identifies it on the tape that today is monday January 29 of 2007. And
we're here at the S. U.
Building community community services building uh to do a living history
uh interview for the living history video project for Arizona state
University retirees association. And I'm pam Stephenson doing the
interview. Manny Garcia is our videographer and I'd like to have you give
us your name, so we're pronouncing it correctly. I'm Ella Mae or Ellie
Branch theater brand brand, spell that for our transcriber, B R A N S T E
T T E R. And do you prefer Ellie or Ellie Mae. Um Alright. Um to start off
, we like to go back and kind of start at the beginning and tell me you
know when and where you were born. Oh I was born in Oklahoma In a small
town about 70 miles northeast of Tulsa Oklahoma And was the 8th of eight
Children. Family big family In 1922,
Give us the date July 18 in case you want to send your birthday card.
Actually My mother was born July 19. Really isn't that interesting, isn't
that interesting?
Um So um what what was it like growing up in Oklahoma, it was wonderful,
it was a small town and called Miami. Not Miami as in florida, it's
spelled the same way. Yes but the I guess the speech pattern was different
and my parents had moved there from Missouri but it was it was really nice
, it was a nice friendly town and not at all like today's society. It was
a very friendly, nice town. Well why did your parents move their, what did
they do? My my father was working there. They had owned a farm in Missouri
but he was also a carpenter and builder contractor. And apparently that's
where the work was at that time. So they sold the farm and we've talked on
the so they didn't do any farming in Oklahoma.
And if you were the 8th of eight Children, that was a big family. It was
very nice meeting a family like that.
So did you go to a small school then? A small school?
I really don't know how many schools there were in the town, but there was
one in our neighborhood which was very nice. And we also live near the
junior college. It was called a junior college at that time instead of
community college, which was nice. Were you a good student? Yes, I was I
was interested in in school. I liked it. What did you do? What you like
the best? Did you have a favorite subject? No, I just I just like learning
what I could learn. It was a little girl growing up there. What did you
plan to do when you grow up? I didn't think about it much when I was a
little girl. But when I got into my teens, I I began thinking about it
more and or and I decided I would like to be a nurse. One of my sisters
was a nurse. And so I followed in her footsteps.
Mm hmm. And went to school in ST louis Missouri
You actually grew up if you're born in 1922, you grew up during the
depression. And of course we always think of Oklahoma during that period.
What was that like? Well, it was hard I think for all families including
yours. But unfortunately my father was able to maintain enough jobs and
people, there was enough building going on that we were we were
satisfactory. I mean our situation was satisfactory. It wasn't ah over
the town was not overpopulated. So the work was not constant, but it was
satisfactory.
He had eight Children. Did they work to to help support the family? Uh Not
really, no. Because being the eighth. Um Some of them had already left
home and we're working or going to school someplace else. So when I grew
up There were my two brothers And one sister and myself. But um Yes, these
were older. Yes. Right.
Did you have to work to help out? No, I didn't. Um I did have a job after
I finished high school. And I also went to the community college of the
junior college which I mentioned for one year. But it was I worked in a in
a
I'm not sure how it could be described except it was a bookstore and a a
story where people caught the bus and other other things like that. But it
wasn't primarily bookstore, which was interesting for me to because I like
to read. What did you do there? Just general selling and maintaining,
keeping the store clean,
Keeping the
books and on display an appropriate manner.
As a girl growing up, things were a lot different than they are today. Did
your family have like a big garden chickens? Oh yes. My my my family did
have a big garden. It was, there was an empty a lot right adjacent to our
home and it was owned by one of the neighbors and we had access to that.
My father another planted and it was wonderful having treasure vegetables
all of the time. Didn't you help out there? I can't say that I didn't much
help. I uh I know that I was there and I think I dropped a few seeds some
place or another, but I didn't do any really formal work. Did you have
chores that you did around the house? Uh No, not many. I think I had a
privileged experience being the last eight.
There was a lot more work to do around the house. We've been to laundry
and Yes, yes, yes. I did help some with those kinds of things but not
doing the great detail. and my two brothers who won was I think five years
older than I and the other was eight years older. So they did most of the
other any heavy work that needed to be done to help the family. Your
sister, that was a nurse, how much older was she? She's about nine years
older than I.
So she was sort of an example for you? Yes, she was in fact all of my
brothers and sisters an example for me and they were very very good to me
growing up. Did you plan to go to college then? Uh Yes, I I think I did
because I went to college immediately after graduating from high school
and I thought about going to college elsewhere after I finished two years
at that junior college, so to speak. But then I decided to go into nursing.
And and so I reviewed several places to go and decided to go two jewish
hospital in ST louis, which is where my sister had gone. And what did you
like about that? And why did you choose it? Uh Well I liked it because I
knew something about it for sure. Uh for one thing and it was, I had a
good reputation and uh it was near what was then Barnes hospital and in ST
louis and some of the classes were shared with that school. And that
school was associated with the university. There affected jewish hospital.
Yes, in the hospital I went to was your family jewish. Yeah, so it was a
good experience for me to be with another group of people whose habits and
beliefs were different too. It was interesting. What year was that when
you started? Um I guess it was 41. I graduated from there in 1944.