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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton 
May 16, 1993 
Cassette 6, Side 2 
 
 
Barbara Wright  00:04 
This is side two of part two on May 16, 1993, and we are continuing talking about the various 
moves. And we are in Texas now, I believe.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:17 
Okay in Killeen Tex-- Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. 
 
Barbara Wright  00:44 
Okay.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:44 
And that's-- 
 
Barbara Wright  00:44 
And the year is approximately...? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:33 
'50-- oh dear. '58. '59. Must have. Is it? Must have been '59. It was between then, I'm not too 
sure. Then we stayed there, and this was going to be our longest stay anywhere. This was going 
to be our home. We stayed on post. We were in quarters until '60, and we decided, as I said, big 
home. So we decided to build a home there. We did that, and we stayed there until we came up 
here in '68, June of '68. And all our children and all their-- well they-- they'd started school in 
Germany too, like Judy was kindergarten, and George was first grade, and David was, I guess, 
third grade. They had an American schools over there for them, there were American teachers. 
So in Fort Hood, Judy got into first grade-- started first grade. And then George was ahead, 
second grade. Yeah, second grade. It was when he gotten into junior high, he had to miss a 
grade. So we-- they-- both George and Judy graduated, and they started. But they had real good 
schooling there, down in Texas, really good. They got on fine, the kids loved it there, and I did 
too. People are so friendly, especially when we got off on our own-- our own home. We started 
making a home. We had a beautiful place. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:04 
How did you start to make it your home? 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:33 
Oh, we bought stuff we thought we could keep. Well, we kept most of it, though, we brought it 
up, and we were able to plan. But the children, they really enjoyed it, because they got-- made 
friends. They had-- the first time really, they'd had school friends. And they really did have good 
friends. Judy and George got-- there were a lot of ranches about there, the civilian people, not 
army people, and they got to know them, and they had a ball. Especially Judy, she loved horses 
and riding. And finally, she was in part of a rodeo, you know, she'd do the barrel race and stuff 
like that. She got real good. George was a little bit more timid, and David was very timid. He'd 
curl in a [?hole?] if he'd want. That was our eldest, he wanted to-- but he did-- he made some 
good friends. That's where he graduated high school there. 
 
Barbara Wright  03:58 
And what made you decide to come up to Washington? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  04:02 
Chuck couldn't take the weather. Well, he retired in '63 after 20 years, and while he was done-- 
what-- I say what [inaudible]? Oh yeah. They made him a manager of a skating rink while he 
was still doing his first sergeant duties, too, and they made a manager of a skating rink. It was on 
post, and he enjoyed doing that. When he retired, he got friendly with this Texan, and he had 
talked to me into buying a roller rink. Well, between that and the weather and the dust, it just got 
too much for me. Well, they found out about the asthma, and he turned into [?chronical?] 
asthma, which was rough on him. And with all the stress of running a roller rink, a business, 
which he'd never done in his life before, it was just too much. So the doctors had told him he 
should get out of the state of Texas. They had suggested Arizona, but neither of us care for 
Arizona, and we didn't want to go back home to Detroit. And because there's no sense me going 
back home to my own, because there was nobody all left there by then. So my sister lived here, 
and she-- Boeing was quite big at the time, and so she talked-- and her husband at that time, he 
worked at Boeings' too. He bro-- he wasn't at Boeing, my sister was at Sears, and they talked us 
into coming up here. And they said, it never rain-- it never snows, and the rain, we don't get that 
much. So we decided that's what we'd do. So Chuck got word from Boeing that they had a job 
for him and that's why we came from [?nine eight?], because of his health, because the children 
and I were very much against the move, and we had his uncle living with us too at the time. And 
he loved it in Texas. He was an older, elderly man, and he could go out in the yard anytime he 
wanted, and the weather was just perfect there. Where we were, there was always a slight breeze. 
We had the only tree in the whole neighborhood, and it was a beautiful, old-looking tree. It had 
branches and always had shade. You always had a breeze going, so it never really got that hot. 
Oh, sometimes, you know, maybe little bit, because you had air conditioning in the house 
anyway. Everybody did, but it could be 110 outside, and you get under that tree, it was really 
quite-- we lived partly lived outdoors, and we had a beautiful yard, huge, large yard. We always 
had all the neighborhood kids there, because that's one thing Chuck always did, was spoil the 
kids with all the kind of toys and stuff, fun to do. So we had neighborhood kids. And then 
Chuck-- as I said-- here I'm rambling on again. Well, he finally left. He had this job, he was 
supposed to be here in January, and David had to graduate from high school, and we just could 
not see taking him out of school when he was going to graduate. So the kids and I stayed there, 
and in the meantime, I had to sell the house and then trying to get buyers for the roller rink. So 
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that was our-- and we were still using it a little bit, until finally I had to close it down. But we got 
through it. And then David graduated in June, and 30 of June, we made the trek up here. Oh, that 
was quite an experience, that trip. We had two-- we had a dog, a bird, a cat, and a Chihuahua. 
Yeah, in a car. We-- but we started out with two cars. My son had an old jalopy, and he wanted 
to bring it up here, so we had two cars to start. They never made it the whole way. So we ended 
up having to rent a trailer, you know, U-Haul, and all these people in that car. His uncle, George. 
David and I kind of split up the driving. So there was David, George, Judy, and Uncle Bob, and 
these animals. And you know what the heat's like. 
 
