The Pass It On Podcast

Kate Stewart
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  • Documentary

On this podcast, I interview people such as librarians, scientists, teachers, writers, bureaucrats, lawyers, activists, community organizers, volunteers, and more. They have spent their careers and lots of their free time trying to make this world a better place in whatever way they can. They might not think of themselves as very heroic, but I sure do. I want to learn from them, and you should too. These times call for all of us to step up in whatever way we can. But for now, pull up your lawn chair to the fire pit. It’s storytime. katevstewart.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 05/05/2025

    Interview with Author Jay Jones

    Kate Stewart: Today I'm here with author Jay Jones, who has his first book coming out, and the title of it is A Bilagáana Boy Among the Navajo. So welcome, Jay. Jay Jones: Thanks, Kate. Kate Stewart: Before we go any further, I'm going to give a full disclosure that I helped Jay with writing the book. He came to me when he had a draft and needed some help with revising it and getting it ready to publish. So, I'm very familiar with this book. I know it well. I've read it many times. Let's get started. And let's see, the first question I wanted to ask you is, just so our listeners know, what's the general gist of your story? Jay Jones: Well, the title, as you mentioned, is A Bilagáana Boy Among the Navajo, or I guess an appropriate subtitle is, How Did a White Kid Come to Live on the Navajo Reservation? Because Bilagáana means white person in the Navajo language. My memoir chronicles my four years living on the reservation, the Navajo Reservation, beginning in the late 1960s, when I arrived there at 7, almost 8 years old. My mom and stepfather worked for the BIA, or Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is how I came to live there. Kate Stewart: Right. So that's, and how many years were you there total? Jay Jones: About right at four years. Kate Stewart: Yeah. So, I think it's interesting that your book it really focuses in on those four years. It's a slice-of-life kind of memoir. I wanted to ask you, why did you feel the need to write this story, to make it public, and to go into such depth about that time in in your life? Jay Jones: Well, I knew I had a unique story, and for the last 30 years I kept telling myself, I'll write a book about what I went through, and it was just a matter of time before I finally decided to move forward. Another was that I figured no one cared or would want to hear about my life or events on the reservation, and that probably stemmed from my insecurity and guilt talking to me about how I was treated as a kid by my parents, and I never really shared anything with anyone. So, I guess part of it, too, I wanted to also tell readers out there that despite dysfunctional families and situations that you have no control over, you can still overcome them. Stay strong to yourself and keep being persistent to what you want in anything. Kate Stewart: Yeah, it's a really great message. So, when you decided to write it, and you just sat down at your computer, how did you approach that? Did you have a method for telling this story? Jay Jones: Right. Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. And I tell people, you know, I always never really considered myself a writer and had no idea how to how to begin thinking about writing. But somewhere in the early stages I was doing some Google searches and came across an article on memoir writing that said, “Just write down 50 stories you want to share in your memoir.” And I thought, Okay, that's easy. I knew many stories that I could easily recall, and over the course of about two hours, I wrote about 46 stories, not didn't quite make 50, but 46 stories, just one sentence of each thing that I wanted to cover on a yellow pad. I just wrote out one sentence. It only took about two hours, and I didn't quite come up with the 50. But it was a good enough start. I guess the next step was just that I began writing out descriptive details in a word document about each story in chronological order. The order wasn't exact, but the timeframe was close enough, and I just kept writing it this way, and as I did, more and more details kept coming to me. Kate Stewart: And I guess you did a little bit of research, too. Did you look up things about your time there that you hadn't remembered clearly? Jay Jones: There were a number of places, different locations in Window Rock and throughout the reservation and in Gallup, which was the nearest town we did most of our shopping and errands, doctor's appointments and stuff in. But yes, I relied on Google to help me with a lot of that. And of course, you know, newspapers’ archives like the Navajo Times, they just solidified the stories that I recalled, and I was able to pick up more information just by doing research here and there on what I remember, and incorporated it into the stories. Kate Stewart: I know a lot of this story is, I would say, can be a little bit hard to read, maybe painful. I'm sure it was painful for you to write, because I guess we would imagine a typical white kid showing up on a reservation and connecting with people, learning from them, having this wonderful positive story. But your story isn't always positive. I know there are incidents where you were bullied, and you were also going through abuse stuff at home by your stepfather. So, how did you write about those difficult things? How did you decide to approach them? Jay Jones: Yeah, I was. I guess I was just honest about them and what happened. You know, the entire story, the entire memoir is completely true. I mean, I knew I could change people's names in the memoir, but I wanted the reader to know the full effect of what it was like living there. I knew as a kid much of the bullying came from how Navajos were treated by the white man in the past, and I was in a place and time to just to have to deal with some of those repercussions. The Navajo are fine people, great people. I have strong regard for them, and what they have overcome in the suppression of what the white man has done to them. But overall, I just did my best to endure living among them, and you know, just wanted to be honest about what happened living there, you know, during my time as a kid. Kate Stewart: Yeah. Can you talk about some of the really great experiences that you had there that you enjoyed? Jay Jones: Oh, there were quite a few, without giving too much away, I guess I'd have to say the many trips I took. There's a character in the book called Grandma Begay, my next-door neighbor or neighbor who lived across the street. His grandparents still lived just like they did 100, 150 years ago, out in a hogan, way out in the sticks, out in the boonies, and I went to their location several times. I only documented three times in the book only because there's something bizarre happened on those three occurrences, but there were other times where I went there, and it was pretty much uneventful. But Grandma Begay was just the mellowest, easygoing person you'd want to be around. She was just very receptive and comfortable with me as a white boy, and I would say that that was something I enjoyed writing about and look back on. Along with I learned to ride a horse from Dean Jackson and participated in a rodeo in Winslow. Arizona. That was really something I enjoyed, writing about or experiencing, but just being a kid hanging out on the reservation, too, just riding my mini-bike or sledding during the winter. Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah, some of those are really… Jay Jones: There's some fun stories. Kate Stewart: Yeah, they're fun to read. Did you ever, when you were going through and writing, did you ever have writer's block or difficulty getting the stories down? I know some people get discouraged and think, oh, I'm never going to finish this, and they stop for periods of time. Did you ever go through that? Jay Jones: There were many times, but I was in no hurry to get it finished, and really didn't get serious about writing it until maybe 2018 when I retired. Although I had 46 stories to share, writing them really proved challenging. You know, I wrote out everything I could recall about the events, and knew I'd come back at a later time and rewrite it. But if I was on a roll in my writing, and the thoughts were coming easy. I just kept going, because, you know, writer's block is going to come, you're going to sit down one day, and it's just some stuff just won't happen. But the most important part, really, is just to write and write and just get it all down. You know, I didn't focus on the grammar or punctuation, as you know. Kate Stewart: Right. Jay Jones: I mean, I just knew that it could be fixed later and after many rewrites. I planned to work with an editor that would work with me to make it more of a flowing story that readers would like, and thanks to you, it turned out that way. It turned out good. Kate Stewart: It was fun to read from the beginning, but it was great to see how you improved it over time. Jay Jones: Yeah. Kate Stewart: So, I was wondering, too. I know a lot of people when they're writing in a certain genre like memoir in your case, they look to other books to kind of see what other people have done on similar topics, or just similar styles. Were there any that you looked at as kind of a model? Jay Jones: Not no, not really. Not memoirs. Kate Stewart: No, you just… Jay Jones: But I mean, since I've written this, I've become more interested in them, and you know I've been inspired and enjoyed reading one.I just finished a couple months ago was called Cloudwatcher by Nancy Atkinson. Nancy’s story’s theme, is kind of similar to mine even though she was younger. She was a white girl that lived on the Navajo Reservation in the 1950s, when her father ran a trading post and a tourist store on Route 66. It's a really good story, and I like that. But overall, I guess I like nonfiction. And you know, big into psychology, self-help, motivation, inspirational stuff. Right now, I'm reading probably one that a lot of people have read is Solito by Javier Zamora. Another good one, where he was a kid about my age, 9, 10 years old, who came from El Salvador to the United States illegally. But it's kind of an interesting memoir as well. Kate Stewart: Yeah, that sounds interesting. I should note that down. Were you ever concerned about people reading it and finding these things out about you, or, I guess there probably weren't too many people who are still around who are extensively mentioned in your book. Do you think was that ever a concern that they'd be offended or

