Marilyn Rose, Meredith Rose, and Shelley Rose

00:05 My name is Shelly Rose. I'm 58 years old. It is July 3rd 2014 and I am in the Atlanta storybooth location and I am here to interview my mother, Maryland.

00:22 My name is Marilyn Rose. I'm 83 years old. Today's date is July 3rd, 2014. Where in the Atlantis story book?

00:36 And I am the mother of Shelley Rose and Meredith Rose. My name is Meredith Lee Rose. I am only 55 today. He is July 3rd, 2014. I'm in the Atlanta storycorps booth and I am here to interview my mom Marilyn and I'm here with my sister Shelly.

01:01 So Mom, just we did this we wanted to do the story Corps interview as part of your 60th wedding anniversary and as so we would have something to leave for your grandchildren and really to just get to know a little bit more and document a little bit more about some of your growing up and your experiences during your life. So I'm very excited about this and I've been wanting to do this for a really long time and I'm glad we're here and I didn't couldn't do it alone. So I'm really glad you're here to Mark. I'm mixed about doing this.

01:42 And in Providence Rhode Island, I was born in Providence. Both of my parents were born in Europe. My mother was born in novosibirsk Russia on the Black Sea, but she was only a year old when they came to this country.

02:11 And my father was born in I think it's pronounced. Yeah, she Romania and he was about six or seven when he came to this country.

02:26 And I feel like I had a very privileged childhood.

02:31 We never seem to want for anything my father.

02:38 I was in the retail business selling men's clothing. Actually, it's men's Haberdashery which means all the articles of clothing except suits and you know shirts and ties and he worked at a store in Providence call Kennedy's which was a very well-known men's store.

02:59 And after he met and married my mother.

03:04 He opened his own business and in a way, they built their own home. Although they lived with my mother's parents for the first few years of their marriage after my older sister was born they built their own home. We lived in a lovely neighborhood. Very nice neighborhood. We have a car.

03:29 We had a we went on family vacations.

03:34 We had I had two sets of grandparents. Although I was extremely young when my paternal grandfather died and I had many Aunts Uncles and cousins and

03:48 It was a life that I don't think a lot of people live anymore because everyone is so scattered but back in the thirties and forties.

04:01 Everybody seemed to stay where they were born. And so we had all of family holidays together. We on for Knuckles and cousins would just pop Ian to visit.

04:14 And I had an older sister until I was nine years old and then my baby sister was born which didn't sit too. Well with me but a

04:30 So it was it was a really a wonderful childhood always until I married. I live. 23 Race Street. Do you remember how Nana and your dad met or have a yes, I guess they were on.

04:52 They were on a double date, but my mother was with some other man, and my father was with some other woman. And so that's how they met each other and I don't know how long that courtship was. But my mother was 19 and they wanted to get married or get engaged even and my father my grandfather wouldn't care if it had so they have a 3-year engagement until my mother was 22 and my father was like

05:29 He was about 8 years older than she so he must have been around 30, but by then he was established in business and one of the reasons, I think my grandfather didn't want my mother to get married. So y'all was she was the only girl that she had three brothers and she was his little girl and he wasn't willing to give her up. So so that's what that is how they met and my mother always talked about the fact that the woman my father was with

06:04 Was very unhappy about the steps and four years later. She barely you know, now that is my mother's Direction because she felt like she stole my dad away from her just the most wonderful.

06:29 Man, he was gentle and kind and affectionate.

06:37 And quiet

06:40 And he adored my mother and believe me. She could be very hard to adore when I think back on it, but she always got her way. He just whatever. She he didn't fight her much and I felt like I had a very special relationship with him.

07:01 Because before when I was still the youngest child.

07:06 He spoiled me very much and whatever whenever my mother said no to something I would go to my dad.

