Steve and Maygene Daniels

Interview with Steve and Maygene Daniels
Interview Date: March 1, 2014
Interviewer: Stephanie Deutsch
Transcriber: Betsy Barnett
Editor: Elizabeth Lewis

photo by Elizabeth Dranitzke

Steve and Maygene Daniels, along with their daughter Leah, received a joint Community Achievement Award from the Capitol Hill Community Foundation in 2014. Two separate interviews were done, this one with Steve and Maygene, and a second with Leah.
TAPE 1/SIDE 1
DEUTSCH: This is Stephanie Deutsch with Maygene and Steve Daniels. March 1st, 2014. Maygene, will you just say hello or testing or something.
M. DANIELS: Great. Well, testing. This is Maygene.
DEUTSCH: Excellent. Steve?
S. DANIELS: Yes, I’m here as well.
DEUTSCH: Okay, wonderful. Well, why don’t we start with you, Maygene, and why don’t you tell me about where you grew up and what brought you to Washington.
M. DANIELS: I’d be happy to. I grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, which is a northern suburb of Chicago. My family has very deep roots in Chicago, which is always fun to think about. It was a very great childhood with the lake [Lake Michigan] very close by. And especially wonderful public schools. I remember my dad encouraging us to take “thinking subjects.” So we had a great education.
DEUTSCH: What did he mean by “thinking subjects”?
M. DANIELS: Math. [Both laugh]
DEUTSCH: I thought he meant history and literature.
M. DANIELS: Oh, well, math, preferably. Physics. [Laughter]
DEUTSCH: So, you went to public high school?
M. DANIELS: Yes. New Trier, a well known public high school.
DEUTSCH: Can you spell that?
M. DANIELS: It’s N-E-W …Second new word T-R-I-E-R.
DEUTSCH:  Yes.  I’ve heard of that I think.
M. DANIELS: Yes. So, one of the great things of living here is that one of my friends from high school, [Dr.] Debbie Edge, lives across the street. This is fabulous.
DEUTSCH: Oh, my goodness.  And, so, where’d you go to college?
M. DANIELS: I went to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
DEUTSCH: Oh, I’ve heard of that. [Maygene laughs.] I interviewed Leah [Daniels, their daughter] yesterday, or a few days ago.
M. DANIELS: Oh, yes, right. Yes, great.
DEUTSCH: And, so, that was a very small place.
M. DANIELS: It was a small, very intense intellectual environment. It was a great place to go. I majored in Art History.
DEUTSCH: What got you interested in art?
M. DANIELS: I just loved it. I think that there was a wonderful Art History department at Carleton.
DEUTSCH: And, of course, in Chicago there are great museums.
M. DANIELS: Yes, yes. Well, my mom was very artistic and I grew up taking the “L” [elevated train] from our house in Wilmette downtown and going to the Art Institute. So, there was always art and it was always valued. There was also always music, always music in our house.
DEUTSCH: Did you major in any particular area of art?
M. DANIELS: Well, at the college level, it was European art, I suppose, American art. Art History, in general, though, is a broad subject, and I think that’s why I loved it so much. You know, you look at the paintings and you talk about the painter, but then you have to also think about: Who commissioned it? Why was it commissioned? Where did it hang? What did it mean? Did those people really believe that? What was it trying to communicate? So that was always very rewarding on multiple levels.
DEUTSCH: And, so, after college?
M. DANIELS: After college, I went straight to graduate school in Art History. That was, in retrospect, the era when people did just go straight from college to graduate school.
DEUTSCH: Where was this? Where were you?
M. DANIELS: This was at Yale.
DEUTSCH: So, how many years at Yale?
M. DANIELS: I spent two years at Yale. So, the story …
DEUTSCH: That’s where you met?
M. DANIELS: That’s where we met.  And, in fact … Shall I just keep talking? We met because we had a mutual friend. I got a summer job at the National Archives, not because I knew what I was doing, but because it was just good luck and it paid, to an impoverished graduate student, royally. [Laughs] And our mutual friend sort of thought we might like each other. And, so, he set us up. And Steve explained the Washington grid system. “There’s East Capitol Street, there’s the Mall …
DEUTSCH: Isn’t that clever? [Laughter]
M. DANIELS:  Right, exactly. So, I spent the summer after my first year in graduate school at the National Archives and just realized it was a better fit for me with this great mixture. There’s a huge intellectual component and it’s all about history. It’s very challenging, it’s fun. But it’s also very, very practical, and that suited my personality. So I went back to graduate school. At the time, to work at the National Archives, you had to have history credits, which I didn’t have. [Laughs] So I worked double hard my second year in graduate school to get the absolute minimum number of qualifying points to get a professional archival job in the government.
DEUTSCH: So, you changed your focus.
M. DANIELS: I was still in the Art History department, so I got a master’s degree in Art History. That had to happen. So, I just sort of added on a whole bunch of other …
DEUTSCH:  All the stuff you needed.
M. DANIELS: … other credit classes to …
DEUTSCH: With the goal of coming to work at the Archives.
M. DANIELS: Exactly.
DEUTSCH: And is that what happened?
M. DANIELS: And that’s what happened. We got married, and I came and worked at the National Archives.
DEUTSCH: Okay, Steve. Let’s talk about you a little bit and bring you up to the same point.
S. DANIELS: All right.
DEUTSCH: I know you’re from LA [Los Angeles].
S. DANIELS: Yes. Actually, I was born in Boston. My whole family lived in Boston for many years, but in the early 50s, my parents decided to move across the country. My father was an aerospace engineer and, at the time, there were lots more opportunities for doing that sort of thing in Los Angeles than there were in Boston. So, when I was five, they packed up my sister and me. We drove across the country and then I grew up in Los Angeles and stayed there through high school.
DEUTSCH: Do you remember that drive across the country?
S. DANIELS: I have a few vague memories of it.
DEUTSCH: It must have taken a week. I mean, how long did it take?
S. DANIELS: It did take a week. The roads were not like they are today. I remember the first day, we got all the way from Boston to Trenton, New Jersey. [Maygene laughs] And the next day to Wheeling, West Virginia.
M. DANIELS: And you still remember. I mean, my goodness, Steve.
S. DANIELS: Well, I remember Wheeling, West Virginia, because my father got sick in the restaurant there.
M. DANIELS: Oh, no. [Both Daniels laugh]
DEUTSCH: And how old was your sister?
