Angela "Angie" Conley and Lyn Engle

00:00 Case real

00:04 My name is Angela Conley. I like to be called Angie or Ang.

00:09 I'm 51 years old. I'll be 52 in April.

00:14 Today's date is February 23rd, 2019.

00:20 We are in Hamilton, Ohio and I just met my storycorps partner.

00:31 My name is Lyn Engle and I am 55 years old. Today's date is February 23rd. We are at Miami University in Hamilton, Ohio.

00:44 Great, so I would love to kick it off with this question. Ladies. Could you describe your upbringing to each other and your earliest awareness of politics over one sister?

00:56 Well, I grew up in a very large family just outside of Blanchester, Ohio.

01:03 I grew up with six brothers one sister.

01:09 We had half brothers and sisters that didn't live with us.

01:15 Mom and dad were both in their second marriages.

01:23 We had a farm. We raised all our own food Garden.

01:32 Cows pigs chickens You Name It We had it.

01:40 It was

01:45 It was life to me. I didn't feel like I was poor at the time but looking back now. I know that we were very poor.

01:58 We didn't have a lot of the

02:01 Commodities that

02:05 Other families had

02:07 We had a used car that was passed down to us from an aunt.

02:15 When they bought a brand new car, they would pass down their Concord to us.

02:22 I do remember the one brand new vehicle that Dad ever bought was a 57 Chevy pickup truck.

02:33 And he used it until the body rested away on it and he couldn't use it no more, but the engine still ran.

02:43 I remember going out in the field and weed everyday weed starts thing up and it would run and it was just on a frame and body was completely rusted away.

02:56 Hand

03:00 When the mom and dad got

03:04 Too old to take care of the farm after s kids left. They then bought not bought that rented an apartment in, Lebanon, Ohio.

03:20 And they still had a garden clear up until the last day that.

03:28 Dad can take his breath. They had a garden that was dad's passion that he passed down to me.

03:40 Mom was the cook she.

03:46 Cross crocheted Grandma cross stitched grandma taught me to cross stitch. I never could pick up crocheting.

04:01 And that's about it.

04:07 Mom lived in the apartment until

04:11 She passed away from breast cancer in 2005.

04:17 And here I am today.

04:23 Could you describe your upbringing to Angie and if you like your earliest awareness politics sure my upbringing was in a lot of ways kind of lonely compared to yours Angie. I had an only child never learn to share quite frankly because I didn't have any siblings or even close cousins that were always around. So I spent a lot of time reading and observing my parents were married for I don't know how many years is 67 years for a week before they both passed away. They had never my mom and never had a serious relationship with anyone other than my dad. They had been dating since before he went to the Korean War. He was gone for three years came back.

05:23 They ended up back together after taking that little Hiatus and got married. And you know, I came along after several years. I was there, later in life babies. My parents are always they weren't is engaged with me growing up and active and stuff. I did because they were almost have a different generation than my friends parents and then we have the other kids I went to school with

05:51 I remember my childhood in addition to kind of being you know, what kind of insulated from the world in a lot of ways which I think is why I liked books so much because it took me somewhere else and I remember always being drawn to a big moment. So this is the strangest thing that I remember when they landed on the moon and it was broadcast on television and I would like 5, but I remember my dad and I both sitting in the living room with at the time the little black and white TV watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon if I was a coolest thing ever.

06:31 I just loved that type of stuff. I remember my dad swears. I don't remember when Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated but I think I do and that's probably one of my earliest memories because my dad felt stuff like that. He felt what was going on in the world and he was very

06:51 Quiet and introspective and kind of kept a lot of stuff inside. I think when I was growing up, he was a man of very deep faith. I knew he hit his he was you know, I think the war probably affected him in ways. He never talked about and one of my earliest memories on the politics side to really in their kind of tied together and it was probably not that long. I don't know probably the early 70s we were going through some like rummaging through drawers and my parents house and finding a clipping the front page of the Dayton Daily News when John Kennedy came to speak at Courthouse Square in downtown Dayton and the streets were packed with people and my dad had circled where he stood I to this day that gives me chills to fax it I didn't I would have known that if I hadn't found that piece of paper

07:51 That meant that much to him and later in his life. You know, he was a very deep Faith. He was a deacon in a Baptist Church. He he kind of always loved talking about, you know the time when Kennedy was president and someone and so forth. He kind of got disinterested and didn't pay as much attention.

