You are here
Margaretta B. Wells interview, about 1967, side 1.
Primary tabs
Download
- speakerSome. Time. Around Here.
- speakerMy kids. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
- speakerthat you are what.
- speakerHow exciting. You've got to open your presents.
- speakerOh thank you thank you thank you.
- speakerWhat did you hear about when will we reveal.
- speakerWe always turn on the radio early in the morning to get the news from
- speakerSingapore. At eight, every
- speakermorning.
- speakerAnd, my husband [Wells, Kenneth Elmer], he always had the radio on while he was shaving. He
- speakercalled me, "Come quick! Listen to this." And, we could hear the
- speakerbombs falling, explosions in Singapore and the news over the
- speakerradio that war was on. And then we listened for
- speakermore. And we found that the Japanese had entered Thailand in three places.
- speakerand.
- speakerAnd so, we weren't sure just exactly what to do. Then, he got a
- speakertelegram from Mr. Heck, who was the
- speakerminister, saying to get out by way of Burma, if we could. S
- speakero we could only. We were. In the meantime we had been packing to
- speakergo home because we'd been. The American Legation had
- speakersaid that all women and children should leave as soon as possible.
- speakerAnd we had a sailing for December 17. And, I was packing a trunk and so
- speakerforth to go.
- speakerAnd, well, that just meant, you see, we could take what we could carry only. And we had to
- speakertake medicine for the children. Excuse me now. How
- speakermany children did you have? Two children. And they were six and eight at
- speakerthat time. So. We
- speakerin the meantime, we were trying to dispose of certain things, what to do. But, as it
- speakerhappened, on account of the trouble over in
- speakerFrench IndoChina, my husband, who was Treasurer up there in Chiang Mai, when
- speakerthe checks would come up, he hadn't deposited all the money in the bank.
- speakerHe put half the money in the school safe, so that when war broke out, all
- speakerthe banks closed. And if he hadn't had money in the safe,
- speakerso we could leave for running the
- speakerschool and the hospital, enough money to keep all these institutions going for
- speakerthree months and enough to get us out of country.
- speakerAnd so we went to. Early the next morning, we went by train
- speakerdown to Lampang where was a bus waiting for us, and we just loaded our stuff. Each
- speakerperson had a bag. What they could carry. Just what you could
- speakercarry. How many were there of you? There were 13 Americans
- speakerand six British. and we. We
- speakerleft right away from the station up to Chiang Mai. We got there late
- speakerat night. We went friends' homes while
- speakerwe were waiting for our alien registration papers to be stamped. And, it
- speakertook the governor a long time to decide that he would stamp them.
- speakerHe was afraid that orders would come that no foreigners were allowed to leave the country. And, he was
- speakerexpecting that momentarily. And
- speakerfinally, they said, "Look! It hasn't come yet. And you better
- speakersay that you have had no word that they couldn't leave the country."
- speakerSo he stamped our papers to go. We had a bus waiting, but we
- speakerhad some of this money to get us out of the country.
- speakerSo my husband said, well, he had too much money on him. He couldn't carry it all. So what to
- speakerdo? He gave some to me. So I went down to the kitchen where we were staying,
- speakerand I cut some bread and made some sandwiches. And put
- speakerhalf of, half the packet of bills between two pieces of bread and
- speakerhalf a biscuit tin full of sandwiches. Then I didn't
- speakerlook too attractive.
- speakerSo they said I'll just have a sandwich while going through the stuff. So I put in a
- speakerdirty napkin and a spoon that had some jam stuck to it and a
- speakerpiece of cheese that was curled up and greasy looking. It was the most revolting looking.
- speakerAnd then, we tied that up. And in about 20
- speakerminutes, my husband came and said. Load everyone in because we are leaving
- speakerright now. So we got in, and
- speakerrushed for the border. We got to the border.
- speakerWe had to stop and unload our stuff, because they were going to go through it all. And
- speakerwe found at the border, that some of these border police were old
- speakerstudents. So they were. They
- speakerwere really quite kind. And
- speakermy husband said, " Well I still got too much money. You've got to take some more." He's got my
- speakerbag already. I have no place to put it. But I was, I was
- speakerfeeding the children. And, I'd been washing up the dishes, so I
- speakercovered. Then he called me, so I covered the money with the dish towel and took my plate and was wiping
- speakerthe dish while he was talking to me, going through my bag. Did I have any opium? Did I
- speakerhave any cigarettes? Did I have? Did I have any
- speakermoney, have any silver? And, so I went through it and I
- speakersaid. Then he said OK, Just going to shut the bag. And, I said, Well, wait. I'll
- speakerput in this dirty dish towel. So I threw it in the bag with the money all wrapped up in it.
- speakerSo they locked the money in the bag. And, we got across the border in the
- speakermiddle, in the middle of the bridge across the Mae Sai River, an Englishman was standing. And,
- speakerwe brought. The Thai brought our bags to the middle of the bridge, set them down
- speakerand some of the constabulary from Burma
- speakerpicked them up, took them over. And the Englishman said, "Well. We have to get you away from the border as
- speakersoon as possible because we are expecting bombers any
- speakertime. We have one small bus." They put the women and children in it and send
- speakerthem back from the border. And so we got
- speakerin.
- speakerThere were four children. Four children
- speakerAnd then we got. We hadn't gone very far, when
- speakerall of a sudden it seemed like the, all the jungle was in the
- speakercar and right out of the ditches, rose up a mass
- speakerof soldiers, all camouflaged with
- speakernets over their helmets and all stuck over with twigs. And,
- speakerthey were part of the Burma Ghurka Rifles that were up there.
- speakerSo we went along and pretty soon we turned the corner and we ran smack into a troop of horse.
- speakerGreat big tall horse and Indian troops, with their
- speakerwhiskers all neatly rolled around their chins and
- speakerall about six feet tall and all looking absolutely dangerous.
- speakerAnd Mrs. Holladay [Holladay, Gladys Marie, Mrs. John Scott Holladay] said, "Aren't we glad we're on their side!"
- speakerAllies. Allies! Then he crossed the bridge and decided to cross the bridge. The Englishman rose up. He said
- speakerhow far are they behind you?" We thought he meant the rest of the
- speakerparty. We said, "They are at the border." He said, "They are? Well, I am going to blow this bridge
- speakerright now." And I said, "Oh no! Not the Japanese, but the
- speakerrest of the party." Oh, he
- speakersaid. So, if we get out and walk for the rest of the way, you can send this bus back and bring the rest
- speakerof the party over. And, don't blow up the bridge till it gets stopped, until they get across. So
- speakerhe said All right hold the bridge till they come back." So we got out and
- speakerstarted to walk. It was getting twilight. We had about three kilometres to go. And, the
- speakerchildren were tired. Of course. Yes they had been around, horsing around since five o'clock in the morning.
- speakerAnd so we got a
- speakerfew carriers, jungle carriers, to carry our bags luggage
- speakerand then went on buses. Then we
- speakercame to the rest house. We made trips into Burma a couple of times for vacation so we knew where the
- speakerresthouse was. And we got there. We put down our bedrolls.we
- speakerhad bedrolls. Each person had a bedroll in his bag. In the bedroll we had a blanket
- speakerhere and so
- speakerwent about seeing to get getting food ready.
- speakerPretty soon the bus came in again with all the men in the party, one was the Englishman
- speakerand then we heard boom.
- speakerWe knew the bridge had been blown up. and so we stayed there that night.
- speakerWe heard over the radio that Thailand had capitulated and the Japanese were in control.