S. DANIELS: My sister is two and a half years younger than I am.
DEUTSCH: Oh, my gosh. So, your parents were doing this with a five year old and a three year old. No wonder he got sick. [All laugh] Okay. So, where did you live? I mean, LA is such a huge …
S. DANIELS: We lived for a year in Westchester, which is right near Los Angeles International Airport. And then my parents bought a lot in Pacific Palisades, sort of on the border between Pacific Palisades and Brentwood. They had a house built on it and we moved there. They lived there until about 1975.
DEUTSCH: So, it was sort of a suburban lifestyle.
S. DANIELS: It certainly was. I think …
M. DANIELS: I’m not sure I’d say that because there were horses on your street.
S. DANIELS: There were horses.
M. DANIELS: It was a canyon.
S. DANIELS: It’s almost ex-urban.
M. DANIELS: Yes. And they had hummingbirds in their yard. It was quite wonderful.
DEUTSCH: Which high school did you go to?
S. DANIELS: I went to Palisades High School, which was a public high school in Los Angeles.
DEUTSCH: And, so, what did you do in high school? Anything in particular?
S. DANIELS: In high school, I was the captain of the debate team.
DEUTSCH: That doesn’t surprise me.  And I’m guessing you were a pretty serious student.
S. DANIELS: I was probably a more serious student than was good for me. [Maygene laughs]
DEUTSCH: You didn’t know you were going to grow up to be a shopkeeper! [Steve and Maygene laugh]
S. DANIELS: That’s correct.
DEUTSCH: So, where’d you go to college?
S. DANIELS: I went to Yale University.
DEUTSCH: Yale. And how did that happen? Had your father gone to Yale?
S. DANIELS: Both my parents had gone to Ivy League colleges, and I think, growing up, it was just expected that I would go to an Ivy League college. And I think I was very lucky, not only to get in but to go to a very fine school where I met a lot of wonderful people, many of whom are still my friends, and studied interesting subjects with interesting professors.
DEUTSCH: What did you major in?
S. DANIELS: I majored in history. [Maygene laughs] Primarily American and Latin American history.
M. DANIELS: So, before we leave our childhoods, we should mention for both Steve and me, that our families were campers and that’s what we, both of us, did with our summer vacations. In my case, the whole family was packed into a green station wagon with fins, with a pop-up trailer dragging behind, my grandmother keeping peace among me and my sisters.
DEUTSCH: Your grandmother came on the camping trip.
M. DANIELS: Yes, she did, and my parents. And we went all over the country and twice to Alaska. It was quite …
DEUTSCH: Wow!
M. DANIELS: Yes. That was really a big deal.
DEUTSCH: With tents?
M. DANIELS: Yes. Well, the pop-up trailer and then, for the excess kids and father, pup tents.
DEUTSCH: The pop-up trailer?
M. DANIELS: Yes, you pull it apart, and then there’s a tent on top of a trailer bed.
DEUTSCH: Believe it or not, my family camped all over too.
M. DANIELS: Did you? Did you really, Stephanie?
DEUTSCH: Yes. [Laughs] So, both families went camping, that was something you had in common.
M. DANIELS: Yes, it did. And we camped when we were first married. So that was something that brought us together.
DEUTSCH: Okay, Steve, I think we’ve got you in college at Yale.
S. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: Did you go straight to law school?
S. DANIELS: I did.
DEUTSCH: Any special thing that you did in college? You majored in History. Was there any kind of special thesis or project that you did?
S. DANIELS: I mostly focused on Latin American history, because in the big university that was a nice small corner with the same few professors and students getting together in many classes. I spent a summer in Mexico after junior year. Chris Herman, who lives right over here on North Carolina Avenue, and I went to Cuernavaca together. And we studied at a Spanish language school and got to know enough Spanish that we could both actually read the literature that we needed to be reading to do our studies.
Also I had joined ROTC [Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] in college, and ROTC had as one of its rules that, if you went straight to graduate school, you could finish your program of studies and get your degree before actually serving in the army. So I went directly to law school and actually got through a couple of years of law school before the army modified the program and said that it had so many Second Lieutenants that, if you’d like to just serve on active duty for three months instead of two years, they would accommodate you. So, I did that. I went to Signal Officer basic course for a semester instead of going to law school and finished law school a semester late.
DEUTSCH: And what was that—Signal Officer? What is that?
S. DANIELS: Basic course. In Fort Gordon, Georgia.
DEUTSCH: How was that?
S. DANIELS: That was tolerable. [Laughs] I guess I learned a little bit how radios worked, and telephones, mostly to the point of understanding how you could set up these things …
DEUTSCH: Oh, I’m sure that information is all completely irrelevant now.
S. DANIELS: … to make them work in a military environment. Yes, it certainly is.
DEUTSCH: Okay. So, you go back to law school.
S. DANIELS: Yes. And when I went back to law school, my friend Bob Mann, who’d been an ROTC cadet with me, was there, and he had met Maygene. Introduced the two of us. So everything worked out great.
DEUTSCH: And.
S. DANIELS: After the first year in law school, I had had a summer job in Washington. That was my first time in Washington. I worked in the legislative office for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and I lived with three other fellows in a house at 619 G Street, SE. So …
DEUTSCH: Oh, my gosh.
S. DANIELS: … [it was] my introduction to Capitol Hill, as well. And [I] had just a wonderful time both at work and at the house and decided this was where I wanted to be when I finished law school. That summer also made me such an expert on Washington I could explain the street system to Maygene. [All laugh]
DEUTSCH: That’s impressive. So, you came to DC, and what were you doing?
S. DANIELS: Well, the second summer that I was here, when we were both here, I worked in the legislative office of the Office of Management and Budget. Then I finished law school mid-year, went back to California, studied for the bar exam, took the bar exam. And, while I was studying, I was thinking, “Well, I want to come back to Washington and I’d like to work in another legislative office. So, how could I do that?” And I wrote a letter and a resume, which I sent to about 75 congressmen who looked to me like they had voting records I could be comfortable with. I sent these letters off. And, lo and behold, about three days later, I got a call from one of the congressmen.
DEUTSCH: Really?
