Nasty Teacher and D.C. Porter Helped Mom See the World

This post was initially published hours before the news of Chief Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing. Rest in peace RBG. Thank you for your tireless work to advance equality under the law.

“Phyllis, all of my children are going to get a college education,” Grandpa Bernerd Quigley, a U.S. Border Patrolman, told my mom in 1948. “I never got the chance to go beyond high school because I had to chauffer my father to his veterinary appointments by horse-drawn wagon and automobile. I want more for you in life.”

“Ahh, but Dad,” Phyllis said. “After high school graduation, you wouldn’t let me go to Minneapolis with my friends and now they are having an absolute ball working for the telephone company.”

“Phyllis, education is important to your father and to me,” Edith Quigley interrupted.

"But Mom. I've completed five quarters at Bemidji State, including two economics courses in which I was the only girl, and in which the instructor was nasty to me and said he wished I wasn't there so he could swear in class. In spite of him, I passed his classes, but now there's just got to be more out there in the world than him and Bemidji, Minnesota,” Phyllis lamented, peering out their front window at the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues looming across the street on the shore of Lake Bemidji.

Edith joined her eldest child at the window.

As they looked at the roadside monument, Edith said quietly with a hint of hurt in her voice, “Bemidji is a good town, Phyllis, and Bemidji State is a good school. Your father and I work hard to give you and your brothers and sister a good life.”

“I know Mom, I apologize. I just meant I want to see what’s out there in the world. Golly, I’m 19. I don’t really want to be a nurse, a secretary or a teacher. I’m not sure what I want do, or who I want to be,” Phyllis said.

“You know Edith, maybe Phyllis is right. Maybe she should see more of the world before settling down and finishing her degree,” Bernerd said.

“I’ll tell you what,” he continued, getting up from his chair and walking across the room to their telephone. “My friends, Bob, the FBI agent, and Charlie, Bemidji Chief of Police, have connections at the FBI in Washington D.C. They just got Charlie’s daughter Mary Ann a job at the Bureau. I’ll see if they can get you a job. Then perhaps you can room with her so that you have someone we know who can help you safely sow your wild oats.”

“Oh Dad, you’re a killer diller,” Phyllis said and gave him a hug.

“What?” Bernerd said, returning his daughter’s hug but looking at Edith for interpretation.

“She means you’re the best dear,” Edith said and waited for her own hug.

On April 1, Phyllis dragged a big steamer trunk with her as she boarded the Empire Builder Train and headed East. Less than three days later, she was welcomed by a beaming Mary Ann at Union Station, as well as welcomed by the beautiful and fragrant Cherry Blossoms of Washington D.C.

“Wow, I feel like we’re in the Army,” Phyllis said to Mary Ann when they arrived at their living quarters.

“It should feel like that. The government built these barracks for women workers during WWII. And now soldier, the Bureau is making good use of them,” Mary Ann explained with a salute and a grin. Although a few months younger than Phyllis, Mary Ann had gained experience and confidence in the short time she had been living and working in the U.S. capital.

The next day, Mary Ann helped Phyllis find her way to the Justice Department building before she headed to work at the Bureau’s Fingerprinting Department in another building.

A sharply dressed, pleasant woman escorted Phyllis into the secured building where someone took Phyllis’ photograph to create a picture ID for her. And with that, Phyllis began her new career as a Federal Bureau of Investigation employee. Her job was doing key punch and verifying other key punchers’ work on the massive IBM machines that took up entire rooms to process FBI agents’ expense reports.

“Oh my gosh, it was sweltering today at work, and we will get no reprieve tonight. Did you just about melt at work Phyllis?” Mary Ann asked when the two young women returned to their barracks one night.

“This place is brutally hot, but no, it was quite pleasant all day at Justice,” Phyllis said.

“Oh, that’s right! Your building is air conditioned. You crack me up, you lucky Phyllis,” Mary Ann said shaking her head and fanning herself.

If Phyllis had initially intended to trade Minnesota wildlife for the wild life of Washington, she must have had second thoughts once she migrated East. On weekends rather than having a gas jive bombing at D.C. bars, the two women preferred to grab a cup of joe, and then walk and ride trains and buses around the city, to learn about U.S. history and the country’s strength as a democratic nation with three separate and co-equal branches.

In 1948, it was many decades before cement barriers were installed in front of the White House, so Phyllis and Mary Ann marched unimpeded into the White House and took a tour. They kept their eyes out for President Truman, but never saw him or his wife Bess. In fact, their tour was shorter than previous years’ tours—many areas were cordoned off with beautiful velvet ropes—because it was in that year that Bess Truman’s piano fell through the dilapidated floor of her sitting room and Hubby Harry began extensive renovations in the White House that were completed in 1952.

On another trip, the girls went to the U.S. Supreme Court Building and sat in the balcony to watch the Chief Justices at work. Unbeknownst to the girls from Minnesota, earlier that year, in Sheller v. Kraemer, the Court struck down racially restrictive housing covenants.

And if Phyllis and Mary Ann listened well to their tour guide, they would have learned that while the United States established its Supreme Court in 1789, the building in which they sat had only been completed 13 years prior to their arrival to Washington.

According to www.supremecourt.gov, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes expressed the importance of the Supreme Court in the American system and the Judiciary as the coequal, independent branch of the United States Government when, while laying the cornerstone for the building on October, 13, 1932, he said, “The Republic endures and this is the symbol of its faith.”

Another history lesson happened right at work, the day Phyllis and other new FBIers paused in their assignments to stand in line to say their name and shake hands with J. Edgar Hoover.

“Ladies, be proud that you work for the Justice Department. I started in this very department back in 1917, and look where I have advanced from there,” Hoover told his captive and captivated audience.

