Carole Rodemeyer and Sylvia Rodemeyer

00:03 Hi, my name is Carole rodemeyer I am.

00:08 65 years old today is the 28th of March in 2015 were at the Getty museum in Los Angeles, and I'm your mom.

00:21 I'm so very out of my I'm 29. Actually, that's why I'm 30 and it's the 28th of March 2015 and we're at the Getty and I am here with my mom.

00:38 So tell me about your most infamous time playing with your siblings.

00:50 There's a lot to choose from one of my earliest memories with Mike. My brother. My older brother is when I was about four and he was five and Mama just had another baby and he took me in the wagon and we took off and went to Grandma's house and didn't tell anybody and there were no phones and my mom ended up calling the police to look for us, but for Mike and I it was just a great adventure. I trusted my big brother. I would go any place with him and going to Grandma's house was always a good thing to she would have treats for us and something that's simple ended up getting us in a lot of trouble. But when a good time that day, how far away is that and how long were you gone?

01:43 We were gone for hours. I don't remember how far away it was cuz I was 4 years old in like took me in the wagon. So it was in my mind just an adventure playing with my big brother going places. He was more interesting than the baby worried about getting in trouble. No because outside was where we would be all the time and I didn't know that we were going further than we were supposed to.

02:13 What other trouble did your brother get you into?

02:17 We had lots of interest in Adventures because we grew up in La Crosse Wisconsin. We're right close to the Mississippi River and that was irresistible lure to children so we would go down there and if nobody was looking weed borrow a boat once in awhile, and we'd go out on the river and we always make sure we put the boats back where we found them and nobody ever said no because we never asked and so it was always interesting spending time by the river and there were Marshalls around there that were totally off-limits which again made them irresistible and weed. I always felt like I had kind of a Tom Sawyer type of existence there because we would make crafts and we would just play by the water a lot in those days. Nobody worried about being kidnapped or

03:17 Any of the things that kids are warned about now, I think for the parents throwing us out was a good thing and for us it was great because there were no grown ups.

03:27 Passionists around

03:30 Do you think moving around a lot as a kid made you more creative in the ways that you played I don't think it made me more creative or less creative in the way we played I think it made me a lot closer to my brother. My big brother was totally my hero. I looked up to him. I still do the little brothers and sisters were fun to play with but Mike was special in my eyes. So there was a closeness there because we were closing age we moved we were each other's best friend cousins were very close because we always knew them even if we moved away from them, but having my big brother really meant a lot to me and the the creativity in our play. I don't know that it was a lot of creativity. It was just playing that's just what

04:30 Dead

04:33 Do you want to talk about how you checked ice in the winter?

04:41 Well, that was one of the things you did even in the winter time if it was cold. We went outside if we were inside mom was going to come up with chores. So being outside was better and we happen to have ice skates. And when we'd moved from lacrosse to Kenosha, we weren't by the river we weren't by water anymore, but there was a place not far from home. It would have been within a mile. They were building a big mall. They dug out this huge basement cuz everything in Wisconsin has basements and it rained it filled up with water. Then it got to be winter it froze. Perfect ice skating Pond and we'd walk over there and our snow suits and everything and the way we will check the ice to see if it was ready to go skating Mike. Would I say what Carol's come on down here by the ladder and I would always trust him and I'd always go down there and he would

05:41 Ice me out. And if I fell through it wasn't ready to skate yet and he dies pull me out again. He didn't leave me there to drown but he dies pulled me out and if I didn't fall through that it was okay to skate and I only fell through I think two times.

05:59 But then walking home in wet snow suit that's frozen is like walking like a robot.

06:07 Interesting, but very cold did that ever get passed down to two Kathy is her and I don't know why I was a littlest you listen to him and I trusted him. It was like Charlie Brown in the football. You know, I always trusted him.

