1 20 3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/34455/archive/files/d48010fda39c804be0e5f1c2728203b6.png?Expires=1776902400&Signature=qWS7dSwtBfGwMvRNfte87FjYTg%7E1ow7mAZDtGCHHpBXUNxsaCTu3X8RmKYdTGS%7ECx3dhcr58Z4LZblt9vl9%7ErkSSBORiBQsQNZbvjx6bZwg8YR8eZp3-2ChxqebkkHh%7EGMnswu3jPsy6PldRv2VfzYKdq5BsyPtxBGFgfJUvp0QZf8B-G6Xkx2aej2vCTuPduVfLIQc79Vv241UbetMrfyL6anL2tNpDGtL1zcfxhHd%7ErJd0mN-XcCXJWkuni48-bzySCryFHHfigbxsBgJU7CT-UOZBjadfwRiaw4M8odSOdsxuOHSH3qXxHq4EQY-maJrFyUyNAIl-8VWVa1cvgg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6117c8abcaa5bb8e1845c197b5ea8202 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/34455/archive/files/d23dc0a75de69bbb207205bd87e9b279.mp4?Expires=1776902400&Signature=W6CxHLlBv4%7EETgeMdfFuw%7ELSHrRiy8XYRw4bmrkUJBbS1iXE-bAG4NA3TkENGPmKt4eUo2xjLYDCWiju1AF7ACwWCbLGr89c6tckEHbZBRYYO06hv4G5D3gmK0RkjZ8WcBmQabYjBh0jRFwjtFsukpacHy6mlBh3mCT9HB6CN0Rji0UhSd1DfC%7EsKElfDOmsENhVdnnPUo8rPPlLXPiIqsQFeLET9sB%7ESdMt2znh0xd6oLLzB8jZM4VbohepXXSjm7JmBdO1MPSChfoxyRjPDXE8GWiB4LOrAXhPPhFx1kqNbKkwhcI7jKhqFSbx9ti2ns0Mm5Oe1MVVnBwZ1JbB2A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f65e4e4f1728af792dbe78d425e1953b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Film and Video Collections Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Various collections, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 20th century Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 16mm film Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 15 minutes, 32 seconds Producer Name (or names) of the person who produced the video Shands, Alfred Rives, III, 1928-2021 Director Name (or names) of the person who produced the video Shands, Alfred Rives, III, 1928-2021 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound The below autogenerated transcript may contain errors: A conservative estimate of 250,000 people gathered at the Washington Monument grounds today for the climax of anti-war demonstrations. This figure made it the largest turnout of its kind in the nation's history. The demonstration was preceded by a 40-hour march against death in which 45,000 people walked single file from the Arlington Bridge past the White House to the capital. Each carried the name of an American GI killed in Vietnam or a Vietnamese village destroyed. At the White House, the demonstrators called out the names which they carried. The night portion of the dramatized by a candle light procession. Upon completion of the march against death, there was a mass march up Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House to the monument grounds leading the bearers with caskets containing the names now. Don't you wish love only love could save this world from disaster? Love, love, only love could save this world from disaster. Don't you wish love could end the confusion? Or is it just one more illusion? Oh shant. If we want to have great love, we got to have great anger. If we want to have great love, we got to have great anger. When I see innocent folk shot down, you want me just shake my head and frown. Oh, terrorist shanti salami. We came to the march because my wife and I are very concerned about the war in Vietnam. We have a boy over there and we had another boy come home. We're not only concerned about them, but we're concerned about the future of our country. If we want to hit the target square, better not have blind anger. If we want to hit the target square, better not have blind anger. Or else it'll just be one more time. The correction creates another crime. My oldest son, Mike Ransom, was killed in Vietnam on May 11th last year. In the last letter he ever wrote, he pleaded, "Tell any friends you have in Washington to quit quibbling and start talking about ways to end this foolishness here." In another letter, he asked a friend to attend every anti-war meeting for him. And so I stand before this congregation to bear witness to my son that we, his family and his friends have come again to Washington as he asked us to and that we will try once more to give meaning to his death by our efforts to bring peace and hope to this troubled nation. My name is Donna Barnett. I have come from Fayetteville, Arkansas. My husband, Rey, is stationed in Vietnam. I want to believe that Rey is serving the best interests of America, that it is necessary for him to be in Vietnam. But that is a lie. Rey was taken from me to fight a war that is neither necessary nor just. A war that we stumbled into and now it seems cannot find the honesty or strength to walk away from. I want my husband back from Vietnam as all women want their husbands back from Vietnam. Now, when you come to the proper place, turn towards the door of the White House, stop and really shout the name and the state as loudly as you can. Forget the press microphones because Mr. Nixon has just returned from Florida and we want him to hear. So, shout right for the door minutes ago by helicopter. Please, as you pass the marshal holding the peace sign in the center of the White House, please turn and shout out the name on your placker. Ernie Jacobs, South Carolina, William Fanwick, Colorado. David Kaiser, West Virginia. Benjamin, Wisconsin. David Miller, Michigan. Larry K, Colorado. Car Miracle, Wisconsin, South Vietnam. Joseph King North Carolina Paul Michigander Colorado Bruce Colorado. I'm here to express my strong hope for peace for this country. I I this is probably the most religious experience uh that I have had. I've never seen people such united with such uh such feeling and and I'm proud to be here. Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago. Where have all the flowers gone? Girls have picked them everyone. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? Where all the young I see where all the young No longer. When will they ever? will lay. Where have all the young My name in the Lord. When will we ever will How long will we depend on a foreign aid program that is so largely military aid? How long How long will we continue to spend billions for war or its preparations and be unwilling to spend comparable sums to rebuild the cities and eliminate the slums of the whole world? How long will the white northern nations take advantage of dark southern nations in an unequal economic battle? I remind you that these are not political questions I'm asking. They are moral questions. All we We are shall we shall overcome. We shall overcome. I do. We shall overcome. We shall all be free. We shall all be free. We shall all be free. We shall be free. My heart shall live in peace. We shall live in peace. We shall live in peace. We shall live in my heart. Hallelujah. We are We are not afraid. We are We are not today. Oh, deep in my heart. I do. We shall overcome some shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. Oh, heat. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All We are Saying, 1970 Description An account of the resource All We are Saying documentary (15 minutes, 32 seconds) directed by Rev. Al Shands, III. The film documents the March Against Death, a major anti-Vietnam War protest march and gathering that took place in Washington, DC, on November 13-15, 1969. The film includes footage of Pete Seeger leading protesters in song at the Peace Service in Washington National Cathedral. Rev. Alfred Rives Shands, III (1928-2021), known most often as “Al,” was an Episcopal priest, film producer, author, art collector, and philanthropist who lived in Louisville, Kentucky. He was born in Washington, D.C., and lived with his parents in North Carolina and Delaware as a child. Shands received a BA in English literature from Princeton University and a master’s in divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary, where he was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1955. In 1967, Shands met and married Mary Norton Ballard in Washington, D.C. In 1969, Al started Alfred Shands Productions, Inc., a documentary production company which he operated until 1983. The Shands moved to Mary's hometown of Louisville in 1970. Credits (c) 1970 Alfred R. Shands Camera: George Voellmer, Albert Ihde, Terry Proch, Sandra Bradley Editor: Sandra Bradley Sound: Curt Wittig Sponsors of the film: Clergy and Laity Concerned about Viet Nam Inter-faith Committee Union of American Hebrew Congregations Executive Council of the Episcopal Church National Association of Laymen (Catholic) Produced with the cooperation of the Rev. Philip E. Wheaton, Director of Inter-American Communication and Action Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shands, Rev. Alfred Rives, III, 1928-2021 Alfred Shands Productions, Inc. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived 025x69, Alfred Shands Productions, Inc., All We are Saying, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Alfred Shands Productions, Inc. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-1970 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 16mm film Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image audio Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 025x69 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 20th century 1970s 1960s Subject The topic of the resource Peace movements Social movements Protest movements Vietnam War (1961-1975) Documentary films Independent films Political activists Clergy Episcopalians Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="https://rightsstatements.org/files/buttons/InC.dark-white-interior.svg" alt="In Copyright" style="width:200px;" /> This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Property rights in the collection belong to the Filson Historical Society. The Filson Historical Society can provide high-resolution scans of original source materials from its holdings for non-commercial and commercial use. To learn about this process, visit <a href="https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/</a> https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/34455/archive/files/7ac2a626b69f56cc38adcdb7ee4ca4fc.pdf?Expires=1776902400&Signature=rOLTzdsjbUSLT2-GM1lHVdYsgLWtFY4rlomDBRRgqLqokCe5QotVuFsGwULM-kli997U46G6yq1Wq0Nl4I5FAkCayqSDz%7ER6HGYxswity2o77DHXwZK-9J63UhKeaC0XVzX2z-Jt-IgJ5NCZ3JhrXy22hLyI6DFPMWszQ1BFM5TEODDSvPE1hg8iczbPqKTv7jyWsEPHkF6Axif0jbWoCeLHkzzvnyFG2olvihpJT5W6hc2qsXHpiUf%7EhQf8DY%7EVmr45T-jfY0l5U5eeCgfafIxg%7E22k3qalSVZ34jAZvk-u89IMpqt-oJvTRaXC8GpLZBLQtnY0evN0mndd-G3nnw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM db65038920907c637000ae5574a4febe PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Holocaust and the Ohio Valley, 1920, 1933-1990s Description An account of the resource This collection consists of documents and photographs related to Jewish experiences in the Holocaust and World War II, Jewish American efforts to support refugees, and historical memory of the Holocaust in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. This digitization project is in partnership with the Louisville Ballet's <em><a href="https://www.louisvilleballet.org/a-time-remembered/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A Time Remembered</a> </em>performance, which marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. <div><br />Holocaust-era family documents center on the Wolff, Levy, and Ackermann families who escaped to the United States from France and Austria, and ultimately settled in Louisville. Passports provide photographs of the family members and track their movements through countries. Letters document their efforts to navigate the administrative barriers to passage, and the tragic fate of relatives who were not approved to leave.<br /><br />Records from the National Council of Jewish Women, Louisville Section document the organization's activist work in fundraising for and directly serving refugees in the city, and political organizing around national immigration policies and economic boycotts of German-made goods. The collection includes sample correspondence from national organizations and individuals who supported and were against Zionism in response to the violent antisemitism of the Holocaust. <br /><br />The final items in the collection document Holocaust memorial events in the 1990s. Invitations, photographs, scripts, press releases, and articles represent the memorialization work of the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Community Federation of Louisville, <span>Louisville Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, and other  organizations.</span></div> <br />This project was generously supported by the Jewish Heritage Fund.<br /><br /><a href="https://jewishheritagefund.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://jewishheritagefund.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/jhfe-logo-leftaligned-color@2x.png" alt="jhfe-logo-leftaligned-color@2x.png" width="306" height="58" /></a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920, 1933-1990s Type The nature or genre of the resource Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 20th century Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document French Line S. S. ILE DE FRANCE Wednesday 10 A. M. Dears We do not get very much information but it is reported that War has been declared I still have faith that it will be compromised some way? I hope my card written at Havre & posted there by me a card written & sent from Southampton also, we did not leave Havre until Saturday noon & Southampton Sunday 6 A. M. were we took on a great many passengers The steamer has never before been so crowded beds are even made up in the Engine room everybody is glad to be on at all & hope to get to N. York by Sunday the weather is not very favorable. Fog this A.M. & not much of the fog horn as we do not want our point known to the enemy I am as always a good traveler sleep real fine of course in spite of this & good company my thoughts are with you & hope you look upon the situation with common sense and make the best of it, The Boys of course I know it's very sad but everything has been here before & we must hope for the best I am happy that you are out of the danger Zone & hope it will remain so just have a peacfull home this much is in your Power we have a great many Jewish passengers amongst them the family from Nashville that Robert met in Strasbourg a few years ago. well this is all for to day, Thursday 4 P.M I am feeling fine we had a good deal of Fog yester day also during the night & of course had to go slow I slept well & we have some news but do not know what to believe at any rate it is war & of couse my thoughts are with you when I read of the Battles on the Rhine & Mosel of couse I think of our Boys but we must make the best of it & trust to the [illegible] We are told we will get to New York Friday night or Saturday A. M. but it is guess & again I say do not worry too much as we need all the strengh we have to preserve & more tomorrow. Friday noon beautifull weather we are due in New York tonight & will leave steamer tomorrow all is well & hope you are will send Cabel as soon as we can & hope same will reach you without delay & will write from Louisville good bye Keep up courage with Love to all Your brother Sol Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Sol Levy, 1940 Subject The topic of the resource Jewish refugees Jews Jewish families France World War, 1939-1945 Levy, Sol, 1865-1944 Jewish Holocaust (1939-1945) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Levy, Sol, 1865-1944 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mss. A L668, Folder 2, Levy-Wolff Family Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1940 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright <img src="https://rightsstatements.org/files/buttons/InC.dark-white-interior.svg" alt="In Copyright" style="width:200px;" /> This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/%20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Property rights in the collection belong to The Filson Historical Society. The Filson Historical Society can provide high-resolution scans of original source materials from its holdings for non-commercial and commercial use. To learn about this process, visit <a href="https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/%20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource letter Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mss. A L668 Folder 2 Item 01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 20th century 1940s Description An account of the resource A two-page letter from Jewish American Sol Levy (1865-1944) written on a transatlantic steamer from France to New York City. Levy shares news of the outbreak of World War II, describes the conditions on the ship, and notes the large number of Jewish passengers.<br /><br /><span>Sol Levy was born in 1865 in Alsace-Lorraine, a region that alternately fell under the control of Germany and France in the 19</span>^th<span> century and during World Wars I and II in the 20</span>^th<span> century. After migrating to the United States in 1882, Levy moved to Louisville and worked as a wholesale merchant, establishing the Gould-Levy Company in 1907.