Laurie Brenner and Dwight Flowers

00:04 Hello.

00:05 My name is Laurie Brenner. I'm 76 years old. Today is Friday January 17th, 2020 and we are in Santa Monica California and my interview partner today is Dwight flowers. Who is my husband?

00:27 Hello. My name is Dwight flowers. I'm 80 years old. Today's date is January 17th 2020.

00:36 Where in Santa Monica California and my interview partner is Laurie Brenner? She's my wife.

00:47 Okay, how has your life been different than what you'd imagined?

00:56 Okay, what I imagined when I was younger growing up, I thought I would go through architecture school become an architect and enjoy the rest of my life as a as a creative designer.

01:15 But that's not the right work.

01:18 What happened? Oh, okay, as I went to college I realized that there was much more to architecture than I had realized. It's an irie orientation of to another fields which is related which is urban planning Sarah from that point on. I became an urban planner and I made my career in that field until I retired several years ago. And the reason I change dollars in my last year of college at University of Michigan in architecture. I have began to take classes in planning and I realize there's a lot more to it than I thought and Architects were prima donnas as I turned up as I realized after while and one example that was right in driving down the Twelve Mile Road and East of West of Detroit and every architect was

02:18 Outdo the others in their designs, so it was competition between Architects. I didn't want to be a part of that. I thought I realized that Community planning was much more my my realm and so I I was interested in Urban Design and I went on for a master's degree in urban planning and that's what I continued with the rest of my career.

02:43 Okay. Do you want to ask me something? Okay question. I'll let you answer. Oh has my life been different than when I anticipate. Oh, absolutely 100% different.

02:59 Because I was raised.

03:03 This is a harsh word. But I was raised to be basically a servant. I was raised in a culture in which women were adjuncts to real life and rather than participants in its load of accessories and I was to

03:23 Defer

03:25 To the wishes and opinions of men in my life my father and eventually a husband and I was to cook and clean and

03:43 Passover a lot of trivia

03:46 And I was miserable at the thought that that was what my life would be but my life was not that and

03:57 Even though

03:59 Even though I

04:03 I was persuaded that I was

04:09 Hopelessly rebellious and no good would come to me and even though I made an ill-advised early marriage in a

04:19 Foolish and desperate attempt to get away from those expectations eventually as you know, I became a professional I had I worked my way up without an education. I worked my way up to an executive position a series of executive positions in Human Resources. I was very good at it and I liked it and I was well respected. So my life was

04:53 Very different would I then what I expected and I'm I'm grateful for that.

05:02 I am grateful for it.

05:05 K

05:09 So

05:12 I like this question who has been the kindest to you in your life.

05:18 That is a difficult one for me. Cuz there are many different people. You're lucky. You have more than one person. All right, let me try something else.

05:34 Do you have any regrets?

05:39 Regret their personal regrets and and professional regrets personally. I well I was went through a divorce which is a regret and I'm now I'm enjoying a second marriage after 35 years knowing you and our anniversary was just a week ago for 29 years. And so that is not a regret. That's that corrected the long-standing problem that I had before and have two children from a previous marriage and they've grown up fairly well and we are delighted to have grandchildren. So I really don't have that many regrets.

06:29 I'm in professionally you might say I I was not as effective in my work sometimes because I probably devoted myself 4th of the family and choosing between working and home life. I was I think I did put a priority to the home life and this might have helped me back and my professional are gross and some and some respect. But otherwise, I retired after so many years and architecture and urban planning and I feel that that was a successful career and I hope that I can I can I might still continuing with the with the interests and and planning and architecture and my retirement so it's not something you ever give up just because he retired

07:18 You know, I think.

07:22 It wasn't just that you were very devoted to your family. It was also cuz you talking about kindness you will always very kind to people at work. And I I know that and that took preference over being a power-hungry careerist. I remember your telling me about I think her name was mrs. Lee who used to call your office all the time with mrs. Lee used to call your office all the time, and she was perhaps a little deranged and she would keep you on the phone forever with questions about planning and nobody else in the office would talk to her. You were the only one who would take her calls because she felt for her, so probably it would have been more quote for ducted to be doing something else, but I think that's the kind of of of kindness.

