“It’s tough. It’s tough to grow up.”

An Oral History of John Gustafson

My mom died when I was four and I was raised by an aunt.  You know and I had no siblings. I went to a small high school, you know, sixty-two in the class. Back in those days, with living on a farm, you just did what you were told and you had to do everything by hand. I taught my grandpa how to drive a car myself; I taught him how to drive a tractor! And I was like what, eight or nine years old maybe when I started driving? But everything was kind of different then, I mean, from the standpoint of growing up— families were strong, you know, they had rules, ya did certain things, and nobody ever really got outta line. It isn’t like today, where if ya don’t like something, ya spout off you know?

Grandma (1) always said I had manure on my shoes. (laughs) And I probably did! My dad was a dairy farmer. We milked and we hauled... I think in sixth grade I was drivin a truck to school to deliver the milk to the creamery in town so they can make the butter and cheese and all that. I got in a little trouble because all of the teachers would have lunch together for the lunch hour at the elementary school, and I was drivin’ my pickup around the school with all the kids in there, and well, they didn’t like that at all (laughs). So… I couldn’t do that anymore.

(John with his wife Ruby.)

I didn’t play football in high school until I was a senior, and I wanted to play in the worst way, but I lived in the country. So after practice, the townspeople were supposed to take the players home— and well that lasted about two weeks— so then every night after practice I’d have to hitchhike thirteen miles home. And a lot of the time the last three miles were gravel roads and it was dark— I was afraid of the dark— and I just ran. And ya know that’s just the way it was, we just kinda accepted that.

Yeah I rode the school bus for fifteen miles everyday. And I hated it. I hated the bus. And the rule was if you fought on the bus, the bus driver would stop and kick you out, no matter where you were. You had to walk from there. And I can’t tell ya how many miles I walked. My dad would say, “You’re late again! What’d you do this time?” Well one of my sisters was retarded at birth, but she grew up pretty normally and she got through a few of the elementary grades— they just kept passing her like they did all the kids in those days. We were in Junior High and one of the big senior kids was teasing her, and it really ticked me off, ya know, and I was pretty protective of her. So I don’t know how many fights I got in over trying to protect her. My dad would say “What’d you do this time?” and I’d say “Well this guy was pickin’ on Mary again,” and he’d say “Well Jesus cripes do something about it!” And I did. I came home and I hardly had any clothes left on— I fought in the ditch for about a half an hour with this kid.

When I was eighteen years old I started at the University (2), and then my dad got his arm caught in a corn picker so I had to drop out of school, and went home. And then when I went back to school I went to Gustavus— that’s where my mother graduated from. I served two years in Berlin, Germany— I was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. The military was really an eye-opener for me because that’s when integration came in for the blacks, and I’d never been around a black person in my life till I got to college. We went down to Gustavus (3) and played…oh who did we play… well somebody, and we had a kid from Albert Lea (4) — I can’t think of his name right now— but he was black. And they wouldn’t let us eat in the restaurant down in Kansas City and they wouldn’t let us in the hotel either. We had to go to a cheaper hotel. I mean, I couldn’t believe that! We’re all sitting in the restaurant, and they wouldn’t serve us. And, ya know we all got up and left. So you grow up with those kinds of things. When I was in Berlin, Germany, we had four hundred replacements come in one month, and three hundred of em were black. And holy criminy!  There used to be some real battles even among the soldiers. But, ya know you kinda learn to live with that. It was kinda fun to be in Berlin at that time— that’s when they built the wall. If you were an American soldier, you could never go out of your district. I mean the Russians were there, the French were there, the British were there, the Americans were there— it was a four-powered city.

And it was really fun. I played football there, and that’s all I did really. But I got put in Special Services (5) so I was kinda like an athletic director for eight thousand men in the city, and we had all the facilities— swimming pools and all that. In the army, nobody knew how to teach swimming. I was one of the few soldiers that had the WSI (6) — which I had earned. So this General’s idea— was that all the soldiers had to learn how to swim (laughs). Oh God! We had guys who hated water, let alone swim in it! I’m not kiddin’ ya! They’d never been in a pool. And the test was, they’d push ya into a ten-foot-deep swimming pool, and you had to swim to the shallow end.

(John poses for picture day as a 

teacher at North St. Paul High School.)

