Valerie Sloman and Jessamyn Hope

Recorded October 6, 2006 Archived October 6, 2006 01:27:03
0:00 / 0:00
Id: wtc000837

Description

Jessamyn interviews her aunt Valerie about her life growing up in South Africa, being a woman in the 50s and her move to North America

Participants

  • Valerie Sloman
  • Jessamyn Hope

Recording Locations

World Trade Center StoryBooth

Transcript

StoryCorps uses Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Natural Language API to provide machine-generated transcripts. Transcripts have not been checked for accuracy and may contain errors. Learn more about our FAQs through our Help Center or do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

00:04 My name

00:06 My name is jessamyn. Hope my age is 32 today is October 6th 2006. We are at the storybooth in the World Trade Center and my relationship to the person I'm interviewing and she is my aunt.

00:20 My name is Valerie sloman, my age is 67.

00:26 It's October 6th.

00:29 2006 and we're at the World Trade Center story booth.

00:35 And I'm being interviewed by my wonderful niece. Jessamyn.

00:41 So I don't think this would be very easy for us since we spent many hours till the wee hours of the morning talking. So basically I want to start off with your childhood. And could you please tell us about your earliest memory that you can remember?

01:00 Jose just come flooding in. I remember being at Nursery School not knowing my left from my right and being very very upset about this. I remember walking home from school at the age of 3 and 1/2 of know I must have been full which tells you that in South Africa that time was one of the safest places in the whole world.

01:25 So you're for white children?

01:32 I remember sunshine and flowers and most fondest memory from your childhood.

01:41 When my

01:45 Parents gave me Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a tiny little box. I I also remember getting a broom and dustpan for a birthday.

02:00 So presents and presence is your mom being in my grandparents house listening to them talk and listening to the whole family talkin while I just played among them when they talk about they would talk in Yiddish. They would just lost a lot they would talk about people they would talk about happenings in their lives. They will check everything you remember any jokes are songs that they would say

02:30 My father used to sing. I'm going to buy myself a paper doll to call my own to me that what you always made me feel like I wasn't good enough. Why did he need a paper doll will made lots of songs. We can talk about the opposite side of the coin. Like what is one of your hardest memories from childhood? Who is the Philly lonely child? I didn't really make friends very easily actually had a question about who are your friends? I thought I haven't really heard much about your friends when you were a kid. Yeah. I used to lose myself and acting you know, I used to

03:12 Pretend in my head a lot cuz I was loan able to learn a lot and I wasn't a child who could easily connect. I don't know why so the people in my my friends will always the kids have nobody wanted to play with it school.

03:31 I don't know why people so easily. Did you actually work on that or did it's just change it just changed. I was always interested in and I would always feel connected with kids who are having a hard time until Dove turn to them. So maybe that was part of it. I wasn't very good at sport.

03:55 Remember anything from your childhood that stands out regarding a part? I'd like some particular memory that you sometimes think about. I remember having a friend next door to the Westin daughter of of the servant of the house next door and we were great friends until the age of about 6, and then suddenly

04:20 There was strictures so she couldn't come to play that off and then and then and there was a funny feeling that we just couldn't go on being friends.

04:31 Yeah, I remember that quite vividly.

04:35 All right. Now, we stopped when we both went to school because she has to go to a black school and I went to the neighborhood school and you guys stop talking at that point yet.

04:49 We didn't see each other very much. She just kind of wasn't there anymore. Right? Did you have any relationships with black people after that?

05:01 Not really just I mean I had relationships with I had a nanny and your dad's you know how to Nanny when I was too big to have one and we had very good relationships with them. But we were kept separate they slept at the back of the house in a little room with a tiny turtle bought through we live different lives, you know, and

05:29 When you get when you came to North America, and this doesn't only have to be regarding black and white relations, but can you tell me about a memory maybe that you said wow, North America is a different place in South Africa will actually it happened on the boat. As I was leaving South Africa suddenly, there were blacks and whites together on the boat and the structures were all gone. There were no more lost because it was a an English boat and it was it was amazing. It was very freeing. Everybody was almost giddy with the joy of it everybody or do you think some people know? I think the young people that that I was with coming over and

