Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Project

Lee Kitchens

National Leader of Little People of America, Cofounder of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities

Interviews conducted by
Sharon Bonney
in 2002

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

Copyright © 2004 by The Regents of the University of California

Mr. Kitchens passed away on May 12, 2003.

Sharon Bonney
Interviewer/Editor

March 2004

Emeryville, California

I. Life As a Person of Short Stature; Origins and Maturing of Little People of America; Political Awareness and Involvement with National and International Organizations

Bonney

Lee, I usually start out asking where you were born and when and a little bit about your family background.

Kitchens

Okay. Well, I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, March 29, 1930. My father was a livestock man. He worked for a livestock commission company. Basically, in those days the ranchers that raised sheep never knew the right time to bring the sheep to market, so the commission buyers would contract with the ranchers to take their sheep to market and get the best price and they would get a commission. My dad grew up on a ranch and in those days had about a sixth grade education. In retrospect, looking back, I think he was probably dyslexic because I would watch him read and he read very painfully and very slowly. I know mother used to read books to him.

Mother was a city girl. She was raised in Fort Worth and went to CIA, which was the College of Industrial Arts, which later became TSCW [Texas State College for Women]. It was a girl's college in Denton and she got about a year and a half before she and Dad got married.

Dad was very successful in his field and later became one of the best known people in the business, in the sheep business. I grew up in Fort Worth. Had a sister six and a half years younger than I. For the first six years of my life we lived on the north side which was near the stockyards. In '36 they built a house over in the better part of town, if you want to call it, and that's really where I grew up. I went to elementary school, junior high and high school all there in Fort Worth.

Bonney

What was your relationship like with your sister?

Kitchens

Oh, we tolerated each other. We were far enough apart that our activities were totally different. I guess the usual brother and sister relationship. We just didn't get involved very much with each other.

Bonney

Was she a little person also?

Kitchens

No, no. She was average size as were all my relatives. But over the years we became fast friends. We get together once or twice a year and enjoy each other's company, [send] e-mail back and forth, occasional phone calls. I usually spend Christmas there.

Bonney

Where does she live?

Kitchens

She lives in California, near L.A. [Los Angeles, CA]

Bonney

What was your childhood like as a little person?

Kitchens

Well, in the thirties, short stature was a rare situation, as it is today, but you didn't find many people of short stature out in public. Other people, other kids, adults, whatever, would make fun of you, make remarks, things of that sort. However, in 1930 when I was born, the treasurer of the state of Texas was a little person and mother had a newspaper clipping about him and that was her role model, if you will. She never met him, didn't know any other people of short stature, or any other parents that had a child of short stature. I never saw another little person until I was about sixteen. There was a guy about my age playing in the band in another high school. I didn't meet him until I was eighteen.

Bonney

What did that feel like, the first time you saw another person?

Kitchens

Well, it was a cold reception because that guy, who I got to know later on even better, was, the macho type in that he did his own thing in spite of his size, initially I don't guess was very comfortable with me. Maybe it was like what it was like for a lot of little people, seeing yourself in the mirror for the first time. Later on I got to know him and we got the little people's organization going and he married one of the little people. But still, I don't think he really ever had his act together and later on committed suicide. So I don't think he ever really was able to accept himself for what he was, unfortunately.

Bonney

Let me ask you this--since you said you are the only person of short stature in your family, how did your mom and dad react and what did they do?

Kitchens

Well, I don't know. All I can surmise is from their actions; they were overprotective which is not uncommon. They were concerned because of my size, you know. Riding my bike in the street was forbidden, even though I did it on the side. A lot of other things I was not allowed to do for fear I might get hurt or whatever. My dad was away a lot because of visiting all of the ranchers and so forth but his influence was there. He, I guess the medical profession didn't have much exposure to short stature. They couldn't even distinguish between one type or another, even though I was seen at the Mayo Clinic as an infant for a cleft palate, for which I had two surgeries. Still, the best advice from the family doctor was, "Take him home and treat him like you would any other child." They did the best they could in that regard but still I didn't get to do things at the same age as my sister did. I never drove a car until I was twenty-one because my dad assumed it couldn't be done, and I kind of had to force the issue, when I was in a position to equip a car and drive it whether they liked it or not. But that was at age twenty-one. So some of my developmental issues were delayed.

