we were never quite accepted people would say well you're not German or well, you don't speak German and it was almost to put down we failed but we we are we feel accepted accepted now and with a new generations coming along this feeling isn't as quite a strong here that used to be That's Marjorie Rogers. One of the 1368 people who considers Mott North Dakota her home. This is one program in a series titled our hometown exploring the values and character of life in small towns. It's produced by Minnesota Public Radio station kccm with funds provided by the North Dakota committee for the Humanities and public issues on today's program. You'll hear attitudes about the role of women in the family from Wally and Marge months. And Merlin and Bev Austin among others. The interviewer is John gets be downtown wouldn't hire anyone else and now you're very seldom hear anyone in groups downtown on the street. Talkin German. And most of those older people are gone. And the many of the young people are college-educated now and come back on to business here. And and the young farmers are the German Russian ethnic people do have characteristics about them that are different from from other areas. Now you take a predominantly Norwegian community It's entirely it's entirely different. The German Russian has a tendency to to be a little bit overbearing and take advantage of you in turn in certain ways. Preston's they will find out if you can speak the language and if you can't speak the language then they proceeded to talk about you and what you know, by the way their expressions are with one another and leave you out naturally leave you out instead of asking if you can speak the language and if you say no but then speak your language through courtesy to you or the other areas. You won't find this. Have you ever wanted to leave my years ago? I did. Well, it seemed like it didn't have any friends. It didn't have nothing. At least 5 years. Why do you think it takes so long to make friends and get acquainted in a small town? Until you've proven yourself to me. What kind of person do you have to be to be respected and liked in mine? And take part in them. Can tell you I don't know all his life partner. you have to be honest and friendly and belong to a church and not be too different from everyone else. Thinking you're better than the other person. They these people I pretty well snubbed in that because in this town everyone we feel is pretty equal to each other. Even if they are making $100,000 in the year. We still feel that there really no better than the rest of us and if they're going to try and pull this high in my on a person they're going to find themselves in a little bit of trouble. if they just dumb make it an effort to Move out they like them meet some new friends. Now. We just started a Welcome Wagon here in mop. And I think this will help a lot to bring these newcomers that are coming into town to meet no more people. It is to be new people would come into town and everyone would look out the window see who they are, but they wouldn't go and ask him, you know, but we're kind of dropping. I think we just won't come on. Let's keep these people in the town instead of scare him away. Sweetwater average citizen but I would say if you're an honest two-person upright and hard-working and a mixer, you know active in some Community things church and school a wonderful school system. And swimming pool theater in the things that many little towns of this size don't have and I think it's all because of our public-spirited people that take hold a woman in my other certain things are expected of a woman in order to be well-respected Gannon and fairly good mixer friendly and sociable. I think it helps if you belong to a church and the organization, there's many different organizations for women Leica American Legion, auxiliary Eastern Star and rainbow for girls that are some women's clubs in there. So things like that. I don't know that any expected of you, but she'll get out and mix with people you're just naturally fall into these categories, you know, if you want to How do people look at the work in women? Is it alright for a woman to work? I think so. I think many of the women that are working need to work especially in this day and age when one paycheck doesn't seem to do it anymore. Especially if people have growing children and children that they want to educate and send on to college. It just seems that tell if she can bring in a little extra that this is so if there aren't too many jobs open ever, you know, but there are you be surprised how many mothers and and women are working seems to be a necessity almost are expected to stay at home and be with your family. You're supposed to be there when your children come home. Whenever your children need you you're supposed to take an active part in your church women's group being active. Now. They're PTA is defunct here. They used to have a PTA group you were expected to be active in that. You're just supposed to primarily you're just supposed to be there. And whenever your husband calls on you, you're supposed to be there right ready and willing to help him. I mean, it's it's very you may go and have coffee with the girls or something like this. But a bunch of you doing a bunch of the women don't aren't expected to go down to the bar together or something like this if your husband goes you go with them, but I'm also them see the wife