    28 min

  2. 04/12/2025

    Interview With My Mom on Her Life in Libraries

    Kate: Okay, we're back. This week is National Library Week. I'm here with my mom today to talk about her long career in libraries and all the things that she has done as a librarian, which is quite a lot. So, thank you for being here, mom. Thanks for coming back. Mom: Oh Kate, you know I'd do anything for you dear. Especially talk about libraries since that's something. Kate: I know, there's so much happening in library world right now. Mom: Well, that's true. Kate: The stakes are high, I guess. Mom: The Stakes are very high. have something precious to we have to defend access to libraries funding. Yes. Kate: Yes. So, the last time I interviewed you, you talked a little bit about how you started working in libraries in high school and in college when you were at OBU. Want to say anything more about that before we go on to other stuff? Mom: Yes. No, I'll just say that you're right. It was ninth grade when I realized I could get out of study hall by volunteering to be in the school library. In this time when we were together before, I did talk about how that was my first introduction to a banned book, though the phrase banned book wasn't used, but I found out about books that weren't allowed to be put on the shelf because our high school librarian didn't think they were appropriate for kids. And then my work study jobs, both at OBU and at University of Oklahoma. OBU was in the regular, they just had one library, but at OU, I got to work there in the physics library. These were both work study jobs. So ,they were good exposures to me about libraries and how they work and how different they are, even the idea that there were these specialized libraries within the departments at OU was eye-opening to me when they took me over to the physics building, to the physics library. But, I still didn't think much about library as a career. It never even dawned on me to think about that. That happened much later in life. It actually, in midlife, when you kids were getting pretty much older. Also, during that time when I was young and married, we would go back and forth to your visit your grandparents in Lubbock because your grandfather was in library work and had been the director of the library in Muskogee, Oklahoma. And then when he transferred and got a job out in Lubbock, and he was the head of the city-county library there. When we would visit them, I would see these journals around the house. Maybe you remember them too. They were always stacked up on the coffee table and on that hearth of their fireplace, which I don't think they ever ,can't remember there being much of a fire. Kate: Too hot for that there. Mom: But he always had stacks of American Libraries and Booklist, Library Journal too. But I didn't and I would look through them all the time when I was there, and I loved looking at American Libraries because it had photos of libraries around the U.S., and it had little articles about what they were doing and I loved looking at Booklist and looking at book reviews and then and that was when you were just a toddler and in grade school and then here to think that you grew up later and were a contributor to Booklist for how many years? Kate: You mean Library Journal? Mom: That’s right, Library Journal? Kate: Yeah, I wrote book reviews for them for a long time. At least ten years, maybe more than that. Mom: Yeah, you did. Yeah, and at the time, mean, just think about that connection of seeing those at grandpa's. And one time he actually mentioned to me, you should think about being a librarian, but it just seems so distant and far away and unconnected because at that time I was just a full-time mom to the three of you. And I didn't have any thoughts of even returning to the workforce. That did happen later when you were in fourth grade and I, at that time when your dad and I were separating, I had to think about getting a job and at the time I couldn't think of any possible job I could do other than maybe being somebody at the checkout at the Safeway. But your fourth-grade teacher was married to a children's librarian at Kansas City Public Library. And he told a few of the PTA moms that they were having trouble filling a job down there. I was desperate at that point, and I knew it was part-time. So, I applied for it. I told him I would apply for it. I think he is the one who recommended that I would be okay for the job, which turned out I really wasn't very good at the job. But it was something for me to do and it got me. That was like what kickstarted me getting back into working in libraries and figuring out how I could become a librarian. And that job was working in the children's library. I was actually collating book reviews on children's books. When I think back about how it was for their selection committee. The selection committee was made up of the children's librarians at each of the branches in the Kansas City Public Library District, and they would meet once a month. They would be, they always got this great selection of free books that were sent from publishers, children's books. So ,I was opening up those boxes of these sample books from publishers and making a little card for each one of them, a 3x5 card and filing it alphabetically. And then they had all of these review journals like Kirkus, and I can't even think of all the titles, but there were probably four or five or six of those. And they would have already read through them and checked off the ones they were interested in. So, I was to look for that book within the pile that we had that came from the publisher and write down whether the reviews were positive or negative. I would put plus or a minus, which issue of which review journal it had come from and stick those inside or have them inside the book covers. And then when they met, they would pass around the books and actually look at them, read them and evaluate how they scored. And that was how they made their selections. Kate: Wow, okay. That's interesting. Mom: It's well when you think back to work that was involved. Kate: Oh, I know. I remember one of my first library jobs, I remember I would help out with a little bit of that, like look through book reviews. The librarians would pass them around and like do check marks on which ones they were interested in, and I would read through them too. It was fun. Mom: As a staff member, mean, later when I was working in a library, we passed around the journals, I would be looking at the reference books or the audiobooks when I had that collection for reviews. But you know, there was no other way to do it than by print. And you had to move that journal along. People would come to see what was stuck on your desk that you haven't finished and moved along, because we all had to share it. But when I listen now and hear about the controversies that go along with children's librarians and what's in the library and what parents approve and don't approve and all of that controversy. And then I think back to those women that came together once a month and passed around the actual copies and read them and did personal selections for what would be appropriate for the children in their neighborhoods, at their neighborhood libraries based on their income or based on maybe the ethnic races that attended that. It just, I don't know. I just think that was kind of like the glory days. But then they really took their jobs so seriously. They really were nurturing these little minds and they wanted everything that they had on their shelves to be something that could add to their childhoods in some way. Kate: That would have been around, was that like ‘88-ish? ’89? Mom: Yes, that was late, very late ‘80s. The only problem with me was I was so slow and was such a slow typist. You was that, that the librarians. Kate: They told you you were slow. Mom: Yes, I was too slow, and I had to speed it up. And I, that's when it kind of fell into place that, I'm a cog in their wheel. Yeah. This is not just for me, know, own enjoyment. So, I had to adjust to that. But the thing is, from that position, my friend Jan, who you've also interviewed, who was a children's librarian, she was going to take a library course. And it was through Emporia State. And they had just started, that was a library school that was just about to be discredited. Kate: Oh no. Mom: It was like one year away from losing its accreditation. So, they had done something kind of risky, and they brought in a new group of faculty. I'm trying to think, from Syracuse, New York. And there were three or four of them, maybe more, at least four, that came from Syracuse with this new idea of how they were going to kind of revamp library school. They were going to come in and teach management skills. They wanted to teach how to do community assessments. They were going to try to elevate the status of a of a librarian to being a real profession. The whole issue we talked a lot about what makes a profession and how is a profession differentiated from just a job, that this is actually a profession. It was bringing in this whole new idea of how to teach library skills and teach people to go into libraries with a different maybe perspective than they had in the past. And a part of that also was that they did distant learning. Instead of, which really was a boon to that department in that small school. They doubled or maybe even triple the size of their student body without any having to add anything for the infrastructure of the school to support that because they were, this was when distance learning, I think was even first being born as a phrase. And so, they would send their faculty, they figured out which large locations, metropolitan areas did not have a library school close to it. Denver was one of the places. I know for sure in Kansas City, I mean, though Emporia was about, I don't know, three-hour drive away, but because I did have to take some classes on campus, but they were sending their faculty up to run

    1h 23m

  3. 04/06/2025

    Interview With My Dad and Stepmom on Marion Labs

    Kate: Okay, I'm here today with my dad, Bill, and my stepmother, Lorie. Today we're going to talk about how they both worked for the company Marion Labs, which was a pharmaceutical company in Kansas City and they had long careers and did quite a bit. We’re going to cover a lot of that. But first, I'm going to start with Lorie and her background in math and how that all started. Lorie: Hi. Kate: Thank you for being here by the way. Kate: You're welcome. It's fun to visit Tucson. So, you want to know how I got into math? Kate: Yeah. Lorie: Well, I went to an all-girl high school where I was only good at two things, languages and math. So, I thought, you know, maybe I'll just study math when I go to college. My mom was a teacher, so I figured I'd be a math teacher. Kate: How did you deviate from being a math teacher, then? I'm curious. Well, let's go back to college first, because I know you went to college in Kentucky. Lorie: Yes, I went to Eastern Kentucky University. It's maybe 20 miles south of Lexington, primarily because my best friend in high school went there and we each told our parents that the other one was going there. That's how we ended up both going there and being roommates. She was in accounting, and I was in math. It ended up that my background from high school prepared me really well, and so math was kind of easy. And I decided I would do math and biology. I was going to be a 7 through 12 grade math and biology teacher. It was really interesting. Math usually went with physics and chemistry and computer science. It did not go with biology. So, I had no electives. Everything I took was required. When I got to senior year, I didn't have very many hours left to take so I could do student teaching in the fall and leave only about eight hours left to complete, which meant I could take graduate level classes and get graduate level credit. I thought, okay, that's a good way to do it. I student taught in the fall, math. And then when it came up to the spring, I took some graduate level math classes and realized I did not want to get a graduate degree in math. Too theoretical. I didn't like that. But, in order, to keep your teaching certificate active in Kentucky, you had to start a master's in five years and complete it within ten years. Because of all these classes that were required, and how I had to take those, I didn't take a junior level statistics class until my final semester of my senior year. The teacher asked me, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I just couldn't fit it in.” He asked, “Why not?” I said, “Well, because I had math, and I had biology, so it didn't fit.” And he said, “Wait a second…you got math and biology? You need to go into biostatistics.” I said, “I didn’t know what that was,” and so he explained. I actually had to teach statistics, probability mainly, in the high school where I student taught. I was learning the lesson the day before I was teaching the students. That school was called the Model Lab School. It was attached to the university and all the university professors' children went to the school. If they had known I was learning the lesson the night before their students were, I don't know what they would have thought of that. But, anyway, I said well, that's interesting. I had already applied to Iowa State in math. That's where my dad had gone to school. I was born in Ames, Iowa. That's where my mom and dad met while he was in school, and she was teaching elementary school. So, I wanted to go back to Iowa State. We had visited every year on our travels to my grandparents, sort of like how you guys knew OU because of all the history in your family. I said well, I better switch my classes over to statistics, because I realized they had a statistics school. What I didn't realize was that it was one of the best statistics schools in the country. It wasn't biostatistics necessarily. And a little side story kind of interesting, is about my roommate who was in accounting. We were both going to school in southern Kentucky. She was an accountant, very good, very smart, and she was trying to get a job with one of the big eight firms around the Cincinnati area. Because she went to a quote unquote “south” school, she was getting interviews, but she couldn't get a job. So, I asked my statistics teacher, when I was taking that junior level class, where had he gone to school? He had attended Southwest Louisiana State. And I said, “Okay, my roommate's having a lot of trouble. What about a statistics school in Louisiana versus Iowa State?” And he said, “I think you better go to Iowa State.” So, I switched everything over to the statistics department. And to my surprise, I got a teaching assistantship, which paid my first year of grad school. So, it was like ‘woohoo’, and that's how I ended up getting a master's in stat. Kate: Okay, so did you finish that in two years? Lorie: Sort of, but not exactly. I was done with all my classwork. But to graduate you either had to do a thesis or you had to do a thing called a creative component. I hate to document all this, but I think he's passed away now. My major prof that was kind of guiding the stuff. He was number one, he was British, but he was not the best communicator in the world. He would change his mind a lot and trying to find a project under him that would stick was very frustrating. So, I got this project lined up with another department and tried to do a creative component approach. If you did a creative component, you had to take a little bit more coursework. So, while I was doing that, I actually got a job at the University of Iowa on a grant for a year. It was pretty neat because it was biology related. If I can remember right, this is a long time ago. It was psychosocial intervention for cancers that would either functionally or physically debilitate you that people would withdraw from either relationships or society, because of these cancers. Would this intervention, psychosocial intervention, help them get back into society kind of thing. It was for a year. So, I did that and yeah, it was really interesting. We used punch cards and had boxes of these punch cards. Wherever there was determined to be an error on the punch cards, what are punch cards? 132 character long, I think, something like that. You’d have these wide, long boxes about three inches high of these punch cards. You'd look down and see all these little black dots. Those were where a QA person was going over the data entry and would take actually a black magic marker and put a dot over whatever that character field was, like 80 or 130 or 12. Then I'd have to correct all those. There were case report forms and protocols and a whole kind of thing that was a lead into the career at Marion Labs. Kate: So, what year did you graduate? Lorie: 1977. Kate: And how did you get the job at Marion Labs? Lorie: Well, that was interesting too. I was so tired of applying for jobs, I would write a letter and mail it in an envelope with a stamp. You know, there were no... Kate: Would you look in the want ads, or back of the journals? Lorie: In the back of American Statistician, is that what it was called? Something like that. Anyway, there were these publications in statistics that would sometimes list the available jobs. It was paper, and it was what you could find. And I was just so tired of sending these applications out with a cover letter and a resume and all that kind of stuff. So that when it was determined that I was going to go to Kansas City, Missouri, I just I just took a phone book. I guess it was for pharmaceutical and maybe chemical companies pages out of the phone book. I dropped my finger, one on each, and said…those are the two I'm going to send. And one happened to be Marion Laboratories, if you can imagine. And I was still in Iowa City at the time. And they called and said, “Can you come down?” And that's a funny story too, actually. They said, “Can you come down next Thursday at such and such a time?” And I said sure, and they said we'll mail you a confirmation letter. I said, okay fine. Well, they had already told me what day and what time so that's when I went. Their confirmation letter had a different day and time on it. Kate: You didn’t get the letter in time? Lorie: I don't think I looked at it. Because I knew what… I mean I just looked at it, oh that's a confirmation. I didn't pay any attention to it. Oh, the 13th was Tuesday, not Wednesday? or whatever and I was a day late. Kate: Oh no. Lorie: So, they called me. I was at my little office at University of Iowa, and they called and said, “Is there a problem?” I said, what you talking about? And they said, “I thought you were coming for an interview.” I said, “Yeah, I'll be there tomorrow.” I mean it was only a few hours’ drive, and you know, they said, “Well, you're supposed to be here today.” I go, “Oh no!” And yeah, it was like really weird, because they said, “Okay, I guess we'll see you tomorrow.” So, I went, and they must have thought I was a real ditz, but they offered me the job. Kate: So, what was your job title when you first started? Lorie: Oh, that was interesting. Okay, so when I got there, Marion Labs, I mean it had quite a few products and whatever, but another person and I joined the department the same day and we made the department size five. Very small. There was a manager, a programmer, a data entry operator, and they called them secretaries then, the admin and I joined the same day. And I was called statistical programmer. Okay, it wasn't a statistician. They didn't quite have that job. So, I was a statistical programmer. But it was all the same thing. And it was very interesting, because we had a little cubicle office, but to do any programming work or analysis work or whatever, you went to this little bank of computers and you had... Kate: That were enormous? Lorie: Well, the computer was enorm

