Linda Platt and Anastasia Platt

00:04 Hello, I am Anastasia Platte Lubin, I guess and my name I'm sexy.

00:12 I'm Anastasia. Platt Lubin. I am 30.

00:17 Six, I think it is July 3rd 2013. We are at the Chicago Cultural Center and I am the daughter of Linda plant. I am so much older than I ever thought. I would be I am 64 years old. Today's date is July 3rd. 2013. Same date is location Chicago Cultural Center beautiful building. This is my daughter, Anastasia. Who's interviewing me. The first thing I wanted to ask you was actually before I do that. I just wanted to say that the reason I wanted to do this is because I think you are an extremely interesting person who knows a lot of things in his head a lot of very cool interesting men some not so cool, but still interesting experiences in your life and

01:18 Sometimes because of myself and my father who talk a lot you don't always get to say things. So I wanted to give you a chance to tell us stories and record these wonderful things, you know? Okay. So the first thing I wanted to say or wanted to ask is who is or who has been or was or is the most important important person in your life, I guess for shirts my husband and best friend of forty some years John plant and also all my grandchildren and my children are very important to me.

02:00 Okay, and then number two is what is the biggest influence or who was the biggest influence in your life? I think she was very very individualistic and he always would tell me you can make anything you want to make and I like my microdose. That's what I do all the time.

02:27 Make stuff that's something I think probably one of the strongest things you passed down to me as well. And I really appreciate that you did cuz people are just shocked at this is not taking any place. I should mention that Anastasia Works in theater and she can make stuff out of wood and they just made a bicycle myself and the end and we do mosaics together as well and we can make anything. Yes. I'm making a pair of shoes right now. I'm reachable really durable one now. That's the durable partner.

03:09 Okay. So who was the kindest person in your life, of course my grandmother, Anastasia who saved my life because she always took care of me and paid attention to me. Thank you for naming me after. Okay, what is your favorite memory of me? And actually and my two siblings? I'm going to throw you one at a time yet here you I thought it was it was very tickled by your maternalism when you were in kindergarten because you had a certain very small girlfriend who you felt very maternal towards and you would always tell me about all the fun. You were having and kindergarten together and how you took care of her all the time. And then Wednesday you wanted me to twist your hair into a lot of tight little logs and put barrettes into them. And and I I asked you is your little friend.

04:09 African Americans, and you said I don't know it was cute and she later and have a picture of you two together is so cute. You are you look really maternal and I will now Keisha is maternal to kiss you just had baby and we both had babies together recently. Okay, Mike, you're the cutest memory of Rosie I think was when she would play with the other Kids on the Block and they would all be saying. Oh I'm my name is going to be Jennifer. My name is going to be Sally or silly little normal name's Rosie said my name is for hula and then she in school. They were asking the kids. What was their favorite food? And these kids were saying, you know Candy and stuff like that and she said her favorite food is broccoli.

05:09 I thought she was always always awesome very very sociable person in my favorite memory of him. Was that when he graduated 8th grade? He got a special Citizenship Award for being helpful sympathetic cheerful and just like the best all-around kid, and I thought that was just wonderful and aside from being valedictorian was more important. I saw it and I thought Jesus if anyone should go into politics it's him, but of course politicians don't act that way.

05:54 Okay, so going to the parenting line when you first found out it's okay. I think that you are a fantastic parent and I think that you did such an amazing job and you did so many things very differently from so many people in the world and you know, my friends parents in at things like this, but when you first found out that you were pregnant were you did how did you feel it's really scared and I was awed totally odd by the deadly serious response, you know overwhelming sense of responsibility that being a parent is I was very scared and insecure I thought I'd be a I didn't know what to do.

06:50 He is so different from how I felt I mean and I think it's directly related to how our childhoods were. But I mean it went up. I also felt this off of you. Wow, this is something I'm really going to I finally know if if if nothing else in my life is good. I finally accomplished something worthwhile. And but I I wasn't scared at all. I was very very confident, but I think that that's because I had your your example to follow

07:27 IQ

07:29 And so how did being a parent change you?

07:35 I became ferociously protective of you guys all of you and was never never let you go to a babysitter. And also I realized it, you know being a parent you have to give up.

08:01 Almost all of your free time. Yeah, and therefore I had less time to do art when I really like to do my favorite activity, but now I have a lot of free time and I learned how to make better use of my free time.

