Angela Watkins is 63 years old and has lived locally her whole life, with the exception of some time spent at the University of North Carolina. She has a deep love of books and learning. She has worked as a caregiver for many years.
Can you tell me about your schooling and your work history?
I attended public schools in Rockbridge County. Later, went to Hollins College which is now Hollins University. I received a BA in German and philosophy and stayed to get a masters in liberal studies which I built around ancient and modern languages, like Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. After that, I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Kent James Brown Fellowship to study Germanic Linguistics.
However I got sidetracked by that seven-story monument to intellectual freedom: the Walter Royal Davis graduate Library. Therein, one could find books and periodicals on just about any topic imaginable, in every political spectrum from far-left to far-right. But what was really important was that I could read about what I was interested in, look up stuff, do my own thing, without worrying about competing against anyone, being compared to anyone, or worrying about what kind of grade I was going to get in something.
After that, I worked at the old Fishburne Library at Hollins College. It was exciting just to smell the books as well as being among the ideas. I always regarded a seemingly mundane job, such as shelf reading, far from mundane as one could come across books of new and interesting things. While there, I did a stint in the college archives and that was fun. It was interesting reading old student letters and diaries from the 1800s and early 1900s. It was fun and very, very interesting.
Later, I worked at the reference desk at the Rockbridge Regional Library for over seven years. This was just as the internet was becoming popular for the everyman. It was like getting paid for doing Jeopardy. I was a manager and tour guide at the toy museum at Natural Bridge. We had a collection of toys from 1740 to 2000, but it's no longer there. Concurrently, I reviewed books for the Royal Oak Times and The News-Gazette.
I started working for Home Instead Senior Care in Verona in 2017, a couple of months after my father died. Our mission was to keep older people at home and out of nursing homes for as long as possible. During the pandemic lockdowns, I carried papers stating that I was a necessary frontline worker. There is an article somewhere in The News-Gazette where I wrote in about being on the front lines. Also, I was a part of something big that happened during the pandemic: I helped take the 2020 census. Of course I was masked, but with a government ID tag showing me mask-less and unsmiling.
Now I'm with Mid-Atlantic Home Care Richmond LLC. What I do and what I'm doing for people is shopping for them, taking them to doctors, cooking, cleaning up. Once in a while I'll have to give somebody a bath, and that's the personal care aspect, but most of the people I'm helping take care of now are what we call "home helpers" and we don't do any personal bathing or dressing, you know, unless I just help somebody put on a coat or a hat.
Can you tell me about your family background?
I'm an only child and my father, Bill, grew up on the land where I live now in Arnolds Valley. My grandfather, Terry, bought the property with his brother in 1919. My father's mother's side of the family, at least those who died natural deaths, tended to live into their late '80s and '90s without going to doctors much. Dorothy Watkins was my mother and she came from Eagle Rock/Fincastle area of Botetourt County. She and my father met at a revival at Forest Grove Baptist Church in Eagle Rock - he was there to sing. They dated off and on for seven years until they got married in 1960. They stayed married for 55 years. I never married.
My mother's family were of German descent. The earliest known of them, I think, came to Philadelphia in 1738. I don't know when my father's people came. I think some of them came from Scotland or England but I don't exactly know. They've been in the area since, at least, the Civil War. They were in Bedford County and Botetourt County. There was a great-great uncle in the family that was a prisoner war of the Yankees and he lived to be 97 years old and outlived both of his wives.
What was the most pivotal year of your life and why?
It has to be when I enrolled at Hollins as a freshman. I had a piano scholarship and I practiced two to three hours a day even in my first year. There was also boot camp academics. I did more assigned reading in my freshman year than I had done in all the years in public schools. My years at Hollins gave me a confidence that I could learn anything, but more importantly, they helped me to lose some of the anger and mistrust that I had towards people my age. For the first time in many years, I could relax and carry myself in a social situation. I think, when I got to Hollins, I learned that people my age liked me and I could, you know, I could trust them. I just got the sense that they liked me and they wanted to include me in things. And there wasn't the name calling that I had experienced back in high school.
