Barbara Guidera
An interview with Christie Snowden from the series “AWC Oral Histories”
Coming to Spain | AWC | Changing World | Work
Coming to Spain
Can you please tell me your full name, where you were born, your nationality and your date of birth?
Yes, my name is Barbara Lee, last name is Guidera. My last name unmarried was Jones, so it was Barbara Lee Jones. And my married name is Guidera. I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1935. I am a U.S. citizen, and I have residency in Spain.
Can you tell us about how you came to live in Seville?
Well, I guess first I have to tell you how I came to live in Spain because we went to Mallorca to Palma at the end of September 1961, and we stayed there for a month. We didn’t like it because it just seemed like far away from reality, far away from the country. It’s an island, and the people spoke Mallorquin, which is the dialect of Catalan. And so well, I didn’t speak Spanish anyway, but we came to Spain for my husband’s purpose. He had just finished his doctoral work in Minnesota at the University of Minnesota, and he was taking a year off to write. So we went to Spain because it was less expensive to live than Paris. For example, we had $4,000, and we came to Spain, and we went to Mallorca. We were there for a month, and from there we went to Malaga, to Marbella, and we stayed there from November 1961 to October 1962.
So where were you living before you went to Las Palmas?
We lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where my husband was going to the University of Minnesota for his doctorate.
Is that where you’re both from?
No, we’re both from Long Island, New York.
And how did you get in Minneapolis?
Well, we met at work in New York City, and then he got a fellowship to the University of Minnesota. So we got married and moved out to Minnesota and stayed there for two years while he was a teacher assistant and doing his class work for the doctorate.
What was his doctorate about?
It was in English literature.
So you moved then from Malaga to Seville, is that right?
Yes, in October of 1962, we moved to Seville. We were actually going to Barcelona because there was an American school there, an American study abroad program that he could get a job at. But on the way, we went first to Seville because there was a military base and there was a possibility of his teaching at the military base. Because we were running out of money, we needed some, so you look for a job. So we went to Seville. That was to be through Seville to Barcelona, but we never left Seville because he found work there at what they call eventual work there, temporary work, and he got some courses at the University of Maryland, overseas courses at the U.S. base in Morón. He did some substitute teaching at the high school and did teaching for the military education department of effective writing, and GED for Americans who had not finished their high school education. It’s a General Education Degree—they study and take a test, and then they get the equivalent of a high school diploma. So that’s what he did there, and it was for another year. But then, we stayed until 1968 and went back to New York State.
Why did you go back?
Well, we were kind of tired of living on $5,000 a year, but we could do that. We could even have a couple of juergas every year at our house. It’s a flamenco show. In those days, you could get flamenco singers and players to perform in your garden, and all you had to do was give them a little bit of manzanilla or vino, and a few pesetas, and they would come and perform. It’s like, you know, a garden party at night. There was a lot of that going on, and especially in this area and in Alcalá, there were big flamencos and Morón.
Were you living in Alcalá during that time period?
We lived in Seville at first, and then we then we moved to Alcalá. There was a bus from Seville through Alcalá to the base that ran off and where the military could get the bus and take it to their work there. There were a lot of militaries who lived in Alcalá. It was closer to Morón and Seville.
So then in ‘68 you moved again?
No, we moved in ‘66 to Heliopolis. So we were two years then in Heliopolis and Sevilla before we then moved back to New York State, to upstate New York.
What did you do in New York when you went back?
My husband taught at a community college, Rockland Community College in Rockland County outside of New York City, for one year, and then the next year we moved to Freeport, New York, which was on Long Island, which is where we were both from, and he got a job teaching at the college he graduated from, which was Hofstra University. So we were there for two years, and we missed Spain, so we went back in 1971, the end of 1971, I believe.
Now could you live and work in Spain at that time because neither one of you comes from a Spanish background? How does that work?
It was not difficult. I guess legally we were supposed to do something and maybe we didn’t. I’m not sure. Actually, when we left Spain the first time which was in ‘68, we set up with a friend, another PhD from New York, an American, that we would do some recruiting while in Rockland County for students for a summer program and that he would then deliver the program all around Seville, Madrid, the North, probably Santiago and back again and then a southern part—Granada, Cordoba, Seville. So we did that for one summer, and the students didn’t seem to like what they got. So we went off on our own, and the friend went off on his own, and we started study abroad. It was called ‘Study and Travel Abroad.’
And so you did that from the States?
We did that from the States for two years. And then, because we were in the States for three years, so the summer of ‘71 we returned to Seville. And actually, we were in Alcalá for a month or so. Then a friend of ours found a house for us in Heliopolis, and we bought it. I mean, it didn’t cost much. You know, I can’t remember what it was, but it wasn’t very much.
So I have to backtrack now. We had put an ad in some college newspapers and also for teachers in New York State for the summer program, but then that was over. We got interested in a special program for Union College in Schenectady, New York when Jerry was still teaching at Hofstra University. The study abroad advisor from Union College met us in New York with his wife and told us what kind of a program they wanted for their students. They had thirty-four students, but it would be for the next winter program, really a quarter program, ten weeks or so. So that’s how it started. And that was given in the winter of 1972, January. It went well, so the advisor from Union College said, “Why don’t you start a study abroad program for everybody?” Anyway, we still have Union College. From 2000, every other year they come. So we had the first program for a college, a special program for Union College, January through March for about thirty some students from Union College. That was taught mostly in Spanish. And then the director suggested that we do a complete study abroad in Spain for any student, college, groups, or non-groups. So we did start that, but we didn’t start that until 1975. So from 1971 in the fall to 1973 in the fall, we were in Spain. We bought the house in Heliopolis, and in 1973, we sold the house that we had just bought a year and a half ago and figured we needed to go back to the States because we needed recruiting. There wasn’t anybody to do the recruiting. So we went back in 1973 in the fall and in the summer. By the end of August of 1973, we moved to Southampton, Long Island, and we were there for two years, and all the time setting it up so that we could come back and live in Spain, which we did in the summer of 1975. And that was when I first joined The American Women’s Club, in the fall of 1975. We lived in Alcalá for a year, but I still belonged to the women’s club, as did a number of other women, because their husbands were at the base, mostly, but they had jobs at the base. Then in ‘76 we moved into the barrio Santa Cruz in Sevilla, outside of Alcalá, of course, and we stayed there for about five years. That was my second year back in Spain and was the year that I was President of The American Women’s Club.
