Lucy Spielman, Donald Spielman, and Kate Spielman

00:04 Good morning. My name is Kate Spielman. My age is 51 years old today is May 15th. 2015. We are in Omaha Nebraska and I am interviewing my parents.

00:19 Oh, my name is Don speelman. I'm 88 years old. Today's date is May 15th.

00:28 2015 in Omaha, Nebraska, my partner is here. Who is my wife? We've been together for quite some time.

00:40 Hello, my name is Lucy Stillman. I am 86 years old today is May 15th. 2015. We are in Omaha Nebraska and my relationship to my partner. There is my husband.

00:56 Okay. Well they've already asked for your age. So dad your 88 mom you're 86 and just to get started. I thought I'd go through the numbers really quickly.

01:15 You have been married for 65 years. It'll be 65 on December 28th. So you were married in 1950s. Congratulations. Thank you.

01:29 They had you worked at mutualofomaha for 39 years has a little longer than that. Really. I was going to Creighton University and I work at Mutual of Omaha. It was a very good job from 5 to 9 5 days a week.

01:50 Doing various tasks, but

01:55 It was a very good part time job, and that's how I I was going through school on the GI bill at Creighton.

02:04 And my mother had got me in.

02:07 In 1947 the second. Well, it would be the first semester of 1947. It's what I started and then you graduated from Creighton University in 1953 F350. I want summer school. So it was a little bit number of times and it was made it in less than 4 years. Congratulations. So you graduated from Creighton in 1950. And then you were married six months later in December 1956 months. Later.

02:49 How did you meet are you? Yes, we met at a mixer and a school gym at st. Joseph's Hospital School of Nursing.

03:01 He came I met a rather interesting because I like three or four days later. He calls on the telephone and asked me to go to a movie with him and I don't remember who it was and I had to run back and ask my roommate Sunday. What does them live her boyfriend lives with strong and she's an old take a date with him. So I did that was our first date.

03:27 Did you remember when he came to the door to pick you up?

03:37 So you dead you working me to Omaha for 39 years and you retired in 1987. So I was doing the math you've been retired 28 years.

03:50 I think you're well. I think it's more like 20 decade short of being retired as long as you were employed. But before you started at Mutual Omaha, you had a number of jobs growing up in Mitchell South Dakota crew up boom years when I was born in 1926 and then Along Came 1929 and that started.

04:32 Did the Great Depression and also we were going through a drought?

04:40 And so those were the years where they probably have heard of dust storms where we had plowed up all the grassland the plant corn and so forth and it was very dry. And so and Wendy South Dakota is very windy out there. We're dust storms and they were horrible things everything I got blowing around.

05:15 All the Depression was on.

05:19 Oh-so in your IR Ferber reading you had a job in a movie theater or yes. My first job was selling newspapers on the street and I did that at about age seven or eight somewhere in that aged rhyme and then I

05:48 Had paper routes and times were tough because there were even college students delivering paper routes in order to get a little you know, Ur little money and so it was very very tough. Mot money was very short. So you were you were delivering papers in 1941, and I think I remember you that's when you found out about Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is probably everybody remembers we got news that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor

06:27 And I at the time I was I want to a movie that afternoon and when I got out of the movie I heard about this Pearl Harbor attack and the Mitchell paper.

06:44 Decided they do their first extra Edition cuz they didn't publish on Sunday. They did was 6 days a week.

06:53 What's the time so I delivered papers that not on that evening and that was the beginning of the warrior Warriors that we were cut we had were coming out of the depression.

07:12 And

07:15 So from then on why it was the Warriors. So you you enlisted then when you were a high school graduate when I was a junior in high school.

07:30 Because

07:33 Long-term I wanted to go into the air force or the air. It was the Air corps that time. It was the Army Air Corps and the Navy had a navy and I wanted to be to get into the

07:50 Airplanes because that at that time why it was like being an astronaut is now, you know pretty well right on a deleting Edge. And so I also I had another

08:10 Short-term

08:12 Motiv Bowl because yes, because I was

08:19 There was an Mitchell of what had been.

