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it is july 3rd 2010. This is Candace Ellis here with Pat Risk Berg. And today we continue our talks about living in the Panama Canal Zone. E s o. I guess, um, it'll probably be best to start from the beginning How your family found themselves in the zone and way sailed on the S S.

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Cristobal from New York September 1940. My mother, my younger sister and myself and way lived in Queens, New York. So we simply got on the subway and got to the purer. My father, uh, sailed earlier in the year on the united fruit ship with his father and three brothers looking for employment in the canal.

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Andi in land clearing and construction work because he was successful, we were able to come down on the S S Cristobal, which was the canal ship at the time. Um, my mother, who was quite young at the time, thought she had died and gone to heaven on that six day voyage with no cooking, no clean, nothing to do but sit on deck and make new friends.

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And they played bingo on. They played the horses and then we just listened through them what we called the ding ding dong of the bell Bell boy calling us all to meals all the time. Just It was a beautiful dining room. The food was scrumptious, baked Alaska was her favorite thing.

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She loved that idea forever. So I was seven years old. My sister was one year old, my grandfather and his to. And it's two brothers who were employed by the is being Canal Commission back during the construction days. So the family had a history down there on they left after the construction of the canal back to New York.

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But all that is documented in the Rite of Passage book that the magazine published last year. So I didn't go in any further into the details of that. That's argue matter of record, but when we got Thio Panama, there was no government housing available. So my father had found a little duplex in Colon on Third Street, and we set up housekeeping.

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They're living in Colon, had some problems. We had no car, had take a taxi to go to the commissary to get groceries. Little duplex was broken into two times while we lived there by local Molly Aunties and the one time they actually crawled in a window by my bed when I was sleeping in the bed and they stepped down on the bed to get to the floor, however, they really weren't looking for anything other than food or money.

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On the first time this happened, the thief went into the kitchen, took a ham out of the icebox on, made himself a sandwich and took a carving knife. It went next door and left carbon night next door. That was the extent of the the problem. The other time the fellow came in and you took my father's pants and took all the loose change out of the pants and hung the pants on the gate in the outside the house.

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And that was the extent of that. I mean, these were not serious crimes by any means, but it was a little uncomfortable for us. The other problem was that, um, three insects and the insect bites for the kids on, Uh, my younger sister in particular, had advantages around her legs all the time.

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They would get infected and any baby my mother put up with it for a couple months on. Then she finally declared she was sick of Tropical older than. So we were booked on the crystal. Well, again to go back. My mother and my sister and I again.

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But not with my father. He was not leaving. He was a person of the Depression in New York and he had a job and he wasn't gonna leave that job there. He thought it was secure, permanent. He was pretty happy, so there was a little conflict going on.

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Then, of course, I was too young to realize how serious the conflict waas. But at the very last minute, we didn't go. And then shortly thereafter, we got a refrigerator and a radio console. E think it came from Sears. But I think that was a bribe.

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Andi, that was it. There, Um, we lived there for a year. Then we moved to get tune on High Street into government housing. And then we lived in a 12 family apartment building. On on that street. There were 6 12 family apartment buildings. So way and 71 other families lived on that street on bond Theo.

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12 families were built, one story up, and then two stories about that. But underneath was nothing but loose dirt on kids played in the loose dirt under this houses and, uh, impetigo and ringworm again. You know, it was it was there. You just had to deal with it.

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So that was a local problem. It's a tropical problem. Way had lots and lots of kids on that street. Um, thief. Favorite thing to do was to play in this huge ditch that ran down the back of the street. And you're in the rainy season. The water really came rushing down there.

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Move rocks, move dirt. Moved everything down here. Very dangerous place for gets to play. But my little sister, why then was two and she just loved playing in that ditch. So I used to fish her out every chance I got, but she could get a lot of trouble.

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But another thing that was going on while we lived there was that they were building the third set of locks up the end of the street. And the construction vehicles were up and down all the time. You're thinking of this street with so many kids, these construction vehicles on, um, there was an observation platform up there so that officials could come and overlook and see what was going on in construction.

