Marlaine Szurek

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Marlaine Szurek

1. Okay, so as you know, my name is Marlaine Szurek. That is actually my married name. My maiden name, which is the name you have before you get married, is Morse. M-O-R-S-E. Now that is a very important name because I am a descendant of Samuel B. Morse who invented the Morse code. He is a direct descendant of me because I share his name.
2. I’m also a direct descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence on my father’s side of the family. William Floyd signed the Declaration of Independence and he was a great-great-great-great grandfather.
3. I’m also an ancestor of President James Monroe, so I have a very extensive family in the history of this country.
4. I was born in 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio, but I was raised and went to school in a little town called Chagrin Falls, very small town southeast of Cleveland. Loved living there.
5. I am a World War II baby. That means I was born during the time of World War II. My father served in the Philippians during the war and was gone for five years.
6. I went to school in Ohio and graduated school in Ohio. And then you wonder, well why are you sitting here? Well, my father had a company, an insurance company and they wanted him to open up one in of all places, Florida.
7. So off we went as a family to Florida. My husband, David, was in the Navy. And so we met and so we dated and so we fell in love and so we got married.
8. Then we moved to Minnesota in 1962. I have three children: Christine, John David, and Deborah. They’re all grown up now and they have children of their own. I have seven grandchildren.
9. When my daughter was in elementary school she actually went to school here. I was her Girl Scout leader from the time she was a Brownie until she was a Senior Scout. During that time, I also went to college at the University of Minnesota.
10. I have a degree in interior design, business, and architecture. And I worked designing banks, like US Banks, Wells Fargo, I did design banks for a long, long time.
11. In 19…I was trying to think of the date and I believe it was 1990, I was asked to run for the Minnesota House. So I did, but I did not win. But it was a wonderful experience. I took a lot from that and learned a lot about being in a campaign, and about serving in the community.
12. In ’91, I ran for city council, but did not win. But I learned a lot. You learn from every experience you can have in your life. And don’t think that any experience is not important because it is. And you’ll think of that when you grow up. You’ll go, I’m really glad I did that because that’s a wonderful experience.
13. So then, in the meantime, in 1989, I was appointed to the planning commission, the Columbia Heights Planning Commission. And if you don’t have anything to do on Tuesday nights, the first Tuesday of the month, our planning commission is on TV and you can watch us. It’s kind of boring, but if you want to see how government works, you can tune that in and watch that.
14. Then in 1995, I was asked to run for the Minnesota Senate, which I did. And almost won. I mean, it was an extremely close race. So I took the experiences from that and was asked to try again to run for city council, which I did and I won.
15. I served five years on the City Council from 1996 to 2001. And it was a wonderful experience, learning about government and how you can serve you and your families. Was probably one of the greatest things that I did. I learned a lot about dealing with people and how much fun it was to meet you and your parents when I went to different places. Not…you know what I mean…kids like you, your age. But probably not you because you weren’t born then, back then.
16. When were you guys born? Okay, see? You would have been teeny, tiny and would not have remembered that I was on the city council.
17. I’ve also been involved in acting. I’ve appeared in one, two…four plays and they have basically been religious plays. I was in a Passion Play, which is about the death of Christ and also in a story about Rome during the time of when Christ was on the Earth.
18. And that was a wonderful experience, too. I loved it, I really did.
19. And also we have travelled extensively. I have been to six of the seven continents. I have been to all of the states in the United States. To all of Canada. I have been to Central and South America. To Australia, to Africa, to Turkey, to Egypt, Dubai, I have been to Thailand and India, Singapore, and it has been an incredible, incredible experience to do all that. And I still want to travel more.
20. I think the world we live in is an incredible place. It’s wonderful to know about the different cultures. We have all these cultures in our schools now. And I got to meet Maasai, when I was in Africa.
21. It was an incredible, incredible experience to meet them and be able to talk to them and to talk to their children. So that’s what we do now.
22. Besides, I serve on the Planning Commission and have been the Chair of it for 25 years. I travel. So that’s kinda what I do. My life is here in Columbia Heights. I have served in every way I could possibly find to serve our city.
23. I was a child of World War II. Things were very different when I was a child.
24. It’s really interesting. When my father passed away, we were cleaning out things that were his and trying to straighten things around and found rationing coupons.

25. Now rationing coupons were issued to families during World War II and that’s how you bought your groceries. That how you got…were able to purchase gas. And while my father was away, my mom worked and so she had to be able to drive the car to get to work. So she had to use her coupons for that. And so while my father was away during the war, we lived with my grandparents.
