A Narrow Escape Begins

Crista Cowan 0:00

Picture this. It's 1952 in Jim Crow, Arkansas. A 19-year-old black man steps in to defend an elderly coworker at a sawmill from an abusive white overseer. This young man quickly realizes the danger this choice has put him in and he has to run for his life. Shaken and hiding in the dark balcony of a local movie theater, he has no idea that a chance encounter with the person sitting just a few seats away is about to save his life and change the trajectory of his entire family forever. My guest today is the daughter of that young man. She shares the unbelievable story of her father's narrow escape, how a lifetime of moving kept her siblings bound together, and how following unexpected family history record trails can reveal the true strength in our roots. Enjoy my conversation with my friend Victoria Robinson. Hi, I'm Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family. Welcome to Stories That Live In Us.

Twins, Siblings, And Constant Moves

Crista Cowan 1:07

Well, I'm so excited you're here. I'm excited as well. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, I love that you made the time to stay longer after Roots Tech. And um you and I have known each other for a little while, but that conversation we had at the conference a few months ago where you shared your story, I just thought we have to have you on the podcast. I was quite blown away now, quite appreciative to be able to tell the story. Of course. Okay, well, let's start a little bit with just your family. So I just learned today that you were a twin. Tell me about your siblings, please.

Victoria Robinson 1:35

Okay, uh the six of us, and um there my my our brother was the oldest one, and then 14 months later, my twin sister and I were born. And then 11 months later, um my father realized that my mother has gotten really big with the pregnancy, so he insisted that the doctors x-ray her. This was 1960. So um the second set of twins was born. I look a lot like the um one of the twins, and my twin looks like her the other twins twin. So, but we are all very fraternal. Wow, that's amazing. And then there's the bab the baby of the family is was born six years later.

Crista Cowan 2:11

Okay, so let's let me see if I did my math right. That's five of you in three years. In 25 months.

Victoria Robinson 2:16

That's insane, yeah. Yes, and my mother was told she could not have any children. But she had six kids. That's incredible. And we all grew to adulthood, which was good. Yeah, absolutely. And are you close with your siblings? Yes. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I had no problem staying late, is because um was with my spent some time with my sister. She took some time off from work because she lives here in Salt Lake, and my brother, um, I'll be staying with him tonight now that I'm out of the hotel. So it's it's an opportunity to get spend some time together.

Crista Cowan 2:43

That's amazing. So tell me about your parents. What where where are they both originally from and what were their families like?

Victoria Robinson 2:50

Uh I'm gonna be talking a little later on telling a story of our father. Our father um was one of five children, and he was born in southwestern Arkansas, and um he had two older brothers, and he had a younger brother and a baby sister. And um then our mother, our mother was born in Colorado of all places. Her father was a um porter on the Seaboard Airline Railroad, and he was the personal porter to the president of that railroad. And that railroad eventually it sold several of its lines and tracks to the United States when they created the Amtrak service. Okay. So um the kids were born in different places, the three of them. She had she had a brother and a sister. Okay. And then her parents did divorced her father, remarried, and had another child, uh, a son, and um, he's just a few years old older than us. And so they kept pretty busy, and um they grew up in they graduated from high school in Minneapolis. They were all over. Oh, yeah, they were all over, just like we were. We went to we lived in 12 homes by the time we were 18, and went to 12 schools by the time we graduated from high school. Wow. Yeah. So how on earth did your parents meet? It's they both were in the Air Force. Okay. Our mother was the first black flight attendant for the Air Force, and she flew on the mercy flights um that that the air f that the um US committed to to help refugees from Hungary in the late 1950s. And then our father was in the Air Force as well. They both were stationed in Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey, and that's where they met. And he would tell the story to us that um he he there's a central center uh plaza when he first came in, and he said he was walking with the buddy a biz and he saw this woman at a

Two Air Force Paths Collide

Victoria Robinson 4:45

at the phone booth, and he says and he touched it, he tapped his guys, his friends, and he says, See that woman? That's the one I'm gonna marry. We're gonna have some beautiful children together.

Crista Cowan 4:55

Okay.

Victoria Robinson 4:55

So we would often t he would tell us that story.

Crista Cowan 4:58

And so that's sweet. Yeah. Did your mother have a similar reaction or did it take her a minute to fall in love?

