Abstract

In this 2012 interview, Annette Sutherland describes her childhood living in Shaker Heights. Being one of the first students to volunteer to integrate Moreland School in Shaker in 1971, she grew up with a very open mind. She tells stories of activities she did as a child, involving Horseshoe Lake, Thornton Park, and Shaker Square, among others. As the current president of the school board, the importance of education, diversity, and tolerance are many recurring themes in her talk. She finishes with describing some of the current problems with Shaker Heights schools and neighborhoods, which she believes is a national problem as well as a local one.

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Interviewee

Sutherland, Annette Tucker (Interviewee)

Interviewer

Halligan-Taylor, Gabriella (interviewer)

Project

Shaker Heights Centennial

Date

6-12-2012

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

55 minutes

Transcript

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:00] Okay, first, go ahead and tell me your name.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:04] My name is Annette Tucker Sutherland.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:06] And where did you grow up?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:10] I grew up in Shaker Heights. My family moved here when I was entering first grade in 1964. Prior to that, we had lived briefly in East Cleveland when my father was a graduate student at Case, but we moved here from Philadelphia.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:26] Wow. You guy came a long way. What area in Shaker did you live?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:33] I grew up on Aberdeen until I was about, until I was finishing eighth grade. So approximately 1972–73, we moved to Torrington Road, and my parents stayed there for another 20 years. Then I lived away for 12 years, including college and graduate school and the beginning of my career. I moved back to Shaker Heights in 1989 and lived on Daleford Road, south of Chagrin. And now I live on Aldersyde. So I’ve lived in at least four different houses in Shaker Heights.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:09] Wow. Kind of all around the neighborhood. So, what was it like growing up in shaker in the ’60s?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:19] I enjoyed it. Obviously it was home because I came back. But I can I sort of freeform and just-

