My Lincolnwood Story- Beverly Friend

“When [Lincolnwood] library came, there was a tremendous satisfaction and happiness. The community really pulled together.”

Beverly Friend has lived in Lincolnwood since 1964. She met her husband, James Friend, while they were teaching English at the Navy Pier campus of the University of Illinois. She spent the majority of her career as a journalism teacher at Oakton Community College. She maintains a very active lifestyle, writing theater reviews, and drumming as a percussionist with the North Shore New Horizons band.

The views and opinions expressed in interviews do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Lincolnwood Public Library, including its Board of Trustees and staff.


TRANSCRIPT:

Lev Kalmens  0:01  
My name is Lev Kalmens. I'm an Information Services Librarian at the Lincolnwood Public Library. Today is July 30, 2019. And I'm talking to Beverly Friend for our oral history project, My Lincolnwood Story. Beverly, thank you for being hear. And what is your Lincolnwood story?

Beverly Friend  0:20  
Well, I'm going to start with the day we found the houses in Lincolnwood. 

Lev Kalmens  0:24  
Okay.

Beverly Friend  0:25  
I'd just come home from Michael Reese Hospital--we lived at Prairie Shores--with my brand new baby. And my husband had gone to pick up my two-year-old from Milwaukee with grandparents. Okay? And the phone rang and my neighbor Raz Haskel said, "Oh my God, you must come right now. I found two townhouses in Lincolnwood. And they are perfect for us." And I said, "I'm sorry, I can't come. I've got a brand new baby here. And I can't leave the house for a week." And she said, "My husband's a doctor. No matter what goes wrong, he will save you. You must come now." So my husband came back with his mother, and we left his mother and aunt with the baby. And I took my three-year-old and we went to Lincolnwood. And we went to Pratt between Kimball and Trumbull and found the two houses, and we bought them. And we lived there happily for many years afterwards. And that was 1964.

Lev Kalmens  1:18  
And where did you come from to Lincolnwood?

Beverly Friend  1:21  
We lived in Prairie Shores. We had apartments there. I was originally from Milwaukee, but I'd been teaching. I was married. My husband and I both taught at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. We were a department romance. And then we wanted a house, and we wanted to be with the Haskels who were extremely close friends. And we bought them, and it was wonderful. We regarded ourselves as one extended family. She would send the children off to school, and I would catch them when we got back, where we worked our lives. We had looked in Evanston. But in Evanston, the children came home for lunch. And in Lincolnwood they didn't. So we could work and do other things. But it was a wonderful decision, the best decision we ever made. And I stayed in Lincolnwood. I'm at the Barclay now.

Lev Kalmens  2:08  
So you say that you met your husband teaching?

Beverly Friend  2:12  
Yes, we were a department romance. We were both at Navy Pier.

Lev Kalmens  2:15  
So what is your background? What did you--

Beverly Friend  2:19  
[overlapping] We both were English teachers and lovers of literature. But Jim did a lot with literature. He ran the--I'm sure you must have a copy of this--the Lincolnwood Library Literary Festival, and that should be in your archives. And he brought Isaac Singer and Malamed and Fred Pole and Elie Weisel and Harry Patrykus and Gwendolyn Brooks and Scott Turow over many years. In fact, when he died, I offered to sponsor future series, and the library board didn't want to under one person's name. It would have been the James Friend Memorial Lectures, and they didn't want to do that. They wanted to spread it wider, so we never went ahead with it.

Lev Kalmens  3:02  
Yeah, it's interesting because I've been looking to do something along those lines. And I've come across those names that they were here. It's astounding.

Beverly Friend  3:14  
Yes, yes, we [inaudible] keep the posters. It had been a live show. We had posters of everyone. Jim's idea, which worked very well, was that the library gave an award to each one because if a person is getting an award, they're more likely to come than just to say, "Would you like to give a lecture?" And each person he asked did come. He got the inspiration from Notre Dame University, which had a junior year lecture series. But at Notre Dame, the lecturer stayed for a week. And here, I guess at the beginning, he did several days, but later on, it was just once a week. People didn't want to come Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to lectures. It worked out separate but very successful.