06:17 And there was a young couple of young black couple who were leaving and coming to live in England and they had just got married and they were on their honeymoon and they were very very desperately unhappy and crying as they both went off and they told us that they'd never be able to come back. Of course. They didn't know that things will change so profoundly in South Africa, but they said we will never be able to come back as a married couple and then

06:54 I remember feeling that I was really free of racism and that I was so thrilled and delighted to be outside and then I realized in London that

07:08 If I saw a mixed couple I always noticed so I realized I wasn't really free I mean

07:16 Right, if I had been I wouldn't have noticed before we leave South African and and move on to a. Life seem to I vaguely remember you telling me about a about data coming home from the war. Is that true? Do you remember that? I remember being at the railway station? I was only 3

07:35 And waiting and waiting and waiting and he was the very last person to come off the train because as you remember him

07:46 He had to make sure that nothing was left and everyone was safe and everything was out and when he finally came out, I think my mother was predicted. Did you remember him was it didn't remember him at all. I remember waking up in my crib and seeing these two people in bed next to me cuz my crib was next to their bed and

08:10 I climbed over to go to my mother as I usually did and then I realized this strange man was in her bed and I climbed right back into my crib. I remember that was very upset. Okay, so let's talk about your a. Life of it. Do you have any memories like maybe tell me about the most outstanding memory you have with Leon something you remember?

08:36 Maybe the rooftop story or something. Maybe the rooftop story didn't used to go on top of the roof.

08:46 Well, I was pretty young when I married as you know, and didn't understand much of anything and I would get very very mad with him about all kinds of really stupid things like the fact that you know, he was an intern he was working for 36 hours and he would come home totally exhausted something which never really changed too much and the

09:15 I would really be upset because I wanted to go out and have fun. I was 20 years old and

09:23 Anyway, so we would have fights about really stupid things and then I would stop out and go up onto the roof of the apartment and watch him looking for me.

09:34 Sesame Street downstairs, but one day you stop looking and I knew that that particular Behavior wasn't going to work anymore well in your child and you're a delight, can you tell me about maybe the hardest your hardest memory?

09:56 I'm your life in North America.

10:03 Well, I suppose my hardest memories go all around sickness and died and death.

10:10 Was very hard.

10:14 When your mom was dying, it was very hot to see what happened to to our family then I twist.

10:25 You know, my parents came here when I was 29.

10:28 No, no, no. No, I was 20.

10:32 Fallout 4 when my parents came to Canada and suddenly

10:39 I had to be the parent.

10:43 And I had to take responsibility for almost everything, you know, my mother would help it had to have all the holidays and

10:54 Look after the kids and look after them in a sense and there was a the word illnesses and there were no jobs and it was tough times. It was very hard and I remember when we went on holiday.

11:12 Every two days I would phone home and just my anxiety would get really high until somebody onto the phone told me that everything was okay with my parents and then I could kind of enjoy myself for another day and a half until it started building up again. So there was a lot of anxiety around them around the fact that I have changed their life.

11:39 You know. Responsible to make sure this change. Yeah, and of course daddy Danny's illness.

11:47 I took a big chunk out of us.

11:52 Would you feel comfortable giving me a memory from when Danny was sick?

12:01 That he was quite wonderful, you know, I remember him lying in bed not able to talk or see or hear.

12:14 And he wasn't depressed. He was at will walk right? He was just like well, I just have to take it from here and I have to do what I kept it was so different from almost everybody else and and kind of thrilled with the attention. He was getting

12:34 Fastest even flew in from California and the fact that he was kind of the big banana, you know, and it was strange and wonderful and helped us all.

12:50 Try to deal with it.

12:55 Let's talk about your influences. And who would you say was had the biggest influence on your life?

13:04 My mother

13:06 I knew you were going to say that can you tell us a little bit about her?

13:12 Why did she have a nymph? What was it about her that well, first of all, she was very encouraging to me and and really thought that I would be a great actor and an end and helped me to fulfill every kind of ambition that I had in that area. So I always knew that I could rely on her totally and completely she was so much fun, you know, and I liked I just like to have a vision of the world. I like the fact that she

13:49 Was different from other South Africans that she had talked.

