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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 4, Side 1 
 
 
Linda C. Meuter  00:01 
I'm in the home of Susan Quant Bianchi, interviewing her for her life history. Sue, it appears that 
you have-- you, with pageant and family, it all seemed to come together at one time and then 
your life even got busier. You mentioned that you had another you had adopted another son, 
Kevin. Now, when did he come into the picture?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  00:28 
Okay, just right after I worked with Kathy for Miss Washington, two months later in September 
of '70-- let's see, yeah, September of 1973, we got another telephone call from that Rob DeVries 
that I talked about earlier. He was the case worker that worked with us, with Michael, and they 
had a four-month-old baby who was at that interim home in Mount Vernon. And he was of 
mixed race. He was half Black, and they wanted to know if we would like to adopt him. And this 
was a Friday afternoon, and it was just cold, I mean, think I was cooking dinner, you know? And 
at the time we had another little-- I mean, Michael was little, so, you know, he was... Mike and 
Kevin are only 10 months apart. So, this was a decision here too, but it was Friday afternoon, and 
I said, Wait a minute. Can I have the weekend to think about it, and I'll call you Monday and let 
you know? So Stan came home from school that night, and I said, Guess what? There's a four-
month little baby who's been, who is, who needs a home. He's half Black. I said they want to 
know if we want to adopt him. And you and I have this weekend to decide what we want to do. 
And this is a forever, life-long decision. And I guess the first thing we did was decide not to 
involve our parents or our families. You know, we didn't want to know what they thought about 
having a mixed-race family, because everyone would have a different opinion, and we just 
couldn't deal with that. You know, one of the decisions was, you know, how manageable it 
would be, because we would have two kids of really close ages, and I was absolutely loving 
every minute with Michael, and wasn't sure I wanted to share that yet. You know, I hadn't had a 
long enough time to share with Mike yet. You know, he was just little, and we weren't sure of 
what-- we really weren't sure of what it would mean to try to raise a mixed-race child, what that 
meant at all. We didn't know if we would be good parents for him, you know, if we would be-- if 
we were, you know, if we would be the best kind of parents for him. And we, you know, we 
spent the whole weekend talking about it. We-- I can remember going to the-- out to breakfast, 
and that's all we could talk about, you know, would we be good parents for this child? There, you 
know, there were several things that we considered. And I think it was, you know, when I would 
go to bed at night and think about it, and I couldn't sleep, and think about it. And I remember 
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Sunday night just thinking to myself, What does this child need? He's, you know, all he needs is 
a home, and he needs love. And it was just all of a sudden, really, really clear to me. I thought, 
Okay, we have lots of love, and we have home, you know. And so why not? I mean, it was just 
simply, why not? We have-- we have the love. So, you know, I thought it would work. So I 
called Rob DeVries on Monday morning and said, Yeah, we want to adopt him. And on 
Tuesday, the next day, we drove to Mount Vernon and got Kevin. This time, it was a totally 
different situation than when we went to get Michael. We signed the papers and felt good about 
that again. We signed them in the car. He thought we ought to see Kevin first and make up our 
mind whether we wanted him. And we said, No, same thing. We didn't want to do that. And we 
signed the papers that, yes, we wanted him before we ever signed. And, you know, it's just 
something I feel really proud about, but just because I, you know, I still think it's the same as 
having your own. But this time, it was totally shocking, walking in and seeing Kevin. It wasn't 
the experience of looking down and seeing this tiny little baby. Kevin was in terrible health. 
They had not taken care of him. He had not been held. He had been sat in one of those little baby 
seat things, probably on the floor, you know, probably from the time he was born, he had-- I 
believe he had sat there.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  04:48 
Who was this caretaker?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:52 
I probably shouldn't mention their names, but foster care taker. And he had never had any 
formula. You know how you put babies on formula the second they're born? Because that's all 
the nutrition that they get. It's just full of nutrition. They put him on not even one-- not even a 
whole milk. They put him on 2% milk, and that's what he had been drinking. He had terrible 
eczema, and he was-- his fingers were all cracked and they were bleeding. His nose was bleeding 
around all the cracks of his nose, the every, every area that on his body, you know, that could 
crack, was cracked and it was bleeding. And he was just in, you know, an absolute terrible 
physical condition. And we went into-- when we went into the room, and we were, you know, 
looking at him. He sat there, and he just stared. And he had two tears, one here, one in each 
corner of his eyes. They, after a while, kind of ran down his face, but he wouldn't cry. He never 
cried. And I thought that was strange too. He was fearful of us, you know, because he was older. 
