The Trip of A Lifetime

00:02 So did it say recording in progress?

00:04 It did, but now that said that that sign that says this meeting is being recorded by the host, and it totally covers you.

00:13 That's okay. That will go away.

00:15 Okay.

00:17 All right, so a few things we're going to do first, we're going to grab a little photo together, because, so Gloria was saying that this is in the way.

00:29 We can't take a photo together.

00:32 Yes, we can. On my screen, I see me and you together, so we can do a great photo.

00:39 Okay. Because what I see is this big thing that covers you that says this music is being recorded by the host.

00:47 Okay, that is odd. Okay. But would you like to do a photo? All you have to do is just smile.

00:57 All right.

01:03 All right. So there's two photos. So that way.

01:08 Gloria, can we get this thing out? I can't see you. Because this sign, which has been the problem the whole time today, this big sign that says this ring meeting is being recorded, totally covers you. It's the center of my screen, and I can't get rid of. I don't know how to get rid of it.

01:28 I don't know either. That's never happened to me. Could you think you can just tap it? Will it go away if you tap it?

01:35 No.

01:38 That's odd. Is it still there? Oh, can you press accept, or are there any buttons on the bottom of it?

01:48 No. Leave meeting or. Got it. Those are my choice.

01:55 Say, got it.

01:58 There you are.

01:59 Awesome.

02:01 Sound right in the right position.

02:05 Yeah. You look great. You're all set. And everything is good. It's reporting. Um, I'm just going to say a few things. Um, throughout the interview, just remember to.

02:22 Be yourself, and I don't have to be anybody else.

02:28 Do what you've been doing this entire time we've been meeting together, just your happy, jolly self. And Gloria said that there would be around, like, a 30 minutes time frame. But I don't want you to think about that. I just want you to speak freely. If we go less than that time, that's great. If we go more than that time, that's great, too. So just however it works out, it will work out. Awesome.

02:55 Okay, let's just see what happens.

02:58 And then the final thing is that we just have this little way of recording it. So I'll do the example. Before I start my interview, I'm going to say, hi, my name is Catherine Grella and I am interviewing Susan Martins on. And then you're going to say the date today. So April 1, 2022. And I am in Amherst, Massachusetts. So you're just going to introduce yourself. You're going to say who you're interviewing. So you'll say Catherine, and then the date and where you are. Do you want to practice that once, or do you think you got it?

03:35 Yeah, just do it. Okay. My name is Susan Martins. I'm in Northampton, and I'm speaking. It's April 1, 2022, April Fool's Day. And now what?

03:55 Who you're interviewing?

03:57 Oh, I'm interviewing Katherine Grella

04:01 Perfect. Yes, you said my name perfectly. Yeah. And that's everything. So, are you excited? You ready to get started?

04:11 Well, I'm a little nervous, but let's. What do we do?

04:16 So I am going to interview you first. I'm also going to put time. I'll just have a time going on my phone, but I won't tell you.

04:26 Okay.

04:26 Just to see where we're at. All right. And let me get my questions up for you. Here they are. All right. All set. And all right. Hi, my name is Katherine Grella. I am interviewing Susan Martins on April 1, 2022. And today I am in Amherst, Massachusetts. So Susan will be talking about the time that she spent both Israel into Italy and just what she did there and her experience. So, Susan, what exactly sparked your interest to go on this trip, particularly to the area that you went?

05:27 Well, I'd always wanted to travel, and I always wanted to go to Italy, so. And I had $2,000, but this was in 1969, and $2,000 went a lot farther in those days. So I planned this trip to Italy. I wanted to be in Florence, and I was planning to spend about six months there and then whatever. And it turned out that I traveled around. I was supposed to meet a man that I had been going out with when I got. I took a freighter boat to Genoa, and I got off there, and I was supposed to meet him outside the american express office, and he never showed up. So I really wanted to go to Venice. Before I went to Florence, I really wanted to go to Venice. So I just got on a train and went to Venice by myself. And I really loved Venice. I mean, it was the first place I really saw in Italy, except that, you know, that day in Genoa when the man I was supposed to meet didn't show up. So I went to Venice, and I spent about maybe five days there. I just got a room in a pension. And in those days, I mean, I would not do that today, but it was a room that had three other people in it, and there were just, like, four beds in the room. And that's where I stayed. And I was there for about five days. And then I wasn't ready to go to Florence yet because I was starting. I had signed up for a class in Italian at the University of Florence. And so I had some time. And so what did I do? I went to Greece. I went to some of the greek islands by myself for about four or five more days. And then I went back and went back to Italy and went to Florence. And I found a little pension which was in a perfect location. It was a block from the Arno and a block from. What's that bridge? I forgot. I forgot. But it was in a very great place. It was, like, the best place to be in Florence. And I got pensiona. And it was a young woman with a baby, and her husband was a truck driver, so he was not there most of the time. So it was just her and the baby and me. And I had a room of my own. And I just explored Florence. And then my class started a week or two after that. And I started going to this italian class at the University of Florence, which I could walk to from where I was. And there were. Teacher only spoke Italian. And there were people from all over the world in the class.

09:00 Wow.

09:01 So that was interesting. And there were two american girls who were much younger than I am. They were like, 17 or 18, and I was 25. And we discovered in just chatting after the first class that we both played the recorder. And I had brought my recorder with me, and they had brought their recorder. So we decided to play together in the afternoon. We did that many times in the afternoon after class. And then. So that lasted about a semester. And then on my way to Florence, I had stayed in Rome for about a week. And I hadn't met an italian mandev because he was in the same pen. He lived in the pension that I stayed at. And we started to see each other romantically. And so he would come up to visit me in Florence on the weekend sometime. And I went down to see him. And then after a few months, I moved down to Florence to live with him. And then while I was there, I had never really thought about going to Israel. Because while I was born jewish, I really didn't know anything about Israel. Except while I was living there, I read a book by Bruno Betelheim, the psychologist. And it was about the kibbutz system in Israel. And I found it fascinating. And I felt like I wanted to go there. And so I did, you know, in about January, I guess, maybe, or February I went to Israel, and I don't know, didn't know where I was going, but I knew I wanted to go to a kibbutz. And there's an office in Tel Aviv that sends volunteers from all over the world to volunteer on a kibbutz. And you work in the fields or. I worked in the laundry, ironing pants for my. But I also worked in the grapefruit fields, and I worked pruning plum trees, at one point, picked grapefruits and picked oranges, and I loved it there. And I felt that was the weird thing, that I had never thought about Israel. I didn't really feel like a jewish person, but I felt as if that was where I was from.