And if you couldn’t do that, you had to learn how to swim. That was the criteria. And I had a lotta guys that were supposed to be lifeguards— pretty good sized guys— but geez they’d get in the water and “kah-splooosh!” they’d go down, they’d be blowin’ bubbles, and they couldn’t move! And we’d have to pull em out. Wow, what an experience that was. But I’ll tell ya, a lot of em learned how. They learned very quickly. But, eh, it’s a forced situation

My mother was a teacher, and good Lord, I love teaching. I’m still doing it. I taught health and social studies and I had American history— I think I might have lost the civil war one year, I’m not sure (laughs)— but you’ve gotta be a different person to handle all those kids.  I had a kid who tried to shoot me at North St. Paul High School! I mean and I found the gun! And the school you know they didn’t wanna do anything about it because that’d be entering his private locker well the gun was there, and I knew it was there! You know I had to go and bribe the secretary to get a key to get in to get it.  Here’s the biggest part in school today: a lot of kids can’t read. I taught American history and in my first class— I’ll never forget it— I had six kids out of thirty that couldn’t even barely read the book. Well how are you gonna learn anything when you can’t read? I remember going to the library and talking to the old librarian there and she said “Well here, take some of these elementary history books.”  I tried to do it that way. Those kinda kids today get pulled out and put in special reading classes— like Jimmy (7) did for about three years.  (To Ruby) We have, what, three Kindergarten teachers (8)? They’ve got kids coming to school that don’t know how to blow their nose. Well they’re gonna blow it on you, ya know what I mean? They can’t tie their shoes. They can’t handle anything because they’re not organized or disciplined enough to really wanna learn.   And boy you really see it when I talk to my Kindergarten teachers, (laughs) ohhh no I could never do that.  But I think education will always be good because they’ll never be able to get rid of education. 

(John pictured with his wife and kids. From left to right, Pete, Dawn, John, Nancy, Ann, Beth, Ruby, Jim, Paul and Jenny)

I always felt that the harder I work, the more success I had. And I think that’s really true.  At eighty-three I’m still out there teaching driver’s education. I’ve always been a firm disciplinarian with the kids. When I teach a class, I don’t use any films or anything— I don’t have to. I’ve got so many experiences that I can talk for three hours without stopping. And the kids love it! But when I get em in the car, teaching them to drive… well, I don’t have many kids who fail their driver’s test, I’ll tell ya that. They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing! If you could hear me give my first lecture on the first day of Driver’s education… well lemme tell you half of the kids don’t even want to come back to the second day of class because I just tell em the way it is. You either shut up and listen and do what you’re told, or you’re not gonna pass the test! And that’s kinda how life is. Gotta have some brakes, and gotta follow the rules. Some people think they can make their own rules, so I tell the kids in driving that when you’re going down the road, you don’t know what other guy coming toward you down the road is gonna do— and this is what you’ve gotta be aware of. You can’t be talkin’ on the phone or thinkin’ about something else. It’s tough. It’s tough to grow up.  You know you’re living in a world and

you may not like it politically, you might not like it economically, but you’re still here— where ya gonna go? Be blessed with what you can do and enjoy it.

Take care of your body, and it will always allow you to pursue the course. Enjoy your work, do you best, and good results will follow. Appreciate your family, enjoy the children as they learn what life is all about. Hard work will get you to where you want to go. Set goals.  Don’t put yourself down. Look for the good things in others. Make your own decisions on your life’s direction, but don’t be afraid to ask for help.

FOOTNOTES

(1) In reference to John's wife, Ruby

(2) University of Minnesota--Twin Cities

(3) Gustavus Adolphus College, located in St. Peter Minnesota.

(4) A city 98 miles south of Minneapolis. Southern Minnesota.

(5) Entertainment and recreation branch of the American Military

(6) Red Cross designation for a certified swimming teacher. (Water Safety Instructor)

(7) John's biological son
(8) Three granddaughters who currently teach kindergarten.

STORY FACILITATORS

Ben Hersman, Erin Griffin, Michael Gavilan Blaz

"I just thought that was heaven on earth"

          My name is Mary Ann Egan, and I was born in Redwing, Minnesota. We moved at a very young age to Minneapolis. We resided here until we moved to Sioux Falls a few years ago. I had just one brother who was three years younger, and we were great buddies. He was a dear, dear friend and brother. We were very close. We spent a lot of time each weekend going fishing or visiting relatives about 40 miles outside of Minneapolis at Lake Minnesota and Howard Lake. My cousin Sally, she was, in fact my husband and I had breakfast with her last winter and we had lots of fun. I would go out from Minneapolis and stay with her for a couple weeks every summer and she would take me out to the barn and we would jump in the hay mounds and gather up the cows and I just thought that was heaven on earth and then we’d go in and go to the living room, which in those days was called the front room, and we would, she would play the piano and we would sing all these songs like red sails in the sunsets and all the war songs, it was fun. My mother was 1 of 13 children so I had, oh, 45 cousins. I think they really helped shape me. We were all very good hardworking people. One of my cousins ended up he was at the University of Minnesota same time I was and he graduated and went onto John Hopkins where he helped invent CRP, and then ended up as a doctor in Miami. Our 60th wedding anniversary very memorable. All of our grandchildren and children were there at one time or another, that was truly memorable. The only unfortunate thing was that our son Mike passed away 13 years ago tomorrow exactly. He of course wasn’t there but his 2 sons were, and they are wonderful boys so we are very very fortunate.

