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TI: And then where'd you go?

MS: I was hired by the Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake, and I went there as Service Club Director. And that was quite an experience, because Moses Lake is out in the middle of nowhere. But it was very interesting. They housed me at the base, and I had a room with the women officers. But what was fascinating is Seattle used to test their planes. And we'd go down to the, where the lines were, where the airplanes would come in. And I've seen several of the airplanes that were being tested from Boeing coming in, and I always found it so strange to see these planes coming in, these very expensive planes, and see these parachutes and stop 'em. But I found there are several things about Larson that was interesting. They really wanted us to get involved with the community, and so I got to know a chamber person very well.

TI: And was this primarily, the people worked for the military?

MS: Military, yeah. Air Force. And I worked with the non-military. I mean, not an officer level, airmen. I had a rickety old service club, but anyway, it was kind of interesting. And one time, Mr. Bixler from the chamber wanted us to really get involved with the community. And in fact, the general who had been there before I came, they had had a big event and they helped build a park, the general did. So we decided to have a Sunday, and asked the churches to have the airmen come in.

[Interruption]

MS: We decided to have this Sunday where the churches would bring food, and we'd have a day with the airmen. Well, what was interesting about Moses Lake was there's this river that would run through the town that had a bridge, and you had to cross the bridge to be able to go. That bridge was right down on the water, and you had to cross that before you'd get to the park that they were going to have this party. So I got a call, "Say, hey, Marjorie, they closed that bridge today." "Oh my god." This is about ten o'clock and the picnic was supposed to start at twelve, after church. Oh gosh, I got Mr. Bixler, and we finally got them to open up that bridge so we could get across. But it was a marvelous day, where the airmen and the families came, and they played games and they ate, and everybody was having a good time. But you run into these kind of things all the time.

The other thing that happened to me at Larson was just before Christmas, they usually had a run of taking airmen on leave, because these pilots have to fly at least four hours a month to keep their pilot active, their pilot license active. So they loaded this plane, and they went from Larson to, down into Texas across to, I think, North Carolina or something. And as they started off, they, as they were banking, the plane hit this, the wing hit the side, the cement, and crashed. And here I was, oh, it was an awful, awful experience of having over a hundred airmen killed. And what was so bad was the airman that used to help me from his office was killed at that time, too. So it was a very sad, sad time.

TI: Well, not only the airmen, their families...

MS: They were all going on their furlough.

TI: The whole community, yeah.

MS: Oh, it was such a tragic... and our Service Club Directory became the place they had the coffins and so forth. So it was a very sad time.

TI: Wow.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.