I interviewed my Grandma, Mary Ellen Carhill. She is a retired teacher, but before she started teaching, she worked as a journalist writing for newspapers, magazines and various newsletters.
We met at her house in San Dimas, California and sat in her living room for our interview.
“I used to write for my high school newspaper. I remember being really excited when my first article came out even though I was a bit irritated because the editors had cut some of my writing and I wanted all of what I wrote to be published.” I cut some of our interview as well so I hope she got over that feeling! She continued, “When I was older I started writing freelance magazine articles when we lived in Bakersfield California. My first freelance article was for the Bakersfield California magazine. It was about a friend of ours who climbed mountains and I continued to write many articles for that magazine.”
She explained about how she applied for a local newspaper. “A couple of years later, the Highlander newspaper was looking for someone to write a weekly column so I applied to write for that and ended up getting it. While I loved writing for that newspaper, I struggled with the weekly deadlines. Despite that, I ended up working for them for a long time.”
I then asked my grandma, what was your first job? And she answered, \”My first journalism job was freelance writing magazine articles.” She explained, “one of my favorites was about a lady who owned a bed and breakfast located in this old house in Bakersfield where we lived at the time.” She went on to explain how she got to see the house and interviewed the owner. The owner had told her how she had bought the house and fixed it up and started welcoming visitors.
When asked what was your favorite story to work on, she answered, “I wrote a story for L.A. Parent magazine. It was about traveling with children. I wrote it after I had taken my children on our own trip. It was so fun to write about our trip and include my own experiences in my writing.“ She also talked about how she took pictures and had a detailed list of information on what to pack to keep your children occupied and interested while on vacation.
Afterwards I asked my grandma what are your hobbies outside of journalism? “I like spending time with my family, camping with my friends, singing, playing guitar and sewing.” She explained how not writing as much has freed up a lot more of her time to spend doing the things she likes.
Lastly, I asked my grandma what was the most challenging thing you had to do while working in the field of journalism? She said, ”l struggled severely with deadlines. For example, when you are freelance writing you have to send a bill to the editor so that you can get paid and I would just forget to do that. I think that newspaper still owes me money! “
