Olive O'Mara, West Valley City, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, June 22, 2002: Saving the legacy tape no. 569 and 570

Page 28

OLIVE O'MARA 22 2 2 a little pleurisy just enough that I know it s there. I can t think f t much m r . I h d one good boyfriend there, Tommy Lee; he was a Mormon. I remember wh n I w nt back home, told them I was going with a Mormon (laughs), I mean we d never been anything but Baptists. I could even tell what they were thinking: "I hope to heaven she s found a man!" because I was twenty-four. In the WAVES, at Hunter College, I became twenty­four. That was the day they took our pictures, so I have my WAVES pictures on my birthday. BEC: Really? OLI: Yeah, so I can always identify that day I turned twenty-four. So the family was kind of worried that I had not-the other two were married by this time, even the younger one. But Grandma was worried about all those other wives (laughs). And poor Tommy was only nineteen. But he was a nice kid. He was one of those guys I would have married if he had been old enough. But, hey, the fact that I'm twenty-four and he's nineteen, forget it. I'm not raising kids (laughs). BEC: How did you meet and have time to have a boyfriend? OLI: That's one thing I've often thought about. He must have worked on the base or something, because I remember, clearly, sitting with him-I got in trouble one time at boot camp. I don't know what I had done because I don't do that much-but I remember his bringing a model of a ship and we sat in the barracks, at Hunter College and made this model because I wasn't allowed to leave the base. So I know he was there. I don't know what he did or how I got a boyfriend. But he was there all the time, so he had to have worked there. I wish I would have kept a journal because then I would have had some idea. 27