Legacies Project Oral History: Phyllis Hill

Mon, 08/29/2022 - 12:15pm

When: 2022

Transcript

[00:00:08] FEMALE_1: Do you know any stories about your family's name?
[00:00:11] Phyllis Hill: No, I don't.
[00:00:14] FEMALE_1: Are there any naming traditions in your family?
[00:00:17] Phyllis Hill: Not specially.
[00:00:20] FEMALE_1: Why did your ancestors leave to come to United States?
[00:00:23] Phyllis Hill: Didn't have the choice. They were slaves.
[00:00:30] FEMALE_1: Do you know anything about where they came from? Where they from Africa?
[00:00:34] Phyllis Hill: Africa.
[00:00:36] FEMALE_1: Do you know any stories about how your family first came to United States and where they settled?
[00:00:42] Phyllis Hill: No, they settled in Virginia.
[00:00:46] FEMALE_1: Do you know how they made a living either in the old country or in the United States?
[00:00:51] Phyllis Hill: I don't know anything about the old country, but here they were slaves.
[00:00:57] FEMALE_1: Okay. Describe any family migration once they arrived in the United States and how did they came to live in this area?
[00:01:04] Phyllis Hill: Well, basically my original family did not move to various areas that they were in the same area as far as I knew all their lives. They didn't move around but I did.
[00:01:24] FEMALE_1: Do you know any possessions that they brought with them and why?
[00:01:26] Phyllis Hill: Probably nothing.
[00:01:30] FEMALE_1: Do you know any family members that came along or stayed behind with them?
[00:01:34] Phyllis Hill: No.
[00:01:35] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:01:36] Phyllis Hill: Know, nothing about that.
[00:01:38] FEMALE_1: Do you know if they made an effort to preserve any traditions or costumes from their country or origin?
[00:01:46] Phyllis Hill: No, I don't.
[00:01:54] FEMALE_1: What stories have come down to you about your parents and grandparents or more decent ancestors?
[00:02:00] Phyllis Hill: What stories?
[00:02:02] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Any that you can think of?
[00:02:03] Phyllis Hill: I can't think of anything.
[00:02:08] FEMALE_1: Do you know any courtship stories, like how did your grandparents or your parents or relatives come to meet and marry?
[00:02:15] Phyllis Hill: No, I don't. I don't know any of that.
[00:02:18] FEMALE_1: You don't know how your parents [OVERLAPPING]
[00:02:20] Phyllis Hill: I don't know how they met. I know my mother and father met in school. Grandparents, I don't know.
[00:02:29] FEMALE_1: Where did you grow up and what are your strongest memories of that place?
[00:02:32] Phyllis Hill: I grew up in Virginia and I guess my strongest memories are related to going to school. I remember when I was a little girl, our house we lived on the campus and my house was very close to the elementary school. I remember going and looking through the windows at the kids in class and wondered why couldn't be in there with them? I must have been three or four years of age. That's about all I remember about my growing up on my very early ages.
[00:03:05] FEMALE_1: Did you go to a separate school or did your mom teach you [OVERLAPPING] ?
[00:03:08] Phyllis Hill: No it's a separate school.
[00:03:12] FEMALE_1: Did you live close to that school?
[00:03:13] Phyllis Hill: Very close in walking distance. In fact, they elementary school was right across from our house. That's why as a little one I could run back and forth to see what everybody else was doing.
[00:03:28] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any characteristics of that school that you went to? What was it like?
[00:03:35] Phyllis Hill: Well, certainly not like skyline, that's for sure. But it was brick building, I remember that.
[00:03:45] FEMALE_1: You said that there was another school in the area that you lived?
[00:03:49] Phyllis Hill: No.
[00:03:50] FEMALE_1: No?
[00:03:50] Phyllis Hill: They're not an area that was only one school.
[00:03:57] FEMALE_1: Do you know if the other schools in the area?
[00:03:59] Phyllis Hill: No, I don't.
[00:04:00] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:04:01] Phyllis Hill: This is basically it. Students were in high school, they were bused in from all over the county because this was the only high school that was available to them at that time. You'd have kids who rode miles and miles and miles to get to school. But we were fortunate in that I could just walk where I had to go.
[00:04:25] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what your house was like?
[00:04:28] Phyllis Hill: It was a renovated school house is a wooden structure. We had three bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen. I think they eventually tore it down because of the age of it. It's nonexistent now.
[00:04:46] FEMALE_1: Did you move houses a lot when you were young?
[00:04:49] Phyllis Hill: No. Just once.
[00:04:53] FEMALE_1: How many people lived in the house with you when you were growing up?
[00:04:57] Phyllis Hill: Two brothers and mother and father
[00:05:00] FEMALE_1: Were you the oldest or the youngest?
[00:05:02] Phyllis Hill: Youngest of three.
[00:05:06] FEMALE_1: Were there any other languages besides English that were spoken?.
[00:05:09] Phyllis Hill: No.
[00:05:11] FEMALE_1: Were different? No. Do you remember what your family was like when you were a child? Like the dynamic?
[00:05:22] Phyllis Hill: Well, dad would say that the household and I was well with tomboy because I only had brothers, I didn't have any sisters. I would trail around behind them all where they wanted to go much to their disdain. But other than that, I guess it was just a normal family.
[00:05:43] FEMALE_1: Do you know what work your mother and father did?
[00:05:47] Phyllis Hill: My mother was a school teacher, but she stayed at home to take care of us. My father was in charge of what was called masonry department at the school where we lived on the campus of this. That was basically it and she stayed home to take care of the family.
[00:06:08] FEMALE_1: Do you remember your earliest memory of any family members, your mom or dad?
[00:06:14] Phyllis Hill: Not really early. They're always saying I remember it was going peeping in the school house window wondering why I couldn't be in there with the other kids.
[00:06:27] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what a typical day was like for you during your preschool years?
[00:06:31] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. Get up with the sun, have breakfast, and then it was playing the rest of the day, I didn't have any specialists. I was too little tab any real jobs at that point at the home. But as we grew up, we had jobs we had to do certain things and don't you dare not do it [LAUGHTER]. My job was bringing in kindling wood didn't have central heating. My job was to bring in kindling wood and I remember one night I forgot to do it. My mother said, I thought I was out of it. She says, no, you still have to get your kindle and I went down in the cellar, we wouldn't have basement had a seller that the kid was getting was in and thought of all the Frankenstein movies I had seen it. They could see these creatures coming out at me, but I never forgot to bring the kindling in again after that.
[00:07:24] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what jobs your brothers had to do?
[00:07:28] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. Well, we had some farm animals. We had two cows. Well, they had to milk the cows. I didn't have to do that. I never could milk. They would have to wash over me when I was out with them. Bring in coal because, coal and wouldn't they had to bring in the heavy wood and Nicole for the stove. But other than that, they didn't have any special jobs other than helping him the guard. We had a small garden, so they would help and I went to my dad would pay us so much money to check the logs off of the plants. Much, I don't remember who it was. It was probably not very much, but that was our job that we got paid for.
[00:08:13] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any of your favorite toys and who made them or anything like that?
[00:08:20] Phyllis Hill: No. I didn't have any special toys. I don't even remember having a doll until I was a big girl, bigger girl. Looked at most of our play was outdoors. That it was typical that everyday after school we would meet to play baseball because there were no after-school activities where I was because of students having to be bused in and then they had to go home right after school. It didn't have anybody there for after-school activities?
[00:08:50] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any of your favorite books or book when you were growing up?
[00:08:56] Phyllis Hill: Not really. I'd read anything.
[00:09:02] FEMALE_1: What type of movies did you like to watch? Because, I mean, I heard that you said you watched the Frankenstein.
[00:09:08] Phyllis Hill: Oh yeah. Well, I'd like that and I liked it. I liked the cowboys ending in movies. No one's ever really get hyped up about [LAUGHTER] .
[00:09:18] FEMALE_1: Were there any special days, events or family traditions, you remember during that time?
[00:09:24] Phyllis Hill: The Christmas and Easter, that basically those are the highlights of the year.
[00:09:29] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:09:34] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any Christmas presents that you got or like what was a typical Christmas with your family?
[00:09:40] Phyllis Hill: Well, we were not that rich, so we did not get a lot of presents at Christmas. We had a friend who was an only child and his traditional lives at a Christmas morning after you opened your present, you would go around and see what your friends have got, and we had a friend who was an only child and his living room would be this strong with presents and so we couldn't understand. Now how come Santa Claus doesn't know that there are three of us and how did Henry get so much and we got so little?
[00:10:08] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
[00:10:08] Phyllis Hill: But that's basically what it was at Christmas?
[00:10:14] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Sorry one second [inaudible 00:10:19]. One or two. But I think the bowel came in-between the special events and stuff like that. Do you want to ask? Do you remember any special days or events or family traditions when you were growing up, like you said, Christmas.
[00:10:47] Phyllis Hill: Christmas and Easter it's basically typical tradition. If you have a Christmas with Santa Claus and Easter cause and Christmas still we would always have to go to church on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, that there was no way you're going to miss that midnight service. We would always have to go to.
[00:11:12] FEMALE_1: Was your family very religious or they were like moderately religious?
[00:11:17] Phyllis Hill: I said my moderately so.
[00:11:18] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:11:19] Phyllis Hill: We didn't get that much hung up on religion. But I had a brother who entered the priesthood. This is episcopal priesthood. I can say he was the most religious of us all.
[00:11:30] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Okay. Oh, I forgot this one. Please say and spell your name.
[00:11:53] Phyllis Hill: It's Marion Phyllis M-A-R-I-O-N it's spelled like the boys, Marion rather than the girls Marion, I think my family would have preferred a boy. But here I was they couldn't sent me back. Middle name is Phyllis, P-H-Y-L-L-I-S Hill H-I-L-L. I was named after one of my father's sisters.
[00:12:17] FEMALE_1: What is your birth date including the year?
[00:12:20] Phyllis Hill: 9/21/28. And I just had my 90th birthday last week. I'm up there. [LAUGHTER]
[00:12:29] FEMALE_1: How would you describe your ethnic background?
[00:12:31] Phyllis Hill: I'm black.
[00:12:35] FEMALE_1: We talked about this earlier, but what is your religious affiliation?
[00:12:39] Phyllis Hill: I'm Episcopalian.
[00:12:40] FEMALE_1: Okay, and what is the highest level of formal education you have completed?
[00:12:46] Phyllis Hill: I had my masters and I also have a specialists in aging certificate from University of Michigan.
[00:12:54] FEMALE_1: Did you attend any additional school like yeah. You just answer that. What is your marital status?
[00:13:00] Phyllis Hill: I had married. Obviously I'm a widow.
