Her Crown: Eps. 1: Deborah

[00:00:02] Hello, welcome to Her Crown, a limited audio production celebrating motherhood, anger hose and co-producer, Erica Scott. Her Crown is a 12-part series of stories that focuses on the strength, dedication, love, and sacrifices from a diverse group of mothers. These brave

[00:00:24] women will share with you their up and down journeys through life. Some of their stories have never been told before. Motherhood is hard, yet rewarding. In motherware so many have for so many reasons but through it all there is no stopping on Mother's love. She is

[00:00:43] deserving of a Crown. Here are their stories. And my guest today is Deborah Uhaus. Deborah, can you please tell us about yourself? I yes, my name is Deborah Uhaus. I was born July 1, 1952, one of seven children. I have four children that I gave birth to and I adopted

[00:01:12] my old-school granddaughter. So that gives me a total of five. I have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. That's a lot of people. It is but I'm used to a lot of people having grown up in

[00:01:30] the house for seven children. That's for you too. Can you tell us about your life, Grana? We lived in a small home just two bedrooms with nine people in it so you can imagine how

[00:01:44] crowded it was but my father made bunk beds so the girls all stayed in one room the boys and the other my mother and father slept in the full of couch and living room. It was a nice childhood

[00:01:59] though grew up by the woods so on a dead end street and it was a fun time for me. Which city were you born in? I was born in Austin, Tano, Ohio. Just outside of Canfield. Can you tell us how old

[00:02:17] you were and what year was when you first suspected that you were pregnant? Can you tell us about the circumstances and how you felt at the moment? Yes, I became pregnant in 1971.

[00:02:31] I pretty much knew right away that I was because I started feeling different. It's kind of hard to explain. I had like a butterfly effect I guess to my stomach. I was getting nauseated in the morning

[00:02:50] and I just felt different. It's hard to explain but to me it was a wonderful feeling. I was excited. They were a little scared and I was excited to be pregnant.

[00:03:07] I must say that every time I was pregnant that was the happiest I ever was in my life. I really enjoyed pregnancy. Yeah, some people say that's weird but no I found it to be a wonderful experience

[00:03:23] so morning sickness, early labor, everything it didn't bother me. I loved being a mother. Okay were you married at the time when you first became pregnant? Growing up in a Catholic household

[00:03:42] it was frowned upon to be pregnant at a wedlock but I was. I found that my parents weren't very supportive at first but I got used to the idea after a while. I was with the same gentleman

[00:04:02] through all four of my pregnancies but we didn't get married until after my third child was born but we were in a committed relationship the entire time. To ask me why we waited so long

[00:04:20] to get married we just did but we were together for quite a long time. It was a little bit tough also because it was a biracial relationship my husband's black which of course resulted in

[00:04:37] a biracial children. It was a little bit difficult raising them in that not how I saw them but how of your people saw them. I would do things to try to buffer them from the roomness of other people.

[00:04:57] It was not uncommon for me to call them my little Oreos or little jungle bunnies and although this might sound terrible it was my way of buffering them so when they heard from other people it

[00:05:10] would roll off their back and they would know that I said these things to them in a loving way so they didn't take as much offensive them. I don't know that it caused that much of an identity

[00:05:24] crisis and my children aside from my older daughter it she had a hard time with the way people looked at her even though she's very beautiful girl every time someone looked at her she thought they were

[00:05:40] looking at her because she was black not because she was pretty and as a result she got rather combated in her teens. She even went as far as to turn against whites for a long time even

[00:06:01] though she herself is half white so that was a little bit of a difficult time with us. I had her in counseling to try to help her get through this. The other children pretty much bounced back they

[00:06:17] were friendly they made friends easily they could be rather little who look in running around getting into mischief but I love my children dearly they are they are my life and they always

[00:06:31] have been since I found out I was pregnant they've been everything to me. Well speaking of your pregnancies did you have any complications when did your pregnancies? I did my oldest child was

[00:06:45] over mature I carried him for nine and a half months and they ended up having to do a C section because he was in fetal distress. He ended up being born with the atrial septal defect

[00:07:02] of the heart and he was actually purple and dark purple for the first few days so this is life they didn't expect him to survive. Well but he did he had a heart catheterization when he was five

[00:07:23] he did I did have a lose him at the age of 39 he died from his heart complications but always blessed to have him for 39 years which was a lot longer than the doctors thought I would help him.

