Betty Van Uum Interview

Transcript

Kaylee Bender: Good afternoon. My name is Kaylee Bedner.

Betty Van Uum: Good afternoon. I'm Betty Van Uum.

KB: And Betty, could you start out by telling us how were you affiliated with the Normandy Osteopathic Hospital?

BVU: Well, I've had several affiliations, but the one you were studying relates to the University of Missouri's purchase of the hospital, I think so, I have for the last almost 40 years, worked as a member of the senior leadership team of the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

BVU: And during that time, (um) the campus from the time I came to work there was at one point, 125 acres of the old golf course to its current 436 acres. So, we were very much in those years in an expansionist mode, accumulating property and building the campus in its programs. And I was involved at, at, the university and all of that.

BVU: But I was also involved 00:01:00in the Normandy Hospital as a resident of the area. I grew up in Bel-Nor, so, I was (um) aware of the hospital and its glory days and the implications and the effect that it had in the Normandy community. I'm no longer a resident, but I have that historical perspective.

KB: Thank you, Betty. Could you tell us, perhaps your, your, first memory of the hospital?

BVU: (laughter) My first memory of the hospital is walking to St. Anne's Grade School. Walking by the hospital and as (laughter) as you walk by the hospital, you came to the bridge over the railroad tracks. And I remember one of my classmates, a, a, kind of show off, a young boy in about the 5th or 6th grade, walking on the edge of the of the (laughter) bridge and all of us thinking he was going to die, he didn't. (laughter)

KB: Potentially then end up in the hospital, right?

KB: We're glad to have Erica Henderson 00:02:00joining us as well. And so, Betty, as we as we get back into, our questions, (um) maybe you could tell us what types of services and activities were offered at the hospital.

BVU: Well, (ah) yes, Normandy Hospital was a very important community institution in, in the beginning, it is before time, (laughter) before any of you were born, or probably before your parents were born, there were actually two, two, main tracts of medical training in the United States. Osteopathic training and (um) I can't think of what you call M.D.s. Whatever there were, they were, so they had two separate school systems. So, you, you went to an A.M.A. certified medical system or you went to a D.O., Doctor of Osteopathy medical systems, (um) and they maintained separation until I got to say,

BVU: I'm not exactly sure when. Maybe the 60s, or something 60s, 00:03:00or the 70s. Osteopaths were not admitted to practice in M.D. hospitals, so they had their own hospital. Normandy was really the National Center, and the Normandy Osteopathic Hospital was the National Center for Osteopathic Training. For Osteopaths from all over the country, (um) it was their premier facility. When (um) the M.D.’s decided, and the OD's decided to combine and the O.D.s, (ah) not O.D., they're D.O. doctor, they're D.O., the D.O.s, (ah, ah) were admitted to practice in the M.D. hospitals the importance of Normandy as a training facility declined, but it still maintained a service component for many people.

KB: So that was really a policy change that impacted the Normandy hospital.

BVU: It was a policy change in the medical profession, that did impact it tremendously. 00:04:00It also impacted the neighborhood. The, the neighborhood when I was a child (um) was, I would say in upper middle class neighborhood (um) the (ah), there were a huge number of osteopathic doctors who lived in the neighborhood who were associated with the hospital and they were in many ways (um), a strong pillar of the of that Normandy community that we had a lot of medical services and medical people living in the neighborhood because of the closure of the hospital. I mean, because of the presence of the hospital. And then do you want me to? You want to ask the questions, or do you want me to go on with what happened? (laughter)

KB: Go for it.

BVU: OK. Well, OK. So they were, they were always, they were there, right? And, that, then as the neighborhood, as we euphemistically say the neighborhood changed, (laughter) which means that it was economically declining 00:05:00a great amount of that decline I think was the departure of those doctors and their families from that community who have been rooted there by the Normandy Osteopathic Hospital, it contributed tremendously to (um) the change in the circumstances, as did well, as did the departure of many of the Catholic institutions, (um) who left and went west, and people affiliated or connected to them left as well. So, those were the big economic drivers, I believe, so are, are some of the big economic drivers. (um) (clearing throat)

BVU: Where was I going with it? So, we want to know how we actually got, so let's switch to the university role. So, as I said earlier, the university was in the process in those days, the university was established in 1963 on a golf course which was formerly Bellerive Country Club, which had 125 acres and a clubhouse, when I joined the administration in 1983, (um) 00:06:00there were some basic buildings that had been built, but we still basically had the same footprint and we also had limited programmatic offerings. So, from my time (um) in 1983 through, all the way through, I would say, until Tom George became the Chancellor, (ah) I was very involved in trying to (um) expand the programmatic offerings of the universities. We added different schools, different colleges, different programs. It was, and that, was a political activity, that had to be agreed that, that had to be fought, everything had to be fought, to get it done. So, what that means is that at the university, let's just take social work as an example. (laughter) We wanted this school of social work. (um) We wanted that to be available for the people of St. Louis.

