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Loveless, Juanita (audio interview #1 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - The interview was conducted in Loveless' North Hollywood apartment. Although the audio quality of this interview is good, there is occasional static on third side of the tape (side c). 7/7/1981
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- 2021-06-09
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- SUBJECT BIO - Juanita Loveless was barely seventeen years old when she went to work for Vega (Lockheed) as an assembler in 1942. Born in Childress, Texas, the third of eleven children, when she was only thirteen Loveless' mother took the children to Oklahoma City. They lived for a while in a community camp, until her mother farmed her out to work as a servant. She was saved from that situation by one family, and then later taken under the wings of another, with whom she came to California to pick dates. She returned to Fort Sill, Oklahoma with them briefly, and then when the was began came out to California on her own. She went to Hollywood and got a job first in a bowling alley, and then at a gas station, until she went to work at Vega (Lockheed). Loveless quit aircraft assembly work before war's end due to a skin condition that she developed and began to waitress. Married at war's end, but separated before the birth of her daughter, she realized that waitressing work provided the flexibility she needed as a single parent. She enjoyed the work and considered herself a "pro," though at the time of the interview she felt that she was becoming a victim of age discrimination. Because Loveless worked split shifts at one of the better restaurants in the San Fernando Valley, it was often difficult to schedule interviews. Ultimately, Jan Fischer conducted three interviews with Loveless in her North Hollywood apartment. She told her story with enthusiasm and was extremely candid. She had second thoughts about her candor and initially asked that a pseudonym (Norma Cantrell) be used in order to protect members of her family. However, later, she decided to attach her own name to her chapter in the book, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War and Social Change. TOPICS - family background and family history; parents; impact of WWI on father; siblings; father's work history; family life; childhood work experiences; housing and living arrangements; father's involvement in Bonus Expedschooling; household chores and early work experiences; impact of Depression on family; childhood activities; family life; siblings; and relationship with parents;parents; family life; menstruation; sex education; parents' separation; move to Oklahoma City; domestic service; bootlegging; and move to Fort Sill, Oklahoma;This side of the tape is a brief chronology of experiences after she moved to Oklahoma City at the age of thirteen; Topics include: living in a shanty town in Oklahoma City; bootlegging; work as domestic servant; move to Fort Sill; and work as fruit p
- *** File: rrrjloveless1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:52)... Loveless was born in Childress, Texas on December 8, 1924. She discusses her family history dating back to her great grandparents on both sides. Her father was injured in WWI and she grew up "knowing the aftermath of war, which lead me into this [defense work] because I was patriotic." (3:52-5:14)... Her parents met around 1920 at a church dance. Her mother was sixteen and her father was thirty when they met. They married when Loveless' mother got pregnant because during WWI when a "girl fooled around or didn't come home on time, the guy had to marry her." Her mother left school after she married. Loveless' father was a farmer and was not very educated. (5:14-11:33)... Her father was thirty years old when he returned from the war. He met a woman while in France and they corresponded until 1926, which was a bone of contention in her parents' marriage. He was gassed during the war and suffered from shell shock. Like many veterans hospitalized in Texas, doctors suggested that he move to Childress because of the dry climate. Loveless describes her father's unstable behavior and recalls her childhood images of veterans suffering from the effects of war. Her father forbade his daughters to go near these men. Years later, he told Loveless that he witnessed soldiers raping European girls and he feared they would do the same to his daughters. Her father did not begin recovering from his injuries until the 1940s, at which time he became more peaceful and accepting of his disabilities. (11:33-14:18)... Her mother had her first child in 1922, approximately six months after marrying. She had eleven children between the years 1922-36. Loveless names her brothers and sisters. She did not grow up with her younger siblings because she left home when she was thirteen years old. She went to work at an army base in Oklahoma when she was fifteen and moved to California at the age of sixteen. (14:18-15:17)... When her father returned from the war, he did railroad repair work for the Fort Worth and Denver lines located in Childress. He was one of the last employees laid off during the Depression. At that time, he worked as a manual laborer, digging trenches, planting trees, working as a scab laborer, and picking cotton. Loveless remembers picking cotton