"We didn't think that [the war] was tough, we just did what we had to do"
 

I can remember getting my first job at 13. I was, I think I was in the eighth grade when I was 13, anyways a friend of mine’s uncle was the personal manager and he was able to get us a job at Sara’s Folding Circulars and I remember at that time I knew it was very important to get an education because I certainly didn’t want to fold circulars the rest of my life. It was really a magical time I thought. A good friend and I, Betsy Jones-Rans was her name, then decided that we wanted to make a horse out of cardboard box so we got a great big long butcher knife from one of our kitchens and we were carving the horse out and we think we are going to ride the horses around the block, this is on 24th and Hinapin Minneapolis and anyways, but I had great big cut in my finger and it went right down to the bone and in those days you didn’t rush like to the doctor like we do now just put a band aid on it and hold it real tight and let it heal up. And anyways if I'd see Betsy before she passed away I'd show her my scar and wed talk about the fun we had making that horse and just about cut off my finger. Oh yes I think we were in the 3rd grade actually. Looking back on what children have to contend with today, it was of course after the war, I can remember in grade school I can remember folding bandages, and rolling bandages, and big paper sails every fall for the war effort. We did a lot for the servicemen, and I think that’s when I really learned my interest in philanthropy and altruism and how necessary it is to help others. We didn’t think of [the war] as tough, we just did what we had to do. I can remember not ever having very much meat. We’d have to go to the, we’d have to turn in our fat, I can’t remember for what reason, and I just, I guess I was just oblivious to why we were doing all of this. We just did it, ya know? And I think it was impressed on us that we couldn’t be wasteful because the starving children in China, and we had to eat everything on our plate, and things weren’t really as lavish as they are today.

 

"We were so limited in those days"

 

I had decided [what I wanted to major in] in grade school, and I had always planned on being a teacher. My mother had been a teacher and my aunt and I really, I really loved children and I really wanted to be a teacher. I thought it would be really exciting and one time I remember watching some television show and I wanted to be a detective, or a secretary for a detective, I don’t know if that was from some tv show or what, but I thought that would really be cool, but I really had no skills as far as typing! I think the importance of an education I really really feel in those days, was imperative. When I entered the University of Minnesota the women had the choice of becoming a nurse or a teacher or something else, and then when we graduated all of those girls, oh it was SLA, science literature and the arts, that was the other thing, and every one of those girls has to go downtown to the Minnesota Minneapolis School of Business and take typing classes to become secretaries. We were so limited in those days as far as professions that we could go into. I just think it’s wonderful today that there are so many jobs available. Of course I was scared to death, I was just a little girl from West High School. The university was a huge huge campus and I imagine it is much much bigger today but I just saw that the professors for the most part were very very good instructors and down to earth good professors and teachers and the build of education cared about the students.

"I loved every minute of it"

The biggest deal was to get over to the U on a bus or a streetcar and then stop at the café there on the bridge and have a cup of coffee. I remember I hated coffee but I learned to drink it because it was only a nickel a cup. I really, till this day, drink a lot of coffee, but I really don’t like the taste of it! We always went to the football games and we loved the hockey games and I don’t remember going to any basketball games in those days. I just, you know transportation was a challenge in those days. Nobody really had cars because of the war and I think my friends were just beginning to own cars and it was a matter of taking a bus everywhere or a streetcar, so that was a challenge. They definitely allowed [cars], but like I said because of the war not too many people, well they started to get them like oh late in my high school years, but that’s how I remember it. I remember joining the AUW, I think it was, Association of University Women, and I remember going through Rushing of course. We couldn’t go through Rushing or join a sorority unless we made our grades so that was even, made us put forth a lot of effort to go through Rushing and become a member of a sorority which was, a lot of people advised because they just felt in such a large institution that it was important to be a part of a small group that you really got to know well. I definitely remember, I loved every minute of it, it was Alpha Phi, a sorority, and we did an awful lot of charities and like heart funds and I became very involved in that. I ended up being treasurer my junior and senior year and I learned a lot from that. I learned that I never really wanted to handle my check book after that because it was a lot of work! Oh I have nothing but fond fond memories of my time in Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota I really feel it was a wonderful institution and I still do, and I am very proud of the fact that I have a degree from the University of Minnesota."

