Oral History Interview with Carol Wheelock

[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is March 21st, 2023. This is an interview with Carol Wheelock, who served in the United States Air Force from 1958 to 1959.

WHEELOCK: Through 1959. Yes.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you enter the service as Carol Wheelock?

WHEELOCK: No. My maiden name was Carol Brisbin.

SPRAGUE: Brisbane. Okay. Like, spelled like the spitting City of Brisbane in Australia.

WHEELOCK: Some of the relatives spell it that way. We spelt it B-I-N at the end, B-R-I-S-B-I-N.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Brisbin. Okay. Got it. Okay. This is an interview being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Manitowoc Public Library for the I Am Not Invisible Project as part of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the room. First of all, Carol, do you remember in 1958 when 00:01:00you joined?

WHEELOCK: I think it was in May after I turned eighteen, I was still yet in high school, but I went and tried to sign up at that time and they said okay. And then I got out a little early for high school. So I then worked at getting down to Detroit for transportation out to where I'm at for my final go around. And then they sent me to Lackland in Texas.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: For basic training.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And we'll we're going to talk about all of that. We're going to come back to that if we can. Where did you where did you grow up?

WHEELOCK: Flint, Michigan.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what did your family do there?

WHEELOCK: My father had his own business. It was a garage business that he worked on. Heavy duty trucks, semis, things like that. And also people's automobiles as needed, you know. And I started out at twelve years old working with him in his garage. He taught me how to grind valves and seat them [laughs] and I had to get them perfect. So I was taught how to use micrometers for measuring and things like that. And I would go back to grade school and tell the teacher what I had learned [laughs]. And she didn't even quite at that time 00:03:00understand what it all meant. And then I had to explain it to her [laughs]. But it was fun.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm. What was your dad's business name in in Michigan? Or did he just go by his own name?

WHEELOCK: I think he just Brisbane's garage, on Dort Highway in Flint. And there he also told me about times when he would go down to Detroit and teach diesel mechanics to the people that took care of busses and big trucks and things like that. So he was an expert diesel mechanic.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what schools did you go to?

WHEELOCK: I went to at that time, it was Lowell Junior, Junior High. I can't 00:04:00remember the name of the grade school offhand right now. And then my high school was Flint Tech and it was a technical high school where I was asked to join. But you had to have a certain grade point average to get in. And I passed that. For gals, they had to have A-B grade point average. And for fellas you had to have a B-C average. And so it was a small high school. There weren't many of us in there, but it being technical, I was able to move my education rate a little 00:05:00faster. I was basically done with my first three years of high school by junior year. So my senior year I started my college education and then I also worked half days for grade point from my employer. He graded me and I did all of his bookkeeping and stuff for his grocery store chain.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: And yeah, so I had, like I said, by then, I also had almost a whole year of college in my first year of college. So.

SPRAGUE: So when you got out of high school, you said you did you join right 00:06:00when you were 18 or did you.

WHEELOCK: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What did your family say about joining the military?

WHEELOCK: Well, I had a few uncles that weren't happy about it because they were in the military. My father always was progressive with me. He said, Do what you want to do. That's the real point. My mother, she wasn't real thrilled about me moving away, but she soon understood that this is what I wanted to do. And then she accepted it.

SPRAGUE: And why did you pick the Air Force?

WHEELOCK: That was a few I had always had an interest in. I had an uncle that 00:07:00lived in northern Michigan, the lower part, but in the northern section, that worked at an Air Force base. He was with the fire department and he was the fire chief on the Air Force base. And that was where they first brought the F-100 out, the very first that--and that just intrigued me to the point where that's where I want to go. That's what I want to do. So that's what I did.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Let's go ahead and just pause the interview for a moment here. This is Luke Sprague ending segment one. This is Luke Sprague and Carol 00:08:00Wheelock, and this is segment two. And we were talking, Carol and I were talking about her--My next question for her was, oh, what do you remember about traveling to boot camp or basic training?