07:16 And as a very young child of one of my Fondest Memories is when I would go to bed. He would I would Cry 4 for him to come up to bed, you know with me and he would sing to me bring me salary. I always left and he would rub my back. I would say Daddy scratch my back and then he would sing lullabies to me and then I would hear my mother's voice saying Max it's time to come to him.

07:54 But do you remember the house as being one of domestic tranquility or very much so yeah, it's always and then we'll always our house was always filled with people who ever came in my mother always said you'll stay for supper. If everyone could out. She always had food and even if she had nothing really to serve by the time she got through preparing the nothing it was a banquet and what my mother really she was kind of a controlling person and she worked with my dad and in the business she kept the books because that was her training when she graduated from high school. She became up she wasn't like a book they call it a bookkeeper then and she was eighteen and she worked for

08:47 He works for a company called Blazer brothers and mr. Mrs. Blazer. BK. My my parents best friends. We lived across the street from each other, but

09:02 She and then also she worked in the business, you know, as a sales woman on the floor. She did the buying.

09:11 She would go to New York to buy and when we kids got older she took us with her. That was a big treat because then she would take us to the theater at night. We got to eat in what we considered fancy restaurants. I remember Jack Dempsey's I think it might still be in New York in The Brass Rail.

09:31 And she was she was a strong disciplinarian and we knew never to cross the line. We would never disrespectful contrary to today's children.

09:47 Maybe excluding my grandchildren Meredith.

09:52 But even when I was in college

09:55 I had I had a curfew.

09:59 And even when I was engaged to Dad and we would come home from a date and then we would park in front of the house and neck.

10:09 Which is what they called it then?

10:12 My mom would come to the front door and she say if you're going to kiss at least come in the house and do it. So the neighbors won't talk about me being her so.

10:27 We would never occur to me to do something that I knew was not allowed. Did you ever I did when I was young younger like what maybe maybe a little older than I around. Ania's age 9.

10:49 And my mother worked in business with my dad, so we would have hired help at home looking after us.

10:58 But I would get into so much trouble. I can't begin to tell you one time, please your cousin Helene and I went into one part of the city only a block away. But I knew I was not allowed to go to Blackstone Boulevard and we always went to Blackstone Boulevard. She and I and there was a trolley line that went out with this lovely neighborhood and it had a grassy a grassy area down the middle of the street and that's where the trolley line was in wheat pennies on the trolley track and then when we heard the trolley coming we go jump behind the bushes.

11:42 And wait for our pennies to tip the trolley over.

11:46 We also it was beautifully planted this Boulevard and we would cut the flowers and then try and sell them to go ring the doorbell and say what you'd like some tulips for $0.10.

12:04 Until one day somebody really, you know scolded us and never did it again.

12:10 And we one time we went to there was a beautiful Cemetery off this Boulevard and we went there just I knew I wasn't supposed to do it.

12:21 And we even talked to some strange man. I remember that and when we came home Halloween said now remember don't tell your mom and the first thing I did when I was saying I mean and I can't today we went to the cemetery.

12:42 You know what? I in trouble but not as much trouble as the time I ran away from home because of our dog.

12:53 I just don't know how old I was also probably around 8 or 9 and we had this this we always had a dog this particular dog was lucky. His name was lucky and and he would

13:11 They've always just Matsu know they weren't people didn't have purebred dogs back fit and the dog would sit in the middle of the street and Howell and across the street where the Blazers left the grandmother live with them and she was very ill and she was a really dying and my mother was upset that the dog howling all the time would be destructive.

13:37 So one boy was in the summertime and I can even remember what I was wearing. That's how a blue blouse and and like Paisley shorts with suspenders on them like heard my mother on the telephone calling the Humane Society to come and take the dog away and I jumped out of bed and put on those clothes grab the dog and ran where to Blackstone Boulevard where I had a secret. He was laying with a lovey.

14:09 Lovely places you could hide there it was.

14:14 It was City, but it was almost Rural and in a way.

