Samantha Thompson IST-A-L-2014-012
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Thompson: I know that they didn’t know how long Dad was going to be in office, whether
or not he wanted to stay in office, or if he was going to win or lose. They just
thought that instead of setting me up with a life in Springfield and then having
to yank me out, change cities, and change schools, that they would put me in
school in Chicago; then no matter what happened, it would be just like a
normal trajectory.
Czaplicki: Continuity throughout. But did that change? You started off saying that your
father had a view of the governorship, that he was going to govern from
Springfield, but I presume with you in school up here, that they shifted the
amount of time that they spent in Springfield versus Chicago.
Thompson: He still spent a lot of time in Springfield, and we would go back to Springfield
a lot. But yeah, you have to make decisions sometimes for the benefit of your
family. I think people understood that. I actually was happier in Springfield. I
loved being in the mansion because there were always people around. There
was always something to do. It was people working in the office, or you’d go
talk to the butler, or you’d go sit in the kitchen and talk to the chef. It was fun.
Czaplicki: All right, talking more about the mansion, I still have yet to take the tour, so I
haven’t gone to the mansion and seen it. I really would like to, but could you
describe for me some of the spaces in there? Do you have any particular
rooms that were your favorite?
Thompson: When you get the tour, have Governor Quinn give you permission to see some
of the family spaces, if you can get it, because we spent most of our time in
the attic when I was a kid—the kids did.
Czaplicki: Is it three floors?
Thompson: There’s the ground floor, then the first floor, which is the public spaces. The
second floor is the governor’s apartment, the private family apartment, which
is, depending on how it’s configured, I guess three or four bedrooms. Then
there’s the attic above, which is a huge, finished rec room, basically, with
pinball machines, a TV, a sofa, a pool table, a jukebox, and a slot machine.
Things that people had donated over the years for whatever reason were up
there. My dad had a weight set up there.
Czaplicki: I saw a reference to Ms. Pac-Man in one of the articles.
Thompson: Yeah, there was a sit-down Ms. Pac-Man. We played for hours. My mom was
really good. Years after Dad had left office, I was talking to Mayor Don
Stephens, from Rosemont, who was an old family friend who collected these
machines. He had the coolest house, with a spread of vintage cars and arcade
games and all this stuff. I said we used to love playing Ms. Pac-Man and he