>> Recording.
>> Fabulous. So my name is Adina Langer,
and I'm the curator of the Museum of History and
Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University.
Today is July 1st, 2021,
and I'm here at the Museum of History
and Holocaust Education with
Liz Campbell for a legacy series interview,
during which we will remember her husband,
Ray Walton Campbell, who
served in the US Navy right after World War II.
So first, do you agree to this interview?
>> Yes.
>> Wonderful. And can you please state your full name?
>> My full name is
Elizabeth Osbo Campbell and everyone calls me Liz.
>> Wonderful. So we're going to spend
some time in the interview
remembering your husband's life.
But I'd like to start with your background.
Can you please tell me when and where you were born?
>> I was born October the 13th,
1931 in Fulton County,
which is where I was born is in the city of Atlanta now.
It was Fulton County.
And then shortly after that,
we moved further down in the country,
but still in Fulton County.
I was raised all my life
in the same area northwest Atlanta.
I went to James L. Mason Grammar School,
which was named after my great-great-grandfather
because he gave the property there.
I had one sister, Virginia,
and we grew up in moderate means.
My dad was a steamfitter and he did
construction work and we
came along during the depression.
And so we had many hard years and sometimes we
were happy just for daddy to catch
a rabbit so we could have some meat.
But anyway, we had a very good life.
We went to the Methodist church,
which was also Mason Methodist church.
Again, my great-great-grandfather
had given the property there.
And this was at the corner of
Bank Highway at that time in Bolton Road,
which now has another name.
Then I went to West Fulton High School,
which was up close to where I was actually
born and I only went to high school.
In those days, everybody
just went out and went to work right afterwards.
So that's what I did and then just had a normal life,
and I didn't meet my husband Walton until about 1955.
>> So before we get into that a little bit can we
just go back and tell me your parent's name?
>> My mother's name was Elizabeth Mason Maynard,
and my father's name was Harry Parkes Alsobrook.
They also had been born and
raised in the same area where we grew up.
All of our family lived there.
>> And you said your father was a steamfitter.
Can you tell me a little bit about what that was like?
>> A steamfitter is much like a plumber in a way,
but a lot of people don't know what steamfitters are.
Well, back in those days,
a lot of the really fancy houses
in Atlanta on West Paces Ferry Road,
they had steam boilers for heat,
just like you've seen a radiator and they had that.
He and another man had a little company together,
but then when the depression came along, they lost that.
He was a member of the local union.
He was a union member,
and he did construction work,
and a lot of times it was on later on he worked
on power plants because most power plants ran on steam.
So he would be gone for periods of
time and my mother and my sister and I,
we would be home alone.
We did live in a rural area.
I had to walk a mile every day to grammar school.
And then when I got to high school,
I had to still walk that mile and catch
a Georgia Power Company bus because back in those days,
we didn't have school buses
and everybody was on their own.
Then in 1948,
my mother passed away and I was 16 years old.
>> And your mother, did she stay home with you?
>> My mother was just a housewife,
not just a housewife, but a housewife.
She stayed home with us and we had a very good childhood.
We did simple little things
like go to the church to ice cream social,
and then in the summertime,
we used to meet at our church and
go on picnics about once a month.
And when I was a teenager,
we had a teenage canteen at a park there.
And we played ball.
I played on a softball team.
And that's pretty much it.
>> Were you close with your sister?
>> Well, there was
five and a half years difference with us.
So therefore, we were not that
close in doing things and we fought like most sisters do.
And then later years,
we got where we got along a lot better.
But her being five and a half years
older than I was, naturally,
she was working and I was
still in school and I would wear
her good clothes, and she didn't like that.
So we had our ups and downs.
But then my sister got married in December of 1948,
so I was at home alone with my dad
and I just kept house for him.
We both learned how to cook early in
our life because our mother was sick a lot.
She had a chronic asthma and she was sick
and we had to do a lot of things around
the house that most young people don't have to do.
We lived close to
my mother's mother for a number of years,
and then we moved further over at another place
and we just had
a normal little childhood. I thought it was normal.
>> Do you remember what your house looked like?
>> We just had a little four-room house.
We did not have an inside bathroom.
We did not have electricity part of the time.
We had kerosine lamps,
which you can believe and this was in 1935 or '36.
We did have running water in the house. We had a well.
We had the old-timey washing machine
that was a ringer type,
and then when you got ready to wash,
you put the washing machine out and you put
two wash tubs out and then you washed
and rinsed and hung them on the line
to dry and we helped our mother.
