Interview with Cynthia Thorpe, 04/22/2016

CM: All right. I'm Caralyn Mickey, it is April 22nd, 2016 and I am here with Cynthia Thorpe, that's correct?

CT: Yes

CM: Ok. So you grew up in Outagamie County, tell me a little bit about that. Like is it a big town?

CT: Ok, I grew up in Hortonville, and I believe that at the time I am going to say 1,037 or so, you know they never change it seems like the census population driving in state forever, and so it's only a half an hour drive from Oshkosh. But I would swear back in '68 you would of thought it was on the other side of the Earth as far as once you went away to college back then because things were so different that your parents dropped you off and well 'maybe we'll, come home for Thanksgiving, and then the break'. Where it seems so amazing because people zip those miles all the time and when I was working I was driving to Madison 3 00:01:00times a week and it's just amazing that when back in those days things like transportation was considered a luxury and phoning ya know god knows you only dialed long distance if it was life threatening. So it was pretty typical of I think a lot of rural Wisconsin, I did not live on a farm, I lived in a farm community but I had the advantage of being out in the country, so we had about 5 acres and a home. I think was unique that being my age I went to one room grade school for 8 years. And I met the kind of young end of that generation that did that. I was one of 8 siblings, and I was in the middle of the pack, and all those that came after me then went into what you would call consolidation type of school because they were building in new elementary school in Hortonville 00:02:00that could accommodate all the rural one-room grade schools in the district. So I certainly had a small group of people that I went through from one to eight years, you know there was one girl that was my age in my class so you were always with children older than you and when you look at things now a days and about how protective families are about who and what you're exposed to and when you're exposed to it. You know, you just, when you were in the first grade you sat in that room and you had at recess you heard whatever the eighth grader said, and if you could pick up a bat and ball by the time you were in the third or fourth grade if you were more athletic or a boy probably you got on the team earlier. But we all played that sort of game together -- softball -- was just such a big thing for us, hitting it, we had to choose up the team and when you 00:03:00only had about 30 kids, everybody got to play.

CM: That's good

CT: So then I went into the high school.

CM: The Hortonville High School

CT: And so my class was 110, graduating class. And Hortonville is now, really a suburb community of Appleton it's grown so much in our lifetime. I was in the township of Greenville, and I still own some property up there. And it's amazing when I go up there because we rode our bicycles everywhere on gravel roads and then finally they got paved. But you were into, you could drive on every road and we knew who lived there and now it's a burb, suburbs. And it's grown. I think the most interesting thing about Hortonville was in 1972 they were known for, do you know?

CM: No

CT: Probably one of the most, number 2 most contentious strikes ever in the 00:04:00history of Wisconsin.

CM: Really?

CT: Yeah, do you know what the first one was?

CM: No

CT: Kohler.

CM: Really?

CT: Yeah, that's a good one for you to read. But what was so significant about the Hortonville strike I was not in school at the time but as a student I went up and protested and walked the picket lines with the teachers.

CM: That's cool

CT: It's a small, ya know, it was such a small school to do this, you would usually see teachers that had unions and organizing that would talk about their benefits and wages would be in larger cities where they had a lot larger power and I think what was totally devastating to teachers that I knew all the while I was growing up, I babysat for teachers and that at that time they were really considered pillars of the community and you would see them everywhere you went 00:05:00and they were always engaged in all the school activities and how fast the more anti-teacher group turned on the immediately. And a lot of them did not ever go back to teaching afterwards, they went into other careers, even though they had been

CM: Doing it for so many years

CT: For years, I think the couple that, I just remember them talking about a couple of the ones that had been there like 35 years were encouraged by the rest of them don't feel bad because they fired all the teachers and they had lost the strike and as they re-hired you had to decide to go back and for some that were so close to retirement they said 'do it'. So that's kind of Hortonville and it was also, so if you want to think of how conservative we were, five miles from where I grew up was Joe McCarthy's homestead.

CM: Wow

CT: Yeah.

CM: So you grew up with, you had, there were eight kids, was it eight plus you or?

CT: Eight including me, I had 5 brothers and 2 sisters.

CM: Was that hard for your parents? Was it a crazy household?

CT: Ya know, because at that time my mother, women even if they wanted to work out of the home probably not -- encouraged to, unless you absolutely had to. I know my mother was, she came to UW when it was a teachers college, and then she taught in rural schools in Waupaca County. And that was the time of World War II, and so she had also taught in a rural school and she always told the story, first of all she lied about -- I shouldn't say that -- she was less than truthful about being married. And being married she had to hide her first pregnancy, because if you were married you didn't, well your husband was 00:07:00supposed to take care of you why would you take a job away from a man? And secondly then once you were pregnant, that even I saw when I was in high school, you never saw. And that would have been '64 -- '67, as soon as a woman had a baby bump, they were basically kicked out and told to go home and hide. Literally.

CM: That's crazy

CT: It was a busy household. Because we lived in the rural areas and you didn't have all the same distractions that you had, you learned to live well with, interact with your siblings, and like I said you hopped on a bicycle and if you wanted to visit your cousins five miles away that's all you got there. That was pretty much our transportation. One car that our father took to work.

[8:00]

CM: Wow. So you said that your mom attended UWO? Do you think that's a big 00:08:00reason you came to UWO? Did that influence you?

CT: No, I don't think that, actually I went to Madison but it was really large at the time and none of my close friends went so I actually came at half semester.

CM: So you transferred here and were your friends here?

CT: Yeah, I had closer friends here. It was just one of those things, and I sometimes wonder oh cause I love Madison so, why didn't I stay there, dumb me. But it was back then, so.

CM: Definitely. So did all of your siblings go to college as well?

CT: Ya know, I think we were unique in that way. Both of my parents really valued education. My father used to tell the story that he was one of five boys and a sister and he said that they were so poor that at Christmas they would get the pencil and have to wait next year for the eraser.

CM: Oh, yeah.

CT: So even when I look back at my father's siblings I think, wow they were really just bright naturally intelligent, because if you looked so many of them had jobs at time. Engineering you could almost do engineering career without the education, so people kind of got into that. So there was a lot of talent on that side. My mother's family had a different experience growing up because they were on a dairy farm during the Depression and it was not as devastating to them because she said she didn't even realize there was a depression because you're so sufficient, it was a dairy farm that delivered milk into the community of Clintonville. And if you were a good farmer and you had good land and you had the cows and you could run your business, she said the only thing they ever had to buy from the store were a winter coat and shoes. Otherwise, you made 00:10:00everything, you made it, you grew it, you canned it. If you raised it you butchered it. I still remember my mother teaching all my brothers, some of them who liked to hunt, when they'd come back and I think they'd call it dressing the deer. Because she grew up, if you told her this is how you butcher a cow, she'd tell you how to cut it so you get all the right parts. But they were so, they just utilized everything. I think this generation talks about how recycling, as if they own it, back then you were never wasteful, that you need it. I mean we had the original recycling, we bought things in bottles and we turned it as opposed to throwing it away with plastic stuff. Whole different era.