    59 min

  4. 03/12/2025

    Interview with the Desert Woodcrafters Association

    A few weeks ago, I got invited to write an article about a woodworking group, the Desert Woodcrafters Association in Tucson, for the magazine American Woodworker. They asked me if I could come to one of their meetings and I asked, “Can I bring my microphone?” And they said, “Sure!” So I headed off to Flowing Wells High School in Tucson on a Saturday morning to learn more about this great group of woodworkers who do so much to give back to the Tucson community. A lot of the members of the Desert Woodcrafters also belong to the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association and Xerocraft, which is a Makerspace in Tucson. They talk about all three groups, so that can be a little confusing. There’s also quite a bit of background noise because we were in an auto body shop at the high school and I recorded some of it during a break in the meeting. And these guys are a very chatty group with a lot to say! Kate: Can I get your name? Jim: Jim Payne. Kate: Okay, so you're the president of the Southern Arizona Woodturners, right? Jim: That’s correct. Kate: Can tell me about how you all got started? And when? Jim: I know that years ago they used to meet at Raytheon. A lot of these guys are ex-engineers from Raytheon. Or ex-employees or used to work out there. I'm not sure how we got here because Ken Tower was the ex-school teacher from this school. That's how we got in here. I don't know why they left Raytheon. But originally that group of turners, mostly woodturners, started out there. Kate: Okay, so explain to me what do mean by wood turning? What does that mean? Jim: Wood turning has been around for a really long time because if you look at old chairs and stuff, they have the spindles. Spindles on the legs, spindles on the back. All that stuff is usually turned, even if it was turned by hand. Kate: So, it's all by hand, no? Jim: So now we have machines that you can put it between, turn it on, and then can still have to do the shapes. You can decide on the shapes and the angles and all that kind of thing. Kate: When did you start doing this kind of work? Jim: Well, I took all this stuff in high school. I actually went to school here in Flowing Wells. Kate; Oh you didi? Okay Jim: In fact, when I went to school here, this was my wood shop. We're meeting in now, this is now the auto shop. Kate: Do you remember your teacher? Jim: I do. Mr. Bausch. Ken Tower came a couple years after the high kid. After I left, I wanted to be a woodshop teacher. But I just never finished. Back then you had to go to either NAU or ASU. Kate: To become a teacher. Jim: I started in high school. I went to Pima for a years, thinking that I was going to continue, but just didn't. Then got married, had kids, all the wood shop stuff got pushed to the side and all of my kids were leaving, and I got time, my daughter got me a gift certificate to Woodcraft. I went up there and here. It was just hard. I live right around the corner. So, it was hard for me to drive to Raytheon and to go to a meeting. Kate: Yeah, that’s pretty far. Jim: I'd heard about it, but I've been I think involved about ten years now. When I saw the sign that said they meet at Flowing Wells High school. So I came here. Kate: That's great. So, what do you like about doing this? Jim: Just the people. Kate: That's why you come? Jim: People who ? and then we'd branch out and see all these other people. I now play Santa Claus at Christmas time. To go to the schools, so it's just fine people that are, like the same stuff you do. Kate: Yeah, you learn from them. What kind of things do you learn from each other, I guess, at these meetings? Jim: I'm sorry. You want to sit here? I mean, we have different demos. Most folks have a demo. This one just happens to be on child safety because we just finished with Christmas and stuff that’s, how you determine how big and all that kind of. But we usually have something to do with wood. Last week, last month here, we did what's called a one board bowl, and that's where they were talking where you cut it out on a band saw and then stack it up and glue it. It's just, it's endless in what things we can do with wood and now we're even, we even started another club that's an offshoot of both of them that does CNC, 3D printing, all the new stuff that kids are involved in. Kate: So, there's no woodshop anymore at this school, or most schools. Jim: They took it away. Kate: I'm kind of curious if this is kind of a dying thing among younger people? Jim: Yes and no. I've gotten a better faith of the younger kids. I started doing the culinary arts stuff with the teacher over here and the kids are just awesome. And I've gotten involved with the ag program out here, and those kids are really awesome and they have a lot of shop stuff out there. It's just great to see young people interested in stuff that needs to be done and knowing that they're not going to college and learning a trade. We've actually had kids come either in the morning or in the afternoon. We used to come and turn pens and stuff, teach kids. And it was on their own time. Kate: On Saturdays? Jim: They would come and learn how to do wood stuff. _________________________________________________________ Kate: Okay, so your name is John. So, tell me how you got started with woodworking. John: Well, my father did a little handy work around the house. And I just, he wasn't very good. I had a couple uncles build houses. But you know, I just was always around do-it-yourselfers. Because this was back in the ‘50s and ‘60s where things were do-it-yourselfers. Kate: Where did you grow up? John: Where did I grow up? Upstate New York. Kate: Okay, so you're retired. John: Yeah, and so I didn't do any woodworking until, actually, I guess I got married and had a place. Little things need to be done. And then it just progressed until more. I don't make anything big anymore. All my big stuff I made, tables, we don't need anymore. But now it's all little stuff. And now it's all giveaway because we don't need anything else at this point in our life. But what I did do is back in New York, I taught woodworking to girls. It was called the Girls’ Club at the time. It's now called Girls Incorporated. They wanted a part-time woodworker to teach girls how to build things. So, what I started is I had third graders. They started with me, and we started little tool, little cutting, and a little saw, and a little drilling. And I had these girls progress up to 17 years old when they graduated high school. They were making Adirondack chairs and things. The same kids that stayed with me. And some kids were newer every year. So, I started that program over there and kept it going for quite a few years. I was with them for maybe twelve. Terry: That’s how John got all this gray hair. John: Yeah, really. 12 or 13 years. And I was all self-taught. I didn't have any special training. I continued with it. And so I don't know now I'm course no longer in contact but, you know, but these kids are probably have some basics on how to do things. I remember them being more confident. The whole idea was to build girls confidence to do things, and woodworking was a non-traditional girl's, woman's tool. So, this is what we did. Like I said, we had a room, and I had seven or eight kids out of an hour a day, two hours a day teaching them how to do things. And I just had to break it down to them to be simplified that they could understand it. Kate: So, then you, when did you move here? John: Moved here about fifteen years ago or so. I sold all my woodworking tools back in New York. Back in New York, I had tools and I had nobody else. I was not in a club. I was just making things, doing things. And so, since the tools were out in the garage and rusted, I just left them all behind. Came up over here, moved to here, and my mother who did live a long life, well, she needed a present. What do you get somebody who's 90 or 85 years old? So, I said to my wife, “Well, I could make her something, but I have to buy a tool. I don't have any tools. Have to buy a tool.” “Okay, well, yeah, buy a tool.” Anything for I don't have to make a decision, my wife thought. Bought one tool, bought another tool, bought another tool, then bought a Shopsmith around the corner. And then I said, okay, I used to turn back in New York. Let me see if there's a club here and there was a turnings club here and that's why I started coming here to this to these clubs because I got the help because if you don't sometimes know what you're doing, like for example, if you don't know if your tool is sharp or if it’s you that's making the mistake. It could be your tool is dull and that's why you can't do this certain thing. So, this is where getting help comes in and that's where the club came in. This club has helped me with that and then I got some lessons from one of the members and then just the conversation. Also, I think the clubs help with the challenge. Well, that's kind of nice. I never thought of that. I'll go home and try that, or I'll look at that I'll talk to that person more about it I think that's what the club is doing for you. Kate: Yeah, that's great. So that's what you like best is learning from other people? John: Yeah, yeah and I like also teaching back because I also belong to a place called Xerocraft, which is a makerspace where we have tools, and I like when somebody comes in and says, “I don't know what to do. I want to do something.” Like, we have a young lady she's about maybe 25 and she comes in and she works with younger kids, and she wants and she wants to build something so, “What do you want to build?” “I don't know,” she says. “But I want this. I want this.” So she, you know, she's learning tools, and I like teaching her because then she gets more confident. Every couple weeks she comes in. It's like, “Well we're going to use a nail gun today.” Alright, a nail gun, that sounds kind of interesting. A nail gun is

