A Conversation with Jan Bronson
It isn’t often that I meet someone who understands the town I grew up in as well as Jan Bronson does, even though hers was along an inlet in Alaska and mine was in a valley in Arizona. Jan is a former clerk of Alaska Friends Conference and is now co-clerk of Alaskan Quakers Seeking Right Relationship with Indigenous People.
Part of the conversation is the two of us trying to process the racism we witnessed as children. It weighs on us still, although we were witnesses rather than targets. The trauma we experienced was secondary.
This is a conversation between two rather privileged white women on racism against Native people in the US. The most important conversation in the yearly meeting about racism and healing is not this one. One is on Saturday evening at annual sessions, when three Alaska Natives will tell their stories. It will be on Zoom and in person. Reserve a place for yourself here, to attend online or in person.
I offer this as an interview partly because I find the experiences she describes of healing and transformation with the First Alaskans Institute fascinating. It’s a story of both pain and healing.
I’m including the childhood stories we told each other so that you may understand why this is such an important topic for both of us. Again, the perspective we bring on these things we describe is not the most important perspective. Much of my Sierra-Cascades audience looks like the two of us. I offer this interview and stories as one possible way to prepare for those more important conversations at annual sessions.
But let me say first the most important thing to me: Angelita Vásquez, wherever you are, I’m sorry.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Judy Maurer
I'm dying of curiosity. Where did you grow up?
Jan Bronson
South central Alaska. Do you know Anchorage? Just a little bit northeast of there as the crow flies, but on the other side of an inlet.
Judy Maurer
Was it rural?
Jan Bronson
It was rural. My parents homesteaded. Talk about connections to this work. My parents homesteaded in a rural part of Alaska as part of the Homestead Act. That 160 acres of land is where I grew up. That's where I spent from before I was born, to when I went off to college.
Judy Maurer
Wow. So a small school?
Jan Bronson
Small school. Yep. until the mid 70s when oil production got going. The pipeline wasn't yet carrying oil until the year I graduated. But there was a lot of money being spent in the state before then as things were being built. And there was a big influx of classmates at that point. So I ended up with 66 people in my graduating class.
Judy Maurer
And how big was it when you were in first grade?
Jan Bronson
Oh, I don't know. Probably 22, 24. Bigger than yours?
Jan (on the right) and her sister.
Judy Maurer
Yes, but tracking. I started with three kids in my class in first grade and ended up with 14. And that was the whole valley, too.
Jan Bronson
Where were you?
Judy Maurer
Cave Creek, Arizona. It's north of Phoenix. It's now a kind of suburban Phoenix, retirement center, quirky little town. It’s up where the mountains start as you go up from Phoenix to Flagstaff.
Jan Bronson
How did your family end up there?
Judy Maurer
Oh, my father was a pastor in the town. I was a minister's kid there.
Judy and her family’s pony
Jan Bronson
Friends pastor or a different?
Judy Maurer
Episcopalian. Construction workers' kids were coming in. So I know that, too. They were gearing up for the Central Arizona Project. They were building dams and near us, heavy duty electric lines. There were a few homesteaders there. But mostly the land wasn't good enough. There were a few, but it was tough.
Jan Bronson
Hard-scrabble.
Judy Maurer
Exactly. Was it hard-scrabble for your family, too?
Jan Bronson
No, they never tried to grow crops. The land wasn't suitable there, and there was no infrastructure. They did have to grow a certain number of crops for a certain number of years, plant a certain number of acres to prove up on the homestead. But my dad was a civil engineer and he worked in Anchorage. So he drove around the inlet into town. They never made a living as homesteaders.
Judy Maurer
Yes. The only kids I grew up with whose parents were also college-educated were engineers' kids whose fathers were willing to commute a long way.
So how did you get into this work?
Jan Bronson
Um, gosh, how did you get into this work?
Judy Maurer
Yeah, that's true. (laughs)
Jan Bronson
I was the rising presiding clerk of our yearly meeting when Diane Randall, who was the FCNL General Secretary, came to Alaska to attend our annual session. She wanted to meet with First Alaskans Institute, which is a research and education and community development organization of Alaska Native people.
She wanted to meet with them about legislation that was affecting Indigenous people. She wanted to make those connections that are so important. I was part of that meeting with her. We talked about legislation for just a snap of time. The main heart of that meeting was these young, strong, Native women saying "What was your role as Friends in Alaska's history? The good and the bad?”