08:14 The politics until probably the 80s with Ronald Reagan. He was probably the first Republican president he supported and I honestly think it in the show it was because he was a movie star and he'd been in westerns cuz that's how my dad was kind of cold, but he was very, you know, he had his own beliefs and he had the church that really did dictate a lot of what they thought he should do as a member, but he was much more thoughtful than that. He didn't that's not how he

08:48 Approach to politics and voting and elections and see if he really he thought about it and he thought about the impact on the world and I always like that and I think part of that came from my grandparents. This is my mom's parents. This is where I remember kind of learning about how politics can really be divisive because you know, my grandfather was

09:14 He was everything he was a coal miner. He was a cab driver and a tiny little Eastern Kentucky Town. He was a preacher at various times. He onda he owned a little grocery at some point in time, but it is Corey was always a coal miner. I mean he had been in the mines. He mean open in the union and he's gone through all of that stuffing.

09:35 Then he he got very opinionated and very loud and my grandmother was total political opposite of him. He she was very much like my dad in a lot of ways, but she was also she loved kind of pet her beliefs against his beliefs and they would argue. I mean it was not a throw down but it was darn close to it. They both had very strong opinions and I review a little kid there and watching them and listening to them and watching my mom who was a classic middle child never engage. She just stayed out of The Fray she did she didn't have a political opinion until probably

10:18 Oh my gosh, probably.

10:21 After 9/11, I mean she just didn't it just wasn't her. She didn't get angry. She didn't get excited about it. And I think watching my grandparents fight amongst themselves and you'll ever have the same sort of argument about the Bible. So it's kind of funny how they they always had a different interpretation of you know, everything they were reading everything that we're seeing in the world and my grandmother was Irish and was very feisty. What's the best way to describe her and my grandfather and my grandmother it's interesting. You said you were Shawnee cuz my grandfather was Cherokee my great-grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. So it was an odd family to begin when we had all sorts of weird thing is going on and the one thing everyone had in common was you know, that religion was important and it was always

11:16 Christianity it was always you know that one Baptist Faith. So all of that played into my understanding of politics, I think when I was younger

11:27 Will you head on a few things that I'd like to add on my mom and dad were married for 50 years before dad died?

11:36 50 years and one day my first memory of anything political was right around the era of I think Jimmy Carter. I remember dad not being happy at all with Jimmy Carter, but

12:02 Same as jerk.

12:04 Dad, Ronald Reagan came along and

12:10 He was the best president ever and I think that was because he was in westerns.

12:19 My parents weren't religious. They didn't go to church. They would send us kids to church but I think that was more of a babysitter. We need a reprieve from all these kids type thing. That's send them off to Vacation Bible School and let's send them off for Sunday service and let's have some quiet time.

12:50 And you said your grandfather was from Eastern Kentucky? What part of Eastern Kentucky Hazard Hazard? Yes. I know where that is. I lived in Grayson, Kentucky for 13 years when I was married to my second husband.

13:10 And I do remember 9/11 and that's when I really started to form my own opinions about politics before that politics and what's politics. I'm not going to argue over politics, but since 9/11, I really formed my own opinions and

13:38 I've come a long way politically.

13:41 Learning the ins-and-outs and who's who and who believes in white and who I should vote for and know to do my research and everything before election day in

13:57 Also, you said that you were part Cherokee my

14:08 Great great, great, I believe or maybe another great grandmother was actually married to tecumsah. Oh my gosh. She was taken as a slave.

14:26 During a

14:31 I want don't want to say War but there in a battle.

14:36 They

14:38 Took a bunch of white women and some children and

14:43 She was forced to marry to come to become his wife and down the line here. I am so amazing that are you there?

15:09 I was married to my first husband. He was a former Navy man.

15:17 We were in.

15:21 Murfreesboro, Tennessee living with my best friend her husband and their kids

15:30 And it was me and my daughter and my husband.

15:42 I guess you was up getting kids off to school. Sheila was and

15:51 She came in and knocked on the door and said Angie you need to get up and come out here.

15:59 There's news all over the TV of plane has crashed into one of the twin towers and immediately my husband jump stop. His name is Matthew.