BVU: It was really opposed by the university system in Columbia, (um) said, we didn't need a school. Everything was opposed (laughter) by the university system, in my, 00:07:00in my years of working on programmatic expansion, I cannot remember one, not one program that ever went through and got approved without an external pressure. So, it went through.

KB: (inaudible)

BVU: At that point, we became very politically active, and we got members of the legislature who were in key positions to pressure the coordinating board to approve the programs in spite of, the, and, and, and to cause the curators to accept that approval. So, that was a lot of what was going on programmatically at the same time, the campus was expanding because we believed in 1985, that someday we would be UCLA, as UCLA was to Berkeley, we thought we would, we had ambitions to be a fully developed urban research institution with not only undergraduate schools, but fully developed professional opportunities.

BVU: But we, we, had a Chancellor that used to say, all you have to do is walk around the Columbia campus and you see what you can't be. If you're dependent on higher education in St. Louis, you can't be a lawyer. 00:08:00You can't be a doctor. You can't be a, you can't be a, you can't be all of, as you walk by the buildings and see various graduate and professional offerings. So, those days, we were very hopeful that we could come to fruition and, and, (um) we also acquired land to do that. So, in the process of acquiring the land, (um) I guess the first, the first, like, Big Land acquisition after the Bellerive Country Club was the South Campus. (throat clearing) I was involved in that, and before I came to work at the university, I was a member of the St. Louis County Council, so the South Campus (um) where the, the, hospital is located was mainly owned by the Daughters of Charity, which was a, (um) a, large Catholic institution. The Daughters, (um) as many Catholic institutions, were declining, and they, they, were ready to dispose of that property.

BVU: So, I would say 00:09:00I was on, it was right as I was, it was right, it, it, it, it blurred from my County Council activity to my university activities but started, I was on the County Council. And the, the, county bought the portion of the Daughter, (ah) the Daughter, of Charity property that is now St. Vincent's Park. So, they, they, basically owned everything from St. Charles Rock Road to Natural Bridge. (um) And they had, they had, several (ah) major installations there. First of all, the park, that's a park. The Daughters always had a working farm for some reason, I don't know, but that that eventually became St. Vincent’s County Park. And I was on the County Council and we were negotiating with the daughters to buy the property for the park. (um)

BVU: The Daughters also, as I say, they had all the property from St. Charles Rock Road to Natural Bridge. They also (ah) made they were pioneers in mental health, so they had a hospital for the mentally ill, 00:10:00which is what sometimes people refer to as the Castle, which is now a private apartment complex near St. Charles Rock Road. And then the university bought the property that was once a college for, (um) for, young nuns. So, there were nuns from all over the country that went to school there, and the main part of the thing was the Mother house for, (a) for that order. So, at one time there were like, 7 or 8000 people on that property on a regular basis. So, anyway, that the, the, university bought the building part the, the, northern part, the county bought the middle part, and the, the, hospital went to private ownership.

BVU: So, then I got, then I went from the County Council to, (laughter) to the, to the university and that was the major acquisition, Normandy Hospital was a carve-out of that, and they did not own the hospital property. So, once the university had acquired all of the South campus. It was like a hole in the doughnut, right? I mean, we had all the North Campus, and we had all that other property 00:11:00in the South Campus, but that was missing. So, (throat clearing) when it first went out of business, which was really, (um) the Osteopaths built a new hospital, I think it maybe is, I don't know if it's still called Normandy Osteopathic. or maybe it's called the Des Peres, it's somewhere in South County, just off of 270. And then their major operations were, were, down there and the use of this hospital declined tremendously, and it started to go out of business. So, we were asked

KB: How, what year was that, Betty? Sorry to interrupt.

