Pat Spencer, November 3, 2021

Item

Title
Pat Spencer, November 3, 2021
interviewee
Pat Spencer
interviewer
Deirdre Brett
Date
2021-11-03
Subject
Art
Bassett Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts
Cooperstown Art Association
Cooperstown, New York
COVID-19
Family
Food Pantry
Maine
Mother
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
Nurse
Painting
Porcelain Dolls
Description
Pat Spencer is a Cooperstown, New York resident who has lived in the area since 1982. Pat is married to the former Chief Curator of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ted Spencer. Pat has raised her children in Cooperstown with her husband, while being a part time RN [registered nurse] at Bassett Hospital. Pat is an avid painter and artist. She is also extremely involved with her community, which includes her church, the local food pantry, and the Cooperstown Art Association. Pat is also a highly devoted grandmother and very involved in her grandchildren’s lives. Her children and grandchildren reside in Cooperstown, NY as well. This allows Pat to pick her grandchildren up from school and attend extracurricular activities as well as school sports.

I interviewed Pat in her home on Main Street of Cooperstown, New York. Her home was welcoming and beautiful. Pat is a brilliant woman who loves her family dearly. It was clear to me how much her family impacts her life in a positive way. Pat made it very clear that she new she wanted to be a mother since she was a young girl. This love and affection that she has still rings true today. Another one of Pat’s loves includes her love for art. She described that she took classes on how to make porcelain dolls. She loved it so much that she has a kiln in her home. Overall, Pat is a wonderful woman who has devoted her life to helping and giving to others as well as being a loving daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and friend.
Transcription
PS = Pat Spencer
DB = Deirdre Brett

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

DB:
Okay, this is Deirdre Brett from the Cooperstown Graduate Program interviewing Pat Spencer on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021, at 1:20 PM in Cooperstown, New York. Thank you for your participation, Pat. Let's begin with where and when you were born.

PS:
Okay. I was born in Maine in 1946.

DB:
What was your family like growing up?

PS:
Well, you know, Maine was actually, that was the end of World War II. My father was still in the service, so we were living with my grandparents there in Maine, beautiful spot. And then we moved to Massachusetts, and I grew up in Massachusetts with four siblings and for a time, two great aunts who had no place to go. And went to high school there, graduated from Burlington High School, Burlington, Mass [Massachusets]. Then I went to college in Boston, Massachusetts College of Art. That's where I met my husband, who also was an art major. And then proceeded to have three children and realized that it was going to be very difficult to make any money working part-time as an artist, since I felt that I could not work full time with three children. And so, after a few years, I went back to school and got my RN, and I worked as a registered nurse in New Jersey where my husband had gotten a job and I worked in labor and delivery there for seven years. Then we moved to Cooperstown. My husband has always been an avid baseball fan. He was named after Ted Williams. His real name is William, but he's called Ted because of Ted Williams and has always loved baseball. Coming home on the train he saw an ad for a designer/video[grapher] for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He came right home, wrote his resume. And that weekend in the Philadelphia Inquirer, there was an ad for nurses for Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown. And then there was an article the same weekend about what a beautiful town Cooperstown was, and it was almost as if we were meant to come. We came up for an interview in January. It was 10 below zero [laughter]. Our car wouldn't start the next morning. When we got here, we got lost when we went through all these small towns. Then we came to Cooperstown, and it was winter. It was cold, but it was beautiful. It was just like a little fairy land, you know, with the snow and the churches. At any rate, without a hesitation, my husband said yes to the job. And I got a job at Bassett in the ICU [intensive care unit]. Unfortunately, this is the countryside and not New Jersey. So, I had to take a fairly big pay cut to come work here, but it's been a great place to bring up our children. We were very concerned, especially with my daughter who was going into sixth grade, how she would react to this. And she came home with an arm around two other girls and it was great. Now all three of them went away to college, got their degrees came back, and work here. So, I've been able to really be involved in my grandchildren's lives, which has been a blessing to me and hopefully to them. My daughter is clinical nurse manager of research at Bassett. My oldest son is a radiologist at Bassett and my youngest son is the school nurse. So, I have all my grandchildren near me, and it's been great.

DB:
So, do you believe that your children followed in your footsteps in the healthcare system?

