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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Susan Quant Bianchi 
May 24, 1992 
Cassette 3, Side 2 
 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  00:01 
And for the 20 years, was always my very favorite part of the pageant. We probably spent half of 
our evenings, which were three hours long, working on interview. And I think the reason I like it 
the best, it-- a lot of it had to do with current events, and-- but I felt like this was a lifelong thing 
the girls could take with them, and not something that they would use just for the moment. So 
that was, that was my favorite part.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  00:28 
And so, this was the winter of '72 you started working as a pageant director.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  00:35 
No, I was-- in the winter of '72, I was doing the talent portion of the Miss Blaine Pageant, and 
talent was my second favorite part. You know, it just depended. I, you know, I did production. I 
learned to do a lot of different things, but it took, you know-- each year I learned a few more. 
Each year I learned something new, you know, I watched, I took lessons, I studied in Seattle, and 
each year I learned more. This year continued on, just like the-- just like the year before. And the 
fun part of '72 was, I think, in March, or something like that, I got a knock on the door, and 
Kathy Anderson was standing there, and she's a Blaine senior, and she's saying, Mrs. Bianchi, 
will you help me run for Miss Whatcom County? And so, of course, I said yes. And the good 
part of working with Kathy was, not only did I meet and have a great relationship with Kathy, 
but her sister Sarah kind of came along with the package. And Sarah was became one of my 
dearest friends. Today, now that I have cancer, Sarah's still in my life. And Sarah, every single 
week, finds someone to come so that I have, I have someone here with me every single day. And 
Sarah phones around and find someone to come every single day. Sarah has been in my life for 
20-- it's been 20 years, and so I not only got to know Kathy, I got to know her sister, Sarah. And 
it's just another really special person in my life. Now, Kathy did another song, so we worked on 
her song, and I learned a bit more because I watched your pageant, and I watched what worked 
and what didn't work, and I worked with her until May, and the pageant night came, and she did 
an absolutely fabulous job. And guess what? She won. You know, here we are now, two girls 
from Blaine have won Miss Whatcom County. Now the whole town is really going nuts and they 
think I know something. You know, people come up to me, What-- what is it you do? What do 
you-- you know, it's like I know something. It isn't that I know something. What it is, is that they 
come to my house-- and you know this from working with me, they come to my house every 
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single night, and we work on it. None of the other girls had this. They didn't. I don't know what 
they did. They worked-- I know that in those days, they worked a lot on a production number. 
That, kind of... I call it a Frou Frou ballet number, but they worked a lot on a production number. 
They spent a lot of their time on that, but they didn't work on walks. They didn't work on poise, 
that, you know, they didn't have individual help. I think you could take almost any girl and work 
with her individually, and she could win, have that real strong potential of winning. And this-- 
this later, did start to bother me, that other girls didn't have the same training. I felt they all ought 
to have it. But I was awfully glad-- I was, on the other hand, I was really glad to see Kathy win 
and to see you win, and the town was excited. And, you know, it was a really fun time. And I 
became, you know, you and Kathy became really close friends to me. Kathy still calls me. She 
lives in Minnesota now, and she's just had a little girl. She has a little boy. She's an interior 
designer back there. And every once in a while, I get a letter from her, and our telephone call or 
flowers arrive, and, you know, 20 years later, you know, and it just, it really touches me. And it 
had a lot of meaning. Pageants had a lot of meaning for me. Marching right along, what are we 
in, May? About a week after Kathy won Miss Whatcom County, I finally got a phone call from 
our attorney, Mr. Flynn. And there was a high school-- no, she was in college, a college... She 
was a freshman at Western Washington University, and she was expecting a baby around the 
middle of June, and he thought we had a good chance, you know, of maybe being the prospective 
parents. So, all kinds of things went into action in May. We had to go through all kinds of 
interviews and, you know, they thoroughly search into your lives. Totally. And they did this for 
about three weeks. The funny thing to me was that his contact was the Catholic Children's Home 
Society in Bellingham. Now, we're Lutheran, and of the contacts I made that were all closed, I 
would have never, ever dreamed of going to Catholic home and, you know, putting an 
application for a baby. I would think those babies would go to the, you know, to Catholic moms 
and dads. But she stipulated when, when she contacted them, she stipulated that she did not care 
if the parents were Catholic, that they didn't have to be. So, we were, you know, prospective 
parents at this time. So, the next thing I know, we're having interviews with a Rob DeVries. And 
first we had to have five letters sent in. So, we called five of our best friends, and they wrote 
these fabulous-- they wrote absolutely wonderful, fabulous letters about us. To this day, if I'm 
feeling low, I have a file that's this thick on adoption, I can go out and get the letters on adoption 
