Adam Torres and Mary Grace Viramontez discuss retirement life.
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Show Notes:
Adam and a few of his friends traveled to Florida to visit his mom Mary. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Mary Grace Viramontez, explore topics from childhood stories to her career as a social worker.
Full Unedited Transcript
Alright, so today is a very special episode. This woman right here is my mama. So we’re going to talk a lot about, I got some questions here. There’s an Audience here. So we have all of her sons in the audience. New daughter, new, we got a bunch of people in the audience. We’re having all kinds of fun here.
And we have , some questions that Chris and Keon supplied that my mom doesn’t know. So this is going to be a little bit of a different departure from the normal, normal episode. And my mother also didn’t know that we were coming on. So first question for you, mom, and this is one from earlier today.
What is your name? What do people call you? Cause you have a lot of names. Keon asked me earlier, he’s like, what’s your name? And I was like, I know a couple of them, but I want you to kind of try and go down the list if, if you remember all of them, you got a lot of names. I was born in 1953.
My mother spoke Spanish. When she would go to the hospital and have a child, they wanted people from other countries to assimilate. So what they would do is, they would try to put the name at the hospital in an English version. Hmm. My mother, till this, till she passed, called me what she named me, which is Maria Altagracia.
Hmm. Which means Mary High Grace, H I G H. So, what they did is the hospital put my name as Mary Grace, period. Mm. So they kind of did the English version as part of the assimilation. And my mother wasn’t going to tell them anything. Yeah. She was not like that. So she was shy and I want to go through some of the nickname.
Thank you for that, by the way, I didn’t know that. So thank you. This is why I’m excited to do this. That’s a big one, but let’s go through some of the more names because you got a lot of names. I’ve had people call me Mary Grace. I’ve had people call me Mary Grace or just plain Mary or Gracie.
Graciela. Graciela. Chela. I didn’t know about chela either. What’d you get a chela? How’d you get chela? Do I want to know that story? For the Graciela. Oh, okay. What else? Let’s go down the rest of the names. Come on. I know there’s more. Let’s see. Grace the Ace. Okay. From outer space. What did my Aunt Debbie used to call you?
Or Madrina Debbie. Didn’t she have one for you? Masa. When I was a little girl they called me Masa because I looked like a pile of dough. They said I looked like a little chunky thing. So they would call me Masa. Which in Spanish means dough. Like dough, like bread dough, but, and that’s what they called me masa.
What else you got more? I can’t, I got it. Let me give you another one. What about when people used to call you sister Mary or sister Mary Grace and people thought you were a nun. What about that one? Yeah, I like that one. Why’d they call you that? That’s a good one. Because they thought that the name Mary Grace would be.
No, when you were at covenant house, cause you were in, it was in the building that had, so that was, I worked for covenant house, Michigan, and that is a Catholic organization. It began in New York, but it’s been, it’s everywhere. Guatemala, Mexico. It’s like, In the other states in florida, too So they would call me because there were nuns that were working there.
Well people end up calling me sister. Mary grace I wasn’t a nun, but they would say sister. Mary grace And the students too You know, they thought I was a nun because the other ladies were nuns. And so didn’t the real nuns, weren’t they kind of a little bit upset about this because you’re getting called Sister Mary Gray?
You had, I remember this. Well, it wasn’t something that I wanted or I started. Cause, I remember, and I remember them thinking like, wait, why are they calling? And I remember showing up and going there and they’re talking to her, like, she’s a nun. And I’m sitting there like, Oh my gosh, mom, what is going on?
You are not a nun. I know. I did want to be a nun. However, my mother wanted all of the 10 daughters to be nuns. We were in Catholic school and we were raised through Catholic. school. And I thought we were all going to be nuns because we all wore shirts on our hair, my dad’s shirts. So we were like pantomiming the nuns because he bought these chairs from a school and he got some chalkboards, big ones, and he put them in the basement so that we could play school or do stuff.
So we were always flying around with these, my dad’s shirts on us. So we were walking around like the nuns. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So anyway, I think. I don’t know why they call me Sister Mary Grace. They just thought, I guess, all the women there were nuns. There were several. So what should Keon call you, other than mom?
She doesn’t know either, see? Enough said. Next question. Mary Grace? Grace? Grace? She doesn’t know you. There we go. Okay. We got another one from Chris. Okay. Let’s get into some of these questions here. I like this one. I think this is Chris handwriting. So he says That’s the question. When did you realize your mom was so cool?