And your children were born in Spain and in the States?
My oldest was born in Minnesota before we came over to Spain in 1960. The next one was born in Marbella in 1961, in December, in the house, because the hospital was not a real hospital. It was a problematic hospital. It was just a town hospital, and I would have to go to the hospital in Malaga. So I had a doctor and the midwife, and there was no problem. I was not exactly comfortable, but the doctor was good. So my first son was born in December 1961. Then, in October of 1962, we had decided that we were going to leave Marbella because my husband needed work. So that’s when we went supposedly through Sevilla to Barcelona and went to Sevilla, and that’s when we stayed there. And that’s when the rest of the history begins. So my third child, second son, was born when we lived in Alcalá on July 4th of 1963. And my third son was born on October 3 of 1965. And then so that when we went back the first time in 1968, we went back with four children, and then we settled in Long Island for a couple of years. In 1970, we had a fifth child. And that summer, right before he was born, we came back to Seville just for the summer because we had a summer group, and I stayed in an apartment in Madrid with my kids. My husband took students around and gave them classes. In the summer of ’71, we came back to Spain, and then in May of ’72, we had our last child. So when we went back to the States and to Southampton, then we had the six children.
So then we’re back now again to 1975, when we came back to Seville, lived for a year in Alcalá and then moved to the barrio Santa Cruz, and we were there until 1981. My children went to Spanish schools. A couple of them went to the conservatory, one of them for guitar and one of them for violin. And we just lived a regular life in the barrio Santa Cruz.
And what happened in ‘81?
In ‘81, we decided that we had to go back because the children weren’t doing very well in school. The younger ones didn’t like the school system, and they were failing. They weren’t stupid and all except the youngest, the young one was doing very well. And so we decided that we really needed to take them back to the States to further their education. Of course, that’s difficult because you know they used it. They didn’t use their English; they learned their first language which for all of them was Spanish, because they had Spanish friends. And, you know, living in a town like Alcalá and near school, l and then you have maids to help out because they cost almost nothing in those days. And so, effectively my husband and I would speak English to each other. They didn’t understand it, but we had to learn Spanish as a second language, while they were learning Spanish as their first language. So that was kind of curious. So back to the States we went. They didn’t like that idea, but actually our daughter was older and she was at the university. She did okay in school, and she went to Bellas Artes. And so we left her here in an apartment with a friend. She finished her studies, her five years of Belles Artes, here in Seville, and we were in Long Island with the other five children who were going to school. From there, we moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, in about ’83 because we heard there was a good school system there for the kids and so, we took them. One of them was already in college. He had gotten a scholarship to his father’s college, which was Hofstra University. And then the second one, the third child, did his last year, which was kind of hard all Spanish and his last year, he did his final high school and then graduated and went on to college as well. And then the rest of them continued in Amherst, Massachusetts, until 1991. So we were ten years in the States. In 1980, before we returned to the States with the boys, we built a house in a little town in the mountains called Grazalema, where it rains more than any place else in Spain all year long. And so we had a house. We built a house there. So from ‘81 when we left, that house was there waiting for us, and every summer we would come over with the kids to spend from June through August and into September, we would spend in Grazalema. So the kids had their friends, and they used their Spanish. So we did that every year for ten years. And then in 1991, there was the Expo, so we decided to come back again for another year to see the Expo.
To the World’s Fair?
To the World’s Fair, yes the World’s Fair in Seville. So we did and that one year that we came back for ended up we’re still here. So we never did return to the States, to New York or to Massachusetts for any length of time. We would visit, we’d go over in the summer sometimes. So that takes us to the World’s Fair of 1992, actually, when we came and stayed.
Barbara, how did your family feel about you moving here originally, I mean your parents?
My father had died, so he wasn’t in the picture, but, my mother didn’t like that we came here, and neither did Jerry’s mother like that, but you know that’s what happens. They didn’t want to see you go away. But we came anyway and they visited us while we were here as well. Finally, when we came to stay, actually my mother died in ’95 so she was still alive,, but she was in a nursing home. And two of my children lived right near the nursing home, so they would visit her once in a while.
Let’s talk about you and learning Spanish. What is the background there? Did you know Spanish when you came here at the beginning or did you learn it throughout the years?
My language was French in high school and college, and so I spoke French, and so I wanted to go to Paris. But, it was too expensive to live there. It was much less expensive to live in Spain than it was to live in Paris or in France anywhere, really. So that’s what made us go to Spain. So I effectively learned Spanish from living there. I took one class in Spanish once I knew it, but here, you know, it was a class in theater, but it was not a language class. So I never did have a Spanish language class.
So you just picked it up as you went along?