Lev Kalmens  3:56  
So, let's go a little, you know, before you move to Lincolnwood. Tell me about your childhood, your parents--where were they from? 

Beverly Friend  4:07  
Oh, gosh. 

Lev Kalmens  4:07  
What did they do?

Beverly Friend  4:08  
I thought I had to concentrate on Lincolnwood. 

Lev Kalmens  4:11  
No, not necessarily. 

Beverly Friend  4:12  
All right. My father was a physician in Milwaukee. My mother stayed home. I was brought up in South Milwaukee, which I hated. It was a very anti-Semitic community. And I owe my happiness in my life to the telephone company because when I was 14, Ma Bell made it no more long distance between Milwaukee and South Milkwaukee. And my father, who had been afraid to move because he thought his patients wouldn't call him long distance, was willing to move. So I start my happy life from age 14.

Lev Kalmens  4:42  
What do you remember about growing up in Milwaukee?

Beverly Friend  4:45  
In Milwaukee? Just going to high school, finding friends, which I hadn't found in South Milwaukee, being more accepted. I was more comfortable. And then I went to Wisconsin. I went without a thought as if it was compulsory. And then I worked. And I had a job juggling pictures of small chickens and lists of where you could buy chicken dinners to be delivered to your house. And I ran the chickens down the left side of the ad and across the bottom and around the side. And then I thought, if I have to spend juggling these chickens for the rest of my life, I will kill myself. So I thought and I decided I'd go back to graduate school. And my parents said, "Yes, but you must do something practical" because with an English degree from Wisconsin, I was unemployable, just unemployable. So I decided. I had wanted to go to undergraduate school at Northwestern. But my mother said I was not as sophisticated as the Chicago girls. And I'm 84 now, and I'm still not as sophisticated as the Chicago girls. But I went to Northwestern. I went twice. I went for my Master's in '58. And my doctorate in '75. And I met Jim. He'd come up. He'd been at the University of Chicago, and he went to University of Illinois, and then University of Connecticut, [inaudible], and then the University of Chicago, and then we met at Navy Pier.

Lev Kalmens  6:17  
What was your doctorate in?

Beverly Friend  6:19  
English. English education, really. And at Navy Pier, I was one involved in a very big lawsuit, where they let 19 of us go priority granting tenure. And four of us didn't have doctorates, and the rest did. And when we weren't rehired, and it was a tremendous lawsuit, I swore I'd never be without the top credential again. So I went back to school and then ended up at Oakton for 25 years very happily.

Lev Kalmens  6:43  
What was it about English that drew in? What was your dream job growing up?

Beverly Friend  6:56  
Oh, what a question to ask a woman from my age group. I went to college to get a husband. I had no intention of a career. Everybody did. I wouldn't have gone back to a high school reunion if I hadn't gone back married. I mean, even married 10 times it wouldn't have mattered. I'd be married. I just fell into it. I like stories. I liked reading stories and talking about stories and writing stories and writing essays and giving speeches. And I didn't like the real world as much. As a child, that was an escape. And even now. It was a love of reading. But it was for the fun.

Lev Kalmens  7:31  
Was reading something that your parents encouraged you with? 

Beverly Friend  7:34  
Oh, yes. They read me stories, and yes, my parents were voracious readers. We had an extensive library.

Lev Kalmens  7:40  
What was the first book that you remember reading?

