Eleanor Carren and Justina Mejias

00:02 My name is Christina mejias. I'm 30 years old. Today is December 21st 2004. We are in Grand Central Terminal and I'm with my new friend Ellie.

00:18 My name is officially Eleanor carren, but I call myself Ellie since I retired.

00:26 I'm at 2 and 1/2 years old.

00:29 And the date is 12/21 04 and we're located right now in Grand Central Terminal and I am the one that speaking for myself.

00:43 So first, I'd like to ask you. Where did you grow up?

00:48 Well in many different places.

00:53 I was born in Brooklyn supposed to be born in the hospital.

00:59 But this was the first strike that nurses had in the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn in 1922. And my mother's best friend was supposed to help her out in the delivery and she was not allowed to be in the hospital cuz she was active in the strike. So I was born at home in Flatbush Brooklyn the doctor coming to the house.

01:23 What part of Flatbush East 9th Street so the near Prospect park not too far from there later on. I live near Prospect park. I don't remember too much about that because we had a lovely two family house, but for some reason which I really didn't know at the time and I don't think my parents revealed too much.

01:48 It was looking for a place for myself and my brother who is 21 months younger than I-4 place to live in the country somewhere away from my parents.

02:00 When my granddaughter called me about asking me about my background for some reason. My daughter said that I was brought up at 4 years of age in a foster home.

02:12 It may be called a foster home. Now. I never thought of it as a foster home, but was a loving family with their own children in Stelton, New Jersey. So how long were you with your parents? What 1st to the 4th from birth to 4 years of age you lived with your PS. Do you have any memories from that time? Well, I remember the house very well.

02:38 I once went back to that exact location not the place. I was born cuz this other one was 630 Avenue O and East 7th Street. That's where exactly was. I went back one time to look at the house and didn't look the same and I didn't I would love to have gone in but I didn't they ring the bell. That was I have a memory of the what the rooms look like. So if you think back is that the absolute first thing that you could remember or is there anything that you remember before that?

03:09 I don't remember very much there. You just remember the house. Yeah, really? And what did it look like are there any details of anything that you would had a little garden actually turned out that the second floor was rented to friends.

03:25 And they had a separate apartment with such it's not just two story but to family and they were lifetime friends of my parents. Even after my parents were divorced. They were still lifetime friends the couple in the children that lived in the APA story. So what happened after you were for well, then I went to this place in the country. It was an anarchist Colony Cooperative Colony that poor people that started this they wanted to have their children have a better education than the public school system and it was in Stelton, New Jersey, which is now near considered to be near Piscataway or something. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this great, New Jersey.

04:13 And because it was such an interesting unusual place to this day, they have reunions and they asked the people to

04:22 For the Memoirs and all the material and right now they have an archive at Rutgers University on this Delton Colony. So if anybody wants to look it up live there I lived there for 3 years with the family and I went to the school there special school day school and it was a place with supposed to be modern education something I guess like John Dewey and it was supposed to be based on my later found out on a Anika Spanish educator whose last name was for raw f e r r a r e r I found out

05:03 And and it was just two children to be allowed to do what they like to do. They weren't pressed into any formal to particular education. The unfortunate thing for me was I didn't learn to read there whether it would have happened elsewhere. I don't know but I wasn't I move back to my parents home at age 8 to the home that I had previously previously described and if that time I went to public school, where were your parents that you were there?

05:40 My mother I know is a very ambitious woman. She she my mother and father were both immigrants to this country. My father came from Poland and my mother came from Russia, they met in this country and he was about 8 years older than her. I don't know how they met.

05:57 But they were living together when I returned it eight years of age though and they used to visit me when I had been in Stelton and they would visit me and wanted to make sure everything was fine. And it was and that was it then I returned home and when I returned home I had a very terrible coaches shocked into the public school system. I was put in the third grade which was appropriate to my age and I didn't know how to read so I was put back in the first grade and then I guess I really had an interest and I remember some made it home teaching me or we're learning together and I have finally got back to the regular grade, but I always felt kind of stressed in the public school does the Conformity of it all from the free our environment that I had previously experienced?