that they have written, and you're instantly, you know, high because they wrote wonderful things 
about us. So those had to go in. I think the hard thing we had to go through, was Stan and I had 
to write letters. And they were-- they had to be five pages long, very introspective. And they 
were hard letters to write, because it seemed like, when you were doing this, that everything you 
said might hinge on whether they felt Yes or No, you'd get this baby. So every word I, you know, 
I rewrote and reworked, and you know, and yet I wanted it true and accurate, and, you know, I 
wanted to know how I really felt and what our lives were about. The part I had trouble with was 
the fact that Stan's family had been through seven divorces, and I was very frightened. That was 
the only thing that really scared me. I was very frightened that they would x us off because of 
that, thinking we were insecure. You know, people with maybe possible-- you know, sometimes 
that runs in families. I mean, it either seems like, if you go through that, you either grow-- you 
either leave it and have the same kind of a lifestyle, or you leave it and say, That's a-- that is the 
lifestyle I absolutely do not want. Well, Stan left it saying, That's the lifestyle I absolutely do not 
want. He wanted a wife and he wanted a family. And you know, that meant more. That meant 
everything to him, because he hadn't had it. He had his first birthday party when he was 19 years 
old. He had never had a birthday party, and my mom had planned a special birthday party for 
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him when he was 19. And it was at my house on Chuckanut, and I remember Mom brought-- 
made this German chocolate cake, and she comes around the corner with it, and we all started 
singing Happy Birthday. And Stan stood up and almost ran up the stairs, down towards Mom and 
Dad's bedroom. He was crying, and he didn't want me to see him crying. And my mom was, you 
know, right after him, but he was just, he's always been real sensitive and real sentimental. And 
that-- and it just-- it just broke our hearts that, you know, that this was the way it had been. But 
he had had-- he'd never known. I mean, like I said, he half-- you know, there were times and 
periods where everything he owned, where it was in his truck or his car and he spent nights on 
the beach. So, you know, there hadn't been any stability. But my family to him, he practically 
lived with us, and my family to him was stability. So when we wrote these letters, instead of not 
dealing with the divorce, we totally dealt with it. We talked about it, and we talked about-- you 
know about it, from the standpoint of, you know, that-- of how much he had lost, but that it 
didn't-- that family meant everything to him because of it. And I have to say through this, 
because it, you know, I think it's important to say this, but Stan loved his mother. It was-- he 
absolutely loved her. It-- she just was very immature, and she got married very young, and I just-
- she didn't learn until too late, I don't think, about how important family was, and money was 
always a problem for her. She was in and out-- you know, working and in and out of divorces, 
her life was so unstable that she didn't know how to take care of a family. And on the other side-- 
and I-- on the other side of that, I have to say that, you know, as she married a wonderful man 
named Pat Daniels, and they were married 20 years until she died. And then she had a lot of 
stability in her life. I know I'm going around, but I have to say this in here, but she was a 
fabulous grandmother. Now that she had the stability and she could look back, I think she 
regretted, you know, how things had been as a mother, and she did it. You know, as a 
grandmother, you couldn't have had a better grandmother. And she didn't do it with money, even 
though they had money. She took walks with the kids, and she made costumes for them, and she 
listened to them, and she loved them, and she was a great grandmother, so she surely made up 
for it. But it didn't mean that Stan-- I mean, you know, if you go back, it did mean that Stan's life 
was not all that easy, but yet, I think it made him obviously the kind of person he is, and it's the 
kind of person that I love, and it must have made him stronger. It made him more sensitive, 
definitely, and it made him caring. And you know, if you saw him with our children, he's just the 
most loving, caring parent, and he listens to them and he loves them, you know, tremendously. 
He just-- they mean everything in the world to him, and so do I. So he learned that out of this 
unstability-- unstable home that he came from. So when we-- we had an hour-- after we wrote 
our letters, and we had to go in and have our first interview with Rob DeVries, we brought all 
this up, and we, you know, we just-- we left-- we brought it all out, and put everything on the 
table, and all together, we had two one-hour interviews with him, and that's a lot of interview. 
And, you know, I think he probably felt like he knew us inside out. The hard part of Rob 
DeVries was that he was a very closed person. He-- I remember no expression on his face, none. 
And I mean, that's pretty hard to do when people are opening up to you and telling you all these 
intimate and, you know, all these facts of their life, he showed no expression. And so we never, 
you know, had a clue if he liked us, didn't like us, if he felt we were doing well or-- and that was 
always unnerving to us. Also, we had to have home interviews. They'd come to our home, check 
that we had enough bedroom space for a baby, and you know, what kind of a home we had, what 
the environment seemed to be here, into our financial statement. You know, people have babies. 
