Abstract

Barbara Shockey, a member of Village Garden Club since 1992, moved from South Bend, Indiana, to Cleveland Heights in the late 1950s. She discusses her careers in teaching and real estate, offices held in the garden club, and her work to research the club’s history in preparation for its 85th anniversary in 2015. Shockey provides a summary of this history from its founding, including extensive commentary on the Shaker Lakes freeway fight in the 1960s, as well as on the Horseshoe Lake dam controversy and the club’s remote activities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Interviewee

Shockey, Barbara (interviewee)

Interviewer

Cameron, Caitlen (interviewer)

Project

Shaker Heights Historical Society

Date

7-13-2021

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

57 minutes

Transcript

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:00] Alright. Today is July 13, 2021. It is a little cloudy out and might rain. We are in Cleveland Heights. I am Caitlen Cameron with the Shaker Historical Society. And I am with...

Barbara Shockey [00:00:16] Barbara Shockey, B-A-R-B-A-R-A S-H-O-C-K-E-Y, with the Village Garden Club.

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:26] Woohoo! So, Barbara, I kind of just want to ask and start with some basic questions, but before that, I want to ask you, are you okay with me recording this conversation?

Barbara Shockey [00:00:35] Yes, I am.

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:35] Okay, and it will be on the record to listen for ages to come. Are you excited?

Barbara Shockey [00:00:41] A little frightened. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:43] That's okay. I would be, too. But we're going to start this and I guess so, when were you born?

Barbara Shockey [00:00:49] I was born in July [...] 1946. So I have a birthday in two days.

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:57] Oh, my gosh. Well, happy early birthday.

Barbara Shockey [00:00:59] Thank you. And yeah, I was.

Caitlen Cameron [00:01:02] How old will you be?

Barbara Shockey [00:01:04] Seventy-five.

Caitlen Cameron [00:01:06] That's amazing and really great. So where were you born?

Barbara Shockey [00:01:11] I was born in Springfield, Missouri, although I never really lived there. My mother went home to her mother's house, my grandparents’ house in Springfield, Missouri, to have me because my dad was a pilot with United Airlines early pilot back in the '40s after World War Two ended. And he had been teaching the cadets to fly in the Army Air Corps. He worked for United and they were always flying. And it was she couldn't count on him being home when she went into labor, so she went back home.

Caitlen Cameron [00:01:47] Okay, so where was home?

Barbara Shockey [00:01:50] So home was the first year or two, as I have been told, we lived in New York City and Chicago because that was those were the main hubs of United. And I guess for a few months I lived in a drawer in a hotel. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:02:09] Really?

Barbara Shockey [00:02:10] Yeah. That's where my little little crib was when I was an infant, not infant, but, you know, very, very young. And so that was their favorite story. I got pulled out of a dresser drawer. So that became a safe place for a baby.

Caitlen Cameron [00:02:27] Well, that's crazy but also inspiring at the same.

Barbara Shockey [00:02:31] Yeah. Resourceful anyway. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:02:34] Yeah. And a funny story too. So you grew up there.

Barbara Shockey [00:02:40] Well, and then Chicago... I lived there until I was in kindergarten. Then we moved to South Bend, Indiana, because Dad left United and worked for Studebaker and headed up the flight department there and moved from South Bend to Cleveland. When I was in the sixth grade and Dad worked for Diamond Shamrock Corporation, headed up the flight department for that corporation. And I have been in Cleveland ever since. So Cleveland is really home, although I have some wonderful years growing up in South Bend as my as in elementary school, I had a great time.

Caitlen Cameron [00:03:24] Okay, so when you when you moved here, did you stay here and go to school? Did you go to school somewhere else?

Barbara Shockey [00:03:32] No, I stayed here. We rented a house in Euclid for the first year and so we know where we wanted to live. And then we moved to Cleveland Heights. I ended up going to Cleveland Heights High School. I, when I got married, moved to Shaker and lived in Shaker from oh, in the sixties, late sixties, '68 I guess, to '74. And then I got remarried and moved to Cleveland Heights and I've been in the same house for almost forty-eight years now.

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:12] I know. And this is a beautiful, beautiful house.

Barbara Shockey [00:04:15] Thank you. I do love it. Although it's probably time to scale down.

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:21] Yeah. How many rooms are in here?

Barbara Shockey [00:04:25] Oh my. Well, it's really just a big small house.