08:14 Yeah, I remember she would monopolize the city council of the County council with her questions for times when nobody else was but you were respectful to her and I guess if I were to answer the question about regrets you and I have talked about this before I don't really traffic in regret because I can't think of a less useful emotion. There's nothing you can do about it. And so I could have a long litany but it would be pointless and because what people don't really think about I think is that

08:51 If you say what if I could go back I would change X, but if you change X like the butterfly flick picked, you know, why changes and Z Changes Everything changes, so you don't know what the final result would have been but it wouldn't have been the life you have now and if you cherish it at all, you can't really regret that the only regret I sometimes have is

09:16 Geographical. Hi. I'm such a New Yorker at heart and it amazes and pains me that I haven't lived in New York for half a century. I can't believe that because that's where I feel I belong.

09:37 So, I'm sorry, I that life didn't work out that way.

09:46 I was perversely glad in retrospect that I happened to be there on September 11th.

09:59 Because I felt like it was my city, you know. Anyway, something else went out what life carries through and twists and turns and I remember when I was finishing my master's degree in Boston, and I hadn't quite finished my faces.

10:27 I was waiting for further information for the Peace Corps, which I applied for in January and there's no internet at the time and I waited and waited finally called the Peace Court offices in Washington. I said what's the status of my application and I mentioned they did they wouldn't tell me of course at that point, but they said we discourage people from interviewing with us, but I said I would be down in Washington next week. And could I see you at the instead of okay sure. So I managed to go down and back on Monday and met them in the office that afternoon and they said we had in mind sending you to Africa and I thought well I had a preferred to go to Venezuela in my application and that's really what I still wanted to do. They said well, we happen to have a project beginning training and two months in Berkeley.

11:22 I am in Venezuela. If you want to be a part of that you'll be the only architect the only non liberal arts person in the group. I saw a ticket and so I'm about to Boston knowing what I was going to do in the fall. And this was during the Vietnam war and I had a student deferment which was going to run out if I didn't have something else arranged and so I did and reports of Berkeley for training for two out of three months worth of Venezuela for the remainder of the two years came back to finish my thesis switch them get done in the meantime, and I thought well what's next I graduated I was finished in August of that year and I didn't know what it's going to do next. I got a job in Maryland and I thought well, I will be taking I'll take what comes next you do and and then

12:22 It was very interested cuz it was because of the delays that I was back to Boston for to finish my thesis five years after I started it. This was the longest Masters Degree in anybody ever did in Venice Watford MIT anyway, so so I was thinking well, let's just pick up where I left off and I happened to meet in the last summer that I was in Boston. I have him to make my first wife, right?

12:56 She insisted on getting married six months later after she finished College in Upstate New York. And so we got married in 1970s 68 and I have two children on this everything went out went fine till the divorce because I 15 years later. So, you know all of these things. It's I always think about this with with how life works out when you got your assignment in Venezuela.

13:25 There was no obvious line.

13:29 To the children and grandchildren you have now but not at all what they exist because you were back at MIT a particular time and she had a job in the library there. Otherwise, you know, none of these people would exist, you know, your kids and your grandchildren they wouldn't exist. So it's not a reminds me that when our marriage ended the marriage ended I met you shortly after in church, right and I can remember Kendra.

14:06 At age 7

14:10 Sing to me. My dad is the most boring man. He met his first wife in a library and his second wife at a church, but I have to ask you something else. Okay, what are you you have a lot of things to be proud of but what are you proudest of?

14:30 I supposed to my family situation after all grape tough situation with five grandchildren ages 8, 10 12 14 and 16 year old two step grandchildren and farther ahead and very excited to know where we are following them as best we can and what am I? What am I pleased with mostly proud of I managed through a lot of ups and downs and I've I've completed my career successfully I think and now I'm doing I'm picking up on a lot of other things that I didn't have time for before and I hope that in my remaining 10 years if that's what it is. I'll get a lot more done. You'll have at least 10 years. You're in great shape. So do you want to

15:30 Me something either from you know, whatever comes to mind. Don't put me on the spot too much.

15:38 Okay.

15:41 I guess that's something we talked about regrets. And what what would you like to be remembered? Oh dear. That's not one that you would put down. But I think it's a it's a good one. Would I like to be remembered?

15:57 As strong

16:00 And

16:03 Powerful, but kind

16:07 Andaz

16:09 Someone

16:12 To whom other people can talk and be absolutely assured.

16:20 That anything they tell me we'll go no further. I don't know if it's a legacy of my career in human resources or was one of the reasons that I was drawn to Human Resources, but when you're in HR

16:35 You hold a lot of Secrets?

16:38 And

16:43 Letting go of even one of those secrets to even one person.

