“He was such a nice guy. But the only thing was, he wore his hair in sort of a ducktail.”

Patricia Bates tells her daughter, Kay Lewis, about meeting Kay's father.

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Recorded in Dayton, OH

Credits

Produced by Nadia Reiman.

Facilitated by Jeremy Helton.

Transcript

Click here to read the transcript for this story.

Interview transcript

PB: He was such a nice guy. But the only thing was, he wore his hair in sort of a ducktail I guess they called it, and I really don't like guys that wear their hair long. But I got over that. There was just something about him that I thought was pretty neat.

KL: He couldn't get you to sit close enough to him. If you were going to get some coffee it was like, "You stay here, one of the kids will get it."

PB: I do recall that feeling of him always wanting me to be with him. Sadly, George died when he was forty. I remember going to the library to see books because I thought, "I don't know how to be a widow." It seemed like the end of my life, except I had seven children and I had to show them how you accept things like that. I didn't want people to look at us and say "It's so sad about the Foreman family," because I knew that you kids had a lot to offer the world, and you gave my life back to me. You really did. So, I was a widow for twenty years, never had intended to marry.

KL: Never even dated.

PB: No. I worked during those years. A secretary from one of the other buildings came up and said, "Are you dating, would you date?" And I said "Oh, I probably would." So she introduced me to Warren. My children, they were getting me ready for this date, doing my eyes and all this and I thought "Oh, what have I signed up for!" So I said "Ok, at 11 o’clock if I don't think I want to be with him the rest of the evening, I'm going to call and have you get me." 11 o’clock I called and I said "He's a great dancer, go to bed!" [laugh]

KL: And you guys danced for how many years?

PB: Quite a few. Warren's death was just this past February and there are times that I just feel like I need to turn and talk to him. But you have to fight loneliness. You know you face death twice like that and I think it tests your beliefs, but it has always been love that carried me through.