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And at the time we lived there, it was a huge, huge excavation there. Many levels never go down like they go down part way, and then they could start a new level on. Uh, it was very dangerous place with all the kids around there. There were no fences, so it was open access.

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If anybody if the kids especially wanted to go up there and on explore, like kids Dio So, unfortunately, I don't remember any accidents. Really? Don't. That's incredible. Yeah, when I think of it now, um, a funny side. Those apartments who are not fancy construction, But they had the strongest toilets you have ever imagine.

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E mean when they flushed in one apartment, all 11, all 12 apartments, heard it, hear it on, got woke up in the middle of the night on. And when my little sister had the opportunity, she would sit in that toilet, keep flushing it so the water would rush over her legs.

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She just thought that was using you ever seen it was I mean, it was horrifying, but that's what happened. Also, there was a train that roared through that intersection early in the morning and several 100 times a day, and as a result, there are a lot of babies born during Uhh.

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During the time that people lived on High Street, including one of my own family. My mother had another baby point, but there was no air conditioning. There were no windows. There were screens on on the front room unless you had an end department. If you were lucky enough to depart money and you had some windows on the sides.

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But otherwise they were furnished with quartermaster furniture. It was what I call no frills living. You know, furniture is horrible metal metal bureaus and three wicker chairs, and that was about as good as it got. But we were living there on December 7th, 1941. And there was an immediate blackout the minute the word came across that Jax had bombed Pearl Harbor on.

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I remember sitting in the front room with my father in the dark. I'm waiting for them to bomb the canal, and we lived two miles from the locks, you know, which would have a target zero on that was the thinking on later on. Yeah, many, many years later.

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Way were vacationing in Hawaii, was my husband. My way went to a museum and there was display on the Pearl Harbor attack. And there was an actual newspaper there that says the Japs plan to bomb the Panama Canal next. So it was an actual thought that was going on at the time.

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A lot of fear during a lot of fear. Yes, people were very worried. Unfortunately, that never happened. Although we did live with black people over the screens in that whole family for the two years we lived there. And, uh, after that we moved to another house to a duplex.

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And I call that typical canal zone lifestyle because your housing was awarded on the basis of your senior already. So the more two years of service she had with the canal more you were able to get a little better housing and the duplex one lighthouse road and get to it was so much nicer.

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It was really nice, but I want to get to an elementary, Um, which was a small, charming school. Five rooms, five classrooms for six grades in kindergarten. So we had a lot of I went through all double classes. E went to third grade. On the other side of the room was fourth grade, fourth grade.

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It's great like that, but didn't seem to bother us. Um, by 1944 there were rumors, rumors of German subs outside the breakwater. So this time my mother and I, with my sister and brother, um, flew back to Miami. And the interesting thing is that we went on what they called the China Clipper Seaplane Way took off out of Folks River in Kalon, which was eight horrible little place to be.

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It was between all the shanties of all the really, really, really poor people. But it was on the side of the bay, and there was water there for the plane to land. Took 12 hours to get from Panama out of Miami. And with the one year old little brother, it was a miserable Oh, my gosh, it was miserable.

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But we did spend the next year in New York and it was still more time after ve day We returned on and began, as I say, the never ending moving from house to house with the increased seniority afforded by my father's service. E think I moved 25 times while I e between my own family.

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And then when I got married, way started all over again. Young people started all over again. What was it like a year in New York after having during the war? Interesting. Very interesting. We had rationing and rationing on sugar, and she was And all the usual things.

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My mother was a smoker. Cigarettes work very hard. Todo that. It would have been a good time for equipment. It was just, um that part was stuff. A lot of shortages. Yeah, and it was a difficult leaving his own for a year. E guess I was 12.

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I didn't have any choice, right? You know, I just went way renting an apartment on which was lucky because apartments were hard to get during that time on, um, e went to an old old school, but, um, what was actually, um ah, good student, because our canal zone schools were very good.

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Very good. So I am. That's something I always appreciated. But, um, thing is my favorite. After VJ Day, all the battleships were returning from the Pacific on and they come through the Gatun locks where we live, WAY would stand on the side of the locks and we've done all the sailors on the ships on.