PS:
Well, I think that, definitely my daughter [did], because she went to Cornell, she majored in human services. I think she was also looking for a better paying job. She was working as a Head Start teacher. Which of course in our country, which I think is very sad, we don't pay people who deal with other people. Human services like that are not valued monetarily. Anyway, she went back to school like I did to get her RN and because she was already a college graduate as I was, we could do it in like a year and a half because we already had all these basic courses. We just had to do the others. And I know my youngest son, he was basically one of these people who was good in everything but couldn't really focus down and he went to Villanova and majored in history with a minor in philosophy in creative writing. So of course, the job he got was bartender [Laughter], and then, he and his friends went off to Montana for a couple of years and he met a girl, wanted to get married and they were looking to come back here, because he's really close to his family and his brother and his sister. And he decided, well, he could do the same thing because he had gone to school and had all these credits. So, he just had to take nursing. So, he went to Hartwick and finished his BSN [bachelor’s of science in nursing] degree. So, he did that. And my oldest son went to Cornell, and he met a local girl from Cooperstown and so he came to work at Bassett.

DB:
Now I see in your biography form that you are involved with the [Cooperstown] Art Association.

PS:
Yeah.

DB:
So, what first made you interested in art?

PS:
I was always interested in art. You know, from the time I was a little kid, I was always drawing and painting. I had some talent, certainly not a world beater, but I had some talent. I went to college for art. I was a painting major, met my husband and he was in industrial design. And so of course, whether I'm working part-time as a nurse, I still have art in me and that was a great place to, you know, have classes, to be involved in the arts in the community. So, I’ve always done that.

DB:
Do you have a particular inspiration for your art?

PS:
Well, I paint, and sell paintings through there, but I also, twenty-five years ago, saw they had an ad. I love dolls. I've always loved dolls, that there was a place in Oneonta that taught porcelain doll making. So, I took a course, came home and told Ted I had bought a kiln and I bought all these molds and all these paints. It's quite an art form. It's very technical too. You have to know how to pour and fire and then you paint, and it's not like painting on a canvas because it's multiple washes that have to be fired in between time. And it's historical. You have to learn the costumes of the period and do them authentically. I can show you some of the ones, and I've won quite a few awards including at international conventions. Yeah.

DB:
How did you balance practicing what you loved, like being an artist, working at the hospital and also being a mother and a wife?

PS:
Well, [a] wonderful part of nursing is that you can do it part-time, so I never worked full time. I worked part-time so I had plenty of time for my family, and that kind of stuff. You make time for what you want to do. If you love something, you're going to find a place to do it and a time to do it

DB:
As an artist, how would you like the community to interact with your art?

PS:
I'd like them to buy it [Laughter]. They have several shows during the year, and I usually have something in there. Fortunately, I don't depend on it for a living. Being an artist is not very, it's not really remunerative, and I'm not so focused that I'm willing to give up all the rest of my life for it. I enjoy it. It's part of who I am.

DB:
So, just to clarify, what year was it that you moved to Cooperstown, New York?

PS:
‘82. 1982.

DB:
[19]82. I know that Ted, your husband is the chief curator, was the chief curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame. What was it like being married to someone with that title?

PS:
Well, of course, you know, you got to meet all these celebrities and baseball people, which was nice, but that's my husband's gig. As far as I'm concerned, it certainly gave him status and he enjoyed it because he loves baseball, and it was all right [laughs]. I got to go to some great parties that Jane Clark had, which was nice.

DB:
So, were you interested in baseball yourself at all?

PS:
Oh, we're big Red Sox fans. We've always been big Red Sox fans coming from New England.

DB:
Just to go back a little, I'm kind of interested, you said your father was in the military.

PS:
Well, that was World War II. He went to Italy during World War II, but he was not, he was only in for a while, couple years for the war.

DB:
What was that like when he came home?

PS:
I was a baby. I have no idea [Laughter]. I was born in ‘46 [Laughter].

DB:
I also see that you're involved in the local food pantry. How long have you been involved with that?

PS:
Just this year. It was sort of, you know, I teach my doll making part-time, I'm retired now. I do a lot with my grandchildren, but I felt like, I should also now give back. I'm really involved in the art association. I do volunteer stuff for them too. But [the] food pantry seemed like a logical thing to do. I think that no American should go hungry, and it bothers me tremendously of all the industrialized countries, America is one of the few that doesn't guarantee food for their people.

DB:
So why did it take until this past year to become involved with the food pantry?

PS:
[Laughter] I'm involved in my church. I'm involved in my family. Obviously, you join things as it comes up. And we knew the new food pantry director. We like her very much, as Ted says they’re cousins twice removed.

