THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: English Heritage
INTERVIEW WITH: Kay Harper
DATE: 25 April 1998
PLACE: Amarillo, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Diane Gray
TAPE 1, SIDE 1
G: This is Diane Gray, a research associate with the Institute of Texan Cultures. I'm here this morning with Mrs. Kay Harper of Amarillo, Texas, and I'm speaking with her in her home at 3620 East 30th Avenue, here in Amarillo. Today's date is Tuesday, April 25, 1998, and the time is 11:24 a.m.
Mrs. Harper, you participated in an historic event fifty years ago as an English bride wed to an American G.I., who with thousands and thousands of others like yourself immigrated from your mother country of England to settle in America, especially Texas. Spend some time this morning sharing memories from your life at this time in history. And my first question that I'd like to start with is: can you explain the circumstances of your migration at that time?
H: Well, I married a man from Plainview, Texas. He was a senior master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.
G: Name?Kay Harper 2
H: His name was Lawley William Harper.
G: Spell the first one.
H: L-a-w-l-e-y.
G: Okay. And he was from Plainview.
H: He was from Plainview, Texas, yes.
G: How did you meet?
H: I met him in my own town - my own hometown of Warrington. That's W-a-r-r-i-n-g-t-o-n. In Cheshire, in the U.K. I have some friends who own a hotel and a pub, together. And I was visiting there one evening with the Carters, who own the place, and I...at the time I was working in the barracks as a civilian typist in the civil service. But I wanted to get something else to do, as well, in the evenings, so I could travel. So I went to the family friends and I was telling them what I wanted to do; I wanted to get another job that I could do in the evening. And their mother had told me, "Tell them, and they'll find something for you to do." So they asked me to come sometimes and help there in the evening if I could. So I said, "Okay, I'll do that." And it was one evening while I was there that I met my husband. He came to stay; they were spending the night at the hotel because one of their friends from another part of the country had come to visit with them. And while they were sitting there - I was talking to Mrs. Carter - and this man said...did like this to me. Kay Harper 3
G: He wiggled his finger at you.
H: Yes. So I went over there and he was with his friend, H: Maynard - Bernard Maynard. He wanted to know about the English money. He said, "Would you tell me what all this English money is?" You know, the names of it. So I said, "Yes, I will." So I told them and explained all those things and I went back and I said, "Well, I'll be leaving in a little while. I'm going to go home." And I was talking with Mrs. Carter again, and every time I moved, the eyes were following me. [laughter] And because apart...at the same time that I was out of the army, I was still a member of the - what you call the National Guard. I still did that sort of thing. And this...Harper was watching me all the time while I was there. And I said, "Well I have to leave because I have a meeting, you know." And I said, "That man keeps following me all the time." So then as they were leaving, he stopped and talked to me for a minute and he said, "I'm going to come back again." He said, "Will you be here?" I said, "Well, occasionally I'll be here, but I'm not here all the time." So he said, "Well, I'd like to have a date with you. We could go to the movies or something." So I said, "Well, alright then, I'll do that." And from that time on, it was him. Then he got hurt once on the base. One of his men that he was working with had dropped some kind of a wooden object and it hit him on the ankle andKay Harper 4
he was in the hospital. And the next thing you know, someone came to my house and said, "You know that Bill...". Well, he called him Bill, he said, "Bill Harper is in the
H: hospital and he asked me to...would I bring you to see him." "Oh," I said, "Okay." I said, "I was wondering what happened to him." So they took me to the hospital. And while I was sitting...while I was sitting there visiting with him and he said to me, "I'm going to marry you." And I really felt that the first time I ever looked at him. You know, he looked at me and I looked at him, I thought, "This is him." But he said to me, "I'm going to marry you." I said, "You are?" [laughter] "Yes, I am." But he had been married before - he was divorced, you know. When he came back from...I think it was - not Vietnam, the other place.
G: Korea?
H: No. It's another place over there. But anyway, when he came back from there the woman who he'd married had been running around all over, and he divorced her. And he was divorced when I met him. But I didn't know that, and I said, "Well, I don't believe in divorce, you know." When he did finally come...he came and asked me to marry him after ... He was out of the hospital pretty soon. And he asked me to marry him, I said, "Yes, but I don't believe in divorce because I'm a Catholic." So he said, "Well, that's okay with me." So I said alright. Eventually he became a Kay Harper 5
Catholic, you see. And so we got married on the 31st of December 1951. We'd been going out from about February of that year - practically all year we'd been together. And we got married on the 31st of December.
G: And how old are you at this time in your...?
H: I was twenty-nine and he was thirty-four.
G: Uh.
H: And I never thought I'd get any babies, and I got one exactly... [laughter] And in '52, in September. And we got married on the 31st of December.
G: So you had a honeymoon baby?
H: We did. [laughter] Well, I went to Switzerland for my honeymoon, like in May, but I got my baby - I was pregnant then. I got pregnant right away because 26th of December I had my last one.
G: Yes.
