Earleen Allen Francis Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

University of Illinois at Springfield
Norris L Brookens Library
Archives/Special Collections
Earleen Allen Francis Memoir
F847. Francis, Earleen Allen b. ca. 1915
Interview and memoir
4 tapes, 330 mins., 80 pp.
Francis, member of the Army Nurse Corps stationed in the Philippines, discusses her
experiences during WWII as a prisoner of war of the Japanese army at the Santo Tomas
Internment Camp in Manila. She recalls the conditions and treatment of prisoners, and
the events of her imprisonment. She also discusses her early life in Kentucky and
Southern Illinois: family and social life, domestic and social aspects of her adolescence,
early nursing career in Chicago and Oklahoma; life in the Philip-pines, marriage, and the
outbreak of WWII; lasting effects of being a POW; return to civilian life; and life at an
army post in Hanau, Germany. She also discusses briefly her views on the roles of men
and women in the family, early forms of birth control, and becoming a Christian
Scientist.
Interview by Ellanor Peiser White, 1985
OPEN
See collateral file: interviewer's notes, photocopies of a newspaper article on Francis,
photocopied photographs of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, and a map of the
Philippine Islands.
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
One University Plaza, MS BRK 140
Springfield IL 62703-5407
© 1985, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

EwmEN ALLEN FRANCIS
1946

I .
Table of Contents
Early Childhood in Kentucky and Southern Illinois ........ 1
Grandparents, Parents' Courtship, Ckwrch, ks,
Garden, House Description, School, flamrers, Status
of Girls, &ores, bmmity, Fd, Wldbirth,
Sister ' s Death, Entertaimmts
High School Years in Southern Illinois. ............ .12
Family Financial Decisions, Pbther , Father, Drinking,
Relatives, Christmas, W l t w s , Weddings, School,
Attitude Tawards F'urther E$ucation, kt-, Ethnic
Groups, Black cammity, Discipline, Mmstruation,
M l Hospital, &ice of Career
Cook Caunty School of Nursing (Chicago) Experiences ...... .26
Wrk Schedule, Deparbwnts, Other Students,
Attitude of Parents, Nursing Opportunities
Nursing at U.S. Indian Service Hospital, hwtun, Oklaham ... .28
Nursing at Ft. Sill Army Post, Oklahana ............ .29
msing at R. kmey, Pasay, Philippines, 1941 ....... "30
Trip to the Philippines, Social Life, Pearl Harbor,
Move to Bataan, Nurshg Conditions, Diseases, Marriage
on Bataan, Aborted Flight to Australia, Return Fran
MLndanao, Arrival at Santo Tunas Intemt Camp (Mila)
Santo Tam Interment Camp (Manila). ............. .32
Food, Military Nurses in Civilian Camp, Relations
with Guards, Absence of Overt Brutality, E£fects of
Imprisamt, Debilitation, Diseases, Interpersonal
Relationships, Cmp Routine, Children, Starvation,
Riwte "Shackst', Wtos, Discussion of Photos,
Libration Battle, Deaths, Wband at Nearby Camp
and Conditions There
Back to Civilian Life, 1945 .................. .47
Walter Reed Army Hospital, Presidio in San Francisco,
Social Life, Mother, Restrictions on Wrking , Pride
in king Dr. Francis's Wife, Life at Ft. Polk, LA,
Ft. Bragg, NC, Alcohlics, Drinking, Religion, Parents'
Contraceptive bkthods, kcision Miking, Daily Route,
Relations with In-Laws , Life in Hanau Army Post
(Germmy) , kopean Travel, Social Life, Waren bbrkhg
Life with Mother in Jacksornrille, IL. ............. .61
Experience with Christian Science ............... .62

Preface
This manuscript is the product of tape recorded interviews conducted by
Ell- Peiser White for the Oral History Sfice during Novanber and
k&r, 1985. Ellanor bhite transcribed the tapes and edited the
transcript. Earleen Allen Francis reamed the transcript.
Earleen Allen kancis was born in Mtucky, grew up in southern Illinois,
and becare a registered nurse in Chicago. She soon joined the Army Nurse
Corps and vent on an idyllic tour of duty to the Philippines--until she
awoke onrz mrning in December 1941 to learn that Luzon ws surrounded by
Japanese war ships ! She WE remved to Bataan, where she wried amidst
mortar fire and shelling, and eventually became an h t e of Santo Tomas
Intermwmt Cmp (mila) , in which she was confined for 33 mnths .
She and her husband, an Army dentist, travelled to many military posts,
including to Germany, and she vividly describes the life of an officer's
family in these surroundings.
Earlem Allen Francis and her husband are mtioned in at least tm books
describing Santo Tams Intermt Camp: A. V. H. Hartendorp, The Japanese
tion of the Phili Fnes (Manila : 'IZle Mlllh J . Shaw Foundation
S?%IGEK meDenny mlliam, TO me kles (Sari Francisco :
The knsm Press, 1985) .
Readers of the oral history mmoiw should bear in mind that Ft is a
transcript of the spoken wrd, and that the interviaax, narrator and
editor sought to preserve the in£onaal, corrversatianal style that is
inherent in such historical sources. Sangairon State Lhiversity is not
responsible for the factual accuracy of the mir, nor for views
expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge.
The mnuscript m y be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be
reproduced in whole or in part by any mans, electronic or rrrechanical,
without permission in writing fran the Oral History Mfice, Sangamon
State Lhiversity, Springfield, Illinois, 62708

Earlm Francis, November and Decanber 1985, Springfield, Illinois.
Q. Earleen, could you tell me about your grandparents? bho they were,
where they care frm?
A. They all carte fwm the state of Kentucky, around the city of Paducah.
I never hew my father's folks. They had mst all passed away before I
ws born. My mther's caw £ran a family of French descent, and their
narne was Jeter . My granbther ' s namz I never hew. My grandmther ' s
mried name ws Jeter, and my mother's before she ws married was Jeter.
They were all hcemakers, housekeepers and mthers . And my father was
with the Illinois Central Railroad carpany. We had to move a lot. I
don't how what his title ms on the payroll of the railroad, but he was
referred to as "trouble shooter ." GJherever there was trouble, I don't
haw what kind of trouble, w had to me! So f n ~ lived in rnany little
towns in the state of Kentucky and finally across the river in southern
Illinois.
Q. Wy did you grandparents settle around Paducah?
A. I think they Ere born there. They all lived around there, in the
country. I don' t how anything about my famil beyond my mother ' s mtkr .
I never saw my father's mther or mt any of dem. He had one brother
and his sister had passed may. I knm he did have a sister, but she was
gone. Both his parents Ere gone.
Q. So you only remember one granhther?
A. Yes. One granchmther .
Q. hat was her personality like?
A. My gradrother? Very nice. She liked us three children. She likd
us and she cam often to see us and she often stayed--sometimes tm
weks. bk hated to see her go haae.
Q. Haw often did she camz to visit you?
A. twr, or three t hs a year. And then every t h nymther had a
baby she cam and stayed, before and after.
Q. k t
A. Very good.
ws her relationship with you?

Earleen Allen Rancis 2
Q. bhat sort of things did you do together?
A. Oh, nothing other than talk and read--school books and that sort of
t h I'd go to church with her. I'd go to Sunday School and she'd go
to church. That's all e did in those days.
Q. Did you help her with things around the house?
A. Qh yes, I had chores ever since I can r d r .
Q. Did your ~ ~ t hteach @ you r needlmrk or quilting or canning?
A. Sewing. She shmd ue haw to sew an a button, and haw to sew up a
rip-I haven't thought about that in years-and haw to thread a needle
and that sort of thing. I don't know if she did any mre or not.
Q. Did you feel that she s b d
A. No, she liked us all.
any favoritism among you three children?
Q. And did she get on wl1 w ith yaur mther and father?
A. Oh yes. They =re alwys glad to see her com too.
Q. &at was the family of your parents?
A. Allen.
Q. They Ere both born around Paducah?
A. In that vicinity.
Q. Huw did your parents meet?
A. I don't haw. I never discussed that. I was never told about it.
Q. Ib yau how about their courtship?
A. I knm they used to ride in a horse and buggy. bk never had a car
way back then. They =re married by a minister in a church, They didn't
have a tiedding, but they =re married by a minister. I don't huw what
damnhation it ms, but there ms nothing a rd that axea but Baptists
and Methodists and Christian and Presbyterian. There Ere no Catholic
churches around that area at that tim, and vie =re Catholic.
Q. Do you know what kind of clothes your mther mre? Did you ever see
her Ming dress?
A. No, she didn't have a wdding. She just got mrried.
Q. Just regular everyday clothes?
A. Yes.

Earleen Allen Francis 3
Q. And your father mrked with the railroad?
A. Yes. Illinois Central Railroad.
Q. kat wis their educational background?
A. Eqhth grade.
Q. For both of them?
A. Yes. High school wasn't popular then like it is now. It used to be
that i£ you had an eighth grade education, you wre educated. Anybody
who went to high school then ws like saneone who goes to college today.
Q. Did they have any interests outside the h a?
A. kch, Sunday khml.
Q. &re they very involved in church?
A. ?hey just attended.
Q. Every ~ek?
A. Oh yes.
Q. h t was the church like? Hcrw did it look?
A. Oh, they =re always brick buildings, and they =re just like the old
churches you see today. 'Ihey had a pulpit and a podium 1ik any other
church wuld have.
Q. Jbw many people attended church at one time?
A. The churches viere small--mybe fifty or seventy-five or samething
like that. In the small towns, you how, everybody wnt to their own
church.
Q. Did you go only once a wek or twice?
A. No, w mt kdnesday night to prayer meting and Sunday mrning to
Sunday School. And then w ' d stay for church at eleven o ' clock, and then
the yaung people had a BYPU organization--Baptist Young People's swthing.
That m s a five o'clock in the evening for an hour in the church. That's
about it, as far as church is concerned.
Q. bhat ms the mLnistex like?
A. & w s all right, I guess. I never found anything to caplain about.
Q. Kas he a gentle person, a forceful person?
A. bst of them, I can rmenhr, they =re gentle. There eren't any
forceful people in those days. They didn't use any pressure on anybody
that I laow of.

Q. Was the church mstly concerned about h t you should do in this life
or did they talk a lot about going to Hell?
A. Ch yes, the preache~ talked about that all the time. You'd better be
good or you're going to Hell and shovel the coal. Hot coal sitting on
you will bYYn you up. Isn' t that aw£ul?
Q. ks the family at hoaae always cheerhl? Did you sing a lot together
and play games, or wis everybody very busy and involved with getting
things done?
A. No, w mer played many gmes. We used to sing songs that we learned
at school. We'd c- hare and sing them and then my mther wild chire
in and sing them with us, that sort of thing. That's all there was to
that, as far as singing. Ere pretty close. We discussed our problems
among ourselves and not mong other people.
Q. What sort of probl~ muld you discuss with your parents?
A. Oh, I had a fight with a boy. My brother had a fight with a boy. Or
I had a quarrel with a girl or same girl muld get my toy m property or
sanething of that sort. That's the only kind of problems w ever had.
Q. kre your parents affectionate to each other?
A. Yes, they *re affectionate, but not as rnuch as people are m. They
=re all too busy working.
Q. Jbw did they show affection?
A. Well, my father never left the house to go to mrk unless he kissed
us all goodbye. He d d always bring us candy on Saturday ni&ts fran
the grocery store. k m s always a r d to help us i£ R needed help.
And he always wanted to help us if there ms sawthing he could do for
US.
Q. And what did your mther do?
A. %e just stayed hare, kept hause and raised children. That's all.
Q. That's all ! Did she raise her om food?
Q. Your father did the gardening?
A. ah yes. Mother didn't go out and garden. He used to came hrme
evenings and mrk in the den during the smner. Oh, w almys had a
big garden, all kinds of Esh vegetables and that sort of thing. Then
rcy me* mld can sme if ve had an over-amount.
Q. ht did your father do at wxk, with his trouble shooting? Did it
have to do with the way the engines mrked, with the...?

Earleen Allen Francis
A. It was the road, not the motors. It was the rail road, not the
trains.
Q. Ibw often muld you move?
I A. About every three or faur years, to a different tm.
Q. Can you describe for m the first house you rmmber living in, I
guess in Kentucky?
A. In Kentucky you say?
Q. &11, I assumed that those Ere your earlier homes.
A. Well, I mved over to Illinois-I went to my first grade in school in
Kentucky. The first place e lived was mion, Illinois. It was a
four-roan hause with a--not a garage, what R called a "junk house" in
the back yard. hk didn't have a car. "Storage houset' I guess is vhat
you'd call it nuw. It ws in a nice mj%hborhood, with nice neighbors,
nice people. That was the first place w lived in Illinois.
Q. bt was the house like inside?
A. Papered. It had paper on the -11s.
I
Q. And it had four roams?
I
I Q.
A. Qh yes, there =re four roans and half a baserxaent. And then that
little building outside.
So your parents had one bedroan and you kids had one bedroom?
A. Yes. And my brother (he was the second one; I wis the oldest of the
thee) had a roan in the basenaent. T4e had mnted to be dawn there by
himself. So he did.
Q. You each had your own beds in the bedroan?
I A. Qh yes. yes.
I Q. %at was your school like?
A. I don't how there's anything unusual about it.
I Q. Did it have all the different grades?
A. Yes. he building in the small tams muld haw all the grades. Ox
place had the high school side by side with the grade school.
Q. How many people =re in your classes?
A. Oh, I'd say mybe fifteen or sixteen.

kleen Allen Francis 6
Q, CCRlld you find in your parents any particular attitudes towards girls
or towards wren? Not necessarily h t they said, but did you feel that
they ttmght that girls =re as capable as boys?
A, Oh ncrw, definitely not. We had to be "ladies. " I didn't even get to
go barefooted vhen I was a child. A girl couldn't go barefoot, just the
boys. In the sulmrertim the boys d d shave their heads to go s-,
but w couldn' t shave aur heads and go swimahg.
Q. b t
do you msn by "shaving ywr head"?
A. Wll, they'd shave off all their hair so they could jump into the
pond any tirrre they want to. Go d m the road to the country and go
swirmbg. They wuldn't bother with hair. 'Ihe boys used to always clip
their hair off at the scalp in the ~~trrmertjme when school was out. Lk
didn't ~ a shorts r in those &ys, of course. The boys didn't either. I
wore dresses, definitely, outside. If a girl wre pants ... l
Q. So you felt that girls Ere supposed to be different than boys?
A. Oh yes. You're a girl, you're different!
Q. In addition to being different, =s there a feeling that yau *re
less capable or less smrt or scrething like that?
A. No. You rrean in schd or in general?
Q. Just in general. In your life.
A. No, capability was mer discussed. I thought that there -re certain
things that boys =re supposed to do and certain things that girls Ere
supposed to do. Boys had to take care of the stove, and take out the
ashes iand do the outdoor mrk. And the girls did the indom tark.
Q. Ms there anything particular that you did indoors?
A. I had to wash dishes, make beds, and clean house on Saturdays and
take the dust mp and go a r d the rug, just general house wrk.
Q. But you felt that they thou& that girls could get jobs the sam as
bars ?
A. Cb no, I never thought of getting a job. It ms never discussed. I
didn't think about wring. All I could think of ms getting married and
having a h, like. the one I grew up in. No, careers =re just about
out at that tirae.
Q. Vmu& there =re wren who had careers at that the.
A. There =re teachers and nurses and that sort of thing.
Q. bremmst or m y
of your teachers at school mmen?

Earleen Allen kancis 7
A. They ere all m n . I never had a male teacher. bk had the principal,
and I think when I ms in the eighth grade in southern Illinois, the
principal. taught the history class. 'Ihat 's the nearest I ever had to a
mile teacher.
Q. But you. saw a lot of wen who =re nurses?
A. Saw a lot? No. Not until I carre up to Peoria. That's where I got
tk idea of nursing. Well, I didn't exactly think I wanted nursing; I
mted to be a dietician, but that mant four years of college. And
there ws no mmiey to go to college on--in those days there =re no
pants and no scholarships, so I had to settle for nursing. But I 'm not
sorry. It mrked out good, and I feel that maybe it was my right place.
Q. hre did p go to high school?
A. In Marion, Illinois.
Q. So p stayed a long tine in Mion?
A. Five or six years, I think.
Q. Other than church, ws your family involved in anything with the
c d t y ?
A. No, they didn't take part in any ccxmmity wrk. k had neighbors
and friends and they d d carre to visit with my mther in the daytirne
and she d d go to visit with than. And w d d go to their hause for
dinner and they d d caae to ours. EW no, my mother didn't tale part
in any activity like Girl Scouts or like mthers do today.
Q, Miat ere your neighbors like? lbt did they do professionally?
Mat kind of people =re they?
A. k11, there =re no professionals. %re ~s a coal miner and his
f d y that lived next door to us, and railroad mn and their f milks,
and the storekeeper, nothing unusual.
Q. Were there many children ~JI yaur cnrrmnity?
A. Oh, most everybody had children.
Q. h t
kind of gaares did you kids play together?
A. Jmp the rope, hide and seek, and the f-r in the dell.
Q. I +n't knw that.
A. a, you get in a ring and you sing a song, "Farmer in the dell,
f m in the dell, hi hn the miyo, the farmer in the dell.'' The
hmm chooses a wife, the wife chooses a child, the child chooses the
dog, @ dog and the cat. Pretty soan you had everybody inside the ring.

Earleen Allen Francis 8
Q. That's right, that's right--it cares back. How much time did you have
to play with other children?
A. I guess as rmch as I wanted.
Q. I nrean, did you have a lot of chores to do &en you cane hane frm
school?
A. Well, sa~times, but it didnt t take us long. It ms to bring in scme
d for the fireplace and maybe s a coal ~ for the kitchen stave, until
w! got a gas stove. b'd do it and get it over with in a hurry.
Q. bhat kind of food did you eat?
A. Meat and potatoes and vegetables.
Q. Was it essentially the sam as the food w eat today? FJas it t
same as the food you cook, or ms it different?
A. No, I don't think it nas any different. k're still eating rreat and
potatms, My mther canned an &l lot of food. She mde hat in big
crock jars. It ms good too.
Q. Did your parents talk& about politics?
A, No. WEXI wtre electing a presidmt. That's all.
Q. Did they vote in one political party?
A. I don't hw Ff they were Republicans ow Demx:rats. I never heard
them talk about it.
Q. Did they always vote?
A. yes, I can remember than going to vote.
Q. kre ~QU born at harne or in a hospital?
A. At brrme . In these small tuwns there ere no hospitals. WE didnt t
have hospitals. The state of Kentucky is d m south, you hw. In
Marion, Illinois, there was a little hospital there that had been a big
house a d they turned it into a hospital. That's &re I had my appendix
aut KhmI was very yaurlg.
Q. I30 you r d r
anything, about your mother having children at ham?
A. No, w ere never at hare when it happened. When my brother ws
born, I ms sent next door to visit Mrs. Hudson, and I spent a half a day
over there. Wen I came back hare, my mther had a baby boy. Then when
my sbr ms born, I was at school.
Q, Do you hm who helped her? A doctor or a midwife?

kleen Allen Francis
A. A doctor cam to the house.
Q. Ib you know if the ramagerent of childbirth m s in any way different
then than it is now?
A. No, I was never araund any of it in those days. Not until I mt
into training and &en I ws in the delivery roan, that's when I learned
about it.
Q. Did your mther ever talk to you abaut her attitude towards childbirth?
A. No.
Q. Did she ever say it m s a mnderful experience or a terrible experience?
A. No. She never did. Not to m.
Q. Did you cam to any feeling about childbirth fran things that you
heard £ran nei&bors or teachers or. . . ?
A. I didn' t h ow &ere babies cane £ran mtil I was about thirteen years
old. Really. The stork brou&t than, or the doctor brought than in his
bag, and that sort of junk. It ' s awing to m today the my they teach
these children. If the mother 's pregnant, then the little mes haw it.
'!Mmq has a baby in her turmy." I don't hmw if that's good or not. It
gets to me smretims. I didn't knm anything about it. I didn't huw
whena baby was on the my! Never.
Q. &re wmn anbarrassed to go out in public when they =re pregnant?
A. I don't think my mother went out very mch. I had a girlfriend that
lived in the tom where e -re at the tinre, and when I mt to her
house, I never saw her rother. She said she didn't mt to see anybody.
She ww upstairs. And the first think yau haw, she had a baby. I look
back an it naw, and it rmst have been the baby that kept her upstairs.
It was kept secret, very secret £ran children in that area where I lived.
I don't lam what it ms farther up north, but d m south it was altwether
different.
Q. Did you then get the feeling it a s a secret thing, or a s ~ f u l
thing? At smre point yau nust have realized that these wmm viere trying.
to hide the fact that tby were pregnant.
A. No, I didn't ~(IW they ere pregnant.
Q. &11, you said at the age of thirteen you did.
A, I knew where they cat^ &an, but I never looked at a mrnan the way w
do MW and thought, "Oh there's going to be a baby." I never had that
wrience until I grew up. My mthe~ was pregnant and all the time I
never hew there was a baby caning. I didnt t ever knw there was going
to be another one, until it got there.