DB:
So how has working with a lot of nonprofit organizations benefited you?

PS:
Well, I feel that people, especially people who are reasonably comfortable off and now have extra time because, I'm retired should give back to the community. We all need to give back, as we can.

DB:
You also said you were involved in your church. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you do?

PS:
Okay. Well, my husband and I take turns as far as being ushers and for coffee hour, I cook food for that. And when they support scholarships to the Dominican Republic, we always donate to that. And we're just a part of that community, that church community, you know, we help run the Christmas pageant and whatever activities they have.

DB:
Are there any other nonprofits you would like to ever participate in in the future?

PS:
Not that I can think of, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to it. I'm getting old. I think I have enough on my plate [Laughter].

DB:
So, family seems to be a big part of your life.

PS:
Absolutely.

DB:
Tell me a bit more about them.

PS:
Well, I always have believed that I think that when I married Ted, I might have been young. I was only twenty, which don't anybody get married at twenty. But I was a very mature twenty. I really was. And I knew what I was looking for and the fact that I felt that he was an ethical person and the kind of person you could count on. Really, that was one of the huge decisions that I made, and I made it consciously. And I always wanted to be a mother, I can't even imagine people who choose not to, not to have a family that's sort of the core of life. And I was very blessed to have three wonderful children, all very bright. And that they live here and that I'm part of their life. And they're part of mine. It's great.

DB:
And you have grandchildren as well?

PS:
Seven! [Laughter]

DB:
Tell me a little bit about them and your relationship with them.

PS:
Well, the oldest grandchild, I think Ted told you that they just won the Section III soccer tournament. They're all good athletes. It's amazing. They really are. And it's been fun to go to their things and support them. And my daughter's daughter plays soccer, plays volleyball. Volleyball is her favorite sport, and she's very good at it. And the cousins are all very close; that's a good way to grow up. And like last night when we won the first thing the older boys did was to go over and hug their cousin. So, you always have a friend. So that's really great.

DB:
Can you explain to me a bit more about your meeting with Ted?

PS:
Well, you mean in college?

DB:
Yes.

PS:
[Laughter] Well, he was from south of Boston. I was from north of Boston and we were actually in an English class. And so, he tells me, he looked across the room and thought she's very attractive [Laughter] and we, was a college party and I, who had never had any of alcohol in my life, had had [Laughter] a couple of beers. And I said, hmm he's very interesting, and I went over and introduced myself. Actually, what I did was go over and sit in his lap and kiss him. But that's [Laughter] I was a little uninhibited by the beer.

DB:
And it just sparked from there.

PS:
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

DB:
How long were you two together before you got married?

PS:
Well, it was like two and a half years. And we got married at that time because it was the era of Vietnam, and his draft number was coming up. He worked part-time at a grocery store in college and one of his coworkers said, well, you know, I work in the Naval Reserve. You want to go to the Naval Reserves? So, you don't have to go over to, you know, Vietnam? He says, of course I do, so does everybody else, how am I going to do that? He says, go at such and such a time and get your physical. And he got in. So, he had to go off on active duty, you know, in the reserves, you have to spend at least six months on active duty. So, he was going to go and we decided to get married before he left. Then I went back to school to finish my [degree], and he had to actually lose almost a whole year being because of his active duty.

DB:
So, was life different in any way after he came back?

PS:
Well, we were both poor college students, if you want to call it that, but it was fine. You know, we were young. I think we always felt like we could overcome anything.

DB:
All right. Can you tell me a little bit more about growing up in Maine?

PS:
I didn't grow up in Maine. But my grandparents lived there. So we went, had to visit them all the time, a very beautiful spot, right along the ocean near Belfast in Camden. We still own land up there. We always thought we'd have a vacation house up there, but then we came to Cooperstown. Cooperstown's beautiful in the summer [Laughter]. So, we would visit because my mother lived there later on in life.

DB:
And can you tell me a bit more about your family growing up? You said you had a few siblings.

PS:
Oh yeah. I had four siblings, and well, there's some family stuff there that we don't really want to talk about.

DB:
That's fine. What about your mother?

