Adrienne Scott and Hannah Scott-Persson

00:03 I mean Korean Scott, I'm 48 years old. Today is February 26th, 2011 and were in Chico, California and

00:13 At the mother of peanut who's about to suck and I'm Hannah and 16 years old. And today is February 26th, 2011, and we're in Chico California. And Adrian is my mom.

00:29 So yeah, so he and I I kind of wanted to bring you here today cuz I wanted to ask you do you still have any memories of my mom your grandma Carolyn Scott hardly any I really don't remember much those pictures that I've seen that it's hard to remember any specific events. I know I think that she she would be sorry about that because that was her one of her kind of biggest fear. She she died when you were five of cancer and it was really sad for us, but but I went I brought this picture today. I wanted to bring to show you that I know you've seen before but maybe not in a while and I love this picture cuz of the picture of my mom holding you on your christening day and you guys both are so cute. And and what I like to do in a way this picture has like generational meaning in it too because the hat that you're wearing was made by my grandma her mother Maybe.

01:29 Davis when I was christened then so you got to wear that on your christening day. And so I brought that today to just kind of start our conversation. Yeah, and I guess like they're I have this really strong memory from from my childhood that really influence my whole life. I just as I started realizing this just in the last 5 years or so how how influential this is one kind of moment in her parenting for me that that I'm just so grateful for and I wanted to share it with you I grew up in st. Louis, you know, and I and I was in first place. I was 6 years old and I had this teacher who was like the super

02:14 Strict rule oriented teacher, her name is mrs. Trice and one day she told her class that we were going to have a or supposed to draw a cardinal which was like a red bird that you don't have in California, but they're beautiful contest for the local newspaper and we were all given pencils and tracing paper and I don't think any of us ever seen tracing paper before but she told us we had 30 minutes to this project and we had to draw the Cardinal on to the tracing paper and the Cardinal was on the chalkboard. There was like a drawing of it and we weren't really Tracy anything but somehow we had to use tracing paper cuz I was part of the process for the printing process, I guess anyway, whatever it was we were all excited at the prospect that we would be chosen ever artwork in than in the paper and in the middle of passing out the supplies, which was tracing paper in the number two pencils. Mrs. Trice announced that there was a very important rule to be followed.

03:15 Don't erase that was the main thing and of course our pencils have erasers. I just want you to know for boating there. But I began my attempt to draw Cardinal and I kind of remember like I don't know like, you know, when you're liking school you have memories of stuff. I still remember sitting in that first grade class and I remember like next to me. There's scrolling Kathy Weinberg and I was so envious of her artistic abilities in her drawing and I my mind she was like this great artist and I remember just not being able to measure up. Yeah. I had a whole my friend Madison, you know, she's she was always mean she still lives but she was always the artist in kindergarten and first grade and everyone wanted her to draw them unicorns and other stuff. He was the best and it was even want to work by her because she was like creating a masterpiece while you were kind of scribbling a little something.

04:15 Yeah, I was like that and I so anyway while I was watching Kathy like somehow my pencil made us trademark on the paper and I like freaked out and I realize I had to erase so, you know, I just said okay. I'm just going to wish you could see me do this was going to make this a race, but I like I didn't know that like tracing paper when you erase it makes this big smudge. So it just suddenly like became this huge disaster area on my paper. And just when I was wondering what to do next this giant hand with bright red nail polish that I can still see today like Giant Talon swoops down and grabs my paper and

05:03 Nashua for me. It was a choice I can imagine I was just like so scared. I couldn't even cry I was freaking out. I remember I'm 6 years old and she crumpled my paper. She crumpled my paper and handed it back to me and told me to March straight over to the garbage and throw it in and stand in front of the class as an example of not following interactions. That sounds scary. I would have I would have not been happy about that the teachers that her insane like that. I would have probably tried to yeah, I was I was like shellshock. I just stood there like I don't even know why I was like, I was an out-of-body experience. I was just was standing there in front of the class.

05:53 And if it hadn't been the like I think it's the last. Of the day or whatever. It was like like that. We were going home after this project. So I just stood there and then the bell rang and I got out of there and I remember just running all the way home is like 10 blocks home, and I remember just getting into getting into the house and just finding my mom and crying and crying and she comforted me that evening.

06:23 But really it was the next day that she did the most incredible thing and that's that's that's kind of really why I'm here today was so in the morning when we got up. She told me that I wasn't going to school and that she had called in sick for both of us.

06:43 And she was taking me to the st. Louis Art Museum and I got all dressed up in my fancy church clothes and everything because that's kind of what you did in those days didn't go dressed up and go out without being dressed up.