08:28 Spot where you could go for high school students and it was you know a restaurant not a restaurant but really just like a Cantina pool hall in drugstores and so forth and place to dance and pool tables and ping pong tables and so on will then we were Sioux Falls is the biggest city in South Dakota. We were 70 miles from Sioux Falls, but there was an airport in Mitchell and that was used by the

09:10 Sioux Falls trading school for a place to land in case of an emergency and so there were about 8 or 10.

09:23 Air Force people there

09:28 Silver of a emergency landing Legacy Landing interesting

09:37 Recreation Center was also the Uso which was the United service something or another.

09:51 I also wanted to short-term was I would get in the Air Force.

09:58 I & II could play pool on the table in there. Otherwise, it was restricted to the military only.

10:10 I signed up for that because I like to play pool with pool and

10:20 So

10:24 Lucy at this time you were in York, Nebraska born and raised in York, Nebraska on a farm.

10:33 Tell me what led you to Omaha?

10:40 I was the oldest of six children.

10:43 We were a biennial definition for living on the farm.

10:48 However, everybody else was for so we did really as children. We didn't really recognize that.

10:55 But by the time I went to HighSchool I had to live in town with my grandmother because we couldn't drive back and forth and I had a good taste of sativa and

11:10 Really all I knew was that I did not want to.

11:15 Live on the south 80 and raise chickens and can corn the rest of my life. And so they're only actually two options open to women at that time. You could either teach or be a nurse and I had an aunt who was a nurse and I just thought that would be great. And so that's how I ended up going home. Aha. First of all, I graduate in high school. I was only 16 and so I couldn't get into nurses training.

11:45 And I got a job at the Army Air Base in Geneva, Nebraska and I worked there for

11:53 What city that was in the spring and I work until like November and then the war was over they close the bases. So I transferred Omaha at work for in the Federal Building downtown on a live with my grandparents who lived in Omaha?

12:10 And I did that for almost a year and then my grandfather paid my way to start at Duchene college and I did that for year-and-a-half said that I was old enough to get into nurses training.

12:26 So you have to be 18 or older to beginners that drink I see you weren't on the highway all by yourself when you were just 17. Yes.

12:36 I go forth going back and forth. Okay. So your first job then in Omaha was as a nurse's aide or no. I was a secretary working in the Federal Building downtown.

12:47 Didn't know that what was your first nursing? What hospital did you work at?

12:56 I was trying to send Joseph through your program here in Omaha. And so I

13:04 I stayed there for a while, but then after I got married I went to work at the veterans hospital here in Omaha per year.

13:15 I got pregnant.

13:18 I was always getting pregnant. But anyway, just to clarify I am not your only child. How many children do you have? I have nine. Okay, so here and then I was a stay-at-home Mother after that.

13:36 Okay, you are stay-at-home mother until you.

13:40 Tell my Uncle Charles goes to okay tell Bob was too so that would have been 1968 and then you went back to work cuz you've you've completed not one but two master's degrees. Well, the thing was I had a bachelor in nursing from Dish and college by virtue of the fact that I had gone there two years. I went back a semester after I got married and finished my bachelor's.

14:09 But that there was no National League of nursing then which had to approve all Bachelor schools. So when I then I went to Creighton and

14:22 I got my bachelor's in nursing.

14:26 Then I started a bachelor's in education because she said you have to have or a master you have to have a masters in order to teach here so I can halfway through the Masters and they open up on Master Turtle child health at Nebraska which was what I was teaching with Maternal Child Health. So your dad looks at me and says finish one thing before you start up another so I finished my Master's in education in the summertime and I took classes at

14:56 Do University of Nebraska Med Center during the winter, and I finished in 1984 in 1984.

15:06 And then you retired from Creighton University as an instructor of was it Pediatrics and nursing parent-child nurses in 1987?