11:52 Ah, I see. Yeah.

11:54 And it was really powerful. And on a kibbutz, the volunteers have a uniform. It's like these blue, like, short pants, but they're puffy, like pantaloons, and they're blue. And they wore a blue hat, I guess, a blue top, I don't remember that. And a blue upside down kind of hat. That was the uniform that the volunteers wore. So I was wearing that. And at one point, they assigned me this kibbutz, had a fruit stand, fruit and vegetable stand on the road, and that Flitkowitz was up the hill from. And they put me there to work because a lot of tourists spoke English. And so I guess it was good to have a person working there who spoke English. And somebody said, are you israeli? And I said, no, I'm american. And they said, you look as if you were born here. You look just like an Israeli, and it's wonderful to meet you. And how did you get here? So I kind of told a story, a bridge story, and I felt like. I felt like I had come home, and I felt as if it was my country, which was weird because I never really identified with Israel. So, yeah.

13:40 So you do think that, in a way, you only felt that when you were there, or did you always kind of, even when you were in the states, have this feeling of that?

13:53 Well, actually, I flew from Rome to Tel Aviv, and in the, in Tel Aviv, in the airport lounge, there were these two american men, and they asked me where I was going, and I said, I'm going to Israel. And they said, are you jewish? And I said, yes. And they said, you'll feel like you come home when you go there, and you're going to love it, because I guess they loved it, and they were american, and I think they did business in Israel, with Israel. And so they'd been there many times. And I did. I mean, I remember when the plane landed. This was where, it was the middle of the night when the plane landed in the airport in Tel Aviv. And I was sitting there waiting because the shuttle buses didn't go into Tel Aviv until I got there at something like 03:00 in the morning. And the shuttle buses didn't leave till six or seven in the morning. So I was just sitting waiting, and this plane came in, and this bunch of people got off the plane, and they started bending down and kissing the street. And then they came into the airport, and they were. They couldn't believe that they were there. And they were kissing the floor in the airport, and they were very excited. And it turned out that they were polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust, and they were immigrating to Israel, and they'd never been there before. And they walked in, and to them, it was coming home. I mean, that's.

15:47 What was your take of that?

15:49 Like, how did that make you feel? Made me cry. I mean, it was just the most amazing thing. I can't imagine how it would have been if that hadn't happened. You know, that was just that I was thinking, you know, these are people who survived the Holocaust in Poland, jewish people. And I, they probably never thought. Never thought they would ever see Israel. And at that time, Israel was doing a lot of repatriating of Jews that were in Europe and all over the world and were bringing them to Israel. Israel was trying to bring people home, people who were jewish from all over the world home. So this was the one that I witnessed. But that probably happened a lot in those days. And it was incredible.

16:49 Seems like that would be incredible to witness.

16:52 And I never felt jewish before. You know, my parents weren't observing. We didn't observe them. We didn't go to temple. The only thing we celebrated was Passover. And so that was my whole view about Jews being jewish. And suddenly I was there. And as I told you, when I was working in that fruit stand at the kibbutz, the first kibbutz that I went to, and people, you know, thought I was israeli, and I felt Israeli, and I felt as if that's where I had come from, but I'd never been there before. So that was very powerful.

17:41 That is so amazing in any ways. Did you feel that after your trip to Israel, did you have this sense of more sense of connectedness when you went home?

17:54 Yes, I did. And I. I was there. I was wondering one kibbutz for about six months, and then I left. And went traveling a little while, and I went to Sweden. I had met a swedish man on the kibbutz, and he was going home to Sweden, and I went with him. He was not jewish, but he had been in Israel for about a year when I met him. Living on the kibbutz and working, you know, you worked every day when you were a volunteer on the kibbutz. And there were people from all over the world there. So I went and lived with the sim for a few months, and then I just wanted to go back. So after a few months in Sweden, I just went back to Israel, and I stayed on a very different kind of kibbutz. The first one was all immigrants who'd come in like, 1946 or something from Holland, old Europeans who had survived the Holocaust. And it was a very intellectual kibbutz. They had string quartets. You know, when they had entertainment, it was a string quartet and or some other classical, you know, chamber music or something. And, you know, when I left there and I went to Sweden and, you know, and I decided to go back to Israel, I went to a totally different kind of kibbutz. It was started by soldiers. I guess it was before the 6th day war. I don't remember when it was started. But they were young soldiers because it was on the border with Gaza. It was right a couple miles from Gaza, and it was right on the border. So they were a group of soldiers, you know, I guess a platoon or whatever of soldiers, and they were there to defend, help defend the border. And so it was a very different kind of kibbutz. Everybody was young, and they were mostly israeli born sabras. A person whos born in Israel is called a sabra, which is the name for a prickly pear that grows on a certain kind of cactus. And the reason thats what theyre called is that sabra, the prickly pear, is prickly on the outside, but very sweet on the inside. And that's what Israelis were known for.

20:52 So beautiful.

20:53 We like that. The young Israeli born. The young Israelis, they were like, the average age of the kibbutz was 26.

21:04 Wow.

21:05 So, and they had been soldiers when they first settled there because they were settled there to protect the border. But by the time I got there, they were no longer soldiers, but they started the kibbutz. So. And there were volunteers from all over the world there. I mean, not a lot. There were like 25 volunteers from different countries.

21:33 Yeah, I know that you mentioned this being like a home for you. Right. So what kind of elements that you saw there made this a home for you, or how did. How did that become a home for you when you.

