Abstract
In this interview, Celestine Beasley describes her experiences growing up in a sharecropper family in rural Mississippi, migrating to Cleveland's Cedar-Central neighborhood, and her career as a nurse at Mount Sinai. The interview also relates information about race, farming, food culture, and cuisine.
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Interviewee
Beasley, Celestine (interviewee)
Interviewer
Lee, Lauren (interviewer)
Project
History 304
Date
4-27-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
81 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Celestine Beasley interview, 27 April 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 304013.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/839
Transcript
Emma Yanoshik Wing [00:00:00] Say a couple of words into the microphone. Where did you come in from today? What part of Cleveland do you live in?
Celestine Beasley [00:00:07] Richmond Heights.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [00:00:11] Did you hit any traffic or was it easy to get in here?
Celestine Beasley [00:00:14] It was very easy. Wasn't much traffic.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [00:00:16] Oh, that's good. I think you could probably start.
Lauren Lee [00:00:22] Okay, this is Lauren Lee interviewing Celestine Beasley on April 27, 2006, at Cleveland State University as a part of the Euclid Corridor Project. Can you state your name and when and where you were born?
Celestine Beasley [00:00:42] Celestine Beasley. I was born in Yazoo, Mississippi. That's about 50 miles from Jackson, Mississippi. I was born November 16, 1920.
Lauren Lee [00:00:59] Tell me about growing up in the South.
Celestine Beasley [00:01:03] Well, it was 12 of us. My mom had 12 children, six girls and six boys. I was the fourth in March, fourth child. We was farmers.
Lauren Lee [00:01:31] What did you do on your farm?
Celestine Beasley [00:01:34] Well, we had gardens. We had crops. Crops is where we raised cotton, corn, vegetables.
Lauren Lee [00:01:45] You raised cotton?
Celestine Beasley [00:01:46] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:01:47] Did you sell it? Did you guys sell it?
Celestine Beasley [00:01:50] Well, yes, they would have to take it to the gin, and they would divide the seeds away from the the cotton.
Lauren Lee [00:02:01] So your family owned their own cotton mill?
Celestine Beasley [00:02:04] No, no, no. Everybody took their cotton there to be processed.
Lauren Lee [00:02:11] So it was at a store?
Celestine Beasley [00:02:13] Well, no, it was a big building where they divided cotton from seeds. They would take the seeds and keep 'em to plant for another year.
Lauren Lee [00:02:30] Did you guys have chickens and cows?
Celestine Beasley [00:02:31] Oh, yes, we had chickens, cows, hogs.
Lauren Lee [00:02:34] Is that how you guys ate?
Celestine Beasley [00:02:37] We raised our own food. Everything we ate, we raise[d]. Even cornmeal. They take the corn and take it to a mill to be ground. They would process part of it into grits. We had to buy our flour, sugar, stuff like that. But even our lard we made that. When we killed hogs, we take in the fat of it and cook it down to make your lard.
Lauren Lee [00:03:14] Like what we use now to fry grease?
Celestine Beasley [00:03:16] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:03:17] Oh, I didn't know that. Do you remember being out on the farm? Like, did you help your family? Was it a family affair?
Celestine Beasley [00:03:26] Yes. We, as I said, it was 12 of us. We... I think there was planting done, they'd start the planting around this time of year. The cotton would be planted sometime in May. Corn, they would plant that in May after the cold spell. We, you know, just like it is now, sometime it's cold. Sometimes it'll be too cold for you to do anything. You would have to wait till the weather warm up, even to get the ground ready for planting.
Lauren Lee [00:04:14] So did you do that instead of going to school?
Celestine Beasley [00:04:16] We went to school.
Lauren Lee [00:04:18] So did you wake up in the morning and then work on the farm?
Celestine Beasley [00:04:19] No. It's a certain time of year that you would, you'd be farming. Our school started in October, and it would end around the last of April, middle of April, so it wasn't no farming at that particular time. You would plant everything later.
Lauren Lee [00:04:44] So it was only October to April?
Celestine Beasley [00:04:46] Yeah.
Lauren Lee [00:04:47] And what do you remember about going to school?
Celestine Beasley [00:04:51] Well, I remember we had to walk to school. It was... We lived a mile from school. We would walk every morning. We had to be school at 8:30. We were there until 3:30.
Lauren Lee [00:05:11] Was it an integrated school?
Celestine Beasley [00:05:14] Mmm... No. We... It wasn't a minglers, white and black. They had a school, and we had school.
Lauren Lee [00:05:26] How far was your school from it?
Celestine Beasley [00:05:29] A mile.
Lauren Lee [00:05:29] Oh, a mile.
Lauren Lee [00:05:32] And where was your school? Was it in...
Celestine Beasley [00:05:34] It was in a little place they called Lake City.
Lauren Lee [00:05:38] Was it off of the lake?
Celestine Beasley [00:05:40] No, that was just the name of it. If we walked, a shortcut would be a mile. But if we would go down the road, it was two, two miles.
Lauren Lee [00:05:57] What was a typical day like at school?
Celestine Beasley [00:06:01] Oh, we would start school when we'd get there. It was... When I was young, it was one big building. From one through the ninth grade was there. When you get so you won't be in that particular school, you'd go off to a high school in some other place. This was when I said Yazoo City.
Lauren Lee [00:06:39] You say Yazoo?
Celestine Beasley [00:06:40] Y-A-Z-Double O. Yazoo.
Lauren Lee [00:06:45] Have you been back to Yazoo since then?
Celestine Beasley [00:06:48] Mmm... No. I went back to Mississippi, but never to Yazoo.
Lauren Lee [00:06:54] Describe some of the differences from living in the South or just any fond memories that you have, you know, that went on in a typical day or just anything that stands out.
Celestine Beasley [00:07:09] One typical day? Well, if you'd get, at the time we was going to school, we'd get up. My mom would fix breakfast. We would get dressed. Walk to school. When we get to school, we had to... We had devotion in school. Some of the Scripture I learned when I was going to school, I never forgot. We had to learn the 23rd Psalm. We learned the 1st Psalm and the... It was another one. I done forgot the name, and forgot... just what it was. It was something like 84th Psalm. And only thing I remember of that is... Be... Be still hold your peace, and I will fight your battle for you. That's the 10th chapter, 10th verse in the 84th Psalm. Psalms is not a chapter; they are books. So it wa the 84th Book of Psalms.
