April 24, 2012

You can’t remember writing these, Weekend News, by Andrea. 

My dad remains in the Critical Coronary Care Unit at TG.

I won't go back.  I don't do crazy very well anymore.

So, I start the slow process of sifting through the legal size boxes in my garage.  The ones I found in your storage unit last summer.  The ones that smell of mice, mildew and aging ink.

I pull out a handful of files, a red binder with your school work.  I work on piecing together our history.  Yours and mine.

Andrea

9/19/88

1988, you were 6 years, 9 months.  You were learning penmanship, spelling, story telling. 

Sunday I woke up and played inside and then I Went to Sunday School then came home and played outside and had my onw club And went inand ate dinner and took a bath and Went to bed.

Andrea

In the same folder, one line written by me on a pink sheet of notebook paper in that same year, 1988, my second year of law school. 

“In my family, the poverty and abuse stops here.”

A folder marked Welfare, full of  Recipient Information, Action Requests, Planned Action Notices, Requests for Fair Hearing, an old Medical Coupon.

1984 I was a welfare mother.  Had been for a few years.  No child care.  No child support.  No job skills.  Minimum wage jobs. 

In January 1984, you’d just turned 2.  I walked onto the University of Washington campus for my first day of classes.  I was pushing you in front of me in your fold up stroller.

Recipient Information or Action Request

3-22-84

You must register with the Work Incentive Program (WIN) since you are out of the home on a regular basis while in school.   Please take enclosed registration form to the WIN Unit for completion at time of interview.  Call 872-6310 for an appointment for interview with WIN Worker.

Please register before 4-3-84 to avoid having your 5/84 warrant held.

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Notice of Planned Action

April 2, 1984

To date, we have not received verification that you have registered with WIN.  As you are a full time student, you are a mandatory registrant for WIN.  As such, your needs to be deleted from the grant, and grant will be just for the two children.  Please supply verification of registration by 4-12-84 to avoid being deleted from the grant.

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Recipient Information or Action Request

April 27, 1984

Hurrah! Hurrah! WIN now has a way to register people like you and put them in a special status so they can go to school even tho’ the program exceeds one year and not to re required to actively seek work while they are attempting to better themselves.  SO if you get registered with WIN and put in the special status you can continue your education and be on assistance also.

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Recipient Information or Action Request

February 26, 1985

When you began working last fall WIN somehow got the idea you were employed full time and off assistance.  Therefore they deregistered you from WIN.  This is in error.  You should’ve remained registered with them but in “student status” if possible.  Call WIN at 872-6310 make an appointment to re register and take enclosed form EMS 587 to the appointment.  Since you are a full time student, as defined by the school you attend, you can NOT be exempt as the primary caretaker of child(ren) under age 6.

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You can't be exempt.  That meant I had to quit school.  

With laser focus, I was going to school.  Nothing was going to stop me.  It was my only way out, my children's only way out of a past that continued to grab at my ankles, hold me up, trip me up.
 
My sister Kathy remarked I am only where I am today "because I worked the system."  Got something for free.

It is easier to believe in that than to believe someone can get someplace by working hard, never losing focus and something others call luck--I call synchronicity.  Taking risks.  Putting yourself out there and having faith it will work out.

A Notice of Award and Acceptance from the University of Washington.   Autumn, Winter, Spring 1984-1985.

College Work Study                                      2400

Univ Tuition Exemption                                 1308

National Direct Student Loan                      1100

Suggested Guaranteed Student Loan        2500

Estimated Pell Grant                                    1675

DAWN NEWSLETTER                    MAY 1987

Domestic Abuse Women’s Network.  DAWN.

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HARVARD BOUND

(see Page 4)

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Page 4

* * * * * *CONGRATULATIONS!!* * * * *

To Sherry C. for getting accepted to Harvard Law School.  Sherry has worked long and hard to achieve this goal.

Sherry has been a DAWN Volunteer for 3 years.  She attended the U of W (graduating in 3 ½ years!), served as Chairwoman for the Office of Minority Affairs Student Advisory Board, and was student representative on the ASUW Child Care Advisory Committee…AND she has two daughters Erin 11 and Andrea 5.

We are proud to have had Sherry as a DAWN Volunteer and will certainly miss her.  We know she will be very successful at Harvard and we are in full support of her next goal after graduation from Harvard – “I’d like to become the first woman President.”

Sherry, CONGRATULATIONS – and thank you for all you’ve done for DAWN.

In 1987 I had dreams of being the first woman president.  You wanted to become the Tooth Fairy.

I love you Andie.

Mom.