Winifred A Kovacik and Raymond W. Stein

00:05 Hello and welcome to another national public radio, storycorps interview. I'm Ray Stein. I'm 77 years old, and we're here in Cleveland Ohio at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, Monday, August 6th, 2007. And we're here to talk to a very fascinating woman. Horny. Kovacik, whose life is fan career fields of white mother, businesswoman, traveler theater actress and community volunteers and a perhaps. A few more areas will discover. Welcome Winnie and my age is close to 75 few weeks until I'm 75.

00:47 So, I have a lot of stories in my background. I think we're good. We hope to get too many of them one. Even. Let's ask where it all began. Where, where did you spend your early years? I was born in Dayton, Ohio. I am a real real. Ohioan. And during the Depression, my parents built a Sears Roebuck house in my grandfather's Orchard. So I was very close to lots of family. I grew up with tons of family right down the road and and all around me. That's it was a good, a good childhood. I think very loving childhood will tell us about your family and let your parents and your siblings. What were they like? My mother thought that was the ideal family and I think it's a very nice family too because he was older.

01:45 So we did everything together. We played in the band together. We actually I started dating some of his friends as We Grew Older, we went out and did yard work together and I just it was a good good time for both of us. And I thought it was a big town because it was Dayton, Ohio. And I used to tell my father, I was happy that I lived in a big town and he would say this is not a big town went the first time I ever came to Cleveland. I can remember coming up in the in the Cleveland Terminal Tower from the train and thinking if nobody meet me here, I'll be lost here forever because I I found out what to me was a big town and then my daughter's lived in New York City most of her life and now I know what a really big

02:44 How would you describe your parents Winnie with a supportive or stricter easy going or tell us about that? And you know, and I I hear about people who get all this advice when they're young. I was this is a long time ago as I'm sure many of the storytellers are talking about a long time ago. And as I grew up they were supportive. But you knew. I knew that I was going to grow up and I was going to get married and have a family because that was you you had a family or you were a teacher or a nurse and I really didn't feel qualified to be a nurse.

03:35 I sort of didn't want to be a teacher and I knew that I would grow up and be a mother, which seems kind of strange now, but as far as being supportive of me, that they were almost too supportive in that they knew, I could do no wrong. And so anything I did was fine and I didn't get really a lot of Direction. Sounds like, loving parents when they were loving and I was a quote, good girl. I mean, I didn't even have friends who were not what you call. Good Girls. Tell us about your best friend.

04:16 My very best friend from first, grade of school is still my very best friend and we see each other quite a lot, no matter what, part of the country. She said, we are very, very different. She can fly off the handle at somebody going in front of her in traffic. I mean, I, I'm always lecturing her about her temper and she's been divorced for many years. This would have been something Unthinkable to me. My husband used to say, I can't imagine why you and Nancy are best friends.

04:54 I think we are best friends because we have known each other forever. We understand each other. And, as we say now, we look at a lot of things. The same way because we read all the Pollyanna books and we find good in most everything. Because of that, that's unusual. A best friend that was been with you for 67 years. That's quite a treasure. Then yeah. 60. + year as you went to your late teen years. I want any after I and I have to high school. And did you go on to college? Or did you get a job? I went on to college. I was there Bowling Green, Ohio. I was really in Ohio. And then my brother got in there, and I couldn't imagine going anywhere where he was not. So, I went to Bowling Green.

05:46 Should not have gone there. All of my friends went to Ohio State. But anyway, after one semester, I thought, oh, I can go home. I can go to classes in the evening, in a local College. I can do all this myself. So, I went through the catalog and I just picked out courses, I wanted.

06:10 And they allowed me to do that.

06:14 I quit at the end of the first year. I went home got a job at a General Motors Factory in personnel there which was really fascinating. I loved doing it.

06:25 I found it at the end of the day. I was so tired that you didn't go to college. You didn't I didn't go and do the things that I thought I would be doing. And so after a year of doing this, I decided to go back to college. And I went back and I majored in home, economics and minor in speech and drama, which was really, I think my first love

06:56 And was there any particular experience, while you're in college, that you remember now is being unusual or meaningful to you?