[00:13:04] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:13:04] Phyllis Hill: I slipped that for a minute.
[00:13:08] FEMALE_1: How many children do you have?
[00:13:09] Phyllis Hill: I have two children, and two grandchildren.
[00:13:13] FEMALE_1: Yeah, and you have a son and a daughter?
[00:13:17] Phyllis Hill: Right?
[00:13:18] FEMALE_1: They have?
[00:13:19] Phyllis Hill: Well, my son has two children. My daughter is not married.
[00:13:22] FEMALE_1: Oh, okay. She's the one that travels a lot.
[00:13:26] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. Well, she used to. She's betting, had a job where she had been settled in one place, which is good.
[00:13:31] FEMALE_1: Yeah, that's good, and we already answered the question. You have two siblings.
[00:13:37] Phyllis Hill: Two brothers. Had two, but I'm the only one left in my family now. I'm the last of the Mohicans.
[00:13:48] FEMALE_1: What would you consider your primary occupation to have been so for?
[00:13:54] Phyllis Hill: Social work?
[00:13:55] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Yeah, and what age did you retire?
[00:13:59] Phyllis Hill: Ninety-four.
[00:14:02] FEMALE_1: Ninety-four.
[00:14:02] Phyllis Hill: Not 94, 64. [LAUGHTER]
[00:14:09] FEMALE_1: And how long were you a social worker for?
[00:14:14] Phyllis Hill: Thirty years.
[00:14:15] FEMALE_1: Thirty years.
[00:14:18] Phyllis Hill: Maybe 32 or 33 years, I think of because I worked a bit before I moved here to Michigan.
[00:14:28] FEMALE_1: Earlier you mentioned that your ancestors were brought over to America as slaves.
[00:14:35] Phyllis Hill: Right.
[00:14:35] FEMALE_1: I was just wondering if it was okay if we delve a little bit deeper into that?
[00:14:39] Phyllis Hill: It's up to you.
[00:14:41] FEMALE_1: Are both of your parents African-American?
[00:14:43] Phyllis Hill: Yes they are.
[00:14:44] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[00:14:48] Phyllis Hill: I use black I don't use African-American. I know there's a lot of dispute about that because I don't know anything about Africa. This is my grandmother who was African. All I know about her was her name I know nothing more about it.
[00:15:04] FEMALE_1: Yeah, and when you were growing up, did this change any of your views on society in any way like [OVERLAPPING]
[00:15:13] Phyllis Hill: Not really.
[00:15:14] FEMALE_1: Not really? When was the first time that you actually noticed racism?
[00:15:21] Phyllis Hill: I must have been five or six years of age and my father had an automobile accident, and in those days, if you were black, you are at fault regardless of who's at fault. Because I had nappy hair. I remember I had to get under the blanket in the the backseat of the car, I mean, they could pass for white. He passed that particular incident and so that he didn't get fined, and I guess I wondered, what's wrong with me? Why do I have to hide? But he got equal justice and that was another way you could get it, and I didn't understand that until later. But other than that, even though growing up in the South, I never had no real concept of racism, not really. We knew what we were supposed to do, where we could go and where we weren't supposed to go. But Prince and I would go downtown and we would get a drink of whitewater, they had separate water fountains, coke colored water, black well, white water, and [inaudible 00:16:26] I was just sneaking into the department store. We're going to get us some white water today, and the only difference in the water was one was cold and the other was room temperature. But we made fun of it. It didn't bother us at all. But we never had any real problem racially.
[00:16:46] FEMALE_1: Like they was never a police officer that confronted you?
[00:16:49] Phyllis Hill: No.
[00:16:50] FEMALE_1: There wasn't, like special treatment during the [inaudible 00:16:52].
[00:16:52] Phyllis Hill: No and we didn't have to move up the sidewalk when people came by where we were approached by white people, we didn't have to move. I know I've heard friends in the deep south say that they were confronted with a lot of things that are not in my experience.
[00:17:13] FEMALE_1: You've been telling you felt about it, but did you see anyone else deal with racism worse than you did? Did your father deal with it?
[00:17:24] Phyllis Hill: He dealt with it. Well, we lived on the college campus, so we didn't have to come in that most contact with the townspeople. We didn't have the experience. I think that a lot of people had growing up in this house.
[00:17:40] FEMALE_1: Well, probably that was probably better for you growing up so you weren't always around.
[00:17:45] Phyllis Hill: It didn't bother us.
[00:17:46] FEMALE_1: If you ever went into another town in Virginia, did you ever notice any other type of racism, like were you treated differently?
[00:17:59] Phyllis Hill: No, we weren't treated any differently. But the signs were there. But as I said I guess it was a way of life for us, so we didn't get that uptight about it. Except the only thing was that there was a swimming pool in town that we could not use and I couldn't understand then I said my parents are paying taxes, which is supported in the pool, but I asked my mother about it one day. She said, well, that's just the way it is. I said well, it looks like we could have one day used the pool, but we never did. We got a swimming pool when citizens pulled together after a boy drowned in the creek, was not really a big river as we call it a creek more than a river and a fellow drowned in there. Then the Black people got together and built their own swimming pool. With how I overcame any problem we had with that.
[00:18:58] FEMALE_1: When you were growing up, do you remember watching any protests on TV?
[00:19:03] Phyllis Hill: No TV. What TV? We didn't have TV. [LAUGHTER] All we had was radio.
[00:19:09] FEMALE_1: Did you have newspapers in your home?
[00:19:13] Phyllis Hill: Yes.
[00:19:14] FEMALE_1: Did you read any articles about?
[00:19:18] Phyllis Hill: No. Well you could read articles, so especially if it was a lynching of someone that would be highlighted in the newspaper. But I don't remember reading anything about that.
[00:19:29] FEMALE_1: Also, knowing my American history very well, were you born right before the 1930s?
[00:19:39] Phyllis Hill: 1928.
[00:19:41] FEMALE_1: The 1920s was a large time.
[00:19:44] Phyllis Hill: Too patient.
[00:19:45] FEMALE_1: The KKK was very present during the 1920s and the 1930s hit. But going off of the 1930s, did that affect your family in any way?
[00:19:57] Phyllis Hill: I don't think so. We never had any problems.
[00:20:06] FEMALE_1: Do you remember the transition from Virginia to Michigan and how that was like?
[00:20:14] Phyllis Hill: We lived in Illinois before, after I got married we moved to Chicago. It was just a minute. Am I having to get used to being in a big city rather than a tiny little town? Because we only had about 1,000 residents and give-and-take in the town that I grew up and at about the same now, it's never grown any.
[00:20:39] FEMALE_1: Do you think when you moved to Michigan, did you notice anything that was completely different from Virginia like your home time then you like Michigan has bigger cities.
[00:20:52] Phyllis Hill: Well, that's true. But we've had an Ann Arbor, I said it was a backlog of town. You were restricted to certain areas where you could live or you couldn't live. Ann Arbor was not always the open land that you would've expected in Michigan. I always called it the backward town. I said this place is more [inaudible 00:21:15] than any place in the South that I have ever lived. Because it wasn't equal and all which was a surprise to me. I had grown up on a college campus I expected. I've been around people who had a college degree and I expected the same when I moved here to Michigan, but I found it wasn't true that a lot of people are consented backwards as far as the time was concerned, people are complacent or satisfied with what they had and weren't willing to take any risk.
[00:21:46] FEMALE_1: Do you remember or if you do remember anything about the situation because it was very concealed? But do you remember the Pioneer riot?
[00:21:55] Phyllis Hill: Yes. My son was in Pioneer at that time. My son graduated from Pioneer except my daughter.
[00:22:05] FEMALE_1: Do you remember, did anyone from the school call you?
[00:22:09] Phyllis Hill: No. They called my husband because they thought maybe he could be a calming influence for the students. He went out but I didn't.
[00:22:29] FEMALE_1: Do you remember anything that your son or daughter said to you after that protest happened?
[00:22:35] Phyllis Hill: No. They would sell them to tell us what was going on at school. I remember when I asked him, I said, well, why didn't you tell me? He said I figured somebody would tell you. He didn't want to be the type of person who towel down everything that happened. But I guess the kids got through it okay.
[00:22:58] FEMALE_1: You said that Ann Arbor was a very backwards town [OVERLAPPING] where you lived in. Do you think that racism affected your kids worse than it affected you?
[00:23:07] Phyllis Hill: Probably my daughter more than my son. But they both learned to accept things as they were. I think it had more impact on my daughter when she went away to college, I think. Then she did growing up here. Because she didn't talk about it very much, but I know it bothered her. She was entering a school where for the first time they were just forgetting to add Black students. That had its repercussions on her and attitudes that she found difficult to accept.
[00:23:48] FEMALE_1: What college did she go to?
[00:23:50] Phyllis Hill: She went to Sophomore in Pennsylvania.
[00:23:54] FEMALE_1: When you and your husband moved to Ann Arbor, what was your husband doing for a job at that time?
[00:24:00] Phyllis Hill: He was director at the Ann Arbor Community Center at that time.
[00:24:23] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what Pioneer was like when your kids were going to it? Did you ever visit the school?
[00:24:36] Phyllis Hill: Yes, I did. A busy place like here. This is be very busy here too.
[00:24:44] FEMALE_1: Do you have any fond memories of your kids coming home and telling you anything that happened from school?
[00:24:51] Phyllis Hill: They didn't talk much about what happened at school. They figured we'd find out one way or the other. But the things that they did say was nothing that we were upset about. I think they liked the school, they liked the classes. They've always been academically inclined.
[00:25:19] FEMALE_1: Going back to Ann Arbor being a backward town once again, I remember hearing about how the Ann Arbor local government put taxes on African-American people living in certain houses and telling them you have to get loans from the bank to redo the outside of your house to make it look better or were affecting you?
[00:25:40] Phyllis Hill: I don't remember any of that. The banks would give you loans to buy a car, but it was much more difficult to get a loan for a house. We ended up with a GI loan for the first time I said we had here
[00:25:55] FEMALE_1: Do you remember in the area where your house was where you and your husband moved here?
[00:26:03] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, we lived on Daniel Street which was right across from Henes Park.
[00:26:07] FEMALE_1: Yeah, I know that place.
[00:26:07] Phyllis Hill: You've ever been to that place?
[00:26:09] FEMALE_1: Yeah, my grandma has a house over there.
[00:26:11] Phyllis Hill: Really?
[00:26:15] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Did you like Ann Arbor?
[00:26:18] Phyllis Hill: Well, considering that I didn't want to move here [LAUGHTER] I tolerated it.
[00:26:27] FEMALE_1: Because I remember you telling me when you went off to college and then you moved away did you ever get to see your parents after you went to college?
