AACHM Oral History: Alice Brennan-Key

Thu, 06/29/2023 - 4:34pm

When: June 27, 2023

Alice Brennan-Key was born in Ann Arbor in 1953. Her parents met in Florida after her father immigrated from the Bahamas, and they moved to Ann Arbor in the 1940s. Brennan-Key grew up on Gott Street, next door to her current residence. She has seen the neighborhood change over the years due to gentrification. She went to Michigan State University as an undergraduate and received her master’s in social work from the University of Michigan. She spent most of her career working with developmentally disabled and mentally ill residents of Washtenaw County. She raised her daughter Khyla in Ann Arbor.

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Transcript

• [00:00:18] JOETTA MIAL: [MUSIC] Thank you again, Alice for allowing us to interview you. This is really helpful in adding to our collection.
• [00:00:34] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: You're welcome.
• [00:00:36] JOETTA MIAL: I'm going to start with some demographic questions in family history. I'm first going to ask you about the demographics and demographic questions. These questions may jog your memory to other memories. But please keep your answers brief and to the point for now. Then later we'll be going into more detail later in the interview.
• [00:01:11] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Alright.
• [00:01:13] JOETTA MIAL: Please say and spell your name.
• [00:01:16] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My name is Alice Brennan-Key. My first name is spelled ALICE, last name is B, as in boy, RENNAN-KEY.
• [00:01:32] JOETTA MIAL: What is the date of your birth? Including the year?
• [00:01:36] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: March 27th, 1953. I'm 70 years old.
• [00:01:44] JOETTA MIAL: You're young-looking seventy. [LAUGHTER] How would you describe your ethnic background?
• [00:01:54] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I'm Black.
• [00:01:59] JOETTA MIAL: What is your religion or church affiliation, if any?
• [00:02:04] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: African Methodist and I'm affiliated with Bethel AME. Have been all my life.
• [00:02:11] JOETTA MIAL: For all your 70 years?
• [00:02:13] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: All my 70 years? Yes.
• [00:02:17] JOETTA MIAL: What is the highest level of formal education you have completed?
• [00:02:22] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I have a Master's degree, in social work.
• [00:02:29] JOETTA MIAL: Did you attend any additional school or formal career training beyond that?
• [00:02:36] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: No.
• [00:02:39] JOETTA MIAL: What is your marital status?
• [00:02:41] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I'm married.
• [00:02:45] JOETTA MIAL: How many children do you have?
• [00:02:48] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I have one daughter and I have three stepchildren.
• [00:03:02] JOETTA MIAL: How many siblings do you have?
• [00:03:04] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: There were six of us.
• [00:03:10] JOETTA MIAL: What was your primary occupation?
• [00:03:14] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: For a time, I was a social worker with Washtenaw County and then I retired from there. Then I decided I wanted to go back to work. I started working at the mortgage company and I worked there for about 20 years and then I actually retired.
• [00:03:40] JOETTA MIAL: [LAUGHTER] At what age did you retire?
• [00:03:54] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: At around 67.
• [00:03:57] JOETTA MIAL: There are five parts to this and we're going to do two now, Part 2. Which deals with memories of childhood and youth. What was your family like when you were a child?
• [00:04:26] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Not exactly sure what that means. What were they like?
• [00:04:32] JOETTA MIAL: Let's see, let me try to give you an example. Were they strict? Did you have.
• [00:04:40] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes, definitely. My mother was the disciplinarian. My dad was quite easygoing and did not, he disciplined us but my mother disciplined us with a switch or a belt. [LAUGHTER] That's not something that my father did. He basically was, he was a talker. He could talk to us or he would try to convince my mother not to spank us, and which [LAUGHTER] she did not listen. She was just the disciplinarian. Therefore, if we did something that was not pleasing to her, then she spanked us. There was no timeouts. Thank you. All over and done with.
• [00:05:40] JOETTA MIAL: What is your earliest memories about your family?
• [00:05:47] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, my earliest memory is one of my nieces who was six years younger than I am coming home from the hospital. I do remember us just being a fairly close-knit family. We would get together during holidays and that kind of thing. I also remember even though there were six children, my youngest sister, is actually 14 years older than I am. Then I have a brother that's in-between her that's four years old and myself as four years older than I am. The four older ones, they were teenagers. Then by the time that we really got up some size, they were starting their own families or going off and doing, they were young adults.
• [00:07:01] JOETTA MIAL: Were there any special days, events or family traditions you remember from your childhood?
• [00:07:07] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, definitely Christmas and Thanksgiving was a big time for us because for a while my oldest brother, who was 20 years older than I am, his family would come down for the holidays. Sometimes they would come down and they would switch off each year because they lived in Jackson. They would come down one year and spend the holidays with us, Thanksgiving. Then the next year they would spend it with her family that was living in Jackson. That's one of the memories that I have.
• [00:07:50] JOETTA MIAL: You said that there was a 20-year.
• [00:07:53] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: There is a 20-year difference between my oldest brother and me, and I'm the youngest of the six.
• [00:08:02] JOETTA MIAL: You're the baby.
• [00:08:04] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. I don't feel so baby-ish now but yeah [LAUGHTER].
• [00:08:10] JOETTA MIAL: How were holidays traditionally celebrated in your family?
• [00:08:16] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: We would just celebrate Christmas, exchange gifts. Whomever was in the home because that at a certain time, about four years after I was born, my niece came along. One of my nieces came along, and she actually grew up with us. There was my brother who is four years older than I am, myself, and then my niece, one of my nieces who was four years younger. We all grew up together. We would celebrate Christmas, we would exchange gifts. Parents would buy us gifts and that's how we would celebrate. Of course, have dinner.
• [00:09:02] JOETTA MIAL: Has your family created any of its own traditions or celebrations that you can think of.