26. I don’t know how often that happens now where you live in multi-generational families, but we did. We had a multi-generational family and it was to support one another, not only financially, but emotionally during this very difficult time.
27. I was also, when I talked to you about…I was a Girl Scout leader…I was also a Girl Scout in Chagrin, when I lived in Chagrin. I moved to Chagrin from Cleveland when I was eight years old. So that’s basically my home town and I go back there frequently.
28. But I enjoyed school immensely. I sang in the choir. I played in the band. I was a cheerleader. I acted in school also. And because I wanted to be a forensic pathologist when I was in high school, I took every class I could find that was science or math. Took everything I could find that was in that area.
29. The school…when we went to school, the classrooms were very small. When my daughter graduated from Columbia Heights High School in 1981, there was seven, 600-some kids in her graduating class.
30. In my graduating class there was 72. That’s pretty small. That’s pretty small. And when I was in 4th grade we had two 4th grade classes. One had 22 kids and the other one had 19 kids. So very, very small town. But it was wonderful to grow up in a small town because you knew everybody and you felt safe and you got to do all kinds of things when you were a kid.
31. I also lived through the polio epidemic. Do you know what polio is? Polio was a disease that crippled and killed young children. And when the outbreak started, we had to…we couldn’t go anywhere. My mom was just terrified to let us go anywhere so we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed home for two summers.
32. We never got to go swimming or did crafts or anything. I had two friends, one who died who was my age and the other one who eventually died because she ended up in an iron lung because the polio attacked her lungs and she couldn’t breathe. So she lived in this machine that kept her alive.
33. That was a very, very scary time to live through that.
34. So what else do you want me to tell them about growing up? I just had a great childhood. I mean, I just loved….Oh, and I have four siblings. I have three brothers and a sister. And I am the oldest.
35. When we first moved to Columbia Heights, um…I don’t remember what the population was, but when you think about when my daughter went to school here there was one kindergarten class and so as she went through school, that’s how they got up to like 500, I think she had 500-some in her graduating class.
36. But in the beginning, the school classes were very small. And you could go anywhere and leave your house unlocked. I mean, I don’t even…couldn’t even think about that today of leaving my house unlocked, but we did.
37. And you actually left the house, sometimes you left the back door wide open, got in your car and went where you were going to go. Would you do that today? No, you would not, would you. And I don’t do that today, either. But we felt very, very safe. My children felt safe. My children could take off on their bikes and go anywhere they want.
38. I have grandchildren who live in Columbia Heights. They are much older than you, but the youngest one that lives here is 16 and he went to school here also. Even when they were children, there was this fear that you did not leave your children unattended. You didn’t leave your house unattended. And when you were somewhere with your children, you kept an eye on them.
39. My kids and I just found this out not too long ago. Got on their bikes, they were oh, like seven, eight, and nine years old. And rode to Como Zoo on their bikes. If I had known it at the time, I probably would have killed them. But I didn’t know it at the time, which is probably a good thing. You know, if you don’t know, it must be okay.
40. But they did not feel afraid one bit. And they would take little sandwiches and lunches for themselves and off they’d go on their bicycles and have an adventure. They weren’t afraid at all. But now we have to be so careful. So I think that’s a change.
41. There’s a lot more housing . I think there’s a lot more…you know what a multiple-dwelling house is, an apartment or a large condominiums and stuff…we didn’t have, we didn’t have any of that. we had a couple apartment buildings down on University, but that’s all.
42. It was almost all residential homes. And that’s how life changes. People are more…I don’t know what the word is…um…they don’t stay in one place for a long, long time. More mobile, yes. People are more mobile now.
43. We bought our first house on 41st avenue, which is now where the strip mall is and the park and all of that. There used to be houses on that street. That’s where my house was. My kids knew everybody on that street. My kids were disciplined by people, moms and dads on that street. And they were not afraid to go there if they were in trouble. They would go.
44. I don’t think I have ever seen a neighborhood like that. I mean, I’m very close with most of my neighbors where we are now, but um…not anything like when my children were growing up. It was like a small…like a little family on that street.
45. Everybody cared about everybody else and I just don’t think you that much of that anymore, which is really sad because we should…we should care about one another.
46. My great-grandmother, her great-grandfather was William Floyd and she told my grandfather when he was young, she said, someday…someday someone will have the spark that grandfather William had and that person will go into politics and do whatever they can to change the world to make it a better place.
47. My dad said to me, oh, I was already in the city council when he told me this, he said, your great-grandmother would have been so proud of you. You had the spark. You were the one that had the spark that came from Grandfather William because he put his life on the line to make this a free country and to sign that document.
