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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Eleanor Josephine Danner Bilimoria 
April 26, 1985 
Cassette 3, Side 2 
 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  00:01 
--1941.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  00:01 
This is the second side of the first tape of the second interview. So, keep going. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  00:14 
We were in complete blackout, of course, because this was a Dutch ship and we zig-zagged. But 
we had a very nice group on board, and spent a lot of time on deck, dancing and talking and 
whatnot. And one night, we were on board having our pre-dinner drink, and the watch who'd 
been posted on the stern upper deck came down and telephoned the bridge that he'd sighted a 
light and that ship, which had been sailing into the sunset, turned and started north so fast. We 
were all a bit excited, and we went down and got our passports and money and put it into rubber 
cases, and got our life jackets, which we were supposed to have been wearing, but weren't. And 
during the night, they did spot another ship, and we had the same turn-around. Rotterdam had 
been badly bombed by that time, and one of the officers was from Rotterdam, and so he was very 
much... I don't think he was as much concerned about his safety as he was about his family. I was 
to have two weeks in Manila, and when I got there, it was very well fortified, and I'd hardly 
gotten off the ship when the woman who met me said, "You'd better get out of here as fast as 
possible, because they are shutting down on women traveling, and you may get stuck here." So I 
cut it short, and when the President Taylor came in, I took it, and it was a very strange situation, 
because then [?filing?]-- sailing on an American ship, it wasn't blackout, but there were seven 
large American flags painted around the sides of the ship, and all of them had huge spotlights on 
them, so that they could be seen from a distance. And one of the funny things that-- on that, at 
least to me, I was the only person on board who wore shorts and a halter. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  02:48 
We stopped in Penang and Singapore. I thought Singapore was beautiful and so clean. Singapore 
came first. When I got to Singapore, it was really a war fever there. They had barbed wire strung 
all along the beach. The harbor was mined, so that we-- it took us a long time to get in through 
the mines, and they really expected to be attacked at any time. And it's strange that it wasn't until 
December that they were attacked. December? I'd better check that. The people that I had left on 
the Dutch ship caught up with me here, and Martha changed ships and was back on board with 
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me again. We stopped at Ceylon, Sri Lanka, and in each of these places, I had beautiful trips 
around to see the countryside. When we got to Bombay Harbor, you could look in and see the 
Gateway of India, this beautiful, big stone arch. And then the sky was filled with big chenille 
clouds, very, very pink in the sunset. But we had to go down to the docks, and it was dark before 
we cleared, and there was Soli and his sister and cousin on the quay waiting for me with garlands 
of flowers, and... 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  04:29 
[Inaudible.]  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  04:32 
Dick even had a tall florist basket filled with flowers. And we went to his family's home, and his 
mother had a big dinner, and I was very much impressed with the bearers all in uniform, serving 
at the table, and the finger bowls. And one thing that did bother me, all the way across on board 
ship, we'd had lots of conversation at the table, and these people were very quiet, and I thought it 
was just because I was strange, and so I chattered like a magpie. I learned later that they didn't 
talk during dinner, but then when they were through eating, they'd sit around for an hour or so 
and talk.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  05:24 
The Indian people?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  05:26 
Well, Soli's family at least. So his father wanted me to wait a month to be sure that I could take 
it, because there was lots of poverty in Bombay and it was dirty in a lot of places. And I was 
really very annoyed at the British, because they have their compounds, their homes and with 
beautiful gardens and all fenced or hedged in, and pay no attention to the city at large. Really 
isolationists. Then after the month at the hotel, I moved to an apartment which we had rented, 
and when I saw the kitchen, I was ready to take the next boat home. There was nothing to it. It 
was just an empty room, concrete floor, and one faucet, cold water, and a concrete place around 
that where they washed the dishes. But Soli said, "Well, you don't have to go in the kitchen. You 
have a cook, so you just calm down." Well, there was a swimming pool there, so that was nice. 
Soli's oldest sister was married in the early part of April, and she had a big tamasha, and then we 
weren't married until the 24th and had lunch at the Taj.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  07:09 
Of...? 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  07:11 
Ours was-- is of April.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  07:12 
So you-- were you-- so you were living with him before you were married?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  07:17 
No, he was at home.  
