirit that was obvious in this country. And the spirit that veterans of my husband's age still have. That is very important and their service career is so close to them. When those guys get together those years just go away and they're young buddies again. They talk about their engagements, they talk, talk, talk. "Were you on ship when such and such...?" They never get tired of comparing notes, who was transferred when ... And they are so loyal to each other and to their service background. They can't stand disloyalty. And that was so nurtured in our day. Flag burning hadn't been heard of. There were conscientious objectors, but you had to have a pretty good reason. Nobody was, the servicemen weren't really criticizing the country. They would criticize how things were done. 'Hurry up and wait' and all this about the rigmarole. You just didn't hear that kind of talk. Everybody was in it together. For good or ill. I think there wasn't a whole lot of questioning even over the way the war was being carried out. I'm sure there was some. Older people, older adults. We were young adults. But we were carried away by the guys going off to the service. The fact that they were going to fight and maybe die, that was just paramount. You didn't think a lot about how, and why it was being managed in a certain way. It was all so personal. Sending packages, writing letters, getting ready for leave. Recovering after leave. Going to be with your husband if he had a short leave. Getting married while he was in the service. This all what was happening. And go to church. Go to any group. Mothers were comparing where their sons were, girls were comparing where your guys were. That was all what it was about. Talking about the individual soldiers and servicemen. It was a personal, very personal war. People weren't by and large talking about the fronts. They knew where new advances were going on, but there wasn't a lot of battle talk. It was, "Where is he now? Have you heard from him? Is he okay? Is he in hospital? Is he recovered? Is he coming home? Has he gone back?" I mean, those were where we were. "Did you get a letter? You haven't heard for a while." Then [we were all in it together in a special way.]

GL: Did you know of any conscientious objectors?

RE: Mason may have, I don't think I did. And being in the reunion group, that has kept the wartime fellowship alive. Whereas that group is so close. Really close. And I'll never forget the first one we went to, the first reunion we attended. [We're] at the airport and we're looking around to make connections and so forth and coming towards us are three older guys with black caps and I remember Mason saying, "There's my buddies!" And he was just, uh ... He couldn't get over that they had found what plane we were coming in on and they drove in from wherever the hotel was that the group was staying [at]. And one of his special buddies was among them. Oh, that was so touching.

GL: Like your friend at the train.

RE: It was, exactly. It was so touching. And the men often cry at those meetings. They often do. They get up and say something mundane, or maybe the day that a person came who was related to the young man for whom the ship was named. And members of his family have been coming to the reunions. And the guys were asked to tell something they did on the ship or a bit about their service career. Very few of them could get through it. Some have managed okay, both others broke down and quit. It was so moving. Here they are, all elderly men, grandfathers, and these things happened when they were 18, 19, 20. They were buddies, they were just young kids, and some of those things are more real than things that have happened since. And they've all been happily married, their grandchildren mean everything to them. Many of them have had very satisfying jobs, but what they remember are those times together. You know, they were close as brothers, they were jammed up in this rather small ship - like sardines. Mase's bunk was up on the top level [right under the bulkhead]. And he can still remember what watch you were on watch, who was on with you, who was the buddy that fixed the coffee and what happened when this took place or the scare they had the night that the U-boat attacked and ... You know, you were all young and you were all doing exactly the same thing, at the same time, under stress.

GL: That's the impression I've gotten from many veterans.

RE: [It's] very profound.

GL: I don't have any other questions. Do you have any final thoughts?

RE: Well, it's, and I'm sure Mason feels the same way, Greg. I'm very honored to do this. Nobody has ever asked me to do something like this before. I realize that we are reaching an age [when people ask us how things used to be, and that it's a privilege to respond.]

GL: Elmwood's changed a lot.

RE: Yes, it has. The church sometimes has asked us a few times about how things used to be but we've always been there, people know that we have always been there so it's nothing different. But to try to flesh out some of our thoughts and impressions that have been buried for a long time, to make them into something particular about our youth during World War II, I think it is very important and very meaningful and it's an honor to be asked to preserve those memories for other people because I realize the rate at which our veterans are dying. We are losing them. And I think that not too many years ago I asked our pastor at church if we could honor veterans. We hadn't done that for a long time and I just thought that was pathetic. There are a lot of veterans in our church. And she agreed to do it. Not all ministers want to mix Memorial Day or Veterans Day with church services, it's not always done. But I thought they could be at least recognized, sit together with their families. And there were a number of them. And it was very, very moving to see these guys who had been our deacons or trustees, our ushers, loyal church members for years, stand up. Some of them didn't even know about each other or where they had served. It opened up just so much interesting camaraderie on a different level. At the church they were always seen as the church fathers, so to speak. But they were young men once and they fought for their country. They all had that in common. And it was so interesting to have them read, the names we knew. I wish we did it every year, but we don't. But afterwards at the coffee hour that place was humming. And it was very moving. And since then, some of those fellas have died. And that's happening at a great rate all the time and I think what UCONN and what you're participating in is great. Someday you won't be able to do it. So, you know, it's a very moving and very impressive kind of privilege to have to be able to share your youth with somebody that will care sometime to hear more about those days. Because at the time you don’t know that at one time you are going to provide something for posterity. You think you'll be young forever.

GL: One final question. You talked about the great experience you had going to school with the vets, but for you personally, the war itself, living through the war on the homefront, what lasting effect did it have on you?

RE: I guess it made me a whole lot more aware of the world outside of Elmwood and my own small family. It made me much more aware of suffering. But a lot of that was through things I read afterwards. My own life was amazingly unchanged except for the relationship with Mason, which brought me in very close contact with the war but still only through him. We continued going to church. I went to school. I went to college. We lived in my same hometown. Didn't have any relatives involved. I didn't know a lot about the total trauma of the war in Europe and war in the Pacific until after the war. So, I think the enlargement really came later [not] actually during the war; I was so taken up then with correspondence with Mase and how that all affected me. What he was doing. And I learned a lot, of course, from him, about his travels and where he had been, but that took years to unfold. It was an enlarging experience. Not one of personal suffering. Not really. I think in our family my father was the one who had that sense of the disaster and he kept that from us women. He figured I had enough to handle and my family thought, "Oh dear, young love." And "too bad they have to be separated." Still very personal. But Dad knew the picture. And I don't remember him discussing the war that much at home.

GL: Do you think your mom knew as much as your Dad did? Did he share with her?

RE: May have. They shared their apprehensions about us. And about me. Yeah. But Dad read in a different way. Had friends, traveled a lot. So, I think mother and Granny and I along with a lot of other women and girls in Elmwood were, it was the day when men protected their women. That was kind of the style of living. Granny had [earlier] worked in the home business [the hardware store], but mother did not work outside of the home after she married until many years later. She wasn't involved in a lot of war talk or ... as you would be in an office or something, you know. I guess the impression I have looking back on this is, you know, how really tunnel-visioned you can be when you are young. But if it doesn't change your life, it doesn't change you. [And I really think that even though I didn't realize it at the time, my experiences during World War II really helped me mature and has influenced my whole life.]