21:48 Well, I loved it, and I didn't expect that, and I didn't really think I would have any connection to it when I went, but I loved it, and I felt like an Israeli, and I felt it made me feel like a jew, which I'd never really felt before.

22:08 So was there anything about the landscape or anything about just being on those grounds? Just tell me a little bit more about that.

22:16 It was beautiful. Well, I was on mainly two kibbutzin, and as I said, the first one was settled by dutch people who had survived the Holocaust and Holland, and the second one were all Israeli born, but there were volunteers from all over the world because, you know, and we all worked in the fields, or you worked in the kitchen or you worked in the laundry. You know, you had a job, and sometimes you had a job that lasted for months, and sometimes, you know, they moved you around. And so I was moved around, but most of the time I worked in laundry ironing pants, which was not exciting, but I worked in the fields, too, and that was very exciting because you'd be up in the tree and you'd pick a grapefruit and you just tear it open while you're still up in the tree, and you just eat it right out of the peel just there. And, you know, a lot of grapefruits fell. So there were grapefruits on the ground, and they just, I guess, recycled into the earth. You know, there were. Then there were other things that I did there, and the grounds were beautiful because it's like a big farm. And so there were the melon fields, and there were the citrus groves, and there were the plum trees and, you know, the different parts. And I worked in several of them.

23:53 Wow, that's really incredible. So I know that you touched on this briefly, but you already talked about a few of the different figures you met along your trip. Who were some others?

24:09 Well, I hitchhiked all over with Israel, especially. I mean, I hitchhiked in Italy, too, but. And I had a couple of close calls where there were two men in the truck and me, and at one point, they sort of pulled in behind the building, and I just got scared. And so I jumped out of the truck and ran. And they were, you know, there were several situations in which, like, I love Jerusalem, and whenever I had a chance, I would go and spend a few days in Jerusalem. I mean, Jerusalem is just an incredible city, and it's the home of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. There are three there's the wailing wall, which is like, you know, what's left of the temple, the first temple. And then there's the holy Sepulchre, which is the first christian church. And then there's the dome of the Rock, which is a mosque. And it was Muhammad. It was supposed to have risen to heaven on his horse from the, where the dome of the mosque, dome of the rock was built. And they're very close. They're like, within blocks of each other, and they're like the art of those three major religions. And it's just, it feels very holy. And, like, I loved walking up and down the streets were all, like, pathways, and I loved walking up and down those streets. And it's now full of shops, you know, with a lot of souvenirs and stuff, but interesting things. I bought a dress that was a muslin, floor length dress with all this embroidery on it, and I just fell in love with that dressed. And, wow. You know, I did bring some home some things, some other things that I bought there. I remember I, they have beautiful woven rugs. And I sent my sister, I think it was her birthday or something, I sent her this beautiful woven, hand woven rug from there. And it was. It was just very exciting, and I felt like home.

27:01 Susan.

27:02 And it was very nice, even though I had no identification of it before.

27:10 Yeah.

27:11 And they don't still feel that way anymore, but I did for years. And it was when I was having my son in 1979, my labor coach, my husband couldn't be with me because he was starting school in New York, like, ten days before my son was due, so he had to go to New York before I was giving birth. So my friend there, my best friend there was a labor coach with me, and she said, what do you want to do when you're in labor and you have hours and hours of labor before you? And I said, I want to take a bath because I love taking baths. And I'll tell you about my trip. So I did that, but I only had 2 hours of labor, so it didn't cover. Then I had to go to the hospital, or I would have had my baby in the bathtub.

28:27 What a special moment when your son was being born. And now you're telling me about your trip today. Maybe in a way, it's coming back for you a little bit, maybe. Yeah.

28:39 Yeah.

28:41 Tell me about some of your favorite foods you had along your trip.

28:46 Well, in Italy, lost a lot of pasta. In Israel, the food was very different. You work for a few hours early in the morning, you'd start working at 06:00 in the morning, and then I. 09:00 you'd go back to the, you know, the main kibbutz where the common house was, where everybody lived, where everybody ate, where there was a kitchen and a big dining room, and what we ate around nine in the morning or something after we'd been working in the fields for a few hours. And there was a big bowl on the table, and in it was a couple of onions, a couple of tomatoes, a couple of peppers, cucumber, you know, a bunch of vegetables. And then they came around with the carrot, and they had eggs. Sometimes they had hard boiled eggs, and they had different kinds of eggs. And so what people did was they cut up all the vegetables and make a salad, and then they put eggs in, you know, mixing eggs with a. The salad, and that was. That was like breakfast. And sometimes they came around with hot cereal, and I love hot cereal, so I often had that, too. And then you go back in the fields and you come back, you know, for, like, late lunch, and I. That was the main meal of the day, where they'd be meat and vegetables or fish and vegetables, you know, all vegetables that were grown on the kibbutz. So, you know, they'd pick them and put them in the kitchen, and that's what you ate. And then usually work stopped at around two in the afternoon, 230. And then you had time to rest, and people took naps then. Cause they've been working since six in the morning. And then dinner would be something simple. I can't even remember what dinner was. Cause the main meal was at lunchtime, at what we saw as lunchtime. But that's when they had their main meal there. And then at night, sometimes it was entertainment. Like at the first kibbutz, they would have foreign films or spring quartets or soloist classical soloists. And at the second kibbutz, where the people were younger, there was a lot of folk dancing and singing folk songs in the evenings. And there were movies, but the movies, there were, like, american westerns, you know, whereas in the first place would be french films and films.

32:03 Wow. So, from a little bit of what you said, it seems like the kind of times that you would each day were different than in the US. Or can you speak a little bit more on that?