</span> https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/34455/archive/files/c7a3bf9132e662b98b1608ea44959a57.pdf?Expires=1776902400&Signature=G3P91AEU7AMBiRdu4gUmwwsTeT9VN8Jo72G-IwW%7E3CtU2XM-9RwCLU%7E-363lt%7EbvRqaSLPL6fp4Vu5fEgqgN2qzDq63A9Gx01DitQNY%7ErwBm4EPQ1dkdBZgwOafpTk2dr96EmNzqvEw5hvrn0V1H4sEA9zJu7r2xW0naP25JkULWq%7EcOrmf0zUTi8%7E6gQ3Lvp3Sb6VfIHTfDT1nj347LMyz6F1knIKk5lEuFMU1ABPIYbHQN8UuJHsTTFlRCz8nu2l4-9LvTHsOC44756Rlga%7EeNSCxupue2anBTeMSUl0AeeJ5el9GhPmEi80zpcwotqfW7IrAAIiv0A%7E6MxKoGlg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2685be6e98dacf765c59874eab3554d2 PDF Text Text An Interview with Roosevelt Chin Following is the transcript of an interview with Roosevelt Chin that was recorded in three sessions in the Spring of 2002. The motivation behind these interviews was the strong feeling, on behalf of myself and many others involved with the Cabbage Patch Settlement House, that Chin's was a unique and special story that needed to be recorded. Having grown up at the Patch and served as its employee for over fifty years (!), Chin and the Patch are about as inextricably linked as a man's life and an organization's can be. So in a sense, this is the Patch's story as well as Chin's. While words can only do so much to capture the essence of a man's life or an organization, I think that these words, Chin's own, do an admirable job of achieving this. What emerges from these pages is the story of a man whose life walk has been one of service, humility, and most importantly, love. In this world where the headlines are full of people chasing their own selfish dreams, Chin stands in refreshing contrast as a man whose life has been marked by an overriding concern not for himself, but for others. What struck me throughout our interview was that Chin was a man who sincerely, deeply cared for the wellbeing and improvement of those around him. His words belied a deep concern for others. Just as the Cabbage Patch seeks to be the expression of the One who loved us first, so Chin's life has been an example of that love. An interviewer's greatest fear is that his or her questions will be met with awkward silence or terse answers. This fear was quickly put to rest as I began to interview Chin. As you will see from the following pages, all I had to do was to ask a question and Chin would usually pour forth with a wonderful stream of enthusiastically expressed recollections, memories and thoughts. I can only characterize my experience as an interviewer as delightful. Beyond Chin's willingness to talk freely, it was simply fascinating to hear his story. I finished each session in anxious anticipation of the next. A final word of thanks to Dollie Johnson, who put her transcription skills to the test in deciphering some less than perfect cassette recordings. Her diligence and perseverance in the task were much appreciated. Sloane Graff SG: What is your name? Chin: My name is Roosevelt Chin. SG: Is that your full name? Chin: Full name. SG: Tell me a little about your background and how you got to Louisville. Chin: My mother and father are from Canton, China. There is no Canton, China anymore; they've change names. It was a match marriage. They never saw �each other until they got married. I think she was 16 and he was 19. And they came over to Seattle in 1920. Then they went to Chicago - that's where my grandfather lived. Interesting side bit - my grandfather was the head of the Chinese Tong Gang. In fact years later he was assasinated in the streets of Chicago by Al Capone. So when my mother and father arrived in Chicago, thinking they would work in Chicago, my grandfather said, "Hey I just won a restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky through my black market payment..." SG: Was this your father's father? Chin: Yes, paternal grandfather. So he gave the restaurant to my mother and father who had no idea what to do with it; didn't even know where Kentucky was. In 1921, they opened up a restaurant here in Louisville, and that's how we all ended up in Louisville. SG: What year was that? Chin: That was 1919. The restaurant was at the Third and Walnut Street, which is now Muhammad Ali. It was diagonal from the Pendennis Club. The restaurant only lasted a couple of years. What happened was one of the cooks was filling up soy sauce, which was pitch black, you know, a barrel of soy sauce. And he is leaning over dipping out the soy sauce when a waiter walked by behind him and put his hands on his shoulders just to say hello. Well, when the waiter looked in the soy sauce and saw the reflection of a face of the a cook, he threw his arms up and said: "This place is haunted!" So he runs and tells all his other fellow workers that the place is haunted ... that he saw a face in the soy sauce. Well, the Chinese are very superstitious and they refused to work. So my father, new to the business, not knowing a lot of English, said, "well I believe it is." So he closed the restaurant up. About a year later he opened one up on 4th and Jefferson, right where the Hyatt Hotel is. SG: What kind of place was that? Chin: Three stories. The restaurant was on the second floor. There were eight in the family. I had one brother, four sisters and my mother and father. And he ran the restaurant on the second floor; we lived on the third floor. Uh, during the war when all the food was rationed, and all the sugar and meat and everything was rationed, people would go to the restaurants once they ran out of rationing stamps, because the restaurants had unlimited supply of food. And they would come to the restaurant, and of course the soldiers from Fort Knox would come over on weekends. And my father announced to us, "hey we no longer need to live in town, we're moving out to the suburbs." This is 1948. So we moved out to first and Hill Street which we thought was the suburbs. And I attended _ _ __ Hall, which is now Manual High School. My brother also attended. And one day he came up to me and he said, "hey, I found a place where we can go play �basketball", and it was the Cabbage Patch. So my brother found the place first and then I came. SG: What was his name? Chin: Richard Chin. And so my whole family got involved in the Cabbage Patch . And Miss Marshall kind of took my family under her wing and any time there was something that needed to be done, she would see that our family was taken care of. Couple of little old side things. We used to play catch down in the second floor restaurant on fourth and Jefferson, and we would kind of really get in the way of the diners. This white-haired old lady said, "These little Chinese kids are bothering every body. Where is their mother?" And so the waiter told her, "she lives upstairs on the third floor; and that's where they live." And she said, "Well, I'm going up there and speak to her, their mother." And of course, we were kinda not taken back, for we knew my mother couldn't speak English. How can she tell on us, you know, how can the lady go up there and tell on us if she, if my mother couldn't speak English. Well, the lady went up there, and we followed behind, kinda you know, full of ourselves, wow she's going to get a big surprise when she meets my mother and finds out my mother can't speak English! Well, it turned out, the lady spoke Chinese! She had been a missionary in China and she convinced my mother that all six of us needed some kind of organized activity. So she took us all down to Walnut Street Baptist Church on third and St. Catherine, enrolled us in the vacation bible school, and because of that action my whole family were Christians. SG: What were they before? Chin: Uh, probably Buddhist, whatever, we didn't know. Since she couldn't speak English and we couldn't speak Chinese there was very little communication between my mother and the rest of family. We would have to go through my father who could speak English since he worked the restaurant, or some of the cooks who learned how to speak English, and of course all the waiters could speak English. And they became our interpreters. The only thing that is common in the Chinese language, there are so may dialects, is the written word. The written word doesn't change although the dialects get so extreme, one province can't understand another province, but the written word is the same throughout. But we couldn't write. So we really had a hard time communicating with my mother. SG: Now, how old were you then at this point? Chin: Uh, I was, well when we moved into this neighborhood in '48, I was 14. I first came to the Cabbage Patch I guess when I was 15, I guess. So what happened was, we all went to Walnut Street. Our first Sunday school teacher was Miss Nausbaum. The little children's activity building is named after her. �When my mother died in 1990, a cousin from New York went through all her belongings, which were all written in Chinese; we couldn't understand anything. And he said, "Here's one book you ought to hold on to." And we said, "well we don't want her books, we can't read Chinese." You know, it's meaningless to us. And he said, "Well, this is a Chinese Bible." And we had no idea that she was a Christian! Because,again, she never spoke English. Well, we could speak pig Latin English, but not formalized English, so we really couldn't understand her or anything. But even though the children were all Christian, we just assumed that she was Buddhist or something. SG: So she never really communicated ... Chin: No. So all these years, she was a Christian and we didn't know it. And he looked at the Bible verses, and they were the same verses, you know John 3: 16, the 23 rd Psalm, that was underlined. So that was a nice relief to know that she was a Christian without the rest of the family knowing it. So we came over here in '48, when I first came to the Cabbage Patch. I got involved playing basketball mostly. And I remember Miss Marshall used to meet us at the door and we'd sign our names and go into the gym. And she would say, "Well, we can't open the gym just yet. We have to sweep the gym floor." And she would have her part time janitor who also was a janitor at the Baptist Hospital; he would do the gym floor. But it wasn't a top priority with him. Doing the maintenance of the rest of the building was more important. So we would volunteer, "Can we sweep the floor so we can play basketball?" She said, "Yes, the broom is in there." We would get that big wide broom and sweep the whole gym floor. Well it got to the point where there were many afternoons when we couldn't get into the gym because no one swept the floor. So I started volunteering. I told Miss Marshall that I don't mind sweeping the floor at the very beginning because all I'm here for is to play basketball, not for the pool, arts and crafts or anything else. So she let me sweep the gym floor and the kids would get after me - "Hurry up, why are you doing it so slow for - we want to play basketball." So finally, I told her "Why can't I come early and have the gym all ready before we open up." And she told me, "Well if you want to come early I'll let you in and you can have the whole gym all to yourself and you can clean up." And I was so conscientious about it. Because I wanted to play basketball, and all my peer group didn't want me to procrastinate in sweeping the floors, you see. So I would do it ahead of time, and that must have impressed her because she asked me if I wanted to do some odd jobs around here - mostly emptying garbage cans. Back then we could burn garbage; we would take it out in the back and burn it. And she would have people stand there and watch the fire so that the ashes wouldn't get out of control and float over to somebody's garage. But once the gym opened, everybody would run back into the gym and nobody would watch it. But I was conscientious enough to stand there and tend to it until it died down. And she noticed that. She said to me, "You're the only one that I can count on to watch this fire. I don't want to burn the neighborhood down." So I think those two things - sweeping the floor and focus on my task impressed her enough that when there was a need for another �staff member, and that was when Charles Dietsch went into the Korean War, his boot training, she asked me if I would take over his softball team. SG: Around what age were you? Chin: Uh, '53, I was 20; 19 or 20. Just got out of Male High School, was going to U. of L. But all the other years before that I was volunteering, you know, doing odd jobs for her, but not formally on the staff. And Dietsch and I knew each other at High School, Male High School. When he left for the Army, that's when I started working and I've been there ever since. So '53 was my official first year of being paid. Well that makes, been here what, 54 years now. Long time. We used to laugh about that, how Miss Marshall was here all these years and we would say, "No one is ever gonna stay in a place this long." But you know, the years kind of a went by pretty fast; quickly. And I think it's because of the variety of things that I did here. There isn't a department or an activity that I haven't been in charge of, including day care, including administration, arts and crafts, the camping, all the athletics. So I think that variety is certainly one of the reasons that I have never burned out. Because working with young people and working with at risk families is really stressfu I. But I seem to have a pretty, put a good view, overall view; the little small battles don't bother me. When I see a kid do something bad, or a family doesn't respond, it doesn't bother me and I think that's because I've been here enough years to know that you don't see immediate results in some of the things that you do. SG: Right. Chin: So I don't take all the negative things home with me because I know in time, we will reach that family or reach that person. SG: I would like to come back to your childhood. Was there much of a ChineseAmerican community in Louisville then? Chin: Yes, there was I think four other families but they were all Chinese hand laundries, they were all downtown, and my father had the only Chinese restaurant. And he was sort of like the head of the Chinese community. Probably from his reputation of his father in Chicago, because every body knew his father was the head of the Chinese Tong gang. So I guess that was like the don, you know, the Mafia. And so no one would open a Chinese restaurant as long as my father had one. But you know, the minute he died we had more Chinese restaurants in Louisville. But even two of the Chinese laundry families opened up restaurants one was the Howcal - Laura, she grew up with me in childhood - but they stayed �a laundry until my father died, out of respect for him. No one would go into the restaurant business until after he died. SG: When did he die? Chin: In 1952 SG: I'm also curious to hear about the other people in your family. Where are they now? Chin: Yeah. My brother, who also grew up here at the Cabbage Patch, is retired, but he was a state senator here in Kentucky. He went in with Ron Mazolli and they were freshman senators together in Frankfort. In fact, that was funny, we took my mother to Frankfort for his inauguration and my mother took a rose and put it on his desk, every legislator had a desk, and we sat up in the balcony for the swearing in. Then afterwards, she told my father that she had no idea what was going on. But she knew that it was something important and so she went. But he was state senator. I had four sisters. All six of us graduated from college. My oldest sister, who is deceased, was the head of the copyright department at the Library of Congress in Washington. SG: What was her name? Chin: Elizabeth May Chin. And the thing about it, she started out at the public library working in the audio-visual department, and they talked her into pursuing that as a career and she went to, back then it was Nazareth, which is now Spalding College. Then the Catholic University in Washington, and got in with the Library of Congress and was there for years and years. I had a next oldest sister, Martha; she went to the Art Institute in Chicago. Graduated from the University of Louisville then had a mental illness, schizophrenic problems, and then so she didn't work until her death. She just kind of, uh, she just really couldn't. Back then, you took them to Lakeland. And they gave electric shock treatments. Now they don't do that anymore but it was really horrible. In a way it kind of turned me into social work. I saw some of the things they were doing to the mental patients. It was really like animals. That always stuck with me cause I'd go weekends and pick up my sister and bring her for home visits and I could see some of the mental patients really mistreated. And they all thought I was a doctor. Lots of doctors and psychiatrists in the state run institutions are Oriental. Cause they can't set up a going practice because of their lack of English and lack of trust from the average population. So they get hired by the state government. So everything one of