Page 1 of 9 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Susan Quant Bianchi 
May 25, 1992 
Cassette 6, Side 1 
 
 
Linda C. Meuter  00:01 
Two, and I am in the home of Susan Quant Bianchi, interviewing her for her life history. Start. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  00:13 
She's very soft spoken and Barbara's just really sweet, and there's something about the way she 
touches and holds me that makes me feel safe. And it's a real hard thing to explain to anyone. It's 
just something I feel, but she puts her hand on my shoulder, and it calms me down right away, 
especially, you know, when you're in pain and when you're sick, she's just wonderful at that and I 
really love her. [Tape cuts to silence.] But stand over them around in the motor and let them off 
in front after everyone is seated, and they came down, all four aisles to the song, you know, 
Celebration. And the audience, you know, they're shaking the hands in the audience, and the 
audience-- it was, it was exciting right away, and the audience got, you know, right into it. Every 
girl had at least a 3.5 grade point average that year. They were talented. It was, you know, as far 
as the talent and the grade point average, that was the best year we ever had. And a really special 
young woman named Jennifer [?Havelin?] won Miss Whatcom County that year, and she was a 
dancer, so the next year, she would get to run for Miss Washington. [Tape cuts.] 
 
Linda C. Meuter  02:12 
I know you have some individual sports like bike riding, right?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  02:16 
Can you tell me what you learned how to ride on your bike? You have to talk into the mic. Well 
you can-- yeah. About your bike. What kind of bike do you have? 
 
Unknown Child  02:17 
Yeah.  
 
Unknown Child  02:17 
Mountain.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  02:18 
Wow.  
 
Page 2 of 9 
 
Unknown Child  02:29 
My dad has a street bike. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  02:58 
And what can you do on that bike right now? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  03:00 
You can ride it, but what-- 
 
Unknown Child  03:00 
Um. 
 
Unknown Speaker  03:01 
--score! 
 
Linda C. Meuter  03:01 
Woah. 
 
Unknown Child  03:02 
Can you stop it?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  03:02 
Go ahead and tell them anything you want. What's your teacher's name this year? 
 
Unknown Child  03:05 
Mrs. Greenway, next year, it's gonna be Miss [?Core?]. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  03:07 
Who do you play with also at school?  
 
Unknown Child  03:09 
[?Mike Horner?] [?of Queens?]. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  03:10 
What do you play? What's your favorite things to play? 
 
Unknown Child  03:13 
Hot lava. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  03:14 
What? 
 
Unknown Child  03:14 
Hot lava.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  03:15 
Page 3 of 9 
 
What's that?  
 
Unknown Child  03:16 
You have to climb on this slide, and then [?Mike Horner?] will have to save me from falling 
down the slide. And then, if you touch hot lava, you're a hot lava monster. I touch them, and then 
they fall down into the hot lava, and then they're a hot lava monster. And then if we touch the 
last guy, they're a hot lava monster, and then we start all over.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:21 
Really? Sounds like fun.  
 
Unknown Child  04:23 
Yeah.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:23 
What's your favorite lunch at school?  
 
Unknown Child  04:25 
Hot lunch with pizza.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:26 
Do you like hot lunch?  
 
Unknown Child  04:29 
With pizza. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:29 
Do you like the sack lunches Dad fixes for you? 
 
Unknown Child  04:31 
What's sack lunch? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:32 
Your cold lunches from home?  
 
Unknown Child  04:34 
[whisper] You're not supposed to talk.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:37 
Okay, you talk. 
 
Unknown Child  04:38 
Um, I just talk. Iif the game goes tomorrow, we'll have to choose a guy to go baseball, to hit the 
baseball, and then they have to run so-- so that the... That the baseball game will be tomorrow, 
and I'm gonna have a lot of fun. It's 1992. I'm turning seven this year, and my dad and me go 
Page 4 of 9 
 
bike riding all the time, some of the time, most-- some of the days, we go play games like hockey 
and baseball. We practice catching [?duke bait?] or frisbee.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  05:44 
He's a little kid. 
 
Unknown Child  05:46 
What?  
 
Unknown Speaker  05:47 
That's the same thing.  
 
Unknown Child  05:49 
Huh? 
 
Unknown Speaker  05:49 
No, what you say about [inaudible].  
 
Unknown Child  05:52 
Well...  
 
Unknown Speaker  05:53 
Different position every time they go out on the field. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  05:57 
Right, you'll never [inaudible]. I don't care [inaudible]-- 
 
Unknown Child  06:00 
Dad? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  06:01 
Doesn't matter, you can still talk in there, it won't hurt.  
 
Unknown Child  06:05 
Okay. Well, what should I say? I lost my pop. When I tried to put my two quarters in this 
morning, it didn't work. It was on, but then I didn't get it, so I'm gonna try it tomorrow after 
school. So, I have a lot of toys, too. New ones, old ones. A lot of them, my-- some I don't like. I 
don't know what else, but [sighs] I have a whip. I'm gonna get two, because I may make them out 
of gum caps that I buy. Gum [?winds?], and you have to whip them. Well, well, this game 
[inaudible]. I don't know, so.. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  07:18 
Most teams probably don't win as many games. 
 
Unknown Child  07:26 
Page 5 of 9 
 
But I can't do it, but it's gonna be on the tape, so I don't know, and I can't, and I can't. I don't want 
to be like at first base. I want to be at first base in baseball, but not second or third. I want to be a 
first base, playing T-ball game. Or the baseball hitter, the baseball hitter I want to be. I think all 
of us will get to hit on the baseball game. So... I guess... I don't know what I'm gonna do at the 
baseball game. We're gonna get our uniforms and I don't know what they're gonna look like. I'm 
done! The end. I'm done. Well... Wait, Mom, I'm not done yet. I don't have much more to tell 
you. 
 