Then on Saturday night,
we got a bath in the washtub.
But we just had a very,
I thought it was a normal life,
but I'm sure there was people that
were a lot better off than we were,
but there was people a lot worse off than we were.
>> And thinking about
the depression and how that was affecting your family,
do you remember your parents talking about Roosevelt,
were they fans of the president?
>> Well, at that time,
yes, I would say they were.
My Daddy at one time worked on the WPA,
which was a program that President Roosevelt started.
They weren't very much into politics.
They liked Roosevelt and
we listened to his speeches on the radio.
And the radio was the big thing,
we didn't have any television, of course.
And at night, we would listen to
Dick Tracy and things like that on the radio,
sit off, and get the Dick Tracy ring
that you could decode messages that he gave.
It wasn't easy life.
Like I said, sometimes we were just happy that daddy
killed a rabbit and that we had rabbit.
My mother was a wonderful cook
and she could make things out of nothing.
And I'm sure a lot of times she did.
>> Do you remember ration cards or anything like that?
>> The what?
>> Rationing?
>> Oh, yes. We had rationing stamps.
Back in those days too,
you used to have people that came
around to your house with everything.
We had a vegetable man that came by and then we had
the Watkins salesman that came
by and he had the full of brush man that came by.
And a bakery that delivered
Highland bakery and they delivered back to business.
Driver of the Highland truck used to get
my mother to decorate cakes for him.
He would have somebody wanted a birthday cake and
he would bring cake and my mother would decorate it.
She was very good at that.
She made wonderful cakes herself.
We did have the rationing stamps.
I'm regressing here. The school that we went to was
a four room schoolhouse with seven grades in it.
And there, again, you had outside bathrooms
and the wood stove in the corner just like you're seeing.
But we got a very good education.
We had to carry out lunch every day,
which was usually most of the time we'd have
a biscuit and something in it
because my mother made biscuits every morning.
But we were happy to have that and
we were lucky to have it because
some people didn't have anything.
>> If Highland Bakery asked her mom to decorate cakes,
did they pay her for it?
>> Yes, they did. She would
pay and my mother would make things.
She would also do things.
I remember a couple of times
the principal at our little grammar school,
she wanted to have a luncheon for somebody,
and she get my mother to do the luncheon and she
would make up a nice menu and do a luncheon farm.
She was, like I said,
a real good cook.
She made wonderful Brunswick stew,
which my niece [inaudible] here still has a recipe for.
And so we would have a little barbecues at our church.
And my mother always made the Brunswick stew.
They go in a big wash pot.
But these were all fun things that we did.
We would have hobo suppers at our church.
We would have fish fries and the church
was really the main center port of
the community that in
the school because we
had a lot of things at school all the time.
>> And do you remember if the other kids at school were
they mostly members of
your church or were they members of other churches?
>> A good portion of them members of our church,
but a few of them, we went to a Methodist church.
A few of them went to the Baptist church and
another community because right in our community,
there was only the Methodist Church.
But some of them didn't go to other churches,
but most of my friends went to that church and
we had our Sunday school class
and our picnics and everything.
>> And did you have a sense for
the school and your neighborhood being segregated.
Did you know any kids that were black or?
>> No. There were no black children in
our school at that time.
When I was in high school,
there was a black family that lived in our community,
but they took the same bus we did,
but they had to go to a different school.
No, it was very segregated.
My high school was segregated.
In fact, later on, the school wasn't,
but that was in about 1968, '86,
and some of my husband's sisters
were still in school at that time.
But no, there was on
this one black family in our community.
And now, we did have a black man and
woman that lived there that
was Uncle Bib and Aunt Lizzie.
Her name was Lizzie. And we
loved to go to her a little cabin.
They lived in a little cabin
back of a friend of ours house.
And we love to go there and see him
because she always had a treat for you.
But that was one of our favorite places to go.
But other than that,
no, in our community, there wasn't.
>> And did you have a sense at all?
You said you listened to the radio.
Did you have a sense that war was brewing in Europe?
>> Yes. We we understood it. We understood.
Of course, when Pearl Harbor was bombed,
that was a big thing.
We listened to the press to speak then.
And we studied these things in school.
We studied the old history,
but we studied current events too.
And like the newspapers that
you have in your exhibit here,
people would bring newspapers to
school and we would discuss what was going on.
We did discuss it a lot in school.
>> Do you remember that day,
December 7th, 1941,
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?
>> I do remember that and I remember I was
having the radio on and hearing it that morning.
