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Oral History Interview with Ivan Arteaga, October 27, 2009

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Interview with Ivan Arteaga, Mexican national and immigrant to Princeton, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Arteaga's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico City. Arteaga also talks about his family's decision to immigrate to Provo, Utah, his first impressions of the U.S., marriage, deciding to relocate to Texas, opinions regarding anti-immigrant feelings prevalent in American culture and regarding the U.S. immigration bureaucracy, as well as his feelings about his two children's U.S. citizenship.
Date: October 27, 2009
Creator: Dunbar, Paul & Arteaga, Ivan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Kathy Jack, October 26, 2009

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Transcript of an interview with Kathy Jack concerning her childhood and education in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Dallas; "coming-out" narrative; social life in Dallas's gay and lesbian bars; effects of AIDS epidemic on Dallas gay community; career as employee, manager, and eventually owner of various bars; involvement in and support of various Gay Pride events; thoughts about future of gay rights movement.
Date: October 26, 2009
Creator: Wisely, Karen & Jack, Kathy, 1957-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, October 21, 2009

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Interview with assistant professor of music history at UNT Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, Mexican-born immigrant to Dallas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Alonso-Minutti's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico, attending college at Universidad de las Americas, discovering music history as a discipline of study, a one-year course of study in theology in Dallas, choir direction at a church in England, attending graduate school, and accepting a job offer from UNT. Additionally, Alonso-Minutti discusses family history, her grandparents' migration from Spain and Italy, her first impressions of the U.S., the decision to study musicology in the U.S. or Great Britain, the citizenship process, and the contrast of life in Mexico, England, California, and Texas.
Date: October 21, 2009
Creator: Onspaugh, Patrick & Alonso-Minutti, Ana R.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Fort Worth Characters

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Fort Worth history is far more than the handful of familiar names that every true-blue Fort Worther hears growing up: leaders such as Amon Carter, B. B. Paddock, J. Frank Norris, and William McDonald. Their names are indexed in the history books for ready reference. But the drama that is Fort Worth history contains other, less famous characters who played important roles, like Judge James Swayne, Madam Mary Porter, and Marshal Sam Farmer: well known enough in their day but since forgotten. Others, like Al Hayne, lived their lives in the shadows until one, spectacular moment of heroism. Then there are the lawmen, Jim Courtright, Jeff Daggett, and Thomas Finch. They wore badges, but did not always represent the best of law and order. These seven plus five others are gathered together between the covers of this book. Each has a story that deserves to be told. If they did not all make history, they certainly lived in historic times. The jury is still out on whether they shaped their times or merely reflected those times. Either way, their stories add new perspectives to the familiar Fort Worth story, revealing how the law worked in the old days and what …
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Selcer, Richard F.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Grace: A Novel

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In the east Texas town of Cold Springs in 1944, the community waits for the war to end. In this place where certain boundaries are not crossed and in a time when people reveal little about themselves, their problems, and their passions, Jane Roberts Wood exposes the heart of each of four families during the last year of World War II. Bound together by neighborhood and Southern customs, yet separated by class, money, and family, they are an unforgettable lot, vibrantly brought to life in this “delightfully perceptive and unabashedly romantic” novel (Sanford Herald). As the war grinds to an end, it becomes the catalyst that drives the inhabitants of Cold Springs across the boundaries that had once divided them, taking them to places both chaotic and astonishing. “A rare novel: intelligent, lyrical, devoid of coyness and manipulative plot turns—a book for old and young.”—Austin American-Statesman
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Wood, Jane Roberts
System: The UNT Digital Library

Roseborough: A Novel

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In Roseborough, Jane Roberts Wood returns with a keenly observed tale of bighearted people in small-town Texas. Three weeks after Mary Lou’s Gypsy husband dies, her fourteen-year-old daughter, Echo, runs away. Numbed by grief and grounded only by her job at the Dairy Queen, she impulsively signs up for Anne Hamilton’s single-parenting class at the nearby community college. Anne, complex and passionate, has avoided the risks that come with commitment. Knowing nothing of the stages of grief or the process of recovery, Mary Lou begins a sometimes comic, yet poignant, journey to find Echo. Compelled by Mary Lou’s story and her strange daughter, Anne begins her own journey that can ultimately set her free.
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Wood, Jane Roberts
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Estel G. Burns, October 14, 2009