S. DANIELS: Bob McClory from Illinois, who also lived on Capitol Hill. And he said to me, “My legislative assistant just walked in and told me he’s leaving. How soon can you start?” [Maygene laughs]
DEUTSCH: Oh, my gosh.
S. DANIELS: I just didn’t know what to make of this. At first, I thought, “Well, if I get one call in three days, I’m going to be in enormous demand!” [Maygene laughs]
DEUTSCH: How many am I going to get?
S. DANIELS: “Should I accept this offer? I don’t even know the man.” But, of course, that was the only offer I got. So, as soon as I finished the bar exam, I got in my car, drove back across the country, and went in to see him. He turned out to be a very nice and decent man. So it all worked out well, working for him.
DEUTSCH: So, how long did you do that? So, by this time you’re married?
S. DANIELS: We got married in June of 1972, which was just after I started working for Congressman McClory.
DEUTSCH: Okay. And did you move to the Hill at that point?
S. DANIELS: We did. I was living here. Maygene was still finishing her last semester in graduate school. And one weekend when she was here, we looked at apartments on Capitol Hill that were advertised in the newspaper. We came across one apartment we really liked. It turned out there were several couples who were interested in this apartment.
M. DANIELS: 909 East Capitol Street.
DEUTSCH: Oh, I think I’m remembering this.
S. DANIELS:  The young man who owned the building and was showing it decided that we were the best possible tenants for him. So he allowed us to rent from him, and that turned out to be Steve Cymrot, who’s been our friend for a long, long time now. [Maygene laughs]
M. DANIELS: And how much did we pay for that rent? It was like $234 a month or something.
S. DANIELS: 235.
M. DANIELS: 235. [Laughs]
DEUTSCH: My first apartment was $100 a month.
M. DANIELS: Oh, my gosh! Well …
DEUTSCH: I had to breathe really deeply to figure out whether or not I could afford it.
M. DANIELS: Exactly, exactly. [Laughs]
DEUTSCH: Okay. So, you’re young. You’re working on Capitol Hill. What first got you involved in the community? Probably school, I’m guessing. Nursery school is often the hook.
S. DANIELS: Yes.
M. DANIELS: Yes. Children.
S. DANIELS: Well, we certainly liked the community …
M. DANIELS: Right from the beginning.
S. DANIELS: And, after we’d lived here a year, Steve and Nicky [Cymrot] said to us, you know, you should think about buying a house. So we did buy a house in 1973. It was in the unit block of Fifth Street SE [address was 18 Fifth Street SE]. And I think we just settled in.
DEUTSCH: Just down there.
S. DANIELS: Yes, it is.
M. DANIELS: Yes, just right down there. I still remember when my parents, who were very benign and supportive parents, first came to visit us—the expression on their faces! [Steve and Maygene both laugh] It was definitely a fixer-upper.
S. DANIELS: Yes. Her father looked around and said, “Looks like it needs a lot of work!”
M. DANIELS: [Laughs] Which it did.
S. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: Was fixing up houses part of what you enjoyed?
S. DANIELS: Yes. We did a lot of the work ourselves.
M. DANIELS: Yes, right.
S. DANIELS: We would come home from the paying jobs, change clothes, grab a bite of food, and start plastering or painting.
DEUTSCH: How did you know how to plaster and paint?
M. DANIELS: Steve took a class at Sears. [Steve and Maygene laugh] Isn’t that true?
S. DANIELS: It is.
M. DANIELS: There is a home handyman book.
DEUTSCH: That sounds nerdy but …
M. DANIELS: Got to do it somehow.
DEUTSCH: You’ve got to figure out how to do it somehow.
S. DANIELS: Yes. Well, I ended up spending so much time at Frager’s Hardware that George Frager, who was still running the store, got to be a good friend.
DEUTSCH: But I know you didn’t stay that long in that Fifth Street house because you moved over to …
M. DANIELS: Massachusetts [Avenue].
S. DANIELS: Well, after we’d been in the Fifth Street [house] for a few years, our son Eddie arrived, and the house which we had thought was perfectly big enough for the two of us for the rest of our lives, suddenly became very, very small. [Maygene laughs]
M. DANIELS: He was a very colicky baby and we actually weren’t looking to buy another house, but it was like … It was a spring day, a chill spring day, and we looked in the newspaper and there was this house on Capitol Hill. You know the Capitol Hill sport of walking around to open houses and checking them out? And this one had, I think, 55 windows, was it? And we sort of thought, “Well, if there are 55 windows, it’s worth walking over there.” And it was a spring day and Eddie wasn’t screaming while we walked. Then we walked into the house and the sun was streaming through the window and they were playing classical music and they were baking bread …
DEUTSCH: A pretty potent combination.
M. DANIELS: We were, like, done. We were done. So, even though we didn’t think we needed [a new] house or could afford one, we did eventually buy that house. [Laughs]
DEUTSCH: And this is the house on Massachusetts Avenue?
S. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: Well, I know Leah told me about growing up, spending her whole childhood in the same house.
M. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: So, when did you get involved … What came first, the [Capitol Hill Community] Foundation or …
M. DANIELS: I think Capitol East Children’s Center. You were on the board there.
S. DANIELS: Yes. I was on the board of Capitol East Children’s Center, which was located in Giddings School …
M. DANIELS: Before Results the Gym.
DEUTSCH: Now Results.
S. DANIELS: … where Results the Gym is now. [Steve and Maygene laugh] And the second year I was on the board, I was even the president of the board. So, that was really our first community activity.
DEUTSCH: What came after that?
M. DANIELS: We had the—Oh, no, you go ahead. I mean I was going to say that the involvement really circled around the school. And once I was Girl Scout cookie chairman. [they laugh] But it all was around children, as you know.
END OF TAPE 1/SIDE 1
TAPE 1/SIDE 2
S. DANIELS: Yes. And we started getting involved probably first as volunteers reading to children, being room parents, and eventually both of us were on the board of Capitol Hill Day School at different times.
DEUTSCH: What were the main issues you remember dealing with when you were on the board?
S. DANIELS: I was on the board in the late 80s and, at the time, there was a lot of doubt as to whether the school had sufficient financial grounding to really continue on in a permanent way. And we had lots of discussions about what is the best way to raise money, how can we keep the school affordable for parents and at the same time pay teachers the salaries they deserve.
DEUTSCH: That’s probably an issue that’s never changed.