And everybody was really astonished at what had happened.
>> Did you have any family members
who enlisted or went into service after that?
>> Yes. I had.
My mother's youngest brother, James Maynard.
He was in the service then.
I think he was drafted,
probably, because he did have a family.
Of course, a lot of people in
our community were in there.
We had one young man,
he was a Navy incident.
And he was killed during the war.
And as a matter of fact,
his name was Mickey Cochran,
and we have a legion post
in the area that was named after him.
American Legion Post 216 is Mickey Cochran post.
And at this time, it's still in existence.
It is over in the Mapleton area now,
but it still carries his name.
And he was the only person I remember
in our community that was lost in the war.
There were several people that
went to our high school and
there was people that my sister knew better than I did,
the young men that were killed in the war.
It was the everyday thing and we
listened to the news at night
and was devastated at what was happening.
>> Do you remember being asked to do
anything for the war effort like roll bandages?
>> Oh, yes. We collected info and of course,
we bought savings stamps.
They had the little books and you
bought the savings stamps.
And we also rolled bandages for
the red cross and we actually knitted some stuff.
I'm sure it wasn't very good,
but we knitted little squares
and they made Afghans out of them.
But we did all those things, yeah.
>> Do you remember ever having to save waste fat?
I remember that was something that [OVERLAPPING]
>> What was that?
>> Like cooking fat.
>> Oh, yeah. As they say we had a bacon jar.
[LAUGHTER] And yeah, my mother saved bacon fat,
and we used that.
>> Did you have a victory garden?
>> We didn't. My grandmother had
a garden and we would get things out of there.
Later on, when we moved to another location,
my mother would have a little garden.
We always had tomato plants and things like that.
And then, of course, in our community,
there was people that had
farms and we were able to go buy
vegetables from the neighbors.
Of course, if they had any extra,
they would give you stuff too.
One of my uncles or who actually was a great uncle,
he lived close by and he had an apple orchard.
We could always go get apples,
climb the apple tree,
and get us some apples.
And it was a very good life tell you the truth.
>> Did your mother can any of the vegettables?
>> Yes, she canned and she made pickles.
And actually, when I was only about seven years old,
I canned a jar of blackberries
and we used to have something in
Atlanta called the Southeastern World's Fair.
And the 4H Club,
which we all belong to,
they had exhibits there.
So I actually had an exhibit at
the fair of my blackberries that I cannes.
I think I was seven years old at the time,
which I don't feel they weren't very good.
But anyway,
going to the fair was very exciting every year.
Lakewood Park when the big fair came into town,
and we would go and spend
the day and usually a group from the church would go.
And as I said,
we belong to the 4H Club and had
a home demonstration agent who came
out and showed you how to do things.
And my mother canned everything,
all the vegetables that we could get.
We get out my grandmother's garden
and other people's gardens.
We canned, she canned green beans and made pickles and
canned tomatoes and okra to make soup with.
We did not have a freezer and even when we got
electricity and my daddy wanted to buy
my mother a refrigerator, she did not want one.
She still wanted to have the ice.
We had a ice men that delivered
ice and you had a coal man that delivered coal.
It was the same people usually.
They did coal in the winter and ice in the summer.
And there was ice place that you could go to and buy
ice and you got big blocks of ice,
25 pounds, 50 pounds.
And later on, we had a really nice ice box.
It was really fancy.
And I think it held about 50 pounds of ice in it.
But my mother, she just didn't want a refrigerator.
I don't know why, but she didn't.
She had a wood stove that we cooked
on and that was part of our heat.
We also had a smaller little heater in our living room.
It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.
And my mother always got chickens,
little chickens every year, raise chickens.
And back those days,
the mailman delivered the little chicks.
You ordered them and he brought the little chicks to you.
And then she would raise them and
then we would always
have a lot of fried chicken, which we loved.
And that was our favorite thing
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It didn't matter to us we like fried chicken.
>> It's delicious.
Did your mother have to
slaughter the chickens herself too?
>> Yes, you just hung them on the line and took
a knife and cut the heads off. We did it too.
We kill them and then you plucked them.
You put them in the hot water
and took the feathers off of them
and did the rest of the stuff too. [LAUGHTER]
>> So when the war came close to an end,
we talked about this a little bit before.
President Roosevelt died.
Do you remember what that was like?
>> Yes. It was very emotional time
and my mother took my sister
and I downtown so we
could see the train when it came through.
And it was very emotional.
Everybody was crying.