PS:
My mother was obviously a big force in my life, and she was a devout Christian and she put up with a lot of crap from my father for many years. But did not leave him. In this day and age, you could go, in those days what would you do if you had three young children and your secretarial degree? Nothing, it was impossible. So, there was a lot of unhappiness there, but well, one thing, you asked about when he came back from [the] service. Well, we lived in Boston, and we lived back-to-back to the Roxbury section, which was not a very good area, but when you're a student, you get cheap housing. And we had all those riots in [19]68. So, my husband's off doing his active duty and they're rioting in the streets right behind my apartment. You know, that's when Martin Luther King [Jr.] was killed and then Bobby Kennedy got killed. It was a very unsettled time.

DB:
So how did you feel during that time alone by yourself?

PS:
Well, I had, you know, I had girl roommates who lived well, like one floor down, you know, classmates that lived there. So, I had that. And I worked part-time at the New England Baptist Hospital, at the time, for part-time work. But you had to walk home at night [Laughter], a little bit iffy. Young people are brave. I think I would have been appalled right now, if one of my grandchildren was going to do something like that, I would be very, very nervous.

DB:
So, seeing the relationship between your mother and father, did that kind of influence what you were saying before?

PS:
About my husband? Yeah, absolutely. Yep. He was a handsome man, but that really wasn't a major factor. I think that he was someone you could trust and had ideals in life, and moral thinking.

DB:
And is that also why you decided to go to college and get a degree?

PS:
Oh no, I always knew I was going to college. I was the first person actually in my family to go to college.

DB:
Can you tell me a bit more about that?

PS:
We were a lower middle-class family. My father had gone to a two-year technical school. My mother had gone to a secretarial school, but I was a very good student, and I always knew I wanted to go to college. Didn't really know what I wanted to do. And it was kind of hard because I, you know I love to paint, but I also just like intellectual things too. So it was, you have to pick something.

DB:
So, I guess a hypothetical question. If you could do it again, would you change anything? Would you go to school for something else?

PS:
Well, you know, when I hit my thirties, I was like, I wonder if I should have gone to medical school because you know, I went to nursing school, I loved it. I could have been a midwife or just a physician. I had the grades for it, but then you got to think of all the “what ifs,” I might not have met my husband, I wouldn't have had the three children I had. And life is about choices. So, I don't regret it at all, no, because I also would not wanted to have picked a profession. This is, I think, a really sad thing for women, especially bright women. You almost have to make a choice. And I knew motherhood was the most important thing to me, and I didn't want somebody else raising my children. Now, maybe my children would think that would be great if I had done that. But anyway.

DB:
So, can you tell me a bit more about motherhood in Cooperstown specifically?

PS:
Well, Cooperstown is a lovely community. Part of it was, I could walk to work, I could walk home from work. I could walk down to the library and the post office and the general store that we had then. Unfortunately, that is gone, you know, for stuff. So, I didn't have to commute the way a lot of people would have to, to do this. So, I had a lot of time and we're very involved with the school and with the sports and we were right here, which was great. The kids could ride their bikes and walk to things. And so, I think it helped. I know I have a great story. When my youngest son was playing little league and he had gone to a game, and I couldn't go for whatever reason. And one of his teammates' big brothers came with a pickup truck and a bunch of them got in the back of the truck. And one of my friends who I still am friends with and the mother of one of the other boys said, “Lucas Spencer, your mother would never let you [do that], get out!” And he did, you know, people watch out for each other and watch out for other kids.

DB:
So, thinking about the past couple of years, can you tell me a bit about life starting with COVID?

PS:
Oh, that was that it's still a bad memory because it was very scary. It was scary for everybody in this country, but you know, my husband and I both have heart disease. So, we were at high risk and our ages made us high risk. And all of a sudden, you're like not supposed to see anybody, go anyplace. Our children were wonderful. They really were. I mean, you know, like when it was my husband's birthday and we weren't supposed to gather, they all came to the front of the house, spread out, and sang Happy Birthday to him, which was really nice. And we divvied up the holidays when normally we would celebrate it all together. My daughter and her family came for Thanksgiving, and my oldest son and his family came for Christmas dinner. But it was hard, and the gym [Clark Sports Center] closed, and it was like, well, how do you exercise if you can't go to the gym, and you're not supposed to go out? So, we would walk early. At first our children went and did grocery shopping for us, but then we finally relented, and we would go in the morning, senior hours. But I think that the whole COVID experience was very hard. And then you were always frightened. You were frightened that you would get it, you would be frightened your family would get it. I mean, we're all vaccinated now except the two youngest, which I hope within a week, they'll be eligible for vaccinations. I cannot understand why people won't get vaccinated. There's a deadly, deadly disease out there.

