Oral history interview of J. Lester Fraser

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of J. Lester Fraser
Creator:: Gantsoudes, Lillian
Fraser, J. Lester, 1909-2011
Date of Original:: 2003-10-10
Subject:: B-24 (Bomber)
PB4Y-1 (Bomber)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Fraser, Muriel Behrens, -1999
Waterman, Clare
Ile de France (Steamship)
Queen Elizabeth (ship)
University of Chicago
Marshall Field & Company
Macy's (Firm)
Rich's (Retail store)
SCORE (Organization)
Consolidated B-24 Liberator (bomber)
Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator (bomber)
Location:: France, Île-de-France, Paris, 48.85341, 2.3488
United Kingdom, England, RAF Dunkeswell
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Cobb County, Dobbins Air Reserve Base, 33.919538, -84.51632
United States, Illinois, Cook County, Chicago, 41.85003, -87.65005
United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729
United States, Oklahoma, Comanche County, Lawton, Fort Sill, 34.6809319, -98.5708846797856
United States, Rhode Island, Quonset Point Naval Air Station
United States, Tennessee, Shelby County, Memphis, 35.14953, -90.04898
United States, Virginia, Norfolk, Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field, 36.93533, -76.2923
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Lester Fraser relates his experiences in the Naval Air Forces during World War II. He finished college in 1941 and was working in the retail industry when the war broke out. He joined the Navy Air Forces as an administrative officer. He describes his basic training as marching in the snow with a rifle. He was sent to Naval Headquarters, Atlantic Command, to help form and commission scout observation service unit (SOSU) number two. He describes the Navy's building of heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts and how their SOSU functioned on board. While crossing the Atlanta, his ship zig-zagged because it was too fast for it's convoy. Their mission was to fly submarine patrols using the Navy's version of the B-24, which had a split fin and rudder. The pilots called them flying coffins because they would break in two during a water landing. He recalls having leave in Paris and flying around the top of the Eiffel Tower, where the pilot performed a slow bank around the top so they could see how all the avenues angle out from the city's center. They then flew one-hundred feet off the ground all the way back across France. After the war's end, he was in charge of the disposition of the unit's aircraft and sending pilots home according to the points system. He reports that the pilots always wanted to RON (remain over night) in Atlanta. The British government requested the planes for flying to their colonies, but the State Department ordered Lester to pull them apart using loops and bulldozers. The engines then went to the Army Air Forces. Fraser describes his post-war career in the retail industry, including the evolution of Buckhead and Lenox Square.
Joseph Lester Fraser was a Naval officer in Europe during World War II.
LESTER FRASER Veterans History Interview October 10, 2003 Atlanta History Center Interviewer: Lillian Gantsoudes Transcriber: Joyce Dumas [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: My name is Lillian Gantoudes. I am on the staff here at the Atlanta History Center where we are doing this interview today. Today's date is October the tenth, ninth. We're really not sure. And today I'm interviewing Mr. Lester Fraser. Mr. Fraser would you repeat your name and give me your birth date and your birth place? Fraser: My official name is J. Lester Fraser. I was born nineteen oh nine in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer: Okay. Can you give us your full birth date? What month and day? Fraser: I said June first. Interviewer: I'm sorry. Fraser: Nineteen oh nine. Interviewer: And did you grow up in Chicago? Fraser: Yes. Interviewer: [inaudible] spent there? Fraser: Graduated from the University of Chicago. Interviewer: What year did you graduate? Fraser: Nineteen forty-one [sic; date may be incorrect]. Interviewer: And what did you do upon graduation? Fraser: I was lucky. At the height of the Depression I got a job with the manufacturing division of Marshall Field's and Company and they eventually transferred me a couple of years later, in nineteen thirty-four to New York City. And I was convinced to go to Macy's on an executive training squad and I left Marshall Field's and joined Macy's and stayed with Macy's until I went into the service during World War Two. Came back to Macy's and eventually Macy's transferred me to Atlanta in nineteen forty-eight. Interviewer: What were you doing for Macy's? You went through the executive training program. What were you doing at Macy's prior to the war? Fraser: I became an assistant buyer. Eventually became buyer and eventually became merchandise manager. Interviewer: What were you a buyer of? What were you buying? Fraser: Ladies' coats and suits. Interviewer: And then merchandising was the same? Ladies' coats and suits? Fraser: Well, no. I eventually… Interviewer: I mean before the war. Before the war, were you still in ladies' suits? Fraser: Yes. Interviewer: Tell me some of the styles of the time that you were…that you were buying. Fraser: [laughs] I can remember we used to sell coats that we trimmed with different furs that came, we called them tuxedos. They came around the neck and all the way down the front. That was…I had big promotions in that. We used to sell loads of those coats. Interviewer: What were the coats made of? What fabric? Fraser: Wool. Interviewer: Wool? Were they in colors or was everything black? Fraser: Oh, definitely colors. Interviewer: Lots of colors? Fraser: Yeah. Interviewer: The suits that the women wore. Were they tailored? Fraser: Definitely. Interviewer: Were they all made of wool? Fraser: Very much tailored in the men's…in the…they weren't the type of suits you'd