[00:26:37] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, I would come home for holidays. But my father was dead. My father died when I was 11. My mother was always there.
[00:26:51] FEMALE_1: You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but what did your father die of?
[00:26:56] Phyllis Hill: It was really pneumonia in those days. It was before they had discovered penicillin. He died. He had a stroke and I think he must have asked for [inaudible 00:27:04] That's what his death was.
[00:27:08] FEMALE_1: [inaudible 00:27:08] anything else.
[00:27:42] FEMALE_1: Going back on what your school is like, do you remember if it was a combined elementary school, middle school, and high school or was it separate?
[00:27:55] Phyllis Hill: No, it was all together. You could go from first grade through college at that time. They were a two-year college with a normal school at one point when they were basically interested in training people to do trade-type work like bricklaying, and operatory and that kind of thing. They had a focus on teacher education. But then when they got their four-year certification, I guess it was like any other school which you can go from elementary straight through to college.
[00:28:31] FEMALE_1: Wow.
[00:28:32] Phyllis Hill: It was church-connected school. Was in many of the schools were that black people had back in those ages. Many of them are connected to a church denomination.
[00:29:00] FEMALE_1: I remember you saying that when we first met that you weren't really interested. You're more intellectual when you were in high school, but did you ever get to really play in any sports in high school?
[00:29:14] Phyllis Hill: We didn't have that because the steersman [inaudible 00:29:18] the bus end of the school day, they had to go home. Those are, but most of our interactions scores-wise was just like sandlot baseball and things we did ourselves because it just wasn't enough kids after school to have any formalized type of sport activities. So do you consider that rather dull? High school missing out on all those kinds of activities that kids have today.
[00:30:09] FEMALE_1: Do you remember the type of popular music at this time, when you were in high school, Iet's say?
[00:30:22] Phyllis Hill: I can't specifically remember. It's got like the Big Band era, [LAUGHTER] which was nice that a lot different than today. You could understand what people were saying. Like the music today, you don't know what they're talking about [LAUGHTER] as my daughter says, well, you don't want to know what they're talking about. [LAUGHTER]
[00:30:39] FEMALE_1: Yeah, that is right. If you can remember, who is your favorite artists at that time?
[00:30:49] Phyllis Hill: I don't remember.
[00:30:50] FEMALE_1: you don't remember. Do you remember any particular dances that were associated with any of the songs? Like in the 1920s, they're like the flapper dance. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:31:03] Phyllis Hill: Flapper dance. Was jitterbug.
[00:31:08] FEMALE_1: Jitterbug. [LAUGHTER]
[00:31:10] Phyllis Hill: You've heard of the jitterbug, I guess. But other than that, that was mainly a while since we didn't go that much for a while, so it was mostly jitterbug.
[00:31:21] FEMALE_1: Did your parents approve of the jitterbug?
[00:31:24] Phyllis Hill: They didn't approve of dancing at all. [LAUGHTER]
[00:31:29] FEMALE_1: Did you like to dance though?
[00:31:31] Phyllis Hill: I couldn't. I always had two left feet. [LAUGHTER]
[00:31:36] FEMALE_1: Did you go to any school dances or anything [OVERLAPPING]
[00:31:38] Phyllis Hill: We didn't have those.
[00:31:39] FEMALE_1: You didn't have, okay.
[00:31:40] Phyllis Hill: We didn't have. It was [inaudible 00:31:43] but you had your senior prom, that kind of thing.
[00:31:49] FEMALE_1: Do you remember your dresser hairstyle for prom?
[00:31:51] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, I remember that. I had a pretty blue dress my aunt had given me.
[00:32:03] FEMALE_1: Can you describe any popular clothing or hairstyles of this time?
[00:32:08] Phyllis Hill: Well, we wore our hair and braids. That was our hairstyle; braids. People went for the shoulder, temple girls. [LAUGHTER] I said love those. But other than that, nothing special.
[00:32:27] FEMALE_1: For clothing, did you guys wear uniforms to school?
[00:32:31] Phyllis Hill: No. Just skirts and blouses was the main thing you wore
[00:32:38] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Because I remember my mom always saying that there were always home economic classes.
[00:32:46] Phyllis Hill: Oh, yeah. We're here to take home. If we had to make our dresses for graduation, everybody had the same white dress because we had to make our own dresses to wear which was monotonous. [LAUGHTER] It was what was required.
[00:33:03] FEMALE_1: Do you remember some of your favorite classes from high school?
[00:33:09] Phyllis Hill: I always liked the little short tests. English. The ones I did not like were related to math. I didn't like any of the math classes; algebra and geometry.
[00:33:20] FEMALE_1: Same.
[00:33:20] Phyllis Hill: I don't know how I got through them to tell you the truth.
[00:33:31] FEMALE_1: [LAUGHTER] This is going to be funny. Were there any slang terms or phrases or words that were very common at that time and aren't anymore?
[00:33:38] Phyllis Hill: I can't think of.
[00:33:44] FEMALE_1: Think of any. I feel like when I'm your age and I'm going to be doing this, I will be like there's late. [LAUGHTER] And there is going to be a whole bunch in there and I will be like what the heck is that? [LAUGHTER]
[00:33:54] Phyllis Hill: What that me? [LAUGHTER]
[00:33:57] FEMALE_1: I will be like, I don't even know. [LAUGHTER] When you were a high school, did you have a lot of friends?
[00:34:07] Phyllis Hill: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:09] FEMALE_1: Did you go to any parties or anything like that?
[00:34:11] Phyllis Hill: We didn't go out for parties. I had rather a dull high school, I compare it to what kids have these days. [LAUGHTER]
[00:34:24] FEMALE_1: I remember you saying that you and your friends like to go downtown to find some funs. Do you remember what the downtown looked like or what it felt like when you went there? Was it super fun or was it really boring?
[00:34:37] Phyllis Hill: It was fun if I went with my friends. Because it wasn't much of the town.
[00:34:47] FEMALE_1: [LAUGHTER] I remember you saying there's only one stoplight.
[00:34:49] Phyllis Hill: Yeah.
[00:34:50] FEMALE_1: That was pretty after you left.
[00:34:52] Phyllis Hill: That was after I left. [LAUGHTER] Well, big trucks would roll through their life. They were still on the highway. It's the one that somebody hadn't gotten killed, literally Main Street. Those trucks would fly through there.
[00:35:07] FEMALE_1: This is so funny to me because I remember my mom always told me what type of car her mom and dad drove and then she show me a picture. Do you remember what car that your mom [OVERLAPPING]
[00:35:16] Phyllis Hill: The first car we had was a Model A car. Was you had to crank it up in order to get it started. It didn't have any air conditioning, no heat in it, and then they shifted to Chevrolet, so we have a Chevrolet.
[00:35:50] FEMALE_1: Did your families have any special exchanges or words that they used? Because sometimes when my family prays, we'll squeeze each other's hands three times [inaudible 00:36:03] I love you. I thought that question was really good because sometimes people will have a little thing that they do with their family.
[00:36:12] Phyllis Hill: No. They had no special words, as I can remember.
[00:36:23] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any changes within your family dynamic during your school years?
[00:36:32] Phyllis Hill: Well, after my father died, there were changes. Up until that point, it was just normal, what we had been accustomed to. But after he died, then we all had to, during the summers, we never had free time. We'd have to find jobs to help pay for our school and for the next year. That was the main dynamic that affected our family, was his death.
[00:37:02] FEMALE_1: Did your father have funeral at all or anything like that?
[00:37:05] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. Just a regular funeral at the Charities Villa, follow the prayer book service and that was it. Nothing really big or special.
[00:37:14] FEMALE_1: Do you remember how your mom was acting after the funeral? [OVERLAPPING]
[00:37:20] Phyllis Hill: Well, she was depressed for a while. I mean, she was left with three teenage children that she had to find a way to take care of herself, but she came through with it okay.
[00:37:34] FEMALE_1: Were you close with your mom?
[00:37:36] Phyllis Hill: Not particularly.
[00:37:38] FEMALE_1: Were you close with your dad?
[00:37:39] Phyllis Hill: I was with my dad. I had a closer relationship with him than with my mother.
[00:37:45] FEMALE_1: How did that personally affect you when he died?
[00:37:50] Phyllis Hill: Well, I didn't know that he had died until a day or so afterwards. Everybody was told, but I wasn't told. I wondered why are all these people are at our house? This was before the funeral. Then after they left, I didn't know that he had died until I saw my brother crying. I went to my mother and said, what is wrong with Vip? She said, well, your father died. I said, well, I didn't know that. I had been in retrospect. I said, I guess the kids that we were playing with the day before wondered what was wrong with me because I wasn't showing any emotion, I was like I always was. That was the main dynamics, I think, that affected everybody in the family.
[00:38:34] FEMALE_1: Do you remember your father getting sick with pneumonia?
[00:38:38] Phyllis Hill: Remember what?
[00:38:39] FEMALE_1: Do you remember your father getting sick with pneumonia?
[00:38:42] Phyllis Hill: I'm sorry, I didn't understand.
[00:38:44] FEMALE_1: Do you remember when your father got sick?
[00:38:48] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. He had a stroke in '39 and died in '40.
[00:38:54] FEMALE_1: Did he stop working that year?
[00:38:57] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. He stopped working in '39. But I think we were raised to take life as it came. Nothing stops you. You just make the best of what you have or you don't have and go forward.
[00:39:29] FEMALE_1: Adding on to this question, after your father did die, what types of jobs did you start having to do?
[00:39:38] Phyllis Hill: Variety of low status jobs like waitress. I worked as a chambermaid, worked as what they call the mother's helper. The one job that I did have that I liked was a camp counselor. But you get through it. You don't let anything hold you back.
[00:40:00] FEMALE_1: Yeah. I've noticed after family members that have died in my family, I start to try to pack on a lot of activities to try and keep myself away from thinking about it.
[00:40:11] Phyllis Hill: I didn't do any of that.
[00:40:13] FEMALE_1: You didn't do that? Did you face it head on?
[00:40:14] Phyllis Hill: Would you say, you had to face it head on. It's just a part of life and you cope with it the best you can.
[00:40:30] FEMALE_1: There was a question after this. It was about how are holiday traditions celebrated within your family, and I remember you saying Christmas and stuff like that. Did you have The Elf on the Shelf or anything like that?
[00:40:48] Phyllis Hill: No. Just a Christmas tree and decorating the house.
[00:40:52] FEMALE_1: Did you ever decorate the cookies with your mom or anything like that?
[00:40:56] Phyllis Hill: I did them. That was always fun.
