Joan is my mother. I have so many stories about her kicking ass, but this one, showed how strong she was early on. When I was 9, my mother divorced my father in the deep south for abuse. This was 1970, four years before women could have a credit in their name. The house she rented with her three children, was owned by the bank and they didn’t want to rent to a divorced woman. Unable to find a renter, they acquiesced. She left the house in better condition that when she moved in and they gave her a credit card in 1973. Banks weren’t required to give women credit until the following year. Directly after the divorce, she needed to acquire a 4-year degree in 2 years. She asked Columbus Tech what program started first and went year around. Electronic Technician was the answer. They told her no woman had ever completed the course, and she should wait for something more suited to her. She thumbed her nose and finished #1 in her class. Her first job was working a military contract. She went to work on Eglin Airforce Base in Florida after gaining a top security clearance. She has never spoken about what she did there.
Fast forward and my mother moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work for Intel. Several years later, she became the first female technical supervisor. Years later, her supervisor told her she would never be a regional manager, the job she had applied for, because they didn’t want to put up with wives’ complaints over her meeting one on one with their husbands. Refusing to take no for an answer, she applied again. Three year later, she became the first female in the position. Her region included Puerto Rico, White Sands, and Fort Huachuca. To this day she doesn’t speak about those military contracts either. After she retired in 2000, at age 55, she wanted to get away from the world. Using her savings and Intel stock, she purchased 99.06 acres in the Arizona high desert. She does not allow it to be called 100 acres.
The property she acquired is exactly how I told the story in RABID. It had a bathroom, battery room, and six garage doors. She separated one part of the garage from the rest of the home for a vehicle, added a sink, laundry hookup, and a wind generator for solar backup. The inside and out were beautiful. The property itself is breathtaking, and the pictures below are some of my favorites. There is an entire hillside with peach crystals, and I discovered my love for rock hunting. I found an anthill garnet and I’m on the lookout for more.
The images of her garage/home show her vehicles with the hoods open because it deters mice and rats from eating the wiring. The largest door is where here living room is. Behind the house is what’s left of the windmill. When it broke, she decided not to replace it. Each picture holds significance for RABID. The hills Joan climbs are in one of the pics too. They are sometimes more than hills but not quite mountains. The running wash is all her land and now mine. The image of the wash is captured from her backyard.
I’ve said this before and will repeat it throughout my life. I am proud to be my mother’s daughter.