M. DANIELS: Forever …
S. DANIELS: Right.
M. DANIELS: But it was also a time between when our children started at the school, which was … Let’s see, Eddie started like in ’83, probably, something like that.
S. DANIELS: Yes.
M. DANIELS: And, then, as the school went forward and then up to the present, there was always this question about what was the value of the school? What was the point? What was the character of it? And always the trade-off that Steve mentions between the cost of tuition and the retaining of the superb faculty and staff that there was. And there was really, I think, a real change over that time because when we started out at the school, I remember, I think kindergarten was, what, $3,500 a year? And when we left it was really quite … multiples.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
M. DANIELS: So, there was a real change in the character of the school and I always felt, I would say, very grateful because we sort of grew and changed with the school and the values went with it. For one thing, there seems to be no better purpose for using your financial wherewithal than to have superb education for the kids. And, in the long run, I think it was a bargain, no matter how expensive it ended up being. It was also an era, though … I remember when Eddie was ready for kindergarten. He had sort of outgrown Capitol East Children’s Center, and we actually were quite aware with both of the houses that we lived in on the Hill that they were in the best available school districts. One with the Brent school district and then Peabody. I remember calling Peabody and saying, you know, “I’m interested in seeing the class,” and there was this really crabby person at the end of the phone who basically said, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to talk to you. We can’t tell you anything.” You know, it was very unwelcoming and I, of course, burst into tears. [Laughs] It was an era when the public schools really were particularly …
DEUTSCH:  Unwelcoming.
M. DANIELS: … unwelcoming. I think that kids could get good educations, but parents had to sort of work full time to make that happen. So.
DEUTSCH: Well, I always say about Capitol Hill Day School that you wish it was your local public school, because it has so many of the attributes of good public schools.
M. DANIELS: Exactly, exactly.
DEUTSCH: The fact that you’re walking to school, the fact that your kids are friends with their neighbors, and …
M. DANIELS: Right, exactly.  One of the things that we always loved about the Hill and the Day School was that you always were meeting people who weren’t the same as you were. It was great.
S. DANIELS: But at the same time that they differed, by going to that school, they sort of became members of your family.
DEUTSCH: So both kids went all the way through the Day School.
M. DANIELS: They did. Eddie started in kindergarten, not pre-k[indergarten], but I think it counts. [Steve laughs]
DEUTSCH: Yeah. And then on to Georgetown Day?
M. DANIELS: And on to Georgetown Day. And in both cases, you know, there was this sort of concern as they got into the older grades [at Capitol Hill Day School] about whether it was time to move on to a larger school or something. But I have to say that I think that the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades are  where the school really shines. And our children, anyway, ended up totally rooted in the Capitol Hill community and in that school. And they loved Georgetown Day and certainly got a superb education. But, at the same time, their loyalty was always to Capitol Hill Day School.
DEUTSCH: Well, Leah said emphatically that her best friends are her friends from Capitol Hill Day School.
M. DANIELS: Isn’t that astounding? It’s extraordinary. So, you know, the children lead the parents is kind of what happens. So, when I look at our involvement in the community, it was following our kids.
DEUTSCH: So, when did the Foundation enter your life, Steve?
S. DANIELS: 1999, I think.
M. DANIELS: [Laughs] He can say the day.
DEUTSCH: I know you know Nicky and …
S. DANIELS: I started with the Foundation.
DEUTSCH: I do know Nicky and Steve, and I know how good Nicky in particular is at seeing that someone might be good at something and then [Steve and Maygene laugh] making it irresistible for them to then do it.
S. DANIELS: Well, they asked me if I would join the board of the Foundation and become the treasurer. And I didn’t really know anything about being a treasurer, but I thought, “What a privilege to be part of the Foundation because it does so many wonderful things for so many people in the community.” So I agreed to do it and, my gosh, here we are 15 years later and I’m still the treasurer.
DEUTSCH: How many checks do you think you’ve written in all those years? [Both Daniels laugh]
S. DANIELS: I haven’t counted the number of checks, but it’s been a lot of checks. Yes, it has. Well into the thousands.
DEUTSCH: Any particular high points that you remember? I mean, obviously, the Foundation has grown tremendously in that time.
S. DANIELS: I think the Foundation just started out as being a small group of neighbors, most of whom were involved in the business community. But it’s grown to the point of encompassing the whole community. And instead of just a group giving out a few checks for a few dollars every year, it has become the organization that people turn to in emergencies to make the community keep on ticking. Both with regard to the Eastern Market fire and the Frager’s Hardware fire, the Foundation has been there to organize responses, accumulate enough money that we can support the merchants and their employees whose livelihoods are endangered because of the disasters, and been very successful at it.
DEUTSCH: It has been quite remarkable, hasn’t it?
S. DANIELS: It’s astonishing. When I get together with people from other communities—other parts of the city, maybe talk to relatives who live in other parts of the country—and tell them about this foundation put together by neighborhood people, all volunteer, not charging anything for administrative fees, giving out at this point, even apart from disasters like the Frager’s fire, $300,000 or $400,000 a year that’s all been collected from the community, people are just astonished.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
S. DANIELS: It is a remarkable organization and just speaks so well to the remarkable Capitol Hill community. Nowhere else would you come up with a group like this.
DEUTSCH:  Yeah. There are a lot of community foundations. But they’re not like ours.
S. DANIELS: Not at all.
DEUTSCH:  They don’t—you know, they have administrative fees, costs, and lots of them have endowments of some kind. I mean they’re not like us, where you have to raise the money.
S. DANIELS: Well, you and I spend just untold numbers of hours every year making it work. And it’s a pleasure.
DEUTSCH: It is. Tell me about the Hill Center, Maygene.
M. DANIELS: Well, my involvement with the Hill Center, again, steps back to Nicky Cymrot’s extraordinary persuasive power. But it’s a great historical building and part of the vision was always to use the Hill Center as a way to open the community—people of all ages, really, and all parts of the city—into this extraordinary rich history. And it was amazing to me that, the more you studied the history of the Old Naval Hospital, the more things came forward. And there’s a whole community of people who have just amazing interest in the history and knowledge of it. So there were these great “aha” moments when I discovered—using research sources that weren’t hidden in any way, but you just have to sort of look at them with a particular question in mind—that George Washington himself proposed placing a Naval Hospital on Capitol Hill. That was like this amazing moment.
