I started dancing when I was three and a half. And at Meglin’s… we were Meglin Kiddies. And in Los Angeles there she had twenty-two studios, and I went to the main studio. A neighbor came and told my mother about it and so my mom and my Grandma got all dressed up like women used to dress up. They had on satin shoes and they had on big overcoats and big hats, and they visited a Meglin studio. Well, they came out of there and said, “Yeah, Dot ought to go there.”

So I started when I was three and a half and I went until I was fourteen. And we were lucky, because we were in the main studio, and there were about twenty-two of us who were made… the ones that she could always count on. We were the ones who knew everything. And you know a dance class in those days was, you did ballet and when you got ready you went on your toes. We did acrobatics, tumbling, and we did tap. So we did everything. We learned it all. And then every time there was a holiday from school, why the Meglins were put on the… the downtown film places, the theaters, used to show first run movies and then they’d have a second movie. Well, during the holiday times they had Vaudeville, so they didn’t have a second movie. And we were always the Vaudeville. So anytime—Easter vacation, spring break, Christmas, summertime. I got a lot of experience on stage. Five shows a day.

And the thing was that I got into that group, and then I never had to pay for lessons after that. Now, it still costs, because you had to have costumes and Mom had to go with me. You know, if we were in the movies, why she had to go with us. Anytime she had to be with us. Sometimes Daddy would do it because his hours were so strange where he worked with the Japanese why he was on twenty-four hours a day. But no certain hours, and so he could drive me. And that was really nice, because I got really acquainted with my dad. Because he was a romantic. He used to tell me poems and he used to—he was a cowboy when he was a kid, when he was young—and he would tell me poetry and we’d learn poetry, and he’d tell me stories about them being on the field and herding the cattle and all of that kind of stuff. And I just adored him.

And that doesn’t always happen with a father. You know, because he’s at work usually, and it doesn’t happen that way. But it sure did for me. I loved it. Because he’d take me to dancing school. He’d help the kids warm up on the mat while they were doing their back bends and their tumbling things and stuff. I remember one time a kid kicked him right in the lip. Oh, he had such a bad sore. But he loved it. He liked it.

I went to high school in Montebello. There were 1200 kids in the school. It was the only school between Garfield, where Louie went—my husband-to-be went to Garfield. That was in closer to LA—and then Montebello was another town, and then it moved on down to Whittier. It was a nice time to go to high school.

I started high school….it had to be 1940, and I got out in 44. Would that be right? Let’s see. I was twelve when I went to high school, so at twenty-three… ’45. Yeah, that would be about right.

It was during the Second World War. Am I in the wrong years? Let’s see. Because the second World War Louie went into, and I was nineteen at that time. So I must have gone to school earlier than that. Yeah, I went to college ’40 and ’44, that’s right. My math is a little screwy.