Oral History Program Marva Hale Chambers Interviewed by Karla Chambers 3 August 1980 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Marva Hale Chambers Interviewed by Karla Chambers 3 August 1980 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management University Archives All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Marva Hale Chambers, an oral history by Karla Chambers, 3 August 1980, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Marva Hale Chambers (b. 1923.) It was conducted in the family home on August 3, 1980. The interviewer is Karla Chambers. In this interview, Marva discusses her life and her experiences with raising a large Mormon family. KC: I’m Karla Chambers and I’m interviewing Marva Hale Chambers on August 3, 1980 at 2660 North 450 East in North Ogden. We’ll be discussing life in a large family. Thank you for coming. MC: You’re welcome. KC: Would you please tell me your name and where and when you were born? MC: Marva Hale. I was born September 5, 1923 in Oakley, Idaho. KC: Who were your parents and what can you tell me about them? MC: Russell Hyde Hale and Jane Weeks are my parents. Mama was always a pretty woman and papa was really proud of her. It seemed like he liked to show her off when they went places. He was always certain that her hair was nice and that she always had it down. She always had her hair done at the beauty shop. Papa was always a leader and went to many banquets and meetings and always took mama. At home, it seemed like Mama was always working. In fact, Rachael and I used to kind of joke and say that in the morning we could hear mama in the long hall and we’d say, “There goes mama—trot, trot, trot.” She wasn’t an efficient worker, I felt. Because of their lifestyle they’d have all these important meetings and things to go to and so they’d get home late and then they got up late. It felt like all of our neighbors had their work done while we were just getting started. I Page 1 of 16 felt like we were half a day behind everybody and I never did like that. I liked to get up early. When mama did get up it was always work. When she was out with papa, she probably looked like a lady of leisure but she wasn’t. I never heard papa and mama quarrel except once. I was in the bedroom and papa came in while mom was with me. He said something and she said something back. He went out and she said, “Oh, sure pickle!” That was their quarrel. We had a big brown over stuffed chair and papa sat mama down on his lap in and apologized. I loved papa as a leader. He was a bishop and in the High Council. He traveled all over the valley because he was in scouts. Papa loved sports. They used to put his name in the newspaper because he was such an avid fan. He played football and basketball. People would always call because they knew papa would be going to the games and they’d be trying to get a ride. That has been my one regret—that he never lived to see our sons play. I’m positive he would have loved it. Papa had a real cute sense of humor. In those days the weddings were quite a bit different. Then they would bring a payment. Refreshments were served and there would be a dance. It was nice entertainment. Papa was a mailman and very fortunate. At that time, when I was young, jobs were very hard to get. It wasn’t Depression time, but I think that’s about the time they organized the WPA and my uncle was on that. Papa got this job as a mailman and had it all his life. Occasionally he would let us go on his routes with him. That was fun and he’d always let us have a dime so we could go to the store and buy some candy. His preference was chicken bones. To this day I remember Page 2 of 16 buying chicken bones and hopping in the car with the bag of candy. It was against the law to pick up hitchhikers—or riders, I would say. Very often people would ask papa for a ride into town. I’m sure he never refused. He was a big spender—always in debt. He charged everything. I guess it was the way everybody did then. I remember even as a child I used to want to get out of debt. KC: What do you remember about your early childhood? MC: I had four older brothers. You can imagine what it was like. I remember my grandmother and grandpa coming from Salt Lake. I loved them so much. They were my father’s parents. Then my mother’s parents were from Pocatello. They were hardly active in the church. My grandpa died early in my life, but my grandmother I just loved so much. She was just a great grandmother. She would pin up my hair and she was pleasantly plump and she always wore an apron. She was always quilting and crocheting. She loved to laugh. My oldest brother was very handsome—movie star handsome—and I was always proud when someone asked me if he was my brother. Ed wasn’t quite as handsome, but he was fun. He would always joke. We loved it when Ed was home. He was generous, too. Clint was kind of different. He seemed to be the tornado. He’d always keep things stirred up around the house. Then there was Kent and I was closer to him than I was to my other brothers because we were closer in age. We’d confide in each other a lot. My brother’s fought a lot and I never liked that. When we had four boys that was the one thing I didn’t want to see—them fighting physically. To my Page 3 of 16 knowledge, they never did. They had their arguments, but I never saw one of them raise a fist in anger. I’ve always been grateful for that. Then Rachael was four years younger than I. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we were best friends. We loved to do things together. With some of my girlfriends, everyone one of them had sisters about the same age as Rachael and they quarreled with their sisters. Sometimes they asked how Rachael and I got along so well and I said, “I don’t know, we just love each other.” We’ve been that way all of our lives. In fact, she graduated from high school and came down and shared a room with me in Salt Lake at the Beehive House. It was a glorious time. When I left to get married, she said she couldn’t talk to anybody because she’d start crying. We both took piano lessons from Mr. Aspen, he was the church organist and world-renowned for his organ playing. He kind of took us under his wing—we were little country gals. One time he was taking his family to Yellowstone and he asked if we’d like to stay in his home and watch the home while he was gone. I remember Rachael saying, “Oh that will be fine. We’ll be happy to take care of your plants and weed your garden.” Laughter She thought everybody had a garden. He looked at us and laughed and explained that he bought his vegetables from the store. Anyways, the first night we were there, he showed us the rooms where we could sleep and they were bigger than any rooms we’d ever seen. There was a grand piano and huge bookcases. It was so gorgeous. When I was married Rachael went to piano lessons and she’d start crying. Dr. Aspen would ask what was the matter was and she’d say she couldn’t tell Page 4 of 16 him. He thought he’d hurt her feelings and he’d apologize. But she said she couldn’t even say my name without crying. She was so happy for me though. She knew how much I loved Lionel. We’ve been close all during our married lives, too. Then there was Rodney, the baby brother. We always got along without a problem. But those are my brothers and Rachael. Not many of them are active in the church now, which is quite sad. One time, one of my brothers told mama and papa, “We’re the only perfect family that I know of.” We were all very active in the church at that time. Kent’s had kind of a sad marriage and he isn’t too happy now. Ballard has had so many wives. I hope he straightens his life out. KC: What can you remember about the Beehive House? MC: I was really fortunate to have even been in there because we needed a recommend from the bishop—not that that was difficult to get, but the house was always filled up. I went down to BYU right about December 7—Pearl Harbor day. After that, the fellows just disappeared from the campus and it was like a girl’s school. It really wasn’t fun so we all started looking for jobs in the defense plants. At that time, though, the Wilsons that I worked for while I was at BYU, they had a daughter in Washington D.C. who had a baby about a few months old. She had had some kind of difficult during delivery and she was paralyzed on one side. So they asked if I would go back there and be her traveling companion. They paid a dollar a day. As it turned out, as a traveling companion, I was also the bottle washer, the cook, the maid, and everything. There I was eighteen years old and I’d never been around a baby before. Page 5 of 16 I replaced the Wilson grandmother so she could come back and take over the Beehive House. I stayed with the Wilsons until they came back to Provo. I went back to Salt Lake and saw Mrs. Wilson and she arranged a room for me at the Beehive House. It was quite an experience for me. I wish every boy, before he chose a wife, could see his wife with other girls—then he’d know. Some of the girls are lovely clear to the core, and some are so sweet and beautiful until you see them around other girls and you see a different picture entirely. That used to shock me. A quick example was a girl who was pretty but cold as ice. She’d never visit with us. She never participated. She acted like she was above everybody. One night I was in the parlor when her date came to pick her up and she just gushed all over me, “Hello Marva! I haven’t seen you for so long!” It was just about the first time she ever spoke to me. I wished her boyfriend could see. But the Beehive House was really a neat experience. The church office building was across the street. We had all of our meals in the house and we were such good friends with some of the girls that we kept in touch for years and years. I worked in the church office building and that was quite a unique experience because I worked in the office of the first presidency. When I got this job, the war was on and BYU held no fascination. My girlfriend and I had worked for some time at the depot. We decided we wanted to go on missions. Both of our fathers were bishops, so we quite our jobs and went home and filled out our applications. At that time, the ladies must be typists, they needed organists in the mission field, and there was another that I don’t remember, but I met all three requirements. The reason for this was they weren’t sending any missionaries Page 6 of 16 out—scarcely any. But they still needed office help and help with the music and things. My mission call stopped in Salt Lake and they wrote me back and asked if I would consider working there rather than going on a mission. I was really disappointed because I had always wanted to go on a mission. It was a nice job. Brother Evans was the sweet man in the church