Interview with Donna Ellis Click for bio
Donna Ellis
Topics:
Donna Ellis: Well, I guess it is.That would just put me down in posterity. Right?
BK: Exactly. We had to, like, read this whole thing about making sure we get accurate consent.
DE: Right. Right.
BK: And so I have a list of questions. So the first one I'm going to start with is during you and when I say the 19 sixties, it's like at any point during it, however you feel. So what kind of television shows did you or music would you say you listen to a lot during the time?
DE: Well, television shows, that's really hard for me to remember right now. Maybe I better come help you. Yeah. Papa better come and help me. I we've probably watched, Disney. I I don't know if that was on in the seventies. I mean, the sixties. Sorry. I don't know. I didn't really watch very much television in that first part of the of the sixties. I was in college, and there were no TVs around to watch TV. Yeah. We watched there was a cowboy or something like that movie on Sunday night. Bonanza. Western Bonanza or something was on. We watched Bonanza, I guess.
BK: Oh, very nice. If that one would, we could also, like, have a change, like a pivot. Did you listen to a lot of music? Would you-
DE: No
BK: No?
DE: No. I didn't.
BK: Okay. That was, like, our first little one. Did religion play a large role in your life, and did you attend church pretty frequently during this time?
DE: Yes. It played a large role in my life. I went to a Christian college, and I attended church regularly during the whole decade.
BK: Very nice. Do you think that played a factor in kinda shaping your world views and society at the time at all?
DE: Yes. I think it did. I know that during that time, the, the hippie, quote, movement started in San Francisco, and that was very far removed from anything that I was doing at the time. I was busy working, trying to get through school. And, was not interested in, being a flower child or protesting anything.
BK: Yeah. Which that kind of can dive us into our next question of, the sixties was a pretty big, decade for, like, civil rights movements. We saw, like, MLK, Civil Rights Act, and different organizations like that. How did it feel to watch the civil rights movement unfold throughout the 1960s?
DE: Well, I think that the things that we saw were very sad. You know, that what we would see in the, on TV, about the marches and the fire hoses, used on the people. And, it affected us a little bit on that when, Martin Luther King was shot. We were living in Leavenworth, Kansas then. Dad was in the, the army, and we had planned a weekend trip. But because of that, we he had to stay right on base, because of, you know, the unrest, I guess. So it did affect us in that way.
BK: Yeah. I know. Especially, like, everything going on right now politically, you know, assassinations. Do you think because was it no. Yeah. Sorry. When it was, like, Martin Luther King's assassination, do you remember kinda, like, the reaction to it? Like, what was your reaction or, like, society at the time? Like, how do you think they took it?
DE: Well, I think it was terrible. And, of course, we'd already lived through the assassination of, president Kennedy. Yeah. Which was the worst thing that we could think of. And, I think it just brought the whole country, you know, to a standstill. And I think that most people were very sad about the, fascination of Martin Luther King because he was proclaiming peaceful, methods and so on.
BK: Yeah. And then kind of to build off, like, the idea of the civil rights movement, be 1960s was big for a plethora of different groups, not just people of color. But do you have any memories of, like, the feminist movement and how it affected, like, gender roles throughout that time? Do you remember any of that?
DE: Well, I remember they were burning their bras. And it really didn't affect me because I like I said, I was in college. I got married during the sixties, and I worked all of those years. Those, up until 1970. And that movement did not affect me in my job. Mhmm. I didn't feel like, you know, men got a better, spot or anything like that. Mhmm. So I was probably removed from the feminist movement. I didn't see any need to, protest.
BK: Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to ask that one. And then, I guess I forget what year exactly it was. I think it was 1963 we saw the assassination, kinda just to circle back to that, of president, Kennedy. And what do you remember the, like I guess we can start with, like, the political atmosphere after that happened, like, or just kind of like the overall, like, as a country, like, feeling?
DE: Well, I think it it reminded me of the country after 9/11. The it, you know, it was very serious, and the whole it didn't matter which political party you were in. It was a terrible, terrible thing to happen, and, you know, things just kind of closed down. And as far as the politics then, I know that Lyndon Johnson was probably escalating the war in Vietnam when he came in, and that was still the time of the of the draft. So every young man knew that they were gonna go, and most likely, they were gonna go to Vietnam.
BK: Yeah. Which I think that brings up a great point that I was gonna ask next, but how did the how did the war affect you and, like, the community that you were living in at the time? I know that, papa had to go. How did it affect you, though?
DE: Well, it was, it was very scary. You know, we would see these things on the news, and the only way we had to communicate was with letters and they were not very steady. Like if you wrote one every day, you wouldn't get one every day. They might build up and it might take a while. I remember sending a package that didn't get there because it was right after we were married in 1965 in December January, that Papa got his orders that he was going to Vietnam and, you're always worried that if you saw a military car or a military person coming to your work or something that they were gonna come and tell you some very bad news. Mhmm. That was for a year that we lived that way. And it was now my friends that we were close to, they had boyfriends and husbands also in the war so that we were, people weren't protesting like us around us closely. But I know those protests were going on in other places against the war and that, it made it hard for the the men coming home.