Lauren Lee [00:08:44] And, so did that... Did that learning about that in school helped to, you know, shape how religion played into your life?
Celestine Beasley [00:08:54] Not really. There is just something come naturally. That's all I knew was being a Christian because I was raised up as one. My mom takin' us to Sunday school every Sunday. We went to prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Wasn't none of us ever in the choir that we had to go to choir rehearsal.
Lauren Lee [00:09:25] So would they have always play the good parts...
Celestine Beasley [00:09:27] Yes, they did and [inaudible].
Lauren Lee [00:09:31] And how did religion help you to deal with a lot of the issues that, you know, went on in the South during that time period, like, you know, segregation and a lot of racism going on?
Celestine Beasley [00:09:43] Well, with segregation, I [was] facin' more of that after I left the South and come here than I did in South. We knew what to do and what not to do, and we just never mingled in that. We never did go to the white people's houses, but they come to our house, and my mom was the type that she always would tell anybody, If you can't sit and eat with my children, you don't come to my house. You... I don't put nobody before my children. And that's the way I was raised up, and that's the way I remembered it. And I never did... I never was faced with segregation in the South because we didn't ever go around the places where we knew we weren't supposed to.
Lauren Lee [00:10:43] Well, around your area, were there are a lot of white people in your area?
Celestine Beasley [00:10:46] No, it wasn't a lot. They used to come to our house. We lived right on the lake. They would come and go fishing. My mom would cook the fish for them. They used to love to have fried. Something we call perch now. There it was white perch. It's not... Wasn't a bass like they call 'em now. And they sit and ate it.
Lauren Lee [00:11:20] So you guys lived on the lake?
Celestine Beasley [00:11:23] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:11:26] And so they would just come...
Celestine Beasley [00:11:28] Just like now we live, ourselves, not near a lake now, but there, our house sit right on the lake. We could go right down the hill and go fishing. We had boats.
Lauren Lee [00:11:46] Oh really?
Celestine Beasley [00:11:46] Yeah.
Lauren Lee [00:11:47] So you guys were like, you were out, like in farmland.
Celestine Beasley [00:11:50] Yes. I told you we was farmer.
Lauren Lee [00:11:54] Well, yeah, but I didn't know that you lived right on the lake.
Celestine Beasley [00:11:54] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:11:58] So did they pay your mom? I mean, like, was it something where people, you know, knew that they could come and...
Celestine Beasley [00:12:01] Well, yes, they knew my mom used to love to cook, so she never hesitated when they would come and go fishing. They would clean them by the time they get back to the house and ask her to fry the fish for them, and she did. And they used to love French fries. We raised our own white potatoes.
Lauren Lee [00:12:27] And do you still remember, like, what goes into farming and making vegetables?
Celestine Beasley [00:12:33] Not makin' vegetables. You don't make vegetables, you raise vegetables. Well, I just said we raised our white potatoes. When I was a child, girl, we used to say ice potatoes. Irish. And we would take a potato... They would cut the... cut 'em in... Cut the skin off of them so deep, and we would take the part with that on it and put it in the ground. Just put a dirt over it, and they would take root. And potatoes... The bush would grow, and potatoes would be in the ground.
Lauren Lee [00:13:27] From just off of a little...
Celestine Beasley [00:13:28] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:13:29] Potato?
Celestine Beasley [00:13:29] You would take a potato. You would cut this way, that way, you know, you just get the top like... And they, they sprouted. When you put 'em in the ground, it would come up and when they would get so big, the potato would be in the ground under the vine.
Lauren Lee [00:14:01] Tell me a little bit about your parents.
Celestine Beasley [00:14:05] Well, my mother was named Bessie. She was... Nine sisters and brothers of them. I never did know too much about my father's family because his mom died when he was a baby. His oldest sister raised him. His name was Alfred. And they got married in 1914. At the time, they was living [in] what we used to call the hills in Anding, Mississippi. That's where they met and married at. We moved to... up on the lake, 1923. I remember when we went from one place to the other one because we was on a big wagon and all of the... All the furnishings and stuff was in wagon. And we... it took us, I guess, about three hours to come from one destination to the other, and all of my young life, we lived in the same [inaudible]. We didn't never...
Lauren Lee [00:15:54] Did you guys have a horse to pull the wagon? Or did you pull the wagon?
Celestine Beasley [00:15:57] Haha! Excuse me. We had mules. Horses was for riding. People had horses. We only had two horses. We had 8 or 10 mules, and doing the farming you used a mule to pull the plough. After we had got established, I remember my daddy bought a tractor that he would use for farming. He would break the land, plant, plough it after it began to come up.
Lauren Lee [00:16:46] What were your fondest memories of your parents?
Celestine Beasley [00:16:52] My mom died in 1938 at the age of 43. She was very firm with us, but we got, we got, well, we didn't call them spanking. We got whippings. It wasn't then like it is now. They didn't allow you to whip your... But my mom used to whip us when we would do things that we, we was told not to do. And she was a loving mother. I especially talk about my mom because my dad was always out in the field when we... After we would plant the crop, and he stayed, he stayed busy outside. And my mom always was, I guess you could say, the overseer for us.
Lauren Lee [00:18:11] What was the nationality of both your parents?
Celestine Beasley [00:18:16] Well, my.... I'll start with my dad. His parents was of a dark generation.
Lauren Lee [00:18:27] What does that mean?
Celestine Beasley [00:18:29] Well, what they call now Black. I always used the word Colored, and I never got out of it. I still don't use the word Black. My mom... Her father was white. Her mother was a half Indian. So that's the kind of background that we had, that we come from.
Lauren Lee [00:19:06] Now you said you didn't really know your father's....
Celestine Beasley [00:19:09] Parents.
Lauren Lee [00:19:10] Side of the family?
Celestine Beasley [00:19:10] Mm-mm.
Lauren Lee [00:19:11] Did you know your mom's mother and father?
Celestine Beasley [00:19:13] I knew her mom, and I knew my great grandmother, but I never did know my dad's mom nor dad, because I told you... His mother died...
Lauren Lee [00:19:28] Right.
