Ep. 2: Breaking Barriers and Building a Life on Her Terms with Kim

In this episode of The Words We've Heard, host Marbree Sullivan speaks with Kim, who has pushed back against gender discrimination from a young age. From a childhood near New York City to earning multiple degrees, building a thriving career, raising children, and travel in 80 countries, Kim’s story of defying expectations, breaking barriers, and building connections offers inspiration to anyone who’s ever been held back. 

🎧 Key Moments in the Episode:

• [00:00:00] – Introduction to Kim’s Story: Growing Up in Post-War America
• [00:07:52] – Early Lessons on Gender Expectations and Discrimination
• [00:17:54] – Pursuing Education: Nursing, College, and Law School
• [00:26:35] – Balancing Career, Marriage, and Motherhood
• [00:34:20] – Building a Legal Career and Advocating for Women in Law
• [00:54:41] – Finding Joy in Travel, Gardening, and Lifelong Friendships
• [01:12:29] – Final Reflections: Life Lessons and Words of Wisdom

🎙️ Loved this episode?

• Rate and review The Words We've Heard on your favorite podcast platform!
• Follow the show to hear more inspiring life stories.
• Share this episode with someone who could use a reminder that change is always possible

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Words We've Heard. This is Marbree Sullivan, and each week I sit down with a baby boomer to capture their stories, ask for a bit of advice, and hold on to the memories of the post World War II generation. Join me as we journey through everyday lives and extraordinary stories. Like most of her generation, Kim grew up in a time when girls had far [00:00:30] fewer opportunities than boys.

[00:00:32] And yes, I know that things are still not equal, but we're not talking about that today. Surrounded by strong female role models at home, it wasn't until adolescence approached that she was hit with a hard lesson about society's expectations of girls. A lesson that she ultimately turned to her advantage.

[00:00:49] Throughout her life, Kim went on to defy one expectation after another. Not only does she have multiple degrees, she earned most of them while working, and either pregnant [00:01:00] or raising young children. She went on to build a successful career in a male dominated field, always finding a way to live life on her terms.

[00:01:09] Kim and I had a long conversation with some technical glitches. So I hope what follows captures at least a hint of how inspiring she really is. Kim, thank you for joining me. I really appreciate you taking some time this morning. 

[00:01:25] You're welcome. I'm happy to talk with you. 

[00:01:27] We're gonna start with childhood.

[00:01:28] How would you describe [00:01:30] your childhood? 

[00:01:30] From my perspective, I had a very nice childhood. I grew up in a new town that was built after World War II. I grew up in Northeastern New Jersey, and I could walk to school, I had many friends in the neighborhood, people were very similar, everybody's father had been in the service during World War II, almost everyone's grandparents, such as mine, were immigrants, and so we had a lot in common.

[00:01:58] and played [00:02:00] outside all the time. And, um, it was a good childhood from my perspective. I had three brothers and three sisters. I was the oldest, so I got to make a lot of decisions, which was nice. Sometimes my brothers and sisters remind me of that, that they were always the ones best for me. But it was a very happy childhood and I enjoyed it a great deal.

[00:02:21] Did your father work in the community or did he commute somewhere further away? 

[00:02:25] No, my father commuted into New York City. Many of the [00:02:30] fathers did that. Um, he walked to a bus and the bus took him, uh, to across the George Washington Bridge and then he would get on the subway and then come home again. That was, that was, uh, his job while we lived there.

[00:02:43] And your mother, did she work? 

[00:02:45] Well, yes, my mother did work. She worked taking care of seven children and a household, and did all of the cooking. Uh, she did not start working until I was already out of high school and lived away from home. Several of my brothers [00:03:00] and sisters had also left, um, and were in college.

[00:03:03] So she started working when my youngest brother and youngest sister were in grammar school. 

[00:03:08] What was the age difference between you and the youngest? 12 years. 

[00:03:12] Yes, 

[00:03:12] she'd have been busy. 

[00:03:14] Yes, my oldest brother was 17 months younger than I was. And then for the rest of them, there's about two years apart.

[00:03:21] And you mentioned that most people in the community had grandparents who were immigrants. Were they from the same country or from different countries? 

[00:03:29] [00:03:30] They were from different countries, but as far as I recall, everyone was from a Western European country. You know, if you want to include Poland, but there was no one from the Balkans.

[00:03:41] But many Irish, it was a very large Irish community, many Irish, many Italian, some French, a few German, so yes. 

[00:03:50] Did you therefore play with kids who had grandparents from various cultures? Yes, definitely. 

[00:03:56] But everyone, everyone spoke English, even though sometimes [00:04:00] some of their grandparents did not speak English in the house, although they could speak.

[00:04:04] My grandparents were Irish and they could speak English, but everyone just spoke English. There were no disputes that I can recall among the children playing. I do recall with my parents and some of their friends, they had some negative comments they would sometimes make about other nationalities. But it didn't make a difference to the kids playing in the neighborhood.

[00:04:26] Did you have extended family in the area? 

[00:04:28] Yes, I did. I had, [00:04:30] um, my returnal grandparents lived probably a half an hour away. And initially after the war, there was no housing available. So my first three years, I spent living with my grandparents. And so my brother did also for a year and a half. 

[00:04:48] Do you have any memories of those early years with your grandparents?

[00:04:51] Yes, I do. Yes, I was the oldest child, and my, my mother had two sisters and a brother who were living at home. They were adults, [00:05:00] but they were living at my grandparents I also had my mother's youngest sister. Then when she married, she ended up living in the same community, um, as we did, along with her children.

[00:05:11] And she also had a large family, many children. So they lived not in our neighborhood, but in the same, in the same town. 

[00:05:18] Were there big family gatherings? On, you know, for holidays, or even, you know, Sunday afternoons or anything like that? 

[00:05:25] Uh, yes. There were big family gatherings for, especially [00:05:30] for Thanksgiving.

[00:05:30] It was always, um, a huge gathering. That was always at my grandmother's house. And my other aunt, who also had a large family, she lived in Connecticut, but she often would come with her children for Thanksgiving. For Christmas, no, it was usually at our home and our grandparents would come to the house. And then they would go to my other aunt's house, too, for a part of the day.

[00:05:54] And we always got together if somebody had a communion or or graduation, [00:06:00] then yes, there would be family gatherings. If it was my graduation and I was the first to graduate, it would be at our house. But if it was somebody else's communion, it would be at their house. So yes, there was a lot of extended family relationships.

[00:06:14] In addition, my grandparents had a beach house in Connecticut on the Long Island Sound. And we would go there every summer for a month. Oh, nice. And that was very nice. How many people? Uh, well, initially, when I was very [00:06:30] little, I can remember everybody was there. My two aunts, they're smaller children, but as the family grew larger, uh, my one aunt lived in Connecticut near the, the sound.

[00:06:40] And so she just came and visited. Whereas my mother would take one month. And my, my other aunt from the same community, she would take the other month. And so we would spend a full month. But for me, since I was the oldest grandchild, several years, my aunt would ask me to stay with her for two or three [00:07:00] weeks.

[00:07:00] And I would help her with her children, her younger children. But I got to go to the beach every day, which was wonderful. 

[00:07:06] Did 

[00:07:06] you ever 

[00:07:06] have 

[00:07:07] a summer job? I didn't have a summer job until I was in high school. Well, before, before I had a summer job, I did do babysitting when I was in, um, probably seventh or eighth grade, I started doing babysitting my first job.

[00:07:20] When I was in high school, I worked at the counter into dry cleaners. 

[00:07:24] Did you enjoy that? It 

[00:07:25] was a job. Yeah. You know? And I made money. Not very much, but, [00:07:30] at the time. But, you know, I made money, and, um, yeah, it was, it was fine. I worked a couple of days after school, and then I always worked on Saturday. 

[00:07:38] Were you expected to get a job at some point, or was it something that you wanted to do?

[00:07:42] Oh, I would think I was expected to get a job for spending money, yes. 

[00:07:46] Was there anyone in your childhood who had a, a really profound influence on your life that you can think 

[00:07:52] of? Uh, yes, there was one person, and then there was a second person who had a negative effect, but that was a very profound [00:08:00] influence also.

