Legacies Project Oral History: Gladys Young

Mon, 08/29/2022 - 11:57am

When: 2022

Transcript

• [00:00:12] FEMALE_1: Part 1, demographics and family histories. I'm first going to ask you some simple demographic questions. Well, these questions may jog memories. Please keep your answer brief and to the point for now. We can elaborate later in the interview. Please say and spell your name.
• [00:00:34] Gladys Young: Gladys G-L-A D-Y-S-W Young Y-O-U-N-G.
• [00:00:43] FEMALE_1: What is your birth date including the year?
• [00:00:46] Gladys Young: May 2nd 1930.
• [00:00:50] FEMALE_1: How would you describe your ethnic background?
• [00:00:54] Gladys Young: Caucasian, is that what you want?
• [00:00:59] FEMALE_1: What is your religious affiliation, if any?
• [00:01:03] Gladys Young: Not organized at this point.
• [00:01:07] FEMALE_1: What is the highest level of formal education you have completed?
• [00:01:13] Gladys Young: Masters in social work and masters in performing arts.
• [00:01:18] FEMALE_1: What college?
• [00:01:20] Gladys Young: Which? The social work is at a college in New York. Where did I get my social work? Scranton, Mary Wood College. It was in commuting distance and my fine arts is from Sarah Lawrence, the masters in performing arts is from Sarah Lawrence.
• [00:01:45] FEMALE_1: How many children do you have?
• [00:01:46] Gladys Young: Two.
• [00:01:48] FEMALE_1: How many siblings do you have?
• [00:01:49] Gladys Young: None.
• [00:01:53] FEMALE_1: How would you consider your primary occupation to have be?
• [00:02:00] Gladys Young: Two occupations, one is in dance teaching at William and Mary and State University of New York. The second one as a social worker. First, Catholic Social Services and then private practice.
• [00:02:25] FEMALE_1: At what age did you retire?
• [00:02:29] Gladys Young: Well, 65, I think, no, I don't know. It's too long ago, 1995 from those professions it's 65.
• [00:02:49] FEMALE_1: Now, we can begin the first part of our interview, beginning with some of the things you can recall about your family history. We are beginning with the family naming history. By this, we mean any story about your last or family name or family traditions. In selecting first off middle names.
• [00:03:09] Gladys Young: I didn't understand the last, suggest the end of the last sons.
• [00:03:15] FEMALE_1: By this we mean any story about your last or family name.
• [00:03:21] Gladys Young: About my last name.
• [00:03:22] FEMALE_1: Or family name.
• [00:03:28] Gladys Young: Well, my great grandfather was hung in the Civil War. Because of a remark he made when Norfolk, Virginia was occupied by the Union forces. He lived in North Virginia and he was told that he was going to be arrested because he made some crack about those troops that were marching through Norfolk. The Yankees. He resisted and pushed into a corner of the stories, the family's story that by mistake he shot the person who was pushing him. He was a murderer, I mean, obviously. But then the city was being occupied by the Yankees. They wanted to be very strict about what happened, so he was put in prison and one of his daughters dressed up as a man and tried to escape and gave him her clothes. And he tried to escape, but he was caught because the woman presumably walk more like a man. Then he was put in prison and in shackles and waited for some months before he was marched to the gallows and hung in Norfolk, Virginia.
• [00:05:05] FEMALE_1: Just out of curiosity, did you see that on any documents? Because for the documents did that happened or was it passed down through the family?
• [00:05:13] Gladys Young: Well, I have a lot of copy of a letter from Lincoln saying that to delay the hanging until they could have him assessed by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist and he got wrong I guess but he said that he was not mentally ill and that it was an act committed in passion.
• [00:05:56] FEMALE_1: Why did your ancestor leave to come to the US?
• [00:06:02] Gladys Young: I don't know it was in the 16 something long ago.
• [00:06:07] FEMALE_1: What country?
• [00:06:08] Gladys Young: England mostly I think.
• [00:06:14] FEMALE_1: You can skip this part. Are there any traditions that your family has given up or changed?
• [00:06:31] Gladys Young: I can't think of, no, it's a good answer for that.
• [00:06:33] FEMALE_1: That's fine. Then what stories have come down to you about your parents and grandparents?
• [00:06:43] Gladys Young: Well, my father was 12 years older than my mother and my mother and his little sister were best friends. For 12 years this was his second little sister and he was in the Navy and then merchant marine [inaudible 00:07:07]. He would send them identical presents, my mother and my aunt. The story is that she would not marry him until he stopped going to sea because he liked to be at sea [LAUGHTER] . He was in the merchant marine and in the Navy and he resigned and then come home and visit in North Carolina and go back in the service. Finally he did at 49, get out of the merchant marine and Navy. He was a marine engineer on a tugboat, that worked out of Norfolk. Then hit they got married when he was 49, I guess.
• [00:07:56] FEMALE_1: Is your family very military based?
• [00:07:59] Gladys Young: Were they what?
• [00:08:00] FEMALE_1: Are they in military base?
• [00:08:02] Gladys Young: Were they on a military base?
• [00:08:04] FEMALE_1: No, were they very military based? Was your family have a strong support for the military?
• [00:08:10] Gladys Young: Were they strong supporters of the military?
• [00:08:12] FEMALE_1: As your family?
• [00:08:13] Gladys Young: I don't know what that means, really.
• [00:08:14] FEMALE_2: Did your family support the military, give money or offer to maybe you should go into the military. Did you guys promote the military in any way?
• [00:08:23] Gladys Young: No, I don't think so.
• [00:08:29] FEMALE_1: Part 2, earliest memory and childhood. This part of interview is about your childhood up until you begin attending school. Even if this question jog memories about other times in your life, please only respond with memories from the earliest part of your life. Where did you grow up and what are your strongest memory of that place?
