WEBVTT
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Hello everyone and welcome to A Daughter's Inheritance.
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I'm Susan Seal, your host, and I am happy that you're gonna uh be with us today.
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I wanted to talk just a minute about a video that we recently did on quilts.
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If you remember from the first episode, I talked about my mother and my grandmother and even my great-grandmother who were quilters.
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And since then, several guests have talked about how their mothers or even some aunts were uh quilters as well.
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So we did a video showing some of the quilts that I had, uh talked about some of the stories, uh, some of the quilts back to 1930.
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And uh I've just gotten a lot of really good uh comments and feedback on it, so I wanted to make you aware of that.
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And we'll be doing more videos like that.
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So those are on YouTube, a daughter's inheritance on YouTube, and on Facebook, so you can see those.
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And I am having so much fun uh with our conversations with our guest.
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And I know Kate Gregory and I, in in her conversation, talked about how it's kind of an oral history, it's uh giving us an opportunity to share the story and the history of our mothers and our families.
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And I think that's uh really been special for our guests and certainly for me, and I think for our listeners as well.
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And I think today will be no different.
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I am happy to welcome Jen folks.
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Welcome, glad you're here.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for having me.
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Absolutely.
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So, Jen uh is the tasting room manager at Queen's Reward Metery in Tupelo, Mississippi.
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That's right.
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And uh live in Fulton, which is just outside of Tupelo, right?
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Just just a little bit outside.
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And that's about an hour north of where we are here in Startwell, which that sounds like a pretty fun job working in a meteory.
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It's really a lot of fun.
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Yeah, you get to see people having fun.
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Yes, I do.
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Quite often we start with the early years of uh your your mother.
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You know, research shows that um you can tell I work at a university, I start something with research shows that that early family dynamics has an impact on the health of the adult as well as the relationships as they become adults.
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So I think starting with that, those early years and looking a little bit about that family dynamic, we see that showing up as they get older.
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So, what do you know about your your mother as a as a child, her growing up years?
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Well, being the keeper of the genealogy of our family, I think I know a little bit about my mom growing up.
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She was born in 1942.
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Her name was Martha Vandora McElhannan, that's her maiden name.
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Uh, she was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
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So we're gonna go across the state lines for the first time, I think, in this podcast, but that's gonna be fun for some Bama friends.
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She grew up the daughter of parents who were also from Alabama, and she was a very happy child.
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She was a very good girl, she did everything correctly, and mom was uh an extrovert from early on.
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She she took all the all the air out of the room, I guess is how you would phrase it.
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Uh, I've talked to her sister, and her sister said she kind of felt a little bit invisible when my mom came in a room because mom really did uh not really put on a show, but she she definitely could turn it on.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Very smart.
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She was a straight A student.
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Every grade my mother ever got was an A.
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She was an overachiever uh when she was young, all the way through high school, and she went to Woodlawn High School in right inside Birmingham.
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So let the record show we're sitting in Starfield, Mississippi, and we're appealing to Alabama fans.
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Well, I didn't say that you did.
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It's not something that I normally do, but yes, that's good.
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That's good.
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So what what was her mother like?
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Did she have a strong influence on her?
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What kind of relationship did they have?
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They had a very strong relationship.
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My grandmother and I were very close.
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Uh my grandmother, her name was Valeria Esther, and she was a Gilchrist, and her uh family married into the Walker family in Alabama, and um she had a big influence over my mother.
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Um, let me think.
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How do I describe my grandmother was one of four children?
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She had a sister who was uh deceased in infancy, she had three brothers, and she grew up in Cordova, Alabama on Walker Hill, which was a farm.
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So my grandmother was a farm girl.
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Um it was the oldest farmhouse in the state of Alabama.
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We have a sheepskin in the family signed by John Quincy Adams, proclaiming it as the oldest farmhouse in Alabama.
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And um so Graham was a farm girl and she raised her girls in the city in Birmingham.
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Okay, I was gonna say, was your mother your mother wasn't a farm girl?
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My mother was nothing close to a farm girl.
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Also gonna be a little bit different than some of the stories that I've heard, but mom was a city girl for sure.
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Now, what was your grandmother's first name?
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Valeria.
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Valeria.
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And it gets confused with Valerie a lot of times.
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So a lot of her friends just called her Val.
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Okay.
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Her coworkers and the the Graham ended up being the vice president of a bank in Florida, and her uh employees called her Miss Mac.
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So you either heard Val or Miss Mac about my grandmother.
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Okay, so they had a good relationship, they did have a good relationship.
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So she wasn't like her mother in the sense of being the farm girl, but were there some other influences of that she was like her, or was it a uh were they very different in other ways as well?
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I think they were similar in that the women in my family are strongly independent, they're very strong-willed, they're very stubborn.
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So they they were a lot alike in those ways.
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As my mother got older and became an adult and married my dad, she went her own way as far as independence, her own thoughts and her own beliefs.
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And so I think she and my grandmother kind of diversed in that in some ways, but they remained a close mother-daughter relationship.
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Uh, my grandmother was always very nurturing about my mother.
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My mother was born kind of sickly, so I think that impacted how my grandmother viewed my mother even in adulthood.
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She felt like mother always needed to be cared for and looked after.
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Did you see that throughout her life?
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I did.
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I did.
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Your your your dad or you or who took care of her?
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It was not my dad.
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My grandmother just always kept her eyes on.
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Your grandmother did.
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Yeah, my grandmother kept her eyes on my mom.
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And how old did your grandmother live to be?
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100.
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Wow.
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She was born in 1915.
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She bore uh she passed away in 2015.
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Wow.
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So she kept her eye on her for a long time.
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She did.
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She did.
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Uh okay, so you mentioned your dad.
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So how did uh your mother and your dad meet?
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So mom and dad, uh well, let me back up a little bit because my my grandmother and her husband were friends with my dad's mom and dad.
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Okay.
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And then my mom and dad met at Woodlawn High School.
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They were both part of the Glee Club.
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Uh, they both loved English.
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So that's kind of where they met in high school, fell in love, got out of high school.
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My mom registered, she was the first person to register at Howard College, which became Sanford University in Birmingham in 1965.
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But it was Howard College when mom was the first one at the registration window to register, and she was going to be an English major.
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My dad went to the University of Alabama to also major in English, and he actually became an English teacher and later became a principal.
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He went the administrative route, but they both were very much readers and wordsmiths, so their love for English and for reading is is part of what drew them together, I think.
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So high school sweetheart.
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High school sweetheart, yeah.
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Uh, and you like to read.
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So is that that's from both of your parents, you kind of gained definitely from that from both of them.
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I do not remember living in a home that did not have bookshelves and was overflowing of books.
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Now, did she finish her degree?
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Mom did not finish her degree.
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Okay.
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She actually started working to put my dad through college so he could finish, so he could get his degree, because this was back in the early 60s, early to mid-60s.
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Um, so she put daddy through college and she found herself as a young married woman pregnant with a daughter, me.
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And so she took care of me while daddy finished college, got his degree.
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You showed me uh you sent me a picture of an article, two articles the other day about your mother and your grandmother.
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And they were both 19.
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Right.
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And one of the things you said I thought was really interesting.
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Uh, you know, here were their plans when they were 19.
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It doesn't always turn out that way.
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So how did their individual plans at 19 change from because I mean most of us, you know, I I I think at 19 I was gonna be a a lawyer, and then when I took a law class, I decided I really just wanted to argue.
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I didn't I didn't want to have to study all the law stuff.
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Right.
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Yeah, those articles were very telling.
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They were both 19 years old.
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My grandmother had won a beauty contest, and as part of the beauty contest, she went to Atlanta, Georgia, and she was interviewed by a newspaper over there that asked her in 1934 what her plans were.
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And she said very confidently, as I can imagine my grandmother would have at age 19, she was planning to take a pre-law class also at Howard College, and then her plan was to go to Columbia University to get her law degree, and then she was going into politics.
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Well, that seemed to really impress the newspaper man who was interviewing her because he had never in the 30s heard of a woman going into politics.
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And she also told him that she could never see a woman president, but that she knew that it was gonna happen one day.
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I gotcha.
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So very interesting.
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And then my mom's article at 19, she was registering for Howard College, so you can see a similar thread there, and her plan was to go into English, and she was either going to teach like my father or go on to law school.
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So those are are both kind of paths that they both thought they were gonna go on, but life happened.
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I think children happened to both of them.
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Um, my mom was born in 1942.
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Of course, they my grandmother had to go through um, she was pregnant with mom through World War II.
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And so life did happen to both of them on different levels.
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And they found their paths out beyond that once they had children.
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My grandmother actually got her degree and she taught home economics at Cahaba Heights High School in Birmingham, and uh then she and my grandfather ended up later on moving to Florida because her brother owned a car, a uh car dealership in South Central Florida.
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My grandfather was a salesman, he was a very good salesman.
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So my uncle said, I think I need John Mack to come and work for me and sell cars down here.
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So moving my grandparents to Florida, my dad got out of college, he had his teaching degree, he and my mom took me at before I turned four down to South Central Florida, and my dad started teaching down there, and my mom started working at a bank.
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My grandmother worked at a bank in Florida, my mother worked at a bank in Florida.
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So again, there's a lot of similarities in my grandmother's work and life and my mother's that I never really put together until I started sitting down and thinking about it, but they they had a lot of similarities.
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Yeah, even though you think with the starting off with country girl, city girl, but so many parallels.
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Yeah.
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What has surprised you or you've kind of unearthed that you've either found out or remembered, or maybe came to a recognition for yourself?
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I think going through and putting down my thoughts on a timeline helped me to see the five-year gap that my mom was a single parent with two young children and that she found a way to keep a roof over our heads and keep um food on our table and to raise us the best way that she could and take care of us.
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And my grandparents were always right there too.
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Um but I think that's the biggest thing, seeing the strength that she had.
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I say a lot of times that people who met my mom in Mississippi, because we can get to that in a minute, but um, people who met my mom in Mississippi don't know her when she was young and vibrant in Florida and surrounded by friends, and she was she just was a force when we were growing up.
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You would not have thought a single parent did not slow her down in raising us.
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Okay, so let's go back a little bit.
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You you moved to Florida when you were four.
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How long did you did y'all did you live there?
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Uh I lived in Florida until I was almost 24.
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So I grew up down there.
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Yeah, you're you're growing up.
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So we went from high school sweethearts, and now you're talking about a single mom.
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Something happened.
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Fill that gap in for us.
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Yeah.
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Um, so they moved to Florida, and my parents my mom was pregnant with my brother and had him.
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He's six years younger than I am.
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So in he was born in 1972.
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About a year later, my parents divorced, and it was a very difficult time in all of our lives.
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And my mom finally she found herself being a single parent.
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Uh, we still have visitation with my dad in Florida, but he he remarried pretty quickly after they divorced, so we didn't spend a lot of time with him.
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So we moved around a lot during that time.
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I never lived in one single home.
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So I never had the advantage of growing up in one home and having my grandparents next door.
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My grandparents lived in the same town that we did, but they didn't live right next door.
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There wasn't any really running next door to get anything.
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Um, but the that's kind of how that that shift happened after we got to Florida.
