<Begin Segment 18>

SS: I worked for about five Secretaries of the Army. One of them was, there were a couple former Congressmen, one was Callaway, (Howard A. 'Bo') Callaway, do you remember?

KL: I know the name, but...

SS: And I also...

KL: What do you recall about --

SS: Huh?

KL: What do you recall about that appointment or about (Rep.) Callaway? Or why does he stick out?

SS: Well, I remember all of them, but people won't know who the others are. Bo Callaway some people would know, right? And also Clifford Alexander, you don't know? He was the first Black Secretary of the Army (and Cabinet officer).

KL: And you worked for him?

SS: Huh?

KL: You were in that office when he became the Secretary of the Army?

SS: Uh-huh. And John Marsh, he was also a representative from, Congressman from West Virginia, I think.

KL: Did the office change a lot with different leadership?

SS: Not too much. So when Mr. Alexander was Secretary of the Army, he used to have, Dan Rather would come by, Barbara Walters would come by, athletes would come by. It was interesting meeting all those people.

KL: If, for people who won't have a chance to meet those men individually, can you just kind of describe them for us, give us a couple sentences about each one?

SS: Well, no. All I remember is they'd come by, were introduced and say hi and that's it. They'd go into the secretary's office and we don't see them again.

KL: But the secretaries themselves, did they, did some of them laugh a lot, or were very serious?

SS: Oh, no, they were nice. They were nice people. In fact, when Mr. Alexander was Secretary of the Army, his special assistant was Janet Hill. And Janet Hill was the mother of...

KL: Anita?

SS: No, no, basketball player.

KL: Oh.

SS: Grant Hill. I knew him as a little kid. [Laughs]

KL: Basketball players are little at some point in their life? [Laughs]

SS: And then there were some football players that used to come by, too, because he knew them and they would come by. In fact, Grant Hill's father was a football player, Calvin Hill, I think.

KL: Was it, what was it like to be a woman working in the Pentagon in the '50s and in the '60s. Did that change?

SS: I don't think so. A lot of women there.

KL: So you were just kind of one of the...

SS: Just one of them. It's not as easy to get into the Pentagon these days. At that time, you could get in.

KL: I used to visit there, that was my dad's last station in the air force, so I visited there in the late '80s, early '90s.

SS: It's hard to get in now. But I don't know anybody there, so I wouldn't go there anymore. All my peers are gone.

KL: Was it a, it was an easy place to be a woman?

SS: Yeah. Didn't have any problem.

KL: Where did you go to night school?

SS: Well, at first, they used to have classes in the building at night, and I started that way. And after I decided what I was going to do, I had to go out to the campus, George Washington University in town, so right after work I would go out to town. And I started out with just taking one course, and then two courses. Sometimes after working all day, I'd be so sleepy. [Laughs] It's hard to concentrate. But I managed. And during the winter when we'd work all day and go down to town, to classes, it was kind of dark, I had to take a bus to go home. It was getting kind of scary at one time. And then I started taking two courses, which meant that I was going home later. But one class I was taking was anthropology, I think, the professor was going the same way, so he gave me a ride. But after a while I just stopped taking two classes, just one. Too dangerous.

KL: Where did you live when you were working at the Pentagon?

SS: In Arlington, Virginia. And those, when I first started, we'd just go down a highway, and drivers would come by and pick us up if they knew you were going, if you tell them you wanted a ride. We used to do that. It wasn't scary, but now, you can't do that.

KL: When did you start taking classes, taking night classes? Was it in the 1960s or how old were you?

SS: I don't remember exactly. I think I started shortly after I started working there, '53, '54. And I finally got my AA degree after how many years, but I still kept going and I completed three years of college going to night school. And it got to the point where the higher up in the offices I got, through the Secretary of the Army, I had to work late, and it got too much for me. Work 'til about seven and then study, I can't go to classes, so I didn't finish.

KL: I need to sleep, too. Not everyone does.

SS: Yeah. So I didn't get my bachelor's degree. I had about three and a half years of regular college.

KL: Were you in just a general studies program or were you special --

SS: Initially I was, yeah, the first two years was general studies. And then I majored in history after that. Too ambitious for someone who's working full time.

KL: So when did you retire? Or did you have other jobs after the Pentagon?

SS: Well, it depends... I retired from the government. When did I retire? 1985 or so. '85. And I got credit for being in camp.

KL: Were you involved in those... you were in D.C., did you go to any of those Congressional hearings or watch them?

SS: Uh-uh, no.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.