Well, I mean, you go to the store, you have to buy meat, you have to buy this, you have to buy that and you make a lot of mistakes. You know, ask for something that sounds really raunchy. And you know, you realize that it’s wrong.
Did you find that to be easy or difficult?
Well, it was a struggle. Sometimes it was a struggle because, you know, I would remember most of the words like vegetables, meats, toilet paper. You have to remember what that is. In fact, we were asked one time when we were living out in the campo what toilet paper was for. They thought it was to cover what you did. Because when my husband asked for the toilet paper in this little tiny store that was out in the campo where we lived that one summer, out in El Ángel, which is now that fancy place on the coast between San Pedro and Marbella, Puerto Banus, and people who built Puerto Banus were living in that tiny little town that only had like one little store and they had their own cows and if you were nursing a child, you got the milk before anybody else. And if not, you could stay in line and get the milk. Sometimes there was more than others in the cows. So my husband went to the little store that was there and asked for papel higenico and the guy wanted to know what it was for. When he told them to clean yourself. And so he said una piedra y lista. So we’re thinking a rock, and that’s it? That’s how many cents? I mean, we have to use a rock. So I said, oh, no, wait a minute. So then he went into the town, and he got some toilet paper. But we found out what that meant was that they would just, since nobody had toilets out there, they would just do it out in the countryside, off the main little road that they had and cover it with a rock, because we would pick up a rock and we’d see that was what it was there for. I mean, it’s not a nice way.
How important do you think learning Spanish was for your new life in Seville?
That’s very important if you want to mix with the people and you want to learn about them and you want to have friends who are Spanish. Most of our friends were Spanish, and we had some friends from the base of wives of like my doctor at the base, his wife, my dentist’s wife, some other wives of officers in the military there, Americans. We did a lot of things with those people, and we went to flamenco gatherings with Americans who liked that as well, who got into the Spanish style of having a good time, I would say, eating and so forth.
How about your adaptation to your new life in Seville? What was it like to adapt to Seville?
Well, you go anywhere new, you have to discover what there is there that you need and what there is not that you need and work around that and not really need what is not available. There were some things I would complain about, and I still do. But you know, it was livable. It worked, and it was a nice way to live. The weather was great. How could you ask for more sun? I was cold in the winter all the time. My feet were always cold. And you didn’t have the kind of heat in your home that you have now. From the military base, you could get kerosene heaters, which were really dangerous, but they sold the heaters that, you know, you filled with kerosene and you had to watch them. You know, if you closed one into the bathroom and you go open the door one time and the whole place was filled with carbon monoxide.
Do you remember anything that was a particularly different in the lifestyle between the States and Spain back then?
Oh, it was very different. Yeah, it was very different. I mean, besides the fact that there was a dictatorship which really, and as far as we were concerned, did not affect us. There was very little crime, I have to say, that we knew of. And we had Spanish friends, but they never talked about politics. Theoretically, we were living in Heliopolis most of that time, and they weren’t allowed to have a group of people in their homes. And so what happened was that friends would go out and eat out together, and there was a lot of bar hopping. Tapas. Snacks. You would get snacks in this bar with a drink with a group of friends, Spanish friends, and then you would go to another bar and get another set of snacks and a glass of wine or beer or Coke or whatever you wanted. And that was going out. And that was meeting with friends. Because they just did not have much meeting with friends in their homes. Or they would go out on a Sunday.
It wasn’t allowed or they just didn’t do it?
Legally, you could not have more than three people, as far as I know, visiting you at a time, unless they were family, because people were plotting against Franco.
So this was before 1975?
Oh yeah, this was in the ‘60s. Then, the people who thought that Franco was good or who may believe they thought that he was good because they had to, then they turned around, they changed and they realized that you know he was a dictator and they didn’t want a dictator. Some of them were still Franquistas, but I would say that most of them were not, and some of them were Communist leaning They were the ones who were frightened when they had the takeover in Madrid of the Congress. It was in 1976, I think.
Did you know anyone in Seville before you arrived?
No, nobody. We first arrived in Malaga, and we didn’t know anybody in any place in Spain before we arrived.
So you met different people through the Air Force Base in Morón. Any other way that you met people at the beginning?
In the stores, on the streets, or even the very beginning, we lived in Heliopolis for about half a year. You go to the market, you have neighbors. They play in the streets because there’s not much traffic in Heliopolis, so the kids were playing there. And then there was a little placita, a little park like a square block long where the kids played ball. So the children are the ones who really introduce you to your new friends.
How did your diet change when you essentially moved to Spain compared to what it was like in the States?
More beans, lentils, garbanzos, not much in the way of fish, but meat, lots of pork and a lot of fruit and vegetables. We’d eat out a lot with our Spanish friends because that was where they met their friends, as I mentioned earlier.
So you must not have had a lot of free time between all the kids and such, but any other free time that you did have, how did you spend it?
We did because we had maids to take care of the kids we had, and we had a niñera. We had a cleaning lady, and then we had a regular maid and somebody who came twice a week to wash and iron. All you had to do was feed them, the poor things. They didn’t have any money. And so we lived on $5000 a year until the end of the ‘60s, until ‘68. And as I said, we still had a couple of juergas, a couple of flamenco shows, each year.
So you ate out a lot. Did you have any other activities that you particularly remember?
We went to the theater, and we went to music. And there wasn’t a lot of music because there wasn’t a good orchestra. There was a Betis Orchestra, and it was pretty bad, but when the Expo came was when Seville developed culturally much more. But we went out with friends, and there was theater, and there were zarzuelas which there are not much now except in Madrid. And opera or teatro here in the Lope de Vega. Movies.