BK: Mhmm. Yeah. And I think that brings up, like, a great next kind of question to ask is how did he, like, how did you feel about the war at the time?
DE: Well, I think I was I was just afraid. I really didn't have the political you know, you would see on TV that so many died each day. They would put this news up, and they would show shots of different things happening. And I wasn't studying politics at the time and knowing that maybe we were fighting a war that we shouldn't have been fighting. But we were citizens and you do what you're supposed to do. And if you're drafted and they send you, you go. But the politics of it, I probably learned a lot more later than I was dealing with at that time that during the time that papa was in Vietnam.
BK: Yeah. I know. I've it's been really interesting during this class, like, kinda learning more about, like, Vietnam and the draft and things. So Yeah. But I guess we can kinda pivot from there and kinda talk about another kinda like issue that was going on at the time. But, what would you say your reaction or kinda like the general consensus of like the community you lived in pertaining to nuclear warfare, due to the cold war? And, like, what was your thoughts?
DE: I you know, I don't remember much of that cold war during the sixties. I I remember it before that being in school, and we'd have the bomb drills, you know, under the desk. And I really don't think I have a lot of thoughts or remembering anything on the on the new on nuclear things going on during that time. I know that we were kind of always afraid of Russia, taking over.
BK: Yeah. Like the red scare and everything..
DE: Mhm..
BK: And so you what year did you graduate from college?
DE: 1965
BK: 1965, so the same year you and papa got married, right?
DE: Right
BK: So did you, did you start teaching in the sixties then?
DE: I started in the fall of 65. That was my first teaching job.
BK: Very nice. And how would you say, like, I guess even stemming from, like, the first couple years of you teaching in that early years, compared to, like, when you retired later on, did you ever see, like, a shift in, like, schooling or how things are kinda looked at?
DE: Right. In fact, when I first was teaching, there was not a teacher's union that everyone belonged to. And there were not so many the parents weren't telling the teachers how to teach or, there probably weren't so many special services as they have, you know, at the end of, you know, whenever it can be identified with an IEP and so on like that. At the beginning, it was the teachers were, thought highly of where I was teaching. And I'm not sure that that's always today still happening.
BK: Mhmm. Yeah. I know. I think it's really interesting to see, like, the shift from that and kind of different things. But I kinda have a fun question to ask you next because I know you got married in 1965. So leading up to that, what was dating like back then?
DE: What was dating like? Well, you would usually go to dinner. We went to sporting events. We didn't really date for very long. We dated for about a month before he went in the army. He was then home after 8 weeks. He was home for 2 weeks, I guess, from basic training before he went to his tech school. And so we dated during that time, go to dinner, a lot of sporting events, movies. And then the next time I saw him, we were planning a wedding and getting married.
BK: Very nice. So maybe a little different than nowadays with social media and dating apps and everything.
DE: Probably very different. Right?
BK: Yeah. What would you what do you say I know we talked a little bit about religion and how it played a factor in your life, but do you think back then religion had a bigger impact on society as a whole and people took it more seriously in comparison today?
DE: I think that more people did attend church and probably did take it more seriously. Before the sixties, you really wouldn't hear of too many, people rebelling over different things, like, started happening in the in the sixties. So I think it probably had a bigger influence then than now.
BK: I know. I think that's interesting to think about because when you see, like, those or even, like, when you read historical texts, it's a lot of, like, religious oriented even, like, when you look at Martin Luther King Junior and stuff. What I'm trying to find how I can word this. I guess after JFK was assassinated because that was, I think, in 63. Right. And he was going into an election. Do you think that played a factor in I don't even maybe voter turnout or, like, kind of do you think it boosted, LBJ's chances at winning?
DE: It's hard it's hard to say on that. You know, I know that I voted. And but before that, you know, the election when JFK was elected, I was still in high school. Mhmm. Or at least the preliminaries to that election and, you know, and then my classes, we were studying the different candidates and things like that. So I was knowing more, learning more about the elections then like in, you know, 60 I graduated in 61 from high school. So I don't know whether more people turned out because the news is not wasn't telling us things like that Yeah. Event. Do you know, whether there is a big turnout or not? I mean, I know that we always watch the elections and the returns, but you didn't get all of the information from all the different sources that you would today on those kinds of things.
BK: Yeah. And I think that brings me to, like, kinda my next question is what I mean, in comparison today, politics is such a polarizing topic. Would you how would you say compared, from back then to today, like, what was different about politics? Like, what people's interactions,
DE: Well, I think if there was a debate and wasn't wasn't Nixon and Kenned- JFK had the first debates, I think that was what it was. They were not up there bad mouthing each other.. They were debating the issues, and there was not nobody until this last couple of elections have been so bad about all they can do is just say bad things about the other person. Which is really off off topic because half the time, it's not true.
BK: Yeah. I know. I think it's super
DE: I just think it was elections just seem to be more of a democracy.