Beverly Friend  7:47  
Oh, my. Well, the most impressive was my mother brought me Golden Books from the dime store in Milwaukee, when she'd go downtown. And there were a story of Lincoln and the story of Pocahontas. And I remember there was the $64 question--not thousand--a $64 question on the radio. And they asked, "What was the name of Pocahontas's father?" And my mother didn't know. And my father didn't know. But I knew, and I said, "Powhatan!" And they were so impressed, I thought there must be something to this reading idea. It's a good deal. But I remember, in fact, I just wrote an essay for something called "story worth," which asked what values you're most proud of. And I wrote about having been influenced by Pollyanna and her search for the golden lining and everything. And that was another influential book. But I read everything. My father had a wonderful book called You Had Heredity, by Amram Scheinfeld. And it had pictures. It had diagrams of two ugly parents who could produce a gorgeous child and two gorgeous parents who could produce an ugly child. And I thought it was fascinating.

Lev Kalmens  8:57  
So you said that you ended up at Oakton Community College?

Beverly Friend  9:01  
[overlapping] At Oakton as a journalism teacher, and English teacher, and advisor of the student newspaper. In fact, next Saturday, we're having a reunion of some of the people that worked for the newspaper at the Ram Restaurant, so I'm looking forward.

Lev Kalmens  9:04  
And you're retired, or are you--?

Beverly Friend  9:16  
Retired for 20 years.

Lev Kalmens  9:18  
But you still give lectures, and you seem like you're still active.

Beverly Friend  9:22  
Oh, you have no idea. I give lectures here and in Florida, and I'm a percussionist with the New Horizons band, and I'm a theater critic for Chicago online. And I'm Executive Director of the China Judaic Studies Association--I further the study of Judaism in China. And I do lots of things.

Lev Kalmens  9:48  
How did you fall into, for instance, being a theatre critic?

Beverly Friend  9:54  
I really don't know. Oh yes, I do know. I went to see a play by Harry Petrakis, who I liked very much, and I liked the play. And I was advising the student newspaper at Oakton. And I came home, and at four o'clock in the morning, I got up and I wrote about the play. I couldn't sleep, and I liked it so much. It was done by the Story Theater. And I didn't know what to do with the review, so I sent it to a paper that Oakton dealt with. We went to the same printer to have our newspapers printed, and they printed it. So I was very happy. I didn't expect money. And then three or four years later, I did another review in a similar way. But this one I sent to the Learner Papers and several others. And the paper I'd sent the first one to had said, "You could have sent it anywhere. We're not paying and we didn't care who else printed it." But Lerner said, "Is it exclusive to us?" And I said, "No." And they took it anyhow. And then they offered me the job. So I went from Learner to Pioneer, to various around the industry. I got paid, then I didn't get paid, then I got paid in tickets, you know. They said, "Don't quit your day job." And they were right. But now I'm online strictly. And you know what's very interesting? When I'm in Florida, I review for the Chicago online outlets. And I thought they wouldn't want a reviewer from Chicago. But it doesn't matter nowadays. Because my review is linked to the website of the theater. So it doesn't matter where I'm from or where the review initially appears because it's everywhere. And so they're very welcoming in Florida for reviewers.

Lev Kalmens  11:32  
How long have you been writing theatre reviews? Because I was gonna ask what has been the most memorable production?

Beverly Friend  11:40  
I'll tell you, I've been doing it less now. But I wouldn't say the most memorable production, but the best productions I have always thought were at the Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier. I'm always happy to go see them, to see Steppenwolf. Some of the theaters are just up. Chicago is the theatre capital of the world. New York thinks it is. But we have, what did I think, 85 theaters putting on 200 plays a year. I just came back from London and reviewed three plays for Chicago there. And it was just wonderful. They didn't ask me to, but I did Matilda and I did The Play Where Everything Goes Wrong, and I did Book of Mormon. I went with my daughter, and it was just wonderful to be there and reviewing plays too.

Lev Kalmens  12:27  
So, let's go back. So, you said you moved to Lincolnwood in ... it was 1964. What was the town like back then?

Beverly Friend  12:36  
Well, there was no library. 

Lev Kalmens  12:39  
True. 