    56 min
  5. Interview with Jan Bombeck

    02/26/2025

    Interview with Jan Bombeck

    Kate: Okay. Today I'm here with Jan, who is somebody I have known for a very long time, I think since I was around six years old, and Jan is a retired school librarian and now does a lot of political activism. We're going to talk a lot about that stuff today. Welcome, Jan. ©Jan Bombeck Jan: Thank you. Kate: The first question I'd like to ask is, I know that you grew up in Prairie Village, so I wanted to ask you to describe what that was like. What that area of Kansas is like. Jan: Well, it's nothing like it sounds. It's not a town. Well, I guess it is a town kind of on the prairie, but it's just a suburb of the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. It was originally, I don't know what you call it, set out, made up by a guy named J.C. Nichols, who built and developed the Country Club Plaza, which is in Kansas City, Missouri, which is very fancy elite shopping district, and Prairie Village was kind of like his baby after World War II. The guys were all coming home from the war getting married, having families, and wanted a place to live that were nice, inexpensive homes. So that's basically what Prairie Village was. The history of that which I have kind of learned more as an adult, of course, is very white. It was pretty white when I was growing up, and I never really thought about it too much. There was a lot of redlining involved. My dad got a, what do you call it? Where you're get alone because you were in the service. Kate: Oh, yeah, like a VA loan? Jan: VA Loan. Yes. And those were available to a lot of people, but not so much if you were black or person of color. That put them at a disadvantage for buying these homes. Everybody that I grew up with in Prairie Village was white. I don't think there were any. There was a little boy who was family was from China in my elementary school, and nobody. Well, I guess he went on to middle school and high school. In high school, I think there were a few more diverse people. A lot of, I was friends with a lot of people who were Jewish, but not. In fact, they used to call my high school, “the Synagogue on Mission Road,” because during the Jewish holidays so many people were gone. Kate: Wow, I didn't know that. Okay, that was East, right? Jan: Shawnee Mission East. Again, you know, you've got things going on that I wasn't aware of as a child. People who were Jewish weren't able to. There were, what do you call them? Things in the contracts in like Leawood. You couldn't buy a house in Leawood if you were Jewish. Kate: Wow, yeah. Jan: So, a lot of people who were Jewish bought homes in the Prairie Village, Mission Hills area. Kate: I see, okay. Jan: I ended up going to school with a lot of them, but that was the only diversity that was in my life, and but it was the typical Leave It to Beaver existent. My mom did not wear a dress and pearls, but a lot of the women, most of the women in my neighborhood, I can't even remember anybody that worked. I mean, there were people that kind of worked, the lady across. Well, I should say kind of. It was hard. She sold real estate, but she didn't do it full-time. So, my friends, you know, were in daycare. Everybody pretty much stayed home. My parents bought the house when I was a year old, which was like 1952. Kate: Where were you born? Kate: I was born in Kansas City. Kate: Okay, over on the other side. Jan: Yeah. I was born in the Missouri side. My parents, when I was born, lived in a little tiny town down in the boot heel of Missouri. It's called Mexico, Missouri. Kate: Yeah, I've heard of that. Jan: Have you heard of that? Kate: Yes, I've seen the signs on the road. Jan: I have no idea where they got the name, but they lived in Mexico for about the first well, my first year, and they back to Kansas City for me to be born. I guess they thought the doctors in Mexico weren't good enough or something. My parents were both from the Missouri side, Kansas City, and so she came back to have me. I don't know where I was born. Saint Mary's Hospital, I think, Kansas City, and then they went back to Mexico and then my dad got a job offer up here in Kansas City, so they moved back, and both their families were back up here. So I think it was. Kate: Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Jan: They bought. They actually lived on the Missouri side for a little while, and then they bought the house in Prairie Village. Kate: What did your dad do? Jan: He graduated. I don't know how, well, kind of I know how he got this job. He graduated from MU in journalism with an emphasis on advertising, and he got a job with a company in Mexico. It was called the A. P. Green Fire Brick Company, and they made fire bricks. I'm not even sure what fire bricks are. He worked in their advertising department, and I always remember a story he told about getting the job. They asked him what his hobbies were, and he said, “drinking.” And they hired him. Kate: Oh, my God. Jan: I guess in the early fifties that was an acceptable. Kate: That was fine. Yeah. Jan: But he worked there, and then his uncle had an insurance agency up here in Kansas City. He moved back up here and worked, and from the time I can remember, he always sold insurance. Kate: Okay, alright. So he was. He didn't go into journalism. Jan: He did not use his degree. No. Kate: Okay. Jan: He had great handwriting, and he used to print out all the covers of my reports for me, and he could make it look really, he had graphic arts kind of ability. But he never specifically used his degree. Kate: Your mom went to MU, too, right? Also in journalism? Jan: That’s where they met. They both met in journalism school. Kate: Okay, so you have two sisters? Right? Jan: Well, yes, kind of. I have, well, one of them has died. Kate: Oh, okay. Jan: And I acquired one. My mom got remarried when she was 78. Kate: I see. Okay. Kate: He had a daughter. So I kind of have a stepsister that I acquired later in life. But we’re really close though. Kate: Yeah, that's nice. Jan: Growing up in Prairie Village, I had two sisters. Kate: Okay. What were they like? Were they younger than you? Jan: Yes, I was here first. Kate: You were the oldest. Jan: I don't know. They were annoying. Kate: I should have known. Yeah, that's always the answer. Jan: I was a little bit older, because when my sister Kathy was born, I was five and when my sister Nancy was born, I was six. Kate: I see, Jan: so they were closer together in age and kind of through life, they were just kind of closer, because they were closer in age because I was always five years ahead of them in school. So, we didn't go to the same schools and we actually kind of got closer as adults and did things together and took some trips together. But, when they were younger, they fought with each other all the time. Oh my God, they were always fighting. Kate: You stayed out of it? Jan: I was enough, you know, older. Kate: Yeah, you were off. Jan: Hanging out with a boyfriend or something. I remember one time, I had a guy that I was going out with, and he wanted to come over to the house and see me. My mom was at work, and I knew that she didn't want him to come over when she was gone, and so I paid my sister Nancy 50 cents to go to the swimming pool, but of course. Kate: Did she question that at all? Jan: Well, kind of, because she ratted me out later and told Mom that Bob had come over to the house, and I paid her 50 cents to leave. Kate: Oh, wow. Jan: It didn't work out well. My mom went back to work, too, when I was like fifteen, and I was in charge of Kathy and Nancy while my mom was at work, because she wrongly thought that I was mature enough to watch them, and I didn't. She'd always leave us a list of stuff to do, and I would never do any of it, and I wouldn't make them do it, and then they'd be mad if I told them they had to do whatever their job was on the list, so it didn't work out well. Kate: What was your mom doing? Jan: She worked at a real estate office as like a secretary. Kate: I see. Jan: Again, she did not use her journalism degree. Kate: Yeah, yeah, she didn't, either. What elementary school did you go to? Jan: I went to an elementary school called Prairie, which has a cool history. When I was going there, it had pictures on the walls. It started out as a room schoolhouse back, I think, 1800s. I think it was actually in a different spot than where the building was that I went, but the building that I went to was a really neat building. It had hardwood floors and cool little window seats, and it was built, I think, in the early or maybe late forties, early fifties. It was a neat building, and then in the last I don't know, twenty years ago maybe, it burned down, and so it's in the same spot. But it's not the old, cool, building. Kate: Yeah, it's not familiar to me. Yeah, I don't know if I’ve heard of it. Jan: It was big fire, I mean, I don't remember exactly what year, but I had kids by then. It was twenty, thirty years ago. I don't remember, but it was a neat school to go to, and we walked. You know I've been talking about in this cold, cold weather. First of all, they're closing schools, and I don't remember the schools being closed too much. It was just like it's snowing, get up and go. Get your boots on. The girls couldn't wear pants to school, and so, you'd have to wear a dress. But when it was so cold you’d wear pants under the dress and then you get to school and go back in the coat closet and take off your boots and take off your pants, and then we're in your dress. I remember, I don't know, it was probably five or six blocks from my house to the school. We just walked in the snow. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, uphill, two miles. I don't remember being driven, and I don't remember a bunch of snow days. Kate: Yeah, you must have just toughed it out. Jan: Well, you know, and now the districts are so big they've got to consider. I don't know areas of, that don’t. Kate: The buses and stuff. Jan: Ye

