Peggy Cook 16
Q: In what ways did they help your family?
A: Oh sure, yeah, the west side of the river. Shanty town helped
other people in shanty town. They really did. You would go out, today
it would be call a work crew but then it was just a gathering. All
the kids, I mean kids that were eight to 15 or 16, would walk out to
the county poor farm and work two or three days in a row to get a garden
in and then that would feed, we would work on it all summer of course,
that would feed the people at the county poor farm and then all of the
families of the kids that worked there. That was a community effort
to survive. And then the men would go done and fish, some of them
were
would go hunt. Cause there absolutely 9&8. no jobs. There just were
no jobs. So that was the survival thing of that very poor community.
Q: Did you like farming?
A: Yeah very much.
Q: In terms of, if someone needed medical help who, was there
a doctor.
A: We had a doctor as I said who rode a curcuit, his name was
Davis, by the way he's still alive. Still practicing. Can you believe
that? He's close to 100.
Q: What about mid-wives and
A: There were alot of mid-wives most of them were Indian ladies.
Q: Did Indian women also know about different herbal remedies
A; You betch ya.
Q: Did that pass on to you?
A; I think it did, yes. I use herbal medicine a whole lot.
Q: That you remember?
A: Yes, that I recall. We also, one commodity that we could sell
was bark. Because they used it for medicine, now I can t
Peggy Cook 17
remember what they used it for. But we used to go up into the woods
and peel off bark and dry it.
Q: Is it from a
A: It's a tree. That's just what they call it.
Q: Is it an evergreen?
A; Yeah.
Q: So you would sell that and before you were 13 did you have
any other jobs?
A; No.
Q: How were you raised in comparison to the other, to your brothers?
A: To my uncle?
Q: I mean your uncle.
A: Well, if there wasn't enough food on the table, I would take
a very small portion because comments were always made, Ed has to have more
than the rest of us because he s turning out for things at school and
he works harder. And so that, I was never told not to take it, but
I felt I shouldn't and I didn't. You know that kind of thing. The
first new clothes always went to him. There was a difference between
the sexes there's no doubt about it.
Q: Did this add to your feeling of not belonging to the family.
A: You betch ya.
Q: Were you angry, could you express any of that anger.
A: No, I think I mayhave as a small youngster, but after I met
my mother and my sister and my step-brother, and saw how they were living
in a drunken home with a drunken father and mother, and the brutality, I was
so grateful to be where I was that I just didn t even notice anymore
that I didn't quite belong.
Peggy Cook 18
Q: Now
A: I accepted it.
Q: You say your mom, and your sister grew up in a house where the
parents were alcoholic, her sister, that s your grandparents.
A: No, my mother and my dad, my step -father, my step sister
and step brother. After I met them and saw what they were trying to
live through, plus I had an added advantage I was a _ _ reader
I loved to read. I could see that my life wasn't really all that bad.
But if I hadn t of had books at that time, I think it would have been
very destructive for me, much more destructive than it was, let s put
it that way.
Q: Was it something that helped you escape from reality.
A: You bet.
Q: Did your grandma and your mom ever make up?
A: Not really, no.
Q: Did your grandmother forbid her name to be mentioned or
anything?
A: She didn t want mom to ever come anymore to any family
gatherings. That kind of thing.
Q: This attitude was specifically because of your mom becoming
pregnant.
A: Well that plus becoming an alcoholic through all those years.
Those years they didn t term it alcoholic, she was just a drunk and she
wouldn t be if she didn't want to be, it's just a matter of will power
that kind of thing.
Q:
A; Right.
Peggy Cook 19
Q: So, do you remember how old your mom was when she had you?
A: 16.
Q: And you don t know why she went to a house of prostitution?
That there were no other alternatives.
A: I have no idea.
Q: Do you know anything about her life as a prostitute?
A: Not a bit.
Q: And she never told you about it and no body else did.
A: No.
Q: Was it something that you were, felt you always had this
stigma.
A: It s only been in the last four or five years that I even
told anybody that or that I could handle it myself. Applications for
jobs you know, I would just put deceased for them and leave the rest
of it go. I couldn t do it.
many
Q: So you don t know howXfiB^ years your mom was a prostitute?
A: Well I would say two. Because she married Fred.
Q: Oh just two years.
A: Yeah, two or three years.