Victoria Robinson 5:03

Probably took her a little longer to fall in love, I think. Okay. Yeah, but they got married. Um, but when she got married, and then they discovered she was pregnant soon thereafter, um, she had to resign from the Air Force. That was the law, that was the require uh regulations then. She could not continue serving in the Air Force. Now, what what time period are we talking about? Are we talking about the 50s? 1950s. Okay. My father enlisted in 1952 at 19, and our mother uh she enlisted accidentally. Tell me that. Yes. Um, she went with a friend of hers. Um, mother already had a job with somebody else in town. This was in Minneapolis, and they had graduated from high school, and she and so she went with a friend of hers who wanted to enlist in the Air Force. And um so she drove her over there, and while she was sitting there waiting, the recruiter said, Hey Betty, why don't you take the test too? The enlistment test. And and so mother did, and mother passed it, but her friend didn't. So mother passed it, and she then got convinced to enlist in the uh in the Air Force, and she did. That's amazing.

Crista Cowan 6:05

Yeah. And back then, I mean in the 1950s, um, like do you know, like, was there a lot of black service men and women?

Victoria Robinson 6:12

Well, you had to realize that the um the the Air Force when it's since its conception in 1947 was always integrated. Okay. And so you had less uh you had more opportunity to be in different MOSs, service areas. And um, although not as many, but um like women had were limited in lots of different things, secretarial or flight attendant, that kind of stuff. Um, but uh my father went in, he was MP, and um there were, you know, there's there were cooks, that kind of stuff. So but when we grew up, we saw them, we saw a bunch of um, we saw African Americans everywhere. Yeah, you know, uh even when we lived in Germany. Okay. Stuff like that.

Crista Cowan 6:51

So did your parents decide to stay, uh your mom had to get out because she got pregnant.

Victoria Robinson 6:56

Did your dad decide to stay in the military as a career, or did he Yes, he he stayed in for his and he c he retired after his 20 years. He had his 20-year career. And his last duty station was was Hill Air Force Base here in in Leighton, Utah. Okay. That's how we ended up in Utah. Okay. So can you name all the places you were stationed?

Germany Childhood And Learning Belonging

Victoria Robinson 7:15

Uh yes. Well, I was saying my father, his first duty station that he was, it was in Formosa. And then um when he came back from Formosa, um that it was in um New Jersey, at McGuire Air Force Base, and then he was sent back to Formosa again. And then um without the family. Without the family, of course. And then my mother had our brother in San Francisco area. And so when my father came back, as the first he had seen the my our brother, because he was born when my father was gone. And then um we went to um Glasgow um Glasgow Air Force Base in Glasgow, Montana. And then um after that, my father was sent to back to Maguire Air Force Base, and that's where the second set of tunes were born. And then after that, after about two or three years, we were sent to Ramsline Air Force Base in Germany. Okay. How old were you at that time? We were four and a half because um we were we were not quite ready for it to be in kindergarten. Our brother was in kindergarten, he was five. So do you remember living in Germany? Oh gosh, yes, because when we got to Germany, we lived um when you when you're in the military and his family, you cannot get on the waiting list to get base housing until you actually um check in. Right. And so my father, he checked in, and so we got on the list, but we didn't get into the base until about a year later. Okay. And so we were um we lived in a little town called Glan Mutvala, about 10 miles away, 10 miles west of Ramsland Air Force Base. And we went to um my mother put my brother into a Catholic school for kindergarten, but she did not want him to go alone as the uh as a black kid. So my mother sent my twin sister and I to go along with him. Okay, and we were four and a half, and we went to our uh the kindergarten we went to was was that Catholic school, and um because the base school did not have kindergarten. Okay. And then when we moved on base, our elves are twins, they were um they got to go to kindergarten on base because there was a French kindergarten school associated with the base. So that's how all that stuff happened.

Crista Cowan 9:20

And so did you learn German as you went?

Victoria Robinson 9:23

Yes. In fact, we learned to count to 100 first in German at the at the convent, then we before we learned it in English. Okay. That's so fun. Have you retained any of that? Yes, actually, I was surprised I did because I was um I went to Georgetown and I one of my friends, actually, my roommate, she lived locally to DC, she lived in Maryland, and went over to Thanksgiving dinner with her family. And another friend came of hers was there, family friend, and they were State Department, and they had just come from um a German-speaking country. And so everybody there is talking and telling jokes. And I'm sitting there at the table listening, and I'm like, I'm laughing because I'm like, I understand what they're saying, sort of kind of, but I was getting it. Right. And they were all looking at me like, how in the world would you know? I says, It's coming back in my brain.