    1h 32m

  6. 02/11/2025

    Interview with Grant Houston

    I’ve been thinking about local news a lot lately. You have probably heard about a lot of newspapers closing across the country or being bought out by media conglomerates that slash the newsroom staff and mostly just want to show us ads instead of actual news. For many years now, my stepmother has been helping out with proofreading the Lake City Silver World newspaper in Colorado. Every Wednesday night, she gets a hard copy draft of the paper and checks it for spelling, grammar, and typos. The work of keeping this small-town weekly paper going has been a true labor of love by several people in Lake City, and most of all, by Grant Houston, who founded the paper in 1978 and still keeps it going to this day. Grant has done an enormous amount of work over his career documenting the history of the town as it happens and also preserving the past through his work at the Hinsdale County Historical Society. Usually, he’s the one doing the interviewing, but I really wanted to hear his own stories about his life and work documenting a small town every single day. Recent Issues of the Lake City Silver World Kate: Okay, I'm here with Grant Houston, who is the editor and publisher of the Silver World newspaper in Lake City, Colorado. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about his early life, how he got into the newspaper business, which I'm really curious about. So welcome to the podcast, Grant. Grant: Thank you for the invite. Kate: I know you were born and raised here, right, in Lake City? Grant: Born in Gunnison and came here when I was six weeks old. Kate: Oh really? Okay. So, your parents were from Gunnison? Grant: No, dad was a game warden and was stationed in Gunnison. Kate: I see, okay. Grant: And they were so lawless in Lake City that they said we better transfer you from Gunnison to Lake City. Kate: Lawless? Okay. Grant: All those Texans and some Arizonans were catching too many fish and poaching animals regardless of whether it was hunting season or not. I think it's interesting because dad was in on that cusp as Lake City changed from a backwater mining community to a tourist town. Kate: I see, that was in the 50s right? Grant: Right, and the population was increasing. Kate: So, then the mining. I know that that declined. Did it decline in the ‘30s? Grant: Probably declined after 1900. By 1910, we were pretty well over with. I think I've told you, Lake City had great expectations in the 1870s. But they weren't realized. We didn't live up to those expectations. The ore here wasn't as pronounced or readily mineable as they thought. So, a lot of that in the 1870s was pure promotion, and we didn't live up to it. So, a brief period in the 1870s when … Kate: Like a boomtown? Grant: When we were the boomtown. Kate: Bust immediately?Grant: But we never lived up to expectations. Kate: Okay, I see. By then, the 50s, I've heard stories about, you know, I guess it was would have been pretty cheap for people to move here then, land and property. Grant: Abandoned houses. You could have just picked a house along Main Street. Kate: You could have just grabbed whatever you wanted. So, your parents moved here when you were a baby. Grant: 1955. Kate: 1955. Did they move into this house? I heard you grew up in this house. Grant: No. there was a game warden’s house. It's where Wee Care is today on Henson Street. Kate: Oh yeah, I know where that is. Grant: But they've torn that down. None of that exists now. But there was a cabin there that was seasonally occupied by game wardens and then enlarged for my dad and his family, and that became his year-round residence starting in 19, probably, 56. Kate: What was it like for you as a kid to be here? Grant: The local kids had their parents were those who were poaching year-round. It was more the visitors from Texas that were catching too many fish, but the locals tended to get subsist throughout the year by poaching. So, in first grade, I came home and asked my parents, “What does fuzz mean?” Because they were calling me the fuzz's son. They correlated that with law enforcement, when in fact, Dad was a game warden. He had a lot of empathy. If a family really needed that meat, he would look the other way. But if they were just trophy for an antler or a head, he didn't have much patience for that Kate: So he would go after them. You can see the transformation that's going on. Lake City never had a resident game warden until my dad. So, look at the transition that's taking place at that point. Population’s increasing. Summer is increasingly popular with visitors from Texas and adjoining states. So, a game warden was a necessary component of that. Kate: Yeah, that makes sense. Grant: They started the school here. My mom started the first kindergarten. They hadn't had a kindergarten until then. So my mom, Betty, was the kindergarten teacher. I think there was probably seven of us in that initial kindergarten class in 1960s. I would have been five. Kate: Did she have a background in teaching? Grant: Yeah, she had some, a degree in it eventually. But at that point, I think she had just a lot of classes. It was a bit of a radical concept. It was held in the old schoolhouse, which they've now torn down. They made room in part of the high school room. One of Mom's first deals was to take empty cans, and we played supermarket and were not very quiet. So, she immediately had problems with the other teachers about us rambunctious kids. Kate: You were too loud. Grant: But again, don't you see that as the change in Lake City that was going on, the very first kindergarten. They may have had one at the turn of the century, but certainly nothing generations prior to my mom suggesting that, and now it's an essential part of the school program. You have preschool and kindergarten. It's just taken for granted now, but it was a little bit radical at that time. Kate: Where was the school then? Grant: Same location that it is today, that's 6th and Gunnison Avenue, is where that's located. Kate: I guess at some point, didn't the high school was that moved or they made the kids go to Gunnison? Grant: Right. At that time, though, it was a first through 12th grade, and there were all of 19 students, so, a very, very small school at that rate. As the school grew, and they outgrew that space, they began sending kids to Gunnison, and they would commute. It started with high school in about 1967, and then it was increased to also include middle school, and there was a bus route at that point. A bus went from Lake City and picked up students along the way and ended up in Gunnison and then brought them back. Kate: That would be a long day, I guess. Grant: That would be a long day. Kate: You did that too when you were in high school? Grant: Yeah, minimally, not a lot. My folks then,nDad stayed as the game warden here. They were eventually divorced, my parents. Dad stayed as the game warden, and Mom and I would move to Gunnison in the winter. Kate: So, you just lived there? Grant: I was a Gunnison student from the seventh grade through high school. My first, kindergarten through sixth, though, was a product of the Lake City schools. Kate: Was that like a big change to move up there? Grant: Yeah, tremendous. I was just used to the small town. Kate: New kids, Grant: Right. it's so Kate: I didn't realize it's so much colder up there than it is here. Grant: You see what it is lately? Kate: Yeah, it's crazy how cold it is up there. Grant: My cat has missed me while I was in Montana. Kate: Clearly, yeah. Grant: You are the nicest cat. Kate: You graduated in the 60s, I guess, or no, 70s? Grant: 1973. Kate: What did you do after that? Grant: So, I edited the school newspaper in my high school year, La Remuda, and that came out once a month, and it seemed like an hellacious amount of work, Kate, to put out maybe an eight-page paper once a month. I said, “How would you ever do anything bigger than that?” So then, after high school, I entered Western State, which was a college at that point in Gunnison. They immediately drafted me to edit the paper there. So, I was the youngest newspaper student at school. I had only just started, and so for my sophomore and junior years, I was the editor of this Top of the World, which had a long history. It was 50. We had the 50th anniversary while I was down there. Kate: How did you get interested in doing the newspaper stuff in high school? Grant: Even here, we had a newsletter that was put out when I was in sixth grade. They asked me to write a story, and I enjoyed writing that story so much. So really, my journalistic career dates back to sixth grade in Lake City, and they were doing it on a mimeograph thing. You remember that? Kate: Just for the school or for the whole town? Grant: Just the school, and that was the Slumgullion Gazette. Kate: That’s a great name. Grant: So, look at my trajectory: Slumgullion Gazette, La Remuta in Gunnison, Top of the World at the college. Kate: You just kept going. Grant: So, you can see I've done this the majority of my life. Kate: That makes sense. I heard that there was no newspaper here for quite a while. Grant: The last the newspaper went out in 1938, and that was the Silver World. It had started in 1875 and was the oldest newspaper on the Western Slope. Kate: Oh wow, okay. Grant: So, that's quite a loss when that happened. But look how low we dipped. If I told you that, you know, that mining was pretty much over by 1910, that paper struggled along until ’38 but saw the beginning of tourism, though. It was reporting on tourist events by the time it went out of business. And then, there were several short revivals. There was a short revival of the Lake City Tribune in 1946, and that may have lasted a year or two. Then a guy by the name of Jim Bishop started the Lake City Pioneer, and that would have been in July of 1976. It was weekly, and it operated until 1979. So, say, there was two papers there for a while. I had started the

