Wanda Teems Gershowitz and Julie Ambrose

00:07 Hey, good afternoon. This is Julie Ambrose and I'm here with my mom today at storycorps Atlanta and I'm 55, and this is December 30th 2017.

00:27 Thank you. Julie for having me. Julie is my daughter and my name is Wanda teams grocer wits and this January 2018. I will be 77 years old and I'm here in Atlanta enjoying the Deep South again.

00:49 Mom thank you so much for coming down here with me up and looking forward to it for a long time. So I know you love to share the history that from when you were a child and when grandmother and Granddad were a child with all the grandchildren written some

01:11 Stuff for

01:13 When I'm Caleb, what are some of your favorite memories from those times that we won't know about or maybe we haven't even if I've heard about what what are your some of your favorites that make you happy to think about?

01:33 My

01:38 My mother Jessie Mosley sapolsky was a vivacious girl and woman.

01:51 And I think one of my favorite stories is how she met my father.

01:59 He was a very young man in the Army back in 1939 stationed at Fort Benning Georgia. And his company was on bivouac. They have traveled from Fort Benning to Tennessee to bivouac and on their way back. They stopped in Cedartown, Georgia to spend the night if whack whack is when they go camping twin the army goes camping for practice for when they're in the war and they have to move out of tents in so all of the soldiers we're going to downtown Cedartown, which is a very 5000 people.

02:46 Sears hand torch a very small and my mother was determined to meet us out her what interested her so much about soldiers think she had exhausted all of the handsome boys in Cedartown.

03:04 That point in time and she was just very interested in meeting someone new.

03:11 My grandfather was equally interested in having her not me to Soldier.

03:20 She positioned herself on the sidewalk to sweep as the soldiers walked into town and she chose my father from his looks and struck up a conversation offered him chocolate pie on his return to Camp which he never got because when he came back my grandfather as my father walked up to Lane to the house quickly showed him the sidewalk and said he was not coming into the house.

03:59 African soldiers he was a Yankee. Alright, right well and not just that he was a Yankee soldiers had you know.

04:13 Reputations for playing

04:16 Fast and loose with sweet little

04:19 Small town girl

04:21 We don't have to worry about that with my mother because my mother was always very strict as far as morals were concerned and very much in control of everybody eventually. She did meet up with him and they were married less than a year later and he became my grandfather's favorite son-in-law.

04:53 That's really sweet and he had a lot. I mean she had a big family, right? He was three or four or five son-in-law's that right.

05:03 There were my grandmother had 11 children off core Solid Home out in the country with no doctor with a doctor and seven of the 11 left.

05:20 And there were five girls that there were five son in laws.

05:26 And speaking of that children that lived.

05:32 My aunt Elsie who was born before my mother was a twin and the twin died.

05:41 And then my grandmother became pregnant again and the baby died.

05:47 And the doctor

05:49 When my mother grandmother became pregnant with my mother, this is 1911.

05:55 Told her that she could not live through another pregnancy and wanted to abort my mother and my grandmother would not.

06:06 And Pesci

06:09 We would not be here.

06:12 Was that a common thing back then? I I think of that being am I think of that being a modern solution not something that was done. It's with has always been done. No, not at all which makes me believe my mother never said what the situation was but it makes me believe that my grandmother at the time must have been in very very poor help elbow after my mother. She had another daughter she had several more children and the youngest child my Uncle Warren am I adored

06:58 Was born when my grandmother was 48.

07:02 Wow, really 48-plus her heart. It's a matter of fact my mother's two older sisters.

07:15 One in particular had already been married and given birth to a son. So my Aunt Mary's son. Carl was older than his Uncle Warren. Oh really? Wow. So your grandmother had kids all her life. I cannot even imagine that many pregnancies that

07:39 Long wow. Yes. I'm I'm really admire my grandmother.

07:48 My grandfather

07:52 Worked in Birmingham as a carpenter

07:55 And he stayed in Birmingham during the week.

07:59 And so my grandmother was completely in charge of the farm. They raise their own vegetables. They had their own cows pigs coats chickens they had

08:17 They raised Cain and made sugarcane literally literally and yes, I try skating that literally and they also had a sawmill.

08:31 And another Enterprise. I can't remember so they were very self-sufficient and they worked very hard and everybody were.

08:44 My aunt Mabel told me my Aunt Mabel admit Mary were such a good source of family history and my aunt Mabel told me that when she was 3 years old, her job was to stand on a stool and wash dishes. Wow. I see I think I think that's a good thing.

09:09 They learn how to wash dishes when they're three years old. They they don't hate it as much as when they learn to when they're 10.

09:16 Or 12

09:18 Wow, but you never liked washing dishes. You still tell stories about how you had to wash dishes as a kid. I did not like to wash dishes. I was never allowed to do anything.

