This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
My dad parked my mom, brothers, and me in Edmond, Oklahoma, while he flew U-10s in psychological warfare missions out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Vietnam. We sent letters back and forth and quickly figured out the stories our dad liked best are what I called “Americana.” My contribution was about grade school woes and the need for a dog.
When I was in sixth grade, every school taught the girls home economics, and the boys were taught shop. I wanted to take shop—they did cool stuff like making bookshelves and changing car tires. But I was a girl, so eventually I proudly came home with an apron and two hot pads.
School gave us something to talk about in our daily letters and weekly recorded family tapes with my dad. But when his letters stopped during the Tet Offensive, my mother had a breakdown and was taken to the hospital. He eventually was able to write to us again and my sewing frustration was a good distraction to keep my mind off my dad’s deployment for the year and comic relief for him.
Dad returned and our next base was at the Blue Cube in Sunnyvale, California. I attended seventh grade at Bret Harte Junior High School, where they had a rule: All seventh grade girls must take home economics. I didn’t want to take home economics again, so I brought my hot pads and aprons into the school office to fight it. I failed. By the end of the school year, I had my first A-line skirt, an apron, and two hot pads.
While home economics was the same, California was a sharp shift from Oklahoma. It was casual and strongly anti-war. When I answered “Yes, ma’am!” during attendance, I was told that such language was indicative of “a slave-parent relationship” and to never say “ma’am” or “sir” again. By the end of our stay, I had learned to wear Hang Ten shorts, sandals, and say, “Yaaah.”
Change is both constant and difficult for a military family. My mom disliked every move, only declaring it nice in retrospect after we deployed to a new place she liked less. She resisted what she could, then made the best of the situation.
Because I had no choice, I had my own approach: Change. Adapt. Repeat.
It led me to enter a car company’s national sweepstakes: First prize was his and her cars; second prize was a trip for two to Mexico; and the third prize was a Singer Touch & Sew sewing machine. I wanted the sewing machine, so I took home whole pads of paper entry forms, filled them out, and dropped them off at the next dealership we visited while my frugal dad was searching for the best deal on a vehicle.
For eighth grade, we drove down to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, in our new truck. The middle school had a rule: All eighth grade girls must take home economics. I brought my mom into the school office to fight it. We lost. I added my first dress to my stack of sewing accomplishments.
Adding to my dismay, the algebra teacher asked me to solve the problem on the chalkboard. I said, “X equals two,” and she asked me, “Two what?” I didn’t know. She said, “It’s two, ma’am!”
Change. Adapt. Repeat.
The ninth grade found us at Eglin Air Force Base, near Niceville, Florida. You guessed it, they had a rule: All ninth grade girls must take home economics. By now, my dad had risen up the military chain, so I had him come in to plead my case. He didn’t wear his day-to-day uniform; I made him wear his dress blues. It was the only time my dad ever let me down; we lost and I sewed my first pair of slacks.
The car company called. Apparently, we were hard to track down. I had won the second place prize—the trip to Acapulco, Mexico, and a thousand dollars in spending money! For some reason, the company wouldn’t let a kid of my age go partying alone in Mexico, so my parents took the trip. I made my “This isn’t fair!” case in a logical teenage emotional rage until my dad said I could use part of the prize spending money to get a sewing machine.
While I had learned sewing under duress, I had somewhat warmed up to it. I realized I could sew something for a tenth of the price of what the base exchange had, not that I was interested in the blue, black, and tan jeans they carried. I wanted to wear what I saw in the magazines, and since the base exchange didn’t carry knits, I also taught myself to knit and crochet.
Dad knew a professor stationed at the US Air Force Academy whose wife, Russell, taught home economics in Colorado Springs. Russ could advise us on what sewing machine to buy. Her dream machine was an expensive model by a Swiss company called Bernina, and she helped us get a teacher’s discount from the local Bernina dealer.
Luckily, my 10th grade found us at Buckley Air National Guard, in Aurora, Colorado. Russ and her husband dropped my new Bernina off at our house. It was a bittersweet moment—Russ was a home economics teacher and a teenager had just scored her dream machine.
Due to packing and driving, our family got to Douglas County High School just two days before school started. I was ahead in subjects like math and science, and those classes were only offered in one set time slot. I asked to take shop, but they said that class was full, though they somehow found room for my neighbor’s son.
My only elective option was—wait for it—home economics. I asked the counselor if it mattered if I had home economics before and they said, “High school is a clean slate.”
Change. Adapt. Repeat.
My new home economics teacher only had a few days to prepare for the class after the previous teacher retired, and there weren’t enough tables with built-in sewing machines for everyone in the whole class. I was the odd woman out. But the previous teacher had ordered this strange sewing machine in the back cupboard, still brand-new in the box, and I was welcome to use that on a makeshift TV-tray-like desk. It was my Bernina! I never told her I had a machine just like it at home. I got an A for my three-piece wool suit.
My dad’s next assignment was in Colorado Springs at Peterson Field/Norad. I went to USAFA High School. I used my sewing machine to sew formal gowns for myself and friends lucky enough to be invited to dances at the USAF Academy.
My dad got sick just after I started college, so I had to drop out of the University of Colorado. Because of that sewing machine, I ended up making enough money to afford returning to university, partially by sewing dresses and interview suits for other students at school and in the community.
Ironically, this is where the credo of “Change. Adapt. Repeat” and my five tours in home economics paid off: My sewing skills helped me pay for a degree in electrical engineering/computer science and get my first job at Hewlett-Packard. I wore my wool three-piece suit for the interview.
This War Horse reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headline.
Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
