Ruby Osborne interview recording, 1997 November 02
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Ruby Lee Osborn | My name is Ruby Lee Allen Osborn, and I was born in Durham, North Carolina, February 21st, 1942. My mother was Roberta Evans Allen and my father is Ruba L. Allen. I have one sister, that's one year younger than I am, and I have one sister that's about six years younger than I am. I have one half-brother by my mother's first marriage. I have two children myself. I have been married three times. I have a son Fortel Rich and a daughter, Tanya Rich, and I have three grandchildren for my daughter's marriage and I have two grandchildren from my son. We lived in North Carolina until they were age four and two, I believe, and then we moved to Princeton, New Jersey. I remarried, was divorced and remarried and moved to Princeton, New Jersey and married a doctor and we lived there for about four years, after which we moved to Seattle, Washington. | 0:08 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I lived there for about seven years. That's the West coast, and that was great. I really liked it a lot. I loved Princeton too. My children were in private schools there, and I feel it was a good environment for them. It was kind of good to get away from North Carolina. I myself had a very nice life growing up. My parents were not rich, but they were not poor. My father was a barber and he owned his own barber shop. My grandparents were still alive when I was born. My father's parents, my mother's father was still alive when I was born. My grandmother on my mother's side had died already, so I never knew her, but my grandmother on my father's side was absolutely wonderful. She played a big part in my life and in our lives. Both my children had the pleasure of knowing her and the pleasure of knowing my mother and my father, whom they loved dearly. | 1:24 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | It was a great loss when I lost my parents three years apart and particularly my mother. I think mothers are like the rock of Gibraltar in families, I believe, and my mother certainly was. It has been very hard for us to adjust to her death. I still have times when I'm very sad and don't even know why I'm sad, and it's because she died and I have a brother who was by my mother's first marriage that I'm very, very close to, excuse me, and he lives here in Durham. I just moved back to Durham about, it will be seven years as a matter of fact, December 31st this year, 97. | 2:38 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | That was a major decision for me. I've lived away so long that I had no desire to ever come this way again in terms of living, I have a sister in Washington D.C., who absolutely no way will she ever come this way again. She says sometimes because I'm here now, she thinks about moving back, but I tell her no because I absolutely hate it here and it has a lot to do with the way things have changed. When I was growing up, I lived on the outskirts of what I would call right at the edge of an all Black neighborhood. | 3:29 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | When I say the outskirts, I was about four doors from what you would call the White neighborhood, and my best friend was White, Virginia. I'll never forget Virginia. We played together every day. I went to what they called during that time, the city school system. My parents had to play for us to go to school there because we lived outside of the city limits. The children in my neighborhood went to the county schools. That's how it was referred to. My grandmother, I can hear her even now saying they'll get a better education in the city schools because that's what had been said apparently. They paid good money for us to go to the city schools. We went there until fifth grade. At that age, we were starting to realize that we didn't have any friends in our neighborhood. All our friends were either at our school or I had this White friend that lived on the outskirts of my neighborhood. | 4:18 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | We were teased a lot, me in particular because I was the oldest. We were kind of different, I guess. I can remember I was so into school that I taught other children once I got to go to the other school because they were much further behind in school than we were. What I would do, my mother always bought us desks and things like that. We had these chairs that went with our desk. I would use my other sister's desk and my desk chair, and I would have these kids who were slow learners at school, I would invite them over. This was the way that I made friends with the neighborhood kids because remember now, we didn't get to go to that school for a long time. I would tell them, "I'll help you with your homework or your math or whatever." I would invite them to our house and I would teach them all day long. | 5:32 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | That was my way of getting them to be friends with me. Someone sometime, almost sometime every day. There would always be someone that would pick a fight with me. There was this girl that I'll never forget either, and I just learned recently that she just died. Her name was Josephine Hick, and Josephine Hick was my friend. She protected me. She was a big, huge person, very large. She was very dark in color. Her skin coloring was very, very dark, almost what I would call black. People hated her. She lived with her grandmother. She didn't have the best of a life, but I liked her because I guess I felt sorry for her and she always looked out for me. She was a very slow learner, so I helped her with her homework and stuff in the evenings when I would come home. | 6:38 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | When kids would pick on me, because see I didn't have a lot to say at that time. I was very quiet and I was really into school and learning and that kind of stuff. There were a lot of kids that weren't into that. Because I was the way I was, people picked on me. When I was in ninth grade I broke out in acne. I had really beautiful skin, very soft, and my face broke out. I can remember I thought that was the end of me. That was the death of me because it was just horrible. I think that's true with any teenager when they start to have pimples and stuff. Of course, people told me, "Let me break that pimple." I would let them. As a result, my skin became scarred and my father sent me to a dermatologist. | 7:40 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | This all ties in some kind of way because nobody knew anything about Black skin, nobody cared. There were no Black dermatologists in this area anyway, and when I say this area, I mean here in Durham, North Carolina. Nobody knew what to do for my skin. I can remember my father saying, "I spent $4,000 in the last year sending her to that dermatologist, and she looks the same." I can still hear him saying that because they gave me tetracycline, of course, because that was the thing that was supposed to help allergies and not allergies, excuse me, acne. All those kinds of things I remember as a child. I had really a really wonderful mother. She was compassionate. I never heard her say anything ugly. She was just wonderful. We really adored her. My father on the other hand, never cursed or anything, but he was the quieter of the two in terms of us, the children. | 8:35 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | He was out of the house a lot because he eventually started to work at the Veterans Administration Hospital. He was a shoemaker. He took all kinds of classes all the time. He was always taking classes and learning new things, how to do this, how to do the other. His main thing was he was a barber, so he made a very good salary. Then when he started working and he took these courses on mental retardation and that kind of stuff, he was interested in people who had mental problems. He started working. He was a veteran and he started working at the VA hospital. He was working two jobs then. We didn't see him a lot. I can remember all he ever said was, "You will go to college." He said that a lot. "You will go to college." I remember that vividly. | 9:47 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | The only thing I didn't like was that he said we had to go to North Carolina Central University, which was an all Black university at that time, and it was called North Carolina College. I didn't want to go to North Carolina College. He said, "Well, if I pay, then you have to go where I pay for you to go." I resented that so much. The first year I went there because he said I had to and so I didn't have a choice, but I hated it. I hated every minute of it. Even though I'm employed by North Carolina Central University right this moment, nothing changed that much at North Carolina Central. It is predominantly Black as we speak, but it has integrated tremendously. | 10:42 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | There are almost as many White students as there are Black almost. It's really incredible. It's really different because when I was there, you didn't see a White face on that campus, very seldom. It needed to be integrated as all schools need to be. We're just one people. | 11:32 |