• [00:08:58] Gladys Young: I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia. The place in Norfolk is that water was everywhere and I miss that. It was near enough the ocean that all the water would have some salt in it from time to time. Now, lost your question. What did you ask me? I was wondering.
• [00:09:26] FEMALE_1: That's good. We're just asking whether the strongest memory you have about that place.
• [00:09:31] Gladys Young: About where I grow?.
• [00:09:32] FEMALE_1: About where you grew up?
• [00:09:35] Gladys Young: Before I went to school.
• [00:09:36] FEMALE_1: Yes.
• [00:09:37] Gladys Young: Is that what you said? I remember that I used to pretend that I was going to school and walk up and down the block with a bunch of books that I would collect and I thought that neighbors would think that I was going to school. [LAUGHTER] I spent a lot of time in my backyard where my father had built.
• [00:10:04] FEMALE_1: How did your family come to live in Virginia?
• [00:10:08] Gladys Young: How did my family come what?
• [00:10:09] FEMALE_1: Come to live there.
• [00:10:11] MALE_1: In Virginia.
• [00:10:12] FEMALE_3: How did your family end up in Virginia.
• [00:10:14] Gladys Young: How did they come to Virginia?
• [00:10:17] MALE_1: Or why?
• [00:10:18] Gladys Young: Well, from North Carolina.
• [00:10:22] FEMALE_1: Why did they move there?
• [00:10:26] Gladys Young: Well, I don't know. They came from England, I think. Like I said, it's around 16 to, I don't know, something that I can trace things back. I think it's from England.
• [00:10:39] FEMALE_1: What was your house like?
• [00:10:42] Gladys Young: Where I grew up?
• [00:10:43] FEMALE_1: Yes.
• [00:10:44] Gladys Young: Very dark. [LAUGHTER] Butterfly something seeking ever since that was a row house in the city and it was, what am I trying to say? It was a brick house. It was a long house, so the we had the light through the front windows and then there was, we even use blinds in the summer and then a porch and then close to other buildings. You add a random summarize halfway through and then the kitchen where there was light, but it was very dark and my mother always said that we were so lucky because it was cool in the summer and it was warm in the river. But it was a dark house. I've always wanted light since.
• [00:11:44] FEMALE_1: How many people lived in the house with you?
• [00:11:49] Gladys Young: Just to my mother and father and me.
• [00:11:54] FEMALE_1: What's languages were spoken in or around your household?
• [00:11:58] Gladys Young: English.
• [00:12:03] FEMALE_1: Were there different languages speak in the neighborhood or local stores?
• [00:12:09] Gladys Young: No.
• [00:12:12] FEMALE_1: What was your family like when you were a child?
• [00:12:18] Gladys Young: I don't know how to answer that. Can you give me a lead? In what way?
• [00:12:27] FEMALE_1: Was there a certain way that your parents raised you?
• [00:12:30] Gladys Young: Certain way that what?
• [00:12:31] FEMALE_1: Your parents raised you.
• [00:12:32] MALE_2: How was your family connection like? What did you guys do on the weekends?
• [00:12:37] Gladys Young: Everybody's going to have to speak louder.
• [00:12:39] MALE_2: How was your family connection? Did you guys have special things as a family did, getting on Sunday together, playing a card game or go to the beach together.
• [00:12:50] Gladys Young: Two things, the beach was a big thing. Whenever it was hot we went to the water because we're sharing the other Chesapeake Bay and the ocean, my mother drove. That was one thing and then the other thing was, we had my mother and father were from a very small town in North Carolina. A lovely really uptown. Law focuses very town. Their relatives who were in Edenton. It was about 60 miles from the Norfolk. Many times on the weekend, we go along the dismal swamp burnout and meet the relatives from Edenton and we'd have a picnic which included fried chicken and potato salad. I definitely know.
• [00:13:41] FEMALE_1: Were there any special foods that you used to eat as a child?
• [00:13:47] Gladys Young: Well, I'm trying to say that I don't eat now. Fried chicken was always a big thing. I really can't remember specifically now, it seems like so long ago. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I do know one thing, it was a part of the world where they have Smithfield ham which is smoked hams, not something you'd get here. They were very strong and you didn't eat a slice. It was so salty but you put it with biscuits. Ham and biscuits. It's not what you always had but my mother kept ham warm, the water that ham had been cooked in. When we had vegetable, she'd cook them in the ham water, which I hated. But anyway, that was a little memory.
• [00:14:48] FEMALE_1: What did you do for fun?
• [00:14:54] Gladys Young: Well, I spent a lot of time in my backyard because there was a busy street between my house and where any other children lived. I spent a lot of time by myself and I had a trapeze and I had a swing and I had a monkey bar, and I had a seesaw and my uncle made that went not only up and down, but it went around and it adjusted for height. The long end was really out. It had a tendency to swipe through our rose bush, which caused a few problems.
• [00:15:38] FEMALE_1: You like your neighbors must have been jealous of you.
• [00:15:40] Gladys Young: They were. But it was a neighborhood that was running down so I didn't really see that children were show foot to my house. I always chauffeured to friends houses.
• [00:15:54] FEMALE_1: Did you have a favorite toy?
• [00:16:01] Gladys Young: I don't think so.
• [00:16:03] FEMALE_1: Did you have a favorite game?
• [00:16:07] Gladys Young: No, I don't think I was much into games. Wait a second. I loved to play Monopoly. When we played Monopoly, that was a special thing we'd put up the car table and we'd sit around and play Monopoly.
• [00:16:27] FEMALE_1: Do you have a favorite book?
• [00:16:30] Gladys Young: I don't think so.
