No

Georgiana Drain

Martha Clarvoe

101 Main St.

Cooperstown, NY

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Research and Fieldwork Course (HMUS 520)
Oral History Project
Fall 2012

Interview with Martha Clarvoe by Georgiana E. Drain

Interviewer: Drain, Georgiana E.
Interviewee: Clarvoe, Martha
Date: November 14, 2012
Location of interview: Cooperstown, New York

Archive or Library Repository: New York State Historical Association Library, Cooperstown, NY

Description:

Martha Clarvoe is a prominent member of the Otsego County Conservation Association (OCCA). Clarvoe was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and later moved with her family to Maryland. In Maryland, Clarvoe attended high school and college. Clarvoe studied a year of Physical Education and went to Physical Therapy Assistant School in Baltimore, Maryland. Clarvoe worked at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC, where she met her husband who was training to be a Physician’s Assistant at Johns Hopkins University. Eventually, Clarvoe and her husband decided that they wanted to live around nature in a rural setting, so they moved to Otsego County. While in Otsego County, Clarvoe began volunteering with the OCCA, and eventually became a board member and leader of the organization.
Clarvoe’s recollections range from stories of her day-to-day activities growing up with her siblings in Maryland to the work that she currently does at the Otsego County Conservation Association. Additionally, Clarvoe’s recollections consist of her broader observations of the current environmental state of Otsego County. Some of the most interesting material in the interview concerns her work to push conservation to the forefront of Otsego County’s social issues. Such instances include, but are not limited to, her involvement in Earth Festival, Bike to Work Day, the League of Women Voters, and the Burn Barrel Committee.
Clarvoe speaks in a clear northern United States dialect that is not difficult to understand. For this reason, I have been able to reproduce Clarvoe’s speech. However, I have chosen to make a minimal amount of grammatical and editorial changes. Therefore, I encourage researchers to consult the audio recordings for the exact narration without my editorial decisions.


Key Terms:
Agricultural (Ag.) Plastic
Bassett Hospital
Bike to Work Day
Burn Barrels
Cornell Waste Management Institute
Cooperstown, New York
Earth Festival
Environment
Farmers
Hartwick, New York
Hartwick Conservation Advisory Committee
Hazardous Waste
League of Women Voters
Milford, New York
New York Farm Bureau
Otsego County



Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

MC = Martha Clarvoe
GD = Georgiana Drain

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

GD:
This is the November 14, 2012 interview of Ms. Martha Clarvoe by Georgiana Drain for the Cooperstown Graduate Program's Research and Fieldwork course recorded at 101 Main Street in the Otsego County Conservation Association Headquarters. So, can you tell me about what the community that you grew up in was like when you were young?

MC:
I really grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York for several years, and then we moved to Rockville, Maryland. My dad was an employee of IBM, and so he worked in Gaithersburg and we lived in Norbeck, Maryland. I believe that I was actually bussed as an elementary school student for desegregation. We were bussed to Olney, Maryland, and that’s where the school was. Kids didn’t probably understand any of that. I sort of learned that after the fact. I had a wonderful time, had many friends- black and white- and I don’t imagine there were many Latinos there at the time. I spent a lot of time in a swimming pool. My sister and I were on the swimming team, and so we swam a lot and went to practice in the morning. We practiced for an hour and we had homework assignments. We had to swim a mile even after practice, so we spent a lot of time in the pool. My sister and brother are older. My older sister is nine years older and my brother is six years older, so I feel like I spent a lot of time with my sister, my twin sister.

GD:
Ok.

MC:
My brother was old enough that he didn’t hang out with us. We were somebody that he could torture, and my older sister was away at college. She actually went to private school. She dared my father to send her, and he said, “if you can get in, I’ll send you,” and she got in [and] regretted it but couldn’t say anything so she ended up in private school. We were able to ride our bikes to our friends’ houses and we played outside all the time, helped my mom after my father died, helped my mom rake leaves, and did a lot of outside things.

GD:
So do you think that these outside things, that you just mentioned, in what ways did they help you become an environmentalist?

MC:
I don’t know. I think about that. I don’t really know why I'm so passionate. [silence].

GD:
It's ok. We can take a minute.

MC:
[sighs] [sniffles]

GD:
Your passion is really evident.

MC:
[sighs] [sniffles]

GD:
We can take as long as you want. Don’t worry.

MC:
So then I went to high school and college. I studied first a year of Phys. Ed., and then physical therapy. Then I ended up working for a while, and went back to Physical Therapy Assistant School. I ended up working in [Washington] DC at Sibley Memorial Hospital, and I think by then, I had met my to-be husband. He went to Physician Assistant School, and I was going to Physical Therapy Assistant School in Baltimore. While he was training at Johns Hopkins, I ended up working there. We wanted to get back to nature, get back to raising some of our own food. And for some reason, we thought we had to move to do that. I'm not sure why. [laughs]. He was from Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside of DC. So it was city, or suburbia, and it was quite busy there. At that time in the sixties, Montgomery County was the fastest growing county in the United States, and we just decided that we wanted to be in a rural setting and so he went into the career office. He was at Essex Community College, and he saw this job on the desk of the counselor, and she hadn’t mentioned it and he said, “Well what about that job right there?” And she said, “Oh, well that just came in,” and he said, “Wow, that sounds really interesting,”- because it was at Bassett Hospital. They were hiring physicians’ assistants to cover for residents. They were worried, at the time, that they might lose their residency program, and they wanted to have PAs to be there as back up. If they weren’t going to have their residents to help during surgery, they wanted to have PAs. So, he applied and came up for an interview and he got the job. So we moved here and that was in 1980. I'm probably off the topic right now.

GD:
Oh no, it’s fine. This is wonderful. I’m wondering if while you were getting to know your future husband, if you both realized that you were passionate about the environment, or was it something that just came about?

MC:
I don’t know. After being here, I worked a little while. They had a vacancy at Bassett for a temporary three month position. So, I worked as a physical therapy assistant. Later I had hurt my back, and was having chronic back pain. I realized that maybe being a physical therapist assistant wasn’t going to work because you either have to wait for help to help you with someone, or you do it yourself. And if you do it yourself, you may hurt yourself. So I decided that I needed to find a new career, and in the meantime, I went out on the boat cruise for [the] Biological Field Station at SUNY [Oneonta]. While I was on that boat cruise, Doctor [Willard] Harman was giving the tour and he kept saying, over and over again, that “this was funded by OCCA. This was funded by OCCA.” I thought, “Wow, that sounds like a really good group.” So I went by the office and met the director at the time, which was Teresa Winchester. I asked her if she needed a volunteer. She said, “sure,” and she obviously needed a lot of help. She had a lot of things that she was trying to do all by herself, and so I started doing membership and things like that. It just grew and grew. I was employed at Brookwood School for a little while. I was employed at the elementary school as an aid and the OCCA work just pulled me in, [the] volunteer[ing]. That’s really what I wanted to be doing. So I just did it more and more. At the time, OCCA didn’t have the funding to pay me. Then I was asked to be on the board, and so, I thought, “Well, I’ll just be on the board and it’ll be like a job. I just won’t get paid.” At the time, I thought to myself, “Well, I'm fine. I have a comfortable life, my husband’s employed, and the kids are grown now, and I’ll be happy with the volunteer work.” And so, that’s just what I decided to do. Luckily, OCCA was there to let me do the projects that I wanted to do, and they were fitting for their mission. So I do that, and I really enjoy it. I attend the County Solid Waste Committee meetings. My particular interest was in recycling. I didn’t feel that the county [Otsego] was doing as much as it could to promote recycling. I think my feeling was that the county was doing it because they somehow had a law on the books. I’m not sure how that became enacted or who pushed for that. Probably New York State said every county has to have a law. And so they did it, but there was sort of this just on the side when, in fact, the thing that was costing them the most money was the solid waste. They should have been looking at more options. So I thought, “Maybe that’s what I could put some of my focus on.” And I have. Through the League of Women Voters, which is where I started working on recycling, we organized the first magazine collection. This was before paper was really recyclable. You had regular office paper, but slicks, is what they were called, weren’t being recycled. So the League of Women Voters, which already had a history of recycling, they were doing the glass recycling at the train car at it used to be Agway on Railroad Avenue. There used to be Agway there, and then there was a train end right there where the railroad offices are now. The train was coming in and out of there. They dropped a train car there, and the League of Women Voters collected glass and, I believe, tin and aluminum. They put it in barrels and then they put it in the train car and sent it to get recycled. That was our first recycling center here in the Village [of Cooperstown], and probably for the county. So it was fitting that the League would take on the magazines. And in one Saturday, we filled a tractor-trailer with magazines, which means we filled probably forty thousand pounds. If the containers would actually amount to that. A standard load now is forty thousand pounds.

GD:
Did you go door-to-door to businesses?

MC:
No, we just got the word out for all those people who had been saving magazines, and probably, newspapers. Some people save them for various reasons- for pet bedding or for their wood stove. They had too much, and we probably gave them some notice that we were going to be doing this. The owners of Marcal Paper Company, who happen to have a home here in Cooperstown, provided the truck. Because Marcal Paper Company has been using pre-consumer, I believe, and possibly some post-consumer. In other words, before they make the magazine, and this was with National Geographic, they took those scraps from making the magazine, and then, if they had leftovers, for whatever reason, those things were turned into toilet paper, and paper towels, and paper napkins. Marcal provided the truck, so all we had to do was fill it. We filled it in one Saturday, and that started the magazine and slick paper recycling. So we did that. We did a tire collection- a couple tire collections. I managed to hurt my back on at least one of those. Now OCCA does Styrofoam collection at Earth Festival. That’s at least seven years old. Hopefully, this year we will actually take the Styrofoam up in a horse trailer drawn by biodiesel. It’s a diesel engine truck, and it will be running on biodiesel that is grown on our president’s property. She and her husband are very much into alternative energies, and they grow rapeseed, and they have [a] press, and they make their own vegetable oil. She is hoping to provide that this year. So, instead of renting a fourteen-foot U-Haul truck, which we pretty much fill with Styrofoam, and we take it to Cohoes Shelter Enterprises in Albany where they make- basement wall insulation board out of the collected Styrofoam. They take white plain Styrofoam and then they turn it into wallboard. It’s not called wallboard. [laughs] I don’t know what it’s called- blue board. We’ve done paper shredding at Earth Festival. We call a company, and they bring a shredder and we’ve been trying to get people to bring their old files of- say their aunt dies and they get all her papers, and you want to shred it. Running that through a little tiny hand shredder- it can take you hours. This guy can do it in ten seconds [laughs] with this machine he has. That hasn’t ever really taken off. Not like the magazines

GD:
That’s what I was going to ask you. It seems like you guys, here at the OCCA, have had so many efforts to reach out to the community, and I’m wondering what their response has been. Especially since you said that since it was you and the League of Women Voters that had the first effort, like this big recycling effort. I’m wondering what the community involvement has been like.

MC:
Oh, it’s good. It’s good. OCCA also provides the volunteers for Household Hazardous Waste Day, where the county runs a program, which includes paint, chemicals, car batteries, propane tanks. It used to include electronics, but electronics are taken care of with the New York State Product Stewardship law. So, that’s done through a company now for free for all the residents. They also collect Styrofoam, I mean, compact fluorescent bulbs and fluorescents tubes- the long ones- that’s called hazardous waste collection. When this started, OCCA and Teresa Winchester, the executive director then, was at the table when they were organizing this. They said OCCA would be happy to find the volunteers because you can’t operate something like this without volunteers, unless you want people to sit in line for hours waiting to get through. I think the average wait is probably ten minutes. I have gone to another county’s Hazardous Waste Day, and sat for an hour and a half with a cars idling the whole time. It’s really not any fun and not an environmentally-friendly atmosphere if you’re sitting in idling cars. So, I had no trouble getting enough volunteers. This year, we had a fraternity from SUNY Oneonta come, and they came with fifteen people. Then we had Job Corps came with, boy, over twenty. So this year, for the first time, we were standing around a little bit because we had too many volunteers. More and more people are starting to see that they want to protect the environment and they want to do what they can, and that’s one of the things that they can do. Another activity is the Bike to Work Day that I help organize. We have twenty-four sites around the county where people can check in and say, “I’ve ridden my bike to work today,” and you pick up some information. Hopefully a little reward for participating, you know, a water bottle or something like that. And hopefully every year, we'll get more people. But right now, we're stuck at about three hundred and fifty participants. I think it’s something that I’ve heard a lot of people say- that they use our day, which is near the end of May. They use that to start off their bike season. If they’re normally bike riders, they sort of go, “Oh yea, I’ve got to get going because I’ve got to get started for Bike to Work Day.” And that keeps them in the habit, and so they continue to ride after the event. I’m sure there are a lot of people who ride just on that day, but yet, it still got them out that one time. [It] encourages people to do more and think about that, and we also encourage walkers, as well as bicycle riders.

GD:
So tell me about the preparation for this day. I mean, three hundred and fifty people is a large amount of people. I’m wondering what your role is in organizing this event.

MC:
We started with probably six check-in locations. Each year, I try to find more people. We are looking at businesses, schools, [and] colleges. Schools are sort of an obvious choice. A lot of kids already ride their bikes, but the bike rack is stuffed when we have Bike to Work Day. I know it’s not stuffed every day. They’re easy to get on board. It’s the businesses that I think could be on board. I don’t know. They’re too busy. I don’t know why they’re not jumping on board more. It’s not a new idea to think that businesses should be rewarding people who ride their bikes. Bassett Hospital has a parking problem, and they should be rewarding people for riding the bus, for riding their bikes, and for walking to work.

GD:
So in what ways have you tried to engage these businesses that seem like they’re not really as into it [as much] as you wish that they were?

MC:
Mostly, I’ve just called, tried to get- it’s usually either somebody- like at the college, there’s somebody who’s involved in community health on campus [who is kind of a] promotional person. It might be a human resources person who’s supposed to be doing some kind of activities with employees to [do] sort of a bonding thing. But, unless I’m talking to a bicyclist, it’s hard to get people to say, “Oh, I could be riding my bike. I only live five miles away.” The really hard sell is people who are driving twenty-five minutes. For them to think, “Well, I could ride. I could drive half way, and then get on my bicycle and ride in.” To me, that is still a possibility because you’re getting to work and you’re getting your exercise. Then you have to get back to your car, and you could ride your bike back. But, you have to want to do it. I think bicycling is so much fun. It’s like being a kid again. You think about other things when you ride on your bike. You think about the car in front of you or behind you. In some ways, it’s a really nice, exciting distraction. Plus, you feel really good because you’ve had your exercise and you’re not using gas. Four dollars a gallon, I think it should be on people’s minds a little bit more. The other thought is that we have an amazing public transportation system here in Otsego County. It’s kind of a well-kept secret. There’s not a lot of advertising again. Just like the recycling, there isn’t enough advertising and education, and they’re not spending much money on publicity. My husband and I ride the bus, and oftentimes there’s no one else on the bus. And I feel bad because I’m using the bus. Thirty-five cents, it costs me to ride from Hartwick to Cooperstown. That’s what it used to cost me to get lunch when I was in elementary school. It was thirty-five cents. So, it’s really nothing. I could use the change out of the jar of change that I have in my house to ride all year long probably. And that’s a crazy little bit of money.

GD:
Why do you think that they haven’t been putting as many efforts into publicity and advertising?

MC:
It’s time consuming, and work, and they don’t have a staff person. [Within] the county and the village, everybody is so short-staffed. They all have so many things to juggle. Just the mere fact that our county solid waste department and planning department are staffed by the same people- that’s crazy. That means some things are not happening that should be happening.

GD:
Would you say that there should be more of an effort, perhaps in the school systems, to raise more young people who are conscious about the environment?

MC:
Sure. I like to think probably phys. ed. teachers and science teachers are the people who are concentrating on that. If they’re talking, at all, about the environment and science, which I assume they are. And phys. ed., I mean, bicycling is a perfect match. Once I was driving around west of here, working on the RAP program- recycling agricultural plastic- which we actually haven’t talked about, and I saw a class of kids on bicycles. They were probably ninth through twelfth grade, and they were learning how to bicycle. I think that would be a wonderful thing to promote. I’ve never seen or heard of any class having a bicycle class. The group, Otsego Regional Cycling Advocates, which OCCA has helped start, has offered this to Cooperstown and other schools but we haven’t had many takers yet. Everybody’s limited, as you know, to how much time they have, but that’s something we should be focusing on is education. We’ve tried. We’ve offered courses, and it’s difficult to get enough people to make the course worthwhile. But [that’s] something we're focusing on. The Recycling Ag. Plastic Program came out of the Otsego County Burn Barrel Education [laughs] Committee. Carl Higgins was the chairman of the Otsego County Board of Representatives. There were a lot of people, including myself, who were complaining about trash burning. Thanks to Teresa Winchester, we were at a county solid waste meeting, and she said, “Why don’t you start a committee?” So, Roberta Puritz went ahead with that idea. She took it to the board, and they voted to form a committee. My friend, Mary Ashwood, became the chair of that committee. We had people sitting at the table who admitted freely to burning their trash. They actually took the trash out and they used gasoline to make the fire burn hot, they thought. They would light up whenever they needed to burn their trash. We had Doctor John May who worked for the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, and he knew that trash burning was probably not a good thing, but he hadn’t had time to give it some attention. So our homework, the first day after the committee, was to go and do some research-see what you could find out about trash burning.

GD:
I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit more about trash burning because I had never even heard of it until I came to Cooperstown. I didn’t realize that some people may not have trash pick-up, so I’m wondering if you could talk more about that.

MC:
I’m not sure why I’m thinking about this, but in New York City, I know they had incinerators- little incinerators, one for each high rise, and trash was burned in those. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it might not have been that hot. It needs to be hot. It needs to be like three thousand degrees in order to burn and not create dioxins. The low temperature fire, which you see in rural backyards, often referred to as “burn barrels” [or] backyard burning, happens in a barrel probably with holes punched in the bottom. I guess that was started to try to contain the fire- to give it real walls, so that they were less likely to start a fire. Originally, many years ago, it was paper products.

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]
MC:
Your meat that you bought at the deli, or wherever, was wrapped in paper. Now, it’s wrapped in plastic and cellophane. Well, not cellophane- cellophane’s a plant material- but a plastic material. And so, it might have been okay back when it was paper. Now that it’s not paper, it’s really hazardous. It creates dioxins-one of the most poisonous things known to man, most concentrated, known to cause cancers, [and] known to aggravate asthma. And the most amazing thing [is that] we all thought it was because you were being exposed to it in the air, but you’re being exposed to it when it lands on a hayfield. The cow eats it and it gets stored in the fat of the cow. Humans do this too, store toxins in our fat. And a cow releases that when it gives milk. So, the dioxins are ending up in our air, but they’re also ending up in our food supply. And that’s a serious problem. We have enough poisons that we don’t need to be creating them and putting them in our food supply. Michael Waling was one of the first persons that really made me look at it. He and I did a survey in the Village [of Cooperstown] and town of Milford. We walked around with a map and marked every time we saw a burn barrel. We got good because you could tell by the color of the barrel [if it was] an active barrel or [if] it was a barrel that somebody had said, “Okay, I’m not going to burn anymore.” You could tell by the color. The amount of rust told you that they weren’t using it anymore, and then a different colored barrel was one that was being burned every once in a while. It somehow changed the amount of rust and oxidation that was going on in the barrel. I haven’t thought about this in a long time, but I think we found some ridiculous number like seventy-five barrels in a quarter mile radius in the Village of Milford. This happened to be the home of [New York State] Senator [James] Seward, which is why we picked it. We wanted his attention. He held for a good fifteen or twenty years that Michael fought for this and the Burn Barrel Committee fought. He thought that every town should just create a law and ban it. It should be local control. The first argument to that is that people can’t control their smoke. Just because Milford has a law banning it, doesn’t mean that the town of Hartwick is going to be protected from the burning and vice versa. Everybody’s affecting everybody, so we felt we needed a state law. We needed somebody to enforce it. So few towns have law enforcement. Most of the towns rely on county and state, so we pushed for a state law. Mary Ashwood had the most brilliant idea- she’s the chair of the Burn Barrel Committee- that we should be talking at the time to Cornell Waste Management Institute. I don’t really know what their mission was, but at the time, we believed that they were looking at solid waste issues. So, we found a contact, Mary called them, and said, “you guys should be looking at this trash burning issue.” First, we met with [drums on desk] Ellen Harrison and then Doctor Lois Levitan heard our plea, and we met with both of them and talked to them about this. Lois Levitan took it on, and after a lot of discussion with the New York Farm Bureau, because they were the ones who were worried about farmers. If you told farmers that they couldn’t burn this trash, it was going to penalize them. They were either going to have to pay to have this garbage removed from their property, which was expensive. We’re talking about a product that comes in- lets see, it’s a pound of plastic for every round bail that they harvest and store. You cover it to protect it from rain, and you want it to stay fresh. You don’t want it to rot, so you cover it and keep the air and water off of it. I mean, it depends on the size of the farm, but this is quite an expense to even use ag. plastic. Then, if you’re going to pay for the disposal of it, everybody assumes it’s too expensive to do, it’s more work, they have to put it in a truck, they have to carry it, [and] they have to pay the tip fee. We all know farmers are very busy people, and a lot of them might not have time to take care of it, and so the easiest thing is to burn it. They’re burning it all over New York State and other states. So we ended up working with the New York Farm Bureau and the Cornell Waste Management Institute. That’s the only reason that we have a ban on trash burning, because the New York Farm Bureau stepped back and said, “If you can come up with a solution to the ag. plastic disposal problem, then we will support this ban. Lois Levitan realized that the ag. plastic is a product. It’s perfectly clean, it comes from natural gas, it could be used for other things. It’s a very clean plastic, so it can be used for all things plastics can be used for. There were two ideas: either to recycle the plastic or to create a fuel with the plastic because there’s a lot of energy in it. There was someone at University of Pennsylvania, I believe, who was looking at making pellets and then burning them. You could have a fuel source right there on the farm. I don’t know what’s happened to those efforts. They sort of stalled for a while, and I haven’t pursued that. I don’t know where that’s gone. But the recycling of the plastics is finally happening. I think it’s been probably six years. Lois was able to get a DEC [Department of Environmental Conservation] grant. They purchased a bailer that came out of the tobacco industry. In the southern states, where they grow tobacco, they were bailing the tobacco. I think that also led them to bail the plastics from row cover. So, the gentleman who developed that bailer ended up working with Lois to develop this bailer. After a lot of tests and use of that bailer, we finally have a bailer that everybody feels is safe. Ostego County has one of the six bailers in New York State. We’ve managed to bail, in the last couple years, sixteen bails. Those bails have, just this week, been picked up. They’re awaiting pick-up to go to market. Believe it or not, there’s a company called Terracon that makes plastic sidewalks. They’re attempting to make pervious sidewalks so that the water can run through the sidewalk and therefore go into the soil, instead of running off into the storm drains. So you’re reducing your flooding, which is something we’re going to need with global warming. We’re going to need to get more of our water into the ground right away, instead of letting it run off and cause flooding. We’re close to finding a solution for the ag. plastics. There are other options out there, but this is the one that has been actually coming together.

GD:
I see. How would you characterize the local farmers’ reactions to your efforts and your partnership with the New York Farm Bureau?

MC:
That’s a good question. The New York Farm Bureau representative for Otsego County was at the table when we first met. Lois got a whole lot of people together. Maybe there were twenty-five [or] thirty people in the room. We did have press, and New York Farm Bureau, Steve Sinniger, was represented there. They were happy with the solution. They thought that this would help farmers. We have a list of probably thirty farmers that are interested in participating in this. Farmers know how to operate equipment, so what our goal is to train the farmers to use the bailer, set up a circuit of farms that want to use the bailer, and a schedule. Then that bailer would rotate around so that the farmers could bail the plastic when their storage is full. Then Otsego Soil and Water would come around and pick up those bails and take them to the drop-off site where they’re going to go to market from there. We’re very close to making that happen. Again, there’s nobody that has the time to devote to this project. We all try to do a little bit when we can and get it started. Once you start something, it’s like anything. Even the simplest little auction- once you get people understanding, all it takes is everybody [doing] a little bit of work. We can make it happen. I think that’s where we are. We’ve tried it once, we’ve got it working, and now it’s going to be easier the next time. Now that we’re working out the bugs and we’ve solved some of the main problems. We just needed to find that right person. We finally found Todd Goadey, who has all the equipment we need and the location. We needed something near a major highway and didn’t mind having bails of ag. plastic that weigh a thousand pounds each sitting around until it could be taken away. It’s a certain type of client, if you will, who wants to have something like that sitting at their place of business. And he happens to be a farmer, which is a good fit. But the interesting thing is he can’t have a lot of animals on his farm because we don’t want to contaminate from one farm to another farm. Because you’re bringing a product from one farm to another farm, this could be a risk. And that’s why he’s such a good fit, because he doesn’t have cows or other animals close to his site. So it’s interesting. Nothing’s easy. There’s always these little problems that you have to think about and solve.

GD:
Exactly. I know that the other day, you showed me the award that you won for your efforts with the Burn Barrel Education Committee, and I’m wondering if you could tell me about the emotions that you felt and perhaps describe the day.

MC:
That was very special. We were quite surprised. Mary Ashwood and I went to the EPA headquarters in New York City, and of course, I haven’t experienced that kind of- I’ve been to New York City as a kid, and visited my sister who lived in Manhattan. But we were in an office building that was twenty floors up and [there was] a beautiful view. There were a lot of people in the room that were also getting awards, so you knew it was a nice crowd. It was very fun. It was fun for Mary and I because we like to think that we kept the committee together and kept it going. We did a lot of the work, so it was great. It was great to be recognized. I was just so happy that we didn’t have to do that fight anymore [laughs] to get the law. We also shared the email with other contact people. There’s a group up in Canton, New York who also fought this. I remember going. Two of my children went to Clarkson, so we would drive up to Canton to get there. There was a huge burn barrel ad on a billboard. I can’t remember what it said, but it was so awesome to see that out in the open that people were fighting and they were really doing exciting work up there. They actually had a program where they had farmers bring in their plastic and then didn’t charge them to dump the plastic. They wanted them to realize how much weight it actually was, and how much it actually cost. It didn’t cost as much as you would think because garbage costs by the ton. Probably only garbage haulers deal in tons of garbage. In Otsego County if you were dumping your garbage at a thousand pounds, which would be probably your whole year’s worth of plastic. Most of our farms are small. So I think we’re somewhere around sixty to seventy dollars a ton. I guess over the year, for a farmer it could be three tons, so it’s not that much money. But it was an education program. You also want to educate farmers that they shouldn’t be burying it, which is what a lot of farmers did. They do that. An owner of a property is allowed to bury on their property for one year. Say they’ve taken down an old building and they don’t want to burn it and they just want to bury it, you’re allowed to do that, I think, for one year is the limitation. But if down the road, they want to sell that property and whoever’s looking knows about this buried area, there may be questions. They may have to eventually dig it up and dispose of it properly, so it could come back to haunt you.

GD:
Are there fines?

MC:
Probably. If you’re burying something that it’s common knowledge that you should not be burying, and they find that there, there could be fines. There are fines now with burning trash. The first fine is a warning and education to try to teach people. “This is why we’re not encouraging you. Why you should not be burning your trash.” And then, if you still don’t get it, then you get a fine. But they want to get everybody the education first because we can’t assume- everyone can miss something [the article in the newspaper]. It’s not like it’s in the paper everyday for weeks. It’s only in there once. If you’ve missed the paper that day, then you might have missed the education.

GD:
To what extent are they bringing this type of education to the school system, do you know?

MC:
Actually, when this was very active, OCCA hired a company called the Wildlife Learning Center, at one point. We asked them to create a curriculum that could be taken to schools. It was called “Burn Barrel Biology”, and they did this wonderful program. They set up this lesson plan, and they pretended that up on stage, in an auditorium- say you had three or four grades of kids there- so you’d use a big space, and they’d say, “Pretend this is a burn barrel and here are the things that are going to come out of it.” They had a burn barrel up there and they made it look like it was on fire. We pretended that they would go out in the air, and they told you what those things were, and then you would go from station to station pretending that these fumes landed on hay, they landed in a stream, they landed in a pond, they landed in your backyard garden. And [they] talked about the chemistry of those things and then where they would end up. So, it eventually led you back to your food. It was really great. It was a wonderful program. They offered this to all the schools in Otsego County and anybody else. I do believe they tried to get it shared statewide. It was on the Internet. I’m sure they had a lot of people picking up from this idea. They did that for a couple years, at least.

GD:
What year did it begin in?

MC:
[laughs] That’s a good question. I would say it was six to eight years ago. But their company has kind of disbanded. I think, again, because schools don’t have the funding. I know a lot of schools have stopped field trips. I think it got harder and harder for them to take- they also had birds of prey. So they had a turkey vulture and screech owl and great horned owl. They would bring them into the classroom, but they couldn’t get enough jobs. They just happened to be my neighbors. I think that day they moved in, I was down there because I heard that they were educators and I was like, “You have to take this on.” And they ended up taking it on, and it was good.

GD:
So then what do you think, right now, is the greatest threat to the environment in Otsego County? I know we spoke a lot about the barrel burning, and it seems like you guys have made some huge strides in that movement. I’m wondering what else you would consider to be a threat to the environment here.

MC:
I hope it’s not the gas drilling. Through my own research and the OCCA’s research, we are really hoping that gas drilling doesn’t come here. Much of the shale is too near the surface, and possibly the southern part of Otsego County might get hit. But, we sure hope it’s not coming anytime soon. Water is a very big issue, mostly because we have so much of it. I’m also the chair of the Hartwick Conservation Advisory Committee, and one of our members described the center of Otsego County, which happens to be the town I live in, as a sponge. There’s so much water, so many creeks, so many ponds, so many aquifers, and our aquifer in Hartwick is very near the surface. You contaminate one thing, you’ve contaminated the whole thing. So we’re really hoping just on that fact alone, I think, it should keep us from having gas drilling. The town of Hartwick is working on zoning, and as one town board member said, “If you just created a law that said you couldn’t drill within a mile of a water body, I think you’d have Hartwick covered because we have so much water running through the town.” The next thing is global warming, and what has to go along with that is the decline of oil production. I believe it’s causing the global warming, and we’re also running out of it, which you would think would be sort of a good thing, but the carbon numbers are just too high. If our oil-use stopped today, we still have too much carbon in the air and it’s already wreaking havoc on our weather. We need to be looking at alternatives. There’s wonderful book, Power from the People, that talks about using biomass, which we have a lot of. We need to develop tree farms here so that we don’t use up all our trees for wood pellets and various fuels. We also have access to farms. I hope this will improve and increase farming in this area. Manure from animals can be collected and the methane pulled off. You can use that for electricity and you’re keeping it out of the atmosphere. So, it’s a doubly good thing. We’re going to have to figure out ways to transport without fuels. We can grow rapeseed, so we can make our own biodiesel. All of the chemicals that are in fuels, today, can be grown, so we really can grow our fuels. We’re going to have to use them sparingly and somebody’s going to have to prioritize who gets these fuels. There are even hospitals that are looking at heating with wood pellets. It’s a transition, but we need to start figuring this out. We can’t sit on our hands and keep burning fossil fuels, and conservation has to be going right along with that.

GD:
It seems that sometimes the environment is easy to take for granted. I’m wondering how you push these issues about water contamination, and the gas drilling, and global warming. How do you and the OCCA push these issues to the forefront, knowing that the people that you are trying to reach out to –the environment really might not be a priority for them. What tactics do you use?

MC:
We try to base ours on science. We try not to be hysterical. I can remember years ago, sitting at a meeting getting upset because people were not getting the trash burning issue. And I don’t know what happened. Somebody said something to me or something, and I realized you can’t be emotional because if you’re emotional people just write you off. And I think it’s something innate in people- that they just go, “Oh, this is too upsetting. I can’t deal with that.” It’s not that they think you’re crazy. They’re scared to look at the issue. And that was a great help because it was hard. A lot of people made jokes. For a long time, whenever there was an opportunity to make a joke about trash burning they did. And I learned that you had to laugh with them. You have to go, “Yea, yea, you’re right. That’s really funny.” But [laughs] then you have to come back and say, “You know, you can’t allow that to go on.” You have to address it. So it is difficult and there’s a lot of people who, from stress in their own lives, they can’t take some of these things on. And those people, I think, the ones who are passionate, do have to keep doing it because everybody can’t be an environmentalist. Everybody has other things they want to be. So it’s a responsibility, but it’s important.

GD:
It is important. And speaking with you has really enlightened me and made me realize how important the environment is. The work that you guys are doing is so special, and I’m just wondering what do you hope for the future of Otsego County and its environment, and conservation, and preservation?

MC:
I think Otsego County is getting on board. OCCA has been a key part of these efforts. There’s a grant- Cleaner Greener Community. I’ve forgotten the full name of it. But OCCA was very important in getting Otsego County to apply for this grant. It is based on the Mohawk region, and so Utica and Herkimer are included. Another community had applied last year and didn’t get it because they were not hooking up with other people. I think that’s key whenever you’re applying for a grant. The more people that you can get on board, when they see that they’re going to be servicing a bigger area, then you’re more likely to get the grant. So working with the other counties, there’ll be positive things that will come out of this grant. We’re going to be setting up focus areas. What does Otsego County see its future in relation to their energy needs? Do they say you wanted to focus on nuclear power? [laughs] So you would say that in these goals, and then when someone comes to NYSERDA [New York State Energy Research and Development Authority] which is going to administer this money- I thinks it’s like ninety-six million dollars- they would look for nuclear power projects and say, “Oh, this one would fit for Otsego County.” I’m pretty confident that we’re not going to choose that [nuclear power], but it’s a way for us to give direction for these energy solutions that are going to be coming down the pike. And after reading this book, Power From the People, by George Paul, I can see that the biomass and the biogas and some solar, some wind can really help to create some energy for our community. They call it localization. It gives me hope that

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]
there are some solutions. How we’re going to battle really heavy winds- I don’t know. I lost shingles on my roof from this last super storm [Sandy]. That’s not something I ever thought would happen. A lot of tree damage that I didn’t really even know about until someone told me that they lost twenty-five trees, but we’re going to need to start looking at issues like that. Someone at the town board meeting the other night said, “We don’t have a building in the town of Hartwick in the hamlet,” she was thinking, “that has a basement that you could set up cots in to keep people safe from a hurricane.” They all agreed that they need to revisit their emergency management plan and try to figure out how they’re going to address that. We did have straight winds in 1998, I think, that luckily didn’t hit the populated area, but had it, we would be like the people in Rockaway with no power for three weeks. There’s talk about putting electric wires underground. I don’t know. It’s very expensive. There are a lot of very expensive options out there. [laughs] I feel like I’m going off topic. But it’s exciting to think about farmers joining together to pool their resources, which turns out to be cow manure. [laughs] I think that’s really awesome. In Hartwick we have a local meat market. Here is a USDA certified market that cuts meat, and I just learned in that book that there’s a lot of waste product from that. I want to run down and ask Larry’s Meats what does he do with all that because that can be added [to biogas products]. The organs that they don’t sell and the waste from the cutting of the meat can be added to the cow manure and composting, and you could put it all together and create this methane product. It’s not something that I would have thought of on my own, for sure. [laughs] I know composting is great, but I’d heard about this for a couple years now, but I never thought about it as a local thing that could really create energy. There are farms that are doing bio-digesters and they’re creating their own electricity, but if they’re big enough they’ve got excess. I guess that’s what we’re hoping for- that we can create excess energy and power to help to power the town. Then like for the town of Hartwick, there’s one hill that is on the wind map. I know it has enough wind up there. But we got to start. We got to start raising the funds. Vermont has a lot of solar farms and they’re like co-ops. I’ll put in my two hundred and fifty or whatever and I’ll get so many kilowatts credited to my electric bill, and the solar farm grows like that, and then more and more people, and more and more electricity. Pretty soon everybody’s getting their own electricity created by this farm. But we need to start.

GD:
I’m wondering does the OCCA have any types of partnerships with places of worship? I’ve noticed there’s so many churches in Cooperstown. I’m wondering if there’s any way that you can get people on board with talking to religious leaders.

MC:
Absolutely. Churches, for at least ten or twenty years, have been active in the energy conservation efforts. There are several organizations. They have already started some of this. Florence Carnahan, who is a friend and another energy alternative person, and I are supposed to be getting together to try to start approaching churches and see if we can’t get some who aren’t on board to get onboard. We need to do a survey of who is active and who isn’t and who needs more information. There’s a great book called Low Carbon Diet, which everybody looks at and goes, “I don’t want to go on a diet.” [laughs] But it’s about their energy use. And it’s a cartoony book, and set up so that each little chapter addresses a couple little easy things to do in your home. It would be great to do with a family to get everybody on board. And watch your energy use and see how it goes down as you implement some of these things. It’s all right there. OCCA tried to do some of those classes and it just hasn’t stuck yet. But the churches are a good place to start, since they have members and they can communicate with them. It’s something we need to pursue.

GD:
I know that you have to leave soon, but I’m just wondering if you could give some words of advice to people of Otsego County who might not necessarily be as passionate as you are, but who are interested in the environment and who want to preserve this beautiful space that we have here, what would you say are some small ways people could get involved with the Association?

MC:
First of all, get a programmable thermostat. It saves you a lot of energy. Start riding the bus, and then find something that you’re interested in and see how OCCA can help you participate a little bit more in your community. There are so many exciting things to do, and you’re going to make a difference. And you’d be first in line. [laughs]. You don’t have to fight the hoards of people. OCCA is a great place to start. Attend a board meeting or say, “I want to learn such and such and you know maybe we’ll form a committee and get people together to discuss it.” There’s so much to learn from each other because a lot of people are already doing this. I know years ago when I would go to a meeting and I’d say something about my heat- how I keep my thermostat at fifty-five when we’re not there and it’s at sixty when we are there. Everybody in the room would be at the same place. I wasn’t the only one. I was surprised by that. It’s kind of nice to know that there are other people out there that are conserving, and we need to share because we all have great ideas of things that we’ve done. This Low Carbon Diet book, that’s what they encourage you to do. Commit to coming to a meeting for four weeks, work on these issues, take your homework home, and do those things- programmable thermostat, or insulation around the windows, or fixing a cracked glass, or finding the time to finally get the new water heater that you know you need- or something like that, something related to energy. Then people come back and say, “Oh, I did this, and I tried this product. This one worked really well, this one didn’t.” You can learn from each other and save yourself some hassle, I suspect. And meet your neighbors, have fun doing it. You never know what will come out of a group of people getting together. They might have a group wood-cutting project, where they all get together and cut their own wood and then bring it home and it would be fun. Many hands make light work. [laughs].

GD:
Well, I’d like to thank you so much for participating in our oral history project. Your story is so valuable to us and to learning, and I have learned so much right now [from] just sitting here and talking to you.

MC:
Good. Thank you.

30:00- Part 1

30.00- Part 2

09.25- Part 3

128 kbps

No

"Drew Ulrich"

"Frank Van Auken"

"119 Fassett Road"

"East Springfield, NY"

"Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

FVA= Frank Van Auken
DU= Drew Ulrich

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

DU:

This is Drew Ulrich interviewing Mr. Frank Van Auken at his home, 119 Fassett Road, East Springfield, New York for the Cooperstown Graduate Program’s “Community Stories Project” on Friday, November 16, 2012. Mr. Van Auken can you please describe for me what it was like growing up on this property?

FVA:
Well, I’d imagine it was about the same as any place… back in those days. That’s kind of a stumping question.

DU:
Well, just tell me about, you know, how it was growing up in this house you were born in? Tell me what that was like.

FVA:
Well I don’t know, I don’t know if got any way to really compare it to.

DU:
So what kind of chores did you do?

FVA:
Well, we had a few cows and we used to…well, my father milked them and I helped get the hay and the grain in. I used to help feed them and clean them.

DU:
So, they provided you a lot of milk, a lot of accessories?

FVA:
Well, they gave us all the milk. We used to make butter with it. We used to make cottage cheese or “Dutch cheese” as we called it back in those days. Today they call it “cottage cheese,” but it isn’t much of anything but garbage. We had our own gardens. We had our own orchards. We had own meat. We were more or less self-sufficient. This was during the “1929 Crash” there when there… that’s what I can’t, I can’t remember things too much. During Prohibition, not Prohibition. I was born during Prohibition too, but this was something to do with the Stock Market Crash when everything went to pieces back in those days. We got along, I think we got along very well. We didn’t have to go out on the street and sell apples or anything like that. You know what I mean? It was, I think I had a pretty good childhood compared to some. I look back onto it, we were provided for, we didn’t have to worry about food. Course when you are 10 or 15 years that’s about all you think about is food. Now I guess that’s about it.

DU:
So could you tell me about the process of making the cheese and the different dairy products?

FVA:
Well, I don’t know. My mother knew more about that than I did. The butter, we had a milk separator and the cream, we took the cream off. They checked that or she did till it was right. They had to sour somehow. Then we had a butter churn. What we call “a churn.” This is what we had, a lot of them had one that rolled over, but we had one with a “dasher” in it. We got it down to a certain coolness, put it in there and it wouldn’t take very long and there’d be butter in there. And you had buttermilk, regular buttermilk out of it. The cheese, that was made from skim milk. That soured, somehow they heated it on the stove. You had to have it just right or if you didn’t it would be too hard. The curds would be too hard. But they knew how to do it. If it did get too hard my grandmother she done something to it and she rolled it up into a ball like that. Oh, I’m gonna say four or five inches in diameter. And rubbed butter on the outside of it and put it up in what we called “the pantry,” laid it up on a shelf there. I never ate this stuff, it stunk like a son of gun, but they liked it.

DU:
So it was not for like commercial sale?

FVA:
Oh, no, no, no, we never sold any of that stuff.

DU:
Or gave it away?

FVA:
Well, if somebody wanted it. She sold the butter that was a sour cream butter. But you don’t buy that too much [anymore], it’s mostly this sweet cream butter. But, you don’t buy that, you can’t… well yeah I suppose you can get it some places as a specialty. It would be a specialty nowadays. But that’s about it.

DU:
Hmmm, so could you tell me about the history of this house that you lived in and grew up in as well?

FVA:
Well, I understand that it must of have been built, that part in there is post and beam, what they call “post and beam,” I’d imagine that was built in 1840, somewhere in there. It’s an old house, it’s a real old house. And then this here is frame that was built on a long time afterwards.

DU:
Did you or your father put on any additions to the house?

FVA:
No, no this was all before, before we moved in. No, this was all done. The only thing we’ve done is remodeled the inside of it. Fix it up. I’ve made it over. The pantry was over where the refrigerator is now. It wasn’t very big, maybe five by six. And there was a bedroom in there right where that part is. This was the partition, solid partition up here. And this side where we are, the cook stove was in there. They had the big cook stove where it kept you warm all winter long. It changed a lot since then, things have. No electricity.

DU:
Really, how was that? [What] was that like?

FVA:
No electricity until 1929, they come in and then they run the line in. We were about the first to get electricity because one of the fellas he was an electrician and he worked for this guy. They had a little pull with the electric company and they put that in. No, we had lamps. In the living room in there they had some kind of a lamp that had mantles in it, you know? Like “a mantle lantern”? And you get pretty good bright light with that, but out here they just had plain old kerosene lamps. Something like that. And they burnt wood in the stove that’s how they got the heat. They had to go up in the woods and cut up a whole lot of wood and come down and they’d have someone buzz it up for the right length they wanted. I got the job of splitting it! And I didn’t like that [laughs]. Some of it was pretty tough. We didn’t too much running around. I didn’t, I had to work. When I come home from school I had to go get things straightened out, get the cows straightened out. I didn’t play ball or stuff like that, that was for the “town-people” to do.

DU:
So what was it like when electricity was brought to this house, if you recall?

FVA:
Well, I think we had a light there, a lot different than this one, had another light there, two, three blubs in that thing. Yeah, I don’t know, it was different. We didn’t get a refrigerator till nineteen—, in the fifties I guess it was in there. I don’t know how they really kept stuff. I think they canned it all so it didn’t spoil.

DU:
Did they keep it in the pantry here?

FVA:
No, there’s a cellar down in there. What we called “a cellar.” That’s the basement, nowadays they call it a basement, but that was the cellar down there. And they had shelves down in there and they put all the stuff onto it. And they also picked the apples in the fall and that went down in a shelves or bins down in there and potatoes and all this rootstock was put down in there. And, it didn’t rot too much. If you knew how to take care of it, it wouldn’t spoil too fast. The canned goods never spoiled, but you get carrots, potatoes, and onions and that stuff and apples. Apples were hard to keep because if one started all the rest of them would go… after awhile. We started eating up the apples that were rotting and as a result we ate rotten apples all winter long. [Laughs] But they’d make them up in applesauce and pears, canned pears, canned cherries, canned plums, all that stuff was in cans. And that stayed good, wasn’t anything wrong with that. And they canned meat, they get a quarter beef, cut it all up in chunks, and put in two quart glass jars I guess it was, put it in a hot water bath and heat it all up, cook it in that, and snap the lid down. And it would stay all right. You never had anything go in that.

DU:
So could you tell me about your high school?

FVA:
Well, I went to right school down here in East Springfield. I went through high school. I haven’t been through college or anything, excepting the one of hard knocks and also the United States Army. When I first went down there all they had, well they had high school down there, but there was no gymnasium or anything else. They built that on. I sat there and watched them out of the window. I had good teachers, but [even if] you had good teachers you got to do some of it yourself. So I don’t know? It was okay, I got along alright, no trouble, no bullying like they have today. They have a little boxing match downstairs maybe but, they have gymnasiums now all made up and nice. When we played, we had to play in the cellar, around the furnaces. And they holler about asbestos, well hell everything was covered in asbestos in those days and the dust is flying all over. Oh boy, today you don’t want to get a bit of it or it will kill you. But I was in a lot of it for a long time. I didn’t die. Otherwise, they built that [the gym] in the 1930s, I guess it was somewhere around there. I graduated in 1939, yeah that was it. Then, I monkeyed around here and then they started a defense course over in Richfield and I went to that and next thing I knew they came up and they wanted me to go to Remington Arms to work. So I went down to the Remington Arms and I went to work there and that was a good deal, but Uncle Sam needed me so I done what they wanted me to do and I went in.

DU:
So I come from a military family. Could you describe for me how you felt when you were inducted or drafted into the armed forces?

FVA:
I didn’t know what I was doing, where I was going or anything else. You from a military family? [DU: I am.] It was a good experience, let’s say, but I’m not a guy who likes to be told what to do. You know what I mean? And that in there that’s what they tell you to do. The chain of command is the chain of command, I always thought that was what it was. If you wanted anything you didn’t go to the captain and ask him. I had a Master Sergeant over me and that’s who I spoke to if I wanted something. I always got it. The [less] I had to do with the commissioned officers. To me that was the best thing [to do]. I didn’t want anything to do with them. I don’t know why I never thought very much of them.

DU:
Why was that?

FVA:
I don’t know, I just had that idea, I just had that idea. They were alright. Nothing wrong with them…I guess. Of course I don’t know whether they knew what they were doing. I don’t think Eisenhower knew what he was doing. But if it hadn’t been for the men on the frontline, Hitler would have had this outfit or the Germans would have it. That’s my opinion, [but] I don’t know. I’m not a very brilliant man.

DU:
So, could you tell me about some of your induction and the training you did?

FVA:
They inducted me up in Utica because I was working there in arms in the 4-0-9 in Ilion. And I was inducted in Utica. I guess you swore in or whatever it was, and then they sent me to Camp Upton on Long Island. And there we got all our uniforms and everything else and shots, and all this crap. And then they were supposed to have what is it—“Basic Training.” I never had any basic training. [DU: Really?] No, they sent me right straight from there to an ordnance company in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. A few other people with me, half a dozen, they couldn’t believe it either. “You never had any basic training?” “No I don’t know anything about it.” So they put us in with a buck sergeant in charge of us and he done the drilling and all that stuff and told us what to do.

DU:
So, do you think they needed you so bad that they didn’t process you through basic training?

FVA:
I don’t know what they heck? I never did figure that out. I don’t know what the heck. There was an instrument man, an optical, and watch-makers, and another machinist. There was six of us that went right into that company. I don’t know why. I don’t think they could figure it out either. Well, at any rate, I was in there for, well they give me my six weeks so that I could march, pick my feet up. And then they sent me to Aberdeen, Maryland to the proving ground down there, and I took a three-month welding course. And while I was down there the company moved to Boston. Well, you can imagine it’s hotter than the blue blazes down there in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You come up in here and it’s about twenty below zero, it kind of gets your blood thinned out. One time I remember we were out on a three-day weekend bivouac, and it was so cold that in the morning when you got your breakfast the eggs would freeze in the pan before you could eat them. So, then I was in there for awhile and suddenly they come in and say “you’re going out on cadre.” You know what a cadre is? It’s where you establish a new company. Why? I don’t know. “You got to be a staff sergeant.” So, boom, I’m a staff sergeant, so they sent the whole cadre to Camp Phillips, Kansas, out on the prairie. That’s just west of Salina, and okay we stayed all winter long and I got frostbite and everything else. And they sent me after awhile to Springfield, Massachusetts, to the trade school there for machinist work so I was there for three months. I go out back out there again. Suddenly the old man says, “there’s a Colonel wants to see you up at headquarters.” Okay, what the heck am I do to? So I go up there and he says, “there’s a captain down in Fort Leonard Wood, he’s a-crying for people. You want to go down there?” I said, “I don’t care where I go!” About two weeks they kicked me down there, Fort Leonard Wood, that’s a nice place. I liked Fort Bragg because you go into Fayetteville in the Circle Bar there, you can refreshments. But then all of the sudden they sent me to Aberdeen, Maryland again for more training and then we came back. We were there a little while. [Then they told me,] “We’re going to give you training at Camp Hale, Colorado.” That’s where the Tenth Mountain Division was training up there, we were supposed to be backing up the Tenth Mountain [Division]. They give us all this clothing and stuff to stay out on the ground … well, you sleep in them. You put one layer one then put another on and another on and oh cripe. Suddenly “take that all back to the supply, supply sergeant, we aren’t going out there. We’re going to Europe.”

DU:
What was that feeling like?

FVA:
I didn’t care where they were going, didn’t make much difference so we packed up and went to Camp Shanks in New York. Stayed there maybe a few days and went down and got on a boat, a nice big boat. I guess they don’t call them boats they call them ships now. We went to Marseilles, France; we landed in Marseilles, France. That was a funny thing. We come through Gibraltar at night. On the British side. where Gibraltar is it was as dark as could be. Of course on the other side, I think it was in Algiers, lights are burning bright just as if there was nothing going on. So we landed in Marseilles, France. I think we got off that boat, cleaned it, and about three o’clock in the afternoon that thing pulled out. That didn’t stay there at all, and they bombed the port that night.

DU:
In Marseilles?

FVA:
The Germans bombed the port. So you can see why they left. They bombed it every night. I don’t know why they didn’t bomb us cause we were right out there in the open on a flat above the city. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that? Of course they done a lot things I can’t understand. We had to stay there for two or three weeks until the boats arrived with all our trucks and our equipment and everything. Then we started up the Rhone Valley for Luneville, France, that’s where we finally wound up. We get up the Rhone Valley a ways and here’s all this equipment laying alongside the road, the German equipment. They caught them in the front and in the back and then they went over them. [Laughing] They got rid of that bunch in a hurry. So we stayed all winter in Luneville and then the next spring probably say March, we went into Germany. We were in Germany when the war was over. I think we were barracked in an I.G. Farban place or something like that. Another funny thing, we come into a place, I don’t know if it makes much of a difference whether I talk about this or not. Switzerland was neutral, here’s a family in Germany, Swiss family, “don’t come near us we’re neutral! You can’t touch us, you can’t come in here!” I wonder if they were neutral then I heard later the Germans they knock the teeth out of the Jews and the gold out of the Jews and sent it to Switzerland and they melted it down for them. And they were feeding them ammunition during the war, but they were neutral. I don’t like this stuff. So that’s that. I come back home after awhile. You ever ride a forty and eight boxcar? They did that in World War I, you know? Forty men OR eight horses. So, that’s what I got into and come back to Le Havre, France and got on one of these “Victory Boats” and come back home. I didn’t know anything at that time if I did I’d have wonder how I got here. My gosh! It was in March, that North Atlantic is really rough. So that’s it!

DU:
Could you tell me about some of your friends while you were in the service?

FVA:
I didn’t… I had acquaintances. Friends? I never thought much about friends, that might have been for the infantry, but I wasn’t in long enough in one place long enough. I was in three [different] companies, so you didn’t make too many friends, if you did you forgot all about them. I’d often wonder where some of them went. What happened to them? This one company I was in, the first one, the 32nd Ordinance, they said that went to North Africa and I wondered if they got blown up in North Africa. I don’t know? This one that you were reading about, I guess you read about it in there, they were deactivated in Okinawa or some place way off in the Pacific. But you had friends for a little while, I say friends… acquaintances that you went out with and had a few beers and maybe had some spaghetti and meatballs and stuff like that with. But I didn’t, I didn’t get fast friends. I knew that I wouldn’t keep them very long. You know that I mean? What else you want to know?

DU:
Would you describe for me in a little more depth your company’s assignments, your company’s assignments and duties while you were in Europe?

FVA:
We were what they called a “heavy maintenance field army unit,” and we were assigned to the Seventh [START OF TRACK 2, 0:00] Army. We repaired trucks, tanks, scout cars, heavy artillery, light artillery, machine guns, rifles, whatever else they had… instruments. We done all that, all that work. If they came in that’s what we done. In the section I was in, an ordnance company has sections to it, automotive, artillery, small arms, instrument sections, supply sections. What I was in was what they called the “service section” where all the mechanics, the machinists, the welders, carpenters, leatherworkers. They were all in there and it was attached to “Headquarters Company.” So that’s the way that worked. But I’d done a great deal of automotive work, a lot of trucks. Automotive was the biggest section. While we were there, somebody wrecked one of the trucks. Come to find out I before we left for Germany. This one guy he wanted to go to Germany with us. Even brought his wife down to try, [but they said] “no, no, you aren’t going with us.” Come to find out he was a German spy. He was in there. They caught him afterwards. He was French, but he was a collaborator. We did take a Frenchman with us, Charlie, Charlie was alright, Charlie was a Frenchman. He didn’t like the Germans either.

DU:
Was he in the army or was he a translator?

FVA:
No, he was a civilian. We employed some civilians.

DU:
What was their role?

FVA:
Whatever we told them to do. Charlie was a cutter, oxy-settling. He was alright. When we were in Germany, we were going to box up to go to Japan. We were getting ready to go to Japan when the war was over. We had German civilians building the boxes for us to put our equipment in. We were getting ready, the train was ready and everything else. I had my number of days and I said “no more.” I went to Le Havre and got on that Victory Boat to come home.

DU:
So they let you go there rather than Japan?

FVA:
Yeah, I had enough points to get out.

DU:
Oh, I understand, they worked on a point system.

FVA:
It was on a point system back in those days. I think I had, I’m going to say one hundred and fourteen or something like that, just enough to get out. Yeah, it was all on a point system, so many days in there you get so many points for. If you are overseas, you get so many more points and all like that. So we got out. I got out.

DU:
How many did you need for a discharge?

FVA:
I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. Oh, for a discharge, you didn’t have any.

DU:
To go home, basically.

FVA:
To go home. I think I had enough. I don’t know if it was one-hundred fourteen or one-hundred twenty-four, something like that, points. That was an awful ride across the North Atlantic in that boat.

DU:
Tell me about that trip home.

FVA:
You know when I went over it was just as smooth as a mill pond. We come across that North Atlantic in one of those Victory Boats in March and that was just like a cork on the ocean. Like a cork. We were bouncing all over and it was rocking back and forth, up and down. Some of those people, they never got out of their bunks. We had a bunch of girls on it with us. They were over there entertaining, never went to see them, but they never got out of their bunks. Me? Didn’t seem to bother me. I liked to go up to the front and watch the waves. No, it really didn’t bother me. But that was rolling so that you feet would be in the water when it rolled and then it go back up again and must have been twenty to thirty feet to the water. I’m telling you, it’s a wonder we got home. I’ve thought about, but I didn’t think anything about it then. They didn’t have any stuff into them to keep them down. They didn’t have much ballast into them or anything. They were empty and they rolled around. But that North Atlantic, don’t go over that thing in March unless you got a boat the size of the Titanic and that’s at the bottom. I haven’t been on the ocean since.

DU:
So, did it take you to New York City, or where did it land?

FVA:
They deposited us in New York City at the port.

DU:
What was that reception like when you arrived there?

