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About Kay Regan:
Kirkland (Seattle at the time of the conferences). Lone anti-ERA member of IWY Ellensburg Coordinating Committee, Chair of the Rules Committee; lone anti-ERA delegate to IWY Houston. Delegate to White House Conference on Families, 1980. Washington Stated delegate to national Republican Conventions. Homemaker (married with , Seattle Women's Commission in 1970s, Catholic Charities, Roman Catholic Church, political activist with special emphasis on getting people involved at the local level. Recognizes the fact that there will always be differences of opinion, and works to find common ground. Anti-ERA
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| Andrews |
As a beginning, Kay, would you tell me briefly about your growing up years? Your family, your community, your school? Essentially how you developed your ideas about your role as a woman at home and in society?
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| Regan |
Okay. Briefly, huh? [laughs] I grew up in Raymond, Washington. It's a little town south of Aberdeen. And it's just north of South Bend, the county seat, and it's on the way to the ocean beaches. People that go to the ocean beaches hardly notice they've gone through it. It used to have about ten thousand people, or fifteen, when there were lots of lumber mills there when I was growing up. Now there's only about one lumber mill and about five thousand people. So we go down for the class reunions and all that, and it's sad. That little town is so sad, because it's not thriving, like it was. Doesn't seem the same at all, of course. All the kids that we used to know.
Last time we were there was an all Raymond High School reunion. And the students that were in the school at the time fixed us a big lunch, and then later on, a big dinner. And in the meantime, we had entertainment. And they had called me to ask me if I'd play in the band, because I used to play the saxophone in the high school marching band. I said, "Sure, but I don't have my saxophone," so they found one for me. And so they had basketball games of all of us old Turks, old guys playing, you know, bald heads and bellies, you know, looking for a place to have a heart attack. [laughs] And I couldn't make this saxophone make much sound, but I could follow with the keys. And I thought well, if a sound comes out, it will be the right note at the right time.
But anyway, we just had a wonderful place to grow up, being in a small town. We could walk downtown after school. And we had a place called Links we could get cokes and ice cream and things like that. So almost every day after school, not every day, we'd walk downtown and go into Links. That was a gathering place for the high school kids, and that's kind of where we'd meet. And then the last two years of high school,
I was a cheerleader, and still played in the marching band, and was active in all the school activities, and the newspaper and all that. But it was fun, because in the football games, or basketball, I had my saxophone there in the middle of the band. And I'd set it in the stand, jump up and lead the cheers, put the sax back in the stand, sit down and play. [laughs] So I was running all the time. But it was such a great time.
So I graduated with a bunch of wonderful friends who mostly, a lot of them are still alive, and were there at the last gathering of all high school reunion. What I loved about that one was that the kids that I knew in the grades above and below were there. So I hadn't seen them for a long, long time. And that was nothing but laughter and talking.
So I think Raymond was a great place to grow up, because everybody knew each other. And my parents always made it clear to us that people are watching you. My father was manager of Weyerhaeuser mills down there, so we had to be especially nice, cause we didn't want to ruin our dad's reputation in any way.
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| Andrews |
And what were your parents' names?
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| Regan |
Gordon is Daddy's, my mother's is Delma King. So we were admonished to be straight arrows at all times, so we did. In fact, when I'd walk home from the show with a boyfriend or two, I wouldn't let him hold my hand, even though I'd want to, because somebody might be looking. [laughs] And that's a craziness, but that's the way it was in those days, which was all right. And I carried that on to college when I went to Pullman. I didn't want to hold hands, because somebody might be looking. [laughs] It's a stupid reason, but it worked for us.
So we mixed it up a lot with the Aberdeen kids and the South Bend kids, because we played against them in football and basketball. And my cousin that was my age in Aberdeen was cheerleader for Aberdeen High School the last two years. So of course, when we played them, we were shaking our fists across the football field at each other. [laughs] And we led cheers, we used just about the same routines. So later on, my uncle, who had the first hand movie camera we'd ever seen, took our pictures leading cheers. We weren't cheerleaders by then, we were married, but it was fun to do our old routines together.
The doctor that delivered me lived in South Bend, and there was a hospital in South Bend where I was born. So that's where we always went when I broke my arms. And I broke them three times, because I was a tomboy. Fell out of trees, broke one going down a steep hill. We'd put a stick down there and we'd jump over it, and then we'd put another stick, higher and higher. Of course, it got a little too high. [laughs] That was that time.
And we didn't have a swimming pool or anyplace to learn to swim. My dad was in the Kiwanis Club down there, which I am, now, too, in Kirkland. So the Kiwanis Club wanted to build a swimming pool for us, but they couldn't gather up quite enough money. So they paid for the Red Cross people to come down from Aberdeen, I think, or maybe Seattle, for a week in the summer. And we had a swimming hole on the old Willapa River. It wasn't clean at all, it was just a dock.
And all the ships used to come up and down there, you know, big Japanese ships. My dad would, his mill would load the lumber, and the trees for lumber. Huge, big ships, until Pearl Harbor, in fact. One was there, and it got scooted out of there quick when that happened. But anyway, there were log booms going up and down the river all the time. And we would swim out to the middle and get on a log boom and ride it down around a couple of curves in the river to Riverdale to another area and get off. And there were kids that had a dock down there, and we'd swim with them. When the tide changed, we'd come back to our dock.
So we were outdoors all summer long. And I was in Girl Scouts, too, and all that sort of thing. So I still love to swim and play the sax, although I don't have my sax anymore. But I used to swim across Lake Washington until a few years ago, on my birthday, in August, from Denny Park over to Matthews Beach, or Matthews Beach back again.
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| Andrews |
How far is that?
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| Regan |
About a mile, a little over a mile. It's not that far. But the media used to think it was a big deal, so they'd come, and they'd make films, and it would be on TV that night. [laughs] There's an old lady swimming across Lake Washington. So when I had my shoulders operated on, after pulling them out of joint from a car that hit me in the back, my doctor said, "No, no more swimming across the lake." And I cried, because I love the water and I love to swim. But I can't do this anymore; it would re-injure them. So you have disappointments like that in life. And that was a big one! It doesn't sound like much, but for me. Because water was where I lived! In the water, in summertime. That's my home.
Anyway, we had a real happy, fun childhood, and still have all the friends we had then that are still living. A couple of my boyfriends have died in the meantime, but my best girlfriend that lived across the street is still living. She lives in Everett, I think. No, Bellingham. And she spends several days a week volunteering in the hospital up there. That's how she keeps busy. But she lived across the street, so of course we saw each other all the time.