BVU: I don't know. (laughter) I, I, I'll have to look that up. I don't remember exactly when that was, but (um) any event, we bought we, we, bought the hospital and the community was (um) again you were asking for the impact on the black community at that point, it was not a black community, it was a white community, a, a, majority white community. And (um), but nonetheless, (laughter) it wanted healthcare, was used to having a hospital 00:12:00in the, you know, in its midst. So, the university, after great outcry from the community that they wanted a hospital, we said, you know, we, we couldn't run a hospital, we didn't have a medical school. But there was a group of hospital operators from Texas, who came forward and wanted to buy it, and the community wanted to sell it to them, and they said they would operate it as a hospital. So, and this was really, this is a sad, sad story. We sold it to them, (um) and they partnered with a lot of the remaining optometrists who lived in the neighborhood, who were very committed to the physical facility and wanted the hospital to remain open. But it turned out that they weren't the most honorable people, that they, the hospital company, had been suspended from operation in Texas for five years. And they transferred their operations here. So, they ran the hospital for 00:13:00five years to the day, to the day, boom. All of a sudden, their Texas license was reinstated, and they were gone. And they really took our local optometrist who had invested in it for a terrible ride. I mean, some of them lost, you know, their retirements, their life savings. It was awful. So anyway.

KB: The D.O.s the Doctors of Osteopathy?

BVU: Pardon. Yeah, the doctors who were partnered with this group to keep it going for that five-year period, and they lost lots and lots of money, any of it.

KB: Wow.

BVU: We bought it back, (laughter) we bought it the second time. And as people who were university of partisans will say we overpaid, we paid for it more the, (laughter) well, the second time, than we sold it. Well, I mean, we lost, everybody lost money. Those Texas people took everybody for a ride, but we thought, we still thought it better in our hands. And, you know, sitting there vacant when we bought it, we said, again, we could not run, 00:14:00(um) we could not run a hospital. We didn't have the resources to do that. But we said that we would do the best we could to provide some kind of medical services. So, it was a long time, but eventually we did build a new optometry building and within the optometry building we made space for (um) medical services to be provided, now that didn't work out so well either, the university system once again didn't help us. So. So, we were going along with, with, (exhalation) Mercy, with the with the facilities guy at Mercy, and we were, and as the building was being built, we were meeting with them and they were talking about an urgent care center and a, and all kinds of various services that they could put in the building and they were actively involved in reviewing the plans for the building as we were going forward.

BVU: Well, just as the building was about to open 00:15:00the university, in its brilliant wisdom in Columbia, decided that the new benefits system that they were going to put in place would, would structure an option for, ohh wait a minute, I got that backwards, (laughter) the, the Mercy was all the way going to the end, right? And, and, and as we got to the absolute end of the, the, thing the facility was built, they said, well, now you'll have to help us fundraise for it. And we said, what do you mean we built a building (laughter) so that they then pulled out and we were without any possibility of Mercy coming after we built the building for them. So, we didn't know quite what to do, but we were sort of rescued by by (um) Rebecca Zoll, who was the (ah) head of North County, Inc, and she had a relationship with (um) Christian Hospital, right, and so she got the SSM system, they became, they became involved, 00:16:00and they came in, and they said they would take up the Mercy, they would take up the stuff that Mercy was supposed to do.

BVU: So, (exhalation) we were happy, and it's, but as they were in the process physically of moving in, the system initiated a new benefits plan. They gave opportunities for, for, benefits to be an HMO kind of arrangement with Mercy, which just stuck it to us and left SSM out of it all together, even though SSM would come in to try to rescue our space and provide services so our people couldn't just go across the street to SSM if they chose that benefit plan, they had to go, it was just horrible, but any event, they stayed for a while, but I'm, I'm, I'm, not exactly positive what the status is now. It's been declining. They had a, they had a, an OBGYN practice for a while, but (um) I think it's gone and I'm not sure if they're completely gone, but I think they're in the process of going. So, it is just another example 00:17:00of disinvestment in what is now a majority black community and a community left without appropriate service.

KB: (inaudible)

BVU: I will just give, I'm going to say one more thing. In my County Council days, I chaired the Justice, Health and Welfare Committee of the Council, which had the oversight responsibility for the County Hospital in those days and the health department, and we used to have, they used to operate clinics in the African American areas of the thing, where they actually expected the doctors, who will mainly Filipino women who would come to America, America to practice, they actually the doctors, would go to gyms or community centers and the, if you can imagine, the doctors had to set up the tables, set up the scales, wipe off the buildings and then see the patients. There was (ah, ah) a woman who was a doctor, (ah) very active, and at Lourdes, Pardo was her name, came to the County Council one day and she said the people in the jungle of the Philippines have better medical service 00:18:00than North St. Louis County has, and she was right, I mean it, it was a terrible decision. It was a terrible situation there too. (Yeah) But it again it mirrors the absolute disinvestment that that we have seen from our governments and from private industry and everything in the Black community. OK. That's all I know. Goodbye.