FVA:
Oh cripe, I don’t know. You got off the boat, got on a truck, and went over to Camp… what was that? Fort Dix. There was no parades, no parades, no parades whatsoever. They must have had parades for somebody, but as far as I’m concerned they just took us over there and processed us and took the clothes and give us a ticket to go home. That was it.

DU:
So after your discharge and this process, where did you go? Just come here?

FVA:
Yeah, I come home, I come home. I’ve been home ever since.

DU:
Tell me about how you felt upon being reunited with your parents and your sister?

FVA:
Oh, it was a good feeling I was glad to be back. I don’t know. As I say, it was an experience, but they were glad to see me and I was glad to be back here. So I started up a shop. After awhile I got married and then she died.

DU:
So, tell me about how you got your self started in your career. What were you seeking to do for a living?

FVA:
Well, machinist work, that’s all I knew. I didn’t want to do any farm work, I’ll tell you that, so I scrounged around and got some machine tools and set up a little shop down here. At that time there was a lot of farmers around here, a lot of them. They need something done every once in awhile. It was alright. Nowadays there’s only two or three farms and they’re big ones around here now, but there was a lot of them around, little farms maybe twenty, thirty cow dairies. Then was a few people who wanted things to do other than farm work. I was busy all the while.

DU:
So how’d the skills you learned in the army translate into your civilian career?

FVA:
They were very useful, very useful. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if wasn’t for the things I learned in Aberdeen. I liked that type of work. You have to like your type of work if you want to get anywhere. But I didn’t like people telling me what to do. [Laughs]

DU:
Is that why you went into business for yourself?

FVA:
Yeah.

DU:
So what sort of jobs did you do for people of this area?

FVA:
You name it. Oh, I built stanchions for them, I mended their equipment, I made elevators for their hay elevators. I made grain elevators. I even mounted tanks on trucks for oil. I built hay trucks, put the big racks on the bottom, made the racks on to them. What else? I made a lot of, I don’t know if you notice them around here, these oil tanks that are set up for farmers to put gasoline and fuel oil in. I made a bunch of them. There’s a fellow down in Fort Plain, he had an oil business and he wanted tanks. And he’d buy the tanks and I’d get the angle iron and put them all up in the air five, six feet so they would gravity feed into the tanks. One fellow over here in Richfield, he was going into the oil business and he bought a bunch of trucks’ bodies and I had to mount the tanks onto them things so he could put them in. Also, one job I had was for what the heck is that express there? Not Federal Express, but the other one. I forget what it is now. They come in with a bunch of trucks and I had to cut them in two, just the frames, cut them in two and extend them, make them bigger. I done a lot of crap. Done a lot of things.

DU:
So what sort of competition did you have in your line of work?

FVA:
I didn’t have much. There was a few here and there. Maybe a welder in Cooperstown. A fellow in Richfield, but he didn’t do too much. He was getting out of it. But nowadays the farmers have all got their own machines, you know. They can “cob-house it together,” as they say, but I didn’t do that. I make sure. [Unclear] cut off the ends of plow shears—I don’t know if you know anything about plowing—and put new ends onto them for them. You could buy ends, you know about that long, cut them back and put them on or weld them on. Really crazy.

DU:
You were talking about the oil businesses getting started around here. I know there’s a lot of discussion regarding environmental issues like fracking. What are your thoughts on this matter?

FVA:
It don’t make much difference to me. I don’t expect to be around here when that stuff gets up here… if it ever does. There’s a lot of rumors, you know. Maybe they’ll drill around here. There’s gas around here. I don’t know. It’s in that “Marcellus Shale” district. They’ve drilled down there in Pennsylvania for years. You got oil wells out there. You had any trouble with them? Has it polluted your water? Of course, you get it from Lake Meade anyway. That’s all rain water. This water that I get are all from drilled wells. The Delta Dam down here, well that’s for New York City. They don’t tell you what the chemicals are in there, but evidently it must be some kind of radiation, radioactive, because they talk about radioactive.

DU:
From the natural gas?

FVA:
Well, I think it’s in the stuff that they put in to crack the rock. My gosh. All that is pumping water down in there, millions and millions of gallons, and this stuff is mixed in with the water and it’s supposed to break the rock up to let the gas out. They start about a thousand feet down and go on down maybe ten thousand feet. But to me it’s going to be quite a long time before that stuff seeps up through the rock. I don’t know. They won’t be up around the casing in there because they pour that full of concrete around the sides of that for about fifty, a hundred, two hundred feet. I know they’re all against it, a lot of them are against it. What gets me, is if they sell out to these birds, nine times out of ten, they’re not going to get much out of it because these oil companies have got that pretty well sewed up. It’s just like the Eskimos in Alaska. They give the oil companies rights to go across their land up there, and they were going to give them so much and all this and that. But the oil companies built a big building down in Washington, glass windows and everything else into it. They were talking to the Eskimos up in Alaska, how much they were getting out of it and some of them say “oh, we get about ten dollars a year out of it.” And, they got a wooden shack up there for their headquarters. Now that’s not right, I don’t think. I don’t think they live up to what they tell them. They’ve got good lawyers and they know how to ford a contract. You ever watch that show, The Men that Made America? You ever get a chance to watch any of that on t.v.? It was on the History Channel last night. It was about Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie [sold] out to Rockefeller for I think it was $800,000. Today it would be billions, something like that. That was when a dollar was worth a dollar.

DU:
So you don’t find that the companies preparing to do the fracking are very trustworthy?

FVA:
That’s what I hear… I don’t know, myself. I’m not… but there’s gas around here. I know that because it’s blown my hat off once. A fellow here just up on the hill here, he drilled a well up there back of one of his houses to get water. They went down six hundred feet and they didn’t get it, so he wants me to cut off the casing so he can put a cap onto it. Well, I went like that with a torch across the top and it blew my hat off. It was full of gas.

DU:
Full of gas? Like liquid gas?

FVA:
No, propane, well not propane, but natural gas, but once it blew that was all there was to it. You could go ahead and do what you wanted with it. But there’s gas around here, plenty of it. I don’t whether we would get any benefit? Maybe the farmers might get benefit out of it, so much a month, so much a year. Maybe if they have a good man reading the contract. The words are in the contract. You want to read the fine print, lots of it.

DU:
Tell me about your wife.

FVA:
She was a schoolteacher.

DU:
How’d you meet?

FVA:
Mutual friends, we met up here. Monkeyed around. Finally we decided to get married. She taught down in Averill Park that’s down back east of Troy. She came from Oswego, New York up on Lake Ontario. Her mother and father, they had a fruit farm up there. She was a very nice woman, very good woman, but she developed acute leukemia and that’s the end of you. If you’re over sixty years old, you aren’t going to get away from it. You’ve got six months and that’s all. Otherwise, she was alright. We never had an argument, never had an argument. It wasn’t an argument, but I went to work one morning, everything was fine, she was going to make an apple pie, we had apples out here. So I come home about ten o’clock, and boy she lit into me, holy Moses, she was going to divorce me, she wasn’t going to do any of this housework and she didn’t get married to do any of this and that and the other thing. I couldn’t even get a word in edge-wise. She was really wound up. So I says to her, “Well we’ll talk about this when I come back at noon.” So I come back at noon and she throws her arms around me and she says, “I’m awful sorry for that! I didn’t mean any of it!” I thought what in the heck did she have… Come to find out the pie crust wouldn’t roll out the way she wanted. She was mad as a hornet over that. Well, I said, “what the heck you do? Why didn’t you throw it out?!” [She said] “Well I don’t throw it out, once I start something I’m going to finish it!” That’s the only time… that wasn’t really a fight that was just a statement. Maybe that’s the way she felt. She never said anything more about it. Then she up and got this [leukemia] and that was the end. Been gone for over twenty some years.

DU:
Tell me about your wedding day and where you all lived. I assume you lived here after you got married?

FVA:
Yeah, we come back here. We had that in Oswego. We got married in a big Methodist Church up there. The old man really swung a soiree up there in a hotel. Gee, we must have had one hundred and fifty people, dinner. It must have cost him a little money. And then we finally went on a trip, we went up into Canada, cripe that must have been two weeks. Went in at Niagara Falls and come all the way across Canada and down to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, come back in. It was a nice trip, but I got tired. I had to stop because I couldn’t take it. I had to lay down for a day or two to straighten out. I don’t know why? I thought I could take everything, but I can’t. Now I can’t take anything, but that’s it. Got any other questions there?

DU:
Absolutely, I wanted to see what sort of community leadership roles have you had?

FVA:
I’m not too much up on politics. I was fire commissioner for awhile and they had an insurance company here and I was secretary and treasurer of that for awhile until they sold out. That’s about it.

DU:
Tell me about the responsibilities of those two positions.

FVA:
Well I was the secretary for the fire commission down here. [I] had to take the notes down and next meeting you told what they done and this and that and the other thing. We were mixed up with an insurance commission down here in Albany. They keep track of you, you know on that? They sent around an auditor every year to check it out. I didn’t like that. I had it alright, but maybe not had it in the right places, that’s all. He come from around Edmondson, somewhere in there. Every quarter you had to fill out this book form, cripe the darn thing was I’d say two feet by one foot, red, all this crap up the side of it. I wasn’t up to that. It was a fire insurance company. If anybody burned out or motors on things burned out, we just paid for it. There wasn’t anything great about it. That insurance outfit down there, I didn’t like them either. I suppose it’s got to be done. So we sold out to Mohawk-Minden Insurance and I guess they still got it. I don’t know who’s in it now anymore. It’s all gone, that’s quite awhile ago.

DU:
So was this farmers mainly that were involved in this insurance ring?

FVA:
Not necessarily, no, anybody that wanted to sign-up to pay a premium could. It wasn’t a very big premium. We weren’t into it to make a lot of money. We were in there just to help out the people.

DU:
So if their barn burned down or their house burned down [you would come to their aid?]

FVA:
Yeah, see we were reinsured. What they call “reinsured” with this reinsurance company they called Gilder. We were reinsured with them down there so they backed us up all the while, but it hit us if it was greater than a certain amount. I don’t know what that was? Motor or cooler for a milking [machine] or something like that. We just got them another a motor, that’s all they wanted, so they could go back to work. It wasn’t great.

DU:
So did you go out on fires as part of the fire department?

FVA:
No, no, I was one of the first people when they organized the fire company. I was in on that, but I never was a fireman. I went in to the fire commissioner. I didn’t mind monkeying around with that. They need younger people.

DU:
So what leadership role did you have as commissioner?

FVA:
Just as I said Secretary-Treasurer, Secretary, Secretary. We had a woman for a Treasurer. They had a president, but I never got into that…
[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00] Wasn’t much of anything anyway. I don’t know who’s in it now?

DU:
So, what’s a memory that really stands out in your mind, living in this house?

FVA:
Memory? Well, that’s a hard one. I don’t pay much attention to any of it. I remember the commemoration of the Fourth of July. They had a big parade, came up from Fort Plain, Canajoharie all the way down there up through here with horses and everything like back in 1776, you know? That was interesting. They come right down by down the road here. When I was a kid they used to call this the “Continental Road” right here in front of the house. And that goes across the road, the Continental’s over there and now this is Fassett Road. General James Clinton, he was supposed to have camped right out there, further into the barn there. My father and I have picked up buttons and money and stuff like that. Must have been some kind of a camp because he’s picked up cannonballs out there too. My niece has got one over there to West Exeter. He got two, I wasn’t around when he got them. He give one to another person down in Canajoharie. I don’t know where that went, but it was a ball about that big, heavy. Lot of history around here.

DU:
Did you ever find anything else about it, cannonball?

FVA:
No, nobody knows anything about it. Maybe they just dropped it off there beside the road. I don’t know where they went by, but we used to pick up quite a bit of junk from that period.

DU:
Could you maybe describe some more of it, please? You mentioned some money; so was it like pieces of eight?

FVA:
No, no, no it wasn’t anything valuable I don’t think. They were just copper pieces. I don’t know what they were for. And then there was company emblems, a few of them. I got a pocketbook full of it in there somewhere, but you can still pick up stuff out there. They come in there every once and awhile and go over it.

DU:
Have they showed you what they’ve found?

FVA:
Yeah.

DU:
What else have they found?

FVA:
Buttons, mostly buttons, maybe one of those coins. I don’t know what they were for. They were big things like that about an inch and a half in diameter. I think they were copper. They’re dark. I never cleaned them up because you don’t want to do that. You can go out there with a metal detector and pick stuff up.

DU:
So, do they take them to the museum when they’re done, or what do they do with them once they’ve found them?

FVA:
You mean the stuff?

DU:
Yes, the articles, the artifacts.

FVA:
Just threw them in a pocketbook and left them there. They never bothered with them much. You probably could find stuff out there [in the West], Sutter’s Mill in California. You can pick up gold out there. I never found any gold around here that’s the whole thing.

DU:
Backpedaling a little bit toward your military career, could you tell me about this spy that was seeking to join your outfit in Europe?

FVA:
He was in there, supposed to be a helper. I don’t know. I never paid much attention to it. They just said after we left that they found out that he was a spy. As I said, somebody wrecked a bunch of motors down in the motor pool. They figured maybe there was more than one of them in there. But that’s about all.

DU:
This was in Massachusetts?

FVA:
No, no, this was in Europe. The spy was in Europe. When we was in France in this place called Luneville. We were bivouacked in a chateau, which some Polish prince built years and years ago. Once in awhile we get a chance to go somewhere and look around. A person wants to know where he comes from he better go over there. You ever been to Holland?

DU:
Did you have experiences with captured German equipment and captured Germans themselves?

FVA:
No, we had nothing to do with captured Germans. We did have a German machine gun. We used to set it up in the office over there. That’s about all. I did bring back, I did get a German rifle. I brought that back, and I had a P-38 pistol. If you ever see them shooting the Jews in the back of the head that’s what they’re using is a P-38. So this is a brand new one, brand new one. I don’t know whether I’ll say this or not on that thing, but that thing is worth about $30,000… that gun. It’s a brand new one, never been shot, it’s got all the serial numbers right straight through onto it so they know. I didn’t want one, I brought it back. I had a Walter over there, a little .22, eight shot. Cripe, you could slip right into your pocket and no one would know anything about it. But what I wanted to get is a luger, one of those [unclear]. They wanted a lot of money for one of them. I paid sixty bucks for this thing. I gave it to my nephew because I don’t have a permit and he’s got permits for all that darn stuff. And he took it to some gun man somewhere and when they got all through, he says that gun’s worth about $30,000, but I don’t know whether it is or not. Next thing is to get it. They went through a town over there and took all the guns. Civilian guns, shotguns, all engraved, smashed them up. I don’t understand these people.

DU:
Who took the weapons?

FVA:
The United States Army. They sent us in to get them. We went into the houses and picked them up.

DU:
What was that like?

FVA:
That was in the middle of the night and they didn’t say too much. They were all in bed. I was in the division, coming back, and one night or one day they says “well you’re going out on a raid next day, tomorrow morning.” So okay, so we go out and we surround this town. And we go through it looking for, making sure they got their passes and all this crap. Of course one guy went up over the hill. They took a shot at him. I don’t know whether they got him or not. But I was in with one bunch, they were all in bed and one of the guys got out and he had a pipe laying there, a smoking pipe. I commented on how nice it was. He went into the other room and came out with a placard with all these nice beautiful pipes onto it and says “you want one?” And I says, “No, I wouldn’t take one of them.” No, no. They’d have me in the guard house, you know you didn’t steal! They’d figure it was stealing! But they were beautiful pipes. But I thought smashing those shotguns and stuff like that, smashing them over an anvil or something, break and bend them so they couldn’t use them, that wasn’t right. They weren’t going to use them on us or anything else. It was just sporting rifles.

DU:
And where did this take place?

FVA:
In Germany, in some… I don’t know. I don’t know what the names of the places were. I never paid any attention to it. We were up along the Rhine there, was in Munich, Augsburg. You heard of Frankenstein’s Castle, well Frankenstein’s Castle is up in there. Not anything, just an old, broken down dump. Nothing like “Bride of Frakenstein” or “Frankenstein,” that’s all a bunch of crap. But his name was Frankenstein. Nobody had been there for years and years. You go up through the Rhone Valley in France and you see all these buildings off on the hillsides. All nothing but stone sticking up. Years and years ago somebody lived there. You know I say if you want to know your history of yourself, you want to go there. You can see that, we don’t have anything around here, not even the Indians.

DU:
So what was Germany like after the surrender?

FVA:
All blown to pieces. There was no fighting or anything after the surrender. They had had enough. It was all blown up. Railroad engines blown right off the tracks right upside the banks. Buildings all shot to pieces. We went into a place to stay all night, didn’t think anything about it, and it got dark and then all you see is holes. The roof was full of them, I suppose from incendiaries done that. Hmm, haven’t talked about that in a long time. I don’t think much about it. Nobody wants to know anything about it anyway. There’s nobody around here, that’s here, that was in the army much. If they are they’re dead.

DU:
So on that note, you mentioned earlier a difference between the townfolk and in your experience, the people outside of Springfield so could you elaborate on the difference of that?

FVA:
What do you mean?

DU:
Like they had certain, they did certain activities that you didn’t do, they played sports?

FVA:
Yeah, that was when I was a kid, because I had to work. I didn’t have time to do that. My father [told] me when I went out to go to school, “you be back here at a certain time and you could do this and this and this,” because he was working somewhere and they had to have it done. Whereas the people, the townfolk, there wasn’t more than half a dozen of them down there anyway, they could go play ball, play basketball, and stuff like that. No, I didn’t have time for that, I’d probably be out making some money somewhere, you know?

DU:
But they did [play sports] because they were more well off?

FVA:
No, they didn’t have anything else to do. No.

DU:
They didn’t have farms or other responsibilities?

FVA:
No, they were right in town. They might have had a garden. The kids didn’t. They aren’t like these Amish around here. The kids do the work around them. No, they had time to do that, to play around. It’s alright.

DU:
Your father worked away from home?

FVA:
Yeah, he had quite a number of jobs. He was a carpenter.

DU:
What kind of buildings and structures would he make?

FVA:
Ohhhh, barns, stuff like that. And then maybe do some repair work. Then he worked on the road for the county for oil. But we always had the cows, three or four. Not many, just enough [for] existence.

DU:
He mainly took care of the cows?

FVA:
Yeah, most generally. I done quite a bit of work with them things. I didn’t like them, but I did it. [I did what I was] told, you know what I mean? I’d come in and clean out behind them and feed them and all this and that. He’d come in and milk them and check them over, but three or four cows isn’t very much to monkey with, don’t take too long. Have to hitch up the horse and take out the manure and spread the manure.

DU:
Spread the manure for the crops? What you were growing here?

FVA:
Yeah, and if you had too much you threw it out there anywhere because that deteriorated right in the ground anyway.

DU:
What sort of vegetables, what sort farming did you do on the property here?

FVA:
Ohhhhh, corn, potatoes, regular garden stuff, carrots and onions and peas, beans, cabbage, cauliflower. Not a lot, but enough to take care of yourself with. Didn’t sell it, didn’t sell it.

DU:
Well, is there anything I’ve forgotten to ask or anything you’d like to add Mr. Van Auken?

FVA:
I don’t think so. What time is it? I don’t know you’re the one who’s asking the questions.

DU:
Alright well…(inaudible)

FVA:
Is that good enough for you?

DU:
It’s great! I just thank you for this invaluable information on your life.

FVA:
Well, I don’t know how valuable it is?

DU:
Well it contributes so much to the history of this area.

FVA:
Well there’s a lot of history here. Springfield was burnt you know by Joseph Brant and the Indians.

DU:
I didn’t know about that. When was that? During the Revolution?

FVA:
Yeah, that book I was showing you there, it tells about the towns and it tells an awful lot about the towns. Little towns here and there, where they got their names, who settled them, and when they were settled and all that stuff. That’s very interesting, that’s along that railroad there. All the way to Lake Placid. You ever been up to Lake Placid?

DU:
I don’t believe I have.

FVA:
Ever heard of it?

DU:
Yes, I have.

FVA:
Good, that’s where they had the Olympic games one time in the winter.

DU:
Did you go to those?

FVA:
No, no, about the only thing I went to was the World’s Fair in New York City that was in 1937 [1939]. Something like that.

DU:
Oh, tell me about that experience, please.

FVA:
Oh, we went down, it was in the Boy Scouts, went down with a scout leader and three or four others of us. We stayed out on Long Island. You ever heard of Frank Buck?

DU:
Frank Buck? Can’t say that I have.

FVA:
Well, he was an animal trainer back in those days. “Frank Buck’s Jungle,” we stayed right across the road from that. We could hear the animals a-howling and growling all night long so we [went] out to the fair and looked that over. It was very interesting back in those days.

DU:
What all did you see at the fair?

FVA:
Golly, that’s a long time ago. They had exhibits for all these different companies. That’s a long time ago. I’ll show you something in here. What they called it was the “Trylon Perisphere.” This tells it, well, it says ’65. That’s what I brought back with me, one of them. I don’t know it’s just a memento, let’s say.

DU:
So did they have you doing activities as a Boy Scout at the World’s Fair?

FVA:
No, we just went down. Then when we was in the Boy Scouts we went down to Washington too, and they had a big jamboree down there, but no we didn’t do anything. But I don’t know, I kept it just as a memento of the fair.

DU:
So you also went in ’64?

FVA:
Evidently, I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that. I don’t think I ever went in ’64. Maybe I did. I thought it was earlier; ’64 is after when I come back from the army. Maybe I went down with someone for this. I know I went down with the Boy Scouts early. But I thought that thing would be something to keep f or a little while. Probably made in Japan. Everything is made in Japan.

DU:
Could you tell me about your experience in Boy Scouts? Your troop?

FVA:
Well, that’s a long time ago. It was started, we had a teacher down here and he started this Boy Scout troop, Troop 47 that’s down here. And he started that and we had ten or twelve in it because there weren’t a lot of them around here. Some of them didn’t care anything about it. Didn’t get into it at all. But we used to go to, oh, they’d have jamborees, they call them that. We was down to Cooperstown one time, I had to carry the flag. There was a boxer come in, James J. Braddock. He made this speech down there. He was up on the podium that was down on Doubleday Field, down there then. Yeah, I guess we had a parade. Yeah, they had at that time a Boy Scout camp down there along the lake.

DU:
What was it called?

FVA:
I don’t know. You know it’s up on Crumhorne Mountain now, up there. What do they call that up there? You know?

DU:
Don’t remember.

FVA:
I don’t either. But we could only be in there for a certain length in the summertime because the Girl Scouts were in there. But we used to go down in the wintertime and we’d have quite a time down there on that lake. That’s the only time I was ever in that Kingfisher Tower. That’s in the winter because we could get down there on the ice. Nice thing to go into, but heck we hardly ever slept when was down there in that camp in the wintertime. We were raising hell all the while.

DU:
Doing what exactly?

FVA:
We had a toboggan. We’d get way up on the hill and come right through the lake with that thing. That was fun. I say I worked, that was one time I got away from it, I didn’t work. The weekend or something like that. But he used to take us, see we didn’t have any cars or anything. He’d take us around, take us up to the Adirondacks. They had a jamboree one time, I remember that over in Mount Upton, off over towards the Catskills there. They had it in an armory over there. That’s the trouble I can’t remember anything. You should have given me one of those sheets with all the questions I might have been able to get it all ready for you.

DU:
So how has Springfield changed since you were a boy?

FVA:
Well, let’s see when I was a boy. When I was a boy there was a store down here and a hotel and they’re both gone. And, oh they had a funeral parlor, a funeral home down there. A lot of the farms are all gone. Lot of the people are all gone. The hotel down there run by a fella, they used to have “coon chases.” So they’d take a bag [and put a coon in it]. They had a coon, then they’d drag this bag up on the hill. And then go up there with their dogs and see who was the first one down there. They’d all go and have a few beers and start out again. Hear them damn dogs a-barking all the way down through. That was funny.

DU:
Who staged these coon chases you were talking about?

FVA:
The hotel man down here he’d get them half-cocked and then they’d start in on that. One time, this has got nothing to do with coon chases, the boys [on] Halloween. They used to have some really wild ones around here. Years ago, they got all this damn farm machinery from all [over], they must have worked half the night. And they had it all down in there. There was a corral-like in front of the hotel with a fence around it. They had it all in there. Although sometimes they’d have it up on top of the roof up there. [START OF TRACK 4, 0:00] Wagons, put a wagon up on the roof. Huh? It wasn’t much of a thing, but something different.

DU:
Well, thank you so much for your time.

FVA:
You’re sure that’s alright now?

DU:
Yeah, unless you have anything else?

FVA:
Probably when you get away from here I’ll think of a lot of things. I always do.

DU:
Well I’m just grateful for this chance and this is just priceless information you’ve given me."

"30:00- Part I"

"30:00- Part II"

"30:00- Part III"

"0:46"- Part IV

"128 kbps"

No

Samantha Clink

Donald A. Raddatz

Cooperstown, NY

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

SC = Samantha Clink
DR = Donald Raddatz

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

SC: Alright, this is Samantha Clink interviewing Donald Raddatz for the Research and Fieldwork class for the Cooperstown Graduate Program on November 14, 2012. This is Don Raddatz. If you could state your name for the record?

DR: My name is Donald Alan Raddatz.

SC: Alright, are you ready to begin?

DR: Absolutely.

SC: OK. Alright, so, if you were to write a book about your life, where would you start?

DR: I would start with elementary school.

SC: OK.

DR: I was raised on the South Side of Chicago, in a highly Catholic area. I went to a Catholic elementary school with some 1200 kids. I made a lot of friendships there. I thought that the nuns were very influential in my life, actually. You don't see many nuns anymore, and that was very formative. Built a lot of nice relationships and it was a nice small suburb of Chicago to grow up in. So I would start there, and I would then move on to high school. I took a somewhat unusual route for high school in that most people from that area went either to the local Catholic high school or the local public high school, but I went to a Jesuit high school near downtown Chicago, maybe two miles away and the advantage of that was that I met classmates from all over the city of Chicago - the north side, the west side, the southeast side, and of course the south side. The Jesuits have a way of, I think, training people to think - some liberalism, educated in the classics. I was a classics scholar, I guess, at Saint Ignatius. Most of all it taught me a knowledge of the city of Chicago and how to get around the city, how to be sort of street savvy, and I learned many things I would have never probably seen or learned by going to school more locally in my area. Not that that's a bad thing, but this was a good thing for me. I knew early on that I wanted to be a physician so the training there helped me to get into college, into a Jesuit college, and from there into medical school etc.

SC: OK. Were you born in Chicago as well?

DR: I was born in Chicago, in the South Side, and an only child.

SC: OK. You said you decided early on you wanted to do medicine. What influenced that decision?

DR: I enjoyed my family doctor to a degree, although I was petrified of him.

[Laughter].

DR: Because I didn't like needles, and I didn't like a lot of things back then that family practitioners did, but I realized that I really admired what he did. When I was in high school actually, I decided right then and there that I would like to be a physician, for a number of reasons. Mainly to help people, and I thought it was a very worth-while career. I had a summer job or an after school job, bagging gauze and things of that sort in the very hospital I was born in. That was just some immersion a little bit into the hospital experience. It wasn't really an all powerful motivator, but I just made up my mind early on that that's what I wanted to do. Some people, as you know, never make up their mind until they're 30 or 40 or 50. So, that's where it started, and I don't have every explanation for that, but I know when I got to college my nickname was pre-med, "premie,” premedical they called me. Because at college, in my freshmen year, I was always in the stacks at the library. So if they wanted to come find me for a party or anything, or had a question, they would have to go down in the stacks and locate me. Now stacks aren't really all that much a part of learning anymore, but back then, they were like being in a jail cell.

SC: Hmm.

DR: Because they were a carrel. They had three sides and you stuck your head in there, into the three sides, and you had a shelf for your books up on top. There were just rows of these along the backs of the library on either side and you just worked at it, and that's how I got my nickname - "Premie," premedical. But I did, I decided that I needed to expand my horizons because it was so tough in the first semester of college that I decided I would play lacrosse. Having never played lacrosse it was very interesting because I had played some club hockey in Chicago as a goalie, in hockey. The coach looked at me and said, "You ever played lacrosse?" I said "No, sir." He said "Well, played any sport that uses a stick?" I said, "I was a goalie in hockey." He said "Well, good you'll be the goalie here. You'll be the backup goalie." I go, "that doesn't sound so good." So that would be whenever we would be getting beaten badly. Never way ahead, or in practice I would always be the second-string goalie with the second-string defense with the first-string offense going against us. I saved more shots I'm sure with my shins and my thighs than I ever did with the stick. I never, ever got the hang of clearing the ball. I would throw it, and it would come right down in front of me because I held onto it to long. Then I got to play some mid-field, and that was a little better, but then I realized during my sophomore year, that I couldn't really do this. But the advantage of playing a sport in college is that you meet a lot of people when you go to games and you meet a lot of people on the team and on the bus, and so that expands your knowledge. It was too much to be in premedical and continue to play lacrosse especially if you've never played before you could imagine how much you got to play when there are guys that played a lot in front of you.

SC:Mhm.

DR: But, I wouldn't trade it. I still support the lacrosse team at Holy Cross.

SC: Mhm, and do you still have friends? You said that the best way to meet people when you're a pre-med student is to do things like that.

DR: Holy Cross is a school, well it was all male then, and probably they had 80 pre-meds a year, probably. I would say 70 out of the 80 got into med school. So they had a very high percentage of people that would get into med school. There is a fellow, Anthony Fauci, who is the head of AIDS at the NIH who is a famous graduate of Holy Cross, world renowned. But, it was a very good school if you wanted to get into medical school. I have a lot of friendships from there, but I think I have essentially no elementary school friendships. You might say, well why is that? And I would say well, once you leave your suburb and go to a high school downtown, and then you go from there to a college in Massachusetts, and then to a medical school in New Hampshire you just don't come back.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So you bind yourself to people in high school much more I think, and college, and in medical school. So, I have some friendships from all of those places. You know? I mean, you don't have a hundred good friends. If anyone does, I don't know what they're doing. But you know, you have six or seven good friends anyway, and that's really all you need. That's what you need, that's what you count on. So, that's how I, that's sort of the story of that part of education. Holy Cross, like my high school, is a Jesuit institution in Massachusetts. Again, very good about making you think about things and being open-minded even though it was an all-male Catholic college. But, they're very liberal compared to traditional colleges in terms of thinking. Jesuits like to think a lot and there are many, many famous Jesuits that have written philosophy, etc. So that helped me to get into medical school at Dartmouth. I was a classics major. I was classics premed. First I was bio premed, and I realized that if I stayed as a bio premed I probably would just go off the deep end.

SC: Why is that?

DR: So I said well, you were a classics jock in high school so this is going to be second nature to you. I was Latin and Greek, and got the premedical courses. Actually, almost didn't get into medical school because I did poorly on my MCATS, which are the admission tests. Not poorly, average, and even though I had very good grades, with poor scores I just waited and waited. I was on some waiting lists and all of a sudden May of my senior year I got this letter from Dartmouth of all places and they said we'd love to have you. That was a great night, because by that time I was actually thinking about: "Do you really have to go to like biology grad school or something to get in?" Because you don't like to make those plans. So it's like so many things in the world, one day changes your life. You know? One day. Maybe you didn't get into med school. You know? Marriages, funerals, birth of children. Changes your life.

SC: Hm. You were talking about Jesuits and what they like to think about.

DR: Uh-huh.

SC: Can you talk more about that? More specific things you remember from undergrad. What things they made you think about?

DR: Well, there was a lot of philosophy involved. Kant and Teilhard de Chordin and any number of philosophers, Nietzsche. You could debate these people fairly well. You could sit around and talk to them [the professors]. You got to think about, more of the important things of life, but you messed around and you had a lot of fun. But I just admired the way the Jesuits could affect or let you free range on your thinking, and give assignments that were interesting. You know, to recall everything in college. I recall a lot of the crazy stuff much more than I do the profound stuff.

SC: Yea. [Laughter]. Mhm.

DR: But, you don't do a lot of thinking in organic chemistry or physics. But in English and philosophy and religion. Because, you had religious courses at Holy Cross because it was a Catholic school. Social studies and the classics especially. I mean there were a lot of classics I read. I read Avid, the Aeneid, I read a lot of Greek works. I didn't read the Odyssey or Ulysses.

SC: Yea.

DR: But, in fact I didn't like Greek. It was very hard to learn compared to Latin.

SC: So do you think that's the reason that you were influenced to choose classics as a background, because of the Jesuits?

DR: Well, I chose classics in high school actually.

SC: Oh.

DR: You had to take classics at my Jesuit high school. Just mandatory back then. Since then it's been dropped as a requirement. But, if you have a very good classics teacher, Latin is a base language from which all the romance languages came.

SC: Mhm.

DR: And, if you know Latin, I mean if you think about how many words in the English language have a Latin derivation, it's incredibly helpful. No one speaks Latin - [Laughs]. If they do I haven't met them lately. You can read Latin and you can write Latin. Can I do either now? Absolutely not. But, it's sort of a challenge, and it's sort of a fun challenge. You figure, because Latin is all where the verbs are placed, where the adjectives are placed, it's all the declensions as you know. It's amo, ame, amas, - whatever.

SC: Mhm.

DR: But it does give you a background into every other language at least in the basic languages. It was just fun. Maybe not for some.

[Laughter, coughing].

DR: For some, French is more fun. So that was my strength in high school, because I had a very influential teacher. You know, we can get into why I became a rheumatologist. It's nothing that you read; it might be something that happened to someone and made you choose this for whatever reason, or it's usually someone influential in your life, and it may be one person. So, the Latin part came from my Latin and Greek teacher in high school really.

SC: You talked about when you got the letter accepting you to Dartmouth the one night.

DR: Uh-huh.

SC: Do you remember vividly that night?

DR: I remember bouncing off the walls. I remember, back in those days, you actually had phones that you dialed, or punched buttons. I remember making a lot of calls. I remember having an instantaneous party, three hours later with a keg. Just a wondrous night. I had a lot of hugs from my friends, and as I said it's a life-changing day. All of a sudden you realize that if you don't totally screw up then you're going to be a doctor. And the day before, you didn't know you were going to be a doctor. You didn't know you were ever going to be a doctor. It's like so many other things that happen, that are good and then there are things that happen that are obviously, you know, not so good.

SC:Instantaneous, yea.

DR: So, and I still remember that back in those days, everybody had in the college, and everyone
still had this mailbox with the little things you dial and going there and opening this mailbox and seeing this letter "Oh, another rejection. This is a thin little puppy." That was great - I still have the letter.

SC: The rejection letter? Or, the acceptance letter?

DR: No. The acceptance letter. There are certain things you keep, and that's in my folder somewhere, that you keep along with a few other sacred things from your education, or whatever. You know? It's like trying to find your graduation tassel I suppose.

SC: Yea. So, this was your senior year you said?

DR: It was May of my senior year that I - yea - you know. By that time most people have heard about getting into school, in April, March, February, so I was getting nervous because it was two weeks before graduation.

SC: Mhm.

DR: Because that was my senior year, yea. So it was just a great day. It's been good to me. It's been great to me.

SC: Did you know Cathy at this point?

DR: I did. My wife Cathy and I met in Bermuda. In 1970, it was a spring break trip and she was a sophomore at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania right near Villanova, and I was a junior at Holy Cross. I met her at a hotel, in a bar, I mean dancing. Dancing in a bar. She was just wonderful. I remember saying, she went up to get a beer, and I go, "I love a girl who buys her own drinks." She has not forgotten that to this day. "Well, he's a nice guy," she said, "but he's cheap." So, then we hit it off the next night and she was staying in a nice place, and I was staying at a dive in Hamilton, Bermuda. We had four guys in the room, and there was room for three beds. So one guy slept in a bathtub each night and we rotated.

SC: Oh no!

DR: And the bathtub dripped, so you didn't get soaked, but there was a drip at the far end of the drain, but usually if you were out late, you didn't really mind a drip because you just got in the bathtub with some pillows and, that's a true story - [Laughter]. There are certain things that stand out in your mind. Then I went back and saw her the next night and we actually just stayed out all night, by a lighthouse looked at everything and just talked. Watched the sun come up, because back then you could do that without feeling horrible for four days afterward, and drinking something called Mateus, which is a rosé from Portugal. It has a very distinctive bottle. If you go to the store now you'd be lucky if you found it, but it was all the rage back then. Mateus, everybody drank Mateus or you drank something called Boones Farm apple wine or Boones Farm strawberry wine, and we thought that was the greatest thing in the world. My friends couldn't get it at Holy Cross, or in New York, in Westchester her brother's and such. So I got it in Chicago, and I remember driving out in a car and bringing a case of boons farm apple wine with me, which was about two dollars a bottle, and they thought I walked on water. You know? Now, how we've gotten from Bermuda to Boon's Farm Apple Wine, I apologize. Then we dated for a while and then we had sort of a falling out, then we got back together in my senior year. Then I spent, I think I spent not that summer but the following one while I was in med school, I spent the summer between my freshmen and sophomore years at Dartmouth, first and second years, working in a hospital in Yonkers, New York and staying allegedly at Briarcliffe College which is in Ossining, New York. But in fact, I spent half the nights staying in Cathy's basement with her two crazy brothers. So that was an eye opening experience because these guys were not going to be doctors and they were still in college and they were wild. It was hysterical. Half the time her dad didn't know I was there, and if he did he would have killed me, so they'd sneak me in and sneak me out. But, I just really didn't want to go up to Briarcliffe from Yonkers, it was another half hour or so. I couldn't see Cathy if I did that.

SC: Mhm.

DR: I'd go up to Briarcliffe and what I had there, they put you up as, I had a dorm with a room and there was me, and you know me, I talk to the wall after a while. It gets boring. But I saw so much at this hospital in Yonkers because it was a city hospital. So, my job - I'm so glad you asked - was to ride the ambulance and go out and pronounce people dead. So, I would go out with the ambulance drivers and I would be coming to this place and you'd see this person and they'd be dead on the bed and I had to check their pulse and everything, and sign the stuff. I could never figure out why or how a first year, second year medical student could do that. Then, the most clear memory I have of those trips was that there was a guy who I had to go see that they called about who had been dead about five days. So we go in there, and I wasn't sure of this persons race. He was actually Caucasian, but you couldn't tell by that time. That was kind of, eye-opening. Then I worked in the ER, and there was a night when a guy had this accident. This rake came up and flipped up and hit him in the forehead, and he came in and he had a rake in his skull. The three prongs of the rake were in the front of his skull, not all the way in.

SC: Mhm.

DR: I definitely had to have an x-ray of that. So I go, "Wow! I've never seen a guy with a rake in his head."

SC: [Laughter] - I should not be laughing.

DR: So those, and then I would go out with the cops and the people.

SC: This is still in Yonkers?

DR: This is in Yonkers. This is when I was in medical school, and was "little doc" or whatever they would call me. You know? They give me some, I have like more nicknames, I have thirty nicknames. Some I could tell you, and some I prefer not to. I forget what they called me. Well, they used to call me like, they would call me "Joe college" would be one thing, because they really didn't care if it was med school or college because I was a young guy. So they'd call me "Joe college." I remember that. It was a tough place. I also got, during the day, to scrub in on surgery Since it was a small hospital and since the surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, had gotten me the position there, which was just free labor, I got to assist on all these surgeries, and do stuff that was amazing. Pulling re-tractors and things like that? What's that?

SC: Is that when you got started on rheumatology?

DR: Nope, i'm not there yet.

SC: Ok [laughter].

DR: So, then we had a wonderful place. We lived in Dartmouth. The first year I lived in a dorm, which was very boring. But, the second year four of us got together and lived in a big house about six miles up from Hanover, New Hampshire. It was called Piper's Lane. So we were the "Piper's Lane whatever's." It was just a great place to live, and Cathy has been there many times. We had these other guys live about a half mile down the road, on something called River Road, and we would play football games four on four on alternating fields.

SC: Hmm.

DR: It was just a great place, and of course when it snowed it started to get to you, but that's the way it is. Then at Dartmouth I played some hockey, on the intramural hockey team. I became an honorary member of well Dartmouth was all males then like Holy Cross so they had a fraternity called Tri-Kap. Kappa, Kappa, Kappa. So, a lot of the guys that had been at Dartmouth were Tri-Kappa, a lot of guys from Dartmouth Medical School were Dartmouth undergrads, probably a third. Small class, fifty people, and two thirds of us had to transfer, and I transferred. So I became an official Tri-Kap brother, and I just remember one night that we had a swimming meet in an inch of beer. So, you did backstroke in an inch of beer, the breaststroke. I had never seen a fraternity before because Holy Cross didn't have fraternities, Catholic school. So, here's another eye-opener. So, that kind of stuff if you could sort of let some steam off on the weekends, that got you through medical school, because you studied so hard. That was another story about carrels at the stacks in medical school too. My sweat is still on the wall, I hope they knocked it down. So Dartmouth was wonderful because it's a place like Cooperstown only with a university there, sort of like Hamilton, New York. It's about the same size, or it's bigger now, it's not as big as Ithaca obviously. Then you had to transfer. Two thirds of the class had to transfer because since 1789 Dartmouth was a two-year medical school.

SC: Oh.

DR: So, they gave you a Bachelor of Medical Science, and everybody had to transfer. So you would have forty people transfer out. But then, when I was there, year before they developed a year-round, three-year full MD program. But they couldn't take everybody because, clinical availability was limited in terms of where you could find patients. So two thirds of us still had to transfer. So six of us went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Why? Well, the guy was very good at spinning a nice tale about Minneapolis, Minnesota. So, I got there in September of '73 and got married in October of '73 on a week break. Dragged my poor wife there, and it's a wonderful place, but if you're from New York, and I'm from Chicago, you haven't quite seen Minnesota. But, it was wonderful. Promptly developed a herniated disk about a week after the wedding. Limped around, had back surgery during Christmas break. Everybody in New York, her family wondered, “What is this guy doing? It's bad enough my daughter is working for a job while he is going to school, but here he's got a bad back." But there is one memory of that, it was in student health service, and I just wanted to get out, and I had this low-grade fever post-op thing. Back surgery now you'd be out in two days, back then you'd stay five days.

SC: Mhm.

DR: I couldn't get out because I had this fever of 100 - 101, so I started dipping my thermometer quickly in water. I mean those were the days when you put the thermometer in your mouth, it was glass. It wasn't anything in your ear. So, that's how I got out. I just said "I'm fine." [Unclear] "I'm good to go."

SC: Mhm - [Laughter].

DR: Minnesota was a wonderful experience because Minnesotans are just nice, nice, nice people. Everybody from the Midwest is nice, I think, Minnesotans especially. They're a hearty bunch because they're mostly Scandinavian, they're Swedes, they're Finlanders, mostly Swedes and Finlanders, not many Danish people. Beautiful weather, if you like it bitter cold. My wife stopped smoking in Minnesota because one night when it was forty below, she was out of cigarettes, and she refused to walk the two blocks to the store at forty below to get cigarettes, and that's when she stopped.

SC: Hm.

DR: I would say a few words about her, she had more jobs while I was in medical school and residency than you could even imagine. She worked for the Minneapolis Grain Exchange for a couple of brokers. She worked for something called Minnesota Early Learning Design, which is a school program for little kids. She worked in an employment agency. Those are probably the big three that I recall.

SC: This is Cathy?

DR: This is Cathy.

SC: OK.

DR: She was a trooper. You know, you got a guy and you come home and he's just studying. Then we had two of our kids there. Both of them during residency. First was born when I was a second year resident, and our second one was born when I was a fellow in rheumatology at the time. So I finished medical school there, made a lot of good friends in medical school there even though it was only two years. Two years is a little different, you don't get to meet as many people as your four years, but if you're outgoing you'll meet a lot of people. We lived in St. Paul, most of the time, which was a great city. Very friendly, very "neighborhoody," sort of totally different than Minneapolis, which is very progressive and modern, and bigger, but a nice match, a nice mix. Things like playing broomball in the winter, where you use a broom and a big volleyball and play. We'd have broomball games, and ice-skating, cross-country skiing. The biggest memory was my grandparents were from Chicago, had a summer home, and it became their mostly summer-home in Rhinelande, Wisconsin, which few people know, but it was about three hours and a half, straight east of the Twin Cities basically. So we would go there a lot of weekends in the summer. The kids would go, and it would be great, because you'd be at the lake and you're with your grandparents, and it was like living the dream. I had grown up in this place in the summers, so a lot of great memories of Minnesota, a lot of people I had met. Not many sad things happened there, at all, that I can think of.

SC: And how long were you there for?

DR: We were there from 1973 to 1981.

SC: OK.

DR: So, you asked how I got interested in rheumatology. So, when I was still a student, and so I did my third and fourth year medical school, I did my residency there in medicine, and I did my fellowship in rheumatology. But, when I was a student I had a wonderful rheumatologist who was just a dynamic guy and as I said, some people make a big impression on you, other people don't make any impression on you, or a negative impression. But, he was the person who motivated me to go into rheumatology.

SC: Hm.

DR: Just the way it is, just his approach to people, and just how good he was, and just, an incredibly bright guy who wouldn't pass himself off as being a bright guy.

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]

DR: He had many other diverse interests which is what you want to have in medicine otherwise if you don't have other interests it's going to be a long boring life.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So, that started there and I looked at a number of other residencies but finally got in the Minnesota program so we stayed right there, which was fine because we liked it. Then fellowship. I looked at several fellowship programs; Mayo-Clinic, couple of places, got in one place. But, we liked Minnesota so I was happy that occurred because then you don't have to move and you get good training. And, I was chief resident, which is the head of all residents at the Minneapolis VA for part of one year when I was also doing my fellowship. So, you could sort of overlap which saved you some time. There are so many stories, many, many funny stories about residency and fellowship that just boggle the mind. Just things that happened. I did research with New Zealand white rabbits. These were big rabbits, big rabbits. Sadly to say, I don’t think would ever have occurred today. I was interested in septic arthritis, which is an infection of the knee or a joint with bacteria, so these rabbits had the perfect knees to inject bacteria into and see what happened to the infected knee histologically versus the non-infect knee and how the host responds. We got some papers out of that, but I got payback because I became allergic to the rabbits, so whenever I would go in there, eventually I would start to wheeze and get tight, and have to use an inhaler, wear a mask, so finally I couldn't. My eyes would water, so I said this is the revenge of the New Zealand whites. I mean these babies were nine pounds.

SC: Jeez - [Laughter].

DR: They had big knees, you needed big knees. So that was a hoot! I remember one day in 1980 being in the lab in the research lab, listening to the USA - Russian hockey game. When the USA had the miracle on ice in 1980 and beat the Russians and then beat the next team for the Olympic medal. A bunch of guys were college guys playing the professional Russian team. Back then you listened to it on a radio in the lab, you didn't get it on your iPhone. Again, many, many nice people there that I still have some ties with. Again, you lose a lot of those things when you don't live there. We used to have a couple that, I knew their son from Holy Cross, and they lived in a suburb of Minnesota and they really adopted us in medical school. So you would go out there to this nice suburb and they would have all this food for you and you were really a poor medical student and you couldn't wait to go there. They might invite you to their country club or all these things. We stayed in contact with them a long long time. The dad, the guy finally passed away a couple years ago, mom is still alive at 93. We're good friends with their son and their daughter-in-law from way back in college. But just little things like that that make your life much easier. Melissa was born there in 1977, and Gretchen was born there in 1979, so two of them are Minnesota natives. I guess you could say.

SC: And how many kids do you have?

DR: We have three. George Raddatz was born here in 1981. So he is a Cooperstown native. He could actually be a Native Son. He is a Native Son! I can be a Native Son if I make it 50 years here, so I've only got 19 to go.

SC: What do you mean by Native Son?

DR: There is a group called the Native Sons of Cooperstown, and they're an organization.

SC: Oh. I didn't know that.

DR: You can only be a Native Son of Cooperstown if you're born here.

SC: OK.

DR: A boy, a male, or if you've lived here fifty years.

SC: Hmm.

DR: I've lived here 31, so I've got 19 to go, I should have made that clear. So if I make it to 82, we'll have a Native Son party.

SC: OK. [Laughter].

DR: Yup. So I had good training there, and I worked on the staff of the VA for a year and then we came here. Other, other memories that I remember in Minnesota is it's so cold that you have to plug your car in. So we had a house in St. Paul and you would have to plug your car block, back then, into heat and just keep the oil heated overnight. They would have those plugs at parking lots too.

SC: The things you remember - [Laughter]. So, when you worked in Minnesota, you worked with resident students as well, and medical interns and things like that?

DR: Yep.

SC: Just like you're doing here?

DR: Yep. First I was a resident; then I was a fellow. The chief resident sort of sets all the schedules for groups of residents who have teams. Well, they have teams looking after people trying to keep one person that's a resident from killing his intern because he doesn't like him or her or vice versa, so you're always putting out fires. But I'm pretty good about that, that's where I learned sort of, you gotta be a mediator in the world.

SC: Yea.

DR: Otherwise, you're going to have a long, painful life. So, never think you're bigger than you are.

SC: Are there any, like, major differences between practicing medicine in places like Yonkers and Minnesota compared to Cooperstown that you can think of? Or, how it has changed since you've been here?

DR: Oh wow. Well, we'll talk about change in a moment, but practicing in Cooperstown versus Yonkers or New York City, I think much less stressful. Medicine is not stress-free ever, because you always worry about people. But it would just be a much more frenetic a place. I like coming to work at a place where I can park my car, I probably could leave my car unlocked if I wanted to. I'm looking at hills when I get out of the car, I live on a hill outside of town, I drive a mile and a half to work. I'm not going down the Hutchinson River Parkway or the Major Deegan. There's not traffic for two hours. In fact, now my patience is not as good as it should be in Manhattan or going over the George Washington Bridge in a traffic jam. In a small town you know this well, a small town is a small town, and everybody is very friendly for the most part and is very outgoing. A small town has the downside which is that everybody knows your business pretty much, and you would know that growing up where you did. But that's the biggest difference in practicing. I think the other thing is that we're a hospital that is a group practice, and if you're in private practice you wouldn't have the close proximity of doctors that you could tap their knowledge right next to you. For a long time the dermatology clinic was right next to us. So if I had a person in rheumatology with a rash, which is common. I could pull the dermatologist over and he would look at that and hopefully not be too upset that I took him away from his clinic, or if he had somebody in his clinic that he thought was rheumatologic in nature and had a question we'd go over there and take a look at that. Now, they've moved off site to Hartwick Seminary, so that's not quite what it was. So the camaraderie here was influential in terms of deciding to come here and the ability to talk to so many people and not have to make five phone calls to find someone who might be in private practice on the other side of Buffalo was an advantage. So, how did I get here? Well, we were in Minnesota and my darling wife had been a trooper out there for eight years, but her family was all in Westchester County basically. A lot of people from Westchester County believe the world ends at the Hudson River.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So we didn't get a lot of visitors. My parents, with me being an only child, and having two kids would, they were in their fifties or forties then. They would get to Minneapolis, 400 miles from Chicago, in the drop of a hat. So, it became one of those things where it probably wasn't going to work to practice near there, or they might be there - god love them - all the time. But that's tough on a daughter-in-law and we decided it was only fair to move back closer to Cathy's family. For some reason, I didn't want to practice in Greenwich or Westchester County and try to keep up with the Joneses' because I just didn't see that as good. There is more of a rat race there. So we came here, and I got a job here. 1981. Back then the whole medical staff who did internal medicine was about twenty-five people. So you could, back in those days, we had a Christmas party and you could put everybody in somebody's big house for a Christmas party. Now? Pff, forget it. You could have a party for the residents too at your house, it was a small number of people. So we liked it and we never left. You could say, "Well why didn't you leave?" Well sometimes I was tempted to leave, but it's a great place to raise kids, as you would probably appreciate coming from a similar type area. It's very bucolic. It's a good educational system, I think the drawback is you don't really see the big world. You’re not street savvy. So when you go off to college it is probably more of an eye-opener than kids from other backgrounds. It's a small school; you know, the high school I went to had a thousand, eleven hundred guys. Here you have, I think, about four hundred in high school, boys and girls. So that brings us up to how I got to Cooperstown I guess. I got the job in a roundabout way. A guy who was here, an infectious disease specialist, had actually spent some time in Minnesota doing a rotation there before he became the infectious disease person here. He knew my boss in Minnesota and put a call and said: "Hey, you know, Bassett hospital is looking for a rheumatologist, maybe you ought to talk to Don Raddatz." And so she did, and that's what happened. I got the job.

SC: Hmm.

DR: So that brings us to about 1981. We lived on Elk Street. Do you know where Elk Street is? It's a street, if you were coming from the hospital toward Main Street, there's a little street where the carriage museum is. It's all business offices now. It's a big white building.

SC: Oh, yea. OK.

DR: Next to it was a big house, which is now offices, which was 5 Elk. It was a huge house, but it also had an incredible number of bats.

SC: OK.

DR: One night we heard this noise and I looked out and you could see these bats leaving and you could see these bats coming back, in the attic above us! I think we only had one or two in the house over the year we lived there. But, no one likes bats.

SC: Nope - [Laughter].

DR: I don't think anyone is fond of bats, but you learn to be good with a tennis racket.

SC: Yep - [Laughter]

DR: They're harmless little critters, but you always hear the worst things: "Oh you get bitten by a bat you're going to get rabies." Probably not. But no one likes to think about it, especially if you have little kids. So we got out of there in a hurry, and moved to our current residence on a hill outside of town. I have to say when I first went there I was really not that enthusiastic because I was used to growing up in areas where you always had close neighbors, in a suburb where there was a house next to a house next to a house. Minneapolis was the same, the only exception being Dartmouth, but that was medical school. So I didn't know what I was going to do on this hill, pretty much all alone, with thirty acres, twenty-six acres, whatever. But now, over these many years, I am so spoiled by living where I do, that when we looked at some houses a few years ago just to look, and say if we were to relocate where would it be? I said, I can't live here. I can't live in town. I can't have neighbors.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So, it's just paradise. You can walk around, no one bothers you, no one comes up the hill because it's a dead end. I mean,rarely. The dog can roam all over, you don't have to put the dog in the house. The dog is a Golden Retriever so she stays nearby. It's just paradise, except in the winter when it snows - [Laughter]. There have been a few occasions where it snowed so much that you couldn't get out. It would be two feet, three feet deep. Soon after it snowed you would hear this "beep, beep, beep." It was the guy who was our plow-guy and had a front-end loader, and he would come up the driveway with his front-end tractor. I mean a big tractor, and just have to scoop it out. You'd go: "Well, there's a big bill." Shoveling the roof, which I've given up now, because it's kind of dangerous. You know, if there is two feet of snow on the roof, you shovel it. When we first got there we had a swimming pool, which made us a nervous wreck. We bought it anyway, but with three little kids you have to build a fence around it with a lock, and as you know the pool season in upstate New York is about two days - [Laughter]. No, but it's not long. It's about two months. So when the kids all got older and it fell into greater disuse except for my wife swimming laps. Basically, the liner was in need of repair and this, and this, and this, and this. It was like a child.

SC: Mhm. [Laughter].

DR: You were always changing the filter; you were getting water bags to hold the tarp on in the winter. So finally when it got to the point when we didn't want to fix all of this. We basically pulled the liner, it's a sand bottom liner, and then caved in the sides, and all the metal sides are six feet under the back yard. Just imploded it, so it was good, I have pictures of that. But, I don't miss it much because it was a real, real, real headache to take care of. For the amount of time that we got to use it, all the leaves in there, find a dead squirrel in a filter. Stuff like that.

SC: Ew, no. You said when you moved into high school in a different area, it kind of like opened your eyes to different lifestyles and different communities, and then you said when you were here, you know there are only 400 kids or so here, and that your kids don't really learn about that. How did you, did you ever do something to tell your kids about differences in that?

DR: Yea, yea. Usually I just tried to tap into my own experience. But, kids don't really want to hear that much, because they say, "Yea, yea, you're old." Just going back to my education it shows I ended up learning downtown back and forth, and where to go on the loop in Chicago, and restaurants to hang out with kids in that were fun. Long before Pizzeria Uno became a chain, there was Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, and Pizzeria Due, and actually the more famous one was Due. Now the chain is Pizzeria Uno, but they were owned by the same family. They started back in about 1947. So we used to always go in Pizzeria Due for dinner with your girlfriend or whatever. If you have friends that are on the Southeast Side you learn all about Hyde Park where the University of Chicago is; some guys live there. You'd go there, you'd go out to the West Side, you'd go up North toward Wrigley Field or Evanston is, and so you got to go all over the city and just learn it like the back of your hand. A lot of people never actually get out of their suburb it seems. People from Chicago tend to stay in Chicago, but I guess I was different. All of my friends are doing great there, but they really never left the city, but that's neither here nor there. So, but my kids became, I think, more savvy as they went along. One went to William and Mary, one to St. Lawrence, another went to Virginia tech. So Virginia Tech is a very big school and you learn a lot. William and Mary you learn some things, and my guess most importantly, they learned most because two of them went to New York or [Washington] DC to live and work, and there you really got to mind your p's and q's. You've got to be careful about where you put your stuff. I had a daughter recently who left her stuff in the laundromat, put it in the dryer, came back, and it was gone. That had never happened to her and she was stunned, and I go, I don't give advice to 35 year-old's. But I said, "that just shows you got to watch your laundry in the dryer." But they actually caught the person!

