My grandmother, Joan Favors, was born Joan Frietas, in Oakland, California on August 16, 1929. Her father worked in the lumber industry, and her mother stayed at home and took care of the family. My great-grandmother was Italian, and her father had come on a ship from Italy to avoid being put into the army. She married my great-grandpa who’s father came to American on a whaling ship from the Portuguese islands, the Azores. My great-grandmother decided that she liked my great-grandfather because he had a wagon with two black horses. They got married and had three children. My grandma was the youngest. She was born right as the Great Depression was beginning, and many of her earliest memories involve it. One experience that stands out to her
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I was born exactly seventy years after my grandma and it is so interesting to compare our childhoods, and to see how different things are now. One story that she told me, but unfortunately I did not get on the recording, was about the first time she saw a television. She was at the World’s Fair in San Francisco at Treasure Island in 1939. Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco bay that was built specifically for this fair, and was later turned into a navy base during World War II. They saw a television set at the fair for the very first time and her whole family was so amazed at how that could be possible. My grandma knows so much history about the Bay Area in California, as she lived almost her entire life there. I am the only one in my whole family that wasn’t born in California, so I think it’s really interesting to learn about the history of where my relatives are from. It is so valuable to learn the history of places that are very relevant to your life. I really enjoy learning about American history, and throughout this interview process I was able to connect pieces of our conversation to concepts that I had picked up on in class. I think that interviewing someone who has lived through the time periods that we learned about is a great way to connect students to the material, because it makes it seem more real. I was able to ask her about things that I read about such as the protests at UC Berkley in the 1960s, and even some about the Great Depression. I have learned so much about history, and about my family throughout this interviewing process, and I am so glad that I had this
I was born exactly seventy years after my grandma and it is so interesting to compare our childhoods, and to see how different things are now. One story that she told me, but unfortunately I did not get on the recording, was about the first time she saw a television. She was at the World’s Fair in San Francisco at Treasure Island in 1939. Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco bay that was built specifically for this fair, and was later turned into a navy base during World War II. They saw a television set at the fair for the very first time and her whole family was so amazed at how that could be possible. My grandma knows so much history about the Bay Area in California, as she lived almost her entire life there. I am the only one in my whole family that wasn’t born in California, so I think it’s really interesting to learn about the history of where my relatives are from. It is so valuable to learn the history of places that are very relevant to your life. I really enjoy learning about American history, and throughout this interview process I was able to connect pieces of our conversation to concepts that I had picked up on in class. I think that interviewing someone who has lived through the time periods that we learned about is a great way to connect students to the material, because it makes it seem more real. I was able to ask her about things that I read about such as the protests at UC Berkley in the 1960s, and even some about the Great Depression. I have learned so much about history, and about my family throughout this interviewing process, and I am so glad that I had this