He was four months old, and so looking at us, we were strangers to him, and he was fearful of us. 
Now, there was no smile, and there was no goo-gaws, or you know how little four months-- I 
remember at four months, they're, you know, really playful and playing with their toes, and kind 
of cooing a lot, and smiling. None of that. He absolutely just sat there with these tears in his 
eyes, and stared at us and looked, just looked fearful. And when I bent down to pick him up, he 
was totally stiff. When I picked him up, you know, there was no coming into your body and just, 
he was straight. He just stayed, you know, like, just like, ramrod straight, stiff. And we left there. 
There was-- we left there and just, you know, could not believe that they had done this to him for 
a long time. I wanted to write letters and report them, you know, and do all of this stuff, which I 
never did do. I just, I just dropped it and left it. But we did do the same thing. We stopped by 
Moms and Stan-- Granny's house, Stan's mom and friend's house. And when we got here, there 
were about 10 people at our house waiting for us. They had dinner already. Sarah had fixed 
dinner, and I don't remember who all was here. I just blanking out, but there were a lot of people 
here and there, and Sarah had fixed stuffed cabbage rolls and had all the food out. And there was 
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a big celebration about bringing Kevin home. And every everyone that was here, you know, 
Sarah will still talk about it. She still remembers seeing it, and he still sat with those two tears in 
the corners of his eye and looked at everyone with fear, and like, you know, he was afraid. So he 
had to have been punished, or, you know, just not allowed to cry or not. You know, something 
happened down there, and I'll never know what it was. But that night, after everyone left, we ran 
a bath, and I got in the bath with him, and I was holding him in the bath. And I'll never forget 
this one, but we-- I was singing to him in the bathtub and I had him on my knee, and I was just-- 
you know in the water and everything, I'm just kind of rocking him on my knee, and was the first 
time, and he looked at me and he smiled. And that was when I fell in love with Kevin. We were 
sitting in the bathtub, and he smiled at me. And it didn't take him one day to learn that he loved 
to be held. And, I mean, he loved to be held. So it was a one day, you know? It was like a one 
day bonding experience. And in one day, he was smiling and doing all the things, you know, it 
took-- one day he was smiling, and one day he was smiling, and happy to be here, and happy to 
be held. He wanted to be held all the time. He didn't want to be put down. But each day, more 
came out. You know, the cooing and the playfulness. And, you know, after about a week, he was 
probably a, you know, fairly normal four-month-old baby he had been. He was born May 5, and 
this throughout our lives was fun, because my sister, Kathy, my youngest sister, had a baby May 
9, so he has a cousin that's four days older than him. And Kathy and Chet are Kevin's godparents, 
so... 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:36 
Michael and Kathy's baby's name was Kelly. Michael was-- Michael's 10 months older than 
Kevin and Kelly. So in 10 months period of time, there are four cousins. So that was, you know, 
we went camping and... 
 
Linda C. Meuter  09:54 
Three cousins.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:54 
I said four, three cus-- yeah, three cousins in 10 months. So throughout, you know, the next 
years, through our camping trips and, you know, Christmases and everything we did, those boys 
were just like that, and that was really neat. Now, we knew Kevin had, you know, a lot of 
medical-- something's wrong with him, so we started doctoring, you know, as soon as possible. 
And, you know, got creams on the eczema and tried to heal that up. But after about a month, I 
became aware that there was something else wrong with him, and I didn't know what. He was a 
head banger, and he would just absolutely whack at his head. Yeah. I mean, no one could sleep. 
He banged his head all night long in the crib, he would scooch to the end where the rails were 
and whack his head there. And as soon as he could, you know, crawl up in the crib, you know, 
like this, and get to the wall, he banged his head on the wall all night long, I swear. And it was-- 
he had no hair here, and he had a great big hump, you know, on his forehead. Well, I went from 
doctor to doctor, and they all said he's a head banger. And I said, No. Yes, he's banging his head, 
but that's not what's wrong with him. There's something really wrong with him. I know it. And 
they would just look at me like I was totally crazy, and say, No, he's just a head banger. Well, he 
would crawl over the coffee table, over the legs, and whack his head back and forth. You know, 
so hard that, you know-- so hard that head bangers just don't do it. It's not the same thing. And I 
knew they were wrong. And finally, when he was about-- it took about a year.  