08:19 I feel like it I'm sorry. This is intended like questions we talked about but I feel like there is an elephant in the room that we're not talking about weight will gets. Okay. We'll get to her not you not you somebody else.

08:37 So what was your hardest moment being a parent? And what were the best times being a parent?

08:46 The hardest time was when you guys were crying and crying and crying and I didn't know what to do. But when I do so confused like well I said the kid I change the time. I don't know what's next in that one of my baby's which I mentioned name of was colicky and so scary to me that person just cried and cried and cried and cried and you remember it? Yeah. It was really hard to take. If she's ever been angry again. The best times are now

09:26 It just keeps getting better all the time.

09:29 The most difficult things also was trying to make enough money to live on cuz I never was very good at making money at the mall.

09:40 Just not assertive about it or something.

09:46 So you had absolutely no example of what to do to raise a child. Well from your childhood you had a couple things but you had not much and it blows my mind that you turned out to be such a good parent because you are you basically did it all from your own head. I think well, I read I read books on parenting like Brazelton book and I always think about what I'm going to do a lot and I study it before I do it and I wanted to know if you would what advice would you give me about raising my kids?

10:36 I think you're doing really really well. And what you have to do is stick to your guns. Now, here's something very unusual that Anastasia did she does not have a television at all in her house her kids do not watch television at all. And that's a really good thing because you see all these little kids that are all I want to buy stuff, you know, very materialistic and playing with guns and all kind of, you know, cartoon characters and always wanting to buy something and you see your kids are not being influenced by all these things.

11:18 It's hard sometimes because you haven't made it all so basically means we don't watch TV either and every once in a while. We want to watch something. Yeah. Yeah. I want to watch something but I don't miss it as much as I maybe would have thought I did I didn't watch a lot to begin with no.

11:35 Well, thank you. That's good.

11:38 I think that the one thing that the one thing I can think of when I try to imagine, you know, why did how did you turn out to be such a good parent when I think about that the only example I can think of that you did have is your father and my grandma and your grandma that's right. We do not have a TV stand to say about the shoemaker's son. But like the hell you're at the way that your father showed you how to do stuff and he had this like sense of adventure where he would you do to take us looking for tornadoes when we ride together. We went chasing tornadoes and he would drive zigzaggy across the street for fun and funny things. I made some of the things he did. I think he was, you know Adventure I think the war put that into him World War II

12:34 So when you were a kid, what did you think your life as a grown-up would be like very very depressing. I thought it was doomed to you know, a terrible existence.

12:56 Okay, I don't know that's what I expected. Of course. It's so much better. Wasn't that terrible. It was pretty good.

13:09 Okay. So, I'll just move on then to what are you proudest of in your life? Okay, I think I did. I think I did a good job of raising my children and they all seem to like me and then also I wrote a novel which I wanted to do ever since I was a teenager my goal is to save this country and people to think and not be passive and that's

13:43 Important I think

13:48 Kate

13:51 So I have a couple other things. Could you tell me a how how did the story of how you and John got together? Okay. Well, we had mutual friends and our friends kept saying you really have to meet this guy and they were saying to him you really have to meet her you two would get along really. Well, then we met each other at a New Year's Eve party and I thought wow he's so handsome and he's so smart and I was scared to death of him because he was really sarcastic and secure to be with this person and I had a different boyfriend at the time and he had a different girlfriend at the time and then I got different boyfriend then I got different boyfriend and I really got tired of having all these boyfriends but I didn't get along with very well.

14:48 And let's see. How old was I I think I was about 23. I knew her for five years before we got together and I just had just gotten rid of another boyfriend who was difficult to get rid of and I was really upset and crying and he called me on the phone and I was crying and he said what's the matter and five of us so he came over and he helped me install a stereo.

15:19 And he never left and we've been together since then. I'm 41 years old my time. Does it feel like it's does it feel like it went fast because if you know, it feels like about a hundred and twelve years has happened and I remember everything and and then more things keep happening and it's you know, it's complicated life is so complicated and so many things go on. I always feel like that then when I let you know that it's been a really long time with my husband Mike and key in 10 years, and he he thinks that that's bad for some reason that it now is like a long time and I don't think that's why I feel like I've known you forever.

16:19 Feel like I've known John forever kiss.

16:22 How did you know he was the person you should marry?

16:27 That's really hard to say because well because I always got along with him.