WHEELOCK: Well, it was mostly by train. And the one thing I remember getting down to Texas, we stopped at a very large town area, but I can't recall the town--it's been so long agoo long ago. But this was during the age of discrimination, you might call it, which is we we call it that now. But and I just was not used to that type of discrimination because where I grew up, blacks 00:09:00and whites just grew up together. I had good friends that were black, went to school with black kids and all of that. So it just never really paid much attention to the differences between us. And I remember getting off of the train. Then I had to get onto a bus, but I had to wait for a bus to get me. In the meantime, I'm sitting, I'm getting thirsty. I found a water fountain to get a drink out of. And I was, I just walked up to it and started drinking. And all 00:10:00of a sudden a lady came over to me and she said, "Ma'am, you can't drink out of that fountain. That's for Blacks only". And I looked at her so odd, and I said, "What do you mean, Blacks only"? She said, "We have a White drinking fountain and a Black drinking fountains. We have White bathrooms and Black bathrooms. And I looked at her and I said, Oh, man, oh, man, this isn't good. And after that, I had a lot of trouble adjusting to that because I was forever going in the wrong place, using the wrong facility or drinking from the wrong fountain. When I got on the bus, I went to the back of the bus because that's where I liked riding in 00:11:00buses and at home I could do that. Couldn't do that with the Greyhounds going down south, in the Deep South, because the back of the bus was for the Blacks. So they made me sit up front and I hated it.

SPRAGUE: Huh.

WHEELOCK: So that was a eye opener for me. It was a real eye opener with how the discrimination was. Yeah. So.

SPRAGUE: What? Where was your basic training at?

WHEELOCK: At Lackland Air Force base down in San Antonio, Texas. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And what were some of the things that you remember from basic, things that stick out in your head after all these years?.

WHEELOCK: Oh. Geez. I don't know. It was. It was so long ago, there wasn't too much. I mean, we just did what we were told and no talking back. And listen to what you're said. You know what's being said to you and then following through. But yeah, that's about it. Another thing that kind of got me was how we had to line up in a row and walk past this person that was giving us shots one right after another. And yeah, that was an eye opener. But we got through it. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Was it just women in your unit or were there men in your unit?

WHEELOCK: Yeah, there were all women in my unit. Yeah, it was all female. Yeah. And we were trained accordingly. And I remember we actually took first place in our marching abilities for the basic training groups. We had a pretty sharp-looking unit.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the unit name?

WHEELOCK: I don't.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: I really don't.

SPRAGUE: Was what were some of the things that they trained you in, in terms of 00:14:00your uniform?

WHEELOCK: Like your basic, basically. They trained us every bit like they trained the men in basic training-- learning how to shoot rifles, and how to walk ten miles with backpacks on and everything, you know, like they did with the men. That was about about it, that we did whatever they were trained to do.

SPRAGUE: Was your unit racially integrated at that point?

WHEELOCK: Yes, it was. Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What what was it like being exposed to people from outside of Michigan? People from all over the country?

WHEELOCK: Where I. I don't know quite how to answer that. I didn't have any 00:15:00problems meeting people or adjusting to them.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm.

WHEELOCK: It. It didn't impress. It didn't really impress me all that much.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: You just met them, and that was it.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

WHEELOCK: Met and accepted.

SPRAGUE: Met and accepted. Okay.

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you. Did your family come down for the graduation?

WHEELOCK: No, they did not.

SPRAGUE: And do you remember anybody specifically from Basic at this point?

WHEELOCK: I don't know. I. I'm sorry. I don't recall.

SPRAGUE: Were your instructors men or women or both?

WHEELOCK: Our unit, our basic training unit that was a female instructor for us 00:16:00here. She was a sergeant female.

SPRAGUE: Okay, So after basic, did you attend some additional or advanced training? Like, AIT, or?

WHEELOCK: I don't know. I don't recall training after basic they sent us back. We had I think it was like a week and a half or something like that. We could go back home for a visit and then we were sent to our new base, which then for me 00:17:00was straight down to Florida, Eglin Air Force Base. But I got about a week and a half off after training, after basic. And our basic training--the length of that, I believe it was 12 weeks of basic. Most of the men had eight weeks. But our unit for some reason had 12. And I don't really remember why.

SPRAGUE: What? Okay, so you get. You go home. You come home on leave.

WHEELOCK: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: You're assigned to Eglin Air Force Base.