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They were so enthusiastic and so young and on, and we'd stand down there in a way, then, I mean, it was exciting. It was thrilling. And it was a joy. It was a joy just to be part of that. I was old enough then Thio appreciate it.

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But we the sailors would stand up there and point and see thistles for you, you know, and they throw their hats. Well, that day I got four hats, so that was really a good day. But that was such a happy time. Remember that? Um after that, I lived in the zone for another 36 years, got through school, marrying parenting, working, do we retired under what I call the advantageous conditions of the US Panama Canal Treaty?

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Very. And those years were similar for all of us. E. I appreciated our schools back in the forties when I was in the school's e. I appreciated them again in the sixties and seventies when my girls were in, um, our crystal ball High school was a small school, but way had sports.

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We had dramatics. We have music journalism, many clubs, student government. We had girl state. I think it was comparable to the school in the United States. Just just loved it. E was a good student, enjoyed class committees, you know, this Baseer on activities and was a cheerleader and homecoming queen and e association secretary and co editor of the school in the paper and the yearbook.

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So I loved the school and the friends and my friends today are still my friends from there. E was those days e was still very thankful. I'm anybody that grew up down there and was able to raise your kids down there are extremely grateful. It was a great place.

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And I can't imagine what my life would have been life if I'd stayed in New York. E think it would have been totally different because it's hard to describe the life there, but it was all very even. Everybody worth the canal, everybody. Nobody made a lot of money.

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Wasn't the salaries that kept us there. Three climate was easy, you know, average eighties no cold on rain Way survived so well, so well. So one of the things that were suggested on those was talking about hobbies. And the biggest hobby that I was ever involved in was after I was a parent and we had two daughters and they got way got they wanted, pleaded, begged for horses on, uh, there was a little stables that get tuned.

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Way had about 12. 15 horses up there way were ableto board the horses at the stables, which was pretty close to the house. They could have walked, but they were used to being driven. But it was. That closest point is so in addition to taking care of the animals, we had horse shows and we had quite a few stables on all around the canal, probably six or seven way spent all, uh, every weekend at horse shows or working with the horses on.

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It was a very popular help hobby, and everybody was so glad to have their kids in something that they loved and were busy and happy. And and they dio and in fact, my daughter Lori, who got her first horse when she was about seven or eight um, had horses all the time down there on now.

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She lives here in Florida, in Orlando, and she has a property with horses. On her best friend to this day is her body from Katyn stable. Susie, who also has horses. So it's just an example of how the canal zone life transferred to the money with me to the States states, right, is that it was kind of a love of what they were doing.

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The good news is, they're buying the hate Now, e got, um, off course we had help. Way had a Jamaican way. Call them. Made. Our Jamaican made was Carmen, and she took good care of our Children in our house. I had to goto work when we got the horses.

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Yeah, uh, but one of my daughters memories is coming home from school and finding Carmen crying. And Carmen told you that the President Kennedy had been shot and killed on the sadness on the part of the Met on the part of Carmen was just like any American.

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That's how loyal they were to us all. What a good relationship we have with our help. So that was another events that way all remembered, but they also asked about your working experience. So after I graduated from high school, I got married and I did intend to find a job with the canal.

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But I couldn't find one. I just couldn't find him on the long side. So instead e had Children. And 10 years later, the canal Zone merit system was implemented, which is more like a civil service system. But it was called the Canal Zone Record system. Jip tests.

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You scored high or somewhere on there. You got a job. So I took a cook stenographer test e was hired within weeks and first by the Army with counterinsurgency unit. Um, for the army at Fort Gulick on this was during the Bay of Pigs era. So counter insurgency and the Bay of Pigs and all that was going on around that time.

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So then I e that was my first job that was typing military manuscript in Spanish. Luckily, I knew enough Spanish to get through it, but that wasn't very exciting job. Then I transferred to the canal to the what we call the motor transportation division. Well, I was only there a month when another job came up at the Grade three level, which is what I was in all the jobs, those jobs.

