How Does She Do It?

Detective Cookie Bouldin: Stopping Violence with a Chess Board

- Janet Pelz

It seems like everyone knows Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin, even at the times she hadn’t known herself. In the Chicago projects where she grew up, opportunities to make the wrong choice were a plentiful commodity. But thanks to strict parents and a number of adults who took the time to care, Denise Bouldin learned to know herself. And she’s determined to return the favor those people paid her, in a hundred different ways, every single day.

In a loud and lively lunch spot in Seattle’s Rainier Valley, I wait my turn to say hello to Detective Bouldin. Dressed in police blacks with a purposeful bearing, makeup and nails mastered from her days modeling for Ebony and Jet Magazines, her entrance commands the attention of wait staff and diners alike. She knows someone at every table, shaking hands and patting shoulders, some stopping her proudly to show off their children and grandchildren. She finally takes a seat at my table, but not before her eyes meet most every other pair in the room.

Everybody here knows Detective Cookie.

(photo credit: KING 5 News)

I came to know her after listening to a story about her by Jamala Henderson on our local public radio station KUOW.

I stayed in the car until the piece was over and scribbled a note to myself. It took a while to track her down and find a time to squeeze into her schedule for a quick lunch between two elementary school classroom visits where, as a community relations worker for the Seattle Police Department, she delivers lessons in anti-violence. And chess.

It started like this. A while back she was given the task to organize an activity for kids in the neighborhood – something healthy for them to do while interacting with the police in a positive way. So Officer Cookie organized a basketball game between the neighborhood kids and a police team. It was a rousing success. The kids outlasted their grown-up opponents and relished the chance to rub it in.

So, when time came around the following year for another activity, she assumed she’d be organizing a repeat match.

“But the kids said, Officer Cookie, ‘We don’t want to do a basketball game again. Not all of us play basketball.’ And when I thought about it I realized, there were a lot of kids who didn’t play basketball but just sat and watched. So I asked them, what did they want to do? And a few of them said, ‘Let’s have a chess tournament.’ A chess tournament? That’s the last thing I expected to hear. But I’m saying to myself I gotta make this happen, so I said, OK!”

But then what? Officer Cookie didn’t know much about the game and what she did know, she didn’t particularly like.

“As a kid, I was pretty much brainwashed that I wasn’t smart enough for chess. I never saw a black person playing chess. Never. And then someone showed me all the pieces on the board and said, ok this is what this one do and this one do, and I got frustrated ‘cause I kept forgetting. And I said, you know what? I hate this game, I hate it, hate it, hate it. Don’t ever want to play it again,” she declared, hand sweeping the table as if she were clearing the board. “My brain just wasn’t made for chess. And when anyone would try to teach me I would say, I can’t do it, I’ve tried.”

But this was for the kids, not for her. So she went to the Parks Department and got some chess boards and organized a picnic in a local park.

“So, we got ready for the chess tournament and I set up the boards, and to my surprise there were only a couple of kids who knew how to play chess and the rest of them were just standing around watching.                          (photo from Detective Bouldin)

“I asked the kids, be honest, how come you don’t play chess? And they would answer, ‘I’m not smart enough to play chess. I don’t play because chess is for smart people. Chess is for white people, for nerds.’ I realized that the answers these kids were giving were the same answers I gave for not playing chess. The same reasons!

“Now, I was a real good, set-the-chess-board-up-person. And making sure kids came. But whenever the kids wanted me to play chess I would just mimic their moves. Wherever they moved their piece, I would move my same piece. I had no clue to why or whatever reason it got there and for what purpose.”

She was getting ready for another such match when she heard a little kid whisper to her opponent. “He was about 4 or 5 years old and he said, ‘don’t worry, you’re going to beat Officer Cookie’, and I’m like, oh no he didn’t! No, he did NOT say that! All I could do was laugh, but he was so right!”

So Officer Cookie connected with the American Foundation for Chess, who promised her she would be playing chess in 30 minutes or less if she came to one of their trainings.

“So I went. And they taught me chess piece by piece. We started with just pawns. And after about 20 minutes, I was playing chess and I was LOVING it, I could not get enough of it. And I wanted to play chess day and night.”

And the more she played chess with kids in the neighborhood, the more she realized that it was much more than a game.

“I use the chess boards to teach anti-violence and to teach about making good choices. Cause if you don’t make good choices, there will be consequences. If you’re so quick to take somebody’s pawn and you don’t notice that there’s this knight over there hoping you make that move so he can take your queen, it’s going to kill you! Same thing on the streets! You’ve got to make this choice -- do you want to be in a gang? Do you want to pick up a gun and shoot somebody? What are the consequences? I’ve had kids tell me, Detective Cookie, you know, chess is like real life! And when a kid tells me that I know I’m getting through.”

(photo from KING 5 News)

Denise Bouldin knows well what real life is like for these kids.

“In my neighborhood people tried to get me to do drugs, to sell drugs, to do prostitution. I refused to do that, basically because my parents were strict. Back in the day, you knew you would get a whipping -- you wouldn’t get a time-out or spanking, you got a whipping. After you get one, you don’t want to get another. That’s not to say I didn’t try. Some times I would meet my friends dressed in hoochie-mama clothes,” she confesses, arching her eyebrows to make sure I knew just what she was saying.

A young Denise showed up once at the local Boys and Girls Club wearing some super-tight pants when an older woman pulled her aside to offer some advice. “She said, you know what? You’re not that type of person. Because of your clothes, it’s going to make people think different of you. She gave me a long talk about it. Back then, everybody could say something to a kid; everybody was your parent. I tell people today, talk to kids, cause sometimes just saying something can make a difference like it did with me.

“I trusted what this lady said and I never dressed like that again. I started thinking about how other people would see me. It made me realize, I had friends who were gang members, but I wasn’t in the gang. I didn’t want to be seen like that so I had to give up some of my friends. Someone could come by in a drive-by shooting, they’re not going to tell me to move aside because I’m not in the gang. They just shoot.”

When Detective Cookie addresses third graders at a south end elementary school, she shares this life history with kids who sit up straight, hands folded on their desks, listening intently.

“There’s going to be times when someone is going to ask you to do drugs -- by the time you get to high school, maybe even middle school. You will have to be ready with your answer. If you have a weak ‘no’ they’ll hear that as a ‘maybe’. Don’t be afraid to say no; you have the right to say no; you have a right to mean no. Make your no mean no.”

And then Detective Cookie gets out the chess boards. Quietly, the group divides into pairs and sets up. The kids have all learned the lesson of the first move – reaching across the board to shake hands. And then they get started. Most of the students seem to have a good command of the game. Solid moves and captured pieces activate the classroom. The few who are still learning the game work together in one corner where Detective Cookie circles back frequently to answer questions.

In the school hallways the kids smile at her and wave. “Hi Detective Cookie!” is offered down the line. She knows these kids and she knows their families. If one of them misbehaves in school she’s got the family’s number on speed dial in her cell phone, and she’s not afraid to use it.

This kind of police work has earned the recognition of many notables. In 2011 U. S. Senator Patty Murray awarded Detective Bouldin a “Golden Tennis Shoes” award. In accepting the honor, Detective Cookie used the podium to inform the crowd the chess club would be coming to an end due to lack of funding. Read this clip from The Stranger about her moving address. 

 

 

 

In 2011 she received a Community Builder Award from the Seattle Neighborhood Group. In 2010 she was chosen as the Best Police Officer by the Rainier Valley Post.

Becoming a police officer would surprise the people she grew up with. Back then cops were rarely your friend. “I hated the police, just like everybody else. I thought all police harassed young black people.”

(photo credit: Red Fish Blue Fish Photography)

But when she got to high school, “I met a police officer who was at our school everyday, it was his assignment -- and this police officer was the nicest person. You could go up and talk with him. That’s when I started thinking I might want to be a police officer like him, interacting with people.”

Success in the Seattle Police Department didn’t come easily. “When I came to the Academy they thought I was sort of joke, because I didn’t look like a police officer. When I went to my personnel interview I dressed like my other job -- a professional model. I was in my modeling clothes; make-up perfectly done.”

There was one white woman in her Academy class along with about 25 men. And one African American woman in the entire Seattle Police Department.

After she graduated she learned that her classmates had placed bets that she would fail. “The ones betting against me didn’t make it through the Academy themselves! What they didn’t know, I’m from Chicago, I got five brothers, I’m street smart, very street smart, I’m athletic, I’m a tomboy.”