find in the dress department. They were made of sturdy wool and we had pantsuits and skirt suits. Interviewer: Pantsuits for women? Fraser: Yes. Interviewer: Prior to the war? Fraser: Yeah. Interviewer: I didn't realize that women were wearing pants that soon. Were you drafted or did you enlist? Fraser: Well, [laughs] it's a very amusing story. My wife, who I married at Macy's, she was millinery and shoe stylist, we had a sailboat on Long Island Sound and weekends we'd go sailing. I loved the water. Interviewer: Tell me your wife's name. Fraser: Muriel Fraser. And we got married in thirty-seven. We had a son in thirty-nine. Interviewer: And his name? Fraser: Tom Fraser. And the war broke out and after a year I got patriotic and felt I ought to join the Navy. So I went down to Ninety Church Street in New York City to join the Navy and instead, I walked in the wrong door and it was Navy Air Force. They wouldn't let me out, so I wound up as an administrative officer in training for the Navy. And I had most unusual experiences. I was very, very fortunate in my duty. Three different duty assignments that I'm really proud of. Interviewer: Well, was there a boot camp involved? Fraser: Yeah, officers… Interviewer: Where was boot camp? Fraser: I had to go for two months training at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. Interviewer: And what was that like? Fraser: Marching in the snow with a rifle in January and February. [laughs] Interviewer: All right. In what year are we talking about? Tell us again. Fraser: Nineteen forty-three. Interviewer: Okay. January, nineteen forty-three, you were in the snow marching in Rhode Island for two months. What followed that? Fraser: Then, a group of us were sent down to Norfolk, Virginia, which was the site of the Atlantic Command of the Air Force, ships, submarines, the whole works. That was the naval headquarters. And we were put into a pool and we would get…all day long, one guy was sent to Argentia [Newfoundland], one was sent to Panama Canal, one was sent to different training facilities and I wound up in a command at Norfolk at the naval air station that was a pool for pilots, planes and enlisted men to go…we flew catapult seaplanes off battleships and cruisers. And I'd been there two weeks and had a wonderful commanding officer at the time, which we turned out to be wonderful friends all during and after the war. He was a graduate of the Academy, class of thirty-seven. And I was his assistant. After two weeks, we got a command notice to form and commission as a separate command…we were a pool of about forty pilots, twenty airplanes and lots of enlisted men. And we were to form and commission [inaudible] Observation Service Unit Two. Number One was gonna be on the West Coast. And according to Navy regulations, the commanding officer and the executive officer of a naval aircraft unit or squadron, had to be pilots. I was not a pilot. I was in my early thirties. Too old to go to flight school. But my skipper was so…liked me so well, fortunately, he flew to Washington, got a special dispensation and I became executive officer of the squadron. I was the only executive officer in the whole Navy, I think, during World War Two that was not a pilot. So, we were building all the big…at that time, the big battle dreadnoughts, the battleships the Missouri and the Wisconsin and the New Jersey and the Iowa. Those four big dreadnoughts and a couple of heavy cruisers. And my job was to take five pilots, a senior naval aviator, two [inaudible] juniors, two ensigns and we would get a directive from naval headquarters to, say, form and commission the naval unit of…the aircraft unit, for argument's sake, the Iowa. So, we would…I would pick the pilots and we would train as a group about two months before they went aboard the ship after the ship was commissioned. So I put all those pilots aboard those big battleships. Interviewer: How many pilots would be in each training group? Fraser: I told you, there was eight…there were three planes, five pilots: a senior lieutenant, two junior grade lieutenants and two ensigns. And after a couple years of that, I had known the commanding officer of another unit. I got to know [him] in Norfolk, but he went on to England to “head run seven”, which is…had big four engine anti-submarine patrols and they'd be air stationed over there. And he needed a third in command, an administrative officer which did not have to be a pilot. He intervened, which I did not know, and I get orders to report for duty to England. I went to England and I was third in command there. We had seven hundred and fifty officers and men. And there was a very interesting experience. Interviewer: How did you get to England? Did you [inaudible]? Fraser: No. We zigzagged on the Ile de France because we were too fast to go slow in a convoy. So we were zigzagging. That took about four and a half days because on the way home, I came back on the Queen Elizabeth. We didn't have to zigzag, the war was over in Europe. Anyhow, the war over in Europe on May fifth, nineteen forty-five and we were awaiting orders to go back home. Originally we were…get transportation on the Queen Elizabeth. We go into New York City, take the night train to Norfolk with my wife and children. We were gonna have thirty days leave and go on to the South Pacific. We boarded up at Gurich, Scotland, which is outside Glasgow, on the Queen Elizabeth, who normally carries two thousand passengers and a thousand in crew. We were the first to go aboard. We had twenty thousand military personnel on that one ship. I thought it was gonna sink with so many people. So we get to the middle of the Atlantic on the sixteen of August, I think it was. The Japs heard I was coming and they quit. They gave up the war. So I never did have to go to the South Pacific. So we landed in New York on a sunny, hot day in August. The war had been over there and not a soul was stirring. It was ninety degrees and