Celestine Beasley [00:19:29] When he was a little child.
Lauren Lee [00:19:30] Right. But your mom's father, you didn't...
Celestine Beasley [00:19:36] My mom died before her mother did.
Lauren Lee [00:19:38] Oh, really?
Celestine Beasley [00:19:39] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:19:40] Do you know when she died of?
Celestine Beasley [00:19:42] Who?
Lauren Lee [00:19:45] Your mom.
Celestine Beasley [00:19:47] Using the doctor's word, they said she ate something she wasn't supposed to eat, and it didn't agree with her, and it paused in her system.
Lauren Lee [00:20:07] That's what they said?
Celestine Beasley [00:20:08] Yeah.
Lauren Lee [00:20:09] Do you remember her being sick for a long time?
Celestine Beasley [00:20:11] She wasn't.
Lauren Lee [00:20:12] Or was it sudden?
Celestine Beasley [00:20:12] She wasn't. She take... She taken sick suddenly, all at once, and within a couple of hours she had passed.
Lauren Lee [00:20:24] So it was quick.
Celestine Beasley [00:20:25] Quick. Yes. And it was so quick and easy that I didn't think she was gone. When my dad went to call the doctor, I was there with her, me and another brother. Part of the family had... All the kids had left the South and come up here. My oldest sister and two oldest brothers. And on the way to call the doctor, my daddy stopped by a lady's house and told her to come and stay with us until he could get back. So as soon as she walk in the house, she says, They all... My nickname was Tine. She said, Tine, she said, Lay your mom down, because she was sitting up. She said, 'cause she done passed. I said, Can't be. I said, My momma isn't dead. And she just come and pushed me back and laid her down until the doctor got there and he pronounced her dead. And he said her system was so weak that... No, her heart was so weak that she wasn't able to survive.
Lauren Lee [00:22:01] How did life change for you after that?
Celestine Beasley [00:22:04] Well, you know, you asked me about the South. Had I been back. That's one reason I never went back. I always thought that if we hadn't been out in the country like we were, they would have been able to get the doctor for my mom more quicker and she might would've survived. So I just taken a dislike to the South after that.
Lauren Lee [00:22:40] Really? So is that what made you leave the South and come to Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:22:43] No. I went to New Orleans first. I had got married and I lived in New Orleans for a couple of years, and I left to come here for a visit. And when we... The night we come in, I... My dad was had come to a visit and everybody else was up here, so I... Me and my husband had one child. We went back to New Orleans and straightened things out, and I come back to Cleveland and I've been here ever since.
Lauren Lee [00:23:28] How did you guys communicate? Like, how did you keep in touch with your brothers and sisters that were in Cleveland and then your father... He was still in the South, right? After you moved to New Orleans, how did you guys keep in contact? Was it through the telephone?
Celestine Beasley [00:23:43] Through letters. I didn't have a telephone, but a lot of people did.
Lauren Lee [00:23:48] How hard was it to communicate?
Celestine Beasley [00:23:49] It wasn't hard. You know, when you, you get used to something you're just used to it, and you don't think no more of it. When... Whenever I wanted to hear from him, I would write a letter. We'd just correspond through letters.
Lauren Lee [00:24:12] So I mean, I didn't give... When you moved to New Orleans, you moved, well, you moved with your husband, but was it just you and your husband? There was no other family that you...
Celestine Beasley [00:24:20] Not on my side. He had... His mother was there. He had an uncle and aunt there. But after I come up here and everybody else was here including my dad, we just decided to move.
Lauren Lee [00:24:41] Decided move to Cleveland too.
Celestine Beasley [00:24:42] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:24:43] And where... What part of Cleveland was... Do you remember, like when they first came here, what part of Cleveland they stayed in?
Celestine Beasley [00:24:49] On the East Side.
Lauren Lee [00:24:51] Was it around the Euclid-Central area?
Celestine Beasley [00:24:56] Central area.
Lauren Lee [00:24:59] What... Do I know the two brothers and sisters that moved here first?
Celestine Beasley [00:25:04] [inaudible] and Butch.
Lauren Lee [00:25:06] Oh, so your two brothers moved here first.
Celestine Beasley [00:25:06] Yeah. Then Plessie came third. She come after they did.
Lauren Lee [00:25:13] So everybody basically came here eventually.
Celestine Beasley [00:25:14] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:25:16] Was there any specific reason for coming to Cleveland. Was there other family here before?
Celestine Beasley [00:25:21] Well, my brothers and my sister, they came to Cleveland before my mom died. She, you know, sent 'em up here.
Lauren Lee [00:25:40] Was it for school or for better living or maybe....
Celestine Beasley [00:25:43] Well, it was for school. After... The school that was near us, that didn't go no higher than the ninth grade, she sent 'em up here to start, you know, go to high school.
Lauren Lee [00:25:59] By themselves?
Celestine Beasley [00:26:03] Uncle Obie was here. They lived with Uncle Obie.
Lauren Lee [00:26:09] Did he ever live in Mississippi?
Celestine Beasley [00:26:13] I didn't know him in Mississippi.
Lauren Lee [00:26:15] Oh, you didn't know him until you came to Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:26:17] I knew him, but he was in Chicago.
Lauren Lee [00:26:21] See, I guess it's just so weird for me of how, you know, you guys all kept in touch with so much moving around without telephone.
Celestine Beasley [00:26:29] Well, eventually it was telephone.
Lauren Lee [00:26:32] But before that it was just...
Celestine Beasley [00:26:38] Other... You know, you could always go to somebody's house and use their phone. When I was in New Orleans, it was people's had a phone, but I didn't have one.
Lauren Lee [00:26:48] And do you remember New Orleans? Was it kind of how, you know, how it's perceived to be now?
Celestine Beasley [00:26:56] No.
Lauren Lee [00:26:56] No?
Celestine Beasley [00:26:59] A lot that happened after... Now they was having a Mardi Gras when I was living there. You hear 'em talking about that.
Lauren Lee [00:27:09] What is it?
Celestine Beasley [00:27:10] Mardi Gras.
Lauren Lee [00:27:11] Oh, yeah, Mardi Gras.
Celestine Beasley [00:27:11] And, now I didn't live in New Orleans but about two years 'cause after we come for a visit, we moved up here, and I never went back to New Orleans either.
