Ken

Ken is a newer resident, and his interview was one of my favorites. He invited me to sit down with him in his room, and we spoke for nearly two hours -- he was generous enough to take out his old pictures and awards to share with me. It was truly amazing. Ken also suffers from Parkinson's, which causes his speech to sound 'slurred' on occasion, but his description of the treatment he had received truly cemented my desire to enter the medical field and help people like Ken. Here is his story:

I was born April 1, 1935. I was the oldest child. I have 2 sisters and a brother. They’re quite a bit younger than I am. What I remember most about my childhood was that my parents bought me a model train when I was 4 years old. It ran around the tracks around the tree. I still have the train today. I’ve been interested in trains all my life. When I was 21 years old, my wife threw me a birthday party, and everyone bought presents. I build an entire train layout in my house and took pictures of it. That was one of the things I remember. 

The other thing I remember was that I had a portable stereo, and I had a lot of records, and my sister had a party and borrowed my stereo without my permission. She spilled pop on the records, and I was rather mad at her. My other sister and brother were a lot younger than us; like two different families. There is about a 10 year difference. We’re not real close, but we see each other occasionally. My youngest sister lives in Michigan, and my older sister lives in Ohio. My brother retired and lives in Florida. 

When I was in high school, I had a class in machine shop. The teacher was a good teacher, and seemed to take an interest in me. He talked to Mr. Scott, who was the director of the band, and he said, “I have a student who would make a good drum major.” So I was drum major of the band. I didn’t play an instrument, but I toyed with percussion. He bought a uniform for me. It was just like the University of Michigan uniform; blue and gold with a big tall hat.

I was in a dance group, Sam Paul entertainers. We would dance for people in places like Wynwood, and the Veteran’s Hospital. My specialty was the Russian trepak. When I got into high school, I joined the modern dance group. What I really remember was the Christmas program: I was a jack-in-the-box. I would jump out, and there was a small girl dressed like a monkey, and I’d pull her up by her hair. It was a lot of fun. I remember I didn’t really want to graduate from high school, because I was just starting to get into my classes. I would take summer school so I could take special classes. I took play production, and I learned how to do scenery, lights, and sound. I worked on the all-school play and that kind of stuff. Then I graduated and the first job I was able to get was a job at Awrey Bakeries. I would take the spot of the guys that would go on break. I worked on all the machines: the bread slicers, the mixing machines, that sort of thing. We could go to the break room and eat anything we made — they had it all there for us!

Then I was trying to get into the factory, and I couldn’t get into the factory because of my eyes, but I finally got some glasses so I could see okay, so I came back to them and got hired. I got back, and they hired me at Ford. I started afternoon shifts, and I got hired as an apprentice machine repairman. I did four years of apprenticeship. I remember the guy I first worked with — his name was Barger, and he was about ready to retire, and he was eager to impart all his knowledge on me. When he retired, he died in two months, and at that time I thought if I retired around 65, the age he was, I’d die very shortly. Well, here I am at age 76, and I survived all this time! The plaque in the corner of my room was given to me by my family after I retired on December 31, 1994.

My interest in trains has been a big hobby of mine. My other hobby is photography. I did color slides for a long time, then I did regular photography. I have an album full of pictures that I took in Salt Lake City. I took a lot of pictures of the church, and the space where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings; it’s a space that’s acoustically perfect. I also have pictures of a train set that I built myself, it took a couple years to put together.

The drawing is of one of our houses; my buddy drew that for me. Those pictures on the wall are pictures that I took and processed myself. The photographs I processed are on special paper. Some of them are almost 40 years old. Photography has been a big hobby of mine. I processed the prints but not the negative, because I couldn’t process the color slides they were on.