I finally got the night train down to my family in Norfolk and reported for duty there. And again, the war had been over. We had planes all scattered all over the countryside from Argentia, Newfoundland, down [to] the Panama Canal. So I was called into the executive officer of the naval air station there and he gave me a job that I was to take command and we had all this pool of young pilots waiting to get out of the service. As you remember, they were on the point system. You had to have so many. My points, I was not due to get out until January of forty-six. He said he wanted me to organize and we took all aircrafts that were a year or older. I was to fly them to get squadrons, groups that would fly them to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for dead storage and any planes under a year old to the Naval Air Training School in Memphis. So I would organize a group of three pilots at a time to fly three aircraft to the various…on a schedule run. And it was interesting because at that time all the pilots wanted to RON in Atlanta. In aircraft language that means remain overnight. I could not…never been to Atlanta and I really never heard of Atlanta. Went, “Why are all these young kids, young pilots …everyone wanted to RON before they flew on to Oklahoma or to Memphis.” Well, it seems that during the war, the young pretty ladies loved Navy pilots. And when any…they would go out to Dobbins and the…show them, they had all these parties and things. So all the young pilots had…all they could do was…all they wanted to do on that flight was go to Atlanta and have a good time. We eventually got the planes further out. Interviewer: Can you take me back…tell me about your military service while you were in England, right at the end of the war. Fraser: Well… Interviewer: What were you doing in England? Where were you stationed? Fraser: It's called Dunks Row, which is a hundred and fifty-five miles west of London and ten miles, fifteen miles above the Channel. We, as I told you, we were flying big, four-engine planes. Actually, the Army was flying, which they didn't like either, was called the F-24s, the Liberators. We flew the same plane except the construction, where the Army had a single fin and rudder, the Navy version had a split fin and rudder. But what was bad about that plane…see, in those days, the Air Force was flying B-17s over Germany, bombing there. Now that was a great airplane, really sturdy. It would…if it had to make an emergency landing in the water, it would stay in one piece. The PB4Ys, or the Army version of the B-24s, they called that the Flying Coffin, because when we had to make emergency landings you had to keep radio silence. Always broke up in two. Pilots didn't like that airplane. And [laughs] we had one amusing experience, one of the many I could tell you about. As I said, the war was over on May fifth, and we were sitting around waiting for orders. We finally got some orders to R and R, rest and recreation, to fly to Paris for forty-eight hours. And we…this was the first week in June, and we flew into Paris. I had not been to Paris before, but my wife had been…had gone to the Sorbonne. She spoke beautiful French. Well anyhow, we arrived in Paris and bummed a…another friend of mine bummed a Jeep from air office and wandered around the back streets of Paris, trying to find something for our wives. But they jacked up the prices. The chap that was with me spoke beautiful French. He did not let on that he understood. In every little shop we went to in the back streets, “Here comes those rich Americans. Jack up the price.” So we never bought a darn thing for our wives because we weren't…we didn't think very much of the Parisians with that attitude. So the last…the second day, we were on three-hour daylight saving time over there. So when we left at seven, it was really only four o'clock. Whether you know it or not, the architect who laid out Paris, France; Washington D.C., Mexico City; all three cities are exactly alike. They start out with the center core with the roundabouts and then they would angle out with the boulevards and then some more circles and around. So the three cities are exactly alike. So this was on a June night, about first week in June. Setting sun, everything looked…so we…there were only eight of us on this great big, old bomber that we had. And we took off and I remember the pilot, Clare Waterman, said to me, says, “Let's give the boys a thrill”. So he takes this big old bomber up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and I don't think there was a foot between the port tip and the top of the tower. And he made a beautiful three-hundred-and-sixty-degree slow bank all around the tower and we could see the glorious sight of all the avenues down below us. And when we finished he says, “Now let's get the hell out of here”. And we flew one hundred feet off the ground all the way across France to duck radar. We were never reported. We got away with that little stunt. [laughter] Interviewer: Oh my goodness. What fun. Fraser: What? Interviewer: What fun. Fraser: Oh. What's next? Interviewer: Is there anything else that…what…did you correspond with your wife? Fraser: Oh, sure. Interviewer: Did she ever come over? Fraser: Oh, no. We corresponded. Interviewer: Did she send you anything? What did… Fraser: Well, they wanted me…Navy headquarters in London wanted me to stay for a two-year hitch and I could bring my wife and children. But three years was enough. I wanted to get back. Interviewer: Were there any guys that you were friends with that you met during military service that you keep up with or… Fraser: They're all dead. I'm ninety-four years old. There's not many of us left. Interviewer: Is there anything else that you remember about where you were stationed in England? Were you in barracks? What were the barracks like? Fraser: We had…they called them Nissan [phonetic] huts. It was a metal thing and they had in the center, it