Unknown Speaker  08:47 
[Inaudible] time to go brush your teeth and go to bed. 
 
Unknown Child  08:49 
Wait, I'm just talking more. Well, I don't know, but... Well, well, well. Well! Well, I guess 
sometimes when we go bike riding, I get tired. One time I was-- I-- today-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:11 
--Do you remember the year Kevin was the second best hitter on the team.  
 
Unknown Child  09:16 
Why? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  09:17 
The year you were what? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:17 
Kevin was number two hitter on the team.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  09:19 
And? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:30 
Last year we ever played because of the coaching. Their kids were in all the best places. Kevin 
never learned a thing. 
 
Unknown Child  09:37 
Well, that was the end. The end. 
 
Unknown Speaker  09:40 
[Inaudible] hit a home run-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:44 
-- A home run? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  09:47 
Because I know they're both green. See? Goodnight!  
 
Page 6 of 9 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  09:51 
Good night, [?lover?]. 
 
Unknown Child  10:12 
Bye. Well.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  10:13 
Everybody that was normal-- you know, people got [inaudible] pitcher wasn't there. Every coach 
had done the pitch and that was the bit. [Inaudible.] Okay, you want to rewind it?  
 
Unknown Child  10:14 
Yeah. It looks like this. You push that. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  10:19 
 Five year hobbies, what can they get into? Fish aquariums in the whole house. We'd have fish 
aquariums.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  10:22 
It's great to have someone like that around your-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  10:26 
--Oh, yeah. Coin collector. Well, he was an Alaskan toughy. He went up to Alaska in the '30s 
and got a track line. And my mother in the late '30s, in my-- they brought my mother up-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  10:38 
--Yeah. Where was she? How did she meet him?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  10:40 
They were born in Aberdeen, Washington, and during the Depression, it wasn't, you know, great 
time to make money. He wanted to go to college, and he went for a year, and he just couldn't 
afford it. And then they were building some boats in Aberdeen to go to Alaska, and that was like 
the new frontier for the fisheries. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  10:55 
Right.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  10:56 
So, they were heading up for the summer, and his father and he built a boat, and they went out, 
and then-- and he had two brothers that were involved in it too. So actually three. So this was 
sort of-- and then he decided, after three or four winters of going back and forth, that he was just 
going to stay up there because it was too hard on the family.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:14 
And he knew your mom from Aberdeen?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:16 
Page 7 of 9 
 
He knew my-- yeah. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:17 
From work? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:17 
From high school. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:19 
Oh, from high school, oh my goodness. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:20 
[Laughs] One of those things.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:21 
Aberdeen High School sweethearts. So she came up later?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:26 
She came-- well, she had a series of illnesses related to her curvature of the spine, and I don't-- 
you know, to tell you-- somewhat thinking it was related to meningitis as a younger child, or she 
had several operations, but when she was 18, she spent a year in a children's orthopedic hospital, 
and then went off to business college, and somewhere between that time, her older brother and 
my father were friends, and so she kind of matured and grew up, you know. My dad had eyes for 
her [laughs] where the sweet story goes. You know, he told me that-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  12:00 
--I know, I wonder if I could do that. Stan, though, his-- you know, he was one of my best 
friends' sons. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  12:10 
Right, right, right, right. But then one of his greatest stories that she was working in the capitol 
building as a file clerk or something. And this is a real macho type of story, but he said, [?'Cause 
seriously?], well, how did you get married when he was-- he's really loving human being. But 
then he said, We were at the very top of the capitol building, and I threw the ring over the top 
[laughs] to catch it at the bottom. I mean, it wasn't-- I mean, it was kind of a standing joke 
between-- and she'd always go, Merle [laughs]. And she had to run down all the way down the 
steps, you know. I mean, it was a stupid little story. But he was definitely-- I think you could 
characterize them. I think there's a lot of-- what's that TV show of the '60s, sort of the Archie 
Bunker kind of TV? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  12:55 
Oh, All in the Family.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  12:55 
And I think they made a big impression on my life, because I wanted my mother to do more.  
 
Page 8 of 9 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  12:59 
What are you saying? Your dad was like the guy in All in the Family? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  13:02 
A little bit. Not in the sense of-- because he was a very loving human being-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  13:06 
--caring part of him-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  13:09 
--he was very traditional values. The father's the breadwinner, the mother does the baking in the 
home, you know? I mean, that was the era, you know what I mean? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  13:20 
Right.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  13:21 
But as a result, mom never really questioned his authority. It was always a problem with me, and 
I, more or less, as I got older, took it out on her for not, you know, standing up. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  13:35 
Sometimes they say that feminism is easier to attack the one that's one removed than the one 
that's-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  13:39 
--Yeah, the mother-- and-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  13:42 
--so, but, I mean, even it-- might even be easier for you to attack your mother than your dad, 
when, I mean, if he had kept the authoritarian thing going, but it's easier to be mad at her, maybe 
because it's easier. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  13:56 
Yeah. Because you say, I'm not going to be that way, right? But you don't have permission, I 
mean, she didn't have permission to be any other way societally either.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  14:06 
Right. Why did you say my name? 
 
Unknown Speaker 2  14:09 
Oh. Oh, yes, the question, do you-- do not have paper [?mike?], have you arranged now that 
[inaudible]. So I can change that to okay? 
 
Linda C. Meuter  14:16 
How long are we gonna go? You want to know about my education [laughs]?  
 
Page 9 of 9 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  14:20 
Are we done? 
 
Unknown Speaker 2  14:24 
I mean, you are. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  14:25 
Okay. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  14:26 
Oh really? Okay. 
 