WHEELOCK: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: First of all, did you have any choice in getting assigned to that unit or that area or?

WHEELOCK: No, I didn't. They just told me where I was going and where I was 00:18:00going to be working. And that was it.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. So they took me down to the Air Force Base, took us to our barracks, and they told us where we would be working in and the day that we had to sign in for that position for the job, where we had to go and stuff like that. So take care of paperwork, that sort of thing. They took me out to Site 19, which is where I had to work, and it was way out in the boondocks. Way out. And it was a rather strange-looking concrete building. No windows, no nothing. 00:19:00Steel doors, guard armed guards standing on the outside. Armed guards standing on the inside.

SPRAGUE: So what was the name of the unit you were assigned to?

WHEELOCK: Air Research and Development.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you remember by chance--within Air, Air Research and Development Command-- do you happen to remember maybe a squadron or a group or a detachment within that that you were in, by chance, like a sub-unit?

WHEELOCK: No, I don't. I was just taken into the building, showed where I was going to be, my office housed in with a staff sergeant and then a private office 00:20:00of ours with a door on it where our colonel had his office. And in the open area of the office is where I had my desk and stuff.

SPRAGUE: Now, you had talked about this in the pre-interview, and you talk about it being out in the boondocks.

WHEELOCK: It was way out.

SPRAGUE: Was it on or was it on Eglin Air Force Base or was it one of the out station? Eglin has a bunch of Hurlburt Field, a bunch of other places, or was it directly?

WHEELOCK: It was part of the Air Force base, but it was out. It was secluded.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: But then Eglin Air Force Base was very large and very spread out. So, 00:21:00yeah, it was odd because beyond us yet out in God's country, I say, that's where they train pilots and things like that. People like that for survival. And they would be taken out there and be let out there for about two weeks for survival training if they would crash and survive or parachute out, what have you, and be out in the god-awful no population areas. So they were taught how to survive that.

SPRAGUE: Uh huh.

WHEELOCK: And in fact, we would bring several service personnel down to Eglin from Andrews Air Force Base for TDY, and they would be taken out there for their survival training. And then when they were done, we would fly a, pretty much a planeful back up to Andrews.

SPRAGUE: Huh. Now, you had mentioned you had talked and described in the pre-interview the projects that you were tracking in and that you were tracking 00:23:00from that building.

WHEELOCK: Right. They--we were a branch off of NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration]. And when NASA was sending the Saturns up or the Discovery spaceships up, we would monitor their trajectory, their orbit, and their landing on screens. And I would monitor that on a screen down in the control room whenever we would have a shoot from NASA.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm.

WHEELOCK: And that was the only time I would be down there by the screens is 00:24:00during a shoot. Otherwise, I was in my office upstairs.

SPRAGUE: And where was NASA shooting out of? Just for the record.

WHEELOCK: The Cape.

SPRAGUE: Cape Canaveral?

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. In the screens that you're talking about. Was it--Help me out with this. Was it a screen with a green dot on it or did it have like a, what did it look like?

WHEELOCK: Oh, it was like a radar screen.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: I don't know how else to describe it.

SPRAGUE: Did it have a big green-like thing rotating on it and going around like an arm or?

WHEELOCK: I don't recall that. But the screen itself, I was get a blip and follow that. And that was the trajectory and that sort of thing.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm.

WHEELOCK: And it left a white mark that I can follow on the screen. You know . Then I would take notes of everything that was happening on the screen I would be taking shorthand notes on. So, that's what I transcribed.

SPRAGUE: Was the radar that you were using, was it dedicated just for that purpose or was it the base's radar and you were using that as a resource? You know what I mean?

WHEELOCK: I don't recall. It must have been exclusively for that project because I don't recall using that radar for anything else but the Saturn's flights and 00:26:00things like that. Yeah. So.

SPRAGUE: Now you had mentioned the Discovery Project.

WHEELOCK: Mm-hmm. I

SPRAGUE: I wasn't-- I was perplexed. I wasn't able to find much on the Discovery Project.

WHEELOCK: No, they they didn't they didn't do a whole lot.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: It it it was basically the Saturn Project that got all of the work, and I. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any experiences with the Atlas Project?