[00:07:39] As a result of having that C section I ended up having C sections with all my children. My third child I started to have a premature labor at four months and it carried on through my

[00:07:54] entire pregnancy but other than that everything went pretty smooth. Now was there anything weird that the doctors would have you do while you were pregnant? Only with my third child they would

[00:08:10] actually have me drink a shot of whiskey every time I went into premature labor because it would stop the labor. Nowadays that would be totally frowned upon because they don't want you to drink

[00:08:23] while you're pregnant but that's exactly what they had me do when it's pregnant with her. It's so crazy the way things have changed over time of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. They have a pretty woman rocking around with a flask it's kind of and I had to.

[00:08:41] It was strange I didn't sit and guzz all day long because it wasn't every day but I would take a sip whenever they would start. Now were you a working mom or stayed at home mom?

[00:08:53] Can you tell us if you had any struggles with that role? I was a working mother. I would work up until seven and a half months and then I would go on leave until the baby was three months old.

[00:09:10] It was hard for me. I really wanted to be home with my children. I didn't enjoy coming home to the babysitter tell me oh Marcus just took his first steps or Eric had just said this and

[00:09:28] my old stone so that I was missing because I was working but it was a two-in-come household and needed to be. So I was one of the sacrifices I had to make.

[00:09:42] I just tried to make the best of the situation and enjoy my children as much as I could when I was home. Now what was the relationship like with your husband and yourself and your children?

[00:09:56] My husband was extremely abusive so it was a difficult relationship it was hard for my children too because he was not only abusive to me but he was abusive to them also so there's more of

[00:10:08] a shielding relationship I would try to keep the children shielded from him as much as possible. We would try not to infuriate him for any reason we had to pretty much walk and

[00:10:25] excelsely entire time would be at home so I would try to get them out of the house as much as possible in a way from the situation thankfully he worked two different jobs so that

[00:10:38] kept him home for a period of time and made it a little bit easier on us. Now was there a time where the struggle became very difficult for you? Toward the end of our relationship my husband and I were married almost 10 years and

[00:10:58] toward the end of our relationship it became extremely difficult to see him be children so much really brought at home to me because I could put up with any abuse I had to but I didn't

[00:11:16] feel my children had to endure that so I became determined to get them away from the situation as a result we were I had them in counseling but the counselor recommended to the courts

[00:11:33] that I give custody to my husband because he was the black parents and society would look at them as black children so I society would identify them as being with him more than with being with me

[00:11:50] so we share custody for approximately four months and then I went to court and sued for permanent custody because the children would come back to me with a lot of bruising and

[00:12:08] tales that were awful. And so I went on and went to court to come back to court through the children testified as to what was going on in the home and I was awarded

[00:12:27] permanent custody of the children. Life got a lot better once that happened. I'm sure it did. We made you decide to keep going despite the odds like you had so much against you like

[00:12:43] society was kind of against you. You had this abuse of husband what made you as a mother decide that you're going to fight to do this and you're going to keep going on. I'm very strong

[00:12:56] wield and I consider myself a strong individual. I knew I had to be strong from my children. They were everything to me. I gave birth to them. They deserved a far better life than they had

[00:13:09] and that gave me the strength to keep going. It's good. It's wonderful. Did you ever have any child as more problematic than the other? Who was the easiest who was the hardest? The hardest growing up was my oldest daughter that after adopting

[00:13:29] my grandchild she developed addiction problems and she has definitely been the hardest one to deal with. My easiest one was my second daughter. She was always happy to lucky that we were saying they could happen to her if somebody said they didn't like her. She was always cheerful.

[00:13:56] Made friends easily. Always helped me around the house and she helped me with her little baby brother and she was just the light growing up and she still is to this day. Now did you have any troubles with the potty training? I really didn't. I didn't have any

[00:14:22] trouble at all with that. Every one of them seemed anxious to try my oldest boy. He was anxious to be a big boy so it was extremely easy to get him started and after that everyone

[00:14:38] else just followed suit. How was your relationship with your parents? We kind of childhood were you when you were grown up or you a problematic child? Did your parents have any

[00:14:52] influence on you and how you raised your children? My mother considered me a bit of a problem as a child. I wasn't bad but I was impish. I would be one two, my trees and hide. If my mom got mad

[00:15:12] and stay up there like a little qualla bear for hours, taught my brothers how to climb trees. And so we all did it. I was the one that fell out of the tree and landed on Bob Wyer fence.

[00:15:28] I was always the one getting scrapes and cuts and that sort of thing. I lied a lot but that was you saved myself from a beating. My parents were strict. My mother far more than my dad. My dad was

[00:15:53] he was a joy when he came home. He was a genius and he's the teacher a lot of things. He built his own telescope and he would take us out in summer nights and teachers about the stars

[00:16:09] and I'm taken with them to this day because of him. He did he was a practical joker so he did things like brought home a big giant two story cardboard rocket and put a rope to it

[00:16:28] and convinced all the men in the neighborhood that he was going to shoot off this rocket in our friend yard. He put some fireworks inside of it and lit it and of course I went off didn't go anywhere just

[00:16:44] blew up and he thought it was the funniest things. He had to have everybody in the neighborhood but these were the types of things he did. My mother taught me honestly how not to be a mom.

