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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Patricia Louise Butler 
April 25, 1992 
Cassette 2, Side 2 
 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  00:00 
[Tape starts mid-sentence]-- man who's decided to write about what I'm doing. But heritage 
about black people has been passed on, like Indians pass it on, through oral history. And it's just 
now that white man's decided this is something he needs to write about, it needs to be out there 
and on the news. But, you know, it's a group think, because everything the white man associates 
with, it's got to be a groupy thing. But you know, the individuals go on and they want to tar and 
feather somebody as a group. Nobody wants to take ownership.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  00:42 
Yeah. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  00:43 
So that [?'60 medium?] thing with black power and all of that was something they chose to 
feature and do that. A lot of those things had been going on that were positive, and they usually 
don't choose to stroke you in a positive way, they usually give you negative strokes. So that was 
just one era where they went through a lot of positive stroking of Afro Americans.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  01:09 
How much of that were you, how much black history, the real stuff, were you introduced to in 
high school? I mean, where you heard about positive role models, black role models, and stuff 
like that? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  01:24 
You found your own.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  01:25 
Yeah.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  01:26 
There wasn't none at Garfield, except this one girl, I told you, I saw here in the counselor's 
office. Yes, I followed her along the way, I found out she was Seventh Day Adventist, and I 
think she has a sister now that's a nurse. And found out that her babysitter-- I mean, her other 
sister turned out to be my babysitter when I was going to practical nursing, but she somehow 
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kept being entwined, tangled in my life. But you know, you kind of look around for some role 
models, you, you have to. Because you're out here by yourself, you have to find some good out 
there to follow. And I've been very fortunate. I found a lot of good folks to, you know, follow 
behind.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  02:13 
What do you think influenced that? Lack of, not having been introduced to those role models in 
school or, or what? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  02:26 
Well, you see people doing things that you like, and I think you try to see if you can get to do 
some of those things. Because I just met [?Freddie Maygold Shea?] on accident, working at 
Odessa Brown. And Dr. Lavisa was our family doctor, and I got to work for her. And I think 
she's, she is the only black pediatrician at that time. So you know, as you go along, you're 
looking for people like you in all the places that you want to be, you know. So, if you don't have 
too bigger ambitions, I guess you won't find none, because you're not looking to be anything, you 
know. So if you're looking to be about something, you find your own. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:11 
It's weird, in, like in-- Like in New York, for instance, they say that a lot of welfare mothers have 
welfare babies, and they grow up, have more welfare babies. So you didn't really have to, did 
you even know about welfare back then?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:28 
Mm-mm. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:30 
I mean that that wasn't even a possibility?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:34 
Mm-mm. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:33 
An idea or a notion? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:34 
[?Then when you come out here, you know?]. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  03:40 
Not even from your friends? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  03:42 
No. That wasn't even a thought. And I'd been on welfare and off of it too. But you know, I say to 
people that are on welfare, "Your best thing to do is try to get off." And some people tell you 
that, "But I can make ends meet better if I stay on welfare," but only until this child is X amount 
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of time old, because it gets to be a bad habit. It locks you into a rut. If you can't use it as a tool to 
get out of your rut, then it becomes a habit that's hard to break, 
 
Antoinette Johnson  04:17 
So you, even, even up here, you never had any friends-- Did you have any friends who had 
babies who were on welfare in high school? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  04:28 
I'm sure the Sims girl must have been on welfare for a minute. But you know, when people, back 
then in the '50s, a lot of the parents, if they were working, they would tell their child to stay at 
home. "You go to school, we'll find a way to make things work." And I don't think you talked 
about welfare. Now, when my daughter was coming up, she came home one day and asked me, 
"How do you get your welfare benefits?" Benefits? This is not a benefit. This is something you 
have to have a hurt for, so you can get gain. And it's only a benefit versus living in the street, 
versus having no way to pay for a baby. But it's, kind of goes against a lot of grains and so we 
had to talk about that. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:16 
Did you guys run into any major like, I want to say wars, or, like Korean, Korean or Vietnam 
wars? I don't even remember what time they, they-- No, that was in the '60s, wasn't it?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:29 
Yeah.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:30 
The Vietnam War and, but the Korean War was in the, that was before. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:34 
Well, Vietnam and Korea, aren't they the same?  
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:36 
Korean one was, Korean War was before the Vietnam War. And then there was like-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:45 
But the Vietnam War was never declared a war.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:47 
No. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  05:50 
It was just, I forget what the formal name was, but it was never really a war.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  05:55 
So were you guys really focused in on any type, any of that stuff in high school? You know, out 
there--  
 
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Patricia Louise Butler  06:02 
No, because you had the Second World War, and then you had the Korean incident, and now we 
have the Persian Gulf. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:10 
Yeah, so it's just kind of?  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:14 
And then we had the boycott, Martin Luther King, all those things were to the focus.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:25 
Yeah, okay. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:28 
We had the hippie movement, the yuppie and the puppy movement. But I can't think of nothing 
else you all got going yet that I've lived through. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:41 
That, weren't they-- Were they into shelters, bomb shelters and stuff back then, though? 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:47 
Yeah, you had some bomb shelters in the school.  
 
Antoinette Johnson  06:49 
Prepare yourself for this and prepare yourself for that.  
 
Patricia Louise Butler  06:52 
Wasn't that in the hippie stage? Wasn't that the hippie movement, free love and all of that, didn't 
you have shelters and all of that, anti-bomb and all-- 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:01 
No, it was before that, because you had families-- 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:04 
After the Second World War? 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:05 
Yeah. Y'all must not have been into it if you don't remember it. 
 
Patricia Louise Butler  07:12 
I don't think I remember it. I mean, I remember that the bomb shelters were there, and I guess it 
was like the earthquake drills the kids are going through now. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:23 
Things must have been pretty settled though, during that time, though? Weren't you [inaudible] 
between the countries?  
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Patricia Louise Butler  07:31 
But you know what? I think people born in the depression have really lived a peaceful life in the 
United States. And my husband and I are depression babies, but oh well, we're gonna suffer 
when we get old. 
 
Antoinette Johnson  07:43 
Okay. [Tape stops and starts] This is the end of session one on April 25, 1992. 