Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter)

The archived posts about former Rolfe High School teacher Dave Spaulding provide an explanation of the following transcript.

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Mr. Spaulding on his 82nd birthday, Aug. 18, 2009. (Click photo to enlarge.)

L.:  What did your parents, or what did your wife think about your use of explosives? Were they like, “Hey, go right ahead,” or were they concerned?

Mr. S.:  Oh, my wife, I suppose, worried a little bit about it.  I told her not to worry.  I said if anything ever blew up on me I’d quit that work.  But, she got used to it.

L.:  And, how about your parents?

Mr. S.:  I didn’t have any parents then.  I wasn’t in this business until I was, I don’t know, out of college and teaching and so forth.  I never really had any parents to speak of.  I had a father but he was killed in a fire when I was eleven and I wasn’t living with him at the time, luckily.  And Rosalie’s [Mr. S.’s wife] mother-in-law, I never had much to do with.  I don’t claim her as a mother.  When I was two years old she abandoned me and moved back to Chicago where she was in her home territory.  I don’t know who took care of me until I got old enough to remember.  But I lived with all sorts of people.

L.:  So, did you say your mother abandoned you when you were two years old?

Mr. S.:  Yes.  I lived with my grandparents, then, I think, and my oldest brother.

L.:  After you were two years old?

Mr. S.:  Yes.  Well, after I got to be, I don’t know, five or six, then I lived with my father again.  So, I lived with all sorts of people.  Whoever would take me in.

L.:  So, your mother abandoned you when you were two, and then you lived with your grandparents until you were five or six, and then you lived with your father.

Mr. S.:  I don’t know who I lived with when I turned two to maybe, I don’t know, five or six.  I don’t really know.

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The sixth and last part of this series will be posted by Friday night, the 25th.  After that it will likely be around three weeks (give or take) before I post about Mr. Spaulding again.  (How long it takes to have a new blog-ready transcript is unpredictable.)  If you have some questions you want me to ask him, but don’t want to comment here, you may email them to me at mariongundersonart@gmail.com .

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Tags: Dave Spaulding

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