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My parents had wanted to move to Florida so I would have a good school system, that it was an integrated school system.
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They grew up during the civil rights era in Birmingham, Alabama.
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They were both very outspoken.
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I I was a daddy's girl, and I thought he hung the moon and he played classical piano.
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He learned to speak Russian, he found himself blacklisted.
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Um, they lived in Syracuse, New York for a bit.
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So in the 60s, when there were blacklists, he found himself on that list.
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So they were uh they were very unique in being Southerners, but kind of renaissance.
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They were, yeah.
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They were.
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So I I I think they just really and truly, mom would say they married too early.
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Uh sometimes being high school sweethearts works and sometimes it doesn't.
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And she would say, My dad didn't have enough time to grow up before they got married.
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Um, but she loved him until the day she died.
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We were talking about high school reunions the other day at work, and somebody said, I'm not going to my high school reunion.
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And I said, Well, and I've heard people say this, you know, your 10-year reunion, everybody goes back and they're trying to impress each other.
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And then when you get in your 30-year reunion or 25-year reunion, people are divorcing and it's messy and a lot of people don't come and whatever.
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But then when you get up to those higher years, it is so great to see everybody.
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And what you realize is those people that you didn't like when they were 18, well, they're not the same person they were they were when they were 18, and neither are you.
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Right.
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So as you kind of you you're not, you know, at that age, kind of who you are gonna be sometimes.
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Yeah.
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So after they divorced, you were still close to your dad.
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I mean, you said you didn't see him a lot, but you didn't still didn't see him a lot.
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We we had the typical uh having divorced parents when you are in the night early 1970s um was difficult.
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I had uh a best friend that I was not allowed to go spend the night at her house anymore because my parents were divorced and her parents were very devout in their faith, and I guess it was contagious, maybe.
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Um, I'm not sure what the reasoning was, but it was not popular in the early 70s, and so I felt kind of like I had a Scarlet S on me, even though I wasn't the one that had gone through this, and that kind of stayed with me because we did move a lot.
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I changed schools several times.
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I felt like I had to reinvent who I was at each school that I went to, and at the time it was very difficult because I was very shy as a young girl.
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I think part of that comes from having an extroverted mother who talks a lot.
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You didn't have a chance.
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I did not have a chance to say much.
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So I learned to keep my mouth shut and be a good girl.
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Uh-huh.
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I can remember so so many aspects of growing up with a mother who's very outgoing and outspoken seemed to not help me to come into myself until I I was grown.
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Because you didn't have to.
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She she carried it.
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Yeah, she carried it 100%.
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So, what kind of parent was she?
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Was she soft on you?
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Was she disciplinarian?
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She was mom was definitely the disciplinarian, except that she never spanked me.
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There was never any physical spanking.
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Mom could give that look.
00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:51.359
And I think I've heard you talk about this before.
00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:54.799
I had a very healthy fear of my mother.
00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:58.640
And if mother gave me that look, I knew I was pushing too far.
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:06.960
Because, you know, especially as a junior high or high schooler, you've got all this angst going on, and you are just not a kind person to live with.
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.160
But if I pushed the boundary too far, she would just give me a look.
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:15.279
Uh, she was also very good at allowing me freedom.
00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:18.480
She was the parent that all of my friends loved my mother.
00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.559
They thought she was the coolest person in the world.
00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:29.519
They all had very conservative families, parents, and here is my mom who smoked and drank and watched Saturday Night Live.
00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:31.359
None of my friends could do that at home.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:33.039
So they would come to my house.
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.480
And so she was very open.
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.279
She was very good at listening.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:43.680
And my friends all enjoyed talking to my mom.
00:19:44.079 --> 00:20:07.039
I I have learned as an adult things I did not know about my mom is the friends that she talked to, my friends that she talked to, my cousins, my first cousins that she talked to, to hear them talk about how they would sit up late at night because my mom was a night owl, and they would drink coffee with her on her porch.
00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:15.119
No matter where we lived, if they came to see her, she would sit and listen and give them advice, and they valued that.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:17.440
They still think back about those times.
00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:24.240
And I was totally unaware growing up that that she had that kind of relationship, even with my own first cousins.
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:26.160
We hear you hear Kool-Aid moms.
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:27.119
Yours was the coffee mom.
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:29.200
Yes, my mom was definitely the coffee mom.
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:31.039
That's fun.
00:20:31.279 --> 00:20:37.599
It surprises me that it has taken this far in to the podcast for us to s to mention Saturday Night Live.
00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:39.920
That's the first time that's come up.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:42.000
I can't believe it's taken us that long.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.480
Did she treat you and your brother the same?
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:52.559
Was it as because a lot of times we talk about, you know, the the sons different, the mother-son relationships different than the the daughter.
00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:54.079
How did you see that?
00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:00.160
I think she treated us differently in some ways, but it wasn't necessarily my mom that treated us different.
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:01.599
It was because we were so different.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:03.759
My brother was very strong-willed.
00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:05.519
He got in trouble a lot.
00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:08.160
Um, so he got spankings or switches.
00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:12.880
I don't know if you're familiar with the uh the switch and that you have to go cut one off the tree.
00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:19.279
That was something my grandmother had, and my mother turned that into um a fly swatter.
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:26.720
Yeah, she would use a fly swat sometimes, and my brother was so strong-willed that no amount of switching his legs was gonna change.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:27.920
No, no.
00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:30.319
Yeah, I do remember my grandmother was that way.
00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:32.000
You go get a switch off that bush.
00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:37.200
And probably most people, the first time that happens, you you pick a small one.
00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:38.000
Right.
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:40.480
And then you realize, ow.
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:47.839
And then you realize, you know, if this if it's a thicker one, it doesn't actually hurt as bad as those little ones.
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:49.519
The little ones that'll get you.
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:55.279
So and that that was hard because I I watched that happen to him.
00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:58.559
And don't get me wrong, they were not beating this child.
00:21:58.720 --> 00:21:59.119
Oh, sure, yeah.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.839
He deserved every beat.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:00.400
Of it.
00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:05.680
But it still hurt my little heart because I was very tenderhearted about my brother from the get-go.
00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:11.440
When they put this little baby in my arms as a six-year-old, I thought he was mine.
00:22:11.839 --> 00:22:14.079
That's mom brought him home for me.
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:18.799
And so it was up to me to protect him and to watch out for him.
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:23.759
And so I spent most of his childhood until he got married.
00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.000
And that's I took that responsibility on.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.960
And that was not her making me do that.
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:34.640
I think there was some instinctive nurturing of me that wanted to take care of him.
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:37.200
Mom was working as a single parent.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.519
So that was different in in our lives.
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:43.440
Uh, she was able to stay home with me, but with him, she was working all the time.
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:46.720
So I became very responsible for him when he started school.
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:47.680
I rode the bus.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:51.759
I picked him up the school bus at the bus stop and walked him home.
00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:53.359
And that was our life.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.480
I I watched after my brother for a lot of years.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:56.880
Yeah.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:22:58.240
And y'all are still close.
00:22:58.480 --> 00:22:59.119
We are still close.
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:02.079
As you know, I have a brother uh as as well.
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:08.079
And uh he he said he got a lot more spankins than I did uh because he was a boy.
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:09.680
I think it was just because he was bad.
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:16.480
But now he did not, yeah, he was older than me and probably the girl boy thing.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.279
But I think he was like, when is she going back?
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.559
It wasn't a oh didn't want to keep you.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:23.200
Yeah, no.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:24.480
Okay.
00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:26.640
She's been here a week.
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:28.240
Yeah, when does she go back?
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:29.279
Yeah, can we get rid of her?
00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:47.599
But but we are close now, and I know I've heard you talk about your brother and nieces, and my brother has four children, two girls and two boys, and they are the loves of my life because I don't have children, and I have tried to pour into them everything that an aunt extraordinaire could pour into them.
00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:55.680
And because my mom was gone, I also tried to pour in that missing aspect of having a grandmother uh into their lives.
00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:59.200
So I've tried to share with them some family history and things as well.
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:01.200
You mentioned your dad got remarried.
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:02.720
Did your mother get remarried?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:03.359
She did.
00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:04.880
And when was that?
00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:08.240
So that was um 79.
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:30.480
I was 12, and my brother was about to turn six when she remarried my stepdad, and they were married for 12 years, and he was a Michigander, so we're varying way out of the southern routes, but he had come to the city we live in, lived in in Florida, as a race car driver.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:38.640
So we grew up in a little city called Sebring, Florida, it's about two hours south of Orlando, and it is known for an IMSA race.
00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:54.160
And my stepdad drove for Volvo and he was in town, and he happened to come by where mom was working at the bank and met her and asked her on a date, and it was the first guy that she had really dated, and they ended up getting married.
00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:58.960
Um it might have been a year later, I don't remember how long they dated before they got married.
00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:00.480
I mean, that does sound impressive.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:02.079
I'm dating a race car driver, right?
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:03.200
I mean, yeah, yeah.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.400
In in a race car city, that does sound pretty impressive.
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:07.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.359
So, what was it like as a 12-year-old uh to have your mother dating?
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:13.759
I don't know that I thought about her dating.
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.880
I I had entered that phase of my mom was not cool to me.
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:29.279
My stepdad, because I was such a daddy's girl when I was older, my stepdad did not have any children before he married my mom.
00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:32.240
And he was just he was a great guy.
00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:34.640
I just wasn't giving him a chance.
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.440
And later on in life, he and we reconnected.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:49.519
My brother and my stepdad and I all reconnected, and it's so different to look back at those years and think that things might have been different.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:56.640
He really tried, he helped me rebuild a car, my first car, because he was a really good car guy.
00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:04.400
Um, he was really funny, and I've mentioned my mom was not funny, but my stepdad was pretty funny.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:11.680
He was the king of dad jokes, and my brother picked up a lot of my stepdad's sense of humor.
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:14.079
My brother is the king of dad jokes now.
00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:19.519
His kids just cringe when he tells jokes because he's he's so good at it.
00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:22.079
Typical dad jokes, yeah.
00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:25.599
So did your mother try to be funny or she didn't try at all?
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:26.319
She didn't try.
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:27.359
She just wasn't funny.
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:28.480
She just wasn't funny.
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:33.440
She, I think she, well, I say she didn't try, but the few times she tried, she wasn't funny.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:34.640
The jokes fell flat.
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:34.960
Uh-huh.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:38.720
So she she was a quick learner and she was like, okay, that's not, I should stay in my lane.
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:39.039
Right.
00:26:39.359 --> 00:26:47.519
So she was very smart, and we played a lot of games growing up, and one of the games we played was Trivial Pursuit.
00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:53.200
And so we would play teams against mom because you could not beat the woman at Trivial Pursuit.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:54.319
She knew too much.
00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:58.079
So she she learned which lane was better for her, and it wasn't comedy.
00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:03.359
Okay, we've got Saturday Night Live and Trivial Pursuit in one podcast.
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:05.119
That's fun.
00:27:05.359 --> 00:27:08.160
You've said you've had a special connection to the beach.
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:11.519
And you just came back from the beach not too long ago.
00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:12.480
I did.
