A companion interview to Season 3 of Lost Women of Science, this episode is about the trailblazing mechanical engineer Yvonne Young "Y.Y." Clark.  Katie talks with Y.Y,'s daughter, Carol Lawson, about what it was like to be the daughter of such a brilliant -- and pragmatic -- woman.

YY has been nicknamed “The First Lady of Engineering,” because of her groundbreaking achievements as a Black female mechanical engineer. Season 3 of Lost Women of Science traces her trajectory, from her unconventional childhood interest in fixing appliances to civil rights breakthroughs in the segregated South; from her trailblazing role at historically Black colleges and universities to her work at NASA. What can YY teach us about what it means to be the first in a scientific field, especially as a Black woman in America?

In this episode, Carol talks about what Y.Y. was like as a mom, Y.Y.'s role model of a marriage, her penmanship standards, and her 1968 Firebird.


Composer:  Andrea Perry

Artist: Traci Mims

Our Mothers Ourselves is a production of Odradek Studios in San Francisco

Two years ago, to mark Father’s Day, I sat in the closet I’m sitting in now (which you can see only in your mind’s eye), and had an extraordinary conversation with Dr. Talmadge E. King, Jr., a world-renowned lung specialist who is dean of the Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. King and I talked about his father, Talmadge King Senior, who was born in 1922 in the segregated south.  I loved our conversation, and it seems fitting to post the interview today, on June 19th, 2022. Mr. King, who died in 2018, would be 100 this year.

Talmadge Senior was so beloved a member of the community in Darien, Georgia that the town recruited him as the first Black police officer when the police force was first integrated.

He instilled in his five children a sense of doing better with each successive generation. He offered a simple metaphor: "If your father builds a wooden house, it's your responsibility to build a brick house." 

Several years ago, Julie Metz found something in the back of a drawer among her mother's slips and perfumes: a small book filled with handwritten notes to her mother, who was then called Eva, later Eve.

The discovery started Julie on a journey to find out much more about her mother's history.

Her book, "Eva and Eve," tells the story of that journey.  It describes how her mother’s Jewish family escaped Nazi Austria, and also the story of Julie and how through doing research she developed a different understanding of her relationship with her mother.

Julie Metz is also the author of The New York Times bestselling memoir "Perfection," a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. She has written on a wide range of women’s issues for publications including: The New York Times, Salon, Dame, Tablet, Catapult, Glamour, Next Tribe, Slice, and MrBellersneighborhood.com. Her essays have appeared in the anthologies "The Moment" and "The House That Made Me." She is also the winner of a Literary Death Match, the international competitive reading series founded by Adrian Zuniga.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producers: Claire Trageser and Nora Mathison

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.