14:20 So I took the dog and that's where I ran to and I decided I was going to live there and and eat berries. This memory is so vivid. I don't know why but my sister my oldest sister aren't their R's knew where my hiding places were and she came after me and she said you better come home.

14:42 And I wouldn't go so she whistles for the dog and the dog went with her, but I was not going to go and I didn't go.

14:51 And I decided I was going to fix it like a little bedding place with leaves.

14:56 And all of a sudden I look up and here comes please car and the policeman with it in the little ways away from where I was close enough. I'm just slow down and he said little girl are you lost and I said, no, I know where I am and then the back window roll down and there was my mother.

15:23 She said you better get in the car right now, which of course I did and I wasn't allowed to go to the movies all summer.

15:37 And I got a spanking and the dog got given away in an hour.

15:45 So you can see that that's a very clammy and Reagan in the same spot where I was my little hiding spot. It was like a dam with a little trickle of water over it and my girlfriend who lived around the corner from me Barbara ball it till she and I used to go there and we are now we must have been a little bit all because she sneaked a cigarette from her mother's house and we decided we were going to smoke it but when she was trying to light the cigarette for me, it's finish my eyelashes and I was so afraid my mother would see it. So we got some shoe polish my eyelashes. I got in a lot of trouble like we used to do I fell out of trees and if you think any ever break any bones and never broke any bones, but one time I tore my knee cap

16:46 You know, that's why she parked playing step baseball and the doctors they came to your house then he came in and he sold it up, but I had a group of neighboring girlfriends and it's this was always in the summertime. We would gather every morning and play outside my mother was it business and and the cleaning lady in Hershey. We Devil's her to death so she couldn't really look after us too much. We doubled her by ringing the front door and running away and then ringing the back doorbell and then but anyhow, we had this routine the kids and I buy girlfriends are not where we would get on garage roof. So we jump from roof to roof. Sometimes we used to treat a ghetto in between.

17:36 I would Sun Devil. I really was mad Mom. Did you said that your grandparents lived with you. They don't live with you. Okay, my mom and my dad lived with my grandparents when they were first married until he was born and then after I thought he was born they built the house really quick just a couple of blocks away walking distance to my grandparents house. Do you have memories of your grandparents? Yes very much. So yeah, they were both from Russia.

18:12 I knew that they had come to this country.

18:15 My mother was one she had two older brothers probably two and three and my grandmother was pregnant and this captain of the ship kept hoping that my grandmother would have gave birth to Uncle Henry because that was supposed to be good luck for the ship but that didn't happen because he was born in this country. But we always my grandfather was out watchmaker clockmaker and my grandparents house was filled with clocks of all some of which we see in our house all manner of clocks. And if you walked in at the Striking hour, they'd all be going off at the same time. I bet he has a mantle clock in her house that still strikes.

19:07 I Gatti had the big grandfather clock which Harris now has

19:13 And I've got that clock the pendulum clock which doesn't work and all the other clocks in the little bitty clocks.

19:23 Where all my grandfather

19:26 And my great-grandmother lived with them.

19:32 Add her name was Bertha and I Bev is named for her her Jewish name is the same as we called her Bobby my grandmother. We called Mammy because

19:45 Cousin Phyllis, who was the oldest grandchild. That's the name. She gave her as a child not Nana. She called her Mammy and the whole city of Providence refers to her as Mammy and my grandfather was Papa. He had a mustache a big mustache and he wore straw hat and he worked in a building in Downtown Providence.

20:10 When I was older and going downtown by myself, or you are I would always go and visit him and

20:18 You going to the building and you had to get on the elevator which was the word are such things as automatic elevators. In fact, the elevator operator pull the elevator up with a rope like my hands. How old I am. Yeah.

20:35 And we I have a neat picture of him on the wall of him at his and his office and repairing watches and he's got out of green eyeshade.