07:06 I I guess the strange thing is, this was not in my major field of work, but I was always very active in music. So I was a soloist with the touring acapella choir, which was a very big thing at Bowling Green and it gave me an opportunity to travel. I never travel before I die. Don't, I had been to Indiana? I don't think I'd ever been in any other state as a child. And I had an opportunity to tour with them in the East to tour with them down to Florida. I became the president of the choir and so I was the one that gave all the thank-you speeches for all the dinners and that that was, that was a big part of my college when I think that way. So you graduated and then got a job afterward. What do, what kind of work did you do know? I graduated

08:05 True to my.

08:08 Age and the times and what I thought growing up, I had met a wonderful man, a year before at the beginning of my senior year in college, and he wanted to get married right away and I would go back to college and he would visit and I thought no, that doesn't sound good. So we waited until I graduate from college.

08:34 We were married a month after I graduated.

08:38 We lived in Dayton for couple months and he had already had plans to go on to Boston and go to, to Harvard Business School. And there again, this was an incredible growth situation for me because here I was a new bride and off in a really new area looking for a job where they didn't want wives of students. They have plenty of women in Boston and they knew you weren't going to be there forever. So I took jobs just to pay our rent and I worked for the Department of Agriculture, you know, a beautiful office, overlooking the Boston Harbor. Interesting. Tell us more about your husband. What the

09:28 Four adjectives. Would you use to describe him? This isn't, did you tell us who, what his name was? His name is adjectives for you. I'm sure you can think of all right chauvinistic. Definitely. He sign any, any team could be achieved entrepreneurial.

10:03 Dairy.

10:04 Friend oriented because he was a first-generation American. And, whereas, I'd grown up with hundreds of relatives. He had grown up with zero, except his own, his parents, and his siblings, and to him, you would do anything for friends and friends would do anything for you, but that's the way. I grew up thinking of family and I I came to know that his life was was pretty true. Because as we lived in different places away from family, you did develop those good friendships and deep friendships. Now, on family, believe, you told me that you had a one-child to tell us about your, your daughter.

10:52 We waited five years for that child and and she was called a miracle baby for us. And that was before, you can do all kinds of wonderful things to get babies.

11:05 I I think her birth was probably the happiest moment of my life because as I said, we would really waited to have her. She has been a joy, all of my life. I can remember when she was small.

11:25 I was very active with her in in her Nursery School in her grade school. I was the picture lady. I was the music lady. I was all kinds of things, but I was delighted as we get older, when I would go into a situation and I would be Alyssa's mom. Alyssa was her name instead of the other way around. And in the beginning, when she was small. It was 0-0, Alyssa's Winnie's daughter, but then she became a very outstanding student and a leader in in many fields, and I was very supportive of all that she did. So, she's grown up now, and she has her own children. I imagine tell us about that. Well, I think the only child can go in a number of directions. She ended up having six children of her own. So she is giving me

12:19 A wonderful base of grandchildren when I don't understand.

12:27 Their interactions, you know, and like siblings fighting with each other and in the jealousies. And the different things that come up because they're really close in age to each other. She'll say mother. You just don't understand. And it's true that it took me a long time to understand the relationships in larger family, but she has thanked me for raising her in a very unselfish way as an only child because we always included other children when we traveled or whatever we did. We always had other children with us.

13:04 Are you? I also had an interesting experience with your husband, Vic in your own business. Tell us about this. And how did that work out with the husband and wife working together in a, in a business. That's not always a happy situation. We actually came to Cleveland because he came to work at TRW and my, my friends and relatives in Dayton, didn't know TRW at all. And I said, we'll just picture this in. Dayton, everyone, that you knew worked for some General Motors plant. And I said, if you were in Cleveland, everyone has somebody a relative or somebody who works for TRW. Work has worked for TRW.

13:49 So, he worked for TRW for 11 years and I was a real corporate wife. I mean, you gave the correct parties and you did the correct things, and it was a very, very different life than we get into later because when things changed at TRW and he was his whole department was closed down. It wasn't that he was in actually let go, but he was eventually because the whole department was left go.