SC: Wow! [Laughter].

DR: They had cameras! They got this lady on videotape and she came back, and they apprehended her, and she gave back all the clothes.

SC: Hmm.

DR: Yep, so Melissa got all her stuff back. She said, "Dad they're like Columbo, they've got all these videos." I said, "Well, why would she be so silly to show up again." Beep! She shows up. That's about as crazy as you want to get - [Laughter]. I don't know if that answered your question at all, but I'm having fun with it.

SC: Yea, no it was good. I was just wondering how their experiences compared to yours, I guess. I mean, just because you spoke about diversity, and it's funny because you said "most people don't ever leave Chicago."

DR: I think their experiences are far different from mine. Your kids don't like to hear you tell all these great tales that don't pertain to them. But, see they got to do things that I never got to do. If you're in a boys high school of eleven-hundred guys, athletic teams are very, very competitive. So I was a pretty good baseball player, actually I was a good baseball player, in little league and pony league and things like that, colt league. I tried out for the baseball team, and I didn't make the team and I didn't do track or run long distance at that time and I certainly couldn't play basketball at this all boys high school, but I was a good golfer so I was on the golf team for three years. Even that, that was travel. It was all over the place, you played matches way north etc. etc. So the difference is, here it's much easier to get on an athletic team. So there's not that angst about not making the team and doing nothing. George Raddatz was a three sport athlete: soccer, basketball, track. Melissa was cross-country, track. Gretchen was soccer and track. So, it was much easier to, you could see your kids play a lot more. I mean my parents never saw me play a sport at Saint Ignatius high school because you didn't go out and watch the golf team, really. But, the beauty of working here was back in the day when medicine was not as somewhat burdensome as it is now with forms and all that stuff. You could actually leave here [the hospital], and have someone cover your practice or whatever at about 4:30 and go to the soccer game and come back and do the rest of your work.

SC: Hmm.

DR: So I was blessed to see my kids play a lot of sports. A lot of track meets, a lot of soccer. We all travel as families to games, to track meets, whatever. Here, again you want to be in the school play, you're going to be in the school play. But, at a big high school, you may not be in the school play or you may have some small role. The kids, well two of them, were great, were very good actors or actresses if you will, so you got to see a lot of that. So there was always this deep immersion here in stuff. Somebody nicknamed Cooperstown the town of child worship. [Laughter]. So everybody thought that the soccer team, when they were good, should like, win the state, or the track team should win the state. Then you realize that, "Hey this is class C soccer in upstate NY." That's all it is. And I was as guilty as anybody else at taking it too seriously. I mean I coached travel soccer for boys and girls, so we'd go to Greene, or Vestal, or Chenango Forks, Chenango Valley, or Endicott, Trumansburg, Candor. What a way to spend an entire Sunday, but it was good. You know, you took the kids and you thought you were helping them out, and you had a lot of funny stories about that too. Played Candor one time when there was two things that I remember there were that the other team had two girls and they go: "Oh look at that, they have two girls," and I go, "I wouldn't be so smug about this." The other thing was they had this electrical line that was about thirty feet up across the field, so I saw the ball hit the electrical line on kicks about three times. It hit this wire. Then of course they lost like two to nothing, and I said, “How did it feel to play against the girls, guys?" Then all they wanted to do really was to go out to eat, and I really wanted to just go home. I used to stop at either a Burger King or McDonalds, that was all it meant to them after that. [Laughter]. So then I go, you guys are sure all stars at eating! [Laughter]. So, I don't know, where do you begin to tell the stories about Cooperstown.

SC: You mentioned something about, how working at the hospital was different when you first started here, compared to now.

DR: Oh, how did medicine change?

SC: Yea, that's a good one.

DR: So, you have to realize that when I was a resident Cat Scan's were just coming into being. They were there, but they were early. So a CT Scan was really a piece of great information. X-rays were still the backbone of things. X-rays, for many years you took the package in your hand, held them, put them up on the screen and looked at them. Then Cat Scans, so it was a long time before it ever got to an MRI.

SC: Hmm.

DR: In rheumatology, back in the 70's early 80's we were still using gold shots. So, gold is a heavy metal, and there was some research that was done in the 60's, 70's that showed that people with rheumatoid arthritis seemed to get better with injectable gold put in their muscle. Small amounts, tiny amounts of gold. No one really knows why. Some people think it had an effect on the immune system, in terms of something called the reticuloendothelial system, which will gobble up certain types of complexes you don't want in your blood. So you would give these people shots every week of an injectable gold derivative and see how they did. So, that changed to an oral drug which worked very well called "Methotrexate" for years, and then there was nothing else. So, for a long time you had one good drug that might work for people. If it didn't work, it just didn't work, and you had nothing really else much to offer them. Things changed in the late 1990's with medicines that have been very effective for rheumatoid arthritis called "Biologics," which means they're synthetically made. There are shots under the skin, there are intravenus forms, and it's just changed the face of treating rheumatoid arthritis, or things of that nature dramatically. There were all paper charts, you wrote everything, or you dictated it. You dictated on little cassette tapes, and popped them out, sent them in a little package for transcription, and hoped for the best. There were residents I trained that are now with me here, there was times when we were short staffed for emergency room positions and I would have to take a turn in the emergency room, as a rheumatologist, praying that a pediatrics case would never come in. So I had one case come in, pediatric, a kid with seizures. I go, "Oh, this is a little out of my ball park," so I got the anesthesiologist there to help me with this kid and the pediatrician a.s.a.p. We used to have to stay over night some in the hospital and take call in the hospital, as an attending doctor. You used to be an attending physician, which means you supervised the residents for a period of time, and then you would rotate off and then another guy would come. It used to be, when I first came here, it was a month at a time. Now if you worked on the inpatient service now for a month, you would lose your mind, straight. Because the complexity of medicine has changed so much. When I first came here, if you had rheumatoid arthritis, since I said there wasn't much to do, you could actually admit a patient to the hospital for R&R. Meaning they came in, you'd let their arthritis settle down, a physical therapist would come, you might start them on a medicine. They could spend five days in here just trying to see if their rheumatoid arthritis got better with rest, or getting them on a regimen, getting the physical therapist to work with them. Now, that would never happen, you just would never be admitted with that! You would be sent out of the hospital within a day, and they would say well, “It doesn't make the criteria to be admitted to the hospital, doctor." So, those things have changed. The imaging techniques have changed dramatically. The whole concept of medical record keeping has changed, especially in the past few years with electronic records. It's a system that has it's pros and cons, it's all checkbox, or guess the word the computer wants to enter in some lab, or enter a procedure, or enter a diagnosis, or enter a medication. It's good about capturing data, I think it depersonalizes medicine because you can be one of those people who types their notes and doing this [mocks typing] and the patient's not getting anything out of it, so I refuse to do that. So I will do my notes later, and put things in, just the minimal stuff and double check things, and then just after being out of the room go do it between patients or at the end, which makes for a much longer day, but medicine is long days for the most part. For some people more than others. Rheumatology is more of a people-oriented sub-specialty in that you get the story, you examine them, it's not like looking at an x-ray, and that's not being offensive to a radiologist, it's not like looking at blood smears in the lab, or a diseased liver like a pathologist, but it's coming into someone's story and you walk in the middle of the story, and they're going to tell you the story, and you got to figure it out, and you're part of their story. I often said "Where do you find a profession in the world where you can go in a room and say, 'OK, take your clothes off,' and people do?" [Pauses]. [Laughter]. Think about it. How many people do you know that have a job, that they walk out of a room half way through and say "OK, now take your clothes off and I'll be back"? You'd get arrested in most jobs. So, I've always thought that was sort of a funny, amusing thing. It's got a grain of truth to it. There is a great deal of trust between a doctor and patient, has to be and confidentiality is the key.

SC: Mhm.

DR: You go there, and the last thing you want to do is have some violation of privacy or something. You don't talk about people on the elevators; you don't talk about people in the cafeteria. I don't do e-mails, because e-mail is not secure. If people e-mail me with their problems it will just add another layer to my day. It's one thing to have phone calls to answer, it's one thing to be in clinic. But I long ago said, "We're not getting into this e-mail thing because, you'll have people that could e-mail you to death once they got on topic." So with the e-mail I say, "It's good that you contacted me but you're really going to have to contact my office, and we'll figure out what you need." Because, people don't mean to be intrusive.

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]

DR: There are all kinds of people; there are people that just consumed with their health. I didn’t say neurotic, I said consumed. What else has changed? The number of people on the staff. Care is a little bit more impersonal I would say because of computers and a number of other things, but the people don't change much. It's hard to have people leave, and I've seen a lot of people come and a lot of people go for different reasons, and sometimes good people leave. That's discouraging because sometimes you don't ever replace those people. Sometimes good people pass away or they retire. Sometimes you don't get what you had before, sometimes you do. But you've got to make the best of it.

SC: You mentioned basically how technology increases, and things like that, medicine had drastically changed over time since you've been here. Do you know, or could you speak more about how being in a rural medicine area, practicing rural medicine, if it changed at a different speed compared to other areas?

DR: That's a hard one. We're certainly not a year behind things, and I think Bassett is a little conservative and slow to change on things, but since there are so many bright people here, we tend to be pretty good about getting cutting edge stuff. So the real strength at Bassett is it's a really strong hospital, it's a big referral hospital. It's affiliated more tightly with Columbia then ever in a town of two-thousand, four-hundred people.

SC: A referral hospital?

DR: Well, what I'm saying is that there are community hospitals like Hamilton, or Chenango Memorial, which are community hospitals. But if that person has a problem that they can't fix; some sort of a fever, infection, cancer, lung problem, they will refer them here. So it's a center where you get more advanced care because there are specialists.

SC: OK.

DR: So, that's the referral nature of things. So for a small town, very powerful referral hospital from way back. Way back from when Mary Imogene Bassett opened the hospital. The Clark's have been influential in supporting the hospital. When I first came here the budget was so small that if there was a million dollar shortfall, in terms of expenses and income, the difference would be made up by just tapping into the interest on the endowment from the Clark's. However, then Medicare got involved and it became clear that Medicare is setting all the rules. We were behind much more money and it was not going to be sustainable to do it that way.

SC: Hmm.

DR: So that changed the face of medicine as well.

SC: Medicare did?

DR: Yea, I mean it's a good and bad thing. It certainly has given affordable care to many retired people. But, Medicare is very good about saying, "Well, this is how much we'll pay for this procedure, and I know what you're charging up front, and it looks good that you've charged all of this, but this is what you're getting." So you contract with them. Then the other insurance plans usually key off Medicare, because they know Medicare bartered for this, why can't they barter for this?

SC: Hmm.

DR: Yea.

SC: Do you deal directly with that a lot, or?

DR: No.

SC: OK.

DR: If you're in private practice here's the trade-off: you are not paid in general like you would be in private practice for your income. You're watching income, you're watching your office help, you maybe have an x-ray facility in your office, you have a lab. But you're doing all your bills, you're doing all your management, you're doing your own malpractice, etc. as examples. But here your malpractice is covered. You don't get into the hassle about dealing with Medicare; the billing office does that. You are salaried, your pension plan is basically, it's from the hospital, it's put in the pension and so much percentage of your salary. There's a supplemental plan that you can do and you can't even touch until you leave. So, there's a trade-off. So you could say, "Well, this is for the person that doesn't want to think much about that," and I guess that's true. Because you've got to be careful because if you don't think about it, you have this Utopian dream that you will be great, when you're whatever age, sixty whatever, because you're a doctor. But if you're not careful you may not be that great in terms of how long you work. Examples. I mean there is no such thing as a poor doctor in the sense compared to many people in the United States, don't ever get me wrong there.

SC: Hmm.

DR: So bigger staff, facilities changed when I was here. When I was first here everything was in the Field-stone building. The Field-stone building is the original building across the street, across the patio from the hospital. Then about fifteen years now they built that clinic where we are now. So that' changed the face of everything as well. But, the Field-stone building was a weird place, it was wonderfully weird. Again we're small. We got so much bigger you couldn't stay there. The hospital was built before I got here. Great residency program. Residency program has changed now because of internal medicine being less desirable a specialty because it's not a high paying specialty. It's really labor intensive, we treat all kinds of adult medicine problems. So when I first came here we had a very, very, very strong internal medicine program with just amazing residents, many of whom have stayed on the staff here or around the country. Over the years since the pool changed, I mean people aren't going into internal medicine much anymore compared to before, you are seeing more foreign medical graduates that fill the spots who really want to get in a good U.S. program, and so it filters down. So we have a lot of residents from Thailand who are excellent, I guess that's the biggest group. India, Pakistan, and a smattering of others.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So, that's changed too. The nature of the residency program and language is a tough thing for them. Although, they know far more English than I will ever know Thai.

SC: Mhm. How did you get involved with the residency program there? Is it a voluntary thing, or do you have to do it?

DR: Oh, you have to train residents.

SC: Oh.

DR: So I'm one of these people though, that apart from the hospital, likes to enjoy life. So I've done a lot of interesting things over the years out of the hospital, besides coach stuff. We got into lip-sync many years ago - [Laughter]. Back in the early 90's, so we’ve had a lip-sync group for I don't know how many, maybe we had fifteen.

SC: This is for the residents, with you?

DR: This was when I was on the staff, and we started with five guys and one was a liquor distributor sort of sales man, and one was a teacher, one worked for NYSEG, and two of us were doctors. We did all these crazy steps and there are still some video tapes around of this stuff. Because we did all kinds of things. We did YMCA before it was ever over used. We did the California Raisins one time, came out and stripped down, had these big funnels on and became the Pointer Sisters. We did a Bill Clinton take off one time, in terms of "Hurts' So Good," and "Wedding Bell Blues," and somebody played Monica Lewinsky. We did Ghostbusters, we have done, more recently a Hawaiian theme. It was Hawaii two years ago and we did "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by that guy that weighed about 450 lbs who died, and we won that year. Last year we were second doing "I Go to Rio and Conga." I had quite the outfit, but we take great pride in dueling the graduate students. We've lost a couple times, but we've beat them lately in terms of higher ranking, which is of course annoying to them and to Gretchen Sorin. Again, the non-hospital stuff. Cathy has had a number of jobs here. One at the hospital, sheesh, I can't remember what she did early on, I'm just forgetting. But, for many years now, maybe fifteen, she's worked at the Cooperstown Graduate Program PR but more so fund development, loves the students. No question, I’ve met many many many students, have had many things at our house. We always have some alum staying with us that Cathy has asked me when they're already en route if they can stay with us. [Laughter]. I said, "Well, if I said no would it really matter?" She says "no." So I've enjoyed the Graduate Program, it's just great to have the students come and see them so excited and all the work they do and how funny they are. I always love to see the slide show. I always love to be invited to parties. There have been some priceless students over the years, and I'm sure there are some that I don't know that, like in every program there might not be the ideal person, but I think they get an outstanding crew. Again, that's another program that's really close-knit because it's a small town, and you know that yourself. I have no database for comparison, but when they say it's one of the premier programs in the country, I've got to believe it. I've got to believe it. So that, and then I've run 8 marathons.

SC: Wow.

DR: Starting in 1984 at age 35 and that was one of the most interesting ones, because we were training for the Wine Glass Marathon, which is from Painted Post to Corning. So that was going to be in mid October in 1984. Then there used to be a race here called the Adam Helmer. Now, Adam Helmer was the guy that I think in the French and Indian War ran about twenty miles to warn the fort at Herkimer about the approach of whomever. So this sort of retraced his steps on this run, with the Indians chasing him. So it started in Schuyler Lake. You know where Schuyler Lake is, where the little post office is. You would go up to Richfield, you would go over Route 20, into Jordanville, past the monastery, and over these rolling hills and then downhill into Ilion over to the Mohawk, and then up the road to East Herkimer, and finish in the cemetery of all things.

SC: Hm. In Herkimer you would finish?

DR: In East Herkimer on the south side of the river it's still the town of Herkimer. Being young guys we fortunately survived. But this marathon I finished 24th out of about - [Laughter]. Or 23rd, so it was my highest finish ever, so I never tell anybody the denominator. Water stations every three miles. In any marathon they're a mile. The crowd you could count on probably your hands and toes for the most part. So we got further and further along, and we said, "Hey! We're going to finish this thing, and then why we're going to do the wine glass?" We're 22 miles down the road but, you realize when you head down a steep hill like Dickerman Hill or a similar hill that we had to go down, that your quads have to tighten up to hold your kneecap as you go down, and it became torture going down. Every time you'd tighten up to go down hill on a stride because it was a steep downhill you wanted to just sort of cry, and I said there's a big mistake, this is horrible. But we finished and we did OK, and then I ran in Washington, D.C. twice, Chicago twice, the Wine Glass, we did do once, which is a separate story, and then Boston once, and one other one. But, we all ran together. There were six of us, for the most part.

SC: Six of you from medicine?

DR: No. Well, 4 doctors, Dr. Streck, myself, Dr. Dietz, Dr. Roth, Mike Stein who is a PR fundraiser at the hospital, and a guy named Bob Snyder who works for New York Central Mutual Insurance. So, the six of us would be inseparable on the road for many years, and not everybody would run the marathon at the same time. I can't tell you how many times I've run around the lake and that I could do a virtual bike ride knowing every little hill by heart if you take someone on a spinning bike. We became known as the "running buds." So there is a girl here, Lauren Groff, who is actually a famous author now. But, she wrote a book that, called "The Monsters of Templeton," which I think most graduate students should read. So if you read the book there is a group of runners that make their way through this book, it's like "the Greek chorus" and that was us. She modeled these 6 guys after us. Now, the funny thing was she explained each person's baggage, each guys' baggage early on and you weren't sure if you were that guy or wanted to be that guy, or were you that guy, and I don't like this about that guy, and finally she pulled us all together and said, "Look. It's just a book. None of you are those people. Get over it! You're not this good guy." So that was good. So the running buds, we all got running buds shirts from her and stuff like that.

SC: [Laughter] - That's funny.

DR: So, she became famous and of course Dr. Groff's daughter Sarah is an Olympian. So we shared a lot of those things. The most emotional marathon I ever had was in 2002 when my wife's brother, George Morell died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. So, I ran that race for him. But, what happened was I started training in January it was an April race, and I was going up the east side of the lake and it was icy, and I got up toward Glimmerglass State Park, and I went up old hill, and I pulled some muscle in my buttock off the haunch bone you sit on there, and every time I took a stride it was miserable. There were no cars out that day. Maybe two people passed me and didn't pick me up. But I basically had to walk back 7 miles after having sweated all the way up the road, and I'm just freezing. So finally in town I get a ride to the gym, and I must have sat in the shower 20 minutes, then I realized I hadn't brought the car down there. I had started from home, and I still had to go home, up the hill. So, I said this is a problem, because it hurts every time you take a stride. So I went to my orthopedic friend, and I said, "I've got to run this marathon for my brother, I just have to." He goes, "Well, this is going to take a long time to heal, can you run without training?" I go, "I'm going to have to." So that's when I took up spinning. Spin-biking and that was 2002, so I guess I've been spinning for 10 years. I would go in the gym, I would bring food and whatever, and I would spin initially for an hour and then I got up eventually to three hours on the bike straight, because I had to do that. By the time I got to the marathon I had no problem with endurance, but unfortunately I had not been in my running shoes ever. I had not realized my foot had changed by half a size. So, I ran about two miles literally the day before the race, I didn't want to take any chances and I felt fine. Then I got to the Boston marathon and this guy's in front of me waiting to use the facilities who had run 26 marathons. So I told him about what I was doing, and he talked to me, then he came back out of the facility and said "Good luck in your experiment." That's when I got really nervous. So what happened was the first eight miles were fine, then I felt this incredible burning in my foot, and I said, “That is a blister." Then I just said, "Oh, that's random." Then I got another, then I got another one, then I got another one, then I got another one. So, by the time I get to Heartbreak Hill, which is whatever it is, I'm pretty miserable. I'm slogging along though, I'm alright. Then my friends joined up and Dr. Groth ran the last six miles with me, or such as it was running. That's a funny story, he's running with me and I've got this shirt on that's soaked and he's got a Middlebury shirt on and he's only run 6 miles so there's nothing on it, and they're going "hey you're lookin' good, you're lookin' good, you're lookin' good, ya look fresh!" I go "oh my God." So, I get in there and I cross the line and he had to peel off not to cross the line and I go through the line and I get my medal and I realize back in those days, he didn't have his phone, he didn't have any money, he didn't know the hotel I was staying in and here we are in the Boston Marathon in this huge crowd. I'm sort of half out of it because that's how you are after a marathon and so I walked down this crowded street, packed with people, and he goes "Donny!" I go, "Hey Jerry." Not realizing that he would have had no way to know where we are, just sort of walked into him! I mean I picked the right street out of thousands of people, he goes "you can't believe what a good occurrence this is," and I go "let's just walk." So we get back to the hotel and it didn't even make an impact on me until later. So we get back to the room and I go, "My feet are killing me," and I said, "Oh, they're bad." So, Dr. Dietz was there with me too and I go, "It's like Rocky, you've got to take my shoes off." He goes "well your toe boxes are pink." I go "take my shoes off."

SC: Ugh.

DR:So I had a blister on about 8 toes, lost 6 toenails.

SC: Yuck.

DR: Eventually. That was a mistake. Always check your shoes. Something changed.

SC: So, you've talked a lot about sports, because I know you're very involved with the community, is that how you use it?

DR: I've taught spinning now as an instructor, for six years, and I really like stationary biking and I think it's been good and I think it keeps you young. It gives you an appreciation for music. You meet people. All you've got to do in this world is be friendly and be nice.

SC: Mhm.

DR: I say to my kids, "If somebody's on your back what you want to do is kill them with kindness," and "they're not going to be able to handle the kindness." They're expecting you to come at them. So you just kill them with kindness and smile.

SC: Mhm.

DR: I don't know. I probably have some enemies I don't know about, but I don't tend to collect that many enemies. So I think that if you are consistent and nice to the person that makes the least little bit of money and to the person that makes the huge amount of money, be appreciative. So there are people that I've worked with for years that don't make that much money that I'll never forget the day I retire.

SC: Mhm.

DR: You've got to get along with people. I don't know, I just like to talk to people, and I think I'm OK at it. So anyhow, I ended up being a spinning instructor, we're doing Food Bank rides to support the Food Bank. We have one coming up this Sunday. This 90-minute ride. We usually raise about 400 dollars for the food bank on the average, which is important around Thanksgiving. Then I have done some auctioneering at various benefits. I like that. So, I guess if you said I was introverted it wouldn't be true. What would I like to do? I would like to read a lot more books; I'd like to see a lot more movies again. I would like to act and I'm hopefully going to take acting lessons shortly through the Smithy, because I want to do that. I'd like to get some small role on stage somewhere. I have this thing about being in front of a crowd, but I think acting is fun, kind of like lip-sync sort of acting. [Laughter]. So, I hope to do that. I love to travel. We've traveled to a lot of places. We spent three months in New Zealand. On a sabbatical from here in 1989, forgot about that. So I was here 8 years then, and back then if you were here six years on staff you could take a sabbatical, three months pretty much anywhere you want after you got it approved. Our kids were 12, 10, and 8. I had met this resident physician in Minnesota when I was a student and he was from New Zealand and he said "if you could ever come, you should come and you could work with me." So, I contacted him and we went from January to April of 1989 with a 12 year old, a 10 year old, and an 8 year old to New Zealand. We rented a house there. The kids enrolled in school. George played cricket. The two girls swam for the middle school. They had to go to school, we lived in a town that was an art-deco place on the North Island which was sort of like, had palm trees all the time. It was never cold, the coldest it ever got was like 40. It was amazing. It was like LA, on a small scale. New Zealander's were wonderful, we saw beautiful scenery. We made lasting friends there with this couple. It was just a special time. I mean, I got a little homesick I must say. It was back in the day when there were like 4 t.v. stations in 1989. You listened to the BBC news at night, for American stuff and British stuff. But, it was another great thing, because I knew these sabbaticals were going to go bye-bye. Because they paid your salary while you were gone. They paid all your benefits, everything. You got a stipend as well. So, you didn't lose anything by going. Sure enough, when greater financial burdens hit the hospital about 6 years later, they were gone.

SC: Hmm.

DR: Back then the difference is, there were three rheumatologists, two guys could cover your practice, it wasn't that big, for three months. My partner went two years later to Cambridge, England. That was in the summer and we covered his practice in the summer for three months. So, it was a smaller world and easier to do things I think. Probably, in many senses less to do, and it was less complicated. Medicine became more and more complicated, more and more technology, people to their benefit are becoming much more savvy about health care.

SC: Mhm.

DR: The quality of healthcare has increased but the cost has increased, unfortunately, even more so than, more so.

SC: We are close to time, so I have two other questions. One is do you have any major regrets?

DR: Wow. [Laughter]. Major regrets? Major regrets? It's not a regret, it's a function of being a doctor. There is a lot of things that you miss because you're on call. So if you were on call every third night or every fourth night with a beeper, and you might be stuck in town. Even though I saw my kids do a lot of things, there were a lot of great things that I missed. So that's one thing. I figured out, I've been on call, if you count residency, because I've been in medicine now 37 years, so probably if you wore a beeper and you were either at the hospital or home, and everyday for like 11 years or 10 years that would be my life. I think I would get home late a lot, a lot of nights early on. Just by being a doctor. So I regret not being home to help Cathy more who did, who obviously is their mom, did great, and she did great! Plus, after a while, after the kids got older, she was working a job. I mean I have a good relationship with my kids but I think you can never re-do things that have already happened. You can't ruminate on it either. That would be the biggest regret. I guess the other thing would be, and this is a small regret, I wish I had taken time to play an instrument. That's why I'm going to get into acting. But, I played the accordion growing up. No one wanted to hang out with you if you were playing an accordion. [Laughter]. But, if you were in the South Side of Chicago and if you've ever heard of the Lawrence Welk show, everybody saw this accordionist on there and he was Myron Floren or something, and everybody wanted to be like him if you were on the South Side of Chicago. If you weren't Irish you were Polish and in a Polka band. So I played this thing for three years, and it was one of these classic things where when you were big enough, well you weren't big enough, you get this full-sized adult accordion you just about fall over with it. So actually to hold it on you, there are the two straps on the accordion, but what you don't know in kids is there was a second strap in the middle with snaps in the middle to hold it to your sides there so it wouldn't fall off your shoulders and you wouldn't fall down and crack your chin. So, I hated it, and I shouldn't have because now the accordion has made a big comeback, and you can use the accordion sort of in Southern Folk and Bluegrass and stuff like that. So I wish I had done that or played something else. I don't mind to hit the drums a little bit. So I don't have many regrets about that. You know, something you regret? Well, why didn't you move to a bigger town and you could have made more money or whatever. Yea, there are trade-offs in life. It ain't about money always.

SC: Mhm.

DR: There aren't many regrets here. I have made a lot of friends, so I can't say "Jeez I didn't make enough friends." But those are the things that come to mind.

SC: If you had to pick one, and it's hard to pick one, but can you tell me about something; a specific event, or some specific thing, or person in your life that has influenced you the most?

DR: I'm stalling on this one I think.

SC: It doesn't have to be one.

DR: OK. So influential people. My grandfather. He lived to be 101. He was just one bright guy. Sometimes you're much closer to your grandparents than your parents, my case. I mean I love my parents, and now I'm close to them. He was just a very bright man. Self-made. He started out as an upholsterer in this furniture company on the West Side of Chicago and became the plant foreman. Just a very sensible guy. A happy guy, lived a long time, and had a great wife, my grandmother. Just a funny guy who would do anything, and sort of like me, he would do anything for anybody just about. I never really saw him angry too much at all. So he had a lot of wise things to say. Just watching him. He didn't really have to tell you anything, just watching him. Other influential people? That's one. Sometimes advisers in college are helpful and an influential person is my wife, I mean you can't beat that. Who else can influence you more than your wife? She's your soul mate and she better influence you. Events that influenced me? 9/11 had a big influence; life is short. Every time I have a kid born, that's an influential event, so my kids influenced me too. My friends influenced me. All you need is about, you don't really have, if anybody says they have a hundred close friends, that's probably not true. It's a person you can call all the time when you've got a big problem. So I probably have five close friends, if you have five you're a blessed guy actually.

[START OF TRACK 4, 0:00]

SC: Mhm.

DR: So, I can't think of anybody at the hospital that I would say overwhelmingly influential. I think those would be the people that stand out, and that you would take notice of. We draw off everybody, you draw off every generation. My parents are obviously influential too, my uncles, and aunts, and sisters, and I mean cousins. I have no siblings, so that makes you a different kettle of fish. So there is no one to get in an argument with, but there's no one else that's going to have to absorb things that are going on directly with your parents or whatever except you. You don't have a choice, you're either an only child or you're not and that's the way it is. But, if I said life has been bad to me, that would be a lie.

SC: Hm.

DR: It's been good.

SC: Good.

DR: But, life has it's ups and downs.

SC: Mhm.

DR: So, things happen and for some reason you don't understand, you never understand what happened. I think the most important thing is I have a good relationship with my kids all these years, and there are some situations where we all know that no one is talking to someone. Taking a history from a patient, "I don't know my dad, I haven't talked to him in years." So I can call my kids anytime, and they'll call me, and I call a lot. Some people don't have that. I guess they just don't have that, being that fortunate, good fortune.

SC: Hm.

DR: So, it's all about family and friends, and doing what you like. If someone said, my favorite phrase is "how are you doing today?" I say "I am living the dream." [Laughter]. So, I always close with that. Sometimes I don't know what part of the dream I'm in, but I'm living the dream. Because there is no, medicine is a great job, and you see something different everyday. Yes, it can be painful, you've got to tell people bad stuff, it can be incredibly rewarding. I mean I can think of people with, especially new medicines, a young lady a few months ago she had horrible rheumatoid arthritis. Multiple swollen joints, couldn't function, she had little kids. So she started taking this medicine, came back two months later, and said "You gave me my life back." So she's crying, I'm crying. Incredibly gratifying, sometimes incredibly depressing. But through it all. Some days are hard, and you get up just because you know what a long day it's going to be. But my approach is, never throw someone out of clinic because you're in a hurry, so people end up waiting for me sometimes. But if someone needs something done, I don't want them to leave and say "come back next week when I have time." Part of it's you don't have the time probably, so we finish it there. Somebody once said to me "You know, the good thing about you is when somebody comes to you, you always get them an answer, or try to get them the answer, even if it's not your specialty." So I get people the other day and some lady asked me, "Can you feel this lump? Is this a lump back here? What do you think this is?" [rubbing behind ear]. So all of a sudden I'm looking in this lady's ear, not her shoulder, not her elbow, but her ear and this bone behind it. Or, they'll tell you about their family. Medicine is about listening and just listening first and then trying to figure it out. Where else would you come into something and tell them, get in the middle of their story, and they're going to tell you the story, and you get to listen and you get to enter their story and figure it out? Try to.

SC: Anything else you want to add to it? That I didn't ask, anything I didn't ask about that -

DR: No, I'm just very delighted that you interviewed me.

SC: Me too.

DR: If it means something to somebody someday, whatever. I just had a blast with you, Sam!

SC: [Laughter]. Thank you! Me too.

DR: I appreciate you doing it.

SC: You too.

[END TRACK 4, 4:18]
[TOTAL TRACK TIME 94:18]

94:18

"

00:40 - Chicago Upbringing
02:51 - Interest in Medicine
04:15 - Holy Cross, Premed
15:45 - Met Wife, Cathy Raddatz
18:30 - Briarcliffe College, Yonkers New York, Medical Student
21:45 - Dartmouth College
24:30 - Minneapolis, Minnesota, Marriage, Back Surgery
29:05 - Rheumatology
[end track one]
03:20 - Children, Native Son
05:30 - Comparison between rural and urban medicine
15:25 - Raising children in a rural area, teaching children about diversity
21:00 - Cooperstown High School sports
22:50 - Changes in practicing medicine in Cooperstown
[end track two]
01:40 - Referral Hospital, Medicare
07:00 - Lip Sync
10:25 - Marathons, Lauren Groff and The Monster's of Templeton
20:35 - Spinning Instructor, Food Bank
22:05 - Sabbatical in New Zealand
28:00 - Major life influences, 9/11
[end track 3]

No

Britney Schline

Dorothy Hudson

44 Nelson Ave.

Cooperstown, NY

DH = Dorothy Hudson
BS = Britney Schline

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

BS:
It is November 16, 2012 and this is Britney Schline interviewing Mrs. Dorothy, also known as Dottie, Hudson at her home on Nelson Ave. in Cooperstown, New York for the Cooperstown Graduate Program’s Research and Fieldwork Course. Dorothy, do you mind just starting by telling us where and when you were born?

DH:
I was born January 16, 1937 in Hackensack, New Jersey. And since I’m in
Cooperstown I have to say I used to keep New Jersey quiet. It’s not something you want to advertise in Cooperstown. [Laughs] But William Cooper came from New Jersey.

BS:
That’s true. And can you tell me a bit about growing up in Hackensack?

DH:
I didn’t really grow up in Hackensack. We were living at my Grandmother’s house, which is on Clinton Place actually. My mother’s twin sister, Anna, was the nurse that delivered me. I have an older sister and we lived there four years. This was towards the end of the Depression, and then when my grandmother died there was some money. And my parents got money enough to buy a house, which I lived in the rest of my childhood in New Brunswick.

BS:
Oh, okay.

DH:
Hackensack is just the beginning.

BS:
Well then, would you like to tell me about growing up in New Brunswick a little?

DH:
We got a house in a little housing development that was going to be much bigger, but it stopped at the war just in the 1940s. That was the end of the development. It stayed sort of in mid-air until after the war, and so there were nice little houses out in this former farming area. Typical. We used to play in the foundations of the houses that were going to be built after the war. We used to play racing games around the foundations. There used to be frogs in one of them. We used to play with them. It was nice to have a lot of open fields. So, this is East Brunswick, not New Brunswick.

BS:
Okay.

DH:
And it was a non-place at the time. Now it’s got a real identity, people come from East Brunswick, which is strange to me. It’s a real place and it’s very built up now. But at the time it was sort of a peripheral place. A lot of people who’d immigrated there, a lot of people from Eastern Europe. A lot of variety. The original people were old Dutch and old English. Down the road about a mile, easy to get to, was the old mill and the original family, who were Dutch, a few interesting Dutch people around. I started school in a two-room schoolhouse, but it wasn’t really old. It was only turn of the century old. But there were three grades in one room and two in the other, and two teachers. That was part of the East Brunswick School System. And then after fourth grade [I] went to another school, and another school. We didn’t have a high school there, so I was with the same group of elementary school children for the whole eight grades. There wasn’t much changeover in contrast to about the end of my high school years— that’s when East Brunswick started growing dramatically. My sister who was four years older grew up with me. We lived in this little circle of houses. It was sort of, a little isolated from anywhere else, unless you got in a car or bus or a bike.

BS:
And can you tell me a little bit about your sister?

DH:
My sister was four years older. I was going to bring some pictures in. I will. Oh no, here they are. I saw her picture in here. Makes for really interesting time to have nothing going on.

BS:
Oh, that’s okay.

DH:
Oh, there’s my mother. One of my pastimes is I really like to take pictures of everything and everybody. There are a lot, tons, of pictures in my background. My sister was very outgoing. She died four years ago. I only had one sister. My mother came from a family of five and my father of nine. So I had lots of cousins, but our family was small. I guess all the rest of the cousins all spread out across the country. They were small families compared to my parents. My sister was a very significant part in our family and neighborhood. She was very outgoing. I think she had a lot of energy. It was not easy for my parents to keep up with her. I on the other hand was a good, quiet child. And that was my role, which I still have, the person to mend things up and not cause a stir. But that’s not true. It’s just that I sound quiet.

BS:
So how was your relationship with her?

DH:
Very good. We always had the same room. And she was just a whole generation different. So there wasn’t any rivalry, because she was in charge. [Laughs] I was always the little sister, which was comfortable. Yeah, it’s too bad. We all miss her a lot. I think she took after my father’s side of the family. My father and my husband’s father, and my two son-in-laws’ families, all the fathers came from the South. Isn’t that curious? Just, you know, just the husbands’ dads, they all came up during the Depression. Actually, Mitch’s family came up more recently when he was born. But my father and Chuck’s father came up in the thirties or the twenties. And my father grew up on a farm, a tobacco farm, tobacco and cotton in North Carolina. And he always had a wonderful accent. Unfortunately, most of his relatives were still down there, except for one brother who lived in New Jersey also. My mother’s family came over before the Civil War. When I was in high school my great-great aunt came to live with us when she was ninety-six. So I never knew my grandmother much, but I knew my great-grandmother’s sister. Jumped a generation there. So, I get this combination of New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina.

BS:
And when you said your mother’s family came over, where did they come over from?

DH:
They came over from England. The only record I have is Southampton. That’s where everybody left from. Whether they actually lived there long, I’m not sure. Let’s see, my great-grandmother’s daughter married someone from Scotland, so I’m Scotch and English. I guess they probably came in through Ellis Island, if Ellis Island was operating then. I guess a large percentage of Americans’ families came through New York. Now that I’m a New Yorker I can be proud of that. Nobody comes through New Jersey, do they? In actual fact, Ellis Island is kind of almost into New Jersey. They’re close.

BS:
Yeah, that’s true. And what was your mother’s maiden name?

DH:
Landis. Her father died when she was very young. So we didn’t stay too close to her side of the family, but if you go to Pennsylvania where the Pennsylvania Dutch are and open the phonebook you’ll find pages and pages of people named Landis. My daughter, that’s her middle name, and she decided to drop her first name, which was Amy. So she’s known as Landis, which suits her now, because she’s very grown up. Amy is a little girl. So one-eighth is Pennsylvania Dutch. I like to think I got something from them.

BS:
And can you describe your father for me? What was his last name?

DH:
Underwood. I think there are Underwoods all over the place. But there aren’t a lot of them that we’re related to. My only claim to celebrity-ship is his mother was a Johnson, and her brother was Mac Johnson, who was in the State Senate. And their family was related to Andrew Johnson, the only president who was impeached. Not anybody you’d want to brag about.

BS:
It’s still neat.

DH:
But as far as I know, my grandmother’s family was well thought of, and a little more educated than my grandfather’s family. He was a farmer of cotton, but he was good looking so he made up for it. So my father always wanted to be a watchmaker, and he decided that he was getting away from that farm. He wanted to have nothing to do with living off the land, although he always farmed. He always had a garden, as do I. And he knew a lot about it. His plan was to become a watchmaker. And so he came up North, lived with his brother, who was up here already. And he worked as a watchmaker, ran a little store. And then during the war he worked for the government, fixing watches and teaching people to fix watches for the Army, for the Raritan Arsenal. Then after the war he kept his own business. But, of course, then when watches became insignificant; they became manufactured and you didn’t need to get them fixed he went and concentrated on clock repairs, which was a good thing to do. All of these people who had nice old clocks kept him in business. You think of somebody not being able to do something like that nowadays, come out of a farming community and learn a small trade. I keep thinking we need ways for people to move ahead themselves in this day and age. When so many people are out of work.

BS:
Sure. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

DH:
Well, he came up and met my mother, who was a schoolteacher. Her mother had been a teacher, one of her sisters was a teacher, and as I said her twin sister was a nurse. So they were a more educated family, but since her father had died when she was young…. that’s an interesting story. He was bitten by a mad dog and got treatment for rabies, and died of the treatment. Something affected his digestive system. He would have been better off getting rabies? No, I don’t think so. I guess rabies treatment still is a very difficult thing to go through. I know a friend who had. But it isn’t life threatening anymore. Anyway, my grandmother raised five children. And that’s a mystery how she did it. Carefully. Frugally. Which is something I come by, being frugal. My children would say, I save too much. I save everything. I got that from my parents. So my mother taught after she got married, but then when she got pregnant you couldn’t teach if you had children in those days. I don’t know when that law or that custom stopped. I need to research that. I’ve heard of that even after the war, that married teachers didn’t have a preference. You had to be unmarried supporting a family, or a man supporting a family. So then they were left on my father’s job. My sister was born. And the Depression came; and I have no knowledge of that at all. I was far too young, thank goodness. My sister could remember my parents being worried about the Depression. Jobs. Then my father got a job in New Brunswick after the war. And there’s a connection between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. It’s the railroad. And New Brunswick is on the railroad. That’s how he got his job for a jeweler. He worked as a watch repairman for a jeweler there. This is where Rutgers is, New Brunswick, and Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson was the equivalent of the Clarks in New Brunswick. They were the big industry in town. On the other side of town, the other side of the river, this is the Raritan River, was Highland Park, where my mother eventually went back to teaching, and where we went to church, and where my husband went to school. So, a little geography there between the Raritan River, which is significant. His father commuted to New York on that railroad, and my father got watch supplies on the railroad. Thank goodness for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

BS:
And when did your mother go back to teaching?


DH:
I was in eighth grade. She was very reluctant to go back to teaching, because it didn’t look good for a woman to be working in those days. Isn’t that crazy? But she was such a natural, and it was such a good thing for her. She was an elegant teacher, really good, a good teacher. She always taught elementary school, and I was heading towards junior high about then.

BS:
And can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with your parents?

DH:
Well, as I said, I was the good girl. [Laughs] I had a very secure, comfortable childhood. And, strangely enough that’s the kind of life that I’ve had. I’ve been very blessed that things have fallen into place for me. There’s no reason why they should. And if I hadn’t fallen into a comfortable situation I could never have survived on my own. In contrast to my sister, who was very capable of finding her own way in the world. My mother, she was a very strong person in a very quiet way, very inquisitive. She liked learning things. Books. And they were pretty social in the community, in a small community, in her church. My mother painting this. That was one of her pastimes. She sewed before she went back to work, and canned, which I don’t do. I can’t bring myself to fuss around with canning. It’s probably a good thing, because if the power goes out I’ve got an awful lot of frozen vegetables from my garden that would be lost. She wouldn’t need the power on. So my parents, they kept a lid on things. Things were not a crisis. They always voted for whoever was going to be President. They accepted things the way they were, in contrast to me, or my sister. We were very radical in the sense that we always expected things should be right and proper in the government. Marrying into Chuck’s family helps too, because they were more politically oriented. My mother played the piano, and we always had pets at home. But we were not in the city. We were out in the suburbs, had to take the bus into town. Life was very peaceful and quiet out there. Boring, when you think of it. The elementary school I went to, East Brunswick, was just barely minimum. When I think of kids nowadays who’ve got art, and music, and physical education in school, I think, what would I have been like? I had to teach myself an awful lot of things that children get taught in school now. Every year in school was an improvement; it was always more interesting to go to high school and junior high, and better in college. And I loved working. We were economically a little better off than our neighbors, the kids we went to school with, not our actual neighbors. They were more new immigrants. And since my mother’s family had been here for a couple of generations I was more acclimated. I always felt a little like I had an advantage. Which was not so much true in New Brunswick. But New Brunswick’s a working class town. I had no idea that I had a real problem until I was quite grown up and had children already. And my problem is that I’ve got a terrible memory. Now, all my peer group is losing their memory so it’s no big deal. I had no idea that I had this problem. It’s like you’re so aware of children with handicaps nowadays, with Autism and Asperger’s, and learning and hearing. Those kinds of children were never talked about, they were all in separate schools, and nobody ever questioned the fact. I didn’t have a reading disability. I was awfully interested in reading, but as it turned out I had no capacity to remember what I’d learned. And it’s made a lot of difference. And it keeps me from talking quickly in a social situation, because I have to think about it. [Ping from heater] That’s going to be on the recording. That’s our good old steam heater. That’s another story. I was always looking and thinking, trying to figure out the world as I was growing up. And my mother had it, and my father too. They were very interested in biological things, science, and natural history. They were both very good at that. When they’d come to visit they would say, “Oh look at that tree, and that bird…” and whatever, and since my father was a gardener. So I always thought I wanted to be interested in the sciences. Until I gave up the idea of being an airline hostess [laughs], despite the fact I had no idea. I’d never been on a plane. But I thought that would be a nice job. I also thought that since I wasn’t very good musically I could be a conductor [laughs]. So I went through school with a great deal of interest and curiosity and concentration, and loving it, assuming that I would get some benefits from my education. And I did, but not what I expected. All the benefits are my own private thing, but not academic, not as far as jobs go, because as it turns out I couldn’t remember what I had just done in the laboratory. I had decided that I wanted to study biology, and when I went to college I got into microbiology.

BS:
Sorry. I’m just turning it up a little. Let’s see if that’s better. Okay, sorry, continue.

DH:
And my sister wanted to be an elementary school teacher. And I thought, well, that’s really not very forward looking. She’s really not extending herself as far as possible. But she was. She was a good teacher. And I was interested in esoteric academic things. Part of the other thing was one of our neighbors growing up that I was close to in school had gotten out of Austria before the Nazis took over, just barely. And he was a professor at the college at Rutgers. So I was very close to them, and had this world view of what was going on, a broader view maybe than some kids who weren’t exposed to international situations. Of course everybody growing up had relatives in World War II, but my friend’s family were all cut off. They were all in Austria and they couldn’t contact them during the war, over those four years. They lived down the street and had a very comfortable life, a job. But all those years they had no idea what had become of their mothers, fathers, sisters, [and] brothers. And I happened to be in their living room when my friend’s mother got a letter saying that her family was alive. I can remember the tears coming down her face, which surprised me at the time, tears of joy. Growing up at that time, I think we thought that we had solved the world’s problems by winning the war. The economy was working well, and people got their houses rebuilt that had lain empty and unfinished all of those years. I think it was one of the more peaceful times in our American history, except unless you were a black person, or even an Asian, because they were stigmatized too. But for the rest of us it was a very peaceful time in the country. And it wasn’t until the sixties when we realized that things were not as settled. And by then I had been married and slowly began to think, well things should be right, because we had gone through the war. Things had been put into place, they were all back together. Things were where they should be. That’s always been my point of view. That there should be a best way, we should know it, and we’re responsible for doing it. So I’m jumping ahead. I studied microbiology at Syracuse University. I could have gone to New Brunswick, which was within walking distance, almost, to Rutgers. And the girl’s college was separate then, it was NJC.

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]

My sister-in-law went to NJC, New Jersey College for Women. And now it’s all Rutgers. My sister went to school in Newark, New Jersey, which was a nice place back then. Now Newark, New Jersey is a sociology lesson. [They have] a wonderful mayor, but [it’s] a pretty unsettled place to be. So my parents very kindly let me go away to college. All those years of being very frugal, I guess because I was the youngest, they could afford to put me in college and pay the tuition. Which, as I think back on it, must have been an awful lot for them. I think of parents nowadays having to pay for college for students; it’s a phenomenon. So there were several of us from the area going up to school in Syracuse. It was a great experience. Good school. Nice people. And I got into microbiology, rather than plain biology. One of my classmates from high school and I switched living accommodations. She went into a bigger apartment, and I went into a smaller house. It was cottage living, which was a nice arrangement. And then my parents would never have been happy with me going to a sorority. So I luckily found a cottage arrangement where it was kind of friends living together and it was across from the biology building, actually. So that’s where I lived for four years, well three of the four years. And in the summer, my junior year, I met Chuck. As I said he came from the other side of the river. And we were working at a restaurant in a Howard Johnson’s on my side of the river, and that’s how we got to know each other. He was at Princeton, and that was an all boys’ school, so I had very little competition. So he came up to visit me at school, and I came down to visit him. And after I graduated we got married. And then he went off to medical school in Montreal. So, that began a long odyssey of my peaceful life traveling around with Chuck, who’s a very settled, simple, uncomplicated person. He’s not rash, he’s very careful in what he does, but when I look back on it he’s done an awful lot of wild, crazy things when you add it up. Going to Montreal, and McGill is an English-speaking school, but we were living at the edge of the university on the French-speaking side. The English side of Montreal was more to the west. And we were in the area where there were a lot of Greek people, and French people, and the college students. So there were a number of other wives of college students who were there, and families. So we had a little community. We used to go to the farmer’s market to go shopping in Montreal. And I would listen to the radio station, the CBC, and the BBC, and here are all the names of these wonderful sounding places that I had never heard of before. Manitoba, Chicoutimi, and Saint-Hubert. So we were not actually immersed in the French. And that was before Quebec Libre, and the desire, just before, to speak French. I think they’ve mellowed out. But at the time English was predominantly the language of commerce. I did take some French lessons for immigrants. I didn’t work in any real job. I had one child, Beth, and then I had a second child, Andrew. And I did childcare, which was the natural thing. In the summertime my very reasonable, settled husband got jobs with the government. Well, to begin with, we were working in Vermont, where his brother lived. And then eventually his parents moved up there. We worked at children’s camps there in Vermont [for] two summers. He wasn’t a doctor yet, but he was working in medicine. He worked in Salisbury, Maryland, on the peninsula. And the next summer we went to Arizona, to Tuba City, which is in between the Navajo and the Hopi settlement. There’s a hospital there. That was a wonderful experience. His sister moved up to Alaska and he always had it in mind that he wanted to go up to Alaska. So he joined the Public Health Service. So after he graduated, let’s see, he had to do an internship. That was at Salt Lake City, which was another weird move. [Laughs] That was an interesting place to be, nice for children. It’s strange to be an alien, being a non-Mormon. Everybody who wasn’t a Mormon felt like you were all classified as gentiles; we were all in the same boat. But I’ve heard that there’s a very liberal mayor of Salt Lake City, who’s not Mormon. I don’t know how that happened. So he got the job in public health in Alaska after his internship, and we bought a little Volkswagen bus and drove up to Alaska with two children. This was in the early sixties. Chuck graduated in ’63. Andrew was born that year, so this was the early sixties. And during his internship was the year that President Kennedy was assassinated, which was a turning point for the whole country. Wasn’t it? And, as we were driving up to Alaska, I just kept thinking, you know, what’s going to happen to the country? It was so unsettled from the way it had been all those years we were growing up. [In] ’64 there was an earthquake in Anchorage. And they said, “well we want you to come up to the hospital, but leave your wife and children.” But we didn’t pay attention to them. We came up anyway. And we did find a place to rent. We got there, the roads were a little broken here and there, especially outside of town. And right by the water, too. Isn’t that interesting? Just like Staten Island and New Jersey being under water. That’s what happened, right? And in this one particular area the earthquake dissolved the ground, it subsided, it was built on clay. Those houses were destroyed. And I bet they built them up again. So we have had the experience of going through a physical dislocation. And thinking, you know, if there was another earthquake, we wouldn’t have food or power. But there we were, feeling a little brave. His sister was up in Fairbanks, Alaska, which is in the interior. And we were in Anchorage, where the Public Health Service was. It was one central place there. During the first year he got volunteered to do a job to fly out to one of the hospitals, and this is what happened to his airplane on the way out. [Shows photograph of crashed plane] It didn’t land very well, crashed on landing. So, he came close to being permanently injured, crushed his spine, but he recovered enough to go back to work. And they said on light duty, and he was assigned to go out in the bush. In this particular picture that shows him playing the recorder, his jaw was broken so he couldn’t talk very well. But he could play the recorder. He had a couple of weeks’ vacation, and an opportunity to think about life and death. Then we all went out to Dillingham. I think that’s why he wanted me to…[brings out globe]

BS:
Oh, the globe.

DH:
Yeah, I brought that out so I can show you. That there is Anchorage, that’s Fairbanks. You can take a boat around here. But this is where we were stationed, on the other side of Bristol Bay, which Sarah Palin’s husband is from. One of her children is named Bristol.

BS:
So how did you get there?

DH:
Oh, we flew.

BS:
He wanted to fly again after…

DH:
No, he did not. I’ve never been bothered by flying. He’s gotten his mobility back, but never has enjoyed flying.

BS:
I can imagine.

DH:
Yeah. But since we were stationed out there, we had to fly out there. And his job was to take care of a lot of different little villages up and down the mainland and halfway down the peninsula, and he had to fly there in a small plane. He’d contact them by radio. We went back two years ago to see his sister and we stopped, and flew over to Dillingham again. It was wonderful to see it again. It’s grand. Very un-fancy, it’s still a very basic place. Where as Anchorage itself has gotten a lot of money, the airport, federal money. It’s gotten glamorous in places, but Dillingham is not glamorous. One thing I’ve been interested in is the Bristol Bay fishing, because that was basically a fishing port, salmon. And they want to, they being a company, wants to start a copper and gold mine way up there. Which is a typical Alaskan thing. But the biology people are very anxious to not do that because it will affect one of the last great salmon industries. So that gets me into what I’ve been thinking of, having been trained as a biologist, but not working in it, I’ve always been thinking biology and the environment. We came back here during the time when the EPA was formed by Nixon, and people began cleaning up things. Cleaning up the Hudson. And cleaning up the Raritan River near where I lived, and you could actually walk down by the river and take a deep breath, which you couldn’t when I was growing up. And I got used to that. My parents belonged to a boat club that nobody went out on a boat in the river, but you could again. That’s been a strong interest of mine. Keeping the balance of nature and not doing unsustainable things. And it’s become terribly important.
So, I have three children. Andrew was born in Montreal, during medical school. And Beth was born in Vermont where Chuck’s family is, and was, his brother. And then Amy was born in Dillingham; the year that Chuck crashed in his airplane, she was conceived. And she was born out there. She was born where the hospital is. It’s called Kanakanak, which I think is nice, because I started out in Hackensack, and she started in Kanakanak, [Laughs] Our Indian heritage. The Alaskan Natives are such wonderful people to know. They haven’t been brutalized the way we finished off so many of the tribes around here, where they have to survive on gambling and selling cheap cigarettes. I was very happy to know that Native peoples’ cultures [were] being supported. And that’s a good thing that NYSHA [New York State Historical Association] does, having the beautiful Thaw Collection and periodic lectures. There’s a lot more to learn.

BS:
Do you want to speak a little bit more about your time in Dillingham?

DH:
Oh, you said, “how did we get there?” The food came by boat. Down around the peninsula. And once a year a boat would come up with all your supplies. Last year I heard the boat going to Nome couldn’t get in there because of the ice, and because of climate change. So we were in this little community of hospital people. It’s gotten bigger. It’s a nicer sized hospital. The Native Corporations have divided up parts of Alaska and they’re running their own business. They got money from the settlement from building the Alaska Pipeline. While we were there the federal government was paying for it, and it was a small group of people. There were two doctors and half a dozen nurses and cooks and mechanics, and we all lived in this little area. And Dillingham itself, where the people lived, was down the road, seven miles, I think. And when our first daughter, Beth, started school she had to go by school bus all the way down to Dillingham. Somebody decided they wanted the town to be not where the hospital was. There was a disagreement there. The hospital and the town were two different places. Right on the cliff overlooking the water, it’s also sort of on the edge of the tundra there, where you can look for miles in one direction and hardly see any trees. Although, there are plenty of trees in other places, just not on that edge of the bay there. So Beth went to school her first grade and we talked to her years later when she was in high school and she said, no, she didn’t have any Native people in her school. But when she looked at her elementary school picture, of course, three quarters of the children were obviously Native American. But to her they were just children. Which is such a great story. We came to Vermont for Chuck’s residency. He had a lot of patients that needed more help than he could give them and he really became interested in psychiatry. And we came back to Vermont, fortunately, where his brother’s family and his parents were. So we got to spend his residency there. And I was so happy. I liked Dillingham, but it was a challenge. It was isolated. We bought a house and we were in a real community in Burlington with neighbors and children. It was much more normal. And then we had to go back to Alaska. As I said, Chuck is a very regular, predictable person, but he’s bounced around a lot. So when he went back he was in charge of the psychiatry department. Flying. [Laughs] Beth was in elementary school, Andrew was in second grade, and Amy then started kindergarten the second time we went back. They had been to school in Vermont, in Burlington, which is a wonderful place to live. Still would be. Alaskans are nice people. There’s a camaraderie if you can put up with the crazy daylight and the bad weather. There’s a real togetherness about it all. There’s a social continuity, which you don’t always find back east. Our group there was much broader than it was in Dillingham, which was just those people who lived around us. When we went back we became friends with people who went to the church, the Unitarian Universalist Church there. And those were the people we socialized with and our neighbors that our children went to school with. And it was really an interesting, colorful place to be. And then eventually we thought, “do we really want to stay in Alaska forever?” And Beth was going to be going into high school. She liked it very much there. They all did. But we thought if we stayed there much longer, we’d stay there forever. Like his sister did, and still is. So we decided we really should look for a job back east, and that’s how we got to Cooperstown. There was a job being advertised at the Bassett Hospital, and we were back for something, and came to Cooperstown. We came here in ’74. So, do you have any questions?

