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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Diana Burgess 
January 23, 1998  
Cassette 3, Side 2 
 
 
Allison Card  00:02 
What other kind of groups of kids? 
 
Diana Burgess  00:07 
After I was initiated into the Black neighborhood, then they used to have a lot of teenage dances 
up at the community center, I guess is what you would call it. We always called it-- it was called 
the LeMoyne Center, and it was-- I don't ever remember seeing any white kids there. I mean, if 
that was so, would have been okay, but we used to hang up there a lot. The swimming pools 
were segregated in my hometown, because they had one at Washington Park, which no Blacks 
was allowed. Back then, it didn't say Blacks. They just called you colored. The Blacks all went to 
the one where the community center was. So that kind of, as I got older, that kind of-- and I was 
out doing things, it kind of got me away from Bobby, and Danny, and Kenny, you know, because 
they went their separate way too. They each had girlfriends and was doing different things with 
different guys, you know, guy stuff, but um. 
 
Allison Card  01:16 
How did you feel when you kind of left them and went on with the new group of people? 
 
Diana Burgess  01:21 
I still would see Bobby, like, if I was in the backyard doing something, he was there, he and I 
would, yeah, cross the fence or say something. But it wasn't like standing there for 20 minutes 
talking, I would just wave or something. But I just-- 
 
Allison Card  01:35 
--yeah. How did your parents feel when you started hanging out with different people?  
 
Diana Burgess  01:39 
My dad didn't like them. My dad, for him to be a black man, I mean, if you'd have saw my 
father, you would really thought he was a white man, really. 
 
Diana Burgess  01:49 
Because he had-- I don't know how to say this, [inaudible] what I sound. He had features. He had 
keen features. He was very light-skin, and he had straight hair that he would always kept short. 
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But my father was very nice looking, and he was very color conscious. He didn't like anything 
dark-skin.  
 
Allison Card  01:49 
How so? 
 
Allison Card  02:13 
Really? 
 
Diana Burgess  02:13 
So that rebellious daughter, you know what I did, don't you? I went out and tried to find the 
darkest boyfriend. [Laughs.] 
 
Allison Card  02:20 
Do you know why he was like that, why he felt that way?  
 
Diana Burgess  02:22 
No, my dad--  
 
Allison Card  02:22 
--did your mother share similar? 
 
Diana Burgess  02:27 
She didn't care. She just kind of liked people for people. But, yeah, that was so bizarre.  
 
Allison Card  02:35 
What would your father do when you go find the darkest skin?  
 
Diana Burgess  02:40 
Well, one thing, my dad would just rant and rave so badly that they would never come to my 
house. There's no way. You know, that's embarrassing, you know, and then you-- that's every-- 
that's all everybody was talking about in school on Monday. You know. 
 
Allison Card  02:57 
[Inaudible] your father? 
 
Diana Burgess  02:58 
How my dad was. Did you see how Mr. Burgess act, you know? Or like, if the guys was in the 
neighborhood, playing Red Light, Green Light, or playing, I guess they call it hide and seek? 
[Microphone is moved] [Inaudible] tomato garden rake? When I see my dad's car pull up or 
come around the bend, and everybody just disperse in 10 different directions. 
 
Allison Card  03:27 
Really?  
 
Diana Burgess  03:28 
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Yeah. 
 
Allison Card  03:28 
How did you feel about that? That everybody was-- 
 
Diana Burgess  03:31 
--I hated it, but I thought, What could I do? So, I just lived with it, because I knew if I said 
anything to my daddy, probably-- he probably would have killed me. Close to it. I don't know 
why he had so much anger. I don't know. 
 
