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Carol:  You know, it’s funny because I was on TV not too long ago. This is kind of funny, but I had a blind date. So this friend of mine, her daughter is a producer at the “Windy City Live,” the show that was on for years.  They were doing a segment on senior dating – (laughs) – so they came out to my house with the cameras and the whole rigmarole and interviewed me about senior dating.  So this is my second — (laughs) — thing.

Andy:  Well, I mean, why don’t we start by having you tell me more about that? How did they happen to get in touch with you?

Carol:  Well, because the mother, this friend of mine, her daughter was this producer and so she mentioned to her daughter, so the daughter called me and asked me if I would do it and I said, well, sure, and then afterwards I thought – and then my daughter called and said, Mom, why do you get yourself into stuff like this? Don’t name any names and no pictures and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, so they had a segment on that. 

Andy:  And what did the segment look like? 

Carol:  Well, the segment was just me talking about the dating as a senior is not a whole lot different than dating in high school.

Andy:  But there was a man involved?

Carol:  Well, this blind date was involved, but, you know, it didn’t work. 

[Video excerpt.]

Andy:  Well, why don’t we begin by having you tell me about your family when you were growing up?  What can you tell me about your mom and dad, both in terms of memories of them but also their backgrounds? 

Carol:  Well, my mother’s mother was from Ireland and her name was Kate Smith and she came over as a maid in a household of rich people and married the son, and his name was James Elms, and they had a hair business in downtown St. Louis; it was a shop.  They cut off hair from Italian women and brought it over and made wigs and they had a formula that helped alopecia, different hair things, and so they had elixirs and creams and so forth and so on.  And so when he was ready to retire or get out of the business, another company tried to buy his formulas but he was too protective of them and wouldn’t sell them, so that was the end of it.  And my father’s mother was from Bordeaux, France.  Her family moved to New Orleans, into the French part of New Orleans.  And my father’s father worked for the Wabash Railroad and he was full Irish; you know, he was totally Irish.  So that side had French and Irish, the other side had English and Irish.  And so he worked for the Wabash Railroad and what I thought was interesting is he started a union or he was instrumental in starting a union for the brakemen of the railroad, and because of that he was acquainted with William McAdoo, who was President Wilson’s secretary of Labor.  And so when President Wilson was in St. Louis, they went downtown and met him and all that kind of stuff.  So that was kind of an interesting part of his childhood.

So anyway, the father went down in the railroad and met the mother, the little French gal in New Orleans and they married and had five children and lived in New Orleans. So when my father moved to St. Louis, he was five years old and he didn’t speak anything but French.  So he grew up in St. Louis. 

My father had to quit school because the family broke up when they were in St. Louis, and so, anyway, he quit school before he graduated from elementary, high school or college.  And so through the years he, with no education, he had various jobs, and the Depression was in there, so the whole thing was pretty shaky.  (Laughs.)

So when the rent went up, we moved, and so we lived in various, you know, maybe seven places during my early childhood.  And so when my dad was in his 40s, he was a claims adjuster, which was one of his better jobs, and his boss said, you know, Jules – because his name was Jules with the French part and O’Neil, so Jules O’Neil was the combination.  But anyway, so he said, you should try to go law school, and at one point during their marriage and during the early years, he had taken a couple courses from this St. Louis Law and Finance, which was like a junior college, just a couple reading courses, so he went to the dean of St. Louis U. Law and this guy looked at this couple courses he had and his work experience and tested him and everything and said he would accept him as a special student and he could take the courses and graduate but he wouldn’t get a diploma; you know, obviously he didn’t qualify to get a diploma because he didn’t have grade school, high school, or whatever.  So he worked all day, went to law school three nights a week, came home, studied, passed the four years.  I can remember my parents scrambling for the tuition and the books and the money, et cetera, et cetera, to pay for this.  So when he started this, he had gone to somebody in Springfield to say, “If I pass this, can I take the bar?”  I think this was with the bar association in Springfield, and they said – the guy in charge wrote him a letter that said, yes, if you graduate you can take the bar.  So when he graduated and was ready to take the bar, the guy was dead and so the person in charge looked at the letter and said, oh, I recognize Joe Blow’s signature; you can take the bar.  But that was a crisis at the moment.  So he passed the bar.  It was a big celebration.  And we had moved to a place, you know, kind of a suburb of St. Louis, way far out, because the rent was better.  So we were living out there but we had no telephone – (laughs) – so he had to drive into a closer town and call one of his buddies to see if he passed and the whole bit – the bar.  

Andy:  And he did.

Carol:  And he did.  And so during this time when we lived in this small – the name of the town was Florissant and he was in several little political jobs in defense whatever, you know, chief guy because that was when you were building – you needed defense things and all that.  Then he ran for mayor, so he was mayor for two terms.  And he was probably in his 50s by then and you had to retire at 70.  You know, judges retired at 70.  So he tried to continue because he wasn’t done, because he was somewhere in his 50s, probably, by then.  So when he retired he was doing some legal work and started something for seniors that you had free legal advice from retired lawyers, so he was always active in that.  So I’m proud of his accomplishment. 

And of course, my mother was the typical homemaker of that day.  She didn’t work.  She stayed home.  Her goal was to keep the house immaculate and cook meals, and she was a strict disciplinarian with my sister and I.  But anyway, my sister was a rebel.  I was a rule-follower.  So I got better attention than she did.  (Laughs.) But growing up with this sister – it was the typical living in apartments with the shotgun apartments, and we slept in one bed, the two sisters, and would fight over the [telephone] line and the bed.  (Laughs.)

Andy:  And could you talk a little bit about the kind of people your parents were in terms of the values that they passed on to you and instilled in you?

