Significant Role In Susan's Childhood Stories

As mentioned, Susan’s childhood stories played a significant role in the way she held herself, and the topic of family stories was brought up, Coate immediately brightened. She told me she wasn’t exactly sure if her life or views truly demonstrated or mattered in the course of history- but her mother, Virginia, and grandmother, Harriet, they would be truly perfect for my paper. She started with her maternal grandmother, Harriet. Coate described Harriet as “ahead of her time”, and she was right. All throughout the early 20th century, Harriet was wrangling women to push for their right to vote. Harriet was heavily involved in many political circles- eventually becoming a co-chairperson of the republican committee, the first woman in the state to be one. Coate jokingly told me she was

Her paternal grandfather was also a great inspiration for Susan: he had a steady job on the railroad during the Great Depression. It was a physically demanding job, but he did it for several years and kept his family comfortable, or at least well enough that her father’s was the only family in their town that didn’t go running behind every coal train that went by to pick up dropped coal to maintain themselves during the winter. A more constant reminder for Coate that women did not have to stay ‘in-house’ was her mother: she had a heart condition and sometimes couldn’t get out of bed for days at a time. During those spells, she would tell her children about better times- when she was young, and worked at the factory plant. What she carefully managed to avoid telling was the cruel manner in which she was fired after the war was over. As the sudden as the recruitment of women to the workforce was, the return of men to their home and workplaces was even moreso- and twisted arms more