    50 min

  7. 02/02/2025

    Interview With My Dad on His Life in Math

    Kate: All right, today I'm here with my dad at his cabin in Colorado, and we're sitting by a crackling fire, drinking coffee. For this interview, we're going to focus on my dad's life in math minus his career as a statistician at Marion Labs, because we're going to talk about that later. But all the other stuff we're going to talk about today. So, thank you for being here today, Dad. Dad: Okay, it might be a lot of fun. Kate: Okay. So, the first question I have is, do you think your gift for math was inherited and if so, who did you inherit it from? Dad: Yeah, I believe it was probably inherited from my mother that when she was going to school, her best subjects were math and art, and so she was able to teach me quite a few things that helped me in school. She knew when we were trying to memorize how to add things up and multiply and divide and all that. She knew how to help me on those. So, I knew a few tricks like anything that's divisible by nine, the integers of it will add up to something that's divisible by nine, and usually that's nine itself. But a lot of times might be 18 or 27 or something. That was a trick that I knew, and other kids didn't have that. I don't know, I just liked it and so, it was easy for me to do that. My dad and grandma at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa in the early 1980s. ©Mom. Kate: And her dad was an architect, right? Dad: Yeah, he probably taught her some stuff. Somehow, I would say that that my mom was his favorite, but he taught her his best things, which were math and art and how to draw and stuff, so mom knew all the all the tricks to teach us how to how to draw something that looked like it was three-dimensional as opposed to you know what normal kids would draw. We were all pretty good at that. Silvia became the artist in the family, whereas I became the mathematician. Kate: It makes sense. Dad: And I, Renee, I don't know what to say she became. Kate: She's a gardener. Dad: She did. She's a gardener. Kate: She got that from your dad, I think. Dad: She got all the cooking experience that my mom developed. Kate: I know your whole family loves to play games like card games and chess. You learn that at an early age. Dad: Well, I'm sure we most of us got how to do it sort of thing from my mom. I think she taught my dad how to play chess. What he knew how to do was play checkers. I learned that from him. And then I learned chess at an early age because they were playing that, and I would watch them and I just kind of learned what they were doing and developed that. Later, when we lived in Muskogee, and I was probably 10 or 12 years old, my dad decided to have a chess club at the library. So, on Saturdays, we would meet there and play chess, and he would show everybody things about it. He had the janitor make this big board that stood on legs. And it was a chessboard, and it had a hole in the middle of each square so that he could take these pieces that the janitor had put screws in the bottom and put them up on the board, and everyone could see. And so from that, it's kind of hard when you're trying to teach somebody how to play chess, you truly should start with just a few pieces and simple things that you can do. He would show a lot of those things where maybe you just have a pawn and two kings and how to get the pawn down to become a queen at the end, and what to do with that, or how to make a checkmate if you just have a rook and a king versus another king, and things like that. Once you know that kind of stuff, then it's good to memorize certain openings that are known to be really good for you and how that plays out. He would always have one or two things that he was going to show, and he'd do that. Then we'd play against each other. For a long time, I was sort of the best player, but then all of a sudden, this guy, Ed King, came along and he really studied chess. All of sudden, after a long time with that, he became really the best player. Kate: That's funny. Dad: We had a thing where Tulsa also had a chess club of some sort like this. We had several matches where we would drive up to Tulsa with several cars. Then we'd set up, and we'd play typically a match is that each person plays one other, and then you score from that. Typically, it would be if you win, you get one point. If you lose, you don't get any. If it's a tie, you get each get a half, and then you add all that up for the team. I think we lost every time. Kate: Okay. What about all the card games you played? Dad: Yeah, Mom liked to play cards, so she taught me several little kids’ games, which I knew, and I could teach you guys at some point. Kate: Yeah, we all learned those too. Dad: But the best thing was that when I was four or five, we were living in this, I always remember that house a whole lot because I knew every corner of it and stuff, but we were living in this house where we had a card table that we could put in the living room and play bridge. But to play bridge, the main person they knew how to play was a cousin named Gerald. He would come over and there were only three of them. There's a way you can kind of play bridge with three people, but it's not very good. So, they taught me how to play bridge. Kate: How old were you? Dad: I was five, six, right in there. Now, I would always play with my mother, and she knew all this stuff that I would learn from her. She taught me how to play the cards well, and then how the bidding was supposed to go and all of that stuff. Another thing we would do is sometimes we'd get my grandmother to play with us. But my grandmother could just barely play, so I found myself teaching her how to do things. Kate: Yeah, that’s funny. Dad: But at any rate, that was the bridge thing and the chess. Those were the two best games. Later, when we were older, we started getting boxed games. I think Monopoly was my favorite, and we would play Monopoly with Joe and Bill Lunn and all three of us as kids, and it was just a nice game. Then from that in terms of games, I started realizing there were these war games you could get. I would play those with Joe, but also, I would play it against myself all the time trying to figure out the best way to do things. Kate: Those are with the little soldiers? Dad: Well, the war games were with just a map, and they would put this hexagonal pattern on it so you could move from one hexagon to another. Kate: Oh, okay. Dad: It would just be a little square of, here's a cavalry unit, and it is worth two points in strength, and it can move six of those, or you might have an infantry unit, and it can move, say, three. Then you might have an artillery unit, and it could move two, but it could hurt somebody from a distance. To find out how much you hurt somebody, you would roll the dice. If you rolled something like a six, then that was terrific, and you would get the maximum hurt on the other side to try to reduce their unit to nothing. If you rolled a one, that was no good, stuff like that. So any rate, the first game I got was Waterloo, and it was probably the most interesting game of any to begin with because it had the French under Napoleon, and the first army he bumps into are the Prussians. You would have that fight, and then the British would start arriving, and then you'd have to fight the British and that whole setup of how that worked. I worked at that a long time trying to figure out what was the way that the French could win this thing because they were outnumbered. Ultimately, I finally decided if the British and the Prussians were smart, you just couldn't beat them. But I must have played that a zillion times. Then, the next game after that was Stalingrad. This was the thing of World War II. Kate: Cold War era or World War II. Dad: And the Germans and the Russians and working that out. That one, the Germans had the best army for sure, and they would start on the attack. But then, the Russians started getting reinforcements and training, new soldiers and stuff. They would ultimately have the real powerful army, so the Germans had to win rapidly, or they would lose out. Then there became other games that came along, but I don't think any of them were quite as good. Like there was Gettysburg, and I forget, several others. But any rate, that gaming thing got really pretty good there, and so ultimately you know that that kind of gaming shows up on a computer. People are playing that sort of stuff there. Kate: Let's go back to when you were in elementary school. What do you remember about math there besides your mom helped you a lot, I guess, probably with that? Dad: I don't know. Kate: You don't remember that too much? Dad: I don't remember at grade school a whole lot. It seemed like so much of it was memory, and knowing what you were doing with that, how to add and multiply large numbers. In fact, I still find myself doing that when I'm working one of these little logic puzzles in the morning. Some of them involve multiplying numbers or adding them or something, and I still have, go back to square one, how I used to do it, as opposed to getting out the calculator and using it. Kate: Well, what about high school? I know there was some influential math teachers. Dad: Yeah, in high school. Well, all along I had some teachers that were the math teachers. I remember in third grade, the teacher I had there liked math a whole lot, and she got me going. But when I got into high school, the first math class you took was geometry in, I guess it was 10th grade. I absolutely love that because all of a sudden, it wasn't so much just numbers as it was logic that we had to spend an enormous amount, most of our time knowing what the axioms were and then what the logic was that would enable you to prove something from the axioms and all of that. I just love that. We got to where we did more and more with that. I was telling you the other day that the teacher at the end of the year had these things for us to try to prove that were really, really hard. T

    1h 17m

  8. 01/23/2025

    Senior Lunch: Building Community in Lake City, Colorado

    Welcome to the Pass it On podcast. I'm your host, Kate Stewart. On this podcast, I interview people that I admire because I think we have so much to learn from them. These times call for all of us to step up and pitch in in whatever way we can. But for now, pull up your lawn chair to the fire pit because it's story time. Senior Lunch welcome table, 2025. Kate: A few weeks ago, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and try something new. I've been going to Lake City, Colorado on vacation since I was very young, and my dad and my stepmom decided to retire there almost 20 years ago. But I had never visited them in winter over those 20 years if that tells you anything about how I feel about cold weather. But I've been thinking a lot about my own survival skills, and I've been wondering, would I be able to make it through a harsh winter again if I had to? My dad has always said that winter is his favorite season in Lake City. He enjoys the quiet and the slower pace of life, and he tends to the fires in his two wood stoves every day. He reads a whole lot of books, and he plays a lot of Sudoku, and my stepmom cooks and bakes nearly every day. They both watch a lot of football, too. But most importantly, they like to spend quality time with their neighbors in this very tiny little town. Lake City has only 400 year-round residents and it's located in Hinsdale County, which is thought to be the most remote county in the lower 48 states. I don't know how they calculate that. It may have something to do with the fact that there's no stoplight here. The elevation is 8,672 feet, which makes it difficult for many people, especially the elderly, to get enough oxygen. The steep mountains surround the town on all sides and Lake City has staunchly prevented chain businesses and unchecked development, unlike a lot of more famous towns on the Western Slope. Over half of the population of townies here is over 65. They are extraordinarily tough, independent people who know how to survive cold weather and living in such a remote location. When I got here, my stepmom asked me if I wanted to go to Senior Lunch. “What's that?” I asked. She explained that it's a special lunch at the Armory for senior citizens that takes place twice a month on Fridays. It's five dollars to get some great food and have some great conversation with people from Lake City. Did I want to go to Senior Lunch? Heck yeah, I did! She also told me that Senior Lunch was part of a new slate of activities for seniors in Lake City called Senior Connections. I had to ask, how did this get started? Who was involved in making it happen? Is this kind of thing really working here? I decided to bring my microphone with me to Senior Lunch to record some interviews with the people who helped make this happen. I also wanted to find out what kind of difference it's making in people's lives to have some good old-fashioned, in-person fellowship. The background noise in some of these interviews may make it difficult to hear what they're trying to say, but I wanted you to feel like you were right there with me at the Armory. So grab a plate and sit down, because we're going to Senior Lunch. _______________________________________________________________ Kate: Okay. I'm here at Senior Lunch at the Lake City Armory in Colorado and I'm talking with Lori, who is one of the people who helped start Senior Connections. So welcome Lori. Lori: Thank you. Kate: So, let's start. How did Senior Connections get started? Lori: This was the brainchild of Cheryl Tate. There were group of us that felt like there was a part of our community in Lake City that was not being served, that would be the senior community. We did some research within the tax roll to find out what percentage of our population fell into that category. It was at least 50% of our population. We were trying to figure out how can we reach these folks. We knew a lot of them were kind of shut in, maybe not participating in things in the community. Senior Connections came together. We had a group of ten volunteers, no money, but a vision to make something happen for this pair of folks. Through lot of work with volunteers and donations and things, we got the first meal off the ground last summer, then it's just kind of grown from there. The town has donated the use of the space for the dining and the kitchen, which was huge because we needed a place to meet. And then it started out with just maybe 20 people coming. They were a little bashful, I think, to come and participate because they weren't really sure what this was. Then as it has evolved through the fall and winter, we now have 50, 60, 70 people coming to lunch, totally enjoying the fellowship. They come early, they stay late, they laugh and visit and just have a wonderful time ,and they have a really great meal because we have a really good cook. So, it's been super fun to see this evolve, and it has really taken off, and we hope to do bigger and better things in coming year. Kate: What are the other things you have available now? Lori: So, right now the Senior Center is open during the week. We have different activities scheduled, but people can come in anytime and grab a cup of coffee, have a snack, just visit with someone. Or there are puzzles, games. Some ladies come to knit on Wednesdays. There's a ladies' bridge group on Thursdays. There is senior walking in the Armory, and then next week we're going to be starting a Silver Sneakers fitness program for the older adults just to help with balance and flexibility and things like that, because we have seen that the number one injury in this age group is falls, and sometimes those are very debilitating. We want to be able to help some folks to stay more independent, especially in this mountain community that's really important, because we’re far away from anything. Independence is a really big thing here. Kate: Yeah, for sure. You have to be tough to make it through the winter here. Lori: Yes, yes. Kate: You take the money when people come in for lunch. the check-in person. And you're going to do senior-- Lori: So ,it's five dollars a meal and then we kind of get them lined up for the next meal. We try to keep it on the second and fourth Friday, just for that consistency. And then we get to visit and people come in so that's really fun. Kate: It seems like a good group, like people know each other pretty well. Lori: It is. Kate: That's terrific. Okay, well thank you. Lori: You're welcome, thank you. _________________________________________________________________ Kate: All right, I'm here now with Greg, who is a County Commissioner of Hinsdale County and one of the people involved in getting Senior Connections started. What was your role in that, in the early days? Greg: I was approached by Cheryl Tate. This was back a ways ago in 2024. I think she approached me, it was multi-faceted, was my being a county commissioner and using that kind of influence. As well as just being someone that's been locally involved in the community for 25-plus years, and an idea that I could probably reach out to a lot of people. I believe the impetus was for me to bridge the gap between Public Health and this group that was loosely-knitted, formed a committee. That's how I got involved. I was asked to conduct a survey that really narrowed down on what the greatest needs of the senior community was. Kate: What's the connection then with the County Public Health Department? Greg: The County Public Health Department had someone working and doing senior coordinating, putting together senior lunches and stuff like that. At the time of the inception of this idea, they felt there was a disconnect within Public Health and that they weren’t being served properly. They being seniors in our community, and that maybe more needed to be done. I went through that position with Public Health because I had great relationships with them already. I just saw what they could do and what we could do as a county or what we could do as a city to bridge that gap. Kate: That's great. What else besides, you come to Senior Lunch sometimes? Greg: Yeah, and so the main part was... Kate: But you're not a senior citizen, right? Greg: I'm not a senior citizen. I'm, you know, quickly approaching, I suppose. By definition, 55 in some places, but we're going with 60. That's kind of the number we use. Kate: Cut off, okay. Greg: My connections, like I said, would be trying to get funding from the county, being an advocate within the county board, and making sure that those needs are met, and that they've got a seat at the table. Once again, them being the Senior Connections group, and that through me, they had a better voice in the county. I know they're trying to get more input from the town. I think they've got good reception from the town, but no one quite as involved as me, I would say, at that level, where I'm continually asking for funds to be donated to the Senior Connections program, working with— Kate: And they keep saying no? They don't want to? Greg: The county or the town? Kate: Okay. Greg: Which one says no? Kate: The county? Greg: Oh no, we're saying yes. Everyone's donating money. Kate: You're getting money from the county? I thought it was just purely donations. Greg: Oh no, nope. The county has dedicated funds as well as the town. Kate: I see, okay. Greg: Yeah, and the town, a lot of it's in-kind through this building without charging rent. Kate: I see, cool. How do you think it's helping people be healthier? What’s the connection with the Health Department? Greg: It’s huge. That in and of itself is the reason to have it. Socialization is the big part. I can't say because I wasn't paying attention so much two years ago, let’s say, as to what was happening within the senior community. But I know this wasn't happening. I know people are getting home delivery of meals. I'm going to go back a little bit. COVID affected everything with the program be