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:17.039
Was that something special with you and your mom, you and your family?
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:19.359
What is her connection with you?
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:21.839
Because I think you said I feel close to her here.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:36.079
So where we grew up in South Central Florida, we were two hours from the beach, two hours to uh Jupiter, which is just north of Palm Beach on the east coast, or Venice Beach, which is over on the west coast, on the Gulf Coast.
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:45.759
And I should probably take a minute and explain that growing up in South Central Florida, we did not recognize the panhandle of Florida as part of the state.
00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:51.039
It is not something I knew existed until I moved to Mississippi because we were so close to the beach.
00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:51.279
Yeah.
00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:57.039
Um, we just didn't we never thought about going to the panhandle to go to Panama City or to go to Destin.
00:27:57.279 --> 00:27:59.279
So growing up, we drove two hours.
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:14.559
We usually took a Saturday, went out really early, and my mom and stepdad and my brother and I, we would all go to the beach, and my mom would set up the chair, and she would sit and read the entire time we were on the beach, and we would play in the sand and play in the water.
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:26.720
But it was that constant of knowing that she was right there and she was more at peace and more calm and happier than any other time when she was at the beach.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:34.319
She came back home when we would we would sleep on the way home, and when we would get home, she was so relaxed.
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:39.519
And in my life, I don't have a lot of memories of mom being relaxed.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:45.200
So that's that's a good re it's a good memory for me, and I find that I do the same thing.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:29:02.079
So that's why when we talk about different ways of inheritance, that's one of the things I inherited from her is just the the calm of my spirit when I'm at the beach, and that's why I connect with her when I'm at the beach because I I can feel her smiling.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:12.480
When she passed, I said, I feel like she's probably not in a gold mansion, but on a beach somewhere listening to Jimmy Buffett.
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.359
That's how I like to envision mom in heaven.
00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:16.640
Do you read?
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:19.839
Is that something that that you kind of do what she did then?
00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:27.839
That's that's a big part of the inheritance that she has given me has been a love for reading, a love for words.
00:29:28.319 --> 00:29:34.240
Um, I learned in the second grade, I made I wrote my first research paper.
00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:35.440
It was on Eskimos.
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:36.960
She kept it all of her life.
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:37.359
Uh-huh.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:42.160
And um I loved reading and writing.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:50.000
And I decided after high school that I would um major in journalism because of my love for words.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.480
I worked at a newspaper bureau and I loved writing.
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:59.519
So it's a little bit funny that you love the beach so much, but your your research paper was on Eskimos.
00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:00.960
I yes, it is.
00:30:01.119 --> 00:30:03.839
I think it I I don't necessarily heat.
00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:06.079
Yeah.
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:11.599
Did uh did you and your mom go to the beach as as a adults when you were an adult?
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:12.799
Not as much.
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:14.319
She would have liked to.
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:23.359
Um mom was in a really bad car accident my right after my junior year of high school, and it was life-changing for her.
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.519
It uh she was T-boned by a truck going across a highway.
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:32.000
It threw her from the driver's seat under the dashboard of the passenger's seat.
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:36.559
And the EMTs told her that if she had worn her seatbelt, she probably would have died.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:45.839
So it she ended up in a two-thirds body cast, and so that was how my senior year kind of turned out to be.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:56.240
And so from that moment on of that accident forward, she struggled physically more than any other time in life.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:05.680
Um, she wasn't able to go places and do the things that we had done together growing up.
00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:08.559
Uh, so she kind of became a different person.
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:14.079
And I think when you physically struggle, you of course also mentally struggle.
00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:21.599
And she had a lot of struggles because when your body won't do what your mind wants it to do, that's very frustrating.
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:26.559
So we did not take as many trips to the beach as I was an adult.
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:34.240
By the time uh I was an adult, I was kind of living my own life and we just weren't able to get to the beach.
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:38.559
It's probably the biggest regret that I have is not making to the beach one last time with her.
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:39.920
How long was she in the hospital?
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:41.200
Uh several weeks.
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:44.240
Uh I don't even remember how many weeks.
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:46.480
It's probably somewhat of a blur for you.
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:47.119
It was.
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:51.920
I I remember her coming home from the hospital in the body cast.
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:55.680
I remember the hospital bed in their bedroom.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:57.839
I remember my friends coming to visit.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:04.640
That's why I remember the SNL because they would all gather in the bedroom, and that's what she'd be watching on Saturday night.
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:08.559
So that's where my friends spent their Saturday nights uh with my mom.
00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:10.720
So I do remember that part.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:13.920
But senior year was was hard going through all that.
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:24.079
I graduated with honors, but I then made the decision not to go away to college, to stay at home and help take care of mom, help take care of my little brother.
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:29.200
And so I went to a junior college, and I'm gonna make it a full circle Succeel moment.
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:37.279
I was awarded a rotary scholarship when I went to junior college that paid for my books.
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:40.799
The academic scholarship from school paid for everything else.
00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:46.000
So that was my first two years of college, was staying at home and going to the junior college.
00:32:46.640 --> 00:32:47.680
You're a caregiver.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:54.400
I mean, you've talked about taking care of your little brother, you've talked about taking care of your mom and not going to school staying there.
00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:58.799
Uh was she a caregiver also?
00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:07.359
Or was that somewhat inherited or in spite of, or your grandmother, or where did that come from for you?
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:09.279
I think that came from my grandmother.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:19.839
My mother was very independent, and my grandmother had gone through um when she was very young, her mother and father were absent.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:26.400
Her dad had been in a a bad accident, and so she had been farmed out to her grandmother's house.
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:34.960
So my grandmother was a very nurturing woman, and I think that's where I get my nurturing spirit, um, is from my grandmother.
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:46.559
She was the um as ambitious as she was at 19, she was the the one in the family who darned the socks, who did the sewing, who did some quilting.
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:50.319
I mean, she was a home egg teacher, so she knew how to do all of those things.
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:52.880
She is the one that I learned how to cook from.
00:33:53.200 --> 00:33:58.400
My mother's cooking was more elevated, but my grandmother's cooking was delicious.
00:33:58.559 --> 00:33:58.799
Okay.
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:05.119
Um, so all of those good southern things, fried chicken to uh roast.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:15.599
Uh, we had Sunday dinners at my grandparents' growing up in Florida, even though we weren't in Mississippi or Alabama, uh, we had Sunday dinners at my grandparents every weekend.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:19.280
And Graham was the one who who taught me how to love cooking.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:20.639
Yeah, that's fun.
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:24.320
It's funny how uh cooking is such a cultural thing in the South.
00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:26.719
It's such a it almost comes up almost every time.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:35.920
And a lot of times I I ask it because I like cooking too, but it's interesting to see uh those whose mother or grandmother was a good cook.
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.639
It often gets passed down, and those who my mother couldn't cook, and neither could I.
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:42.159
Right.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:44.639
It seems to be a a thread there.
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:46.079
Yeah, definitely.
00:34:46.400 --> 00:34:49.679
You talked about your mother being friends with your friends.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.639
Uh what kind of friends did she have?
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.239
Was she did she have a lot of friends or was she did?
00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:08.639
She um in Florida, she had friends uh she had friends from church, and a lot of her friends actually were the mothers of my brother's parents.
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:09.280
Okay.
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:12.000
So uh there was a whole group of them.
00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:13.679
They all had boys.
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:18.000
Um, so mom was friends with all of these boys' moms.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:28.800
And uh years later, mom and I both read the Rebecca Wells book, The Divine Sisterhood, uh Yaya Sisterhood, and the uh Little Altars Everywhere.
00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:35.519
And then the movie came out, of course, and we watched the movie together and we just sobbed and boohooed.
00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:47.679
And not just because of the content of the story, but because of the realization that she had her Yaya friends in Florida, and those friends would have died for her.
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:53.199
They would, anytime you needed somebody, uh, they they could call on each other.
00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:59.119
And so when she moved to Mississippi, she left a lot of that behind.
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:07.519
And I think that also uh impacted her mentally and the way that she felt kind of alone when she moved to Mississippi.
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:35.840
She didn't have those connections, and I think it's kind of why she leaned into a friendship with me as an adult, because she just didn't have those yaya friends that she had in Florida, and now because of that example of hers, I've discovered that my friendships are so important, and friendships with women are so important to me to have those yayas, that close circle of friends.
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:36.639
Yeah.
00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:43.360
As an adult, it's hard to to make those friends, it's hard to break into when you've moved.
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:50.559
I mean, we think about it with kids moving to different schools, but they're fairly resilient, and you've got all these ways to make friends.
00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:55.840
But as an adult woman, it's kind of hard to break into.
00:36:56.239 --> 00:36:58.639
It's very hard, I think, as adult women.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:08.719
And I think if you are, I think there are a lot of women who become friends with their children's parents, just like mom did.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:08.960
Sure.
00:37:09.199 --> 00:37:11.840
That's the the having children is the commonality.
00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:24.239
But as the children grow up and move off, then you have women that you don't have that these women don't have a a common bond in their children, so somehow they've got to meet.
00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:26.800
And I do think that it's a a struggle for adults.
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:29.360
I think the older that we get, the harder it becomes.
00:37:29.599 --> 00:37:30.320
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:32.239
Did she keep in touch with them at all?
00:37:32.480 --> 00:37:35.119
Uh she did with one in particular.
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:43.199
Um, she definitely was uh still close with an attorney friend's wife.
00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:51.840
Uh when I worked as a paralegal, I worked for uh Jim McCollum and his wife Sue and my mom were really good friends.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:58.639
And uh so mom and Sue talked by Facebook and email and things and kept in touch.
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:03.440
So you you had a good relationship with your mom.
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:06.559
I mean, uh throughout the years, it seems like.
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:10.000
But in most mother-daughters, there's some conflict somewhere.
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:12.960
Did did y'all ever butt heads per se?
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:14.719
Oh, I don't think it's per se.
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:16.400
I think it's definitely say.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:24.639
Um, I I remember my brother asking me one time, he said, why do you have to say anything to her?
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:28.719
If you would just let her talk, it'll all be okay.
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:36.719
But you feel the need to argue and butt heads with her, which is funny to me because he would not.
00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:37.920
He would be quiet.
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:39.119
This was when you were young?
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:40.480
This is as adults.
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:40.880
Okay.
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:42.000
Yeah, as adults.
00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:47.519
Um at 13, I I would argue well, I would until I'd get the look.
00:38:47.599 --> 00:38:47.760
Yes.
00:38:48.079 --> 00:38:49.519
And and then I would know my place.
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:50.000
Okay.
00:38:50.239 --> 00:38:55.119
But as an adult, the look doesn't quite hold the that over you.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:59.599
Um, so I would definitely say we butted heads.
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:08.559
Um, we butted heads over things that I don't know that they were as important in the overall picture as they seem like at the time.
00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:12.400
My parents, when they got married, uh joined the Episcopal Church.
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:15.280
And so I was a cradle Episcopalian.
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:26.159
So I grew up in the Episcopal Church, which uh was wonderful for me because one of the tenets of the Episcopal Church is come let us reason together.
00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:31.840
And so I've always faced every relationship with reasoning and talking things out.