Andrea Smith | Is that why you didn't want to go there in the first place? | 11:51 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Yeah, I've always been an international person from the day I was born, obviously. When I say that, obviously, I mean because of the people that I played with. I had this argument just the other day. I think you'll find this interesting. I was talking to this friend of mine and the same person that I was telling you about earlier that I went to school with that said that I had changed a lot. And, I was saying about, I was talking about my friend Virginia, whom I play with all the time, and he was just looking at me like I was crazy. What are you talking about? Because see, he didn't have the same experiences that I had because he didn't live where I lived. He grew up very poor. I didn't grow up rich, but we were very comfortable. I've always had very nice clothes. I always dressed well. I was very lucky and very blessed because my parents could do that for me. My mother didn't work for many, many years. She took care of us until we were way up in school. | 11:55 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I don't even know what grade I was in when she started to work. When she did start to work, she worked at, I remember my father saying that she worked at Duke Hospital and that's how he met her. Then when she started to have us, she didn't work anymore. Then after we got to be a certain age, and I don't know what that age was, she started to work again and she worked in the city school system. She was one of the assistant managers in the cafeteria. My mother was very highly educated as a matter of fact. | 13:09 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | She graduated from a prep school called, and I should never ever forget this because they were written up in Wall Street Journal and I was living in Seattle, Washington, and I was working for an executive vice president at a bank, and I read the Wall Street Journal for him every day and picked out articles that he might be interested in. That was part of my job description. I was looking through the Wall Street Journal one day to see what he might be interested in reading and ran across this article on the school that my mother graduated from in Laurenburg, North Carolina. | 13:44 |
Andrea Smith | I know where that is. | 14:26 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Oh, do you? That's interesting. She was born in Maxton, North Carolina my mother was. She's part Indian. My grandfather was half Indian. My mother was the eldest of 14 children. Her mother was pregnant 20 times and 14 children lived. To this day, there's only one child left. They died very young. | 14:27 |
Andrea Smith | Where did they live? | 15:03 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | They lived in Maxton, North Carolina. That's where my mother came from. My father was from Wake County. All of my father's family, his immediate family is very small because my grandmother only had three children. She had two daughters and my father. One daughter died in the early eighties, and I had one aunt left, and neither one of them had children. We are the only children my two sisters and I. You can't really count my brother because that was my father's family, not his father's family. You understand? Okay. I don't have very much family on that side. As far as my children go and prejudice and religion and all that kind of stuff. I guess that's the only thing we don't like about living here because we've lived so many places and seen so many different things and the way people do live together and get along that it's hard to believe that we are coming back to the same way it was when I left. I thought it had changed. This is really different. It's been very hard for me. I've had a hard time adjusting, very hard time adjusting. | 15:04 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | It's different. I don't care about restaurants or things like that because I'm so into people. I tell people this all the time. I don't care if I never eat a meal with you. I just want to know that if I want to have a conversation with you or if I want to come and see you, I want to be able to do that without a lot of confusion and a lot of whatever. I'm into people and their souls and who they are, not whether we eat together. However, that man, whoever he was that wrote the Bible said that we must break bread together. I don't have to. I just like to have friends. You know what I mean? I don't care who you are. Just I'd like to have friends. | 16:37 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Prejudice is a issue with me in this state. I have a big problem with that. I can't stand it. It's not just White people. I have been prejudiced against by Black people and I'll tell you an incident. When I first started working at Duke, and by the way, I work at Duke Auxiliary for the Duke Auxiliary. I work for them. I'm not a volunteer. I work. A few years ago I guess they didn't have enough volunteers, so they started hiring people. And I just happened to be in the area. As a matter of fact, I was working in HECS department store part-time. A woman came up to me and she was having a problem with her card and I helped her with it. She said, "God, I wish I had you at my shop." | 17:34 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I said, "Where's your shop?" And she said, "I'm the manager at Duke Hospital Auxiliary Gift Shop." I didn't know what she was talking about. I said, "Where is that?" She said, "At Duke Hospital." I said, "Oh, I think I was born at Duke Hospital, but I haven't been there in 30 years." We had a long conversation and she said, "If you ever want to stop working here," she said, "come over to the gift shop. I'll hire you." She said, "You're wonderful." One day I decided I'm tired of standing all day at this store. I called this lady up and she hired me at the gift shop. I work there nights and Saturdays and Sundays. I'm the weekend and night manager at Duke Auxiliary Gift Shop. That's a fun job though. | 18:20 |
Andrea Smith | How long have you been there? | 19:07 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I've been there three years. Three years. I love that little job. Doesn't pay a lot of money, but it's fun. I meet a lot of people. I was going to tell you about my experience with the Black part of prejudice. When I first went to work there, when I first moved back, I had a very heavy accent when I first moved back, a very heavy Boston accent. I sound differently to people, but they're not sure what my accent is because it's not as heavy Boston as it used to be. It's different. They're trying to figure out who I am and where did I come from. I have people ask me, what is that accent that I hear? It's not Southern. I just hear all kinds of comments. Well, because these people didn't know me, the cafeteria workers, the people who do the cleaning, all that kind of stuff. They talked about me all the time, but I didn't realize that. | 19:10 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I could tell that they stared at me a lot. One day a lady came up to me and she said to me, "Excuse me." She said, "I used to go to school with you many years ago." I said, "Well, your face looks familiar." I said, "What is your name?" She told me, "Irene King." Sure enough, her sister and I had been very close friends while I was a kid. She said, "May I ask you a question?" I said, "Sure." I said, "It's so nice to see you." We talked and she said, "May I ask you a question?" She said, "Do you work here or do you volunteer?" And I thought, "Why is she asking me this question? What difference does it make?" I asked her, I said, "Why are you asking me that question?" She said, "Because all the Black people talk about you all the time." I said, "Excuse me?" She said, "Yeah." She said, "They don't know that I've known you for a long time. They know that you're from someplace else. They don't know that you were born here." I said, "Well, what do they say?" | 20:14 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | She said, they say, "Who does she think she is volunteering in the gift shop? Who does she think," and I'm going to say it just like she said it, "who do she think she fooling?" She said, "Do you know her?" "No, but she knows she can't afford to volunteer for no damn body." Well, I found that so interesting. You don't even know me, but you are going to make comments about me to other people. Well, you don't even know me. You don't know anything about me. You don't know whether I'm working here, whether I'm volunteering. You are asking, you're trying to find out. Many, many other comments that I don't even remember. | 21:20 |
