“I’m turning 100 in January. My grandparents owned the property where the Dew Drop Inn is in Mobile. They had a big home and a small restaurant there. Back then, Old Shell Road was made out of shells. People rode horses on it; my mother and aunt would ride as fast as they could.

I grew up in New Orleans and loved it. The movie theater was diagonally across from us on North Rampart–nine blocks from Canal Street. Movies only cost a penny for us. We walked to town all the time. We put cardboard in the bottom of our shoes during the Depression, and Mama made our clothes. But we always had something to eat and a place to live. Everybody was in the same boat.

I had an older brother and a twin sister. I loved being a twin; she was a part of me. My sister was happy-go-lucky and didn’t meet a stranger. I was shy and quiet. When I graduated from high school, one girl wrote in my yearbook, ‘Does Rose ever talk?’

I was 15 when World War II broke out. My best girlfriend lived across the street from the fire station; we were playing ping-pong there when two of the guys from church said we’ve been bombed. My sister and I ran home; we thought we were going to be bombed.

My brother was 17 when the war started. He wanted to enlist right then. My mother didn’t want him to, but my father said it may be safer if he went now. So they signed for him. My brother was there for about two years when he was killed in the South Pacific. They were coming back from bombing, and their plane had been struck, and it crashed in the ocean.

A Western Union newsboy delivered the telegram to our door. It said, ‘Your son, Robert Joseph Gonzalez Jr., was killed in action.’ My mother was walking back and forth the length of the house, my sister and I following her. A big case came with his belongings. Mama passed out and hit her head on the fireplace.

One thing about the war, we had lots of dates. I would have one during the day, another at night, and more on the weekends. Mainly sailors. We went to dances, movies, and Pontchartrain Beach. It was fun.

I was walking down Canal Street, and there was Robert Taylor in uniform. I ran up to him, shook his hand, and I said, ‘I’m never going to wash my hand again.’ He was even better-looking than  in the movies.

My sister and best friend got engaged and married. So I got engaged to a guy from Mobile, but I didn’t love him. I met another guy, Lloyd, in New Orleans, that I really liked, but  broke off the engagement. Lloyd was a model in the movies and got me to go with him one time; I got to see me in the movies. We dated about three years, but he was moving to Las Vegas, and I didn’t want to leave New Orleans. He became rich and famous.

Then I met Arthur Clarence McKaig. He was an evangelist speaking at our church; everyone called him Ott. Some of us went to get ice cream after church. Ott came in, and then he asked me out.

Ott proposed on our first date. We just rode around and got ice cream. I hadn’t even kissed him. The next Monday, he asked my parents for my hand in marriage. My mother said, ‘Indians don’t give our children away, and she walked out of the room.’ Mama had some Indian in her. Daddy said, ‘You heard what your Mama said,’ and followed her.

But Mama ended up loving him. Ott and I were married for 51 years. 

Ott was a traveling evangelist, and was on the road nine months a year, but I wasn’t a traveler. I hated staying in the pastors’ homes; I wasn’t easy to make friends. The only place I went was California, when Ott was preaching at a revival that kept going. The church sent us out there. We had a blast. We went to church every night, but went all over during the day. We even went down to Mexico.

Ott prayed for the sick and many others. I asked him, ‘Would it be a sin to pray for our baby to have curly hair and play the piano?’ He picked her up, and he prayed for her. She had curly hair. And she not only plays the piano, she teaches it.

Ott never argued with me. I would argue, and he’d say, ‘You look so beautiful.’ He never said anything bad about anybody. He was better than I deserved. Anything I wanted to do, it was okay. He took good care of me, but after we first got married, he brought me home a dress and, it was the ugliest thing you ever saw. And I fussed at him, saying, ‘Don’t buy me any more clothes.’ He didn’t.

My sister married a Mobilian and moved here. She was having her second child, so I came here to help her. Then we moved across the street from her. She came here every evening, and we played rummy.

I got a job at Brookley Air Force Base, starting as a clerk typist. I was among the first women going to work like that; the war caused it. After Berkley closed, I transferred to the Corps of Engineers and was a personnel staffing specialist, hiring people for certain divisions. I worked until I retired. I loved interviewing people and hated to quit.

I have one daughter, three grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. I have outlived most of my other family and friends. I’m the only one left. Losing the people I love has been horrible, but I know where they are. They were all serving the Lord. That’s what keeps me going.”

Rose