16:19 He jumped up and ran to the living room and sat down on the couch and I got up and I went out and

16:29 Sat down next to him and just watched in shock as the second plane hit the second tower.

16:42 And I

16:46 That's when we realized that this was no accident that this was being done on purpose and I was really in shock. I started crying at that point and my husband put his arm around me and he says we will get them we'll get them. I'll go reenlist and I'll make sure we get them and I'm

17:16 Can we watch this is the first Tower fell and then the second tower fell.

17:23 And I looked up and

17:26 I wasn't the only one crying at that point.

17:33 All those lost souls

17:44 Couple of days later

17:48 My husband went to re-enlist and he came home and he said that they declined that he was too old to re-enlist. He was already past his prime.

18:09 They didn't want him anymore.

18:13 And it wasn't but a couple weeks later that he passed away from a heart attack on my gosh. That's too much loss in too short of a Time on his 40th birthday. I'm so sorry.

18:33 We were moving into our own apartment.

18:46 Is all I could think was that?

18:49 9/11 was the beginning of his end.

18:54 Because he was so stressed over it.

19:00 Help make me angry.

19:06 And that's what I decided that I needed to.

19:11 Change who was in Congress. Maybe only one little voice, but my one little voice added with another little boys added with another little boys.

19:23 All of us together we can make a change.

19:29 I sometimes look at 9:11 what you just shared and think that

19:36 We all have that in common. I mean every American that was alive in 2001 has that in common? And I think we need to remember in some ways what that moment felt like

19:47 I felt like it was the end of something to salute Lee. I think I had a very idealistic view of the world before 2011 2001. It was the other bar Edison side. Yes. It was the end of our innocence and it was it was just so it was like

20:11 It was such a jolt into reality. I mean, I know I was told I was but I remember I was that day. I was in a meeting at my job at the time. I spent way too much time in meetings and I was in a conference room with no you no access to anything goes before anyone had a phone or an iPhone and it wasn't until I left and got back to my office and

20:39 Someone came in and said, oh my gosh something's happening in, New York.

20:44 And we had I worked in public relations the times we had TVs around. So I remember we all kind of gather around the television and my office which wasn't huge. It must have been 15 or 20 people who came in and we sat there and watched, you know as the towers fell and I remember they told us if we wanted to we could go home and that scared me that scared the heck out of me that suddenly there's somebody saying okay go home, and I'm like what what they closed schools. Why am I? Yes and it's that made me so much more fearful than I think I ever imagined I would be

21:29 My partner at the time met me in and we went home and I literally sat on the couch for probably two days watching the new I did too so I couldn't move Beyond it. I needed to know not so much what was going to happen how we're going to fix this but what else might happened to us, right? I was terrified.

22:00 And and I wanted to know why yeah. I wanted to know why I wanted to know how I think I

22:10 I'm blamed.

22:13 I think I probably blamed the president at that time in some way which was not fair to him or anyone else because it wasn't anything that that one individual did rhyme with evil from the other side of the world in a lot of ways and I knew it was out there, but I just don't think I ever thought something like that could happen here and now, you know, all these years later.

22:42 What are the things does nag made for the past two years is we haven't had any more terror attacks.

22:49 And I miss you wonder when it's going to happen again. It makes me very suspicious about everything and I'm very

23:01 And now it's not

23:04 The safety of millions of people is

23:09 I don't like feeling that way. I don't like feeling that there's something could happen. But I also don't like feeling like we don't remember what we felt like in that moment. I mean, I remember after 9/11 a couple of months later. I went on a trip with a friend who was going to Chicago to run in a marathon and it was really one of the first big public outdoor events that I've been to since 9/11 and I remember walking around Chicago and everyone was kind of a little weary of being a huge fan of this big city and there were so many people from elsewhere there. That was very uncomfortable and then a few months after that know about a month after that in December. I had to fly to Washington DC for work.

