Eleanore Powell and Lyn Rucker

00:00 So we are recording holding you can start.

00:05 Thank you Courtney. My name is Calvin Powell. I'm 25 years old. Today is Sunday, August 16th, 2020. I'm currently located in San Francisco, California and my relationship to my partner is she's my mother.

00:26 And my name is Lyn Rucker. I am 71 years old. This is Sunday, August 16th, 2020. I am in Herington, Kansas, and I'm having the great pleasure of getting to talk to my daughter.

00:44 I'm just called and where would you like to start?

00:49 I thought well, I I can get told you I've done storycorps before and I really enjoyed it and when I saw the opportunity.

01:00 I thought of you just because I know where you recently had an event tired and in many ways but I thought it would be interesting for us to have a conversation of just I think Yorkshire Terrier and what it's been for the past El Gaucho and ivory long 50 plus years and then you know someone who is

01:46 Launching their career early stages of their career just talking about that.

01:56 I guess maybe we could start out with what what? Yeah, maybe what happened? And I mean, how do you feel about what happened this year in part of the way you had to retire and

02:10 Yeah, it's been interesting because as as you well know, I'm in Kansas getting ready to sweep sold this house and I'm going through 30 or 40 years worth of of work material and it doesn't give you an opportunity to reflect and I think one of the things as I think back on my career and you and I've talked about this before in terms of how much I've learned from other people as well as from the circumstances that I touched or that were happening around us.

02:53 You know, you learn a lot hopefully from your parents and will be interesting to hear you. Say what you think you learn from your parents from mine. I mean my my mother and father. Yes, you will know grew up during the Depression and my father was in World War II and came home in 1945. He was the last to leave a hospital in Seattle Washington because he had been hit by machine-gun and had 11 bullet cinnamon. They wanted app amputate his legs, but she refused to let them do so to make a long story short. I mean he eventually went into a wheelchair when I was probably

03:42 7 years old and so, you know, I've always been around someone who was needed assistance in some areas. He was very independent but he was in a wheelchair and be I was around two very strong-minded parents. Mom was graduated from Chillicothe Business Schools, you know and very independent really the when Dad went into a wheelchair. She as you can imagine how you know three kids had lost one child. And so she had to be extremely well organized, but she was an extremely bright which she was and so I learned a lot from them and my Foundation is honesty is critical.

04:37 Your word is you know on the most important thing. I also the values that were instilled in me were around the importance of education and how critical education was in and I think those two, you know, obviously Faith and family were also foundational in terms of of my value space. So when I was growing up, I also started learning things that I learned from Mom and Dad as the foundation, but I think about when I listen to Mom talk about World War II and and Dad talked about World War I can talk about similar things, but in my experience and one of the first things I remember that serve encroached on my shell living in Kansas in a very small rural town.

05:33 Was somewhere around I could probably 1963 when we were driving down the road and we were listening to a news report about George Wallace blocking the entry of a man and woman. I think Vivian Malone and James Hood wanting to go into an all-white school which resulted in Juneau in a confrontation with President Kennedy and so forth what I learned from that experience from listening to my parents talk about that experience because Harrington was a free flight was, you know, my father they were both outraged and they my father said to me if you ever

06:17 Mystery anyone I don't care what color they are. If you ever do that shame on you and I better never hear about it kind of thing. So as it as a young person you begin your values are shaped by not only what you hear your parents say and what you watch them do but also by events by world the best and so I remember that really really well in terms of the reaction to a real horrible event that was happening in the country and then I was in high school. I graduated in 67 and

06:59 I think one of the next most powerful things I learned from outside the family which reinforced internal values was that when I graduated from high school. I went to work in a sheet Mango Factory at Fort Riley and it was hot and miserable and boring. I mean, I just we used to joke and say we could run those sheet mangles while we were asleep. But what I learned is the my supervisor pulled me aside and said to me you need to get out of here and you need to go to school and I assured her I was going to college and this was just make enough money to move to Washington DC. But again, she was reinforcing that value of how important education was.