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Susan Quant Bianchi  11:39 
It took a year to find the right doctor of going through and feeling like you're crazy, you know, 
leave this alone, because he's just a head banger. It took one year, and it was in December of '74 
that we found Dr. Barnhart, and he checked him and knew immediately something was wrong, 
and he thought it was something in the in the middle or inner ear problems, and so he scheduled 
surgery for the next week.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:39 
Really?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  12:08 
What a shock.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  12:09 
It-- yes, but it was good to finally find out that you were not crazy and there was something 
wrong with him. And you know, this head banging went on constantly, and he was in pain. He 
cried all the time, you know. He more than cried, he cried like he was in, you know, not that-- 
not-- like he was really in a lot of pain. And I mean that crying went on for a year. You know, we 
had mo-- I have to say, you know, we had moments where he wasn't doing this, and moments 
and hours where he wasn't crying, you know, when he was just absolutely delightful. But for that 
year, basically, he was in pain. And, you know, well, on, I think it was the 18th of December, Dr 
Barnhart went in and did surgery, thinking he was doing a real simple, you know, inner ear or 
middle ear surgery, and he was in there four hours or something. He came out of surgery wound 
up and excited. I guess this is what surgeons do, because he knew that he had saved Kevin's life. 
He-- there was a tumor in his head. He was born with a tumor. And this tumor started in the inner 
ear, but by the time Dr Barnhart found it, it had grown through the lining of the brain. And had 
we just let it go, you know, it would have eventually just destroyed everything, and he wouldn't 
have lived. And, you know, I looked and I thought about all those doctors who said, you know, I 
was crazy and that there was nothing wrong with him. And, you know, as a mother, I knew. 
Mean, I think moms know, and that's the one thing that was really special about Dr. Barnhart, he 
told me he listens to moms. He thinks moms know, you know, and he'll listen to them first and 
go by what they say first, you know, and considers them right. And that started a, you know, that 
started-- Kevin still sees Dr Barnhart, and he's 19 years old now, you know, because he still has 
to, you know, be checked and everything. And Dr Barnhart, every time we see him, says, you 
know, I just, I am so excited that, you know, you kept the search up, and we found each other. 
Because, you know, Kevin is alive, and, you know, this human being that's going to have 
children and who knows what, is going to happen through the fact that he live. What, you know, 
what a year. And he was born with it, and the crying was migraine headaches. He had migraine 
headaches. That's why he whacked his head and would just beat his head to death, because he 
had migraine headaches because he had the tumor.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  15:02 
So do you again, come to think about how your life has gone, and you mentioned with Mike, it 
was meant to happen, and here you saved Kevin's life.  
 
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Susan Quant Bianchi  15:12 
Yeah. Yeah, I do.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  15:13 
It's just-- it's a fabulous story to know, to know that you-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  15:18 
--we were meant to get Kevin because I was meant to search out the right doctor that was going 
to find out what was wrong with him. I know. I just, you know, I absolutely know that had he 
gone to another home, they would not have found it. You know, I just feel that way because I 
just knew, and I don't know that everyone else would have known. I think many, many people 
would have settled for doctors are always right, and he's a head banger. So, okay, he's a head 
banger. And I don't know why he's crying, but, you know, I think that most of the other-- any 
other home he would have gone into, that might have been what the scenario would have been, 
you know. So, he was sent to us by God too, and he was meant, you know, he was meant to be 
ours and, you know, as soon as that surgery was over, the head banging stopped. The hair grew 
back. It took a long time for the headaches to go, to go away. Other things manifested itself out 
of that time. He became Superman, and he became Batman, and he became, you know, every 
superhero there ever was. He lived a lot in a dream world and in a, you know, a fairyland world, 
and he'd be back in his bedroom pretending all these pretend games. And doctors said that they 
do that when they're in a lot of pain that, you know, I do that in the pain I'm in. I have to-- 
sometimes, I get in so much pain, you know, with the cancer, that I can't live right here and in 
the now, and I have to go somewhere else with myself. I know one time when I was in a lot of 
pain and I was really out of it, my sister took me on a trip on a boat. We have a boat, and she 
took me on that boat to Rosario-- I mean, to Friday Harbor. And I was just laying there, and she 
was telling me things like, you know, we're on the boat, and it's beautiful and it's sunny, and, you 
know, we went through this whole scenario with, you know, the weather, and the birds were 
singing, and the waves, and everything. And she was able to, you know, help me to release the 
pain. And we went to Friday Harbor, and by the time I got to Friday Harbor, I had a smile, I had 
a smile on my face. And I was in the hospital, and I was really out of it with the pain. And so I 
know that by going to another place, you know, another existence, another space that the pain 
can lessen, and you can, you know, you can really help the pain situation. But Kevin, then all of 
his life, was a dreamer and was into his own world. You know, he learned that from the time he 
was little. To go into his own world, and every time he ever hurt, every time he ever felt bad. 
