Oral history interview of Edith Harber Cook

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Edith Harber Cook
Creator:: Palmer, Janet
Cook, Edith Harber, 1918-
Publisher:: Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30305
Date of Original:: 2004-03-03
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944
Rich’s (Retail store)
Purdue University
United States. Army. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps
Location:: United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354
United States, Georgia, Lowndes County, Valdosta, 30.83334, -83.28032
United States, Iowa, Fort Des Moines, 41.5202677, -93.6157731
United States, Missouri, Newton County, Camp Crowder, 36.80403, -94.35829
United States, North Carolina, Cumberland County, Fort Bragg, 35.139, -79.00603
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
Mini-DV
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/mp4
Description:: In this interview, Edith Cook describes her career as a WAC during World War II where she was a basic training officer. Before the war, she taught at Evan P. Howell Elementary School in Fulton County, Georgia. Her family was upset that she had signed up for the military, and her mother made her make out a will before she left. Later, her mother came to visit her at Camp Crowder and felt better about her service. She remembers in great detail her life in the Army. As her unit's leader, she was once called upon to tell her supply sergeant that her son had been killed in the Pacific. She traveled extensively, visiting Arkansas, Texas, Indiana and California. She earned a pilot's license and loved flying. She was in San Francisco on V-E Day and describes the parade down Market Street. She shares her feelings about her service in the Army.
Edith Harper Cook was a WAC officer during World War II.
Janet Palmer: Today is March 3, 2004. My name is Janet Palmer, and I'm interviewing Edith Harver Cook for the Veteran's History Project at the Atlanta History Center. Mrs. Cook, would you please state and spell your name? Edith Cook: My current name is Edith Harver Cook. Mrs. Earl Cook, you want me to _. JP: What is your date of birth, place and date of birth? EC: I was born on April 29, 1918, in Atlanta, Georgia. JP: And what branch of the service were you in? EC: I was in the Women's Army Corps in World War II. JP: And what rank did you attain? EC: I was first of course a 2nd lieutenant, 1st lieutenant, and a captain. JP: what was your unit? EC: Well I went to OCS, Officer's Candidate School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. And I was there from about August of ‘42, and we finished in ‘43, I guess it was. I was stationed there after I graduated for about six months. I was put on duty as a basic training officer in a company there are Fort Des Moines. And then about February of ‘43, I got transferred with a detachment of WAACs down to Camp Crowder, Missouri. JP: And what was your serial number? EC: 402034. JP: Could you please tell me a little bit about your life before you entered the service, what were you doing, what was your family like? EC: I lived here in Atlanta, and after I graduated from college, I got a job teaching in the Fulton country school system. I was supposed to teach in high school, but they said I was too young to teach in high school. So they put me in an elementary school, and I taught at the Evan P. Howell elementary school here in Atlanta, in Fulton country. JP: And why did you join the service? EC: I guess mainly because I was supposed to have been teaching high school and like I said, they said I was too young at that time to teach in high school, so I got tired of teaching in elementary school. So when they began talking, publishing in the newspaper that they were going to form some women military, naval, and various corps service, I said that's what I'm going to do. And I was sort of hoping the WAVES would come along first, but the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps came first. And when it was all over, I surely am glad I was in that instead of the WAVES. I had some WAVE friends, and they didn't do nearly as much real military work as we did. JP: How did your family feel about your joining? EC: When my mother thought I was going to join the service, she hit the ceiling. The whole family got to me, her brothers and sisters and all, and they tried to talk me out of it. And I said I am a grown woman, I have been teaching school for four years, and I want to join a service, and I am going to join a service. So they finally accepted it, well they had to. So we wanted to join, were told to come out to Fort MacPherson out here outside of Atlanta. So the day I got there, that place was loaded with all these women that wanted to join. So they finally got to each one of us and asked a few questions, and then they said it would be a while maybe before they could say whether we were accepted or not. So I went out of town, and while I was out of town, I got a telegram saying that Fort MacPherson wants you to report there for further questioning. So I came back to Atlanta and went out to Fort Mac. A