14:23 And he decided that he just had this entrepreneurial streak in him and it really came out. We went into many businesses. Most of which failed I did. Everything it was needed. I was a bookkeeper. I clean the offices. I am through the waste cans. I did, the purchasing I did, whatever was needed and we sort of grew it one time. We we manufactured model sailboats, which may still be sailing around the country. I'm sure they are somewhere. They're, they're like four feet long and six foot tall and they're beautiful beautiful toys sailing post, but

15:12 We went through many businesses together and it's a difficult life, going back to this description of him as chauvinistic. Does that mean that when you had a major decision to make in business, he would make a decision. Or what would you do it? Collaboratively? I had no part in things today in the home. Well, my husband had a theory that you don't touch any thing inside a. How come you do not touch a dish or anything? A man does not do that. And so that was totally my absolutely. He came home one night and he and he had seen a woman out the street, mowing the lawn and he was just in shock because women didn't do that women that well after he died. I mowed lawn, I did whatever had to be done.

16:10 But but it worked out though, in the business, you know, I was raised that way to that. I thought that women did you whatever their husbands needed doing. And I guess by example, my daughter was raised seeing this and she is she feels almost the same way. Although she had a wonderful education and I know she could do many, many things. She's very happy being a mother full-time mother and

16:48 We laughed because she unknowingly married a husband who is sort of a clone of her father. And he also is entrepreneurial.

16:59 So, I guess I'd Ranger in the way that I was. I was living another interesting aspect of your life when he is your career as an as an actress in Community Theater. How do you get started in the acting business?

17:15 Well when I was very little, one of my earliest memories is I love to cut out paper dolls. His girls, give them and I think, what a stupid thing to do, but we did a lot of paper dolls and I would wind them up on the stairway. Going up to her upstairs and I would dance and sing for them. I think I was three or four years old when I was doing it. I just always loved to do that and I was Little Black Sambo in our first grade play. I had the lead in every play in grade school. I, I had leads in college and I continue to do that. Really is an application for your mother encourage this. Or does she just let you do? Just let me do it. I mean, I know they were proud of it, they liked it, but she just let me do it. And when I came to Cleveland, I found it. There was a lot of of little

18:15 Theater activity in Cleveland. And I've had friends. Even today was say, what how do you find out about these things? There are regular audition notices in them as I'm older. Now, there are many many fewer Parts but being younger there was more than I could ever possibly have done. And I only did things that I really enjoyed. It was always really an application with me. As you look back on your acting career when he him, what we would you say? Where your favorite roles?

18:48 Well, my all-time favorite was Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, which I did for the wife of tevye. 25 years. Yes. And except for one production.

19:02 I always had the same tevye, and when I did one production without him, it was almost like getting a divorce. This was Ashley in a write-up in the paper at one time, and I don't think his wife like that comment, but there was no relationship between us, but

19:22 Fiddler on the Roof to go back to on at Africa was my Brigadoon because every time I went back there, it was the same people and it was wonderful. It was like, they were all there waiting for me. New new faces. Sometimes the same faces, but the same people and the same wonderful story, and it is an incredibly wonderful story. So, gold is your favorite role. What does you look back on? A war, were roles that you wish you could have played through your maybe Adult Career.

19:56 Did you like your plate or still wish you could play? Oh, probably I would have loved at one time to attend meme because my nieces and nephews think of me as Auntie Mame because I'm always ready to take off on a trip or or say. Oh, yeah, so Antoine will do that. And so they have called me that I think it's a rule. That would have been a lot of fun to do.

20:26 As you are talking to people of women and ends, who say, well I never could do that or anything. What advice would you give to a woman who might aspire to be an actress?

20:37 It might be listening to this tape. Don't why not a career? That would just be wonderful. And as I said, my daughter lived in New York City for many years. And at one point, she sublet an apartment from a woman who was on tour with a touring company. Now, this woman was making her livelihood. She must have enjoyed it. I'm not sure. But when I was in that very cramped apartment with people rehearsing all down the hallways and and, you know, in the Grime on the windows and it it was it was just it was pretty squalid. And I thought, okay. There are a certain number of people really make it in this business as a professional actress for what about women who might want to go into Community Theater.