Andrea Smith | Is that just at the beginning [indistinct 00:22:20]. | 22:15 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Oh, it's still there. I have people come up and talk to me, but it's only because they want to get a feel for who I am or they want to know something about me because they don't know. People are very curious about people who are different. I enjoy it because I take pleasure in being different. I enjoy not letting them know. Do you understand what I mean? It's funny to me that they take all that time and energy being mean and ugly and talking ugly things about other people. I think it's just hilarious that they don't have anything else to do. I'm busy over there. They've tried me lots of times by coming in, asking me for things that I'm not supposed to do. They try to see if I'll do it anyway. What happens is they'll report me. You see what I'm saying? | 22:19 |
Andrea Smith | They try to get you in trouble. | 23:25 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Right. Correct. It's been a trip. | 23:26 |
Andrea Smith | It's because they think you've come in from outside [indistinct 00:23:37]. | 23:32 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Oh yeah. Oh sure. That's a prejudice. I've been called the Yankee. I have been called a lot of things. I had a man come in one day and he took his money and he just slung it all the way across. It just flew across the counter. I thought, "I am so tired of this. I do not know what to do." It happens a lot. It happens all the time. You'll hold your hand out for the money and the person will deliberately, it's obvious that it's deliberate. You're standing there holding your hand. You see my hand? Do you see my hand? Okay, you can't not see my hand. It's right there. You are asking me for the newspaper. I handed you the newspaper, and now I'm holding out my hand to get the money. Okay? You look at my hand and put your money down on the counter. | 23:36 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Now that's my pet peeve. That's one of my pet peeves, that particular thing right there. I hate for people to do that to me. I hate it. I'm jumping around. I worked in an all Black school my first job. I was the assistant to the principal in an all Black school. It's the school where I graduated high school from actually. It integrated while I was working there, the school system integrated in the 60s. There was a lady there, excuse me, that needed change every day for something or another. I had a change box that I kept in my desk drawer. Anybody who needed change could come to me and get change. This lady used to come every day for change, and she would always put the money down on the desk and hold her hand out for her change. She would say, "May I have change for a dollar?" She'd lay the dollar down on the counter, but she would hold her hand out to me for put the change in her hand. | 24:35 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I thought, "I'm not imagining this. This is real." So I thought, well, I'll play a game with her. I'm going to let her give her a test. I'm going to see if she does it for two weeks straight. Then I'll call her on it. Then she'll say, "I didn't do that." Then I'll say, "You have been doing it since January 1st. You did it from January 1st through January 10th. I have it written down right here in my book every day that you did this to me." I did. I did the test. She continued to do it for 10 days. On the 10th day when she came in that morning to ask me for change, I said, her name was Pat. I said, "Pat, you know, I'm sick and tired of you." | 25:51 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | She's looking at me like I was totally insane. She said, "Ruby, what are you talking about?" I said, "I'm talking about you." I said, "For two weeks straight, the last 10 days, including today, you have walked in here and asked me for change." I said, "And I reach down, get my money box. When I open it up, you hold your hand out, but you put your dollar or your $5 bill on the desk. Why do you do that to me?" This woman was shocked. Her mouth flew open. She was like, "I can't—what—oh—I cannot—I just not—I didn't mean it—I—I—I—Mr. McCaskill—!" Started calling the principal. He goes, "I don't have anything to do with it. Ms. Rich handles all of that." That was my name at that time. She flew out of that office and she didn't come back for a long time. | 26:41 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | The next thing I knew she had quit her job and gone to another school. What goes around must come back around. She hated this other school. She came back to this school after being away a couple years, and she had on a wig. I'll never forget this because I guess she thought I wouldn't know her or that I was gone or whatever. We were still giving out change because that went on for a long time. She came to get change one morning, and I looked at that lady and I thought, I know her. I kept looking at her and all of a sudden it came back to me. I said, "Pam, is that you?" She was so embarrassed. She still was embarrassed to that day. That kind of stuff, that particular thing and that caused that. That incident caused me to give some thought to that. You see what I'm saying? Because otherwise, why would I have thought about it? She caused that to happen to me, for me to feel that way because she did that to me so many times that now I hate it. | 27:53 |
Andrea Smith | How did that make you feel? | 29:10 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Hmm? | 29:12 |
Andrea Smith | How exactly did that make you feel? | 29:13 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Angry. Very angry. Angry that I felt that somebody did not want to do the same thing for me that I was doing for them. This isn't necessarily about touching me because I don't want you to touch me no more and you want to touch me. Okay? I don't want you to touch me no more than you want to touch me, you see? It's about being treated the same. If I can do it for you, why you can't do it for me? Because I'm not a prejudiced person, because I'm an international person. I love people, period. | 29:14 |
Andrea Smith | Was this lady White? | 30:04 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Yes, she was. She just happened to be White. If it had been a Black woman, it'd been the same to me because Black people do that too. They lay money down on the counter too. I called a young man on that the other day, a Black guy. I said, "Now you have been walking around here all of your life fussing because some White person put the money down on the counter at you." I said, "And here you did it to me." I certainly did. | 30:05 |
