Overview to Social Change Interview:

In this interview of Maureen Keck shared personal experiences and perspectives on life during World War II and navigating gender roles and discrimination in the 1960s. Maureen Keck, born in 1940, experienced the tumultuous years of World War II as a young child. Growing up the oldest of 6 kids in a household deeply affected by the war, recalling the scarcity of resources and the departure of her father, who enlisted in the Navy. Despite being very young at the time, Maureen’s memories of the war, including rationing, air raid drills, and the excitement of her father’s return home, shaped her early years. As she transitioned into adulthood in the 1960s, she entered a world with limited options for women. Despite the prevailing societal norms, she pursued a career in teaching, a common path for women during that era. Maureen embarked on her teaching journey at the age of 21, finding fulfillment in educating young minds. However, her career was interrupted by the arrival of her first child, setting her on a new path of balancing motherhood and work.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Maureen witnessed significant social changes, including the rise of women in the labor force. Despite facing discrimination and gender norms, she persevered in her career, eventually returning to teaching after raising her children. Maureen’s experiences reflect the evolving role of women in society, from the constraints of traditional gender roles to the expanding opportunities for education and work. As a mother of four and a grandmother of seven, Maureen cherishes her family above all else. Despite the challenges of parenting, particularly during the teenage years, she found joy and fulfillment in seeing her children grow into unique individuals. Maureen’s life journey embodies resilience, adaptability, and the enduring bonds of family across generations.

Biography: 

Born in the 1940s, Maureen is the oldest of 6 children. She grew up in a lively and chaotic household in Baltimore, Maryland and was raised following Catholic religion/beliefs. In her early years she experienced the societal and economic effects that the war had on her family, especially with having a military father. Maureen decided that after high school she wanted to become a teacher, following her dreams she attended Towson State Teachers College. Shortly after beginning her professional career in the early 60s, she became married to her husband Robert Keck in 1963. Within the next year, Maureen had her first child in ’64 and would continue to birth 3 more children in ’66, ’68, and ’71. During these chaotic yet joyful years of her life she was a stay-at-home mom and fulfilled the role exceedingly. For a number of years, Maureen continued to be a stay-at-home mother until all of her children started grade school then she was back to her teaching career. During her teaching career she taught at multiple levels including nursery school for several years, then at Catonsville Community College (CCBC) and then at Towson State.

Transcript:

Daniel Heffern 0:03
Okay, so let’s start. Okay. Hello, my name is Daniel Heffern and today, I will be interviewing my grandmother, Maureen Keck, who I will be addressing as grandma. We will be talking about her early life both as a child growing up the 1940s, also as a young woman entering the workforce in the 1960s, and later on becoming a mother of four and a grandmother of even more, [7] so we’re going to get a pretty complete idea of how she’s lived through and experienced various different aspects of social change and some very controversial years of our nation’s history. So the first question, I’m going to try to ask these questions in chronological order of her lifespan so I’ll start by asking, from what you remember, from your early years of your life, can you give us some detail about how it might have been different for you being born in 1944 during the World War Two era, and how that may have affected if all the first couple years of your life?

Maureen Keck 1:11
Well even though I was a very young child during the Second World War, I really do have some memories of those days and actually, I was born in 1940, which was a year after the Second World War began in Europe, and a year before the United States entered and as you might imagine, I don’t remember much about those early years at all but my sister- ultimately, I was the oldest of six. Second of those six was my sister, Terry and what I remember most about her birth is that the family got a new ration book and I’m sure one of the reasons I’ve remembered that is that ration book didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but in the days when families were very limited by, you know, what we could buy.

Daniel Heffern 2:16
yeah.

Maureen Keck 2:17
To have another ration book really was important, so I think the reason I remembered that is that we lived in a house where my grandparents had an apartment, and we had the rest of the house and so there were quite a few of us and another ration book was was really important. The second thing I remember about the war is when my father left. Even though he had two children in 1943, I guess Terry was born in 43 [gasp]. He enlisted in the Navy and spent the next two years on a ship called The Joe in the South Pacific and I wish I had the picture of the ship, but I don’t know who has it now but it hung on the wall for all the years that my parents owned their home in Catonsville and I remember going to Boston on the train because my father had leave and this was before he went to the South Pacific, before he was assigned to a ship and we had wonderful time, I have always loved Boston ever since because we went to- what’s that called? The garden and Daddy and I would go out for his coffee and my hot chocolate or whatever in the in the early morning and go to the boats on the lake so that was very exciting and I think I was probably three or four at the time when the Second World War ended in the Pacific; I remember being in the kitchen, drying dishes as my mother washed dishes and hearing on the radio that the- the armistice I guess, had been signed and I was five or close to it and I remember my first response was, “my Daddy’s coming home” [lets out a joyful smirk]. So, you know the thing is-

Daniel Heffern 4:21
Thats exciting.