Carol:  They were typical, you know, very high-moral people of that – so, yes, I’d say that they were the old-fashioned — one interesting thing because my father’s family was Catholic — you know, the O’Neil — and my mother’s family were Lutheran.  So it was a big – that was not a good combination in those days.  And so when they got married, the father’s family would have nothing to do with them because they didn’t want their son to marry a non-Catholic.  But they did.  (Laughs.)

Andy:  And would you say that growing up you lived in a religious family, a religious household, or was it –

Carol:  Yes.  But it was a Lutheran household, and yes, it was. 

Andy:  Yeah.  And so you were in church every Sunday?

Carol:  Yeah, I was in the Lutheran church every Sunday. 

Andy:  Sunday school?

Carol:  Sunday school, the whole rigmarole.

Andy:  Did you sing? 

Carol:  Oh, yes.  I did sing.  I did sing.  

Andy:  And you mentioned your mom being a housewife.  Keeping house in those days – and we’re talking about the late ’30s – it was quite an involved job.  There was a lot to do.  What do you remember about your mom in terms of her day-to-day keeping the house tidy and cooking all the meals and looking after you and your sister?

Carol:  Well, I don’t think mothers were – I don’t think their goal was to be your friend in those days.  Their goal was to be the parent and my mother was definitely that way.  I think she approved of me because I followed the rules and I was what I considered a “good girl.”  I guess you would say that I was easier. 

This is kind of interesting because during my growing-up years, we lived in south St. Louis, and as I told you, we moved around, and so I went to the big city high school; Roosevelt was the name of it.  It was about a 5,000-student school.  And so I was a little dork, actually.  (Laughs.)  I had colored socks and they had the Cordaé purses, so kids wanted the little ones, and my mother went to buy one for me and I said, well, why would you want a little purse?  You can’t put anything in it!

I was not cool.  But during the two years that I went to school there, I was picked for the chorus and I was doing very well, and then my parents had to move and move to this godforsaken Florissant, which was about the other end of town, and so I had two years at Roosevelt and then I had to go to this little high school in Ferguson, and of course, I was a junior in high school; I couldn’t take my mother to enroll me.  I had to walk into this high school and go into the office and here I am, and it was quite a trauma.  But anyway, I enjoyed – I figured out how to get by, and anyway, it turned out fine, but at the time it was a big deal.

Andy:  What kind of character did your dad have?  Did he have a strong personality like your mom or was he a little more passive?

Carol:  He was strong and he was more social and he was – he got along well with people, and so he was a good guy, and so they jockeyed for control, if you want to call it that.  I was too young to realize who was winning or who wasn’t.  (Laughs.)  I don’t really know, but I know that they had their moments. 

Andy:  How old were they when they had you?

Carol:  Well, they were married in ’33 and I was born in ’35, so they probably were in their early 20s.  Well, this is kind of interesting because my dad lied about his age all the time.  (Laughs.)  And why he did, I don’t know because my birth certificate has one thing and my sister four years later has another – you know, it’s not four years apart, so we never knew exactly how old he was.

Andy:  So you have two sisters and you were the oldest. When did the other sisters come about?

Carol:  I have a sister that’s four years younger than I am, and she was the one that was a rebel and didn’t follow the rules, and to this day she thinks that she was mistreated and so forth and so on. But she wasn’t easy.  And that happens.  If you fight the people in charge, you’re going to get bad vibes. 

And then the second sister, as I told you, was 15 years younger than me. And it was funny because I was probably a junior or a senior in high school – I think I was probably a junior in high school when she was born, and so I came home; my mother had this little baby.  Well, I was interested in the boys in high school and who I was hanging with and I was not interested in a baby in any way, shape, or form, and so my mother said, what do you think? And I looked at her and I said, she’s got a big nose, doesn’t she? (Laughs.) And of course, my mother was crushed, and I look back at that and I think if anybody had said that about one of my – and I thought, well, what’s the big deal?  So she’s got a big nose! I mean, I was so insensitive.  I was very insensitive because I was living in my little high school world and this had – you know, whatever.

Andy:  So you moved around a bit during your upbringing and I think you told me in a previous conversation that you would move around pretty much any time the rent would go up.

Carol:  Right.  Well, it’s funny because, looking back on it, I’m sure we were considered poor, but we didn’t – I didn’t even realize that at the time.  I mean, my family protected me from any of that.  I mean, we certainly had food and whatever else, but I think they struggled financially.  And so it was – we didn’t own anything.  And then, of course, I went to like four schools because we moved to different neighborhoods, and so forth and so on.  But I didn’t feel any slights.  Maybe they protected me from that; I’m not sure why I didn’t.  

Andy:  And in your youngest years, that was the Great Depression.  How would you say your family was affected by the Depression, and did you ever have relatives come live with you or anything like that?  

Carol:  Yes.  I had an aunt that lived with us.  Kitty, my mother’s sister, came and lived with us for years and years.  She was just part of the family.  And then I had this grandmother that – this Kate Smith.  She didn’t live very far from us, but it was interesting because this was during the war when gas was rationed and I can remember coasting to her house because you didn’t have very much gas.  And then food; you had your papers with the coupons or whatever else, because food was rationed too.  I remember when the war started, as I said, my sixth birthday, and I can remember the aunts and uncles and everybody very nervous about listening to the radio, and I was thinking, you know, what about this sixth birthday party?  (Laughs.)

Andy:  Yeah, because they’re listening – it’s December 7th, 1941, and they’re listening to — 

Carol:  The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and uncle’s going to the service and all that.  And so the war was kind of a vague part of life.  But the war didn’t really affect me.  I think my sister said that my dad had signed up for the First World War when he was like 14 or 15 or something like that, so he wasn’t in the Second World War.  But I can remember singing songs and seeing movies and all, and I look back at that and I think how we portrayed the Japanese as the awful — and the Germans.  You see that, that almost causes hatred of people.  You know?  And I guess that happens when you’re in war. 