Then my older sisters, when they had boyfriends, I was the brat kid. I'd make fun, and make life miserable for them when their boyfriends would come over. [laughs] And my older sister's boyfriend had a little coupe with a rumble seat. So we'd run out there and get in the rumble seat while he was in the house talking to my sister. And we'd, "We're waiting! Whenever you're ready! We're ready for a ride!" [laughs] And [unclear] We were just having so much fun, teasing all the time. So we still laugh about that.
My older sister is gone now, God rest her soul. And my next sister, Mickey, had a stroke about six months ago. And she's in the hospital with Lebanon, Oregon, and her daughter called me just this morning, about a couple hours ago, and said she'd taken a turn for the worse. So I was crying. But I talked to her anyway, and she can't articulate well. She thinks right, and she's alert, but her words, she gets maybe the first one of a sentence and trails off. But she seemed to enjoy me chattering away, like I'm doing with you, about old times.
And I asked her today if she remembers those hated windblown bobs. We both had long, curly hair, and liked it long. But when we were kids, Mother would say, "It's too much trouble. You're going to get taken to the barber shop, and get a windblown bob." Which meant that up in the back, it was practically shaved, and then it kind of came like this in the front. Well, it would grow out, of course.
"Oh, yeah," she said, "a windblown bob."
But I miss her. I mean, she's alive, but just to chat about remembrances like that. And my brother Gordon, he's younger than I, and he lives in Portland, Oregon. So I talk to his wife as much as we can, and get together with them. So we have some family left. And then Joe's brother died, too, his only Regan brother. Then he has a couple of brothers, his mother married again after his real dad died. So his stepfather raised him. And he's got these two stepbrothers that are alive and still kicking. So we get together with them once a year, at least. And one of his brothers and his wife had thirteen kids, live in Poulsbo. And they get together once a year, the Regan Roundup, up at Kalaloch. So we're up there with them, and they're wonderful. Oh, those Regans are darling people. They're so cute. So we love to go over there to the big Regan Roundup.
And then my family has a, used to call it the Boileau Picnic. My mother's maiden name was Boileau. That's my grandmother's maiden name. She was born and raised in Quebec City, Canada, as was my grandpa. So they're French, and my dad was Irish. So I'm half and half. But anyway, they called it the Boileau Picnic all my life. And then of course when all the Boileaus died – except that one cousin who came to our big anniversary, and I haven't seen him for years, I think he's the only Boileau left– so then they called it the Charron Picnic, which was my grandma and grandpa's name, and my mother's maiden name, Charron, which is French. And then when they were dying out, they just called it the Pig Out. Because we have it at a cousin's ranch down there near Aberdeen. And they raise pigs, and they bake one in the ground. You know, like you do in Hawaii. And everybody brings food, and there's tables of food like you wouldn't believe. So now it's the annual Pig Out. It's not named anything anymore. But at least both sides would get to see every year.
So family, to us, is a strong thing. And we had five kids of our own, and we raised up five foster kids. So we have a big family, and we're in touch with them. Our kids live all in the state of Washington: only one here in Kirkland, one on Mercer Island, one overlooking Kitsap Lake, another one in Port Townsend, and Brian lives on the top of Queen Anne Hill. So except for the ones across Puget Sound, we see a lot of them.
And then we have grandkids, lots of grandkids, and three great, we just had our third great grandchild a couple of months ago. Oh, she's so cute. Cute! Her little mouth looks like a rosebud. I've never seen a child, and I've had a lot of my own, and my kids have had them, that's shaped like a heart! It's got so much shape. Most babies, it's just kind of a slit in their face, you know. [laughs] It's just a precious thing. So, family, to us, is a big deal. So we get together for every one of our kids' birthdays, and all their spouses' birthdays, and all their kids' birthdays, the whole gang.
They were over here last week for Philip's, our youngest one's, birthday. And not all of our kids could make it, but some of our grandkids could, and greats. So I get together with them. Because to us, the big deal is family, and yet all of us have lots and lots of friends, and we're all active in the community, and do things for others, while we're at it, and have a happy life. We're very blessed, very lucky that we are as healthy as we can be, at our age, anyway. And all our kids are healthy and doing very well. So we're lucky in that regard, as well.
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| Andrews |
You mentioned celebrating an anniversary. Which one was that?
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| Regan |
Our sixtieth. 6-0.
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| Andrews |
Really? Congratulations!
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| Regan |
And it was a year ago August. And we had it at the Inglewood Golf and Country Club. And we had 174 close friends and relatives there. [laughs] So they weren't all relatives.
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| Andrews |
Well, I think family is supreme.
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| Regan |
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I think it's fun that way. Life is fun. You don't get lonely. I don't even know what the word means. I feel so bad for people that are lonely. And through our church, I have volunteered through the years to go visit the lonely. And they're usually people who didn't keep up with their own kids. I mean, it just shocks me so.
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| Andrews |
What is your church?
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| Regan |
We go to the Catholic church, St. Mark's, in northeast Seattle. Roman Catholic. And of course, that's all pro-family. And so we have family things going on there all the time. And that brings our kids and everybody together, too. And our kids, we sent them to Lady of the Lake grade school, because that's the parish we were in over there. And then they went to Blanchet High School, and they helped pay their way, because we couldn't afford it. We could hardly afford Lady of the Lake Grade School. It was really a struggle. But I was substitute teaching in the Seattle schools, and I thought, I don't want them to go to these schools. I mean it! I knew what was going on, and what wasn't being taught. And I thought, I just can't stand this! They're not teaching these kids. They're ready to absorb all this information, they're not getting it.
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| Andrews |
So, just backtracking just a little bit, I think you said you went to Pullman?
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| Regan |
Yep, I'm a Cougar. And proud of it.
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| Andrews |
What did you major in?
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| Regan |
Business and music. I wanted it to be the other way around. I wanted to major in music and minor in business, but my mother and dad said, "No, you can use business more." So that's what I did. So I had a great job right out of school. I was working at the time for the president of the college, in his office. So I said, "You know, I'm going to be looking for a job, and I could stay in Seattle with friends of my folks if I found something there when school is out." So by golly, he sent a recommend for me to the head of the National Housing Agency here in Seattle, and that was a forerunner to HUD, that was the beginning of the national housing, you know, government housing. And so I had a job, a great job, and I loved it.
