Changemakers Confidential: Brenda & Tom
Real stories. Real people. Real change.
Welcome to Changemakers Confidential, where we share real stories from real people about real change. I seem to be on some kind of East Coast circuit right now, because this week’s update comes via a recommendation from my in-laws (Walter and Regina; read their change story here), about two amazing humans, Brenda and Tom, whose intertwined change stories demonstrate resilience, the importance of speaking your truth, and the twists and turns that come with blazing your own trail.
Let’s meet Tom and hear how change changed the trajectory of his life in some key life areas: education, religion, and vocation.
The first change I want to talk about, I brought on myself. I transferred from Bates College my sophomore year to Boston College. I wasn’t happy at Bates because it was small and the curriculum was limited (my major was History). I was also, at that time, struggling with my religion. I’d been raised Catholic, but I was always a reluctant Catholic. I always asked the wrong questions, and never got the answers I wanted! At Bates (which was a Baptist school), I answered the professor’s questions like a Catholic, not like a Baptist, which also got me in trouble. I remember having professors tell me, just give me the answers I want! Which was definitely the wrong thing to say to me!
So, I transferred to Boston College, thinking I could kill two birds with one stone…my major and my religion. On registration day, I got a message that the Dean of Admissions wanted to speak to me. So I go over to his office, knock on the door, and on the other side, there’s this big, Irish guy sitting down, with his feet up on the desk. I said, I’m Tom Curry; I heard you wanted to speak to me. He replied, so, you’re the wonderful Mr. Curry I’ve heard so much about. I said, well, I don’t know about that. The Dean continued, I’ve taken a personal interest in your application and I’ve decided that you are not Boston College material. Why don’t you go down the street to Boston University (BU) instead?
Well, that infuriated me. Who was he to tell me where I could go to college and what I could and couldn’t do? I stood up and said to him, now listen here. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to like that? I have no idea why this is happening or why you’re talking to me this way. For whatever reason you’re doing this, you’ve actually done me a big favor. I’ve been struggling for years with my religion, and you’ve proven to me that I want nothing to do with Boston College, or the Catholic church, for that matter. And I walked out of his office, and never went to Boston College. However, I was also thinking to myself, now, what the hell do I do? I’m out of college!
The first thing I did was call my father. He yelled at me on the phone, so he was obviously not happy with me. So, I ended up going down the street to Boston University, and was told because of my marks, I would need to start out in night school and take summer classes, all while maintaining a B average, so I could officially start as a second semester freshman the following year. (I’d been a second semester sophomore when I left Bates, so I lost a whole year of coursework credit in going to BU). So that’s what I did: I went to work for my father to earn money, and went to night school. I also left the Catholic church around that time (1960) and later Christianity (around 1962), and I have to say, at 81 years old today, I feel very comfortable not being in the clutches of the Catholic church, and not waiting for extreme unction before I shoot through to the other side.
Honestly, as I reflect back on my school experience, I see how freeing it’s been for me. Going through that experience, I grew up a lot. When I left Bates, I was still very much a college student, wandering about in the wilderness. At BU, I really grew up and was ready to do something. I majored in Education at BU, having chosen American History as my emphasis. I ended up at Concord-Carlisle High School for my student teaching. A few weeks in, my supervising teacher there was fired. Well, that pissed me right off, and I thought to myself, if this was an example of what I would have to deal with by way of school politics, I wanted nothing to do with it.
So Tom ended up leaving his student teaching experience early, and ultimately the teaching path behind, which led him to take an unexpected detour that would change the course of his entire life.
As he perused the course catalog for the upcoming semester, where he would not be majoring in Education, he found a few Criminology courses that looked interesting within the Social Sciences department. He decided to register for one, where he learned about probation. He realized, after taking that class and a few others, that he wanted to be a probation officer. Upon graduation, he went about getting some practical experience. He applied for a job as a welfare case worker in New York City. It was the best job he’d ever had.
What I liked about New York was that every ethnic group was represented there. There was a convivial atmosphere in my department; we were a well-oiled machine. From there, I went back to Boston and got my job in probation at the Boston Municipal Courts. It was a totally different atmosphere; much quieter, everyone was predominantly Irish. I wasn’t sure it was going to work out, so I thought about going back to my old job in New York, but at that point, the federal government had taken over welfare from the city government and changed everything, so I decided to stay in Boston, where I ended up being for 35 years.
What benefits do you think you got by figuring out some of these key things, like vocation and religion, earlier in life? Well, I didn’t have a mid-life crisis. It was a good thing to get all of that straightened out right away.
As these events happened in your life, you mentioned freedom a few times. What was the role of freedom in throwing off some of what was there before, be it ideas or expectations you may have had about how things were “supposed” to be? The freedom I gained was the freedom to think and say what I really felt like saying. I knew what I thought, and I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. When I saw something I didn’t agree with, I said something. I gained a reputation as a truth-teller within the Boston Municipal Courts, which was a very political place. I’d be brought in by the judge or chief justice, they’d ask me a question about something, and I’d give them an honest answer. Whenever there was something wrong in the probation office, I’d be the one to get the call.
