Francine Barr and Lisa Barr

00:03 My name is Francine bar. And I'm 62 years old. Today is March 8th 2009 and we are in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I'm here with my daughter.

00:17 My name is Lisa Barr. I'm 31. Today is March 8th 2009. We are in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and I want to interview my mom.

00:29 So I think I don't know. I think we should start at the beginning. Well, I think of this as you know, kind of a dialogue and and I did want to mention a little bit about your heritage because you never knew your grandparents and just wanted to mention that

00:50 My grandparents came to this country through Ellis Island and they came from Poland which is the town that's famous for the the black Madonna.

01:09 And they came over. My granddad was a blacksmith and called him back and he did learn English Rapture your grandma and my grandmother never learned English and they also had their her sister came over. So she was a spinster and live with them. His name was a Martin kowalik. He married Mary Kita and her name was was Caroline and they settled in and Cleveland in the Miles Avenue Hartford area and my in your in your grandma my mom Regina Mary kowalik was the third of three daughters and she ought they also had two two boys.

01:58 Then when she was a baby the family or Uncle John was that who you don't even know my aunt Lee then then Mom and then Chuck and John.

02:12 And Mama

02:15 Marry The Boy Next Door

02:18 Your your grandad my father Frank, Iero Bowl live down the street and she said he smiled and that was it for her. She saw his great teeth and his wonderful smile and and there was no turning back and how old were they when they got married. Well, I was trying to figure that out. They got married in May 15th 1943 and I think she was born in 1919. So whatever do the math. Okay, right and then they went in the service. He was in the Navy he was a petty officer and they were stationed in one of the Carolinas.

02:58 Which I think is interesting and she talked about other approaches were terrible. You put your hands in the water that rushes work rocker arm, but she also had a wonderful song. It was called Carolina Moon and she would sing that and it was about two people being separated and and the Carolina Moon being the messenger between them. So I thought that was pretty sweet. So that's just a little bit of background. Now you were the now you were one of four, right? Right, right. We have my sister was the oldest Mary and then me and then there was a another child. That was a stillborn. That was Elizabeth Ann and then Jerry or Gerard and Tony Anthony, or I can give it to Tony was the baby and they were about five six years younger than me, but your mom got sick Young.

03:56 Well, probably if you look at my that's one of the most traumatic events of my childhood was mom had his people hambridge when she was like 36. I was about six years old.

04:10 And it's almost like a dividing line in my childhood because you would have really loved your grandma reg. She was really smart. She was class valedictorian. She spoke fluent French, you played the violin G at a beautiful singing voice. She was Martha Stewart before they wasn't Martha Stewart amazing Homemaker inside. I remember like for breakfast we have hard boiled eggs to be no big thing, but you would carve them. She carves like out the white so you can see the yellow coming through it would be a little bird in the cage or it could be a flower or something. I think this is just how early did she get up? I don't know. I don't know. She made our clothes out of newspaper patterns was a really good seamstress. I know you're really good at that too. But she has had all these wonderful talents and then she had this massive Hemorrhage and

05:02 And was never never the same was sort of semi a semi-invalid and it changed our lives because my sister and I had to take over and be sort of the

05:11 The moms in the family, so we were you know, cooking dinner and doing the laundry and cleaning the house and and so it really change the kind of childhood. I think I would have had so that way I wouldn't know what that because she wasn't home or when she was home. She had to be in bed rest and we don't she was in and out of the hospital for a lot of very very ill they kept giving her 6 months to live and she look for 10 years. So she was up pretty stubborn Pollock as dad would say he died when I was 17. Yeah. Yeah, and she has a sister stroke Night by 6.

05:52 And then you went on to college right? Well, yeah, but yes I did.

06:00 And not it was at Notre Dame Notre Dame college and isn't that how you got to England? Well, I graduated I I went to England and it was a wonderful and beside 1969. It was one of those times when history intersects with your own personal Journey. It was the first time I've been out of the country and I was in London when America landed on the moon.

06:22 And that was so huge. It was so huge. I mean it was just this worldwide event and I was in Trafalgar Square and the ticker tape and all the magazines and newspapers and everything was just all about America landing on the moon and what and there was a sense that they were doing it for everybody that they were doing it for the world that they were there the other wherewithal to be able to do this technology and and get us to the Moon which was just miraculous and I was so proud. I was just I was an American that was so proud to be an American at that time. That was a pretty yet amazing trampoline area.