Maureen Keck 4:22
And it was you know; it was very exciting. I used to write letters to him even though I could neither read or write at the time, I would sit down and scribble things on a piece of paper and my mother would send them with her- Oh, I thought she sent them with her letters now I’m just questioning that in my own head I wonder if she actually sent my scribbles. But in any case, even though I was very young, the war was in a sense what our lives were all about [nod in agreement] and although I remember VE Day which was the Victory in Europe and there was a lot of excitement, the most exciting thing for me of course was VJ Day when you know victory over Japan, and I knew Daddy was coming home. I’m trying to think there- there are so many little things [yeah] that I remember about the war, like we used to save string, we used to save grease, we saved foil, aluminum foil- in those days, everybody smoked and you know in a pack of cigarettes, there would be a bit of you know aluminum foil and we would take that out and save it and put it all in a ball and then I don’t know where it went, but we saved everything and also had civil defense people who were really preparing us for an invasion which, thank God never happened but we would have air raid drills and had curtains or blinds on our windows and when there was an air raid drill, there was to be no light at all… so we would pull down those dark shades, turn off all the lights in the house and the middle room in our row house in Baltimore, only had one narrow window and we would get under the dining room table. So it was this inner room and under the table and the name Hitler was just scary for us, I mean we didn’t really have I- we were four and five years old we didn’t really know who Hitler was but one evening, we were having an air raid drill and this man came up to this narrow window that was in the dining room where the shade had not been pulled down, and I saw him and he had this kind of uniform on and I was absolutely sure that it was Hitler. I did not tell my mother that Hitler was at the back window because I didn’t want to scare her and it was ages- I mean it was years before I realized what I had seen that evening and it was just- (inaudible)

Daniel Heffern 7:19
Was not him. (inaudible).

Maureen Keck 7:21
[laughing] Right it was just a tall person. But I was very proud of myself at the time for um not scaring my mother and my younger siblings because at that time I think I had three sisters.

Daniel Heffern 7:35
We just talked about your dad’s military involvement and you just mentioned you had other siblings- so your father was only deployed for two or three years did you say?

Maureen Keck 7:48
Yeah.

Daniel Heffern 7:49
Yeah, so a short- shorter period of time but would you notice any differences in your mother’s responsibility while your father was deployed, you know since you are one of six [children]?

Maureen Keck 8:03
Well, I do remember that daddy had two leaves, the first one was when we went to Boston. I don’t remember the second one. I do remember that some months later, after those two leaves that daddy had, I had another sister. Let’s see Terry was born before daddy went in the service and Pat was born nine months after his Boston leave and then what 13-14 months later Kathleen was born so when he came home from the service, he had four children. Now, mother was lucky. It was such a different world.

Daniel Heffern 8:48
Yeah.

Maureen Keck 8:49
My mother did not work. Most women didn’t although a lot more women worked during the war, but because she had 4 kids she didn’t work. Also, you know, we shared a house with my grandparents and at that point, two of my aunts.

Daniel Heffern 9:07
So there are other people around to take the- some of the responsibility off her shoulders even though she was still full time mom?

Maureen Keck 9:15
Exactly.

Daniel Heffern 9:16
Okay.

Maureen Keck 9:16
And take her to the hospital when she went into labor, you know. So it- you know in some ways, that was pretty typical [yeah] of the time but there’s one more story that we all know about Daddy and the war so I have to tell you. He was in the Battle of Leyte, L-E-Y-T-E in the Philippines and although he- he was never hurt, their ship was damaged, and it was still functional, but there was no refrigeration after the damage from the battle and from the point that they were in the Philippines to wherever they went afterwards, the only meat they could have was spam, which was canned.

Daniel Heffern 10:12
Yeah I’m familiar.

Maureen Keck 10:14
And the good news about that, is that my father never wanted to eat spam again and I thought that was a real advantage for the whole family.

Daniel Heffern 10:25
Yeah that makes sense, since that was probably a surplus of what he was eating when he was deployed so you know, certain experiences and certain things you go through just make you never want to go back to that again, I can- that makes sense for me.