07:50 In in Kansas as you well know. It's a bit in in Harrington, especially population 2000. It's a very insular safe environment. When I went to Washington DC in the Summers the 67 and 68 68 and it was the summer so, you know peace and love and whatever I was a part of all I wasn't part of the drug culture and I certainly wasn't part of the sexual Revolution at that point, but when I did learn because in 68, they were burning Washington there were riots and they were burning and you know, here's this Humpty Dumpty from the country. I'm 18 years old. I move to Washington DC in the summer to just experienced, you know, Washington and the fact that Mom and Dad let me go is stunning in and of itself.

08:50 Like you going to Copenhagen then that they weren't burning Copenhagen. That's that's refreshing. But I again the lesson I learned there.

09:01 There were times when I was the only white person on the bus and I never felt unsafe until people started shooting at the buses and I learned so much from my supervisor who was a black woman in her. I probably would have been seriously injured if not killed but you know, it was it was a tough time and I learned personal fear and I had never

09:41 Had that experience before I never been personally afraid for my well-being and I had never had any other human being have to take my head and push it down below the windows of you know, the ambassador of car, whatever just for fear of a personal injury if not death.

10:06 So it's a learning, you know takes place in a in a lot of different ways. I came Vietnam was also I think Vietnam was what 1955 in like that and so the other thing I was learning because there was so much going on with Vietnam. And when I went back to college or came back to Kansas went to K-State along with a lot of people were out on the streets with black armbands protesting Vietnam and what I was learning there is not

10:43 Fear for myself

10:45 But I had never been afraid for my brothers.

10:52 Or I and I've never been so afraid for you. No boyfriends or colleagues are in a colleagues in school. And so, you know Vietnam became a huge issue to me because it was such an unjust War.

11:08 But he high school mates of mine.

11:13 So that was a learning that was you know, uncomfortable and so we were out on the streets a lot. We were protesting blot when President Nixon came to K-State the FBI came in ahead of time. I was in a very very nice sorority and my my house mother called me in and said the FBI was she came to the sorority and interviewed us about you.

11:44 Because Nixon was coming to speak and so they they came in early and they're of course they're going to be protesters. I was already know committed go and protest during his speech in.

12:06 I also learned what it was like to be investigated and tips to have people look at me with suspicion as if I were dangerous. I was not prohibited from going at all. And so

12:23 Friends and colleagues must have said you know, she she has a big mouth but she's harmless or something like that.

12:34 So, you know, I got my bachelor's in 71 in my Master's and 72 and then sort of my life feels a lot like the Peter Principle because I was in the right place at the right time. So many times I went to Nebraska started they were it was just the beginning and you know of the institutionalization of people with intellectual disabilities and I had volunteered in a mental retardation institution in Winfield, Kansas and 69 time.

13:17 Oh, no in 60. It was male retardation institution in Winfield and I was

13:30 I had volunteered there and then when I went to K-State Vietnam and the feminist movement really captured my imagination and I wasn't reintroduced to people with intellectual disabilities or with these two, retardation until I went to the Braska and the I was doing research at the University and my supervisor happened to be the first chairperson of the county has call Lancaster County Office of mental retardation in Lincoln, and she was their chairperson and shoe

14:09 Wanted, you know said you should be a case manager you with you would love this work. So I started doing Keys management and then teaching at the University at night in case management. Let's make a long story short. I never intended to be in the field of

14:27 Mental retardation or intellectual disabilities it was because my supervisor had had recommended that and

14:38 You know it would I listen to her and I guess one of the other things I learned is.

14:44 You can't listen if you're talking all the time. So I knew I was a bit of a fish out of water and I was so so very lucky to start the case manager and I thought it was pretty hot stuff cuz I had a master's degree.