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Interview with Estel G. Burns, World War II veteran and B-17 pilot, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Project. The interview includes Burns' personal experiences of childhood and education in Missouri, farm life in the Great Depression, basic training, and training for aviation mechanics at Sheppard Field, Texas. Additionally, Burns talks about his family history, his 1942 enlistment in Army Air Corps, being accepted into pilot training, marriage to Dorothy Perrin, life at Deenethorpe Air Base, England, crew members and their respective duties on his plane, various missions bombing German targets, his feelings about missions against civilian targets, opinions of Luftwaffe pilots and of Germans, and his postwar Air Force career, including service in the Korean War. The interview includes an appendix of photographs.
Date: October 14, 2009
Creator: Hegi, Benjamin P. & Burns, Estel G.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Isabel Cano, October 10, 2009

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Interview with Isabel Cano, Argentina-born immigrant to Denton and daughter of Spanish diplomats, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Cano's personal experiences of immigration, struggling to learn English and acculturate, and provides family history, her first impressions of Texas, and opinions about Denton.
Date: October 10, 2009
Creator: Merrill, Linda & Cano, Isabel
System: The UNT Digital Library

Andersonvilles of the North: the Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment of Civil War Confederate Prisoners

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Soon after the close of military operations in the American Civil War, another war began over how it would be remembered by future generations. The prisoner-of-war issue has figured prominently in Northern and Southern writing about the conflict. Northerners used tales of Andersonville to demonize the Confederacy, while Southerners vilified Northern prison policies to show the depths to which Yankees had sunk to attain victory. Over the years the postwar Northern portrayal of Andersonville as fiendishly designed to kill prisoners in mass quantities has largely been dismissed. The Lost Cause characterization of Union prison policies as criminally negligent and inhumane, however, has shown remarkable durability. Northern officials have been portrayed as turning their military prisons into concentration camps where Southern prisoners were poorly fed, clothed, and sheltered, resulting in inexcusably high numbers of deaths. Andersonvilles of the North, by James M. Gillispie, represents the first broad study to argue that the image of Union prison officials as negligent and cruel to Confederate prisoners is severely flawed. This study is not an attempt to “whitewash” Union prison policies or make light of Confederate prisoner mortality. But once the careful reader disregards unreliable postwar polemics, and focuses exclusively on the more reliable …
Date: October 15, 2008
Creator: Gillispie, James M.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley

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Living in the Woods in a Tree is an intimate glimpse into the turbulent life of Texas music legend Blaze Foley (1949--1989), seen through the eyes of Sybil Rosen, the woman for whom he wrote his most widely known song, “If I Could Only Fly." It captures the exuberance of their fleeting idyll in a tree house in the Georgia woods during the countercultural 1970s. Rosen offers a firsthand witnessing of Foley’s transformation from a reticent hippie musician to the enigmatic singer/songwriter who would live and die outside society's rules. While Foley's own performances are only recently being released, his songs have been covered by Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. When he first encountered “If I Could Only Fly," Merle Haggard called it “the best country song I've heard in fifteen years." In a work that is part-memoir, part-biography, Rosen struggles to finally come to terms with Foley's myth and her role in its creation. Her tracing of his impact on her life navigates a lovers' roadmap along the permeable boundary between life and death. A must-read for all Blaze Foley and Texas music fans, as well as romantics of all ages, Living in the Woods in a …
Date: October 15, 2008
Creator: Rosen, Sybil
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Eugene Fowler, Jr., Joel D. Fowler, Joe W. Specht, and Melody S. Kelly, October 11, 2008

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Interview with Eugene Fowler, Jr., Joel D. Fowler, Joe W. Specht, and Melody Specht Kelly. The interview includes their personal experiences about the Duke and Ayres Store and the University of North Texas Lab School. The Fowlers and the Spechts talk about childhood and education, enlisting, family histories, the Denton square, various jobs, and race issues in Denton. The interview includes an appendix with photographs and articles.
Date: October 11, 2008
Creator: Mears, Michelle M.; Fowler, Eugene, Jr.; Fowler, Joel D.; Specht, Joe W. & Kelly, Melody Specht
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Arthur Hofstein, October 30, 2007