WHEELOCK: I did not.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So when you're transcribing to, from the monitor, is that 00:27:00trajectory altitude--what kind of information is that? Just curious.

WHEELOCK: Pretty much all of that.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: You know, because you have to write it down and all. So, yeah, you had to monitor the height, the altitude, the pattern of the orbit and that sort of thing. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And who did that information go to?

WHEELOCK: When I would get done with the tracking and the site, I would take all of my notes up to my office, and then I would transcribe the shorthand into a typed report. I would show it to the sergeant in the office. He okayed it. Then I would take it in to the colonel's office. He would read it. And then if he 00:28:00agreed with everything I typed, he would stamp it, "Top Secret."

SPRAGUE: Do you remember the sergeant and the colonel's name, by chance?

WHEELOCK: My colonel's name was Arbgust. And the sergeant's name was Sergeant Self. But I cannot remember his first name.

SPRAGUE: I think you said in the pre-interview maybe William? Maybe? Or that--

WHEELOCK: I--no, that doesn't. I don't recall. I, right now, I don't remember that. It could be.

SPRAGUE: And so--

WHEELOCK: Or, Bill. William. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: S-E-L-F, self. Like "self."

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And then how do you spell Arbogast?

WHEELOCK: Oh [laughs], um, A-R-B-G-U-S-T, I believe. Arbgust.

SPRAGUE: Uh huh. And was he a lieutenant colonel or a full colonel?

WHEELOCK: I'm. I'm trying to remember that. I. I thought he was a full colonel.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You had mentioned here your top-secret clearance. What do you remember any of the specifics of--Usually when they give you a clearance, they do a background investigation.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. They had a lot of FBI checking me out. My parents, my 00:30:00grandparents, my aunts, my uncles. They went through my old neighborhood and interviewed a lot of the kids I grew up with in the neighborhood. Yeah, everybody thought I had gotten into some very bad trouble in Florida [laughs] when the FBI started showing up on their front door doorstep asking questions about me [laughs]. So but then I called my folks and told her what might be happening. And my dad said, "It's already happened. We thought, now, what did you get into [both laugh]." And but then I explained it to himand what it was 00:31:00all about. Then he was okay with that. But he said, yeah, they, they were it took about two weeks where they were questioning everybody that I had come in contact with. So.

SPRAGUE: This sounds like a pretty, from your description, you have yourself a staff sergeant, a colonel, and some guards. It doesn't sound like a large unit.

WHEELOCK: It wasn't a real large unit, No. We had other people that were working at the monitors as well. There were always more than just one monitor going. You know, in case you missed something. The other monitor would maybe pick it up, the person at that monitor would pick it up, you know? So, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Were the other monitors, were they men or women or--

WHEELOCK: Both.

SPRAGUE: Both.

WHEELOCK: Both. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: How did you learn shorthand for that job, or--

WHEELOCK: I learned shorthand in high school.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. And typing and all of that.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. What were the conditions like working in this? Sounds like a concrete bunker.

WHEELOCK: It was basically that. A bunker. Yeah, because whenever there would be a shoot, everything connected to the outside, like the phone lines would get shut off. We could not make phone calls out. We could not receive phone calls in when we were in a shoot in front of the monitor. And that. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And by shoot, you mean a rocket going up at Cape Canaveral.

WHEELOCK: Because I'm sorry. What?

SPRAGUE: When you use the term shoot, you're talking about a rocket launch?

WHEELOCK: Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You had also mentioned carrying a .45 pistol?

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about that.

WHEELOCK: When I had to take the locked case that was on my wrist out to the flight line with the description of the flight--the shoot that we had--the colonel would make sure I had a .45 on my hip, and I'd go up to an armed guard, to an armed guard car that would then drive me out to the flight line to get on to a plane. And I would sit up front with the the crew, flight crew, while the 00:34:00rest of the plane had TDY guys to fly up with us.

SPRAGUE: So you had a briefcase or--

WHEELOCK: Yeah, it was a--

SPRAGUE: light satchel or--

WHEELOCK: a hard briefcase with the flight pattern. And all of the report was in that case.

SPRAGUE: And it was handcuffed to you or?