as a stay-at-home type person. There are a number of working wives and Mott some of them work because of financial need some of them work because their children are all in school and they don't want to be home. They feel they are more useful somewhere else. But really it's it's kind of an arrow type of vision. I guess you could say our next door neighbor over here now. She is Deputy Sheriff. And when she was appointed deputy sheriff, you could see the eyebrows going up all over town a woman doing that. She's supposed to be home, you know type thing or clerking in a store. That's an improved occupation for women or something like this. But when some of the wise especially the farm wives and all their out in the barns with the man, they helped Drive the combines they drive the trucks. They work right along with the man and there's a lot of them that don't say that they Farm life isn't supposed to do those things. She's supposed to do the cooking and cleaning and take care of the eggs for the egg money and probably the milking to get the cream cheques for groceries and stuff, but they can't see them going out and working right along with the man and a lot of the younger wives do they have no little ones at home. You'll find them driving a combine and I think most of them could drive a combine was just as much as the men do And it does when you read the different articles in the paper, I know several is gals were talking the other day. There was an article in the paper about the semi driver who was the woman that one girl said if I ever did anything like that, my husband would have hysterics. She says I'm supposed to be home when he needs me. I'm supposed to be there and it's it's really kind of interesting to get in all these conversations because the woman's role is expanding so much from what it used to be used to be just home in church, and now all women are going into so many different other fields and stuff just like this gal's driving semi umpteen years ago. This was something you never thought of and the farm wives and they're really homesteading they worked right along in the fields with her husband's but a lot of people never think of that they think of the women primarily of just staying at home tending the children and it's just kind of going the other way to know a lot of the men are getting to the point where they're just as adapt to changing diapers and burping babies and doing this kind. Things women are and it's something I see. I know Wally. he babysits quite frequently changing diapers is not exactly his idea of spending a good evening, but he is willing to take care of the kids if I have a meeting and he doesn't or many the time he's rounded up what Kyle's had friends over here and he's been going to go fishing and he's taking the whole Bobby may have pulled his hair out in the meantime while he's fishing with them, but I think the children now and this is something I think they need because so many times they grow up especially in your areas where the main commute they leave in the morning before the kids are up their home in the evening after the kids are in bed the kids to their fathers only on weekends, and that's one thing about mod here to Now while I have Saturday and Sunday, he's not down at the office him and Kyle do lots of things on the weekends. And in the evenings all there's many a week during the winter one while he has meetings for Monday through Friday, but he does try and spend time with Kyle and with the kids, especially the littlest one. She's Daddy's girl. He's even sits down and reads books to her and things like this and I mean, this is something that I think kids should have they should know their father as a person not just someone who brings home a paycheck. They should know them as a person I the world is the communities and stuff are going more towards this is this is something I like. I think there should be more of it because so many times. Well, they say boys need their fathers but girls do too because it's from their father that they learn to relate to men and this is something that they have to learn and how they relate to their father determines how they are going to relate to their future husband to and they have to see them as more than just a person who brings home the Paycheck are who disciplines with them when they're bad they have to realize that they are people they have their ups and downs and ins and outs and things like this and this is something that I I think there's more of in this community and in the smaller communities, the fathers are more prevalent. They're not just a paycheck. They take a nap be part with their kids in their communities the kids see them working and interchanging and stuff and they get to know their fathers as a person is it like the position that they had they realize that this is what they're put on this Earth for and they don't have a False idea of trying to get some sort of status in the world, but of course it is only for a short time. You have to wait to have women in the community planning Sebastian, whatever women on the school board that the women on the Park part. I mean to take an active role in the Affairs of the community and they do have a lady is still a lady. in the town you hold doors open for I don't think they really want to be liberated here. They're happy where they're at and things that go on in the community many of the church boards have no women members on it