20:49 And every day he would take the trolley home to have noontime meal because people ate their big meal at noontime and then he walked back to the trolley and go back downtown and work and my grandmother was a wonderful cook and Baker somehow.

21:13 They managed to do all the cooking all the baking. Nothing was prepared and and most of the food then they even can for themselves, but they always had time for everything.

21:26 So I'm moving along then I want to go to you met you and you met dad and becoming a Navy Wife. Okay. What do you want to know? How did you how did you and he meet how much time do you have? How about you can you can start? Okay. I'll make a quick dad was Dad who just got his wings. He went to the Naval Academy as you know, then he spent a tour of Duty about a destroyer decided he got much to see sick during a hurricane and applied for flight school and went and got his wings and the first Squadron that he was assigned to wasn't Quonset Point which was right outside of Providence, maybe 35 miles and when he got there one of the first things he did was a he was concerned because one of his Squadron mates was killed in a flight accident and when they had the funeral the chaplain couldn't even remember this.

22:26 Man's name without reaching into his pocket to get out the paper that his name was written. So Dad contacted a rabbi.

22:36 So that if the same thing happened to him at least and I think the rabbi was a chaplain at the at the Navy base and it happened to be the rabbi from our Temple.

22:50 And Rabbi Bonin said to him. Oh, I'm so I'm glad you called and I'm going to a party tomorrow night and engagement party and why don't you come with me and you can meet all these nice Jewish girls.

23:06 And it was the party was an engagement party for one of my friend. She was the first one of our group to get engaged and her parents were giving her a party myself and my some of my girlfriend's decided we didn't want to go and my mother said you're going because the parents were good friends of my parents and she didn't want to be more to 5.5 not showing up. So I went begrudgingly went to the party and the day of the party the bride-to-be called and she said there's going to be an eligible Anson at at my party tonight. So that made me feel better about going so I went to the party.

23:48 I'd never really been out of my hometown and I thought so I knew everybody there but there was this darling young man who I immediately knew was the eligible and so he met me and he met all my girlfriends and he went back to the boq which is where the bachelor office has lived on the base. And the sailor who was like the desk clerk came from Providence and he lived around the corner from my grandmother. So dad showed him the list of girls that he had met and he said which one of these girls should I call up and ask out and the cost of the guy who made because he lived around the corner from my grandmother and he said he'll take out now so Dad called me and he invited me to go to the hockey game because the Rhode Island Reds. It was a professional hockey team in in Rhode Island, and that was our first date and that's how come we're here. And that's a light with it. Love at first sight Oh, I thought he

24:48 Was cute. I don't.

24:51 And he asked me out right away after that and then I invited him to dinner and to meet my parents and my father just kept saying are you sure he's Jewish? He's from he's in the military. What kind of job is that? And he's from North Dakota. There aren't many Jewish people who live in North Dakota. No, I think I've relationship develop but Dad kept going out to see all the time. And the first time he went out to see after we met he asked me if I would take care of his tropical fish. He always had tropical fish and he had a little 5 gallon tank with some session it and I said, I would and he said now remember don't feed them too much give him very little to eat.

25:42 Because if you feed them too much they'll die and it will cost by the time he got back they were dead.

25:48 But he married me anyhow, so maybe it was love at first hate you go out with other gentleman while you were yeah, I have a lot of a lot of boyfriends but it was different than what a boyfriend is now because we traveled in groups and we were all each other's friends first and

26:12 They were boys and girls sometimes your boyfriend was Jim and sometimes it was why you switched on and off and we would meet at each other's houses on Friday nights and we would most houses have what they call the rec room in the basement and they would have you know, we danced to records and then we walk we walk home. Nobody was afraid to walk around in the dark and then but did your girlfriends did they think? Oh, you're going out with the Ensign? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a lot of points for that and then when you all decided I mean when you decided to get married and you really had never been away from home, I've been to New York City with my mother when she would go buying for the store.

27:03 I had been to all.

