Latest / Stream of Consciousness with Dan: Stories from the Midwest / Stream of Consciousness #62 - Caroline Crocker

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Stream of Consciousness #62 - Caroline Crocker · Stream of Consciousness with Dan: Stories from the Midwest

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Alright everyone, we are live with Stream of Consciousness with Dan, and today I'm joined by someone whose life and work span more chapters than most of us could ever dream of.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Carolyn Crocker.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: She's an international speaker, an author, a former microbiologist and professor, and the daughter and granddaughter of World War II survivors.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You may know her from her powerful books, such as Unforgivable, Through a Child's Eyes, and Brave Face, where she brings her family's wartime experiences to life with honesty, compassion, and a scientist's clarity.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But she's also written 13 other books of various genres.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: What I love most about Carolyn's work is just the way she makes complex ideas, trauma, truth, history, faith feel deeply human and accessible.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: She lives in Fairfax, Virginia with her husband and her mother.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's a mother herself of four and a grandmother of eight.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful she's here today, and I'm excited to dive into her story.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today, Dr.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Crocker?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm fine, and uh thank you for having me, and please do call me Carolyn.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I will call you Carolyn.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I always have to make sure I've uh I will call you Carolyn going forward.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not Betty, not Betty Crocker.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I should definitely not do.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not Betty, I'm Carolyn.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to start just at the beginning.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just kind of, you know, what were you passionate about as a child?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just the things that grabbed your curiosity.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Was it music?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Was it I don't know, playing outside?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Was it sports?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Was it reading?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just kind of what kind of got you going as a kid.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be a ballerina.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I spent all my time um dancing to classical music around my parents' house.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a little different.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hey, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sports didn't do it too for me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um classical music would and still does bring me to tears.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I taught myself the piano because one of I was one of five children, and my parents said, well, you can have lessons in one thing only.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to have lessons in ball in ballet, and I figured I could teach myself to teach to play the piano.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I did.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I can actually relate to that in two ways.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so funny.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I was, oh gosh, maybe two or three, uh, it was winter Olympics time, and I was at my grandmother's house, and I was pretending to figure skate around the coffee table at grandma's house.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to, of course, do like one of those spins or whatever, and I knock my tooth right on the on the coffee table.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, so I had a I had a brown tooth until that thing fell out.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I can relate to that to kind of that uh dancing thing as well.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I took I I started taking piano lessons when I was six.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's music's very powerful for me.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I love hearing that for sure.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh just tell me a little bit more about your your childhood.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, were you close with your siblings?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just just kind of what the vibe was like, if you don't mind.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I'm the eldest of five.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, you the the typical thing with eldest children is everybody's scared of them.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, I am the shortest of all of my siblings, and they're still scared of me.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just rather funny.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I my my sister is 10 years younger, and she's the only sister I have.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: The others are boys.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: When she was born, my dad said, um, well, she won't be a friend for you because she's too young.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: She has always been my best friend.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, my sister Jody lives in Des Moines, and um, you're gonna be seeing her soon.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's really neat.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So was there a moment obviously you talked about wanting to be a ballerina, which is I guess that kind of is like every little girl's dream sometimes, like you know, getting in the tutu and doing things like that.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when did you really when did something click in you where you're like, I want to be a scientist or I want to be an author or a a speaker and just all the things you've accomplished?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a moment that really sparked you to kind of not get serious, but you you know what I mean?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I the the test of basic skills, I always scored sky high in biology and science.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but my thought was, well, no, I don't want to be a scientist because you know they always have to have their hair in a bun and wear those really unflattering white coats.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, you know, I had to.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You wanted to wear your ballerina dress.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to wear my tutu right.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually I outgrew that.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I uh when I went to university, I found that the biology classes were what I excelled in and they were what I was interested in.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I actually started community college at DMAC when I was 16.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: When I was 18, my parents moved to England and my dad gave me a choice.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, either you can stay in Iowa, in which case you're on your own, or you can move to England with us, in which case I will pay for your university.