DEUTSCH: Really?
M. DANIELS: Yes. Isn’t that astounding? It was going to be over where RFK [Robert F. Kennedy] Stadium is. And [designer of the Capitol, British architect Benjamin Henry] Latrobe actually proposed a design for a naval and marine hospital, which was going to be where Garfield Park is.
Again, who knew? Who knew? And it’s almost as if the plans for the hospital diminished in size rather than grew bigger over time. Because by the time we finally got our own—the hospital building that’s there now [on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, between Ninth and Tenth Streets], the only naval hospital built during the Civil War and the predecessor to Bethesda Naval Hospital, it’s a very important building—it was considerably smaller in scope than was originally planned. But this is a great story, and it opens so many issues relating to what our community was like.
And I think one of the things really that binds this community together is a sense of the really rich history. So, even realizing that for long periods of time, for decades, there was no Pennsylvania Avenue bridge. There was a ferry and Pennsylvania Avenue wasn’t paved. Just these simple things, but, you know, sort of a …
DEUTSCH: When was it paved?
M. DANIELS: Oh, I don’t know when it was paved.
DEUTSCH: Late 19th century?
M. DANIELS: Or even early 20th century. I’ll have to look that one up, Stephanie. [Laughs] But when the Naval Hospital was built, Pennsylvania Avenue was an unpaved track, and it was for that reason that the hospital faces south, the other direction. You know, these are ways of opening to people the sense of time, the sense of change, and really the richness of history. Learning that John Wilkes Booth went galloping by after assassinating Lincoln.
DEUTSCH: It’s not a happy thought but it’s an exciting …
M. DANIELS: It’s an exciting thought. So this also brings in the other broader historical interests, and it makes me remember Mary Z. Gray, who, of course, has made such a great contribution [see http://www.capitolhillhistory.org/overbeckpress/index.html]. And one of the things that I do take pride in is that it was through me that we found Mary Z. Gray. It was because Laetitia Yeandle, who worked for years as the manuscript curator at the Folger Library and was somebody that I knew because of that connection, commuted into town with Mary Z. Gray for a long time. I saw Laetitia just in passing at the National Gallery of Art and I started telling her about the Ruth Ann Overbeck Oral History Project. And she said, “I know just the person for you.” And this being Mary Z. Gray, it was only a matter of time before Mary got in touch with me saying, you know, “Boy, this is an interesting subject.”
Mary, in her family oral history, mentioned that her family, the Schroeders, were musicians associated with the Marine Band and had a family home on Ninth Street, [524 Ninth Street SE]. They remembered hearing galloping and clamor the night of Lincoln’s assassination. Really brings history home.
DEUTSCH: Absolutely. So, is all that complete? All the work of doing the historical write-ups for the Hill Center? Or is it kind of ongoing?
M. DANIELS: Well, what I would say is that there are plaques associated with all of the rooms and it’s very important, I think, to give Nancy Metzger so much credit for her huge contribution because she was the one that had the … She and Nicky worked together, with Cindy Janke, and other people, too. I don’t mean to leave anybody [out]. Whenever you make a list of people, I am sure …
DEUTSCH: Right, it’s hard because you …
M. DANIELS: I am sure I am forgetting someone.
DEUTSCH: Yeah.
M. DANIELS: So. But, anyway, they figured out the names to name the rooms. And it was a great collection of names because there were all of these interconnections. You know, Walt Whitman, who took the horse-drawn street car down Eighth Street by Elizabeth Haines’s store [Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE]. You know, you begin to see this network of relationships. So those signs are finished, and it was a great joy because, when you’re doing a historical installation of that kind, it’s part substance and it’s part design. And we were able to use Barbara Keyes, who’s the chief graphic designer at the National Gallery and is brilliant and wonderful to work with.
DEUTSCH: K-E-Y-E-S
M. DANIELS: K-E-Y-E-S, yes. So, those signs—it’s part the substance, but it’s also: Where did those photographs come from? How do you make the story? How do you make it accessible? And that part is indeed finished and I think that it will be, you know, changed, but only slowly over the years. However, the research and the need to understand the history of Capitol Hill … We have just scratched the surface, really. And I am sure that it’s going to be possible to figure out, with time and attention. They’ll be able to find out with a high degree of probability who the architect of the building was, for example. Getting closer, but we still don’t know.  So, there’s still lots to do.
DEUTSCH: I didn’t realize that.
M. DANIELS: And I think that the other thing is using that as a model—I mean, the interest within the community about the deep history of our neighborhood is just endless. It’s huge. And it is one of the things that brings us together.
DEUTSCH: I realize that I didn’t ask each of you about your professional lives. Let’s just start with you since you were talking.
M. DANIELS: Okay.
DEUTSCH: I know you’ve been at the National Gallery for many years.
M. DANIELS: Yes, well, my professional background is extremely simple. I was completely unqualified to become an archivist, but by pure good luck I randomly got a summer job at the National Archives and then got a permanent job at the National Archives and worked there for 12 years, I think. It was where I was trained. And it’s where I made my first core of professional friends. And from there I got a job starting the archives at the National Gallery of Art, where I still am.
DEUTSCH: So, you started the archives.
M. DANIELS: I did. And it’s amazing that so many years have passed. But it makes for a really simple biography.
DEUTSH: And, what’s in the archives at the National Gallery?
M. DANIELS: Well, we take care of the permanently valuable historical materials of the museum. And since it is an art museum where place is really important, we have all of the architectural records of the East Building and the West Building. We have lots and lots of historical photographs and exhibition records, everything relating to the history of the museum itself, plus we have materials on related subjects. So, this being the year of the Monuments Men [an army unit charged with recovering works of art stolen by the Nazis during World War II, and a 2014 film by that name] … We’re one of the primary repositories for wonderful records of the Monuments Men. They collected documents and they gave them to the National Gallery. And it’s also an important story because the National Gallery was instrumental in the creation of the Monuments Men program.
DEUTSCH: Really?
M. DANIELS: So it’s a great place because there are all sorts of different stories that are buried in the history of the museum. This winter, I’ve been interviewed by a lot of different news outlets. I was on [WTTG] Fox 5 morning television. So as I hear my voice talking, I’m thinking, “Oh, yes, this is my interview voice!” [All laugh]
DEUTSCH: But that’s kind of exciting!