16:48 Can destroy a life?

16:51 Hi, and I'm proud that not only in my career but in my personal life, I am really trustworthy that way. There is actually a story in the Jewish Torah.

17:07 Which was used in actually appropriated in a movie I saw about the Catholic church. It was told as a Catholic story, but it actually is a witch says gossip.

17:21 When you gossip, it's like when you cut a hole in.

17:27 In a pillow and all the feathers fly out.

17:31 You can never put those feathers back in.

17:35 They're gone. They're out there and you don't know where that where are the Atlanta and there are

17:43 A lot of not a lot but there are a number of people in my life now and I have been many many many people over the years who knew that they could talk to me.

17:52 And it wouldn't go anywhere. They didn't have anything to worry about it. So I'm proud of that because I think I'm sorry to say that. I don't think it's that, I think people think of nothing happen. If I talk tell just one person, you know, and it doesn't work that way.

18:11 It doesn't take about a granddaughter eighteen-year-old Maya and she is so comfortable with you yet. She calls you from around the world wherever she is right? She called me. She called me this morning from Singapore from the airport in Singapore. Right? Right, right. Well, yes, she can trust me and

18:37 Really in that respect. Everybody can trust me and I've ever you are her lifelong friend you thought when she got off on her own. I went to college she try to lose interest in her grandparents. She hasn't happened. I know she has not she has not intend astonishes me.

18:56 That

18:57 My first husband my variax first husband.

19:03 What has no energy? No, he has no interest in his children and he has no interest presumably in the grandchildren. I assume since he's very internet Savvy. I'm sure I'm sure he knows they exist but he is absolutely

19:22 No interest.

19:25 In them and I mean you are my in Aiden's grandfather. They

19:31 Then I feel like I know her by now and they know that and it's just amazing to me that he's just let that out of his life and the thirty years. He hasn't seen his children and he never met his grandchildren who aren't really his grandchildren because

19:50 If you know if a grandparent and could involve a sperm donor if that's about all he was, you know, there's nothing more to it. It's amazing. So anyhow, so I could answer the same question myself as I would I like to be remembered. I just put down as a note as an honest concerned person who cared for others, which is absolutely true, which is absolutely true. It's true. I think I feel good about that over the years I've retired and I'm a very old now are older and I think I've done what I could all through life and helping others to the family and other people, you know, I have told people over the years.

20:38 You can give Dwight your life savings.

20:42 And say hold on to this and I'll be back in two weeks or two months or two years and never have a moment discomfort or worry about it because back they would come in two weeks or two months or two years and there would be their life savings untouched. Right and that's so not necessarily a a a terribly common trait. I think people are less honest then.

21:15 Then you think but you are absolutely honest. I remember years and years ago you went back. I can remember where we were you went back.

21:24 Like 10 or 15 minutes away to give somebody back the wrong change that they had given you some storekeeper. I remember that and it didn't involve a lot of money, but it was some and you would just not come, you know, you are not comfortable. So I have to live with it but not everybody feels that way.

21:47 Let's see.

21:52 What else can I ask you?

21:56 Well, this is a I don't know if you want to answer this. What is your favorite memory of me?

22:02 All right, I guess what I can come up with not necessarily the favorite, but we know how you don't like to swim and you know, I hate it be underwater absolutely loved it. And one time I first time we went to Mexico from net from Maryland, we flew down on it for the whole week at a new hotel that it opened near near Cancun and Playa Del Carmen, right? I remember and on one day we went across the water to Cozumel in the mouth and we did snorkeling I couldn't believe you were willing to do that. We brought our own equipment stuff like right and you were at pictures underwater pictures of you totally under water in a strange place like that ever have a chance to take anymore. I don't think you've been underwater since then. No, I don't even like that take a shower. So I could remember yelling with water. I stayed in that place for too long and that Park close.

23:02 How to get me out and it was awful the Park closed and you hadn't shown up and I'm standing there on this empty beach with no side of you I thought you had drowned and nobody spoke English and I remember walking around and and somebody somebody who was working there tried to tell me in broken English not to worry. He said something about in the water you lose the time meaning Universe on the beach. It was like you had emerged from the deep. It was really it was really scared as a long time ago and we've done another vacation to Mexico. It doesn't do that was months ago since September 8th time there as well.