Allison Card  03:51 
How did it handle with your sisters? Did they start hanging out with more Black community? Or 
were they basically friends with white-- 
 
Diana Burgess  03:58 
--because they were older and going to high school already, you know, they had already met 
some of the Black kids in the neighborhood. And, you know, I didn't-- I wasn't paying attention 
to what they were doing. You know, kids are, they're so self-centered and selfish. So, but I never, 
I never recall Daddy acting up. It wasn't that often because we basically did not have kids come 
to our house, because my dad would just-- he would act ugly. I know one time we had a surprise 
party for Vicky because she was in a swing accident. My mother said she would take my dad to 
his mother, who lived in Houston, which probably is about maybe 15 miles away, and they 
would go to my grandmother's every Sunday and play cards. But anyhow, she said she would 
detain him. Well, needless to say, she didn't, because 11:30 he came home and the party was just 
getting started. My dad came home, turned on ev-- as he walked through the room, he turned on 
every light. Go home, get your ass out of here. The party is over. So, I mean, that was terrible. So 
that was the last time we had a party at home, needless to say. Till we were grown and would 
invite my mother and dad to our house. But I don't know, something happened to my dad. I don't 
know if because he died of complications from emphysema. Something happened to him. It was 
like he became a different-- complete turnaround, because I can remember going to-- and I was 
married then, and my husband was very dark. I made a point of that. But that sounds bad like I 
just married him because he was dark. But even to this day, I like dark-skinned men. I don't 
know. It's just something about them that-- I don't know. But anyhow, we all went to Pittsburgh. 
When I say we, I mean my sister, Jeannie, and her husband, and I think Vicky was there. There 
was about four of us, and Michael, and my mom. We all went to Pittsburgh too. Do you know 
anything about the roller derbies? 
 
Allison Card  06:34 
A little. 
 
Diana Burgess  06:35 
Okay, so I'm not really being ancient here. But when we when we came back, we stopped past 
[?The Elks?], and I was shooting pool with my dad. He was patiently explaining to me how to 
rack it and what-- how to line up the balls and, you know, what-- 
 
Allison Card  06:55 
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--yeah-- 
 
Diana Burgess  06:55 
--position to-- 
 
Allison Card  06:57 
--hit to get into the pocket. 
 
Diana Burgess  06:58 
Yeah. This is good for Dad. And then we would have-- we had a couple surprise anniversary 
parties for my mom and my dad. And he was very sociable, so... 
 
Allison Card  07:12 
...So he would have his times.  
 
Diana Burgess  07:15 
He just became a nice person after everybody left home and had their own families. You know? 
He was at the place where I could say, I could call him and say, Hey Dad, and have a little 
conversation on the phone with him instead of being cussed out. So, I, to this day, I don't know 
what happened. Maybe it was-- I don't know. Maybe he was sick all his life and was just a 
cantankerous crab, I don't know. But I just-- 
 
Allison Card  07:44 
--did you ever talk to your mom about his change? 
 
Diana Burgess  07:47 
No. You know, he's been dead 20 some years now. James is 25, 22 years, to be exact, and very 
solemn, we talk about my dad. Very solemn, but I don't know. Sometimes I think like, Gosh, was 
I in a coma all these years? Because it's so-- there's just some weird stuff happening in my 
childhood, in my family. I don't know. I'm talking more about it with you than I have in a 
number of years to anybody. You know, even my sisters, we don't even talk about our childhood. 
 
Allison Card  08:35 
Is there reasons you don't talk about it?  
 
Diana Burgess  08:40 
Yeah, I think so. I think there's a lot of unhealed pain and just-- it just-- there's a lot of 
unhappiness, don't nobody really wants to talk about it, because talk about-- talking about it 
brings it to fore-- to-- and then you got to think about it. 
 
Allison Card  09:02 
Right. 
 
Diana Burgess  09:02 
So now, they just-- we pushed it so far back now that, you know, just why you want to-- why do 
you want to start talking about that? So I don't, I don't. I just kind of... 
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Allison Card  09:15 
So they felt basically the same way as you, though. It was very painful. 
 
