Patricia Small, Jean Coffman, Jessica Kellett, and Scott Coffman

00:01 Hi, my name is Jessica. Kellett. I'm 30 years old today is the 27th of December 2011. It's 11 p.m. We are in Tiburon, California and I am the daughter of Patricia small and the niece of Gene Kaufman and the cousin of Scott Kaufman.

00:27 I'm Scott Kaufman M32. It is December 27th. I'm in Tiburon, California and Gene. Kaufman is my mom.

00:42 I'm heading small Kellen to I'm age 65 at the same day. Does everybody else here in this room? It's 11 p.m. It's in Tiburon, and I'm here with my daughter and my sister Jean and her son Scott. Jean.

01:00 I'm Gene Kaufman 73 and I'll ditto everything else that just everybody else said we're in Tiburon and

01:11 Pat's going to we are going to discuss some of the Dixon family.

01:17 I'll give you that.

01:20 Okay Jane and I actually had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to do the same thing for our Father David small. So my daughter just got out of be fun to do something about our mother Florence Dixon mom and

01:40 A little bit about about our mother obviously her family tree. She was born to Louise Ziegler who was born January 29th 1875 died on December 1954 at the age of 79 Louise Mary Thomas Dixon who was born on August 15th 1869 died. My mom has us on the same date and 1951 Christmas Day 1951 at the age of 82. So they were a farm family. So my mother was raised in a farm along with many other brothers and sisters with which my sister Jane will talk about but my sister Joan was kind enough with her kids to ask her mother a little bit of her history, which our parents did

02:40 Talk about too much. And so this is what my mother wrote to my sister Jones kids 11 years ago in the year 2000.

02:52 So she talked about her grandparents and her side and they came from Baden-Baden Germany, which is a beautiful area in Germany and they settled in Syracuse New York. They came for the opportunities offered in America, which many many people did.

03:12 My mother is Grandfather worked as a cutter in a man's tailor shop.

03:18 He was also a very good violinist and played in concerts, which is very interesting to know because I don't think any of us ever knew that through three girls and one boy were born in the United States.

03:34 My mother is grandparents on the Father's Side came from County Cork, Ireland. They came first to Montreal Canada, which a lot of people did when they came to this country where they live for a short. Of time and then came to Syracuse New York. They had four boys and three girls are born in the United States are my mother goes on to say after her mother and father were married. They purchase a large firm which all of us siblings certainly got to see a number of times and her father obviously grew a number of vegetables and fruits on that farm.

04:18 He also dealt and firm real estate. So he doubled in the real estate market even be on firm property.

04:27 My mother was born and brought up on this large firm where she had four sisters and four brothers and Gene can talk about those four sisters and brothers. My mother was the third and then family, but Jane can go into that. My mother said she had a very happy childhood and I think she truly did.

04:48 The grammar school where she attended was a one-room school and the teacher taught all a grades obviously some great teachers back then.

04:58 Her father was Trustee of the school and hired the teacher himself and pay the school bill. So I was a very involved and very interested in the school's his kids school education of the school was heated with a coal stove, which I'm sure all of them were at that time. The school was a short distance from home when mother went to high school. She had to walk about 3 miles which was a little bit considerably longer walk on a daily basis another happy. We never knew about my mother because we didn't think that she was over Italy athletic because I was not a thing that they talked about but obviously one of the things she mention was that she loved to play basketball. So that was very interesting that that even girls at that time had the opportunity to play basketball. So it was in high school and obviously there was something that you very much remembered she talked a little

05:58 About what she liked and what she saw obviously the Wright brothers and the Depression and World War. I know poor people at the time etcetera, but but basically she and I think the rest of her family had a very happy life on the farm and then when I'm there, so I'm going to turn this over to my sister Jean and she can talk a little bit about what she knows of the family history from the Dixon sign.

06:26 Okay. Now the first three did not go to college the last 6 all one attended college and Fran became a teacher.

06:38 Ampeg work for General Motors for yours

06:45 All of the boys started working on the farm and then bill.

06:50 Dropped out and got I don't know what else he did. But he stopped working on the farm the others work the farm until they passed away.

