In the first decade of this century, Bill and I did life story work with people. This took various forms, including interviewing groups and individuals, teaching life story classes, giving talks and presentations, helping people write their stories (me), and creating interactive computer programs which included audio, documents, and photographs (Bill). It was fascinating and I learned a lot. It was also very rewarding because one common thing among all the people was their happiness that someone was listening to them and was interested in what they were saying and in their experiences.
One interview in particular was brought to my mind by the interaction we had with our neighbour the other day. We were interviewing a 102-year-old woman and her daughter, who was in her late 70s. The mother lived in an assisted living situation and that’s where we visited with her. This would have been around 2007 or thereabouts, so her life began in the very early days of the 1900s. It was a wonderful to listen to her talk about her life. It was also sad.
The two things she kept coming back to over and over again were books and education. She remembered when the first library opened in her state. As she lived in a very rural area, this library was not near her and she could not visit on person, but they would mail books, she said, so she asked for one and got it. It was a magical day for her—and she still felt some of that magic nearly a century later! She also remembered a geology book given to her by a teacher. She was still able to talk about the contents of the book. It seemed like books had always been an important part of her life.
The other thing she kept circling back to was education. She had always loved the French language and she had gone to teacher training college. She had become a teacher. Her face lit up when she talked about this. It was evident that this was a major source of joy to her. Now comes the ‘but.’ She met a guy. They got married. He did not want her to be too tired to take care of him when he came home from work, so told her to stop teaching. She did—and apparently regretted it for over 8 decades. She repeated a few times that she wished she had never stopped teaching.
When it was time to go, we went to our truck and headed home. I started to cry, for her and her regrets and for the students who might have been touched and enriched by having her for a teacher.
5 comments:
My heart goes out to her. The era that she came from didn't want women to get an education. Women were unpaid housekeepers, cooks, baby sitters, laundresses.
They didn't have time to read a book unless it was cookbook.
Yes. I am always grateful for the women who fought and still fight in various ways to change things!
She was pretty cool.
I did struggle not to be a bit hostile about her husband's attitude. Eighty years is a long time to carry such a regret. She apparently had a happy marriage and family life, but still...
Yes, you describe my neighbour. He is happy when I listen, even if it´s about the very bad things he´d seen in WW II.
Certainly remembering books and education is very much nicer.
Boy. Glad these days no partner can tell the other what to do or not to do in our part of the world, at least. Regretting something for that long is really sad.
It was sad :-(
Post a Comment