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:27] Big small house.

Barbara Shockey [00:04:28] I mean there's a lot of rooms on the first floor, but upstairs we have really three main bedrooms and two maid's rooms.

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:34] Okay.

Barbara Shockey [00:04:35] So it's not a big family house, but we have quite a few rooms on the first floor.

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:41] Yeah, it's definitely beautiful. And you can tell you're in the Garden Club because of all the plants on the walls [Barbara laughs] and on the floor and everywhere. It’s amazing.

Barbara Shockey [00:04:50] Don't look too close. There may be a few weeds. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:04:55] That's okay. So you said you live here, your husband. Do you have any children?

Barbara Shockey [00:04:59] Yes, we've raised three children here and I have all three of them are sons and of various ages. And the oldest is fifty-six or seven. And the youngest will be thirty-five this Thursday because he was born on my birthday.

Caitlen Cameron [00:05:19] Oh yeah. Similar birthday. That's cool.

Barbara Shockey [00:05:20] Yeah. Yeah. So that's the family and it's been a great family house for us.

Caitlen Cameron [00:05:26] That's great. Well, I guess, so you lived in Shaker and then in Cleveland Heights. So what did you do for a living? And did you go to college?

Barbara Shockey [00:05:39] Oh yeah. Okay, college was, well let me, let me start with what I did for a living here. Well, I taught nursery school when I was probably 18, 19, and then when I turned 21 I got my real estate license. That was the youngest in Ohio that you could do that. I think they've lowered it since then, but anyway, I have done throughout my life some aspect of real estate, either real estate, residential sales, became a broker in 1977, went on to study real estate appraisal, got a designation and a state license with appraisal did that. And then I worked for Ossendorf-Morris Co. as an appraiser and then Diamond Shamrock wanted me to work with them on employee relocation and later office leasing industrial facility management. So I stayed corporate until that corporation left Cleveland in '84. Worked for Standard Oil for a while when they built their new building. Then I went back to appraisal because I had a late in life child and said I want to go home. So I came home and worked on my appraisal as an independent appraiser and then I realized I really belonged in sales. So we went back into residential sales, which is what I started in [crosstalk] when I was 21. Yeah, full circle. So and I still do some residential sales with a partner. I had my own company for a while, but decided travel was too important to be a Lone Ranger.

Caitlen Cameron [00:07:31] So that's cool.

Barbara Shockey [00:07:32] Yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:07:32] That's a really esteemed career and really amazing that you accomplished all that and, you know, it really shows in your progress. So, yeah,

Barbara Shockey [00:07:41] I've had a interesting career, that is for sure.

Caitlen Cameron [00:07:45] So you said you did go to college?

Barbara Shockey [00:07:48] Yes, I started out at Cleveland State at night.

Caitlen Cameron [00:07:52] Woohoo, my alma mater.

Barbara Shockey [00:07:53] Okay. And then when I married Terry, he had family affiliations and his own affiliation with Case Western Reserve. And he said, would you want to transfer? And I, of course, went yes, because they had a wonderful theater program and I thought I might major in theater. But he said, you know, you might want to major [laughs] in something that you can earn a living if you need to! And he didn't like the hours of theater very much, so I minored in theater. I compromised and majored in economics and had a second minor in managerial studies.

Caitlen Cameron [00:08:31] Wow.

Barbara Shockey [00:08:31] So I did get my... I was just shy of thirty years old when I got my BA.

Caitlen Cameron [00:08:39] Wow.

Barbara Shockey [00:08:40] Yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:08:41] So what was your dream? If you wouldn't have done theater as a major, what would you wanted to do?

Barbara Shockey [00:08:47] Oh, that's a very good question. Hmm. Well, you know, back in the '70s when I was thinking this theater, I mean, live theater was probably what I was planning to do. But of course, TV or movies would always be a dream. I've always admired Lucille Ball.

Caitlen Cameron [00:09:12] Yes.

Barbara Shockey [00:09:13] And just I like comedy. And, you know, I just thought, well, we'll find a fit. But so I use my theater to just do more public speaking.

Caitlen Cameron [00:09:25] See, now you're on the public microphone again, [Barbara laughs] so maybe it's another full circle.

Barbara Shockey [00:09:30] I don't know, this is uncomfortable! [laughs] I have to get used to this.