Andy:  And do you remember some of the songs and the lyrics to those songs?

Carol:  (Sings.)  Some of them, yeah.  Quite a few of them – “the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.”  But anyway, there were a lot of them that we sang all the time. 

Andy:  Where would you sing these songs?  

Carol:  In the car, riding with the family.

Andy:  Because they were on the radio or you were just –

Carol:  The radio.  The radio.  This is an interesting story because – you know, because we really didn’t have a lot of money, Christmas was so different then that it is now because Christmas you’d get socks and underwear.  That was about it.  And so my dream was to have a radio of my own.  The thought of having a radio was just the biggest thing that ever happened.  And so we came to this Christmas.  I was probably eight years old or whatever; I don’t even remember.  But anyway, got socks and underwear in orange or whatever it was, and at the last minute, somebody said, well, look behind that chair, Carol, and there was this little plastic radio that was mine, and that’s the only Christmas present that I ever remember.  Anyway, it was cool that I could turn the radio on and listen to my own music or “The Creaking Door” or, you know, Lux Presents Hollywood, all those kind of old things.  I loved it, listening to the radio.

Andy:  Can you think of some of the other shows that you –

Carol:  “The Inner Sanctum” — “Can a girl from a mining town in the West find happiness married to England’s richest and most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope?” (Sings.) That was the music and whatever. It was like today’s soap opera. It was soap operas on the radio. That’s exactly what it was. It was soap operas.

Andy:  And where did you keep your radio?  Did you have it in your bedroom?

Carol:  Yes.

Andy:  So the family had a radio console in the living room and you could all listen to it but you also –

Carol:  I had my own little radio.  

Andy:  How big was it?

Carol:  It was little.  Plastic, cheap.  And then, of course, at this point, we lived in a house that – it was a shotgun house and my sister and I were in this bedroom that overlooked – there was a gangway between the next apartment.  I mean, I could almost reach out and touch the one across.  (Laughs.)  And of course, this is in St. Louis, no air conditioning in the summer, and it was hot; it was hot.  And so sitting in there with this little radio in this little room that was in the middle of whatever – so now I never complain about the heat here.  (Laughs.)

Andy:  And do you think you could still listen to those radio shows today?

Carol:  Yeah, I do.

Andy:  Do you remember going to see movies in the theater?

Carol:  I don’t think they could afford it. 

Andy:  So no on the movies, but what about – did you play records?  Did you have favorite singers?

Carol:  Yes.  We had records and – well, the only ones I can think of is big bands then, and so it was the Benny Goodmans and Glenn Miller, those kind of bands, and that was what was popular then.  I can’t think of any individual singers, really. Well, maybe like an Al Jolson or something. But I was too interested at that time – I was roller skating, bike riding, jumping rope, double Dutch – I was very good at double Dutch – hopscotch, jacks.  So anyway, any sport or anything like that.  I was good at jacks. That was where my little interest was growing up.

Andy:  And all of that was outside.

Carol:  All of that was outside.

Andy:  How much autonomy did you have?  

Carol:  You had autonomy.  Yes.  But within reason:  You had to be home when it was dark.  I can’t remember – you know, hide and seek was big, those kind games, and, you know, hiding and running and tag.  

Andy:  And how far would you roam from your home?

Carol:  I don’t think I went all that far. I don’t think there was a whole lot of limits on where I could go because there was – you know, it was a different world.  Kids played outside all day long.  And then it was interesting because when you went to call a friend, it was not playdates.  You’d go in front of their house and say, “Oh, Andy, oh, Andy!”  And then, “Can you come out and play?”

Andy:  Do you remember the ’40s, the war years, being happy years?

Carol:  Oh, yes.  

Andy:  And was everyone in your household happy?

Carol:  I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I think my sister was frustrated so she was always kind of fighting the rules, et cetera, et cetera.  And I was happy because I was – and of course, I think how selfish I was at the time.  I was very self-absorbed, thinking about my little world and I look at that and I think, I wonder if – I am sure that all kids feel the same way, but you don’t realize it when you’re —

Andy:  Well, it sounds like you had some rationing to deal with and you weren’t a wealthy family, but there weren’t many things that you had to worry about.

Carol:  No.  No.  No. No. 

Andy:  One thing, though, that everyone had to worry about back at that time was polio.  Do you remember –

Carol:  I do remember polio and I remember the vaccination and the iron lungs and you couldn’t go to the swimming pool. And the fear.  That was a very, very big – you know, it reminds me a lot of what we’re going through today.

Andy:  Yeah, although I don’t think there was too much vaccine hesitancy.

Carol:  No.  No, you’re right.

Andy:  Do you remember getting the vaccine?  

Carol:  Yes, I do.  Well, I mean, I don’t remember the shot or anything like that, but I know I was vaccinated and – because everybody was.  You know, everybody just did it, because it was – as I’m thinking back, it was – the big deal was the swimming pool or water or something, and I don’t know whether that’s just how I remember it or whether it was really that way.

Andy:  You mentioned the Christmas you got the radio, but, generally speaking, what was Christmas like for you and your family?

Carol:  Christmas as a kid was – you know, we went to church on Christmas Eve and there would be no decorations when we walked out the door, and when we came home the tree was up, although the presents were very – it wasn’t a big deal.  And as I say, the only present I really remember was this wonderful radio that I got, but the rest of the time it was socks, the bare minimum or something that you really needed. It wasn’t toys of today in any way, shape, or form. Actually, I don’t remember having toys.  I don’t think we – you know, I guess maybe I had a ball.  

Andy:  So when the war ended you were about 10 years old.  So by the time that you got to be sort of in your younger teenage years, do you remember developing a bit of a rebellious streak?  Because I know earlier you said you were quite a good girl.