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And having been offered that choice, I decided to move to England.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I went to the university which was next door to my parents.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: English universities are different from American universities in that you only learn one subject.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you don't do anything except your major.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was offered a bunch of majors, and there was one microbiology and virology.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was fascinated by viruses because you know they are not alive, and yet you can kill them.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the undead, you know, it's so cool.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, I want to learn about viruses, and that was how I got started in biology.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I did, you know, the the degree in in a bachelor's degree where I was living in Coventry, England, and then um eventually went on and did a master's and a doctorate.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know that part of your story, so that's really cool.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I also didn't know that, yeah, it's all about the major there, which is very interesting because you know, I'm I uh have a background in accounting and finance, but like in college, like you said in America, I'm learning about Shakespeare and American history and things like that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally not it's yeah, totally interesting.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they they told uh in fact I said to them, well, I'd also like to, you know, take a class in Spanish, and they laughed at me.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well Lo siento.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, not that only, only I mean I was allowed to take a class in you know math for scientists and chemistry, but no English, no nothing like that, no history.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's that's how they do it there.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I want to talk about kind of did you go directly to your uh master's and doctorate after college, or did you have kind of a a waiting period, or did you just keep going, going, going until you got through everything?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I did have a waiting period.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I I got married two weeks after I graduated with my bachelor's degree, and then my husband went to college in Oxford, in Oxford, at Oxford University.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I worked to uh help support him for a while.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I did um some research in multiple sclerosis, but uh you know, despite being a biologist, I clearly didn't know how to prevent pregnancy, and I found myself expecting our first child.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um my uh my boss at the time he said, Well, come in, bring, bring your, you know, bring your baby, put her on the lab bench.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, we were working with all kinds of nasty viruses.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think so.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I stayed home, and in fact, I ended up staying home taking care of my children until my youngest went to nursery school, and then I went back to work, and uh my my supervisor at Birmingham University said, Hey, why don't you do a master's degree with me?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, and um yeah, and and then we after the master's degree we moved back to America.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and I started working at Creighton University and realized that I actually wanted to go ahead and do the doctorate, and that's the strange story.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that many people do this.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I don't know if I'm not the only one in the world, but um, I wanted to do a doctorate.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I did not want to do it the American way because I had started in the English way, and it's a very different system.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to redo things that I'd already done.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what I did was I asked my supervisor at Creighton if I can bring in the money and convince a professor in England to take me on as a doctoral student, will you let me do a doctorate in England while I work for you?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, if you can pull that off, yes.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I did.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I went to I I was presenting some of my work at an international conference on um on allergies.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I saw a British professor, I told him about my idea, and he said, if you can pull it off, go for it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote to a bunch of pharmaceutical companies and uh suggested some research projects for them.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Two of them uh sponsored me to do research on the same thing.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: They each wanted me to compare their drug to the other guy's drug.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that meant that I could use the money from one company to do what they wanted and use the money from the other company to sponsor myself doing a doctorate.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I did my doctorate at the University of Southampton in England without ever having gone there, and I I corresponded with my supervisor by email.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Very Carolyn, that is that is so cool.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is also cool because uh you're doing this, you know, while you're living in Council Bluffs, and I have my master's uh in business administration from Creighton.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just it's that's so cool.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that you were able to do that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um it kind of showed you know, they're probably not gonna do that for everybody, so you like your work had to speak for themselves and you had to put yourself out there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's that's just an amazing story.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I absolutely love that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm kind of gonna go actually a little bit off script since we're talking science before we get into kind of your books.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where do you see kind of the pharmaceutical uh market today in America?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's always kind of a hot topic, like medications are so expensive, blah blah blah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We hate the pharmaceutical companies.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I just kind of where do you stand on on that?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't we don't need to get too political, just kind of where do you stand on what that market looks like right now?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I I guess I don't really have enough information.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not something I'm doing right now, and so I don't feel like I can speak with any degree of expertise.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the costs of our medications, particularly those that are essential, like insulin, are too high.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but uh for the rest, I I just don't have the expertise to be able to be helpful to your listeners.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's fair enough.