Earleen Allen Francis 10
Q. Were there any kind of special doings that happened around a new
baby? Did you have special people care and visit the new baby?
A. & yes, neighbors d d C~IE in to see the baby and scmeths they'd
br- a little gift, and mst of the th they did not, because everybody
wsn t able to spend a lot of mney in those days, YOU haw. Everybody
came to see the new baby.
Q. And you took it to church then and had it christened?
A. Had the baby christened? No. In the churches in those days, there
was no cbristenhg. I never knew a baby that was christened. If it ms
christened, I didn't hw anything about it. There ms no Catholic
chuxch.
Q. Is "christening" only Catholic? Is "baptising" the mrd that other
people we?
A. Well, the Baptists imrrerse, but you have to grow up. They don' t do
it to babies. The Methodists, I think "sprinkle," we call it "sprinkle."
And the Catholics they do the same things.
Q. So when the baby is born there is no church observance?
A. No. No service or anything like that. Lhen I w s in OB, I baptized
mny babies that VE thou&t trlould die.
Q. ken you look back on your early childhood, is there anything that
stands out? Particularly good, particularly bad?
A. kll, I was the first baby and I r d r that at kistmastb I got
so many toys it was pathetic. My mther had four children. The second
one, after me, passed may of pnamnia at tvm years. I don't rareher
much about her. And then my brother care along--what v m that question
again?
Q. khether anything stands out. . . .
A. No, m just writ along, day by day. I can' t wamber anything unusual.
I played with my friends, played jump the rape and that sort of thing
&m the mather permitted. In the wintertime it snmd and m'd get our
sleds out, like other children. We didn't have to ddge autamobiles and
traffic then, like w do nuw.
Q. Do p ramher nmuch about your sister's death?
A. No, I quite ping. I r d r her £uneral, because mymthr
cried so profueely. It w in our parlor, in our living roan. 'Ihey
didn't have the hral hares that ie have now. You huw, they used to
t them in the coffin and set thern in the living roan and have the
!?mer a1 right there. And then they'd take them off for burial. I remenaber
that. I just have a faint rpmffnhrance of that hral. But I can't
rwvlnhc?r a t the baby looked like in the coffin ow anything like that.
Yau do ramher faint snatches of things. In fact, I can ramber a

Earleen Allen Francis 11
acene when I w in a hi& chair. I was the only baby, the only one. And
sanmre set a sugar bawl on the tray of my high chair, and I knncked it
off on the floor. My mther said to my father, or my father said to my
mtkr, "You shouldn't have set it there." That's as far back as I can
remmlw?r. lhen when I m s about three years old, PE =re living upstairs
over a store. I started d m the steps and I fell, and I rolled d m the
steps. And my dad cam right behind E to pick tw up. It didn't hurt
m.
Q. After your mtlaer lost her baby, do mu reer any way at all in
which she ~aas helped by her f d y , by the cmmmity, by the church to
deal with the grief she rnxst have felt?
A. Oh yes, they all came and offered their sympathy and brought food
into the house, you knm like tky used to do if saneone passed on. If
the body i s over in the undertakers and the family is all thewe, and the
relatives are there, they bring food in. They did that then too.
Q. Ww there my kind of mre lasting support for your mother? Over the
nexk six mnths or the next year or so?
A. No, I don't r e
anything that d d
Q. Did her dawter ever cane up in conversation?
refer to that at all.
A, Did my mther ever speak of her? Oh, yes. She missed her very mh.
We wed to mlk to the canetery every Sunday for a long tlme and take
flowrs, wather permitting.
Q. How ammn ms it for children to die? In statistics, scnretimes
people say it was cmmon before penicillin and vaccinations for lots of
chilclren to die.
A. I Fnuldn' t h ow about that. I think I m s too young. I was taught
in ny nurses training h m they used to die, They died, quite a few, fran
asthaa, fxam liver caaplaints, jaudice, and pnewnia especially. They
didn't have any penicillin, they didn't have any axygen, they didn't have
a lot of thirgs.
Q. Jkst yrm don't rPmRnhP.x children dying from your childhood?
A. I r d r me little boy of Mr. and Mrs. LEnnond, whose sister Inngene
dm mt to school with re. Fk died of pneumnia. His name was William
Edward. It ws a ne-r. He ms maybe 1& or 2 years old.
Q. b t IELS your relationship with other children like when yau ere in
elemen- and hi& school? Did you establish close relationships with a
few indivtduals OX did you have.. .?
A. Oh, I always had what my mther called a "chm," me girl friend.
I'd go spend the night with her on Saturday night, and then the next
Saturday ni&t she'd caw to my hause. That sort of thbg.

Ehrleen Allen Francis 12
Q. Did this person change, or was it just one person all through high
s b l ?
A, &, no there =re probably tm or three. h of them d d m e
away, or I 'd mve away, and then I 'd have to get another one.
Q. %at sort of entertahwnte did you have?
A. To the mwies on Saturday afternoon, to the mtinee. bk didn't have
Mckey Hmse and Minnie Mouse and the things they have now. It ws saw
of Gloria Swamon, and I don't r e . It cost a dim to go to the
mwies .
Q. It wts mlve cents for E. 'kat was in Chicago--high prices. Did
you go on picnics and outings? Mmdng?
A. 091, e wmt nutting every fall, out in the mods to pick up hickory
nuts and wild nuts and pecans. My father used to go hunting for rabbits.
We ate rabbits and doves. I don't hm if *k~ ate squlurels ow not; s-
people do, Wild ducks, Of course w didn't go hunting with him when he
wnt. He brought hane rabbits hen there tas snw on the ground, so he
could track them. And rn had picnics too, but it was almys a church
picnic. %re =re many church picnics &en the =ther ms nice.
Q. ks youw life different when you =re in high school than when you
had been in elementary school, or ws it just a continuation?
A. Sort of a continuation, I wuld say.
Q. b in your family d e
the decisions about haw money d d
be spent?
Q. Did he make all the decisions? If you =re going to buy a new piece
of furniture...?
A. Yes, he's the one to decide howmuch R could spend and whether m
could have it or not. Because his mney w all that wm caning into the
hem.
Q. And he took charge of his uwn mney?
A. Well, he kept up with it, I'd say. k didn't let us spend too mch.
We charged everything at the grocery store, and he' d get onto us every
once in a while and say, 'Wt& out, or w mn' t be able to pay the
bill." k alwys seemd to fear that veld go over, that the account
FJoUld be mre than he could pay. The railroad, I think, paid him twice
in a mmth, the first arad the fifteenth mre pay day. J3e was very careful
&re I. d my sister mt, who E associated with. khen I grew up I
used to &r if he didn't trust us, or if it m s som?body else that he
didn't trust. Everybody looked after their girls in those days, different
fran what they do now. They wxe nu& stricter. t& couldn't be out late
at night, khm FR =re out, they had to larw *re m =re. And there
wasn' t any kidnapping or anything like that. I don' t know what they =re
wrryirlg about. Sex, I presunoe. (laUgt.lter)

Earleen Allen Francis 13
Q. Your parents ere once pung tool bhat vas your motional relationship
lib dth your wthew?
A. Very good, I d d
say.
Q. ks she like a close friend to you? Would you tell her yaur personal
secrets, or wuld you not?
A. Well, sane times I did, kt there ere sane things I did not tell
her. I& never had any trouble. & Ere taught that our parents viere the
superiors, that e Rre to respect than and to abide by their wishes and
tak their orders. That ws just understood.
Q. Did she tell you any of her personal feelings about things, or did
you msstly talk to her about your life?
A. You man &out her life? Her courtship and that sort of thing?
ell, as I said, they used to ride in a horse and buggy, and they didn't
go any place but the church or to sanebody's howe where there ms a
gathering. She told us about the house parties that they used to have.
&en the& beaus cane to see them, they used a parlor that was only for
visits fraa preacher and the beaus.
Q. So you had a wm, supportive relationship with your mther?
A. Yes, I'd say so.
Q. Haw about with your father?
A. Yes, I had a -- I got along with him. l3ut my mther, I think I was
mre fond of her than my father. He ws sort of gruff sat-s, you
know, mn can be. And my mther never spoke unkind. My father would get
a little hostile occasionally, saying "You do this and you do that."
There me no questions.
Q. Wit: you felt he was loyal to the family and all that?
A. Oh yes. &1 yes. He did the best he could.
Q. He didn't drink or gamble?
A. In the early days, I ramher, he tzm hane once a little bit tipsy,
and he vdted on the floor. My mother refused to clean it up. (lau&ter)
And he had to clean it up. M course, she thought tt ms terrible that
he'd drink liquor. Liquor w.s just out, absolutely out. And my father
smoked. My mthex didn't. He mked Carel cigarettes ever since I can
rPmPmhPr. In fact, that ' s how he killed himself. He died of cancer of
the lungs fran smsking.
Q. bhat was you relationship like with your brother and sister?
A. k had our disagreerents and w quarrelled once in a while. kk'd run
into Plcmn to settle it. 'Ihat sort of thing.

kleen Allen Francis 14
Q. khm you played games with the other kids did you play together with
yauz brother and sister?
A. No, VE all had our am group, more or less, in our own roan at school.
Q. Did you have any other relatives living nearby? Aunts, uncles?
A. No, rmt livlng a r d us, but they came to see us £ran elsewhere.
Fraa Pactucah, Kentucky, and Benton, Kentucky, and Clinton, Kentucky.
Q. khich relatives ere these?
A. My mother ' s sister and my mther ' s mthr and my nother ' s brother.
k brothers she had and tm sisters.
Q. Psld they all cam to visit you?
A. Sooner or later. Ran tine to tine.
Q. hd did you go to visit than saw times too?
A. fS £ather mrked for the railroad and w could get passes, you huw,
and ride a pass. So e did mre going than they did, because they had to
pay ~EI-I they cam and mney wis scarce in those days.
Q. Wen you took those trips, did your hole family go together?
A. Daddy didn't always go. He'd let us go. k couldn't go dxm school
was going on, became R cdd not be kept out of school. And m never
wmt on holidays, it ms dmys in the sumaer. We'd go mybe in June to
visit one, then in July vie ' d go to visit another me, and then before
school d d
open up e'd go to visit an~ther une sameplace. Wlt never
when school was going m, because mhr ddn't let us stay out of
school.
Q. I-bw long wuld you stay when you wmt to visit these relatives?
A. A mek, about a ~ e k .
Q. Did they have children you could play with?
A. Ch yes, they had children. I& slept on pallets on the floor and it
ws always sum~rtime. We could run wild.
Q. &at ms the biggest holiday of the year?
Q. And what was Christmas like in your family?
A, Oh, e had a Clhrishnm tree. It didn't have m y decorations on it,
though, 1ik they have nm. k had ones that = made out of paper; w
made than at school and that sort of thing. We'd string popcorn and the
little gifts w! wanted to give to each other, w'd wrap than and put them

Earleen Allen Francis 15
on the tree like they do now. Of course, e all believed in Santa Claus.
I hear Santa Claw is going out too. I don't knw if it's good or not,
but w believed in Santa Clausl bk mt to bed early on kistmas eve
because we had to get up early on Chrisas day to see what Santa Claus
left. That ~ non t for years and years and years.
Q. Haw long did you continue to believe that it ws Santa Claus that
gave you presents?
A. lhtil I was wlve years old. I did. Isn't that stupid, to think of
a big £at rixm ccdng d m the chirmey? You just didn't think. Or you
=rent t supposed to, I guess. And everybody hung up their stocking, at
the fireplace, if you had one.
Q. khat =re the kind of presents you got as a child?
A. Hare made candy was very popular, h a made cookiee, and clothing,
stoddqs, gloves, a sock cap with a big pcsn pan on it for the girls--that
sort of thing.
Q. Did relatives get together at Christmas time? Did people cax~ to
visit you or you go off to visit relatives?
A. Not at Chistmastime. We always stayed hare for Wistmas.
Q. So yau celebrated Chrisms day and Chrisms ma1 with just your
family?
A. Yes. And my mther used to do a lot of baking, cakes and pumpkin
pies, @ mincmat--my father loved mincemat pies. That's about the
only time w had mimaneat pies, at Christmas. I don't how FJhY, but she
never made them otherwise. Maybe the minc-t WLS too qensive.
Q. Did you have family reunions?
A. No. I never heard of om until I grewup and got away fran hae. I
never heard of one.
Q. Mat -re dtims like with your family?
A. k all sat dom at the table and if there ms sanething on the table
VE didn't like, w left it alone. E3f mther never ran a short order
house, and I 'm glad she did' t. Sare of these mnm do, and I think it's
horrible. "I don't mnt this for breakfast. I want thatl" 'Ihe other
one mts something else. These poor nothers stand up and make it all.
Wen w sat dam at the table, if you didn't like &at was there, you
just left it alme. It wm all in bowls on the table and you helped
yourself.
Q. Were you told you had to finish all the food you took?
A. . If yau didn' t, if I left same breakfast on my plate, that ms covered up, and tamrrm ~~mrning, before I could have anything else, I
had to eat what I left yester&y mrningl

Earleen Allen kancis 16
Q. lhat sort of food d d
you have for breakfast?
A. Oatmeal , cooked cereal usually, eggs, panales rnade £ran scratch and
bacon W m could afford it. Mten fried potatoes for breakfast.
Q. Did you eat all youx mals together or only supper?
A. No, the table m s only set three t h a day. And you got there.
Q. Did you eat breakfast by yourselves when you got up?
A. father wuld get up and mrm up the house, dAhver kind of
heating xe had, and then my mtha d d get up and go to the kitchen and
cook breakfast. And then w'd get up. bk didn't have any "one eat now
and me eat later." Wrybody ate at the sme th.
Q. So you ate breakfast together. Ibsw about lunch?
A. We'd take our lunch to school. bk didn't have cafeterias in arry
schools &re I m s sawing up. And supper ~ ' d
eat together.
Q. Did you sit in any special way at the table?
A. Everybody had their awn place. You sat in the same place every time.
Q. Did p x parents sit opposite each other or next to each other?
A. Che at me end of the table, one at the other. k had a long oblong
table.
Q. Did you have wmexsations during mals all the time?
A. No, not mch conversation. It via mre for eating. No, I can't
remember us ever discussing anything at the table.
Q. Did yrxl say grace before mls?
A. My mther did.
A. Supper, evening meal. Because e wren' t there usually for lunch,
the noon mal, and at breakfast everybody tas in a hurry.
Q. Ilo you r d r anything about mddings in yaur fanily? When you
=re yaung, any relatives or friends?
A. No, I never wnt to a wddimg until I got away fran haw. Never.
Nobody ever had big church wddings that wle knew, none of our friends or
relations. We never had those big church mddings and big dinners and
wddlng parties and that sort of thing.
Q. So what ms it like &en a couple got: marid?

Earl- Allen Francis 17
A. 'Ihey 'd go to the preacher's house and get married in the parsonage or
they'd go to the Justice of the Peace. S a #re married by the judge.
I prem they took same relatives with them. It wasn't a big affair.
I never knew any big wddings.
Q. Then did couples take honeymx>ns or wedding trips?
A. Wll, SUE of them d d go d m to the Kentucky Zake or go away for
tw or three nights. It was quiet, more or less quiet, ccmpared to what
it is nw.
Q. Hm soon after people =re mrried did they start havimg babies?
W t
awy?
A, bst of them did. fS mother ms married in Septder, and she didn't
get pregnant until in the spring, with tne, I don't lam haw that happened.
Q. *re did you graduate fran high school?
A. In southern Illinois, Mion.
Q. Mmt kind of courses did yau have in high school?
A. Oh, I took cmrcial arithtic, I remember. I wish I hadn't. I
thought it w s tou&. P,nd English, algebra, and just general subjects.
The small toms didn't have typing and sewing and a lot of things that
the bigger cities have, so w had a very limited curriculum. You couldn't
get nhat you wnted; yau had to take what you could get.
Q.
A. No.
Didn't they have art or rmsic?
Q. Did they have foreign languages?
A. No. No languages. It ws not requested, other than Latin. And you
were a1l-d to take that one year.
Q. Lhen you were finishing high school, ws there any ctation fran
your teachers that you d d go on to do sanething mre ~KII just getting
mrwied?
A. No, I don't rPmffnbP.r ever be13 encouraged. lhey didn't talk college
then, like they do nw. They didn t talk uwh of anything in the small
towns *re I lived, There =re no suggestions or '%hat are you going to
do with youx life after you get out?" I guess they expected you to go
and do &atever you wmted to do, but nobody ever suggested "You should
do this" or "You should do that."
Q. Jhw did you happen to go into nursing then?
A. There was another girl that I knew in Peoria who mt into nurses'
lxaining and she said she liked it very mch. I said, '!&at does it
cost?" And she said "Nothing." So that's really why it appealed to me,

Earl- Allen Francis 18
because I didn' t have to pay tuition. %re wasn' t enough m y in my
Emily to pay a big tuition for three or four years of school*. To get
right dma~ to the nitty gritty, that's why I went into nurses' training,
because I didn't have to pay for it. In fact, the first year they paid
us a little bit of $5 a mnth and baght aur uniforms and aur books. The
second year E got paid $10 a mmth, but w had to buy our om Worms
and books. t+k wt them out of that $10. Nurses' training was Mlve
mnths a yeax for thi~ty-six mmths. Nw it is just like- college, but
when I ms going, you mt thirty-six months in a row and you didn't
stop. You got tw meks off every surrmex to go ham and see your family.
Q. b e
did you take your nurses training?
A. In Chicago at Cook County Hospital.
Q. Really. That nwt have been smre training1
A. If you don't get it there, yau don't get it an-re. It's a rough
place, I'm telling you.
Q. Did the high scbool expect or encourage the yaung mn to go into sane
kind of trade or apprenticeship?
A. Idon'tknow. Idon'thmdmt they said totheboys.
Q.
ht did boys generally do after hi& school?
A. kll , my brother be- a mchinist , W's passed on naw. He ws
very good at it. The mre he learned, the better jobs he got. He really
did ~ 11 for himself. M y around there -re boys £ran farms, and they
=re going to contime on the farm with their family. Ckhe or two from
the ealthier fdlies becarne dentists. 'Ihey mnt away to dental school.
I don't remixher anyone ever going away to be a doctor.
Q. ht did your sister do?
A. My sister? She got married and raised tw children.
Q. &re there any clubs or activities sponsored by the high school?
A. Yes, basketball, football, tennis.
Q. Did you tale part in them?
A. I took part in basketball. I liked basketball. hben I was in grade
school, w had recess yau know, thirty minutes out in the air in the
morning and thirty minutes in the afternoon, and ve 'd play basketball. I
took part in that and then in high school I played basketball in gym.
Q. Did your parents errpress any paxticular attitude tawards education?
A. OP1 yes. My mther mted to do sou~thirg
besides getting married.
She didn' t want IIE to get married. She didn' t want my sister to get
married either, but she did. I m, so young. She ms very happy tihen
I decided to go into nurses' training. Very happy.