13:56 Black kids in school when it was really against the law to do that that she was had courage of her convictions that you would stand up for herself and her parents and

14:12 She was strong, you know, and she was sweet. She was funny and

14:20 Well, I remote can I just tell you when memory went in her old age? She know she was very and she was a very vain woman. She really cared about how she looked and Indian chatovod her teeth out. I don't know if you remember that and I thought this is it, you know, she's never going to smile again because she loved her teeth and

14:48 I came every time I came in should give me this great huge toothless smile and one day I said to her. What are you smiling at? I just didn't really know why she was so happy and she said because this is how I want to be remembered. I want you to remember me smiling and I really do, you know, also another reason that she was so important to me was how in my own life. For example when Danny was sick, she was in a wheelchair at that time she sat at his bed every single day.

15:25 She never missed. I mean she was just completely there for me, you know.

15:32 Yeah, I definitely I remember sitting with you and Bubba. I can't see bananas without the king of bucks. I used to come over with a big bag of bananas and we sit in that sunlit blue bedroom and she'd be amazed at how you eat too. Many bananas. Well, let's just talk about maybe how you feel about yourself. Like what is it a what makes you most proud of yourself?

16:00 Well, I'm not that proud of myself as you well know. I think that my relationships with.

16:11 People you my kids are the same sets.

16:18 My grandchildren that make me feel good. I don't feel proud. I don't feel like I've done anything.

16:25 In my life to make changes that you think that does relationship took work on.

16:33 No, I just enjoy you all so much. I do and I enjoyed my students and I know that I made a difference in their lives, but

16:47 I really had big plans, you know, like my mom who my mom wrote letters to the paper. That was her big thing. And she she she really was.

17:00 Hood and red and had the courage of his convictions. So I feel I'm a bit of a, you know, rubber spine mobile Warrior dreams when you are a kid.

17:17 I suppose I wanted to change the world in some way. I mean when you lived in South Africa you really knew what was good and evil it was very clear.

17:28 And

17:30 They were things that happened, you know, did I ever tell you the story of Wednesday to sell old car to he had a a Ford agency at one time and whenever he sold car in casual South African fashion, it would sign the papers and he would shake hands and then they'd sit down and have a drink together.

17:54 And what's he sold a car to a black man? And he did the same thing and he's too white mechanics came over to him and said if he if you ever do that again, we're leaving and you'll never have anybody work in this gas station again.

18:11 I didn't say gas station. They said garage, which is what we quoted.

18:19 And you know, I was faced with that kind of thing continuously growing up and because of my family and because my grandfather was so particularly aware.

18:33 I helped to make some real changes, but you know, I'm just a middle-class person.

18:40 So

18:44 So my next question was do you have any do you have any regret though on a personal level, you know within your personal relationships Sherwin always has regret graphs, you know, I'm dumb. I regret when I'm too controlling. I regret when I you know, give advice because I always feel I have to learn to keep out of people's lives.

19:17 On a large-scale. I regret that I didn't follow through with my acting that would have been you know, I wish I wish I'd had the courage that you and Ashley have to plant your feet firmly in New York and

19:36 Go for the gold.

19:39 But I'm not sorry because I had children and that kind of filled my gap on the way. I made it to Atlanta children and grandchildren are going for the gold. Yeah.

19:57 I'm kind of curious about your spirituality because we're a family of atheist but you've always seemed to have a little bit of something and I've never really narrowed in on what it is. I'm just curious if you do believe in God and you do believe in an afterlife or if you don't okay?

20:19 I suppose that I was looking for a part of my life to believe. I really wanted to I wanted to connect with my people. Anyway, I wanted to go to synagogue and to

20:36 I tried to find out what this thing was that really kept us going for the last five thousand years all over the world.

20:46 Butts

20:49 And I do believe in a kind of Aristotelian sense of the good. You know, I think that there is a battle to be fought between the good inclination in the evil inclination in all of us.