Lauren Lee [00:27:27] You just had no desire to?
Celestine Beasley [00:27:29] Well, I didn't have no family there.
Lauren Lee [00:27:35] Describe moving here, you know, from, well, when and how did you make the move?
Celestine Beasley [00:27:42] Well, we moved from New Orleans here. We just brought clothes.
Lauren Lee [00:27:48] Train?
Celestine Beasley [00:27:49] Yeah. We came on the train. And for to ship clothes, I mean, furniture, it'd have been cheaper to buy it here than to pay for it to be sent here.
Lauren Lee [00:28:07] Really?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:08] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:28:08] And you had your first kid where you were in New Orleans?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:12] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:28:13] A boy or a girl?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:14] Herman was a boy.
Lauren Lee [00:28:16] Well, I know that but I...
Celestine Beasley [00:28:18] Oh, you wanted me to say it?
Lauren Lee [00:28:21] Yeah, 'cause people listening don't know. [laughs]
Celestine Beasley [00:28:21] Well, my first child was a boy. His was born in 1940. July 9th, quite natural.
Lauren Lee [00:28:36] Him and [inaudible] was born on the same day?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:38] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:28:39] What year was she born?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:42] '49.
Lauren Lee [00:28:47] Where else did you stop in making the move? And why did you leave those places or were you straight from New Orleans to Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:28:54] Straight from New Orleans to Cleveland.
Lauren Lee [00:28:56] What was Cleveland like when you first got to Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:29:00] Cold.
Lauren Lee [00:29:01] You weren't used to that, were you?
Celestine Beasley [00:29:02] No, I wasn't. We moved up in January.
Lauren Lee [00:29:08] So it was wintertime here.
Celestine Beasley [00:29:10] We come to visit and... Just before Thanksgiving, and we stayed for Thanksgiving, then went back to New Orleans.
Lauren Lee [00:29:21] And what was Cleveland... I mean, how was Cleveland different to you?
Celestine Beasley [00:29:25] It's just that it was cold.
Lauren Lee [00:29:27] That's it?
Celestine Beasley [00:29:30] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:29:31] There was no, you know, major difference between white and Black in what, you know, Cleveland and the North and from the South.
Celestine Beasley [00:29:39] Well, it wasn't to me. New Orleans... I imagine it was segregation there, but I never did come in contact with because I never did go much. I always was around the house. And I didn't... I wasn't working there. I worked in Mississippi. When I come here, I worked a little while—I didn't have but one child—and then I got married again because me and my husband separated. And I had three girls and two boys. That mean I had six kids then, and I come to have seven.
Lauren Lee [00:30:46] Was that when my mom was born?
Celestine Beasley [00:30:48] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:30:50] In Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:30:50] Mm hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:30:51] And did you hold a job when you had, after you had all six?
Celestine Beasley [00:30:54] Not until I started to working at Mount Sinai.
Lauren Lee [00:30:58] And did you have to go to school to work at the hospital?
Celestine Beasley [00:31:00] Yes, I did. I went to nursing school.
Lauren Lee [00:31:02] Prior to that level of school level did you go to?
Celestine Beasley [00:31:07] Eleventh grade.
Lauren Lee [00:31:08] So in the South, when you stopped at ninth grade, was that considered your graduation?
Celestine Beasley [00:31:12] I stopped in ninth grade, but I was supposed to come to Cleveland and I didn't want to come. I wanted to go to Chicago. And my mom told me I wasn't coming to Cleveland... I wasn't going to Chicago; I had to come to Cleveland where the others was, and I made a statement to her. If I can't go, if I can't stay at home with you, I want to stay by... with a certain aunt. And that's who was in Chicago. And she made the statement, The only reason you don't go to Cleveland is if you get married. So I got married.
Lauren Lee [00:31:53] Just so you wouldn't have to go to Cleveland? [laughs] What was it about Cleveland that you didn't like?
Celestine Beasley [00:31:58] I didn't know Uncle Obie like I knowed my aunt. I had two aunts in Chicago. And I would... I always said if I had to leave home and wouldn't be with my mom, I wanted to be with one of those aunts or both of them.
Lauren Lee [00:32:17] Do you still have clear memories of those two aunts?
Celestine Beasley [00:32:21] Not now because I never lived around them. They was in Chicago, as long as I can remember. That's where they both passed at, in Chicago.
Lauren Lee [00:32:35] Do you still have a lot of family in Chicago?
Celestine Beasley [00:32:37] No, they done... A lot of them left and passed.
Lauren Lee [00:32:43] And was there any, you know, special thing about Chicago, was there anything...
Celestine Beasley [00:32:49] I didn't know nothing about Chicago. Still don't. I never lived in Chicago.
Lauren Lee [00:32:59] So your first job, you said, was on Mount Sinai, right?
Celestine Beasley [00:33:02] Mm hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:33:03] And that was being a nurse?
Celestine Beasley [00:33:04] Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:33:05] And what were your responsibilities?
Celestine Beasley [00:33:08] Technician. Well, I started out taking care of patients and then I was a technician for a group that they called.... That's how I got to be the technician. I was their secretary. And before I got to be a technician, I did nurse's responsibility, taking care of patients.
Lauren Lee [00:33:44] Was that... Were you allowed to work with white people when you were at Mount Sinai?
Celestine Beasley [00:33:47] Mm hmm. Yes.
Lauren Lee [00:33:51] Was it segregated?
Celestine Beasley [00:33:55] Not that I know of. No more than it is now. But I worked with 'em. [laughs] I always said I could get along with the devil. So...
Lauren Lee [00:34:10] What year was that that you worked at Mount Sinai?
Celestine Beasley [00:34:14] I started in '68 until '83.
Lauren Lee [00:34:22] What made you stop in '83?
Celestine Beasley [00:34:23] I had arthritis real bad, and it was bothering me for to stand or walk. And soon as I got 62 years old, I retired.
Lauren Lee [00:34:39] Did you enjoy what you did?
Celestine Beasley [00:34:40] Yes, I did.
Lauren Lee [00:34:42] Did you work at any of the hospitals when your grandchildren were born?
Celestine Beasley [00:34:49] No. I might've been working, but they weren't born at that hospital. Because my oldest would be, Devin. Oh, yes, I did. He was born at Mount Sinai while I was working.