[00:41:03] FEMALE_1: Were there any certain Christmas songs that came out at that time? Or were there no Jingle Bell, Rockwell anything like that?
[00:41:12] Phyllis Hill: Well, that can call it a sound like chestnuts roasting or open fire or something like that. But other than that, there was just a typical Christmas songs that you would have.
[00:41:27] FEMALE_1: When you started your own family, did you guys create your own traditions?
[00:41:32] Phyllis Hill: Well, basically built on my husband's traditions and minor traditions. We basically did the same things we did as we did when we were children. I got a official Christmas tree for the first time when my husband was ill one Christmas. I went, this is easy, how come I didn't think of this before? All I did is opened [inaudible 00:41:59] and found people and searched for a tree. But I was determined to have a Christmas. It felt that the easiest way to go would be to get an artificial tree, which I did. We cut it on the same traditions that, when we were little we'd always have to go to church on Christmas Eve. But when I got older, I said, well, we can do without that. We don't need after the light in this cold weather in the middle of the night to go to church. When you say a prayer, we can say that at home.
[00:42:34] FEMALE_1: Are there any special food traditions that your family has?
[00:42:38] Phyllis Hill: My mother always made a fruit cake in the fall. That was always a lot of fun to do because we were able to go and pick out the kinds of foods that we liked and eat them. But other than the fruit cake, I think that basically was about it and fried oysters for Christmas breakfast. But those are the main traditions that are different, I suppose, from what many people would have.
[00:43:12] FEMALE_1: When your children were growing up, were you really connected to them?
[00:43:16] Phyllis Hill: Yes.
[00:43:19] FEMALE_1: Was your husband connected to them too?
[00:43:21] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. Very much so. He was a family man.
[00:43:32] FEMALE_1: When you were younger and into your high school ages, what was a typical day for you like during this time period?
[00:43:40] Phyllis Hill: Get up, have breakfast, go to school all day long until we would get out at about, [inaudible 00:43:49] 4:20 or so we were out of school, I mean, 3:20. So it was just a routine day with classwork, nothing special.
[00:44:01] FEMALE_1: When you were in high school, what did you do for fun? Did you hang out with your friends after school or?
[00:44:11] Phyllis Hill: I had friends that we would walk home together, and then they would go their way, I would go my way. Then I always had to fix dinner, so that was my job after school, to ensure dinner was ready about five o'clock. After supper, we would play ball. We lived over campus and all the kids on the campus would cluster together and just play satellite baseball.
[00:44:42] FEMALE_1: When you were in high school, did you get to have any sleepovers with your friends or it wasn't there?
[00:44:46] Phyllis Hill: No. I wasn't bothered during that time.
[00:44:53] FEMALE_1: When you were in high school, do you remember any specific days or special days that you did something with your family member?
[00:45:02] Phyllis Hill: Not really.
[00:45:03] FEMALE_1: No? Do you remember any family traditions while you were growing up?
[00:45:10] Phyllis Hill: Well, we celebrated all of the holidays as a family.
[00:45:21] FEMALE_1: Did your family have any special sayings or expressions during this time period?
[00:45:27] Phyllis Hill: I can't remember any.
[00:45:35] FEMALE_1: Were there any changes in your family life during your school years? I mean, we delved in a little bit about your father dying, were there any other changes within your family during [OVERLAPPING]
[00:45:48] Phyllis Hill: No. That was the main thing.
[00:45:51] FEMALE_1: Did your brothers graduate before you or after you?
[00:45:53] Phyllis Hill: Before, they were older than I was.
[00:46:03] FEMALE_1: You said that your family celebrate and most holidays.
[00:46:09] Phyllis Hill: And birthdays.
[00:46:10] FEMALE_1: And birthdays too. Were those holidays that you celebrate in traditional?
[00:46:16] Phyllis Hill: Just traditional.
[00:46:17] FEMALE_1: Traditional.
[00:46:18] Phyllis Hill: We celebrated birthdays that was a big highlight as I was growing up. But my brothers were born in the 19th of September and I was born on the 21st. We celebrated on the 20th day after theirs and a day before mine.
[00:46:38] FEMALE_1: I remember you talked to them about how your mom made, didn't she made a fruit cake?
[00:46:43] Phyllis Hill: She made a fruit cake every year. That was always a fun time because we couldn't munch on the candidate fruit that she had to buy to put in it.
[00:46:54] FEMALE_1: What other recipes did your family passed down from generation?
[00:46:58] Phyllis Hill: Well, I lived in Brunswick County and there's a famous stew out of Brunswick County. She taught me how to make that. It's just a real thick vegetable soup, but well, I've seen it written in cookbooks, but we didn't use it traditional squirrel that was supposed to go into soup, that we just use chicken base stew, but there isn't a recipe called to a squirrel. Can you believe that? [LAUGHTER].
[00:47:26] FEMALE_1: I actually can because I remember my great grandma, she went out in the road and she was like, she found a squirrel that's runned over and just dinner [LAUGHTER].
[00:47:37] Phyllis Hill: She probably wasn't kidding.
[00:47:38] FEMALE_1: No, she was not.
[00:47:39] Phyllis Hill: Did you have soup that night?
[00:47:41] FEMALE_1: Yeah [LAUGHTER]. I was too young.
[00:47:44] Phyllis Hill: Oh yeah.
[00:47:44] FEMALE_1: My mom said that to me and I was like. Okay [LAUGHTER]. When thinking back on your school years, was there any important social or historical events that were taking place at that time? When you were younger, when you were in elementary school?
[00:48:04] Phyllis Hill: The World War was going on, not when I was in elementary, when I was in high school. That was an interesting time because we got accustomed to rationing things and ration coupon books. I know they ration. I think he's supposed to get two beds or shoes or something like that. I said, I'm going to get an extra pair of shoes. I didn't understand what rationing was at that time. I thought I said, well, I don't have a one pair that means I'm getting a new pair of shoes, but that wasn't the way it works [LAUGHTER].
[00:48:39] FEMALE_1: Did your brothers have to go off to World War?
[00:48:43] Phyllis Hill: One day my younger brother did and my older brother was deferred, because he was setting for the ministry.
[00:48:49] FEMALE_1: We'll go back to that question. Speaking on World War I, do you remember exactly what?
[00:49:03] Phyllis Hill: World War II, don't put me back to World War I.
[00:49:07] FEMALE_1: Sorry.
[00:49:07] Phyllis Hill: You probably have a skeleton sitting here [LAUGHTER].
[00:49:11] FEMALE_1: Sorry, that's my bad.
[00:49:12] Phyllis Hill: It's okay.
[00:49:13] FEMALE_1: But you've talked about rationing and you talked about how you didn't truly understand what it was. You just think, I can't get to wear new shoes
[00:49:33] Phyllis Hill: I can't get to wear new shoes, that's what I thought. It didn't work that way.
[00:49:37] FEMALE_1: But do you remember any drills at school?
[00:49:42] Phyllis Hill: Oh, yeah. Where we lived in such an out-of-the-way place, though we still have to have the drills, hid under your desk. We were already on the bottom floor, put your head down on your desk or get underneath the desk but unfortunately, we never had to go through it for real.
[00:50:03] FEMALE_1: Do you remember being scared for your brother?
[00:50:09] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, because he was in the Philippines.
[00:50:14] FEMALE_1: Did he tell you anything about that experience?
[00:50:17] Phyllis Hill: He was not much of a talker. Once it was over for him it was over.
[00:50:25] FEMALE_1: Do you remember hearing anything on the radio about what was going on in the war just being surprised or scared?
[00:50:32] Phyllis Hill: I don't know, I've never scared. It was such a distance away from us was you were afraid for the people who had to leave. You could go to school one week and then the next week where is so and so. Without getting an answer, we knew that that person had been drafted. We lost a lot of classmates in that way because of the draft.
[00:51:02] FEMALE_1: Did you lose anyone close to you, those drafted besides your brother?
[00:51:06] Phyllis Hill: Anyone I didn't. No
[00:51:15] FEMALE_1: But during World War II, so a lot of the Jewish community was killed due to their religious beliefs. Did you feel connected to them in some type of way or no?
[00:51:30] Phyllis Hill: This is a human being, you don't want people just to be killed.
[00:51:37] FEMALE_1: How did you feel about because at first, America's response was to be neutral and isolate themselves from it. Did you feel that that was right?
[00:51:47] Phyllis Hill: Well, not really. The Jews they're human just like anybody else and you don't understand why people are just being killed because of their religion. That didn't make sense.
[00:52:00] FEMALE_1: Do you remember hearing about any protests that happened?
[00:52:05] Phyllis Hill: Not in my area, no.
[00:52:12] FEMALE_1: When your brother left because he was drafted, how did your mother react to that?
[00:52:18] Phyllis Hill: Of course, he was upset about it but we usually just take things in stride. That's a part of life you have to get this. There is just nothing you can do about it but she missed him. In fact, we all missed him very much. So my older brother was away at school, so it was just me and my younger brother. Younger but he was still older than I, we were the only ones who were at home.
[00:52:42] FEMALE_1: Do you remember him writing any of you guys letters?
[00:52:47] Phyllis Hill: He wrote very little.
[00:52:49] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what any of them said?
[00:52:53] Phyllis Hill: Not at this one, I don't know.
[00:52:56] FEMALE_1: Does he have any pictures of being in the war?
[00:52:59] Phyllis Hill: No, just of him in uniform that's all he has. He had one sitting down on a truck, I guess, take an inventory of what was on the truck. Well, that was basically it.
[00:53:28] FEMALE_1: After you finished high school, where did you live?
[00:53:34] Phyllis Hill: Same place. We always lived here but I did go away to college. I went to Hampton University now it's Hampton Institute when I was there. It hadn't reached it university status at that point.
[00:53:52] FEMALE_1: Then you went to UVM after that?
[00:53:55] Phyllis Hill: I went to Atlanta University after that.
[00:53:57] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Sorry.
[00:53:59] Phyllis Hill: It was years later, I went to UVM.
[00:54:04] FEMALE_1: Did you like the place that you lived in when you went to college like in Hampton?
[00:54:09] Phyllis Hill: No, it's an old building, it was an old building. We used to think the stairs would probably collapse on us as we went up and down. They probably have torned it, since torning that building down, I would imagine if it hadn't fallen down by now.
[00:54:27] FEMALE_1: When you move to Atlanta, why did you decide to go there?
[00:54:36] Phyllis Hill: Well, because they were always two schools that I could go to either Hampton or Howard, and I didn't want to go to Howard. I was to leave the city was bigger than Atlanta. I don't suppose, what I just heard of Atlanta and that's why I chose that.
[00:54:55] FEMALE_1: Did you live in the dorm?