Barbara Wright  09:25 
Uh-huh. It makes everything more so, whatever that may be. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  09:30 
July weather, first of July [laughs]. Oh jeez, it was terrible. And especially the Fourth of July, 
you know, because we traveled that day too, and especially when the car broke down and we 
couldn't do anything. So-- but we made it. And then he had rented a place up on Queen Anne 
Hill. What. Well, where we came from, it was flat, maybe little mole hills. That's what we used 
to call these hills they had there in Texas. Because where we were, it was flat. You didn't get too 
many hills, no mountains. And we came-- oh, the first time-- the mountains we came through. 
Oh, it was unbelievable, it was beautiful. I'll never forget how beautiful it looked. And then we 
saw trees which we hadn't seen in years. And then Chuck took us up. We followed him, and he 
took his bit. We came to this, turn the corner, and here's this hill, like this? And I said, we'll 
never make it. How can you go then? Chuck, he took off. He had the other couple of kids and the 
animals with him, and he took off, no trouble. And David was driving. He said, Well, here goes. 
We took off. I can never forget that trip, that Queen Anne Hill. That's like, we never seen 
anything like that. And then he got us on the street that was like this [laughs]. So when you park 
and you only have to turn the wheels and, oh, that was no bracket, especially when we got settled 
in. Chuck had told us-- well, we'd be-- I guess he took us down there to the center, and we saw 
the top of that tower. 
 
Barbara Wright  11:41 
Space Needle. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:41 
Space Needle. So the kids and I, after a while, we got-- it was boring, you know, just sitting in 
the house, doing nothing. So we decided that one day we'd take off. Oh my grief. We walked 
down that hill. Oh, that was the most uncomfortable thing available, walking down that hill and 
they come and have to come up it. It was another thing, because we had-- we didn't know 
anything about busses or anything, until later, we found. Pretty soon, found out about them, and 
we went-- that's where we used to spend our time, down at the center. Wanting to run down to 
the museums, the Opera House, and Space Needle, because then it was so cheap to go up to the 
top. I think it was $1 I think? I know it was not expensive for then. 
 
Barbara Wright  12:04 
Were the carnival rides there yet? 
 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  12:05 
Yeah, there were some of those too. Not very-- not as many as [?R9?], but there were a few, but 
the kids-- that's one thing my kids never were keen on. They liked the Science Fair. They had a 
few things in there, and I know they enjoyed the Opera House, just going, sitting in it. And... 
What else was there? Oh, they had the food. Yeah, that's what they enjoyed going for. Yeah, the 
Food Fair, they had all kinds of food from all different countries at that time. There's a lot better 
last time I was over there.  
 
Barbara Wright  13:13 
Okay, and so that was about like 1968-69. What are were some of-- some other-- because you 
were doing great, kind of going through, sort of the chronology of it. So what happened next? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  13:28 
Well, we stayed at Queen Anne Hill. David had signed up for Highline College, and we thought 
it'd be better, because his uncle was having a tired-- hard time. You had to go upstairs or 
downstairs, no matter where you were, even in the house, it was a basement and the bedrooms 
were-- it was all stairs and steps, and it was hard. He had a little arthritic-- when he moved up 
here, he had arthritis right away, and it was hard for him to get around. And those streets, he 
could never go, you know, outside on the street, and he just couldn't. So we decided we'd look 
for house around Highland College. We thought we'd look around this area, and that's how come 
we got-- and I didn't care where it was. I was so tired of not being settled. I was so heartbroken 
by losing my home, and the kids were no help either, and Uncle Bob was no help because he 
didn't want to leave either. So was just-- we just find this place and we took it. I've never liked it, 
but it's someplace to live. And then the kids started school because-- he went to-- David, our 
eldest, went-- he only went a year in there because he didn't get what he wanted. And then he got 
married. But then David-- Judy and George, they went to Thomas Jefferson, Federal Way, and 
graduated from there. When did they graduate? '70, '71? Between '70. Because when they came 
here, it had just been built, and they were in the first year there. So they-- and then they graduate, 
the first ones to graduate from there, and they both graduated the same time, because, as I said, 
George had been kept behind.  
 