these patients would see me they would say, "Are you a doctor? Can you change my prescription? I need more pills." And they would tell me how neglected they were. "No body will come and see me. I haven't seen my doctor, you know, in so many months." And I could just see them so inadequately funded, and they were just left on their own. And, the funny thing, when I did my masters field training in Kent School, I was placed at the Central �State Hospital. So I almost made a full circle. Having a sister there, seeing the conditions, and then being placed there. So that was one thing that kind of threw me into the social work field. Just seeing how people were mistreated. My next youngest, the third one, is Millie; she was an English teacher at Pleasure Ridge High School, thirty-five years, finally retired. She was named top ten teachers in the State of Kentucky when she was teaching English. She married Dr. Hagemann who was head of humanities department at the University of Louisville. She was just a secretary who was floundering around with her divorce. Miss Marshall put her up in 520 where our family services department is. She rented the third floor apartment from the minister and let her little boy come to our daycare. She's the one who talked my sister into going into teaching. She really did well in teaching; taught .for thirty-five years. And then I have a youngest sister, Molly, and she married a Cabbage Patcher - they met here. They live out in California - Sacramento. So all four sisters have names that begin with M - May, Martha, Millie, Molly. My brother's is Richard. So when it came time to find another R - Chinese have a hard time saying R. So she couldn't think of another name like Rick or something. And so she looks in the paper, she says I'll pick this name and it was President Roosevelt. SG: I wondered about that. .. Chin: And that was how, you know, I was named Roosevelt. She ran out of names so none of us have middle names. We're all just first and last names. SG: Now what do you like to be called? Chin: Chin. SG: Mr. Chin or Roosevelt? Chin: Just Chin. The only ones that call me Roosevelt are my later acquaintance, all my fellow students at Kent School, U of L, call me Roosevelt. None of my high school friends call me Roosevelt. And some of the guys that I grew up with playing ball here at the Cabbage Patch call me Rosie. But it's just too hard to spell and you know. As the years went on, more and more things were named Roosevelt, you know, highways, different institutions, and a couple, two or three, famous ball players, Roosevelt Greer and Roosevelt Taylor - that brought that name into more prominence so that when I said my name was Roosevelt, no one giggled or laughed or said how do you spell it and all that, you see? But when I was growing up, there wasn't that many things named after Roosevelt. So I kind of shied away from that name. But Chinese often, or Orientals, use the last name as their first name. My father was Chin Ming, not Min Chin. �SG: What was his first name? Chin: It was Jack. His American name was Jack Chin Ming. All the other Chinese cooks would call him Ming but his real name was Chin. SG: Talk a little bit more about your education. Chin: I went to Male High School, got out of there in '51. We were the last all male class. And then went to University of Louisville. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I wanted to do art. I was really good in art but my sister, the one who had the divorce, majored in art at Syracuse and at Ohio State. And of course, you can't make money in art and my father used to say, "No one else is going to spend all that money and study art." There I was, next in line, I was going to go take art. I took pre-med.; I took a lot of other things that were useless for what I was trying to do. And so from '51 to '60 I finally got my degree - it was nine years, and the degree was in art history. And then Miss Marshall kept telling me that I need to do something about social work. She said arts is great for teaching arts and crafts and painting classes but I need you to do more of the things that social work requires - human behavior and all those kinds of things. So I went back to Kent School and received my master's in '69. So it took me eighteen years to complete my college education. I always let the kids know that. That you just don't get in there, get your grades and get out. You really have to push yourself. Of course the reason wasn't because I didn't want to go to school, the reason is because I didn't want to miss anything at the Cabbage Patch. So summer school was out because I was always into the camping trips and everything; fall was out because I was coaching basketball and doing arts and crafts and all the other things. So I really couldn't find a block of time to give up until Miss Marshall really really persuaded me that it's important enough you got to stop everything and do it. So it took me eighteen years to get my master's degree. SG: That's great. It seems like education was an important thing to you ... Chin: Oh, our whole family. I was telling a friend the other day, that in a way it was good but the worst thing about my growing up years is our family was so competitive in grades. I mean, you dared not miss a class, you dared not come up with anything less that an A. If you got a B you were the black sheep of the family. And our whole family really excelled in academics. SG: Were your mom and dad educated? Chin: No. I think my mother might have been, in China. I think her father was the mayor of the province so she was a very prominent family where my father wasn't. �SG: Let's go back to your grandfather - your father's father - when did he come over? Chin: I have no idea. I was just a youngster. My only recollection of him was that he came to Louisville and I remember sitting on his lap and he told me to pound his chest as hard as I could. So I thought, I'll show him how strong I am - so I hit as hard as I could and there was a metal breastplate. He had to wear a bulletproof vest because there was a contract out on his life. I remember that. And then later on he was assassinated right in Chinatown in Chicago. A cousin of mine went to Chicago and was wondering around in Chinatown and happened to mention the name Chin. This man said, "Hey, we've got a shrine for the Chin family." And took him into this little temple and asked him if he wanted to light a candle. All of the names of my grandfather's generation was on this temple wall. So they revered his name. SG: Now I know that sports have always been important to you. Tell me about that. .. Chin: That was the first thing - when I grew up the Neighborhood House was on First and I guess Walnut, where the Brown School is. And I played ball there and the little church on, we used to have a haymarket downtown, so this church was on Jefferson and I guess around Brook Street. And I played basketball there. And I've never played on an indoor court until I went to Hylick Hall, which is Manual, and I played on there ... back then we didn't have middle school we had junior high school ... I guess I played on the seventh and eighth grade team. And then when I discovered the Cabbage Patch it was such a thrill to be inside a gym to play basketball instead outdoors. And that was my main thrust was to excel in something. I'd always been small. We went through a lot of discrimination back in the '40's. I remember during the War, my father who was the head of the Chinese community, made us wear little pins with a cross flag of an American flag and a Chinese flag. And it would say, "I'm Chinese." We hated to wear that, but he said we had to because if they think you're Japanese you may be sent to internment camps, you know. And we would get a lot of, lot of racial things hollered at us. There was a time when you had to return your medal toothpaste tube in order to buy another one. So my mother told me to pick up some toothpaste at Walgreen's and I went there, and I picked up the toothpaste and the pharmacist said, "Where is the discarded one?" And I said, "Oh, I forgot it. Can't I go ahead and get this and bring it back later?" It was just down the street from our restaurant. And he says, "No, you have to go and get it." Almost like punishment for me to forget it. He says, "If it wasn't for you people we wouldn't be at war anyway." So I got that. I remember my sister and I sitting at the Lowe's Theater which is now the Palace - and back then, without television the news of the war came on between movies. And the news would come on and they would show the Japanese fighter planes. People wouldn't boo, they would hiss. They would make a hissing sound. And my brother and sister and I would kind of slink down in our seats hoping no one realized that we were sitting right there - see? But what was bad that after every newsreel, the lights would come on, as intermission for he next movie. And some lady stood up and pointing at �us and said, "Because of you people my son is dead." And here we are just eight or nine years old, and we looked at each other so puzzled - what are you talking about? And we were so embarrassed, we left. So we got a lot of that. And I think that was what drove me into trying to excel in athletics. And so when I have this gym, and since I swept the gym, I was the first one there, and before the crowds came in, I had the gym practically to myself and two or three others. I really worked on my shot, I was obsessed. And there again it goes back to those obsessions of making good grades. That was all we talked about at home was who was not doing well in school. Everything we did was competitive. So that fueled with my desire to excel in something to compensate for me having gone through some intolerance and some people teasing me, I really became proficient in basketball. A couple of my coaches said they've never seen anybody play as well as I did. The only thing I didn't have was the physical body for it. But by the time I was late teens, it was no problem to hit a hundred free throws in a row without missing. I hit fifty-seven three pointers in a row! - behind the foul circle - but back then we didn't know what three pointers were. But it was no problem. It was one of those things like you know, I could do it all but I couldn't play basketball because I didn't have the concept of the game, I couldn't rebound, I couldn't guard anybody, I was just tiny. When people saw me, they wouldn't choose me for the team. But once they knew how well I could shoot, I was always chosen to play on the team. And I think that's why athletics was sort of like a, it compensated for what I felt were deficiencies physically and culturally. And I see that as a way of our kids, so I have really pushed education which is big in my life, and athletics with all these years I've been at the Cabbage Patch. I just thought that was the two vehicles that could really help people move out of whatever situations they were in because it certainly helped me that way. There is a standard talk in my family - "Oh, you're still at that play job. They pay you for playing basketball." And up to I guess about four years ago I still played basketball, all the way into my 50's. I would still get that. By that time I couldn't run, I could just outshoot everybody in horses and twenty-one. SG: Did you play baseball too? Chin: Yeah, I played baseball for Lloyd Redmond. We won national championship in Milwaukee. I think we came in fourth; back in the 50's. So those were the two. Of course I ran track whenever we had track. I tried football at Male but there again, I was just fast; way too little. Tried track at Male. Did play some JV basketball but when we got to the varsity level there was no way I could keep up - they were just so much bigger than me. �I was always the littlest wherever I went; littlest player on the team, littlest person at school. So I think that's why I was obsessed to excel in something like basketball so they couldn't say not only is he little but he's not any good . I read that somebody hired a 78-year-old man to teach, I think Shaquile O'Neal, how to shoot a foul shot. And this man holds the Guinness Record of 2,700 foul shots without a miss. And he doesn't play basketball either. He just goes around giving tours and motivation speeches. So it's really more skill than athletic, like throwing darts I guess or bowling. It got me in trouble one time. I used to over to the park and play basketball and we would gamble. We would play hit or miss. If I hit one, you had to hit. If you didn't hit it, you owed me a quarter. Then you get the next shot. If you hit it, I had to make it and we kept going until someone missed. And I was making ten, fifteen dollars a day. Miss Marshall heard about that and oh, she jumped on me. She said, "You know that's a talent God gave you and you can't use it that way." And I guess I was in my late teens, and I never gambled since. That was a lesson . Well, I didn't realize that I was setting an example and I was staying in that park - I remember one time 'til four in the morning. Some kid was coming back from work, he said, "You're still here?" And I stayed just shooting by myself. I was really obsessed with that. SG: So you spent, I mean as a kid growing up, you spent a lot of time playing basketball! Chin: Yeah, almost all my time. My mother signed me up for some piano lessons. This lady, I can't remember where, towards town, I think the old Weisenger Garbert apartments on third and Broadway. She would give me carfare and I would take my piano book and it didn't get passed the neighbor's hedges and I would hide the piano book and walk over here to play basketball. And I would go back home and tell my mother I went to lessons. But I'd much rather be here. Until this day, I can play one song, the very beginning song that she taught me, and I can't do a thing with the piano except that one song. SG: So your mom never knew ... Chin: She never knew. And my sisters were really good violinists. Lot of the Orientals go into violin. She was really, she was almost concert level, she was really good. In some kind of string quartet. And my brother was a clarinet but I never did anything. I used to laugh about it; well I couldn't have been on Male's band because they don't have piano in the band. So that was my rationale for not taking those lessons. When we were downtown, a lot of the politicians and store business owners came to our restaurant to eat. I remember a lot of prominent people, but at that time I didn't know they were prominent, used to talk about us. And one of them was Leo T. Wolfert who must have been a prominent lawyer in town because he knew Miss Marshall. And later on, he told this story about Miss Marshall. He �said, "All these kids would come to the court house and play on the lawn and so forth." She said, "We would be sitting there on a break and we would give them a penny, give them a nickel to buy candy and those Chinese kids would never take money from any of the lawyers." He said, "We would sit on the park bench at the court house and they would never take any money from us. So we got together and bought some toys and took them to the restaurant and gave them to the father to tell him how well he taught his kids." And Miss Marshall heard that years later and introduced me to Mr. Wolfert who worked at the old Chamber of Commerce at Third and Liberty. But there were a number of people like that who would come to our restaurant and years later would run into me and say, "You're not the Chin family who lived downtown? We used to come to that restaurant all the time." SG: And you mentioned W. K. Stewarts. What connection did you have there? Chin: Just playing there in and out, I just loved to browse in those books. And I was into art so they had art supplies in the back and we used to go there and look at all the art equipment. There were three in our family that really liked to draw. We did a lot of art. In fact, I took some art at the Arts Student League in New York, across from Carnegie Hall, and the Art Academy, and of course the Hite Institute at the University of Louisville. SG: Now when did you do that? Chin: This would be 1956 and 1957. SG: So did you live up there? Chin: Yeah. In fact, my claim to fame is I took calligraphy from Arnold Bank who was at that time, I guess, the.foremost calligraphist in the country. And in 1956, Grace Kelley married Prince Rainier and we helped do the hand-engraved invitations. That was our Art Student League, right across the street from Carnegie Hall. SG: So where did you live in New York? Chin: Well, first in Greenwich Village with all the other artists, but it got so expensive we moved up to the north, West Side. I was on 69 th street and years later, John Lennon got killed on 72 nd street, the Dakota Apartments, right down the street from us. A lot of our friends lived there up in the, where they did "You've Got Mail", that Meg Ryan and Hank, that little garden where they sold the produce, everything was right there 72 nd and Broadway - Central