Saturday June 6, 2020

My Childhood hero’s were British Primatologist Jane Goodall, Cultural Anthropologist Margaret Mead, my maternal grandmother Pauline Michanco and our neighbor Ms. Ruth Winchell.

My maternal grandmother Parascevia Hrycak (maiden name) or Pauline Michanco (married name) made a big impact on me as a child. She was a survivor and an independent woman. Left alone at age 4 to raise herself in Eastern Europe; emigrating to the USA in 1929 at age 18. She had no formal education and although she could speak or understand multiple languages she was technically illiterate. She never naturalized because she couldn’t take the exam; she could not read or write. She outlived three husbands,* raised a daughter (my mother) and helped raise two of my sisters and I when we were little. She was quite the business woman, renting out her lower level apartment, spare bedroom, garage, and basement cellar storage areas in her Chicago Two Flat. She was very smart and proud of her fiscal abilities. Her mantra to her granddaughters was, “go to school, get an education and be happy you live in the USA.”

When I met her in my teens Ms. Winchell was a retired Portland State University biology professor that was a spectacular gardener and a woman who traveled the world. I took care of her beloved cat, Koi fish and garden when she would travel. Like my maternal grandmother, she encouraged me to get an education and to follow my dreams. She was a pioneer in her own right, earning her undergraduate degree in 1926 from Reed College and her M.A. from the University of Oregon in 1931.

My maternal Grandmother died in 1985 before I went back to graduate school and completed my Master’s Degree (1991) which is dedicated to her. I reached out to Ms. Winchell only to receive a letter from her attorney letting me know she had died in 1986. I would have loved to have been able to tell them both about my accomplishment.

Mead’s work in Samoa** has been shrouded in controversy but that does not denote the influence she had over young women such as myself. She demonstrated that women could have career choices in addition to the prescribed secretarial, teaching and nursing professions. She demonstrated that women could travel and do field work in what my young mind interpreted as exotic locations. In other words, she illustrated to women that we could dream big.

Jane Goodall did the same with her field work with Chimpanzees in Africa and continues to do so with her environmental work. In 2007 I got to meet Goodall in person, shake her hand and thank her at a reception in Pullman, WA. My husband’s Earth & Environmental Science department brought her to Washington State University to give a talk on her Roots and Shoots initiative. Even in her advanced age she was a passionate and inspiring speaker. Her continued diligence and commitment to making the world a better place remains impressive.

All four women have something in common. They were/are all strong, independent women who had lived in foreign lands or had worked and traveled overseas which impressed me immensely as a teenager. Their independent spirits and survival skills encouraged me to pursue my own dreams.

Little did I know that a work trip to American Samoa was in my future. In early February 2020 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sent me as part of a three person site review team to American Samoa (AS). Every five years a team is sent to review the work of the humanities councils in the 50 states and US Territories. Although we worked long hours in a tightly packed schedule, I throughly enjoyed it. We met with the AS Humanities Council staff, board members, local government, grantees, and other community partners. The people were gracious, generous and welcoming. True to Polynesian hospitality we were treated with great respect and honor and fed extremely well. The landscape is picture postcard beautiful. It was on this trip that the realities of Covid-19 would sink in.

Upon arrival in American Samoa each passenger was pulled aside and had their temperature taken. This was also repeated before exiting the country. After completing our series of assigned interviews, we cut our trip short (eliminating extra site seeing days) because the American Samoan Governor was planning to close the airport. (His swift action and community compliance resulted in zero Covid-19 cases in AS.) Below are some pics from our trip.

After leaving AS via Honolulu I decided to take the opportunity to visit with friends and colleagues on the Big Island of Hawaii. Had I known what was coming, I would have stayed longer before coming home! None of us outside of epidemiology really understood how long our shelter-in-place was going to be. How long it would be before we would travel again….

*My grandmother’s third husband was not official by marriage. They “lived in sin” as my catholic mother used to fight with her about.

**Mead worked in Western Samoa which I recognize is a different country than American Samoa.

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