And I stayed with the Garners up here in Seattle. They were friends of my folks, and they used to live in Raymond. And he sold his business down there and moved up here and went into real estate, and their daughter moved up here, too, and she was in my class. So it was fun, because now I could stay with them while I worked downtown. It was a great boss. And it used to surprise me, because in my head, I was still a kid, a college kid. And when I worked for the head of the college, who was a friend of my folks' friend, one of their best friends was friends with the president of the college, anyway, he used to sometimes ask my advice about something.
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| Andrews |
So you worked for the National Housing Agency.
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| Regan |
Uh huh.
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| Andrews |
And how long were you there?
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| Regan |
Well, I was only there a few months, because Joe came back from overseas. And when they interviewed me here, he said, "You know you have the job, don't you?"
And I said, "No, I didn't know that." All I'd ever worked was JC Penney's in Raymond, during the summers and Christmas vacations and stuff. Then at college, I worked for professors, you know? At that time, business machines, and all type of that kind of thing, taking dictation and what not. But it brought me some extra money. I didn't pay my way through or anything. But it was just fun. I could buy clothes and stuff. [laughs]
But anyway, he said, "You have the job."
And I said, "Wow. You're not going to even ask me any questions?"
And he said, "Well, your recommend was so great." And I thought, well, that was lucky. Wasn't that lucky? He said, "I'm going to ask you this. The war is winding down." This was the spring of '45, early spring. "And do you have any boyfriends that you're waiting to come home to marry?"
And I said, "I've got a lot of boyfriends, but I have not made any commitments to any of them. They all asked me to wait, and I said, ‘No! I'm in college. I'm having fun. I'm not going to wait.'"
And that's the truth. I would see my girlfriends sitting at night, writing, writing. And I'd be going out with fraternity brothers to a fraternity party. I'd say, "Don't you want to come?"
"No," she'd say. "I've got to write to my boyfriend." And I'd think, what a waste! What a waste of young life. You're only young once. [laughs] So I went out every weekend night, you know, with somebody. And there were five thousand air cadets on the campus. Why would they stay home?!
I never was serious about any of them, but Joe was serious about me. And I didn't realize that that much. Of course, they'd write letters after they'd leave the campus and go overseas or wherever. And a lot of them would say, "Would you wait for me?"
And I'd write and say, "No, I'm not waiting for any particular person. If I'm here when you come home, we'll talk about getting together." And that's the truth. That's the way I felt. Because I was young! I thought this is for the birds, waiting for somebody! And I didn't know which one I'd want to wait for, anyway. They were all nice guys. [laughs]
So Joe came home, and he thought I was going to marry him. And I said, wait a minute, you know. Anyway, his folks lived in Bremerton. And when he was discharged, he stayed with them, and he'd come across the ferry about every other night to take me out. And I was going out with other guys, too. But he said, "I want to marry you. As soon as we can."
I said, "Why? I mean, I told the boss I had nobody that I was waiting for, and he wants me to stay there for a while."
And he said, "Well, what's more important?"
I said, "Well, I love my job." It was a great job. Smith Tower, it was a beautiful office. I said, "I just can't stand it, to think that I'd leave my job." Because the folks put me through college, you know? They expected me to use it somehow. [laughs] So, but he'd come over, and I was still going with other guys a little bit, but not all of them were home yet. And he knew that when they came home, it would be a tougher battle, I guess. And I probably wouldn't have married him then, I might have later, but toward the end of the year he got a letter that all former prisoners of war – he'd been in POW camp, see, and I hadn't heard from him for months, so I didn't know if he's dead or whatever happened to him.
So when he called, when he got in the US, he called my dad. And my mother and I were up here in Seattle. Daddy was shocked, because we thought he was gone, because he hadn't written. My folks knew him because he used to come to Raymond once in a while, like other boyfriends did, just to see me, you know. So I'd kind of forgotten him. So when I got this telegram that he'd been liberated from prison camp, I thought, Joe Regan? Who's Joe Regan? [laughs] Isn't that awful? I couldn't put his face in front of my head. But anyway, poor Joe. You know, out of sight, out of mind.
So by golly, Mother and I had gone to the show that night. And she came up to visit and stayed with the Garners. And I had taken her down and introduced her to the friends in the office and stuff. So we came home from the movie, went back to the hotel that my folks always stayed in up here when they were in Seattle. And we're chatting about the show as we walk through the lobby to the elevators. And we went in the elevator and turned around, and there stood this young GI, this soldier. And it didn't hit me as being anybody I knew, until he said, "Hi, Kay."
And oh, that's Joe! I said, "Get on the elevator, quick!" So he did, and he rode upstairs to our room with us. And we sat there and chatted until midnight or after. And so I said, "Well now, don't your folks, didn't you tell me they live somewhere around here?"
He said, "Over in Bremerton, but it's getting kind of late now."
I'll never forget it. Mother said, "Well, you can stay here. That carpet beside the bed is thick, and you might be able to sleep." She said, "I don't know if you could sleep on the floor."
He says, "Mrs. King, if you knew what I was sleeping on as a prisoner of war, you'd think that was luxury. I can sleep."
So the bed was up against the wall, and Mother said, "Okay, Kathryn, you get in on that side against the wall, and I'll sleep on the edge, and Joe will be on the floor." [laughs] Like as if I'd get up and do anything! [shrieking with laughter] I'll never forget it. Isn't that a kick?
Anyway, then he went home to see his folks. And like I said, by the end of the year, the government had sent a notice to all the former prisoners of war that they were going to give them a six-week rest leave in Santa Monica, California. And so if they were married, they could bring a wife, or they could just come themselves. But it was going to be at the Miramar Hotel, Malibu, and it would be, they'd have tours of the movie stars' homes, they would get special concerts. They would have the Harry James Band come to the hotel, and all this great stuff. Golfing at the Hollywood Hills golf course, tours of the movie stars' homes. He showed me that, and he said, "Well, this would be a great honeymoon."
And I thought, oh, yeah, but I'm not ready to do that. Can't they wait? Why do they have to have it now? [laughs] And it would be. It would be great. So I asked my dad, I said, "Do you think I ought to marry him for the honeymoon?"
And he said, "Not unless you'd marry him anyway."
