Page 1 of 15 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Patricia Louise Butler 
April 25, 1992 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Antoinette Johnson  00:02 
Tape one, Washington's Women's Heritage Project. Today's date is April 25, 1992. I'm the 
interviewer, and my name is Antoinette Johnson, the interviewee is Patricia Louise Butler, and 
the place of the interview is at Miss Butler's home. Okay, grandparents. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  00:25 
You want to know about my grandparents? All four of them entered New York City from the 
West Indies and all-- Well, I know my two grandmothers and my grandfather, both of them, all 
three of them, got their citizenship papers in the United States. And Charles Daniels used to read 
the comics to me. And whenever I wasn't home, when I was supposed to, it'd be best that he not 
come looking for me, I would say.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  01:04 
Okay [laughs]. Okay, what kind of, what about the relationship between, between you and your 
grandparents?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  01:12 
It was good. It was like an extended family. After my mother died, I, my father was a railroad 
man, so, I would stay one summer with one grandparent and go to school with the other 
grandparent. And when I went to school in New York, I spent my weekends in Jersey, and when 
I went to school in Jersey, the next year, I spent my weekends in New York.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  01:37 
Oh, you was traveling a lot [inaudible]. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  01:38 
And then you did the reverse of the summers.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  01:41 
Mm-hmm, how about-- Okay, so is that, is that like the, your grandparents, your mom's or your-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  01:49 
Page 2 of 15 
 
My mother died when I was, before I went to school, because I only remember her being around 
during kindergarten and for tap dance lessons. And then when she died, I lived like that, trading 
off and on with the two grandparents. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:10 
Yeah. How about your, is this, does that include your father's mother and father?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:11 
Well, my-- Alice Johnson [phone rings], hang on, I'll tell you that.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:14 
Alice. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:23 
Because my father traveled, you know, you just didn't have any old woman taking care of your 
children. So I would stay with his mother to go to school, and then I'd stay with my mother's 
parents in New York City, and then they'd switch every year. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:38 
Okay, the grandparents would. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:40 
Yeah. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:40 
The two pairs of grandparents. Okay, how about your mom? What, tell me what you remember 
about your mom and your dad?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:49 
About my mom?  
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:50 
Do you remember any? Your mom died when you were-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:53 
I remember my mother very well. She had big eyes and she didn't speak but twice, and usually 
you didn't get whoopings. You got either punished or you got a backhand slap. And when I say 
backhand slap, I mean forwards and backwards, so that you get a forward slap and a backhand 
slap. And she didn't raise her voice, and she didn't holler and scream, she meant what she said, 
and she repeated it the second time, just in case you didn't hear her. Other than that, she would 
have you stand in a corner, and if you didn't eat your food--lima beans, that is--she'd serve them 
the next meal. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:36 
Did your mom ever, well, I'm sure-- Did any of your aunts ever tell you how your parents met?  
 
Page 3 of 15 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:42 
Mm-mm. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:43 
No. Well, did they get married in New York?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:53 
[Makes unsure sound.] 
 
Antoinette Johnson  04:00 
You don't remember? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  04:00 
Mm-mm. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  04:00 
Okay, how about education? As far as your parents. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  04:00 
My mother, my mother got high school, and she must have got married too early, because 
Mother May didn't like that. And Edgar, he got high school and, in fact, he was the only boy in 
the family that went to summer school and regular school. He went all year round to school. And 
he never had a thing about liking to work too much [laughs]. You know, he just didn't think-- he 
liked to think, that's what he did. Whereas his brother, Stanley, left home, I think at 16, was 
pretty well self-educated, because he read and wrote music and traveled around the world and all 
of that. But he wasn't liking school too well, but he was self-educated, he finished high school. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  04:43 
Yeah. But your, your grandparents, how, how much education did they have? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  04:51 
Alice did not have a lot, but Victor did--Payne--because he came from a wealthy family, so he 
was well educated. Mr. Johnson, her second husband, he was high school, eighth grade. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:15 
What, what about-- Did, did your grandparents that came from the West Indies, are you-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:24 
That was Victor Payne. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:26 
Okay.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:26 
Page 4 of 15 
 