H: And we got married on the 31st. And I kept getting sick in the morning, you know, feeling...and he said to me, "That's alright, if you don't go now to the base and find out if you're getting a baby," he said. "When you get it, they'll come and get you anyway." So I said, "Well, I'm not having a baby; it's just a different life that's affecting me, I guess. It's different." [laughter] He said, "Okay." So anyway, every time I'd smell bacon or anything cooking I was feeling ill. So I said, "Okay, I'll go to the base withKay Harper 6
you." So we went to the base and the doctor examined me and he said, "Oh, you think you're pregnant, do you?" So I said... And he said, "I'll tell you in a minute anyway." He said, "Yes, you are." He said, "But you're built like a battleship; you'll be alright." [laughter] So I got...and H: my baby on the - I think it's the 17th of September.
G: And tell me about that child - a little bit.
H: About when I had the baby?
G: Uh-huh.
H: I went to the...well, the night before I went...got this baby, and... Or the day before, I called him at the base and I said, "Something's happened to me funny, you know. I think I'm going to have the baby." He said, "Oh, Kay, you're not going to get the baby yet. In a few days maybe." So I said, "Well, okay, and I'll wait." So he came home that evening, and he said, "Mr. and Mrs. Pickering from the Warrington Gentlemen's Club are coming with us to bingo at the base. Okay?" So I said, "Alright." So we went to bingo at the base and I'm sitting there and I said, "I've got to go to the bathroom." I went to the bathroom and my water had broken. But I was on the base, anyway, so I came out...so I came out and he said, "What happened?" And I told him. He said, "Well, I have to take Kay to the hospital." So he took me to the hospital and I was sitting around there for a few minutes till they called me in, and Kay Harper 7
they gave me something to inhale. And then they took me in there and I'm lying on the table and all these lights are shining on me and they said, "Do you feel like you want to have a BM?" And I thought, "Good heavens! What is he talking about? A Brigade Major at this stage of the game, you know!" All my typing had been for a Brigade Major, you H: know. I thought, what would I want with a Brigade Major? So I thought about it and then they said, "Are you sure you don't...?" Oh, I know - it dawned on me what he was asking! And I said, "Well, yes, that's what it feels like." He said, "Well, push!" [laughter] And I pushed and I got the baby. He said, "Oh, it's coming now, it's coming now." So then they took me to a room where there were several other people who'd had babies, you know, into a ward. And before I got this baby, I was scared to death, because my mother had died when my younger sister was born. I was five years old, and my mother wasn't even thirty, and she died in childbirth. And this kept gnawing at me all the time, you know. And I thought, what am I going to do? So when they wheeled me into the room there, to put me to bed for the night, I was shouting, "Somebody tell me, am I dead?" [laughter] And they said, "Your voice was so loud; how could anyone be dead and your voice that loud?" [laughter] So, anyway, the next morning I woke up and they brought my baby back and everything went smoothly after Kay Harper 8
that. I went home in about four days after that. And everything was fine. My son, now - that baby - is an aerospace engineer.
G: My, my, my.
H: Yes, he got a - not a master's degree and a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering. Wade, and he lives in Austin.
G: Uh-huh. Austin, Texas?
H: Yes. His wife died in '93; she was a juvenile diabetic. She'd had about three kidneys and was waiting for another one. And she didn't get the other one in time, so she died.
G: What was your...what is your son's name?
H: My family?
G: Your son's name?
H: My family name was Corroboy - an Irish name. And Anglicized version of Corboui.
G: Oh, my. Can you spell those two names?
H: I have my whole family tree. My name is C-o-r-r-o-b-o-y.
G: Okay.
H: And the Celtic version is C-o-r-b-o-u-i.
G: Okay.
H: Or is it? Yeah, Corboui. Anyway, it goes something like that. It's from Tipperary.Kay Harper 9
G: Is it?
H: County Tipperary.
G: Well, tell me a little bit about your girlhood and growing up in England. And what you did before you met your husband.
H: Before I met my husband I worked in - where did I work? I was working in the market, as a...like a shop assistant.
G: Uh-huh.
H: We have a big open market, and I worked for a man named ...the company was named Bailey. They dealt mostly with fruit and vegetables and everything like that. And that's when I saw the girl in uniform, and I said, "Well, I think I'm going to join the army." Because I was going...when I was eighteen I was going to go to the Catholic college in Manchester, see?
G: Uh-huh.
H: But...
G: And how old are you, now, when you're making this decision?
H: Seventeen.
G: Seventeen years old.
H: Yeah. Because the war started in '39.
G: And is that when you went in?
H: I was seventeen, yes.
G: 1939.Kay Harper 10
H: I was seventeen and a few months, because my birthday's in May. And that's why I had to have my father to sign, because at eighteen I would have been conscripted anyway.
G: Oh, really?
H: We had conscription for women, yes.
G: For women. That's very different from...
H: That way I could pick my own place. [laughter]
G: So...
H: And I enlisted at the local barracks. I called the Air H: Force first, but they said, oh, I was too young, 'cause we had an Air Force Base close to where I lived. And we also had Peninsula Barracks, which was the South Lancaster Regiment, and I called in there and they had an - a woman, an...ATS people in there already. So I called the officer and she told me, "Yes, I could come if I could get my parents' permission." So I said, "Well, I just had my father." So they said that will be fine. So I ran after my father when I saw him, because he'd married again, and I ran after him when I met him and I told him I wanted him to sign these papers. "You don't want to go into the army!" I said, "Yes, I do." So he signed it. And I started into the army when I was just a little...seventeen, and a few months.