After the Academy she had to make it through training. Although she met some encouraging officers along the way, “some were trying to get me to quit. We would sit down for coffee and they would tell jokes about the white man, the china man and the black man, and always the black man would get the butt of the joke. I didn’t say anything, all I wanted to do was to get through. One guy wrote me up for taking too long to do my report. He didn’t mention that before we got to the precinct he had us running all over town picking up his laundry and all his other jobs.

“I had a supervisor tell me the same thing, I took too long on my call. But you have to realize what I’m doing! This old lady got in a car accident, it totaled her car. I’m waiting until the tow truck comes to get it and I’m not going to leave this little old lady ‘til the cab comes to get her. We once did a raid on a house and I stayed a little longer because I saw that there were kids in the house with no food, so I went out to get some. And then I volunteered to take the kids to child protective service so they could get in a foster home. It takes me a little longer because I’m not going to leave until the job is done.”

(KOMO TV: see the full clip here)

Detective Cookie finally made it through training, and this day over her lunch order delivered to the nodding waiter as ‘my regular’, she realized she had just passed her 32 year anniversary on the force.

“I tell kids, you gotta start planning your roads now. What you want to be way down that road to success -- start that road right now. Even if you’ve done some wrong things in the past, you can make a change right now. I stopped hanging with people doing the wrong things, and it allowed me to become a police officer. “

As a police officer Detective Cookie has experienced some of her proudest moments. She was a body guard to Rosa Parks when the civil rights leader spoke at Garfield High School. “And I was one of the Seattle Police Officers on security detail for the inauguration of President and First Lady Obama. I had tears running down my eyes. I got a beautiful gold badge. This is something I will cherish for my whole life.”

Look for an upcoming column on Detective Cookie along with directions for how to support her Urban Chess Program.

Sandy Hirsch: Helping Others Find their True Voice

- Janet Pelz

Her own childhood marked by a series of 11 checkerboard moves -- from Belgium to Germany to Switzerland to England to Germany and back to England -- Sandy Hirsch brings a certain empathy to her clients.

“I had an immediate affinity with never really feeling at home anywhere as well as feeling at home everywhere because of all the traveling I’ve done. Never feeling ‘bien de sa peau’ -- feeling right in one’s skin. I have the ability to morph constantly because that was what I was trained to do as a child. I know what it’s like to feel as if you don’t belong.”

Sandy’s clients, those who make up about 95% of her private voice and communication practice, are transgender women -- men in the process of becoming women. People in the middle of a complex journey to become the person they’ve always wanted to be.

Whether through her studies of French and the classics, teaching herself languages as she moved throughout Europe, or her first career as an actress and singer, Sandy’s life has all been about communication. “My passion is voice. Mimicry is something I’ve done since I’ve been able to speak.”

But after tiring of waitressing while trying to support herself as an actress, Sandy went to graduate school to study speech language pathology.

“My very first voice client in graduate school was a transgender woman. I was one of a few ‘mature’ students there. People knew about my theater background.” The match was made. “Working with her was such fun, so challenging.

“In that period of time before starting my practice, it was obvious to me that I would be seeing transgender clients.” One of the supervisors at the UW Voice Clinic had a two year wait list “so she started sending her clients over to me because I was the only one in town. Then once the web hit, it went national and then international.

“Suddenly, you’re the person in the world who does it -- along with a bunch of other people, but there’s only a small group. When I started there were fewer of us, but there’s been a real explosion of people transitioning and coming out. Society’s views have changed, and by definition, the need has increased the number of services.

“Which is why we wrote the book because there was no clinical text for people to turn to in the voice world.”

Sandy shows me the book she edited and co-authored: Voice and Communication Therapy for the Transgender/Transsexual Client: A Comprehensive Clinical Guide (Plural Publishing, March, 2006). Included within are cd’s which we listen to together. They feature transgender women speaking before and after therapy. The difference is dramatic – the ‘after’ voice every bit female.

In addition to speech and voice work, Sandy provides training in other aspects of communication, such as walking, posture, sitting, facial expressions, and gestures. Counting off her fingers with delight, Sandy points out “I get to do my theater, I get to meet really interesting people, I help people speak the truth, which is what being a speech pathologist is all about -- you get to help people express themselves the way they always wanted to, or get them back to where they were before.”

It is for this reason she calls her business Give Voice. 

Her clients come to her at varying times in their transition. She sees most of them in her home office and Skypes with others further away. “It’s a little different with everybody. They come to me having just started hormones, and others have been transitioning for a couple years, and they’ve never done any voice.”

Her one criterion, “I require that people come to me in their feminine mode, in some relatively honest manifestation of their gender transition. They may not be out at work yet, but they’re spending enough time as a woman to use what I’m teaching them. It’s like the difference between textbook French and being in France. Their goals and outcomes are more achievable with a certain amount of immersion time.”

As part of their gender transition, Sandy helps her clients learn a new way to use the body to produce different sound. She works on pitch -- how high or low the sound is; resonance -- the timbre of the voice; where the sound resonates (men tend to resonate in the chest or lower larynx, and women in the upper larynx or head); and inflection -- how the sounds move higher or lower in pitch from word to word.

“Women produce a light sound, which is not just about pitch, but where the voice plays the mouth and in the head. The sound is out front,” she says, pouting her lips forward. “I’m training people to begin raising pitch so the vocal chords are vibrating faster. It’s nearly all ear training. Really, it’s like learning a foreign language, but learning sounds rather than words.”

Sandy clicked on a video to show me the affect of her work with a client. 

In it you’ll see Jerica alternating clips from before and after her therapy over the course of nine months. “Initially, she’s presenting as an obviously transgender woman and later, you wouldn’t know if you saw her on the street.”

(click the above to hear Jerica’s challenges with mastering a new voice at work, her estrangement from her parents, and her new boyfriend)

 

The vast majority of her transgender clients are men transitioning to becoming women. “There’s a reason for that. For transgender men, testosterone does change pitch.” Transgender women, on the other hand, have to train their bodies to produce sound in a different way.

But changing voice requires a lot more than the physical work. “I warn people that when they want to move to complete change in the way they sound they will hit a psychological wall at three months. It’s like going through the Looking Glass -- they begin to ask, where’s this other part of me? As long as you sound the same, you can still pretend you haven’t changed.”

Who among us can’t relate? I hear my own voice and think I’m still 35 years old.

(When Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Transamerica, NPR produced a story about her voice training and that of transgender women. Listen here and you’ll hear Sandy at the end of the story).

“Our voice is our inner anchor.” The hardest time to retain one’s new voice is with family or on the job -- in a context where you’re either forced to be hyper-intellectual, or with people who evoke from you your former self. Sandy knows those situations well.

“I can speak street German pretty well, but I could never give a professional presentation in that language. The higher the cognitive level, the harder it is. It’s just like levels of fluency. For my clients, being able to present professionally, that’s a much higher level test vs. can I order my coffee.”

Similarly, when Sandy gets on the phone with English friends or family, her childhood voice returns. “A while ago I went to London to present to a conference. It was like I’d never left -- It was like putting on my bedroom slippers. The way I communicated, the way I behaved -- everything -- the pace of my walk. I fell back into being in London.

“That’s the change my transgender clients have going back to their families I sometimes tell my clients to make sure there’s a mirror around so they can constantly remind themselves of who they are.”

If voice is such a critical inner anchor, I asked Sandy how she reconciled her own voice shift. During the course of our conversation I hear traces of her native British accent fluently intermingled with American ‘r’s’ and idioms. “I have a pretty confused voice -- I don’t mean that in a deep psychological blah-blah way. It’s really different all day long.” Sandy finds herself moving from a very English voice to one that is very American, depending on whom she is speaking to and what sort of mood she is in. “When I’m doing my community volunteer work I’m in my American head, because I never did any of that in England – I was too young. But when I’m annoyed at my kids I’ll often realize I’m using a very English sound. Or like after I’ve spent time with (our mutual friend) Jane, I’ll say, “How are you? How’s Jim? How’re the boys?”

Her replication of Jane’s voice is uncanny. I wonder immediately about how Sandy will imitate me to Jane when she sees her next.

(Sandy with her husband Jim West, and sons John and Finn West)

She relies on her speech pathology training to work on voice with her clients, but for the other package of verbal and non-verbal communication, she falls back on her experience in acting and the fact that she is both “an acute observer and a woman.”

Much of the information she imparts has to do with how women relate to one another. “If we were men,” she says leaning back against her chair, “we’d be talking like this.” She drapes one arm across the back of the chair and extends her legs in front of her, “instead of like this.” She caresses her coffee cup in both hands placing her elbows on the table and leaning toward me. “It’s the art of the chin wag, that’s a British expression, which means getting together to chat.” Women do this; men, not so much.