Q: She married when she was 18.
A: Yeah, because she married him and then my sister was born.
My sis was 2-1/2 years younger than I, so that interim in there, 2-1/2
three years.
Q: Can t write and talk at the same time. Your mom was a
prostitute for two years and she married this man. Who was this man?
A; He was a German extraction in Portland, OR.
Q: Oh, where was your mother a prostitute?
A; In Portland.
Peggy Cook 20
A: He was not a butcher by trade but he worked at a place
like Swift's slaughtering house, he slaughtered animals for a living.
Q: Do you know how your mom met him?
A: I have no idea. I only know that he was the most brutal
human being I have ever met in my life. Absolutely brutal.
Q: Can you tell me?
A; Well, his job entailed in those days they didn t kill animals
mercifully. They drove them through a pen and he would hit them in the
head two or three times with a sledgehammer, you know. That s what he
did all day, and when he came home, he treated his wife and his children
who were there in the same manner. He was absolutely a brutal man.
Q: Do you, did he beat your mother
A: Oh yeah.
Q: And when you came to visit?
A: I went one summer. Grandma was going to leave me there for
one summer so I could get;to know them, and mother was pregnant and
I will never will forget it, I think I was 13, he came in from work
and kicked her in the stomach and I remember her head laying in a sewing
machine, the old treadle, and there she was, blood just pouring out of
her. It was 43 miles to grandma's house and I walked home. I couldn't
stay, it almost killed me. And I never went back. But that's the kind
of brutality that was there.
Q: How long did it take you?
A: Well, if I could say a day, well Tuesday I left and I got
home on Thursday night. So two days. But I thought nothing of that.
You walked in those days. But that was terrifying. I've seen him,
the other time I was there, we went for a weekend to see them, because
Peggy Cook 21
we had gone some place, and he had just taken my stepbrother who was
maybe two, 1 and a half, and jammed his head on the oven door and layed
him down and held him until, I can remember going home, I couldn't get
grandma and grandpa to take the kids, they said we can't do it. I can
remember crying all the way home. That kind of brutality I just can't,
it really got me.
Q: Do you know why your father was so, stepfather was so brutal,
what in his life made him that way?
A: I really don t know. He came from a family of nine people
seven boys I think, I didn't know one of the boys that weren't the
same way, they were just, and yet his mother and father whom we called
grandma and grandpa were delightful, loving people. But those
boys were meanest, cruelest group of boys I ever saw in my life. Cruel
not mean, cruel.
Q: Do you know what kinds of things they did that were so cruel?
A: Well first of all his job says a lot, do that eight hours a
day has got to be wacky, really, I believe that thoroughly, you got to
be wacky to that eight hours a day. But I'd seen the other boys just
be walking down the street, this was when boys, maybe the still do it,
used to walk in gangs down the street, well these boys always walked
these brothers, walked in a gang down the street and if they would see
one kid alone they would lick the out of him for no reason. Just
beat him up, bad, I mean don t just poke them, I mean really, the whole
thing. I was glad there was nearly 50 miles between me and them. I
was terrified of them. They would lock my sister in closets you know.
They brutalized her, they really did. I'm sure they must have raped her
there s no doubt in my mind. It was really bad. It s hard to talk about
it, I'm sorry, I haven't talked about it in years, it's hard to talk about.
Peggy Cook 22
Although it didn t happen to me but still is hard to talk about.
Q: So you don't know why your mother married this man.
A: I have no idea.
Q: How did she react to this as a battered wife.
A: She stayed with him until he died. Most battered wives do.
Or until they kill them.
Q: You don t know how then your mother felt about him or how
she felt about her life.
A: No not really
Q: What was happening to her kids.
A: No
Q: Your sister, stepsister and stepbrother, can you tell me
something about that, how did they turn out as a result of this.
A: They died alcoholic.
Q: They both died.
A: I raised my brother, I got him when he was what 11, XK8XK8S
Q: And how old were you?
A: I m tryin to think, 20.
Q: How did you get him?
A; Mother was ill, and he was spending most of his time I found
out, going from tavern to tavern looking for his mother, a little bitty
kid. And I just went and took him. And he died four years ago and
my sister died eight years ago.
Q: And they were both alcoholics.
A: Yes, 46 and 42 they died.