15:02 And what I learned very quickly was that I didn't know anything about mental retardation and I didn't know anything about the Community Network and system and parent Network parent. Advocacy that was going on but there were a but I was again so fortunate because I was with young people my age you note in their early early twenties who are all case managers. We were Vietnam War at protester Rejects. And so we were looking for our next civil rights movement, you know our next car next cause and you know, God reached out his hand and mental retardation intellectual disabilities since that time has been my civil rights car.

15:55 So I'm a move very quickly through the system case manager and a supervisor than a director and so is director of a 16 County.

16:07 System in Nebraska that supported people with intellectual disabilities in intellectual or developmental disabilities. And again, it was the early seventies and we had some anomaly intelligent leaders like wolf wolfensberger and

16:30 Bob persky who work in the Glen and Kathy schweiger who were in Nebraska that the you know, creating a model support system for people with intellectual disabilities in the fam and the institutionalizing people. So I was a puppy at that point and I learned from people that I consider the best and one of the reasons by considered them the best is it were so values-based. It was all about loving diversity.

17:05 Abhorring inequity again back to some of Dad's principles, you know honesty valuing everybody making sure that whether people can speak or not. They're communicating and it's your problem. You are the one who has to figure out what it is. They're trying to say is it's not their issue. So again, I just learned so much from people with

17:33 Intellectual or developmental disability they would as a case manager. I can remember I was a case manager for adults and we were moving people out of the state institution and I have had a delegation of for self advocates for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities come in my office and say we are not leaving until you get our friend Mary Lou out of this institution and I said, okay then I guess I better get with the program. So, you know, it's those kinds of experiences that really teach you how much you don't know and how much you miss. Anyway, she did come out and test group of people in Nebraska taught me so very very much.

18:30 And at that time we had people from all over the United States and other countries coming to Nebraska to try to figure out how this rural not very wealthy state was dance tatoosh light not just not just bringing people out against Usha creating environments to is it is well solutely. We always used to when I was in the Willowbrook case in New York and I was testifying as an expert. I jokingly said, but I meant from my heart if the if the farmers in the you know, real people of Nebraska can figure out how to move everybody out of an institution regardless of their level of disability and their challenges then sophisticated people in other states can figure it out to but let me tell you what, you know moving people out.

19:34 Making sure people are part of your community is again based in strong Midwestern Christian and not just Midwestern but strong value is we are responsible to be sure that everyone is safe and in the community we can support people to become taxpayers and you know have jobs as for the society felt we're sort of throw away personalities and throw away people. They you may not understand what the person is saying, but they are communicating and it's our responsibility to make sure that they had the technology and the support to communicate in a way that they can be understood in a way that they can control their own life be responsible for your own life that was in the seventies. Now that doesn't sound so avant-garde art contemporary today because today that's expected.

20:31 But in the 70s that was a very controversial topic and there was a lot of pushback moving people especially people with extremely complex of physical and intellectual disabilities to the community. So again, I was just at the right place at the right time people from all over the world and people from around the United States were coming to visit to see how we did it. We had people with ventilators and G tubes and J tubes and wheelchairs and you need it bolsters and repositioning and they were you know in in families and you know, President Reagan to send Madeline will and

21:19 Fashion to figure out to visit and we went into foster homes that we had where you know a fost, you know, the President Reagan's person who came with well.

21:32 I said later.

21:35 You must require all your foster parents to wear bib overalls and be barefoot. And I said what well, you said I you know, I lost a lot of foster families that I visited in these rural communities all over Nebraska man have bib overalls on their Barefoot and I said, well, that's because they showered two out of respect for you. They came in early they showered and put on clean clothes and but other than that, you know, he said, yeah and then their wives are bolus feeding, you know people who have tubes in their stomach and that's how they eat kind of thing. He was just so shocked by how medically complex

22:27 Some of the people were that we were serving and they were dog, you know dressed up to the nines. They were going to the State Fair in their Wheelchairs and they know anything it just totally blew him away and

22:44 You know, we can make things very complicated or we can say what do people need and and try to meet their needs. So again, I thought that was a huge learning for me in the in the 70s and 80s taken you almost everywhere around the world and around the country.