Laughing, I pointed out that in addition to different posture, we also weren’t likely to be having this conversation if we were both men – I wouldn’t have called her to ask for an interview and not knowing me, she wouldn’t have accepted.

Sandy has taught workshops about the secrets of Girl Talk at a Port Angeles conference called Esprit. “We’ve done everything to quilting to bead sorting, to looking at photographs together -- experiences that force people into this different kind of communicative style.” As I listen, I imagine her students taking notes: women choose beads and talk like this when they are sewing quilting squares… It’s fascinating to consider how her students are working intellectually to adopt a whole series of actions that women perform everyday, whether they come to it naturally or train themselves over a lifetime.

“There’s a book called I Know Just What you Mean – the Power of Friendship in Women’s Lives, by Ellen Goodman and Patricia O’Brien. (From Publisher’s Weekly: Goodman and O'Brien discuss how women listen, talk, care for and empathize with their women friends). “An exercise I’ll have my clients do when they’re out there in the real world is to say at least five times an hour, ‘I know just what you mean.’ Men don’t have that empathy piece. They are more like to say, ‘Just give me the facts, ma’am’.”

Sandy’s approach towards teaching “authenticity”, which includes everything from hand and facial movements, to voice and ways of thinking, has made a huge difference in my confidence and ability to live more fully in my chosen gender. I would recommend her without reservation to anyone seeking true authenticity in their chosen gender presentation and voice.

 

B.C.

Her private practice is just one leg of Sandy’s professional stool. She also works part-time doing acute care at Swedish Hospital Edmonds with patients on “everything from the neck up: language retrieval, speech, reading, writing -- the whole communication ball of wax.” Issues that could come about from stroke, cardiac arrest, traumatic brain injury or other causes. She also works with an agency in long-term care facilities, mostly with geriatrics in rehab.

“My patients make me laugh; they make me cry.” Sandy played for me the role of a recent 83 year-old patient – a woman with a southern accent who married for the first time at the age of 72. “I was an undiscovered treasure,” she mimics, whistling the ‘s’ in treasure in a way that would make Tennessee Williams smile.

Juggling different part-time jobs leaves time for Sandy to be involved in her kids’ schools and in community work and provides some freedom to pursue her many other interests. “Singing is a huge part of my life – our whole family is very musical. My husband plays sax and I sing classical and jazz.” (click here to listen to Sandy sing jazz at Tula’s). “Food is a huge part of my life -- having people over for dinner gives me great joy. If someone moves into the neighborhood, I make them welcome -- I’m a networker. The community work I do has fed me. I feel enormously lucky in the randomness of my life and so I do feel a need to be giving back.

“I feel like there’s so much in the world to feel, smell, see, eat and hear, and the patients I work with remind me every single day that I could not have this in an hour, in five minutes. That keeps me moving forward. Realizing, I can do this, I can do this. It makes me think, how dare I not? When I was trying to decide whether to write an update to my book, my sister reminded me, it’s not bloody rehearsal, come on!”, she says in her English accent. “Why wouldn’t you write that book? How dare I not?”

Sandy’s not-so secrets for How She Does It:

• My life is: Danny Kay, Nichols and May, opera, languages, good food, skiing and visual arts. All of those things have led me to where I am now.
• The obvious answer, this is the only way I know how to do it -- to have many different things going on because it’s never boring. Life is never boring -- that’s how I do it.
• I was lucky enough to have been born to great parents who offered me lots of wonderful experiences as well as a superb education. I'm constantly shocked at the randomness of that fact. They were very organized parents, so I have a sense of multi-tasking.
• I have an unbelievably supportive husband; we support each other’s careers a lot.
• It goes without saying that my kids give me huge joy, but that’s sort of a category of its own.
• I feel really privileged to have a healthy mind and feel like it’s my duty to use what I have – there’s no excuse for being bored or lying fallow. My mother died when she was really, really young, so in some ways I feel it’s my responsibility to live my life fully in honor of what she didn’t have.
• Keeping things new as well as keeping tradition.
• My brother and sister give me tremendous joy. We have a language we speak together – our own terms of family humor
• Traveling with my husband and sons gives me an enormous joy; being outside of my comfort zone culturally.

What books has Sandy read recently?

• Consider This, Senora: by Harriet Doerr
• Enduring Love: by Ian McEwan
• Half of a Yellow Sun: by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Whom does Sandy want me to interview next?

• Our mutual friend Jane Zalutsky, who knows everyone and everything interesting, “obviously.”
• Liz Bullard – a speech/language pathologist who spearheaded the creation of The Children’s Playgarden – a playground designed for children with special needs.
• Sandy Eshelman – very interesting friend who has had every career known to man.

First or Second Amendment? Let’s Return to the Founding Days

- Janet Pelz

I was chatting with Rebecca and Carol at the gym (www.welldonevents.com) and they asked what I was doing today to change the world.  O.K., so I’m not changing the world, but having a web site provides me the chance to describe it from my point of view when the mood strikes.  So, in a departure from my usual fare…

The Tucson shootings have sparked another round of debate centered on our interpretation of the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Did it occur because of hate talk and conspiracy theories, or because of easy access to high powered weapons and higher capacity ammunitions?

I imagine they both played a role, but without guns, conspiracy theories are just, well, theoretical.

It’s hard to draw an incontrovertibly straight line from the issuance of speech to the actions of its consumer. Words of hate and fear are released over the airwaves in overwhelming volumes and at warp speed in our hyper-tech culture. But who’s to know for sure if the crosshair image or the charges of clandestine Muslimism is the thing that sets someone off.

But the trajectory of a bullet is indisputable.

Traveling from the barrel of a semi-automatic weapon through the skull and brain of its first target, with the next in quick succession through the heart or lungs of a 9 year-old girl or a 79 year-old woman. It moves a distance of 1,230 feet per second in a straight line. This is not left to interpretation, but a selling point of the gun’s manufacturer.

You can give a loaded dictionary to a crazy person and you might encounter him mumbling to himself in some public place. You can give a loaded gun to a crazy person and it’s likely that several random individuals will soon be lying in a pool of their own blood.

So, we proceed through the same ritual as we did after Columbine, the D.C. Sniper, Virginia Tech and all the others. (ABC News printed an alarming list of mass shootings in the U.S. since 1999). As a nation we are shocked anew by the carnage, outraged at the commission of such an act, and we debate the cause. Then we agree that nothing can be done – apparently mass shootings are a reasonable price to pay for the right of citizens to keep and bear hand-held grenade launchers -- except to appeal to everyone’s better nature. And then we wait for the next headline.

Fortunately, most of us have a better nature that we’re in control of. In a group of 100 people, 99 of us will join together to decry the violence and behave rationally.

But then there’s the other guy. The one who lost his job, or is jealous of his ex-wife, is tired of being bullied in school, or is off his medication. And as long as getting a semi-automatic weapon and a 33-round high capacity magazine is as easy as it is in Arizona, ABC’s list is just going to get longer.

Stop to think about it – have you ever read the parallel list of national tragedies caused by mentally unstable people unable to get hold of semi-automatic weapons? How many innocent people have died because of a waiting period, or regulations against gun trafficking, or background checks? Or because they could only buy a magazine that fired 10 rounds before reloading?

In a day where the Tea Party has made constitutional fundamentalism a key tenet, I suggest we revert to the days when the Founding Fathers drafted those first two amendments. Let’s agree that political charges can only be made with handbills glued to the doors of public buildings and citizens can only own muskets that require a funnel and gun powder to re-load. There might be a lot more of us around in the future to appreciate our freedoms.

Anne Travis-Barker: Foster Mother and 4-Star Neighbor

- Janet Pelz

If Neighbor had a rank, Anne Travis-Barker would be a General. Four star.

There is nothing militaristic to her calling. Rather, it is rooted in her Christian beliefs, and stirred with real world understanding and lots and lots of love.

Ms. Anne’s neighborhood is wherever she is at the moment – her south Seattle seven bedroom home which she fills with children; the back corner of a modest building nearby which is active with evening AA meetings, mentoring sessions for young women, Church service on Sunday and any other needs her community might have on all other days of the year. Her neighborhood travels with her from the local bus stop, where she asserts her responsibility to break up a fight, to the poorest places in southern Mississippi and even when she goes on vacation.