Meat, War, and Marilyn Monroe

Meat, War, and Marilyn Monroe

Al working in the meat shop.

This is an Oral History of Allison H. Ittel.  He was born on July 24th, 1931 at 6 p.m. in the family’s house on a farm.  He was the 2nd child of 4 born to parents Henry and Eleanor.  Al is still living at age 84 with his wife of 58 years, Lorna Ittel.  They have four children, two sons, and two daughters as well as 10 grandchildren.

“I was eight years old when we got into the meats”

I was eight years old when we got into the meats. After coming from Fairfax, my dad had bought a meat market and meat locker for twenty-eight hundred dollars in 1940; of course, the second World War started in ‘41 and lasted till ‘45. Things were hard to come by. We had food and so forth. We didn’t waste it. You took what was on your plate. You clean it up. When we were on the farm we had plenty to eat but once we got to town, things were different. My mother had to, well, she bought a pound of hamburger, she put bread in it and mix it up. Make it go further.

Al as a youth working in his father's meat shop.

I was required to go down to the shop and work a lot, usually seven days a week. I started when I was about nine years old going with my dad to the shop. Actually, I started when I was about ten. I remember curing bacon, being shown how to rub it in and so forth. To dry rub the bacon, that was my first job and it just progressed from there. By the time I was thirteen years old, I slaughtered my own beef alone. Shot it, stuck it, bled it, skinned it, quartered it. The whole works. All by myself, thirteen years old. Of course from there I slaughtered a lot of animals thereafter.

Al's Junior Legion baseball picture.

[During my times off], my passion was to play ball. Baseball. We had a good team in my high school. My team, Junior Legion went to the state championship.  We went 24-2 that year and both games that we lost were by 1 run.

“We’ll wait for the draft”

Me and another friend of mine, we were gonna volunteer and go into the Coast Guard or the Navy. We went down there and the officers in the recruiting place were playing cards and finally looked up at us and said, “Well what do you guys want? Four years or you want the short six?” We kind of looked at each other and said, “We’ll wait for the draft” which we did.

I was drafted. I served from fifty two to fifty four. Two years.  I was inducted into the service in August of fifty two and put on a plane. We had orders to go down to the military police at Camp Gordon, in Georgia.

The Korean War started in 1950 and ended in 1953. I was finally shipped out on the Marine Adder(1) to Sasebo, Japan.  Within 36 hours we were on the largest ship, the General Gordon. We had 6,000 troops on the ship and ended up in Incheon(2). Of course, it was a big deal there during the war. We crawled off the LST(3) in full field gear and drew our rifles and ammunition.

Al in his service uniform.

It got to the evening and they sent us out on rail-cars. The destination was Yong Dong Po(4). On the way over there you could hear the kids and people hollering at you. They were begging for stuff and so forth. We ended up with the 142nd MP Escort Guard Company where we processed all prisoners of war. We would pick them up and bring them to what used to be a factory, three miles from Seoul.  We deloused them and gave them haircuts. The CIA would interrogate the prisoners and then they were sent by rail to Koje-Do where they kept all of the prisoners that they transferred.  We provided oversight for the Republic of Korea soldiers.

From there I was transferred. They needed a file clerk up at Company headquarters which was about two miles from where I was. The mailman there went to Japan and he got injured or something so he didn’t make it back. They found out I had typing experience.  They had me be the mailman and also the courier. For the morning reports, I had to take them into the 8th Army headquarters in Seoul every day.  I was driven by an armed guard.

Bombshell

When I was up at the Company headquarters I got elbowed in the face playing tackle football. [From the same incident], a small tumor about the size of the eraser of a pencil bled from under my lip. It all healed up and sutured but one morning I had some coffee and boy I had pain like you wouldn’t believe. The kind of pain that would knock you down to your knees. So I knew something was wrong. I went to the dispensary and they took a biopsy of it. They found out I had cancer. They said that they’d do what they could for me. I was told to pick up my stuff and they were gonna take me over to Tokyo Army Hospital in Japan.

Al (right) with Marilyn Monroe (middle) during her trip to Japan.

They flew me over to Japan and then of course there was the exam and so forth. They told me what they were going to do and had me sign a release form saying they could take pictures during the procedure to show during lessons for other doctors.  The day before I had the operation, Marilyn Monroe had happened to come in and be up at the Red Cross Center, up on the fourth floor. They knew she had gotten her hair done there, through word of mouth. The people, or fans were holding each other up to see through the windows on top of the doors. People were going crazy.  The paparazzi was there too and they were all excited.

So, I went up there and met her, along with some other guys. I congratulated her on her marriage to Joe [DiMaggio]. She made some kind of a real quick little gesture; like a little dance. It was really great. She was beautiful. No doubt about it.