Andrea Smith | How did he react? | 30:32 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | He picked it up and he said, "I am so sorry and you are right." He most certainly did. To this day, he still passes me on the gift shop and says, "Hi, I have never forgotten what you told me." He still remembers. He brings it up every time he comes passed there, "Hi." He always waves to me. "I didn't forget. I will never do that again." He said. You have to make or try to make people remember you in some kind of way when you see them do things like that. I think that's the only way that we'll learn. | 30:33 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I had a man to come in, a White guy and do that same thing. The man who threw the money across the counter. He was angry and he had a little girl with him, his daughter. When he got ready to get his change back, I did the same thing to him that he had done to me. I took his change. When I do something, I'm doing it for a reason. I do it because I want you to remember me and remember what you just did to me and try to change that. I want to make you think about what you just did. | 31:16 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | He thought about it, check it out. I threw it as far across the counter as he did, blew him away. It blew him away. This man was furious. Do you hear me? He started cursing me out. He just went off. He went T totally off. "Didn't you see my hand?" I said, "Didn't you see my hand? Did you not see my hand?" We had a conversation about it. I said, "The same way that you held out your hand, I held my hand out, but you threw the money across the counter to me but that was okay. It wasn't okay when I did it to you, was it? You see how it feels?" I said to him, he was absolutely furious. Furious. He caused a big stir in the gift shop that day. Now see, if my manager had been there, she would've had a fit. | 32:02 |
Andrea Smith | With you or him? | 33:02 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Me, because Duke Auxiliary, you don't do that. You'll always let the customer walk all over you, stomp on your head if you have to. See, people have forgotten what customer service really is. They think that you're supposed to stand and let people walk on your head. That's not customer service. That's what people think it is. That's what we've been taught to believe. That's not good customer service that you let somebody stomp all over your head. That's crazy. I don't believe in that. That man learned something that day, whether he ever admits it or not. I know he learned something because I saw it. His reaction told me that he learned something from me that day. It's great when somebody learns something. If you can do something to make one person think about what they've done, you accomplished a lot that day. I do things like that a lot. | 33:03 |
Andrea Smith | What are some of the other instances of prejudice? Not only working at Duke, but working at Duke and being back in Durham. | 34:16 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Well, not even just being back in Durham, but I don't think I could live here being married to any of my husbands, even though I tried with one. Because people, when you're interracial, I've been interracially married three times. All of my husbands were different. None of them were Black, totally Black. One was Black and White. One was Creole and French and Black. My last husband was Chinese and Black, I mean Chinese and English. It would've been real tough for me to live here with those kinds of husbands. I had problems with my first husband living here because he had a lot of White friends. I can always remember when the kids were small, we used to take taxis all the time, and they were always White taxis. They were never Black. | 34:24 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | We never dealt with any Black taxi cab drivers. My husband's friends were White. Because of that, the ones they owned taxi cabs, some of them, that's who picked us up. You see, we were not very highly thought of because of that. We thought we were somebody or we this or we the other. We were always just put down or talked about because we thought we were something, this, that, and the other. I've been going through this a long time as far as that goes. Because what? I'm different. I lived my life differently than people expected me to. I was supposed to be, I'm a Black woman mixed with God only knows what else. My mother's family is part Indian. I certainly have some of that. I don't even know what my father was, Black I know that. | 35:30 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Here's this woman who marries all these different kinds of people. That makes me different. When you're different, people don't like differences. That's what prejudice is, differences. That's all it is. Because you look different than I do I hate you. Because you have long, beautiful hair. I hate you. I'm going to be prejudiced against you because you look like you look. I'm going to make everybody dislike you. That's crazy. Doesn't make any sense to me. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I don't like to be treated that way. I don't like for other people to live that way and be treated those ways. I hate it. I've always hated it. Always, always, always. My mother had White friends, and I guess that's why we were just really different children. Just very, very different children. | 36:35 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | We were never taught that in our house. I've never heard my mother say anything about anybody White. Well, she didn't talk about nobody to tell you the truth, or Black. She just wasn't that kind of person. Some of that has to rub off on you. I think we were lucky children myself, we don't even discuss that. My family, we don't discuss that. When I married my third husband who was really different, Chinese and English, that's about as different as you can go. Who in the hell is Chinese and English? You know what I'm saying? That's really different. Everybody was like, "What do you think your parents are going to say?" | 37:42 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I'm like, "My parents? They'll just love him." "Come on girl." I said, "I'm telling you, you really don't know my parents." Do you know that my husband came down here alone without me? They hadn't ever met him because we got married in Boston. They hadn't ever laid eyes on him. He came on a business trip to North Carolina, he and another man, and stopped to see my parents. My mother got up, she was still alive and fixed a country breakfast she called it for he and this guy who happened to be Greek to have breakfast that morning while they were stopping over in Durham to go on to wherever they were going for that meeting that they were going to. My mother got up, hadn't ever seen him except pictures. Loved him to death. Introduced him to everybody in the neighborhood that one day. He said he met so many people. | 38:34 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | He loved my mother to death and she loved him and so did my father. He was here just two weeks ago, my ex-husband, I think I mentioned that to you. He went to see my father's sister who lives next door to where my mother and father lived, and my daughter lives in that house now. He went to see my aunt and she's 82. He said, "Aunt Emma, do you know who I am?" She said, "Yes, Nelson, you look wonderful." She was so happy to see him. That made me feel so good. Do you know how many people would be able to handle that? Not a lot. Black or White. That's the sad part. | 39:43 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | You see, that makes us unique in a lot of ways because that is who I am. Exactly what I just told you about my aunt is who I am. She didn't look to see if he was green or yellow or anything. He was Nelson Osborne and that's all that matters. He was good to her niece, and that's all that mattered. That's all should ever matter. Why we have all this other stuff I don't understand it. That's who my kids are too. | 40:30 |
Andrea Smith | What other things did your parents bring you up to believe in, your values [indistinct 00:41:14]? | 41:07 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Stand up for yourself. My father was a strong believer of walk tall. We were all very tall. He always pushed our shoulders back. When you're five feet eight in eighth grade, you want to slump down because all the boys are short at that age. I had all these short boys and here I am trying to be short and leaning down on one leg and all that kind of stuff. Did you find yourself doing that kind of stuff? You were pretty tall too. Given that height that I had, and it was extremely tall for a girl during those days, my father, I should have, excuse me, prints in my shoulders where he pushed my shoulders back so many times. And people even say to me today, you still walk tall. I feel that I'm starting to kind of just being here makes me slouch. | 41:13 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | You think I'm crazy for saying that probably. You don't understand it probably. It's because I think this place beats me down. All the things that I see, all the things that I hear, all the things in the paper, all the things that are happening, it's beating me up. People just talking about people. I said to someone the other day, I said, I sit sometimes and just listen to the conversations with people and everybody's talking about what everybody else is doing. They don't even have time to do what they need to do. Oh, did you know so-and-so is going with so-and-so and so? I said, where I came from, where I lived, nobody gave a damn what you did. Your husband could take you out in the middle of Worcester Street, beat you to death, everybody's standing on the porch and nobody would say a word or interfere because that was your business. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong that he was beating you up. That's the furthest end of the spectrum. | 42:14 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Just say that you are what is a real easy one? Say you're Black and you go to a, what's a different kind of religion? Nobody would say anything if you chose to do something different than the norm. I was trying to think of an extreme thing that's— | 43:25 |
