Angela Bates and Cheryl Jones

00:03 Cheryl Jones on 69 today is November 17th 2020. My location is Carson California name of my conversation partner is Angela Bates.

00:19 My relationship to her is she's my sister.

00:25 And I'm Angela Bates and I'm 68. And today is Tuesday, November 17th 2020 and I'm located in Bogue Kansas and that b as in boy o g u e Kansas my conversation partner is Cheryl Jones and she is my lovely sister that one year and one day older than I am.

00:58 Going to our first question who has been the biggest impact on your life. And what is one thing they taught you.

01:10 Do you think?

01:13 You have been the biggest impact on so far. So, who do you think you've been the biggest impact on Earth? And I think there's probably many and I think I'll go back to the person that I can remember that had the biggest impact on Me growing up and I think that was probably an honest and you know, she was are at she's to meet with a classy lady. She had it even though she didn't have any kids. It was a fact that she had her own business. She had a beautiful home. She did catering, you know, before we started working for and I think that an understanding represented in my mind a woman that I wanted to emulate someone that I wanted to be like, I know she only started working for her at the restaurant. It was very

02:13 Very hard Taskmaster and I liked it even though it was kind of hard time. I like the fact that she was hard on us because we we learn to respect her we will learn to respect basically what she said what came out of her mouth was you will do if this way or no way at all and because we just you know with me in particular I just said, okay do it her way. And because I did it her way. I respected her age. I respected her wisdom. And so I learned a lot from an Ernestine and it made me feel like you know, what set me on a course in my life that made me feel like if I do when she did I can't go too long because he's an old lady now at that time. I thought you was old so she was probably the first person that had a major impact on my life. I think another one was my art teacher my art teacher and and and high school damaged.

03:13 She basically said Angela. I think you got great technique, but I don't know how to teach you creativity and I can't keep your creativity. And so I thought at that point I was doing dozen artists only to find out I'm on my way now, but she had a major impact on my life and changed the course of my thinking at an age where I was most impressionable. I thought you know for years I have been thinking how I become an artist. I knew daddy was a great artist. And so I feel felt like I had his skills and I could do it, but when I got in high school

03:54 It was like I can teach you creativity you got great technique. So she had a major impact on my life that squished something in me that it's taken all of these years to realize that she couldn't change me creativity, but I learned to my business partner of years ago. Do we haul away who work who is the artist for the Secret Service? He taught me there was a formula for creativity and even though a lot of people may say, oh, no, you can't be creative but he taught me the formula for being creative. And so I learned that from him and I use that not only when I approached all right, but I use it in Paris with every aspect in my life as I move on in my life, of course.

04:41 I think the here recently awhile say recently. Well Suleiman my friend who was the head of the African American studies at Howard University. I met with him for three years straight every Friday at the same time at the same little restaurant called Stephanie's. I think that was the name of it on Dupont Circle and he was a professor at Howard and he was Muslim. He was from Gambia and I learn more about Christianity from him than I ever did going to church and trying to learn on my own and so he have a major impact on me as well as my friend Jeff Spencer who we were friends in high school, but we were on the same wavelength and we saw a life the same from the same perspective. So Superman and Jeff both had a major influence on me, and he recently in terms of impact.

05:41 My life is I have been listening to the Indian Mystic sadhguru and I find him very very interesting. I don't Embrace necessarily any religious girl genre has bought him a Baptist. I became a Catholic for about three years. But as I've grown in in my own life, spiritually, I've grown beyond the structures and the paradigms of organized religion and I've elevated myself spiritually to understand them all and I take a little bit and piece from each one of them that sits where I am spiritually and so I think I've grown spiritually in a way that I thought I would never grow. So those are the people that have impacted my life.

06:35 Well, first of all, I think it was mom and dad James and charge that a Bates.

06:42 Daddy was a hard worker.

06:47 And when he started a task, he took it to the end.

06:54 The same thing with Mom

06:57 She was a

06:59 How to take care of kids who work for very classy people

07:08 And where the molding point for me?

07:20 My teacher Miss bright. She was my English teacher and she wasn't a very strong person and her husband have a shoe shop on Bell Road.

07:36 And I would take you no shoes down there and and drop them off and have them fix. So those were the three.

07:47 People that work in packet my life and did my mother taught us about

07:57 The real big part of my life learning

08:03 About the Bible

08:06 And how it can affect your life years later and it have so with those.

08:16 Three individual I would say forthwith misses mister mister bright. They really impacted me with skills of light.