15:19 And tired because he was going to retire.

15:23 And you retired Navy 700k 4 years before that when Bob was in high school.

15:34 And not 40 years 2 years. Anyway, I looked at him and said you are not going to retire when you still have a child at high school. So he didn't and he was like a Boiled Owl for quite a while. Then when the next buyout opportunity came he took it so I retired cuz he's I'm going to try you can work if you want to so I retired natira tart So the plan was it bad if I remember that you were going to buy what?

16:08 An RV in the plan was to kind of spend your retirement years on the road.

16:19 Now you never did by the RV you guys did retire in 87, but I was looking at a list in your travels. You've been to Africa and Tanzania and that was one of the trips.

16:35 That the zoo put together you were a docent for the zoo for 18 years Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha, and then your other travels included.

16:45 Ireland Scotland Central Europe Eastern Europe, Australia, Hawaii

16:53 Mexico Canada, Alaska, and then the Scandinavian countries that had them all and then you went to Greece once solo know. I went to Spain Portugal Morocco.

17:11 Saw the Rock of Gibraltar. I did that. I was presenting under sheet paper. Okay.

17:17 Anywhere, you didn't go that you wish you had gone to.

17:23 I wanted to go to Antarctica and go down the Amazon River.

17:35 Well, that would have been we got tired of we stopped traveling or what. I'd have gone down the Amazon River next.

17:44 Choice

17:47 How about your leg? Your favorite trip was you said my favorite trip was to Ireland. I've been there three times. I love our old.

17:59 Okay. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you was we talked about Pearl Harbor and then you you were both together in Ireland for the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Do you remember where you were when John F Kennedy the assassination where you were when you heard about it?

18:24 I just don't remember I do I was scrubbing the basement steps with soap and water.

18:31 You crack me up at the reason I ask is I was born in March of 64.

18:38 And he was shot November of 63, correct? So you were pregnant with me when he was shot. Yes, and you were scrubbing the basement floors steps. Somebody came in the side door and said Kennedy's been shot. I just remember that very clearly.

19:09 Okay, Jose the question so

19:13 In addition to working at the movie theater, and then you you delivered papers. There was a

19:20 You also Scoops. No dad in Mitchell South Dakota for some folks that own the jewelry store, correct? And they sounds like what we call flip houses back then they would they would fix up houses and sell them and move on. They were what a childless couple and they were they were probably in their fifties somewhere in that age range and right across the street from us and just they bought an overactive a house and remodeled it and fixed it up and they lived there for a couple of years and then sold it and moved to another wreck and did the same thing they like they enjoyed the rebuilding and you know creating a livable house again.

20:18 So did you when you proposed to Lucy here? Did you pick out the ring in Mitchell South Dakota or do you buy the ring in Omaha or do you remember? Oh, I bought the ring no more. Okay, A friend of mine.

20:38 Well kind of a friend anyway.

20:42 His I don't want to see his father or his uncle.

20:49 I had connections with jewelry. And so I bought the Stone from him and then had it mounted. I don't remember what whether he did it or somewhere else. But anyway, I got the engagement ring after hours.

21:18 Do is it the juice have the same ring if you ever lost it or no? I still have the original you remember where you were when Dad proposed to you. I remember.

21:32 When I was in the nurse's training you had to get permission, you know for overnight because you're lived in a dormitory from the nuns and I used to spend my overnights with my grandparents who lived here and it was a something you did very seldom, but there'd been a big prom and big dance at the truck and we were all dressed up over to the prompt and afterwards we came back to my grandmother's and he put on shut record player, which was a big deal and he put on Tchaikovsky's.

22:07 Dance of the flowers for flying anyway, that's when he gave you my room.

22:13 I didn't know that yes, so you were married.

22:20 December 28th, which would been the week between Christmas and New Year's and you were married on a Tuesday morning. Yes.

22:29 Well, they make such a big deal out of weddings anymore. You know, it's now it's a full week of stuff.