Park West. I had a 4 th floor apartment, no running water, and think I only paid 20 dollars a week. �SG: And then Cincinnati - when were you in Cincinnati? Chin: Uh, the year after that. New York was too far away. I flew home for the Male/Manual Thanksgiving football game. I flew home for Christmas. I flew back for the basketball state tournament and Miss Marshall kept saying, "You can't keep coming back from New York; that's too far away!" And so she finally said well you shouldn't be up that far. So I moved closer - to Cincinnati. In Cincinnati I lived at Eaton Park, right there by the river and we had helped set up exhibits at the Cincinnati Museum. After Cincinnati, I switched back to U. of L., and they said my work was so advanced that, U. of L. Had no art department you see, and so I appeared before a board and they looked at my work and they said, "Well your work is as good as what our seniors' are doing," so they gave me the Art Degree, although I really didn't take art here. SG: What was your primary medium, was it drawing or painting? Chin: Designing. Just advertisements, and ... SG: Commercial sorts of things? ... Chin: Yeah. I did a lot of odd jobs in designing. I did one in the shopping center sign that, well after all these years, I guess it's not there. For a shopping center Swifton, uh, Swifton Center, out there where the Cincinnati Warriors used to play basketball, up in that neighborhood, by Xavier University. And so mine was selected, and I used to go by the shopping center and I'd see my sign there. But that was back in the 50's, I highly doubt it's there anymore. But I did a lot of advertisement design. I did one, well back then it was LP records, long-playing records, 33 1/3, I did an album cover one time. It was mostly competition for students. Whoever came up with the best would get a little stipend and they would use it. It wasn't that I was commissioned to do anything. So that was my art career in Cincinnati. But downtown was really a vibrant place when I first moved away from downtown to move out in this neighborhood. My father really liked Lewis Apple. Apple's used to be the premier men's store chain. He used to be a family friend of ours. Levy Brothers and two or three _others - Roth Jewelry used to be right across from the restaurant. And I always thought years later if I ever needed reference or anything I would call on those people. As it turned out as the years went by, everybody moved out of downtown. We lost track of them. When my father died, we had the China Inn Restaurant on Third between Broadway and Chestnut. My brother was at U. of K., and he said, "I just have one more year. Will you run the restaurant for me?" So I did both. I worked at the Cabbage Patch and I ran the restaurant. And it turned out to be two years. And I learned to do all the cooking, all the marketing, and waited on tables. And after he finished he says; "Now you can go to school and I'll run the restaurant." �So that's when I went to New York. And then when we came back, we were going to divide the business up, and that's when I made the decision that I was going to stay at the Cabbage Patch. But I did have two years of running our Chinese restaurant. SG: Now how much longer did your brother run the restaurant? All the way up until he was elected state Senator in 1970. He had the Lotus restaurant. We had about five restaurants in town. Let's see - the Oriental House on Shelbyville Road, there was Golden Dragon on Dupont Circle, the Lotus on Dixie Highway, the House of Chin on Dixie Highway, plus the three that we had in town. There was a scheme - in order to bring a Chinese immigrant over here they had to have a job. So we would bring all our cousins and whoever needed to come over, that was the passport to get to the United States - you had a job waiting for you. And my brother would train them in running a restaurant, and they would open up there own restaurant. And then my brother would just collect the monthly rental. So a lot of the cooks and owners of these restaurants in Louisville are connected with my brother in the sense that he got them over here and trained them. In fact, the guy from Asiatique, his wife lived at our restaurant and waited on tables. And we lost track of him. Of course he has one of the top restaurants in town. So when I had a birthday my brother and his wife invited me out there to eat. And the cook came out, and of course he knows my brother and he met me. And said that if it wasn't for my brother he wouldn't have gotten into the restaurant business. And uh, I was recruiting a company to help us with Christmas Baskets - a sponsor. So they asked me to come to there office downtown and speak to their group. Well it turned out that one of the spokespersons in that firm was someone who worked at our Chinese Restaurant. So we are always running into people because each generation spreads out. You bring them over, you train them, and then they bring somebody over. Cause once you've have a job waiting for them you can get the visa and work permit to come over here. Yeah, There was no other Chinese Restaurant. We had, at one time, two at one time. The one on 4th and Jefferson, and the one 4th Street next to the Ohio and Kentucky Theater. It was called the Loiyang TeaGarden. There was a variety record shop right next to us. So we had two restaurants at the same time. Then when he closed the one on 4th street he opened the one on Third and Broadway called China Inn. So we've had three downtown. Considering someone who never heard of Louisville, never come to Kentucky, neither one could speak English, and to have a thriving restaurant ... �SG: This week I'd like to talk a little bit more about the Patch. Obviously, it's been a big, big part of your life and just sort of let you talk about the changes you've seen from the time you first came here 'til now. Chin: Yeah, I think I mentioned last time my introduction to the Cabbage Patch. Living downtown and coming out to this neighborhood. Helping to clean the gym so I could get access to it to play basketball. Uh, my first official job, other than the handy jobs that we did, Gary Schaeffer who later became the basketball coach at PleasureRidge Park High School and was selected coach of the year at Kentucky All-stars. He and I would go over to Miss Marshall's residence on Ormsby, I think it was 412 Ormsby, and empty garbage cans. She can converted the three-story building into apartment houses and we used to garbage cans for her. I remember that was one of my jobs. Coming in and checking attendance - kids used to have to sign their name, age and address every time they came in. She would transpose that onto little cards so we could keep attendance on how many times each child came in. I remember doing that and cleaning he gym and watching the garbage burn. I remember those kinds of odd jobs. But my official job began when Charles Dietsch went into the Korean War boot camp. He had a softball team and they were trying to find someone who could coach the team and that's when Miss Marshall asked me if I would coach. I had known Dietsch I guess since we were in junior high school. We were in Male together. And since I was into athletics here it was just a natural thing - would you mind taking the team. And I think that was my official capacity finishing out the season for the 12 and under softball team and then Dietsch went away to the War. And I remember the very first camping experience; it was in '56. Joe Burkes took a group of kids in the back of the bread truck to Washington, D.C. and I remember helping them get ready for it. I wasn't allowed to go because I still had the commitment to the softball team. But I remember the ones who went and I remember the grocery shopping, the planning of the trip. And that was my first indication that some of these trips really take some pinpoint planning. And finally, I think the following summer I was involved in camping. And Mrs. Green, John R. Green, was in charge of camping. She was from Second Presbyterian Church. She was skilled in Girl Scouts. She transformed some of that camping skill into our camps. She asked my if I would help her get her camps ready. I remember things like putting all the supplies into categories so you could find what you needed for breakfast, what you needed for lunch, where the utensils were, where the condiments were, and so forth. She would label the boxes. She would even have the tomatoes in a bushel basket and the ripe ones on top and the ones that were going to be ripe on the bottom so as we use them during the camp you didn't have to handle all the tomatoes, because you knew that the top ones were the fresh ones to use. All the things that she learned through Girl Scouts camps. And that is how we were introduced to so many young ladies, through Collegiate and through Second Church, that came through the Cabbage Patch. Louise Farnsley was one, Nashes all came, Kit Davis, you name them. All the ones who stayed involved with the Cabbage Patch through the years was through that camping program. Mrs. Green told me �that she has tried to find some teenager girls at the Cabbage Patch for role models but she couldn't find any. If they were good role models, they didn't have camping skills. If they had camping skills, they were the kind of girls you didn't want as leaders. Where as, her resources at Second Church youth groups and at the Girl Scouts she was able to find the kind of young people she wanted as role models. So my first camps was really a learning experience. I was brand new at camping. And just watching those girls, Betsy Brewer was another one, they all knew the camp songs, all the Girl Scouts do. So I quickly absorbed all that and of course watching Mrs. Green supervise and plan the whole program was just an eye opener. SG: Would the Girl Scouts go with girls from the Cabbage patch? Chin: The children were Cabbage Patchers and the CIT, counselors in training, were the ones that Mrs. Green recruited. I remember a lot of them were from Collegiate School. And she was the leader of the camp and I would be the activities director. SG: Where would you go? Chin: I remember the first camp was in Versailles State Park which is 75 miles north of Louisville. Then I remember a camp in Lincoln State Park which is near Santa Claus Land in Indiana. In fact, Miss Marshall came to visit that camp and that was the only camp I remember her coming to; to the Lincoln camp. Incidentally, that was the time I first met Virginia Rucker. Mrs. Green couldn't find a cook and this is really a good story - Mrs. Green couldn't find a cook so there was a prayer circle at Second Church, and she mentioned that we were still looking for a cook, we only had a week to find one, and she couldn't bear to see all 90 campers without a good nutritious meal. And she mentioned that in the prayer circle. Afterwards, one of the ladies at the church and said, "I have a housekeeper, a really good cook, a Black lady. Do you want me to ask her if she'd go to camp, it's a pinch, you know, would she come and take care of it?" So we were introduced to Virginia Rucker. She was so good and so taken with the children. I remember later on at some of the campfires, on the final night we would give her her camp cook check and she'd say, "I want to come to the campfire." And she would stand in front of all the children and all the staff and counselor and she would return the check to us. And said that we were doing such a good job with her children meaning the African-American children at our camps and she said, "I couldn't possibly do this job and get paid for it." I wanted her to take this money. And for years and years she wouldn't let us pay her. Later on she brought her granddaughter and the granddaughter evolved into being another cook after her. I think she was our cook for 27 or 28 years. Just through that prayer circle that Mrs. Green did. But every year we went to camp, Virginia was one of the fixtures that was there. And to this day, a lot of the alumni that I run into, when we mention camp, they always ask, "How's Virginia." Of course, she's passed away and they always ask about Mrs. Green. In fact, �when Mrs. Green died I went to her memorial service at Second Presbyterian Church and at this time, Edith Breed was our President. After the service, Mrs. Breed asked, "How did you know Mrs. Green?" And I had to tell her practically everything I had learned as far as camping and scouting was through Mrs. Green. And of course Mrs. Breed arrived on the scene later, but she had no idea that Mrs. Green had such a profound influence on our camping program, and the sewing school, which I didn't have a lot to do with, but is was a big part of our program . Upward to 100 kids, girls, would come one a week and spread out into three different rooms and learn how to sew. And I remember the directors were, Mrs. Green had one, and Mrs. Brewer, and Mrs. Palmer-Ball. The elementary group learned how to do pincushions and potholders, and then they moved up to stuffed animals. The senior group worked on smocks and little dresses and things like that, using the sewing machine. SG: Now when did that kind of die out? Chin: That died out when bussing came around. By the time our kids got bussed back into our neighborhood, it was almost dark. This was Fall and Winter; it would be 4:30, almost 5, and then the same thing with our volunteers. They couldn't come because their children were being bussed and they had to be home when their children came home. So that kind of slowed it down. I remember going to the schools to advertise things like sewing school, arts and crafts, and different programs. And I remember a couple of the principals said that some of our students no longer live in this neighborhood. They are bussed in from other neighborhoods. You have to open up your invitation to everybody, not just the people living by the Cabbage Patch. So that kind of stymied our efforts to publicize because a lot of people, even though the school was just down the street from us, they weren't in our neighborhood and we thought it was a mistake to open it up to all the other neighborhoods too. In fact, it didn't really make that much difference because transportation and distance kind of eliminated them. But we though we would be over-run by some of the other neighborhoods and that would force our neighborhood kids out of the town. As it turned out, that wasn't the real reason. It was distance and transportation that kept them from joining. So we altered our approach, fearing the worse, when the worse really didn't happen. So that kind of helped make it die out too, that and the bussing. But I remember Mrs. Green as one of my very first mentors in the camping program and in the arts and crafts. Mrs. Green had a sister or maybe a sister-in-law, who was an art teacher at Manual, and she would come in and do arts and crafts and I would kind of sit and watch her do it. I remember how she kept pushing that we didn't want the children to be Picassos, because I was very particular that if they didn't do it right I would encourage them to keep working on it. She said, "as long as they put in an effort, we don't criticize whether a tree looks like a tree or not." �And I finally realized that what the children really needed was stroking and praise and encouragement. Particular the art should be way down on the list. I had it backwards and I remember learning that; that arts and crafts isn't buying kits and gluing them together and every finished product looks identical to the other person's. It's more creative and letting the children explore their creativity. And I remember learning that from, there again, Mrs. Green and her contacts. So arts and crafts and camp was strictly a Mrs. Green involvement. And then later on, Jim Cooksy came on board and he was an Eagle Scout so he was really into and I learned a lot of camping from him. So as it turns out, I did about 40 years in a row of camping and really go to be quite an expert. As far as hiking all the way down the Grand Canyon and two weeks in the Yellowstone Park, we did the Appalachian Trail, parts. SG: did you do all that with the Cabbage Patch? Chin: Yeah, Cabbage Patch. We really got good at it. We were all really experts in camping and we kind of invented the camp on tour where you have a final destination like the Grand Canyon but getting there is part of the camping. So we would stop along the way and visit different State Parks and different natural wonders along the way and set up a travelling kitchen, like the old chuck wagon theory. It was always my job to plan the meals for the whole ten-day trip. We really got quite elaborate. People were writing in and asking us how did you fund it, how did you make arrangements so far away that you would be there at a certain time, how did you plan menus that far ahead? People just never did that type of camping. The only out of town camping that we were aware of were people backpacking, self-contained, but not for long durations. So we would go all over the country. We