And then Charles, Charles Daniels, he worked for Singer sewing machines, so, all his life, and 
retired from there. So, he must have had high school at least. I don't know what he did for Singer, 
but I know that's the only sewing machines we bought. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:26 
Did they come, the ones that came from the West Indies, did they come to the United States with 
money? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:47 
I guess because we owned our own apartment in, in New York, and Mildred still owns her own 
apartment. And when we lived in, when I lived in Jersey, they had their own, well, they call them 
stoops, they lived in. It wasn't a fancy apartment like the Daniels', the Daniels' apartment had a 
doorman and the brass was polished, and they had marble floor, floors go up, in the elevator. But 
the people in Jersey, Grandma Johnson, she had, like, middle income, because it was like a stoop 
apartment, like those stepping stones outside. And then it was two units, shotgun, and two above. 
So it was usually four in each one of those stoop apartments. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:34 
Yeah. How about, let's see, what type of-- How were they involved in the community, parents 
and grandparents?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:44 
What community? 
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:46 
Well, like church and stuff like that. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:47 
They all went to church, and church was the community involved. But the rest of the time was 
about going to school, about studying, about washing clothes and eating, and minding your own 
business.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:58 
How about discipline?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:01 
It was rigid [laughs]. I mean, if you weren't preparing for the church, reciting, you know how 
you recite in Sunday school? 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:11 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:11 
And for these plays and things, that's what got me out of that stuff. I don't do that much work in 
the church, yeah, always be reciting. And that wasn't fun because you'd get your hand whipped in 
the middle, the palm of your hand, if you didn't get it right, that wasn't fun.  
Page 5 of 15 
 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:26 
What were-- What roles do you remember the women playing back then, I mean, what were their 
roles, as far as--  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:35 
Mother Johnson went to work and kept a clean house, and she was very-- Matriarchy, is that a 
bossy woman, in control of her house? 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:47 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:48 
Mrs. Grandmother dear, Mother May was that way. She had three girls, and everybody knew 
what they were supposed to do. Grandma Johnson was kind of a, they both were gentle women, 
but Mrs. Johnson was more of a companion to her husband, they did more things together. But 
Mother May, she didn't do that much with her husband, I never saw them go to church together. 
He read his paper, and listened to his baseball, and read the comics to me, and went to work.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  08:24 
Yeah. So do you think that they were, were they-- The women back then that you remember, 
were they basically the head of the homes? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  08:34 
I would say Mother May might have been, but I don't think Mrs. Johnson was.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  08:39 
Okay, how about, let's see employment, as far as the men were concerned?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  08:50 
Everybody was employed.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  08:51 
Everybody? Were the women getting an education while the men were employed or?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  08:52 
No, we didn't do things like that. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  08:56 
No? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  08:57 
No, you prepared for the next generation to get an education. They went as far as they could go, 
but the next generation got an education. Because Mildred has her, she's a school teacher, and 
Doris is, she finished high school, she dropped out and went back. 
 
Page 6 of 15 
 
Antoinette Johnson  09:14 
So what, okay, what do you remember about, let's see-- How about as a child, what type of 
environment were you raised in basically? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  09:27 
Books and writing correctly. Do you remember when we had the Palmer handwriting? You 
know, two lines-- 
 
