Graduation Year
1995
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Primary Major
Interdisciplinary Studies
Thesis Advisor
Cynthia Brown, PhD
Abstract
This study considers the lives of my grandmother and my two great aunts, the three Cook sisters. Their home has been the town of Redlands, California, since the early 1900's. The first section presents the unique history of Redlands, located 65 miles east of Los Angeles, California, as the cultural context of the lives of the sisters, Sidney, Josephine, and Mary. The second section presents extractions from my interviews conducted with the sisters between November and December of 1994 organized by topics of interest. In the following months we exchanged phone calls and letters to clarify the interviews. While the first two sections of this paper look to the past in search of a better understanding of the tradition that preceded me, the third section consists of journal reflections of the interviews. The journal traces my selective process of deciding what I value in the tradition and what I question. By recognizing the continuity and discontinuity between my Grandmother's generation and my own life, I learn from the lives of generations of women preceding me. More conscious of women's historical place in society, I take my place among my female ancestors as a unique individual weaving my life with the meaningful threads of the importance of family and of self-understanding.
Comments
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