Maureen Keck 10:40
Yeah- yes it does make sense and I thought it actually worked to our benefit but (inaudible) lots of things when you’re a kid, you know you remember things like that even though you don’t know what Hitler looks like so.

Daniel Heffern 10:58
Now I’m going to fast forward a little bit, I’m going to transition into your professional career as a teacher but before that I’m going to ask you some questions to your life prior to that. So was there anything that happened to you or something that you experienced that made you want to become a teacher?

Maureen Keck 11:20
Well for anybody who grew up- any woman/girl who grew up in the 40s and 50s, there were very few options. You could be a secretary.

Daniel Heffern 11:32
Yeah.

Maureen Keck 11:33
You could be a teacher, or you could be a nurse- and because we grew up in a neighborhood that was- well I call it an “Irish Catholic Ghetto”. I knew very few people in my early years who we’re not both Irish and Catholic [yeah] and we’re right across the street from a Catholic church and we all went through 12 years of Catholic education and we lived in this world where, you know especially after the war, the guys came home, they took the jobs back, the women moved into the home, and there were things- now you’ve probably never seen Leave It to Beaver but that series is really a stereotype of the 50s, where that’s what women were to do. Now it’s also true I found out much much later that during the time I guess that I was in high school “RBG” Ruth Bader Ginsburg was in law school at Columbia [yeah]. I didn’t know that there were any- th- that you could be a lawyer if you were a woman and that there were any women who were lawyers and there were very few but that’s one of the reasons that she is, even though deceased, still one of my heroes. So it was, in some ways, a very restricted lifestyle.

Daniel Heffern 13:00
As you just said you didn’t really have many options on what you wanted to be so there was a very fine line of what profession a woman was going to be in that in that little era.

Maureen Keck 13:12
Right, exactly.

Daniel Heffern 13:14
Can you describe what it was like entering the workforce during like- during that era in the 60s as a woman if it was different than you know how it was in the past facing a lot of discrimination, did you have to adapt to anything? Did you face any discrimination when you first entered the workforce as a teacher? Although it is a [right] female dominated profession.

Maureen Keck 13:36
And of course, in the education world, almost all the teachers were women [yeah]. Almost all of the administrators were men.

Daniel Heffern 13:50
Yeah.

Maureen Keck 13:51
The weird thing is that, in those days- so that was like the early 60s, it never occurred to me that life should be or would be any different… and there were so- there was so much discrimination. Well, you know, in terms of being- women were paid less, they had less authority, even those who moved up the ladder that- you know the professional ladder, were more, you know subject to the men say in the school system. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful supervisor. I didn’t have a wonderful principal, but Willamena Oldfield was there and determined that I was going to be a successful teacher and when I think back on those days and how ill prepared I was to be in the classroom, I don’t know what she saw in me but what little bit she saw, she managed to encourage. I saw her over the years and she’s deceased now but I’m just forever grateful to her because although I think I would have enjoyed having other options, I really did enjoy being a teacher so I started out being a fourth grade teacher and then I had Gregory, first of our four kids and then- and I stayed home, well, anyway I stayed home for a number of years.

Daniel Heffern 15:27
So as you just said, you started your teaching career when you were 21, so that was early 60s based on when you were born, and you had your first kid when you were 24 so shortly after you started your teaching career. Was there any influence behind having a kid that early just right after you started work or was it just something that spontaneously happened?

Maureen Keck 15:51
You know, it’s what Catholic couples did [makes sense]. You know we got married, and we had children, and many of my friends have children the same age so it’s just amazing because that’s just the way life was. Now in those days, contraception was illegal, which doesn’t mean that nobody used contraceptives but anyway, I don’t- I don’t remember when contraception became legal but that was a very interesting time because it must have been around the early 60s because- and this gives you some insight into the kind of religious influence on us at that time. A number of my friends would go to different priests to get permission if they wanted to use some kind of birth control, and some were like Pope Francis is today and they were more open. But the whole idea now to think that these young women went to these supposedly celibate with unmarried men to ask permission to have children it boggles my mind and yet at the time it didn’t seem all that unusual cause that was the way we had grown up, father says that’s the end of the discussion, sister says or father says was the way our lives were pretty much run. As I said I have a number of friends and you know we all got married the same year, we all had children you know sometime within the year afterwards, so we were married in ’63, had Greg in ’64.