• [00:16:36] FEMALE_1: Were there any special days or family traditions you remember from this time?
• [00:16:43] Gladys Young: This is when I was growing a little [OVERLAPPING]. I can't think I know that trips to meet into this town were a big, that was what we did on weekends. Also my father liked to just explore the country and find new way, then not follow normal routes, which I didn't particularly enjoy it. I remember one time we drove and drove and then it turned out we were 80 miles from home, which is farther than the place where we're headed for. Anyway, well, I was [inaudible 00:17:27] when it was nearer the time when cars were new to the people and on Sunday afternoon, people drove. They did. On Sunday afternoons we drive and go somewhere because both my mother and father had grown up with horse and buggy.
• [00:17:53] FEMALE_1: Were there any special holidays that you guys spent together?
• [00:17:58] Gladys Young: Well, Christmas was big and the tree was not put up until Christmas Eve.
• [00:18:06] FEMALE_1: That would be a tradition then?
• [00:18:07] Gladys Young: Yeah and I tried that with my children here and they were very disappointed. They didn't like it that way. They wanted to enjoy it before. I never remember we had a holiday. My father died when I was 17. I guess some of these memories are later than that, but I think we'd have my father's first cousin would join us for meals for Thanksgiving or Christmas meals. I do not have any more to say on that, I don't think.
• [00:18:49] FEMALE_1: Part 3, youth. We will discuss your time as a young person from about the time that school attendance and up until you begin your professional career of work-life.
• [00:19:04] Gladys Young: That's a long time.
• [00:19:07] FEMALE_1: Did you go to any kindergarten?
• [00:19:12] Gladys Young: No. They didn't have kindergarten them and they did have nursery school was something and I was all excited as the only child because I was going to school. [NOISE] My mother pulled me out because I had the children. I don't know whether this is accurate or whoever it's fantasy at this point, but I think that we had to carry out our chairs on top of it, so some steps, that's my recollection, and she thought it was dangerous. I don't know how reliable my memory is on that.
• [00:19:48] FEMALE_1: For nursery school? Is that what the chairs is that from nursery school? Is that.
• [00:19:55] Gladys Young: Yeah.
• [00:19:58] FEMALE_1: Where did you go to the elementary school, and what do you remember about that?
• [00:20:05] Gladys Young: I went to the elementary school called Robert E. Lee [LAUGHTER] very solvent. I remember the only people who ate in the lunch room were people who were our charity of some sort, and we brought our sandwiches and we ate outside and sat on the curb that I remember, and they weren't organized, some people played baseball at lunchtime [BACKGROUND] . I've forgotten what I was saying it's not important. I'm sure. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:20:53] FEMALE_2: You talking about your lunch, which you guys did at lunch?
• [00:20:56] Gladys Young: We'd go out and sit on the curb and eat lunch. Sometimes that being improbable baseball game. That's about all I can remember.
• [00:21:10] FEMALE_2: Yes, ma'am.
• [00:21:12] Gladys Young: Oh, I know. During the war started I know I was there. We got very active at we gave out food stamps and all things and I felt very potluck with that. I must have been in the sixth grade or something. This is a second row. [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
• [00:21:33] FEMALE_1: Did you go to high school and where's it, and what do you remember?
• [00:21:38] Gladys Young: High school, and what did you say?
• [00:21:40] FEMALE_1: Where's it?
• [00:21:42] Gladys Young: In Norfolk. Is that what you were asking?
• [00:21:44] FEMALE_1: Yes.
• [00:21:45] Gladys Young: That's where I lived and often the high school was there. What do I remember? It had long flight of steps that went the rod and high number that nobody with a cane could get him. I'm not sure. It was a big high school. It had some places you could buy lunch, you could get hot dogs and stuff and squeeze into booze if you've got there early enough. I never ate in the high school. My friends didn't. Sororities and fraternities were a big thing and the school itself did basically didn't handle the social life or if they did, I didn't attend it. Then with that wants to handle parties and diocese and everything else. What else can I remember for a minute. I'm sure there was no elevator there were three floor. I can't think of anything else unless it's something specific.
• [00:22:58] FEMALE_1: Did you have a childhood best friend in high school?
• [00:23:03] Gladys Young: In high school I'm trying to think. I kept up with some two friends that I met before. I was old enough to know who they were and baby carriages, and I still have one of those rounds. There were three of us and I knew other people in high school, but those would have been my best friends. Everyone else, as I said, I still keep up with.
• [00:23:43] FEMALE_1: Did you go to school or career training beyond high school?
• [00:23:47] Gladys Young: Yeah. Did I go to school beyond high school, yes.
• [00:23:51] FEMALE_1: What do you remember about that?
• [00:23:54] Gladys Young: Wait a second. You're talking about college?
• [00:23:57] FEMALE_1: Yes.
• [00:23:58] FEMALE_2: What do you remember about college?
• [00:23:59] Gladys Young: Pardon.
• [00:24:00] FEMALE_2: What do you remember about college?
• [00:24:02] Gladys Young: What do I remember? First of all, that I was very excited to go because my family could not have afforded to. Oh, I would have gone to the local school lived at home. But my father's first cousin was very wealthy, and he said, "I want to send you to college" so I got to go to the college I wanted to go to, which was a college call random make a woman's college in Virginia, so I remember that as being very excited to be an only child to be or with other people my age. In fact, I was enjoying the social aspect of that with people on the hall and all the very poor my first year in college and was on probation. Then I found out that I couldn't dance. Dance and theater were extra curricular at that time in high school, so well, now in college, so I had to have my grades up, so I was practically on probation the first year. Then I oh, my God, so I got up, I started studying practically all A's a second year, and I was in a sorority, that had a lamp of knowledge. I went from the ash is to flame. [LAUGHTER] I got a letter from the central thing saying the central server or anything congratulated me.