They don't-- mean they just, you know, they make love one night and have a baby nine months 
later, whether they wanted it or not. And here we are just, you know, it's, I think people that are 
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having babies probably need to, you know, have to go through some kind of a course before they 
can, you know... I don't know, there's no way to do it, but people that are having babies are so 
clueless, you know, as to what all is really entailed. And they need to have a lot-- they need to 
think a lot more about what that means, you know, before they have them. And when you adopt, 
boy, they just open up everything. You're just an open book. So, this was in May, and as I said, 
the baby was due in June, and at the same time, I was working with you for Miss Washington. 
You were at PLU but flying home on any weekends you had available, and you and I were 
buying formals, and interview outfits, and trying to get your wardrobe together, and, you know, 
fly by the seat of our pants down there. And that's a story, and something I've always regretted, 
because that was my first Miss Washington Pageant, and I knew not one thing, and I was not-- I 
did not train you well, I just didn't know anything. You know, I didn't-- they walked. The walk 
down there was different. The turns down there were different. They were, you know, it was just 
like everything was different, and I always regretted that, somehow-- but I don't know how I 
would have known, but by osmosis, somehow I would have known, because you were good and 
you-- it could have happened for you down there, and I know it was a sad and an awful 
experience for you, and I don't blame you for that. It never happened again. I learned one lesson 
out of that, and that was that-- I remember-- I felt real angry, because somehow, someone should 
have helped me, you know. And of course, there's a story to that too, and that has to do with 
DARE. They were the people who were supposed to help you, and then didn't, and all of a 
sudden called me and just asked me-- asked me, actually, only if I would drive you down there, 
and you didn't have anything ready. And you know, you know, there was more to being a Miss 
Washington contestant than driving her down there. So, you know, I always felt bad about that. 
And I remember feeling angry on the way home from Miss Washington. I was really angry. And 
I said the next girl, which was going to be Kathy Anderson, because she would run the next year, 
the next girl that runs is going to know what she's doing, and I'm going to learn, you know, learn 
what it is. Of course, I learned a lot. It's a three-night pageant, and I learned a lot. I I took notes, I 
drew out diagrams. I learned what the walk was, what the turns were. You know, what formals 
did what, you know, that sleeves often made you look larger, and what shoulders seem to work, 
and there's just a lot to it, and what talents don't work down there, and you need a talent down 
there. And had we done it again, we would have used a different song, you know. But I always 
felt bad that you're the only one that didn't get the wonderful experience of running for Miss 
Washington. And you know, it was-- that was hard, because I felt so close to you, and you were, 
I remember you cried all the way home, and I just, you know, I felt so bad about it. But there was 
nothing I could do. And during this time, we're waiting for this phone call, you know, about, you 
know, anything going to happen? We did get a phone call on June 17, or, you know, somewhere, 
soon after that, and that a little boy had been born, and that we had been approved. And, I mean, 
we just went into-- I felt like I'd had a baby. We'd been approved, and he was ours. There was 
only one problem. We had to wait one month, because she had a month-- she had one month to 
change her mind. And as all this had gone through the last years, I was scared to death she would 
change her mind. And so, you know, I lived the next month kind of in hope and in fear. It was 
just, you know, dreading and fear every day, is she going to decide she wants to keep him? I 
think it's fair, as I look back, you know, as I as I think about it, and for her, it's fair. She just has 
the baby. That's not the time to sign them away to someone else. Your hormones are all over the 
place, and you know, you need a month to really know, and you should be able to change your 
mind and say, No, that's not what I want to do. I want to raise this child. But the end of the 
month came, and we got a message that said that she had signed the papers, that she'd gone 
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before the judge. I think she went before the judge around the 16th of July, or had to be the 17th 
anyway, that was a month, and had signed the papers and was not going to keep him. And, you 
know, I mean, we were just-- we had a baby. We had a baby, and it was just-- it was, in many 
ways, since I've done it both ways, the most exciting... Know, I just went wild. Just absolutely 
went wild, and I hadn't bought anything. I was afraid to buy anything. Was afraid if I bought 
everything-- I'd done this before when I'd have miscarriages, I decorated rooms, you know, I had 
baby pictures up, I had the clothes bought and, you know, and then I'd lose the baby, and I'd 
decorate the room. So I hadn't done any of that. And we were told we could go get him the next 
day. And I went back through, I had a suitcase full of clothes, and I went back through and got 
my very first outfit I bought for a baby, which was the little white outfit with rosebuds on it to 
take down to put it, you know, on him. And the next morning, we started off for Mount Vernon, 
just nervous wrecks. And he was the home of a Mr. And Mrs. Doyle, and that's kind of a 
Catholic-- Catholic interim home. And we pulled up in front, and, you know, our hearts were 
absolutely pounding, and I remember walking in, and they stood there, and yak, yak, yak, and 
talked, talked, talked, and the baby wasn't in the room, and, and I wondered, Where, you know, 
where is this baby? And we had to sign all these papers. And they-- one of the things that that we 
did, they told us we could see the baby first before we made our decision about whether we 
wanted to keep them or not. And it was really important to us that we not do it that way. We 
want to sign the papers before we saw the baby. If you have a baby, you take-- you don't know 
what they're going to look like, or, you know, you don't know. You have nightmares, you know, 
that maybe they're going to be missing a hand, or an arm, or something's going to be wrong when 
you're pregnant. So adopting wasn't any different to us. And we signed the papers before we ever 
saw him, and that was the reason he was in another room. And so, we signed all of our papers. 
