Studentka

SOC – 2550
Professor
Oakland Community College
 A life course can be understood by analyzing the occurrences in their lifetime in respect

to the stages in their life, turning points and customs which are all engraved into their school of

thought. Based on the in-depth interview, this essay will include an analysis of the subject’s

cohorts and how it impacted their life course. I asked an elderly married couple, Larry and

Jacquelyn who are in average health. They both resided at home until before Christmas of 2018

when Jaclyn was admitted into the assisted living/nursing home I work at for therapy. She has

had a slow decline and is in good health other than the inability to walk continuously. Larry

comes up to the assisted living daily and stays for six hours. We spoke in private because he does

not want Jacquelyn to know she will not be returning home due to the fact he can’t assist her

with some basic needs; bathing and using the restroom. Of all the life transitions he said this will

be the hardest one when she finds out, but he is waiting for a double bedroom vacancy and in the

meantime, he’ll continue his daily visits.

Larry and Jaclyn are part of the old-old generation and have lived nearly a lifetime

together as a couple. Larry was born in Detroit in 1937 and he belonged to a Catholic middle-

class family. He had two siblings, one older brother and one younger brother. Larry’s father was

an accountant for the Wayne County Road Commission while his mother was a homemaker. He

did not have too much to worry about growing up, because his mother took care of the

household, so he just had to go to school then come home. Larry attended St. Joseph’s High

School where he had Christian Brother’s as his teachers. He said the Christian Brothers were

extremely strict and when a student stepped out of line in a severe degree the student was forced

to box the Christian Brother after school. After the discipline was over for the student, the

Christian Brother’s would proceed by taking the student home and telling the parents. In other
instances’ the discipline would be self-inflicted by taking the metal side of the ruler and

continuously smacking their knuckles until the student bled.

Larry said, “It was no big deal. It taught the students to behave. When the school would

report to the parents about bad behavior and the parents did not act in favor of the

discipline or if the parents became upset with the action taken, the school officials would

say, “Take your child to St. Augustus, the Nun’s will be easy on the child there.”

Authority plays a large role in Larry’s life and how a person deserves to be respected as well as

giving respect to other people. Larry began work at the age of 13 at the local gas station. He

would later become a mechanic there and leave at the age of 27 when he began his career at

Chrysler. He worked for Chrysler for 30.5 years. He began as a mechanic, testing engines, then

moved on to become an engineer. He had not received any formal training for either position but

was only a high school graduate. He stated that Chrysler drained him, but he was so lucky as to

not have to get a four-year degree to have held the position he worked. His work ethic was the

norm for someone in his generation, meaning you go to work to provide for your family and you

come home happy that you have a roof over your head and food in the refrigerator.

Jacquelyn was the third child of her family born in Detroit in 1936. She had one older

brother and sister, and one younger brother who died at the age of 10. Both of her older siblings

are deceased, and she is the only remaining person of her immediate family. Like Larry,

Jacquelyn’s mother was a homemaker while her father worked at the Detroit Free Press as a

freelance writer. She too was Catholic raised and attended Dominican High School. She had

Nun’s as teachers, but she was disciplined through chores and tasks at the school, although she

recalls one time when a classmate was constantly misbehaving, and the Nun pushed the young

girl up against the radiator and burned her back. That was the most severe form of discipline
Jacquelyn ever witnessed during her days at Catholic school. When Jacquelyn graduated high

school, she worked as a receptionist at Holy Cross Hospital, but that was short lived because she

became a homemaker herself. She enjoys crafts but more importantly being a mother and

lawfully wedded wife. To have made her own family was the most important job she has ever

done.

Larry and Jacquelyn both stated that race issues at a young age was not a problem until

their mid-20’s. Although everything was separated for white’s and black’s, so it was easy to

view it as race not having any conflict with one another or any problems for people who were not

of Caucasian decent. They refer to African-American’s as black, negro, or nigger. They believe

each has its own meaning and not to be offended by them for it, it’s just how they were raised.