Lauren Lee [00:35:11] Were you there?
Celestine Beasley [00:35:12] Yeah, I wasn't in the room. I wasn't in delivery. Tini was admitted in the morning time, and I was in work. You didn't go into the delivery like they do now. But that's only child that was born there. Tommy was born at another hospital, and I was working in Mount Sinai. Jessica was born at a hospital. I was working at Mount Sinai. They wasn't born there.
Lauren Lee [00:35:53] Oh, okay. She was born at Hillcrest, right?
Celestine Beasley [00:35:55] I think so.
Lauren Lee [00:35:58] When you first came to Cleveland, where did you live?
Celestine Beasley [00:36:02] My address was 2250 Ashland Court.
Lauren Lee [00:36:07] Where is that now? .
Celestine Beasley [00:36:09] It's off of Central, between Central and Cedar.
Lauren Lee [00:36:15] And you are already married with kids?
Celestine Beasley [00:36:18] I didn't have but one.
Lauren Lee [00:36:19] Oh, you still only had one?
Celestine Beasley [00:36:21] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:36:21] How long did you stay there?
Celestine Beasley [00:36:23] Oh, I didn't stay there any more than about a year. I only had a room. And I moved on 79th off of Woodland. They had some war houses. That's what I always called 'em. They was the projects. And I was living there. I lived there. That was in '43 and I lived there until in the '50s and then moved to 7910 Central. That was my father's house. He had bought it from Uncle Obie. When Plessie and them came to Cleveland, they come to 7910 Central. Uncle Obie was living there then, and he eventually... He had quite a few kids, and he eventually moved to across the street, 7915.
Lauren Lee [00:37:38] That's the address? When your dad moved here, he couldn't farm here. so what did he do?
Celestine Beasley [00:37:44] He worked at Republic Steel.
Lauren Lee [00:37:47] Republican [sic] Steel?
Celestine Beasley [00:37:49] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:37:51] Was Uncle Obie well-off?
Celestine Beasley [00:37:56] Mm-mmm. Uncle Obie used to work at National Screw. That was off of 79th and Quebec.
Lauren Lee [00:38:05] What was the name of it?
Celestine Beasley [00:38:06] National Screw.
Lauren Lee [00:38:10] So he was a teacher?
Celestine Beasley [00:38:10] Mm-mmm. National Screw was a factory.
Lauren Lee [00:38:14] Oh, so they both...
Celestine Beasley [00:38:17] And he was a minister, and he was Assistant Pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church.
Lauren Lee [00:38:28] So when he came to Shiloh, that's basically why he came there, to preach? I'm kind of...
Celestine Beasley [00:38:33] I don't know if he was preaching then or not. Ever since I knowed him, he was the minister. But whether he had been ordained that you would say he was a preacher, I really don't know.
Lauren Lee [00:38:47] Is that what brought you to Shiloh?
Celestine Beasley [00:38:50] No. I joined a church before I went to Shiloh.
Lauren Lee [00:38:56] You joined another church?
Celestine Beasley [00:38:58] Evening Star [Baptist Church].
Lauren Lee [00:39:01] Oh, I didn't know about that.
Celestine Beasley [00:39:01] At that time, it was on 83rd and Central.
Lauren Lee [00:39:07] What do you remember about the, you know, Cedar-Central area, like in the 1950s?
Celestine Beasley [00:39:17] It was a lot of churches around. Evening Star was, well, about a block from where we were living. And that minister passed and they had somebody else there, so that's when we left and went to another church. It was a little farther. It was on Cedar. 103rd and Cedar. Carrie Hill. You know, we used to be coming home from church and we would come down Cedar.
Lauren Lee [00:40:12] Walking?
Celestine Beasley [00:40:13] No.
Lauren Lee [00:40:15] Oh, in a car?
Celestine Beasley [00:40:16] Yeah. We would be coming from Shiloh. I joined Shiloh in '73. My dad was there and [what] he said was that before he pass, he would like to have all of his kids in the church with him. Lisa was already going to Shiloh. And me and Plessie joined. The others had visited Shiloh, but didn't none of them go at the time. So...
Lauren Lee [00:40:59] Did all your brothers and sisters at one point end up joining Shiloh?
Celestine Beasley [00:41:07] Mm-mmm. They all went to Shiloh, well, you know, for different occasions, but they never did join. My brother had died in '63. He joined. But none of the rest of 'em did. They always wouls say they was going, but they never did.
Lauren Lee [00:41:32] How old was your father when he passed?
Celestine Beasley [00:41:34] 83.
Lauren Lee [00:41:35] When he passed? Was it just old age?
Celestine Beasley [00:41:39] He had... He didn't die from a heart attack. He had pneumonia. And he never did get well.
Lauren Lee [00:42:00] Was he sick for a long time?
Celestine Beasley [00:42:02] Not really. I think he had had different ailments from different times, but at the time he passed, he had pneumonia, and he died at University Hospital.
Lauren Lee [00:42:23] Do you remember when you first saw a car, was when, was that in Cleveland?
Celestine Beasley [00:42:28] Car? No, my daddy had cars when he was in the South. As long as I can remember, but I, see what my dad had, that wasn't me, I was still a child, but he always had a car.
Lauren Lee [00:42:44] So you guys weren't poor?
Celestine Beasley [00:42:47] Not poor, no. We didn't have a lot of money, but we never went hungry. As I said earlier, we raised just about everything we ate. After I come to Cleveland, I heard people talking about 1932 Depression. We was in the South, but we never went hungry. We never was in need or stuff like that. So it's just like talking Greek to me when I hear people talking about how things was [in] '32 and '33 during the Depression.
Lauren Lee [00:43:35] Oh, so you don't really remember, well, not remember, but you don't really have any hardships during that time?
Celestine Beasley [00:43:39] No, I didn't. I had harder after I come up here than I did in the South...
Lauren Lee [00:43:43] What made it harder here?
Celestine Beasley [00:43:44] Because... Well, everything you ate, you had to buy.
Lauren Lee [00:43:50] And you didn't like that?
Celestine Beasley [00:43:52] I loved that, but you just didn't have the money to buy certain things at certain times.
Lauren Lee [00:44:00] So you adapted better to.... So you didn't, you didn't really like living on the farm?