Was it ever difficult to be in that role? Yes, absolutely. Yet, I never had any fear of anyone who was over me. For a bashful younger man who didn’t have much self-confidence when I graduated from high school, by the time I graduated from BU and had my job in the welfare office, and later in Probation, I had gained confidence and knew better who I was and what I was about.
What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned around change? Well, that’s difficult to say. I guess to always be ready for change. Try to be as receptive to change as possible. Honestly, it’s still difficult for me at times to deal with change, yet overall, I feel comfortable and ready for the next thing, which at 81, is the best you can hope for.
I commented to Tom on how it’s interesting, when faced with change, how we often hold onto something longer than we should, because we’re faced with the unknown, and we don’t like how that feels. However, sometimes - many times - it’s best to jump in and see what happens. For example, if Tom hadn’t been open to changing direction from education/teaching, he wouldn’t have found the Criminology courses in the course catalog, which ultimately brought him to a path of public service in both Welfare and Probation that were a huge part of his life for decades. That’s also where he met Brenda. :)
Something else happened when I was at BU: I ended up under psychoanalysis because I was crying all the time. I had issues with my father, he would yell and scream at times for no reason at all. With the help of my very good psychiatrist, I saw how on the surface there was a lot of bluster and bluffing, and by getting through that - if you can get through it - you can be free of it. It’s internal freedom. I came to understand that about myself, but my father never did for himself…he couldn’t. I would see how he was acting, and I often wished that I could show him how to get out of it, the “madness.” It’s a severe case of anger. My father, my grandfather, and I all had it. As a kid, I see now that I was reacting to his madness. All of that got me a bit screwed up, but it all works out. In the end, you have to be OK with them not seeing it; people can’t see it or change before they’re ready. I’m learning how to let that be OK. They have to want to do it on their own…we’ve all got our own journey.
Now, let’s shift gears a bit, and meet Brenda and how she went about blazing her own trail, without really realizing that she was doing it (a true OG, if there ever was one)!
My parents were good parents, but they had very limited income on which to raise three kids, my sister, my brother and I. Like most families back then, they saved money for my brother (the boy) for college, and not for me or my sister. They wanted me to be a secretary or a dental hygienist; that’s what girls did back then. However, that didn’t work for me. I decided that I was going to college. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that, but I was determined. In high school, I decided to take a college course over the secretarial course because I knew that could help in some way. I also knew that I had to get a job and start earning money, so I decided to waitress. In high school, I worked for a caterer on the weekends, and then In the summer, I went to the Catskills Mountains and made a shitload of money. I loved waitressing - it was a lot of fun!
Between the caterer and my time in the Catskills, I saved enough money to go to college. I decided to study art, and I went to the Massachusetts College of Art. To make ends meet, I lived at home because I didn’t have the money to live on campus; I took the subway there and back.
Once I graduated, I decided that I didn’t want to live at home anymore. So, I went to San Francisco with a girlfriend of mine to have an adventure. We traveled by train, just the two of us (can you imagine the nerve?)! When I got to San Francisco, I registered at the California College of Arts and Crafts to continue my studies. My girlfriend and I had no idea what was coming next for us, but we decided we were up to finding out. I also decided that I’d have no phone to either call home or have my parents call me. Looking back, I realize that I was really running away and wanting to make my own life, away from what I’d known growing up near Boston and what was expected of me as a young woman back in those days.
We had an apartment in Chinatown, a teeny apartment, just two beds. Vegetable deliveries were made regularly across the street from where we lived, and we made furniture out of the wooden crates left behind from the deliveries. Just like I’d done in Boston, I found a job waitressing in Berkeley. My life then was going to school, waitressing, and partying - we took advantage of what San Francisco had to offer! Meanwhile, back home, my mother was driving everyone crazy. What do you think she was going through her mind at the time? I’m sure she was worried something was going to happen with me. But I didn’t care…I was living my life! I had love affairs, new experiences, the whole 9 yards.
In time, though, I eventually made it back to Boston. My girlfriend, Beverly, who’d gone to school in Wisconsin, also came back to Boston around the same time, and got a job at the telephone company. I thought that sounded interesting, so she hooked me up and I got a job at the telephone company, too. My sister, Susan, and I also got an apartment in Beacon Hill. She was working as a lab tech at Mass General Hospital at the time. Now, we had never really cooked much, my mother was an in-charge person, you know. So one day, we went down to a local butcher; we didn’t even know what to buy! We were both Jewish, and had grown up in a kosher household, so we bought some cooked ham home that was in a container, and once we opened it, we were horrified and disgusted…it looked like dead person! We were not going to eat that!