08:29 And then also on the educational fact or don't

08:34 After I dropped you the right scoop.

08:38 Done with education. I don't stay totally done because I continue to

08:48 Wanting to be a secretary. Also wanted to be an airline stewardess.

08:56 But I think I ended up being more of a secretary when I you know, right after graduating from high school. I got a job at California State University at Los Angeles where I ended up working there for 41 years and I do what my father said about a job get you a good job and stay on it. It will bring you benefits when you retire and that is truly been a blessing for me.

09:25 And I think I was just the opposite I wasn't what I went when I graduated from high school. I was through with Pasadena, you know, I admire her attitude was you know life is just going to begin and to me the ticket out of Pasadena was education. It was to leave the state and go somewhere else to go to school and Mom and then try to convince me to you. No, stay two years and go free after you know at Pasadena Community College if I wasn't seeing that I wasn't having that I was out of there. I left there at the high school and I thought the world is out there and I'm going to go see it and I want to see what there is out there that that can you know change my life are open in an open doors for me in terms of life. So to me the tickets for me was to go to school out of state and and I ended up going to you know, what Emporia at?

10:25 Butler County junior college in Kansas 1st and Alvarado and then I transfer the following year up to Emporia State University education was my ticket out of there. It wasn't necessarily thinking that oh, yeah. I'm going to get a degree know it was a ticket out of their education was a process for me to move out of Pasadena move away from Mom and Dad and and seek the world. So I never even thought about education in terms of oh, I'm going to be educated. I'm going to get a degree and I knew that getting a degree in education was going to allow me to teach since I couldn't be an artist. I guess I could cheat, you know, that was my ticket out. There was my English teacher at Elliot. She was my English teacher and she she was such a pleasant person she was

11:25 Patient and she just caught my attention and that was a turning point for me.

11:36 And then her husband, you know, he ran the the shoe shop down there on.

11:43 You remember where the laundromat was?

11:47 Yeah, I know when you come up. It's on the right side. When you going down. It's on the left. That's where we would go and get our shoes. Do you remember to request or yes? Yes. Yes. Wow. I have literally space completely out. I mean I can do you remember the pharmacy though? Oh, yeah. Now I'm another person that impacted my life and I forgot all about this and this was on the ark level. I used to go to the pharmacy. And remember they sold all kinds of stuff there. They said they had a little second or art supplies and I was in there one day and I was looking at all the paint by numbers and the brushes in the paint and all of that stuff and there was a white lady that was at the end of the counter and at the end of the aisle and she came up to me. I think I'll stop

12:47 What does the fifth grade somewhere around there if it's been older? I don't remember but she came up to me and she said would you like some of that and I looked at her and she's a where you pick out what you want and I'll buy it for me for you. And so she bought me a little paint by number of was a little girl holding the dog. I've seen that and I gave that to Uncle Donald and Aunt that lady she lives on Mariposa and whenever I would she ask you to know he lives off of Lake June in Mariposa, and I remember she gave me her number and stuff and she said if you ever need any more more supplies you let me know and I said, okay, so I walked over your house one day and I thanked her for doing that for me and she gave me money and I bought like a sketching pad. She had a major impact on my life. I don't even remember the lady's number.

13:47 But I know where she lives and I thought wow, you're someone that actually, you know thought, you know enough to buy this little black girl, you know some paints and here I am right now literally getting ready to do some some major painting, you know, I take I take oil painting classes now and I just bought a new table. I have all my art supplies for acrylic and oil painting and all that kind of stuff that I've been taking oil painting classes now for the last three four five years and so I've gotten a lot better, but I've been drawing up here and paying up here. So but that lady had also an impact on my life. Do you ever remember that girl? Yeah, I do. I remember that and remember you used to do flowers when you first started out so I did not do any flowers and I still want flowers.

14:47 When you were talking I thought about how Mom was such a productive person when she was doing housekeeping and I thought about the family of 9 kids. What would make a note 9 but there was a family that I used to earn their clothes and this in the baby girl. She was forever changing and getting out of her clothes and you know, the family used to say, you know, you're going to have a lot for the little one I said, that's all right, you know, you know, I've got what it takes to take care of doing my awning and then you know me keeping house and I think that's why everybody's house. You know, I

15:40 Spill into their house and you know clean it kind of put my only little tab on it and and my youngest daughter says mom you got to remember this is not your house. You're just you're just staying there. So you just can't revamp stuffed to your liking and I have to back up and say you're right, you know, and then and now in my old age I am I said, do you mind if I do your dishes do you mind if I help fold your clothes or throw a load of wash in there or sweep the floor or you can come out here and do it for me because I am in the process right now trying to do some major cleaning and it's more than a notion. Yeah.