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:29] Oh, yeah, you can just go ahead.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:31] Okay.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:31] These are just base questions.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:33] My parents chose Shaker in 1964 because the realtors told them that if they cared, if their number one priority was public schools, they should look in Shaker Heights. And at that time, there was some turmoil in Shaker because of integration and the number of Black families who were seeking homes in Shaker. A Black family had just bought a house on Aberdeen, and my mother said that the neighbors were very pleased that white buyers were still interested in that street even though integration had begun there. They had some neighbors who we became aware as we were growing up, were very opposed to integration and moved away relatively quickly. But we were very comfortable with it. My parents had lived in Ghana, and I was actually born there when my father was teaching at a university there. And they felt as part of their faith that integration and that kind of outreach was really, really important. Plus, they’d had plenty of experience living with and interacting with people of other skin colors, and that did not make them uncomfortable. And I think that they were pleased that Shaker was going to be integrated because we sought more opportunities to have those experiences. For example, when I was growing up, my parents belonged to an inner-city church. We went down to 79th and Euclid to attend Calvary Presbyterian Church. And at that time, the church was kind of in transition. When it first was built, the Euclid Avenue millionaires were members. And at the time that we were members in the ’60s, most of the white members were from the Heights area, but they had a lot of outreach programs. Like Head Start was there. They started a housing corporation to help people with housing issues. So they were very active in the neighborhood. And the congregation was very mixed. And I grew up with that, very comfortable with that. And then when I was in fifth grade, confronted by increasing segregation of neighborhoods and home buying patterns, the schools decided to enter into a voluntary busing desegregation program. And friends of my parents, who, like them, were very involved in churches in this area, made a special outreach on the grounds of Christian faith and Christian principles. And my parents asked me if I would be willing to switch from Onaway school to Moreland School, which was in a predominantly Black neighborhood. And I was fine with that. I can’t remember if I just said okay or if I was excited about it, but it seemed very, I think I was excited. I was ready for a change. And a lot of really nice white kids were in my group of people who voluntarily switched. And it was a bit of a culture shock because some of the black kids were into music and had different family experiences than I was used to. But it worked very well. It was a great class. I had a wonderful teacher, and it was a great experience. Sixth grade was a highlight for me, and my younger siblings also switched schools eventually. I can’t remember if we all came over at once, but it was a family. I was one of four siblings, and we all participated in some way in the voluntary busing program.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:19] And you were the oldest?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:21] I was the oldest of four. Right.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:22] So that would have been ’69 then?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:24] I think it was ’69. I think it was actually ’70, ’71. Because I think my brother was born in ’71 when I was finishing sixth grade. Something like, I think that’s right.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:39] Tell me more about kind of the school experiences there. So you got there in sixth grade, so that’s junior high. Did you continue in that area for high school?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:48] Actually, at the time, Shaker schools were K through 6 in 9 different elementary school buildings. And that’s all been changed and reconfigured with smaller families and a slight decline in population in Shaker Heights. So I only had one year in the Moreland building. And then I went to the junior high that both Onaway and Moreland fed into. And at the time, Shaker had two junior highs that were grade six through nine. The other junior high was Byron. Woodbury had more black students, but at the time, I didn’t care. It wasn’t really something that I thought about. And you know, those things are controversial now. Well, I shouldn’t say those things. I support the decision of the district several years ago to reconfigure the buildings so that everybody is in the same building for grades 5 and 6 and then for grades 7 and 8, because there was a strong rivalry and there were feelings of us versus them between the two junior high schools at the time. And I think that intensified with some of the demographic changes that occurred in Shaker. So I think it was a good thing to put us all together in the same building, put all the students together in the same building before high school. And so now Woodbury is grades five through six for the entire district. And what used to be Byron Junior High School is now grade 7 and 8 or the Shaker Middle School for all the district. Growing up in Shaker, it was great. I thought, I always loved school. I had a number of great teachers. I had some who weren’t so great, but I think that’s just a normal part of any school experience, no matter public or private, no matter the community. I had some struggles in grades five and maybe other grades with some bullying and some negative peer issues. And again, I think that’s a very normal part of growing up. I thought at the time that I was getting a wonderful education, and I sought it for my own children when time to make that choice.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:08:27] Is that why you came back to Shaker? Because of the education?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:08:29] It was that and the fact that when my husband and I were looking for homes, he - when we married - he owned a house in University Heights, and he had grown up in all parochial schools all the way. So we weren’t sure what between us we were going to decide for our children. But I, the first thing that was a deciding factor for us was that Shaker was still enforcing very strong zoning regulations, and the quality of housing in Shaker was superior to anything that we looked at in Cleveland Heights. But I also was convinced that the Shaker schools were strong and that we would have a good choice if we were inclined to use public schools when our kids were old enough. When we moved here, we didn’t have any children yet.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:09:17] Right. Do you think kind of the history of Shaker schools is kind of led through to the future?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:09:25] Oh, absolutely. I just did some research on this. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m president of the school board. Okay. So I just gave a speech at commencement, and I struggled for weeks with what was the theme of my speech going to be. And I ended up settling on the Centennial. So I did a little bit of research on the history of the schools and went back to the North Union Society of the Shakers that had lived here prior to the Van Sweringen development. So I was excited to find out that the Shakers were very strong, of course, in the way they supported school. And I read that they built a school building in 1848 that was considered state of the art. And they were very enlightened about including music and natural history and a number of demanding subjects in their school program. And then I was excited to read that when Shaker schools began with the incorporation of the village in 1912, within five years they determined that college was essential and that every student from Shaker would be encouraged to go on to college and they would only hire teachers with college educations. So that was very, that was unique for the time. It was. And I think that set the theme for what Shaker is today and what we hope it will continue to be in the future.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:10:56] What exactly, you know, back in the ’60s and ’70s, and even now, Shaker schools is still very regarded. What set it apart back then? What sets it apart now? Is it the same? Is it different?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:11:09] Well, I remember when I was growing up, I thought that Shaker schools were probably superior to anything around us, with the possible exception of Cleveland Heights. We were very proud of sending a lot of students to Ivy League schools, sending a lot of students to college, having a lot of National Merit Scholars semifinalists. There was no one in the area who had the kinds of awards and bragging rights, let’s say, things genuine highlights for student achievement that they could point out. And yet I thought that Shaker was a little too, not integrated enough. I actually thought that Cleveland Heights was more diverse. And I thought when I was growing up that maybe I would eventually settle in Cleveland Heights for that reason, that I thought it was more diverse. Both communities have changed quite a bit since the ’70s. And I think Shaker has become more diverse in many good ways. Of course, we struggle with the poverty issue, but in terms of people’s backgrounds and nationalities and people coming from all over the globe, I think it’s a very interesting community. And I love that about Shaker Heights. In terms of the school system. I think a lot of other communities worked hard to offer competitive curriculum to encourage their students to go on to college. And so there are other communities that now have similar, let’s say, bragging rights in terms of student achievement and student futures. But I continue to hear from people in other communities that the lack of diversity is a real problem for their students, their children. That their kids do not know how to deal with people different from them. That they grow up in a bubble and they’re not as cosmopolitan or ready to deal with the real world as Shaker students can be. And also that sometimes they are so coddled that when they leave home and their own community and they go off to college, they can’t manage their own time. They can’t manage all the challenges of temptations. Time management. Okay, I already mentioned time management. So I continue to feel that we offer a really strong program, not just curriculum, but life skills. And I think that’s essential. And over and over again, I ask myself, am I making the right choice for my children?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:14:08] And I come back to feeling that, yeah, they are really prepared to deal with life. And part of that is being confronted with people who are really different from them in the neighborhood and in the schools.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:25] Being tolerant in their ways.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:14:27] Being tolerant, being sure of who they are and what their values are. Understanding that people different from them are not threatening or all negative, completely undesirable. Understanding how to get along with people like that, how to work with them, how to relate to them, how to just be friendly without being best friends if they. If there aren’t enough common points for a deeper friendship. And I think that’s really important.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:59] Right, right.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:15:03] I know I tend to be soft spoken. Oh, no, that’s okay.

