Conversation with Sylvia

00:02 Okay, so I'm introducing myself so that My name is Shannon Moore. I am 44 years old. Today is December 13th, and my interviewee is Sylvia, and she is a friend of mine's mother. And we are recording at In a quiet space. There's no one around. The door is shut. Okay, so, Sylvia, can you tell me about one of your happiest memories?

00:43 Okay. Well, I guess I could say that it was when my children were born, and I don't know what else to say, but, you know, my kids have been my life, so anything that happens, good with them. I have so many good memories, I don't know which one to pinpoint.

01:05 How many kids do you have?

01:06 Well, I have three children. Stacey Christopher, and Timothy, our twins, the boys. And she just turned two when I had them. And so I've just sort of made my kids my life. But I've also taken a lot of trips with my sister and some friends, so those have been some pretty happy memories.

01:33 Where was your favorite trip?

01:35 My favorite trip was when my nephew got married in a castle in Sweden to a beautiful Swedish girl and is still married. And they're still beautiful, but they're about 50 now, and they have two children. And their children are adorable. Of course, the one is like 12 now, and the other one is like 10. Alexandra Ann and Axel.

02:04 Oh, that would be amazing to get married in a castle.

02:09 And yes, and they had a bunch of little cottages all around the castle, and we stayed in the cottages. His wife is an event planner, so she rented out all the cottages around the castle for the guests to stay in. Anyway, we didn't just go to his wedding. First of all, My sister had four foreign exchange students. Well, they're in their 50s and 60s now, but about, I would say, 14 years ago, Jeff got married, and we decided we go visit all the foreign exchange students. So first of all, we went to Germany to visit Sebastian, and he took us up in the Alps, and he took us to that beautiful castle that everybody sees that they modeled the Disney castle after. Oh, most beautiful place I've ever been up in the Alps. And so they treated us royally, all of them. And they had two little boys, four and two. We took them to the zoo one day, and he showed us all around Munich and all around, you know, the whole area. And. And he was walking. We were walking through Munich, and he said, all these buildings were bombed in World War II.

03:36 Wow.

03:37 And the United States built them all back just the way they were, through the Marshall Plan, which probably our kids don't know anything about. But after World War II, United States rebuilt Europe. All the. Wherever it was bombed out.

03:52 Wow.

03:53 Because the guy in Spain told us the same thing, how grateful they are to the United States because, you know, every place that was bombed was rebuilt.

04:03 I didn't know that.

04:04 I know. I don't know why they don't teach history anymore.

04:08 Oh, yeah.

04:09 I mean, I didn't learn a lot in history either, but I. But through travels, you learn a lot.

04:14 Oh, absolutely.

04:16 And do you have children?

04:18 I don't. I have three dogs.

04:21 Okay. Well, then I was going to suggest a trip for you, but the dogs wouldn't be interested. Okay. Then we went. Then we went to the wedding in the castle and had a wonderful time with her. His family is just wonderful. Or her family. Her name's Maria. M I R J A. Her family is just spectacularly wonderful. Then I went back on their 10th wedding anniversary and we. We recreated the whole thing.

04:52 Oh, and.

04:53 And spent time with the family and stayed in one of those little cottages again. And there's right near the castle is a party house, and it's right on a lake, and you could go in there and party and they have, you know, drinks set up and a big kitchen and a big patio where you can sit out on. And anyway, that was my favorite trip because then after that we went to Spain and we visited Alfredo in Barcelona, and he took us out on a yacht and we played with his little girls, who were like three of them. They were like five, seven, and nine. And in fact, I just went through some pictures the other day, and they had drawn pictures of my sister and I while we were there.

05:46 There.

05:47 They real good artists, even at that young age. And so I'm going to get those out and do something with them.

05:54 You should frame them.

05:55 Yeah, yeah. I. Okay. I don't have enough wall space for all the framing I need to do.

06:01 Take a picture and get a digital photo frame.

06:04 They came from a wealthy family, and we stayed with his mother for about four days, too, in Madrid. Fernando was her other foreign exchange student who lives in Madrid.

06:17 Oh, okay.

06:18 Well, since then, all his girls have gotten married. It's been that long ago. And they've invited us to the weddings, but Nancy and I can barely walk, so we don't. We can't. We can't do that anymore. In fact, it was hard for us back then, but he just sent a picture of his first grandchild, Alfredo.