And I said, "Well, I don't know. Not all the guys have come home yet." I kind of wanted to line them up and see which one. [laughs] Isn't that terrible? I was never serious a day in my life. Oh, dear. Well, anyway, long story short, he talked me into marrying him before we went to Santa Monica. And we had a fabulous honeymoon, you can well imagine. [laughs]
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| Andrews |
That's a great story. Now I think we're going to move on toward IWY. And I'd like to know something about what your affiliations and networks were in the ‘60s and ‘70s?
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| Regan |
Okay. I was appointed by Mayor Wes Uhlman to the Seattle Women's Commission. And that was the first city women's commission in the nation. And then other cities had women's commissions after we did. Well of course, twelve members, and we'd meet, I think, twice a month, up in his great conference room. And we'd say, "What's going to be our agenda? How are we going to decide, you know, as a group, where we want to spend our efforts?" So we spent many meetings just trying to agree on some kind of an agenda. We had nothing to follow, at all, because we'd been the first women's commission.
Now there were three or four gals on there who had been involved in radical feminist stuff. But they knew a lot about what was going on. At least they had some literature about what was happening, and they would bring those things up as possibly we could get into this or that or the other thing, and do these things that would help women get equal opportunity, help them in their jobs, help them understand that they have value, all these kinds of things. So I learned a lot. Really, for me, sitting there and saying nothing for the first three or four meetings was surprising. All I did was ask questions. Because I really did not know what was happening in the world of just women. Never did I know that, because nothing in college prepared me for that. And I don't know if they knew that anything like that was happening, even, at that time.
So, every meeting, then, we began to form agendas about what we would look into for the next meeting. We would take assignments for the next meeting and bring, whatever was going to be the next meeting's topic. So I had to go to the library and try to find information, and there wasn't much, because it was so new. The women's movement was just starting. So libraries had no history type of thing. But I read lots of papers. I read lots of books and lots of papers, I'm just a voracious reader. So I read, though, in the paper about Bella Abzug, for instance. And I thought, she's got some good points, but she's not going about it in a very feminine way. To me, you could do these things, but still be a feminine woman. But she wasn't. She wasn't my kind of example for what I wanted the women's commission to be, myself.
But there were these three gals on there that were very feminist, and very anti-man. So you could see, we had two black women that were kind of like me, that wanted to go slowly and understand, wanted families to be part of the discussion. But they didn't. That was not to be a topic at all. So we didn't argue; we just tried hard to get our agenda in there. And we were so well informed that they could push their agenda. I mean, they really knew what they were after.
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| Andrews |
You were bonded with the black women–
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| Regan |
Yes, yes. Because we were the ones that looked at each other and go, "Huh?" So we realized that none of us knew what was happening, so we kind of bonded. Sometimes we'd get together afterwards to just talk about it, and what it all meant, and where we could get literature, and "What do you think of this and that that so and so said?" And then after a year or so, we'd call each other on the phone. We'd help set the agenda. It didn't take us long. We weren't that slow of learners. We'd call on the phone and try to talk about the agenda that was coming up the next night or the next week, and "Have you looked up what you agreed to about this part of the subject?" And then we would have an agenda that would meld with theirs, but we would know what we were talking about, a little bit.
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| Andrews |
Do you recall their names?
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| Regan |
Well, let's see. Liz? This is another black friend. She just died recently, may God rest her soul. Oh, I miss her.
But I'm just trying to think of my favorite. We kept in touch at Christmastime until five or six years ago, and they moved again, and they didn't send us one with their new address. Oh, maybe Joe would remember. Aren't I getting terrible with names? If I saw her, I would hug her and know who she is. And I don't remember the other names.
Before we moved here, I had boxes of stuff from all the meetings. And I decided I'm not going to haul that over there to the new house. We had a basement over there, too. I could have stored it down there. But I thought, what for? It's just notes from all the meetings, all the agendas, all the notes. But it would be fun, I think, now, to write a book about it or something, if I had all those things.
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| Andrews |
It would be valuable.
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| Regan |
Really valuable. Uh huh. I always thought I'd write a book about it, but I never–
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| Andrews |
I'm hoping to collect those records as part of this project–
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| Regan |
Yeah. See, they were all printed agendas–
And I had notes on these things about what was said, and what were we going to do. Sometimes on the back I'd write, was it Liz or Roz? Roz Woodhouse was my favorite. You know who she is. Uh huh. And real good head, Roz. Oh! She could ask the right questions at the right time. She could articulate how most of us felt without hurting feelings or putting anybody down, or anything. Boy, I admire Roz Woodhouse. I feel bad we've lost touch with them. Her husband was a musician, and had his own band. We used to go down and hear him a lot. So I miss them. Yeah, that was one of them. [laughs] One for me, that I remember a name.
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| Andrews |
She did a lot.
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| Regan |
Oh, yes. You probably know her. She was manager of a bank, and she had all kinds of great jobs. Just a brilliant girl. So we were lucky to have her on that commission. But it got so that almost every time before a meeting, we would call each other three or four days ahead, and then there were two others that were union, represented unions on there that thought pretty much, we didn't think alike, but we had a lot in common. Mainly wait a minute, let's think about this, rather than rushing in where angels fear to tread on everything. I wish I could remember their names. But they were good heads, both of them. So that made it kind of fun. But we would call each other, those of us that agreed on some things, and maybe that was going to be brought up again at the next meeting, or part of the topic. And I'd say, "Well, what do you think about that? And how do you think we should vote if this and that, or do you want to make an amendment to it?" So after a year, we came a little bit prepared, and I felt better about the whole thing.
Before that, number one, I was overwhelmed, and number two, I was getting so I wanted to quit, because I didn't think we were accomplishing a damn thing. But then after we began talking about it and realizing yeah, there's good things we can do here, and let's do them, and let's stick with these good things that we agree on, and quit arguing, then it worked out great. Then I enjoyed it a lot. So that was a real fun eye opener for me.
Because I'd been involved in Republican politics since 1962, when I started helping Barry Goldwater get recognized. And in 1964, we nominated him, and you know the rest of the story. He didn't make it. But that set the stage for us to work for Ronald Reagan, then. But Barry Goldwater, in 1964, was the first year I was elected by the Washington State Republican Party to be a national delegate. That was an honor. It always is.
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| Andrews |
In 1964, you were a national delegate?
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| Regan |
Yeah. The national Republican Convention. And then I was elected five times since. So six times I've been a national delegate. And I've worked hard to get there. You don't get there by sitting at home.
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| Andrews |
What did you do before 1964 that got you elected?