whole group of us that had met each other when we were trying to get in were called one by one and questioned, and then they told us again that they would let us know the situation when they decided. So I went out of town again. And while I was gone, I got a telegram saying that I had been accepted and to report for duty in August. JP: In August of ‘40....? EC: ‘42 I guess. ‘42, yes. JP: Did any of your friends join? EC: No. JP: you did it by yourself? EC: At that time, I did not know any of the women that were out at Fort Mac joining the same time I did. But when we got our orders ... to the Union Station in Atlanta to catch a certain train that would be going to Fort Des Moines, Iowa. And while we were waiting for the train, all of the sudden, my mother says you have a will? And I said a what. She said a will. I said no. So then she looked around, she called a lawyer that we knew over and he quickly made a will for me. And so I don't know what I had to leave, but anyway, I wrote a will. So with that, all of us got on the train and we went on the train to Chicago. By then, we were all real good friends. It was a whole carload of women going to Fort Des Moines. Then when we got to Chicago, we changed trains and went from there to Des Moines. And we were met by the army and put on busses and taken to Fort Des Moines. JP: do you remember arriving there, how you felt? EC: Oh yes. Of course I always had my mind comparing it to Fort MacPherson here in Atlanta. And it looked a lot like it, it had a big parade ground, and it had officer's quarters on one side and barracks on the other. So we got assigned to barracks. And we were way down at the end of the field, in a real nice barracks. And some of us happened to be set up on the second floor. And that room was filled with these army cots one after the other. And then there was a little sort of a little closet that they had improvised that we could put our personal belongings in. And they had also told us to bring a trunk so that anything that we didn't have to use or anything, then we could put in the trunks. And we kept some of our clothes and belongings in trunks at the foot of our cots. JP: how was basic training? EC: It was very interesting. Every morning at reveille, which came awfully early, we would march off to breakfast and then we'd come back, and then we'd be marched to various places. We had all kinds of classes in military things so that we would understand what the army was all about. JP: Was it very vigorous _? EC: Oh yes, we had to have exercise and attend classes, and like I said, we had army officers, male army officers, as our captain and lieutenants. And we could tell those men didn't particularly like to be stationed where they were training women. JP: now were you the first group? EC: No, I was in the 5th OCS. But there was a colonel in charge of the fort, Fort Des Moines, and then all these men officers, majors, captains, lieutenants and all, trained us. But after a while they loosened up, and they decided we weren't too bad. And so after enough women had been trained to be officers, they began releasing those men for real army duties somewhere, maybe go overseas. JP: Were there men stationed at the same time? EC: Oh not at that time, unless they were training us. The colonel of course lived there, and all of the men at that time that were training us. But once, see by then, we were in the fifth OCS, and there were a lot of women officers by then. And they promoted them pretty fast. So when I graduated, and several friends and I were moved over to officer's quarters across the parade ground. Every morning we'd get up and go to our duties over with the basic training people, I mean training troops, the girls that had come in. I never will forget, February came, and it was cold in Fort Des Moines. I got down to -20 degrees one week. And who should come in to be trained but a whole bunch of girls from Miami, Florida. And we had to rush over to the warehouse and get men's overcoats, enough to put on the bus and go over and meet those girls on their train and put them in those heavy raw men's overcoats and put them in the bus and bring them to the basic training quarters. Those poor girls from Florida nearly froze to death. JP: and you went right through basic training to actually becoming a trainer yourself? EC: Yes, I was put in a basic training company, and that went on for about, oh ‘til February. We graduated in I think September, late September or early October, early October. And then after we'd done some basic training, they began sending us out into the United States to be officers. JP: are there any particular stories that you remember from that time while you were in Fort Des Moines? EC: No, we were pretty busy from dawn ‘til dark. But the one thing that we enjoyed doing was going into Des Moines, Iowa, get off the fort. We couldn't get off the fort when we were in training, but once we became officers, when we were off duty, we could go in to shop and I don't know what we were shopping for, but we went in to shop. And also sometimes we, if there was a place at a hotel that