48. His first wife died in that whole time. He lost his farm, lost everything, barely escaped with his life. But he did it because he wanted us to have freedom in this country. And that’s why, I believe that that’s why I’m so passionate about serving.
49. The very first time my son was working for Senator Don Frank, he was his aide. We were dear friends with him. He said, I’m going to ask your mom a question. And he said, what do you think she’ll do? And John said, she will not hesitate to do it. That’s what started me on that path, was that wonderful man asking me to do that. And it just went from there.
50. QUESTIONS
51. Did you ever fight with your siblings?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I did. I am the oldest. I have a brother who is a year and a half younger than I am and then I have a sister who is six years younger and a brother who is eleven years younger and a brother who is sixteen years younger.
52. I need to tell you, my brother and I, my brother Blaine and I were totally in charge of the younger siblings. Basically told them what we thought they should be doing. They didn’t like it so we fought.
53. My brother Blaine and I never fought, never ever because we were so close in age, but boy did we fight with the other ones. But don’t do like I said. (Oh, I fight with my siblings…) Oh, do you? Well then it’s normal to do that.
54. I was wondering what a strip mall is.
A strip mall? You’ve never heard that term, a strip mall? Okay, you know where the mall is that’s on Central Avenue and it’s between 40th and 41st, big long mall with all kinds of stores? When they first started building those they called them strip malls. They called them strip malls because they use a whole lot of land. They used a strip of land and they put a whole bunch of stores in there.
55. I didn’t understand the term, but that’s what they’re called. Now somebody asks you, now you’ll know. But that’s what it is. And you can think about where else in Columbia Heights do we have a strip mall? Do you know?
56. What did you like about serving the City Council?
What did I like about it? I got to meet a lot of wonderful people both within the Minnesota state government and the governments from other cities. And I got to sit with a group of people who had nothing but the best interests in their hearts for what happened in this city.
57. And to be able to talk about where you want your city to be, while I was on there for five years, say, from this date until five years when I no longer will be here, what do I want to have happen that’s good for Columbia Heights?
58. So that’s what I liked the best, was talking to people about how to make our city better. That was my favorite thing.
59. Who are the Maasai?
Who are the Maasai? You don’t know who the Maasia are? They are a tribe, an African tribe. We were in Tanzania and they are mostly in Tanzania and Kenya. They’re a…you’ve seen them on Discovery and on National Geographic, I know you have.
60. They’re very tall. They’re very thin. They wear very colorful clothing. And when they dance, they leap into the air. That’s the Maasai.
61. We…um…our guide, when we were in Africa, took us to the store and we bought this great, big box full of stuff for the children, for the kids, for their school. They had a school, which was very unusual for the Maasai tribes. But they had a leader who wanted his children to be educated. So we did that, too. But now you know who the Maasai are, don’t you.
62. What was it like in Egypt?
We were in Egypt at a time when it was safe for us to be there. The climate in Egypt is very, very dry. Very, very hot. It was 105 degrees the day we were there.
63. We went to see the pyramids, they Sphinx. We went to see the Valley of the Kings where all the pharaohs were buried. We traveled across the desert. It’s so dry and it’s so desolate looking and then all of a sudden, there’s a city! And the buildings are built out on the desert because that’s what Egypt is, it’s a very, very, very dry country.
64. But we were safe when we were there. Now I don’t think it’s so safe to go visit Egypt.
65. What play did you like to be in and why?
When I traveled? Africa. I would go back to Africa in a minute, in a second. It was the most incredible place on Earth. It was so beautiful and so green and lush. The people were so kind and so wonderful. And to see those animals was absolutely spectacular. So yes, Africa’s my favorite place.
66. Oh, and my second favorite place to go was Scotland because that is where my ancestors are from.
67. How long did it take you to get to all those continents?
Well, we didn’t go all at one time. The first time we went on an extended trip out of the country was in 1985, I think.
68. So we’ve been traveling since 1985. But traveling between places takes a long time. We didn’t do it all at one time. We would be gone for two weeks, three weeks. The last time we were gone when we went to Egypt, we were gone for 36 days. And that’s when we saw many, many things.
69. We went to Japan, Singapore, Thailand, India, Bahrain, Dubai, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Croatia, Slovenia, and Venice, Italy. That was all in one trip. The only continent I have not been to is the Antarctic where the penguins are. But my husband has been there but I have not. Yes, I would be very freezing cold, but he didn’t care.