32:15 Very different. Yeah, especially in the kibbutz. Because in the kibbutz, you worked, and you worked in ways that you didn't work at home because you worked in fields where picking grapefruits or, you know, hoeing antelopes and stuff like that were pruning plum trees, I remember. So that was different kind of work than I'd ever done before. I was a teacher, definitely. I had been teaching from when I was home, so that was very different work. But I loved it. I loved working in the fields and the peking oranges and grapefruits we had to climb over ladder, and then you're in the tree and you have a big bag hanging over your shoulder and you fill it with oranges or grapefruits, whichever you were picking that day. And then, you know, when it was full, you'd empty up into a huge crate and they'd take that away. And the best ones went to Europe and the United States. The best fruits, you know, they'd sort them, and the best ones would go abroad for sale. And the ones that were not so great went to Israel, you know, were sent all over Israel. And the worst ones, which were not bad at all because they were all so good, they were all freshly, you know, we ate on the caboose.

33:50 Oh, nice.

33:51 Yeah.

33:52 That's very interesting, the way they send different people.

33:55 It's funny because at one point I had to sort peaches and put them in, you know, the best pile and. Okay, pile, and then the not so great pile. And apparently I was doing it wrong at one point. And the person who was the israeli person who was, you know, in charge that particular thing that day sent me home because I was making wrong decisions about which ones were the best ones and which ones weren't so good. And I remember I was so depressed. I'm thinking, I can't do anything right. I can't even sort peaches.

34:35 Oh, my goodness.

34:36 That's the way I always felt. So.

34:41 I'm sure you were doing a fine job.

34:44 Sure, I would. Was.

34:48 Now, were there any areas that you visited that you felt were just so beautiful a picture couldn't do it justice? Tell me about any areas where you think that applied well, in Israel.

35:02 You could take pictures that would do it justice. But then I went back. Years later, I went back to Italy, because I traveled all over Italy when I was living there. And I went back several times to different places. And there was one area of Italy that I hadn't ever been to. And in 2011, I decided to go, just for two or three weeks, to Italy. And I went to the one place where I had never been, which is one of the most beautiful parts of Italy, the Amalfi coast. And it's the mediterranean coast on the west side. No, on the east side of Italy, and it's these ancient villages, like Amalfi was the capital of Italy in the 14 hundreds or something. It still looks like it's in the 14 hundreds. The buildings are all from the 14 hundreds. And then one was another one that was in the middle, and there was one above it called. I can't even think of it. My mind is. My memory is suffering lately. But there were three specific areas of the Amalfi coast, and I went to all three, and I spent about a week in each one. And that was just drop dead gorgeous. I mean, it's all up on a cliff. The villages are on cliffs. So you're on a cliff and you look down and you're looking into the Mediterranean from the cliff. And the Mediterranean, of course, is gorgeous, and that coast is gorgeous. But where you are is also gorgeous because you can't take a picture of both at the same time. So that was a place where I thought a picture could do it justice, because you can't see both the top and the bottom at the same time. And the combination is so beautiful.

37:13 I'm sure it's definitely somewhere I want to go in my lifetime.

37:17 Oh, you have to.

37:20 Now, Susan, did you experience any hardships along this trip? If so, what would you tell a traveler that is going on this trip for the first time in order to potentially avoid these hardships?

37:35 Well, I hitchhiked all over by myself, and I love doing that. It was just. I mean, it wouldn't have been the same trip without that. But I did have a couple of experiences where I was afraid, because all the one time I told you that there were two men in the truck and me, and they pulled behind the building and stopped, and I didn't know if they were going to attack me, and I was scared. So I got out of the truck and ran. And then there were a couple other times more in Israel, because in Israel, the men. And they were both arab men and israeli men, and they wanted women, they wanted sex, they wanted, you know, so that was scary. And I don't know that I would hitchhike today because it's probably worse today. I don't know if it is. But to me, that was the best part, is the meeting people, people that you got a ride with, and they would tell you their whole life story, and sometimes they'd take you out for lunch or dinner on the road. You know, while you were on the road, they'd stop to have lunch, and they got a, you know, take me out for lunch with them. And that was a great experience because you got to meet the real people. It wasn't, you know, like seeing the Michelangelo, Michelangelo's David in a museum. It was the real people who lived there. That's in Florence.

39:40 What was one of the biggest takeaways you had from this trip?

39:48 You know, that was when I was 25 and I'm about to turn 78 and next month, and I still, I mean, I still think about it, and it was still like the most important thing in my life. It was the most interesting thing I'd ever done where I met people, because I was always very shy and I didn't meet people easily. And so that it brought me out and it gave me all these incredible experiences that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't done it. And if I hadn't done it the way I did it, if I'd gone on a tour with a group, say it wouldn't compare. And it was just an amazing, exciting experience. I mean, I've never had an experience like it since it was a long time ago.

41:01 But the way that you still think about it is very telling to how important it was to you and how much it impacted your life.

41:08 Oh, yeah. I mean, it was, it was like a lifetime thing that, you know, and I feel sorry for people who haven't had experiences like that because that was the essence of life, of being alive and meeting people from other countries and eating food from other countries and seeing the scenery from these other countries. And, I mean, it's all so different. I didn't spend a lot of time in cities. I mean, I did spend some time in Jerusalem because I love Jerusalem, but that's different from any other city in the world, too. And so, you know, it's just like the experience of a lifetime. And I stayed. I mean, I went back after I left, and I went back and altogether I was away for two years on $2,000 because in the kibbutz you were worked and you got paid like sixty cents a day or seventy cents a day or something like that, which is an allot. But you also got clothes, not clothed but fed. And there was that sort of uniform that volunteers work, that that's what you wore all the time in the laundry, washed it and dried it and gave it back to you.

42:41 So I know you talked on this briefly a little bit, but what would you speak on in the importance of travel and what would you tell a young traveler who's trying to look to do something like you did?

42:53 Oh, it's just the best experience of a lifetime, you know, to see other countries sort of from the inside and to meet a people who have lived in those countries all their lives. And just to eat the different foods, like in Italy, the food was incredible, of course, a lot of pasta and other things, too. But just, you know, I lived in this pension in Florence with this young woman who had a two year old daughter, and she could hardly speak English. So we did a lot of gesturing and stuff. So, you know, it's just the opportunity of a lifetime, and it will enrich your whole life, because look at me, I'm gonna be 78 in a few weeks, and it's still the foremost experience. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of experience since that came near to that experience. But, you know, it's still very much with me, as you can see, the way I describe it.