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| Regan |
Well, from 1962, Barry Goldwater used to have articles in the Seattle Times twice a week, and what started us, Joe and I went to a class at Boeing. We went to a lot of classes, because we liked to learn. And this particular one was, I forget what the name of it was, but it had to do with public policy. Getting Involved with Public Policy, or something like that. So we'd drive down to Boeing Renton once or twice a week for these classes. And they told us that if you want to make a change in the world, you've got to get involved in politics, because other people are making decisions for you. If you're not involved, you go to the polls, you don't know what you're voting on or why, or how did it get on there.
And so, it was a six or eight-week course. And he was thorough. He was really good. Making it clear that here we are, a bunch of dumb dumps. We have a set of values, but we don't know who's running, who has those same values, or why. Or what party we're in, we don't know. So he taught us to figure out what party we might be in, because we didn't know the difference. And he said, "Now, if you've decided what party you're in, call, it's in the phone book, the headquarters for the county, and tell them that you think that you tend toward that party, and is there anything that they have in your neighborhood that you could–" because, see, I still had kids at home, and all that – "that you could do for the party?" And we didn't do it right away, but we thought yeah, you know, because I'd been involved in the Women's Commission and all that, I thought, I should get involved in something, help the community and all that. I'm in Kiwanis and Chamber of Commerce and stuff now, but at that time, I was not.
So we did. We called the Republican headquarters, not knowing what we were getting into, or what it stood for or anything. It just, from what he gave us, the platforms, the state platforms of each party of that year. And we looked at them both and thought, now which one do we like? Well, we didn't particularly agree with either of them completely, but we thought the Republicans more or less stood for what we did. So we called them and we said, "We're just learning about politics and parties and what have you. And we don't know what we want to do, but what is there to do in our neighborhood?"
And they told us, "Well, you don't have a precinct committee officer in your precinct."
"What's that?" That means that you would walk the precinct for the candidates and/or issues. And it's about 150 houses, or less, and hand out literature, and/or talk to them about your candidates, or whatever. And I said, "Joe, that's for you. You be the precinct committee officer." And he has been ever since. He's been the PCO of our precinct there and now here. [laughs] All these years, he's been a precinct committee officer.
But he and some of the other men in the neighborhood, in the 46th district, which we were in, started going around, because then they began meeting with Goldwater people, people that wanted to nominate Goldwater in '64. And we were going to go around, knock on doors, and say, "Is there anybody in this house who reads the Goldwater articles in the Seattle Times," twice a week, I think it was, "and do you like Goldwater and what he stands for?"
And some of them would say, "No, I don't read it, nor do I care."
And some of them would say, "Yeah, I like what he stands for."
"Well, how would you like to sign up to be a block captain for Barry Goldwater?" Or whatever. And after they did their own precinct, then they would go where there was empty precinct, no precinct committee officer. And they'd find somebody enthusiastic about what he stood for by reading the paper. And they'd say, "How would you like to be precinct committee officer?" [laughs] So they filed their papers for them all over the 46th district, and all the districts did this. They had it well organized.
So by the time 1964 came, and the state convention, we had it locked up, because we had got all these precinct committee officers signed up. And the Rockefeller people, Rockefeller and Scranton were also running in 1964. And they had a representative at the state convention, but they didn't know what hit them. They had not a clue they were doing all this stuff. We didn't know, you know? We thought everybody was doing it. And Rockefeller and Scranton came and talked to our state convention and all that. And to us, they were just blah, compared to Barry Goldwater. He was an articulate and dynamic speaker and all that. And that doesn't make him the best person to be the best speaker, but he touched our hearts with his ideology and everything. So we knew when we were at the state convention that we were going to elect Goldwater people to the national. So we did. And that was the first experience of the national convention.
And that was interesting, because they used to make you sit in the seat they assigned you, and stay there. You had an alternate delegate. And if you had to go to the bathroom, you'd get your alternate to sit there. But when they took the votes, every vote counted, you see. So I had to stay in the front seat of the Washington state delegation in the middle. And the back seat of the New York delegation was directly in front of us, and right in front of me was Nelson Rockefeller. And he had to stay there, too, unless he got his alternate in there for a few minutes or an hour.
But he'd turn around all the time and chide us. We had our Goldwater pins on. "You guys don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're talking about. The guy doesn't know what he's doing." He would just make enemies, you know. And one time he turned around to me, he says, "You're so young to be a national delegate." And I guess I was. And he says, "What did you do to get yourself elected?" And I thought, you slimebag. Because, you know, intimating I'd slept my way to it, or something. And all the New York delegation were men except one. Men. And I thought yep, they don't even want women to be part of it. I mean it. They were–
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| Andrews |
What was the Washington delegation?
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| Regan |
Well, we had, I think only about eight of us out of thirty-two or something were women. We were pretty proud of that, to get to be national delegates.
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| Andrews |
Was that unusual to have that large a percentage of women?
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| Regan |
I don't know, see, because I was just getting involved. I had no idea. From then on, we had lots of women, and we still do. We have almost more women than men. It's half and half. Or, you know. But at the time, I didn't have a clue. And I wasn't on the Women's Commission yet, either, so I wasn't real aware of all that. But except that I thought, they look like a bunch of Mafioso. Black pin-striped suits and diamonds on their fingers. And I thought, who are these? They're not ordinary folks, like we were. All of our people were just ordinary folks, you know.
And the night we nominated Barry Goldwater, oh, we went to downtown San Francisco, Top of the Mark Hotel, to celebrate. And I had bought, I still have it, an elephant with the little dark glasses on, dark-rimmed glasses. And he had a battery in him, and he'd walk along and lift his trunk up and down. About this big. So we had him on the table, then all of us around there. And looking out at that gorgeous San Francisco from the Top of the Mark, having a ball. And some cute little lady came up and she said, "Can I celebrate with you nice people? You're having so much fun."
We said, "Sure, pull up a chair." And she was the only woman delegate from the state of New York, and she was a lawyer. Bright, oh, she was a sharp girl. And she just was so pleased she could sit with us. That was a night to remember. We really had a ball. [laughs] And for the party, too. You know, they wondered what, "You guys just took over. We didn't know you did it underground." We did not. We were affiliated with the county organizations, you know? [laughs] But the Rockefeller and Scranton people didn't know what hit them. I mean, it was really a ball. I think that was the most fun national convention I've ever attended. Because the rest of them were where more people got involved, and more people were kind of ready. So, anyway, I learned a lot.