Celestine Beasley [00:44:07] Yeah, I liked it when I was living on it, but after I seen that wasn't all you had to do, you could do better, well, I didn't like it no more.
Lauren Lee [00:44:24] So you didn't have a problem buying meats at the stores?
Celestine Beasley [00:44:28] After I left the South? No, I didn't.
Lauren Lee [00:44:32] You didn't feel it was unsanitary?
Celestine Beasley [00:44:33] No. Well, anything can be unsanitary, but it's the way you handled it after you get it. I always said water'll clean anything. So.
Lauren Lee [00:44:55] What was it like for you when... I don't know how to put this, but I guess maybe when things started changing when, you know, television became big and, you know, all the different gadgets that we have now like how, you know, how has it changed for you from when you were little to now, seeing how things have evolved?
Celestine Beasley [00:45:16] Well, I learned to cook in the South. I was able to... Well, my momma taught us how to cook. Just watching her, you would learn. But I usually would cook for the whole family sometime. And I didn't know what it was to do like I do now. That... Having shortcuts. We cooked... If you're going to have a cake, we cooked it from scratch. After I come up here and after the first time I did it was in '55. I cooked a cake and I had a box cake. And I had never did that before. And the reason I did it, I had had rheumatic fever and I had it just leading up to Christmas, and my joints were stiff, just, and I couldn't be like I had been. I didn't know what it was to have a mixer. I used the spoon to beat... Well, they would say whip up something. But after that, I started to use boxes and, you know, now everything I can shortcut, I'll do it. Just take rice. I didn't know what it was to have instant rice. Not quick rice. I mean, I cook quick rice. Not instant rice. I never cooked instant rice. I don't like it. But if I'm in a hurry or I don't feel good, I'll use instant, quick, rice. And I have a tendency to when we shopping, I get the rice that's in a bag in a box, be bags in that, you can bowl it in a bag. So I do that now.
Lauren Lee [00:48:04] Do you think it takes better?
Celestine Beasley [00:48:06] Can you tell the difference?
Lauren Lee [00:48:09] Mm-mmm.
Celestine Beasley [00:48:10] I cooked some quick rice the other day when we had rice,
Lauren Lee [00:48:15] With the gravy?
Celestine Beasley [00:48:16] Yes. Well, that was quick rice. That wasn't the rice you... I boiled it in the bag,
Lauren Lee [00:48:26] Is it just fluffier?
Celestine Beasley [00:48:29] Easier. Less work. If you... I test Ruth, Margaret, I don't ever say Tini because she never said nothing like that. I'm tired. I didn't know what it was to be tired. I would go to work, work eight hours, come home, cook, wash, iron. I never did feel tired.
Lauren Lee [00:49:15] [inaudible] because that's what you are used to, though, right?
Celestine Beasley [00:49:18] Well, when I was growing up, even the vegetables we had, now you hear 'em talking about what all do they do to grow anything, tomatoes, greens. We didn't have nothing like that to put it on our vegetables. Everything was, had the nutrients in it that it was supposed to be. And we, I says we ate food that was better than it is now because it didn't have all those ingredients around to make it grow fast.
Lauren Lee [00:50:11] Mm-hmm.
Celestine Beasley [00:50:11] It was just the sun, the water, pure water.
Lauren Lee [00:50:16] So do you think stuff now doesn't taste as fresh as it did then?
Celestine Beasley [00:50:20] It's not. As you know, every once in a while I cook greens, but they... When you put 'em on to cook 'em, they... So much water come out. Everything be too much water in it. I don't know how it gets so it can be a lot of water in something when you cook it, that it produces water. But it wasn't like that.
Lauren Lee [00:50:51] Everything was a lot fresher?
Celestine Beasley [00:50:53] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:50:53] So well, since you know you didn't have the things that they have now to kill off insects and things like that, you don't remember... I know you said your mother ate something and she... from that.
Celestine Beasley [00:51:04] But it was something she wasn't supposed to eat. [cross talk] She wasn't supposed to eat pork. She was... Doctor had taken her off of pork, and she ate some pork, and it didn't digest. It got right in her throat. She couldn't swallow it and wouldn't come back up.
Lauren Lee [00:51:29] So I was just wondering if, you know, you don't have, you didn't have the medicines that you had back then or you didn't have, you know, to kill off the animals from, you know, eating on it or...
Celestine Beasley [00:51:40] That's true... Oh, it's some things you couldn't let... We always had a fence around the garden where things couldn't get to it to mess with it, you know, or eat it or destroy it. We grew our own greens, any kind of green you could grow, we did it. We used to raise our own peanuts. Like when you buy 'em now in the shell, we used to would bust them open and get the meat out and plant it in the ground.
Lauren Lee [00:52:33] The seed?
Celestine Beasley [00:52:33] Well, the peanut... You know the peanut?
Lauren Lee [00:52:35] Was it salty though?
Celestine Beasley [00:52:36] No.
Lauren Lee [00:52:38] So when they come out the bag like that, they put... They put salt...
Celestine Beasley [00:52:41] They put salt in it when they... at the factory They can have them in the hull and they have salt on 'em. Now I don't know just how they process that, but we would put 'em in the ground and they would go out of bush again. When it come time to get 'em out of the ground, you could pull the whole bush up and they would still be on the bush. You pick 'em off. Wash them. We used to put 'em on the house hop to dry, and we'd put 'em in a bag in the hull. We raised our own popcorn.
Lauren Lee [00:53:32] How do you raise popcorn? Just plant the seed?
Celestine Beasley [00:53:37] Yeah, you plant it, popcorn grain. And when it grow[s] and come up, it grow[s] like ear corn you buy in the store now. That's not popcorn, but that's the way we raised popcorn. And the corn, we raised corn ourselves. That's part of what you make grits out of. You can take 'em to the mill. They usuayly grond them and make grits. They would grind 'em finer for you to make your meal. We used to grow cane that you could process into syrup. And it was, as I said, name it and we raised it.
Lauren Lee [00:54:38] This is kind of jumping ahead, but I know like when you look at now you, you know, you look at your grandchildren and how you know with your kids and I guess you guys just had whole milk? Babies just drank... There was no formula or anything special for kids or, you know, baby food?