Crista Cowan 10:05

Yeah, well, when you're that young, I think you're a little bit of a sponge, right?

Victoria Robinson 10:08

Yeah, we went to Germany when we were um four and a half, and we left when we were in second grade, so we were like seven and a half. Okay, and then where'd you go after Germany?

Jim Crow Louisiana And School Battles

Victoria Robinson 10:18

Louisiana. Okay. And um They said that with a big sigh. We went to Louisiana in Jim Crow South. So um it was segregation, and it was at um England Air Force Base, which normal.

Crista Cowan 10:31

What year that was?

Victoria Robinson 10:32

Uh yes, 68. Okay. And so when we got there, the schools were segregated, and my parents refused to send us to the segregated school for our neighborhood because it was in bad shape. So they sent us, enrolled us in the Catholic school. And we're not Catholic. Right. But we spent we went to three second grades. Uh one in in Germany, and then uh we went to the um Catholic school in in Louisiana, and then um we were before that we were we were living in a motel waiting to get into base housing, which we never got. And so um we went to uh a local a local school, and it was it was very different. Just I remember at school, the Mother Superior, um, she she she had a thing for, she was she was very negative against the black students and would blame us for all kinds of things. So we had to sit there during um catechism, even though we're not Catholic, and we had to go to church, you know, to the services every week that they had, you know. And then after that, we in 69 we moved to um to Utah.

Crista Cowan 11:35

Okay. So interesting though, because like I mean, by 68, 69, like the civil rights movement is happening, like, and yet there's still the sentiment, particularly in places like Louisiana.

Victoria Robinson 11:48

Oh yeah, and particularly with, you know, um segregated schools, I mean, it were they were the schools didn't get segregated till way until the till the late 60s, early 70s. Right. And um also because of sec Jim Crow segregation, um the military uh would follow uh local ordinances in terms of allowing um folks whether they're gonna integrate housing. So we couldn't move on base. Got it. So we had to we had to stay in town, and that's what we did. And then we moved when we moved to Utah, different story. Okay. We moved to Utah, we we drove in January, we drove across country um and literally stopped. And there was a picture that was

Utah Culture Shock And New Barriers

Victoria Robinson 12:29

taken of my father when we when he was just coming out of the building when he checked in. So we we lived in a motel and and we knew where we were going to live, but not base housing, but we knew where we were gonna live. So then my parents found what school was associated with that, so they enrolled to that school. My father would drive us from the motel in Roy, which was about fi 12 miles north of Leighton, and and and so he would drive us there every day and pick us up and bring us home to the hotel.

Crista Cowan 12:53

Wow.

Victoria Robinson 12:54

Yeah. I know where right where Roy is. I have a sister-in-law from Roy. The Circle R Motel was what it was. We lived in and it was uh one of the few places that had multiple bedrooms, you know. And the um and one of the things about particularly in segregated areas, it was black airmen had to rely on the network of black airmen in terms of we've rented here a few people who would rent to you, and they would then um let the landlord know that I have to leave, but we got somebody in mind who could help move in. And that's what happened when we were in Germany. The um we lived above the baker and in in the town of Glanmoutral, Glanmoutral, and he would only rent to black airmen and their families, and so we got onto that. So we lived above the baker and um in in that town. And then when we moved to Louise, to Utah, um we got a house in North Leighton. And then um, because one of my father's co-workers was moving out, was being transferred, so then we got to be on that list to be to move into that place.

Crista Cowan 13:56

Yeah. How I mean, like you talk about this so matter-of-factly now. How much of this were you aware of as a child was an issue? And how much did your parents shield you from that?

Victoria Robinson 14:07

Well, we were aware of it because I remember like it was in Louisiana, uh, the boy in my class, he would chase me around the um the it during playground. His father was the coach for the uh for the school. And so one day I chased him back. Well, I we got into trouble. We both got into trouble, but I got into trouble, and the the nun who was our teacher suspended us by putting us down two grades. We had a for a month, I had to sit in the first grade classroom. And so she was she was she she did not like me because I always had the highest grades. Because living being a military kid in the 60s, we were blessed to have gone to American schools. So that schools, we were always uh six months ahead of a lot of the training. You know, we would knew the mathematics before they even started because we were exposed to those earlier. Same thing with reading and writing script, you know, um, script and stuff. And so when she when we were allowed back, she purposely scheduled a bunch of tests. Presuming that I would miss them because we had we'd missed all those lessons. But my sister was in the class with me, and so, but also some stuff I already had done. Yeah. So I passed those tests and she was not happy. Yeah. But it but we learned a lot, we were exposed to a lot of my parents were open about it. Plus, when we would visit the relatives, when we did go visit relatives, we would hear stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Crista Cowan 15:33

And so just be by nature of being in the military, much less a black military family, uh, lots of kids. Did you tend to like were your siblings your closest friends because you moved so much, or did you make friends everywhere you went?