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:34.480
Well, I've already told you my mother was a big talker.
00:39:34.719 --> 00:39:40.320
So when we tried to reason things out, it was really going to be her way.
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:48.639
It was not, I was still the daughter, she was still the mother, and she was brilliant, and I recognized that.
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:56.159
And so we we did butt heads on things, and I usually just said yes, ma'am.
00:39:57.119 --> 00:39:57.679
Yeah.
00:39:57.920 --> 00:39:58.800
Well, yeah.
00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:03.360
At 89 and dementia, my mother would still say, I'm the mother.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.960
So I think that kind of continues on.
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:08.079
I think it does.
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:15.679
Um was there times that she that she supported you, encouraged you, that maybe surprised you?
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:18.320
Um or maybe you thought there would be conflict and there wasn't?
00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:32.159
I guess that the biggest surprise to me, and it should not have been a surprise to me, was when I went to my mother when I told her that I was gay.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:39.679
I think that's the biggest surprise to me in my life is that I had kept that back because I didn't want to disappoint her.
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:43.760
And she was not at all disappointed.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.440
She was concerned because she didn't think I was gonna have kids.
00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:55.679
And when I finally said, you know, I decided when I was 15, if I wasn't, if I didn't have kids by 40, it didn't matter if I married a man or a woman, there were no kids.
00:40:56.079 --> 00:41:00.400
Once that sunk in, she was she was fine.
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:08.000
And she was like, you know, all I ever want for you or your brother is for you to be happy, and so that surprised me.
00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:18.559
And I love knowing that she saw my brother and I both get married before she passed, and that she was happy knowing that we were both happy.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:21.840
Yeah, and isn't that what all parents want for their kids?
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:23.360
It's just for them to be happy.
00:41:23.519 --> 00:41:25.360
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:31.679
All right, so you brought some pictures with you today, and uh one in particular stood out to me.
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:33.760
How old is your mother in that picture?
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.760
Uh, let's see, she's probably 42.
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:39.679
Yeah, what what's going on there?
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:40.480
That looks fun.
00:41:40.639 --> 00:41:43.840
That looks like uh that looks like fun mom right there.
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:45.280
That's definitely fun mom.
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:47.519
This is the one that I I love so much.
00:41:47.679 --> 00:42:01.760
She's uh wearing a scarf, she has a velvet venock uh top on, and she is telling a story, which I am sure everyone is in rapt attention listening to her because she told a beautiful story.
00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:05.199
But she was a bit of a a hippie, a bit of a gypsy.
00:42:05.599 --> 00:42:11.519
Um mom never left the house without being fully dressed and with her lipstick on.
00:42:11.840 --> 00:42:23.440
And I I think that is you asked me earlier about us budding heads, and sometimes we butted heads over what we wore because I grew up a bit of a tomboy.
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:29.440
Um, when I was very young, I had torsion cables that I wore to keep my feet from turning in.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:40.880
So um, when mom would look for me, she would go outside and she would find my cables that I had unhooked and climbed the tree with one of my books, and I'd be up on the top of the tree reading a book.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:47.280
And so that's just kind of who I was, and it wasn't really who she was when she grew up.
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:48.800
She was very prim and proper.
00:42:48.880 --> 00:42:56.639
She wore a lot of dresses, she loved fashion, and she was beautiful from you can tell from the picture.
00:42:56.800 --> 00:42:58.400
She was a beautiful child.
00:42:58.719 --> 00:43:05.599
And uh this picture though is just so her in her early 40s at a party.
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:11.039
Um, surprised that she doesn't have a cigarette in her hand and a glass of wine in front of her, and she probably does.
00:43:11.199 --> 00:43:14.480
I just can't see it from the picture, but that's why I love this picture.
00:43:14.639 --> 00:43:26.639
She also does not have her glasses on, which is hysterical because uh my mom wore her glasses for all my life, even after she had cataract surgery, and the doctor said, You don't have to wear your glasses now, you can just wear readers.
00:43:26.960 --> 00:43:29.760
Mom couldn't do it because it was such a habit to wear glasses.
00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:33.360
So this picture is great because she doesn't even have glasses on in it.
00:43:33.679 --> 00:43:41.519
You were talking about people who were were drawn to her, but she wasn't funny because a lot of times people are drawn to people who are funny and entertaining.
00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:41.920
Right.
00:43:42.159 --> 00:43:47.840
But she had a charisma from her intelligence and I think so.
00:43:48.159 --> 00:43:48.639
I think so.
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:55.440
I think people were fascinated because she had such a wealth of knowledge from her reading.
00:43:55.599 --> 00:43:59.599
She was such a voracious reader, and uh I mom.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:11.280
Mom truly would tell you that education is so important, but alongside of that is reading, and that you should never stop reading, no matter how many degrees you have.
00:44:11.599 --> 00:44:18.320
And she read everything nonfiction, fiction, and she passed that on to me and on to my brother.
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:19.440
We're both big readers.
00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:23.599
She was just an an interesting person, and people like to be around interesting people.
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:24.159
Exactly.
00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:24.480
Right.
00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:24.960
Yes.
00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:27.519
This time has gone by really fast.
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:28.159
Yes.
00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:31.599
Uh I can talk now as much as my mother.
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:33.360
You've opened up.
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:34.159
I have.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:35.920
The inheritance finally hit.
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:36.159
Right.
00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:37.840
Well, she's not here anymore.
00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:38.320
So you can't.
00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:38.719
That's right.
00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:40.880
Now I now I have a a a space.
00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:41.920
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:44.719
So I want to ask you this as we kind of close.
00:44:44.800 --> 00:44:50.400
And and we've talked about um your love for the beach and your connection with your mom there.
00:44:51.519 --> 00:45:05.440
And if you were sitting now in your favorite spot on the beach with your mom, maybe drinking a glass of wine, whatever, uh, what would you want to ask her or just talk about?
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:07.760
That's a really good question.
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:20.880
I I've thought about it a lot because part of me has wished that she could be here to talk through politics or religion or any big heavy subjects.
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:32.079
But I think really if I could talk to her about anything, it would probably be about music.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:33.199
Music.
00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:37.440
Yeah, that's something Was music a big part of her life?
00:45:37.760 --> 00:45:40.800
It was a huge part of her life uh growing up.
00:45:41.039 --> 00:45:43.840
She made it a big part of our lives growing up.
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:48.480
We grew up listening to her jazz and her blues albums and then folk albums.
00:45:48.559 --> 00:45:58.159
There were a lot of Carly Simon and Carol King and James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and and then all of the great jazz musicians.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:09.599
And we we talked a lot, we listened a lot to music, and I wish I had an opportunity to talk to her more specifically about music if we were sitting there.
00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:20.079
So I can kind of imagine us being on the beach together in that happy place for both of us, listening to music and just talking about it.
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:21.360
That's awesome.
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:27.199
So who who today would she that you would want to share with her?
00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:29.360
Oh, you gotta hear this.
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:33.840
Well, I'd have to make sure she heard Brandy Carlisle.
00:46:34.480 --> 00:46:42.559
Um mom always had a way of finding new artists, and I remember Indy RE when her album came out.
00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:46.960
Um, mom loved it and listened to it over and over again.
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:49.920
Mom was a big Nina Simone fan.
00:46:50.719 --> 00:46:52.880
And um I'm feeling good.
00:46:53.440 --> 00:46:54.400
Exactly.
00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:59.679
And I think the big one would probably also be John Baptiste.
00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:02.880
I I can see my mom would have adored him.
00:47:03.039 --> 00:47:07.199
And when he played, I think a year or so ago, he played Carnegie Hall.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:12.239
And I thought, oh, mom would have taken that trip to New York with me and gone to see him in Carnegie Hall.
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:12.960
Fine.
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:13.519
Yeah.
00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:14.480
That's awesome.
00:47:14.639 --> 00:47:15.360
That's great.
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:17.440
Uh what a fun conversation that would be.
00:47:17.599 --> 00:47:18.800
Well, yeah, I think so.
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:19.360
I do.
00:47:19.599 --> 00:47:20.880
Well, thank you for being here today.
00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:22.159
This has been a fun conversation.
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:23.360
Thank you so much, Sue.
00:47:23.599 --> 00:47:36.000
I appreciate uh, you know, I recognize there's a level of vulnerability to doing this, but I think I think we're in a time, and maybe we always have been, but it seems like even more so now that we need that.
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:52.400
Because I think with with social media and all the things that we only show the good stuff and the perfect pictures and the perfect family and all the happy things, and uh the authenticity that I think that you're sharing today is is what kind of we need.
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:52.960
Thank you.
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:54.079
So I appreciate it.
00:47:54.320 --> 00:47:58.000
And thank you, listeners, uh, for joining us today uh as well.
00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:10.719
Some people have told me that that one of the things that they really like about these conversations is that it is helping them think through their current relationship with their mother that's still living.
00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:16.559
And I think that's kind of uh kind of interesting and uh really good as well.
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:26.159
And so maybe some of this conversation today will will help with that or uh help you relive some memories or think back on some memories that you have uh with your mom.
00:48:26.320 --> 00:48:27.679
So thank you for listening.
00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:33.360
Don't forget to uh subscribe and also check out the YouTube and the Facebook page.
00:48:33.599 --> 00:48:38.559
And as Bobby Seal used to say, be patient, be kind, and be fair.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.879
Hello everyone and welcome to A Daughter's Inheritance.
00:00:02.959 --> 00:00:08.000
I'm Susan Seal, your host, and I am happy that you're gonna uh be with us today.
00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:14.320
I wanted to talk just a minute about a video that we recently did on quilts.
00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:21.839
If you remember from the first episode, I talked about my mother and my grandmother and even my great-grandmother who were quilters.
00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:28.879
And since then, several guests have talked about how their mothers or even some aunts were uh quilters as well.
00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:36.640
So we did a video showing some of the quilts that I had, uh talked about some of the stories, uh, some of the quilts back to 1930.
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:43.520
And uh I've just gotten a lot of really good uh comments and feedback on it, so I wanted to make you aware of that.
00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:46.320
And we'll be doing more videos like that.
00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:53.039
So those are on YouTube, a daughter's inheritance on YouTube, and on Facebook, so you can see those.
00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:58.479
And I am having so much fun uh with our conversations with our guest.
00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:14.719
And I know Kate Gregory and I, in in her conversation, talked about how it's kind of an oral history, it's uh giving us an opportunity to share the story and the history of our mothers and our families.
00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:20.400
And I think that's uh really been special for our guests and certainly for me, and I think for our listeners as well.
00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:22.239
And I think today will be no different.
00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:24.799
I am happy to welcome Jen folks.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:26.319
Welcome, glad you're here.
00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:26.879
Thank you.
00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:27.680
Thanks for having me.
00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:28.480
Absolutely.
00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:36.719
So, Jen uh is the tasting room manager at Queen's Reward Metery in Tupelo, Mississippi.
00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:37.280
That's right.
00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:40.560
And uh live in Fulton, which is just outside of Tupelo, right?
00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:41.920
Just just a little bit outside.
00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:48.239
And that's about an hour north of where we are here in Startwell, which that sounds like a pretty fun job working in a meteory.