[00:54:57] Phyllis Hill: I lived in a dorm.
[00:55:01] FEMALE_1: How would you sum up your experience there? Was it fun or was it just strictly education?
[00:55:05] Phyllis Hill: It's strictly educational.
[00:55:11] FEMALE_1: This question you already answered, did you remain there or did you move around through your working adult life and what was the reason for these?
[00:55:21] Phyllis Hill: No, when I left Atlanta I went to live on a state grant, which necessitated me having to work twice the length of time they sent me, which was a year. After I graduated and then after I finished that one year, I had to snap school and work or take a state job, we used to call it to working off the grant we had to work of the grant. I did that in Richmond, Virginia, I got a job in the Child Welfare System.
[00:55:58] FEMALE_1: Did this state grant apply to everyone that was trying to go out of state for college?
[00:56:03] Phyllis Hill: No.
[00:56:06] FEMALE_1: Who did it apply to?
[00:56:08] Phyllis Hill: Anybody who applied for it.
[00:56:19] FEMALE_1: Could anyone apply for the grant?
[00:56:21] Phyllis Hill: Anyone could apply for that.
[00:56:29] FEMALE_1: For every year that you went to college, did you have to work a year?
[00:56:33] Phyllis Hill: That's right. This is after college, this is grad school.
[00:56:39] FEMALE_1: If you were at grad school, you do a year of school and then a year work?
[00:56:44] Phyllis Hill: That's all they offer. Two years of work.
[00:56:49] FEMALE_1: Oh two years?
[00:56:50] Phyllis Hill: Twice the time they said. Yeah.
[00:56:59] FEMALE_1: Family life. I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your marriage and family life. First tell me a little bit about your spouse.
[00:57:10] Phyllis Hill: My spouse is deceased. He died about three years ago. But we met at Atlanta and decided that we were going to get married, but he decided more than I did, I think. But I got married after he got his degree then we moved to Chicago where he was working and lived there until he decided to get another job in Buffalo, New York. We moved from Chicago to Buffalo, and then from Buffalo to here.
[00:57:51] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what year you and your spouse met?
[00:57:57] Phyllis Hill: Probably. late '40s. I should roughly say '48 or '49.
[00:58:12] FEMALE_1: If you can remember, was the outside world, besides your relationship, was there any tension going on between America or another country or was?
[00:58:23] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, because the two wars, were Korean War and the Vietnam followed World War II, so was a lot of conflict that was still going on.
[00:58:34] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Were you ever scared that your husband would be drafted?
[00:58:40] Phyllis Hill: No, I think he probably was too old at that point and had a family, so I don't think he would have been drafted.
[00:58:47] FEMALE_1: If it is okay to ask, how old were the two of you when you guys met?
[00:58:54] Phyllis Hill: Well, I would have been 20. He was three years, so he would have been 22 or 23.
[00:59:05] FEMALE_1: Okay. Can you tell me what it was like when you guys were dating? How did you feel dating him?
[00:59:15] Phyllis Hill: I didn't feel bad about it. He was a very nice person. I didn't mind dating him at all.
[00:59:26] FEMALE_1: Did your parents like him?
[00:59:29] Phyllis Hill: How can my parents liked anybody I would have married? [LAUGHTER] My mother didn't want me to get married. She thought that I should either get further education and finish my degree, which I didn't have the money to do, or just continue working.
[00:59:47] FEMALE_1: Do you remember how he proposed?
[00:59:51] Phyllis Hill: To tell you the truth, I don't.
[00:59:57] FEMALE_1: Do you remember the wedding?
[01:00:00] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. I was married by my older brother, who was an Episcopal priest, so that I remember very well.
[01:00:09] FEMALE_1: Was it a big party or was it just close friends?
[01:00:13] Phyllis Hill: I'd say close friends with less than 200 people.
[01:00:18] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
[01:00:19] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. I got married right after a church service. My brother and I had some conflict about getting married because in the Episcopal church, other churches probably also, that you're supposed to be counseled but I refused to be with counsel but my brother. I said, no, I wasn't going to do it. He bulked about that because that was the tradition of the church. But I said, I know my own line, so I refuse to go through the counseling, I didn't know whether that was good, bad, or indifferent.
[01:00:56] FEMALE_1: When you refused to go through this counseling, did other church members looked down on you?
[01:01:00] Phyllis Hill: No, they didn't even know.
[01:01:09] FEMALE_1: Do you remember your wedding dress? Was it short or long?
[01:01:14] Phyllis Hill: Yes. It wasn't short, it wasn't long, it was just above the ankles. Interestingly enough, when I was moving to Glacier Hills, I had it in a pack to go to the Salvation Army. My daughter-in-law took it out I don't know what she wanted it for, or whether she was going to have it redone for her daughter. If and she ever gotten married or not, she didn't tell me. She said, can I have it? I said, sure. Otherwise, I would have known where it went. It was a pretty long sleeve, long dress, and probably ankle length.
[01:01:52] FEMALE_1: Did it have any lace on it or sparkles?
[01:01:54] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, around the collar and around the wrist.
[01:02:03] FEMALE_1: Can you tell me about your children? I know you said that you have a daughter and a son. Can you tell their different personalities?
[01:02:13] Phyllis Hill: My son is quiet and introverted. My daughter is more extroverted. My son doesn't talk very much and my daughter makes up for it. She's quite a talker. Both of them graduated from college and had advanced degrees. My son went to MIT and he has his doctorate from there in political science. He started out in math, but he said he'd had to be a genius to get to get his doctorate in math at MIT. He actually switched his line of study and had to owner his own and really build in a lot of education relative to political science that he hadn't gotten because that had not been his field. He's actually here now for a couple of weeks on his sabbatical. My daughter, as I said before, graduated from Swarthmore and she got her Master's at the University of Michigan in engineering. Works for Bell Labs. Then eventually decided she wanted to go back to school to get her MBA, so she went to Harvard and got that. Both of them are working. My son is married and I have two grandchildren. My daughter is never married and I don't think she ever will at this point at her age. She's extremely independent.
[01:03:51] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Do you remember what your children were like when they were younger?
[01:03:58] Phyllis Hill: They were a real joy. I enjoyed. I didn't work when they were younger. We decided that it was better for me to be a mother to stay at home and raise them and teach them at home, although they weren't into homeschooling at that point. But I think it helped them in terms of their own development. But basically, they were good kids. They never gave us any trouble. Very studious. I couldn't have had two better children, I don't think. I think staying at home with them helped that. They never had to worry about, who is my babysitter going to be or where am I going to go today? I just gave up everything and just decided I'd be a home-bound mother, which I enjoyed very much. It was as much fun for me I think as it was for them.
[01:04:57] FEMALE_1: Did you pass along the fruit cake tradition with your kids?
[01:05:01] Phyllis Hill: No, they didn't like fruit cake. Maybe the first one I made wasn't that palatable. I didn't pass that tradition on.
[01:05:12] FEMALE_1: But did you guys create something that you still use today?
[01:05:15] Phyllis Hill: Well, cookies. They liked oatmeal cookies. I have a special oatmeal cookie recipe, and my daughter would make those. My son wanted no part of the kitchen.
[01:05:28] FEMALE_1: I remember you telling us about the soup that your mom taught you how to make.
[01:05:33] Phyllis Hill: Yeah.
[01:05:34] FEMALE_1: Did you teach your daughter how to make that soup?
[01:05:36] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, she makes it. She calls it bone soup, because my mother used to take the carcass of the chicken and make the broth out of that, so my daughter ended up calling it grandma's bone soup because of the bones. But I take the bones out of mine. I don't leave the bones in.
[01:06:08] FEMALE_1: Can you tell me about where you started working and your work experience or history?
[01:06:16] Phyllis Hill: Well, my first job, the professional job, was in Richmond Virginia and I was in charge of a case load of approximately 50 young children that I had to supervise in foster care, I ended having to visit those children every month. That's how I learned how to drive because that was one of the conditions of the position, that you had to be able to drive. I went to driving school and learned how to drive which was a great benefit, I think to me. But it was mine and having to visit those foster homes once a month.
[01:06:56] FEMALE_1: When you had to visit them, do you remember any criteria that you had to look over or?
[01:07:00] Phyllis Hill: It was just to be sure that the children were being cared for, going to school like they should be doing because they were still of young children because they age out of the system when they were 18, so these were children under the age of 18.
[01:07:16] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any cases where the child was being neglected or anything?
[01:07:20] Phyllis Hill: No. I never had any of those.
[01:07:23] FEMALE_1: Did you hear of any?
[01:07:25] Phyllis Hill: No. Not on my caseload. They had been neglected, that's why they were in the system.
[01:07:31] FEMALE_1: Yeah. After you are working with the foster care cases, did you move on to any other jobs or did you stay with that type of job?
[01:07:42] Phyllis Hill: I stayed with that job but then I got married and I had my own family and my job then was to take care of the children at home.
[01:07:55] FEMALE_1: Were there burn victims?
[01:08:00] Phyllis Hill: That was one in my assignments when I began working at university hospital.
[01:08:05] FEMALE_1: Can you dive in a little bit to that?
[01:08:08] Phyllis Hill: Well, when I graduated, I was offered a job at the hospital because that's where I had done my internship. I took that job basically because I could initially work part-time because I wanted to be home when the children were home from school, high school. I worked there, planning to stay five years and I ended up staying there for 30 because of the lack of jobs. There weren't that many child welfare jobs available in this area and I did not want to go out of county, I've gotten requests at Mateo county agencies that were looking for a social worker. But I didn't want to be that far away from home, especially with Michigan weather as in case something happened, I'd want it to be close enough to home to get there in a short period of time. So I didn't work any place else. But I enjoyed my work there.
[01:09:07] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any child or certain case?
[01:09:11] Phyllis Hill: The first child I saw who had been burned was really upsetting to me, although I had been prepared for what to expect. But I went home and I dreamed about a child, I couldn't sleep all night long because the child was grossly swollen. Then I had a chat with myself, if I'm going to do this work, I have to be able to do it the right way and to accept whatever I see. I enjoy working on the burn unit because of the interaction with the families. They were all in crisis.
[01:09:50] FEMALE_1: With that first child, you remember exactly how he was burned?
[01:09:54] Phyllis Hill: I don't remember that, no.
[01:09:59] FEMALE_1: Working in the burn victim unit, did that change your outlook on life at all?
[01:10:03] Phyllis Hill: No. It teaches me to be more careful about things at home, where do you put your paint cans and if you've got young children what you have to do to protect them.
[01:10:19] FEMALE_1: What exactly did paint cans, do they have a little substances in them?