27:07 To a friend's house who lived in Brooklyn one time for just a short time, you know, like a weekend visiting a friend. I had worked and this girl also worked at the same camp. She invited me to come and spend the weekend with her but

27:29 No, nobody knows what it was like to live like, you know get married and leave home and you went far away far away. Yes the night we got married like we left but Dad was on leave and we had to get back to Pensacola where it was a big one of the major naval air stations.

27:48 I cried.

27:51 First of all, I didn't want to leave my wedding party and my sister Doris who was my matron of honor finally said you've got to come upstairs and change your clothes and get ready to leave and I keep telling the story that got in the car. I think with dad must have had a Buick can Grove Buick said I was sitting way over but I got over that pretty quickly. I was excited about leaving seeing things. I've never seen and leading our kind of life. That was most unusual for most people the nobody at that. I knew I had that kind of life and I really enjoyed every second of it.

28:45 And so what was it like being a Navy Wife?

28:50 Oh, well, there's an old saying that most naval officers say which is when I die. I want to come back as a Navy Wife. It was great, but it was work.

29:05 You know, what is that sign I have in the kitchen by the telephone the most a Navy Wife the most important job in the Navy or something like that. It was so different from the

29:18 Life by Mary sister had

29:22 It was a you met lots and lots of different people from all over.

29:30 How did you learn all the social niceties and obligations and rituals on the job training?

29:39 Really and you saw how other people did it and that's what you did and you just acquired it.

29:49 You're waiting for me last night. I question.

29:52 So so I've lost my train of thought.

29:58 Talk about us. Like did you consciously make a decision to have children. It was just what people did you or a conscious decision you were not I was unconscious right that you were conceived in New York City and I can't remember what hotel we were at. We were a little surprised.

30:27 And you were you know, you were born at you each one of the Neighbors on The Middle.

30:32 What else do you want to know about that?

30:35 What was it like being a parent for the first time? I don't think I knew the first thing I was doing and I can in the results of today's world everyone who becomes a parent is very well prepared. But back thanks for just you just did it. I was lucky because cousin a do you remember cuz it was a baby nurse and her gift to me was two weeks of her. I want might have even been more but it wasn't two weeks of free time and she flew to Pensacola and she helped take care of you which was good because after you were a breech birth, so I was in the

31:18 Really great condition after you and I also at that time they gave you a spinal which could leave you with a massive headache that never went away, so she was really big help and I learned a lot from her on how to feed you how to burp you out of change you

31:38 Dating a lot you had to look after Shelly and also me a lot of times on your own right cuz wasn't Dad out at Sea Meadow. How often were you on your own?

31:50 Every time he was gone, I don't know I've never but they were aware that you had your family of other Navy wives and then there was the wife of the commanding officer who is like the mother hand and she took care of all your problems and who you went to if you if he had problems and you know, it was like a little Community helping each other. It takes a village kind of thing. So when Dad would go off for months at a time. What was do you remember what that felt like for you or were you gain? He's gone or how bad it was? It was very sad. We we stand at the dock watching the carrier.

32:35 Pull away hoping it would sink at it tomorrow and it's more important. I have to go a lot of times and this was when you kids were older.

32:45 You know my good friend Bobby wassel. She and I would go on a shopping spree. We leave we leave the dock and this was in Jacksonville we go downtown and we just buy new outfits and kissed that seemed to be a way to make us feel better while we would you know, we'd all get together. We do things together.

33:09 With the wives, you know, we play cards we walk the babies together when we would get together in the evening. We bring the kids and you go to sleep in their bedroom and but there was no communication like there would be now right when dad was gone. He was gone or did you and it was communicate through telegram code to communicate.

33:34 In fact when I was going to follow his ship.

