questions 4 and 5

4: What were the women’s roles in society? What were men’s roles? Did you agree with these roles?

There weren’t too many options for women 50 years ago - yes, college but mostly for teaching, or the nursing field or maybe air line hostess (which I thought would be fun but I was too tall ) I think most women expected to become wives and mothers. It’s interesting, though, to read about women my age who have done unusual things. Men, I think, have always, been the ones who think they need to be in control, make the most money and their wives are the ones to clean, cook and take care of children. Fortunately this has changed and most younger husbands are more willing to help with cleaning, cooking and taking care of their children. When I was a young woman I pretty much agreed with this concept but I as I got older I changed my thoughts. When grandpa was home and after our children were grown he would get supper ready on the days that I was teaching. And as he got older he was more willing to help with things around the house when he could.



5: How did you and grandpa decide on how to raise your children? Was there a specific way you wanted to raise them? Did grandpa have a different view? If so, how did you agree on this?

We didn’t actually sit down and discuss how to raise our children. When we were young premarital counseling where those kind of questions were discussed didn’t exist. Since we both grew up in the same church
and town we had pretty much the same values. After we moved to Park Rapids and the children were in school we did agree that we wanted our kids to go to church with kids they knew in school. And that’s why we started going to Faith Baptist. And for the most part that worked out well. Discipline - grandpa was pretty much a “black and white” sort of person. If one of the kids was suppose to be home at, say, 11:00 he meant 11:00 not 11:05. Neither one of us was consistent though. I thought grandpa was too harsh and he thought I was too lenient. But our children turned out well and I see them saying and doing some of the things with their children that we did with ours.