I had three or four real good friends. Two of them were sons of close friends of my mother. They didn't even live in the same part of town, but because the families were close, those other two guys and I were close friends. Then there was a guy that lived about three blocks from me that was kind of my protector, if you will. His name started with the letter K like mine, so we usually sat together and we were always in the same classroom from kindergarten through twelfth. George would intercede if things got too rough from some of the other guys. He was a tall lanky fellow and was able to make his wishes known. So George was a bit of a confidant. He was a great football player, basketball player, a track star, but still he was over at my house frequently. We would carpool together, things of that sort. But my scope was limited and I didn't participate in any of the social activities at all, was just left out.

Bonney

Why was that?

Kitchens

Well, some people were uncomfortable around someone with difference. So there was no going to the dances or dating. I really wasn't welcome. That's just the way it was. So you're kind of lonesome and left out.

Bonney

What were your parents' expectations for you, do you think, as you grew up?

Kitchens

Well, I think education was absolutely critical, even though my dad didn't have a good education. My mother did. My mother's mother was a schoolteacher and as we grew up there was never any discussion about whether you went to college. The only discussion was what college you went to and what you took. Academic performance was demanded, required. A "C" on a report card was equivalent to an "F". The one "C" I made cost me six weeks of me being grounded and extra tutoring every afternoon by the grandmother that was the teacher, and I made sure I never got another "C". Even "B's" were frowned upon and perfect performance was expected and rewarded. My sister was better at that than I was. I think Carol had a photographic memory. She made all "A's" all the time and I would struggle with a "B" occasionally.

You did your homework every day, you did your spelling words, and there was never a day when you didn't turn in your homework. That was the norm and any support you needed from that standpoint was always available. Academic excellence was absolutely expected and any deviation with that was unforgiven. That was the right thing to do, and the thing we do today with little people is we support education. You have to let these young people know that they cannot compete with their body, they have to compete with their mind. Somehow my parents and my relatives all insisted that that was the best thing to do.

2. Freedom and self-reliance in college

Bonney

Lee, during this time, what were your own feelings about being a little person? What was your self-image like growing up?

Kitchens

Well, it never was discussed, there wasn't much knowledge. The only little people that you saw anything about besides in the movies were circus performers. I know when I went to college I did some library research on the term midget, which is the only term I'd ever heard. The term dwarf came up but there was painfully little information in the literature. I didn't harp on it or dwell on it. As soon as I got involved in college there was enough there to keep you busy without being side-tracked. Again, because of the overprotecting aspect of my parents, I was not allowed to go away to college. I went to TCU [Texas Christian University], which was in Fort Worth, and enrolled in pre-engineering. They did not have a college of engineering but they had a preparatory two-year course to get you ready, where you took all the basics. I did that for a year and a half and then discovered they had lost their accreditation.

At that point I had gotten accepted to SMU [Southern Methodist University] in Dallas. Well, that wasn't too far away from home, thirty or forty miles away, and they had a cooperative program. I had never been able to get a job as a teenager. I tried in my last couple of years in high school to get a part-time job as a draftsman and only ever got one interview and was turned down. But SMU had a cooperative engineering program where you go to school for two months, you work in the industry for two months, go to school two months, that sort of thing.

So I transferred to SMU and that got me away from home and the leash, so to speak. But a lot of my credits wouldn't transfer because TCU had lost its accrediting so I had to start over and retake some of the basics which slowed me down. Then the cooperative program took longer, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because then I had to stand on my own and deal with, there was nobody in the background going to battle for me. In the public school arena, unbeknownst to me at the time, if there were issues among the school administrators, I never knew it. But I had an aunt that was a music teacher, an itinerant music teacher, that taught stringed instruments at various schools. She knew all the school administrators, and if an issue came up, she was aware of it. Some of that got taken care of without my knowledge. They didn't fight all my fights, but the stupid ones that we still run into today, got taken care of without my knowledge.