[GHT readjusts recording microphone]

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:15:13] With the diversity of Shaker. I mean, obviously racial, you know, just with the history of the integration in the ’60s and even before that in ’56, do you think, does religious diversity help with that? Does cultural diversity, class diversity? How does that help the education system?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:15:40] I think that it’s extremely important to understand why things happen, why people behave the way they do. Why, to have a rounded perspective on why is our society the way it is. Why does government operate the way it does? Why are there certain patterns of human behavior? And to have a tolerance and an ability to move forward with people who are not just like you. And I think that all of that comes into play when those kids are together in the classroom or on the playground. And there’s no substitute. You can’t just talk about it. These kids live it. So I think that’s something that we don’t even realize we’re modeling. I mean, I’ve heard people say that teachers don’t always understand how much of what they’re teaching is not only the content, but who they are as people and as leaders, as classroom managers, that sort of thing. And it’s the same thing about your peers I think. I have one friend who I met because our kids were in kindergarten together, and she’s lived out of her car. She’s been homeless. She had an abusive husband who was ordered to pay child support when they divorced, who never paid her any child support. And we have kept in touch through the years, even though she keeps moving. And she’s told me over and over again how much she learned from me because I would say and do things that I didn’t even realize were modeling something that no one else in her life had ever modeled for her. And I’ve learned a lot from her, too. She’s a wonderful mother. She’s very intuitive about people. She is the rare person who can go outside of the way she was raised and her family culture and look for something different that might be better. And I’ve learned a tremendous amount from her about courage, about making new friends. And I value her friendship. But she illustrates for me the ways in which peer influence can be a learning experience and an important factor in shaping your worldview and your community that I might not have noticed otherwise.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:18:24] Right. Board of Education. How did you kind of, how did you get involved with that? You obviously had a passion, at a very young age for education and schooling, but how did you decide to kind of make that a career and come to Shaker?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:18:37] Well, I wouldn’t call it a career. The first time I moved back to Shaker In ’89, my sister and I bought a two-family house together, and that was the Delford Road south of Chagrin situation. And then when I married, I moved to University Heights, and then we needed a bigger house. We came back to Shaker, and I was an attorney working downtown. And Shaker was halfway between my husband’s job in Wickliffe and my job downtown. So I had a career that had nothing to do with the school board. The way I got involved in the school board is I wanted to be more involved in the community and I got involved in the Shaker League of Women Voters in part because they send observers to all public meetings and they put together a newsletter. And if you read that, you’re really pretty well informed about things that are happening in the community. And about that same time, I started paying more attention to what was going on in the schools because I was reading in the newspaper about children in Shaker schools who were not passing state proficiency tests. And I was very concerned about that. I didn’t understand how that could be possible. Once you become a parent and you see the range of what skills the kids bring to school and the range of parenting styles and family challenges. You really understand why there are some kids who are not doing well on those tests. But before my kids got into the schools, I was wondering. So I started going to school board meetings every now and then just to observe and to see if I could figure out what was going on. And the league, gosh, I’m trying to remember. First, I helped edit the newsletter, and I did that because before I went to law school, I was a newspaper paper editor and reporter. And that was a natural fit for me to help with a newsletter for the league. And then they tapped me to participate in two studies that the league did of school issues. One was a school levy for operating funds, and the other was a bond issue for capital needs. So I served with a group of other league members where we interviewed school, school officials, administrators. We looked at financial records, we looked at the need of the buildings for capital upgrades and maintenance, and we reported back to league members on whether we would recommend that the league support those ballot initiatives put on the ballot by the schools. In both cases, we did. And so through those activities, I became very aware of who were the leaders in Shaker and what their skill sets were and what kinds of, and what they thought the challenges and priorities were. And I wanted to be as involved as possible for the future of schools for my own children and my neighbors. I wanted my children to have a really good education. I wanted the school system and the communities still be strong when my children have children. And I thought that I could make a difference by getting involved to the point of serving on the school board. So eventually, eventually I ran. For a long time I didn’t think I would want to do it as a candidate, as a political activity. I still don’t enjoy that part of it, but I do very much enjoy being very involved. And all the research, all the conversations, all the meetings where I learn more about what’s happening with parents, with students, with the community, and trying to bring that back to good policymaking for the district.