“If someone is in need I’ve got to help. My kids say ‘one day you’re going to get yourself killed’,” she recounts, throwing her head back laughing, but her expression soon becomes serious. “You have to be a citizen, you can’t just look the other way. I saw this guy beating a woman, right on Cherry Street and nobody was stopping to help her!,” says Ms. Anne incredulously. “So I headed straight for him and I told the lady, get in the car! I drove her to Swedish Hospital and I asked her, what are you doing? You don’t have to live like that.” Pride and self worth are among the gifts Ms. Anne shares both with strangers on the street and with children in her home.

A strong Christian, Ms. Anne quotes scripture at a pace that would make a cattle auctioneer envious. “In the Book of Mark, chapter 12, Jesus is asked which of the Ten Commandments is most important and he answers number 1: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and number 2: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” she says, reciting the latter with an emphasis on every word. “Now, there are a lot of people who aren’t too happy with that one because they think that what is theirs should stay theirs.” Ms. Anne, on the other hand, is of the mind that most anything of hers can be shared with someone who needs it.

I met Ms. Anne in her “office” at the back of a non-descript building in Seattle’s Rainier Valley. No sign identifies its purpose but it’s clear that anyone who needs to come here doesn’t need a sign to tell them what it is. Ms. Anne emerges from behind a makeshift office divider moving slowly and deliberately, but her face displays no pain, just radiant joy. A young man quietly and efficiently helps seat her in a stacking chair, and unfolds a table for me to set my laptop on before bringing out a cup of coffee for me and Ms. Anne’s preferred ginger tea.

Anne Travis Barker also refers to the Bible to explain her view of the special role women play in society. “In the Bible it says the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. But then it says that God fashioned woman to be his help-mate,” she says, arching her eyebrow with a knowing look. That word, ‘fashioned’ suggests to Anne, that God’s creation of woman was more intentional, as if He were considering what He had forgotten in the first attempt.

“God gave us something very special – the emotional side of Him; He gave us a different way to see outside of just strength, outside of just logic. He gave women a spirit of influence that He didn’t give to man. That influence is doing something for the better. Barbara Bush once said something, ‘we who rock the cradle rule the nation’. Women can make the world a better place. I really believe it starts with us.”

I met Anne through the Mockingbird Society, a local organization working to improve the foster care system. Understanding the effort involved in raising my own children, I wanted to interview someone who was helping raise others. And as with so many of my interviews, I found that the reason that drew me to Ms. Anne was just a slice of what was remarkable about her. In fact, it wasn’t until she had generously shared more than an hour with me that the topic of foster care was ever broached. Before that I got to learn about all the other good work that keeps her up until late at night and rising before 5 in the morning.

“Once a year I take a southern tour and drive to Louisiana or Mississippi – I went to New Orleans after Katrina. We pack up a van with bedding, housewares, kids clothes – whatever I can get, and we just start driving.” Her journey takes her down the country roads of some of the poorest places in this country. “If I see a bad conditioned place, I stop and ask, is there anything we can do for you?

“Once when we were in Mississippi I heard this racket, my, but it was loud. I turned around to find out where the noise was coming from and I saw this little boy pushing the frame of a rusty bicycle,” she says, her beautifully manicured hands providing accompaniment. “It had no wheels, but he was pushing it up the road as if he were riding it. I asked him where he lived and he led us to this house and introduced us to his mother. We told her we came from Seattle to offer help. We went in her house. She was very embarrassed because the place was just horrible – I mean you just could not imagine living in there. And I said, we have several men here with us and they fixed the roof, and we got the kids new bedding, and gave them our last rug. We spent all day with them. Then I asked, was there anything else she needed? The woman said ‘no’ but the little boy stepped forward and said he wanted a bike. So, we called Walmart and arranged for all the kids to have new bikes. But the family had no way of getting to Walmart, so we hired a cab to drive the bikes out to the house. Sometimes it takes a while, but we do everything we can!”

Normally on these southern marathons Anne is joined by 4 – 8 others in the 15-passenger van. “I’m always happy to have people come along, but I tell them, it’s a rough trip. We’re not staying in fancy hotels. Sometimes we’re sleeping in the van. We’re going to work, not to vacation.”

Though even vacations have turned to work for Ms. Anne. “I was in San Diego on vacation with my kids, and I thought, let’s go over to Mexico. And I know it was just the hand of God we ended up in this place. I heard all this crying, and I said to my kids, let’s go over there and check it out. I’m nosy!”, she says, giggling. “And we see these kids, and they are just horribly filthy. They were crying and looked like they weren’t eating well. Well, I learned that the place was an orphanage without much money. The place looked like it needed a good scrubbing. My kids said, ‘mom, we’re on vacation!’ And I said, not today. Today you’re working.

“So we cleaned that place top to bottom. We went across the border and bought every diaper we could buy from K Mart and went back the next day. We brought clothes. And I asked, how much would it cost per month to help support these kids? And I took on seven.” For the last 10 years, Ms. Anne has been sending boxes to this Mexican orphanage. In April, she’ll be going back there again. “I want them to know that I’m not just a sender. I’m going to follow-up.”

                  Anne and her children at the orphanage in Mexico

About four years ago, Ms. Anne got some help creating a non-profit structure to the work she was doing on her own. The organization is called Hand and Hand. “It’s about helping your neighbor and your neighbor is anybody who needs help.” With a 501(c)(3) she can solicit contributions from local businesses (and individuals). She’ll call the hotels to get sample soaps and hygiene supplies. Target has made contributions, and Pepsi, who has a bottling plant nearby, often supplies beverages and the volunteers to distribute them. She’ll package things up and put a label on the bag that credits the company who donated them. “I want people to know that there are many people helping them.”

And then, as she was preparing to do the next morning, she’ll distribute them.

Doing so isn’t as easy as placing a piece of candy in a Trick or Treat bag. On this Saturday a week before Christmas, Ms. Anne was preparing to feed the homeless under the freeway in downtown Seattle the next morning -- starting at 5 a.m. That’s when she’ll get the chili and coffee going so she can offer warm food and drink to people who have been sleeping in doorways that December night. She has gathered up gloves and hats and scarves, soaps and shampoos. She and the other volunteers will serve under the overpass and then, “we’ll target doorways. We drive down First Avenue and if we see someone who wasn’t able to make it to the feeding we’ll stop the van. I’ve done this enough so I know how to do it right. You can’t just walk up on someone in a doorway because they might have mental health issues. So instead, we just open the van and invite them over. We have hot chili because they need something filling – they may not have eaten the night before.”

Ms. Anne (foreground above) and volunteer crew preparing for street feeding

That was the first item on her to-do list for Saturday. The second, following at 11 a.m. was a holiday party she was organizing for not just her own foster kids, but all the others in the homes that along with hers make up the network for which Ms. Anne serves as the Hub Home. She is at the center of a structure that the Mockingbird Society has pioneered, its intent to support both the kids and the parents who take them in. In her role as the Hub Home, Ms. Anne not only raises her own foster kids, but she serves as a resource and mentor for the other families, and she always keeps two beds open at her house just in case she needs to take in a child for crisis respite care. In anticipation of the holiday party tomorrow, Ms. Anne has been busy trying to secure donated gifts for all the kids, but she has found this year a particularly difficult one. She sadly contemplated the possibility of many disappointed faces.

So, finally we made it to the topic of foster kids, though when I used that term, Ms. Anne quickly corrected me. “These aren’t foster kids, they are my kids. I tell them when they are in my home, they cannot refer to themselves as adopted kids or foster kids. Don’t label yourself like that!” she pauses a moment to shake her head in sadness. “I don’t like that stigma. If they say that to me, then they’ll say that at school, they’ll start to think of themselves like that.”

                           Anne Travis Barker with a few of her kids

The topic of foster care elicits the fighter in Ms. Anne, who has taken in children for more than 25 years. “Trust me, I do it because of the children, not because of the system. It’s a system that needs changing,” says Anne sitting up straight and looking in my eyes with conviction, “and I plan to be one person to make it change!” It’s a reason she strongly supports the Mockingbird Society “because they are trying to make it better.”

Her frustration stems from the fact that the system has lost its compass – it no longer points to the kids who are in need of help, but to the adults who manage it. According to Ms. Anne, they have more concern for their own careers than for the kids they are supposed to be serving. “You have all these people who are promotionally motivated, but they’re not children motivated.”

She illustrates her frustration with stories of kids she knows who have been shuffled from home to home with no recognition of the need for family stability or the child’s special issues. Throughout her stories, there are frequent mentions of her kids. Now, I know she has two kids of her own (“I had a hard time having kids – I lost a lot of them. I had two but I always wanted 12 children.”), so I stopped her to ask, just how many kids have you fostered?