WHEELOCK: Handcuffed to my wrist. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And so those that information, it's fascinating to hear about this. So instead of that being encrypted, you literally put it in a briefcase and carried it to whoever you were taking that information to.

WHEELOCK: We flew up to Andrews Air Force Base. When I got off the plane, I was then taken into a highly guarded area, transferred the papers over to a person 00:35:00that took 'em to the Pentagon.

SPRAGUE: Wow. And what. What plane did you fly up to Andrews?

WHEELOCK: It was one of our military DC-3s. See, you know, I call it a DC-3. It was the size of a DC-3.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: So you had talked about during the pre-interview about having to call your husband and say, I'm not going to be home. Oh. Tell us about that.

WHEELOCK: I wasn't able to do that. Yeah. When I got married in '59, this was in July of '59. We then got the place off base and it was kind of in a little bayou 00:36:00area of, down the coast.

SPRAGUE: What town was that near?

WHEELOCK: I'm trying to remember. It just--I can't remember the name specifically right now, but my husband at that time then was out of the Air Force, but he was working on the base as well. He ran a thrift shop on the base. Plus, he then was hired by Westinghouse Corporation to work on the paperwork and the financial end of the B-47 that they were working on. So that's what he was 00:37:00doing. Anyway, if we had a shoot going down, they would shut everything off. And I couldn't leave the building. I couldn't call out phone-wise or anything like that to tell my husband that I was going to not be home, probably, for supper. And [both laugh], but I never had an opportunity to find out or tell him that in advance. So I'd be at work on base and all of a sudden we're getting locked down and I'm thinking, Oh boy. And there would be a time where it would be until the 00:38:00next day, midday, before I would get out and be able to get home. But he he under-- I was thankful because he did understand what was going on, and, you know, so. But it was just the idea.

SPRAGUE: Any special people you remember from working in that bunker that sticks out in your head?

WHEELOCK: Not offhand. I know Chuck Yeager used to sit in the test pilot, back in the day. Well, he's the one that broke the sound barrier. He used to sit in the seats back by where the gallery would sit and that, and then we'd get some of the astronauts would come in. The original astronauts, they would maybe sit 00:39:00in during one of the shoots and that sort of thing. Trying to. I can't think. I'm trying to remember their names and I can't quite remember all of them. But I know Armstrong was in there once. I'm trying to think of the other ones, but I just right now, it just goes right over the top. Maybe they'll come. It'll come to me later.

SPRAGUE: So Neil Armstrong, Chuck Yeager. And they would come all the way across Florida to where you were at at Eglin?

WHEELOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Was there, was it with, well, I mean, that's all the way in the panhandle.

WHEELOCK: Yeah, I know.

SPRAGUE: And that's so your look--Is that so the radar can see the object easier 00:40:00because it's more distant or what is the, you know, the purpose behind that versus having a radar right at the Cape or something? I'm trying to understand how it works.

WHEELOCK: I don't I, I don't quite know why they had that set up that way. I don't quite know that.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: It just was always there.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So in addition to the other, having the astronauts there, so they came to your bunker is what you're telling me.

WHEELOCK: On occasion, yeah, they would come and sit in with the with the staff major and the colonel and staff from headquarters would come over and sit in and that. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember the major's name by chance or not?

WHEELOCK: No, I don't.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You also mentioned something else interesting. Tell us about Sam 00:41:00the monkey.

WHEELOCK: Oh, well, we--Our purpose was finally to get the monkey out of the spaceship, which yes, we retired, Sam. So we got rid of Sam and started prepping and doing things to the satellites, to house a man and that sort of thing. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you actually track Sam the monkey as he went overhead, or when he launched?

WHEELOCK: No, I didn't. And but when I started doing tracking, that's when they had retired Sam.

SPRAGUE: Sam was already gone.

WHEELOCK: He was retired.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. So that's why I said we retired the monkey [both laugh]. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you--And I'm just curious. This is kind of an administrative detail. Were, were you--Did anything change for you when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in--NACA--became NASA in October of '58? Did that have any bearing on your operations? Did it affect you at all?

WHEELOCK: I don't recall any super affects from that, you know.