06:51 What were what did your parents do my father imported watches from Switzerland? And one of the reasons he was doing that because when he and his brothers left Poland, I don't know what you are but it must have been in the teen years 9th between 1915 and 1920. I guess one of his brothers went to Switzerland and was in the watch business. So they had a business with importing the watches from his brother in Switzerland, and he had a office on Nassau Street downtown in New York, which are used to visit every once in awhile. And that's it. My mother started out as a nurse. He became a nurse.

07:37 And she graduated for the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn was no longer called that now they they they joined with another hospital and

07:49 She graduated their 1917 and the interesting thing is that so she became a nurse but after she became a nurse she then also became a teacher in the New York substitute teaching in New York City School System. I often thought that my mother would make a better and more interesting subject than my own for this oral project. She really did have in it because it's an immigrant coming here at 10. She

08:17 Was integrated into the American system and she went to school with highly motivated graduated NYU and then she eventually became a teacher in the school the high school of fashion.

08:32 I don't know that that's exact term, but she became a teacher there and a nurse at the beginning.

08:37 In the early thirties, so she always had an independent Korea of her own wall along to put you in such a progressive place for a number of years that your parents must have had some interesting social or political views. Do you remember any of that of their point of view? I don't ever remember them being active in anything political but it was through what they call the Yiddish cultural was theater or or but maybe what they would call left-wing or something but never being politically active but maybe On The Fringe of a group that they were surrounded by so that when I went to Stelton that was must have been one of their and they must have heard about distilled in Colony be in the because of where they whatever circles that they moved in.

09:31 Cultural circles that's what happened. And what happened to me later on was that I ended up graduating from the same.

09:40 Nursing school that my mother did so that was also an interesting event. So after you came back the first is there anything that you remember in specific about being at the Stilton school there anything anyway that you remember of their teaching what it was like, well, I don't remember that much only said I didn't learn to read it was very free. I remember walking barefoot on the country roads, that would not pay the time and it was very hot sometimes on the bare feet and that I think that we had a little time that we went swimming in and it move may have been nude but I don't really remember that too. Well might have been might have been right but otherwise than my

10:27 But my association with the moving around a lot first, it started with going to Stelton then I moved home and then I guess my mother and father separated shortly thereafter, and then I went to another place and this is the schola molesum homes. The same spelling is the writer showing the last time showing the last time does the one who wrote the story that led to Fiddler on the Roof does everybody know that anyway, and it was his name was really Samuel Rabinowitz and he took the name Michelle Melissa sofas.

11:02 So when I was about eight.

11:06 10 to

11:08 I guess 9 to 11 years old or so.

11:12 I moved up to the show molluscum houses where this is one of the

11:19 Cooperative houses developments one of four that are in the current exhibit at the Museum of the city of New York and I had a particular interest in going to see it because I had lived there and I'm just coming today from that very place.

11:40 The show me some houses. They were mostly Jewish people secular cultural. They called a Jewish because one Co-op was the other co-op with The Amalgamated houses in the Bronx and they the third one was the Coop's in the Bronx. They called it the coups and these are all interesting for the cooks were the Communists and they and The Amalgamated was one neutral or socialistic and and they show molluscum houses one more cultural Yiddish Jewish speaking when I move their lot of the children who have grown up there from infancy spoke Yiddish before they ever learned English, but since I was not part of that culture I came into that and I didn't know that very well. However, I attended in the same building. They always had all the classes they had dancing and they had music and they had the basement that's had a lot of other classroom. So I try

12:40 To learn a little Yiddish at the time but the other students were way ahead of me cuz they had previously learned the language first before they ever learned English so I know just a little of it not much. What's your if you think back at the time that you lived there? Could you think about what is your favorite memory from that. Of time? Well, I don't know if it's favorite, but I do tell people that story very often that in those days which was in the early thirties.