07:04 Aunt Lou, I think live to be a hundred and three Uncle Joe was just short like a month short of a hundred when he died mother course was 96

07:20 In the oldest tree or the ones that live the longest all the others died of various elements.

07:28 Considerably younger ages

07:33 I got another little note here. Let's see.

07:39 I'm fixing to whip already said this about where they came from about mother herself. That's one of the things I remember is Jane and I were little and Joan had them for it and she leave my mother used to collect rainwater off of the awnings to put big pans out there and she'd wash her hair and then she'd rinse it with a rainwater. Sheila's always got some lemon in hers because mother want to was blind when she was young and mother wanted her to keep the blonde hair turn brown with age like most people so but mother gave it a valiant effort.

08:26 I can't think of all the things right now. Can you think of anything?

08:32 Pitter patter. Yeah, obviously mother did most of the cooking for the for the entire year that we were there and she was a good cook and dad was very much appreciative of good food, but obviously didn't like anything spicy. So we had basic food but obviously of the highest quality all the time and mother at weather was Mother driven, maybe it was because of her firm background when we sat down to eat especially dinner. It was a formal dinner you said down the table was set. Yeah why everyone had a beef potatoes vegetable salad and dessert which is very typical. I think of firm life you were hungry. I sat down together as a family and you ate your dinner. So I have a feeling that came from my mother upset in the dining room because the breakfast nook that they added on to the house as a family got larger would not home.

09:32 All of us so we had to sit in the dining room because it was a family of eight.

09:38 It was a nice place to have dinner every night and there was a big.

09:44 Rounded window bow window

09:48 People got watches eat dinner of his height as they drove by but it was it was fun to have dinner. I mean, we all talked and chatted.

10:01 10 + years ago used to speak a little bit of the Bible at the dinner table every night.

10:10 Unfortunately, that did not last 4 years.

10:15 Everything else though. I kind of remember those Bible stories may be a little bit more than Jean did because I was he when Dad got out of the Bible stories. It was always the Old Testament who would always embellish Upon a Time. So mother would kind of cringe when Dad would go off on a tangent about some of the Old Testament stories, but he just love to do that. But he made it fun. It wasn't sitting you in a church and listen to Somebody preach. They were fun stories that that were real life stories that I think my father even though he was basically an agnostic. He know he was a more of a Christian than than a lot of people and certainly respected mother being a strong Catholic. So if there's something that you need and I can say is that mother was a very strong Catholic in terms of her upbringing maybe convention where all these kids went to school.

11:10 Your mother insisted that we all go to a Catholic school. We all went from grammar school through college all six of us.

11:21 And we'd go to Mullen to Rosary church every Sunday morning mother driving us there and go in and Monsignor McDowell will be there to greet us one time. We came a little late to remember this pain and he made us kneel at the communion rail through Miss mother was mortified, but Monsignor without was really

11:47 I don't want to say the word had said I think they will work. Yes. It's kind of what I was thinking.

11:58 But then the school's parents didn't have much input. It was just what the nuns and Priests decided we would learn and how we would learn it.

12:10 And there was the gym that Rosary burned down when I was in grammar school, and I didn't build one for years later.

12:20 For recreation. We just had yet eat lunch at school. Sometimes sometimes we go home actually more we will walk down and then you just sit out by the playing the schoolyard for recess and go back in and this is through the winter and summer good weather and Van.

12:44 If they didn't have was very much.

12:48 And then the other thing that I can think of to bring up to

12:52 Mother obviously made sure that we were all dressed properly every morning. You were all well fed, you know, we have a lot of oatmeal cereal. That was a special. We have a lot of hot chocolate with marshmallows melted on top of here's Jean the Milkman would deliver.

13:18 Maybe three times a week and the battles had all about 3 or 4 in of heavy cream on top. It was. That's what we poured over cereal for breakfast all the time. Now, it sounds like oh, but it was delicious then.

13:39 The mother was a good excellent Baker her pies World standing.

13:45 We all wish we had her Talent with the pie line with.