office building who did the hiring. All of the girls in the building feared him. He was a very wealthy man. I think he worked for the church just to pass the time. I took a liking to him immediately and he to me. My friend’s sister worked in the office and she found out how much money I was making and she told me not to let anyone else find out because I wouldn’t be liked because it was more than most of what the other secretaries were making even though they’d been there for years. One time I wore a yellow tailored dress that I got on sale at a cheap shop and Brother Evans came up to me and said, “Who does your tailoring?” Laughter When I first started to work there, President Grant was our president. I saw him in his wheelchair. One morning I was hurrying up the steps of something and there he sat. He had a white suit and a white beard and white hair and he looked like an angel. He died shortly after that. The next president was George Albert Smith. I remember when I was young and we used to giggle when he came out to speak at Conference because we thought he was kind of funny looking. If I recall, one eye was injured. President McKay used to always walk past our office and smile. He had just a sweet smile. One night Lionel had a delay in his travel and he could stay in Salt Lake for a few hours that evening. He had my engagement ring. It was early Page 7 of 16 in the evening and we were parked in a little lane that was right in back of the church office building. He gave me my ring and we were just kissing goodbye and lights flashed in the car. A car had come from behind the church office building. There was nothing for us to do but back out while this car was ahead of us with headlights gleaming on us. When we backed out, we saw that it was President McKay. The next morning at work he came into the office and stood by the desk and looked down at me. He didn’t smile, just glared and then walked by. It’s such a terrible thing to be timid. I always wish I had just held up my hand to show my engagement ring and explain. I felt so bad that he had interrupted just then. I left shortly after because I was married. Maybe in the next world I’ll have a chance to explain. I’m certain he was disappointed and thought I was in the car with some man. Another thing that’s bad is that President McKay grew up in the valley too and knew both of Lionel’s parents. If I had just not been so timid. KC: How did you meet your husband? MC: That was so exciting. It was during the war. Elda was back from her mission and he had come to Ogden to work at the Defense Depot. The first time we went to church, there sat this handsome young man up on the stand. He was a counselor to the Sunday School superintendent. We wondered why he was there because we never saw any men around unless they were 4F. We found out later that he was just waiting to be called up to the Air Force. I didn’t get to know him too well. One time we had a party in the basement of the 13th Ward. We played a game and while we were playing I thought he was conceited. I found out later that he Page 8 of 16 wasn’t really conceited, in fact, he was just the opposite. He was self-conscious. He had lots of girls after him and I don’t think he noticed. KC: Then you corresponded during the war? MC: We corresponded quite regularly. Before he went overseas, I was at home and he was stationed in Boise. He called one night from Boise and said his folks had come up from Ogden and he could ride as far as Oakley with his parents and then catch a bus back to Boise. I just assumed he would stay all night so I ran in the bedroom and took all Rachael’s clothes out of the closet and cleaned that room out for him. He only stayed a few hours. We were both extremely timid around each other but we had a good time and laughed a lot and everything. He sent me a whole package of gum. You couldn’t get gum in those days. It was completely off the shelves. Everyone thought I was really fortunate. Then he went overseas from there and we wrote. I guess most of our courtship—I mean, we got better acquainted—was through the mail. When he came back, it was a very strained meeting because our letters had become quite warm and affectionate. When we saw each other again for the first time it was strange. He came to the Beehive House and we walked around the Memorial Lane. Then he got on his bus for Ogden and I waved goodbye to him. I didn’t hear from him for quite some time and I was so sad. I thought of so many things I could have done to encourage him. I had a girlfriend named Lonnie and she was going up to Idaho on the bus so I asked her if she’d call Lionel when she stopped in Ogden. I asked her to tell him hi and that I wondered when he was going to be in Salt Lake again. He called me immediately and he came down Page 9 of 16 to Salt Lake the next night. When he left, that was the first kiss I’d ever had. It was the first time he’d ever kissed a girl, too. KC: Would you like to tell us about your wedding? MC: When we had our wedding reception at home, they said it was one of the nicest in those days. Usually everybody was invited to the reception by a screen that would flash at the playhouse before the show. The screen would say, “Mary and John are getting married and their reception will be at the Rainbow Hall on Thursday night. Everybody invited.” Well, I had been in the big city, so I sent out invitations. That was really