• [00:25:46] FEMALE_1: That's wonderful.
• [00:25:48] Gladys Young: It was only because the first was so bad.
• [00:25:53] FEMALE_1: Did you play any sports?
• [00:25:56] Gladys Young: No. I was totally involved in dance.
• [00:26:00] FEMALE_1: What about your school experience is different from the school as you know it today?
• [00:26:06] Gladys Young: Like different from this school? Oh gosh. I don't remember how I said that I'm trying to think. I don't know how to answer that right now. I have to give it some thought. I'm sure I can answer it, but I can.
• [00:26:31] FEMALE_1: We'll come back to that. Please describe the popular music at the time.
• [00:26:41] Gladys Young: I was not someone who listened to music. When I was in a sorority where you had to sing a song called Goats, I guess the first year, and we had to sing a song and [inaudible 00:26:54], and I was always trying to learn a song that I could do, so I don't know. I remember once I'm a big girl now am not going up my big girl now. [LAUGHTER] No, I didn't keep up with the songs that much. I would recognize them if they were being played.
• [00:27:23] FEMALE_1: Did the music have any particular dances associated with it?
• [00:27:28] Gladys Young: No. I don't think so.
• [00:27:30] FEMALE_1: The music did you dance to? You said you were into dance?
• [00:27:37] Gladys Young: Well, I was into sailor dance really. I went to New York to study with Martha ground and shaking the field for a while in New York and in colleges.
• [00:27:59] FEMALE_1: What would a popular closing or hairstyle at a time?
• [00:28:04] Gladys Young: Oh, the hairstyle was they had straight hair. June Allison, I think headache, movie star, they had straight hair and then it did flip to the end, and my cost was naturally curly and did exactly what it wanted to do, so I was very distressed over my hair I don't remember I was in New York, and I went to Lord and Taylor and I thought, now I'll find out about what I can do with this hair. So I went in to the beauty salon, and the man put his hand on my head and said, "Have you ever thought of having it straightened." I was not happy with my hair.
• [00:28:48] FEMALE_1: Was this during the 1950s?
• [00:28:50] Gladys Young: Yes.
• [00:28:51] FEMALE_1: [inaudible 00:28:51]. Is there any popular clothing?
• [00:28:57] FEMALE_2: What is the popular clothing that was being worn.
• [00:28:59] Gladys Young: Popular with what?
• [00:29:00] FEMALE_2: Popular clothing?
• [00:29:02] Gladys Young: Clothing. Certainly no slacks, pleated skirt.
• [00:29:08] FEMALE_1: Poodle skirts for those in?
• [00:29:12] Gladys Young: I'm trying to think when I went to college, I made all my skirts, I guess, and they were just straight, and they were pretty long at that point, I think. Before the war ended, straight or longer clothes came in after the war. I'm not making sense. I'm very clear on all of that. [NOISE]
• [00:29:52] FEMALE_1: Were there any terms, phrases, or words that aren't in common usage today?
• [00:30:00] Gladys Young: Words that aren't, just read that again.
• [00:30:03] FEMALE_1: Were there any words that are common using today?
• [00:30:07] MALE_1: Are there [OVERLAPPING] any phrases that you guys use?
• [00:30:10] Gladys Young: [inaudible 00:30:10] Phrases then.
• [00:30:12] MALE_1: Yeah, that are not used now.
• [00:30:13] Gladys Young: When I was growing up, I can't think of an answer for that.
• [00:30:24] FEMALE_1: What was the typical day like for you in this time period?
• [00:30:29] Gladys Young: This is after, this is from elementary school on to college?
• [00:30:36] FEMALE_1: Yes.
• [00:30:37] Gladys Young: Through college.
• [00:30:38] FEMALE_1: Through college.
• [00:30:39] Gladys Young: Well, they change a lot. Won't they?
• [00:30:41] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
• [00:30:41] Gladys Young: [LAUGHTER] [inaudible 00:30:44] oh yeah, if you want a typical day, what area, what ages are we talking about?
• [00:30:53] FEMALE_1: We may from start from the elementary. Is there a typical day from one elementary? Is there a typical day for you in elementary?
• [00:31:04] Gladys Young: Yes. I would go to school and at first my mother would have to walk me home. I would walk home and I didn't live near anyone. I think I didn't walk with people, but then by the time I got oh quite sad, I guess when I got into the higher grades, I'd walk with a couple of friends. I always walked. I never went to school except once I walked into and then when I was in junior high, we all but you're not up to junior high.
• [00:31:44] FEMALE_1: You can please say that it is the same question.
• [00:31:47] Gladys Young: Yeah. Then we had a group. We first of all, I was in a sorority, which is stupid, but I was, we had to carry out the older members as a goat, the first year during the initiation the thing. I had to carry my books and the books of an older member. It's a wonder we didn't have terrible back problems because they were big, heavy books and I remember you'd put them this, the books would be this way and this whole thing. Carry them. Then we went to a drugstore, called pharmacy, Macy's pharmacy. I don't know Anyway, everybody gathered there and had cokes and cigarettes some. That was what we did after school. Then we dispersed and went home. I'm talking about my own friends from there.
• [00:32:46] FEMALE_1: What about high school?
• [00:32:48] Gladys Young: I guess I was talking about high school, too I think.
• [00:32:54] FEMALE_1: Sororities began in high school and beyond college?
• [00:33:01] Gladys Young: There were high school's sororities, not very good for us and fraternities.
• [00:33:11] FEMALE_1: Was there a typical day for you in high school, I mean college?
