Part 3
Seventy-five-year-old Betty Burchard believes that defining a good person and a bad person isn’t exactly black and white. But throughout her life, she’s always admired those who have strong beliefs and stick to them.
“I tend to be inspired by people who have strong constitutions and who can stand up to adversity,” Burchard said. “That’s something I don't do real well — I shrink from it.”
Yet through her lifetime, Burchard has learned that she is stronger than she thought she was.
Growing up in Texas, Burchard’s beliefs were shaped by her environment. Her family had an African-American maid, and she was partly raised by an African-American woman. She didn’t really know that there were beliefs involved, nor did she have any strong beliefs about it. It was just how her life was.
“My mother got upset one time because I would run to [the caretaker] rather than my mother,” Burchard said. “My mother was having her take care of me, that's who I was closer to. I never thought one way about it, I just didn't.”
By the time she started high school in 1955, her high school was integrated, but the movie theaters were still segregated. Burchard describes how African Americans would have to sit separately in the balcony area. But as exchange students began coming to the nearby University of Texas at Austin, there was the question of whether the students would have to sit in the balcony because they were black. Burchard describes the resulting rule as somewhat strange.
“If you went into a theater and you were black and you could prove you were not an American citizen, that you were an exchange student, you could sit down with all the other people,” Burchard said. “If you're an American citizen and you're black, you had to sit in the balcony.”
The first time Burchard saw an African-American at a party in a room full of caucasians, she remembered being surprised. Now, she can’t imagine it being any other way.
“There's no way I would ever think African Americans should be different from anyone else now, and I think much of it is because I’ve been living in California, where that's the attitude,” Burchard said.
Just as her environment has shaped her beliefs, her parents did back then too. In high school, Burchard never really had her own game plan. Her beliefs were shaped by her parents, and her goals were just to get by in school and then go to college — she knew college was part of her parents’ plan.
“I just went along with the program that was set up for me,” Burchard said.
Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts, was the only school she applied to, and Burchard received a rejection letter. Although college may have been part of her parents’ plan for her, Burchard was still disappointed.
“I never put together [that] I had to really work hard to get to that goal [of going to Mount Holyoke,]” Burchard said. “But it was sort of a vague goal to me; it was one of my parent’s goals.”
Burchard would then go on to another liberal arts college in Massachusetts, Pine Manor, since her parents wanted her to have an education on the East Coast. The school officials had managed to reassure her parents that she could attend Pine Manor for two years, and then transfer to Mount Holyoke. It’s a plan that Burchard thinks could’ve worked, save for the fact that she didn’t like it there.
Defying her parents’ plan, Burchard went back home to the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied english, economics and education. It was the first time she’d establish her own concrete goals.
She found herself in Southern California for a teaching job that lasted a year, and then went back to Texas. During that time, she’d spend her summers in Hawaii, before deciding to stay to get her doctorate degree at the University of Hawaii.
“I would've stayed in Hawaii forever if I hadn't been married and my husband was transferred here,” Burchard said. “I loved Hawaii.”
But Burchard did get married, which brought her here in 1974 — Los Altos Hills, California.
Here, she taught at Pinewood High School in Los Altos for six years, and then Lincoln High School in San Jose for 11 years before retiring. Then, she taught student teachers at San Jose State University. She retired again when she felt that she could no longer keep up with the technology, but now she’s back to working with student teachers again at SJSU.
Along the way, she’d gotten a divorce from her husband and moved to Cupertino — she’s been living here for 23 years. Burchard said that she needed the divorce since the marriage was not a positive one, but it was still hard for her. Yet through that, she’s figured out that she’s stronger than she originally thought.
“I see myself as an enabler … I kept thinking he would get his act together and I enabled him because I kept providing all the finances and whatever,” Burchard said. “I am very sensitive about that kind of thing now. [I] won’t let myself do that anymore.”
But she is still glad she was able to have two sons. Both of them are in their 40s, and married with kids of their own now. Motherhood is one of Burchard’s proudest achievements. She said that much of her values came from her parents, and that it’s nice to see those values reflected in her own children.
“I just don't think you can do a better thing,” Burchard said. “Somehow, to me, being president of the U.S. — especially with this president — pales to me in terms of having kids and doing what you can to make them good people.”
Burchard said that she has a tendency to second guess herself. At times, she even wonders whether she should’ve bought a house in Los Gatos instead of Cupertino, where the monetary profit would’ve been greater. But in the long run, she believes that some things are more important than money. She knows that it’s more about being where she’s happy — and she’s happy here in Cupertino. And looking back, she’s not sure she would tell herself not to do the things she’s done.
“I think all of those things are growing experiences, so I’m not sure I would tell myself not to do them,” Burchard said. “I do think over the years I’ve figured out I was stronger than I thought I was — a divorce was hard for me — but I got through it and you know, and I did okay. I’m still here, so I would tell myself ‘you're strong even though you've had your setbacks. You're strong, and you can get through this.’”