with her father when she was a young girl. She earned fifty cents for her work. (15:17-16:49)... Loveless' mother was always pregnant with "one in the arm and one in the belly." She did not have access to birth control. Even though she lived in a small farming community where the population of women was fairly ignorant, she was not. She was self-educated and always resented the fact that her parents sent her younger sister to college. Loveless and her siblings were educated at home "on a kitchen table with an oil cloth and a kerosene lamp." (16:49-24:09)... (The recorder is turned off while Loveless retrieves a photograph of a home she lived in when she was a child.) Her family gradually moved into better homes, but they all were "ramshackle farm, wood-framed houses" furnished with homemade or antique furniture. Loveless was born a few months after her parents moved to Childress. Her father worked as a dirt farmer and they lived in a small shack where Loveless was born. When he started working as a railroad repairman, they moved into a two-story, four-bedroom home owned by the town doctor. Her father paid $2 a month in rent and was responsible for farming the land and supplying the doctor with vegetables. Her mother gave birth to her children in the same section of the house. The other children were ushered off to the barn while their mother delivered her child. (Digressing, she notes that most of the residents of Childress had German, Polish, and Czechoslovakian surnames. ) (24:09-24:52)... Her father was a member of the Bonus Expeditionary Force that marched on Washington, DC in 1932. He lived in tent city with "the mud and the dirt and the flies and disease, and he never forgave Hoover." It was not until 1936-37 that he received a stipend from the government for his service in WWI. After his experiences in Washington, he was ambivalent about the country and certainly did not want his sons to join the service during WWII. He refused to sign Loveless' papers when she tried to enlist. (24:52-27:29)... Loveless lived three miles from grade school. She usually walked to school, but once in a while she got lucky and hitched a ride on one of the cotton or cattle roundup wagons heading into town. The school was a red brick schoolhouse with three rooms in which grades one through five were taught. There always were at least three or four of her siblings in school with her. She left this school after finishing fourth grade. Her older brother attended Wilson High School, the only other school in town. End of tape. *** File: rrrjloveless2.mp3 (0:00-6:09)... Discussing grammar school, she notes that with the exception of history and geography, she did not learn anything in school. She was either sent home or physically punished by her teachers for staring out the window instead of paying attention to her studies. She learned through her parents' instruction at the kitchen table rather than in grammar school. Loveless was responsible for her younger siblings when they were in school. She recalls the time she beat up a teacher for boxing her brother's ears. After that episode, Loveless never returned to school. She mostly educated herself from that point on; however, she did attend Hollywood High School when she moved to California. (6:09-11:09)... Loveless talks about the division of labor in her family and describes all of her household chores. She started doing chores at the age of four and was picking cotton along side her father when she was six years old. The worse Depression years hit her community between 1932-34. At that time, her father hired himself and several of his children out to pick cotton on neighboring farms. Initially, they were paid as day laborers and as the economy improved they were paid by the sack. Child labor and truancy laws were not enforced in her community. Children were expected to work at a very early age and they were punished if they refused. (11:09-13:53)... Loveless wanted to study music when she was in grammar school, but her father could not afford to pay for music lessons. Music came natural to her and she remembers teaching herself how to play the organ without having any formal music lessons. She details more about the grammar school she attended. Her brother attended the sixth grade at Wilson High School, a county school. He also was interested in music and learned how to play the harmonica. He attended Wilson so that he could learn how to play the drums. However, their father made him go to high school half day and he eventually lost interest in music at that time. (13:53-19:07)... Every Christmas her aunt gave the children toys. Loveless and her sisters played with tea sets and dolls. It was a big deal among her siblings to look at the Sears & Roebuck catalog and cut the pictures out. The girls also sewed quilts and helped their mother can fruits and vegetables. The boys enjoyed other activities, but she could not recall what these games were. She digresses regarding her older sister who went through menopause at the age of sixteen. She took care of her younger siblings and they went to her with their problems. Her sister is now quite miserable and can only relate to her siblings as a mother. (19:07-24:59)... Loveless describes her parents as very cold and unaffectionate people. Her mother once slapped her across the face because Loveless came home in tears after reading a