[00:16:58] She was abusive. She was very hard on all of us. We were to be seen and not heard. She wanted us outside as much as possible and I can't remember a time going up that she huged

[00:17:19] me or anything like that or told me that she loved me so I always made it a point with my children to hug them a lot. I spent time with them. Let them know that they were wanted and that they were loved.

[00:17:35] That to me was extremely important because it was something I lacked in my childhood. Other than that my father was rather prejudiced so he was he died shortly after my old child

[00:17:50] born but he really didn't have much to do with him because of his growing up and being you know he was in a very prejudice household. He was his time growing up and that's the way it

[00:18:09] was back then they kept everyone separated and so he had a hard time dealing with me choosing a black man as my spouse. My mother was accepting and she loved my grandchildren greatly. They were

[00:18:34] an important part of her life so she did end up coming around. She was totally different with my children than she was with her own children growing up. She made sure she let my grandchildren

[00:18:46] her grandchildren know that she loved them and she was very sweet with them. Maybe having a household so many people was such a stretch every day. Was your mom's date home mom? She was.

[00:19:00] She was home 24-7 she'd even drive back then so she was stuck in a little four room house with seven kids so I guess that was probably a reason why she wanted everybody outside in a way from

[00:19:15] home. That would definitely drive me crazy. I have two and no, I can do it as much as I love my children. There's no way I can have them. Many people enter too bit around. Now how was it like watching your

[00:19:32] kids become parents? Have you enjoyed your role as a grandmother? I love being a grandmother. Totally love it. It was exciting to see my children have their own and start their own families.

[00:19:49] I found that on the most part they were extremely good at it. I'd like the thing that I had something to do with that. But I found that they would sing songs to their children that I

[00:20:05] sang to them. So it was nice to see a tradition carry on. They did want to include me in the children's life so that was always a nice thing. They didn't keep me from my grandkids at all.

[00:20:22] My great grandkids, I have three of them and I've been an intricate part of their lives also, especially the oldest two. And I have raised them for most of their lives. That to me has been

[00:20:41] extremely rewarding and also that also has to be very challenging as well. You would think so but I'm so used to having children in my life. I always tell everyone that God put me on the

[00:20:57] surface, the raised children and it's truly the way it's been. I raised a granddaughter of course and adopted the adoption was final when she was three. So I raised her. And then so it just naturally

[00:21:14] fell in for me to start raising my great grandchildren. I can't be a little bit taxing a time. I feel bad for them because I'm 67. There are seven in nine so Nana doesn't play as much as a

[00:21:30] young parent would. But I think I bring a lot of positivity to their lives. They feel secure around me. They know they're loved and I nurture them as much as possible. Can you share with us any

[00:21:47] fun memories you had with your children when they were younger? Anything used to do special with your children or anything that they probably aren't even aware of that you used to do? Well,

[00:22:04] we used to her father and I used to make it a point to take them to the can't feel very every year. They really enjoyed that even though my youngest daughter was snatched at the fair one year.

[00:22:20] Right from she was standing right between me and her father and somebody came up and grabbed her and went into the crowd. That was devastating to us. And so we looked for a police officer right away

[00:22:37] and just started searching. It felt such relief when we got a call over the inner calm saying that she was at the sound tower. I had always taught my children that if somebody took them,

[00:22:54] somebody grabbed them to scream and haul her and kick. And she did exactly that and it saved her from being kidnapped. That was a devastating occurrence. But we made it a point to do a lot of

[00:23:12] things with the children as far as just fun times around the house. I would teach them crafts. I'll show them how to camp, have little picnics in the backyard. We'd go out and pick flowers.

[00:23:29] I used to like to take them down to Milk Creek Park, which was a major park around us and look at all the leaves and go walking, go around the lakes and look at the wildlife.

