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I met my husband-to-be, Basil Duncan, when I was
sixteen. I hadn't picked him out for a husband yet, but I kept
my eye on him! In order to do that, I kept trying to fix him up
with my cousin, Lynn Alexander. Lynn was not only pretty, she
was full of fun -- silly, Basil called it. Basil was always
more mature than other boys our age. He was friends with my
brother, John, and came to spend the night a few times. I was
busy with school and other things (boys) at the time -- Basil
had already graduated.
Cooper was the County Seat of Delta County -- actually, the only
town of any size (about 3,000) in Delta County. All the
merchants stayed open until midnight on Saturday nights, and
people came from all over the county to shop and see friends and
neighbors they had not seen all week. Young people circled the
square time after time. Since most people had no telephone, the
kids would meet on the square and decide what to do for
entertainment. Unless you were going steady, that is.
I always went to town with my brother, John. I only went steady
once before Basil became my one and only. I wasn't crazy about
it. I much preferred having a lot of friends instead of just
one -- until Basil, of course.
One Saturday night, two friends and I were going around the square and met Basil and two of his friends. Someone had the price of a bag of marshmallows, so we decided to take them to the park and roast them.
The guy I was with was not nearly as interesting as Basil -- nor was the girl he was with as interesting as me -- so Basil and I spent the evening tossing marshmallows at each other. I was smitten.
There were some things to settle before Basil and I could get together permanently -- my current boyfriend, for one. *grin* At Christmas time, we finally exchanged class rings, but then I didn't hear from him for a while. He had lost my ring and gone to Oklahoma to earn money to pay for another -- he tells all about that in his story.
And then came Pearl Harbor -- December 7, 1942. It was a place I had never heard of until the Japanese attack. We were faintly aware of the war in Europe, of course, but we didn't worry about it. After all, FDR in his 1940 campaign speeches had said over and over again, "I promise you mothers and fathers that, if I am re-elected, your sons will NEVER fight on foreign soil!" We were stupid enough to believe him.
Conscription (later called the draft) had started in 1940, but it was only for one year. There was a popular song called "I'll Be Back in a Year, Little Darling." Only they didn't come back in a year. On Monday, December 8, 1941, we realized for the first time what was coming. Some of us were crying, and we all had long faces. Prof assembled all of the high school classes in the study hall to listen on the radio to the declaration of war against Japan and the European Axis powers.
On April 11, 1942, Basil proposed. I still had a month or so left to go in school. We were not allowed to date anyone outside our class at class activities, so I went to all class activities with one or another of the boys in my class. They knew Basil and I were engaged, but they didn't mind -- they probably had girlfriends who were not class members, too. We just had fun. Today's kids would sue over that rule, but we didn't even consider breaking it.
The last week of school was Senior Week, and Senior Class
members had no classes. Prof expected us to turn up first thing
in the morning, but then we were free to do whatever we wanted.
We had picnics, parties and, one day, we all hitch-hiked to
Cooper to a movie. When it was over, my friend, Ann Hollon, and
the boys we were with were stranded with no way home. Basil was
in town in his uncle's car, so he took us all home.
We didn't have Senior Proms. Instead, the Junior Class gave a tea for us after the Baccalaureate Service. An example of clothing prices: my dress, shoes and hat for Baccalaureate Day cost $2.98 each.
A little about 1942 prices -- as much as I can remember. Eggs were 12 cents per dozen; a large loaf of bread was 10 cents. Most hamburgers were a nickel or a dime, cokes a nickel. It cost 15 cents to see a movie at the Sparks (except for "Gone With the Wind" which was 25 cents, and well worth the extra money!) Cherry cokes at Hooten Drug's fountain were 10 cents and a frozen malt was 25 cents. Coffee and butter were a quarter per pound. For fifty cents, you could buy ten pounds of sugar.
I don't remember the price of flour, but Mama could buy a bushel of apples, peaches or oranges from the fruit man for $1.00. Doctors would come to your house then for $5.00, and it was the same price, even if the whole family was sick and had to be treated. Gasoline was 9 cents (white gas) and 11 cents (red gas) per gallon.
Make your pocketbook sick? The problem was finding the coins to buy at those low prices!