Beverly Friend  12:40  
And so we used Morton Grove and we used Skokie. And then, I remember when they bought the little grocery store that stands where we are sitting right now. And then, I remember the big snowstorm and the roof fell in on the grocery store. And then we all collected money because we wanted for there to be a library in Lincolnwood. So when this library came, it was a tremendous satisfaction and happiness. The community really pulled together. So that was what I thought was really memorable. But I liked it. I like the the suburbs. I like to walk into the parks with the children. I liked it. Well the school system was big. We were in Prairie Shores, and so it was in the South Side of Chicago. And we had a choice: we could go to a private school, or we could go to the suburbs. And for the same money, we had a home and everything else, where the same money would have been for tuition if we stayed in the city. So, my neighbor Haskell's daughter was six. My oldest was only three. But it was time to move. We moved together.

Lev Kalmens  13:43  
What were some of the restaurants or stores?

Beverly Friend  13:48  
The Kenilworth restaurant is now, and then there was [inaudible]. [inaudible] and China was in that spot. And every time I would drive by, I would say, "Someday, I'm going to go into [inaudible] China." And finally one day, I did. At that rate, I would never have known what was there. And the Milk Pail for grocery shopping. And oh my god, and the Dairy Queen for ice cream. And Community Discount World. Trying to  think. And of course many stores still exist. And Marshall Field was here, and Sears, which was just gone, is here. There were lots of places that went. It was just a very pleasant community. And oh, what I appreciated the most, and which was wonderful, was what the school district did. The school district ran bridge, and they ran bridge games where you were teamed up. We were all members of the PTA. And we'd play one month at our house, one month in somebody else's house. And that's how you got to know your community with this going back and forth. And then at the end, they would have a big gathering at the school, and they'd give out trophies for the bridge games. And we met the whole community and made friends that were lifetime friends from those bridge games.

Lev Kalmens  15:02  
So you were active in the PTA?

Beverly Friend  15:04  
No. My desire and my actuality had no relationship to each other. I did very little with the PTA. I did very little with the religious training. I was never a room mother. I had all these intentions. Nothing happened to any of them. But I did play bridge with them. But I was a working mother, so I was in and out.

Lev Kalmens  15:28  
What are some of your favorite stories from your work life?

Beverly Friend  15:35  
Well, I'll tell you a Lincolnwood Library story. 

Lev Kalmens  15:37  
Absolutely.

Beverly Friend  15:38  
Alright. I had trouble hanging on to a library card. I would get one, and then I would lose it and be very embarrassed. So I was coming for a card. And I said to myself, "I never walk to the library. I'm not going to put the card in my wallet. I'm not going to put it in my purse. I'm going to put the new card in the car, in the rain visor--in the visor over the driver's seat. And therefore, whenever I go to the library, I will know where the card is." So I went in and got the card. And I went back and I went into my car, and I put my hand in to slip it in, and something was there: two more library cards. So three times I had this brilliant, brilliant idea of where to put the card. You see, and I can tell you today I don't know where my card is today either. It didn't work. But I was thinking of writing into "life in these United States" because it was such a great moment when I reached it and found the other cards and thought, I have done this three times now.

Lev Kalmens  16:35  
But going back to ... from work life, from teaching--

Beverly Friend  16:39  
From teaching, I suppose the day that Jim and I got engaged. And my first class, somebody noticed the ring. And by the time my fourth class came, the entire class showed up and congratulated me. So that was a lot of fun. And he courted me with this mother's cookies.

Lev Kalmens  16:53  
What was the most, or what has been the most fulfilling part about teaching for you?

Beverly Friend  16:59  
Oh, it's all been fulfilling. I teach now in Florida. And the last class I taught had 134 students, and they're all senior citizens. And they all read what you ask them to read, or for seeing films, they are responsive. At the end of a class, they gave me a standing ovation. I feel like a movie star. That is extremely gratifying. But no. I loved advising a student newspaper. My husband had done that at Chicago State. He was Chairman of the Engligh Department of Chicago State. And towards the end, I was getting tired. And sometimes I would find when I signed a story, that I was the only person in the room who actually read the story. So by the time I retired, I was ready to retire. But I liked it, and I like teaching senior citizens a lot because they are responsive. And they do the work. And you see their joy in doing it. And the younger ones were not as much readers and not as much interested. So it was motivation was more difficult.

