Kay Wiley - Siblings
"I like to reminisce about The kindness that both my parents had. They listened to each of us as to what we had to say, and what their impression was, and we talked about it. Sometimes they explained why they had to discipline me in a certain way, and so I just had to understand that. Sometimes they said, ‘Well, this won’t happen again.” My Dad was only a child. My mother had a brother. Consequently, they handled siblings kind of differently with me and my brother. I was the only girl. I was in the middle. I had an older brother and a younger brother. We talked through our opinion or what happens very thoroughly."
Kay Wiley - Mom & Dad
"Well, my father is from Chicago, and my mother is from Cleveland. They met in Chicago when my mother was working there. My dad is 10 years older than my mother. My mom was a little reluctant to go out with someone so much older. My dad had been in World War Two at the time. They really enjoyed each other right away. My father was comfortable talking to my mother’s parents about making the relationship more serious, which is what you had to do in those days. At first, they might have been little bit reluctant, but these days 10 years older than the other spouse is not that big of a deal. My mom was 21 when she got married, which was the legal age, and my Dad was 31."
Kay Wiley - Husband
"I had to get a masters. I got my first job at an Elementary school, Oh, no, it was in a Heart Association Rehab facility on the east coast in Virginia. I met my future husband there. He was in the Navy. He had been drafted during Vietnam. He was in the Navy and I met him there in Virginia. And he, himself had been raised by two different – not political backgrounds, but his dad was from Scotland and his mom from the US. His father was his stepfather. His real father was a very good-looking man. But it didn’t work out for his mother and father to stay together, because of personality problems. The only father he knew was his stepfather."
Kay Wiley - Honesty
Kay: I think the value that my parents had was honesty with each other. If something went wrong, they didn’t try to cover it up. They told the other person what happened, and the other one would maybe make suggestions for the next time that might happen.
Interviewer:Did you raise your children differently than the way your parents raised you?
Kay: I think so, because my husband was in active duty military, and I was basically the one in charge. They were two very different personalities. So, I tried to listen to both of them as to what they needed without forcing one upon the other. They had their own friends.
Kay Wiley - February Birthdays
"I was born in Cleveland Ohio where my Dad was working. That was on February 13, 1952. My mother’s birthday happened to be the day after Valentine’s Day on the 15th. So, we celebrated the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Three days of celebration."
Kay Wiley - Dad Toastmaster
"My dad started out as a salesman for electronic appliances for the home like toasters and irons, and things like that made by Toastmaster Company. Then we worked his way up to be president of Toastmaster, until he retired at 59. He had gone to college when no one else had gone to college. He went to Lichtenberg University because he was a Lutheran. He came back to the Chicago area where my mother was just getting out of college, where she went for a year, and decided to stay home and help her parents out and not continued. They were ‘fixed up’ by a mutual friend. My dad was 10 years older than my mom and they were a little worried about that, but it turned out just fine."
Kay Wiley - College
Kay: It had to do with communication. How people can communicate with nerves and structure and with thinking. My English Department in High school concentrated a lot on how you thought about things and not so much about how the muscles work. Speech and Hearing was a combination of both. You had to think about how to work the muscle and you had to think about what you were saying and how you say it.
Interviewer: What degree program did you pursue and graduate from?
Kay: I got a Bachelor’s in speech and hearing Science and a Master’s in Speech Pathology at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins Colorado. In graduate school I concentrated so much on school that I either lived alone or with a roommate and it was no problem.