[00:08:01] The first person was my aunt, who was my mother's youngest sister, and I can remember, um, I have a photograph of her with me at the beach, and this was when, before she got married. I don't remember it, but I have the photograph, but I'm smiling and laughing it, and that's what I do remember about her though, is when she first got married.

[00:08:22] I used to be able to go over to her apartment and have sleepovers, which was really fun for me because there were younger [00:08:30] children at home, but I get to go and had a wonderful time with her and she influenced me a lot. She's the first person in our family who went to college and my mother didn't. Her other sister didn't.

[00:08:41] My father didn't. Um, his sisters did not, but she did. And she always often told me about her college experience and how much she enjoyed it. And, and in other ways too, she influenced me a great deal. And I remained close with her for a long time. And she just died last year. She [00:09:00] lived to 97. Amazing. Oh yes, she had a really wonderful life.

[00:09:05] She really did. Yeah. 

[00:09:06] How fortunate to have had her influence in your life for I know, for so long too. Yeah, that's great. Will you tell me about the negative influence? It 

[00:09:13] was negative, but I eventually turned it into a positive. When I was in, um, I was a little bit older, but I was still in elementary school, and in the elementary schools after World War II, they were unindated with children.

[00:09:27] So many of the people that I know my age [00:09:30] grew up in the Northeast, you immediately starting in first grade, you were on half sessions, you either went in the morning or the afternoon. And, um, that happened for me through the third grade. And during that time, the school, they could see that the community was expanding because it was a community that was a relatively close to New York City.

[00:09:53] And so they built on to the school and anticipating that they were going to be continuing to have large [00:10:00] classes, which they did have. And when they built on to the school, when I was in the sixth, what they did is they separated out the built on portion to use for the. 8th grades. So they also decided to have a honor roll in that portion for the 6th And in order to be on the honor roll, you had to have all As and Bs.

[00:10:20] So the first marking period, I had all As and a B minus. So I was on the honor roll. My B minus was in, if you can believe this, [00:10:30] penmanship. You were graded on your penmanship. So the second marking period, I had all As and I had a C minus. in penmanship. So I went to the teacher and I asked her, I said, you know, I had a B minus last year.

[00:10:44] Why do I now have a C minus? She said, your handwriting is terrible. I said, um, well, um, okay, but I got a B minus last time. And she said, well, I gave you that because I saw what your other grades were. And I thought, you know, I give you the B minus [00:11:00] and you would take that to realize it, you know, to bring that up to an A.

[00:11:03] So I said to her, I said, well, I don't understand. And she said, your handwriting, you have to practice. You have to take time. And so I said, well, listen, Johnny, who's a good friend of mine, we had a double desks and in that classroom, Johnny and I sat together. I said, but Johnny's handwriting, he's at least as bad as mine.

[00:11:22] And you know what she said to me? He's a boy. Click. I'll never forget that. And you know, I never. Was on the on [00:11:30] a roll again, and I, my father wasn't that happy about it, but my mother understood. She was a very strong person. And she said, , I agree with you. You shouldn't have to just because you're a girl doesn't mean you have to have good handwriting to get a good grade.

[00:11:44] And so I never was on again. And the reason I say it was negative, but I realized from that day on that just because I was a girl, wasn't going to make any difference. I did, in fact, use it to my advantage, though, one time. I mean, I [00:12:00] always kept it in the back of my mind, but it worked to my advantage one time.

[00:12:03] And that was when I was in law school. And in the second year of law school, we had a course on business associations, corporations, partnerships for single proprietorships. And it was the only four credit course. Every other course was three credits. And so, well, it was, it was an older gentleman who taught the course.

[00:12:25] He was very good, but it was rumored that he did not think women belonged in [00:12:30] law school. Now this was back when there weren't very many women in law school. So I heard that and I said, well, I'm going to get an A, uh, and I knew the subject matter. And I did. The reason why is because we had to write in blue books.

[00:12:43] And I wrote in my messiest handwriting and you know what? I got an A. I'm very pleased about that. To digress slightly, I, uh, I have worked with college students in an advisory [00:13:00] role capacity and I realize that today people don't know about the kinds of discrimination women faced. Even in my lifetime, in the 50s, in the 60s, there was 70s, there was still a tremendous amount of discrimination against women.

[00:13:16] And so I always talk to them about some of those things. And it's something that I've done. But it started with the, you're a girl, your handwriting has to be better. 

[00:13:27] Well, One of the things that I am loving [00:13:30] about doing these interviews is getting some of those stories. Being as close to New York City as you were, did you get into the city as a child?

[00:13:37] Yes, I was very fortunate. My grandmother, and because I was the oldest grandchild, and my grandmother obviously knew me very, very well because I had lived with her for three years, actually. And so, uh, she always took me into the city. She took me every year. At Christmas time, we would go into New York City.

[00:13:56] They were just starting. to do the, uh, window [00:14:00] displays for Christmas. And she would always take me in to see those and to go to Rockefeller Center to see the tree lit up. I never ice skated there. I always thought that I wanted to, but I never did. But then she also took me to the ballet and she took me to the symphony.

[00:14:18] And best of all, She took me to the opera at the Old Metropolitan, and I loved it. And to this day, I love opera. I love [00:14:30] opera. But I got that from her. She took me to the opera, and I thought it was wonderful. I didn't understand because everything was in a foreign language. But I love the costumes, I love the drama, I love the singing.

[00:14:45] Did you ever have any interest in going into the performing arts yourself? 

[00:14:49] No, because I'm just not artistic. It's just not part of who I am. 

[00:14:54] Throughout your childhood, this would have been before Title IX, were you involved in any sports [00:15:00] or activities? 

[00:15:01] Well, there were no organized sports for girls when I was growing up.

[00:15:05] Now, I have spoken to a couple of people my age And, uh, one woman that I know, she's two years older than I did, she went to, uh, Catholic High School in, um, Cleveland, and they had a girls basketball team that played citywide. 

[00:15:23] Wow. That's 

[00:15:24] amazing. And I, that's what I thought, amazing, because there were no organized sports [00:15:30] whatsoever.

[00:15:30] And in our neighborhood, there was a lot that, um, and I don't know who owned the lot. It was an empty lot that was behind some houses. And some of the fathers, they put up a, for baseball and then, you know, they put the bases up. And sometimes the girls in the neighborhood would try to play, uh, kickball on that.

[00:15:50] And we always got kicked off. We weren't allowed to do that. The only thing that was available in my high school was to be a cheerleader. There was nothing else. Nothing [00:16:00] whatsoever. You know, of course, everybody wanted to be a cheerleader, and I think there were only eight people on the cheerleading squad.

[00:16:06] Maybe ten. No, it wasn't big. How big was your high school? There were about a hundred in my graduating class. So I guess it was about 400. 

[00:16:16] What was it like dating? 

[00:16:17] Um, I didn't do a lot of dating until I was in college. I guess I was, um, I was very interested in my studies. And I felt a lot of the boys in high school were, they [00:16:30] just, you know, they weren't interested in academics.

[00:16:33] So I didn't know any who were interested in academics at all. They were kind of silly in some ways, I thought. So I didn't date too much in high school. I wasn't that interested in dating that much in high school. I met more interesting people when I went to college. 

[00:16:47] You were interested in your studies.

[00:16:48] What was high school like for you in that way? Was it challenging? Was it easy? 

[00:16:53] It was pretty easy for me. It wasn't that challenging. I regret, I should have gone in retrospect, I should have gone to [00:17:00] a different high school that I could have gone to. There was no high school in our, in our town. Um, I should have gone to a different high school where they were starting to have, uh, advanced classes.

[00:17:11] They didn't call them AP classes at that time, but I would have enjoyed that more. 

[00:17:16] Had it been your choice which high school to attend? 

[00:17:18] No, my parents wanted me to attend this high school. Yeah, it was a high school that my aunt had gone to, uh, the one who went to college, and my uncle had gone to. It was a big football school, [00:17:30] and my uncle had played football there, as an aside, and his coach was Vince Lombardi.

[00:17:36] Really? Yes! 