Q: Can you tell me, how was, what was it like raising your
brother.
Peggy Cook 23
Q: Can you tell me what it was like raising your stepbrother.
A: Well it was heartbreaking. It really was, first of all I
wasn't old enough and I hadn't had enough experience to raise a child
that young, especially a child who had come out of that kind of
situation. I did not have the skills for it or the understanding.
for his benefit. But he stayed with us luckily and then when into the
army when he was 17.
Q: Is this World War II
A: This was after World War II. And he began drinking while
in the army. And I think that by the time he got back in four years
he was a full blown alcoholic. I really do believe that.
Q: Was he in Korea.
A: No, he was in West Germany.
Q: Why do you think his alcoholism was, I m sure part of a result
of his upbring.
A: Well there s two theories about alcoholism, part is your
environment and part is genetic. So he had all of that going for him.
If you call it going for him.
Q: I was just wondering if there was any particular incident
or anything in particular in his life.
A: No I think how he began drinking was in the service was
all of a sudden he was with a bunch of young fellows and they were
overseas and it was comradary and fun. And then all of a sudden he
was hooked and he was a drunk.
Q: After he came home, were you close to him, did you see him?
A; Yeah, very close to me, he came home, was home three or
four years and then decided he would go into the Coast Guard and he
Peggy Cook 24
spent several years in the Coast Guard, twelve maybe.
Q: Did his alcoholism affect his ability to
A: I m sure it did. Yeah I'm sure it did.
Q: Did he ever marry?
A: Yes he married and had four children.
Q: And what was his family life
A: Well he deserted them. At the latter part of his drinking.
His ex-wife now lives in Tacoma.
Q: What was she like.
A: Delightful young woman. Delightful young woman.
Q: Did she drink?
A; No. Not at all.
Q: It must have been very
A: It was hard for her. Very hard.
Q: What were the kids like?
A: Well, I'm afraid they became mama s babies. Maybe because
papa wasn't there. And I don't know what they're like, I haven't seen
them in ten years. It s not that we don t get along, it s just our
lives went different ways.
Q: Your sister also was an alcoholic. Tell me something about
her life.
A: Well
Q: When you took in your brother, where was your sister?
A: She was in Texas.
Q: What was she doing there?
A; She was married to some fellow, I can't even remember his
name. And they were running a bar down in Galveston. Sleazy part of
town. That's what they were doing.
Peggy Cook 25
Q: You never went there, you just heard that.
A: I;m afraid I did. I got a phone call from the police saying
come and get your sister, or w^'11 put her in jail, so we went down
there and got her.
Q: She got in a fight?
A: She got in a fight in the bar with somebody or something and
really beat them up.
Q: Was it a man or a woman?
A; It was a man.
Q: She beat up a man?
A: Yes. And then we brought her home and she stayed with us
about a year. She looked like death warmed over. And then she took
off and ended up in Pennsylvania for awhile. And they phoned us and
said send plane fare, no at that time it was train fare. She went
from one drunken tradegy to another throughout her life. She really
did.
Q: Can you tell me or would you rather not.
A: She was married three or four times each one to alcoholic
who was worse the next time, you know. Each one was progressively
worse than the one she just got rid of.
Q: Did they beat her?
A: Oh sure.
Q: That was just like
A: Oh yeah, you betcha.
Q: Did she have any kids?
A; I was just going to say she didn't have kids, when she was
14 or 15, the state of Oregon took her away from my mother and my step-
Peggy Cook 26
father, and put her in a Catholic girls' school and she kept running
away. And then at that time, Oregon had a law that they could sterilize
wayward girls and they did that to her. She was either 14 or 15.
Q: How did she feel about that?
A: Terrible, terrible. She more or less adopted my kids.
as her kids. She really did. And she was good to my kids.
Q: You weren't afraid to leave your kids with her.
A: No. I never left them at her house. If she ever watched my
kids, it was at my place. And she never drank at my place. Never did
that.
Q: So there was a love between you and your stepsister?
A: Yeah, there was.
Q: She died several years ago?
A: Eight years ago, this coming August. I took care of her
when she died.
Q: Did she die of cirrhosis of the liver?
A: Yes,
Q: And so did your brother. That must have been very hard
thing to watch that happening.
A: Yes.