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Interview with Arthur Hofstein, a Army WWII veteran from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hofstein discusses the lead up to war, being drafted, training to be a radio operator, departure for the European Theater, landing in France and first action at Mars-la-Tour, the Battle of the Bulge, German prisoners and civilians, advancing into Germany, the liberation of Dachau, letters, and life after the war. In appendix are various materials and photographs related to Hofstein and his service.
Date: October 30, 2007
Creator: Decoster, Charlotte & Hofstein, Arthur I.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Evelyn Brown, October 30, 2007

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Interview with Evelyn Brown, Vietnam War-era veteran of the US Navy, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. The interview includes Brown's personal experiences of childhood and education in Pennsylvania, attending nursing school, enlisting in the Navy Nurse Corps, and being involved with veterans organizations. Additionally, Brown discusses her coming out experience, her assignment to facilities in Florida, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Quantico, Virginia, her decision to leave service upon assignment to USS Sanctuary, a hospital ship stationed off the coast of Vietnam, and her opinions regarding the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Date: October 30, 2007
Creator: Mims, Dennis Michael & Brown, Evelyn
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Anna K. Schelper, October 24, 2007

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Interview with Major Anna K. Schelper, a Army WWII veteran from San Antonio, Texas. Schelper discusses her parents, growing up, her education and becoming a nurse, joining the Army Nurse Corps, experiences serving throughout the Pacific Theater, service in hospitals after the war, continued education and promoting, and reflections on her career and being a servicewoman. In appendix are Schelper's Army service record, a letter from two former patients to the 23rd Field Hospital, a scan of some of her letters which were printed in a book, and a scan of some sections from The Army Nurse Corps: Yesterday and Today by Mary M. Roberts.
Date: October 24, 2007
Creator: Quick, Janice & Schelper, Anna K.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Ealy Boyd, October 17, 2007

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Interview with Ealy Boyd, Korean War veteran, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. The interview includes Boyd's personal experiences about childhood and education, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, basic training in San Antonio and his assignment to Laredo Air Base, Texas, and encounters with North Korean POWs. Additionally, Boyd discusses his deployment to Korea as a vehicle operator with the Fifth Motor Transport Squadron, assignments at various bases, his shift into vehicle maintenance MOS, then into maintenance and storage of nuclear warheads, and finally into aircraft maintenance, his civilian career with Lockheed Martin, political work for Reps. Martin Frost, Preston Geren, and Jim Wright, as well as with State Senator Mike Moncrief. The interview includes an appendix with a photograph.
Date: October 17, 2007
Creator: De Santiago Ramos, Simone C. & Ealy, Boyd
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Tyrel James Billingsley, October 18, 2007

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Interview with Tyrel James Billingsley, an Airman in the US Air Force Reserves from Dallas, Texas. Billingsley discusses his childhood and education, enlisting in the Air Force, basic training and technical school, his duties as a Aircraft Armament Systems specialist, memorable experiences, and plans for the future.
Date: October 17, 2007
Creator: Bonine, Rebecca & Billingsley, Tyrel James
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke: Volume 3, June 1, 1878-June 22, 1880

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John Gregory Bourke kept a monumental set of diaries beginning as a young cavalry lieutenant in Arizona in 1872, and ending the evening before his death in 1896. As aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook, he had an insider's view of the early Apache campaigns, the Great Sioux War, the Cheyenne Outbreak, and the Geronimo War. Bourke's writings reveal much about military life on the western frontier, but he also was a noted ethnologist, writing extensive descriptions of American Indian civilization and illustrating his diaries with sketches and photographs. Previously, researchers could consult only a small part of Bourke's diary material in various publications, or else take a research trip to the archive and microfilm housed at West Point. Now, for the first time, the 124 manuscript volumes of the Bourke diaries are being compiled, edited, and annotated by Charles M. Robinson III, in a planned set of eight books easily accessible to the modern researcher. Volume 3 begins in 1878 with a discussion of the Bannock Uprising and a retrospective on Crazy Horse, whose death Bourke called "an event of such importance, and with its attendant circumstances pregnant with so much of good or evil for the settlement between …
Date: October 15, 2007
Creator: Bourke, John Gregory
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Laura Gonzalez, October 13, 2007