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I just know as someone who takes a medication I need every day, it's very expensive and it it kind of stinks that you know you have to you have to spend that much money.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I just thought I'd mention that, but no, I appreciate that you didn't want to uh you know say something that you weren't confident about.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we're gonna shift gears a little bit to World War II, uh, which I'm super pumped to talk about.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am despite being an accountant, very uh uh attuned to history.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big history buff.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love just researching, watching documentaries, things like that.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um can you before we even get into your books, just talk about what your uh was it both your mother and your grandmother?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: My both my parents um they they came from the Netherlands.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: They immigrated when they got married, they um immigrated into Canada, which is where I was born, and then eventually we moved to America.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but they both grew up in the Netherlands during World War II.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, gotcha.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so all my family were there.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah, so I'm just gonna get right to the the thick of things now.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you've written about uh incredibly heavily uh heavy painful chapters of history that your family has lived through.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love to talk about the courage it takes to bring those stories to the page.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, World War II devastated millions of families on both sides, every country you can name.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so as someone who didn't experience it personally or even secondhand, I'm just struck by the courage it must take for someone like you to write about that stuff.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, what gave you that strength or the clarity to start telling those stories?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I started after my father passed away.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: My mother needed a distraction, and so what I did was um I wrote down all the stories she told me about her childhood while we were growing up.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So she, you know, she told us stories about her childhood, and so I wrote them all down.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: They were funny stories, crazy things she did, and I showed her that, and I said, Hey mom, what do you think?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Would those make a book?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of thinking a children's book, and uh she looked at it and she said, Well, you haven't told most of it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Mom, you haven't told me the rest.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so after that, she and I sat down for almost five years while I pulled out of her the stories that were not suitable for children.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so we talked about it, and you know, and then I I had to do a lot of research because you know that the memories of someone between five and nine years old, which was how old she was, no, they're not always very accurate.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't know in what order things happened, and so I then did a lot of historical research to see what was happening in The Hague during that time.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then I connected some of her stories with stories with things that happened there.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and some of those were surprising.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um like finding out, okay, that the Besaudenhout neighborhood was bombed, and um, you know, that was when my grandmother was having a baby, and you know, how did that impact things?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, or there was uh a building that was uh was bombed, and actually my mother was at the playground with her sister, and so she was an eyewitness to the bombing of that building, and there were things where I could put it together, and uh so that story, you know, kind of grew legs as it were.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh the more my mom and I talked about it, the more she remembered.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, actually it's it's a surprising amount that she remembered, and and you can read that in the book.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's um yeah, it's all firsthand memories.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um well that's it's sad and amazing at the same time.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, no child should have to, you know, go through what she went through, but it was I imagine it was kind of neat.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry if I'm getting a little emotional, uh it'd be kind of neat to you know talk through that, you know, with your mother and uh kind of you know feel what she felt and things like that.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I guess I'm gonna ask, did you feel a sense of duty to preserve those stories and to publish them?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or I guess what what necessarily was the inspiration to uh completely be like, I'm going to do this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she when she was talking to me about it, she talked about um about the hunger winter, which was the last year of the war in the Netherlands when the the Allies asked the the Dutch people to have the railways go on strike so that that would hamper the German efforts in the Netherlands.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: The Germans retaliated by not sending by not allowing any more food into that part of the country.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So what and then before they could lift that ban, it was one of the coldest winters on record, and all the um all the canals froze, the bridges had been bombed, and you know, nothing could run anymore.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: The result was that that part of the country got no food at all.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Allies had actually marched through and they had liberated some of the Netherlands, but the part that was starving they did not liberate, and the information the people who were there got was that they were not of strategic importance.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can understand that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Allies had to go through and you know defeat the Germans, they couldn't, but the people who were starving were told you're not of strategic importance.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Mom was nine, so what she internalized was you're not important.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you are so unimportant you're not even worthy of food.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: All my life I have noticed that mom has an inferiority complex that she tries to uh compensate for, and I didn't know where it came from, but when she told me and kept repeating the phrase not of strategic importance, suddenly it hit me.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought it was very important to get this book out because then she will feel important, and in fact, that's exactly what happened.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, during the launch event, she was glowing, and uh, after the book was published, she walked into her church and they gave her a standing ovation.