Caitlen Cameron [00:09:35] Just use your training from before.

Barbara Shockey [00:09:37] Okay. I'll try. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:09:40] Well that's great, so I kind of, I guess I just want to highlight on... So you went to school and you had this great real estate career. I guess what I want to know is how did you get involved with gardening?

Barbara Shockey [00:09:56] Okay.

Caitlen Cameron [00:09:56] Like, did you garden as a kid or...?

Barbara Shockey [00:09:59] Actually, no. My memories of anything garden-related as a child involved probably when we were four years old, a bunch of us went into a neighbor's yard and there was a couple, several beautiful red tomatoes, and we each picked one. It was a hot summer day and we probably hid behind the, I don't know, behind the garage somewhere and started eating these tomatoes and sucking the juice out of every section and thinking it was the most glorious thing we ever tasted. And then I'm realizing somebody grew this from nothing. I mean, it was like a miracle.

Caitlen Cameron [00:10:46] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:10:46] You know, it just did not come from the store! [laughs] I was like, shocked. And of course, then guilt set in after that. And I thought, oh, this was not a good thing. And so we didn't, didn't pull that stunt again. Then there was another moment in my memory of another neighbor. Now, my mother was not a gardener, but some of the neighbors were, and this woman had dug this hole and I watched her. And again, I was maybe four or five years old at the most, and she filled it with water, just turned on the hose and filled the hole with water. And then she put what I what I think was a rose bush in this hole and then filled it in with dirt. And I thought that was amazing. All that water where did it go? [laughs] And she, that was how it is really pretty much how you are supposed to plant some of these things is fill the hole with water.

Caitlen Cameron [00:11:43] Really?

Barbara Shockey [00:11:44] Yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:11:45] I've never heard it done that way.

Barbara Shockey [00:11:46] Okay, there you go. [laughs] So. Well, I doubt... Some of my garden club members are probably saying, oh, what does she know? So... [laughs] and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you fill that hole with water. Also, you can time how long it takes the hole to absorb the water...

Caitlen Cameron [00:12:05] Oh.

Barbara Shockey [00:12:05] And that'll tell you a lot about your soil. So that's a whole other chapter, which I don't know enough about to teach. so. So anyway, that and then I guess my third and last memory was being back at my grandmother's house in Springfield during the summer and playing hide and seek and hiding what I think must have been a garden filled with some roses. And I remember smelling the most glorious smell and I don't know what kind. I think it's roses. But to this day, if I'm in a room with that smell, I'm back at my grandmother's.

Caitlen Cameron [00:12:45] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:12:45] It's kind of a fun moment on memories. So that's my gardening experience. I ended up joining the Garden Club, the Village Garden Club, because it really came through my involvement with the Cleveland Yale Ball. My husband was a Yalie or is a Yalie and we were involved in the Yale Ball and there were several other men that were Yalies and their wives were Garden Club members. And it was Anne Gardiner and Anne Stevens. And they cornered me and said, we want to propose you for this garden club. Well, I knew nothing. You know, I thought well, I thought, you know, it would be kind of fun because my whole career has been male dominated. I was the first female appraiser, the first non-clerical in wherever I was working.

Caitlen Cameron [00:13:42] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:13:42] And so it was kind of lonely. I didn't really have a chance to get to be around women.

Caitlen Cameron [00:13:47] Mhm.

Barbara Shockey [00:13:48] And I thought probably time I did that. So I joined the Garden Club and at that time I did not have a clue that we had a Cherry Tree Grove.

Caitlen Cameron [00:14:00] Really?

Barbara Shockey [00:14:00] No, they didn't back then. They weren't really. At least my proposers were more interested in the fact that I had a big house and could probably host meetings. [laughs].

Caitlen Cameron [00:14:10] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:14:11] So I think that was my qualification. [laughs] But I ended up joining the club and still working pretty much full time. So I was often not available. I would be able to stop in for the luncheon and then maybe sneak out while the program was underway. So I had minimal involvement for for some years.

Caitlen Cameron [00:14:31] And then what year did you join?

Barbara Shockey [00:14:33] Oh, in 1992.

Caitlen Cameron [00:14:33] '92. Okay.

Barbara Shockey [00:14:33] Yeah. So, and I had no ambition to get deeply involved in the club until one day I was at a meeting and it, it just didn't seem to go too well. It wasn't a whole lot of organization and I finally just kind of shook my head and said I think it's time to get involved. [laughs] So I volunteered to do some leadership if they needed me.