This is jumping ahead but
when the end of the World War II,
and had the VE day things.
We went downtown.
We used to go downtown a lot into Atlanta.
We had to walk a mile,
catch a bus and you had to
ride the bus a number of miles,
and then you got on the street car and went downtown.
And we also used to go see my grandmother who lived in
Decatur and we had to do all of that.
And when we got downtown,
we had to walk down
about three blocks and catch
another street car to go to her house.
It was the whole day trip.
But that was fun.
We love doing it.
And we would do that about once
a week to go see my grandmother because like I said,
my dad was out of town working a lot,
and so we had to find some amusements.
And so that was one of our trips.
We thought nothing of
going on that trip all the way to Decatur,
which was a good little ways. [LAUGHTER].
>> Where in Decatur did she live?
>> She lived on Howard Street.
And that was later on.
Earlier than that, she lived over on Westview Avenue,
which was over on north another part of town.
We used to go there too,
and then there again,
it was taking a couple of street cars.
But that was fun and we had an uncle that was
a street car conductor
and a lot of times when we get on the car,
he would be on there and we get to talk to him.
And you knew everybody.
Even people downtown, when we would get down to Atlanta,
there was a man who had
a shoe repair place right around the corner from
where we got off of the street car
and we used to always go see him.
And then one of our favorite things to
do downtown was there was a place called
the Peach tree arcade and it ran
between Basaath Street and White House Street.
And it was a beautiful place,
shame they tore it down,
but we used to go in there and they had
a yard that was very fascinating to me.
And they had a goldfish pine in the lower level,
which you could go and sit and throw some pennies in.
And there we also would get our hair cut there sometimes.
And also when we went downtown,
it was one of our favorite things if
we had the money because money was short,
but to go to one of the five and 10 street stores to eat.
There was Woolworth and McCrary's
and we had some cousins
that worked at Woolworth behind the counter.
So we go visit with them.
Atlanta was a great town.
Talking about the rising stamps,
we also used to do things like that.
My mother used Octagon soap and they had coupons on it.
So we cut out the coupons and when we saved enough,
we would go to the Octagon soap store and get surprises.
That was a very big adventure to see
what we could find with the coupons.
>> That must have been fun.
So tell me about that celebration for the end of the war.
>> It was then right on Peachtree,
right at the lowest theater,
and it was a real big crowd
and everybody was very excited.
We went to that. It was a big crowd of people.
But like I said, we thought
nothing and our daddy and mother thought nothing
of us going downtown and doing things.
>> And was that then just you and your sister who went?
>> Well, my sister and I and my mother would
take us and my dad.
And another big event we had was when they
had the premier Gone with the Wind in Atlanta.
And we went to that and we did not go,
of course the first night,
but we did go see Gone with the Wind.
And that was a big deal too.
>> And you would have been in middle school then?
>> Well, grammar school.
>> Grammar school.
>> We didn't have middle school in those days.
You had seven grades in
grammar school and four in high school.
In fact, the year after I started high school,
they actually went to another year in high school.
They had five years in high school,
but I only had to go four years.
And I entered high school and I graduated in 1949.
>> So when you were in high school,
what were your hopes and dreams for the future?
>> Well, in the high school on my side of town,
most everybody just went out and went to work
and we took a business course.
And there were a few people
in our school that went to college,
but as I said,
I went to West Fulton High School.
Now, if you went on the other side of
town to North Fulton High School,
that was a different thing.
They had classes more or less for college,
but on my side of town,
most every day everybody went out and went to work.
And you just hoped you got a good job and everybody went
out and went to work and it was
usually with Southern Bell,
or Atlanta Gaslight, Georgia Power,
Sears, that was the places everybody worked.
And it was really good back in the old days like that.
When you had anything you wanted done,
you just knew somebody that
worked there and you called them,
hello, I need so and so,
which was very good.
And the same thing, a lot of people got jobs with
Fulton County and with the State of Georgia.
But from my side of town,
that was all everybody wanted to do,
is they got out of school and they went to work.
>> And before we talk about your work,
I want to just think a little
more about the end of the war.
And do you remember at that time hearing
anything about what had happened to the Jews in Europe?
>> We studied that in school too.
It was very much of a thing
and as far as Jewish people in our area,
I don't really remember any Jewish families there.
But there were quite a few in Atlanta and when you
went down there, you met them.
But I did not personally know anybody.
But we did study all that in school.
As I said, we had current events in school,
and we talked about everything that was happening.
>> Do you remember what it felt like
to learn about the atomic bomb?
