April 9th, 2014
Go back and revise an entry you are not satisfied with...
I'm totally going to cheat on this one. I am posting my revised and final draft of my interview paper.
Misty
Professor Bennett
Intro to Sociology 1101
8 April 2014
A Life Well Lived
Iris Eileen (Allen) Miller is a
woman who has no regrets in life. She is the wisest person I know and is not
afraid to tell you what is on her mind. She was born on June 18th,
1927 in El Paso County Colorado. She is the second out of ten children born to
Clifford Allen and Gladys Hitchcock. She helped raise her younger siblings, as
was the way in those days. Her fondest memory of growing up is playing store in
the hayloft with her sisters. She enjoyed spending time with all of her
siblings, but her sisters in particular.
Clifford and Gladys treated all ten
of their children equally. They were farmers and Gladys cared for the children.
All of them were capable and were required to help with the house and the farm.
That was the norm for families at that time, the more children that you had,
the more help you had for the farm.
Clifford had several other jobs, including driving the school bus and
trapping animals to sell for their pelts. He trapped everything from skunk to
coyotes. Iris tells me that some days the kids would go to school smelling like
skunk. The best price that Clifford ever got for a pelt was $12.00 for a
Coyote. That was a lot of money in those days; $12.00 in 1930 would equal
$168.50 today (http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm) . Iris still has a freezer that she bought
before moving here in 1955. She raised the money by raising, dressing and
selling chickens while still on the farm.
Her family did not have a lot of
money, but they always managed to make due. The family's socioeconomic status
made it necessary for Clifford to do whatever it took to put food on the table.
The family, as many in those days, was big on "if you can fix it – you
better do it," "if you can make it yourself, do it." and
"if you can't afford it – do not get it until you can." To this day,
that sticks with Iris.
Iris wanted to be a nurse when she
was younger but was unable to attain that goal. The classes that she needed to
follow that career path were not available to her in El Paso County. The school
system that she had access to did not give her many paths to choose. She
finished half a year of college and then quit. She met an Army man named Byron
and 'had to get married" because in those days if you got pregnant, that
is what you did. If Iris had not gotten married, she would have been
stigmatized for having premarital sex. Mary Elizabeth was born in September of
1951 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Within two weeks, Iris headed back to El
Paso County with her parents. She tells me "Byron was out running around,
and Momma and Daddy came by to see us. Daddy asked me if I wanted to come
home."
(Miller) . Byron did attempt to get Iris to come back but she
refused and they divorced.
Iris had already known Raymond Leon
Miller when she returned to El Paso County. One evening he invited her to go to
a card party in Truckton with him and his parents. They dated for a few years;
they were married when Mary was almost six. Raymond adopted Mary and raised her
like his own daughter. He created his Family of Choice by marriage, adoption,
and by the birth of more children. They lived in a house that Ray's parents had
built in their front yard. His parents were cruel to Mary, and this angered
Ray. They moved as soon as they had the means. They left El Paso County when
his uncle, who owned a tire shop, offered Ray a job in Albuquerque. The family
moved here in 1955. They have lived in the same house since that time.
When Ray and Iris’s son, Larry Joe,
was born, he had febrile seizures. Iris attributes this to her lack of good
breast milk. When Ray told the pediatrician that this was happening, the doctor
marginalized Iris, and told Ray that Larry Joe was not having seizures, but
that Iris was an over wrought mother. Having had three children already, and
helping to raise her siblings, Iris knew this was not the case. She knew that
there was something wrong with Larry Joe, and they brought the baby to the
hospital, where he had a seizure in the doctor's arms. Iris quit breastfeeding
Larry Joe and he never had another seizure. The battle of the sexes was not
even a battle for most at this time. Ray and Iris had a strong partnership in
their marriage so this never seemed to be an issue for them either. This seems unique
when you consider that so many couples struggle with this today. Theirs was
truly a dialectic marriage. (Conley)
Iris stayed home with her children,
the Cult of Domesticity (Conley) worked well for her family.
She tells me that she loves all of her children equally, but in different ways
because they are different people. Mary, lived in Albuquerque most of her life
with her husband and two daughters. She passed away suddenly in September of
last year, and this still brings Iris to tears. Carl, Cindy, and Larry all live
in Albuquerque with their families and help take care of Iris. As we discussed
in the chapter about the chore wars in our book, the girls do more for Iris
than her boys, but Carl and Larry are thanked profusely and are held above the
girls in her favor. (Conley)
Iris has many grandkids and great
grandkids. She does not see any difference in any of them. They are all hers,
whether they are a blood relation or not. When I asked her about this, she said
that it does not matter and they are her kids. Her family even informally
adopted the young man, Frank, that lived next door and had a hard home life.
For the longest time I did not know he was not blood, because she does not
treat anyone as if they are not her blood. Her kinship networks are many and
varied. (Conley)
She gets teary when she talks about this. She has no
prejudices that I have ever seen. For a woman of 87, she could have, it would
line up with her generational acceptable norms. However, she has the most
blended family I have ever seen. Her oldest son Carl has been married three
times, and she still loves her ex-daughter in laws. Cindy has remarried to a
very traditional Hispanic man, and Iris loves him, his kids, and their kids.
She loves my kids and me proving that she has no issues with race or sexuality.
Her youngest son has two half-Hispanic and half-black stepchildren. "So
what?" she says. (Miller) She proves every day that no
one is above her law, as she will not hesitate to put you in your place. It
does not matter who you are, and how you came to be in the family. More
importantly, she proves every day that no one is below her love.
Work Cited Page
Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself 3rd Edition.
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. , 2012. Print.
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. n.d. Web. 5 April 2014.
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