• [00:09:12] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Nothing that I can think of that's any different than the usual of celebrating Thanksgiving. But you have a big family dinner. Sometimes you have people over, sometimes not. Then Christmas. We celebrated the usual holidays, it was on church. Definitely we celebrated Easter Sunday. We went to church. That was just a part of our growing up. Attending church was a big part of our growing up.
• [00:09:52] JOETTA MIAL: You've already said you did social work, what was the highest grade you completed?
• [00:10:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: The masters.
• [00:10:02] JOETTA MIAL: Masters. In social work?
• [00:10:05] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: In social work. Yes.
• [00:10:09] JOETTA MIAL: Did you play any sports or join any other activities outside of school? Let's start with high school first?
• [00:10:22] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: No. The only thing that I was involved in is the choir at church. Then I was on the usher board, which I'm still on at church. But other activities like sports. We'd play sports in the neighborhood but nothing at school. I didn't, no.
• [00:10:47] JOETTA MIAL: What about your school experience?
• [00:10:55] JOETTA MIAL: Being different from school from as you know today.
• [00:11:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I went to Mack school, which was about three blocks from where I live and lived at the time, and then the junior high was Forsythe, and then I went to Pioneer. Because I am definitely an introvert and a very quiet person, in retrospect, I can see that I just floated through school. I went to class, I did what I was supposed to do, I got good grades, and that was that.
• [00:11:46] JOETTA MIAL: Well, that doesn't sound like floating, it just sounds like you took care of business.
• [00:11:50] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: But as I look back on it, that's how I see it, I see I just floated on too and I said this is the next step and then this is the next grade, and then I was done.
• [00:12:17] JOETTA MIAL: Did your family have any special sayings or expressions during this time that you can remember?
• [00:12:30] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My daddy would always tell me don't take any wooden nickels.
• [00:12:57] JOETTA MIAL: [LAUGHTER] Don't take any.
• [00:12:59] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Wooden.
• [00:12:59] JOETTA MIAL: Wooden nickels.
• [00:13:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Wooden nickels. He said your job should wake you up. If that doesn't wake you up, then I guess you don't need a job.
• [00:13:00] JOETTA MIAL: When thinking back on your high school years, what important social or historical events were taking place at that time and how did they personally affect your family fall?
• [00:13:18] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: One thing I do remember in high school, I believe I was in 11th or 12th grade, and there was some really at that time was a lot of unrest, racial unrest, racial tension, and so that was problematic at school. For me I just decided that I did not get involved and I basically went home. I think that they may have closed the school for an afternoon. But I really wasn't involved. Then backing up a little bit, when I entered high school, there was only Pioneer. We went to school in the morning and then the people that eventually went to Huron went to school in the afternoon. Then the second semester, all that changed because Huron was completed, and so then the children that were going to Huron, they left them. We just had a normal school day. Nothing really early. We didn't have to get up really early to be at school. It was just a normal school day as it is now.
• [00:14:38] JOETTA MIAL: That was after Huron was.
• [00:14:41] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: That was after Huron was completed or it was at least completed enough for them to occupy it.
• [00:14:53] JOETTA MIAL: You lived during the era of segregation, can you speak about that? Was your school segregated? Was the elementary school you already said that you were three Blacks from Mack, from your home. Was there a high school for Black students in the same area? How did you get to school? Who were your teachers? Were there any restaurants or eating places for Blacks where you live? How many Black visitors? How were Black visitors accommodated? That's a lot. If I need to repeat it I will.
• [00:15:40] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: The schools were not segregated. There were a large number of white people in Mack, in Forsythe and in Pioneer. There was just a small little percentage of Black kids that I can remember. I didn't experience a lot of segregation. As far as eating or restaurants was concerned, we basically ate at home because our family really wasn't in a position to go out to eat financially, so we basically ate at home. I think one of our treats was to go on Fridays down to Washtenaw Dairy, and we would get ice cream and then we would come home and we would eat it at home or either another treat would be to go out on Stadium where A and W was, and my dad would buy a gallon of root beer and then we would bring it home and that was a treat for us.
• [00:17:09] JOETTA MIAL: Do you know anything about how Black, excuse me, how Black visitors were treated? Do you know anything about where they stayed, were able to stay? Like any of the hotels or anything?
• [00:17:28] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: No. But I suspect that they were not able to stay in the hotels, that they probably stay more with other Black people that were in town.
• [00:17:43] JOETTA MIAL: Now we're going to Part 3, which is adulthood, marriage and family life. This section covers a long period of your life, from the time you completed your education, entered the labor force or started a family until all of your children left home and you and/or your spouse retired. We might be talking about a stretch of time spanning as much as four decades. After you finished high school, where did you live?
• [00:18:26] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I completed high school and then I immediately went to Michigan State University and completed my education there. I took about a year break after my sophomore year, and then I went back and completed my education at Michigan State.
• [00:18:58] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: You want me to continue?
• [00:18:59] JOETTA MIAL: Yeah. I'm just seeing if this is a repeat here. You were on campus at Michigan State when you left home?
• [00:19:12] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes, I did. I was on campus.
• [00:19:16] JOETTA MIAL: When you took that year off?
• [00:19:19] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I came back home.
• [00:19:20] JOETTA MIAL: You came back home?
• [00:19:21] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I came back home, I stayed and I worked for a little bit and then I applied again and I got back into Michigan State, and finished my undergraduate degree. Then once I've finished, I got a job at the Ann Arbor Community Center. Walter Hill was the director at the time. We had programs there for the youth and I work with the youth in the schools. Youth that were at high risk. During the summer, I worked at camp to corner. That's what it was called at the time and so that was just the part of the programming at the community center at that time.
• [00:20:19] JOETTA MIAL: Was there a lot of participation of folks at the community center?
