By SKYLER TULCHIN Special to the Daily Press
(Editor’s note: This is the second column featuring senior citizen women interviewed by high school students as part of their March Women’s History Month project for the Santa Monica Commission on the Status of Women. The first column ran on March 3, page 5.) As a counter girl at a ritzy French bakery on Montana Avenue, I often find myself face-to-face with moody, sometimes angry, and sometimes fierce elderly women. Of course, there are customers who are gentle, and remember that I, too, am a human being, with only two hands and a weakness with numbers. But overall, my experience with elderly women had been negative — until I met Mrs. Dorothy Ehrhart- Morrison.
Before meeting Ehrhart-Morrison, I had felt that older women were all rude, impatient and strict. I’m what some would describe as a “ger-gontophobic,” a person who fears the elderly. I knew that I had developed a debilitating fear of the elderly, so when I was asked to participate in the Santa Monica Women’s Commission’s “We’re All Ears” project, I agreed shakily.
I arrived at the Rose Café at 11:45 a.m., even though my lunch with Ehrhart-Morrison was scheduled for noon. I wanted no reason for her to reprimand me for tardiness. At exactly noon, a tap on my shoulder shot the nerves straight down my spine, but when I turned around I was surprisingly relieved. Ehrhart-Morrison’s voice was soft and delicate.
“Excuse me, are you Skyler?” she asked. I smiled at her, and I actually received a smile back.
Ehrhart-Morrison is beautiful and petite, with caramel skin and a beret that sat on top of her thick white hair.
“It’s so good to meet you,” she told me. As we found our table and began the interview, all of my initial fears were released, and I began to feel more comfortable around Ehrhart-Morrison.
We spent two hours discussing her childhood in Bullmont, Tex., during the painful segregation of the South in the 1930s, her life in California, her passion for teaching, her spirituality, her family, prejudice, her memories and her views on life.
Ehrhart-Morrison went to an all-black school and remembers having to drink from colored water fountains and use colored bathrooms. She remembers that when she saw a sign over a water fountain that said “colored,” she wondered why the water did not release from the faucet in a rainbow of colors. Though she was blind to the racism at first, later in life she became involved in many Civil Rights organizations.
When Ehrhart-Morrison was a young girl, her parents divorced and established new families. Her father moved to California and became the first black man to buy a house on a hill that overlooked the Pacific Ocean in El Cerrito. Ehrhart- Morrison spent her summers in that house and fell in love with the ocean and the liberal lifestyle of California.
After she received a B.A. in English at Texas Southern University, Ehrhart- Morrison moved back to California and earned an M.A. in education at UCLA. She began teaching at Santa Monica High School, the school I am currently attending. She later became a member of the Board of Trustees at Santa Monica College.
Ehrhart-Morrison was brought up Catholic, but does not feel a strong need to belong to any set religion. She is spiritually connected with ideals of many religions, including Judaism and Buddhism. She lives by philosophies that guide her through life. Her favorites are “ All things work out in the end” and “Do no harm.”
I respect Ehrhart- Morrison because she has been through so many heart-breaking events, but never let her heart break. She’s lost both of her parents and the step-parents that she acquired through second marriages. She has endured a divorce herself, but stood strong and reminded herself, “All things work out.”
I learned much from Ehrhart-Morrison, not only about her life but also about myself. I know now that I need to limit the judgments I make about others, because being the recipient of a judgment is the most painful experience. Ehrhart-Morrison taught me how to make lemonade out of lemons that life hands me, whether it may be a sour customer or the bitter loss of a family member. Ehrhart-Morrison changed all my misconceptions of the elderly women of Santa Monica, and I thank her for that and for the opportunity to hear her story. (Skyler Tulchin, a senior at Santa Monica High School, participated in the Santa Monica Commission on the Status of Women’s “We’re All Ears” project, created by the commission’s young leader, Julia Simon. Tulchin interviewed Ehrhart-Morrison and painted an original oil painting, which will be exhibited throughout Santa Monica to celebrate Women’s History Month. The painting, along with art exhibits by four other senior high school girls who interviewed senior women, will be displayed until March 20 at Santa Monica Place.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 11, 2005. Read the original PDF.