G: Tell me about the different things you did in your life in the army. How many years were you in it?
H: I was in for eight years, and in Peninsula Barracks I Kay Harper 11
was a typist.
G: Spell that for me please. Peninsula Barracks.
H: P-e-n-i-n-s-u-l-a.
G: Thank you.
H: I was a typist in one of the offices there. Actually it was the Messing Office.
G: Uh-huh.
H: I worked for the messing office; I did all the typing - ordering and things. And then later on they started a mixed anti-aircraft...anti-aircraft batteries, and I volunteered
H: to go and be tested for that. So I had my eyes tested, and everything like that, and then I went to a regiment where we trained for the instruments we'd be working on. And I was a predictor number one.
G: A predictor?
H: Yes, it's like an instrument that you'd put things in - windspeed, bearing of the aircraft - and the girls are located...no, with. like glasses.
G: Binoculars?
H: Well, they're not binoculars, but they work in that same way. They have to look and get the height, windspeed and bearing, and I put them into this thing like you do things - into a predictor. And then I have to watch the thing, and then I have to figure out how to...what fuse to set and tell the men what fuse to set...[inaudible], and Kay Harper 12
then let the airplane come. And when it gets to the right position that I predicted, tell them when to fire, to bring the aircraft down.
G: That's an important position you were in.
H: Really, it was, yes.
G: Decision making. How long did you do that anti-aircraft work?
H: I did that...I left that - the training school - and went to Bristol, which was badly bombed the Easter I was there, and I went to a battery that...they had... [inaudible] in Bristol - 113 Mixed, Heavy Anti-Aircraft
H: Regiment. And my battery at that time was 463 Battery, and it was over on the Welsh - on the coast opposite Wales.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And I worked there. And sometimes I used to have to do guard duty [laughter] and things like that. And then we had a course going on at the headquarters, so I was selected to go on the course. Because when I wasn't doing anti-aircraft work - no, on duty - I was typing in the office of the Battery.
G: Uh-huh.
H: So I go on this course and when I went into the Headquarters in Bristol of the regiment, they found out I was the typist and they kept me there. So I stayed there for awhile, quite awhile, and then I volunteered to go Kay Harper 13
overseas. And they said I wasn't old enough yet, but as soon as I was twenty-one I could volunteer.
G: Yeah.
H: So I went back to another Battery; it was 472 Battery this time. We were in Western ...[Place, name inaudible], on the coast - it's a holiday place. And while I was there I got a call to say that I could now go overseas if I wanted.
G: Yes.
H: And I went overseas. It was just after...a few, a little while after D-Day. No, the first time that they... the troops went over there, and my...
G: Yes.
H: To fight and I went over in the landing craft - an LST [landing ship, tank] and we had to sleep on top of each other down in there [laughter]. in the hold.
G: You mean in bunk...in a bunk bed configuration?
H: Oh, it was more than two, you know, there was about four of us.
G: Yes. Multiple layer bunk beds.
H: And we just had to undo our shirt and take our shoes off, and we lay...like Peggy, my friend, was on top here of me and then...and Peggy said if we have to go to the bathroom, which is the head...
G: Yes.Kay Harper 14
H: We'll go together, if we have to get up and go. And while we were down there, a sailor shouted, "Hey, Tony!" I said, "Who's calling me a Tony?" There's man from Liverpool, "If you need any more blankets, just tell me." So I said, "Well, we do need a blanket," so he threw us blankets down. And then when we...that first night, while we were on the ship crossing the channel from New Haven to Dieppe...
G: Dieppe.
H: She said to me, "We'd better go to the bathroom." I said, "Yeah, I think I'll go too." So we both went up there and when we saw what the bathroom was... It was like a long trough with, like place - two wooden things for you to sit
H: on. [laughter] So we went to that, and then we stood up and I got sick - feeling, you know, motion of the ship. So I went to the side of the ship, and I said, "Peggy, I can't go down there. I have to stay where I am, up on deck." So a sailor came and he brought me a chair and he put me near one of the smokestacks. I sat there, and then in the morning one of the officers came, he said, "You've been sitting up here all night?" I said, "Yes." And he said, "Well, come on to the..." - you know, where they make the breakfast. And as soon as he said that, I thought, "Oh, God!"
G: Uh-oh.Kay Harper 15
H: So he took me there, and he said, "I'll stop that for you." And he gave me some tea, without sugar and milk, and some plain toast. And I was okay then. And then when we got to Dieppe, we had to wait for transportation, and the truck that came for us was a three-ton truck with some Canadians driving it. And we had been given our rations to eat on the way. And the Germans were going to get back on our boat - German prisoners - and this...our...we're supposed to be putting our luggage - our kit bags and things off the boat, and they dropped some in the water. Mine wasn't there, but they made them go in and get them. And then we got on the...we ate some of our package lunch and then we went on this three-ton truck to a place called [...Amien? inaudible]..., in France.
G: Now, where is Dieppe?
H: Dieppe is...Dover is...New Haven is like near Dover, you know, it's on...and Dieppe is the opposite place in France.
G: Spell that for me, please.
H: D-i-e-p-p - I think is double-p-e...
G: Okay. And then...so you landed at Dieppe.
H: Dieppe, and then we boarded a three-ton truck to go to Amiens - in France.