Carol:  I was pretty much a good girl.  Now, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t do things that I wasn’t supposed to do, but I was – I did it with a smile.  (Laughs.)

Andy:  Like what?

Carol:  I’m trying to remember if I – well, that was probably a little bit later when I was a little teenager and I wanted to go – because my parents were very – my mother was very, very strict; you had to be home; you had to this, that, and the other thing.  And so I probably covered up a lot of – if I was out somewhere I called and gave some excuse or whatever.  And I remember one time when we lived in Florissant and I was like a junior or a senior in high school, my parents went out somewhere, and somehow or other I managed to have a party and it got out of control and my mother and dad came home in the middle of it and it was a nightmare because I had these girlfriends that I was trying to communicate – because I was a junior or senior so I had to kind of work getting into this little crowd. And so these girls were supposed to spend the night and they came and my mother had me scrubbing the floor while they were downstairs and it was an absolute awful ordeal because it was embarrassing, everybody was yelling at me and I was cleaning up and these girls were there.  It was awful. But that was a big – my big, wild party thing that I did.  

Andy:  And what kind of student were you at that time?  

Carol: I was a good student, the kind that was eager to raise my hand and answer, and I think I was always looking for approval because I did that with my mother.  You know, good girl, I got her approval, so then it moved to the next phase, and obviously I have that till this day, and I guess you could say it’s a curse in life – (laughs) – that you have to make everybody happy, because if they’re happy then you’re happy.  You’re giving that to other people.  And Sharon, the sister that didn’t, I’ve said to her a million times, you don’t have to worry about that because you don’t care. But if you care, it takes energy and effort to live that way.  

Andy:  So we’re now in the late ’40s and you’re in your early teens.  What kind of style did you have? 

Carol:  Well, you know what? I was never very interested in clothes. You know, somehow or other, I didn’t wear makeup. I wasn’t big on that. And I was kind of – I don’t know whether you’d call me a tomboy or maybe it was just laziness.  I don’t know what the reason, but I never got into worrying about how I looked too much.  And I had a boyfriend in high school and he went to the Catholic high school.  Skip Hussey was his name.  Anyway, he was my high school boyfriend.  Well, I’ll tell you, so then I went off to college and met who I ultimately married and so I broke up with Skip Hussey, and that was the end of that.  

Andy:  Would you say, though, that Skip Hussey was your first love?

Carol:  Yeah, I’d say so. 

Andy:  And were you his?

Carol:  No, probably not.  (Laughs.)  

Andy:  He was a bit of a hussy?

Carol:  Yeah, he was a hussy, and I understand he was very successful in life, but he was a good guy.

Andy:  Did you go to school dances?

Carol:  I did go to school dances and I was a maid in the court of the senior year, which was pretty remarkable because this high school that I started was a small town that had gone from kindergarten to graduation together and so coming into that as a junior in high school, I had to really kind of work at making friends.  

Andy:  One question I was wondering is, you know, right now we’re focused on your early years, the ’30s and the ’40s.  Do you think about this time much?

Carol:  Only when I talk to my sister.  She kind of reminisces and I think about it then, but other than that, no.  

Andy:  Do you miss the world, though, that we had at that time?

Carol:  No.  I miss the world that we had probably 50 years ago.  

Andy:  More in, like, the ’70s?

Carol:  Yes, the ’70s, and that was –

Andy:  When your kids were coming up?

Carol:  When my kids were coming up.  That seemed to me like it was kind of a good time in life.  And today is wild and crazy.

Andy:  In a good way or a bad way?

Carol:  Well, I guess it depends on how you’re looking at it.  I’d say that those days were – I think it was easier.  I think it’s more complicated now.  I think it would be harder to – because when I got married, you were married; good, bad, or otherwise, you were married and you figured out how to deal with it.  Today, it has a totally different – everybody has a totally different outlook on it.  So I think it’s harder – you can’t give up on this whatever.  

Andy:  Well, it seems like there’s a lot more trauma and unhappiness today.

Carol:  That’s what I’m trying to say.  That’s what I’m trying to say.  And women stayed home and raised the kids, and when I was married at the beginning and raising my kids, I never felt that I was inferior in any way, shape, or form.  My husband may have thought I was but I didn’t feel that way.  I felt that my job was more important than his. And so I think – and first of all, the roles – the woman stayed home, the guy worked.  He didn’t have any choices; he had to work.  You know, he couldn’t say, I’d rather stay home. And I actually had more freedom than he did in a way because I could say, well, I’ll get a little job if I want.  I mean, I didn’t feel belittled because I was a woman.  I really didn’t.  And it was easier because you didn’t worry about – he did the garage, he did the basement, he did whatever.  He was a man; he did his men stuff and I did my stuff.  And now today it’s questionable about who does what.

Andy:  Yeah.  And also, you know, I alluded to trauma and, you know, it seems like there are so many people today – for example, for someone to go through school today and come through high school, it seems like they oftentimes emerge from that experience, you know, kind of scarred and they talk about the trauma, and many people are on medications for depression and things like that.  Back in the ’40s, that was almost unheard of. 

Carol:  I wonder  why.  I don’t know.  Well, maybe less was expected.  What do you think?  I’m not sure why.

Andy:  Well, at the time, how many people did you know who, for example, had to be removed from school because they were delinquent?

Carol:  Oh, I don’t think I knew anybody.

Andy:  Or because they got pregnant.

Carol:  No, no, no, no.  I was a rule follower and most of the people then were.  Even when my kids were little, if they came home and said the teacher doesn’t like me or whatever else, my answer was, you have to get along with the teacher – (laughs) – the teacher doesn’t have to – you know, figure out how you can make the teacher like you, if that’s your problem.   I would never blame the teacher.  That was just the way it was.