Antoinette Johnson  09:28 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  09:33 
--and then one line for small letters, yeah. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  09:41 
Was that the main? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  09:43 
The main thrust was education, do believe me. Play after you do your homework. It was, yeah.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  09:57 
You think your environment was pretty strict?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  09:58 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  09:58 
Being the only child, do you think that made a difference?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  10:00 
I think, it was 10 of us, we still would have got the same thing. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  10:03 
Yeah, were you, let's see, was there a lot of cousins and? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  10:10 
Mm-mm, small family. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  10:13 
Really? So do you, do-- You don't really know of a lot of kids being around, you were-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  10:19 
Well, no. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  10:20 
--centered, the only child. 
Page 7 of 15 
 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  10:21 
The only time I was around a lot of kids is after my grandmother came out to Washington when I 
was in the third grade. I've been in Seattle since the third grade, and that's when I got exposed to 
a large family. Up until then, basically, I was always the only child, the first grandchild. And 
that's kind of a nice situation to be in. And so when I came to live with my aunt, that would be 
Lenear Payne and Stanley Payne, their lifestyle was very different because they had, they kept 
having children. I kept trying to figure out why they have all these children and they don't have 
no money, why they keep doing this. You know, it was, they were trying to have a boy. I just, it 
just didn't make sense to me, because, you know, from the Daniels' side of the family, 
[inaudible], it was one or two. Three children was the largest family, on that side of the family, 
that we had. Well, this man had five kids, you know, four girls and one boy, and they were poor. 
And I was trying to figure out, why are they doing this? And then my father had remarried, and 
he had two children, but it was a different lifestyle. I liked living on the west coast because I 
didn't have to trade schools every year. But what I traded for was, we still changed schools every 
year, because living in Seattle, I went to Madrona, Leschi, Columbia City, Meany, Garfield was 
the longest school I ever went to in my life. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  12:10 
Did it, between the time during-- Well, between the time your mom died and you went to live 
with your, your aunt and uncle, how, was there a big difference? I mean, just-- I'm sure there was 
a big difference, but what type, where did you stand amongst a couple with five kids, as opposed 
to your mom and dad with one? How did you fit in? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  12:36 
I fit in okay, but then, you see, my aunt Mildred is like my godmother. And when you have a 
godmother, she is supposed to be like the person who takes care of the things that mother would 
have. And these days, people don't, I don't know, do they have godmothers? When they bless the 
children or Christen them, do you get a godmother? I don't know. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  13:02 
I'm not real familiar with it. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  13:03 
But I know it wasn't, it wasn't a hard life. It was just that I learned to, I got exposed to a whole 
different lifestyle. I mean, I learned to eat pinto beans, greens, a whole lot of other kind of food. I 
mean, I had never eaten cornbread. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  13:23 
Soul food.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  13:24 
Well, I don't know, that West Indian food's all right, because, see, my Grandmother Johnson, she 
cooked fungi with okra in it. So it's just, it was a regional thing for eating. And the lifestyle, all 
these people running around the house, making a lot of noise, and everything wasn't in its place 
always. I mean, growing up with five other kids, it's something else.  
Page 8 of 15 
 
 
Antoinette Johnson  13:47 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  13:48 
It's different, was a lot more noise. You had to learn to share your stuff, you did, you had to learn 
to share, and you didn't always have your own room. I learned to sew, but my mother sewed, 
Mildred sewed, Doris-- No, Doris didn't sew. Mildred sewed, Doris sewed, Mother May sewed, 
and Lillian sewed. So, my clothes were always made for me, so I never knew not to have. And if 
it looked like I wasn't going to have, I'd get someone to sew out of necessity. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  14:26 
So how did, how long did you stay with Mildred and Stanley? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  14:31 
No, Mildred and, and all of them lived on the East Coast, so I came out here with Alice Johnson. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  14:42 
Who had the five kids? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  14:44 
Stanley and Lenear.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  14:46 
Okay, how long did you stay with them? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  14:48 
Till I got married. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  14:51 
That was from what age to what age? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  14:54 
Well, I had graduated from Garfield.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  14:56 
Okay, so, but before that, you stayed with your-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  15:01 
My grandmother lived with them.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  15:02 
Oh, okay.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  15:03 
Page 9 of 15 
 
And then when she, when her husband, Freeman Johnson, came out to Seattle, Washington, they 
got a place together, and they asked me where I want to stay, and I chose to stay with Lenear and 
Stanley, with the kids. Because they moved out to Kirkland and had an outhouse, and I knew I 
needed to be in the city, that that outhouse thing wasn't gonna work at all. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  15:27 
So the quality changed when your, when you left your mom, when your mom died, and you 
moved, did the quality of living change? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  15:38 
You mean the quality of life?  
 