Diana Burgess  09:18 
Yeah, for sure. For sure. We used to think Vicky was my dad's favorite because Vicky, when she 
was young, she used to have a bad temper, not to the place where she would go around and 
smack you, you know, but she... I don't know. They thought it was cute when she put her hands 
on her hips. If my dad said a bad word and she put her hands on her hips and said the same thing, 
ha-ho-ho-ho-ho, that's so funny. I got-- you would think I'd have enough mocking peop-- people, 
because I remember doing the same thing and it wasn't even funny. Man, I got the crap smacked 
out of me. You know? I kept thinking, Well, Vicky couldn't even get it out. And my dad would 
always say, That's right, that's right, you're not Vicky. You're not Vicky.  
 
Allison Card  10:13 
Would Vicky get hit? 
 
Diana Burgess  10:14 
Heck no. They was laughing at her. They thought it was funny.  
 
Allison Card  10:17 
She would never? She wouldn't do-- 
 
Diana Burgess  10:19 
--no, ah. And I thought. 
 
Allison Card  10:21 
Okay, what about your other siblings besides Vicky? 
 
Diana Burgess  10:25 
Jeannie? Jeannie, I think Jeannie is-- Jeannie-- and my oldest sister, Carol, I think we both have 
the same type of-- I want to say dispositions. Don't want to really hurt anybody. I just was kind 
of rebellious. But Jeannie was always that sweet daughter, you know, sweet sister. She still is to 
this day. And my oldest sister Carol. But my sister Sandy, who's second-oldest, and my brother, 
and Vicky, they're kind of used to-- Sandy and Stanley used to fight so much that my mother 
used to be fearful that they were going to end up killing one anoth-- one of the other, you know, 
and Stanley would never hit Sandy, because my dad [clears throat] taught him [coughs], excuse 
me. My dad taught him that men don't-- boys, men do not hit women. Go figure. And he never 
would hit her, but she would do some very, very bad stuff to my brother, to the place where she 
almost scalded him to death. I mean, this is not fun, and if he didn't move, he would have been 
scarred.  
 
Allison Card  11:55 
Really? 
 
Diana Burgess  11:56 
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So, I mean, that's crazy. I remember seeing things like that as a child and wondering, What is all 
this about, you know? But one good thing about my dad, he did do a lot of things with the 
family. You know, we would go to picnics.  
 
Allison Card  12:14 
What would you do on picnics? 
 
Diana Burgess  12:17 
Play softball or go swimming. 
 
Allison Card  12:22 
And he'd be active with the family?  
 
Diana Burgess  12:23 
Oh, yeah, yeah. He would get drunk as a skunk, honey, but he would be-- he was okay. When he 
was drunk, he just was happy. He wasn't that, you know, loud or abusive. He was at peace with 
the world. And back then, it was-- everybody was driving Sherman tanks, you know. I mean, the 
cars, they would do more damage to telephone pole than the pole actually doing something to the 
car, you know, it would just knock it down and keep going. And they didn't pull you over for 
drunk driving, so there's no such thing as getting stopped for drunk driving. But...  
 
Allison Card  13:08 
Did he drink a lot? 
 
Diana Burgess  13:11 
On weekends. 
 
Allison Card  13:12 
Weekends?  
 
Diana Burgess  13:13 
Yeah, I can't say for every weekend, every weekend, but I just know when he would get drunk, it 
would definitely be on weekends. So, I mean, he worked, so it wasn't like he was an alcoholic or 
couldn't hold a job down because of his drinking. Wasn't anything like that.  
 
Allison Card  13:34 
What other kind of stuff did you do as a family? 
 
Diana Burgess  13:38 
I remember my dad used to be a truck driver, and he used to-- one of the cargoes that he would 
haul would be like chicken feed, because there was a lot of farmers in the area, and he would 
have to go from from Pennsylvania to Ohio and parts of West Virginia. And things-- I can 
remember when I was in grade school, like maybe third grade, my dad would come by and pick 
me up. I would get out at like two o'clock in afternoon, and I would go on one of his runs with 
him, and my mother would be a nervous wreck as she thought something had happened to me. 
 