several of us could rent a hotel room, we'd spend the weekend off base, just you know to be ordinary human beings and get to see the _ downtown Des Moines. We were good girls and we did try to go into Des Moines church. So that was very interesting. JP: so did you get to come home once your basic training was finished there before you moved on? EC: You know, I can't remember. I sort of doubt it, because we had to be, after we were trained, we needed to train. So finally in February I got orders to take this detachment down to Camp Crowder, Missouri. I was what you would have called a 2nd lieutenant, and we had a woman that was our captain, and then I was second in command and we had one third in command. They picked about fifty some odd women to form this what was called a detachment and be sent down to the huge signal corps training center down in Camp Crowder, Missouri. They had about three different big groups there. There was the company of the, whatever they call it, looking after the fort, and then there was one that trained certain signal things, and then a higher signal thing. I mean, you know they'd move up and had to get this specialized training. But I was second in command, and we officers lived in a little nice little cottage over on the edge of the parade ground. We had these tiny little rooms with a little closet, and we had army cots to sleep on and a desk, and that was it. I mean all the comforts of home. But anyway, being second in command, I forget exactly what my duties were, but after a few months, the captain, the WAAC captain, what would have been a WAAC captain, was transferred, and I became the head officer and eventually got promoted to captain. JP: How many women did you have under you? EC: Well in those days, first part, we had about fifty. They were cooks, they were _ clerks, they were secretaries. One even was based over in the pigeon section, and she was in charge of looking after the pigeons during the daytime. Sometimes they would put messages on the pigeon and send the pigeon somewhere to give the message. I had to go over and see that, I couldn't believe one of my women was looking after the pigeons. Then like I said, we had our own mess hall, our own recreation room for the girls to go. Because over in our officer quarters, we had a tiny little room that had a pot of coffee on there, usually all day long and all into the evening a pot of coffee over there so that when we came in cold, we could go get... And I didn't drink coffee until I joined the Women's Army Corps and I had to go out at dawn and check my women at reveille, when that reveille, yeah, reveille. And I came in one day so cold that as I passed the room with the coffee pot, I went in there and poured me a cup of coffee to warm up, and from then on, I started drinking morning coffee. JP: are there any people that you really remember back from that time? EC: You mean what we did? JP: Friends or...? EC: Well being in charge, I mean one of the company officers or detachment officers, we had to be sure that the mess hall was run right. We had to get the women at certain times and march them you know, keeping them marching, hup two three four and all that. And then from time to time, they had big programs, reviews, I guess you'd call it on the parade ground, and I've got some pictures where, we had, by then, there were three different WAAC detachments working for different parts. And then all of the men that were in training, and they had several big parades and we'd be standing at rest and then when it was time to march, we would come to attention and we'd turn and we'd march around. Then when we got to the reviewing stand, we had to salute the officers and it was interesting. We had our hands full looking after all those women. I mean, they were good gals. A lot of them that were older, you couldn't be any older than I think 40, but a number of them had sons in service, you know they had married young, and their teenage, late teenage sons had been called up. And so they decided they wanted, no use staying at home, so they joined. The hardest thing I ever had to do was call my supply sergeant in and tell her that her son had been killed over in the Pacific. We got that telegram, and somebody from headquarters delivered it to me and told about what I needed to do. And all of us just loved that woman, that supply sergeant, she was a good old gal from Texas, just as nice as she could be. And so the first sergeant and company clerk decided that don't tell her until after dinner tonight, and we will tell her that you want to see her. And from time to time I'd maybe call on my officers or sergeants over to tell them something that needed to be done or something we needed. So they said we'll tell her that you want to see her. And so they told her that I wanted to see her. So she came over after dinner. And they were, then the first sergeant and company clerk came over and were standing outside, so I called her in and went over speak to her. I mean not be so formal. And finally I said, sergeant Sparks, I've got some bad news for you. And then I quickly said that we got