I’ve been to Disney World about 12 times. I started going in 1986, and the last time I went was around 1995. There’s a box with all my cards and pins that I got from going there. We used to buy a yearly pass, and we’d go at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. I know a lot about Disney. I have a few special things from Disney. I have DVDs of all the old cartoons. When Disney World opened, they broadcast it over live television, and I have the tape of it. Art Linkletter and President Kennedy and all kinds of people were there. It was really cool. I love Disney. My favorite part of going was Splash Mountain. It wasn’t there when we first started, but they built it. I also liked Brer Rabbit. I have a couple of slideshows of the place and Epcot Center.

I developed my Parkinson’s the year I retired, and it was originally misdiagnosed. They thought I had some kind of brain tumors. My wife wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we went to U of M. We walked into the doctor’s office, and immediately he said, “You have Parkinson’s.” He just saw the way I walked in, and I had very small handwriting, and I had real bad memory loss, and my speech was getting really sloppy, and I was walking funny, so he gave me some medicines, and I took those medicines, and it was like a curtain went up. I was doing pretty good, then he said that there was a new process, where they installed two stimulators in my head, one on the right and the other on the left, and that has really been a lifesaver. I have been much better.  But lately, I have developed a habit of falling, and that’s why I’m in here. My daughter and granddaughter just couldn’t take care of me anymore, so I came here. I also got a new walker, and since I’ve been here, I haven’t fallen once. It gives you a very good sense of balance; I’m really happy with it. I had a knee replaced, and that’s what’s been a big reason of why I use a walker.

One of the other things I did after graduation was that I was a member of the Dearborn Player’s Guild. I did set design, play design, and set construction. I never thought I could act. My two daughters were also in play groups. My oldest daughter, she was 25 when she died. She was a severe diabetic, and didn’t take care of herself, no matter what we did. It almost dissolved the marriage. When she died, there was a lot of tension between my wife and I. I was working afternoon shifts at the factory and she was working day shifts at the bank, and we sort of grew apart. We did get back together, though — it was after I got kicked out of the house, though. My granddaughter is going to U of M for college now. I put my wife and two daughters through college at U of M. My daughter actually went to school with my wife. It worked out real good. They were a year’s difference, so my wife graduated first, then my daughter graduated, then my other daughter graduated.

I worked at Ford’s all those years. I worked in every building at the Rouge Plant. I went from building to building as seniority dictated. I was one of the last machine repairmen hired, and I worked out at Monroe, in downtown, then I worked for Chrysler downriver, and I worked for GM. When I was laid off, I went there to get a job. The best job I ever had was the last one I worked at. I was a spindle repairman. The spindles I worked on were the ones that worked with the pistons, and they needed to have a lot of precision. Those spindles needed to run right. We did such a good job that when I retired, the first spindle I built was still running. We developed a system of repair that was superior to the way they were built.

It's Been a While...

As the end of my senior year approaches, I'm trying to wrap up as much of this project as possible. I have a few more interviews to post, but that's about it. This project ended up being much more time-consuming than I had thought, but I also learned a lot more than I though I would, especially about Detroit.

I didn't realize how little I actually knew about the area I lived in, and since I'll be attending Wayne State University next year, I plan on exploring Detroit even more than I already have. Conducting these interviews encouraged me to explore my surroundings -- there is so much available in our backyard that we can completely ignore.

Lois

Lois is a new (and likely temporary resident) at Wynwood. After the interview, I realized that nothing had been recorded, and she was nice enough to repeat herself for me.

Enjoy!

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When I was 14, my family took a road trip to go see Mount Rushmore. This was when it hadn’t been fully carved yet, so it was very interesting to see how they were able to carve those faces into the mountain. On the way back, we turned on the car radio and heard that the President had declared gas rationing because there was war activity over in Europe, so we hurried back and Daddy had to get registered for gas rationing, otherwise he couldn’t buy any gas! Then, along came December 7^th in that same year, 1941, Sunday afternoon. I had just finished Sunday supper and had been excused from the table. I was sitting in the living room knitting a sweater for the war effort, and the President came on and announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, so that was the beginning of more war activity efforts: rationing, food rationing, et cetera. That was quite an education for us.