09:35 My mother loved to sew and she did not like washing dishes. She did not like cooking and she did not like cleaning house and she was very quick about it. And I was way too slow for her.

09:54 And since I didn't care to do it, I knew.

09:59 How to manipulate her that's the correct word and so I would just go really slowly and she would come in and take over before I head wash three dishes. So I went into my marriage at 17 years old.

10:18 Not really knowing how to cook.

10:21 I did know how to wash dishes and I did not. Well, I did know how to cook because I took home economics in high school and I knew how to say so because I took home economics in high school.

10:37 My mother was just so good at sewing and she had no patience for me. That's okay, but I learned in high school and so pretty much everything. I learned I learned in high school too bad. They don't teach that anymore or you is that was because she was in her growing up. There was always so much to do she that was her became her.

11:03 Mode to get things done quickly cuz he was always something else to do it, right it was because

11:10 Her mother's

11:16 Throughout the day you could hear my grandmother her mother saying hurry up get that done. You got something else to do after that. Wow, because they did that every child had to to work. Very very hard. I remember even in her late later. She never she never did. Enjoy cooking ever. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah, but you you like, please enjoy cooking and entertaining. What's you you became independent or

11:55 Moved out of their house. Tell me about your life when you when you became a grown up.

12:04 I know there were two things to classes in high school, but I love dearly when was history and the other was economics.

12:21 And we had an excellent teacher.

12:26 And I recall that she taught us.

12:30 Everything from

12:34 Planning menu to go to figuring out what we needed from the store.

12:40 Two cooking to how we were going to decorate the table and the meal we prepared we had to make baked Alaska. Well it is you make a pie crust and you

12:59 Fill it with ice cream and freeze it and you top it with meringue and then you brown the meringue in the oven with the ice cream in there is so it's a very meticulous thing to do. You need to Brenda meringue but not melt the ice cream. I've never made it since I just let it sit it actually is easy to make if you pay attention, but I have just not ever made it since that sounds like a lot of trouble but she wait we learned how to run a household.

13:42 Really in that class.

13:44 And evidently I didn't know it then but I have been told I am leaning toward being OCD.

13:52 Nail, so that holds me and could stick it organized. Oh, that's a nicer way to put it, isn't it? Yeah, you can be organized.

14:06 Miss you much.

14:08 So what are what are some of your sweetest memories from when you were little?

14:14 When I was a child, I lived with my grandparents my mother and I because my father was in the war and my mother's Brother Hubert. I'll just brother live with us and I absolutely adored him, but he took up a lot of time with me and he rescued me.

14:47 I must have been for and had chickenpox. It was winter in the chimney caught on fire, and I remember that he ran into the house from his work and wrapped me in a quilt and took me out of the house. It was very small fire. Nothing to be even be concerned about but the fire engine came and he calls me Minnie Pearl.

15:15 What was that about?

15:18 There is a famous country music comedian Minnie Pearl and I don't know why he called me that it must have been my personality in the most important person in my life with my grandfather.

15:35 He never

15:38 Head was too busy.

15:41 To take time with me and talk to me and he really destined.

15:49 All because he asked questions about what I was saying.

15:53 And I met him every day when he came home from work to drag him to the Corner Grocery for candy and every Saturday. We didn't have a car every Saturday. I want to downtown Cedartown which was about eight blocks with him and we had long very adult conversations on the way.

16:19 He was the bearer of my first sex education. We had a garden in our backyard and a cow which email and we had chickens and one morning. I went out and there was a cash.

16:37 I'd ever seen before and I asked him.

16:42 Where did that come from? Where did that cat come from? And he said while we were sleeping that her mother the cow had dug her up out of the garden.

16:55 And that was his explanation. That was my first sex education.

17:00 Well, that sucks you up. Well, it did it did I knew everything I needed to know so he worked he was a carpenter at the local Woolen Mill.

17:19 Where they made Fabric and quilt Fabric and my mother worked there also, she worked on the spinning wheels, and he was the carpenter who kept everything running and so he came home every day at 4, and I was there to meet him. He walked it was about

17:44 10 blocks to his work

17:48 I've never heard you describe him that way. We'll see that way with everybody. You meet like very engaging, you know asking questions and such is that was at his personality unfortunate life and that was not his personality in

18:08 Maybe because I lived with them.

18:12 But that's only part of it. My grandfather. God bless him head favorites.

18:19 And Michael Hubert was his favorite son.

18:25 In my Uncle Warren was just

18:30 The corn or he was he was never a favorite child and my aunt Elsie was the favorite daughter and the rest were just daughters and there were Seventeen grandchildren.

18:46 I'm at work and I was the favorite grandchild.

18:50 I was known as to he called me until the day. He died the baby.

18:57 Because he had nicknames for all of the children in me.