went to Montreal's Expo Fair; we went there, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyons. Each year we would pick out one major place to go and we would I guess take about 20 boys and girls, and volunteers. Two staff would drive - one drove the equipment truck, that was usually me, and one drove the school bus which was usually Dietsch. And we - getting there wasn't the highlight; going there was the highlight and it really worked out fine. That was a concept that was kind of new to us. So camping was, I would guess, the biggest part of my indoctrination in doing things with the Cabbage Patch. Arts and crafts came next and then third was athletics. We were always strong in athletics and Lloyd Redman was always the head coach of doing all the team. Eventually, I moved in doing the young groups, the clinics, the intramural type of teams. I guess I got up to the 15 and under was my strongest suit. And Joe Burkes used to do all the 17 and 18-year-olds. And Redman always did the men's. And I can't remember who did the women's teams. Later on, Dietsch took over the girl's program, but I can't remember who did it when I first came on board; who was coaching the girl's teams. More recently, I ran into Mrs. Sawyer at the Harvey Browne Cabbage Patch Circle Christmas Bizarre, and she told me she used to work there and remembered me as a youngster. She told me that she coached, but that was just so far removed from my camping, I really didn't see �what they were doing in sewing school and I didn't see what they were doing in girl's athletics. Although I know they had teams because Joe Burkes' wife said that she used to play on the softball team and one of my sister's played no the softball team. But I never saw them practice; I never saw one of their games. I did remember seeing basketball in the gym, and it was a funny game where three girls can't pass the half-court line, the other three do all the shooting. You know, the way they play in Iowa, I think, what they call six-man basketball. That's the kind of ball we played; it wasn't full court like the way the boys played. But it was so minor an activity that I don't think I remember sitting through a whole game of any girl's. We were really predominantly boy's athletics. I'm sure that to do girls it was pretty important, but I do remember they had uniforms so it was pretty organized. But camping and the arts and crafts, and the athletics were the ones that I really got involved in. Later on, in the background, I started to involve myself into the social services. I remember Christmas Baskets, I remember we had no place to store the turkeys and the hams and vegetables, so we used the roof between the daycare and game room. We would climb out the window and put everything up there on the roof. Whenever the baskets were ready to be assembled, I would run up to the roof and bring down the turkeys, bring down a bag of oranges, everything that needed to be refrigerated. At that time we only had one refrigerator and that was Miss Marshall's refrigerator. But I remember doing that. I remember gathering all the clothes that came from Second Church and, I don't think Harvey Browne was around then, I don't know who else would be ... oh, First Presbyterian Church, that was Miss Courtney. They would send clothes to us and we would store them in a closet and once a month, Miss Marshall would ask me to make signs that we were having a rummage sale. And I remember going through the neighborhood and tacking the signs up in people's store fronts. We would bring all the clothes down; we would sort it out, women's clothes, men's clothes, children's clothes, household items. She would have a rummage sale. I remember Mrs. Garrell who lived two houses down, and Mrs. Staggerwall who lived next door where the Reece's live. They used to run the rummage sale and that was every month. So I got involved in that mainly because I made the signs and I helped sort out everything, but I didn't do the selling and I didn't do the price tags. But I remember that and I remember the Christmas Baskets and I remember the home visits. Miss Marshall insisted that we go into people's homes. Mrs. Green had this more elaborate visit. She said that she always wanted to establish a home alter - meaning she would find a mantel or console radio and she would put something on top, either a religious picture, the one of Jesus praying on rock, you know, the one that's on the Riverside Church in New York; Coffman I think was the artist. But she would always put something, either a little Bible study, a tract, or something. She would put it in a prominent place in the house and she wou Id make the mother promise to read it to the children. So even back then, Mrs. Green had this home visit concept that you bring the Gospel to the people. I remember I wasn't quite comfortable in doing that, but I remember going in and inviting children to come to the Cabbage Patch for activities. There were several times that I went doing the Christmas Basket deliveries that the family and I would pray together. Mainly �because they were so moved in our efforts. I remember two or three of them, one mother said to me, "can we all kneel down by the Christmas basket and pray." So we did do that and we continued to do home visits, but I think the more intimate religious type of visit is a thing of the past now. It's more now providing crisis assistance, handing brochures of what's going on here at the Cabbage Patch, announcements, reminders, that type of thing. What kind of clinics we're having. As far as the concept of bringing the church to the homes, we haven't done that in many years, unless its impromptu, improvised at a particular time, but that wasn't the goal of doing home visits. I still do a lot of home visiting but it's mostly for seniors, just to provide some services, take them to the doctor, picking up some items for them, medicines, so forth. But the original concept was such a pure way of Settlement House work. Really involving family, even in spiritual level. And I remember Mrs. Green was really quite good at that. And she used to supply me with the Sunday school lessons from Second Church. Beautiful picture - you would open it up and there would be a little Bible verse and story. And she would say, "whenever you go to home visits, take some of these and make sure the mother's see them." I don't know if that would fit the times today, but boy it was a fantastic concept. The last one's I remember doing was Cooksey's so that would be in the late 50's and early 60's. And I don't remember from the ?O's on us using that as an emphasis. But I remember doing that. I remember the rummage sale and the Christmas Baskets. And whatever counseling that was needed, were the family service type of activity I was involved in. My emphasis was still on camping, arts and crafts, and athletics. SG: One time on a tour you told me another story that I thought was very interesting. What about the St. James Art Fair .... Chin: I had always liked art and that's why I took to the arts and crafts with no formal training. And I remember in 56, I wanted to take up art. I kept telling Miss Marshall, you know I'm here at the Cabbage Patch all these years and I graduated from high school in 51, went to U. of L. And wanted satisfied taking pre-med; I don't know why I took pre-med. Well, one of the reasons, my oldest two sisters, one went to Syracuse for art and the other went to the Arts Institute in Chicago for art. Of course, you can't make a living in art. Both of them fizzled. And when it was my time to go to school, I kept saying, "I want to be an art major." And my father said, "no way." I would be the third person spending all that money in art. So I think I was talked into going to pre-med. But I was still involved in art, and finally Miss Marshall told me, "this thing is always going to be hanging over your head until you give it a try." She said, "if you want to get some formal art training, I'll help you obtain it." So I signed up at the arts center at U. of L. Back then they didn't have an art department. I think it was called the Hite Institute of Art or something like that. And then I went to New York in 56 and attended two schools; one was a very prestigious, the Art Student League of New York which right across from Carnegie Hall. My claim to fame was that I �helped with Princess Grace Kelley and Prince Rainier wedding invitations. I was into calligraphy then. I remember coming home and Miss Marshall said, did I know there was a large group of artists living right there in St. James Court. And they were people like Nell Peterson who ran the art center, Lynox Allen who was a very well know watercolorist, Ada Jansen, Mary Spencer Nay; all the people that really became art legends in Louisville. All lived in this neighborhood, and I remember meeting some of them and asking them what do we need? And they said, we need a place where we can set up our painting and not have to take it down each time, so we can come back and paint whenever we meet. Finding a studio was so difficult in this neighborhood. People had rooms in their homes but they weren't big enough to let a group of artists come in and paint. So Miss Marshall said that if I wanted to do it, I think she was encouraging me to explore whatever art avenues there were, she said I could set up a studio down in the basement and invite these people to come and paint. So we really had some prestigious artists coming in and painting. And I remember we had so many paintings that we set up an exhibit here in our game room. We had all our paintings mounted and labeled, and had an open house with tea and little pastries and so forth. But no one came. It's such an out of the way thing. And Morris Gifford, one of my painters, I think her husband was an editor at the Courier Journal; she said let's do it at St. James Court, at least our neighbors could see our paintings. So we tied some clothesline between the trees and I remember Mrs. Gifford saying, "I make pickled water melon rind. If I buy all he water melon, will the kids at the Cabbage Patch eat it?" I though that was strange. "I thought you were going to make water melon rind." She said, "I just want the green part. The red part I'm going to send over to the Cabbage Patch and let the children eat it." And I remember, we had a table of baked goods, water melon rinds and things like that. We had about six trees with clotheslines with our paintings on it. People would come by. Of course, most of the one's who came by knew us because they lived in that St. James Court neighborhood. But at least they could see the kind of work we were doing. And that kind of started the St. James Court Art Show. We started doing it every year. And there were three other people - Mrs. Dupont, I can't remember her first name. I keep thinking Ethel Dupont. And there was Ann Higby and Oscar Stremmel. And we were in for forefront saying hey, let's make this an annual thing. Let's elaborate and get artists from throughout the city to come. And last year there was 350,000 people coming through so it's really grown. So I've been involved in every one of them. But Miss Marshall really was good like that. She didn't feel like she was losing me to art. I think in the back of her mind she knew she was gaining/winning me cause she knew once I tried it and wet my appetite I would realize that the Cabbage Patch was where I belonged. So she would set up an appointment with General Electric, Mr. Gilmore, who wanted me for his advertising department, and I remember bringing my portfolio, things I did at New York, and Cincinnati, and U. of L. And I remember how complicated it was. Not only do they just look at your art work, they wanted all your concepts on advertising and meeting the public and promoting certain products that GE was promoting, and it really got to be too business-like for me. I thought you know I �had the artist's mentality - I would just lock myself in and turn out all this great artwork. But it wasn't that way. It was really an eye opener to be involved in the business part of it. In fact, the art work part was such a small percentage of a successful art career in General Electric. You know, it was going to meetings, it was going to brain storming groups, and all that. So when they gave me a trial, and Mr. Gilmore said, "when will we expect a decision from you if you want to hook up with our team." And I never understood whether he did it because of my talent or because he was such good friends with Miss Marshall. So finally I made that decision to tell Miss Marshall no, I think I'll stay here at the Cabbage Patch . But I had maybe three years of really intense art training to see if I could do it or not. And I think Miss Marshall kind of knew that that's the way it would end up. 'Cause she said, I remember one comment, she said, "I knew where your priorities were. If it was to make money, you would have gone to GE; if it was to be happy, you would stay here at the Cabbage Patch." But she never told me which one I should choose. And I remember that. Funny thing, it carried over through the years, 'cause all the years I was working here, in the back of my mind, there was that wonder, gee I should have went into the art field. And I never could get away from that. And finally, 18 years later, when Miss Marshall talked me into going back to Kent School to get a Masters in social work, selfawareness was the big thing. Like self-analysis psychology. And everything we do we have to kind of analyze ourselves and find out why we feel this way. And I remember we wrote these self-awareness papers and one paper I wrote was about my art career that fizzled and all the questions I had about it. And I remember the professor writing back, "your fears were misplaced. Working with young people and working with the families problems needs more creativity than art work." And once I heard that a millstone was relieved. I realized, hey I wasn't wasting my creative talents. I was using it working with the families. And once someone pointed that out to me, I never given it a second thought. That I wasted all this God-given talent of being able to draw. I think that self-awareness kick that I had at Kent School really worked for me. So that's the artwork and I still do a lot of artwork on the side, and I still use my creativity that way. But working with the people is where my creativity really, really shows up. SG: What are some of the ways you've used this creativity? Chin: I have really through the years come up with some really ingenious ways of getting my point across to kids. I know one that I bring up quite often, I remember my model car club. There would be about 15 of us and they would too much grabbing and fighting - and remember I purposely putting 1O tubes of glue out. So five would always be without glue and that was the way to teach them to have a little patience and wait to share, 'cause you can't do a piece of model car without using glue. And so they would have to sit there and wait 'til the person next had finished and, "can I use the glue now." And I remember doing it, 'cause I remember one of the workers came down and said what are you doing with all this glue; why don't you give them each one. And I said, that's the reason I'm doing it. I didn't want the kids to know that I had glue for everybody. I �purposely didn't put out as many to make them learn how to share and be patient, instead of grabbing for it. So that's something, you know, that I kind of created along the way. I do an infamous Kangaroo Court every year at camp. Thirty-some-odd years, and that was another reason I did it. So many of our kids, we would try to praise them, we couldn't find anything to praise them on. So we started doing frivolous things like, this camper had the biggest smile, or this camper swam, you know, a lot of little things that we were making incidental things to praise them. I think the children kind of saw through that. So then I thought, well Kangaroo Court might be a way to do it. We would call kids up. We would give them a challenge. And no matter what the challenge was, even though it was a joke, or it was a pun, or it was a skit, they really felt that they were in the spotlight by being called up. And even though some the accusations were kind of, I wouldn't say embarrassing, but it was kind of, you were the brunt of the joke. Kids were raising their hands saying "pick me, pick me." Like they were subjecting themselves to the ridicule. And then afterwards, "why didn't you call me up?" And then that's when I realized, hey this is really big. Just a chance to be called up. To be in front of a whole camp fire, you know, and then be singled out for being afraid of bugs in the woods, and the solution was you had to wear these smelly socks around your neck the rest of the day. Well, they loved that! Because they were the focal point of all that attention. So Kangaroo Court became such a big fixture, that even when I stopped camping, the people who ran the camp would say, "would come up and