Interview Paper Version 3, almost there!
Misty
Dr. Bennett
Sociology 1101-111
7 April 2014
A Life Well Lived
Iris Eileen Allen 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 was 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 was 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 were 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
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 had," "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 on September of 1951 in Fort Collins 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."
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, by the birth of more children. They lived in a house that Ray's parents had built in the 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 their son Larry Joe was born, he had febrile seizures; Iris attributes this to her lack of good breast milk. When Ray tried to tell the pediatrician that this was happening, the doctor marginalized Iris, and told Ray that the seizures were because Iris was rocking the baby too hard. Having had three children already, and helping raise her siblings, Iris knew this was not the fact, she knew this was not the case 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, which is unique for that time, since so many couples still struggle with this. Theirs was truly a dialectic marriage.
Iris stayed home with her children, the Cult of Domesticity
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.
She gets teary when she talks about this. She has not prejudices that I have ever seen. For a woman of 87, she could be, 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 issues. Her youngest son has two half-Hispanic and half-black stepchildren. "So what?" she says.
Bibliography
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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