“They say we’re the weaker sex, but not really so.”

            Mrs. Etheleen Higgins was born in Granville County, but lived her life sporadically between Granville County and New Jersey.  She married James Higgins and they had six children.  Mrs. Higgins is a supporter of modern day issues such as Women and African Americans growing in society in their respected fields.  She is also a supporter of education, and is in favor of the growing technological advances students are receiving in school everyday.  Below are some interesting examples of changes that have occurred over the years. (M.-Interviewer, H.-Interviewee) 

 

M.  Have you noted any changes in Farming over the years?

H.  Well, I know when my grandfather had the farm, everything you could possibly want could grow on a farm, but when my dad took over the farm, there were so many things, you couldn’t do any more.  Things have changed.  It sends people to the store more often then they used to instead of just going outside and get all the vegetables you want or get all the chickens, cows, or hogs you wanted to kill.  You were able to sustain yourself, now you can’t, but now everything I get, you can get it from the store.  I don’t do any farming at all, so things have changed.

M.  Have you noted any changes in jobs over the years?

H.  Well now I’m retired, I’ve only been retired for a year, it hasn’t affected us at this point.

M.  Have changes in pay affected you?

H. Always, I haven’t always had, I felt like I was at the point where I was underpaid.  My family’s been blessed, I got the position that paid me and paid me well, so I can’t complain.  You know, you have to work for it, you can’t just sit there and they just give it to you, so, I’m blessed to be able to demonstrate the ability to be able to do it, and therefore, I was compensated for that.

M.  Have you seen any medical advances over the years?

H.  Yeah, for 29 ½ years I worked in a hospital and saw tremendous advances.  And for the last five years I worked for an agency that supplied nurses to the hospital and of course, I’ve seen the changes there and again the diagnosis and how they’re being treated from talking to the nurses, talking to the hospital employees.  There’s been a great change.  And this morning as I was watching TV, they were talking about other changes that affect a lot of us, like cholesterol.  You can now find something that will do it rather than heavy medications, and it’s of some interest to me.

M. How have these changes affected your life?

H. Well, mention of the medication for cholesterol, it has affected me.  Now since I’ve been diagnosed for that, I’m looking for something that will give me results without using medication.  I don’t want to be dependant on it.  There’s another way to do it.

M.  Have you seen any changes in education over the years?

H.  Yes, um, I can see there’s some different ways of doing things; there’s a number of teacher on this side of the family, my grandchildren are in school, and things that I’ve learned in school and in life itself.  Education has changed for the better and I’m sure that more time could be spent or smaller classrooms could be had so that children could have the benefit of all the information coming from the internet, or whatever.  You know, a lot of them are not exposed to it and if the teacher’s not exposed to it, she can’t expose her students to it.             But there’s been a great number of changes, and they have computers in schools now, most of the schools have computers, so what you can’t get from the teacher, you can get from the internet. I know my grand children have computers now, and that's how they do their homework.  They have become skilled in it and they learned to get information about history, just about anything.  They don't have to sit in the library, which is not a bad thing.

M.  Do you think there will ever be a women president?

H.  I don’t see why not.  It would take a really strong woman, a very dedicated woman.  They say we’re the weaker sex, but not really so.  It’s just that someone has to want to do it; they have to fight the odds.  That’s what it’s going to take.  They’ll have to be able to stand whatever the men throw at them to keep them out of the white house.  And basically you can look at some of the presidents’ wives, they’re very strong women and they can run the white house from upstairs, or the next room, and no one thinks anything, but just to have a female as president.  But if you take a look at history, they’ve had queens to run England, females, they’re not all men.  So as a monarch, we don’t have a monopoly of women, but other countries have them, and use them.  Africa has women leaders, you think of Bathsheba, you think of all the great women of the past and some in the future that are running things.  Mandella’s wife ran things while he was incarcerated.

 

 

 

                                                                                                ~Markus A. Clark Reporting