>> Beg your pardon.
>> Do you remember what it felt like to learn
about the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan?
>> Well, at that time,
we probably wondered what was going on.
We knew there would be an atomic bomb because of course,
up in Tennessee, they had places.
But I don't really remember a lot about that.
>> Sure. Well, so
when you graduates from high school, did you go to work?
>> Actually, I went right to work.
I went to work for a friend of ours that had
a construction company and I worked him for a while.
And then later on,
I went to work for Cotton Broker.
And I had several jobs.
I worked for the telephone company
and then in later years, well,
I changed jobs a lot
because I always something was better on the other side.
>> So tell me about meeting your husband.
>> Well, we actually grew up in the same area.
He went to my high school,
went to the same high school I did.
Unfortunately, he had to leave high school after
two years when he
was to help at home because of his family situation.
But we met in about 1955
through some mutual friends of ours.
I was friends with
this girl and he was friends with her brother.
And so they introduced us
and we went together
a couple of years before we got married.
He wasn't too anxious to get married.
He was 29 years old about 27 when we met, I guess, 28.
And he was a bachelor.
So he wasn't real anxious to get married,
but I told him I could give him a year and that was all.
So he gave in.
Actually, he had to have a serious surgery while we were
going together and I think
that helped helped my cause along some.
>> And can you please state his full name for the record?
>> My husband's name was Ray Walton Campbell.
All of his family and friends called him Walt.
But at work, everybody called him
Ray because that was his first name,
which was confusing sometimes.
Can we tell where he was born?
>> Yes, please.
>> His mother and daddy was both
from the North Georgia area
and his dad was
from Rock Martin and his mother from Dallas.
But for some reason,
they moved to South Georgia to Moultrie,
I think because maybe her brother lived down there.
And he was born in the Moultrie.
And then they came and he was born on April 15, 1928.
And then they stayed in there for a little while and
then they came back to the Rock Martin area.
And it was 7.5 years before he had any siblings.
And then he has four siblings fairly close together.
He has a sister that was 7.5 years younger than he was.
And then they had another sister and
a brother and then
his younger sister is actually
17 years younger than he is.
So he was a father figure kind of to the family.
>> And when did he tell you about his childhood?
Did he tell you any stories?
>> Well, they lived in the country.
Outside of Rock Martin they had
a little community called Blah.
And his mother taught school.
And they lived near
his grandmother Campbell and his grandmother kept him.
And he was the idol of the family because
he was the grandson and he
was one of the closest grandkids there.
So everybody loved him his whole family,
all his aunts and uncles, he was the thing.
And I guess he was for 7.5 years till he had a sister.
>> And yes, so you told me that
he had to leave high school to help support his family?
What did he do to help out?
>> Well, he went to work at Sears
and and I know his sisters and brothers,
they say if it hadn't been for him
they wouldn't had Santa Claus and stuff,
but he did help at home.
He was very good to his mother.
And I don't know
financially how much he did, but he helped there.
And then as soon as he turned 18,
that's when he joined the Navy.
>> So how did he make the decision to enlist in the Navy?
>> Well, he and a friend,
Philip Martin got to talking about it,
and so they decide to go down and enlist.
And so Philip's father,
Mr. Martin went with them and they
wanted to enlist for four years and Mr. Martin said,
no, two years is enough.
So they enlisted for two years.
And then they were sent to Norfolk,
Virginia for their training.
>> And what did he tell you about his training?
Did he tell you anything about his training?
>> Honestly, he didn't talk a lot about it.
He talked more about when he was on
the ship and more about that.
>> And what ship did he end up serving on?
>> He was on the USS Waldron,
which was a destroyer.
Number 699 is the number of the ship.
And they were stationed in Algiers,
which is across the river from New Orleans.
And they did make cruises to Cuba and places like that.
And I don't know how he managed on
the destroyer because the only other time
we were on a ship on a cruise later on,
he was deathly sea sick.
So I don't know how he managed on the ship, but he did.
I'm skipping ahead. Sorry.
>> What did he tell you about what it
was like serving on that ship?
>> Well, he said, very close company, of course.
Honestly, he didn't talk a whole lot about it.
>> Did he tell you about his
friendship with other sailors?
>> Yes.
>> Well, as I said, he went
into the service with his friend
Philip Martin and they did go to Norfolk together.
And the day that they were on the train going up there,
they met this other guy from Georgia
named James Wheelis and they became very good friends.
And then they did the usual things,
I think when they were in
Norfolk sailors, whatever sailors do.