looked like a goat's udder or something. I forgot what they called it. Something bag. And that's where your water…you drank out of that thing. It was suspended from the top. And we [laughs]…I can tell you a very, I think, amusing experience. I got a call from the admiral's aide in London. I told you I was the administrative officer of the squadron. And he said, “Les,” he says, “the admiral is having a dinner party. He's having the general of the Army, general of the Air Force, general of the Marines.” We had at our air station, wonderful food which we brought over on our own seaplane tenders. We had Filipino [inaudible] chefs and they made the best homemade ice cream you ever saw. He says, “Les, the admiral would like to serve some of your famous homemade ice cream.” And he says, “Can you get me a five-gallon can.” I said, “Okay.” I get a hold of the officer in charge of the mess. So Clare Waterman and I took a little twin-engine plane with a five-gallon can of ice cream. Where they got the dry ice, I'll never know. We flew into London. The admiral's car meets us, takes the ice cream. On the way back, we couldn't get the wheels down. This was a little twin-engine plane. He wanted to land on the runway and I said, “Nothing doing. That's concrete. We could get some sparks and have problems. Let's land on the grass shoulder”, which he agreed to. We landed on the grass shoulder. Well, we tore up two props, two engine cells, two air scoops. When I think what it cost the tax payers to deliver that lousy five-gallon can of ice cream. [laughs] Interviewer: What kind of ice cream was it? Fraser: Vanilla. Interviewer: Vanilla. [laughter] Was there any other…I mean, that's sort of…almost life-threatening. Were there any other times that you were in danger? Fraser: No, cause the war had progressed so far by the time I got over there. They were all the way…you know, out of France. They were bombing Germany at the time. The um…[laughing] well, you know, the crazy things you do. The end of the war, though, was very interesting. As I told you, we had these big planes and the British wanted to take over the planes. We heard they were gonna use them [as] post-war cargo planes cause they, you know, they had…places in the Near East and the Mid East and all that. The state department felt that we wouldn't let them have the advantage, cause we still were fighting in the Pacific. They didn't want to give the British any of those planes. So what we would do is all planes, again like I told you, all planes that were over a year old, we were to scrap. Anything under a year old, we'd fly back to the states, cause there was still the war in the Pacific. Well, we would take two bulldozers with loops of heavy wire cable and put them around the fuselage and pull them apart. And we made…then we took tractors and made…of all the metal, which we sold for scrap and the engines we flew up to the Army air station up in Ireland. But I thought that was a terrible thing to do, to see; planes being torn apart cause we didn't want to give the British the planes for… Interviewer: And didn't want to bring them home either. Fraser: Yeah. Interviewer: You talked about some of the barracks in England. Fraser: They weren't barracks. They were… Interviewer: Well, the… Fraser: It was a like a big-sized Eskimo igloo. That's what it was. Interviewer: Describe the living quarters in Norfolk, Virginia. Fraser: Oh, that was great. We, as I said, my wife and children…they had, I remember the name now, Nova homes was outside the…off the air station. They had built a subdivision. There must have been about thirty-five or forty homes. They were all alike, for the officers, which we had to rent. We had central heating. We had a potbellied stove in the living room and that heated the whole house [laughs] in those days. So we lived in the… Interviewer: And you said your wife and children. So how many children did you have at the time? Fraser: Well, at the time I went in I had one and then another one was born in Norfolk. Interviewer: What year was that? Was that child born? Fraser: That would be forty-three, I guess. Interviewer: And tell me that child's name. Fraser: Well, my son was born, [inaudible] was born. His name is Tom Fraser and my daughter's name is Edie Fraser. Interviewer: So and did you have any more children? Fraser: No. Interviewer: Just the two? Tell me about your children today. What are they doing today? Fraser: My son, who worked with me…when I left in forty-eight…Macy's. In nineteen fifty-one, I quit my job and opened up a little store in Buckhead called…ladies sportswear store called Casual Corner, which over the years, we grew and we grew and we had eleven stores and twenty years later I was bought out. So I had stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. And my son was with me. Then when I…I was given a two-year contract when we were bought out and he did various things including stores and things, but he was always…loved automobiles. He used to race them. Eventually, he opened up [inaudible] called Fraser Dante, D-A-N-T-E, his wife's maiden name. She's with him in the business. He keeps about forty, an inventory of about forty beautifully restored cars from the nineteen twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and now the seventy-one and seventy-two Cutlass convertibles. And they sell. And he goes auctions all over the country to buy cars and he sells all these restored cars. They're beautiful. Interviewer: He's based here in Atlanta? Fraser: He lives in Atlanta. Well, Sandy Springs. It's off Mansell [Road] up in Alpharetta. Interviewer: And your daughter? Fraser: There she is fantastic. My daughter, Edie Fraser, is married to a lawyer in Washington. She is…it's a very amusing story. She's…it's called…she's president or CEO, I guess, of a public affairs group. She has about forty employees. They do work for all the big corporations. They have three different functions. I know one is the [inaudible] and she works out manuals for major executives to interact within the [inaudible] and then the third thing I think is she studies and puts out all the poop on college requirements. She puts out a big book. There's any college in the United States you want to know what the story is on grants and where they're located, the prices, blah, blah. She sold the business two and a half years ago—I think she had maybe twenty-eight employees at the time—for a million seven. I didn't think she got enough money for it. The people who bought the business from her, and she was given a job. I don't know, maybe a hundred thousand [inaudible]. They were getting in financial problems. She bought the business back for seven hundred and fifty thousand. So she made a million out of that deal. Turns it around and two years ago last May, sold the business for two million seven hundred and fifty thousand and got a…I told her to take a three-year contract. They wanted five and we settled for four. Last year, her base salary was two hundred and fifty thousand and she made a bonus of a hundred thousand. She made three hundred and fifty thousand dollars as [an] executive. When she comes down here, she comes to see lousy little companies like Home Depot, Coca-Cola, UPS, Georgia Pacific. They're all her customers. Now this next week, she puts on the seminars and workshops. Next week at the…I forgot which hotel it is. She's got eleven hundred people from every major company in the…coming in for a two-day conference, workshops. On December first this year at Georgia Tech, she's putting on another workshop for fifty top executives at Georgia Tech, coming into Tech. And the next day, another fifty coming in at Coca-Cola. So she's quite a…she's quite a gal. Interviewer: She really sounds that way. I grew up in Atlanta and… Fraser: Where'd you go to school? Interviewer: …when I was in high school… Fraser: Where? Interviewer: I went to Westminster and I bought…I had an allowance of one hundred dollars a month and I think ninety-nine dollars and fifty cents of that went to Casual Corner. Fraser: Oh really? Well… Interviewer: It was during the time…it was in sixty-five to sixty-eight. And it was Lady Bug, [inaudible]. Fraser: Okay, oh god. You're right. Oh, you remember those names. Interviewer: I remember. And I bought them all from Casual Corner on East Paces Ferry. Fraser: That's right. That little store. Very interesting. My daughter and my son both went to Westminster. My daughter was president of her class at Westminster. Interviewer: What year did she graduate? Fraser: Trying to remember. Interviewer: I think she would have been older. I graduated in sixty-eight. Fraser: Yes, you were younger. How old are you now? Interviewer: I'm fifty-three. Fraser: Yes, she just had her sixtieth birthday. She was the class fifty something. Anyhow. Interviewer: Well, tell me about Casual Corner. I'd love to have the…just tell me about Casual Corner. Fraser: Well, I was very lucky. I was merchandiser. I was sent…Macy's sent me down here in forty-eight and I was merchandise manager of all the women's departments of Macy's. And my sportswear department after the war, ladies' sportswear, blouses, skirts, slacks, things like that were showing tremendous increases. That was before Limited or Gap or any of those had opened up. So I decided to leave Macy's. I had some money in my profit sharing I could live on, cause both the kids were at Westminster. I had a little overhead at the time. And I opened up that little store. But as I said, I was very lucky and my wife was very important. She was a great stylist. She helped me. But I had a friend of mine, Dick Rich, head of Rich's. And even though I was gonna be a competitor, before we opened the store his mother had come in and helped mark the goods. His head window display man did all our displays for us, courtesy of Rich's, before we opened. And in those days, people never had charge cards. You either paid cash or you wrote out a check. And you charged or wrote out a…either wrote out a check or…that's right. Or charged. So, ninety percent of my business was…turned out to be charged. In other words, I didn't have the cash flowing in the way I wanted. Dick Rich let me use Rich's credit department to okay all my charge accounts for the [first] three months we were open. That gave me a good start. But we were really fortunate. That was the trend and then we blossomed out. Eventually, I went into Lenox Square. The uh… Interviewer: How long was the store here in Buckhead open? When did you open that store? Fraser: I opened up…it was October third, nineteen fifty-one. Now, I was bought out twenty years later and the company, the big company, show company that bought me out, kept that store open for, I guess, about a year because it was too close to Lenox Square where my big store [was]. I had five thousand square feet at Lenox Square. I had nineteen hundred square feet and they said that was ridiculous. The stores were too close. They were right. Interviewer: Well, I always went to the one on East Paces Ferry. It was a wonderful store. Wonderful store. Fraser: We were very blessed to be…the timing was right for the sportswear to blossom. Now it's big business. But today, I would hate to be in the retail business. You're in all the malls, seven days a week, six nights. Every time you train a good manager, The Gap or Limited would steal them away from me. So the personnel thing was a…it just wasn't worth the headache. Interviewer: Well, what was it like being in the retail business in the fifties and sixties in Buckhead? Fraser: Pretty good. Interviewer: Before the malls. What other stores were… Fraser: Lenox opened up in nineteen fifty-nine. Interviewer: Before Lenox, what was shopping like in the middle of Buckhead? Fraser: Well, that's another interesting story. When I first opened up, we had diagonal parking and the city said, “No, that was too much hazard”. We're doing too much