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:22:32] I gotta backtrack a little bit kind of on the broader spectrum of things. When you were growing up in Shaker, were you aware of kind of the history of Shaker? Did you have any idea about the Van Sweringens or?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:22:50] Oh, yeah. I remember studying it in third grade. I think the third graders in Shaker still study the history of their community, and they go back to, I don’t remember going back to Native Americans, but we definitely went back to the Shaker religious group. And the city’s, a little bit of the city’s history. I would hope They’re a little stronger in that now that the centennial’s around and everybody’s digging out more historical information about that part of the community’s history. Trying to think what I knew. I mean, everybody knew where the Van Sweringens had lived across from Horseshoe Lake. I think I was vaguely aware that the Van Sweringens did not want- That they- That they planned a community that would have different ranges of housing values so that people could live here through different, different stages of their own professional careers and their economic abilities. I don’t know that I was aware of the early discrimination against anybody who wasn’t a WASP. I don’t remember being aware of that. And we knew so many African American families who lived in Shaker. I’m not sure I was very aware that the Van Sweringens tried to prevent that, but I might have been. To me, that was, you know, I guess to me maybe that was ancient history. And to other people it was still a very real ongoing conflict. And I’ll give you another example of my attitudes there. When I went to Duke University. And I remember being absolutely shocked that people there would hang Dixie flags from their dorm windows, as if this was a mark of pride, because I thought that was ancient history and a mark of shame and a sign of racism. And I was shocked. So probably my worldview was a little different from a lot of other people growing up here.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:09] Was that, did you experience any discrimination by your peers when you went to college?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:25:14] At Duke? I did, yes.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:19] Did you receive any discrimination for being a pro-integration supporter?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:25:27] I don’t think there was anybody African American in my dorm. I remember feeling uncomfortable with the fact that there were so few African Americans on campus. My roommate happened to be Korean, of Korean heritage. She was raised in the States, but actually didn’t speak any English until she started kindergarten in the public schools in Virginia. And she and I used to hang around with the international students a lot. And so I sought ethnic diversity there. And I ended up with the beat on the college newspaper of race relations simply because I tended to be drawn to these stories. And I just, it just happened. And so I would bring African American students to my dorm room for interviews occasionally. And I became aware that other girls in the dorm were calling me a n—– lover. Again, I was shocked and thought that this was an appalling sign of ancient modes of thinking. And it meant that I didn’t want to live with those people if that was the way they felt.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:26:43] Were you ashamed of their attitudes?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:26:45] I was, yeah. And I didn’t change anything that I did. And I never knew exactly who would call me that. It just got repeated to me. So I didn’t go out of my way to talk to anybody and confront them about that kind of thing. But again, I didn’t change anything that I was doing. And eventually I moved out of the dorm because I didn’t, I couldn’t, I didn’t feel at home with people who had those attitudes.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:19] Were you aware, kind of post-climax of the Civil Rights movement, by the time you’re in college, because you were there in the ’70s?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:27:27] Yeah, late ’70s.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:29] I mean, did you still like, interact any, you know, like sit-ins or protests?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:27:34] Oh, yeah, yeah. I participated in some sit-ins and protests at Duke. I’m trying to remember what the issues were. I think some were related to race relations issues. I also was thrilled to be sent by the college newspaper to cover an anniversary of the Greensboro sit ins at the Woolworth counter. I’m trying to remember what the year was. ’81. So maybe the 20th anniversary of 1961, something like that.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:04] I think Greensboro was ’60, ’61.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:28:07] So, yeah, that was. It seemed very natural to me to be participating in demonstrations, although I don’t remember doing it in high school or here in Cleveland.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:23] Did you think Cleveland needed that though, or Shaker needed it?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:28:28] Well, I can imagine situations that we were around for that it might have called for. I mean, I suppose you could say I participated just by being in that very first group that voluntarily desegregated Moreland. We were here when Martin Luther King came to speak on the steps of Heights Christian Church up the block here. But we, that was shortly after we moved here. I don’t know if my parents were highly aware of what was going on there. I remember meeting Carl Stokes when he was running for mayor of Cleveland and he was the first African American mayor of a major metropolitan area. I shook his hand. I thought, okay. To me, it was no big deal. That’s how my parents treated it and that’s how I perceived it.