24:02 To be dragged Kicking and Screaming you enjoyed I did I only went because John wanted me to go and he's been so good to me. And you know, so I was Mom and I wanted to do what he wanted me to but I had a fabulous time there. I just don't end Theory don't like traveling but I I did really enjoy Mexico City smog. That's right. That's right, I think about that so

24:33 What do you think?

24:38 4 people

24:42 Your family listening to this maybe years from now, maybe your great-grandchildren.

24:52 What would you want to say to them?

24:55 You can people you don't know yet because they don't exist yet. You know what you want to say that?

25:02 Well, I guess I'm just think about what kind of wisdom would I pass on to them? Yes, or

25:11 What do you want to go? I've run out of 480 years I ought to have something to offer.

25:18 But still I guess I was I would advise them to set priorities for early on to prepare diligently in school and be flexible about early employment not to get fixed on something then and have to stay with it. Even though think times are changed be exposed to a broad range of Lifestyles and open to New Opportunities. I mean another words flexibility and be flexible. I take up for the opportunities that come along

25:48 I think

25:54 I I think I would tell my descendants.

26:02 Don't despair or don't you will despair but don't give in to despair when things go badly.

26:12 Which is hard to do because every life has

26:16 Plenty of Despair, but don't give in utterly to it because

26:22 Because you don't know what is around the next Bend and so I would want them to be.

26:32 To be brave and I would want them to be.

26:37 I think that we are.

26:41 In a very dangerous time in this country and in the world

26:46 I think fascism is rearing its ugly head again.

26:54 I see hideous parallels with the past.

26:59 I don't know what kind of world.

27:02 Our descendants will live in

27:06 I worry about it, and I hope that they can hold onto.

27:13 To Hope even if their circumstances are

27:19 Unimaginable to us. I don't know if we'll have a country by the time our great-grandchildren are.

27:28 Sentient beings. I don't know if you'll have a country.

27:34 And or if it will look like our country looks as looked until now, so I would hope that they would be brave. I I grew up. You know this I grew up in a neighborhood filled with donut filled with but with lots of Holocaust Survivors because I was born in 1943 and so in the late 40s and early 50s living in a the very low-income Jewish neighborhood in New York. They were a lot of people who had survived the Holocaust A lot of people with numbers on their arms and and who had had just

28:15 Unimaginably terrible things happened to them

28:18 And somehow they went on and I hope that's not the kind of future that our grandchildren or great-grandchildren will face but

28:31 I remember you said to me once I can't remember what the Genesis was of the conversation. I said something and you said in astonishment don't you trust the world and I was equally astonished when I said to you you do you trust the world and that's the difference between your life experience and mine and I asked you not long ago. I said, I remember we were talking about what's happening in this country and I said to you

29:02 The growing up did you feel safe and it was extraordinary because your answer was yes, I felt safe because there wasn't a lot of traffic in my neighborhood. Wish it was entirely not what I meant. You know what I mean to you?

29:17 Because it wasn't a question of whether you're going to hit hit by a car but of whether your entire existence and that of everybody loved could be completely obliterate and I think that's that's

29:35 That's a reality.

29:38 That will never change for me.

29:40 And I hope that my great-grandchildren don't face anything like that, but I have to admit to

29:51 Certain despair. Do you feel despair know? Why not? I grew up in Norman Rockwell territory in the Midwest and I had a fairly safe predictable Alive food with my family here that she was responsible and we didn't have any problems with I mean the War I remember when the war ended the day of the war ended. I remember but dear you're much older than I I was too when the war ended and I remember rationing and all that's required but wait, we didn't have any contact and any understanding of the of the Holocaust at the time. I don't know he did nothing and so ever since I think there's a big difference between you and me is I'm an eternal optimist. I know and because of where I grew up perhaps and you are a pessimist. Yes, no matter what comes along.

30:51 Doesn't it have none have to do with your up or or The Warriors or anything? It could be whatever happens if I'd ever goes wrong. You think it's going to get worse? Absolutely. I do whether it's the faucet dripping or or Trump being president doesn't matter. I assume it can only get where any of those current politics I think that will turn things around and I'm not worried about the country surviving and I feel like give it some time and our kids and our grandkids will do the right thing and will be it'll go on very well in the long run. But for now it seems to be rather disappointing and difficult, but we'll manage the only thing you've heard this for me before that gives me any comfort is that Maya and Adan?