Q: What about drinking in your grandparents home
A: When grandpa came in from a week in the woods, would go
down to the tavern with the guys and I don t know how many beers he
would drink, but that's when he drank. That was Saturday night.
But there was never anything in the house. Never.
Q: I would imagine your grandmother wouldn't tolerate that.
A: No.
Peggy Cook 27
Q: So can you tell me anything more about your sister's life.
Did she work, did she.
A: She ran away when she was 16. And joined the army.
This was World War II. And said she was 19. She looked it too.
Q: How old was she?
A: 16. Just barely 16. And became a pilot, no education, fantastic,
^e^-'f.'^'-) . . .. ^e/'^y.'"15'
I think. And f-awing, remember when they were fss-essig airplanes from
Alaska to Russia, I forgot what they called that, but she would ferry
the planes from Texas to Alaska leave them there and come back and get
another one. That's what she did until my mother decided that she wanted
her daughter, you know. Betty had made the mistake of making an allotment
out to mom. Mom wrote them and said that she was 16 when she enrolled
you know,
Q: So what happened?
A; Then she began drinking and marrying one jerk after another.
Q: How long was she in the army?
A: A little over two years.
Q: Do you know why, were they teaching other women to fly?
A: Oh yeah, sure.
Q: Were they WAGS?
A: Yes, they were WAGS.
Q: What was her rank?
A: I don t know, I have a picture, no I haven t it s over in
Port Townsend.
Q: Did she ever talk about her army life.
A: Only about her parties.
Q: What kind?
Peggy Cook 28
A: Drunken parties of course.
Q: And did she like flying?
A: Alot, alot.
Q: That's pretty amaz-ing, because I hadn't heard so much, there
have been some women pilots that I ve heard of, but it sounds XXK8
from what you re saying like this was a pretty common thing.
A: It was, at that time.
Q: Could she have gotten a job after the army as a commercial
pilot?
A: I don;t think so, no. What she did do over in Port Townsend
was take people up for they called scenic flights. She did that.
I don't know if that's commerical.
Q: I meant
A: No she didn't have that kind of training.
Q: Do you know how your sister felt about World War II, whether
it was a
A: It was a lark.
Q: A lark,
A; She was a kid.
Q: It was not for any patrotic
A; No, it was probably the safest place for her to run at that
point.
Q; What did your stepbrother do in World War II?
A: Oh he was still little.
of
Q; Your stepsister was forced out of the army because your mother's
phone call, did she go back home after that?
A; She went home to Bremerton where mom was living with someone,
I don t know who it was.
Peggy Cook 29
Q: Oh so, when did Mr. die?
A: That's a toughy. 1940. I'm guessing, I really don't know.
1939 or 1940. I don;t know.
Q: So your mom was in her 30 s, when he passed away, which is
pretty young. Did he die of cirrhosis of the liver.
A: No, he was coming home, and I think it, justice from the
slaughterhouse, and you got the Columbia River here and you ve got
-t>'"'l
the bank of land and then you've got a big sle^ here, it's called
tMtt-i^.
the Columbia Slaw^ The slaughterhouse sat on this bar, and they had
.f.-tt<ih
a gangplank going across this slew/, and he was coming home from work
one night and fell off. I'm sorry but I have, that s the way I feel
about it. I think"it just plain released alot of people.
Q: How about your mother, how did she feel about his death,
was she relieved, or do you know?
A: I don t know. I couldn t even hazard to guess.
Q: After his death, she lived like what it sounds like several
different men.
A: Lot, alot, anybody who had a bottle.
Q: Ok,
Q: Did they also beat her?
A; I don t think so. I don't think so.
Q: Was she notorious in, you said she lived in Bremerton?
A; Yeah, and that didn't last long. I think she was there maybe
a few months after Betty got home. and then she moved to Port Townsend
where I lived. And shortly thereafter became very, they called her the
Black Panther. Cause she was on the streets every night, dressed to
the teeth.
Peggy Cook 30
Q: She was prostituting?
A: You betch ya. And that's what they called her.
Q: Do you know
A: Well I think it stemmed from. Port Townsend at that time
had alot of PT boats, not PT boats, mine sweepers there. And on the
bow of one of the mine sweepers was a black panther. And the sailors
came in off the black panther, and I think that s where she got it.
Q: Some name
A: Isn t it though.
