Stories From the Eastside 1940 - 60 Riverside, CA - Alyce Smith Cooper - Chapter 2

Stories from the Eastside: Interview with Alyce Smith Cooper

Chapter Two

 September 11,2020

Andre:  So, can we continue to explore the role Mother Wit played in the care and feeding of that group of 1950’s youth living on the Eastside?

Alyce: I have not spoken much about my teenage years in Riverside.  Over sixty years ago, I was a teenage unwed mother. In that time, the community of that day, I could have been ostracized.  Fortunate for me, I was surrounded by a group of strong women.

Now, I have not told these stories before.  This is a deep well for me. I felt a lot of rejection from my parents.  My mother was never around.  I was a wounded kid.  I acted out like wounded people do. 

Fortunately, there were men who were not members of our community available for acting out.   March Air Force base was only 12 minutes from the Eastside.  For almost 50 years, March AFB was a Strategic Air Command base during the Cold War. The facility covers 2,075 acres.  And that meant a lot of young good-looking men were stationed close enough to hangout in our town on weekends.

Andre:  So, who was part of that women’s support system?

Alyce: First, there was my grandmother.  She was shy and a stutterer who found her way out of her first marriage.  Fortunately, she married into the Jones family.

Aunt Jean, Buddy Jones’ mother and Uncle Buster’s wife, accepted everybody.  Aunt Jean was busy raising ten children.  But she still had time for me.  Ellen Stratton Strickland, a member of the NAACP who got me involved in their youth program.  Juanita Boreal, Ed’s mother was a working woman, like many of the women in our community.  She was a wonderful singer and piano player.  She taught me music. 

You have to understand,  I was seen as one of the smart young women who would make the community proud.  They saw me as the hope.  My grandparents always encouraged me.  I was given dance lessons.  And music lessons.  I became the secretary of the Junior NAACP.  

When Grandma found out I was pregnant, she was crestfallen. 

Andre:  What were your alternatives?

Alyce: At first,  I became quite depressed.  I was so self-absorbed.   I did consider abortion. But I rejected that option.  Of course as a teenager, I did not realize that I was not the first girl to get pregnant.

Cooler heads prevailed.  I was assigned a home teacher, so I could finish high school on time.   I did not move from home.  The community of women helped me.  Josie and Norma, who were four years older, adopted me as the kid sister.  I was quirky and as a result had very few peer friends.   But, these older girls saw something in me. 

My cousin Carolyn became my life coach.  “Hold your head up.”  Fortunately, I listened. 

  Nurse Alyce Smith Cooper circa 1964

 Andre:  No peers?  No friends your age?

Alyce: Dolores is the one peer from University Heights Junior High School who was a good friend.  We remain friends to this day.  Currently she lives in Las Vegas.

Our birthdays are the same day.   Dolores is a bright, outside of the box thinker.   At one point,  while attending nursing school, we worked together at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, California.  While attending school we worked half time and were paid full time.  We became licensed at what was known as psychiatric technicians.  We had a lot of technical, entry-level medical training.   And access to psychological training.  We both completed nursing school. 

During that period, I had two kids.   My grandparents cared for my kids.  When I think about it,  Still, self-absorbed, I was not grateful.  Not enough.   In spite of my disposition, they embraced me. They were angels.

I showed as much appreciation as I knew how to. 

Andre:  Are there other sightings of Mother Wit?

Alyce:  Learning how to show appreciation. That is where the mother wit came in. There is a group mindset that has travelled with me to this day.  And now,  I am ready to leave some ideas behind. The mindsets that don’t serve me.

Andre: Unusable wit?

Alyce:  Let me provide some examples of unusable wit:

“You have to keep a stiff upper lip.”  A stoic lifestyle?   Who needs that.

“Work hard.” But you need not be a workaholic. And that is another story.  

My grandma would say,  “Beauty is only skin deep.  But ugly is to the bone.”  People can do ugly things.

Andre: I recall from your profile that you trained in the use of psychodrama.  During the late sixties, as amateur therapists in Synanon, the self-help therapeutic community, we conducted psychodramas to help recovering addicts come to terms with past traumas and failures.  Where did you learn about that form of therapy?

Alyce: Psychodrama was originally created by Jacob Moreno.  I trained in the use of psychodrama* at St. Elizabeth Federal Psychiatric Hospital.  St. Elizabeth’s is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast, Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health.  It opened in 1855 with the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States.

It became evident to the staff that I have an empathic gift.  I could listen to crazy people and understand.  In my mind, I see ideas in pictures.  It seems that schizophrenics think in pictures.  Mine is an innate empathy.  It comes without seeking it.  I worked mostly with schizophrenic patients.  Never had difficulty with violence.  My empathy seemed to bring peace.  I would volunteer to work with this group in the use of psychodrama.    

Now the neurotics.  I could not deal with them.  They were too much like me.  

Andre:  In your storytelling and educational career, have you ever employed your psychodrama skills?

Alyce:  No.  I only used those skills in hospitals.  But, you know, moving forward to reach this younger generation,  I might consider finding use of those skills.   

To read the first session, go to: https://www.tota.world/article/3287/

Interview conducted by Andre James

About Alyce Smith Cooper

The Golden Brown Fairy Godmother tm - The Ancestral Storyteller - Reverend Alyce - Great Grandmother (GG)

Alyce wears all these roles and more with ease. Some know her as  Reverend, Registered Nurse, poet, actress, community activist.   Along with two co-authors she has written  THE GUMBO POT POEMS.  Recently she was named Poet Laureate of the Military Museum of San Diego.

No matter how you know Alyce there is always a story and a smiling word of encouragement included in the interaction. Alyce has told stories across the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas  at schools, libraries, museums around camp fires under the stars, at family reunions and in corporate board rooms.   She is always ready to educate, excite and invite you to tell your stories about your own journey.

* Celebrating psychodrama at

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital

In the history books of psychodrama, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., has a special chapter.

The venerable Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital Psychodrama Department received the 2013 Collaborators Award from the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama.

 Psychodrama was introduced to the hospital decades ago by James Ennis, one of Dr. J.L. Moreno's first trainees, and Dr. Moreno visited there to demonstrate his method. Dozens of trainees learned the art and craft of psychodrama there before moving on to training centers and their own practices and businesses. The psychodrama department was dissolved in the early 2000s, although a strong creative arts department continues to function. There is behind-the-scenes discussion to bring psychodrama back to the hospital.

Local Heroes - Eastside Riverside, California 1940's -50's

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