>> Do you know what sailors do?
>> I'm sure they had a good time.
>> And you mentioned that they did
some cruises to Cuba and other places,
did he share any experiences of Cuba with you?
>> He liked Cuba a lot.
So in later years he went back twice after that on
trips there because he
really was fascinated with it, I think.
They did make some cruises down to
the Jamaica and places like that,
he didn't like that too much.
But he did like Cuba a lot.
And of course, it was not like it was before.
>> It was before Fidel Castro?
>> Before Castro.
But he enjoyed that.
And then after he got out of the service in 1948,
he was in the Navy reserve
for four years at the Air Reserve.
And they met up at Dobbins Air Force Base.
And then two, they also
had a place over in Athens they had to go to sometimes.
So he was in that for four years.
>> And what was his rank when he was discharged?
>> He was a seaman's first place.
>> So when he got out,
you said he was in the reserve.
And how long was he in the reserve for?
>> For four years.
And it was of course, just a weekend thing.
And I think maybe they didn't have to go every weekend.
It was just some weekends,
but occasionally,
when they were working at the Naval air station,
they would get to take a flight someplace
and they would fly down to
Pensacola or different places like that on the weekends.
And so he enjoyed that I think that
more than he did being on the destroyer.
>> And so when you met him,
where was he working?
>> Well, after he got out of service,
he immediately went to work for Abbott Laboratories,
a Pharmaceutical Company, and that was in 1948.
And he worked there for
35 years and was able to retire at 55.
That was their policy.
If you had been there 35 years and you were 55 years old,
you could retire. So he did.
>> And when you met each other
and you were going together for
a bit and you were trying to convince him to marry you.
What were your hopes and dreams for the future?
>> Well, I knew what a good person he was.
And so I just hope that we'd be able
to get married and have a house,
have a home, and we never had children,
and I think one reason was the fact that he
had four younger brothers and sisters,
he didn't really care about having
children and I didn't care either.
We got married and like I said,
about two years later,
we bought a little house up in Smyrna.
Back in those days,
we didn't make much money,
but it seemed like it went a long ways.
And we had a nice little house in
Smyrna and we still own and I live there now.
And later on and we were able to
buy a place up on Lake Hartwell,
which is in North Georgia
and near a little town called Lavonna.
And we lived there for 35 years mostly.
We still kept our house here in Smyrna because we came
down all the time for birthdays and stuff.
We came down almost every weekend.
We reversed ourself.
When we were working, we went
to the lake on the weekends and
then later we came to Atlanta on the weekends.
>> So back tracking just a little bit.
Can you tell me about your wedding?
>> Well, we got married on October 19th, 1957,
and we had a church wedding at a little church
actually was across the street
from the high school where I
went called Bethany Methodist Church.
And it was in the fall,
so we had a fall theme, I guess.
I had a champagne color dress which I still have.
And my husband, he wore
a brown suit and we had that theme.
And my sister, Virginia,
she arranged our little wedding reception at the church.
I don't remember exactly how many people we had there,
but it was wasn't an elaborate thing,
but we had a nice wedding.
I should have brought you a picture of it. I didn't.
But anyway.
And then we went to we got
married and we went to New Orleans on our honeymoon.
So then he showed me around in
the places that he had been when he was in service.
>> And what do you remember about New Orleans?
>> Well, I remember the one thing I wanted to do really
bad was to go to the Roosevelt Hotel to the blue room.
On Saturday nights, we used to
listen to the radio and they had
a performance every Saturday night from
the blue Room atop the Roosevelt Hotel,
and I thought that that was a wonderful thing.
And so that was one of the things I wanted to do.
But it was very, I
had not traveled a lot and New Orleans
was pretty even back in
a wild town in the French quarters and everything.
But we did all the things that people do in New Orleans
and we had a picture made in
front of Jackson Square and
we went to the French quarters and.
>> Jim we listening to any Jazz
music while you were there?
Were you a fan of Jazz music?
>> Oh, yes. He was not a dancer much,
but we did all those things.
>> So you mentioned that he showed you some
of the places where he'd served.
Do you remember any of those places?
>> We actually did take a ferry across to Algiers
and then he just told me how they
were used to go to the French quarters
and things that they did there.
>> And how did he
stay in touch with his buddies from the Navy?
>> Well, his friend Philip Martin,
who was a lifelong friend.
We would live close to them.
And then James Wheelis,
that friend that he had made who was from Washington,
Georgia, actually moved to
Smyrna and went to work for Lockheed.