16:35 Through all these other boyfriends. He was always my friend. And then also I remember once we were at a party and there were about ten little kids at this party and and they were you know, uncomfortable and they were not do they didn't want to be there with all the boring adults and everything. So he took all these ten little kids and took them on the back porch and he sat them all down and he told him a story about an hour and a half long story and I thought wow look at that guy said they were uncomfortable at the party and I felt he would make such a nice father someday. He was still so are we going to talk about the elephant the elephant? Well for the rest of the story, this is what I really want to talk about. It's a family history that I want.

17:35 Make sure my grandchildren knew about because I don't think they do. Okay, this is I want to talk about how my family immigrated to this country.

17:47 And it's it's a long big complicated story. My father's family came to Chicago from Poland in 1909 for economic reasons. Both his parents went to work in the Stockyards. My grandfather. John Moses was a carpenter and he made pens for the animals.

18:10 And my grandmother Anastasia was a cleaning lady in the Stockyards. She cleaned the offices. They had 10 children and most of them went to work in the Stockyards when they were children. They were about 12 years old after graduating 8th grade, they go to work and that's how it was back then.

18:34 Before they had child labor laws, my father failed twice in grammar school not because he was dumb but because he was always interested in something else. He would be doing electrical experiments under his desk and he'd be giving people shocks for fun under his desk. So he didn't start work at the Stockyards until he was 16. He work there one day loading huge barrels onto a train car.

19:03 And

19:06 And he was so exhausted after one day that he decided the job was not for him, and he wanted to be his own boss. So he quit after one day. He tried lots of other jobs including working on construction for the century of progress Exposition in 1933.

19:31 And that was during the Depression so jobs were really hard to find his parents were very displeased with him. They expected him to contribute to the family funds because there were very poor and he was bringing home hardly any money. So he decided to take a big gamble and sign up for a correspondence course in electronics and radio repair which he started but he couldn't afford to finish.

20:03 And years went by and he learn to repair radios by trial and error back down radio was like the internet is now it was a connection to the rest of the world.

20:15 And on the radio was a lot of talk about this Tyrant who got into power in Germany Hitler.

20:22 Now we're going to switch to my mother's family. They lived in a small town in Poland right on the border of Germany.

20:31 They also had 10 kids and we're very poor and when Germany took over Poland in 1939 the Germans split up the family.

20:42 Her father Henry reschke was taken into the German Army. The children were separated. The oldest girl Mazda was taken to work in a concentration camp. The oldest boy Johann was taken into the Nazi army at age 16.

21:02 My mother went to work on a farm in Germany, the younger children were sent to other relatives. My mother's mother Rosalie was put into a hospital, but they don't know what kind of hospital and this is where the strange things start happening.

21:22 At the same time at the same time that all this was happening to her family. My father's Uncle Stanislaus Medusa's who was it priest was put into a concentration camp and executed by the SS that was in Dachau.

21:42 So my mother was working on the farm and while she was working there. She found out that both her parents mysteriously died.

21:51 She went back and she found her two youngest siblings living alone in their large apartment building. They were aged five and seven living alone. The neighbors had been feeding them. So she decided to take them to her aunts house in lindau, Germany.

22:09 This was near the end of the war. The bombs were falling the streets were all caved in and they were afraid of the Americans that were coming into the town.

22:22 They decided to walk 300 miles to Lindale because the trains were not running cuz they had all been bombed.

22:33 So they're walking along. She didn't really have shoes that fit her. So her feet were all blistered. They didn't really have anything to eat. They were begging from people. They then they saw all these American Jeeps going by.

22:53 And she hitched hitchhiked a ride from one of the American Jeeps the driver happens to be my father.

23:03 So that sounds like a storybook ending to her story, but it's not it is romantic to a point, but he my father had a girl that he liked back in England where he had been one of many. I mean, he had a few girlfriends here and there but he really like the one in England so he decided I'm going to go back to England but my mother had a fixation. Oh boy, a blond-haired blue-eyed American to marry. So she started pursuing him and stalking him more or less. She left her two younger brothers with the with the aunt in window, Germany.

23:55 And started chasing after my father, but he was running away. She started writing him letters. I have a whole bunch of letters. I have about 20 or 30 of these letters that she wrote to him not in Polish not in German, but in this strange mixture of Polish and German that she spoke because they were living in a Border Town. So her and her family all they speak this weird mixture of two languages and it was not only a blonde haired blue-eyed American soldier who spoke polish and he had trouble understanding her a little bit because he would have ran faster so she got him and this was the very last month of World War II that this happened where they met

24:55 They got married in about 2 months while I got him. They got married right from the very beginning. They were fighting all the time fighting like, you know, Nazis in America ideas, you know from being raised in Germany at that time, and he was very independent and didn't like being regimented at all. Even when he was in the army. They let him have his way. He was pretty much Independence. He was very smart and he was the radio operator Eisenhower's radio operator.

