Betty Peak was born October 1923 in a small town in Plains, Meade County, Kansas. Her grandfather was an Irish immigrant who started a ranch in Morton County which was dry and desert-like. Only one farmer had a well and he charged for the water. Her father was a rural mail carrier. He got his job after World War 1. She went to school until she was 14. She had two brothers, one a couple years older, one 14 years younger. When they got to college age, their father moved them to Wichita [Annotator's Note: Wichita, Kansas] to be close to universities. Peak graduated from college. She really considers Wichita her hometown. It is a good city. Life during the Great Depression was pretty good. Her father made good money for that time. They gave their old clothes to farmers who later became quite wealthy from wheat. The climate was very dry. When it rained, all the kids got out and played in the puddles. Peak had a good childhood. Her four grandparents were nearby. She did not particularly want to move from the Plains. Peak was ambitious to learn and loved to read. Her favorite book was "Jane Eyre" [Annotator's Note: a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1847]. They had no public library. Her father and the local businessmen got an American Legion [Annotator's Note: nonprofit organization of American war veterans] traveling library. At 14, she was reading adult books. Her grandmother gave her a copy of "Gone with the Wind" [Annotator's Note: a novel by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee what she felt reading about the pre-Civil War South.] She had never met any black students in her school. Her parents were very open and Democratic. Peak would have deplored any bad treatment of slaves, but she was envious of the people who lived in those beautiful homes and had those clothes. She was delighted with the Wichita City Library. Her brother was bed-ridden for an enlarged heart. She took the bus to the library every Saturday. She would bring home an armload of books for them to read. She is now losing her sight and can only read large type.

Betty Peak had one year of college when the war started. She was 14 in October [Annotator's Note: 1937] and the war started in December. She was 14 when she started college. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee if she remembers what she was doing when she heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941.] It was a Sunday afternoon, and everyone was home. A good friend called her and told her the news. Peak asked where Pearl Harbor was. That is all they talked about from then on. She was taking History at Wichita University [Annotator's Note: Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas]. Everybody in the United States got into this war with a fervor. Not because they wanted to fight a war, but because they were loyal to what the country was about. They had been hearing about the war in Europe for years and were sympathetic to the Allies. She felt it was her duty to aid the country. She decided to look for a job after her first year of college. She applied to Boeing Aircraft Company. She got a job right away. She made 75 cents an hour on second shift. She drove but she had never driven in traffic. She worked at that job for six or eight months, running a ditto machine. The machine had a gel-like base and could make copies on it. She got purchase orders from the buyers who bought everything used to make the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. She never knew anything about it when she went there. She was curious so they put her on as a proofreader. She got an inkling of the things that were being put into the airplane. She saw the first plane that was put out. All of the people were called out on a hot afternoon and watched the plane take off. What she was most concerned about was her leg make-up running down into her shoes [Annotator's Note: women could not get stockings to wear at this time so they would commonly use make-up to paint seams on the back of their legs]. The plane took off slowly and then smoke came out of the tail. Somebody said he knew it would never fly. He was told to shut up. They were very deflated. In a few days, they saw several flying around.

Betty Peak worked at the Boeing Aircraft Company [Annotator's Note: in Wichita, Kansas]. Every plane had a letter designating what it was. B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] were "K" orders. She asked her boss what it was, and he looked around like Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] might be there. He told her they were working on a new plane there, it was very hush-hush, and she was not to talk about it outside of the plant. She did not tell anyone until they were flying around Wichita. She was not sure who it was going to be used for. They did not know about Nagasaki [Annotator's Note: Nagasaki, Japan, site of an atomic bomb drop on 9 August 1945] at that time. She fell in love with a young man named Merlin Martin. He came to Wichita to get a job. He got called up to the service and he asked for the Air Force. He got in. He was very handsome. War romances are doubly romantic because you know you are going to be parted. She visited him when he got his wings and he proposed. They were married the next summer when he got leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. She followed him out to Southern California to an airbase. The pilots lived on base. She lived in a nice home with a couple. She spent two years there. Her husband was going to be sent overseas so he took her home to Wichita. He was waiting at the Port of Embarkation when the war ended. She wanted to stay in Wichita as they had a little boy by then. [Annotator's Note: The telephone rings and the interviewee gets up to answer it.] Her husband was only trained to fly, but they knew he could go back to school.