Lev Kalmens  18:00  
What institution, or where do you teach at in Florida?

Beverly Friend  18:04  
I teach in a place called Windmark Country Club. It's paradise. It's sleepaway camp for senior citizens. There are 8,500 people. And I think there are a 1000-seat theater. I mean, it's big. There are 19 different complexes with pools. And then, there are classes and an enormous number of activities. Enormous. And we go for six months.

Lev Kalmens  18:33  
So you spend half of the year?

Beverly Friend  18:35  
Yes. 

Lev Kalmens  18:36  
In Florida?

Beverly Friend  18:36  
In Florida. For the past 15 years.

Lev Kalmens  18:40  
And so, throughout your career, your work life, what are some of the biggest lessons that you learned?

Beverly Friend  18:47  
Well, the biggest thing that happened to us--and this I don't want to forget to tell you--my husband was planning to go on a sabbatical to study Hemingway's reputation 20 years after Hemingway's death. And one of his colleagues had a Fulbright to teach in China. So the man from Nanjing University came, and my husband went out for lunch with them. And I don't know what they said or what they ate, but it must have been a fantastic lunch because when he got home, he invited Jim to come and teach in Nanjing in China. And I came home and Jim told me, and I said, "Well, you got other plans." He said, "Well." I said, "Why don't you go to China the first semester and teach, and then have someone else take over the second year while you go on to Paris and do other things?" which is what he did. And when he was there, he met a professor named Shu Shin, who was teaching a course in Jewish American authors but had never actually met a Jew ever. And Jim was the first. And Jim came out of such a reform background, that at the high holidays on the South Side, they blew a trumpet not a shofer during that religious service. So anyhow, to make a long story short. Shu Shin came and lived with us and taught at Jim's school. And Jim died during that time. And when Shu Shin went back to China, he was very worried. We thought we'd never see him again once he went back to China, he would be gone forever. But when he lived with us, if you said to me, "Come to my house for dinner next week," I would have said to you, "Yes, but we have a Chinese Professor living with us; may we bring him?" So he lived very close with us. So when it came time to go back, he put an article in the Sentinel newspaper, which said, "I've saved a few pennies, but I can use a few dimes," you know. And that he would love to go to Israel. And what turned out was that he was invited by Hebrew Union College to spend three weeks in Israel, and El Al airlines gave him an Air Flight. So when he got back to China, he gave two lectures. One was "my two years in the United States," and he got a nice turnout. And the other one was "my three weeks in Israel," and he got an enormous turnout. Andway, to make a long story short, he has become the leading scholar of Judaic studies in all of China. And this is a cover of Encyclopedia Judaica that he did, and it's been given to scholars and academics and ambassadors who go to Israel. And he's been in Israel and the United States many times. He got an honorary doctorate from Bar Ilan University. So he changed all of our lives. Now, Jim died in 1986. So Jim didn't live to see any of this. He was like a catalyst. They became friends. Jim had written in his diary, that he had a conversation with Shu Shin--the kind of conversation he's always wished he'd had with his own brother and never had, so he's very close. So because of this, I've been in China seven times. I was once honored by the university there. My children have been. My cousin is now working in the China Center at University of Chicago. I mean, everybody's life changed from this man. And in actuality, there were three people who lived with us during these years of Lincolnwood. One was an AFS student from Yugoslavia and a [inaudible]. One was a Chinese student who came after my husband died but had been his student, named Wahlu. And Shu Shin. And each of these made an enormous impact on our lives and on the lives of my children.

Lev Kalmens  18:53  
Tell me about your family. Is it a close-knit family?

Beverly Friend  20:44  
[overlapping] Very close. I have two daughters by birth two by extension--the two that came to live with us. And I treat them all the same. And they all live within a 45-minute ride of where I am. I'm very lucky to have the children nearby. And I have one great granddaughter and another great granddaughter on the way.