• 20:13
  unknown: Oh man.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: She was just blown away because suddenly her childhood um was validated, her suffering was validated.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that suddenly she doesn't have any issues with her self-esteem.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, those remain.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But this has been very important to her, and she still loves it to be able to talk about her book to anyone who's willing to listen.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that that's very powerful stuff.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to take a quick uh second there.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm kind of an emotional guy sometimes, so that's okay.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, I can't wait to I can't r wait to read.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've read some excerpts of the book.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't been able to uh read it front to back yet, but I'm super excited to do that.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I guess my next question, obviously that meant so much to you and to your mother.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I guess what as a society can we do to remember those uh stories better?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're going through school, you you read Anne Diary of Anne Frank, like that's what you read about World War II, like uh Hitler's bad, the Nazis are bad, there's uh Auschwitz.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I guess my real question is uh is there anything as a society we can do to honor you know what those people had gone through more?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or I guess just any thoughts on that?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't know.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think it is important to teach.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's also important to apply.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, when I I don't want to get political, but when I hear about the children going to camps, I am aware that that is happening here.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I also know that we blame the Germans for not doing anything.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not doing anything.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I struggle with that.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that I am aware of and I struggle with.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, right now what I'm trying to do is just get the stories out there.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the same with my my father's story, which is in Unforgivable, where he was part Jewish.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so as I did the research for that book, which I wrote after he was gone, uh I realized most of his relatives are dead.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: They were killed at Hauswich.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, that was very shocking for me.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: I found that book much more difficult to write than Braveface because of the just the tragedy of it.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I think what I really resonate with, and I'm gonna have to do some research really quick.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, I don't know this off the top of my head, but there is an amazing book about World War II from Italy's side.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've heard of it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it BNP?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Beneath a Scarlet Sky.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with that book?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I've heard of it, but I haven't read it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I well, I would I would definitely suggest it, but it just that that book kind of opened my eyes to just different sides of the war.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um just like I said, when you're going to school, you just kind of learn, like I said, Hitler's bad, the Jews go to Auschwitz.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically it.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many different sides to it.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not uh blaming my my history teachers, but uh yeah, so I would suggest reading that book for sure.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'd really enjoy it.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'd really enjoy it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: People learn a lot better through stories, and that is one of the reasons I like to write history as if it was fiction.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what I write in the books is not fiction, but when you read it, you think it is, because you know, there are conversations and you know, adventures, and and so you think it's fiction, but it's not.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And people remember that so much better.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's an important way of bringing that across.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely, and I don't know, I think just in general, we need to read more.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, uh it it also gives you kind of a sense of imagination because you're not seeing it on a screen, you're not seeing you have to picture it in your head, and it's just it's so much more powerful in in my opinion.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I I kind of want to shift now to your professional speaking because I know you mentioned you you've spoken on what I think three continents.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um to all kinds of audiences, I so I just love to explore kind of that side of your work, what you what you talk about and what you hope people leaving uh from your um appearance uh feel at the end of the day.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because when I was a teenager, I was asked to um to do a reading, and uh I I I totally couldn't do it.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I stood up in front of everybody and ran out of the room.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that I actually now speak to people, that's mind-boggling, but I do, and I enjoy it, and I don't even think it's scary.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I've um I've been able to, you know, speak to audiences of thousands and um small audiences.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I quite often actually now go to nursing homes because they they really identify with those stories from World War II.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, also to I I recently went to a preschool and um there I was able to talk about what is it like to be an author and and could they be authors?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, read one of my children's books.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's all kinds of things, which it's just fun for me.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, that's it's that's it's so beautiful because I love that you went from nursing home to nursery most of the no, but uh so I work for a a senior living company, and so just the it's I think it's so important uh for me to go to those places and obviously I don't have the knowledge you do or the the personal experiences, but to just talk to those people just to talk to the people in the nursing homes, and it makes their day, it really does.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I love that you said that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so what as someone who is not a confident public speaker, what gives you the courage to get up there is it I feel like I can do it more like if I really know what I'm talking about, but it's still not easy.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I still like feel like I'm going to throw up the entire time.