00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:49.680
It's really a lot of fun.
00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:51.359
Yeah, you get to see people having fun.
00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:52.560
Yes, I do.
00:01:53.599 --> 00:02:01.200
Quite often we start with the early years of uh your your mother.
00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:21.840
You know, research shows that um you can tell I work at a university, I start something with research shows that that early family dynamics has an impact on the health of the adult as well as the relationships as they become adults.
00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:29.039
So I think starting with that, those early years and looking a little bit about that family dynamic, we see that showing up as they get older.
00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:35.280
So, what do you know about your your mother as a as a child, her growing up years?
00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:42.719
Well, being the keeper of the genealogy of our family, I think I know a little bit about my mom growing up.
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:45.120
She was born in 1942.
00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:50.000
Her name was Martha Vandora McElhannan, that's her maiden name.
00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:52.719
Uh, she was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:59.039
So we're gonna go across the state lines for the first time, I think, in this podcast, but that's gonna be fun for some Bama friends.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:08.960
She grew up the daughter of parents who were also from Alabama, and she was a very happy child.
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:17.199
She was a very good girl, she did everything correctly, and mom was uh an extrovert from early on.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:23.439
She she took all the all the air out of the room, I guess is how you would phrase it.
00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:36.000
Uh, I've talked to her sister, and her sister said she kind of felt a little bit invisible when my mom came in a room because mom really did uh not really put on a show, but she she definitely could turn it on.
00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:36.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:37.599
Very smart.
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:39.039
She was a straight A student.
00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:41.280
Every grade my mother ever got was an A.
00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:50.479
She was an overachiever uh when she was young, all the way through high school, and she went to Woodlawn High School in right inside Birmingham.
00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:55.599
So let the record show we're sitting in Starfield, Mississippi, and we're appealing to Alabama fans.
00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:57.280
Well, I didn't say that you did.
00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:01.680
It's not something that I normally do, but yes, that's good.
00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:02.240
That's good.
00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:05.120
So what what was her mother like?
00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.360
Did she have a strong influence on her?
00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:08.800
What kind of relationship did they have?
00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:10.960
They had a very strong relationship.
00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:13.840
My grandmother and I were very close.
00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:29.600
Uh my grandmother, her name was Valeria Esther, and she was a Gilchrist, and her uh family married into the Walker family in Alabama, and um she had a big influence over my mother.
00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:31.040
Um, let me think.
00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:36.879
How do I describe my grandmother was one of four children?
00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:45.360
She had a sister who was uh deceased in infancy, she had three brothers, and she grew up in Cordova, Alabama on Walker Hill, which was a farm.
00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:47.279
So my grandmother was a farm girl.
00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:51.600
Um it was the oldest farmhouse in the state of Alabama.
00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:59.040
We have a sheepskin in the family signed by John Quincy Adams, proclaiming it as the oldest farmhouse in Alabama.
00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:05.199
And um so Graham was a farm girl and she raised her girls in the city in Birmingham.
00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:07.360
Okay, I was gonna say, was your mother your mother wasn't a farm girl?
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:09.680
My mother was nothing close to a farm girl.
00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:14.560
Also gonna be a little bit different than some of the stories that I've heard, but mom was a city girl for sure.
00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:16.639
Now, what was your grandmother's first name?
00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:17.519
Valeria.
00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:18.319
Valeria.
00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:20.879
And it gets confused with Valerie a lot of times.
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:23.439
So a lot of her friends just called her Val.
00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:24.000
Okay.
00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:33.680
Her coworkers and the the Graham ended up being the vice president of a bank in Florida, and her uh employees called her Miss Mac.
00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.120
So you either heard Val or Miss Mac about my grandmother.
00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:40.560
Okay, so they had a good relationship, they did have a good relationship.
00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:54.000
So she wasn't like her mother in the sense of being the farm girl, but were there some other influences of that she was like her, or was it a uh were they very different in other ways as well?
00:05:54.319 --> 00:06:03.759
I think they were similar in that the women in my family are strongly independent, they're very strong-willed, they're very stubborn.
00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.120
So they they were a lot alike in those ways.
00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:21.120
As my mother got older and became an adult and married my dad, she went her own way as far as independence, her own thoughts and her own beliefs.
00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:29.439
And so I think she and my grandmother kind of diversed in that in some ways, but they remained a close mother-daughter relationship.
00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:33.759
Uh, my grandmother was always very nurturing about my mother.
00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:41.439
My mother was born kind of sickly, so I think that impacted how my grandmother viewed my mother even in adulthood.
00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:46.399
She felt like mother always needed to be cared for and looked after.
00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:48.240
Did you see that throughout her life?
00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:49.040
I did.
00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:49.759
I did.
00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:53.839
Your your your dad or you or who took care of her?
00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:56.160
It was not my dad.
00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:58.319
My grandmother just always kept her eyes on.
00:06:58.560 --> 00:06:59.199
Your grandmother did.
00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:01.519
Yeah, my grandmother kept her eyes on my mom.
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:03.600
And how old did your grandmother live to be?
00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:04.480
100.
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:04.959
Wow.
00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:06.480
She was born in 1915.
00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.160
She bore uh she passed away in 2015.
00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:10.720
Wow.
00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:12.800
So she kept her eye on her for a long time.
00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:13.439
She did.
00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:14.240
She did.
00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:16.160
Uh okay, so you mentioned your dad.
00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:19.199
So how did uh your mother and your dad meet?
00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:28.959
So mom and dad, uh well, let me back up a little bit because my my grandmother and her husband were friends with my dad's mom and dad.
00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:29.600
Okay.
00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:33.920
And then my mom and dad met at Woodlawn High School.
00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:36.240
They were both part of the Glee Club.
00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:39.279
Uh, they both loved English.
00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:44.160
So that's kind of where they met in high school, fell in love, got out of high school.
00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:53.519
My mom registered, she was the first person to register at Howard College, which became Sanford University in Birmingham in 1965.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:08:00.639
But it was Howard College when mom was the first one at the registration window to register, and she was going to be an English major.
00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:09.920
My dad went to the University of Alabama to also major in English, and he actually became an English teacher and later became a principal.
00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:23.680
He went the administrative route, but they both were very much readers and wordsmiths, so their love for English and for reading is is part of what drew them together, I think.
00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:24.959
So high school sweetheart.
00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:26.560
High school sweetheart, yeah.
00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:28.160
Uh, and you like to read.
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:33.840
So is that that's from both of your parents, you kind of gained definitely from that from both of them.
00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:41.759
I do not remember living in a home that did not have bookshelves and was overflowing of books.
00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:43.840
Now, did she finish her degree?
00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:45.440
Mom did not finish her degree.
00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:45.919
Okay.
00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:56.879
She actually started working to put my dad through college so he could finish, so he could get his degree, because this was back in the early 60s, early to mid-60s.
00:08:57.039 --> 00:09:05.519
Um, so she put daddy through college and she found herself as a young married woman pregnant with a daughter, me.
00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:10.639
And so she took care of me while daddy finished college, got his degree.
00:09:10.879 --> 00:09:16.879
You showed me uh you sent me a picture of an article, two articles the other day about your mother and your grandmother.
00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:19.519
And they were both 19.
00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:20.000
Right.
00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:23.279
And one of the things you said I thought was really interesting.
00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:26.320
Uh, you know, here were their plans when they were 19.
00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:28.159
It doesn't always turn out that way.
00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:44.159
So how did their individual plans at 19 change from because I mean most of us, you know, I I I think at 19 I was gonna be a a lawyer, and then when I took a law class, I decided I really just wanted to argue.
00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:47.440
I didn't I didn't want to have to study all the law stuff.
00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:48.000
Right.
00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:51.519
Yeah, those articles were very telling.
00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.440
They were both 19 years old.
00:09:53.600 --> 00:10:06.960
My grandmother had won a beauty contest, and as part of the beauty contest, she went to Atlanta, Georgia, and she was interviewed by a newspaper over there that asked her in 1934 what her plans were.
00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:23.039
And she said very confidently, as I can imagine my grandmother would have at age 19, she was planning to take a pre-law class also at Howard College, and then her plan was to go to Columbia University to get her law degree, and then she was going into politics.
00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:33.440
Well, that seemed to really impress the newspaper man who was interviewing her because he had never in the 30s heard of a woman going into politics.
00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:40.080
And she also told him that she could never see a woman president, but that she knew that it was gonna happen one day.
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:40.879
I gotcha.
00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:42.240
So very interesting.
00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:56.559
And then my mom's article at 19, she was registering for Howard College, so you can see a similar thread there, and her plan was to go into English, and she was either going to teach like my father or go on to law school.
00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:02.799
So those are are both kind of paths that they both thought they were gonna go on, but life happened.
00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:05.200
I think children happened to both of them.
00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.080
Um, my mom was born in 1942.
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:14.080
Of course, they my grandmother had to go through um, she was pregnant with mom through World War II.
00:11:14.399 --> 00:11:18.480
And so life did happen to both of them on different levels.
00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:25.120
And they found their paths out beyond that once they had children.
00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:46.639
My grandmother actually got her degree and she taught home economics at Cahaba Heights High School in Birmingham, and uh then she and my grandfather ended up later on moving to Florida because her brother owned a car, a uh car dealership in South Central Florida.
00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:49.759
My grandfather was a salesman, he was a very good salesman.
00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:54.639
So my uncle said, I think I need John Mack to come and work for me and sell cars down here.
00:11:54.799 --> 00:12:10.879
So moving my grandparents to Florida, my dad got out of college, he had his teaching degree, he and my mom took me at before I turned four down to South Central Florida, and my dad started teaching down there, and my mom started working at a bank.
00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:14.720
My grandmother worked at a bank in Florida, my mother worked at a bank in Florida.
00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:27.759
So again, there's a lot of similarities in my grandmother's work and life and my mother's that I never really put together until I started sitting down and thinking about it, but they they had a lot of similarities.
00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:33.679
Yeah, even though you think with the starting off with country girl, city girl, but so many parallels.
00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:34.000
Yeah.
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:45.919
What has surprised you or you've kind of unearthed that you've either found out or remembered, or maybe came to a recognition for yourself?
00:12:46.240 --> 00:13:11.600
I think going through and putting down my thoughts on a timeline helped me to see the five-year gap that my mom was a single parent with two young children and that she found a way to keep a roof over our heads and keep um food on our table and to raise us the best way that she could and take care of us.
00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:14.240
And my grandparents were always right there too.
00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:18.559
Um but I think that's the biggest thing, seeing the strength that she had.
00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:39.840
I say a lot of times that people who met my mom in Mississippi, because we can get to that in a minute, but um, people who met my mom in Mississippi don't know her when she was young and vibrant in Florida and surrounded by friends, and she was she just was a force when we were growing up.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:45.519
You would not have thought a single parent did not slow her down in raising us.
00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:47.360
Okay, so let's go back a little bit.
00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.320
You you moved to Florida when you were four.
00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:53.679
How long did you did y'all did you live there?
00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:57.440
Uh I lived in Florida until I was almost 24.
00:13:57.519 --> 00:13:58.799
So I grew up down there.
00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:00.399
Yeah, you're you're growing up.