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:29:20] I mean, it’s great. I love doing things like that and with the kind of no big deal attitude. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. It’s what you grew up around, you know, that’s where your parents, you know, raised you. Did you ever feel in the minority, you know, among other white people? Did you ever think about that?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:29:43] No. I really don’t remember feeling that I was different for that reason or that other people were not that comfortable. Nonetheless, by the time we got to high school, people really had segregated themselves. And I don’t want to use that in a racial way, that term segregated. But I always, at the time, I really perceived it as a matter of interests. I was taking AP courses and I was active in choir and theater. So there were far fewer African American students involved in those activities than in some of the other activities. So if I had wanted to be a cheerleader, I would have been more confronted with being different from my white peers because most of the cheerleaders at that time were African American. If I had wanted to be a basketball player or a volleyball player, I would have probably been more conscious of perhaps being in a minority. But to me, it was a difference between kids who wanted to work harder and kids who didn’t, whether they chose to be in AP courses or not. And I was not at the time athletic, so I didn’t worry about how integrated any particular athletic group or activity or club was. There were African American students involved in all of those things in choir and theater. And the AP courses that I took, they were again, more in the minority there than in other parts of school life. And we all went to the same parties and had social time together. I can’t remember a lot of interracial relationships, but there were some. And I didn’t think it was unusual or inappropriate.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:48] No big deal.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:31:49] It was no big deal.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:52] What kind of activities did you guys do around Shaker? Like, where did you guys go?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:31:58] Well, I biked a lot. I grew up on my bicycle and gosh, I can remember going with my friends to Horseshoe Lake for picnics, biking out to Chagrin Falls for a really challenging bike ride. My main activities were all in the community when I was growing up. That’s very different from today, where the parents get their kids, travel soccer and travel baseball. My own girls do Irish dance. That’s not a very Shaker activity. We’re all over the country for Irish dance activities and there’s hardly, there are quite a few actually Shaker students involved, but it’s not, it’s not big on the radar for most Shaker families. What were activities? You know, it just a lot of bicycling and low key stuff that kids could do on their own. My parents, I think, paid very little attention to what I was doing. You know, I was babysitting, I was spending time with school friends. We were always very involved in our church. So there were church youth group activities. And when I was in junior high, somewhere in there, my parents switched churches from the downtown church because they went to a suburban evangelical church because they thought it was really important that I be involved in a youth group. And the downtown church didn’t really have anything like that. And we also helped start a chapter of Young Life in Shaker. Do you know what Young Life is? It’s an interdenominational Christian youth group that is active on high school and college campuses. And my parents helped start that in Shaker. So. So I was involved in recruiting other students and we had meetings in people’s living rooms and we had to get school permission for some reason to, I guess to recruit at the school. And I can’t remember what the recruiting involved. I mean, I don’t remember anything very publicly overt because I’m sure I wouldn’t have wanted to participate in that. But we had meetings. We had like early prayer meetings at somebody’s house right across the street from the high school every now and then.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:34:24] Was that a nationwide group?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:34:26] Yeah. Oh, yeah, it’s international. Actually. Someone who was my youth group leader when I was in high school is now in London for Young Life.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:34:34] I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:34:36] I don’t know why either. I guess it never really took off to the way some other groups might have. Maybe it’s too tame. It’s not, I loved it because we would go away for weekends and do a lot of guitar singing and hiking in the woods. And it was always about fun and singing. And I really saw it as healthy, just a healthy and Christian outlet for kids. So I was involved in that. Again, my activities were. I’m trying to remember, what would I have put on my college applications? Yeah, I did a lot of musical theater and choir stuff and I worked on the literary magazine at school. So either church based or community school based.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:35:32] What kind of shows did you do at your high school?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:35:38] Well, while I was growing up, we did Guys and Dolls, Little Abner, Pajama Game. There’s got to be another one in there that I’m just not remembering. And rock operas were big. Tommy had just come out. So students would write shows and have an all student band and group of singers perform in it for senior projects. So that was something that I participated in as well.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:36:04] [inaudible]