13:50 Oppenheim she was invited for dinner. She had to bring pies specially to Jim's.

13:58 Okay. Yeah, I mean my mother obviously was was elderly when she married her father. She was basically in her.

14:09 Late 30s, Jamie and calculate this for me real quick and dad was 20 years older than she was so, you know the six of us the six of us came along pretty quickly and so mother was a very busy woman with her six new-found children and and managing a big house that Dad built for her to raise her children. And so she certainly made sure that we were always dressed properly we wear uniforms at that time. So it was easier for school, but, you know our parents and never ever drove us anywhere we want and we walked probably a mile and a half to school.

14:54 Each day and back and then many times he would come back home for lunch. So it's just no big thing. We have rubbers we had boots. We had leggings. We had all those things that you would put on in order to March off to school everyday. So never once would you ever be offered a ride to school because it was bad weather. You walked and all six of us did this for eons of years, but mother was raised which it goes back to her parents is a strict Catholic and so obviously all those kids were raised in Catholic schools. So so her parents had the wherewithal to send their kids to Catholic School, even though they're relatively free. I'm sure.

15:42 High School know that I didn't know

15:46 Okay. Well, I thought it would be basically all went to to Catholic schools. Maybe that's why mother enjoyed basketball in the public school system. But anyway, so so I think a lot of how we were raised was was a function of how my mother was raised in her own family if I can put the two together and but mother was was obviously very much of a housewife. I think she was extremely well-educated she met Dad when she was working at Syracuse University Deb is extremely successful man, who'd you know, I had spoken about before he had already had one wife and and one child and he meant mother was terribly smitten with her and her friends would always talk about how much they were terribly in love smooching all the time on the road.

16:46 Well, you know cars at my dad had and what not and then they eventually alok and soon had the six of us kids. So it was someone difficult to raise six kids yourself to a lot of work. We had some help you no overtime Florence band slack was one that comes to mind when we were little and that lived in the house with us, you know, we have cleaning ladies and all that sort of stuff. But basically it was our parents that raised us and gave us the values that we have today, and there was the same type of experience. I think that my mother said in her know that she had a happy

17:30 Child putting I think all of us would say the same. We had a happy childhood, which is important, but we all had value system and that came from both of our parents and mother was on the quiet side and a gene and I you just tell the story Jane about, you know, even how how maybe there was some rigidity but yet how much Freedom we had.

17:56 I really didn't tell us things that we couldn't do but you knew what the line was and you knew enough not to cross it. I don't know how we learn that but we it was just an Unwritten rule.

18:11 And if everyone of us felt the same way growing up, but I don't remember ever them ever telling me no, you cannot do that. I remember the first time at 4. This must have been just a leap of faith because he grew up in Scotland when he was young and they evidently just read the Bible on Sunday. They couldn't do anything for Dad to let me go downtown to a movie on Sunday had really be a leap of faith for somebody put that background, but he did it.

18:46 He tried to be.

18:50 Free thinking everything Kerr

18:57 But through it was always implicit. And as I said, I have no idea how we all ended up that way. But because I did not tell us you cannot do anything.

19:09 But there was a line And Then There Was X like I was the oldest one.

19:15 I wanted ski so bad when your for Christmas. I thought I'd after 2 years finally had them talked into it.

19:25 And I went through that house from the top third floor. We call the attic third floor down to the basement went through every room out to the garage Christmas Eve and I couldn't find my skis I was devastated but they were sure I was going to just go out and break my leg. So they said they didn't get me the next year. I did get skis but it was it was a long hard pull because they were worried about it was a dangerous sport that neither one of them knew anything about

19:58 I didn't have enough faith in me to know that I have the ability to do it. But yes, yes it can you think of any of my other stories TV came about what would Age James when we were kids.

20:20 Oh, yeah, I mean I wasn't too far behind you. But anyways, I'm in here comes TV and you know, we were actually one of the earliest ones in our neighborhood to get a TV and when and when we gotta do, you know if you would have one TV and I was just a certain size scream and we would watch all TV together.