33:39 His ship was in the in the med in the Mediterranean and I was going to leave you and you too with Nana and I was going to go with three or four of the Navy wives and we were going to fly to meet the ship in Barcelona. And this was in the early sixties when Kennedy was president and we are all set to go. I went to Rhode Island with the two of you and someone was taking care of the car back in Jacksonville. And I got a call Owen. I didn't get a call right away, but they decided to take one of the aircraft carriers bring it home. Take it out of the med and it was Dad ship the Shangri-La.

34:25 So the trip was gone. So I I sent him I guess he sent telegrams I send a telegram to Dad and I said I'm not coming and I guess you know, why well, he didn't know why because they had told him yet it quietly back and he said what do you mean you're not coming? Of course you're coming and then somebody somebody got your day off got the word that the ship was coming home.

34:55 Are you going to say something else? So we have about 5 minutes? Okay for the I talk too much, and I know you talk right? It's perfect about that, you know, cuz we gave you a list of questions ahead of time. Was it something you wanted to talk about that we haven't gotten to

35:14 I don't think so. Shelly. I can't think of anything. You know I had

35:21 I had two siblings my older sister and I fought terribly like your two children could do not only screaming and yelling, but she was physically she got me down on the floor and see her fingernails into me and she'd say if you tell Mom I'm going to do it harder next time but asked me which would we became very very close and I and I still miss her dreadfully my youngest sister and I we were too far apart. I'm 9 years older than she but we have a good relationship now, but it's not anything like the relationship I had with my older sister.

36:00 I never craved a brother like some kids, you know say oh how I wish I had a brother that never entered into the picture. Oh and I will say this one other thing. I remembered, you know, my mother was a Pianist and she was a piano teacher in the and her most prized possession was herb Steinway baby grand and I have this wonderful memory of her playing and my father and my father singing she is to favorite song Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and give me a home Where the Buffalo Roam but they would do that a lot. So I had I really did have a wonderful childhood and she forced us to take piano lessons and it never worked but you play the heart and around the corner play the heart, but she couldn't afford to buy me a big heart, but she have to sell her piano and she wouldn't do that.

36:57 So

37:02 My maternal grandparents name was Mark off.

37:08 Edward and Sonia Markoff

37:14 What was the name of your siblings? My older sister was Doris my younger sister was Beverly.

37:25 And did you tell us the names of your paternal? Yes.

37:31 All of a sudden I can't remember my grandfather's name. His wife's name was Sophie.

37:38 I'm named after right. Is that a yes. I know you're named after Sonia by my mother's I can't remember my child's his name was Charles. We think he might have been born in Palestine.

37:51 But the history of my father's family is very light compared to the history of my mother's family.

37:59 And my father had sent three other brothers and a sister to Sisters. I take it back.

38:09 I will and I Tiana and then he had a uncle Eli and Uncle Vanya two brothers and two sisters. So if they were 5 and his family my grandfather had six fingers on one hand and I remember sitting on his lap in a rocking chair counting his fingers and want and then counting his fingers on the other hand and I couldn't make anything of it and when you kids were born the first thing I did was count your fingers and toes but it never showed up and anybody else that I know of.

38:41 And he was just to me just a very old man. He died when I was very young have a grey beard and he died of oral cancer. Thank you for doing this for us. This has been really great. And and I think I've heard some stories. I haven't heard before which is really wonderful. But to have them that said that they'll be with us is is a really great thing and you know, you've I just want to say that for me I think you and Dad have been great parents to us as to how I would say that to

39:15 I would agree that we put you on report even though you put a timer for I mean, I think gave us a really good upbringing with a lot of security and that that's sort of what I take with me in and you're always there for us and you know, and you bring a lot of love to the family so that's cuz I love you. Thank you girls for doing this. It's really I I feel like I just talk too much. Now, this is what I did it interview, but I enjoyed every second of it and thank you for doing it and it and it was good for me to think about these memories and talk about them gray makes me realize what a lucky person I am. I really lucky.

40:03 And I'm not going any place either. I meant to tell you that I'm not going.