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:36:09] You know, I was just reading someone’s commencement speech. It went viral. This guy in Wellesley, Massachusetts, who told the kids at his high school, you’re nothing special. And I was reading the speech because he talks about how there are, I don’t know, something like, I can’t remember the numbers, but thousands and thousands of people graduating from high school at the same time, and they’re all going off to college. Most of them are going off to college. And if you’re one in a million, then there’s 7,000 people just like you. And he was trying to say, you need to keep working at contributing to the world, et cetera. But just to give you where it was leading with this, I had, I had the lead a couple times in the musicals, and I went off to Duke and I’m going to an audition, and I find out that someone else auditioning had the very same role at her high school in the same show. And we’re both, you know, it’s a whole new level when you get to college. And that was a good wake up call for me. Painful but valuable.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:37:23] Oh, I completely understand. My original track was a theater major. And I realized when I got to CSU, I was like, I think I only did this because of my friends, because now I don’t have any friends and I’m not enjoying it. You know what I mean?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:37:33] Well, actually, I felt the same way. I didn’t like the theater group at Duke very much, so I didn’t participate.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:37:42] When I decided I liked other things, theater was just like a cherry on top, I guess.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:37:51] It’s a great experience. You know, it’s hard to make a living at it, so most people really shouldn’t pursue it. But it’s great experience.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:08] It tells me that I have two hours. Yeah, playing outside. I grew up there. One of my first shows I saw was Phantom of the Opera.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:38:24] I remember that. What’s that about?

