Oral History Program Lisa Rew Interviewed by Lucianne Broschinsky 29 February 2007 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lisa Rew Interviewed by Lucianne Broschinsky 29 February 2007 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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 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: Rew, Lisa, an oral history by Lucianne Broschinsky, 29 February 2007, 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 Lisa Rew. The interview was conducted on February 26, 2007, by Lucianne Broschinsky. Rew discusses her life and experiences she has had. LB: This is a project for my public history class, and it’s called student voices in oral history project of a student at WSU. What is your name and where were you born? LR: My name is Lisa Rew, and I was born in Logan, Utah. LB: What is your major? LR: Nursing. LB: What year are you in school? LR: A junior in college. LB: Who’s your favorite WSU professor? LR: Debbi Sheridan. LB: Why? LR: Because she’s really laid back and easygoing, and she’s awesome. She has a cute accent. LB: Do you work? LR: Yes. LB: Do you work part-time or full-time? LR: Part-time. LB: And where do you work? LR: I work at Macy’s Grocery Store in the service deli. LB: Do you live at home or with roommates? LR: I live with roommates. LB: And how many do you have? LR: There’s four girls. LB: Do you get along? LR: We all get along great. Actually, there’s five girls, including me. But we all get along great. LB: Did you go somewhere else before you came to Weber? LR: I went to Utah State University before I came here to Weber State. LB: How many people are in your family? LR: There’s eight kids on our family, two parents, I mean a mom and a dad. LB: What are their names and ages? LR: My dad’s name is Tom, he’s 61. My mom’s name is Myrtle, she’s 61 too. My brother Paul is 36, my sister Lucille is 34, my brother Nephi is 32, my brother Joseph is 30, my sister Louise is 28, my older brother Moroni is 26 right now, and I’m 24, and then my little sister, she’s 21. LB: Which sibling do you get along with the best? LR: I get along with all my siblings really well, I don’t think there’s any one—like we’re all grown up, we don’t quarrel with each other. We’re a very close-knit family. I’m probably really close to Lucille. There’s ten years difference between us, but we’re really close I guess. But I usually get along with all my siblings. LB: What is the most difficult thing you’ve had to overcome in your life? LR: Probably serve my mission and dealing with some very interesting companions that I had. One was bipolar, and she was interesting, because we weren’t sure if one morning she’d wake up and be in a great mood or she’d be really mad or something like that. So that was hard for me to get over with, hard to overcome because I had to live with it for seven months. LB: Where did you serve your mission? LR: I went to Fresno, California. LB: And what were your two favorite moments of you mission/ LR: My two favorite moments? Probably, my two favorite moments were when I was actually sharing the gospel and people were understanding and getting fed by the spirit. And then my other favorite moments were probably when I was riding my bike in the hot weather in a dress. LB: Alright, what is your most embarrassing moment? LR: My most embarrassing moment was probably on my mission. I was riding my bike and I had one companion—she and I would race all the time. I’m a big bicycling fan. I’ve always been a bicycler, I like to mountain bike. Biking is just my middle name, I bike to work. So, anyway, we were having this race, and there was this really nice family that I connected with, they were members already, and I saw them come around the corner, and I was biking so fast, my skirt flew up and I felt so embarrassed. The first thought that came to my mind as I’m preaching the gospel, there’s this section where it talks about—it puts you bad, kind of like it tells you your name bad where it says, you know, Sister Rew The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but it’s like your name and then both letters and it’s big along with Jesus Christ. My first thought was like, “Oh, way to represent Jesus Christ.” And I was training a sister, so then I’m like, “Well, I made a really bad example to my trainee.” And I felt really dumb. Anyway, there was my embarrassing moment. LB: What are some of your hobbies? LR: I like to do anything outdoors. I like biking, I do like to run, sports, I love sports, gymnastics, and soccer. I like to play board games, like scrabble and boggle. Those are my hobbies. I like to read. LB: What kind of books do you like to read? LR: I like fantasy. I like Louis Lamar books, I like the country-western. I like mysteries, John Grisham is okay, I read part of The Broker, it was pretty good, I just haven’t had time to read the rest of it. I do like historical fiction. It is very fascinating and interesting. I’m a big Harry Potter fan. And I like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It was a nice book, it was really fun. I really enjoy Harry Potter, I can’t wait till the next book comes out. LB: What kind of things do you like to do for fun? LR: I like to play games for fun. I like to watch movies, read a