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Allison Card  14:20 
Oh, because you didn't come home. 
 
Diana Burgess  14:22 
Yeah, so I remember he-- she used to say, Could you at least stop by or tell me or something so I 
won't be thinking that someone stole my child? But I used to enjoy that. He used to tell me I talk 
too much. He used to say, Can't you ever shut up? But when he was drunk, I would have to sit up 
in the front seat on my mother's lap and talk, because then he said-- as I got older, I figured out 
that kept him, you know, from falling asleep. And I would ask, Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? I 
would just-- I liked it, because it was like I was having my little-- having a spotlight on me for a 
change with my dad. 
 
Allison Card  15:09 
So did you try and do a lot of stuff to make you kind of the center for your dad?  
 
Diana Burgess  15:14 
Yeah, because I remember going fishing with him when my brother wouldn't. And we would go 
fishing like Saturday, early Saturday morning and stay till it was dark at night.  
 
Allison Card  15:24 
Would you guys talk and stuff when you're fishing?  
 
Diana Burgess  15:26 
Not so much. That's the sad thing about it. 
 
Allison Card  15:28 
Just being together. Did you guys have a place that you commonly went? 
 
Diana Burgess  15:36 
Like a fishing hole?  
 
Allison Card  15:37 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Diana Burgess  15:39 
They used to call it fishing at the dam, and that was just because they stocked the fish. It was just 
the reservoir. No, not really. It was, you know-- yeah, not really. But, trying to think. Then, of 
course, we would do that-- they called it the Sunday school picnic, the picnic of the season, of 
the summer. We would all go to amusement park. See, out here you don't have those roller 
coasters. That would be great. You could go-- they must have-- well, they had three when I was a 
child, that was the thing. I'll tell you, if you ever get on the East Coast, you have to go to 
Kennywood. Now, even nowadays, they have this, I think they call it the Fathom, but it, oh, man, 
the incline is like, straight up. And I think it goes up-- I forget how many feet, if James was here, 
he would tell us, and then it just drops straight down. Then it just-- it's--  I love roller coasters. 
Yeah, probably die on one, but I love it. Every time I go home, I try to get to Kennywood, just 
for that, just to ride the roller coasters.  
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Allison Card  17:08 
So you used to go there with your family? 
 
Diana Burgess  17:09 
Mm-hmm, and my grandmother, my father's mother, she used to take the older kids, and they'd 
catch the train. And I always had to go on the bus. So I kept thinking, every year I would be 
saying, Oh, I'm getting closer to where I can go with Grandma on the train. And then they 
discontinued the train ride. So I never did. I never rode a train till I came to Tacoma, 
Washington. 
 
Allison Card  17:36 
Really?  
 
Diana Burgess  17:37 
And I had my mother here visiting summer, and we caught the train, the Amtrak from here to 
Seattle. And that's the first time I ever-- [laughs] that's the first time I was ever on a train. God, I 
can't believe it. It's true though. So that was fun. 
 
Allison Card  17:55 
So when you came to Tacoma, you had a lot of firsts. 
 
Diana Burgess  17:58 
Yes, absolutely. Now I'm just getting fat and sassy, I think. I don't know. I've grown up a lot. 
There's a lot of stuff that I still put up with, and I don't know why. Maybe because I would be 
saying, What else would I be doing?  
 
Allison Card  18:22 
What kind of stuff do you put up with?  
 
Diana Burgess  18:25 
Well, being a single female in Tacoma, Washington is scary. So I think a lot of times I put up 
with guys that I do see, if I do see any. I think I put up with a bunch of crap that I normally 
wouldn't put up with.  
 
Allison Card  18:42 
Like what? 
 