19:01 I have I think I have this impression that he was kind of a grumpy even being old man from the way you've talked about him before it was he that to just not to you know, he was never grumpy and he was never mean but the whole family

19:22 We're practical jokers and they tormented children.

19:27 They took great Julie and tormenting children. I do not know my uncle Warren was the same way you probably you may remember from your childhood that he had part of a finger amputated and he you and your brother was so frightened of that finger and

19:53 Anytime you were near him. He would hold you and poke you with that finger because it frightens you so that's that's that's the family.

20:04 Straight I did not I did not get that. Right and I didn't appreciate it. But I was never the recipient.

20:14 Because I was the baby.

20:17 So, how how how do you cure how has your life turned out? How do you What Makes You happiest now?

20:31 My family

20:40 Anytime I can be around my children or my grandchildren. I am happiest not that I am not.

20:58 Deliriously happy every day of my life because my husband is so entertaining and

21:09 We truly the older we get grow more like it seems the things we like we both like even to finish finishing each other's sentences. It's really weird. How long have you guys been married 35 years?

21:28 And so I am just so blessed.

21:39 I am in a very joyful place in my life a very thankful Place filled with gratitude for the lessons I've learned.

21:51 From all the mistakes I made

21:56 In my life

22:01 Can you imagine that have you ever thought about different trajectories that if you hadn't had kids or if you had gotten married or if you hadn't met certain people what you might have done or or do you ever have fantasies down your alternate alternate not meeting. That's the life you have is is me know you're not happy with it. But are there other things that if you could do them to we can't do everything we want right you would you would enjoy doing?

22:42 You're going to laugh the thing. I wanted to do most in my life.

22:49 Wish be a country music singer and go to Nashville and BSR.

22:59 And I was I've really of course I'm smoking and age age has something to do with a way you can sing but

23:19 I believe and I was told that I had a really really nice voice. I think my husband to her was a little surprised. He's wow. You have a great voice is so when I could not become a country music singer.

23:36 I was so happy to do the thing. I wanted most.

23:43 And in my generation in the south

23:52 You can go to college if you were so inclined. Lots of girls went to college to find their husband most girls went to college to find their husband. I chose not to go to college.

24:08 And the good job, but the main

24:14 Focus that we were raised to accomplish our focus should be to get married have children be a homemaker.

24:24 Unfortunately, that is the thing. I wanted to do most on this Earth.

24:32 So no, there's not anything that I would have changed when I later became a real estate agent. I loved I enjoyed that but it was really just sort of an extension of caring for people now. I wasn't caring for little children my children. I'm just caring for buyers and sellers.

24:56 Well, it's not too late. You know, it's more like literally we could be in Nashville by like 9 tonight that you up we could tonight. Yeah. I know. I think that it would take a miracle sort of like parting of the Red Sea for God to give me back the boys I once had that does not keep me from singing in the car.

25:27 Yeah, like with the windows rolled ice cream with the windows rolled up. Yes. Yes. Yes, and I still love to sing and when our place is Sprecher's I still remember all the words.

25:49 It's so I'm singing alone. Hopefully quietly so we can hear the singers to what music one music Neil Diamond the Eagles Kris Kristofferson.

26:07 Just about it, you know the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band just about any Frank Sinatra.

26:15 Wow.

26:18 What's your what's your what's your what do they call that the Make-A-Wish, you know how little kids, you know, they get the Make-A-Wish Foundation for 42 do what's your if she's if the Make-A-Wish Foundation called you up? What would be your make a wish?

26:39 Well, as I mentioned to you on the way in to the building, I grow more like my mother every day and my make a wish would be that all of our children grandchildren and great-grandchildren lived on the compound. So I could see them every day knowing that that is not going to happen. I would love to be in a position where I could visit them and be there when they needed something.

27:13 Needed some help, but unfortunately at this point

27:22 If I jokingly say before that can happen we have to kill Jack the cat a week and we can work that out. I can help you with that part. Yeah, definitely.

27:36 Oh, no, we can't and unfortunately, I think he's so he'll that you'll probably live to 30.

27:46 How old is he fourtane? Wow, I almost got you guys a dog for Christmas, you know. Oh that is a really good thing that you didn't do that. Jack would have killed the dog. Well, that was actually the only reason that I didn't because I knew that if he couldn't get along with the dog that that would be a problem. But well, he's very Territorial and he chased to three footer guana's away from our property and the keys and they didn't come back so he would have no problem with the dog.

28:20 So so tell me what you would like for the next 5-10 years of your life to be like the or 15 or or 20 or what. What's I feel like I'm in the bonus round. I feel like now I get to pick that, you know, just eat the icing. I don't have to eat the cake anymore. What would what are you one of the things that you want in your life from here on out? What are the things that you feel like you don't have to do anymore that

28:53 I do not have to clean house. I love to clean house. I love to do laundry. I love to cook and I love to do dishes. I do not like to say so, but I am so busy that I clean house if I'm having company and that pretty much.