07:01 So but you knew your other Grand grandparents Grandma? I knew ya dad's mom. Yeah, she was she was from Louisiana and she was

07:13 French her parents book French the communities and I'm pretty sure just know a little bit about history that they were the was at the A2Z attics Arcadia Arcadia from Canada. Yeah, and they and they came down to Louisiana cuz that was the other French kind of territory at the time and and she moved from Louisiana to Detroit when she was like 18 or 19.

07:41 And I hear she was there for a bit to say end.

07:47 I think it's interesting because she moved from the south to the North and then we moved from the north to the south in Reverse. But I'm and then Baba. I don't know much about I mean hrabar, I don't know much about right he was you just I never met him. He wasn't in my life. Although he was alive and until I was like 12 or 13 and I remember his dad just like open the door and he was like your grandfather said and then he turned and walked out and I'm like wait, I have a grandfather. He was like

08:23 Who knows about me either? I know he lives to be like 99 smoking and drinking the entire time. So full of the vast part, that would not stop being an ass the Scots in the French basically.

08:42 Well marrying, your dad was probably the next I might major huge. How did you how did you two meet? Well, that's a little was really funny cuz we were both engaged to other people and we met through a mutual friend who introduced us who was actually the best friend of a guy that I was engaged to and he went to Detroit and Bob was his roommate and because I wasn't dating anybody else. I was just really being true blue. I was really going stir-crazy and so when Tom invited me up to

09:18 Detroit I thought well, this is great because this is like I'll be a lot of fun and it's a real safe environment and I'll just hang out with with Tom and his roommate and

09:28 I wound up falling hopelessly in love with Bob though. I didn't acknowledge it for probably three or four months, you know, which is always so nice to have such a good friend and we have this great conversations. And you know, this is really nice to have us a thought about that. Like when you first met the very first will instantly have the first the very first thought when I saw him was oh my God, I'm with the wrong man out of this is the man, you know, and I'm so in order to stay when he was wearing and it was just like indelibly, you know, like imprinted on my brain and then it was just like what erase that and he attended and have that thought and I think he said later he had the same thought he said when I open the door and he said, oh, I think I'd like to marry a woman like that. And then he said, I think I want to marry that woman, you know, and I needed the same thing. He did be a race and we like I said, we had this really good friendship.

10:28 Then finally we both couldn't really deny it anymore and and decided that we had to

10:36 You don't make some pretty serious decisions and also notify some people that things had changed and that was really tough. That was really tough. But that we both did and and we got married five months later. I was pretty how long does it take you to get to the land. We married in 1970 and then in 1973 about graduated. He has not got his undergraduate degree in Psychology, and he well it was it was the times that were happening right then it was the

11:13 1969 was the summer of love the counterculture was in full swing the hippies were doing their thing and it was I think the slogan was tune in turn on and drop out. So we did all of the above. But we got a little travel trailer 3 acres in Oceana County Michigan Muskegon, right? Yeah, it was again, but actually it was a little town called. I'll call them raspberry and I'll population hundred and one when we showed up population. I didn't think it was like a stop light flashing light slow down.

12:02 April to tell till August and you know, I had really never had a summer off. I've been working since I was 16 and and so for me to Ashley be free like not have any obligations it was so yeah because you've been Mom since you were six and then you know, you were mom and working and going to school and it was a lot it was a lot. So for me, it was just like a real break and then it was just wonderful. We did a garden huge Garden 25 by 50 feet and we wrote a tilted and we went and got the, you know, the common or and remembered just shoveling that stuff out of the channel guide now, you know, and we went to 10 minutes to town which is Shelby and they had a co-op their food co-op and the two that we hooked up with his whole Counter Culture that we had no idea was there when we first

13:02 So there were all these communes there was Funk Farm in Ferry Farm and there was Jeanne and and ready who are renting a house and

13:13 He was always ready with like 40 and he thought he was he was ancient, you know, but it was and he was a chemist and he was really educated and we wonder what he was doing hunk hanging out on this is Farmhouse what he was doing with manufacturing PCP in the bathtub realize until he got arrested and taken to Detroit for trial explain that to go over there was so great because they had a house with the bathtub and you're not running water and all that stuff which we don't have any campgrounds and we used to hang out and watch the the Watergate hearings were going out the time in hours just watching that whole thing and the whole time since was different when you vent when to visit people ebook days when you go to visit somebody and you and you know UW toke up a little bit and get a little high you die having to have lunch or dinner or whatever time it was and you wander around your mind up on the hill people come over your play music that would bring stuff and they put it