G: Amiens, spell that for me please.
H: A-m-i-e-n-s, I think. There's an s on the end.Kay Harper 16
G: Yes.
H: And we stayed there overnight. We had to share big beds with...we're all girls anyway. But some of the girls went into another part of France and twelve of us were picked to go to Brussels. And we became Brussels...the Girls of Brussels Garrison. And in Brussels Garrison I worked in the army ordinance. And while I was there - my brother was a couple of years younger than me, he'd been in ... He was in the army, and one day I got a call from downstairs - where we have people, you know, checking people who come in - that someone was here to visit me. And it was my brother. He was working in the army, you know, more northerly than I was, and he'd got time off to come and see me. And it was put in the local paper at home. [laughter] Paddy came to see me. And I got a little time off to go and H: have lunch with him. But then I had to go back and do my work and, you know, in the office, and he did some sight-seeing on his own. And when his truck came and picked him up, he went back to his own unit. And I didn't see him anymore until after the war. [laughter]
G: What year is it that you became one of the Girls of Brussels Garrison?
H: Uh, '50 - was it? - let me see, 1940. When was...D-Day was '45, wasn't it?
G: Yes.Kay Harper 17
H: '44.
G: And you were - twenty-one? Twenty-two?
H: I was twenty-two then.
G: Okay.
H: And then I stayed there until '46; I was two years there. And then I went to Germany until '47, and then I came out. I was in Iserlohn in Westphalia.
G: Can you spell that for me?
H: I-s-e-r-l-o-h-n. Westphalia is West-p-h-a-l-i-a.
G: What did you do at that area?
H: I was a typist.
G: So typing took you across Europe.
H: That's right. And then when I came out...when I came back to England, I was typing in the same barracks that I left from.
G: Uh-huh.
H: As a civilian.
G: So you were released in 1947, became a civilian and were typing?
H: No, I went to Switzerland first and taught there - taught the doctor's wife English, for a year.
G: Uh-huh. That was after your release from the army?
H: Yes, that was afterwards.
G: And then you headed back home.
H: I think that was '48, the year '48, when I was there, Kay Harper 18
because they had the skating championships in Switzerland that year.
G: Yeah.
H: Richard Button was there and a girl from Canada won the skating.
G: You have a good memory! [laughter]
H: But I lived right up in the mountains there, in Switzerland, just above the...well, we were above Lucerne.
G: Uh-huh.
H: But I've been in all of those places around there.
G: Beautiful area, I understand.
H: Seelisberg was where I was. Seelisberg - S-e-e-l-i-s-b-e-r-g.
G: Now, make the connection of your return home to your work in the hotel, where you met Mr. Harper.
H: Well, that was - let's see '40, '51 we got married so it was in...was in '51 when I met him. Would be about,
H: maybe, in February '51.
G: Okay.
H: Because when I went out with him for all that time because...well, we stuck together. We...I went out with him all that time, and people said, "Are you going to marry an American?" "Well, so what? What's wrong with that?" "Why I didn't think you'd marry an American!" [laughter] But I did. And I'm glad I did. I wish he was back. I wish he Kay Harper 19
was still here.
G: I'm sure you do.
H: He was a good man.
G: Married. Now, where did you go from there? You lived in England; did you come directly to America? What's your story from the marriage?
H: No. We lived...he was based...he was based in Burtonwood; that was the biggest air base in Europe.
G: Burtonwood, England?
H: Yes. And Burtonwood is like a suburb of the town that I live in.
G: Warrington?
H: And where I lived you could hear the aircraft; it was near enough to there, you know, my home. I lived with my grandmother because, like, my mother was dead and my father had remarried and I stayed with my grandma. And then my grandma died. I'd come back from Brussels to her funeral, just after the war ended. I came back home to her funeral;
H: they let me have a pass and gave me a flight from Brussels home, and they gave me an extension of a week so I could be there, you know. And then I went to live with my older sister after that. I was living with my older sister when I got married. But we got married just with his boyfriend and my girlfriend; we didn't have a big fancy wedding. We got married in the registry office.Kay Harper 20
G: Really?
H: Yes. Because I was a Catholic, they wouldn't let me get married to him in the church, see?
G: Oh.
H: And he'd been baptized when he...he'd had a bomb explode in his hands and he got seventy-five percent second and third degree burns - a lot. That was before I'd met him. And they called his mother and told her - he's the only son - that he was...there was no hope...he was going to die, you know. So she went up to the hospital where he was and she had him baptized while he was unconscious. But I told them that his mother was a Methodist, and I think he was a Methodist too. So we got married in the registry office and then when we came here, in '72, Father ...[Name inaudible] from the church here where I go. He came to visit us, because I still went to the Catholic church. And he came and talked to us, and he asked my husband about what religion he was. He said, "Well, if I could be any religion, I'd be hers." So he said, "Well, would you take
H: instructions?" He said, "Of course I would." So he took instructions and then we got remarried in the church here.
G: Wonderful.
H: With my two sons. Yes.
G: Here in Amarillo?Kay Harper 21
H: Yeah, with the two sons as witnesses.
G: Indeed.
H: And he got baptized, received his first holy communion and we got married - all at the same time. [laughter]
G: That was a big event in his life - and your life!