Lev Kalmens  22:35  
Wow. Tell me about some family traditions that you have.

Beverly Friend  22:41  
Alright. Well, the biggest one is Passover. And I always loved it. I just, you know, it's a Jewish Thanksgiving when you get together. And after Jim died, I didn't make it in my house anymore. It's a big chore. I make it in a hotel. I always come back from Florida. And I have up to 50 people or more, sitting in a large square. And my daughter, who went very religious in high school and went to Ida Crown Academy, leads it, and we have this wonderful Seder. I mean, it's not all Jewish people; several are some nuns and people we know from other walks of life. But it's expandable. If you say you'd like to come, I can I can have you because it's infinitely expandable in the ballroom at the Renaissance hotel. And also in terms of highlight experiences, Jim had many authors who were friends and like the ones he had here. Mary Hemingway came to speak at Chicago State University when they dedicated the library at Chicago State to Ernest Hemingway. And Jim wanted me to make dinner for her. And he wanted me to make bouillabaisse, and I am not an elaborate cook. In fact, I had to borrow the bowls from the bakery restaurant. I didn't. But it was during Passover, and you can't have the fish that are in bouillabaisse because it is not kosher particularly not for Passover. And my daughter was going to the Ida Crown Academy and ultra, ultra Orthodox at that point. So it was an experience. I was tempted to put matzah balls in the bouillabaisse. I didn't, but I did serve matzah with it. And Tracy ate in the kitchen so that she wouldn't see us. But it was something that I felt like I could have written up as a wild Seinfeld kind of story, you know, with Mary Hemingway eating bouillabaisse during Passover, that people wouldn't have believed, but it would have been hysterical to write.

Lev Kalmens  24:30  
Yes, that's something that you could just make up like that.

Beverly Friend  24:33  
Oh. No, I mean, it was so outrageous. So outrageous. And a matter of fact, Jim had arranged for an actor to do a scene at Chicago State University on the last day of Hemingway's life. A one man show. A man with a beard would be Hemingway. And as I'm sitting there with Elie Wiesel, and with Mary Hemingway, and with my younger daughter, Marla, Marla turned to me and said, "Mommy, isn't Hemingway going to commit suicide? And we're sitting with Mary Hemingway. How are we going to sit next to her and have him commit suicide?" And of course he does. And afterwards, I yelled at my husband, "How could you? How could you have had this play put on with the wife there?" And he said, "No, I asked her before, and she said it was perfectly fine." So I said, "Well, maybe she killed him." And he got so offended, so offended that I said that. But when Marla looked at me and said that. And she was a kid, you know, a youngster, but she knew how could we sit next to this lady and have her husband--. If a stranger committed suicide, would you want to sit through a play, let alone your husband? That was a memorable moment. 

Lev Kalmens  25:38  
What was her reaction?

Beverly Friend  25:40  
Calm. Calm. Very calm. My husband in his college days, he had written a musical, To For Whom the Bell Tolls. And they had Anne Bancroft singing a demo on it. But Mary Hemingway never gave permission for them to put on the play. But my husband wrote wonderful music. And Tracy now writes liturgy. She has three CDs out of her music, mostly in Hebrew, but changing the melodies of the prayers that you ordinarily hear, which she's very active with. Both of my daughters are very accomplished. Tracy is ... I'm not quite sure what she does, but she travels to London frequently and to New York, and she's a principal with a firm that does mergers and acquisitions, so she's a financial officer with that firm. And Marla is head of the psychiatric residency program at Lutheran General. So they both are very capable women. I wanted my children to grow up to be capable, self-sufficient women. And my extended family is too. They are nurses and teachers, etc.

Lev Kalmens  26:48  
What are some, you know, projects or things in your life right now that you're most excited about?