Do you have a family tradition that has special meaning for you?
Driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway and going to the Peaks of Otter. As long as I can remember, I would go there for picnics with my grandparents, parents, aunt, and uncle-in-law. We take the bus up to a certain point on Sharp Top, and continue the rest of the way to enjoy the view to forever. Going to the lodge and walking around Abbott Lake were also on the itinerary. I climbed Sharp Top from the bottom to the top for my 58th birthday. I thought I would never get to the top! It seemed like every bend that I rounded, there was just more climb, more mountain, you know? I thought, 'I'm near the top,' but I wasn't. There just seemed to be more and more boulders, more turns, more paths. I still go to the Peaks when they are open and in the summer of 2024, I was there every two weeks just to get my Peaks of Otter fix.
Is there a family heirloom that is precious to you?
I have some pictures in an album of my ancestors, that I value. The wedding pictures of my great-grandparents Watkins and Parker. A picture of my maternal grandfather that was taken on his first date. A very nice picture of my grandmother. My paternal grandparents Watkins, at home with my uncle and my father when they were small children. A glamor portrait of my father's sister Gladys, her husband Freddy, and of course my parents photos. I would be remiss if I didn't mention a portrait of my father, resplendent in his army uniform, that was taken at Andre studio in Lexington. And my mother, in a nice picture that was taken when she was 25.
Do you have a favorite family recipe that you feel should be preserved?
Uh, my mother's macaroni salad. She learned it from her mother. It's basically not using a prescription, it's just adding ingredients as you go and to taste. It's better than any store-bought macaroni salad and most restaurant pasta salads.
Here it is:
- It's one box of cooked macaroni
- Add considerable chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and diced onions.
- Coat the ingredients with mayonnaise but don't drown them.
- Salt to taste after that.
- And, this is probably the most important thing to get the taste, chill-in refrigerator overnight to let the flavors marinate.
The size of a serving is up to you. I've eaten people's macaroni salad and the thing that they did not do, that made it taste awful, was that they did not refrigerate it overnight and the flavors just did not have a chance to marinate.
Do you have any advice to give to people who want to live a long and happy life?
Okay, that depends whether one wants to be 40 and in the height of their powers or 95, frail in a wheelchair and forgetful. But let me start with observations of my father who lived to be 92:
My father dodged several close calls in army basic training in World War II, where he almost drowned. The time a panicked steer ran over him and the emergency room doctor said the steer just missed some vital organs. The time he fell asleep at the wheel of his car after being up with my uncle all night in the hospital, flipped the car over and came out of it with only a few scratches. So there's so much left to chance, but my father always had a saying: "don't put yourself in harm's way."
The other things I noticed: he wasn't a heavy meat eater, especially red meat or cured ham. He liked chicken and fish. He usually ate oatmeal and half of a banana for breakfast. He absolutely loved tomatoes, green and pinto beans, and just about anything else that grew in the garden. If he strayed from this, he only ate moderately. I never saw him drink milk or eat eggs but the reason for that is that he did so much of that when he was growing up. He said he just had so much of that he could stand, because he grew up on a farm. In later years, he developed high blood pressure but he got it under control and kept it there. He also had a saying: "keep a positive attitude."
Find your own tribe of people with whom you feel absolutely comfortable around and you don't have to 'put on' in front of. Always have something you're just dying to do and have something to look forward to. Keep yourself the perpetual third-grader. I feel that every time I go into a good public library, especially when I get into the children's section. You know, there's so many things you can do - arts and crafts, so many new ideas, so many great pictures in the books. If you want an introduction to any subject, a children's book, a lot of times, is a good place to start and then you can just take it from there.
Keep on top of things by going to doctors and dentists on a regular basis, and partner with them in your care. Be kind to animals and find one or more to be a companion to, or to at least love when you go to somebody else's house. And lastly just remember this universe is held together by something greater than yourself.