13:10 There was no Public School nearby. We had this beautiful Housing Development, but no school. And this by the way, this Housing Development is by the Jerome Avenue Reservoir up in the Bronx just opposite Lehman College and not too far from Dewitt Clinton High School, which other people know they had no school nearby. So they were actually three buses and we were bussed to spuyten duyvil in the top of an area that the spuyten duyvil which is part fancy part of the Bronx now way up on the hill school spuyten duyvil. It's also was stopped on the Metro-North and I would like to go and visit again. So my memory there is taking a bus to go to school and I was waiting to get into the sixth grade where I would be a monitor, but I never made it to the sixth grade cuz I moved

14:03 But I want another memory I have which isn't the most Pleasant was the fact that we had outdoor bathrooms. We did not have indoor bathroom there. It was in a wooden shed next to the main building outdoor bathrooms in the Bronx. Wow. Wow, that's a memory. That's a memory and I had a teacher named Miss Heaven River teachers know and I think she was anti-semitic to know how how was school at that point had you I know you said that you had to be left back deep into well that was previously know I was on grade level there when I was a good student finally catch up with yes. Yes. How was the rest of your schooling for you? Even though I am a graduate college graduate first. I was graduated nursing school and I first entered Brooklyn College and part of my moving around.

15:02 I'd have to go back and say that.

15:06 I intended when I will when I live in a Rachelle molluscum houses that was a short time and my mother lived with us my brother and myself in this one bedroom as part of the large family. She went to work.

15:22 And we live there and went to school there. That's where I went up to spuyten duyvil in the bus there after it was another home. I went to on this was Mohegan colony in West Chester, which isn't that far from where I live now another Cooperative Colony with my mother Place. May I say mother my father was involved too and they were both concerned.

15:46 Loving parents but not demonstrative in any way as far as that goes but they were always concerned about my welfare might and my brothers but they felt somehow we felt better off being away from home because of the two of them not getting along and there I live with a woman who had her own children also and she didn't have a husband. She had two children of her own and I went to another private Progressive school and that was cool Mohegan modern school and the building is still standing and I visited and one of the things that happened is that I eventually moved up to that area when I was an adult

16:32 And

16:34 My son

16:37 When he was ready for kindergarten and they didn't have any school school rooms built in there were using local churches and other places. They use the same school building that have been closed for years to the regular for the private school. And he was in the very same classroom that I had been in here. He was there as a kindergartener I was there when I was twelve that's cooling. I do remember vividly and I loved it. It was marvellous. There was it we had a lot of ability to to try everything we had like it was ungraded like we have three grades in one classroom and I wouldn't say grades with your sages not grades and weave in the fall, we played soccer which was unheard of in the states and in the spring we played softball.

17:29 And I remember enjoying the soccer and I remember very vividly that I would toss the ball I would be

17:39 What do you call it for the for the softball? I would be not a cat to the one that tosses the ball the picture. So so I enjoyed that very much very much and I love the school. We called our was very informal and we called our teachers by their first name. Another thing that was unheard of at the time. This was the 1933 to 1935. Right? Well because it was special and this I said that time will he can call me again was made up of radicals and of course depending on the political situation in the Soviet Union and those who was supporters and all the terrible things that came out about what Stalin did they have three factions in the Mohican call me they were socialists Communists and what they called the trotskyites and they're always fighting, you know, if not physically but a lot of talk and a lot of differences in a lot of disagreements, however, they originally

18:39 I got Colony going in the school was one of the facets before that ever happened before the divisions that happen the Soviet Union. They had looked toward the Soviet Union is a great ideal because it was supposed to be a socialist Paradise. Of course, I found out later that it wasn't and they also killed a lot of the Jews who were in the government there. So what other kind of children went to the school who were your class? Well, they was they were the children of the families who live there who live there all year round later on it became more of us summer colony where people with rent for the summer of the maybe the homes of the people who originally owned them. They started very poor again with little Lots maybe half an acre or less and a graduate at first I had found out when I once went to a reunions there that they started out as summer cottages the whole idea where in New York was what before air conditioning came

19:39 The tenements and any any apartment house was absolutely miserable in the Summer with the heat. And so anyone who could Escape could get away. So people went and paid they went in the Catskills and in the end they all share the kitchen and they had little hovels of a apartments and they went all different places to get away and the husbands are the fathers worked all week and we've come out week. Well, that's how much he can call me was it was a Cooperative Colony. They had a lovely Lake and originally was only some of them but then they became winterize and then the school must have started after that.

20:19 Cassius want to leave time to talk about so did you did you know that you said you went to nursing college? Did you know that that's what you wanted to do when you were younger or it did you have an idea that you were going to be something else? Yes. What happened? Was that as I say I kept moving around between my mother and my father and lived in the Bronx. I let my high school year started Washington Irving School in Manhattan then and that's and then I wouldn't want to live with my mother who had remarried to have been divorced then another year. I live with my father in The Bronx and I went to a bandit Charles High School and graduated there.