Barbara Wright  15:45 
Why was he kept behind?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:47 
Because I didn't want him to move up. He wasn't ready for it.  
 
Barbara Wright  15:50 
What made you think that he wasn't ready? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:52 
He couldn't read, couldn't-- well, we found out the reason. He had this [stutters]-- 
 
Barbara Wright  15:59 
Dyslexia? 
 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:01 
And they'd never caught that in the army. Or the schools.  
 
Barbara Wright  16:05 
How did you work with that?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:08 
So we had a-- well, my cousin's wife was living here too, and she had taught that over in 
England, and it just all worked out. And she took him under her hand and helped him, and he 
was, it was a great help.  
 
Barbara Wright  16:27 
Oh good. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:28 
He was a lot better after that. 
 
Barbara Wright  16:29 
Yeah, because most of the dyslexia, from what I understand, has really just been within the last 
10 years. That's fantastic that you were able to find it. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:38 
We thought he was lazy and a dreamer, and it wasn't that at all. And this is what kids were 
getting blamed for. And the reason--I mean, the school, people on the school board, because I 
was PTA president in the school that they were at in Texas, we talked about it. I mean, we knew 
he could do it, but he just couldn't read properly. And we just thought it was-- he couldn't put it 
up here. There was-- he was slow. We knew there was nothing wrong with him in the way of 
mental or anything, it was just he couldn't seem to observe it, compared to Judy, his sister. You 
see, they were so close, there was only 13 months between them, so they were very close, always 
together. But he had this problem, and we just thought it was late-- and he-- I know we took 
things from him to punish him. We thought, you know, there's nothing to do that at all. So I 
have, for a few years, I felt very guilty about it after I heard what was wrong. But who knew? 
Nobody told us about it. I hadn't even heard about it, but Joan had-- I'd been talking to her, you 
know, explaining about. She says, I think I know what's wrong with him, and as I said, she took 
him home and that was it. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:07 
Did you see a dramatic change in his personality or disposition? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:10 
Yes. Oh yes, yes. Oh yes. Because he could really-- I guess he felt like he was a billion, you 
know, but it wasn't-- but he was smart in other things-- to do things, he was excellent. Just the 
reading. When you got your problems, you know, your math problems, when you had to read, 
that's when it hurt him. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:39 
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How would-- you mentioned that he did change, but how did his personality change? Was he just 
a happier person?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:44 
A happier person, yes. He always used to be in a temper, always mad, and always seemed to be 
so indrawn. And once we got the problem-- we didn't get it all solved. I mean, it takes years to 
get over it, but he was so relaxed. He enjoyed it. He laughed more. You could joke with him a 
little bit more. It was a hard family to grow up in, for him, let's put it that way. Because we were 
always making fun and joking. He had a rough [laughs]... Poor kid. 
 
Barbara Wright  19:26 
Okay, so then you mentioned that you were president of PTA. Were there any other 
organizations that you belong to? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:34 
Well, just the NCO clubs.  
 
Barbara Wright  19:36 
What are NCO clubs? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:38 
The Non-Commissioned Officers club. And that was generally-- well, this was when I was still 
in the service, when he was still in the service, Chuck was still in. And you were kind of 
obligated to do that. But I didn't mind, as I say, I always enjoyed things like that, and what we 
did was we help each other. You have a lot of young women with young children that maybe 
never been away from home in their lives before, and have married an army man. [?Here?] 
knows where he took them, you know. It's a different life, and they've got to change-- you've got 
change with it, and you've got to learn to do things more for yourself, not have Mother there or 
whoever, and not have your husband there either, because a lot of times they were gone. I raise-- 
most of the women, you have to raise your children yourself, and it's hard for a person that's 
never been away from home, so we kind of helped each other that way. 
 
Barbara Wright  20:55 
So then-- and then Judy and George graduate from high school. Then what happened? Did they 
move out of the house? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:03 
No. We didn't think we'd ever get rid of George. Now, Judy tried. I think girls are more like that. 
They want to get out. But she's came home, went to apartment, come home, went to her 
apartment, come home. We told her, we're getting tired of the upstairs being-- they're gonna wear 
it out, getting all their stuff up and down all the time [laughs]. So she did-- she tried. She was in 
apartments a few times with a couple of girls. But I think when they run out of food or 
sometimes money, she'd come home. That happened about three times.  
 
Barbara Wright  21:47 
How long would she live out on her own?  
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:49 
Probably two months, three months. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:51 
Telling my mother that. She can have a new appreciation for me. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:54 
[Laughs]. But George, we never thought he'd ever move. And then he met this girl, then he got 
himself an apartment. He never did move back in. He stayed out. David, of course, he was 
married right from the house. 
 