DB:
And as someone who's worked in the hospital and you're a mother who obviously cares, this has affected you extremely?

PS:
Of course, of course it is. You know, it's just like, I was very lucky in that because all my children were involved in healthcare, they got vaccinated early. And you know, because I am not technologically as astute as the newest generation is. And the first part trying to get vaccinations was like crazy. You kept calling, and calling, and it was just insane. And so, my son just took over and you know, where he worked, he put all the stuff in, and he did it and half an hour later did it again until he finally got slots for Ted and I to get vaccinated. And last Halloween, thinking we just had Halloween, they didn't have Halloween here in Cooperstown. So, my sons organized a scavenger hunt with the children and a couple of their friends. So, we'd walk around Cooperstown kind of all separated out with masks on and they'd go to one place and get clues. And so, it made it a fun day without being too close together. And that kind of thing.

DB:
So, going forward with life how has COVID changed your everyday experiences, your everyday routine?

PS:
Well, we're still, you know, like if you go to the gym, you have to wear a mask, which I hate. When I go grocery shopping, I still wear a mask because, you know, there's these crazy people who won't get vaccinated. And there's these new variants that you have to be careful of. And you do think twice about doing something or going someplace. I mean, shopping, shopping, I don't, you know, as far as for clothes and that kind of stuff, we buy most things online.

[START OF TRACK 2, 0:00]

PS:
Which is not as much fun. And restaurants, I mean we have started now to eat occasionally outside. But we scout them out first to make sure the tables are spread out or they’re outside, so it’s not over yet.

DB:
And has COVID impacted the non-profit organizations that you’ve worked with as well?

PS:
Oh, of course, they don’t have nearly as many people. Like the art openings. Well, for a long time, it was only online; to go online and look at things that's not the same thing. And part of that stuff is just the socialization with other people that are interested in art, and you can talk to them and whatever. But we couldn't do that for a long time. It's only just now kind of coming back to normal.

DB:
You did mention, you learned how to make the porcelain dolls. Can you explain that process to me a bit?

PS:
Okay. Well, in my basement, I have four kilns, like, you know, big, little, medium size, depending on how much stuff I'm doing. And porcelain was invented by the Chinese. It's a type of clay with different things added to it. So that comes in jars. You have to mix it up. And then the molds are made of plaster. I've had some that I've made, most of them are bought. Then you pour it in and the plaster sucks the water out, adheres [to] the mold, and has to dry. And then you have to clean out every little imperfection. And you will bisque fire it to over 2000 degrees centigrade. So, it is quite hot. And when that's done, then you paint them, and you paint them in different layers because you can't just paint it like a picture and put things together because it's a technical kind of process the way it adheres. And then the dolls might get glass eyes or painted eyes. The wigs are mohair because mohair is very soft and fine and more appropriate for dolls than human hair, which is more course. And then the clothing, the clothing is very fun. I'm a very good sewer. And so, you would study historical dress and make outfits to match the era of the doll. And there was one I made. I went to a doll convention out in Denver [Colorado] and the whole theme was the West. So, I made an Indian doll, and I went actually to the Fenimore House [now the Fenimore Art Museum], and they were very kind to let me actually handle actual Indian clothing. I made a male, and how the pants were made and how they were sewn and how the beading looked. So, they're all very authentic.

DB:
So how long is that research process for you when you're deciding to make a new doll?

PS:
Well, it depends, you know, it depends on what kind of material I can get. Fortunately, there are great museums around here and there's actually quite a lot of literature about women's fashion, so you can make authentic clothing based on that kind of research. So, it could be a couple of weeks. It could be a lot longer. I can show you if you want to. I don't know if you can pause that or not, but I can show you some of mine.

DB:
I did see you helped out with Woodside Hall with the dolls.

PS:
Yeah. I've done that at Woodside Hall, and I've done it at Jane Clark's retirement home there, Thanksgiving Home. At my church, I did it too. I brought like a dozen of my dolls and gave a talk on them and showed them how they were made and the clothing and that kind of thing. I didn't know how that would go or whether anybody would be interested outside this little hardcore group that's really into the doll making, but the people were very excited.

DB:
What was it like working at Woodside?

PS:
I gave a talk at Woodside Hall, you know, with the dolls and [cell phone ringing] I don’t really know about this. You know, there were a lot of very old people who looked like they were half asleep. And yet when I started to talk, they paid attention and they asked very pertinent questions and they came up afterwards and they wanted to see how the garments were constructed because, you know, some of the women in there had [made] some clothes for their own children and they were interested.