H: It was. Because he never missed going...we never missed church. Well, I never miss, and he goes with me all the time to church. He went with me all the time.
G: Yeah.
H: We sat in the same seat, and I sit there still. [laughter] Because it's on the back row...
G: Uh-huh.
H: And I sit there. And our priest is a young priest. If there's not many there, they'll say, "Come on around the altar." You know. He says, "I know Kay won't move, you know, she always stays." [laughter] And that's where I do stay; I stay there. We always sat there, so... Mrs. ...[Name inaudible], a friend of mine, she's a widow, she comes for me and we go to church together, and she sits where I used to sit, and I sit where my husband used to sit.
G: [laughter] Oh, that's charming.
H: But she's younger than me, but people think, "Is that your mother?" [laughter] I said, "No, I don't have a mother." [laughter] 'Cause she looks older than me.
G: Let's pause to turn the tape over at this time. Kay Harper 22
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
G: Kay, tell us...
H: Well, I came to America first in 1953, I think it was. See, we were married in '52, my baby was born, uh, '51. In '52 Wade was born in September, and then in '53 Wade was about nearly one year old when we came over here.
G: And where did you land first ?
H: New...
G: And how did you come? By boat, by plane?
H: No, we came by plane.
G: Did you?
H: Well, we came with the Air Force plane.
G: Okay. And where did you land at that time?
H: I think we landed in - it's a place near New York.
G: Okay. And from there, what was your route?
H: Then we...where did we go? Oh, we went from there, from... Yeah, we landed in New York, that's right, and from there we got another plane and went to where my sister lives in New Orleans.
G: Really?
H: And we did spend a couple of nights there, and then Harper said, "Now, do you want to fly back to Plainview or should we take a bus? 'Cause we can get one here." So I said, "Well, I think we should take a bus so we can see...I Kay Harper 23
can see all the country as we go through it." And, really, at nighttime when you come through and come on into Texas, it was gorgeous, it was gorgeous. It was really lovely. And then we came to Plainview, and of course we stayed at his mother's house because we'd been assigned to go to Minneapolis.
G: How long were you at the mother's house?
H: Oh, we weren't...we were only there until he... See, after we stayed for a few days, then he left on a train. Went up to Minneapolis to find us a place to live. And then as soon as he found us a place to live, which he did find one right near the air base, he called and his mother put us on a plane, Wade and I on a train, and we went up to Minneapolis. But we had to change somewhere on the way. I thought, "Oh, I'm going to get lost!" [laughter]
G: How long did you live in Minneapolis?
H: We lived in...let me see, '54, '53, '54. I think we moved a year later into Milwaukee.
G: So you were there one year.
H: Yeah. And then we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, until '58,'50, yeah, '58. We stayed there until '58 and Wade went to pre-school there.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And in '58 we left Milwaukee, we went back to England, to Woodbridge.Kay Harper 24
G: Uh-huh.
H: To the base there, and instead of three years they gave us five years because they knew that, you know, my home was in England originally. So they gave us a five year...and he retired in '63; that was the end of the five years.
G: Okay. And then where did you go after that?
H: Well, when we retired we went to live...well, we visited his mother, you know, we visited back in Plainview. And then we went to Florida, to St. Cloud. We bought a house there, and we stayed there awhile.
G: About two or three years?
H: No, no, it wasn't even...I think it wasn't even - '63, about a year, barely a year.
G: Okay.
H: We were there for Christmas, I know. And we had a house close to the lake and we could go in the lake and swim and all that kind of thing.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And then Harper tried to get a job in the post office and they said, "Well, this is a small area, you know, probably have to wait until somebody dies." And he didn't want to have to travel to the Kennedy Space Center every day, you know, and back at night, you'd be all travelling, H: you know. So, he said, "We'll go back to England." And because I'd had another baby, when we went back to Kay Harper 25
England, I got Tim - the one that lives in Bartlesville. He's thirty-nine now, and the other one's forty-five. And we got our passports ready, you know, got the boys on his passport and we were going to go back to England. And when his mother got to know this, she said, "I'll never see you again." So he said, "Well, Kay, what should I do?" I said, "I don't have a mother; you do," I said, "Wherever you go, I go." So he said, "Okay, we'll go back to Plainview."
G: Uh-huh.
H: So we moved back to Plainview then. And we stayed there until '72. She had a...we sold our house right away. We hadn't got back to Plainview very long when they told us it was sold. And his mother had given us his grandmother's house - two bedrooms. That meant we had to put the boys in bunk beds. It was...and my husband built a utility room on the back of it, you know, and put glass windows all around it and everything. And then he said, "Well, we don't want the boys in bunk beds." So we went looking and we found a house on the same - on West 10th Street, the same street we were on, and it was a real nice house. It had a basement and it had three bedrooms and a big living room and a barbecue pit and all that kind of thing. So we bought that house. And we stayed there until we came...until...and he got a job in the post office while we were still in the
H: other house.Kay Harper 26
G: In Plainveiw?
H: In Plainview.
G: Now you bought your new dwelling in 1972?
H: No, we bought this house in '72.
G: After you left the grandmother's house? And bought another one.
H: Well, it was the same year we came back. We didn't stay but a few...a couple of months in it.
G: '64?
H: It would be like that, yes.
G: Okay. So you bought another dwelling in '64 and...