Andy:  So you mentioned earlier that you went to college.  How many of your girlfriends from high school ended up in college?

Carol:  Well, not a whole lot.  And the reason that I went to college, I think, is that my dad had this trauma of getting his college so he very much wanted us to have college.  And so that was the first time I actually disobeyed what they wanted because I went one year and I met this gentleman that was a senior.  I was a 17-year-old freshman, he was a 23-year-old senior, and I fell madly in love. And he graduated and moved, so I was not going to go back to school. And I look back at that and I think how wrong that was.  (Laughs.)  I should have finished school, but I didn’t.  So I only went one year.  And I loved it because all the sudden – as I said, my mother was very strict and family was very structured and there was no way that I could be free to come and go as I wanted, and now I had this college thing.  Well, of course, then women had to be in at 10:30 during the week and 12:00 on the weekends and you had to sign in at the dorm.  But to me, that was freedom.  To me, that was the end-all that I could be anywhere I wanted till 10:30 at night.  

Andy:  And where did you go?

Carol:  I went to Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau.  (Laughs.)  It was not Harvard, by any means, but anyway.  And I didn’t do very well grade-wise because I had this freedom and I was just loving this atmosphere that I was in. 

Andy:  But you fell in love.

Carol:  I fell in love.  And then I was in a play and they had a drama thing and so I was – I had a big part in one of the plays, so I was very active and met all kinds of friends and had a wonderful time.  And we lived on the first floor and there was a window that the girls, when they were out late, would crawl in because they’d have the bed checks and if you weren’t – you know, whatever.  And so I was caught out one night with a friend.  (Laughs.)  Well, there was two couples and me and my ultimate husband and this gal and her ultimate husband –

Andy:  So you were on a double date?

Carol:  Yeah, we were on a double date, and so we were caught out and so she had an aunt that lived in town so we went to the aunt and asked her if she would cover for us and say that we were at her house and she said yes.  And then, in thinking about it, she changed her mind.  (Laughs.)  So we were called to the dean’s office and it was a major big deal, and so we were what they called grounded, which meant that you had to be in the dorm, you couldn’t go out at night at all, and nobody could talk to you after 6:00.  

But anyway, when we were grounded this girl and I, who’s still a friend, by the way – anyway, they had bathtubs that had the wall between them, so we would sit in the bathtub and sing, because nobody could talk to us, and I can remember saying “Tell me why the stars do shine” and we’d harmonize and – anyway, that’s how we did our little – (laughs) – and the consequences.  You had consequences if you didn’t follow the rules.

Andy:  So what kind of dates did you typically go out on?  At that point were you going to the movies?

Carol:  Oh, yes, going to the movies.

Andy:  And dancing?

Carol:  Oh, dancing.  Oh, my gosh.  Jitterbug.  In fact, I still jitterbug, actually, but I mean jitterbug was part of – my husband was a wonderful dancer and we danced. You’d dance all night long.  You’d go to – I don’t know whether you’d call it a bar exactly; it’d be more like a club and dance all night long.  

Andy:  So having left college, then, you remained with your future husband –

Carol:  I chased him and I lived – I went back home and I lived at home and I worked for Bemis Bag downtown St. Louis, so that was my first job.  I was a secretary at Bemis Bag and then I worked for Emerson Electric. 

Andy:  And where did you learn your secretarial skills?

Carol:  In high school.  Typing and shorthand.  

Andy:  That was just part of the standard –

Carol:  That was part of the standard.  And women were secretaries, nurses or teachers; that was about it.  There was not a whole lot of choices for women in those days.  But anyway, I thought it was – you know, actually, as it turned out, I liked being a secretary.  It was a good – I enjoyed it.  Good job.

Andy:  So you said you chased your –

Carol:  Husband.  And so we got married in 1956 and we got married in my parents’ backyard in Florissant, and my dad was mayor then, I think, and so he had the cops that parked everybody; they had a tent in the backyard.  It was a very big deal.  And family – a little bad news: My mother had had a nervous breakdown, whatever else. She was better.  And so we had this lovely wedding, and he was 26 and I was 20 when we got married.  

Andy:  And how many people came to the wedding?

Carol:  Oh, gobs, because he was the mayor so the cars parking and this tent outside and the house, so I don’t even think they counted numbers; it was just – because weddings were different in those days.  Weddings, you know, it was like the – well, this was a little different but like the VFW and all those kinds of things, and everybody came; you had kids running around. And it was not the sit-down, expensive, you know, that you have to limit how many people you have and everything.  You just invited everybody that you wanted to come.  And it was so much better, easier than it is now, I think.

Andy:  And why don’t you talk about your new husband?  What made you know that this was who you wanted to be with, you know, who you wanted to marry?

Carol:  Well, he was glamorous. He was older. He was very popular and he was very outspoken, and so he appealed in many ways. I would say that I was happy and I think he was happy.  It was really, basically a happy relationship.  I mean, it was.  But I never thought – the thought of divorce never entered my head.  Whatever good, bad, or otherwise, I never even thought of that.  We were married and that was – but that’s that generation, don’t you think?  You know, this is it.  

And he was a man of the ’50s. He was in charge.  But he did have a good personality and people liked him.  He was very likable.  And it was funny because it was more important for me to be liked than him.  He was independent; it didn’t matter to him.  I was happy that he kind of paved the way.  My idiosyncrasies were happy with that, so I want to sit at the main table where people would be around us.  He didn’t care.  He was not doing it for the same reason that I was.  I was trying to be well liked or whatever else and he was – he didn’t care if you did or you didn’t.