I was not aware of anyone being on relief (the word for welfare then) or even whether such a thing was available. People then were more self-sufficient than people are today. They depended on themselves instead of the government and the taxpayers. Even if some WERE on relief, you never knew it -- they had too much pride to let anyone know. Too bad the people are not like that today. Maybe some day they WILL find enough backbone to fend for themselves.
One can only hope.
My class graduated on May 15, 1942. That was the last time I
saw some of my classmates. Others I didn't see again until our
35th class reunion in 1977. Earl B. (Toady) Reynolds was
killed during the Normandy landing. Weldon Moore joined the
Marine Corps. Billy Williams joined the Merchant Marines. As
far as I know, all the others went in the Army. Basil (Bodie)
Gillean was taken prisoner by the Germans, but survived. The
graduates of 1942 had a tough life to look forward to.
So I went to work in a laundry in Commerce, Texas. I made the glorious sum of $1.00 per day. I came down with a kidney infection and didn’t go back to the laundry. Instead, I wend to Dallas to stay with my brother, Howard, and his wife, LaDelle. She was an angel, I went with my sister, Velma, to Sears (their catalog department was only a block from Howard and LaDelle’s house. Velma wanted to apply for a job, so I went with her. They didn’t hire Velma, but they did hire me as a clothing inspector. Velma had two children to support, so I would have preferred they hire her instead. It didn’t work out that way.
I don’t recall that there was such a thing as child support in those days and a single mother with two children during the depression really had a difficult time making ends meet. My sister really needed a job but she had lots of company. There were many such mothers in the same boat. Basil’s Mother was in the same boat, striving very hard to support three children as well as herself and the father was no where to be found. Basil and Florine, his sister, lived part time with their grandparents and that helped out a lot. Noel, their little brother stayed with their Mother and somehow they all survived.
While I was at Howard and LaDelle’s, Basil was in South Houston attending a NYA school studying sheet metal and ship building. He really enjoyed the school, even though we both were miserable being apart. His cousin, Nolan Crockett, had gone with him to Houston and was so homesick he decided to return home. It seems he had decided to learn to be a welder and after a very few weeks he was qualified to work in the ship yards and was taken out to do just that. As long as he was with Basil he was content to remain but when separated he decided to go home. There was a little catch however getting out. It seems that once you agreed to attend the NYA School (National Youth Administration) you were required to remain unless you enlisted in the Navy or military. Nolan advised them he was joining the Navy and off he went. Basil remained a while longer but soon became discouraged. When he first joined the school was for boys only, who was willing to learn a practical trade and therefore be available to work in the defense department where needed. After Nolan left the NYA decided to bring in as many teenage girls as the campus had facilities for. For Basil and his friends that meant giving up their nice dorms, moving into some old obsolete buildings, and also giving up their recreation halls to the girls. Basil became so disgusted he soon followed Nolan back home. Basil was eager to learn but as he remembers the situation the girls were there to have fun and not much more. That was well and good but it was not a place of learning any more.
Nolan left Houston first and returned to Paris Texas where his family lived on a nearby farm. Basil followed not long after and stopped off in Dallas to visit me. While there we firmed up our plans to get married and then he returned to Cooper Texas to be with his parents and grand parents. During this time he and Nolan decided it would be better if they both enlisted in the Navy and maybe they could be together. Little did they know the odds would have been about a million to one that would ever happen.
It turned out that Nolan’s parents signed his papers to enlist, they were both only 17 at the time, but to my joy Basil’s mother refused to sign for him.
He still thought it might be better if we waited until after the war to be married but I was not going to have any part of that. For me it was going to be marriage now or no marriage at all. I didn’t want to be tied to someone that I couldn’t see or be near.
The war loomed like forever in front of us and no one was coming home until it was over. I was deeply in love and all I could think of was I wanted to be married and I wanted to have a baby before he went over seas----someone who would be part of both of us. Once he left he would not return until the war was over, no matter how long it lasted. There was no such thing as rotation. You were over there as long as it took.
So our final decision , after several hours of discussing the whole war situation, was to elope to Hugo Oklahoma and be married immediately.