word that your son has been killed out in the Pacific. Well she looked like I had thrown a bucket of water in her face. And about that time the first sergeant and company clerk came running in and all three of us were hugging her and crying. Oh it was one of the worst things I've ever had to do, I think. JP: Did she stay then? EC: Oh yes, yes, she got a leave when he finally... He finally got sent home, you know he was dead, and so she got time off to go back to Texas and get him buried. Then she came back and everybody in the company treated her so good. She was the sweetest lady, I guess she was probably at the end of the age bracket that you could join the service, near 40, but we did love sergeant Sparks. JP: You said there were men there training also. EC: Oh, Camp Crowder was loaded. It was the big signal corps base, and they had about three or four different big units on there training. All kinds of signal work. JP: did the women have any, or were they pretty much kept separate? EC: Oh definitely, the men lived in their own areas. But they weren't too far away. JP: Did they have get togethers or anything like that? EC: Yes, some of them dated each other. That was fine to have those gals there that some of those men could date. And of course there were some officers that we, officers dated when we wanted to go over to the officer's club; they had a very nice officer's club. They had a dining room over there. They had a dance floor. And so of course, I wasn't married then so it was ok to date some of those officers. But I would ask each one of them that I didn't really know anything about, I'd get maybe one of my army officer friends to say, find out about that fellow. Is he married or not, because I did not believe in dating married men. And so I asked one of them are you married and he said no. Then I found out later he was married, he was married to a girl down in Alabama. So the next time he asked me for a date, I said you lied to me, you said you were not married, and you are, and I will not date a married man. So... JP: What did you do for fun? EC: Well fortunately I had my own car. My mother, once I got settled at Camp Crowder, Missouri, looked like I was going to be there a while, my mother drove, and a friend, drove my little Ford coupe out to Crowder, and she visited about a week. My company gals were so good to her that she was all for my being in the army, but they were, they were so nice. They would go and invite her to come over and eat in the mess hall, which she could. And you know I paid for it and all. And so by the time she left, she was all in favor of my being in the service, she didn't think it was a horrible thing for me to be. JP: Was she staying with you _ on the base? EC: Well she was able to stay, I think they had a visitor's room somewhere, and she was able to stay there. And she was able to stay a week. I got pictures of her visiting, and since I had the car, I was able to put her in the car and show her what Neosho, Missouri was like, and what Joplin, Missouri, the bigger town, was like. So we had some nice little trips around to show her the area. JP: were the other officers, what did ya'll do once you had your car? EC: Well if two of us were off at the same time, and some of our officers worked over in headquarters; they did not have to look after all those women like they were secretaries and I don't know what all, and so whenever any two of us were off at the same time, we would try to take a trip somewhere. So we'd hop in my little coupe and we went one time down to Tulsa. That was a nice city, it reminded me of Atlanta. Another time we decided we'd catch the train and go down to Dallas, Texas. And so one of my very best WAAC friends and I went to Dallas, Texas, and oh, we thought we were really just living it up being there, being able to go to these nice restaurants and stay in a hotel and all that. And then sometimes we'd go down into Arkansas. I didn't know Bill Clinton at that time, so I didn't get to see Bill. In fact we went to a football game one time and saw the university of Arkansas play Texas A&M. And here in Atlanta, I'd been going to Georgia tech games, and to be able to go to a real football game was just wonderful. JP: how long were you at Camp Crowder? EC: I was there the whole war, except for temporary duty every once in a while. They would send us officers to someplace for some extra training or something they wanted us to know. So one time, I and some others were sent to Omaha, Nebraska, and we stayed in a hotel. We were given classes by some high-ranking WAAC officers so that we would be up to date on some things. Another time I was sent, well at the latter part of the war, they decided that we WAC officers might need a little recreation, get away from the troops. So they sent a bunch of us from all over to Perdue University over in Indiana. They put us up in a very nice dormitory, and they told us that there was a golf course there, we could play golf, we could play tennis. We could go shopping in the town nearby. So we thought that was wonderful, we were just living it up in Perdue University. While