Andrea Smith | Jewish. | 43:55 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Yes, perfect. Exactly. I had so many Jewish friends and I went everywhere with them. And, who gave a shit? Nobody! | 43:56 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I curse a lot, so—(laughs) It just comes out, automatically. Words just come out. You'll find that out. You can erase them on this tape if you choose (laughs). That's just me. I'm being myself. | 44:09 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | I don't know, here, it's not like that. You do something different it's talked about and it's noticed quickly. I don't know. All of it's prejudiced to me as far as I'm concerned. It's all a form of being prejudiced. I don't know. I'm just tired. I've got to find some place that gives me a little bit more than I'm getting here. I know I'll probably move in the next year or two. I don't know what could keep me here except my family. | 44:28 |
Ruby Lee Osborn | Just absolutely saying, "Please, please, please do not move." Because I'm older now and they feel that I should be closer to my family and that kind of stuff. I've always been kind of a wayward person, kind of wanting to be away, away. I've always been like that. I like to see things and do things. I took three weeks in the 70s and went to Europe, my husband and I, and just traveled all over. That's the kind of stuff I like to do. I practically lived in The Bahamas for about the last 20 some years. I learned the culture, I learned the people. I made a difference there. I know I did. Because— | 45:17 |
Ruby Osborn | That I practically lived in The Bahamas. And I even got papers to move there because I was so interested in that culture, different kind of people. I made a difference in terms of the women. For years and years and years, people, White females went to islands like The Bahamas or any of the Virgin Islands to have fantasy, to live fantasies, whatever they were. Most of them were sexual fantasies with men. And they went there because people could get hurt if they carried out those fantasies here. So they went other places. I've been there and seen it. I've seen women pay men to have sexual favors. From New York, from Philadelphia, from New Jersey, from all over the country. The Bahamian Islands are predominantly Black, okay? Not necessarily educated people. Excuse me. | 0:01 |
Ruby Osborn | I forget where I was. That interruption. I was talking about the Bahamian people and how their culture is so different and how people came there for certain reasons. And I used to go there and just watch the people. I would lie down at the pool and just watch the comings and goings of people, which also made me different because I didn't go there for the same reasons. And so people watch you. And so I had the Bahamian women come up to me and say, "Why do you come here all the time? Obviously it's not for the same reason that other people come, so why do you come?" And I said, "Well, why do other people come?" Because they assumed I knew. And I'm saying, "Don't assume I know. If you think something, you tell me what you're assuming." | 1:27 |
Ruby Osborn | So I had a lady say to me, "Well, you know that these women come here for sexual favors and our husbands are screwing around on us." And I thought, "Well, isn't this something for you to say, it's your husband." (coughs) Excuse me. "You ought to be able to take care of that." But I didn't say that. I just listened and I said, "Well, I'm just not interested in that side." I said, "It's a wonderful place to come. I love to be in the sun and it's close. It's not so far away that I have to travel a long way. And I like places that I can go and not travel for 11 and 12 hours." And as the years went on, they liked me, the women, they hated all women who came there. But I got to be very close to the Bahamian women. | 2:43 |
Ruby Osborn | And the Bahamian men told me, a group of them, that they were going to stop me from coming to that island because I was changing their women, the way their women thought, their thinking process. Now, I've made a difference because I changed their women thought process. And all I did was talk to them. And all I said was, "You don't have to put up with this kind of stuff." You don't, because they don't. And so when they talked about it, they talked in terms of, I don't have to live like this or I don't have to—And the men would say, "Nobody told you that but Ruby." And they would say, "I don't care who you think told me, I'm not putting up with it anymore." So things started to change for them. And talking about highly respected and see, I didn't run around with their men. | 3:42 |
Ruby Osborn | That's a Bahamian man right there on that picture. He's married, he has three children. He dated a girl from New York who got pregnant by him and had a son for him that he comes to New York and sees. He used to come to Boston. I shopped for him. I used to buy clothes for men as a business. I traveled and just chose clothes. I was a buyer and he was one of my customers. And so he told me a lot about himself. But that's a Bahamian man. And we were at a thing one night and he said, "Come on Ruby, and let's take a picture." And when I saw him, when I went down there another time, he gave me this big picture and I'm like, "This looks like a family picture. I don't want no picture like this." And he laughed and I go, "I can't even put that up at my house." | 4:53 |
Ruby Osborn | So now that I'm not married and everything, I pull that picture out and this guy that I see occasionally, he's like, "You can't put that picture up." And I'm like, "But I'm not married to you, and this picture is going up. It's a good picture of me. And so I want that picture up in my house." I was at least 48 years old then and I look like I'm about 30. So I like that picture. "So it's going up in my house," I said, "I don't care whether you like it or not, the picture is up. Okay?" Because it's a good picture. It has nothing to do with this man. He was one of my customers. | 5:58 |
Ruby Osborn | And then it was so funny because they were having some kind of show like Goombay Festival or something, and they take pictures at these things. You get all dressed up and people take pictures. And so he was walking in the hallway, he worked at this hotel, and he said, "Ruby, come on, take a picture with me." And I just went on and took the picture and this is what it came out to be. I didn't even know what the picture was going to be like because I don't even remember the different poses, because it meant nothing to me. It was more important to him than it was to me. | 6:35 |
Ruby Osborn | So I make a difference, I believe, everywhere I go. I tried to anyway. I've tried here, but— | 7:06 |
Andrea Smith | It's hard? | 7:19 |
Ruby Osborn | Very. Very, very, very. When I first came here, because I am a divorcee and I like to do a lot of things, I am so bored here. I try to put in as many—That's why I started working this job at Hecks because there was nothing to do. People don't do very much. So I started working and I even started a club. A club meaning a group of women who were in the same situation as I. Because there are no men our age group to meet that are single. They are very limited. Okay? It's a funny age to be in around here. So I said, maybe we can get a group of women together and we can do community things, give back something to the community. Raise money, that kind of stuff, that do scholarships. | 7:20 |