I ran into administrative stupidity at the university level where I was expected to leap through physical education [P.E.] norms, no way I could, so I never took the physical education courses. I almost didn't graduate because of it. I substituted typing for the physical education requirements. Later on at SMU they tried to stick me into an advanced physiology and anatomy course instead of P.E., which was so foreign to my background, no way I would have made it. Finally, at the very last, a vice president of the university, kind of short himself, about five foot one, interceded for me and waived the P.E. requirement. But a lot of that kind of stuff went on in those years and it was rampant and flagrant, openly discriminatory.

There is some of that today but it's a lot more subtle and behind the scenes. Yes, you run into a lot of discrimination. Part of it was the attitude then, and even today, that if you're not whole physically, you are lacking mentally and contrary to the evidence, the academic performance, you're still assumed to be less than adequate. There were a number of people in my generation that were either denied education or ran into so many barriers they didn't get a complete education, and as a result, are either today unemployed or underemployed and have not been able to reach their potential.

Bonney

When you were in college and even in school, did you get any kind of accommodations?

Kitchens

None whatsoever.

Bonney

What would have made life easier for you?

Kitchens

Well, it would have been great. The college of engineering was a three-story building and their electrical engineering was all on the third floor and there was no elevator in the building. In fact, there were steps into every entrance in the building. As I was going through school there was another guy in a wheelchair. He was a polio... He had a car, a Crosley, little dinky thing, and he would wheelchair to the steps of the building. As the other guys would come they would all pile their books in his lap and four of them would pick up his wheelchair and carry him all the way to the third floor. So it was the other students that accommodated Harry, but I got no accommodation whatsoever.

Bonney

Did you ever ask for any?

Kitchens

No, I didn't, I guess stubborn enough. One of the things I was trying to prove to myself and to my dad was that I could make it. Because of the co-op experience I was able to no longer depend on my folks for support and was paying my own way, just barely. But as soon as I got two or three hundred dollars together, I announced to my mother that I was fixing to buy a car. "Well, what are you going to buy?" "Anything with five wheels, four to run on and one to steer it with." This upset my dad tremendously and he was afraid, again, that I would get into some old junk heap. So when he recognized that I had enough money, and I was twenty-one and he no longer had absolute say so, he showed up one day while I was at a work session at noon. He and Mother had been shopping cars and he had gone out and bought a car for me, new. They extended the gas and the brake and raised the seat. Then I had to get a driving instructor, but I mastered that in a week, it didn't take long. But again, I missed out on all the teenage years of driving. I was bumming rides and riding the bus. I kept it a secret, when I was eighteen I began to have problems with my hips because of my type of dwarfism. It was a painful time, but I kept it a secret because I knew if the family knew I would be further restricted. So I suffered that in silence.

Then with the car, I very shortly started searching for other little people for two reasons; one was to meet other people and share experiences, and maybe find a young lady or two. While I was in school there was a guy who was a year ahead of me who was already married, but we became well acquainted. He was kind of my mentor. His wife knew a family in the town she came from and there were several little people in the family. I finally got to meet that family. The first date I ever had was with one of the young ladies in that family that was my age. There was another lady in that family that we became good friends and still are after these forty or fifty some odd years. But that was the first social experience that I had, when I was twenty-one.

3. Marriage to Mary

Bonney

Let's go back to when you met these two young ladies when you were twenty-one.

Kitchens

Well, I dated one and as happens in average life, she strung me along, she was already engaged to some other guy and disappeared all of a sudden and went off and got married. But as I began to get acquainted I met some other little people. Then while I was at SMU I worked at the college radio station.

Bonney

What year was this?

Kitchens

Fifty-two, '53, '54. My roommates also worked there. I was on the technical side. One of the guys was a disc jockey and a salesman and that kind of stuff. This campus radio station was on the air from six to midnight, Monday through Friday. So it was a good experience and we did it for fun. One day the university administration called and said that the campus radio station at Texas Women's University in Denton was off the air. Their technical person was a merchant marine and he was at sea, and could we go up and have a look and get them back up on the air. So one Saturday my roommate and I drove up there, and the studio was in the basement of the art building. John was there to help me; he was a mechanical engineer. I was messing with the transmitter and trying to get it back on the air, changing tubes and stuff, and John went out to the car to get some parts. He saw this young lady leaving the art building and walking across the campus. He came back and told me about it and I said, "Well let's find out who she is." He had dated some gal up there so he called her and it seemed that the friend of his knew this young lady's roommate. Anyway, one thing led to another and we got a blind date. That was the first for Mary because she had never met another little person, never seen one in real life.

