Virginia Breen and Daniel Breen

00:01 And Daniel Breen. I am 26 years old at says date is Tuesday, March 30th, 2021. I am here in Little Rock Arkansas and I am with Virginia Jenny brain. And she is my mother and I am for Kenia Miss Jenny brain. I am 74 years of age. Today is Tuesday, March 30th, 2021. And I am in Little Rock Arkansas. And my conversation partner is my son Daniel Breen.

00:47 Get to be here. Thank you for talking to me today. We have a lot of ground to cover you had a very interesting life and I hope to have at least half of the adventures that you've had in your life in my, in my young life Safari. Well, I'm very happy to be being interviewed by you because you are a reporter for our local National Public Radio, affiliate station and you're usually interviewing people well-known people in politics or medicine or education in the state. So because they're my mom, you're not going to get off easy.

01:47 Would buy you some really happy about this, but you have a lot to talk about. I'm just curious. Have you ever really I guess maybe recounted. You're not your life story necessarily, but have you ever been interviewed or anything like remotely like this at all?

02:07 No, I don't think I have that interview. Let's start at the beginning. I guess, tell me about where you're from a little bit about your family growing up. Well, I was born and brought up in Worcester, Massachusetts.

02:37 And my

02:42 Family was of Irish descent.

02:47 One can one part of scotch though and big family cousins on my mother's side, and I guess for just for a cousin's on my father's side and my father worked in the post office. He was supposed to Clark and he had served in World War II.

03:22 And my mother also served in the Army in World War II. She was an Army nurse and she cared for soldiers who were brought back from the war. So, yes, she she was domestic and then she also later worked as a nurse. So she would be very busy if she were around today. She would be very busy. I imagine that I didn't think about that. I wanted to see you probably have some some strong feelings about that. Will what was it?

04:22 See, who is two years younger and we have been best friends for life, LOL. I was just all I know about having siblings. Like, I've learned from media and it seems like siblings don't always get along very well, but it seems like you two are thick as thieves. We had our disagreements when we were younger, I have to admit, but is he can for his paint? The picture of growing up in in Worcester, you know, serve like a I don't I don't know if it's like a working-class town of growing up there and started this post war in 1950s America. What was that like for you and your sister name?

05:22 Attended a wonderful School Nelson. Place School.

05:28 And we were encouraged to Excel and probably also to be extremely obedient. And I think that kind of hindered people's expression. What do you think that was like a cultural attitude of the times? He evidently, I think it was like the white Protestant even get any slack because you're an Irish Catholic or the act like a wasp culture was

06:16 Rather strict strict, I would say and but

06:25 One thing that I certainly noticed was we didn't get much education in science student. See now. You're always I look at the books that you read in I see the liner notes and it's just like you probably one of the greatest like analytical Minds that I know and that's saying something but I think I mentioned that you had a really good school starting out here. Just when I asked what what sort of planted the seeds in that school for you.

07:02 Well, one thing I was very competitive academically, very competitive and

07:13 So you really tried to excel to have the best grades or contest science fairs? Well, yes, and also I think it was to stay in this group of people who were very bright and intelligent and part of the whole school.

07:40 That was pretty much the underwater sea in science.

07:59 Almost never hit. We didn't even have her science textbook.

08:04 And so science consisted of about once every 3 or 4 months.

08:12 Someone would come from the Natural History Museum, and she would have all these stuffed animals, Taxidermy animals, and she would say this, and this is the word shock. And

08:37 This is a rabbit are they would bring the same animal?

08:42 Surprised nothing has changed. It still a raccoon. But however Everyone by surprise. I think that was 1957 and it was everybody that it was such a scientific and technological advancement and he we were just looking at woodchucks and rest. So that there was this big effort made to change and get more science courses in the school, but we did have

09:34 One student in our class. I'll just ate his birthday with Richard and he designed this like a diorama of a Sputnik and he had a close wire clothes hangers around the room on top of the blackboards. And he had this model of Sputnik that he made and he had it tied with strength so that it would go around the room when he pulled the string and go through the loops of the coathangers. And so we had our own little version of Sputnik there in the shower.