    38 min

  9. 01/12/2025

    Interview With My Mom, Part 2

    In this episode, Hadley and I listen to my mom talk more about her favorite Southern writers like Eudora Welty, segregation in Liberty, the death of her cousin Benny when she was in college (keep your tissues close at hand), and working at the State Hospital in Norman (aka Oklahoma’s Cuckoo’s Nest). And by the way, we’re now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! Mom at OBU, 1968. ©Mom Kate: Welcome back to the Pass It On podcast. And this is part two of the interview with my mother. And we're back! My mom's here and Hadley's here. So welcome back. Mom: Hello, hi. I'm glad we're here. Hadley: Hi everyone. Kate: When we left off, you were talking about going to the library and looking up stuff about some of your favorite authors. I wanted to ask you what other books for you or made a difference in your life at that time? Mom: Well, at that time, I did a lot of reading of Southern authors. I was very drawn to the genre of Southern literature. And I would say my favorite, I had three favorites, Steinbeck and Faulkner. Faulkner in particular, I was very drawn to because of all of the people he wrote about within Yoknapatawfah County. Because I loved that part that Southern writers will do where they write a lot about big families and also the intensity with which they can do descriptions. It really reminds me many times of like you're just listening to a story being told on the front porch when you're reading Southern literature. And that particularly was kind of true for Eudora Welty, who I just fell in love with her work. And I fell in love with the book, Delta Wedding, I think was the one I fell in love with first. Then a lot of her others were really short stories. But Delta Wedding, because the girl, the little girl in the story, her name is Laura, and I think in the story she's about eight, I'm not sure. But she's put on this train called the Yellow Dog that rides through, I guess through Mississippi. And she's going down to her cousin's house for a wedding. They live kind of like in a plantation. She's going down there to attend the wedding of her older cousin, and she's put on the Yellow Dog. Her mother has just passed away, so she's riding this train down and she's greeted by all of her cousins. And there's boy cousins and girl cousins, they're all different ages and she's absorbed into this big family. And the story mainly kind of takes place during the preparations for the wedding. And Laura is not allowed to be in the wedding because her mother has just passed away. That was poignant to me to know that because that was kind of how my life was. It wasn't really that there were certain things I couldn't do because my mother was no longer living. When I did get married, and I got married in May, the first thing when we set the date for May, my grandmother, who's my mother's mother, the first thing she asked me, is that the date that your mother died? Because, and it wasn't, I was conscious of that, but to think that grandmother was conscious of that too, you would not get married on the same day that your mother died. Like that day had to be set aside and reserved and honored. And knowing that about Laura, the little girl, that she couldn't be in the wedding because her mother had just died. So much about that book reminded me of how I used to feel. When we'd take the Katy train down to Oklahoma and I would be absorbed by all of my mother's family that lived there. There were cousins, a great-uncle and his family and his children, my great aunt that lived up the street from my grandparents. And there were aunts, old aunts, and the story in Delta Wedding too. So, there were so many kind of parallels for what it felt like to be in Oklahoma, sort of a Southern state with some Southern atmosphere around it. You know we always had sweet tea and my grandfather would sit at the big table and shake the ice in his tea. When his tea got down, he would shake his glass so you could hear the ice shake, and that was the signal to pop up and get the tea. Kate: Oh my god. Mom: You know, but without, he didn't ask. Kate: You just did it. Mom: He just had to rattle the ice. That was the signal that he needed tea. The big Sunday dinners and there were protocols, manners that were always, always kept. When we lived there, it was just like expectations of being one of a member of this family when you were in that town. Your behavior was sort of modified maybe. Kate: Was he from Texas too? He was, right? Mom: Who's he? Kate: Your grandfather. Mom: No, he wasn't from Texas. Kate: Okay, I thought he was. Mom: Well, he went to Texas to work in the oil fields and that's where he met my grandmother. Kate: Okay, I see. Okay. But he was from Henryetta? Mom: He was brought up in a little town, I have to think of it, in Kansas. And in fact, I spent a long time on one of those newspaper databases where you can read articles online from the past in full text. All I had to do, they had such an unusual last name, I just had to put in that last name, I learned so many things, intimate daily details about their lives. You know, when they went on trips, when somebody came to visit them, what things they entered in the county fair. Everybody entered something in the county fair, all the way down the family. Even my great-grandfather, always, each time, entered. I guess it was apples, apple trees that had been grafted. His grafting on different fruit trees were always entered into the county fair. My great-grandmother and my great aunt had all kinds of entries in the food area for pickled this and canned that and pies and baked goods. It was just where you learn more about what they did in their daily lives in those old-fashioned newspapers like that. Kate: Yeah. That's so cool. Mom: Yeah, so those particular authors of Faulkner and Steinbeck, but especially Eudora Welty. She could describe every flower in a yard in detail. And it was just such a lush description to me. Kate: The magnolias. Mom: And Magnolias. She had one short story, “Why I Live at the P.O.” where they refer to their grandfather as Papa Daddy. And I just loved that phrase of Papa Daddy that's used all through that short story. Kate: Yeah. Speaking of your dad, you also, you had wanted to talk about this and we forgot to touch on it, about your dad's opinions of the country club in Liberty when that started. Mom: Yes, that little town I grew up in was so segregated and at times things went on in that town that I was totally unaware of, and is something that you don't realize until you look backwards to see. So, it wasn't just the schools, you know, when I was growing up that were segregated until my fourth-grade year. But our movie theater was segregated. The black children were only allowed to sit up in the balcony. And I don't recall that they ever could come down and purchase candy. Maybe they did, but I was not aware of that. But I knew that we didn't go up in the balcony. It was reserved for them. Because I remember the first time I went, I wanted to go up in the balcony. And somebody told me, “Well, we can't go up there. It's not for us.” But my little town did not have a roller rink, and it did not have a swimming pool, and we had to go to other nearby towns to go roller skating or to go swimming in a public pool. Finally, I think it probably happened, I'm not sure exactly what year this happened, I probably was in grade school when some families, wealthier families in town, came together and built a country club. And it mainly, as a country club, all it had was a pool. It was like a swimming club. It may have been more, it had a pretty modern design for the clubhouse. So, it must have been maybe in the ‘60s. Well, it was in the ‘60s, I'm sure, very, very early ‘60s, maybe late s that that was created. All my friends that I knew belonged to the country club and they had a swim club, and they went swimming there. The only time I could go swimming was if my mother took us over to this nearby town for that, to go to the pool. So, I remember begging my dad, “Why can't we join? Why can't we please join? Please, I'll be good. Please, let's join the country club,” so I could swim in the summer with my friends, and he kept saying no. And finally, at one point, he said, “I will not join a club that is not open to everybody.” And that statement that he made, just really made me stop in my tracks and think, because that had not occurred to me that it wasn't open to everybody. I thought it was just strictly open if you could pay for it. But when he said, “I will not join a club that's not open to everybody,” it made a difference to me, sort of, in how I felt about it after that, you know. I realized it wasn't so much a financial decision as maybe a moral decision or stance that he was taking. Kate: Yeah. Then when you, so you had a housekeeper who was black who helped out when your mother was sick. And then you were telling me that she invited you and your dad, was it just you and your dad to go to the AME church, or your sister? That was after your mom died? Mom: I did, yeah, and my older sister. That was right after she passed away. It may have been weeks, within weeks, because I remember we still had people that were bringing food to the house and things like that. We hadn't gotten to the point where we were figuring out how. Though, you know, she'd been sick for a long time. She was in a wheelchair, and he had made a little board that went across the arms of her wheelchair so she could do mixing bowls on that. She was shorter than the counters, so my sister would usually be in the kitchen with her and would be helping, but she could make salads, and she could stir things and give directions and all. It was a thing that they did, and I was never really much. I did dishes, but I didn't help cook. So, it was another thing that I would sit in the living room and listen to them talking in there while they were preparing things together. But then toward th