in a while. He has a couple of church board and we take an active part in the community and stuff. We're not delegated to your stay home and take care of the kids. I don't want to see you any place else type thing because the women they interact among the groups and things and then we go back and forth. It's it's always been pretty much that way. There's a basic rule. I think there's a segment of people in our area that this is their role. It's not my rule. My first priority is to myself and my second is to my husband in my third is to my children which sounds a little funny I suppose but that's the way it is and I see all that as long as my children are loved and cared for and accepted his people that it doesn't answer that. I'm in this house twenty-four hours day or not. It's quantity as far as I as a person. I'm concerned. I enjoy all the niceties that men do for me. I also like to have my opinion heard whether they think it's value or not. I'm a person whether I'm a woman or not to me is incidental. I have an opinion and I have the ability to express it. I don't know when the men get to talkin about farming. I can't be too knowledgeable about that. It's not that I don't have the ability. It's just I've never let myself to learn Olaf figures to go with it. I do not like the women that are the the big Crusader that I can do everything on my own and I don't need a man because I I don't like that idea of the rule at all. I don't think there's too many men that even like that role that they can do everything themselves because I Rely heavily on my wife and I realized this is equally as heavy on my friends. I value their opinion. They're thinking and their feelings very highly that tries to do anything alone. is is not dealing with reality because you've got to have people to Lena. I don't care who it is. That's why we pick friends in a very close friend. That's why you have a mate in life. That's why I have children. That's why you belong to different organizations everything you do. You've got a knot you feel you have to belong there if you were complete loner. You wouldn't even be noticed you'd be off like a Hermit or something. What's expected of a woman in a small town? What's her all expected to be? Well, I think she's expected to be such things as Dead Mothers and room mother's and and and it's cool and and to be a good housekeeper and a good yard Keeper in it. And it's just a good Hostess to be able to entertain her husband's business associates and also her their friends and their Club Associates. I act I feel these I have felt very put down many many many times here. I've been felt to put down because I don't belong to the right guess Nick group and and then I felt put down and we've always been considered part of us Outsiders until maybe the last 10 years or so. and them not to ever live it learn to drive and I and I don't drive a car and I feel inadequate had an effect in my yes people read a lot about it and hear a lot about it and talk a lot about it and I have talked to Housewives. They're almost as old as I am and we've been to some mom Southwestern District mental health clinics, and I'm a bell ringer to and and we're planning another one here in Martin and there are courses in marriage and relationships and also New York Community and other Another subject. So we have a lot of talk about women's lib and a woman being a person and and having a having the rights to to think and to do and so far I can sit the women hair very Where they got these men that have to say no way. Are you going to go out and work? You're going to stay home? I can you no help along fine. If he feels he can raise the family in and make enough money to keep going more power to that man. But you look around here and you can find that half the women have to go out and work cuz they can't and most of the husbands are very willing to allow them to go out and work. hints to my boys 2 Apartments I can't believe it. kids When I suggested to them why they just accept it. Where are the way things are? There's a strict moral issue. No, and I still am for myself but for young people. Get married. You have a kind of a caste system in a small town. And it's going to be more nurse bonus if you have the Haves and you have to have nots. That's simple and the guy if a guy buys a new car, someone is going to say what what in the hell did he get the money? I thought it was broke or build a big home and say our money sticking the people because you got this nice home or so I'm used to bother me years ago. I mean a joke about it. People in a small town will condemn a man who's successful and then there's also be a certain group that'll up login for being successful as much of that in the big city. So you do get a little bit of strain on Sunday, then people will sit down and say I noticed you're doing this don't you think you should shape up a little bit more of the fundamental religious beliefs and fundamental values people love the flag. They love their country. They love their Church. They love motherhood and apple pie and I think it's a lot of what America has lost sight of two if the person wanted to be different in any way way, I think he would probably be looked at in the first place. He would probably ostracized if he got too far out of line. But, you know people in a small town in size one up quite readily. People in the small town or not not easily fooled. I think if I'm her type the people