That started us on the process of looking into our history. We knew the parts that we're proud of. But we learned that there was a Friends boarding school in Alaska. We learned that missionaries ran the government day schools up in the Northwest Arctic.
Judy Maurer
Was that the one on Douglas?
Jan Bronson
Douglas (Sayiek as they call it) — that island. We as the Religious Society of Friends also were assigned this part of Alaska — (hand motions to show Northwest Alaska), sent there jointly by the Bureau of Education and California Yearly Meeting Board of Missions. Friends were to manage and run schools up in that area.
Note: California Yearly Meeting is now Evangelical Friends Church Southwest
So we learned a lot about it. A year after they challenged us to learn our history, First Alaskans Institute formalized the plan to have a series of tribunals.
Judy Maurer
Was that the truth and reconciliation part?
Jan Bronson
Exactly. But they don't call it reconciliation. They call it transformation. The feeling is that we hadn’t ever had the kind of relationship we could restore in reconciliation. It had been one way, and now we're going to transform it and work together.
Judy Maurer
Oh, that is fascinating.
Jan Bronson
The tribunals were for truth-telling, racial healing, transformation… They were really well thought out. It was during COVID and we were on Zoom, and they weren't sure how it would work. So they started out with a small number of accountability partners, who were representatives of organizations who had a history of doing harm in the state of Alaska, to Alaska Native people, but who they thought were trustworthy and willing to learn and grow and change. I get kind of teary-eyed just talking about that.
Judy Maurer
Wow, this would be great.
Jan Bronson
Over a couple year period, there were a series of tribunals focusing on things like protecting Alaskan Native people's way of life and how Western society's ways and impositions and legislation had affected their ability to relate to the land in the way that they had for thousands of years. That was the first one. The second one was our lands and laws, specifically the legislation affecting lands. The third one was boarding schools. And the fourth one was on murdered and missing Indigenous relatives. Each of these tribunals was a multi-day gathering on Zoom, many hours per day
Judy Maurer
On Zoom. Intense!
Jan Bronson
It was intense. Heart-opening and life-changing. They had people identified to serve certain roles. The most important was Truth Providers, those people who were going to tell of their experiences or their family's experiences or the stories that they had heard that have been passed down. Many said, “This is the first time I've ever told anyone this.”
The accountability partners were from groups like universities, resource agencies, faith communities, Alaska public media, and sometimes someone from the political realm stepped in. Sometimes someone representing law enforcement was invited. We were just to listen, and to hear how people's lives had been impacted by our way of operating — "our" being mostly white institutions.
But in addition to those two roles, there were also healers at every tribunal, who were named and who were available to help anyone who just wanted some one-on-one time, whether it was a Truth Provider, or an accountability partner, or a staff person. The healers came from different traditions. Most were Alaska Native people, but not all. They were available after the tribunals ended. They gave their phone numbers out and said, “Call me if something comes up.”
And they also did kind of healing exercises throughout the tribunal like breathing and stretching exercises, or reminded us to go drink our water or take care of ourselves physically, mentally.
There were artists who were brought in in an intentional way. They might be drawing as they were hearing these stories, and they would share what they were drawing, or they would be sewing something and show what they were sewing. Others were invited in as a poet, say. Also story guardians, whose job was to listen to what was being shared, and then gather it together and make the connections and be able to reflect it back to the bigger group.
The staff people were amazing. They were good at listening to each person testify and then reflecting back something that affirmed what they said and maybe tied it in to the bigger picture of what we were learning.
Judy Maurer
That sounds both heart wrenching, and really good.
Jan Bronson
It was so good. And there were gatherings before each tribunal, like the accountability partners would get together with the staff. And they would say, "Okay, these kinds of things you might hear, you know, this is how we want you to react and not react. Here's a chance now to talk about how this is going to intersect with your story. So be starting to think about that, before you're actually hearing the stories.”
Following the tribunals, there would be a summit where all the participants would get together and strategize what kind of actions we could take in our different realms to improve in this area.
I could go on and on about the tribunal. But you get a sense of it. It was really intentional, beautiful. Just recently, kind of as a concluding piece to the tribunal process, the accountability partners were invited back to share with the Truth Providers, how the Truth Providers words had changed us as individuals and had changed our organization and what we were doing as a result of hearing their words. Their words have not fallen to the ground, and that we really had taken action and we have made these changes. This is our report back to you Truth Providers. I just emailed you our transcript of what we shared with them. It's about a 15 minute presentation.