06:27 I'm glad you taught you to ditch school. Yes, when I was 4 years old. I was in kindergarten. It was Winter he had to both of us had to wear boots to school because it was cold, but we weren't allowed to wear boots into the school.

06:47 Well, he had the old kind of black boots that had a buckle that was a little bit hard to work. I always wanted boots like that but girls couldn't have boots like but Mike had them but by the time we got to school it was so impacted with snow. He couldn't get them on done and we couldn't go on school boots on. So he told me to go in there was four years old. I wasn't going to that huge place all by myself, so he didn't go in and I didn't go in and we just kind of wandered around that day and we didn't get caught.

07:25 And so after that cookie became a fairly frequent thing. I never got caught I think Mike did but I never did he was a good teacher.

07:38 Do you want to tell me about your time on the farm with your cousin's which time?

07:47 Mostly on the farm we go out there with Mom and Aunt Evelyn dad or her sister dad and uncle Jim were usually at work. So Mom and her sister attack us all up. That would be usually

08:07 6th grade of us. I think at that time and we go out to the farm and

08:14 Being out there was total freedom.

08:19 Which I really enjoyed lots of cousins besides Mike and me and Kathy and Joe a little bit and then and Evelyn's lunch and then all the boys on the farm. There was a bunch of us kids and we could go around any place. We wanted as long as chores were done.

08:42 To me a city kid even chores were fun to go out and slop the pigs just saying slop the pigs is cool. And so it was fun to go out and do that and that could always get a little bit dangerous cuz we could get the shells to chase us and we have to get over the fence before they'd catch us. Otherwise, we have been hurt feeding. The chickens was fun helping the butcher. The chickens was the most fun milking the cows you could squirt each other as you're getting the milk out of the teeth and just all the chores out. There were a lot of fun, but then we could go out in the fields and have freedom we go out and collect Hickory nuts we go out Barefoot in the summer and it's gross but squeeze through cow pies because they would be nice and fresh and warm and it felt kind of good squishing between your toes.

09:35 And go out and share the salt licks with the cows, but the cows always licked in the middle. At least that's what it look like test because there was always a depression in the middle. And so we would look on the sides and pretend that the cows didn't like in that part. So it was okay to share it with them.

09:53 Playing in the barn was always fun climbing up in The Hayloft and opening up the door to the silage because it would stink so bad and wait all gross each other out with the smell just a whole lot of things with that were fun to do out there learn to drive tractor. I could pop a wheelie on a tractor after I did that I wasn't allowed to drive anymore.

10:19 When you were out on the farm.

10:23 What were you?

10:26 Allowed to do and not allowed to do.

10:30 Because you are a girl.

10:33 I was supposed to help in the house.

10:38 And learn how to bake bread and go out and collect eggs from the chickens and she'll endless amounts of peas.

10:52 And

10:53 I learned how to do some of that. I didn't mind shelling peas and listening to Mom and Aunt Betty and Grandma telling stories for a little while.

11:04 Baking bread. I never did get

11:08 Collecting eggs from the chicken I would pick up the ones that know old hand was sitting on but I wouldn't reach under the hands because they would bite and make you bleed. So women finally decided I was fairly useless around the house and they let me go out in the fields with the boys, which is why I wanted to be anyhow,

11:31 Is that like a

11:33 The struggle

11:35 To be out with the boys.

11:40 It wasn't just something that they just who you are no help so pretty much womenfolk decided. I was pretty useless in the house and they kicked me out and I was good with that.

11:58 One of my favorite stories that you tell and that all your siblings.

12:04 Tell a little bit differently, but all entertaining is the story of the apartments and the knife the apartment and the knife I was in.

12:20 Eighth grade

12:24 Mike would have been in 8th grade too. Cuz he flunked when it's only once by then. I think Kathy would have been three and a half years younger than me. Joe is just a little kid. I wasn't even born yet mom and dad went out someplace.