She had grabbed me by the arm and I was a little nervous of course and she grabbed me and hugged me, hugged my arm, and you know like cooled me right down. She really knew how to take care of guys. She had the experience I heard. But anyways, she asked me what my name was and where I was from. So, I told her my name and Minnesota and she says, “Oh” she says, “My best friend Jane Russell(5) was there. I visited her in Bemidji.” I said, “Oh great.” The way she talked, it felt like you knew her for years. It was great. So I asked her where Joe(6) was and she looked disgusted and she said he was down in Tokyo, promoting his baseball stuff.

Homecoming

I had the operation in the morning. It was an eight hour operation and the doctor said I’d never be able to pay for that operation if I worked all of my life. I think the army surgeon general also took part in it. They wanted me to sign a paper where they would use pictures from the operation in their classes. In about a year they said that I would probably want another operation. But, then after three months they said that my heart was so strong that they said, “We can give you the second operation.” It was a cosmetic operation, to straighten up my lip. I was in the hospital for six months and after three months they assigned me to Owada receiver site about twenty miles west of Tokyo. It was where all the top secret communications went through. So, I worked in the office over there and the lieutenant says, “How bout’ I make you the sergeant?” He said, “I’ll give you another stripe if I extend you for a year.” Of course, I said, “No thanks. I wanna go home.” So, I took off in Tokyo on a C-97(7), I believe it was and went to Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii.  I spent three days there overlooking Pearl Harbor.

Al working at Kurtz Market during meat cutting school

I was discharged on August 18th, 1954.  Later that year I bought a 10 acre farm that I still own.  I married my wife Lorna on April 27th, 1957 and for our honeymoon we went to Toledo, Ohio and I went to The National School of Meat Cutting.  We left right after we got married.  It was an 8 week course at place called Kurtz Market.  After those 8 weeks, I graduated from meat cutting school and Lorna and I went back home [to Minnesota].  When I came home I started working for my dad again and I put on an apron and never took it off.

Al and Lorna on their honeymoon standing out front of Kurtz Market, the National School of Meat Cutting in Toledo, OH.

Footnotes:

1.  USNS Marine Adder, a troop ship in the 1950s.

2. Incheon is a city in South Korea, the Battle of Inchon was a amphibious invasion.

3. Landing Ship, Tank.

4. A village in South Korea.

5. American film actress in the 1940s and 1950s.

6. Joe Dimaggio, baseball player for the New York Yankees, married to Marilyn Monroe from 1954-1955.

7. Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter is a long-range heavy military cargo aircraft.

Story Facilitators: Bryant Brakke, Gita Misra, Frank Medina

Images from Al and Lorna Ittel's photo albums.

Serendipitous Journey

My name is Greg Sawyer and I'm an academic advisor here at the college of education and human development, specifically for the Trio programs. I've been doing academic advising work here at The U for about twelve almost thirteen years. I was born and raised here in Minnesota.

'Being Sensitive to the human condition'

The thing that stuck with me throughout my life right from when i was a child, was my parents emphasis in education, there strong belief of the benefit of it, from a perspective of upward mobility as well as help us to be more informed about things, more enlightened. Another great life lesson that was infused in my family and cultural experience, where there was always this sense of giving back, there was always this sense of you know, there is always someone that is more challenged than you in their life situation and you should always be sensitive to that and attempt to do whatever you can to help things along on a grander scale, really being sensitive to the human condition, I think. That was just one of those things practiced daily in our life. We’d help out at church or we’d you know help out with the homeless, we would do that thing and we would do it as a family. It was just practice. I feel extremely blessed with the way that my life went you know and from a spiritual perspective belief that it was guided in a particular way, cause many of the things that have happened to me, great opportunities and stuff like that I don’t necessarily feel like that’s what I set out to do, I just kind of happened to, and this is where serendipitous happens. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and boom there it happened, and the same thing I could say about my life growing up here in Minnesota, very unusual, very very unique.

I was adopted okay and I was adopted into an African American family so my mom and dad... black, and a lot of experiences came with that. Like I said there was a lot of promotion about education there was also a very unusual kind of journey with regards to faith and religion, we were you know my parents raised us as catholic which was very unusual for African American families. My dad was Baptist, my mom was Episcopalian or something like that, and yet they decided to raise us as catholic and send us to a catholic school which I was the only black kid to graduate from my school at the time you know. We were the only black family in the parish, it seemed to me like this is what my experience was. That even though I was of a different race or ethnic background, I was under this umbrella of Catholicism, and the people that we shared this space with expected us for who we were, and I remember this one time in school, I probably was like in fourth grade where one kid umm called me the N word. I didn’t have to do a thing, the rest of the kids beat the crap out of him. we don’t do that here and you know it was a very warm feeling. These folks really appreciate and love me for who I am and they’re not necessarily looking at me as you know this is what my hair is and this is what my color is and whatever, anyone that made an attack on me was like an attack on them. It was like we don’t do that here. It was that kind of nature, that we are not looking at it through that lens, and that insulated the protected feeling that I had. 