Ruby Osborn | So I started this club with these women. Well, let me tell you, if that wasn't a trip. Bickering, fighting, oh my God, you would not believe. It was unbelievable. So I just said, "Give these people their money back. I cannot do this with these people. This is the hardest thing I've ever tried to get together." I gave everybody their money back and even most of them I don't even talk to. They didn't want to do that. They didn't want to do it in the first place. So why did you do it? Why did you tell me that you wanted to do this when really in fact you did not? Most of them don't even get along with women, with each, other as females. Oh God, this is a place. This is quite an interesting place. | 8:19 |
Andrea Smith | Why— | 9:12 |
Ruby Osborn | And these were Black people, Black women. | 9:13 |
Andrea Smith | They can't get along with each other? | 9:17 |
Ruby Osborn | So it doesn't have anything to do with color. Prejudice doesn't, or whatever you want to refer to it as. It's anybody. It isn't color, it's anybody. They disliked each other, jealous of each other. She has a better car, she has a prettier suit. Whatever the reasons were. It's very sad. Okay? So when people talk about that White woman did such and such or that White man, I just look at them because you can't get along with your own people, so how can you talk about somebody else? You need to learn to get along. You need to get along right at home before you go out abroad or out someplace else trying to fix something. Do your own stuff first. Okay? Now that's something my parents instilled in us too. Don't go out preaching to somebody else until you are living it yourself. | 9:21 |
Andrea Smith | Did you see other parents teaching their kids the same thing? | 10:29 |
Ruby Osborn | Oh yeah. When I was growing up, it was different. We didn't talk back. We were scared. We weren't afraid of our parents as parents, but we didn't want to be spanked. They had a saying, we didn't speak unless we were spoken to. Okay? So if my mother took me with her someplace, there was no such thing ever, since I had been in this world, of me showing out nowhere, that was unheard of. | 10:32 |
Andrea Smith | Just speaking out? | 11:09 |
Ruby Osborn | You did not show out. You know how children get down on the ground and scream and yell and all that. | 11:18 |
Andrea Smith | Make a scene. | 11:24 |
Ruby Osborn | Yes. That was unheard of. Temper tantrums. There was no such thing, that didn't exist. I don't even know when that started. We didn't do that. | 11:25 |
Ruby Osborn | It's just different. I think we had different values and of course our parents had different beliefs. Parents today don't believe that spanking does anything. Even my daughter. It usually goes in a cycle. In other words, whatever your environment has been, that's basically how you are. Unless you just make a very positive or strong effort to change to be different from what your parents were. Okay? You got to really work hard on that because you are a product of your environment. I don't care what you say. But my daughter has tried so hard, not necessarily to change what I believe, but to be her own kind of mother. Okay? The one who says, "We talk everything out." She tells me this often. "I told the children that I'm going to start working now and there are certain things that you are going to have to do, you have to make a commitment to this too." I'm like, "Okay, did they make that commitment?" "Yes and no. One did and one didn't." | 11:39 |
Ruby Osborn | So it doesn't mean because you changed the way I did it with you that it's going to work better. Doesn't mean that all the time. You just changed it that's all. Doesn't mean it's going to work or it isn't going to work. You'll just have to see. "You think this is a good way, mom?" She said, "All right Tanya, you might need to spank her butt." "Well, I just don't believe in doing all that spanking." I spanked her butt. Good or bad, I spanked her butt. She didn't do it no more, I can tell you that. That's all I know. As long as it was done correctly, that's all that I think is good enough. If you can talk to him and it's done, fine. But if you can't, you got to try something else. | 13:32 |
Ruby Osborn | But see, we got spanked, period. But you know what? I got the least number of spankings. You know why? Because I didn't like to be spanked. I didn't want to be spanked. So I did what I was supposed to do. I'm not saying I was a model child or a perfect child, but I was close to it. Now my sister next to me, talked back every day. My father could tear her tail up, and he would be the one that would have to spank her because my mother couldn't do it good enough. It would have to be my dad, because she was so terrible about talking back. She would never shut up. | 14:27 |
Ruby Osborn | I don't remember my father ever being real, real bad to her, but say for instance, she's talking back to him and he says, "Don't talk back to me anymore." And she keeps on talking, and he smacks her. Just When she shakes it off and gets it together again, do you know that girl is still talking? She used to tickle me. I was like, "Why doesn't she shut up?" I can never understand it. Why wouldn't you shut up. Give it up. I don't want to be hit. I never liked that. So as a result, I didn't get a lot of spankings. I just keep my mouth closed. If I can save the day for me, I'm going to save it. Okay? I don't want to be beaten up. I don't. I didn't like spankings. I hated them too. I really hated him. So I would just do what I was told, it was easier. But do you know who my father adored? | 15:09 |
Andrea Smith | Out of the children? | 16:16 |
Ruby Osborn | Uh-huh. My sister that talked back to him. To the day he died. Isn't that funny? It's funny how things happen. He adored her. I looked a lot like him. My sister looked a lot like my mother, but he adored her. He did. But it was okay because I'm not jealous. You see what I mean? I'm confident. I was very confident. And plus, there were some things that he did that I didn't like. And I told him that when I was an adult. There were things that he did to my mother that when I was a child that I did not like. And when I became an adult, I told him about those things that he did and I hoped that he would never do them to her again, while I was an adult. | 16:20 |
Andrea Smith | How did they relate to each other? | 17:17 |
Ruby Osborn | My grandmother never, ever wanted my father to marry my mother. She had chosen a woman for her son. And this lady lived in Philadelphia. And so when my dad met my mother, she was never—First of all, she was part Indian. And so Black people were prejudiced against Indians as well. And so my grandmother did not want my dad to marry my mother. She was fair-skinned, she had long hair, she sat on her hair. Very beautiful hair, very much like yours, and she was very gorgeous, but she was part Indian. She had very red, red skin. That brownish, beautiful red. Very, very high cheek bones. Very, very attractive woman. Very beautiful figure. But none of it was good enough. She was part Indian. Are you listening to me? And my grandmother was prejudice, I guess to Indians. | 17:24 |
Andrea Smith | And do you think that rubbed off on the way your dad treated your mom at all? | 18:47 |
Ruby Osborn | I don't think so. I think that Black men have always, as far as I can remember, thought that they could hit Black women, treat them any kind of way, and they would take it. They would stay. They would live with it, because they didn't have any place else to go and no one else wanted them. That's what I believe Black men always though. From way back when. Watch the movies, watch the old movies. People like the singer, Billie Holiday. Look at Billie Holiday. Look at all that kind of stuff. That's been going on a long time. It's history. It didn't just start with my dad, it started long before my dad was ever born, that kind of stuff. And it just kind of trinkled on down through the years and through the families and through people. And so what he did to my mother in my eyes, was totally unacceptable. But my mother stayed. And I can remember saying to myself, it'll never happen to me. Never. And it hasn't and it won't. I won't stay. | 18:57 |
Andrea Smith | Why do you think your mom stayed? | 20:58 |