21:37 They should go try it out, and all they do is go to an audition. All they can say is, you know, we're not picking you. That's all that's the worst thing that can happen. And I think this has been a failing of mine and not going forward and doing more things. But this was my husband's more of his personality that you go for it. You know, if it's something you want to do you do it. And speaking of that, you had an interesting experience and doing a lot of traveling independently throughout the United States in recent years. This is certainly, a daunting task for any mature woman. How did you happen to decide you wanted to do this? What were your reasons for it? Well, I absolutely love to drive when I'm in a car. I just feel great freedom, and I feel like I could go anywhere. My mother used to say, I would go to the Moon.

22:37 With you, if you could drive there because I think she was comfortable to with me when she wasn't comfortable with many people in a car.

22:47 But a few years ago, I was, I had sold my large home. My husband's been dead for 21 years and I was in my home, the home, where we raised our daughter for 16 years alone. And I finally thought, I don't know why I'm keeping this up.

23:06 So I rented a little carriage house which was a very nice transition and then I felt very comfortable and I thought I don't want to be here for the rest of my life. And so I put everything in storage and I think as you look back it's very difficult to think why you did a certain thing, but I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes to travel and you tell me that you went over 13,000 Mi on this one cuz it's a great way. You don't have to ask anyone if they like to stay over an extra day if they'd like to take this side path or anything. You're not on a schedule. I had lived most of my life on a very strict schedule. We for business purposes. We always were in its strict schedule. Was there any Friday moments? So and this trip all by yourself?

24:06 But, you know, today we have, I have most people have a phone with you. I mean, my husband and I traveled cross-country 3 times at a time when there was nothing in the desert. When you got out in the desert, you are pretty much on your own and you had no phone and you had the canvas bags of water hanging on the front of your car. And we were usually using bad tires. Well, when I went on my own, I found that the desert isn't frightening anymore. There are big malls, there. Everything is out there. I had a phone. I had, you know, automobile insurance that along the way. I had a flat tire out in the middle of Montana and I called AAA out of 100, women. How many of you think would it take a trip like yours?

25:03 I'd say.

25:05 At least 10% of the women. And you know, why part of them wouldn't a lot of husbands and men, men were most shocked. Most women. I ran into in women. I encounter along the way, we're all like, oh, I'd like to do that. But the men were like shocked and I think that they wanted to feel that that their wives couldn't do it without them. Maybe I'm not sure why I think it is. So courageous experiment that you went through when you got through and I'm happy for you, another very that, I take it into a what you're doing, you in your life. When he's your volunteer activities. I know you're active in your church and other activities tell us about your volunteer work. Well, I'm volunteering as you know, in the RSVP players here in Cleveland and we go out to any older groups, not, we will go to nursing homes, but more so to our

26:05 Groups Church groups and we do entertaining and educational skits for them, which you may have written many and that is one of my major volunteer projects. Other than that, I use the babies. The babies. I hold babies at my church. I am on Nursery Duty and for a Bible study group, I go in every week in the morning and keep the babies. I have graduated from new babies up to two year olds and three roads are much more of a challenge because they don't just lie in your arms. But this is my baby fix. I think I didn't get enough babies. When I was baby age. So I love doing that volunteer work. It's coming up that you think you'd like to do.

27:03 I, I went to get more involved with my church. There are many many opportunities for nursing home visitations, and I used to singing my church choir, but now we just have special music at Christmas and Easter and since my daughter has now moved to Oregon, which is a far way away.

27:30 I feel like I'm sort of on my own and now I can join in more these things and I will participate more fully in some of these activities. You had a wide variety of experiences as a wife and mother and businesswoman actress and traveler and everything. What would you say if been your most important lessons that you've learned so far in life?

27:58 I guess.

28:01 In at the end of your life, and I hope I'm not at the real end, but I'm at more of the end and yours go.

28:11 I think you realize that, the relationships you've made and the friends you've made and that the the clothes blonde is that you've made are really the only thing that matters at all. That's the only thing I have peered down my living. I am in an apartment now where I really have gotten down to

28:39 Pieces of furniture that actually meaning to me. Because my husband built a lot of our furniture and items that have some meaning for me, but not stopped. And I have a, I don't understand that I should go along. You don't realize that all this stuff has no meaning and it's only the people, the people are the only thing that matter and he's sad lessons that you've learned that you like to pass along to any listener, here like, oh gosh. I wish I would have done that or anything like that. That you care to tell us about o.