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:27] Oh, you never seen the movie?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:38:29] No.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:29] Oh, there’s a movie. You should try it.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:38:31] It’s a free family opera?

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:32] Yeah.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:38:33] Okay.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:34] Phantom of the Opera. And it’s about basically, this young girl ends up getting this role at the Paris Opera House, and she’s coached by this, like, mysterious figure who is kind of in love with her. And it’s very like, that sounds like-

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:38:56] Well, it sounds like the Phantom of the Opera.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:38:58] Yeah. Yeah.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:39:00] Oh, oh, oh. I thought she said family. I’m sorry. Oh, yeah. No, actually, I did see Phantom of the Opera there a long time ago.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:39:09] I think last time it was here, it was like 2000, maybe 2001.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:39:13] Yeah. That is a wonderful show.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:39:16] I remember the one part where they pop up in different parts of the theatre and I was like, ahh.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:39:22] I love the music, too.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:39:23] Yeah. So, theater is a big part, and I’m glad to hear that theater in Shaker, the high school is doing really well. How have things changed? Particularly Shaker Square? What was it like back growing up?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:39:50] I think probably Shaker Square has been struggling as a retail center since people started really driving a lot. But When I was growing up, sometimes my friends and I would ride our bikes or take the Rapid to Shaker Square to hang out. When I was very young, there was a Stouffer’s restaurant there that was kind of prestigious, I guess, and people would go there for fancy meals. I can remember at some point when I was maybe in high school, they started having big festivals to bring people to the square. So they would have outdoor merchants and games and activities and clowns wandering around and stuff like that. I think the farmers market is a fabulous addition to what’s happening there. I’m trying to remember what else was going on at the square and why I would have gone. Well, of course, the Colony Theater. I’m sure I went there with my friends a lot.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:40:55] That seems to be popular. I keep hearing about that a lot.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:40:57] And the choir at the high school used to perform for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The show choir, not the whole choir. So those are things that drew us to the square. And I considered it a place to hang out.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:41:18] Just to walk around?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:41:21] Yeah, I can remember when my college roommate came to visit in the summer one time. My friends and I took her to lunch there. So it was part of growing up in Shaker.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:41:35] Would you say that it was kind of like the center of activity or more of a kind of…?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:41:41] I can’t think of, I don’t think there was any one center of activity when I was very young. The Chagrin Avalon, Lee Road area was more of my center. There was a store next to Nichols that sold craft supplies. And my friends and I would save our pennies and go there to buy earrings. And this film that came in a can. And you would bend the wire into a shape and you dip it in the film and then let it dry. You’d make flowers and stuff that way. So I can remember spending a lot of time and money there. And there was a dime store and a Baskin Robbins ice cream that we would go to a lot. There were bowling alleys, used to bowl with my friends. There was also a movie theater here at the corner of Kinsman and Lee Road. The Vogue. And that was there until I was in junior high, I think. There was also a very nice restaurant that I never went to. But I always thought it was a hoity toity expensive place. I think it was called Leo’s [Lee’s]. That was in that strip. So to me, that was a center for people who at least were in this general vicinity for whom that was an easy walk or bike ride. Shaker Square was another place that we could go to when I was a little bit older, I became more, and I always went to Thornton Park. I mean, actually, I should have mentioned that earlier. That was a big part of my summers.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:43:16] Thornton Park?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:43:17] Yeah, my friends and I met up there. I took swimming lessons there for many years. I took junior life saving there. That was a big part of summers growing up for me and a lot of my friends.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:43:36] Is that by Horseshoe Lake?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:43:38] No, Thornton park is keep going up Van Aken past Warrensville, and it’s on a hill. And I’m not sure if the hill is original or if they actually built it, but the pool is on top of that hill. And there it’s a really nice community recreation facility. It’s a little outdated when you compare it now to what some other communities have constructed, and that’s been a problem for it. But there’s a rink there also. And when I was in junior high, some of elementary school, I did a lot of ice skating up there in the winters. So those were community centers, I think, for a lot of kids growing up in Shaker.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:44:30] How has it kind of changed? Like, has it gone through, when you came back here in ’89, you said?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:43:33] Yeah.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:44:34] Like, how did it change when you came back initially and then how has it changed 20 years later?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:44:45] Well, certainly the kinds of people who live in some neighborhoods has changed a fair amount. And it’s hard for me to really compare because I don’t know how outgoing some people or types of people were in terms of wanting to be neighborly, wanting to interact with their neighbors. I hear terrible stories sometimes from the African American people of my generation of buying a house and moving in and having a child in the neighborhood say, well, I’m not allowed to play with you. So that’s a very negative thing that I didn’t see see as a child, but that was happening. And my own children had experiences where they tried to play with kids from other neighborhoods. And then we’d invite them repeatedly to our home, for example, and the mother would never call me back. There would be no reply to the invitations. Birthday parties are different, were a different experience for my kids because literally there would be people who never RSVP’d and who would show up at the party and you’d think, okay, I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t planning. I had everything counted. And here you are. Come in, come in. But now what do I do? So some of those cultural things are tough to deal with in a very practical sense, but I don’t have a full understanding of how different that is now. From when I was growing up. I would say, my mother tells me that when they had an open house in the evening at the schools when we were growing up, everybody came, all the parents were there, and they all enjoyed seeing each other and interacting. Now it’s far more sparsely attended. It’s much more upper middle class, much more predominantly the white parents. And that’s very sad to me. Very sad. And I know there’s a lot of reasons. It can be work demands, it can be comfort level, whether people feel comfortable. It can be the fact that I once had a parent call me and apologize because I’d sent home a flyer asking for parent help on something, and she found it under the couch three months later. Because, you know, things, people are busy and I don’t clean under my couch very often. And this poor mother realized that, you know, things, communication was not working the way it should have. So there’s lots of reasons for the differences that we see in attendance at different events. But I think part of it is that people tend to reach out within their own comfort zone. And I can tell you that there were times when, as a young parent at Fernway Elementary School, I felt like I wasn’t part of the inner circle of the PTA, which is now called the PTO. And if I felt that way, then how would people who were brand new to Shaker Heights or people who had never single parents who were working two jobs, or, you know, people who had never been active in their school community, they must have felt even much more disenfranchised than I did.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:48:32] Especially you, being from Shaker and being raised in Shaker.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:48:34] And, you know, feeling competent and confident with some aspects of my life, we all have our own insecurities, so I struggle with that. How do we do it better? Over and over again, though, I choose to live in Shaker, where we’re trying to do that, instead of places where we don’t. I would rather be, I mean, that’s my motto. I would rather be part of the solution than part of the problem. And by staying here and working on it, I hope that I’m part of the solution that I think our whole nation needs to find.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:49:14] Right. I was just going to ask you, do you think that’s, you know, this kind of, I guess you could call it classism, you know, at a certain level?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:49:22] Oh, yeah, definitely.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:49:24] I was just going to ask you if that’s a Shaker problem or modern American problem, you know?