25:39 And I needed him. Yeah, I got away with you going AWOL all these times and he went AWOL 145 x and they went into private and then they would the next day he would be back to his job as tech sergeant.

25:53 Okay, then they big they got married in Berlin. When did he find out about like her sister working in the concentration camp bad for a long time, Okay during the very same year that her brother was put in the Nazi army her. My father's uncle was executed by the SS the same year. So I've got all this both sides of the war. They fought a lot. They were not married for very long, but they managed to have two daughters.

26:36 My mother was irrational and violent very violent and shoes do actually beat up my father. She would hit him on the head with frying pans and whatever was a bad guy iron fry. Yeah, and she would beat her children and I was afraid of her.

27:00 And I was really glad that we lived next door to my grandmother, Anastasia.

27:08 Okay, so I wanted to talk about what engaging in a war does to a country did the American soldiers have sympathy for the impoverished German people? Not really the German people naively believed Hitler they let him spend all their resources and use all their money for war.

27:35 They ended up starving and struggling with their country in Ruins and worse than that. What did the enforced racism do to their minds the Germans hated Jews and gypsies the Americans hated Germans and Japanese the American soldiers were segregated by race and my father in many others went to war because they couldn't get a job in any other way, but war is not a way out of poverty. It's a way of becoming impoverished as a nation.

28:14 Grandpa with with such a

28:19 Such a patriotic person. He was he was an extremely of her America. I'm in yet. He he has met his parents never spoke English. No, you know, he he grew up here, but he was an end. He was like the the most patriotic person. I think I've ever known yet. He was also very racist he was and I don't know that's a strange idea to me and that the company was enforced.

28:55 Look at all these things that were happening in the 50s when I was a little girl. That's when you know, Emmett Till got killed and that's when the Civil Rights march and Rosa Parks who we met at Rosa Parks and it tells mother to because we history fair project when I was a teacher on Emmett Till They did the performance.

29:27 I was trying to be quiet and not interrupt you.

29:39 I guess I'd like to hear more about this fascinating hearing your story and I just wanted to hear more about your father and I guess maybe how it is.

29:53 Impacted you or anything like that just curiosity. You don't have to answer anything like that. Well, he was my hero when I was little until these, you know, I started expressing some views that I thought were really

30:13 Creepy I went to a school that was racially mixed and he thought it was.

30:26 Funny that I was walking down the street holding hands with a little black girl.

30:31 Who is my best friend the reason we were best friends with because we both had the longest hair in the school both of us that we could sit on a lot thicker. Anyway, she was my best buddy and

30:48 He he thought it was funny. I remember when he came when Keisha was over Keisha's the aforementioned little girls that would grow up and actually all the way through eighth grade, but when she was over at our house and she was laying in the front room walked in the front door and we weren't there and we were in the kitchen or something like that and I don't remember what have I just remember you telling me she's scared her to death. What are you do you just said he sneaked up real quietly behind her and he said are you living here now? And she thought he was a sneaky person. He was he was kind of a trickster and that kind of he was very much a trickster.

31:33 He stories I know that you told me him electrocuting the horse when he was a little boy. He was a little kid electrocuted a horse. He killed a horse creek sounds funny waiting to don't think I don't know if he went through or not. He had been doing all these experiments with electricity and there was a big store snow storm going on and the electric wires broke and fell down onto the alley and they were live wires and he thought I'll wait a minute watch this. He was playing with his friends and the junk man was coming around with his horse that he had a horse cart being pulled by a horse.

32:25 And they laid the electric wires down across the alley and covered him with snow so that when the horse stepped on them with his metal shoes, he got a tremendous electric shock and went flying up into the air and fell down dead.

32:44 This is wasted children in 1930 when he was a child when they first installed video cameras in in grocery stores and places to catch thieves. He told my grandmother that it was a star search from Hollywood. So she wear an evening gown in a tiara and she went to the grocery store and was posing with the ostentatious, you know, once she went to California with her next husband, and she wore a coat to Disneyland in the summer.

33:35 Well, I don't know. What else are we for to quick here?