• [00:20:24] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Quite a bit. We had a lot of the neighborhood kids came down and then like I said, there was outreach in the schools. There were programs for people that they deem were at risk or high risk. African-American children that were at high risk. We just went out to the schools and had group meetings with them, talking about what they were doing, what they wanted to do in the future and that thing. Sometimes we would have dances on the weekends for the children, and quite a few children participated.
• [00:21:19] JOETTA MIAL: Was Mr. Hill there the whole time you were working?
• [00:21:25] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [00:21:28] JOETTA MIAL: I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your marriage and family life. Tell me about your spouse. Where did you meet?
• [00:21:40] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, let me say that I've had three spouses. My current spouse, which we'd been together for 20 years, I met him at the Elks.
• [00:22:04] JOETTA MIAL: At where?
• [00:22:05] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: The Elks Lodge. Because at one point in time, I don't know about now, but at one point in time they had dancing and music on every weekend. This a social outlet. When I first started going down there when I was in my early 20s, it was predominantly Black. That was the only place that I knew of to go and where young adults can have a good time.
• [00:22:49] JOETTA MIAL: Where was the Elks located?
• [00:22:52] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: On Sunset.
• [00:23:06] JOETTA MIAL: You said this is your third?
• [00:23:08] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. This is my third marriage.
• [00:23:13] JOETTA MIAL: Do you want to tell me about what was like dating? Your engagement and wedding was like?
• [00:23:31] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I guess we dated for probably five years and then we decided to get married and we got married in my parents backyard, which is next door to where I live now. Unfortunately, at that particular wedding, that was so unfortunate that my father had already passed away. Because he passed away in 1990 and we got married in 2002. Yeah. That was a really significant year because we got married in August and my mother passed away in December of that same year.
• [00:24:26] JOETTA MIAL: Tell me about your child or children.
• [00:24:33] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: The one that I can really tell you about is my daughter. Her name is Khyla. She's just a blessing. She was just a blessing to me. I was not expecting her. But I'm really so glad that her. Children really make you grow or help you to grow. As she has certainly done that for me and she's just been a wonderful child. She is now a lawyer, she started out being a nurse and decided, oh, mama I want to be a lawyer. Okay, and she went back to school and she's now a lawyer. She's just a very supportive young woman, and a very gifted young woman. I don't think she knows how gifted she is. I hope she does, but I don't know. But she is very gifted.
• [00:26:08] JOETTA MIAL: The community realizes that.
• [00:26:10] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I'm sorry?
• [00:26:11] JOETTA MIAL: I said the community realizes how gifted she is.
• [00:26:14] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. They do. Raising her at Bethel along with my parents and the people at Bethel, it was truly a village. There were a number of wonderful young people that grew up at the same time, and was going to Bethel at the same time. They were all wonderful children and are wonderful adults. It really was a village at that time and I'm sure that there were other times where there were a lot of people who pitched in and did things for your children or with your children or help your children. But I can say personally, during that time of raising Khyla, there were a number of wonderful women and men who just helped with the rearing of her.
• [00:27:34] JOETTA MIAL: Now, did you ever live with any of your stepkids?
• [00:27:44] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: No.
• [00:27:44] JOETTA MIAL: What did you and your family enjoy doing when Khyla was still at home?
• [00:28:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: She was really involved in a lot of activities at church. But again she was involved with a lot of activities at school as well. She was always getting in, wanting to be a member of this, a president of that and just in areas where she's going to be helping other people and so that's what we did. We took vacations occasionally. Excuse me. She was still pretty young, but we went to Nassau because that's where my my father was born and at the time he had passed away, but he had a brother. His youngest brother was still living. We went so she would be able to see him, as well as some of the cousins that had visited us up here, and then we went to visit them there. That was a nice end. On that one trip that we went, we actually saw Nelson Mandela.
• [00:29:25] JOETTA MIAL: Oh my.
• [00:29:26] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I had just took us out to a beach and he happened to be just walking with a couple of other people and we walked up to him and he was just very nice to her, very nice to me. We just said hello and then let him just go on about his business. That was really a highlight of our trip.
• [00:29:56] JOETTA MIAL: I would think so. Oh my. Going to Nassau was one of the fun things that you did. Anything else you can think of?
• [00:30:06] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Not that I can think of.
• [00:30:14] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Not that I can think of right now.
• [00:30:16] JOETTA MIAL: Part of the time you must have been raising Khyla as a single mother?
• [00:30:24] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I was indeed. Yes.
• [00:30:26] JOETTA MIAL: Okay.
• [00:30:27] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: For most of her life I was raising her as a single mother. Yes.
• [00:30:36] JOETTA MIAL: Anything, other special that you all did together?
• [00:30:43] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: No, just the usual stuff, attending the various things at the school that she participated in, and of course, whatever she was involved in at church. I would participate if nothing more than just taking her there, and picking her up because she was involved with YPD, and sometimes they would go away, and I would not necessarily go with her, but I would certainly take her over to the church, and then go back, and come back, and pick her up when she returned after being out of town. Just trying to be the best parent that I could.
• [00:31:34] JOETTA MIAL: Looking at Khyla, it sounds like you did a good job. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:31:38] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, thank you.
• [00:31:43] JOETTA MIAL: Let's go to Part 4. This set of questions covers a fairly long period of your lifetime. The time you entered the labor force or started a family up to the present time.
• [00:32:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Okay.
• [00:32:05] JOETTA MIAL: What was your main field of employment? I know we've talked a little bit about it, but maybe you can expand.
• [00:32:14] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, as I said right after I graduated from Michigan State, I started working at the community center. In total, I worked there for maybe four or five years because once Khyla was born, I decided to go back to school and get my master's, and that was basically a year and a half. And so I did that, I completed that, and I took a leave from the community center, went to school, got my masters, and then when I graduated, I went back and worked probably maybe a half a year at the most, and then I got a job at Washtenaw County as a social worker with developmentally disabled and mentally ill adults.