70. What was your favorite part about school?
About school? Hmmm. Well, not only did I study hard, but I also was…I loved being in sports. So, I was on the track team. I also played field hockey. And I was also on the swimming team. I loved doing those and besides, I loved being a cheerleader, which I kind of thought was a sport, but I found later on, it’s really not a sport.
71. But that’s what I liked doing in school, besides studying hard. The sport thing was very enjoyable to me.
72. How old are you and how did you feel when you first heard that you had a grandfather who was one of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Well, when I was in fifth grade, um…we did a section of our studies about the Constitution and about the Declaration of Independence.
73. So while we were studying it, I was telling my dad about it and he said, Well, now is a good time to tell you this…and that’s when he told me that our ancestor signed the Declaration of Independence. So I was in 5th grade when I found that out.
74. What was your favorite thing to study in school and why?
Science. I loved science and my dream was to become a forensic scientist. Why I never followed through with that, I don’t know, but I think part of it was because when I finally was able to go to college, I was already married and had my children.
75. So I did not go to the college right out of high school, but I loved science.
76. Where were your favorite places to go in your small town?
Ahhh. Well, we had an area that was called the Recreation Center. That’s where the football field was, the baseball field, the Olympic swimming pool, and this big building where we could go in the summertime to go and do arts-n-crafts and learn things and be part of the sports program. I liked to go there.
77. We also had a river that flowed through Chagrin, called the Chagrin River, of course. We had two waterfalls. One was a natural waterfall and one was a man-made one. They used the man-made one for grinding grains back in the old days.
78. In the old days, it’s like in the 1800s. When I was in high school, my friend and I would go after school to the natural waterfall and if you followed a path down, you could get…it was not safe to do, but we did it anyway…we went underneath the bridge and sat and watched the water go over the bridge, over the falls. And just visit with each other.
79. So those are two of the very favorite things that I did when I was growing up in that small town.
80. Where is your favorite place to visit in Minnesota?
Crane Lake, Minnesota. It’s up near the Canadian border. We have friends there that own a lodge and house boating.
81. We have been going there and renting a house boat for fifteen years. I love that part of Minnesota because of the lakes and the trees and it’s beautiful. So that’s my very favorite place in Minnesota.
82. Why did you move to Minnesota?
Why? I guess I didn’t have a choice. (chuckles) As I told you when I was talking before, after I graduated from high school, my father had an opportunity to open his own insurance company in Hollywood, Florida, which is near Miami. So we moved.
83. I left the wonderful little town I grew up in which I loved and we moved to Florida. And while we were living there, I met my husband. He was in the Navy, he was in the Naval Air Force. We met, my next-door neighbor introduced me to him and we started dating and we fell in love and we got married and guess where he was from? M-hmmm, he was from Minnesota.
84. So where do you think we would move? Minnesota.
85. Who do you travel with? Do your kids or grandkids go with you?
Now, when my children were young and we traveled through all of the fifty states in the United States, my children all went with us because we traveled when they were younger. But now that we travel around the world, it’s just my husband, David, and I.
86. Did you go to the Pharaoh’s Tomb?
Yes, we did. We got to see three of the pharaoh’s’ tombs. It was Ramsey the fifth, Ramsey the ninth, and Ramsey’s the second.
87. You weren’t allowed to go to King Tut’s tomb unless…(‘cause it had a curse?) No, it didn’t have a curse. No, because you would have had to reserve it ahead of time and pay extra money and so we didn’t know about that otherwise we would have gone.
88. But they’re incredible inside. I mean, they’re so totally squared off. You would have thought that long ago they would not be able to construct the way they did, and they did. And the colors inside of those tombs is as bright today as the colors we see around us here. You would have thought they would have faded away, but it’s because the sun does not go into the tombs so the colors are very, very vibrant.
89. But we saw three pharaohs’ tombs.
90. What parts do you play in the play?
What parts do I play? When I was in the Passion Play, I played Mary Atheus who was the mother of James and John who were friends of Jesus’ who became his disciples. So I played her in that one and in the other one, I played Claudia, the wife of um…I can’t think of his name…the Emperor of Rome, I played his wife.
91. And then I was in another play. I played Anne Frank when I was in high school. And I also was in another play, it was a very minor role. I played a teacher in another role. And in high school, I was Anne Frank. And I was also a teacher in another role. It seems like maybe I should have been a teacher, but that’s what I did.
92. What is the City Council?
What is the City Council? It’s the governing body for Columbia Heights or for any city. They are like a board of people. They usually have a mayor and you’ll have four council people. I was a council person; I was not the mayor, I was a council person.
93. They sit and talk about the issues in the city and they make um…they make judgments about what the city should be doing and what direction the city should go. So they’re a governing body for a city, that’s what they are.