BS:
[Laughs] Yes, sorry. I was going with the flow.

DH:
Yeah.

BS:
But how was that moving around so much for you?

DH:
It was predictable. It was slow and careful. It wasn’t unsettling. My parents, once they bought that house, they never moved out of it. It sounds like we’ve had a very disjointed life, but it hasn’t been. I think my goal in life is to keep a lid on it and make life average and predictable. Our three children have done so well, despite the fact that their mother doesn’t have a career. [Laughs] I have an attitude. And so do they. They’re all well academically, socially integrated people.

BS:
And were there any challenges being sort of a, I guess I don’t want to call it a stay-at-home mom, but you know…

DH:
Yeah.

BS:
… while your husband was working?

DH:
Well, the challenge was once the kids were in high school, I wasn’t so much needed. When you’re moving it helps to have one person not working so you can adapt to it. So when I got here I didn’t have the challenges of being in Alaska and moving. I became interested in the League of Women Voters and the Friends of the Library, and the Church in Oneonta, which kept me busy. And volunteering at the hospital, which I did for eighteen years, which was a good way to get to know the community. Anything I have done in the community is because there are fine leaders who set examples. I am a dedicated, sincere follower.

BS:
Sure. Can you tell me a bit about that?


DH:
That was before the new building was built, and we were in the old building. The whole time I was volunteering with Evelyn Kachline, whose husband was at the Hall of Fame, so that was my baseball connection. And she was very integrated in the community and knew everybody. So I knew more people coming and going when I was volunteering there because everybody came through for their appointments. And I knew all the doctors there. [They have maybe doubled the number of doctors], I don’t know. We all had a lot to be proud about. Bassett, and the way its grown and adapted in the community. A lot of things have changed and improved. Like they’ve got midwives birthing. It’s very progressive. People in Cooperstown have a lot to be proud of, and very grateful that the Clarks have been an institution that has done the right things all along. When I was in the League of Women Voters back then we were talking about voters’ rights and the environment. One thing we did get accomplished, we worked hard to stop barrel burning, because we were concerned about air pollution. And people were determined they had the right to burn whatever they wanted where they were. And many of us felt that that was not the right thing, and there were non-burn laws in other states. I got to know Judith Enck, who’s now the EPA director of this region, several states. That was a success story, one of the few success stories the League has had. They finally outlawed it. The interesting story was they would pay no attention to those environmentally oriented people, until one day the incinerator backed up and blew smoke all over the Governor’s Mansion. And suddenly they decided to pay attention to the environment. And so several years ago we got the Anti-Barrel Burning Law passed, which made me happy. Another thing we’ve succeeded in, we were paying a lot of attention to the voting machines, because our voting machines were getting old and decrepit. And after the Gore-Bush election the government paid a lot of attention to the voters’ rights. So they said our machines, we couldn’t use them anymore, because they weren’t handicap accessible, which they aren’t. So locally they said, well we’ll just get nice computerized machines, and some of us in the League and Verified Voting Group realized that those machines were hackable. We worked very hard, we did a lot of praying as much as anything, to not get just plain electronic, computerized machines, to get the paper ballot, which can be counted. Whether they are or not in a close election is another question. But they can count them.

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]

There’s a lot the rest of the country needs to do to improve their voting. I haven’t heard any stories about stolen elections in this round. But there had been before, about voting machines that had been hacked into to and altered, or voting machines that didn’t work. I at least feel like we’ve accomplished something on that line. I feel very comfortable lobbying the government to do what we think is the right thing. I was talking to a friend. Chuck, in one of his many other interesting pastimes, is in a German reading group. In high school I learned German and I went to Austria with my friend. And when I came back I finished my third year in high school and forgot more than I remembered, which was a clear sign that my memory wasn’t going to do well. So, anyway, I socialize with his German-speaking group, and I asked one of the very bright ladies there if she wasn’t worried about the weather. And she said, well, she figures it has nothing to do with her, and she doesn’t feel like it’s her responsibility to do anything. And I do. I think it’s all of our responsibility to do the right thing and learn about what’s happened to our environment, and the fact that we put too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and we’re ruining the normal flow of the planet. If you have to put up with bad weather, it may be because you made it, not because you just have to put up with it. Which is when we lived in Alaska, if we had bad weather we just had to take it. But now it’s our responsibility if we’ve melted the ice caps. So, that’s my current strong environmental concern. Along with saving energy, and insulating, and using alternatives. So it’s a lot to worry about. And my friend who figures it’s not her responsibility; I think it is our responsibility. I feel terribly concerned about the people in lower New York State, Staten Island, Long Island, and New Jersey that have just suffered so badly. It’s not their fault. But it is a teachable moment. I don’t remember who said that it’s bad to waste a disaster. Well, I hope we don’t waste this disaster. [Letting cat in room] I have to let my cat in. He’s a very spoiled cat.

BS:
Well, we have a spoiled dog at home, so I understand.

DH:
Do you want to go out? You can go out. [To cat]

BS:
She can’t make up her mind.

DH:
His. All of our others cats have been she, but he’s a he, and he’s very opinionated. I think it has to do with his sex. [Laughs]

BS:
Definitely.

DH:
Oh, I’ll show you a couple of pictures. This is my first daughter. That was the year we worked in Maryland for the summer, a very, very hot place.

BS:
Can you tell me about this car a little?

DH:
Oh, it was my brother-in-law’s car. It wasn’t ours. It was just a basic car in those days. I saw one in the parking lot yesterday. My god! It was beautifully restored.

BS:
What kind is it?

DH:
I think it’s an old Buick. It is impressive.

[Noise on recording]

BS:
And what was Chuck’s job in Maryland?

DH:
He was doing basic healthcare, physicals on poor people there. That’s my mother there.

[Noise on recording]

BS:
Sorry, just the recorder.

DH:
Dear little baby carriage.

BS:
And where was this photo?

DH:
That’s Hackensack. I’ll have to go back to the old homestead. It was built up on a hill, so I don’t think it got drowned in the recent hurricane. And that is Brunswick.

BS:
And are these your children, and your grandchildren?

DH:
Yeah.

BS:
Do you want to tell me about them?

DH:
That’s my son, who lived in Florida. He’s a computer support person. That’s a rented truck and he moved up from Florida where he had been living to Maine. And here he is in Maine with his girlfriend. And he has not married and we do not have grandchildren from him. That’s just fine with us. He had a two people firm and he sold it to the people of Land’s End Financial. There’s a word for it. And they got him a job in Florida. But he eventually wanted to come north and my daughter, who lives in Maine, got him to come up. So he’s working for Maine NPR [National Public Radio]. So we’ve got all our children in New England, even though we’re not New Englanders. We’re New York, New Jersey people. That’s my oldest daughter. That’s Beth and her two daughters. My two grandchildren come in pairs. Beth’s in Connecticut. And she’s a social worker, so she takes after her father. And these are the twins, my youngest daughter, who went to Syracuse Environmental School [SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry] for graduate work.

BS:
So what does she do?

DH:
She works for Maine Rivers now. She’s done other things. Her job is to try to get the dams out of the rivers in Maine so that they can get the fish moving back and forth, which is an environmental job and she works hard at it. I guess that’s it, except there are other pictures there. And this is me, we were protesting the pipeline. My main reason for being against the pipeline is because I think we need to be working on alternative energies and not digging up. And it’s so terrible the stories we hear from Pennsylvania. They’re foolish. That was in Binghamton, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had a hearing, and my friends from Middlefield, who were fortunate enough to get a ban against the pipeline. That’s me. So the only good thing about this dreadful natural gas thing is that we’ve gotten to know some really wonderful people who have been speaking out. And tonight the OCCA, Otsego County Conservation Association, is having a dinner and they’re going to recognize two people who have been working hard educating people around the state. And we’re still on the precipice here waiting to see if we’ll be knocked over the environmental cliff, because if the governor doesn’t go ahead with it quickly they’re going to have to start all over from scratch. He has said we’re going to wait and see what the medical effects are; they’re going to do a health study. And they can’t do that instantly enough, so they may have to start over. And if they do it with any integrity, they’re going to have to say it’s going to be bad environmentally. And that’s aside from the fact that they shouldn’t be spending money on a fossil fuel.

BS:
Sure.

DH:
Yeah. It’s just so clear. Fortunately, New York State has held it off long enough to get a lot of people’s attention and knowledge. A lot of good people have put a lot of work into it.

BS:
Can you speak a little bit about your own work, or some of your involvement with this group?

DH:
Let’s see. We had a group here before the gas drilling, before we were even aware that it was coming, on localized community sustainable development. Then all of a sudden it morphed into this problem of having to deal with too much fossil fuel. Originally we were concerned we were running out of fossil fuel, and we were going to have to live more in our own local communities and do less importing food and do more local sustainability. Son of gun, it just turned around, and now we’ve got too much fossil fuel coming. But it is at a great expense. The expense of ruining the water and tearing up the environment. So it all fits together. We really have to make important decisions quickly because there’s so many of us. It’s such a big population dependent on something. Two hundred years ago we didn’t have fossil fuels to use. We used wood, or wind power for sailing. And now we’ve gotten so used to using the fossil fuels. I don’t remember not having them. And my mother, well, my mother would have remembered not having them, because they didn’t have a car when she was little. We need to go back to that non-fossil fuel way of living. And the trains, as I said, I think about these things. The train that connected New York to Washington, because they were all using better, shared transportation.

BS:
Sure.

DH:
We have to move these things slowly and carefully. [Pang from heater] And my fossil fuel just made a bang.

BS:
I know. I wanted to ask you a little bit about this [house].

DH:
We bought this house in seventy-five. It had a furnace that looked like it came off the Queen Elizabeth. It was this gigantic, huge boiler. Now we’ve got a small, more efficient one, but it’s still fossil fuel. So, we bought a car two weeks ago, which is a hybrid, working on battery and fossil fuels, but at least it’s an improvement. A lot to think about in this world, having gone through the last election, everybody’s head is spinning from all the choices to make.

BS:
Sure. I know you mentioned that you do have a garden. Do you want to talk a little bit about your garden?

DH:
In the backyard there’s an arm of the lake, a dry lake back there, or a gully. And it’s about twenty or thirty feet down. In the middle it is a nice flat area and that’s where the garden is. And it’s a source of great joy to me. Maybe not great supporting, I can’t live off the land. It’s lovely. I think I might have some kale there still. I might have some beets. It keeps me in touch with the environment. It could be a lot better if it wasn’t dark in the morning and dark in the afternoon, because it’s shaded down there. [You] do what you can. Well, my son decided to plant a garden this year. I never knew he had any interest in gardening at all, but somehow or another he picked it up. My two daughters don’t have property that would lend itself to gardening. But I think it’s important. If you’re growing something you realize how nature affects things, and even if it’s not cows and milk, even it’s just plants you realize when the seasons come; when the frosts come; when they’re supposed to come; and when they don’t come. This year was so disruptive for the apple orchards because spring started soon, the flowers started coming, and then they had a frost, and a snow, and it killed half the apples in Middlefield Orchard. And that’s not right. I’m going to show you. These are my two oldest granddaughters. This granddaughter, Anna, is in Kenya, Africa. She’s with the Peace Corps. She said she started a garden in her backyard there, in Orinie. It’s south of the capital. I’m blanking on it. She’s out in the bush. She wants to become a nurse, which she’s been doing, giving measles shots. Nairobi, that’s it. And she can see Mount Kilimanjaro because they’re up in this high plain. She sent a picture of it. So she started a garden there. She said they only grow beans and corn. I think she’s going to be in for an education as to what wonderful varieties of vegetables she can grow. And this is her older sister. This is Nellie. Nellie is in Pittsburgh; she graduated in library sciences. She wants to do archival work, which is something related to your work.

BS:
Sure.

DH:
And that’s Beth, their mother, who’s a social worker. And their father’s an environmental consultant with a group over in Connecticut. I feel very lucky to have three healthy, well-suited children. Things have worked out well for them, and for us. I’m terribly lucky. Through no effort of my own things have worked out well. Life has been more complicated for our siblings, Chuck’s and mine, but not for us.

BS:
And do you think, I mean obviously your granddaughter started a garden and you said your son did as well, do you think, I mean, that you’ve passed along a lot of the values?

DH:
Yeah. I think they’re aware of the importance of the environment. Now, these grandchildren, those are my little twins. They’re eleven. They live in a world of imagination. These two. They live for fairy stories and all those wonderful series for young, pre-teen children. They’re variations on mythology and Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and all those. So they live in a world of magic. I don’t know if they’ll turn around and get their feet on the real ground or not. [Laughs] They’re very into the literary side of the family.

BS:
When your children were growing up, did you incorporate a lot of these, you know, having a garden, and I know Will [Walker] said that you cut your grass with an old-fashioned….

DH:
Oh, mower! Everybody should do that! No, we’ve got a power mower down in the lower part of the lawn. But I use the push mower up here. And I have a sign out there that says the lawn doesn’t have any herbicides and pesticides on it. Yeah, that was another thing the League of Women Voters was concerned about, not putting herbicides into our drinking water. I think they’re well aware that we have to stop and think about what we’re doing. There’s a town in Hudson, Quebec, which is a suburb of Montreal. And they decided to stop using herbicides on their lawns, and to make it a law. We had a film about that recently, and it’s so un-American, this is Canadian. No, we don’t need to put that weed killer on our lawn and drink it. We’re so used to being inundated with commercial improvements, better living through chemistry, and we get brainwashed. So friends of mine on the next street over managed to get this film shown, and they also have a sign that says no herbicides and pesticides. It goes along with my thinking that there should be a better way for everything. Things should be done right.

BS:
And along with your environmental activism, I know you went to a few anti-war protests?

DH:
Yeah, we’re still doing that anti-war [protesting]. Eleven years. We were trying to stop the government from going into war with Iraq, which I think most people would agree was a bad idea. And now we’ve got so many soldiers coming back with PTSD. They’ve only stirred things up; they haven’t improved them. We haven’t been able to stop protesting, because they’ve gotten out of Iraq, but they’re still making things worse in Afghanistan. So I have a small group of friends who are Quaker, Presbyterian, and Unitarian. We’re still anti-war. It just happens the Post Office is opposite the Hall of Fame. And we’re on the federal property. We’re not protesting the Post Office. And we’re not protesting the Hall of Fame. But we get all the people who come by. And I wish I could have a documentary video to run through all the people that we’ve talked to over the years. An hour a week. Wednesdays. We’ve never missed a week despite three feet of snow. One of our members has died, and a couple of them have gotten old and infirm. We’ve all gotten older. But it’s very uplifting to be with each other, because we all agree with each other. [Laughs] And my sign is against drones, because I think it’s self-defeating for us to be killing one person along with the other ten family members. I think it’s all wrong. And in a democracy we have a right and a responsibility to say what we think. Unfortunately, I think ten years from now people will say we shouldn’t have been doing that. Drone surveillance is fine. But when they do this targeted killing of people that nobody legally says, okay, this person is responsible for this and that, it’s just the CIA who decides it on they’re own they’re going to do it. And if it worked, you might be able to ignore the illegality. But it doesn’t work. More killing. Yemen is where they’re busy trying to get rid of people, but they’re doing it in such a clumsy way. It may be clever to target one person, but if they go and kill their family members and innocent children, it’s very self-defeating. And nobody’s paying attention to that except a group of annoyed people. Right now I’m thinking that climate change is more of a problem, because those people over [there], right now, the ones in Jordan that are next to Syria, that are next to Gaza, they’re going to be losing their normal economy because of the weather too. And we’re responsible for that. They’re fighting right now, and I don’t know who started it, but I know that they’re not doing the right thing fighting in Israel today. Again. As they have been for a long time. When you think they’re going to be able to talk to each other, they don’t. It just seems like they waited until the election was over so they could start stirring things up again against each other. But anybody who thought we were going to be able to come in with our opinions, and our guns, and our soldiers, and straighten things out, they were sadly mistaken. And everybody knows that now. I can see why they wanted to do things in Afghanistan, but it hasn’t been the right way. And it’s not possible to go in and improve things in Afghanistan by fighting. Since the time of Alexander the Great they haven’t been able to. These people are up in their mountaintop villages and their tribes, and you just can’t expect them to react the way the Indians did in North America. Take it over. I don’t know why we’re doing it, but we started and we can’t stop. And I’m so thrilled to have my computer. I get letters from environmental groups and people who want to save the environment. And they’ll say sign on this, and sign the petition, and I can print it out and mail it to the governor, or mail it to [Joseph] Martens, the head of the DEC [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation], or I can send it to my congressperson, or I can send it to [President Barack] Obama. They keep saying they want to hear from me. Well, they do. Actually I don’t think the environmentalists they have at the DEC want to hear from me. They had an open hearing, they asked for my opinion, and they got it. The pipeline people had a hearing down in Oneonta. They didn’t want to have a hearing here, but the people who were affected insisted that they not overlook us, so we got to tell them our opinion. It was very touching. It’s really so inspiring when you’re working with a group of people. I should say, full disclosure, I have no interest in sports, [laughs] in spectator sports.

[START OF TRACK 4, 0:00]

Baseball. Football. But I can see why people get wrapped up into enthusiasm the way you would in a football game for your team. So that’s the kind of team attitude we had down at the pipeline hearing, or at Albany when we had a march through town from the Hudson River to the Capitol. And we had our signs and our friends, and we were saying we didn’t want to have gas drilling. We were all so right. [Laughs] We were all convinced. We were totally invincible. On the subject of sports, this is my husband. He’s been into sports all his life. He was a runner and a high school athlete, and a college scholarship runner. Then he got into snowshoeing in Alaska. And we got to go all sorts of places to snow shoe races. Up to Lake Placid, and Paul Smith College. And we even went up to one in Maine with people from Quebec.

BS:
And when was this?

DH:
Oh, he’s been doing this ever since we moved to Cooperstown. Every year. He used to run his own snowshoe races here up at Glimmerglass Park. The snow has been so pitiful in the last two years we haven’t done it. I myself don’t snowshoe, because I love skiing, cross country skiing. Now he’s into competitive swimming for seniors. Masters’ swimming. And we swim in the lake everyday in the summer, regardless of how miserably cold it is. The water is usually about the same, so when it’s above sixty-five in the water we go swimming. And it’s just wonderful. And we used to swim at Fairy Springs with the village. Then they made us stay inside the lifeguard area. So we swim across the lake now, at the Sailing Club, where we can swim as far as we want. Which isn’t very far. It’s one of the many things [that goes along with] being married to a person with a great deal of imagination. I’m the one who got him addicted to going to the [Glimmerglass] Opera though. The Opera was at the high school. I used to go with one of my children. And then he started. And now we’re both addicted. We love the opera. I used to be on the concert series committee. One of my other pastimes is making posters. That’s the love of my life, on my computer. I used to do it by hand for Friends of the Library programs, or League of Women Voters. But now I can get my computer program and print them out. It’s a lot of fun. I like to print out pictures like this. My son-in-law, my youngest daughter’s husband, likes to take pictures. So I can print out his pictures. I get in the mail every couple of days, some good group will send me, cards from Audubon, or National Wildlife. I don’t use cards anymore, because I like to make my own cards on the computer and use the program where I can write the words in. That’s a great joy in life to have that. And I like to make signs when I’m standing against the war, and something else will come up and I’ll print a new sign out. I have a picture of in there of me, when we thought the war would be all over when Obama got elected. And I have all of my signs spread out on the front lawn and I retired those. Sent them off to be recycled. Unfortunately, the war didn’t end. I’m still making new signs. For a person who doesn’t like to speak quickly in public, I get to think about what I want to say and make a sign, which satisfies me.

BS:
I mean you seem to have this creative side, you said you like to take photos and make signs….

DH:
I like to make tape recordings too, because I like to record things on the radio, environmental programs or something like that. And books on tape, I’m always listening to books on tape. I have more time to listen than I do to read.

BS:
Sure.

DH:
So the library gives me a good supply. I just finished a wonderful book about a young man from Burundi. Remember Rwanda, all the terrible genocides? [It’s] a wonderful book about this African man who came over speaking only French. He had been in medical school in Burundi. Then they started killing the Tutsi, and he was a Tutsi, although he couldn’t tell it. He couldn’t really tell one difference from the other. So he escaped from the luck of a friend of his who had enough money to get him out of the country. And it’s a wonderful story, making me think of my granddaughter in Kenya. Our church also supports a group in Mali, Africa, a school where this wonderful person started education for the children, an African person. His name is Yoachou. And our church raises money to pay for the schooling, like what would be the tuition for children there. There are fifty children that we pay for. In the northern part of Mali, not where he is, but up by the desert area, the Al Qaeda people have come in. It’s kind of an isolated desert area that wasn’t very populated. Now the federal government is going to have to figure out what we’re going to do about that. We’re having another meeting Sunday at church. Chuck and my oldest granddaughter went to Mali to look at the school two years ago. I did not go. That was one of his daring things to do in life, which I bowed out of. And my granddaughter, Nellie, had studied some African history, and she was delighted to go. And now her sister is in Africa. It makes you so much more concerned about another part of the world when you have a family member [there], a wonderful family member. She’s a wonderful girl, very idealistic, Peace Corps type. Athletic. Another distance runner. My oldest daughter is married to another do-it-yourself athlete. He’s a marathoner, biker, runner. Thanksgiving we’ll all be together. There’s a big race where ten thousand people run in Manchester, Connecticut. He’ll be one of them. And my other granddaughter who’s here, not the one who’s in Africa, but she would run if she were here. I don’t know about the twins, they’re not athletic. They’re into fairy worlds. [Laughs] They have never been strong enough, except mentally. So that’s the sports thing. Now that I don’t have to rake so many leaves I need to get back into the gym. Which is another wonderful thing that we have in Cooperstown, a lovely gym. I used to do yoga there. I get a little dizzy when I do it. I haven’t figured that out. I should go back and use the equipment now that I’m not swimming in the lake and haven’t been for a month.

BS:
Have you been members since it opened?

DH:
Well, this gym, yeah, we were members of the old gym, which is now part of the Hall of Fame. Chuck didn’t do much in the gym, until he started swimming. He would skip lunch and go run outdoors, so that he could compete, which is wonderful. It’s kept him in very good shape. I’m very grateful. I’m very lucky. Even though he had that broken back, and then he had been running too much. And in the hospital he had surgery again, and now he doesn’t dare do it.

BS:
Yeah.

DH:
Yeah. We’re grateful they patched him up. We’re very lucky at our age. There’s a lot of patching up that goes on.

BS:
Well, we’ve gone a little over an hour and a half, so….

DH:
Oh, good!

BS:
Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about that you’d like to talk about?

DH:
Probably, but I can’t remember it. As I said I have such an empty mind. I live by notes now, lists of things to do. It’s such a great thrill to go over and cross them off. So I’ll have to show you Lady Ostapeck’s pictures out in the hall.

BS:
Yes, I would love that on our way out. Well thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me.

DH:
It’s very strange to have this one sided conversation. I’m used to asking people questions.

BS:
Well, we’ll get together again and you can ask me the questions next time.

DH:
Yeah, that’s terrible. [Laughs]

BS:
Well, thank you so much.

30:00 - Part 1

30:00 - Part 2

30:30 - Part 3

12:05 - Part 4

128 kbps

No

Emily Hopkins

Dorothy Bolton

1909 County Highway 16

Burlington Flats, NY 13315

DB: Dorothy Bolton
EH: Emily J. Hopkins

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

EH:
This is November 14th, 2012 interview of Mrs. Dorothy Bolton by Emily Hopkins for the Cooperstown Graduate Program Community Stories Project, recorded at 1909 County Highway 16 in Burlington Flats, New York. So Mrs. Bolton, can you please tell me where you grew up or about the area?

DB:
Yeah, I grew up just two miles up the road in the village of Burlington. I lived next to the store and there was a cemetery and an old church across the way and another church just on the corner. When I got married moved down the road about two miles.

EH:
Great. So did you grow up on a farm in Burlington?

DB:
Yes, the house was right in the middle of the village, the barn was up the road a little bit and Dad had a lot of property way up the road too, because he not only had cattle he had a big maple syrup business.

EH:
And so the cattle was raised for beef?

DB:
What did you say?

EH:
The cattle was raised for beef?

DB:
No milk cows.

EH:
Milk cows?

DB:
They shipped milk. So they were pretty busy.

EH:
Could you tell me a little bit about your dad's sugaring business or syrup business?

DB:
Oh my goodness. Yes, he was one of the largest maple syrup producers in the eastern United States and he started out with horses drawing the sap up to the sugar house and ended using trucks and getting sap tapping trees along the road as far up as West Winfield. Plus, he had big maple sugar bushes, lots of trees right on his own property. The most he ever made was 5,000 gallons one year. But that doesn't all go into cans. It was also shipped in drums up to Vermont. Dad always used to say they used it just for syrup. They didn't put it in tobacco like they say they buy it for. But he was very proud of his maple syrup business and my mom worked just as hard as my dad because she made maple sugar cakes and maple cream. They were very, very hard workers. They even took their products to state fair along with the booth, they had a big booth from maple syrup producers, selling products at the fair. And so they would go up and stay in it. They weren't very young [in their 60's and 70's] when they did this. They were workers.

EH:
Could you tell me a little bit more about the syrup in the tobacco?

DB:
Well they use a lot of syrup to sweeten tobacco. So even though they said they bought it for tobacco products, Dad would say it's such good syrup they probably re-canned it and sold it but I don't know.

EH:
What do you mean by [being proud of his maple syrup?]

DB:
Well he was very careful in how he always was sure the syrup was to the right degree for canning. He just was so proud; he wanted everything perfect. He was really proud of his syrup business. Anybody that came, he would stop whatever he was doing and explain everything and different of classes of school went up there on a school visit. They always gave everybody free maple candy. The candies were in shapes of maple leaves. They made them in molds. Mom made all of the sugar, she made all the sugar and all the cream. Dad did [it] all down at the sugar house. He didn't do it all himself. He had lots of help. All of my family, my husband used to go and boil nights for them when they had so much syrup. My kids worked up there. I canned syrup up there. So it was truly a family affair because there's lots of us in the family. Everybody that lived nearby always helped out.

EH:
Could you tell me more some of the specific tasks that you had with the syrup business?

DB:
When I was little?

EH:
Yeah.

DB:
Yeah, when I was little we had to go to school, of course, and sometimes we stayed with my, we called her Auntie, that lived across the road from where our big house was. We stayed there and went to school but after school we'd usually walk up to the sugar bush which was probably a mile or two up in the woods. They had a camp up there that they moved to. When I was real little I'm sure I was just a pain in the neck. Didn't want to be there, wanted to be doing something else. As I got older I canned an awful lot of syrup. They would bring it up to the house and I would sit on a block of wood that fit just right. I would can syrup and the kids would help carry it to where they had to store it. I would help Mom on the weekends. I went up even though I worked at Edmeston School. In the afternoons, when I got out of work, I would go up and help and then on weekends I'd go up because they fed everybody that worked up there. They made a big dinner. They would have pies, roast beef, spaghetti, and lots of times there were 20 or 22 people at that table. Taking turns, of course. During that season they worked really hard and when they weren't doing sugaring, Dad, because he was so proud of his maple syrup business, would go up and trim the brush out of his sugar bush. Trim the trees, the brush out so it all looked so nice. Dad had a big garden. We raised all of our own vegetables and Mom canned all the vegetables. I can remember even going and picking wild strawberries. And if you were tired of picking wild strawberries you sat down and you hulled them until we were ready to go from the field. I don't think Mom ever had any spare time. They didn't know any different, they just loved the work. There was no TV back then, they had radios, but no TV, no electricity way back. I don't think they got electricity until the early 1940s. I don't know, it was a hard life but one they were very, very proud of.

EH:
What do you mean by it's a hard life?

DB:
Working. It took a lot of work. And during the winter, before the season started, Dad would be soddering the buckets because at that time you had buckets that hung on all the trees. You didn't have pipeline, you had buckets, and naturally some of them would get leaks. So he would go up to the sugar bush and [go through] all the buckets, test them, sodder the buckets so they wouldn't lose any sap when he started sugaring. We used horses to begin with and then tractors, which made it much easier.

EH:
You talked about how he would cut the brush and things to make the property look nice. Was there any practical function to that?

DB:
No, it's just you could get through the woods easier to gather sap without brush on the ground. Anytime you have a woods, if there's winds or anything, the dead branches fall down. He would go up and cut them up and clean it up so that when you looked up you just saw trees. You didn't see any garbage. There was no function to it except to make it look better and easier to get through to gather sap.

EH:
In what ways was [your dad fair]?

DB:
In paying people to work. They fed them all and he would make jack wax. Usually once during the season, everybody would come in and have jack wax. I don't know if you know what jack wax is?

EH:
No ma'am.

DB:
It would be you would boil syrup down a lot farther and you'd have buckets of clean snow and you'd drop the syrup on snow and it would sort of like gum up and you could pick it up with a fork and put it in your mouth, resembled a caramel, but just a piece of syrup. And then anybody that wanted to could have stir syrup and make it into sugar. They would pour it on wax paper and then take it with them. He did that at least once a year for all the employees.

EH:
So that would be in the winter then?

DB:
No, during the season. Right? With the fresh new syrup. There would still be snow, a lot of times during the whole sugar season. They'd be stomping through snow to gather the sap.

EH:
And can you clarify when the sugaring season is?

DB:
It could start as early as the end of January but usually we figured we'd be up to the sugar house to stay by the middle of March. It would go March through April. But the seasons have changed so now, mercy me, you couldn't depend on them at all now. The weather has just changed so much, you used to be able to pretty much depend on it. If you tapped trees in January then they would be more snow and cold so they wouldn't do anything for a while usually. They would always move, because they moved right up to the sugar camp during the season, sugar season. And that would probably be the middle of March on average.

EH:
And the sugar camp was actually a separate property with a house?

DB:
Yeah, there was a house. On the first floor, just all sort of open except one little closed in area where Mom and Dad slept but otherwise it was eating, making syrup and sugar, and working.

EH:
Do you remember going up there and staying with them?

DB:
[After I married] I never stayed nights because I had a family and I also worked at school so I'd go up usually when I got out of work in the afternoon. At that time I worked in the cafeteria but then I moved on to other positions. But I would go up. The kids when they got out would have to go up with me. And they would play or be down at the sugar bush. That was a big part of our life that. But it didn't last long. The rest of the time we lived back in our big house.

EH:
What do you mean it didn't last long?

DB:
The season. You weren't up there, not usually over six weeks. If you went up the middle of March you'd be back by the end of April. It's all dependent on the weather. When you moved and when you came back. I know that everybody was awfully glad when the end of the season came and we could come back home even though we didn't have electricity back home either. It was a good life.

EH:
As far as your parents selling the syrup and things like that, was there a store at their sugar camp or did they just come?

DB:
[They came up to the sugar camp mostly] on Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes we would be so busy that there would be people waiting to come in the house to buy the sugar cakes and syrup. But we also sold it in a store up in Ilion, I believe, sold a lot of the syrup. They came to the house and they came to the house all during the year [even] when they moved back to the house people would come there. Mom tried to have sugar and cream most of the year.

EH:
Do you remember selling it yourself? Was that one of your tasks?

DB:
No, well yeah. Yes, we'd help because there'd be a lot of people at the same time. If they came in for a bag of sugar, which was a pound, and twenty pieces of maple leaves and dad always put it in at least two extra, he never weighed them. He said 20 makes a pound usually. But always he threw in a couple extra. It was a dollar a bag at that time. And syrup at that time, way, way back, when I was in high school, was 5 dollars a gallon. And now I think it runs 40, 50 dollars a gallon.

EH:
That's a big difference.

DB:
Yes. I had brothers that did syruping and now my brothers are gone. Their sons still do some sugaring. Make syrup. They don't make much sugar anymore but they do make the syrup and sell that.

EH:
Do they have your dad's property where they still do syrup?

DB:
Yes, Dad divided up his property and tried to do it evenly. So they were able to continue.

EH:
Could you tell me about the differences between the chores that you did and your sisters did versus your siblings?

DB:
No, I was the youngest girl. I had five brothers younger than I and they didn't ever work in the house and do anything, make pies or make spaghetti or like that. Whereas I'd do whatever Mom wanted me to, usually helped cook the meals and help serve the guys when they came in, do dishes and dishes and dishes, and make cookies and all of that regular work, plus canning syrup. I never used the machines. They had two different machines that they used to make the maple sugar leaves and the maple cream. I never tried to do that, I probably figured I wouldn't do it as good as Mom so she always made the sugar we used and the cream. No, I just did whatever they wanted me to do.

EH:
So your brothers, they were mostly working outside...

DB:
Yeah, they gathered sap. The older ones, my older brothers, would boil down in the sugar house. The younger ones couldn't, they didn't know a lot [about] boiling the sap. The older boys [helped] boil sap. My husband would go back and boil quite often at night. He was farming so he couldn't get away in the day much. They had a lot of help. That was their life. And they shipped milk also. They had a big garden. They raised most of their own vegetables and their meat. We had our own beef, we always raised pigs, we always had chickens. So we had our own eggs and they killed the animals and processed the meat themselves. Now if you process the meat the way they used to it'd be spoiled completely. It always kept then.

EH:
Why is that?

DB:
I have no idea, but I remember we would make sausage and put the sausage in containers, and then you'd heat the lard, cover it with lard and it would keep. You might put it down in the cellar where it was cold. You didn't worry about dying the next day from food poisoning from the meat. They put meat down in brine, the hams and the bacon. Brine, I don't know if it was vinegar, I don't know what the brine was. And then hang it up to dry and then just cut it off, get it out of the cellar and cut off the hams when you wanted it. And now they'd come in and tell you couldn't do that, I'm sure.

EH:
Can you tell me more about your siblings and how many you had?

DB:
I had five brothers younger than I. Well I'll tell you there were 13 of us all together. Eight boys and five girls. There's only four of us left. I have one sister and two brothers left out of thirteen.

EH:
Do y'all still get together?

DB:
We have a reunion; we have it here. We've had it now for, I don't know how many years, four or five years. And quite a lot come. Doesn't matter what date you pick, it's people that have all their own [things]. And we'll continue to have it. We're going to have it again this year. And everybody enjoys coming. They bring a dish to pass and go down across the road to Tom's swimming pool, the kids and everyone. It's a good time.

EH:
And who's Tom?

DB:
My son. He lives right across the road. We gave them all property to build on. And I have two other sons, Jack and Jim, and they have property right next door more or less. We gave them the land to build on. My daughter worked around here for awhile and then she went to Massachusetts and worked. She was going to transfer to either California or Texas, she decided to come back home. She bought a house and I moved in with her. It's nice that family is still all here.

EH:
It sounds like most of your family did stay in Burlington.

DB:
Yes, yes they did. But right now, of my family, the farthest one away is my granddaughter who lives down in Annandale, Virginia and works at the Education Department in D.C. Otherwise, my grandchildren all live close by.

EH:
As far as like your siblings, did they feel the need to stay in Burlington or did they move away?

DB:
No, I think their jobs are here and they got married.

EH:
You mentioned about how you had to come when you were working your other job, to help with sugaring and things like that because your sisters weren't around...

DB:
Nope. Neither sister was. Carrie was the oldest one in the family and she lived in Oneonta and Mildred lived in Gilbertsville. So I was the only girl. Actually I just felt I needed to help Mom. But Mom and Dad were very fair, they insisted on paying the boys to help. But he depended on them a little and expected them to come when they needed them. Whereas the other people and the help they came just when they could.

EH:
And what kind of jobs did your sisters have?

DB:
I don't think my sister in Oneonta ever had a job. She worked up in the extension service for awhile but I think most of the things she did were volunteer. Her husband was a farmer; they had a big farm. Then she had three children, two boys and a girl. Mildred worked out, she worked at [Norwich] Furniture Factory, I believe. But she had six children.

EH:
Could you tell me a little bit about the jobs you had once you got married?

DB:
Yes, I worked at Bassett Hospital for almost a year. But because I really needed to be home during the summertime because I had four children and to take care, and with my husband trying to do farming and everything, sort of hard to watch four kids. I got a job at school where I got a job, in the cafeteria. I worked there a good many years. Then I moved up to an aid and then moved up to the library. Then I moved up to guidance office secretary. And then I ended up being secretary to the guidance director and special-ed person. At that time I had to work summers too, but the kids were way up out of school out by then. I worked at the school for 32 years.

EH:
And who took care of your kids when you were working at Bassett?

DB:
They were in school all but one. So either my husband if he could or my mother who lived right up town, watched them.

EH:
You mentioned that you moved up in the school system. What kind of education did you have?

DB:
We went to a little one-room school house down here. We'd walk, or once in a great while, Mr. Bull who had this store on the corner would take his kids and take us down to school. But otherwise, we walked to school. They had grades one through eight and there was one teacher. Then when I was in fifth grade they centralized over at the Edmeston School and they had a bus and went to Edmeston. I graduated from Edmeston and got married shortly after and I did not go on to college or anything. I just helped on the farm. And then it seemed like the farm couldn't meet the expenses so I decided I guess I'd better go to work. I started in 1958 working at Edmeston School. I worked there until 1990, I retired in 1990. So I worked 32 years.

EH:
Wow.

DB:
I had my summers off until I got to be secretary over there and then I had to work in the summer. By that time the kids were old enough to not have to worry about.

EH:
So it was kind of difficult to make ends meet on the farm?

DB:
Yes, and it's still difficult to make ends meet on the farm. Things aren't good for farmers. It's an awful lot of hard work. Can't go to your kids' games after school because you have to be there to milk the cows. It's a hard life, farming, an awful hard life. You work mighty hard and you miss an awful lot that you can't go to, the kids' things in school, sports and they were all involved in sports. But you make it.

EH:
So, did you ever feel like your kids felt disappointed that maybe your husband couldn't make it to...?

DB:
Oh, I think definitely. Sometimes he'd go to the baseball games and get home at 7 o'clock and call the cows in and do his chores then. And basketball, he did not care about. They were too darn noisy, he said. Not the players, the spectators. He didn't care for that. But he did enjoy when he could go to baseball games.

EH:
You mentioned that they centralized the schools in this area when you were in school. Can you talk a little bit about that?

DB:
I really don't know much. We went there in the one-room school house and then all of a sudden they said they were centralized and the bus would pick us up and take us over to Edmeston to school. So away we went over there in fifth grade. Of course it was considerably different than this one-room school house where we played tricks on the teacher and different things...

EH:
Like what?

DB:
Like what? Well she always, in the wintertime, she said we could go out to play. She'd ring the bell when we should come. So when you heard the bell come. So one day the bigger boys, in the seventh or eighth grade, said let's go up town, up where we lived, ride down Route 80 because then it was all dirt road. So we went up and rode downhill, so naturally we didn't hear the bell. When we got back, we couldn't go out for recess for several days.

EH:
Oh no.

DB:
But it was fun. There was an outhouse, no bathroom, of course, because no electricity. We had a wood shed for wood because it was a wood stove in the school. We learned a lot. We did just as well as anybody else who was over there, when we centralized. It was a good education for little grades. And then we joined whatever we wanted to once we got over there. I graduated in 1945, a long time ago.

EH:
Was the transition hard from the one school?

DB:
No. I mean a lot of kids in the class. More kids in your class when you moved over there than there was in the whole little school. There might have been, I don't know, maybe 15, 18 kids, because there were only a couple, three kids in each grade [in the one-room school house.]

EH:
What were some of the classes that were different than what you would have had in the one room school house?

DB:
You had gym, P.E., and you had music class, which you didn't have any of those. I imagine we had art class once we moved over there. All those extra special things that down here you got what they used to say the three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic.

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:03]

EH:
And were you active in extra-curriculars?

DB:
Yeah, I played basketball. But I was in high school in '41 through '45. There was gas rationing, so we had intramurals but we very seldom traveled a lot for sports. My kids had football and all of that, but myself, I only remember playing basketball and [the] rules were completely different then than they are now. But I was a cheerleader. That's about it I guess.

EH:
How did World War II affect your high school experience? Or your experience in general?

DB:
Nothing, except you just didn't go on class trips and it's completely different nowadays than it was then. They do so many extra things, go to the zoo and so many things. You couldn't go to things because of gas rationing. Times were I guess a little tough. They were always the same for us on the farm. The war years didn't bother us as far as what we did. We were in a little town and we kept on milking cows and doing the syrup and raising the garden and same old things.

EH:
The war, you didn't really feel like it affected your farm life?

DB:
No, you knew and you were aware of all the people who were being killed in service and you know, people who had to go and like that. It definitely was not a good thing. But, as far as doing anything to our lives it didn't, except like in school you weren't able to travel as much with gas rationing and like that.

EH:
Did you know many people who had to serve in the War?

DB:
[Some.] There was a cousin that was killed. Sherril Hall. But no, there were a few local people killed in the war. So many people being killed nowadays, it's a disgrace, it's horrid. Afghanistan, we have a couple of people the church is sponsoring, one is in the helicopter unit. He's not in a very safe place, two helicopters have been shot down right where he is. I hate the war. My son served in Vietnam and he was there a whole year. I did not like that either. That was a very dangerous place where he was for a year and a half. A year, he was there a year, he was in Germany a year and a half. Thank God he came home safe.

EH:
What do you feel like's the big difference between World War II and some of these more modern wars?

DB:
I really don't know. I just know too many people are being killed. They should bring them all home. I might get in trouble for saying that. It's true, it's horrid.

EH:
Well, we'll switch gears a little bit. If you could tell me a little bit about when you got married.

DB:
I graduated [in June 1945] then three or four more days later I got married.

EH:
Oh wow.

DB:
And I moved from uptown down to a farm, mile and a half, two miles at the most, right down the road. I was very happy. I had a fantastic husband. We had four children, a daughter and three boys.

EH:
Can you tell me a little bit more about your husband and how y'all met?

DB:
He lived up the road, maybe a couple of miles farther up. I think I was a junior in high school when we first started dating. We just dated and dated and dated and got married.

EH:
Did he help with your dad with sugaring or anything like that?

DB:
Oh yes, he helped. I don't know if he ever helped before we got married or not. After we got married he helped what he could. We had the farm. Farming in a way was not as easy because you didn't have balers, you had to put the hay through a hay roller up on a wagon and then it was completely different. Much harder but then you didn't do as much. Nowadays people do their property and do other people's that aren't using their land there, haying too. And, of course, machinery is very expensive. It's just completely different from the way farming was when we first started out and the way farming is now. You know, a piece of machinery's 30, 40 thousand dollars. Back then you used your horses and you had milk in milk cans not in bulk tanks. It was a different life then. Of course electricity, that was the biggest help of all.

EH:
How did electricity impact your farming practices and techniques?

DB:
They had surge milkers and you didn't have to ever milk cows by hand. You milked them with a milking machine. Then they went in to what they call station cans and put it in a cooler and in water to keep it cool until the truck came around. They'd pick up your cans and take them to, I believe there was a creamery right in Edmeston at the time. And then it went after awhile you had a bulk tank. The milk went from the cows right in the bulk tank. You didn't have to carry the milk and dump it. It got much easier but of course it cost a small fortune to do all of that. The bulk tank, I believe we paid in the vicinity of 20 thousand dollars for the bulk tank and pipeline and all of that when we installed it, good many years ago. Now that's I'm sure, a much easier way yet still. Everything gets improved all the time. Farming is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Because you have to always be there, holidays or what. Those cows have to be milked night and morning. And so it's a very, very hard job. A hard position, vocation, or whatever you want to call it.

EH:
And then, the system that you're talking about with the bulk tank, did y'all have to go into debt to buy that?

DB:
Oh yes. Oh yeah, you had always had to borrow money and pay so much a month to the bank. But that's one thing we always did, paid our bills on time. Probably if we had borrowed more money and went bigger, we would have had more money, you would have made more money. We just did not dare borrow more money for fear we would not be able to pay it back. So we were always a little farmer. There were a lot of big farmers around here that did a lot better than we did. We were a little farmer; we made it. Raised our kids and Pat went to college and business school, I should say. The other boys didn't, [Jim] went into the service and Jack went right to work for the county. Tom stayed on the farm, Bruce [ her husband] had to have help on the farm so Tom stayed on the farm. Tom and the grandsons still have the farm.

EH:
Are they still using the equipment that y'all bought back then?

DB:
Well, of course, you have to get something new if something breaks, you have to get it. After awhile that wears out. But no, the machinery's here. They still use the balers and the rakes for the haying. Tractors of course, you always have to have tractors for the haying. Plus, get wood out for the furnaces. They still do use the equipment, yes.

EH:
And then, as far as the farm that you and your husband had, how did he fill the void as far as who was working on it once you had to go work outside the home?

DB:
The kids were all little when I started working. I went to work in 1958 and they were all little. They all helped on the farm with the haying in the summer and like that. And then Tom was the last one, the baby, so when he graduated from school, Bruce could not handle the farm by himself and the other boys all had jobs by that time and it was fine with them if Tom stayed and worked on the farm so Tom worked on the farm because he only needed one. So there were no problems there at all because the oldest one, Jim, worked on the state roads, and Jack worked on the county roads and my daughter had a position up in Massachusetts, worked out there for years.

EH:
So did your husband have to hire any workers?

DB:
No, we never hired anybody on the farm. I used to help throw bales on the elevator. And I helped because when the boys were gone it was just Tom and I. I would help with what I could.

EH:
When you came home from work at school or wherever, would you have to then start working on the farm in the afternoon?

DB:
Usually they were pretty well done by the time I got home. In the summertime, I did not work. When I worked in the cafeteria and as an aid, I had the summer off so then I was here when the kids were little. Of course because I worked at school, they came home when I did. I was always home and able to take care of them. That's why I wanted the job at school simply because I would be home to help with haying in the summer what I could [phone rings]. Excuse me.

EH:
We'll stop it for a second.

[TRACK 3 0:00]

EH:
This is Emily Hopkins interviewing Mrs. Dorothy Bolton. This is the second part of our interview on November 14th, 2012 at 1909 County Highway 16 in Burlington Flats, NY. So, Mrs. Bolton, we were talking a little bit about farming and your farm experience. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about the differences between the smaller farms in this area versus the larger farms.

DB:
Yeah, smaller farms were definitely what we were on. We did not have anything to start with. We had to buy the farm and all the machinery that came with it and then buy the machinery. Farming is a very hard life. Even whether you have more or if you have less. It's still the same amount of work to do. It's a hard life but a good life. I don't think very many of the farmers get divorced around here. I think they work together and so they live more happily than these people that have more. I don't know, but anyway, that's about sum of that.

EH:
When you say you think they're happier, how do you mean?

DB:
They get along. They have to work together. Whereas, I think, I really seriously think there are much fewer divorces. I think families get along better because they work together. They have to work together. The wives help on the farm when they can. I know on the bigger farms, I know some of the women that go out and take down statistics about how much milk this cow was giving or not because they keep records. We never kept records of how much milk each cow gave because we didn't have the money to sell one off and get a new one if they did poorly. We kept the same cows until they didn't give milk anymore and then we sent them to sale. No, I think people get along much better on the farm. I really think they're happier in the end. They work together and kids work when they need to. That's a farmer's life I guess.

EH:
Do you feel like there's a sense of partnership between...

DB:
Definitely. The husband couldn't do it without the wife. And Lord knows, the wife couldn't do the farm without the husband. But sometimes if the wife had to work out to make ends meet, you just had to have more money to make ends meet. I know in our case, the feed bill sort of got ahead of us. We said how are we going to get the feed bill paid, because we weren't paying it all each month. So I went to work and that little bit that I got paid that feed bill and so I just kept working. And I'm mighty glad I did now because of the benefits that I get from working.

EH:
If it hadn't been for that feed bill, do you think you would have gone to work?

DB:
I don't know if I ever would have went to work or not. Because I was happy with not working. But I had a good job, I worked for good people. I liked my job, I always liked my job. The kids that I had, outside playground, they'll come up to me, "Mrs. Bolton, how are you? I remember you way back in school." I was just to a restaurant the other night and a gal came up and she said "Mrs. Bolton, do you remember me?" and I said "Yes I do." I said, "You're a, I can't remember which one, there were quite a few of you." I said, "You're a Carney but I can't remember your first name. I don't know if you're Theresa or Pam." And she said, "Mrs. Bolton, you do remember me!" Well I said, "Almost." It is nice that they still remember me and most of them as being ok, not being an old meany on the playground. I still enjoy parts of when I did work at school because the kids will come up, like I hadn't seen her probably since I left school. Lord knows, I retired in 1990, that was a long time ago. It's a good feeling to have a lot people remember you and come up and say, "Oh, how are you? You haven't changed at all." And they lie a lot too. When I went to vote the other day, there was a gal, just as I was going in, and she came up and gave me a hug. And she said, "Do you remember me?". I said, "Yes" and, of course, I said her maiden name. We had a nice conversation. I was so pleased, she said, "I'm going back to college again." And I said, "For what?". She said, "There's so many troubled people in this world, I want to be a mentor, I want to help drug kids and addicted people. I want to work in the addiction program." And I thought great, you know. And she says, "I remember you so well." And I said, "Thank you, I remember you too." I enjoyed my job. It's harder working when you have a family, oh I know. People nowadays, my grandchildren, they both have to work and they have a little child and it's rough, it's hard. Because you can do so much more with your family if you don't work.

EH:
What were some of the major challenges for you?

DB:
What did you say?

EH:
What were some of the major challenges for you?

DB:
Well, for me, I was very lucky because I was in school so I could take the time, if I wasn't in the middle of feeding kids, to go to a program the kids had at school or not. I was very fortunate because I worked where I did and the hours that I worked gave me time to do things. I was very fortunate.

EH:
Were there parts of your job you didn't enjoy when you were working in the schools?

DB:
Oh yes, sometimes you would get a little annoyed with the teacher. Oh yeah, you did get annoyed with the kids now and then. You'd have to holler a couple or three times to make them mind, especially on the playground. They'd get a little bit rough. No, as a general rule, I liked my job. And I worked 32 years; I worked until I was 62.

EH:
How did people view women who had to go and work outside the home or outside the farm?

DB:
I don't think they thought anything about it. I think even the people who didn't work all the time would sometimes have a part-time job for awhile. I am mighty glad I worked now because of the benefits that you receive after 32 years, a monthly check. That comes in mighty handy along with a Social Security check. My daughter and I, now that she's home and she just retired, we can go to visit relatives that live away and do things we want to do. We get along so well; I'm very happy living here with her.

EH:
I wanted to go back to something you talked about earlier when we were talking about your experience living on a farm and everything. How did y'all go about dividing up supplies and making sure everybody had what they needed, even though y'all had a harder time making ends meet at times?

DB:
You just did. You got what they needed. At school time you went and got it. You saved money and you got it. I think the only time we ever had any problem at all was when the feed bill got ahead of us. Once a bill gets ahead of you, it's hard to get caught up and that's why I went to work. Then when I went to work, even though it was not a huge salary, because I only worked ten months until I got to be a secretary, so that amount of money just helped. We were always able to give presents to the kids. We were doing fine. And if you were able to pay your bills and get presents for your kids for Easter and Christmas and have what you wanted to do, go where you wanted to go, I guess, but we never went anywhere. My husband wasn't much of a traveler; he didn't want to go on an airplane. He didn't want to go on a boat. So the only place we went was with the car. We never went very far at that. But he's not one that wanted to travel. So we were homebodies. He played softball. Those boys that played softball and, even when they were young adults, they had softball leagues. We would take our picnic lunch, our sandwiches and like that for lunch, and watch them play ball and the kids could play around there. That was probably one of the main things that we did was went to softball games. But we'd go to Gilbert Lake in the summer, over there and do things like that. We never traveled far. We didn't need to, there was enough things around here to do. I feel that we were well-to-do. Not well-to-do, well-to-do, but we were fine. I wouldn't have traded my life for anything else.

EH:
You mentioned you always had plenty to do that wasn't necessarily farming. So what were some of the other types of things that y'all did for recreation?

DB:
I don't know if we did much else. We went to softball games while he played softball. We'd go to the beach. We always went to the Morris Fair. We always take the kids to the local Morris Fair. That was always a yearly event that everybody local always went [to]. I don't remember where else much we did go when the kids were little except the beaches around here. You know, the beach, the kids would swim and you'd take a picnic lunch and the fair.

EH:
Was the fair like a really big event that everyone in the county went to?

DB:
Yeah, it was a big event for this area, because it was the only one in the county, it was down in Morris. My kids had raised roosters and chickens and they took them to the fair to be judged and they got ribbons, blue ribbons, for it. They did things like that. I don't think they ever took vegetables, but I know they always took chickens. Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rocks, I can't even remember the names of the kinds of chickens. They'd take pride in that, raised those and take them down. That was their excuse to have to go down every day to feed the chickens, so they'd get to go down to the fair. I remember that we went to the fair once when I was a young girl. Dad had gotten a bigger car and it had a little seat that tipped out, it was like a foot stool, I remember. I just barely remember. It tipped out from the back seat because there were quite a few of us. We'd go down for the day, we'd take our own lunch, go back to the car at noon for lunch. We'd get so much money to ride on the merry-go-round or Ferris wheel or like that. And then there was something always going on in front of the grandstand. We'd have one day that our parents took us to the fair and that was fun. I did this as a youngster and my kids always also went to the fair and to the beaches. Roller skating. The kids used to go roller skating right over [in] West Burlington and that's no more. There are no more things around here that there used to be. That is one thing that is for the worst. Most places have a lot of things for people to do but around here, there's nothing for young people to do, like my grandchildren that are coming up. There's no roller skating rink close by, we had one in West Burlington and Canadarago Lake, a big one. At that time, when I was dating my husband and afterwards there were big bands that would come. Vaugh Monroe, Count Basie, I can't remember all of them that would come. That's one thing he and I would do, is go to these dances. And we enjoyed that. But they don't have any of those around here anymore. You have to go way to Utica, Syracuse, I don't know where. Roller skating was a big thing. They had movies at one time at Edmeston. The first movie I ever saw was a Shirley Temple movie when I was in probably late grades, seventh or eighth grade maybe. But there's no theater in Edmeston, there's nothing in Edmeston anymore, there's nothing in West Burlington. There's nothing for young people to do unless they go to Oneonta or Utica. Times have changed considerably and not always for the best.

EH:
Why do you think there has been that major change for those kind of things?

DB:
Probably economy, probably they didn't get enough people to make much money as they wanted to make. I really don't know but I figure it has to be that. Of course, you can roller skate in Oneonta, that's the closet place, but that's 30 miles away. But just thinking of the things we used to do compared to now. The bigger isn't always better. I can remember even when Elaine Bull, who lived on the corner next to me, one night she said, "Let's go to roller skate [in West Burlington]." I said, "Well, how are we going to get there?". She said, "Well we can walk, we'll always get a ride back. Somebody will be coming back through." I said, "Well I hope so!" It's after dark then and I didn't like the dark. I remember we got to West Burlington one night, we rented roller skates, I think it was only a buck to rent roller skates. And we did get a ride home. You know, that would be so nice for the kids nowadays if there were things like that to do and there isn't.

EH:
So y'all could just get a ride home when y'all would go places?

DB:
Well, we always hoped we did. We didn't go many times. But I remember the one night we did go and Elaine said , "Come on." I said, "I don't like the dark." I still don't care for the dark. But we had fun. Even though we didn't do much, we had fun. We used to play on the four corners, the roads were dirt roads, Route 80 was a dirt road, County Route 16 was a dirt road so we would play on the four corners in front of the store. Kick the can or tag or hide and seek. When we were probably freshmen, sophomores, played outside, you don't see kids playing outside anymore. They're afraid of what might happen, somebody might kidnap somebody. It's too dangerous to let your kids loose.

EH:
Well, you mentioned that things have kind of changed for the worse, or in some ways they have, what are some others?

DB:
And they have and some things for the better. But people don't dare let their kids even go in the store. They have to keep their eye on them all the time, the little kids, just in case somebody might try to grab them. Well, that was never heard of back in the days. Nobody would kidnap anybody and now some people are so sick, I guess, is the word. I know I wouldn't, in this day and age, take one of my grandchildren, I'd have my hand on them all the time in the store, in a big store. Even if they went to the beach I'd have to have my eye on them all the time. And you never had to worry about things like that happening way back. So that's not for the good. Too many sick people now. And I think that's due to drugs, drugs mostly.