M. DANIELS: It was pretty intense. There’s right now a display. It’s a beautifully designed case that presents the history of the National Gallery and its relationship to the Monuments Men. It sort of summarizes what the Monuments Men did—again, with my friend Barbara Keyes. It was an interesting experience.
But the thing that makes the archives interesting is that there’s a range of subjects and they come and they go. For example, [President] Garfield was shot by his assassin at a railroad station that’s on the site of the West Building. So every so often we get into presidential assassinations. Or, you know, the design of the East Building and urban planning.
DEUTSCH: It was on the site of the West Building or the East Building?
M. DANIELS: West Building.
DEUTSCH: Okay.
M. DANIELS: But people aren’t aware that there was a plan that was seriously contemplated to depress the roadbed of Constitution Avenue as it went through downtown Washington. It was like—oh, my goodness—in our archives, because all of that was happening at the time that the East Building was being designed. You know, those plans. It’s actually really, really interesting. During the 60s and 70s. It was a bad architecture era and a really disastrous urban planning era.
DEUTSCH: It was.
M. DANIELS: Yes. So, the story of why we didn’t end up with a superhighway on Constitution Avenue—oh, my goodness. And, on 11th Street …
DEUTSCH: Well, and going by Lincoln Park.
M. DANIELS: Yes, exactly. Well, it’s part of that same story. It was just exactly at the time that the East Building was being designed, and our archives are actually an excellent source of information on that. And, so, from time to time, as we look into that, we have questions. Another interesting aspect of it is: What was on the site of the museum? How was the Mall developed? What was happening there? So, it’s a very rich collection and it’s quite interesting. And, of course, now, going forward with the movement of the Corcoran Museum functions to the National Gallery is another example. Because there have been historically close connections between the Corcoran, which was the traditional local but world-class art museum, and the newbie on the block, which was the National Gallery. So, it’s always interesting.
DEUTSCH: Very, very exciting. How about you, Steve? Last time we talked to you, you were the legislative assistant to the congressman.
S. DANIELS: Yes. And when I was working in that job, I realized that I liked the substantive work which was done by the committees much more than the glad-handing work of dealing with constituents. So I mentioned this to the congressman and he said, “Well, if something comes up on a committee staff, I’ll let you know.” And, sure enough, that winter there’d been an election and members changed positions on various committees and there was a new ranking member on the Government Operations Committee, [Frank Horton]. He was a friend of Mr. McClory’s and I was able to get an interview with him and that worked out swell. I got hired.
DEUTSCH: You got the job?
S. DANIELS: Yes. And I ended up working for 14 years on the staff of the House Committee on Government Operations, which was just a fascinating place to give you an insight into how the government was organized and operated. One of the principal subjects we dealt with was government procurement. And so I got interested in and somewhat knowledgeable about government contracting, and that led to an opportunity to become an administrative judge on a board of contract appeals in 1987. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
DEUTSCH: Okay, so, what is an administrative judge on a board of contract appeals?
S. DANIELS: It is now called the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals. It is a quasi-judicial tribunal. We are located within an executive branch agency which is …
DEUTSCH: You said quasi-judicial?
S. DANIELS: Yes. It’s actually functioning as a judicial body, but it’s located within the executive branch and the General Services Administration provides all sorts of administrative support for us.
DEUTSCH: Does it have to do with appeals within the government system only?
S. DANIELS: It does. We hear cases about disputes involving all agencies of the federal government aside from the Defense Department and the Postal Service. Those are the parties on one side. And then the parties on the other side are the individuals and companies that have contracts with those agencies. If the contractor doesn’t like the way he’s been treated by one of the agencies, he can make a claim to the agency’s contracting officer. He gets a decision. If he doesn’t like it, he can appeal to the Board of Contract Appeals. And then we’ll figure out who’s right and who’s wrong.
DEUTSCH: How do you do that? I’m sure that’s a complicated thing. You get testimony from …
S. DANIELS: We do. We focus on resolving the disputes in the easiest and most inexpensive way possible. So a lot of times, we try to steer the parties into mediation. One of our judges will be the mediator and will sit down with the parties and try to get them to just settle the case by themselves. But, if they can’t do that, we have opportunities for discovery, briefing, hearings. And then we’ll write decisions which are binding unless either of the parties wants to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government buys all sorts of stuff.
DEUTSCH: Well, we all know about the $500 toilet seat. [During the Reagan administration, there were numerous news reports about high Defense Department spending on toilet seats and other seemingly small procurements.]
S. DANIELS: Yes. [Stephanie laughs] That was in the military though.
DEUTSCH: You don’t deal with the military.
S. DANIELS: No.
DEUTSCH: That’s a whole separate thing.
S. DANIELS: That’s correct. But all sorts of supplies, services … the government constructs all sorts of buildings. Courthouses and Veterans’ Affairs medical centers seem to generate the most contract disputes. The government leases a lot of buildings. And every case just brings you another interesting legal and human situation that you learn about and try to work your way through to figure out what should be the fair result for both the agency and the contractor.
DEUTSCH: Well, I am sure there are cases where they are lucky to have you, because if you’re one of the parties involved, you can’t work it out.
S. DANIELS: That’s right. Of course, all the parties are very lucky to have us. And I’ve been the Chief Judge of this board since …
END OF TAPE 1/SIDE 2
TAPE 2/SIDE 1
DEUTSCH:  [Static] Okay. Stephanie Deutsch with Steve and Maygene Daniels. And Steve has been the Chief Judge of—what’s the name of the board again?
S. DANIELS: Civilian Board of Contract Appeals.
DEUTSCH: The Civilian Board of Contract Appeals since 1992.
S. DANIELS: And I was just telling Stephanie what a pleasure it is to go to work because you show up, there’s no boss telling you what to do …
DEUTSCH: That’s good.
S. DANIELS: … and your charge every day is to do what’s right. Not too many jobs can you say that about.
DEUTSCH: Tell me about the store. Tell me about the evolution of Hill’s Kitchen [their daughter’s kitchen supply store at 713 D Street SE]. I will tell you that Leah gave you, Steve, credit for coming up with the name.
S. DANIELS: It’s true.
DEUTSCH: Is that correct?
S. DANIELS: Yes, it is. [Maygene laughs]
DEUTSCH: That was rather brilliant.