SPRAGUE: Okay, well, no problem. Just thought I'd ask.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. No, I don't recall having any issues--

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: --with that.

SPRAGUE: So tell us, you had talked to us during the pre-interview about us, but tell us about your decision and why the circumstances of leaving, getting out 00:43:00of, the military.

WHEELOCK: Well, I like I said, I was working at the site. Things were going great. And then all of a sudden I got the word from headquarters that they wanted to ship me to Germany for a year and a half. So I said, "Okay, can I take my husband with me as my spouse?" You know, he was already out of the Air Force at that time. And they said, "No." I could not. And so I told them, I said, "In that case, I don't want to go to Germany if I can't take my husband with me and 00:44:00I have to be over there for a year and half. I just got married." So my alternative was to leave the service, which is what I did. I told the firm, I said, "Start filing my discharge papers, because I don't want to go over there without my husband." So he started filing my paperwork. We waited and waited to get the word and wasn't hearing anything. And so finally, my husband, who he, because he worked in headquarters in finance at Eglin. So he went into headquarters one day and he went up into the office. He knew where to go and who 00:45:00to talk to to see what's happened to my records. They said they couldn't find them. They were lost. Well, he left headquarters and he told me what had happened, that the stuff was lost and that. Then he got them thinking about it and he said, "No, that's just not going to, that's not going to work". So he went back over to headquarters. He went back into the office where they had records and that, and he said, "Let me look behind that filing cabinet." So the guy let him look behind. Here was my records behind the filing cabinet. And then 00:46:00he found them and brought them out. He said, "Now, since we've found her records, start processing them." So then they did. Couple days later, I got my papers [laughs] and it was a little weird. Yeah. So.

WHEELOCK: Why, what made you, why did they wind up behind the filing cabinet, I wonder?

WHEELOCK: They didn't want me to get out, I guess. I don't know.

SPRAGUE: Huh. Does that have to do with the--You had mentioned, because of your top secret clearance?

WHEELOCK: That could have very well been the reason. Yes, I'm thinking it was, because I would have carried that clearance overseas with me, you know, And I 00:47:00think they wanted to keep him because of that.

SPRAGUE: I've got to ask if the situation had been reversed and your husband had stayed in with the top-secret clearance and your skill set, and he was asking his spouse to come with him to Germany, do you think he would have been allowed to do that?

WHEELOCK: I believe so. Yes, I do.

SPRAGUE: Okay. If the Army, or sorry, Air Force had allowed you to take your spouse, do you think you would have stayed in in the military or you would have still gotten out?

WHEELOCK: If I could have taken my spouse with me overseas, I would have stayed in. I would have continued with the military. Yes. Yes.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You had mentioned in the pre-interview that you and your husband worked across from each other on the base, or was it nearby each other or not so 00:48:00much, because he was working on the B-47 and you were in the boondocks?

WHEELOCK: When I first met my husband, he was still in the military. He was working in headquarters on the main base. When he got out--and he got out because that was back in the day when the military froze your rate and pay grade, and they wouldn't they wouldn't give him an increase in his grade or pay rate. And that's why he then got out. Then Westinghouse asked him to go to work for them on the B-47 project. But I was still in the military at that time. 00:49:00Yeah. And I was working out at the site. So

SPRAGUE: When you got out, got out of the military, what what happened next?

WHEELOCK: Well, we packed everything up. I packed all of my military stuff up and put it in my big B4 bag, and there wasn't room in our little bitty Chevy that we had. So I said, Well, that's okay. I'll just put all my uniforms and shoes and stuff in my B4 rolled up nice and tight and everything, and I'll just ship it to my folk's house up in, well, they had then moved from Flint to Clio, 00:50:00Michigan, and I would ship it up to Bishop airport where they can go pick it up. Well. It didn't get up there. Didn't get up there. And I called Delta, which is the airline that I put the bag on to be sent up to Michigan. I said, "Do you have my bag?" And I gave them my military number that was on the bag and everything and described it and all. They said, "No, we can't find it." I said, "I gave it to you, paid shipping charges and everything for you to ship it to 00:51:00Bishop Airport up in Flint." And they said, "We can't find it." So Delta lost my B4 bag and all my uniforms and everything.

SPRAGUE: Oh, no.

