| Q1. | Hi Jonelka. |
| A1. | Good morning, hi. |
| Q2. | Tell me about your grandparents. You know, where were they born and what kind of life did they lead, do you? |
| A2. | I'll talk about my mom's parents. Well I can talk about both, actually. My mother's parents are both Annapolitans, born and raised. My grandmother was fourteen when they married, and she was fifteen when she had her first child. So… and they had fourteen children so I would say they lived a pretty full life. My grandfather was eighty-one when he passed, and my grandmother was eighty when she passed. So they lived very long lives, they saw a lot. They saw a lot, they saw a lot as far as historic things and times changing. My grandmother was a housewife. Back in those days, well, of course when she got married she stopped going to school so she, she never went to high school or anything. She was pretty much a wife and a mother. And my grandfather was, I guess what they call a jack-of-all-trades. He did everything. My uncles and my aunts tell me many, many stories of the things he did. And honestly, I really, I can't think of an actual profession that he may have had. He just did a lot of different things. So, yeah. |
| Q3. | For example? |
| A3. | For example, I can remember he had a big blue truck and I never, I don't recall where he would go, but he would always come back with all this cool stuff like toys and dolls and things that he would find, and just really awesome things that I can remember. Some of the dolls and things I still have, like things that he’d given us. And I can remember we would go fishing with him when we were really, really small. He would...he had a boat and we go out on the boat and go fishing and things like that I can remember. My grandfather was a very soft-spoken man; he very rarely talked, which sounds weird, but he was just... he was granddad and…. My grandmother was really like the backbone of the family, totally. So losing them was just a really low-blow to the family but yeah… |
| Q4. | How old were you when they passed away? |
| A4. | When my grandfather passed away I was in the ninth grade, so I was thirteen. And then my grandmother passed away in ninety-two so I was about fourteen or so, I believe. I can't remember the ages. I remember the times and I remember what period in school, but I cannot remember how old I was. It was a while ago. A while ago, yeah. |
| Q5. | What did you do with your family when you were young? I mean, can you remember family activities that you did? |
| A5. | Yeah. Not so much with my father's side of the family, but with my mother's side of the family, because there are so many of us... so many cousins and aunts and uncles, we would always have a picnics, barbeques; my yard or my aunt Lillian's yard. Every holiday. I mean every possible reason to get together we would get together and have food and music and just... it's… it's great. Like even now we do that. It was more... I can remember it being more involved when my grandparents were living, but now… we still do it... and it's still wonderful to see all of my cousins and things like that, but… we always… we always have barbeques. Always have picnics, and things like that. |
| Q6. | So that was a lot of people in one place. |
| A6. | Oh yeah, always so many people. Definitely. |
| Q7. | About how many, for example? |
| A7. | Average, I would say no less than maybe seventy-five, and I'm talking close cousins; first, second, third cousins. Everybody knows everybody. Yeah, about seventy-five people. Usually in the yard and the house, coming in and out throughout the day. Yeah. |
| Q8. | What time would one of these barbeques start? |
| A8. | We would probably start… like the… the classic is of course the Fourth of July, which is Independence Day. We'd probably start around noon, and then people would filter out anyway. It… most of the time, my cousins would end up spending the night, we would just have so much fun we'd just never want to leave. So… but the majority of the people would probably be gone after fireworks, which is maybe ten p.m. So all day long, all day long. Not everyone would arrive at twelve, of course, and not everyone would leave at ten, but throughout the day. Yeah, we'd have a full house till… till about midnight or so, and then still some people left over the next morning. So, yeah. |
| Q9. | So you have a lot of aunts and uncles to… to… to take turns with having this. A9 Oh, yeah, yeah. |
| Q9. | Was it… it every… everybody had a party, or some people didn't have big houses. |
| A9. | No. Some… most… most of the parties were either at my house, at my aunt Lillian's house or at my cousin's…. my cousin Jerry's house, which is my aunt Lil ….my aunt Iil's son so that's basically it. My sister just recently... she just bought her house two years ago, so we just recently started having things at her house. But it's pretty… pretty much up to us. But everyone would help out. Everyone would cook, everyone would come over and help and things like that. So, and the good... I always liked having them at our house because we always get, you know... all the food gets left at our house, and we… we get all the leftovers and... it was cool. Yeah. And everyone would stay to help clean. So, yeah… yep. |
| Q10. | How many houses has your family lived in? |
| A10. | I… I only recall the house we live in now, which we moved into when I was about two. I know that we… actually no, because I recall living in my… when my parents first got married we had a house in Washington D.C. and I do remember living in that house. I don't know how I remember living in that house, but I do remember living in that house. I remember my carpet in my room was purple, and me and my sister shared bunk beds for a while and then we moved into the home that we live in now, which is in Annapolis. So when I think of, you know, that's the only house that I really think of when I think of growing up in a house, because most of my time, most of my life was spent in that house. We had it built, so we're the only people who have ever lived in it, so that's our house. |
| Q10. | Ok. |
| A10. | Yeah |
| Q11. | What it's like? |
| A11. | What it's like? It's… we have three bedrooms upstairs and we had two bedrooms downstairs but when the… you know, when the family starts to get older and grow up, we didn't so many bedrooms anymore, so the basement is now a family room. One bedroom still remains on this side but the larger side of the room is like an entertainment room; that's where my father keeps his movies. We had a pool table there but it's not there anymore so it's the television and where we play video games and it's pretty much an entertainment room. Upstairs, it's a… it's what called a split foyer, so when you walk in you can either go up or down. Go upstairs and of course it's a kitchen and the family room and the bedroom, and things, so… it's a nice house. Definitely a nice house. |
| Q12. | So when you enter, there's one stair going down to the basement? |
| A12. | You can go down. It's a… It's a foyer. It's a flat foyer when you come in, and either you can go straight upstairs or you can go downstairs to the basement. So, yeah. |
| Q. | Ok. Ok, thank you very much for talking with us. |
| A. | Sure, you're welcome. Thank you. |