94. How did you learn to design banks?
When I went to college, I studied to become an interior designer and also had a degree in business and in architecture. The architecture really helped me with the designing of the bank, both inside and outside. That’s how I learned to do it, by going to school.
95. Who do you most admire in your life?
My mother. My mother had a very hard life as a child. She almost died when she was little. I’m very grateful that she did not. She’s a wonderful mom; she’s 93 years old. She’s still alive and we are just very good friends and I admire her greatly.
96. Why did you travel the world?
It’s an easy question, because I could. Because I wanted to, I wanted to see parts of the world that I only read about and learned about when I was in school. And I’d seen on the television wanted to personally see them myself and meet people from around the world.
97. Why did people want you to be a candidate for all that stuff?
It’s hard to answer because then you’re kind of blowing your own horn about the kind of person you are.
98. But people who said to me that they saw in me a desire to serve and a desire to help people. And that I would work well with others in making major decisions. So that’s why they asked me to do it.
99. Why did you choose to leave the City Council in 2002?
Because we had made, my husband and I had made the decision that we were going to travel and if I had run for another four years, which we gave extreme consideration to because I enjoyed what I was doing, I liked being on the council, but then it would have delayed our beginning of our travel so that was the main reason I decided not to run again.
100. (Couldn’t hear a question off-mic) Where they were born? Here in Minnesota. We were living in…we lived in Columbia Heights when my oldest daughter Kristine was born; we were living in Fridley ‘cause see we moved around a lot because my husband was going to school, and we lived in Fridley and we lived in Minneapolis when Deborah was born, but then we moved them when they were very small to Columbia Heights.
101. So they’re all from Minnesota and they are native Minnesotan.
102. My father? Is my father still alive? No. My dad died in 1986.
103. What words of advice would you give these students?
Learn everything you can learn. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about things you don’t know about. But learning is so important. You can’t imagine what it’ll do for your life if you learn and you get a good schooling and you come out of school and you want to pursue something in your life you won’t be afraid to do so.
104. And love each other and love your families.
105. Larry Questions
106. What does it mean to you to have such a deep family linage that goes back to our founding fathers and mothers of this country?
I think it really defines who I am and how I feel about this country. When I see some of the things that are happening in our country now, it hurts me deeply. I read so extensively about William Floyd that I knew him so well and made it part of my…made a pilgrimage to Westerville, Ohio to visit his gravesite.
107. It’s hard for me to talk about it because it’s so emotional when I went and touched his grave; I just was instantly connected to my past and to our past of the family. I don’t…my mother says she doesn’t understand why I feel so deeply the way I do and she said, You have deeper connections to the past than any of the other kids in my family or any of my other relatives.
108. I was instantly enthralled with the idea. I instantly began to research him and try to find out more about this person and his family and how the direct linage occurred from him to my father.
109. I found that very interesting. I thought, Well, I said…first of all, when I heard about it, I contacted my great-grandmother right away because I wanted to know more from her. She said, Now you need to realize, Marlaine, that he’s not a cousin, he’s not a distant cousin, she said, the blood that flowed in that man’s veins, flow in your veins.
110. That’s when she said to me, Someday someone will pick up his spark.
111. Can you tell me a little bit about him. What was his vision?
He was in the Revolutionary War fighting with Washington. From what my great-grandmother, Isabelle, told me, she said that they all had this vision for a country that would be in direct opposite of England and what the governance was in England.
112. They wanted there to be no control of the government to the people. The people were to be the government. That’s why they wanted the people to serve to come forward out of the community and serve and go back to the community and keep a fresh outlook on the direction that the country was going.
113. She said, He totally believed that and believed that no matter what happened when he was asked to represent the state of New York at the um…the Congress said, for the Declaration, they knew and he knew.
114. In his papers he writes about it and that the stress of this whole thing killed his first wife. So we are descended from his second wife. I don’t think they had any children, it happened very early on and because he was gone so much, and they were under siege and they lost a beautiful farm in Long Island. It was torched by the English and they were literally run off their property.
115. The people in upstate New York protected him and a lot of other ones from the English because they had a crisis. If they had been found, they would have been killed.
116. But he was willing to take that chance to make something better. My great-grandmother said that from the stories she’s heard, his wife’s name was Joanna. She was terrified for him and terrified for the family and the children.
117. When he became part of the Congress that was going to develop the Declaration of Independence, he sent her away and the children to be safe because he was that worried about the family.
118. To do that, I could not understand when I first heard it—because I was only in fifth grade when I first heard the beginning of the story—that he would be that brave: to walk up there and put his name.
