Waddick 1

Lillian Waddick
Ms. Finnerty
English 11B: Period Two
4 February 2019
Oral History Project: Interview Transcript

Antoinette Waddick (Grandma Toni) interviewed by Lillian Waddick.

LW: Okay,were recording right now. So the first question...

AW: I hope I don't get the sneezes.
LW: Laughs, yeah, I have a sore throat right now so were in the same boat.
AW: Laughs, Okay.
LW: The first question is what is your name and how old are you?
AW: pause My name is Antoinette Marie Rufflo Waddick, and I am 80 years old.
LW: Great, and how are you related to me?
AW: I am your grandmother.
LW: Yep.
AW: Your father’s mother.
LW: Yeah, laughs, and what is one story that you were told as a child or that you experienced
that stuck with you? Just like a memorable story.
AW: A story or something that happened?
LW: Um, either one is great, just whatever you want to tell.
AW: Oh my gosh, okay…
LW: There’s probably a lot.
AW: Clears throat, ok well this is kind of interesting, I don’t know if your father even knows
this. Uh, my dad had a heart attack when I was in, pause, sixth grade I think. And so anyway, he
wasn’t really well and he was a doctor and, okay, so he, um, didn’t practice full time after that. I
mean he still practiced medicine but not so much, um, and so that’s when we started going, my
parents took myself and my younger sister, Nancy, to Florida for a little vacation every winter.
For like, you know, two weeks to four weeks, and, um, one time we did that and I was in high
school, and the teachers always gave us you know work to do, so we did our homework and all
that. I wouldn’t think that this is something that you could do today. I don’t think it would be as
popular with teachers as it was then. And so I went down, we went to Sarasota, and my parents
bought an apartment building there because they were going to, um, possibly retire there, and
because I was going to be there for over a month, they enrolled me in, um, I went to high school
in Sarasota, Florida for a month, so that was quite an experience.
LW: Yeah.
AW: Should I tell you the rest of it?
LW: Sure!
AW: Well, Sarasota, Florida is the is the winter headquarters for the Ringling Brothers Circus.
The Ringling Brothers Circus was a circus a long time ago, and they went all over the country.
But in the winter, they went down to Sarasota, and um, and they, they also worked, one of their
side things was to work with the high school children, and, um, I forgot what they call their
show, but anyway, I don’t think I was in their show, but I was there, I went there right after the
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high school kids did their circus act with the Ringling brothers, so that was quite an experience
for me.
LW: Yeah, that does sound really cool. Um, why do you think that this sticks out to you? Is it just
because there were a lot of changes or a lot of new experiences or is it just one of the many
stories that you have?
AW: Well, it sticks out because it was very unusual. I didn’t think it was unusual, but, um, as I
got older, I realized that it was quite unusual and we could go to Florida every winter, you know
for a month or so, and take our schoolwork, and, um, I think some of my school friends, not
friends but schoolmates, um, I think they didn’t understand that. But I know we didn’t think it
was out of the ordinary, but it was something unusual, and it does stick out in my mind.
LW: Yeah. Okay, I’m going to move on to a question that’s like, what is like a goal that you set
when you were younger or right now, and what has helped you achieve that goal, or why haven’t
you achieved that goal yet?
AW: Ohhh, laughs, when I was, um, I went to college for two years and I had to drop out
because, um, I got really sick. And while I was getting better, well this is kind of a long story, I
hope you don’t mind.
LW: No, it’s completely fine.
AW: As I was getting better, the nuns in the catholic, I went to a catholic school, and so the
sisters knew that I was home and they had a teacher leave abruptly, and they asked if I would just
fill in for a short time, and so I ended up filling in and they came and checked on me a lot, and I
just taught third grade at a catholic school and I really loved it. And then after that, I taught fifth
grade at another catholic school and I really liked that. And, um, I guess I just always wanted to
be a teacher.
LW: Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
LW: Well that’s really nice that since you were sick you gained a good experience from that too.
AW: Exactly.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART
LW:What advice would you give a young adult now, or me I guess, about life and how to live it?
Sort of just like a good life motto or something.
AW: Do you know what stands out most in my mind.
LW: What?
AW: pause Is to be kind, to others. I think that’s really important no matter what you do. You
should follow your heart. Um, oh, what’s his name… Joseph Campbell, have you ever heard of
him?
LW: Uh, no I haven’t. Laughs.
