Jane Purcell and Emily Fitzpatrick

00:09 My name is Emily Fitzpatrick. I'm 29 years old. Today is October 7th 2014. We are at the Atlanta History Center and Jane is my grandmother.

00:26 I'm trying for sale and I'm 80 years old. Today's date is October 7th, 2012. And we're in Atlanta Georgia and my relationship to my partner is her Nana.

00:44 So nana, I wanted to ask you.

00:48 Do you remember the first time when you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up?

00:56 Well, I really didn't think about it until I got till I fell in love.

01:05 And I fell in love when I was a junior in high school.

01:09 And I wanted to get married and I'm going to have a bunch of babies and I never even considered a career.

01:20 At that time

01:22 I went to college but I went to college because that's where your grandaddy went, and I wanted to be with him. So.

01:32 I think I think the whole thing him is said our cultures were so different back then and they are now when young people graduate from high school Fair few girls with the college back then it was mostly man who went to college and those of us who did go

01:57 Didn't go to get an education. We went to go find somebody to get married and I babysat was just the thing to do back then and women didn't work much.

02:12 Do you look back at that time now and wonder?

02:17 What if I would have done something else? What if I would have thought more about a career do you get thought to ask what that would be I can look back on it now because I'm not head over heels in love anymore. But I was then I started singing in college. I want a little talent show. They had Four Freshmen and I started singing in college and have his chance at a fraternity party the second year. I was in school to sing with the big ban. They hired big National nationally-known bands to come in for the Frat parties and I haven't had an opportunity to sing for them. Jane didn't want me to so I did.

03:11 It's pitiful now I didn't it sounds beautiful. Why do you remember feeling then where you angry or were you wanting me to himself?

03:26 Do you remember what all your other?

03:31 College friends Women College friends were doing and thinking about it that time where they like minded or where they are. My roommate happened to be there for an education a career.

03:49 She wanted to be a doctor and have I made up her mind about that and the world, you know, I would say maybe two-thirds of the women there.

04:02 More like me they just wanted to get married and be a mother and wife the rest of them.

04:09 Wanted careers

04:16 But to remember why didn't like what were they thinking about being?

04:21 Who do you remember what those women wanted to do? Mostly there weren't that many opportunities for women back then even being a doctor was sort of a new back in the the 40s 30s in late thirties and forties and fifties.

04:43 I don't really know what kind of crib nursing.

04:51 There just weren't that many opportunities for women. You never heard of a woman heading up a corporation, you know or anything like that.

05:04 But I wasn't involved with that group of people. So the people always send ball with my friends will all like me. We just wanted to marry our sweethearts and have babies and keep house. How old are you when you got married 19?

05:23 A baby Song of Myself. Do you remember when you found out you were pregnant with your first child? Yeah, I was pregnant.

05:36 When I was I got married.

05:39 When I was 19, and I had land when I was barely twenty I had her the first year we were married.

05:51 And when I found out I was pregnant not happy cuz I could quit school and ideas.

05:59 What when do I know that sounds pathetic to you? I know it does because because looking back on it.

06:10 It sounds pathetic to me that I'm trying to be truthful with you. I was in love and I wanted to get married and have my own home and my children.

06:23 And I'll look at you and Kristen and all my grand girls.

06:29 And and that wasn't your desire at 19.

06:35 Your desire at 19 weeks to have fun, but get an education and plan a future using that education and we just didn't do that.

06:52 What's the thing that you look back on about being a new mom that you?

07:00 Didn't expect

07:04 Well

07:08 I expected it to be pretty much like it was but then some things happened when I had my second child. We were still in college.

07:21 I had dropped out I wasn't going to school anymore, but jean was still in school and we found out our oldest daughter had serious heart problems.

07:34 &

07:37 It was overwhelming to me because I was still just a kid.

07:43 And I thought I was grown but the next year your granddaddy had to drop out of school cuz she had to have her first surgery. So.

07:56 Probably didn't have what in quotes was a normal early marriage because because of the problems we have with land.

08:10 How old are you and all that started to happen?