And I can remember standing, I walking back, and I still remember looking down to the crib, and 
the first time I ever saw Michael, and it, it was just wonderful. I mean, it was just like, like, God 
knew what He was doing all along, and Michael was absolutely meant to be ours. I knew that the 
second I looked at him. And I, you know, I was kind of scared too. I wanted to get out of there 
before they take him away from us, you know, I still was afraid. Are they gonna change their 
minds or something? So, I didn't, I didn't-- you know, she was trying to tell us what formula he 
was on and all of this. And he was one month old, and I just wanted to grab him and run, you 
know, and we still had six months. She had signed the papers, but legally and so forth, she still 
had six months to change her mind. The paper she signed only meant that he could come into our 
house and be with us for six months, but at the end of six months, she could still change her 
mind, if you can believe it. But I remember picking him up for the first time, and I can remember 
holding him, and I remember loving... I loved him the second I touched him, and we drove home 
through every relative, down Chuckanut for my mom to see him, and up the road for Stan's mom 
to see him, and by all our good friends' houses. And, you know, just the proudest parents that 
you could be. I just loved him, and the-- I wouldn't even let go of him. It was really-- for the next 
I don't know how many months it was, when he took his naps, I held him. I wouldn't put him 
back in the bassinet. I held him through his naps, and when I had to do the dishes, I would put 
him in one of those napsacky things, and I would hold him when I did the dishes, and I'd play 
Frankie Lane, and I'd dance around the house to Frankie Lane, Jezebel music, that kind of stuff. 
And I dance around the house while I wore him on my stomach, and I did dishes and my 
housework, and he was loved from the second I ever touched him. And I want to, I want to share 
this. [?Muriel Mura?], who is my oldest friend, and she's a high school friend. We were-- we've 
been friends, all from high school, sent this to me, and I thought, This is it. This is adoption. And 
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it's, Michael Charles Bianchi, not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but still, miraculously, 
my own. Never forget for a single minute, you didn't grow under my heart, but in it. And that's 
how it-- that's adoption. It's every bit as wonderful as having a child in your tummy. The only 
thing you miss is the kicking and you know, and all of that, but the loving part, you know, and 
the waiting. It was six years from beginning to end that we waited for him, and he was wonderful 
all of his life. He was a very easy baby. He was a happy baby. Laughed a lot. We called him 
chunky Charlie. He was just-- he was always laughing. He was always so happy. But then, how 
could he help it? I mean, he was always being held and, you know, I sang to him constantly, and 
we read to him. And, you know, everywhere we went, we didn't get babysitters because we didn't 
want to leave him. And we went everywhere, everywhere we went, he went with us. And it was 
just a miracle. It was just an absolute miracle. I have another plaque that I want to read later, but 
that I think has to do with family and about how families are meant, maybe I can get the essence 
of it, but how families are meant to be together. And as I read it, I cried when I read the whole 
thing, and I remember thinking that this was God's plan from the very beginning, and that 
families are meant to be together. You just, you know, you just don't always know what the plan 
is. And I let-- later, I laughed, and I said, I wish God would have clued me in many years ago. 