For the first time in our interview, Ms. Anne is quiet. “How many?” she asks herself, as if disbelieving such a question could exist. “Oh my lord I couldn’t even begin to count.” She bows her head, leaning it against one hand while the fingers of the other move quickly in succession. The quiet continues and I see her lips move slightly. Finally, she looks up and says, “well, if you don’t count those who came for just respite care, say all the kids who have been with me for 90 days or more, I don’t know, maybe 60?”

60 children. Not for a hotel stay, but for parental support, guidance, doctor’s appointments, mental health evaluations, school lunches, teenage parties, college applications, and love.

Within that number there is sadness. “Jamaal was killed on Memorial Day in a car accident. My other son was hit by a drunk driver; my littlest boy developed cancer; I have a daughter that had uterine cancer….” her list continues. But there are the bright spots as well – the daughter she has had for 10 years is getting ready to start community college. “She wants to be a pediatrician.”

For each of these kids and all the others she touches, Anne strives to find the unique value within them. “That’s why we got so involved in Northwest Junior Orchestra – that’s a way out for some of these kids. We have a boy who has had some real problems, but he’s an excellent musician. We tell him, you’re not a dummy, you’ve got talent.

“We expose these kids to the world outside this neighborhood; we help them discover beauty. We go to the Nutcracker every year, we expose them to new things – let’s go to Jefferson Park and see the beautiful trees and learn to play golf -- we were able to get a young man into golf, he loves it, and he earned his own golf set.”

Seeing crime as a frequent result of dropping out of school, she started Way Out Tutoring in her building on Thursday nights. Two teachers, an elementary teacher and a Garfield High School teacher donate their time and she gets money for school supplies from the City.

“And for each of these kids I don’t have to worry about him robbing me some day; I don’t have to worry about him attacking me someday. Folks have got to understand, if you don’t make a change, you’re going to face these people at some point.” When you do face them, figures Ms. Anne, it’s a whole lot better if they’re on the right path.

Some times Ms. Anne does have the chance to see the people she has touched in the past. “This young man came by here and he said, you put your arms around me and I couldn’t believe it. And he said, what should I do now? And I said, you put your arms around the next man and it all gets better.”

That’s what Ms. Anne did with me. At the end of this wonderful conversation, more than once having felt blessed to have shared the time with someone who, but for this web site, I would have never met, Ms. Anne folded me in her arms with a hug every bit as warm as those she undoubtedly delivered to 60 or more kids.

And I put my arms around you.

If you would like to support the work done by Ms. Anne and Hand to Hand, she eagerly welcomes more helpers, to solicit and pick-up donations, assist with the early morning feedings, pack hygiene bags.

And she could really use some help setting up a simple web site that might help inform people of what she needs help with and when. If you have skills in that area, leave a comment below and I’ll try to hook you up.

Meanwhile, financial contributions can be mailed to: Hand and Hand, PO Box 28177 Seattle, WA 98118

Ms. Anne’s not-so secrets for How She Does It:

• “I was married for nearly 30 years and granted the highest position in the world – Motherhood. I believe it is though my children that the journey of life really started – consider just for a moment, that there is a little person who is counting on you for everything. One day I really thought about this – the power of making the world, the place I live, other people’s lives better by what I did or didn’t do with my little person. I finally put a name to this revelation – it’s called the power of One.
• “Sometimes life can get overwhelming with problems, injustice, bad laws – these things don’t get corrected because of the lawyer, senator or other groups. It is my feeling that if each of us do all we can do – everything gets better. The power of One starts and ends with you and me.”
• She works at having balance in her life. “We feed on the street, we have a party for foster kids, but I need to go get my nails done! I get to take a steam bath and I’m not taking my phone. These are my Anne Times – I think I’m better person when I take time for me.”
• Anne’s mother has been a huge influence in her life. Though they were poor growing up, “we always had somebody live with us, she always did things for other people. My mom always pressed us to become educated. She would tell us, ‘I don’t want you to ever carry anything heavier than a pencil -- that’s the heaviest thing I want you to lift in life. Sit at a desk and earn a living.’ They knew the fields.”
• “I’m not perfect. It’s something I tell the girls I mentor. Obesity is an issue. It’s one of those health problems that hits our community hard: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, breast and prostate cancer. I’m learning to eat more healthy even when I’m eating Black food.” Removing the pre-frying of collard greens and eating carrot cake made without sugar are two recent revelations to her.
• She doesn’t like talking about herself, claiming that her good deeds are only possible because of the people who work with her. “Everybody wants to be famous -- why? They’re glory seekers and I never want that. I just want life to be better for everybody and I think that can happen. I want justice, I want it to be right.
• “I’m not as organized as I want to be. I do a calendar for a whole year and I don’t let too many things disrupt that calendar. Sometimes I examine myself, did I miss something? I try to keep my eye on the priority and let everything adjust.
• “I can go two or three days and not really sleep.”

 

What books has Ms. Anne read recently?

• Re-reading The Shack, by William P. Young. A father tries to unravel the murder of his daughter after he receives a suspicious note, apparently from God. “It shows his journey. I feel like I’m on a journey.”
• Shopgirl by Steve Martin. “You have to read things that stimulate you and keep you grounded.”
• “And of course, I read my Bible, because it keeps me grounded. Especially the Proverbs -- you gotta have that remembrance.”

Whom does Ms. Anne want me to interview next?

• Pam, who started NW junior orchestra. “Out of nothing she has gone to people and gotten new instruments, gotten musicians to donate their time; she even has her grandkids teaching. She has helped a lot of kids stay out of trouble through music.”

What ahead for Anne Travis-Barker?

• She’s really into Egyptian history -- her next adventure is to travel to Egypt
• She has a long list of certificates and diplomas, including a PhD in Theology. The next thing she wants to learn? Glass blowing.
• She’s working to buy a new place that will have space in it to do the things she currently does, but that can also provide a meal and a bed for the homeless each night.

One Year, 25 Amazing Women and 13,000 Page Hits Later…

 

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It was one year ago that I launched How Does She Do It? promising prospective readers:

“You’ll be inspired by the extraordinary and ordinary life stories of women in the Seattle area.

Each week I’ll interview a single mom, elite athlete, artist, or community volunteer; women who have arrived at their destination or women in transition – about who they are now and what choices they made to get to this point.

I’ll ask these women to tell who has made a fundamental impact on their lives, and what resources they turn to for support. And I’ll ask, whom should I interview next? We’ll start a thread that could weave throughout the region, and we’ll follow it wherever it takes us.”

  With the first story about my mother Kelly Pelz I’ve gone on to write about 24 other women, ranging in age from 13 – 99, women involved in the arts, sports, non profit organizations and business; women making an impact in this country and around the globe.

In the process I’ve also had my eyes opened to the power of the web to connect us. Google provides more information than I can use, but here are some of the more impressive statistics:

• Since I posted my first story, I’ve had more than 13,000 page hits. When I started writing, I was excited to see the number of readers rise by 25 with a new story. Now I regularly get between 30 – 60 hits on the days I don’t even post from people who have Googled something and seen my page on their results page.
• My biggest single day was 328 hits about Lacey Evans, captain of the Rat City Roller Girls. By way of update – you’ll recall she was planning a kickball game at her wedding to determine the couple’s new last name. The groom won, and Lacey is now Lacey Ramon.
• 85% or so of my readers in any month are new to the site. These are people who might be looking to read about a specific person I’ve profiled, or they may be looking for information on a topic like raising children as a single mom, living with ALS, or owning and operating a restaurant.
• Through Google searches I’ve been found by readers on every continent. A reader in Kenya read about Trish Dziko’s efforts to educate children of color. Someone in Venezuela read about Marla Smith-Nilson’s organization Water First and their efforts to bring clean drinking water to the poorest parts of the planet. Readers from European and Asian countries regularly visit my site.
• Without question the story that is most often Googled is the one I wrote in two parts about the young violin virtuoso Simone Porter and her mother. Simone’s high profile as an international performing artist has inspired a lot of interest. (She got a nice acknowledgment for her performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the concert she was preparing for when I interviewed her).
• Sometimes another web site directs their readers to me. There was the time when the website Feministe picked up my story about Joanie Warner, who has been living with breast cancer for 17 years and her daughter Abby, who was organizing a rock concert as part of a high school project to raise money to eradicate the disease. I saw a spike in readership from that link, including one woman who was an old friend of Joanie’s from North Carolina. The two friends found each other through my web site and are once again in each other’s lives.
• 70 of you currently subscribe to the site – thank you for your vote of confidence! If you don’t do so yet but like the idea of each new story showing up in your inbox when I post, just fill in the white box in the upper right hand column where it says “enter your email address here” and hit the “subscribe” button. No cost, no obligation even to read, but it’s there if you want to. Likewise, if you prefer not to receive my regular emails notifying you of the new story, please don’t hesitate to ask to be taken off the list. I know how email overload can become an issue.