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Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  07:19 
I just got-- I thought it was pretty clever him to get the apartment fixed up before he had to move 
in [laughs]. So we were married in the Parsi year 1310. Now, you can figure out how old that 
makes me. And we went to [?Mahabaleshwar?] on our honeymoon, and that was a hill station 
where you go 115 miles on the train, and then 75 miles by motor car up in the hills. And it wasn't 
nearly as hot as Bombay. Quite hot in the daytime, but it wasn't as sticky. Bombay is very 
humid, and then the nights were cool. And lo and behold, who should I meet there, but Nancy 
Ann Miller. Now, before I left Seattle, people all over everywhere I went, would say, "Oh, when 
you see Nancy Ann Miller, do tell her so and so." Well, I thought, I'll never see Nancy Ann 
Miller. I don't-- we're not going to hobnob with Maharajas. And so I just ignored them. Well, 
there I was, Nancy Ann Miller, [?who had wanted to?] remembered. Also we met there the 
people who had been on the boat with me, the doctor and his wife and two children, and then 
another missionary couple. So we had invited the two American couples to dinner on our last 
night there, and Nancy Ann Miller, who thought we were going to stay a month or so, had 
invited us to dinner. And so I said, "Well, we couldn't come, but we would meet with her 
afterwards." So her secretary introduced us to Her Highness and to His Highness, and said, 
"Now, will you please introduce your friends?" My tongue got completely tangled up. [Laughs] 
Highnesses. Oh, I made an awful mess of it. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  07:20 
Oh, and you stayed at the apartment?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  09:35 
One of the fun things there was the Chinese merchants would come around in their bicycles with 
a big-- [?a whole?] sheet, really, filled with embroidered linens and Chinese material. They'd 
spread it all out on the veranda, and you'd take your pick. It was lots of fun to do shopping that 
way. I remember one very lovely dinner party we went to with two Hindu brothers, and they 
were talking about the British playing one religious faction against another, and that it was a 
farce for India to be fighting for-- or for England to be fighting for democracy when it would not 
give India its freedom. And he talked about how many millions India had contributed in both 
men and industry. And the Parsi New Year is on September 5, and that was a big celebration. 
And then the Hindu New Year comes in October, Diwali, or Diwali, and that's the close of the 
fiscal year. And the offices have big celebrations. So my husband's firm had a celebration, and I 
had to act as one of the hostesses and lots to eat and drink, and I was given a gold sovereign as a 
present. And because of the war, they had banned sky rockets and the firecrackers were cut down 
in size, but out-- the people would put on their ledges of their balconies these votive candles or 
little lamps filled with oil and a wick. So that was very pretty. And they decorated the horses and 
the carriages and the automobiles with garlands of orange and yellow marigolds. Then I got an 
acute infection of dysentery and prickly heat and Bombay fever. You'd get a fever in Bombay 
and they'd call it the three-day fever, or the five-day fever, or the ten-day fever, or Bombay fever. 
And then the little hamal that we had hired, I had to fire him. He used up seven pounds of sugar 
in 10 days. He didn't-- [laughs]. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  12:18 
Maybe that's why you got the fever [laughs]. 
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Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  12:21 
Ah, it could be. Well, there was excessive heat. And everybody had been talking about, "Oh, it'll 
cool off when the monsoon comes. The monsoon, you must see the monsoon." Well, the 
monsoon was late, and then it only lasted two days, instead of four months. In October, my 
mother died. She had been planning a trip to Kansas and had gone downtown to buy her ticket 
and get things and came home and laid down on the sofa, and that was the end. So I'm sorry she 
didn't have a trip first. In Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving evening, the American Women's Club 
held a big tea dance and a toy festival to raise money for the war fund. And we had built-- been 
working on all sorts of stuffed toys and dolls and furniture. And Emily Meeker and I decided to 
do an alphabet book on cloth of animals, and we had everything from alligators to zebras. And 
later, I used the same stencils on the bathroom and the girls' room and put animals all around the 
wall. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  13:30 
I loved to go to the Indian dances. That is to see Indian dancers, where every movement is a 
symbol. And then that December was Pearl Harbor. I thought, "Well, that's a mistake." And there 
were troops passing our flat a lot, because there was a military encampment. Well, I [?don't?] 