29:18 That's the only time it's really necessary. That is the only time it is really no. I do not mean that the house is dirty, but

29:28 Adjust deep clean

29:31 So you you said you love history so

29:35 It sounds like you're now having a chance to do whatever you want and research your family's history and history in general what interests you what what part of History interests you. Well at this point, I love all history but at this point

30:03 After doing the genealogies of the family I want to visit.

30:10 The historical sites. Okay in Jackson County Georgia and in various places where my ancestors made a difference there is actually a town in Virginia Moseley Virginia know that's in a different place that there's a Mosley and that was part of me that the Riddler church is that we visited that my ancestors built in 16. I'm sorry 1746 near Lexington, Virginia, but my Mosley ancestors came to Middle, Virginia.

30:56 Middle middle Virginia and built the town and they're still buried there.

31:05 Found my what's stopping you? What are you doing? Well when we go to

31:14 Visit the children and DC and Baltimore. Next probably will try to do that. Now, that'll be so cool. And I would like to go to Norfolk because my Mosley ancestors their yes, and they created they created a town in both the church and we're there.

31:41 Perimeter Road, and their Interstate intersect Interstate 64 is where there were their Homestead was and they were quite well-off are they like people who came over like on the the Mayflower, people or yes, they came over they actually

32:06 Ran away from England because they supported the Crown King Charles King Charlie after you know the

32:19 Drawing a blank here remembering his name, but when when the crown was no longer in power it was in name only after the after the US with a country or no. No, no no law in England back years ago many many years ago and they first ran to Ireland and from there they ran to dried State and they got here around 1617. I really looked very early very early and settled in Norfolk that we have not we have not been there. I shall we go. I do want to go. Yeah, that's the promise ya.

33:15 Ancestors are really fun.

33:19 Fun, they are interesting.

33:23 They are or what else? What else? Do you want to tell me today? Wow, I guess the

33:37 When people say what is the most important thing you want in your life?

33:45 The most important thing I want in my life.

33:50 It's for my children their spouses my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.

33:58 2

34:02 Develop

34:07 A desire to know God

34:11 So strong, it is stronger than any other desire they have in life.

34:18 Because when they know God

34:23 That makes everything else in life.

34:26 So

34:30 Peaceful

34:32 No matter what the circumstances.

34:35 And

34:37 My prayer

34:40 And I pray for every one of my children and grandchildren been named everyday is that it does not take my children and my grandchildren as long as it took me.

34:54 2

34:57 Be able to say every day your will not mine be done.

35:04 I find that.

35:08 When I truly believe that and mean that that things go ever so smoothly.

35:16 It's only when I take the wheel of the car back.

35:21 That it's not that's my heart's desire.

35:27 Well

35:30 You have

35:35 You're such a good mom, and and I just want to thank you for everything you've done for me and not just for me, but for Michael and Matthew and

35:53 2

35:56 Give us up.

35:58 A beautiful life and to show us what love is and you know, I'm not sure that Michael would be around today if it wasn't for.

36:11 For you putting him ahead of yourself to

36:19 And I think that that's a rare quality that you know, not many people have and and I'm sure that your kids are the least of the people that you've touched that you have. No idea that you've made their life better and weighs big and small, so

36:42 The world is been a better place because you're here Mom. I love you.

36:48 Love you, too, and thank you for saying always.

36:56 Always

36:58 Will so now everyone in the Library of Congress is going to know all of this stuff. So is there anything else you want to get on the record?

37:09 Wow.

37:14 Before I give permission for it to be in the library card.

37:23 Well, since I can't be a country music singer. I still think that we can work that out. I thought I think we'll talk on the way home about a plan for that.

37:37 There will be lots of studying of history and

37:41 I'm so grateful that I have so many years left to do it and in such good help because I have 220 so I know I can accomplish. I'm already know that's impressive. How do you know that your because Moses live to be a hundred and twenty and when he went up on the mountain to die. He didn't take of we didn't get pushed in a wheelchair.

38:06 Well, I mean, that's a very specific number. Are you just is at your guts. That's the promise 220. Okay good. According to what I have read 120 healthy awesome unless I choose like your grandmother chose to go sooner and it was her choice.

38:31 Well, that's an excellent. Looking forward to your I'll start planning your 119 now. Thank you very much.

38:42 Wow, thanks for doing this now that I know that there's an app we can we can do it more you can record some for.

38:52 The boys Caleb in the kids and yeah, there's a lot that we can do. Thanks, Mom. Thank you for doing this. It has been so.

39:05 Fun

39:07 Awesome