book, go hiking, go backpacking. I like backpacking, that’s fun. Camping, it’s a fun thing to do. LB: What’s your favorite place you’ve hiked? LR: Probably Escalante National Park was the funnest thing I ever did, funnest place I ever hiked. It was very beautiful. LB: What is your biggest goal in life? LR: My biggest goal in life? Probably, right now, since I’m single, my biggest goal in life right now is probably—well there’s two things: finish school, get my nursing degree, get my nursing license, and then get married, be a mommy. LB: And where do you expect to be ten years from now? LR: Hopefully, I’m married and have like four kids in a ten year period. A great marriage, and I want to live outside of Utah, somewhere else. I think it’d be cool to live outside of Utah. LB: What has been the happiest moment of your life? LR: I think for me the happiest moment of my life is probably some of my mission actually has been the happiest moment of my life. Just seeing people change. It’s a change that the gospel brings into people’s lives. I know the gospel’s true, and it was a great opportunity for me to have people change, and you think of how people change, you know. They have some dramatic experience or somebody pulls a gun, or they have some kind of other experience, but the gospel, to me, is what changed my life, and it changed those people’s life. It’s like the happiest moment in my life is just to see somebody glow because of what they’re doing, the choices they’re making. The good choices that they’re making. The change that happens to them when they stop smoking, the way they feel about themselves, the way their perspective changes. I think that, for me, is the happiest time of my life. LB: Who has been the biggest influence in your life and why? LR: The biggest influence in my life. Probably…there’s been a lot of influence in my life. I would have to say the biggest influence in my life would probably be my nephew, I guess. When he was born, he was just so cute, so innocent, and all my nieces and nephews. I guess all of them changed my life because I think they used to follow me everywhere, and I used to be like this really big loud mouth, you know, and I’d say a couple swear words, and it wasn’t until I heard my nieces and nephews like start copycatting me. Then I realized, you know, I don’t want them to grow up to be like me. So they changed my life and the way I view things, in a way, approach things, you know, they helped change my life. LB: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done? LR: There are a lot of crazy things in my life. Probably, actually, on my mission, I don’t know what to say. But on my mission one time, I couldn’t find a bike path, I was in a biking area. We actually shared cars with the zone leaders, but the zone leaders hogged the cars for themselves all the time. So we couldn’t find a family that was outside of our city that we were living in, and well we wanted to go visit these people so bad, we actually biked on the freeway. I think we biked about 15 miles probably, but we biked on the freeway, and that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was probably the craziest thing I ever did in my life, it was ridiculous. I thought I was going to get slammed by some kind of diesel or something. That was probably—when the cars go faster driving past you, it’s a little bit difficult to be modest, biking in skirts, you know. So, it wasn’t until I actually came back from my mission that I realized that it was actually illegal to bike on a freeway. So that was the craziest thing I’ve ever done. LB: Who is your best friend in the world? LR: Who is my best friend in the world? Probably my sister I guess. I can talk to her about anything. She’ll just listen to me, she’s a good listener. LB: What is your favorite thing to do with your family? LR: My favorite thing to do with my family—I’m a big game—well no, we play games with each other, but probably our favorite thing to do is sit down to play scrabble or boggle, or play Mormon bridge. And then I love playing capture the flag with my family. We’re big game fans. We run around the house and try to capture each other’s flags. And make sure we don’t get touched, it’s a great game. LB: What is your favorite time of year? LR: I like fall, it’s my favorite time of year. LB: Why is that? LR: It’s so pretty, and it’s not too hot, not too cool, it’s not rainy or dreary, it’s still sunny outside, and the colors are nice. It’s just a beautiful time of the year, because everything’s kind of getting prepared for winter, and it’s just, I guess it’s a different time of year. LB: If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? LR: If I had a million dollars, first of all, I would probably pay my tithing, serve another mission, go and see the whole entire world, go scuba diving, go see volcanoes, go swim with the dolphins. I would go to Antarctica, and I would go to Greenland, I’ve always wanted to go to Greenland. And then, I’d probably just go to school. I like to learn, so that’s me, I’d probably go to school, because I’d have the money to do it. It’d be really nice. And then I guess shopping, I don’t know. I’d get myself a Toyota Corolla. It has to be blue, a royal blue Toyota Corolla. There you go. LB: Good enough.