• [00:33:26] JOETTA MIAL: Where did you get your Masters?
• [00:33:29] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: At Michigan.
• [00:33:30] JOETTA MIAL: What got you interested in the work that you were doing?
• [00:33:38] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, I felt that I was really doing that anyway at the community center, and so I felt that that would just be what I needed to do next in order to be better, able to take care of my daughter. And so I said, well, I think I'm already doing some social work even though I didn't have necessarily a degree in that, so I said, well, I will get a degree in social work, and then continue on. That I would be able to make a better living and to take care of my daughter, and myself.
• [00:34:30] JOETTA MIAL: What was a typical day like during the working years of your adult life? You can choose any period of time.
• [00:34:43] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I would get up in the morning, get Khyla ready, take her next door because my mother kept her, and then I would go to work, come home. If there were nights or days that I needed to work late at night, then of course, my daughter would just stay with my parents until I got back home because I live right next door, and then I would pick her up from them once I got home. If I got home earlier at a decent time, then I would pick her up, and then we would have dinner. I would make dinner, we would eat dinner, and then watch TV or read, and then put her to bed, and then the next day we would do the same thing, and if I worked late, of course, she would have dinner with my parents. I would just pick her up, and depending on how late it was, she may have already been asleep, but I would pick her up, and then bring her home, and put her back to bed. That's how the day would go. As she got older, of course, things changed, because she was in school.
• [00:36:18] JOETTA MIAL: Can you relate to any differences of the field that you're in from when you were doing it to now?
• [00:36:29] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: As I was leaving, and I have been really out of it for a while, but as I was leaving they were starting to put more developmentally disabled people, in their own apartments, placing them in their own apartments. I suspect that they have continued along that vein. That's not really something that I agreed with for some of the people because I just didn't feel that they had enough help. Because some of them were quite dependent, and so I didn't feel that they would have enough help, because they weren't offering 24-hour care. I was wondering, so what's going to happen, if there's nobody there during the day, and something happened to the person, who was going to be able to help them? But evidently maybe they have worked it out, maybe they haven't. I know that since I've left there is a lot of turnover, and so you don't have people that are actually dedicated to helping the people. Which I don't know. I think that's the main difference. With a lot of turnover, there's no consistency, and you really need to have some consistency with the people, no matter where they are, whether they are living in group homes, whether they are living with their family, whether they're living independently or as independent as they can. There needs to be some kind of consistency, that's what I feel.
• [00:38:42] JOETTA MIAL: What do you value most about what you did for a living?
• [00:38:49] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Just being able to help somebody else. To either make it to develop to their full potential, and that really taught me a lot. It taught me a lot of patience and understanding. Even though you think at times that you're helping them, they're actually teaching you quite a bit as well. Because some of them they're really limited in what they can do, but they still have joy and you see that. You can see it, and that teaches you a lot. I think that should teach you a lot, and it did teach me quite a bit.
• [00:39:57] JOETTA MIAL: So you all learned from each other?
• [00:39:59] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [00:40:05] JOETTA MIAL: How did your life change I guess when you retired and Khyla wasn't around? When Khyla left home ?
• [00:40:23] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, that was a big change as far as I was concerned because I was thinking, so now what am I going to do? Because your life revolves around her, and what she needs, and so I decided well, I'm going to do something else. I'm going to try to find another job or either get involved in some activities outside of the home, which is what I did.
• [00:41:02] JOETTA MIAL: Like what?
• [00:41:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, I got involved in a book club, that I'm still in. Basically, that was it. That helped fill some of the void. But then for a while, she was still coming back home. Going back and forth, especially during the holidays, she used to come home. But once she graduated and then stayed in South Carolina for a while, that was a big change.
• [00:41:41] JOETTA MIAL: That was a big change.
• [00:41:42] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: That was a big change, yeah.
• [00:41:49] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: But I was happy for her. I was really happy that she went to South Carolina because I think that environment was quite different than being raised in Ann Arbor.
• [00:42:08] JOETTA MIAL: Now, did she goes to school there or was she working there?
• [00:42:12] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. She went to South Carolina State, and I think that even like I said before, she was always involved in different in the NAACP and just helping the organizations. But I think they're going to South Carolina State, and being around so many African-American or Black children and interacting with them. I think that was very helpful to her growth. She became more well-rounded.
• [00:43:04] JOETTA MIAL: Now that was when she was getting which degree?
• [00:43:07] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Her nursing degree.
• [00:43:09] JOETTA MIAL: Her nursing degree. Is South Carolina State a Black school?
• [00:43:15] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. Exactly.
• [00:43:22] JOETTA MIAL: Okey-dokey. We're going to the last part now. Tell me how you think has been for you to live in this community. Pros cons.
• [00:43:52] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Ann Arbor was a nice place to raise your children. I think it had a small-town feel. Certainly, when I was growing up it did. Even when I was raising Khyla, I think we had a small-town feel, which I appreciate it. I know that there's racism. Even here in Ann Arbor where they want you to believe that it does not exist but it does in a lot of different in subtle ways.
• [00:45:08] JOETTA MIAL: Can you expand on that a little bit?
• [00:45:10] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. There's this one instance that I have even discussed with Khyla. She was at Forsythe and I went over there for a parent-teacher conference. Her teacher was telling me how great a child she was and this and that and the other is something that I already knew. Then he said, well, do you think that Khyla should be placed on some medication? Don't you think that she's really hyper? I took offense of that though. I told him, no, she's not hyper and you just need to challenge her more. I often think about that because I'm thinking, well, would you have said that to another parent? Would you have said that to a white parent? Automatically would you have gone or suggested to them that their child needs to be on medication because they were too hyper? Or would you have gone another route and thought, well maybe you need to challenge her more. Maybe what you were teaching her or giving her to do wasn't enough. I was not happy with at that conference at all. There are other things that you find that you come up against in Arbor that I don't think it's all Black versus white. It's sometimes Black versus Black because there's definitely classism. I think for me, that hurts me more than the Black and white, the bigotry, and the racism. That hurts me more with the classism or the intro. I guess the ways you could say is the race between your own race. That hurts me more because I lived in there.