Victoria Robinson 15:45

Well, all of us may had a friend or two else everywhere. But yes, we hung out with our with our siblings because you know, everybody grew up, you know, and this well, those of us of age grew up, you know, need to be home before the sun's, um before the lights come on, and that kind of stuff. So you we were told you keep an eye out on your sister. Um, and even in here in in Utah, our father, when he worked after he'd retired from the the military, he was working for job service, job corps, and he came home and one of my sisters was not there. So he got us up out of bed and meant to go all these different places we could possibly define her. And that's what we did in the middle of the night. Because you were supposed to take care of your sister. Right. And so there's what there's the family car, and then it was his car, then there was his car. So I rode, I mean, we're riding with our brother to where she could possibly be, and we went looking for her and got her in the car and brought her back.

Crista Cowan 16:32

Yeah, you know. Well, it's so it's interesting that you talk about the segregation in Louisiana, but then you come to Utah, which is quite possibly the whitest state in the union, right? Like tell me what that was like.

Victoria Robinson 16:45

Some of the interesting things is we've never been exposed to the um um religious discrimination or religious differences, the the barriers, the biases. We could not play with certain kids because we were not LDS. Not because we were black, it was because of of the religion. Yeah. And so we learned to deal with that, you know. So that's disappointing. Yeah, it is. And but you know, as we got older, you know, our friends, we had friends who were of all faiths. Sure. And but when you're like eight, nine, ten years of age and you're like going, I can't play with this kid. We're in the same classroom together. Yeah, you know.

Crista Cowan 17:16

So your dad retires from the military while you're here in Utah. Does he just he decide to stay here? He yes, he stayed here. He decided to buy his first house, and we stayed here. Okay. And Leighton. We went stayed, we moved. So you decided not to stay in Utah ultimately. Did how is your family spread out? Like how what did that?

Chasing Records From Slavery Forward

Victoria Robinson 17:33

Oh wow. All all of us kids are different places. Our sisters who were twins, they both joined the military over time.

Crista Cowan 17:39

Okay.

Victoria Robinson 17:39

Um, one was the Coast Guard, and of course, Cape Main, New Jersey is on the West East Coast, and so she went to basic training there, and I missed her graduation by taking the because trying to follow the road signs. I rented a car to go out there to go be there at her graduation. Missed the graduation, but I got her and brought it back to my house. And then um I used that as an opportunity because I had rented a car to drive out from DC all the way into Loudoun County, Virginia, which is not that far. That's where our third-great grandparents were had been enslaved. And so I knew enough to go in there and say, I'm gonna look for emancipation records for um our great-great-grandparents. And I found them all within, I found the records for those things within 10 minutes, thank goodness, because Loudoun County had a great set of uh county clerks. Oh. There were father and son groups over time. And they did a great job. The fathers taught their sons how to organize the stuff. So Loudoun County has a great record system for anybody. Um, and so I found the um, you know, it was easy enough to find the the the will and and even the um court record. So I even found the possible name of my great-great-great-grandmother when I found her manuscript. But I also found a record where the woman who was actually um George Washington's um second cousin, and who was she was the one who owned our third-gatmother, and so I found a record, a deed of gift. So I have the name of our third-gatmother's mother, but not the father. Oh, okay. Sadly.

Crista Cowan 19:10

Well, you do what you can do. So your family unit grew up close and traveling and you know, moving from place to place, and now you've kind of spread out all over the country. As you guys were being raised, though, what did you, what were you taught, or what stories were you told about your family history?