23:09 Again, I've been so very blessed. I've worked in with our worked in with with or in I think we were talking 29 States and seven countries. And again when I was in Nebraska in 9087 ish. I had written a chapter in a book of those published by Syracuse University, which is where doctor wolfensberger was and they were leaders in the academic Community for people with at that point. Retardation facilities and saw that I had asked I was asked to write a chapter in a book which I did and from that chapter. You just never know what's going to happen. I got contacted by a stray Leah. They were trying to put together a 10-year D is too small ization plan. And so I along with another Jerry Provencal from the United.

24:09 States in David Powell from UK went and spent a couple of weeks in Australia going around the Melbourne area working with the consultant who is putting together this tenure deinstitutionalization plant fabulous opportunity learned again that are issues around supporting people in the community regardless of their challenges are Universal and from that I then became a fellow at the king's Fund in London. And again, what was happening at that time. I was at The Kingsmen from 91 to 97 and I had a fabulous opportunity there because they brought people in from all over the world and we were working with senior level managers and Physicians and hospitals and doctors and Social Services.

25:09 Because they had put together white paper around care what they called care in the community. We would call community-based mental retardation system in the seventies and eighties but so we were always trying to spend a lot of time talking about what case management looks like what's how you build support systems in the community so that you can support people with very complex need both physical as well as intellectual. And so again you write a chapter to book and then you end up in Australia and then you end up in the UK, you know, you just never know what some of those opportunities there or going to create for you in the future when I was in the UK a lot of outside things were happening the IRA again personal safety personal fear the IRA were

26:09 Doing a lot of bombings that was there when they bomb the financial district in London. I was there when they were creating the European Union and and going to the euro as a currency in the controversy that was going on within the UK about not wanting to go to a universal currency and then of course of the death of Diana, which was a pound

26:36 Experience so, you know, I've been really lucky as a director for a while. I was you know, I've been a consultant for a hundred years and then and then from that, you know, I became back to the States.

26:52 I then got involved in a lot of federal litigation. I've been expert witness a number of times and in a lot of different cases and I'd always wanted to InStep expert Witnesses oftentimes go into criticized and to identify strengths and weaknesses of what they are and certainly needed and in which we have some fabulous expert Witnesses in this country around around this topical area, but I always wanted to be on Unity monitor or federal monitor Court monitor because I thought that would give me the opportunity to fix things and I like to fix things more than I like to tell somebody else out.

27:40 I all do as a federal court monitor, you do a lot of telling people somebody else the great opportunity to do that in Massachusetts ending in New Mexico do as I counted the end of my career. I think I'm just struck by how blessed I've been by the people I've met and got to listen to and learn from about the opportunities of round me that if I paid attention I could learn a lot from and I hope the same thing for you. I you know, one of the things I said to you is don't don't start at the top don't go into an organization mid-level are a little lower so that you can learn from the interior of that organization what it's about.

28:34 And hopefully it's a values-based organization. That isn't motivated just like money and I think you are you've done that would you agree?

28:47 Yeah, I think I think series is a very mission space.

28:54 Values Focus organization. I think we believe based on intuition and what we believe is right and you working with private investors. It does it can get complicated because of the reputations of the partners that we work with and we're always

29:17 Fine line between when are we being complacent and kind of green walking we could be accused of greenwashing. When are we really?

29:30 Pushing for change and how how do we get that? So I agree. I think I think Siri says that I think of the people who work there, you know who specifically and you know, you know the way I've talked about her, you know, she knew she was really demonstrated. You only what it means to be a listener and a organizer.

29:57 A diplomat in the most trying of circumstances has been very rewarding some of that came to mind trying to bother you were talking about. You know, I'm adopted. So just you know that you were bringing me up and I think I see how did you try to way that I felt safe, you know recognizing the lack of diversity in the internet for the old self.

30:37 Made me feel like I could go out there.