• [00:48:05] JOETTA MIAL: How that manifested?
• [00:48:13] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: It's in cliques where you see a group of people that they come together or they are grouped together because of maybe education or I don't know what it is. But I do see it, and it's not something new, I've always noticed that.
• [00:49:10] JOETTA MIAL: When thinking back on your entire life, what important social-historical events had the greatest impact for you?
• [00:49:24] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I think the assassination of President Kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther King.
• [00:49:47] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Certainly more recently, the killing of George Floyd or the constant killing or beatings of Black men and women that we see on TV, makes you wonder, how far have we come?
• [00:50:22] JOETTA MIAL: Do you still need digression?
• [00:50:29] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. I do. Since the last president, President Trump, let's be specific, with him he made a great impact actually on being in office only four years and negative impact. I think he provided people that are the biggest came bolder. I think they've always been there undercover. I think they feel emboldened by him being in the White House and being able to do all this stuff that he has done and continues to do and things to say.
• [00:51:46] JOETTA MIAL: When you thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
• [00:52:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I'm most proud of the family that my parents made because we are, I guess people would call it a stepfamily because my four older brothers and sisters, I call them my brothers and sisters because that's what they are. But other people would deem them to be stepbrothers, stepsister. I'm proud of the family that my mother and my father made and the things that they were able to accomplish because they worked hard and they built a family. I'm really very proud of that. I'm certainly proud of Khyla and all that she has done for herself because she could have chosen to do otherwise, but she did not. I'm certainly proud of her. I'm proud that I continue to attend Bethel AME Church and the changes that they have gone through over that I've seen. They've gone through over the years and it's still here and they're thriving and so I'm proud of that as well.
• [00:53:47] JOETTA MIAL: Thank you for that. What would you say has changed the most from the time you were a young person to now?
• [00:54:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: As far as the city is concerned, I think Ann Arbor has become less family-friendly, I think. I don't know of anything else that really sticks out. I think that Bethel has changes. I think their changes coincide with the pastor. But that's just how African Methodist is. You have a new pastor, they come in with different ideas and so there's changes. There's that. Certainly, I guess the schools in Ann Arbor I think they're experiencing a lot more problems with the children. They're a little different. I think this probably has always been, there's probably just a few that are causing a lot of difficulty, but the majority of the children or not. I think it's more difficult to be a teacher. I suspected administrator as well.
• [00:56:41] JOETTA MIAL: Any ideas about that? What's different?
• [00:56:48] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I think that it's a combination of a lot of things. I don't think there's just one thing.
• [00:57:05] JOETTA MIAL: We've counted last question.
• [00:57:08] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: That's okay.
• [00:57:11] JOETTA MIAL: What advice would you give to the younger generation?
• [00:57:30] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: First and foremost, know your history. Be proud of who you are or what you are as an African-American or Black or whatever you want to call yourself. I certainly think that they are more tolerant than we were and that needs to continue. Because I think with tolerance, with understanding, you can make more strides. Don't plan certainly with hate or judgment or whatever else, looking down on someone. I do think that they are more tolerant though. There's a lot of changes going on. I mean, things are changing very fast for them. That would be my advice.
• [00:58:49] JOETTA MIAL: Well, thank you Alice. I have learned a lot from this interview. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:58:59] JOYCE HUNTER: If I could, before you start recording me, I like to ask a couple of questions if I could. Alice couple of things, I really enjoyed this interview. Could you talk a little bit about your parents? I know they were pillars in terms of Bethel, etc. Can you talk a little bit about your parents?
• [00:59:24] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My parents came to Ann Arbor in early 1940s. They met in Miami. My dad says that he saw a picture. He and my grandmother were friends because my grandmother's husband was his best friend and so he saw a picture of my mother once visiting my grandmother and he says that's going to be my wife. [LAUGHTER] That came to be. At the time she had four young children, he came up here first and made provisions for her and the children to come up here and so then he brought her up here and they lived across the street from where I currently live now because that was the only place that he could find that would take in a husband and wife and four children. There were very few places he said that they would accept they even want children and of course, very few places that they could live to begin with because they were Black. They came up here and they built family house next door and then they purchased the house that I currently stay in now and they just built a life together and a family. I think a good family. Brought us, we went to church. That was what we did on Sunday. Came home and had dinner. I think I had a good life growing up. They weren't really people that went to school and went to PTO meetings and all that stuff. They just said, okay, I'm sending you the school and the teachers know what you need to do and you know what you need to do, so you will take care of business and go in and do what you're supposed to do. That's how they send us off to school. Did you know he knew as far as I was current I can speak for myself. You were spanked, but you also know you were loved. They did the very best that they could.
• [01:02:15] JOYCE HUNTER: Let me ask you about where you're living. In other interviews we've often heard people talk about the Old West side now is referred to as Water Hill. Talk about where you were living in and where you grew up.
• [01:02:29] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: This is where I grew up on. I mean, I live on that street. That's where I grew up. Next door in the house that they built and now I live in the house that they've just purchased. I didn't know anything about Water Hill until I heard that a few years ago. I didn't know we're living on Water Hill when we lived on Gott Street and now we live in Water Hill. I said, okay. I mean, it's changed. The street certainly has changed over the years because people have moved away and a lot of people have died. Not necessarily our block but the whole street. Sometimes I walk in the neighborhood and so the other day I was walking and I was thinking, okay, this is where so-and-so used to live. I can name all the people that used to live in those houses down the street, on my block, and the next block, and the block after that.