Today, I mean, he's not the talker. Michael will come home and tell me everything that's on his 
mind. Kevin, you know, we'll go back into his bedroom and have to go into his world to solve 
his problems and to think things through. So it affected his whole life, and it was, it was quite a 
year, but, and even after, like I said, even after the surgery, it took some time before the pain 
went away, and at that time, now we're, we're living with capes. You know, Superman cape. He 
had every cape that there ever was, and he would-- and he thought he could fly. You know, that 
was his biggest dream. He wanted to fly. You know, it got so bad that we had to tell him that he 
couldn't because we were afraid, you know, he'd climb up on the roof and jump off someday. I 
have a story about that-- that, okay. Kathy and Sarah Anderson had a brother that was that was 
killed between his junior and senior year of high school. He was an automobile accident. His 
name was Paul, and Kevin was close to Paul, you know, he was close to Kathy and Sarah, 
because they were in and out of our house all the time, and we were there a lot. And he knew 
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Paul, and Kevin knew that Paul had died, and after, after I had told Kevin that that Paul had died, 
he said he wanted to put his cape on and fly up to heaven and see Paul. And this is special to the-
- Paul's mom, Betty. Betty told me that this was-- that knowing Kevin said that really saved her, 
saved her for one day, the day of the funeral. Afterwards, I went to their house, and when it was 
a real quiet moment, I went over and told her what Kevin had said, and she just held me and 
cried and felt go-- and felt good because-- and felt good because Kevin wanted to fly up to 
heaven and see Paul. And it just made things so simple, you know? And that's, that's Kevin. So 
until he was probably 13, he dreamed of flying.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  15:18 
Really?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  15:20 
Yeah. I mean-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  16:14 
--so his childhood fantasies was flying.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  20:26 
Oh, they lasted. They lasted a real long time. And I think that was because he went through, you 
know, more medical problems than this, and, you know, and the tumor grew back. And when he 
was eight, he had to have his surgery all over again, and so the pain came back, and Kevin did 
not sleep through the night until he was about 10 or 11 years old. Almost every night until he 
was 10 or 11, I held him. We sat in a chair right here, and I held him, and that was just what had 
to be. He could not sleep at night. And so I would hold him, and we would rock, and I would 
sing to him, and we would talk. And one of the, one of my favorite stories about sitting up one 
night with him was, I can remember him looking at me and saying, Mom, I wish you were 
brown. And I said, Kevin, I wish I was brown too, you know. And I felt, I remember, I felt really 
sad about it at the time, and I thought, How perfect it would be, you know? Stan's white, Mike's 
white. And, you know, if I were brown and Kevin were brown, it would be all just a perfect, you 
know, would be just perfect. And you know, what else happened about this time? What I can't 
believe, but Rob DeVries called us again, you know. And I mean, you can imagine how crazy 
life was. We got another telephone call from Rob DeVries, and there was a little girl. And she 
was a Vietnamese-White little girl, half Vietnamese, half White from the war, and he wanted us 
to adopt her. And I hated it, but I had to say no. And I thought about it often, because I always 
wanted a girl, and I felt like I had to say no. My head reached my limit. Kevin was-- I had-- like I 
said, you know, I had to hold him every night. There was just no way I could take care of another 
baby. But I, you know, I was-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  22:22 
--how old was Kevin at that time? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  22:24 
Huh, little over a year old. So we would have had three children under two. And that-- we could 
have done it, except, you know, Kevin was so sick, and he just took up a lot of time. I mean, 
massive time. We were at the doctors all the time. There was one period that we went, we had to 
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go to the doctors for him three times a week. He had to go to Dr. Heisinger twice a week, and Dr 
barn-- he went to Dr Barnhart one year, every single week for a year, he went 55 times that year, 
you couldn't miss one week without seeing Dr Barnard. And, you know, I know I haven't 
mentioned Michael, and all I can say about that is that thank God, you know, he was this happy, 
happy little child who was always happy, and he was happy-- you know, I could be holding 
Kevin, and Michael would sit here, and we would read stories. Michael wasn't demanding. He 
wasn't demanding of me. He wasn't demanding of my time. And every time, you know, I had 
time, you know-- I made time for Michael. I mean, I just did, and he was, but he was just, he was 
the happiest baby that there ever was. And it didn't matter. He knew Kevin was sick, and he 
understood, I mean, he understood. You know, he would feel sorry for Kevin, too. Kevin doesn't 
feel good, and he would rub Kevin's head, and sit there, and rub Kevin's head. So he had 
empathy for, you know, the situation also. Trying to think what this-- Kevin's surgery. When the 
tumor was removed, he was 18 months old. So he was, this was in December of '74, and he was 
18 months old. Then we went right-- we went kind of from that to the next year of realizing he 
was still sick, and searching out doctors again to find out still more you know about why he was 
sick. I learned from one doctor that because he was so tiny when he was born, and because of the 
poor care he had received, his lungs were underdeveloped, and that caused some of his problems. 