Earleen Allen kancis 19
Q. Did she imply that she d d have liked to have done sething other
than., .?
A. Yes. She said that i£ she had the opportunity, she muld have gotten
mre education instead of just an eigihth grade, and she d d like to
have mrked saneplace besides in the hane, but she m r had the opportunity.
Q. She said the sarne thing to yau~ sistex also?
A. ah yes, but my sister couldn't see it.
Q. Naw, did she say this to you all the while you Ere grcrwing up ox
only &en it caw the to decide whether to go into a profession or get
mmied?
A. She talked about that all the time. "You oyt to do surething."
But E couldn't go to college because there wsn t any mney to go to
college then. She wanted my sister to follow in my footsteps and go into
nurses' trajming, but she didn't. My sister couldn't see it, You haw,
everybody can' t be a nurse. I think you've got to be born for it, really,
to do it and do it good, I know I started out with 80 girls in my class,
and 17 graduated. Yes. bk had a six months ' probationary period, yau
knm. You didn't wear a cap or a bib with your uniform. You =re a
"probie," a probationer. I man, that probationary period m s tough.
Q. Tell me about nursing school. Wat w it like?
A. k11. it's so different naw than when I ~ nin, t before Mrld War 1 I.
lhen ycxt mt in, yau filled an application and you w e intervied and
accepted or rejected. And if you =re accepted, you =re on probation
for six mnths. In that six months you Ewe nothing but: a fluke for
the rest of the people. Yau served trays and passed water and watered
fleers and carried out laundry and cleaned the utility row and did a
lot of dirty wrk.
Q. Didn't you have classes?
A. &, yes l Oh, yes ! But when you =rent t in class, you Ere up on the
floor.
Q. Jhwmy classes did you have to attend?
A. Oh, w had tm or three hours in the mrning, in the afternom and
then again in the evening. tk didn't have msch free time.
Q. Did yrxlhave~free tlme?
A. Saturday night and Sunday, Sunday night maybe. And w had only tm
half-dap off a wek, and that half-day smted at 1 p.m. hk wrked 7 to
7. And cm Sunday you'd have the AM off this Sunday, and the IEW Sunday
you'd have the PM off. That's all the titne m had off. And you had to
be in your room, checked out, to amer roll at 10 o'clock. Anybody who
msn't, wits in big eouble! And you had to sign up for a late leave, not
later than 12 o'clock. And you'd better get in by 12 o'clock, or you're

Ehrleen Allen Francis 20
f
in trouble. They'd lock the doors and you'dhave tor' the kll. No
way of biding it. No windaws to clirrb into or anythimg ike that. It
was realay rough.
Q. Mmt ms it like dter you =re no longer a probatimer?
A. kll, just the sam -pt by that th you'd been in so m y classes
you =re able to do sr;mething besides dirty mrk. You could give treaOnents
and take blood pressures and give hypos and pass ~lledicines and bathe
patients. And then you got to making beds, had special training in
chmgbg a bed with a patient in it, and all that sort of thing. You
advanced as you m t along.
Q. And this w s 36 wnths strawt?
A. Straight through, 36 months, with tm weks off every sumer to go
see yam family . Christmas
-
and Thanksgiving didn't man a thing. You
were ri@t there and you stayed there. Those girls dm lived in Chicago,
they wme all right. They could go ham, or their parents muld c m to
see thern. But us gals fran elsewhere, w didn't have people around
there. It w tough, it really rough.
Q. So you say 17 out of your class of 80. . . ?
A. Sewateen out of eighty graduated. Wlt I think they overdid it in
that t-. They =re mean. If you ere Om minutes late etting in, yau
tau@ hell for it. You Ere pudshed and yau had your ha K f-day taken
away fran you and all that sort of thing. You wxen't allowd to do
anything but say "yes man'' and ''no man.'' 'Ihey exploited us. They
didn't have any graduate nurses on the payroll there, just ervisows.
Che on avery floor to supervise. They used us. W wre abso T utely
qloited. Used for cheap labor. After Wrld War 11 things changed.
Q. thy did they change?
A. Well, w =re wrkhg 7 to 7, tmlve hours a day. 'Ihe army m s doing
the sarne thing, and they began to fight about it in the army. The chief
rmsse mt to headquarters and said "You don't wrk your rn like that,
so *y do you wrk yauw nurses like this?" So finally nurses got on
three shifts, eight hours a day. W11, when the services all got on it,
the public ddn't put up with it. That's w got eight-how days,
during the fnkll:. Of course, I w s behind the Iron Curtain. I didn't know
what was go* on until I got back.
Q. Nut =re relations like bemen nurses and doctors?
A. Wll, = as students didn't have rrauch relation with doctors until ve
got to be a senior. 'Ihie supervising nurse talked with the doctors. She
usually an old mid dm never got married and devoted her whole life
to nursing. Wlen you got into youw sentor year, you could assum a
little responsibility.
Q. took care of medications?

Earleen Allen Francis 21
A. The suprvisor oversaw them, but the nurses gave them. Youwre
taught in class how to do it. You had to have that class before you
cdd go into the medicine roan.
Q. Wing hj%h school, what w courting like?
A. Dating? I could date after I ms 16 years old in a group, never
alone. I mt to parties, hause parties, picnics, and gatherings at h e
In the evening, listening to the records, that sort of thing.
Q. You never mt out on dates in pairs, in couples?
A. kll, after I got a little older I c dd go out when there =re tm
couples. Lk mt to the ball g-s.
Q. Did you have one person in particular that you muld go with, or did
ycu go together in a group, or a series of different yaung m?
A. &, I never kept one very long. I'd go with them once or twice and
then I wuld find smebody I likd better. I'd ditch the first one and
take an another one. Pretty soon I'd get tired of him!
Q. hng your friends who got mrried right after hllgh school, huw did
they or- their courtship and planning their marriage? Did they
A. In the newspaper mtixnes it wuld be annaunced, and by mrd of
mmth they d d tell everybody that they =re going to get married. Sam
of them got wried in their uwn h with a minister, very quietly.
There ms no outstanding mddings, beautiM gems and veils. I can't
r&r ever seeing one in the anall tuwns where I lived. I never saw
that until I was away fian hare in Chicago.
Q. In the groups of young people during high school, did you have friends
of all sorts or *re there ethnic divisions?
A. You m different nationalities? No we didn't have any of that when
I was in school. In southern Illinois there =re Italians, but they
lived to themselves and they stayed to themselves. b y =re sort of an
outcast. I used to feel kind of sorry for tha, like the colored people
were, more or less.
Q. kll, sanetimes groups will have Gem or English, Austrians or
Swiss people or Swedes. There mren't any separate groups that you knew
of?
A. %, there =re no separate nationalities. In fact, dm south FR had
colored, lots of blacks, And they lived across the railroad tracks in
their cm area. They never lived in where w =re. Never. men they
carne to your h e they didn't go to the frmt door and ring the doorbell,
they =t around to the back door. Which I think was awful. But they
kept their place and if they worked in your h m they stayed back in the
kitchen or d m
in the basement or wherever they ere wrking. .

Earleen Allen Francis
Q. Did they go to school with you?
A. No, oh no. Nawwhen I got into high school in southern Illinnis,
there -re about tm or three colored children that I reaaember ent to
hi& school. They used to sit in the back of the roan, all the time.
They just did it on their am, nobody told them to. I guess they =re
afraid they'd be told to get in the back of the roan. I don't approve of
tk my they treated the colored people, kt I don't approve of the way
the colored people are acting ntxJ either. I how in the slave days they
*--my grandmther used to tell E sane a&l stories.
Q, Can you tell rne?
A. Well, the wrst thing that hit me most, if they wanted a black to
sell, they sold him, you hm. They'd put a 15-year-old ghl with a big
black man, lock them up in t h ba-t for a wek, and i£ she did not
get pregnant, then he was tied up to a post and horse whipped. Oh, they
ere brutal. You don't how. That's about the wrst thing I can renmber.
They mrked in the cotton fields. My mother used to have one come in to
do the laundry for fifty cents a day. a wash board with her hands, in
tubs, hang the clothes up on the line, that sort of thing. Of course,
mney msn' t plentihl in those days, you how, like it is now. And
those that were malthier had full-tim arsids, black rnaids in their
-8. All black folk. I5 you go down south nuw, you have colored help,
ym don't have white help.
Q. Did people think that this ms either an appropriate or inappropriate
way to treat other people?
A. Well, I don't know. 'Ihe colored, as I said, lived across the railroad
tracks in their om areas, TZley only cam out when they wanted to go to
tk grocery store or when thy tant:ed to go to wrk. And they did b stic
mrk for the white people. You didn't have to be rich to have colored
help in those days. Eherybody had a little bit. kk didn't have a staff
or anything like that, but E did have a wnan who used to cane and do
the laundry and scrub the floor and a few other things. I guess when my
mther ma pregnant, she had mrre help than she had otherwise. She
didn't have to pay them very much, you how.
Q. kre you children ever disciplined &en you wxe young?
A. ah, yes, = wxe d e
Q. Hm did your parents do that?
to behave. At the table and otherwise.
A. Well, my hbr used to use the razor strop when w =re bad emu&.
Q, ihat d d
you do to be that bad?
A. Sass me of thern. W never talked back to our parents, never. You
ddn' t dare.
Q. So, if you had dared, he d d have spanked you with a razor strop?

Earlem Allen Francis 23
A. He did! bk -lied it, everyone tried it--why sure, all kids try it
once. Eut they don't do it a second time1 Oh, no1 Qlildren behaved
tkmelves. All children =re disciplined at that th. In school and
at hazre. ht a blessing! my they don't have it now!
Q. Was your father the only me d ~o apped you?
A. No. Man mdd get a switch and switch us if UE needed it.
Q.
%at wid you have done to need it?
A. Oh, tell a lie or story, hit sa~body, bring samething h m that
didn't belong to me--oh, they =re great on that. And I had to get
switched and then I'd take it back where I got it. And going in the
kitchen and eating when I msn' t supposed to. I can reer that. And
saying a curse mrd or a vulgar wrd or sarrethhg like that.
Q. So both ymr parents wuld switch you on occasion?
A. Oh, sure, both of them.
Q. You never did have disagreemnts then with your parents, did you?
A. Disagreements? No. Theywretheboss. Ihadmthingtosay. I'm
sort of grateful for it all m.
Q. ken you *re a girl, did you lrnclw about menstruation before you
actually began?
A: My mother told me shortly before my first period. Very shortly. But
I didn't start until I 14. I think she should have told me earlier,
but she didn't. Wlt that's all right. It mrked out all right.
Q. Did she tell you in what yau muld now consider to be an accurate my
what was going on with your body?
A. No. I don' t think she knew that. A couple mnths before I started to
have periods I got craps, and she hew what ms causing it. So she told
me h t it was going to be like.
Q. Earlier yau mtid that you had your appendix r-ed when you
ere d l , living in Marion, IL. Can you tell E about your experience
th--what the hospital was like and haw they decided that you should
have yaur appendix out?
A. k11, I had severe pain in the right side, so my folks called the
doctor. We catm to the hause--doctors made hause calls in those days,
you --and he told my parents that I had an appendicitis. 'Ihey had a
d l hospital there, very sinall--they had only tw or three patients
a n
I wznt in. I was taken to the operating roam and had my appendix
remwed. I ws there about a wek and then mt hm. I stayed in bed
about another veek and that ws it.
Q. HcxJ old -re you?

Earleen Allen Francis 24
Q. %at ms the hospital like?
A. It wm an old, old haae, down near the city square. It had been
tmmd into a hospital. The population in the town at that tim m s
8,000, I can' t give you the exact year that happened.
Q. Cgre their roam like hospital roam are n m or *re they mre like
hdrocpls?
A. 'Ihey ere nme like bedroans.
Q. Wmt was their operating roan like?
A. Well, they had an operating table, I ramher. I r&r being put
on it.
Q. Mat kind of anesthetic did you have?
Q. 'Ihey put a cone over your face?
A. Yes. 'Ihere ms just that one nurse and she had aides doing the rest
of the things. She had people doing the laundry and cleaning the place.
Q. h t
was it like having ether. k s it irritating?
A. No, 'I wnt right to sleep.
Q. ELrw did you feel after the surgery?
Q. You w e
not sick to your stcrnach or anything?
A. I didn't & any vmiting. Of course I didn't have any breakfast
before T mt in there, so my stcmach w s empty.
Q. They just to& you £ran ha^ right into the surgery? Did you spend a
night in the hospital fixst?
A. No, I Ent into a rmn and was undressed. They wited until the next
mming because I had eaten. They =re afraid that I a t choke and
tky d d have to do a tracheotcmy. That's what happens when patients
are asleep and spit up food. It is very dangerous.
Q. Were yau frightened?
A.. No, I think I ms too sick to be frightened.
Q. Psad then afterwards you felt fine?

Earleen Allen kancis 25
A. I got along fine.
Q. Did you have any special relationship with the nurses when you =re
there?
A. %re w only one nurse and all she did was dressings and medications.
Q. Mas she friendly?
A. ks, very. She m s a middle-aged xman.
Q. kre you fond of her?
A. Yes, I liked her very much.
Q. Did she have anything to do with your deciding to become a nurse
later on?
A. No, I didn't have that in mind. I was in high school at the the.
Q. h mtioned that when you mt into nurses' training you =re
living in Peoria?
A. b, my fanily was living in southern Illinois, in Marion. Ihat is
where w =re living when I ent away to nurses' training.
Q. You nrentioned that you hew a wxwn frm Peoria?
A. Yes, I had s m
friends fran Peoria.
Q. Zodcing back aver your life, mil you vent away to school, how can
you see that yaur early life prepaxed you for the rest?
A. I could.' t say that it did. I ddn't knm how to amwr that. I
met gixls in Peoria that ere going to nurses' training. I didn't have
any money to go to college, so that was out, but during nurses' training,
they paid you! It ~nkis just a little bit, about $5 per umth and $10 the
second year, I thhk. That bought your shoes and uniforms, books, that
sort of thing. That is really the reason that I settled on it. I didn't
haw what nursing was like; the only experience I had ever had was *en I
had my pendix out. Everything else ms at hare. If you got sick, you
mt to a%ed at ha, not to the hospital. That is where I got the idea.
I thought it d d
be possible, because I d dn't have to pay for it1
It tuned aut very good. 'Ihe profession has been very kind to =--even
though I did get into a mss-in the end (the w).
Q. At the the you @&ted £ran high school, mt *re yaur apectations
for the rest of your life?
A. I didn't know what I was go- to do. I had no idea. I e nt y to
Peoria to visit my friends and that is there I learned about nurses
training. I wanted to go to college, of course, but very few people mnt
to college in the 30's and 40 's , because of the cost. People didn't have
the mney, and I was one of than.

Earlem Allen Francis 26
Q. So you thought that you wuld enjoy a career, but you didn't knw
em.ctly what you -re going to do?
A. I didn't how at I was going to do, but I knewwhat I d d like to
do. I 'd lib to have gone to college and becaw a dietician. That ' s
vhat I was very interested in, hare econcmics. But I didn't have the
mney to go. These days there are scholarships and loans and all of that
sort of thing, but in those days there -re nane. That ms the tail end
of the depressllon years, yau lam.
Q. Did you have any expectations dmn you graduated fran high school
about getting mied, or about when you d d
get married?
A. No. I was not interested in marriage at that the. That was the
farthest thing fran my mind. I hw mst girls look forward to mrriage,
but that was the farthest fran my mind. I wanted to do samething
else befure I got m ied. I didn't say that I never wanted to get
marrid; at that t h I just wasn' t interested.
Q. that was tihe of yaur nursing school?
A. Cwk County School Of Nursing, in &icago.
Q. Wle you wre in school, did you have any tb to read for enjoymnt?
A. No! You didn't have tine for anything but wrk. Cook County ws a
wrk house. Oh, they d d kill you tre! I net a couple of doctors in
the army who ere interns there and T~R discussed it. They said they had
never seen such a wrk house in their lives.
A. Wll, you mrked long k s , you wnt to class, and when yau mre off
you had to go to class again. You had to ansmr roll call at 10:00, and
you had better be there! As I told you, 80 started and only 17 graduated.
If you had a late leave until midnigFt and didn't get in until five after
twelve, they d d
take away your half-day off.
punish you. They d d
Sunday you d d have the mming off and the next Sunday you d d
have the afternoon off. Never a whole day. In fact, they %re exploiting
nurses at that time, student nurses. They =re using them for cheap
labar. lhey stopped that while I ws in prison camp. They changed to
ewt-hour shifts fran the twelve-hour shifts ws- used to wrk, from 7 to
7. QI duty, either in the class or on the floor, fran 7 in the morning
until 7 at ni&t. You had three hours before you had to be in youz roan
and answer roll call .
Q. Did yau see a whole range of patients?
A. At Codc County, that's all w had: Patients! Ebery race, color and
creed.
Q. Md p wrk in all the different departnw~ts?

*
Earleen Allen Francis 27
A. &, yes. You had to before you could graduate and write the State
bard lhminatiom. W had a TI3 building, four floors high, tk had a
pediatric building a half block long. Cook County Hospital took up a
square block, a whole square block. The mrgue ms on one side and the
rnah building w on the other. On the north side was the pediatric
building and on the other side you had the contagious building and the
internal mdicine building. Everything had a build- of its om, I
don't laow dmt is there nw. You spent a certain anrwuzt of t h in
every ocle of them.
Q. Did yau have any close -n friends ale you Ere there?
A. Oh ~ s . I and a couple of other nurses often mt across the street
to the Greek's and had a coke, sat for a half hour, before w wnt back
to the nurses residence. You hm, friends.
Q. Md any of those relationships cmtinue after you gotmt of school?
A. I don't knw whese they mt. I don't haw where they are nm. I
never ms one to cling real close to the m n , like sme of them did.
Like the hsbians did. R had s m of than there too.
Q. In nursing?
A. Yes. They're mnderhl wrkers. They d d mrk circles around
everything and everybody. But I think they do that to cover up or smthing,
I don't how.
Q. h t
ms the attitude of different family muhers toward your career?
Q. Yaur father did too?
A, Yes.
Q. Fhy did they think it ms mnderful?
A. Because it ws getting an ducation. Even though it msn't exactly
what I wanted.
Q. 'Ihey saw that there was mre value in getting an education than in
doing other things?
A. Yes, All I could have done ms be a bemaid in those days. I
wsn't interested in 'being anybody's housemid! Eat and sleep in solllecme
else's h e 24 hours a day! And in those days they used to pay than
five dollars a mek for that. I can rPSTYmbP.x that.
Q. In your nurses' training, who did you talk to if you had any personal
problems? TZlere must: have been t-s that yau got lonely or unhappy
about things, or problems wuld cane up.

Earlaen Allen Francis 28
A. lbm roarmate, thats all. We didn't have any social mrkers. I
didn't Emaw what one ws, tbn. R had no counselors or anything like
tlut .
Q. IIow many people shared a roam?
Q. Did you and yaur roarmate becaw god friends?
A. & yes, w always got along. M never had any trouble.
Q. At the the you finished your nurses' training, what expectations did
you have about where yaur career d d go?
A. All I thought about at the th ms private duty. They didn' t have
intensive care units at that th. Intensive care =sing is not private
duty; there is no mre private duty. I go into hanes naw and
relieve a nurse for four hours in the afternoon and that sort of thing.
My idea, when I graduated fran nursing school, was to make sme mney.
Private duty was very god, so I put my name on the registry. Cook
County is in a medical area. You have St. Takes Hospital, the dental
school, the University of Illinois Wdical School, Illinois Research
Hospital; all viere right there in that group. Its a Medical Center. All
these hospitals, like Presbyterian-St. Luke and others around the city
ran theb own registry for private duty nursing. After you wrote your
State b d s and got your licence, you could put your mte on the registries
for nothing. They muld call you for private duty cases. You could get
on a streetcar OK bus--= had wndmA11 transportation in the city of
Chicago at that time--and nobody ever snatched any purses or did what
they are doing nm. Killing people ar slapping them around, that didn' t
go on. So if theywntedm fran 7 at night to 7 in themrning, if it
ws dark at seven o'clock I didn't mind getting on the streetcar. I
wasn't &aid. I didn't think a thing about it. I even dght have to
change several places. I did private duty nursing until I wrote a Civil
Service &amhation for the United States Indian Service. I was called
up to go out to Lawton, Olclahm. By that tim I had gotten myself a
Plymxlth =--I paid cash for it, and had been mrking less than a year.
But I wrked all the tine. So I got into my little car and mt out to
0klahm-a. And dam the road fran Lawton there was an army post, Fort
Sill. The Uses Bunk at the Indian hospital had a bridge club.
d E d d
go aver to Fort Sill and the next wek they d d
caw over
to aur nurses' residence. Well, the chief nurse over at Fort Sill took a
liking to rrre . She said: What are you doing aver there?'' She asked me
to CCXE over to Fort Sill for lunch on Sunday. Well, I mt. She took
m into her office and asked UE what I ms doing aver there nursing those
Indians? I said "I am wxking for a living." "You are too young to be
wrking aver in that outfit. They will be shipping you off to the Boondocks
or sarrething." bhich they did; they d d
transfer you around. It's a
federal project, caring for the Indians. They have schools and church
and hospitals. And it wsn't very nice.
Q, Tell ICE about it? What kind of Indians =re ycru dealing with there?