• [01:03:46] JOYCE HUNTER: I wanted to ask you about that, Alice, because in other interviews people talk about it was the Old West side and they take issue with being called Water Hill that was predominantly Black as from other interviews that we've had, is that right?
• [01:03:59] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes, it was. I don't know the people, for whatever reason, they moved because they were able to move, I guess elsewhere. They moved and the children either moved away, or didn't want to keep the house, or whatever reasons so other people have now purchased the house. It's not predominantly Black any longer.
• [01:04:35] JOYCE HUNTER: One time my understanding from the interviews is that's one of the few places where Blacks could actually live and purchase a home in that area?
• [01:04:46] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, yes. I guess that must have been the case because that's where we live. But the only thing that I can remember my parents saying is that when they first showed them places to live, my mother said they showed them Wall Street because at one point in time there were houses down there on Wall Street and she said she didn't want to live there. This was one of the places that they could live.
• [01:05:20] JOYCE HUNTER: Thanks Alice. Those are my two questions I had to ask them.
• [01:05:24] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: All right.
• [01:05:26] JOYCE HUNTER: That was the questions from me.
• [01:05:30] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I don't remember a lot about that, but that's what I do remember.
• [01:05:36] JOETTA MIAL: I'm glad you asked that and expanded on it, Joyce.
• [01:05:39] JOYCE HUNTER: It really fascinates me because so many other people that have been interviewed really talk about. They're older than you though Alice. They talk about that area.
• [01:05:49] JOYCE HUNTER: We're going to continue our interview with Alice Brennan-Key. This is like additional information that we're going to be providing for our interview. Alice is good to see you again today. We're going to be doing memories of childhood and youth. What was your family like when you were a child?
• [01:06:21] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: As I had said before, we have a blended family. I would say by the time I was around five or either six, my four older brothers and sisters were out, starting their own family because my oldest brother whose name was Willie Steen Hawkins is about 20 years older than I am. Then my closest sister age is 15 years older than I am. Basically in the house when I was growing up, there was my youngest brother, William and myself, and then my niece, who's name is Gertrude the same as my mother's. We were basically the three children that were in the house when I was growing up.
• [01:07:30] JOYCE HUNTER: In terms of your siblings, 20 years, that's a big gap.
• [01:07:35] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [01:07:37] JOYCE HUNTER: That's because the families were blended, is that? [OVERLAPPING]
• [01:07:42] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Basically, yes. Then of course, my mother started at a young age.
• [01:07:49] JOYCE HUNTER: Great.
• [01:07:52] JOYCE HUNTER: And what was your mother's and father's names?
• [01:07:56] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My mother's name was Gertrude Campbell. That was her maiden name and my father's name was William Godwin Brennan, Sr.
• [01:08:10] JOYCE HUNTER: What sort of work did your parents do?
• [01:08:14] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My father did construction work and he also worked as a domestic and my mother did domestic work as well. Then the domestic work, yeah and in the evening once we got a little bit older, we also helped my father at WPAG, which was in the Hudson building downtown Ann Arbor and it was just cleaning up, doing maintenance work in the evening.
• [01:08:50] JOYCE HUNTER: Great. What about your mother? Was she a homemaker? Did she also work outside the home?
• [01:08:54] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: She did domestic work outside the home and then of course, a little bit of domestic work outside the home? Yes.
• [01:09:03] JOYCE HUNTER: Just tell us anything else you want to share about your parents, your family right now.
• [01:09:12] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: As growing up, we basically we were at only eating meals at home. Again, we didn't have meals out and that was one of the things that I remember that we all ate as a family during the week as well as Sunday. Sunday was, of course a big day because we had a bigger meal on Sunday. In the summertime, we went up to Mackinac Island for vacation mostly with a camper. We stayed up there. We would go camp out for a week or so and then come back home and I remember that being a very enjoyable time. Sometimes the bathrooms weren't the best but nevertheless. It was still enjoyable time to get away with with our family. One of the things that I do remember is my father becoming a US citizen. He was born in the Bahamas and in 1984 he became a US citizen so up until that time, I do remember him having to fill out those little green cards each year. I think that he felt that he needed to do that he as he was getting older because he was born in 1,900. As he was getting older, I think he really wanted me and my brother to see where he was born. He was able to do that after he became a citizen. He took my brother first, my youngest brother William to the Bahamas and showing him when he went to Nassau and they also went to Freeport. Then he also took me and showed me. We met some of the people that he had not seen in many years. That was a good time for me and I'm sure it was a good time for him. I know it was a good time for him as well, especially being able to see I mean, he saw brother that he had not seen in 60 years.
• [01:11:44] JOYCE HUNTER: My goodness. That's quite a reunion?
• [01:11:48] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. He also saw a cousin that he had actually grown up with because his mother passed away at an early age and so his aunt helped his father raise the family. He saw cousins that he had not seen in a long time. It was really a very nice trip.
• [01:12:13] JOYCE HUNTER: I've traveled to the Bahamas and I absolutely loved the Bahamas. Also had an opportunity to speak to people and their perspective on America after living in the Bahamas was oftentimes different. Did you get that in your father at all?
• [01:12:28] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I didn't get it from my father so much as I got it when we went to visit and then when some of the cousins would come up here to visit us. Their take on relationships between White and Black was a little different and they felt that my father was I don't know how to put this, but they looked upon his relationship or his marriage to my mother as if she was marrying someone born. When the fact of it is is that she was Black and he was Black. Well, that's how I saw it but I guess they viewed it a little bit differently because she was American as opposed to Bahamian.
• [01:13:38] JOYCE HUNTER: I was going to share that when I visited and I was standing in a store and nobody said anything. I was telling them when I started to talk there, they said to me, you're American and that took me a little bit by surprise because we are about the same colors. But that's how they addressed me that it was American. Other memories you want to share in terms of what your parents have growing up that you want to include in this interview?