H: At 707 West 10th in Plainview.
G: In Plainview.
H: And last week when we were down...when my friends were here, they stopped and took pictures of the house. Because I had a white fence and yellow roses all along the fence. But we stopped there this time and I said, "There's my house, but it's...they've done something to it! The windows are changed, you know." And he said, "Well, I've just taken a picture of it, and I see this old man just come outside." So he went over and told him, he said, "I just took a picture of your house because my aunt who's in the car used to live here." He said, "What was her name?" And he said, "Harper." And the man said, "Oh, I remember that on the deed."Kay Harper 27
G: Yeah.
H: So, you see, when my boys went to school in Plainview that's where we lived, you see. And Wade was a National Merit Scholar - the one that's the aerospace engineer, and he was in the top half of one-percent in the nation.
G: Well, that's something to brag about.
H: Uh-huh. And Timothy went to school...well, they went to the Catholic school first, and then for high school they had to go to the regular school.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And then we came up here and Timothy went to...went to Caprock. Well, no, he went to Bowie Junior High and then he went into Caprock before he graduated.
G: Uh-huh. Now, how many years did your husband work in the post office in Plainview?
H: From...oh, let me see, probably from '64 or '65 until he died. No, he retired from the post office, too. He retired from the post office, because I have his civil service pension. I don't take the military pension; I get the civil service one.
G: What year did he retire?
H: I can't remember what year it was. [laughter]
G: It was in the '70s?
H: Well, we came...no, we came here in '72. No, he worked here for several - he died in '94 - so he worked here in theKay Harper 28
post office for a long time. Well, he got a pension so he
H: must have been there for the twenty...
G: Twenty plus years?
H: '72 to '92. He didn't die until '94.
G: Okay.
H: But...
G: Now, all these years that you're spending in Texas - let's talk about your life in Texas now. You are raising a family and following your husband where he needed to be to support the family and have a life...
H: Uh-huh.
G: What were you doing with your time? Were you involved in civic organizations? Did you hold a job? You were raising a family...
H: No, I've never worked since I got married.
G: Uh-huh.
H: ...[inaudible].
G: So how did you spend your time?
H: Looking after my house and my children and helping them with whatever things they needed to learn.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And I think that's the best thing for children. I think when parents have to work, both, it is much harder than if you stay home and look after your own children. 'Cause Wade learned to play the guitar while we were still Kay Harper 29
in Plainview, and now he's the second in command of the Scottish Band in Austin. He plays the bagpipes.
G: Really?
H: Uh-huh. And he did work for Lockheed. Lockheed moved to Colorado and he has asthma - no, not all the time but I mean, he does have asthma and he didn't go to Colorado because he...I mean, to visit is okay, but to live there it would not be good for him.
G: Hard on his health.
H: So he didn't go. And his wife used to work for the same, same aircraft firm and she was in charge of all the computers. And she even had her own secretary. But now he ...most of the things he does now is, he teaches music and he has children, people, who come to learn how to play the bagpipes. And that's about most of the things he does now. He was the representative for Lockheed in Austin. I don't know whether he still is, but he was an agent for them. But now he teaches music most of the time. He said, "I might as well retire now." He said everything is paid for, so he's retired. [laughter]
G: And Timothy, what's he up to now?
H: He works for Phillips Petroleum in the research and development and he's...he has a little girl, Katie; she's six. And she goes to the Catholic school there in Bartlesville. And the woman he married, Kelly, has a girl Kay Harper 30
who's fourteen, she's in high school now. And Tim looks after both of those. And they come to see me all the time.
G: Do they?
H: Yes.
G: During this time there were other war brides from England as well as different countries...
H: Uh-huh.
G: ...and settled in this general area. And I understand that a group was formed called the Cosmopolitan Club.
H: That was the one that I was in in Plainview, yes.
G: Okay. Tell me a little bit about that experience.
H: Well, it was just more or less a place where we would get together and talk and have something to eat and celebrate - you know, birthdays and things like that.
G: Uh-huh. A social gathering.
H: They were a nice group of people.
G: Uh-huh.
H: We had a mix. Well, like I said, they were mixed. We had this Kay, she was from...I think she was Japanese. Yes, she was from Japan, Kay was. And Pat Nowell came from Australia, well, she's still a friend of mine. I haven't seen the other girl for a long, long time. And I have only seen Daisy a couple of times since I left there. I went to see her before...well, I saw her before her husband died. I was at her house when he was kind of bedridden, more or Kay Harper 31
less, at the time. I went to see them then. And then when her husband died... I used to have a little phone book from Plainview and somehow it's disappeared, and I could have called her, but I couldn't. Finally I got to call her.
G: Good. So you've kept up with some of the ladies from your group?
H: I've seen Pat Nowell and I've seen Daisy and I think I've seen Pat Rucker a couple of times. And I don't know of any of the others I've seen, since I've been up here. But I used to go to Plainview. When his mother was living we'd go every single week, especially when she was, you know...she was in her nineties when she died and we had to hire someone to go in there everyday and feed her and everything like that, and be there with her. And she finally died in a nursing home. She was only in about two weeks. She was... she had this lady from Plainview - she's a real nice person - she used to be the one who looked after her. And she went into one of the bathrooms, she had a bigger house than us, and she went into my mother-in-law's bathroom over there and my mother-in-law took some pictures and a purse and was walking down the driveway. And when Mrs. Weeks came along, she saw her and she run out after her and my mother-in-law got real angry and started to, you know, "Where do you think you're going?" And she'd had a stroke, and I guess she just went...and she said some rude things, you know. I'd never Kay Harper 32
heard her say a nasty word in my whole life; she wasn't like that. So they got her back in and even her next-door neighbor was a friend, she waved her away, you know. Anyway, they got her back in and we went...and the doctor said, you know, this...now she has to go in a nursing home.