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But it's interesting, and this is a little different concept. Next job I got was in Grade three security job, but if it was a security job, you had to be a U. S citizen and then you pay doubled. So it was pretty quick that I got into a better paying job.

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So I stayed there. This was the local shipyard ship repair yard, and I worked there for a couple of years. Got several emotions on thin. The personnel bureau opened the office on the Atlantic side. We've never had one on the money side before. It was Pacific.

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So then I transferred to Personnel Bureau as a personal staffing specialist. It's been two years there, so that was a good experience, then transferred back to my to my industrial division on a Z, an administrative officer, because the incumbent retired. So that was, um, great. It was great.

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It was great to be a boss because I supervised the office secretary pool. I haven't supervised the Guard Force, and e couldn't even write job descriptions for machinists and Boilermakers and pipefitters and all the crafts. Eso that was great was there. So by this time I was in a great knowing.

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But after that we moved to the Pacific side all the way from get tune to Valpo. Uh, what was that? My husband. My husband's got transferred. I had no choice in the matter. Ugo, we'll tell you the truth. It was dramatic because we have been We had to leave.

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I leave my job and our friends on stables. Of course. The kid stables on our little hometown of Mattoon, where I grew up in where we had been living in all this time. So my daughter's within canals in college and ninth grade level. Now the ninth grader was devastated.

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It's 50 miles. It doesn't seem that bad. It was a whole different life. E didn't think she'd ever get over it, but I was lucky. I got a job with the maintenance division on the Pacific side, same level that I was on the Atlantic side so that that part worked out on Eventually we all adjusted.

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Andi, we're very happy with move. It was bigger town, bigger, closer to Panama City, where they had a nice nice restaurants and nice things to Dio. Eventually, way bought a place of but one of the beaches, which was up the coast Pacific coast of Panama. They had several beach communities up there.

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Way bought it, que go house way put in a stables and we put in a pool and it was over. Two acres, all nice green grass and flowering trees, Yellow trees, pink trees. It was just beautiful. It was beautiful. Way went up there for weekends and even a vacation.

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If you've got a week off from work to go up there and so and the kids loved it, my daughter had a mini bike. So we take the mini bike up there so she could travel around these little roads. And she always had a friend. They wrote double on the mini bike all around these little country roads.

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And then sometimes we bring the horses up there. But not all the time. That was more trouble. Uh, that was a really good time. Um, it brings us about up to the treaty and the roofing. Next big event. 1979. I was riffed by then. I was the administrative officer in the Engineering Construction Bureau, and I was referred to the equal opportunity office.

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Um, as an investigator. Now, I had been an equal opportunity counselor as a, you know, in addition to your other duties before that. So that's why I was qualified to be an equal opportunity investigator. A zit turned out it was very upset about the riff, but it turned out to be one of my best jobs ever.

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E really like being an investigator s so much freedom of movement. You had access to it. Any records in personnel? You know, with your cases, you had, uh, research the case. If people came to you with the complaints and you had access to all the records, I was out of the office of the force of the time out running around doing this, this business And it was so much freedom on I wasn't tied down to an office like I always had, But my point is that some good came out of it.

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I was pretty happy. That was the last two years. We revere now. During this time, my husband by Whisper was chief of the engineering division and was on the boundaries Committee for the treating, um, three committee had a really tough job. They were negotiating with the Panamanian people about oh, boundaries and streets and utilities on both sides, striving to retain what they could to control Panamanians.

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Wanted to take everything over right away. But it wasn't gonna work like that. It was gonna take time. But it was a really tough task. In addition, toe what it was doing in the engineering division. So two years was enough. And then we were both able to retire.

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1981. So I had lived in the canals. Oh, for 41 years on, I was ready for a new life in the States. That e the time leading up to the treaty was very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable, very threatening. Nobody ever knew exactly what was gonna happen to your jobs on Bond.

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If you stayed, what would happen to you what the conditions would be, but e it was a state of mind made those of us that did decide to leave very happy. Not everybody left. Some people stayed and worked longer until they could retire dependent on your eligibility.