CM: Yeah definitely, so you came to Oshkosh about like half way through the semester --

CT: Oh, I think I didn't answer your question though, what did my siblings do?

CM: Oh, yeah, did they end up going to college?

CT: My oldest brothers an engineer, then my sister who was very bright, I think she always kicked herself for not going to school but she was like eight years older than me and so her thing was well smart women have to get married and have babies too. There was just enough of that age difference that even though I remember her always competing heavily with a friend, who was going to be best in class, and I think she was, her friend got to be first and she came up fourth. But she worked in Neenah at the time, it was called American Cann -- you know got a job. Worked in an office, but then when you got married and I think she got married at 21. As once again, as soon as you were pregnant they let you go, you couldn't work. So that's what my sister did, my brother older, I had one brother then older than me. He went to UWO later, after he served in Vietnam -- 00:12:00not Vietnam but during the Vietnam era, he went to Germany. And he came back and he got a Journalism degree at UWO, and then I went to UWO. And my other brother went to Lawrence and then on to TUFFS in New England, out in Boston, he became a dentist. My one brother went to Lakeland into social work. Another brother spent a couple years at UWO and ended up more in the technical area in culinary arts. And my one younger sister did not go to school.

CM: Wow. So yeah, only a couple of you didn't so education was definitely an important thing in your family.

CT: Yeah, it was something that was emphasized.

CM: Kay. So you came to Oshkosh halfway through the first semester, and what were your first thoughts coming to UW Oshkosh, like coming from Madison, obviously it was smaller probably. But did you enjoy campus, or did you

CT: Ya know, even walking down memory lane you think about, oh my god, you think about things you haven't thought about for years. So I'm thinking what, how credible or reliable am I going to be as a historian. And if you understand, I'm going to play this game memories and events. There were eight of us in our family spread out 20 years, 20 years difference between my oldest brother and my baby brother. And when we get together, and we'll talk about, say a significant event in the family, I can't even think of one. But we'll all sit there and talk about it and go 'oh my god you weren't even at the same event!' Because it depends, it's your point of view, it's how you're viewing it, and we all had different experiences depending on

CM: Different experiences, saw it different ways, remembered it different

CT: Absolutely, I don't know if you ever heard of an old poem that used to be read to me as a kid, it was out of a, back when we were young and if you cared 00:14:00about education, families would buy encyclopedias, we didn't have Google. And then there was also child craft or the book of knowledge, I think of those three things. But there's a poem where I think it's eight blind men hit a elephant, have you ever seen that?

CM: No

CT: Google it sometime and read it. It's cute but I remember my mother reading it and so eight blind and I think in the pictorial view they were in India because that's where you would have elephants, you wouldn't have them here. So they come up to an animal they had never seen and then each of them describe it. Well this massive being there depends on what you grab, the one that grabbed the tail thought it was a rope and described it that way. The one that had the trunk thought it was like a snake, and if you grabbed the large leg it was like a tree and if you hit the big broad side -- a big wall.

CM: I think I have heard of this before, yeah.

CT: Yeah, but I think it just puts it, it kind of reminds us that depending on 00:15:00what that piece of that experience maybe touches us first or how it is

CM: You can have totally different memories

CT: So when you say 'what was my memory of school' I think I was just happy to be in a place where I had friends, I moved into the dorm and I'm trying to think -- I can't even remember who my roommate was at the time, if it was one of my friends at that. Although UWO was at a large population in that time

CM: Was it?

CT: I don't know if you're aware of it, they still say the largest graduating class was 1972

CM: Really?

CT: And you know why?

CM: Why?

CT: Take a guess. You gotta know history here! Because they had student deferments. And you had more young men going to school that probably would've thought of other areas of work or more interest but if you were in school you 00:16:00got a student deferment. So that was one of the driving forces to keeping students in classrooms and I'm sure you talked to a lot of professors who were also on the side of those of us who were not too happy with the war. The anti-war people probably had a very difficult time ever giving somebody an F that may have earned it by not participating in a class of doing as well. Simply because you didn't want to be the one dropping out, failing someone who now the next day they would be shipped somewhere.

CM: Yeah, definitely.

CT: So, we had, it certainly was larger than where I was in high school, and I ended up, I was Salutatorian, second in my class in high school. And so it was interesting because I think as a student I loved learning, going to one-room grade school I read all the time and did things that I was of interest to. But I 00:17:00think I never really learned to think to problem solve to do critical thinking. It wasn't what you saw in schools when I was in high school, I think it took college to get into that. And hopefully, with what I see my children who have grown to, it starts doing a little bit of that further because I kind of had a science mathematical brain but I loved literature and English. So it was always an interesting connection because I ended up getting my original degrees in double major in English and Political Science and it was because of what I was interested in. But it was writing papers constantly reflecting, analyzing. And when you had those two majors it would not have been uncommon to do 10 -- 12 papers a semester. And they were always 20 pages, I don't know, kids now a days write a lot less. And we didn't have that word processor, you know like what you 00:18:00can do now is so easy and you can flip things around. Where you were constantly with your typewriter, oh my god, it was painful. And going to school, I have a daughter that's 34 and a daughter that's 30 and I think when I took them to college the crap we had to haul into the room, and I think I took some kind of hair dryer, a radio, probably was a clock radio if I was lucky, and a type writer, and then some clothing. But that was it, that's what you took to school.

CM: Now a days people come with like a couple cars full of

CT: Their stuff

CM: Yeah

CT: So the campus, I lived at Webster and it's still there, and it was a nice community and it was fast. We were all at the time we ate in the Reeve Union, that's where the dining hall was, we did not have Blackhawk or River Commons, that's now across from here that's torn down. That was generation afterwards 00:19:00that they had that. So I found it pretty exciting because you were exposed to a whole new world than the small town where everybody seemed to know everybody and if you listened you knew there were strong opinions about everybody and who did this or that.

CM: Yeah, it was nice being somewhere within a big group. Did you know you wanted to do Political Science and English right when you came in or was it

CT: Absolutely not

CM: No?

CT: In fact, what I wanted to do, I always loved teaching and I think that thread of learning and helping has always been a part of my life into what I ended up doing. Because I particularly looked at as I was retiring, what aspect of my jobs I liked best. Because we all have a job but there's so many parts of 00:20:00it and I was always in management and supervision of people, and so much of that involves directing them which to me is teaching and learning and enhancing how they do their job or whatever role it was. So, I wanted to be a teacher but I liked knowledge. And I signed up for, I thought I would enjoy upper l -- high school, and you had to take certain classes. And I remember sitting in that class and thinking ' oh my god I gotta get outta here'. After that semester and finishing my classes I switched to a Liberal Arts education, and dropped it. I'm not going to color you're not ever going to make me paste things. And I had, for the next 3 years, I had friends that were in lower -- l and what I would say crappy pasting and I wanted to learn things I did not, the methodology which is 00:21:00important. But probably the only class I liked was that overview of the history of teaching and words come into Wisconsin whatever. But the, what I thought the educational processes would be dumbed down to what I wanted.