DB:
And you did say you're a good sewer. Uh, did you learn that at college?

PS:
I taught myself. My mother was an expert crocheter. She's the kind who made those big fancy doilies and all this other stuff, but she didn't sew. So, when I was in college, we did fabric design and block prints, and I would make my own some of my own clothes from that.

DB:
Do you still make any of your own clothes today?

PS:
I make my grandchildren clothes [laughter] and I'll make myself, you know, like vests and stuff like that. I’m also, the family repairer and hemmer.

DB:
What sort of clothes have you made for your grandchildren?

PS:
Oh dresses, you know, like my granddaughters, I would make them dresses, costumes for the boys.

DB:
Do you recall what costumes you made for them?

PS:
Well, let's see for my daughter-in-law, you know, I made her Halloween capes, and I made my son Dracula capes and that kind of stuff.

DB:
So, because you have a lot of artistic ability, what is your most favorite to create? Is it painting? Is it making clothes or working with dolls?

PS:
Painting. I remember when my third child was about eight months old, I was working on a painting actually of my grandfather. And he was sitting there playing with his toys and all of a sudden, it got very quiet, and I looked down and he had picked up, I don't know how he got it. You know, things like that just happen sometimes. He had a can of turpentine, and he had picked it up to drink it and it was down the front of him. And I was totally panicked. I picked him up and I'm trying to smell just his mouth to see if anything had gotten in his mouth. And I couldn't smell the turpentine, only on his clothes. And it looked like it just started here. And then it was like, okay, I'm going to have to put that away for a few years until they're more responsible. So, then I started doing some watercolors instead because at least they're not toxic.

DB:
Do you have a painting that you're most proud of?

PS:
When I was in college, I remember I did a big, huge painting of trees in the woods, and I can remember several professors adored it. It wasn't just my painting professor and it made me feel like maybe I had something to say here.

DB:
How big of a painting was that?

PS:
Oh, that was pretty big. That was probably four feet by six. I don't paint so big anymore. First of all, people don't have room for that kind of stuff in their houses.

DB:
What type of paintings do you do now specifically?

PS:
Well, I do a lot of landscapes and seascapes because we go to Sanibel for February. So, birds, nature.

DB:
How many different programs have you been involved with at the Art Association?

PS:
Well, there was a wonderful teacher who was there, Ralph Murray watercolors, and I took classes with him, and other people, a lot of years until unfortunately he died, and David King is there. But of course, this was all put on hold because of COVID, you know, we haven't had classes there for quite a while.

DB:
Do you teach any of the painting classes at all?

PS:
No. No, no. I don't want that extra work at this time in my life. I'd rather just go and enjoy the other artists. Get what I can get from the teachers there.

DB:
Going back to your grandchildren, you said they won, the boys soccer team.

PS:
Yeah, Section III. Yeah. They're Center State Conference champs, and now they’re Section III champs. So that's pretty awesome. And now they go into what they call the State Tournament, and Saturday they're going to play [in] the Section IV Champions, and if they win, I think its three more games, they’ll be state champs.

DB:
What's the age range between all of your grandchildren.

PS:
Okay. The oldest is 17 and the youngest is eight.

DB:
Then thinking about them being in school, when COVID hit, how has this affected them?

PS:
Well, that first year was just a mess. They were doing it virtually, you know, doing it online. I don't know how good that is. I mean, it's just, my grandchildren are all very bright and they really felt like their education was impaired by this whole process. I mean, the oldest three, especially, are very self-motivated. I think they did the best they could with what was going on, but that certainly isn't ideal at all, the education. And actually, for the youngest, I started out trying to monitor their Zoom classes and all of this other stuff and it's like, oh, it was awful. Then my youngest son for his two children, the younger ones, set up, you know, they'd paid into these pods where they would have a teacher monitor it and help them because you know, I'm seventy-five, how can I teach second-grade math? You know?

DB:
Did you find because of that you got closer with your grandchildren at all? Appreciating time with them?

PS:
No, because I have a lot of time with them, you know, I get them after school, and we do crafts together and we would go to their games and my older grandchildren all have artistic bents. I don't think they'll probably choose that as a career, but they’re definitely gifted, and they enjoy it. So that's another thing that we have kind of in common.

DB:
Do you think they'll follow in their parents' footsteps working in healthcare?