we were there, some famous, famous opera singer, and I forgot, she was a younger woman, I've forgotten her name, but she gave a concert in the auditorium, and we were all given tickets to go and hear her. It was a treat. We hated to go back to work. JP: so you were there until the end of the war? EC: That's right. And when the war, I happened to be out in California visiting my aunt and uncle on VE day when the war was over in Europe, and so my aunt and I got on the train and went down to san Francisco. She lived up near Sacramento. We went down there and attended the big parade down Market Street, and we were so excited that the war in Europe was over. Well by then, all of us were beginning to be ready to go home. Not that it wasn't, not that we weren't enjoying life and feeling like we were doing something good, but you know, we were ready to go. So then I was at Crowder when the war was over in the Pacific. The minute word got out, I mean that headquarters heard, they made us all stay on the fort, I mean Camp Crowder. We could not leave, we had to stay there so many days because I think they didn't want everybody running out and hooping it up in nearby cities. So I remember the day just as well when they announced to us on the PA system that the war was officially over. In some ways, like I said we were glad, and some we realized well this is it; we won't see these friends again or.... So that's it. JP: are there any other stories our anything you wanted to talk about while you were in the service? EC: No, I think that pretty much covers it. Of course we had to wait until all of the women in our detachment had been released from service, and finally in the month of May, I was able to be released from service. And they sent me, instead of sending me back to Atlanta to Fort Mac where I had come in, they sent me to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So I knew the day was coming that we'd be out, so at Christmas time, I drove my little car back to Atlanta, took a friend that was from Georgia, and we got in my little Ford coupe, and we drove from Camp Crowder to Atlanta, and I spent the Christmas holidays at home, first time I'd been home the whole war, I mean for Christmas. And so then I got on the train, went back to Camp Crowder to await the time that they released me. And when they released me, I caught the train and went through Atlanta and changed trains and went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where I stayed a few days while I had to go through all this separation from the service. And then once I got separated, I caught the train and went back to Atlanta. And while I was in service, we found out, or this is during the last year, some of us found out there was a little private airport in Carthage, Missouri. And several of us decided lets go over and see if we could take flying lessons. So several of us got in my little coupe and we went over to Carthage, Missouri, which was about ten or fifteen miles from Camp Crowder. This man that was then 4F and couldn't be in the army, he was running this little airport. And so he could give flying lesions, so about 3 or 4 of us would go over there and take flying. So I finally got my private pilot's license. Well I did not tell my mother and family back in Atlanta what I was doing because it would have scared them to death. So when I had gotten my license, I wrote a letter to my mother to tell her what I had done, but I disguised it a little bit, and I didn't come right out and say I was taking flying lessons, I had a private pilot's license. I don't remember where or anyway, that night after she received my letter, I got this long distance phone call from Atlanta, and you didn't call long distance in those days. And when I got on the phone, she says young lady what do you mean running off and getting married. And I said what? She said I got your letter and you've run off and got married. I said mama, how in the world you think that. And I said I have been taking flying lessons, and I am now a pilot, and I wish I had the letter, I'd give anything to know how she had interpreted that. Well she was very relieved, but she wasn't happy over my being a pilot. So finally when I got back to Atlanta, I continued taking flying under the GI Bill. I always wanted to be a commercial pilot, I loved flying, and I had planned on being able to fly these big planes. In fact, I never got to fly one solo, but as part of my training, they would put me in one of these large planes, and I'd be the copilot, learn how to do it. But finally I had taken all the training I could take under the GI Bill, so I was then, wouldn't you know, the weather turned bad that winter and I couldn't do a whole lot of flying. And so I got sort of bored, and I thought well until spring and summer come, I think I'll go get me a temporary job, and I tried to think what in the world did I want to do to earn some money but not be feeling like I had to continue on with it. So I decided I'd go to Rich's downtown, the department store was downtown, and I'd get me a temporary job thinking maybe I'd be a saleswoman or