something in those days. It was a fun reception. The war was over in Europe and it was almost over in the Pacific, so there was nothing to buy—just Pyrex and blankets—that was the extent of our wedding gifts. There were no electrical appliances. Very few pans were available. About the nicest gift was from all the aunts and uncles on my mother’s side. They went in together and bought a big mirror. Lionel’s folks had a card and pinned a fiftydollar bill on it. Everybody was shocked with how lucky we were. Lionel was fortunate to find a little apartment in Ogden. It was inexpensive and real nice and that’s where we set up house. KC: Would you like to tell us about your early marriage? MC: It’s real strange. The thing that I admired about Lionel was his deep voice, but that same voice had me crying constantly. It seemed like he’d say something and his voice was so deep that I’d think he was scolding me. It seems like in our early marriage I was always bawling. He wasn’t scolding me. It was just the way he Page 10 of 16 talked. When I look back, there are so many things that I wish I had reacted differently to. Linda was born there in Bonneville—our little apartment. Lionel tried for a security job that was in Albuquerque. Over many applicants, he was chosen and we thought this was really great. He had to go train for about six weeks. I stayed with Linda. That was a lonesome time. Then it turned out that it wasn’t what he really wanted to do, so he came home and worked in the shop with his dad and brother. In that little apartment we had Linda and Craig. They were cute little babies. Randy was born there too. I’ll never forget when Randy was about three years old and he was playing on the couch. A very wise friend of mine came to visit and she cooed to Randy for a minute while he was lying on the couch and then she said to me, “This baby has personality.” She could see it. Laughter We moved to a larger apartment still in Bonneville Park. We had Gary there and then Reed. We had Linda and the four boys while we lived in Bonneville Park. I never did feel like I had lots of children. I had to watch them very close because there was a canal right by the apartment. One morning a lady came to knock on the door and said, “Marva, are your boys supposed to playing down on Liberty?” She told me she’d seen the boys down the road. Craig was on the bike and the other two were pushing him. I jumped in the car and hurried down to get them. It was quite a ways. They were on their way to Grandma Chamber’s house because she had a television and they had decided to go visit her. That was frightening. Another frightening experience was when the Page 11 of 16 neighbor man came up the sidewalk with Gary by the hand. Gary was sopping wet from the bib down and the man said he found Gary on the bridge crying. Gary kept saying, “Tim pushed me in!” The neighbor said he didn’t know who had pulled Gary out. Not too long after that, a family near there had a baby boy that fell in and drowned. Some dear friends of ours had moved to North Ogden and they came in the shop one day to see Lionel and told him about a home that was for sale. We came out and looked at it. It was $7,600. I was so happy that we moved and I know the family always liked it. Grandpa Chambers thought it was a terrible mistake, because in his youth he had played ball against North Ogden youth and hated them. He couldn’t understand anybody wanting to move to North Ogden. Poor Lionel—because I was on one side tugging on him to buy and then his father was pushing him from the other side and saying that prices were too high and we should wait. When we moved out here we finally got two little girls— Lonnie and Lori. Then we got Rodney and I’d forgotten how fun little boy babies were. Then we got Lorraine and Kelly and LeeAnn. I’ve told LeeAnn many times that she’s our little reward for hanging in there. She’s our caboose. KC: Did you think you’d have that many when you were first married? MC: Well, I thought I had my life pretty well charted out. I wanted to have four children, then wait four years and have four more—all sons. I don’t know why, but I thought I’d like to have eight sons. Seven, to me, was a large family. In fact, I’d probably have returned to Oakley if I’d seen myself with eleven children. Laughter I still can’t believe I have eleven children. Page 12 of 16 KC: Can you tell me something about each child? MC: Linda was always really good with her little brothers. I always think of Linda and the four boys together. I saw a neighbor once who had turned her oldest daughter into an old woman—she’d turned all the chores and the babysitting and the housekeeping over to the oldest girl and I didn’t want to do that to Linda. I tried very hard not to make the boys her responsibility. In fact, when Gary came, I prayed so hard to Heavenly Father that I’d be willing to have another baby if it could be a little sister for Linda. When I found out it was a boy, the first thing I thought was, “You tricked me!” Laughter But how thankful I am that we don’t call the shots. Linda was always a fun little girl and had a pleasant personality. She didn’t get rough or tough with the boys. Craig was a very serious, shy little boy. I think that pretty much stayed with him throughout his life. Even when he was a little boy, I remember he had a costume to make at school and it needed cotton stuffing. One day I’d just finished