AW: He was kind of a philosopher type guy. I think it was him that said “follow your bliss and
doors will be open to you.”
AW: But you know a lot of times its not… I think you should be happy in your work but
relationships are also important.
LW: Yeah, definitely.
AW: So, well relationships are just important, and being kind to others is uppermost.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART
LW: Was there a traumatic event that you learned a lot from, and then, what did you learn from
it?
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AW: Oh, a traumatic event… long pause… I guess, I guess, when I got sick and had to leave
college.
LW: And then, wait, what sickness did you have again?
AW: I had a liver sickness, a type of Hepatitis. And um, yeah, it took me a long time to recover.
And then, you know, I went back to college part time after that but never full time. Um… oh I
know, because everyone I knew had graduated. And so that made it a little harder too.
LW: Do you want to keep talking about this or should I go on to another question?
AW: Ohhh let’s go onto another question.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART:
LW: Who was the key figure in your childhood? Like was it both your father and your mother or
was one more influential than the other?
AW: long pause Well actually, two key figures come to mind and they’re not my mother or
father. My dance teacher was one. She was a, just a, very very nice, sweet lady, and I always
looked up to her. Another was a lady named Francis, and she came and helped my mom clean
and iron.
LW: Could you tell me more about them?
AW: Francis?
LW: Either one of them is fine.
AW: Well Francis was just a dear lady. When I was little, I remember, I remember doing this like
when I was five years old. I used to go in the basement, and I would turn the laundry basket
upside down and sit on it, and I would say, “Francis, tell me a story,” and Francis was the
greatest story teller. She would always have a story to tell me, and they were always really neat.
LW: Do you remember any of the stories she told you?
AW: No, no, no.
LW: Oh, okay.
AW: They were usually about a little girl. So Francis, and you know, we remained, she was,
pause, god she was a friend of our family. She really became close to our family, a good friend of
our family. And I kept up my friendship with her in and after she wasn’t working anymore, um,
and visited her a little bit when I could just down in Kenosha.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART:
AW: In high school, and also in high school, um, I was in the chorus and in a couple of operettas
that were really neat. High school was just fun, I mean we had a good time and things weren’t so
serious in those days as they are now. And, um, yeah.
AW: Oh! And I didn’t go to high school in Kenosha because Kenosha did not have a Catholic
high school and my parents wanted me to go to a Catholic high school. And so, there were a
bunch of us, a bunch, maybe about 25 or 30 people that were bused to Racine, which was about
10 miles away to go to high school. Yeah, so that was a really neat experience too, just riding on
the bus every day.
LW: Yeah, definitely.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART:
AW: ...I have a lot of people I call friends, but there are only maybe I bet two or three that I feel
really closer to. And I don’t know why it is that you feel closer to some, you know, what makes
that happen? That you just feel a connection with some people and not others. I don’t know.
EDITED TO THE NEXT PART:
LW: What was it like raising a family, and how did having children change your life?
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AW: laughs Well, let’s take one thing at a time. What was the first part?
LW: Uh, the first part was, what did raising a family change in your life?
AW: Oh, okay.
AW: Well, the first thing that changed was that I know when I had my first baby, which was your
Aunt Lynn, um, it dawned on me that this wasn’t like… I mean I was working at a school in
Milwaukie, and it wasn’t like Monday to Friday and then you’re off for the weekends. It was
every day! No vacation! Twenty-four seven. And that kind of threw me at first, you know. Yeah,
it was hard. I… I don’t know, it was a lot, it was a lot of work, but I never questioned or felt like
I was put upon or anything like that. I just, I enjoyed my family and I um they were all very close
together in age so you know, I felt like it would have been nice to spend a little more time,
individual time together, but it just all went really fast. Um, yeah, in those days they didn’t have
disposable diapers. I mean I thought I would be washing diapers for the rest of my life! One
thing that stands out is I wanted to have fun times with my children too, and I remember it was
important to me to take them to theater stuff one in a while or, we couldn’t afford to go out to
dinner, so we’d go for dessert anyway. Um, yeah. And you know, going up to Door County when
I could.