Assignment #4 Protocol & Summary

COMM 708 – Assignment #4

Interview with: A. Ruth Balega

Interview Protocol:

Where were you born?
Where were you raised?
Were there other members of your family?
Did you have any brothers?
Did you have any sisters?
Where did you attend elementary school?
Where did you attend junior high school?
Where did you attend high school?
Did you have home responsibilities while growing up?
Did you have chores you were to do?
What were Jim’s chores?
What were Afton, Billie, and Shirley’s responsibilities?
What were the age differences between you and Jim?
And Afton?
Did you ever notice any differences in how the boys and girls were taught?
What were your parents’ attitudes toward education?
Was there an educational emphasis by the teachers for the girls?
By your parents?
Was there an educational emphasis for the boys by the teachers?
What were the boys encouraged to do?
Was there an educational emphasis for Jim by your parents?
Did your parents ever talk about your future with you?
With Jim?
With any one within the family?
Was religion part of your family?
In what way?
How were the boys and girls treated at church?
Any differences?

Summary from the subject’s perspecive:
I was born in McLennan County, Texas, outside Waco. I was raised there. I also went to grammar school there. [Where was “there?”] That was Bosqueville. It was a general store, a school, a cemetery, and a couple of churches. Later we moved to Speegleville. I went to high school and junior high in Speegleville. Schools had different names back then.

Chores? I had a lot of them. Dad had a dairy farm and we had to milk the cows twice a day. I had to take care of the milking bottles and we also had chickens. So I had to gather eggs everyday and look for nests. We also had turkeys and I had to round up baby turkeys and the big ones were mean.

I had one brother, Jim, who was three years older than me. Afton was 5 years older than me, and then Billie was born in Bosqueville after me, then Shirley. All the girls had to wash dishes and had indoor chores. I was so little that I had to pull up a chair to stand on so I could reach the sink. We washed dishes everyday when we got home from school. Most of Jim’s chores were outside. He spent most of his time cleaning the barns and cow stalls. He worked in the dairy a lot and helped washing the milk bottles too. But we weren’t allowed to do the sterilization. The only difference in our chores was that Jim moved the hay bales and fed the cows. He didn’t have a lot of house chores, his were all outdoors, but he was three years older than me and stronger.

We walked three miles to school because we were too close for the bus. My classes were reading, writing, English, math, algebra, and spelling. Everyone was treated the same in school just like in church. I remember in school I sat next to a boy that stunk of garlic, he ate garlic all the time – it was awful. But it was a group and you were part of the group until recess. Then the boys would chase the girls down to the outhouse; that was our refuge. In high school, typing and shorthand were emphasized by the typing teacher because it would be a good thing to do. So most girls wanted to learn to type and take shorthand. That was our goal, to be a stenographer. I didn’t really know what the boys wanted to do; we never talked about the future. We were just trying to get through high school. But Jim wanted to go to Baylor Dental School and he was accepted after the war, however he met Iris in England and she didn’t want to wait till after his schooling. So he sent for her which meant they married and then he had to go to work and never went to dental school, but she always brought up that he didn’t have much education.

If we had a problem with our studies, Mother helped us. She finished high school and Dad didn’t. But there was never any real discussion of education – never. They had no attitude toward education at all – they were so poor, they were just trying to get by day to day. But I realized that there was a difference in the ways that boys and girls earned money. I didn’t talk about it with any teachers or counselors; I only talked about this with my Mother. I don’t recall exactly what she said other than she wanted all of us girls to be independent because she saw when she had made her mistake in not going to nursing school but getting married to Dad instead.

She was ahead of her time.