Judy Maurer
How much time elapsed between the tribunal and the listeners sending their response?
Jan Bronson
There were layers and layers, to answer your question. There was a way to respond immediately. After each tribunal there was a summit the next day to do the "okay, what are we going to do about this?" Then after that, within a couple of weeks, they would get all the accountability partners back together again, to reflect and talk among ourselves and with the staff on how this has affected us.
But as far as what I'm just now describing where the accountability partners are presenting to the Truth Providers — that happened one time, at the end of the whole series of tribunals, so at the end of a two-year process. One final step. Well, I don't know if it's a final step, because we keep getting invitations for more things. There was lots of healing going on in the moment. We accountability partners were in the background. We were equal squares on the Zoom screen, but mostly, almost totally the action was facilitated by Native women, or Native elders or healers, and the Truth Providers. They were the ones interacting with each other and healing one another. And we got to do our part, which was to listen and then do our work.
Judy Maurer
So you were able to process, but not in front of the Truth Providers? That's good. I mean, in case somebody said something clueless.
Jan Bronson
Right. It was such a generous group of people and so loving and inviting. Repeatedly we heard that "you belong here. You're part of this. We want you here. You're going to hear hard things, but we are doing our best to separate you who we see on the Zoom screen from what your institution did."
That you're on a journey. We're on a journey. We're on this journey together. We're gonna do it. There was a lot of "we're gonna do it — our hands, your hands. We're gonna do it.”
Judy Maurer
Wow, that's really moving. I'm gonna cry.
Jan Bronson
It was. I've been part of "Ouch, Oops, Whoa" processes. They feel to me a little bit more like, “Oh, you got to be a little bit on edge.”
This was not that. It was "Of course there's gonna be ‘ouches’. Of course there's going to be ‘oops’ because we are where we are at this moment, and we have this history of trauma. We all do, we all carry it. You who came from Europe, you arrived here having experienced a lot of trauma. You're going to carry it with you and you're shedding it. So ‘go you! We want you here.’”
Judy Maurer
That is generosity.
Jan Bronson
Of course we also tried our best not to cause any harm.
Before every tribunal, there'd be a warming of the hands ceremony the night before, where everybody would just get together and there'd be songs and music and prayers. One of the Zoom squares would be a fire on the beach. It was a chance to recognize that we're doing something hard tomorrow and worthwhile tomorrow, and we're all bringing our best selves to this.
And we are doing that together, because together is the only way it's going to be really healing. I can't say enough about First Alaskans Institute, processes, staff and the people who shared their truths, too.
Judy Maurer
Yes, yes. That's amazing.
Jan Bronson
So that's been our process. I mean, so we've been accountability partners with First Alaskans Institute and we've had this formal role now since 2020. And then an informal role for a year before that. One thing that other Quaker groups maybe don't have is a group of people who are checking in on us and saying, “What are you learning? What are you doing?”
Judy Maurer
Oh, they do that for you?
Jan Bronson
Yes. When we were drafting our apology to Alaska Native people for the role that the Religious Society of Friends played for running boarding schools, they met with us on Zoom. They had read the draft earlier and made suggestions. We have other Native partners, too.
Note: you may read the apology itself here. Here’s an article by an NPR affiliate about Jan Bronson and Cathy Walling giving the apology at the site of a former Friends school.
Judy Maurer
In areas of the country that I know about, Arizona and others, the Indigenous are just invisible to the dominant society. The Indigenous Latino kids were treated very differently from the Spanish-descent Latino kids.
The other thing is that I went to college in Wisconsin, and took an archaeology class about the US southwest from professors who had deep respect. It turns out a lot is known about the pre-Columbian history in Arizona. School kids don't learn that even now, probably.
And it's really impressive. They had trade routes from the center of Arizona down to Mexico City. They grew crops by controlling the floodwaters in like, the 8th century.
Jan Bronson
We have a lot to learn, don't we?
Judy Maurer
For me another sadness was growing up not knowing. Did that affect you, too, as a child of homesteaders?
Jan Bronson
Oh yeah, of course. I mean, maybe it's not of course, but yes, there was racism. There was invisibility. the denying of kids in our school.