08:14 I'm out 21.

08:19 Switch to you at 21. You weren't even thinking about getting married.

08:26 No, and I mean when you say it sounds pathetic to me, it doesn't adjust if anything I feel.

08:35 Nostalgic for a pass that I don't have because it's it's

08:42 Wonderful and terrifying and

08:46 Scary more than anything to imagine what that was like for you.

08:51 Well, the thing is him.

08:56 I've always had.

09:00 Deep faced

09:03 Even as a young woman, I've had a date fact. I always thought that tomorrow is just going to be better. You know, I don't want to see tomorrow and it's going to be good. It is going to be better.

09:19 Also being young and stupid. I didn't realize how seriously ill Lim was because when she had her first surgery, they did some rerouting around her heart and all in what's that was over she was perfectly normal to look at. She still had other surgery go through later, but to the outside appearance. She was perfectly normal. So to me, I just had to normal children. I was just happy.

09:53 & Jane dropped out of school and got his first job and we rented a little house and that we bought a house not too long after we came home from Florida and I was just happy I had what I wanted.

10:12 Is that what he wanted? Did he know that you wanted to have?

10:17 This life with a bunch of children or was his mentality. Okay, we'll get married and we'll have a couple of kids.

10:27 Their again, you've got the difference in cultures.

10:34 Jane and I never sat down and talked about what we wanted out of our marriage. We just never did.

10:43 We just wanted to get married. So we got married and

10:53 There's things I can't discuss.

10:57 West you on the radio that I can some other time. I'll make that clear but we just never talked about our future.

11:16 And that's what I found so fascinating and so wonderful.

11:21 About you grandchildren of mine even my own children who?

11:29 Several of them went to college graduated several of them didn't but they all married and had families, but I don't think before they married they were much different than I was about making plans for the future where your generation everyone of you grandchildren of mine have planned your future and I think it's wonderful.

11:57 & Anna, especially

12:01 And I never thought I would ever be able to say this.

12:06 I admire the fact that you my grandchildren can be married have children and still have your career. I think it's great.

12:22 & of

12:26 Why would you go to school for years and you've been to school for years a master's degree?

12:36 I never can get that straight clinician psychologist. I think it would be a shame.

12:49 For someone with your compassion for elderly people.

12:54 To stay at home and not put your knowledge and and your love.

13:01 To work

13:04 And I know it bothers you.

13:07 Cuz we've talked about it leaving Graham.

13:13 But I think you're doing the right thing.

13:16 Because I think you you have a desire to help a group of people who not many people have a desire to help and they need people like you.

13:29 I need people like you.

13:33 And and I think you would be an be doing a disservice to those people if you just stayed home.

13:43 Well in there, I think there's something to be said for the fact that you

13:49 Had six children and you were there every day when they got home from school and you made them a priority even into your divorce from Grandpa. I mean

14:04 To be a full-time. Mom is to be

14:08 A million different

14:10 Rolls a million different people a doctor a teacher coach of counselor. I mean a friend and you did that time 6 what I'm doing, so I just I wonder what makes you the most proud when you look back on your life as a full-time mom.

14:33 What makes me most proud is when I see how much older and turned out.

14:38 And what kind of parents they have been to my grandchildren?

14:43 I must have done something right and I do wrong. I did a good job raising my kids.

14:55 I knew I loved him and I knew I cared about him and they have been turned in good parents to you told me all of them.

15:06 How do you feel like things that have happened with?

15:10 Losing two children

15:15 Divorce has impacted your relationship with my mom and her siblings.

15:25 Well to start off with

15:29 Like I said, I have a lot of faith.

15:34 My faith in Jesus Christ, and God is a strong point in my life.

15:41 And when Linda

15:45 Well, I just have to choose ice mad at everybody. I didn't like any but I hated everybody I hated God. I hated Jesus. I hated my kids. I hated June.

16:00 That just happens when you lose a child. You just are all screwed up and four-year you and I've talked to that it for you. I don't remember a lot of anything.

16:13 But

16:15 I really believe that that if something bad happens to somebody.