Have your interests changed much throughout the years?
Since we came to Spain, it was different because there was flamenco, but now it is in a larger area. We had flamenco, and we had opera. We had all of those other things in Spain, especially after ’91, and so there was always something to do.
Do you remember your first impression of Spain?
Yes! I came because my husband went first to Paris. His brother was there with NATO, and he went to Paris, and his brother told him it wasn’t good for him to stay in Paris. It was too expensive. So that’s when he went to Spain. Then I went over with my daughter. I had a charter flight to London because we didn’t know where we were going to be when I first got the flight, and I would fly with her from London to wherever Jerry had settled. So I’m flying then to Mallorca, and first we go to Cataluña to Barcelona from Barcelona to the Balearics. So my first impression was getting off the plane and seeing all these military men around. I thought they were military men. I couldn’t tell you if they were the Guardia Civil or what. But I think they were, and they still are right in the airports, a bunch of policemen, and you know it was kind of shocking to see all these policemen around and nobody else except some of the passengers. And then I had to go through customs. Well, I had never been in any place outside of the United States to go through customs, and so it was all kind of scary.
Alright. And after he went through customs and you actually got into the city, do you remember what you saw? Was there anything that stood out?
I didn’t go into the city. We had to fly from London to Barcelona, and then from Barcelona, I got on another plane to Palma, Mallorca. By that time, I had already been through the experience, and so my husband was there to pick me up with my daughter. Otherwise, a first experience sort of just moving around, it was very different. I just note what I noticed was that everything was very different. Everything was kind of backwards.
In what way?
Well, I guess it was a less developed country than the United States. I mean I had seen Canada a bit, but that was the only place I had been.
AWC—The American Women’s Club of Seville
Barbara, when did you join the American Women’s Club of Seville? The AWC?
Yes, I joined the AWC in 1975. After we returned in the summer, well, then in the fall, I joined the AWC for the first time. I knew it existed, but I was busy with the kids. And I didn’t have the money to join. It wasn’t expensive, but I couldn’t go to the luncheons anyway, so I didn’t join. Actually, what got me to join was that before we went back, when my youngest child was born in ’72, I had friends who were in the women’s club, and she brought a present from the women’s club for my new baby. I thought that was so, so sweet. Then the next time we came back, I immediately joined the women’s club, and we lived in Alcalá, it was 1975. We lived in Alcalá for one year before moving into the barrio of Santa Cruz. Then the next year, which was ‘76, I was asked to be the President. And I said as long as I’m living in Seville, I will do that, you know? So I did. And that was the only year that I was president in 1976-77.
OK, why did you join the Club?
Well, the reason is that I knew people who were in the Club and I knew it was a positive thing for me. And like they had gotten the gift for me, and I just thought it was a great place to join because there were a lot of activities then. It was very different than it is now. There weren’t as many people and a lot of the American women who joined were married to men who were working at the base, at the U.S. Spanish Air Force Base in Morón. And so it made a different group of people of Americans also because the wives were not working, most of them. And so they had time to go to women’s club activities and meetings. Anybody could join the American Women’s Club as long as they spoke English. For the Spanish, it was prestigious for them to join, either the wealthy ones, the ones who went to the right schools, you know, Las Irlandesas. So they would join, and it was prestigious for them to do so and that made a big difference in the Spanish society.
Can you tell me about some of the first events that you went to?
Well, luncheons we had in restaurants the same as we do now, but we might have had more people in the restaurants, and the restaurants were not as full as they are these days. There weren’t as many of them, and the Spanish women were very different than the ones who are there now. The ones who are there now seem to be more so because maybe they have a job to offer, maybe they have work that people could use. So they were working, maybe one would be a woman dentist. There weren’t many of these before, and so maybe they could get some clients. Nowadays it seems more like that, but I’m not sure because there are a lot of Spanish women who have joined now. Most of them are working, or they have children and they’re working too, so they don’t have much time to do luncheons or anything. What would happen was that the Spanish women were from wealthy husbands, and because they were brought up to speak English and so forth, and that was very prestigious, as I said. And several of them were wives of men who owned bull ranches. And they had plenty of money, and they liked to show off, so they would invite the members of the women’s club to visit their farm, their bull farm. And they would get a bus to take us out to the farm, the bull ranch, and they’d give us lunch, usually a paella, and we’d have a tour. All of this was free because it made them more important in their own society. So we went to several different bull ranches.
The American Women’s Club of Seville has several different subgroups, for example, there’s the book club. Can you tell me about way back when what sort of subgroups existed?
It wasn’t all just American Women’s Club, but it was mostly, let’s say, the American Women’s Club. There was a book club. Some of us who lived in the center of Seville area, we had a poetry reading group, gatherings in some people’s homes. And there usually were Americans with Americans. The British Consul and his wife were members but were in a group where we’d go to different places, have people’s houses and read poetry. Maybe there would be a flamenco show that we would go to together, but there weren’t a lot of activities. It was mostly luncheons.
So you mentioned that you were President in 1976, is that right? Did you hold any other board positions or committee positions?
I might have. I was head of the book club. For a while, Carol Crisler and I were together, and then I took it over because she had a lot to do. It was not difficult to be the President. You didn’t have all these different things going on that there are now. We didn’t have children’s activities at the beginning because a lot of the women belonged to the base, and they had their own activities at the military base and the children’s schools. There weren’t too many people like me, like my family, who weren’t connected really to anything except the base, because that’s where my husband was teaching.
So if the American Women’s Club didn’t have children’s activities, are you saying that the children of the other women went to mostly base activities for children or they didn’t have children?