20:44 So so at you watch whatever your parents watched, obviously I Love Lucy comes into mine big time and they were other shows that were on every week that we always watch together and we watch these shows Ed Sullivan Show. We we we laughed I mean they were entertaining everything was entertaining but it was family entertainment and we would laugh as a family I'm in here is eight of us and one room. So I'm sitting on the sofas. I'm lying on the ground whatever and those are still happy memories to this day. I Love Lucy obviously use it as it is a comedy show which one is more funny than the other. You know, they have a lot of reruns. I would Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy how the mistake and one of these shows because maybe we were all you know watching I Love Lucy show that he decided to experiment and so he went into the bathroom, which is right off the living room.

21:44 He took some paper and he must have been fascinated by matches at that time. So he he had that lipto the paper and of course it was a melee going to you know, put this right into water. So it wasn't going to last is a flame for too long. But unfortunately that the toilet seat caught on fire are fire. We stopped watching I Love Lucy and for Jimmy to the stay up and heaviness. Remember, what did I ever get myself in two? But so we have memories of I Love Lucy with Jimmy having a show.

22:24 Aetna did not scold him, but he did make him send that to let seat down and repaint it.

22:33 That was the punishment. But even like Eugene talked about your appearance being kind of on the strict side or not being aware. You know that you don't have to kill yourself change on a slope, but obviously they saw Gene take me out and in a few of the others on the hillside right from the house teaching us to ski so so once they saw they were very readily accepting of it and and and memories of us going out ice skating, you know, every winter and and mother, you know down the dog out Park right next to her mother making hot chocolate when we came back dad. Let me know feat because obviously they were just so ice cold so they were very much involved in our activities not necessary that they would go with us and play the activity but they were certainly will wear what we're doing Ed Sullivan. Obviously Elvis Presley. I got onto to The Ed Sullivan Show at the beginning of his career.

23:33 Henna as all of you know, Elvis Presley Not only was a great singer but always he loved to dance just like Michael Jackson dancing or who followed Elvis Presley and you know, he was so much suggestive us out in his own way and our parents just laugh. I mean they were little bit of gas. We especially dear old mother but Dad just thought that was the greatest thing so you can see over time that dad was a heck of a lot more liberal than mother who I was but in a sense thing as Gene says they never said anything. They just kind of enjoyed it. They never know that they just for show open. So to all those changes and there were occurring over time and unsolved that their kids had values and probably would do very well in that environment of Newfound freedom and music rock music and all that stuff that was coming down the pike.

24:29 I can't think of anything that would tell us a little bit about what your mother looked like and how she dressed and how she kept the house.

24:44 My mother always went to have her hair done once a week and her nails done. She always wore a dress no pants. She wore pants for a few years after dad died and then went back to wear dresses again, but there was a sign of the times

25:05 As we said really if you know what she's a hard worker. I mean just a can of mansion washing clothes for a beginning to didn't have a washing machine that came in.

25:17 Oh baby, I was so I would know everything grammar school, but I don't remember what how old and then she would hang clothes. There was a room in the basement. That was just

25:30 About 10 rolls of clothes line

25:33 And she would hang the clothes there in the winter in the Summer. She had a clothesline outside and she'd hang them all out there.

25:42 But she also loved to play golf. She belong to Bellevue and Onondaga and she lived a good life having working hard and then playing so it's a bit was a balanced life.

26:01 But smaller was short five foot two.

26:05 Not very heavy, since I'd just maybe just a average.

26:12 She always dress when she would go out to dinner and things. I can't remember the name of the suits. They were just Tweed suits that she wore that she bought as Hellman's down in Syracuse.

26:28 And she always looked very neat.

26:32 She wasn't too much in the Hat's a little bit, but

26:37 And that whole lot of jewelry. She had a few pieces of jewelry that she would like and where

26:44 But time she had a good life can't be easy raising six kids that want to go in six different directions and

26:57 So it was

26:59 Interesting to have another question for me. Okay. Do you have a special memory of your mom that you can share with their is from your your childhood or

27:14 Or after

27:18 Mom, what was it? Like when you brought mom your mom to Europe for the first time cuz I know traveling was a big thing for you and me too.