CM: That turned you off from teaching

CT: Yeah, that turned me off. I think if I had been challenged with some really interesting academic -- I'm just trying to think how you'd flip that and then be told 'oh and by the way you have to learn how are you going to, if you have this knowledge base how can you depart it or for a higher level or you know even if I would've thought would I like to do college or something, teach at a higher level. But, I remember that, and then just because I had taken general classes in political science and I always seemed to like the political process. When I was in high school I was at least class vice president, class secretary even 00:22:00though it was a small school I was always a class officer. I was in leadership position, you know they had things like, girls athletic association, this is just kind of the transition at the time. Ya know, you never had any girl's sports, so if the girls wanted to have an athletic endeavor in their life you had to do it as after school intramurals, or something like that. And I think it was fortunate because I remember looking at this lady, in her little short white shorts and our Mrs. [Pollard?] our Phys Ed teacher she seemed so old, she was probably only 40 at the time. But, she really, I think instilled in a lot of women, girls at the time that you can do anything. SO that was an exciting time 00:23:00because I would stay after school to play the volleyball, play basketball with other students but we always had to wait till the guys were done. And we were always second citizens, I think its Title IX, am I thinking of the right thing?

CM: Yup

CT: So that didn't come in until after I was in college, thank god. But that opened the doors for women athletes at all levels. And one of the exciting things is that she did is was it wasn't just cheerleaders at events that were sports, sports were so much more important in small town lives back then because people would come out to watch the football games and that. But our Phys Ed teacher had gotten us parallel bars and balance beam and actually got some gymnastic equipment that no one had ever seen before and encouraged with rings. And during halftime of basketball games she'd have her kids out there performing 00:24:00and she did a lot of modern dance stuff too which was pretty progressive for back then. So it's one of those when you look at, I was always involved in leadership and politics and it was just a natural thing whatever I was in, national honors society or whatever. So up at the University here I connected with people also that were interested in student government, politics, anti-war thing, it was a natural.

CM: So going back to kind of like the gender norms, I know around the time you were there, like they still had curfew for women

CT: Oh my god. We had curfew and also, there was also a goofy, with just thinking of the history of students over indulging and drinking too much. When I 00:25:00came to, I was a good two shoes in high school, I waited till that summer. And I did not turn 18 until the fall after I graduated from high school. So at that time I wanted to be with my friends and a lot of them were 18 and we had 18-year-old beer bars in Wisconsin. But of course if I went to Hortonville everyone knew me. So I would go with a group of friends up to Shiocton, which was a good 10 -- 15 miles away and they had their 18-year-old beer bar. Not that I liked beer, I never did, but I would chug it, I could still out chug people because I hated the taste of it so I would chug it rapidly.

CM: Yeah so you couldn't taste it.

CT: So I couldn't taste it. So all of a sudden I'm a chugging champ, [laughs] but I still don't like beer I drink wine. But that's the kind of thing you did, I was a goody two shoes because I played by the rules mostly when I was in high 00:26:00school. I bought a lot of the rules so it was really eye opening being exposed to different point of views and it immediately seemed so unfair because they have a term for the local [unclear] there's a legal term, can you refresh my memory? What they call where they give the University is your parent what at that time when you're away from school, and that's why they would set rules. And was it only biased and unfair but it was okay we'll make the girls be in by 10 o clock during the week and then you had so many late nights a month and then I think you could be out till midnight or whatever on the weekends. And if they controlled the women then that would help control the guys, but actually -- no. It was just punitive towards women, the guys would walk, at the time not 00:27:00everybody had cars, believe me, so you walked to the bars towards Main Street. And actually when you hit Jackson Street and you know there was some bars there. But they'd walk all their girlfriends home and then they'd go back to the bar and drink till closing time.

CM: So it didn't affect anything.

CT: Right, but they had a standards committee in the dorms. And that was a group that when you violated things and was a naughty person you got to go before the standards committee. I think they probably could've even kicked you out of school or something. But I know it was not uncommon for us to go out through the basement over the washer and dryer you could open the windows and sneak in and out. And you did that until you got caught, if there was a really good reason to be out, for the party or people or whatever. And I'm sure that when you think of it, if you didn't come back, no one's really doing room checks so you better 00:28:00find a place if you're going to stay out all night. And that probably changed and we all had to stay at the time, I don't know what the rules are now, but they made freshman and sophomore live on campus.

CM: Yup that's how it is now

CT: And then you could move into the dorms. But somewhere with that 18 year old, then by the time I was before I was out of college then I think the whole discussion of if you're old enough to go over and get killed why can't you drink. So then all of a sudden I think we had a change somewhere along the line, I'd have to look back, where you could just drink at 18 and it didn't make a difference whether you were drinking, you'd have to look at it because we've gone back and forth my lifetime. Ya know, it was all the same or was it raised then it could've been raised back up to 21 where you could have both. But I'm just saying there was a lot of discussion around that.

CM: Yeah, I know it was changed to 21, I don't remember

CT: Right, but it was like you had to check what year it was, are we drinking or aren't we drinking.

CM: And then they finally changed the dorm policy in '69, I think they took the curfews off.

CT: Right. Yeah that was really, it's amazing how they used to, I think one of the saddest things is I look back because at that point I was feminist and I looked at we're going to be able to open doors and I think 50 years later I thought we'd have the doors a lot more open. It's sad that we haven't, and that not only that but there's a whole generation of people who don't even want our doors open. It's pathetic.

CM: When you weren't in class, or like studying, what did you do in your free time?

CT: Rebel roused

CM: Yeah?

CT: Yeah, I was, I really liked learning and expanding my mind and I think that the people I associated with, I learned a lot from in our discussions. We did not watch television, and we were not being shaped heavily by Facebook or Google, whatever. So it was face-to-face talking, you were reading, student leaders. When you say spare time, I also, I mean it was amazing what we paid for school back then compared to what you pay now but it seemed like it was a lot of money. So I always worked.

CM: Where did you work?