And so therefore we became friends with him again.
And then my husband was
very active in the American Legion.
He was a member of American Legion post
1506 in Bolton and he was
a 72-year member of
the American Legion when he passed away.
And so we were active down there doing things.
He was held every office in the American legion
from post-commander down to janitor
because everybody had to do the share.
We did a lot of legion work
and then after we got married,
I belonged to the Zero and was later president of it.
And we did a lot of social work
there in the community and for veterans.
Then but he and Philip stayed
lifelong friends and he and James did too.
And they both belonged to the American legion.
We all were friends there.
And he did keep in touch with a couple of
other people out of his from his ship.
One in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania that we used to correspond with.
And then later on he did join there was
a club for the USS Waldron club.
So he found a lot of names of
people and we would contact them by phone.
Unfortunately, we never went to one of the reunions,
but he did keep in contact with a few people.
>> Why do you think and you can speak for yourself
to the involvement with
the American Legion was important to him?
>> It was very important.
And as I said,
he was a founding member of that post. I don't know.
It just seemed like it was
a community thing and
he just really enjoyed doing the work.
They would go to the Veterans Hospital once a month and
take gifts and we sit gifts at Christmas time there.
He disliked doing that.
He was very involved in it.
He was also a life member of the Elps Club in Atlanta.
And we never were that active at the Alps Club,
but because all our time
was taken up at the American Legion.
>> So Welch just passed away recently.
Can you tell me when he passed?
Your husband, he just passed away recently.
>> He passed away on May 6t, 2021.
He was 93 years old and unfortunately,
he was bed ridden the last three years of his life.
I will say that during the time after he
retired and when he got sick,
we traveled a lot not out of
the country other than we did go to Mexico into Canada,
but we did travel about I think that we went to like
46 of the states and that we love to drive on our trips.
And so we took trips everywhere.
>> What kind of car did you have?
>> We always had a good car.
He like cars.
Well, we used to have
a used car because
we had to have two cars to get back and forth to work.
We had a 1951 to
two smobile that we took on a trip to
California the second year we were married.
We drove 6,010 miles in two weeks
and saw a lot of the stuff across the country.
We love to drive and we love to travel that way.
>> So reflecting on your life with Ray,
how do you think World War II and
its aftermath affected your experiences?
How did World War II,
what role did that play in the world?
>> Well it played an important role
in the fact that unfortunately,
he wasn't able to take
advantage of the educational thing,
but we wouldn't had a house if it hadn't been for
the VA loan that
we got on our house because that's
the only way we were able to buy a house at that time.
I guess because of the fact that he
was in at the end of the war,
it did not affect him as
much as it would have some people earlier,
but he was very patriotic
and he did enjoy telling people about his Navy days.
>> What do you think serving in the Navy meant to him?
>> Well, I think it was a growing up period for him too,
and that was the first time I'm
sure he'd ever been away from home.
And so he did not learn
any craft in the Navy because I
think he was a cook at one time.
So therefore, he did learn to do some cooking.
I think that it helped him to grow up and be
independent and be out on his
own because he had always
been the older brother at home,
first, the only child and then the older sibling.
So I think it really was a liberating experience for him.
>> And what did it mean to you?
Was it something that you were proud of, his service?
>> Yes, I was very proud of it.
And I'm very proud of his service at the legion.
We did a lot of good work for people
and he was, as I said,
very patriotic and it
was a very good experience.
>> What are the biggest changes you've noticed between
that time right at the end of
World War II and now in this country and in the world?
>> Well, it's not the same place at all.
Right now, if you asked me how I feel,
I've never been afraid to go out, but now I am.
When I was growing up,
we thought nothing walking a mile by ourselves.
We knew everybody along the road.
Now people don't know their neighbors.
In the community where we bought our house,
we were friends with two or three people.
But even back then in 1960,
people in our neighborhood,
we worked and a lot of people stayed home all the time,
but it's just a different world.
I can't even tell you how much I
miss being able to go to Atlanta and enjoy things.
We did that. As I said,
there was nothing unusual for us
to go down there for the day with
my mother and you knew all your neighbors,
and you have a lot of relatives around and
now your family is scattered from one end to the other,
and it's just a completely different world.
>> So thinking about specifically,
you and your family decided to
donate your husband's Navy uniforms to our museum.
Can you tell me a bit about that decision?
I know it was through a friend, through Stephen Hodges.
>> Well, when we
were moving out of our house in the Labon,
that was after my husband got sick and
I was having to sell my house there.
