A Loving Family Angel, Nedra; Angel, Sylvester (2010-03-05) PART 1 >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: I am Sylvester Angel and this is Nedra Angel. I am a lifelong resident of Columbus, Ohio. I was born here. Except for intermittent periods in which I have lived in 13 other cities around the country. And however, after retiring I moved back to Columbus, Ohio and am delighted and pleased that I have. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Okay, as he said I'm Nedra Angel and I was born in Zanesville, Ohio. And raised a family here in Columbus, Ohio, was married and had three children. I grew up in a small town and Columbus at first seemed like a big city. However, after being married to Syl, Detroit, Columbus didn't seem to be so large. We moved from Columbus to Detroit, from Detroit to Dayton, from Dayton to Washington, from Washington back to Columbus. And that's where we are… PART 2 >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And I forgot to mention the fact that we have seven children between us. I had four and Nedra had three. >>NEDRA ANGEL: We didn't need any more. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: We have been married for 41 years. 41 wonderful years. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Wonderful years. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: I wouldn't trade them for ten dollars. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: I wouldn't trade them for a hundred dollars! No, they've been great years. And the families have blended wonderfully, the children have blended wonderfully. We have two sons that are each 58 years old. He has a 58 year old son and I have one. So, we have two 58 year old sons and they aren't twins. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: We also have, I had one brother and Syl came from a larger family which I always wanted. But I was the oldest of two. Now and Syl... >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And I have two brothers and two sisters because there were five siblings. >>NEDRA ANGEL: How fortunate. >>INTERVIEWER: How about grandchildren? >>NEDRA ANGEL: We have 16 grandchildren. The oldest will be 40 years old August the first. The youngest grandchild is 12. He'll be 12 in April. We have 12 great-grandchildren. The oldest great-granddaughter is 17 and the youngest great-grandson is six months old. We are truly blessed in numbers and love. >>INTERVIEWER: How about that. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: A lot of numbers. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: I can count them all. I remember the birthdays, every one. I even write what time they were born, how much they weighed, and how long they were, and I try to capture as much as I can from day one to day 40, which we have the first grandson will be 40. And I have all those years in between. >>INTERVIEWER: I understand you keep good records of all of their important events in their lives and share all of that information with them. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Absolutely and I keep all that programmed because that's important to me, it's important to me, and they're important to me. Other things I may usually forget but those children, seven children, 16 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, every one has a special memory. And I have boxes of pictures and drawings, and many, many memories to share. You don't have a memory box, do you? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: No. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: He doesn't have a memory box, nor a memory mind. >>INTERVIEWER: Could you share with us some of your early memories about the path to literacy in your life? >>NEDRA ANGEL: Well, my grandmother who I never met, taught school in West Virginia and another aunt who taught school in Cincinnati, Ohio. And she was the one who started all of us reading. My father was the youngest of eight, but his sister taught school and that's where my memory. But there were certain things that we read and certain things that we couldn't read. She was very strict about what we wore, what we read, what we said. She also taught piano. I can remember reading on the front porch after dinner, you dressed up in the pinafore, you didn't play any more, but we would sit on Beresford Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio and read with Aunt Gretta. And so probably at that age, it was school age, it wasn't prior to going to school, so I was reading in kindergarten or first grade with Miss Cordrey. But a lot of reading that I didn't do in school and all during the summer as we visited, I read with Aunt Gretta. And those are the first times I remember. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: In my early experiences with reading was that I remember my parents taking me out of the local neighborhood school because I was in the third grade and could not read and took me way up to Hudson and Neil just on the other side of Ohio State University and I remember my third grade teacher keeping me after school every day for a whole year until I learned how to read. And when I was in the sixth grade I came back to, or when I was in the seventh grade I came back to the neighborhood school, but I was the best reader in the whole school because that teacher had kept me there every day, rain or shine, until I learned to read. And which I welcome that, I guess I really did appreciate that. The only drawback I can think of that the fact that we lived on the Eastside and there at Hudson and Neil the nearest library, besides at the university, was there in Clintonville. And when I finished my chores on Saturday I would go to the library. I thought the library was up in Clintonville. I passed by four libraries, including the main library to get to Clintonville every Saturday. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Every Saturday, I'd finish my chores, I'd get my allowance, and I'd go up to Clintonville to go to the library to check out books. I don't know why I'd go right past the main library and a whole lot of other libraries because I was a dummy. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: Couldn't read the street signs. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But that was my first experience in learning to read and I guess one that was, I found, invaluable and I really did appreciate that fact that, I didn't appreciate it at the time because one, all the other kids were getting out of school and going home. I stayed after school for no less than a half hour every day, sometimes an hour, but I learned to read and enjoyed it and appreciated it. >>NEDRA ANGEL: And he's still a reader. He reads every night before he turns his lamp off at the bed. Every night he reads before going to bed. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: All day long too >>NEDRA ANGEL: And all day long too. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But, no, reading is something that I really did learn to appreciate the fact that this teacher cared enough about me, or I was enough of a challenge to her to keep me after school every day. For a whole year, I stayed after school every day, even though I had learned to read, but she was insisting I keep right on reading and stay after school to read. I'd look out the window and see my two friends out there playing, waiting on, waiting on me because we had to come back to the Eastside to where we lived. It was only three of us who went to this school. And the rest were all people who lived, I don't know where they lived. But one of them's mother drove us up there every day. And some days coming back we'd catch the bus or the streetcar or whatever it was at that particular time and come back to the Eastside. But I'd look out the window and they'd be waiting on me, and I was in there reading, or getting my knuckles rapped on with a ruler. [Laughter] >>INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me about the role that reading and writing played in your homes, in the homes that you grew up in. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Reading for me was important. My mother used to always insist that we sit down and read. My father paid less attention to that. Our learning, I guess that had been my mother's assignment to see to our education and reading and learning. One, I remember even in junior high school I was, my father, just the thought never even entered my mind about having my father come to school. I might get in trouble and the teacher I remember one time telling me to go home and don't come back until I brought my parent. I never did go and get my father. My father had more things to do than to go to school with me. And I knew that if I told him that the principle wanted him to come to school, he'd probably still be beating me. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But eventually the principal came to my house to talk to my dad since I never showed up with my father. But my mother would always have us reading there in the house. When I came home from school the first thing she would have us do would be to do our homework before we did our chores. And every now and then I'd try to do my chores first, but that didn't work. I'd do my homework first and then my chores. But reading was something that was extremely important with my parents, particularly with my mother. It was important with my dad too, except that he didn't have time to be, my dad went to work every day and was busy taking care of us. And the fact that it was so important to my mother I guess because of my grandmother. My maternal grandparent met my grandmother when they were in Cuba with the Rough Riders. And I'm not really certain as to how my grandmother got to this country just from some of the stories that they have told. I know my grandmother never became a citizen. I just assume that my grandfather, who taught Spanish in Louisville, Kentucky, and he was in the army and during the Spanish American war, he had met my grandmother and came back to, he must've gotten discharged from the army when they came back to the United States. And they went back and brought her to the United States because they lived in New York and New Jersey initially. Well he was originally from Louisville, Kentucky and then they went and many of his relatives lived in Cincinatti, and so they would go back and forth between... PART 3 >>SYLVESTER ANGEL:Here in Columbus. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Oh, you were here in Columbus. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And during the summertime, my sister and I would go to visit my grandfather and grandmother either in Cincinnati or Louisville. The ones that I remember most were in Louisville because they had this big paddle wheel boat up and down the Ohio River. And my grandfather, at that particular point, was still busy teaching Spanish and he used to write letters to my aunts and uncles in Spanish and they hated it because they did not speak Spanish. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: They didn't speak Spanish? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: The only person who spoke Spanish was my grandmother and we couldn't, for a long time, we couldn't figure out how my grandmother spoke Spanish because she was actually born in Jamaica but she was raised by the nuns in Cuba. And so he used to always write letters to all the relatives there in Spanish and nobody spoke Spanish but him. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And he just wouldn't stop. Finally they ended up getting divorced and so we didn't have to worry about getting these letters in Spanish. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and my mother were always insisting on reading. At Christmastime we would always get books which I wasn't too happy with. I would rather get a car or a truck or something but they were busy bringing us books. And I guess I did really enjoy it because my earliest moments as I recall would be reading books up in my room looking out the window and sketching out my window and reading all by myself. In fact I enjoyed, I enjoyed being by myself. I enjoyed being by myself and curling up with some books. So, however, I had some sisters and brothers that were always interfering with my solitude. That was power for the course. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Okay. Now growing up I started reading in elementary but my mother and father both worked and my brother and I went to Zanesville Day Nursery. We were there in the morning and we walked from the nursery to school and then we came back to the nursery for a snack after school and mother would pick us up. But we read. She would be tired and we would read to her. So we've always read. I have a book that I read every morning that belonged to my mother. I have a boxful in the basement because she was big on reading. She loved to read, loved to read. My father, however, did not. And he, again, was hardworking. He worked in the steel mill in Armco Steel in Zanesville for 37 years. And so we also read a lot in Sunday school. We had a lot of Sunday school books, I remember, at home and my brother and I read those. But I'm not that big on reading now as I was. I like pictures, I like magazines, and that's my reading now. Occasionally I will read a book, but I didn't take Evelyn Wood's course so I'm a slow reader. So, and everything else I like to do quickly, so reading is, slows me down. But I do read something every day, every day I read something, other than the newspaper, which I don't read every day. >>INTERVIEWER: How about writing? Has writing been important in your lives in any way? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Writing has been important to me because I guess, mostly, part of it through my work, I guess. At one point when I stopped practicing architecture to work for the Kettering Foundation I was busy writing reports and analysis of findings from research. But writing mostly I guess in my family, I mean I have a sister who even as a child did most of the writing. She used to love to write. I could always bring my homework to her and have her write a nice paper for me. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Ohhhh. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But in school, I guess until I got to college, I guess, I was, writing was not my biggest thing as much as drawing, and drawing and reading and math, and other sciences. But my sisters tended to lean more towards fiction and I just never got interested in fiction. My reading has always consisted of nonfiction, even to this day. I keep trying to think of something that I have read in fiction in the last 20 years and it's hard for me to come up with a fiction book. Most of my reading consists of nonfiction and always had. >>INTERVIEWER: What kinds of nonfiction do you radiate to? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: A lot of math, science, some history. I enjoy history. Archaeology. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Bible. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Bible, yeah. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Bible. We both...trying to think what else. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: In fact this morning, I guess, I was reading a book on architecture and I have about as much of a need to do that now as I do in building a rocket ship to go to the Moon. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: I read a lot of cookbooks. I'm not able to cook as much but I have volumes and volumes of cookbooks and I enjoy reading recipes, even some of them that just are interesting and that I don't intend to ever try to reproduce. And writing, not so much. I enjoy Syl's writing. He gave me a blank book one time and every night he would write when he was traveling. He would write in the blank book. So I still have that book in my memory box and I do read the little notes that he has written when he was traveling. He traveled a lot and was gone a lot during our marriage. But he would always write something to me at night. And so that book I read and will read and will read. But I didn't write a book to him. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: And I didn't do any writing other than what's required writing during school. >>INTERVIEWER: Would you talk a little bit more about both of your career paths? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Well my career path I guess is easier because the only thing that I have ever wanted to do was to be an architect. From my earliest days when I was in the fourth and fifth grade I knew that's what I wanted to do. And all the way through middle school and junior high and high school I was still. My parents continuously tried to steer me towards the law. I had no interest in being an attorney. And much to probably my father's disappointment. But I was not interested in the law. The only thing I wanted to do was to be an architect. I would spend, even while I was in the service, I couldn't wait to get out of the service to come back to go back to school. And in fact I would spend hours going through college catalogs to see how, which school I was going to come back to and how I could accelerate their course to get out of school because one, I wanted to get with the program and get in and out as rapidly as possible and I needed to make some money. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: But that's the only thing that I've ever been interested in doing was practicing architecture. And I was fortunate enough to at one point, I guess, after I was involved in some community organizing here with the city of Columbus and after getting appointed by the mayor to set up a new program for the city which I didn't realize at the time that I was also going to have to write the grant application for the city in order to get the $12,000,000 from the Federal Government. And once that was finished, one day I got this call from one of the Vice Presidents of General Motors to see if I was interested in coming to Detroit to work. I didn't realize at the time that they had been here in Columbus for about a week talking to different people in town about me coming to Detroit. And so we went up to Detroit, spent the day talking to the mayor and several City Council members, and at the end of the day they decided that it would be a good fit for me. I would be interested in joining the mayor's administration. And that was... PART 4 >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: decided it would be a good fit for me. I would be interested in joining the mayor's administration. And that was a very valuable experience in my life, I think. In terms of the process of writing grant applications and administering programs I found that was not too unlike managing a construction project, in terms of putting together the timelines and organizing the activities and things that had to be done. And we did that for three years. At the end of three years, I received a call one day about whether or not I would be interested in going to work for the Charles F. Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio. And I'm always willing to talk. Regardless of whether or not I was going to take the job or not, I'll always sit down and talk about it, as whether or not this will be a good fit for me. And went down to the foundation from Detroit down over to Dayton, Ohio for the Kettering Foundation and decided that, well, I might as well try this for a while. And spent three very enjoyable years there. Enjoyable years in terms of almost doing what I wanted to do. The Foundation was not a good fit for me at that time I guess because basically I was probably too young to go to work for the Foundation. Of course my supervisor had asked me to, "Well, Syl, you can come on over and kind of play at your navel for about three years." And I stayed at the Foundation for about three years. It was enjoyable I guess in terms of the activities. At the beginning of the year, you would sit down and develop a program, go to the board and tell them this is the kind of research you want to conduct for that particular year and how much money you thought it was going to cost. They would approve or sometimes modify it and then at that point came back at the end of the year with the results of that research, which also allowed me to travel extensively throughout the United States and Central America. And it was a very rewarding three years with the Foundation. Which, again, I have been very fortunate. I've never had a job in my entire life that I did not enjoy from the time I got out of school. My first job out of college was at Madison, Wisconsin for an architectural firm there and enjoyed that. In fact I worked in Erie, Pennsylvania, enjoyed that. And working in the Foundation and also the local government was enjoyable. After spending three years at Charles F. Kettering Foundation, I got a call one day and asked if I was interested in coming to work for the Federal government and I said yes, I was. So I would move my family one more time. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: Move, move, move. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And that was a very pleasant experience. To go from managing. In Detroit there I had, my department had a budget of 25 million dollars to 200 million dollars in working for the Federal government, which was something I thoroughly and completely enjoyed. And my next move from there was to Washington, DC. And I spent, I expected to go there until the administration changed then I was going to come back to Ohio. However, we ended up staying at 18 years in DC and enjoyed every minute of it. And in fact I recall one person who worked for the Federal government at the time telling me Syl, you'll never go back to practicing architecture again. And I said yes I will, I'm just, in three years I'm going to hang it all up and go back to practicing architecture. Never did. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Until I retired and moved back to Columbus and this has been, retirement is underrated. >>NEDRA ANGEL: I agree. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: I've enjoyed every minute of that. In fact I've just never did anything that I didn't enjoy. And I've only had one job in my entire life that I didn't enjoy. And I worked there for two months. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Willards. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: And I quit and went and found me another job. I wasn't cut out for being a bus-boy. >>INTERVIEWER: Did you go to school here in Ohio? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: In Ohio, yes. I've gone to New Mexico Western College, Ohio University, University of Toledo, and Wayne State in Detroit. And school was one thing that, after my third grade experience, school has always come easily for me. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Here again, though, I thank Miss Irving for keeping me after school every day because it made me a believer, it made me enjoy learning. Otherwise I probably would have ended up as a bank robber. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: No you would not. What was her name? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Miss Irving. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Miss Irving. I wish I'd had a Miss Irving in my life because it doesn't compare at all; education, career, or anything. Are you finished? >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Yes I'm finished. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Okay. Well, as I said, my education, my career, my goals. My goal was to always work with children. I always wanted to teach. It was interrupted several times, marriage and moving. But I was able to, when we moved to Dayton, I started at Trotwood-Madison Middle School on Snyder Road in Trotwood, Ohio, sixth and seventh grade. And it was an unusual age and an unusual way to start but I did enjoy that, so I've always worked with children. With the exception, after we moved, well whenever we moved I would ask Syl to let's look for some place near a school and he would manage to do that. So I started there in Trotwood and then when we moved to Maryland, we lived near an elementary school so I did fourth grade and kindergarten. During that time I also worked as a legislative aide. I love working with people, especially young people, but these were older people but that was good too. So I sort of went back and forth with those two, working in Annapolis and then working with the schools in Prince George's County. So like I said my only movement in careers was with Syl and he was all over the place doing all sorts of things. My main goal, I was able to achieve it, and then along came children, grandchildren, and so here I was again. And with the great-grandchildren especially. The grandchildren I was working during, when they were in school. But I remember us taking turns going to award ceremonies because our daughter had her three daughters living in Washington at the same time. And the three granddaughters in school were very academic. And so we would take turns, Syl would go to one award for one and I would go and their mother would go. But then after we were retired, which is underrated, I was able to work with the great-grandchildren, and I really enjoyed that and we made flashcards and we'd go to libraries and every Friday I had a play date. The oldest one now is 12 and I remember we had him here every day so I spent a lot of time teaching him reading with him and that was marvelous. Then he and I went shopping for preschool, we want to Creative Child Care and then pick him up every afternoon and then spend the rest of the day doing things that he had interacted or making notes in the books that we had here. He loved to read and we would sit here and read because of the light. And he would show me some of the names from all the boats in these books and this boat his Papa sails and this was mom's and this was daddy's and this was his tike. I still have that in the memory box. But so I was able to fulfill what I wanted to do which was, I loved home-making too, so I always would help, we always made pizza together with the granddaughters and we always spent a lot of time in the kitchen. One of the sons graduated from the Culinary Institute in Hyde park. He was the one who was in the kitchen with me a lot. So the kitchen has been a learning experience for the children and grandchildren and now, great-grandchildren. So, working with children, teaching, and home-making, and being in a happy marriage which I do have. [Laughter] >>NEDRA ANGEL: Still teaching. Still teaching. [Laughter] >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Still learning. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Still learning. >>INTERVIEWER: Well, we thank you so much for sharing so much of your life and life's experience with us. And we are grateful for what you have shared and thank you again. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Thank you. >>SYLVESTER ANGEL: Our pleasure. >>NEDRA ANGEL: Our pleasure.