27:29 Dad, always he never learned to travel. He always wanted all of us girls to travel in the United States, even though he came from Europe because you're opposed poverty, and I'm sure mother in her own way so that way to sew one time when mother was 80

27:50 I asked her to join myself and and my husband Jay and Europe. And so I think she had been there once before but that might have been at so weak. She actually met us in Germany and then Jay left and so we we travel to London and Paris and and whatnot. So so here was Mother and as Gene just mentioned mother is always well-dressed, especially when she went out so she she meets Us in Germany and then we flew to to Paris and London them. I thought mother doesn't look real spiffy and she didn't look real spiffy. And so I kind of watched her for a few days and took her out to dinner as we did every night, but I quizzed her which was very difficult for us girls and Jimmy to quiz my mother and say what's the matter mom, but I said, what's the matter?

28:50 And she says I don't want to be 80 years old.

28:56 United just caught me because you just don't think of your parents in terms of age, but she says I don't want to be 80

29:05 And an obviously my father had already died. I'm sure that kind of sad on her mind someone and she just didn't want to get old and get into that situation where you know, you you go away. And so I said, oh you need a pick-me-up and so the next day I took her out and get her hair done. Her hair was at that time some terrible shades of grey green blue and and it turned into a pretty shade of gray and bought us a pretty blue suit which obviously we all have a picture of her in my pants suit, you know, cuz we came home for a family reunions in about time. She was already dating a gentleman by the name of RJ Conan and so she was already kind of, you know feeling comfortable with this life that she had been going there for a number of years, but I think she just all of a sudden you thought about being a t so that was a significant memory for me Sunday because

30:05 It kind of taught me that you know, when we when my father died time she was in her late sixties here. And here we are that age now, so I thought she was old now. I know she wasn't she was young but when she was 280 she was pushing it a little bit and just recognize it. So that was a special memory. She snapped out of it. So you have to give people a lot of credit to kind of realize they're getting old but obvious they still have a lot of life left in them. So that's that's a special memory for me.

30:40 So do you remember I mean get it a busy busy household and you had a lot of lot of Liberties, but also you knew the rules and boundaries. Do you remember your mom is specially but it also your dad particularly like praising or or punishing you or were you all could have part of the pack?

31:12 No, they weren't for your monsters. If you didn't get patted on the back and you didn't get big hugs or kisses and say you did. Well, they just expected it and there was about as much as I just didn't happen. But you knew they were proud of you. You knew they loved you. They never questioned that but they just didn't show up.

31:37 Either one of them.

31:40 So in that way it was a little bit her but that was as I said, you knew there was no doubt they did so it wasn't really hard. That was just what it was loving to read me your love of reading. Just love to read all the women pictures. We have our him sitting down reading a book in the library and he was very well read it could discuss any topic with anybody. He had read a research that are studied it.

32:19 And I think that love of reading is just passed down through the family, which is a great trait to inherit.

32:31 Bryan's kids have them now. So and I know it's a blessing to have that now.

32:45 Earlier today you were talking about visiting your mom's family on a regular basis.

32:52 Well Service on Sundays, what was that like

32:57 Every Sunday mother would go out to the farm to visit with Grandma.

33:04 A few of us would go with her not all of us.

33:09 And mother and grandma would go sit in the living room and Fran Aunt Peg. They join her for a little bit. We might join the fur 5 minutes or so, but sitting on the sofa, it was horsehair Fabric and with your shorts and it was just the most uncomfortable thing to sit in for more than 5 minutes. But as a friend and Peg would take us and we go out and pick strawberries and then they'd make a strawberry shortcake or something like that. But it was Aunt Fran that Peg that took care of us.

33:46 And mother visited with Grandma.

33:49 I mean, it was great getting to know Aunt Fran Ampeg because they were very nice people.

33:57 But it was just part of the growing up and I think the the German and Grandma that she was not competitive.

34:09 Pets

34:13 And she again but never

34:18 Discuss much it was she would arrive when she come to our house for dinner for Sunday or holiday. She would come and she would sit and she would eat her dinner at the but she hardly said anything. I don't remember conversation with her.