[00:17:39] My older brother went to that high school and he loves to tell that story. He goes, well, he wasn't there. The high school we went to, Vince Lombardi was the coach. 

[00:17:47] Just leave the dates 

[00:17:48] off. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:17:50] At what point did you decide you wanted to go to college? Did you always know you wanted to? I did, 

[00:17:54] yes, but then I got sidetracked.

[00:17:56] What happened? 

[00:17:58] Um, I went to nursing school first. [00:18:00] My parents were very disappointed. They wanted me to go to college and I told them I needed to go to nursing school first and then I would go to college, which is what I did. Well, my cousin, my aunt who I told you about, who was very close to me, her daughter was born with a disease.

[00:18:18] That today they couldn't cure with a liver transplant, but they couldn't at the time. And I was very close to her, and she died when she, when, um, she was 13. [00:18:30] And I spent a great deal of time with her. And so I, I, um, decided that was what I wanted to do for her. 

[00:18:37] Yeah. Oh, I'm so sorry. To lose someone when you're young is not easy.

[00:18:40] But I, my parents were surprised because I worked for one year full time and then I went to college and I went to college full time. But it also helped me in the sense that, I'll just briefly tell you about my parents and going to college. My father regretted that he did not use [00:19:00] the G. I. Bill to go to, to college.

[00:19:02] He came home from the Pacific, married my mother, and I was born 11 months later. And then my brother was born. So he never went early on. He said, my three sons are going to go to college and my mother agreed with him. And she said, yes, I agree. And our daughters are going to go to college too. So I didn't know this at the time, but my father, you know, said, well, how are we going to pay for sending seven children to a college?

[00:19:28] So they came up with a [00:19:30] compromise. They would pay for the first two years of everyone's college, and then you had to pay for the remainder. And so you had to work, try to get scholarships. etc. So that's what they did, and every single one of my brothers and sisters have a college degree. However, every single one of my sisters, including myself, have an advanced degree or two.

[00:19:52] None of my brothers do. 

[00:19:54] Well done. 

[00:19:54] My mother was right. Everybody was going to college, but the girls really did. They went. So [00:20:00] for me, I was able to work while I was in college. I worked nights because the hospital was right on the same campus as the university that I went to. So I worked nights, two nights a week.

[00:20:13] One was on the weekend and one was during the week. And that was all my spending money and also to save for the last two years. 

[00:20:22] Where did you go to nursing geographically in relation to where you grew up? In New York City. So where did you live during that time? 

[00:20:29] At the [00:20:30] school. It was a residential. It was part of the hospital, but there was a residential dorm.

[00:20:34] And then how far did you head from there for university? 

[00:20:37] I went in upstate New York to university. 

[00:20:40] How did you choose the school? 

[00:20:41] Well, initially, I chose the school because my parents had moved to the area. And I thought that, well, you know, I was older than everyone else. So I probably didn't want to live on campus.

[00:20:54] So I lived with my parents and two of my sisters were still at home for the first [00:21:00] semester. And I decided if I was going to go to college, I needed the college experience full time. So then I went and lived in a dormitory my second year and then I lived on campus the rest of the time. So I get there and there is a curfew, which I figured, okay, I had a curfew when I lived at home when I was in high school.

[00:21:19] So I found out that there's a curfew from the dorm is locked at 11 o'clock. And then again at seven o'clock it reopens and you can't leave. I had to go and [00:21:30] visit with the Dean of Women and get an exception because I work from 12 midnight to 8 a. m. That was my shift. So I go and I talk to the Dean of Women that I need this excuse.

[00:21:41] Well, number one, the first thing I find out is there's a curfew only for women. There's no curfew for men. Well, I said, what? What do you mean there's no curfew? Well, we don't feel the men need a curfew, but the women do. Well, number one, that set me off. I said, well, I need to leave the dorm at [00:22:00] 1130 to go to work.

[00:22:01] And she said, well, you can't do that. I said, well, wait a minute. I have to go to work. I said, and so she said, well, take another shift. So I said, well, the daytime shift is very popular. Everybody wants to work the daytime shift. And I said. Anyway, that, that's when all of my classes are. And she said, well, what about the afternoon shift?

[00:22:21] I said, well, the afternoon shift starts at three o'clock and goes to 11. So I wouldn't come home until afterwards. She said, well, can't you get an exception? I said, [00:22:30] do you understand what I do? I said, I'm a pediatric intensive care nurse. I mean, I can't leave early. I have to wait till the next person comes.

[00:22:39] I said, I'm in charge of that unit. I said, well, you know, I lived in New York City and worked for a year. I had my own apartment with two other women. I said, I can take care of myself. So she gave me the exception, but that was just ridiculous. But talking about change, what was remarkable, and this was [00:23:00] during the time of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam protests, by my senior year, we had co ed dorms.

[00:23:07] Whoa! 

[00:23:07] Does that mean the curfew was gone as well? 

[00:23:09] Oh yeah, the curfew was gone. The curfew was gone by my, I think my junior year. But just the fact that there was a curfew, I never thought it was a problem because I, my brother had a curfew too. I also told this dean, I said, you know, you let these young men out there roaming around at night, but the women have to stay in.

[00:23:27] And I think she felt like, well, that's why the women [00:23:30] have to stay in, but it was ridiculous. What were you studying? Oh, um, because I love the arts so much. Um, I studied art history with a minor in music history. 

[00:23:42] What was your hope for your career beyond university? 

[00:23:45] I really didn't know. I went to university for the education and I wasn't really sure.

[00:23:52] What did you like about 

[00:23:53] your university years? 

[00:23:55] Um, I loved that I met so many different people. I had, um, [00:24:00] I guess people say that I had really an interesting experience from a cultural perspective when I moved in. To the dorm, I moved into a double room and my roommate was Native American. That was really interesting, really interesting.

[00:24:15] I mean, I didn't know a Native American person before, and that was very interesting. I also joined a sorority, which I never was going to do. I mean, I thought that was silly, but I lived in a, in a room where there was a double, and then there was [00:24:30] another double, and then there was a bathroom. Which was very nice rather than, you know, living in a big dorm with just one bathroom down the hall.

[00:24:38] And, uh, one of the women in the other double, she was going to go through a rush for sororities. And she said to me, she said, listen, you said you came to college because you wanted the full college experience. Well, this is part of the full college experience. And the university, there were a lot of sororities and fraternities on the campus.

[00:24:58] She said, you should at least give it a [00:25:00] try. So I said, okay. So I went through and, um, the one sorority that I went to that they decided to join, I liked it because There were both Christians and Jewish women in the sorority, and some of the sororities were very, very Christian, and there were two that were totally Jewish.

[00:25:19] And I thought, you know, you go to college, it's time to learn about different things and know different people. And then my, uh, my second semester of my junior year and [00:25:30] my senior year, I lived with a woman who was native Hawaiian. And that was really interesting too. And then I lived with an older woman, my second semester, sophomore year, and she, she and I became very good friends.

[00:25:45] So in my college experience, I met a lot of different people with, you know, different backgrounds, different cultures. That's what I got most out of my college experience. 

[00:25:55] What happened after you finished university? What did you do? I 

[00:25:58] got married, which was a [00:26:00] surprise. I didn't think I would be getting married 

[00:26:02] early.

[00:26:03] So before we get to the marriage, where and when did you meet your husband? Oh, um, 

[00:26:07] I met him on a blind date from one of the women who, uh, who lived in my sorority. 

[00:26:13] Okay. Was he also at the same university? He was at the medical school. Was he the only person you dated during those university years? 

[00:26:20] Well, I met him my sophomore year at the beginning of my, yeah, the beginning of my sophomore year.

[00:26:26] I dated several other people before that and was [00:26:30] dating a couple of other people when I first met him, but then I just dated him. 

[00:26:34] When did you get married? 

[00:26:35] Um, in June after my graduation. 

[00:26:38] Had he finished medical school at that point? 

[00:26:40] No, he had one more year of medical school. So I worked for a year, and then we had decided that we were tired of cold winters, and we went to Florida.