00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:04.799
So we went from high school sweethearts, and now you're talking about a single mom.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:06.159
Something happened.
00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:08.960
Fill that gap in for us.
00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:09.759
Yeah.
00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:17.679
Um, so they moved to Florida, and my parents my mom was pregnant with my brother and had him.
00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:19.519
He's six years younger than I am.
00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:22.159
So in he was born in 1972.
00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:29.600
About a year later, my parents divorced, and it was a very difficult time in all of our lives.
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:34.000
And my mom finally she found herself being a single parent.
00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:44.399
Uh, we still have visitation with my dad in Florida, but he he remarried pretty quickly after they divorced, so we didn't spend a lot of time with him.
00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:48.960
So we moved around a lot during that time.
00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:53.279
I never lived in one single home.
00:14:53.519 --> 00:15:01.759
So I never had the advantage of growing up in one home and having my grandparents next door.
00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:05.840
My grandparents lived in the same town that we did, but they didn't live right next door.
00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:09.120
There wasn't any really running next door to get anything.
00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:15.600
Um, but the that's kind of how that that shift happened after we got to Florida.
00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:21.840
My parents had wanted to move to Florida so I would have a good school system, that it was an integrated school system.
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:26.159
They grew up during the civil rights era in Birmingham, Alabama.
00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.480
They were both very outspoken.
00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:37.120
I I was a daddy's girl, and I thought he hung the moon and he played classical piano.
00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:41.759
He learned to speak Russian, he found himself blacklisted.
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.320
Um, they lived in Syracuse, New York for a bit.
00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:48.960
So in the 60s, when there were blacklists, he found himself on that list.
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:56.240
So they were uh they were very unique in being Southerners, but kind of renaissance.
00:15:56.639 --> 00:15:57.200
They were, yeah.
00:15:57.440 --> 00:15:58.159
They were.
00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:04.559
So I I I think they just really and truly, mom would say they married too early.
00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:10.639
Uh sometimes being high school sweethearts works and sometimes it doesn't.
00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:15.120
And she would say, My dad didn't have enough time to grow up before they got married.
00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.240
Um, but she loved him until the day she died.
00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:25.200
We were talking about high school reunions the other day at work, and somebody said, I'm not going to my high school reunion.
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:32.559
And I said, Well, and I've heard people say this, you know, your 10-year reunion, everybody goes back and they're trying to impress each other.
00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:43.279
And then when you get in your 30-year reunion or 25-year reunion, people are divorcing and it's messy and a lot of people don't come and whatever.
00:16:43.679 --> 00:16:48.000
But then when you get up to those higher years, it is so great to see everybody.
00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:55.919
And what you realize is those people that you didn't like when they were 18, well, they're not the same person they were they were when they were 18, and neither are you.
00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:56.240
Right.
00:16:56.399 --> 00:17:02.960
So as you kind of you you're not, you know, at that age, kind of who you are gonna be sometimes.
00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:03.440
Yeah.
00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.640
So after they divorced, you were still close to your dad.
00:17:06.799 --> 00:17:10.160
I mean, you said you didn't see him a lot, but you didn't still didn't see him a lot.
00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:19.119
We we had the typical uh having divorced parents when you are in the night early 1970s um was difficult.
00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:31.119
I had uh a best friend that I was not allowed to go spend the night at her house anymore because my parents were divorced and her parents were very devout in their faith, and I guess it was contagious, maybe.
00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:49.039
Um, I'm not sure what the reasoning was, but it was not popular in the early 70s, and so I felt kind of like I had a Scarlet S on me, even though I wasn't the one that had gone through this, and that kind of stayed with me because we did move a lot.
00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:51.519
I changed schools several times.
00:17:51.759 --> 00:18:02.400
I felt like I had to reinvent who I was at each school that I went to, and at the time it was very difficult because I was very shy as a young girl.
00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:05.920
I think part of that comes from having an extroverted mother who talks a lot.
00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:06.960
You didn't have a chance.
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:08.640
I did not have a chance to say much.
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.920
So I learned to keep my mouth shut and be a good girl.
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:12.240
Uh-huh.
00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:24.960
I can remember so so many aspects of growing up with a mother who's very outgoing and outspoken seemed to not help me to come into myself until I I was grown.
00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:26.160
Because you didn't have to.
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:27.200
She she carried it.
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:28.559
Yeah, she carried it 100%.
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:31.279
So, what kind of parent was she?
00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:33.839
Was she soft on you?
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:35.599
Was she disciplinarian?
00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:43.359
She was mom was definitely the disciplinarian, except that she never spanked me.
00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:47.599
There was never any physical spanking.
00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:49.039
Mom could give that look.
00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:51.359
And I think I've heard you talk about this before.
00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:54.799
I had a very healthy fear of my mother.
00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:58.640
And if mother gave me that look, I knew I was pushing too far.
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:06.960
Because, you know, especially as a junior high or high schooler, you've got all this angst going on, and you are just not a kind person to live with.
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.160
But if I pushed the boundary too far, she would just give me a look.
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:15.279
Uh, she was also very good at allowing me freedom.
00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:18.480
She was the parent that all of my friends loved my mother.
00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.559
They thought she was the coolest person in the world.
00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:29.519
They all had very conservative families, parents, and here is my mom who smoked and drank and watched Saturday Night Live.
00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:31.359
None of my friends could do that at home.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:33.039
So they would come to my house.
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.480
And so she was very open.
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.279
She was very good at listening.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:43.680
And my friends all enjoyed talking to my mom.
00:19:44.079 --> 00:20:07.039
I I have learned as an adult things I did not know about my mom is the friends that she talked to, my friends that she talked to, my cousins, my first cousins that she talked to, to hear them talk about how they would sit up late at night because my mom was a night owl, and they would drink coffee with her on her porch.
00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:15.119
No matter where we lived, if they came to see her, she would sit and listen and give them advice, and they valued that.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:17.440
They still think back about those times.
00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:24.240
And I was totally unaware growing up that that she had that kind of relationship, even with my own first cousins.
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:26.160
We hear you hear Kool-Aid moms.
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:27.119
Yours was the coffee mom.
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:29.200
Yes, my mom was definitely the coffee mom.
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:31.039
That's fun.
00:20:31.279 --> 00:20:37.599
It surprises me that it has taken this far in to the podcast for us to s to mention Saturday Night Live.
00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:39.920
That's the first time that's come up.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:42.000
I can't believe it's taken us that long.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.480
Did she treat you and your brother the same?
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:52.559
Was it as because a lot of times we talk about, you know, the the sons different, the mother-son relationships different than the the daughter.
00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:54.079
How did you see that?
00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:00.160
I think she treated us differently in some ways, but it wasn't necessarily my mom that treated us different.
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:01.599
It was because we were so different.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:03.759
My brother was very strong-willed.
00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:05.519
He got in trouble a lot.
00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:08.160
Um, so he got spankings or switches.
00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:12.880
I don't know if you're familiar with the uh the switch and that you have to go cut one off the tree.
00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:19.279
That was something my grandmother had, and my mother turned that into um a fly swatter.
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:26.720
Yeah, she would use a fly swat sometimes, and my brother was so strong-willed that no amount of switching his legs was gonna change.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:27.920
No, no.
00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:30.319
Yeah, I do remember my grandmother was that way.
00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:32.000
You go get a switch off that bush.
00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:37.200
And probably most people, the first time that happens, you you pick a small one.
00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:38.000
Right.
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:40.480
And then you realize, ow.
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:47.839
And then you realize, you know, if this if it's a thicker one, it doesn't actually hurt as bad as those little ones.
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:49.519
The little ones that'll get you.
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:55.279
So and that that was hard because I I watched that happen to him.
00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:58.559
And don't get me wrong, they were not beating this child.
00:21:58.720 --> 00:21:59.119
Oh, sure, yeah.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.839
He deserved every beat.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:00.400
Of it.
00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:05.680
But it still hurt my little heart because I was very tenderhearted about my brother from the get-go.
00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:11.440
When they put this little baby in my arms as a six-year-old, I thought he was mine.
00:22:11.839 --> 00:22:14.079
That's mom brought him home for me.
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:18.799
And so it was up to me to protect him and to watch out for him.
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:23.759
And so I spent most of his childhood until he got married.
00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.000
And that's I took that responsibility on.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.960
And that was not her making me do that.
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:34.640
I think there was some instinctive nurturing of me that wanted to take care of him.
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:37.200
Mom was working as a single parent.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.519
So that was different in in our lives.
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:43.440
Uh, she was able to stay home with me, but with him, she was working all the time.
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:46.720
So I became very responsible for him when he started school.
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:47.680
I rode the bus.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:51.759
I picked him up the school bus at the bus stop and walked him home.
00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:53.359
And that was our life.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.480
I I watched after my brother for a lot of years.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:56.880
Yeah.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:22:58.240
And y'all are still close.
00:22:58.480 --> 00:22:59.119
We are still close.
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:02.079
As you know, I have a brother uh as as well.
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:08.079
And uh he he said he got a lot more spankins than I did uh because he was a boy.
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:09.680
I think it was just because he was bad.
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:16.480
But now he did not, yeah, he was older than me and probably the girl boy thing.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.279
But I think he was like, when is she going back?
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.559
It wasn't a oh didn't want to keep you.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:23.200
Yeah, no.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:24.480
Okay.
00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:26.640
She's been here a week.
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:28.240
Yeah, when does she go back?
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:29.279
Yeah, can we get rid of her?
00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:47.599
But but we are close now, and I know I've heard you talk about your brother and nieces, and my brother has four children, two girls and two boys, and they are the loves of my life because I don't have children, and I have tried to pour into them everything that an aunt extraordinaire could pour into them.
00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:55.680
And because my mom was gone, I also tried to pour in that missing aspect of having a grandmother uh into their lives.
00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:59.200
So I've tried to share with them some family history and things as well.
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:01.200
You mentioned your dad got remarried.
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:02.720
Did your mother get remarried?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:03.359
She did.
00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:04.880
And when was that?
00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:08.240
So that was um 79.
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:30.480
I was 12, and my brother was about to turn six when she remarried my stepdad, and they were married for 12 years, and he was a Michigander, so we're varying way out of the southern routes, but he had come to the city we live in, lived in in Florida, as a race car driver.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:38.640
So we grew up in a little city called Sebring, Florida, it's about two hours south of Orlando, and it is known for an IMSA race.
00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:54.160
And my stepdad drove for Volvo and he was in town, and he happened to come by where mom was working at the bank and met her and asked her on a date, and it was the first guy that she had really dated, and they ended up getting married.
00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:58.960
Um it might have been a year later, I don't remember how long they dated before they got married.
00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:00.480
I mean, that does sound impressive.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:02.079
I'm dating a race car driver, right?
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:03.200
I mean, yeah, yeah.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.400
In in a race car city, that does sound pretty impressive.
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:07.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.359
So, what was it like as a 12-year-old uh to have your mother dating?
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:13.759
I don't know that I thought about her dating.
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.880
I I had entered that phase of my mom was not cool to me.
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:29.279
My stepdad, because I was such a daddy's girl when I was older, my stepdad did not have any children before he married my mom.
