Okay, can you start off by just introducing yourself and who you are?

Great. My name is Gloria Miller. I am the chair for the wellness division of the department on Aging. What was I going to say? Department on aging. And I serve as a commissioner on the. On that committee.

Got it. Where you from?

Typically, you want to say where I'm from originally or where I'm from in terms of Milwaukee?

Originally?

Originally from Forest City, Arkansas. My parents came here when I was the age of five. I am now 72, approaching 73.

There you go.

Awesome.

Now, when you came to Milwaukee, where'd you move?

We lived off of 14th and center. And I will tell you, before we moved, yeah, we were 14th and center in that area. Then was St. Boniface church a and p grocery store. My parents, we lived in a flat. There were, I say, my parents did some baby stopping along the way to Milwaukee, so I was the only child born in Arkansas. Then we moved to St. Louis, of which there were five born in St.

Louis. And then we came to Milwaukee, which there were two more. So that doesn't make seven. Or did I add too many people? It might have been four. Born in St. Louis, and we've been here since the age of five. For me, the age of five. So this is home.

Very good.

Yeah.

How was growing up here?

Very, very much family focused. Very much community focused. I mean, if you did something wrong in your block, you could be sure your parents knew it before you got home from school that day because a neighborhood was going to tell it.

Why did we lose that? I won't ask you.

I think a lot of that is in reference to how your parents saw them in your life, because our parents, we knew to respect them as our parents and not that they were on the same level as us, because that was not given to us. This is your mama. I'm your mama. I'm your dad, okay? And you respect me as such. It doesn't mean that their ages were any different than some of the ages that we see our young people having children today. But it was a level of respect and understanding that came from their parents, which would have been our grandparents. And you really. You didn't play around with that.

You didn't play with that. And you gave great respect to the adults that lived in your community. You really, truly did. You didn't go past that. You knew that if you did something wrong, somebody was gonna tell it before you got home. That was for sure.

Absolutely. So what'd you do in your career?

Ooh, Lord. In my career, I have an associate degree in marketing management, which has taken me far. I did not get the opportunity to go on to get my completed degree. And I say that in all honesty, because God just gave me special gifts. And with those gifts of being in tune to people around me that I connect with, or, you know, if I have a question about something, I could call so and so, people would tell me, Gloria, you don't need the full degree. You have all of that. And it has never stopped me from not getting the job that I could use, the gifts and talents that I have.

Got it. So what was your favorite job that you got to work in all this?

Well, I would tell you it's tied. It's tied between, I served as executive director for African World Festival for seven years.

Okay?

That was about 20 something a little over 20 something years ago. And then my current position as special events director for St. Ann City center for Intergenerational Care. You know, it's like, God always guides you where you need to be. And so with what I do on my current job, I do entertainment on our band shell in the summer, not knowing that all of the skills and connections I had with african world festival through entertainment and the event planning process would all come together. So he always knows he's the higher power, the greater thinker, and we just need to step back and let him do his thing and do exactly what he tells us to do.