When I got in the Women's Commission, I thought, you radical feminists don't even know what some of us women have done, without thinking that we had to fight the men to get there. I didn't have to fight the men to get my job, or whatever. I never felt like I was in competition, and I used to feel bad that these women felt that we should fight our way to the top. I thought, we don't have to. Get your education, get your smart, know what you're doing. You don't have to fight. But I didn't say it.
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| Andrews |
I think you've pretty well answered my next question. I was going to ask how you viewed your role in the home, how you viewed women's role in the home and in society at the time of the conference, and whether you saw a need for change.
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| Regan |
Well, the women at home, I was a home mother, but I was a substitute, substitute teacher, and sometimes I worked at the Bon Marche at Christmas time at night. But I didn't want to leave the kids alone, you see, so I didn't take full time jobs. But, so, my role as a wife and mother was to stay home, after we had kids. Before that, I didn't. But when we started having babies, I wanted to stay home. There was nobody telling me I should. It was just fun. They were so darling, and such fun to have around. Who wanted somebody else to have that fun? So then I, like I said, I took part time jobs and nighttime jobs here and there, just to bring in extra money.
And not only that, Joe didn't have his degree yet. So when we came back to Seattle, he had worked in eastern Washington for Centennial Flouring Mills. And we came back to Seattle, I said, "Now we're back here, you're going to go back to UW and get your degree."
He said, "Oh, we can't afford it."
I said, "Well, we're going to afford it. There's a GI Bill, and we're going to make it work." So we rented a crummy little house – there was no housing here in Seattle, and all the GIs were coming home – up on Beacon Hill, and he took buses, we had no car, back and forth. He had the GI Bill, which didn't cover much.
So we were really, really poor. When people nowadays say, "You don't know how it is to be poor," ho, ho, ho, ho. [laughs] We had a baby when we came over here, so that meant that I wasn't leaving home. And then we had our second and our third in college. And in those days, there was no insurance, and you had to pay.
So I said to the doctor, "Can I pay you by the month?" As soon as I'd get pregnant, I'd start paying so the doctor would be paid by the time the baby would be born. And then I'd start paying the hospital, so that hopefully they were paid by the time I went in there. It didn't always work that way. [laughs] Sometimes I still owed some money to the hospital.
I remember Brian, the middle one, that was a rush job, and they wouldn't let me in. I said, "I'm having him right here." So I said, "You better get me up there, quick."
They said, "You haven't paid for it."
And I said, "Quick, you better get me up there."
And I had him, just like this. I used to pray that, all I prayed for that they were each paid for and potty trained before I had another one. [laughs] And it worked that way. They're all three or four years apart, see? So they were paid for and potty trained. [laughs]
But I belonged to a sewing club, and lots of Girl Scout, you know, and Becky Sue was a Brownie, and Girl Scouts. And then when the boys came to be in Scouts, I was very active in scouting, and very active in the scouting community. In fact, one year I was named mother of the year for Wedgewood. I don't remember what year it was. But somewhere in my files, I have the newspapers. Wedgewood Mother of the Year. And things like this, you know. So I think motherhood is the way to go, but make it fun, and make it work into your schedule somehow. And you can still get ahead in whatever you choose to do, and still have your family. And what a joy, just think of this now, with all our family. At Christmas, there's twenty-nine of us, and they're all close relatives to Joe and I.
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| Andrews |
How did you become interested and involved in the Ellensburg conference?
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| Regan |
Well, okay. We were elected to go to that. And being a part of the Seattle Women's Commission, I think all of us on the commission were elected. I forget how many delegates each county got. But I know there were more delegates than us on the women's commission from here. And of course I wanted to go to that, because I was very interested in it, and I wanted to do what I could there. So of course when they said, "Do you want to be a delegate?" I said sure.
So when it came time to go, I had had some illness or something for a few weeks before that. And I was thinking oh, man, I wonder if I'll be able to go. And it seems to me that Roz Woodhouse couldn't go, she didn't go that year. And the two union gals, both of them lived down south Seattle somewhere, and they couldn't go. And I thought, oh, darn, I wanted to ride with somebody, because Ellensburg is quite a ways, really. And so I said to Joe, "It's going to end up I'll have to drive myself, because–" I know I didn't even bother to ask the radical feminists, because they didn't like me, because I thought motherhood was fun. That was a no no.
So anyway, I remember all the way driving over there, my car radio didn't work. And all I could do was pray that there were a lot of other pro-family people there. Somehow. I didn't know how or why, I just didn't want to get a whole crowd of people that didn't like me because I was pro-family. That's hard to take. Hard enough to take with fifteen people on a women's commission, and only a few of us pro-family. So I thought oh, I was scared to death. All the way over, praying that there would be other pro-family people.
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| Andrews |
Just to back up a little bit, you said that you were on the coordinating committee.
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| Regan |
Mm hmm.
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| Andrews |
What did you do before the conference?
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| Regan |
Oh, we had only a couple of meetings, talking about what would the agenda be at that meeting, what would be the main issues that we would discuss. So we pretty much agreed on, you know, because they let me have input and have some of my ideas for subject matter.
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| Andrews |
And you were chair of the rules committee, were you not?
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| Regan |
Yeah. And that was good. We had to get there early for the rules committee meeting. That was why I drove alone, I think, you know, to get there early. Because they were going to have the rules all set in stone before the thing started. Yeah, that was it. I guess that's why I went all alone. I remember feeling very alone all the way over there, especially with no car radio.
So I got there, and there were a whole lot of people there. And I thought jeepers, where did they come from? There were so many people. And I knew that there were other women's commissions, there were other delegates elected from other places, but I thought, this is bigger than I thought it was going to be. And I just hope that our rules would hold, because they were good, solid rules that keep order in the place. Everybody would see, and they know this comes first, and this is the agenda. So I tried to calm myself down, knowing that it would all work out. There would be people there, but I just knew there wouldn't be, that would think like I do, you know?
And by golly, we get there, and I came into the room where we were supposed to have the meeting. And I was a little bit early, so I sat down, I put all my bookwork in front of me. I had brought a little lunch, and I sat there munching and thinking am I in the right room? And I went out and looked on the door, you know, in the right building on this campus. Yeah, I'm in the right room.