S. DANIELS: Well, Hill’s Kitchen started out, I think, when Leah came back from college. She had just thrown herself so enthusiastically into college that, when she came home, she did nothing but sleep for the first month. And Maygene and I kept saying to her, “Leah, you know, school is over. You need to get a job. You need to support yourself.”
DEUTSCH: Words that have been said by parents! [Maygene laughs]
S. DANIELS: Yes. And she said, “Oh, don’t worry, something will turn up.” Well …
DEUTSCH: Words that have been said by children!
S. DANIELS: Yes. Right about that time, Steve Cymrot had started Riverby Books, and I wandered in one day and was chatting with him. He said to me, “Nicky and I are planning to go away for the weekend and we don’t have anybody to run the store for us. Do you know anybody who might be willing to do that?” I said, “Why don’t you ask Leah? All she’s doing is sleeping. She’s got plenty of time for you.”
DEUTSCH: And she’s well rested.
S. DANIELS: Yes. [Laughs] So he did, and she somewhat tentatively agreed to do it. That ended up becoming a full time job for her and she realized, “I just love retail!”  So, she thought, “Well, I’d better come up with another business.” And her idea was to open a retail kitchenware store on Capitol Hill.
DEUTSCH: Well, I told Leah quite frankly—and I’m sure she heard this from other people—that when I first heard she was opening a kitchenware store, I thought, “That will never work! That’s just way too kind of specialized and esoteric and that’s not what we need.” And turns out, I was wrong! [Maygene laughs]
S. DANIELS: I think a lot of people thought along with you, but …
DEUTSCH: Did you immediately feel it was a good idea?
S. DANIELS: No, I had no idea whether it was a good idea or not.
M. DANIELS: I don’t think we judged …
S. DANIELS: All I knew was that my daughter was excited about a project and I thought, “Well, if we can help her get this started, that would be a good thing.”
M. DANIELS: I think it’s important, though, to emphasize that although we were supportive and involved, it’s really Leah’s thing. It’s her vision, it’s her product mix, everything. And usually, Stephanie, if she does something and I think, “Oh, I’m not so sure,” it always turns out to be the right thing.
DEUTSCH: Yeah.
M. DANIELS: Between her judgment and mine, it’s always hers that’s right. [Maygene and Steve laugh]
S. DANIELS:  And she worked at this for a long time before starting it. She lived at home for several years with the express purpose of saving up enough money that she could actually buy merchandise to stock a store. But we thought it would be a whole lot better to start a store if the family actually owned the building the store was located in. So we talked to our friend Phyllis Jane Young and told her what we all had in mind. A few months later, Phyllis got back to us and said, “Well, I talked to my friend Hugh Kelly, and Hugh owns a building at what would be a great location for Leah’s store. And he’s thinking maybe it’s time to sell.” So she put us together with Hugh. We bought the building and …
DEUTSCH: Renovated the building.
S. DANIELS: …renovated the building. And about a year and a half later, the store opened.
DEUTSCH: And I know you’re both in the store a lot, waiting on customers, and …
S. DANIELS: Before the store opened, neither one of us had a clue of anything about retail. But, just by being supportive parents, we’ve come to learn quite a bit.
M. DANIELS: But it’s a definite employer-employee relationship! [Steve and Maygene laugh]
DEUTSCH: She’s the boss.
M. DANIELS: She’s the boss, right.
S. DANIELS: We are seasonal and emergency help.
M. DANIELS: Yes, that’s right. So, Steve does a lot more than I do actually.
S. DANIELS: I do the bookkeeping for the store.
DEUTSCH: Well, that’s a huge advantage. Does she pay you to do that?
S. DANIELS: Oh, no. [All laugh]
DEUTSCH: More volunteer work.
S. DANIELS: That’s where we learned that it is a parent-child relationship in addition to an employer-employee relationship.
DEUTSCH:  Right. I should have asked Leah this, and if I did I can’t remember what she said, but are there any special plans coming up for the store? Are there new things? I mean, I know there are new products all the time, but …
M. DANIELS: You know what I think is that she is … You think about where communities are and, when she started out, she knew nothing about the kitchenware business and we even had to get advice from people about which trade shows to go to. And initially I went with her, but now she goes by herself and she’s made all these liaisons within the business. … So she’s actually spending more time than ever before, I think, reaching out and finding new product and bringing it in. Every year is an adventure.
DEUTSCH: Well, she told me that she had been approached about franchising. And she decided she did not want to do that. One of the things she values is the relationships and being there.
M. DANIELS: Right. And I just had an experience today which gave me some insight into why it’s so successful, because I went to two fabric stores, one of which was horrible. And it reminded one of a big box store. And so many kitchenware things, you know … You don’t where to find things, you don’t know what’s good. It may or may not be less expensive. Sometimes you end up paying more, but what there is is no service, no smile, no nothing. Then I went to a different store where people were helpful. They …
DEUTSCH: Knew what they were talking about.
M. DANIELS: They knew what they were talking about. They told me what I was getting, you know … And that information is what she delivers. And I think that’s why, in a sense, Hills Kitchen does become a community center, because it’s more than the merchandise. It’s the help that people get. And I’d like to say that that is my contribution when I’m there because neither …
DEUTSCH: She told me you were great at helping people pick out gifts.
M. DANIELS: Well, actually that’s because neither my daughter nor my husband will let me stay at the cash register long enough to get quick at it! I’m really slow. [Steve laughs]
DEUTSCH: Apparently you’re too valuable on the sales floor.
M. DANIELS: Well, that’s saying it positively. [Steve and Maygene laugh]
DEUTSCH: Well, it is a great thing and she has done just a wonderful job.
M. DANIELS: Yes. We’re very proud of her. It is a treat, you know.
S. DANIELS: I think that she really values growing up in the community. And she sees the store as a contributor to the community.
M. DANIELS: Yes.
S. DANIELS: Sort of a place for people to hang out and enjoy themselves, meet each other.
M. DANIELS: Delivering high quality products at a fair price. And that’s, you know, that’s a good thing. And I think it is a contributor to the community, together with other retail people.
DEUTSCH: It is, definitely. I got a wedding present for one of my cousins, the child of one of my cousins. And Leah mailed it. She doesn’t normally do that. She mailed it for me, and I told her it was very appropriate—the thank you note went to her! [Steve and Maygene laugh]
M. DANIELS: That’s really funny.
DEUTSCH: And I was just, “Okay!”