He graduated with a business degree and it was interesting because when we got married, he had worked for Dye and Shine Shoe Polish and he was a salesman and so this was one of his jobs of many.  I think he sold Christmas trees at one of the hardware stores or whatever for a while, worked for a hardware store, did these Christmas trees.  So anyway, then he was working for Dye and Shine and his boss asked him, so how many shoes have you shined lately, and he said, I haven’t shined any shoes and I don’t intend to shine any shoes, and the guy said, well, then you’re gone.  So he was without a job when we got married, so we had to hide that from my mother because my mother would have had a heart attack if she thought he had no — if he was not working.  So after we got married, we had to stay with them because we were going to move into a house that his parents owned but it wasn’t ready yet.  So we stayed with my parents.  So he would get up and get dressed and play like he was going off to work so my mother wouldn’t know.  I had a job.  I was working at Emerson Electric then.  So anyway, so my mother kind of got wind that maybe he wasn’t, so she called Dye and Shine Shoe Polish – (laughs) – and they said, no, he’s not here anymore.  So it was a major big deal.  So luckily we got to move into the other house and then he found this job with Anderson Clayton Foods and so that’s where he worked for 29 years.

Andy:  Sales? 

Carol:  Sales.  We lived in St. Louis and then eight years later he was transferred to Chicago, so we came to Chicago and have been here ever since. 

Andy:  And when did you have your first child? 

Carol:  In ’57.  And she’s 64; can you believe it?  Lori.  And it was a happy time.  Very, very happy time.

Andy:  And at that point you became a housewife?

Carol:  Yeah, I was a housewife.  And we didn’t have a lot of money.  He had a company car.  I stayed home and so my big deal was to walk down to the ice cream store or something with the buggy.  It’s not like today.  We had parties at home.  It was just a different world in those days.  We were not going out to dinner and going out.  It was house to house with friends. 

Andy:  Yeah.  Or flying to other parts of the world.

Carol:  (Laughs.)  No, no.  We went to the Ozarks a few times.  Well, our honeymoon was in the Ozarks and, as I say, he was not working so we borrowed my mother’s car – my mom and dad’s car.  I think we had a place that you paid something like $6 a night or something.  It was nothing elegant, by any means.  And then when my kids were younger, we went to this Point Breeze in the Ozarks.  That was a big vacation thing for us.  Very inexpensive and not much to it. 

Andy:  And you said earlier that if you reminisce about any particular period more than others it would be the sort of late ’60s, early ’70s, when you had a young family.  How many kids did you have?

Carol:  I have three.  And I had a very late miscarriage that was very heartbreaking and sad, but I have two girls and a boy — the love of my life and wonderful.  And I look back and I think of things that haunt me as a parent and I think every parent, that if you admit it, you think, I wish I had done better at this or that or the other thing, because you’re muddling through it the best way you can.  Nobody trains you for that.  I don’t know about today, whether parents are more aware of what they’re doing.  I’m not sure.  But there were things that I look back at that I wish I’d done better, but they’re all three healthy, happy, and still involved with me, so what more could I want than that?

Andy:  And then at some point you did go back to work.

Carol:  Yes, I did go back to work and I worked for a middle school, as they called it there.  I worked three days a week, six hours a day, so it was 18 hours a week.  Anyway, it was a fun job, nothing much to it.  And then I worked at a real estate [company]; that was like two days or something, and this is like when the kids were like in junior high or high [school].  And then when they were getting ready for college, I went to work for Digital Equipment, which was a big computer company at the time, and I was the secretary.  And it was kind of funny because I liked my secretary job and I was a secretary in the sales department.  And so I kind of went up the ladder in the secretary and because of my personality – I don’t like to be in charge; I don’t like to make decisions. I want to blend in; I don’t want to be in charge.  So I went up the ranks and I was the secretary for the sales manager over a whole bunch of sales units or whatever, so I could tell the girls and kind of organize the girls and do little things and all that kind of stuff.  I was good at that.  But my boss one day said, you know, Carol, there’s this supervisor job in the service part of digital and he said, I think you’d be good at it, so I got the job as the supervisor.  I was not good as a supervisor.  I was not good.  I was awful, because, first of all, it was four strong women that started this.  I grew this department to 20 but it started out with four very strong women who all wanted this job, and so I’m coming in there, and instead of being in charge of them, I’m trying to make them like me; I’m baking cookies and “everybody happy, everybody happy?”  Well, you can imagine, they had my number.  It was not a good – I was not happy with it at all.  I wanted my little secretary task that I could do and make everybody happy.  But anyway, so I was there; I think that lasted like maybe four years or something like that and then I got a different job.  And then, of course, Digital went out of business.  

Andy:  So you mentioned earlier that your mom had a nervous breakdown when you had become older.  How did she do after that? 

Carol:  You know what?  I don’t think she was a very happy person.  Why, I’m not sure — her background or whatever else.  But she and my dad at the end of their lives, later in life, seemed to get together.  They seemed to be better later in life.  And of course, they don’t call it a nervous breakdown anymore, I don’t think.  What do they call it now?  Depression and whatever else.  But it was interesting because when visiting her in the hospital, it surprised me because the group of people there were from every walk of life.  You know, it was just every walk of life and it was – I think that surprised me.  

Andy:  How long did your parents live?

Carol:  Till their middle 70s.  They all smoked; everybody smoked like crazy.  But it was funny because my dad was in the hospital and he was dying and he wanted a cigarette.  You know, you could tell that he was in some kind of a coma.  And so my sister was trying to stop smoking; everybody was trying to stop smoking.  I was the only one that didn’t smoke, so they had me light the cigarette for him. 

I tried to smoke; it was cool.  You know, in those days you had ashtrays, beautiful ashtrays on the coffee tables.  Smoking was cool, the lighter and the whole – you know, it was just considered very chic and I wanted to smoke, but I didn’t stick with it.  It made me dizzy and I didn’t feel good and so I gave it up.  I tried it a little bit and that was it.  And so now I’m so glad that I –

Andy:  How about Don?