Antoinette Johnson  15:39 
Yeah.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  15:41 
I would say that the Daniels had more money, but I would say that the quality of life didn't really 
change because I got exposed to different cultural things. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  15:54 
How much do you remember about the time your mom died, how you felt? Because you were 
kind of young then. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  16:10 
You know, I think the saddest thing I felt about it is, when you get punished, you know, you say, 
"I wish you were dead, I wish you were dead, I wish you were dead?" And when she died, I 
remembered that I regret having said that, and that was lonesome. It took a while to adjust, 
because then, I had more emotion to my life. I mean, I was going from one place to another 
place, to the other place, to the other. And I guess maybe that's why I'm so permanent now, you 
know, I just don't like all this moving around. I mean, this is, just doesn't make sense to me.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  16:50 
So you didn't really feel like you were all alone after she left? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  16:55 
Mm-mm.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  16:55 
So you guys were, your family, really sounds like they were pretty close-knit.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  16:59 
It was a close family, even though they argued, it was close. Oh, they did, they argued. You 
know, the grandmothers worry about, "I don't like the way you combed her hair. I've told you 
about combing her hair that way." And the other one would say, "Look, these are the clothes she 
wears when she's here. I don't like the way you dress her." And I mean, this would go on every 
weekend, and I'd go sit down and have a chair while they'd go through that. 
Page 10 of 15 
 
 
Antoinette Johnson  17:24 
How about, did your grandmother, did the grandmothers have a lot of say over who you went out 
with, or?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  17:34 
The people in New York, they were very upper class, middle upper class in their attitude. Don't 
go downstairs and play with those kids down the block. In Jersey, see, I can play with anybody I 
wanted to, but when I was in New York, I only played with certain people. And I had a lot more 
than a lot of the kids in New York, and so I had to learn to fight.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  17:59 
How much racism were you exposed to? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  18:02 
In New York? What was that, all I saw was black folks, seeing white folks was, well, when you 
went downtown. So, I mean, you know, no. Racism was, well, and I also went to private school, 
it was a [inaudible] and I can't remember exactly when that was. But that's where I experienced 
racism, amongst black people, because black people would say to you, "You know, I can't see 
your veins." And so a lot of these kids belong to the blue vein club, as they called it, because 
they were light. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  18:37 
[Inaudible] school. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  18:39 
That was at private school, but that's all I remember about it, it was very ugly place. And I guess 
I complained about it because they took me out of private school. But it was a terrible place, 
because you had black people with hang ups, and that wasn't good.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  18:59 
So what about, what about high school, or junior high school-- Junior high school?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  19:06 
I did that out here. Junior High School, you did out here, we didn't have middle school.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  19:11 
[Inaudible.] 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  19:12 
I went to-- well out here?  
 
Antoinette Johnson  19:15 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  19:15 
Page 11 of 15 
 