16:23 That God doesn't plan it, but he'll use it.

16:28 If you're letting to make things better, and I think once I got over the shock of losing a child.

16:42 I realized that I didn't have a guarantee that any of my family would be there the next day.

16:50 And I decided I was going to be the best mother I could possibly be the rest of my life and I've spent the rest of my life trying to be the best mother I could be and the best grandmother I could be.

17:06 And that's a wonderful ambition its most fun in the world and I've had some but listen to child you never get over it with you the rest of your life because this a place in your heart that's gone.

17:24 And it can't be replaced.

17:27 That God help me get through it and he showed me the way to be a better person and especially about a mother after that. Nothing came before my children.

17:41 Nothing

17:46 Do some good did come of it.

17:51 But you asked me on the way over here.

17:55 Do you have any question that you would ask God? And yes, I do.

18:01 I want to know why my child.

18:07 Walmart on when I wanted her.

18:11 So that's the answer to your question.

18:19 I wonder now.

18:22 Working a mental health and working with people who have lost children and have lost loved ones.

18:32 I wonder what it was like then like.

18:41 At your age being what were you 2829 about? She was 12 and I was 19 when she was born. So yeah around 30 or so, but what was it like to grieve then? I wonder if I imagine like what kind of support group or system? Did you have to listen or is this just goes back to my parents? I had no support from them because when Linda died they were emotionally just I was an only child.

19:17 And she was the first grandchildren so they were absolutely no help to me at all.

19:23 Your grandfather

19:27 By then was drinking and it got worse so he was no help to me.

19:35 But I had a friend Ruby when we she died when we lived in fear and my friend movie and my church family.

19:47 Were there

19:49 But for year, or maybe a little longer than a year. It didn't matter what anybody said to me.

19:58 In fact, I am I talked to you last night and I told you I thought that maybe I had never even talk to my girls about their sister dying. And so I called them both and I talked to him one last night one today.

20:18 And here's what they told me and it's so surprised me because they said

20:26 Mother you just acted normal. Everybody else was going crazy, but you were the normal one.

20:34 I didn't even remember that year.

20:42 It's my belief that God knows what I was going through and he got me through Emily. I hope none of y'all ever have to

20:53 It's the hardest thing in the world to lose a child and you never ever get over it.

21:02 Let's talk about I want to ask you a couple question.

21:06 First of all, I want to know how you feel about working and having a baby.

21:18 My plan was always to work and to

21:25 I remember when I was little I wanted to live in a big city, and I wanted to be able to walk to a coffee shop and then work in a hospital cuz I thought people who work in hospitals are really important and they're always busy and they've got people's lives in their hands. So I want that kind of esteem. Are that kind of?

21:52 Honor and

21:54 If I'm living that life, then I'll be happy and I'll be independent. I don't remember thinking about.

22:05 Wanting to be married or wanting to

22:11 I mean definitely never thinking about what my husband would do so that I would be able to have children.

22:24 And now that I am a mother and I work I've really struggled with it because I think is women.

22:34 Work when we have children, it's a natural hormonal process where you feel inclined to be with that child as much as possible. I want to be the one that teaches him everything and I want to be the one that sees him learn and see something new for the first time and experience something for the first time and if I'm not there.

23:02 Will he know that and think about that and wonder where I am and so it's that new discovery in myself of not being the independent.

23:20 You know.

23:24 Self involved career

23:30 Motivated person that I imagined myself to be now. I'm this vulnerable to have mess of a person who sometimes I go to work with my shirt on inside-out and I don't notice that until my co-workers pointed out and sometimes I lose my temper and

23:57 I lose control in front of

24:01 Graham and then I feel guilty about not being a perfect example, and I you know, not a great cook and I

24:10 You know all these things that as a woman in this age, especially with social media and Pinterest and all those things where people put their best foot forward so that you only see the perfect aspects of their life and in reality. Mine is not and being a mother makes you so vulnerable to the opinions and criticism of everyone. You're smart enough to know.

24:45 That the criticisms you here are ridiculous.

24:50 They don't they don't they don't they don't have any usefulness at all.