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Well, you pretty much had all 4 of your kids in a pretty narrow time frame because they’re all relatively within the same like 6 to 8 years of each other.

Maureen Keck 17:04
Yeah, it was about every 2 years [around there].

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Greg is the oldest, then there’s Pete and then my mom and then Kristen. I can’t think of their ages off the top of my head, but can you briefly explain to me how different it is being the mother of one vs being a mother of four and the vast difference that it is taking care of four little kids.

Maureen Keck 17:04
I think- I was really very fortunate because in those days very few men were involved with their very young children, but your grandfather enjoyed infants. Now, my- my father, the father of 6 I don’t think ever changed a diaper. Your grandfather changed diapers, played with kids, coached teams, the boys and then the girls- I mean he was a very involved dad.

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Yeah, knowing Happy [grandfathers nickname] I know he was definitely a great father and probably made life as a mother much easier knowing how much he’s willing to help people and take burdens off peoples shoulders and like you said he loved infants and he just likes kids in- loves kids in general and having him around probably made life as a mother much easier than others who might not have had fathers figures that were as involved as he was during that time period because of how irregular it was.

Maureen Keck 17:04
And you know it was just- that wasn’t a man’s job. Young fathers today are much more involved with their children’s lives and my mother-

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Yeah, gender roles have changed a lot.

Maureen Keck 17:04
Exactly the gender roles were so different, and my mother spent the rest of her life telling me how lucky I was to have married your grandfather which you might tell from the way I’m telling you that, got on my nerves a whole lot [me laughing]. The time that got difficult was when we had four teenagers.

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Yeah, that makes sense because they were- yeah four teenagers- well yeah. Our mom went through something similar but regardless of the era it’s- four teenagers are four teenagers.

Maureen Keck 17:04
Exactly.

Daniel Heffern 17:04
They all have their own different complications to themselves.

Maureen Keck 17:04
Yes they do everybody- everybody had his or her own unique way of asserting his or her individuality. That could be a whole interview by itself.

Daniel Heffern 17:04
Yeah they’re all very unique in and among themselves but together they- together they are- they complement each other very well that’s what I’ll say.

Maureen Keck 17:04
I’ll tell you, one of the joys of my life is that they like each other [mhm] they’re friends they do things together. That was not always true. Sometimes they fought and screamed and whatever. When they were teenagers, I was the bad cop and you can imagine- I mean your grandfathers does- he’s the original man who’s doesn’t stay [inaudible]. So some of these same gender roles, you know kept reappearing, but I will- I’ll still say I was- I was really lucky that I had a husband who was a very involved dad. Of course, when I- when I went to work you know that- that meant there were all kinds of ways that you know he had to pitch in and the kids pitched in so it was- it was a change in our lives.

Daniel Heffern 22:02
In the process of figuring out the questions that I felt were fitting for this interview I had to do some research to help me find some inspiration behind the topics during my research and based on a quick google search I found that the 60s was when there was the most rapid rise of women in the labor force and given that information, could you provide insight on whether or not you noticed that change and like recognize it happen, did you see other women like friends, mothers, aunts, cousins also joining the workforce at a similar time that you were?

Maureen Keck 22:13
Well, there’s a brief story I’ve wanted to tell you, which kind of sets the scene for those years. When I went to IND the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls one of the oldest all girls Catholic school- high schools in the country. We had both an exam and an interview and when we- my father took me for the interview, and Daddy wasn’t a big guy but sister Lenore, who was the president was little and we were sitting in these Victorian era chairs, it’s a very formal room and my father told sister that it was important for me to be in the commercial curriculum because- you’ll love this Dan, with four girls and two boys, it was important for the girls to go to work after high school so that they could pay for the boys to go to college.

Daniel Heffern 23:14
Go to college yeah, I remember you telling- you telling me the story over spring break I already know what’s coming.