06:34 Oh, wow.

06:35 And he named his first daughter Sylvia, and she had a baby. Oh, yeah.

06:41 That's so sweet.

06:43 And Sebastian comes to town often because he's a businessman and he has. He has meetings in Chicago. So he comes down here and has dinner with us. And I just got a gift from him which warmed my heart and he sent it. And let's see now.

07:00 How long ago were these foreign exchange students?

07:03 Oh my God.

07:04 Like.

07:04 Well, I'll tell you, they were maybe 17 and now they're Stacia's age. But they've kept in touch all this time.

07:13 Wow.

07:14 In fact, my sister's son was in the navy over there and he would go to their house for one of their houses for the holidays or they'd come down and visit. They'd hang out, you know.

07:26 Wow.

07:27 I highly recommend doing that. But anyway, I had a lot of happy memories. Oh my gosh. Let's see. Another one was I went scuba diving with the kids when they were teenagers. What a fun thing to do.

07:39 I was big into scuba diving as well.

07:42 Oh, do it, do it, do it. And go to Grand Cayman.

07:46 And that's where I. I spent when I was 18. I spent a month and a half there.

07:51 Oh, really?

07:52 Yeah.

07:53 Well, it's changed a lot from when I went there. There was a. There was. There weren't any buildings. It was really a quiet little island. But now it's bustling.

08:03 Oh, yeah, it's.

08:04 It's going. And I'll probably. I did stop in there on a. When I was on a cruise one time, but we didn't even go to the beach or into the shops. We went to the Botanical Gardens.

08:14 Oh, yes.

08:15 When we told them we were there on a cruise ship, they said this. Nobody ever comes here to the Botanical Gardens. We took this city bus. And it wasn't really a bus, it was a van. That was. That was interesting. Anyway, those were some happy times in my life. And when my kids were, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, I had a little house on Bacon street and we. And we had a lot of fun there with the kids. Those were great ages. And they were just played with them all day and ran to him.

08:54 So who is. Who is someone in your life that you will always remember besides family? Yes.

09:03 Okay. Well, I had a best friend, Nancy Martin. She's been dead 20 years, but.

09:07 Oh, I'm sorry.

09:09 Yeah. I could always go over to her house. I just walk in and the first thing she'd say is, I'm so glad you're here. And this is when I was going. I mean, you know, if I was needed to be cheered up, I always went to her house. And she'd say, I'm so glad you're here. Let's have a cup of tea. She'd say, stay for dinner. I've got a good dinner going right here. And then she just, you know, I'd spend hours with her and.

09:38 Did you guys grow up together?

09:40 No. I didn't meet her until after I graduated from high school. There was. I was a Southsider and she was an East Sider, but there was a club, a senior CYO club on the east side. And my friends and I, we would go there and we met a lot of Eastsiders and went to their parties. They had great parties. And we just got to know them that way. And so I don't know what I wouldn't have done without her, because I went through a time where I needed a place to live with my three kids for a few months because I was going through a divorce and I got evicted. So we stayed with her for a while until I got a job and she gave me the money to get an apartment and that.

10:39 So that's amazing.

10:41 And then I was in this apartment, one of the greatest, but it was roof over our heads. So then I bought a house out on the east side. My sister always lived on the east side, and it wasn't the best neighborhood, but it was. It was a cute little house. And we lived there for 23 years. And I say there was a lot going on in the neighborhood, but my kids survived it all. And they're all successful.

11:15 Exactly.

11:16 And happy and very strong. And they're all kind of leader types, you know, I don't know why, because.

11:22 I know Stacey is.

11:23 I just. Yeah, well, Chris and Tim are, too, and they were always real smart in school. And Stacey it was always important to her to get good grades after she was in the eighth grade. And some male teacher he was a man just raved about her to her, made her think she was the best thing since sliced bread, because I had him in Catholic school. And then her eighth grade year, she went to public school. And she was a little ahead of some of the other kids, I guess. But anyway, she was determined when she decided to be a nurse. Kept her nose in a book for five years, going through nursing school. I guess they all. You all have to do that?

12:13 Oh, yes, absolutely.

12:15 It's not as easy as people think to be a nurse.

12:17 No, it's not.

12:19 And college is not. I just admire all the kids that are making it through school because it's not easy. I went One year to college.