31:39 My two biological grandchildren have Irish passports because their maternal grandmother was born in Irish in Ireland and their mother was able to get out of Irish passports for herself and for them do not for John her husband my son, but they have Irish passports because I grew up thinking you need a way out, you know, you need a way out and two of your quote grandchildren Lucien Oscar have a British father. They have dual citizenship. And even though things are looking so good in England these days it's still

32:20 It still feels to me like a little bit of and I'm sure you never think in those terms do you have or do you get out for a ride? And I just think the knock the door that's coming. Any second know and I watch somebody like Stephen Colbert.

32:36 And I think sweetheart.

32:39 York you're going to be a picture people banging on his door and dragging him away you're going to be in so much trouble, you know, just the people who who are out there and completely candid and who who make contemptuous fun of of the people in power I worry for them, there's no hiding

33:06 For them, we we have something now Dwight. I just read this the other day and I sent it to Kendra and Ben that even Susan Collins the senator from Maine who used to be a reasonable person. She drank the Kool-Aid she is a complete apologist.

33:24 For for Trump and that just fills me with despair. It does it does is very disappointing that the word I so I think this is the thing the ways in which you and I are different.

33:44 Go back to those formative years when you did live what I've called this Norman Rockwell life and and you know in church every Sunday and and you know, just and no.

34:01 Nobody in your orbit.

34:04 Who had remotely suffered like that?

34:08 Known and I grew up with dark Whispers And frightened people in and it's it's just very different, you know his very different.

34:20 So

34:23 Yeah, my first wife was also from New York, but I don't remember her being so concerned about the the the war and all that after I mean serious a lot younger that she was a lot younger and she was only half-jewish and she didn't grow up in and totally she had her family do not wealthy. They had more money than mine did and they grew up in a different kind of she grew up in a different kind of environment where they probably weren't a lot of refugees from the Holocaust in her in her neighborhood. So it probably had a a certain remove. I mean, I don't know if we have time for this but in this is really unfair it if this was to be our very last conversation, is there anything you'd like to say to me to say? I love you?

35:27 I'll maybe well as see I was just thinking about our

35:33 Art work life as as as as a sort of it as it fell into place over the years. I've explained yours early on you became self-sufficient and guess you didn't need a college degree and I got a couple but got a graduate degree. Any farther baby. I made as much money as you said. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We we are very much on even talk and answer. The thing is I hope I made the most of my education reason I was it did a broaden my horizons. I suck a branched out as I as I put it I branched out at one point after college and I got into travel international travel in a lot of plans. I've lived abroad for about six years in Asia.

36:33 Europe and South America and a couple years and peace car got me started while I was in Bogota for a summer before that well before and I was able to work in Asia with the World Bank for 2 years, you know, I just told Maya on the phone when she called me from Singapore this morning. I just told her that Kendra your daughter was born in Singapore. That's right out of trouble when John was applying for a high-level security to produce if you had any relatives even a step-sister like she was he had to produce her birth certificate because she was born outside of the United States. So there was this scramble to find her birth certificate. 10 or 15 years ago was long time ago. Right right, but it's true you you have you have what I don't you have the the Comfort Inn.

37:33 In all kinds of of different cultures, you just sort of melt into them, you know, and you do have a lot of sophisticated understanding of the of the world, which is what makes you

37:49 I think it's part of what makes you kind to people and never deprecating to anyone, you know, because you you know, the true value of each person has nothing to do.

38:02 With the label put on them and I know I've lived all kinds of levels of of of poverty and it says I know you have a broad in Venezuela and in in Jakarta, I was I was in a fairly good situation there. But anyway, I I really picked up on where I was from the people. I look like with I learned our language is when I was there. I got a bite. By then. I forget the language after I'm away for a while. But so I couldn't speak Indonesian anymore, and I can't speak Swedish anymore, but I managed when I was there and so I adapted to what I was doing and when we were in Mexico City

38:46 Your Spanish is not great. But for the most part it was helpful slow down you were able to you able to manage it. And so I feel like I've been adaptable and I've been able to travel in and enjoy it and I never really got sick whenever I was abroad that. I I don't I'm fortunate that way but I did anyway, it's just that that's one thing that I do when I was a college open me up to the real world Beyond because you drew up and Indiana and it kind of surprised to learn my first ride an airplane with the Bogota Pakistani and your parents were just horrified. Absolutely the most horrible thing and it turned out didn't you tell me you turned out a she was a movie star in Pakistan and tooth be she was married.

39:46 That's right. My brother was just totally upset by that whole thing more so than my father. Okay. Thank you.