Caitlen Cameron [00:15:06] Okay. Well, what do you think the first thing that you volunteered for was?

Barbara Shockey [00:15:13] As it turns out, they put me as Vice President.

Caitlen Cameron [00:15:16] Right away?

Barbara Shockey [00:15:16] Yes! [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:15:16] Wow.

Barbara Shockey [00:15:16] Yes! [ well, I told them I would be lousy at recording secretary and I didn't see myself as Corresponding Secretary. And those were really the only other positions offered and totally not knowing what I was doing. I said, sure, I'll be the Vice President.

Caitlen Cameron [00:15:37] Wow, were you still working full time?

Barbara Shockey [00:15:39] No. At that point I'd gone back into residential sales. So in residential sales, you're working. When the client wants you, you can have a couple of weeks where you don't have a lot to do. And if you get an out-of-town client, you were on. You know, you go when they want you. So there was just not predictable, but it worked out, it worked out. And by the time I became really involved as a Vice President, I had more control because I took on a partner. So it worked out. But you had to sort of get to that point.

Caitlen Cameron [00:16:18] So as Vice President, what were your duties? I guess is what...

Barbara Shockey [00:16:23] Well, it wasn't terribly defined at the time. I think it's better defined now. We've sort of tightened up some bylaws, but it was basically to do anything the President needed.

Caitlen Cameron [00:16:37] Mhm.

Barbara Shockey [00:16:38] Yeah, I was sort of the right-hand gal on that. But as it turns out, I thought we were about to have our 85th anniversary and at that time we didn't have a lot of extra money in the bank for a party or some big event. And we were trying to scratch our heads. What, what can we do special? And I came up with this marvelous idea that I would research the history of the club and at every meeting I would spend about five minutes giving a little snippet of our history.

Caitlen Cameron [00:17:19] Mhm.

Barbara Shockey [00:17:19] And I thought this would be easy. [laughs] It was anything but easy. I then got all the archives from Mickey Horner, who was moving from her house in Shaker out to a retirement facility, and she was delighted to get rid of them... [laughs].

Caitlen Cameron [00:17:38] Pass on the torch.

Barbara Shockey [00:17:40] Yeah. Because they were filling a whole closet. I mean, it was we had... We were fortunate. Village had a lot of archives. I just couldn't believe how many boxes and scrapbooks and minutes, boxes of minutes from years and years and years. So I brought them all home and I proceeded to start to read them and I started to say, Okay, I'm going to take the decade of the '30s, so I would concentrate on that. And then each decade. And really didn't do much past the '60s where we had the freeway fight. I concentrated from the '30s to the '60s, but it did two things. One, it educated our members because really none of us knew much of what I was learning and I learned a whole lot.

Caitlen Cameron [00:18:32] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:18:33] And I became so involved with the charter members reading their minutes firsthand and in the in their words. And then I recall well, Mrs. George Marshall was our first President and she had her first board. And there was a Mrs. Driver that I could tell was her good friend and right arm gal. Just you could just read it in her. They were counting on each other. And later on in the scrapbook, I read that Mrs. Driver died and I was like, oh, my God, she died.

Caitlen Cameron [00:19:15] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:19:16] And then I'm going, well, of course she died. [laughs] What were you thinking? She died, I think in the '50s or, you know, whenever. But I was reading it for the first time after feeling like she was alive.

Caitlen Cameron [00:19:28] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:19:28] And so it really was quite a wake up call for me. And I began to love our history.

Caitlen Cameron [00:19:34] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:19:34] And go on to...

Caitlen Cameron [00:19:37] You got to really experience their lives and you got to understand what they were going through.

Barbara Shockey [00:19:42] I did. Yeah, I think I did. I felt like I was right there at the table with them and I would take these minutes to bed and I'm reading them like a book. I mean, it was really quite interesting. In fact, the the Historical Society did a display of our archives, I think it was two years ago. And as a result, our archives are now being transferred and categorized at the Shaker Library. So we're very pleased with that.

Caitlen Cameron [00:20:15] Yeah, I've looked into them a little bit and it's a really great progress. So looking back at those first minutes, do you remember why they started the Garden Club or what was the push?