Earleen Allen Francis 29
A. bk had mt there, I think, the &robes. And they are dirty. They
d d ccole in with 5 million lice on every hair. You clean than up and
send them haw and the next ~ e they k are back; they care h with a new
dose of syphilis. You keep than six eeks and treat than and then send
them back to their tribe m wherever they =re living, and then six weks
later they care in with another dose of it. They never take a bath. Now
this was then, and that's a long time ago. That uas before brld Mr 11.
They =re unclesixable and arrogant. Hard to take care of and to deal
with. 'key didn't like to take a bath. TZley resented it very much. And
that ma what the govermrent ms paying for. Most of them =re on the
roll, the payroll. If they wre ox-fourth Indian and could prove it,
they =re paid by of the federal gwerumt. That's a t E contended
with. I really didn't like it, although I liked the pay I was getting.
The first thing I hew, I mt over and told the chief nurse that I ms
ready to join the. Army Nurse Corps.
Q. J ! h long did yau wrk for the Indian Service?
A, Eight mnths . The chief mse at Fort Sill sent in my application to
the chief nurse in Whhgton, who she knew very ~11. In less than a
mnth I mwed aver to Fort Sill.
, Q. bhat did you do at Fort Sill?
A. We took care of the soldiers at the army post.
Q. ks it in a regular hospital setting?
A. Haven't you ever been at an army post? &, honey, that's sad. You
should go and visit me smtirne. They have their own hospital, their
om nurses residence, their om qyarters for bachelors and ters for
the officers with families. It's a great big area, a beautiEP1ace.
Everybody lived on the post, with &ir om swhming pool, own golf
courses, own riding haucses, own tennis courts. They had everything
there. I don't think they have it quite as nice naw as they did then. I
think only the high-ranking officers have quarters on the post now, and
everybody else has to go out to the town. But then nobody ms allmd to
live off the post; yau lived on the post. And there wre no mid
nurses-they d d not take mrried nurses then, and they don' t take them
nm.
Q. Wny Is that?
A. Well, it used to be that no rcerried nurses could get in. Tkings like
the Indian Service, the VA, the army or anythimg. They just didn't do
it. In the army, you get transferred all aver, and if you have children
at h, it doesn't wrk out.
Q. HrJw long wre you at Fort Sill?
A. 1 was at Fort Sill one year. I got orders to the Phillipines in My,
1941, Bey always sent tw nurses together-they never sent one--so
Helen Hamessy was appointed to go with m, just us tm. So ve got on a
little train and 'cr~ tent to San F'rancisco, to the Presidio. bk boarded a
big boat and rode eighteen days to the Philippines. k arrived there the
latter part of May.

Earleen Allen Francis 30
Q. khat was the boat trip like?
A. Ch, mnderful. Justwnnderful. Good food. It was a big transport
that the army had just bought and namd it The mral Peace. It rn a
wonderful big ship and E had eighteen days= ir. m-
pool, tm in a roan, and N really had a good t*. bk stopped in Hawaii
for a mek going to the Philippines, and then e didn't stop any mare
until E got there. At Had+, slept and ate on the boat. Of course,
at that time there =re slngle officers on board, you haw. Pretty soon
you'd picked out me and he d picked you out, so you had smbody to go
ashore with and to get around with. All the mried men had their wives,
ycru how, When w got to the Phillipines, there =re lots of people to
met us and greet us and give us our orders about where vie =re to go.
had a hospital called Sternberg in Mila. I ms sent to Fort McKinley,
which ws out of the city. There ms also Stotzenburg, fich ms an Air
Force post. At that tine, the Air Force ws under the Amy rule. It wis
the P;rmy Air Force. Now they are their crwn corps, the United States Air
Force. That happened while I ms 'B the Iron Curtain." A lot of
other things happened that I don' t haw anything about. So our life ms
great. I met a man, a dentist, at Fort McKinley, who I later mied.
bk had a gat time. Every night ite ent to the ArmylNavy club. You'd
put on a long dress after 6 o'clock and the men me ate unifom--in
the tropics it was kt, you hew-and m just had a ball. We only mrked
£ram 7 to 1 or 1 to 7. Wte wmn -t mrk in that tropical clhte
like the natives can. A FJhite wnan cannot do her hcrusemk and cook
over a hot stove, so you have lots of servants, if you have a household.
kt I lived in the nurses residence because I wasn't mried.
So on the 8th of kcemlxr, 1941, m =re in the nurses residence eating
breakfast and we had the radio on as w did every mrning. And the radio
said that the Japanese had banbed Pearl Haxbor and 80 ships full of
Japanese Ere lined up ard
the Philippino archipelago, and they're all
mrching in towards Mmilal Well, the next day the nurses Ere all put
in buses and takm to the penbumla of Bataan. Fort WKinley ws a few
kil-ters fran Manila in Pasay, a barb. Instead of calling it a anall
town they call it a "barb." Iknny Williams, one of our nurses, wrote a
bodc about her experiences there. Everything's truth£ul, but people who
don't know the islands, have never been there, have never heard the nanres
of these areas and places--nobody but we can understand it. And to ue
it's just a reminder. I'm not going to buy another book about the war.
If another one cam out, I 'm not going to buy it.
%ere m I--six o'clock breakfast. So rn -re all told to take nothing
but uniforms, white uniforms (if you can imagine) , and leave om quarters.
We left everything w had there. bk took one suitcase and got into a bus
and m down to the peninsula of Bataan, which was a jungle. That's
ere vie battled for five mnths against the Japanese. N had the big 16
millimter guns going over our heads every faux minutes. hk wnt around
with a stick in our muths--w kept our mouths open so the bombs wuld
not: break aw: ear drum. Finally E had nothing to eat, because by that
time was cut off fran the United States. l& had no medicines.
Ebenmally on the 6th of My ve surrendered. The nurses ere transferred
to Corregidor, across the bay. l& got into a little boat when the orders
canre, and te left thousands of patients laying out in the jungles on the
grd, sick and munded. bk wnt to Corre idor, into the tunnel in the
big rock. khen MacArthur left for X ustralia, General Minwxight
to& wer.

Earleen Allen Francis 3 1
Q. How did the people feel about that?
A. Well, he had orders fran bhington to go. k couldn't do anything
about that. And he said, "I shall return." The first thing Ckneral
Wmright began to Suss abut =re those 68 nurses dom there in the
jungle. He said, 'We didn't have than in tbrld War I and m don't need
than w. &t them aut 1" So then he ordered us over to the Rock *re
he w. Then he wired Australia, and they sent bm planes up to take out
20 nurses, and I ms--oh deax, I'm forgetting that I got m ied! On
January 3 I was married on the peninsula of Bataan, with the Japanese
barr-e playing my mddlng march. And the reaaon that my husband insisted
that w get married is that the Army didn't mnt mrried m n , so they
mid send me hare. That was the purpose of getting m ied then. So my
husband mnt back to his post and I wnt back to the jungle hospital
*re I was.
Q. YOUK husband WAS fighting?
Q. I thought he =S a dentist. Were the medical personnel fighting?
A. Wll , they =re ri&t there doing their bit. They all had guns. He,
my hband, had tm guns on him. Every time he got away to cane up to
see me, he was wing a gun on each side.
Q. bhat sort of rarwsing could you do under those conditions?
A. Well, you just did the best you could. You dressed m d s with rags
and yau passed water and you passed out the aw£ul thing called food that
w had.
Q. mat was it like?
A. Canned fish and that sort of thiqg . And rice. That's the best that I
can ramher. There's no bread, you hw, the Philipinos eat rice. And
while I was in Bataan I cam down with malaria. There are three types of
malaria, he is cerebral, that hits yuu~ brain. TZle other tm nanres I
can' t remember, Now people in this country don't lam nu& about tropical
mlaria. hrican malaria and tropical malaria are entirely different.
So I got a cross-infection of the tw kinds, but not the cerebral. If I
had, I wuldn't be here. And I could not mrk or do anythimg. A lot of
the girls had it--I wsn't the only one.
Q. Huw did it d fest itself?
A. Qlilh and diarrhea and nausea and high fevers. I got that in the
early days, right after e we in Bataan. Wr car^ along December 8th
to us--the 7th to you people--because m -re on the other side of the
intermtima1 date line. It was only a mtter of days before w =re
take&^ to Bataan fran Fort Mdihley, Stemberg and Stotzenberg . All the
muses =re brwt d m
there into the jungle. It was a few days before
surrender that w =re mwed to Corregidor. And then cane this order to
get th nurses out, and tm planes came in on Tojo's bbthday £ram Australia
to Corregidor, the kind of planes that land in the water, 'Ihat was the

Farleen Allen E'rancis 32
sign far twnty of us to get aut of that tunnel and wlk duwn to the
docks. There =re tw planes, ten nurses in each plane. Ox plane made
it to Australia, but my plane did not. % all got up and then docked in
Mlndanao, the biggest. island of the Philippine archipeligo. I& flew at
night. k got out of the planes and ere taken to a Philippino army post
and w stayed there all day. The Japs hadn't gotten there yet. So at
night rn FoRnt back to the t w planes, loaded up and one plane backed up
and took off. My plane backed up and hit a rock, and the mter rushed
up. 'h plane taxied back to shore. FJe crawled out the wind- and a
m lifted us d m £ran the plane to the ground. And that's as far as w
got, va ten nurses. So w ere stranded. I cannot rder how long *
ere there, but e stayed in that Phfilippino army base for a long tim.
Finally the Japs put us on a ship, an old ship that wasn't very good, and
took us back to Mila. It took us ten days to get fran Mhdanao--it ms
such a rice-racky ---to W a . And that's where w had lots of
trauble. At night tine, yau knuw it ws hot, and the Japanese ere
milling all azaund. We slept on the deck and--I don't mt to talk about
that.
So T~R finally landed in Manila and they put us in a bus and took us to
Santo Tams Lhiversity. That's w e rn found the rest of our people,
the rest of the Army nurses, the Navy nurses, and the 3,000 internees,
civilians that they had gathered up. There wxe gold mines, banks, oil
caqmnbs-in fact Denny Williams, the nurse that wrote the book, her
husband was with the CalTex Oil Cqary. Before the war started he ms
aver there in -a, a single man, and she met him, got out of the Amy
Nurse Corps, and got married. She ms living there as a civilian when
the war came dong. He #joined the services and she cane back to the
Army-for safety, as nu& as anything else. The Japs went around and
rang door bells and told all foreigners to go to Santo Tanas University,
and take clothing for three days. So they got there and it lasted three
years. 'hat ' s how w? got to Santo Tanas. ere in there thirty-three
rmnths, until the Auerican forces cam in, the 7th of January, 1945. Boy
that was a bloody night--that ws the bloodiest battle I was ever in.
Dam in Bataan, I was back behind the lines, but in Santo Tams I was
right in the middle, as everybody else ws . Many people ere killed when
the Aumicans cz- in and began to fire and the Japs began to fire back.
And those Jap -& told us--= had tvm guards in Santo Tamas who said
they w e kst Point graduates, and they spoke Eslglish just like you and
I do. They told us they d d never give up the Philippines unless it be
in shauibles. They muld bluw it up. The first thing they did was cut
off our water supply. k did have mter the whole the w mre there.
In the early days w got a little bit of stew, a little bit of radishes
codced (it ws awful), and w skimrrred down to a cup of rice every day.
M had four chaw lines every day, once a day, which served the 3,000
people in there. We had £om chow lines--you lined up with a cup to get
your cup of rice. And everybody got thin and thin and thin and thin and
starving and stanring. I mighed 96 pounds when I got off that plane in
San Rancisco. We Ere the first people who ere taken out. First they
sent a couple nurses £ran San Francisco to W a to take our masurementsm
had m uniform you knw. Then they mt back, packed up all these
uniforms, brought them, dressed us up, and put us in a big plane down on
Deuey Boulevard. Prettiest plane I ever saw. Then they flew us d m to

Earleen Allen Francis 33
kyte. ?here the Army had ptten all the Japs out and had set up tents
f9.r us. W stayed in kyte one eek. They had a big long tent set up
with a floor in it and beds on each side with the feet together and an
aisle dawn the middle. They gave us each a bed. And the &nerd c- to
see us, and he allced dam that aisle, and he said, ''Keep these girls
here one week and feed than one long meal a day, lasting *an when they
wake rrp in the mming until they close their eyes at night. If I send
than back to the Wted States like this, I'll be busted d m to a buck
private." So re stayed one eek and IE =re fed, 'Ihen ie Ere flow to
Haaf, and there e stayed anok eek before w Ere brought hame. W
landed in San Francisco--I don't how vhat day w landed there, I buw
it ms in February of 1945. Then w =re taken to Ledeman General
Hnspital in the Presidio, and there w =re allowd to telephone our
families. M course, our families couldn't coar! because nobody could get
a train pass or a bus pass or an airplane pass. People couldn't travel.
I don't kncrw if you r d r
that or not. People couldn't travel, but w
=re given free phone calls to tell ax families that e *re here. My
husband in the battle of the Libertion w s hit in the back of the head
and he was blinded. was sent hum blind. When I got to San Francisco,
I knew he WM coming. I asked than to let me stay thewe until he came,
and they did. He wsls blind dm he got there, so =re sent by train from
San Francisco to Washington D.C., where w Ere in Wlter Reed Army
Hospital. We =re there six months. Wbat had happened, ms that he was
hit in the back of the head with shrapnel and a blood clot landed on his
optic nerve. It taok about five mnths for that blood clot to dissolve,
and then he gradually got his eyeswt back.
After he had recovered, he cauld have his choice of army post, so he
chose San Francisco. Lk wnt back to the Presidio at San Francisco and
w m e there for one year. lhen w Ere m d to Fort Polk, 'Louisiana,
and ficm Fort Polk, w mt to Fort kagg, North Carolina. Frm Fort
Bragg, E wmt to Europe. bk *re in Germany years. Then VE mnt
back to the Qzicago headquarters, and that ms the end. The rest I don't
want to talk about. I've been a widuw since 1954.
Q. lhat =re accarmodations like back in Bataan?
A, Oh, you had a bed sitting out under the trees. We didn't have
tents. Thank god w! got out: of there before the rainy season, ach
canes in the fall. It starts rainiqg and it does nothing but rain--that's
their winter. It rains for three mths. If R had been there then, IE
wmld have been out in the rain, patients and all.
Q. Hw long wis it after you Ere captured until you got to the Santo
Tanas alp?
A. Xhe Philippines surrendered k y 6, 1942. That's the day when &nerd
WainwrQjht surrendered the entire Philippine archipelago, That's vhen w
all be- prisoners. I nas down in Midamo, where I got stranded. The
rest of the the girls =re taken into Santo Tcxnas. The =test thbg
the Ja-e ever did, the only smart thing they ever did, to my way of
thirkhg, m.e this. See, our uen =re put in Cabanatun, a place about
90 kilcmeters fran Manila. 'Ihe Japs found nurses in Corregidor wearing
rank on the& shoulders--you hw R have bars and rank just lik the
men--& they *re flabbergasted, Zhey cddn't understand a wmn

Earleen Allen Francis 34
having rank. So they wired Tokyo and asked them what to do with these
wmm with rank on their shoulders. Well, it took Tokyo six weks to
armer. In the meantime, they lohd the nurses up in a building and
kept than there with guards. Tokyo finally wired back and said that the
wren should ke put in the civilian camp. As Ear as they =re concerned,
all vmen wre civilians. So then they wed than into Santo Tanas with
the 3,000 civilians. Ihe civilians had a lot of clothes and they could
send out to their hams and get things. They shared with the nurses.
They gave us shorts-there eren't any slacks then because everyone over
there lived in shorts. bk wt barefoot and that sort of thing. There
were no shoes-if you had one pair of shoes you tried to make them do.
We got a Red Cross package once. That nas when the Nips =re winning the
war, they let this carve through. WE got sane twls in those Red Cross
packages, I don't lmm haw the people hew that e needed them, but now
w had sane -1s to dry ourselves with and a couple wash cloths and no
food. Those canre only one tw. Lk got om package for each person.
Q. Was the clothing always adequate?
A. No, it wsn't adequate, w just made dol It didn't matter.
Q. And it was £ran the other civilians, not frm the Japanese?
A, The Japanese? They didn't give us anything. krcy no. They ddn't
know haw to dress us.
Q. Mas there rmch trading with the guards?
A. 021, no, you couldn't talk to them. Q kept out of their my. They
had a big long bayonet on the end of the gun. No way--if I saw one
comislg this way, I'd go around that way. You kept away *an them.
Q. Did yau ever talk to then?
A. & -11, with these tm or three dm could speak Rglish and said
they w e West Point graduates--they could have been. But yau bw Tojo
and Hitler wre planning this together for years, for years and years.
They platmed to strike at the sam tlm, and they did. w e
fighting
tm ms, you 1PICIW, at the same th. It rmst be that ='re mde of
pretty goud stuff if w can do what e did, I'm telling you1
Q. Did ytxs ever talk to the tw guards who spoke English?
A. Yes. They told us they w e bkst Point graduates.
Q. Did you ever talk about than as people or you as people?
A. No. No. (Ine said he was going to be in San hancisco in a week.
me man said 'Wd you take a letter to my wife?" He said "Yes ," but he
never came around to pick up the letter. Japan told their soldiers they
=re winning this and winning that, and that they *re going to be in the
kited States in slx rneks, and all that junk. And their people believed
it, fl~lturally. We had no c~cations with the outside mrld whatsoever.
Q. Did you say the civilians =re able to maintain their property?

Earleen Allen Francis 35
A. For a little while, before it m s bcanbed out. They never mnt back
to theh harres. Ue never mt back to Fort McIUnley, where w left all
of our things. I walked out with what I had on my back. I never saw
again everything that I had. The govewrrment paid us for it, w had to
list it. I had formal dresses and all kinds of clothes and jewlry,
-as, record players, typewriters, everything. Just like I walk out
this door now with just shat I have on, and I never see the rest again.
Ihat's what happened to these three thowand people and the nurses.
You know Fort S e y was bombed to the jgowd. They buried m y soldiers
aver there. Fort McKinley is nw a caretery. I have friends who mt
there an a tour. 'Xhey ere told, 'This is where Fort McKinley was ." It
barbed to the ground and the Philippinos gave it to the kricans for
a c-tery, to bury our dead. %re are head stones there. In the
Orient and in &ope it is customary--R have a fence z u r d our property,
but they have a concrete wall around their property. That's the fence in
Europe and in the Orient to keep the thieves and people out. Santo Tams
Wversity is a large university with many buildings, like any university.
And it had a concrete wall around it six feet tall and tw feet thick.
We never saw the autside of that mll until w got into a bus to go dawn
to Dewy hlevard to get into that airplane. &hen w left there, the
wall wa$ still standing. friends kan Chicago who wmt on that tour,
mt to the Philippines and they vent to Santo Tanas Thiversity, and
there was no wall. It was an iron fence. %y came back and told re. I
said, 'Wlat happened? That wall ws there when left." I learned
later that the wall was blom up, the concrete was blown to bits. Then
they got an iron fence all around the campus, so you could see in. k had
a tour for Army personnel aver there. hk had to pay a thowand dollars,
and I ddn't pay a thousand dollars to go back there. But a lot of my
sister nurses did. X b of them kept diaries and let me read than. Every
one of than said, "I'm glad that I mt, but I don't care to go again."
Right nnw the Aumican kfenders of Bataan and Corregidor have tw conventions
a year, one inMay and one in August. InMy this yea year have it in
Arizona. We had it in St. Louis once, and w had it in Clearwater,
Florida, me. We've had it in Michigan. Every year it's a different
place, and you go to spend a wek in a hotel. They give us special rates
and m all met there in the mnth of my. Nuw in the month of August E
go to Fontana Village in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.
Q. Lb you often go on these?
A. I have been m y t3ms but don't go anymore. I wnt to the one in
Clearcater at the Fort Harrison Hotel in May, 1975, and the following
August I writ to Fontana. Ebt I don't wmt to go again. I don' t like
it. I don't like to be reminded. I see the same people, and everybody
looks a little older, everybody a little mre grey hair and a fewmre
wrinkles. And it gets mre and mre and m e expensive. I haven't got
mney to spend for that kind of thing. It's just a reminder to m of the
var, just like the books they write.
Q.
there ~mch brutality in the Santo Tanas?
A. There ws a brutality before I landed there. I ~s still dom in
Mindanao. 'Ihree hericans vent over the wall, one way or other, and the