EH:
I wanted to switch gears a little bit. You were telling me during our break about sledding and things like that that you did. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

DB:
Oh we had great times. Dirt roads, I said Route 80 was a dirt road. We'd all get together. Some of the guys were older, quite a bit older. You had what was known as bobsleds. We'd go up to the top of one hill and then we'd ride right straight down across the four corners down to the hollow as far as we could. Then we'd take the sled bobs up to the top of the other hill and always somebody would stand on the four corners, just in case the car would come from north or south and stop them. There weren't that many cars back then. When we drove down the hill on the top of Briar Hill, that's a few miles away, we walked quite a bit. The teacher would come that taught in the Briar Hill school district and she would have hot chocolate, and if we wanted to play some games before we went back outside some more. We spent a good many nights when the snow was on the road because the snow didn't melt, they didn't sand it. So we were able to ride down the hills because it was just dirt road underneath. And when there was snow, it was good for sliding down the hill. We had a lot of fun doing that. It was free and parents didn't care if you did it as long as somebody watched the four corners to be sure to stop the car, in case a car was coming. We'd go way up to the top ,up to the [rock cut], and we would go right straight down across the four corners, [we'd sled] right down. Then you'd end up over part way up the next hill and then you climb the next hill and go. I just don't know if kids would do that nowadays if they had the chance. They don't know what they're missing but we had so much doing that. Free, cheap, easy. But my brother did get hurt really bad. He fell off the sled, or bobs, when it was going, he hit a stone. And he split the top of his head open and we had to have the doctor come right to the house. And I know he had his head wrapped up in a gauze, he couldn't leave the house, he had to be perfectly still for a long time. I think probably for 2 or 3 months. But he came out of it ok. The oldest person there was probably thirty-some. He was the one that got him to the house safely and called the doctor and got him there. He split his head, he hit a rock and he split his head, now that sounds weird, but he did. They wrapped his head, they had his head completely wrapped for probably 3 months for it to heal. So, you could have accidents. The bobsled hit something and tipped and he went flying, he was hurt. So you could get hurt. But most generally we had great times. But it could be unsafe too. I know we did that and sometimes we would just have parties at the different school houses. The teachers would have games, I can't remember what board games and like that, they were up in the school house up at night. And have a little wood fire and we could go play games, which was nice. Because kids from the other schools would come. There were quite a few little schools around here. There was one at Briar Hill, one right up here where we lived, and there was one, I don't remember the name of it, going out of town north, I can't remember what the name of that school house was. But there was one, two, three school house[s] and one in Garrattsville. There was three or four little local school houses quite close together that we would plan different events together. So that was another thing we did when we were young. I can't remember what else. I know when I was young I would go to the neighbor's, Lila Telfer's, over on the corner opposite the store. They moved down from a farm way up on the hill and she loved to play flinch and like that. Her father, she lived with her father, he was old and he was a little bit on the cranky side. I was sort of afraid sometimes to go over there but Lila says, "Come on, he really doesn't mind. He's just sort of cranky." Well, he was sort of cranky, but I went over there and I learned how to play a lot of card games. When they moved down from up on the hill, it amazed me, they said, "The sheep were coming." And I said, "What sheep?" Well, they owned sheep, way up on the hill, and it was probably two miles. They drove them down the road. It, of course, was a dirt road. Sheep, they were driving down the road, down and put them in a barn behind the house the right there in the village. And you see sheep coming down the road, herding them like cows. It was amazing to me because I was a little girl then. I thought that was the biggest event of the year, having sheep come down the road. But they moved the sheep down that way when they moved down from up on the hill. But as a little girl, there were a couple of places right in the village that I used to go. I'd go play cards with Lila and then I'd go over to Scotts who lived behind the church, they didn't have any children, and she'd usually make cookies or something so I'd stay over there where she made cookies. And I remember the first doll I ever got for Christmas, she gave me a little doll. And then another lady on the other corner, she never married, so she loved to have company. They all had me come for company and always gave me homemade cookies. That was a nice memory of what I did when I was little.

EH:
You mentioned your brother split his head when he was sledding. Did that really affect the work on the farm or how did y'all have to make up for that?

DB:
No, no Mom never worked on the farm. She always just did the work canning and all that in the house. So she was always at home. But it was scary; it was a mess. And that's what they said, it split his head. Well I don't know how can anybody split their head and still live? I mean in this day and age you would have antibiotics and everything else. I don't know what they put on his head before they wrapped it all up. But they said don't take it off, they wrapped it tight as, it was tight for three months. I don't know if he was either nine or ten. I don't remember. But that was scary. The only thing I ever remember that ever happened bad, that was a bad experience. But I had, when I was a little girl, I was to the neighbors a lot because they liked company and because they didn't have children. I had a good life.

EH:
How far away was the doctor?

DB:
In Edmeston, about seven miles away. And I don't recall. I know he came to the house because back then doctors made calls. It was at night, that was when we used to sled down hills, at night. I do not remember, I just remember that he did it and I remember that his head was wrapped really tight for a long time. If you'd asked me maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I might have remembered a little more about it. I honestly do not remember as well as I used to.

EH:
How did y'all get medical attention if anybody was sick or something like that?

DB:
Usually the doctor came. I woke up one night in the middle night and I couldn't move, I had acute appendicitis and the doctor came to the house and my folks had to take me right to the hospital. I was in the hospital for three weeks because they had ruptured. The doctor came right to the house at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. They were very good doctor[s]. [inaudible] Dr. Bishop was from Garrattsville. I know we usually had the doctor from Edmeston. They would come in the middle of the night. I do know that we weren't able to go to the dentist. My folks just didn't have the money for all of us to go to the dentist. We had very poor teeth and most of us had to have our teeth pulled and false teeth before we were very old, probably in high school, I know I had to. But they didn't have the money so we went to the dentist when our tooth ached and we couldn't take it anymore. They'd go and they'd get it pulled. Nowadays it's unheard of that nobody doesn't go to the dentist. That's one thing we didn't do, always if we needed a doctor we always had the doctor. But that was one of the things I guess they felt it wasn't important. When we had a bad tooth ache they would take us right to the dentist right away, so we wouldn't hurt.

EH:
How did other families deal with problems?

DB:
I don't know if people way back then, if other people took their kids to the dentist regularly or not. Now I think about everybody does. I don't know if even the people that had more, if they took their kids to the dentist regularly or not, I don't know. I know we never went to the dentist until our tooth ached and then it felt bad enough and pull it out. Then you didn't have a tooth ache anymore and you'd feel much better.

[START OF TRACK 4, 0:20]
EH:
Were there other things that your parents or even you as parent would prioritize over other things?

DB:
I did not take mine regularly to the dentist either. But I do believe that because there was fluoride in the toothpaste and like that that they didn't have the cavities. Because I don't think any of my kids have false teeth. We must have taken them, must have had teeth filled. But I do not remember taking them regularly to the dentist. But I must have, because they've got their own teeth. But I know my dad and my sister, that passed away, both had typhoid fever, we couldn't be near them. They stayed over at Auntie's house and we couldn't go over and see Dad. I remember Mom used to go over every night after dark. We weren't supposed to be near them so that [none] of us would get typhoid fever. We all had to have all those shots, bad shots. We all had to have shots so we wouldn't get it. He was sick for quite awhile. I don't remember any other big, major things. I know a lot of us had an appendix removed. As for big, serious things, I think we all survived, we all naturally had measles, mumps, chicken pox, because you didn't have shots for those so we all had all of those things. If one got them, the rest of them got them. I remember that five of us, I didn't have mumps, there was only two of us out of the whole family that didn't have mumps. They all had them about the same time. We all had childhood diseases and nowadays you don't have them because of getting immunized. We were ok. I really don't think anybody had anything more serious then. Typhoid fever was very bad for my [dad] and sister. Otherwise, that was the worst thing anybody had. And then two or three of us had our appendix out, but I don't remember hospitalization for anybody else, regular things.

EH:
How did the typhoid fever affect the production on the farm?

DB:
The boys just had to take over. They all knew, they were old enough at the time so they knew what to do. It wasn't during sugaring season.

EH:
That's good.

DB:
During syrup season, no.

EH:
Was it really hard economic times then?

DB:
I don't know. We never thought of ourselves as not having a lot. I know my auntie once made me a dress -plain pink with a pink collar and a pink belt. Ugliest thing you ever saw. But, she made it, so I wore it. We didn't have lots of clothes, we wore the same clothes over and over. Washed them and wore them. We had what we needed. I don't remember ever not having a coat if I needed it or anything. We always had everything we needed. And we ate very well because they had beef and pork and chickens and everything from the garden. We didn't have the fancy vegetables. We had the root potatoes and carrots and peas and corn and beets and lettuce and the radishes. We canned all the vegetables. So we had canned vegetables. We picked raspberries, we picked strawberries. Because we didn't have a freezer we canned those, we froze those, we canned a lot of the meat, chunked beef. We ate very well. Mom made homemade bread all the time. We always had homemade bread. There was a store next door. I remember the bread was ten cents a loaf. But ten cents a loaf was probably, back then, just as hard to come by as 4 dollars or 3 dollars and 89 cents now. We ate very well. We didn't have to buy a lot in the store, flour and sugar, like that. We had all our own vegetables. We didn't have the fancy vegetables, which I'm still learning to like more of them because I never had them. Once I got married, we had our own vegetables too. I'm learning to like some of the yucky vegetables because my daughter loves everything.

EH:
What do you mean by fancy vegetables?

DB:
Well, like broccoli, we didn't raise broccoli, we didn't raise eggplant, we didn't raise.... Think of some more fancy vegetables. You know what they are, I'm sure.

EH:
Like kale...

DB:
We had just the regular and we had them over and over. We had one a different day and we'd go through them and start it in again. But we canned even berries we'd go pick. Strawberries, wild strawberries, and then dad got so that he planted, had strawberries. Raised strawberries plants. We had a lot of strawberries, we had a lot of strawberries then to eat. I remember we picked raspberries. Oh, we always went and picked blackberries, wild blackberries. We always had lots of pies, lots of cakes. That was the main deserts, pies and cakes. About every night after school, when we got home from school, either Mildred or I would have to make a cake because cake didn't last long with all of us. We had a good life.

EH:
How did your life change once you got married? Because you mentioned with the food a little bit.

DB:
Actually not a lot. I did what my mother did. I darned socks though I'd never do it now, I'd throw them out first. You would put patches on overalls. We had a garden. I canned vegetables. I had to carry the water in, heat it, for laundry because we didn't have running water when I first got married either, same as at home. So you had to wash the clothes in the washing machine, put through a ringer and then put them in a couple of tubs of rinse water and then hang them on a line to dry. So it took a lot of time to do just the regular chores. People nowadays don't realize what an advantage they have with a washer and dryer. There's nothing to them, you don't work at all. We got a dishwasher, nobody washes dishes. Back then you did everything, you thought nothing of it. You asked, "Did it change much when I got married and when I left home?" No, I did the same things my mom did. Eventually, when we got electricity, we got a washing machine and I remember we had a freezer before we had a refrigerator. We had learned you could put things in there and get them real cold and then you take them out and they're fine, even if they're a little frozen it works fine, milk or anything, to keep it a little longer. No, I sewed. I made things for the kids. I make fancier things now, quilts and table runners and Christmas tree skirts. Fun things now. But back then you did not have time or the money to buy the material because it is awfully expensive. No, it did not change much. I did the same things my mom did. Cooked things the same way.

EH:
So what are some of the traditions you keep alive and are passing down to your [family]?

DB:
Well, I always still have Thanksgiving dinner. And we have changed. We always used to have Christmas dinner but for the last two years, two or three years, we've decided to have it Christmas Eve. They all want to go to their other side of the family on Christmas Day. I decided if I had it Christmas Eve then everybody could go to their other side of the house where most of them all have it Christmas Day. We changed it to Christmas Eve, which works fine. Everybody brings something for Christmas Eve. But for Thanksgiving, my daughter and I do the whole thing. We do Thanksgiving, the turkey and ham, because there's quite a few of us we have a ham too. But then everybody comes back the next day for leftovers. We all sit down at the table for Thanksgiving. We try to get one of the tables put up as soon as we can, folded up and back upstairs so the kids have a place to play because now that we're here, the house is much smaller than it was over at the farm house. We have a regular, traditional Thanksgiving dinner with pies and cake and turkey and ham and fruit salad, cabbage salad, and vegetables and breads and the homemade rolls and homemade cinnamon rolls. We're going to start right away start getting those in the freezer, the rolls and breads and [things] like that. No, we have it pretty much the same when I was over there and actually when Mom had Thanksgiving for all of us. And we would go up there, we would go up early, my husband and I, because he would always carve the turkey for Mom. And so we'd go up there and have sit down dinner. We've probably added a few more things to the table but I'd do the same thing with Mom, Dad. It's tradition. And everybody comes about 12, Bruce always, my husband, used to cut the turkey. Now, whichever son comes first gets the job of cutting the turkey. We have a good time. My granddaughter can't come from Washington this year in Annandale. It's too hard with two little children, she has it at home. She comes every other year to Thanksgiving but Christmas she doesn't come. We enjoy [the day, the talk and chatter]. Sometimes the guys go out and hunt in the afternoon but lots of times they don't. Traditions carry on, they really do.

EH:
Well, since Thanksgiving is so close I guess you're getting ready for it now and carrying on those traditions.

DB:
Yes, got to get the turkey tomorrow at the latest because a 22 or 24 pound turkey takes just about a week to thaw in the refrigerator. So we have to either go this afternoon to get the turkey so it can start thawing. The things we can we do ahead of time and put in the freezer but the pies and like that, we'll do the day before. Now that my daughter's retired it's much easier because we can get the tables set and so much more done the day before. It won't be that bad.

EH:
And is that how you helped your mother for Thanksgiving?

DB:
Yeah, went up and helped. Take pies up or go up and help when I got through work, I'd stop in and help her. But usually we had the day before Thanksgiving off. When Mom could no longer have it, for awhile we each had our own families' meals, but I would always take Mom's and Dad's up to them when they weren't able to come down. I'd always take the special meals up to them. Things don't change much. Your loved ones are gone but that's life. New ones coming along. I have 12 great grandchildren. Love everyone of them. Life has been good to me, no complaints.

EH:
Well I believe that's about all the time we have today for this interview. Is there anything else you would like to say or something you didn't get to talk about?

DB:
Nothing except I hope I didn't ramble on too much.

EH:
No, you were fabulous. Well thank you so much for giving me the time to sit down and talk to you and interview you, I really appreciated it and loved hearing your story.

DB:
You're most welcome. You're a very nice person and you can come back again if you want to, just visit, not to interview me again, just to visit.

EH:
Thank you.

DB:
You're welcome.

29:59

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29:59

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No

Liz Congdon

Claire Beetlestone

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Cooperstown, NY

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

CB = Claire Beetlestone
LC = Liz Congdon

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]
LC:
This is Liz Congdon, I'm at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, interviewing Claire Beetlestone. It is November 11, 2012.

LC:
So do you want to just get started; tell me where you were born and when you were born?

CB:
I was born in Chestnut Hill, PA, 1937. That's where my grandparents lived, with my mother.
LC:
So why don't you start by telling me a little bit about your childhood. What are your memories from that time?

CB:
Being extremely shy, running away from everything. They tried to make me social and introduce me to the right people but I was not interested. That was very early childhood. Then, as I get older I remember a vignette: I got a bike! My freedom, from that very careful, almost Victorian household was assured. Education and experience was everything, discipline was everything, and I was wild. I remember my grandfather saying, "Ah, she's like a wild filly, we've got to tame her. I'll break her!" He never did. Anyway, my freedom came when they gave me a bike. I learned to ride the bike. My neighbor, two blocks away, got a bike at the same time and I took him on adventures. So I got to Wissahickon Park (Wissahickon is a big park in Philadelphia) and I said, "I know a place that's fun," because we have balloon tires. I said, we'll ride the railway tracks. So we rode them, bummpita, bummpita, bump- it's lovely. Then I said, "Dicky, we've got to get off these tracks." He said, “huh?” I said, "Off!" So we got off, and the train came through. Dicky and I never said anything to each other about that. He went into the church, he became a minister, and I became me as you see me. Subsequently I learned that was where people went to commit suicide. Just that stretch of track, which is very accessible. So I could've not been here. Anyway I took my bike and wandered all over, all over Philadelphia. I knew every nook and every cranny of it. In those days, the traffic wasn't really dangerous. Then I started to ride out in the country, where I met people who rode the hills and I've been a hill rider ever since.

LC:
So you talked a lot about this kitchen table where you grew up in Philadelphia; we were just looking at a picture of it. Tell me more about this table.

CB:
The dining room table. It's a great big table and my grandfather always liked to have formal dinner parties and he was an extraordinary cook. Looking back, I realize the man had wonderful recipes. He was a gourmet cook, and I paid no attention whatsoever. He was a principal in one of the schools in Philadelphia. He of course was friendly with everybody, very much connected to the Y[MCA], to political figures, and other figures in education. We can go back and say that in that house Langston Hughes, the poet, and [assorted] people from the Harlem Renaissance came through. So you had this whole admixture of people from the Philadelphia school system, the public intellectuals, the arty community, the religious leaders , coming together and discussing things around the table. A lot of policy was discussed, a lot of soul searching, a lot of poetry, all sorts of things went on. I was allowed to stay at the table for a little while and then [he would say], “Well, it's time Claire went to bed.” In that house, you could go up the stairs and we had air heat and you could look down one of the vents and see what was going on in the living room, so I watched as much as I could.

LC:
So what did you learn from watching all of this? How do you think that affected [you]?

CB:
What did I learn, worldview? Worldview, education, helping people. That one have a moral obligation in this life to make it not only not less, but larger, better, and more beautiful than you came to it. I think that's the pledge of one of the ancient Greek cities. “Not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful.”

LC:
Is that something your grandfather said?

CB:
It was there, probably. I don't know where I got it, but there it is.

LC:
What about the rest of your family?

CB:
It always curses you. What about the rest of my family? My grandmother, she was a teacher and a journalist until she got married. In those days, when you got married you could not work. She was very bitter about that. The bitterness lasted through her life. She was not made to be a wife and mother. Even though she was married to Clarence Relaford Whyte, the bitterness was there. It was she who taught me love of literature. But I was so undisciplined she disapproved strongly of almost everything I did.

LC:
So you lived with your grandparents...?

CB:
I lived with my grandparents because my mother was divorced. She married a man whom she shouldn't have. He was an actor, and impecunious, what can I say? [laughs]

LC:
What was his name?

CB:
That was Robert Huston Watson. I didn't know him very well and he was sort of distant and egotistical. But anyway he lived in New York and he took her to New York to live and he could not accommodate her in the style to which she was accustomed. I mean, he was an actor. She was a very upper-middle-class; pampered, and it just didn't work. So she came back to live with her parents who were very angry with her because she married this man, but she lived with them. She wasn't really a very energetic person. She was a psychologist and a teacher and she taught music. But she'd rather play music than do housework. So I was brought up in that household, which was good. [She was] a very sweet person, elegant, languid, very weak and depressed.

LC:
Mmm.

CB:
Very nice, but weak.

LC:
You said you lived in New York City for a time too...?

CB:
Oh, that was only in my very young life. My mother went there, she was in Columbia Graduate School when she met my father and they married and they lived up there for a while. Then they got divorced or split up. For that reason she went up to Albany. I have no idea why she came to Albany. She's gone now. I just remember her taking me to a bridge and we looked out over the river and saw the lights. I just still remember that. Then we moved back to Philadelphia with her parents. Where she could be a lady and play the piano. [laughs cynically]

LC:
[laughs] So if you were born in the thirties you must have experienced World War Two. What are your memories of going through that time?

CB:
I remember the atom bomb and Bikini Atoll. We talked about that a lot. My uncle went away to the war, my beloved uncle, went away to the war and never came back. I remember his coming to me in the middle of the night and putting a teddy bear in my bed and [he] said, "Here Claire, this is for you, and this is Timmy." That was the last time I saw my uncle. Of course there are secrets in all families, yes it's all right, and he was in love with a woman of whom my grandparents disapproved and there was no way, no how he was going to have anything to do with her. But I went away for years; I was in Africa and Europe. I came back and saw my other uncle, his older brother, and he said, "Look Claire: Donald has a family. He has a wife and child; many children as a matter of fact. Do you know that?" I said no, and that was the last time I saw him because he died. So somewhere, my uncle has a family, I don't know where. I don't know where. The kids that got lost to me. Then you look in people's faces and wonder is that a relative, but actually everyone can do that, because we're all related to everyone else.

LC:
What are some of your other memories of historical events? Anything stick out in your mind?

CB:
The Trylon and the Perisphere. The World’s Fair Exhibition, down in Flushing, you know what I'm talking about. The Perisphere and the Trylon.

LC:
What year was that?

[TRACK 1, 10:17]

CB:
Oh my goodness I don't know, early forties maybe, late thirties. I don't know I was too young to know much about that. What other historical things? Something sank; they sank a ship, the Normandy sank. Yes, and of course Pearl Harbor did take place. They're the things that only coming in… and then I remember when Roosevelt died because my grandfather was very upset about that of course. He had done the New Deal, he had healed us from the Depression and then one day he died and my grandfather was talking about that and was really struck by that. Oh, and the blimp, the Hindenburg, exploded or blew up or something: The Hindenburg disaster.

LC:
What do you remember about the news coverage from that?

CB:
Just what I'm telling you. It's not like the Twin Towers, I was much younger and we didn't have television so it was entirely different. You looked at pictures in the newspaper.

LC:
When did you first have a television?

CB:
That must have been somewhere in the fifties. It was small, and you had to be really near it; it was in black and white and fuzzy. Then I looked at it for a while. My family is very active and they go out. So often I'd be there at night alone and I'd look at horror films and I said to myself one day, “This is unsuitable for children to view.” I was always like that. This is unsuitable for children to view. So I flipped it off and didn't [watch] any more horror films. Now I am a storyteller, and I can't tell horror stories. I don't know how. I don't have the technique. [laughs]. A television wasn't good or interesting back then. I didn't look at it. There were other wonderful things to do: you can paint, you can read, you can go for a hike. You don't look at the TV. That's been my attitude. Of course as I grew up I realized that once you're looking at a television like that and getting information like that, it dictates what is in your head. Dangerous behavior as we've noticed; very limiting.

LC:
So what kinds of things did you do instead in your early life?

CB:
Oh, well I always painted. I always did watercolors with my grandfather. He taught art during the summer to the schoolteachers. They did in-service courses and he taught art. He sort of took me to model; little girl sitting there [strikes a pose], and naturally I began to paint too. I learned how to take toothpicks and get glue, the very sticky sort of glue, Duco Cement, and put them together and build things. You can think of a stockade first, but you can make a house, you can make anything you want out of toothpicks. Then I found that I could draw flowers and see flowers very well. I got little notepaper and painted little flowers on it and people always liked that. I painted outdoors as well. I played the violin as well. I was supposed to practice two hours a day [I didn’t]. I started with the piano, my mother taught piano as well and she taught me. She said, "I'm not going to teach you anymore because I know you don't practice." I said, "But they don't practice either!" She said, "But I don't know that, I know that you don't." So I played the violin and viola, and then they had a summer music course for the schools and you could play any instrument you wanted. My mother was a cellist, and I said, "Hey, can I take the cello and learn?" and I did but I don't have the hands for cello; I don't have the strength. But I have two granddaughters that play the cello. But what else did I do... Oh, insect collections. I had this fantastic insect collection, you know, you put them according [to type]: the butterflies, the wasps, all of the beetles, all of the grasshoppers, into families. I caught them and I poisoned them and I relaxed them so that you can arrange them, and put them on their insect pins and I got corrugated paper to put that on the bottom of cigar boxes. My uncle smoked cigars. You put your insect pin through it and you have your little balsam block with a slit down it, you put the insect there and put the pin through and have the wings out. It was a wonderful, wonderful fantastic insect collection. I mean, just a whole wall full of these boxes. Now, I had a cousin that was my older uncle's son. My mother adored this boy for some reason, is this jealousy? He was the youngest of a lot of children so she sort of took him under her wing. Anyway, we went here, there, and everywhere. One day he found my insect collection, opened it and screamed AHHH! and threw it across the room. I was so furious I- how do you say- [used] sesquipedalian words? He got it all! You know, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, besides which he's gay and that came in too. I mean, I destroyed him! Well that was a long time ago. Of late, I've seen him again. He's a blonde fat guy, sort of hairy guy, and he trembled when he saw me. It was beautiful. I had made an impression on him. [It was] horrible. How can you be afraid of insects?! How can you be afraid of anything, you know. What sort of creature are you that screams when he sees an insect? I mean think about it a little bit.

LC:
Did he think they were alive?

CB:
I don't know what he thought; I don't care what he thought. I just wanted to hurt his soul, which I do believe I did.

LC:
[Laughs]

CB:
I mean you cannot imagine [the hours and love I put into that collection]; you have to find where the insects are. You have to know their habitat. This is like hunting; you have to understand the insect and catch it. Catch a good specimen. Treat him so well, you put him in the cyanide jar and you let him die and you arrange him. The hours, and the painstakingness, looking up what they were. We didn't have the computer in those days. You had to look at the large textbooks. That's something I did. Okay, I loved libraries, I always have. We were a block away from the Friends Free Library, at the Germantown Friend's School. I always went there and became an assistant after a while and worked in the library and then I found the great big library in Philadelphia [makes clicking noise]. You know, my world was made. Not only could I get books and look up wonderful, arcane things, but they had music. As I say I played the violin and I knew other people who played instruments. So I'd go and get something that wasn't too difficult and bring it back and on Sunday mornings, we had a grand piano, and they'd all come to my house and we'd play this music. We had to adapt, you know, but it was rather wonderful. Everyone thought it was very nice until Mike Brody, who is an old crusty professor at Temple now, and I played the Bartok duets. We were happy, it was wonderful, we were in ecstasy and my grandmother called down the stairs, "Please stop that horrible noise!" Some people don't understand Bartok. Anyway, that was fun. So we had the music, and I danced of course. I was a dancer. I tried to learn sport: tennis, dancing, nah- I was a cyclist.

LC:
[Laughs]

CB:
…and still am. So what else did I do? I did everything… and I hiked.

LC:
How was it growing up... Did you live in the city of Philadelphia?

CB:
No, I lived in the suburbs. How was it growing up? Great! I mean if I had to go anywhere, I just cycled there, or I had to take the trolley and the bus and the underground, they call it [the] subway. It was fine because I read all the time. So you have this long commute? No problem, got a book. Philadelphia was mine. It was really mine. I knew every inch of it. I went down to South Philadelphia, which was a scary place then. Now it's very chique; everybody who's anybody lives down there. But in those days it was a terrible slum. A music school called the Settlement Music School was down there and that was next to the Italian market with street barrows [carts] to this day. It's the most wonderful place in Philadelphia. That's where Pat's Steakhouse is, you know where the Philly Cheese Steak was invented. Anyway, the music school was near there so I went to the music school and my teacher was Edgar Ortenburg and he was part of the Budapest Quartet at one time. He's a white Russian émigré, a wonderful man. I adored him. Well, I didn't adore him. Well, yes I did. Well, [laughs] see the thing is you have to hold your violin in a certain way and if you didn't he'd take a pencil and sharpen it and put the point here [points to armpit] so if you let your arm fall it would pierce you. He slapped me; he slapped me around. I didn't mind and we knew why. It was different with children [in those days], and I understood perfectly. Anyway as I grew older I grew more and more appreciative of Edgar Ortenburg and I was overseas for many years and then I came back and I said, "I've got to find Mr. Ortenburg," and they said, "No you won't, he's in an old folks home and he's completely Alzheimery. He's lost his memory, he won't know you." So he died and they had a memorial concert for him, all his students played things. I went there and there was this guy sitting next to the door: it's his son and he's the spitting image of his father. I mean it was "what?!" [makes surprised facial expression]. It was just like that. When did that happen? That happened about fifteen years ago. So that was that phase of my life. Also, we had Carl Orff, creativity and music and all that. We danced sometimes, and we made art sometimes; it was a wonderful place. So that was my misspent youth. No, I'm not a social person as you might have noticed; I didn't like people, particularly girls. Okay, I couldn’t stand women. But I've learned to understand them subsequently. So I always hung around with the boys. That was fine because when I was young I was an athlete and you could beat any of them at anything. But then something happened, at a certain age, they got testosterone. [laughs] They could run faster, and cycle faster, and I hated them. [laughing] Anyway, I came to terms with that, and I went to the Philadelphia High School for Girls, the academic high school, and then we have an academic high school for boys, Central. So of course I made sure that I met boys from Central High and not that I'm interested in mating, no, these are my buddies. We decided to start a literary society because we knew, you know, that we were superior to anyone else [laughs]. We started our literary society and what we did was take new poems and new plays and read through them. There's a flat rock that I went to about two years ago in the middle of Wissahickon creek where we would go Sunday mornings again and sit on the flat rock in summer and read new plays to one another. I remember we read "Waiting for Godot" when it was new. We didn't understand a thing about that play. We read it and sort of looked at each other. We read it; it was read. Then it came to one of the nearby playhouses, and so what I said I would do (my grandmother likes the theater), I'll take her to see "Waiting for Godot," maybe I'll gain some understanding of it, and my mother scolded me. She said, "Do not take her to plays like that."

LC:
[laughs]

CB:
[laughs] Then I learned that some people are different from other people. Some people like this, some people don’t. But anyway, that's our literary society. Just recently I found two of those guys. One was president of Earlham College; he's retired since. The other was a history teacher and administrator at Brooklyn College. They're both old, very old. Now the Earlham College guy is a wonderful English professor, and oh I'm not gonna tell you about these guys, because I'm supposed to talk about me. But their stories are very interesting too.

LC:
So I'm kind of curious, how growing up in Philadelphia—I know Brown vs. Board of Education happened in 1954, what was it like in that time before that happened in school for you?

CB:
I didn't notice, remember I said my [grand]father was a school principal. I was always in integrated schools. He just saw to it. I mean I traveled a long while to get to my elementary school. I had to take a trolley and a bus to get there, and I had to start out early in the morning. Junior High was a disaster area; junior high is junior high. Then I went to Philadelphia High School for Girls, which starts at ninth grade. So Brown vs. the Board of Education, I was blissfully unaware of. I'm sorry, I should know about it, but I was blissfully unaware because I was in integrated schools all the time, and living in an integrated area. So it wasn't an issue. It should have been, but it wasn't. I didn't become conscious of the civil rights movement until the late fifties, early sixties. It took a man named Bill Hinton, who is a name brand and that's another story, to make me conscious of this. He was involved in the starting of SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] and all these organizations, and he said, "We really ought to do something about it. We ought to have meetings." So we had a little meeting, and he said, "What we're gonna do this week, we're going to picket." I'm used to picketing, when they had the chemical warfare plant in Maryland I went down and picketed that, and I'm a peace activist, and I go on the street corner and talk. I was that sort of peacenik. Anyway, he said, "We gotta have a meeting, we gotta picket Woolworth’s, because they do not hire black[s]." I said, okay and we were picketing Woolworth’s. These black guys, bad black guys from the hood came by and they're going in. I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute!" I said, "Look, you shouldn't go in places like this because they shouldn't get your money; they don't hire you, they shouldn't have your money.” They say "That's all right ma'am, we was just goin' to shoplift, we wasn't gonna [pay]." [laughs] So I said, "Go on in, guys, go for it." [laughs].

LC:
This is Woolworth’s, a department store?

CB:
No, Woolworth’s is a Five and Ten store. It's sort of like the Cooperstown General Store. Oh, Woolworth’s, you've heard of Barbara Woolworth? One of the richest women who ever was, who always wore dark glasses. Oh, anyway [there were] little stores like dollar stores all over. You can even see them in Germany today. Everything is cheap like the dollar store. They had soda fountains too. No, this was Philadelphia; Philadelphia was sort of integrated for all, sort of. But anyway, that was interesting. So Brown vs. the Board of Education I was unaware of, but that table with those people around it probably talked about it at great lengths. I was unaware.

LC:
How did that protest end, that one that you were involved with?

CB:
I went to Africa, I don't know. [laughs]. Oh which protest?

LC:
The one at the five-and-dime store.

CB:
Oh, it was just a few of us with pickets trying to stop people and kids of color not to go in there. It just sort of fizzled. Some people went away, some didn't. You know these were the very early days

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]
of the civil rights movement [in Philadelphia]. We didn't know what we were doing, or what was going on. There was no real structure, just a few people with a few ideas. I left in 1960; I left this country. Do you understand? So all of this, I only found out about when I came back, because I was involved with a whole other ballpark there. Sorry, I missed it.

LC:
Oh, I'm sure what you saw in your travels was equally as important.

CB:
Well, sort of very important, maybe more. I don't know.

LC:
What made you decide to move to Africa?

CB:
I didn't decide. I was married to John Beetlestone, and he's an inorganic chemist, and he was working at U of Penn and he came home one night and he said, "Hey, would you like to go to Nigeria?" and I said, "Sure, where's that?" and he said, "I don't know." So he got out the atlas- "oh there." [I asked,] "And where will we be going in Nigeria?" and [he said], "Ibadan." I said, "Okay, let’s go." The story is this: one of the professors from the University of Ibadan, which was the University of London in Africa, was just starting when we went, and one of John's colleagues who had come up from there was working at Penn in his lab. He said, "We need an inorganic chemist, would you come?" That afternoon, John says let’s go, and so we went. We were supposed to stay a year; we stayed twenty.

LC:
Mhmm

CB:
We came with independence in 1960, and just before that my father had gone over. My horrible father had gone over, because he had gone from being an actor to a CPA to someone with lots and lots of money. He had potential, but my mother didn't give him the chance. Anyway, he had gone to Nigeria there because he wanted to start a business over there. He said when he came back "there's too much ’dash’ or lagniappe do you know that word? That's the Cajun word for bribe, you have to pay someone to make the wheels roll. We call it graft and corruption, but it's not regarded that way. It's just a little extra money to make things go on. This is why all of this money that you collect for these pitiful causes in the Third World a lot disappears, because that's how it is. In the hospital, if you need a bedpan, you might not get a bedpan, but if you pay five pence you'll get the bedpan straight away. As for toilet paper, you better pay for it. I mean that's just taking it down to it's more basic level, but if you want something done, you can start a business but you have to pay for protection. If you start a business, someone could steal it, spoil your building, or burn it, but if you pay for protection you'll be all right. So there's that, and there's getting the building code nicely and actually getting permission to have your business in that building; you have to pay the government something. Like the checkpoints in Asia: they're manned by, or were manned by, Russian soldiers. They don't pay Russian soldiers very much and Russian soldiers are always drunk, so they need a little money. "You wanna get through the border—USD [United States Dollar], USD!" [rubs hands together].

LC:
Who was in charge in Nigeria at the time?

CB:
In charge?

LC:
Who...

CB:
It was a democracy! [laughter]

LC:
I mean what was going on with the government?

CB:
Well, okay it was a government that was initially dictated by the British system, so they have British things in situ. The British way of government. I was in Yorùbáland, so I have to tell you about Yorùbáland. That's isn't what goes in Yorùbáland. There are people [elders] who rule that country; one does not know who they are. They are the elders of the community, they are hidden, they rule. They might rule to this day. So there they are, ruling, everything's good, everything's copacetic. Then Britain comes and goes boom and imposes a government system that they put on this. Some of the people who were picked by the Brits to do these jobs weren't exactly the people who should have power in the traditional context. So you see a little bit of conflict there. Then we sort of slipped from democracy and there was graft and corruption, and murder and mayhem, and a few civil wars. I'm sorry, I lost count of the civil wars and why they were, but they were there. They happened here, there, and everywhere, all sorts of bad things went on. Then the Biafran War [Nigerian Civil War] came and that really changed things a lot for a while. Very tragic in many ways, and it was oil, the greed of oil that caused it. There are still things going on at the moment that aren't good. It doesn't matter. Okay, they found very sweet oil in Nigeria in the delta: sulfur free oil. It's good. You look at the people living in the delta; they were the Kalabari people. These people are essentially fishermen, and the way the society is ordered the men go out to the fishing camps most of the year, they're there catching the fish and one woman goes with them, that's the chief fisherman's wife, and she sees to the smoking and the drying of the fish and prepares meals for the guys. They're out there in the mangrove swamp, mosquito infested, crocodile infested, it's terrible, terrible; [it smells of] smoked fish. They have these big [lean tos] where the men [sleep] and the fish are smoked at this one end, you can imagine it's pretty awful. But once a year, around Christmas, they come back and then there's great festivity, there's dancing and singing and that's where they meet women, marry, and make babies. Then they go back to the fishing camps. This is how the cycle goes in Calabar. It's a very interesting culture. They're the Calabari, that's how they live. You don't see any higher education there much; they're fisher folk and all that means. Now right next to it is Iboland, and the Ibos have very little land. They are land poor. The Ibos have a way of educating someone in the village; the whole village will come together and decide to educate that boy, and they'll take him up to university take him up to his PhD in Europe. He comes back with his skills and helps educate other people; that's how they did it. Now the Ibos got into the civil service. The civil service in those days, everybody from every place [in Nigeria] went around to the various provinces, so you had an admixture of different tribal groups here there and everywhere, then that was a time of intermarriage, I mean you're there, you're 25 years old, it's time to get married [out of their tribal group]. So they marry. So you had lots of people who were of mixed tribes. That stopped. The Ibos decided, "Wait a minute, we're the most educated people here, and those people in Kalabari, they're not, and they've got the oil?" So the Ibos took over the Calabar region.

LC:
So what did you see in this. Were you a witness to this kind of event, this conflict?

CB:
Ya, I've stepped over dead bodies in the street. You keep walking, you don't stop. The country took sides at this time. The Ibos, the Biafrans, against everyone else. I [worked] in a third line hospital, I wasn't ever at the front, and what happened in the third line hospitals was these were the people who had been triaged on the battle front and had been brought to a second line hospital to stabilize them and ultimately they got to our hospital. What happened at night was the soldiers would come in, and we'd lay them in their stretchers all up and down the corridors and do another triage. During the day, I ran the children's emergency room. Now this is [to treat] dehydration, dirt, disaster, that sort of thing. What you did was take the child out of the gutter, clean it up, make it better, and then put it right back in the gutter. And at a certain time, I came to the realization that that sort of work wasn't useful, because the main problem is a public health problem. It was not a medical problem. You [clean] out the street drains, you get disease away from the kids, you give them clean drinking water, you give them food that's clean, you have a place with a latrine where you don't go at random and get hookworm. It's a public health problem, not a medical problem. That got to be a little frustrating for me, and then I went into radiology because that's completely intellectual, right? So at that point I was in the children's emergency room during the day, and the soldiers would be brought in at night and in between I'd catch some babies, because the doctors by and large had gone off to the second line hospitals and some were at the front. All that was left in the hospital were the women and the European doctors. Ahh, funny story, I have to tell you this. The Scots professor of pathology came to me one day and he said to me, "Claire, I want you to look at this baby," and I said, "What's wrong?" and he says, "It's a terrible disease; I don't know what it is," and I looked at it and said, "It's measles! It's measles that this baby has. We should have asked your wife, she would have known.

LC:
[laughter]

CB:
[laughter] You have no idea what measles looks like." Anyway, it was pretty busy, I didn't sleep. I didn't mind in those days. I was young, I had work to do; it was exciting. So I spent the civil war at the hospital. They told the Americans to leave, how could I leave? I couldn't leave.
LC:
Why did they tell you to leave?
CB:
A lot of them left, Americans. One night after we had gone to bed and then these crashes, bang, bang, and these shouts BANG, BANG! Our imagination said, “Oh my god, they're gunshots,” and they seemed to be coming nearer, as if people were coming and shooting people house by house. I said, "Okay, shall we wake the children?" I asked John, and he said, “No, don't.” So, I did not. Then, I got dressed. I said, “Well if I'm going to be shot I'm going to be shot with clothes on, it's only common decency.” So, we went into the living room and we listened, the shouts, and the gunshots, maybe. Then, towards dawn they calmed down and we looked at each other and we went back to bed. Now, the next day, [all was explained], it was very, very funny. Our neighbor is a gourmet. He was the head of radiology actually, Peter Cockshott , and he had hired a French-African cook and the French-African cook went crazy one night. All our furniture was mahogany- you have to understand this- so if you break a table leg that's mahogany off it's a very heavy instrument. So he was crashing Peter's house, shouting all sorts of things in French; of course we didn't understand. He was trashing Peter's house. Now he lived in a house that [had] this main living, dining room area with the servant's quarters here, and there's a courtyard and then it goes back. There's one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms, and then the master bedroom with a dressing room next to that. He had locked doors between him and the crazy cook, and Peter was shivering in his boots. But he never got to him, because he was going to hit Peter with the mahogany table leg.

CB:
The civil war was all around us. We didn't get attacked because a bridge had gone down. The army was going to come in and attack, but mercifully a bridge went down and they couldn't get in. But we had guards; the army was all around the university. [As] I told you, I like to hike. So I'm hiking one day in the teak forest and someone yells, "Halt!" so I halt. You'll love this, we'll record it anyway. So this guy is on guard duty, he has this fixed bayonet and he's looking very fierce and mean and evil. This time he had gone to the bush. He was pooping. Now teak leaves are about dinner plate size and he had taken a teak leaf and was squatting down on it. I said, 'This man asked me to halt?' But knowing Nigeria and knowing how it is, I averted my eyes and waited till he had finished. He finished, ablutioned, and got up [with] his gun belt and everything, picked up the bayonet and challenged me. Oh, and he took the leaf and went, whoosh, into the bushes [laughs].

LC:
[laughter]

CB:
Then he challenged me, he said, "Who are you, where are you going, etcetera etcetera." And you know, of course I complied. You have to understand life must go on, even if you're involved in a war. One other war story, I've got to tell you this. Remember when all of your people were sending milk toward the Biafran children because they were starving? Milk is the worst possible thing to send to them, but never mind why. So anyway it wasn't getting to the children, it was going to the troops. People who live in Nigeria are lactose deficient because we don't have cows where we live because the trypanosomiasis kills them off. If you do have a cow, it's not going to live very long it's going to be butchered before it gets Trips. So Milk and butter and cheese and yogurt are not there. If you don't eat that, because human beings really shouldn't eat dairy after they're children, and if you don't do it all the time as you're growing up you develop a deficiency. Of course, these guys were all lactose deficient so they drank the milk, they made it up and drank it, and there was one battle when they again were all squatting in the bush because they got diarrhea because they're lactose deficient. It's beautiful. That battle was not fought [laughter]. Anyway, I tell you those parts of the war, but there were bad injuries and people were killed. People they didn't like, you take them and you tie them behind a jeep with their hands and you drive the jeep through the streets and eventually that stops any hyperactivity they were involved with.

LC:
Now you had children while you were living there?

CB:
Yeah, I had one child here, [while living] in Philadelphia.

[TRACK 2, 18:33]

And three others there.

LC:
What was it like, raising them in that environment?

CB:
Perfect, perfect. I mean they were absolutely free. And everyone knew them. They were a little distinctive looking, they were Beetlestones. People didn't know which Beetlestones, but we were living in the university compound and everyone who lived or worked or were students in the university lived there. My kids, because they were the sort of kids they were, were into everything like I was as a child in Philadelphia. So they knew the whole spectrum, they knew the servants quarters, they knew where the students were, they knew some students. They knew the professors, they knew everything and they wandered freely. [I’ll tell you] a story of my daughter, not me. She had her hair cut short and she always wore shorts and bare feet. Linda, [was] going to school with her school satchel over her [shoulder]. There's a Muslim prayer ground. She doesn't know Muslim from Catholic from Jewish. So [there was this] Muslim praying ground with all these guys [prostrating themselves], and she walks through. One of them looks at her and says, "Boy!" and she said, "Hmm?" because she's [not a boy] and he says, "Get down and pray." [laughter] And she was late for school. That's the last time she’ll walk through the prayer ground and be culturally uninvolved. She had no idea. They were absolutely free. I also was docent to the zoo at one point in my life and that made them be at the zoo most of the time. In our house we had all of the little orphan animals that we hand reared. I had a chimpanzee, duikers, deer that are no taller than that. All sorts of things: the aye-aye, the couscous, and the little bushbaby, and anything else. The red river hogs are my favorite because they're little pigs and they have red stripes on their backs and out of the stripes come bristles, nowhere else. They look like little toothbrushes running around, so cute!

LC:
[laughs]

CB:
We had a hyrax once, but he got away. A hyrax is a mammal whose closest relation is the elephant. He got loose and started to live in our ceiling. That was all well and good, but after a while there was the hyrax-designated place for excreta. See what happened is that it got sort of wet there and the plaster boards sort of fell down and we discovered it. But, yeah, we had good times. So the children were brought up in amongst the zoo [and] the zoo animals. There are pictures of the children holding snakes and riding elephants and feeding a baby elephant with a bottle and feeding the chimpanzee. You know, we had a good time.

LC:
When you were a docent at the zoo were you still working at the hospital?

CB:
No, this is before all that. We don't have the time sequence. No, I wasn't working at the hospital then. I was just being a docent at the zoo.

LC:
So from there you decided to pursue the medical field?

CB:
Oh yes, well I had always [wanted to be a doctor]. But we were coming to Nigeria for one year. Then we stayed and stayed and stayed and you know. I said, “Hey, why don't I go to medical school here?” and that was interesting. They said okay, apply, and so I applied. [They said,] "What previous education do you have," and I said, "I've got a few credits from University of Penn and Bryn Mawr," and they said, "We don't know anything about these colleges. We don't know how good [they are]," and I said, "They're not bad."

LC:
[laughs]

CB:
But they said no, this is [in] the British system. I had to do my A-levels, which is the equivalent of high school, first year in college. Then I did my A-levels and was admitted and there I was.

LC:
What school was that?

CB:
This was University of London in Ibadan. Then I did my postgraduate work in Glasgow, Scotland. I went to Scotland to do that and had a great time. I was tropical medicine, and right now I'm segueing into temperate medicine and maybe geriatrics. Being geriatric myself I think it's a good discipline for me.

LC:
[Laughs] So you hadn't totally finished your education when you left?

CB:
No way, I just left [the United States]. If your husband comes home and says, "Do you want to go to Nigeria?" I said, "Sure yeah, let’s go."

LC:
But you lived in Africa for twenty years and then went to Scotland and finished your [studies]?

CB:
Oh during those twenty years I went to Scotland each year. I just went to Scotland back and forth. We went back and forth [to Scotland] every year because at the university three months of the year nothing is going on. At that point [Nigeria] was known as “white man’s grave”; [Europeans and the like] must not stay for twelve months in Nigeria because they'll die. Because mainly it was malaria, but there were other diseases instead. [They said] just go out of here, go to another climate, and find out what parasites your body is containing and get rid of them and then come back. Things have changed since that time, but we had three months of the year when we had to leave. We were told to leave. So I was bouncing between Nigeria and England and Scotland and France and Germany; we had a good time. Sometimes I'd come to the states, but usually Europe. It was good.


LC:
So by the time you finished your education by going to Scotland and started practicing in Nigeria?

CB:
In Scotland first and then Nigeria.

LC:
Okay.

CB:
Ya, ya. There I was, and it was good. Every once in a while I'd get a glimpse of what was happening in America because at one point the guys avoiding the war, I don't know which war it was, it wasn't the Korean, it was the next one.

LC:
In what time? Vietnam?

CB:
Yes, [probably] Vietnam. The Vietnam guys were wandering around Europe sort of looking hippie-ish with their long hair and their rucksacks and their skinniness and their granola bowls [laughter]. But you'd take them in, give them a meal, get them to do something just to keep them on. For a place to sleep and some food they'd do almost anything and you'd have to admire them.

LC:
So eventually you left Nigeria permanently. Tell me about that part of your life?

CB:
Oh, you don't want to know about that. My husband decided he wanted to “realize himself.” I said, “Realize yourself?” He said yes, because he was experiencing a mid-life crisis so he said we should separate. It was very dramatic. This is the grade-B stuff, which you don't want. Someday I'll write a novel but it [will be] a grade-A novel. So he decides that he has to realize himself, he needs his freedom. [I said,] “You have your damn freedom,” sort of thing. “I'll nurse you through this, it's all right." I had never been particularly crazy about him anyway, but I was willing to stay with him and nurse him through everything, and he said, "No, I want to be free." So, at this point I had a fellowship here; I was at Downstate Medical Center.

LC:
In?

CB:
It's in Brooklyn. So I came here and stopped at AFIP [Armed Forces Institute of Pathology] first to get debriefed, because I was no longer a tropical doctor, you've got to be a cold-country doctor, as we call it, in order to work here. So I did my sabbatical and John in the meantime gets my best friend pregnant [laughs]. But I forgive him in a way because she didn't think she could conceive. She had been married for years and never [got pregnant] [laughs]. But anyway it wasn't his baby. But it gets worse than that; it gets really squalid. This is supposed to be about me. But he said, "No, we've gotta divorce, etcetera, etcetera." In the meantime I'm in the States and he's there and it's bad. This is a dark time. So I finish my stint and then I go to Rochester for a year stint, because I'm always hoping to go back. Then I go to Yale and I'm set in Yale. Yale is fine, I'm teaching at Yale, everything is good, I've got an office, blah, blah, blah. Bought a house, etcetera, etcetera. Then my office partner and I realized at the same moment, [that] yes, when you're in an Ivy League college- when you're on staff, you will get your tuition paid for your children, but only if you're tenured. And he and I looked at each other. You don't get tenured until you're senile. Not in your twenties, do you understand? [chuckles]. So we decided we had better go into private practice so that's what I did.

LC:
You and the other professor?

CB:
And the other guy too, yeah.

LC:
Mhmm

CB:
Naive as hell, we both were. But anyway there we were, and I've been in private practice ever since going here, there, and everywhere, enjoying myself hugely.

LC:
By that time all of your children were in college right?

CB:
One was in college. [Only] one was. Jan, the one that has died, she was in the London School of Economics. But the others weren't, and then I was in New Haven doing this and Wendy went to the University of Liverpool and then the other children were in private school in New Haven; they went to Hopkins. And the other one wasn't born yet, so no, they weren't. As time went on, the other two went to college, here, on the American side.

LC:
How did you balance being a single mother, having a job [and]

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]

kids?

CB:
You think there is a balancing act?

LC:
[Laughs]

CB:
[Laughs]. Okay, there's a radiologist named Wendy Logan, you know Wendy? [A woman’s magazine] was going to interview her, they said, “You're a single mom, you started this breast center and oh [you're a] wonderful woman.” She said, “You don't want to know.” There's some very dark sides about it. She was honest; it is not easy, and I don't understand these women who come out looking very cool, calm, and collected and well groomed and they're balancing everything. BS! Now my daughter does it. The one in Philadelphia [balances everything] because they're rolling in money and that's the only way. You have au-pairs, you have a gardener, you have a house [cleaner], you have everything. That's the way it's done in America today, but anything else is a fairy tale. It's awful; you don't sleep to begin with. You worry like mad. Okay, one story. We were in Glasgow, it was Halloween. We are neither Catholic nor Protestant, nor a follower of any superstition. As you know, Glasgow and Scotland are like Ireland: there's Protestant [and] there's Catholic. The football teams in Glasgow are like Ireland: Protestant and Catholic, and there are certain sections in the city that are Protestant and Catholic. But there's one area, amongst others, the area in which we were living was a mixed neighborhood. So, during the time we were there, people would come around from the various churches to talk to us to try to get us in, and some children went Catholic, and some children went Protestant, depends on how much fun the Sunday school was [laughs]. So there we are Catholic and Protestant. Then [the children] decided that there were more Catholics than Protestants, but the Protestants were older than the Catholics so they decided they were Protestant, so they went to every Protestant church: Presbyterian, Methodist, whatever, C of E [Church of England]. So there we all are and I have to get these kids ready to go to these awful superstitious places on Sunday. So that went on and then one day I had to go to a conference in Bristol and of course I had a [live in nanny] there, what do you call them, the nanny. The nanny was there and Francois, who was having an affair with my husband was there, my husband was in Nigeria [or Germany], and there were other people around. Knowing how Glasgow was, my dying words were: "Do not have a party, whatever you do, do not have a party." So I go to my conference in Bristol and then I come back and the lights in the house are blazing. The children are around; they are cleaning up. The place has been hit like it was a hurricane. They were crying; all of my vintage wines were gone. Anything electronic was gone, I mean just [gone]. They had had a party. The police had come, and they stopped the party and there were bullets in the ashcans in the back of the party. The money came from Francois, because they said, "Oh Francois, Mommy has left us with no money and if you could give us some money so we can survive and she'll pay you back later," and Francois was as dumb as a doorknob said, "Oooh, mes petits choux." So, they were going to have a party! They invited the Protestants but the Catholics found out about it as well. So everyone came, so fights ensued and someone had a gun and they were just target practicing in the back, I mean no one was shooting anyone. Apparently, it was so noisy that the local constabulary, the fuzz, as we call them there, was informed and they came and cleared it out. Then I said, “Okay, I am very tired. I don't really know what happened. I don't want to know. I need to go to bed, we'll talk in the morning." So I went to sleep, and I wake up in the morning and there's a man sitting next to my bed. He must have been there just sitting until I woke up. We call them the untouchables, they're the plainclothesmen. You've got them in America, plainclothesmen.

LC:
An undercover policeman?

CB:
Yeah, they're everywhere and in everything. He talks to me about this because there were drugs involved. The nanny got something for everybody, and so she had to go [swipes hands together]. She had to go just like that and that is the story. Scots-Irish women can be very strong, bold and fish wifey. So one night in the middle of the night a fish-wife came, she must have weighed three hundred pounds. She was big and she had solid fists and she was Irish and she was mad. She pounds on the door and she said, "Where's Irene?" and I said, "I'm sorry she doesn't work here anymore." [The fish-wife said,] "She introduced my son to drugs." I mean she was mad, and she was going to break down the door. I talked her down and I thought “boy oh boy.” Bad story. Now a lighter story. Friends of mine from South Africa came up because their mother was having a back operation. These are Cape colored, Cape Malay, a very small minority [of coloreds]. The mother was having a back operation so the kids came up; they have five kids and one of the cousins came up. For some reason, the younger ones decided they should steal apples, so they went and stole the apples. All my kids got away but Rinky, she's a little pigeon-toed and she doesn’t run so fast, so Rinky got caught. So the rest went back to get Rinky, and they all had to confess that yes, they had stolen the apples. So we had to get their little money together and they gave chocolates to the man whose apples they had stolen.

LC:
[laughs]

CB:
This sort of thing happened. Mid-summer in those countries is all light, you don't have any darkness at all. So midsummer is a time for celebration, so all of us had gone to Loch Lomond and we were going to celebrate; we were going to roast potatoes and celebrate. We were roasting our potatoes and speaking in Pidgin, you have to understand the there were many many brown kids around speaking in Pidgin. So the forest ranger comes up and looks at this, all women except for the small kids and he doesn't know what to do because we're not supposed to have a fire by Loch Lomond. So he says, “Do you speak English?” Yes, we spoke English of course. Then we said, “Oh, can we continue with our party?” He says, “Yes, but you have to douse the fire." That was that incident; we had a good time. Subsequently, we bought a house in Scotland and my husband had gone to see the ranger. Because it is a house in Argyll National Forest. He had gone to see the ranger and the ranger for some reason started to tell him about this bizarre thing of all of these brown women who were speaking this strange language at midnight [beside] Loch Lomond. John said, "I think you'd better come home and meet my wife." [laughs]

LC:
[laughter]

CB:
These are some of the light touches. That [ranger] had a wolf in his house that he was bringing up. So yes, that is life in Glasgow.

LC:
So you're saying…

CB:
We were doing this during the sixties, I don't know what your parents are doing during the sixties but that's what we were doing.

LC:
[laughs] Not like the American sixties that we remember here.

CB:
Actually I teach at CCAL [The Center for Continuing Adult Learning] and I have a friend who lived through the sixties and survived and did all of the sixties things. It's amazing he's still compos mentis, and he is able to talk about it. I said, "Do you mind telling this to a group of people?" He hasn't answered my phone calls. He doesn't want to. So that's where we are, where did you take me?

LC:
Oh, we were talking about motherhood, and then experiences in Europe and-

CB:
Yay, motherhood. You relax. Feed them a lot of good food. Laugh a lot. Show them as much as you can. Do what you need to do. I mean, principles of upbringing: wing it! That's the best advice I can give to anyone. Wing it. [Love them.]

LC:
[laughs] That's good advice.

CB:
When they get too obstreperous… I mean they were playing in the road once and I said, “You know, [that is] not a good place to play. Look, there are a lot more where you come from. If you get squished in the road it's all right with me because we can make more of you." [laughs] You go with it.

LC:
Mhmm

CB:
I don't know if they're going to bring [their children] up that way.

