Interview with Patricia Crocker, History 150 Spring 2021, Conducted by Elizabeth Kraut, March 10, 2021.

Introduction to Interview:

This interview with my grandmother starts in the 1940s with the polio outbreak and continues into the current pandemic of covid-19. Polio mainly affected children, which my grandmother and her siblings were. During this period, the United States entered WWII, where a draft was instilled for men between the ages of 18 and 45. My great-grandfather was not enlisted into the armed forces, he did continue to work as a firefighter, providing for their middle-class lifestyle. 

Following the end of WWII, the United States experienced an economic boom. In the mid to late 1950s my grandmother finished her high school education. She   wanted to go to college but was discouraged to go. At this time less than 10 percent of the population in the US went onto college. The most common jobs for women at this time were secretaries, cashiers, teachers, and nurses, my grandmother was a secretary for a newspaper. 

Fast forward to March 13th, 2020, the world that we knew changed with the coronavirus spreading across the world. This new virus shut down most of the world, scared to contract the disease schools, businesses, and states closed down. Not only did this virus stop the country in an economic way but also in a social one. For my grandmother this was most prevalent, except for going to the grocery store at the wee hours in the morning she would spend her days inside barely even able to see family. Now a year later the vaccine is being distributed to the masses, opening back up our schools, businesses, and social gatherings.

Biography:

I am interviewing my maternal grandmother Patricia Crocker. My grandmother grew up in Queens, New York during the 1940s, she was part of an Irish Catholic family and was the oldest daughter of five children. During this interview, she talks about her childhood, gender norms, and life during Polio and Covid-19.

Transcript:

Elizabeth Kraut 0:05 This is Elizabeth Kraut conducting an interview with Patricia Crocker. Do I have Do I have consent to conduct and post this interview online?

Patricia Crocker 0:13 Yes.

Elizabeth Kraut 0:15 Can you introduce yourself?

Patricia Crocker 0:16 I’m Patricia Crocker.

Elizabeth Kraut 0:21 Like a little bit of background, like where you were born, like, around the background now? Yeah.

Patricia Crocker 0:27 I was born in Bronx, New York in 1939. And grew up in Queens, New York. lived there until I was 23. Okay, yeah. All right.

Elizabeth Kraut 0:43 Yeah. And I’m gonna start asking you some questions. So what generation of your family immigrated from Ireland?

Patricia Crocker 0:51 My grandparents.

Elizabeth Kraut 0:54 And what was it like growing up in an Irish Catholic home?

Patricia Crocker 1:03 We went to church every Sunday, I went through parochial school, grade school, and high school. My high school was an all-girls parochial school. We ate fish on Friday. I really don’t know what would be different, growing up in an Irish Catholic family. I was fortunate enough to grow up in our neighborhood that was mainly Irish and Italian and Jewish. None of us grew up any differently, including the Jewish families.

Elizabeth Kraut 1:44 So what was it like growing up in Queens like outside of New York in the 1940s?

Patricia Crocker 1:52 It was very, very nice. I lived on a street with oh, must have been 25 kids. We didn’t have a television. So other than the days when it was raining, we were out playing. We played, you know, we would play go see hide and seek, fantasy, war, every game imaginable and drew on the sidewalk with chalk.  I had a great upbringing with a lot of nice kids.

Elizabeth Kraut 2:24 I know you’ve mentioned to me before polio. So how was your summer of polio versus your other summers? And growing up

Patricia Crocker 2:32 Well, the summer of polio was very unlike what I just described, it must have been an outbreak in my neighborhood, two children on my street. And you know, my age group and everybody’s age group got polio. One four-year-old ended up in an iron lung and was paralyzed. And the other 10-year-old boy was hospitalized. But he came out all right. But anyway, we were all confined to our backyards. So we did our best to entertain ourselves because my next-door neighbor, who had grown children taught me how to crochet. My sisters were what were they, they were three and four at the time. So it wasn’t like I couldn’t really play with them. But I, we did a lot of dressing up of them and stuff like that. Other than that, you know, we played ball against the garage wall. We colored in coloring books, we read, and we listened to the radio at night. So that was my life that summer. But it ended in the fall when I went back to school.

Elizabeth Kraut 3:58 So, my next question is what was schooling like for you versus your brothers?

Patricia Crocker 4:06 It was probably no different. My brother and I, my older brother was three years older and I went to a Catholic Elementary School, which was located in a different parish about 20 miles away. And then even as up until maybe third grade, they provided us with bus service. But after that, we had to take public transportation. And when you look back, I was like in third grade, walking, you know, maybe a quarter a mile to the bus stop and getting on a city bus, and being on after 15 or 20 minutes. It was a very, it was a much safer world. So and there was no difference between my brother and I going to that school? No, except I have to say the nuns with tougher on boys than girls. Don’t ask me why. Um,

Elizabeth Kraut 5:11 Did you after schooling, what were the expectations that were made? Like, sorry, I’m we’re rewriting this. So what were expectations that you face being a woman in the 40s and 50s, like such as marriage and education versus like, your male counterparts?

Patricia Crocker 5:29 Okay well, first of all, for education. I was the oldest girl in the family of five children. I wanted desperately to go and have an academic education. So I had more options when I got out of high school. I cried I carried on, I begged. But they sent me to a Dominican commercial, which prepares you for life in the business world. So that’s, I guess what, mainly my father thought a woman’s role would be, you know, you don’t need college education. I thought but didn’t work in. So then, I did get a nice job, I guess I presented myself fairly well. I got a job as a personnel assistant in a major New York City newspaper, which was much better than going to a typing pool. And there, I did all right for myself, and then while I was there, I got married. I was 23 and as luck would have it, that those years which was the beginning of the 60s, a lot of the newspapers shut down, including the one I worked for, but as it were kept. I was pregnant, so I got my severance pay. I don’t what else did you want to know?