do a Kangaroo Court?" The kids really liked it. When I run into alumni they still remember it. "Oh you called me up one time and said I was too slow an eater. I wouldn't eat breakfast. So you poured pancake syrup on my palm so that I had to carry it the rest of the day." And I would say, why would they remember that? But it wasn't the pancake syrup they remembered, it was being called up. And got that attention. So those were the kind of programs that I would come up with that really solved what my main goal was. I had a very successful Can Do club. I saw the Girls Scouts had a contest where you stacked up your Girl Scout cookies. And whoever stacked it highest won an award. So I said, well I'm going to come up with things that kids can't fail. So I had a Can Do club where if you came in and worked out a puzzle or something, or drew something, you would win an instant award. And that was so popular they would line up to come in. Because there was no big commitment on them and it was a fun project, plus you got instant reward. And that Can Do club really caught on. And again it met needs that the children needed. I guess the bottom line - I've used this as an illustration - when you work at the Cabbage Patch, you become a refrigerator. Kids at school in other neighborhoods when they'd come up with a nice term paper or nice drawing, they would run home and the mother takes a magnet and puts it on the refrigerator. Our kids, there is no mother to run home to. The mothers have so much stress and problems; they couldn't care less about what kind of drawing "Johnny" brings home, so the Cabbage Patch is the refrigerator. We hand things up. Any time the kids do something, no matter if it's horrible looking, the children did well, we put it on our refrigerator. And it's that stroking �and acceptance that I think our children really miss. And they don't get it in home. So I tell people, that's what we are - we are the refrigerator. We are the ones who say, "how are you doing?" We stroke them saying, "hey this is really great, you really did a great job." And you can physically see them puff up. I remember walking through the door one time carrying some things, and there were three or four girls blocking the doorway. And I remember, Cooksy went by first and said, "excuse me ladies, we need to get through." And he went through, and I was behind carrying something. And I heard one of the girls say, "Oh, I've never been called a lady before." So simple things like how you address them, how you recognize some work they did, how you recognize their performance or their attitude, is the highlight of their day. Because they get it no where else. And those are the kind of innovative things that we gear our activities to meet that goal that we are trying to get across to our children. SG: In general, what would you say is the biggest change you've seen in the kids today, versus the kids ... you know, fifteen or twenty years ago. Chin: The main one I see and it probably permeates everything else, is the lack off amily. There's just no families anymore. And it used to be I knew the family; I knew the mother and father. Now there is no father, mostly mothers. And more recently, when I sign up for six, seven, or eight year old Fun Club, it's the grandmother who comes in and signs them up. The grandmother who picks them up. They skip a whole generation. Because the mother of these children is so young, they're almost like children too. They're older teenagers. They're into the drugs and into, you know, all the things that young people are into. So the grandmother has to step in and take care of another generation. So that family break-up is so ... and all these single parents, they're not home because of course they have to work. In the old days the father went out to work and the mother was always home. When I made a home visit to find out why "Johnny" didn't come to practice, the mother would be home to let me know. Now you go to the house, the house is empty. It's locked up. The mother's gone to work. So I think that is probably the main change I've seen through the years. The break up of the family. And then the phenomenon of the latchkey kids. They get out of school at Cochran and Noe Middle School and they come here and they don't see their parents until their parents get off of work and come pick them up. And by that time, they get home, and then they go through the whole thing again. So family I think is the source of all the changes I've seen that's happened. More recently it would be gang activities and drugs. We didn't have that back then. It was catching kids sneaking a smoke or drinking a beer. And that was it. Now it's really, really high crimes, that you're surprised saying, "gee they didn't do that years ago", or "when I was growing up they didn't do that." Those two changes are probably the most significant. Very few families live in our neighborhood that own their houses here. They're so temporary. It's either Section 8 subsidized renting or it's into this neighborhood then finding out it's too expensive and they have to move to another neighborhood. So you don't �have that ongoing long-term contact with families anymore. They're here for awhile and then they're gone. But that kind of makes your approach more desperate, more quit hit, because you know you can't work with them from the time they're six years old until they're an adult. But the people who have moved into this neighborhood have remodeled their homes, and priced our families out. Our families are further away now. So that would be another big change. But traditional activities are still here. You know, we're still doing the camping, we're still doing the arts and crafts, we're still doing the athletics. That will never change. But that's not what we are. We're not a mill for turning out campers or turning out cancers, but there's still the drawing mechanism which is kids will come here just for the camping. People come here just to play on the basketball team. And of course, we don't do football. That was a big program. Insurance and things like that have really priced us out of major athletics. Fees for joining church leagues are astronomical. So you almost have to have your own intramural leagues because you can't afford to pay $400 to join the church league and play 10 games. So everybody has gone into that. And all the clubs are gone. When I was coaching the teams, we had things like, "Gentle Giants", "Brady's Boys", "Orange B Boys", you know all those athletic clubs. They're non-existent probably because of the money. People just can't afford to run these little athletic clubs. Most churches have their own intramural, have their own gym. Most of the schools have the after school programs. So the individual neighborhood AC (athletic clubs) are no longer in existence. So that has really been a lot of change. Traditional activities are still going on. But when they get here, it's utilizing the whole, total services that we have that's important. We have homework, educational opportunities, we have counseling, we have crisis assistance; that's the thing that we're trying to hook them up to. Not coming just to going out to canoe. SG: One question I had too; when Miss Marshall was involved, did you see her all the time? Chin: She was here all the time. In fact, if I look back to it. She was too involved. She solved her problems by calling someone at the Second church, explaining the problems, and they would come through financially or they would come through and make an arrangement to visit, Locust Grove or something. She always knew somebody that knew somebody there. And we never were given an opportunity to do that type of preliminary work. I would just sit in her office and tell her, "I need this for this." And she would make up a phone call. Anything that required board approval, every board member was so solid behind her, I have never, in all the times I attended board meetings, I never heard a dissenting vote. Whatever Miss Marshall - I guess it was your grandmother?, Louise Graff, and all the ones �that were there, they all said yes because they were so behind on what we were trying to do at the Cabbage Patch. So almost anything that we asked for, we got. Consequently, years later when she was unable to do it, I remember Dietsch and I would try to run some board meetings and they weren't so enamored with our suggestions that we would have all these knock-out battles. By that time, it was Dr. Mobley, and Rod Zeller, and that bunch. And they were sort of like the more younger, modern board of directors who felt more responsible. You don't just say yes because Louise said it, so we should say yes. So then we started having some conflicts, were we spending too much for this one activity, and not enough for the others. And they were questioning why did we need to go to the Grand Canyon, you know, isn't it out of proportion to going to a little city park for a picnic. And people would start questioning some of the things we did. And I remember after Miss Marshall left, Charles Dietsch tried to run it and he just couldn't do it. Because every problem that we had, Miss Marshall was the problem-solver and now that it was our turn to do it, we couldn't do it. Several board members asked me, "would you want to try?" Dietsch can't even get us all together for a board meeting and write the board reports and to write the budget. We never did that. Miss Marshall never had a budget. It was the telephone. She would call up somebody and someone would say, "yes, I'll write the check for it." And we were really poorly equipped on administrative goings on. And I remember that's one reason Tracy fit in so well. 'Cause he had some of those skills. And the first really effective board member was, can't remember his name, I think Walter Brown, and then later on, Edith Breed, and they had a new perspective. It wasn't rubber stamped because they wanted it done. They really went through the voting process, the evaluation process, to decide where our budget went, how we raised the money. The easy phone calls that Miss Marshall used was no longer available. Running to her to make the decisions was no longer available. So this board really changed over to really being a operative board. And then Dietsch finally got out of it. He just said that it was too difficult. In a way, it was because Miss Marshall was so effective and so predominant in what she did, we were poorly trained. We were well trained in doing the activities, but the background work - we were just out of it. And none of us could do it. In fact, that was the closest I remember thinking that here goes the end of the Cabbage Patch. I remember Dietsch and I had a serious discussion and he says,"No one's approving the way I run it but I have no other way of doing it except the way Miss Marshall did it." And I remember him throwing up his hands saying "do you want to try it a while?" And I knew how difficult it was and I said, "no, not me." I didn't have anymore training than you have. And these phone calls that we would try to make would just be a blank. You know, why are you calling me? We weren't the Louise Marshall calling. And I remember going through all that. The transition and it was really difficult. SG: What era was that? Chin: This is back I guess after she died in '80's, mid '80's. I think Dietsch was the director for about 4 years. Everything just fell apart. I had my way of doing �things and he was more co-worker to me than the executive director. And some of the board members that were so loyal to Miss Marshall didn't want to be on the board anymore. And they felt that it was the ideal time to phase themselves out. So that was a very difficult time. And the one's that came through the years, and I'm thinking of Miss Brewer, Miss Palmer-Ball, Mrs. Peg Harvin, really stuck by us, because they watched us grow up here and they knew we were struggling. And I went to so many meetings trying to decide, how can we turn this thing around. It was falling apart. Dietsch was unable to do it. I knew I wasn't able to do it. Could we possibly stand to have an outsider come in and do it? And that's how come we talked to Napier back then. Because Napier was like us. Napier and Joe Burks also grew up in the ranks but they went into teaching careers and we talked Napier into coming back because he had some administrative skills from his recreation courses. And he came in. SG: In my prior 2 interviews we've gotten a lot, really kind of a lot of information about your life and things. So today, kind of to wrap up, just had some questions, some of them silly, all telling, probably. What's your favorite food? Chin: Any kind of Chinese stir-fry. American food, I guess my favorite food, very basic, I don't eat a lot of meat, but I do like meat loaf, and I like turkey with the trimmings, things that I didn't have much of in my childhood. Chinese don't have Thanksgiving. When we had Thanksgiving it was usually Chinese food. And so those few times I get turkey, I really enjoy it. It's something I miss. Same thing with Easter. We never had ham on Easter, you know, things like that. And nothing traditional at Christmas either. But I guess I came from a ... the top half of my family, my mother, father, my two older sisters were really Chinese. Even though my sisters were all born here in Louisville, but is was that desire of my mother to make sure her children retained the Chinese culture. They knew how to speak Chinese. My mother used to have these Chinese word drills and try to teach them how to write and write Chinese. That's the only universal language. There's so many dialects, just knowing Chinese then helped. 'Cause what little pig Latin Chinese I picked up, when I'd go down to the restaurant and say it to the cooks and waiters who were from China, they'd laugh. It was such a broken way of saying things. But my two oldest sisters and my mother and father were really into the Chinese culture, as far as the haircut, Chinese style of Americanized clothes with the little Chinese buttons and so forth. But then when I came along, and my brother, and my youngest sister, that was passe. We wouldn't have anything to do with that. So to this day, I can't read Chinese, I speak very little of it, I know very little about the culture. But I did remember growing up we didn't have traditional American things; the Christmas tree, the Chinese food on Christmas, the Thanksgiving meal, things like that, the Easter eggs, we didn't do any of that. And maybe that's why I'm so enthusiastic when those holidays come around at Christmas time - I really get elaborate. In my younger days, I used to really decorate to the hilt for Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving; probably because I didn't grow up with that. �SG: Well, now did you celebrate Chinese holidays? Chin: No. I think my mother resigned herself to the fact that she could do it to the first two born but not the next four. We were just too Americanized. Everything she had me do I would find a way to escape it. She made me take Chinese calligraphy penmanship. And I remember just hiding the little brushes and the black inkpad and I'd sneak them over to the Cabbage Patch to play basketball. Same thing with piano lessons - I remember hiding the piano books right in the hedges right in front of my house on my way to the piano teacher. And I'd walk over to the Cabbage Patch to play basketball. And my mother never caught on . They all thought I was a budding piano concert player but I wasn't. I was there at the Cabbage Patch refining my basketball skills. So food, I'm pretty, what's the work, eclectic? I can eat almost anything. Now some of the really extreme Chinese food - they taste OK but it's just not in me to eat bird's nest, squid, and things like that I just don't. It's all on a lot of the Chinese menus but I prefer not to eat it. I went to a wedding banquet at Jade Palace and they served duck feet. Just the thought of looking at it - but they said it was a delicacy but I couldn't eat it. SG: What about - I don't know how much of a reader you are - but books? Chin: I start a lot of books. I've got about ten books on my shelf that I've started then I lose interest when I get about half way through. SG: Are there any books that have kind of been favorites? Chin : Well, most recently I've been reading the royalty family. What's her name Quindlen, who wrote the one about the Royals? It came out when Princess Diana died. I brought it back out since Queen Margaret and Queen Mum died. I've been reading that. A lot of political books. I'm halfway through the Mary Madeline/James Carvil book. Halfway through Bobby Knight's "Season on the Brink". Now that one I'll probably finish. I've got a lot of biographies of political people, Rush Lymbah, I read his book. Things like that, but mostly it's periodicals. I read Newsweek, I read Time, I read People, I read ESPN, I read the New York Times, and of course the Courier Journal from the front page to the back page. So I'm always reading but nothing concentrated like