24:01 And it was the first time I've been on an airplane where they there was something after 9/11 where you had to sit you had to be in your seat for like 30 minutes before you landed and 30 minutes after you took out like there's no no one to be moving around the airplane and flying into

24:20 National Airport Reagan National Airport, it's time and

24:24 And Landing, it was quiet this every one of the plane was quiet as we went into DCF. It was just very odd and I just it's like that hole. For like 3 or 4 months after 9/11. Everyone was just waiting to see what happened next and when the shoe was going to drop I mean everything from you know, I remember the envelopes people were getting with ya know something in them in was that dangerous? And yeah, we stopped my daughter from getting the mail because of the anthrax scare because people just normal people were getting letters in the mail.

25:10 With some kind of white powder on them and it was scary and I didn't want my daughter if anybody was going to get sick and die. It was going to be me. It was not going to be my daughter Amy night the whole time and kids today.

25:28 To them. It's just another.

25:33 Event in the history book. They don't remember like we do.

25:39 I think for a lot of us.

25:42 Even still today.

25:44 That event is still raw.

25:48 Hey and probably always will be.

25:52 Roz a good way to describe it.

25:56 I did anything. One of the questions was the about lessons you learned from your parents. Did your parents ever?

26:04 Did you get anything from them that prepared you for that moment? Cuz I did know know they never talk to us kids about politics and when they talked about politics it was you sleep.

26:18 Right before dinner and right after dinner because we were not allowed to watch TV while dinner was happening and

26:30 Right before dinner s kids were busy and right after dinner as kids were busy we had chores to do.

26:38 And that was the time that Mom and Dad would sit down and they would watch the news and they would discuss things between the two of them and I will just hear bits and pieces of this and that in the other and I knew that Dad was not happy with Jimmy Carter and why I don't know I think Jimmy Carter is a a grand person working with you to Habitat for Humanity. I mean, that's

27:08 As old as he is and he's still out there building houses.

27:13 That makes him a good person in my book.

27:18 Find to I mean mine to my dad like Jimmy Carter because he was a farmer see I didn't know I knew he was a peanut farmer. Yeah PS now. Do you think I mentioned that? Yeah. I knew you liked him because of that and because he was a Baptist might have even been a deacon in a church or something. That that was important to my dad. He's a deacon now, isn't he think so. I think he's still part of a rather large church somewhere near where he live. This is amazing. It's as old as religion was something that was never really mentioned in our house. I do remember when I was about nine or 10 and I was saved

28:01 At vacation bible school and I came home and I told Mom I was say you didn't said can I get baptized now? No.

28:12 That was the end of that Mom said no that meant no.

28:18 So I did not get baptized until just like a year ago. I had a very different experience in that regard because my dad was so into the church my mom.

28:33 Not so much until she was much older. She sometimes went to church with him but not always and then she struggled with the idea of faith. And and I did too frankly and I still do in a lot of ways. I did, you know, my parents forced me and even my mom even though she didn't go I had to go to church every Sunday with my dad. I just remember having your address and how much I hated that but we would go and I would suffer through it and that was what it was to me when I was younger. I just wasn't I had so many questions that no one could answer. I was the kid in the sunday-school class saying that makes no sense or this there's no way that happened and you know, I have since my faith has changed obviously since then I've come to

29:23 Get what I need from it. But at the time when I was about 12, you had a lot of questions. I had questions and no one was answering and I pretty much told my parents. I wasn't going to church anymore and you were told that you weren't allowed to question. The Bible. I was told I wasn't allowed to question the Bible or the preacher and I just didn't make sense still have dad told me the same thing. Yeah, even though they never taught me anything about religion that I was told the same thing. Yeah. You never question the Bible you never question God.

30:00 Yeah, I so I know I quit going to church when I was 12, and I didn't go back to church.

30:08 Until the next time I went to church this when I was in college, and I went to for some odd reason I went to a Catholic mass and that was interesting. I had never experienced anything like that. And then I stayed away from church for another.

30:24 Part of your 25 years or so and now I go to a really Progressive Church. I'm a lesbian my partner and I and our son go to the church that is very open and affirming and gives us a sense of peace and that's beautiful. I thank you. I'm glad you didn't like it at that way. We love the fact that you know our face and you know, everything is about love and I think that's why I've always kind of leaned a little to the more liberal side on the politics scale is because I I just want everyone to get along. I just want everyone to be happy and safe and be loved whether that's by your neighbor or whether that's by Jesus or whether that's by a partner. Everyone should just feel that love and that's what I get from my faith. I didn't feel that from the Baptist Church in 1970. I was told by a preacher that

31:25 Because I was pregnant and unmarried that.