12:30 It's not. You really have to be organized and stay on top of it and prioritize things, you know?

12:36 Right. And my dad didn't believe in college, and especially not for girls. He said, why would a girl go to college? You're just going to get married and some man's going to take care of you. Well, that didn't happen. My marriage was a flop. And so I did teach school for four years in a Catholic school at Holy Name in St. Jude, fourth grade. And I love that. I loved it. I wish I could have done it the rest of my life, but I had the three kids and I didn't finish college. But Father Buzal paid my way that year. And then he. And then one day, Father Hartman from Holy Name called me and said, sylvia, school starts in a week, and we need a fourth grade teacher. I was only 19, and they were 9. The kids were 9, and I was only 19. He goes, Would you consider being our fourth grade teacher? I went, oh, sure. So I did that for about four years. I had 48 kids in my classroom.

13:42 Wow. I liked fourth grade. It was my favorite.

13:47 Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can teach a fourth grader anything. And so I loved doing that. And they. It was a really good school, and they had a real good music program, and that was nice. The kids were all in a choir. And I didn't really have any discipline problems.

14:10 Sure.

14:11 Well, no, the teacher. The teacher they had the year before me was very strict. So I thought they were scared to death, these kids. And I went, oh, my gosh. Gotta loosen them up a little bit, like robots. And so they were. They were all adorable. And I still remember them. But, you know, now I'm 82 and they're 72, so. Or around 70.

14:40 Yeah.

14:41 And I still. I still run into some of them sometimes. Oh, yeah. I was just at a thing that the Benedictine nuns were raising money, and it was a. An auction, and I. And it was a style show. I saw one of my students up there being one of the models, and I had worked with her at aul. And we had lunch one day, and I said, well, Carol, I said, you kids were all so smart, and you were one of the smartest ones. And I didn't hear from her for four years until I got an invitation to her college graduation party. She said, because my fourth grade teacher encouraged me, I went back to school.

15:35 Oh, I love hearing from my old school.

15:37 I had no idea that I encouraged her. All I said was, you were one of the smartest ones.

15:45 A.

15:47 And. And she had a really good job there. She was secretary to one of the. The main honchos, you know, the guys up in the Ivory Tower place. And so those were some memories. And anyway, growing up, like, I've been going to lunch lately with my grade school friends, and it's so much fun if we could talk about all the things that happened back when we were, you know, kids.

16:20 Sure.

16:22 Anyway, I went to St. Catherine's and we had a kickball team, and we never lost a game. We won the championship six seasons in a row. Well, more than that. But while I was on the team for six seasons and we won every time. And so they had pictures of that. The kids brought kids. I call them kids. They're 82. People I went to grade school with. Had a bunch of pictures of us when we were young. Oh, yeah, I'm loving it. It's so much fun. So we're. We're doing that once every six weeks. We're going out to lunch. But so many of them aren't here with us anymore because they're dead. And. And some of them also have moved away, so we can't.

17:11 That's fun to look back and have happy memories and.

17:16 Oh, yeah, reminisce. And, you know, we live near Garfield Park. Have you been to Garfield Park?

17:21 Yes.

17:23 Okay. And it was free to swim.

17:26 Oh, no.

17:27 Now it's $4. I. I just. It just bugs the heck out of me that kids have to pay to go to the park.

17:33 Yeah. When it's a safe, fun place to go.

17:37 Right. It just. But we were talking about was free to. It was free to go swimming, but they charged you a dime to check your clothes. Well, none of us had a dime, so we used to hide our clothes in the bushes. It was funny now that you didn't have a dime.

17:59 Right. Right. When everything is so expensive.

18:02 And then also when we were young, every Friday night and Sunday and some Sunday afternoons, there was a movie theater on the corner of Raymond and Shelby street. And we'd all go to the movies every Friday night. It was a quarter to get in, and so we. Nobody could hear the movie because it was always something like Frankenstein or Dracula or it was always some silly show. And everybody just ran around and partied in the theater. And then. Then we'd get in trouble with the owner, and he'd stop the movie and say, now you kids stop talking and watch the movie. And so then he put the movie on again, and everybody's running around talking again and having fun with their Friends. So we had a really good growing up because my neighborhood, everybody was like family. My dad lived in the same house 60 years.

19:09 Wow.