While most women eventually agree to be interviewed, almost all of them start with the disclaimer that they aren’t interesting enough to merit a story. A few have turned me down, including one woman I greatly wanted to interview who sent me this:

“I do wish I could say I'm enjoying my time as a full-time teacher with the Seattle Public Schools, but that's sadly not the case. Rather, I feel thwarted at every turn. It seems to me that creative people are not wanted in the public schools. I don't believe I can continue as a public school teacher.

“Due to my present lack of inspiration, both for teaching and writing – teaching has taken all the time and energy I had for writing – I'm afraid I'll have to decline Janet's gracious invitation for an interview at this time. I wish I were in a better place to provide inspiration for other women.”

Heartbreaking.

Although I get wonderful kudos about the stories I write featuring other women, I don’t feel as successful in trying to establish the site as a place for readers to connect with each other. My other goal in starting was this:

“So, how do you do it?

Is your secret as basic as a crock pot or as meaningful as the words Aunt Lola whispered to you on your wedding day? What gets you up on a rainy morning and sustains you through one more meeting, rehearsal, breast feeding, burnt casserole, proposal deadline, or arrival of the Great Hormonal Onslaught?

I’ll open up topics and ask you to weigh in.

We’ll learn from each other, share our secrets, and promote the people, organizations, books – even kitchen gadgets -- that add value to our lives.”

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The times I’ve put out a question for your response I’ve been met with deafening, well, silence, which makes me think, either I’m asking the wrong questions or you don’t have an interest talking to each other through the milieu of a web site.  Consequently, I’ve become reluctant to try.

Likewise, the comment function of the site doesn’t get much use. My hope is that the site could grow into something more like a book club than a text message – something that inspires conversation rather than tweets.

All of this represents the growing pains, the adjustment period.  You can help me with your ideas by clicking here to take a survey.

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And finally to the business side of this project. I spend between 10 – 20 hours a week on the site, arranging and attending interviews, writing and posting stories and trying to master the technical aspects of blogging. As compensation, I’ve made about $94 in advertising and referral sales. I thank the person who ordered a camera on Amazon by clicking from my site -- that grossed me a whopping $16! If you want to help support this project, you can do your Amazon (and affiliated sites) shopping by clicking their ad on my site. I’ll get a percentage of your sales as a referral fee at no cost to you. Similarly, if you just click on any site ad, you’ll earn me a few pennies even if you never make a purchase.

Obviously, I don’t have the business model to make this a financial success, but I definitely feel as if I’m building something of value in writing these stories. I’m looking for other ways to share them (a book, perhaps?). If you have any ideas, I hope you’ll send them along.

If you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate your responses to a brief 10-question survey. Click here to take survey. I’d love your ideas for how to make the site a more valuable place for you to spend some of your time each week.

I can’t thank you enough for your support.

- Janet Pelz

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Events to Consider

As How Does She Do It? readers you might be interested in supporting a couple events coming up in the Seattle area.

October 19: Preview the film “I Know a Woman Like That,” a documentary film that features some amazing older women, including Maxine Hong Kingston, Rita Moreno, Gloria Steinem, Lauren Hutton, Eartha Kitt, and other not-so famous women, including a 92 year-old ballroom dancer and yoga instructor and a 90 something year-old water skier.   Maxine Hong Kingston and the filmmaker will be on a panel moderated by Mayumi Tsutakawa following the film.

Broadway Performance Hall, 5:30 - 9:00. Your $50 contribution supports Kawabe House and Senior Services

For reservations, click here.

 

And another:

Water First International, the organization started by Marla Smith-Nilson (featured on this site May, 2010) is preparing for its 6th annual Give Water • Give Life Benefit, their premier fundraising event of the year. More than 700 people will gather in support of people in need of clean water in India, Bangladesh, Honduras, and Ethiopia. Last year’s event raised a record $510,000 for sustainable water supply, sanitation, and health-education projects. I went last year and was overwhelmed by the great work this organization is doing. I’ll be there again, enthusiastically supporting their efforts. Hope to see you!

DATE & TIME: Saturday, November 13, at 6:00 pm

LOCATION: Washington State Convention & Trade Center, Seattle

Enjoy a cocktail reception, live music, and a unique silent auction, followed by a dinner and a Water 1st presentation and film featuring current and future Water 1st project beneficiaries.  There are no tickets for this event. Suggested minimum donation is $150/person.

- Janet Pelz

 

And a follow-up on the story about Meg Tremblay

I thought you might enjoy reading about her typical day living in Zambia (read her full story about her Peace Corps experience here)

5 am: Morning run

6 am: Haul water from well and take a quick cold bucket bath outside in my bathing shelter, which was just a little structure made of straw without a roof. Usually I had a big pot or plastic tub filled with water and a big cup to pour the water over myself.

Quick breakfast, usually bananas or mangoes depending on the season, maybe some buns and coffee made the night before. I usually wouldn't make a fire in the morning to try to save coal/time etc. I would try to shop about once a week when I went into the town to do work there. I'd buy onions, tomatoes, greens, beans, bananas, or oranges, sometimes sweet potatoes, eggplants, watermelon or avocados when they were in season, and when I needed it, toilet paper, soap, candles, washing powder.  Once every two months I'd get some other supplies (salt, spices, powdered milk, flour, coffee, etc.) from the actual store in the provincial capital and haul them back to Katete then bike them out to my village.

8 am: Biking the 10km into the town to work with the Network of Zambians Living Positively or the 3km to the clinic where I would meet up with clinic staff and then bike out to one of the villages to meet with the Neighborhood Health Committee members and do maternal and child health outreach.  This might including weighing babies, the nurse giving shots or tending to the sick. We'd also do health education talks while we had so much of the community there on things like condom usage, malaria prevention, what to do if one gets diarrhea, good nutrition, etc.

1pm: We'd be done with the work and I'd grab a quick bite with the clinic staff and Neighborhood Health Committee members. The community would sometimes make us the traditional Zambia dish of nshima, which is a flour ground from corn and then mixed with water until it starts to get harder, then it is used to pick up and eat other foods like cabbage or beans or rape (dark green).  Then back on the bike to another one of my villages for a meeting or training or working on one of our projects (for example the school in my village of Malata or the well we built in another one of the villages).

5-6 pm: Back to my house and greeted by the kids. Draw more water from the well and then  play with the kids, basketball, soccer, jumping rope or drawing, etc. While the kids are hanging out at the house, gather twigs and straw, put coals in my brazier and light the fire. It takes sometimes 15 minutes or longer to get the fire going. Once the coals catch I would swing the brazier to get the coals hot and to get the fire to spread. Then I'd usually put a big pot on the fire to heat bath water.

6 pm: Cut up some greens or beans or whatever else I'm having for dinner (the kids are still hanging/playing at my house during this time), take the bath water off the fire and put on the food. The adults that were in the fields all day start to arrive back to the village so sometimes they would come by to sit and chat or I'd help my friend Rhodah with her school work or she'd help me with my chichewa.

7 pm: Try to get the kids home and take a warm bucket bath outside, often after dark depending on the time of year. This was always one of my favorite moments because I was tired and the warm water felt like such a luxury.  The village settles down and I can hear families talking around fires and drumming. Often I’d be bathing under the stars. Then eat dinner.

7:30 pm: Prepare materials for whatever I'm doing the next day.

8-9 pm: Read, paint, draw, write letters etc.

8:30-9 pm: Bed time.

Meg’s village at night

Stephanie Ellis-Smith: Volunteering Changed Her Life (and it could change yours)

It was the way that both Donna Moodie (see January archive) and Trish Dziko (see March archive) offered her name and hers only when I asked them whom I should interview next. “Have you met Stephanie Ellis-Smith?” they both asked. No, was my answer, but clearly I was meant to.

Not long after having found Stephanie at our café rendezvous (are you Stephanie?) I wondered how it was that I had lived in this town so long and known as many people as I did and not yet met her. I suspect Stephanie has this affect on everybody.

Stephanie Ellis-Smith by her own admission is a preparer. Like the scientist she was trained to be, there is a clarity and organization about how she expresses herself, and how she approaches life and work. And yet within that context, there is boundless creativity and impulse and passion, like the artist and cultural thinker she has come to be.

“I am inconsistent and I take some pride in that. To think bigger you do need to be inconsistent. I change my mind a lot. I like that about myself.”