20:58 But one year, I live with my father and then one year and then I moved back with my mother. So it was moving around. So now what was that question again my ambition I want when I graduated high school. It was really good when they say they had a free educate college education in New York City. That was really true. If you had every year it's it depended on what the level was that you could be admitted without taking any exams or anything to face based on your what your grades were the level with the average was and so I was eligible to go to any of the city colleges. And while I lived in the Bronx Hunter College, which is now Lehman College was only for girls and I did not want to go to a girls school and I didn't have any boyfriends and I wanted to have a mixed with boys. So I decide to go to Brooklyn College in my ambition was to be a physic teacher.

21:56 And my mother moved to Brooklyn, I don't know if that's the only reason she moved there but she had to move or wanted to move and so we moved to Brooklyn and that was near Prospect park Southwest. I started Brooklyn College. It was quite a distance from where I live and I didn't last out the first semester. I was too difficult. It was too burdensome. I went to see an advisor and he said well drop one subject I said side and that would make another 50 Italy to add to my schooling. I couldn't even consider it. I didn't like it at all and I'm not that good a student. So I I struggled and I dropped it and that's when I went to nurse into nursing.

22:36 And I I like the idea of the nursing and it's so I went to the same nursing school that my mother had put that's a topical in itself because we lived at the hospital. We we we went right on to the to the hospital floors from the moment that we were in there practically and as we went along so we went to school part of the day and we were on the the hospital love floors the rest of the day and we lived at the hospital and that was a three-year program later on. I I lost my husband. Well, what else did you want to ask me? That's what was somewhat was appealing to you about nursing. Well, I'd like

23:20 Helping people understanding needs

23:28 It seems to fit what I like to do to to be with people and to be helpful in to help them get well and

23:37 I like I like that. It was very good. Very good background for anyone anywhere even to raise a family which I eventually did have so you feel that it prepared you for a lot of things and in many ways, I would definitely definitely I'm not saying that I would advise people to go in a nursing now, it's much too difficult. And unless you have a higher higher education and you're not just at the bedside. I would say that do the people get them higher education. They still want to be at the bedside. But the when I say bedside of means direct patient care, but it doesn't work that way in a nursing is very difficult. So it but if you do have a advanced education you have administrative or heads up position, then he can be very good in their lots of opportunity, but it was very tough very tough in my days it really so you say it's how many hours with very tough but I want this salaries were very poor you had you work from 7 a.m. To 3.

24:37 30 or we had divided days. We would work 7 to 12 and 3:30 to 7. Even when I graduated it was that way, I mean it was divided and days even if you had to live there practically, but but it was a wonderful background for for for the rest of your life to learn about yourself your body, but medicine about childbirth raising children, you didn't have the same fears that others would have

25:07 Are there any are there any particular stories you could think about from from when you were in a from when you were working that maybe something that particularly you feel like you really help somebody in their life for? Well, I can't say that. I'm glad I have a story to tell that way but my whole ambition what happened was that when I graduated I worked in the hospital for a while and it was wartime. It was really pretty tough to be working there because we have a shortage of help. We had a shortage of practically everything, but I did become an assistant head nurse at that time and but I didn't really like staying there. So I got a job on the outside.

25:55 With the doctor who is a gynecologist and obstetrician and during that time. I met the man that I was going to go to Mary met him in a camp when I was always had a resort and we both playing tennis and that's and I'm still a tennis player to this day. And and so

26:17 While I was there during that time, we got married and then I left now later on the same.

26:24 Gynecologist and obstetrician became my of situation even though I had left and I had moved to Mohit. I moved to Shrub Oak a little Hamlet and Westchester County after I got married. I was going to have my child and that was 1940 not 49.

26:45 It's what it's the year of what I call the Pope Paul Robeson Peekskill riots are you probably don't know about that. But that was a very terrible incident. Now, we revive pull ropes and many a year. He was blacklisted from Hollywood the theater and everything else because well, he was a famous. He was a very well know. Well, he was a very well known he was in the Hollywood Hollywood big black fellow with a wonderful singer. He was sang folks on he had been a five-letter Capron Rutgers in the ninth a 1916 was somewhere early one of the few blacks there really was a success. So he was an intellectual and he was a singer and then eventually became this actor and he was on this Earth.