34:36 Play a friend that paper always the

34:40 The one that kept things moving then we're really Pleasanton nice people.

34:47 We didn't see.

34:50 The uncle's much they then come in after chores and if there weren't chores, and they weren't they just weren't around the house. They were just off.

35:03 Grandpa was very quiet person also.

35:10 Again, just kind of cold.

35:15 You can see how mother grew up that way and why she didn't change a whole lot but our life I think was

35:26 Not affected by it.

35:31 Yeah, I mean we all hope that we were are a little bit warmer and Kinder with our children's. Yes. I'd like to have people over have fun memories a submissive.

35:48 So what was what was your mom like when when all of the big kids got married? Cuz that's obviously a a big milestone not anymore for us, but

36:06 I'm sure of it, you know any mother, you know Alexa your daughters and hope said that you know over with some reasonable. Of time get married since I was at the last of the six children in the cruiser 5 girls and 1 boy, you know, I think is a used we're on mother kind of wondered if if any of us were going to get married and as it turned out we all got married a little bit later in the life. And then so it was kind of fun being the youngest to watch mother watch especially Jean and Jane know who is going to be the first one and again, they were not be pushy or anything like them people dated and I don't think they said too much about anything but obviously is this Gene said they were not warm and fuzzy mother about, you know taken you aside and asking her about your latest boyfriend or fling or what not. Just probably never occurred with with any of us, which is kind of interesting.

37:06 So that's just the type of woman that she was so but I think that she was happy that one by one, you know, each of us got married, you know, she seems to be happy. I don't think she was overly involved in in the wedding ceremonies are things event. I don't remember Gene you might have a different. Hold on. I think she was glad to see grandchildren, long middle that aspect and enjoy the grandchildren and doing things like we come to the Syracuse when I was out in Los Angeles going to come in and she take him out to Green Lakes for picnics and do things like that or take him for ice cream. So

37:53 Your mom that was being warm and fuzzy. That was her way.

38:01 But it it was interesting. And as I said, you know, I think she was glad to see grandchildren for her sake and French. So I think she wanted all of us to have children. She thought that was in all the bread of life type of thing that you need a net.

38:23 You're a bit.

38:27 So I think one of the the memories that I have Scott and I share was of the the family reunions that we had over the especially at Thanksgiving and I know for all of this the grandchildren that was something really special and in Grandma's ninetieth birthday was was a similar reunions the just in the last minute that we have. Could you just relate that the size of the family that

38:58 That your mom and dad started maybe run through the list Jane married a widower with five children had three more Joan has three boys Sheila has

39:20 Three girls

39:22 Impact gym adapted to two girls and Pat had Jessica so I can't get it up there fast when you can but that it was a very large family when the and the family picture taken.

39:37 It was very nice to see everybody together. And I think she enjoyed all of us being together.

39:47 When the when she was young they had family reunions with cousins and uncles and things like that and then it just kind of fell off and everybody did their own thing, but

40:01 It's always nice to have a family reunions have everybody together good memories.

40:09 Family reunions were always good and then they started you know with with Dad and his family coming to to Syracuse New York and obviously Jane cleanse. I kind of kept up the small family going and obviously her clan was so your Mungus as time went on that, you know, it was it was a big big event. But yeah are our mother enjoyed going to rupture just about every one of them, but I think she did go to every single one of them and tell the family continue to grow and obviously kids having kids so that that tells you how how far are you know, what you start can go on for quite some time. So so that's if there's anything to be proud of its you know, what you left behind and obviously then the numbers are still growing.

40:59 I just got a little Side Story Brian's wedding mother got up and danced with Brian and a couple other people and Brian was amazed and he also was he was the only one that their pension that she would wear shorts. I mean when she was in her 90s and he thought that was phenomenal but an old woman would dare to wear shorts. She had good legs. She was she was attractive woman with you, but they both swear. She had spunk when it when she wanted to afiya, okay.

41:35 Thank you both for for sharing your memories of your mom and Merry Christmas.