22:37 What do you remember about your wedding day?

22:45 Didn't know no actually it was clear and cold the sun did Shine that day and of course I got dressed on the farm.

22:57 So you were married in York Nebraska at St. Joseph's Church, right? And what I remember is in the my mother coming in the bedroom and putting my veil on and she was crying.

23:11 And I also remember that.

23:14 There were people keep coming through our house and they were her relatives and they were dropping off gifts. And then everybody wanted to see the bride, you know, my aunt's at Septra and laughing and giggling and it's just running with all this commotion. Finally everybody left and we got in the car and went to the church.

23:35 So Dad, where did you stay in your could you too I was in a hotel. Okay. I rented a car and Omaha because I didn't have a car and drove to York and

23:54 Stayed in the hotel and I remember my wedding day is probably one of the most uncomfortable days in my life. I had been drinking the night before a brother and family and friends and so forth people that were coming to the wedding.

24:14 And that's all I was and that we were catholic and they had all kinds of rules that you couldn't.

24:26 Read or drink anything after midnight tonight before you were going to receive communion and had to receive communion. Are they think we been luck?

24:44 Ahead of our schedule so

24:49 It was a horrible hard day and drinking and not being able to drink water.

24:58 It was a

25:01 Really? I'm a problem 65 years later. We couldn't have been married during a more prosperous time because it followed World War 1 all that you guys were coming home and because of the depression and the war there have been no construction there. You couldn't buy a car everything needed to be done in order to build roads. We need to build Bridges, etc. Etc. So

25:43 For us economically. It was a good time in America and he had a good job. We were both college-educated which was

25:51 Very different from our parents time. I worked the first couple years. We were married, even though we had all these children he got raises every year which was nice. He's a great money manager tighter than the bark on a tree. I might add however, we survived.

26:17 And now we have had a wonderful retirement as result.

26:21 Well, I often think about Dad you were at Mutual Omaha in you started an accounting and then you said that they eventually kind of looked at this thought of maybe using a computer and you said some of the early computers at at Mutual were about the size of this trailer right? There were huge because there was a

26:47 It was before the days of the

26:53 Well, anyway computers had tubes in them like radios and stuff like that. And so they were very big very very create a lot of heat used a lots and lots of power.

27:10 And that all came about you know in

27:16 Future Times by 1958 they had two pretty well.

27:22 Brought I brought the computers out where they were actually useful in. Okay.

27:29 So yeah, I was always in in what was then called data processing?

27:40 So I was what was then titled A programmer?

27:44 And we're

27:47 Did

27:49 Programming a certain email County accounting functions and business functions and so on like that. It was just beat just getting started. So you guys use like the Punch Cards and then you were gone to the cards that. Matrix paper that you used to bring home that was perforated and we would make banners and goof around with weed wrapped gifts in it. Sometimes green and white head like a green and white striped to it. I remember that

28:23 And so you've gone from the very beginning of computers all the way to you now go to The Genius Bar at the Apple Store and you sit with your Mac and get your one-on-one trainings. And now we've allowed Lucy Into the club the same thing. Up today. All I reached my maximum of my testical technical ability. So I'm not trying anymore. Well with you still have the iPhone we've got to get you and moved over to that someday.

29:02 So

29:04 You

29:06 This is what I remember the most about.

29:09 Riding in a car with my parents or my dad walking to work every day to Mutual Omaha and back from our home and Dundee is Believe It or Not PBS programming in NPR me was always out in the car or we would watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or Sesame Street Live or whatever. I think it's kind of interesting that we've come full circle and now we're sitting here and storycorps Booth talking about

29:39 You and PBS and NPR both of you have been life or I don't know if this is lifelong, but you both play bridge. When did you learn how to play bridge the card game to play bridge in college? That was what you did between your 10 minute break between classes Bridge. Yes, you dashed into the Red Room and a smoker and we played bridge and nurses training I play bridge.

30:10 Where did you learn to play bridge probably high school?