H: But she was only in there a couple of weeks before she - her demise.
G: Yes. Tell me a little about the English culture and your experiences in America, in Texas. Did you bring some English traditions with you? And what did you experience that might have been a culture clash when you got here?
H: Well, I didn't really find anything like that.
G: No?
H: No, I didn't.
G: So your transition was pretty smooth?
H: It was very smooth, yes. I mean, I know sometimes I, when I went...I went into a store once, travelling south, and I went in to buy something and they said, "You all come back now." And I looked and there was nobody there but me, so I went outside and said, I said, "You know, that man in there said to me, 'You all come back' and there was only me in the store." He said, "Oh, well, that's the way they talk down here." [laughter] And I never did get used to that, 'you all come back'. I thought that's funny, you know, to say to a person, you all come back. Kay Harper 33
G: What about food? Did you have interesting experiences with Texas food?
H: Yeah, well, I'm not - I don't like the spicy foods like the Spanish dishes. I eat a taco once in a blue moon. But all the other things - my boys eat it, my husband did, I used to cook it for them.
G: Did you?
H: But I didn't ever 'cotton on' to it. And they'll even say to me, "Mother, you and your bland diet!" [laughter] Because they'll go to the Japanese or the Chinese or somewhere like - anything like that. But I said, "Well, I'm not going there."
G: Did you cook English dishes for your family?
H: Well, I used...I made...one of my specialties is the English trifle.
G: Uh-huh.
H: Where if there is a funeral or something going on at church, that's what I take - a big crystal dish that I have fixed an English trifle.
G: Explain briefly what a trifle is.
H: A trifle is like a custard. No, first of all you take cake, like a pound cake or a Swiss roll, and you spread it with some nice strawberry jam or something like that. Put it into a...in the bottom and then get regular custard and make that and pour that on top of that. And then you make aKay Harper 34
jello - strawberry or something or raspberry - and you make ...oh, I also put a half of glass of sherry over the cake when it's lining the bottom. It's called a sherry trifle. And then you put the custard on, then you make...let that set in the refrigerator; you make the jello, then you put that on top of that and let that set, as well. And then I put cream on top of that. And if it's Christmas, I put
H: strawberries and green - you know, like colored cherries or whatever on top of the cream.
G: That sounds delicious.
H: Well, everybody likes it. My boys like it and everybody else liked it. So I have a huge dish that I make it in. Well, it's a real good one. I forgot what the name is, but it has a special name.
G: Mrs. Harper...
H: Yes?
G: ...was talking about her baking her English trifles and a very special dish that her mother-in-law had given her. Did... Kay, did you...?
H: I can't think - it has a name; they're really expensive.
G: Uh-huh. It was a beautiful bowl you showed me.
H: I can't...I know the name but it won't come out. [laughter]
G: Did...did you practice English tea time when you first Kay Harper 35
came? The tradition of tea in the afternoon.
H: No, I've never been...well, yes, tea and crumpets. I order crumpets from Kansas.
G: Did you?
H: Kansas, yes. And I still get them every now and again. I like them. And I drink tea; I don't drink coffee.
G: Uh-huh.
H: I have no coffee. I have tea; I have Ovaltine, and
H: stuff like that, but I don't have tea - coffee.
G: What about celebrating any English holidays? Do you do any of that?
H: No, I don't think so.
G: Just curious.
H: Just the ones that we have here.
G: Yes. Yes.
H: That's right. That's all.
G: Let's talk a little bit about your naturalization process. Would you tell me about what...?
H: I was naturalized in Lubbock.
G: Okay.
H: No, once we knew we were going to live here permanently, well, then I changed. 1971 I became a citizen. I've got my certificate in there.
G: Uh-huh.
H: I became a citizen. And I'm a member of the VFW. I've Kay Harper 36
been a member ever since then. Before that I was a member of the - not the VFW - the other one, the American Legion. I used to go to the American Legion. But I haven't been to the one in Plainview, that I belonged to, for a long time.
G: Have you not?
H: No. I still pay my dues but I've never been down to the...since my husband died. I used to go with him. And I took part in the things that they had for children, you know, for... They'd put it on the radio - I forgot what
H: it's called now. But I took part in things like that. And just when I moved up here I was going to become the president of the women's organization; but I came up here instead, so I didn't get to be it. What were your thoughts, your reasons for becoming an American citizen?
H: Because I knew this is where we were going to live.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And I didn't see any reason, I mean where you earn your living that's where your loyalty belongs. And this is where our living was and my loyalty belongs to that, although I still love my own country where I was born. But my loyalty belongs to the place where I earn my living. My father always said that wherever you are, the place where you earn your living, you owe your loyalty to that country. And that's about it.