Diana Burgess  18:46 
People saying they're going to do something and then they never do it. You know, I wouldn't be 
in their face, but I definitely would call it to their attention. Well, why do you say you're going to 
do something if you never do it? No, I just say, I don't even care. So, that's probably the 
difference there, you know? I think I have finally learned that it's okay to be by yourself. Being 
by yourself does not mean you-- you're ugly, you can't attract the opposite sex. Being by yourself 
does not mean that you are incomplete without having a man in your life, I have learned being by 
myself. I'm learning to become my best friend after all these years.  
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Allison Card  19:32 
That's wonderful.  
 
Diana Burgess  19:33 
And that I just choose to be by myself right now. 
 
Allison Card  19:38 
Do you think there'll be a time when you'll want to get married or to date someone seriously? 
 
Diana Burgess  19:45 
I hope. Yeah, I do. I just can't seem to get out there and get connected. I'm not going to find him 
in the sports bar, not going to find him in the sports arena, or the grocery store. I don't know. So 
sometimes I think maybe I'm just not gonna-- maybe it was meant that I might be by myself. I 
don't know. I've thought of taking foster kids in. 
 
Allison Card  20:16 
Really? 
 
Diana Burgess  20:18 
I thought about that, but it's so different now, you know? I'm not saying I was-- beat my children 
like my dad used to beat me, but I tell you what, I had to put a little fear in those boys, not to be 
mean, but kind of to have a little control. You know? 
 
Allison Card  20:48 
What was it like raising two kids? Single mother.  
 
Diana Burgess  20:51 
As I look back, think about it, I think it just proves too if-- when you're in a situation, you know, 
you just got to do what you got to do. And I knew that I had to raise those boys the best that I 
could, and I knew that I didn't want to raise hoodlums, and I wasn't. So that's where I would have 
to get that real firm voice, you know. Now, listen here. But I would never punish them if their 
friends were in the house or outside. I would wait till their friends had left, and I would call him 
into the room, and we would talk about it. Most times I would talk, but then like James, bless his 
little heart, he was kind of easy to sway, like he knew that he could go any place in the 
neighborhood, like in a certain amount of square blocks, neighborhood block, and he knew, like, 
he wasn't allowed across, say, like the main thoroughfare.  
 
Allison Card  22:15 
Yeah. 
 
Diana Burgess  22:16 
In other words, he had to be someplace in the neighborhood, that if I yelled, he was able to hear 
my voice and come home. But James would all the time be with the guys that lived across that 
thoroughfare, and he would just say, well, I want to go. You know, sometimes Mark would come 
and say, Guess where James is. So he knew he would-- and I didn't all the time beat him. I 
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would-- James was the type that you couldn't take-- he'd rather for you to beat him, get it over 
with. He hated to be on restriction. He hated that, because James is that kind, even now. He's a 
type of-- he's a people person. Like Mark's a lot like me, kind of a loner and somewhat 
introverted, but when you're around people, you loosen up and you talk, but prefer probably to be 
by ourselves. And James, James could never live, you know, the life that I live. He's so used to 
having friends and doing stuff, busy, which is great. That's probably why he's going to be a 
coach, but still. It was hard. And if I was to say something to any young female, I would hope 
that they wouldn't take the same avenue that I did, but I would tell them first to-- and it's 
something I preached to James and Mark, to make a life for yourself before you make a life, you 
know, before you bring another life into the world. And I'm sure my mother probably told me 
that somewhere along the line, but I was hard-headed. You can't tell me nothing. I'm going to go 
out here and find out for myself. And I thought I was doing that until after I had two kids and 
living in Washington, PA, and that little bright light that was shining so brightly inside me was 
getting dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer. 
 
Allison Card  24:30 
Now, Mark's father. How did you guys meet? Like how old were you? 
 
Diana Burgess  24:38 
When I first met Bill, 15? 15. I think-- well, I knew him before, I knew him like when I was 12. 
But you know, we were just friends, you know? No spark or nothing, we're just friends. And then 
we started-- we was at a party, and started talking, and, gosh, I thought that was my love of my 
life. That was my first true love.  
 