“His face is so round,” a star struck Phyllis thought as she smiled and shyly shook hands with the Director of the FBI who was smack dab in the middle of his iron-handed 1924-1972 reign.

According to many resources including biography.com, during his tenure, Hoover instituted both positive and negative policies and practices, including strenuous FBI agent recruiting and advanced intelligence surveillance, as he confronted gangsters, Nazis, and Communists.

On another weekend, Phyllis and a few girlfriends headed to the Atlantic City Boardwalk to escape the city’s oppressive summer heat and humidity. They traipsed about all day in the hot sun, riding bikes and staying cool by frolicking in and by the water.

That night Phyllis, a fair-skinned gal of Northern European-don’t-see-the-sun-much descent, suffered from sun stroke. Her pain, temperature, chills, and nausea continued into Monday and she had to miss work.

Among all that she learned about the country—as well as to never sunbathe again—Phyllis also had an unforgettable lesson in civil rights or lack thereof.

Although they really didn’t get breaks other than lunch, the IBM Justice women could go to the restroom if needed. One day, on the way to the ladies room, she and a co-worker walked by a black man who sat at a small desk adjacent to their work area. He was a porter; his job was to carry communication from one department to another in the building. Phyllis’ eyes met his and she smiled at him.

“Hello, how are you today?” she asked.

If he answered, she did not hear him because her friend yanked her arm, forcing her into a quicker stride.

“What’s the matter with you?” Phyllis asked, surprised by her co-worker’s sudden, gruff action.

“Phyllis! What’s the matter with YOU?” the woman responded.

“What do you mean?” Phyllis asked.

“I mean, you don’t talk to negroes. Weren’t you taught anything up in Minnesota?”

Phyllis never forgot being reprimanded by her coworker for simply smiling and greeting a black person.

In late October, Phyllis surrendered to loneliness and decided to return to home.

“You know Mary Ann, punching cards is not the life for me. I miss my family and think it’s time to go back home,” Phyllis confessed one evening.

“I understand. I miss my parents too, but with my sister and her fiancé living here, I‘m going to stay.”

About a week later, the two friends thanked each other for their adventures and parted ways. Phyllis and her steamer trunk load of experiences and insights headed back West.

She had two shocks upon returning to Bemidji.

The first was that as a Washington insider, she told her Dad that all the talk in D.C. was that Dewey would defeat Truman in the November election. Bernerd, a lifelong Democrat, admiringly disagreed with his cultivated daughter.

“Truman will win the election. You wait and see,” Bernerd said. And as history recorded, Bernerd was right and Phyllis and the newspapers were wrong.

The second shock was that during those few months away, Phyllis’ younger brother Neil had shot up five inches. Everyone had a good laugh at Neil surpassing his big sister in height. But it was equally evident to Phyllis and her parents that Phyllis had grown immeasurably on the inside.

After unpacking the steamer trunk and changing from cotton suits and dresses to woolen slacks and sweaters, Phyllis was intent to finish her college degree to help her parents reach their goal to have their kids get a college education, and to set herself on a good trajectory for life.

“I’ve never forgotten that look in the black man’s eyes or the voice and words of my white co-worker,” she said shaking her head, seven decades later in 2020, relating her story to me.

“Racism is not right. But until I went to Washington, I had not been exposed to anyone beyond white people, except for a few Native Americans in North Dakota and Minnesota. I realize now that that I’ve held prejudices against Native Americans, but I didn’t understand what racism was until that day in D.C.,” she confessed. “And honestly, it’s more painful because it’s still going on and because I love and worry about my grandchildren and great grandchildren who are comprised of pretty much all colors and nationalities.”

“I’m proud of you Mom. You've led a good life,” I said.

“Thank you, but I haven’t been perfect in my life,” she said. “And if you are referring to my work at the FBI, it was not really spectacular or important. Your Uncle Neil became an FBI agent a few years after my time at Justice and he did important work. He helped investigate the disappearance of civil rights workers in Mississippi, and he surveilled Lee Harvey Oswald’s house for Russian agents in the days following Oswald’s and President Kennedy’s assassinations.”

As I listen to my 91-year-old mother’s stories, I feel a sense of pride for our federal institutions and for my family members’ roles in making those institutions work for the country and its citizens.

Her stories ignite my memory of a phrase from my fourth-grade social studies textbook which said that the United States was a melting pot. No one in class understood what that meant until our teacher, Sister Coleman, explained that being a melting pot meant we celebrate our individual differences, talents, and aspirations because when we come together we create a healthier, stronger, more loving, whole.

Like my mom in 1948 when her eyes met the eyes of the Justice Department Porter, today I see I lead a privileged life when I see the unrest in our country.

I see that our democratic experiment is ongoing and that we are imperfect. I see that our Constitution is magnificent and at the same time fragile; that our Constitution is an aspiration and guide while at the same time a set of laws and amendments. I see that it is each of our duty to move our country forward to improve the lives of everyone in our melting pot.

Are you with me?

Let's see that we keep our great experiment on track. Let us see that we keep the three co-equal branches separate. Let‘s see that we not discriminate based on age, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Let‘s see that each of us to take to heart and mind Sister Colman's words, “Our diversity is our beauty and our strength.”

One of the best ways we can celebrate our differences and at the same time meld as one is for each of us to vote in the 2020 election. And for each of us to prepare for the election. Turn off social media streams. Study the candidates’ platforms, records, and words. Make informed choices on the ballot so that when all the votes are counted that we move forward as one America, as the one and only United States of America.

Judi Stoa's Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others

Website: Judi Stoa Books

Blog: Donchyaknow Life Lessons