After she had “literally wrung every nickel out of my education at UCLA“, taking classes wherever her curiosity led her, she finished with a double major in biochemistry and English literature. Which, she admits, should have tipped her off to what would come later.

She set out on a biochemistry career and then moved to Seattle with her new husband, Russian historian and author Doug Smith. In the world of science, she had developed a name for herself. Accomplishments aside, being noticed was never a problem.

“Being Black and being female – well, there weren’t very many women at all in the field, and no Black people period. Everybody knew who I was. There are plusses and minuses to that. When I was hot I was a superstar, and perhaps unnecessarily so. I think expectations were low, so when I would hit the mark, she is a genius! And I would think, no, I’m just doing my job. But the flip side – if I would make a mistake… well, we told you about those people. They’re not very committed, they’re not very focused.”

In Seattle Stephanie almost lived in the lab, working grueling 80-hour weeks while earning a meager paycheck. “I never saw my new husband – he would bring dinner to me at the lab. And I finally just said, you know, I don’t want to do this any more. But my whole identity had been wrapped up in science. That was a very, very difficult transition, not knowing what was coming next.”

   Stephanie Ellis-Smith with husband, Russian historian Douglas Smith

Released into daylight, she set out to discover the city she had been living in but “I had never seen an inch of because I was always in the lab.” One day she stumbled into the Francine Seders Art Gallery. (See related story on Gail Grinnell, December archives). Stephanie had heard that African American artist Jacob Lawrence lived in Seattle and on a lark asked the gallery staff if they happened to have any of his works.

“They were so kind they pulled down everything they had even though they knew I wasn’t going to buy anything.” After many hours of this they suggested Stephanie seek out “this little non-profit that had prints (of Lawrence) they were selling, for much less money to raise money for their work.”

It took Stephanie a few weeks, batting away a creeping depression that came with her lack of life direction, before she tracked down the organization. “It was a non-profit technically, but essentially it was just two art historians who were cataloging, researching and re-photographing for publication all of the extant works of Jacob Lawrence.”

On the white board in this little office was written in bold letters: FIND A RESEARCHER. “So I asked, what do you need a researcher for? And they told me they needed someone to call every single gallery in the country to ask if they had any works of Jacob Lawrence. So I said, well, I’m a researcher. I had zero marketable skills, much to my father’s chagrin after spending all that money on my education. I mean, I couldn’t even send a fax. But they said they just needed someone who could handle a lot of information, and I said, I can do that.”

Stephanie began volunteering 10 hours a week making scores of phone calls. After about six months, her volunteer post transitioned into a fulltime job which she held for five years. “The project we were doing is called a catalogue raisonné. It’s very, very prestigious. Only the most highly esteemed artists have a catalogue raisonné done in their honor. And this was the first one ever done for an artist of African descent. So it was a big deal. All of this I learned in the process.”

Stephanie Ellis-Smith is an evangelist for volunteering, and understandably so. Volunteering changed her life.

“Volunteering gives you the opportunity to just feed your soul, open your mind to doing something else. A job is not going to do that – that’s not the function of employment. With volunteering, you explore worlds and ideas that you can’t when you’re only working and coming home to turn on the TV. I just find it to be incredibly, incredibly rewarding. I mean, how would I have ever met art historians, or Jacob Lawrence and his wife Gwendolyn?

“I loved them so much – just thinking about them gives me chills. I’m very close to my family. I grew up with both sets of my grandparents. Leaving home, one thing I missed was being around old folks, so they were in a way my surrogate grandparents. And it was such a lovely way to learn about art history and museums and art book publishing, design -- the whole nine yards.”

Stephanie finished the catalogue raisonné, coming to appreciate how “Jacob’s work was unequivocally about the African American experience, but it spoke to so many people from all these different backgrounds – white, black, rich, poor – they each found nougats and kernels of importance in his work. I learned from that how the African American culture is so unique but so universal – it represents monumental triumph paired with struggle.”

One of Stephanie’s favorite works of Jacob Lawrence: “The Lovers” Taken from the site: The Jacob and Gwen Knight Lawrence virtual resource center

Working on that project along with her reading of Quintard Taylor’s The Forging of a Black Community – the History of Seattle’s Central District  “opened my eyes to the unique and inspiring history of African-Americans in the Pacific Northwest.”    

So, with a how-to book on starting non-profits and a founding Board who shared the vision: To inspire new thoughts and challenge assumptions about African American culture, Stephanie Ellis-Smith created the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas.

“I wanted to get people thinking about African American arts and culture from a broader perspective -- more contemporary; what people are thinking about now.”

Initially, she gave the effort three short years, but a track record of successful programs kept it strong enough for Stephanie to retire from the organization ten years later. Along the way, she and the CD Forum collected commendations, including the 2004 Mayor’s Art Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Community, and the 2008 Seattle Weekly recognition for Best Expander of Cultural Boundaries.

Their program, Black to the Future – Blacks in Sci Fi, “was amazing. Hundreds of people came, 60% of them from outside Washington. It was avant garde, intellectual and slick.” Under her leadership, CD Forum examined LGBT issues in the Black culture, (“there’s a big strain of conservatism in the African American community”), identity issues, such as who is African American, and the impact of gentrification in the CD. Dance, theatre, and Food as Art were also part of the dynamic year-round programming that continues with Stephanie no longer serving as director.

“I loved the CD Forum, but it was my job. My first duty to this community is to unleash two well adjusted kids.” At ages 10 and 6, raising her kids is now Stephanie’s job. “I cannot outsource the existential growing pains of a 10 year-old girl – that is MY job, no one else’s. I’m just fortunate enough to be able to do this.

“I miss having an identity entirely around my job. But it’s actually more important to me to spend these next 10 years at home and get my kids out of the house to the best of my ability, and then I can get back to that. Right now, this is my priority.”

Setting priorities is a big theme in Stephanie’s life. “For the things that are really important -- you’ll find time for it. If people want to shake things up, get into a new way of thinking, we all have two hours a week we can spend on that – we just do. Whether it’s volunteering or whether it’s rollerblading. It comes down to priorities. We all have the same 24 hours a day.”

In her 24 hours, Stephanie continues to find time for volunteer pursuits, or “community writ large.” She was recently appointed to the Seattle Arts Commission and continues on the board of KUOW public radio, (to which she hopes you will pledge if you didn’t get around to it during the recent drive). She’s got more time to volunteer at her kids’ school, and most importantly, time for family and friends – “community writ small.”

Stephanie’s physical community is about to change for a while. She and the family are moving to London for a year while her husband is writing and researching his next book.

“My 20’s were about science, my 30’s were about art. I turn 40 in June – I think my 40’s will be about family. I can’t wait till my 50’s – I’m not sure what that will be.”

Now that I’ve met Stephanie Ellis-Smith, I can’t wait to know either.

- Janet Pelz

Stephanie Ellis-Smith (far right) with sister and parents

Stephanie’s not-so secrets for How She Does It:

• With a lot of support and sacrifice from my parents and family. I was raised essentially by 6 adults. They poured every ounce of everything that either they earned or mental energy into my sister and me. They gave me my education, which I think gave me the tools to manage my life currently.
• I ask for help, from friends, I hire help. I have no shame. I don’t believe in running myself into the ground. Self-preservation is a big driving force.
• I play squash to get out my energies and anxieties; I do Pilates to keep me relaxed.
• I take a lot of time with my husband who is my best friend, and other friends, socializing, going out to parties. I don’t think people do that enough, but it’s so important – it feeds your soul.

What books has Stephanie read recently?

• The Unwritten Rules of Friendship, by Natalie Madorsky Elman and Eileen Kennedy-Moore
• Wench, by her friend Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Stephanie just did a book launch party for her)
• The Pearl, by Stephanie’s husband Douglas Smith

(to find these books, click the Amazon ad on the right side of this page)

Whom does Stephanie want me to interview next?

• Sarah DeRuyck – a mom, a volunteer, a runner, and a PhD candidate. “She’ll be mortified I gave you her name but she deserves it.”

Esther Instebo: A Century of Giving

Esther Instebo rises slowly as my mother and I walk through the apartment door she has kept ajar for our benefit. She invites us into her tidy, compact living room, offering the two comfortable chairs while she settles onto the seat of her wheeled walker. Looking around the room I have a sense that everything here has a purpose and a place. The bookcase is the first piece that catches my eye, likely because soon upon getting settled Esther points out a particular volume there.

It’s Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. With a hint of the first grade teacher that she was for 41 years Esther tells me, “I think everybody should read that book. She’s definitely a brilliant woman. She’s also Canadian. I think Canadians are particularly good critiquing us – they can see our follies.”