• [00:33:24] Gladys Young: Yes. For a while. One thing was frantically. I always wanted to sleep late and getting up and racing to get to breakfast. In college we had still had breakfast and lunch and dinner, these long tables with a white table cloth and racing to get there in time for breakfast, always late.
• [00:33:54] FEMALE_1: What did you do for fun right now? Like at the time in college?
• [00:34:01] Gladys Young: I was actually some of my immersed in Davidson College. I kept, I think it was very narrow in a way, I was inactive in the sorority I was in because I really thought that was useless. Partly because we didn't live in the houses and it was a Women's College. I just didn't have time for that. I was too busy dancing.
• [00:34:30] FEMALE_1: Where did you go over to the part 3. [inaudible 00:34:32] we have like two or more parts to go through [inaudible 00:34:37]
• [00:34:40] Gladys Young: My father love the water. He was he went in the navy and the merchant marine and he was a marine engineer. When he married my mother, I think I said that he wanted to stay in the harbor around Norfolk. But he loved boats. When ever we went on a boat and in Norfolk, he really there's no place to go expect overboard or unless you get on the water. They were ferries to all these different places. Whenever he was on a boat, not necessarily a fair way, but say crossing, go to Kate Charles, crossing the Chesapeake. He always went through the boat. He'd go up and would see the captain and he walked down and he'd see the engineer. I was always trailing behind him to see all these people. We looked looked over boats. May I forgot the question I'm answering what did you ask me about my father?
• [00:36:02] FEMALE_1: Parents career?
• [00:36:03] Gladys Young: Oh, yes. His career had been in the Merchant Marine and then in the Navy. Confusion as to when I said I think he would finish his commitment to one and then take off for months and go home to Indiana, North Carolina, to his family and then get back again. When I've looked at the records, I have a very confusing in terms of times that he was in the Navy or the Merchant Marine or whatever.
• [00:36:41] FEMALE_1: You mentioned the ocean a lot.
• [00:36:43] Gladys Young: Oh, yes.
• [00:36:44] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
• [00:36:44] Gladys Young: I missed the ocean. Lake Michigan is not the ocean.
• [00:36:48] FEMALE_1: Were there any specific things that you enjoy doing it the ocean. Did you swim or play volleyball?
• [00:36:53] Gladys Young: You don't, yes, you can swim but mainly I play you I still play in the wave. Me and my father's idea of a swimming lesson was to put me on the top of a wave. I would say it'll carry you in there and it did. I didn't swim well until I got to college. In fact, I hadn't had swimming lessons and I played in the ocean or the Bay which we spent a lot in there, you've got breaker so you really don't prefetch strokes layer. When I went to college, they asked me, I can swim and I swam the length of the little teeny weeny pool and they said, I think we better go back to beginners because my stroke, by that time, I learned it in the ocean and then I had a cousin who had perfected something. Her stroke on the right behind the river. She may get some are jazzy. She do two crawls and that she put two. I perfected that they'd never seen anything quite so awful. But the ocean was incarnate in terms of just being there and playing in it. The first time I went in Lake Michigan, I got out there and I thought, and I was about this deep understanding about telling me at the lake. I thought man, what do you do with waves to float over a dive through a carry you to shore. That was the ocean. I always feel landlocked here or anywhere else when I'm not in it right and no saltwater.
• [00:38:42] FEMALE_1: Would you say your best memories were at the beach or ocean?
• [00:38:45] Gladys Young: Oh, yeah. They were wonderful. Yeah. Well, certainly that was like I was part of the ocean. I'm all members. Every summer we took a one-week vacation which my father had and we always it wasn't a vacation. It was just where on the ocean where you go which ruined house or whatever they were hotels would we stay in for the week right on the ocean always never thought of going anywhere else. Until I'm married my husband who was from Michigan, I never thought of going any place except for the ocean. Even when I was dancing and spending the summer in New York, oh, I got home in time to join one of my friends who have a share in a cottage for a week or so. I get to the ocean. I had to get to the ocean. Now I can.
• [00:39:49] FEMALE_1: I know you mentioned a lot about your dad in the ocean as well. Did you have a good relationship with him because of that at all? Do you know [inaudible 00:39:57]?
• [00:39:58] Gladys Young: I was like his companion as a child because he felt was equipment in the backyard and he demonstrated on it how to, hang by your legs or whatever you do. We were very good friends. Then when I hit adolescence, I had some ideas on what I wanted to do. He was adamant about what I could and couldn't do on certain things. I think he was just old-fashioned and that I said at that point I began to think he's really old, and he was old for a father because he was 50 when I was born. Then he had heart trouble. He died when I was 17, I guess. But we were good companions.
• [00:40:58] FEMALE_4: Are you recording?
• [00:40:58] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
• [00:41:00] FEMALE_4: What was your primary field of employment and how did you first get started with this particular tradition, skill or job, and what got you interested?
• [00:41:10] Gladys Young: I didn't hear the last sentence.
• [00:41:11] FEMALE_4: What got you interested? Interested in the [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:41:19] Gladys Young: What got me interested in it?
• [00:41:19] FEMALE_4: Yeah.
• [00:41:19] Gladys Young: I think I did this before my first there are two one is dance and I got in that because when I got to college, you had to sign up for something and I signed up for basketball by mistake and the only way I could get out of it was to take dance. I started dance in college and got very interested in it Martha Graham, et cetera. The second one was social work. When I married and had children and decided I needed to do something else. I went back to school and got my masters in social work and started working in that field.
• [00:42:06] FEMALE_4: Describe the steps of the process involved in your job from start to finish, what's involved? What raw materials are used?
• [00:42:17] Gladys Young: No raw materials in either one of the steps to teaching guides, which I did in two colleges was the training in New York and a masters in Performing Arts from Sarah Orange. In terms of social work getting a graduate degree in social work, and then worked with the blind for three years and then enter general catholic social service agency for a number of years.