00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:32.240
And he was just he was a great guy.
00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:34.640
I just wasn't giving him a chance.
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.440
And later on in life, he and we reconnected.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:49.519
My brother and my stepdad and I all reconnected, and it's so different to look back at those years and think that things might have been different.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:56.640
He really tried, he helped me rebuild a car, my first car, because he was a really good car guy.
00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:04.400
Um, he was really funny, and I've mentioned my mom was not funny, but my stepdad was pretty funny.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:11.680
He was the king of dad jokes, and my brother picked up a lot of my stepdad's sense of humor.
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:14.079
My brother is the king of dad jokes now.
00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:19.519
His kids just cringe when he tells jokes because he's he's so good at it.
00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:22.079
Typical dad jokes, yeah.
00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:25.599
So did your mother try to be funny or she didn't try at all?
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:26.319
She didn't try.
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:27.359
She just wasn't funny.
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:28.480
She just wasn't funny.
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:33.440
She, I think she, well, I say she didn't try, but the few times she tried, she wasn't funny.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:34.640
The jokes fell flat.
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:34.960
Uh-huh.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:38.720
So she she was a quick learner and she was like, okay, that's not, I should stay in my lane.
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:39.039
Right.
00:26:39.359 --> 00:26:47.519
So she was very smart, and we played a lot of games growing up, and one of the games we played was Trivial Pursuit.
00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:53.200
And so we would play teams against mom because you could not beat the woman at Trivial Pursuit.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:54.319
She knew too much.
00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:58.079
So she she learned which lane was better for her, and it wasn't comedy.
00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:03.359
Okay, we've got Saturday Night Live and Trivial Pursuit in one podcast.
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:05.119
That's fun.
00:27:05.359 --> 00:27:08.160
You've said you've had a special connection to the beach.
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:11.519
And you just came back from the beach not too long ago.
00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:12.480
I did.
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:17.039
Was that something special with you and your mom, you and your family?
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:19.359
What is her connection with you?
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:21.839
Because I think you said I feel close to her here.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:36.079
So where we grew up in South Central Florida, we were two hours from the beach, two hours to uh Jupiter, which is just north of Palm Beach on the east coast, or Venice Beach, which is over on the west coast, on the Gulf Coast.
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:45.759
And I should probably take a minute and explain that growing up in South Central Florida, we did not recognize the panhandle of Florida as part of the state.
00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:51.039
It is not something I knew existed until I moved to Mississippi because we were so close to the beach.
00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:51.279
Yeah.
00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:57.039
Um, we just didn't we never thought about going to the panhandle to go to Panama City or to go to Destin.
00:27:57.279 --> 00:27:59.279
So growing up, we drove two hours.
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:14.559
We usually took a Saturday, went out really early, and my mom and stepdad and my brother and I, we would all go to the beach, and my mom would set up the chair, and she would sit and read the entire time we were on the beach, and we would play in the sand and play in the water.
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:26.720
But it was that constant of knowing that she was right there and she was more at peace and more calm and happier than any other time when she was at the beach.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:34.319
She came back home when we would we would sleep on the way home, and when we would get home, she was so relaxed.
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:39.519
And in my life, I don't have a lot of memories of mom being relaxed.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:45.200
So that's that's a good re it's a good memory for me, and I find that I do the same thing.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:29:02.079
So that's why when we talk about different ways of inheritance, that's one of the things I inherited from her is just the the calm of my spirit when I'm at the beach, and that's why I connect with her when I'm at the beach because I I can feel her smiling.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:12.480
When she passed, I said, I feel like she's probably not in a gold mansion, but on a beach somewhere listening to Jimmy Buffett.
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.359
That's how I like to envision mom in heaven.
00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:16.640
Do you read?
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:19.839
Is that something that that you kind of do what she did then?
00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:27.839
That's that's a big part of the inheritance that she has given me has been a love for reading, a love for words.
00:29:28.319 --> 00:29:34.240
Um, I learned in the second grade, I made I wrote my first research paper.
00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:35.440
It was on Eskimos.
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:36.960
She kept it all of her life.
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:37.359
Uh-huh.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:42.160
And um I loved reading and writing.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:50.000
And I decided after high school that I would um major in journalism because of my love for words.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.480
I worked at a newspaper bureau and I loved writing.
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:59.519
So it's a little bit funny that you love the beach so much, but your your research paper was on Eskimos.
00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:00.960
I yes, it is.
00:30:01.119 --> 00:30:03.839
I think it I I don't necessarily heat.
00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:06.079
Yeah.
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:11.599
Did uh did you and your mom go to the beach as as a adults when you were an adult?
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:12.799
Not as much.
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:14.319
She would have liked to.
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:23.359
Um mom was in a really bad car accident my right after my junior year of high school, and it was life-changing for her.
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.519
It uh she was T-boned by a truck going across a highway.
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:32.000
It threw her from the driver's seat under the dashboard of the passenger's seat.
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:36.559
And the EMTs told her that if she had worn her seatbelt, she probably would have died.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:45.839
So it she ended up in a two-thirds body cast, and so that was how my senior year kind of turned out to be.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:56.240
And so from that moment on of that accident forward, she struggled physically more than any other time in life.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:05.680
Um, she wasn't able to go places and do the things that we had done together growing up.
00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:08.559
Uh, so she kind of became a different person.
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:14.079
And I think when you physically struggle, you of course also mentally struggle.
00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:21.599
And she had a lot of struggles because when your body won't do what your mind wants it to do, that's very frustrating.
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:26.559
So we did not take as many trips to the beach as I was an adult.
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:34.240
By the time uh I was an adult, I was kind of living my own life and we just weren't able to get to the beach.
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:38.559
It's probably the biggest regret that I have is not making to the beach one last time with her.
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:39.920
How long was she in the hospital?
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:41.200
Uh several weeks.
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:44.240
Uh I don't even remember how many weeks.
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:46.480
It's probably somewhat of a blur for you.
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:47.119
It was.
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:51.920
I I remember her coming home from the hospital in the body cast.
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:55.680
I remember the hospital bed in their bedroom.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:57.839
I remember my friends coming to visit.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:04.640
That's why I remember the SNL because they would all gather in the bedroom, and that's what she'd be watching on Saturday night.
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:08.559
So that's where my friends spent their Saturday nights uh with my mom.
00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:10.720
So I do remember that part.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:13.920
But senior year was was hard going through all that.
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:24.079
I graduated with honors, but I then made the decision not to go away to college, to stay at home and help take care of mom, help take care of my little brother.
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:29.200
And so I went to a junior college, and I'm gonna make it a full circle Succeel moment.
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:37.279
I was awarded a rotary scholarship when I went to junior college that paid for my books.
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:40.799
The academic scholarship from school paid for everything else.
00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:46.000
So that was my first two years of college, was staying at home and going to the junior college.
00:32:46.640 --> 00:32:47.680
You're a caregiver.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:54.400
I mean, you've talked about taking care of your little brother, you've talked about taking care of your mom and not going to school staying there.
00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:58.799
Uh was she a caregiver also?
00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:07.359
Or was that somewhat inherited or in spite of, or your grandmother, or where did that come from for you?
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:09.279
I think that came from my grandmother.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:19.839
My mother was very independent, and my grandmother had gone through um when she was very young, her mother and father were absent.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:26.400
Her dad had been in a a bad accident, and so she had been farmed out to her grandmother's house.
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:34.960
So my grandmother was a very nurturing woman, and I think that's where I get my nurturing spirit, um, is from my grandmother.
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:46.559
She was the um as ambitious as she was at 19, she was the the one in the family who darned the socks, who did the sewing, who did some quilting.
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:50.319
I mean, she was a home egg teacher, so she knew how to do all of those things.
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:52.880
She is the one that I learned how to cook from.
00:33:53.200 --> 00:33:58.400
My mother's cooking was more elevated, but my grandmother's cooking was delicious.
00:33:58.559 --> 00:33:58.799
Okay.
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:05.119
Um, so all of those good southern things, fried chicken to uh roast.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:15.599
Uh, we had Sunday dinners at my grandparents' growing up in Florida, even though we weren't in Mississippi or Alabama, uh, we had Sunday dinners at my grandparents every weekend.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:19.280
And Graham was the one who who taught me how to love cooking.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:20.639
Yeah, that's fun.
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:24.320
It's funny how uh cooking is such a cultural thing in the South.
00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:26.719
It's such a it almost comes up almost every time.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:35.920
And a lot of times I I ask it because I like cooking too, but it's interesting to see uh those whose mother or grandmother was a good cook.
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.639
It often gets passed down, and those who my mother couldn't cook, and neither could I.
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:42.159
Right.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:44.639
It seems to be a a thread there.
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:46.079
Yeah, definitely.
00:34:46.400 --> 00:34:49.679
You talked about your mother being friends with your friends.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.639
Uh what kind of friends did she have?
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.239
Was she did she have a lot of friends or was she did?
00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:08.639
She um in Florida, she had friends uh she had friends from church, and a lot of her friends actually were the mothers of my brother's parents.
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:09.280
Okay.
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:12.000
So uh there was a whole group of them.
00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:13.679
They all had boys.
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:18.000
Um, so mom was friends with all of these boys' moms.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:28.800
And uh years later, mom and I both read the Rebecca Wells book, The Divine Sisterhood, uh Yaya Sisterhood, and the uh Little Altars Everywhere.
00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:35.519
And then the movie came out, of course, and we watched the movie together and we just sobbed and boohooed.
00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:47.679
And not just because of the content of the story, but because of the realization that she had her Yaya friends in Florida, and those friends would have died for her.
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:53.199
They would, anytime you needed somebody, uh, they they could call on each other.
00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:59.119
And so when she moved to Mississippi, she left a lot of that behind.
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:07.519
And I think that also uh impacted her mentally and the way that she felt kind of alone when she moved to Mississippi.
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:35.840
She didn't have those connections, and I think it's kind of why she leaned into a friendship with me as an adult, because she just didn't have those yaya friends that she had in Florida, and now because of that example of hers, I've discovered that my friendships are so important, and friendships with women are so important to me to have those yayas, that close circle of friends.
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:36.639
Yeah.
00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:43.360
As an adult, it's hard to to make those friends, it's hard to break into when you've moved.
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:50.559
I mean, we think about it with kids moving to different schools, but they're fairly resilient, and you've got all these ways to make friends.
00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:55.840
But as an adult woman, it's kind of hard to break into.
00:36:56.239 --> 00:36:58.639
It's very hard, I think, as adult women.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:08.719
And I think if you are, I think there are a lot of women who become friends with their children's parents, just like mom did.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:08.960
Sure.
00:37:09.199 --> 00:37:11.840
That's the the having children is the commonality.
00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:24.239
But as the children grow up and move off, then you have women that you don't have that these women don't have a a common bond in their children, so somehow they've got to meet.
00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:26.800
And I do think that it's a a struggle for adults.
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:29.360
I think the older that we get, the harder it becomes.
00:37:29.599 --> 00:37:30.320
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:32.239
Did she keep in touch with them at all?
00:37:32.480 --> 00:37:35.119
Uh she did with one in particular.