CT: Once, once, especially once I was off campus. But when you get grants, I 00:31:00just remember the years working in the history department typing things and being teaching assistant where you would do grunt work for the professors and things like that. And once I was off campus that changed to where I was, there was a dry cleaning place in town, and I would, it was right on high street. And you could run down there and you know work hours during the week. But I always had to work as well, I cleaned apartments, I'm trying to think of all the grunt work ya know, if it was something you just did it because you weren't afraid to work. But leisure time, yeah leisure time was important. We hung out, campus was so much more of a vital place than what I see it now. I just, people would go over, if you studied till a certain time and you had free time you'd hang out in the union and there was music and then you could sit at your groups table. I 00:32:00think I mentioned on what I wrote about, it was also your, when you came to school Greeks were big, very anti-fraternity, ya know, awful, ya know, oh the cutesy little girls. And it was a time where those of us who weren't into the Greek thing probably had 3 pairs of blue jeans and wore long hair, and we looked different, we dressed a little differently. So that was pretty easy to distinguish who was what and where you were. And I think that had I gone into being a nice little elementary school teacher type of view I probably would've looked different but being in political science at the time I know it would be so taboo now, but once I was off campus and if I had a house party, five of my professors would be there.

CM: Really?

CT: Absolutely! [laughs] I could even name them. We had, oh I can't think of his 00:33:00name, but he got fired, he really got blackballed, but they were willing to step up. They had a I think it was a faculty senate, and believe me there was diversity among them, there were people who were very conservative and not. But those of us who wanted to be against the war and were speaking out against what was happening had a lot of support by faculty that thought like us as well. And they were very good at opening our minds, I can think of several from the English department, several from the Political Science and History department, but they were around campus. So there were groups like that, the student Newman Center at the time had some very good leaders that were there. So, we were always exchanging ideas and hanging out, and I know that people probably think 00:34:00we were doing a lot of drugs. I personally was not a very good drug person, not any better than drinking beer. But I think part of it was that I always worked and if you had to get up and do some work, because I had friends especially off campus who parents would just pay for their schooling so they didn't have to, so it was easier to just party all the time. But there were drugs available and for whatever reason I don't remember ever doing a lot of deep research on like what is this going to do to my brain. But I didn't like, I did smoke cigarettes and the were real cheap but it was more a thing you did when you went to the bar. And it usually gave you a smoking headache because it wasn't usually something you did. So, and I had smoked some marijuana and it wasn't a kind of thing I liked doing with a lot of people. But by the time I was a senior and living off 00:35:00campus I had a lot of friends who did what we would consider harder drugs, and I never, I was never into that thing at all either. But I certainly knew what was out there, and I had friends that did it, and I would always find it amazing because it was like ordering pizza from my house on a Friday night. They'd start with, whoever was going to be bringing whether it was a hit of this or a hit of that, I don't know, like I said I could probably look at the list and oh yeah those were the things that the kids had. But you'd pick up the phone and 'oh yeah three more people are coming, we'll take two more hits of this and some of that and bring it over'. And then pretty soon someone will deliver all your stuff to your house and they would sit and party and I just very particularly remember, at that particular house because there were six of us girls there, and 00:36:00I think shared four rooms. And I was supposed to be sharing with my friend but she moved into the attic so we both had our own space. And I locked my doors if I left because I'd like to come home to my bed being open and not other people in it. [laughs] And you definitely locked up your food if you were on a food budget because the munchies would get something and your food would be gone for the week. So there was partying going on but they were serious and we were all very concerned about the warm. It touched families and it didn't make any sense where it was and if you looked at compared to wars that we have now, we sanitize them/ Not only do we sanitize them we don't show you that. If every day, like I said I don't watch TV, but if you watch the news and listened you saw that very iconic photograph of the young girl after being Nate bombed and running, you saw 00:37:00visuals like that all the time, of what was going on. Where now you don't show it, because we don't want you to think about it. And I think the other thing that was in everyone's mind, I mentioned it earlier, why the class were so large, is that you had a universal draft. My oldest brother who I totally disagree with politically and I would be in his face when he would always disagree with my politics at the time and still does believe me, and because I was just one of those rebel rousers and I said 'what the hell do you think you are'. First of all your student deferment got, you went to college but then you got a farm. Most people who didn't go to college from 1959 because if you 00:38:00weren't in a job that was considered essential like agriculture or something there, you were at risk for being drafted. So what they did was they would get married because married got you off the hook. SO you had all these 18 year old getting married, and then kids, and there were all these levels, just Google it once I bet you find 25 levels of deferment and for what reason. And then it was very localized draft boards, I don't think people realized. It was cities, townships, it wasn't even statewide. So you always had your deferments, and you could get a deferment maybe for school for a few years but you had to keep up your grades, and then you did that. But finally because of the need I think it was 69, they did the universal draft, and they were getting pretty strict about 00:39:00it. The conservative pressure was saying we need people, so they just took everybody and put their name in a lottery and that was the lottery draft. So, basically trying to think of how it worked is that your name had to be in it. They start in January, and I'm going to use Oshkosh, they had a quota they had to meet monthly, and so if you weren't making any of these deferment things and you got number one, January your name came up and you couldn't think of any good reasons now to go if you didn't want to you got shipped out. But you never knew and everybody's birthday got a number, and if you were 18 everybody in the first time it was anybody 18 to whatever, everybody was in it. But you got a number, 00:40:00and if your birthday, it was linked to the birthday, so maybe your birthday was September 4th, that might have been number one that year. So everybody in Oshkosh that was born on that day would've been number one and those with physical ailments, problems, deferments, didn't go. So they'd work their way through, so it was kind of a crapshoot. You didn't know how many were going to get killed, how many were going to die off, how many were going to, that would they get to you? Because the other game you played was you watched where your local draft board was in the process and if you threw your name in for 30 days and they didn't get to you there was this game you could be in, it was something you could be in. So there were people holding out would throw it in at the end of the year because they only got to 175 and I'm 300 and I know they're not going to get to me this year so I'm saying I'm ready to go if they're going to 00:41:00call me, then you throw your name into the system. But think about this if you were questioning the war over what in 10 years of people being killed, it was drawn out, a lot of discussion around that. That was always something that was evident in what we were dealing with, I had lists of things that we can go through your questions and always come back to that. But that was an overwhelming, when you looked back to what really was shaping what was going on, the war.

CM: I know you were in Young Democrats

CT: Yes

CM: And you had a lot of involvements, so just go through some of the stuff you did within your Young Democrats.