27:45 To rub to give a concert but what happened was he had visited the Soviet Union and it was at a time. I think there was just at a time when there's a lot of anti-communist feeling and they thought he was a communist and people

28:04 People want to go to the concert with stones put stones what they were riding in their cards back and forth and and it was pretty awful and it was also anti-semitic as well and we had just moved there and I thought I'd see what's not a really a safe place to live but that died down afterwards and Twelve Oaks. It was denied his passport for many years and then he lived in obscurity. He died a few years ago, but they have now seem to have revived his memory because now I saw a glimpse of him in one of these Hollywood movies that was made up was that famous movie that had that he sang the famous song that

28:48 Forgot what what it was. All right, so that you were living in the same town is that well, it was nearby with nearby that will it well, I would have gone there to that concert, but I was in my 9th month of pregnancy, but I heard from people who had first-hand Witnesses of people that I knew and well and family members would gone and I didn't go cuz I was in mine. I didn't know it would be a problem but I was in my 9th month, so I didn't go to the concert at so bad it then but that that was a Howard fast a famous author wrote out that of Roads about that incident up. He wrote a pamphlet on that. So this is now that you moved into this house and this is your first child. How many children did I had two children, but I know we don't have much time left on what happened was. I not very happy right there with the two children.

29:39 Plenty of time to do. Yes. Oh, yeah.

29:42 Well

29:45 We moved up two words Shrub Oak this little Hamlet. That's near Mohegan. Not too far from the Mohegan colony where I had previously lived just a few miles away because my father also was part of a Cooperative community.

30:00 I remember when he he in the family would we would rent a little cottage and it was so hot and we didn't have air conditioning and that's when I I remember him going with a group of people to the hillsides to look over vacant land because they had the same idea not political, but just to have a place of their own of a better place in Idaho to live in in the summer and get away from the heat of the city. And so they my father and his friends and other people for another Co-op is calling me and this was called Shrub Oak Park and when I moved up to that area 1949 in my 9th month

30:47 I live near there because my father had built a was not a builder, but he builds houses and couldn't sell and I moved into one of them. That's what happened. I had a very happy life their two children and my husband and he was well my daughter is Claire Claire.

31:06 And my son was Lloyd Lloyd and it is just beautiful. I used to said I have two lovely children might sit in a big big upholstered chair. And I said, I have two lovely children and I was so happy and the dog that we had near there would be very jealous. Every time that happened then she would growl and come over and nozzle. I remember that and that my husband had a heart attack at age 36 and died at age 36. He had been playing tennis not somewhere not right there, but nearby and I was left a widow with two children and I've lived in trouble at old are children might my daughter is 53. No do at that time was 6 + 6 + 8 years of age. That's what happened and I just had to go on because if you have children you have to go on no matter what and I didn't have any outside help my mother used to

32:06 Come up from the city to help me on weekends. And so for me and my father will live nearby with his wife. He had remarried very friendly that they were always nearby and they came over to visit but I was really on my own. That's was it I must say that Social Security help me a great deal if it hadn't been for them. I don't know how I'd have survived because I had Widow benefits and benefits for the children. And that's one of the things they left. They don't seem to be considering when they want a lemonade Social Security nowadays. What and what was your husband's profession Puerto Rican? Well, he had been a college grad in Queens College. However, he didn't prepare for anything. He had a brother who was a very successful dentist and he wanted his younger brother my husband to go into business with him and not busy Dentistry figured he'd go to dental school because my husband was in the

33:06 World War 3 years and they had wonderful benefits for veterans then and he could have gone back to school and it would have been nice if he became a dentist and encouraged by his brother, but he didn't want to do it. So he was doing something like import-export business and I really have no career and we heard of an a business opportunity up in Peekskill, which is 4 miles from trouble when we finally landed. So that's why we combined moving there with him going into business there and it was a good life. He didn't do wonderfully well, but it was a good life till he died at age 36 and then I live there for more years.

