Donna Andrews Interview, History 150 Spring 2017, Conducted by Meghan Andrews, March10, 2017.

A) This interview was conducted in person and was edited using Garage Band. There was a pre-interview over the phone and the actual interview was recorded using the IPhone 7. A quiet space was prepared for the interview.

B) Donna’s father was a baseball player. He played second base for World Champion Detroit Tigers (1945). He was raised in a large Irish Catholic family. These religious and traditional values were passed down to Donna Andrews. Donna graduated from high school and went to a two-year college in Massachusetts. She met her future husband who was a junior in college. Her husband was commissioned as an officer into the army engineers and she became a military wife. They moved around to places such as: Alabama, Germany, Massachusetts, and Virginia. During this time, Donna was fulfilling her role as a mother and wife by supporting and raising the family at home. When the kids went to school full-time she went back to work part-time. Now, she is retired with elven grandchildren.

C)During this era there was a lot of movement for social change. There was the civil rights movement and the segregation of schools. Also, The women’s right movement happened in this  time frame. Women began seeking equality with men. Social change was being demanded through protest. This opened doors for women to get equal education and equal pay. The Vietnam war also took place during this time frame. Donna’s husband was deployed to Viet Nam.

MA: State your name.

Mrs. Andrews: My name is Donna Andrews.

MA: Okay. Uhm, describe what life was like as a military wife.

Mrs. Andrews: Okay, uhm well my introduction to military life was the week after I was married in 1963, in June of 1963. Right from the get go, it was a very regimented life and a lot was expected of military wives back then. I think more so than even today.

MA: Definitely.

Mrs. Andrews: There were a lot of unwritten rules where you would just be expected to conform to military society and accept. Because it was a life of service, it was just expected that you would accept these rules that an officer’s wife would uhm …Her first mission in life was to be supportive of her husband and family and uh from the beginning there were coffees and teas. Rather formal teas back in those days. [laughing] and you know you wear gloves and you’d leave you calling card when you went to the coffee or the tea and your little card was printed up with your name. When you were leaving you would put a little silver dish where you’d leave your calling card to show that you were there, present for duty. [laughing] You weren’t AWOL. So yeah, there would be family gatherings. Hail and farewell, and a lot of activities to bring the military community together. Which was good. Right from the start, well six months after we were married, I had never flown before and got on an airplane to go to Germany. It was supposed to be a three-year assignment and I was already pregnant with my first child. And so that was quite an adjustment to leave my family behind and go to a foreign country and live there for three years. So it was like I said, a big adjustment. I had never lived away from home before. I had a two-year college education. Primarily because my father was old school and although his sons were permitted to go to college and away from home his daughters were not.

MA: I was going to say because college is typically not a thing that girls were expected to do in that time. So, how did you feel about getting this degree?

Mrs. Andrews: Well, first of all, it didn’t offer a degree. [Laughing] It was just a two-year college outside of Boston, and it was a good education considering it was only two years but during that time I met my future husband, and it just turned out that he was a junior in college, a couple of years older than I was. So, when he graduated he was commissioned an officer the week before we were married. So, at that time there was really no opportunity for me to further my education after the two-year college. So, we just got married. Six months later we are on our way to Germany, and that was my education really.

MA: Yeah. And um I was going to ask where the military made you move and why.

Mrs. Andrews: Hmm. It was just the way things were done. [Laughing] Jim was commissioned in the Army engineers, and at that time, this was 1963. It was quite a while after World War two ended. I’d been not quite a baby boomer but at the end of that I was born. We had the Korean War in the early 50s. So there was a huge troop presence in Europe and in Korea at the time. Either he would go unaccompanied to Korea because dependents, wives, and families were not permitted to go to Korea at that time. So, rather than be separated right off. Right as newlyweds we chose to go to Germany. So we took the three-year assignment in Germany.

MA: Yeah. So, that choice was probably the best for the family. So, how did moving affect the children and the family?

Mrs. Andrews: Well early on, uh like I said my first two children were born in Germany. So, they were just really not aware. [laughing] So, at that time early on it didn’t really affect them. Uh, later on as more children came along and the older children were growing. It became more of an issue as they got older.

MA: Yeah, with friends and moving. Umm, I know that the civil rights movement was very prevalent and the desegregation of schools. Did the kids ever face any problems of this era? Any?

Mrs. Andrews: They did to a certain extent because well in the 60s Martin Luther King was assassinated. We were stationed at that time at Fort Deven’s Massachusetts and really up north it wasn’t too much of an issue. But umm in the late 70s when we moved to Alabama and the older ones were already in junior high school. In southern Alabama, lower Alabama. LA, lower Alabama. It came as kind of a shock to me when we moved there because there were two choices for junior high school. They were both off post. They did not have a junior high school on post. So, it was off post, and we were advised to send our children to enterprise junior high school as opposed to the alternate junior high school which was black. And although I understand that there were a few people that did send their children there, we were strongly advised that our children would get a better education at the so-called white junior high school. So we did, in fact, send our children there but even at that I have to say the quality of education in Alabama and the South at that time was uhh I found to be wanting. Coming from Virginia and Fairfax County schools were uhh you know we have very good public schools. So, it was kind of a shock. In fact, after two years I came back early just to make sure I got my older kids enrolled back in Virginia schools.