CT: Yeah, and basically like I said it was the political time and thinking 'okay 00:42:00I'm going to be engaged and we're going to make a difference' and my friends, couple of them, we were hooked up within the Young Dems. And there were the very active Young Republicans, and they were probably looked like the most screaming liberals or young republicans of that era would be totally shunned by the Republican Party today. So we had friends that, we were friendly adversaries but we had other groups, if I can think of, students, STS, you outta check these out if you don't know, students for, man why can't I think but STS, and to the left is Democrats, to the right Republicans, your STS were a little bit more radical in some places, and then you'd have the crazies moving more left as I would call 00:43:00it, and then you had Young Americans for Freedoms which would be Donald Trump's party of today. So you had a lot of different groups and they weren't afraid to show their colors, show their support, say where they are. So we were always having a lot of dialogue, so that was going on and the Young Dems, trying to be a part of the political process. We looked at the Student Government, and as I put in there, at the time there was this kind of at large, kind of like electing the homecoming court, those important things that you really cared about, football, basketball, thumbs down. So there were the old big man on campus thing and the pretty girl, and you would have people that it looked good on their resume they were in Student Government, but they did nothing. Pretty ineffective, they weren't being involved, they weren't taking up issues that were important to us. So I remember the craziest experience and I, it would be 00:44:00just wonderful if I could be hypnotized and go back and this about all of this because it was so unique. We had a leader and I'm going to say his name was Dave Frank, and he was our first after we did this coo, we elected him our Student Government President. And if I'm correct in thinking back he had been on the Student Government, bright young man, I don't think he had ties to Greek but I'm not sure, but he looked a lot straighter than most of us did. As we were looking, every time you'd show up and want to do something for Student Government they didn't even have a [unclear] doing anything because it was tokenism to the ones serving on it, it meant nothing to them. And like when you talked about parties, you always had the Greeks doing their greeky-collegey-things, but that was always that sort of thing. So in looking at the dynamics of what was going on, the people that were interested in the 00:45:00Student Government showed up, and there were some that were not into the Greeks or whatever, so it was a very legal way of dissolving the debunked group. You had enough show up, but not the right things so we were able to take a vote, debunked it then we went into hiding for 24 hours so that those that all of a sudden realized we did away with their student government, that we did it, so that they couldn't find all of us [laughs] that's how crazy it was. Then basically we could take it back, like I said it was really a very legal process, then bring it back to the administration and say 'ok, we've dissolved it, now this is the new process, and this is what we are doing'. So then we went from there to what I call would be, we didn't do jury managing then, point that out, which is so popular now to sway it. But you basically had your Scott, your 00:46:00Gruenhagen, we knew what our population was and we probably had close to 30 representatives on Student Government. So you divvied up your dorms according to how many students were in your dormitories and then you'd have a representative, I know I represented Webster but I'm not sure if I represented Taylor at the time too. How it came out, maybe two each for Scott and Gruenhagen, you had Nelson, we had those, and then you knew what your commuter population was, coming from outside of Oshkosh you'd give those some at large, and then you had students that were in Oshkosh, townies would get representation. So then we became a much more forceful voice.

CM: Because you someone from each population

CT: Right, and people who wanted to be on it, it wasn't controlled by the Greeks type of thing, and we started supporting things and you know, I'm sure we spoke 00:47:00out on how we felt about anything that happened on campus. And started moving forward, so that was a very positive experience. So the, like I said there were times, later on when we talk about some of the other things, that spectrum of where people believed, you know there were, I still hate guns, but I remember crazy right-wingers that on campus at the time you know, like 'go get their guns, their crazy, take away their guns who knows what they'll shoot'.

CM: So one of the things you did while you were at Oshkosh was you got them to put in street lights by

CT: Well, I'm just trying to think of another thing that was, ya know, it sounds so insignificant, but we, there was always a dislike by the city. They never embraced the University and saw it as a positive, and we are still fighting 00:48:00that. I think that under Chancellor Wells we came the closest to it because I went away for a good ten years plus from this place and you can still tell people still don't understand the value or a lot of the value of the University here. So there was always this divide, there were towny bars and student bars, and you didn't wanna go to towny bars you never know what their gonna do. And the same thing held forward to maybe it was a safety issue, they used to have, right down Algoma, well where you think it goes, it came right in off the highway and you'd have trucks going down and we'd have classes. And the main point to cross if you were in Dempsey or the Union or this side and you had to go into Clow and on that side, you'd have to sit, you'd be crossing, and nothing ever stop and they could go 45 mph. So people did the what made sense, you 00:49:00appealed to the city and the city was totally not interested. So the Young Dems organized, and I know we had supporters from the Young Republicans even at the time, our friends that agreed with us. In particular the president of the Young Republicans was crossing and got hit by a truck and broke her hip and was in crutches for the longest time. So it was a safety issue and so they would not allow because we wanted a stoplight there, we wanted lights, give the kids opportunity to cross between classes. So every time, every hour I think we would basically have an hour class there was a group of about 25 of us who just stood there with our signs, we walked back and forth for 15-20 minutes and you did that for a couple days. Then they were willing to talk to us, because we would have a group there and we were going to continue this, we were making them stop 00:50:00and making sure it was safety for everybody. So then after, you know, they were willing to look at that.

CM: That's cool. And then Black Thursday was also around the time you went, and you said you sat outside the office of

CT: Yeah, it's, ya know [unclear] looking back on my life, I'm 66 now, looking back on my life and saying what, it's amazing that that time period between coming to Oshkosh and probably '72 did more to shape me and change me but also stayed with me afterwards because of the power of how strongly I felt about how you go into the war process and how that should be done or racial issues. We 00:51:00knew it was certainly before our time but we were untouched and we are still so damn lily-white in this area. So you had Black Thursday and that Fall I believe it was 69, that Fall half of my dorm were black girls.

CM: Really?