Eden Allen Francis 36
Japs gat them and they brat than back and they beat them for three
days. Beat them, beat them, beat than, until they died. They didn't
shoot them, they beat them for three days. And everybody had to look at
it and k a it ~ and knw about it. So finally the m died after the
thhd day's hating. lhese were civilians. There =re no military
personnel in there, except the Army and Navy nurses. Cavite Navy Base is
in the bay there by Cmregidor, and there =re Navy nurses there too.
That brutality took place before I arrived frm NWamo. It wt have
been terrible. I 'm glad I msn' t there. Nobody ever: dared do anything,
became they'd kill you.
Q. Wre there any other forrns of brutality?
A. Not &en I *as there. Of course, as I said, everybody stap out of
their way, -re ere only tm that w could talk to. And m d have
different guards. We'd have a set of guards today and then next wek
they'd be different. They changed them, just like the ccuxnandant in the
office, the Japanese officer. That ws another joke. Ekry tim e
turned ad, IE had a new carmndant. So the news muld get around
that 'Wl, m have a new camandant. He cam in with an avernight bag."
I don' t h& why they changed than. I suppose they wre afraid he' d get
too friendly with the Anoezicans.
Q. Mas there any sort of collaboration bemen prisoners and guards?
A. . No way.
Q. SCKIE of these are question that Glenn miss asks other exprisoners o
m that he interviews. Wst of than have been in Gem prison camps
and things are very different there.
A. Yes. Hitler ws l~lean to the civilians, but he wis less mean to the
Army personnel,
-
I 'm told. Now m have an Illinois ExIW organization
here which mets the first Saturday of every mnth up here at the VEW
J3eadauarters on the Old Jacksonville Road. They asked me to cane. and I
-t couple times, but I the only one fr& the south pacific.
Every om else there was fran mope. %re wsn't a single one frm the
South Pacff ic but E.
Q. Wre there other m n ?
A. Ch no, I'm the only me in the state of Illinois.
Q. W e
there any WXIELI military personnel, like the WACS and the WAVES?
A. There ms no such thing as a WAC or a WAVE when I left the States.
lhen I got back to the States they began to talk about WACS and WAVES,
and I thought they ere crazy. Those organizations m e cooked up in the
thirty-three mnths that I was interred. Sanething else that came up
&ile I ~ ~sas there ~jas the Licensed Practical Nurse, the LPN. They took
all the nurses amy, so they had to start the LPN stuff, and now they're
phasirg it out,

Earleen Allen Francis 37
Q. Were there any instances of bravery? These are Glenn's questions
again- This had to do with attempting escape, taking chances.
A. Taking chances? Mercy. 'Ihose three men =re the only ones. Poor
dears.
Q. Lhat short-term effects did your iqzisomnt have on your life?
A. Lhen I ms in Walter Reed kspital I used to scream all night, and I
didn't know a thing about it. They gave re sleeping pills once in a
uhile because I didn't hm I ms screaming, but everyone else did1 A
lot of other people had the same trouble. I didn't knaw I was screaming,
I slept. I kas fed and had a good bed to sleep in, but they said I
scrd and yelled in my sleep and disturbed everybody. I w t have
screamed good and laud1
Q. Qod. You might as wll do it loud if you're going to scream. Wt
w so =amtic?
A. king hungry1 I got a letter from Washington DC frm somebody last
year asking 'Wt d d
in the prison cap?" I just wrote "Starvation." They sent rn a stamped
envelape, so I sent it right back. Starvation.
yosl consider the mrst thing that happened to you
Q. Can you see that it's had any long-term effects an your life?
A, Oh, yes. I don't lmm if it's the age-they told us that this d d
catch up with us s m day, ~ dm~ they *re doing physicals on us and kept
us in klter Reed Hospital for six mths. They told us that this d d
catch up with us saneday. I don't how d-mt they rrreant by that, but they
said that ne d d feel the effects of it later in life. Other than
loshg my energy, which everybody does as they get a little older, I
don't know haw that could hurry it up any, I 'm s jxty plus in age and
everybody at my age seems to be having the sanve problem, and they veren't
in a prison camp, So I don't hw, Saw of those girls ere never wll
dter they got hasne. They =re sick at the the they got h. 'Ihe last
I heard, out of 68 there are still 53 alive, but: sc~le are in Army retlremmt
homes. k have one aver here in Q-tincy, Illinois, a Soldiers' and Sailors'
Haole. I could go over there any tine I mt to. 1 could go right nuw if
I wanted to. But I don't mt to! I can go there and they will take 80
percent of my ince. If you don't have any incane, you can go anyway.
But if yau have an inm, they'll take 80X. I draw 100 percent disability.
Q. ht da yau get your disability for? Being a prisoner of war?
A. I had my last attack of malaria in Septder 1955. I was living in
Jacksonville, Illinois, with my mther t3ho was a widow at that time. The
way this tropical malaria hits you, it's different fran the hrican
type. khen it hits you, you have a hard chill and you lose consciousness.
Lkn yr>u cane to yourself, it goes m y as fast as it canes, You run an
ungodly high fever and you voarit and have diarrhea and then finally you
lose mciausness. They mild cwre to nr; at the hospital and ask 'Tihen
do pu have your chills? Ekry tm days? Every third day?" You bow,
that' s krican malaria. You have a chill every other day or every

Earleen Allen Francis 38
fourth day. I said "I don't have brican malaria." 'What's the difference
beten Aumican malaria and tropical malaria?'' I said, 'bts ! " b y
don't how here1 To m, a doctor is not well educated until he does an
internship in the tropics. 'Gibrms, dysentery, bacillary dysentery, Dengcle
Fever-all of those tropical diseases they knrrw nothing about here. An
internist, to my way of thinking, should do a full year's internship in
the tropics. Hamii is only semi-tropical. They should go scm place
like the Philippines before they ever tackle interndl medicine. People
have tamus in the Philippines. It's so dirty. be the a Philippino
mse told me that she ws mxkFng in the Philippino hospital in Manila,
run by the nuns, and they had a mn that they thaught had an appendicitis.
A Philippino man. They cut him open, and he had so m y mrms inside him
that they just sewd him up and sent him back to bed. Everybody has
wm over there. You can't avoid it. You can't eat the vegetables that
grow there, rasv ve etables, yau can't eat it unless you peel it or your
cook it. And the Lts. And you have to wash it in this poisonous
stuff called potassium permnganate, a purple crystal which is poison.
Yau soak yaux food that you don't peel or cook in that for a half haur,
and then wash it off . 'Lhen peel it or cook it. b y use human excreta
to fertilize the gardens eveme ezept the Wted States of hrica.
They empty their cesspools in (;ermany and go out and throw it on the
farmland. When the wind starts to blaw in your direction, you get it
back. That's haw they fertilize aver there, and the Philippinos the same
way. Philippinos, and in Japan, they'll grm a garden, a row of this
and a raw of that. Exh menber of the family will take a raw to eliminate
on, to use as a toilet, to fertilize. k don't eat fruit that: is fertilized
like that. So that's what you get in the tropics. Cam do not grw in
the Philippines, so te had no milk. The pdred milk carre £ran Australia,
before the war broke out. I was there six months before the war broke
out. I cam in May and Pearl Harbor was in Dec&r. You don't have
apples, you have bananas. Lk had these great big woes, dxkh are
delicious, and papayas. The tropical fruits are very good.
Q. Did you mrk as a nurse while you wre interned at Santo Tanas?
A. bk had a building vie took aver to put people in that =re not able to
care for themselves, to stand in the food lines, or to take a s-r
every day. M d d take them over to this building which w called
Santa Catalina Hospital. k had some beds in there--1 don't hmw &re
the be& cam kan either. kk had all the Amrican civilian doctors and
dentists in the Philippines interned with us. In the early days ve had a
little bit of mdicine that they dl& us to bring in frm outside.
BLtt later on they didn't dlow us to bring myth,ing in. They didn't care
whether w died or lived, because they m e losing the wr. We nurses
took turns. I didn' t mrk. In Denny's book, she said, "Earleen Francis :
She married Dr. Francis but she never mrked. She ms almys a loner. I
don't know why she never wrked with us ." I didn' t feel like mrkhg. I
had that double Mectim of malaria, and 1 layed around an as&d lot.
It w all I could do to get around sanetimes. That's why I didn't take
my turn going cwer to be with these people. Qle end of it w had for the
warm, the other side for the m. %re =re a lot of elderly people in
there too, you ~ C I W , who couldn't get around and do for themelves. kt
later an e had no mdicines whatsoever to give than. Nothing to treat
than with.

Earleen Allen Francis 39
Q. b t
sort of problems did they be?
A. Oh, m had Dengue Fever, mlaria fever.
Q. mat is Dengue Fwa?
A. kngue is another mequito *ich they have over there. The place is
lousy with msqyitos . Everybody sleeps under msquito nets. There are
no screens on the doors or windows; you sleep under a msquito net at
night. It's hooked up to the ceiling and it colnes dom over the sides of
your bed down to the floor. You pick it up and crawl under it. You'd be
sure there are no mquitos under it you get in. It goes up in the
daytime. %re' s a rod on the foot of y~ur bed and another at the head
here, with a T on it. The msqyito net hangs oves that. So there was
I)er$tje Fever, malaria fever, mm , parasites, beri beri. You never
heard of any of these things until you get aver there. That's why I say
a doctor tho does internal raedicine isn't educated until he does an
internship in the tropics. He should stay there a tlhile too, not just go
for a mth. of the younger girls had mstrual cramps, nausea frm
e didn't knm a t , vmiting from vie didn't know what or why. bts of
dysentery. W girls had dysentery dawn in the jungles. That's where I
cam dom with malaria first, in the last few meks w =re dm in the
jql@s. I couldn't do any health wrk at all while I ms dawn there.
Q. W there anything you could do to help these people except keep them
clean?
A. Just keep them in tfae bed. b y had a bed to sleep in aver there,
that 's all. And bring thaa ater and bedpans. Give them a shoer , if
they w e able to take it, m a bed bath if they couldn't. Comb their
hair, cut their toenails and fingernails, things lik that.
Q. Was there anythhg you could do for all these parasites?
A. No, w had no medicine. Uum the troops carre in to liberate the m,
one d the doctors said to y husband, ''Have ynt got any penicillin?"
Bud says, '%hat?" He said, Base yauany penicillin?" Bud said, 'Wmt's
that? Do ycxl put it on bread or do you sneeze it? What is it?" Penicillin
ms perfected during the four years w m e over there. kk had SUE
necxalversan, a trealmmt for syphilis. They inject it into the vein.
It also kills the malaria bug. Ekfore they ran out, I had thee or four
shots of that. I don' t hw whether it helped or not. But I had it, and
then they ran out. They didn't have any mre. The Japs mren't about to
bring anything in to us.
Q. Did the prisoners help each other? Did the wrrmen help each other?
JXd youhave any special groups that becanr! closer to each other?
A. Oh, = =re all friendly with everybody. bk sat out under the trees
in thle afternoon, in the shade if w could find a shady place in that
tropical sun, and visited, k had to wash aur awn clothes in the trough.
bk W to w h CJWT hair out them in the trough, but E didn't have
my map. If you'd cane into camp with a bar of soap and if I'd had
$500, I'd have given it to you for the soap. I& did get s m soap in
tbp Red Crass packages. Wre VE ever happy to get that.

Earleen Allen Francis 40
Q. Did you develop special friendships with people?
A. Tm or three of aur muen msrried mm that they net in the civilian
camp. Qle of the nurses nrarwied a Britisher-we had 1200 Britishers in
there, you bow. M had every nationality. be day e counted twnty-one
nationalities. We had no Blacks but one. We had one big black man. I
don't lam who he was ~1: dmre he came fraa. But that's all se had.
After spending 33 mths with tbse 1200 Britishers , I can understand why
everybody f~an Eisenhower dm to the lwst buck private cam harae
yelling "Bastard British." Those 1200 Britishers in there =re the mst
underhanded, sneaky. . . They thought they shouldn' t do anythhg, the
Americans should do everything. Zhey were nasty. One day w =re standing
inachawlineandbehindmeIheardammnnaraed~s. Shell, whowasa
&itisher, say, "Oh dear, oh dear, the P4lericans they bore rre so." I
turned around and said, 'Thy Mrs. Shell, why do the Americans bore you?"
"Oh, " she says, ''They are so el 1 educated with their books and their
professions and all their traits, but they have no polish and no cultuse
and no breeding and no bringing-up." I didn't have a leg to stand on,
because that's the truth. She said everything about them but that they
had no mrals. And now, to this day, I think that she muld say that.
Oh yes, all this shacking up, living together, not be% married. Oh my
god. %t used to be against the law.
Q. I don't think it vim against the law, but it msn't as open as it is
nuw, certainly.
A. It probably vent on, yes. I think it's terrible. I think they
shauldn't permit it.
Q. In general, how =re relations betwen the kricans and the British?
A. The British organized themelves. There =re 1200 of than there.
They wuld have theix metings over against the wall scaneplace every so
often, to decide xhat they ere going to do and vhat they =re not going
to do in that camp, And when the Japanese wld issue a new order, they
d d follaw it reluctantly. None of us liked it any betex than they
did. kt they mt ax& with a long face. They're not supposed to do
that. They thought they =re god's gift to the nation, I guess. They
were arrogant, disrespectful, udr Wly
Q. b t
sort of orders d d
the Japanese give you?
A. Roll call at eat o'clock, they'd tell us. We had a laudspeaker in
there, you know, And they had a cm bell, I don't knw where they got
that. bhen the Anoericans had to get up and report sething, they'd
stand trkhere and ring the cw bell. You could hear it ring all over the
camp. 'Ihen you stopped and listened. I don't reumber what the new laws
and regulations -re that they d d make. But anything that they made
that msn' t already in force, that's the wy they told us about it. Then
every night k~ set out in the dark, brought our chairs (everybody had a
&ah--I don't ranember &ere w got it). We gals d d bring a pillow
case, and put aur feet in it to keep the msquitos frm chewing us. Meld
sit and they'd play records for us aver the laud speaker starting at six
.

Earl- Allen Francis 41
o'clock and at eight o'clock w had to be in our roans at the foot of our
tables, that e used for beds. A Jap muld cane in. Ow. mum in the
roan was nrade mnitor, and she wild check us in. There d d be ten or
twlve in a roan, a raw on this side of the wall and a raw on the other.
Then the Jap muld cane in with a little piece of paper, and she d d
tell him that they =re all there. No one ever dared to be missing, I
don't how where they thought m'd go or here e'd be. Unless someone
was over in what re called the '7mspital."
Q. Did ywu have any trouble with the mm making trouble for you?
A, No, The wives and the husbands =re separated, you lam. In the
evening, they muld set crut together. bhen the record-playing was aver,
the mn wuld go to their building and the wxen d d go to their lullding.
Q. Wcruld you describe a typical day fran the the you got up until you
wnt to bed?
A. I don't knaw at it wuld be. You wuld meet sawbody out under a
tree and visit until w d d get crur chow a r d noon tb. Maybe you
had axre cloths, a pair of pants or sanething, to msh out--you'd take
than down to the traugh and wash than at. And you had to keep the area
around your "bed", 80 inches by 26 inches of floor, mopped and cleaned
up. brybody took a shmr every day, it ms so hot and mggy. In the
evening, when it got dark, m muld sit out until six or seven o'clock.
k knew they =re through playing records dxm they played "Goodnight,
Wetheart ." That was the end. Eberybody muld pick up their chairs and
take off to their roams.
Q. Were there a lot of enrotbx3.l problems mmng the persons xiho here in
the prison camp?
A. ht do you msm, "amtional . " Crying, meping?
Q. Crying, nighttllares?
A, I never heard of any nightmares, but C ~ R girls often cried. We wanted
to go haae so bad. bk also thaught, i£ w! ever see the other side of
that wall, or i£ I ever get out of this place, I'm going to do this and
I'm going to do that. And all m talked about tlas food, It's a strange
thing, Food wxs the main tapic . Up at Cabanatuan &ere the m =re, it
w.s the same thing too. You see, w lost only a thousand rn in the
Battle of Bataan, and there tare 24,000 En in our army over there, The
Jamst? captured 23,000. When m ere liberated, there =re less than
5,090 of our soldiers alive, fran beating and kill ' and shooting and
starvation, kturally, they said they talked about ood up there too.
1
Q. Twmty m thirty years ago, I knew a man in New York whose
parents had been British citizens in the ~ ~ppinee. Ila ms a child in
Santo Tams.
A. m, w had many, m y children h there. They got thin as rocks.
kh used to have to tie them dm with a piece of sheet to keep then E ra

Earleen Allen Francis 42
running; they mmld drop dead £ran hunger. Their hearts mld just stop.
lhey wen' t fed, you h. You can't hold a child d m , he mts to run
and play. To keep them dam, keep then fran running and exercising, ve
used to tie th down and they'd scream, All night long in the camp,
you' d hear the children screaming, "I'm hungry. I'm hungry." The parents
used to spank than to keep than quiet, they =re keeping the whole carq
awake. There -re no wlndms. You could hear everything. There mre no
SCTBeaB.
Q. Did you have msquito nets?
A. Yes, w had msquito nets. I dm' t knw *re rhey came £ran. 'Ihey
were there &en I got to Santo Tcrmas.
Q. My friend said that there Ere a lot of people that died.
A. C& yes, m y people died. If I had been there me me yeax, I
ddn' t be here. The only reason I survived was because I was young.
Many people died, And the Japs d d allcw the Philippinos to c a in
with a little cazamtto. A carametto is a little cart dram by a horse.
They'd bring

Earleen Allen Francis 43
Q, Did ywu get any decorations?
A, I had so many I didn't have roan for them. I had everything but the
purple b t. Just abut eve-. I m s not Wed. I threw than
-Y
Q. 'iou threw them away?
A, Ch, mercy. You can't drq that stuff around. You get so rmch of it,
and~tdoesit~toyou?
Q. Well, to sane people it means a lot.
A. %re a a job to do and I w s no better than anybody else. I ms a
single mmm. I had no children. I had no l-assband. Nobody but my
f d y wre left here. Scambody had to do it; I m s no ktter than
anybody else, I am just grateful that I lived through it. That picture
in there is all I've got [of Earleen kancis and her husband on their
release kan Wltex Reed Army Hospital I .
Q. So in the c q
menl
there e e
nn sexual advances rnade to the wmm by the
A. Oh no. As I told you, married husbands and wives =re nat allmd to
live together,
Q. l3ut ~ t there can ~ be problems s anyway.
A, Yes, there could have been, but I don't think there ws, At least, I
never heard of it. The Japanese, after they ere scared they -re going
to lose the he, they let the Rilippinos ccm in to put up ne~ishacks.
I know this is hard for lots of people to realize, because yau ve never
been there, it's so different. A nepishack is mde fran nepo, &ich is
-thing that grm like cane. 'kat s what the Fhilippinos live in.
They're up on stilts, with a ladder to go up, Under than are the pigs,
chickens and that sort of thing. So the Japanese allomd the Philippinos
to ccm in and build ne ishacks for people who could pay for them. TZley
cdd call their servants +ve thembring things. % civilians did.
Of course, the nurses didn't have anything. The Japs let them cam in
and build nepishacks on the campus, and then they let the men, wives and
children--you see the wmm =re in one hilding with the little children
and the men =re aver in the other building. The people with children
ere allowd to live together and sleep in those little places. They
twt they =re doing them a favor, or sanething of the sort. That's
all the connection that happened bet~en the nren and wxm~, to my howledge.
Of ctxlrse, rn =re single wmm, so T~R< didn' t have any nepishacks . We
stayed in the main bilding in our quarters,
Q. In 'tire book by A. V. H. Hawtendorp, tion of the
Fhilllppbes [Manila: Booknosrk & William J. 1967,-e
are mm photographs. B w s at the sam camp as you, Santo Tomas.
A. This is the main hilding, the education building! I had a roan
right up here on the second floor 1 Ri&t up there. There's the entrance.

United States Army aerial photograph, somewhat enlarged, taken of the Santo Tomas In.
ternment Camp on January 7, 1945, approximately a month before the liberation, at an altitude
of 20,400 feet.
The: large structure in the center is the Main Buliding; to the right, the Education Building;
to the left the Dominican Seminary which was out of bounds to the internees. The Women's and
Children's Annex lies behind (above) thc Main Building, a little to the left, and to the right
is the old Hospital (Engineering Building). Back of the Annex, against the rear wall, is the old
Red Cmss (later, the Japanese) bodega or warehouse. The Gymnasium is shown to the left, near
the wall, with the swimming pool below it which was used for water storage. Santa Catalina
Hospital lies to the right, outside of the wall, on a line with the front of the Main Building.
The two nipa "pavilions", so-called, lie just below the Main Building. The whitish specks in tlie
upper half and the lower right-hand quarter of the picture are the roofs of some MH) shanties.
The reticulated area in the lower left-hand quarter of the picture is c~rnposed of rows of banana
trees planted by thc internees in the "Soulhwust Territory", or ncw garden. The beds of the Camp
Garden lie in the upper right-hand section. The Main Gate, the Gale House, and the Japanese
barracks lie along the lower (front) boundary fence, about the middle. The Package-Shed is
shown above them and a little to the right. The camp covered some 50 acres in area. The population
of the Camp approximated 4,000 men, women, and children.