Another thing during that time, is my mother never came to visit. She was embarrassed that her daughter was living in an apartment, not married, which wasn’t the expected path for a young woman back then. She didn’t know what to do. Do you think that your mother admired you, in some way? You know, I think she might have. I’d never thought about it like that before. What were some things you learned about yourself as you were blazing this new trail and having these experiences? I had an aunt in Connecticut who was very forward-thinking; she encouraged me on this path. She grew up in New York, one of eight daughters who all did something fabulous with their life. She influenced us to go our own way, and to not look back, no regrets.
So now, we come to the part of Brenda’s story around how she got into public service, making stops both in Welfare and Probation. In her interview for a welfare case worker, the woman interviewing her told her that she liked hiring art students, because they weren’t judgmental. Open to people, ways of doing things, ways of being that may be different or unusual. I commented to Brenda that artistic skills/talents can sometimes be hard to translate into something practical, and that her supervisor demonstrated significant forward thinking in how she saw those skills translate and be a benefit to the work done in the welfare department.
Brenda was hired, and then assigned a project in east Boston. She built relationships with all of these families in her caseload, helping them to get jobs, food, and connected to programs and services that could help them. She was humming along in her role, really loving the work, when out of the blue, she got an Interview for a job at the Boston Municipal Courts, in the Probation office. She didn’t really know what to think, so she went in for the interview, and it turns out that someone recommended her for the role (she didn’t find out until years later who it’d been). In addition, she was a woman and they were looking to hire more women in the Probation department (this was back in the 70s and 80s, after all).
The next part of my interview was to go before the judge, who looked me up and down, and said, “You’re hired.” My first assignment was the south end of Boston, with the prostitutes. Those ladies shopped at the best places for clothes, and for underwear, and they kept knives in their wigs, just in case things got out of hand. Everyone had a story. It was all very interesting.
For much of your public service career, it looks like you were either the solo female or one of a very few women. What was it like for you, going into those situations? I didn’t think it was a big deal. I knew that women were looked down upon, laughed about, but I wasn’t. I didn’t pay attention, I really didn’t give a shit. They may have wanted to know more about me, but I wasn’t sharing anything! The men also had to change their thinking, having a woman in their midst, doing the same job they were, doing a good job at it. I think sometimes they were happier without women around, or that they didn’t want women on some of those probation cases. At times, there was a superior attitude towards women, in terms of what they could and couldn’t do, and some judgment because we didn’t have to come in as much on the weekends for detox cases, like the men did.
Did you ever find out who’d sent the recommendation? I did! It was a young priest I’d worked with in the projects in east Boston, based on the work I’d done with the young folks there. That recommendation changed my life! What’s interesting is he ended up leaving the priesthood, so I never was able to track him down.
At one point, I worked part-time for a judge, while I was pregnant/had a small child at home. I scaled back my work a lot so I could be home with my son. One night, my husband asked if I’d mind if he went to see a late show by himself; I said sure, and stayed home with our toddler son. He did this a number of times - I didn’t think anything of it - before he came clean and told me he was having an affair. I was totally devastated and unprepared. I said we should try to make it work because we had our son, but ultimately, he didn’t want to. In spite of what everyone was telling me, I tried to keep things open so my son wouldn’t grow up hating his father.
How does your son approach/view change today, in your opinion? My son is continually looking for change, he seeks it out. He’s very social, even though he was an only child. He had too many girlfriends, which made me crazy! He was reminded daily, though, of what could happen, because of a sign on our refrigerator that read, Pregnancy is Forever! I had worked with a lot of non-support cases with the welfare department, so I knew what I was talking about!
Going back to a topic earlier in our conversation, how has the artist path come forward for you, if at all? Originally, I was going to go to New York, but I had no money and didn’t know how to make it. And: life just happened. But I still paint today…I’m a member of the Winthrop Art Association, and have displayed and sold my work in various venues over the years. It’s still a big part of my life!
And today, how would you say you view change? Everything you experience prepares you for daily life. I’m still careful about money because I remember being poor. It’s hard to not have money in this economy, this day and age. Growing up, I lived in a 3-decker house in Dorchester; every summer, my parents would rent a small place in Revere for us to stay. It was on Tobacco Road and was pretty basic. We met a lot of interesting people over the summer, from all walks of life. Maybe those summers prepared you for your public service career? Maybe! It’s a good thing for kids to not have too much! Just because it’s less, doesn’t mean it’s less-than.
A huge thank you to Brenda and Tom for sharing their change stories and for proving the importance of listening to yourself, speaking your truth, and of meeting the changes that come to you with resourcefulness, integrity, and a bit of humor. I loved the candor and appreciate the (unintentional) call to listen to my inner Knowing and to speak my own truth, come what may. I also humbly ask their forgiveness if I’ve omitted anything or transcribed/interpreted anything in error from their stories.
If you enjoyed Brenda and Tom’s stories and would like to hear more real stories from real people on real change, please subscribe to Changemakers Confidential, and share it with other changemakers you know. Thanks for reading - see you next week!
Warmly,
Kristina
Chief Change Maven, Changemakers Confidential