14:13 Stove eat again, you know, I miss you just as kind of like a real free floating time and then nobody has been nobody had a deadline or punch a Time clock to punch or and nobody had jobs that was really kind of need. It was great and delivers the sauna every Friday. It was as smooth as communal. So now you have to come and chop wood and whatever you have to move want me to bring water and you kind of helped out to view to making the Integra to making the sign and then you just have a really great to the real time of Innocence cuz I went through some huge the first time we invited to the song I spent like Bob and I work 4 to 2 in the morning is now I can't take my clothes off in front of people and that it was a movement was still sort of that before I got into the hard drugs and all this kind of love and

15:13 We can make the world right just by Karen enough then it was really a sweet time. And yeah, it was like the Garden of Eden in a way that Simplicity and everybody was trying to grow their own food and You Know It Back To Nature Get Back To Nature and just being Harmony and then of the Eastern philosophies were coming into voguing people were doing yoga and and meditating and it was it was a really sweet time weather winter and figure and then I got a job is a is a social worker or working at 2. I want to be assisted care facilities, and I've got a great picture of Bob and his suit in his beard in the woods.

16:13 Home to the camper if we needed to make some adjustments there that wasn't going to work and then we wound up relocating back to Detroit and I went back to school and and it was it cuz you couldn't find work in Muskegon right know that was a bad old days. That's when the job ads for male and female.

16:33 And they were divided and women would like a job. You can get it from this, Wow. Yeah. Yeah in the in the in the in the female side. We're like hairdresser and type is stand and I could type like 35 words a minute. So he wasn't going to get me anywhere. So I got real frustrated and I wind up going back to Detroit on back to get my Master's and anybody want to stay by himself. So he came back to Detroit and then we sort of got back on the more traditional.

17:01 You know, we got a house we got job. So we got pregnant so so things got really everything else and that's when you begin your career merits right, which is a huge dump your life. That's another big influence. That was what was happening at the culture. They really impact in my life. And that was a feminism. You know, I was and Ashley Bob, you know, turn me on to it and there was an article in Time Magazine and he was all for sharing the responsibility. That's a dimmer wanted to be with me read winner, you know, so I was I working as a proofreader.

17:53 And a job came open for a rider and I was also reading a book about being more assertive cuz I was always very shy and you know, whatever.

18:01 So I called the president of the company and said I wanted to meet with him because my boss came running in shortly. Thereafter is like what is there a problem with your problem? Why are you eating with me to meet with Molly and I said, well I am who was the president has personal? So anyway, it was just so cute. Cuz I really didn't get the business world. So they did let me see why my way and I can use to see if he looks like a plate carrying Carrington the guy from Dynasty with the graying temples a tall good-looking executive and he was he set us so that he could have a backlit and I was in a small chair and I was looking up at this and he said

18:48 I need the way I haven't gotten experience. And I said that I can write I said if you can write you can write about anything.

18:56 So he asked me to bring him sample. So I brought in the stack. Yay high stack of examples and so they finally had realize that maybe the times were such that they needed to do something about me. So they they made me an editorial assistant for a new group that was starting. They would have three writers and editor and I edit Oriole assistant when they brought me in to tell me about the job. They had secretary scratched out editorial assistant, you know for a pencil in and and the job descriptions were filing and typing and it would ever getting coffee and I was so mad that I went to the Personnel director of secretarial job and she said a secretarial job by Any Other Name, you know is is a status job and it pays more and just hang in there. I would hang in there the irony is that about three months after I've been working as good at Royal assistant one of the writers quit

19:52 In the male who had replaced me as a proofreader at who had a master's degree and no experience sound familiar. They been a writer immediately and they gave him like a $3,000 raise and I want a reading and editing his his work.

20:11 And the other thing that I just have to share because it is so outrageous. It's my first week on the job the head of the account the editor and whole bunch of the account that is invited me to lunch at the topless bar down the street.

20:28 And it was kind of like you want to be one of the guys baby. Well, this is where we go for lunch. And so you don't I tried it off to the topless bar and was having lunch in trying to be to know the mirror and

20:45 The account that they had of the account the vice president had his three martinis got sloppy drunk and said to me

20:55 Why do you want to be a writer and I said well, I think that it would be a challenge.

21:02 And and here's a challenge for you, and he took takes his Three Olives out of his Martini throw some down the front of my dress.