a complete novel. I guess I like to read about people. Biographies. Very seldom do I read a mystery. Very seldom do I read a novel. Very seldom do I read fiction. My whole family reads. That's where I get a lot of books. When my sister finishes reading a book and says, "you've got to read this." I'll start it off and I'll be real interested in the subject, when I get halfway through, something else would come up. I kind of jump around. And I keep telling every vacation, "I'm going to take all my books and finish them." But I'll take them and maybe finish one or two. �But now I'm reading Billy Packer, the NCAA tournament - I'm reading his biography. I'm trying to finish "Season on the Brink" by Bobby Knight. I didn't get the new one that came out. Meanwhile, I'm still reading all the periodicals. SG: It sounds like you do have a few - a few books going. What about heroes? Who are some of your heroes? If you had to ... Chin: I had a lot of live heroes. I think that has really sustained me. Of course number one is Joe Burks. Just knowing his family, knowing his father and the kind of problems his father had, and watching him grow up, and seeing how he really evolved with the help of the Cabbage Patch, and the help of his fantastic wife, Cathleen. In fact, they're are having their 50 th wedding anniversary this coming Sunday. And just seeing how the family has, just one of the top families, top Christian families in Louisville and then watching the son grow up - principal at Male and now superintendent. He's one of my heroes. Of course, Lloyd Redman is one my heroes. I was so lacking in self-confidence when I was younger. I loved sports and thought I was pretty good at it, but physically I was just too tiny. My strength was that I was faster than anybody but a lot of people just thought I couldn't belong in playing. Number one, they didn't give me the chance - they thought, well he's a Chinese kid; what does he know about basketball? What does he know about baseball? But Redman saw that the one thing he couldn't teach was speed and my determination. And that goes back, psychologically, I think, being small in nature, being a minority, I'm really pushed to excel in athletics. I knew I had the speed - I didn't have to work on that. But I mean, it was almost an obsession. I shot basketball so much my fingernails would bleed. And you know, I got to the point I was hitting - I think one time I hit over fifty 3-pointers in a row. Over a hundred foul shots many times. I did it alone. I like that - being alone. One time the janitor - we had a janitor here for years and years - Frank, Frank Hamilton - he started sweeping that gym floor, I started shooting basketball - this was after we closed at 9. He finished doing the gym floor, he polished the game room, cleaned the front, came by and I was still shooting. He couldn't believe that. And I can remember at four in the morning at Central Park, shooting basketball. And I think Redman saw that in me. He probably didn't realize why there was a drive in me but he was certainly one of my heroes because of the confidence he showed in me. And of course, Miss Marshall. Almost everything I do has - it's almost like the thing that's so hip right now - what would Jesus do. I get that with Miss Marshall all the time. Especially involved with what we do at the Cabbage Patch. I'll say, well I wonder what Miss Marshall would have me do? And that has really been a strength, a source of confidence. And so she is definitely my hero. Now my mother is a hero almost in a backdoor way. She suffered so much. When she came over here. I guess she was fifteen or �sixteen, she injured her ear. She had an earache, the doctor gave her some medicine, and in the middle of the night her ear was hurting. And she grabbed something and poured it in and it perforated her eardrum. So she was almost, I guess, 90% deaf. And then so, we really had no communication with my mother. It was all pig Latin. We used to take American words and shout it in a Chinese, up and down, tone, so she would think we were speaking Chinese. 'Cause we knew she was so disappointed that my brother, my little sister, and I wouldn't have anything to do with the Chinese culture. But she really suffered because of her hearing problem. Consequently, she never learned to speak English very well. Whereas, my father running a restaurant, spoke fluently. And she never went out • of the house much because she couldn't hear and she needed one of us to take her. And we were all so busy with our lives, so she was really what you'd call a dedicated wife. She just stayed home. Plus she helped run the restaurant. You know, the people from the old country believe the whole family should be in the family business. So she grew the bean sprouts on the third floor, she chopped the onions and celery, she would go down stairs and vacuum the carpets, and set the tables - all this when the restaurant was closed. So all from evening-on until the middle of the night, she worked. Then she took care of six children. So she's my hero in the sense that she survived all that. She really gave up her life. Because I know a lot of Chinese mothers did that - their whole life was their family. No social life. I don't ever remember vacations until after _ _ _ _ . I don't ever remember taking a vacation. I don't remember my father and mother taking a vacation together. I think my father went once up to Syracuse to visit my sister who was going to the University of Syracuse. But mother didn't want to go. I don't remember the two of them doing anything social. Going to a movie. I think my father bought a new car and took everybody for a ride, and that's the only thing I can remember my mother and father doing together other than running the restaurant and raising the family. So my mother certainly is a hero. And more recently would be Jim Cooksy who was on the staff here. He's just excelled in everything he did. And for a young man who grew up right here on 7th and Hill Street and a valedictorian at Manual. And what's that, Woodcock Society Award at the University of Louisville, top student there, and now has a doctor's degree. And the whole time he was doing that he was part of the Cabbage Patch; on the staff. An Eagle Scout. And there wasn't a thing that he couldn't do and set his goal on and reach. So he's always been one of my heroes. Now heroes that I have never met I guess would be like a lot of people - John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, the people who were really concerned with helping those in need. Mother Theresa; I was quite moved with. You know, I didn't think much of Princess Diana. I knew about her personal problems, marriage problems, and her acceptance with the Royal family. But I didn't know about her charity work visiting people with AIDS, helping with the people who were injured by the land mines, all those kinds of things that she did. Auctioning off her beautiful dresses �to go to charity. I didn't know that until after she died. So then she became sort of a hero because that changed my viewpoint of her. But at the same, Mother Theresa died. And I knew a lot about her. I read up on her. In fact she came to Louisville once to St. Agnes on Newburg Road, by Our Lady of Peace. And I camped out there just to watch her get out of her car and go into the rectory. And I was really moved by her. I saw a lot of Miss Marshall in Mother Theresa. Giving up all the pleasures of life. Miss Marshall had a comfortable life, but she gave that up to come to the Cabbage Patch, and was able to entice all her friends to do that! All her board members are really prominent, well to do people, in Louisville. But they would give up their time to come to the Cabbage Patch and I always admired people like that. So those kinds of people have been my heroes. People who have reached out ... and some were just obscure. I know that one man who started going to schools and telling sixth graders, "I'm going to keep track of you. If you get out of high school, I'll pay your way through college." I remember reading up on him. As soon as I saw that newspaper article, I immediately went to the Internet and tried to find some more things about him. And when I see articles like that I'll cut it out. More recently, Churchill Downs trainer whose going to Florida on vacation and got in a car wreck? SG: Yes, I read about him ... Chin: They said some fantastic things about him, about what he did for the track people who didn't have any money. How he would take them out for dinner and how he was willing to give the shirt off his back for _ _ _ or people who cleaned stalls. They made some good quotes about him and I cut that article out. And I have a whole box of those kinds of things. They just inspire me. Right now, I can't tell you his name. I do know that he went to church right there at Hess Lane and Pendell. And that, it's just tragic. His one vacation going to Florida and they didn't get very far. They got as far as E-town and the whole family was wiped out. Those kinds of people inspire me. Even though they're faceless and nameless, but when I see articles like that I always ... I admired Ann Frank. I read about her. I quoted one particle quote of hers all the time. When she looked out the window and saw all the storm troopers taking away people to the box cars, she knew, she had enough faith to know that someone would come to help them. She didn't know when, but she kept looking out the window. And she finally wrote in her diary that it doesn't take but a single moment for someone to do something good. And so many people wait for that perfect moment and there is no waiting. If you see something that needs to be done, you should do it. And I think I saw that in Miss Marshall and I saw that in all the people that are my hero. But Ann Frank was certainly one of them. So that's quite a lot of heroes! Because I don't, even though I've been involved with athletics all my life, I don't have very many athletic heroes. Maybe the quarterback from the Rams, Curt Warner. He is a good Christian. He started out as a stock boy and ended up winning the Super Bowl. Maybe not because of him but because of the story. �And he maintains his Christian attitude when he's interviewed. That's good . SG: What about if there's a place you've never been to, that you'd really like to go? Is there any place in the world, or places you've never been that you'd really love to see? Chin: I guess its China. I got as close as Hong Kong but back then, you couldn't get into China. My goal was to see all the top museums. I was an art major. And my goal was to see all the top museums and I've pretty much had done that. Well, there's that new museum out in California that I haven't seen. But most of the big museums around the world I managed to go and see them. I've spent vacations where I didn't do anything but go to museums. That, ___ too many places and Cabbage Patch has afforded me so many places. There isn't a good destination that we haven't taken our kids to. So that's not one of my goals I think. I don't think that much about where to go. I'm so satisfied being here in Louisville and the Cabbage Patch, there's no desire to see what's on the other side of the fence, I guess. My sister, she travels a lot. My brother used to travel a lot. That bug never hit me. SG: What about, what hobbies do you have - what do you do to relax? Chin: I still do a lot of art. I do calligraphy when people ask me to. In fact, I did one recently for a classmate of mine at Kent School. She was a water colorist. She painted a picture with a cardinal bird on a ____ . And I said, well you know I do calligraphy. I wouldn't mind doing the little writing on the inside of the card. And she gave me a bunch of them and I wrote on them. As simple as "Seasons Greetings" to some Shakespeare quotes. And she had a whole series of cards and I did the calligraphy for it. That's been ten years ago. And then the other day, Kent School called me up and said they wanted to use that card as their Christmas card this year, the University of Louisville. Well, I do calligraphy and people ask me to do it. And I love the design. My sister, when she was teaching, used to have all these grants. And they would do a little old pamphlet to hand out to the people who are in charge providing the grants and she wanted a little cover design, and I would do things like that for her. So, into art; I'm still into a lot of art. Watching sports, now that I don't compete or participate much, I still watch sports. _ _ _ _ The Masters. Then immediately turned over to watch the Los Angeles Lakers play. Just spent the whole day doing paperwork and having a ball game on. So that's one of my big hobbies. SG: What's your favorite sport to watch? Chin: Basketball I guess. Especially college and high school. High school because I know so many of the players. I've watched them evolve. It's nothing for me to �drive to Lexington just to watch the big tournaments with Joe Burke's kids who play for Male. And one time there were four teams playing and I think PRP had one of my kids playing; Atherton had one of my kids playing; Manual and one of my kids playing; and Male had one of my kids playing. So the four semi-finals all had somebody of mine on the team playing. When I'm sitting there playing, the athletic director of Fern Creek comes up and says, "they're all Cabbage Patch." So that ties me into watching them. I vicariously watch them because I would have loved to have been the one playing. And college, especially if some of our kids move up to the University of Louisville, I'll make sure I watch . So watching sports is another one. Repair - I love to repair little things . Nothing major, but I know the other day a friend brought a videotape and the tape had broken off at the end. And I said, I love to, you know I took that apart and fixed it back up and closed it back up, just little things like that. I like to, what's the word, jury rig, I like to come up with the solution that's not the proper solution, but they come out and say, "gee how clever, how did you know how to do that?" And I say I just studied it, no particular part. I think that's part of my creative juices. And I'll fix it even though it's not the right way to fix it. So it will work after I fix it. I like doing repair. I can repair clocks. I do a lot of little things that are so trivial that I'm almost ashamed to tell people I do it. I think it's because it's not so much the challenge it's the idea that, hey I'm not supposed to know how to do this but I'm going to creatively figure a way to do it. I enjoy that. I do a lot. I'll do some things that I spend hours doing it and then after I complete it I say, why did I spend so much time on this. I've juggled. I can take a key, a skeleton key, throw it up in the air and catch it right by where the hook is. I say, why would you want to learn that? And I've demonstrated that to people and people say, golly you're the only person I know that can do that. And then you say, why would you want to be the only person that can do it. A lot of silly things like that. Basketball - I mean I spent hours spinning the basketball, putting it on my shoulder, and when it came by I caught it in this finger. All that stuff that those little Olympic kids used to do. I learned all that. Just down in the basement. I just had that obsession to see something and do it that nobody else could do. And that's a hobby of mine. When I see something that you're not supposed to be able to accomplish, I'll try it. Nothing big - like taking a car engine apart or anything like that. Little stuff. Just stuff that are meaningless to anyone else I guess. I guess reading is a hobby of mine. I'm always reading something. In fact, I feel, you know, living alone, I feel very naked about sitting there eating. So I always have something while I'm eating, I read. So reading is certainly a pleasure of mine, I don't know if you'd call it a hobby. I'm not into the Internet. I'm not into television. You know, I tell people I've never watched Mary Tyler Moore. I've never watched Friends. I've never watched Cheers. Those things just don't interest me. It's either sports or news. The only two things I watch. And what's nice about it; they have talking heads. So you don't have to sit there and look at them. You just have it on and you can still go about doing what you need to do. �That's very enjoyable. You know, most people when they come home, the first thing they do is put on some music or something. I don't. I put CNN on or Fox news. And then go about. More recently, I acquired a dog. After I had my little heart attack about two and a half years ago, as I was reading up on it, it said that people who have a pet live longer. So I said I haven't got time for a pet. And I just happened to go with some friends to the Humane Society, to the rescue place, and a Jack Russell dog came in - a mix breed. And the lady said, boy if you're looking at this you better grab it. Whenever we get things like this it doesn't last a day. So I got a