OUR INTERVIEW WITH MRS. HOARD:
Us: Hello. My name is Megan Calvert and I’m reporting to you from Living Room studios. Today’s date is May 19, 2008 and the time is 6:36 and today I’m here with Almira Ahmetovic, Anna Michalec, and our guest Betty Hoard. Our thesis for today’s discussion is how segregation not only affected African-Americans but white people as well. So first we’re going to talk to our guest Betty Hoard. Let’s first get some background information. Um, where were you born, a little bit about your life?
Betty: I was born in Chicago Heights but I was reared in Pekin, Illinois, a small town of about 30,000.
Us: a little bit about your husband
Betty: And my husband was born in Cleveland, Ohio umm, he had had a very sad childhood because his father died when he was three and his mother died when he was eleven.
Us: ooh, I’m sorry. Well, that’s go to a happier subject then, let’s talk about when you two first met. Can you tell us that story?
Betty: yes, we were both students at uh Illinois State University and um he had written a play for a male group that performed every year and I was an orca cist, since in those days the woman’s group had a curfew, we had to be in at 10:00. now the men could stay out later so he came in to rehearse with his group and saw me onstage with my leotard doing my Sagittarius dance [laughs] and he thought oh wow she’s a cutie and then, so later, uh I didn’t know he was in the audience and he saw me in the practice room because I was there for Music Education and I was on the piano, he was playing the bongo drums and he came in and uh, said excuse me and started a conversation
Us: umm, did you grow up in a town where there were African-Americans or was it just um white people?
Betty: It was a very segregated town uh, there were no African-Americans or anybody else just white people so I really grew up with no prejudice because there was nobody to be prejudice against
Us: So after you met for the first time, what other things did you do with him, um, any other conversations any other sparks at all?
Betty: Um, well at first I didn’t know him and I wasn’t really interested but then as we talked, uh, I discerned that he was an intelligent person and that he had a lot of depth and a lot of things to say, uh, we spent a lot of time talking in the chalet.
Us: okay, I must ask, knowing your background from your hometown Pekin, how did your family react to this, did they know about him at the time?
Betty: No, uh, they didn’t know, uh, about him but then as we became more serious, fell
in love, then and were contemplating marriage, I tried to talk to my mother, um who was surprised and totally against the relationship so she suggested that I get out of it
Us: Oh man, uh, do you know if his family reacted the same way, or did they have a different opinion of the situation?
Betty: um, that was a surprise because I, after going to college, I knew about white prejudice but I didn’t know about black prejudice and his family also was totally against it- in fact he said that his older sister had a very serious conversation with him and uh asked him if he really knew what he was getting into and advised against it strongly. And his aunt reared him after the death of his parents, uh, also talked against it and, uh, he told me later after we were married that uh, her bottom line was do you love her enough to die for her? And he said yes I do
Us: um, you guys got married eventually. When was that and can you tell us a little bit about that?
Betty: we did um, there was in the meantime, he uh, transferred from Illinois State to University of Chicago because there was a man in Chicago who, uh wanted him to run his businesses and so he was, who had no son, so he um, transferred him to University of Chicago to pay his tuition provided that he started those businesses um, so we though well, that’s that, however, the love was too strong and we wrote to each other everyday and we also had many long telephone conversations
Us: Um, you guys married October 10, 1955, you said?
Betty: Yes we did and um, at the time there was along weekend at the university and so um, I took a train to Chicago and we got married in Chicago that week and of course no one was there, my family, parents, were not there, uh, his family, parents were not there and his best man was no there because his best man thought he was joking about the whole thing so he didn’t show up
Us: Oh that’s crazy reality man! So, uh, it seems like there was so much prejudice that people didn’t seem to be able to think of a mixed relationship as real
Betty: that’s true and uh, we were supposed to get married n Sunday because I thought ever marriage should be on a Sunday s t church, however he did not realize that City Hall closed on Saturday a t 12:00 so, uh, when we went to get the license, they were closed [laughs] so that meant we had to wait until Monday and uh when we went, the clerk at City Hall uh, looked at me very seriously and said are you sure you know what you're doing and I said yes I do
Us: oh, excellent. That’s excellent. Um, did you tell your parents about you getting married to your husband or did you keep it a secret?
Betty: Well, uh, initially, when I had tried to do that, uh, there was opposition in fact, my
mother had said she would disinherit me if I went through with that, but, uh, I considered all of that and we went ahead and got married and uh, then uh, she, I had told her after the fact, however, prejudice was so strong she hid it from her mother, my grandmother, uh until she died, so she never really knew.
Us: okay, well, I must ask, with all this prejudice and opposition you did, you finally did marry him and was it worth it? Did you really have those good times? Did you resent any decision you made?
Betty: Well, every marriage has its ups and downs, um, however, to be quite frank, no. I don’t regret a minute, uh, I still, after all these years, love him very much and, uh, eventually the families came around and accepted the fact because marriage did last and in fact, uh, when my sister, my younger sister, got married, uh, in Pekin, the same prejudice town [laughs]…
Us: yeah
Betty: …she invited the whole family to her wedding and so we came, including my husband and uh, my daughter was the flower girl in the wedding, so my sister was, uh, was very accepting at that time and uh, of course my husband was the only black person there and, um, the church organists and one of my high school teachers engaged him in conversation and, uh, thought that he was charming, which he was quite capable of doing.
Us: Did you know any other families or people that got married like you and your husband did at that time?
Betty: Um, actually I’m talking with someone now in Connecticut who was ah, in love with another student there who was black and ah, she, they never got married, she married someone Polish. Her parents were totally, totally against um, the interracial marriage, however, I just learned at 74 years old, that she always admired me and, uh, and really wanted me to know that she wished she had had the courage of conviction as much as I did and she regretted not marrying the person that she loved.
Us: Well, I’m going quickly show a couple of photos real fast. Um, this is you when you were younger, am I correct?
Betty: yes
Us: and you were one hot mama and that was their first daughter Gayle, and that was her husband, the fortunate man who got to marry my grandmother and so I think that this really does teach us a lot because even though there were so many obstacles that they had to get through, so many people who didn’t appreciate what you had, you still were able to go through with it and that’s, uh, wonderful-