Ruby Osborn | I think my mother stayed because she loved my father. That's why I think she stayed. Because after we were all adults and gone away from home, my father changed. I believe that when people get married, first of all, we're all so very, very different. Meaning everyone is different. There are no two people that are the same. You may be similar, you may even look similar, but you're not the same. No two people are the same. Nowhere, not even twins, they're not even the same. They may think alike, they may do a lot of things alike, but they're not the same. There is something different about each and every one of us. And given that fact when you put a man and a woman together and you are trying to live a life with all these differences, and no one has really set an example for us as to how it should be done. We've just been going along by trial and error, trying to make marriages work. We have no real pattern to go by. | 21:00 |
Ruby Osborn | Remember, they say that Adam and Eve were to be that pattern, but they messed up. So we don't really have a pattern to go by. So how can we even be perfect at this? There's no way. So we've just made a lot of mistakes and still making them. And because somebody did this, did it this way, then the next person that came along did it the same way and did it even worse, because they could. Not because it was right or because it was wrong, just because they could maybe. | 22:34 |
Ruby Osborn | So given the fact that Black men somewhere got the idea that they could treat Black women this way and nobody fought and nobody said nothing and nobody did anything. And because of the prejudice that exists in this world, who was going to protect them? Who? There was nobody. That's sad to me. | 23:19 |
Andrea Smith | Do you think there's more prejudice against Black women than Black men as far as other people in society sticking up for them or reinforcing their rights? | 23:59 |
Ruby Osborn | Against men? | 24:14 |
Andrea Smith | Against women. | 24:14 |
Ruby Osborn | Do I think there was more prejudice against women? No, I think it probably in the long run ends up to be even, just as much against one as there was against the other. They're really no different. They're both Black, and we're talking about color of skin. We're not talking about whether they can think, whether they can breathe, whether they have their own mind, whether they can do things, whether they can work, whether they can whatever. We're not even talking about that. We're talking about the color of somebody's skin. So if you have Black skin or White skin or whatever color you're talking about, what makes the two people different? I can't see how it makes a difference to me, because we're only talking about skin. We're not really talking about any differences. You know that right? | 24:14 |
Ruby Osborn | They have made you think that that's what it is, but it really isn't. We're talking about skin differences. Because you are what you are, you are not supposed to do that. This is what we're talking about. Okay? But over the years, people have tried to make you think that it was because John Doe couldn't do such and such thing or he was too dumb to learn or she was such a whore, or whatever. | 25:23 |
Andrea Smith | It was the color of their skin. | 26:00 |
Ruby Osborn | Sure it was. It had nothing to do with whether they could think or breathe or nothing else. The differences between people, this is my own personal belief obviously, has to do with nothing but the differences in our skin. That's all. You think I can't run a bank? | 26:01 |
Andrea Smith | I think you can do anything. | 26:26 |
Ruby Osborn | No, I don't mean you personally. I'm just saying, just because I'm Black— because my skin is dark—I'm not even Black. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? | 26:30 |
Andrea Smith | Mm-hmm. | 26:45 |
Ruby Osborn | Or do I think that you can't have a pretty baby because you are White? That's all it's about. Nothing more, nothing less. Do you think that because you are White, you are superior to me because I am Black? What is that more than skin? That's what we're talking about. Look what the Ku Klux Klan people say. We are a superior being. What are we talking about here? Skin or what? So, that's all it is, that's all it's ever been, that's all it ever will be is skin. The difference is. That's all it is. It started out being that, and it's still that. | 26:47 |
Andrea Smith | But in people's minds. | 27:40 |
Ruby Osborn | Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Exactly. | 27:41 |
Andrea Smith | Grown. | 27:45 |
Ruby Osborn | Yes, it's escalated, it's outrageous. But that's all it is. It's nothing more than that. And do you know how sad that is? It is so sad. It make you want to cry. You sit up and you watch a show on TV say, and you see this kind of stuff. And sometimes it just touch your heart, I'm telling you. To the point that you just want to cry. And not even prejudice movies I'm talking about. I'm talking about movies, period, in general, where you see acts of prejudice, not even Black against White. Prejudice, period. It is so sad. It just blows my mind. | 27:46 |
Ruby Osborn | I find it very difficult to believe that people can be so naive about something that is so obvious to me. There's no need for any of this. There's no real need for any of it except what you just said, in their minds. Why? I don't know why, I can't answer. I have no idea. I am just very thankful that I'm not one of those people. Everybody does something that I don't like. Everybody in the whole world. All colors do something that I don't like sometime or another, has nothing to do with skin color. People are just people and they're always going to be that. Just people. Not dogs, not cats, just people. It's true. | 28:43 |
Ruby Osborn | I always say to people, I am scared to death of dogs, I am scared to death of cats, I am scared to death of rats, I'm scared to death of birds, I am scared of death of ants. I am afraid of everything. And they're like, "You are crazy." I'm like, "But I am." And I really am, that's the truth. And one person said to me one day, "But what you should be afraid of, you're not afraid of." And I said, "What is that?" And they said, "People. That's who you really should be afraid of." I said, "But I'm not. That's weird, isn't it?" They said, "You're crazy. You are crazy, Ruby. You are afraid of a little ant and not afraid of people?" | 29:42 |
Ruby Osborn | I've thought about that many a day. That person saying that to me. Many days. That has come back to me many days. And I've thought to myself, "Maybe I should. Maybe that's who I really should be afraid of. Maybe I should reach down and pick up the ant and cuddle him and leave these people alone." But I must not have sense enough to do that. Or I must think there's some good in every single person. Obviously I do think that. I think if I didn't think that or believe that, then I'd really be lost, like most of the people are. That's why I don't do drugs. I'm going to tell you why I don't do drugs, because I don't like that feeling of being lost. To me, to do drugs would be a feeling of being lost. I think I would feel lost. | 30:42 |
Ruby Osborn | I heard a person talking about doing drugs the other night, and I was saying, "One time I was at a party and I have a lot of White friends. And I was at this party in Boston, at a hotel. This girlfriend of mine, she and this guy that she eventually married had this big huge party one night on New Year's Eve, and a girlfriend of mine and I went, my husband did not go. He didn't want to go. So this girlfriend and I went, she wasn't married, she was divorced. So we went to this party and we were sitting there and we were having a glass of wine and just chatting and talking to different people that we knew. And all of a sudden somebody pulled out this big wad of whatever it was, of cocaine. | 31:46 |
Ruby Osborn | And to this day, she teases me. She said, "Your eyes must have been the size of moons, many moons," she said, "Because your eyes got so big," she said, "And I knew immediately what you were thinking. I will not go to jail behind somebody else's shit." And that's exactly what I was thinking. Because I said to my girlfriend, I said, "Let's ride." And that's all I said. "Man, get your coat and we're getting the hell out of here." And that's what we did. Because I don't intend to go down behind somebody else's foolish mistakes. Plus, I don't like feeling crazy. I don't like that feeling. I don't want to be out of control. People seem to be out of control when they do drugs. I don't have a problem with anyone who wants to be out of control. I don't want to be out of control. I don't want to do things that I don't remember. Okay? | 32:35 |