• [01:14:09] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, as I said that my father met my mother when he came into Florida. He was a good friend of my grandmother and my grandmother's husband, and that's how he met my mother. Then they eventually got together, married and then he came up here in the early 1940s and prepared a way for my mother and the four oldest siblings to come up here. We lived across the street from where my family home is right now. It was difficult as they told us that it was difficult for them to find a place for a husband and wife and four children to live and then I've also heard while going up that even after they built the house next door, they also took in borders. Now, the reason for that is, I'm not sure. I can only surmise that it could be to help with the payment or the mortgage but it also probably just to give back. If people were having a hard time finding place to live you know, we had people that live with us that were not related to us.
• [01:15:38] JOYCE HUNTER: Alice, your older siblings were born in Florida but you were born here in Ann Arbor?
• [01:15:45] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My youngest brother and I were born here. Yes.
• [01:15:48] JOYCE HUNTER: So you've been in Arbor most or all of your life?
• [01:15:52] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: All my life, yes.
• [01:15:54] JOYCE HUNTER: We'll come back to your family minute. Tell me about schooling. Schools you went to and how that experience was for you growing up in Ann Arbor?
• [01:16:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I went to school for elementary and at the time it was kindergarten through sixth grade and it's basically three blocks from our house. Then I went to Forsythe Junior High, which is a little bit further but then in high school I went to Pioneer High. It was always mixed predominantly white but mixed Black and white and other ethnicities as well.
• [01:16:44] JOYCE HUNTER: How was Mack Elementary that time, was that also mixed?
• [01:16:48] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [01:16:51] JOYCE HUNTER: How was your experience as a student a little Black girl attending those schools?
• [01:17:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I felt that I had a good experience. I went to school and I think I said this before. I floated through school, I went and I did what I was supposed to do. We left home, we were told at home that we're sending you to school to learn. We're not sending you to school to act up and none of that other stuff. Basically, that's what I did. I went to school, I did what I was supposed to do and that was it and I came home. I really didn't engage in a lot of any after-school activities, actually.
• [01:17:40] JOYCE HUNTER: You've followed the instructions as well?
• [01:17:42] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I did.
• [01:17:42] JOYCE HUNTER: [LAUGHTER] I'm going to go back to your parents for a minute, talk to me about the environment in Bethel AME Church.
• [01:17:54] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, what I can remember most is my father's involvement. I know that my mother was involved, but I was a lot younger. But as I got older, it was basically my father, he was a steward in the church, he was on the usher board, he was a class leader. Bethel was very important to him, it was important to both of my parents but he was really mostly the one that was involved in different parts of the church.
• [01:18:40] JOYCE HUNTER: I see you on Sundays on the usher board, so you are carrying on that tradition?
• [01:18:45] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yeah. Somewhat, yes.
• [01:18:47] JOYCE HUNTER: So talk about that a little bit.
• [01:18:50] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, I started pretty young with Mrs. Dennard in the junior usher board and I just stayed. The only time that I wasn't a part of that was when I was away at school at Michigan State. Then when I came back, I joined again. For a period of time, a friend of mine and I had a little youth choir and I think that we had that for probably, I don't know, maybe two or three years. That was a good time, it was a nice time. Church has always been a part of our growing up. It was expected for us to go to church on Sunday, go to Sunday school, and then go to church, so that's what we did.
• [01:19:57] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm sorry go ahead.
• [01:20:00] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: There happens to be a plaque that's outside of the main door, there's the pine tree and then there's a plaque and that tree was planted there by my dad's employer after my dad passed away. Then there's a plaque underneath the tree with his name on it.
• [01:20:26] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great. It'd be great if you could take a picture and we can include that in our digital collection because you're going to be sending photos. If you could do that, that would be great.
• [01:20:38] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Okay.
• [01:20:39] JOYCE HUNTER: We're going to move on to questions on the childhood and the youth. Were there any special days, events, or family traditions you remember from your childhood?
• [01:20:49] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well just the vacations in Mackinac, there was one cousin of my father's cousin that would come from Florida to Benton Harbor with the family that she watched their kids. We would go to Benton Harbor when she would come up and during the summer and bring her here to Ann Arbor for basically the weekend. A couple of days and then she would spend some time with us and then we certainly would take her back to the family in Benton Harbor. Then after my dad went back to Nassau for the first time after quite a few years after he got his citizenship there were other cousins that would come up and visit us and that was always a good time because then my dad could just be able to talk about people that he knew when he was there and just reminisce basically.
• [01:22:13] JOYCE HUNTER: Have you traveled there as an adult?
• [01:22:15] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I have, yes.
• [01:22:17] JOYCE HUNTER: How was that for you?
• [01:22:20] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: It was interesting. The first time, I was an adult when I went with my dad and so that time was definitely special. Then I've traveled since then and it's an interesting environment. It's a lot better, I enjoy it because you're not like a tourist because there's family members there and so you either stay with the family members. I've stayed with family members and so you see a different part of Nassau and then one time I was able to take my daughter there and that was a special time for us both.
• [01:23:15] JOYCE HUNTER: When you took your daughter, did you also stay with family?
• [01:23:20] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. I stayed with my cousin.
• [01:23:25] JOYCE HUNTER: When you talked earlier about people coming to visit, was it during holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving or just other times?
• [01:23:37] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: It was just other times. But for my cousin Kathleen, she would come because the family that she worked for would come to Benton Harbor during the summer I suspect for their vacation. Then she would come up to the house and then for the other cousins, my father had gone back to Nassau after he got his citizenship, they would just come up there whenever they were able to.
• [01:24:10] JOYCE HUNTER: Speaking of holidays, how were holidays celebrated in your family, traditional holidays and Christmas, those holidays?
• [01:24:30] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Well, we just did the normal stuff, we had Christmas presents and we had live dinners, great dinners on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. Sometimes the older siblings would come during Thanksgiving time and we would get together with them and sometimes they would get together with their in-laws or they would be in other places.