good book. Loveless loved her father and enjoyed listening to his stories about nature and his experiences in Europe. However, his good qualities were overshadowed by his bad temper. He was easily provoked and when he exploded in angry rages he beat his children. She mentions one incident that caused her father to lose his temper and resulted in his hospitalization. End of tape. *** File: rrrjloveless3.mp3 (0:00-7:04)... Loveless continues to discuss her father's erratic behavior. She describes two incidents that caused him to go into angry rages and beat his children. Loud noises and stress usually set him off. Occasionally, his eyes twitched and he yelled about the war as if he was reliving his battle experiences. She never thought that her father was crazy because she understood that his behavior was a result of shell shock. He became extremely agitated during WWII when three of his nephews were killed at Pearl Harbor and he started to worry that his sons would join the service. In 1942, he went to a veterans hospital and was treated with medication and therapy. His episodic behavior ceased after he received this treatment. Her father frequently talked about his war experiences. Loveless did not enjoy these stories. Although she supported servicemen involved in other wars, she did not want to hear their war stories. (7:04-15:46)... She started her period when she was eleven or twelve years old. She was terrified and did not know what was happening to her. When her sister found out she exclaimed, "Oh, it's time for her to get the rag." Loveless went to the doctor and he told her about menstruation and how her body would change over time. The doctor probably also educated her brothers about puberty and sex. Loveless recalls when she and her siblings discovered their father's prophylactics and thought they were balloons. Their father sat them down and talked to them about sex and venereal disease. There were several veterans living in Childress suffering from venereal disease. She digresses regarding her father's post-war occupation in Germany. She believes that had he been treated immediately after the war he would not have had so many problems. (15:46-18:36)... Loveless' father was a religious man and they went to church every Sunday. She was baptized in the lake near their home by a Baptist preacher who visited the city once or twice a year. Her family was Lutheran; however, they attended Methodist services because their town did not have a Lutheran Church. For a short time, her father forbade them from going to the Methodist Church because he did not want them exposed to the "holy rollers" who spoke in tongues and rolled around on the ground in religious fervor. Her mother did not become religious until old age. Loveless talks about her father's habit of shaving and dressing in a suit for church. Her parents were very clean and instilled those values in their children. (18:36-24:04)... When Loveless was twelve, her mother left her father and moved to town. Loveless stayed at the farm with her brothers. After one of her brother's friends tried to "molest" her, her father suggested that she move in with her mother. Her mother went to work for a WPA sewing mill and rented a home in town. She began dating several different men and started bootlegging and having parties. Loveless' father was a respected man in the community and was embarrassed by his wife's actions. He tried to straighten her out by showing up at her home with a shotgun. She got scared and loaded the children into the back of a truck and drove to Oklahoma City. Loveless believes that her mother may have drugged her because she has no recollection of the trip to Oklahoma. (24:04-28:04)... Soon after she arrived in Oklahoma, her mother put her to work as a domestic servant for the Neil family. She was paid $2a week, .50 cents of which she kept and the rest was given to her mother. Loveless describes her job responsibilities, indicating that the Neils overworked her. When Mrs. Neil gave her money for groceries, Loveless learned to barter so that she could pocket the savings. When she had saved enough money, she quit and ran away. She earned money by bootlegging whiskey for her mother. A couple rescued Loveless from the street and hired her as their housekeeper. She moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma with them and they got her a job at the army fort exchange. End of tape. *** File: rrrjloveless4.mp3 (0:00-8:20)... Loveless lived with her mother in a shanty town when they moved to Oklahoma City. She was responsible for taking care of her younger siblings and also helped her mother distribute bootleg liquor to local "honky tonk" bars. Loveless describes how she became acquainted with Mrs. Neil and began working as a housekeeper for her son. She also recalls how she met the couple who rescued her from the Neils. She lived with them on and off and worked as a carhop for about a year. She used her earnings to purchase cigarettes and movie tickets. Around 1940, she moved to Fort Sill with the Eckels and began working at the fort exchange. She then decided to go to California with another family and pick dates in the Indio and Pomona areas. She returned to Fort Sill in 1941 and was working at the fort exchange the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. End of tape.
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