119. He said that it was like signing your own death warrant. They were so hated by the British. But there were forty-seven, forty-six of them signed it. And they all had the same attitude, that this is what we’re going to do.
120. What part of the Declaration of Independence are you most drawn to?
That we are all created equal. And that God is the driving force. I don’t know the exact words of it. I’ve read it through several times and I carry a little copy of it with me. But that…I am a person of great faith and I believe that God chose this country to be a free country and that those of us who have a strong faith are the ones that are going to have to pray this country through the tough times.
121. And he (William Floyd) was a man of great faith also. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it.
122. Larry: So the hope of your ancestors was freedom, freedom from tyranny.
123. Marlaine: And they came from England and Wales early on. Because of religious tyranny and that was the reason that his family came.
124. Also the family of the Morse’s that Samuel was from were literally driven out because of their religion. And the father stayed in Wales and sent the brothers in 1632 to the United States. The one brother, Anthony, the one I’m descended from—I descended from both of them actually because we share the same blood—but he participated in the Boston Tea Party and was part of that whole group of people that brought this thing to a head.
125. So I have huge amounts of this freedom fighters in my blood and my mother said, Sometimes I think you’re just scary sometimes because you have such a strong feeling for justice and for the rights of people.
126. And none of us ever, I’ve never heard anybody in the family say that.
127. Larry: So what does the word justice mean to you?
That no one be persecuted for their life or for the decisions they make. That they are free to worship the way they want to and we have freedom to say what we want to do and I believe in the parts of the Constitution that give us those rights. So to me, that’s justice.
128. Justice is that everyone should be treated the same. And I don’t mean equally distributing wealth, that’s social justice. Justice means that that little girl that’s from Iraq has a right to getting an education and to being the very best that she can be and for me, that is the justice that has been developed in this country that allows people to be who they want to be and not have to take worry.
129. Larry: So she has a right to practice Islam…
130. Marlaine: If she wants to, that’s her religion. But I wouldn’t want her to tell me that my religion is bad and that I can’t practice my religion.
131. In this country we are free to worship the way we want to be worshipping and not be told how to worship.
132. Larry: So that’s a dream fulfilled. It’s still that way in this country.
133. Marlaine: so far it is. So far it’s still that way in this country, but you just never know what’s going to happen.
134. Larry: With vigilance, it will remain.
135. Marlaine: but you have to hope for the right…for the people who have the heart to serve the people, not to serve themselves. That’s the other part of it. And that’s the part that I saw from my ancestors that they were so willing to serve others possibly to the detriment of their own health because they felt so strongly about providing a free country.
136. And that’s the thing that I admire so much in those people.
137. Larry: to you, what makes a good leader?
Somebody who can work with others, who listens to the ideas of others, who takes and listens to those people and decides in your heart what your part of that is going to be.
138. You want to be heard. Being a leader doesn’t mean that you just take it all in and you don’t do anything with it. Being a leader is stepping up to the plate and being someone who is going to lead others and to make right decisions.
139. I mean, that’s what I learned from being on the City Council. It’s not just the position and the power. A lot of people have thought that’s what it is; it’s not a position of power, it’s a position of leadership and of service.
140. Larry: so what does the word patriotic mean to you?
Patriotic is my love of this country, my love of the history of this country, my love of the flag. I am…I know what that flag means.
141. Larry: What does it mean to you?
It is the group of states that come together to become one. That flag flew over the Revolutionary War and it’s…the way it looked then, and that is the flag that we still have today; nobody changed it. It is still the same, the same flag.
142. I mean, it is a piece of cloth. If somebody were going to stand here and burn it, I’d have to let them because they have that right to burn that flag. It would just kill me inside, but that’s their right to do it.
143. And patriotic because I love my country, I support what my country stands for, I love our troops and I support the troops always. And you stand up for what you believe is right for your country; I think that’s being patriotic.
144. Larry: so that means even if somebody opposes the government’s policy…
Marlaine: if it’s not right, if it’s not right, if it’s against what our Constitution has said and has set up to run this country, then that’s not being patriotic, I don’t think. I think you need to support the country as it’s been formed. And it has to be lived out through the Constitution.
145. Larry: What is…what does it mean to be a good citizen, you may have answered this already.
Marlaine: I tie that to being involved in your community and not just being a taker, but to be a giver. To give back.
146. If I just stood back and said, I don’t really care what happens to the city, I don’t think that makes me a good citizen. If I stood back and said I don’t care what happens to this State or this country, that’s not being a good citizen.