[01:10:23] Phyllis Hill: Well, don't be dumb enough to put them in your basement next to your heater, that kind of thing. [LAUGHTER]
[01:10:35] FEMALE_1: You said you had a part-time job, and that was working with the burns victims. What was a typical day like for you when you were working part-time there?
[01:10:45] Phyllis Hill: I don't understand your question. Why was it?
[01:10:51] FEMALE_1: What was a typical day like for you during?
[01:10:54] Phyllis Hill: A typical day like?
[01:10:55] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
[01:10:56] Phyllis Hill: Well, I would have to first get to work and then check on whether there were new patients or not, a new families to deal with that was one of the main things. Then depending on what that family's needs were, that would be fine. Then what direction would be going with them. Some of it was as simple as finding a place to live. Others the family was completely in crisis and unable to function. In cases like that you had to find out who is going to be the stable one to help this family sustain itself during this long hospitalization. Things like that.
[01:11:38] FEMALE_1: Do you remember anything that any of those family members said to you when you were talking to them about the house burning down or their child?
[01:11:49] Phyllis Hill: No, I don't know. That they said in what respect?
[01:11:56] FEMALE_1: To their house being burned down or to their child.
[01:11:59] Phyllis Hill: It was devastating. Of course, the child is in love that always generates much more concern than just material structure they can always rebuild back.
[01:12:14] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Did you ever fear anything that would happen to your children like this, like you said, you tried to take caution with paint cans and stuff like that?
[01:12:31] Phyllis Hill: You still have until the children cannot reach and pull a hot pot over on themselves reaching for the handle.
[01:12:42] FEMALE_1: Was it really hard to see the children in the hospital and then go home to your children?
[01:12:50] Phyllis Hill: No, it was not.
[01:12:52] FEMALE_1: Did it make you happier to see your children healthy?
[01:12:56] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, I guess so.
[01:13:04] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any special memories of you being with your kids at home or any family vacations or anything?
[01:13:17] Phyllis Hill: Our vacations consisted of visiting family members. That was always an exciting time for the children and the both of us because you've been separated for a years, it was good to have that reunion. Plus my family on my father's side, they had always had family reunion once a year. Business of family reunion was nothing new for us.
[01:13:49] FEMALE_1: I remember you saying when you were younger you liked the movie like Frankenstein. Do you remember any movies that your kids enjoy to watch when they were younger?
[01:14:00] Phyllis Hill: They liked this Star Trek movies, those kind. Mine were big things they didn't care for mine, they didn't have the same taste that I did in mysteries and creepy crawly.
[01:14:17] FEMALE_1: What was your personal favorite thing to do for fun? When you became an adult, what was your favorite thing to do?
[01:14:25] Phyllis Hill: Well, I have to go out, I liked to see plays, probably plays. I liked to read and I liked to cook. Basically that was it. Nothing really special.
[01:14:46] FEMALE_1: Were there any special days, events or family traditions that you practiced that were different from your childhood traditions?
[01:14:53] Phyllis Hill: No. Nothing that's different. No.
[01:14:55] FEMALE_1: Yeah. Just not making a fruit cake.
[01:14:59] Phyllis Hill: I don't make fruit cakes anymore, I don't eat them. I found that I was the only one eating fruit cake, nobody else cared for fruit cake.
[01:15:17] FEMALE_1: When you were an adult and when you were working part-time and coming home, can you describe any of the popular music during this time frame?
[01:15:28] Phyllis Hill: Well, I came through the Big Band era. You had a lot of officers at, I wish that I can remember some of them. One was a Count Basie, I don't know for sure. The other one was Guy Lombardo, which was very good. I always watch him on New Year's Eve. I can't think of any other of the bands but it was most of the Big Band era.
[01:15:56] FEMALE_1: Do you remember what your children would listened to?
[01:16:00] Phyllis Hill: They had a lot of records, the children had records that they liked.
[01:16:06] FEMALE_1: Did the music that your children and you listened to have particular dances associated with it?
[01:16:14] Phyllis Hill: For Guy Lombardo it was always the waltz king. Well, the other was just regular dance music.
[01:16:29] FEMALE_1: What were the popular clothing hairstyles during this time frame?
[01:16:38] Phyllis Hill: Stop and think about that for a second. I can't think of anything.
[01:16:53] FEMALE_1: When you started working part-time, do you remember what year that was?
[01:17:01] Phyllis Hill: That would have been '63.
[01:17:08] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[01:17:13] FEMALE_1: We're like in the hippie era.
[01:17:19] Phyllis Hill: Yeah.
[01:17:19] FEMALE_1: You lived in the UK this time?
[01:17:21] Phyllis Hill: Yeah.
[01:17:21] FEMALE_1: Did you notice heavy culture come out in the University?
[01:17:28] Phyllis Hill: Not sure, she is dressed in [inaudible 01:17:31] weird ways, but that was their sound, what they wanted. That's up to them.
[01:17:39] FEMALE_1: Can you describe your style for this era?
[01:17:43] Phyllis Hill: I've always liked the plane classic style or dress.
[01:17:51] FEMALE_1: Were there any slang terms or phrases or words that were used then that aren't commonly used today?
[01:18:02] Phyllis Hill: I can't think of anything special.
[01:18:09] FEMALE_1: When you think back on your working life, do you remember any social or historical events that took place?
[01:18:17] Phyllis Hill: The law was the main event during that time.
[01:18:27] FEMALE_1: Were you ever scared that your son was going to be often?
[01:18:36] Phyllis Hill: He actually was a draft actually. He didn't believe in the war. He's a P snake. He didn't believe in the war at all.
[01:18:44] FEMALE_1: Do you remember the peaceful protests to try to stop the war?
[01:18:48] Phyllis Hill: I remember those.
[01:18:49] FEMALE_1: How did you feel about the war?
[01:18:53] Phyllis Hill: They always unnecessary. People should be able to compromise and come to a decision without having to fight me feel each other?
[01:19:01] FEMALE_1: How does your daughter feel about the war?
[01:19:15] Phyllis Hill: Well, she wasn't old enough to.
[01:19:18] FEMALE_1: Understand that.
[01:19:19] Phyllis Hill: Understand it good.
[01:19:20] FEMALE_1: In the '60s, how old were you children, is your son older or younger than?
[01:19:29] Phyllis Hill: He was older and he's three years old, is he would've been [inaudible 01:19:34] who was in college, so an older teenager.
[01:19:43] FEMALE_1: She was three years old.
[01:19:44] Phyllis Hill: Three years old.
[01:19:45] FEMALE_1: She felt like 14 or 15 years?
[01:19:52] Phyllis Hill: He was more concerned about the war then she was because the possibility was being drafted. He wasn't I got to be drafted. He said he'd go to Canada first.
[01:20:05] FEMALE_1: How did you feel about that?
[01:20:07] Phyllis Hill: Well, here's the sea and his life.
[01:20:09] FEMALE_1: Do you remember how your husband felt about.
[01:20:15] Phyllis Hill: It has support what he wanted to do, what my sun wanted to do this his life so was his whatever he decided, he wanted, my husband would talk to him about the pros and cons of it. But the final decision was here. We would have to accept whatever it was he wanted. [NOISE]
[01:21:01] FEMALE_1: I remember movies open a little bit into this last time, but when your children went to school, they didn't really tell you much about what happened at school. But did they tell you about any of the drills that they had to do at school or anything like that?
[01:21:17] Phyllis Hill: No.
[01:21:18] FEMALE_1: No. Going off of historical events and social events, do you remember any uprisings within the African-American community or the woman's.
[01:21:45] Phyllis Hill: Movement?
[01:21:46] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any of those?
[01:21:48] Phyllis Hill: Yeah. I remember the protest on campus. The band movement. I remember some of the groups that were very active. I wasn't a part of it but just a bystander.
[01:22:13] FEMALE_1: Do you remember Martin Luther King?
[01:22:15] Phyllis Hill: Yes. My husband knew him.
[01:22:17] FEMALE_1: He did?
[01:22:18] Phyllis Hill: They went to school at Morehouse together.
[01:22:22] FEMALE_1: With a pulse friends.
[01:22:24] Phyllis Hill: They just knew each other as classmate?
[01:22:27] FEMALE_1: Did you ever go to one of his speeches?
[01:22:31] Phyllis Hill: I didn't.
[01:22:34] FEMALE_1: Did want to partake in that experience or not.
[01:22:37] Phyllis Hill: I had two children at home. That's where my place was.
[01:22:45] FEMALE_1: Did your husband or taken any of the activities or anything?
[01:22:50] Phyllis Hill: Indirectly know him. He would get out on a picket line or something like that. But he was very supportive of those who did.
[01:23:03] FEMALE_1: When you were pretty much taken care of your children, did you feel like they would be able to have the same opportunity as any other person, any other color.
[01:23:21] Phyllis Hill: Yes, be sure that they did.
[01:23:29] FEMALE_1: Personally, how did it affect you when Martin Luther King was jailed? Do you remember when he was shot?
[01:23:36] Phyllis Hill: I remember, [inaudible 01:23:37] was a sad time to have a leader shot. All killed. But those are the times and you adapt to what is and what can you do about it?
[01:24:06] FEMALE_1: Your son was older than your daughter, but do you remember any thing that he said to you about Martin Luther King more than protest?
[01:24:15] Phyllis Hill: No.
[01:24:19] FEMALE_1: No, if he partook in any event?
[01:24:21] Phyllis Hill: He probably did, but I wasn't aware of it.
[01:24:24] FEMALE_1: Did you support your husband and your sons?
[01:24:32] Phyllis Hill: I bury myself.
[01:24:33] FEMALE_1: If you could change anything today, of course you were a mother of two kids and that's where you felt you belong to go back once you partake in any of the activities or.
[01:24:47] Phyllis Hill: I doubt it.
[01:24:51] FEMALE_1: Was it a scary situation to have to see people being put in jail for trying to stand up for their rights?
[01:24:59] Phyllis Hill: Yeah, definitely. They had rights just like anybody else. But for example, for my husband, he came back from the army. He was not allowed to vote simply because he was black. I know he recalled that over and is and he went into a boat and was denied. Then a couple of white kids went in kids because you're going over that bar, went in behind him and they came out. He says did you get it? Yeah. They said yes, no problem. That affected him for I think all of his life. He wasn't bitter about it, but he was certainly upset about it. [BACKGROUND].
[01:25:47] FEMALE_1: That mistaken somebody. [NOISE]
[01:25:52] FEMALE_1: Sorry. I'm talking about the voting. Do you remember when African-Americans were actually allowed to vote?
[01:26:02] Phyllis Hill: I remember.
[01:26:05] FEMALE_1: Was your husband excited?