12:43 The house we were in was an apartment on the second floor. So there was only one door in and out. The kitchen was at the far end of the apartment and at the end of the kitchen there was a bathroom.

13:01 It was a very

13:03 Old bathroom and it had an old-style lock on it the little hook that you drop down into the eyelet while Mike and I were home watching the little kids. We are in one of the bedrooms. We were playing probably Monopoly Joe decided he had to go to the bathroom. He got up and went to the bathroom came back really quick. What are you doing Joe while he couldn't go to the bathroom? Cuz the door was locked when we looked around and there was Kathy and Joe and me and Mike and Mom and Dad weren't home and the door can't be locked because we're all accounted for so we go in there and do the kitchen and sure enough the doors closed. Well between the kitchen and the bathroom was the drawer with all the knives and forks and spoons. Mike reached in there got himself a butcher knife gave me a butcher knife with with the little kids behind us.

14:01 Mike being a year older Brave. Alright, whoever's in there. Come on out.

14:09 Dead Silence

14:12 The door didn't fit all the way to the floor. So we're getting down on the floor and peeking in there and looking and there's no feet.

14:22 Whoever is standing on the toilet or in the bathtub, so we can't see their feet. Come on out. We know you're in there.

14:32 Nothing. So finally Mike being the oldest has to be the bravest he goes up there and he uses his knife and he puts it between the door and the wall and licks the lock up and backs away, which was really dumb cuz I'm behind him with another knife and opened it up and there's absolutely nobody in there.

14:55 But all of this process took a while and we had all managed to scare ourselves have to death and the fact that no one was in there was kind of anti-climatic because we ended up feeling kind of dumb about it. But at the same time it was the most excitement we've had in a long time and

15:16 We would have saved our little brother and sister if anyone had been in there we were ready.

15:27 I have an older brother named Mike who is 13 months older than me. We were really close because we just had each other and also because he didn't do all that well in school and he flunked and we ended up in the same grade for a while and then I passed him but we were really close still are in a way Kathy is three and a half years younger than me. And she was pretty shy were glasses. We picked on her a lot. Joe is my littlest brother. We figured he was going to be the baby and kind of spoiled him and he's still so sweet and

16:14 I guess bird would be an accident. She came along five years exactly after Joe to the day and she definitely was the baby. I spoiled her something awful. I took her to her first movie that did a lot of things with her.

16:35 She still spoiled well.

16:39 And you're her her godmother and Mike and I are her godparents. Yeah, cuz we've moved again and there was no one else around so Mom went to the church and said I need to get her baptized and Mike and Carol are going to be her godparents. And the priest first said no because I don't think that we were really old enough. They're all five years apart. So 5:10. Mike was 15. I was fourteen but Mom convinced the priest that we were old enough and responsible enough and knew nobody else. So we got to be her godparents and that was kind of a big deal. I always like that.

17:22 How many places do you think you moved around 2 and what caused all your moves?

17:30 I think I counted one should I was in nine different schools by the time I got to high school. I was in three different schools in two different cities and sixth grade. We moved around a lot because of my dad's drinking. He got kicked out of the painters union. He had a lot of trouble with

17:50 Alcohol may be because he'd been a marine and World War II and I'm sure what he saw during that time and what he did during that time affected him but his drinking caused us to move a lot. We were evicted at one time. So we moved a lot as a kid. It really didn't.

18:15 Bother me a whole lot because that's what I knew. I didn't know that you could stay in one place for a long time because we didn't and even when we moved we still had family we had each other. We still had our cousins even though we didn't see them as much when we live far away from them.

18:33 Can you talk a little bit about your time and Catholic School in your your interest in becoming a nun? Well, I went to Catholic school at first because we were Catholics. So that was the only kind of school. I know I thought I wanted to be a teacher. The only way I knew to be a teacher was to be a nun because that was all I knew I don't know that I ever felt any great calling to religion. I just wanted to be a teacher and so I spent two years in the convent.