16:25 I can't remember the name. Remember the name but I remembered that family. I think the family of six and how I got in contact with my don't know if it was my mom. I think it was from mom cuz I remember you doing that and then I remembered I don't know if I was doing it for someone else or just up but one of the things that you're saying is how because mama was as such a great book and great domestic and that was what she did for a living. She passed on all those skills to us, you know, our work ethic was instilled in us very early on and you know, Daddy have dad had the the lawn mower business on the side and He suggests and then Clinton. I have a little a lawn business and we had about four or five Lawns that he would do and Clint with Mo and and I would wait and back and so

17:25 Always paid me. That's why I was always closed cuz he and I were Partners. I like the outdoors and all of that and of course you and Priscilla and all in you guys were more of the inside of the Tomboy and let me just be out there and do what I can do outside. So but anyway, yeah, I thought it was going to be one of these times when we going to be stuck for words, but I don't think that's the case. What are you know you what you want to do the number for go ahead and describe a typical family dinner when you were growing up and what did you eat? Where did you sit?

18:10 What were the Dynamics and if you have your own family now, how do your family dinner growing up resembles or difference from your your family dinner now?

18:26 Well, you know what when we were going up because of Mama being a domestic and because she was a classy lady, you know, everything was formal, you know, we saw the top of the table. We always had you know, the linen tablecloth and he will always iron. Speaking of ironing. I love the iron the Lennon I like iron in the tablecloths in the in the napkins and even the sheets and pillowcases.

18:51 Do that now. We don't or iron pillowcases and sheets, but we used to do and I love that but I love the setting the table, you know that the table so we learned very early on the proper way of setting the table and so the table and the way it was set and remember she always had fresh cut flowers on the table. I have fresh the fresh cut flowers all the time everyday in my house cuz I love fresh pressed flowers, but my favorite meal at that time probably was pork chops, and I don't even eat pork chops anymore. I like that and that was kind of twist. I really like the pork chops and I like the chicken wings and you know, being a part of that even though I know we I don't remember her allowing us to cook. I remember calling something a little bit and I remember us being doing some very basic tasks like cleaning the beans out.

19:51 I'm washing the right but I don't like that and I remember having a conversation with Mom one time and I said Mom I did not learn from you. She said yes, you did. I said no. I do not. Remember you kicking me anyting in terms of cooking. I learned to cook from an earlier steam working in a restaurant but I love being able to sit at the table. I love how you know after we got everything said we would have to you know, say grace and grace. We said Grace every every meal that we have and then right out and you know, she told us how to pass everything to the left, you know, you don't have stuff to the right to pass it to the left around the table and eating, you know properly I as a black woman. I know so many black people that don't eat and white and other people that have no clue about table etiquette and that's one of those things that I think we've lost through some of the generations, but I love

20:51 To watch the dishes afterwards, even though it was a bath that was assigned to us. I love to wash dishes and you know, I love to wash dishes even today. I refuse to have a dishwasher. I hate dishwasher. And when I renovated my kitchen I would do some you going to where you can put your dishwasher dishwasher dishwashers are my hands and a nice clean towel in hot water with a little bit of bleach. I love to cook. I love to set the table and I'm right now I showed you my table in the other room and has a tablecloth on it and I've got fresh flowers. So that's what I remember now in my own home over the years. I've always cooked in and had dinners not just Sundays, but during the week and even though I just had one child.

21:51 Once I'm at times we would eat very formally, you know, I said, okay and I would make him set the table and I said, okay, we're going to eat out of the fancy dishes so to speak cuz I'm like Mama. I don't have anything I can use if it breaks. Oh, well, it breaks glass goblets of those crystal glass goblets that we had that they got when they move to the house and it was a gift from the people that sold them the house Mama gave me those. Those are the crystal goblets and I still have them I may cry, but right now I live by myself.

22:32 I have one son he lives in Denver obviously with his wife and they come home about once every month or two and I'm by myself and I still cook for myself. Sometimes I will sit at the table and have my low on my own little thing in terms of my mail by myself. And I do have friends that I will invite over. They think it's great that I cook and they get a chance to eat in a very formal kind of way. Are they like the way I set the table or fishes that I have? But that's one of the things I really truly miss.

23:10 I miss being at the table with family. I miss them.

23:17 Are you know what?

23:20 We're going to do when we have to be at Michael's. My son is Michael.

23:30 I really cried little pinto beans.

