Oral history interview of Mary Louise Rogers Davis

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Mary Louise Rogers Davis
Creator:: Palmer, Janet
Davis, Mary Louise Rogers, 1921-
Date of Original:: 2004-06-23
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Georgia--Atlanta
Davis, Marion Bedford Davis, Jr.
Rogers, Annie Estelle Glore, 1902-1961
Rogers, Henry, 1893-1987
Rogers, Marie, 1927-2010
Rogers, Charles Glore, 1932-1987
Rogers, Henry Elgin, 1932-1998
Atlanta Junior College
Bell Aircraft Corporation
Emory University
University of Georgia
Retail Credit Co.
Westinghouse Supply Company
Davison-Paxon-Stokes Company
Location:: United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Kentucky, Hendersonville
United States, Pennsylvania, Carlisle, 40.201499, -77.1890783
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Louise Davis recalls her experiences in Georgia during the Great Depression, World War II and her life after the war. She worked to put herself through college and was the first in her family to attend college. After her marriage she followed her husband to Pennsylvania and Kentucky for his wartime training, renting rooms and being hosted by local families such as the Clarks and Reverend Frye. Her husband shipped out for Europe after they had been married only six months; she returned to her parents' home in Atlanta. She describes living conditions at this time. He wrote to her every day, but it was two weeks before she received the first letter. She recalls the emotions she felt knowing he was at war, particularly when she heard about the invasion of Normandy on the radio. Before he left, they had established a code system so he was able to let her know where he was being located. He wrote to her about a French family with whom he stayed and their children were able to meet after the war. On his return home, his father, uncle and two cousins were all working on the train that brought him home and Louise met him at the train tracks at Howell Mill Road in Atlanta. Later they traveled to Europe, where he showed her many of the places he had been and she describes her experiences at an American cemetery in Luxembourg.
Louise Davis was an Atlanta resident during the Depression and WWII.
JANET PALMER: Today is June 23rd, 2004. My name is Janet Palmer, and I am interviewing Ms. Louise Davis for the veterans' history project. Ms. Davis was a civilian during World War II. Ms. Davis, would you please spell your name and give me your birth date. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: My name is Louise Davis, and it's L-O-U-I-S-E, D-A-V-I-S. My birth date is October 13th, 1921. JANET PALMER: And can you tell me about your life before the war, your family life and your background. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I am the oldest of four children. I was born to Annie Glore [PHONETIC] Rogers and my father Henry Rogers, who was an engineer on Southern Railway. I had one sister, Marie, who is six years younger than I, and twin brothers who are 11 years younger than I, so carried a good bit of responsibility in the family. I was the first person in my family to get a college education by sheer determination, went to the Atlanta junior college, which were at that time on Lucky Street next door to the Tabernacle in a very small building. We had 200 members with the school. And then went on one year to the evening school, as it was called then, Atlanta evening school, which is a part of the University system. I had to work in order to this to make a living to get through it. And I worked at Retail Credit after I graduated high school and after I got my junior college, worked at Retail Credit to make money to go to evening school. And it was there that someone saw me in the office of the evening school and asked if I would pose for a picture, which was an ad for Davidson Pattisons [PHONETIC] as it was then. And Mr. Scaperski [PHONETIC] who also took pictures of Margaret Mitchell took these pictures and they were in the paper. This is the original picture, and it was that picture which my future husband saw and decided to ask me to go out with him. JANET PALMER: What did you major in in college? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I majored in English, but I had to go to the University of Georgia to finish, because at that time Georgia State was not in existence. It was, you know, there evening school and they only did commercial degrees so I had to go to the University of Georgia, which I did. JANET PALMER: This picture was in the paper before you graduated? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Yes. JANET PALMER: From college. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: It was. I was in my junior year of college at Georgia State. I was able to have a very good number of friends during the time that I was there, had dated a number of people and at that time was pretty well – supposed to marry somebody else and this man I heard about as a boy when he was – when he won the Latin context – second place I think for the United States. Is that correct? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] JANET PALMER: He went to the same school as you then? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: No. He went to North Fulton and I went to Fulton High School, because we lived six blocks apart but the line was in between and we were not allowed to go to North Fulton if you lived on this side. So I had to get on the street car and go to Fulton High School, which was where the stadium is now. It was on Washington Street, and I had to transfer in town and take two cars to get there. But I did decide after I got through junior college in the evenings and one year in evening school that I would go to Georgia, and I decided to major in English, which I did and finished in '42. Meanwhile, I had had several dates with this very brilliant man who had seen this picture and decided that he wanted me to go to dance with him, his medical school dance. And that was a year and a half before – two years before we got married, a good long while, and we dated off and on. And I was almost through college when I realized that this was the person that I really wanted to marry, very distinguished person, and I just loved him so. He came to my college graduation in 1942 that was in June and then I went to his medical school graduation the next few weeks. And it was July 22nd of '42 when he gave me my ring, and we had thought we'd get marry in July of the next year; however, the impending war changed our plans. We decided we'd best get married before then. However, I owed $240 on my student loan that I had borrowed and I had to pay that off, and I went to work Bell Aircraft and was made the supervisor of the – MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: -- personnel records department of Bell Aircraft. JANET PALMER: Where was that? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: It was at Rhodes Center. That's where this particular part of Bell Aircraft started. And the bomber plane was net opened. We were just hiring people. And I had a big $75 a month pay check. [LAUGHTER] That looked pretty big knowing that this poor guy was an intern and getting $30 a month. So when we decided to get married in December it was because he was able to have four days off if he would work four days for some people who wanted off on Christmas day and from the week before. So he worked 24 hours a day for those four days to get four days off for us to get married in December. It was war. It was not like ordinary times. We did not have silver; we did not have many of the things that they have now. Most of our gifts were pottery, crystal, things of that sort. It wasn't a big wedding. It was very small in the chapel of Second Ponce De Leon Church – Baptist church. And our great honey moon was one night at – what was the name of that place? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Famous hotel. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: No, it was the other one. JANET PALMER: In downtown Atlanta? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Downtown. But you see I'm old now and I forget things. But we had one night at this wonderful place. I know that it has this great room upstairs. It wasn't the paradise room [unintelligible] the other one. And then we spent the other three days trying to get into an apartment, which was within walking distance of Emory University so he could walk. We didn't have a car. And it was at 2080 North Decatur Road. It was an efficiency apartment that had been owned by a professor there and he had leased it to us for $35 a month. Well, he got $30 and I got $75 so you can figure that we didn't have very much to live on, and I had to walk from 2080 North Decatur down to Glen Memorial, down in front of Glen Memorial to catch the bus in order to get to work at Rhodes Center. I had to get on the bus and transfer in town and go back out to the Rhodes Center. I had to catch the bus at seven o'clock in the morning. So it was a stressful time and he was working many hours. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] JANET PALMER: What work did they do out there at the plant where you were working? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I was not at the plant. I was at Rhodes Center where they were hiring people. JANET PALMER: Just where they were hiring. Okay. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Who would go to work at the plant and they would go to the plant before I had to leave to go with him. I worked there until the end of May, because he was leaving in June to go to Carlisle Pennsylvania for his training. And they did open the plant and I did work there for a couple of days, but I needed to go with him because I knew our time was very short. I didn't know how short really, but he had six weeks at Carlisle and we got an apartment. What you did in those days, the husband went to wherever he was going and signed in and the wife went out and started walking the street to find a place that would put them up for the night, you know, let them stay there while the person was in training. And I found a place with some people named Clark, and they had a little boy about three years old. They had one attic room and it had folding cot – a folding sofa that would fold out, and that's where we stayed for those six weeks. JANET PALMER: Now did your husband enlist? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: No, he did not enlist. He was a Lieutenant beforehand, but in order to go into the Medical Corp. they had this special training at Carlisle Pennsylvania and he had to walk to work every morning and then they put him out in the training. One day I think he walked 20 miles or something like that. He was so worn out. It was really a hard time. But when he finished there he thought he was going to the 98th as he told in his story and he went to that particular place to sign in and they said “no, no, you're going to Hickory, North Carolina.” MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] JANET PALMER: Well before we do that, what did you do while you were in Pennsylvania? Did you work? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: No, I did not. I just waited for him. JANET PALMER: Okay. And how long were you – MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Morning to night. And I made friends with the Clarks and they took us out and showed us places. We were there six weeks and then we started this trying to get him settled thinking he was going in the 98th. He went to Hendersonville, North Carolina and I got a – MALE SPEAKER: Kentucky. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Kentucky, that's right. Hendersonville, Kentucky. It was on a river; I know that, because I went down to the river and cried. I thought he was coming back that night and I would have a hotel room. He didn't get to come home that night. They put him on call. And I was not but 21. I was young and it was pretty lonesome out there by myself. But he sent a friend of his to let me know that he was going to be on duty that night and that he could not come back. And he sent me home because there was no way that I was going to be able to stay there. JANET PALMER: [unintelligible] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Uh-huh, to my parents. And then he found out he was going to put in the 28th Infantry instead of the 98th. The 98th never went to war but the 28th was ready to go when he go there. This was the Pennsylvania unit and we knew that it was not for long, but I went with him. He came from maneuvers, which were in North Carolina, which is where he found out about this, he slipped home – MALE SPEAKER: In Tennessee. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: In Tennessee. He slipped home and we got on a train and went to Virginia to – MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: To Petersburg Virginia so that he could go to Blackstone, Virginia, which is where the 28th was getting ready to leave. Well, I went to Blackstone and I found a place where the river fry who let us stay there over night. And then he had to go back out to the barracks, and when he got there he found out that they were leaving and that I needed to go home. So I made arrangements to go home and he was trying to get back to see me and he got there as I put my foot on the train – foot on the thing to go home on a non-air conditioned troop train with all the troops. And I sat up all night going home crying all the way. And these poor guys felt so sorry for me that they went out and bought be a box of apple candy, and I saved that top to that apple candy to put over my letters when they came. [LAUGHTER] Then I got home and he left right away. Now we'd been married six months by that time – I mean eight months. He was to be 25 in October and I was to be 22. JANET PALMER: Did you know where he was going? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: No. Nobody knew anything. You were not told. We did not have television; we did not have telephones. We did not have anything and I didn't lay eyes on him for two years. JANET PALMER: How long was it before you heard from him? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Well he wrote every day, and I guess it was two weeks before I got the first letter, at least that long, because he was on the ship going over, and he had a tumultuous trip over. It was really terrible. But he was stationed then in Wales while most of the time before he went into combat. He did have a trip to England and I brought something to show that he bought for me there that is my prized possession. And he sent it home to me and I have protected it with my life. I just love it to pieces. I have a case for it at home. It's a piece of ivory hand carved and it has the most beautiful little rope that is carved here and the little men fishing, and I treasure it. He got that on one of his trips into England. When D-day came I had no idea where he was. I was panicked. JANET PALMER: Do you remember where you were when you heard about D-day? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I was at home and heard it on the radio. I was sick to my stomach. It was a terrible time. Now, meanwhile I needed to get a job. I was staying with my folks. I went back home. And I found a job at Westinghouse Supply Company, which was a mile and a half from my house, which was close enough so that I could get home and see about the mail every day. [LAUGHTER] And it was a good job. I took the job of a young man who had to go into the service and he was on the order desk of Westinghouse Supply. This required quite a lot of somebody who was an English major and had no idea about electrical equipment, but I learned everything I could about the catalog. I learned where Greenleaf cable was, how much it cost, where you could get it, what you could do. I really learned a lot and I worked very hard at that desk until it was time for him to come home. JANET PALMER: What did you do in your spare time when you weren't working? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: [LAUGHTER] Cried a lot and wished. I listened to music. We had things [unintelligible] Christmas when they would sing I'll Be Home for Christmas. I listened to all of those songs. I have records now of songs that were popular during that time. And I helped around the house because my twin brothers at that time were – they were about 11 years old and there was a lot to do around the house. My daddy would get peaches and things like that and we would peel them and can them and take care of – you know, we didn't have freezers like we do now and if you wanted to save something you canned it, so we did a lot of this. And I helped around the house. We had a house full of people. My grandmother and grand daddy were living there, my mother and daddy, and the twins and my sister. It was a big family and here I was in on top of all that. My aunt and uncle had gone by that time so that relieved it a little bit. But it was just one house where the twins had the back bedroom and my sister and I had the front bedroom, my mother and daddy the middle bedroom, my grandmother and grand daddy had the other bedroom. We had one bath and a half and you know you learn to live together and we did, but it was not real easy. A little neighbor of ours came to see me recently. She's not a little neighbor any more; she's old like I am. But she remember so well that she had worked at Westinghouse with me and that we would come back to see if the postman had come and she'd see him on the next street and run down and ask him if I had any mail. Mail was the most important thing in the world. And I did get a lot of it. He wrote me every day. He was so dear. Even when he just had a [unintelligible] he would write me a letter. He did write me one letter on a piece of birch bark and I really meant to get that and bring it and show, but I forgot. JANET PALMER: Was he able to tell you anything about what he was doing? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Not anything. Not anything. It was blank. The only thing we had – we had made ourselves a system to let me know approximately where he was by numbers. You know, we were going by the numbers on the map. We had figured out a way that he could let me know approximately where he was but I never knew exactly, didn't know when he was there and just couldn't tell us anything. And it was a long, long time. Now, I did do a lot of church work. I belonged to Morningside Baptist Church which was across town, and I would take my brothers there. I would go on the street car with them. We didn't have a car mind you, hard to believe [LAUGHTER]. I lived half a block from the [unintelligible]. I lived on Home Street, which is now a continuation of Chattahoochee Avenue which didn't exist at that time. But if you went across Howell Mill Road I lived on Home Street, which was right there, so I would go down to Howell Mill Road and catch the trolley and go wherever I had to go. And that's the only way we could get around. My daddy did have a car but I didn't drive. JANET PALMER: Was it pretty easy to get around? Could you pretty much go where you needed to go on the street cars? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: You just didn't need to go any where. You made your mind up that you just weren't going. You know, you can adjust to a lot of things you don't know you can. And young people today really don't have a clue as to what it's like to just exist. That's sort of what it was. I had a big salary. I was making $120 a month and man that was – after $75 and $60 at Retail Credit that was pretty good. And he had $30 – that's all the interns got then. And when he came back he didn't get any great big money either. It was not like it is today. You worked because you really wanted to be a doctor and that's the way it was. [Unintelligible] Anyway, making that much money, that $120, I was able to do anything I needed to do and I helped with the family, you know, I bought some groceries and did what I could to help with things. You didn't eat out then. That was unheard of. We didn't have all these places to eat either, believe me. But I used part of that money to help them, to help the boys, the twins, my sister whenever I could. And he determined to get 13 pounds, which is approximately $20 every month out of what he made, which was considerable. My goodness he was making $266 a month weren't you? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: That's when he got to be Captain, $166 a month, 166. So I saved every cent he sent home. He lived on $20 and I saved the rest. It was a life saver because when he got home I had $7,000 saved. And back then $7,000 was a lot of money. We could have bought a house. Seriously. Furnished. But this enabled us to bridge the gap that we had to bridge when we got training to be a cardiovascular surgeon. It was not easy, but it helped us out. At Westinghouse I was able to get all the Christmas decorations I wanted. And do you know we still use some of those Christmas decorations [LAUGHTER] many, many years later, and I still have some of them. And it was a very interesting time. I had friends who were married and had children, and I grieved. And then I got the story that he's going to France and staying with the Tenasack [PHONETIC] family – JANET PALMER: Can you tell us that story? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I can't tell it like he can tell it. But it was very interesting that these people offered him one evening to come to their home and have dinner, which he tells me lasted until the middle of the night because they would serve one course and while you talked they would take the dishes from that, wash them, come back bring the second course, and by eleven o'clock you were through eating. But he enjoyed being with them and they made him speak French the whole time he was with them. It was good for his French speaking ability. And they had one little girl who was at that time almost five years old. Her name was Nicole. And he sent me a picture of Nicole and he said he wanted to put in an order for a little girl just like that. And I did my best – we had a little girl not quite ten months after he got home and she looked very much like Nicole. And as she grew up and heard the story and knew that Nicole had a little sister, Jacqueline, they were still in Romaine France. Mary Ann had an opportunity to go to France. In fact, she studied – she was a French major from [unintelligible]. She had a chance to go to Strasburg and stay in Albert Schweitzer's room that he had been in when he was there. But she went back to France after she married Ricky and they looked up the Tenasack family and she got to know Nicole and [unintelligible] who both were doctors and worked in ophthalmology. JANET PALMER: Do you have any – while your husband was over there, do you have any memories of the major events – any special memories of any of the major events of the war other than D-day? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Oh yes. JANET PALMER: Were there any of them that really – MARY LOUISE DAVIS: [Unintelligible] Forest was the one that was the most traumatic to me. In fact, we had another friend who was in that war – some other friends who were in that part of the war, and it was a time when they were confused, the terrain was terrible, and this forest was so thick you could not even see your hand in front of your face. It was so dark in there. And it was at that time that he lost so many of his friends. There were 13 doctors in the big outfit and of those 13 doctors he was the one who was neither imprisoned or killed. They all had to be replaced. It was tragic, tragic thing. And then the Battle of the Bulge was just – well, we all were following everything we could, you know, I didn't know he was there. I didn't know this until later. But it was a turning point. That was the turning point of the war. JANET PALMER: Do your remember when you heard that it was over? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: The war? JANET PALMER: Yeah. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: He was home. JANET PALMER: He was home already? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Uh-huh. JANET PALMER: Well, do you remember when he came home? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: [unintelligible] war was over. Yeah, he was home in August of 1945. JANET PALMER: Tell me about him coming home. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: That was something. You know you just wonder how you can have such coincidences, but I told you my father was an engineer on the Southern Railway. His daddy conductor on the Seaboard Railroad, and it was a family of railroad people. The others about whom I speak are on his mother's side. But when he got ready to come home he got on this train and who would be the conductor but his daddy, hadn't seen him in two years, hadn't seen him! And dad said “Son, come go with me.” Big son is what he called him. “Big son come go with me; I want to show you somebody.” Took him up to the engine and there was his uncle Henry. This was on his mother's side, his aunt's husband. He was the engineer on that train. And across from him was Leon, who was uncle Henry's son who was the fireman and then dad says “Come on, I want to show you somebody else.” And he took him back and there was [unintelligible], his cousin that he had played with and loved all his life. And he was the [unintelligible]? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: On the train. Is that not a coincidence? JANET PALMER: Wonderful. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: They got to see him before I did. JANET PALMER: [unintelligible] know he was coming home? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Oh yeah, knew he was coming, but I didn't know about that. I didn't know about that. But we went down to Seaboard Railroad here to see him when he came up. And then what we'd do? I went to – did we go from the terminal station? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: That's right. He had to come [unintelligible], but I got to see him down the railroad tracks. On Howell Mill Road it crosses and that's where we saw him when he first – his mom and I were there. And it was so wonderful to have him back, but he still was not [unintelligible] he thought he was on his way to Japan because that's what they were planning to do with these guys. They were going to send them on over, give them a leave and send them on. And it was in September was it that – the 11th? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Yeah. He hadn't been home long when the Japanese War was over, and we knew then that he would be getting out, however, he had to serve time – we had to go to Hattiesburg, Mississippi for his last few weeks and by that time I was pregnant but I was going any way and I did. [LAUGHTER] I made him lose week because I wanted some turnip greens. I wanted my grandmother's turnip greens and we went AWOL from one night. [LAUGHTER] I got those turnip greens. You know I wasn't sick another day. But anyway that was the termination. That was a long trip home though. He had a box of graham crackers that I managed to eat almost all of a piece at a time trying to get from Hattiesburg to Atlanta on that train. It was a long trip. JANET PALMER: And then after he was done in Hattiesburg is there anything, any events or anything you remember in particular from when you were in Hattiesburg? Did you do anything special there? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Yeah, we went to New Orleans. It was the first time I'd ever seen New Orleans. Did you know [unintelligible] [LAUGHTER]? I didn't know. I was so sick. I couldn't eat anything. I couldn't enjoy it. But I did see New Orleans and we did eat watermelon. I could eat watermelon. And they had delicious watermelon in Hattiesburg and I had some there. We had a room and I stayed in that room all day long and I remember I washed clothes in the bath tub. And the lady who owned the place saw me trying to hang up clothes and she says “honey, you're going to have to do better than this; if you're going to have a baby you're going to have to learn how to ring clothes out.” [LAUGHTER] JANET PALMER: So how long were you there now? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Six weeks. About six weeks. About as long as we were in Carlisle. JANET PALMER: And then you came back – MARY LOUISE DAVIS: And came back and began looking for a place that we could possibly live. And I think we stayed with my folks for a little while. Yeah, between the houses until we could get a house in Decatur. We moved to Decatur so he could be close to Emory. And we did have a – we got us a Ford. It cost $600? MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Oh, that was the new one. Yeah, $1000. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: But anyway we had a car and we got this house in Decatur for $12,000 and managed to pay for that. I don't know how, but by that time he had a little bit more money he was making. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: That's how we managed that. I couldn't remember how we managed it, but the baby came and we had our hands full. And then he moved to Austin [PHONETIC] Hospital, which was in Chamblee and they gave us a whole ward for a house. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: And they had one bathroom you had four johns and over here you had a shower and a tub and four sinks and then you had a kitchen and then you had a little bedroom up here with a little bath. I never had so much to clean in my life. JANET PALMER: Was this just part of the hospital that wasn't being used? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Uh-huh, it was one war, one hospital ward and they let us have it for $20 a month. So that helped and we lived there until our son was born. Our son was born in 1949. Mary Ann was born in '46. JANET PALMER: Then you were there several years? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Yes, while he got his residency in chest surgery, which was complicated and hard, but after Merrill [PHONETIC] was born I think it was the next year that [unintelligible] because we had an opportunity to make a trip out west. We decided that before he went in practice we would make a big trip. So we got a tent and started out with this little automobile we had, two children, and we were going to California. Well we got as far as Kansas and had six inches of rain. The next thing we knew we were caught up in a huge flood. I hadn't seen one that big out there since that time. And we were in Salina Kansas at the time. They said you can go no further. We had gone on roads where you could not see the side of the road. You would pray that you were on the road, because it was up on a [unintelligible]. MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Anyway, we got to Salina and they said you can't go any further. There's no way you can get out here. So with those two kids we got the last hotel room in the whole place. We didn't have any money – [END SIDE A] [BEGINNING SIDE B] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: -- and Merrill was still in diapers and we were having to wash – they didn't have throw-aways like you do now. We had a time, but we went on to Colorado. We went that far and then came on back down and we didn't get to California because money was running out and we didn't have the $200. That whole trip cost us $200. Gasoline was 19 cents. You know, it wasn't like it is now. And we got back home and he opened his office and went into practice. And that was the beginning of our life. It really was. JANET PALMER: Well, thank you. Is there anything else you can think of that – you and your husband are you involved in any veteran groups or anything, keep in touch with anyone from back then? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: He has – since he wrote his book he has spoken to a number of veteran organizations. The last one was the Methodist church in Stone Mountain. There were 90 people at a Patriots -- I'm sorry. You can see Stone Mountain. It was the Patriots organization and he spoke there. We have gone to the reunions since we found out they were having them but we didn't know this until the 112th had a reunion and found us. And we went to that one – that was before you went to [unintelligible]. And that was when he saw his driver that had come from New York just to see him. It was a real emotional experience because he had cancer of the pancreas and he had driven from New York three weeks after his big surgery knowing he was not going to get well, but he heard that [unintelligible] and he had come down just to see him, had to go back the next day for treatment. It was so emotional. I could hardly stand it. We have been to several of the reunions. See he was in two outfits, 112th and 109th and we've tried to alternated which ones we went to. This year it's the 109th. I hope we get to go to it, but I'm not sure yet. JANET PALMER: Have you been over to France or any of the places? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Oh, he took me back in 1965. See this was a long time after the war. That was – MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: And he took me to all the places that he had been. And he knew those roads better than he knows the roads in Atlanta. He took me through to Luxembourg, to Belgium, Germany – MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] MARY LOUISE DAVIS: I did. I met the Tenasacks. It was a wonderful experience. I drove part of the way, drove through Aukin [PHONETIC], scared the fool out of my husband. We were trying to get back to Brussels to catch a plane and we almost missed it. And I was in a big hurry and we got to this intersection, there were no lights or anything and he says “who has the right of way?” I said “I do.” Scared him to death. He just about had a fit. But that was an exciting time. I was particularly impressed with the deity of Luxembourg. I had no idea how beautiful – it's like a fairy tale, so beautiful. But outside Luxembourg was this big cemetery and he took me to see that and it was overwhelming. That was in Holland I believe. And I was just overwhelmed at the [unintelligible]. And these were people; he'd known many of them. But that was an enriching experience. And then we went on a cruise to St. Petersburg and went to the capitols – the water way there, went to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, all of them. We came back rented a car and I drove 1200 miles across England getting honked at every round – do you know about the roundabout, everyone I came to. I never heard so many honks in my life. I never could make up my mind which way to go because driving on the left hand side is very difficult. But we went through England to Wales and he took me back to Wales where he had stayed most of the time before he went into combat. We got to see the castles and all the places that he had written me about that you'll read about in that book. It was an exciting time. And then we went across Ireland -- and I drove over to Ireland. We had a wonderful trip but it was so exciting for me to see the places that I had heard him talk about. Let's see, what else? We had four children by the way. We had Mary Ann, Merrill, Patsy, and Nancy. JANET PALMER: Four girls? MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Three girls. Merrill. JANET PALMER: Oh, Merrill. MARY LOUISE DAVIS: Merrill is the son named for his Chaplin. There was Captain Marion B. Davis or M.B. Davis and then there was Captain [unintelligible]. Well he never had like the name Marion. The other Captain was Merrill, Captain Merrill and he was the Chaplin and he like him a lot and so we named our son after him and he doesn't even know it. He never knew and he never found it out. But Mary Ann is 58 and she lives in Las Altos, California. For many years live in Santa Clara, but moved several years ago up there. She has three sons. She's married to Rick James who is a computer – has his Masters in computer arts. He works for Yahoo. They have three sons, all of whom [unintelligible] wonderful. They have three grandchildren. So I have a family in California. Then there's Merrill – wait a minute. Mary Ann is a music director at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in San Jose and also has choral groups that she teaches in one of the elementary schools there, has 30 children there. It's very good. Merrill – we're all musical. Merrill has his Masters degree from Cincinnati Conservatory. That was in orchestra conducting. He had his Bachelors degree in piano and organ and [unintelligible] transcription, lives in Florida has two sons. He has two sons. And then we have Patsy who lives in Paulos [PHONETIC] Island. She had two children by her first children and has re-married Mike Storks who is an anesthetist and they live in Paulos Island in a nice house. And he has six children [unintelligible]. They have a big family. And then we have Nancy who never married. She's our baby. She's 47. And we have just been to Carnegie Hall to hear her play her oboe and English horn with the National Wind Ensemble. She was auditioned with college students from every where. She's getting her Bachelors in music education from Kennesaw. And she was one of three oboists from the United States playing in this 75 group ensemble. And it was an exciting time for us. So that's our family now. JANET PALMER: Very good. Well thank you very much. Is there anything else you'd like to – thank you. [END INTERVIEW] [KS]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/150
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 58:08
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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