Victoria Robinson 19:25

Well, because we we did not live near family. Right. Um, either one of their families. Um so whenever we let sometimes take a road trip and once a year, we'd go to a family group get together, not a reunion, but to get together, and we would um they would put all the cousins, our cousins and us, on the floor in the living room. You slept on the floor. And then I remember one time when we were in California, we kind of like crawled our waist, like a military crawl kind of thing, um, quite keep quiet to not so that they didn't know that we were still awake. And they they would be, the adults would be in the kitchen playing cards, whatever, and telling stories. So we would hear the stories. That's how I remembered them. And then a couple times I would they would be outside, it'd be like a barbecue outside, whatever, and they would be repeating the stories. And then I'd say, No, no, that's not how it went. So-and-so said it was this, this, and this, and this, this, and this. And so my father's oldest brother, Lucius, would say, Earl, she's right. She's right, the girl's right. And so I would I would just repeat the story that I would hear. Yeah. So I I knew the story. So was that you was that your thing, or did all of your siblings kind of get in on that? That was mostly me. Yeah. I don't think they um, I don't think they they did. What do you think that is? Like, why do you think that was your heart? I don't know because because I love to hear the stories. Yeah. And um, and then when I get to meet the people, oh yeah, so you're so-and-so, so-and-so. And it was just a way to kind of get me the better understand who these people were. Yeah. And how they were connected to us and um and the like. So it was, it was, it was nice.

Crista Cowan 20:51

But so you grew up sneaking to hear the stories.

Victoria Robinson 20:54

Yes. They would or yeah, uh, or when I got older, eventually they would tell the stories, I'd be sitting in the room. Yeah. Anyway. And um, but that's something that I just wanted, that was just something that could just hit fill my curiosity. Yeah. Were you one of those kids who filled out a pedigree chart at some point? Not until I was much, much, much older.

Crista Cowan 21:13

Okay.

Victoria Robinson 21:13

Yeah, when Roots came out, I remember we were living um in Utah, and um, and I remember my um father allowing me to make a long-distance telephone call to my mother's mother. And she was in Minnea in St. Paul, Minnesota, and so I could ask her some questions. A long-distance phone call. Yeah. And I didn't have I didn't have to reimburse them out of my pocket for that. And so she um she would tell me a couple things, but then I got a letter from her, and she drew out a family chart, family tree, and said some stuff, and then she wrote a little couple different things, and she's and she's but remember, don't be embarrassed by the family, or whatever you find. Don't be embarrassed. So I'm like, okay, fine. I'm not embarrassed. I just want to know, I just want to know so and so and so and so.

Crista Cowan 21:55

Yeah.

Victoria Robinson 21:55

So that was it. Yeah. So did you find something that she would have thought might be embarrassing? Well it's because uh our f her hu her ex-husband, my my grandfather, my mother's my mother's father, we did not know for sure who his father is. I'm still working on that from a DNA standpoint. Yeah. And um so it was like the question is by finding out was I gonna find a terrible story in her mind. My grandmother, grandmother was a she was she was a very fascinating person. Uh she was actually born here in Salt Lake City. We found I found out I was actually on a plane flying someplace I had a layover, had my laptop with me, and I was on Ancestry and I was doing a a search for her birth certificate because I didn't have her birth certificate. I had everybody else's birth certificates, but not my grandmother's. And so I put in information like my grandmother's birth name, her mother's name, and where her mother was born, um, and the year and the birth date for my grandmother. And up popped one answer, and I almost didn't look at it, but it was said it was a unit it was Utah birth register. I said, that cannot be true. Grandmother was born in Colorado, supposedly. And um I went and looked at it and had all the correct information. I'm like, oh my God. So I came out here one time one trip and I went to the University of Utah, found out that she was in the um but the Holy Cross Hospital, and so I went, and their records, since once it was closed, the records were arch are archived at the University of Utah. Okay. And I I suspect, I have not found any conf confirmation, but I consider it a um, it was like an underground um railroad for unwed mothers. Okay. And um so I found the file for the admittance records were my great-great grand my great-grandmother and um and how she nearly died giving birth to my grandmother, and she was here for for a month and how much she paid. $75 for three weeks. That's magical. $75. Wow, right. And that also helped me to understand that when she did die um uh 30, about 27 years later, when my grandmother great grandmother died, she died, she she died, she bled to death from having a surgery. And now I understand why it's because she she she was she had she was hemorrhaging after she gave birth to my grandmother.

Crista Cowan 24:04

So so you have this relationship, or at least uh had an opportunity to talk to your grandmother on your mom's side. Um, you had this connection with your dad's family through these family get-togethers. Um, and I love that. So you you have a story about your

The Theater Encounter That Saved Him

Crista Cowan 24:20

dad.