33:48 And that's when I prepared for a career another career. I said I have to go back to work. I had not work during the time. I was home with my children and I started going to classes to prepare for school nursing special classes in the end. When I ask for a job up in my area there there was an opening they said they wanted a college grad. I wasn't a college grad. I was a RN from having graduated previously and even though I had taken extra courses for school nursing it wasn't so they decided they wanted a college grad, even though the state did not require it.

34:25 So I went that had to make a decision. I'm either going to go to work as a nurse, whatever wherever or where ever I be at the way I was or I would prepare go back to school again, which I didn't like in the first place in college, but I decided to go through with it and I enrolled it and why you I was living in trouble and I enrolled at NYU.

34:48 And I

34:50 At that time you nurses who had a three-year.

34:54 Diploma that colon diploma nurse

34:59 You took an exam on the basis of the exam. They gave me college credit. So I got 40 college credits.

35:07 I'm having been there and then I got sick 60 more from not 60 more. I hadn't had a graduate 128 credits. So I got courses off campus. I went to school in different places and got my degree in 1965.

35:24 And that was done. Then I was able to get a job in the then I still was living up in in Shrub Oak.

35:33 I'm sorry. I must have moved then.

35:38 I didn't have my degree. Yes yet, but I moved moved lower down.

35:45 South South and West Chester to Irvington New York. That's why I moved in 1962. And now it's 40 Justin December 42 years later and I remained in the same house and I liked it very much. It's a co-op 2 at the same time, but it's so we only have a couple of math left. So I just wanted to ask you a couple of them couple of general questions. What what could you say that you have learned in life?

36:17 Each day counts make the most of every single day because

36:36 I don't like my husband died, but my son died.

36:41 At 8:22

36:44 In automobile accident

36:47 So I've learned every day is important every day counts and and and one of the good things that I do enjoy life now and I must say that all my working life. I was a school nurse. It was what I've helped do and it was a wonderful job, but they eliminated the job and I have to go back to another position. I went became a psychiatric nursing work for 10 years, but it was only after I retired that I really started Joy life actually cuz my whole lifetime seem to have been a lot of stress and strain.

37:24 But I really enjoyed it and I mean I had relationships with men over the years so I wasn't I didn't remarry but I you know, I try to live a full life, but it's only after I retired that I really enjoyed life and to this day so I've been retired since 1987. How many years is that? It's about 15 16 or more years and I have to say that I was blessed with good health. And because I really was going to be a physics teacher and I was physically oriented and I love dancing and I love that. So to this day I play tennis once or twice a week. I member of a hiking club and I hike I love folk dancing and I folk dance regulate and I have friends and it's a good life.

38:15 My daughter moved to Colorado way back in the seventies. And at one time when my granddaughter was born and she's 14 years old. Now my daughter encouraged me to come to live there and I thought of doing it but I'm not and I had to watch my finances they weren't that special. So I thought it would be an advantage all around to be near the family and to do different but it didn't work out. I wasn't getting that the market change and I wasn't getting as much from my apartment. Once I give it up I couldn't go back and couldn't Sublette I couldn't try it out because it was a co-op.

38:55 So well, but now I really do enjoy my life and one of the best things that happened to me. I didn't expect was that I I met another Widow. We're just about 8 months ago and I feel my life is even more in Rich right now.

39:15 So so what do you have to look forward to it? Sounds like you do have things.

39:23 What do you want to get out of life at this path?

39:26 Well, I consider.

39:31 As I started to say before.

39:35 I don't think I make everyday is Meaningful than the other one, but I know that you mustn't postpone doing anything that you have in mind to do was save it for the future or when people tell me that so they're afraid of retiring because they don't know what they're going to do with themselves.

39:54 I've never had that problem and because when you're high here you never have that problem because you have a net worth of

40:01 Friends, even if they're not close friends, there's a schedule and you can go with them and meet with them and do that and commune with nature and and be Walkin and talkin exchanging ideas and all different ages and all different ethnic backgrounds. And since since the internet came along we used to have they were mostly I would say

40:23 White folks now now with with the internet we're getting more of a mixed people to read about hiking and they looking for it and so it's even more interesting.

40:36 Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming in today. It's really been a pleasure speaking with you.

40:42 Thank you.

40:44 It's been a pleasure for me.