21:04 And I think that without some kind of spirituality, even if it's just thinking about these things. You caught really

21:16 Death battle gets lost in the shuffle, you know you woke up and down the streets of any big city today and people are talking about what they're buying what they bought what they need to know and you think it's this hilarious, you know, but do I believe in a God that moves in history that can change things absolutely not here. We sit at the World Trade Center. I mean and the people who did that

21:48 Believe that God told them to so, how can I believe

21:55 In a voice in my head that says you know God is saying this will God tells me to do this. I can't so when you go to visit Bubba and data's grave, you don't really think they can know that you've been there.

22:11 No, I mean I go for my own comfort. And is this a pot of the Primitive part of my mind that says?

22:21 Maybe they know will that be sad if I didn't come but I know that isn't true and I really go because it's a quiet place and it helps me to focus in in to remember them because it's hot isn't it to hold onto memories you really go to work at it sometimes

22:43 Well, you have two siblings. Can you tell me about a memory maybe that you have with my dad? Oh, yes. I remember when when your dad was 6 and your dad was full and I was 10.

23:01 And I took him for a picnic. We walks up to the union buildings in Pretoria, which is very beautiful.

23:09 And we had a great time. I loved him. He was seen on my little brother because I was 6 years older than him and we took and the union buildings has great big fish puns.

23:24 And we took bread and basket with us for a picnic.

23:28 And we fed the bread-and-butter to the fish and the next day we read in the paper that all the fish had died.

23:37 Yeah, maybe you could tell us about our time, but that sort of thing your your birthday party at the orphanage.

23:48 Oh, well, your dad had nothing to that cuz he wasn't even born that young. I was full and I suddenly

23:58 Decided that I wanted to have my birthday at the orphanage now. Obviously I picked up these ideas somewhere probably from you know, this great family of mine. It was always talking about what people about the Haves and the Have Nots so I decided I needed to have a party at the orphanage and my dad bought ice cream and bake cartons, you know like this and

24:30 That's what happens and it was fun and

24:35 Sharon nickname as a kid. I think I remember there was a nickname that you had they used to call me the tragedy Queen.

24:45 Because my emotions as old as Rosenberg women, I mean, there's no doubt that it runs in an absolute line ladders face to say we're close to eyes.

25:01 Because we can cry at the drop of a hat and I was pretty dramatic, you know, and and I would when I got mad I would hide behind the curtain and and and

25:14 Talk to you know, and then the family would say off the tragedy Queen's back. I didn't like it. I thought it was you think you've kept that gallon of emotions. I think so low as you get older things tend to

25:33 I'm Deb down a bit, you know like you feel it's hard to get high because you know that I'll timidly

25:46 Great things aren't going to happen. You've had your life.

25:50 So is there anything in the future that you're looking forward to?

25:55 Yeah, I'm just looking forward to watching my babies all of them.

26:03 Grow up and do what they I'm sort of in an observer position now, you know and I love to be surrounded by all these interesting people in my family. Is there anything from your life that you don't want them to do their anyting experience something a mistake you made that you don't want them to make

26:29 I think I've been pretty lucky and

26:33 I hope that there is luckiest I am in terms of

26:38 My marriage which you know was cell.

26:43 I mean Leon has really been a very fine husband.

26:51 And

26:55 I hope that they follow this stuff a little more than I did maybe.

27:01 On didn't want to give up the acting pot. So so remember the day you gave up acting.

27:18 Really it was the day that I chose marriage over acting cuz you know, my my dream had been to go to England and act in the West End and make money by being a teacher in the East End of London now looking back. I think that would have killed me entirely. There's no way I could do what's up kids, you know, I was just I was a kid myself. However, Leon came along and this kind of romantic thing happened and I gave up my dreams of going to the west end with just a click of my fingers because in the fifties

28:04 Being married was a very important thing, you know a woman who didn't find a husband was a failure in a sense and didn't have a whole lot of places to go to.

28:17 You know what? I think today of?

28:22 Danny's mother giving him up because she just didn't have anywhere to go being pregnant.

28:31 They would just no choices at all for her. So is Leon the only man you've ever slept with?

28:39 I'm afraid so she is definitely a child of the 50s tiara.

28:49 I do you ever look at the adventures of your children and grandchildren and kind of envy that we got to experiment more and not really because there's a kind of insecurity and me.

29:04 That would make me feel.