Barbara Shockey [00:20:29] Well, okay, the story that I take away from this is it was in January of 1930. Now we have to remember we've just had the stock market crash of the '20s and there were some other garden clubs that were started in the '20s that were fairly active in our Heights community. And so these women wanted to be their own club and they needed a purpose, and that was the thing that really impressed me. They decided they did not want to be a club that just had meetings and speakers like often times is the case with garden clubs or was at the time. And they wanted to have a purpose, a mission. But, they also realized that some of the other earlier clubs did beautify the Shaker Lakes. This was an overall theme with clubs back at that, in the '20s and '30s and up to World War Two really, was taking on different projects at the Lower Lake or Horseshoe Lake. And so we decided Horseshoe Lake, and our president, Mrs. George Marshall, we didn't use ladies first names back then, you know, so we just didn't and, or they didn't, and so we don't. Anyway. She had recently gone to Washington, D.C. and fell in love with the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin. And it… you can kind of draw the conclusion that she helped steer the mission from General Shaker Lakes to cherry trees. And that's what we did. And we have held fast to that. Now, we don't just do cherry trees and we're doing more native and other flowering trees. But our mission is still flowering trees to beautify the Horseshoe Lake region. We concentrated on Horseshoe Lake and we used to do both the Cleveland Heights side and the Shaker Heights side. And probably in the 1950s we decided to give up on the Cleveland Heights side because they were not mowing like we thought they should. [laughs] So we went to the Shaker side and that's where we are today.

Caitlen Cameron [00:23:07] Okay. So how did they get. Because cherry trees aren't native to this area...

Barbara Shockey [00:23:12] Right.

Caitlen Cameron [00:23:12] Right? How did they get an unnative tree to this...?

Barbara Shockey [00:23:18] Well, back back then, there wasn't really much thought to native or invasive...

Caitlen Cameron [00:23:22] Okay.

Barbara Shockey [00:23:23] And it was just the idea that they were beautiful. But it fast became evident that they were fragile and we lost many of them in the winters. And the one record shows there was a grass fire...

Caitlen Cameron [00:23:40] Oh my gosh.

Barbara Shockey [00:23:41] And well, the Shaker Lakes weren't groomed like they are now. They were just woods and unkempt. And so it was tough. I mean, they would it would harbor disease for the trees. So that's again why we went to Shaker, because they were mowing and doing a little more care. But back in the early, you know, well before World War Two, I mean, this was, I don't, I don't think there was a lot of value placed on urban space like there is today, because there were a million empty lots and new construction and all different growth that went on in the '50s that, you know, we had wide open spaces then.

Caitlen Cameron [00:24:28] Yeah, industry kind of boomed as time went on.

Barbara Shockey [00:24:31] Yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:24:31] People built it built up bigger houses because they were making more money eventually.

Barbara Shockey [00:24:36] Yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:24:36] And things definitely grew.

Barbara Shockey [00:24:39] Yeah. So all of a sudden today we really value the Shaker Lakes. People are aware of how many people get in their car and drive here to walk and enjoy nature. And of course the Nature Center's a whole subject right there.

Caitlen Cameron [00:24:54] Yeah. So when they started the Garden Club, the Nature Center didn't exist.

Barbara Shockey [00:24:59] No, no. Our Garden Club started in 1930. We had a collection of other garden clubs that were already doing little well, like the Shaker Lakes Garden Club had a garden down at the lower end of Shaker, well the Lover's Lane, and of Shaker Lakes by Coventry. There was a collection of them which I won't even go into right now because it take too long.

Caitlen Cameron [00:25:27] That's okay.

Barbara Shockey [00:25:27] But we joined that. And now where were we going with that question? I don't remember. So. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:25:37] That's okay. The park and the Nature Center.

Barbara Shockey [00:25:41] Okay, well, yeah. Alright. So we... What happened was in 1964, George, no Frank Porter [sic; Albert Porter] was an urban planner I think with the City of Cleveland. And back in that era highways were the big deal, we needed freeways everywhere to connect the system, and he wanted to build his freeway right through the Shaker Lakes, and that's when the garden clubs were totally up in arms and decided this had to be stopped. And they were very much a part of a grassroots effort that included everything from Boy Scouts, Kiwanis, governments, the cities. It was an amazing group. But the Garden Club, as a coalition started what was called the Park Conservation Committee. And the Village is very proud to say that the President of that coalition was Mary Elizabeth Croxton, who was a Village member. So we had a very sizable part of this project. And it was just so with that... Oh, gosh, that's such a complicated story to say in a few words. The Nature Center came about as a result of an order by largely as a result of an autobahn study that helped. It was funded, I think, in part by the Shaker Lakes Garden Club. And they recommended that there be a Nature Center there. And that was one step towards blocking the freeway.

