The Elders: Kay (Ruelle) Schmidt
In the early 1600s, small bands of French citizens began sailing across the Atlantic to begin new lives in what we now refer to as Canada. Many of them settled in Quebec, and would remain there for many generations.
In the 1850s, some of these French-Canadian families immigrated once again, this time to the brand-new American state of Wisconsin.
My Grandmother, Kay (Ruelle) Schmidt, was born from this line of immigrants in 1935.
From her hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin; Kay would go on to have quite an odd experience on her 6th birthday. Kay was born on December 7th, and on that day in 1941, her celebration was truncated by the shocking news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.
Kay’s family and community had already endured the Great Depression. Next up on the menu of history, was full-scale intercontinental war.
A few years later, Kay’s family had to move out of state for her father Wilbert’s work. They headed down to Mount Carmel, Illinois. Still a child at the time, it was in Mount Carmel that Kay first witnessed Jim Crow-style racial segregation.
At that time, Mount Carmel was a “Sundown Town.” Meaning, the presence of Black people was thinly tolerated during the day, but if a Black American were to be discovered in town after dark, violence was to be expected.
Sundown Towns were widespread across the American North and South well into the 1960s.
Some years later, as her father began experiencing health problems, Kay’s family moved once again to Phoenix, Arizona. But after a full Arizona summer in a sweltering apartment with no air-conditioning and no luck finding a new job, they were forced to hit the road once more.
This time, they ended up in Pennsylvania. It was there where Kay would graduate from High School. But once she was done, the family was ready to head back home to Wisconsin.
As a young adult, Kay served as a nurse in Milwaukee for several years. She then married, became a mother of four children, and settled into a quieter life.
From my personal vantage point as her grandchild, it seems that Kay is at her happiest around family, especially young children.
My first memories of her revolve around the feeling I would get when she’d walk through the front door of our home when I was probably around 3-years-old. It was a routine that resulted in an almost Pavlovian response on my part.
She’d walk in and yell, “Helloooo!!!” and throw her hands up, and my brain instantly knew, “Oh hell yes! We’re going to Chucky Cheese!”
If only our French ancestors knew how much fun we were about to have!