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:43.199
Um, she definitely was uh still close with an attorney friend's wife.
00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:51.840
Uh when I worked as a paralegal, I worked for uh Jim McCollum and his wife Sue and my mom were really good friends.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:58.639
And uh so mom and Sue talked by Facebook and email and things and kept in touch.
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:03.440
So you you had a good relationship with your mom.
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:06.559
I mean, uh throughout the years, it seems like.
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:10.000
But in most mother-daughters, there's some conflict somewhere.
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:12.960
Did did y'all ever butt heads per se?
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:14.719
Oh, I don't think it's per se.
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:16.400
I think it's definitely say.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:24.639
Um, I I remember my brother asking me one time, he said, why do you have to say anything to her?
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:28.719
If you would just let her talk, it'll all be okay.
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:36.719
But you feel the need to argue and butt heads with her, which is funny to me because he would not.
00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:37.920
He would be quiet.
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:39.119
This was when you were young?
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:40.480
This is as adults.
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:40.880
Okay.
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:42.000
Yeah, as adults.
00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:47.519
Um at 13, I I would argue well, I would until I'd get the look.
00:38:47.599 --> 00:38:47.760
Yes.
00:38:48.079 --> 00:38:49.519
And and then I would know my place.
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:50.000
Okay.
00:38:50.239 --> 00:38:55.119
But as an adult, the look doesn't quite hold the that over you.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:59.599
Um, so I would definitely say we butted heads.
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:08.559
Um, we butted heads over things that I don't know that they were as important in the overall picture as they seem like at the time.
00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:12.400
My parents, when they got married, uh joined the Episcopal Church.
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:15.280
And so I was a cradle Episcopalian.
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:26.159
So I grew up in the Episcopal Church, which uh was wonderful for me because one of the tenets of the Episcopal Church is come let us reason together.
00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:31.840
And so I've always faced every relationship with reasoning and talking things out.
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:34.480
Well, I've already told you my mother was a big talker.
00:39:34.719 --> 00:39:40.320
So when we tried to reason things out, it was really going to be her way.
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:48.639
It was not, I was still the daughter, she was still the mother, and she was brilliant, and I recognized that.
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:56.159
And so we we did butt heads on things, and I usually just said yes, ma'am.
00:39:57.119 --> 00:39:57.679
Yeah.
00:39:57.920 --> 00:39:58.800
Well, yeah.
00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:03.360
At 89 and dementia, my mother would still say, I'm the mother.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.960
So I think that kind of continues on.
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:08.079
I think it does.
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:15.679
Um was there times that she that she supported you, encouraged you, that maybe surprised you?
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:18.320
Um or maybe you thought there would be conflict and there wasn't?
00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:32.159
I guess that the biggest surprise to me, and it should not have been a surprise to me, was when I went to my mother when I told her that I was gay.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:39.679
I think that's the biggest surprise to me in my life is that I had kept that back because I didn't want to disappoint her.
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:43.760
And she was not at all disappointed.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.440
She was concerned because she didn't think I was gonna have kids.
00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:55.679
And when I finally said, you know, I decided when I was 15, if I wasn't, if I didn't have kids by 40, it didn't matter if I married a man or a woman, there were no kids.
00:40:56.079 --> 00:41:00.400
Once that sunk in, she was she was fine.
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:08.000
And she was like, you know, all I ever want for you or your brother is for you to be happy, and so that surprised me.
00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:18.559
And I love knowing that she saw my brother and I both get married before she passed, and that she was happy knowing that we were both happy.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:21.840
Yeah, and isn't that what all parents want for their kids?
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:23.360
It's just for them to be happy.
00:41:23.519 --> 00:41:25.360
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:31.679
All right, so you brought some pictures with you today, and uh one in particular stood out to me.
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:33.760
How old is your mother in that picture?
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.760
Uh, let's see, she's probably 42.
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:39.679
Yeah, what what's going on there?
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:40.480
That looks fun.
00:41:40.639 --> 00:41:43.840
That looks like uh that looks like fun mom right there.
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:45.280
That's definitely fun mom.
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:47.519
This is the one that I I love so much.
00:41:47.679 --> 00:42:01.760
She's uh wearing a scarf, she has a velvet venock uh top on, and she is telling a story, which I am sure everyone is in rapt attention listening to her because she told a beautiful story.
00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:05.199
But she was a bit of a a hippie, a bit of a gypsy.
00:42:05.599 --> 00:42:11.519
Um mom never left the house without being fully dressed and with her lipstick on.
00:42:11.840 --> 00:42:23.440
And I I think that is you asked me earlier about us budding heads, and sometimes we butted heads over what we wore because I grew up a bit of a tomboy.
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:29.440
Um, when I was very young, I had torsion cables that I wore to keep my feet from turning in.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:40.880
So um, when mom would look for me, she would go outside and she would find my cables that I had unhooked and climbed the tree with one of my books, and I'd be up on the top of the tree reading a book.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:47.280
And so that's just kind of who I was, and it wasn't really who she was when she grew up.
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:48.800
She was very prim and proper.
00:42:48.880 --> 00:42:56.639
She wore a lot of dresses, she loved fashion, and she was beautiful from you can tell from the picture.
00:42:56.800 --> 00:42:58.400
She was a beautiful child.
00:42:58.719 --> 00:43:05.599
And uh this picture though is just so her in her early 40s at a party.
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:11.039
Um, surprised that she doesn't have a cigarette in her hand and a glass of wine in front of her, and she probably does.
00:43:11.199 --> 00:43:14.480
I just can't see it from the picture, but that's why I love this picture.
00:43:14.639 --> 00:43:26.639
She also does not have her glasses on, which is hysterical because uh my mom wore her glasses for all my life, even after she had cataract surgery, and the doctor said, You don't have to wear your glasses now, you can just wear readers.
00:43:26.960 --> 00:43:29.760
Mom couldn't do it because it was such a habit to wear glasses.
00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:33.360
So this picture is great because she doesn't even have glasses on in it.
00:43:33.679 --> 00:43:41.519
You were talking about people who were were drawn to her, but she wasn't funny because a lot of times people are drawn to people who are funny and entertaining.
00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:41.920
Right.
00:43:42.159 --> 00:43:47.840
But she had a charisma from her intelligence and I think so.
00:43:48.159 --> 00:43:48.639
I think so.
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:55.440
I think people were fascinated because she had such a wealth of knowledge from her reading.
00:43:55.599 --> 00:43:59.599
She was such a voracious reader, and uh I mom.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:11.280
Mom truly would tell you that education is so important, but alongside of that is reading, and that you should never stop reading, no matter how many degrees you have.
00:44:11.599 --> 00:44:18.320
And she read everything nonfiction, fiction, and she passed that on to me and on to my brother.
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:19.440
We're both big readers.
00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:23.599
She was just an an interesting person, and people like to be around interesting people.
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:24.159
Exactly.
00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:24.480
Right.
00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:24.960
Yes.
00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:27.519
This time has gone by really fast.
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:28.159
Yes.
00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:31.599
Uh I can talk now as much as my mother.
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:33.360
You've opened up.
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:34.159
I have.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:35.920
The inheritance finally hit.
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:36.159
Right.
00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:37.840
Well, she's not here anymore.
00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:38.320
So you can't.
00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:38.719
That's right.
00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:40.880
Now I now I have a a a space.
00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:41.920
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:44.719
So I want to ask you this as we kind of close.
00:44:44.800 --> 00:44:50.400
And and we've talked about um your love for the beach and your connection with your mom there.
00:44:51.519 --> 00:45:05.440
And if you were sitting now in your favorite spot on the beach with your mom, maybe drinking a glass of wine, whatever, uh, what would you want to ask her or just talk about?
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:07.760
That's a really good question.
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:20.880
I I've thought about it a lot because part of me has wished that she could be here to talk through politics or religion or any big heavy subjects.
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:32.079
But I think really if I could talk to her about anything, it would probably be about music.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:33.199
Music.
00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:37.440
Yeah, that's something Was music a big part of her life?
00:45:37.760 --> 00:45:40.800
It was a huge part of her life uh growing up.
00:45:41.039 --> 00:45:43.840
She made it a big part of our lives growing up.
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:48.480
We grew up listening to her jazz and her blues albums and then folk albums.
00:45:48.559 --> 00:45:58.159
There were a lot of Carly Simon and Carol King and James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and and then all of the great jazz musicians.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:09.599
And we we talked a lot, we listened a lot to music, and I wish I had an opportunity to talk to her more specifically about music if we were sitting there.
00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:20.079
So I can kind of imagine us being on the beach together in that happy place for both of us, listening to music and just talking about it.
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:21.360
That's awesome.
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:27.199
So who who today would she that you would want to share with her?
00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:29.360
Oh, you gotta hear this.
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:33.840
Well, I'd have to make sure she heard Brandy Carlisle.
00:46:34.480 --> 00:46:42.559
Um mom always had a way of finding new artists, and I remember Indy RE when her album came out.
00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:46.960
Um, mom loved it and listened to it over and over again.
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:49.920
Mom was a big Nina Simone fan.
00:46:50.719 --> 00:46:52.880
And um I'm feeling good.
00:46:53.440 --> 00:46:54.400
Exactly.
00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:59.679
And I think the big one would probably also be John Baptiste.
00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:02.880
I I can see my mom would have adored him.
00:47:03.039 --> 00:47:07.199
And when he played, I think a year or so ago, he played Carnegie Hall.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:12.239
And I thought, oh, mom would have taken that trip to New York with me and gone to see him in Carnegie Hall.
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:12.960
Fine.
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:13.519
Yeah.
00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:14.480
That's awesome.
00:47:14.639 --> 00:47:15.360
That's great.
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:17.440
Uh what a fun conversation that would be.
00:47:17.599 --> 00:47:18.800
Well, yeah, I think so.
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:19.360
I do.
00:47:19.599 --> 00:47:20.880
Well, thank you for being here today.
00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:22.159
This has been a fun conversation.
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:23.360
Thank you so much, Sue.
00:47:23.599 --> 00:47:36.000
I appreciate uh, you know, I recognize there's a level of vulnerability to doing this, but I think I think we're in a time, and maybe we always have been, but it seems like even more so now that we need that.
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:52.400
Because I think with with social media and all the things that we only show the good stuff and the perfect pictures and the perfect family and all the happy things, and uh the authenticity that I think that you're sharing today is is what kind of we need.
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:52.960
Thank you.
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:54.079
So I appreciate it.
00:47:54.320 --> 00:47:58.000
And thank you, listeners, uh, for joining us today uh as well.
00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:10.719
Some people have told me that that one of the things that they really like about these conversations is that it is helping them think through their current relationship with their mother that's still living.
00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:16.559
And I think that's kind of uh kind of interesting and uh really good as well.
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:26.159
And so maybe some of this conversation today will will help with that or uh help you relive some memories or think back on some memories that you have uh with your mom.
00:48:26.320 --> 00:48:27.679
So thank you for listening.
00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:33.360
Don't forget to uh subscribe and also check out the YouTube and the Facebook page.
00:48:33.599 --> 00:48:38.559
And as Bobby Seal used to say, be patient, be kind, and be fair.