19:11 I went to church there when I had to just like when I was home. I had a lot of fun. We played a lot of games at the convent and it it was a good experience my mom and dad finally decided. I wasn't fully enough and told me I couldn't go back after the first year, so I got on my brother's bicycle when Mom and Dad weren't home one time and I got just about 40 miles before dad caught up with me and took me home again, but they let me go back a second year. I guess they thought I meant it if I went that far, but then they didn't let me go back again after that.

20:00 I know it's probably just as good I figured out how to become a teacher. Anyhow, and I didn't have to become a nun and if I'd been a nun I would never have you and I'm glad I never became a nun. How was that being away from home that early?

20:21 It was okay.

20:24 I was 13 years old when I started High School in that was in the convent mom and dad and all the brothers and sisters drove me there.

20:35 My mom cried most of the way.

20:38 When they left at first like when I had to watch him drive away that was a little bit hard, but then I was fine. I've always been kind of a independent type person. So I was okay. I wrote letters a lot.

20:58 And I saw him on vacations. Do you think that that kind of prepared you for the military?

21:04 Like that type of

21:06 Being away. I don't know. I don't remember being away from home ever being a problem. We were pretty interchangeable with a gnoblin and uncle Jim's kids. Whatever house we were at. That's where we ate. That's where we slept. Same thing with grandparents are being shipped out to the farm. So being away from home.

21:31 Wasn't that big of an issue just one time when they left me in Cashton with Grandma and Grandpa and I had to sleep in at Marie's bed. And that bed to me was so huge. I had that stole the climb up in it. And that scared me being there that night in that big place and Grandma and Grandpa took me home the next day and that's the only time I remember having an issue being away from home and it really scared me and her bed was big and I don't want to be in her room. So it was probably more an issue or even at Westwood being away from home.

22:11 So you still became a teacher and you became of parents and found your way to both those things and still have your motto of Never Growing Up and you've done pretty good at adhering to that. Do you think that gives you

22:33 Add more playful perspectives than other teachers and parents that you interact. Well as just last week, I told the kids in my class. I'm better at being a kid then you are but I do have a good imagination and a good sense of play and I really think that comes more from spending time with my brother and my cousins and not having a lot of toys. We didn't have a lot of anything all we had was our imagination so we could turn anything into a toy and if we didn't have anything we just used our imaginations when I would go to the municipal pool in La Crosse with my cousin diaper. It was about a mile and a half from our house. And so we'd walk it and Dapper and I would walk along and makeup.

23:33 Most amazing mansions as we walked along and we had to describe them clearly enough that we could both see the same thing in our heads so that we knew where the steps were and we knew where we were putting secret doors behind the steps and secret passages that went down into the basement and another place where they came up to the second floor and we got really good at just using our imaginations because we could both live in the same house in our heads. We were really good at that and we always made up stuff and I I think that that's something that kids don't do quite as much anymore because they have so many toys. There's so many ready-made games. They do things on the computer and they follow the rules.

24:32 And it's more fun to make up your own rules. I think Shane and the scooter ball and that way you can do anything you want.

24:46 Rather than being constrained by someone else's rules. Even with Monopoly. The first thing you do is change the rules and make free parking a place where you can get the money and if you get a card that says go to go collect $200 you get the $200 for the card you get the $200 for going to go and you get $200 more for passing go is the way we played it but we made up our own rules for things doing jigsaw puzzles. You put them together and learn how they fit and flip them over and put them together upside down and then mix a bunch of jigsaw puzzles together and sort them all out and put them together and then flip them over and put them together upside down all mixed together, but you just keep changing things in and going further and further and using your imagination to make it more exciting and interesting.