I met my husband at the Detroit Yacht Club in Belle Isle. He stood out to me because he was such a good dancer. I learned later that he had taken dance lessons as a child to correct an ailment. We got married in 1950 and had two children, Ted and Cindy.

Detroit Yacht Club

Later, I worked in real estate. When Ted and Cindy got into school, I went back to work to help. It was just one of those situations, really, when I just had to pitch in. I made it so that I would get them off to school in the morning, then go off to work. I would make every effort to get home before the children came home from school. As time went on, they were more full-time, so my work started to expand. I got involved with real estate board activities, even though it wasn’t really common work for women at the time. I got elected to some of these activities, which gave me the opportunity to meet some people along the way that gave me the chance to be offered the opportunity to work with Mazda Motor down in Flat Rock, Michigan on finding homes for Japanese families that were coming over to the new Mazda plant being built. It was interesting work, showing the Mazda men the different houses. I worked with a few of the Downriver real estate agents to find housing for around 120 families. We found them housing both Downriver and over in Canton and Plymouth, Michigan. Then the wives came over. They’d been educated in English and had learned a lot about shopping, et cetera. They told me, “Ah now, Lois-san, now you must manage properties.” I tried doing it by helping the wives learn how to change furnace filters, use the garbage disposal and not put the plastic from the fresh fish packages from the market down it because it would clog it. But they were all educated; they were all very polite. It was most enjoyable and rewarding when I had the opportunity. 

My sister and her husband were in the medical field: she was a nurse, and he became a doctor; they moved to Florida where he set up his medical practice. That gave me the opportunity to drive down to Florida to visit them. I was married in 1950 and had two children, so that was a special reason to go down and visit. They had 5 children. That also gave us a chance to go sightseeing as we drove to Florida and back, and sightseeing all around Florida.

Sophie

Sophie is one of the most caring people I have ever met. She, like Rita, has been at Wynwood since I started, and she never fails to have a smile on her face. Over the past four years, I have grown very close to her; in fact, when I went to Paris a few summers ago, I sent her a postcard.

This is her story.

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We had one bicycle for seven kids at the time. It was me and my sisters: Stella, Sophie, Helena, Cecile, Martha. Would you believe that just two of us are still living? I was the third oldest. I’m 87 and I have a sister that’s going to be 75 in April. Her son and daughter are giving her a big birthday party — there will be people from California, Chicago, Florida, Michigan all going to Pennsylvania on April 11^th. Her name is Anne, and she lives in the old homestead, where we kids were all born. She had it renovated, and she takes good care of it.

My father was a coal miner, and we didn’t have nothing. We lived where there’s hills in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and he just couldn’t afford a sled, so he went and took some two by fours and he made us a sled. I mean, it was okay, but the other kids, they had rods on their sleds. We went up on the 3^rd floor of our house, and nobody was up there, and we took the curtains down and put the rods on the bottom of the sled so we could go faster. My mother or dad didn’t know this, but when it came springtime, this is when she noticed that there was no curtains. We probably got a little shaken up, but that was the biggest thing. 

A Radio Flyer sled, probably similar to the one Sophie's family made.

When we were kids, we were the last house, and then it was all vacant land, so we made a garden. It was really amazing to me how they planted the potatoes. They would take a potato, and when it would sprout they would take those little buds and cut them off and plant them, and this is what those little buds grew up to be a potato plant. Also, when things got going, say like for the beans, when they got green, bugs would come on it. Mother got us an old quart paint bucket, and we would have to go up each lane and check each plant to see if there was bugs, and we would put them in this bucket. When we were through with our chores, she would put some chemical on them to kill them. Also, we had some fruit trees, and always had to pick up the apples, and the good ones would be used by Mother for applesauce, and the bad ones would go to the animals. We had a cow and some other farm animals.