[00:26:50] And then I worked, but I also started working on my master's. And my master's was in political science, because I became very interested in political science. [00:27:00] So I got my master's in political science. 

[00:27:02] While he was doing his residency, that sort of thing? 

[00:27:05] His internship and his residency, yes. And were you working as a nurse?

[00:27:09] Yes, because it was an easy job to get. 

[00:27:11] How many years did it take to get the master's? Two years. And at what point did you have your first child? Uh, in my second year 

[00:27:19] of 

[00:27:19] my 

[00:27:19] master's. 

[00:27:20] Okay, so now you're getting your master's degree, raising an infant. Working. Maintaining a marriage. That's rather a lot going on.[00:27:30] 

[00:27:30] How'd that go? 

[00:27:31] I thought it went fine. The only thing that happened is I didn't get a lot of sleep. Yeah, I bet. I remember one of my professors when I was working, and I was pregnant with my son. At the time, and the professor said to me, he goes, well, how do you find any time to get your, all your work done?

[00:27:48] And I said, well, it's pretty easy. I said this when I was pregnant, but it was the same after my son was born. I said, my husband works long hours and he's on call every third night and I [00:28:00] studied them, you know? And then when the baby came, the baby, it's a good baby, the baby slept. And I stayed up and he was working and I did my, my work.

[00:28:09] Well done. Before we move further into, into the next chapter of your life, if you were talking to somebody who were at that transition from academia or education or just into adulthood, is there any advice you would give them? 

[00:28:23] Follow your passion, what you want to do. And if you follow it and it just doesn't seem [00:28:30] to work out, it's okay.

[00:28:31] You can change. You don't have to always do the same thing. You know, if you start in a job, that's not going to have to be your life's work. You can have several different life's work over the years. 

[00:28:44] Amen to that. All right, so here we are. We're in your 20s, presumably, and you've got a son, a master's degree, and there's been mention of law school.

[00:28:54] So obviously at some point you transitioned again. 

[00:28:57] Well, that was another going back to the [00:29:00] handwriting. I, the first year that I was working on my master's, I was only taking two classes because I was working and one of the professors said, you know, you know, this is going to take you quite a while. Why don't you take more classes?

[00:29:13] And I said, well, at this point in time, I can't afford that. I said, I'm paying for the classes. And I said, I work. And I, I said, you know, my, my husband is doing his internship and he doesn't make very much money. So this is what we have to do. And he said, well, let me see what I can do. And he had me apply for a [00:29:30] scholarship and a, um, a work study grant.

[00:29:32] So he called me one day and he said, well, I have good news and bad news. I said, okay, well, what's the bad news first? And he said, well, the bad news is you did not get the scholarship. However, the good news is you did get the work study said, but maybe the bad news might be, you're going to have to work with me, which was fine.

[00:29:50] It was great. And what he was doing, he was researching a New York court of appeals. Which is the Supreme Court of New York over a hundred year period, he was [00:30:00] researching how the court changed from liberal to conservative to liberal. And so my job was to go to the law library and read cases and take notes about, you know, the cases.

[00:30:13] So that we could determine how the courts changed from one to the other. Well, that was great because I love researching. So we had one car. My husband would drop me off at the school. I would go to either library, either the college library, the law library. I would get my work done for my [00:30:30] master's and I'd also get my work.

[00:30:31] done for the law library. So I'm pregnant with my son and obviously pregnant. And these two guys come up to me one day and they sit down across the table from me and they say, you know, we really admire you. And I said, Oh, well, thank you. Why? I have no idea. I'm there almost every day. And he said, you're here almost every day and you're reading cases and you're taking notes.

[00:30:53] You've got one lucky husband. Oh, well I was furious. So my husband picks me up that night and [00:31:00] I am furious. He goes, what are you so upset about? So I tell him the story and so he says, well then go to law school and show them. So I did. Did you go to that law school or a different one? Well, I didn't have a choice 'cause there was only one law school in the area.

[00:31:15] Oh, and then I had another experience when I went to law school.  My son was nine months old when I went to law school, and the dean was a woman, She thought it was horrendous that I was in law school. She knew that I had a nine month old baby at home. So when I met her and I introduced myself to her and we had a meet and greet, and I don't know [00:31:30] how she found that out, but maybe because I had been on the campus and whatever, she said, yes, I know who you are.

[00:31:36] And I went, oh, okay. Well, thank you, Dean. She said, and I don't know what you're doing here. And she said, either you're brilliant or you're really making a mistake trying to come here and do this with a baby at home. So I said, okay, thank you very much, Dean. What could I say? So the Grades are posted at the end of the year, and then you have to go to the dean's office and get your class standing.

[00:31:59] So I have my [00:32:00] son with me, and he's now 18 months old. So he's walking, and I walk into the dean's office. She did not look at me. She put her head down, and she said, You're number five. So I said, Oh, well, thank you, Dean. It's time for us to go to the park. Come on. We walked out. And then when I got on Law Review, because Law Review was the top 5 percent of the class, I get on Law Review, there's only one other woman on Law Review.

[00:32:26] She's got a year and a half old baby also. So what we [00:32:30] did is we would go twice a week when we both didn't have a class, we would go home, each of us would pick up our child, and we would go to a park, and the kids would play. And we would discuss cases and other things that law related. So by my third year, there were six people in that group, all women who had children and we would meet, discuss the law.

[00:32:53] We had our own little, little study group. That's fantastic. 

[00:32:57] So after you graduated from law school, what did you do? [00:33:00] 

[00:33:00] Well, my daughter was born premature when I was at the end of the first semester of my third year. So I then took off, um, my last semester and the summer and spent time with my children. And then I went back and finished up my class.

[00:33:18] I graduated and I finished up and I went back. So that gave me some time off. which I enjoyed and, and I, I wanted to do. But when I was in my second year of law school, second semester, I took a [00:33:30] course in taxation and I really enjoyed it. And a lot of people don't like taxation at all, but I did. And, um, I didn't mind reading that internal revenue code.

[00:33:40] I like researching and to me, it was very easy. So I decided then, uh, to be a tax attorney and get a good job, you needed to have a master's in taxation. So I said, well, that's not a problem. I'll do that. So after I, I graduated in January, and so then I took another semester and summer off to be with my children.

[00:33:59] They were [00:34:00] very young. And then I started my, my master's in taxation. It can be done in a year, but I decided to do it over a two year period because then it would give me more time to spend with my children while they were young. And then I got a job after that. 

[00:34:15] Were you working during those years? 

[00:34:17] No, by that time, I was not working.

[00:34:19] No, I did not work after my daughter was born, my second child. After she was born, I did not work in nursing any longer, and my husband was [00:34:30] making more money so that we did okay. 

[00:34:32] But, for example, the first year of law 

[00:34:34] school, were you working? No, by that time, no. I went to law school full time, but remember I had a nine month old baby at home.

[00:34:42] Exactly, that's why I was checking. If you'd been working and raising a baby and going to law school, that's an awful lot. No, I 

[00:34:50] wasn't working then. 

[00:34:51] And are you still in Florida at this point? Yes. And presumably at this point your husband has finished his internship and his residency and he's now into some kind of [00:35:00] a stable position?

[00:35:01] Yes, 

[00:35:02] he was an assistant professor at medical school. 

[00:35:05] So let's just jump from where you finished the, the master's in taxation. 

[00:35:09] And then I started working. I went to a small law firm, yes. And at the time, I made no bones about the fact that I had two small children. My son was in elementary school then, but I know that there were some firms that were hesitant to hire me because of that, because there weren't that many women in law at that time.

[00:35:29] So I went [00:35:30] with a small firm and it was primarily a Jewish firm. And I think part of one of the reasons that they hired me and I did well there is that they realized and they saw that just like many Jewish people are discriminated against, women were still discriminated against and they recognized that and they gave me a try and I did very well there and I worked hard.

[00:35:55] But they were very flexible with my time, and I, I requested to [00:36:00] take some additional time in the summer, uh, unpaid, so that I could spend time with my children. They were fine with that. They were very agreeable, and I thought that would affect me in making partner, but it didn't. That's fantastic. They really, really worked with me, and it was excellent.