Barbara Wright  22:12 
So what was the house like without the kids? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:21 
Well, I was always-- but I still had Uncle Bob. See, I still had somebody. I've never been without 
anybody. Because after Uncle Bob, he knew he was dying, and he wanted to go home. So he did. 
He went home and he lived for about a year.  
 
Barbara Wright  22:43 
Home being? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:44 
Detroit. Then my mother, my mother and dad, they always used to visit, even though, when we 
were in Europe, they'd visit us. So they came over and visit us a couple times over here, and they 
started talking about they'd go home-- well, the last time, the last visit they were, they were 
going to go back home, get all his businesses and estate all taken care of, and come over here and 
live. That was their plan. Well, Mother wasn't home-- at her house in Belfast six months, and she 
had a severe heart attack, and she-- they put her in the hospital, and she stayed there until she 
died. She never made it to home. They told her-- we-- because we thought, Well, maybe we get 
special-- because I do know they do transfer them in certain planes or at that time, that is no 
problem at all, but I'm talking back a few years. We consulted her doctor, and I went over to see 
them, and he said, Oh no, no way. She'd never make it. I doubt even if she'd make a couple hours 
in the plane, she'd be gone. Well, well, we couldn't do that. So dear Mother, that's where she's-- 
never did make-- come home. But after she died, and Dad decided that's where he wanted to be, 
here. So we had him living with us. We had a good time though. So from Uncle Bob, I had 
maybe a couple of months, and then I had Dad.  
 
Barbara Wright  24:35 
So what were the couple of months like? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:39 
Well, I was working. I had decided to go out and work, and I worked in the nursing home down 
there in Des Moines. So I was busy anyway.  
 
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Barbara Wright  24:48 
What did you do in the nursing home? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:49 
I was a certified nurse's aide.  
 
Barbara Wright  24:51 
Oh, okay. When did you get the education become a certified nursing aide? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:54 
The Red Cross at Fort Hood.  
 
Barbara Wright  24:56 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:57 
I worked in the army hospital there. I did minor surgery with doctors there. Yeah, it was 
interesting work. 
 
Barbara Wright  25:05 
I bet. And how did that work with the child rearing? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:11 
I was always home. I saw them off to school, and I was there when they got home-- maybe-- like 
Judy, when I say this to people, [in a mocking tone] Oh, I know a couple of times you weren't 
home, but I never was any more than 30 minutes or something like that. And I left word with the 
neighbor that everything was fine, that Mother would be-- the only one that really got upset if I 
was never home, was my eldest son, and I never figured that the other two-- well, they had 
themselves, because they were always together, as I said, so they had come in. But David, he 
used to get worried sick if I was not home when I was supposed to be. So I were-- I made sure 
that they'd come home and I'd be there. Normally. But you know, sometimes you get stuck in 
traffic, or when I worked at the hospital, sometimes we'd have an emergency, a real emergency, 
and you can't leave patient wide open, you know. So that would be the only time, and that didn't 
often-- didn't happen very often, 
 
Barbara Wright  26:23 
Okay. It's two times, and it's a usual event for them. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:27 
Yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:29 
Okay. And then, um, okay, so the children left home in approximately what year? '72? '74? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:37 
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Well, they graduated in '70. Yeah, because we got here '68, and they had '69, and then 70, that's 
when you graduated. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:50 
All right, and your father came to live with you? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:53 
In '70... Well, I had Uncle Bob. Oh, I really don't... Well, Dad has been gone 10 years. I figured 
out the other day we were talking about dates. So that would '83, when he died, and he was with 
us for four years.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:43 
Like '79.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:26 
'78, yeah, that's right. Uncle Bob left in '77. It was something like-- roughly that. I might be off a 
bit, but it's roughly about then. 
 
Barbara Wright  27:55 
So in '83, your father died, and anything happen after that, any sort of moving? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:02 
Then Chuck retired from Metro, so I had him home.  
 
Barbara Wright  28:05 
All right, when did he switch-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:06 
I know, I know, I've never been here for myself [laughs]. 
 
Barbara Wright  28:07 
When did he quit Boeing and go to work at Metro? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:14 
Oh, well, we missed the thing there. When he got up here in January to go to Boeing's. He went 
down and they had lost his papers, and then they told him they were sorry, but that was when 
they were starting laying off. The big layoff. So he didn't have no job. He was staying with my 
sister, and he loved-- well, he worked in the motor pool in the service, mostly until he became 
first sergeant, anyway. So he loved trucks and driving and stuff like this. So he decided to go 
down to Metro, or-- I don't know if it was called Metro in those days or not. Anyway, Seattle bus 
driver, and he got a job right away, and he was with them. He was retired in-- excuse me, '83.  
 
Barbara Wright  29:17 
Okay. And we, once again, got like three minutes of tape left. So why don't we end it here for 
this week? 