• [00:42:57] FEMALE_4: Driving was also a big part of social work. Driving?
• [00:43:01] Gladys Young: Yes. Initially, I was doing outreach all over the county. I'm sorry. Yes. Then later I was staying in an agency where people came to me
• [00:43:13] FEMALE_4: Explain a typical day during your working years of your adult life?
• [00:43:20] Gladys Young: Well, if it was dance, it was initially getting up and catching the subway in New York from the west side down to the business area where I worked with a big insurance company, just had a mundane job. Then when that was over, getting the subway and going up to 63rd Street and go into a dance class, and then getting a bus and going home. That was a typical day at one point when I was living in New York. [NOISE] What? Do you have to stop?
• [00:44:14] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
• [00:44:23] FEMALE_4: What technology changes occurred during your working years?
• [00:44:28] Gladys Young: Wow. Well, when I first started working, I think I was still using the carbon paper to make copies. Then all technological changes that I can't even think of. I know that people who were working with statistics were using these IBM cards. It kept getting twisted. Well, we didn't have computers when I started. Certainly not the personal computers. In fact, when I was looking for a job in New York and I thought I might go into math and I went to IBM and they showed me the computer and it was a huge thing. This is very different that part. Differences in the working situation, you mean? And just being able to scan something rather than copy it with carbon, or something.
• [00:45:43] FEMALE_4: It made it easier for you?
• [00:45:45] Gladys Young: Yeah.
• [00:45:48] FEMALE_4: What's the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started until now?
• [00:45:57] Gladys Young: Well, if I think of social work, they are more and more even during the time I was there, it used to be that the clients would come to say if I worked catholic social service, they come to that and we'd have sliding scale. But then big companies started paying for their employees to have employee assistance plans if they pay for the social work of a counseling or whatever. By the time I've finished and I don't know what it is now most clients I had were connected with the business of some sort that was paying for them. I know that's not true here if you get into private practice that's not necessarily true.
• [00:46:58] FEMALE_4: How do you judge excellence within your field? Or make someone respect it in that field.
• [00:47:05] Gladys Young: Well, I think it's easier to take the [inaudible 00:47:07] the work. It's how well they act. How well they can perform. How skill the body is.
• [00:47:21] FEMALE_4: As a teacher, how do you establish authority? That was probably another big part.
• [00:47:28] Gladys Young: Well, by knowing what you're doing and being able to teach it I think. It would be harder now because of technical skills is even higher. When I started teaching dance, dance was in physical education in most colleges, there were only three that it wasn't. That's why I got my degree. But then when I taught, it was in physical education department. You asked me a question and I've gone around it. How would you [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:48:07] FEMALE_4: Judge to excellent?
• [00:48:09] Gladys Young: Judge. It would be technically correct or skilled a person was, and then how they could teach understanding of the body.
• [00:48:25] FEMALE_4: What do you value most about what you did for a living and why?
• [00:48:33] Gladys Young: Well, some of the collaboration with the center directors, I'd be doing dance in a college and working with the theater director. I value that very highly from when I was teaching at William and Mary and their interaction with students, which I very much enjoy.
• [00:49:09] FEMALE_4: Why is it clear the exact same question? I guess this is slightly different. What is the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started until now?
• [00:49:23] Gladys Young: Didn't I answer that?
• [00:49:25] FEMALE_4: I guess it's the same one, so never mind that. Now we're going on to residents community. Tell me about any moves you made during your working years and retirement prior to your decision to move to your current residence?
• [00:49:44] Gladys Young: Well, I lived this is during my employment years.
• [00:49:52] FEMALE_4: This is during your working years prior to retirement.
• [00:49:57] Gladys Young: I taught first at William and Mary.
• [00:50:09] FEMALE_4: It's asking what moves you made during your working years and then I guess your retirement prior to your decision to move?
• [00:50:19] Gladys Young: Here?
• [00:50:19] FEMALE_4: Here.
• [00:50:23] Gladys Young: I taught at William and Mary and I lived in Williamsburg and then I moved to teach at the State University of New York in Binghamton, New York, which is where I met my husband and I taught there until I retired and moved when he retired too to Amava because this was where he spent nine years in school. We like the city very much for its cultural advantages. We moved here and bought a condo here. Then after he died, I moved to Glacier Hills.
• [00:51:13] FEMALE_4: How do you feel about your current living situation?
• [00:51:17] Gladys Young: It's good. It's being so far out of the West side of Amava which I know.
• [00:51:29] FEMALE_4: This will be covering your retirement years to the present just so you know. How did family life change for you when you and your spouse retired and all of the children left home?
• [00:51:44] Gladys Young: I was very quiet. [LAUGHTER] [NOISE] Then when we had retired, we moved here, but we had very young grandchildren coming. They were born after we'd retired. I saw a lot of the grandchildren when they were infants and babies. More so than now because they've grown up. Then what else did I do? I worked at Turner Geriatric Center doing inpatient assessments, which was interesting. I may have lost this question, am I answering it?
• [00:52:34] FEMALE_4: It's just basically asking how your family life changed once your kids moved out.
• [00:52:38] Gladys Young: I went retire and the children left home?
• [00:52:41] FEMALE_4: Yes.
• [00:52:42] Gladys Young: Well, dramatically. [LAUGHTER] [NOISE]
• [00:52:49] FEMALE_1: Can I get you any water?
• [00:52:51] Gladys Young: I don't think so. Just the end of respiratory infection which is almost gone which you're hearing it now. Maybe some water would be good. Can you get just a I don't drink much water. Just a sip or two. Is some right here?
• [00:53:16] FEMALE_1: It's there's not a lot of [inaudible 00:53:18]
• [00:53:21] Gladys Young: I said fountain in the hall right here.