CT: And like I said I was describing, cause we were already looking like the hippy grunge, you know the hippy look. Well these black girls that came generally from Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine area, whatever, they could've all walked right into a sorority they dressed so nice. Because you know, you can imagine their first opportunity to go to college and they're going to look like what the college expectation was. I'm not judging, but I'm just saying, they dressed better than us and they had the best music, Motown and the Supremes, I just went up to the PAC [laughs] and listened to them, it was a great show at 00:52:00the PAC. But, so, I mean the idea that these were dangerous or rebel rousers was just insane. They were probably 100 frightened kids, ya know that were not going to step out of line, probably if they left campus they felt bizarre and out of place. And even on campus there were those of us who certainly were not racist but how do you know this environment that you've never been in. So we had about what two and a half months of getting to know these girls, and like I said, studious, I don't think, I don't remember them as being partiers, sure they hung with themselves, why wouldn't ya, I'd hang with myself, people that looked and talked like me and shared some of the similar values. So, but it was a nice, it was nice to have the integration type of effect and it was just awfully, awfully 00:53:00appalling. And at the time there's a name in the history [unclear] [Veda Harris?] that's coming back to me. She was one that was here at the time and I'm trying to think, when, when those gaps were. Beautiful young women and she even I think got on the homecoming court, and she was from Milwaukee and the most interesting, do you ever remember Father Groppi? Oh you gotta put these names on your [unclear] you gotta do your history work. Father Groppi was from the Polish side of Milwaukee and in the 60s he walked with blacks across the bridge and shook up their world. So you really outta read about that, so he really was trying to do a lot to integrate and Milwaukee is still one of the most segregated cities in America, we incarcerate more people from there than ever. 00:54:00But I'm just saying, he really took a strong stand and of course that made people right her in Wisconsin look at that and go 'oh my god this is awful' and you know, people that wanted to be anti-racist and prejudice about things. But she was almost like our local celebrity because Veda lived in our dorm with us and when kids wanted to go home for the weekends Father Groppi would often be bringing back half a dozen students because he would be transporting kids back and forth. But he was definitely in the history books of the civil rights in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So it was quite appalling because all of a sudden that morning of that Thursday, everyone goes 'something's going on over at Dempsey' and you know how close we are, zoom we're over there. And it was just unbelievable all the police that they had and how they were treating, watching them bring out the kids, they picked them up by their hands and legs and through them in a hert -- they had these huge [unclear] rent a trucks, you know like a 00:55:00paneled truck but with hertz on it, I remember that. And they treated, it's looking to me violent, it's its inhumane what they're doing, and what could these kids possibly have done that was so harmful to deserve that sort of reaction. And so you know we watched this and trying to put together, at the time you're not sure 'what the hell did they do up in that third floor' you know what were they doing that was so horrible. Nobody was dead, back there you never even talk about violence at schools, but we're observing that whole police piece and how they interact with that, and then they took them and put them in the county jail down on Jackson. And there was a group of us that once we knew where they were, we did a 24-hour vigil, never left the outside. So it was just very 00:56:00powerful because you wanted to do something to help and what were they going to do, and we felt very, we thought it was very unfair that they decided to send everybody home and basically it was like a week before Thanksgiving, and I'm sure they thought they would've had all sorts of riots which they probably would have. But that was one thing that they did that dispersed the students and get them away, but we had the issues when we came back and that certainly just was paramount in whether racist institution UWO was. They just wiped out any diversity that we had on campus and trying to hide with it instead of trying to deal with what harm would it have been to come up with some kind of process to it instead of that. But like I said if you go back to those eras where they used 00:57:00to kick kids out of school for once again who knows what, and just a, I'm trying to think of what were we trying to accomplish because then when we came back we really demonized Rodger Gyles. But he just kind of ignored you and didn't talk, I don't remember him being much of, ever trying to interact with us. There was also a Dean [Beal?] at the time and I remember he used to tell me that ' I would never work for any government or anything because I'd be blackballed all my life I was such a bad kid' and he was right, he told me I'd be in prison and I worked in prison for years. So there was also a group of us that because we wanted to let Gyles know that we were not giving up and we had issues so there were always a half a dozen to a dozen of us we made it our mission, we sat outside his 00:58:00office. And basically we were studying between classes but you had to be there until your next class, we always had sit-ins outside his office around the clock for several months. And it was mainly to quietly drive him crazy if we could, and we were very happy because that was his last year, he did resign.

CM: Wow

CT: That year, that was his last year. I can't even remember who the next person was, so yeah that was pretty traumatic type of thing.

CM: Another big thing during the time you went to Oshkosh was the Vietnam Moratorium, like the protests against the war and I know you were involved with that too.

CT: [Unclear] I'm trying to think, you talk about turbulent times and trying to get everything that happened that year that was all part of listen to someone 00:59:00besides an established group telling everybody this is how it is and that's what expected. Because that spring we had the first thing was Martin Luther King that was in April I'm pretty sure, when he was assassinated. That brought forth years of racial discrimination and riots and that whole piece was to the forefront when you had his assassination and then I was active with being a Young Dem that whole year because of all the anti-war. LBJ was not our friend, he was good on the war on poverty, he did, he moved all the Kennedy's agenda forward that way but when it came to the war he was very much a warmonger. We did not want him 01:00:00running as our candidate, so then you had the McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy was running, and I jumped on board for that. And I just remember such wonderful, passionate, feeling being able to support his candidacy and the organization what they would do from Wisconsin campuses if there were kids -- students willing they would take busses. So you might take a bus of 20 kids from Oshkosh, pick some up from Milwaukee, and then we would head and spend a weekend in, think about it, Gary Whiting, Indiana and Hammond, those are really heavy industrial, impoverished areas but we would go door to door at least two of us, in pretty low income impoverished areas in that time. And be handing out brochures, talking to people about voting. We thought, you know we had the right 01:01:00candidate in our world but it was a good area to be in because most of these people were such supporters you had of JFK, they had his picture on the wall and Bobby Kennedy was certainly [unclear]. We were making that city, you know, in roles of supporting Bobby Kennedy and somewhere in that Spring is when LBJ knew the pressures were on him and then he, his big speech 'I will not seek nor will I accept the nomination of my party' [whooping] you know, dancing in the street. We want you out LBJ [laughs]. So then people like McCarthy and Kennedy would be able to compete openly without the democratic machine, the party machine behind whatever. So those were just one thing after another, and then to have Kent State.

CM: Oh, yup

CT: Oh my god, now they're gonna shoot you if you protest the war. And I think 01:02:00if you looked at Kent State, I don't know which one of the shootings in the last six months, but I looked at that and I said this is unbelievable, back Kent State stopped the world when they shot four kids, now you can shoot a dozen and nobody cares, it doesn't even get press. And I'm relating it to police violence, believe me police was not was never our friend, we hated the police. And, so you had Kent State happened where they were shooting students and here we are those of us felt that was one way that we could express our beliefs by the amendments, first amendment rights through expression of speech, so we could take our signs, 01:03:00we could walk in the street and we could show people we were not all one mind speaking behind, supporting the war. And all of a sudden if you go out there they're going to shoot you, well then in the light of Kent State we had some protests again at UWO. And like I said we had this wide plethora of people and somehow in spite of whatever it was I would never be in front of the line but there were always some of those willing to be out ya know above behavior. But I remember several nights where we did this on Algoma we built bonfires, with materials that we had brought in, you're building bonfires and then they'd come and put that out then we'd start one down here, in the street we weren't burning buildings. And we'd have protests and marches and it's pretty awful to look at 01:04:00snowplows in May coming down with loaded guns and the police sitting on top.

CM: That's how they were trying to stop you?

CT: Yeah, it was pretty scary. And, but you know, basically we wanted to protest and they were these you know I'm thinking of visual scenes of what that impact but you felt very strongly about it. And at one point we were in Reeve Union, we took the building over, it was important to do [laughs]. And the Reeve Union does not look like what it looks like today, it was two stories, well the main frame is there.