'My Independence' 
I was in the military for almost four
years and I travelled a lot, I was stationed in Colorado, and that did kind of become home to me for while. The military wasn’t shit for me, excuse me (laughing), I had a father who ruled with an iron fist, and you know, I remember asking my recruiter, I was seventeen when I first went in. Part of it was, well there was a strategy, I was being strategic. Number one, I wanted to get out of my dad’s home, I wanted to establish my independence. Number two I wanted money for school. My my dad could have paid for school but I didn’t want that hanging over my head. I can do this on my own, I got the intelligence, I am pretty confident of that. Then it's just like you know, I got to figure out the financial side of things, but that disciplinary thing was very good because it helped me be extremely successful in the military, It even got me to the point for a minute where I even thought about staying in you know. They were throwing money at me saying “hey if you re-enlist we’ll give you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus.” But also knowing and staying true to goal, I’m here to get the twenty thousand dollars that you offered me through the GI bill to go to college. So you know, I did my time and served my purpose, I served my country. Now I get to take all this money, go back and do what I originally wanted to do. So there was always some sort of idea or goal, but never a clear path of how it was going to happen. That how that serendipitous stuff happens.

'I can do anything"

I kind of approached life in this why that I can do anything I set my mind to, you know, and being in the Military that was one of those things re enforced  by your teachers, you're trained in a particular way, that you do some things you never thought you were able to do and that kind of brings your confidence levels pretty high, and then coming back here and always knowing that college was going to be apart of my experience, both of my parents did go to college and as I told you education was very much promoted throughout my entire life. I came into the experience and I did it with a kind of maturity or a kind of confidence, but I really didn't connect to the college experience, I was here to get an education. I was one of these folks where I'd come here I'd go to school, to my classes. I guess one could argue I did the bare minimum, but I had a full time job, I had circles of friends and support outside the university, and so as I look back at it I know my period in time going through the educational process on campus, I felt very isolated as an African American male, especially back in the 80s and 90s, pursuing a discipline that was very umm white female dominated. Its Psychology… these were folks who were wanting to do the helping professions, the counseling and psychologists and that kind of stuff, and so I was outnumbered in the gender area as well as the ethnic or racial background. My mentality was I'm here to get an education and I'm not here to connect with the people around me, I didn't feel like I did anyway, but it was just kind of like that mind frame, that I'm here to do a job. It came from outside of the university, my family, my friends. A lot of them weren't even in college, truth be told, but they were folks that supported the fact that I was in college, I still felt that I got forms of support from them. So I pieced together my support system, without even really knowing it, but now that I am in education and I see that kind of thing.

'My passion to help'

I first got my teeth cut I guess you could say, in the advising kind of profession as an undergraduate student here at The U. They had what they called a pure advising program, and it was through the general college that allowed a student to be paired with a professional advisor to provide advising support to the students. Most of us that were pure advisors were upperclassmen, so we had a little bit of experience with being students already and we had that passion or commitment to help support students in their academic journey. I think the bed gave me a strong foundation of what advising was all about and the benefit and the value of it, then I think the skills that I brought to the profession was more my formal training as a counselor or a therapist. I did my undergraduate work in psychology so kind of the interest in the human condition, human behavior kind of thing, and then my master's work was in marriage and family therapy. So there was more of a counseling emphasis in skills that were developed and it's very much a transferable skill that you use as an academic advisor, you know meeting with your students and kind of counseling them through their academic journey.

It was a very serendipitous journey in the way I was connected to Trio. Through my Mcnairs scholars experience, I was part of the first cohort of  McNair's scholars here at the university back in 1992, so that kind of got me exposed to what Trio was about, as well as the people that ran the Trio programs her at The U. when I came back to The U as an academic advisor, I wasn't affiliated with Trio then, it was more working with the college. I ended up doing a lot of support with Trio students while I was in my general college advising role and certain situations happened when actual Trio advisors fell ill, and I was called upon by the directors of both the trio student support services as well as the Trio McNair program to kind of step in and help with advising students, and the rest is kind of history.