24:58 Your

25:00 I had to work.

25:02 Once I was divorced.

25:06 And that I think what you feel

25:13 Is that

25:15 You feel guilty because she would enjoy working. Maybe not good job. You've gotten out, but I think

25:25 I think you like what you planned for your future.

25:31 I think it's real shoe to think about somebody calling and saying I want an hours appointment. I've got some problems that I need you to help me deal with.

25:43 I think you need that.

25:48 No, I absolutely do. I mean a man and I was thinking grams going to be fun.

25:54 Yeah, I mean there's a confidence that comes out of just getting past that first year post.

26:03 Childbirth where you know your hormones go back to normal and you learn the routines in The rhythms and you see that you know, the world is not spinning out of orbit because you're not there to watch and make sure and you it's almost like you go through the same learning curve with the child because you're experiencing this new life in this new world together with them and you get more confident the older you grow with them. And so yes, I need to work. I love what I do and

26:51 It's not.

26:54 When I'm really with people and I'm really hearing people and listening to them and imagining myself walking in their shoes. It's not work and I tend to get lost in it and it

27:10 Empowers me and it

27:18 It also frightens me at how fragile everyone's lives are and how quickly they can turn out of control and become despairing, but what I've learned and what I what I do, which I haven't done it for very long, but is the resilience in human beings the capacity to

27:45 Take a really traumatic devastating despairing experiences and turn them into something really beautiful as simple as sitting in a group of people and sharing that and feeling that connection between people of I'm not alone anymore. And so yeah, I think that's wonderful. Am I think it's wonderful that you're willing to share.

28:14 Part of Graham's childhood with others and helping them be happy. I just think that that's just wonderful.

28:28 & Graham is have we declared who Graham is Graham is Emily's son is 22 months old.

28:39 And he is so adorable.

28:43 He's brought. I I guess if I had to ask turn the question around to me of what I wasn't didn't know to expect.

28:53 Because you can buy all the diapers and have all the showers and get all the baby clothes the borrowed the hand-me-downs and all of that.

29:02 What I didn't know is how

29:05 Terrified I will always feel.

29:10 That I can't

29:13 Always be there to protect him from emotional pain from predators from reckless drivers from

29:24 A bumble bee stings, you know, I can't be there for everything and there's something very rational about that and I understand it makes sense to my rational brain, but on the other hand, there's such a vulnerability there if I told you today.

29:45 That one day you would feel that way about your grandchildren. You probably would say no now I'll never feel that way about anybody except for him, but you will and it never cooked to what I still worry about my girls and their 50. They're not girls anymore.

30:08 So that's just part of being a mother.

30:13 What do you love about being a mother?

30:17 I

30:19 Love being able to see the world.

30:25 As kind of cliche through a child's eye, but

30:31 As seeing him explore turning on a light switch and like mastering little things that we take for granted every day, but he turns around and looks at you after he does something with such pride and pure joy in his face that you just want to celebrate with them in that moment. And remember what it felt like when you learn something for the first time and I think as adults we tend to focus on

31:05 Things that cause a stress and the cause us worried but children they don't think about that kind of stuff. They just go and they explore and they want to learn and they want to

31:16 They want to see the best in people and he helps me do that again. He helps me want to see the best in people and want to explore Basics simple everyday beautiful things that we pass by and we don't notice.

31:38 I have another question that somehow and all of our million conversations I've never asked. Do you have any regrets?

31:47 About your life so far.

31:59 I mean I have things that.

32:02 I'm embarrassed of I Love Rock and I cringe and I think I'll my God. What was I thinking?

32:10 But I mean serious regrets.

32:15 I think it's great. You have to think about it. That's wonderful. Yeah, I mean, I've had a very good life. I'm very fortunate and very privileged to have had a really Safe Life and a very protected life. I feared my parents. I feared more than anything that I would disappoint them.

32:42 &

32:43 So I always just wanted to do things that made them proud. And so I just did those things my exposure to the evils of the world in the hardships of the world were very

33:01 Rare

33:02 Well, they just filtered us from them and

33:10 Not to say that we were wealthy by any means and looking back now at my life now as compared to My Life as a child.