So we dated for the last two years of school and I wore out a car running back and forth to Denton. We got married after we both graduated in '55. It was a learning experience for her, even after we were married; I introduced her to another couple that I had gotten to know. That was a new experience for her to meet other little people. But that was the culmination of our dating and so forth. We both had to get used to looking at somebody eye to eye instead of looking up. So that's how Mary and I met.

Bonney

Did you have an apartment when you first got married?

Kitchens

No, we didn't. When I was born and my dad realized that, in his mind, I would never be able to make it on my own, they started putting aside money in what they called baby bonds, what we call savings bonds today, thinking that I would always have to be taken care of. So they put money into baby bonds, and then, during World War II, they put money in war bonds and after that in savings bonds. So when I graduated, having essentially paid my own way, just before we were married, my dad came to Dallas and went out and searched houses and so forth and basically handed me all those savings bonds. So we had a house when we got married, paid for. Because we never used this savings backlog, it was all in my name, I could cash it in and not pay taxes on it. So we had a three-bedroom, one-bath, two-car detached garage, house bought and paid for. It was a great way to start off.

They did the same thing for my sister when she got married. So, yes, we had a house. Dad went in and hired a cabinetmaker. They ripped out the kitchen and made lower kitchen cabinets and a built-in oven and range that would fit Mary. Again, because I was trying to prove to myself and to my folks I could make it on my own, that was a reward for having done it.

 

4. Origins of Little People of America, 1957

Bonney

How did you get involved with Little People of America? First of all, tell me how it started and why.

Kitchens

It started in 1957 and Billy Barty was the most prominent short-statured actor; he'd been in show business for years with Spike Jones, and the Harmonicats. His parents were in vaudeville; he grew up in show business. Apparently he had been to a show in Reno, and one night after the show, he and some other performers got together and got to talking, and one of the guys said to Billy that he ought to form a club. Another guy that was there owned a hotel, and one thing led to another, and so he offered Billy free rooms for a get-together. Billy gathered up twenty people that he had met and knew, most in show business, and they had a meeting. They got some media coverage, some signs, "Midgets of America"...

Bonney

Was that the word they used?

Kitchens

Yes, that was the word they used then. They had a lot of pictures of people standing on chairs and stepladders at the gambling tables. Not the kind of thing we would do today, but those people were used to being exploited, and they organized. Those twenty-one people spent the next three years going through their address books and as they traveled getting the names and addresses of every little person they ever heard of or knew of or whatnot. Billy and another lady, who acted as kind of Billy's secretary, put together a mailing list and started contacting all of these people. About 1959 Billy was featured on the Ralph Edwards program This is Your Life on TV. I did not see the program, but one of the guys I went to school with that had also gone to work for TI came and told me about it. So I wrote Ralph Edwards a letter asking about Billy and that got forwarded to Billy. But in my letter I did not make it clear that I was short-statured, so I got a very guarded response back.

vAnyway, we communicated back and forth, and Billy was planning another get-together in 1960 in November in Las Vegas. Because of Billy's contacts and whatnot, he had arranged for the meeting to be at the Hacienda Hotel and the rooms were free, it was during the off season, and the meals would be half price. Well, that sounded too good to us to be true, and we were expecting a fleabag and a greasy spoon, but we drove out there.

By then we had adopted our son, who was supposed to be little. We had the feeling that we didn't need the organization. We'd gotten educated, gotten employed, gotten married, established the household without LPA [Little People of America]. We had surmounted all of the obstacles, so to speak, but it would be great for our children to have a support organization. So we had kind of a stuffy attitude that a lot of little people still have, that have gone out and done their own thing. So we drove to Las Vegas, and when we heard the Hacienda was at the end of the strip and we thought, "Boy, our worst fears are realized." But the reason that it was at the end of the strip was because it was the newest, and sure enough it was first class. The rooms were, in fact, free, and you ate in the restaurant and they divided the bill by two and that's what you paid. We had 143 people there, many from show business, but not all.