'Im on my own mission'

The truth of the matter is I had and still have a mission, and I'll play this for as long as I have to. But when I’m done, I’m done, thank you, sir. That's one thing that I wish I could pass on to everyone that I come into contact with. Being comfortable and secure with who you are, and knowing who you are. Thats hard to do in this world, because the world tells us what does it mean to be white? What does it mean to be black? Then there's a whole bunch of things that can follow with that. But if you can understand what it means to be you, who ever you are, The sooner that you understand that and are comfortable with it, The better you can do whatever the heck it is you want to do, and nobody can stop you from doing it. You are entitled to think what you want, but you don't know me. I know me. It can even get to the point where you quietly say I’ll show you. Like I don’t even care what you’re saying. I'm on my own mission. Be comfortable with who you are. I think I used the example of running a marathon, if you're wearing somebody else’s shoes, that don't fit you, your run isn't going to be as good. But if you find the right ones, like these were made for me, and I’m running my race, and I’m gonna win my race cause it’s MY RACE. 

FOOTNOTES-

McNair: The federally funded Trio McNair scholars program seeks to increase doctoral program application, matriculation, and degree attainment by underrepresented and first-generation college students.

Trio: TRIO is a set of federally funded college opportunity programs that support students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds in their pursuit of a college degree.  TRIO programs provide academic tutoring, personal counseling, mentoring, financial guidance, and other supports necessary for educational access and retention.

Story Facilitators:

Justin Levin
Matt Baker
Mohamed Idle

"I Go by Mickey"

Maureen Christiansen

I Go by Mickey

Mickey at the Open Door Learning Center
(Provided by Mickey)

I’m Maureen Christiansen, I go by Mickey, so you can call me Mickey. Except Dan, you’ll have to call me grandma. Well, when I… how many years ago? six? seven years ago, I was laid off from my job at the time of the financial crisis, and after that, I actually took a class teaching English as a foreign language, thinking I might go overseas to work. Once I got my certificate, actually before I got my certificate, I had to do student teaching, and one of the places I student taught was here at The Open Door Learning Center on Lake Street (1), which is part of the Minnesota Literacy Council. I was really impressed by the work they did there, their curriculum, the way they had it all laid out, and how they use volunteers. They use so many volunteers and have a lot of people who are willing to volunteer, so it’s a real nice group of people to work with, I think. After I finished my student teaching, I never did go overseas. I ended up staying home. (laughs) But I did continue to volunteer and teach here because it was something I enjoyed and it is a very satisfying volunteer position, I think. The staff gives you a lot of support and they have the curriculum set up pretty well, so you're not on your own that way. You get a chance to interact individually with students and kind of do your own thing as far as how you teach and what you teach, so that’s how I started! And I’ve been here ever since. I’ve been in a number of positions. I started out as an assistant teacher, I think it was an intermediate class. Then, I assisted in the preliterate class for a while. I worked in the GED for a little while, but then they changed that to having a certified GED teacher, an on staff teaching. I have my ESL (2), my English as a Second Language certificate, but I don't have a teaching license. So, at that time I started helping with the citizenship class. After that, they needed a regular volunteer for the advance class so I started doing that, and I still help with citizenship class occasionally.

University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming logo

(Provided by http://www.uwyo.edu)

You know, I didn't actually ever really go to school for teaching, but I have done a lot of teaching in my life. I started out in college as an English major, I guess thinking that I would teach, but I kind of didn't go down that road. I actually quit school and got married and all that stuff. Then, when I went back to college, I got interested in history. So, I was taking history and then went to graduate school. I was doing English history and American Studies. While I was there, I went to graduate school in the University of Wyoming and became a teaching assistant. So then, I started a lot of teaching as a TA in classes. Eventually, I actually started teaching history courses at the University of Wyoming. So, I had that experience of teaching before I started this volunteer position.

When I Was Laid Off

After I finished my graduate school, I worked for a conservation non-profit, which what we did was try to get land into public use so it wouldn’t be developed, that kind of thing. So, as a non-profit, a lot of our funds came from government and donations. So, when in 2008 when the crash, or Recession came, many non-profits state funds dried up and our donations dried up, so we had to do a large restructuring, the company did. They had to eliminate a lot of offices and a lot of jobs. So, my office basically was eliminated, so my job was eliminated. So, I was laid-off and, you know as I said, I always thought of maybe going overseas to teach, so I just thought maybe that would be a good opportunity to do something like that. But I never went, never did go overseas. (Upbeat) I still think about it sometimes (laughs). But I haven’t. (laughs)

Definitely a Very Diverse Area!