are more analytical you can spot a phony as far as you can see one I've gotten so that I can size a man up very very accurately 1st about the first time that I see him in the new business. I can size him up and you'll find that the farmers the farmer type oriented people are automatically on the suspicious side. I've even heard him said that they would have to See whether the preacher the new preacher could cut the mustard whether he would be accrued. He would have to prove himself and this is getting to be I mean, this is kind of a kind of getting far out but still and all that that it reflects. The the type of thinking is suspicious while we will see how good it is. Are we will we will see how he makes out. There's a Bend of vest change in the people's ways of thinking they're born of The Changing Times. And especially as far as our young people are concerned. I'm not entirely. Enchanted with a lot of the things that the young people are doing being of the old school cars. and there there's other ways that a person is expected to conform was thinking about how strong they are and how they feel like everyone to confirm that they are the rules by which we should live their morality and everything and I felt pressure is from that those groups and especially when we had to we had a son in Vietnam and then we have the next sun coming up and he was about to be drafted and he was very anti-war an antibiotic is a very much against the war and I sided with him and I told people that I was going to scream from the housetops of paper ever drafted and that I was going to go out starting my mother's march on War and the sort of thing and and up got quite a bit of black on that but I didn't care because of the way I felt and I understood in sided with this son. Anda Delta that was wrong and that he was right about it. I will always have my my opinions and and I stuck by them and over the years. I've found it. What seemed like like I was getting out on a limb, you know by sticking to my guns. There was a lot of others who had the same opinion but hadn't just had you know, come forward with him. I think they were probably going to see wait and see if somebody else made a Break by then that would give them the opportunity to either side in with them or rejected. You have those who Prescribing for status and have reached it in and they feel they're better and they act little bit better and those who haven't reached should respect this and and it's part of the game, but everybody lives with it. I presume when you know everybody and everybody knows you. It puts you a little bit on your guard to do the right thing at all times. A large city or you have the who cares attitude and you do just as you please know there would be some restrictions on your personal habits and thoughts and what you say because if you say the wrong thing and it's not the truthful statement that's certainly going to backfire in a small town. in a large community pass it up and just forget all about it. No, I I put it on the small community. You kind of have to follow a code so that you're accepted. Do you feel any pressure to conform? I don't know if I really feel any pressures. I think it just naturally become like one of the community more lies through like what the other kids doing. I don't know. I don't really feel any pressure to such. I don't feel any either but I think maybe the parents doing older people do because they have to kind of go along the society and I don't know like in school. I'm the type of person if I want to do something different. I'm going to do it. You know, I don't care what anybody else thinks but I don't know that's in school. And I don't know I think maybe the older people do and we don't feel it as much to say to you still don't accept this. Free love. I mean I know what's going on, but and I don't condemn anybody Ford. We don't go around and had big discussions on all that but I still think the kids are wrong. We tried to fight drugs cuz I still think they're wrong. We tried to fight liquor consumption. And of course, we aren't doing a very good job of that because what the hell we drink ourselves. Wait, we found on people who try to live a double standard. That would have a girlfriend over here in the wife here in so long. We don't go along with that. We Do trust people very much. We're not as distrustful of the men with whom you do business. As you are in the big city people all except the guys word. I've had guys give me checks on the street and this happens all the time. They say mugs I owe you, but I don't know how much and they'll give me a sign check in blank because I trust not course at the same time as a guy be praised that crossed an awful lot of people get hurt. If you deliberately do something you better get on the next plane out all over people will trust you people will trust you here until you prove to them that you are crooked. You got to prove if they like you if they have a feeling they were back you until you prove that you are crooked. North Dakota population 1368 our hometown one program in a series exploring the life in small towns produced by Minnesota Public Radio station kccm with funds provided by the North Dakota committee for the Humanities and public issues producers of the series are John ydstie Dennis Hamilton and Bill Sebring. You may purchase a copy of this program by contacting kccm, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota 56560.