We were raised as strict Catholics, and we were of Polish descent — very, very strict Catholics. I’m ashamed to say that I very seldom, unless there’s a holiday, go to services. Every Sunday, there are churches that devote some time to come in and give Communion and have a mass.

When I graduated from school, you just couldn’t get no work. I had a sister who had migrated to Michigan. Through a friend, she met a man, and they got married; bought a home and had children. When I graduated from high school, my brother in law, whose name is Phil, asked me if I wanted to come to Michigan to work. He said he could get me a real nice job in Tool and Dye in bookwork. I worked in Tool and Dye, and I got so interested that I even learned how to grind the threads in the parts. That’s how I got my start. My husband was still in Pennsylvania, and we weren’t engaged, but we were going steady. He also got a job through my brother in law, so I stayed with my sister Stella and husband Phil while my husband rented a room. We had a very nice life together, and we met a lot of very nice people. We were dinner-dance people, and we belonged to a dinner-dance club, and I had quite a few formals for different occasions.

I had no children, my husband’s been dead about 9 years. We lived up in Saint Helen, Michigan. We left Allen Park, where our residence was, and we retired to our cottage in Saint Helen. We had it renovated, and from there we would spend our winters in Florida. I sure missed the North, because we were snowmobilers, and my husband was an ice fisherman. We lived right on the water, so he would just go out to the front of our yard and drill a hole. They would get an old refrigerator cardboard box and sit out there all day while I stayed inside.

(from thousandislandlife.com)

We lived near a golf course, and we really enjoyed golfing. My husband was a great deer hunter, and we lived right in deer country. We had a friend of ours that started to go to Sarasota, and convinced us to go down and see them. We went down for probably around 15 years, and we really enjoyed it. My husband had to hunt the deer in the latter part of November, then we would come back around the first part of May. We enjoyed it very, very much. I went myself to Florida. My niece and nephew, Patty and Jeff, are wonderful people. She takes care of me wonderful for as busy a woman as she is, how she devotes her time to me and comes to visit me and bring me all kinds of goodies. They’re the ones that take care of me now that I’m at Wynwood, which is a very nice senior citizen facility. I met a very nice woman, Jennifer, who took to my fancy, and what made me feel so important is when I got that card from you from France. Oh my, that was a big issue, that was very, very nice.

I remember a cruise that we went on, and how elite it was, and I’ve never seen so much food — how they had it decorated and laid out! All you did was wine and dine and dance. That was the biggest trip in my life was this cruise. Not having no children, we traveled a lot. We were campers. We had a truck with a camper on it, and we went to Algonac State Park every Friday in the summer. We’d pack up that camper, and there I’d meet with my two sisters, who also had campers. So we’d go to Algonac, and we’d fish and swim, and wine and dine. We always had a bonfire, and it seemed to me that so many times I was the last one to go to bed and put out the fire. It just fascinated me. Actually, we’d have a highball or two, and that gives you a little extra doings and getabouts. We would never go alone, we’d always take one of my sister’s kids with us. We’d take Sharon, Diane, Judy, Phyllis. Now, the kids are married and they have their kids, and we’re so close.

I lost my mobility in my left leg, and about two months ago, I lost it in my right leg, so now I’m on a walker and a wheelchair, but I cannot give up; I’ve got to keep walking. I walk the halls all the time. From there on, you just gotta take it one day at a time. All in all, I’ve had a very nice life. Although I didn’t have children, my sister’s kids are are like children. To this day, they shower me with gifts and cards and phone calls and visits. Diane, she’s my favorite. She lives in Chicago. This Christmas, she sent me a real pretty shade of blue velvet suit and a white shirt to go with it. And boy, I sure felt great in that. Now that was nice of her to take her time and send it to me, and I wore it Christmas Day. My sister Anne calls me every night at 9:30. We’re a very close family.

Round 2

The next round of my interviews will be Saturday!