Interview With My Grandmother

For this blog I chose to interview my grandma, Pamela Kynaston. She was born in 1946 and raised in Tuscan, Arizona. I chose her mostly because she is a great story teller, and also because she grew up in a smaller city in an area of the US that I'm not really familiar with. During the interview I mostly asked about her childhood through high school and early adulthood. 
     My grandma is the oldest of three children; herself and her younger brothers. The first thing I asked her was if she was more of a girly-girl or a tomboy. She quickly replied that she was definitely a tomboy. She talked about how much she liked to play outside, and how she wasn't too interested in dolls. She had a little white mouse for a pet and used it to terrorize her grandmother. It was not much of a surprise to hear that my grandma was like that - usually it was more acceptable for a girl to be a tomboy, but not so much for a boy to be girly. I expected that, because of this, she spent a lot of time playing with her brothers, but she said that they were pests and she really did not like to be around them when they were young. The most interesting thing I learned about all this is that my great grandmother was absolutely fine with my grandma playing in the dirt and wearing overalls instead of dresses. In fact, my great grandmother worked outside of the home a lot, which at the time was looked down on. This was especially true for my great grandma, as she was a part of the Mormon Church, and all women of that group were supposed to stay home, have babies and raise them - they were never to work. 
     I was not aware of these things about my great grandma, but with this new information I proceeded to ask if my great grandma had been a feminist. My grandma replied, "No, I don't think she would have called herself that. But my mom was very against the idea that all women should stay home and be completely dependent on their husbands financially. She was the youngest of 7 kids, so she learned to become independent at a very young age." So my great grandma was probably an advocate of women's rights, but maybe not a feminist. I told my grandma that great grandma Trudy must have been a pretty cool lady.
     Even moving away from childhood, my grandma's experiences with her sex, race, and gender are sort of outside the norm of what we have been learning is generally true. Not only was her mother supportive of women's rights, but she was supportive of my grandma being whoever she wanted to be. Also, my grandma went to a high school in Tuscan where white students were the minority. Her school consisted mostly of colored students, specifically black and Hispanic. My grandmother never felt any animosity or overall prejudice towards colored people, and felt that, from what she could remember, everyone was treated pretty equally. . 
     Moving ahead in her life, I asked my grandma about college and different career choices she had. She responded that at first she never had to worry about what she wanted to do because she wanted to be a nurse. She stated that generally, if a woman was going to go to college, they would go for teaching or for nursing. My grandma originally wanted to go to a two-year nursing school, mostly because she was more of a C and B student and wasn't fond of general curriculum classes. However, her father pressured her to go to the 4-year university so that she could also teach if she wanted to. Unfortunately, my grandma did pretty well in her nursing classes, but not so well with the others. She became frustrated and eventually dropped out. She mentioned that her dad was very strict with her, and had many plans for what he wanted her future to be. While, again, it is a little different for this time period for the father to pressure his daughter into more school, my grandma insists that she would have become a nurse if she had gone to the school she first wanted to attend. 
     Finally, we move into my grandma's young adulthood. She and my grandfather got married at ages 19 and 20 - they've been best friends since they were 10, and were also high school sweethearts. At this time my grandma had gone to a year of business school, but again, had to drop out because of the marriage. I asked her if this was something she was pressured to do or if it was just necessary. She said that not only was it necessary, but it was also the norm. My grandpa was going to college, and if they wanted to be married and live on their own, my grandma was going to have to work to put my grandpa through school. She got a job as a secretary, and said it worked out very well. Unfortunately, because of the way things were, my grandma, a woman, had to put a man's dreams ahead of her own. 
     My grandma said that some of her happiest moments in life were dating my grandpa and leaving the house she grew up in. She said that her two younger brothers got a lot of their parent's attention because one was sickly and the other was very, very smart. Not only that, but as I mentioned before, her father was very strict with her, probably because of her sex; he did not even allow her to ride the bus to school until it was no longer possible for her to be driven there. She was so excited to be with my grandfather and finally have someone pay attention to her, and so excited to be on her own and make her own rules. She is grateful to her mother for not pushing her to be the stereotypical obedient, quiet, baby-machine woman of that time. She and my grandpa have always both worked hard as a team, even when they did start having children. 
     Learning more about my grandma's history and her and my great grandmother's personalities was very enlightening, and showed me that there is always an exception to the rule. I mostly thought about the "Feminine Mystique" excerpt, about how all women were supposed to live a certain way: skip college, get married, have children, care for children, etc. This idea of a perfect life was especially directed at white women. However, in most respects, my grandma went against the grain. I do not believe she experienced the problem with no name. I also compared almost everything she said with the article, "A Day Without Feminism," and found that some things were true, but for the most part, my grandma did not have many spectacular privileges or oppressions. And even though that sounds almost boring, I know my grandma had and has a great life with a wonderful family, and always, always, great stories.