19:10 And he moved in when he was three and they tore the house down eventually, you know, to put the highway through.

19:21 Yes.

19:22 I65 South.

19:23 Yes.

19:26 And I was living there at the time with my babies. So. But when my brother died about 10 years ago and he had the deed to the house, really all the, all the paperwork from the house. So I haven't read it all, but I was looking through it and we had the biggest house in the area.

19:47 Really?

19:47 And my. Yeah, yeah. Our house was like the community center. People just walked in and out. My mom never shut, never locked the doors and she always had a lot of food going.

19:58 Yeah.

19:59 So we had, we had a little more than a lot of the neighbors. They just come in and eat with us or mother always had the coffee pot going. And the neighbors would all come in and drink coffee and sit around and talk and play cards. Oh, every, every weekend my dad's sisters who grew up in that house would come over and they'd play Pinocchles.

20:21 I've never played that. I've heard of it, but I've never played Pinnacle.

20:25 Well, they never taught me how to play it either. I think I can play Euchre. That's it.

20:29 Yeah.

20:30 And so. And then they. Daddy's sisters would come over and they'd play and with their husbands and they all. There were six of them playing Pinocchle and they took it seriously. I mean they would just yell and scream at each other about why'd you play that card? You shouldn't have played that card. I'm going, they think this is serious. I can see that.

20:56 Who's someone that was the biggest influence on your life? It can be family. That one can be family.

21:05 Yeah. Well, probably my sister Nancy.

21:07 Yeah, she. She was older.

21:12 Yeah, she said four and a half years older. And she had very bossy. She's had quite the life. You know, she had six kids in high school at the same time because her sister in law died.

21:25 Oh.

21:26 In a car accident and they. And she had five, five kids and her husband was just going to put them in an orphanage. So Nancy took the three oldest and then she had four of her own where they were all the same age and they only had a little three bedroom.

21:43 Wow.

21:44 House on the east side. But she made it work. She's a very strong person. And I wouldn't have done a lot of things. I didn't have a lot of money. Single mother back in the day. But she would talk me into doing things that I would have never done if it weren't work for her. So she talked me into going to Starlight musicals. You know, it was 16, and it was the biggest stars. I don't know. You don't? I mean, who was there? Debbie Reynolds, Julia Krauss, Rock Hudson. All the big stars were. Came. Well, they couldn't have been making any money. It was a small venue.

22:29 Yeah.

22:30 And. And they weren't charging very much. But now you go. You can't even afford to go to a concert.

22:35 Oh, gosh. I know. I just bought my niece concert tickets for her for Christmas. And it's like in the nosebleeds, I spent like $300 a ticket.

22:48 Isn't that terrible?

22:49 It's horrible. Horrible.

22:51 It's just like the kids having to pay to go to the park. I said if I ever won the lottery, I'd donate money to Garfield park for some things that they could expand, like putting an ice skating rink or a. But they have a lot of activities going on over there all the time. And they put a new pool in, which is okay, but I still think they should have kept the old one, because the old one they had, you know, swim meets, dive meets. They can't do that in those new pools. Oh, they're just splash pools. And I had a girlfriend, Toni Laurie, and she won everything. She won all the dive meets, all the swim meets. People come from all over to play tennis with her. Nobody ever beat her at anything. She probably could have been in the Olympics, except that, you know, we were in a. In a situation for something like that. Her whole family was extremely athletic.

23:46 Wow.

23:47 So. And. And I just loved her. She's gone now, but. Yeah, I just. I. She was nurse and we went to grade school. That's why we won all our games, because of her. And it wasn't because of me. I was the least athletic of all my friends, and I was such a wimp. We would go ice skating over on the lagoon in Garfield. Park it in there anymore. They took it out. And I never could learn how to skate. And they were all, you know, skating around and they'd want to go horseback riding. I'd get up on the horse. Then I'd get scared and stay back at the stables while they ran the horses and always get in trouble for renting the horses because the guy said, now the horses can't take anybody else because you girls have run them for the whole hour. Yeah, but I was and then. So I wasn't up to the athleticism that they were. My brother was. So my brother is. He's in the hall of Fame at Butler. He was. He was real good at all the sports. He put him into Cathedral and he excelled in all the sports. So, I mean, baseball, basketball, football, played them all. And his best friend, Lefty Cunningham, he goes, leo is the best athlete I've ever known. That's my brother Leo. And. But my dad was never interested in sports, but Leo was. So, you know, that was that. And so when my mother. We'd go to mass every Sunday and then we'd go over to my grandmother's, my mom's mom visit with them for a while. And.