[00:23:44] They always enjoyed that. It sounds like a lot of fun actually. It was, I tried to do things with my children that not only were enjoyable, but taught something. Now when your relationship ended with

[00:24:01] your children's father were you in any other relationship afterwards? I was. I met a young man who was actually eight years younger than I. But he was very loving. We ended up getting married. He was a

[00:24:18] great father to my children. In fact, they were the, he's the one that considered their father because he took so much time up with them and he was kind of dad that they needed. He was

[00:24:33] very involved in their lives in mine. And we had a very happy household. It was a great time in our lives. Looking back on all the struggles and everything that you endured and conquered

[00:24:49] your life as a mother, is there any advice that you would give for young mothers? Hold onto your children as much as you can. Let them know just how much you love them. Let them know they're

[00:25:01] needed and they're wanted and that they're important to you. So many children nowadays are told they're stupid and I hate you and all these negative things and there's so much negativity in the world. There's always somebody that's out there bullying, don't be a source of that bullying

[00:25:22] yourself. Be somebody that they can run to that they can talk to and that they can find confidant. Children need to know that they have a safe place and be that safe place for them.

[00:25:38] I think that's wonderful advice, because you're exactly right. There's so much kids get so much negativity from everything around them and the last place they needed is in their actual home. True, they at home needs to be as stress free as possible. It's very difficult growing up in

[00:25:58] a stressful environment. There's a not stress in this world. Home should be a happy peaceful place. Now you said that you had lost the child. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how it's

[00:26:11] impacted your life? I did. I lost my son Marcus when he was 39 just before Christmas. It was extremely devastating. It still is extremely hard for me. There's a void in my heart that nothing or no one will refill. Even though I have the rest of

[00:26:38] my children and have my grandchildren and my great grandchildren, there still is a piece of me that's gone and that I can't get back. It has made me appreciate more than people that I do

[00:26:53] have in my life and that are around me now. It made me realize that it's always important to let people know how much you love them. That was one bit of solitude that I do have in him passing

[00:27:06] this that he knew I loved him. I made sure I'd let him know that all the time. That's the only reassurance I have in his passing. He was gone far too soon. He and his girlfriend were in the

[00:27:22] process of trying to adopt. He would have been a great father. He loved children. So it's sad to see that part of him not kept a blossom but I'm happy for the time I did have with him.

[00:27:38] That I don't think I could as a mother myself. I don't think I could ever deal with that situation. It took me years to be able to even talk about it. He's been gone for eight years now and

[00:27:54] it's probably only been about two years that I've been able to talk about it without breaking down. It's been a very difficult time. I still have days that the pain is so real

[00:28:08] and so fresh that it consumes me. It's a pain that I would not wish on my worst than me. It's just total devastation. Do you know the impact it's had on your children? Or in your great children, grandchildren, and my grandchildren, great grandchildren. It has affected them.

[00:28:35] The only one of my great grandchildren that knew him was my oldest great-grandson. And he only got to know him for about a year but he talks about him all the time.

[00:28:52] My grandchildren, their favorite team was his favorite gym in the 49ers so they always root for him. For the 49ers and memory of their uncle, my children, it has really devastated them. They always mourn the loss of their brother

[00:29:17] and the fact that he's missed out on so much in their lives. But I truly believe that he's up there and he sees everything that's going on and he's part of it whether they see him or not. I believe that. I really do believe that too.

[00:29:33] Is there anything else that you would like to share with about your journey as a mother? Motherhood is not easy. There are times that you want to pull

[00:29:45] your hair out. There's times you want to just give up and crawl up in a ball and hide in your room. But you brought these children into the world and it's your job to take care of them.

[00:30:02] It's your job to make sure they have a good life, at least this good-a-life is possible until they leave home. Teach them all you know. Make them as happy as possible and they'll become happy and full adults. I think you've done such a wonderful job, but that's

[00:30:25] today. You seem like you really take that role of motherhood so well. It just flows in you. That you've been such a wonderful mother. I can see it by just looking at you how much love you

[00:30:40] have for your family and I think that's something beautiful. It's something that somebody young people today don't really understand so I do love that about you. When you talk about your children, you just glow. You're very happy. Talk about your children. I love my family.

[00:31:01] My family is everything to me. And you can tell that. You can really tell that and everything that you say and do. I sure they love and appreciate you greatly. I hope so. I sure do love and

[00:31:13] appreciate them. As we wrap this up is there anything else that you like to say? Just I really enjoyed having this interview with you. I appreciate it. You're to light. It's been a fun experience. I thought I'd be nervous but I haven't been at all. That's good. That's

[00:31:34] very good. I very much thank you for being here today with us and sharing your story of motherhood with us. It was wonderful to hear. Thank you. It was an honor being here. Thank you.

[00:31:46] And that is the end of our show with Deborah U. Hoss in her crown. We like to wish everyone a wonderful day. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Her crown is co-produced by Kimberly Gonzalez,

[00:32:01] supported by the D5 group and it's powered by the Sound United podcast studio. If you like more information or to be a part of our next her crown series, you can reach us at her crown podcast at GML.com.