Q: So what made your mother go to Port Townsend.
A: Well, her mother, her sister, younger brother and I was there,
the family was there.
Q: At this time did your grandmother and your mom communicate.
A: Only during the times when mother would get very ill and they
would take her to the hospital and then they would call grandma and
grandma would go up. She d go but she wouldn t stay there.
Q: Her drying out?
A: Drying out, yeah.
Q: If your mother was living in the community of Port Townsend,
which I imagine was small then,
A: It is, still small, about the same size.
Q: It must have been very difficult for you or your family
to live in that town and have your mother also living there doing
her thing.
A: It was hard.
Q: What were the reprecussions on your life
A: Well my life at that time in Port Townsend was pretty
isolated. I was in a home with a husband who was very jealous, so I
Peggy Cook 31
stayed home alot. I didn't have alot to do with you know the town s
people. But it was terrible on my sister, because she would defend
my mother at the drop of a hat and she was always in fights you know,
in fact, there for a couple of years she and Betty sort of lived together
and did their thing together.
Q: Betty being
A: My sister,
Q: And your mom
A: Grace.
Q: Was your mom closer I guess to Grace than to your stepbrother,
I mean Betty and what is your stepbrother's name?
A: Fred.
Q: Then Fred, was she closer to
A: She wanted to be, but he had gotten to where he really hated
her.
Q: He did hate her. Why did he hate her?
A: Well because of always drunk all the time, a different guy
there all the time. If he wanted to find her he had to go to the tavern
to find her.
Q: Well, that's really understandable.
Q: You say your mom died of cancer and you were with her for
how many years was that?
A: About a year and a half.
Q: She lived 45, she died.
A: Yeah, she lived with, she got sick and I had gone by to see her
and see was really sick. I took her to my home.
Q: You were very young then also.
A: Oh yeah, 21. Something like that.
Peggy Cook 32
And then we took her to the hospital of course and then she stayed
there and just wasted away to nothing. It took that long to die.
Q: But you say she had cancer.
A: Yeah
Q: What kind of cancer di she have?
A: She had cancer of the pancreas,
Q: Was that caused by drinking?
A: Oh yes, and then they operated and they couldn t do anything
and they just closed her up.
Q: Was it a long, slow pain
A: 13, 14 months. In and out of the hospital and the last four
months were in the hospital.
Q: Did you visit her pretty consistently
A: Yeah, I only lived two blocks from the hospital.
Q: So you went all the time.
A: All the time.
Q: And you got to know her then?
A: That's when I got to know my mother.
Q: What things did you find out in that period that you hadn t
known?
A: That she was probably the most gentle person I'd ever met. I
never once heard her say a bad thing about anybody. And if there was
anyone who had cause it should have been her. But she never did.
That might have been the problem, probably the big problem too.
She never talked about any of the men she'd been with, never. Mainly
she talked about her childhood.
Q: And just things that she would remember?
A: Yeah. You have to remember she was very ill. She knew she was
Peggy Cook 33
dying so. Maybe you tend to dwell on better things.
possibly also
Q: Well did she maybe wanted to leave you with something?
A: That might be. Could be.
Q: Would you say that you loved your mom when she died?
A: Oh yes.
Q: And you were free
A: You betch ya. Well I was pregnant and two days, well at
her funeral I fainted and lost my child, I was in the eighth month
and the baby died. It was a very difficult time. Very difficult.
Q: In terms of your discipline as a child, were you hit.
A: Only twice. But no, it wasn t used as a punishment.
Q: On what occassions?
A: Oh, silly thing, I told my grandmother I wasn t going to
do dishes and I was standing up and she turned around to hit me and
I ducked and she hit me in the eye. And boy did I have a shiner.
But, we never got whippings, we just didn t get them.
Q: At being raised as a girl with your uncle, what messages
did you get while growing up.
A: That I should be a boy.
Q: That you should be a boy.
A: And not only that, but I worked like a boy, in fact I still
do. I really do. But it is better to be male.
Q: Do you still feel that it is better to be male.
A: You betch ya!
Q: Why's that?
A; I'm glad I'm a woman, but in the society we live in it s better
to be male because you re going to succeed, what ever that means much
more readily and quickly if you re male.
Peggy Cook 34
Q: There s a difference, I m glad I m a woman but I know that