No, they had children. A lot of them lived in Seville’s Santa Clara neighborhood, which was where the school was and that was the military, the U.S. officers’ neighborhood. And so they had activities there. They had them through a school, the American School that the kids went to and in the base so there wasn’t any need for it really. I mean, there were some people living here who were not connected to the base, but there weren’t very many.
So what was a board meeting like back then?
I can’t remember. I mean, I don’t even know if we had a board meeting to tell you the truth.
How about the newsletters or telephone calls, what was your means of communication?
The newsletter got sent by mail to all the members. I don’t even know, if when I was President, if I wrote something in the newsletter. I suppose so, but it was such a minor thing that it wasn’t of much importance, except that we all awaited the arrival of each month’s newsletter to see what was going on, and you know whose finca, whose bull ranch we could go to, or what other activity there might be.
So if you wanted to go, what did you do?
You sign up. So how did you sign up? I guess you called, right? No mobile phones. You‘d call from your home phone. You’d call whoever was in charge and sign up for it. And anything else that was happening, that wasn’t in the newsletter, you would have to get a phone call about or another written message. It was written more than anything else, written in a letter format and mailed to you. Oftentimes, it was just among a few people. There weren’t that many members, actually, mostly the officers’ wives and the wealthy Spanish. We had a couple of titled members of the Club, Spanish titled members. They lived on the Calle Zaragoza, the maestrantes. In the States, it’s called the Blue Book.
What about the charity activities back then?
There were some charity activities. I don’t remember ever having been involved, but we didn’t do an activity for charity; a certain amount of the dues went to two charities. We didn’t have anything special to earn money for the charities in those days. I was away before ’91, so I don’t really know what they did then. I was not in the Club because I was only here in the summertime. But from then on, there were more activities and more concern about it, but obviously not until relatively recently, because we were giving to an organization that couldn’t care less, and, you know, we never got a thank you for it. It was not real. It wasn’t something we worked for. I think we gave to charity because that was one of the reasons we had to exist.
Do you remember which charity it was?
Well, the last one we gave up was there for a long time—Hermanitas de los Pobres.
Do you remember when the American Women’s Club started giving 50% of its dues money to charity?
I think maybe from the very beginning. Because that’s all we gave. We had raffles at the meals. I can’t remember how many pesetas it was, but one ticket cost €2 and two cost €3. And so that raffle money was the way we got money for the charities, other than what we gave from our dues.
Do you remember any other big events that went on other than the bull ranches?
Well, the Christmas party. We’d have a Christmas party in the evening right before Christmas, in a large restaurant usually because husbands came also and it was a fancy meal. My time after the ‘90s was when I really went to these things more. Liz Enright had Flaherty’s and another one that was down by the Macarena, down by the Puente del Alamillo, Los Perdigones.
The Christmas parties, where were they held?
They were held at nice restaurants in Seville. There was an American caseta. And that that was when really, really early on they had one for the NGOs, and they had one for the officers. A caseta for the officers and one for the non-officers. This was is in the ‘60s and they were owned by the base, I guess somehow. So I went to that one time. But that was earlier on and I didn’t go to those much.
Do you remember at one point that the American Women’s Club of Seville held activities at the U.S. Consular Agency in Seville?
Well, that was at the U.S. consulate. It wasn’t the agency; it was an actual full-fledged consulate. They had a consul general there, which is important too. The reason they had the consulate there was because of the base. So once the Americans left the base in the late ‘70s to ‘80s, the consulate became a consular agency. They had the building because that building was given to them as part of the 1929 World’s Fair. They had it until maybe twenty years ago, when it became a consular agency. The person who ran it was not a consul. He was a consular agent. Then they didn’t have ownership of the building any longer, and that’s when they moved to an office in the Plaza Nueva. But we had big parties there. We had 4th of July, and so there was that entertainment that the American Women’s Club had also. And the Spanish women went to the 4th of July, and they had maybe sometimes Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, parties for the American bullfighter, John Fulton, for example. He was a very good friend of the consul general’s family.
So do you remember at the Christmas parties that were held there what you did, what everybody did?
We all got together and sang and we drank champagne or whatever they happened to have. And I don’t believe we paid anything for it. I think it was, you know, just open to Americans and their friends.
Then what did we eat?
A meal, a potluck. Oh, we did bring them. In the ‘70s, we would take something to eat and the consul would supply the drinks.
What about a raffle at the Christmas party?
You’re reminding me that we did have special raffles, maybe a bottle of wine or some flowers or plant or something like that. But these were raffles that a lot of people contributed to. And so you’d have big basket or maybe you would have four or five baskets of different things that had been contributed. And then you got more money for the raffle for the charity that we gave to. They would get a big amount at Christmas time. I don’t remember if we had any special thing other than the raffles for getting Christmas money to the charities. And what else? Let’s see, we’d sing, we’d chat. I think the biggest, most appreciated activity or party that they had at the consulate was the 4th of July because that’s our big day, and spend some money, put the flag up.
Fouche was the Consul General, who had a wife, Helen, and three children. They lived at the consulate. A woman by the name of Barbara Schmutzman opened a Montessori school in the barrio of Santa Cruz. She was American, and her husband was studying medicine. So the consul’s youngest boy and my youngest son went there. My son went to the Montessori School in the mornings in English. In the afternoons, he went to the public school from 3:00 to 5:00, when they did Spanish, so he got a good basic education in both languages. The other ones didn’t.
Which other AWC members were you closest to at that time or that you met with regularly?