BK: Yeah. I know. I think that was something super interesting we were looking at, in one of my courses, debates from, like, back then to, like, now when it's just, like, so dramatically different. It's like, oh, they get out there and, like, even I think we looked at one from, like, maybe 2,008 or 2012. I think it was one of Obama's. And during their downtime, the candidates are talking, asking each other, oh, like, how's the family? Blah blah blah. And, like, compared to now, it's like, ugh. Just Yeah.
DE: Polarizing. Oh, right. That was, you know, you would ask about church and and so on. And a lot of a lot of church people, protestants, didn't wanna vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic and they thought the pope was going to be running America if he won. But, you know, that did not turn out to be true. Yeah. But that was that was one of the polarizing thing there in that election, I remember.
BK: Yeah. What I mean, like, even, like, in comparison today, like, what would you say, like, your day to day, how does it, like how is it different, like, today than it was way back then other than it's been a while, if that makes sense.
DE: You mean just well, right now, we're in such an everything is so inflated to prices that for people that are on a limited income, it would be really really hard to go and pay triple price for, bread or a fruit bowl or whatever you're going to to do. You know, the gas and the our utilities and the fact that, nowadays, insurance, like car insurance and especially homeowners in California are canceling people all the time, because they don't wanna ride insurance in California because of the wildfires. And now our house, of course, is not in a wild wild fire area, but our company quit riding. And so we'd had them for, what, 22 years or something, and, goodbye. Yeah. Well, I know. So I don't remember those. I don't remember, you know, it was in the seventies when we had the gas shortages. Mhmm. That was not in the sixties. I mean, we in the sixties, we could pay 19¢ a gallon for gas. And so you and our utilities were not very much. And, you know, the everything kinda was more stable price wise. And now we've just seen it go up and up and up.That's been crazy.
BK: That's been crazy. Trying to think of any other ones that I need to make sure to ask you. Was there anything that went on during the 19 sixties that felt like earth shattering at the time to you? Like, oh, this is so different. Like, setting a new precedent that occurred throughout that decade, it could pertain to truly anything.
DE: Well, the things that I remember from the sixties that were so different were the protests, the hippie movement, you know, the flower children and, that kind of rebelled there. Most of them were wealthy, and they were rebelling against the status quo, I guess, that their parents, you know, had worked for, and the assassination of our president. Those were the the big things, you know, in the world that that I remember. Yeah.
BK: Yeah. I think it's always interesting when people talk about JFK and just just how big that moment was. And then the protest about the flower child, what was what was it about?
DE: Well, it was the status quo. They, you know, they decided they didn't want to have a job and work 9 to 5 or whatever their job was. They wanted they would rather do their own thing, live in communes Try to say tune in to an awful lot of this. What was it? Try to think. Tune in. Turn on your And the they would take up different causes, and so they would of course, one of them being the war in Vietnam Mhmm. That they would, protest against. And there were, oh, I don't know if this was in the sixties. The I was thinking of that Patty Hirsch. It might have been in the sixties. It was sixties. It might have been in the seventies. And there were, a group a group that kind of brainwashed her or something. She was very rich and then she was kidnapped and became part of this militant group. SLA or something? Something like SLA or something. It was it was very weird. I don't know if that was the 6 late sixties or or early seventies even. But I think the protest was against the war. That's mainly what I remember. But they would protest businesses too. That they didn't think were They're supporting the war war effort. The businesses that would support the war effort. And, it wasn't so much the environment at that time. Yeah. But I just say the status quo. They didn't they didn't care for that. Yeah.
BK: I think as we wrap up, is there any other thing that really stuck out to you in the 19 sixties that you really just think
DE: We got married. Oh my goodness. Those were the those were really the big things. You know? I graduated from high school in the sixties. I graduated from college in the sixties. I met papa in the sixties. Mhmm. And we did we, we were still yeah. We didn't even buy a house until after in the seventies. So we were still renting there, and he was getting through school. He finished his degree in 1970, and I've had Suzy in 1970. So he started teaching that September, and I stayed home that September of 1970. So we had, you know, we had a great church there at at First Church in Pasadena, and we had many, many, many friends. And we would get together with our friends, and they were having babies. And, you know, we'd all of those kinds of things. It was a great family time in the late sixties seventies for us. But as far as the politics and things like that, I think we've already covered all those main things that that we remember, the assassinations and Yeah.
- Title:
- Interview with Donna Ellis
- Date Created:
- 2024-10-06
- Description:
- The major themes of the interview follow the culture that she was surrounded with during civil movements, Vietnam, the effect it had on domestic homelife, and the political culture of the United States during the time. Her role as a woman, and how she perceived gender conversations that were occurring during the time have more of a conservative undertone compared to some college students at the same time.
- Subjects:
- culture vietnam gender religion politics
- Location:
- Over Zoom [Moscow, ID & Temecula, CA]
- Latitude:
- 33.49268534
- Longitude:
- -117.1320137
- Type:
- text
- Format:
- record
- Preferred Citation:
- "Interview with Donna Ellis", The Long 1960s - 2024 Fall, Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CDIL)
- Reference Link:
- /thelong1960s/items/ellis.html
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at libspec@uidaho.edu. The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/