Austin & Fredericksburg, TX • March 11 - 14, 2012
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Sunday, March 11, in the dark of pre-dawn, I headed south in yet another downpour toward Austin, where I was to videotape my first live interview with a University of Texas Cadette, Nevaire Gambrell Richardson. She was there ahead of me, along with her husband Joe and daughter Melissa (they’d all made the three-hour drive together from outside Houston).
My mom’s "Wild Bunch" pal Beth Wehner also joined us at the University Club on the UT campus for lunch. Nevaire brought a scrapbook of materials for me to copy, and the lunch was great fun, especially since Beth’s father had been one of the metallurgy professors in the Texas Cadette program, so Nevaire had studied with him (although, truth be told, she remembers certain other professors more clearly). |
Angling in Archives (Again)
After we parted company from Nevaire and family, Beth and I visited Austin's Zilker Botanical Garden (the photo of Beth was taken in their "prehistoric garden.") Then we stopped by the famous swimming hole at Barton Springs, before driving to her apartment west of town in the Barton Creek area.
For the next two days I was entrenched at the Briscoe Center for American History on the UT campus, trying to disinter the records of the long-buried Texas Cadette Program. Mostly what surfaced was evidence confirming stories I’d heard about the uninhabitability of the dorm the Cadettes were assigned to on UT campus (recently vacated by male students). There were bedbugs. And lots of them. They would not go away, even after 7 sprayings of whatever toxic grossness they used in those days. (Maybe these bugs are prehistoric?)
After three and a half months, the Cadettes were finally relocated to a lovely girls’ dorm across the street, only to move again when the summer ended, this time to a variety of dwellings scattered around Austin. This interfered not only with their studies but also with their sense of unity and esprit de corps. Even so, they managed, in significant numbers, to finish the training and report to work, mostly in St. Louis. Records from that plant are few and far between, though Nevaire did bring me a short summary of the Curtiss-Wright St. Louis plant she’d acquired at a reunion of C-W employees in the ’80s. It had (quel surpris!) no specific mention of the Cadettes.
For the next two days I was entrenched at the Briscoe Center for American History on the UT campus, trying to disinter the records of the long-buried Texas Cadette Program. Mostly what surfaced was evidence confirming stories I’d heard about the uninhabitability of the dorm the Cadettes were assigned to on UT campus (recently vacated by male students). There were bedbugs. And lots of them. They would not go away, even after 7 sprayings of whatever toxic grossness they used in those days. (Maybe these bugs are prehistoric?)
After three and a half months, the Cadettes were finally relocated to a lovely girls’ dorm across the street, only to move again when the summer ended, this time to a variety of dwellings scattered around Austin. This interfered not only with their studies but also with their sense of unity and esprit de corps. Even so, they managed, in significant numbers, to finish the training and report to work, mostly in St. Louis. Records from that plant are few and far between, though Nevaire did bring me a short summary of the Curtiss-Wright St. Louis plant she’d acquired at a reunion of C-W employees in the ’80s. It had (quel surpris!) no specific mention of the Cadettes.
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Wednesday, March 14, Beth and I went to Fredericksburg to meet Purdue ’43 Cadette Dorothy Hegdal Beach (one of my book’s “cover girls”) and her husband Dick. We had a sumptuous lunch a block off the main historic drag in a beautiful old house (the Peach Tree Restaurant). Then we went to the National Museum of the Pacific War’s main entrance, the original home of Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific fleet. The wood-shingled, three-story house he grew up in was built to resemble a ship and contained two rooms of historical photos honoring him and his family’s history. This is where you buy tickets for the main museum, a gleaming new megastructure at the far end of paved walkways, past walls covered top-to-bottom with plaques honoring hundreds of WWII naval and marine service members and their units.
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Back in Chester’s house, just past the ticket desk, is the grand old ballroom, where I was scheduled to present. After Beth, Dorothy, and Dick secured free passes as WWII veterans, we all ducked out the back door to see the beautiful gardens and teahouse donated by the Japanese. I was anxiously on the lookout for the woman who was coordinating the event to show up. When she finally appeared, she was in a sling due to a recently damaged rotator cuff in her shoulder, an odd echo of the enormous aircraft carrier propeller (“a screw,” as its called) mounted in the courtyard outside. As there’d been no real publicity on my event, the large spring-break crowds had all gravitated back out the door and down to the main museum, where they were so entranced by the recreations of bloody island-to-island fighting that took back the Pacific they were unaware of the presence of these historical heroines being honored right next door. No one in either location gave an announcement that the event was about to begin over the numerous loudspeaker systems. I wound up giving my entire slideshow and talk to a grand total of two off-the-street attendees, along with Beth, Dorothy, and Dick, and a handful of museum staff. However, believing that every little bit helps give this story back to history, I gave it my best shot and afterward sold a number of books. I later discovered the bookstore in the next building had actually sold several copies as well. My main reward for visiting the National Museum of the Pacific War and not being too high-and-mighty to do a full presentation to a tiny group was that one of the attendees gave a copy of the book to a very kind gentleman, who showed up at my next venue (in Dallas) and said he’d been so moved and excited by what he read about the Cadettes, he had decided to attend my presentation. My only regret was that Dorothy and Beth did not get the large, enthusiastic crowd in Fredericksburg they so richly deserved. 
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Peace Garden of the National Museum of the Pacific War
"Screw" (propeller) from Essex class aircraft carrierEver since I’d arrived in Austin, the days had been sunny and warm. The redbud trees and pale lavender mountain laurel were in full bloom. But it was time to leave. Thursday, March 15, bright and early, I drove north to Temple to interview Purdue ’43 Cadette Rowe Durant. I found Rowe at her brick home in a quiet neighborhood. She had two items to donate: the large, professional slide-rule she’d used in school and at the Columbus plant, as well as an interesting metal lump shaped like a cherub that said “Purdue Foundry” on it. Rowe doesn’t remember whether she made it herself, but she’s hung onto it since the Cadette days. It was my first tangible proof of the Cadettes’ participation in the metal workshop at Purdue. Rowe and I talked for an hour. She finished with an interesting thought: if Curtiss-Wright hadn’t died as a manufacturer of airplanes and then “lost” all its airframe division records, it would now be bragging about its pioneering Cadette Program. One day, hopefully, the current Curtiss-Wright company will step forward and lay claim to those bragging rights. |