The interesting aspect of that is I was only able to recognize six professional people, by professional I mean teachers or--no other engineers--but accountants, people with university degrees, people holding a position outside of show business. At that conference we essentially wrote the bylaws and the articles of incorporation and proceeded to set up the organization called Little People of America. They divided the country up into twelve districts, appointed a director for each of these areas, and I got appointed by virtue of being the only one from Texas, for the director of this area. The first board of directors were essentially hand picked. Billy was the president. They had a president-elect, the usual structure.

The next year was spent spreading the word, so to speak. In '61 the meeting again was in Las Vegas. Then in '62 they moved it to Ashville, North Carolina, where one of the vice presidents lived. But again, all this was done in November. Well, attendance dropped way down because it was a long way from the show business group and a lot of them didn't show up, and no children were there. Now we took our son out of school for one week because we thought it was important. But at those discussions in Ashville, we then shifted gears to the summertime so it could be a family sort of thing and people that had kids could come, and we've been having summertime meetings ever since. Then attendance picked up and has continued to grow. So that's kind of the genesis of the organization.

The history of the organization itself is long--history of spreading the word, letting the general public know about little people, letting other little people know about the organization, developing programs to help other little people; an adoption committee, a scholarship committee, sharing one-on-one issues about how to drive a car, how to modify a house, and that kind of stuff. It easily became a, even though we didn't want to admit it, a dating game for... Mary and I were fortunate in having met each other, but a lot of little people never had that opportunity. So it was a chance for people of short stature to get together and develop a social interaction that they'd never had before.

 

Early focus of LPA not disability-oriented

Bonney

I want to go back. When LPA was first formed, Billy Barty, of course, was in the theater. Was his focus when he started this mostly on the theatrical aspects of it?

Kitchens

Not really, not really, even though he was accused of doing this for his own benefit by some people. Billy did, to his credit, have a broader outlook and was not selective as far as getting people involved. Even though he came from a show business group and that was the group he knew the most about, there were a few people that he knew and met that were not in show business. I think in terms of our third president who was an accountant and a comptroller for a chain of supermarkets. So he didn't play favorites by any means. He was out looking for people from all walks of life.

Bonney

Was his goal when he started this to try to influence employment mainly for little people, or changing society's attitudes towards little people?

Kitchens

I think it was all of the above. He voiced employment, education, society's attitudes. All of those things went together, plus he had a couple of other ideas. One would be a retirement home for little people, which never has come to pass, a national headquarters, national site. He had vision way out there but, not to his discredit, didn't fully understand what it was going to take to get there. Membership recruitment was always forefront, always has been, and still is today. Identifying other little people, finding out who they are, where they are, delivering our message, "Here's what we have to offer." Also telling some of these people, the more successful ones that don't feel they need the group, trying to convince them that they have something to offer to other people. Some people are not as altruistic as others so it's difficult sometimes to recruit successful people into the organization.

Bonney

Early on and maybe even now, did little people see themselves as disabled? Did they identify with that?

Kitchens

No, a lot of people totally ignored it, "I am not disabled." Many of them would not even get handicapped license plates because they didn't want to wear the label. But Section 502 and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Public Law 94-142, if I can remember all of these good numbers, they did define short stature as a limiting condition. My argument was if you are going to be labeled by the public, take advantage of it and go ahead and get the handicapped tag as repayment for all of the stuff you have to put up with. As time goes on, getting a handicapped label is not as negative a thing as it used to be. Now you see handicapped parking placards on all kinds of cars, and you see people getting out of the car and thinking, "Are they handicapped?" Well, yes, there are a lot of hidden handicaps and then there are a lot of frauds. So it's all an education and a perception thing, not only in the minds of the public, but in the minds of the disabled community.

Bonney

What do you think has helped the little people disabled community begin to identify as disabled?

