“The potential in Gary was and still is tremendous.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for Where Is Everyone Running Away To? Everything was changing so fast. It was changing too fast. Everybody can adjust to change, but it just seemed like it happened overnight. But the physical town changed. And then, when […]
“So my dad said, ‘Well, you know what, I don’t have to live here.’” Edited by Nick Ladeau. Transcript for Settling in Gary My dad left, he ran away from his father, at the age of thirteen. He left Mexico and worked on a tramp steamer. A tramp steamer was a boat, I think, that […]
“I was the only Caucasian in the whole class.” Edited by Nick Ladeau. Transcript for School Days I went to Froebel School, kindergarten, in about 1948. My kindergarten class was basically all white. I had Mrs. Reising for a kindergarten teacher. And I remember that everybody had to have a rug. And at ten o’clock […]
“It was really a grim reaper for jobs…sweeping away thousands at one time.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for Eliminated by Technology First time I went in the steel mill was 1969. I came home from college to work in Christmas break. I worked at Republic Steel where my dad was. It […]
“We don’t ever want the kids to be able to say we weren’t there.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for We Don’t Make Excuses I kind of feel like today the school is not the community resource that it used to be when I was a child. It’s more like, now, we […]
“Anybody who was not well-connected, you go to the Patch.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for The Patch My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was a twin. And they left Poland and they didn’t speak English. They had a note on their—pinned to their thing: Chicago. And so, they, you know, landed in […]
“I always want to make my city proud.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for Gary Made Me I always like to say that Gary made me. Like, there’s a phrase—I don’t know if people have ever heard this phrase, but, ‘If you’re from Gary, you can live anywhere.’ So, and I truly, […]
“It was really something, it was kind of like the movies!” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for Fascinated by the Steelmills When I was a kid, we heard the mills, we could see the sky light up because it was a different process then. It was a lot of open flames and […]
“The same very people who left… need to step up and help fix the issues.” Produced and edited by Rebecca Werner and Brandi Casada. Transcript for Outside In Instead of Inside Out I truly believe the only way Gary will ever be successful again is if it happens from the outside in instead of the […]