LC:
Well from what you've said they turned out to be successful; a corporate lawyer, [a genetic counselor, a hydrologist, etcetera.]

CB:
They're fine. They've got the humor. Which is important. Their children are doing well too. So we're all right.

LC:
So I want to ask you since we're in Cooperstown, about your journey to Cooperstown. Tell me about that.

CB:
[Laughs] All right. My daughter had died. Donald is her child. So I have the baby but I am heartbroken, I'm falling apart; I'm in an awful state. My best friend said to me, "Look Claire, just go somewhere new and get lost, just get lost and start a new life." My three older children were in college at this time so I could. So I went over to Arizona and started my new life. I went to Sierra Vista, but I wasn't working with a good person and he got me too Bullhead City. Bullhead City is the worst place in the world; it's a cesspool of the world. It is the fastest growing gaming center in America. Do you understand [what sort of place I mean]?

LC:
Mhmm, like casinos.

CB:
Like casinos, [and] everything associated with casinos. The town is a derelict desert town. So you have the derelict desert town and you have the casino and I'm the radiologist. It was Wild West and everything you want in the Wild West. All right, remember the Oklahoma City bombing?

LC:
Mhmm

CB:
That guy was hiding in that place because it was easy to. You can camp by the Colorado River and no one pays any attention to [any]one. You know in circumstances like this, like in the middle of the Sahara Desert, you help people if they need it and you don't acknowledge anything. You don't acknowledge what you see. It is somebody else's problem, definitely. Some things went on. Oh dear. For example, par example- and you have to get the humor and the horror of this- these guys knock a woman down with their pickup; they didn't mean to but they did. [They said,] "Clem, I think we hit something." "I don't know, back up and find out what it is." "Oh, Clem it's a woman." "Then you better make sure that she's not alive because she damaged." So they keep on going back and forth over her and you know this disrupts the body's functions somehow. Now whether they knew that woman or whether this story is true I don't know, but they ran over her a few times. Then we got a woman in [to the hospital] who had been beaten to death. She had gotten married [on] the Saturday, and by the Tuesday she was brought into the ER. I mean that man didn't even give her a week. She would have turned out all right, but he just wasn't patient enough. I don't know what she did. Then, oh dear, you got it. Then again, the school teachers- because pay wasn't good- some of them, not all of them, during the summer would act as ladies of the night. Then there was one woman who was very proud of her breasts and she would lay them on the bar and they would bet on how much they weighed and they would weigh them and collect the bets. It was a gambling thing! Another story: she decided they were too big, which in fact they were, and she decided to have a breast reduction. Then she sued the surgeon for depriving her of her income [snaps fingers].

LC:
This is a woman you met in the hospital or you just heard this story?

CB:
I know the woman and her breasts.

LC:
[Laughs]

CB:
[Laughs] So life was good in Bullhead City. Then one day the sheriff came to me, he was married to the head ER nurse, and said, "Look Claire, you cannot stay here as a woman alone with a baby, it is ridiculous, unless you learn how to use a gun accurately, and you must pack it." I said, "Me, packing a gun? Sensitive little me?" He said, "Yes, you're going to learn this," and I said, "No, I'll go." Then, to make a long story short, a headhunter found me and he said something about Otsego County and what a lovely place it was, and I said, "At one point I lived in the Berkshires. I had the baby on my back, the dog was running around the car; it was a jeep, and the snow was up to the gunnels. It was five in the morning and I was digging myself out. I don't want anything to do with snow country." He said, "Oh, Oneonta isn't like the Berkshires." Actually it is, it was. I don't know about this year. He sweet-talked me into coming over and that's why I'm over here: pure happenchance. Pure happenchance. I think I had been to Cooperstown as a child; I remember some things about The Farmers' Museum, and I just remember that visual but it must have been when I was very young. So here I am.

LC:
So when you first came here you worked in Oneonta at Fox hospital?

CB:
At Fox, yes.

LC:
Right. Eventually Fox was bought out by Bassett?

CB:
Oh, yes, but I had left before that I got fed up with a number of things. I left before that and I have to be very careful, this is a history project and there are some things you just don't say during a history project.

LC:
Mhmm.

CB:
[Laughs]

LC:
So even though you had stopped working at the hospital in Oneonta you stayed in Cooperstown...

CB:
Oh, I use this as a pied–à–terre, I do locums here, there, and everywhere. This weekend I am here, but I'm just on my way up to the Adirondacks again [to work], and I'll be back next weekend.

LC:
So what is it about Cooperstown that keeps you coming back?

CB:
I have a house here! [laughs] It's not a bad place to live. I've got the house and the land and I rather like to live on my own. Look, you've got a tremendous cultural advantage here. There are museums, lectures. There are people with a tremendous amount of knowledge and intellect all around you. Not so much [just in] Cooperstown, but taking in the Oneonta area as well. It's a fairly lively place to live; it's good and it's beautiful outdoors. I cycle and hike. I need to see more.

LC:
Mhmm.

CB:
It's good. It's a good place. Once when I missed the school bus with Donald I had to take him to the next school stop and there was a farmer waiting there with his kid and he said, "Look, we are living in the eye of the hurricane. Everything about us is death and disaster but we are in the middle." That's how we felt at a certain time, we felt very protected here, no longer. It was a good place to be and a good place to bring up children. I think you'll find many people who could live elsewhere have opted for this area. Fracking is going to kill all of us. What can I say?

LC:
Do you have any involvement with the fracking movement?

CB:
Do I have any involvement with the fracking movement? Yes. Anti-fracking. I belong to a storytelling group and we perform at Proctor's up in Schenectady. One of the assignments we had was to do a whole thing on the F-word and I said, "F-word, yes!" [laughs] So everyone had to do an F-word. So I made up this call and response against hydrofracking. I wrote it out and gave everyone a copy. I said, "Look, you've got the call, you've got the response. Just add more verses to this!" I only cover the health issues. What are the health issues with hydrofracking, which are tremendous, but they're being suppressed. There is a whole political brouhaha around this and then we can start to talk about the groundwater in another verse of this. Yes, I'm anti-fracking, because I'm sitting on a tremendous amount of shale. One of my neighbors has sold the mineral rights and you know they horizontal frack, so I don't know [what will happen], we're scared. If Cuomo wakes up, but he wants jobs. These jobs are not going to be long lived, and they're not going to give work to people here; only for a short while they are drilling. Then afterwards you're left with an industrial site in the middle of the countryside. We love the headwaters of the Susquehanna and that's part of the reason we're here: the beauty. If you spoil the beauty what have we got?

LC:
It's a big issue; I know a lot of people in this town are working to fight against it.

CB:
Some say, "Oh, that'll only affect people in the hills." There is a lot of lack of information to people who really should be aware. If they think they are going to get a penny out of it they might get a penny, but it's not worth it. You have to learn to look at the wider view. Then someone says to me, "But these farmers have nothing. They have nothing." Their sons have gone away, and their farm doesn't net anything; they’ve sold their cows. What else do they have? Well, maybe you should take a worldview. Maybe there is such a thing as voluntary poverty. This is where I'm coming from; there's only one political issue in the world, only one. Only one and that's the ecology. Finished. Nothing else is of relevance. After ecology comes water: fracking and water. You've been [taught] to believe that water cycles; the water we drink right now, and the ice, has dinosaur pee in it. Well, it used to be the case, but once water is taken into fracking, the “flowback frankin’-fluid” as I call it, it's lost. [We] can't get it out again.

LC:
It's devastating.

CB:
But they're not saying that in Albany. "Oh, jobs," [they say]. They're not your jobs.

LC:
So you think your worldview helps shape...

CB:
I think everyone should get a worldview real quick. If you spend all of your life here, you won't have any worldview. I was just talking to someone who is a shrink and he was telling me how one of his patients had to go to Delhi and she was trembling in her boots. Delhi is about twenty minutes down the road. She had never been, she was afraid.

LC:
That's a good story. I know we have just a couple more minutes.

CB:
Oh we haven't finished. We haven't scratched the surface.

LC:
[Laughs] Well tell me a little bit about your storytelling then.

CB:
I tell stories, what more is there [to say]?

LC:
How did you get into that?

CB:
My family. We're all storytellers, [every human being is a storyteller]. My grandfather, who was the principal, had a storytelling agenda because storytellers have agendas. Don't believe that they don't. I hark back to Rebbe Nachman who was in the far past, and he said, "I tell stories not to put people to sleep, but to wake them up." That's what it is about. First of all, I can do it. You've got the gift of the gab. Second of all, it's fun to do it. Third of all, there is the moral obligation that we all live with if we look at it thoroughly. When I was working at Fox I was friends with the head of the teen psych unit. [He was a] Jungian psychologist, he's now gone down to New Mexico. He said, "Why don't you tell stories to my disturbed teens,” and I said, "Huh? What sort of stories should I tell them?" He said, "You tell them stories that will frighten them because they need to be frightened and need to become confident in themselves in a protected environment. Tell them anything. No, I want you to come eat with them. Come to Thanksgiving dinner with them and just talk and hear what you hear." So I did, and I found the most pitiful stories; kids who had no ethical or moral upbringing. They weren't bad kids; they were amoral kids. Is that the word I want? They didn't know right from wrong, good from bad. They just didn't know. He said, "There's your job! This is what they need, they need stories." That was very interesting, because I always started the storytelling session with, "Tell me, what is your name, and where did your name come from?" They often didn't know, usually didn't know, and had no idea why their parents had chose it. They had no idea what the name meant. So they thought, “Oh, this is an individual who will listen to me.” I suppose it was a sort of group therapy session really. We told stories, I told stories, and then I got them telling the one-sentence stories; "Once upon a time there was a princess. And a dragon came. And stole her away." This goes all around the room and you're supposed to make a story. Sometimes it goes terribly wrong, sometimes things come out that make you really raise your eyebrows and [it] hurts your heart because it has been in these kids. But they were talking about it. So I do that and my granddaughters, Wendy, the rich one in Philadelphia, likes to have fancy dinner parties too. So she has all these [important] people and the girls are sent upstairs to bed at a certain point, the same as with me. Then she'll say to the guests, "Please, the girls are all ready and tucked in bed. Why don't you go and tell them stories from your childhood." [Gasps] At first, the guests [hesitated] and now they're getting into it. We've spread storytelling all around. So it was something I thought needed to be done. You know something of how I [am]. I am not particularly a Quaker, but I am a fellow traveler with the Quakers. I tell stories at their retreats. The idea is to tell a story and maybe get things going in a certain direction, or maybe just tell a story to tell a story. Now I'm doing a lot of work with women, particularly older women. Older women, we older women. What I did recently- and I'm going to do it again- is use Joe Campbell's hero thing. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joe Campbell? Jungian?

LC:
I'm not familiar...

CB:
Oh my goodness, write it down and find out! It is a whole wonderful world. Joseph Campbell.

[START OF TRACK 4, 0:00]

Ooh, the Hero with a Thousand Faces. Anyway, you as a hero, you see. I take them through their life and I say, "Look, tell me something about your background. Tell me what it is in your life that made you leave it, or why you wanted to leave it or why you didn't leave it. You are on a quest; what is your quest? What did you do, what did you find out, and what did you take back to your family, to your people? A changed person?” This is the Hero's quest; you go out for the Holy Grail or something, or go out for something easier than the Holy Grail. You go out for something, you have your helpers along the way, your mentors, your teachers. Who helped you? How did you find your quest? Now that you've achieved your quest- you almost died doing it but you're all right- and taking it back? How do you plow it back into society, your family. It is very interesting doing that with older women particularly. I'm going to do more of that, and I sort of teach as well. So I like telling stories, what can I say? Sometimes I get paid, but traditionally the storyteller gets paid by a meal. Sometimes it is good. But see we can't eat when we storytell. [laughs] You just can't do that, and particularly you can't do dairy because it thickens your saliva, and you can't talk. So we don't really take our pay a lot of the time.

LC:
So, what else have we not talked about that you want to talk about?

CB:
What else? Cycling around Ireland with my daughter, and that is a whole thing in myself. Wandering around the cape of South Africa doing a wine tour with my son and that takes it in a whole South African thing. Going into a gold mine in South Africa. Talking to the people post-apartheid and what it was. Finding out where my South African friends had lived before apartheid; how they were cast out because they had good houses. How they had to leave South Africa and finding that district where they were, but now that district is all gone. All their houses were given to white people. The places where they had the beautiful house and beautiful garden, these are beautiful places, they became the gardener. Just the whole South African thing is there. Then my time in Central Asia was wonderful; it was like moving into the Arabian nights, literally. That's what I saw. Now my son and his workers with the NGO's [non-governmental organizations] saw another one because the Soviets had just left. They just pulled out. Big brother wasn't there to do things any more. Okay, say you have irrigation ditches, and the irrigation ditch broke. [They thought], “Oh, big brother will see to it that it's done,” but people slowly realized “Oh, if we want that ditch fixed we have to repair it for ourselves.” I was there during that enlightenment. The Soviet era was over. Now we have to deal, now we have to cope. Lets see what happens: some Russians were still around, but they are usually drunk so they're not much of a problem. Just getting into that whole thing is how whole villages were displaced. Russia needed cotton for Soviet use and whole villages were displaced, save for the Red Sea area, where the father was a captain on the Red Sea and they just had to take what belongings they [could carry] and were moved over to Tajikistan to work in the cotton fields. They said everyone you meet has picked cotton. Understand that, everyone you meet has picked cotton at one time or another no matter who they are. Of course the whole place had fallen apart and my son, the groundwater expert, was supervising the putting in of wells and he has people in his well-digging crew that were veterinarians, school teachers, college professors; they needed a job. That whole structure is gone. It is a very interesting place. My days; my jet-setting days, yes. I was a jet-setter in the sixties. I don't know what you guys were doing here. Peace and love, yeah, yeah. But to travel from one country to the other, to eat in the best restaurants in the world, ah. [laughs]. That's a whole other ballpark.

LC:
Do you still consider yourself a jet-setter?

CB:
I'm no jet-setter! I'm a poverty stricken woman who lives in Otsego County.

LC:
But you work hard, you said you were going to Germany soon, you're...

CB:
Well, I have to go to Germany to take care of my granddaughter; this is me being a grandmother. It's going to be fun, if I go. So, yeah, what else? Everything! Anything you want. The tsunami in Sri Lanka. I went there after the tsunami; we saw what we saw, we were aware of the civil war or whatever you call it over there. We were all partying; you party during wars because that's what you can do. What's that song; [sings] "All she wants to do is dance:" you know, when that is going on. You never know who will be dead, and some people I know are dead. You tend to party. [That night] everyone's cell phone lit up, "oh, there's phosphorescence in Dutchman's Bay." So we all went to Dutchman's Bay [in] like a rickshaw, but manned by a bicycle. But the price was awful, they just price gouged that night. So everyone was on the beach around Dutchman's Bay and the phosphorescence was amazing. All of the colors of the rainbow, and the boats would go back and forth to show us. But after a while they stopped; it got late. So we started to throw sand it to make it phosphorescent, then we threw each other in, to make it phosphorescent. Then we said, "wait a minute, stop everything, we're scientists. What is making it phosphorescent?" So someone washed out a beer bottle and got some of the stuff in. It was sea urchins' eggs. There was just this mass of sea urchins' eggs. That was that. At the same time people were calling up and down saying, "What is this phosphorescence? Is it a portent? A portend of good or of evil?" Remember, there was shooting, it was a civil war. The tsunami has happened; [it was] not good. So the news the next day that oil has been found in the North West corner of Sri Lanka, and I [felt they would say,] "We are going to get you, we are going to say that you are all terrorists, and we're going to suck your oil up. You are in trouble." That was the portend. But the Americans haven't gone [in]. I don't know what has happened since that time. But the big oil companies think they are going to get it; you're not going to get it. Just like in Nigeria, still it is poverty stricken there where the oil is, and they cleared the villages because they wanted land to build places for the oil companies. They cleared the villages by killing the people. You know that. You know about this. They just brrat brrrat [Machine gun noises, inaudible].

LC:
When was this?

CB:
Now. There's a novel called Little Bee that I can assign to you for this problem. It is little b, bee. It is a story of a girl whose family has been treated like that. She survives a stowaway and finally gets to Britain. But she is an undocumented alien and they put her in the undocumented center. So it goes on and on. This is fictional, but not [entirely] fictional. Then they repatriate her, of course. She was a foreigner with no marketable skills; she was a girl. They repatriate her, and they know who she is so they don't kill her. She has seen her sisters killed. She can talk. So that's Nigeria; we had a good time there. Ken Surawiwa; was an environmentalist... (yeah, another [story] for me). You could take your canoe and go to the mangrove swamps, and mangroves have adventitious roots and the oysters gather on the roots; it is tidal. What you do is a take a machete and cut the [entire] root off and you put them in the boat and then you have a fire. You put them over the fire and the oysters open up and you [pluck and eat them off the roots one by one].

LC:
[Laughs]

CB:
The [oysters] went. The first time the Texas oil men came, they went. Then these guys told me, drunk, they said, "we throw stuff in this river that we can't throw anywhere else in any river in the world." It's not regulated. So, yes, there are stories I could tell. Then the Sahara; I went to the Sahara to see the total eclipse of the sun, which was awesome. [I went with] a Mexican priest and it was just a crazy, crazy thing. Why are there so many Mexicans on the Sahara? Every time we came to an oasis it was full of Mexicans. They said, "Didn't you know we were sun worshippers?" Of course they are! "This is very important to us." I said, “Wait a minute what is going on here?” [inaudible] That whole thing [about] the desert, and who lives on the desert and why they are hiding, why they're living on the desert. [It is] amazing.

LC:
So if there was one story, one experience that made you who you are today- if you had to say one- what would you say it was?

CB:
Well, I don't know what to say! Isn't everyone living in a conglomerate of experience? It's like a kaleidoscope. You can't say there is one life-changing thing. If there is, it changes from time to time. I'm harking back to my You As A Hero sort of courses. Your heroic deed changes from time to time, depending on your life course. So once: one moment, the other: the other moment. Well looking back to it, I think my bicycle was my life changing experience. Getting me out of that very Victorian, very nice, very good family so I could have freedom and see the world. Then again, going to Nigeria and getting to travel the world. I've been very lucky; I've been able to travel all over. Not many people have this luck. I guess having children! Oh my gosh is that life changing- you be careful of that- in ways that you never imagined. Yes everything is life changing, everything you do. It is a continuum.

LC:
So where do you see yourself next?

[TRACK 4, 13:38]

CB:
I have no idea, probably dead on the road, [laughter] being quite honest about it. I [drive] about 200 miles a day during the week. Yeah, that's what I see for myself.

LC:
Mhmm

CB:
I can't see anything else, I don't know. I had thought I would go to Scotland and retire, and that would be a good life. In Scotland in the Highlands there is a strip of land; I’ve got the loch. I’ve got the shore and the fish and the place to fish from. Then I have the meadow and a place for potatoes there. Then I go up and you've got the pine forest and all that the pine forest offers and wood I can burn. Then you come to the deciduous hardwood forest and above that you come to the peat bogs and you can cut the peat and use it. There's food all the way along, some deer, rabbits, and you can grow things. But be careful of your greens because the rabbits and deer eat them.

LC:
[laughs]

CB:
If you get an occasional sheep, well you get an occasional sheep. It's not yours. So that is what I thought I'd do but I don't think that is going to happen. I don't know, because I don't know where my family is going to be. I've got offers; my daughter in Cape Cod has an apartment under her house that's "Wheelchair accessible [for you]." My other daughter has a house where there is a whole apartment [that is] wheelchair accessible. Besides which, it is next door to the outside hot tub. [I thought,] “Maybe this is the one.” [laughter] Now my son is all over the place I don't know where he will live and they are looking for a pied–à–terre and they asked for their wedding gift that we get a pied–à–terre in maybe Amsterdam. Do you know how much that costs? It's a fortune! [They said,] "We need a place to keep our books and papers while we're on assignment." As I said, they are asking me to come over and take care of the baby; I don't know what is going to happen. We will see. So right now, this house, which is much too big for me; I decided nothing is selling and besides it is sitting on the shale. I don't want anyone to sell mineral rights under it. I'm keeping a lot of land pure; giving it to the Land Trust actually. So I am renovating it so that maybe I can use it for [rentals] for the Opera people in the summer. You can get more money for the Hall of Fame people, but I don't think I want baseball kids in my house. [Laughs] The opera people, they're fine, they rehearse all the time and they are exhausted. Another [consideration] is the hospital people, they're wonderful. They are overworked and when they come home all they do is sleep. They don't tend to party. Anyway I'm doing it up. When [we] have the regatta, a friend called me from New Hampshire and said, "Hey, do you have room in your house" and I said sure. A whole lot of guys, a whole regatta team, came down and stayed with me. Actually they didn't sleep, they were so hyped up for the race. They were all excited all night getting their little nutritious drinks. They don't eat, they just drink these nutritious drinks. It was fun. So maybe I will do that.

LC:
Well I'm amazed at all the stories you've told me, it's been fabulous. Tell me one more?

CB:
One more! What do you want to hear?

LC:
The most visual experience you've ever had.

CB:
Oh my god. Okay. This is in Sri Lanka; there's a place that you go from the beach and you go higher and higher and higher and you come to an area called the cloud forest. No rain, but clouds and deer and all sorts of animals. Then you come to a place that says, "The End of The World" I said, "Phillip, I have to see the End of the World. Come on!" I was with my son. So we go to the End of the World; it is a long hike. You have to start out very early in the morning, before dawn, and drive up and hike, hike, hike, hike. Then we come to a place that says “End of the World.” So you are hiking, this is not America, and there is a drop-off. It is the End of the World. There are no rails; people in other countries are sensible, they don't need rails.. You just come to it and say, 'Oh!' Then I looked across this abyss and there were clouds boiling, boiling, boiling, boiling, up out of mountains that were so high. They are higher than the Cascades. [Clouds were] boiling out from between these mountains and there you are on the edge of something. So me being me, I am scared, I get on my tummy and I wiggle towards the edge and peer over. There is a poppy; they grow poppies here too. There is a poppy growing there and there is nothing else but abyss with clouds boiling, moving. I've never seen such cloud motion in my life as that. It is truly the world's end. It was just amazing; it was awesome. We just stood there in awe. The total eclipse of the sun is another thing. That is awesome too. You just literally stop and we threw ourselves down, supposedly to read the shadow bands, but not all together because we were just so overwhelmed by the experience in the middle of the Sahara. Ay yai yai yai. Wow, things! Yeah!

LC:
Sounds beautiful.

CB:
The End of the World and the Total Eclipse of the Sun.

LC:
Well, [these are] great experiences. It has been so nice hearing everything from your life and I've really enjoyed the whole experience.

CB:
It was fun!

LC:
It was wonderful. I just want to thank you so much for coming and meeting with me and for all of your time.

CB:
Oh, but thank you! It was so much fun. I've never talked [like this]. I talk all the time, but I've never focused on me. That is not the issue. This is very interesting. My kids have been trying to get me to write up my experiences. So you're going to give me a CD?

LC:
I can, if you'd like, sure.

CB:
Oh yes, that would be a Christmas gift to all of them.

LC:
Well thank you again. I'm just going to [turn this off].
[END OF TRACK 4, 20:50]

29:59 - Track 1

30:00 - Track 2

30:00 - Track 3

21:35 - Track 4

128 kbps

No

Lindsey Marolt

Dr. Charles Hudson

44 Nelson Ave

Cooperstown NY

CH = Dr. Charles Hudson
LM = Lindsey Marolt

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]
LM:
This is the November 15, 2012 interview of Dr. Charles Hudson by Lindsey Marolt for the Cooperstown Graduate Program’s Research and Fieldwork course recorded at [his home] 44 Nelson Avenue [Cooperstown, NY]. Could you state your full name, please?
CH:
Charles J. Hudson.
LM:
When and where were you born?
CH:
I was born in Oak Tree, New Jersey, at a time when New Jersey was still very rural. We lived only 27 miles from New York City but it was farm country, and we raised some farm animals, had a big garden. So I grew up in the sticks or in the country. My family, my father came from Georgia, he came up north after the First World War. He didn’t see any future in the South. My mother’s from New York City from an Irish family there. They met in a VA [Veterans Affairs] hospital in Perry Point, Maryland. My father was there for almost a year and we never figured out why he was there, but we think probably it was something related to battle trauma, what we would call today probably post-traumatic stress disorder. So they settled in New Jersey. My father had had some college education in Georgia, but didn’t finish; the war came along. They married while my father was in Perry Point Hospital and then they went to New York City to settle with my mother’s family. Then the children started coming and they really didn’t like raising their children in the city so they moved to rural New Jersey. My father was a farming person and he loved it. He also was able to get a job with one of the great utility companies, Consolidated Edison in New York City and he held that job for 30, 40 years, I don’t know, a long, long time. So it kept us safe through the Depression, the World War. So when I talk about the World War, I’m talking about the Second World War, which most people younger than I don’t have on their radar.
LM:
What do you remember about the war?
CH:
Some things about it. Of course, I was young; there was only radio. I remember Pearl Harbor, being announced on the radio. Then one of my brothers went into the Merchant Marines, and that was getting near the end of the war. So a lot of the stuff between is hazy. He served about a year and then came home at the end of the war, and was redrafted when the Korean War came.
LM:
So were you in school during the war?
CH:
Yes.
LM:
Could you talk a little about your school life?
CH:
Sure. I was born in 1937, so I must have started school around 1942 or 3. I used to walk to school through some back woods. There was no bus that came by where I lived. It was a very interesting school, it was a fairly large school. It was no one-room school house by any means. All of the grades were represented by single classrooms. What was most interesting about my school was that about a third of it was made up of African American students. So right from first grade, nobody in the neighborhood seemed to care, my parents didn’t care, who I went to school with. My father didn’t, he was from the South, that was no issue for him. So right from day one, I learned to go to school and play with black children all though grade school. Some I played with, some were my best friends. Everything just seemed perfectly natural until we got into the outside world.
LM:
Could you talk a little more about your friends at school?
CH:
Yeah, okay. The demographics were interesting, there seemed to be two levels of kids, at least when I went through. There was an area where people were coming to stay. There were a lot of black children coming up from the South. They had been educated in black schools down south, so they were not up to grade level. They were bigger than us. Then the New Jersey, we’ll call one level New Jersey and the other immigrants. There were black students from New Jersey, my age, grade appropriate. We played together and when there was recess or recreation of some kind, we didn’t have a lot of athletic equipment, but the bigger kids immediately went and got the baseball and the soccer ball, or whatever it was, and that didn’t leave much for the New Jersey guys, black or white. So all through grade school we played running games, one two three my man, and all sorts of things. So that’s what we did, we all learned to become good runners.
LM:
What is one two three my man?
CH:
One person hides his face at the tree and everybody scatters out and then the person at the tree has to go out and find people, and if he finds somebody he runs back to the tree and touches it and says “one two three my man” and the guy who’s been found also has to do that, so he’ll come running to the tree to see if he can say it first. So you either got caught or you didn’t. I think one of those people became the next guy at the tree. That was awfully simple but was an awful lot of fun. We had so much fun playing running games.
LM:
What other sorts of running games or other games in general did you play?
CH:
Sometimes, once or twice a week we’d have a phys ed teacher come. There’s be phys ed time and he’d take us out and we’d play baseball or soccer. That was for an hour once or twice a week and the girls would go off and I guess they played similar games, but that’s not something that has stuck with me. What was most interesting, of course we had a lot of black girls and they used to play jump rope - double dutch. Can you imagine? The key was, when two girls were doing the double dutch, swinging the ropes, you had to jump in and start jumping so that you didn’t get caught by the ropes. Once a girl did that, she would start chanting some black, not a poem, but some lovely little thing that she learned growing up as a girl. So [you would] get in to the ropes and be in there for a while and be chanting, and the girls at the ropes chanted too. It was most unusual. I guess I don’t know if that went back to their African roots or not, but it was something that stuck with me.
LM:
Did you ever double dutch?
CH:
Oh no. Boys didn’t do that, just didn’t. We didn’t know the songs. Yes, that was a golden time of my life, growing up with those children.
LM:
Can you talk a little bit more about that time?
CH:
Okay. So basically there were two groups of black students, one born and raised in New Jersey, and others who had moved in, usually from the South because they were looking for jobs or whatever. The New Jersey kids, we all spoke whatever the New Jersey dialect was, the kids who were coming up and some others, could speak in a black dialect. So that I grew up, I don’t know why I ever did this, but I learned black dialect. I rarely used it, because I didn’t know whether that was the proper thing to do, but it was a funny thing to realize that I had grown up learning another dialect.
LM:
So you said that your father was a farmer?
CH:
Yes. He was trained in college to be a farm manager, but he loved to go out and take a hoe and cultivate the corn. First thing he’d do when he came home from work was go out to the garden and weed. We usually had a big garden. Believe it or not, one day my mother went to an auction, and she came home that night and said to my father, “Sam, I bought a heifer today for forty nine dollars.” He just about hit the roof, “What in God’s name did you buy a heifer for?” and she knew he’d love it, and it was delivered two days later and he knew everything there was to do about that animal. This was more a family experiment, the men learned how to milk the cow, including me, we had churns and made our own butter. This was a unique experience, we made cheese, I don’t know what else, but the high point of it for me, was that my two brothers, two older brothers, they didn’t particularly care to milk the cow. I didn’t see any problem with it, even at the age of five or six, I could milk a cow and I was very proud of that. Then, one morning I got up for school, and I always got up in plenty of time, and my mother said, “Chuck, your father had to leave early this morning and would you milk the cow before you go to school?” So, on and off, I was the backup milking the cow, in the morning, sometimes at night. My father worked in the city at night so I would do the milking. So not many present-day kids can relate to that. I’m careful who I tell about that, because I never wanted to be stigmatized as you know, somebody from the whatever.
LM:
You mentioned that your father worked in the city sometimes at night. What did he do there?
CH:
He did a variety of things. Basically he was a maintenance engineer. That was a huge system generating electricity from coal dust, sending electricity all over the city, so that some things went wrong in the main area where the electricity was generated, or something would blow up around the city and he would have to take a group of men, who were trained to do this, and go out to where the problem was and fix it and replace whatever was blown. And it was dangerous work because they had to go down in these manholes where there were giant cables carrying electricity. Always had to be sure the electricity was cut off and that they were working in a safe field. So he was very proud of his safety record. My father was a southerner, he spoke with a southern dialect, and he was working with a lot of Irish immigrants and others. My father was a teetotaler and the management came to know that and a lot of these people, according to my father, that he worked with, especially if they were hired off the street, they had drinking problems. They would come to work drunk, or whatever and my father was a big man, six feet three, he was an imposing fella. He scared the daylights out of these guys. He would give them money to go get black coffee and they would come back a little bit better and he made sure everybody worked. There was nobody just poopin’ along. He said, “you know, I got tired of that and one day I complained to the bosses that they were sending me bad guys, drunks or whatever,” and one of them confessed, he said, “Sam, we’ve been doing that on purpose, we know your feeling about alcohol and you’ve been doing a good job on the guys that we send you.” They were intentionally sending him who needed rehabilitation. I don’t know that he cured anybody’s alcohol[ism], but he taught them better working habits. You know, my father would come home and he would tell Irish stories, and I thought, practically until I grew up, that those were the only jokes or stories that people told. And that was funny, because I was part Irish, and my mother was full Irish, but she never seemed to mind, you know like Polish stories and all that sort of thing. It wasn’t until later that I found out that there were other ethnic groups in the world.
LM:
Could you talk a little more about your mother?
CH:
My mother. Yes. My mother was born in New York City. Her family was completely Irish in background. She had two sisters and three brothers and they were born here in the U.S. You know they made their way in the world, doing well. Unfortunately, my grandmother, my mother’s mother, died when my mother was about nine or ten and her father remarried someone that my mother couldn’t get along with. My mother was a person of firm will. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was a feminist. She did things in public and the community. But she couldn’t get along with her stepmother and got angry at her father, so she left home at the age of fourteen and went to stay with her brother in Pittsburgh, having no real plan and thinking about what to do. My mother was Catholic. She went to a Catholic nursing school in Pittsburgh, St. Joseph’s and applied there. She was fourteen and she was supposed to be sixteen, but she fibbed about her age and went through nurses training and she was a nurse the rest of her life. But to show you the kind of person she was, in the area where we lived, of course we didn’t all live together, there were black people living in one area, and there was prejudice. She, in the 1940s, joined the NAACP to be an advocate for black people, and that came up very sharply once. Every year, the eighth grade school would plan on a trip to Washington, DC, and we would go with a couple of teachers, stay overnight or two and visit all the great sights. My mother was in charge of that one year and she started calling down there looking for places to stay. It turned out that nobody wanted the black children; nobody wanted black children to stay in their hotel or their motel. I don’t know how she did it, but she rang all around with one place for a while and finally they agreed, but they said, “Keep them out of sight. Keep them out of sight.” Well, I don’t think my mother made any great effort to do that because she wasn’t the kind of person to lie down and roll over for anybody. She got to know women in the black community, especially a woman named Earline Fisher. A very lovely, nice person. Her daughter became famous on television, and was a classmate of mine, Gail Fisher, she played on Mannix for years and years. I didn’t know her very well. She was a good looking, beautiful kid, and she was starting her career around New Jersey in plays and things. So my mother would call up her mother and say, “Hey, let’s go see Gail.” So they would drive across New Jersey somewhere to some festival and they would go see Mrs. Fisher’s daughter. So she had relationships in the black community as well.
LM:
Did your mother work as a nurse throughout your childhood?
CH:
Yes.
LM:
Where did she work?
CH:
She worked a couple of places. She worked in Middlesex Hospital, in Middlesex County, New Jersey. She also did a lot of private duty nursing, in people’s homes, especially people who had chronic and terminal illnesses.
LM:
You mentioned that your mother was Catholic, was your family religious?
CH:
That’s a good question. My father was a Baptist, and he was an affiliated Baptist. He had this paper that if he moved around he could take it to any church who would accept it and he would become a member of that church. So that’s what he did. My mother when she married my Protestant father was excommunicated. Didn’t seem to bother her a whole lot. But nevertheless, she had all these Catholic relatives in New York City, and she was accepted. She used to go there a lot, meet with her cousins and things. They never discussed religion; religion was never an item in our household. My father used to beg me to go to Sunday school. I went once or twice, and then on Sunday mornings when I knew my father was getting ready to go to church, I’d run and hide. But later, my mother joined the Episcopal church in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And I don’t know how much you know about the Episcopalian church…
LM:
Not a whole lot.
CH:
Okay. Well, it’s almost like what the Catholic church used to be. It’s a lot of pageantry, and I’ve forgotten whether they did incense or not, but lots of dressing up and Communion. It’s high Episcopalianism. There’s one here in town, too. And the deal was, I was to join the choir, which was quite a good choir, and they paid the choir members. So I couldn’t argue with that. So I sang in the boy’s choir for seven or eight years until I went away to high school. I still know all the hymns. That was an excellent way to learn music because we sang music by Mozart, and Beethoven, and Bach, really terrific pieces that once you learn them, they’re yours forever.
LM:
I notice you have several instruments in this room, are you very musical?
CH:
Moderately so. I’m sort of on a downgrade right now. I had a lot of illness last winter and I just haven’t practiced, but I always liked early music, Baroque, sometimes Renaissance music. I played in early instrument groups. We had one here in town. There’s a group of instruments that preceded the violin family, you know there’s violin, second violin, viola, and, bass. There was a similar arrangement for these [START OF TRACK 2, 0:00] Renaissance instruments, of viols, and that’s what I have, that’s a bass viol there. I played for many years, took lessons, played around the community. I used to practice every day for an hour and I just was unable to keep that up. And the nice thing about a lot of viol music is that you can play for yourself, I mean it’s not just the melody line, you can play some harmony. I’ll get back to it.
LM:
What were you interested in in school?
CH:
What was I interested in in school? Well, I think early on I wanted to be an Arctic explorer. Even in elementary school I started reading books about the great explorers and who explored the Arctic or the Antarctic, so much so that when I got to high school, and was thinking about college, I wanted something different to do. I had, I think, at that point been to Alaska once and I knew they had a university there and I knew they taught mining engineering, and that was my only way to get back to Alaska. And I was accepted there, but some prominent people began looking at that and didn’t think that was a good way to go. I think my mother especially was, you know, “Chuck, you don’t want to go to a mining engineering school.” But I had also, because my mother was a nurse, I learned a lot from her. When she came home she was always telling stories about the people that she was taking care of and mostly they were sad stories, but there were a lot of things about medicine. I enjoyed her stories. Eventually, I steered toward medicine. I went to a really good high school then when I went to undergraduate school I formally enrolled as premedical. It was tough, yeah.
LM:
Where did you go to undergrad?
CH:
Princeton.
LM:
Princeton. Can you tell me about your time there?
CH:
My time at Princeton. Well, I was a scholarship student. Princeton doesn’t give athletic scholarships, but they smile favorably upon students who are also good athletes, and that’s what I was. Princeton was not co-ed, and being caught up in sports all the time and studying a lot, I didn’t have much of a social life, I mean with guys, but you know there were no women there. There was a school called Westminster Choir School. I think some of my friends dated girls from there. We used to have these big weekends, special football weekends, or prom weekends and the custom was to bring in your date, you know, someone you went to high school with who was at another college, or if you had girlfriend. You would hire a room for her and bring her over for the weekend and then you know be going to all the events and all the drinking, have a good time, go to the football game, or whatever. It was so artificial though, you know?
LM:
How so?
CH:
Well, if I had been at a co-ed school, if you had a girlfriend you’d be meeting her for coffee or you’d be studying together. There just was none of that. Oh, a couple times I went away for the weekend to date someone at another school, but you know that’s artificial too. I didn’t do a hell of a lot socially; I felt somewhat isolated. I devoted myself to being a premedical student, which meant a lot of studying, staying up late, all that folderol. You know, I didn’t have a lot else on my mind. Sports, I was out for sports fall, winter, and spring. I thought that unless I did that, I’d lose my scholarship, but that wasn’t true.
LM:
What sports did you do?
CH:
Well, knowing what I did in grade school, what would you guess?
LM:
Running?
CH:
Cross country, indoor track, and in the spring outdoor track. Yeah, I was a distance runner.
LM:
That’s great. So you eventually went to med school.
CH:
Yeah.
LM:
Where did you go?
CH:
McGill University in Montreal.
LM:
Why did you decide to go to Canada?
CH:
Well that’s a good question. Applying to medical school is a real major undertaking and a lot of people apply to a lot of schools - the top schools, the middle schools, whatever. I’ve forgotten how many I applied to, but it was, you know, several. A relative of mine had gone there and spoke well of it. They were the first one who accepted me so I went up and interviewed with them and right after the interview they told me I was accepted. So I thought, boloney, I’m canceling all those others. They year is over for me, so that was that. And it turned out to be an excellent choice.
LM:
Can you talk more about that?
CH:
Yes. We had a large class, one hundred and twenty, not as many women as there should have been, but we had a large representation of international students, students from Africa, China, and this was during the Cold War, Ethiopia, Russia, and we had about a half dozen Arab students. Of course, a lot of Jewish students, a lot of WASPs [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant], Canadian WASPs and a small contingent of American students, so it was a major education getting to know those people, to hear about their ideas, and to be friends with them. And to be in Montreal, which is a pretty international city, and to have all these places around the city, there’d be the Jewish area, the Greek area, Chinese area. All made it a very enticing experience. You could get almost anything you wanted up there.
LM:
Did you explore the city very much, while you were there?
CH:
Yes and no. I remember going around to a lot of the different areas, going out to eat. There were some distant areas that we didn’t bother exploring.
LM:
So what did you concentrate in in medical school?
CH:
Oh, everybody concentrated on everything. As it turned out, McGill was excellent at teaching psychiatry. We started having psychiatric studies in our first year and every year after that, we’d have some kind of psychiatry rotation. And I happened to luck out, because at that period of time, American psychiatry was dominated by Freudian teaching and psychoanalysis. I had taken a course about that in my college years and decided I didn’t believe in it, but that’s what American science and psychiatry was about. That was not the case in Canada. They sort of taught a psychiatry that was based on science and medicine and pragmatic. So they reached everywhere into other human behavioral fields to try to make an eclectic form of psychiatry and they were up to date on what was going on elsewhere. For example, in the 1950s, the first tranquilizing drugs were discovered in Europe and found to have a considerably positive effect on disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Well, bang-o, one of my professors flew to Europe and came back with a whole supply of those new drugs. He was a European himself, spoke French, German, so he had no problem going and visiting the French center where these were made, and he started them right off in the teaching hospitals of the university, the psychiatric teaching hospitals, and I was able to see the early results of those drugs on some very disturbed people, people who almost were not recognized as people. They were just so, well, they were the equivalent of deformed, dysfunctional people, you know who might just stand in the corner all day, or stand there making the same sound every couple of minutes. Terribly, terribly regressed people, so I saw those people getting medication, starting to show a lot of improvement. Then, another experience was that I was based in a clinic where I saw the people who were discharged on those drugs and it was truly remarkable. A couple of months before I was seeing this person virtually as a derelict and then seeing them on the medication in the clinic, they were virtually in remission. And, occasionally they would say something like, “Well doctor, I still remember all those voices that used to torment me, but they don’t bother me any more. I don’t pay attention to them.” I heard that story so many times, and one I remember in particular was this lovely, talented nurse who worked in the neurological institute. That is a pretty top-flight place throughout the world and she had just become psychotic at work, started taking her clothes off and waving them around and not making any sense. And I saw her in follow-up clinic and I was able to read in the chart what her behavior was. So I interviewed her, she was back at work, bright, connected, together, and I didn’t ask her about any of those things that brought her to the hospital. She was doing well; she didn’t need to be reminded of that. Now that was also the time when these drugs came in that everybody thought they were a miracle and people were being given these drugs and discharged. Now they didn’t necessarily have any place to go, maybe a rooming house or something. And a significant percentage of mental patents, unless they are closely supervised will not take their medication and then they will relapse again. So this was the beginning of de-institutionalization. Governments wanted to save money, by closing hospitals, and after all, there was this wonderful new drug to get people out of hospitals. And ever since then, hospitals have been closing, but in many cases there’s no place for these people to go. It’s become the law now mostly that you have to have a good tight community plan for these people, a place to go or a clinic to go to, somebody to just check in on them, count their pills make sure they’re taking their medication on time. You live in St. Louis?
LM:
[Yes.]
CH:
Do you ever see any homeless people there?
LM:
A little bit.
CH:
Yeah, well, places like New York City have thousands and thousands of them. A lot of those people were in the hospital and they were discharged with no place to go, or it wasn’t a place that could take them and put them in a good community plan with things to do, places to go. I think there are about six hundred thousand homeless people in the United States, most of those have been discharged from hospitals and relapsed and a lot of the hospitals have been closed and so there’s this dilemma: what to do with all these people? Most of them have a history of mental illness. You know, they’re sleeping under bridges, digging in garbage cans, getting in trouble. There are a couple hundred thousand mentally ill people in jails and penitentiaries. They committed some minor kind of a thing or worse and they end up getting locked up for years with no treatment. And so, given this background at McGill and the people who taught psychiatry were just such nice guys. We had to have exams, and usually in psychiatry, they were oral exams, and you would go and sit at a table and meet a senior attending person who would say something like, “Okay Mr. Hudson, I have to find a reason to pass you today, and believe me I want you to pass.” And they would ask very simple, straightforward questions. They weren’t out to get you. And a lot of my class went in to psychiatry, and I’m convinced it was because of their humane treatment by the psychiatric teachers.
LM:
So what did you do after you graduated? You went directly into psychiatry?
CH:
Well, everybody had to do their internship. It was sort of your fifth postgraduate year. I don’t know what got it into my head but I got to thinking that I was going to be a hematologist—work with leukemias and blood tumors and things. So I went out to Salt Lake City where the most prominent hematologist in the world was, University of Utah Medical School. It was one of the worst places I ever was. It turned out that this great hematologist was just a crabby, snotty guy, I mean rude. I didn’t think he had a good molecule in him, but the rest of the story was that a year or two before that, he lost his only son in a tragic accident. Many people think he, even after I left, that he just didn’t recover from that and that played out in how he treated us. It was getting close to the end of the year and you were supposed to have all your charts done and I had about five charts where you have to dictate the summary and that’s no big deal, and he pulled me in and just chewed me out up and down. [Brief interruption] So that finished me. But later the same afternoon, the director of medical education called me in and said I had been accepted into their hematology program as a postgraduate and I thought, “Nope, not for me.” Now, in that era, up to about the 1980s, every male was subject to the draft, selective service. We were all doctors and if you were a doctor, you knew you were going to be called. You didn’t know where you were going to be sent, and that was the troubling part of it. I didn’t just want to go to some ordinary army base and treat snotty noses for the year. I had always had an interest in Native Americans, and I discovered that there was a part of the federal government charged with giving health to American Indians. So early on in medical school I applied and was accepted. I was given this low rating, but I was a member and that would serve as my selective service time. I felt like I had pulled one. It wasn’t that I was anti-military or not patriotic. My brothers had gone through the army and I saw what they went through; that wasn’t for me. When it came time at the end of Salt Lake City to be called in the draft, I said, “Sorry!” So the Indian Health Service called me up and you were able to list a couple places where you would be willing to go. I put down Arizona, Alaska, and lo and behold, they sent me to Alaska. I just couldn’t believe it, it was such, such an experience to be in that wild, faraway place providing medical care to these poor people. They didn’t have two nickels to rub together. And that was when I learned that all Native Americans on reservation and in Alaska were provided free medical care, free paid by the government. So, that, I thought “My God, why can’t everybody get that.” So, I was imprinted with that in the 1960s. It’s coming to pass. Going out, had some great adventures. I went up as a general physician, primary care, regular doctor, and you had to be prepared to do anything. I had to learn to pull teeth, fit eyeglasses, and of course any kind of trauma, deliver babies. So I was getting ready to leave to go study psychiatry somewhere and the Indian Health Service said “Well, Chuck, if you’ll consider coming back here as a psychiatrist, we’ll recommend you for a special scholarship, or whatever. You’ll have to go down to be interviewed for this.” Which I did. I went down to San Francisco and there were a whole bunch of other people applying for it. I happened to win it, so all my expenses and salary were paid while I was studying psychiatry, so at the end of that I went back to Alaska as the chief psychiatrist for the Indian Health Service of Alaska. There were no organized services then, well, what you might be able to get from a primary care physician was, well, it was very irregular. But I had the distinct honor of being able to organize mental health services for the native peoples spread all over Alaska. I was able to get another psychiatrist up there, by a very stealthy maneuver in the hospital in Anchorage. There were a bunch of beds open on one ward one summer and there were mental patients all over the hospital on other services, you know somebody in surgery, on the TB floor and my colleague and I, the best we could do would be to go around and visit them, order medications. Oh, and we also used to get them together for group therapy once in the morning. But an old doctor went on vacation once. He had been doing TB and over the summer the TB patients dropped to five or six. So, without even asking anybody, my colleague and I started transferring all those patients to those empty beds, so we created what they call in-patient service, like here at Bassett they have twenty beds or so. So we created for ourselves and for the patients, a place where they could get treatment and they could get group therapy there, have a nurse assigned to them. Oh, by the way, we had to train all the nurses. But that worked wonderfully, because TB was cranking down and they were afraid they were going to lose their jobs, and they saw us coming and they were overjoyed, and, “Yes, we’ll do whatever you want us to do.” We started having a lot of teaching sessions. We had at that time what was known as a mental health pharmacist. He knew his drugs very, very well. So, I and my colleague taught him interviewing so that with time, he would be able to see [patients], and we [START OF TRACK 3, 0:00] allowed him to write prescriptions, and it worked well. He was a very sensible, empathic guy, and he turned around and he had classes for the nurses in all the medications. So that was amazing that we accomplished that. A lot of Native American, or Indian, people used to go to the state hospital up there and they didn’t identify with that. So, we started skimming those off and then taking them to our hospital so that we could treat them until they were in the best shape they could be, make a plan for them, and send them back to their village. Now the other thing woven into all this, when I first got there, I would go out and visit villages, there were a lot of villages and many of them were just so far away. There was no way that they could come to the hospital, because that was expensive, so the government paid expenses for anyone who got acute illness to come to the hospital. Well, we started, instead, visiting the villages and doing physicals on everybody, seeing prenatal cases, newborn babies, babies in general, and all the things you should be doing to provide preventative health care. Sometimes I’d pull the occasional tooth, or fit eyeglasses. No, I didn’t fit eyeglasses in the village; I didn’t have any portable eyeglass stuff. I noticed that people wanted to be seen at night, after dinner - that was fine with me - and it turned out, they were people who wanted to talk to me, just talk. Certainly, a lot of them had very real problems, some of them needed medication. So I did that, I had charge of about thirty villages, which I tried to visit twice a year, and so every time I went back, I’d see the same people, check them over, give them encouragement and so on. That was when I was a primary care person; then three years later I came back as the psychiatrist and started organizing. [Brief interruption] We began outpatient services. My second four years as a psychiatrist was very busy. We had seven or eight little hospitals around Alaska [brings out globe to point out locations]. There was one up here at Point Barrow, one here at Kotzebue, one at Nome. I was down here, and then there was one in the middle, and in Anchorage was the big Alaska Native Medical Center with about four hundred beds and the specialists and things. I started doing outpatient and inpatient care and, this was something new, if someone became acutely mentally ill in a village, I would fly them in to be hospitalized at my center, not at the state hospital. State hospitals, generally, have a bad aroma, and in some ways it’s not fully deserved, but what I had at my hospital, the Native Service Hospital, most of the employees, including the nurses, the aids, the people who were doing maintenance or cleaning, they were all Native, and it was amazing when I first saw this happening, they would sort of side along to my unit and begin talking with the patients. So that made our people feel very much at home. They had people to talk to in their own language and then occasionally one of those people would come to us and say, “You know, Johnny’s really upset because he hasn’t heard from his wife,” or some really difficult matter, and we could check right into it, get in touch with the village and pass on things and really build some more communication into the system so they could be in touch with their families.
LM:
So how much time did you spend in Alaska?
CH:
Seven years.
LM:
Seven years.
CH:
Yeah.
LM:
Where did you go after that?
CH:
Well, at this point, I was sort of becoming a professional member of the Public Health Service. I had increased in rank. My sister lived up there, fairly close to us and our kids played together, and we had a wonderful time. But then her marriage broke up and really, I felt very badly, and she moved to another part of the state. So we began thinking, we lost my sister, and at that point we basically had become Alaskans, and that’s a real point to reach. Then we began asking ourselves, “Are we really? Is this what we want to be?” and I never wanted to be a stereotype of anything. I used to see the older Public Health Service officers around, you know in their uniforms, we used to have to wear uniforms - sometimes - acting like they were generals and you know, professional types, and I could never think of myself as a career officer for the government. So, we decided to leave and come back east. We came to Cooperstown because we’re Easterners, all our relatives were here. My children were not getting to see their grandparents, so here we are.
LM:
If you don’t mind backtracking a little bit, could you tell me about how you met your wife?
CH:
Well, like many college students, I worked over the summer doing something to save up for college. So I guess it was the summer after my sophomore year, I was working in a, you know what a Howard Johnson is?
LM:
[Yes.]
CH:
I was working at a Howard Johnson’s, in the kitchen washing dishes, cleaning up, and there was this lovely young woman who was out at the bar, serving sodas and sundaes. And, yeah, we made a connection.
LM:
Now, when did you get married?
CH:
Just about the end of my senior year of college.
LM:
Can you tell me a little bit about your family with your wife, your children?
CH:
Okay, our first youngster was born in Vermont. We were transients for [a] fair amount of our lives. Where we were working for the summer, our first child was born there, in medical school. She has turned out to be really quite something. She came home from college once and said “Dad,” I had been thinking she was pre-med and she and I had done some things together in psychiatry. Well, she came home from college and said “Dad, I’ve decided, if I go into social work, I can do more for people than you do as a psychiatrist.” Okay. So, that’s what she wanted to do, and what’s she now? Fifty two, yeah. She’s done a lot of really interesting things in her career and we have two granddaughters from her, both of whom have graduated from college. The second youngster, Andrew, was born in my senior year, the funny part about it was, that he was late. One day, one wintery day, I had to be taking my obstetrics exam and, I think by then, Dot was two weeks late, at least. So I came home from that exam all tired out and when I got in the door she said, “Chuck, I’m ready to go.” So back we went to the hospital. Then my third youngster, and he [Andrew] is a computer engineer for Maine Public Radio. So, the third one, is also interesting, my second daughter. When I got to Alaska, for the first time as a fresh young doc, I arrived and told them, I said, “You know, I’d like to do two years out in one of the remote hospitals.” And they about fell all over themselves, because nobody volunteered for that. Who would want to do that, you know? But to me it was an adventure. A lot of the things that I chose to do I did because they looked interesting, they sounded adventurous, and also there was the possibility of doing good for somebody. My first year there, at the end of the first year, we moved to the boonies, a small thirty bed hospital, with two doctors. Dot had been brewing a pregnancy that year and was due in September and there was another doctor there with me who turned out to be mentally unbalanced, and it was my understanding that he was going to deliver my third child. All of a sudden, he got called away by the government. I complained and I said, “Look, you promised there would be somebody here. I don’t want to deliver my own child.” And they said, “It’s okay, Chuck, we’ll have somebody up.” A couple days later, this stiff young doctor, newly arrived in a military uniform came out, and I met him at the plane, and he gets off the plane with his hand out and says, “Are you Doctor Hudson?” And I said, “Yes.” “Well I heard your wife is pregnant, and I just want you to know, I did a surgical residency and I never did any deliveries, so you’ll have to do it.” I thought, oh yeah, thanks a lot. But then, as it turned out, the other guy came back and one morning Dot told me, “I think I’m having pains,” so the hospital was just down the street, well a street, we were all on hospital grounds, so I took her down to the hospital and she was really moving along and I thought, “Dammit, where’s Sam (the other doctor)?” And he always was hard to get out of bed. I had them call the time to him and I was jangling myself, and she was moving along. Finally, this little head starting arriving and he wasn’t there. So, it wasn’t complicated and just as I was starting to ease the head out, he arrived. And if I’d had time, I would have killed him. So, the third one was born in Kanakanak Hospital in Alaska.
LM:
And you have three children?
CH:
Yes.
LM:
So you moved to Cooperstown with quite a young family.
CH:
Yes, and that worked out well, because there were schools up there, small, there were a lot of Native students, Eskimo kids and so on. But there was no high school, that’s right, no high school. They would have had to go elsewhere for high school, boarding school or something, but I don’t remember thinking about that before. So, it seemed a good time to make a split. I was looking for jobs that were advertised in the psychiatric journals and there was one for a hospital in Cooperstown. And we discussed it as a family and there was resistance. “We don’t want to go to Cooperstown, Dad. We like it here.” And I said, “Well, what about if we go next year?” Well, there was grudging acceptance, so I flew down here to Cooperstown, had an interview, and then I told them I couldn’t come for a year. They accepted that, so we came down in 1974.
LM:
So, can you tell me a little about your work in Cooperstown?
CH:
Working in Cooperstown? [Recorder turned off for short break]
[START OF TRACK 4, 0:00]
LM:
[No, I don’t know very much about the hospital]
CH:
So when I arrived here the services were very similar to what I had developed in the Anchorage hospital. There was an inpatient section with twenty beds for people who had to come into the hospital for a while. We had an outpatient clinic so people could come in and be seen on an outpatient basis, and that’s what I was in charge of, the outpatient people coming in and some emergency calls. But the important thing about this hospital was that it is a teaching hospital, which means that the staff are not just looking after themselves and their own interests and their own private practice. People are expected to be up on things, to read, to be of a higher caliber. And the hospital is affiliated with a medical school in New York City, so we all had an appointment to that hospital. I was an assistant professor or something like that. We also had interns and residents to teach and you have to be on your toes if you’re going to do good teaching, know what’s current in the literature or the students will think you’re a doof. They pick up on that pretty quickly. I participated in teaching all aspects of the clinical part of psychiatry. I did do some impatient work when the inpatient doctor was out of town or something. When I came here, this was a very small place; this was not a medical center. There were much smaller numbers of physicians, some of the specialities were represented. Some of the doctors had become specialists because they work in that area, in other words an intern that’s on the staff could become interested in gastro-intestinal disorders so that’s what people would start sending him and on his own initiative, he would become the local specialist in GI medicine. There were two cardiologists, three psychiatrists, I guess there was a urologist, a couple of surgeons, a few interns and residents, but it was a small place, comfortable and generally everybody got along together.
LM:
So we’ve been talking for about an hour and a half and I don’t want to take up a whole lot more of your time so is there anything that you would have liked to have talked about that I didn’t ask you about, any closing words?
CH:
Let’s see… well, there’s a whole other segment of my career that we haven’t talked about. When I was in the Indian Health Service in Alaska, we were a uniformed service, we wore uniforms, but we were not in the military, we were under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which is basically civilian. But we abided by military protocol, you know we had to salute. Nobody ever taught us how to, but we at least had to act military and you know we would wear the wrong color socks, or something, everybody was screwing up on their uniform because we never had any training about it. There were people who had their problems with authority but we never got bugged about it. When I left, I was given credit for twelve years in the Public Health Service because I spent two summers with them. And when I got down here I thought, well, that’s a shame, that was twelve years towards some kind of retirement and benefits. There was no Public Health Service down here that I could affiliate with. I went in to Albany and found the Naval reserve center and talked to them and found out that I would be eligible just to transfer, become a Naval reserve officer, despite the fact I knew nothing about the military, nothing. So I was accepted gladly because they needed doctors, and I was in charge of a medical unit, about twenty men who were basically hospital corpsmen, they had some hospital training and first aid and other things. They would be the first line of call if they were in the service and were in action. They would come carry the wounded off and take care of them. But they had great fun teasing me, teaching me proper military etiquette, which I promptly forgot and had to try to get all my insignias right, and it wasn’t easy. So, I didn’t do psychiatry. I did an occasional situation where they wanted me to assess someone for a psychiatric interview, which I did, but I used the opportunity to be one of the doctors who was doing physicals, just ordinary physicals. Everybody had to have a physical every year recorded on their chart, and if there were any irregularities, make sure they were taken care of. And that proved to be very instrumental in bringing back my medical skills, because I was hands-on, feeling bellies, listening to hearts, and all that kind of thing. But then, I began to notice something else. We had a lot of minorities in the Naval reserve, and on the outside they had no medical care, no medical charts, so even if it wasn’t time for their physical, they would come in with a medical problem. I and the other doctors had agreed that we would do that, so we would take care of medical issues for them, prescribe medication; we were basically their family doctor. And then some of them started bringing their babies in. Well, I honed up on my examining of children. It was the usual thing of sore ears and colds and that, so that wasn’t a problem, but having this sort of ethnic divide really was an eye-opener for me. These people needed that money. They didn’t want to be sent home because they were sick because they would lose pay. So that motivated us more to do anything we could to help them out. One day I was in the clinic and this young Hispanic woman came in and she was obviously expecting and told me that she was starting to have pains, but she didn’t think she was due yet. She didn’t know what to do because she was afraid she would be sent home and lose her pay for the afternoon. So, I examined her, and there was a little room off to the side of the clinic with a nice cotton blanket, so I said, “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you just come in here and lie down and take it easy and see how things go?” So, she spent the afternoon there and her pains quieted down and I had to think up some excuse why I kept her at the clinic all afternoon, but whatever I did worked out and there weren’t any problems because of that. But yeah, we were circumventing the law. I always did that. I’ll tell you another one, where we committed federal crimes. When the other doctor and I were out in the little hospital where my daughter was born, those people were poor, but they were subsistence people, they lived on hunting and various other things. However, they were under government care and we were forbidden to prescribe contraceptives. Now, the health of those people had been very bad; the mortality rate had been terrible with TB, infant diseases, but the Public Health Service was getting a handle on those with the result that families were growing, people were staying healthier and the women didn’t necessarily want big families and there wasn’t anything we could do, really. Birth control pills really didn’t work up there because of the irregularity of the mail flights. If your prescription renewal was late, you were in trouble. Well, my colleague took some vacation and went down to see his father in Georgia, his father was a physician and a very good one too, and he came back with this big jar of, you know what Lippes Loops are?
LM:
[No]
CH:
You know what IUDs [Intrauterine Device] are?
LM:
Yeah.
CH:
Okay, Lippes Loops are simply a form of IUDs, they’re funny looking little things, and we had a special applicator, we would put this little thing, it looked like a long sperm, and this would be inserted into the uterus and they were good contraceptives, but they were illegal. And, our superiors used to call up every month and say, “Have you prescribed any birth controls this month?” Well, of course the answer was no, we were giving them away for free, we weren’t prescribing them and we weren’t using pills, but it was against the law, and my colleague and I used to joke around saying, “Do you think the FBI’s going to come out here, to this God forsaken place, give us trouble?” Finally they were legalized, but meanwhile we had a good jump on that social issue.
LM:
That’s wonderful, and did anybody ever find out before they were legalized?
CH:
About what we were doing?
LM:
Yeah.
CH:
It wouldn’t have mattered.
LM:
Yeah?
CH:
We were delighted that we were getting away with something.
LM:
That’s fantastic. Well, like I said, I don’t want to make this last too long, though I’m sorry that it’s ending because you have lots of interesting stories.
CH:
You want to go on for a few more minutes?
LM:
If you have something more that you’d like to share, absolutely.
CH:
Well, I guess the other point was about how my turn in the Navy reserves sort of morphed into this other kind of thing of providing some care for underserved groups. Yeah, that was fun. I liked to do something where I knew I was doing something socially approved, but especially where I was learning something. That was part of the whole thing with Alaska, flying around to those villages and to the mountain, having all those small plane experiences. Okay!
LM:
Yeah.
CH:
Thank you for coming.
LM:
Thank you very much for letting me interview you. This was wonderful.
[RECORDER TURNED BACK ON FOR ONE LAST STORY] [START OF TRACK 5, 0:00]
CH:
In the Naval reserve, in addition to going to a Naval reserve center and doing medical things once or twice a month we had to go away to a Naval hospital for two weeks every year and that was to do psychiatry, to go to some hospital that had a psychiatric center there where people were being treated and seen in the clinic and so on. And so they had usually made up an agenda of things they wanted me to do. One of the things that they had would be a list of people they thought were homosexuals. Yeah, you weren’t supposed to be in the service if you were gay, and my views on that were not the same as the Navy’s. But I was stuck, and so I figured out what I would do. I would sit down and tell them, “Now, I’m not your regular Navy psychiatrist, I’m a civilian.” This was hard for them to believe because I had the uniform on and all that junk, but I tried as hard as I could to make them realize that really, I was on their side, and I would tell them, “I’ve been asked to see you because the Navy wants to know if you’re gay or no.” So I would go through some history with them, life history, such as you would do for anybody and then I’d simply ask them straight out, “Are you gay?” and they would say, “No.” And well, as far as I was concerned, that was it, if somebody says they aren’t, they aren’t. So that was the way I’d write it up. One guy was in difficulty, though. His boyfriend had written a letter to him, which his mother intercepted and it contained incriminating statements in it. Well, she sent it to the Navy, bless her heart, and so there that was, sitting in the chart, and I thought, “What the hell am I going to do with this?” So I discussed it with him. I asked him about the letter. “Oh, that’s a complete misunderstanding,” he said, and then went on to give me an explanation of what that letter was about and then I asked him, “Well, are you gay?” “Well certainly not. Mom may think I am, but I’m not.” Okay? I think his mother ended up being delusional in my report. Yeah, that was a funny thing. How to, during those two weeks, how to get around things you didn’t believe in, things that the Navy wanted you to do their way. There was another case where a young man, a recruit, had been on this Navy base and he was lying on his cot one day and just started becoming psychotic - hallucinating and crazy thoughts. So he just got up off his cot and walked off the base and left for a couple of years. And seemingly was forgotten about, however he did come back and told the Navy that he’d been mentally ill. Well, the Navy doesn’t really believe in mental illness, so they thought he had committed a criminal act and ought to be held accountable. So I was assigned to do this examination for the Navy, basically they wanted me to find him guilty, not mentally ill, but when I talked to him, it was so clear, it was crystal clear he couldn’t have made that up. And then he said, “By the way, I went to see a private psychiatrist in Boston, and she believes that I was psychotic and she told me what my diagnosis was.” To me, even though I didn’t see any writing, that was strong evidence, and the Navy, of course, wanted him to go to prison. Oh! And he brought his lawyer with him and the Navy told me specifically, “Do not have the lawyer come in. If it gets to be a problem, just cancel the interview.” Well, on the day of the interview, the lawyer did show up, and I thought, yeah I had terrible attitudes, I thought, “I don’t really give a damn if the lawyer sits in or not, no skin off my nose.” So I started the interview and he made an effort to interrupt and I said, “Stop. I’ll let you stay here, but you’re not to interfere in the interview,” so, he didn’t. I was going against the Naval orders. He clearly was mentally ill. There was another psychiatrist, and I talked to her, she agreed with me. The Navy didn’t want that. But I was only there for two weeks and I had a getaway, I had a way to get out of there, and had in my report. So I worked until the last day on the report, and I made the last couple sentences ambiguous, I put double negatives in and then the afternoon came, I ran to the receptionist, or the typist and I said, “Here it is, I’m gone.” So I got in my car and left, and I was stopped at the gate, wanting to know if I’d handed that report in, “Oh yes, yes, I did, the typist has it.” In Cooperstown that Monday, they called here, called me at my office and they said, “We’re confused by those last two sentences. What does that mean?” and I said, “I know it’s complex, but it basically means this man is not guilty by reason of insanity.” So, I don’t know if I was breaking the law or not, but I wasn’t being a good example of a Naval psychiatrist.
LM:
So did they accept your diagnosis, your finding?
CH:
I presume so. They could have gotten another one on their own, gone out and gotten still another psychiatrist, but with two opinions against them, and a good lawyer, I think they found some way to wiggle out of it. There were bad things done in the military, real bad.
LM:
Well, thank you for that last story, it was very interesting. Is the anything more you think?
CH:
Oh there will be, but may not be today.
LM:
Okay, well thank you very much.