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Interview with Laura Gonzalez, Mexican-born immigrant to the U.S., immigrant rights activist, and professor of anthropology with expertise in immigrant communities from Guanajuato, Mexico. She discusses her childhood and education in Mexico city; the decision to pursue a career in the field of political anthropology; decision to open the Oak Cliff Center for Community Studies; work with Camposanto del Cemento Grande and other community organizations in Dallas; work to increase Hispanics’ access to college; and involvement in immigrant rights movements and local Mexican American political groups. This interview has Spanish and English translations.
Date: October 13, 2007
Creator: Calderon, Roberto & Laura, Gonzalez
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Jacobo Kupersztoch, October 12, 2007

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Interview with Jacobo Kupersztoch, Mexican-born immigrant to the U.S. of German heritage, and immigrant rights activist. Interview transcript contains Spanish and English translations.
Date: October 12, 2007
Creator: Calderon, Roberto & Kupersztoch, Jacobo
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Marvin Dunn, October 11, 2007

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Interview with Korean War veteran Marvin Dunn as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. The interview includes Dunn's personal experiences about boot camp and training, combat in Korea, combat at Hill 749 and Hill 884, and of being a teacher, principal, and administrator in Dallas ISD. Additionally, Dunn discusses his decision to drop out of college to join the U.S. Marine Corps, his assignment to combat unit, the battlefield injury at "the Punchbowl," that resulted in his leg amputation, the following recuperation, his opinions regarding enemy soldiers and what the U.S. accomplished in the war, civilian opinions of the war, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, returning to college and graduate school, and his involvement with Korean War Veterans Organization. The interview also includes an appendix with photographs.
Date: October 11, 2007
Creator: Montandon, Josh & Dunn, Marvin
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Sharon Acierno, October 9, 2007

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Interview with Sharon "Tommie" Acierno, Vietnam War veteran, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. The interview includes Acierno's personal experiences about childhood, dropping out of high school and enlisting in the U.S. Army, basic and clerical training, working as drill sergeant at Ft. McClellan, struggling with alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, and working with the Vietnam Veterans of America group. Acierno also discusses her coming out experience, volunteering for assignment to Vietnam, her clerical duties with a logistics unit at Long Binh, the camaraderie among gay and straight troops, her experiences with apathetic citizens and antiwar protesters upon return to the U.S., deciding to leave the Army and relocate to Dallas, her experience in the Veterans Administration psychiatric ward, and her opinions regarding the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy and the treatment of women in the military generally. The interview includes an appendix with photographs.
Date: October 9, 2007
Creator: Mims, Michael & Acierno, Sharon
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Earl E. Ambrose, October 6, 2007

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Interview with Earl E. Ambrose, Korean War veteran, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. The interview includes Ambrose's personal experiences of childhood, basic training, volunteering for service in Korea, and attending Arlington State College using GI Bill benefits. Additionally, Ambrose discusses family experiences in military service, the decision to join the Marines, assignments to Quantico and Yorktown, Virginia, his brief combat experience and assignment to the Main Line of Resistance near the Imjin River, his discharge from the Marines, and his career with Bell Helicopter.
Date: October 6, 2007
Creator: Ball, Gregory & Ambrose, Earl E.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Ed Fendell, October 27, 2006

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Interview with Ed Fendell, NASA communications engineer and assistant flight director, as part of the Skylab Oral History Project. The interview includes Fendell's personal experiences about childhood, serving in the Korean War-era Air Force, and joining NASA in 1963. Additionally, Fendell speaks about his communications work for Apollo, Skylab, the International Space Station, and Space Shuttle program missions, trouble-shooting for Skylab missions, lessons learned from the Skylab program, personnel issues at the Johnson Space Center, and turf battles between the Johnson Space Center and other NASA centers. The interview includes an appendix with a photograph and text of what the back of the photograph reads.
Date: October 27, 2006
Creator: Johnson, Michael & Fendell, Ed
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Charles Williams, October 23, 2006

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Transcript of an interview with Charles Williams, a son of resident's of Denton's historic all-black Quakertown neighborhood and long-time Denton resident, concerning his early childhood and education in Denton, including experiences with racial segregation and experiences with integrating Denton public schools; interest in radical black politics; influence of uncle, Fred Hill; career in U.S. Navy; family's historical memories of Quakertown. Includes photographs (two pages), a map of Quakertown (one page), and a list of sources (one page).
Date: October 23, 2006
Creator: Yancey, Sherelyn & Williams, Charles, 1955-
System: The UNT Digital Library