23:41 Homemade cinnamon rolls and potato salad. Oh, yeah. Those were the best because her all that was so good and how we how are you my my pinto beans with put that damn potato salad in the in people say potato salad in my dick is the clue and with that he never like cornbread, but I do we do some cornbread will do cornbread and she will do cornbread but do dental beans

24:27 Cinnamon rolls in the dinner rolls in the potato salad with my favorite. Now what I do for my kids went to when we were growing up we would have a pig out and pick out what did whatever they wanted and whatever their favorite items would be.

24:47 And so honey barbecue

24:51 I would do honey chicken chicken. That was honey. BBQ with baked beans and I would always do a pie weather with a peach pie or an apple. I'm not fond of peaches, but I can make the best peach cobbler in the world and apple cobbler dick can do it. But those are the things that we would do and my son to this day every Sunday. He will have a family dinner.

25:25 He said Mama Jennifer Bravo.

25:29 And I'm going to continue that tradition one down and he has everybody come over, you know, because of covid-19 lot of us come over, you know, cuz we got busy lies, but I stay between two houses. I stay at my middle daughter Sheri Marie's house to watch my grandson and to help them out and then I go for the weekends to recuperate from a 18 month old to my son's house and we enjoy doing the family dinners in he remembers it down at the farm in the neck and demons how grandmother would just fix.

26:11 Dinner and then after church David would come home and enjoy that family dinner. And so he just took it that he he doesn't

26:23 That's the thing that impacted me and is awesome impacted my kids loved when I would make cornbread dressing cat him.

26:39 And I would do the turkey. They just get old. Mom. You got to do the candy yams and so my daughter had a class and she had to do this this past weekend in she had to put her favorite dish in her favorite dish was cornbread dressing candied yams.

27:03 I can't think of the other one, but that's what she wrote on his mom. I need to rest. If I only go back to it every day, used to make banana bread. No God can't stand it so much of it. Oh and I used to love stick it under the broiler and get it on there and get it but I don't like it. But I just don't I never know if someone has it. I never eat it. Yeah. I just don't found it on it. I think I remember or hot cocoa girl. I was talking to someone the other day about that. It was Kelly it she was telling me about a friend of hers that makes cocoa from scratch and then they put this come out of some kind of liquor in it, and it makes a good you know.

28:03 Liquor drink and I said it was just two days ago. I said, you know what? I'm going to make me some homemade cocoa real cocoa and then start at sugar in it and then just add just a little built to to just make it to where they talk about good for today.

28:30 What about what about the cake that she made the little spice cake with the I have a restaurant but I haven't opened it in about twelve the last year-and-a-half. I haven't opened it primarily because of the cold it but I don't think I'm going to open that restaurant again probably sell it to a family member of whatever will I cook every day for a guy that used to be a client of mine there that used to come to the restaurant all the time. He had a couple of Strokes in a heart attack and you is about 5 miles from Angela. I called him on that and haven't heard from you. I'm doing fine. I said, you know, I made a couple of cheese. Do you want one and he said I will

29:21 Please to buy the keys from the restaurant on McKee and then that's what he told me. He had the heart attack and stroke what I cook. So for the last 2 months, I've been cooking for him everyday. I do a meal and take it to him. Sometimes I look and give it to him and then I'll be back on Monday. I'm looking for a man last night. He had I made some stir-fry vegetables over rice. And so I made the stir fried rice and then I had to stir-fry vegetables over it and he had a piece of salmon. And so that's why I took one last night. So it's amazing that you know our mom and and and and some of the other ants they always cook dinner in a week.

30:26 Okay, let's do this number 13. What are your proudest?

30:34 Wait a minute.

30:39 What have you what are you proud in your life? And I know that might be you answer that question first girl, okay.

30:53 What you know what?

30:56 I was one.

31:00 There were six of us and all my siblings have lived in academus. I was a city girl.

31:09 I'd like to Country although we every year and it seemed like we went for a month and it really was only for about 2 weeks that every year we went we drove from when we left Kansas in 1951, and we went to California my mom and dad told us where we came from and we went back there every year and so and so

31:46 The legacy of them teaching us life skills. And also where we came from and the story about that and now they're both gone.

32:01 And we have a farm.

32:04 Fa left breast

32:07 Just I say

32:12 Since Kobe

32:16 And I miss you being here girl. I miss coming home. I thought I would never say that. I would love to me some cats and stuff. Negativas. Can the beautiful sunset the beautiful sunrise Sky You Can See For Miles?