MA: And so obviously family is very important. And through the five kids did you see a change in eduction quality between the first and the fifth one?

Mrs. Andrews: Uhm well yes because we made a decision as my husband advanced in rank and we made a little bit more money and were able to send the two younger ones to a peripheral school. Which we elected to do because they would be exposed to even better education than the public schools. Although Fairfax County had very good schools, there were a couple of issues with teachers that were in a way negative and negative experiences, and we just thought. We saw the change of they way values were being imparted in public schools, even back then. And uh we just wanted our children to have more faith-based values instilled.

MA: Uhm and so the kids going through different eduction did they also… Like, I know Lynda is older than Diane, both female. Uhh did they face different stereotypes of women versus you? Like did see a different role of a woman? Like in comparison how did the role of women change?

Mrs. Andrews: Uhm I think young women were being afforded more opportunities and uh women were demanding more. I mean certainly early on in the 20th-century women marched for the right to vote. But at the 70s and 80s came along women were becoming more outspoken and were demanding more.

MA: So as the opportunities changed for women. Did you see different opportunities given to you and having kids, military kids? Were they given different opportunities than kids who would stay in one place?

Mrs. Andrews: Well yeah. There were pluses and minuses as far as the military life. Uh, children you know the whole family was exposed to you know different cultures and living in different states. In fact, one of our biggest disappointments I would have to say was uh when we were moving from Alabama. We actually had orders to move to get stationed in Brussels Belgium, and we were looking forward to that. We just thought that would be a great opportunity for the family to travel and just have that experience. But unfortunately, in a month of that actually happening my husband’s orders were changed and he was assigned to go to the Army War College in Carlisle Pennsylvania. So, we moved back to Virginia, and he commuted between Carlisle Pennsylvania and Virginia.

MA: Concluding the interview, how do you feel today that the role of the military wife has changed? Like knowing and being surrounded in a veteran community do you see a difference with your sons being in the military? And how do you feel about that?

Mrs. Andrews: Well I would have to say um that when I came in or when I came into the army. [laughing] When I was a young army wife women rarely worked outside the home their focus was on just providing for their family and uh being there to be supportive. First of all, jobs weren’t that plentiful for women other than being a nurse or a teacher or secretarial. But even then when a woman was raising her family, that’s where she was supposed to be, at home raising her family. But as I said, as the 70s, 80s, and 90s approached women were becoming more outspoken. They wanted their own pay check. They wanted to be more independent. And you know that was a good thing. Umm in my case, what I tried to do was I went back to work on a part-time basis. So that I could be present for my children at home. When they were in school full-time thats when I went back to work part-time. I would just say that women and their desires and their demands. Actually, there was certainly more of a focus on that as we came to the end of the 20th century and of coarse now.

MA: And uh lastly, I was going to say is there any , with that dynamic change, is there any traditional values that you think were lost that need to be brought back a little bit into the current era?

[paper shuffling]

Mrs.Andrews: I just made a little list. What I’ve been motivated by and in some ways I feel like maybe some of these things have been over-looked or diminished to a certain extent. But what I have been motivated in my life has been: my faith and family values, love of God and love of country, trust in God and one another, opportunities and experiences to grow as a person through travel and education. Yeah, I think some of the family values have started to….gone by the wayside. I know growing up it was really important to at least sit down at dinner time as a family and eat together and talk and discuss things. I think we live at such a hurry pace now. I think I’ve seen it where that kinda in many ways has been put on the back burner. Its hard for me to talk about the military family now because I’ve been away from it so long. Except, I see how it is with you and your dad and your mom and Sean. I don’t know. I think the sacrifices that a military family has to make. In large part, I think that’s a good thing. I think it brings them closer together. In some cases, I think it drives them apart, and you’ve seen the divorce rate certainly go up. Not just in the military, but certainly in the whole spectrum of society. So that it’s over fifty percent now. Its kind of a scary thing. I think something has been lost with not staying focused on your family and your faith. I think the military way of life contributes to a love of the military and having a high regard and respect for the people that do make those sacrifices. In your case, the kids have to be uprooted and have to go to different schools and start all over making new friends. I mean that’s a good thing. Yeah so pride in the military way of life. It teaches you perseverance. I mean hardship tours my goodness, you have to stick it out. Then, yeah just have a joy in the journey. It’s been a journey, and it’s been a joyful one in spite of the hardships.

MA: So, I think that these are some values that people need to keep in mind going further. This is why we do these interviews. Well, thank you for your time.

Mrs.Andrews: You’re so welcome Meghan. I enjoyed it, and it’s a honor.

D)The interview went very well. The interview was very extemporaneous in the sense that the question topics were memorized but the phrasing changed with the responses.

References:

Brazier, Kimberly. “Social Change in the 1960s Timeline.” Prezi.com. N.p., 05 June 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

“Viet Nam War.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Baldwin, Davarian L. “The Civil Rights Movement.” The Civil Rights Movement. Africana Age, 2011. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.