Bailey: Can you state your full name please?
Mrs. Seeley: Jo Ann Browning Seeley
Bailey: Where did you go to college and what years did you go to college?
Mrs. Seeley: I went to Stanford University from 1956 to 1959. I graduated in three years.
Bailey: What was your major?
Mrs. Seeley: History and Political Science
Bailey: Was women going to college at that time new?
Mrs. Seeley: No no, but at that time there was a 4:1 ratio men to women at Stanford so it was hard for women to get in. Jane Stanford originally, she had, it was supposed to be a men’s college but she decided to let a few women in to civilize the men.
Bailey: How did you make your decision about where to go to college?
Mrs. Seeley: Oh we were from California and everyone knew Stanford was the best place to go.
Bailey: What was your experience like there?
Mrs. Seeley: It was fantastic. It was wonderful. I had, I had been to a north Hollywood high school where you had to be a staff blond cheerleader and I went to north Hollywood and I mean Stanford it was ok to have a brain and be a brunette.
Bailey: Did it change once you met your husband?
Mrs. Seeley: What change? My experience?
Bailey: Your experience at Stanford.
Mrs. Seeley: College was a highlight. Up to that point in my life it was a highlight. My whole college was a highlight. It was the best thing I ever had happened. I loved it.
Bailey: So, on a little bit of a different subject, how many kids do you have?
Mrs. Seeley: Eleven.
Bailey: How many of them are biological and how many are adopted?
Mrs. Seeley: Six born to me and five adopted.
Bailey: Where are they from?
Mrs. Seeley: Korea, Vietnam, and two American Black children.
Bailey: How did you come to the decision to adopt children?
Mrs. Seeley: Well we had, we had four children and we thought we wanted a couple more and we thought we wanted a few more. We thought we wanted to add, you know we wanted to adopt. We set out to adopt hard to place children because we obviously didn’t have trouble producing healthy infants. So, uh, we specified hard to place children. Of course along the way we had a couple surprise packages who were delightful and so we ended up having six born to us anyway and five adopted.
Bailey: Was that your plan? Did you always want a big family like that?
Mrs. Seeley: Not eleven! I mean we’re glad we have everyone of them but we wanted six.
Bailey: Now, were you the first family to adopt biracial in Virginia or, wasn’t there something like that?
Mrs. Seeley: It was unusual but I don’t know, most of the people we knew who adopted transracially lived in the district. I can’t say that we were the very first but I do know at the time we adopted, it was illegal. Transracial adoption was not legal. Just like, not too long before that, mixed marriages were illegal in Virginia. I mean Virginia is the south!
Bailey: Right.
Mrs. Seeley: I mean, not were we live in Virginia but it was governed by Richmond, that’s south. So, uh, we had to do the finalizing of our adoptions in Pennsylvania.
Bailey: Oh, wow. Was there a learning curve for the kids when they first got here, culturally wise?
Mrs. Seeley: For us or for them? [laughter]
Bailey: Ok, both.
Mrs. Seeley: Well, sure because it was very fast. Particularly, the ones who came from overseas, because they were older. The two of them, one was five and one was twelve, but they learned the language very quickly because they, they didn’t have a choice. They couldn’t speak Korean or Vietnamese so; I mean I learned a few key words to survive the first few days. They were around kids who spoke English all the time. They learned it very quickly.
Bailey: Right. Did your neighbors or people in the community have any concerns about them?
Mrs. Seeley: Um, not that they said to our faces. [Laughs] I don’t know; some people would sound very supportive to us but then said something not so nice behind our back. We actually had more trouble, in that day the Black social workers were very oppose the idea of transracial adoption. They thought it was, you know, genocide because they were depriving the children of their Black identity. Back in that time, if there was a Black family that wanted to adopt our Black children, I wouldn’t have stood in the way but that wasn’t the option, the option was bouncing around in a bunch of foster homes or staying in our family. I, I wrote a letter to the editor about that because people had written a lot of complaints about transracial adoption. So I did that and they came out and took a picture of me and the kids and published my letter, so.
Bailey: Wow, so the whole time you had kids, were you working?
Mrs. Seeley: No, I didn’t. When the kids were really little, I had to, we didn’t have daycare in those days, so I had to, uh, I had to fit it in when I could. I would do homebound teaching when Jim [husband] was home. I would do before and after school language programs, so you know things that I could just kind of squeeze in. So I went back more when I uh, about ten years after I started having kids. Then I was at least teaching school so I had the same hours the kids had. It wasn’t until the mid 80’s that I went to work at the Library of Congress and I worked at the Library of Congress, and then later, a couple years after that, I went to the CIA.
Bailey: How old were your kids when you started working for the CIA?
Mrs. Seeley: I have to think…. Well, they were, oh I have to think about that. They were in their 20s at least. Late teens and 20s. 20s into teens.
Bailey: Oh, so how many were living at home still?
Mrs. Seeley: Oh sure, yeah.
Bailey: Ok, so they could take care of them selves.
Mrs. Seeley: Oh yeah, they were older. I think Michelle [youngest child] was, Michelle and John were the only ones still at home when I started, the others were in college.
Bailey: What was your experience at the CIA like?
Mrs. Seeley: Oh it was fantastic! I was an analyst, not a spook. It was fun to be around people who were very interested in foreign affairs which I have always been interested in and continue to be even though I’m retired. So that was fun. I had a lot of great trips. I got to go everywhere, all around the world getting briefings and things. So, that was fun. It was a very smart, nice, fun group of people.
Bailey: How did you get that job?
Mrs. Seeley: Oh that’s a long story, a very long story. I was working at the Library of Congress and the office I was in got dismantled because of budget cuts so I went to, uh, someone who I had written a book at the Library of Congress with, asked me to come and speak, or just participate in a conference he was giving and I did, and well after I had said something, at the break time a women came up to me and said, “I’m very interested in your comments if you’d ever like to have a job.” I said funny you should ask! Good timing! Anyway, that’s how I got the job. I mean, when we all lost our jobs, they sent all our 171 forms, those are all the general employment forms, to a lot of these agency’s, including the CIA. Nobody got a nibble from the CIA, you know they had foreign languages and graduate degrees and everything, but in those days they didn’t hire many people they preferred to hire on their own. Now they have a web page and everything for you to apply on but they didn’t back in those days. It was a great job.
Bailey: Did your kids think it was cool that you were working for the CIA?
Mrs. Seeley: I think so! They seemed to.
Bailey: Were you able to tell people there about your family and that you had adopted?
Mrs. Seeley: Yeah, oh yeah, they had no problems with that.
Bailey: That’s good. Was it intimidating at all, being in the CIA?
Mrs. Seeley: I mean, no. No not really. Sometimes when I went overseas and would be working with the people who would be doing scarier stuff. I don’t know it that was intimidating, but it was impressive. I wasn’t doing that particular kind of stuff… that’s all I’ll say about that.
Bailey: Alright, well thanks, I think that’s all I have.
Mrs. Seeley: Great, thanks!