remember it was north, south, east, or west, but the city was on one side of us and the military 
encampment on the other, so that if they came in on a ship, they passed our flat. And then one of 
the flats was made into a refugee center, so it was very noisy, and we moved. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  14:43 
You know, even when I hear a Boeing or military airplane go above my apartment, I just feel so 
resentful and angry. How did it make you feel to see soldiers marching and troops? What was 
your political and personal reaction to that?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  15:00 
At that time, it was very gung ho American, and I still felt that the war was necessary. I don't 
know. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  15:15 
Really?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  15:15 
Yeah, but at that time, it was all patriotism. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  15:33 
In August of that year was the All India Congress Committee meeting with this huge [inaudible] 
on the maidan. And I had a press pass from-- well, I guess I'm ahead of my story here. I had 
joined the Office of War Information at its beginning. When I read in the paper that they were 
going to establish one, I wrote to them and said, "Well, this is what I can do. Do you-- but I don't 
suppose it's anything you need." And they wrote back and said, "You're just the person we've 
been looking for." So I went in as the Head of Films of OWI in India at double the salary; I had 
been teaching. And that summer, we had a real monsoon. You could see the-- see it coming. By 
that time we had moved again onto Nepean Sea Road, and you could look out over the Arabian 
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Sea and see the dark clouds and the rain coming in. And that time between July 12-- or June 12 
and July 1, we had 40 inches of rain, which made up for the year before [laughs]. Everything was 
wet and moldy, and even one day, the crows sat in the window ledge for three and a half hours 
rather than go out in the rain [laughs]. The the head of the Bombay OWI office was a woman 
who had been a columnist on the New York World-Telegram, and she was terrific. And the boss 
in Washington was Robert Sherwood. They send us out film on American war production, and I 
edited that, and they send us material on-- no, we [?shot them and leased to?] India film out 
there. I guess I talked about this to you the first day, and we didn't put it on tape. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  18:33 
One of my weekly tasks was to translate the American newsreel into Hindustani and Bengali and 
Tamil and Telugu, and I had men in each of those languages. And we'd show the film, they'd 
hear the English, they'd write out their translation, I'd have them translate it back to me in 
English so that I could be sure that it said what it was supposed to be saying, and then we would 
record it and dub it onto the film, and it would go out to the motion picture theaters all over 
India. Then in August, the All India Congress Committee, and there were 5000 outside the 
[inaudible] waiting to see Gandhi arrive, and there were 10,000 inside. They would not permit 
motion picture cameras, but some people had them anyhow, and I wished I'd taken mine. 
Anyhow, I took a steel camera, and I thought, "Well, now, Gandhi can't get through this crowd. 
There's way out back. I'll go stand there." So I went out and I got pictures of Azad and pictures 
of Nehru and Gandhi went in another door [laughs]. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  20:01 
Oh, darn. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  20:02 
But I got his picture inside, because with my press pass, I was seated way up in front. And one of 
the other Englishmen sitting next to us got translations from his compatriots, and so we knew 
what was going on. And I was surprised how many times Gandhi drew laughter from the crowd. 
He was-- had a very great sense of humor. In fact, Sarojini Naidu, who was very high in the 
Congress, always called him Mickey Mouse. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  20:41 
Was Soli part of going to these... Was that an interest in Gandhi or an interest in press coverage 
on your part? 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  20:52 
Gandhi.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  20:52 
Gandhi? Were you aligned with his political principles?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  20:56 
Mmm, yes.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  20:58 
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Was Soli?  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  20:59 
Oh yes. Yes, we had no reason to-- after the Boston Tea Party [laughs] to see that England kept 
India. So it developed at this m-- on the second day, [?Kay Stinson?] and I went home with with 
Krishna Hutheesing, Nehru's sister, to tea in the afternoon, and we wanted to get back as fast as 
possible, because things were getting pretty hot by that time on the Quit India idea. And so after 
tea, the vote was taken, and Nehru made his very impassioned speech that, to the effect, "How 
can I fight for freedom which is denied me?" And then all of these press people were rushing to 
the telephones to get things out to England and America and whatnot. It was very exciting. I felt 
then that if Britain would just have the common sense to say, "Okay, we will leave India," they 
would have got that whole continent behind them. So I walked home in the moonlight just 
exalted. And then I wrote a letter to my family and told them this, and my secretary was to mail 
it, and she had it on her desk to go in the diplomatic pouch, and the hamal came along and took it 
and posted it. So then the censors got it, and I got called in for a very distressing interview. And 
from that day on, I was under surveillance. And we would go to the race tracks, and Soli would 
say, "Don't look now, there's your tail." So I'd say, "What's he wearing?" "Well, he has a black 
coat and a white [?topi?]." [They laugh] I mean, 50 million of them had the same outfit. So I 
never really saw him, but I would be told by other people that he had inquired about me or he 
had been at some place watching me, or, "Warn Eleanor, she'd better not do this and so 
anymore."  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  23:30 
So he was Indian hired by the British government? 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  23:36 
Yes.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  23:36 
I mean, he was... 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  23:39 
Yes. The CID. Then I went to Karachi for the company, for the War Office. And w--  
 
Soli B. Bilimoria  23:54 
Hello. 