10:22 That's amazing. Well, that's interesting that it was such as you know. I can't really imagine what sort of a cultural shift would feel like as he said everyone in America that shocks. You know why? I don't know. I can't really compare that to anything, you know. Certainly has lived through big moments in history. But what does that mean? How big was that you were in elementary school? Like you said then this even like you got the sense of the child of like, oh, this is a big deal. And then it's launched this whole exploration, this space-age. Yes. Well, then from a personal point of view when I talked to Junior High, two years year-and-a-half, two years later.

11:12 I went to a new brand new school that was open and he had all kinds of lab facilities and we were studying was called and your mouth and jaw.

11:35 Math formulas and multiplication tables. You learned about how this was derived and number Sears, bases base ten, before we just numbers, we did. So,

12:02 There was more delving into how things were and experimentation and analyzing against then in elementary school, in which everything was just, you kind of memorized and have to learn. The spelling words and new Newfound lake is appreciation for science and math and technology engineering, all those fields that, you know, we know of America is being so good at today. Was that all brought on by a price?

12:42 We have to beat the Russians or was it more of like as an actual curiosity or wanting to be the best in technology and things like that? I think it was that the United States wanted to catch up with Russia. And so there was suddenly this interest in science and also especially with Aeronautical Engineering

13:22 And one of the early rocket scientist, Robert Goddard

13:29 Came from the Worcester area and I understand he was a professor at Clark University in Worcester, and he started sending up Rockets.

13:46 Very early long before Sputnik went up but people thought he was somewhat crazy and

13:56 It's no, he didn't get a lot of appreciation for what he did until after I went up and then when I was in junior, high, our Honor Society was named after dr. Robert Goddard. And he had passed away by that time. But his wife came and talked at our induction ceremony. What was she like?

14:33 Oh, she was, she was lovely and talked about her husband's were and

14:41 How he would have been so happy that to know that people we were studying science.

14:50 That job we were doing well in school. So did this to you the rocket hun? But any sort of desire to be in the science, is there anything like that?

15:05 I wasn't really sure about that time. What I wanted to do sometime some people like my classmate Richard that

15:18 He developed a Sputnik model. He knew he was interested in this excellent. He went on to be a professor of physics and but I didn't really know what I want to do. I really wanted to explore. I'm limp missing is because you are mentioning your classmate Richard. Like, do you think maybe he

15:48 Have had the Liberty to know what he wanted to do because I mean it's not like you growing up as a woman and a girl in the 50s could say oh I just want to be, you know, I didn't meet many women who said they wanted to be.

16:11 Women's her eyes and was somewhat. A limited ensure ice and many most Professional School only accepted then or if they accepted women was a very, very limited number of spaces available for women.

16:36 So, most women.

16:40 Went into traditional professions for women teachers or nurses or dental hygienist secretaries.

16:54 And,

16:56 So, I

17:00 I was exploring when I first went to college. I started majoring in nursing, but I wasn't really

17:12 All that sure that that's what I really wanted to do. And but when I was in college, I read Betty for Dan's book, The Feminine Mystique, and that was very eye-opening that there were

17:32 Many women who had gone to college and majored in various subjects, but then never went out and worked in any of those fields. Most of them.

17:50 And so that really got me thinking about other possibilities and how there should be more openings for women in many of these fields and colleges for women to study professional.

18:17 Subtract the time because of what you you call yourself, inquisitive spirit in your desire to learn and experience different things. I'm sure that the growing up in in that time where women didn't have all of those opportunities are really just the the whole cultural attitude with certain not quite there yet that must've, you must have run into resistance for that sometimes.

18:45 Not so much in actually, in my

18:51 School until I got to,

18:55 High school was much more traditional, and then College was very traditional, but

19:07 By the time I graduated from the time, I started college to the time I graduated everything I changed 69 and 70.