KB: No, this is really comprehensive, thank you, Betty. How do you think that the (um) lack of access to healthcare has impacted the Black community in the Normandy area?

BVU: (laughter) I think that the lack of healthcare is, is appalling. There are several (um) County facilities, one in Pine Lawn and then the Murphy clinic, a little bit further west, but, but it's not exactly the same level, kind, of service that you get if you have a functioning hospital in the middle, with, (ah) supported by practitioners who live and work in the neighborhood, and a general understanding of medical care that is needed that you communicate to your children 00:19:00and their children communicate and your children and everybody has a general sense of how and where to get things done. So that's lacking in this Black community as it is lacking in every Black community in America, probably, or not, every Black, every, every, economically challenged Black community. Let me put it that.

Erica Henderson: Yes, thank you so much for that. Why do you believe the hospital closed?

BVU: Ohh, because they, (laughter) because those Texas people were dogs, absolute dogs, they were just trying to keep their operation going till they can go back to Texas and make more money. So that's why it closed. They just had a better financial opportunity. It was completely a money situation.

EH: Can, can, I? So, there was no opportunity for anyone else to kind of come in and purchase it so that (um) it, that so community didn't lose it.

BVU: There was opportunity, Erica, but there were no takers. It's like a lot of stuff. We've got a, we've got land, 00:20:00we've got a lot of opportunity, but we don't have takers. We don't have people willing to invest in, that's that simple. So yeah, no, we certainly, certainly everybody tried that, certainly the poor docs who were on the hook for their life savings tried like crazy to get something but.

EH: That's crazy. So, so, after it closed. What do you think the effects were on the community?

BVU: Well, I think it was just one more, one more example of flight of, of, important institutions that anchor any community and give it stability (um) the exact, I, I don't know that I'm competent to speak to the exact health outcomes. I mean, I don't know that I'm you know, but I think that, (laughter) and suddenly, you know, we didn't have the doctors and then we didn't have the hospital then we didn't have the doctors then we, and then we had a, a, few doctors (um) who practiced up and down Natural Bridge, 00:21:00who then retired or died or quit, and they weren't replaced. I mean, some of them hung on until very recently. I mean, they, and I think of Doctor Knight, for instance, (laughter) who, who, who practiced, you know, really past a time that, that he probably was physically comfortable practicing, just because they weren't serviced, you know, and but eventually he didn't. You know, we all get old, and as they, nobody has replaced them either. So, we have fewer and fewer opportunities for African American, or for anybody services.

EH: Yeah, yeah. So, the, the, how, the how, I know you say you really can't speak to it, but how did the closure affect access to healthcare for the community members?

BVU: How does what?

EH: How did the closure affect this healthcare access for residents in the community?

BVU: Well, that's, that's, I think what I'm saying is that they, that first of all, that's sort of a general knowledge of having medical professionals (laughter) in your community helps spread 00:22:00the, the, awareness of what's available, what's needed and where it is. So, that did, the dispersal of those people affected, I believe, the, the level of healthcare that that people received in the community, I mean, you know (laughter) like when I was a child, if you were a kid, and you (ah) cut your finger, Doctor Joe’s(possibly Jost) could tape it up. Or doctor Shaner could stitch it. Or, I mean, there were people there or, or, (um) Mrs. Lucido is a nurse, and she said, oh, you need to go see her. I mean, those people were no longer in the community, right. (um)

EH: (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

BVU: Right. So, so that that in a on a sort of a micro-level, I think affected who was here and who was left and who knew what to do. So, you really have, first you have to. We have people who understand how to access services, and, and, that's not easy, unless you're somehow or other connected to those services. You know, I mean, frankly, you know, 00:23:00I came from a family of lawyers, (laughter) they, they, wouldn't know if I, you know, had gangrene, but you know across the, it was Doctor Joe’s(possibly Jost) saying maybe that kid ought to be looked at, so, so, you know, that was that was just, it was a community, it was, it was a change in the makeup of the community, which I believe affected the health of the community and the, the, departure of the hospital led to the departure of a huge number of those professionals from the community,

EH: Yeah.