Santo Tomas Main Building, 1942
-. - .- - . --
This is the building in which Farleen Francis lived
for thirty-three mnths . Her quarters are circled.

The Annex for Women and Children. ..--
-- --
--
..--

Some of the first Santo Tomas shanties. Later they became very much more sightly.
---
--
,-
Troughs where the internees washed their clothes.
. .-
'The wamn at left is Denny Williams, a sister nurse of Barlea
Francis, who has written a book of her experiences at SantD Tclmas.
-

Two staned Santo Tomas internees, - Lee Rogers. retired employee of the Cavite Navy Y:lrJ
and John C. Todd, a miner; the former's weight dropped from 143 to 90 pounds, and the lattur's
cram 175 to 102 pounds during their internment. Legs of Rogers show edema due to beriberi.
--Plzotograph, courtesy of Life Magazine. issue of March, 1945.
All photos, except that of Farken Francis in 1946, are taken
£ran A, V. H. Hartendorp, Thegapanem Occupation of the Philippines
(Manila: The William J. Shaw Foundation and Boolanark, 1967) .

Earleen Allen Francis ~J!I
I w s in this roan here, second roan frm the end. Oh, there's the
trou&s where we =shed our clothes l There's Inez bdhnald, that' s
&my Wlliams, the one who recently wrote the book. I don't recognize
these m, I don't huw than, &l yes, that's them! And there ere a lot
of tables outdoars, where m cdd sit and eat. There they are in line,
the food line, 'Ihat's the kitchen, the big kitchen. How did that guy
ever get all of this? This is an aerial view of Santo Tanas. They got
these pictures on the day that they Ere liberating us l Because an
airplaim flew wer one day and drapped an eyeglass case, and it fell in
Santo Tcants, which they meant for it to. There was a note in there:
"Christmas is tonight or trmorrclw." The next night they came in at 8: 00,
in the gate. That's when they took that aerial photo. This is the
building where they had the wren with children. Santa Catalina Hospital-
that's the building that w called the hospital, which used to be the
domitory for the £male students. 'ihat 's where they locked the nurses
up for slx weks with armed guards around, miting for the Japanese to
anser about the status of wmm in the military. They nicknamed it "The
Finishing School ," Denrry refers to it in her book. tEer book is great,
but it ' s good fox nobody but us, because w ' re the only people who =re
there.
Q. 'Ihey look pretty m11 dressed.
A. U11, those -re the early days. They brought their own clothes in.
%y sent out and got what they didn't have. You hw, the Japanese and
mst all foreigners are cruel. 'Ihey have no lrrercy on the human being.
With the Japanese, you don't shake hands when you wet than. You bm
fran the waist duwn. ?hey say that shaking hands is unsanitary. ht
they did do in there a lot was slap faces. I didn' t get my face slapped.
If you did something they didn't like and you had on glasses, they'd
reach up, take off your glasses, slap you on one side of yaur face, then
slap you on the other side of your face, and then hand your glasses back
to yau. Slapp- faces is one of their custans.
Q. You told nre that you got rrrarried because you and yaur husband decided
you d d fare better as a mid wmn.
A. No, I'd be sent ham1
Q. I a s m that wasn't the only reason you got married.
A. No, ah no. I mt him when I first got there. I& had a courtship
fran the time I got there untjJ. the w broke out. J!Ie used to cane up
£ran the lines at night in a jeep to see re. I w s always back of the
lines, down in the jungles of ktaan. They'd bring the boys up to us,
you knw, on stretchers in jeeps. W mren't in danger there. It =S
just before w w ed to CorregFdor &en it began to be brutal. The
shells and the bcmbs =re coming closer to us, and w jumped into and out
of a lot af fox holes. Pszd w hit the ground--stretch out this my and
turn your head that way so that the shock waves will go over you.
Q. So rJhat was the Liberation like?

Earleen Allen Francis 45
A. Well, you couldn't get aut of the cappound. There ws no place to
go* Everybody congregated in the min hilding, because it was rnade of
stme. &t still civilians -re killed, one wmm lost an arm, It was
Era bullets and shrapnel, because the Amricans ere taking Manila, and
we =re right in the middle of it. That ent on for a wek before they
came into our gates. They had too rmch to do outside the wall. %re
were no direct bombs on us, but they =re all ard. And the Japanese
had just backed up a big ship loaded with amrunition d m h the bay, and
ow moops hit that ship. I thought the eartsh was going to blow up.
Everybody hit the ground! k t@t the civilians, after m got in
there, to hit the ground in case there ms a bomb becae e'd had the
expexience in Baram. I never heard such a blast. And everybody stretched
hi.. mcruths open, because w didn't wmt aur ear drum broken. That big
ship that had just ccm frm Japan lodaded with amunition wasn't too far
away £ran us, you haw. That ws the biggest blast I ever heard in my
life. Then the flares and the fires lit up the skies. W didn't how
at had happened. bk didn't how if it ms our people or at. We only
l d later what: it -8.
Q. W e
you pretty much safe from the shells in that building?
A, Well, you h ow they build stone building3 in Wope and in the Orient.
Yes, that was about the safest place there ws. @ite a few people %re
kt, but when our troops canre in, they brought medicines and bandages.
Q. You said none of the nurses died during the three years?
A. No, m all c e bane. During that perid, m y of the civilians died
though. I saw them being taken out the gate on the carametto all wrapped
up in a sheet, tm or three a day. bk didn't huw Fjho they =re. There
-re so many people, youmight know faces but you didn't haw names.
Q. Ster you had to leave Bataan, and you mt back to Corregidor, when
did you see your husband again?
A. I didn't see him until I got into San Francisco,
Q. Could you get any messages to or an him?
A. No, you'd get your head cut off if you tried that1 Oh, no.
Q. lkw long Ere you married in Bataan before you ere separated?
A. W never lived together mtil IE got to the Amy hospital in Ushington.
A. Yes, i£ you want to call it that. Q1 Bataan he managed to get a
Philippino miage license. Then he catre up and got UE and w mt dm
to where he was stationed. His carmandant, Colonel Clark, gave me away.
he of the officers had a jews harp and he played '&re Carrres the Bride."
It EM dark and they used flash lights to read the marriage ceramny.
(kae of aur hrican Army ministers married us. Then he took me back to
where I cam fran, back to the jungles, and he went back to his battalion.

Earleen Allen Francis 46
Q. Did pu how anything about each other's imprisonrent before you got
to San Francisco?
A. I knew he ws in Cabanatuan. That uns the only message that I ever
got, so I hew he wis there. The Japs m e still winning the war at that
time, or they Ulought they %re, and they had a Jap at Cabanaman that
said be w going to Manila. He spoke English. You'd be surprised how
many of those bastards spoke bglish. 'Ihose who had been over here and
been educated, ere the manest. The mre they saw &ria the mre
jealous they became and the meazller they be-. Qle fran Cabanatuan said
he ws going to Santo Taras. Bud said to him, "I hope my wife's there.
W d you take a msssage to her?" He wrote to ~~le in my maiden name,
Earleen Allen. The Jap cam back and told Bud, "Shet s not there. " khen
the guard caw back to Santo Tanas again, Wid wrote to xrre as Earleen
Allen Francis. The Jap came back and said "Your wife's there ." I got
the note. I was called into the off ice and givm it. You know, in those
days they thougl.lt they had the = mn. Boy, when the tables began to
turn, they got meaner than mean! bk Ere really shaking in our boots.
k didn't hclw at ni&t &ten w m t to sleep whether w =re going to be
blm up, shot, or ht was going to happen to us. It was really frightening.
Nothing to eat, starvatim. kk w e in there 33 mmths, and it vas aver
a year when they thought they ere whnbg the war. It was another year
or so that they =re wrried that they wen't, That's when e really
wt
Q. Were the military uen treated differently in Cabanatuan than you
=re? Yaur husband and the others with him?
A. lhose poor guys died. I told you, thre were only 5,000 out of
23,000 living when they vere liberated. Those figures are in Wshington
DC. Me lost f er than 1,000 rnen in the Battle of Bataan, and they
captured only a few mre than 23,000. Mxm they ere liberated, there
were only 5,000 alive, camting the 68 nurses.
Q, Did they die mstly frw disease or £ran starvation?
A. They died fran abuse. They put than in groups of ten; if one in that
ten did s-thing, if he tried to escape or s-thing, they'd shoot the
whole group, all ten. Mmt of them died fran milaria, dysentery, bacillary
dysentery, amebic dysentery-and mstly starvation, That's a long th,
you know, not to have mything to eat,
Q. Did they get the sam kind of food that you did?
A. They got rice, that's all I heard. They got fish heads in the early
days. Carabao mat smetks. Carabao is an an- they use like w
used to use oxen, They still use them in the Philippines in the rice
paddFes
Q. Was your husband damaged other than his blindness?
A, Mo, He was emciated.

Earleen Allen Francis 47
Q. After six months at Walter Reed Army Hospital, you wxe both pretty
rra3ch phpically recovered?
A. Wll, yes. As mi.& as e could be. I resigned fram the Army Nurse
Corps during that six omths there in Whington, because I was married.
And I didn't writ to wrk anyway. I didn't mnt to be sent here while my
husband d d
be there. I 'd been separated fran him long mgh as it
was. That' s when I resigned, but of course I still stayed at the hospital
because I t~as a patient.
Q. Did your husband have any long term problems £ran the imprisomt,
like ni&mes?
A. No. J% was sterile, w couldn't have any babies.
Q, W that £ran the mistreabrent or the starvation?
A. Stmation. You knw, tJhen you're starved, different foods supply
different parts of your body. S ~ E parts got it and scm didn't. He ws
fortunate, because smm be- blind during the intemumt because of
lack of food. A lot of other things happened to thm too. Sorne becare
paralyzed. He was all right until the Liberation. At least he could
rn and get aramd. He ras very thin, of course. It ms terrible, all
those men that the Japs captured, sane of aur fliers, Those Japanese
doing research d d take out half a brain and see if a rn could live
with half a brain. They used them for guinea pigs.
Q. Japanese did that?
A. Yes, the Japanese did that. lhey used our ~IEXI for guinea pigs.
Every me that they could capture. & yes.
Q. Could you tell me, then, how did you start your life together with
your husband?
A. We e nt to San Francisco, and they didn' t have any quarters for us to
live in. You see, if there is a shortage of living quarters, tha yau go
out into the city and rent a place. They add the rental allmce onto
your check every mth. If you live on the post, you don't get this. I
think aux rental m s $85, so he got the extra $85 on his check and w had
a nice apazmt in San Francisco. I loved San F'rancisco. I loved the
climate there. But I don't mt to go there now because the Japs have
taken it over.
Q. So what did you do naw, since you'd resigned £ran the nurse corps?
A, I kept hause. And I vent domtm sight seeing. And I mt to the
Chinatcm. The wxmn muld get together, you how, and go places. AYmy
wives. Sue lived on the post and same lived in San Francisco. San
kancisco at that t b ms SO beautml, it ~3as just great. I laved it.
'BE stares and the shops =re loaded with pretty thhgs. We'd go shopphg
and m ' d have lunch at the San Francis Hotel and that sort of thing. Our
huskands never cam hare for lunch--they ate in the Officers Club or the
Post Ewhange or saw place like that.

Earleen Allen Francis 48
Q. How did your parents respond to yuur getting =rid overseas and
c a
back, having been a prisoner of war?
A. M11, my father was already gone. I just had my mother, dm@ the
war, She ws lia in Jacksonville, Illinois, with my sister and my
brotbr. My brother ms gram up, but my sister wasn't. She's a few
years yaxnp;er than I am. My mther didn't hear frm me for one year.
She got a letter frm the Army Headquarters saying that I FGF~S '%Iissing in
Action." It didn't say I ws dead, but to her that's what it meant. She
m l y
lost her mind. And then later on the Japs carre lnto camp and put
a mmbr across us here and took a picture of us and sent it, when they
thought they =re winning the war, to the headquarters of the Army. And
the Army listed the names all over the Iheted States and 3x1 all the
papey. IQ name rss in the paper as a pri~onex of *ar. lhen still she
didn t law if I dead of alive. That's all she heard until I stepped
off the plane in San Francisco.
Q. I rmWber the day the war was aver. There =re big celebrations all
a~er the streets in Washington Everybody ms
Q- ~ T it % up! Thcrwing paper and detti around. ken you =re
discharged an Walter Reed Hospital as mrre or less recovered, what were
yaur qctatims at that point for the rest of your life?
A. To live a normal life and be a howewi£e.
Q You didn't think of mrking?
A. &, I had the law laid duwn for me before I got wried, bile e
ere engaged. I asked him about wrking. J3e said, "kfinitely not.
You've got all you can do to stay Ime and take care of me. " I laughed
ri@t out loud in his face. Oh, I thou&t that was the fumiest thing
I'd ever heard in my life. I sure found out! I 've had many proposals
since I've been a widaw, not fran anyone I cared to be married to-after
what I've had, it's hard to match up with it--but any man who wants me to
go out and to mrk just to live with him. . . . I hate the way these m n
get merried and go to wrk. I don't understand it. I think you're
miss* an awful lot. Ib you have children?
Q. Yes, I have four, I stayed hare w ith them for the last 18 years, but
nas I 'm obvliously in school.
A. 'Ihat's all right, if you mt to & it. But I don't like it and I
don't believe in it.
Q. k11, after m rv in the hcme for eighteen years, it's mxkrful to
be back in school. It s really melaus. People for a change see nre as
a person, instead of Mrs. mite. It's so nice to be myself, instead
of...
A, A man' s wife. I don't understand why you enjoy that. I don' t enjoy
that, I'd rather be Mrs. F'reis, Colonel Francis's wife or Doctor
. . .

Earleen Allen kancis 49
Francis's wife. If he'd been 'W." it'd be all the same. I don't care
about titles. Itm not crazy about publicity. I l e d that going fran
San Francisco to Wshington to Wlter Reed Hospital. hk got on the train
in San Fkancisco arad we had a drawing roan. Every time that train stopped,
somane muld cane hocking the door dam. I'd open the door and flash!
flashl flashl flashl There -e six or eight camra men standing out
there. In case I didn' t give them a picture, they =re going to take it.
And newspaper men, all the way fran San E'rancisco to kshington DC. And
&n w got off , there =re plenty of than there to met us. So I got my
fill of that. I wnt to be hare, quiet. I want to go in the kitchen and
bake a pie. I lime the kitchen. Eut I don't cook for myself naw. I eat
out mst of the tine. The wxmm around here are mst of than widms. W
only have five m six m living in this 62-apartamt cmplex. And
wxen go out together.
Q. lbw did you like life as an Army wife?
A. I had no choice where I vent. hk Army wives called ourselves 'w
Class Gypsies." We rere one year in San Francisco, m ere sixmths at
Ft. Polk, Msiana. Then the post closed up.
Q. Jhw did you like that?
A. buisiana? That was all right. I didn't mind. Then fran there vie
=re sent for tm years to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. That ms nice.
Q. Tell m a little about Fort Bragg.
A. Fort Bragg is a nice place in North Carolina. Very beautiful place,
Zjke all anny posts, e had our Officers ' Club and aur Officers ' Wives
Club. bring my days in the Army, the wi£e ms basically half the bread
winner. For instance, General Wdtmright's wife =S an alcoholic. He
never became a general until the war began. J3e wild have been a general
years before, i£ he had had a wife who muld run a social roster and
repay her social obligations. Oxe you ere invited to a cocktail party
or a dinner or -thing, you owd that mnan *the you ~ nor t not.
And you ran a social roster, you kept up with it. Ycru repaid it all in
six mths , Mch ia no different than civilian etiquette, but they just
carried it out in the bny.
Q. lks there w h
trouble with military wives drinking too nu&?
A. No. There -re very few. There =re soaoe. The people in the Army
drank a lot, but they d d segregate thanselves, the drinkers fran the
nan-drinkers. We *re nm-drinkers, even though I had liquor stacked up
in ~xly pantry by the case, every kind you cdd think of. Because everybody
cms in to call. You had to make calls, you haw. When you mt to a
new post you mde a call on your cammdimg officer within 24 hours. You
broq$t your little cdlisg card, and you me offered a drink, and you
shouldn't stay longer than a half hour, just long enough for one drink
and one cigarette. Thm when you left an Army post, you had PPC, "Parting
People's Calls." You called on the cammding officer of your outfit,
-vex was head of the Mtal Corps on yaux post, and said goodbye.

Earleen Allen Francis 50
And there Ere parties given &en you left. bk had packing parties and
unpacking parties. Yau know, the Army rrroves you. The cdssary packs
you. tihen you got orders to mve to a different past, you take a Bm
w' leave and go on a vacation. bkn you got to your new post, there
your h s and everything =re. 'Iltzen the people muld c e and have an
unpacking party. And, of purse, e'd have s a &inks ~ too. But those
heavy dsinkexs, those alcoholics w used to call them, segregate themselves
and mild met in one place. They'd not met with us who =re not heavy
dr inkexs .
You how, you couldn't buy liquor on the post. bhm you mt out, you
had to bring yaur om bottle. They didn't sell it at the Officers' Club,
tbugh the Officers ' Club d d order it. But you had to buy a whole
case! 'Ihat's why I had cases stacked up in my pantry. lbn you mwed,
yau sold it to your neighbors! They paid you the same price you paid for
it, so they didn't have to go order it, If you had a kitchen f31 of
canned goods Exm the caamissary , yau didn't take it. You sold it to
your neighbors. They can^ with baskets and took it ha^ with them. It
ws a nice life. I lwed it. I'm glad I had it. You put your porch
light on at six o'clock if yau mted to receive callers. If the lwt
was off, no one called at that b e , You didn't leave) the house after
six o'clock with a short-tailed dress on; yas always mre a long-tailed
dinner dress. tQ husband mre a uniform. &n could not war civilian
clothes on the post. If a wife did not keep up with her social obligations,
her husband could not be pramted when his the came. Now they've got
the Blacks in. You don't mt to go to the Officers' Club where there
are six or eight and get up and dance with them and all that sort of
thing, They just don t do it. So nuw Amy life has changed. Zhey don' t
build cparters any mre. kst of than live off the post. But in my day,
if they had roan for you, you had no choice. And everybody wanted to
live an the post.
Q. Was your husband the sarne religion as you wre?
A. No, at that tim I ms a Catholic and he kas Episcopalian.
Q. Did this every make any problem between you?
A. No.
Q. Did you go to m~ss regularly?
A, I mt, but he didn' t go. There asn' t any Episcopal service on the
base. They had a non-dmdmtional service, to which he d d have gone
if he ent to church. But he didn't go very often. He was one of those
n m dm didn't bother too rmch abut religion.
Q. Mat m s your feeling about having children?
A. Oh, I usually cried every mnth when I mnstruated .
Q, Did you ever think of adopting children?

Earleen Allen Francis 51
A. Yes, but my husband ddn' t have that, "If I can' t b e my om, I
don't mnt to have anybody else's." That was his privilege.
Q. Had you exqected that you wuld have a family?
A. Oh, I had hoped to.
Q. And did you bpe to have a big family, a small family ....
A. m, Ttm girls, tm boys, a boy and a girl--anything muld have been
all right.
Q, Did your husband ever consult doctors about being able to have children?
A. Yes. Nothing they could do for him. I don't knw what happened, buts
it happened during his interment, because of the starvation.
Q. Did it ever Sean to bother him?
A. No. He didn' t say much about it. k mex discussed it.
Q. Mat wae his family like?
A. Jk had just one brother, vho ws also a dentist. At the t- he vent
into the service, his father had retired fran the Navy Mds wheh he ws
a mchlnist in Washington DC . They lived across the river in Alexandria,
Virginia. That's where he born and raised. These tw boys grew up
to be dentists. 'Ihey had a rough time going through. dental school. QE
d d be the ice man for Alexandria, Virginia, one year and the other
d d go to school, and the next year the other mdd go to school and
the other d d
be the ice man. Their rnI3.e~ m s mied dwn she ws
fifteen years old, and the father wis wnty. She never mrked in her
life, but when these tm wmt to dental school, she mt across the river
to Was-n DC and got a job selling in the hosiery departnmt of
Garfinkel s Departm~t Store, That ms the first tinre she had ever
worked out of the ha^ in her life. Mxn she ms eighteen years old, she
had hex second baby, tlhich ws JIY husband. And she never had any mre.
A. She didn't want any =re. I asked her one day haw she prevented it.
I said, 'There msn't anything at that tlme to prevent ft ." She said she
had a diaphram. So the diaphram goes way back. I never heard of one
until she told m, She said that if she hadn't used a diaphram, she'd
have had a baby every ta wnths. TZlat muld have been about 1915. I
had never heard of the diaphram before that. There was sanething I
learned about called a "pessary," a little round mtal thing with tvm
prongs. Warren used to go and have it insterted in the mth of the
uterus. 'Ihese tm prongs d d
keep it open, That always sounded very
clangeraus. You had to go periodically to have it taken out and cleaned
and put back in. I never saw one, I just head about it." I didn't want
it.