business, backing up and creating problems. So they put in the meters, but I took the vacant…there was a vacant lot across the street, back at where High Five Buys is, next to the old Peachtree Café. And I got all the other merchants to subsidize and we called it the Buckhead merchants shopper's lot. And the…my bookkeeper would take in the day's receipts and then bill all the other merchants for their share of the tickets. In those days, there wasn't any night business, so we were…the lot was open at night. Well today, it's the [inaudible] way, you know. That lot is…with all that goings on in Buckhead, that's a very much of a well-used lot. The interesting part is, I would say, of Casual Corner operation…a friend of mine who knew…I don't know if you used to remember, as long as you're an old Buckhead girl. There was a good men's store and he had a branch at Lenox Square. Interviewer: [inaudible] Fraser: Called James…John Jarrell [phonetic]. Interviewer: Oh. Fraser: Yeah. He had that five-thousand square foot store right across from Rich's and he tried to go into the ladies business. He put in about three hundred and fifty square feet in the middle of the store and he wasn't very successful. So this friend of mine intervened for me to lease that. So I was running the Buckhead store down on East Paces Ferry and we did extremely well. We had a…we stretched a little bit. I think we ventured around the corner fifty feet. We were doing three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that little hole. Interviewer: And where was that store? Fraser: John Jarrell's. Interviewer: Where? Fraser: In the middle of the men's store. Interviewer: Where…where… Fraser: We were lease… Interviewer: Where was the men's store? Fraser: It was right across from Rich's. Interviewer: Oh, at the mall. Fraser: At Lenox Square. Interviewer: Oh, okay. Fraser: We had five…he had that five thousand square feet. So he got in financial trouble. John had died. It was his son Frank and the deal was, he would handle all my accounts, take in the cash and the charge. He'd take twenty percent and give me the rest, see. He got in trouble, went bankrupt and I got stuck for eighty thousand dollars and Lenox now said, “Please, take over.” So I became…I took over the whole five thousand square feet. This time they didn't tell me to close down East Paces Ferry. So, we opened up and we did very well. We were doing a million and a half dollars in that store when I was bought out. Interviewer: The men's store that I remember I thought you were talking about in Buckhead was Fisher's men's store. Fraser: Oh, he was next door to me. Yeah. Interviewer: It was…well, I thought it was down a couple. Fraser: He was down… Interviewer: [inaudible] Roach. Fraser: He was down…boy, have you got a great memory. He was about three stores down. Yeah. You're right. Interviewer: When my brother got married, all of his suits came from Mr. Fisher's store. Fraser: Yeah. I still got a couple of jackets. Interviewer: Un-huh. Fraser: Fisher's. Interviewer: Cause I'm the oldest of four siblings and two boys, two girls and the girls would come to Casual Corner and the boys would be at Fisher's and I just remember Everett Roach sporting goods in the middle. Fraser: You're right. Interviewer: Um-hmm. Fraser: Um-hmm. Interviewer: [inaudible] Fraser: And so, when I was bought out in nineteen seventy-one, I was given a two-year contract, but say, “Stay out of our hair,” cause they ran everything out of Connecticut. So, I joined…you ever heard of SCORE, S-C-O-R-E? Well, some don't, some do. It's called Service Corps [of] Retired Executives. I…they work for the small business administration, the SBA, which as a consultant and a counselor, I've been doing that for over thirty years now. I work for them. We don't get paid. But it's a…we feel that we're doing…we're very…self-gratification of helping out people in business. Anyhow. And another thing is…I was gonna say…a very amusing thing when I think today. I had an assistant when I was at Macy's, actually over in the…Macy's store over in Newark before the war named Harry Murray. He went in the Navy, too. But he wasn't an officer cause he never had a college graduate [sic]. After the war, Harry Murray didn't go back to Bamberger's [phonetic] like I did. He went and joined Lord and Taylor's and he moved up the ranks. And every…I had to go to New York every month on buying trips and I would meet Harry for lunch, cause he used to be my assistant. He became president of Lord and Taylor's, eventually. And when Lenox opened up in nineteen fifty-nine, a couple years later, Phipps was gonna open up across the street. And I got a call. I knew who the leasing agent was and he says, “Les,” he says, “we've got Saks at one end of the mall. We need a good store at the other.” And I said, “You should have Lord and Taylor's.” I said, “You…I'll call up Harry Murray in New York and then have him come down and look the situation over.” So Harry came down, they agreed and they signed the lease. So, I'm responsible [laughs] for getting Lord and Taylor's to…but now, Lord and Taylor's is closing all their stores all over the place. Interviewer: I know. And Lord and Taylor is my favorite store. So, you're the one who's responsible for my charge card being filled up. [laughter] So between Casual Corner when I was in high school and now all the shopping I've been doing at Lord and Taylor. You're responsible for all that. Fraser: You know, so many of the so-called conventional stores that are not discount, including Saks, Saks, Parisian's, Lord and Taylor's, Macy's, Rich's, they are not doing well. I mean, the last couple years, they're sales are in the red. It's their discount operations that they own, like the big one is…like Target is a money-maker for the same outfit that owns Bloomingdale's and all that, you know. The third-rated stores… Interviewer: Is there a discount for Lord and Taylor? Maybe I need to find what that is. Fraser: No, they had a…down in Florida where I had a condo, they…there's a tremendous mall. Every well-known name brand or name stores had an outlet. Saks had an outlet store there. Lord and Taylor's had an outlet store. That's [inaudible]. Interviewer: Well, that's not gonna help me [inaudible]. How did you hear…thank you for coming to do this interview with us today. How did you hear about this project? Fraser: Mr. Saul Veiner, he talked to your associate. Interviewer: Un-huh. And so, we've already done his interview? Fraser: Yes. He did last week and I have no idea what…he was a…very much younger. I think he was only eighteen or nineteen years old. He was just an enlisted man. That's where he met his wife in Australia, in the Navy. Interviewer: Well, thank you very much for coming. We've got really about twenty minutes left on the tape. [Tape 1, Side B] Interviewer: Twenty minutes left on the tape. What I would like for you to sort of think back to your time in the service. You said that after about a year you sort of got patriotic. Fraser: Yeah. Interviewer: Um, what did your time in the service mean to you? Did it…how did affect your life? Fraser: Well… Interviewer: Or did it? Fraser: It sure did. First of all, as I said, I was patriotic. I felt that I was doing something for my country. I mean, I could have stayed, got deferment cause I had two children, but I wanted to do my duty and I enjoyed doing it and I felt I was making a contribution to the war effort. Oh, incidentally, getting back to Buckhead, I was used to…Buckhead in those days, in nineteen fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…do you remember where…they rebuilt now, where…Sears used to be and all that? Remember back in the woods off Peachtree was Hart's Famous Restaurant? Interviewer: On [inaudible]. Fraser: Yeah. Well, I finally organized all the merchants around it. We…I said, “Let's meet and discuss the problems we had,” parking, you know. “We're just mismush [phonetic] that.” And we meet and we…I had a meeting and we met for lunch every Monday. Then finally, I organized the Buckhead Business Association and then we got big enough that we had a manager. But later on, had to change the name. Not Buckhead Businessmen's Association. The Buckhead Business Association because… Interviewer: Women. Fraser: The women. But I was the first president of the forerunner of the Buckhead Business Association. So, I felt pretty good about that. Interviewer: Well, describe for us, for someone who is watching this tape and doesn't know Hart's Restaurant. What did it look like on the outside? Fraser: Well, it was a big private home and setting in the woods. It was a lovely spot. Very lovely. Interviewer: And what was some of the things that you had there? What type of food did they serve? Fraser: [laughs] Young lady, you're telling me…you know how many years ago…how did I remember what I ate. Interviewer: Oh, I didn't know if there was…only now I can't remember the name of the restaurant that was downtown that had the sort of cinnamon rolls and everybody remembers the cinnamon rolls from this restaurant. I just didn't know if there was something at Hart's. Fraser: See, in those days, believe it or not, there was Hart's, there was a cafeteria on my side of the street there where is now that big new office building. It's called the City something. Interviewer: Oh, City Grill? Fraser: Yeah. That building, you know, used to be…but, next to it was a cafeteria, then there was the White House, when it was at the point, where Jacobs Drug Store was now a park now [sic]? The Center Park? Those… Interviewer: That was it? Fraser: That was it for all Buckhead. Today, with all the side streets, there must be two hundred restaurants in Buckhead. [laughs] It's quite a departure. Interviewer: Leaving Buckhead on East Paces Ferry traveling West Paces Ferry, where the History Center is, what did that look like from Peachtree Road? Do you remember? Fraser: Well… Interviewer: You mentioned where Sears… Fraser: Sears was there. Interviewer: Sears was there. Fraser: Yeah. And then across the street, there were old private homes all around there they since have torn down. Cause the…there's that block there where the…what's the name of that hamburger thing? Interviewer: Johnny Rocket's? Fraser: Johnny Rocket's. That whole strip in there, there used to be homes. And…the…no, you know, it's been such a change. Interviewer: Well, I just didn't know if there was something distinctive that you remembered about it. Because now we've come down West Paces and [inaudible]… Fraser: Listen. Let me tell you. Interviewer: …so large. Fraser: When I started out trying to get the other merchants organized, I'd get in at eight o'clock in the morning cause I didn't know whether I could afford a maid or anything. I would sweep the sidewalks and get …sweep down the store. Then, but we were doing so much business when…the minute we opened up, in those days, you didn't have UPS or Fed Express. Everything came in from New York, coats, suits, whatever it was, by parcel post. And that would all go down to the main office and then the next day they would transfer to the Buckhead Post Office there on Pharr Road, West Pharr Road. Because I was so short of merchandise, I would go after a day…in the evening I'd go down and sign off for it downtown and bring it out to the store. So by this time, I'd hired a maid. After the third week, I realized I could afford it, for her to mark the merchandise. We would save a whole day getting…turning out stock so fast, you know. Those were wonderful days. [laughter] The uh…but, we were very lucky and fortunate. And as I said before, my wife was very supportive, very helpful. Interviewer: Is your wife still living? Fraser: No, she passed away four years ago. We were married for sixty-three years so… Interviewer: Congratulations. Fraser: Yeah. Interviewer: That's wonderful. Is there anything, any stories that you haven't told us that you