WHEELOCK: And I kept after them for a couple of years after the fact to see if maybe, just maybe somebody found it and brought it up, you know. But no, they never did. I never did find it. By then we drove from Florida up to Wisconsin, and when I got to Wisconsin, we came through Manitowoc. And I told Don, I said, "You know, this is a town I would love to move to." I said, "It's near the 00:52:00water. We've got the boat to go across to go see mom and dad." We went up [WIS] 42 to Door County where his folks were living, because he was from Ephraim. I said, "This is an ideal spot." So I said, "I sure wish you would try to get a job in Manitowoc [Sprague laughs]". Well, lo and behold, he did [Sprague laughs]. He found an opening at Rahr's Supply and [inaudible], when Don, walked in he talked to [inaudible], one of the owners of Rahr's Supply, and they hired him right on the spot because of his office abilities and that sort of thing in 00:53:00management, which is what we did in the military. So it was ideal for him.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. So then that's when we moved to Manitowoc then.

SPRAGUE: And what year was that?

WHEELOCK: We moved to Manitowoc the 1st of January in 1960. First week in January. Yeah, he had already started working at Rarh's, and then he found a little apartment up on 19th Street. And then he would go to the apartment and 00:54:00then on the weekends he would come up to Door County where I was staying with his folks for the first couple of weeks.

SPRAGUE: For someone who's not from Manitowoc, how do you spell Rahrs?

WHEELOCK: R-A-H-R-S.

SPRAGUE: Rahrs. Rahr's Supply. Okay.

WHEELOCK: And they were also connected to the furniture store that was on 10th Street. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you keep in contact with anyone by chance who had served with you in the military other than your husband?

WHEELOCK: I did not. I had my telephone numbers and addresses and all that in my B4 bag of our best man who was a military police and my maid of honor was his 00:55:00wife. And she was also in the Air Force. Betty was her first name. I'm trying to think and she was from New Jersey, but that's as far as I could get, because I lost her all her address, my address book for the people like that--that was all in my B4 bag.

SPRAGUE: You said her name was Betty?

WHEELOCK: Betty was her first name.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: I'm trying to think of the last name. Oh, God. I can't offhand think of it. Betty and, um--I'm trying to think of his first name, and it just went 00:56:00right out the window. Betty and Phil, or something like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay. No, no problem. No worries. Yeah. So what? What? When you left the military, you get up to Manitowoc. What did you next do in your career?

WHEELOCK: Well.

SPRAGUE: What's our next step?

WHEELOCK: After we got up to Manitowoc, then I met a gal, and she wanted to learn first aid. And there happened to be a first aid course just starting in Manitowoc. So her and I went to sign up, and the nurse that was giving the first 00:57:00aid treatments and schooling to us was Mrs. [Kumbalek??], that's how I remember her, and she-- this was in, wait--this was in 1964. Prior to that, I had my first child in Manitowoc, at Holy Family. September 15th of 1960. She also had, my close friend in Manitowoc, had a child in I believe it was August, end of 00:58:00August of 1960. And then when I met her in 1964 or '63, actually, that's when we decided to take the first aid class. So her and I went to first, first aid classes for, I don't know, three weeks or so. And it just intrigued me. And then Mrs. Kumbalek asked me if I would like a job, and I said, "Doing what?" She said, "Working in a hospital." I said, "Well, yeah, I would. I wouldn't mind 00:59:00doing that." But I said, "I'm not done with the course." She said, "You don't need to finish this course. The director of nurses at Memorial Hospital wants you to come on board as is." I said, "Well, okay." So I signed up at Memorial Hospital for OB Department on third shift. That was January of yeah January 2nd or something, January 4th of 1964. I signed up as a scrum nurse for the OB 01:00:00department and then also setting up all the instruments and everything for the doctors for delivery and handed 'em over to the doctors as they needed them during the delivery. And that was on third shift. And I worked that for, oh, quite a couple of years for sure. And there were times when I was on call and if it was the winter and the snows that we would get off of that lake, then we lived right over on Elder Drive. We couldn't drive the car out because it was a 01:01:00Corvair. Back then, they were so low-slung you couldn't get through drifts. So I would put my cross-country skis on and I would ski across the back lots behind our house on Elder, across over to the Reed Avenue up and then ski up to the emergency entrance at the hospital. And they'd go in the emergency room door to get in and change my shoes and go upstairs, leave my skis down there. And yeah, so--

SPRAGUE: Okay.