M. DANIELS: That’s really funny. I saw somebody at the Kennedy Center last evening and, you know, she looked sort of familiar—I didn’t entirely place her. But, she said, “Don’t you remember? I bought something at the store and you carried it home for me!” [Steve laughs]
DEUTSCH: Now that’s a full service store.
M. DANIELS: Well, I was going to say, how many stores have the mother of the owner as a delivery person? But, you know, she needed the help carrying it and, you know—hey, why not? [Laughs] It was sort of fun.
DEUTSCH: That’s great. Well, I think it seems like it is fun. I mean, I’m sure there are times when it’s exhausting, but basically it has been fun.
M. DANIELS: But, we also … I hope Leah spoke about this a little bit, too, because it’s an extraordinary group of customers. There was the time when her credit card processing company went down. The computers went down, like, the weekend before Christmas.
DEUTSCH:  Oh, dear.
M. DANIELS: So she couldn’t take credit cards! This was a couple of years ago. But, you know, nobody complained, and they just went out and got cash from the cash machine at the corner. So, I mean, we try so hard to not have lines, but around the holidays it happens.
DEUTSCH: Sometimes you do.
M. DANIELS: And I sort of talk to people and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Oh, I know you’re in a hurry, oh!” And 99% of the customers say, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m having this happy time standing in line, you know. This is great.” How many places have customers that are just so wonderful?
S. DANIELS: I find a lot of times you don’t need to help the customers because they help each other.
M. DANIELS: I guess that’s the other funny thing. [Steve and Maygene laugh] Somebody will be standing by an Epicurean cutting board for example and they’ll say, “Oh, what do you think about this?” And I’ll start opening my mouth and somebody walking by will say, “Oh, those are the best!” [Steve and Maygene laugh]
DEUTSCH: I’ve got that. This is changing the subject slightly, but do either of you think about retiring at all?
M. DANIELS: Think about it all of the time, but we’re not acting on it. [Steve and Maygene laugh]
DEUTSCH: It’s not imminent for either of you.
S. DANIELS: No.
M. DANIELS: No, no, no, no. But I will say that there’s so much offered on the Hill, and maybe this is a moment just to put in a word that we both like to bicycle, and so we bicycle all the time around here. And I’m taking piano lessons.
DEUTSCH: Who do you take from?
M. DANIELS: I take from Jeff Kempskie, who’s the music director … [at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Third and A Streets SE]
DEUTSCH: Oh.
M. DANIELS: Do you know him?
DEUTSCH: I know him very well.
M. DANIELS: Oh, good, good.
DEUTSCH: Well, we go to St. Mark’s.
M. DANIELS: Oh, you do. Well, great. Well, Jeff is very tolerant, so …
DEUTSCH: He’s lovely.
M. DANIELS: He’s lovely.
S. DANIELS: And you have your music group.
M. DANIELS: Oh, and I have a music group. This isn’t organized in the sense that the Foundation is, but with Chris Herman and some other people we have a works-in-progress music gathering once a month, where people of all ages … For a time, we had people in age between Hal Wiley, who has passed on now but he was in his early 80s, and Daniel Herman, who was at the time in his single digits. We play for each other and it’s a wonderful experience. It could be Vienna, but instead it’s Capitol Hill. It’s a wonderful thing.
DEUTSCH: What about you, Steve, any sort of hobbies you …? I know about the biking.
M. DANIELS: Baseball.
S. DANIELS: Yes. Well, I’m a Washington Nationals season ticket holder.
M. DANIELS: This takes a remarkable amount of time. [Steve and Maygene laugh]
DEUTSCH: Yes, I know that. And Leah and I got on that.
M. DANIELS: Leah and Steve are sort of in the same league for enthusiasm, but she may have outclassed him at this point.
S. DANIELS: She goes to many more games than I do. I’ve shared these tickets since the Nationals moved here with three other friends, and one of them is getting up in years and can’t go to so many games anymore. So, now, he has sold part of his share to Leah.
DEUTSCH: Oh. And she, I know, goes quite a bit.
S. DANIELS: Oh, yes.
M. DANIELS: All the time, all the time.
S. DANIELS: And the four of us are also participants in a fantasy baseball league. Which we’ve been doing now for 27 years. That also takes a fair amount of time, but is quite amusing.
M. DANIELS: Right, exactly. Frager’s used to have the thing where its t-shirts were photographed around the world.
DEUTSCH: Oh, yes.
M. DEUTSCH: You know, like Frager’s t-shirt in Nepal or something.
DEUTSCH: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
M. DANIELS: Well, Steve’s fantasy baseball league had that. What is the furthest away that one of the owners of a fantasy team called in to make a trade during the summer?
S. DANIELS: I think Hong Kong won the prize. [Maygene and Stephanie laugh] But even the fantasy baseball league is sort of a community we’ve had. People join the league and then move away, but they always come back for the day in the spring when we have the annual draft.
DEUTSCH: Oh, yeah.
S. DANIELS: We’ve had people from New York. People come from St. Louis. We had one owner who moved to Seattle. He decided that was too far away.
DEUTSCH: Right. Oh, now, tell me—Eddie is your older son, and I know he lives in Brooklyn [NY].
M. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: And he is a …
M. DANIELS: Criminal defense lawyer.
DEUTSCH: … criminal defense lawyer.
M. DANIELS: He’s with Brooklyn Defender Service.
DEUTSCH: So, you would say he’s a public defender?
S. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: And I know that he is married.
M. DANIELS: That’s right. Yes.
DEUTSCH: And has two sons.
M. DANIELS: Yes.
DEUTSCH: And his wife is a principal.
S. DANIELS: She’s the principal of the middle school of a charter school.
M. DANIELS: In Brooklyn.
S. DANIELS: The charter school was originally a grammar school only. And they hired her to start and then continue operating a middle school.
DEUTSCH: And I know that Maygene sometimes goes up to babysit.
M. DANIELS: Well, I remember so clearly when we met with our grandchildren in Brooklyn in play.  
M. DANIELS: It was really terrific.
DEUTSCH: And we’re lucky to be able to do it.
M. DANIELS: We are. And with luck perhaps we’ll grandmother together again. [Steve laughs] That was a happy time.
END OF INTERVIEW