They stated that their mindset of African-American people changed when their second born was

in high school. At this time the students were being bussed together and began sharing the

classrooms together, which became a problem one day when their son was beat up in the

bathroom and given a concussion. Larry and Jacquelyn put their home up for sale and left Detroit

within two weeks of that occurrence and moved to the Macomb area. They both believe they do

not have hate for the other race and over time the world has changed their perspective, but they

still believe today there is a difference between black and nigger. Their mentality of how to view

someone based solely on the individual’s skin tone could have easily set up the next generation

to be like-minded, but with how progressive we are today, it seems that their grandchildren do

not have that same view. Larry and Jacquelyn are relatively open-minded people because times

change, and they learn to adapt. They said at this stage in their life and everything they have seen

over the years, we are in a better place now for diversity and inclusion.
 Larry said, “Blacks have it good today, but they’ll never see it for what it is. They are

not enslaved, and they have opportunity unlike before.”

They are unable to see the social injustice because they are not able to stray away from the

comparison of 1950’s America to 2019 America.

We touched lightly on the subject of LGBTQIA community and they both feel that it is

ok, but they don’t understand the need to flaunt it, because they were raised in a time where you

kept that to yourself. If your child was part of that community or even mentally-challenged, you

kept them hidden away and didn’t speak about that child to anyone. Families were ashamed and

feared what their neighbors, friends, and family thought. They explained that they were both ok

with someone being part of this community, but they don’t understand why they need to have

parades or fly rainbow flags, because it seems like these people are trying to force it upon them.

It is hard for them to develop a different aspect of this homogenous lifestyle because how their

religion encompassed the sacristy of marriage between man and woman. They extrinsically use

religion for social purpose and use it to justify their prejudices. On a lighter note, their religion

has allowed them to grow and open up the potential to accept someone who is not a heterosexual.

At the age of 17, Larry met 16-year-old Jacquelyn through a mutual friend. Typically,

they would have small social engagements that included going to the show, a restaurant, a dance,

or to watch the submarine races at Belle Isle.

Jaclyn said, “Oh the submarine races were fun. Well obviously, there are no submarines

at Belle Isle, nor can you see the submarines underwater. That was just one of two places

we went to neck.”

Every week their friends and them would take turns visiting each other’s house on the weekend

to hang out. They would drink casually, and the parents didn’t think anything of it. On March 02,
1957 Larry and Jacquelyn wed. They had a small wedding of about one hundred people because

they paid for the wedding themselves. They had five children together, three boys and two girls.

Today they have fourteen grandchildren and eighteen great grandchildren. Larry and Jacquelyn

stated they didn’t go on vacation but had day outings or went up north to a family member’s

cabin. Their sons participated in Boy Scouts and they did small activities with that, but not very

often or anything they could recall. They said the big treat was going to White Castle once a

month. They had their daughter go in and order forty sliders because they were embarrassed to

be ordering so much food.

Jacquelyn said, “families are more involved with children and their activities that the

children do. Although this is great, it takes away from her children coming to visit with

them for Sunday dinner’s as she had with her family.”

The importance of family and parents should come first before all other things in life. They both

said it seems to be more important now to be with your children and taking advantage of all the

possibilities with the kids. I believe their beliefs would be different had they grown up in this era

we are currently in.

Overall Larry and Jacquelyn’s financial situation is good. They have saved and invested

their money over the years to live into their late 90’s without any problems. Their oldest

daughter’s husband is an accountant, he takes care of all their finances. Larry said their son-in-

law sits down with them monthly and goes over all their expenses, so him and Jacquelyn are not

left out of the loop. They both agreed that having someone who also looks after that, especially

while Jacquelyn is in the assisted living takes some of the burden off them to focus on getting

better. They are trying to just focus on healthy aging, not necessarily dodging illness, but trying

to cope with how they are able to function in order to complete their basic daily needs without
assistance. As mentioned before Jacquelyn will not be returning home due to limited physical

capabilities, so when a double room becomes vacant Larry will tell her this will be there forever

home. He said the campus has everything they need here such as, the medical professionals, food

service, activities and their kids visit weekly now, instead of once a month or every other month.

Larry said, “A house is not a home if Jacquelyn is not by my side.”

 WORK CITED

J. Geitzen, personal communication, March 05, 2019.

L. Geitzen, personal communication, March 05, 2019.