Caitlen Cameron [00:27:33] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:27:34] And it took a few more steps and designations. And we had the Secretary of the Interior come to Cleveland and walk around the Shaker Lakes, and it was about a five year process with some of our members went to Washington, D.C. and talked there with people. So, yeah, I mean, there's just there's a whole a whole hour of conversation [laughs] on the '60s.

Caitlen Cameron [00:28:05] Do you remember the main people that went to Washington, D.C.?

Barbara Shockey [00:28:09] Well, yeah, it was a Mary Elizabeth Croxton, Jean Eakin—or Eakin [guesses at pronunciation], you can, Eakin, Eakin, I'm not quite sure which how she would have pronounced it—and Kay Fuller, the three from Village. Now, there might have been some others. I know the first President of the Nature Center was what was her name? I just had it. She was a member of Shaker Lakes Garden Club and she was a friend of mine in real estate. Yes. And I can't think of her name at the moment, but she was the first President for the Shaker Lakes. I mean, for the Nature Center.

Caitlen Cameron [00:28:53] If you remember it...

Barbara Shockey [00:28:54] I'll throw that in. Betty Miller.

Caitlen Cameron [00:28:57] Betty Miller.

Barbara Shockey [00:28:58] Betty Miller. I knew I was close. [laughs]

Caitlen Cameron [00:29:02] Well, that's cool. How did you know her in resl estate? Was she a competitor or was she a friend?

Barbara Shockey [00:29:06] Well, we're all competitors and all friends... [laughs].

Caitlen Cameron [00:29:09] True, yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:29:10] So, 'cause we're independent contractors, basically. But no Betty was, I think also with the company that at that time it was A. B. Smythe and which turned into, let's see, Smythe Cramer, which turned into Howard Hanna. They keep merging and changing names. But, you know, I was so young when I joined.

Caitlen Cameron [00:29:36] Mhm.

Barbara Shockey [00:29:37] Betty Miller was one of the more seasoned agents and who I looked up to. And so I remembered her very well.

Caitlen Cameron [00:29:45] That's great. See, that's amazing that you actually knew people that were involved...

Barbara Shockey [00:29:48] Mhm.

Caitlen Cameron [00:29:49] With it. And did any of them tell you stories from that experience at all?

Barbara Shockey [00:29:57] Unfortunately, I didn't really discuss it with Betty. I wished we had before she died. I know Kate Fuller, who was part of the Washington trip, and also put together some pamphlets that they kept in Washington. Some of them we didn't get back apparently.

Caitlen Cameron [00:30:16] Oh, geez!

Barbara Shockey [00:30:17] Yeah, I know, so. And Kay I knew. I did not know Mary Elizabeth Croxton. She died before I knew her. I know she lived just down the street on North Park.

Caitlen Cameron [00:30:31] Okay, wow.

Barbara Shockey [00:30:33] And then same with Jean Eakin. I knew of her. I didn't really know her but I have to say these, these were courageous women because if you realize in that in the 1960s women could not even get a credit card in their own name.

Caitlen Cameron [00:30:53] Yeah.

Barbara Shockey [00:30:53] I mean it was a very different era. And for us to start picketing, you know, basically or setting up a, you know, a little booth at Shaker Square and saying sign this petition and really coming out of the, out of the kitchens and out of the gardens and going to try to save our our Shaker Lakes, it was really, it's quite a grassroots story.

Caitlen Cameron [00:31:41] Definitely a feat. Do you know if there, like I so I know women were kind of like suppressed back then kinda told sit down be quiet, right? Do you know if like any of these women had problems? Like with their families or stuff like that? During this time because they were taking a stand.

Barbara Shockey [00:31:41] You know, not that I'm aware of. There might have been a few words behind closed doors. [laughs] You know, there certainly could have been. But I think people were saying, well, I think all of the community was behind what we were trying to do. So both the men and the women were absolutely against this freeway and what it would do to both Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. And the men were traditionally working and didn't have the time. So I think

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