WHEELOCK: --if I would get called in. [Laughs] Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you happen to have any involvement, obviously, with veteran's organizations?

WHEELOCK: I did not after I got out. No, my husband did. He joined the AMVETS back in those days when they had, when they started an AMVET program in Manitowoc, he got involved with that and that was down, well, just down the street here, not too far. That was Post 32, I believe, and that's where he signed up. And then he also signed up with the Eagles Club. But see, back in those days, women didn't have veteran organizations and things like that, you 01:03:00know? And if you were in the service, you didn't talk much about it, if at all. Because it just it just wasn't done back then.

SPRAGUE: That's going to be an interesting experience.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Not being able to talk about it.

WHEELOCK: Well, after a while, you just kind of forget about it, you know? But yeah, that. That women just weren't that accepted as veterans.

SPRAGUE: I do see that you do have the AMVETS 99 headgear on, Garrison cap. So 01:04:00you're a member of that post? Is my guess. Correct. Tell me about that involvement.

WHEELOCK: Yeah. Yeah, I'm a trustee. A two-year trustee of the AMVETS Post 99 now.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Are there more women in the post or not? Or.

WHEELOCK: We had a female, but she's not coming to the meetings anymore. I don't know why, but yes, there are a quite a few women starting to come into the club. They haven't necessarily joined it as a AMVET member, but we're working on them. Trying to get them to come over. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: So what do you think your life would have been like if you hadn't served?

WHEELOCK: I quite honestly don't know. I just. I never thought of anything else but the military since I was eight, seven, eight years old. That just was what I was going to do. And so I did it. You know, I was just it was like a one-track mind [both laugh]. When I did for for a little while, when I got finally discharged from the Air Force, I worked for a while in Fort Walton Beach, the city, and I started up an office and files and stuff like that and hired people 01:06:00for this corporation out of Kearny, California. And it was like a supply chain business for the military and for NASA. And so I got things set up and their paperwork and everything like that before I left Florida. So I was busy getting that all started up for them. Then I got a call from the head of the corporation out in Kearny. He wanted me to move out there when I got out of the military and 01:07:00become his private secretary. But I said, No, I'm moving to Wisconsin [both laugh] . So yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what motivated you to to do this interview? Why did you want to do this interview?

WHEELOCK: I just thought it was the right thing to do. You know? Um. And Ashley Schmidt and I talked about it and she, I really admire that young girl. She's quite something special. And so I thought, yeah, I wanted to help her out and that sort of thing. So.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover during this interview?

WHEELOCK: I can't think of anything off, right away. Hundred thousand things will probably come to me [both laugh] in the middle of the night. Do you have a night phone [laughs]?

SPRAGUE: No.

WHEELOCK: Nope [laughs]. Okay. But, yeah, I just. I can't offhand think of anything right now. I know a little fun thing. When I was down in Detroit getting ready to get into the military and physical and all of that that you have to go through before they fly you to basic training. When I first got down to Detroit, they checked me out and they said I didn't weigh enough to get into 01:09:00the military. I weighed at that time, I think, probably 98 to 100 pounds, 102 pounds, somewhere around there. Well, they said I had to weigh at least 108 in order to pass the weight preference in sign up. So I went to this restaurant and that they had on base. And I sat there for, I don't know how long drinking malted milks [both laugh]. And I, I can't tell you how many malted milks I had. But when I went to weigh in later that day, I weighed 108 pounds.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

WHEELOCK: I haven't had a malted milk since [both laugh]. Yeah. So.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well.

WHEELOCK: That's the extent I had to go through to get to, get to the mili--Yeah--to get in the military.

SPRAGUE: Quite the story [Wheelock laughs].

WHEELOCK: Oh, dear. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay, then we'll go ahead and wrap up the interview.

WHEELOCK: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Thank you for your service.

WHEELOCK: It was my pleasure. Yeah.

[Interview Ends]