Pretty soon, a few people came in. Most of them were from our women's commission. And others came in, and they got to talking about our agenda, and these different items. They didn't know me. Some of them didn't know me, and I think, well, who are you? So I asked them, "Can I ask your name? I'm Kay Regan. Where are you from?" And all that. And they acted like I had a lot of nerve to ask. And I thought hey, we're going to work together here for a few days, let's get to know each other. But I thought oh, this is going to be harder than I thought.
But then more and more people came into the room and sat around the periphery of the room, listening in on the meeting. This was the meeting before the thing started. And I realized these people, when I'd say something about agenda items, they seemed to clap or like what I said. And I thought whoa, there's some people here that think like I do, maybe. You know? [laughs] Maybe I ought to calm down and quit being so nervous here.
Because you know, on the Women's Commission, I was kind of alone, even though Roz Woodhouse was pro-family, and so were these two union gals. They wouldn't speak up much. And I've never been shy. When I have a view, I want to say it. I don't care where the chips fall, because it has to be said. I don't always say it; I just sit there sometimes and stew, because they'd have the floor and they'd keep the floor, at the Women's Commission. But I thought, this is going to be hell to pay. But when I realized there were a few people there that maybe would back me up on stuff, and they seemed to have been delegates, too. So I thought, whoa, where did they come from? Out of the sky. I must have been praying awful good coming over here, to bring these happy faces here. [laughs]
So planning that meeting before the meeting went quite well. But I was still in a fog as to just how it was going to go. And Jeanette Williams, who was a [Seattle] city council woman, was one of the ones over there. And she and I were always good buddies. And she didn't necessarily agree with me on everything, but we did on most things. So when I saw her, I knew, well there's a good one. And she and I kind of palled around together during those three days, and that made it kind of fun, too. Because we would invite her, sometimes we'd have, instead of having the commission meetings down in the mayor's conference room, we'd have it in somebody's house.
I had a big house over there, too, like I do here, so I had them come to my house several times. And one time, we had knocked out a wall and taken over a bedroom and made a family room out of it. And Jeannette was there, and boy, she just, "I'm going to tell my husband. If you don't mind, I'm going to bring him over, because this is what I've always wanted to do." So we had a lot of fun at that particular one, and that was before the conference. So she and I really had fun together. And that made it nice, to have people like that, that you feel close to, and understood.
And whenever, in the women's commission, when I'd be shouted down, I mean, feminists, radical feminists can be cruel sometimes, she would be appalled. Because she often sat in and just listened. Never said a word.
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| Andrews |
Jeannette Williams?
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| Regan |
Yeah. Mm hmm. So I thought well, I guess I'm not the only one to think this is crazy. So it worked out okay, but boy, I was one nervous kid until the whole thing got started.
And then at the International Women's Meeting down in Houston, Texas, I was a delegate to that. I was elected at that state one to go down there.
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| Andrews |
Can we talk just a little bit more about the state one?
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| Regan |
Okay. Okay.
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| Andrews |
Now you said it was, well, tumultuous, is that a good word?
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| Regan |
Well, some of the time, yes. Because whenever the issue of life came up, and of course, I'd always stand up for life against abortion, and boy, I would get it. Oh! I had to develop a thick skin. Because the crowd, they had a crowd there that were not delegates, that were sitting in the, oh, I don't know what you'd call it, like an audience. Because the main thing was like in a gymnasium thing, so they had seats around it. So I can remember, when I got up to defend life, I think that's way before Roe v. Wade, I think it was. [Roe v. Wade was in 1973, four years before the Ellensburg conference. (ed.)] But, because I know when you're pregnant, you're pregnant for a baby. And that baby has life, and a right to life. But anyway, if I said something like that, all hell would break loose. And this gallery would just scream at me. I mean, it was just like, it would just go right through to your bones. It was very nerve wracking. Really awful. [laughs]
Luckily, though, they had these other people. Little did I know until a day or two later that the Mormon Church had sent some of their people. I didn't know where they came from. I never saw them before. I thought, oh, thank you, Lord, for these people that seem to be clapping when I say something. Because that's all you want is somebody, you feel like somebody cares about what you're saying. But the guttural screaming of the other women, I just couldn't understand it. I couldn't get it through my head why. But Jeannette and I would walk along that campus, back and forth, between sessions, different things, and talk. And that helped me a lot. She was a good head, that girl, very good city council woman. Yeah.
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| Andrews |
So you mentioned the abortion rights.
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| Regan |
Uh huh.
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| Andrews |
Here's a quote, do you remember Pandora, the newspaper?
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| Regan |
Oh, yeah.
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| Andrews |
Here's an article. It was called "Preparing for Houston." And I know you were elected as a delegate.
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| Regan |
Uh huh.
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| Andrews |
It said, "Many delegates who represent special interest caucuses raised issues that they wanted addressed at Houston. Although most delegates agreed on the issues raised, Kay Regan of Seattle, the sole conservative member, was strong opposition. Regan opposes many of the prominent issues that will be addressed in Houston, such as the Equal Rights Amendment, lesbian rights. ‘Conservative women,' she said, ‘seek community or state remedies to women's problems, and not federal legislation.' But Thelma Jackson–"
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| Regan |
Oh, yeah, I remember her.
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| Andrews |
"She was a spokesperson for the Black Women's Caucus, and Lilly Aguilar–"
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| Regan |
Yeah.
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| Andrews |
"–of Yakima, of the Hispanic Caucus, protested Regan's band-aid remedies. They explained that relief for minorities and women has historically come from increased federal intervention, not local government. Several delegates expressed a desire to seek common ground among conservative and liberal people, and not dwell on the differences."
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| Regan |
That's right.
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| Andrews |
"However, it is predicted the conflicts between the two political bases will probably be aired at Houston."
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| Regan |
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
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| Andrews |
Do you want to comment?
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| Regan |
Yes. Because we were so far outnumbered, our issues didn't get very well discussed. And we had to bring them up. A lot of times they weren't on the agenda at all. But I've always been one who believes, and when we got involved in politics, and decided we probably were Republicans, we began realizing more and more that government closer to home is the best government, because you can have a handle on it -- city government, county, whatever. And so I had that in my head when I was talking about that. And if you leave everything to federal government, it gets melted down. You don't get much back from it. You can ask them for legislation, you can help write it, but it gets somehow filtered. But if you can get legislation at home from either city council, county council, and Olympia, you can get a handle on it, because you're here, and you can talk to the people. And I was adamant about that.