25:38 Do you want to tell me about pig ball pig ball will pig ball with something when we had to use our imaginations? We're in Burlington at Grandma's house. You were there Katie was there my nephew Sam & Lisa was there too and

25:59 I'm sure we roped Uncle Joe into playing. Maybe your dad watched. I don't remember if he played or not that didn't play as much as the rest of us probably came out and yelled at us. So we wanted to play ball and Grandma had no kids anymore. She had a good toy box upstairs still but there was no bat and ball. So we found a pig plastic pig that was kind of brownish close enough to a ball that it would more less work and then we went up front and that we needed a bat and the closest thing we had was the stick that held up Grandma's plant. So we kind of took that and went across the street to the empty church parking lot and played ball with the stick and the pig until Grandma came out and shall we took stick out of her plant? I think that's the first time you saw my mother yell at me if us.

26:52 I remember you and Katie were both kind of.

26:56 Shocked a little bit realize that. Yeah, it really was my mom and she could still yell at me and she did still yell at me. You were my mom and people weren't supposed to yell at my mom and my grandma and Grandma definitely hadn't yelled ever at either of us yet. Did she ever not at me Katy Crossing Pine Street? Probably but that was a busy street by Grandma's house and she didn't want you to get hurt. I know it's just at Pine Street was between her house and everything. That was fun the river the movie store the grocery store Lisa's house everything so

27:43 I still think one of the cool things we did was go back to Burlington after grandma died and go to Pine Street and take a picture Crossing Pine Street, but it was worth doing.

28:00 So even if it was an adult, you've kept this model and when Katie and I started skating you were not very

28:11 Intel sitting on the sidelines and being another skating mom, it was cold.

28:17 Can you tell me more about your skating experience and why you chose to skate at 5048 is probably 50 something.

28:32 I like ice skating I grew up on ice skates as a kid when it snowed and got cold in the winter. We would shovel the snow in the yard and use the hose and fill it with water and let it freeze we could skate from one yard to another because a lot of people would flood their yards and let him freeze weed go to Paul's Park and Lacrosse. It was a block from home and there were four baseball fields put together and Paul's Park and they would flood the whole entire thing. So everything that we did at the park in the summer Barefoot. We did at the park Winter on ice skates. We played tag, we played crack the whip we jumped over each other.

29:23 We got in everybody's way and were annoying everything you could do Barefoot we would do on ice skates. So when even my dad came to the park one time mom sent him up to get us he grabbed his skates are on the way out. He came up to the park put his skates on came out on the ice with us said I can skate circles around you backwards while you're going forwards as fast as you possibly can and like no you can't Dad. Yeah I can so we started skating just as fast as we could dad skated circles around us back where it was until I grew up that I really she can skate faster backwards. He already knew that.

30:05 We all got in trouble that night even dad. Mom yelled at all of us, but growing up on skates when you developed a passion for ice skating. Thanks, Auntie Park.

30:18 And they started building Ice Town. It was in a resistible combination. So you and I and we dragged Katie along. Remember we went out there and watched a stone being built. I think we were one of the first people to sign up to skate there and there's no way I was going to sit on those cold metal bleachers and let you guys have all the fun.

30:42 Because some of those skating moms were

30:46 Hard to put up with

30:48 I'm besides I like skating. It was fun. And as long as you guys were willing to be seen with me in public and play with me in public. I was certainly going to share that time with you and it was something that all three of us shared for a long time. And even though Katie fought it sometimes getting up. So darn early in the morning.

31:11 She was probably the best of us, but we had a lot of fun. We made good friends. There. We spent a lot of time on Ice together. We had experiences that we would have never had otherwise because you combined your passion of ice skating with your passion of writing and you were writing for an international ice skating magazine by the time you were.

31:42 2018 16 years old

31:45 And you and I had so much fun going to different places and hanging out with skaters like Scott Hamilton and Paul Wylie, and Elvis stojko touched my shirt and autographed it and we just had so many fun experiences with it. Why should I have sat on those cold bleachers and froze my dupa when I could be out there playing with you and having those experiences with you and Katie and hanging upside over in the tree outside of ice stone.