Beverly Friend  26:54  
I got a whole kitchen table that is filled with projects. Well, you were one, that was coming here. And Tracy gave me for my birthday, something called Story Worth. This I hope your readers would be interested in. It was a birthday present. Every Monday morning, I get a note from Story Worth with an idea for an essay. Who would you most like to have dinner with, living or dead? All kinds of provocative things. Who was the most important influence in your life? Every Monday I get a question. And I answer it and send it back. And at the end of the year, we printed it in a book for the family that I myself have written. I wrote an autobiography, self printed. I did my husband's diary. He had 11 handwritten diaries of his time teaching in China. So I did that and had that published for the family. I paint, and I put out some books of my paintings for my children. What else do I do? Oh, my God. Well, I play in the band. Lots and lots of things.

Lev Kalmens  27:57  
Well, that's actually a great question. Who would you say has had the greatest influence on your life?

Beverly Friend  28:05  
My father. My father would come home from work. And tell me about the day at the office. And it was like a warrior coming home and telling about the dragons that he slayed. I saved this guy; he came here with 106 temperature. You know? Or, oh my God, I'll never forget when I was just a child: "Beverly, Beverly, come in. Feel this guy's stomach. You feel how hard it is? It's peritonitis." I mean, he shared his world. I wanted to be a doctor. He loved medicine. Every Wednesday, he came from Milwaukee to Chicago to Cook County Hospital to take a class. A devotee of education. He loved medicine and baseball and new cars, about in that order. He was an enthusiast. And he also would tell you how to run your business, whether you wanted to know it or not. But he was a terrific doctor, a terrific diagnostician. I didn't respect my mother. I came to respect her when I was older. But I thought her life was wasted. She could have done much more, but women didn't. She would have liked to work in his office. She was very good at math. He said he couldn't; it was an embarrassment. How could a doctor have his wife work in the office? So he didn't do it. So she was not happy. And whatever he did, he did with gusto and with positive attitude. So I thought he was by far and away the most important influence in my life. I still think he was wonderful.

Lev Kalmens  29:37  
You mentioned that you wanted to go into medicine.

Beverly Friend  29:38  
Yes, absolutely. He discouraged it. And I wasn't good at math, and I wasn't as good at science, and I was very good at English. Again, he wanted me to be married. He didn't think it was a life for a woman. And my daughter on the other hand, Marla,became a doctor because she said grandpa knew all the answers, and when she grew up, she wanted to know all the answers. And then she became a psychiatrist, and she was afraid to tell him. She thought he didn't think a psychiatrist was a real doctor. But he did. He was very proud of her. They shared a lot.

Lev Kalmens  30:10  
What has been a regret in your life?

Beverly Friend  30:15  
Okay. That I didn't plan it out. When I got my job at Oakton--and jobs were hard to get--I had gotten the job and I was talking to a dean, named Dean Krukke. And he said, "Well, what are your goals?" And I said, "Well, I just got this job. I fulfilled my goal." I said, "What are your goals?" He said, "Oh, well, I'm a dean here at Oakton. And then I plan to be a vice president at a school a little larger. And ultimately, to be a college president." And he was. He went zoom, zoom, zoom zoom. And it never crossed my mind. My regrets are the things I couldn't think. Another one was I was first chair of the high school drum section. I went to the University of Wisconsin. I stood in line to sign up for the band. And the director said, with a voice like the voice of God, "No girls in the marching band." And my career was over. And it never crossed my mind that I could have said, "That's not fair. I'll sue you." But I mean, the thoughts I couldn't think. I regret the thoughts I was not able to think, so I couldn't act on them. As a feminist, that's my biggest regret. That I didn't go further or even think I could have gone further.

Lev Kalmens  30:16  
To what extent do you think life has to be planned out? You mentioned that you didn't plan it out.