would like for us to record? Fraser: Well, can't tell you all the…some of the gory details of certain things. That would be [inaudible]. If I told you the story of my dog getting back, now that is a real story. Interviewer: Well, tell us that story. Then we'll close with that. Fraser: All right. I had to fly into London every weekend on squadron business. And a friend of…I got to know the billeting officer who took…when you flew in and wanted to spend the night in London, the billeting officer of Navy Air, he would put you in certain hotels for the night. So, but he…he wasn't married. He was a young lawyer from Miami. He was going with an English girl who raised English cocker spaniels. Well, an English cocker is a gorgeous animal that's about fifty percent larger than the American. So in February, I believe it was, she gave me one of the little puppies. [inaudible] little puppy. And the puppy grew and he grew. Now, I told you we had to wait until we got our orders back after the war was over over there. And I heard we were going on the Queen Elizabeth and on all the different troop ships coming back bringing the soldiers back from Europe, that all the G.I.s wanted to bring back little dogs and if they caught them on board ship, they would chloroform the dogs and get rid of them that way cause they just couldn't handle it. So, now here we got our orders and I just…by this time the dog is pretty good size. And I just…I said, “I'm gonna try to do something. I'm not gonna get rid of this dog.” So I got my parachute riggers to rig up a rib cage inside my parachute bag and it swung inside so you put the dog in and carried him, it wouldn't look like it was a dog in that bag because of the framework. So, we were gonna take the night train up to Gurich and I had in my…I was the officer in charge of the last remnants. There were twelve other officers. One was a flight surgeon. So we were two hours out of Glasgow and he fed the dog a big dose of sleeping pills, put him to sleep, put him in the bag, we get off [inaudible]. We go aboard the Queen Elizabeth. We were the first to board. It took you three days to load cause of twenty thousand. As I went to the purser's office to get a room assignment, the dog started to wake up, shake. Well, we got in the room and it was a room, stateroom, that normally two people in peacetime [sic], but they had fifteen Navy officers. What they had was… Interviewer: Fifteen or fifty. Fraser: Fifteen out of… Interviewer: Fifteen. Fraser: Instead of two Interviewer: In a two-person room. Fraser: Yeah. Well, what happened is is they had these pull-down tiers of three, five, fifteen. So they said to me, “Fraser, what are you gonna do about the dog?” [inaudible] You know, it wouldn't [inaudible]. Three days to load, three and a half days to go back. And I said, “I'll put him in the head.” They said, “What? And smell up the place?” So now…this is a funny story. So now, the steward says, “Sir,” the English….says, “I think I can help you.” I said, “What do you mean?” “Well,” he says, “my cousin is the head butcher and he's got two other dogs. One belongs to the admiral, one belongs to a general.” He says, “I think we can take one more. Sneak him in.” So he took him. Okay. So now we land on a sunny, sunny morning…the seventeenth, I guess, or so of August. The…remember I told you that the Japanese had given up. We arrived and it was a heat wave. Ninety degrees. I just wasn't gonna put that dog in that….so I walk…we were first. All the Navy personnel, first off. Officers first. I walked up with the dog on this leash. The Red Cross girls who welcome everybody coming from overseas go crazy over the dog, get him milk and all this and that. So then I was gonna have lunch with my mother-in-law, who lived in New York City, but I wanted to take the night train to Norfolk, my wife and children. And I took my sea bag and my sea chest and my…and the dog in a cab down to Penn Station to check the dog and my luggage and…for the night train. I go to the baggage man and I said, “Can you…I'd like to check the dog in.” He says, “Where's his leash…his muzzle?” I said, “What do you mean a muzzle?” “Dog [inaudible], he's got to have a muzzle.” I said, “Okay, I'll be back.” So I go up to the upper level and I'm wandering around. I see all this bank of telephones with the red pages and I look through, harnesses, leashes, anything with leather. In those days, they didn't have any answering machines. This was after the war was over. It was a hot, sunny day. Nobody works. Not a soul. So I go back out and I see the officer in charge of the shore patrol. He says to me, “Sir, “ he says, “you looked troubled.” I said, “I am.” I told him my problem. He said, “Go over to that Owl Drugstore. See what they got.” I go over there. The guy's got two hundred muzzles, two bucks a piece. So I go take the muzzle down to the man, bring the dog out. I got the muzzle. This is the punch line. Comes out and I'm trying to get that muzzle around there, on his face. He says, “What are you doing?” I said, “I'm trying to put the muzzle on.” He said, “Just attach it to his collar. The law says he's got to have one, it doesn't say he has to wear one.” [laughs] I was ready to kill that guy. We got the dog finally back to Norfolk. Interviewer: And did your family appreciate the dog? Fraser: Oh, they loved him. He had a… Interviewer: What was the dog's name? Fraser: His name was….we had so many dogs. His name was….I think we called him Bobby. [laughs] Interviewer: I think that's wonderful. Is there anything else you want to tell? Fraser: Nothing. I'm just an old man trying to get by. When you're ninety-four years old, you're lucky to be here. Interviewer: Well, Mr. Fraser, it's been wonderful. Thank you.
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/162
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:: 59:18
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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