Betty Peak had one thing happen that made her life enjoyable. She met a service officer from World War 2. He had flown and was very self-important. She told him that she was the one who ordered every part that ever went into a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. She worked for the Boeing Aircraft Company from 1942 until 1944. It was a great company to work for. The administration building's female workers had a dress requirement. If you had to walk into the factory, you had to wear slacks. They dressed up as much as they could. She lived with her parents and paid them a little bit. She thinks now it was not enough. There were no boys around. Her older brother had a rheumatic heart and was 4F [Annotator's Note: Selective Service Classification indicating that an individual is unfit for military service]. He was disappointed. He went to work for TWA [Annotator's Note: Trans World Airways] and then in the Weather Bureau in Wyoming. Her husband went to a university for a while and then worked for the government. The government controlled the wages and hours. All of the women lost their good jobs that they had. Peak did not work. Her husband transferred into the Postal Department [Annotator's Note: United States Post Office]. Later he went to work for Prudential Life Insurance. He was in a bad car wreck and died. It just about killed her. She had two little boys by then and she did not know how she could go on living. She went back to school and worked on getting a teaching degree. She enjoyed it tremendously. About three years later, she met a young man. He was a perfect man. He had a PhD [Annotator's Note: Doctor of Philosophy degree] and worked with psychiatrists and social workers on a team in Wichita [Annotator's Note: Wichita, Kansas]. He made a lot of money. He was a father for her children and a wonderful husband. They had a very good life together.

Betty Peak had never had a prior job when she went to work for Boeing [Annotator's Note: Boeing Aircraft Company, Wichita, Kansas]. She had no training. She had been in college so they must have figured she could do clerical work. There were about ten or 12 typists with the latest electric typewriters. There was a big department of girls who kept the records filed. Peak was never really interested in math but was better than average. There were no nylons [Annotator's Note: nylon stockings] available. Women had gotten used to them previous to the war. They had worn silk stockings prior to that. They wanted to look pretty so they would pour make-up from a bottle and put it on their legs. She was good at drawing so she would take a pencil and draw a seam up the back. They did not wear pants a lot back then, they wore dresses or suits. Most of them were pretty young. There were a lot of older men. Her grandfather was past 60 and he came up, went to work at Boeing and lived with them. They rode to work together. She bought a car during the war and had to get a special permit. He was kind. She told him she worked two miles from the bus depot and at night. He gave her a permit but told her she had to take passengers. A lot of men who worked in the factories had pick-up trucks. They would put benches in the back and drive people back and forth. This was all to save gasoline.

Betty Peak's husband got his early training in Victorville, California on the edge of the Mojave Desert. There were hundreds of cadets there with their wives. There was one nice restaurant in town. It was very romantic to be the wife of a pilot cadet. He flew the P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. He trained in P-39s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] that were so battered the guys did not trust them. They found out later that they had not lost as many pilots as they thought they would. That is why her husband was never rushed into the war. He came home when their child was born. It was not long after he went back that Japan was bombed [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on 6 and 9 August 1945]. It was a horrible thing to have had to do. When she heard that, she told her father she wished we had not had to do that. It probably saved a lot of lives. The United States is the only country to ever use it [Annotator's Note: atomic bomb]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee if she and her husband made any preparations for him going overseas.] She was just sitting at home waiting for their baby to be born. They phoned and wrote letters a lot. Her mother and father had been through World War 1 apart. They took care of Peak and the baby. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee to describe how it felt working for Boeing Aircraft Company and contributing to the war effort.] She felt very good about it. She was interested in this country [Annotator's Note: the United States] and believed in his country being the best that was on the earth. There was no doubt in her mind that we would win. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] got pretty far.

Betty Peak feels that it is such a different feeling among the civilians now with the wars overseas. She never knew anyone who fought overseas in these wars, except for Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. It seems remote and it does not seem important that we win. The United States was afraid of Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. The stories came back about what he did to the Jews. They knew he was a vicious maniac. She does not feel that way about most of these other wars. Europeans are more like us than Asians. She does not remember the surrender of Japan. She does remember she thought it was imminent. Her baby was born November the same year [Annotator's Note: 1945]. Her husband was waiting to be sent out and he came home. She knows it was euphoria and relief. They had all been working, and trying, and praying for so long, there was just tremendous relief. They could begin living again. A lot of women enjoyed having good jobs and it was hard on them to face going back to being a housewife. Peak was called back to Boeing [Annotator's Note: Boeing Aircraft Company] for Korea. She felt like she should do it, but there was not the fear and worry that she had during World War 2. She worked in the Receiving Department.

Betty Peak's most memorable experience of the war years is when the plane took off at Boeing [Annotator's Note: the first B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber built at the Boeing Aircraft Company, Wichita, Kansas]. She got an offer to get a tour of the plane, but she did not do it. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee how the war changed her life.] She had always intended to go right through college, but she ended up with three boys. She would attend between children for a couple years. She had enough hours for a master's degree, but they did not go together. She took art and loved it, but there are not many artists who make a living at it. The war kept her from getting a good art degree. She stayed home with her children which was better for them. Her husband made enough money to support her, but she was envious of her friends who worked for their own money. She did paint and do some writing. She got an organ and loved to play it. She cannot do it now, because her eyesight is almost gone. Peak is proud of her contributions to the war effort. There were friends of hers who went through college. She finished college two years before her oldest son did. She does not regret what she did during the war. A lot of people had to change their lives because of the war. It was alright because they helped.