06:59 And at the art museum she hustled me past all these other paintings and sculptures and stuff and then kind of stopped me and I just kind of remember if I felt like I think it was in the middle of the week. There was like nobody else there. I don't know if it's true, but it felt like I was just all alone in this big wide spacious Museum room, and it was a room that was dedicated to the impressionist and to Van Gogh Vincent van Gogh. Do I know now? It's called Vincent van Gogh. But yeah, and she proceeded to tell me the story of his life and how he was disrespected as an artist and nobody appreciated his work and he was some he know not loved and he had he had a really kind of rough life in these are the things you told me at 6 to get more to it. But but she

07:59 I just remember kind of standing there and looking at these beautiful paintings, you know that he he painted of sunflowers and if I think there's a vase of sunflowers at st. Louis Art Museum and there's a scene of trees like olive trees is all I kind of really remember there's a couple of paintings but that's what they are at that Museum and you know, just how how incredible was. Nobody could recognize his work and then now how they're like she told me, you know, they were in the Museum's the world over and that their high prices of money for his his sad heart and I even though it's just that was like felt how much the six-year-old took in and then later in my life. You know, I took some art history classes in college and with the purpose that I could take the Vincent van Gogh class that wasn't you couldn't take that right away and I tried to get into that when I said, I know you're taking these prerequisites I'd take like three classes so I could take a Vincent van Gogh Classon, and I know that that really

09:00 Impacted impacting me that whole experience cuz I just

09:07 You know, it was incredible. And in the now when I kind of look back on on things I couldn't know how much this experience would have seriously, you know affected me. I mean, it really had the potential for to be such a traumatic event that it could have marred me, you know terribly because you know, I mean, we don't stand for teachers doing things like that anymore. I hope that nobody has happened to them anywhere in the world anymore to it does still

09:34 I know but honestly have to say this is one of my Fondest Memories of my childhood and I mean not the teacher doing this but but how it influence me, you know, how my mom you know transform this experience from a potentially tragic and traumatic thing to an Incredible Gift of knowledge and and you know funny enough. I mean, it's really strange. I became a museum curator and educator and I I I left the traditional teaching position that I had in elementary school originally and I'm a strong advocate for Museum education and I really like my mother's instead of inspired correction of this potential misguided teachers lesson set me an incredible journey of self-love and lifelong learning about about problems and how to solve them and I I feel like even though you didn't get a chance to meet her that it it still.

10:34 The story is like not really my story anymore. It's a story for for everybody and an especially for you. Yeah, I think that it's good because there's a lot of pressure for college and for succeeding in school and education in academic excellence and all of that. So it's it's good to have it a story that can be passed down about, you know, not everyone not all of the teachers are always right and they don't really know when it's there are plenty of people who like Van Gogh who didn't really have that love but still turned out great and people can tell you, you know, you're not good enough, but you are

11:25 Yeah, yeah, I know and I do I know that the pressure gets really amped up your junior year in in college these days and I

11:34 I know that while your grandmother was, you know, what college instructor she she would know your true value and that it's not measured by any grade on a paper. And then yeah, that is some something that I think she really she knew that.

11:56 That education doesn't come from an external evaluator. It really can only come from your I'm trusting your own heart to guide you to your own passion.

12:07 And also like

12:12 I I brought along another another prop today aside from the picture, you know in this is something I think you do remember cuz it's in your room tell you about then this is a dream catcher a Lakota dream catcher that your grandma gave to you on the day of your Christening that that came with that picture and we hung it over your crib and it stayed in your room until you kind of redecorated for junior high and you know it really

12:49 It meant a lot to me because she also wrote a poem to go with it. And so they're still kind of like almost like a little letter to you from from your grandma. My mom who was a really good writer in NC.

13:04 You'll hit you know, you'll hear in the poem a little bit of Menthol directed it at you and and yet she has wider influences in it because she she had a mentor I choose an English teacher, but she also wrote poetry and she she had a mentor name Maurice Kenny. He was a Mohawk Indian and and poet himself and he encouraged her as a poet. She she never thought she wasn't going out of actually and it is and I know and I feel like she she's I only know about four or five of her poems and she never was published but I I feel like she really had this.

14:01 Beautiful gift inside of her and and so so she share she she wrote one and and so I brought this for you to read today. Okay, so it's called a day of your christening.

14:14 From three Hannah's you came one Hannah. You are three Hannah's you will be Hannah filled with grace Tuesday was your birth Hannah filled with wisdom wise is your second name Hannah the dreamer yet to come look up now at the twinkle stars through the leafy shapes above in silence. You see any word from the fiery Cosmos to your inner shining where Grace wisdom and dreams are forged and intertwined the baby's heart. Let the songs is mommy and daddy. So we need to rest to dream always of the wide place from which you came May the blessing of your father feather soft dream catcher. Give your dreams safe. May the sun's Rays melt what is not to be and make holy the wisdom and the grace of your dreams that are to be making Hannah what remember all that is is Waukon.