    1h 10m

  10. 01/05/2025

    An Interview With My Mom, Part 1

    In this inaugural episode, my niece Hadley and I interview my mom about her early life in Liberty, Missouri, being a preacher’s kid, the integration of public schools in Liberty, the death of her mother from cancer, the hijinks of her teenage friends, “The Rejects,” and going off to college at Oklahoma Baptist University. Kate: Hey! Today is December 29th, 2024, and I'm here with my mom and my niece, Hadley. I wanted to welcome you both to the very first episode of my podcast. Thank you for being here. Hadley: Thank you for having us. Mom: Yeah. Thank you, honey, for inviting us. Kate: You're welcome. Kate: I think we have a whole lot to talk about, and Hadley and I have a lot to listen to, all of your stories. So, we're going to start at the very beginning of when you were born in 1949. You were born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, right? Mom: Yeah. Missourah, we say back in the Midwest. Kate: Missourah, sorry. I did that wrong. And when did you move to Liberty? Mom: I was just almost a year old. I looked myself up in the 1950 census and found out I was still living in Excelsior Springs. So, sometime during my first year after the census was taken, we moved to Liberty. My dad had been a minister there at a small, well, at the first Baptist Church and my mom, dad, and my older brother and sister lived in a parsonage right next door to the church. They have a lot of memories. My sister has a lot of storiess of being in the parsonage, which was an old two-story, kind of rambling house, but I have no memories of that, of course. Hadley: What's a parsonage? Mom: A parsonage is a house that's owned by the church and the families, the minister's family, can live there free. It was always kind of the way the church supported the minister without a big salary, but it always became a problem because ministers back in those days would go their whole lives and never have owned a home. So then, when they were too old to have a church anymore, then they were kind of out on a limb. So, that's something that changed during my lifetime, that churches started paying ministers more, and they were able to buy their own homes. Kate: That's interesting. Where were your parents from? Mom: Oh, my father was from Wichita. Well, the outside of Wichita. Little area of farming community in Kansas but moved into Wichita during the Depression when my grandfather had to give up the farm and he became a post delivery guy, postman. And my mother grew up in Henryetta, Oklahoma, a small town that was south of Tulsa, about an hour's drive south of Tulsa. And they met in college. Kate: Where did they go to college? Mom: Well, they both attended college at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Kate: That's pretty unusual at the time, right? To go to college in the, they were there in the-- Mom: I’m being recorded. Kate: That was my stepdad! Mom: Yeah, yeah, that was very unusual. Kate: That was in the ‘30s that they went to college? Mom: Yes. Kate: In the Depression? Mom: Yes, yeah, it was unusual. I'm sure. My dad first went to college in Emporia. No, Ottawa, Kansas, and he went there first for, I think, a year or more, and then he dropped out and worked to gain or to earn money to then, because his goal, I think, was to go to Oklahoma Baptist University. It was kind of an up-and-coming college back then, and a very pretty school, also, very pretty school. Pretty, pretty brick buildings, and, my grandmother-- Kate: Oh, what was your mother like? Mom: Well, she was a musician from when she was very young. She was driven, I think, to it because it wasn't that her parents were. So, it was something that I don't know genetically where it came from, but I think it did, because your little brother Austin was kind of the same way. And, she had a small baby grand piano. She took lessons there in Henryetta as a pianist and accompanist, and I know she played for the Rotary there. That little bust that I have in on our piano came from them. Kate: Oh, yeah. Mom: The Rotary gave her that when she went off to college, and she played at a lot of weddings. And she also sang, and I remember one time my grandmother telling me how it broke her heart that my mother would get up so early in the morning to practice before she went to school, and there was no heat in the house early in the morning, and she would be playing the piano in her winter coat with gloves that she had cut the fingertips out of so she could feel the keys. Kate: Wow. Mom: So, that was devotion. Kate: Did she? I remember, did she want to go to Juilliard, or something? Mom: Well, she got a-- Kate: What was the story? Mom: When she graduated, she was offered a scholarship to an Eastman school of music. Kate: Oh, Eastman. Okay. Mom: And my father at the time really, he wanted to marry her. And he was really worried he might lose her if she took that scholarship, and my sister often thinks back to that. She thinks of my mother having to make that decision. Kate: So that was after, already after she was in college, and they had met. Mom: Well, she was a senior probably when that hit, was probably like going to graduate school. Instead of having her go off to pursue that, and it would have been in piano performance that she did that. Kate: Yeah. Mom: I mean could have done that. But she made the decision. I know that he wanted to start seminary up in Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas Central Baptist Theological Seminary, and he drove her up there to look at the seminary and see Kansas City. He also, he entered a contest he would have been a senior in college and there he found out about a contest. I think the contest was sponsored by the Oklahoma Baptist Convention. That's how we would call it. It was statewide, and it was for writing an essay about some history of the Baptists in Oklahoma, writing a paper about that. But there was a money prize associated with it, and he really wanted that money to buy her a ring. So, he worked really hard on that. I think he spent most of the summer working on it, because I know he traveled around Oklahoma, and he did interviews in different churches. There was a women's group called the Women's Missionary Union. They called it WMU. And he went around to those churches and interviewed the women that were involved in that program to kind of get a history of that program in Oklahoma. And he wrote his paper on that, and he won the contest, he got the money, and he was able to buy her an engagement ring. And he was hoping that would change her mind to have that ring, and apparently, it did. It almost sounded to me when I was growing up like a story from the Waltons, or something. Kate: Right, yeah. Mom: A TV show. Kate: So, what were your, you had an older brother and older sister. What were they like? Mom: Well, they were quite a bit older than me. They were 13 months apart, and they were 7 and 8. My sister was turning 7. My brother had just turned 8, or turned 8 the month after I was born, so I didn't really. I don't have memories of them as children. And I always thought I had always grown up, kind of thinking I was like an accident. The the accidental kid that showed up, and then I found out I was much older. My dad told me that that wasn't true, that he had started his master's, but hadn't finished it, and he really wanted another child, and my mother had said, “Well, if you finish your master's we can have another one.” And so, he did. He finished in this in the summer end of the summer semester, I guess, in ‘49, and then I came in October, so he always told me that I was his graduation gift. Kate: Like, the reward! Mom: Yes, the reward for finishing. Kate: Another kid!Mom: And I imagine he had probably started it, and then just let it drag on because he was busy trying to support a family. But I always thought that, that really made me feel so much better when I learned that story. I don't really know. Kate: You were wanted, yes! Mom: Yes, but I always I did feel like I was observing another family rather than being a part of it, because the four of them, you know, especially my brother and sister, were always so close. You know, there are pictures of them, and they were little. They had cowboy outfits alike, and they slept in a room with bunk beds. When they were little, they had chicken pox alike. They played with the same kids. Kate: So you were. You were observing your family. Mom: I felt like. Kate: As the youngest, yeah. Mom: Yes, yes, but I observed everything, that they all seemed to make the plans and know what was going on, and I was the last to learn what was happening, or where we were going, or even why we were, why we were doing something, you know, and so I just, I felt like an observer as a young kid, not so much a participant. Kate: And your dad was in World War II right? Mom: Well, he was. Kate: He was a chaplain. Mom: Yeah, he was in the Army Air Corps, and he served as a chaplain in South Carolina. I guess there was a base there, so mostly. Kate: So, he was gone? When your siblings were younger, or is that right? Mom: Well, when we he moved out there when he moved out there, they he was at that time he was at a church way out in eastern, I mean western Kansas. Kate: Yeah. Mom: Russell, Kansas, I think, was where he was living in, and so he went to the base, and when that happened, my mother went back to Henryetta with her two kids. Kate: Okay, to stay there. Mom: Yeah, for a little while until he got base housing, and then they moved out to South Carolina, and they lived there for a while, and I remember seeing an album when I was young, that had black and white photos of the base, and of my sister and brother on the base. It looked like that they maybe went to sort of a nursery school there, and aso they lived there for a little bit, you know. Kate: Remember, we had that weird little organ in the basement that was like-- Mom: Yes, that was the pump organ. Kate: Used by a chaplain or something. Mom: Yes, that was. Kate

    1h 54m
  • 10 Episodes

About

On this podcast, I interview people such as librarians, scientists, teachers, writers, bureaucrats, lawyers, activists, community organizers, volunteers, and more. They have spent their careers and lots of their free time trying to make this world a better place in whatever way they can. They might not think of themselves as very heroic, but I sure do. I want to learn from them, and you should too. These times call for all of us to step up in whatever way we can. But for now, pull up your lawn chair to the fire pit. It’s storytime. katevstewart.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Kate Stewart
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Kate Stewart
  • Show Website
    The Pass It On Podcast

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