30:17 My mother was in a bridge group and I often had to fill in.

30:26 After I got home from school, which was 3 or so, somebody had to go do something one of the players and so I'd sit in and hold their last hand or last couple of hands. You know, I fill in for them.

30:47 And so that's why I learn how in high school you can buy a mother and her her Bridge group.

30:54 Read I've never played but we do have jeans kind of an Enthusiast. She loves to play bridge. So interesting towns are pool player jeans are bridge player. Marianne's are farmer. She's got the farming Heritage there and

31:11 So

31:15 Quick question about the zoo. You went when you retired in 87. Did you start your once a week?

31:23 Docent responsibilities at the Henry Doorly Zoo right away, or did you but when I

31:39 Oh a couple guys. I knew anyway were were in the zoo as docents. And so and talking to them like I decided that if that'd be a good way to spend my time. I am so within a year or two while I was I became a docent and I was a docent for

32:00 Oh, you know almost 20 years.

32:05 And I it consisted of taking tours mostly school kids through the zoo and introducing them to all the animals and what they were, you know, and a couple of questions, you know.

32:25 Things that they like to know about a lion or an elephant or whatever and just moving through and because he school kids would come in and they said they'd spend an hour or two hours in the zoo as a

32:42 A field trip

32:45 So it in addition to the docent at the zoo you were also you both you and Mom were volunteers with the Dundee Memorial Park neighborhood association in The Flower Basket. That's the one thing you kind of worked on together.

33:03 Finally after how many years to working together on the same project in on the flower baskets and you would drive explain the watering truck to me.

33:15 Well, it was a pickup truck with a huge water intake on the back and I drove and your dad said the back he had a hose.

33:25 And he would water a basket and then turn it off. I would drive down to the next basket and he would turn it on and water go on. The thing was we did it at 5 in the morning for there was no traffic. It was difficult enough and small streets where there were lots of cars parked pickup truck was it belongs to Dan Rock was a volunteer and he loaned the truck. What I thought was Gary kurz pickup truck started. When was Gary kurz, who was

34:07 TV Anchorman some and he had retired and he was also

34:16 Farm interest, I think he came from afar so we had a big pickup truck and that's what what we drove power steering and you kind of got thrown around in the back of that truck quite often. I swiped. It was the worst.

34:41 I drew blood be growing.

34:45 But it was it was just an interesting thing. It was a very good.

34:58 Activity 4

35:01 The residence of the

35:04 For the neighborhood association

35:09 Well, that's far baskets are beautiful and they've become kind of a staple or I am almost.

35:16 They brand that neighborhood and it's I think it's thanks to your efforts early on and getting danrock to bring the idea to the association and then Youjizz you guys did everything you hung the baskets on those cold May mornings getting those brackets and stuff up and then hanging them. Will you even went down to Siri or

35:37 Saddle Creek Nursery & plant of the pots

35:43 All right. Well, we're getting close to the end. What do anything else? I think we didn't cover any highlights.

35:54 Oh, I can't think of anything.

36:02 Probably the fact that I'm the mother of nine children.

36:09 Oh, I would say the same thing that's quite an achievement and we kept them all out of jail and drugs and so forth. So what made the life more exciting and so

36:30 I'm glad it's over. I think that's what in Rich my retirement never 60s and 70s worth very difficult time to raise children. That's the only you know fly in the ointment of Arnprior.

36:46 Marriage and Parenthood and it was the sexual Revolution that drug.

36:53 Shane all of it was very very difficult to people who had no experience with it to parent children through that. Of time.

37:06 Yeah, you weren't you weren't alone. Everybody was in the same boat just seemed like everybody knew more about it than I did and it seems like we made so many mistakes or we could have presented had we known this kind of thing.

37:22 Everybody turned out. Okay is your dad so so nobody answered up in jail all my children if it's successful, so

37:30 Did you did a good job? Thank we thank you very much.

37:38 All right.

37:40 We do okay.