Karla Jacobsen Squier Interviewer Name
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Narrator name: Karla Jacobsen Squier Interviewer name: Anne Dobberteen, Heurich House Museum Project: Home/Brewed! Oral History Project by the Heurich House Museum Support from the DC Oral History Collaborative Interview date: July 31, 2020 Remote interview, Washington, D.C., and Sunset Beach, North Carolina Interview length: 3:21:04 Karla Jacobsen Squier Oral History Interview Summary: Discusses Karla's childhood in Washington, D.C. during World War II, her early life and career in fashion, her later career in Republican politics in New Jersey, her current life and COVID, her Christian faith, and memories of the Jacobsen and Heurich families. Places mentioned include: Petworth; Dupont Circle; downtown; Tenleytown/Cleveland Park; New Jersey; New York; Europe; North Carolina. Narrator Biography: Karla Jacobsen Squier was born in Washington, D.C. in 1931 to Charles J. Jacobsen and Norvelle H. Newton. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her father served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was frequently stationed out of the city. Her grandfather on her father’s side, Christian F. Jacobsen, was the president of the Metropolitan National Bank in Dupont Circle, and she remembered visiting him there as a child. Her great, great grandmother was Elizabeth Heurich Jacobsen, Christian Heurich’s sister who immigrated to Baltimore and encouraged Christian to join her there. Karla grew up in the Petworth neighborhood during the Depression and World War II, but left the city in 1945 with her mother to move to San Francisco, then back to the Washington area, and finally to New Jersey to finish high school. Karla then attended college and worked in New York City in the fashion industry for a few years before moving back to New Jersey. She married Donald O. Squier and the two had two children, Christian and Dawn, but they divorced and Karla became a single mother. She took her children back to see family in Washington, D.C., often and eventually became involved in New Jersey State politics for the Republican Party – working on campaigns for Governor Thomas Kean, Sr., and eventually leading the New Jersey State Board of Elections. Karla retired from politics in 2002 and moved to North Carolina, where she remains active in local politics and serves the community by working at a foodbank. The Chr. Heurich Brewing Co. was a major brewery in Washington, D.C. from the late nineteenth- through mid-twentieth centuries. It likely had the largest DC non-governmental workforce during its peak in its Foggy Bottom location. The brewery closed in 1956. Its founder, Christian Heurich (1842- 1945) was a German immigrant, brewer, landowner, and philanthropist who found success in the United States. He built the Dupont Circle mansion at 1307 New Hampshire Ave, NW, between 1892-4, and raised his three surviving children there. The mansion is operated today as the Heurich House Museum. Narrator: Karla Jacobsen Squier, descendant of Elizabeth Heurich Jacobsen Project: HOME/BREWED, Heurich House Museum Date of Interview: July 31, 2020 Interviewer: Anne Dobberteen Anne Dobberteen (00:00:00): This is Anne Dobberteen, I'm with the Heurich House Museum, and I am remote interviewing Karla Jacobsen Squier. Today is Friday, January-- Friday, July 31st. And I'm in Washington, DC and Karla is in North Carolina. And Karla is related to Christian Heurich through the Jacobsen side of the family. And I hope I get it right this time, Karla, Elisabeth Jacobsen was your great-great-grandmother and was Christian's sister, right? Karla Jacobsen Squier (00:00:36): Correct. AD (00:00:39): Okay. KS (00:00:39): That's it. AD (00:00:40): Perfect. Well, let's, let's kind of jump right in with you and I'd like to talk about some of your, your memories growing up and then we'll get into some more memories about the family and, and so forth. So can you tell us when and where you were born? KS (00:01:01): Yeah, I was born in Washington, DC, July 21st, 1931 in Women's Hospital at 26th and Pennsylvania Avenue. It's no longer there. It's a housing development now. AD (00:01:17): Yup. Down by Foggy Bottom near GW. KS (00:01:22): Correct. AD (00:01:24): Great. And where did, can you talk about some of your childhood experiences growing up in Washington during the Depression and World War II? KS (00:01:36): Well... We, my mother [Norvelle H. Newton] and father [Charles J. Jacobsen] -- we lived on Quincy Street, 811 Quincy Street in Washington. That would just be in the Petworth section of Washington DC, in an apartment. And it was... It had an elevator, I can remember that. And it had a lot of steps in the front. It's probably still there. And there were a lot of kids and we used to play go out. My mother would sit on the steps of the apartment and we would play right on the the... Right on the, right on the property in front of the apartment. I had a bike and I had a wagon and we dragged all that up and down the stairs all the time. And it was, it was a fun place. I... There was my next door neighbor, there was a couple that lived there, had one daughter, Sonya Bryan. And I lost track with her until coming back to Washington and going to Roosevelt High School and lo and behold, we were in the same class for one semester at Roosevelt High School in Washington. So you never knew who you're going to run into. AD (00:03:08): Did you stay in touch after high school? KS (00:03:11): No that semester my mother... We moved again and she remarried and we moved to Freeport, Long Island. So my last year, my senior year in high school, I graduated from high school, Freeport High School, Long Island, New York. AD (00:03:38): Okay. And you-- KS (00:03:38): We just kept moving every, every year. I was, I went to four high schools. So my mother worked for the government, and after the second World War, she-- my dad went off to, he joined the Army Air Corps and they did get a divorce and we just, you know, moved from place to place. And I went to four high schools before I ever graduated. And the only time I settled down was when I got married and then I got divorced. Now I am settled in North Carolina and I will never leave here. [narrator And interviewer chuckle] AD (00:04:19): All right. Can you-- KS (00:04:20): No, I'm not going to pack up and leave again. [interviewer chuckles] AD (00:04:24): Yeah. Moving is, is tough. It must have, must have been you know, a lot for you as a high schooler. Can you talk about where you, the different places where you moved around with your mom? KS (00:04:38): Well, after the second World War, my mother worked for the government and she was offered a job in California, in San Francisco, with public... With PSE and G. So we moved to San Francisco and I went to high-- Commerce High School my sophomore year. And she was not well received because she was an outsider that came into California and "How dare she get a good job?" So she left that job. AD (00:05:14): What kind of work was it that she did for the government? KS (00:05:18): She was... She ended up as-- She was in the go... In the in the second World War she was the secretary to the head of one of the commissions. Back in the second World War, companies donated hi-- their high tech people. And they were a dollar a year people. They got paid by their own company, but the government paid them a dollar a year. And she worked for the War Production Board in Washington. AD (00:05:59): Oh, okay. New Speaker (00:05:59): And she was secretary to the, the high person in the War Production Board. AD (00:06:06): Wow. That sounds like a, like a difficult job during that time. I'm sure she was pretty busy. KS (00:06:12): Yeah. Well, she worked, she worked for, she worked for the electric company in Washington for a while, until she got the job in the government. AD (00:06:21): Okay. KS (00:06:21): And then we went to California and that didn't work out. So we came back from California and there was no housing in Washington because it was right after the war. And my uncle was stationed at-- her brother was stationed at the Pentagon. So we moved in with my uncle, my aunt, and three kids in Arlington, Virginia. And I went to... My first part of my junior year I went to Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. Then we got an apartment on Hawaii Avenue in Washington. She went back to work for the government, by the way. AD (00:07:12): Okay. Do you know what she was doing for the government? KS (00:07:12): And there were... This was after the war and they were all those agencies that were shoving down things, and that's where she got a job. And we we lived on Hawaii Avenue. That's when I went to Roosevelt High School for the second half of my junior year.