CM: Ok

CT: But on the back, and for some reason it was they still had, there was construction in the back between the outdoor where you could go and you'd walk directly to Polk

CM: Ok

CT: This was the Union space on the bottom floor and you'd walk that way out and we were holding it over to have our meetings, and to take, ya know there were a lot of students in there. And they decided they were going to come in and take us out, I'm sure there are some great photos of all of this, I've seen them in the past. But when they came in and they started pushing students there were some construction fences, it was pretty ugly because you got gauged and messed up because they just walked, and walked on you, walked over you, shoved you over fences, it was pretty aggressive and they'd have their shields and stuff that you'd look. I know I was on the second floor and when they came in there were a group of us had to crawl out the windows in the second floor and come back down that way and get out. It was a time of thing where activism was all you had, and you had to make a stand and I know some of my friends that had been arrested when we were doing the thing on, I believe she threw a rock at the snowplow 01:06:00[laughs]. And then had to go to, I remember going to court for students who had to go to court and for the first time in her life she had to put on a skirt. You know, I mean you had to dress like

CM: like it was serious, yeah

CT: You know like I'm a serious, sweet student type of thing, at least did that, she did not get kicked out of school well I don't remember the fines or whatever but yeah those were the kinds of things that were important. Then of course Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and then that whole summer of turmoil with who was going to be the Democratic candidate but it all came to foreign auguston cause we were in Chicago for the convention and and then that whole how that blew up and they really scape goated the Chicago seven at the time. Did they, 01:07:00you know it was this big conspiracy to create this riot, that's I'm sure has a great, I don't know if they've even made movies or documentaries on it but I'm sure they're out there, of the Chicago seven of what happened. But during that our couple years there too we had the bombing of Sterling Hall so we would also go to Madison to support and protest and I remember riding in a Volkswagen for 27 hours to DC, it was not comfortable my body would not move now [laughs]. But that's the sort of thing you did if you felt very strongly and it was very powerful to see all the people and it took all day in busses to bring people into that area where you know was the designated area to do the peace marches, that's what they were peace marches by the way.

CM: So then you graduated from Oshkosh in '72

CT: Do you know George Wallace also, I just thought of thought, I never thought about that, do you know who George Wallace is?

CM: No

CT: Oh my god are you a baby! You don't know who, I haven't thought of him in years, the most racist, bigotive governor on Earth from Alabama and if I looked at it now I would say has revived as Donald Trump.

CM: Ohh

CT: Oh my god, but there's this Southerner, wow don't things go around, haven't thought about him for years but he was going to run as a Republican. And of course he had supporters, people loved him, he was just like Trump! He was a racist, a bigot, what come out of his mouth. Oh I remembered, you know on the corner where the, its World War, Civil War General is on High and little tiny 01:09:00street down by our little, one block from Main Street where the sun dial is, there's

CM: Ok, yeah, yeah

CT: And he was going to speak so we had fun protesting that too because they let him come to town. But yeah I hadn't thought about George Wallace, we certainly had our Donald Trumps before, that and scary to think that people would think he's a viable candidate type of thing

CM: So you guys protested

CT: Yeah he was not a good guy, and I think if you go back, this is, I think if you would look up Governor Wallace, I think somewhere in his lifetime he recanted some of his, which to his credit, you know probably was poor to use later, recanted some of his extreme views of the time. But we went with fruit 01:10:00and tomatoes [laughs].

CM: That god the job done

CT: [laughs] yeah, so what did I interrupt you with?

CM: You graduated here in '72 with your double major and what did you do with your major then?

CT: It was tough times when I graduated because the job market was kind of like it was you see these dips at times, maybe every ten years or so. So it wasn't the greatest and it was difficult, I think in '72 for a while I would with John Lindsay's campaign, haven't thought about that for years, former governor of New York, no Mayor of New York, not governor, and New York City. But, so I think for times I would work with some political candidate type of things and I remember 01:11:00Gary [Goike?] who was still a good friend, ran for state senate in Oshkosh and this was known as a pretty Conservative base, very Republican and hadn't had anybody there forever. And that one whole year that I was working odd jobs living around town doing something's, he his candidacy came up and actually Gary won and was able to for about 8-10 years a good strong representative of this area. So I was always involved in political processes such as that. And I just can't quiet remember the details with how it fell in but I think at one time 01:12:00putting Political Science and English together I was thinking about Law school, but it was financially not within my means. From that point and then I just kind of turned on the practical side of me and unlike today where probably could take an accelerated course I decided well, nursing would be good. And I never thought of it before but I do have a very scientific and math [laughs] those were the areas I excelled in high school. So I went, I was working all the time I was waitressing all the time, cause you know you get better tips at night, and I liked the scientific piece of assessment, doing the process of nursing and it in reality it's a lot different than the 1930s and '40s concept of what a nurse 01:13:00was, a hand maiden to the doctor. And it was a really, I thought a fascinating approach to understanding what was going on in your body and it was a tough course because when I, we were one of the first couple of classes that graduated totally from UWO because when I was, when I first came to Oshkosh if you were a nursing major you did your first two years here and then you went to Madison to finish your next two years.

CM: Okay, for like your clinical and everything

CT: Because most nurses that were at the time in the '50s and '60s came out of your hospital, religious based hospital programs and they were very good but they were hands on, free labor for 3 years, you learned a lot, you learned how to be a nurse, especially to filter right in to one of their jobs, and they were always coming right out of school very ready to nurse in that hospital. But the 01:14:00theory at piece and the administration and some of the other things, management pieces were never there because it was always geared there. So you had your BSN program, and it's still kind of a discussion in our lifetime because we two year RNS, we still have some three years but they should just about all be retiring, so you've got your two year program and your four year program, different type of nursing. So it was very practical because I always said you gotta take care of yourself, I'm always going to be able to.

CM: So did you have to come back for four years or because you had already had gen eds

CT: I did it in about two and a half to three, right. But I had very challenging, because I had, I took Geo, I already had 15 credits of sciences but it was Earth sciences, and it was Biology with some Geology, so then I had to 01:15:00do, and back then we had to do two semesters of Chemistry. I'm not even, I know at the two year programs, because in my career life I was very connected with all the nursing programs, and what they do now you do your Anatomy, your Physiology, your Pharmacology

CM: Microbio

CT: Microbiology, loved that, I could have been a Microbiologist. So I did just massive sciences, like five classes that on semester at a time.

CM: Wow, alright so kind of to wrap it up, are you glad that you ended up coming to Oshkosh after going to Madison for that first half of semester, like do you think coming to Oshkosh was a good decision?

CT: It was a good decision for me, I think, I think it was the level of comfort with being in a large family it was still a close family. And I think I just felt a little disconnected, kind of homesick. So it was much more comforting to 01:16:00come here and be here, and I want to say my best friend was here, that we were always together when we were in college, I mean in high school and a female. And all through high school one of my closest male friends was here too, so we were always cohorts in crimes, we were in the Young Dems and we were always participating in things together and served on Student government type things and so I do think that being here you had to be somewhere. And certainly a financial mean at the time, you didn't look extremely, it just wasn't in your repertoire and I think state schools at the time were a good value for their dollars, we certainly had excellent professors, I can't say that, you know our teaching staff was excellent.