Carol:  He smoked and he did quit.  In fact, in college it was interesting; one of the jobs he had in college was passing out free cigarettes because they wanted to get everybody smoking, the cigarette companies.  But he did stop and then he had open-heart surgery.  About 12 years before he died he had open-heart surgery and he had, like, quadruple bypass, and at first he kind of followed the rules and then, of course, he kind of drifted away from that.  And so 12 years later I could tell that he was – you know, his color didn’t look good. So he was only 67 when he died because he wasn’t going to a heart guy.  He’d say I’m fine, everything’s fine.  He had one I think it was 12 years before that.  That was when open-heart surgery was very new.  

Andy:  And then what was that experience like for you losing your –

Carol:  Oh, my gosh.  Well, as you remember, I had gone from my parents’ house to college to marriage.  There was no living with a bunch of women or anything like that.  So I had never been alone and all of a sudden I was alone and it was incredible.

I was going off somewhere and he was going off with our son; he went to a Northwestern basketball game, and so we were going to meet together.  And so we were in the car and I got a call from my son and he said, Dad dropped over at the game and we’re at Evanston Hospital.  Well, of course, we rushed there and he was dead.  He had died.  Don was driving and so Steve pulled the car over to the side of the road and got him to Evanston Hospital and he was gone, and only 67, which is young in this day and age.

Andy:  And you would have only been in your early 60s.

Carol:  And I was 61.  And of course, he’s been gone 25 years, so I had another relationship after that and I kind of started life all over at 61 or 62 and just went out and had all kinds of new adventures, lot of jitterbugging!

Andy:  I was just going to ask!  

Carol:  Lot of jitterbugging.  A jitterbug club — there’s one down in Chicago. Traveled around, weighed 104, and my hair — oh, my gosh, I was just having a wonderful time.  I had a facelift.  

Andy:  It’s funny because as soon as you said you started to get back out there and whatnot, the first thought I had was dancing.

Carol:  Yes.  That’s where I met this one that I had a relationship with for 14 years, and then he died.  But yes, it was like — because I met [Don] at 17 so I really didn’t have much experience there.  

Andy:  Well, I mean, having had other relationships, then, would you say that Don was the love of your life?

Carol:  I’d say Don was the love — the other guy I felt very strongly about too, but I’d say overall Don was — because he was a father and he was really a good guy.  He was really a good guy.  But he grew up in that time when the guys were in charge.  It was just a different time.  But he really was a good heart.  He really was.  And he adored his children; he absolutely loved his children.  And so I’d say he was the love of my life. 

The other one —

Andy:  What was his name?

Carol:  Dino.  He made me feel good, but he was a little Italian that had more experience with women and he knew how to make somebody feel good.  Don was just himself.  But Don was the love of my life.  

Andy:  OK, I’m going to kind of mix it up now. I’ve got some questions from the Snelson family, from the Perez family, and from the Klehm family.  So the first one I’ll ask is, do you look at life differently as you get older, and if so, how?

Carol:  Oh, gosh, that’s a good question.   I do look at it differently because I’m not so caught up in the moment as I am in the broader picture.  I think I look at a broader picture now than I did when you were living with — when you were raising kids and doing all those things, you’re more in the moment, and now I have more time to be — give it more broad. And I feel very fortunate that in spite of things that I feel I didn’t do good with my kids that my kids are still close to me and my grandkids are close to me and I feel — I’m just very happy and happy that that’s – so I think more about that than I do my everyday dealings or whatever else.

Andy:  Yeah.  And I don’t know if I mentioned it, but that last question was a Snelson family question.  

Here’s one from the Perez family, and you just mentioned being a grandparent:  Describe how being a grandparent is different from being a parent. 

Carol:  Well, I think a grandparent — the goal, as far as I’m concerned, is to motivate through positive reinforcement.  And so I don’t have to do any kind of disciplinary thing.  I can be with my grandkids and appreciate their strengths and let them know that I appreciate their strengths.  And I think parents, myself included – you know, a lot of times you assume that everybody knows the positive stuff and you don’t say it and it isn’t an assumption; you have to say to somebody I think you’re good at this, to reinforce goodness. As a parent I look back at my thing, and my thing was disciplinary.  I use as an example one of my kids walking down and saying, “You’re not going to wear those shoes, are you?” instead of, “You look lovely; different shoes would be better.”  Now I know — I realize that that was a horrible thing to say to somebody in that way.  And so I think I’ve learned to be more positive with them. And it’s funny because you can see the reaction that they need that and they like that, and there’s nothing phony about it.  You’re telling them things that are true and that everybody doesn’t do. 

Andy:  Do you wish that you grandparents or your parents had done more of that to you?

Carol:  Well, I wasn’t close to my grandparents because you just weren’t close in that way.  You were at the kid table, they were at the adult table.  

Andy:  Grandparenting is different today.

Carol:  Definitely.  You know, grandparents were removed and now grandparents are — I go out with my grandkids by themselves and so in some cases I can talk to them about things that their parents probably couldn’t.  You know?  I consider that a privilege and a good thing.  

Andy:  OK, the Klehm family contributes this question, or actually, it’s not a question as much as a command. (Laughs.) Tell me about a memory that always makes you smile, if you can think of one.

Carol:  A Thanksgiving or a Christmas when you have the whole family together and everybody’s together and everybody seems to get along and like each other.  It makes me smile to even think about it. 

Andy:  OK, from the Perez family:  What is something that you wish would go back to the way it used to be, and why?  We’ve talked about some of that.