BVU: (um) and in terms of, of, access, (um) the county had made sort of, half-assed attempts with the Murphy Clinic and with the Pine Lawn Clinic, but that, that, they weren't of the community. I mean, those are people who work, (laughter) who, who were, who live wherever they live in Freeport, Madur, South County and who come to their job, and leave. Previously, the Normandy Hospital anchored people who lived around there and lived in the community. So, I think that 00:24:00not only was the physical access they, I mean obviously you could, you know, I guess, you could, you can get to those other clinics, and you can get some kind of service, (um) but you know ,it's, it's, it's, just not the same level of service, or, or, information available, that would be my take, but of course I'm not a medical professional and I really don't know that I can say, you know, that vaccination rates went down. I, I, don't know.

EH: Yes, no. That's perfect. And what, if any do you think the economic impact of the hospital closure?

BVU: Ohh, terrible again, (laughter) you, first of all, it was a major institution that, that, bought stuff, and you know, that, that, and, and, employed people who lived in the community and (um) (pause) they, it was just one more departure from a thriving community of a going (um, um) concern that you, was it? It wasn't the only departure, country clubs left, the Catholic institutions left, the hospital left, 00:25:00every, it was just, it was sort of white flight. I think (um) they, I'm sure it was white flight. In fact, I, I have a, I have a video that you guys might be interested in. That Prima Logan did for me a few years ago, talking about the, how Mill Creek led to the establishment of UMSL, and essentially we look at the, the, wipeout of the Mill Creek community at, near downtown, which was the African American major community for 100 years and you see that, you, she tracks the demographic shift, she sees that you that first, they moved, sort of, to Pruitt Igo, and they think it's a beautiful, wonderful thing, and then there's no, there's no maintenance in Pruitt Igo, they're repressive social (ah) policies that are in place that inhibit people. There's no, there’s, and it goes to hell in a handbasket, so that people think, Oh my God, I can't stay here any longer. They, they, leave, they move two miles. Nobody wants to go far from the home that they know. They move two miles, 00:26:00you know, or ten blocks down the street and they move into a neighborhood with, you know, tulips in the yard and kids on bicycles and they think Ohh, this is a lovely neighborhood, We could live here. They buy a house, three years later when the third Black family moves into that block, (swish) the block is empty, and suddenly it's no more tulips and kids on bikes, but you know, people on the corner selling drugs, and say, Oh my God, we can't stay here. And so, there's this constant migration pushed out the Northwest Corridor (um) to, until it gets to St. Louis County, (um) and, and directed by redlining, by real estate companies out that Northwest Corridor. (throat clearing)

BVU: (um) Then when it gets to St. Louis County (um) and this is one of the reasons that I would be a great opponent of, for, Better Together. (exhalation) One of the things there there's, it's still, there's still great white flight, there's still disinvestment, there's still people refusing to live, or work, or be parts of those communities, but, 00:27:00but, they do get something else that they, they, couldn't, that it's not replaceable. That all of these little, small, municipalities that people are ready to say are terrible and inefficient and stupid and a waste of money. It did provide an opportunity for the development of a black political voice, so you have like, in the Normandy School district area, you have twenty-four little cities, right? And, and, you have lots of people who are participating in the local political system and who can be heard through that system and can learn, can really learn how the political system, and if, when you have medical personnel, you could learn how the medical system works, if you're involved in the circumstance where there are there's a political system, you, (um) you learn how that works.

BVU: So, I would say that the demise of Mill Creek not only led to, to, the country club moving, right, I mean that was as they saw the African American population coming, what happened was the 00:28:00Normandy School district, (um, ah) because all the little, they're all, the little communities weren't big enough. They all came together, and they caused the school district to issue a bond to buy the golf course for the purpose of not overcrowding our schools, which was just a dog whistle to say we don't want a black housing project on that, on the property that was Bellerive Country Club, now the, there were four country clubs in those days, Norwood, Glen Echo, Normandy and Bellerive. So, (um) Bellerive was the only one to completely flee (um) Bell (um) Norwood was never, Bellerive and Glen Echo were what's called equity clubs, which means that the membership actually owned the clubs. So, if you, so, you were an owner of the club, Nor, Norwood was always more of, (ah) operated, more like a health club, you still had to be a member, you had to be voted in, and you had to pay dues. But you didn't own the club, right? 00:29:00So, so, that that was a different thing. And they continued to operate. They stayed where they were. (um) Glen Echo kind of sat down with their membership and said, What do, we do? What do we do? And the membership kind of split. Some people said Oh my God, we better go, and others said, What the hell? We've been here for 100 years. It's our clubhouse. We're staying, right? So, that that led also to the demise of, not the complete demise of Glen Echo, but the change of Glen Echo.