21:13 And I absolutely mortified. I can't remember anything else about about the afternoon because it was just such a it was just a little thing is I didn't do anything about it. I just you know, I didn't follow up they would know what I did there but I also didn't go to talk to anybody and didn't report it. I didn't say anything about it. I didn't tell anybody. I know there's no such thing and they wouldn't they would have just basically said the same shut up, you know. Just don't do no, welcome to the business world. Yeah. Stay out of his way and you know, whatever but so that that was that something that young women today would have some recourse if it even happened cuz the three-martini lunch is gone the way of a lot of things considered a bird. Yeah exactly.

22:01 So I don't want to bug you. But yeah, but you eventually made it to you work your way at warm air is coming at the end. You were Vice creative. I was creative operations services and operations director. I was just the top-ranking woman enters Troy office. So I I managed to get through off the Roblox all over the color over the place I go for one job myself really overqualified and I look at the job that the person had about the job the man who had the job wasn't doing before he got the job, but I couldn't get it because I wasn't qualified enough and and they tell you over qualified for that job.

22:41 What's the time to come over qualified for the job I want but I'm under qualified for the job. I want overqualified for the job that leads to it. Like what do you say in here?

22:53 Yeah, so anyway, it was like it was a struggle but cuz there was a time that you were the only woman on your floor. That wasn't a secretary, right? Oh, yeah, which was really a trip when I was pregnant because I know there wasn't just the only woman in the room, but I was the only pregnant woman pregnant back then because they were trying to have their careers and that was you know, so I was there wasn't a lot of women around it to her pregnant.

23:24 Yeah, but I just loved it. I love being pregnant. I was just so excited to have you I was just thrilled. I was just you know, like happy but you are so many hats because you also I mean after that you did the whole corporate thing. You went all the way to the top and was like, I don't feel like it anymore thinking to do something different and then didn't you go back to school to become a psychologist and we'll yeah, I went back and got my Master's in psychology because that was something that always wanted to do and when I was in college that really wasn't an option when I was in college women were secretaries teachers nurses wives and mothers and Librarians. So I became a teacher and my sister had become a nurse, you know, she also really quick because my wife and mother and

24:11 So it was a night was it was not an option. So I got really excited about the fact that maybe I could do this later you later in life and I did and I've been working in the field of mental health for the last fourteen years, you know so bad. That was something that I again was a very meaningful for me and then you also went to white clan is that white wolf Clan is that what is burn that there was a Native American study group was called the white wolf Clan and I want to Vision Quest and I'm Vision Quest. I realized I was very unhappy in my life the way it was that it was that it was really unhappy, but it was very satisfying anymore. It was kind of like I've done it and I was looking for what was my really heart's desire and on that Vision Quest I had a wonderful experience Vision Quest is like 3 days in the woods with no food, right? And I have a deer come to me and hang out with me. I mean it like that might make my Native American name, which is dear listing heart and that's when I really got

25:11 Touch with the fact of what I really wanted to do was go back to school and become a psychologist and nobody told me I was crazy to leave Corporate America to leave the money. So why but I did I did it and I got a job, you know, and then of course, they also told me I was crazy when I decide to go to North Carolina. They said you're too old. You'll never get the same the same, you know Dyer Doom and Gloom, you know, there is a lot of kind of Nay saying that comes with a hank breaking the mold and breaking the normal kind of should do list and and that you just never let that deter you get women heavy Riders will I can be right or you know, you can't leave corporate after 17 by 17 years for 50, you know, but I can get a job after you did you just you just decided what you wanted to do in your life and you went for it.

26:07 And I just I want to take a moment and say that you have just been so inspirational and for me you are really just an amazing person and I am so lucky and I'm so grateful to have you as a role model and a brag about you all the time.

26:27 See how would you know to talk and I really have I was thinking we have a chance to have you say they kind of know I really kind of wanted it to be like that though cuz your stories are just there really important and I want to be able to have them clean 20 years 30 years from now go back and listen to these are some of my favorite stories that you've told me and your life and I keep them with me. It's kind of like a

26:50 Guidelines Parables those underlying currents this and Ryan Lang moralities

26:58 Yeah, but it's it's it's it's good for me to talk because in my profession and all that I really listen, so I'm not used to really talking about me and the stories continue. I'm off to Nicaragua is in MA in May to go teach English as a second language or foreign language to a whole bunch of kids, basically.

27:23 Yeah, get you today. I tow truck in my card arrive.

27:50 Alesis I want to thank you for thank you for being here with me. Thank you so much for coming down and telling your story and thanks for being one of the most amazing. As a person could have possibly want your stories of your own. We do another out couple hours for those. I have a video camera.

28:08 So, yeah, thank you so much Mom, I appreciate you making the drive instead of the car breaking down in Access