[00:36:18] I really enjoyed it. It was really good firm to work with. How long were you with them? Oh, let's see. I was with them for Six years, and then they merged with a larger firm out of New [00:36:30] York, and I didn't like that at all. You know, they were a typical, all they were looking at is how many billable hours you had, which is not what I was used to, and I didn't like that at all.

[00:36:41] And then I went to another firm and that firm was flexible because I did not want to go in that firm as a partner because of the way they, their partnership worked. I went to that firm as of counsel and that worked very well. 

[00:36:58] Kim explained that at this other [00:37:00] firm, partners were required to sign a promissory note to cover any debts of a certain amount.

[00:37:05] And that if she were to join as a partner, her husband would also have to sign. 

[00:37:10] I said, absolutely not. And they said, well, everybody's wife signs. I said, well, that's good for everybody's wife, but it's not good for me. I said, my husband has a separate business. He has separate investments. I have separate investments.

[00:37:24] Absolutely not. So they said, well, then you can't be a partner. I said, fine. Then I was [00:37:30] of counsel. And it worked out really well because that firm went bankrupt. Oh! And I just walked away. 

[00:37:37] Well done. And then what? Where'd you go from there? 

[00:37:40] Oh, then, uh, we decided to move out west, both of us. And so that's what we did.

[00:37:45] We moved out west. 

[00:37:47] So at that point, the kids were high school? In college. In college. Okay, so they were already graduated. All right, so then before we get into moving out west, did you have any extended family around in Florida? 

[00:37:58] Not in the beginning, but then [00:38:00] my, my sister moved to Florida, uh, with her husband and had three children and they lived north of where we were in Florida, about, uh, an hour and a half away, but we did see them a lot on holidays.

[00:38:15] How did you handle child care when you were working? Not during the summers, obviously, when you took some time off, but when the kids were young and, you know, you were just starting a law firm. 

[00:38:23] When my son was born, I was looking for daycare, and I had been looking before he was born. But I [00:38:30] met this lady who lived in the building next to us, and she, she did babysitting.

[00:38:36] And so I was going back to school, and I asked her, she said, well, you know, she saw that I was pregnant, and she came up to me and told me that she did babysitting, if you were ever looking for a babysitter. And so I talked with her, and after Our son was born. I, it was in November and we were going to a Christmas party.

[00:38:55] And I said, well, you know, it wasn't very far away. I'll try this [00:39:00] lady and see how it is. I mean, she was a wonderful grandmotherly type. And she said, Oh, everybody calls me granny. Just call me granny. I was going to classes, finishing my master's. I was going to classes two days a week. And I asked her if she would babysit during the day.

[00:39:15] And she said, yes. That would be fine. Well, she was absolutely terrific. And I had her until my children were grown. She was absolutely wonderful. She had a very interesting story, but she was an immigrant, came over when [00:39:30] she was a child from Hungary. So she taught our children. so much. It was amazing. She made it possible for me to finish my master's, to go to law school, to have a job in law, and also, you know, with my children.

[00:39:46] When the children went to school, she would come over in the afternoons and pick them up from school. And then, even when they were older, my son was She was very ill for several years and I could call her at seven o'clock in the [00:40:00] morning and say he's gonna have to stay home from school and she said, okay, I'll be over give me about a half an hour and she would come and spend the day with him.

[00:40:08] It was amazing. 

[00:40:09] What wonderful luck to have, you know, chosen a place to live where she happened to be. 

[00:40:14] Yeah, I mean, we were really fortunate and we learned a lot from her. 

[00:40:18] That sounds like it. Did you keep in contact after the children were no longer in need of her care? 

[00:40:22] Uh, yes, we did when she had hip surgery Um, she was living alone and she had to go to a rehab facility [00:40:30] and we went over after church on sunday to see her Myself and my two children and she was all dressed and I was wondering, you know Why is she all dressed up?

[00:40:40] And I said, well, what's happening, Granny? And she said, I signed myself out. I can't stay with all these old people. So I said, well, you really need to stay with somebody. She said, I can't. So I said, okay, you're coming home with us. I said, call medical supply, tell them that we need a hospital bed delivered and I'm bringing Granny home.

[00:40:58] He goes, okay, I'll tell him it has to [00:41:00] be there by this afternoon. She stayed with us for a month. Lots of times she came to our holidays if she wasn't going to go with her own. She had one daughter and several grandchildren, but sometimes she would rather come over to our holidays, which were fine. 

[00:41:13] You mentioned after church, what role has church played in your life?

[00:41:18] Um, my parents were, were Catholic. They were both pretty religious. So we did go to church every Sunday. But you know, when I went to college, I didn't go very often. It wasn't [00:41:30] that important in my life and it wasn't in my husband's. either after he, he also grew up with his parents were Catholic, but then as our children started to grow up, we thought that that's something that we'd like to introduce them to in their lives.

[00:41:45] So we did start going to church again and taking them, but then as they got older, they weren't as interested in going all the time, but we did go on a regular basis when they were younger, just so that they would have that experience also. [00:42:00] 

[00:42:00] When you moved to Florida, it was just the two of you, no family there, and I'm guessing you didn't have any, you know, you didn't necessarily know anybody there initially, is that correct?

[00:42:09] That's correct. So, how did you make friends? Where did you meet people? 

[00:42:13] Well, it was because of my husband being in his internship and residency, he met, they were all relatively young doctors, a couple of women. Not very many. And their spouses or significant others. And same as I met people when I went to [00:42:30] graduate school.

[00:42:31] What did you do for fun? 

[00:42:33] Fun? Oh, we started this when we, oh, I guess it was when we got married and lived the first year in upstate New York. Every Friday night we would go out for pizza and beer. That was our one restaurant. meal a month. And, uh, we still occasionally do that on a Friday night just because for old time's sake.

[00:42:52] And it was fun. And, um, it was mostly meeting up with friends and going out. If you can believe this, when we first moved to [00:43:00] Miami, we did live in a suburb south of the city of Miami, but Miami beach was not the way it is today. It was very, very different. South Beach was considered an old folks home. It was.

[00:43:14] There were a lot of old hotels and small residential houses that had been, you know, converted to small apartments. And you'd go down there and people, all these older folks, would be sitting out on the porch in their rocking chairs. I mean, there were no nightclubs. There were no [00:43:30] big hotels. There was no party scene whatsoever.

[00:43:33] And it was interesting because Miami pretty much shut down on a Saturday night at 10 o'clock. It was hard to even find some place to go to eat after 10 o'clock. So it was mostly that we hung out with friends and did a lot of things in going to the beach, beach parties. Okay. We'd meet people at the beach.

[00:43:49] Did Miami, at some point while you were living there, did it ever get, you know, a cultural scene? I mean, did you ever get to the opera? Oh, 

[00:43:55] yes, Miami had an opera. It was in what was called the [00:44:00] Auditorium for the County Auditorium, but the acoustics were pretty good. But the opera was excellent because a singer made their U.

[00:44:08] S. debut in Miami, and so that made Miami on the books because that singer came back every single year for a performance, and his name was Pavarotti. 

[00:44:19] There came a point when the decision was made to move west. You said that was a joint decision. The kids were off in college. Had they both left Florida? Did they go somewhere else or did they stay close to home?

[00:44:29] [00:44:30] No, they both went far away. My daughter went to California, my son went to Maryland. 

[00:44:37] And the two of you decided it was time for a change? 

[00:44:39] Yes. Beginning in 1980, we took our first big trip out west. And we flew to Denver, and we rented a van, and we drove up to Wyoming, and Montana, and Idaho, and Utah, and we visited [00:45:00] several national parks.

[00:45:01] And we ended up back in Colorado and visited Rocky Mountain National Park and then we flew back home out of Denver. And we decided, well, we loved it. It was a great trip and we'd like to come back, but we want to go and stay someplace. So we decided that the following year, we would look and we would go to a dude ranch and we like Montana, so we decided we would go to a dude ranch and [00:45:30] we found one in Montana, uh, that we ended up loving.

[00:45:34] The kids and my husband and I, and we went back there every year. So when we decided it was time for us to leave South Florida, we decided that we would, um, we wanted to move west. But there weren't a lot of jobs in Montana or in Wyoming, so not the kind of work that we were doing. So we decided that we would go to Colorado.