147. I think it’s stepping up to the plate and offering your services to be a good citizen and that’s why I got on the city council. I felt I was a good citizen and I wanted to do something to make this a better place for future generations to live.
148. Larry: What is your hope for the country?
Marlaine: my hope for this country is that it survives. That it survives and that we are not attacked by a foreign government. That we continue to honor the liberty and the freedom of all people, not just a few. And that we basically survive. Sometimes I don’t know because we’ve gotten ourselves involved in so many things in other countries.
149. You know, 9-11, there you go. There’s a perfect example of the terror that was released upon our country and that could happen again. Look what happened in Ben-Ghazi. I mean, that was attacking the United States because that was the consulate. That was a representative of the United States.
150. Those type of things just terrify me that they could happen and we could lose this beautiful, wonderful country.
151. Larry: How was Columbia Heights when you first lived here?
Small. There wasn’t a lot of people here. I think we’re up to about 18,000. I think when we moved here it was about…I think it was under 10,000 when we moved here, I think far under it. There weren’t that many people here when we first lived here.
152. A lot of post-World War II homes. There was some…Columbia Heights was basically no place to do anything. I mean, the little houses were here and in 1954, they built a few more little houses in empty land so it’s not a community that was going to be moving on to bigger and better things. There’s nothing wrong with it, but you know what I’m saying?
153. It’s not like Edina or Wayzata that has all that beautiful, huge housing. We have Innsbruck, which is nice, nice housing, but I lived in a small little house and I didn’t’ think there was anything wrong in that small little house.
154. And my friends all lived in small little houses. But like I was telling the kids that um there was a comfort that I felt in this little community that we lived in on 41st Avenue. We had our church community also. And people did things for one another.
155. You don’t see a lot of that any more. The safety issue. My children—and I felt safe for my children—I mean, now, I took care of Bob and Rose when they were…Rose was in kindergarten here and Bob was in pre-school and Joan was working because John was going to college.
156. I took care of them and I was like obsessed with being sure I was at that bus stop way before that bus would come. I did not want her walking anywhere. And Rose is 18 so that would have been 12 years ago, 12-13 years ago when she was in kindergarten.
157. My daughter-in-law has said the same thing. She said to me, You left the house unlocked? Yeah! The only time we started locking it was when the children slept in this little back room when they were little and so when they were there, the door was locked. But if we left the house to go shopping or go visit in-laws over in New Brighton, we left the door open and didn’t worry about it!
158. I mean, we were broken into where we are now. We used to live on 41st and when the city wanted the property to put in the LaBelle townhouses, the LaBelle townhouses, well, condominiums, I guess they’re called, we moved our house from 41st to 42 ½. So that’s another whole adventure which is construction.
159. I consider myself a very good carpenter. I’ve built furniture. I forgot to tell them about that. I built furniture, fine furniture! My husband and I do. so that’s another area that I’ve gotten into that’s kind of my hobby.
160. So we moved our house and we built onto it and remodeled it and all this stuff and it’s a nice neighborhood however…we were broken into two summers ago. And we had a security system.
161. I felt so violated. And I talked to more and more people who had been broken into and it’s like, what is going on in this community? We have a wonderful police department, wonderful. I know many of them personally, you know, personal friends with them.
162. But they don’t know what to tell me either. They’re like, we have no idea what has happened to the element. Here’s what he said and that’s very true. It’s very transient; it’s become a very transient city.
163. In and out, in and out, in and out. And then you have elements that are moving in because the housing is cheap. Well, you have to have affordable housing, I mean, what else are you gonna do? I mean, we’re an inner-city town.
164. But I mean, that’s a difference. The difference was when we moved to Columbia Heights, everybody owned their own house. There wasn’t a lot of rental. People felt safe. People were more friendly with one another. I mean, we have maybe two or three people on our street that we’re friends with, but not to the point that we had when we were on 41st.
165. They were like our family. I would have trusted those people with my children without even questioning it. And I don’t know, I don’t know how I would have felt if we had lived where we are now in this time, in this time.
166. Larry: how did it make you or how does it make you feel, does it give you hope when you came to school today and met these kids?
Mm-hmm. I think the hope comes from the education that’s being offered to these kids. If it was not a good school system, these kids would have no hope. And like I told them, study everything you can get your hands on.
167. I believe that’s the answer for these kids, is to know what they know and then they can go off and they can do or they can be anything they want to be when they get out of school. I don’t care what your background is, I don’t care where you came from. You’re here in this country, make the best of it.
168. And I always told my kids the same thing and I tell my grandkids the same thing. Don’t ever give up. Now look at these sweet little faces. I mean, they’re 4th graders? Oh! Beautiful and eager to learn.