PS:
My oldest son feels like it sucks you up and it's like a gilded cage; you make a lot of money, but it demands your life, and it doesn't give you enough time for other things. And that's why being a nurse was really much more helpful. My daughter was a visiting nurse for a while. She was a staff nurse, and now she's settled into this research job. And that is one thing, nursing gives you a lot of options.

DB:
What's your advice for any emerging professional in any field they're going into nowadays?

PS:
Well, there's so many choices now. I think it's really hard. It's really hard because, you know, like my oldest grandson is extremely bright. He's interested in everything, but until you're actually working in it, you don't really know if that's for you. And in the olden days, it was much more simple. You know, if your father was a farmer, you were going to be a farmer. Maybe you would branch out a little bit and go into one of the professions. But a lot of the professions for me have been really tainted by what I've seen in politics. Like you can have lots of great ideas, which I think [President Barack] Obama did and really was motivated to make a better society. Yet you see all the corruption and self-serving; it's kind of disgusting and people who are going in it just to make money. What kind of life is that? To go to Wall Street and make a million dollars and then make another million dollars that you don't need? Yeah, I think our society has been corrupted in a lot of ways.

DB:
If you were that person that made a million dollars, what would you do with it?

PS:
Well, obviously my family would have to be taken care of, [phone notification sound] but the rest is there are so many things you could donate to and make better. One of the first things I’d do is to buy restrooms at the soccer field in Cooperstown and lights! Here we are one of the better soccer organizations in the state, and we don't have lights. We don't have a decent field. We don't have bathrooms; I would donate to that. I would donate to the food bank and the hospital. There are so many things you can do. Our church, like I said, we sponsor scholarships to schools. I mean, things we take for granted, these kids don't go to school unless they can pay for it. Yeah.

DB:
If you had to fix something in the world right now, what would be the first thing that you would fix?

PS:
Climate control. I mean I don't understand why people fight about this. In the South and Southwest, every building should have solar panels. They should be totally heated and cooled by solar energy. It's free. It's nonpolluting. When we visited our son out in Montana, the wind blows all the time. That whole state should have a whole line of wind turbines. And offshore, in Europe, they do that off the shore. Again, it's not polluting. So anyway, climate control. The way we're destroying our earth is scary.

DB:
What do you believe will happen in the next, I don't know, twenty-five years? If we keep going at the rate we're going?

PS:
I'm very encouraged by the fact that, you know, [President] Joe Biden is very for climate control and whatever, and thank God [President Donald J.] Trump finally got voted out of office. He was a total disaster to the world and this country, and, you know, people like that with no care for anyone else except themselves should not be voted into high office. We made a big mistake with him. That's my opinion. Hopefully people won't come and stone my house, but you know, I just can't imagine walking out of the Paris Accords, it was like a knife to my heart. And it was all for money. He was just toadying to the coal barons and the oil people. Well, eventually all of that will run out anyway, there's only [a] limited supply of that; you've got to find other alternatives and we had them going, but then he just reversed everything.

DB:
So, your children are in Cooperstown now, do you believe your grandchildren will stay in Cooperstown?

PS:
I don't know. I don't know. And you can't make those kinds of predictions. You know, my oldest granddaughter has wanted to be a marine biologist forever, so I imagine she's going to leave. They're all going to go to college and go out and find their life. I would love it if some of them stayed here. But they have to live their life and do what they love to do. I mean, Cooperstown is a beautiful place and it's certainly much nicer than many other places in this country to live, but you also have to find meaningful work, something that you enjoy and love.

DB:
All right. So, our time is coming to an end. Thank you so very much for your time and your thoughtful answers, Pat. I really appreciate it, as well as the Cooperstown Graduate Program.
Coverage
Upstate New York
Cooperstown, NY
1946-2021
Creator
Deirdre Brett
Publisher
Cooperstown Graduate Program, State University of New York-College at Oneonta
Rights
Cooperstown Graduate Association, Cooperstown, NY
Format
audio/mpeg
41.1 mB
23.2 mB
image/jpeg
2.24 mB
Language
en-US
Type
Sound
Image
Identifier
21-003
Item sets
CGP Community Stories
Media
Pat Spencer Photo.jpg
Spencer_Brett_November 3, 2021_FullInterview_Track1.mp3
Spencer_Brett_November 3, 2021_FullInterview_Track2 .m4a
Spencer_Brett_November 3, 2021_Transcript.docx