washing and waxing and he came with cattails and cotton flying all over. He was so happy because he’d found stuffing for his costume and I scolded him. I feel so bad. I remember Randy saying, “That’s sure a pretty dress you have on Mama, can I have a cookie?” Gary was a quiet child. He was a very good student in school. He came home once and said he hated school and I felt bad because he’d always loved it. He said he did his homework and the teacher never checked it. I talked to some of the other mothers and then went to the school. I found that the teacher didn’t Page 13 of 16 have a single grade down for any of the students. We organized and talked to the school and had that teacher out of there in no time. He was a terrible teacher. The three boys were just like peas in a pod doing all their activities together. There were a couple of bullies in the neighborhood and if any of the other boys in the neighborhood came home crying then Craig, Randy, and Gary would take off—they were kind of the champions in the neighborhood. Little Reed was a beautiful baby. Even the doctor told me after he was born what a beautiful boy he was. The other boys seemed to think I favored him. To this day, Randy has a lot of personality. He’s a charmer and everybody loves him. I always felt sorry for Gary because it seemed like Gary was always in Randy’s shadow. Randy was a pretty good student but he liked to play, so he’d take the easy subjects and get A’s in everything. Gary would come along and take the heavy subjects and get A’s in everything. Then Reed came along and he could study on the bus on the way to school and get A’s. That’s the way he’s always been—rushing all through life. He manages to catch up last minute. Everyone seems to like him though. Lonnie was such a wonderful happy surprise and a delight to us. Then when Laura was born I couldn’t believe that we could be so blessed. They were quite close. Lonnie was an extrovert and Laura was quite timid and shy. Laura was a much better student than Lonnie. They were always good friends and enjoyed each other’s company. Then there was Rodney. The boys spoiled him. I couldn’t even chastise him and they’d whisk him away out of my grasp. When he was about four, he Page 14 of 16 was so obnoxious that they gave him back to me after they’d just about ruined him. He had a terrible time in school. Uncle Ballard will talk about coming over to our place to visit and seeing Reed out in the field running around trying to catch Rodney who had sneaked home from school. He wasn’t ready to go to school—if I had been wise, I’d have seen that. I don’t know why I didn’t, because he kept sneaking home from school every day. He made the comment once that the teacher kept one eye on the class and the other eye on him. Laughter He had a rough time until about fourth grade, when he settled down. A friend told me once that the law of averages dictates that out of eleven children you’re going to have one rebellious one. I used to look at Rodney and think, “Oh, is it you, Rodney?” When he got in high school he had a seminary teacher who really impressed him and we noticed a big difference. The boys all served full-time missions. Little Lorraine—she always wanted to please, probably too much. I think people took advantage of her. She was always working and trying to go the extra mile and I wish she would have said, “I’ve done my share, now I’m going to do something I want to do.” She had to work in school—both she and Rodney had to work hard and didn’t get straight A’s. Then Kelly. Kelly and LeeAnn were like peas in a pod. I was in the Relief Society presidency when they were four and five and they would come with me to all the meetings and play together. When Kelly started school, he asked me to write a note to the teacher to excuse him because he had to come to Relief Society. Kelly was timid, too, I think. He loved athletics. All the boys did. Kelly Page 15 of 16 had an accident in junior high that changed his life. He had a tooth almost knocked out so he couldn’t try out for basketball. If you don’t make the team in junior high, your chances aren’t too good in high school. He’ll soon be nineteen and he’ll be the last missionary from this household. LeeAnn has been our pride and joy. She has been everything we could possibly want. She’s helpful and vivacious, a good student, and loves life. We hope for the very best for her. KC: What are your hopes and aspirations for your family now that they’re mostly grown? MC: Many of our aspirations have been realized in the good families that our children have. I have no greater aspirations than for the children to live good lives close to the Gospel and that’s what they have. We’re so happy for them. Craig and Rosamund and their little family, Randy and Carla and their precious little boys are so dear. Gary and Lonna and little Christie and Corry are living good lives close to the church. Reed and Sherrie and little tiny Mike and David are living good lives. Lonna and Lyman with their precious boys, Lorrie and Brad and dear little Michelle, our little girls are so precious. Then their two little boys, Brad and Steven, they’re living good lives close to the church and this is what means more to us than anything else. We’re so grateful for their good lives and that is our aspiration—that we can all live good lives here and be together in the eternities with our Heavenly Father. Page 16 of 16