And said, you know, you're going to suffer a little bit, but it's all going to be worth it, because 
you were meant to have Michael Charles Bianchi, he was always meant to be your baby. So we 
got him on July 18. And for many years, we celebrated June 17 as the date he was born, and we 
celebrate his birthday, and then we would celebrate on July 18 with a cake as his anniversary 
date. And we did that with Kevin too, and they loved it. It was like two birthdays. Life-- and it 
changed our-- changed our life all for the better, all for the better, because I had someone to just 
put all my love into now, and I don't-- and I didn't really overdo it either, I think the way some 
people could do. I mean, I didn't dote on him, I just loved him. In June or in the spring of 1973, I 
worked with my third contestant from Blaine, and her name is June Dodd-- or June [?Roush?], 
June Dodd's her married name. June Rauch, and she showed up at my house in the spring, and 
we worked on a song called Don't Rain on My Parade. And I loved working on that song because 
it's a Barbra Streisand one, and I like, I like all her music. And the nice part of working with June 
was that her mother was really involved with her. She was-- it was really the first time I ever 
worked with a contestant that I also was kind of working with the parent. When we would go to 
look for the evening gowns, or when June would come up here and work on her song. Her 
mother always came along. So I got to know her mother and Barbara. And that started a 20 year 
relationship between Barbara and I, and she's been like, my best friend for 20 years. June and I 
worked for two months, and the big night finally came, and guess what? She won again. So there 
was three Blaine girls in a row. Now the whole town was totally crazy. Thought I knew 
everything, you know, how do three Blaine girls win Miss Whatcom County when none had 
been able to accomplish that, you know, in 20 years? So we went down to Rauch's house 
afterwards. I remember we had a party and celebrated, and it was just, you know, it was just 
wonderful fun. I loved, I just thoroughly loved working with all three of you. And I remember 
later, you, the three of you got together and did something really special for me. Do you 
remember it? You showed up here? I-- all I was told was I was supposed to be dressed up and 
ready. And three of you showed up here. And you'd made a scrapbook. Each one of you had all 
your pictures in it, and you had a sterling silver bracelet for me with three faces of little girls, and 
each one of your names was on it. And then you took me out to lunch, and it was just, I don't 
know, it's just one of my special days of my life and it always, always, really meant a lot to me. 
Another person that that I got to meet that year too, was a-- one of my crazy friends that I've had 
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for 20 years, Bonnie Harkelroad, she was June's hairdresser, and that's how I got to know 
Bonnie. Later, Bonnie and I ended up bowling on a team together, and she cuts my hair. Cuts 
everybody's hair in my family, but Bonnie and I've been friends for 20 years, too. So that's what I 
mean about, you know, pageant meant more even then, working with the three of you. I've, you 
know, become-- I was a bridesmaid in your wedding. I remember when June was having her first 
child. I was at the hospital, you know, waiting for that baby to be born. I became friends with 
Kathy, her sister, Sarah, has been included in my life, you know, for the past 20 years. And it 
brought about my best friend, Barbara Rauch, you know, and working with June and Bonnie. So 
it just, you know, just multiplied itself. And, you know, I was more house bound, you know, with 
having a baby. But I can remember setting Michael-- Michael was set on the floor in the living 
room, and he was thoroughly delighted with all the music that was happening. And, you know, 
he just totally adjusted to having contestants in and out of the house and... Night, Scott. 
 
Scott  27:38 
Good night. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  27:42 
 Actually, I have to say that all three of my kids really enjoyed it when, during the spring, when I 
had contestants in the house and was working with them, and, you know, I know it's because 
they all got, you know, lots of attention from the girls. So it was a-- that was always a positive 
thing around our house. Now, as far as, I guess, what was happening in my life was I was 
working with Kathy Anderson, because in June, she was going to run for Miss Washington, and 
this year, it was a really positive experience. When I went with you, it was just you and I. This 
time, about seven of us went. June and her mom both went. Bonnie went, I can't remember who 
else, but we had fun. We partied, we celebrated. And Kathy was doing a smashing job. We 
thought she was going to be in the top 10. She won a Talent Award. And we, you know, we were 
just, we were just really excited about it, thinking, Okay, we're learning a little bit down here, 
and, you know, understanding the rules. So Miss Washington that year was really a lot of fun. 
And what I-- what I really got out of working with June was a 20 year very, very special 
relationship with Barbara Rauch. She has been through thick and thin with me. She was always 
there for me. Between my three boys, I've been through four surgeries with them, and she was 
with me through all four surgeries. She-- when Stan's mom died, she was there. We spent, I don't 
know, five years, I guess, walking. And we would walk six to eight miles a day. Talk. We would 
read books and talk, learn new vocabulary words. When I was really tied down after we got 
Kevin, she would call, and we would talk every day on the phone, so I had some kind of a link to 
the outside world. She's just been, just-- one of those friends that everyone you know, once in a 
lifetime, kind of a special friend. Yeah, yeah.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  29:49 
That's wonderful.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  29:50 
Yeah. 