I met with wives of husbands who worked at the base like Betty Engles. Her husband was some kind of officer at the base. For American friends, wives of the people who were still at the base while it was going. Otherwise, it was my Spanish friends that I knew from a long time ago and friends, for example, when we met in the ‘60s in Heliopolis, now the kids played together and across the street lived a lawyer and his wife and three children. Then the first New Year’s Eve we were here, we were invited by them to go out to Gines or one of the towns outside of Seville for New Year’s Eve. So we made friends with them and through friends we made other friends, so we had a group of Spanish friends who we would go out with every Friday night. We began this in the ‘60s, but later on, we did it with more with more people beginning in ‘91.
Do you remember which AWC members you saw the most of back then?
By back then, I guess I saw Gaye Sánchez-Pizjuán and Carol Crisler, Rebecca Buffuna who had a bookstore, and Eleanor Formica. Some of these people lived in the Porvenir neighborhood, and they knew each other. And Sally Duque who was in a group there. She did more things at that point when I first came before she got so involved with her husband.
How did being a member of the American Women’s Club affect your experience of life here?
Well, it made it more interesting. I found more things to do, I met more people, and my children met children of the women’s club also, so it mainly it enriched my experience here in Seville, and keeping in touch with the Americans as well, and they, almost all of them, were married to Spaniards.
Barbara, what do you think you have brought to the American Women’s Club?
Any knowledge I might have had that I could share with them—the building that we owned for the Centro Norteamericano on the Calle Harinas, actually there are two buildings. We had a school that was primarily set up for American students to come to a study program in Seville to study Spanish and to improve their Spanish. At the same time, we had English courses. We taught English courses for Spanish people, and so we eventually purchased two buildings, and they’re large. There’s plenty of room for other activities too, so I was able to offer the American Women’s Club space and a library at one point for us to use, and so I think that that was probably the main contribution and the big patio downstairs. For a long time, we have had the morning coffee introduction meeting. I guess they call it coffee morning, but we might change that. It’s more like a home. It became somewhat of a home to the American Women’s Club. But that somewhat changed after the pandemic, because we didn’t have any students so when you don’t have any income and if you can’t go out, you can’t have meetings. Then we got Zoom and all the rest of that. But I think we could say that the building was the best thing that I could offer.
And can you tell me about those coffee mornings?
People come, people who’ve gone to the coffee mornings before, which are about the last Saturday in September, most of them know it and said they know they’re going to find out when it is. It’s a way to introduce or reintroduce Americans or English-speaking people to the Club, and we have it catered: coffee, delicious cakes, sandwiches. It runs in the morning from about 10 or 10:30 to about 2:00 in the afternoon. We’re eating all the time, we’re talking, and we’re having a general meeting. The President is presented and the other officers as well. It’s just a great time starting up the Club again in September.
So it’s to kick off the year?
Kick off. Yes, it definitely kicked off.
Barbara, do you think events such as cultural celebrations from the US and other countries are important to you, like Thanksgiving or Independence Day?
Not personally, no. I don’t find them special, but if I’m in the States, it’s special because they make a big thing of it. The 4th of July and Thanksgiving are the biggest American holidays. I don’t miss them if I don’t have them. I guess I’m old enough, so I’ve had lots of them. And you know, I like to see that there is a Thanksgiving luncheon. I’m sorry that some of the non-American members don’t like it, because it ended up being the November luncheon. I’m American, and I’m proud of it. But I don’t have any big need for celebration. I celebrate Spanish holidays because everybody around does that—Feria and Semana Santa. At this point, Semana Santa is not the same anymore, as far as I’m concerned, because there are too many people. You know, my first Semana Santas were during the Franco period when there were less crimes and fewer people, less crimes as well. And you could see they would turn off all the lights in the center of the city, all of them. There were no street lights on at all. And so you could see the shadows of the pasos of the Christ or whatever the figures or images were that were going down the street. You could see the shadows up against the walls. You can’t see that anymore. You could run between the pasos coming and going between the Calle Cuna and the Calle Méndez Núñez, the three streets that cross there, and nobody stopped you. And now it’s not even Semana Santa, and you can’t even go up the hill to the Cuesta del Rosario. It’s just a mess, and so, I’m older, and I can’t be knocked down by people, and they do get kind of pushy. So it’s not like it used to be, but nothing is ever like it used to be, so you can’t expect that it’s going to happen.
What about your family and participating in American Women’s Club events? Did your children or your husband participate much?
We did if men were invited, like to the consulate when we had some activity, then the husbands would go. They did not go to the activities that, earlier on in the ‘60s, were held at the bull ranches or at other people’s country homes. That was just for the women, but anything that was held in the evening and that’s why Christmas dinner was held in the evening, anything that was held in the evening, then the husbands would go.
And your children? Did they participate?
My daughter does belong to the American Women’s Club, but the rest are all boys. There wasn’t anything for them, not that I remember.
Barbara, do you think it’s important that the American Women’s Club of Seville is precisely a club for women?
Absolutely. The men wished they had one too. They tried to develop one at various times, and it never really went through. Maybe they’d have two meetings, and then they’re just not organized. They’d have to go out and drink. It’s almost impossible because most of the men are working, and the women are working now too, but they still go to activities on weekends. We didn’t have much in the way of tours. But earlier on, at the beginning of the World’s Fair, I do remember taking groups around to the churches before or on the first day of Semana Santa and taking them around Seville to see the pasos, but nobody paid me for it. Those who could, did things for the Club like that, showing people places or taking them to El Jueves to the Thursday flea market effectively. It’s interesting to see that a lot of people hear about El Jueves, but they don’t know what it is. But absolutely, we need a women’s club and the men probably should have a men’s club.