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So I have a cousin who is still down there. He retired as a tugboat captain, but he just loves it down there. And he has stayed down there. Uh huh. And so that's some people stayed there and loved, still love it. It's still a good place to live, I think.

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But we chose Titusville, Florida for every time a home on the Space Coast on I thought I think way just felt we'd be happy living close to this Kennedy Space Center and the world famous space center in the shuttle program on it just felt right that we were living a part of the equally famous after being all those years with Panama Canal.

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It felt way really wanted Thio close to something else that was equally important, and it's been fine. We've been retired since 19 1, so that means 29 years, and that's uhh! Been a pleasure to a pleasure to have you sit in the same house no more.

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Yes, movie had a 20 several day. That's a good point. I was cheered of moving. Yeah, you are. You're looking forward, almost leaving the Panama Canal Zone and coming, settling and retiring right? And we also had a daughter actually was my husband's daughter, who's having a new baby, and e just wanted to closer.

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Typical. Yeah, you know, they live in Texas and they still live in Texas today. She's a gastroenterologist. Wow. But But the baby was one recently we're ready to leave. And also the jobs. My husband's job. I've gotten pretty traumatic. Mm e only got a few questions.

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You're pretty thorough. That that was great. Thank you so much, I think is this e can't know. It's off. It's running. It's still running. Oh, okay, Yeah, that's that's fine. It's very relaxed at the department, You know, it's formal or anything. It's true. There were. It's a period where there were a lot of world events like the World War, the assassination of President Kennedy, and they all impacted different ways on all our lives in Panama.

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What about things like, um, because that's a point of interest for us, how stateside and even international politics were affecting that area. Um, Justus Faras events going on in the USA, the civil rights movement of 1964. And there is it seems like there's a lot more hatred and a lot more racism stateside than there was in the canals on the canal zone seems harmonious and, you know, from a lot friendlier.

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What were your impressions of that way? Had changes there, but way entered into life down there in, uh, two separate systems on. You'll hear about that from everybody. I'm sure there was the gold role, which was the U. S. And Seoul role, which was the locals, which were mostly Jamaican, mostly the local Jamaicans that came there to build a canal and their descendants on everything was separate.

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Separate pay standards, separate bathrooms, separate trains. You know, you're on the train. There was trains in the back for the silver. People didn't look on. When I talk about now, it's still, uh it makes me uncomfortable to think of how we lived and accepted it. Way have separate commissaries.

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Uh, separate movie theaters, separate, separate everything and separate town sites on those at separate schools. They never were integrated. Uh, never were the whole time we were there, ever. Uh, there was less class dislike, less distinction in the workplace. Eventually, right on The lines of the post office were separate on E eventually that was eliminated on E.

00:32:44.240 - 00:33:21.450

On I appreciated the civil rights movement. But when I went in to be the equal employment investigator, we adopted all those, uh, principles the new legislation that was implemented to prevent discrimination. And in the States they had color. And if religion, all the factors In addition, we had citizenship on.

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They could file a complaint on the basis of citizenship down there, which complicated even further because the federal statutes did not allow for a citizenship claim because it was never considered over in the States of the U. S. Citizen so that that impacted and there were cases I did investigated.

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But in those cases, and that's a different story on what was it like interacting with the Panamanian people? Fine. But yeah, especially in the early years, lives, um, Vietnam. A sign on. There was two classes of Panamanians. There was a rich white ones that was the lawyers and doctors and came from Spain or had lived there.

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Panama was a young country, just barely started in the 19 hundreds. So it's a very young country, and the rich, richer class, um, lived well spoke well intelligent, educated, and then all the lower class. There was a lot of poor people, but the off spoke English way didn't even have to learn to speak Spanish.

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Did not, in later years idea in the workplace. But during those shoes. No, um, way had no no problems, no problems. Really can't think of any any single problem until all the hostility developed because of treaty when they started treating, you know, there was in 1964 riot.

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Got a bit Ryan? Yeah, right. Foresee? They were invaluable way lived in the others. Other side eso We weren't that involved, but yes, the how hostilities had being developing, then about putting a flag on the way. They wanted us out of there in the worst way.