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Mary Alexander

Marion Karl

Cornish Hill
Cooperstown, NY

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

MA=Mary Alexander
MK=Marion Karl

MA:
This is Mary Alexander interviewing Marion Karl, on Friday November 16, 2012. We are in Cooperstown on Cornish Hill in Marion Karl’s cabin. Thank you so much for talking with us today. Just to start us off where were you born?

MK:
Actually I was born in South India in a little hill town called Kodai Kanal, I guess the Indians say Kod-ai [emphasis on the i]. My parents were working in India as missionaries.

MA:
What year was that, the year you were born?

MK:
I was born in 1928, which makes me 84 years old.

MA:
Can you describe for me what it was like growing up in India?

MK:
Well, it was definitely very different from right around here. One, the climate was totally different. And two, I went to boarding school when I was maybe six years old, six or seven. Started in, because the school that the missionary children went to, was in the hills and parents would obviously not be working right there. This was a school for missionary children, at that time that was what the student body was. They were all from that missionary background. Now that particular school, Kodai School, is an international school and has a lot of different nationalities represented in their student body, and there are very few American children there anymore. But it is still there. My school had a different schedule, we started in January, after a school break, or Christmas break, and we would run until about October and then we would go back down to what we called the Plains. Because this school was at an altitude of about 8,000 feet in the Palni Hills of South India. As I said it was a boarding school. My mother would come up with us on the train (we never had a car) and then the last thirty miles from the plains at sea level to 8,000 feet was by bus, thirty miles, going up hairpin curves as you entered in what they called the Ghat G-H-A-T. That was a description of the roads and the elevation. So there was quite a climate difference as you can imagine from the plains where it might be 70 degrees, when we got up there it might be 50 [degrees] at that time of year. We would be in boarding school maybe until April, then my mother would come up and she would rent a house during the season and would stay a couple of months. My father would come up for his vacation and stay with us. He would go back earlier than my mother. She would finally finally probably leave in August. And we would then go to school until October, back in boarding. There were children that came from as far away as what was called “Arabia” at that time, North India as well, South India. So it was a wide range of geographical areas where the children's parents were, but we were all pretty homogeneous as far as what our parents did. So that when we came home it was quite a shock. You know, sort of a culture shock, when you come back and everybody is quite different from you where you go to school. Came back for furlough when I was about four, and then again about seven years later when I was about twelve.

MA:
Can you talk a little bit more about what your parents actually did as missionaries?

MK:
My mother was a nurse and she was connected with the Mission hospital somewhat, but she did not have the same type of schedule that a nurse here in this country would have had. I’ll have to admit I don’t know exactly what she did do. And when we were home she was always home. So she was not working as a nurse here, might have been working, you know daily. My father, at the last place that we stayed, he was sort of the headmaster of a school for Indian boys and towards the end of the time he was in India he became treasurer of the mission and was in charge of making sure that all of the properties that the Mission had around an area were turned over to the Indian people, because it was obviously getting to the point where India was getting its own independence and when they did get their own independence they didn’t want foreign people to take jobs that an Indian person would be able to hold. So that many of the jobs that the Americans did when they were over there, like being teachers, or nurses, or doctors, they could no longer do. So the mission just sort of turned their properties over to the Indian church, and the Indian church people, and that was part of his task at the end of his thirty years in India.

MA:
What time would that transition have been?

MK:
The last furlough we came home and it took us a month to come from India to New York City. Because we came by boat. We left from Bombay, which is now called Mumbai, and sailed through the Indian Ocean up the Red Sea through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. I think somebody told me that our boat, which was called The President Adams (it was an American boat) was the last passenger boat that went through the Straits of Gibraltar just before the Second World War started, and it would have been around the time that Dunkirk occurred. You probably remember hearing about that. The world was getting ready for war.

MA:
Can you describe what that journey was like, a whole month on a boat?

MK:
Well, I’m not a very good “sailor”, so I did at first feel seasick but you get used to it after a while. It’s a lot of water to look at it. And, it’s sort of fun, it’s sort of like a vacation because somebody is feeding you all the time and you don’t have any chores to do and you don’t have any books to learn. And it was like a transition from one life to another.

MA:
So, you described coming to America, I believe, as kind of a culture shock, is that what you were describing when you said “culture shock”?

MK:
Yeah.

MA:
Can you talk a little bit about how it was so different from your time in India?

MK:
Well, I think one of the things I think about most was in general was that the children I went to school with had the same religious background and religious beliefs and social beliefs. We stayed in Rochester, New York that first winter. My father was taking more studies at the Colgate Rochester Divinity School and we stayed in a small apartment on the grounds of that institution and my family was all around me, living together, with the exception of my older brother who was away at a private school called Peddie in New Jersey. But then when my father went back, if it hadn't been for the war, I would have gone back with my mother as would have my younger brother, but they weren't allowing women and children to return to India. My father went back by a very circuitous route through the Pacific trying to avoid Japanese warships; it took him quite awhile to get back to India. We stayed in the United States. My mother had family in the Adirondacks in a little town called Minerva, so I had cousins to play with when we stayed there and during the summers that my father was away we spent summers there. My mother didn't feel like she could impose on her family totally, so we went to an apartment in Ventnor, New Jersey. Ventnor is on the same island as Atlantic City and I went to Atlantic City High School and disliked it intensely. Because it was, that was where I felt the most culture shock because I was an outsider there, I felt like I didn’t have anything in common with most of those children and it took me a whole year to get accustomed to even going to that school. I can remember they weren't terribly friendly, but then I wasn't very outgoing either. I’m not trying to blame anybody, but I don't think I ate lunch with a single person that whole year.

MA:
How did you feel, that your father got to go back, or how did your mother feel? Do you know what her thoughts were on the fact that you guys could not return with your father?

MK:
My mother never complained; she knew that was the way it had to be. And that this was sort of like her duty to maintain her family the best way that she could without her husband. So he was gone for only about three and a half years, the normal length of furlough would have been about seven [years], but because he was by himself he came home just about the time I graduated from high school and was ready to go off to college.

MA:
Did your time at the high school ever get any easier?

MK:
Yes, it got easier. I met a couple of girls. Not necessarily girls that I’d gone to classes with, and I got involved in Girl Scout. So I had a small circle of girls I felt happy and comfortable with. But when I look at high school kids now and all the activities they have, I think I really missed a lot of those. One, we didn’t have a car, we never had a car, so if I wanted to go anyplace I either had to walk or ride my bicycle, and that was another thing, I liked riding my bicycle and I would sometimes ride to school. I would be the only one in school that had a bicycle and rode to school. Usually it would be riding on sort of a trolley. They had a trolley that ran the whole length of the island, and you could ride very inexpensively on that. Since the island was so narrow you could ride up and down the island and get almost any place on that one long trolley. But I never went out at night, I never had any activities at night, there must have been some but I never got involved in them. I just didn’t have a good time in high school.

MA:
Were you brothers in the high school with you?

MK:
Now that was another thing, my oldest brother had come home two years before the family because he was older. He had been enrolled in this private school Peddie, and he had done excellently, so well that he had gotten a scholarship. And then on the basis of his good works, my other two brothers also went to Peddie School and also did well, but that meant I was basically going to high school by myself. Most of the time that I was in high school my brothers were not at home.

MA:
Was this a private boy’s boarding school then?

MK:
Yes, it was. It was like a prep school. It’s still there.

MA:
You decided to go to college from there, where did you go to college?

MK:
That was another thing, back in those days your parents looked around, or my parents did. My parents weren't going to be in this country, so they felt that they had to find a place that they would feel that I would be safe and you know be in school. So they picked Keuka College, which is a small college in upstate New York. In the Finger Lakes on Keuka Lake. It was a girl’s school, women’s school, its “women’s” when you are in college. When I started off to college, they went back to India. I think of all the modern communications children have when they are away from home to connect them back with their families, but when I went to school I did not talk to my parents or see my parents for seven years. And when they came back after leaving their kids, they had two daughter- in-laws, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren that they had never met.

MA:
Did you communicate via mail then, or was that even hard?

MK:
Yes, my mother was a prodigious letter writer and she would carbon copy four letters for her four children, and I’m sure we never answered as many letters as she wrote to us but she would write weekly discussing what they were doing and ask questions about how we were doing. And if you had a question or wanted to make a reply to her letter it took a month for the letter to come and a month for it to go (back) so by the time if you had a question or something you wanted to discuss it might be two months before you got a reply, and then “what was I saying?” “what was I asking?” It was not too relevant.

MA:
So you mentioned grand-kids and all these people that existed for your parents all of a sudden. Can you tell me how you met your husband and things like that?

MK:
Well, let me go back just a moment, because after two years at a women’s college, I decided I wanted to go someplace else. My aunt and uncle lived in Syracuse, and I would visit them fairly often from Keuka, which is not all that far from Syracuse relatively speaking. And also a friend of my mother’s that she had known while she was in college, many years earlier, was a medical doctor who was at the Syracuse University Medical School. It was not the Upstate Medical School at that time, but it was Syracuse University Medical College. She was a cardiologist, and she was doing quite a lot of research in cardiology and I became acquainted with her because of her friendship with my mother. And when I was visiting my aunt she helped me take a battery of tests deciding what I might really like to study. I decided I wanted to change my major from being a biology major to nursing and so I applied to the school of nursing and was accepted, but I had to repeat one year because I didn’t have the right number of credits to go into my junior year if I had been accepted with two years of college credits. I had to go in as a sophomore. One thing I could say about Keuka College that I thought was excellent was they arranged their school schedule so that the women could do what they call “Field Periods,” and you had to complete at least eight Field Periods during your course of study there. And the freshman Field Period which was usually between, they stopped six weeks before Christmas and you were home an extended time, and at that time you were supposed to write a paper about some great interest of yours, so when I was home just before my parents went off to India I stayed with them and wrote this paper. Then the next summer was another period where you could do a field period experience and this time I and another student, who actually was a child of missionaries as well, had a job with the Harlem YWCA, they ran a girls camp in the Catskills near Bear Mountain and we spent the summer on Lake Tiorati. I forget the name of the camp, but I can remember the lake, but it was children totally from Harlem so they were all African American children, and we were the very first white people who had ever worked at or attended that camp so we kidded ourselves that we “integrated” the Harlem YWCA Children’s Camp that summer. And had a marvelous experience.

MA:
What did you do for them during the summer?

MK:
Well, I have to smile because I was a waterfront counselor and I could barely swim myself, to be honest with you. I was able to pass the swim test but I was a very weak swimmer when I went, but I was teaching children how to swim. Every afternoon the children who were ready for it would get in the water and we would take boats out and swim around the lake, various places in the lake. Everybody would be in the water and there would be enough boats to keep track of them. They also wanted some of the councilors in the water with the children. So basically I learned how to swim when I was in the water watching other children learning how to swim.

MA:
So what was it like being two of the first white people that had ever come to this organization?

MK:
It was interesting and I felt very comfortable and in fact I got sort of an affirmation from the children because the way cabin was set up would be: there would be eight girls in the cabin and then there would be a little corner that was sort of blocked off so that the councilors, the two councilors, had a little bit more privacy unto themselves, and the bathrooms would be in another building. It would not be like a whole room because the partition would not go all the way up. So you could hear what the children were talking about or if they were fooling around so you could keep your eye on them. One afternoon, I don’t know why we were all, not all of them, there were a couple of girls in there and I was in my bedroom so to speak. At that time because my last name was Johnson and everybody was supposed to have a nickname, my nickname was Johnny. And these two girls were saying, “Johnny doesn’t treat you like other white people does, she acts like she’s one of us.” So that made me feel really good, an affirmation of I was doing the right thing.

MA:
So, how did you transition from this and going to school to what happened after? You eventually wound up in Cooperstown. Can you talk about how you got here?

MK:
Ah, well, that was a long road. I went through nursing school at Syracuse and graduated and then I stayed on to work on their surgical floor, because that’s where I wanted to be, and I lived at the hospital I had become active in the church that my aunt and uncle belonged to.

MA:
What denomination was that?

MK:
That was a Baptist church, but also at the college there was a group called Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. It was a group that was nationwide that have counselors or somebody working with college aged kids, on a more spiritual level. I don’t remember how I started going there, but somebody must have invited me, and I ended up feeling very comfortable with that group, and doing a lot of things with them. They would have a lot of recreational things to do. We would have other services, and they tended to go to a Presbyterian Church in Syracuse and I became interested in attending that church so I started going there. After I graduated from college, nursing school, I got the job as I said. My husband who had graduated from Cornell Medical School had an internship at Syracuse University, and his first rotation was the surgical service in Memorial Hospital where I was working. At that time his name was Klinkerfus which was sort of a strange name to begin with. He was also very tall, he was 6’8, so he sort of stood out. And at that time, when somebody wanted a doctor there wasn’t a paging system or your cell phone, or anything except the loudspeaker. So, if an intern was required, it would be heard all over the hospital: “Calling Dr. Klinkerfus, Dr. Klinkerfus call da da da da” whatever number, and most of us would just hold our sides with laughter at that name. But, I think the first week he was on the surgical service, that was his first rotation, as I said. He said “would you like to go out to the movies tomorrow night?” In that day and age [START OF TRACK 2, 0:00] if you were asked to go out the same day, or a day before, if you were a popular person you would be all dated up, so that maybe you would say no just because, you know how it is.

MA:
You wanted to prove that you were...

MK:
Right, right, but I thought, you know that’s not too wise. I said, “yes I’d love to,” which was probably lucky because he said if you hadn’t said “yes” I would have asked somebody else, and then it would have been different.

MK:
We went out to a restaurant to eat, and we had lobster. I had never had lobster in my life. And we went to see a movie and at the end of the movie in the course of our conversation he said “well when is your birthday?” and I told him and he said “don’t you want to know when my birthday is?” And I said “Why would I want to know when your birthday is? I’m not even going to know you when that comes along,” and he said, “Oh yes you are, I’m gonna marry you.” So on our first date he said, “I’m going to marry you.” And I said “really?” But that’s what happened.

MA:
So the long road to Cooperstown continues with?

MK:
Okay, after two years at Syracuse he decided he wanted to do an orthopedic residency, we went to Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland and this… I don’t want to get too bogged down in details.

MA:
No, whatever you’d like to say.

MK:
We lived in the top floor of a very nice house, but these people were sort of, they lived in a very nice house but they really did not have the money to keep it up, but it was a nice place to live except it was so hot in the summertime, and they had a very large white dog, it was some kind of a sheep dog, Hungarian sheep dog, some rare breed, but it was also very large, and very, not vicious, but it could be vicious. And, in fact the man, or the resident who had lived in the same apartment as us said, “You wanna watch out for that dog, I always carry a baseball bat when I come home at night because I don’t know what he will do to me.” Well, when we went to the door to interview them about the apartment, this dog leapt up on the glass door and he was looking me in the face and for some odd reason I wasn’t a bit afraid of him. In fact, he must have sensed I wasn’t afraid of him the people were so impressed that we weren’t afraid of their dog that they did not ask us any questions about whether we liked the apartment or if we were suitable, they let us have it. That was the one thing I remember most because my husband was away every other night. The family was gone during the summer, they weren’t even there, and I felt quite a lot more secure to have the dog, they left the dog with me, and I would walk it around the streets at night to walk it when I got home from work. It was nice to have that kind of companion. Anyway, my husband decided that he did not want to be an orthopedic surgeon, and he had to fulfill his obligation to the military service. There was a doctor’s draft at that time, other sections of the population didn’t have a draft but doctors did, and he had to fulfill that obligation. And so he went into the Public Health Service, and we moved to Portland, Maine. He was at a clinic in Portland and we lived there for a year and a half, almost two years, our first child was born there, and he finished up his service in Cape May, New Jersey. By that time he had decided he wanted to do a residency in anesthesiology and had chosen to go to Hartford Hospital that had a very good residency program and we lived in West Hartford, Connecticut for three years while he was doing that. And at that time we were lucky enough again to find this lady, an older lady, she was in her 90s but she was very independent and she wanted to stay in her own home, but her son was not happy for her to be there by herself so the solution was to have a family move in with her; so we considered her to be the grandmother and I did all the cooking and she provided the space so it worked out very nicely.

MA:
What year did you arrive in Cooperstown?

MK:
We came to Cooperstown about 1961, my youngest child was about three months old and we didn’t move into our present house for three years. We lived on the corner of Fair Street and Atwell Road because we couldn’t make up our minds. We could not get together to decide on where we wanted to live. He wanted to live within walking distance of the hospital and I wanted to live out in the country because I wanted a big garden and I wanted space. He said “well you can always buy land.” So the house that we bought was within walking distance and the moment we moved in there I searched and found this property.

MA:
Tell me a little bit about the property and how you acquired it and when you acquired it?

MK:
I heard about it through a friend who said “there’s an older lady,” (again an older lady), “who wants to sell her property, but she is a little particular about who she sells it to.” So he introduced me to Madeline DeBurg. She was a lady who had owned this property and there was more, she owned even more than the 100 acres I bought from her. She had owned it and I think her family had done a little bit of farming on it, but she really wasn’t a farmer or a farming type person. And she lived in a house on Sibley Gulf Road and she was like the other lady, she wanted to live here as long as she could and in the winter she would go back to her home in New Jersey. She was almost deaf and almost blind, but she had somebody who would come and help her during the time that she was here to take her places if she needed to go and to do the routine yard work and that kind of thing that she needed to have done. And I visited her a number of times even after I bought the property, quite a few times I would go up and visit her and we would have a good time, just talking and she told me she wanted to sell the property to somebody who would take really good care of it. So I felt that was sort of a mandate to keep it as it was and much later on when I got the opportunity and thought about it long enough I put the property into the Otsego Land Trust. When you do that you write out sort of a deed and stipulate what can happen and what can’t happen on your property. It’s a deed, like giving the development rights to the Otsego Land trust, so my heirs or anybody else who owns it subsequently will not be able to build a thousand houses on the property. They will have to go by what we set up as allowable.

MA:
What are some of the ways you have ensured this natural state? How have you taken care of your land to make it this natural state?

MK:
Part of the land is not developable. There is what they call a “building envelope”. Each one of my children, if they so desired, would be able to build a house but only in a certain area. And it’s pretty close together, restricted to five acre plots. And then there’s other things that aren’t allowable. Like, I couldn’t have a gravel yard, as if I wanted to, or I can’t cut down trees willy nilly, I have to have it done under the supervision of a certified forester. You know, that kind of thing, that will keep it basically unchanged. Forestry is allowed, I can cut trees, but it has to be through a plan that is set up by a certified forester. A New York State certified forester.

MA:
How has your family enjoyed the property over this span of time?

MK:
I think that my family enjoys it a great deal and continue to increase their enjoyment. My son built a lean-to very close to the cabin, or the cabin was very close to the lean-to. My son built it when he was 16 years old. That was a great camping and picnic spot for the family for a long, long time. Even my grandchildren have loved coming there and spending the night or having a picnic with their friends. There is a pond that we built, or had built, I “caused” it to be built. That’s been a nice swimming area. It was stocked with fish; I think it’s basically pretty well fished out by now. Skiing, they have done cross country skiing on this property. As I think I told you, just lately, a ski club has helped me get the trails so that they’re skiable with track skiing or with the skating-skiing. And for two years we had pretty good seasons, last year was not a good season for skiing any place in the area. I think they enjoy just walking on it. And increasingly people are burning more wood and after a couple commercial thinnings there’s always a lot of tops of trees or culled trees that are left for firewood, and I think it has been an economic help to them to have a source of firewood.

MA:
Why did you choose to build the cabin where you did on your property?

MK:
Where I did, or why I did at all?

MA:
You can answer either.

MK:
Well, I’ve always wanted a cabin, and at first I wanted just a small cabin very rural, very rustic, not rural, very rustic, and I didn’t have electricity put in, and I didn’t have plumbing put in. I have an outhouse so I have to carry water if I stay overnight. I have to bring enough water for our use. My husband and I used to enjoy getting away, just even if it was for a night, coming up. Even though there are neighbors, because of the way the cabin is situated in the summertime you can’t see anybody’s lights. You have the illusion that you are way out in the midst of the wilderness. I finally decided that lights were a necessary evil; it makes it much easier to cook and read at night. Not have to rely on a Coleman lantern. I also enjoy, believe it or not, taking a solar shower. A friend hooked up a place where I can hang a solar shower bag and if you leave it in the sunshine for three hours you can have a pretty good hot shower out in broad daylight and it’s so isolated that you don’t worry about visiting people, visitors arriving.

MA:
You mentioned your son built a small lean-to. What other projects did your kids take on up here? Did they have little things they took care of up here?

MK:
No, I don’t think they have had any particular projects. They have been in on my planning as far as when I joined the Land Trust. We talked about what would or would not be allowed on the land. And when I saw the spot that was cleared, I think I told you, that after my last commercial thinning the forester told me if I cut out a section of trees, clear cut a small section of trees, I would have a magnificent view of the lake. And at the time, because it was in a place I seldom went in the winter when the leaves were off, but only saw it in the summer, I just really didn’t really believe that you would have a magnificent view of the lake. But there it is. It was so nice, I decided I needed another lean-to, and that’s been a very popular site. It hasn’t been up very long. In fact just this past summer I’ve been getting a fire place built, and it’s still not totally done. So, it’s still a work in progress.

MA:
Garret told me you have been involved with environmental issues since the 1970s really, can you tell me about your long history of . . .?

MK:
I think I’ve always been interested in conservation, and I’ve always wanted my own piece of land, and that’s sort of in my mind all tied up together. Right now my biggest focus as far as conservation and protection goes is trying to keep the unconventional shale gas drilling from New York State, and specifically in this area, but it doesn’t seem right that if it’s not good for one area, it’s not good for any area. So, that’s my feeling that it’s not good for economic benefit. Even though they say there is so much gas there it would be great for the economy, other writers have said there is not as much gas as people estimate, that it’s harmful to the health of the community and those that are involved with gas drilling. Just a host of problems with it, and it seems like we should be moving away from fossil fuels and spending our time and energy on trying to develop more sustainable sources for our energy. I think getting involved in this struggle has made me more aware of what I can personally can do on the small scale, which is probably not going to solve the problem but is at least a step in the right direction. And, so I think I’ve become a lot more conscious of the way I heat my house and the way I do my shopping and what foods I eat and it is just a very big subject and a very big concern. I am not explaining it very well.

MA:
No you are doing fine, what do you think this fracking debate has done in the community of Cooperstown itself?

MK:
Within the community?

MA:
Yeah.

MK:
What do you mean what it’s done?

MA:
Has it fractured the community? Are people divided about it? What do you see in the community? Are people coming together over the issue?

MK:
In our area I think there is more coming together. I think I have met a huge number of people I would never have meant before, and feel a kinship with them because they have the same ideals and the same needs and the same purposes that I have. And these people I probably never would have met if I had not gotten involved in this movement. And I think we are lucky to be living right here right in this exact spot because I feel that the local officials that we have… For instance, I live, even though I live in Cooperstown, I also live in the town of Middlefield, and this property is also in the town of Middlefield. And, attending Middlefield town board meetings and as a group not necessarily just myself, but as a group working with those officials, I feel that they have been moved to act in the way that we want them to act. They are not doing it just because we want them [to] but because they feel that it’s the way to do it. The right way to do it. Whereas so many towns in other places seem to have town boards that are just much harder to deal with, much harder to convince, more stubborn, and not as open to new ideas.

MA:
What’s been your role within the movement?

MK:
My role?

MA:
Yeah, what have you been doing in the movement?

MK:
I started by writing letters to the governor to say I wanted to have a meeting with him and I have written many many letters with that request. And I have managed to get a group of people to visit some of his staff in Albany. We have had at least three or four encounters with his aides and his staff. I have not been able to accomplish my original goal of actually seeing the governor. I have yet to hear of him meeting with anybody. Can we take a break?

MA:
Sure we can.

MK:
I just want to make sure it’s not Bennet with a question about the house.

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]

MA:
Can you tell me how you are trying to influence the governor; what you are trying to do, to get him to do things for anti-fracking?

MK:
When I first started I just wrote a letter saying that I would like to have a chance to see the governor, and after, I cannot remember if it was after that first letter, I don’t think it was, I was offered the chance to see somebody in his lower staff. And I thought “I don’t want to see anybody else, I just want to see the Governor.” But the secretary in that office said “No, you have got to go through seeing some of his lower staff. He won’t pay any attention to you.” Course he did not pay any attention to me anyway. We went in and saw Tom Congdon, and at that time we talked with several people that I knew pretty well and they made suggestions as to who I should try to get to go. Almost everybody that I could think of that I asked if they would like to see this person was ready, willing, and able. We went over and visited with him. We also had another chance to talk with him via conference call, but nothing came of it.

MA:
What did you talk about in this meeting? What do you talk about in meetings like this?

MK:
We point out the fact that here are all these people and they’re all from different walks of life. There was Larry Bennet from the Brewery and a lawyer, and a doctor, and you know all sorts of different [people], and everybody thought it was a bad idea. We just explain why we think it’s a bad idea. But, it was like we were talking to a very polite statue, who could move his lips but not do too much else. I have just continued writing letters. Right now, they haven’t said, “No, he won’t visit [with you], but your request is still under review.” Every time I call or write, and I do it on you know at least every two or three weeks, I send in another letter, “yes, it’s still under review,” and now I have gotten to a place where it is actually the Invitations Office that all of these requests go through. It’s not just somebody’s secretary, and I feel like at least I’m in the right place to send a message, that hopefully he sees the emails that I send him. In addition to that we got some people who are a little bit more widespread, a couple of scientists, professors at Cornell, they are willing to come with us. The mayor of Binghamton is willing to go with us, and he is very outspoken, very outspoken. An economist and maybe about seven or eight, nine or ten people who are really working hard at this. If I was able to get a meeting with the governor they would be right there standing next to me. And I would say, here they are let them speak. I’ve done my part. Because I am not very good at talking.

MA:
But you are organizing?

MK:
I am better at organizing. So that’s been my contribution, and I continue to go to a lot of these fracking meetings. There is a general coalition that has a monthly meeting, was at it last night. Town board meetings if they’re essential, go to them, and town board meetings from other towns. I’ve been up to Roseboom; I’ve been to Otego; I’ve been to quite a number of places. Just to stand with people and show your support.

MA:
You have been a part of this community for a number of years. Have you seen the community change over the years?

MK:
Well, Main Street has definitely changed. Definitely changed.

MA:
How so?

MK:
When we first came, two hardware stores, a sort of, not a novelty store but they sold this and that, the newspapers and magazines, that’s gone. There was an A&P in there. There was a men’s clothing store. There was a lot of different stores that are all gone. I think it’s sort of the trend in many, many villages. And, I didn’t even think about this. But somebody wrote a letter and said, when they were talking about the pipeline. That’s another thing that’s sort of correlating with the fracking. Do you know about the pipeline?

MA:
I’ve heard a little bit in town about it.

MK:
The Constitution Pipeline. Yeah, I have been to some of those meetings. I have learned how to get up and speak if I have it (written) in front of me I can say it by reading it off. But I’m not good at thinking ahead. The mayor of Oneonta said that the Constitution Pipeline would bring new jobs, etcetera, etcetera, and that before I-88 came Oneonta was nothing economically and then somebody replied and said I-88 came and sucked all the life out of all the little villages along its route. And that was what happened when the Thruway came, and all the little villages along Route 20 are gone economically, because people can go from here to here, two big places, nothing in between, there’s no life. And I can see her point. All these little villages have just deteriorated as far as commerce and economic development goes. So that the Constitution Pipeline will, even though they deny it, will open up the area for fracking, because there’s a pipeline to take the fracking and deliver it someplace else. It’s going to generate the “why” we are doing this. And it’s going to industrialize a rural county. It won’t be the same, it won’t be the same.

MA:
What is the fear, what is the worry that comes with having that industry here?

MK:
There are a lot of health problems that comes. I think one of the biggest ones that you worry about is your water. If your water source, if your water, you know your big water source, your underground water source becomes contaminated that’s it. You can’t clean that up. Not in your lifetime, maybe never. It also uses a tremendous amount of water. That has to come from someplace. It brings in a lot of people to do the jobs. They claim there’s a lot of jobs to be had but for those kind of jobs they bring in their own people because they know how to do it. So the economic benefit is not all that great. But with the influx of so many people it disturbs the economy of a village or town, because where are those people going to stay? They are going to stay in places which would ordinarily to be used by people who can’t pay as much for the rent as people who are making more, so they don’t have a place to stay. They cause us more problems with crime. And it fragments a rural community with wells here, here, here, here, here, here; it fragments the land and makes it really bad for wildlife, birds. I don’t see how you can do very good farming if your field has a well here and a well there and a well there and all these roads in between. It just fragments the land, and it pollutes the air. There’s just a million ways it affects the whole community, and the whole county, and the whole state. If it’s a tourist based economy like Cooperstown definitely is, whose gonna want to come and look at oil wells or be slowed up in traffic when it takes five minutes to go from here to there and it might take an hour to do the same amount because there is so much truck traffic. There’s a myriad of ways that it affects people or can affect people.

MA:
I’ve noticed an interesting thing about Cooperstown is the big hospital, is Bassett. Can you talk about Bassett and the community or how Basset interacts with the community and if you think it’s important that Bassett is here?

MK:
Well, Bassett is the largest employer and for that reason it is important to the community. It’s definitely the largest employer. It is also a source of health benefits for people around. I think you can get pretty top-notch medical advice and care through Bassett Hospital.

MA:
Did you work as a nurse at Bassett?

MK:
Only briefly, I worked for awhile, after my children went to school. I worked more for the Red Cross. I took blood. I drew blood and supervised people giving a pint of blood. And I would go around to different communities to do that.

MA:
So like a mobile blood bank?

MK:
Yes. They would bring their truck and their staff and then they would count on some Red Cross nurses who lived in the county to supplement their staff. And I would go as far south as Walton. Do you know where Walton is?

MA:
I think so.

MK:
It’s down in the Catskills. And as far north as Utica, as far east as Stamford, as far west as Morris. Probably not much father west than Otsego County.

MA:
And you would just organize their people coming in?

MK:
No, no, they would have their staff, their technicians, they would have their whole unit come. Say they were coming to Cooperstown, they would quite often be at the Catholic Church [in] their big room there, and they would hold the blood mobile for however many hours it took. We would have to be there earlier (before) the people would come in, and we would have to stay later to clean up. But we would help with setting it up; we would help with the whole line of how you are entered, how your history is taken, how your blood is tested to see if you have enough red cells for you to be safe to give away some of your own blood. To make sure you are not sick, take your temperature, and do a short health history. All of those things we would be participating in, not necessarily doing all of them every time, and then mostly we would be working in the unit. We would usually have a three bed unit that we would be responsible for with one aid for actually taking the blood from the individual, making sure that they were comfortable, that they didn’t have any kind of reaction, that they felt good before they left the unit. And then somebody had to watch and make sure that they had something to eat and drink before they went home and everything was fine. But it wasn’t that we were doing it all. They brought their people; we were just augmenting their staff. Now they don’t even have nurses doing that anymore.

MA:
Now what do they do, bring everyone in?

MK:
Bring in people from the street, just kidding. They don’t require the same level of education to draw blood anymore.

MA:
So the training is a little different now?

MK:
From my point of view, not as good.

MA:
Your husband worked at Bassett?

MK:
Yes, he did

MA:
And, he was an anesthesiologist, is that correct?

MK:
He was.

MA:
Did Bassett do anything to get their families connected to one another, or did that kind of happen naturally?

MK:
Well, when we first came there weren’t that many doctors. He was the only doctor in the anesthesia department for the whole time he was there, with the exception of two doctors who came at separate times who stayed varying lengths of time but not too long. But, he was mostly during that 18 years that he worked at Bassett the only anesthesia physician. Now he had nurse anesthetists, but he legally (he) was supposed to be supervising them and making sure that everything that they did was right. And some of them were excellent. You know they didn’t need all that much help, but still he was legally responsible for them and their actions. So he was basically on call all the time.

MA:
Did that interrupt home life at all?

MK:
You got used to a certain schedule. He would be up and out before 7 am. So getting the kids off to school was always my job. He would sometimes but not often walk home and have lunch, most of the time he spent in the hospital. He might come home for a little bit later in the afternoon, but he always went back and made rounds and saw all of the patients that he was going to see the next day.

MA:
Very labor intensive.

MK:
Yeah. And then he quite often was called in the middle of the night or the evening if there was a case that needed more supervision or help, and the nurse on call wasn’t able to handle it totally.

MA:
You have mentioned during this interview and previously a passion for gardening. Can you talk a little bit about gardening and your passion for it?

MK:
I learned gardening when I first lived with my uncle and aunt in the Adirondacks, and I really enjoy gardening so when I had the space to do it myself, I did. And I decided to plant some blueberries. I have about 24 bushes. Some of them produce more than others. The biggest job is in the spring when I have to prune them, and I am pretty fastidious about the way I prune them. Sometimes it takes me at least an hour or more to do one bush. Twenty-four, that’s quite a lot of bushes, quite a lot of time I mean. My biggest struggle now is to keep not the birds, but the squirrels out of it. I bought a big net, a new net, last year, pretty heavy, heavy duty net. It was hard to get it on, it was so heavy. And I thought “I will be able to relax and we won’t have any birds and we will just pick berries”. When I took that netting down there was at least two dozen holes in it that had been chewed by the squirrels, and they had popped themselves in and eaten a lot of the berries. So I have to figure out something else.

MA:
What other things do you grow in your garden besides blueberries?

MK:
That’s a separate plot, that was not even part of the garden that you could see. I grow a lot of squash because that keeps well and I enjoy it. And I like to grow beets and broccoli. I like to grow some of those cold weather things that will last. I’m still picking broccoli. Kale is another cold weather plant that I can sometimes take some in the winter, uncover it and there will be a leaf or two I can cut off and sauté a little bit and it’s very good. And last year the person who was helping me, build a trellis for pole beans, it was like a grape arbor. It was so big and so lush and we got quite a lot of beans from that.

MA:
Do you can?

MK:
No, I don’t can. I do freeze some. But I don’t do as much as I did when I had a bigger family.

MA:
Less mouths to feed now.

MK:
Yeah. But you know what’s most fun for me is getting it ready and planting it. Harvesting it is more of a chore by that time you sort of have other things to do.

MA:
So you like the labor part of the preparation, more than the eating?

MK:
I like to get things growing. I like to see things coming up, and I like to see a neat and orderly garden. I like to eat it too, but you know sometimes it becomes overwhelming because some vegetables you have to pick when they are ready to be picked not when you are ready to pick them. Your life is not your own when you have a garden. I also have bees back there. Did you know that?

MA:
I did not know that.

MK:
Two hives of bees and that’s been sort of a fun project. I’m not the beekeeper really; Garet is the beekeeper. He harvests them. I help as much as I can.

MA:
How long have you and Garet been beekeeping?

MK:
Three or four years, and we have had problems with this Colony Collapse Disorder. And last winter I lost both hives. So I have two new hives, so I am crossing my fingers hoping that they manage to make it through this winter.

MA:
I don’t know if there is a direct correlation. I don’t know much about beekeeping, but does that makes your garden better because you have bees so close?

MK:
That’s part of my rationale. I imagine that if you have the bees then it’s going to pollinate your garden and your blueberries a little bit be better.

MA:
Do you do any other berries besides blueberries?

MK:
I’ve tried strawberries but to me that is really labor intensive because you really have to have three different beds, the first year you plant, the second year you start harvesting, and the third year you might harvest still, but by the fourth year you need to start over again. So it’s not like blueberries, they are there, I’ve got some blueberry plants that I planted back in 1964. They are still there. Not doing as well but it’s not like you have to remove them and start over again every third or fourth year.

MA:
I know that blackberries grow kind of in brambles and can be kind of a pest in certain areas of the country. Is that the same here, is that why you don’t choose to grow those?

MK:
Usually blackberries, if you’re lucky you can find them growing wild someplace. Then you don’t have to go through keeping them. Blackberries really have a lot of needles, you know prickers, I’m trying to grow raspberries, I much prefer to grow raspberries than blackberries, although I like eating blackberries.

MA:
Do you have blackberries up on the property here?

MK:
Well, you know since the last commercial thinning I’ve noticed that there are berry bushes beginning to grow. I have yet to see a berry on any of them so I can’t really tell you that I’m going to have a bumper crop of blackberries.

MA:
Well, the deer like the blackberries too. Do you have deer on your property?

MK:
Now that’s a silly question.

MA:
I guess in Cooperstown there are a lot of deer in Cooperstown.

MK:
Yeah, right. You probably see them more in Cooperstown than you do in the woods. They are much more wily. Tomorrow is the beginning of hunting season.

MA:
Do you allow hunting up here? You mentioned something about it earlier.

MK:
There are a couple of families I allow to hunt. I don’t encourage anybody and everybody.

MA:
Do you hunt?

MK:
I do have a hunting license; I have hunted.

MA:
In the past?

MK:
Mmmhmm.

MA:
In the past when you hunted did you do all the butchering and stuff or did you send it off.

MK:
We would send it off.

MA:
Have someone take care of that?

MK:
Mmmhmm

MA:
We are pretty much I think almost out of time. I’ve been watching it. Is there anything else you would like to say?

MK:
Yes, you haven’t mentioned the fact that I’m very active in church.

MA:
You know I had that written down and you’re right I did forget. It seems that religion has been a very central part of that. I would like to hear more.

MK:
I was born in a family, not only my mother and father but relatives have been very active in religious things.

MA:
What denomination were your parent’s missionaries for?

MK:
My parents were Baptists, and there are several kinds of Baptists. And there is a conservative Baptist association, or whatever they call it, and then there’s a much more, I wouldn’t say they are liberal, but they are not as fundamentally inclined as some of the conservative Baptists. That’s what they were, they were Baptists. But I am myself at this time Presbyterian. I became a Presbyterian when I went to college and joined that group who met at a Presbyterian Church. Mostly because there was a very charismatic young minister there who was just full of life and was great with young people. I think that’s the way I got really started because you know your parents may be a certain domination or religion but you gotta make it your own. It’s sort of like being part of a family, [START OF TRACK 3, 0:00] but you still have to make it your own. Your own convictions, your own spirituality.

MA:
What do you do for the church here in Cooperstown?

MK:
What do I do for them?

MA:
Yeah, how are you involved?

MK:
How am I involved? Well, over the years I’ve been involved in many ways. Currently I’m a member of the Building and Grounds… it used to be called the Trustees, but that’s the current terminology for that group. I do sing in the choir. And I do work with the women’s association, which is a very loosely knit group, it’s hardly a women’s association. It’s just a group of women. And then there’s always other things that you get involved with. It’s sort of like being a part of a family; there’s something that has to be done at one time, or some special activity is coming up or some special need arises. But the main stream of what goes on is the worship every Sunday. And that is sort of what gathers people together.

MA:
What kind of role has religion played in your life? How do you consider it as part of your life?

MK:
Well, I think I consider it a big part of my personal life. It’s what I think about every day.

MA:
Well that is about all I have, if you have anything else.

MK:
Well, I didn’t mention my family. I feel my family is tremendously important to me too. It’s not a large family but I think a fairly close knit family. Not only my immediate children and their spouses and the grandchildren, but I had three brothers, one died at a fairly young age, but I still had two and their families and I’ve maintained contact with all of them. It’s a lot of people that you have their support and that you are supporting as well. Which makes you feel connected and happy if they are happy or sad if they are sad.

MA:
How many grandchildren do you have?

MK:
I have ten.

MA:
Any great grandchildren yet?

MK:
Not yet?

MA:
Not yet. Is anyone of age for that? Are you waiting?

MK:
I’ve got a granddaughter that is married but she’s the only one that’s married. So she could conceivably have a child right now, she has a dog. You’re probably getting tired of this.

MA:
No, I’m fascinated. I am in no way tired. I just want to make sure that you’ve said everything. I’ve gone through my stuff so this is an open forum for what you would like to [say]. If anything else comes to mind, I’d love to know.

MK:
I’ll think about it when I have left you, and I’ll say “why didn’t I say that?”

MA:
Of course, I will probably do the same. Well thank you much for you time, I really appreciate it.

MK:
You are very welcome.

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No

Meghan Evans

Eleanore MacDougall

8 Lake St

Cooperstown, NY

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012

EM = Eleanore MacDougall
ME = Meghan E. Evans

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

ME:
This is the November 15, 2012 interview of Eleanore MacDougall by Meghan Evans for the Cooperstown Graduate Program’s Research and Fieldwork Course recorded at 8 Lake St, Cooperstown, NY 13326.

ME:
Hi Eleanore.

EM:
Hello, Meghan. [Laughter]

ME:
Let’s start with your childhood. Can you tell me about your childhood?

EM:
Well, I was born in 1935 at Bassett [Hospital] in Cooperstown. My mother had been a teacher at the Knox School. She taught French and she administered the various tests needed by the school. My father grew up in this area and very much loved the countryside and nature. He worked in a bank. But every year in November, he also took a hunting trip but he also took a trip to the north woods as a vacation. He was also a Cooperstown Village Trustee. I admired both my parents tremendously. I think they were both wonderful people.

ME:
Did you have any siblings?

EM:
Yes, I did. I have two brothers. I am the oldest. Bob is the second oldest. He was always a very thoughtful person and involved in various projects. If you see the doors down there, that used to be his photographic studio.

ME:
Oh wow!

EM:
He learned how to develop his own films. He also belonged to Boy Scouts. And my second brother, Paul, became very interested in chemistry; our third floor has a chemistry lab. He also was a Boy Scout and attended Christ Church.

Both my brothers went to Yale on a Cooper Family scholarship available here, in Cooperstown. My brothers both graduated from Yale the same year because my older brother Bob had a tour in the army. He was posted in Japan for 2 years, which was a fascinating experience for him. Both my brothers graduated from Yale the same year, and my parents and I attended the graduation, which was nice.

Let’s see. My brother Bob went to graduate school at the University of Rochester in physics and he has been a working physicist all of his life (teaching and research). He taught at George Mason University in Northern Virginia for many years. Bob has also in addition to classes, has traveled a great deal, attending meetings of physicists all over the world. At this point, all of us are over 65 years of age, but Bob is still a working physicist.

Hugh and I did not have any children, but Bob has had three sons. Two of them, Erin and Andrew, now live in Pittsburgh and they both have creative jobs and are married with young children. The third son traveled in Puerto Rico and then went to Venezuela and wrote articles for U.S. newspapers. He met a Venezuelan girl and married her. So we have a very charming Venezuelan girl in our family. For the past three years they were visiting Brazil, but they are right now back in Venezuela. For a while he wrote excellent newspaper columns for American newspapers. It has been quite an exciting career.

My youngest brother Paul studied chemistry and became a professional chemist in a photography company. He married and had one daughter Kate, who graduated from Wellesley College. She is now a major in the Air Force as is her husband, Adam. Right now, they are both posted in western Texas, and they have two young children, ages 5 and 2 children. I am proud of all of them.

I attended the Cooperstown Central School from Kindergarten through Grade 12. I was president of my eighth grade class.

I took piano lessons from a wonderful piano teacher. Mrs. Acoutin taught me piano for a number of years and became reasonably advanced. Music was always an important part of my life. In Cooperstown Central School, I accompanied choral groups. I’ve done a fair amount of accompanying in my life both in high school and later on with various groups and churches. Let’s see. For about six years I took organ lessons with Ray Paradise in Oneonta and became a rehearsal pianist and organist at the Baptist Church here in Cooperstown. I actually attend the Episcopal Church, so I returned there. Right now, I sometimes sing in the choir at Christ’s Church and attend most of their music events and am supportive of those. I hope to resume playing the organ in the not too distant future.

ME:
You mentioned being a Girl Scout.

EM:
Oh yes.

ME:
Can you tell me a little more about what that was like?

EM:
Yeah. Let’s see. This of course was after school. They would meet I think once a week. They had a list of badges you could work; there were five or six activities that you participate in in order to earn a badge. I worked on a number of badges. In the summertime, also there was a Girl Scout camp about 6 miles up the lake on the east side. I attended for one week during 2 or 3 summers. Scouting work and other things also involved hiking in the area. I became quite familiar with the wooded trails up on the top of the mountain to the east of Cooperstown.

ME:
Yes!

EM:
I have made various trips in my lifetime up there. Not recently. [Laughter] It’s a really steep climb up there. You have to be careful walking around. Its quite fascinating going to Natty Bumppo’s Cave.

My father, I mentioned, grew up here on a farm. He loved nature, the countryside and wile animals. We had a plot of land in Pierstown, which we used to call “The Farm” in quotes. It wasn’t a “working farm”; it was just a place we went to and had picnics.

ME:
Right.

EM:
It was really very nice, completely in the countryside…a beautiful place. My father, for a conservation project, had planted a number of trees on that particular plot of land, and now the land is a forest. [Laughter]

But, when we were little we went there, my parents, brothers and I, we would have picnics there when the trees were really little – about table height. They were growing. So that’s really fascinating.

After graduation from Cooperstown High School I attended Radcliffe College. I completed one year of Radcliffe, which is good, but I did not have a solid enough academic background to continue and also I needed to work. So I attended a small, secretarial school in Boston, near the Boston Public Library. I became a secretary. Sometimes I worked for secretarial agencies, as a substitute secretary. My first job, though, was at Shreve, Crump & Low, a store selling fine jewelry and china. I was a girl Friday there. Over the course of one week I’d go to several departments. They would dictate letters and then I would type them out and give it to them. It was quite fascinating working there. They were very nice people.

For a year I started out living with my grandmother. Then I moved to a YWCA on Berkley Street in Boston, which is a residence for young girls. We had individual rooms, but we shared meals together. I met a lot of people my age, which was nice. We went to various events in Boston. In fact, they had some lovely, wonderful concerts open to the public at that time. I have fond memories of those. I really enjoyed Boston.

ME:
Did you participate in any of the concerts or festivals as a musician?

EM:
Yes, thank you. I actually joined the MIT Choral Society. At one point we actually sang in Boston’s Symphony Hall.

ME:
Oh, wow!

EM:
[Laughter] Aaron Copland composed a choral piece that he later came to conduct at in a concert. So that was a very exciting experience.

ME:
[Unclear]

EM:
I moved to New York and I worked for a while at Teacher’s College in Columbia as a secretary during the day and music courses at Julliard School of Music in the evening. Then I took a short training course and became a caseworker for the Welfare Department that was located in East Harlem. Being a caseworker involved working at the office and visiting people in their homes once a year. I would walk around the neighborhood, and I was carrying a little black book, which was sort of a safety measure. I worked as a caseworker for 2 ½ years.

Then Hugh came along. His mother grew up in the same school class as my father. He [Hugh] actually grew up in New York and he looked me up. Then we decided to get married. This occurred before I completed the 3-year training period necessary to go on for Social Work Graduate work in the Welfare Department. So the timing was not too bad.

ME:
Ok.

EM:
It was very exciting marrying Hugh the day after Christmas, 1970. We were married here in Cooperstown at Christ’s Church. The reception was at the Tunnicliff Inn in Cooperstown.

ME:
How did Hugh propose?

EM:
Oh. Well, let’s see. Hugh’s parents had a sort of country home in Connecticut. So we would go there to sort of make sure the building was occupied during the summer. He very gallantly got down on his knees and proposed. [Laughter]

ME:
Awe.

EM:
[Laughter] Which is very nice!