33:20 I think about

33:24 Oh my gosh, we used to eat vegetables out of cans every night because that's how my parents couldn't for and but you didn't think anything about it now and but how I was raised and

33:45 The way we were raised which was and I don't remember my parents ever using words.

33:58 To put other groups down and I don't remember them saying what's the word I'm looking for.

34:07 Using derogatory language and so racist being racist or bigoted or I just remember the Steep sense of my parents belief that I could be whatever I wanted to be.

34:23 &

34:27 And then you were always kind in the background.

34:31 Echoing the same thing like you can be whatever you want to be money.

34:40 You know school loans don't let that hold you back from doing everything you want to do.

34:49 And I think that's why.

34:52 I do what I want. What I'm doing is because I've had a really strong group of women around me for my entire life and I've never been told that I couldn't do something that I wanted to do. So when I unexpectedly found out that I was pregnant, although I was in great this pulley for a while. I eventually came to the mindset of we can do this.

35:23 I can do this.

35:25 And I know that all have really wonderful women around me to help me with this whole motherhood piece.

35:36 Well, is there anything else you'd like to ask me? I think our times getting close.

35:43 I wanted to ask you.

35:47 What is it that you would want my generation to know?

35:54 What is it if you had one last Stitch of advice or wisdom?

36:02 I have found out Emily over the years how words can hurt.

36:11 And I would advise anybody not just your generation, but everybody to just be considerate to just be considerate of others to be kind.

36:25 Have a nice word for somebody to lift somebody up.

36:31 I made myself a promise or may God of promise that a year ago that I would do everything possible to lift. Somebody up everyday may be just one person but to lift somebody up everyday and I think if this whole world would just be kinder to each other they would see a whole change in the world.

37:00 And don't give up.

37:04 Don't give up.

37:06 Find the strength somehow.

37:09 Face, whatever life throws at you and be prepared darling.

37:14 My grandchildren and pretty much my children have gone through life without any real traumatic experiences really bad experiences, but they're going to come.

37:29 And so just be strong be strong.

37:38 What what would you say to Graham? What would you say to Graham and his generation?

37:46 I say the same thing.

37:49 I think I think kindness and consideration of other people will solve just about any problem that comes up.

38:00 And paying attention. That's one thing I worry about.

38:07 With my generation but more so with Graham's cuz he already knows how to use my phone. So well and knows how to manipulate and do things. I don't even know how to do on it. And I worried that people won't pay attention to each other and won't try to notice about each other.

38:29 &

38:31 So many things that we take for granted now because things are so fast we get information so fast, it's so easy to

38:40 Channel

38:42 Images and information and it's so easy to want to pay attention to things that are scary or not good about the world and there's so many Copa miss the physical contact and that's so important that even talking on the phone you hear a voice and and I think I think that's sort of a debtor has not been able.

39:08 To be in physical contact with people. It's easier not to care if you don't see.

39:21 But I do have a message for y'all.

39:26 My grandchildren and you're one of them.

39:31 That you have been

39:34 The greatest blessing in my life

39:39 All of you

39:41 Out of seven grandchildren. None of you have ever really disappoint me.

39:49 And you have never ever ever said or done anything to hurt me.

39:56 And so to y'all.

39:59 I thank you for these last few years because I've been the happiest of my life.

40:06 And it's because of y'all.

40:13 I want you to know.

40:16 How much I respect and

40:21 How proud I am of you for all the things that you've overcome and many of them on your own.

40:30 With support and I know you had wonderful really close friends, but a lot of it you took on yourself and you've always been so optimistic and hopeful and you always see the good in people and you always decidedly see the good in people.

40:53 And even when conversations start to steer towards seeing the bad in people you kind of fall back and

41:03 You don't participate in that and I've always noticed that about you and you really you do and your actions.

41:18 Are exactly in line with what you say and I've never met anyone who's like that.

41:27 And I'm

41:29 I'm so inspired by you.

41:32 And I love you, and I love you.