Elizabeth Kraut 7:08 I was just wondering that, your education.

Patricia Crocker 7:10 I hear all this stuff about women. Not being abused, but you know, not being treated properly and men making overtures. That was prevalent. I basically, working for a newspaper, you have the editorial department, and there are a lot of rough and tough men there. And they made certain advances or said things I didn’t like, and I would simply tell them, you’re old enough to be my grandfather, leave me alone. And it shut them up.

Elizabeth Kraut 7:48 After you got married, did you work?

Patricia Crocker 7:53 Um, let’s see. No, the newspaper shut down. And I was pregnant with your mother. So no, after that, I didn’t work until I was maybe 50.

Elizabeth Kraut 8:14 Um, how was that have tried to think of another question to ask. With having children. How did your upbringing play into a role as being like a mother like either Catholic or like where you grew up? Like where you grew up in such as education? (*Yeah, and as I said, I’m just at the same time, okay. No, sorry, are hurt my roommates name just shut off too. So it’s not just me. recording. That’s why it’s the recording. Yeah. Okay. We’re good now.) So how did your upbringing with being Catholic the type of education you received, and where you grew up affect, like, how you raised your children if that makes sense?

*technical difficulty

Patricia Crocker 9:09 It does make sense. Since I had two daughters first. I knew that they were going to have the option of going to college and becoming educated since that’s one thing in my life that I’ve missed out on. The two main rules in our house was you don’t lie and you respect people, which they all did. I have to say, as far as lying, I mean, I can’t tell you, maybe they got away with it, I don’t know. But they didn’t appear to lie and they did respect people. Eileen and Susan, your mother and your aunt were, they know the rules, and they were very easy to bring up. Then came the boys who are a different breed, and that gave me a bit of trouble. But in the payoff in the end all they turn out to be fine human beings. So, I think I pretty much brought them up this same way. I guess, my mother and my father to a lesser degree brought me yup.

Elizabeth Kraut 10:44 Now that we’re in COVID How is quarantine affected you like as a major social change part of like your life,

Patricia Crocker 10:53 I finally got my second shot. So in another week or so be able to go out. But when I moved to this neighborhood, I there were mainly families here. And I finally found a place called Sureys, and it was a senior center but not like you picture a senior center was really a nice one. And or it is. So I met a lot of people from New York there and we had our New York table, and we socialize three days a week. We were the rowdiest table in the place and then I joined a crocheting clubs there, we used to crochet for people in need, and then we would go out to lunch. So four days a week, I was out socializing and I do like to talk. And I do like to have fun and with both groups, we had a lot of laughs. So I miss that terribly and I doubt that this place is going to open up any time soon. I mean, I don’t know what rules they go by. We’re hoping that they open up when the school is open in the fall. So it has infringed on my social life completely and I’m pretty much a homebody. So in the beginning, it didn’t bother me that much. But yeah, it was, it was tough. Now, like since I got the second shot, not that I can really do that much, because nobody else is doing that much. It does give you the feeling of freedom and, you know, I go to the store in the afternoon. In confinement, I used to do my shopping between eight and nine in the morning. I hate it, you know, I go out of bed and put some clothes on and go to the supermarket. Now it’s strange, but now that I can go at 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock. It doesn’t bother me anymore. So I didn’t know. Other than being confined. It disturbed me. I’m trying to think of what else because I know a couple of other things, but I can’t think of. Okay.

Elizabeth Kraut 13:32  So I think that’s all the questions I have. Thank you.

Patricia Crocker 13:38 Oh, that wasn’t very much.

Elizabeth Kraut 13:44 All right. Thank you, grandma.

Patricia Crocker13:46 You’re welcome. All right. Thanks for zooming me too. My first zoom. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Research:
For my interview, I focused my research on Polio and the Covid 19 pandemics and how society changes with these pandemics. Also, researched education for women in the 50s and how they have changed over time. Polio first showed up in June 1916, in Brooklyn NY, where children started developing muscle weakness, resulting in paralysis. Polio is spread by contact with fecal waste which results in central nervous system issues and this resulted in 6,000 people dead and 27,000 paralyzed. This disease created fear because of its ability to show up with no warning this continued until the vaccine was founded. This is similar to the Covid 19 pandemic which has hit us this year, resulting in fear about what will happen in the future. Both pandemics created an isolating culture and societal changes, now that we are in an age of technology our experiences are much different than those during Polio. The rise of the civil rights movement, also fueled the feminist movement in the late 1970s, before this period it was more socially acceptable for women to stay at home and raise children. If women were to be college-educated they were most likely to be education majors, teaching at the time was primarily female. Now when looking at the number of women in college have risen significantly and at some points, they even surpass the number of men.

Bibliography:

Older Adults and COVID-19. Retrieved February 22, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html

Chotiner, I., Wright, R., Paumgarten, N., & Specter, M. How Pandemics Change History. Retrieved February 22, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-pandemics-change-history

Oshinsky, D. M. “Breaking the back of polio”. Retrieved February 22, 2021, from https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/breaking-the-back-of-polio/

(2016, November 03). Women, Marriage, Education, and Occupation in the United States from 1940 to 2000. Retrieved March 29, 2021, from https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/censushistory/2016/11/03/women-marriage-and-education-in-the-united-states-from-1940-2000/