Allison Card  25:14 
How old were you when you were at the party that... 
 
Diana Burgess  25:21 
I think I had just turned 15. It was like the last summer, the last party of the summer, because we 
all had to go to school. He was two years older than me. He was closer to Vicky's age.  
 
Allison Card  25:37 
When did you guys get together?  
 
Diana Burgess  25:43 
That school year, when I was just turned 15, we dated until, oh my gosh, we became boyfriend 
and girlfriend. We were like an item, until after I graduated. And then, [laughs], well, I put this 
out or want to put that on recording. 
 
Allison Card  26:02 
Do you want me to pause it? 
 
Diana Burgess  26:03 
No, I'm just not going to talk about Bill and my situation. I don't think so. No, I don't want that to 
go down, because that would hurt my mother. But anyhow... 
 
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Allison Card  26:21 
if there's any point that you want me to pause the tape recorder or turn it off, okay, just let me 
know. 
 
Diana Burgess  26:26 
Okay. But, you know, like, we were friends first, and we became girlfriend and boyfriend. We 
must have dated probably three years prior to my graduating from high school, but gosh. Yeah, 
so pause it, and then if I want to repeat it-- [tape recorder paused] There was a riot when I was 
living in Cleveland, which prompted me to have to move back to Pennsylvania, and I was living 
with my son's grandmother, in the small town of Westmont, Pennsylvania. But anyhow, that was 
back-- had to be '66? I was trying to think when that was. 60... But anyhow, it was the first time 
they had those race riots, and it was really bad, because in Cleveland, I was living in a rough 
neighborhood, so I had to leave from there and return to Pennsylvania. And I found a job, and I 
had one of my-- I always call her mother-in-law, even to this day, you know, she always calls me 
her daughter-in-law. We're still friends, even now to this day. I don't even speak to my oldest 
son's father. I think he is-- I think he's a psycho. But anyhow-- 
 
Allison Card  28:00 
--now when does your relationship go to where? Because you guys went to Cleveland together. 
 
Diana Burgess  28:08 
Mm-hmm. When we came back, and it was just like in a matter of months, because Mark was 
still infant, he had to be about, maybe three months old? Four? Three/four months old, and it just 
kind of deteriorated, because when we got back to Pennsylvania, Mark's father, his name's Bill, 
he didn't want to work. In fact, he didn't work, and I was working as a sales-- [clears throat] sales 
clerk at this-- it's kind of like the [?Bahn?], but it was called Gimbels, and I would be on my feet, 
sometimes 12 hours a day. And I remember when I came home, he would meet me at the door, 
hand to me Mark as he would leave, and he would be gone all night, or into the wee tiny hours in 
the morning, out in the bars, you know. So  when I-- it finally dawned on [clears throat] me, 
because I was so trusting and so naive. I started waiting up for him or I would get-- I was-- this 
was before I was 21 because I really wasn't allowed in the bar. So I'm talking probably within a 
year's time after we moved back from Cleveland. So I would leave, and he would come and get 
me, and I would leave. He would come and get me, this really went on for probably about six 
times. 
 
Allison Card  29:48 
Mm-hmm.  
 
Diana Burgess  29:48 
And then the-- 
 
Allison Card  29:50 
--how long of a period of time? 
 
Diana Burgess  29:52 
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Sometimes a matter of hours, [laughs] God. Yeah, and I would come back, and I just got-- I think 
I just woke up one time. I just realized that this man is never going to change. 
 
Allison Card  30:11 
So you left him? 
 
Diana Burgess  30:12 
I left him. And I stay-- and it's funny because my sister Jeannie, her husband was in the Air 
Force, and she and he was having problems, and my sister Vicky was having problems with her 
husband. So here we are, three sisters all in this three bedroom house, living together. [Door 
creaks] Okay? 