25:52 So your. Was your family really close?

25:55 Yeah. And we. When they had their 50th wedding anniversary, we were the bridesmaids. I mean, I was only like 12, so when my sister had her was going to be married 50 years, she goes, oh, we're not going to do anything. I said, don't deprive your grandkids of watching of you having a nice. So she did. They had a big 50th too.

26:17 Nancy, remember?

26:18 Yeah. I said, you know, that's a really great memory that we have of Grandma and grandpa's, you know, 50th wedding. We all got to dress up like bridesmaids. It was. Grandma was so cute. She always wore those big hats with the feathers. Yeah, I wish I had one of them. What you do with it?

26:43 But, well, keepsakes.

26:45 Yeah. Well, my daughter. I recently bought this house on the south side. I finally got back to the south side, and I'm living in it. I'm living in. Near Holmcroft, where I always wanted to live ever since I was young. So I'm here now, and I've got this adorable house. I'm sitting out on the. It's got a sun porch. I'm sitting out. I sit out here all the time, the sun porch. And it's. It's just, you know, great neighborhood and everybody has a lot of yard around them. And I'm really, really happy to be here. I mean, I. I know I didn't have a good marriage, but I had a wonderful life. Yeah, I had a lot of people help me along the way.

27:36 And what were some of the most important lessons you learned in life?

27:43 Well, I think some people are constantly thinking about how their life could be better, or what if I'd done this or that, and my life would have been better. But I had a wonderful life. You have to make Life, you know, whatever your life is, you have to make it a happy thing. You know, I've made. I've taken a lot of trips thanks to my sister and some of my friends. I've gone. I have a friend in Colorado. I've traveled with her a lot. And then I have a friend, Judy. She just moved to North Carolina four years ago when.

28:31 I know you said earlier you don't have any regrets on anything.

28:35 I don't. What can I regret? I mean, everybody thinks I should regret marrying him, but I figure this way, I don't think I'd have married anybody if I hadn't married him. So I would be sitting here in Old Spinster.

28:48 Right.

28:49 Instead, I have nine wonderful grandchildren, three wonderful kids. Now I've got four great grandchildren. I have a great family. And so I, I've. I've. I would not have married anybody else. So that's the way it is.

29:13 Well, and like you said, it is what you make of it.

29:17 Yeah.

29:18 Life is what you make.

29:21 Well, when my husband, when I was in the eighth grade, he started hanging out at our house. And the whole time my dad had to chase him off every night. And we would play cards and watch TV and make out on the front porch. And he was crazy about me and we went to proms together and. Well, then after I went to college, he stopped seeing me.

29:52 Yeah.

29:52 And then about a year and a half later, he called me and we start dating again.

29:58 Really?

30:00 Yeah, he called me. I was in an accident. I was on my way to Florida with Tony and her brother and my friend Kathy. And Kathy and I have been friends since first grade. We're still hanging out together. And Judy and I have been friends since before first grade. We lived close enough. We play together when we were like three, four years old. Anyway, she moved to North Carolina because her daughter has 12 children and now they're. They're all getting married and leaving and having a bunch of children. She knows how many grandchildren she had. One of her granddaughters just had her eighth grand. Her eighth grand child. So there's 12 kids and they're all having a bunch of kids. So I went down there and. And they all get together every Sunday and have dinner. So I went down there to visit her and hang out with her big family and we used to go to the movies every week together. And she was here. But we. It doesn't cost that much to fly from here to North Carolina. We go back and forth whenever we want to.

31:12 So would you say that the majority of traditions that have Kind of been passed down as these Sunday dinners.

31:21 Oh, Sunday dinners, yeah.

31:24 Because it sounds like, you know, everyone's still doing it.

31:26 Judy's family, they have the Sunday dinner. My family, my mother, my. I, I just did a book, wrote a book about my. It's called Story Worth. Do you know what it is? Look it up.

31:42 Story worth.