Beverly Friend  30:20  
I think that I just drifted. And I think many women drifted. I didn't have a goal. I wouldn't have wanted to say at age five, I want to be this and never veer from that course. But the men planned. When he said, "I'm going to do this for five years ..." It never occurred to me that I could make a plan. I was so happy I had the job, I did the student newspaper. My husband had large dreams and got smaller portion of them. I had smaller dreams and got more of them. But they were small. I write, but I don't aim for major markets. I sold the "life in these United States" to the Reader's Digest 36 years after I sent it to them, they bought it. But every 10 years, I would send them the story again. And finally they bought it. Should I tell you the story?

Lev Kalmens  32:26  
Of course.

Beverly Friend  32:27  
This was so hilarious. When my I came home from the hospital with baby Marla, I was sitting in the living room, and she was nursing. And Tracy was three and walked into the room and looked at me feeding the baby with wide eyes. And I saw that she didn't understand it. So I went into like a five-paragraph explanation. This is how mothers feed their babies. This is like kittens and puppies and on and on. And she said and staring at me, "She's drinking milk in the living room?!" And that was the shock of the story. It wasn't the nursing, it was she wasn't allowed to drink milk in the living room, and the baby was drinking milk in the living room. And I thought it was a wonderful story. And when I was teaching, I would say it to my classes, you want to try to send a story. So the Reader's Digest they pay $100. And so every five or six years, I would send it. And one year, I was in China at the time, I got a thing saying they bought it: "Was it a true story?" I said, "Yes, it's a true story." And they printed it. And when I tell my class I sold it, "Don't give up your day job. You make $100 with 36 years after it happened.

Lev Kalmens  33:35  
So looking back on everything that you've done in your life now, would you say that you are happy with the decisions you've made?

Beverly Friend  33:46  
I've been very blessed. I have wonderful children. My husband died very young, at 55, and I was 53. And since then, I've had two significant relationships. One with a man that I dated in my single days. In fact, the joke is, I promised my mother I wouldn't marry him when I was 20, and I promised my mother I wouldn't marry him when I was 65. But he was a good playmate. And then he died of Alzheimer complications. And now for 15 years, I've been with somebody else who's very nurturing and kind. So I've had three really wonderful companions, who were right for me at the different times in my life. I didn't need them. I could manage. I said at one point, a husband should be dessert; he shouldn't be the whole meal. And you know, I've been very blessed with health, with travel, with enough money to potentially do what I want to do. Very blessed. Very grateful.

Lev Kalmens  34:38  
Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Beverly Friend  34:42  
Who knows, I have this whole piece of paper. I think I've covered everything.

Lev Kalmens  34:45  
Whether it's about your life in Lincolnwood--

Beverly Friend  34:47  
Well with the school board, when Jim ran the first time, he didn't get in. And Marla was there. And she cried and cried and cried because he didn't make it. And I had explained to her he still has a job. We still have a home. And then he did make it, and she was very, very pleased.

Lev Kalmens  35:02  
Yeah, you did wear the button that says "put a Friend on the school board."

Beverly Friend  35:06  
Yes. He was on the school board from 1980. He lived a schizohrenic moment. He was president of the school board when the school teachers were thinking of striking, so he was in administration. And then at Chicago State, he was a faculty, and he was on the part that wanted to strike. So he was on "let's strike" and "you can't strike" at the same moment in his life. So that was very, very chaotic. Jim was very happy. We put on his grave the thing he'd always said: "don't mourn my death; celebrating my life." He led a very good life. He died way too young and didn't see a lot, but it was a good life. And every year, and I just came from this. Every year in the summer, we have a family picnic at Rosedale Cemetery. We bring in chicken, and everybody brings in food, and we sit on blankets, and we talk about him. And my parents are buried there now tooThat's a good note to end on.

Lev Kalmens  35:57  
That's a wonderful note. Well, I want to thank you for coming down to--

Beverly Friend  36:00  
Did we do 40 minutes? Did we do more?

Lev Kalmens  36:01  
Well, we're close. I want to thank you for coming down to the library and sharing your lincolnwood story with us.

Beverly Friend  36:08  
Well, I gave you a lot, didn't I?

Lev Kalmens  36:10  
Thank you so much.