32:41 That's what I'm proud of.

32:44 And I do I have the same sentiments to give does the problem for me is Nicodemus and the fact that I took it upon myself because I was very selfish. I love Nicodemus so much and Nicodemus is our little Hometown is the only remaining all-black town west of the Mississippi. It's a national park at the unit of the National Park Service, and it's because of my efforts to get a designated as a National Historic Site.

33:20 I love Nicodemus so much. And you know, of course like you're saying is a part of our roofs that when I moved here I decided to do what I could do to preserve the remaining architectural historic buildings. And I knew we didn't have the money at the community. So working with Senator Doles office and Pat Robertson and working with the community. I worked to get a designated as a National Historic Site and it took seven years was seven years was nothing compared to what our forefathers had to endure through slavery and then coming out to the West in settling here and putting down roots and those groups are part of our routes and to me my proudest accomplishment is to get Nicodemus designated as a unit of the National Park Service. Not only preserving it for us that are descendants of those people that came in

34:20 And it made a difference in the lives of us that are descendants before the nation, you know, it represents the tenacity and the spirit of determination and the vision and the dependence on God that we have as a people and Nicodemus is a positive of all of those things and so for me the promise thing that I can say I've done in my life that I know it's a part of my own personal Legacy, but at the legacy of the family is to preserve the history of Nicodemus through the national site designation.

35:06 Have you experienced any Miracles? Absolutely every morning when I wake up every morning when I wake up. I experienced a miracle of waking up but I've had so many secret Mystic things happened in my life that you just wouldn't believe them. I'll share this real quick and I had a guy come to the restaurant years ago, and he he stopped in because God you when he saw the sign. He said God said stop there and then he stopped at the restaurant came and share this story with me. And he was on his way back from Kansas from Denver, Colorado giving out from Kansas City back to he went to Colorado and back to Kansas City because we got a new lease on life. He have been told that he had a terminal cancer. That was so unique that probably only three or four people in the world at it he was

36:06 Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for the surgery got there and they did some tests and they said he can't find anything and so he came and he shared that with me and I thought well about a month or so later. He came back to the restaurant and said to me I've got something I got to tell you when I said what is it? You said remember I told you there's only two people two or three people in the world that have this really rare cancer and he said I met another guy that had it I said really he said yes. He said I went to a place in Lucas Kansas and went to see this Museum called The Garden of Eden I was in there and I was talking to a guy and he has a scar across his neck and he started telling me historic. It was exactly like my he went to the Mayo Clinic. He actually have the surgery and he's and I told him the same thing happened to me with the Rick and he said isn't that a miracle and I

37:06 But what the miracle was each had a picture of the guy that that he had met he showed me the picture my hand to God that singer came to the restaurant about

37:23 I don't know if it was before him and after him and he signed my book. He was from Germany and it was the same guy and his wife and family now tell me that Ain't That America. Yeah, you know, I think about the small miracles of just

37:44 Being able to wake up every morning and I think of the smallest miracle.

37:55 Pickled okra life take a deep breath.

38:02 She just suffered so long with aspirin and they told her she would never have kids and she said so.

38:12 I'm going to have kids and I remember she was sick in the hospital.

38:18 And they were telling me that they were losing her.

38:23 If we can't get a pulse and get out she's going to be brain dead. And I thought to myself I serve a God that can handle it.

38:35 But I didn't know what was happening. But I just knew that something was going on and I didn't know what it was but years later I found out she had an out-of-body experience and she had a conversation with the Lord and she said I told you I want to be an attorney and that I wasn't going to give up on it. He says but I thought you were he says no.

38:58 Cheap have a baby April 16th. 2019 Ezekiel. Tuesday is my Miracle of Miracles the gym.

39:12 But that's one of my biggest Miracle to see her.

39:17 When doctors said nothing.

39:20 What happened? And it happened? So Ezekiel truth that too is my miracle. I have a lot more miracles than my sister is my miracle.

39:32 Worked out his my Miracle start crying and she's a girl. I don't even hit you around the table.

39:55 America and she beat me and I wouldn't even cry that was just when I think about my miracle I think about when I first went to Israel.

40:06 And I walked in the land where Jesus walked in that year. They found this was in 2007. I think it was they found one of the old fishing boats that they they had discovered in the mud over there. And that would just such an awesome thing to just to be in the holy land and hopefully I'll go back in 20 22 weave Catholic and 20 with Kathleen 21. So hopefully 2022 I'll get to go back for my third time. And so that's where the miracle for me to take that trip.

40:47 And to just be there.