29:08 Afraid of being rejected so I really needed that.

29:13 Total commitment

29:16 Which is easier to get them than it is today, you know because both men and women.

29:23 Don't feel they need to commit because they have lots of choices. We had no choices.

29:31 So you do feel sorry for us in any way. No, I feel I feel that you're stronger than I am. I feel very proud of you. I feel that you have a natural scent. It's a sense of self, you know, a woman in the fifties measured herself by where the men found her attractive or not with a amen found her attractive.

29:58 Yeah, so if there's anything you could change about yourself it would be I would like to have more confidence. I would like to feel more.

30:13 Sure of who I am and less wanting to please.

30:19 I think

30:22 Okay, what else do I want to make sure that?

30:25 I know and take with me.

30:34 Am I allowed to ask you a question? I guess all this is supposed to be about you. So I'm just interested in whether you see me the way I see myself or if anything is surprised you.

30:49 Well, I've loved you for so long and thought about you that a lot of it. I kind of I've always wondered how you saw yourself because I see you as an extremely generous intelligent.

31:05 Valuable person and sometimes I've seen hints of you not seeing yourself that way and I couldn't ever place my finger on why you felt that way because you have all these successful relationship you've contributed to so many people's lives with your students and your family your Dynamic and interested and now I've learned that you had these ideas about changing the world that I I see that you feel a little bit of regret about not having been able to do it.

31:36 To such an extent, although I feel like you have done it but mean, well, I feel that thank you for those nice things. I've seen that and I always wondered why wear that kind of where that was coming from. Yeah. I think that

31:56 I was I'm wrong to say that we didn't have choices. I mean look at the people who went, you know, who fought with the ANC look at the people who went to Israel and who is was scared. And I don't know why that's in me cuz my mother wasn't and your father isn't you know, that's not going to mean he was there, you know, he could have fought in the 67 war and I think he regrets that he didn't.

32:32 I guess I'd like to use like the last few minutes then to tell you some of the things that you've given me sometimes say, you know, wwdd what would Valerie do I have to make up my mind about things and the reason why is why I would like to be like you is that I think you're extremely generous so which I think is a rare thing in today's world. I think you have successful relationships, which I also think is rare and I do see that you put effort and work into it although you seem to deny it but there is something exhausting about being there for people and and you do sacrifice a bit of yourself and your time and and to do it and I really would like to be like that too because ultimately relationships in the most valuable thing. We have I want to take you to storycorps because you gave me this we all used to joke about Valerie happenings, so you would

33:32 The smallest thing like we go for a Korean soup and it wouldn't just be a let's go for 3 and see if it would be happening or having Korean soup. So you gave me that ability to take each day and say and I'm going to make it happen again today. I'm not going to just waste New York. I'm going to do something exciting. I'm going to take a class. I'm going to try a new food. So I wanted to give you a happening and they did it also given me so many stories from my family. I think both you and my dad passed along stories. So I wanted to make sure that I got some of them on tape.

34:11 Thank you, Jess. And I also want to thank you for kind of being like at a mom and some ways when I can you know haven't had ones.

34:24 Well, I think the Rosenberg that has taken over.

34:33 All right, how many what how many more minutes do we have 5 more minutes, but while we're on the subject of my mom, so maybe I can selfishly use this interview for my sister and myself. Do you remember your earliest memory of her? I remember your father bringing her to our house and saying of course, she's not my girlfriend. She's she's engaged to somebody else looks she's wearing her ring and my mother saying she was the most beautiful woman. She had ever seen and it fell fell in love with her while it was absolutely nothing. She could say because she wasn't you and yes. Yes, absolutely. Why was he bring her over? If I don't know it was an arranged wasn't because she did have to recognize and then the rain came off if you recall, I'm sure you remember that.

35:28 And then she was boy or Dad's ring short with you. But what I remember actually about your mother is her voice. I used to say she had a a honey voice was just so warm and so sweet except when she was yelling what she could do very well very loud voice but not cuz she was mad just because that's how they spoke, right?

36:00 She is and she always.

36:06 She all wind when your mother listened, you know, she listens with her eyes and with her face and with her soul. She really did and she

36:18 I was so proud of you. She was so proud of her children that.