And we were up cleaning out
the house and my nephew, Bill Black here,
was there and I knew
my husband's navy uniform was
in our little crawl space in the attic.
And so we got the suitcase down,
and opened it up and Bill was really
fascinated his uniform was in perfect condition.
And I said, I don't know what we'll do with this.
I guess, we could take it to
the good will or something,
and Bill insisted, no,
we're not going to do that.
There's some place that would like to have this.
And so actually, Bill Black did most of the work.
He crusaded for this and the man that you mentioned,
I have not even had the pleasure of meeting yet.
But Bill knows him and Bill was just very
excited about getting the uniform put
someplace because he's a very patriotic person, too.
>> So thinking about patriotism,
why do you think it's important for
students to learn about history?
>> About history? I think it's very important,
and I think it's really a shame these days that
they are not teaching all types of history in school.
When I was in school,
we had world history, Georgia history,
and you knew about how the country was formed,
and you were proud of it.
So many things now are changing that,
I hate to say this, I'm just a plain Southern person.
I'm a Southern lady.
I was born and raised in the Georgia area,
and it hurts me to see my heritage torn down.
Like I said, I was born and raised here and
now if I have to go to Atlanta,
I don't even know where I'm going
because street names have changed.
Everything has changed.
I'm not sure it's for the better,
but who am I to say?
And when you were asking about Black families,
there were none in our neighborhood,
but my husband worked with
some really nice people
and we're still in contact with some of them now.
I worked with very nice people like Black people,
and we were friends.
And I don't know,
life just changed.
[LAUGHTER]
>> What do you hope that students will
take away from learning about
yours and your husband's lives?
What do you hope that they'll learn?
>> I would hope that they would see that
the simpler life maybe might be the best life.
Like I said, we did not make a lot of money.
We were fortunate because he
did go to work with a good company,
so we were able to come out in our life and have things.
But I hope that they would learn that there's
something more than money.
There's friendship, there's community,
and lifelong friends that
you make in grammar school and you still have.
Unfortunately, many of mine have passed away, in fact,
the area where I grew up,
we have a little get together once a year,
a little reunion for the people from my community,
which is very nice to see people.
I don't know, I just can tell you
that life has changed so.
>> Is there anything I haven't
asked you about that you'd like to talk about?
>> Well, I'm not sure there is.
We pretty well covered it.
My husband, I should have
gave you my husband's parents' names,
which I did not do.
His father was Fred Thomas Campbell.
His mother was Gladys Hucklebee Campbell.
And his father was a very good man.
As I said, they came along
and had four siblings close together and therefore,
that's why we all had to
leave school and help out at home.
But I'm still very close with my sister-in-laws,
and was with his brother who
passed away about five years ago.
I talk to his sisters almost every day.
I consider them like sisters to me.
>> And your nephew and his wife who were here today.
How are they related to you?
>> Well, my niece, Gingi,
Virginia Black and Virginia Iredale Black
and her husband, Bill Black.
My sister had three children, a son,
Jay Iredale, and then two daughters,
Betsy, Elizabeth, she's Elizabeth.
This one's Virginia.
They have the same names as me and their mother.
And we've always been
close to all our nieces and nephews,
not having children, we barge kids all the time.
Actually,, Gingi who's here with me today and I,
not only was she my niece,
but later on we worked together at
a doctor's office for several years.
So therefore, we were working
companions as well as relatives.
And I can't tell you how much they both mean to me.
And then they have a son,
Brandon, who is my great nephew,
but since we've been here and he's been sick,
Brandon works close by and he comes to see
me almost everyday at lunchtime.
And so we're just very close to my relatives.
And also, we were very close to my husband's.
My husband had his sister
that was next to him passed away
early and her husband passed away when our nephew,
Bob, was only seven years old.
So he was kind of a father figure to
Bob and they had a sister, Pam.
So they were like we helped raise those two.
And then we have several other nieces and nephews,
we're closer to those two and to my niece,
Gingi and Betsy, and my nephew,
her brother, Jay, who passed away a number of years ago,
but we're very close.
Our family is small but close.
>> Well, thank you so much for speaking with me
today and sharing your story and your husband's story.
I really appreciate it.
So thank you for being here.
>> I think it's a privilege that you're doing this,
and I'm so excited and I've
been telling everybody about it.
And hopefully that when you get the exhibit up,
we'll be able to come and visit.
>> Definitely. I will look forward to keeping in touch.
>> Thank you so much for your work.
>> Thank you.