• [00:53:23] FEMALE_1: I mean, if we can't find water we can just give her a [inaudible 00:53:26]
• [00:53:27] Gladys Young: Just forget it. I'm fine.
• [00:53:28] MALE_3: Are you sure?
• [00:53:29] Gladys Young: That's not get involved in that.
• [00:53:34] FEMALE_1: You were talking about how your life changed dramatically after your kids moved out when you retired?
• [00:53:41] Gladys Young: Yes. Well, they had moved out before we retired. Because it was involved in their life. No. Following it was an empty nest. It was an empty nest. I might miss them. But then when we came down, I've always see them because they both moved here. All of our families here now, which is very nice and when the children were little, the grandchildren smiled all we saw more of them.
• [00:54:17] FEMALE_1: Your children moved to Michigan before you did?
• [00:54:24] Gladys Young: They got sent to Michigan to the university and then they never left. They married Michiganders.
• [00:54:35] FEMALE_1: How has your life changed since your spouse passed away?
• [00:54:41] Gladys Young: Well, for the last couple of years, I was very much a caretaker for him because his health was really deteriorating. He had serious arthritis and other problems. That was a center of my life. In the last couple of years was arranging physical therapists and various things that were needed with him. Since he died, I'm still trying to figure out what I wanted to do that I have more freedom and time to explore life.
• [00:55:29] FEMALE_1: Also you moved to Glacier Hills?
• [00:55:32] Gladys Young: Yes. After he died, he would never have moved here.
• [00:55:36] FEMALE_1: Why is that?
• [00:55:37] Gladys Young: He wouldn't have wanted to be in an institution like a friend of mine husband said in Virginia, I'm not going to that place. I don't want to have to be dressed every time I open my front door.
• [00:55:55] FEMALE_1: What's a typical day in your life currently?
• [00:56:01] Gladys Young: Well, I got up and we have a cafe, has a continental breakfast. I mean, you can pick what you want in the morning. I do that. Then actually I'm doing this now, but I don't have that much to do right now. In fact, that's something I'm going to work on. I want to see about working with literacy. Maybe. I don't know, I need to fill him. I like having a job and I don't right now, but I've been sick with this, so I've been grounded right now. But that's my plan.
• [00:56:48] FEMALE_1: But once you recover, you want to find a hobby?
• [00:56:50] Gladys Young: Yes or a job, not a paid job, but something that's interesting.
• [00:56:58] FEMALE_1: What does your family enjoy doing together now?
• [00:57:05] Gladys Young: Certainly traveling.
• [00:57:07] FEMALE_1: Now, where have you traveled to?
• [00:57:08] Gladys Young: Well, we've just a friend died up in North Hampton, Massachusetts. Not that I guess I'm trying to think, how do we really travel. My daughter and I can probably go to Chicago for a weekend or I take our granddaughter. Mine is a family that we've always gone away on weekends and things. My husband and I and them. I continue to, but the last time I went to Chicago alarm, I decided it'd be nice to have somebody there.
• [00:57:56] FEMALE_1: Traveling would be one of your personal favorite things?
• [00:57:58] Gladys Young: Yes and I can do it [inaudible 00:58:00] . To Europe to England to whatever.
• [00:58:05] FEMALE_1: You said you visited England?
• [00:58:06] MALE_3: Yes and lived there twice and I'm very much an [inaudible 00:58:11]
• [00:58:14] FEMALE_1: Are there any special days, events, or family traditions that you especially enjoy at this time in your life? Any holidays?
• [00:58:22] Gladys Young: Well, I'll enjoy Thanksgiving. I'll enjoy Christmas. When anybody has a birthday, they always have everybody over. I always enjoy when the two families or two children, their spouses and offspring. I live here. We're altogether, if it's somebody's birthday or Christmas or whatever
• [00:58:48] FEMALE_1: That's sweet. When thinking your life after retirement or your kids left home up to the present, what important social or historical events were taking place and how did they personally affect you and your family?
• [00:59:05] Gladys Young: Well, say that I get more slowly?
• [00:59:09] FEMALE_1: When thinking your life. This is weird. When thinking about your life after retirement or your kids left home up to the present, what most important social or historical events were taking place and how did they personally affect you and your family? Any social or historical events that happened after your kids left home?
• [00:59:35] Gladys Young: I can't tell, Gosh. Well now, I mean, this is a trauma right now with the political situation.
• [00:59:53] FEMALE_1: What years did they go off to Michigan? When did they graduate and go off to Michigan?
• [00:59:59] Gladys Young: I think it was the '80s because one of them is 50 and the other one is 49. I'm not sure. I think I looked it up at one point but I don't, I wrote some things down here. Maybe it's here. That's interesting. I don't know.
• [01:00:26] FEMALE_1: When thinking back on your entire life, what important social or social historical events had the greatest impact?
• [01:00:38] Gladys Young: Where I lived in.
• [01:00:39] FEMALE_1: Why?
• [01:00:43] Gladys Young: Well, I lived in North Virginia, which was the largest naval base in the world. I think I mentioned this last time. Also so people were migrated to North to be with relatives and it was considered likely target of the enemy. He had lights on at night the same I don't think I was really worried about the law, just thought it was an interesting time at the time I was a teenager and not too worried.
• [01:01:20] FEMALE_1: What family heirloom or keeps sake and mementos do you possess? Know what's the story, if you have any?
• [01:01:27] Gladys Young: Well, my son now a has sword that [inaudible 01:01:33] when he was an officer in the Navy during World War I. That's in a sheath and he has that, what else do I have, if anything? I guess we have a flag that you get if somebody was in the service dies and I know my daughter has that, it's all folded. I can't think right now. I might there might be some others.
