Interview with Elinor M. McDougal

Interview team: Jamie Bankston, Chandler Anderson, and Durell Waldon

Faculty Facilitator: Mrs. Lynda Kannady

Date of Interview: March 10, 2006

Elinor Murray was born on February 5, 1922, in Columbus, Georgia. Her father was a 1907 Georgia Tech graduate and thereafter landed a job as a mechanical engineer at Columbus Cotton Gin Company. Her mother was a homemaker. At the time of Elinor’s birth, Columbus was a mill and a military town with a population of approximately 35,000. The Murray family lived at 1256 Eberhart Avenue, in a house her father built in the Wynnton area of Columbus during Elinor’s childhood. In fact, her father lived at this same address until his death at age 103.

For her early childhood education she attended Wynnton School, which was within walking distance of her home. Columbus High is where Miss Murray would spend many of her young impressionable teenage years pursuing her education and making lifelong friendships. She and her classmates spent many hours listening to the jazz sounds of Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald, not to mention the popular Glenn Miller Band. The song A Tisket, A Tasket may have been playing on the radio while they congregated at their favorite local hangouts. Dinglewood Pharmacy was one of the places young folks would hang out to enjoy a burger and a coke. If they wanted to experience a higher end of dining they would go to Spano’s or the Coco Supper Club. Of course, they would also dress up occasionally for a school dance. Every once in a while a group would venture to Auburn, Alabama for a dance there.

In 1939, at the age of seventeen, Elinor graduated from Columbus High School with approximately one hundred other aspiring young people. To this day she recalls seeing many military personnel at the commencement exercise. Since Fort Benning borders the southern end of Columbus, it would not have been unusual to have military service personnel at the graduation. However, by 1939 things were heating up in Europe with Adolph Hitler on the march. The United States was not directly involved, nor was there a plan for this type of involvement, but activity was beginning to take place at military bases and Fort Benning was no exception.

Elinor and her family were members of Trinity Episcopal Church, which was and is still located in the downtown section of Columbus. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, she remembers that many officer candidate trainees from Fort Benning would attend church services at Trinity. There were many Sundays when her family would have one or more of these young men to Sunday lunch. Since most of these officer candidates were graduates from Ivy League colleges, such as Yale, Harvard, and Princeton; Elinor learned many school fight songs. From time to time she would participate in events and activities at Fort Benning and met distinguished military leaders, such as Omar Bradley and George Patton.

After the Japanese attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Murray family began to take in borders at their home because there was such a housing shortage with the buildup that was taking place at Fort Benning. They also had a guesthouse in the back of their home they rented to young couples.

There were many shortages during this time; therefore, many items had to be rationed. Among those things being rationed were gasoline, tires, shoes, and even ladies stockings. Elinor has a vivid memory of using tan makeup for her legs in order to mimic stockings. It was a little hotter and more humid than the fake stockings could bear. The makeup ran down her legs to her horror and her date’s humor, as he cracked a joke about her health. She also recalled the times she and her friends would pool their gas rations to make trips to Ponte Vedra, Florida. Located close to Jacksonville and the Mayport Naval Base, this area was subject to constant blackout drills. Elinor recalls a time during one of these getaways seeing an American tanker on fire, which was a direct result of a German submarine attack. Theodore Roosevelt III, son of the 26th president, had a place on the same beach. Peter Collier’s book on the Roosevelt family recounts the tanker incident that Elinor observed at Ponte Vedra.

Elinor’s two brothers and her fiancé saw combat during the war. Her two brothers went into two different military branches, the army and the navy. They both died after the war in their early thirties, within three months of one another, of cancer. Many speculated their deaths were a direct effect of the war since they both served in close proximity to Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped. Sadly, her fiancé never returned to the United States as he was killed in combat. He died at Okinawa on the very same day President Franklin Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia. She remembered that up to the time of his death, he would write her letters and the sweetest poems, which she still has in her possession. After his death, she would attend dances at the Officers Club and the USO Club to help entertain the Fort Benning soldiers although her heart had been broken. The golden rule for the young soldiers and the local girls at the USO Club was to entertain, but not to develop an ongoing relationship. Needless to say, that particular rule was broken from time to time. In fact, Columbus would become known at “the mother-in-law of the army”.

As the war neared its end, Miss Murray moved to New York City and went to work. However, home was where her heart was and she eventually moved back to Columbus. On her return she found employment and her future husband at Merrill Lynch. Paul McDougal and Elinor Murray married in 1952. They would eventually have two children, Mary and Allen, and were further blessed with two grandchildren. Paul McDougal passed away in 1991 with Elinore at his side. Mrs. McDougal still resides in Columbus, Georgia and is very active in her church and her community.