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President Steve opened the meeting on time and asked Phil Gabriel to recite the Four Way Test, which he did wonderfully. PP Marsha Hunt led the Pledge, PP Chris Gaynor gave the Thought of the Day, Maestro PP Ed Gauld led us in singing “Anchors Away” and, Sherod Hanson was the greeter. Thank you all!
Today our speaker was WVRC’s newest member, Janet Schwartz giving her Craft Talk, which was fascinating! It seems Janet’s second cousin by marriage is PP Mark Rogo who sponsored Janet to the Club. Janet is a graduate of the University of Washington but also went to UCLA & Berkley. She was born in Culver City (a real native) and attended Hamilton High School. She studied and speaks Russian, French and Latin. Her grandparents are from Russia, so Janet had a curiosity about the country early on.
Janet’s father was an electro engineer in chemistry and helped build planes during the war and, her Mother who graduated from UCLA was a history teacher. She also has one brother.
During college she backpacked around Europe.
Through a study program at the University of Indiana in 1969 she visited Russia which she found very friendly and even watched the moon landing with Russians at her hotel. In 1973 she received her MA degree and visited Yugoslavia. Later in the ‘70’s she returned to Russia and worked as a Nanny for a diplomatic family. She lived in Russia for over a year where she worked as a cat/dog sitter and, an exhibit guide where she met some “connected” people who were dissidents. The longer she was in Russian the more she did notice a change in her environment and at times felt she was being watched by the KGB. She also noticed citizens could not move about as freely in Moscow as they once had.
In 1977 she moved to Washington, DC where she worked as a curator and, translated Russian as a Tour guide. She eventually returned to Seattle where she became an administrator at the
University of Washington while studying to
eventually start a career in computer programming what she referred to as the cobalt language. She worked in this field for the Seattle School District and then, back to the University of Washington.
Janet lost her mother to cancer in 2010 so she moved to LA to care for her father. The University of Washington allowed her to work remotely at the time. She did eventually retire to care for her father who passed a few years after her mom. She donated all of his books to the Westwood Village Library and, Mark & Lynn Rogo helped her to sell his home. Janet stayed in LA because she loves the weather!! We all do and, we are glad she is here!!
Thank you, Janet, well done!
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