There was a lot of tuberculosis in Alaska Native communities until the late 1950’s. Not within our community, but a lot of kids were affected by it in other parts of the state still — in terms of their parents having it. There was an institution in our town that I thought was a home for delinquent boys — that was the growing-up vibe. I don't know if anybody told me that. But that was just what everybody understood it to be.
It turns out it was a place for kids from all over the state who had been brought there, out of their communities because it was believed that their parents weren't able to care for them. I don’t know if that's true or not? Or if white people saw poverty and thought “neglect,” or parents had TB or mother had TB, and so rather than looking into the community to see who else could take care of this child, they just brought them.
Judy Maurer
How old were they?
Jan Bronson
I don't know. Probably all ages. They were treated as delinquents. They were always running away, trying to get out of that place.
Judy Maurer
Reasonably enough.
Jan Bronson
And we didn't look at “what is it about this place that people want to run away from?” We looked at it as, "these are delinquent runaways.” Or these are delinquent kids who get in trouble and the teachers are always mad at them.
I remember my fifth grade teacher taking a big geography Teacher's Guide and just hitting the head of a boy who had his head down. He was sleeping on his desk —who knows what kind of concussion she might have caused him. I don't know but it was a hard hit. We children didn't know what to do, or whether to do anything.
Then the “Sarah's fleas” games on the playground where some of the Native kids' names were associated with fleas and you would play tag. Instead of it just being it "now you’re it, now you're it' instead it was you're passing on this particular Native girl's fleas.
Also adoptions — the same pattern that has affected Native kids in the Lower 48. A number of Native kids in Wasilla were adopted into white homes. Who knows why? At the time, we didn't question it.
Anyway. It is background. Who knows why you were affected and are here on this screen and I was affected?
Judy Maurer
I'm sure it's for similar reasons. Yes, there was . . . I'm not gonna be able to tell this and not cry.
Jan Bronson
Don’t try [not to cry].
Judy Maurer
Yes, that's right. There was a Mexican girl about my age, 10 or 11, maybe a little older than me. And she never talked. From my perspective, she never talked. And so I went home one day and said, "Mom! Angelita talked! Angelita to talked to me!"
She realized that it wasn't that Angelita didn't talk, it was that nobody talked to Angelita, because she was brown, had an accent, didn’t have running water at home and was an Indigenous Mexican kid. So my mother impressed upon me how important it was to talk to her and gave me a few examples of what I could say. And so I thought, well, I don't understand, but it's obviously important to my mother. So I'm gonna do this.
So I did, and then I decided I really enjoyed it. So I would see her standing alone on the playground and I would think, "hey, great, I can go talk to Angelita!” Then one day, she said to me, "We’re moving to Las Cruces." That’s near the border in New Mexico. And I said, “you're moving???” She put her head down, she smiled, then she bit her lip. I couldn't figure it out. And so I went home. I said to my mother, “I don't understand. Angelina smiled when I said that I was upset that she was moving.”
My mother said, “Well, she was probably smiling because she knew that one person would miss her.”
Oh, that gets to me now, because I never once thought, I'll let all these other white kids in on the secret and talk to Angelita. I never said, “Hey, Dianne, hey, Cindy, let’s go talk to Angelita.” I never invited her in. I never invited her home. I just really enjoyed talking to her. So I look back on those times when I saw the white kids and a few Mexican kids playing and she's just outside there, watching intently and all alone. And it just really hurts now.
Jan Bronson
You were lucky that you had the mother you had.
Judy Maurer
In that I was very lucky.
Jan Bronson
And that you took a step.
Judy Maurer
Yeah, I did. Entirely because I thought, well, obviously, this is important to my mother. So I will do this. I really did benefit from that. It just saddens me now thinking about that.
And then the other time… My sister was in and out of the hospital one year. I was about three. So my parents put me in a daycare center in Phoenix so my day wouldn't get disrupted when my sister went back into the hospital. There was this little Mexican girl who I just adored. I thought she was perfect!
So I remember one day my mother was late. Maybe about six or seven of us kids were standing near the door waiting for our parents, all ready to go. I’m standing next to Nevada, the little Mexican girl. I remember thinking, I'm so glad that I have a mom who will not be mad that I'm standing next to a Mexican kid when she comes through the door. So I don’t have to move. I can stay here next to Nevada.
So somehow at three or four, I had already experienced that. Probably she had already experienced that.