31:37 I was raped.

31:39 And I got pregnant and the preacher knew it and he told me that it was God's will.

31:49 And he told me that if I got an abortion.

31:55 I would go to hell and if I had the baby out of wedlock, I would go to hell and that I should marry the baby's father.

32:07 And

32:10 At that point that was

32:14 That pushed me out of church right there and I didn't go to church for 30 years and just recently my boyfriend asked me to go to church with him and I had to really think hard about it and I told him I would give it a try and I went a time or two expecting to tell him I can't do this churches in for me.

32:41 And I was wrong church has changed a lot in 30 years and

32:51 My church feels like family now.

32:55 You mentioned that you were lesbian. I'm bisexual. I was in love with my best friend for a long time, but she wasn't in love with me. That's hard.

33:12 But we're still best friends.

33:15 And

33:20 I've moved the one and I've got this wonderful boyfriend, very encouraging very supportive. He has encouraged me and supported me to go back to college and I'm a 51 year old freshman at Miami University in Middletown, and I've got these Big Dreams and he's helping me follow my dreams and

33:52 Supporting me through it. All that gives me chills and I go to church every Sunday and I think I've only missed two maybe three Sundays one because I was sick and too because of snow.

34:10 Since we started going to church together, so

34:17 Math question. Yes.

34:28 I wonder if if that resonates with either of you and if you share it with you want to share with each other a time or you just felt really misunderstood or put in a box all my life.

34:39 You sure wasn't I felt like I didn't feel.

34:45 I felt like I fit in when I lived at home with Mom and Dad I was the only kid.

34:55 That mom had that was born with red hair.

34:59 My two younger brothers were born with white hair that turn red later, which now is dark brown and I'm still the only redhead in my family. I could take that back. I take that back. I have now three beautiful grandchildren to my gosh that have my red hair. So that's fun. But I didn't fit in there. I felt like I was adopted they talk they swore to me. I was not adopted but they would make fun of me and say I was the mailman's daughter or the milkman's daughter that that time we still had milk delivered.

35:51 Because I was bisexual.

35:55 I didn't come out for a long time because I feared and labels and when I finally did come out it was to my best friend and it was only because she was bisexual too and

36:14 She has been very supportive and

36:23 I just gotten to the point in my life now at my age that

36:29 They want to label me lidom label me.

36:33 The labels don't bother me anymore.

36:37 I have this whole sense of peace and

36:43 Tranquility within me that everything's just going to be alright, no matter what. That's really cool. I my family I mean I've watched both my family and my spouse's family. We've lost relatives over politics. I mean, you know, we are who we are and they've accepted us or said they accepted us for who we were

37:11 And in the last few years, there's just been even further fractures. I mean, we don't talk to people that we used to have dinner with it it just and it really is because of you know, what they perceive is, you know, we're set in our ways and we're not open to hearing their side. Well, you had it goes two ways that you have to have a dialogue and it I know several families. I know I mean, I know I have friends who have had the same situation arise where they don't talk to, you know, a sibling. It's like it just doesn't feel right to me and it really bothers me and the labels, you know.

37:55 Are so dangerous. There's one that I hear all the time or I see all the time. I shouldn't I hear it all the time and I don't even like to say it but the word is a libtard that people use first of all that is so offensive on so many levels and it's not it's not right. I just idea that someone sat down and came up with that. That makes me so angry are you and you know, I've heard people in my family.

38:33 Just say things that they don't understand the hate that is beneath it and they blame it on. It's not about

38:45 It's not always about politics part of it is about to me deeply held beliefs that you've kept inside.

38:55 That you may not have always been willing to talk about and I just like we have to start somewhere. Yes, we do.

39:06 It's been great talking with you. It's been great talking with you is so funny. I mean, I just I love the fact that you've had this we have a lot in common in terms of like I love you. You're talking about the gardens. They know that your dad always had my dad had tomato plants until his dementia is Alzheimer's got to where he forgot. They were there. That's I mean, you know outside of their little apartment at the time. I was like, oh my God, he still have the garden just like you said, that's so cool.

39:38 Do you want to just do one quick last? Thank you before I and the record.

39:42 Thank you so much for being part of this.