Evelyn's Biography (part 3/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote. 

Part 3/9

Evelyn explained that there wasn’t much difference in the treatment between her and her brother. She knew of families that did have significant differential treatment but that, that didn’t happen in her house. She told me that she also had quite a different father than many young girls did.

I don’t remember when I was younger, but apparently my father was very good with each of the babies. My dad would come into a room full of people and if someone was holding a baby, he would go and talk to the child before the adults – which was kind of unusual for that time and age.

Her family did not have a highchair and so they always sat on their father’s lap until they were big enough to sit in a chair. Evelyn told me that she thought he was very good with little kids, but not very good with those ten to fifteen year olds, where they think they know everything. “Teenagers he was pretty good with as well, but not that in-between stage.”

Evelyn felt that it was expected that her father was the head of the household and as such he made the major family decisions.

He took after his mother, Grandma Crandlemire, as she was the matriarch in her family. He was naturally strong willed and that is why he was a head of the household, not because he had the status of ‘husband’. So he grew up that way, it was a personality trait, and as her mom was much shier and quieter, she didn’t assert herself. Evelyn felt that she was quieter, but not because of the way she grew. She said that she felt that her mother had an equal partnership with her husband. She felt that way because her grandfather Stauffer had a blacksmith shop where he worked alongside his wife.

“I don’t think there was anything I couldn’t do that the boys could do”. Evelyn went on to tell me that although she thought she could do anything that the boys did, she know that there were societal norms that were expected of her. 

She was never told what these were exactly, but she only saw women as nurses, secretaries, and teachers, if they were working at all. Evelyn did not want to be “an ordinary person,” and she said that perhaps that is why she pursued her education later in life. She thought that she might be a home economics teacher, as she liked cooking and sewing – just not housework. “I do remember when I was in grade ten; we had to do a study of a job. I did a lawyer, thinking at the time that if I was a man, that is what I would be. I didn’t think that was what women did.” Evelyn thought this because she had never heard of a women lawyer. Evelyn also knew that she wanted to get married and have children. She felt that it was important. 

When asked if she wanted to have children because she thought she should do it, she found difficultly answering. She replied that it is what she has done, “and it’s also something that’s given [her’ a great deal of pleasure and [she] would not have missed it for the world”.