Ruby Osborn | So that's kind of my scenario of explaining what I was just saying to you before, is I like to be in control of my actions, of my thoughts, of my everything. No matter what I'm doing, I want to remember that I did it. So I think it's kind of hard when you put yourself in those positions where you can't remember. I don't mind if I'm old and that comes with age. I don't have a choice. I can't help that. But this, I can't help. | 33:39 |
Ruby Osborn | I don't know what else to tell you except that that's just who I am. I've had a very good life actually, from even a child up until now. I don't consider even my divorces, I don't consider those as failures. I learned something from every last single one of them. My marriages. And I'm friends with all the people that I've been married to, not to the point of where I would marry them again. I don't believe in going back. And so therefore, no matter how much I love them and thought of them, I still would not go back. I think once you've come this way, you ought to keep on going because there's something else ahead and you could miss out on something. So I just don't believe in going back. But I can't think of a single thing that I've done in my life that I initiated or that I didn't even initiate, that hasn't been a learning experience for me. And in most cases, good. | 34:26 |
Ruby Osborn | My children have been exposed to pretty much everything. I gave them everything I had. They had the best of everything. I worked two and three jobs to make sure that in between husbands, that I wouldn't be dirt poor and that we wouldn't suffer, that they wouldn't suffer, that they never wanted for anything. You can't make up for the loss of a father. And I certainly never tried. That wasn't my intention at all. Never was my goal. I just gave what I had to give. The caring, the love, the whatever I could give. And so given all of that, they turned out to be pretty good kids. For a person who never wanted kids, because I certainly didn't want any. I always said that when I was growing up, "I'm never having any kids." But I got married, and when you get married, people expect you to have kids, especially during my growing up years. That's why you got married, so you could have some grandchildren for those grandparents to spoil. And they certainly did all that. They had all of that. | 35:47 |
Ruby Osborn | But I just never wanted kids. That wasn't anything in my future. I thought I'd just be, excuse me, one of those people who just live their life, and I wanted to be a career person. Travel all over. I always had travel in my agenda, always. I wanted to see and do some of everything. And believe me, I've met a lot of people and done a lot of things. I can't say I regret anything I've ever done. I really cannot. I've done some very nice things, been exposed to some very nice people and some very nice things. So I've had a pretty good life. If I were to die tomorrow and was able to come back again and tell you how I felt, I would probably say to you, "I don't regret anything I ever did and I had one of the best lives." I always say that. I say that anyway, because it's true. | 37:15 |
Andrea Smith | Sounds like it to me. | 38:20 |
Ruby Osborn | It's really true. And even hurt and pain, I'm not saying I never hurt, I'm not saying I never was in pain, I never cry, I cry all the time. I cry now. I cry anytime I feel like it. If I feel sad or hurt and sometimes I cry and I don't even know why I'm crying, and I cry freely, the tears just come. They just flow. Sometimes I holler, sometimes I scream. Sometimes I do anything I want to do that makes me feel better. | 38:21 |
Ruby Osborn | When my mother died, I thought I would die. I don't know, that makes me cry now. She was very special. Really, really special. And I miss her so. I do. I think that when you lose your mother, you have lost your very best friend in this whole wide world. So whatever you do, be good to your mother. I tell kids that all the time. Fathers are okay, but mothers, they're something. I tell my son all the time, and he told me the other day he was tired of hearing it. I said to him, and I say it a lot, "Your mother's your best friend." I don't understand kids who have bad relationships with their parents or their mothers, especially their mothers, I guess. And I know it's hard sometimes, but somewhere down the line, you've got to find a way to fix it, to make it right, because mothers go through a lot that kids don't even know about, that they don't even talk about. And there's no reason because it would only make you sad. | 38:59 |
Ruby Osborn | And it goes right back to what I said to you earlier about the differences in people. Because we are so different as human beings. Like individuals I mean. Men, women, women, women, however it is, we're just so different as individuals. No one is ever going to get along all the time. And given that fact that we can't get along all the time, be in good standings with each other all the time. There are going to be some conflicts. Sometimes they're bad conflicts. But see, husbands and wives will make up and they'll be fine. If you are married to somebody and you come to me and tell me, "Lord, he is making me sick. I hate him today, I hate him today." And I start agreeing with you, when you're not mad with him no more, you're going to say to me, "Why did you agree with me? I love my husband. Why did you say that?" You'll be mad with me. | 40:35 |
Ruby Osborn | You have to be ever so careful, because you see, no matter how many differences you and your husband have, I need to keep my mouth shut because you will make up with him and I'll be the villain. That's kind of a way of explaining what I mean when I say differences in people. So even though people fighting for us or whatever, they still can be special people. It's going back to my father and the way he treated my mother. He didn't do it always, but there were some periods of time that he did not treat her very nicely. And see, that's what you remember. Those are the things that you remember. So I didn't like him for that, but he was my father no matter what. And I really wasn't that sad when he died. | 41:41 |
Ruby Osborn | I never dreamed he would die before my mother. I thought, all the things, this is how you grow up thinking these things now. All those years I thought that he had killed my mother, basically. I thought that she would die before he did because he had killed her, because of the things that he had done. But see, that was in my mind because I'm just a kid and I see all this stuff happening to her that he had done, the mean ways, and it isn't even that he hit her, he treated her mean. Because he had this woman that he was being pressured with by his mother. And I thought, how in the world can my mother stand this? But see, she survived it, but I was the one who was in pain because I hated it. I didn't want her to have to deal with that. But it wasn't my thing, was it? No, it was hers. And she dealt with it the way she thought she should. And it worked out for her. It made me sad, but it worked out for her because that was what she wanted. | 42:36 |
Ruby Osborn | So you can't decide for other people either. You really can't. You must decide for yourself. I guess that's who I am too. That's why I am the way I am, because I've always made my own choices and my own decisions. If they said, "Don't move to Seattle," then I moved there because I wanted the experience. Not because they said don't, but because I said I'm going to move to Seattle because I want to live on the West Coast. I want to see what it's like to live on the West Coast. "That's 3000 and some miles away. Don't go to the West Coast." Oh yes, I'm going because I need to be able to see what that's like. | 43:51 |
Ruby Osborn | I don't know. I did it and I loved every minute of it, and I would do it again. The same way. I think I would probably choose my life the same way it was, but I wouldn't have any children. And the reason that I wouldn't have any children is because it's too tough. It's too tough. It was hard raising children when you don't know whether—If I knew then what I know today, then I wouldn't have any children. | 44:36 |
Andrea Smith | Which is what? | 45:31 |
Ruby Osborn | It's too tough trying to raise children. It's just very tough. Okay, here I am, I've learned that two people don't always get along together. I've learned that now. Okay? So given that factor, I wouldn't have children, just given that factor alone. Because you see, when you don't get— | 45:33 |
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