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So that's when we got a little Let's come a little tense. Yeah, a little tense, but generally, students in Panama a riot over everything e mean, even even things in their own country would provoke them to riot. So it didn't take much to get them started.

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Not much at all way were kind of blase about the students writing. That's what was was just a student's whatever they were fighting before. To this day, I don't really remember other than they wanted the canal. They want them. And in all honesty, I think they've done very well.

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They've done well, E very well, E said. My husband was chief of the engineering division and it was all the canals, engineers and architects. And he recommended a Panamanian fellow as his successor. When he retired on, he did get the job, but that was his favorite.

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His recommendation. So good, people, You appreciate good people, no matter what they are. They are where they are. E hadn't thought of that. That's true. That went well. Yeah. Have you gone back since? Just once. Okay. Just once. Her husband son was still working down there.

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So we went back in 83 2nd year after he retired. And it was great. It was still good. It was funny, stated his son and his wife, and they have a new young baby. So that was a good reason to go back and see the baby weight.

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Since then, e haven't had a desire to go back. And then people go and come back, have wonderful vacations. Wonderful. And I know the country has developed so much and the resorts are just gorgeous way never had anything like that. Yeah, back to when we had the beach house.

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We carry every item of food or drink to the beach house because there was no place to buy anything. Nobody's. They had no supermarkets and stores. You could buy ice. That was you could buy was ice, which was helpful. Yeah. Otherwise those trips were Oh, was it a long tradition to get up there?

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It was 70 miles. Okay. Yeah. So you just had to be self sufficient playing for the weekend or a week or weekend, But now it's e s just built up. Definitely resorts and beautiful hotels. It sounds nice by hearsay. I understand. I'm driving in Panama City or something.

00:38:18.320 - 00:38:42.780

Okay. You don't wanna dio e can't Always bad, bad little narrow streets, old streets, some some new ones, but basically part of the city's small streets. Lots of traffic. Lots of e wouldn't wanna do it. No. Even people that live down three years. Yeah. Uh, come back and see if they go into Panama City for anything.

00:38:42.780 - 00:39:12.830

They take a taxing. Definitely. You might hear anything about the quote Chiyoko races. Have you been hearing about Yes. Yes, Well, my daughter's husband, huh? Has gotten involved and gone down the past two years and participated in them on. That's the first time he's been back since way they left back way.

00:39:12.840 - 00:39:33.120

Just has the best time. Aziz best seems like an incredible experience. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Yeah, for three days. I think it's sad that they I was told about three days. It takes them 34 days. Thio do the entire Yeah, they over three days over again part way Friday on.

00:39:33.120 - 00:39:59.650

Then they call the boats out and then Saturday and then they call the boats out. They haul them in and out every day. Yeah, and they don't let them go through the locks anymore. No, they used Thio when, uh, just started back in sixties before sixties E, but they used to let them actually paddle to the canal to the locks.

00:40:00.190 - 00:40:15.360

Two sets of locks with no ships, you know, they kind of time they had to travel fast, get in another blocks. But I understand they don't do that. Maybe they take them in and out at the end of a canal, get it out and they move them around.

00:40:15.370 - 00:40:33.330

Tell them around the locks and put him back in. But thanks. Year. They told my son tomorrow he said that they might stop it because it's just getting to be too big a district. So many people come to do it. They have to shut the canal down.

00:40:33.340 - 00:40:54.370

Yeah, they used to always get a sea scouts. That's who started, right, And they had little, uh, One of my daughters was a queen for one of the boat on. That was a little honor on. So that was That was a sideline. It wasn't a school activity, but it was a sea sky kitty.

00:40:54.370 - 00:41:19.150

That's how it started. Just with kids. Yeah, because all these 50 year old out there killing themselves a long paddle. Three day paddle. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My son in law's boat lost one of their four persons first day to an injury, so they had to do it with just three people.

00:41:19.160 - 00:41:41.450

So they worked really came home. I don't. They moved E. Yeah, you'd be so super back here. He's already talking about going back. Shoot. That's good. E I'm around. If you are sure