15:08 And do you remember what what kind what kind of is?

15:13 Not really, but if you wanted to explain it, well we talked about it before he even that expression that refers to the great mystery of life and all things and sometimes translated the great spirit. Yeah, and it's a it's a Lakota Sioux concept and she because the Dreamcatcher actually the concept of the Dreamcatcher comes from the Lakota people. She included that in in there and and I think also because Maurice Kenny was kind of prevent or encourage her as a poet, I think a lot of her poems have some references to Native American world, even though we don't really have the American Native American blood in us, but yeah.

16:04 But that Spirit kind of came through and in this story about yourself in and just I I liked in the in the poem like how she

16:13 Recognize how we have all these different strands of influence coming into us and have it the Dreamcatcher has all these strands coming together to and you know, but but that were really still just one when I get there and you know it and I

16:29 I kind of want to hear that poem. I feel like that poem just like the story about, you know, having this crumpled up art, but then turning into really understanding my purpose in life. I feel like all that kind of comes together and then that this poem in and the story really while it's between our family it really belongs to a larger audience.

16:55 Yeah, and I'm glad that I have you two to kind of tell me about how grandma wasn't even though. I didn't know her. I'm sure she influenced you a lot and you influence me Lotso. Will you influence me a lot too when I see who you are becoming and the the writer in you because you are an excellent writer. Also, I feel like you know.

17:31 Your grandma is in you and it's it's sort of interesting to

17:37 You know how that experience as a parent because it's it's sort of strange, you know to have that feeling that while you're younger than me how I can see

17:50 Someone older I can just Tennessee that flow of the spirit and yeah.

17:55 I don't know if you you've heard this in your English classes yet. Expect quote from I think it's so like I should be coming to me. Maybe you can help me with this. The child is Father of the man. I think it's oh my gosh. It's not throw us going away from me. He's a famous poet and I am having the life moment. I don't know. He's British and it is from I think trailing Clouds Of Glory so I know the poem but I can't think of you. But yeah just that they were all connected and and perhaps that is what means it means by remember that all is Waukon. Yeah, we're all in this together, whatever it means so I'm happy you're in it with me and me too. Thanks for coming to do the story with me today. And yeah, thank you for sharing it with me. It'll be fun.

18:55 Open Library Sunday. Yeah, if we get to hear it.

19:09 Yeah, okay. Yeah, I feel like

19:15 You know, my mother was.

19:18 A person of spirit and reading and writing or important her because she was a college English teacher, but she but she also made time for family and made sure to bring a lot of other influences besides just the regular school situation. It was really really important to her to travel and reading books with kind of like a spectacular travel agent. We went on the incredible trips. We went to Scotland. We went to Norway and all along it was nothing like staying in a hotel and eating out that was like the secondary party was all about, you know, investigating the few words and traveling down this mountain side and picnicking on the Heather or

20:09 Hill climbing Hadrian's Wall, and and so sometimes I've lived a little bit in her Shadow and then like I can't do that. But then, you know having you and having a family made me realize that there's some

20:25 You know that I don't have to do it the same way, but just with the inspiration part not necessarily this actual detailed same things, but we always did a lot of reading when we still do and we know we went to Europe when I was younger and I don't remember it too much always been twice I guess but they never some Italy. I think it was always fun. We did dating pool places. So think you know how to do it. Yeah, and I I feel like

21:00 How your your interests you were saying that you know, when you go to college you like to maybe do a year abroad study abroad 7 year. And so I feel like you know, all of that has been you know, you better than you.

21:19 You know, I think actually that's a good question. I I think probably what one of the things is that hurt her parents they were they were well that's a whole other story. But but they were born, you know before cars her parents were and then when the car came along the Great American road trip was really starting and date her dad decided that every summer they were going to go to make sure they went to see all 48 states. So in her lifetime from her mid-teens until she graduated from college, they they would go every summer on a big road trip and they they saw Yosemite before like people really got their you know, and they saw the all the national monuments in Mount Rushmore every single thing. So they've been she went to every single state and so that began her love of it and then

22:19 Per reading she she was well-read in all the information about

22:26 The kings and queens of England. She was like fascinated with with all of that and she made it her life's dream to want to go to England. And when she did she actually took a group of students on a trip there and met up with some British people there who were along the way and the British tour guide like basically at one point. I I wasn't there when he said this but he basically step back and he said, you know, you know more than I do. I thought that she had never been and she was just reading them all the reading and all the information. She just gobbled it up and she knew all the folklore with it and she had you know, she was kind of an amazing memory should an amazing memory. So I've always wanted to go to England to so maybe and you've been taking for years of Spanish so you could go

23:20 Yeah, it's it's them.