CM: What are your impressions of UW Oshkosh now?

CT: Well I think, I was, one of your questions asked do I come to the campus?

CM: Yes

CT: Over the years I came back to Oshkosh in 86 and I had been away from about 12 years, I, we were married, I lived in Fon du Lac we were in Iowa, we were in Milwaukee. And I moved back to the Fox Valley strategically because our family was from this area and as I had my children later, my mother was the only parent between my husband and I that was still alive. And I knew that if we stayed even 01:18:00that two hours in Milwaukee as the children started getting involved in activities that weekend, it wasn't unusual for us to come up and stay with mom's house for a weekend with the kids. But that would not happen once your kids get connected with activities and I wanted them to be able to have a relationship with their grandmother. And being in correctional health which was, talk about always going into tough situations, at a very toxic environment and I'm a survivor. But it became a really passionate career for me because I came in at a ground level when a [unclear] report just got published a year before I was recruited to be a manager at Ethan Allen School For Boys which was down in Hartland area, outside of Milwaukee, and it was a juvenile arm for boys. And it just was an opportunity I was just going to start the family and I wouldn't have 01:19:00to be commuting in and it just seemed like, what could I do there? Very small shop, five nurses reporting to me, but there was no structure, you're going to deliver it health care. And when I started in corrections we had five institutions 30 years later when I retired we had 22 major institutions, 17 centers.

CM: Wow

CT: And instead of 550/500 inmates we had 2200, 22000 inmates. So my one remark is always if you build it they will come. But unfortunately the 90 Senator Tommy Thompson, the Republicans and everybody who ran for office ran on let's be tough on crime, three strikes and you're out, lock people up for life, throw the drugs in, it's good for the economy' you know we build prisons, we put people in jobs, and it's good for the economy not thinking about the human costs plus the long 01:20:00term costs. Even from the inside I was always against how we did business, but it was so important that you had people who understood correctional health and when people are imprisoned the prison, the confinement behind bars is the punishment, and they need to be treated very humanely and correctly while they're in prison and they are guaranteed the same access to good healthcare to the body that you would have elsewhere that's guaranteed under the eighth amendment. So like I said it was a toxic, cause where else, cause I had worked for seven/eight years in healthcare prior to both the mental health and physical health part and to bring it together in a prison setting and to always be able to stand up against to what I would say was a security, the security force didn't view, they liked us there when the proverbial shit hit the fan, 'oh we've got a crisis, blood, get them nurses! Get them healthcare people over there!' 01:21:00But otherwise you weren't ever supposed to be in their face and of course we had to be in their face to do the job. So over the years I was administrator reporting out of Madison, doing operations with all those institutions, training people, and working with it. So it was an area that I was, I really got into because of the variety and the limit the list improvements and impact you could make if we could do it right. So what happened after several years down at Ethan Allen School for Boys we were expanding the first major prison in over 25 years was Oshkosh.

CM: Oh yeah

CT: And so being in the Fox Valley, I said I'm going to go up there and be manager on the ground floor and help get that one off the ground and we opened with 300, it was designated to be a 300 bed prison with young, very 01:22:00rehabilitator offenders that would be returning to the community and all we did was add numbers until we maxed out at about 2200. So we were the largest end, but within five/six years my role changed from being a direct manager cause of, have you ever been in a prison?

CM: No

CT: We have a complete clinic; doctors, nurses, dentist, health ya know, you have to provide all the levels of service. So I really understood and knew that well so I moved to the level where I was helping, assisting with all the other ones, so, ya know this is why I landed back here

CM: Yeah how you came back to Oshkosh

CT: And it was, it was a good community for, to raise kids, never stopped with my community involvement.

CM: Did your, you have two daughters, did they, did either of them go to Oshkosh?

CT: No

CM: No, because you lived here? Do you think that influenced it at all?

CT: Um

CM: Or do you think they just,

CT: Well the one got the masters from here, my older one, Oshkosh schools were much better when they went through the system, we weren't under attack by the Republican's and Scott Walker's administration that's been cutting, cutting, cutting. And if you listen to some of the dollars from, are just phenomenal, people look at higher education when I went to school, it's something like when I went to school the state was picking up 75% of the cost, of education and now it's the other way.

CM: Yeah

CT: Now the students, and that's why students are being stuck with this incredible amount of debt when they go to school because the state is doing a municipal part but back to the high school, my oldest daughter was very good at the physics science and whatever and she's a nuclear engineer and she works with 01:24:00the nuclear engineering. She had worked for the nuclear regulatory for ten years in DC, so she was heavily recruited by Ripon College who had a, I was shocked that she went there because they both had loved large cities, but Madison and her other alternative Minnesota, Madison, both just didn't recruit. Madison doesn't recruit, they're a different school, Minnesota treated, was very nice they put her right into that program where you didn't have to, a lot of the pre in Madison, you're in ' Oh we'll take you for anything you want' but then after two years you have to compete with everybody. Because even in the nursing program today they'll throw in, ya know they'll have 100 slots, 200 people that want to get in, and all of them have 3.8s or 3.9s, so they put them in a hat and they literally select them half the time. And it really was I was shocked when she went to Ripon, but they gave her a wonderful scholarship but they also 01:25:00recruited her. So and then she went on to RPI, which is an awesome, I learned it's the other MIT out in, out East. It's a very good school, got her masters. And my other daughter wanted to go to Madison, we love Madison, but it was too big for her she said 'I'm not going to like a big school', so she went to Edgewood, which is

CM: Oh yup right by Madison

CT: So she lived in Madison [laughs], got her degree and then she was interested in politics, both my girls enjoyed the political life too

CM: Do you think you had a big influence on that?

CT: Oh yeah, I remember my kids, anytime the day or night was fair game for us, but I remember Megan particularly at one point probably 16 coming in, after midnight or something where she said 'Mom and Dad I'm really glad you dragged me to all those things that you always dragged us to' and you know and elaborating 01:26:00because you got to catch kids when they want to talk. But she was an active, she formed a Young Dem when she was at Oshkosh North, and she had an association there, and trying to think, so and then she was on there was a state for young democrats in high school so when she was a, between her Junior and Senior year in high school they had state-wide fundraiser always in Milwaukee, it's their Jackson, Jefferson day event, a nice big gala and we all had to get dressed because she got to introduce, trying to think of this name. Do you remember Bill Clinton's press-secretary was a male who was married to a, he's a really good speaker, and she got to be, ya know, he was such a keynote speaker for the event 01:27:00and she got to introduce him, being?

CM: Yeah, yeah

CT: 'Here's one of our young and upcoming Democrats' or whatever so, but she's too busy now for her politics, she's probably too hard of a worker. But yeah they were definitely exposed that's for sure

CM: All right, that's all I have for you is there anything else you want to say?

CT: I don't know, I had no problem talking [laughing]