19:22 So you graduated from college and 10 years would have graduated in 69, but I changed my major. So I got to spend another year and I would it time to be in college. That's like the the epitome of that. You know, when what do you think of the sixties? It's actually really like 1967 through 70 that like really epitomizes at least people had to go out and work at changing people's ideas to go back to the issue of feminism one summer in the late 60s.

20:16 Be an issue came out about 7 and my sister and a friend of hers and I learned that the city councillors in Worcester. We're going to have a charity softball game and they would play The Playboy Bunny. Really is a politician's yes, where they they thought this was a good idea apparently. So the three of us decided we had to do something about that. So I had a used Volkswagen Bug car cream, and it had

21:08 Flower stencils pasted on it and we decided that we would have to do something as a protest. And the Playboy bunnies, there was going to be a parade and the Playboy bunnies would be riding in convertibles up sitting up in the back of the new convertibles and they would be driven through downtown Wooster to a local college. And they are, they would play their softball game with a city councilors, who I am, not sure, but I think they were all men.

22:03 So the parade, I started going up Main Street and our little green Volkswagen bug out with a sign on the front that said both the Playboy politicians out of City Hall and we just joined in at the back wheel like the little Caboose at the back of the parade and the Playboy bunnies are sitting up on these lovely new convertibles and they're waving your people along the way and we're just shooting along behind them. And then they have no idea cuz you were behind them so that they think like the negative, the heckling was for that person has sped along and then we got to the college.

22:58 And all the convertibles had gone in to the athletic fields where they were going to play the softball game. And but we may, I'm there just closing the gate. We said, Owen. Can we go in? We are okay. And all the

23:31 Open Convertibles were driving around track in the athletic field at the Regis joined in right behind all the convertibles on the Playboy bunnies waving to the crowd of people sitting in the stands. And then at first people didn't know who is that but what are they doing here? What's that car doing here? And then as women started reading the clacker, in the front of the car, both the Playboy Bunny, put the Playboy politician side of City Hall. Women started standing up in the stands and they were waving their arms and they were jumping up and down and they were cheering us on.

24:31 How to make you feel that must have been exhilarating. I remember one man in the stands, looking in the car and he said, he stays and not bad. Looking like only women who were attractive would be interested in more opportunities for women, or women have careers and just having a break today.

25:05 So it wasn't a acrimonious confrontation or anything, but we were interviewed by the

25:21 Local television station. We did, we were on TV news at night. And then there was an article written in the local paper, just after that. And the headline was Beauties, win at softball as in quotation marks lived protest meeting, not liberal of it women's liberation.

25:58 Made history by making their movements first Worcester protest. So we were the first women protested.

26:13 They are part of Wooster history ends out. What does that mean to you? Like what, what, what message? Were you hoping to get across the People by doing this and why what about it made? It feels so urgent for you to actually get up and do this. Well, we wanted people to take women seriously.

26:44 And she women as something more than Playmates sex objects, that women wanted to have to be taken seriously, and have lives where they could have, being careers and have jobs as well as

27:12 What do you think about? Because earlier you said I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially, like if you want to make a difference, you have to make a difference. You have to do something to it. What do you think about?

27:24 You know, just like a protest movements of today because it's certainly protest has been going on since the sixties, but it seems like it's it's definitely taken a different for him recently. I just wondered what you think about about the young people are out there in the streets protesting. Now.

27:42 Well, it's hard for me to speak for anyone else, but I think it.

27:52 People want to see change and certainly changes needed and

28:05 I guess people will make a statement in the way that they see us.

28:15 I'm sorry. I just have to answer something.

28:20 You said, we talked about feminism and we talked about it and curling up in the 60s.

28:25 Yeah, I kind of want to resist the temptation of just like asking you where you were or what you remember about all these historic things like Kennedy being shot and the moon landing. And I'm okay being shot and things like that.

28:47 Europe at that time. And I was in studying in Salzburg Austria. And the thing that I remember is that there were many people who did not have a TV set.