It breaks my heart. So think of how I learned that? Probably because other white kids' moms were upset. Phoenix is like that still. I mean, I don't know that it's improved that much.
Jan Bronson
Yes. So getting back to being together with you and Sierra Cascades. I'm interested in hearing how we can work together. You have part of the story.
Judy Maurer
Yes, we do.
Jan Bronson
You have big hearts and are open, welcoming people. We've seen that ourselves. We could learn a lot from you with just how you are in the world and the whole separation between your yearly meetings, and how you were able to overcome that.
Judy Maurer
They pretty much cut us off. We haven't really overcome that but I think we're moving on it. You may hear more about it at annual sessions.
Jan Bronson
It would be good. It might relate to this work that we're doing with Indigenous people together in some way, possibly. It's about relationships, it’s all about relationships.
Judy Maurer
By the way, do you have much contact with Alaska Yearly Meeting?
Note: Jan is a member of Alaska Friends Conference. More on that below.
Jan Bronson
We don't have much contact. We're taking steps. We're moving at the speed of trust. It's a long way physically to the place where the Quaker missionaries were established for the longest time and where there are still really strong Friends.
Judy Maurer
That's the Kotzebue area?
Jan Bronson
Yes. I went to their annual session two years ago. I mostly just helped out in the kitchen, which was good.
Judy Maurer
Oh, excellent. That's contact!
Jan Bronson
Yes. I mean, it's important to have relationships with people before you try to build institutional ties. And other Friends from Alaska Friends Conference have gone to their annual sessions through the years. There's been a little bit of us going into their spaces, not so much them coming into our spaces.They're really different theologically. It really is kind of just theologically challenging to be there. But we're sisters on the journey. I mean, we have the same faith origins.
Judy Maurer
In some ways you are family, but then there are also family tensions… I imagine it would be more difficult somehow than with the First Alaskans Institute.
Jan Bronson
Yes, there are layers there, for sure.
Judy Maurer
It’s part of EFCI. [Evangelical Friends Church International]
Jan Bronson
That was their home base. Almost all members of Alaska Yearly Meeting are Iñupiaq. So they're both the institutional descendants of the people who established the boarding schools and also the recipients of the missionary efforts, which they mostly see as positive, from what I can tell anyway. They're grateful for the missionaries, grateful for the love of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus Christ.
So who are we to say “no, this is our position.”? When people have positive experiences with missionaries, I say, “Yay.” Of course that is true. People are going to have different experiences. What we're apologizing for is where the Religious Society of Friends caused harm.
Judy Maurer
I should tell you that technically, my husband and I were missionaries. We were in Russia. I always felt more like a pastor in someone else's country. What I really wanted our students to do is go talk to their Orthodox grandmothers about their spiritual beliefs. I wanted to tell them to just go and have a spiritual life. I felt more called to be with people who felt empty and lonely and bereft without either pastoral care or some kind of spiritual life.
There is a Quaker meeting and a nonprofit in Moscow, which is now doing really good work with refugees in Ukraine.
Jan Bronson
There's a Friends Church in Anchorage as well. And when my older daughter was going through a really tough patch I went to both the Friends Church and the Friends Meeting. Friends Meeting was home, but Friends Church, my gosh, there was nothing like the power of their prayers for my daughter.
Note: Jan means the Anchorage Friends Church, which is evangelical and part of Alaska Yearly Meeting. Anchorage Friends Meeting, her home faith community, is progressive and part of Alaska Friends Conference.
I have a friend, a classmate, who I went to school with for many years. We talk now and then, probably once every couple of weeks. She is so borne up and lifted up by her faith and by the life and power of Jesus Christ in her own personal experience. And I think that's true for a number of people who have gone through hard times. Going through my hardest times is when I'm spending more time in prayer and whatever.
Judy Maurer
That’s what got me out of a cycle of addiction.
Jan Bronson
So it's mixed, right?
Judy Maurer
So it is complicated.
Jan Bronson
We just walk in the knowing that it’s complicated and that we don't understand.
Judy Maurer
Exactly! How's your daughter now?
Jan Bronson
Oh, she's great. She's doing fine.
Jan Bronson
She's 26 and has a job she loves. Has a good boyfriend that we all love...
Judy Maurer
About your research. You've been researching archives, etc?
Jan Bronson
What are we looking at? We read old books, for one. Tomorrow is Growing Old is helpful. There are so few copies of it.