32:25 Tell me what's your favorite memory of ice skating with your mom?

32:32 Skating with you during some of the the Christmas shows, especially the first one that we did with those horrible horrible hats and outfits that were left over from the 1960s Polly's know they were older than 60 simmer something. My grandma would have wore either that's probably true and having those utterly ridiculous moments and nobody looked good in that and we weren't even good skaters at that point. I was

33:07 We weren't even good skaters at that. We got a lot better and just being out there with you and Katie and no other family that I knew got to do something like that silly is it was definitely at that point as silly as we looked I actually like those costume. I'm sorry, but I do but it was so fun and we got a lot of those moments and I loved that you were always

33:43 So game and willing to be

33:47 Playing on the floor with us or on the ice with us or any Adventure that we could come up with you were right there.

33:56 You're fun to play with car to Katy is just totally ridiculous which made her a whole lot of fun to play with two.

34:06 Yeah, I love those times on the ice with you. I like the the footwork competitions. I like did you guys taught me how to wall jump and then finally turned it into a waltz jump and then we would have two competitions with each other to see who can jump the highest in the farthest. Then I never even really worried about falling. I was just playing with you guys who was just fun.

34:30 I think that makes a really really good connection with people when you share laughter with them and you have fun experiences with them. I couldn't imagine sitting here reminiscing with you about. Oh remember when it was so awful when we got lost someplace or remember how terrible such and such was those memories don't stick in my head. It's playing with you the fun times with you the adventures to getting lost driving the wrong way on the railroad tracks.

35:07 In the middle of La in the middle of the night. It's okay. We never told Dad.

35:15 But those are experiences that even though some of them were a little bit scary the railroad tracks. I have to admit it was pretty terrifying. There is no right way on the railroad tracks, right? The car should not have been on the railroad tracks, but those are things that you and I have shared and a lot of the things we've shared with Katie to and those are the things that I remember and that's the way I feel really connected with you and with her and that we have shared your lifetime and her lifetime and by now we're pretty close to half of my lifetime has been with you.

35:58 And I could not imagine my life without you and without Katie.

36:04 Because you both have brought so much love and laughter into my life and your everything I could wish for in a daughter.

36:14 I know I wanted a son.

36:18 Yeah, I think that being able to.

36:24 Be on road trips with you cross country back to Wisconsin and

36:30 You know getting getting Katie to willingly spend time with us was sometimes a challenge driving for four days straight where you had to be altogether. I think that was really important and fun for everybody. We told so many stars seasons.

36:52 Saw kangaroos in Montana Yellowstone in Montana. I don't know it was in Yellowstone.

37:02 Yeah, Buffalo. Yeah the Buffalo but those were amazing experiences and they were times that again brought us so much closer and when

37:16 When you're trying to make connections and trying to remember what if we talked about the kangaroo or the Buffalo or Sonic burger or some of those things, they don't necessarily mean the same thing to us that they mean to other people. They mean specific Adventures to us and times that we've shared and I feel like that with my cousins that I don't necessarily see except every 10 years maybe with the dockendorf boys, but we have those moments that we shared and we can say remember when we got Mom and I Neverland to kick us out of the car and we walked to the farm and we had these experiences and it instantly reconnects us the fun things that we did the adventures that we shared that's the connections between people and I think that's why play is so important and why I've always made it a point to play with you guys.

38:14 Besides just the fact that I like to play and you still do we were just playing earlier today and now you ask me to do this and I'm like I do want to do go karting and this I didn't really want to give up the play time and I'm glad you fixed it so we could play to it's important to me to still play with you and that's what I like about your auntie. Is it she's also very playful and I love the time that you guys share with me cuz you grew up a little bit. I'm not sure you were supposed.

38:48 But now I know you have your life and I love that you Nanny include me in your life and make me part of it and still play with me because that's the things that we share and that's where our memories are.

39:02 And I just love you. I love you.