ME:
Awe.

EM:
It was very sweet of him.

ME:
Did he ask your Dad ahead of time? Or…

EM:
Yes he did.

ME:
Tell me more about your wedding. Was it very traditional?

EM:
Yes, it was a very traditional wedding at Christ Church here in Cooperstown. I had a beautiful white dress. I walked up the aisle on my father’s arm. The ceremony just went along. Then I moved over to Hugh’s side and he kissed me. After being declared man and wife, we walked down the aisle. Then we all attended a reception at the Tunnicliff Inn. Later there was an informal gathering at home, but that was mostly for family

ME:
Did you go on a honeymoon?

EM:
Yes. Our honeymoon consisted of travel in northern Italy. We went to Florence and Italy, some of the museums, and Paris mostly and London. Then we flew over the African continent to Lourenço Marques, the capital of Mozambique.

ME:
Which was your favorite? Do you have one?

EM:
Well, I liked them all. [Laughter] I was really fascinated with Italy. I didn’t tell you, my father took up painting as a hobby and he really, really just loved it. When I was in Boston University I took a history of art course. It lasted two semesters (a year or so). I had learned a lot about a number of the world famous paintings that were in Florence, Italy. So one of the places we went was Florence, Italy so we could take look at all the paintings I had seen. Which was very nice. We were in Rome. (P.S. I took a trip to Europe on my own before I was married).

ME:
Oh, ok.

EM:
I just had a vacation from work [for] two weeks. I just went to Europe.

ME:
Where in Europe did you go then?

EM:
Again, I went to Florence. I looked at a lot of the paintings at that point. I showed Hugh some of them, but he hadn’t had the course. [Laughter] So he didn’t respond the way I did. We had a really lovely time.

ME:
Did you go by yourself the first time?

EM:
The first time I went on my own, which was rather [uncommon]. I didn’t know people well enough to invite them to come along with me. I just went on my own. It was a little lonely at times, but I managed. People were very nice. I stayed in rooming houses.

ME:
Can you explain what that is? I’m not familiar.

EM:
Well, here people would have a house and they would rent out individual rooms for a week or a few days or something like that.

ME:
Ok. Hmm.

EM:
So, I paid rent as I went along.

ME:
All right. Hmm.

EM:
I was living in private houses pretty much. Although there were also a few hostels for travelers and I stayed in some of those too. On that trip I went to Venice and Florence; I spent most of my time between those two places, and I did see a bit little of Rome.

ME:
Did you travel with your family at all [unclear]?

EM:
No, I was on my own completely.

ME:
Ok, I meant at any point in time…

EM:
Yes.

ME:
…as a child or a young adult.

EM:
As a child, my father was working all the time so my mother took us on trips to New York City. We actually stayed and used Hugh’s family apartment.

ME:
Oh.

EM:
They weren’t there at the time. So we saw a lot of the major museums in New York: the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art, and others. There’s a bus from Cooperstown to Port Authority in New York, it’s a daily bus that still runs back and forth. So that’s how we traveled down there and I’ve made several trips to New York that way [laughter] through the Catskills. It’s a nice place. I grew up in a small town, so it was really exciting to see all the museums and the symphony. I went to one or two jazz evenings, but I didn’t really know anybody to go with so I didn’t do that too much.

I did live in Boston for quite a while. I ended up taking some modern dance class with dancers trained by Martha Graham.

ME:
Oh, really? Do you remember whom?

EM:
He was one of the male dancers in the Martha Graham Dance Troupe. He was teaching independently at the time. It sounded interesting, so I signed up and took classes. It was really quite exciting.

ME:
Did you dance in festivals or concerts then?

EM:
No, no, it was just a class.

ME:
Ok, just a class. [Laughter]

EM:
Just a class, yeah. I don’t think so. In fact, that man thought I was very graceful. [Laughter] In fact, as a child I used to dance around to music in the house here, you know. And I had studied music, so that’s probably what he noticed. [Laughter]

I became interested in yoga; they had classes there mostly through the YWCA, a young women’s Christian organization…

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]

ME:
Yeah, uh-huh.

EM:
…in Boston and New York. I didn’t do as much there [in New York]. Let’s see. I had my own apartment. For a couple of years, I lived with about 4 or 5 really nice people near Columbia University. That’s when I was working there, at Columbia. Then I developed a boyfriend that was on the West Side of New York. Then he moved to the East Side. So I moved over there. I thought it was wise to have my own place. So I lived quite close to him. But it was a very small apartment on the third floor of a house. I had three rooms. The lady right across the hall had three rooms, too. And there was another person living further on down the hall. The buildings weren’t large. That was a nice experience.

ME:
Tell me more about this boyfriend that you moved for. Do you remember his name?

EM:
Gosh, I can’t even remember! It was a long, long time ago; it really was – 40-some years ago. He was an artist, sort of a bohemian kind of person.

ME:
Wow.

EM:
For a while, I was his girlfriend and then we sort of drifted apart. But he was nice. He had had a lot of really interesting experiences among various artists of all sorts in New York City. It was interesting. Occasionally, we would hold Sunday evening gatherings. I would produce refreshments and various people we knew would come.

ME:
Would you play music for them? Would you…

EM:
Well, I didn’t do that very much. He didn’t have a piano…

ME:
Ok.

EM:
[Laughter]…and that was my instrument. [Laughter] Although I did take a few guitar lessons, which was nice. But I didn’t become accomplished in the guitar. I could play a little bit.

ME:
Right.

EM:
So, that sort of ended. But I was on my own, in my own apartment on the Upper East Side. Then, I took a job in the Welfare Department. East Harlem was just a little bit North; so I could take a bus ride right to work. It wasn’t too bad.

ME:
Tell me more about being a social worker.

EM:
…a social worker in East Harlem?

ME:
Yeah.

EM:
Right. Ok.

ME:
Was it scary? Or was it wonderful?

EM:
[Laughter] I always thought it was very interesting. I found it very interesting to meet people from various [walks of life]. East Harlem at that point had a number of people from Puerto Rico who had moved there. So I learned some Spanish. We traveled around. It was a fairly poor area, East Harlem. There were some blacks there also, but most of the people were Puerto Rican. The Welfare Department provided a monthly check for people; it was just mailed to them. This was mailed by the Welfare Department for the entire city; it was just mailed out. But Welfare workers would go and get to know the various people. I think I had about 50 people on my caseload, or something like that. You were supposed to make a home visit at least once a year, maybe twice a year. I can’t remember at this point exactly how often it was. So I would make these home visits one day a year. But then most of my contact with them was because they needed more money or their check didn’t come or things like that. I spent quite a lot of time making sure that they were well served by the Welfare Department. It was interesting.

I was with about 4 other caseworkers in a “Unit” and we all sat in a row. [Laughter] The first floor of the Welfare building was for visits with the clients, the people who were receiving welfare. Then we’d go upstairs and we’d fill out lengthy forms for each little [request]. There was a row of people in my unit. Then our supervisor had his own desk. He would have to approve and sign whatever requests I made. So that was part of the effort too. Then we had various other offices for various needs – employment, housing, etc. [Sigh], I can’t remember exactly. But most of the time we were up there at our desks. So people could come into the Welfare office building on the first floor and request to see me, in which case I would go downstairs and talk to them and write out extra checks if they need[ed] them, that sort of thing, or requests for extra checks. The Department itself actually made the checks, but I did the paperwork providing all the detailed information about why the request was needed. But monthly checks just simply were mailed out. But if people’s situations changed, we had to change the paperwork governing the issuing of the checks. It was a bureaucracy.

ME:
[Laughter]

EM:
But I liked being there. I sort of missed leaving my [laughter] work as a caseworker when I married Hugh. Then we had this wonderful vacation in Europe. Then we went to Mozambique and we settled in. And lo and behold, I had servants in Mozambique. [Laughter] Which was a sort of strange experience for me. Some people may have had servants at home, but I didn’t have servants. They were, for the most part, really, really nice people and they had worked for Americans for quite a while. They informed me [laughter] about all the things that needed to be done, and I listened.

In Mozambique servants did a lot of the grocery shopping, but in Tanzania I went to the market and did some of the shopping. But they didn’t like that so I did less of it later on, during our tour there.

In East Africa, the country, it was colonized by the English. Well, there’s South Africa, which was independent when we were there, but previously both Germans and English had been colonial rulers. In Mozambique, the Portuguese were colonial rulers when we were there. In Tanzania and Burma, the English had been colonial rulers. In Mozambique and Tanzania there were English Clubs. That was where many [of] the international people, diplomatic corps wives, would go. There’d be meetings of various sorts, swimming and sports and a variety of things.

I made an effort to meet all the delegates from all the embassies. There were just a few embassies in Mozambique, which was still a Portuguese colony. But in Tanzania, there were about 20 countries represented, so that was really quite fascinating. They had an organization to hold meetings and have meetings so that people could get to know each other. They also did various charity work.

There was an organization that provided money for people who needed money and that sort of thing; these were for the local Tanzanians. So, it was an interesting way to get to know a number of local people.

ME:
Right.

EM:
I spent quite a bit of time with that. Now, of course in an embassy, there are 7 or 8 officers and there were 7 or 8 American wives there. So, they would have parties too, or gatherings for various events. If someone in one of the departments had an American visitor, they’d hold a party as we did too. When Hugh had American visitors for his section, I gave parties.

The most amazing one was in Tanzania, when there were American experts on earthquakes [that] came to visit and talk to local Tanzanian experts on earthquakes - who of course knew, because they had earthquakes now and then [laughter]. So, one of the most interesting parties I ever gave was my “earthquake party” for visiting Americans so they could meet their Tanzanian counterparts. Which was really quite successful.

ME:
Can you tell me what a typical day was like living in Mozambique or Tanzania?

EM:
Well, once again you have to get used to servants in the house [laughter]. I mean, when you come downstairs and breakfast would be served. [Laughter] I mean, you didn’t have to do anything.

ME:
Yeah.

EM:
Then, Hugh would go to work. He would travel to work in the embassy, which was in another building downtown. So, after breakfast, I’d go and talk with the servants and find out what they had in mind. I would let them know what social obligations we had incurred, whether or not we would be out at a party or whether or not we had to give one.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
Then we’d figure out the food and they would go shopping. Sometimes the servants themselves would go shopping, and sometimes I’d go shopping – it varied with the situation. Then, we had to provide food for our own meals. But they were very experienced; the cook especially was very experienced. His wife made our beds. We didn’t do a thing! [Laughter] I didn’t lift a finger! [Laughter] But they really did a very good job and we appreciate all the services they provided for us.

ME:
Sounds like all you did was have parties!

EM:
Well, that was about it.

ME:
All the time! [Laughter]

EM:
Well, no, no, no, no, no. There were also various organizations, the charity groups I went to. In Mozambique, the YWCA had various classes of various sorts. I also studied Portuguese, language classes. So we studied those. In both places there was a club, a recreation club. They had [a] swimming pool and tennis. A lot of the Americans spent a lot of time there. They were quite active tennis players. I should have been, but I wasn’t because I had contacts with the local people. I focused on those rather than playing tennis. [Laughter] I didn’t play tennis very much. But most of the other American wives did play.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
Occasionally, the Ambassador’s wife would have all the American wives over for a tea or coffee in the morning. And occasionally we would make local trips.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
I just can’t remember…it was a long time ago. [Laughter]

ME:
Well, tell me more about your engagement with the community. Did you play music with them? Or…

EM:
Well, we did…

[Doorbell rang. The interview paused here to receive Meals on Wheels drop-off.]

[START OF TRACK 3, 0:00]

ME:
This is part 2 of an interview of Eleanore MacDougall on November 15, 2012 and we were talking about Mozambique.

EM:
Yes, ok. Oh, dear. Mozambique was governed by the Portuguese, by people from Portugal. It was an overseas colony for them. At various times we met a number of really interesting [people], some of them were very important and some were just workers. It was very, very pleasant to meet most of them. I really enjoyed their company. That’s about it. [Laughter]

ME:
Are there any traditions from Mozambique that you…

EM:
Oh, I see. Oh, yes. They had a very active arts center. That’s because there were several talented African painters. Things sort of developed and there’d be various gatherings to open up his shows and things like that. Oh, dear. [Laughter] Probably, if I put my mind to it, I’d recall a lot more than I can right now. [Laughter]

ME:
That’s fine.

EM: Yes.

ME:
Don’t worry about it.

EM:
It was some time ago, about 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

ME:
So you moved from Mozambique to Tanzania then?

EM:
No.

ME:
Ok.

EM:
No, we came back to the United States for about 6 or 8 months. Hugh was studying Swahili, which is the language spoken in Tanzania. I was given permission to take the class also. So we both studied Swahili.

About a third of the way through the class, Mozambique’s situation became quite dramatic. The people who were there hadn’t been there very long. So Hugh was called back to help out.

ME:
Oh.

EM:
What was happening was that Portugal was giving up its role as colonial master. So there was just a lot going on as the Mozambicans developed their own government. Hugh went back, [sigh] I don’t think I was there then. But he did go back, which was probably very helpful because he had had a full tour there before so he knew all the ropes about who to inform about what and that sort of thing, you know. So he was probably very helpful.

Also, when he was in Mozambique he would occasionally take trips upcountry to the interior [of Africa]. Mozambique was a very long, narrow country sort of like Chile on the west coast of South America. In the northern part, there was a river with a strong current and the Portuguese developed an electricity-producing station there. So, Hugh took several trips up there at various times. He was up there.

ME:
Were you back in the States then by yourself?

EM:
Yes. Then he returned and continued with the Swahili class. It also included cultural classes. They’d tell us about the tribes and tribal life. Tanzania was run by Africans. It was not run by European colonialists, it was run by Africans. That was a change for us.

ME:
Right.

EM:
We were studying Swahili and learning about Tanzania, which was interesting. Tanzania is a really beautiful country with a government by the people, really very nice. As I mentioned before, there were about 20 countries diplomatically represented in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was also a very interesting country in which to travel because the world’s major game parks were in the northern part of the country, towards the border of Tanzania and Kenya. So we made a trip to see elephants, chimpanzees, and all the animals in real life. Lions are fairly ferocious animals. [Laughter]

Oh, gosh. At one point, we visited a Tanzanian national game park and stayed in one of the cabins set up for visitors. The wild African lions and other animals were outside at night! It was quite exciting. There was a tribe of Africans, the Masai, who lived close to the game park. Our driver knew the roads. Hugh and I were both sitting in the back, so we’d drive along, and see various African people just going about the business of their life. I remember observing several young African men hunting, another spot, we saw a pride of lions.

ME:
Right.

EM:
They didn’t have tigers. [Laughter] We were just visitors.

ME:
Right.

EM:
Well, Hugh did [volunteer at the game parks]. Hugh, I think made a couple trips with some of the people who were wardens at the national game parks. We were there and realized they needed monetary support, but that was about as far as we could help out.

ME:
Right.

EM:
They ran the game parks.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
Some people in Tanzania grew up in the countryside and knew the animals in the wild.

ME:
So tell me about where you lived in Tanzania. Did you have…kind of an apartment? Or a house? Or…[incoherent]

EM:
Hugh was the number 3 in the embassy, so we were placed in a lovely two-story house in Dar es Salaam. We slept upstairs and used the downstairs for our meals and also social gatherings. Occasionally, people from the Tanzanian government actually came to visit. When Americans came to visit, we gave fairly large dinner parties in the evening. Once some American experts on earthquakes came to dinner and we invited Tanzania’s government experts on their earthquakes, which was successful.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
One party I remember, there were people actually in the various offices in the Tanzanian government involved with policies for caring for the animals. So they came and they met Americans who were in similar positions. That was a really an exciting party. I mean they really connected. Which was very nice.

ME:
Did you engage with the Tanzanian community on your own? Or…

EM:
Well, I did more than other people did.

ME:
Ok.

EM:
There was an international women’s group who met monthly and developed charity programs for an orphanage. Occasionally we would visit the orphanage and also meet the Tanzanians involved in its management. Actually, I was very lucky, one of the Tanzanian ladies directing the program and I became quite friendly.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
So I really had a Tanzanian friend…

ME:
Wow.

EM:
…which was really very nice.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
I was really quite pleased with that, really wonderful. I even visited her in her home a few times.

ME:
You mentioned that part of the work you were doing was with orphanages. Did it bring about any regrets about not having children? Or…

EM:
That’s a very good question. I was really focused on the needs of the Tanzanians.

So it was probably very sad that I didn’t have children. That’s true. Right now, I’m sorry I didn’t. [Laughter] There seemed to be an awful lot to do, you know. I was sort of [in] a position of responsibility. We were number 3 in the embassy and so on. I think if I’d been here in the United States, I think we would have had children.

ME:
Right.

EM:
Yeah. But I really felt I had duties, obligations. But that’s too bad.

But, because I got to know the Tanzanian lady, the Americans and the diplomatic corps [had a friendly relationship with the community]. We even had a series of meetings with Tanzanian ladies where the international community brought Christmas presents for Tanzanian mothers who didn’t have very many toys for their children.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
So we had a party like that. That was interesting for them and helpful for them and a very positive meeting. The Tanzanian lady had visited the United States earlier in her life and she enjoyed that. So we became very friendly. I visited her in her home.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
She came to our house. We had a sort of “Help the Children” kind of party and the international community, including the Americans, brought gifts for children. We had a children’s party. [Laughter] That was really very interesting.

The period I was there was very, very productive. It was mostly because I was friendly with the Tanzanian lady who organized an outreach program to contact wives and members of the large diplomatic corps.

ME:
Wow.

EM:
It was the International Year of the Child, worldwide. Then, when we were in Burma, we got used to an Asian society…

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
…as opposed to an African society, that took a fair amount of doing. [Laughter] It was a very beautiful country, absolutely beautiful country. We lived very close to a place called the Shwedagon, which was a large, open air Buddhist temple known throughout the country. We have some pictures from Burma, so you can see all sorts of [things]. Burma was a very religious country; they had lots of pagodas. The Shwedagon was a very large outdoor temple; it was used by the entire country as sort of the center for Buddhism. It was open and they had shrines and so on and you could walk around and see things. In fact, if you want to go, we have a picture of the Shwedagon,

ME:
Sure.

EM:
…a painting of it. It was really very nice. I seemed to be more actively concerned with the charity work in Tanzania than I was in Burma. I helped out but I wasn’t involved in organizing it the way I was in Tanzania. The Americans had various meetings [and] gatherings, the American ladies, and then there was sort of an international group of international diplomatic ladies who met in Burma. They visited to the various Burmese orphanages. We would make donations to them, you know. Contact with the Burmese wasn’t quite as close as it was in Tanzania. That was the sort of thing I did. [Laughter]

I was the one American who could do this, in a position to do it. Although in Burma, I think other Americans got involved in more charity work.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
But most of the other Americans spent most of their time at the club, which included [a] swimming pool and tennis courts. So that’s how they spent their days.

ME:
Right.

EM:
I didn’t do that nearly as much, I made an effort to go out and just meet the locals. [Laughter] ‘Cause I thought that was more important, at any rate.

ME:
Can you tell me about where you lived in Burma?

EM:
Yes.

ME:
Did you have a house there as well?

EM:
In Mozambique and in Tanzania and in Burma we lived in government housing. In Burma, practically everybody was in government housing. The government had bought up a sort of community of small houses. We weren’t in that community; we were sort of downtown. I would call it a mansion [laughter]; it was a beautiful house. In Burma, the Americans lived near each other, they were neighbors, [and] they all went to the club. Fortunately in Burma, the Americans also had their own Burmese friends and contacts, which was really very nice. I liked that. I didn’t know many of them; they knew them. They had a lot of local contacts, which was very good.

And also in Burma, at least once a week we’d go shopping in the big, local market. They didn’t have grocery stores, just open markets – like Farmers Markets here.

ME:
Ok.

EM:
Have you been to the open-air market in Cooperstown?

ME:
Yup! Uh-huh.

EM:
Well, that was the sort of kind of market that we would go to everyday to buy our food. They didn’t have any grocery stores. Sometimes our household help would go down there and sometimes I would. I’d go usually once a week, at least. There were many, many stalls with all sorts of interesting gifts. So it was really quite a fascinating experience to go there and look and see what was there.

ME:
What did you think of the local cuisine?

EM:
Oh, well we…

ME:
Were you experimental?

EM:
Yes, yes, we were reasonably experimental.

ME:
Good.

EM:
I mean, don’t forget we lived in a house with servants and they produced a meal for us every night.

ME:
Right.

EM:
…an American meal.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
But we would ask them to make local dishes; I asked them to make local dishes and they did. I even served them for gatherings. We also went to restaurants. They had a few restaurants in Burma.

ME:
Did you travel outside of Burma while you were there?

EM:
Yes, we did. That’s a good question. In order to get to Burma, the airplanes from the United States and Europe fly into Bangkok.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
Bangkok is a very, very posh, modern city with lots of traffic, but all sorts of possibilities. There are also interesting Thai museums to go to and Thai houses and Buddhist temples to visit and that sort of thing. So we usually do a certain amount of tourism while we were there. But also they had very comfortable hotels with modern cuisine, although local Thai food was also available and was tasty. Now, Hugh made a lot more trips than I did, I mean, because he attended meetings of various sorts. The people in Southeast Asia got together quite a bit…[laughter]

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
…often in Bangkok. So Hugh would travel to Bangkok for meetings a lot more frequently than I did. But I made several trips to Bangkok. Then, Hugh figured, quite accurately, that we were just across the border from China. So we took a vacation and visited China.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
We saved ourselves all the airfare back and forth across the Pacific. [Laughter] In China, we were very lucky. We went to Beijing, I’m not thinking at all, and a couple other cities further south. We saw a fair amount of China. I remember quite vividly sort of standing in a market and a Chinese man was sort of looking at us as if he wanted to learn more about Americans.

ME:
Oh.

EM:
What’s very interesting is that this year, 2012, the Chinese people held a meeting and chose the top 10 officers for the entire country.

ME:
Hmm.

EM:
They are determined to be the most modern, [producing] the most material things for everybody in the world.

ME:
Wow.

EM:
And they probably will be in the next 10 years. [Laughter] You know, I mean, they are really eager to improve their standard of living. But I remember standing, I think it was at a market or something, this man just sort of looked at me as if he said, “Well he wanted to be American!”

ME:
Oh. [Laughter]

EM:
It was really, really funny, really amazing. They’ve progressed amazingly. They are very, very hardworking and capable people.

[START OF TRACK 4, 0:00]

EM:
Burma was very close to China; and there was a big Chinese influence among the Burmese. So one of the people who worked for Hugh had children who were finishing high school and going on to college. So, we met them and that was insight into the very ambitious academic programs the Burmese have. That’s very, very encouraging.

ME:
Did you take any classes in Burma? Or…

EM:
Yes, I studied the language.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
I can’t remember. [Laughter] It was a long time ago.

ME:
Yeah.

EM:
It was approximately 30 years ago.

ME:
Uh-huh. What about the music? Is there any Burmese music that you remember?

EM:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Burma has its own music, which is lovely.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
It’s really lovely. I enjoyed listening to it tremendously. I think we have some records or tapes of it.

ME:
Ok. Good, good. Was it hard? Did you find it difficult moving from place to place so much with the Foreign Service?

EM:
Well, no. First of all, when you’re assigned you just know that you have a lot of work to do. [Laughter] I mean, you’re moving. It’s simply a matter of moving.

ME:
Right.

EM:
I mean, you have to buy more clothes for the particular climate involved.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
Make sure you have enough pots and pans with you.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
Although, I think in Burma I think they had a collection of pots and pans [laughter] for [us].

ME:
Ok.

EM:
We didn’t have to bring too many in Burma. And I think we traveled. We had bought some sort of official American diplomatic plates…

ME:
Ok.

EM:
…American Embassy plates. So we traveled with those so when we entertained, there were the plates.

ME:
Right.

EM:
We didn’t have to a [laughter]…

ME:
…try and take those…

EM:
…to try…[laughter] get local people to make them or anything. No, no. So we traveled with them. We were sort of in traveling mode when we moved from Mozambique to Tanzania. I mean, we had almost everything involved. But then, after Tanzania, Hugh had a post in Washington. He did quite a bit of traveling on his own. So, we had a period in Washington. But then when we went back to Burma, it was a fair amount of doing to reassemble all the…[laughter] all the dishes we needed and so on. Although, sometimes they just stayed in the houses, I mean, enough service for 20 or whatever stayed in the houses. We didn’t have to carry them back and forth. And I’m trying to remember. Burma had some dishes in the house, but we also brought our own additional dishes too [laughter]. And also, the dress code for Burma was a little different than for African countries. I had to buy more clothes for Burma. But it was all very exciting. I feel very honored that I had the opportunity to travel there…

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
…and meet so many interesting Americans and American officials coming through and also meet many interesting local people. I really appreciated it. I enjoyed it.

ME:
So where did you move after Burma?

EM:
We returned to Washington. After Burma? Well, we bought a house. Hugh had one more posting in Washington. About a year after we got back to Washington, my mother, who was living in this house, right here, became ill. So, I came up to see her. I traveled back and forth between Washington and Cooperstown.

ME:
Mmm.

EM:
After Hugh finished his last post down there [we moved to Cooperstown]. Well, I was back and forth too. Hugh decided it would be wise to buy another house, and we bought a house on Elm Street. So we moved in there. So I could come down and visit her everyday, you know and make sure everything was all right. I was sort of supervising everything. There were local nurses who could come and work with her during the day, you know, and also at night. There’s a lot of at home help, at home care available.

ME:
Did your brothers come and help?

EM:
Yes, they did. But at that particular time in their lives, their children were still at home and they had full-time jobs.

ME:
Yeah.

EM:
You know, whereas I wasn’t really working. So I was selected [laughter] to come up here. But my brothers both made an effort to visit here and they’d come and bring their children on the vacations that they had.

ME:
Can you tell me about the day your Mom passed away?

EM:
It was right here in this room, she was still at home.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
That was very sad. She had not been terribly well, and there were some people working downstairs here with her and I was upstairs. And they said, “You need to come down because she’s not well, she’s going to die.”

ME:
Yeah.

EM:
They could tell, I couldn’t tell, but they could tell.

ME:
They could.

EM:
So I just sat there and held her hand and we chatted a bit. I just sat there and held her hand. I feel very fortunate that I was nearby and could do that. [Note: in Burma, some older Burmese women advised me to hold the hand of a relative who is dying. I remembered this and the feeling of closeness and comfort was beneficial.]

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
It was very helpful.

ME:
Yeah. At this point in time, were you officially retired when she passed?

EM:
I think I was [laughter].

ME:
Ok [laughter].

EM:
I wasn’t working. [Previously] then I sort of developed a few piano pupils in Burma. When we came back here, I started teaching piano. This was after my mother died…

ME:
Right, uh-huh.

EM:
…and after that. From Burma, I came back here and took care of my mother because she needed the care; she needed the help.

ME:
So tell me about teaching the piano.

EM:
Oh.

ME:
Sorry.

EM:
Well, let’s see. I started maybe 4 or 5 pupils all told, 5 or 6 pupils on the piano. Some of them were in high school. My best piano pupil was a very musical person, wonderfully musical. I bought music for them. Most of the time we were going through method books and also learning extra pieces. Now, I’d not had too much training in the teaching of music. I mean, I’d had a number of piano lessons myself…

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
I mean, I knew the sort of thing that happened. So that was an interesting transition. But I would have benefited, I think by more training in the teaching of music. But all my pupils graduated from high school and went on to college [laughter]. And I said, well [laughter]…and I’d been teaching them for 4, 5, or 6 years.

ME:
Wow.

EM:
I didn’t do it that long. Yeah, yeah. But when I was in Burma, also, I started teaching piano when I was in Burma, actually. They had a conservatory in Burma, believe it or not. The woman there said, “Well, you must have some piano pupils.” So, I developed piano pupils when I was living in Burma. Living here in this town, I mean, I would have benefited by more training in the teaching of piano, actually.

ME:
How so?

EM:
Well, there’s just a lot of techniques that can be used that really I wasn’t terribly aware of. But I did teach 4 or 5 people the beginning piano. Then they went on to college [laughter]. I think a couple of them may have continued on [with piano].

ME:
Ok. What’s your favorite song to play?

EM:
Oh, well, I haven’t even been playing in a long, long time. That’s just dreadful.

ME:
Oh.

EM:
So, I’m going to start and practice every day. Well, I like Bach. I like Chopin; I love Chopin Nocturnes; I really love [that]. Let’s see, Schubert, I like Schubert. I’ve played a number of his pieces. And these are the composers I tend to select when I’m playing for churches. After awhile, the Baptist Church didn’t have an organist, so I worked for them for about 5 or 6 years.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
So I learned their music, they have their own music. I learned a lot about their music and developed pieces I can play for preludes and postludes and so on. One of my brothers lives in Washington, and they had some good music stores in Washington so I would stock up.

[During this last remark, Eleanore’s husband, Hugh MacDougall, can be heard coming down the stairs and engaging in conversation with Eleanore. He came to check on the progress of the interview.]

ME:
Is there anything that you think we’ve missed?

EM:
Well, let’s see. Living in my family house, I can say that more and more I respect [my mother and father] them as people. My father enjoyed art, he also read a great deal. He was also very helpful. He was on the local board of trustees, the Cooperstown Board of Trustees. He just had a very full and interesting life, as did my mother. I mean, she did a lot of reading and research and taught reading and French, herself. It was a stimulating family to grow up in, I think, especially my brothers. Both of my brothers are very bright people. My brother, Bob, right now is doing research in Mexico, which is interesting, in physics.

ME:
Uh-huh.

EM:
I think it’s in physics, in science anyway. And he teaches at George Mason University there. He’s doing well. My brother, Paul was a chemist for a couple of companies. He was a good chemist. He retired from chemistry. He’s retired on Cape Code. So that’s where my brothers are. And we’re here sort of holding the fort so they can come and visit. [Laughter]. And I really appreciate my parents. They were both really good parents, very interesting people. So I feel very luck to have had them as parents. [Laughter] So that’s it!

ME:
That’s it!

EM:
Ok.

ME:
Well wonderful! Thank you so much…

EM:
Oh, thank you. Well, thank you!

ME:
…for letting me interview you. This was great.

30:00 - Part 1

17:33 - Part 2

30:00 - Part 3

16:52 - Part 4

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No

Cassie Cavanaugh

Erika Heinegg

60 Plains Drive

Oneonta, NY 13820

Cooperstown Graduate Program
Oral History Project Fall 2012
EH = Erika Heinegg
CC = Cassie Cavanaugh

[Start of Track 1, 0:00]

CC:
Today is the November 17th, 2012 interview of Erika Heinegg by Cassie Cavanaugh at 60 Plains Drive, Oneonta, NY. Erika, can you describe to me where you were born?

EH:
Yeah, I was born in a small town in the north of Germany that's located close to the Baltic by Kiel, approximately 80 kilometers from Hamburg. The town is [in] a beautiful area called the Ostholsteinische Schweiz which means it is an East Holstein-Switzerland. The area doesn't have the Alps, but it has meadows and beautiful lakes that are wonderful for swimming and recreation. It also was used during the war as testing grounds for the unmanned u-boats. But that was a great big secret, and it did not come out until after the war. We didn't know why so many restrictions were put on people around that lake, the “Grosse Ploener See.”

My parents lived on Main Street. They had a small business. My father learned the trade of making hats and gloves and sold fur coats. My mother was a seamstress, she was a Damenschneidermeisterin. She had a Master's in the creation of costumes. The town had two beautiful churches when I grew up. Music was a big part of my upbringing. I learned to play the piano and sang in the choir. We did pageants through the church, and we gave concerts. It was a beautiful way of growing up even though there were many restrictions because of the war. [WWII] Above all the houses was a castle that at the time that I grew up was a boarding house for young students that had graduated from high school and were going for the abitur. It's called a Gymnasium in Germany. How do you wish to continue?

CC:
You mentioned restrictions a few times. What sort of restrictions were imposed?

EH:
Restrictions? During the war? Actually during the war, we could not swim in the big lake. Nobody could get near other than certain areas. One could walk by the lakefront but not go in the water. No boats could be used on the big lake. But there were many other small lakes surrounding this big lake, so we did not suffer in that we, as children, could not go swimming. However, there were restrictions in the sense that we had little access to equipment for sporting events. That was all taken away and stored unable for us to get to. Those were some of the restrictions. Of course, there was limited clothing and limited means of purchase. Food could not be imported. All we had to eat was what the Germans could produce on their land. As children, that didn't seem to faze us too much. It was only after the war when I saw the first time what a banana looked like. I had never tasted one; it was a revelation.

CC:
Were you an only child?

EH:
I had two siblings. They were born eight years after my presence. A brother and a sister, they were born within thirteen months of each other. They were so much younger, I really had little communication in the sense that when I was eighteen years of age and left Germany, my brother was only ten, and my sister was nine years old. Because I left Germany and did not return other than on brief vacations, to this day my communication with those two siblings although they are in Germany is limited. We have grown completely apart from one another in outlook on life and that is certainly something that I regret except that those are the circumstances of growing up.

CC:
Did they remain in Germany then?

EH:
They are in Germany, ja!

CC:
How was your family or your town, other than the u-boat training, affected by the war?

EH:
Well in the very beginning, my father was doing quite well. His business allowed him to sell things to the military. The military was the navy and marine cadets that were educated on the lake where the secret equipment was developed. The marines needed hats and gloves, although not coats. Also the medals [and] awards, those products he sold. So he was doing better except that he was then conscripted into the army, into the Wehrmacht, and went to the Russian front. Although he was already older, he worked in the volkssturm. He had also been in the first world war.

My mother was the sole breadwinner at the time. She had both the store and her own business. For a while, it was alright, but then it began to deteriorate because we were not getting supplies. After the war, 1945, the business for military equipment was no longer necessary. Of course, then supplies began to dwindle.

CC:
What did your family do after the war then?

EH:
It's amazing the resources people come up with when there is a need. For example, in the hat business, because men in that time wore hats and gloves far more so than probably in this country, they needed to have their old hats cleaned. My mother had quite a business of having these dirty old used hats re-freshened. She did not do that personally, but she was a middleman in this. Women needed their clothing altered, and young ladies needed to know how to learn all this. She had students who would come to her and learn the business of sewing, of repairing. For example, a coat that had been worn by a person was taken completely apart, turned inside out, and put back together again, and that made an almost new coat. It was just incredible.

We had a garden in the back of our house that bordered onto a stream, a creek, and we planted our food there: potatoes and all the vegetables. We had, I would say, at least 10 - 15 fruit trees, from apples to cherries to pears, various kinds of different apples--and plums--that would grow and ripen at different times which was most enjoyable for us kids. Many stories of a neighbor having a plum tree, I remember. Our neighbor was a shoemaker--he was older and we used to make fun of him--I was with 4 or 5 young girls and the plums are the Indian type plum that are beautiful for baking. They were ripe, and he hadn't done anything about it. So we kids thought that we would shake the branches and help ourselves to some of these plums. We saw him coming from far away and put the plums into our underpants and ran away, and as he was coming, all the plums were falling out. I remember that was such a funny, great story. I was between 7 and 8 years of age.

CC:
How do you think it influenced you with your mom being the sole breadwinner growing up?

EH:
Always my whole life, my mother has been my example: for resilience, for dedication, for ingenuity. I have taken that with me. I have always wanted to be like her. I once mentioned it to a professor of mine at Hartwick College [Oneonta, NY]. And that woman was maybe the first saying 'Well you are very much like her.' I thought, well maybe I am doing things right. My mother was my idol.

CC:
When did you leave Germany?

EH:
I graduated in 1952 from high school. My mother thought maybe I should go for two more years for my abitur graduating in the Gymnasium. But my father did not like that. I have always been very much interested in being outdoors. I could not see myself working at a desk. I don't like discourse, and I didn't like it that my father would not agree to this. So I decided to see what I could do with the outdoors. Had I been a male, I would have gone into forestry, but that was not available to women. I also thought of maybe I would like to learn about biology and be part of the biologic oceanographic experience because we had that available for men, not for women.

So I decided I am going to go and explore what women do in agriculture, to learn the whereabouts of all that is entailed in household, in gardening, in raising of animals, and organization. The Germans have a program of an organized two year practicum and then two more years of theory. I thought I'd go for the practicum first. As it turned out, it was a very good move on my part because for the rest of my life, those two years have helped me live where I wanted to live. For example, to come to America, we chose a 20 acre piece of land that was very much an area for homesteading, and I just loved it. I lived there for 40 years, and it was just everything I've ever wanted to do.

CC:
When did you leave Germany?

EH:
I left Germany in 1954. I had graduated from that two year practicum, and I went to Sweden where I wanted to see what happened in other countries. [Germany] was too restricting. Another aspect I had looked into after I graduated from high school is nursing. My grandmother had a very difficult illness. She had cancer of the bowel and needed a colostomy. She could no longer stay in the hospital because her condition had become chronic, and no equipment was available for colostomy care after discharge from the hospital. It was the saddest thing that I can imagine. I was 9 years old at that time, and I couldn't help. It was awful. So I decided maybe what I wanted to do was to get into that aspect of care. However, when I looked into it, I was told that under the circumstances, there was a 6 year wait to get into nursing school. As a young woman, that was much too long a time to wait for.

So I left Germany altogether in 1954 and went to Sweden. There was a Baronial couple living in a great big house--I don't know what they call it in this country, a mansion?--and around the mansion was a 400, 500 acre farm that was managed by a squire. The squire's wife who was supposed to do all the caring for the staff was in and out of a mental hospital. I was asked if I would go there, and I did. I worked for them for a year. It was a wonderful experience. I learned a little bit of Swedish but not much. I love the Swedish flag to this day. It's such a beautiful sunny light blue and yellow flag that appealed to me much better than the red, black, and white of the German flag at the time with the swastika.

I met a young lady who was working in the mansion. She said a friend of hers was in England being a nanny to a hotelier in Southend-on-Sea. She could get me a job in England. I thought that sounds great. I had had 6 years of English in high school, so I could understand some English, but I couldn't speak it very well. I definitely wanted to learn more. So I went to England after my year [in Sweden] in 1955/1956. I took evening classes for English in the local college. We all had to give our stories, and I had mentioned that I liked nursing or liked the idea of it and [the instructor] said there were two local hospitals in Rochford and in Southend-on-Sea and that if I applied, he would give me a recommendation. They were delighted and I could start immediately. The program had three months of seminars and three months on the floor and then three more months of seminars and three months on the floor in a progression of three years to graduate as a staff nurse. I became a student nurse.

The nurses’ house was beautiful. For the first time, I had this gorgeous room to myself with huge windows overlooking a nice landscape and gardens. We had a cleaning woman coming by once a week. The bathrooms were communal. 4 or 5 nurses the communal bathrooms with a little kitchenette. The instructors were called Sisters which is one step up from the staff nurse. They were very kind, very understanding and wanted us to succeed, so it was a very enjoyable environment.

I also met my husband during that time who was allowed with five other students to present Shakespearean Plays. They were members of the “Royal Shakespeare Society.” We got married in 1957 and wanted to emigrate to Africa. He wanted to go to Kenya. I had had a friend from Nigeria in the class of nurses and thought I wanted to go to Nigeria. But we decided that maybe we would go to Kenya together. When he wanted to apply and see what kind of job was available for him, he found out it was not really an advisable move at all. We went to Canada instead where he had applied for a job.

We had an apartment overlooking Lake Superior, and it was awesome. The weather was something we had never experienced. So cold, -40 degrees with a blue sky and sunshine. That was something England never had. We had woolen clothing which at those temperatures was not too good. At that time, we had never seen nylon padded clothing. We were in Canada not very long when my husband got notice that he had a job in America. He went to see the people and was enamored. They wanted him badly. We had to get visas to get to America which took about 5 or 6 months. In America, wewent to Rockland County by the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York State. We bought our own

[Start of Track 2, 0:00]

EH:
house with the help of his employer and decided that this was a good time to start a family. We had two girls and lived in the house for 11 years. When the company he had been working for was sold, the large corporation badly managed it. The small company went bankrupt. My husband had to find another job. Teaching at the State University of New York at Delhi in the Veterinary Science Department. At that time, I decided--my youngest daughter was 4 years of age, ready for kindergarten--that I would take some college classes at [SUNY] Delhi to first of all see how my English would hold out. I passed, so I decided that if I can pass, maybe I should go on. I found out that 20 miles away was a college that was offering nursing.

I decided this was my opportunity to get a nursing degree because my English experience was not accepted in this country. I think I started in 1972 with a few classes here and there and went full time in 1974 and graduated in 1977 from Hartwick College's nursing program. I thought this was going to be a very good opportunity because what I really wanted to do was be in public health. I was accepted to the public health nursing service in Delaware County in Delhi.

The first 6 weeks or so--I don't know whether it was 6 weeks or 6 months--was sort of a trial period. When I had that interview, my superior took me into her car outside the building and told me that I could work for the county. She found nothing wrong with my performance except that her father had told her that I should never be promoted. If I were to accept that, I could work in public health. When I asked why I would not be promoted, she said, 'Because you are German. My father doesn't want me to promote you because you are German.' In 1977, there was very little one could do about that, but I had my children. My husband had a job, so I had to accept that position. I wanted to be in public health and the hospital was not an option. I would have gone into operating room service because I worked for 10 years in Nyack Hospital when we lived in Rockland County, but they would not accept that. So public health was it. It was very nice because public health nurses had a separate car that they could use to drive home and use for work during the day.

They were 10 difficult years because I went for night school to Albany to work on a Master's program at Russell Sage [College], one class at a time. I thought well, if for nobody else, I do it for myself. And I did. There was one episode when my boss needed an epidemiologist, well she wanted one of the nurses who was working--we were 10, 12 nurses working in the department. I was taking a master's degree program in epidemiology. She said, 'No, no you can't. I want you out of here. I don't want you to continue.' She made things extremely difficult.

For example, at the end of a day's work, one had 5 or 6 charts to record the visits. I'd put them on my desk to work on during the hour before going home, and unbeknownst to me, she had taken a piece of paper out of one chart and kept it. With not having a reference, I never noticed that I did not chart this particular visit. This was not just once; she did this on several occasions. As an example. [She] came later and accused me of not filing [the chart] properly.

A colleague of mine at the immunization clinic, for example, was supposed to be overlooking what I was doing and came back and told completely wrong stories that I had not given the correct dosage or at the correct time to a child, and it was false. It was found out that she had just said these things on many, many occasions. My supervisor lied at a conference about something I had said. I was very angry and stood up and said, 'You are lying.' And she admitted it! She admitted to everyone that it had been a lie. At that I said, 'I'm done with having worked here.' That's all she wanted. She didn't care how I did it as long as I said, 'I'm leaving.' That was after 10 years, she was gracious enough to allow me to stay there 10 years, so I was still part of the pension system. You had to be there 10 years in order to get a pension after you left.

So I do have a little pension out of that job. I went to Albany Medical Center. Oh, no, there's more to that. There is another aspect of this: a group of nurses in a county can get together under the New York State Nurses Association. We were district 15 and got together to have little conferences to keep up with new data. A person from the New York State Nurses Association in Albany came to visit us, and she liked my performance and asked me whether I wouldn't want to work for the offices in the New York State Nurses Association in Albany on the nominating committee. What I had to do was write a little article about what I would like to see in nursing, and my name would be put on a ballot, and nurses voted. At that time, the Nurses Association had approximately 30,000 nurses, and 30,000 nurses voted for me. However, the first elected person to the chair of the nominating committee turned the position down because she wanted to be president. So I became the chair of the nominating committee of the New York State Nurses Association.

At first, nobody in Delaware County really knew what that was all about, so everything went fine. I was chair for I think 2 years. Then I was asked to run for Director At Large with the New York State Nurses Association, and again I was voted in by the nurses. But all of a sudden, that was too much for my boss who got the personnel director involved that I was politically involved in the system and that they did not like that.

CC:
I'm sorry, could you describe what you mean by politically involved?

EH:
There are two branches to the New York State Nurses Association. One is to promote the conditions of nursing, to give every nurse the ability to be in the pension system, to have a better curriculum in some of the colleges for nursing, to see that RNs [registered nurse] and nurse's education be improved. Education and the conditions are sort of two different branches. My superior felt threatened, so even more pressure was put on me to try and resign which I eventually did.

Because of my connections in Albany, when I had left the position, I wanted to be a discharge planner. I thought that was going to be great. The nurses from Russell Sage Nursing program suggested I go and apply to Albany Medical Center for discharge planning which I did. I worked in Albany, but it meant to leave Delaware County. I had a little apartment and would go home on weekends. If I once in a while had weekend duty, my husband would come to Albany, and we would explore what Albany had to offer. We thought maybe we would like to have a condominium in Albany and go to Delaware County only on weekends or so. However, that sounded exciting at the time to myself, but because I was the outdoors type, I really didn't like Albany all that much. It was a great thing to have had the opportunity, but in the spring, it was much too dusty from the gravel that was thrown on the streets in the winter [which] flew up into your faces if you wanted to walk on the streets. It was not something that really appealed to me and the traffic and all the people. So it was wonderful every weekend to go back to Delaware County and have fresh air and the green grass.

After a while, the health of my husband deteriorated rapidly. I decided I would go back to Delaware County and nurse him whilst he was ailing.

CC:
Did you notice any other immigrant groups that were getting treated similarly?

EH:
No. Discrimination is apparent in many, many branches. Well, when we first came to this country in 1960, we were involved in a theater group, the Elmwood Theatre in Nyack. Some people of dissimilar backgrounds were discriminated about. What happened was, my husband was Catholic. I was Lutheran. When we got married, we got married in a little chapel next to the hospital in Rochford. The priest, who was a monk, when he heard that I was a Lutheran and my husband was a Catholic, he moved his chair 12 feet away because he was afraid of us going to infect him or something and almost didn't want to marry us. But those were scenes that people lived with, and fortunately, 30, 40 years later, we have learned a little bit more not to do that but still it took a while. We had to learn. Everybody had to learn these things.

Discrimination against colored people versus whites. One nurse in the hospital I was working in ICU was a colored woman who had children. She was absolutely wonderful. She worked so hard; she tried so well. I told her one day how much I admired her, and she broke down and she said, 'Oh, but nobody here likes what I do. I am hanging on with my fingernails to keep my job.' I didn't ask why. I knew why they didn't. She was colored, and the staff was white.

Men in nursing were also discriminated against. This is far more acceptable now, but early on in my career, they were not really thought to be capable of being nurses.

CC:
Why do you think that was? Specifically in what I'm asking about men not being capable of being nurses.

EH:
Well many patients were women, and how does a man take care of a woman who has given birth. This is part of nursing, maternity patients or patients who have problems of hygiene. They felt that men versus women, women were more up to be caring. Men didn't know how to show compassion the way women do. [There are] good men who know how to care and do things. I mean, physicians: there are good and bad physicians. Physicians were mainly male.

CC:
Did you notice the same sort of discrimination against you when you were in Sweden or England?

EH:
Well, that's interesting. No, I must say. Not at all in England, of course, because the English have the colonies, and England was accepting anybody from the colonies. In fact, they went overboard to be accommodating. That was something I had not experienced in England, and in Sweden, I never got close enough to people to experience that. No, I did not find that kind of discrimination in those countries. Germany, of course, was a different story altogether. How about the Germans and the Jews?

CC:
What do you mean by England went overboard?

EH:
Overboard to accommodate people from the colonies? It was probably a bad term. I should probably not say that. Nurses ahead of my three months period seemed to be accepted without question to do things that may have been in some cases a little early, a little premature, responsibilities. I had such a good time in England that I'm sure everybody else did as well. I just was very impressed with the way they educated their nurses. I've never, ever had such an experience as when I was a nurse in England. It was very wonderful. One example, I was newly married, and it was not common, but nurses and staff were sometimes given free tickets to concerts. My husband was given two tickets to go to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert. I went to the Sister, saying I had these tickets had to be in London by 7 o'clock, and I would not come off duty until 7. She said, 'Go. I'll find somebody else.'

Now, I cannot imagine such a thing happening to me when I was in nursing [in New York]. Even if I had the free time in Public Health, my boss would never have done anything like it. As a matter of fact, when I went to the end of my 10 year period, she came to me and said, 'You never took a sick day in all the 10 years. You're the only one who ever did that.' I happened to be extremely healthy in those days, but the point being, she also said, 'I thought you'd taken all your sick days, and all the days that you ever have off.' It was prejudice that she just expected things the way she wanted to see them.

CC:
How did that make you feel?

EH:
I just shrugged it off because it was ongoing. I never expected anything good out of her mouth. It's just, I knew that it was all contrived, and I knew better. It was unfortunate though because it did limit some of the things that I was doing. It could have been a beautiful job. I loved going out to see the patients. The patients enjoyed and felt good about my presence with them,

[Start of Track 3, 0:00]

EH:
how they were progressing in their homes and whether everything was all right or could things be improved. I felt I was contributing to their wellbeing. This is what I wanted to do. This is what I was educated for. That's how it should be. It was only in the office that it was not pleasant.

CC:
So did you did experience any discrimination with patients?

EH:
No. [With] the patients in Delaware County, I don't know that there was anything that I could discriminate on. I mean a patient is a patient. You take care of the patient.

CC:
I meant a patient who discriminated against you.

EH:
There are patients who find something at fault, but those are misunderstandings that can be cleared up. There was one time I was accused of having run over a pole or something like that. It turned out that it was not my car. It was somebody else's car, a car from social services. Because my boss was always interested in finding fault with what I did, she made a big deal of it. But that was the office, it wasn't patients.

CC:
When did you lose contact with your family, with your brother and sister?

EH:
Well in 1954 when I left Germany, I went home for that Christmas, but I was home for a week. Then I went back from Sweden, from Helsingborg, I went by ferry from Helsingborg to Grossenbrode over the Baltic and then to my parents's house. That was one Christmas. Then I went to England. I didn't go back to Germany except with my husband in 1958, in autumn of 1958 when we decided that we were going to go to Africa, to leave England, let's say. Then we went to America and for 8 years, I was not able to go back to Germany. Then I went for a couple of weeks at the most because I also spent some time in England the first time. The way one could get a plane ticket was from New York to fly to the furthest place, and my parents’ home was the furthest place. You could make stops. For example, we flew from New York to Paris because my husband had a conference in Paris. Then I flew with my older daughter, we flew from Paris to my parents's house whereas he flew from Paris to his mother's house in England then came to my parents's house, to Germany. You could do that on one ticket. You didn't have to hop, skip, and jump in those days, back in 1963, 64.

Flying was a lot more fun then. It was great. It was beautiful. I took my daughter with me. We walked in Paris on the Seine and took a boat ride on the Bateau-Mouche. [laughter] It was beautiful. We went into Notre Dame Cathedral, and there were nuns collecting money. They had really little money belts the way a driver or a collector on the bus has these pockets with change in them, and you put the pennies and the nickels and the dimes and the quarters into this. My daughter loved the idea of giving a few pennies to have the nuns bless her. Daddy several times had to give her some pennies. I wonder whether she remembers that. I'll have to ask her.

These are very nice anecdotes. Paris was fun. I wanted to buy perfume, a real nice French perfume: Balenciaga was a big deal in those days. So my husband came into the store with me, and the young mademoiselle was showing different smells. I had selected my perfume, and I turned around and looked at something else. And apparently--this is what I was told--this mademoiselle said to my husband, 'Et pour monsieur?' And he, 'Me? Me? Me?' 'Oh,' she said, 'Oh yes.' So she poured a little bit of perfume on his wrist and on his other, and then she went 'Ahh.' And then he says, 'I want a gallon of perfume.' [laughter] That is his story, a French story, and a beautiful story. [laughter]

After 8 years, my siblings were still at home, I guess. Or came, anyway to visit when I was there. After that, I would go to Germany every five years on my mother's birthday which was in August, of course. 24th of August was her birthday, so I would go over there. But because we had the children, we had the animals and the house, we couldn't just leave. We didn't know anyone who could take over for us whilst we were gone, so we had to go over individually. I would go over to see my mother; he would go over the next time to see his mother in England. So it was not often that we went to Europe together.

We had our boat and we spent every weekend that we could sailing together, sailing with the group on Otsego Lake, racing in our highlanders. Later then we got a tazar, and after that we got our catalina where we could sleep in the cabin. We didn't have to drive back to Delaware County every Saturday-Sunday. We could spend the weekends at the lake. The kids got a big tent and could sleep in the tent. It was wonderful, wonderful summers. [We'd] sail to the opera in our boat and trailed our dinghy and anchored outside in the water and paddle to the shore, trying to find our way. People thought that very romantic. Which it was. My girls, though, never really liked sailing as much. They were afraid. They had other things they wanted to do.

CC:
What do they do now?

EH:
My younger daughter is working as a director of catering sales in the Marriott Convention center in downtown Philadelphia. And my younger daughter works for social services in Otsego County.

CC:
Do you see them very often?

EH:
Well I'm going down for Thanksgiving to Allison's, to my younger daughter's house. Her German in-laws are coming. She married a German man, and his parents are coming for Thanksgiving. So we are all going to be together except my older daughter and her husband are staying up here. They're not coming down this year. But then we will all be together for Christmas at my house. My grandson is coming back from Afghanistan. He is done with his tour in Afghanistan and back to try helicopter flight training. I don't know where he is going to take that training. At Christmas time, he is coming back. He will go back to Fort Drum in upstate New York and then come and spend time with us here. So that will be a hectic time. It will be great, have everybody back.

CC:
Are you making any preparations for his homecoming?

EH:
For his homecoming? His father wants to help him buy a car. He will be staying with me for a few days, and then he will go down to his father in Maryland.He'll see his father for a little while. I'll take the yellow ribbon off. [laughter] That's my preparation. I have a yellow ribbon out there till he comes back. It'll be great to get together and hear all the stories.

CC:
How long has he been over in Afghanistan?

EH:
9 months. He's been 9 months. I have a story before he was deployed to see him up at Cape Drum. [I was] driving my car to Utica and then up Route 12 to Watertown--that is several hours, 2, 3 hours drive on Route 12--and I think while I drove a little faster than 55 at one point when I was clicked by a policeman. I immediately knew he'd objected to my speed. I drove and waited for him on the side of the road, and he wanted to know where I was going and did I know how fast I was going. I said, 'Actually, I don't, but I knew I was going faster than was permitted.' And he said where am I going? I said, 'Well I'm going to see my grandson who's being deployed to go to Afghanistan. And he said, 'Oh, then go. Go.' [laughter] So I got no ticket. I've told that to friends. They tease me now, 'Now be sure you tell the policeman your grandson is going to Afghanistan.' So thanks to Jacob, I didn't get a ticket.

CC:
What activities do you engage in now?

EH:
Say that again.

CC:
Sorry. What activities do you engage in now?

EH:
Actually, after my second husband died in 2002, I befriended a woman here in Oneonta. Actually, before. I was a member of the Continuing Cooperative Adult Learning program which is here in Oneonta. That's how come you and I are talking because of Taylor Hollis who's in the program. Now I am on the curriculum committee for CCAL, and Taylor is too. Taylor is a treasurer for the board. Because I'm on the curriculum committee, I'm also on the board of the CCAL. And what we're doing is every 6 months put a new calendar together into a program with all the facilitators giving little seminars. That's what the curriculum committee is. It's a very stressful and involved job.

I'm also a member of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). I hike with them. 2 years ago, I was president of ADK. A Friend from ADK put me in contact with the man, Gordon Roberts, who was searching for 15 years to try to find a place where the Plains community could to be started: the Plains at Parish Homestead. Because of my connection with the originator of this, Gordon Roberts, I was very early on able to select the place where I wanted to have this condominium-type house. I guess they call it townhouses or patio homes. I selected to have this kind of view and southern exposure.

Also because I'm a member of the Sailing Club in Cooperstown, the members are responsible for things to go right and get cleaned up and get put into shape. There is always something that needs to be done.

I am on the administrative board for the Catskills Symphony. Classical music is my relief, my forte, my pacifier. It's everything. So Chuck Schneider and his symphony are very dear to my heart. I have quite a few friends who are musicians. I'm also on the board of the First Night events. First Night is December 31st and 1st of January of the next year. And I help the person who is organizing it with some ideas and little things that need doing. What else am I doing? Well, anyway, it's so much that I can't attend all the lectures that are offered that I would like to attend because I just don't have enough time.

CC:
Is there anything else I have forgotten to ask you or anything else you wish to talk about?

EH:
I don't know. [laughter] I don't know. No, I think I've spilled all my beans.

CC:
Okay. Then I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk with me and to tell me about your life. I really appreciate it.

EH:
You're very welcome. I thank you for taking the time and effort to do all this.

CC:
You're welcome.

EH:
So we can help each other.

30:00 - Part 1

30:00 - Part 2

21:22 - Part 3

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