Judy Maurer
This is Arthur Roberts’ book? A lot of people remember Arthur Roberts.
Jan Bronson
Yes. So let's get him back in print. Alaskan Native people want copies of that book. There's people's names before and after their names were changed. Like, “This person was given this English name. This person got this English name.” There are lists of who were members which year.
There's a lot in there that is directly helpful to Alaska Native people who are trying to understand what happened to their ancestors. But there's so few copies. No used bookstores sell it. You can't buy it for $400 You can't buy it for $200 — online anyway. So helping Barclay press get that reprinted would be one immediate help.
Judy Maurer
And I'm also thinking of the people in Newberg who might have it just in their personal collection. It makes sense that people would have Arthur Roberts’ books.
Jan Bronson
We have people who would be reading it. These are people who are actively trying to understand and heal. What we heard a few times during the Tribunal is the sense that as we heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors. Like the ancestors are with us and with the work we're doing here today, healing ourselves. It's not just going to heal our children. So yes, help out here would be great.
Judy Maurer
Yes. What sort of time do you have? One of the things about having lived in Russia is that conversations now with me can go on forever. That's the Russian way. There are some really good things about the Russian culture.
Jan Bronson
I do have lots of things coming up today. But maybe part of the problem of where the missionaries went wrong, maybe was thinking they knew the right way or knew what was going on here.
Judy Maurer
That's right. I remember. We were in the Moscow area. The Quakers who had been there before had talked to them about the procedures — the do and don’ts — of meeting for business. A friend of mine said Russians are like depressed Italians, you know. They’ll interrupt each other, they'll argue, raise their voices, gesture strongly, even during meeting for business. Even occasionally in meeting for worship. The visiting Quakers who had been there before had convinced them that they were bad Quakers, because they didn't leave a minute or two between each person speaking and all of that. That message drove me crazy. There’s a real cultural difference there about what’s an appropriate level of expressiveness.
My husband and I resolved to do better, right? But then we realized that any time you focus on what is good to do, what one should do in meeting for business or worship, say, then you end up describing what you feel like is good and proper - and you’ve just taken it from what your culture says is good.
So after quite awhile of thinking about it, we realized we would do the same thing if we focused on process, on how to conduct meeting for business. So we decided to say, “we think the essence in meeting for business is to listen together for the Holy Spirit. That’s it. Now make your own Slavic rules about how to do that. And don't ask us to tell you rules because we’ll just take them from our Anglo-Saxon toolbox.You need a Slavic toolbox, and we can’t help you with that.”
But it's incredibly tempting to say “no, this is the right way to do Quaker” and import all that cultural stuff.
Jan Bronson
That’s right. So if we really ground ourselves in that kind of attitude, we're gonna muddle through. And now we have new people to muddle through with!
Judy Maurer
I love that. Let's muddle through together.
Jan Bronson
There's a lot that we can learn together, that we want to learn.
Judy Maurer
This is excellent.
Jan Bronson
Yeah, it's pretty great. Learn and take steps and work in the headlights of Alaskan or Pacific Northwest Native people. I mean, we’ve definitely got the headlights of Alaska Native people who can help guide those efforts.
Judy Maurer
So you'll have help from Native people?
Jan Bronson
Well, it's not that we'll have help from them. It's that they're already doing this kind of research. We're definitely in the backseat. We have an analogy that was shared with us during one of the tribunals — about how we are on this journey together — the accountability partners and the Native people. And we accountability partners are in the car, but we are in the backseat. We're not in the driver's seat and we're not in the passenger seat either. We’re in the backseat.
It's a mindset that we always have to remind ourselves of. It is easy to get in the front seat.
Judy Maurer
Oh, it is easy! We've been in the front seat for all these generations. It means a lot to me personally that you all are doing this in the backseat. And when I first heard about the apology I was skeptical. I thought that it was just words, so it would be easy. But it was not! it's a whole lot more than words, a whole lot deeper.
Jan Bronson
The apology was powerful, because we shared it in person. There were a lot of people crying in the room; the apology meant something, I think.
Judy Maurer
Yes, I don't want to minimize it. Especially the way you did it.
Jan Bronson
One of our partners said that approving the apology, and then offering the apology, was a high point and a milestone for our community, but it's like the wedding. And now you got the marriage. It's a something that really anchors us. We promised that we would do these things. And now we live into it for the rest of our lives.