And this is how we start our two hour conversation, which journeys far back into the past and farther into the future than many people half her age have gone.

Along the way it becomes clear to me that Esther Instebo has quite a head for numbers.

She would demure on this point, insisting that it was her late husband Al, retired from Puget Power as an accountant, who wore those stripes in their family.

But I would have to differ. Consider the evidence.

This year Mrs. Instebo will claim the big round number, turning one more tumbler on the date clock -- to reach 100 years old.

(Kelly Pelz, left, with friend Esther Instebo)

And how about these numbers? She was born in 1910 on a farm in northern Minnesota and got her first teaching job at age 19 through a program to encourage high school graduates to teach in rural schools. Hers was a one-room schoolhouse with 11 students spanning eight grades. She had a three mile walk to and from school each day, many of those battling the snow of Minnesota winter. For this she was paid $85 a month.

Esther’s body may not be moving quickly these days, but her mind has an agile grasp on the importance of numbers and not just those from her distant past. She can cite the cost benefit analysis of family planning ($1.00 spent saves $4.39 on pregnancy care) or the amount of money Senator Patty Murray has amassed for her re-election campaign ($5 million), or the level of taxes happily paid by Norwegians, for which they are provided universal health care, among other benefits (50%).

These days, Esther applies her numbers savvy to her ardent support of Senators Murray and Maria Cantwell, Planned Parenthood, and other charities important to her. Her reputation for filling tables at their fundraising events is legion, often paying for others to attend. “I just feel it’s our obligation to participate. There are so many people who could buy those tickets without even missing the money. I don’t have that much, but we all need to make sure that these people stay elected.”

Her career as a political fundraiser started when a friend invited her to a luncheon for Patty Murray back in 1998, and Esther decided it would be fun to take her sister as a birthday present. She had a wonderful time, sitting next to a social worker who knew a High Point housing project family that Esther had helped while she was teaching at the elementary school nearby. Esther was hooked. Since then she has become a mainstay at such events, often bringing with her dozens of her aging neighbors.

She is particularly loyal to women leaders and supported Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid with passion. It was then that her fundraising prowess was caught by Erik Lacitis, who wrote in his feature story about her in the  Seattle Times:

It's doubtful that there is an older active fundraiser in Seattle. She sits in her studio apartment, and, on her 30-year-old IBM Selectric typewriter that she bought for $25 at a flea market, types out notes to her fellow residents at Horizon House.

    The Selectric just keeps running, like its owner.

    Instebo walks down the halls, attaching her fundraising messages to clips on the doors of each residence.

    "If you can support our senators in this way, you will find it an enjoyable experience," she typed out on a leaflet for $100 and $150 seats for the annual Patty Murray Golden Tennis Shoe Awards.

Esther Instebo promoting her Presidential favorite, Hillary Clinton photo credit Seattle Times, Steve Ringman photographer

Women in positions of leadership equate with economic and democratic prosperity in Esther’s mind. “That’s why China is where it is. It was Mao Zedong -- he would say China had to include women in their economy and educate women because they hold up half the sky.” As she says this she points out the volume on the table next to me, Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Another must-read, according to Mrs. Instebo.

Given her forward-thinking politics, it may seem surprising to know just where Esther came from. Back there on the northern Minnesota farm, she was coming into her 20’s about the same time the Depression was hitting this country.

At the end of her first year teaching, “I went to Duluth and got a job as a maid for the summer for $30 month. Every girl should have that opportunity. I learned that I could keep a big house. And I still have a recipe from those days – pork chops and rice.”

Fortunately when she returned to teaching in the fall, she got assigned a school much closer to her parents’ farm. Living at home, she was able to save all of the $90 a month she was now earning. But this was the Depression, and the following year’s pay promised to go down, not up.

“But my father was far-seeing enough to know that there was a new teacher’s college opening in Bemidji, and there they could make a teacher out of you so you could teach in a graded school.”

After three years of one-room school houses she enrolled. “They had a nice dormitory that cost $20 a month for room and board but that was a figure I couldn’t possibly afford. I think my tuition was about $30 and the books were free. And for $5 a month you could rent a room and share a bed with somebody. There was a kerosene stove in the room and I brought most of my food over from the farm.”

Right about this time, Esther Carlson met Al Instebo, a Norwegian immigrant who had come to Tacoma, Washington to earn a living as a logger. But when the Depression hit there, Al thought, “why stand in government soup lines in Tacoma when he could work on a farm in Minnesota for room and board.

“He and his friend were working at my neighbor’s place. And one night that neighbor set the boys (my future husband) to churning ice cream for the evening (it took forever to freeze the ice cream because they were using snow and salt). He got very tired of cranking and grumbled quite a bit about it, but the neighbor said, ooh, the Carlson girls are going to be worth it! But the Carlson girls weren’t exactly enamored with the Norwegians. It’s a wonder I ever married him, but he was so good looking, and so smart!” she says laughing. “But he had such an accent!”

When the lumber business picked up Al went back to Washington. “I thought that would be the end of Al, but he didn’t forget me. At Christmastime he came back and stayed around for Christmas break, and there’s where I discovered his talent. I was knee deep in chemistry, and Al helped me with such aplomb that I got all my homework done. And that’s when I came to really appreciate how smart he was.

“That summer, he came again to solidify the relationship. He had a beautiful new wardrobe – I remember that gray flannel suit,” says Esther, keeping up a steady chuckle. “He really got to me that time, he was so good looking.” Esther gets up slowly from her chair and crosses to the bedroom to fetch a photo of her Al. Indeed, he was a looker.

She insisted he go to college. “I’m not sure another woman would have pushed him so hard, but being a teacher, I couldn’t see myself married to someone who didn’t have a college degree.”

Esther throws in a few more chuckles and draws a deep breath. “I know you’re not getting much from me, but you’re giving me an audience, which is very nice of you. I guess that’s what old people like most of all, to reminisce. And most people don’t want to take the time to hear our stories.”

For much of their marriage, Al and Esther had her brother or mother living with them, despite the fact that her brother George was very difficult. “He told this story of seeing a fortune teller when he was a young man. The fortune teller looked at his palm and said, I see here that until you’re 40 years old you’re going to be lonely and depressed. And George asked what would happen after that and she said, you’ll be used to it. It was the saddest thing. And then I began to understand why he had been so difficult and mean – because if you’re lonely and depressed, you’re going to be difficult and mean to your loved ones.”

Years past his death, Esther has pondered the cause of George’s loneliness. “I think he had been a Gay man all his life and not known it. It makes me sad every time I think of him, living out in the country alone and wondering why he wasn’t like the other farm boys. He lived to be 90, and what a frustrated life it must have been.

“And that’s why I’m hooting and hollering for the rights of Gays and Lesbians.”

Walking home from Plymouth Church in 1995, Al had a cardiac arrest, his fourth. “The doctor realized the seriousness of his heart condition but first, he had to prove to Medicare that Al was worth a pacemaker. They finally put one in, but 17 days later Al died, pacemaker and all.”

For the first time in our interview Esther has stopped chuckling. “The first year I had to live without him. Which…. is the hardest thing I think we all have to do eventually.”

But hard doesn’t stop Esther. My mother, who was the one who encouraged me to interview Mrs. Instebo (see her story in the November archives), tells the story of seeing Esther in the copy room shortly after she returned from a hospital stay during which she was seriously ill. “I asked her what she was doing and she told me that the lovely nurses who cared for her didn’t understand what was in the health care bill. So she was planning to take this information back to them.”

It will be difficult to keep Esther Instebo down, as long as she can be standing up -- for a good cause.

- Janet Pelz

Esther with Vice President Joe Biden at a recent Patty Murray fundraiser

Esther Instebo’s not-so secrets for how she does it:

• She continues to make a difference for the issues she cares about.
• “I’m not quite ready to die, but I don’t want to be a centenarian for long.”
• She’s up at 4:00 am to take her medications and then goes back to bed to let them settle and wakes up again at about 11:00.
• In her community at Horizon House she finds many other seniors who share her passion for civic activism and keep her company at events
• She continues to expand her mind and her attitudes through reading, conversation, and introspection
• She has a great filing system that allows her to put her finger on any piece of information when she wants it.
• About the scholarship endowment she made to Bemidji Teachers College she said, ““One’s halo really shines when we realize it allows us to live on in the lives of the young people who receive the scholarships long after we have gone.”

Mrs. Instebo’s must-read book list includes:

• Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein
• Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Whom does Esther Instebo want me to interview next?

• Someone connected with the Death with Dignity movement