BVU: The families that left Glen Echo, wealthy families, formed Old Warson. So, that's a newer Country Club, so those families, kind of went that way. So, back in the mid, mid-century, last, last, last, 100 years, country clubs are kind of organized by religion, so the ultimate top country club was the ultimate top religious group, which was, was, Episcopalians, right? And that's St. Louis Country Club and the Bogey club, that's a connected little group. They had two or three token Presbyterians, but for the most part it, was the damn force, (laughter) that Episcopal thing, 00:30:00then, that, but then, and there are very few of them, so it was always a very small membership. The next biggest, Protestant club, was Bellerive, and that was the most prestigious thing, and that's where we were. Glen Echo was sort of the biggest Catholic club, they weren't allowed, at the most, the well, I don't, cause the biggest, it was the wealthiest, the most prestigious, Catholic club, and (um) that moved to, that, that was when Glen Echo moved to Old Warson. Half of them stayed, and half of them went to old Warson, and that changed the, the, complexion of that. Normandy was never a Country Club in the in the tradition of family connected, it was always just a golf course and it stayed a golf course. It was family owned and, and, it didn't, it didn't move, but, the that, that, was a departure of, of Bellerive, I don't know. I don't know where I was going with. Oh.

BVU: The oh, so the African American population, what they gained when they got to these small municipalities was a political voice and a political thing. So, so, you, you, you, see this Mill Creek 00:31:00march this way and you see the African American community becoming predominant in the North County. I would argue that not only led to the establishment of UMSL, by buying the golf course to prevent the African American housing, it also led to the election of Cori Bush. Directly, in that Cori Bush's father for 30 years at least, has been and Alderman in the city of Northwoods. So, Cori Bush grew up with a fundamental, very understanding, of political processes that maybe other activists might not have had that experience, so I would say that that provided kind of a training ground for Cori. Certainly, her activism is what catapulted her to, (um) to her success. But I also think that you cannot discount the fact that she understood how political power worked in, in, in a way that not everybody does that, you know, it's one thing to, it's one thing to shout, it's another thing to 00:32:00organize and run an election, right? I don't know. (laughter)

EH: So, we, we just have one. So, that's, that's, good information. So, we do have one, one last question. It says that is there anything else that you would like to share that you think people should know about the hospital closure?

BVU: Just that it was a very sad part of a continuing chapter from the departure of the Catholic institutions, and, and, much of what was once, a vibrant community to, a, a community of tremendous disinvestment, I, you know, I don't know, I went last week, I went to Cora Faith Walker's funeral, and (um) I came up Martin Luther, was coming up Martin Luther King from Kingshighway, where I've been earlier, and as I looked at the circumstances of Martin Luther King, I was just, I thought I might as well be looking at the bombing in Ukraine. 00:33:00It, it, looked at the community, was, looked so awful, and I'm an old woman, so I, I, remember that community when it was a vibrant neighborhood level zippy community, and I kept going and I went to the church and then on my way home, I continued west, I lived in Clayton, and it, I could hardly come in my house, I mean, it just was terrible, terrible, and then it got slightly better when I got to Delmar, and then when I crossed the city limits and I got to the Loop, it got zippier, and got new buildings in Washington University investment and perfect stuff, and by the time I got to my house, I thought, Oh my God, this is like living in, I don't, I mean, I live, I live 5 minutes away from this absolute devastated neighborhood in an absolutely perfect neighbor. I went to the grocery store this morning, I thought, I, I'm, I was so taken by that. I guess I was influenced by feeling sad about Cora Faith, but I, (exhalation) I went to the grocery store and I thought our grocery store, I don't know (laugh) if any of you've 00:34:00ever been to the Schnucks at, at, Richmond Center. Oh, my God, there was, no, I mean, it's just, it's miles, and beautiful fruit, and, and, wonderful vegetables, and everything's perfectly packaged and perfectly arranged in the stores. Perfectly clean. And you can't even imagine anything that you could possibly think of wanting that's not right, (um) I don't know, so I don't, and I thought, we lived 5 minutes away from this destruction. Why haven't we made it? Why haven't we fixed it in some way?

EH: (exhalation)

BVU: (exhalation) So, at the end of my life, I don't have an answer for that.

EH: No, you’re not at the end of your life, but we, we, thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective with us today. Like you've been very insightful and just really inside information that we haven't heard yet. So, we really appreciate you taking the time to share with us this morning.