• [01:02:16] FEMALE_1: Thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
• [01:02:26] Gladys Young: I don't think I can answer that right now. I mean, it's too complicated.
• [01:02:30] FEMALE_1: It could be the way you raise your children, being proud of them for their accomplishments. Your accomplishments.
• [01:02:43] Gladys Young: I don't know. I think maybe being very self-centered, probably my leaving home. As soon as I went to college, and getting involved in dance and not going back home.
• [01:02:59] FEMALE_5: That's what you're proud of, so your determination?
• [01:03:02] Gladys Young: Yeah. To break out of the mold. I was expected to teach math in a city in Norfolk or near there. It's not that I've never went home. I did go home to visit, but I literally moved. I ran away from home, so to speak.
• [01:03:20] FEMALE_5: Did you enjoy your independence?
• [01:03:24] Gladys Young: Yes. I did.
• [01:03:28] FEMALE_5: What would you say has changed most from the time you were my age to now?
• [01:03:33] Gladys Young: Wow.
• [01:03:34] FEMALE_5: Sixteen, high school.
• [01:03:40] Gladys Young: Well, certainly the technology that you work with in high school. I think that students are more mature now, also appear to be more mature given more responsibility than they were in my era. I was in high school in the 50's. I was in a generation that was complacent, I think.
• [01:04:09] FEMALE_5: Do you think the youth grows up faster nowadays? [OVERLAPPING]
• [01:04:13] Gladys Young: I think they have more responsibility, more freedom, maybe it's good and bad, but they seem more mature to me. You're in a position where you have more decision-making than my children would've been given at the time.
• [01:04:36] FEMALE_5: What advice would you give to my generation?
• [01:04:39] Gladys Young: Wow, I don't think I can answer that without thought.
• [01:04:46] FEMALE_5: It's okay. Then that just leaves us for our last question. Is there anything that you'd like to add that I haven't asked you about?
• [01:04:53] Gladys Young: No, I don't think so.
• [01:04:57] FEMALE_1: Do you have anything more to add on your paper?
• [01:04:59] Gladys Young: No. I just had this in case somebody said what happened this time and show that I had my own cheat sheet. It's nothing of interest there.
• [01:05:14] FEMALE_5: Basically, the last question was what advice would you give to our generation?
• [01:05:21] Gladys Young: Follow your dreams?
• [01:05:25] FEMALE_5: Work hard?
• [01:05:28] Gladys Young: I guess so, yeah. Follow your dreams.
• [01:05:32] FEMALE_5: Just like you did.
• [01:05:34] Gladys Young: To some extent.
• [01:05:41] FEMALE_1: Do you feel like you'd grow a lot when you are able to break free from being with your parents all the time.
• [01:05:48] Gladys Young: I think it was a necessary escape for me, but I think it's not the ideal way to just jump. But I was in a family where my father had died, and my aunt was staying around, my mother was there, and an elderly cousin was there. You can imagine a teenager in that household. It didn't fit too well. [LAUGHTER] We kept up, there was no break but I had nothing really in common with my mother, I would say I felt.
• [01:06:24] FEMALE_5: That make sense then.
• [01:06:26] Gladys Young: Which is not ideal.
• [01:06:27] FEMALE_1: Did you feel closer to your dad?
• [01:06:30] Gladys Young: No, because he died when I was 17, and he was an old man when I was born. Not really, he was 50. But by the time I was a teenager, he had clearly very old-fashioned ideas about things. He was raised with the Civil War generation. Not in the Civil War but in the reconstruction of Norfolk afterwards and everything. That was a different generation.
• [01:07:06] FEMALE_5: Is there anything else you want to go over. Good questions, but we've basically covered all of them.
• [01:07:14] MALE_4: Did she answer the greatest achievement? [OVERLAPPING] .
• [01:07:16] Gladys Young: I don't think just splitting away from home is the ideal way. [OVERLAPPING] I think it's better if you can have the nourishment of the family and help as you move along. I see that with my grandchildren. I think that they're getting the benefit.
• [01:07:43] FEMALE_5: Who was the biggest difference between Ann Arbor and where you grew up?
• [01:07:55] Gladys Young: My husband went to school here and he said it was a different town then, it was a very small town. If we're talking about now, I don't know what I would say. Just entirely different really. I don't think it's as much between Ann Arbor and when I grew up. That's one thing, but Ann Arbor is just the difference between the world now and when I grew up.
• [01:08:34] FEMALE_5: When was the last time you visited where you were born?
• [01:08:42] Gladys Young: I'm trying to think. I know I went when my cousin was 80 and she's 99. I also went for a friend's funeral about 10 years ago, I guess.
• [01:09:03] FEMALE_5: Do you have any more family left there?
• [01:09:05] Gladys Young: No, but I have a friend from childhood.
• [01:09:09] FEMALE_5: Okay.
• [01:09:09] Gladys Young: In fact, I don't remember life without her. We were [LAUGHTER] babies in carriages and our parents rolled us as they used to say, rolled us around, and before we could talk or anything. I always knew her, and I went to college. We were in different crowds but I went to college with her too. We disagree politically and everything, but we're more like sisters, so something like that, I keep up with her.
• [01:09:43] FEMALE_5: That's good.
• [01:09:44] FEMALE_1: You still communicate with her today then?
• [01:09:48] Gladys Young: About every couple of weeks or so. I talk to her.
• [01:09:51] FEMALE_1: That's nice.
• [01:09:52] Gladys Young: Yeah, that's nice
• [01:09:55] FEMALE_5: Do you guys have any other questions you want to ask?
• [01:09:58] MALE_5: We've asked you all the questions.
• [01:10:02] FEMALE_5: I guess we're done. Thank you so much.