44:09 Yeah, definitely. Did this trip in any way change your perspective of your life and how so? If it did?

44:21 Well, yes, I never would have thought that I could do it, but I was actually, when I decided to do it, I had been in therapy, the psychiatrist, for four years, because I was always very depressed, and he felt that it was time for me to end therapy. And we spent the last three or four months figuring out what I would do, planning it. And he had traveled a lot. So I said, I want to travel. I want to go to Italy, because I had heard that the italian people were the friendliest people in the world, and they were. I mean, the italian people are just so wonderful and open and smiling and giving, and, you know, they want to get to know you and you get to know them. That's what they were like everywhere I went in Italy. And so I thought that would be a great place to go. So. And I always loved art, and there's such gorgeous art. I mean, if you took an art history class and you had a textbook or several textbooks, the things that were in those textbooks, you could see in person in Italy.

45:45 Many of.

45:46 I mean, not all were italian, but a lot of them were. And so I wanted to see those things, you know, where they lived and just, I knew the people were very friendly, and I felt that I needed that because I was shy and, you know, they're just very welcoming and they want to know you. And I forgot what the question was.

46:19 You answered it beautifully. Yeah, okay. It was how it changed your perspective of your life, but you answered it beautifully.

46:27 Just to meet other kinds of people is such a wonderful experience. Everybody should experience that because they're so different from Americans, and it's you know, and there's a whole world out there and in every country the people are different, but they all have something that's wonderful to get to know.

46:53 Yeah. It's just a whole new world out there. Yeah.

46:56 Yeah.

46:57 We speak to that a lot. That's all the questions I have for you. But you did such a beautiful job. Oh, my goodness. You did amazing.

47:08 Oh, well, it's just, you know, telling my experience, so it's not as if I had to make anything up.

47:18 You speak with just such a beautiful flow and.

47:24 Thank you.

47:24 Made me learn so much.

47:26 Good.

47:27 And now I want to go out and travel.

47:29 Well, you should as soon as you can. I mean, I know you have more schooling to do, but as soon as you finish that, you should go. I know it'll cost a little more than 1969, but you can stay in hostels. I just stayed in hostels one or two times because you're in a big room with a lot of people and. But they come from all over the world, so that's interesting too.

47:59 That's very interesting.

48:00 Yes.

48:01 Yes.

48:02 Although it's not like hotel, you know.

48:07 Yeah.

48:09 I don't need hotels. I slept on beaches. I slept on roofs of buildings.

48:20 Oh, my goodness.

48:21 Yeah. So like in Greece. Greece is beautiful, too. I really enjoyed that. And in Greece, you could pay, you know, the equivalent of maybe a quarter and sleep on the roofs of the pensions and you just. You'd have a sleeping bag or a blanket or something and you'd sleep on the roof or. I slept on a lot of beaches. And again, you have your sleeping bag. And there was one time, I think it was in Greece, where I had found this little. That was on an island. It was someplace on Crete and it was a beach and there was like a small alcove right next to the ocean. And somehow I had been hitchhiking and I got dropped off there. So I walked down to the beach and I was going to sleep on the beach. But there were about four or five other people there. There was an american man, there was a german couple and a dutch person, I think. And we were like five people who were there. And I stayed there for about three nights because the five of us, you know, we ate together. We caught a conch one day, a big conch. And we shared that. We ate that over a fire. We made a fire and we cooked the conch wrapped around, with the tentacles wrapped around sticks, you know, branches from trees. And I remember there was this one of the woman in the couple. I think she was from Germany. Or Holland, Netherlands. And she, I guess, was an artist or she was really good at painting. And she painted these little pictures of that setting. And she painted all of the five of us who were there, all doing. You know, one of them was diving off a big rock into the ocean, and the people were doing different things. And she drew. She made paintings of them and gave to all the rest of us. There were like five of us, and she was the one who was an artist. So she did that, and she gave each of us one of those. And I lost it sometime at some point. But I had it for a long time. I had it for years. And then somehow.

51:12 You still have the memory of it, though.

51:14 Yes, I do. I do. And this was. How many years ago is that? That was a long time ago.

51:24 That's awesome, Susan, it was so nice speaking with you on that.

51:30 I'm glad you enjoyed it.

51:32 I always enjoyed it so much, and I learned so much from everything you told me.

51:38 Oh, good. Well, I hope you give yourself those experiences, too, because it really changes your both. Thanks so much, citizen of the world.

51:55 Yes, you're definitely right with that one.

51:59 All right, so now do I ask you questions now? Because I have to run and get my notebook, because I haven't written a million. Notebook?

52:08 Yeah. So we can take a brief pause and just like, get us a water and then recuperate. And then we can do mine right here.

52:20 Perfect.

52:22 I couldn't tell if that was vitamin water or whatever you were drinking.

52:25 Yes, it's water. I mean, vitamin water, but this is. I recycled the bottles. So I filled them with. I wash them out and fill them with, you know, water from my pure.

52:41 Oh, nice. That's a great way to, you know, keep using the water.

52:47 Yeah.

52:47 All right, so I'm going to stop the recording or pause it.

52:55 There we go. Okay, so this is Susan Martins. I'm in northampton, April 1, 2022. And what we decided we were going to talk about that. What Catherine was going to talk about was growing up with her family. And to me this was very interesting because I only had one sibling. She's older, and I don't know what it's like to grow up with other siblings in which we all loved each other because my sister hated me, because I displaced her in the family. And so I don't know what it's like to have like a. Have happy sibling relationships. And Catherine has three siblings. Siblings, right. Two sisters and a brother. And so I was just very curious what that was like. And so these are my questions for her. Well, first I wanted to know the order of the siblings and where she fits in.

54:22 So the order of the siblings is that Abby is the firstborn. She is about two and a half years older than me, and she's currently 23. And then I am next. I am about to turn 21. I'm the second born. And then Sophia is my younger sister. She is a senior in high school.