Victoria Robinson 24:20

Right. And I I call it how the Air Force Saved My Father's Life. And actually helped make us because that's more because of the Air Force is how my parents met. Um, but my father was 19, he had already graduated from high school down in in Magnolia, uh, not Magnolia, but in Columbia County, Arkansas, near Magnolia. And he had gotten a scholarship to go to to college, but he did not have the money to pay for the trip down there or to pay for other stuff. His scholarship was just the uh academic stuff. So he ended up working for a sawmill. And one day he told me the story. He told all of us at different times the story of how he was working there, and there was an old black man who his job was to s to sweep the floors from the sawmill. And so, but there was a white overseer at the um at the sawmill um who would often grab the guy's broom and start beating and whipping the old black man. And so one day my father got really, really tired of it. And he grabbed that broom back from the white overseer and he proceeded to start beating the overseer with it. And then they ended up with the um the all the the other young men who were there working there are yelling, Earl, Earl, stop it, oh, they're gonna kill you, Earl, they're gonna kill you. This is in 1952. Yeah. And um, so he finally got his sentence and he took off running and he left. And um he didn't go home because he knew that that the sheriff and then would probably come after him at his grandparents'. And there was still active lynchings taking place in Arkansas at the time. Definitely, definitely. Uh-huh. So he ran away and um late lunch, it was around lunchtime, whatever, that he he got into town back into town and um hid in the movie theater. And I think the movie theater was called the um the cameo theater. Because it was one of um two segregated movie theaters there. Um one was a black-owned theater. Okay, and I didn't think that would be an issue there, but um he had to sit in the segregated balcony at the cameo. And he said he was there was another guy who was sitting there, a white guy sitting up front, and then and he then started talking to him. It was the Air Force recruiter on his lunch break. He would hide up in the um in the theater, but he would go up in the in the Negro section so that nobody would bother him. But he noticed that my father would keep on turning the door open. He'd go around and look and extremely nervous. So then he started talking to my father. And he told him what was going on, and he says, Well, the Air Force can help you. So he he convinced my father to enlist while he's sitting there in the movie theater. And when they got out of the movie theater's dark, my and he escorted my father out to make sure my father was gonna be safe. And he took him to the Air Force recruiter's office and they signed the paperwork. And then a couple days later, my father was on a bus to Stamps, Arkansas, where he then took the train um to um to Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Crista Cowan 27:03

Wow.

Victoria Robinson 27:04

And that's how he ended up being in the Air

A Grandfather Disappears To Survive

Victoria Robinson 27:06

Force.

Crista Cowan 27:06

Yeah.

Victoria Robinson 27:07

The Air Force saved his life. Yeah. And uh the military saved several members of our family. Um, my father's father was um when my father was like four and a half or so. Um my grandfather was uh sharecropper sometimes. So he was a sharecropper, and and his his wife and five kids were all um at the house. And um one day on the property, here comes the property owner with the sheriff. Then the sheriff has his gun and he pulls it out and he has his hand on the pocket. And my father was underneath the house. In Arkansas, houses are elevated off the ground. I keep the ground from um the water getting in and destroying the floorboards. My father says the guy the sheriff came up with his hand on his gun, same as the owner, and the game came straight, just went into the house, didn't knock, just went in the house. And then they ended up saying, We're here because you know, we're looking for some chickens. And he's talking to my father, my grandfather. And and my grandfather is like, I don't know what you're talking about. And but they kept every time they would ask about the chickens, my my grandmother would be looking at this pot on the stove. And so, so that scared my grandfather. So he ended up um at one point he decided that to protect his wife and kids, he was going to leave. So he didn't have any shoes on in the house. And my father said he was sitting in the um, in uh underneath it, and he could hear, he could hear arguing, he could hear footsteps. But as they were walking around the room, he could hear, you know, those kind of things. But when they my father grandfather started running, he heard that and then it stopped, and it'd be like he jumped off the steps at the porch, and then uh he could hear a thud and it'd be softer. And then when he got to the garden where they had just chopped down the the um corn and a few other things like that, he could hear running, you know. And so my father, he would tell the story, both stories he would tell, he would cry. And um, and he was in his 60s, 70s when he would tell us the stories. Um, and then um he didn't see his father again until he was maybe about uh 17 years later when my father was already in the Air Force and he was in California, and he saw his um a cousin on his mother's side, and um and I think it was in the San Francisco, Oakland area, and so they got together and he said and he introduced him to a man named Scott. They were at a bar, and so they're talking. My father got got up to go to the bathroom, and then the cousin was an older man, he was telling Scott, do you know who that you my friend is? He goes, My friend Earl, he goes, No, no, no, who says, That's your boy, Earl. And so my father came out of the bathroom and he saw the the man he had just met crying, his head in his his head in his hands. And then he um went and when he sat down, he's like, What's going on? And he goes, Earl, like you meet your daddy. And that's how my father saw his father at the first time in in like 17 plus years.

Crista Cowan 29:55

You've been having a conversation with him and didn't even recognize him?

Victoria Robinson 29:57

That's right. Well, no, because he was he was he was like four and a half years old. And so he ended up uh he kept he did keep a relationship with him, and the other two of his brothers had a relationship with their father. And um, so that worked out well. So that was a way to keep in touch that way, because he was being go he was being moved around. But our but when when our grandfather left, he somehow ended up in the Navy.

Crista Cowan 30:23

Okay.

Victoria Robinson 30:23

And so he was protected at least. But he served in the Navy um during the um World War II and part of Korea. Okay. And but he never talked about his military service, he didn't have any stories. And did you you met him? You knew what he was? Oh yeah, we met Papa Scott. Um, in fact, we went to his funeral when he died in 1972. We were living in Salt Lake, and we went, we drove across country to California for the funeral, and got to meet him and stuff, and meet a half-sister of my father's and and the like. So it was always, but it was good getting a chance to know him.

Crista Cowan 30:56

Yeah.

Victoria Robinson 30:56

And he had he he he had a sense of humor. Yeah.

Crista Cowan 31:00

Sense to late. I love that. Well, so your your parents served in the Air Force, your grandfather was in the Navy, you have a sister in the coat that was in the coast of the stuff. So then she then she moved over to the Navy.

Victoria Robinson 31:11

Okay. Okay, and then her twin joined the army. Okay. And she was an 82nd airborne. Strong, strong service in your family. Right. In uh our immediate family of eight, there were five of us who were five in the military. And then you add my niece on as like five out of eleven when you add the nieces into it.

Crista Cowan 31:29

Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.

Going All In On Genealogy

Crista Cowan 31:32

So you got into family history really because of the stories that you were told, but you got but then you got interested again when Roots came out in January of 1977, I think it was, right? Yeah. Um, at what point did you decide to go all in on family history as a hobby?

Victoria Robinson 31:47

I wanted to kind of document some of the stories that I had used. I remember in high school I used some of the stories of some of the essay, beginnings of essays that I'd done. Um, like we had heard the story of my um father's mother's um great-grandfather. He had been purchased off, he had been sold off a slave auction in Cincinnati, and he and his brother were then tethered to the to the wagon and made to walk to the new location. Wow. So I wanted to find out more about it.

Crista Cowan 32:16

Hold, hold on, hold, hold. You just said a slave auction in Cincinnati, Ohio. Yes. People did not normally associate Ohio with slave.

Victoria Robinson 32:23

I know. But I think it's more like in I think it's more across across the river in Covington, Kentucky. Uh that makes more sense. Yes. But that's the story I was told. Yeah. And so as I did, was doing research, I'm like, okay, I can't find any um slave auction records for Cincinnati, but I'm looking to try to find the slave auction records in Covington, Kentucky. That makes more sense. Okay. And so have not been able to find what I need. But now that there's the full search, full text search. Full text search, I'm going to be looking for see what I can find. Yeah. Yeah. So you're all in on this as a hobby. Yeah. It's been, it's been what I've been doing, um, keep myself busy. Um when when I got my nieces when they were three and five, um, I would I did not give up volunteering on Saturday. So I would bring them with me to the Family Search Center and they Family History Center at that time, and then I would bring them videotapes and then take put them in the office, and they could sit on the floor with their breakfast and lunch, whatever, and they could watch videos. That's what they used to do every Saturday. That's adorable. And the oldest one is who I'm named, gonna name as my um genealogy um executor. Okay. She's she's agreed to do that. And is she already interested, or she just agreed to do that because she loved you? It's a combination of both, but she she's interested in it. In Virginia, fourth grade history was is Virginia State history. Okay. So they had to do a project in her fourth grade. So she decided to be to do a project about her fourth grade grandparents, the ones who um had been in Lees Lee's um Loudoun County. And so she ended up um, I just okay, I'm gonna show you how to sew. We're gonna make you the right kind of dress. You know, I found a pattern for a dress that would that would from the 1840s, that would look like the 1840s, simple little thing, and had a little apron and it had a we made it, I had a false pocket in there. So when we got, so I showed her how to um cut out a pattern and then sew, use a sewing machine. And then um we made a photocopy of the manumission record of her fourth-grade grandmother who she's playing, who she was gonna be doing. And so I told her how to told her how to tea stain the paperwork and we crumpled it up, whatever, and put it into her pocket as if it's something I was taking care of and hidden away in the pocket to protect her, you know. Um, even though she was a grown woman when she was manumitted, so but so so she has always been interested in thinking the stories that way. Yeah.