Q. IkPw was it done before that, do you haw2
A, I don't know. I don't have arry idea.
Q. Like your mther?
A. No, my mther didn' t knaw anything, she said. She said, she wished
they'd had these birth control pills when she ws grcrwFng up.
Q. FJell, she had only four children. There 113~6t have been scffae time
tJhen she decided she didn't mt any more.
A. &, yes. hfinitely. She said that she didn't want the last tm,
but she had no choke. They had no choice. They just had than as they
came.
Q. So, if you wanted to stup having children, you just had to stop
having sexual relations all together?
A. You knw, you didn't do that in those days because the men didn't
chase a rd like they do w.
Q. bho made the decisions in your family?
A. He did. I didn't wmt any part of it. I don't want any of the
responsibility. Then if samething goes wrong, he can't say it's my idea.
Q. W the other hand, when things go right, it's nice to get a little
credit.
A. I didn' t want to be the boss. I was tired of being in charge of all
these wards and all that stuff. He had a joint checking accaunt. I
didn't have to ask his permission to buy things, as long as I didn't go
overboard, and I never did. He never called rrre dm. I w very careful .
We charged everything at the camdssary , and w got a bill at the first
of every mnth. He wrote a check for that. tk never had any trouble
about Tmney.
Q. W t
wld a typical day be like &en you lived in San Francisco?
A. I got up and cooked breakfast. I w one of these warn that doesn't
believe in sending my husband out without breakfast. He ate a big breakfast.
And I might go to the carmissary or the post exchange, smplace like
that, I cdd have the car--= had only one car. If I vented to go to
the crhmisary, I drove him to wrk. Then I'd have to pick him up at
night. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, we had Pinel'lusst, a mrms resort
near the base, ard wnderful shopping centers. We all got in groups and
would go. I'd drive one day and s~~~body else mld drive the mxt. And
that sat of thing, I played a little bridge, not rmch. A lot of girls
play it all the time. W'd go to the Officers' Club for lunch, by ourselves,
saxetims. There ms always sazlething to do. Nobody FJ~S lonesa~~ or
bored. Everybody who had children had a mid. Everybody had a maid on
the Amy post, but I didn't mt mine coming in at seven o'clock in the
mon&ng, so I had her CUE in at 11. And if I w up late the night
befcwe, after I got break£ast, I mt back to bed.

Earl& Allen Francis 53
Q. It sounds like a wnderful life.
A. It was. And then to be chmped out of it all of a sudden, I'm telling
you, to have it snatched out fian under your feet, it's rough.
Q. How did your husband and you mther get along together?
A. & didn't see rmch of hex. TZle only tin^ I left hcrne without him ms
to go see my mther. I'd leave on the train bnday and cam back by
Sa~day, She catre to visit us once, when FR =re in Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. Otherwise w ere too far away--California, Louisiana, &ope.
She cane while w =re at Fort Bragg and she stayed txo weks. It m s
all right. J& didn't object. His father and mother came quite often.
They cam to see us at Fort Bragg. That ms the only time they cam to
see us W. & wnt £ran Fort Bragg to Europe, 20 miles fran E'rankfurt
in a place called Hanau, an old Gem Amy post. They mspped out an
area 05 houses to take aver for the hricans. You see, VE occupied
@many, They'd go around to C;emsl doors and tell them to be out of
thefr hmres by a certain day, but they paid them went. There was no
cmtral heating, you W. For heating, every roan had a little stove in
the corner with a stove pipe going up. There ere no bathroans at all.
kybe me stool. Then Auerican engineers built a power house in the
middle of the canpound, and ran heat into all these places. The plunbers
put: in bathtubs for w . My house had a bedroan that ms taken over and
made into a bathroom. Lk had nice quarters. I was in a duplex-the Army
chaplain, his wife and tm boys lived on the other side of the wall. I
had three bedwoaas. Rmmtairs I had a big living room, dinimg roan,
kitchen and a full basemmt. They put: furnaces in our quarters too. bk
had a house mn, a Gem, I-k fired the furnace, kept the yard clean,
and = gave him a tip to msh the =--a pound of coffee or scsaething
like that. We did a lot of Black Mket, See my silver candelabra
there? I have tw of than, and I have a silver service including a water
pitcher, that wts hand made, W got it for a case of coffee. Coffee and
cigarettes they loved. They used to carre to the Qor selling coocoo
clocks, purses, and everything you can think of. They'd nntcb. rather have
coffee and cigsettes than marks, their numy,
Q. Did you cook there or did you eat out?
A. Oh, I had a maid. Every house had a maid. The mid ems with the
house. But she didn' t cook, she didn't hm haw. bk couldn' t eat the
German cooking. I cooked, but she did all the cleaning. And I had a
laurdry m, and the hmsman did the gardening and mhed the car and
cleaned the yard and kept the bas-t clean. Irene kept us clean and
the laundress caw in and did the laundry. I got so heavy I couldn't get
up thie steps! kk had parties and bridge clubs all day. Anything w
cdd think of. If you ever get a chance to go to a foreign country,
don't feel bad. Just go ri&t along, because you'll have a good life.
We mt to Gemany in 1948 and care hane in 1950. We cljmbed all over
Wing's b e , and m writ down to Bavaria every =eked to ice skate.
We mt up the cable to one of Hitler's "lave nests." He had tw or
three, ycxl haw, k e Eva lived with him. They took ove~ that area for
recreation fox us, see. Then there was Nurenberg Castle, ach was not
bcuibed. You see, it's a mnder£ul thing. bkm w =re barbing Gemmy,

Earleen Allm Francis 54
a had a map of everything over there that R- mted to banb and what VE
did not want to bd. I &ntt knm how they ever got it, But the churches
and the big buildings in htom Stuttgart and Frankfurt they didn't
touch. And Nuresnberg Castle in &may wsnf t bcmbed, You knm, w had
one highmy that Hitler built called Autobahn, They did not
b& the Autobahn, they burbed the br-~sn't that clever? They
bombed the?brFdges and they saved every building they wanted to use in
the dmtown pats of the cities. Every building that they wanted to
m into and we for offices, they saved. It was remarkable. kering 's
ham ms a shanbles. It weas between where WE lived and Bavaxia, It m s
all in rubble. Hitler they never did find until I carrve to Springfield.
I never did kww &ere they found him--I wasn't interested to hear.
Q. W t
did you think of & m y itself?
A. Well, I liked it better than the F'hilippines because the people =re
*ite. It s dreadfully cold over there, I& got off the boat in June,
and at 11:30 that n e t the sun vas still shining. You have about six
weks of smna when there is very little darkness. The rest of the tim,
the men wt to mrk b the mrmisrg at eight o'clock, and they wmt to
work with the lights on in the car. They got out at 4:30 and they came
hat^ with their 1Wts on. And yau don't war bite shoes, you don't
wear cotton dresses--it's not wm en-. You mar suits and wols. In
Gemmy T~R all had clothes made because our Post Ewhange got beautiful
wools frm -land. And the C;erman wmm could sew zeal ~11. hk rented
a &ram machine and wmn muld caae to your house and sew things for
you veky reasonable.
Q. Did you enjoy the people?
A. Well, those that FR cdd talk to, yes. We didn't have any trouble.
My mid Irene able to translate, yuu hm. She wanted to learn to
spak %lish and I taught her English. Her father was a doctor and her
mther ms an opera singer. Before the mr, the Russfans planned a big
meting. For all the Gemam doctors who were scientists, and invited
all the scientists in G e v to cane, and gave them transportation.
They got on a train in Wurzbuxg and thoqjht they %re going to Wsia to
this big science convention. S d r e they switched the caxs off and
she never heard of her father again.
Q, W e
they Jews?
A. No! You rrrean my maid? No, she was thoroughbred G em, a pretty
little thing, 25 years old, But the Russians-w don't knaw what they
=re planning or why. We think they hew that Hitler was going to stage
wr, arad that ms one of their wys of getting ahead of him. They took
the Geman scientists off and just killed them, probably. Never, never a
md.
Q. Jbw many people did this happen to?
A. I don't huw. Irene's mther ms an opera singer, her father ms a
doctor, and she had been beautifully educated, She'd gone to school--she
could read and write German real ~ ll. She had a nice harne in Wurzburg--

Earleen Allen kancis 55
she used to tell nre about her haw. And she ms my maid. You see, those
maids ere paid out of uux rental allowance. Everybody had to have a
maid. You never left your house alone at night. It d d n ' t be there
when yau got back because the thieving w so a. Che captain and his
wife =re cleaned out three times. They investigated and found uut that
the thieves =re putting sanething on their toothbrushes and pillomses.
Ebt they never mnt to our house, because everybody had a great big dog,
a G e m shepherd or a boxer. bk slept in twin beds-there tere no
dauble beds anywhere in &rope. Q1 one side of Bud's bed was a big tall
gun and in the little table behieen w s a shotgun. That's tk way k~
slept. kk lived in fear all the thre of the thieving G e m . You go to
a &man hem in the country and the living roan has a door going right
into the barn, are the caws and horses and the pigs are. See, if they
had the- cattle out in the field lik w have oms, they d dn't be
there tJhen they mke up the first mrning. They'd all be gone. It
served tw purpases. It kept than Eran being stolen and it furnished
heat. Heating is a problem in that cold, cold country. It's bitter
cold. W did not w slacks in those days, but R mt out and got a
pair of ski pants and mre than under ow long dresses when rn =re going
to the club on Saturday nights, and carried our shoes in our pockets with
a pair of boots on. Then W w go there, R undressed and redressed,
%at's the way it was, it ms so cold.
Q. Did you travel to any other places?
A. Yes, T~R spent tm w&s in Holland. I ms in Holland for Tulip The in 1949, which ws the most heavenly sight I ever laid my eyes on. And
e wmt to kance and stayed tm weks. That's abut all be did in the
tclx, years that rn =re there. So last March I heard about this trip to
Holland, Michigan, "Tulip Tim in Holland." I 've been intending to take
it for years. I wanted to ccmpare it with what I saw cnrer there. Wll,
I made it last March, four days. TZlere e e these little girls running
a r d in the Dutch costmm. Qle thing about it, I could buy the Dutch
chocolate, the Dutch candy &ich I jwt love. The tulips viere all gone;
they'd had an early spring, so the tulip fields wre empty. You could
buy the tulip bulbs and have than shipped in October, if you wanted them.
But there wis nothing there. It was too bad because I wanted to see how
that looked ccmpared to what I saw in Holland.
Q. Did ypu bring to your marriage any property or m~ney that you wed
before? Did you continue to manage it yourself, ox did it just becarne
family property and your husband lnade the decisions?
A. NO, I had no property. I had no mney, rn property.
Q. Didn't you get back pay dter you came back to America?
A. Oh, yes, I got back pay. W didn't see a pay master for 42 mnths,
and the pay master was at that plane to met us and hand us a check. (3us
eyes really got big, husband too; he got hate later than I dLd. When
m gt hare, w put it all in a jobt bank account.
Q. @tat dental school did your husband attend?

I
Earleen Allen Rancis 56
A. Baltimore School of Ihtistry. He got out in the class of 1939. He
had his office set up three weks tJhen they cam and told him he had to
go fa a year's active duty. He'd been in the Reserves. J3e sold his
denixl office to a class mte who had a bad heart and ws not going to
the &rv$ce.
Q. bbn you Ere living with your husband, how did you spend your time
together. Uth other couples, by yourselves?
A. WE had lots of friends on the post. You always had samthing to do,
scneplace to go, s(3mebody to see. It ws a very busy life.
Q. Ekst primawily involved with other people?
A. & yes, definitely. k wmt to the Hop every Saturday, that's the
dance at the Officers Club, &ere w had an orchestra. bk had dinner
there every Saturday night. You'd set at the table, and over here d d
be a table of medics--me thing in the army, the dentists, the doctors,
the veterinarians, and the druggists sort of paired themelves off socially
because they didn't seem to have too rmch in cmrmn with the Ust Point
graduates and the other people. They didn't do it maliciously, or anything
like that, but: when w'd go to a club, w'd sit at a table where usually
they =re all medics, Ttter m e tks &en we mt to dinner parties at
hm~s and then= all wmt ? o the Hop. We'd reserve a table and w'd sit
with everybody fran that dinner party.
Q. bu said there =re veterinarians?
A. Oh, yes, PE had veterinarians in the Army. And E had pharmacists.
Q. %at did the veterinarians care for?
A. Worses. The cavalry. You see, Fort Sill ms at one th~ a big cavalary
post. hk had horse barns turned hto ~tersfox army officers. Fhenever
it rained, you could -11 that horses used to live there. In 1938 they
did have m y horses there. had horses to ride, all= wanted. And
they had parades. I don't knuw what all they wed than far. TZle Japanese
got my riding boots and my riding outfit, my golf clubs, my tennis racket,
and we*.
Q. kbw do you feel about the goal of mxch of ht is now called the
Waaen's Mvemnt, the people around the ERA bill, to get equal pay for
mrm doing the sane mxk as menZ
A. Do I think it's a good thing to do? &, yes. Definitely. If a
wnm's qualified to do a mm's tmrk. But the one thing it's doing that:
I don't like is that it's putting men out of mrk and making ~llen becaw
less ruanly. I like a INXI to be the head of the household. I mt him
to be sensible and I want him to be right and just. But they can't be
the head of the hehold dm tihe wren's bringing har~ a paycheck.
1 Q. Any kind of paycheck at all?

Earl- Allen Francis 5 7
A. No. No, It causes an awful lot of divorces and separations. Right
naw in St Peterskg, Florida, I have a girlfriend who has a sister dm
is wried. She mrked all her life, £ran the time she rimrid until the
day she retired. And her husband didn't want Frances, my girlfriend, her
sister, to crme there and live. She told him off in so m y wrds. She
said, "I paid as mrch as you did. 'Ihis is as mrch my b e
as it is
yours ." His friends could cmre and stay, but he didn't wnt Frances
there. OE course kames didn't go because she knew she msn't wanted.
That' s &en kry and J . L. almst split, when they wxe both retired and
old-aged. Aman can't rule the roost, as m say, he can't be the boss.
Q. I'm surprised you don't choose your male friends fran those yau roeet
in church.
A. ?here are very few men in church nmaday8, in any church. Very few.
Very few.
Q. So there arm't m y mn in Christian Science?
A. No, and not in the other churches either. Christian Science is
neither Protestant or Catblic. It's a revelation. There's tm big
chwches aver in Jacksonville, and they close up the first of June and
open up the first of September, because they don't have attendance.
The colleges close, you hw.
Q. If you had your life to organize- wer again, mld you do anything
differently?
A. Well, I didn't have the opportunity to do at I wanted to do. I
mted to go to college and be a dietician. But there ms no m y in
those days, there ere no loans, no scholarships. If I 'd had a scholarship
ad no m y , it d d have done me no good. I could be samebody's mid
or a nurse. And nursing has been kind to me. Wen I was younger, it
msn' t too bad. But as I grcrw older, I don't want it any rmre. Especidly
since I ws in the wax,
Q. Do you have reflections on your life that you could share?
A. Well, it really wsn't too exciting, but it wasn't too bad =ept
when I wa8 in the war, hen I was jmping in and out of fox holes. 'Ihat
w.s about the mrst tk, I don't regret it, because I lived through it.
And mbody had to do it, and I was no better than anybody else. It was
as rmch trry job as it w any other Arerican's.
Everyth an officer nrcrves to Germany, he's given quarters to live in,
and with these quarters cares a housemaid. I had a very intelligent
mid, Ire=, *o was constantly running to the doctor. I asked her one
time, ''Irene, you spend all your m y going to the doctor. h t 's the
matter?" Irene said, 'Missus, rn no pay.'' I said, '%at do you mean?
h does pay the doctor?" She had trauble with English, eo I wis teaching
her. Her boy£riend cae to pick her up that day. He could speak three
lan%uageo, and he ms a brilliant m. I asked him about this. I said,
"Ritz , dwt is this business about you people not paying the doctor?"
He explained to rae that it's like uur social security here. There's a

Earleen Allen Francis 58
few pennies taken cut of every paycheck they get to pay for the doctor.
lhey have socialized redicine. TZley mrk out a certain area of hares and
they pt a doctor's off ice in the dddle of it. You have to go to that
doctor, but you don't pay. If the patient has to go to the hospital, he
has to write it all up on a form. He gives it to a mtorcycle man, *o
delivers it to the hospital, The staff of doctors at a big round table
sit &re and go aver it, and over it, and over it. They decide if the
patient needs surgery or htever the local doctor says he needs. If he
does, an ambulance goes out to pick up the patient and takes him to the
hospital. The doctor draw a salary instead of being paid by the patient.
I tbught that m s pretty neat. And if the doctor misses a diagnosis, if
the hospital staff finds he's wrong, then he has to go back to school!
Q, %at did your husband think of this?
A, Socialized medicine? I don't hm. I never discussed it with him.
Q. Have you ever talked to a medical doctor d~o mrked for a systan like
that? I understand they have system like that in Canada.
A. Well, they have systmts like that mst everywhere but the United
States, All &ope has that, as far as I huw, No, the doctors over
there cauldn't speak Ehglish, so I never talked to any of them. k =re
very sheltered den m e e
in the Army. k =re, but naw it's all
changed. We've got the blacks in nuw. I used to have to run a social
roster and pay off my social obligations within six mnths. If I didn't ,
rq husband probably muld not get prcxlloted when he put in his the. Oh,
yes. But they haven't got it any me, You viere not permitted to live
out in the town if they had quarters for you on the post. But now I
understand they don't do that any me. Wst all of thanhave to go out
in the town and get their atn residences. k had an elmtary school on
the pst for the children. I don't hm why they don't do it any mre,
aept they W e
blacks in. You don't mt to be entertaining blacks at
yuur table. I understand that's why everything has changed. Basically
that's the reason.
Q. W d yw tell me mxe about your travels with your husband after you
=re in Germany?
A, J!k was a career man in the United States Dental Corps. After R =re
released from Mlter Reed Hospital, ve bought a car and drove out to his
first post in the Presidio in San Francisco. k =re out there for a
year, and then m w e transferred to Fort Polk, Louisiana. W Ere
there three m 3 n and ~ then the post closed up. Then m =re ordered to
Fort Bra, North Carolina. k Ere there tm years and PE mt to
Germany. & -re in &many for tw years and then we cam back to the
States. TZ.latls as far as I mt to go,
Q. h t was yom husband' s attitude towards the role of wmm? There
must have been wmcm dentists at that the, in the dental schools and in
practice.
A. kll, he didn't haw anything about that. k lived in the Army.
There men't any WIEII dmtists in the Amy! Not in the Army! W had
dental hygenists .

Earlen Allen kancis 59
Q. lbw did he feel about the role of m.wm as professional people?
A. Oh, no! Lkn a mrnm got married, she stayed home. That's what I
did.
Q. kt' before miage, did he think &en w e adequate as professional
people?
A, In certain fields, like rrursing, hane econanics, that sort of thing.
As teachers of children they ere all rmt. But as dentists and doctors,
he preferred males.
Q. Did he feel that WIESI *re as ccmpetmt as men?
A. Not professionally. They d d be if they Ere in a profession that
suited mrm, like teaching and hcn~ e c ~ c. s That sort of thing.
Q. This ws a camrm attitude arm% your friends?
A. Oh, yes. At that time. 1945.
Q. In the course of living, there are always conflicts and disagreanents
that care up, Did yau often have disagreemnts with your husband?
A. When I was engaged, I said, "Can I go to wrk?" And he said, "Absolutely
not! You have all you can do to stay hare and take care of m." I
laughed right out loud in his face, but I soon fod out it was a bigger
job than I thought it was. No, he did not believe that wives should be
in public wrks.
Q. ht
exactly m s his objection to it?
A, Wl, I don't hm. He WLS born and raised in Virginia, d m south.
His mther married at the age of 15 and never wrked a day in her life
-pt in the hem. Jde was brought up with that attitude, and so m s I,
Q. Did it have to do with making money, did it have to do with meeting
new people-what was it about?
A. I don't laow. It ms just understood that when a wmn gets married,
she stays at hm, She does not mrk out of the hare, she does not mk
mney at of the k.
Q. So how was the diwgrmnt abut your mrking handled? It ws
handled by yaur accepting his attitude?
A. Oh, me. My attitude coincided with his. That's what I wanted to
do, but I mted to see huw he felt about it,
Q. I£ the tm of you had disagremmts about where you mted to eat
dinner, did you always go *re he mted to go?
A. I did what he wanted to do, so if -thing went wrong, I could say
it ms his idea, That's what I want a mm for, to take the lead, to make
the decisions, to earn the nroney , and I could be a wife.