29:12 And right next to the dormitory where I was living. There was a store that sold TV sets and I remember all of this big crowd of people.

29:27 Forming outside the store, window to watch the TVs that were for sale in the window and they have them turned on. And so all these people were watching the moon landing from standing on the sidewalk and I always remember that. But that was certainly a

29:55 Big.

29:59 Development in. It was like the US had finally caught up with Russia after Sputnik.

30:13 Sorry, I just I have to like

30:22 Well, I can talk about how happy your father and I were when you came along.

30:29 Yep, and we were both in our forties and we were just thrilled.

30:41 When a child came into our life and you were very precocious and you like music and you like to learn to read at a very young age, so it was always very interesting watching you grow up and I had a very young age. You took an interest in playing the guitar classical guitar and you were extremely good, very talented. And so we went to a number of in the summer. We would always go to a guitar program School.

31:27 We went to Bristol Virginia, one summer. We went to Marina del Rey, California, another summer. And then when you graduated from high school, we took a family trip to Spain and we went looking to buy a guitar experience. And we went to a small Workshop, where they was the 4th generation making guitars and when they heard you tried some of the guitars when they heard how well you played.

32:20 They didn't speak English, but they beckoned for us to come and we went down into this with an underground like a tunnel that was all lined with brick and the Acoustics were wonderful and you sat there for about an hour playing guitar. The guitar guitars down for you to try out and then we did ultimately buy you. A guitar is fine. Yeah. I remember that pretty. Well you traveled pretty extensively to write. You been to

33:05 Own, only 10 minutes. You got around Europe, pretty extensively right as well, or I came along.

33:14 Yes, I spent.

33:18 9 weeks, one summer when I was in college in Europe traveling from London, when I went and visited relatives in Ireland. And then I

33:35 Flew to Paris and your Aunt Kathy was studying in Paris and I stayed with her for a few days and then went on to Salzburg Austria and was studying German there. And one weekend. We took a trip to Prague.

34:03 Tristan, and it was one year after the Russians had come in and taken over. So we

34:18 Tried to go through a checkpoint in the five wire you could see the guard towers.

34:27 And so, it was a

34:33 Quite a different experience being very poor and there are a lot of people that would stop us on the streets and try to buy American money from us.

34:54 Why is that? Well, if they had an opportunity to get out of the car, so I guess they wanted to have a currency that they could use.

35:07 In other countries.

35:12 Was there a currency? Just like not very valuable or something? It was it was that way when I understand it completely different beautiful brought in and goes to party. What do you think?

35:55 You're a deer experiences. How things are now here today? When you're talking with me here in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2021. What do you think? Well, I think we're always learning.

36:11 And people come into our lives. And yes, we

36:21 I grow older and

36:26 There are always new challenges and all the ways new people to love and enjoy life with.

36:37 Okay.

36:40 Any questions for me or any final, parting thoughts? Well, I guess you could talk about your experience in the family and what you learned from your father and I have 3 minutes left. Sorry. Sorry, Dad. Well, and I remember having a happy childhood. Of course, I remember learning to read is definitely one of my first memories as you teaching me how to read and then going to school during the kindergarten. And I remember being able to read and I think like they sent me to a separate reading class because everyone else didn't know how or something. And I remember thinking that I was like, there's something wrong with me because I just assumed everyone else you how to read. And I thought maybe I didn't do it as well as the other

37:39 I remember that she has a lot of books to very smart parents who were always constantly learning. So that's it. Set a good example for me. When you were in the elementary school. You even did tutoring for other Elementary School student peer helpers. They use it. It's kind of like a way to get out of paying teachers more things and you would have the finger. So I can do the math and the reading and I don't know if it worked or not.

38:39 You herself could a lot of learn for me?

38:50 Become the person wonderful person that you are and find that you are so happy in your career and doing so well. Thanks. I owe it all to you and Dad who didn't talk. That's another. Yeah.