[01:26:12] Phyllis Hill: I don't know excited would be the exact term for it but he was glad that, you know, we finally got our rights. Even when I was in elementary school, people are having difficulty voting and I remember I must have been in fourth or fifth grade. We had a school, as I told you, that was church connected. We have one instructor who came in and explained to the students so that they explain to the parents what they were supposed to do when they went to the polls because we were black and went to the polls. That gives you a blank sheet of paper to fill out as the application and they didn't know how to fill out that sheet of paper, of course, were denied. But he taught the students so that they could go home and teach their relatives how to register to vote. I felt that was a unique thing to do because my parents were voting at that time. I don't remember them having any problem voting. I don't know why not.
[01:27:19] FEMALE_1: I remember you saying when you were little, your dad got a call for him to pass his wife so he didn't have to pay.
[01:27:30] Phyllis Hill: High hydra because they could pass for white, but I couldn't because of my hair. Less indelible in my mind that incident.
[01:27:45] FEMALE_1: Do you think that's the reason why they may have been able to vote or do you think it was just because [OVERLAPPING] .
[01:27:52] Phyllis Hill: I don't know. I think because maybe there was a difference between people who lived on the campus and people who are from the rural areas because they were educated. Maybe they had a better chance of getting through the voting system and people who were not.
[01:28:10] FEMALE_1: Do you want to tell me about some of your other funs?
[01:28:12] Phyllis Hill: I told you about fruit cakes already. That was always a fun time because we've got all the fruit comes to dice. We would have to make it smaller so we would take a bite, make them smaller. The other traditions also related to food and away on Christmas holidays. On Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, we always had to go to church. We never went to parties to celebrate either one of those holidays and we didn't like to be up so late at night, but we had no choice in the matter. For Christmas and New Year's breakfast, we always have fried oysters if they were available. I scrambled eggs and my mother always made our bread, so we had all made bread and they would open up Christmas presents after we had breakfast. On New Year's Eve we would have to stay up also until midnight. We're for what they call watch service and there was no way that we would get out of that chore either. Wasn't really a chore, but little kids, they'll use a stay up that late at night. Breakfast on New Year's Day would be the same as Christmas if it was available. For Christmas dinner, we'd never had turkey, we always had a hen. I thought we were too poor to afford to visit because of why my friends have turkey, why don't we turkey? It wasn't until I was a grown woman that I realized that we hadn't turkey not because we couldn't afford it, but we didn't have turkey because my mother didn't like turkey. That she preferred to hen, and then we'd look forward to her making stew out of the caucus. She made a deliberate and make what they call a Brunswick stew. Now the county I grew up in was Rosa County. There's still supposedly had originated in the country and you'll find the recipe in some recipe books I've seen it listed. The original recipe calls for a squirrel and I've had it with a squirrel and what I didn't eat the squirrel. But we just used a half chicken to do it and that was always a good treat. Other things I think that I would consider traditional or just probably just routine things. We've never had a dinner without the whole family being together then my father would say grace. Then we would eat and chit-chat during the dinner hour. But there was no way of getting out of night going to dinner because I was the only meal that we were all home and available to sit down together to eat except on the weekends. Those are [inaudible 01:31:00] . The other tradition was on my father's side that his mother had 12 children and most of them they got it wrong, would leave home to find work in other places and she would have what she called homecoming, which should be one weekend in August of every year. They never skip that no matter how many things that everybody tried to come out. That was a real fun time because we've had to do is to see the uncles and aunts that we didn't see on a regular basis during the year, so that was fun. I remember she was a great cook and we would look forward to whoever was cooking. She would also sometimes have homemade ice cream and I could never understand where the ice came from because they lived out in the country and it wasn't as you can go to the store and buy some ice like you can do now. But my uncle Shelby, how they had ice, he said, don't go in this building by yourself. I thought it was just an outside shed for water or something. We opened the doors is cold blast of air hits it almost like an air conditioner and they will hit lighter light and so we could see because it was pitch dark in this particular shed. There was a big hole in the middle of a forest just because if he wouldn't have without our lives, you could easily fall in that hole if you didn't know it was there. Then a whole was straw and ice and he told me that it was winter time and there was a little creek on the property with a creek froze over. They would cut cubes of ice out of it and put it in this storage area and I thought I was going to use as an ingenious is. How did they learn, how to do that? That must have been passed down to them. Remember someone, I don't know who, but that can answer my question about that. It looks like a main traditions were around food and I didn't, I had forgotten all about that until I got back home the other day and I said, I guess we didn't have such additions at them maybe everybody did the same thing. But apparently there were some differences there.
[01:33:26] FEMALE_1: Now we're going to talk about your your job. What was your primary field of employment?
[01:33:33] Phyllis Hill: Social work.
[01:33:35] FEMALE_1: How did you get started with this particular job?
[01:33:39] Phyllis Hill: This particular job I was hired because I was a student. I did my internship at University Hospital and then when I graduated, they asked me to stay on to work and I did. I had planned on being that five years and then I was going to go and try to get a job in child welfare, which was my main interest. But there were no jobs available in the area because I had young children at home, I didn't want to take a job that was out of the county because I had to get over to emergency. I agreed to take a job and they allowed me to work part-time so that I could be at home with the kids, at home from school because the family was my first priority. That worked out well on a part-time basis. They were going to school full time and I was able to go back to work on a full-time basis. Excuse me.
[01:34:35] FEMALE_1: What got you interested in social work?
[01:34:39] Phyllis Hill: Details used I had no idea what social work was. It was a woman in our area who was a social worker. She was a social worker for I think it was the Diocese of Ohio and I just admired her so much that I thought it was her as a social worker and I can be a social worker and I can do that she does. Some of the stores, if she would tell you, no worries intriguing. That was a bill. I didn't know what social work was, if you'd asked me, why do you want to be a social worker, I would say, well, it's because of Esther she was my role model. That's the main reason.
[01:35:21] FEMALE_1: Can you describe the steps of the processes involved in your job? Like how you started like so when you were in college and what made you decide to work at the hospital and help those kids?
[01:35:36] Phyllis Hill: Well, I started working on it as I said, because the convenience of it. Then the longer I stayed the longer I felt that that would be disadvantaged if I move someplace else, having to start all over again, building a career. But I hadn't had planned on being a medical social work. I met Esther, she learned when I had my field placement there. I stopped that and I was like 30 years. I stuck it out for a long time.
[01:36:08] FEMALE_1: When you were there with your job and you were working there, did you notice a lot of changes in the medical field or did you get to experience any changes with like family dynamics.
[01:36:20] Phyllis Hill: Tremendous changes switching the medical bill. They always have changes there something new comes up every day. But it was a very interesting place where you are constantly learning because the more environments you had, the more you could learn about medical conditions and how people responded to them and some of the psycho-social issues that face families especially when the breadwinner became ill. From that standpoint, it was very interesting because I'd have contact with patients but with family members and I like that.
[01:37:01] FEMALE_1: Can you explain what a typical day was like during your working years of your adult life?
[01:37:07] Phyllis Hill: Well, there was no typical day because you never know when you went into work, what cases you are going to be referred. There was no real typical day, it could be a very slow do nothing day, could be a day it starts off with a crisis first thing in the morning and you could be involved with that, most of the day. That was another interesting thing about it was that it didn't have the sameness all the time, there was always something different going on.
[01:37:39] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any specific training or skills that were required for your specific job?
[01:37:44] Phyllis Hill: Just to be able to interact with people. Well, in my particular job, I had to know community resources because patients are there for a short time and somebody may need help that a family service agency could offer in terms of counseling, so did a lot of referring out to other agencies.
[01:38:09] FEMALE_1: Do you remember any technology changes during your working years?
[01:38:15] Phyllis Hill: Probably a tremendously but they didn't affect me in any way. No.
[01:38:22] FEMALE_1: When you were saying you were working as a medical social worker, what were some of the medical technology that that they changed over those years?
[01:38:33] Phyllis Hill: Well, I've forgotten the name of it now, but heart surgery was something new. That was a major new thing that happened during the time that I was working. I'm not that familiar with most of the other technology because that was not my area of expertise.
[01:39:00] FEMALE_1: What do you think is the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started and now?
[01:39:08] Phyllis Hill: The biggest difference? Well, it's been so long since I've worked. I've been retired for 23 years so I'm not sure of what currently I would say could answer that for you.
[01:39:26] FEMALE_1: But do you remember any specific things that you had to do for your job? How were you contacted to go help a family?
[01:39:34] Phyllis Hill: You would get a referral from a physician.
[01:39:37] FEMALE_1: Okay.
[01:39:38] Phyllis Hill: They would get you started.
[01:39:42] FEMALE_1: When you were talking with these families, you sitting down with them and consulting them or were they just like telling you about how they were feeling?
[01:39:52] Phyllis Hill: No, usually sit down and have a one-on-one or two or three or one, depending on [inaudible 01:39:58] there.
[01:40:07] FEMALE_1: In the social work field, what is something that makes someone respected? Like in the social work field, how does someone become excellent at their job or how did they come highly respected?
[01:40:22] Phyllis Hill: I think in your interaction with other people you have to be able to interact in order to do your job and then during the job have a good case outcome.
[01:40:40] FEMALE_1: What did you value most about doing what you did for a living?
[01:40:44] Phyllis Hill: Helping somebody else?
[01:40:48] FEMALE_1: Do you know why that exactly was?
[01:40:51] Phyllis Hill: Because it meant that you've done a good job and that's you help resolve whatever problem was that you were working on with someone didn't always work. But when it did work, it was a tremendous relief. I refer this couple to certain settings as agency and they resolved their problems, although we didn't have that much opportunity to do follow up, would've been nice if we had known.
[01:41:24] FEMALE_1: Can you tell me about any moves you've made during your working years and in retirement prior to your decision to move to your current residents? We talked about how you lived in Virginia and then you moved down to Atlanta and then you move to Chicago?
[01:41:43] Phyllis Hill: Moved to Chicago and then Buffalo and then Buffalo here. Mostly I related to my husband's job or his carrier pattern. He had a 10-year pattern that he wanted to, he was also a social worker, but he wanted to go from being online social worker to being administered agency. That's why we had so many moves when he was following his patterns steps. That's why we had so many moves. But he made his goal within 10 years and we moved here, the children were to schools, so it didn't make any sense to move again because they would have to get used to the different school system all over again.
[01:42:28] FEMALE_1: Yeah. How did you come to live in your current residents?