Celestine Beasley [00:54:54] You could... Now, we never did use cane milk, but peoples did. They would take it and boil it and process it into regular milk for formula. But we would take... We had cows. We milked our cows and got milk.
Lauren Lee [00:55:23] And gave it straight to a baby?
Celestine Beasley [00:55:25] Only thing we did was to heat it.
Lauren Lee [00:55:30] And do you think, you know, that cane...
Celestine Beasley [00:55:32] They would put Karo syrup in it.
Lauren Lee [00:55:34] Every time the kid drank it?
Celestine Beasley [00:55:36] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [00:55:37] And did that help, you know, for the constipation?
Celestine Beasley [00:55:40] They never... I never knew the child that was on it that ever get constipated.
Lauren Lee [00:55:50] You think it was because their bodies were used to the cane?
Celestine Beasley [00:55:53] Their bodies were used to it. Plus the environment was different than it is now. It... I know you hear your mom say it sometimes they... How fast stuff grow[s]. Well, just take it, for instance, last year, when we had the garden, she used to spray 'em with...
Lauren Lee [00:56:24] Super-Gro?
Celestine Beasley [00:56:25] Yeah, we didn't do nothing like that.
Lauren Lee [00:56:29] So you literally had to wait for however long it was going to take?
Celestine Beasley [00:56:32] It didn't take long. It's a season... Vegetables is a season thing, even turnips and mustards. They had a variety you'd plant in summer and you had some you could plant for winter. The cold weather didn't kill 'em. And it was nothing... That cold wouldn't do nothing but purify 'em if they was out in the cold. Collard greens, you hear me say now, I don't eat collard greens until frost fall on 'em? That's the way I was raised. I never ate collard greens in summertime. Now they eat 'em all year round here.
Lauren Lee [00:57:23] But you didn't eat them 'cause they weren't available?
Celestine Beasley [00:57:24] They was available but it's just something I never would eat. They... When I was in the South, that was a winter vegetable. Now, well, I ate some up here once and they made me sick, and I said maybe it wasn't the greens. I finally ate some more, and they made me sick. And you hear me say now I don't care for collard greens? But I can wash them in soda and they won't bother me. They get the sap out of 'em. Sap is something that the frost kills. I don't know if you got up early enough this morning, yesterday morning and it looked like it was snow on the ground? That's what you call a frost, and if it falls on greens...
Lauren Lee [00:58:30] It gives them a different taste?
Celestine Beasley [00:58:30] Yes, it give[s] 'em a different taste and it'll kill the sap 'em.
Lauren Lee [00:58:33] And so when you eat produce now, you can tell when, you know...
Celestine Beasley [00:58:40] It don't taste the same.
Lauren Lee [00:58:41] Yeah.
Celestine Beasley [00:58:47] Food that you raise yourself, even up here, tastes better than that you buy in the store. We don't put nothing on it but [inaudible], and that would be for the vegetables. But people put fertilizer on 'em and everything else when they raises them. I'll take an egg, for instance. We had our own chicken. They laid our eggs. We never bought an egg until we left the South. They taste much better than they do here. I didn't know what it was. It's just something that would spoil in the South in the wintertime. For Christmas, my mom would cook quite a few cakes and she never put 'em in ice box like you would do now. And they would last from Christmas to New Year's.
Lauren Lee [00:59:59] Oh no!
Celestine Beasley [01:00:00] Yes she would. She had to safe that she kept them, but it was no ice box.
Lauren Lee [01:00:07] So how did you keep meat from spoiling?
Celestine Beasley [01:00:10] They cured the meat. If you killed a hog, they would... They had... You call, we called it a meat box. They put it in there and put salt on it. Leave it in there so long. They take it out, have a big, big pot to get water and put in there and dash the meat in there to get the salt out off. They hang it up in the smokehouse and let it drain and then put, let it smoke. And it'd be smoked, and it would be good, and it would keep.
Lauren Lee [01:00:58] Was that in the summertime?
Celestine Beasley [01:01:00] Well, we could keep some for summertime but we always would kill a hog in the winter.
Lauren Lee [01:01:05] When you say a smokehouse, how did you smoke the meat? Was it like...
Celestine Beasley [01:01:08] You had... [cross talk] You had something.... No, you had some type of wood. You make a fire. You'd smother it down so it'd smoke instead of burning. We used to make our own sausage. Just like you like hot sausage?
Lauren Lee [01:01:27] Umm.
Celestine Beasley [01:01:27] [coughs] When they grind the sausage up, we season them always with pepper, red pepper. And we didn't use the red pepper like you buy at the store. My mom had got... You kinow the peppers that we grew last year? Well, when it would get red, she would pull it off and put thread through and hang 'em up and let 'em dry. When it dried you could just take it and crumble it up, and it would be red pepper.
Lauren Lee [01:02:11] Oh.
Celestine Beasley [01:02:13] Hot red pepper. You could just do it with your hand when they get dry. You could just crumble 'em up like you would....
Lauren Lee [01:02:23] I know it's hot but...
Celestine Beasley [01:02:23] Yeah. You could put it what the amount you want in it. You didn't have to put a lot.
Lauren Lee [01:02:30] But when you made the sausage, I mean, like, I don't even know what it's called. It's kind of like that clear film that just, you know, to pack into?
Celestine Beasley [01:02:38] You grind the meat and you season it and you would take the hog intestine...
Lauren Lee [01:02:47] Yeah.
Celestine Beasley [01:02:49] Not the chitterlings. They had a little intestine. We would get a stick, cut it kind of sharp, stick it on there and turn it inside out, and we would take a knife and scrape it. And there'd be just as thin as thin like you get, those you buy now, and we will link them up. When you put 'em in that we had something you call a stuffer. You could put sausage in the stuffer, put the intestine on the pipe of it, and push it and it would go in there. And then you would take it and do like this. Link it up. Then when they get 'em linked up, she would hang 'em up and smoke 'em. The same smoked sausage you buy now, we used to make 'em.
Lauren Lee [01:03:54] I just want to talk about your kids for a minute.
Celestine Beasley [01:03:56] Mm-hmm.
Lauren Lee [01:03:58] All together, how many kids did you have?
Celestine Beasley [01:03:59] Seven. I was the mother of eight, but one died, stillborn. So I just say I had seven, eight or seven, it doesn't matter.
