INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Boggs was more relaxed in this interview than in the first one, and the interview proceeded smoothly. Like the first, it was conducted in the living room of her spacious home on Mt. Washington.
5/5/1981
Description:
SUBJECT BIO - Betty Jeanne Boggs was only seventeen years old when she went to work at Doaks Manufacturing shortly after the family moved to Los Angeles.. Born in 1926, Boggs was raised in the northwest, and when graduated from high school, at sixteen, enrolled in the Jesuit-run Seattle University with the intention of majoring in aeronautical engineering. When her father was transferred to Los Angeles, she planned on continuing her course of study at Loyola University. However, when the Jesuits there quashed that idea, she and her mother both went to work in the aircraft industry instead. Before war's end, the family moved back to the northwest, and Boggs eventually enrolled again at Seattle University, where she met her future husband. After they married, they alternated finishing their college studies and working. She worked at Sylvania Electric until the birth of her second child, at which time she left the work force. As Boggs' children grew older, she returned to school and eventually earned an MFA (Masters of Fine Arts Degree). The spacious back yard of her hilltop home in Eagle Rock was graced by her sculptures: a massive ensemble of life sized stone figures. The three interviews with Boggs were conducted by Jan Fischer. Although she was initially self conscious and concerned about relating her story "well," she became more relaxed as each interview progressed. She was often dressed in the clothes that she wore to work at her table saw, and was delighted to show her work area and her art.
TOPICS - move to California; housing; application process at Doaks; job training; expectations about defense work; work clothing and safety gear; job responsibilities; wing flap production; labor force demographics; mother;working conditions; gender relations; relationship with co-workers; description of plant; safety precautions; work clothing; medical services; labor force demographics; company services; dating; social activities;economic status, WWII; rationing and wartime restrictions; blackouts; dating and social life; family life and activities; work experiences in Portland; mother; Seattle University; V-J Day celebrations; and reflecti