Crista Cowan 34:31

It sounds like it. Well, and that really is what I think keeps families connected. Like we can write names on pedigree charts all day long and dates and places, and we can dig into the old records, but it's the stories that keep us connected. I agree, I agree. And so as you think back about the way that you used to hear stories, um, and the way that you're now making sure those stories get passed on to the next generation, what does that look like for you?

Making Reunions Tell The Truth

Crista Cowan 34:58

Like, how are you telling your family stories?

Victoria Robinson 35:00

I have created a blog, and uh so I I have written blog, blogs that are about the length of like a chapter of a book, and they're cited with with um um with source citations. So I tell different stories, you know, that that I found information on and how I found my grandmother and her first cousin's missing grand uh uncle, found out where he was buried and what had happened to him. So I did learned all about him and did his story. And so the blog is that, and then when we do uh family reunions, I used to give a presentation at family reunions, and so we would do things like um get for the community in in Columbia um county outside of Magnoie, Arkansas, we were in a hotel for the thing, and I would photocopy the census records from 1870 for the community that they lived in, and then just literally tape them to the wall around the room so people could go in with the elders and say, Oh, that's who that's that's someone's so's grandma. And they would figure that that connection out. So they would able go through the census records and see the family members who the elders they've heard about. So that was one of the things that I love doing and got a good response on.

Crista Cowan 36:04

That is brilliant. That's super smart. I love that as a way to transmit memory and make sure you're telling those family stories.

Lunchbox Memories And Your Story

Crista Cowan 36:13

It's time for one word, one story. We are going to reach into the story drawer and see what uncatalogued memory comes out today. Our word is lunchbox. So, lunchbox. Well, I have not had a lunchbox in a very, very long time because here at Ancestry, we have a cafe, and so we don't have to bring our own lunches very often. But uh when I was a kid, I had lunchboxes, and that was one of my favorite parts of back to school shopping every year. For me, it wasn't about picking out the back to school clothes or the back to school backpack. As I got older, it was about picking the right trapper keeper. But when I was little in elementary school, it was about picking the right lunchbox. And if you were a child of the 80s, you remember the metal lunchboxes with the matching thermoses. And I think one year, one of my favorites was probably the Wonder Woman lunchbox. Uh, and so I'm gonna have to see if my mom remembers what the other lunchboxes were that I had, because Wonder Woman, for some reason, is the only one I can remember with any real clarity. So not only is it a story, but I'm gonna have to have a conversation and see if I can fill in the gaps of the story that I can't remember from my childhood. So that is today's word. I would love to hear your lunchbox story. Maybe it's from your own life, maybe it's from the life of one of your children or grandchildren. If you are watching on YouTube, leave that in the comments. And if you're following along on any podcast app, go ahead and post your story on Facebook, on Instagram. Be sure to tag me. I would love to read along. But most importantly, make sure you tell your stories to your family.

Air Force Values And Lasting Roots

Crista Cowan 38:21

So as you think about family stories, particularly your dad's story, because it's so powerful. Like, what is that from that that like roots you or keeps you grounded in today's world?

Victoria Robinson 38:32

The core values for the Air Force and the motto, mottos that they had for the for the Air Force, while our father was in the Air Force, kind of reflected his his stuff. Um aim high, fly, fight, and win. And so he aimed high. He was trying to protect somebody. Fly, fight, and win. He flew, literally ran away and to fight and then went to win on, and went on to win. And integrity first. So I think that the early motto of the um uh those core values of the Air Force, I think, were kind of helped lead his life. Um, one of the last ones is service before self. And I think that fits pretty well. That's our our our father and our grandfather and stuff. Um, excellence in all we do, and inclusivity represent culture and legacy. Just knowing that our father lived his life, you know, he was not perfect, you know, no man, nobody is. And but he lived his life, I think, in accordance with those models. And I think that that's the reason why I say the Air Force saved his life and also helped in us to be what we are, who we are, and stuff like that.

Crista Cowan 39:33

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing him with us. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.