Basil’s step-father, Leonard Dennis, drove us to Hugo. He and the minister’s wife were the witnesses to the ceremony. We were married by Rev. H. W. Young. Mrs. Young also played the Wedding March in their living room. (As this is being recorded we are celebrating 62 years as husband and wife and still very much in love.)
A funny thing happened on the way to Hugo. It had rained the night before and Basil lived in the country on dirt roads that had the blackest dirt and or mud you could ever find. It would cling to everything it touched and that included your feet when attempting to walk. Before leaving the house we all removed our shoes and walked barefoot because it was much easier than trying to wear any kind of shoe.
When we reached Paris which was not far from the state line, Basil discovered he had forgot his socks. We finally found a store and basil went in to purchase a pair of socks and at the checkout he discovered he had also forgot to bring his wallet. He returned to the car, borrowed some money from me, paid the clerk and we were finally on our way.
(Years later, when our twin sons were in Little League Baseball, our ladies group took a bus tour to Hollywood to see a game show called, ”It Could Be You”. Unknown to me at the time the show had contacted some in the group several weeks in advance and decided that I would be selected to be a participant on the show. The producers then worked with Basil to come up with something outrageous from our past that would be somewhat interesting and funny at the same time. Together they come up with the barefoot walk in the mud and Basil forgetting his money and socks.
After we arrived at the show and were all seated the Emcee came on stage and started calling out names and I suddenly heard this loud voice call out: Evelyn Duncan It Could Be YOU! I nearly fainted when he walked me up to the stage and presented me with a large oval plaque. On the front was a pair of yellow crossed socks and I think there was some wording but don’t recall at this time. As far as I know I still have that thing.)
After the wedding in Hugo we returned to Cooper where we took a bus know as The Redball Express, to Dallas and arrived at my brother’s house about 3:30 AM November 6, 1942.
As soon as possible Basil went out looking for employment and found that there were plenty of jobs but no one wanted to hire an 18 year whom they knew would be leaving for the war at any time. That being the case he had to take what he could find and the first job was driving a moving van and when not driving he would clerk in a used furniture store. I went to work as soon as I returned because I was still employed by Sears. When Basil took the job driving the Moving van they of course asked him if could drive a commercial truck and needing work he told them he could drive anything with wheels. At that time he had never driven anything larger than a ½ ton pickup. He was hired and the first morning they assigned him to take the large van and go to a small town about fifty miles away and move a large cargo of furniture. I don’t know how he ever made it but somehow with a lot of determination and the help of this very large and very nice man assigned as his swamper or helper, he more or less learned to drive that truck by nightfall.
Basil kept wondering why the owner of the furniture company hired him with no experience and knowing he had never driven a truck as large as the van and also knowing he didn’t have a commercial license and not even a regular license. He soon discovered the man was not only dishonest and regularly cheated people in most of his dealings with them, he was hoarding gasoline illegally by burying 55 gallon drums filled with fuel all over the city lots around his business. He and Basil finally had it out and Basil walked out even though he really needed work.
His next job was with a company that made ice and Basil worked what he called the platform. He was really busy and worked 10 to 12 daily. When not making ice he sold ice for the company to wholesalers and trucking companies who used it for refrigeration.
When he was working on the dock the temperature was around 100 degrees every day and inside where he stored the 300 pound blocks of ice, the temperature was 27 degrees. He always seemed to have a cold or the flu.
We weren’t getting rich but in happiness and pure love for each other we scored a perfect grade. It didn’t take WW11 long to catch up with us. Basil had signed up with the Marines sometime in March but for some reason they delayed his reporting time at San Diego Marine Training Base and he soon received orders to report to the Marine Base Recruit Depot in San Diego CA. Soon after arriving in San Diego he advised me that he would complete his basic training sometime in August and of course I was going to be there and so I was.
One of my immediate goals was to find work and that turned out to be no problem. Defense plants were all over San Diego and they need all the help they could find. I was acquainted with Ginny Bridges, a family friend of Basil’s family and she helped me to find work where she was employed, Ryan Aeronautical Co. I was hired immediately in the transportation department to drive a small three wheel motor scooter delivering parts and mail to the many different departments. After nearly running over my supervisor I was transferred to the inspection department.
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