Courtney Riggs
HDFS 249
Dr. Sukhdeep Gill
October 16, 2012
Life Line Interview
On December 4th, 1917, Mary Elizabeth Groft was born. She was one of two daughters.
Mary started first grade when she was about seven years old. Kindergarten was not a wellknown grade back in those days. While I was talking with her, she told me she could not
remember if she went to a public or a private school, but she did mention that the school was
located out in the middle of the country and it only had two rooms; one room with grades one to
four and the other room with grades five to eight. Mary then went on to tell me that she
completed her freshman year of high school at Central Catholic with a B, being her highest
grade. She dropped out and got a full-time job at the local cigar factory. Mary worked at the
cigar factory until she retired at 62. She was forced to retire because the factory was going to all
machines instead of handmade.
On July 22nd, 1939, Mary married her best friend, Eugene Groft. After one year of being
married they were blessed with their first child, a baby boy named Larry. It was not too long
after that that they had their second child, another baby boy named Ronald. Eugene and Mary
had four of their five children before they moved into their first house together in 1949.
While she was working at the cigar factory she decided to get another job at Menchey’s
Music Store as a piano teacher. She loved playing the piano and the organ as a child, so she
thought that it would be a great idea to teach young children how to play. Mary retired in 2006,
after forty years of work because she was getting her knee replaced and she did not think she
could go back to teaching.
Mary had many important events occur in her life. The events that she told me were
learning how to drive her first car, getting her first job at the age of sixteen, getting married, and
having children. Learning how to drive her first car affected her by allowing her to get out of the
house more and she did not have to rely on her parents to take her everywhere. Getting her first
job at the age of sixteen affected her by she had to learn to manage her own money, especially if
she wanted to buy something special and she did not have to ask her parents for money. Getting
married and having children affected her by she had the responsibility to take care of her family.
Mary was alive through multiple historical events. The events that she told me were
World War II and the invention of the automobile. World War II affected her by she was a stayat-home mother while her husband was fighting in the war. She told me that she would never
forget the day the war ended because she remembers the church bells ringing when they all
arrived home. The invention of the automobile affected her by it gave her freedom and
excitement. Not only did it help her at a young age, but it also gave her family ability to visit
their relatives that were far away.
The only similarities in the timing of our events would be we both started school about
the same age and retire close to the same age. Some possible reasons for this would be that
anyone who is starting school is around the same age, especially the children that are in the same
class as you and people retire close to the same age too. Some differences in the timing of our
events would be the age at which we get married, have children, and some historical events.
Some possible reasons for this would be back in that generation most people got married and had
children at such a young age because women wanted to take care of the men, take care of the
housework, and the children. They did not need to work, but nowadays women can make it on
their own. Women want to have jobs and can take care of themselves more. And historical
events just happen, you have no control over when some thing like that is going to happen.
The interaction between different systems of explaining the ways in which Mary’s life
was impacted and the way my life has been impacted would be how we both grew up differently
and who we grew up with. For example, we both fall under the category of the microsystem and
the mesosystem. The microsystem is the immediate environment in which a person is operating,
such as the family, classroom, peer group, neighborhood, etc. This could have impacted both of
us because of the many different people we were around. If we grew up with diverse people than
what we did, we could have turned out differently. The mesosystem is the interaction of two
microsystem environments, such as the connection between a child’s home and school. This
could have impacted both of us because of where and what school we went to.
Sociohistorical events, social norms, economies, and political thinking may account for
any similarities and differences because that I found because things have surely changed over the
years. For example, we both had full-time jobs, but she started at a younger age and she did not
make as much money as I did. Minimum wage was a lot less when Mary was younger and
things were very cheap compared to what they cost now, so she would consider that she made a
fair amount of money for her time. Another example, Mary got married a few years younger
than what I predicted for myself. People back then would marry at a young age because that was
the normal thing to do, but in our generation people are getting older and waiting longer to do so.