Description
Lucille Jane Madsen was born in Oakland, California in 1913. In this interview, she talks about her upbringing and everyday life during the Great Depression for her family, sharing a love for music with her seven other siblings. Madsen recalls her courtship and marriage, schooling in the Bay Area, and work as a teenager in a department store. During the war, Madsen worked as a key punch operator at Safeway grocers before continuing as a key punch operator job at Moore Dry-dock. Madsen also shares her recollections of wartime migrants arriving in California to find work in the defense industry, New Deal era programs such as the WPA, wartime rationing, wartime patriotism, reactions to Port Chicago disaster, and memories of major changes following the war.