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  23:54 
Hi, Soli. How are you? I hear you typing away in there.  
 
Soli B. Bilimoria  23:59 
Yeah, my first letter this year.  
 
Elizabeth Gallery-Fox  24:02 
Oh. [Laughs] Starting late. 
 
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Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  24:04 
[Laughs] Late start. I went to Karachi, where they had American Negro troops stationed to do a 
film on them, and we did stop that rising sun. And they had such a good band that I got the idea 
of bringing them to Bombay for the recording and to have a big ball to raise money for the war 
fund. So we had a bang up celebration at the Taj and raised 7600 rupees, about $2,500 at that 
time, which we designated for the disabled Indian soldiers. Then we went to Matheran that 
spring and to Old Delhi. And at that time, Gandhi was fasting as a protest because the 
government of India, which was British, had charged Congress with the responsibility for the 
violence which had ensued between, well, after the Congress Committee's meeting and not 
giving Congress a chance to speak for itself. And I saw quite a bit of Old Delhi, but not as much 
as I wanted to, because they felt it wasn't safe to be running around up there. So I went back 
rather fast. And then in March, I went to Calcutta. The [?still will?] was up in... Names escape 
me. China, oh, just over the hump. You had to fly the hump to get there. He was training Chinese 
soldiers, and had shot a film on this training center, and I went to Calcutta to edit that. And it was 
very, very difficult, because war scenes, war maneuvers that they had done, just didn't make any 
sense to me at all. And I like to do it so that it was artistic, and [they laugh] that wasn't what they 
wanted. And their number one camera had gone haywire, so they didn't have that overall thing. 
So I wouldn't say that was a very satisfactory expedition. And then I caught malaria, which 
lasted for six weeks. And we went to Benaras that year, and I filmed the brocade weavers, and 
we had a lovely boat ride down the Ganges. And then to Kashmir in October and, oh, that was e-
- that was a lovely trip.  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  26:58 
There were-- from Friday evening to Sunday evening by train to Rawalpindi, and then a car. We 
drove all day Monday getting up into the mountains. And then for the last three miles, it was on 
mountain ponies. And by that time, it was dark and cold. Oh, we had come from the heat of 
Bombay into this horrendous cold in just about three days. And they have skiing in Gulmarg in 
the winter, so it's really up in the snows. And the next morning, we could see K2, which is the 
second highest to Everest, and Nanga Parbat, and a whole range of the Himalayas, a beautiful 
sight. And then we went down to Srinagar and lived in a houseboat. And that, I just loved that. 
But it was very cold there, too, and they would carry little pottery, like our flower pots, with 
charcoal in them to keep warm. So we dubbed it a hot pot. And we had this lovely dining room, 
beautifully furnished, in the houseboat, and the ceiling was made of little, tiny bits of wood 
interlocking in geometric patterns, and each room was different. And I'd sit there with my 
camel's hair coat and a blanket around me and the hot pot under the blanket to keep my legs 
warm [laughs]. But we had good food, and it was a wonderful experience. And then the next 
May, I resigned from the OWI. The-- it was a lot of politics in that... Couple of [?four Fs?] in our 
Bombay office, wanted to get rid of the head guy in Delhi, and he sort of finagled it so that the 
woman who was the head of the Bombay office would get fired instead and he would keep his 
position. So I resigned in protest. And I went to Calcutta to see about joining a recreation group 
of the Red Cross, but they didn't want to open in Bombay, so I didn't take it. Then I came back 
and joined a private company where I did sound synchronization and supervision of their films, 
edited [?The Spirit of Chungking?] for them, and at that time, Wendell Willkie was running for 
President, and I thought his idea of one world was great. 
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  29:54 
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Then in 1944, decided it was time to start a family. And-- [telephone rings] excuse me.  
 
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria  30:11 
So, I left Bombay on a troop ship, and as we were going out, we went in convoy, and a couple of 
days later, this ship's newspaper had a very small paragraph about a ship blowing up in Bombay 
Harbour. No, they just told us it was a big explosion, and we didn't know what had happened 
until I got to the States. Well, it was a long time getting there, because we went through the 
Panama Canal and up to Boston. But it was lots of fun, and we always carried with us our life 
preserver and a plastic bag with our valuables and our passport in it. On this ship, there were a 
lot of Australian, excuse me, war brides. 
 