Mickey celebrating with her students
(Provided by Mickey)

Depending on where the center is geographically, the makeup of classes change too. Here we do have a lot of Africans, a lot of Somali people and some South Americans, some Mexicans, the largest I believe is Africans. We do occasionally have some Asians, particularly in the citizenship class. We had a large group of Tibet people and they must have immigrated at the same time and here long enough to apply for the citizenship. [About East Lake Street Learning Center] This is kind of an interesting place. I spend a lot of time at libraries, (laughs) that’s just what I do (laughs), but anyway, because I usually go to the Excelsior library, which is close to my hometown [Minnetonka], and just the whole difference of the clientele of the libraries, you know, it’s just incredible, but it’s interesting that’s for sure. But yeah, this is definitely a very diverse area.

I Had Two Hours

At the level I’m teaching now, I don’t very often find out too much personally about my students. Except, I remember this one thing that really stuck in my mind. (chuckles) I don’t know if any of you have heard about the Japanese Internment during World War Two? Where the Japanese were put into, basically, internment camps and concentration camps. We were reading a story about, in an advanced class, people’s personal memories about that happening to them and one of the questions for the discussion was, “How would you feel if you were suddenly told you had two weeks to pack up and get everything in order and move to some strange place?”  One man said, well, you know, I had two hours, and he was someone who had immigrated and escaped from the Somalia Civil War (3) and he said, “I had two hours to get home, get my kids and get ready and get everything I needed and I carried them on my back for two days.” You know, it’s certainly not right to have to pack up your home, where you’ve lived forever, in two weeks let alone two hours like this guy said. I don’t hear a lot of these stories, but I suspect that there are a lot of people who’ve had a hard time getting out of their circumstances.

I’ve never been to school before and I just love this!

Sylviano, was his name, he was in my class for a long time then he moved onto GED and I don’t know whatever happened to him. That’s one thing that I don’t like is that, you know, when people leave you never know what happens to them. I’ve always wondered because he was really a good writer and I don’t know that he’d ever be able to do that, you know, as a career or anything, but he really enjoyed it and he really was a good at it. I’ve always been curious as to whatever happened to him. A different time, there was this guy that I was working with in citizenship, and he made a big impression on me. He was in his early-mid thirties, I believe, and had never been to school before. He came to study for the citizenship class. Part of the citizenship test is you have to be able to read and write and he didn’t know how to read or write. In his whole life, he’d never been to school before. We worked really, really hard with him and it was incredible how quickly he picked up all this stuff. How hard he worked at it, you know, and it just really dawned on me that this guy has never gone to school, I mean thats kind of a concept that we just don’t have, you know, never having gone to school. He came from Africa, I’m not sure where in Africa, but I think maybe it was Somalia. He had married a woman who was here. She was an English speaker, so his spoken english was pretty good and that’s probably why he never really felt the need to learn how to read and write, you know, because his wife probably did all the reading and writing that was necessary for him. But anyway, he took the citizenship test and passed everything but the reading or writing. If you take the citizenship test and just miss one or two things, you can come back again in around three months and take it again without having to start the whole process over. He then had three months to learn how to read and write and, like I said, we really worked hard. When he went back to take his test, he passed the reading but he didn’t pass the writing. So, he will have to take it again, but having gone through this whole process, it was just incredible how excited he was about learning. He said that, “I’ve never been to school before and I just love this!” (laughs) Eventually, I’m sure he’ll take the citizenship test again. He was able to memorize, you know, if you don’t read and write, your memory has to be really good and I was just amazed at how he could remember things. He remembered, without reading and writing, all of the answers to all of the questions. So, yeah, he is another guy I think I will always remember.

Satisfaction From Helping

Pictures of volunteers at the Open Door Learning Center
(Provided by Mickey)

For older people it’s one of the most difficult things to do, to learn a different language. I had some older Somali African women who were not able to read or write in their own language. They came here and learned English plus how to read and write at the same time. I just have an awful lot of respect for what they do. (chuckles) For me, that's what I enjoy and appreciate about volunteering here. I can’t speak for others [volunteers], but I get a good satisfaction from helping people and also from seeing how people progress and learn. I just love it.

Footnotes:

1) The Open Door Learning Center: An organization ran mainly by volunteers to provide free adult education classes so their students can succeed in work and in life. One of many places they meet is at 2700 East Lake Street Minneapolis, MN.

2) ESL: English as a Second Language. Helps people with different native languages learn and speak English.

3) Somali Civil War: In 1970 Siad Barre, president of Somalia, proclaimed a socialist state, paving the way for close relations with the USSR. In 1977, with the help of Soviet arms, Somalia attempted to seize the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, but was defeated thanks to Soviet and Cuban backing for Ethiopia, which had turned Marxist. Somalia became a war zone causing millions to flee to other countries.

Story Facilitators:

Ilhan Mohamed

Daniel Johnson