[01:42:34] Phyllis Hill: Funny thing about it. My husband had always admired the house where we would have to pass the house and we would take the children up to one school. One day I saw a for sale sign on the house and I came home and I said, your house is up for sale and he didn't know what I was talking her about at first. But we looked into it and then finally purchased this which will house I've sold it now, but loved the house on sunset road. The reason we needed a new house was because the house that we were living in at the time didn't have two bedrooms and my son was using the room that really could have been a dining room as his room. If anybody who was visiting in the house and he wanted to get to one side of the house to the other, you'd have to go through this room. Because he didn't like that, that interfered with this sense of privacy, so basically we moved so that each of the children could have a bedroom after they got bigger.
[01:43:37] FEMALE_1: Yeah. You said that you had sold that house?
[01:43:42] Phyllis Hill: Yes.
[01:43:45] FEMALE_1: How do you feel about your current living situation now?
[01:43:48] Phyllis Hill: It is acceptable, I'm uncomfortable with it. Although I still feel that I could stay at home if I had somebody there with me but I didn't want to go into a home share program and I didn't know of anyone that did that kind of work. I basically just need somebody at night, no problem getting somebody during the day, but to have to find somebody to live in and I just didn't want it to go to that trouble. This has worked out well, living in a retirement community.
[01:44:21] FEMALE_1: Yeah. How did your family life change for you when your children moved out of the house?
[01:44:32] Phyllis Hill: Not very much. Gave me a little more freedom but when they moved, it was time for them to make that move to move out and begin their own traditions. I didn't suffer from the empty nest syndrome at all. My daughter thought I did, but she didn't realize that I didn't plan on raising children all my life. But I was comfortable that they were capable of moving out on their own and they were prepared to take care of themselves. I had no negative feelings about it.
[01:45:10] FEMALE_1: Do you remember how your life changed for you when you or your spouse retired?
[01:45:20] Phyllis Hill: I retired but I became a caregiver when I retired. I retired in let's say January and that's September I began being a caregiver for my mother so that was my retirement. Later after she recovered a little bit, my husband became ill, so I became his caregiver. That was my basic changing. Well I was glad that I was still physically able to provide the help that they needed, so it was a change to the good because otherwise I would have had to place them somewhere to have somebody else take care of them when I was pleased and I could do the work myself. I had to take over more and more roles as the dominant person in the family. I eventually started taking it with paying the bills and he did it as long as he could, but he reached a point where he couldn't do it any longer, so I fell into that vein to having to take over a lot of my husband's responsibilities. That was a major change for me.
[01:46:38] FEMALE_1: You don't have to answer this if you don't want to but how has your life changed since your spouse has passed away?
[01:46:45] Phyllis Hill: Well, I have moved and I sold my house. I don't have the same responsibilities that I had and I have learned more and more how to take care of things, business things related to our affairs. I guess that's the main thing, taking over his responsibilities. In my work-life, I found so many women weren't able to do that because they had never done it before but I slipped into it rather easily. I didn't have any problem with it. Some of the women interestingly enough didn't know what their assets were. They didn't know, the husband had been the one who did everything and didn't share. I remember one poor lady whose husband had promised her that things were fine financially, you'll always be taken care of and then when it came down to it, she found out that they didn't have any savings, that he had not prepared for emergencies as she had been told it was and what a shock that was for her because there was nothing for her to fall back on. You have to do that.
[01:48:02] FEMALE_1: What was typical day in your life currently?
[01:48:08] Phyllis Hill: Well, of course I had my three meals a day and we go back to food again. I don't eat breakfast at the center, I just eat a branch. Then I participate in whatever activities they might have a day. There's always something you can choose from, either a music, concert or games. I started playing Bingo again. I know it has more value than just picking up and putting a little circle or a number. Well, it has coordination between the brain and your hands. I don't participate in any of the nighttime activities because after dinner I'm ready to turn in. But I manage to keep busy, I'm not bored at all. I've never been one who gets bored. I can always find something to do to keep my mind going.
[01:49:12] FEMALE_1: What do you and your family do now together?
[01:49:15] Phyllis Hill: Nothing because I have no family here now. I'm here all by myself, I don't have my family. My son is here temporarily because he's on sabbatical after you. But I'm usually pretty good about keeping myself occupied. I keep in touch with them by phone or by computer.
[01:49:40] FEMALE_1: What are your favorite things to do for fun?
[01:49:43] Phyllis Hill: I like to read. I sometimes do handwork like leading or crocheting. But actually physical things I'm not able to do much anymore. I used to walk every day but I can't do that until my leg gets stronger. As I said, I'm not bored. I know some people sit around and say what can I do? I'm tired, there's nothing to do. I can always find something to do which is just picking up a book to read, and that keeps me busy. I like mysteries. Once I get started on a good one, I'm not satisfied until I'm through with it.
[01:50:31] FEMALE_1: Are there any special days, or events, or family traditions you really truly enjoy at this time in your life?
[01:50:40] Phyllis Hill: Not at this time. There is nothing because there's no family here.
[01:50:47] FEMALE_1: When you're thinking back on your life after retirement, or when your kids left home up into the present, what important social or historical events have taken place during that time frame, or at least from your standpoint?
[01:51:06] Phyllis Hill: Social events? Well, I think the world has changed in terms of diversity and that's been one of the social events [inaudible 01:51:26]. Well, that was before retirement not after, you said after retirement.
[01:51:32] FEMALE_1: Well, it can be like when your kids left home often or after retirement up until now.
[01:51:39] Phyllis Hill: When they left home, which is a natural progression, I would not have been wanting them to stay home forever. That would not be fair to me or to them. They needed to roll out and be on their own. Start their own traditions. We had integration of schools, that was before my retirement.
[01:52:21] FEMALE_1: [inaudible 01:52:21] I was going to ask you about some of them and I just completely forgot. Do you remember any historical events that were taking place and if they affected you?
[01:52:35] Phyllis Hill: The wars? I think that affected everybody. I didn't have anybody in my family who went into the service just for the war because I heard some who were as career people in the Navy and the Army. But they didn't have to go overseas. Who knows what will happen before all of this is over with. The world has become unsettled. That's the main thing that I guess I would put my finger on. Life is not like it used to be. There are so many uncertainties.
[01:53:19] FEMALE_1: I'll just say name off point. How did you feel about like 911?
[01:53:23] Phyllis Hill: Terrible. Like everybody. It was unbelievable. Like you said I watched those planes go into the building. Even more unbelievable. I have to find it wasn't an intentional act, it wasn't an emergency that something happened to the plane or something like that, but it was meant to have been done that way. It's terrible. It speaks to how people think which is terrible. The loss of all those lives.
[01:53:57] FEMALE_1: A lot of people in 911 actually died because when the plane hit, there was a lot of fire that happened, I guess. How would you, as a social worker, have felt how the ankles families of people that had died from the crisis?
[01:54:13] Phyllis Hill: I would love to have been on the team to provide some help. I'm sure a lot of crisis intervention was necessary, and [inaudible 01:54:22] around the idea of grief and loss.
[01:54:27] FEMALE_1: Do you think there was enough counseling?
[01:54:31] Phyllis Hill: I guess there was.
[01:54:38] FEMALE_1: When thinking back on your entire life, what are the most important social and historical events that you can think of that had the greatest impact?
[01:54:54] Phyllis Hill: I don't know because life is made up of a lot of changes in a lot of areas. But nothing to me that was more significant than anything else. I don't know what direction I thought she was going, and now, I just hope Trump doesn't get us in another war. We really were bad.
[01:55:25] FEMALE_1: We've talked about the wars a couple of times, but do you remember how it made you feel when you were going to war and possibly your son or your husband could've been drafted? Was it really scary? [OVERLAPPING]
[01:55:40] Phyllis Hill: It was scary, but it was reality and you have to deal with it. My husband was a veteran and my brother was a veteran. My son was not drafted so that worked out well for him because he didn't want to go to war.
[01:56:01] FEMALE_1: We have talked a little bit about the Pioneer Riot, but how do you think that impacted Ann Arbor as just a community? Because I remember you telling me that your son and daughter went to school when that happened.
[01:56:21] Phyllis Hill: I don't know whether it had any far reaching effect on the community or not, other than the normal feeling that people will have if their children are involved in something like that.
[01:56:44] FEMALE_1: Of course, you probably saw the movements too not disenfranchised, but in franchise African-American people, and the community, not just in the community but in our entire country, and how did you, because I remember you said that your husband, he either went to school with or he had [inaudible 01:57:07], Martin Luther King?
[01:57:10] Phyllis Hill: Right.
[01:57:10] FEMALE_1: How do you think that affected you or your family, or how you felt about society as itself?
[01:57:19] Phyllis Hill: Well, I think that anything bad that happens has affected me, but as my philosophy is always this can change, you don't have to spend your life being so concerned about bad things that happen because we're people and I guess that's a part of the way we react to them. But some things don't have much meaning to me, when I want to I do such and such.
[01:57:53] FEMALE_1: Do you have any family heirlooms or key steps or mentors that were given to you or that you just kept for yourself?
[01:58:03] Phyllis Hill: Pictures like I had patients before I moved, I discarded a lot of things when I moved, I got rid of them, I feel I didn't need them anymore. We had a World War I rifle, but I got rid of that too when we moved, I got rid of a lot of things when they moved because I didn't have space to put them for one thing.
[01:58:34] FEMALE_1: Thinking back over your entire life, what do you think you are most proud of?
[01:58:40] Phyllis Hill: Having a family and having children who are successful. I always felt that with my children were a failure then I was a failure, but that was what I did, but I think I'm most proud of the children about the fact that I had a strong, stable marriage. If the children were well-educated and are able to take care of themselves at this point.
[01:59:06] FEMALE_1: What would you say has changed the most from the time you were my age to now?
[01:59:12] Phyllis Hill: A lot has changed. So many things with inventions and social upheavals, wars. I just hope we don't get into another war before Trump finishes all of his activities.
[01:59:32] FEMALE_1: Are you talking about the caravan that's coming or are you talking about?
[01:59:36] Phyllis Hill: I'm talking about war period.
[01:59:39] FEMALE_1: In like any country. This is a good one. What advice would you give to my generation?
[01:59:54] Phyllis Hill: To not be pessimistic, to realize that your life is your life to live and don't give up on your dreams. Continue to learn the scope as far as you can in school and be better prepared for whatever occupation you decide that you want to take on. Other advice, you get along with everybody because we're all people. We have our good and our bad points about us.
[02:00:28] FEMALE_1: Now is there anything you would like to add that I haven't asked about?
[02:00:33] Phyllis Hill: No, the only other thing I would say to your people, it's normal and natural to make mistakes but don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from it. I can't think of anything else since you haven't asked.
[02:00:49] FEMALE_1: Thank you.
[02:00:50] Phyllis Hill: You're very welcome.

Media

2022

Length: 02:00:51

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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Legacies Project