29:16 I guess, I guess this is a result of my Pollyanna books, because as I look back, even when things were bad or sad, I I think will, you know, I think it was supposed to be that way. It is, probably because if Dad hadn't happened, then this other thing wouldn't have happened. And so, even in the very bad.

29:40 I learned from adversity. Is that what? You're trying to say? Yes, in in my husband's death. There were things that were going to be coming along for us that I think o. That would have been terrible and

29:54 It enabled me to grow and I I think we always have good that comes out of bed.

30:04 We all have proud moments in our life. What would you look back on and say this is the proudest moment that I've ever had or two. If you can't narrow it down to one.

30:16 I don't think I'm a very proud person about things, or what you've done that you're happy about her. I think, as I've talked to him and I and I and I'm sorry that people have to analyze Our Lives. Now. I'm pretty sure that my mother never analysed her life. She thought she was a good mother and she thought that was what she was supposed to be doing. But now we think I do. What things should we be doing? And I have thought about this. I thought, okay.

30:51 Like in It's a Wonderful Life. Have I done anything that has any meaning whatsoever?

31:00 And I do think that I kept the business going when my husband died.

31:06 I kept a business going.

31:09 And sold it. Then two years later and it grew greatly it. It it just expanded. Greatly. We're not for this business. There would not have been certain defects in actually major manufacturing companies in this country who doesn't mind doing it really wasn't my husband's doing but it was a combination of our doing that this happened and I thought okay if I hadn't kept it going it would have died. And then I say to myself. Okay, you did something.

31:45 So you're proud of that business, aspect of your life, and it has grown so successful. That people said, aren't you? Sorry, you're not still in it. No, it wouldn't have been with me because it was highly engineered and it was two Engineers who purchased the company and took it to the, to the extent that it is today. However, if my husband had not started it and I hadn't kept it going, it wouldn't be where it is.

32:19 I say, well, that's that's certainly a proud experience, anything personal of a personal nature that you were proud of 2 and it's okay to brag on here on this interview because it

32:29 Personally, I would I would I would have to say that. I, I do have.

32:35 5. Incredible grandchildren.

32:40 If they ever hear this, I would like for them to hear this, that they are not.

32:48 Christian. And this is a prayer that I pray every night of my life for them. I I think it has partly to do with love and relationships, but they are aspiring wonderful talented.

33:07 Children. And I think they're going to do great things in the world, and I would like to live long enough to see what their lives become. Because I'm, I'm very proud of all of them. I hope they will listen to this disk some day. So they can see what their grandmother would to most of us as we are younger and plan out our lives ahead. As we look forward to living in the future. How would you say that your life is been different from more than one life. You planned in your earlier years to the life that you actually LED were there? Many major differences.

33:42 Everybody that I knew you stayed in the same spot all their life.

33:48 And for me to have gone away was a major major event in my extended family. In fact, my father had a mental illness in his family. Blamed, my moving away from Dayton said, you know, he never had problems until you moved away from Dayton. So I really never imagined that. I would live anywhere else, and it and it's been good. That it's very expanding. My life. Totally expanded. I have traveled abroad. I've traveled this country. Totally and

34:27 My life is been very good. But not. I didn't picture any of of have been. I almost married a Dairy Farmer in Dayton. I would have been on the dairy farm getting up at 5 in the morning, but that was not to be. You probably would have been happy doing it to Happy.

34:53 And my family would have been happy to that. I was there.

34:56 Oh, that's sad. That's interesting. Now. I'm going to ask you a philosophical question when he would, should I remember having asked me then asked me years ago, but too if you had the ability to invite into your living room, any two people who ever lived in the history of the world, either famous or ordinary one evening of does coffee and discussion, which two people would you like to invite in and why?

