Debra Milner, née Palmer, 69, is a Kingston native and retired after a career that included stints as a security secretary at IBM and at a nuclear power plant in North Carolina. She has called Midtown Kingston home for 40 years and raised 10 children there.

Kingston Wire: How did you or your family come to be in Kingston?

Debra Milner: My father was a preacher and he came from Middletown. That’s where he met my mom. He came up here and preached at almost every church in this town and painted almost all of the houses. Back in those days, if you needed something, say you were a doctor you needed a painter and [my father] needed a doctor, they’d trade, it was all give and take.

KW: What do you like to do in Kingston?

DM: Since the pandemic I haven’t been nowhere. I’m 69 and my husband is in his 80s and we don’t have a car. We used to like to go up by the reservoir, do a lot of things, but without a car and getting older really don’t have much chance. I have 15 grandkids in this area and four great-grandchildren, my daughter runs a daycare center, most of my grandchildren are in college and without a car we really can’t get to see nobody. We wait for the holidays when the kids come home. In June when one of my grandkids graduated, we had a family reunion.

KW: What would you like to change about Kingston?

DM: They don’t have anything for young people. When I grew up, they had the cellar club up there by Academy Green. That used to be a meeting place for young people. If there was a party there we’d all cook for the party. We had roller, skating, ice skating, everything. Now all that stuff is just buildings, they tore down half of Downtown. Everything that kids can do that’s good and fun — there’s none of that anymore. They need things for these kids to do because right now all they do is fight and shoot.

KW: How has the pandemic changed Kingston?

DM: People stopped talking and stopped visiting. People became very, very protective. My kids came to the house and said we were not allowed to have company. Usually, my grandkids who are in their 20s would come around and bring their friends around.