Because to me, that's the answer, is people getting involved on the local level and telling their representatives what they want, and what they think they should be doing down there. And so I still am in touch with my legislators in Olympia, although I'm a Republican, they're a Democrat. We don't agree on very much. They know I'm there. And I'm down there in Olympia several times, and they send letters. Because if they're not in their office, I call on them, I write a note to them, and they answer it. So they know exactly how I stand on things. And they seem to respect it. And when they're in the office, if I call ahead and they make a point to be there, then we chat, and we've got lots of things in common. So they're nice people.
So I don't care what side of the aisle they sit on, we can still talk, and have a lot of stuff in common. So that's the way I handle things, and always have, really. There shouldn't be a dichotomy, anyway. You shouldn't have to fight for things. But that's just the reality of it, I guess. ‘Twas always thus, and will always be, I guess. So sometimes you get a few good heads that want to talk about it. You give a little here and there, and they give a little, and you can put something together. [laughs] It works. It really does. So I like to work on these projects.
But it took a lot of guts. When you read that, I don't have a copy of it, but to stand up for my values. It really did.
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| Andrews |
You can have this if you want.
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| Regan |
Is that an extra? Thank you. Yeah. What paper was this? Does it say?
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| Andrews |
That was from Pandora.
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| Regan |
Oh, yeah. Okay. Pandora. Yeah. I used to save some articles from the Times and P-I, and those were in those boxes. [laughs] Yeah. That's really interesting. You know, when they'd be in Times and P-I, and they'd say something, "except for Kay Regan," thus and so, well, people that knew me would call, and, "Hang in there, Kay!"
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| Andrews |
That brings me to ask you about the election of delegates at Ellensburg.
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| Regan |
Uh huh.
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| Andrews |
You were the only conservative that was elected.
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| Regan |
Yeah. And I think that's because we were elected nationally. We weren't elected by our state. You see what I mean? I think they voted, from the whole floor had votes, it seems to me. [Women who were registered at the state conference in Ellensburg elected delegates to Houston. (ed.)]
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| Andrews |
Well, there was a conservative slate.
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| Regan |
That's right. There were delegates at Houston that came from the Southern states. Somebody called me before we went to Houston and said, "If you can get there a day early, we're going to have a meeting at such and such a place the night before." And I thought, okay.
I went down with Kathleen Skrinar. She's a doctor in Tacoma. And I said, "You want to go with me, because I don't want to go alone," to this meeting the night before. And she did. She wasn't a delegate or anything, but she was very interested in all of this. And so we got some kind of a clue as to what was going to happen the next day from that meeting the night before. Well, and at that meeting were a lot of these, mostly Mormons. I don't think they were, well, Mormons are Christians, I don't know if they are, but anyway, good folks. And their churches, they don't call them churches, whatever. What do they call them?
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| Andrews |
Stakes.
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| Regan |
Stakes, yeah, had encouraged them to go. So they got themselves elected to Houston. And they were running that meeting the night before, talking about strategy. And I said, "Okay, the only question I have is, how do we know who's on first? I mean, you've got a lot of good ideas, and a lot of good ways to react to certain issues. But to the conventions I've ever been to, we know who's there, who's on our side and stuff."
They said, "We're going to have yellow ribbons." I think they said pro-life on them. I don't remember what they said, but they said something. And just pin this yellow ribbon on. "So you'll know us tomorrow. We'll have yellow ribbons. And you meet with any of us, and we'll give you one."
So as soon as I got there, I looked around for yellow ribbons. And we were in the front row. I wasn't in the front row, but out delegation from Washington state was in the front. I looked around and I didn't see a yellow ribbon in the place. And I thought weren't they, I thought they said they were elected to be here. And I thought, oh, boy, I'm not going to wear the yellow ribbon if I'm the only one in the whole place.
But then I got up and walked around, and it was a huge auditorium where it was held. Maybe it was a basketball floor. But anyway, in the way back, all the Southern states that were pro-life, those were all yellow ribbons. And I thought okay, I'm wearing my ribbon, even if I'm the only one in the front of the room that's got it. [laughs] So I did. Because there was people in the room that felt like I did. And I thought, I'm not going to give up on my issue, when I've got some other people.
So when they voted for the abortion plank, I'll never forget that. I can't explain it. This whole upstairs area was full of people. And God help me, but I don't think all of them were women. They had nine o'clock shadows and wigs on. I'll never forget it. I looked at them and I thought, I wonder about you. But when they voted the way they did on the abortion plank, the shouting of, it was guttural, it was deep, it was, to me, out of the pits of hell. It just made me shake all clear to my bones, it was so awful. It was awful! They were yelling in approval of their voting it down. But I just can't explain how awful it was. And they kept it up for a long time. And it was deep. Deep-voiced type yelling. I sat there and cried. Not because it went down. I knew it would. I knew that we couldn't win it. That was a given. But it was that reaction. Oh my God. I'll never forget, as long as I live. It was horrible.
But anyway, we went onto the next issues. I still tried to get up to the mic, because–
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| Andrews |
Did you ever get to the mic?
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| Regan |
I did a couple of times, but most of the time, they had me in the middle of the row. And I tried to get out and had to climb over three or four people. And they'd put their foot out like this. This is my own delegation for the state of Washington. And they wouldn't put their foot out until I was climbing over them, and then I'd fall, every time. But I'd get up and keep climbing over them until I got out to the aisle and up toward the mic. And sometimes I'd fall in the aisle, because they'd put their foot up before I got to– and Jeanette saw that, too.
And so did KING-5. Jean Enerson, one day, the second day, I think it was, and that happened to me so much. Sometimes I did get up to say what I was going to say, but somebody was right behind me to undo what I said. But I didn't care. I got to say it. And they had channel nine, not channel nine, but what do they call it? National Public Radio had gavel to gavel TV coverage of it. And they were right up on the stage just in front of our delegation, and they had their camera on it, they had it all. KING TV was there.
The second day, after I'd been knocked down so much, and lost so much, I was hurting. So I walked out and when I got to the hallway, I started to cry. Toward the bathroom, I was going to walk to the bathroom. And Jean Enerson left her post at the mic, at the television thing, and walked down the hall with me. And she said, Kay, I've been watching everything, and it's just awful. I don't know how you've taken all this." She said, "It's just awful, and we've got it all on film." I never did see it. So she walked all the way down this long, long hall to the bathroom with me, and cried with me. Because she thought it was just terrible. I felt comforted a lot by that.
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