31:43 The storyworth.com or whatever on the Internet. Well, my. One of my granddaughters said, grandma, tell us all the stories about your life and everything. I said, I'm never going to do that. She goes, write them down. I went, I'm never going to do that. So she sent me this thing, it's called Story Worth. And every week they send you a question. What was your mother like? What was your childhood like? Well, the same thing like you're asking me.

32:06 Yeah.

32:07 And what trips did you take? What? So every week. So for 52 weeks you write a little story about what the question is. And if you don't like the question, that week, they have other questions you can switch to. But anyway, I wrote the book and we had Sunday dinner. But my mother had a wonderful meal on the table every night at 6:00. Every night at 6:00. And she set the table the way it's supposed to be, you know, with the north fork here and the knife and spoon and glass. She had everything. There were, you know, six of us, so she had like four or five different vegetables and meat and she just had a very healthy meal for us every night at 6:00. So it wasn't just a Sunday dinner, it was an everyday dinner. Yeah, and she always had a bunch of food and she always. Canned. She'd go down to the farmer's market and get a bushel of tomatoes and a bushel of peaches and a bushel of green beans and all that. And then she'd can them and put them in the cellar. Yeah, there are cabinets built into the balls in the cellar. And it was, you know, pretty cool in there. So we, all winter we have had all those vegetables that she canned. And she was the epitome of the, of the housewife. She made a big deal about Christmas and a big deal about Easter. She made a big deal about. We had everything decorated and she had beautiful, made beautiful baskets at Easter. And she inherited my dad's mother's china and the dining room furniture. It was a great. Our living room and dining room were like 35ft. It was huge. And so this table opened out real big. And then she had my grandmother's linen Tablecloths and all her china. My sister just gave the china to her granddaughter who was thrilled to get it. Nobody wants china anymore.

34:27 I have my grandparents china as well.

34:31 Do you use it? That's all I gotta say.

34:33 No, it's in my. It's in my garage. But I can't get rid of it because I love it, but I'm afraid I'm gonna break it.

34:41 Well, it doesn't matter if you do. You probably won't. I would use it if I were you. Because when my daughter got married, I was working in the china shop at Ellis Ayres in Glendale and I bought her a set of china.

34:55 Yeah.

34:56 On her 25th wedding anniversary. I said, my daughter Stacey you know her on my. On her 25th wedding anniversary, I went over and got it. I use it for every day because she never used it.

35:10 So other than I know you taught fourth grade and then I know that you worked here at Riley or IU Health for a while. What other jobs have you done?

35:22 Well, I worked at an insurance company. You know, after I got the divorce or in the process of the divorce, I got a job at the insurance company in Nora. And I was so excited to have a job and get that I was getting money. I loved working. I loved every job I ever had.

35:48 Yeah.

35:49 Except. Except I was at AUL for about six months and I walked out because it wasn't a good atmosphere.

35:57 What was your favorite job?

35:59 Oh, well, teaching, but. And then Riley and then. Well, I really enjoyed my job at the insurance company for 20 some years. I worked there 23, something like that. And then I would have stayed there forever except they sold it and everybody that worked there lost their job because they sold the business.

36:21 Oh.

36:23 And I always had. I had. I enjoyed working there and I enjoyed working with the men I worked with and the women. I made such good friends while I was working there. In fact, Mike Hartley was my last boss. And he comes down here. He lives in New Ross, Indiana. He comes here once a year to take me to lunch. And that's been 30 some years ago when he was my boss.

36:50 Aw.

36:52 And so he calls me and said, well, I'm gonna come down and take you to lunch. When's a good time? And all that. And so the last time he was here, he says, are you. Do you still hang out or go out with the people we worked with? I said, mike, they're all dead. Yeah, they've all died because they were all older than I was. He and I came there at the same time. He was just getting out of college. He went to iu, and I was just going through a divorce. So we were Both in our 20s, but these people are long gone, and it's kind of sad.

37:30 Yeah, I'm.

37:31 I miss them. I said, I used to hang out with them, but, you know, now they're gone and that. Just like Tony or anybody. Nancy Martin, 20 years she's been gone. But also, she took me in when I had no place to go. I got. And we stayed with her for several months, and then I was off to the races with. With. I was in the apartments at the end of Kelly street, and they were. And this young couple was living next door, and they said, we know where you can buy a house. Our. Our cousin just bought a house out in this edition. It's not. So I went out there, and it was 150 down, 117amonth. We lived there for 23 years. Things were cheaper back then. Yes. 1972.

