"I think [the men] came back to their jobs [after the war] but some of them stayed in California. They didn't come back. Some of them [women] kept their jobs.

What was I doing [when Pearl Harbor was bombed]? I can't remember too well. I don't know if I was at work or what. But I remember when Kennedy got killed. It [Pearl Harbor] was on a Sunday. I think we must have been to the movies because we went to the movies almost every Sunday. [When] we came out and heard it. My daddy had a radio because there was no TV's.

[I was married] in 1946. I was working during the war at the PD Store. I had these jobs before I met Mr. Todd. He went to the service but when he was there he got double pneumonia. [He was in the army>]. They had to send him home because he got double pneumonia. That was when his lungs got real weak. He was in Fort Ord, in California. He was already working for PD [before he was drafted.] [I didn't know him] not too long [before we were married.] We went to a carnival and that's where I met Mr. Todd. I started going out with him and before I knew it, we were going out and we were married. Everything in all my life had been like a dream. (laughs) He went back to work at PD after Fort Ord. He had a labor job. Later on, he joined the Brotherhood [of Locomotive Engineers]. He got a job as an engineer, but at the beginning he was working as a laborer. Hard work, but I can't remember what kind of work he used to do. Later was when he started working for the locomotive engineers.

[The War] made us wiser, I suppose, and more suspicious because of the way the Japs done us. My mother used to tell us that we should trust people, but later on, we used to tell her, "You trust people, Mamá, then later on they stab you in the back just like the Japs done us." [When I started working,] my mother and my father everything was fine [with them]. But in the beginning, no. The girl was supposed to stay at home. My daddy was a very suspicious old man.

They rationed the meat and the sugar and the coffee [during the War]. They had to have a [ration]stamp for meat and the shoes. This friend of mine, we used to trade for coupons. I used to give her coupons for the meat and she used to give me coupons for the shoes.

They brought them [the Indians during the War.] Then after the War they went back to the reservation. Some stayed that had good jobs. They had some [PD coupon books] during the war.

All my pictures that I used to have, good nice pictures that I used to have. They all got destroyed with the flood. I think fires are even worse than the floods.

My mother used to put things when they used to say they [were] gonna have a blackout. My mother would put sheets or something on the windows. Everybody had something. They would start blowing the horn, the fire department.

I used to like play tricks on people. One time we were coming out of the PD Store and I told [them] how much you want to bet I make a lot of these people do what I do? So I started looking up into the sky and I says, "Look, it's going over there and it's going over there. It looks like one of those planes, a bomber." (laughs) Before I knew it, there was a crowd all around. I told the girls, "Come on, let's start running." Because we were just playing a trick on them. It was Big Elvie and Jessie De Leon. Oh, they got angry. They said, "Josie, what did you do that for?" "Because I wanted to play a trick on the people." (laughs) No, [it never embarrassed me to do things like that.]

One time I started whistling, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (laughs) and you should have heard the people whistling, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!" I was working in the PD Store that day. I started, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and started whistling and before I knew it, Tony started whistling. (laughs) Then I had everybody whistling, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." It was a song that was going on during the war.

At the movies, they showed the war. They made us cry because of the way they [the Germans and Japanese] done. I remember one time, somebody sent Mrs. Roosevelt a shade made out of a skin from a Jew. A lampshade and they showed it on the news.

It was so funny, there was this Mexican people when they started playing the national anthem; they stand up. I thought it was funny. [They were Mexican from Mexico but they were being patriotic.] For the sixteenth of September when they showed the news; they stand up even if it was for Mexico or the United States. I remember that [Mexican] lady so well.

When they ask us to bring something made out of aluminum, I would steal Carmen's rollers for curling her hair (laughter) for going to the movies. [They let us into the movies if we took something] made out of aluminum or for the war effort or something made out of copper. I got a lot of those rollers, the aluminum. I got them in a yard sale [just for memories.]

[During the war, women used to put>] some kind of a beige dye. They used to put it on their legs. After the stockings began to come in style, they used to have a big line in the back and sometimes Carmen would tell us to see if her line was straight.

[During the war my mother would go outside] and bless the four directions. I remember one day I followed her to see what she was doing. She was praying and she was blessing. (crys) [She learned from her mother.]"