My grandmother...
About "My grandmother..."
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Susan Westfall
Born: September 17, 1913
Cudahy, Wisconsin

"My father wasn't too good of a person; he put my mother into a nutty hospital when I was only 4 years old."

"Two men came into the house and grabbed a hold of my mother. I begged them not to take her away. It was very pitiful. My father did that to me."

"He had her sent away because she wouldn't do what he wanted her to do. I bet you ten dollars that he was sorry he ever did that to her."

"My father used to beat me with a hose. My dad always took out his anger on the weakest one - me! He finally shot himself."

"Everybody that was either related to me or was my friend - they all died and I'm still living. It seems very strange."

"I ran away from home before I was in the 7th grade. I got an old suitcase and I filled it with my clothes. I 'borrowed' some money from my father and I took a train to Chicago."

"He was sorry when I left. It broke his heart even though he beat the hell out of me."

"I used to just stare out the window of my cheap Chicago hotel room. At first I was kind of scared; I mean from a farm in Wisconsin to the big city of Chicago."

"A man in the barbershop across the street had a place upstairs where people used to dance and I loved to dance so he gave me a job."

"I hitchkiked to New York all by myself. It was very scary."

"When we went together, your grandfather and me, I was very much in love with him but then he ruined everything. He stole my furniture! He stole my kids!"

"Your grandfather might have been good to you but he was a RAT! He was a mama's boy. His mother hated me becasue I wasn't a Jew!"

"To this day, I'm very glad he's down below and I'm up above. God punished him for what he did to me. He stole my kids."

"I know how to do many things; I know how to do waitress work. I know how to clean a home. When I learned, I could do it better than anybody else."

"I learned to be a very good waitress. Once I made a $5.00 tip from a cup of coffee. I make very good coffee."

"I learned to be a ballroom dancer. I'll never forget the day I got the news. I got a letter, 'You are invited to dance at Madison Square Garden.' Oh boy was I happy."

"When I don't feel good, I always have these horrible fainting spells, I just pass out. As the doctor told me, I'm not going to live very long."

"I have 3 angels that take care of me. I have only seen one of them but I feel the others. It's very strange."

"One of these days, I might go to sleep and never wake up. That's what the doctors say. I'm not worried, when I go, my angels will be waiting for me."