And I think it just, you know, it went on. It went on for years. It went on till he was 10 years old. 
I want to talk about doctoring again with him, but I want to share something else that was really 
pertinent to my life at this time, when Kevin was about... this was even before his surgery. One 
night, I was lying in bed. It was real late, and matter of fact, I think it was in the middle of the 
night, and I had woken and I was very, very heavy. I was at my heaviest at this time. And all I'll 
say about that as I weighed over 200 pounds, and I woke up because I had pain in my chest, and 
I thought I was having a heart attack, and I just think it was-- you know, I don't know what it 
was, but I had pain in my chest, and I had to sit up to be able to breathe. I think it might have 
been the weight. I don't know what it was, but it scared me and I-- and after the pain went away, 
I laid in bed, and I looked down to where Kevin's bedroom was, and I thought about Kevin, and I 
looked, you know, over at where Michael's bedroom was, and knew he was sound asleep in 
there. And I thought, oh my goodness, I have two babies, and am I going to let my weight have 
have anything to do with the fact that I would even possibly let it-- let something happen to 
myself, you know, by not losing the weight. And the next day, I went on a diet. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  26:12 
Yeah, I mean, I've been-- I had been on and off diets all-- you know, for years. All through my 
20s. I'm around 30 years-- I know I'm about, I don't know, 30 years old now or so, but I had been 
on and off diets all through my 20s, and, you know, on went 20 pounds, and off went 15, and just 
Yo-Yo, Yo-Yo dieting. And I just could not stick with it. And the day after, I had this pain, and I 
thought about those two kids and how I want-- how all my life, I wanted to be a mom, and now I 
had my two babies, and was I going to let my weight interfere with any part of raising them? 
And it was just so clear to me that I was not. And the next day, I started on a diet, and I stayed on 
that diet for three years, and I lost over 85 pounds. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  26:12 
Really? [Inaudible.] 
 
Linda C. Meuter  27:04 
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So, the weight became an issue of health for you. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  27:06 
The weight became an issue of health. Of health, not how I looked. For the first time, not how I 
looked, but health. That I wanted to be able to go bike riding with them, and I wanted to be alive. 
I want to be alive to raise them. That was what it was, you know, because my chest pains were so 
bad that they scared me, and I wanted to be alive to raise them, see them grow up. And I stayed 
on that diet. I never went off of it. I didn't go off of it, not for three years, and I lost 85 pounds. 
And you know, I've gained and lost. You know, by the time I was 32, I was down in weight, and 
I'm 46 now, and I've kept most of it off through all these years. I've gone up and down, and had 
to re-diet it and all that. But basically, I've kept it off all these years now. But that's what did it. 
That's what finally did it. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  28:05 
Sue, you were a very busy person during this time. I'm just wondering about your support and 
Stan, for example, how did he play in your role of mothering and raising the boys? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  28:21 
For one-- right off the bat, I'll tell you, he's an absolutely dynamite dad. And the problem was, 
during that time was he was going through, you know, he was still basketball coach at Blaine. I 
think that just took so much of his time. But he was gone a lot, you know, being a teacher at 
home, and tests to correct, and games that night, and so on and so forth. But I remember one one 
time, especially, he came home and found me sitting outside on the back tiff out over there, and I 
was crying. He just said, Sue, get in the car and go, I am in charge. And that's how he is. That's 
how he always was. There were nights when I just could not get up, and he got up. And I do, you 
know, I talk about all the nights that I got up, and I was the major one to do that, because he had 
to get up at seven and work all day too, you know. So, it needed to be that way. But there were 
nights-- there were nights when he took over, you know, and he says, Sue, you stay in bed and 
you're sleeping through the night. As soon as I knew I could sleep through the night, I didn't have 
to listen for the crying, you know, and I could just go sound asleep, and sleep through the night. 
And when he would listen for the crying, and he would get up, and do the thing that night. And 
you know, I knew, whatever time he had, whatever extra time he had, was given at home, it was 
given to me, so that I could have some free time. I got support in three main ways, and that was 
mainly from Stan, and from Sarah, and from Barbara. And I'd like to talk about both Sarah's 
support and Barbara's support, because they were wonderful. 
 