Lauren Lee [01:04:10] And how, what were, how many were boys? How many were girls?
Celestine Beasley [01:04:14] Three boys and four girls.
Lauren Lee [01:04:17] And what were the biggest things that you wanted for your kids to try to instill in your kids?
Celestine Beasley [01:04:24] To be a loving child, to love each other, and most of all to love yourself.
Lauren Lee [01:04:34] And...
Celestine Beasley [01:04:35] And try to make a life for yourself. Go to school. Get a good education. So you can make your way. You don't have to depend on nobody to take care of you.
Lauren Lee [01:04:54] As your kids have gotten older, you know, are you proud of all your kids?
Celestine Beasley [01:04:58] Of course I am.
Lauren Lee [01:05:00] Are proud of yourself for the way....
Celestine Beasley [01:05:02] Yes, I am.
Lauren Lee [01:05:04] Are you?
Celestine Beasley [01:05:05] Yeah. Wouldn't you be?
Lauren Lee [01:05:06] Uh-huh.
Celestine Beasley [01:05:09] Okay. Yes, I'm very proud of my kids.
Lauren Lee [01:05:13] That's good.
Celestine Beasley [01:05:15] Not what they can do for me, but what they do for their self. I figured I done lived these, all of these years, and if I can look back and says, well, I did a good job in raising 'em. That's something I'm very thankful for.
Lauren Lee [01:05:37] And my last thing is from when you were a child to now, what, you know, are the biggest things that you see that have changed and a lot of, you know, different things that you might have changed about yourself and, you know, to change them?
Celestine Beasley [01:05:55] Well, you said myself. Now, I can look back and wish I had did some things different. For instance, I got married at an early age. I wish I had went on and went to college. And after I got grown, I made a pretty good life for myself, but it was hard work. If I had went to college and got... Even if I hadn't went the whole four years, I would have been prepared. I wouldn't have had to go back to school and having children to raise so I can make a living. So if I had've did that different...
Lauren Lee [01:06:47] So education...
Celestine Beasley [01:06:48] I wouldn't have had to work so hard.
Lauren Lee [01:06:51] But you raised kids, you know, by yourself working, you know, as a nurse, soI guess...
Celestine Beasley [01:06:59] Yeah.
Lauren Lee [01:06:59] You made a pretty good living for yourself.
Celestine Beasley [01:07:01] Yeah, that's true.
Lauren Lee [01:07:04] Well, I want to thank you for coming down to let me interview today. And I guess that's it.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:07:15] Can I actually just ask a couple of questions?
Celestine Beasley [01:07:18] Mm-hmm.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:07:21] In Mississippi, did your parents own the land that you farmed?
Celestine Beasley [01:07:24] No, they leased it.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:07:25] You can continue... Actually, if you....
Celestine Beasley [01:07:26] Oh, I'm sorry. No, they didn't own it. They leased it, just like people lease things now? They leased the land. They had to pay so much rent on it each year. Some of the peoples down there, they would work your land on half, you know, you get a certain percentage of what they raise. But my mom didn't believe in that. If this one didn't act right and wouldn't lease, let her lease it and pay them so much, she'd go to somebody else. But we never owned the land where we were living at when I was a child. She had property down there where she was born at. But you couldn't raise stuff. It was too hilly. It was sandy, the dirt was. You couldn't raise stuff as well as you did in the part of the South where I was born and raised at.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:08:50] You mentioned taking the cotton that you grew to the cotton gin to be cleaned.
Celestine Beasley [01:08:54] Mm-Hmm.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:08:56] After you did that, did you get it back and then...
Celestine Beasley [01:08:58] No, you would sell it. You would sell the cotton. We kept some to take and get a bush, beat it to thin it out to make quilts, you line cloth and put it up and quilt it. But that's how you made your money is selling the cotton and the seeds.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:09:37] What were some of the things that you did for fun when you were growing up?
Celestine Beasley [01:09:44] Uh, nothing. Played with the older kids. I didn't know what it was to... Unless we'd go to the little town where I live was the city. The little town, wasn't nothing to do, 'cause that's where we went to school at. That's where we went to church at. There was a couple of stores that we would go to. But it wasn't nowhere to have no fun.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:10:20] And just the last question. You mentioned getting married as opposed to going to Cleveland, but where did you finish up your 10th and 11th grade.
Celestine Beasley [01:10:29] Here.
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:10:29] Here?
Celestine Beasley [01:10:30] In Cleveland. Yes.
Lauren Lee [01:10:32] Do you remember the school?
Celestine Beasley [01:10:35] Washington Irving is the only one I can remember. Because when I went to take up my training for nursing, I went... It was a place they called Manpower. That's where I went, and I was a single mom at the time when I went to school for nursing. I did get married later. But having the children, I couldn't... I couldn't go to school like a lot of peoples went 'cause I would have to go backwards and forward. I couldn't go off to no college. But Manpower would take you and school you and then help you find a job. But I.... Where they wanted, where they would put you, I wouldn't take it. They wanted me to go to Huron Road Hospital to work. I refused to do it. I told 'em I would find a job on my own, and I did. I went to Mount Sinai and showed 'em my papers. And only thing they told me, well we don't have nothing right now. Then I went to University the same day. And the next day, I went downtown, here in Cleveland, and when I got back home, my son had called me and told me they had a job for me if I was interested. So I went and I taken it. And I stayed there from '68 to '83. And the very lady that told me they wouldn't take me, say they don't hire people to go to this school, I said, well, they gonna have to tell their self once I'm going, so I went.
Lauren Lee [01:12:54] So you got hired?
Celestine Beasley [01:12:55] I got hired. And the very lady that told me that, I was working and I was walking down the hall on the eighth floor and I laughed. Somebody said something, and I laughed. And she was in one of the rooms talking to someone that was sick. And she heard my laugh and she recognized it, and she come out and she says, You working! I said, Yes, I am. She said, I wouldn't have believed it. She said, that shows you what your determination... You had the faith and you went out on it and you succeeded, and I did. Something else?
Emma Yanoshik Wing [01:13:46] Thank you.
Celestine Beasley [01:13:47] You're welcome. I just hope it'll be something that is interesting to somebody.
Lauren Lee [01:13:55] It is.
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