[00:45:55] Were you both still working at that point? Oh, yeah. 

[00:45:58] Yes. [00:46:00] Full 

[00:46:00] time? 

[00:46:00] Oh, when we came to Colorado? Yeah. Oh, no. When we came to Colorado, my husband took a position at the, um, medical school in Colorado, but it was a teaching position, teaching working with residents with the patients in that, not the didactic schooling, you know, the beginning.

[00:46:19] And I did consulting work for non profits. I still did work for some clients, old clients that I had. It was before FaceTime, but I would have telephone [00:46:30] calls with them. And I would usually go to Miami twice a year and visit with those clients. And I could do work and then send it to them, you know, different things that I did.

[00:46:40] And I also started working, doing some volunteer work for a non profit. Okay. 

[00:46:46] Thinking of those years while you were working full time in Florida, was there anyone who served as a mentor to you? Um, 

[00:46:53] well, before I went into practice and after I had finished, I had the opportunity to clerk [00:47:00] for a, a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, which was a great experience because in law, you know, once you finish, you can go and hang your shingle out.

[00:47:13] Whereas in medicine, which I'm familiar with with my husband, once you finish medical school, you can't just go and hang your shingle out. You need to do at least, now it's two years, it used to be one year, at least one year of internship. Now it's just called, I [00:47:30] believe, two years of residency. You need to do that.

[00:47:32] And I think that's good. And in law, you don't have to do that. But clerking for a federal court judge, or really any higher level judge, is such a great experience. And you still do a lot of research in writing. But, um, it's a wonderful experience. I also had the opportunity to meet, it was then the 5th Circuit, it's now the 11th Circuit, um, a judge who was on the [00:48:00] then 5th Circuit, who was from Florida, who had An office in the same building where we did, and one of my friends from law school, he was clerking with that appeals court judge.

[00:48:12] That judge was very influential for me. He did have one woman clerk, but he, he just gave me such great advice. about being a woman and being an attorney. And he said, you know, I know it's difficult. For example, I remember him telling me, [00:48:30] I know it's difficult for you to recognize. Well, I have to dress a certain way.

[00:48:34] And he said, but recognize that that's just the way the law is. And we're used to seeing people come in. It has been male, but yes. They're dressed in a suit. It's a, you know, plain, not loud. It's a conservative suit, a white shirt, a blue shirt, or a tie. And he said, you don't need to wear a tie, but you're so much better served.

[00:48:59] Dress [00:49:00] in a suit, dress in a nice blouse. Understand that. You know, that that's what judges and others are used to looking at. And you'll be accepted. And as time goes on, they'll accept you for, you are a lawyer and you're a little bit different. You're a woman. And if you then start wearing a dress or something else, it'll be fine.

[00:49:20] But when you start out, I mean, that was just such good advice to me that rather than me say, Oh, well, because I'm a woman, but why I should do that. And I [00:49:30] took that to heart. I really did. I felt that was excellent. And then he gave me other advice about writing and just, you know, he went out of his way and I wasn't even his clerk.

[00:49:40] That made a big impression upon me. 

[00:49:42] Were there any other pieces of advice that you got during your career that stuck with you? 

[00:49:47] Um, one of the lawyers in there, an older gentleman, um, who had started the firm, in the first firm that I was with, and he always talked about The people and that, you know, [00:50:00] everybody has a different story, a different problem.

[00:50:03] They look at it differently in their way and get to know the client well, so that you understand what their needs are. It's not just what they're. You know, what the issue that they come with, it might be, there's other things involved. I did a lot of estate work with estate planning with very wealthy clients.

[00:50:23] Well, at the time, these were clients worth, you know, 20 million. That might not be considered as that [00:50:30] wealthy today, but. That was pretty wealthy then. I mean, I had one lady who had, her husband left her 10 million and there was a very large estate, the estate tax started at a much lower level then. And I was, you know, talking to her about giving money away, you know, some to her children and some to charity.

[00:50:49] And she was so reluctant, but I could understand. She grew up during the depression. You know, I talked to her and I found out why she was so reluctant. She never wanted to be [00:51:00] hungry again. But once I understood that and could explain to her how, if she gave money away, um, cause she was planning to make a big bequest in her will to a hospital called Deborah hospital.

[00:51:12] It's in New Jersey and I hadn't heard of it, but it treats children just like the Shriners do. And some others, it treats children with. Uh, serious congenital defects and children with serious injuries for free. I mean, they don't charge anything. I told her how wonderful it would be for her to [00:51:30] make a big gift then because she could enjoy it.

[00:51:33] I didn't tell her in so many words, but she could still have plenty to eat. You know, it took a while, but she ended up giving them 5 million. I found out she ended up having more than 10 million, but that was later. Cause I don't think she wanted me to know how much she had initially. You know that, but the advice that the partner gave me is to really get to know, understand the client, spend time with them, talking to them so that [00:52:00] you can understand what are their desires, but also what are their fears, what are their concerns, and, um, I set up several charitable organizations.

[00:52:10] For 501c3 organizations, for clients, and, um, one is still really quite big. It's called Food for the Poor. And I see articles in the paper about them sometimes. And it was two brothers who wanted to set it up in honor of their parents, who are Jamaicans. And they have raised a [00:52:30] tremendous amount of money.

[00:52:31] And now, they gave a tremendous amount, and now they raise a tremendous amount of money. It goes to the Caribbean. 

[00:52:37] Nice. Let's jump back to, uh, the move west and that next sort of set of years. The kids are, you know, grown and in college and off, and you and your husband have shifted careers. Downshifted a little bit, but at the same time you're also volunteering and doing all sorts of things.

[00:52:52] What were those years like? What jumps out at you in that next chapter? 

[00:52:57] Well, we love Colorado, you know, [00:53:00] when we go back east, we say, you know, it's good to visit family. It's good to visit friends. It's good to visit places, go to things, but it's so crowded. It's so noisy. And we love it in Colorado. We really do.

[00:53:13] We live in the mountains now and we really enjoy that. 

[00:53:17] When did you retire? 

[00:53:18] Oh, I retired finally. Thousand five and my husband retired finally in 2000. Well, he retired from the [00:53:30] university in 2001, but then he did consulting and work and he retired in 2009. 

[00:53:36] Was there something that led you to the decision to retire?

[00:53:39] Um, well, my consulting practice had decreased somewhat, and I was doing a lot of traveling, and I decided that I had done enough. It was time to retire. We were comfortable enough, and we love to travel, and we love to take long trips. From the very beginning, my husband and I have traveled. When we [00:54:00] married, We went to, he had the summer off and I had just graduated.

[00:54:04] So I hadn't, hadn't started my job. I wasn't going to start my job until September. And he went back to medical school. So we went to Europe nine weeks and it was wonderful. It really was. And then after he finished medical school, before he started his internship, there was a six week period. And we traveled again to Europe, to different parts of Europe.

[00:54:23] And then for a long time, we didn't get to do too much traveling, but we did traveling with our kids and mostly in the United States. [00:54:30] But we love to travel and we've been around the world several times and to 80 countries. 

[00:54:37] 80! 

[00:54:37] Yes. 

[00:54:39] Okay, now we can start an entirely different conversation that could go on far too long, but I'm going to try not to go too far down this road.

[00:54:45] How do you like to travel? Cruises or flying? Trains? Renting cars? What do you like? 

[00:54:50] Depends on where we are. I love train travel. Not in the United States. Yeah, I love train travel. And we've done train travel all [00:55:00] over Europe many times. And, you know, we've done, we've gone, you know, to Norway and Sweden. You know, they put the train on the barge and carried it across.

[00:55:09] And even not too long ago when we went to Sicily, we went all the way down from Rome and then they just put the train on the barge and bring you over to Sicily. If we need to get somewhere quickly, like we like to go by plane, that's fine. It's not as nice as it used to be, but it gets you there quickly.