• [01:25:05] JOYCE HUNTER: Did your family create any of its own traditions and celebrations?
• [01:25:16] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Not really. Not really. It was a traditional Christmas time and with the presence and the food and traditional Thanksgiving and which is always a big meal so basically, that was it.
• [01:25:40] JOYCE HUNTER: In a lot of Black families Sunday dinner is a big deal.
• [01:25:44] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [01:25:44] JOYCE HUNTER: How was your Sunday dinners?
• [01:25:46] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Sunday was my was the biggest meal of the week. But like I said, every day we would have dinners together as a family. I don't think that's the case now, I don't so much anymore where people sit down during the week and actually have a dinner together. Their children, mother, the father whomever is in the hall, head of household for whatever reason. But I remember us always having dinner together. That was just a good time for all of us to sit around and eat and talk or we'd listen as little children, no interfering in adult conversation, but nevertheless, we could hear.
• [01:26:49] JOYCE HUNTER: When you think about Sunday dinner, do you remember the movie, Soul Food?
• [01:26:53] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [01:26:55] JOYCE HUNTER: What brings back? Think about that movie what comes back? What comes to mind?
• [01:27:06] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Just big family being around. There wasn't a lot of argument and disagreement at our family meals. We had dinner. There was conversation and that was that.
• [01:27:30] JOYCE HUNTER: I was brought back in mind just big Sunday dinners, so what I was really getting it. Lots of good food, right?
• [01:27:39] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes. Definitely.
• [01:27:43] JOYCE HUNTER: Did your family have any special sayings, or expressions during this time of your life?
• [01:27:50] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: My mother and father, they always seem to talk in riddles. I always have to figure that out. But as I said before, my dad would always tell us, don't take any wooden nickels. We care for what you do out in the street. In growing up, we always knew that whatever it seemed like whatever we did if we did something that we should not have done my parents would know by the time we got back home because people were always looking out for other people's children. Then especially in Bethel, don't go to Sunday school and act out and think that you're going to get away with anything because Mrs. Blake and some of the other older members, they were going to scold you and then they were going to let your parents know that they did that and so they knew they would be scolded again.
• [01:28:56] JOYCE HUNTER: You said Mrs. Blake? I thought, no, she's not going to wait just to tell the parents. She's got to take care of it right there on the spot.
• [01:29:06] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes, she's going to get you straight. She's going to tell you exactly what she did and they're going to be my parents are okay with that.
• [01:29:19] JOYCE HUNTER: Were there any changes in your family during your school years and your family life during your school years?
• [01:29:34] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: One of the things that sticks out for me is the death of my niece and that is because she was five years old. She came up here and she was going to live with us. She started school. She was in kindergarten. She had an aneurysm and died and that was pretty it was pretty shocking for the poor, for the whole family and definitely for her sister, who I talked about earlier, who was raised with us, Gertrude who was raised with us.
• [01:30:22] JOYCE HUNTER: Had to be very traumatic a five-year-old passing?
• [01:30:26] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes, it definitely was. Then after a while, my grandmother, my mother's mother, who lived in Florida needed to come up here. She came up here to live with us, was not very happy about it at all because she was quite independent. But she got to the place where it was not safe for her to stay at home by herself. They brought her up there to live with us. She stayed a few years or she was up here a few years before she passed away because I think it really took a lot out of her to have to come up here and even live with her daughter and son-in-law. But nevertheless, it was just hard on her. I remember one of the things about her, she dipped snuff and [LAUGHTER] that was pretty bad. But nevertheless it was an interesting, she was an interesting woman.
• [01:31:49] JOYCE HUNTER: She's leaving her surroundings. It's probably very hard for her.
• [01:31:54] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yes.
• [01:31:55] JOYCE HUNTER: Think about our routines and our space.
• [01:31:58] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Dropping your friends and people that know and you're leaving all of that and coming up here now. I'm sure it was very hard on that.
• [01:32:09] JOYCE HUNTER: When thinking back on your school years, what important social or historical events were taking place at that time and how did they personally affect you and your family?
• [01:32:25] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: During that time there was the assassination, seems like of JFK, and then there was the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior. It was just a hard time for everybody. With the killings of people, there's always been killings of people, but for Martin Luther King, that was hit hard because you felt that, well, here's this man trying to make things better, and then there's somebody out there that that took his life because he was a young man. Those were the two things that I bet that stood out.
• [01:33:16] JOYCE HUNTER: Very young he was when he died.
• [01:33:17] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Yeah, very young.
• [01:33:21] JOYCE HUNTER: So Alice, I'm going to give you an opportunity to share any additional things you want to with us. There's anything else you wanted to say or share with us at this point?
• [01:33:36] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I don't think I have anything else that I really wanted to share. I know that when we spoken for you ask about the naming of our area, Water Hill?
• [01:33:52] JOYCE HUNTER: Yes.
• [01:34:03] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I still think that we live in the West side so that the renaming of this area Water Hill. I don't know what that's about. I think that maybe it's just someone decided, okay, I want to name this area as something different than the Old West side. That's what they did and other people follow the law. It's not significant to move.
• [01:34:34] JOYCE HUNTER: That's interesting because some people feel very strongly about that and that's the reason I asked you about it. Everybody is different in how they look at things. Thank you for bringing that up and sharing it again.
• [01:34:44] JOYCE HUNTER: Tell me again where you live and where you lived in that area?
• [01:34:50] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: I still live on the West side. I live right next door to our family home.
• [01:34:59] JOYCE HUNTER: What street is that? Do you want to give us the address or a street?
• [01:35:01] ALICE BRENNAN-KEY: Gott street.
• [01:35:02] JOYCE HUNTER: Great. We're going to wrap up the interview and thank you again for coming back to share additional information