So I’ll share part of this story and I’m curious to hear your opinion on this mom. So I tell Chris and I tell all my friends, like, I’m like, you know, my mom was the cool one always. Like when I was young or otherwise that much more people would rather hang out with you than me. And that’s okay. Cause you are the fun one.
And that one night when the kids would come over something and I was younger, I’d be like, great. I have my piece. They can go hang out with you, whatever. So, and even to this day, I just finished. A podcast, like a call, I did this call with about eight to 10 people on there and I’m like, you know, I’m telling them that I’m coming to visit you and I’m telling them about it, this, that, and I was like, Oh yeah, so my friends came to, I’m like, Keon came and Chris and friends came and whatever.
, and they’re like, and I’m thinking to myself and I’m like, wow, we’re kind of like some 16 year olds. I’m like, wait a minute. These are grownups. They’re really busy. Chris doesn’t go anywhere. Keon doesn’t go anywhere, but they just not got in a car for. Two and a half hours each way to come visit you.
And I’m like blown away cause they wouldn’t do that for me. I promise you, if I, if they were two and a half hours outside of LA, they would not take that trip to go see me if they’re not flying in. And that’s the truth. Like, did you always know that you were this cool? I didn’t. I know that that sometimes you have to listen.
And. When you’re listening to what someone is saying to you and you’re giving them that eye contact and stuff. After a while, I work with high school students that were 16 to 22 years of age. And after a while, you know, they know who’s fake. Young adults and young teens, they know who’s fake and who’s not.
So if they were someone that would not want to talk or something, I’d say, Come on, let’s take a walk. I’ll take you to Mickey D’s. My treat. They go, really? I go, yeah, come on. So for the younger audience, Mickey D’s is McDonald’s. Go ahead, Mickey D’s. So I just used and invented different ways to get their attention or to, to have them know who I am and that I would try to help and try to do my best.
And usually after other people see. How people trust you they might be on the sidelines, but after a while they kind of look and they want to be with you too They want to feel what their friends are feeling, you know, and that’s the same thing with adults. I go somewhere and there’s rarely A place some place that I go that I don’t know someone or someone comes to me out of the blue And I don’t care where i’m at and it’s just It’s just people get to know you They want to hang out with you.
I’ve been invited to many places to do many things. There’s not enough time in the day. I do want to do a few things. I want to join a reading club. But other than that, I just think that people naturally have a intuition that they that they feel after a while and you make them laugh or. You you dog them or whatever, you know, just mess with their minds or something or say something funny or a joke or something You know before you know it they’re laughing you’re laughing and before you know it.
It’s they like you and you like them. Yeah. And you talk to strangers. Like being in an elevator with my mom is that’s sometimes you don’t know where that’s going, but you, the only person I know that talks to more strangers in the elevator might be Chris, depending on the day he’s got a name or something.
If they look like they’re a client, he’s talking to them. He’s like, I like your pin. I like your necklace. I like, so, but you’ll engage with people. Talk to me about that. Did you always do that? First of all. Like when you were young, no, no, not when I was young, when I was young, I was pretty I would say I was a little shy, but as I got into high school, then things started changing, you know, because people, you know, everybody’s, Got like a, a click either you’re in it or you’re not.
So I wanted to belong. I wanted to participate. So of course I got involved with the not so studious click. I kind of got involved with the click that wanted to have fun and graduate and do things, you know, but they wanted to have fun too. And I did too. So that’s how it starts. It just start. I talk to people.
Oh, Alejandro could tell you that I, he says, how can you talk to that person? You don’t even know that person. I said, well, I don’t know him because I haven’t talked to him. I know him now All the time anywhere we go. Yeah, he’s like you don’t even know You’re not gonna know someone unless you talk to them.
So there’s a lot of people sometimes you could , that intuition I was talking about. Sometimes you can have that feeling that something’s wrong with an individual or something. And I don’t want to try to psychoanalyze anyone, anything like that. I don’t try to do nothing like that. What it is, I just want to give of myself.
And if they accept then we start talking and if they do not accept then we’re done I say hello. You have a great day You know, whatever, you know and something positive to say at the end have a great day, but sometimes people start telling me stuff and i’m like I can’t get away just like the phone call I just had I said, Oh, no I will not be able to be with my son on day So i’d rather be with you and that’s what i’m doing I didn’t take that call, but that’s basically what it is that I am very accepting of people and I believe that there’s a lot more good people in this world.
This one’s from Keon. What’s your favorite story of Adam when he was a child? Oh gosh, there are so many, but there’s one. I’m scared right now for a moment. Just so everybody knows I’m like this. I’m like, which one is this? Don’t be scared. I’m not, I’m not. I’ve got nothing negative. What surprised me is he wouldn’t eat butter.
He wouldn’t eat mayonnaise. He wouldn’t eat. It’s true. Still don’t like mayonnaise. I know, but that surprised me because I slather mayonaise on just about everything. I love it. But he didn’t like it and that’s all there was to it. And that was at a very young age where I thought that he should be eating mayonnaise or butter or something.
No, he wasn’t having it. Another one real quick one is Halloween. Halloween, he would go out, he’d go trick or treating, get a ton of candy in a pillowcase. Bring the candy home. We go through it. We check the candy. Everything looked cool to me So we put it all back inside and I said, where do you want it? So we had this it was a twin bed But it had like two like drawers that didn’t have the lid but they weren’t really drawers But he would put his candy there.
It was my stash. Right, but he didn’t eat the candy I ate the candy. I swear, by next Halloween, we still had candy. Because I, it wasn’t the ones I liked. I didn’t like Tootsie Roll and I didn’t like certain other things. So that’s why, but that was something. And he was young, he was a kid. What six, seven year old was gonna kill themselves eating candy?
He didn’t. He didn’t like cake, birthday cake, cake. Come on Adam, please have a piece of cake. I don’t want no cake, mom. He didn’t like cake. Who doesn’t like cake? So, that’s when he was younger in those days, yeah. What’d you do as soon as you got out? This is one of my favorite family stories. When you, right after you got me out of the hospital, brand new, newborn baby.
Where’s the best place to take a newborn baby, mom? Ha ha ha. Where, where’d you take me? He had a fit, cause I did, but I said you have to drop me off right here at the park, Clark Park, because it was She took me to a party at a park. At a park. I took him brand new to introduce him to about 50 people that were barbecuing.
They got to see Adam. I thought that was splendid, you know, instead of, you know, just people having to come by. That was like Simba, like you were the Lion King over here. Yes, here he is! Dun da da dun da dun! And we, I had Adam. That’s funny. And Everyone just about couldn’t believe it.
Adam. I said, yep, that’s him. Adam right out of the hospital. Oh my God, he says germs people this that I says outdoors adjustment. Get used to the cold, get used to the summer. You got to get used to everything. He’s got to get used to germs. He can’t be in a bubble. Dang, you can’t live in a bubble like that.
All right, let’s see. So we got another one and this is, I think this is Keon’s handwriting as well. What was the biggest influence that helped make you who you are today? That’s so easy. Mr. Retecky. I haven’t heard that name in a long time. Yes. Little guardian angel right here. Yes. Yes. He’s passed on.
And I remember that when I started going to the schools and I was doing, Runaway services because a lot of kids would run away from home and stuff. So we had a specialty program for those runaway students And I was in charge So I would go to the schools and I would try to do the like the prevention stuff for you don’t want them to end up in the street, end up something bad happening to them.
So we kind of like reach out to the schools and and if they feel like it, they know I give them business cards. I let them know all about what we do at the Casa Maria. Let’s not go there where I used to leave you. Oh, yeah. Oh, we can get into some of those. That time you left me at Kmart in the toy aisle.
So we bring that one up when you were brand new, brand new, and you forgot that I was there because you weren’t used to having a kid yet. How about that? Oh, no, go ahead. Child abuse is over. I’m old enough mom. It’s fine. They don’t do that nowadays. So I would never do it this day ever that time. You forgot me in the toy aisle.
Go ahead. Okay. Back to Mr. Retecky. Okay. Mr. Retecky, Mr. Retecky will be laughing. He would be dying. He is laughing. He’s laughing up there at us right now. Are you kidding me? Yes, he is. Yeah. So he’s the one that he says, okay, we’re going to, he was Polish, very Polish. His family’s Polish. They spoke Polish.
They ate Polish. It was awesome. So I got to meet him now. He was working with kids that were what they call peewees are getting ready to be gang members, you know, so they hadn’t been whatever. So he was working with those boys. But he wanted me to work with the girls. So we started a group program. And it was called last last Hispanic, the , Hispanian women, Hispanic, yeah.
But last Hispanic is female, not Los Hispanos. That’s So I had a group, I had a group that about, I think it was about, it ended up being like close to 15, but it started with maybe three. The other one would tell the other one, come on, it’s fun. Come on. She’s nice. And so little by little, the group started growing and growing.
And he just, and no one had speakers come into the schools., in that year or in those times, people from the outdoors did not come into the schools at all. Well, I ended up in the Catholic schools, in the public schools, in the charter schools, any school that was available and allowed me to go because of Mr.
Reteki. He wouldn’t, he knew counselors from all the schools. He was an advocate for sure, wasn’t he? He was an advocate, absolutely. He understood. And that was one of your use this word. And I think this is when I understood what the word meant is one of your original mentors, right? Exactly. Exactly. That gave you that confidence and that confidence.
That was everything. And go back to school. That was everything. I ended up going back to get my master’s. He kind of like kind of opened doors for me or he feel like I can do it. He gave me more responsibilities, which you need in order to grow is more and more responsibilities. So I was growing.
And I remember he asked me one time, he says, he says, Mary Grace, will you go with me to a psychologist? I think it was like a a seminar or something. So I says, Mary Grace. Heck no, I’m not gonna go where there’s a bunch of psychologists. Are you nuts or psychiatrists and stuff? I said heck no He says well, you’re not gonna do nothing.
You’re just gonna go with me and keep me company I said, no, I know you you have a plan. He’s okay. Okay. Okay. He says this is what we’re gonna do His plan was he was going to talk about the educational aspect and different theories and different ways to, to get what it is that you’re looking for.
You know, he was awesome. He was way beyond his time. So way before his time, I’m sorry. And anyway, he says, I’ll give you a certain amount of whatever I get. I said, okay. Dang. He was like Chris on the speaker fee over here. What’s going on? So I went, I was so petrified. Really? Oh yeah. All these people were in like suits.
Yeah. Okay. Like suits and dressed up with. Bringing their briefcases in and stuff and sitting down and standing up and talking to each other. And I’m like this, like, Oh my God, what did I get myself into? And I’m telling him, I’m not saying nothing. You better leave me alone. He says, the only thing I’m going to ask you is one question.
I says, okay, one question. That’s it. So he says, I’d like to introduce you to a coworker of mine. And he introduced me and he told what I did, how I started Las Hispanas and how I started the runaway youth center and how I did a lot of things in a lot of, in the community, a lot of stuff. So he says, I’m going to ask him one question.
I said, okay. He says, And these guys are all sitting there quietly listening. He says, can you tell me about your life as a Hispanic female? And I said to myself, that’s a long ass question. So anyway, I just started talking about my mom and dad and Mexico and the United States and going to school and my dad working two couple jobs, my mom.
Raising children and the faith that she taught us the hope for the future Always have that hope the faith is just in bread in me There’s got to be something better and something good is coming Even if the disaster happens you got to think about that. You got to think about the there’s gonna be something Okay, people die.
We know that okay. It’s it’s not nice. You know, we don’t like it But they do. But we know there’s something else that’s coming, the grandchildren, the great grandchildren. And it was at that time that I was able to speak. And now, I don’t have a problem with microphones anymore. Or talking to people.
And I, I get, I get people pretty comfortable. When I’m speaking at a lot of the places that I used to go to, like the mothers, we have the , parent meetings and stuff. Well, I get up there and I’ll be going to town and very comfortable with the microphone. I’m pretty comfortable now. Well mom, I think we’re out of time for this episode, but I think I think this is gonna be a monthly call I think that was born here Chris.
I’m gonna be calling you in Florida bringing you on this show We’re gonna be recording cuz I got a bunch of stories I want out of you and I was just thinking about I’m like I want to hear about for the next time I want to ask you about grandma grandpa what it was like to be with you I’m giving some teasers.
This is called teasing the crowd here. I’m going to be talking about that. I got some more childhood stories that I’m like, wait a minute. Leaving me at Kmart. That was just one. We got some other childhood. That was funny though. We don’t want to talk about what used to happen on half days. You forgot me again.
We’re okay on that note. No, thank you. Mama, you are. Yes. You always got me taken care of. Yes. Okay, thank you, Mama, for coming on the show. I’m gonna be bringing you back on. I love