Carol:  Yeah. Well, personally, I’m OK with where I’m at, but in the world I think that — I wish there was more respect for teachers, for policemen.  I think that people don’t follow the rules as much and I think that makes life harder for everybody. But personally I’m where I want to be.  

Andy:  Yeah, I mean, as we’ve already been talking about, we’ve really gone from a society that very much respected authority to one that –

Carol:  Exactly.  That’s exactly what I was trying to say.  The attitude that you had towards people like that is so foreign.

Andy:  From the Klehm family: Tell me something you wish you had spent more time doing when you were younger, and why. 

Carol:  Maybe finish school.  I wish I’d finished school.  That would have been a better thing to do probably.  

Andy:  OK, from the Snelsons:  What would you like your family to remember about you?

Carol:  That I was fun to be with, that I loved them dearly, and there was nothing that made me happier than them loving me.

Andy:  The Perez family puts this one out there:  What is something that you consider to be a guilty pleasure, and how often do you indulge in it?

Carol:  I have a guilty pleasure.  I have a cookie and an ice cream cone every night and I have gained 40 pounds — (laughs) — in the last few years.  I say to myself, I’m not going to do that this week, and then I think, life is short; if I want a cookie and I want an ice cream cone, I’m not going to say I can’t have one. 

Andy:  What important lessons did you learn about parenting that you would like to pass on to family members – family members who have kids or who will in the future have kids?

Carol:  What do they say? Sandwich any criticism between compliments, or positive reinforcement as opposed to – you know, wrap it around something. I mean, obviously a parent has to do the disciplinary thing, but don’t forget the other side of it; don’t forget the positive stuff that makes them feel good.  And what’s wrong with feeling good and feeling good about themselves?  To point out something they’re good at.

Andy:  Is that advice that you would have passed on to your own parents?

Carol:  Yes, because I don’t think I ever – although my mother was complimentary to me, but I solicited that. 

Andy:  OK, what would you call the most rewarding part of becoming a grandparent or being a grandparent?  

Carol:  Well, that you have the enjoyment and you don’t have the responsibility that the parents have.  You know, you can enjoy them, and I always like to take one out at a time.  When they were little we’d call it their special day, and just one at a time, because if you get together with the family, you don’t talk to the kids; you’re talking to the adults, so they might as well not even be there.  So going out alone and doing different – bowling, golf, whatever, or just to be together alone and to open up.  

Andy:  OK, what’s one thing from your childhood that you would want your grandchildren to experience?  These are tough questions, right?

Carol:  Yeah.  Let’s see.  I wonder if they ever experienced that when you’re young in those days that you could wander far from home and have that freedom.  I don’t think they have that anymore — and have to have a playdate now.  Then you were safe; you didn’t feel this fear of getting kidnapped or whatever else.  You didn’t think of that.

Andy:  Well, not only that but, I mean, you had the autonomy, you had the freedom to roam, but you also weren’t constantly connected to a device.  

Carol:  You know what?  You have the best – that’s it!  That’s it.  That is a good answer, yeah, that you’re not – you’re right, you know, with the phone.  That’s something that I look at today that I see as a real issue because instead of calling somebody and talking to them, you’re sending them a message that you can’t express yourself.  They can’t tell how you’re really feeling about something when you say, I’m sorry about blah blah or whatever else, and I think they’re missing the personal – don’t you? 

Andy:  Yes.

Carol:  I mean, the interactions or whatever else. And well, everybody — anywhere you go, everybody's sitting and looking at this thing.

Andy:  Here’s another question.  I like this one.  What is a skill or talent that you have that might surprise people? 

Carol:  I think my skill is making other people feel comfortable.  

Andy:  You mentioned a regret earlier, which was not finishing school.  Would you call that your greatest regret?

Carol:  I don’t think about it a whole lot.  I think – I wish I had been more – well, first of all, I was very immature when I had kids, when I first had kids, and I don’t think I had a clue of what I was doing.  It was muddling through, and I wish I could have started out with – I mean, now I look at being positive and all these kinds of things, and at the time I don’t think it even entered my mind.  I was too busy doing my little thing.  And I wish I could have been a better parent.  I wish I could have been a better parent or would have been or would have thought about it. 

Andy:  I’m going to kind of ask this in two parts; you can answer either or both:  If you could pick one day as the best in your life, which would it be?  And if you could pick one year, which would it be?  And/or. You know, tough question.  

Carol:  Well, I guess I keep going back to family but that’s where I’m at right now, you know?  I guess a day when we were on vacation and everybody’s sitting around the table and everybody’s happy.  That’s a day or moment.

Andy:  Would it be when people were younger, or more recent?

Carol:  A little bit younger — not a whole lot but a little bit, because they’re branching out now. And as far as a year, a younger year — definitely a younger year. (Laughs.)

Andy:  Well, two more questions.  If you could choose any famous person, living or dead, to spend a day with or maybe have a meal with or whatever you want to consider, who would it be?

Carol:  Liam Neeson, because I like him.  I do.  And he’s from Northern Ireland.  But I just think he’s cool.  

Andy:  What would you do together?

Carol:  Conversation.  Eat, drink, and be merry.  (Laughs.)

Andy:  OK, what would you say your life’s purpose is, and have you fulfilled it yet?

Carol:  I think my life purpose is to be kind to others, live a good life, not hurt anybody.  And I think, for the most part, I have done that, but I don’t think about that on a daily basis, by any means.  But just to be, you know, a kind, good person and live life within the boundaries of what you think of as a good life.  

Andy:  OK, the last thing:  You see the camera right down there.  If you want to look into the camera and just kind of convey a message to the people who are going to be watching this, I want to invite you to do that. 

Carol:  To my family, I love every one of you and I couldn’t be happier with the way everybody has developed and I feel like the luckiest person in the whole world to have a family like I do and I wish you every wonderful thing and all my love.