54:46 And what's her name again?

54:49 Sophia.

54:50 Sophia. Okay.

54:51 Yes, Sophia. Or we call her Sophie more than we call her Sophia, but Sofia. And then my younger brother is Ben. So Sophia is about two and a half years younger than me, too. So the spacing between us is, like, pretty equal, which is good, because it's always made us so close. And then Ben is the baby, but he's not really a baby anymore. Pretty old, but he just started driving. He's 16, and he's the only boy.

55:25 I wonder if that was hard for him to be the only boy in the family to have three older sisters.

55:31 Yeah, I mean, it definitely has its challenges with him, and he's always kind of presented that to us when he was younger. He would always be like, why can't you just come outside and play sports with me, and why can't you just. We'd say you'd be a boy, and we'd say, because we don't want to do those kind of activities. And that was sometimes hard for him to understand, but in the same way, we would force or not really force, but he would participate in a lot of the girly activities that we would do. So growing up, my two sisters and I, we had a ton of american girl dolls, which I don't know if you know what those are, but they're these dolls.

56:18 I know.

56:20 Yeah. You know what an american girl doll is?

56:22 Yeah.

56:22 So Abby, Sophie, and I all had, like, one to two american girl dolls, and we had the outfits, and we had the little american girl doll babies, and he'd say, ben, you want to come play with us? And he would have his own. He actually had one of these, like, boy american girl dolls, which they didn't make very many of.

56:44 I didn't know, but I think my.

56:46 Parents got it for him just so that he could feel included, because so many of the time, he was like, why are they doing all these girl activities? Why are they playing with makeup? And he just didn't understand that. But we never wanted to do any of the things I remember. He would have these car sets. Like, he was so fascinated by cars and Legos. So cars and Legos.

57:14 Having raised the sun, I understand that.

57:19 Yeah, he definitely had the things he liked, but Legos took on a bit of a, like, we both could play with them. It was kind of a gender neutral toye because it's just building, you know, and it's like building houses, and you can get really creative with it. So although he was so obsessed with legos, that was kind of the common ground to which we could both play, because he loved legos. We loved legos. Or I'd say we didn't really love Legos, but we would tolerate them. Be like, yeah, we'll play Legos with you if you play dolls with us. But it was good. It was definitely interesting for him. And I know I was talking to you about this previously, but he formed really, really strong connections with all of his guy friends from the time that he was very little, because those were the brothers to him. And even, like, our male cousins, my mom's side of the family is really. They have five kids, and four of them are boys.

58:31 Good.

58:32 Youngest is a girl. So it's almost like the reverse of our family, where, I mean, add one more kid, but they have four boys and a girl, and we have three girls and a boy. And the funniest thing is, in our family, Ben is youngest and he's a boy, and in their family, her name's Alita. Alita is the youngest, and she's a girl. So they're all around the same age to us. So they would always come over, play with Ben, and those were also, like, his brothers. So he really had those outside sources that he used.

59:07 But that's good.

59:09 Yeah, definitely good.

59:16 Okay, the next question. I was interested because I know my parents didn't prepare my sister when I was going to be born, and she hated me from the minute she saw me, and she couldn't believe this was happening to her. So what I wanted to know is, how did your parents prepare each sibling for the next child that was born? Like, did you know it was going to happen? And did you talk about it a lot beforehand so you knew what was going on? Did you feel comfortable with it once the next one came?

01:00:01 So that's a really good question. My mom was always good at involving us in her pregnancy. So we would put our hands on her belly, and we'd get to feel the baby, and we would read a lot of books about, like, new baby sister and new baby brother. And I know at least when Sophie came, I. I never knew a younger sibling. And I. My mom would say, you're going to be this protector to Sophie, you get to be her big sister. There was this kind of award that came with that and this, like, sense of excitement in me because I was like, I'm gonna be a big sister. I'm a big girl.

01:00:42 I'm going to teach her how to walk and talk and a little bit.

01:00:46 I know. And for. So I was, what, like, around three when Sophie was about to be born. But I don't know, it instilled this, like, sense of excitement in me because I was just like, I cannot wait to be a leader. You know, when you're young, you're seeking that, like, independent, and I'm a big girl. I, you know, you're being potty trained, and you're always trying to be independent. That that was one of the things I remembered most. But my mom did a great job with just, like, I think it was just in the way that she got us excited for the baby, so that when they came, we were like, yay, they're here. And I just remember going to the hospital and running upstairs and just getting to hold my new siblings, and that was so exciting. It was a really, really exciting part of my life.

01:01:35 That's great that she did that great for you. And look what a great relationship you have now.

01:01:42 I know. Yeah. When we got to the hospital, so it was so funny because Sophie was actually almost born in the car because my mom was braiding Abby and I's hairdouse right before we went to the hospital. And I remember my dad was like, Bethany, we need to go to the hospital right now. You know, you're in labor. Sophie's going to be born. But my mom said, oh, I'm okay, I'm okay. And she held it off. But Sophie was almost born in the car.

01:02:10 Oh, really?

01:02:11 Yes. By the time that my dad, like, dropped my mom off and they put her in the wheelchair, they rolled her upstairs. We were parking, but by the time we got in the elevator and took the elevator upstairs with my father, Sophie was born.

01:02:29 Wow.

01:02:29 So it was that quick. And then.

01:02:34 That's great. She didn't even yours be born that way.

01:02:42 I know. But then we all went downstairs to the gift shop, and this is specifically core memory I have. We picked out this little bear. It's like, like, this big, and it was like, sophie's bear. And I forget what she named him. She named him, like, berry or, you know, those little names that children use, like, if it's a blue animal, it's like Bluey, you know, because they don't know any other name other than something associated with the animal? But, yeah, that was her favorite bear. We remember it. We always remembered that bear because we're like, that was the bear we picked out for you in the hospital. Then my dog got to it, and it, like, chewed one of the eyes out, so it only had one eye.

01:03:29 Well, his character.

01:03:32 I know. Still. Still the same amount of specialness to her, though.