something. Well, when they heard my background, they put me in the training department to train employees. So I was working at Rich's when the new store for homes opened in back of Rich's downtown on Forsyth Street. And we had to get all dressed up and wear high heels, circulate all over the store during that opening of the new store for homes. Well by that time, I had gotten away from flying, so that brings us up to date to what I did right after the war. JP: Did you fly any more after that? EC: Not much, not much. JP: did you keep in touch with people that you knew when you were in the service? EC: Oh yes, for years we would, some of us officers and enlisted women would keep in touch. I like to keep in touch with my 1st sergeant and my company clerk, and that lady from Texas whose son I had to tell that died. Then two of the women decided they'd put out a paper called WACtion, and so they encouraged us, we had lists of where people were living, and they encouraged officers and enlisted women to keep in touch with them and certainly if possible, twice a year, they'd put out what we were doing, where we were living, who got married, who had a baby, blah, blah, blah. And so as time went on, those two ladies had to give it up, they were beginning to get up there in years, and they turned it over to another woman who put it out for a while, and then when she began giving out of steam, why another one took it over. One out in Salt Lake City tries to put one out now, but she said she gets so little news, its amazing how many have died or don't keep in touch any more. And the last one she put out only had about 10 or 15 of us writing about what we were doing now. JP: are you in any groups, veteran's groups? EC: Well after the war, somebody tried to start a veteran's group here in Atlanta, and so of course I joined it. And we met a few times and we had dinner and one time we even took part in a parade. I mean, these were women who had been in the WACs, WAVES, marines, and all. But they began getting married or having babies and all, so it sort of fizzled out. By then we got transferred, I had married, and we got transferred out of Atlanta and sort of lost contact. But there were three of us, three of my friends that I still keep in touch with that were in my OCS class. JP: How do you think being in the service has affected your life? EC: How do I think it's affected it? JP: Do you feel like it's changed your life? EC: Well, yes, because I got out of school teaching because I was not teaching what I was trained to teach. Of course when I came back, I decided that I ought to substitute teach and maybe go on back into teaching. But when I got married, I didn't want to get tied down full time, so I did some filling in when they needed a teacher somewhere, I'd go and teach. Then Earl and I got transferred to Valdosta, Georgia, so that took care of that. We did, wait a minute, thank goodness we did have our first child while we were still living in Atlanta. He was with Southern Bell, and I had our first daughter. Then we moved to Valdosta. While we were living in Valdosta, which I liked fine when I got used to it, it was very different moving down to south Georgia. And in those days, we didn't have air conditioning, and it could be hot down there in south Georgia. But when I was pregnant with our second child, I said I am not going to have her in Valdosta, I am going to have her in Atlanta. So several weeks before my second child was due, I came up to Atlanta and stayed with my mother, and thank goodness Marilyn was born in Atlanta down at the maternity center at, what's the one downtown there, that hospital... JP: Crawford Long? EC: Crawford Long, yeah. JP: OK, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't gone over? EC: I think we've covered the waterfront, haven't we? JP: Thank you so much for coming. EC: Well I've enjoyed talking to you and telling you how I won the war. You think that's OK? I am so glad that I joined the army in World War II. I would have been, I think happy in any of the services, but I really believe I got all my military experience being in the army. So it helped me to stand on my own two feet and get along in this here world, so it was a wonderful experience. JP: That was something different from _. EC: Yes. I guess that started women doing their thing out in the working world and in wonderful jobs and being smarter than men. I'd better shut up hadn't I? JP: _ wanted to ask you, did _ have their own cars? EC: No, there really wasn't much room for you to have one. I was just lucky that I had gotten mine so early, the car you mean? I had gotten it so early that there was a parking space by our officer's quarters. A lot of them tried to have them, I don't know where they would have parked, I was just lucky. And I made a lot of friends that way because I had a car and we could go places and do things. JP: Thank you.
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Extent:: 43:33
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Veterans History Project oral history recordings
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