30:45 Yes. Here or

30:48 Whatever

30:50 Well, I think it could have been a blessing and a curse but we always said to you we always travel with you when you know, we came to China to get you and you were two and a half years old. And by the time you were three you were sitting in London in Le Miserables and the only admonition we gave you was please don't sing all the words out loud people around you would be annoyed. But we tried to travel with you because Harrington gave you a fabulous Foundation, but we wanted you to know that the world was huge and that there were so many different people in the world with different views and different thoughts and different values in different worries.

31:39 And you took to that like a duck to water you love to travel and you love diversity. And I know I think we all know that if their disagreements a lot of times it's because we all don't have the same information or we don't have the same backgrounds and experiences.

31:57 I don't know if that answers your question or not. But we always wanted you to know that the world is Big the world is done verse do unto others as you would have them do unto you be honest so values.

32:13 We tried to instill in you but I think you came with a lot yourself.

32:23 Working on what would you hope kind of a hit on this but would you hope my generation, you know is picking up from

32:34 Your generation because I can get at least they are so different from each other and I think you said you you're just shocked by. So.

32:55 I think it's a thing. I worry about cold in this I watch young people your age.

33:02 As I watch them watch the behavior that goes on in the world today is that they will lose and I hope this isn't true that they will lose respect for other people. They will not value honesty, but I don't think that's you know, I think you're you come from a very smart generation and you do observe and you do know.

33:30 You know fairness fairness and truth. I think Rings true across all generation and while it takes on a different color generation to generation honest fairness respect for another human being. I think those are bad to use that cut that are cut across generation how they are Express is different and I hope that your generation doesn't Retreat into too much distancing from each other distancing by using computers and by using

34:11 You know the internet as opposed to you know, the socializing and caring for others and helping without needing to be paid and things like that the generosity that we all appreciate when it's extended to us. I think is an important platform that I hope your generation Embraces.

34:37 Yeah, I think I think you had on that correctly. I think why they did I think why I sometimes with can I being raised by you and Dad in Kansas and I think you're there is a very specific Midwest upbringing that I think that everyone understands and then having having to navigate the world around that I'm not always.

35:04 Able to understand kind of where I fit.

35:08 In relation to how it how hot how I've been raised, but we don't we don't have much time at what do you want to say at the end of your career?

35:32 I think part of me and I think I'm still trying to figure out.

35:39 Teaching the same level of recognition and

35:49 I don't know if I necessarily want to be like in need more tissue, but I just want to I think I didn't want to be known as an expert in the field. I think I do know you are known as an expert in your field and people come to you and your colleague that respect you and I want to say the same about me and I think but also I want to stay the same.

36:12 Climate change

36:15 Affects all aspects of society in very very big ways and you know did I do everything I could in the position that in the dirty dishes not utilizing the power to make those changes and to leave a better world for future Generations.

36:44 Yeah, I bet you I can still figure out how do we do that?

36:50 With

36:52 And I feel like there's so many new colors going on universes when you were.

36:58 Can you figure out your career? I feel like now there's just so much gray area times that it's not as clear.

37:09 Well, you know the dick respect and recognition and doing everything I can.

37:15 Those are those are very important statements. I'm very proud of you. And I know that you will say that and more at the end of your career. You are phenomenally generous bright young woman who cares about the world that she lives in in the people who live in this world, and I, you know, I just couldn't be prouder of you.

37:37 Wow, thank you. Yeah, and I feel like that future.

37:51 I'm only have a couple future.

37:56 Future look like

38:06 Will be a part of it and you'll be a leader in it. So I have a lot of confidence.

38:15 What how do you want to finish out, you know obviously retired now, but how do you want to finish out?

38:26 I think I just want to find new ways to contribute and I don't know what those are going to be. But I have every belief in the world that all you know, find another way to contribute and during those and as I contribute I'll keep learning from other people and other situation might how you figured that out it how late how that goes and

38:56 If anything you've always been afraid to try new things that

39:11 I think we're done. It looks like.

39:16 Definitely