Well, remember now, I was in the third grade out here. And so, you know, you saw racism, but 
not like now, because when you go through racism in the third, fourth grade, you don't really 
know what it is. You just know the kids reject you for one reason or another, and you're not 
really sure. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  19:38 
Yeah.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  19:33 
You, you come from a place like New York where black people reject each other periodically. 
And you come out here, and they reject, but it's white people that are rejecting you, not so much 
black kids rejecting black kids.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  19:39 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  19:55 
So it's a different kind of whole stereotype. One of the things I remembered about coming out 
west was, you never saw this much green unless you went to a park. I mean, people with green 
grass grown in the yard, why, that's just ridiculous, must be country out here. Growing flowers 
every which way. Because, you know, you have flower boxes in apartment houses. You know, it 
was just, yeah, it was just a different lifestyle. You know, and you have more society, you know, 
you went to the theater. I remember going to the Milky Way and, which are all the theaters down 
Broadway in New York, they called it the Milky Way. And, you know, you went to plays and 
went to museum trips with the school, and they didn't do those same kind of things out here. 
They do them differently. You go mountain climbing, camping, just did different things. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  20:57 
Let's see, what about teachers? What, what specific events in your childhood can you remember 
that may have left, or left impressions?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  21:11 
Left impressions in terms of school? Well, let me put it like this, New York schools, P.S. 10 was 
like a block, there was a block between P.S. 10 and the Catholic school. And the biggest thing 
about that was that the public school's students used to like to beat up the Catholic school 
students at lunchtime, after school, Not so much before school, but after school and lunchtime. 
Being the teacher's pet was not the thing to do, because you could get beat up for that. And being 
an only child, you'd learn to mind your business well, because I got to witness one day, 
somebody who was about, oh, she must have been around my age, whatever age I was, but I 
don't know who she fronted off, and she said she's gonna go home to get her brother. And before 
she could go get the brother, all the other relatives to whoever she was lipping off with were 
there, and they whipped that girl naked in the street. I remembered that. And somebody gave her 
a coat to go home. But you know, it's a good thing to mind your own business. [?I learned that 
early?]. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  22:59 
Page 12 of 15 
 
What did, what did the teachers, did they do anything?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  22:41 
What's the teacher-- What the teacher gonna do? She's subject to get whipped herself. I mean, if 
the truant officer could've gotten in, because the kids make a circle around you, and you gotta get 
through that circle to get to the fight, you know? And it's ugly, it's ugly. People have been, 
you've seen people forced into fights. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  23:05 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  23:05 
And it's not, you know? And I remember that, and that was the nice thing about coming to 
Seattle, Washington. Kids didn't do that on the school ground because, you know. I think I got 
my face washed in the snow once in Jersey City. But it's, the things they talk about gangs do, 
happened back in New York back then.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  23:34 
[?Really?]? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  23:36 
Yeah, I mean to get your face washed in snow, somebody's got to hold you down. I can't 
remember what I did, but that was uncomfortable. This girl, it had to be ugly for her to go 
through that experience. And you know, that's a whole gang of people, that's a family, and they 
just whipped her. I mean, that has got-- [inaudible] to see somebody's clothes torn off of her and 
defenseless, and not necessarily will somebody come and help you. And I can't remember if 
somebody did other than to help her get away. And it's, it's ugly. I just didn't like it. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  24:17 
So when you came down here, were you more or less relieved, or felt some of the pressure taken 
off? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  24:22 
Yeah, I guess you could say that. You know, actually, when you mention it, now, you know, 
there was an article in the paper about how kids beat up kids who are making good grades in 
school, and how these kids feel. Well, since the Daniels were middle class, and since my dresses 
were starched, a lot of the kids, you know, their families didn't dress up, and a lot of them did. 
But a lot of kids go to private school in New York, and so if you came to school looking fairly 
decent, some kids want to beat you up for that. And so it's like, kids who are fairly smart, they go 
to school, they want to beat them up now, that's the new thing. The other thing, you get beat up 
for being teacher's pet or being the monitor, teacher sending out, go out the room and she'll 
assign a monitor. You want to say, "No, thank you," because you'd get beat up, "If you report 
me, I'ma beat you," you know? And so that was one of, another thing I didn't like about school. 
But other than that, life wasn't too bad.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  25:27 
Page 13 of 15 
 