23:23 Yeah, it's it's fun to

23:26 To see all this unfolding and I am still I'm a little sad still that she couldn't really get to know who you were difficult. But I feel that you know, her spirit is still here. And and of course, you know, Grandpa helps keep some of the memories alive to yeah, and you're you're his pride and joy

23:49 Wish you were here for both of you. What would you want her to know that she now?

23:55 I don't even know why.

24:02 I would I feel like for myself when when she died. I was a stay-at-home mom and recovering from a terrible back injury and I was starting to get a lot better and thinking about going back to work and I remember her holding my hand and she said, you know, I think you want to go back into Museum work cuz I had left for a while most teaching before I was injured and then and I was thinking that I would but I didn't know if there'll be something in Chico and I have my dream job now and I I've transformed the museum that I work at and people are proud of the work that I do and and I'm I'm really proud of the work that I do and

24:47 Sometimes I wish that she could see that but I know I feel like she's here. Yeah, I think I would just I mean I don't even know where to begin, but I think I just I've never really known what it's like to have a grandma so cuz I never knew, you know Daddy's parents either. So just that experience is what I would I thought I would like I guess I missed that for you to because my mom's mom hurt, you know, your great-grandma Mabel and my grandma I

25:22 I treasured those Summers I get to go spend cuz my parents are travel. I'd spend my brother and I would go to to Grandma's house. Then it was just like a treasure box of crazy that you know, she has a wonderful grandmother just a different breed a one-time tried to be both Mom and Grandma to you which is not possible. But yeah, it's I do feel like I'm sorry, you didn't have that experience and he's going to be sorry for that, too.

25:53 Did she know how her influence move to towards Museum or yes? Yes. We did we talked about the story. I thanked her for that many times and it's funny because she she did remember the story and she

26:12 But she wasn't sure she had done it. Right. She she she sometimes thought maybe she should have been you know, a raving lunatic parent yelling at the principal and the teacher and you know, try to exchange City Hall with she's in those trying to do too. But the I think the net effect was that this was this was actually the right way to handle it precisely and so she s a i I feel really really grateful. One of the gifts of cancer is a long goodbye and we were really able to you know, we always had it there wasn't really a lot to mend but just little things then and we were able to really talk about it all in and Tuesday open and warm about at all. And yeah, so and she

27:02 Yeah, it says her the reason she actually chose chemotherapy over just kind of letting it happen, you know, because there's kind of always has little I think there's a little bit of a controversy sometimes were you think that maybe you would choose to just not put any chemicals in yourself and just let the life go in a natural way, but she she made it. She actually had a trip planned to Greece and that there was a conscious choice between grandma and grandpa that they could have they knew they could have this one Cruise in Greece and see the Greek Islands that they'd never seen.

27:35 Orca art or not and do all the chemotherapy and maybe get another year or two out of it, which is what they decided. She got two more years and instead of like 6 months with this one great trip, but the reason they chose that is because she wanted to spend as much time with her grandchildren if she could and and it's too bad. I don't remember I know.

27:58 Yeah, I know. I know. Yes. She is and Zachary to who was even younger. Yeah didn't get any memory of that either. I think maybe because you know, we live further away to I'm I remember the funeral but that's really good. Yeah. Yeah.

28:27 Well, I guess you know, I'm I'm really glad that you you have your grandpa like we were saying before and he reminds us of stories sometimes.

28:38 I'm at and we there there's actually a picture of us all of the family even with Grandma when she was undergoing chemotherapy and had lost her hair. There's a picture of my brother and his son Zachary and I'm his wife and and you know your dad Philip and how we went to the the museum museum in St. Louis City Museum with a newer Museum and it's kind of now a place that we go as a pilgrimage and we just went Christmas ya ya ya great crazy Museum in St. Louis is brand new and it was brand-new right before mom died. And so she she made sure we all went to you know, she was real real Advocates of having fun but in a kind of education away and this museum is tell tell him about the crazy Museum of this. It's just they have like a giant kind of

29:35 Jungle gym, kind of structure thing all made out of mice like giant the hearts of our airplanes and you can climb through it and it's like five stories maybe even though I don't know what to do and it's an indoor artco out to yeah, we're making candles and and weaving socks and school. It's so it's like this whole art Cooperative at the same time. They're building the museum interior and it's a jungle gym, but it's also has like a dark place big like ceramic whale that you can climb through in it, and you can climb in the ceiling and in the floor and their slides that we got to all different places if I like crazy movie Brazil, I mean, it's like Coco we're all done me at school. That's all so gorgeous. I actually fun. So that's true that you know, everything's like a mosaic, So your grandma can introduce you to a museum to try and I'll take my kids there. Yes it it's a family tradition Museum going.

30:35 Thanks. I I love sharing this moment with you as you're growing older. It's you know, it's really precious to me that you still willing to hang out with me cook. No problem. Thanks for hanging out with me.