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what what kind of gives you kind of that courage to step on that stage where you know people are paying to listen to you speak?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't yeah, I don't need courage because it's not hard.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why not.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, you know, maybe it's because I was a college professor, and it I do remember the first day I was teaching, and I came into the lab and there was a young man sitting in the teacher's chair.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, and that was it was my first day.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was a little nervous, and I said, What are you doing here?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I'm your helper.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought about it, and I'm thinking, not sure I have a helper.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I went and I asked the secretary, and she told me, No, you don't have a helper.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to the classroom and I said, get out of my chair.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and he did.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, after that, I just realized they're just people, and you know, I mean, you know, in college, it's rather funny because some of them they'll put their they bring their pillow to class, believe it or not, and they put it beside the wall and they put their head against the wall.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as the professor, you can stand there and you can look at the at the students and you know which ones are gonna fail.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And those are them.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's the ones that bring their pillow to class.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm bringing my pillow to class, I'm not even gonna go to class.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna it's it doesn't make any sense.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that's that's really funny, actually.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So uh if you don't mind, I would like to talk about faith a little bit.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I I believe on your profile you said your your husband is an Anglican pastor.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he is, yeah.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so yeah, so you've obviously lived a life shaped, you know, by history, by family, by science, and obviously by faith.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always believed I come from a Catholic background, but everyone needs something bigger than themselves to hold on to, if that's Christianity or uh Judaism, Islam, Taoism, uh just belief beyond something is grounding.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I just really wanted to just get your thoughts on what faith means to you and how it's impacted your life.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I um I actually did not really have much of a faith until I was 18.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I had heard the story that Jesus loves children, and so I figured that if he existed, I was pretty safe until I reached 18, at which point he wouldn't like me anymore.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So but um when I was I wasn't a very logical kid, was I, but when I was 18, I um I decided that I wanted to know if God exists.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went to the chaplaincy at the university where I was in in England, University of Warwick, and I started going to the services, the Sunday services, just because I wanted to know, well, does he exist?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I heard the chaplain preaching on the Ten Commandments, and every commandment he said, you can't do this, which was totally consistent with my experience, that I could not be good in my own strength.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: He said, but Jesus helps you, and um the reason he died for you was so that you could go to heaven anyway.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that was the first time I'd heard something that made sense.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I was told, just be good, I knew that wasn't gonna work because I know I'm not good.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was totally logical for me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I I guess for me, faith is logical, not believing isn't logical, and so I don't know.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So so when I was 18, I um I made a personal commitment to Jesus, um, and uh I I then married a uh my Bible study leader when I was 21, and he then went into the ministry, and uh I found myself to be a clergy wife.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So there we are.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: The rest is history.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've just gone on and um yeah, I I've this has been a big part of my life.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's been the central grounding part of my life.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that's cool.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's so cool because uh everyone has their own kind of you know spiritual journey.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of like the opposite.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was this the super uber religious person growing up, and then in college I was like, heck no, I don't need this anymore.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then now kind of as I'm growing into more of an adult, I'm like, I do need this, it it matters, it's uh important.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it doesn't matter what religion it is, but just to have something to ground you and to you know commit yourself to, which I think is one of the most important things.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought that was a wonderful, wonderful story.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I guess before we wrap up we've talked a ton about you know your books and everything like that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: But where do you kind of see yourself going?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just gonna continue writing and speaking?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are you uh do you have anything in the works, new books or anything?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just kind of talk about where Carolyn wants to see herself in you know five years.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Five years, my gosh.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be 73.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: How about how about five days?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can be five days.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Gino, I I thoroughly enjoy what I'm doing right now.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my husband just retired, and so we do get to travel a little bit, but also he helps me um at book events, which is really fun.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I love writing.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not the kind of writer who says, Oh, I have to discipline myself to write this many words every day.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, I have to discipline myself not to.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's because I think it's so interesting.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the book I'm working on right now is about my grandmother's life.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I'm doing that is because I um when people read the book Unforgivable, the most frequent response I have is, what was wrong with that mother?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because his mother was horrible.