Were you pretty quiet in school then? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  25:32 
I don't know. It's, I do remember a teacher shaking me. Somebody threw a spit wad at me, and 
she came over and shook me and went over and shook them too. I mean, she literally picked you 
up out the seat and shook you. So go home and tell? Well, you [inaudible], might get another 
whipping or shaking. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  25:58 
So were the teachers into corporal punishment back then?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  26:01 
You know, I believe you could get sent to the principal for a good paddle whipping, not tennis 
shoe. And I had predominantly Afro American teachers. They didn't play. They did not play. 
Yeah, they did whip your hand with the ruler, yeah.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  26:22 
How was-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  26:24 
And you did study your lesson unless you want to sit in the corner with the dunce cap on. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  26:50 
How'd the teachers communicate with the parents? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  26:51 
Very well. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  26:34 
You guys couldn't make a move without, I mean, did they, was it-- Did it seem more of a, did 
they seem to have more of a relationship or rapport with each other than the teachers might have 
with the parents nowadays? Like, as for like, your kids and their teachers, did their teachers 
[inaudible]? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  26:52 
I don't know what these teachers and stuff do, because, you know, we didn't have that many 
phones, but if teachers set a note on my picture, it got there. And if it was a caring parent, they 
had a relay-- they had a conversation about that. And when things happen, at least in Jersey City, 
when things happened on the school yard, parents came to see about it and they had attendance 
in the school yard. In New York, I don't remember there being anybody at P.S. 29 that was just-- 
I guess that's why I ended up going to private school for [?a little while?].  
 
Antoinette Johnson  26:53 
Do you remember any of your grandparents having to go up to the school?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  27:02 
Page 14 of 15 
 
Are you kidding? No, not for me. No, no. I had two aunts, no, Grandmother May was not going 
to have to go to school for me. No, that wasn't gonna happen. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  27:46 
So they put the fear of God in you?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  27:48 
Oh, yeah, got that right. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  27:52 
Okay, how about, how about household duties? What--  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  27:58 
I didn't have many in New York, because I was the only child, you know, so. And everybody 
was just about grown, I mean, the two aunts were older, and so there wasn't that much to do. I 
remember setting the table. I mean, setting the table was a major event, because you had to put 
that silverware on the table right. And to this day, I always set the table a full set.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  28:20 
So, that leaves a lot of time as a, free time, as a child-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  28:25 
What free time?  
 
Antoinette Johnson  28:26 
What did you-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  28:27 
I had handwriting, well, I had music I could listen to, I could play the recorder, I could listen to 
the radio, I learned to sew. What else did I do? Oh, I got a pair of roller skates, and I learned to 
roller skate because, I mean, I really learned to roller skate because, you know, in New York, 
they have what they call Morningside Park that runs into the Central Park and the next park, but 
it's 125 blocks straight. And I live right at Morningside Park, which is 117th, and so I had skated 
down to, like, the first block of the park, and they were down, all the kids were down there 
waiting, "We going to take those skates today." Well, I never skated so fast in all my life, and I 
didn't fall either, because I didn't want to tear that dress. [?'Cause then I would have to?] put up 
with Mother May and Mildred and Doris. That's why, I really didn't want to hear that, and I 
really didn't want to face this mob here. And I really did learn how to roller skate that day.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  28:27 
So were you, do you think you, do you consider yourself as kind of a loner?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  28:27 
Yeah, I can be--  
 
Antoinette Johnson  28:27 
Page 15 of 15 
 
A lonesome child? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  28:27 
Yeah, yeah.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  29:13 
And do you think that if-- Well, because you real outspoken now, so I don't see, were you real 
quiet? A quiet kid? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  29:28 
Well, honey, yeah, I might have been quiet, but to survive, yes, speak up. You know, I think it 
comes out of necessity. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  29:58 
So does that sound like, you with adults-- Speaking up with adults, or with other children or? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  30:07 
Oh, I think it's more since I've been an adult, more since, hmm. Well, coming out on the West 
Coast, it's easier to speak your mind without having to go to war. Fisticuffs is not where it's at. 
It's really that-- it was more fisticuffs in New York, now out here, it was more about talking and 
maybe coming to compromise. Kids just weren't into war-- 
 
Antoinette Johnson  30:41 
Yeah.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  30:41 
--out here, they just weren't. And if it was a racist thing, they were just, I didn't go out of my way 
to find a bunch of white people, and I just really, I haven't had-- [Recording ends.] 