G: And you...you had already started your family, but you Kay Harper 37
continued to raise them as an American citizen in the '70s.
H: Yes, they are; they were both born in England at different times, but they were never English citizens because of the fact they belong to the father and he...they became Americans right away.
G: Okay.
H: One was born in the house of Rudyard Pickling - [laughter] Kipling.
G: Is that so?
H: Yes. The youngest one. Wade was born In Burtonwood,
H: where we were stationed first, in '52. And Tim was born seven years later in Woodbridge, England. But when we got...when he was born he was born in... The American hospital had taken over the estate of Rudyard Kipling, in Cambridge; and that's where Tim was born, in that hospital on the estate of Rudyard Kipling.
G: Uh-huh.
H: And Wade was...like I said, Wade was born in Burtonwood, when we were...'cause we were still in Burtonwood until we came back for the first time, you see. He was born in the base hospital there. They were both born in base hospitals, so they're both American citizens.
G: What was it like studying and preparing for the test for naturalization?
H: Well, I don't think it was hard because, I mean, I was Kay Harper 38
good at history and different things, I mean, so preparing for that wasn't very hard. And they were very nice to me in Lubbock when I went, you know. When they asked me various questions, you know, and I answered them. And then when I became a citizen there was a whole group of people, even one Catholic priest from Ireland. I met him...I'd met him at Reese Air Force Base once. He became a citizen with me. And we...at the same time...and we sang all the songs that we had to sing. [laughter] It was really nice. And Pat Nowell, the Australian, she went with me to my naturalization.
G: Did your husband not go?
H: No, he was working.
G: Very practical.
H: He was working, so I went. Well, he knew what I was doing; he knew where I was going. And you know, my sister has been over here a lot longer than me. She was only a teenager when she got married, see, because she lived with my father. My father was having a fit because she was marrying this American, and he says, I bet...and she got a baby right away. And he says, "She'll be getting babies, one after the other; I have a feeling." And you know, she got ten. She's five years younger than me; my mother died when she was born. And when we went...I took her to England with me, not this year, last year, and we also took one of Kay Harper 39
her grandchildren. She's a nurse now, Christy, and we took her with us 'cause - and her father paid for her and I paid for my sister. And when we got to Chicago I had my American passport, which I've had for a long time, and I went straight through to the train that I had to get to go home, and she had to stop because she had an English passport. And she said, "Well, I've lived over here, but, you know, a lot more than I have." She came over from...when the first lot of English brides went over there; she went with those. And she said, "I never even thought about it." You know, she'd lived there, she had so many kids, she never even thought about that. And so, I think about three or four
H: weeks ago I was talking to her and she said, "I've got my citizenship." She said, "I went and got it." [laughter] She said, "I answered all my questions." So I said, "Well, good." So she said, "When that happened to me," said, "Well, what do you think?" She said, "After all these years I've lived here. [laughter]
G: Indeed.
H: And she said, "I had to wait, and you could go through." 'Cause I became a citizen after she came over here, after she was already settled here. Because he said to me when we first landed, he said, "Do you want to go and see your sister?" So we went and changed planes at Atlanta and then went in to New Orleans and we spent a couple of Kay Harper 40
nights there. I said, "Well, that's fine." But like I said, I've never lived with her, you know.
G: And she lives where?
H: She lives down...now in Ponchatoula?
G: Yeah, Louisiana.
H: Yeah. One of her sons has some land there, and she has a mobile home on his land. He lives in the house there and she has a mobile home. Her husband died, you know.
G: Yeah.
H: And so she lives in Ponchatoula.
G: Well, Mrs. Harper, let's put a...
H: Her name's Mona.
G: Mona.
H: But she calls herself Monica, 'cause my mother came from the Isle of Man; she's Manx. And that's called Mona's Isle, you know, in the Gaelic.
G: Uh-huh.
H: So when my mother was dying, when she was born, they kept asking what should we call the baby and the only thing they could get out of her was, "Mona. I'm going on to Mona. She said she was going home; that's where she was going. And that's the only word they could get out of her, so she was - one of the Irish nurses baptized her, in case she died - and they called her Mona. But when she got baptized in the Catholic church, she became Monica. So she calls Kay Harper 41
herself Monica, but we're used to calling her Mona.
G: Mrs. Harper, let's bring our interview to a close. And you've told me a lot of wonderful things about your life abroad and your life in America.
H: Uh-huh.
G: Is there anything else you'd like to share with me? Some closing thoughts about...about your life as an American now, a former English war bride?
H: Well, my life is fine. I mean, the only thing missing is my husband.
G: Yes.
H: But I mean my...like my...this is my home now; I ain't going to move anywhere.
G: Yes.
H: I'm going to stay here until my turn comes, because my grave is already fixed with my name.
G: Is it?
H: It's on his grave, yeah. He had an inscription on it: "Together Forever." And that's where I'm going; so I'm not moving from here.
G: Well, thank you very much.
H: I mean, this is my home now. But I visit England every chance I get. Like I could have gone this year, but, you see, I didn't go this year...
G: Yeah. Kay Harper 42
H: ...since I let them come here and visit me, but maybe next year, with the grace of God, I'll go and see them again.
G: And you will. Well, thank you for sharing all of this with me and for making this information possible for other historians and researchers. This is Diane Gray closing the interview at 12:28.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2.