38:28 How do you want to be remembered? How do you want your grandkids and great grandkids to remember you?

38:35 Well, I hope they remember me.

38:37 Of course they will.

38:38 By just, you know, being there for them. You know, I've always been there for the kids, and that's one way. But also, I hope we have a little fun together. You know, I took the kids on some trips, too. I mean, we didn't spend a lot of money, but.

39:03 Well, it's not about the money. It's about the time.

39:05 Yeah. The last trip, I took them to Washington, D.C. i know they didn't want to go because they were, like, in. The boys were 18 and she was 20. I said, I know this is. I said, they don't know it, but I know this is the last time we're gonna go on a trip together. However, now every time I have a birthday, we go somewhere and do something.

39:29 Yeah.

39:31 This year we went to the Columbus Zoo.

39:35 That's fun.

39:36 Yeah. Yeah. I won, too, because it was Jack Hannah Zoo, and it was the, you know, let's see. Going to the San Diego Zoo, the Indianapolis Zoo, the Columbus Zoo, the Fort Wayne Zoo. We went there a couple of years on my birthday. For some reason, we always end up at a zoo. I've been to the Munich Terminary Zoo.

40:01 Wow.

40:03 We took Sebastian's kids while we were there. He said, well, girls, I'm gonna have to go to work today. So his wife said, well, what do you ladies want to do? Oh, just take the kids to the zoo. She says, we have a lot of company. Come Here. But we've never had anybody who want to do something with my kids. I mean, there were two little boys, like two and four, or maybe they were three and five, I don't know. But that was interesting, too. You know, we did that. And now I would say that they know I've always been for. But they're there for me, too.

40:44 Yeah.

40:47 In fact, Stacey's probably told everybody this story about me making them work all the time. She goes, I've been working my whole life. My mom is safe. I was only 2. And she'd say, get me a diaper. And she goes, we were nine years old, and we had a paper route.

41:16 Well, it builds character.

41:20 Yeah. Well. And then I told them, I said, I can't do this on my own, and this house is as much yours as it is mine, so you're gonna have to keep it clean. And. And Chris liked doing all that. And Stacia helped out a lot. She and he and my son Tim didn't do anything, but they did. I'd come home, and Stacia and Chris had the whole house cleaned up. I mean, from the time they were real little, like eight years old. Seven. Eight years old. They'd make sure the house was cleaned up before I got home. And they'd have dinner on the table.

42:00 Wow.

42:01 And they'd. And the grass would be cut. Everything would be done. I mean, I was just. Somebody said, how'd you get your kids to do that? I said, I didn't get them to do it. They wanted to do it, and I'm not gonna stop them.

42:16 No.

42:19 Chris loved going to the store, so he'd make out a menu every week and then click, cut clip coupons. He did it. I'd give him some money and drop him off at the store, and he'd get all the stuff, and then he'd cook it.

42:33 Wow.

42:34 And he. And Stacey But they were.

42:43 Good kids. Good kids.

42:45 Well, I can't say that the teenagers weren't somewhat trying sometimes. You know, they all went with everybody. But I actually. Whatever. Whatever the boys did, I didn't find out about till they were adults and sitting around talking about some of the things that went on. But they used to hop. We had a railroad track, like, across the street. And they would talk about how they'd hopped a train.

43:15 Really?

43:16 The trains would go real slow through there, but they'd hop on. How'd they know they weren't. I said, how'd you know they weren't gonna speed up? And you'd end up some city, other city, somewhere. They said, oh, we just take it down for about a mile and jump off and come home. Things like that that you don't. Parents don't even know about. So anyway, they liked school, so that was good. And they did, you know, they all did really well in school. And then they went to IUPUI and Stacey's a nurse. Chris majored in chemistry. Tim really didn't go to college, but he's got a really good job.

44:08 Very successful kids.

44:10 Yeah, he has a really good job in. Makes a lot of money and travels all over. He travels all over the States and also Canada and Mexico.

44:23 Oh, wow.

44:25 Annie. He meets with clients and then he decides if the. He works for Navistar, then he makes a decision on which company they're going to give the business to.

44:40 Oh, wow.

44:41 So he's got a real good job and my dad was a photo engraver. They don't have that anymore. They've got. Everything is computerized.