169. The one little girl said, Can you stay here all afternoon? We want to talk to you more. It was so sweet.
170. Larry: with the changing demographics in Columbia Heights, like when you first came here it was predominately Northern European….
171. Marlaine: yes, yes. Very heavily Polish community.
172. Larry: now it’s a largely changing demographic and unlike many of the old Columbia Heights, you chose to stay. There has been a white-flight. Why did you decide to stay and not go somewhere else?
Part of it comes from when I was growing up we moved an awful lot and I didn’t understand why we moved so much. And I didn’t have a feeling of place, of belonging. And you know, being…having that feeling of upheaval from my hometown in Chagrin to Florida after I graduated…my best friend and I still talk to each other. We are still extremely close.
173. She said, I’ll never forget the day you drove off and she’s standing there crying. My heart was broken. Here I was, I was going someplace, I had already graduated from high school, there was no opportunity for me to meet anybody. I felt totally alone.
174. Then when we moved up to Minnesota, I didn’t know anybody! I mean, my husband’s family, yeah, and they were very wonderful. They were very loving. I loved them just like they were my blood family. Loved them so much and my mother-in-law and I were dear, dear friends, but it was another move!
175. Then we stayed with his brother for a while and then we got an apartment and then we moved again because we needed cheaper housing because my husband was going to college to become an electrical engineer. We were so poor, it was unbelievable. And then we moved again!
176. And then we had three kids and they basically did the best thing they could have done for us, they kicked us out of our apartment. They said, You can’t live here, you have three children. Two bedroom apartment.
177. So with the help of the guy my husband was working for to make extra money to go to school, he literally guaranteed him enough money to work for him while he was going to college and he lent us the money for his education.
178. So we bought this little house, little bungalow. I mean, it was like 19…it was built in 1918 so you can imagine. A little porch on the front and a little tiny rooms and everything. That is the same house we live in now except that it went from about four-hundred and some square feet and now we have almost three-thousand square feet and of course we need that because there’s two of us living there. (Laughs)
179. But our children are all gone. We love our house. We live close to John and Joan and our grandchildren. My other daughter lives on 42nd and 7th, so I’m close to her. And they have not moved. And John and Joan have not moved. It’s like, this is my town, don’t you screw it up!
180. And if I somebody screwing it up…that’s why I’m on the planning commission. I’ve seen some of the weirdest stuff you’ve ever seen coming through there.
181. I called the guy that sets up the agenda and I go, Really? Really? You’re going to allow this? Well, what are we going to do? I said, Let me talk to the mayor. And like, you can’t allow this. What is wrong with you? And I see a different mindset than even when I was up on the council.
182. I mean, we were so focused on saving this town. You know, from whatever it was that was happening, there was an element that was moving in that brought fear with it. And not a fear of, I don’t know who you are or where you came from.
183. You know like I would love to sit down and talk to that little boy that’s from Africa, I just love Africa. Those people are the most beautiful people in the world. And if you haven’t been there, you don’t understand. I would have loved to been able to talk to him about where his family came from and everything.
184. But I saw this microcosm of the world sitting here. He’s from Gambia, he told me.
185. I appreciate we are a melting pot, I hate the word “salad.” I don’t think we’re a salad. We are a melting pot. My concern is that it’s not like it used to be. My in-laws are Polish. The name, does that give it away for you? They came from Poland. All sides. He’s three-quarters Polish and one-quarter French. They all came from Poland. They all came here, went through Ellis Island and could not speak English.
186. The father learned it, but the mother refused. She picked up a few words, but it was very difficult to speak with her. But those children learned English. Those children went to school and then it moved over to their children, which is my husband’s generation. You will go to school and if you want to go to college, by G-d, you’re gonna go to college.
187. So that trickled then from my husband to us, all three of my children are college graduates. As are Dave and I, are college graduates. And I have one grandson who’s graduated from college, two of the girls are in college right now and the others are looking forward to going to college.
188. I don’t care if you want to come to my country, but don’t come to my country and set up your own little country, be a part of who we are, want to be a part of who we are.
189. The proudest thing my husband’s grandfather did was the day he became an American citizen. And my father-in-law used to tell us about that all the time. And I remember that, about how proud he was and how special he felt to be a part of this country.
190. You don’t see a lot of that, you don’t see a lot of that, I am so proud to be an American citizen. I don’t know why they want to become an American citizen if they’re not going to protect and defend this country.
191. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why my ancestor wanted for all of us, is to protect and defend this country. To keep it the wonderful place that it was meant to be.