33:42 7 minutes left

33:48 It was something I wanted to mention that I remembered is so this whole thing with you know, two very different families coming together to make you so that made me think about Mike my husband and his family and all of their view. Is it a yes and how absolutely and totally different they are from me and what I think and Mike and what he thinks to you on Sunday radio listen to NPR that's another difference.

34:29 Fitbit you know

34:32 And it's just it's just interesting how much he and I have in common with even all those differences of the girl, you know, the growing up differences. I just thought of something that might be interesting my mother's family who were you know, passively taken into the nut machine machine came here to this country. How did they get in 1950s? My mother's Sister Magda who was the one who is working in the concentration camp decided. She wanted to come to America and live here and her husband had been in DSS.

35:23 They were not allowed into this country because they had not been doing that. If I do you have to go through a course where they opposite of propaganda of course, or they propagandize you to not be a nasty anymore or something. They didn't admit that they were in the Nazi army. So they lied on their entrance immigration papers or something, you know, Margie still here, they so they lied on their papers and they came here to this country got in. I remember the day they came in and my my father was helping them unpack their large trunks of belongings and he found a picture of my uncle and his Nazi uniform.

36:23 In the trunk and he said this is the person I've been fighting against all this time, and he's here and he lied to me and he got really really angry. And that was one of the many big big fights that my parents had her brother Johan who was taken into the Nazi army when he was 16. He didn't come here but some of the others did and they all covertly, you know sneak into this country know. This is a bad thing to be talking about now that there's all this Cowboy screaming creation. They were bad guys and they got in so I don't know what to say about that.

37:07 My uncle and aunt live date, they moved into our neighborhood which was a Polish neighborhood and there were people there who recognized my uncle he said he's the one who was the Executioner and they chased him out of town, but he had to leave in the middle of the night.

37:30 They moved a lot of times while they were here.

37:35 But they're both dead now, so that's why I can talk about it.

37:43 Isn't this fascinating?

37:50 Alright, okay. I should mention my novel and wrote a novel. I wrote a novel about a hippie girl in the 60s in Chicago in Chicago and

38:07 She gets thrown out of the house by her mother which happens to be true of me. She threw me out when I was 14 incidentally. I didn't mention that that I like I said, you don't really say that I mean well anyway, the novel is called balanced on the edge and it's on Amazon and you can download it to your computer.

38:33 If you want, please do I'm trying to save the world. It's a really good book and you know, I'm not biased at all, but it's a fascinating story and it's really well written and it has really beautiful artwork in it as well. And so don't you look at it? And if you look at it on a computer you'll be able to see the artwork in full color and it's worth scene yard work in full color. It's beautiful.

39:00 Annie is my agent.

39:05 Okay, just how how did.

39:08 How you create?

39:09 Identity, you know what these?

39:12 Size of your family like how you came to create your own.

39:15 Not just yet. But I also had an older sister who act like, you know, the younger ones always kind of like have to follow the older ones and imitate them and do everything they do and stuff. But my older sister did a lot of things that I didn't agree with and so I didn't behave like her and it was always a lot of friction between us. How did I create my identity took a long time. I had I was always interested in art, but I couldn't be an artist because my older sister was an artist until we went to a new school we moved ten times. I went to 10 different grammar schools.

39:56 And we went to this new school and the nun who was teaching me did not know my sister and did not have her before she had me which was really good for me because she said you're a nerd is okay and she gave me a big pile of chalk. And she said here cover all of the black boards in the classroom with pictures.

40:21 And I thought oh gosh. This is the best I've ever been to and we were there about a year, but that's when it that's when it caught up to me. And also I also started telling stories like John to my husband to little kids. I used to babysit little kids and I would always make up stories and tell them stories and I said, I'm a storyteller.

40:47 Okay, it's funny. I

40:51 Mike always talks about how sometimes I am uncomfortable at parties or Gatherings of a lot of people and he says he's as well as long as there are children or art supplies there. You'll do fine.

41:06 I guess I can get that honestly will thank you for talking to me and this was listening to you. Cool, baby. I think it's really important to speak out.

41:25 I just want to ask a few clarifying questions about names. What's your father's name was? My father's name is Stanley my dosage which is also the same name as the priest who was killed by the SAS in the concentration camp same name. It was his uncle.

41:46 Your husband's name John Platt.

41:53 Peace and nurse

41:56 At Mount Sinai Hospital

42:05 Yep, my four grandchildren are right outside the door.