35:23 I would invite Harry Truman Harry Truman. I absolutely adored him. He was a man of the people. As I said, my father was a factory worker. You were rooting for Harry Truman, and I stayed up my mother only worked, like, I think, two days in her married life. And that was at the poles, and one was the night that he was elected. At that time. You had these little pencil balanced. And, you know, so we had to wait till early, we are in the morning. And then I saw him when our senior trip was to Washington DC, and we got up early in the morning, because he took his morning constitutional and he was a striking person and I would, I would like to talk with him because

36:16 I I just was fascinated with him and his his background and what he became.

36:24 I'm sure there are tons of his name people but one Harry Truman, who's the second one anybody who ever lived?

36:32 I would have to say a person who is living right now. Judy Dench. She's another one, I transfer. Yeah, I transferred My Love From Katherine Hepburn to Judy Dench. And again, I just I relate to her. We're close to the same age and she's been through a lot of problems. She has one daughter and I just relate to her and I would like to know her personally. Okay. Now, let's assume that you were in a desert island, which two books would you like to take with you have with you on a desert island? You going to be there forever? Okay.

37:13 Just quickly. You don't want would be Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd, Douglas.

37:18 I am enthralled with that book and I have a copy of it. I think it's out of print and I think it's

37:26 I think it's an idea that more people should know and it's like you you give, you keep you, give your life is giving and every time you give you receive so much back then nobody can repay you. You're already repaid. That's the whole theme of Magnificent Obsession. I love that book and I would have the Bible, the Bible. Okay, the Bible as knowing. What a Christian you are. I was wondering if you'd mentioned that as we say in Fiddler on the Roof. The Bible has many lessons for our times many, many lessons.

38:09 Not reject yourself into a situation where you're speaking to a group of younger women and they said it's kovacik, would you give us some advice based on your years of experience? What little bits of advice? Would you give these younger women?

38:23 Call Jay Gillette. Say

38:26 I I think this is some of your Katharine Hepburn says his. I said, I I really idolized her. She would say, you can't have it all. You can't do everything. And I would say this to women today. I'm sorry that women feel that they can do everything or they want to do, or they should do. And as I'm holding the babies at my church, I hear the young mothers saying, oh, I have to go back to my teaching soon. They love to teach but they're leaving small children at home. Well, taken care of.

39:04 But they're missing that. I I just think it's very difficult to to roll everything together into one and life goes very fast. I just heard somebody say recently, life is short and Eternity is long. So we have to plan for that. I would tell them to

39:29 Be sure beyond their family to have things for themselves to have something that they they can do themselves. And I regret that as a young person. I wasn't advised. Yes. And not necessarily that you would do it through your life, you know, today is Fusion of the family, but there are professions that you can do until your 110. And I think when we were young, if we as women, if we talk more about that we would, we could do for a while to plan for later, because right now, I would wish to be trained for something. Now.

40:15 That I would be doing. Did you wish that you would have had somebody give you this advice, when you were younger? Yes. Yes. It was not a time of councillors was not a time, being told anything that you want to do. And

40:32 I, I was just told recently that there aren't enough councillors even now, but

40:39 I think we all have to think about our later life. When were quite Young.

40:46 How are you? I hope I've got into the major important areas of your life in the past. To Winnie. Is there anything else in the final moments there that you like to tell us about yourself that we haven't really discussed.

40:59 Well, if you think it's worth mentioning.

41:03 As I said, when I said, life is short, and Eternity is long.

41:10 I think that we all have to think about that and no matter how you come to it. I do believe that there is something beyond our life, and I believe that there's something in me. That's more than more than my body and more than what I am leaving the life Hereafter. Yes. I absolutely do. I have had

41:37 Hints of this from people who have gone beyond and I do mean near-death experiences, but they were very strange things that happen to me immediately after my husband died, and he experiences when I felt him very close. And I actually told my Minister who is an incredibly Bible teaching, Christian, man, and I said, I don't think this is Christian, but I, I feel him very close and he said, a lot of people tell me that and it just was a very reassuring feeling for me. This has been a wonderful experience for me. I'm talking with you and then about your various aspects of your life, and I hope that your loved ones and friends and even strangers, who would listen to this said, desk and get some inspiration and wisdom out of it. And so, thank you for coming and talking with us today.