[00:55:28] We've done cruises. [00:55:30] But we tend to like long distance cruises. We've crossed the Atlantic several times, and we're going to do it again in April. But we just don't cross. Then we're going to go to Portugal, where we've only been to Lisbon. We haven't been to the rest of Portugal. That will be a driving trip.

[00:55:46] We do like driving. Uh, coming back to the trains. I like trains in, uh, Canada. And. One of the exciting trains we took was we did the Trans Siberian Railroad. Oh, wow. And that was a, that was a [00:56:00] fabulous trip. That was when it was still the Soviet Union. Uh, we went to Moscow and we spent almost a week in Moscow.

[00:56:06] And then we had to fly all the way across to where the Trans Siberian Railroad starts. However, at that point in time, Um, it starts at the port city over on the Pacific, and that was a closed city, even for Russians. We needed a special permit to get in there. So we had to go about 60 kilometers north to a town called Khabarovsk, and then got on the Trans [00:56:30] Siberian Railroad and came across.

[00:56:32] back to Moscow. That was really quite a trip. It was still the Soviet Union, so all of the clocks were still on Moscow time, even though you were over on the east. We went in November, because we didn't want to, I mean, if you're going to do the Trans Siberian River, you don't want to go in the summer. You want to go when, you know, it was the way most people were, you know, what Russia was really like.

[00:56:51] Uh, there was very, very little food in any place. But that's okay. It was fine. They had a stale black bread and that was fine. [00:57:00] And the waiters always had caviar, the good stuff. It was from the black market, or it was stolen. And we got caviar to eat every night. 

[00:57:11] What countries are still on your list that you'd like to visit?

[00:57:14] I would like to go back to India. Um, and we've been to Africa several times. I've only been to Cape Town once. I really loved Cape Town. It's wonderful. We've also done cruises. We took, we went to Cape Town for a week. And then from Cape [00:57:30] Town, we got on one of the Cunard Line cruises. We came all the way up the coast of Africa.

[00:57:35] We only made one stop. And that's when you realize how large Africa is. It's huge. And then we went to Southampton, and then they transferred us in our luggage to the Queen Mary, and then we came across to New York, and uh, then we went and visited our grandchildren who live in New York. So that was a really fabulous trip.

[00:57:55] As an immigrant, I can't imagine coming across. Oh my god, in [00:58:00] those boats. I can't imagine it, but it's really remarkable, and I'm still crying about it. I'm coming to the harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty. I mean, people are standing on the boat, and everybody's crying. It's really remarkable. It really is.

[00:58:16] And every time, I've done it a couple of times, and I love it. And you come in early in the morning, and the sun's not up yet, but it's all, it's gorgeous. Amazing. And all of, all of, um, my husband's grandparents were [00:58:30] immigrants, but they came in through Boston. But, um, it's really remarkable. The other really remarkable thing was, that reminds me, my other grandmother, the one who came last, she came over when she was 16.

[00:58:43] And, um, she worked as a maid in a big house in New York, which is what most of the women, the Irish women did. And, um, She came over in, um, 1904. And 105 years later, I was at the Capitol in [00:59:00] Washington, sitting in the gallery while my sister was sworn in as a member of Congress. And my cousin was there also.

[00:59:06] She was sitting on the other side in the press section because she worked for, she's now retired, for NPR. And the both of us waved to one another and then talked later. But boy, would my grandmother, she would have been amazed. 

[00:59:19] Wonderful. 

[00:59:20] Yep, it is. 

[00:59:21] . As you look back over the course of your life, Who would you say are the handful of people who have been the most influential or important? 

[00:59:29] Well, one time I [00:59:30] was at a meeting where one of the questions, you know, kind of an icebreaker is if you could have dinner with one person, living or deceased.

[00:59:38] Who would that be? And people, you know, talked about famous people, but for me, it would be my mother. She was a remarkable lady. She really was. She, she didn't have a college education, but she was very, very smart, very organized. When my father left his corporate job and went to Virginia and, uh, set up a company.

[00:59:57] To essentially, my father was a [01:00:00] self taught engineer, uh, in refrigeration and air conditioning. He had top clearance from the U. S. government of what he would do is he would go out on nuclear submarines on what they called their shakedown cruises to, to test the air conditioning and refrigeration because obviously, you know, if there was something he would find out what the problem was.

[01:00:20] See if he could fix it. If not, the ship hadn't come back up because you can't be down there unless you have both of those. But so he set up a business, but my mother set up the [01:00:30] whole corporate part of the business. She did the same for my sister and brother-in-law's business. And they are both very, very successful businesses to this day.

[01:00:41] Two of my brothers have that business that with my father's, and she. Just remarkable in so many ways. She had seven children, as I said, but each of us was treated fairly and differently. And I can remember saying to my mother, when my younger sister, I was home and my younger sister was going out and her curfew was different than [01:01:00] mine.

[01:01:00] And I said, well, how come she has a later curfew than me? And she said, well, that's because she's not you. You know, she was just really extremely fair. And just a knowledgeable and I just, I learned so much from her and she was such a great example and it's hard for me to even try to live up to her example.

[01:01:19] So she's one, my aunt who I talked about was another, uh, my husband has been very. influential because he's been so supportive of me as an independent [01:01:30] woman. I've been married for 53 years. I've never changed my name. I was born with my name and I will die with my name. It's my name. I don't need to change it.

[01:01:39] I'm amazed that young women change it today, but they do, but that's okay. That's their decision. I worked up until I went to school and worked. until I stopped working a month before my son was born as a nurse because, you know, got too much with bending and lifting and things. And um, I went to law school and I got accepted.

[01:01:59] I had a [01:02:00] small scholarship, but not enough to cover the whole thing. And my husband told me, well, no, you want to go, you'll, you'll go. He did what they called moonlighted afterwards. Um, he was still in his residency to pay for my, so that I could go to law school. And he's been with people. He has a famous line, or famous to me, that people say, how come your wife has a different name than you?

[01:02:22] And he goes, because that's her name. He goes, I've never had a problem with my sexuality. You know, why, why, you know, that's what he says. And [01:02:30] he's always, whatever I, you know, he's always been very, very supportive of me and what, you know, that I wanted to do as an independent woman. It's helped me fulfill my passions and follow my passions.

[01:02:42] Okay. So that's three. Any others that you would count in that, that sort of handful? 

[01:02:46] My grandfather and my grandmother, who I lived with, and maybe because they always treated me like I was special, and that I could do whatever I wanted to do, not in a just run wild, but [01:03:00] they had just confidence in me that, yes, You know, you're smart, you're thoughtful, you're, you work hard, you can be whatever you want to be.

[01:03:07] You can do whatever you want to do. And it was like, well, they believe in me so I can believe in myself. So they were very influential to me. And then the one senior partner that I talked about in that first law firm that I was with, I mean, he was old enough to be my grandfather. But he also was so patient and just gave me such great advice about [01:03:30] dealing with people.

[01:03:31] And he knew a lot of people. He knew a great number of people. And then I have another really good friend, um, who I met. When we first moved to, um, South Florida and she's now a widow, but I knew her husband very well too. And they're Greek Americans and I learned a lot from them about their family traditions and, and the Greek culture.

[01:03:54] And they've been very influential. We've traveled, we used to travel with them quite a bit and, you know, [01:04:00] learn from some of their perspectives were different than ours. That's always good. And I also have some really special friends. I have very good friends from my college years that I keep in touch with, and one friend of mine, she is a voracious reader.

[01:04:16] Kim and I talked for a bit about how influential those college friends have been in her life, and digressed into reading. The joys of listening to audiobooks, the connection of sharing books with good friends. And how during the [01:04:30] pandemic, she had a goal of reading 100 books in a year. She read 104, including James Joyce's Ulysses.

[01:04:39] If you're not familiar with that one, and what a feat this is, give it a try, and let me know how it goes. 

[01:04:45] Have you always been a reader? Yes, I've loved to read. In fact, this is an admission from my childhood. Um, in, during Lent in the Catholic faith, you were supposed to give up something. Well, I cheated. I used to give up television.[01:05:00] 

[01:05:00] Because I really never liked television that, even, even, I mean, this is when I'm maybe eight or nine years old. I mean, we had three channels, but still, there was programs on. And I, I mean, I just never really liked. television. And I hate the laugh tracks. Never listen to anything like that. So, uh, 

[01:05:18] I would read.