Maureen Keck 23:19
So anyway, this little nun I mean, I didn’t think anybody ever said no to my father, I mean it was very much of the time but that he was Daddy was definitely the boss and sister Menorah said to Daddy that, looking at my grades, she thought that I would do well in the academic course. and there would probably be a chance for me to go to college and if, at the end of my high school years it wasn’t possible- if I still had to go to work, I could always go to- what’s it called- Strayer and take typing and get a job you know as a secretary. Actually, I have never really learned to type but- (inaudible) but Daddy agreed and I did go to the academic course and then I did go to college. I went to Towson State. It was Towson State Teachers College at the time. Now during the 60s when you know the hippies were ruling the world and the world was just kind of crazy in the 60s, I mean and I hope your history course spend some time there I mean there were- the president was assassinated, his brother was assassinated, Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was a terrible time [yeah there was a lot going on in the 60s]. As I say in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. I mean, my kids were born in ’64, ’66, ’68 and ’71 so I didn’t even- I didn’t even get involved in protests in those in those years. I did later but that was that was pretty typical and I think that one of the things my friends and I talk about now is that we really did live through an interesting era because we grew up in one world with one set of expectations, and the world changed, and we- I think we were really lucky that we lived through that time of all of the restrictions on women to all of the changes that happened in the world and women had you know, many more options and we got a lot noisier. So that was pretty typical so it was really during the 70s I- now you know I had taught for three years, and then stayed home and had kids and then I went back to work and I taught- I taught nursery school for several years and then I taught at Catonsville Community College and then at Towson State, and so I was teaching teachers in training and then after that, I worked with teachers who work in the classroom, which was really fun so I did have opportunities that I would never have had in the 40s and 50s.

Daniel Heffern 23:48
Grandma we are approaching our time limit on Zoom, thank you for providing so much insight on your life from being a young kid to a grandmother and although we didn’t have time to it being a grandmother of me and my three siblings, and Mica and Maeve my two cousins and my younger cousin Wyeth. It’s been great talking to and thank you for allowing me to interview you and learning more about your life.

Maureen Keck 26:55
Well this was lots of fun, except for the fact that I didn’t get a chance to brag about my grandchildren [laughs] at this age,one of my very favorite things you all are, your the joy of my life and you’re fascinating individuals you know you kind of do your own thing and even though it’s not always the thing I want you to do, I still find you to be the the highlight of my waning years.

Daniel Heffern 27:25
[laughs] Like you said you- you live through us right now and we have to tell you stories about our life that makes your life more interesting.

Maureen Keck 27:35
Right. Absolutely. This has really been fun.

Research:

The 1940s were marked by pivotal historical events, including the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States’ entry into World War II, and the subsequent Allied victory in 1945. The end of the war ushered in a period of economic prosperity and social change, laying the foundation for the postwar era. This era also witnessed significant changes in family dynamics and gender roles. Many women entered the workforce to support the war effort, leading to shifts in traditional gender roles. The decade also marked the beginning of the baby boom, as returning soldiers started families (Rosenberg, 2020).

The 1950s explores how societal expectations and gender roles shaped women’s lives in various aspects, including family, work, and culture. In the postwar era, traditional gender norms were reinforced, encouraging women to prioritize their roles as wives and mothers over pursuing careers or personal ambitions. The source highlights the cultural ideals of domesticity and femininity that prevailed during this time, as well as the limited opportunities available to women in the workforce. Despite these challenges, some women pursued higher education and entered the workforce, contributing to shifts in societal attitudes and paving the way for the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Khan Academy, 2018).

A major factor that contributed to the growth of the U.S. labor force in the second half of the twentieth century was the remarkable increase in the labor force participation rate of women. The labor force participation rate of women increased throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and peaked at 60.0 percent in 1999. Over these four decades, the women’s labor force participation rate increased even during several economic downturns.  In 1950, there were 18.4 million women in the labor force, which accounted for about one-third of the total labor force. In 2000, there were 66.3 million women in the labor force, who made up 46.5 percent of the total labor force. By 2015, the number of women in the labor force had increased to 73.5 million, comprising 46.8 percent of the overall labor force. According to BLS projections, the number of women in the labor force will increase to 77.2 million in 2024 for a 47.2 percent share.

Bibliography:

-Rosenberg, Jennifer. “The War Years: A Timeline of the 1940s.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 16 Mar. 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/1940s-timeline-1779951

-“Women in the 1950s | 1950s America.” Khan Academy, 21 Mar. 2018 www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ushistory/postwarera/1950s-america/a/women-in-the-1950s.

– Toossi, Mitra. “Women in the Workforce before, during, and after the Great Recession : Spotlight on Statistics.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5 May 2014, www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-and-after-the-great-recession/#:~:text=Baby%20boomers%20%28those%20born%20between%201946%20and%201964%29,large%20influx%20of%20women%20into%20the%20labor%20market. Accessed 08 May 2024.

-“Interview with Maureen Keck, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Daniel Heffern, April 23, 2024.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai