Margaretta Bobo Goines
Margaretta Bobo Goines is an older adult whose ancestors are from West Africa shows us passion and fun for dance and water. Swimming was her favorite attraction but her dance lived it.
Margareta was interviewed by journalists from Indykids. Indykids is a newspaper produced by and for children. Below is her episode. Listen to it here.
My name is Margaretta Bobo Goines. My father was born in Mississippi. And we always like to say that it was the Bobo people of West Africa, whose artwork is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Those are our ancestors. I grew up in Wisconsin, and I was always a tomboy and I always love sports. I climb trees, especially trees that had fruit. I loved apple trees, cherry trees. As a matter of fact, I got in trouble in school one day because I was late to school climbing a cherry tree. I was just having a ball eating those cherries, and I was in the swimming pool since I was in kindergarten. No one ever took me, I went by myself. I was playing underneath the table just like that. When my mother bought a Singer sewing machine and when you bought a sewing machine, they gave you free sewing lessons. So she was learning how to sew by making a swimming suit for me. Little did I know that one block away from my house, a swimming pool was being built. And I went every single day my brothers were the lifeguards, and I love to be underneath the water. And my hair was a little curly. My mother liked to press my hair, straighten it out and I would go straight to the water. So she thought there was something wrong with me, but she got the message and stopped trying to keep my hair straight.
How did you learn to swim?
Well, actually, most of the things I did, I taught myself, I didn't have swimming lessons, except for two weeks in a swimming pool in the summer. They taught us to do what is called a doggy paddle. And then we would doggy paddle to the ladder, we would jump off the life of the diving board and doggy paddle. And I got to the ladder, and it was covered with people hanging out. So I was about to drawn. They hadn't taught us how to tread water or how to do anything. So it was very embarrassing. Somebody yelled at me. Why are you here if you can't swim, and that was one of the few times when I left the pool early. But I really didn't take swimming lessons, until I retired from teaching physical education. I was in my 60s when I started taking swimming lessons. And because I was a dancer, I learned technique very easily. So that at 62 I started getting trophies and I have over 100 gold medals now, in New York State. I got a trophy in December with six swim teams. It was called the Senior Olympics. And we had a lot a lot of fun. That's what life is for have fun.
Who hired your brothers to be lifeguards?
Oh, my brothers were teenagers when they were lifeguards. And that was a good way to have a job for a teenager. And my first job was in a swimming pool working in the light locker room. In college I majored in physics. And the teacher never taught us anything in the swimming pool. She said, Bobo, Can you swim? And I said, Sure. She said, Can you tread water? I said, Sure. She never showed me and never asked me to show her. So that just goes to show you that but I was determined that I wanted to learn. At 72 years old I became a lifeguard. One day when a little girl saw me dive off a block over at the Hansborough pool. She said would you teach me to do that. And I said, sure. But that taught me that I had to go and be sure that I knew how to teach. So I went to the Red Cross. I got the swimming instructors license, I got the lifeguard license, and I was all set to teach and for three years, I thought about Jackie Robinson. I wouldn't let them pay me because I was on already retired and I was making enough money. But I went there just to have fun. It really turns me on to see a child swim. 72 years old.
Did you used to swim when you were an adult or teenager?
Oh, when I was a teenager, I wasn't swimming then. I was dancing. My dancing teacher in high school. She met me at the door because she knew that I like to dance. And she said I want you to be in my dance class. And Back in Wisconsin, we were the famous dance group for the state. So when Wisconsin celebrated their 100th anniversary as a state, we were the dancers. Her name was Esther Hyden. And I wanted to be a teacher like Esther. She was the grand anty of the Olympic champions, Eric Heiden, the ice skater and his sister, who is also an outstanding athlete, and she thought I was her daughter. She didn't have any children. I majored in dance in Wisconsin. It was the first dance department in the country starting in the early 1920s. And so, I had so much fun. The teachers didn't know that I was dancing in storefront windows to make money, that I was also dancing in the JC ball, that to make a little money on the side, I danced for people's master's thesis, and I had a weekly television show where I danced. When I finished the Wisconsin, I went to the Wisconsin television station, WTMJ. I said, I want to dance your commercials. And they looked at me as if to say I was crazy but before MTV, I was ready to do it.
What were your favorite dances, my favorite dances?
Well, I like being a modern dancer. As a matter of fact, one day, I was traveling in Brazil. I married a man who loves to travel. We used to go all over the world. And I told him, I'm tired of looking at buildings. I want to go to the university and see if they have a dance department. They said, Yes, we have a dance department. It was in Bahia, Brazil. They said, Come back tomorrow, nine o'clock. So they were so specific. I decided to come back the next day at nine o'clock. They asked me to teach the class. Then they said will you dance for us? And I did. It turned out to be an audition. I got a call from the Department of State saying the Brazilian government has asked for you. Do you want to go to Brazil and teach dancing? And I said sure. And it was one of the happy times in my life. I was considered an American specialist to Brazil. and we did a concert in Campo Grande, which is the big theater in by a by a very African. Oh, I love that. It was a great summer.
Do you feel like your habitat is the water?
Oh yes. I love the water. I can be sitting in a dentist's chair and I can pretend that I'm doing the backstroke. And that relaxes me. It's very relaxing to be in the water. I loved going underwater. I used to do handstands underwater its peacefulness being underwater. And when I used to teach children how to swim, I would get them to go underwater by making mean faces at each other. And they kind of like that.