Viewing page 13 of 21

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:28:17]
{SPEAKER name="Simon Carmel"}
Lilly for example.

[00:28:22]
Introduce your name and where your from. So forth and explain about your school life.

[00:28:29]
{SPEAKER name="Lilly Burke/John Ennis (interpreter)"}
I'm Lilly Burke, live in Greenbelt, Maryland, work for the veterans administration. I grew up in New York City.

[00:28:39]
I went to an oral school. Not a day school it was a residential school. A few years I was there, I slept there.

[00:28:48]
But maybe after a couple years I wanted to be a day student. I wanted to go home back and forth everyday to school.

[00:28:56]
The first year I remember when I was, came to school for the first time, I was really scared to sleep there and to be separated from home like the other ones have said, I had these awful feelings and tremendous struggle.

[00:29:08]
My friends were so good to me, kept me company, taught me signs. I knew German sign language, I did not know English Sign Language.

[00:29:18]
So as time went on the classes and all, actually it was kind of strange at the time, I had, you know the boys and girls were separated.

[00:29:27]
The boys went to the New York school and the girls went to where my school was. It was called Lexington School, it was an oral school.

[00:29:38]
And growing up was very awkward when I'd meet a boy. I'd get all excited to see the boys and going to the parties, the proms, things like that it was always very exciting but it felt very awkward.

[00:29:51]
How to dress right and how to talk with the boys, it was a terrible feeling.

[00:29:55]
Gradually they begin to combine the boys and girls in the same school, at that time it was separated because for vocational training reasons.

[00:30:05]
Girls had better training, it's kind of silly nowadays but.

[00:30:15]
{SPEAKER name="Simon Carmel"}
Anything else you'd like to share about your experiences