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she put her kids in a children's home, she didn't visit them, she was very emotionally distant.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know how my father grew up to be the wonderful man he did, but he did.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, actually, I I did figure it out and I put it in unforgivable, so you have to read that to find out.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: But um I wanted to, you know, every person thinks that they are a reasonable human being, I think.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, well, my grandmother must have thought she was a reasonable person.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to investigate and find out why did she do what she did?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why did she act like that?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now I I was very much helped because she wrote five books.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're all out of print and none of them are in English.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I did manage to get hold of them and I translated them, and I've now read her books and got a lot of information from that.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: But information came from all sorts of places, and right now I'm in contact with someone who does um family studies and is able to find out heritage.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, well, it's just the the book is gonna be called The Truth Was Different, because the truth about her was different.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in fact, her autobiographical book is called De Verkelijk Heikwas Anders, which means the truth was different.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I figured, you know, that's a good good title.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that is gonna be I think you need to publish it in that language.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: In yeah, in Dutch, right.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe I could get it translated into Dutch, but uh but it's been it's been fascinating because you know my my grandmother wrote great details.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she recorded everything in in great detail, and because I'm a scientist, I've been able to look at some of the details and realize that what she was describing was actually a murder.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: But she didn't know.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the things that has come out through my research is oh my gosh, this relative was murdered.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or another one was as I was um my grandmother's brother and his wife and children all went to Auschwitz, and I wondered who betrayed them, and I just found out who did it yesterday.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it just those things just blow my mind that I'm still finding out real history that has never been known before.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for those who can't see me right now, my head just kind of exploded.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's so powerful what you're doing, you know, doing that research, because and it's just it's just interesting too, as as well.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I love that you're doing that.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so where can everyone find your books?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether it's you know bookstores or Amazon or if you have an audiobook or anything like that.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really want everyone listening out there to to buy your work.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, great.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: All my books are on Amazon, but the place you can find links to everything, um, because I also they're also in Barnes and Noble in every online bookstore, uh, is on my website, which is ramblingruminations.com.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I'll definitely make sure to put that in the episode description for sure.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's kind of a weird title, but it's because I told my son what I wanted to do, and he said, So you're not gonna stick to any one topic, mom?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, and he goes, Okay, rambling ruminations.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so everyone listening out there, I'll post uh that website and check her out on Amazon.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I've read some excerpts, I haven't read it all yet, but um it's some powerful stuff.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think the last question I really want to talk about, we talked about faith, but I also want to talk just about family in general and what it means to you because I feel like that's really what drew me to you as a guest was the importance of family.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have your husband, you have you're living with your mother, you you know, you have four children, eight grandchildren, just the importance of family.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, they're for me, they're very important.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I've been married to my husband since 1979.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm gonna keep him.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for now.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: My mom moved in with us about a year and a half ago after some health issues, and um, so she's with us most of the time.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while she goes and stays with one of my siblings, but most you know, most of the time she lives with us.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, we I've got we've got three children in the DC area, which is amazing, and two of them are the parents for eight grandchildren.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we also have eight grandchildren.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: The eldest is 16, and the youngest is five, and uh they all love spending time at Grammy's house, and she loves having them here.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I frequently tell them they are the best grandchildren in the world, and they say, Grammy, every grandparent thinks that, and I tell them, yeah, but they're wrong.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is such that is such a grandchild thing to say.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then we well, I do have uh we one or we have one son who lives in Texas, and we just went to see him, and that was also a great joy to us.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Carolyn, and I'm gonna call you Dr.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Crocker one more time, but uh, but seriously, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um just your honesty and clarity, the way you carry you know, your stories.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just history, it's uh living reminders, and it means a lot.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it'll mean a lot to my listeners, so I can't thank you enough.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, everyone, check out her work, Unforgivable Through a Child's Eyes, Brave Face.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other one that I forgot because you said it in the Netherlands in Dutch, and then I got lost.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the truth was different.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the truth was different.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not out yet, but I'm still editing it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so go buy her stuff and just again, thanks so much for sharing your voice, your wisdom, and your heart with us today.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's truly been an honor.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.