Earleen Allen Francis 60
Q. tbw did you decide what kind of a new car to buy?
I
A. Wat ever kind of a cax he bught, I drove. I didn't want to make
any decisions, especially where his mney uss being used. It took IIE a
low tW to becare used to spending sanebody else s Imney, because I'd
always Illade my am mney. 'Itae food I ate, the roof over my bead, the car
I druve, cam out of his earnings. But's the way I like a mamiage.
That's Fnlhy I haven't fomd one since.
Q. Did you have any close wren fxiends after you =re married?
I A. I%, va med around toormch. If I'd been in a tom, like *ere I
grew up, I probably wuld have had. I had lots of friends, people I hew
on the post. We mnt to the Officers Club and the post ~ ~ pool and r g
played tennis and golf, rode horseback, all that sort of thing. But you
don't stay one place long amq$ to get attached to anybody. Three years
is the longest -'re supposed to stay on ane post.
Q. Me you or your husband involved with any politial or camunity
activities?
A. Oh no, we wren't allawed to. We couldn't even vote. were mving
around the mrld, how could you vote? No. You didn't vote, and I don't
think they do today. I hate to vote here, because I haven' t lived here
long ermugh. And I am not going to vote for Thqson. He's been in,
he's been elected three times, and he ppts up (I'm a Republican) and
brags about it. "I 've been elected three times. " And now he's rclrrn-
for a fourth time, I think he'd better get out of there and let so~body
else get in.
I Q. Did you ever do any nursing after you =re -rid?
I
A. No, no way. They'd call me up fran the hospital on the post and say
they e ded help. I'd say, ''You go ask my husband." They'd go hstairs
to the dental office, and he'd tell than off. "Don't you think I'm
capable of caring for my wife?"
I Q. Did you ever miss mrking as a nurse?
A. No. No. I was fed up after I got out of that wr. I don't wmt any
me. Blood and thunder cures yau. It cured me.
I Q. %at was your husband's personality like?
I
A. Very nice. bkn he got about five or six scotch and soda's into him,
he ELB men nicer. Instead of getting mean, like s a men ~ do when they
get a little liquor, he w nice.
Q. GLve me sure examples.
A. Birerybody liked him, as far as I know. I never hew that he bad any
enemies, h m a lady walked into the roan, he was the first one up on
his feet.

Q. *re did you cane back to when you returned from Germany?
A. San Antonio, Texas. My husband w stationed at Fort Sam Houston. 1
don't want: to talk abut the rest of it. %'11 stop ri&t there, as far
88 he's concerned.
A. Yes.
Q. And then, a t
did you do after that?
A. I mt down to Florida and lived with his family for three years.
His father retired from the Navy Yardhs with a heart conditim and they
med to Florida in 1940. They =re living in St. Petersburg, So I wnt
dam there where they wre for three years. And then I left and cane to
stay with my mother in Jacksonville, Illinois.
Q. ihat did you do while you viewe in Florida?
A:, I just stayed at h, I mrked a little bit over at St. Anthony's
Hospital, but I didn't like it very d, I wrked as a staff nurse. I
didn't like it any mre. I w~s tired of wrkhg with the sick and the
dying, cwering up the head and calling the undertaker, cdorting the
family. It gets old, you hm. You kind of w?ar out on it. I wrked
about three mnths at St, Anthony's Hospital.
Q. Srhat ws his family like?
A. He had only om brother, and he too ms a dentist in Chester,
Pennsylvania. IEe m t to Temple lhiversity h~ Philadelphia for dental
school. He knew a dentist in Chester who was giving up his practice, so
he took over his off ice. And there he stayed until he retired. Jle wed
to Delaware, had five heart attacks, and the fi£th one took him.
Q. W e
both parents living dm~ you mt to live with them?
A. a, yes. I stood cNer the father &en he had his last heart attack.
Oh, yes. W got along very wll. %y m e glad to have me, and I was
glad to have them. It just wnt along mthly.
Q. Then you cam up to stay with your mther?
A. Yes, rn Jacksonville. She ws elderly and she couldn't live alone
any m e, so I cam up and tmk care of her. She had been mrking as an
aide in the State Hospital in Jacksonville, but she quit mrk and just
stayed at hare.
Q. Did you care up because you needed to or because you wanted to?
A. Well, I'd been down there three years, and I don't like the state of
Florida. I dislike it irrmensely. I don't like the bugs and the animals
and clbte. In all the buildings, the floor is flat on the ground yau
haw. Yau cane in the back door and find a bit rattler curled up in the
corner of your kitchen1

Farleen Allen kancis 62
Q. 1Kd this happen to you?
A. Gh yes, to everybody. 'Ihe rmsquitos are terrible. I don't like the
state of Florida, There isn't another state mng the other 50 states
that I dislike, bt Florida. Ebery tb~ I go d m there and care back
across the line, I hope that I never cross it going the other direction
again. And I haven't, not since 1977.
Q. bhat did you do with your mther?
A. I stayed hue and took care of her. &ti1 she passed away. She
needed constant care. I left Florida and wznt to Berwyn, Illinois. I
got tired of the state dam there. To Berwyn -rial Hnspital in 1950.
I stayed there until 1960, &n I c m to Jacksomrille to take care of my
mottrer. She passed m y in October of 1962.
Q. mile yau wxe living with your nnther, did your roles change? Did
you bece the mther and she becane the child?
A. & yes. She as helpless. She cauldn' t codc for herself, she cddn ' t
do her laundry, she cddn' t do her houamrk. She depended on me. I had
the sole responsibility. & brother and my sister couldn't be bothered
to help me any. And my sister lived right there in town, but she was
mrking, My brother lived in Chicago.
Q. Did they contribute m y
to help support your mthew?
A. No, it msn' t necessary. My mther had a pension, a railroad pension.
'Ihen she mrked for the State of Illinois for a long time, and had a
state pension. She ws w i d d very early.
Q. DFd you develop va'rerl friends while you %ere there in Jacksonville,
or m e you too busy?
A. No, I joined tlne church of Christian Science and mde friends over
there. Along tmds the end, though, I couldn't attend church or do any
church carmittees, because I ms too busy at ha^. In the beginning, I
made l~larry friends, and I still go over to see them, It's 35 miles frm
here. MacMrray College and Illinois College are there; it's a college
tom. And b the gals have a tea party or sa~~or~ who used to liw
there canes back for a visit, they give a tea and I'm always invited.
Q. So you've continued cmtacts YOU made in Jacksonville?
A. Oh yes. I have tw or three girl friends that I'm quite close to
over there. Qm is a nurse h has never been married, one is a widow
and one has a husband. lkee of them. Ttm of thgm are Scientists, and I
see than in church every Sunday, since there is no Christian Science
church in Jacksonville. 'J;he church over there closed up. ZZre Qlristian
Science churches in Jacksmille, Beardstom and Lincoln, all thxee
closed for lack 05 members. Now those people cam to our church aver
here. These tm Eriends of mine, the widaw and the me with the husband,
drive. And the ruse vho has never been marwied goes to the %Mist
church over there.

Earlem Allen kancis 63
Q. ht did Christian Science fill in your life?
A. Well, had I not found &istian Science, I feel I wuld be in one of
two places. With the wr and the loss of my husband, the loss of my
mther d all that sort of thimg, I d d have been six feet under or in
a mtal institutim.
Q. Huw did it help you?
A. I can't tell you that. You auglzt to get the books and read them.
Q. Can yau tell ICE specifically, ms it satething they taught you? Ms
it their fxiendship?
A. Yau don' t depend on personalities. You can' t depend on people. Qlly
on W. But you have to learn to do that. It takes thr~ to learn it.
You can't learn it overnight. It took me three years to agree with Maw
Ebkr Eddy, ccmpletely, 100 percent, with Sciene and Health, her text
book. ~t took me three years to agree witlTEZfrythingmre 100%.
Nm 1 can accept every mrd of it and knaw it's the truth, Mer book is
the Bible told in everyday English. I'd hate to think where I 'd be today
if I hadn't found Christian Science.
Q, Can you tell me a few specific things that makes it m e important to
yau than the Catholic church ws?
A. Yes, when I have a problem, I don't run around to counsellors and
psychiatrists and all that. I take my troubles to God hirrnself and work
them out. I do it by study and by thinkbg in the mind. You don't ask
Cod any questions, and you don't tell him anything. Before I cam hto
Science I used to beg &d for things. That's the way I was taught to
pray. You don' t do that. God's wrk is already done. Anything that is
not gmd is not real; it's a lie. It's not God's activity. There's
nothing but "W is all." If it isn't God-like, it's a lie. So you can
figure cut what the truth is. And you mrk on it mentally. And vhatever
is right will be. There's no devil, there's no hell. Yau make your om
hell right here on earth, Anything that is bad, w call it "error." It
is not part of God, and it cannot k t
yau when you're depending on God
to protect you. bver , you aust we wisdan. You don't go out of here
at night and walk around a bad neighborhood all alone with a purse hanging
on yrxu: arm. You've got to use wisdan too. You don't tempt God--like
the man dm wis standing in front of the train caning d m
the track. JAe
got right in the middle of the track and said "God, stop the train. If
you're going to save me, stop the train." You don't do that sort of
thing, you don't tempt God. Ms wrk is already done and yau strive
mtally to see what is right or what is the answr to t! problem. It
takes years of study, '%u pray without ceasing," Mrs. Eddy says.
A. We don't get duwn on our hees and talk to God. We talk to him in
our mind and think Truth. Truth is the basis of my way of thhkbg,
What's the Truthabout this or tAe Truthabout that? God is all. He's
all. Ttbese people who want to lose wiefit, they go to the spa and thy

Earlem Allen Francis
diet and they jump up and down and they beat themselves to death, starve
theanselves, Then when they quit that, they gain all the ei&t back.
Zhat's at I used to do. Then I learned to take it off in Science. God
is not an Indian-giver . JiIe doesn't give you a gift and then take it
back. You take your might off in Christian Science and it will stay
off. I take things out of Science and Health and the Bible and that sort
of th&g that applies to the problc b you know what a &istian
%we Reading Roan is? You can go there and look up any subject you
want to look up. You can go there and look up all those things, but when
you're a Scientist, you have all those boaks at hrme. Here's Science - and
Jikalt+, the Bible, and the Qlarterly. You do a lot of chinking, it's
mind over matter. bk live in a mtal wrld, but people don't bm it.
This earthly existence ='re living in is a big bad dream. And the only
way ym can maIce it good, and the god you get out of it, is what God
gives.
Q. bhy are e jn this dream?
A. my? I don't hm. Wll, people ask "If God is all, &re did God
fran," Nobody has been able to answer that question. They say your
body is the temple of God and the kingdm of heaven is within you. There
are sane guestions VE don' t hw hw to ansuer. Why are R here? Yes, I
do too! We're here to reflect God. &'re here to reflect him. If w
wrenlt here, he muld have no proof of being. k are the proof of God's
being, that w are here, that m have minds. You and I and aur father
are one. Bat's what kist Jesus said. You see, te don't pay mch
attention to the Old Testatnent. & read it, but Christ Jesus ms rnurdered
on the cross and buried, GI the third day he appeared on earth again.
And he gave us the New Testament. And that's what aw religion basically
is fix4 on, The New Testaxat. Nw the Jews, they live with the Old
Testamt. We go by the New Testament. That's where E get our information.
Scar; man, an athiest I haw, said, "No me ever mt to heaven and cam
back and told us about it. l1 And I said, "Yes he did .'I He was very much
surprbed when I explained to him that the Christ was crucified and
rudered on the cross, ms dead and buried. QI the third day he c a ~
back and gave us the New Testarent. I said, if you want to knm about
it, go get the New Testarent and read it.
Q. Have you ever visited Prllncipia College in Elsah?
A. Ch yes, marry tbnes. I've not taken part in classes there, though,
They do have an adult course every sums for tm meks, but I've never
been able to get dam there, It's gotten so qensive --it ' a about
$600 for tm mekrs. Everythirg in 13rristian Science is exclusive. k
don' t believe in anything shabby or mything second-rate. If you're
tuned in to the man above, yuu get the best. You have the beat. You're
going to be fed and bused and cared for, and in good style. You will
lack nothing that you need, All yaur needs are met, if you knuw haw to
work it.
Q. Wat ms your attitude towards menopause, whenever that happened to
you?

Earleen Allen Francis 65
A. I had rn hot flashes, enough to let nre know what thy nere like.
Just tw , That ' s all. And then my periods became very irregula and I
didn't how when they wre caning. And then very shortly &y stqped
altogether. I had no trouble, None whatsoever,
Q. Jbu didn' t have any feeling that this ws the end of your life as a
wren and all that?
A. I never tbqjht about that.
Q. I never did either.
A. I thought the men =re the ones who felt that my. Oh, they're nuts,
I'm telling you. They mn't admit it. It couldn't happen to them
Q.
D3 you have any reflections on that, what they call "the male nenapause?"
A. I don't haw a lot about it, eept what I've heard my friends talk
about. As I said, the men dm't like it and they mn't admit it and they
wn't accept it. They can't have intercourse, they can't have an erection.
And you know, a man, that's what he lives for! If I could talk to God
about his mrk, I'd say c m down here and do it over again. The sexual
push that he gave these m! And you can' t blam the m, it' s there,
it's fa a purpose-but: I don't haw why God did it. The push for sexual
pleasure is absolutely ridiculous. &nopause is God's way of stopping
wmm fran ha* babies. If he didn' t , we'd b just like the rabbits.
'Ihe rabbits breed like mbody's business, and the females die very young.
If God didn't stop these fran having babies, these Catholics
espcially--but not only Catholics!
Q. bking back aver your life, &.at ms the happiest time of your life?
A. &n I m.s a hausewife, a hanardex:. I think people are born to do
certain things. N11, the happiest day of my life ms when I m s freed
£ran that prison czarrp. That w the seatest day that I can ever r&r.
As far as after that, I could stay bane and keep house and, I alwiys
said, be a m instead of saeone earning mxley. I say these wmm who
go out and work are all wmm and half men. They have the babies, they
run the house, the cam hare and start the second shift. I've heard
nurses say that "I 've got to go hane at 3: 00 and start the second shift ."
Maybe they've got four or five children at h m and a husband. I don't
see it. Far a woman to do all that, it seems to me it's go- to kill
her. The happiest job I had was being a wife and h-.
Q. Was it also what you muld call tkw most fulfilling t h of your
life?
A. Yes, I w dd say so.
Q, I£ y w could go back over your hole life and change anything, fran
the tirrre you =re a child, what wuld you change?
A. Well, I muld never 'be a nurse, because that put m in the war. If I
hadn't been a nurse, I d dn't have gotten into the war, I used to say,

Earlem Allen Francis 66
"If there's ever a mr, I want to be right in the middle of it." That's
cl~&,~W it's what I said. Many tines. mother used to say, "Shut
- SfOUT B1OUth."
Q, libt was the effect of the Wrrld a r 11 experiences that you had on
th rest of your life?
A. I don't how. I knaw it mkes me unhappy with the brican people.
They take everything for granted. Ihey're supposed to have this, they're
supposed to have that. 'Ihey stayed ha^ and slept on an innerspring
mttress, put their feet under the table three t& a day. Canpared to
what m had during the mr--I'm not exactly jealous, because saneone had
to do the job. I m.s a s-le and had no children to leave at hatle.
I was no better to go out and do what f did, than anyone else ms. But
the attitude that other people take to it! When 1-s wrking at the
Be- Hospital, one nurse said to me, 'What hatre you doing in the army?
khat did you get in there for? That ws your fault that you ere in
there. my should anyone feel sorry for you?'' If we hadn't mn that
war, what people wuld have had here d d
have been smthingl k mke
up at 6:OO in the mrning with 80 Jap ships lined up around the island of
Luzon and the Japs were marching in by the millions, If they ever had
that in this country, it wuld change a lot of people's minds. I used to
make a lot of enemies when I got hare fran the war, People saying things
like that made me angry. So I decided to kep quiet. You don't make any
friends and you probably lose them. So I quit.
Q. lbw does your awareness of Chwistian Science dfect your feeling
about all that stuff yau writ through?
A. You b, if I 'd been born into Wistian Science, if I'd had training
in tbe beginning, I'd never have gone into the medical mrk. I can see
naw haw I was divinely protected. I didn't know vho was protecting n~ at
that time, but I lazaw ncrw.
Q. How do you see the role of in our society today in canparison
to the role of wmm dwn you =re young?
A. Well, when I was young living drJGIXl in the state of Kentucky, I never
cam hem fran school in my life but that my mther ms there waiting for
me. For the sake of the children, ht's happening to these children
uhn they're little and their mthers go awy to mrk? I look in the
paper every day: "January 6 there's going to be a baby born. kk want a
sitter." If I mted to apply, I 'd get it because I 'm a retired RN.
That tam^ is havZng that baby to rent it out to smbody else to care
for. And that's the mrst thing she can do for her child. She at least
could stay hrcme with it until it reaches the state of reasoning and
understanding. But no, she's gone six weks later, on the job. She's
all woman and half man, The man can't produce enough zzowadays, because
they have to have tw cars, oriental rugs, beautiful drapexies, sofas and
all that god stuff T' t now. And they've qot to get out and buy it.
1'- seen mre of that %-you have. I don t like it at all. Renting
th~llr children out to other people to raise.

Earleen Allen Francis 67
Q. k e are m, like yourself, and like several of my friends, who
never have had children. Sure because they haven't been mid, strrre
because they chose not to have children, sane because they just never did
have children.
A. Srme of those I haw. @ite a few of them. They often end up
in divorce, The ones without children, FJhen the rm reaches the renopause
stage, they go nuts! Most wren wn't tolerate it, and they don't have
to, They're capable of taking care of thamelves, so they get out: of
there. In a my, yuu can't blame than. You really can't. Wlt I think
if they vmdd be a little m e considerate, not run thek husbands off,
they nlay straighten out sam day and be mrth keeping. If mrmn d d
stay at hare and take care of their husbands and children, m d d have
a tetter wxld.
Q.
&ank you, hrleen, for a very interesting and enjoyable interview.
Ehd 05 Tape

Excerpts £ran Tb The Anqels by Eenny Williams (San ~rancisp, CA:
The Denson Press, 1985) :
page 92
In Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Earleen Allen Francis, an
.Army Surse, liked to knit, and she did it well.
\\'here did \ve get the yi1l.n or* t\\.ine? Ex-Army Surse llrs.
Huhe, of Cierman descent hut a nati~ralizecl .Ar~ierican, lived in
the Philippil~es. She was never ititcrned I,!, theencmy. \In. I-lube
\\*;is generoi~s
in tier git'ts of food and various supplies to the
SIUI+SL'S. These gifts c:anle through the official channels approved
bv our got.ct-11ing committees alld the approval of the-Japanese
commandant and other Japanese officials.
Jul~ 4th, SIrs. Ilube sent ill beautifulls prepared food for
sistv-nine of' us, also small gifts. One of the gif'ts was a large
amount of twine, string and !.am.
\Ian! of the nurses knitted ankle socks and i~nderpatlts. The
\.am was cast on bamboo knitting needles made in Sanm Tomas
Internment Camp.
Since I knew nothing about the knitting art, Earlee11 helped
me get started b!. casting on the stitches for a pair- of i~~i~lerparlts.
The knitting served a twofold purpose-a Icarmit~g experience
and the neecl for cluthi~~g.
.At the top-the band of the garment-a small hole was made
to provide for a narrow strip of elastic. \She11 the knitting was
finished, the displav ga\*c us lots of' laughs. For one thing, the
white pants had black elastic (the only color available) inserted
through the holes. For another, the pants were at least eight twten
inches too long; someone said that the crotch of the pants
might be exposed at the hernline ot' a skirt. Someone else remarked
that the knees might get tangled lip in the over long
pants and cause the wearer t o trip herself. Someone suggested
' we raffle off the pants and save them for artifac~s
in ii rnuseuni
after the war.

pages 151-152

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