36:24 I don't think I think that she was really surprised that she was going to have these feelings for babies. You know, she wasn't particularly interested in having children, and she just kind of felt she had to and then you came along and she was besotted. Absolutely to remember any of that now.

36:45 And then when Ashley came along, you know with a tiny little legs would die the next day and your mother just gave her love entirely to the two of you once you were born and to your daddy was such a tight foursome. It was incredible.

37:11 Was she the one of the first people that had passed away that you were close to or was there someone before then was the very first I've never ever had an experience like that before she made it to age.

37:27 1504 tease though in my forties that long ago she

37:37 She was a lot of fun, you know, Jess. She really when she came into a room. She just bubbled she lost a lot she lost all the time and we used to go downtown with myself my mother and your mom and nobody saw anybody except your mother cuz she was so gorgeous. You knowing the two of my mother and I would just sit back and watch and she would just have a whole subway car, you know at her fingertips. She was laughing and I want to get one memory banks will only have a few minutes but talking about looking gorgeous and getting men detention. Do you remember the white hat? Can you tell us the story of the white hat?

38:23 Though you're wearing a white hat and someone came up to you. Oh, my story is it was a black cats? That's why it was a black episode of Maury looking thing and I was walking in a department store in a man came up to me and put a note into my hand in.

38:46 I was and then he just kind of disappeared. So I open the note and it said you are a very beautiful woman and I love your hat.

38:57 Well, he was gone, but I kept the note for about 50 anymore.

39:07 Nice thing to happen. I loved it and you shall lie on the note. Yes, of course. I made pasta. Do you know let him see how other people feel about me, but your mother never had to do that. She just woke down the street and heads turned it was incredible.

39:26 So one last question because we are at the World Trade Center for me is raw at the Palms in Israel. Like I'd always had an idea that bad things happen in the world, but the World Trade Center totally.

39:45 Took away my sense of security in the world because my life had been there hadn't been anything such conflict in in my world, but you were older and I just wondered what role the World Trade Center tragedy if it had any effect on your psyche.

40:05 It had a tremendous effect on my psyche because even though I had lived through I'd be in a baby when the second world war started. I had no memory of it and everything.

40:18 Was good. We had one and you know life was good and the world was going to be be a better place and then the world wasn't a better place and what kept happening and Israel was struggling so hard to survive, but somehow we in North America where were safe, you know, it was never going to happen here. Everything was going to happen somewhere else.

40:45 So when it did happen here and so easily.

40:51 It made us all feel incredibly insecure coming from South Africa and having the Holocaust and and the Jewish history and your dad being in the war. You still didn't kind of just wait for the bomb to drop at the El Cid by surprise. I know it didn't take me by surprise. I've always waited for the bomb to drop. I used to call my dad and say it's going to be a war during the Cold War, you know, and he would say don't worry and know I always had that that anxiety in me.

41:26 But this was so do you feel like you're leaving your grandchildren SW would right here, you know, I mean when I saw that on television, I knew that you were right here and I didn't know where you were or Ashley and nothing had ever touched us that closely before, you know, so do you feel that you're leaving your grandchildren with a better world the same thing or worse than the one you came in too? Much much worse world.

41:57 A much worse world. I mean just even never mind War which we have no real control over.

42:06 Pollution which we have a lot of control over, you know, my grandchildren will live in a world where they won't be able to breathe very well.

42:17 And it's so easily fixable. It's so easily doable. Nobody's doing it.

42:25 Are you well, I'm trying a little bit but not enough. You know, what do you do when the president of the powerful countries and now I'll prime minister with following in Bush's footsteps a the kildow court doesn't matter. We don't have we really have to worry about pollution pollution is the one thing that is absolutely killing us. If there was something that I could do. I can't do anything about the terrorist but I could do something, you know by working against pollution, which

43:05 I don't know if you know what's happening. Now. You've really got me onto currently. Yeah, we only have one more minute. So let's all right, but so what do you want out of this mess with this weekend? Cuz we only have one more minute. What do you want to accomplish this weekend while I'm not going to change the world or do anything, so I just want to be with you and have a wonderful time and I love you very much and I love you too very much.