[01:05:19] Any other hobbies or pastimes that you've had through most of your life? 

[01:05:22] Um, I like gardening and I have gardened as a child. We gardened. We grew vegetables and [01:05:30] I like that. I mean, you know, I don't like, who does? I don't like the weeding part. But I like planting, I love watching them grow, I love harvesting, um, and I have a garden in the mountains, which is, it's a challenge, because you can't grow tomatoes or eggplant or peppers, because our night temperatures usually fall almost always below 55 degrees, and you have to have a minimum of 55 degrees.

[01:05:54] They grow fine, and they have flowers, but they don't set fruit. So, but I grow all kinds of lettuces and [01:06:00] things, and then I can, then I, I have. For example, rhubarb, I make rhubarb chutney, raspberry jam, those kinds of things. And then I freeze a lot of, of my, um, my vegetables that we don't eat when they're fresh.

[01:06:14] And I also got into one of my partners in the law firm grew orchids. Which are pretty easy to grow in South Florida and he gave me a couple of his orchids and it was easy in Florida because you could just put them in pots and then get hangers. You can hang [01:06:30] them outside in the trees and well you can't do that when you move to Colorado.

[01:06:34] But I grow my orchids indoors. I still grow orchids and I still enjoy that. I enjoy that a lot. And then I also, another important influence in my life has been the sorority that I joined. Which I never thought, you know, I wasn't even interested. And I'm glad that my friend told me to do that because most of my friends that I see from college or from that sorority, we lived together, we studied together.

[01:06:57] You know, we had our bad days [01:07:00] together. Our fun times were celebrated together. When somebody had a new boyfriend or got pinned or got engaged and, you know, commiserated with them when they broke up with their boyfriend. I mean, it was, it was fun. And, and I have been involved. And when I moved. To Colorado, I didn't know a soul, but one person, and she had been in the sorority with me.

[01:07:24] She had been my roommate my sophomore year. She's the big reader, and [01:07:30] She got me involved in the alumni group, and I've made a lot of friends through that. All of my friends are a diverse group. Not one of them went to the same college that I went to. Some of them, we had a hiking group. We don't hike anymore because all of them were in their 80s but me, the ones who haven't passed away.

[01:07:50] And, but we do get together a couple of times a year and do, do a nice walk together. But, you know, then there's some younger people who only graduated within the [01:08:00] last several years that are friends of mine, that we have a group that goes to lunch and to dinner. And so I have very full life today with different social groups.

[01:08:11] Which is fantastic. I mean that's, isn't that one of those things that um, is an indicator of how long you'll live? It is. Yeah, 

[01:08:16] they say it is. I mean this week I went out to lunch three times with three different groups of people. I don't like to do that, but in one week, but that's a lot of me. 

[01:08:26] I'm gonna try and pin us down through the final kind of round of [01:08:30] questions here.

[01:08:30] So they'll, they'll jump around a bit in time. Are there any decisions that you can remember in your life that at the time felt mundane, routine? Didn't necessarily need a whole lot of thought, but now you look back at and can see that they were pivotal in your life. 

[01:08:46] In eighth grade, going to the high school that my parents wanted me to go to, um, held me back academically, I think.

[01:08:53] It would have been better for me to Choose another one and go there, uh, at least from an academic. But I [01:09:00] think I, I think then I caught up when I made the decision to follow what I wanted to do and go to nursing school first and then go to college because I was older, but I had learned a lot. And, um, when I went to college, I, I took so many different courses, not because I had the academics, but because I was an older student, I didn't have to take all of those freshman survey courses.

[01:09:24] I never took one of them. So I got to take all kinds of different courses, you know, [01:09:30] courses in anthropology. And, you know, that sticks out in my mind. And I took two of those. I was really interested in it, but I knew there was nothing that I could do with it. So I didn't follow through with it, but I'm so glad I took those.

[01:09:42] That was Just broadening. And, um, as I said, my decision to go through recruitment was pivotal because I see, you know, I have so many friends from college and so many friends from when I moved to Colorado because of that decision. That was pivotal. You [01:10:00] know, it was. And I made another decision, and I would never recommend this to anybody doing it, but I did it.

[01:10:06] But it ended up pivotal. I really wanted to study abroad my junior year. And there was a big abroad program in my college that, uh, people went to Italy and I had never been abroad and I thought that to Florence of all places, you know, and I were being an art history major, it would have been wonderful.

[01:10:24] And the guy I was dating at the time said, you know, I think we have a good [01:10:30] relationship. And he said, if you go abroad for the whole. semester. He goes, I don't know whether or not that's going to be any good for our relationship. And why did I do that? I had a gut feeling, okay, I will go. And that's who I married.

[01:10:43] That's my husband. And I, oh, and I did say, I did say at the time, I said, but I've never been to Europe and I really want to go. And he said, don't go. And I promised you I'll take you to Europe. And it's like, oh yeah, sure. Right. And I believed it. And I said, [01:11:00] okay, I'll give it a shot. But you know, as I said, he did take me to Europe right after we got married.

[01:11:05] Yes, he did follow through. And you've been back many times. 

[01:11:09] And he's taken me around the world. We've gone around the world a couple of times. Not in all one trip, but yeah, so, so that was a pivotal decision, it really was. And, um, another pivotal decision was when we, and we jointly decided that Miami was good.

[01:11:26] We had a good run there, you know, it's a good place to [01:11:30] raise children at the time. I certainly wouldn't want to be living there today, not the way, not at all. And I don't think, you know, it started to change pretty soon after we left. And, uh, that was a good, pivotable decision. Is 

[01:11:44] there anything you would go back and change if you 

[01:11:46] could?

[01:11:47] Go to a different high school, number one. 

[01:11:49] Okay. 

[01:11:49] Um, I would like to go back and change because I know that when I was in college, I kind of thought, a lot of myself and I didn't treat my [01:12:00] mother that well. I disagreed with her with a lot of the things that she suggested or said. I said, Oh, that's old fashioned.

[01:12:06] No, I don't want to do that. And she was always very supportive of me. My father wasn't real pleased when I was going to loss when I had a nine month old baby, but my mother was very supportive of that, but I still was always. Very short with her, and I wish I could go back and change that. 

[01:12:21] What would you say are some of the most valuable lessons that you've learned?

[01:12:25] To be kind and understanding of other people. To recognize [01:12:30] that so many others come from a different place than I have been. Recognize their differences in their upbringing, their heritage, their cultural practices, their religion. I mean, going to college for me was just so helpful. And understanding all of that and understanding so many different types of people and getting to know and become friends with so many different types of people from different backgrounds and different religions and different cultures.[01:13:00] 

[01:13:00] If you had all the world's attention for up to one minute, is there anything that you would say that you would like people to take to heart? 

[01:13:08] Um, I would say change is always going to happen, it does happen. Sometimes that change is for the good, sometimes that change is for not so good. Sometimes it's a change but it ends up making very little difference.

[01:13:24] But I think that overall, we in this country have gone through all those [01:13:30] changes and we've done well and we can continue to do so.

[01:13:37] Thank you, Kim, for so many wonderful images of a life lived with confidence and tenacity. For any girl with poor handwriting, and those with beautiful penmanship, too, you're an inspiration. I hope you and your husband have a perfect spot for a Friday night pizza and beer. To those of you listening, thank you for joining [01:14:00] us.

[01:14:00] If you enjoyed this, please leave a review in Spotify or Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button. These things help others find the podcast and they mean the world to me. Share this with anyone you think would love it or learn something from it and keep coming back for more of the words we've heard.

[01:14:18] This podcast would not be possible without the editing and production brilliance of Corey Orak, the inspiration of my parents and a 2001 conversation with my grandmother. My thanks to you all. [01:14:30] So what are the words we've heard? Follow your passion and know that this might change. It's okay in one lifetime to have several different lives work.

[01:14:43] Be kind and understanding of other people. Recognize our differences. And a reminder that always feels relevant. Change will happen. For good and not so good. And overall, we do pretty well.