01:03:37 Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. So I don't. I think this is. That was combined with the next question, but the next question was, how did you feel when the next one was born? So that's. You answered that question.

01:04:08 Really? Yeah, but I can talk a little bit more on it.

01:04:11 Okay.

01:04:12 When. When Ben was born, it was a little bit different than when Sophie was born, because Ben, like, seeing a boy and having a baby brother instead of a baby sister or only knowing females in the family, at least other than my dad, was, like, so foreign to us, and we were just so confused by it. We're like, why does he look so different? You know? Because we would. We'd go around, and my mom would. She would prepare us with the tools of, like, changing his diaper, and you'd play with him, and we'd like to be, like, mini moms. So Addy and Sophie and I would all, like, take turns. I remember Addy came up with this chart, and she was like, this is your task, Catherine. You are going to dress him on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, because she was. She loved to be the leader. And we said, abby, why can't I come up with the char? And she'd say, because I'm the oldest, and I'm in charge. She liked to be bossy like that.

01:05:16 Well, that makes sense.

01:05:18 Yeah. But I can see why she was like that. It was, you know, that idea of, like, I'm the oldest. I'm the ruler of the household. So, yeah, we had this chart of who would do what for Ben. So we like to be the mini moms. The mini moms. And whenever we got the task of changing Ben, which was always the worst job, really. Why does he look so different? We wouldn't understand, you know?

01:05:48 Did somebody explain that to you? I mean, how did they explain that to you?

01:05:54 I mean, my parents did explain it to us. They're like, he is a boy, and this is, you know, this is why a boy is built differently than a girl. And the differences between a boy and a girl, we. We learned a lot through books. Like, my parents just loved reading to us. There were these, like, Al Sebeska books. I don't know if you know that children's books author, but those were our favorite because they were about, like, fairies and forests, and that was our favorite thing to read about. So, yeah, we just learned a lot through books, and it was a good way to learn because you saw the picture and you were able to learn in that way.

01:06:36 Yeah. That's great. Your parents sound wonderful.

01:06:43 They really were.

01:06:52 So how old were you when your brother was born?

01:06:57 So when Ben was born, I think I was around six or maybe like five and a half.

01:07:03 Uh huh.

01:07:04 Yeah.

01:07:07 So that must have been a big surprise, that he looked so different.

01:07:14 It definitely was a surprise, yeah. The thing I remember most about Ben being born was that because my mom almost had Sophie in the car with Ben's pregnancy. She was, like, extra cautious. So every single week she would be, Stephen, I think he's going to be born now. And she would go to the hospital, and then we would be so excited because we're like, oh, baby brother's coming. But then she would call us up and she'd be like, no, it was actually false labor or false contractions. I don't know those terms, but, yeah, false labor. Just because any kind of symptoms that she thought were associated with labor, she would go to the hospital and take the precautions. Same thing to happen.

01:08:06 Yeah, yeah.

01:08:07 Especially after Sophie.

01:08:09 Yeah.

01:08:10 But that was one of the things I remember most. One of the times I was in preschool and I remember my dad, like, rushing to preschool and pulling me out early. He's like, we got to go to the hospital right now. Ben's going to be born. And I was so excited. And then just that, like, level of disappointment I felt when I, I got home and I was like, today was the day, you know, because I was so excited. And I told everyone at preschool, I was like, I gotta go. I'm gonna go meet my baby brother. And then the next day, I had to go to preschool and say, you know, he actually didn't come. Sorry, guys.

01:08:48 When he did come, it must have been disappointing.

01:08:50 It was disappointing, but it made up for it, because it was so exciting the day he finally did come.

01:08:58 Yeah.

01:08:59 Which he came in a snowstorm. The best of conditions, right? I just remember we're at. We were at home, my grandmother was over, and the worst, worst snowstorm, it was February 12, 2006. I want to say. Does that make sense to those? 2006? Yeah, yeah, I think around that. Or 2004. 2006. Somewhere between the time and, yeah, just like one of the worst snowstorms. My parents had to go to the hospital in those conditions, Addie was really the only baby that came smoothly because I also caused my mom, like, complications. She had to actually go by ambulance. Ambulance because her stomach was hurting so bad. My mom always tells me she was like, she knows, so I'm a gymnast, and she was like, you were just doing gymnastics in my stomach before you were born. And that's what she claims as to why I caused her complications. But, I mean, I came out all right. So that was. That was the thing she was the most worried about.

01:10:16 Yeah. So what I want to know now was, what's your role in the family now? You're not the oldest. You're not the youngest. What? You know, do you each have a kind of a role in the family, and what's yours?

01:10:41 I was talking about this briefly with you, I think, last week or the week before, but we all kind of hold different roles in the family. Abby, for so long, was like, you know, she was the oldest, and she was that leader to us. But as we became more maturing age, we kind of learned from each other, you know, like I was telling you, there are so many things that I am so proud of Sophie about and so proud of Ben about. And Abby, of course, too. You know, Abby got her first job out of college, and she's doing so great with it. And Sophie was the captain of her varsity soccer team and, like, led her team throughout the entire season. And Ben is on varsity basketball, and he's succeeding, and he's doing great in school, and he's part of model senate at school. And just all of us are really coming into our own, and we're finding what makes us happy, and we just can learn so much from our differences while sharing that similarity of being siblings.

01:12:01 What is it that you're really good at? How do you see it and what you're really good at? Because you gave something to each of your siblings.