little black and white one. It was only about eight weeks old. And I've had it for about a year and a half now. SG: We have a Jack Russell. They are cute ... Chin: Little stubby tail; always wagging. But they're real hyper. SG: Very hyper! Chin: And I don't have time to train him. I can get him to sit and that's about it. In fact, I brought him over here the other day to show a couple of the staff, and as soon as I opened the car door, he was gone. And I had to drive around Sixth Street and found him in somebody's yard. So they're fun. They keep me occupied. SG: Oh they're great. What's his name? Chin: Goby. My family named it. I said I want a two-syllable name because you don't want to confuse it with sit and stay and that. And I wanted some kind of Asian name. So my niece in California, whose father grew up here at the Cabbage Patch, he went to the daycare, she suggested Goby. Like the Goby Desert. SG: What about dreams. Do you have any dreams at this stage in your life? Chin: You know, there are some things about me that never happen. I don't dream. At least I don't recall them. I told my sister the other day, I have never had a headache. I don't know - they were talking about - we were in a Chinese restaurant and they were talking about heartburn. I said, I don't think I know what heartburn is. I've never had heartburn. I very seldom have an upset stomach. All these things that people normally have, I don't. In fact, when I have a blockage in my eye, I thought it was a piece of lint. It turned out - I went to Koby and _ _ , and he said that it was part of my heart attack. That it had to show up at the weakest spot and it was up here that I would have had a stroke. Here it just burst some of my blood vessels and that's where I have the blockage. And they zapped it 50 times with lasers trying to get rid of it. And he said, here's the therapy you have - take an aspirin a day. And he said, whatever you have at home is fine. I said, I don't have aspirin at home. He said, you don't? And I said, I never have a headache. There's just never a need for an aspirin. So he said, well run out and buy aspirin. And I said, what kind do I get? And he said, �well I can't push a brand but almost anything is OK. So I just buy the generic, Walgreen's, aspirin. But I don't get things like headaches. Dreams? It's something that's just so foreign to me. I have never had a nightmare. I have never - things that people talk about - probably because I'm so preoccupied with things going on at the Cabbage Patch, there's no room for anything else. SG: What about dreams just in the context of dreams of doing; is there anything you still dream of doing or accomplishing? Chin: No, I'm sure I dream, because I know I'll re-live things that happened on a camping trip. Something with Miss Marshall. But when I wake up, I know I thought about it but I can't tell you what the conversation was or what happened or what. I certainly don't put any meaning into dreams. I never jumped up like that and know that I was going through a nightmare or something with an omen in it. Doesn't happen to me. And recently, I don't even sleep well. Probably because I'm so highly medicated. It's ten pills a day for me. I take six in the morning and four at night. SG: For your heart mainly? Chin: Yeah. Zocor, _ _ _ All those things for cholesterol and blood pressure down. Vitamin E and C and aspirin, and most recently they added a water pill. think my pharmacist who grew up at the Cabbage Patch said that it had to do with the high blood pressure. Just a lot of pills. And I've learned to take them by themselves; I need very little water. When I first started taking them it was very difficult because I've never taken any. You know, I've never been operated on? I've never had a broken bone. I've had a dislocated finger from basketball and dislocated knees from basketball, but I've never gone under the knife or anything. I've only had two stitches for my eye and that's from basketball. The rest of my body has never been stitched or anything. SG: Wow. That's unusual. Chin: Yeah. I've only been to the hospital maybe three times. Once to drain my knee and once I had a - we jumped into the swimming pool at Otter Creek Park to demonstrate scuba diving. And the joke was, we had these golf balls, we called them turtle eggs. We threw them in the water and Doug Wright was going to demonstrate how you put on the mask, skits, and all that stuff, and he's going to dive in and find those eggs. Well, that weekend, the storm had knocked out the pump so the water was kind of murky. And of course it hadn't been filtered. But it was working when we came but there was still enough debris in there. So I jumped in and Doug Wright jumped in. So that was in June and that's when all the basketball camps in stuff. So I took three of my kids to the - back then it was the Eddie Sutton basketball camp in �Lexington, Kentucky - and on the way home, the roads ____, and I pulled off the road and everything _ _ _ . And I got real sick, called my brother, he met me and brought me back in and took me to the hospital. They thought I had, there again, another heart attack. They went through everything and it turned out I had an inner ear infection. And that was from that dirty water. And that's only the second time I went to the hospital. So I've been really blessed that my health, you know, very seldom do I miss a day of work. I just come in every day. It's almost therapeutic, you know. Why not come in if you enjoy it so much? Very seldom do I take all my vacation time. I don't take days off or anything. So those kinds of questions are moot to me. I just don't have those experiences. SG: Well, are there any other things that you'd like to tell the world in our interview as we wrap up? We've covered a lot of ground over ... Chin: Yeah. Well, I do know that there is a greater force that keeps me here at the Cabbage Patch then a lot of people think. You know, well it's kind of great to have a career that you really enjoy. All that's fine and I appreciate all that, but I really feel that, you know, people say, oh you're paying back the Cabbage Patch, and that sounds good too. But you know, somewhere along the way I got this thing, and I don't know where, from my reading or from just - I know I didn't get it from my mother and I'm not sure if I got it from Miss Marshall - but I have a feeling that when you use the words, "it's a calling", it's hard to explain. But I really think when people look at me, or not only me but anybody who is really living a life of service; they should see Jesus when they look at you. And when you work with somebody you should see Jesus in them. It's not just a one-way street and I really feel that. I don't know where I nurtured that because my family wasn't really religious. In fact, for years and years, I didn't know my mother was Christian. We thought she was Buddhist. You know, she can't hear, she can't speak English. And when she died, we went through her belongings - Chinese books and everything, of course we can't read - so we had a cousin from New York go through everything. And he said, you ought to keep this book. And we said, why would we want to keep it. It's in Chinese, we can't read it. He said, it's a Chinese Bible. And he opened it up to, you know, 23rd Psalm, John 3:16, were all underlined! All underlined. And that, until she died, we had no idea she was a Christian. We don't even know the Chinese word for Jesus. I don't even know the Chinese word for God. What Christian upbringing our family had - it's really an unusual story. We were at the restaurant - I couldn't have been more than eight years old - we were playing _ _ _ between tables in the restaurant. We lived on the third floor; the restaurant was on the second floor. And this white haired lady watched us and how disruptive we were. All the people trying to eat and we're playing _____ , diving under tables, hiding behind the counter and all that kind of stuff. And she said to one of the waiters, "where do these kids live?" Upstairs - they live with their mother. And when she finished eating she said, "I'm going to go up there and say something to their mother." And I remember we followed her up, we were all puffed up. She can't talk to my �mother - she can't hear, my mother could only speak Chinese. Well, that lady knocked on the door. We weren't worried at all because we thought as soon as she said what she wanted to say my mother would just nod and say thank you and shut the door. That lady started speaking Chinese! She had been a missionary in China. Nelly Lyons was her name, and she talked to my mother, or yelled at my mother so she could hear, and convinced her that we should all go to Walnut Street Baptist Church to vacation Bible school. And so she, every day, came and took us to vacation Bible school. So all my five siblings are all Christian because of that one lady. Now, my sister, the one who taught out at PRP, ended up at Central Presbyterian Church teaching Sunday school. My brother was very active at Walnut Street, and I was active in mostly Presbyterian Church because of Miss Marshall, and Second Church, and then Highland and then the one that's closed now, Westminster Presbyterian Church, and then the First Presbyterian Church on Preston Highway. But there again, we had no really family Christian encouragement. Miss Marshall in her staff meeting had Bible study. So I don't know where I got that feeling that I'm not here because I'm comfortable, that I enjoy it; I'm not here because how fortunate to have a job that you enjoy. Somewhere I got this feeling, maybe you know, it's almost too self-serving that I'm really doing this because I'm led to do it. It's hard to explain. My sisters and brother, they can't understand. "Why do you stay there that many years?" They've all made it financially. Nice homes. My mother's on Hurstbourne Lane, my brother, you know. I'm still living in this area and I'm driving used cars, and they can't understand that. And it's hard to explain to anybody. You know, I'm doing a terrible job explaining to you ... SG: No, no. You are doing a wonderful job ... Chin: But I really feel that. And I know people who have really stayed here, like Miss Marshall, like Redman, like Burkes, really have that feeling. And we're fortunate that we have that feeling. That solves the majority of any problems you have. Any feelings of inadequacy. Any feelings of burnout. Any feelings of hopelessness - this family, there's no way we're going to reach them. That's all surpassed with that overall feeling that you are really chosen to do this. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of the day. Against all odds, Moses was able to do yet, you know, the staff turned into a snake, the water turned, you know. Somehow he knew that he was led to do that, and all the things that he was challenged against pharaoh came true. Parting the Red Sea. Because he felt that that was his calling to lead the people. And I'm certainly not putting myself in Moses' shoes, but I, in a certain degree, I feel that. That I could do no wrong. And I'm sure Miss Marshall at all odds; I know she told me that some of her friends shunned her when she started coming to the Cabbage Patch. "Why would you want to go to that neighborhood?" She told me that she had a fur coat that she never wore down to this neighborhood. She didn't want the people in this neighborhood to think she was flaunting her wealth. And she bought Chevrolets. She said, "you know I could have bought a Cadillac if I wanted to." And she said that some of her friends were have nothing to do with her, socially, because she would come �down to this neighborhood. So what was the motivation for her to continue a whole lifetime of doing this. It had to be a bigger _ _ _ _ _ . Better than the little old mundane things like being gratified of being in a comfort zone and all that kind of stuff. And I somewhere had picked that up and that's the one thing I have really never been able to satisfy myself. Why I'm the one that feels that way. And then I see other people -you know Joe Burkes had quadruple bypass, retired, and he still comes and spends so much time here. And you say to yourself, he and I are almost the same. I think if I were to finally retire, I would still come in everyday. You know I said that at my 50 th award dinner. I told all the board members _ _ _ _ and I announced to the rest of the crowd, you know, if they didn't pay me I would still do this. And I've always felt that and I think that's what's kept me here. But it's almost like my own secret because I know no one else could understand that. That funny feeling I have. SG: Well, that's a wonderful feeling. Chin: I'm sure other people have that feeling too. SG: Sure, sure. Chin: But, it's one of those feelings that you can't pinpoint why you're the one that's here and why you feel so confident in doing what you do. It's almost like I can't fail. It's a high calling that God sustains me with everything I do. It's really a, it's an unusual feeling that you can't do anything wrong. And I see that. Through the years, we've never had anything tragic happen in the Cabbage Patch. A big wreck. None of the kids have ever been injured. We've never had a shooting here although we've got kids who grew up with guns. All those things that happen in other places never happen here. Now I'm sure that's a narrow focus but I really feel that. That this is a chosen place and that I'm one of the lucky ones to be chosen to be here. And I'm sure that Miss Marshall must have felt that somewhere, even though we can't verbalize it, we certainly feel it. So that's the one thing that I've always tried to get across and I've never been successful at it. SG: Well, no, I think you did very well at. Chin: But even my family, to this day, my brother looks at me and says why do you have that fun job at the Cabbage Patch? You know, because they know of my potential of doing well in the business world, the art world, it was really unlimited. But I never pursued it. It's really unique in that sense. There isn't a day that doesn't go by that I see a sign that that really worked. You know, I go through collegiate thing and there were so many people who came up to me and talked about the Cabbage Patch, and the work we do, and how they heard about it. It all ties in. There �has to be a divine string somewhere that makes it all work so well. SG: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. Chin: No, this is good. I sat next to Louise, I forgot what her married name is now ... SG: Gardner? Chin: Yeah. And I was telling her that I was going to meet you. And I said, in a way I didn't want to do it, but I found it so satisfying and therapeutic. And she said, you know, I talked to Kathy about what she was going to say when she came up. And it was therapeutic. We started going through all the people who were important in her life and what led her into the cooking and sponsoring Seed to Table. And she said, that's true - it is therapeutic. It was like a counseling session. SG: And it's free! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cabbage Patch Settlement House Records Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Cabbage Patch Settlement House Records, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Roosevelt Chin, 2002 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mss. BJ C112 Folder 1473, Cabbage Patch Settlement House Records, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 20th century 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource Transcript of an oral history interview with Roosevelt Chin (1933-2007) conducted by interviewer Sloane Graff in the spring of 2002. Chin discusses his parents's immigration to the United States and their lives as Chinese restaurant owners in Louisville, Kentucky. He recounts his childhood association with Cabbage Patch Settlement House and his later paid work there, beginning in 1953. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mss. BJ C112 Folder 1473 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright <img src="https://rightsstatements.org/files/buttons/InC.dark-white-interior.svg" alt="In Copyright" style="width:200px;" /> <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/%20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Property rights in the collection belong to The Filson Historical Society. The Filson Historical Society can provide high-resolution scans of original source materials from its holdings for non-commercial and commercial use. To learn about this process, visit <a href="https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/order-reproductions/</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chin, Roosevelt, 1933-2007 Graff, Sloane Subject The topic of the resource Chinese Americans Children of immigrants Louisville (Ky.) Sports Chin, Roosevelt, 1933-2007 Cabbage Patch Settlement House (Louisville, Ky.) Nonprofit organizations Social settlements Kentucky--Jefferson County--Louisville Psychiatric hospitals Social workers