Is there anything that you would like to add about the American Women’s Club of Seville back in the day? Anything else you remember? You want to contribute? Talk about?
Yes, I think it was really right on. I think that it was needed at the time because there were a number of American women outside of their country, in Seville, another culture, and they needed help. And they got it from the women’s club. And now we have many more questions about how to do this, what to do, but there are so many more things you have to do for the government or whether it’s for taxes or whether it’s for legality being in the country. There are lots of things to do and the women’s club can help anybody with anything like that.
Changing World
How has life changed in Seville since you moved here, Barbara?
It’s changed a lot. It’s grown larger. Actually, I don’t think that there are that many more people living in the city, in the city limits of Seville. There are a lot more who have moved out to the Aljarafe or they have moved to Alcalá and Mairena del Alcor, which is on the way to Morón. Dos Hermanas, is another town that’s getting quite large that has people who work in Seville.
What do you think about health care in Spain?
When we were first here, we had to get private insurance, and you still more or less have to get private insurance, but it seems like after COVID or during COVID, I got social security, and I never earned social security because I didn’t work here. All of a sudden, I find out that I have social security, and if you’re a certain age, you don’t have to pay for it. If you’re not, and you’re a foreigner, you can still get it and pay for it.
So I have social security, and I also have the private insurance I had before. It’s not as good as it is in where I come from. Every year you get this done and you get that other thing done. In the social security system, you have what’s called a family doctor. That person could be really very good or not very good at all, and I happened to get one not very good at all. She was nice, but I never had any tests done except once a urine test when it was obvious that I had a urinary infection. But she never got me the blood test, so I just recently changed to another doctor, another female doctor, which is kind of annoying because I don’t seem to get along with female doctors, because they don’t seem to do a very good job for me. But this one asked me when the last time was that I had blood tests. I said a year and a half and she said, well, you need to have blood tested, so we’ll see how she goes. But you can also get a family doctor in your private insurance, but they don’t want to see your body. You don’t take your clothes off, you never get weighed unless you weigh too much, and then you know you’re on death row. But they’re not very thorough unless they find something. And then I hear that they’re very good about making sure to get the proper care. But after you get to a certain age, there are certain things that, you say you have this problem and that problem. The question you get from the doctor is, “How old are you and what do you expect?” And so that’s my take right now because of my age. But I had children here. I had two children, then I had one in the house. I had two at the U.S. base at Morón, and I had one in Virgin de Rocío right after the hospital was built, and they were all good.
How do you feel about the transportation system in Seville?
I guess it’s pretty good, I mean compared to other places. I’m from New York City, and so there’s always transportation there. I think they’ve done a pretty good job of transportation. They started to build an underground subway in the early ‘70s. And they started it in the Plaza Nueva and they had the Plaza Nueva blocked off for almost thirteen years. It was cut off. You couldn’t go there. They had started it, and then they decided they weren’t going to do it. It was political. Besides, maybe there was some problem about what was underneath. But it’s dug out under the Plaza Nueva. And then finally, a mayor said, “We got to get rid of this and we’ve got to build up the Plaza Nueva again.” The Plaza Nueva was started in about 1972. We knew the mayor then, and he was a friend of ours because he owned one of the schools that we had our classes in at first.
What do you feel about the quality of life in Seville?
I like it but you know, it’s not the best. The air is not the best. You can see that on your telephone weather app every day, but the sun is beautiful. I love the flowers from the sun. It’s nice when it rains. It hasn’t rained, and it’s a big problem right now. You’re talking about the air more or less, or you’re talking about just the quality of life? Well, everybody likes to go to parties. Everybody goes to the bar and the parties. Thursday night is the night to go out, and I discovered that quite a while back when we had a library and a librarian, because he would come in every Friday morning maybe late but unable to do anything. You knew exactly what he did the night before. And I had sons who would go out at night too. And when they were older. It’s a fun society. They have a good time, and they know how to have a good time and they laugh all the time and they maybe annoy you because they laugh so loudly, but it’s part of the culture and that’s what makes it so beautiful, really.
What do you miss about the States?
I miss being closer to my children. I have three who live in the same town in Massachusetts, where we took them. I miss seeing them because they don’t come too often. I have two living here, and that’s nice. I have one in Florida. I don’t really miss very much and not in my age. I did miss skiing for a while because I skied a lot which is why we went up to Massachusetts from New York, so we could go skiing up in Vermont. But no, I don’t really miss it, no.
So talking about the Semana Santa, you told us before, sort of your opinion about it. Did you want to add anything else about it other than the multitude of people?
No, it was just really, really special in the ‘60s and maybe into the ‘70s too. But then people came to Spain for crime, because the crime rates were low here. Then they went up. They were definitely low under Franco, and I think that the people who lived here didn’t want any trouble. They’d had enough. And so they were honest, hard-working people who in those days in the ‘60s, the images would be carried around by men who were paid to do this. They were not brothers, and there was a shock when the first brotherhood, the members of the brotherhood, actually carried the images on their shoulders, because they were too upper class to do something like this. One of them did it and it was like, oh, and everybody got together, and then all of them were being carried by brothers of the brotherhood, and none of them were paid to do it. In fact, they paid to carry them.
And so when did that change/happen?
I think the first time it happened was probably after Franco, in the early ‘80s, late ‘70s.
And how do you feel about Seville’s April Fair?
Another thing that has grown quite a bit, which is what you expect, because any place where you can go and have a good time is attractive to people who visit it. And it’s great. It’s nice that they have the regional dance, the Sevillana. Well, it’s gotten too long. It was only a little under a week long, like maybe from Monday night to Saturday night. But now it’s gotten several days more, and it’s too much. I just find it too long. And I have gone to the bullfights. I like the bullfights and, of course, that’s about the only time of the year when they have good bullfights, except on Sundays and holidays. I like it; I think it’s a great thing for the city.
Which attracts you more: the Holy Week/the Easter Week or the Seville Fair?
They’re two different things, but they’re both the same. I just look and see something different, do something different. They’re both important and very special.
Were you in Seville during any major events or transitions in history? For example, the end of Franco? Did life change? In what way?
They had manifestations. I remember we had the school on the Plaza San Francisco, which is at the end of Avenida de la Constitución, which used to be called José Antonio Primo de Rivera. That was the name of the main street. They would walk down past the cathedral, the groups with the flag of Andalucia, and this was right after Franco’s death. They had much more freedom to demonstrate against what was going on. When they had the Gold Day in Madrid when the Guardia Civil was going to take over and thought that maybe Juan Carlos, the recent King, who was assigned as King by Franco, in fact, the Guardia Civil who were trying to switch back to the dictatorship, they took over Madrid for thirty some hours on the TV, the radio and everything was being conquered by them. But Juan Carlos, the King, did not side with them. He went for the democracy, and that made a big difference.
Did your life change much?
No, I wasn’t somebody who was going to go out and demonstrate anyway. It didn’t matter to me whether it was this or that or the other thing; I was not into politics. There was no place for me in politics in Spain.
Barbara, what are your memories of the Expo ‘92, which was the World’s Fair held here in Seville?
It was in ’92. It started, I believe, about the fair time, April, no? And it was great. I mean, you could even say it wasn’t so good because it modernized Seville and so Seville was never the same after the Expo. And people thought in different ways because when it first started, we had people from all different countries dancing and shows. Some of them were from Africa, and they would dance half-naked and the Spaniards would laugh at them. But in August or September, it wasn’t funny anymore. It was just part of the reality of another culture. It changed Seville, really a lot. I think it changed the people’s mentality, and it made them more interested in knowing about other societies and realizing that there was something besides Seville and Spain, and that was good. It really developed quite a bit, but it also lost some of its charm because it was influenced by what people in other countries did, and they got a lot of that. It was a great time.
Barbara, you mentioned before that you knew the wives from the American air bases. Did you visit the base yourself very often?
I did, not much. They had a commissary, a big building on Calle Ilundain where you could buy American goods. They did have one at the base as well, but they had one in Seville in El Porvenir area. People who worked at the base could go there and buy food. So when my husband was working at the base for the Education Center or University of Maryland, then we had rights to go and buy at the base. We got gas really cheap. I went to the doctors. I had two children at the base, and one of the doctors was Spanish but he worked at the base. The second one was an American who, whose wife had had a child the day before I did and so we became friends. We went to the dentist there as well. Any of the medical needs I could go there for.
What struck you as interesting about life on the base compared to life off the base?
I don’t know much about life on the base because I don’t think any of the married men lived on the base. I know that they had the Santa Clara area towards where San Pablo is which was a small adjunct base to the Morón base, and it was an airport. I had friends from there, husbands and wives, and we’d go out a lot together in the ‘60s and the ‘70s.
As we begin to close this interview for the American Women’s Club of Seville Oral History Project, I’d like to ask you how you would sum up your experience of being a member of the American Women’s Club?
I would say that it has made my life in Seville better. It has given me more friends, more opportunities to do things with other English-speaking people, book club, things done in my own native language. It has helped me to get to know some of the Spanish women who speak English, who belong to the Club and all in all, it’s nothing but pleasant for me to have been and to still be a member of the American Women’s Club of Seville.
And do you think that overall you made the right decision in living your life here in Seville?
Well, it’s hard to say because there are eight of us, you know, six kids, and so you know, it would really be a question of asking them. I mean, I can say yes, but you know I might have missed some things in the U.S., but with the American Women’s Club, that’s helped a lot, and some kind of relationship with the base, whether it was continued friendship with people who had been at the base and they’ve come back to visit, so yes it’s been positive.
Do you visit the States a lot?
I used to go and I do go still every year in the summer time, lately just for a month. But I used to go every summer for the month of August because that was when we were off. I was working here and so we had the Center closed in August so my summer in the States was in the month of August. Otherwise, I went weekends to our house in Grazalema, which was cooler. It’s cooler there, and they have a pool, and it’s a little town.
So you said the Center closed in the summer, so you’re talking about the Centro Norteamericano?
Yes, that’s right. Our business closed in the summer in August.
So if you had the option, would you return back to the States?
I do have the option if I want to. I don’t have to stay here. No, because I have friends here. I have French, Spanish, and American friends here. And although my children are there, they do come once in a while. They try to come to the Feria when they can. They miss that.
Barbara, is there anything else you’d like to add to this interview?
I’d just say that the American Women’s Club is a positive experience, it’s positive to be a member and whenever I can do something for the Club, I’m ready to. I’m not as able to do as many things as I used to be able to. What I can, I will.
And as your final question, how has it felt participating in this Oral History Project of Seville?
Well, it’s reminding me of all the things I don’t remember. And it’s reminded me of some things that I do remember, but they tend not to be in chronological order, because I don’t remember everything at this time until I get a little bit ahead of it. And then I remember oh back, well this happened and that’s why the other thing happened so it’s curious.
Barbara Guidera, thank you so much for your interview today. We certainly do appreciate it.
Well, you’re very welcome, Christie. Thank you.