01:12:11 So my siblings always say that my talents come from how artistic and creative I am. I can see a lot of things in a creative light, and I love. I've always loved to do all kinds of art, and, like, in a lot of my projects growing up in school, like, my teachers would always be the ones to, like, keep my work and show it as the example, because they'd be like, this is a really, really good job. It would usually be because of possibly, like, the picture I drew, or they just loved the way I did art. So that was one thing. We all took piano also growing up. I don't know if I mentioned this, so I took piano for 13 years. Years. And then Abby took piano the longest. She did it for about 15 years. Sophie and Ben kind of wanted, like, once they got into middle school, they wanted to explore more of the sports side of activities. So they did piano the least. But we all grew up with piano lessons because my mom and my dad wanted us to have that music. Musical music, musical ability. Great. And in a way, my mom and my dad always wanted to give us the things that they didn't have growing up. So my dad, when he was 40, he had to take up music lessons all by himself and learn how to play the guitar and learn how to play the piano. And he's so fantastic at it. He has that creative brain where he can hear a song in the radio and just play the chords on the piano, and it's so amazing. But that was all taught to him by himself. And he just thinks, you know, how good could I have been if I was given this when I was young? So that was the philosophy he adopted when he enrolled us all in piano lessons when we were in kindergarten. And they just never wanted to have any doubts of what our abilities could have been if we weren't given those tools. So they always give it. And I'm so thankful for that, because I don't. I don't thank them enough, and I really, really should. But I should just sit down one day and say, like, thank you for always giving us, like, all of the tools that you wanted us to have to be great in life and find out what we loved. Even Sophie and Ben, you know, they didn't stick with piano, but at least they were given that tool to explore, you know? And same thing with sports. I'm so thankful that there was never a sport that I brought up to my parents, and they turned it down, and they said, no, you can't do soccer. You can't do this. You can't do that. They were always so willing to be accepting of our interests and accommodate them in any way that they could and help us. And that was something so special.

01:15:10 That's why you're such a wonderful person. You had great parents, and your family is so great. You're very lucky. Not everybody has that. You're very lucky. But they sound like such loving parents, and as if they were able to give you everything they wanted to, too.

01:15:34 Yeah. And I know a class Gloria was talking about. If you were to leave this interview for someone, like, who would you leave it for? And you can think of this in your interview, too, Susan, but I would definitely leave this for my parents and just in honor of them and all they've done, not just for my siblings, of course, I leave this interview for my siblings, too, to know. For them to know all the ways that they impacted me in my life and will continue to impact me in my life. But a lot of it is for my parents, too, because it's only when you get older that you really appreciate all of the ways to which they were such good parents. And now that I'm at college, it's sad, but I think. And I'm like, you know, I. There were so many things about my childhood that I took for granted. And it's only when you're at college and you're not surrounded by your immediate family anymore that you realize, you know, the things that you miss. Like, for example, Sophie and I did gymnastics together. I remember I told you about that.

01:16:47 Yes.

01:16:47 And sometimes we trained so hard at such a young age. We were so fascinated by gymnastics that we would go probably 13 to 15 hours a week. And when you're like nine or ten, that's a lot of commitment. Like, think a young gymnast body going 13 to 15 hours a week in training and running and doing strength and conditioning. And it built our bodies to be very strong, which is something I'm thankful for. But in a way, it took away part of our childhood because we didn't get to see friends as much. And we really became so close and we became each other's best friends because of all that time we would spend in the gym together.

01:17:32 But you're so lucky. That's so great.

01:17:35 I know. And I could talk on my experience in gymnastics. And I stayed in gymnastics for a while. I stayed in it up until I was in high school. And I did varsity my freshman year. But then due to, like, some, I didn't really like the environment and the coaching wasn't the best at my school, so I just focused on coaching from that point on in my life. But I could speak on my gymnastics experience. But the one thing that I wanted to say was that when Sophie and I were younger, although we would go to gymnastics super, super late into the night, I think it was like we'd be getting out around 845, so we wouldn't be getting home until nine. And that's, you know, you're, you're in middle school and you still have to do assignments. Not as much as high school, obviously. And my whole entire family would wait up at 09:00 so that we could have family dinner every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Oh, my poor father must have been so hungry by 09:00 on Wednesday, Friday. But they did it because they loved us and they did it because they thought that that was important for us to eat together. I'm really happy that they did that. And in so many of the ways that they made these accommodations and my life growing up are ways that I want to incorporate into my own family when I have it, because they are really special.

01:19:13 Yes. That is really special.

01:19:17 I know. It definitely teaches me a lot about, like, what I would love to do in my own family when I start it, so. Yeah, it's crazy how family can shape future family and traditions and.

01:19:29 Well, it's nice that you have that. Those wonderful memories so that you can pass it on.

01:19:36 Yeah. I'll always hold those memories close. Definitely.

01:19:41 Good. That's great.

01:19:44 Yeah.

01:19:47 So those are the only questions I had. Is there anything else you want to talk, say about your family? I mean, you've said a lot, and, I mean, I have a really good idea of what your family is like.

01:20:06 Yeah.

01:20:08 Anything you want to add? Just.

01:20:11 I could just. I could speak just briefly on my relationship with my sisters and the excitement that I have that we will always have this strong sister bond. Sophie, I told you, is coming to UMass next year.

01:20:31 I know.

01:20:31 So that's going to be so exciting because we've already planned out the times that we could go see each other, obviously, with having our own friends, but that's super, super exciting. Okay.

01:20:41 We have different dorms.

01:20:43 I guess we will. So I'm going to be living off campus in a house, and she's going to be living on campus just close to campus. So. Yeah. That sister Bond is just something that I'm so excited for us to carry through life.

01:21:03 Yeah.

01:21:03 And it doesn't put down my relationship with my brother because, of course, I'm so happy about my relationship with my brother. But sisters just have this way of, you know, getting to know each other. And of course, I miss them when I'm here at college, but I know I'll see them soon. And we always pick up right where we left off when we see each other. And we go out and we share our coffee and we chat and we talk about boys. Still me, not so much because I have a boyfriend. They'll say, how's Garrett? He's good. And my mom always says, she says, when you guys all get husbands, your husbands can be friends and you can do things together. And that's just a part of life I'm so excited for.

01:21:57 Yeah, that'll be nice.

01:21:59 Yeah, definitely. And then that's everything. But thank you so much for interviewing me. And your questions were fantastic.

01:22:11 I hope so. I wasn't sure what to do, but that was both interviews, I think, were really good.

01:22:18 Oh, they were so good. It's so nice to talk to you always, Susan.

01:22:23 This is tea for me to talk.

01:22:25 All right, bye.