Grandmother Interview

My grandmother is an incredible woman! I learned so much about her that I didn't know before. Even though the 1 hour interview turned into a 4 hour interview, I didn't mind or interrupt because my grandmother fascinates me.
My grandmother is a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as am I. I tell you this because this church is a major part of her life and is a huge benefactor of her thoughts and opinions.
My grandmother grew up in Utah. She had a wonderful childhood. She specifically remembers helping out in the house a lot, belonging to some clubs, reading, sewing, listening to the radio, going on family trips, and roller skating! My grandmother looked up to her mother a lot. During the interview I could tell that my grandmother just adored he mother! It really touched me when she began tearing up while talking about her mother. My great-grandmother must have been an incredible woman! My mother often compares my great-grandmother to Queen Elizabeth!
As a young teenager, my grandmother worked as a Popsicle bagger! She would go to the factory every Saturday and bag Popsicles! My grandmother is a very happy woman and took advantage of every good thing! She made clear to me that girls did not wear trousers to school! That was a scandal at that time! My grandmother loved music and saw people like; Eddy Fisher, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and the 4 Ames Brothers. My grandmother loved to have a good time!
At university my grandmother was involved in everything!!! She was in a sorority, she was president of her pledge class, she was the Air Force Sponsor, and she received many honorary awards.
After finding her true love, my grandfather Fred Hales, she began teaching school. But when she was pregnant with my uncle, she was not allowed to teach anymore. She stopped her career to have children. She had six wonderful children and after they all grew up and left the house, she began teaching again. She continued to be involved in many things throughout her life. My grandmother confided in me that in her day, no one talked about birth control and she herself never used it, but her daughters did. She also mentioned that divorce at the time was devastating and socially unacceptable. It is really sad for her to see how common and normal divorce is now a days. My grandmother's mother had sisters who worked but her mother was grateful she didn't have to work so she could stay at home and raise the children.
When I asked my grandmother if she considered herself a typical woman of her generation, she replied, "typical in the sense that I believe a woman's role is wife and mother and family is the most important thing". She went on to discuss what that times were like. She called her generation the private generation. She called the '60's a blast in your face, she never understood the '60s. My grandmother never felt unequal to men. Especially with the church, being a very matriarchal society, she was very liberated. She had full liberty to an education, to work, to anything she wanted.
My grandmother commented that one way she thinks that relationship between men and women changed was that women became more like men and men became more like women. Men don't want responsibility, women's equality was the price of men. My grandmother thinks that the women's movement tended to make men weak and make women strong in the wrong way. My grandmother was and is all for women being equal, getting a good education and all of that, but she did not agree with the women's movement. When my grandmother went to the State convention to ratify the Equal Rights amendment she agreed with some, but disagreed with a lot. She thought it was and is disintegrating the family. She thought the price was too high. She grew up with a lot of opportunities so she was not very sympathetic and she didn't see the need for a feminist movement. My grandmother grew up in a family with women who had done things. My grandmother calls herself a feminist in her own way.
After this interview I realized how much I didn't know about my grandmother. It was so helpful for me to learn so much about her history and the time in which she lived. "The links between women need mending"(Wolf, 283). I like what Naomi Wolf says when she writes, "all women have experienced the world treating them better or worse according to where they rate each day; while this experience wreaks havoc with a woman's identity, it does mean that women have access to a far greater range of experience than the snapshots 'beauty' takes of us would lead us to believe"(Wolf, 286). My grandmother had her own experience, full of opportunities and she has taken advantage of every aspect of her life.
In Jasmine, when Jasmine says, "Lillian Gordon, Mother Ripplemeyer: one day I want to belong to that tribe", I can completely connect to her (Mukherjee, 197). But I might change it up a little bit. I would probably say, "Jane Watson Hales, Jill Hales Tingey: one day I want to belong to that tribe", and not literally because I kind of already do belong to their tribe (Jane being my grandmother, Jill my mother), but figuratively. I want to belong to the group of incredible women they belong to. My life is just full of wonderful women! I am very grateful that I come from a long line of such incredible, headstrong women! I hope to be just like them.