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:49:27] It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. And again, we work on it here, and we’re not perfect, but at least we’re trying. I recently had a very interesting discussion with a couple that I met at a program at the library. And they had both grown up in, well, in other places and chosen to live in Shaker, but then chosen not to use the public schools. And they were African American physicians. So I said, why did you send your son to US instead of to Shaker? And the answer was, first of all, she was a bit of a tiger mom, I guess, very ambitious for her son and very, very intentional about steering her son’s future. So for example, she told me that she called Harvard and got their application when her son was in elementary school so she could study what they were looking for and to make sure that her son was a well rounded student who had charitable experiences and travel experiences and volunteerism and all the things that she thought would be important on that kind of college application someday. But her number one screening activity was to call Shaker High School and ask, how many African Americans do you have earning National Merit Scholarships? Well, there were none. And so she immediately rejected the public school for that. She thought that there wouldn’t be enough focus on her child. There wouldn’t be enough pressure or expectation, I guess. And her son had done extremely well in school. She recited some of his accomplishments. He obviously did very well. But she said to me, I only had one chance with my son. And some relative had raised a son in Shaker and he had not done well. And she didn’t want to make any mistakes and she didn’t want to take any risks. And I understand people, of course, we all want the best for our children. But wasn’t she expressing a fear that almost any parent could express as the reason for not using public schools or the reason for not choosing to live in an integrated suburb? And therefore, isn’t there a risk to the entire community or our country if people over and over again choose not to take any risks, not to choose for their children something that wasn’t absolutely safe and preordained to be selective and elitist. And that’s a problem. I think that’s a problem.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:52:30] Because you won’t go anywhere.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:52:32] Yeah. You can’t just keep moving away from challenges and problems. I think that’s part of what’s going on with economic segregation in our country. And it’s not solving anything, it’s just making things worse. And you see it also, I think, in partisan politics that people, people are afraid of what’s not like them.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:52:55] People seek other people who are in their own bubble of ways of thinking and they don’t want to compromise and they just want things their way and it’s just not going to work. Society can’t function that way.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:09] Partisan politics right now is kind of failing miserably right now, I think.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:53:10] I agree.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:11] Because there is, people are afraid to say the C word. Compromise. No one wants to compromise and it’s a shame. I think that’s why we haven’t seen any really economic policy passed, because no one wants to take a risk and no one wants to compromise. So that’s why it’s not getting better.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:53:36] Yeah, yeah. So sometimes I think, okay, I just have to leave the country.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:44] Right? Well, it’s amazing looking at other countries and how, especially in countries with parliament systems. How many countries have, you know, have combined. Oh, what’s the word? Have combined. Like two parties meeting.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:04] Oh

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:05] What’s the word? I can’t think of it.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:06] Yeah, coalition governments.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:08] Thank you.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:09] Okay.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:09] Yeah, part of the coalition. And in Great Britain, it’s a Liberal Party.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:13] Yeah. Well, five years ago.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:15] The liberals are part of a coalitions and the Conservatives, they’re both working together and I was like, why can’t our Republicans invite-

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:20] Five years ago, I was saying, America needs a third party. And what did we get? We got the Tea Party. That was the wrong third party.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:28] We need like a middle, like a centrist.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:31] I was thinking about the Green Party, maybe the Socialists, but that raises all sorts of specters for fear in people.

Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:54:35] Can’t say socialism. I think we’re out of time.

Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:54:46] Okay. Yeah. That’s about two. Did we get through your list?

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