Kitchens

Well, as the organization has gotten large enough to be recognized as a viable group, as we have gotten more and more of our people involved in various movements, as we've become a recognized member on ANSI committees, as we've gotten involved in some issues and have gotten media attention to some of the stupid things that have gone on, as we've gone to bat for people running into problems in the education field, and as more little people have succeeded in the general public on an equal basis, all of those things have helped other little people to see, "Yes, I can do all of this, too." Even though there are some barriers there that are artificial, the organization can help you break down those barriers or show you a way around the barriers. It's pretty tough to do it all by yourself, and if you just want to have a little help, I think that's where the organization shines.

We do, now, have members that are in roles that are significant. We have attorneys, doctors, nurses that have some influence based on their position, not on their size. Those people are useful. Plus we've networked with all kinds of other things. Networking helps too. People come to us for help and we go to other groups for help. It's good that we have high visibility now that we did not used to have.

Actually, short stature can be an asset in public life. When I ran for mayor the first time, everybody knew who I was even though I didn't know all of them. This has been true for other people that run for public office. The first time you can run on name identification, it's an easy campaign. Now when you run for reelection you have to run on your record, your size is not an issue any more. But that first time around it's an advantage, even against an incumbent. We've seen that happen a number of times.

Kitchens

One of the early people I met that were little people, the father was a justice of the peace and a county clerk for a number of years. His daughter then took his place. The county clerk has to run for office every two years. Frances was so well known, in Snyder, that in the latter years nobody in their right mind would run against her, even against people that pulled the lever for all one party, they wouldn't do that in her case. She won over and over and over again, getting 99 percent of the vote because she was so well known and well respected. Now she was totally qualified in her role, she knew her business, was impeccable in honesty and followed the rules and all that kind of stuff. We've had other people run for public office and do quite well. One of our little people in Houston ran against a thirty-year incumbent and beat him hands down, again because he had that brand identification, if you will. The second time he ran he had a tough race, but he won it based on that he had done a good job. Now we have a younger fellow that is a commissioner of some organization in New Jersey. He beat part of the old machine, if you will. So there is an advantage.

5.Exclusion of average-size people in original bylaws

Bonney

You mentioned that at one of the early LPA meetings, maybe the third one, that you all drafted bylaws. What did your bylaws say?

Kitchens

Well, we did that the very first meeting. A bit of history--there had been two previous attempts to organize a little people's group that had failed.

Bonney

Nationwide?

Kitchens

In the U.S. Both of those groups had been organized by average-sized people, show business promoters. It was not organized for the benefit of little people. It was organized for the benefit of the promoters. Billy, who had a big hand in writing the first set of bylaws, excluded average-sized people. They couldn't be members. They had no role in the organization. It did two things: it kept average-size people, for whatever reason, from getting involved, either for their own interest or as do-gooders, and it forced little people to stand up for themselves. That attitude prevailed for a number of years until the people in LPA grew up, so to speak, and finally recognized that these average-sized parents that brought in their dwarf kids had something to offer to the organization. We gradually, through by-law amendments, loosened the barriers to allow other people to be involved. Now we have chapter presidents or district directors that may be parents of dwarf children or spouses or whatever. But it took quite a while to build up this infrastructure of competent little people to run the organization so that an average-sized person coming in would not be a threat. We had to learn to take advantage of some of the skills and resources that some of those people had. But I think it was the right thing to do at the time, so little people could learn how to operate in that kind of an environment.

One of the things that happened in a lot of cases, little people were socially immature or deprived because, back in the early days a little person would not likely be invited to become a member of a Lion's Club, or a Kiwanis Club, or whatever. So they were denied the experience of working in a group like that and learning the leadership skills that you needed to learn to be able to manage a large volunteer group. So again that was the social environment that we saw in those days.

We still see that in other countries. Since LPA has been in existence for so long, we're way ahead of other countries. We, as an organization, are way ahead and we, as a nation, are way ahead of all of the other countries. None of them have the legislation that we have to protect the rights of any minority. They don't have the architectural barriers acts that we do. They're coming along, but they are ten to fifteen to twenty years behind, and for that reason many of the people in other countries like to come to our national conferences and be a part of it and learn from us. But you've got a socialized medicine thing going on in most countries where, you know, in Holland they will take care of you from the cradle to the grave if you have a problem. Well, that's not the case here. You've got to go fight these fights yourself. So we've learned, we're way down the learning curve from other countries.

End of Interview