Oral History Program Jay Richard Beus Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jay Richard Beus Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ 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 This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Beus, Jay Richard, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Mr. Jay Beus of Hooper, Utah. He was a teenager at the time of the Depression, and has lived in the county all his life. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Mr. Beus, would you give me your full name for the recording please. JB: Yes, Jay Richard Beus. MT: Where did you live during the years from 1929 to 1939? JB: Same place that I've lived all my life. In Hooper. MT: What do you remember about those years which might be of interest; how you lived, what you did for entertainment, and things along this line? JB: Well, of course in those days, '29 would have made me approximately fifteen years old and living in a small farming community such as Hooper is, and was at that time too, we more or less provided our own entertainment. And, of course, being a Mormon community, it provided a lot of recreation and diversion for its members, and in those days we were involved in baseball a lot more than we are at the present time, and that provided a lot of recreation in the summertime through Farm Bureau Baseball activity, competition between the towns of the county, and later on of course with the state upon reaching the finals. So far as other recreation is concerned, being a little community, we had a dance hall, a pavilion, and each Friday night the recreation committee of the community provided the young people with a dance which was well attended; people liked to dance in those days, and a lot of entertainment was provided. Through means of this recreation committee, not only on a dancing basis, but 2 three act dramas and plays during the wintertime especially. I suppose that kind of. . . MT: Jay, would you give us what you remember about the 4th of July celebration? JB: Well, here again being a small community and rather isolated from the city life, we had - down through the ages we've had a 4th of July celebration which begins with the raising of the flag in the morning, and in those days we actually had a few sticks of dynamite that they would set off to begin the day's activities and the celebration of the 4th of July. This would be followed by a band parade through the town, down the streets, usually stopping at the homes possibly of the leaders of the community and other places, and playing the band as they went along the street as well as when they stopped and they started the day's activities early in the morning. Later on about 11:00, there would begin a program, an Independence Day, 4th of July program which was real well attended, and a lot of enthusiasm was in these programs as well as the rest of the day, which included a baseball game, activities for the young people such as races and pillow fights sitting on a pole, and usually ending with a small rodeo in the middle of the baseball diamond. Not such as we think of a regular rodeo as they are now, but they'd take a bronco out in the middle of the baseball diamond, and one would hold him and saddle him up and one who maybe would volunteer would get on and provide a little buckaroo entertainment for the crowd, and it was a day to look forward to, especially for the youth. It was one of the highlights of the year, and 3 then of course we would end the day's activities with a dance in the evening in the pavilion. MT: Before we got on the recording you mentioned that out in the community there, you didn't see a great deal of difference between the Depression years and the years just prior to that. Would you explore that just a little bit? JB: Yes, in reminiscing some, I thought that perhaps this Depression period didn't affect some of us out in these farming communities as much as it would other people in the city life. We didn't have much money even before the Depression, so with the years of the Depression we didn't miss money because we didn't have any money before. And as a result we more or less went through the years of the Depression without too much change from the previous years. Farming in those days was a matter of a lot of hard work and not having too much money; but providing our own entertainment, even on the farms and so on, we went through those years without too much change. There were some in the community that didn't own a farm who maybe were affected more than some of the rest of us, and in that respect, I think the government provided projects on the railroad. I remember a group of young people about my age were on a special project mainly out in the state of Nevada, and they went out there for a few months at a time, especially in the summertime when there was no school, and worked on different projects out there. And then of course, in those years the CCC camps were set up and took some of our youth, and even brought some youth in from other parts of the states, and neighboring states to perform projects there in our neighboring communities as well as the mountains. We had a CC 4 Camp just neighboring our community on the West side, and we had a lot of youth brought in with this project during the years of the Depression. MT: Jay, looking back on that, how did the community feel about the CC Camps when they came in? JB: Well, of course there were mixed feelings about this sort of thing. We had a lot of good youth come in and of course some that weren't so good, but as a whole I think we realized the circumstance of it and the necessity of such a project to provide something for the youth to do. And while there was some objection to it, I don't think the feeling was so great that we objected too much to them coming in. Actually, some of the fellows married some of the local girls, and are still living in our community. MT: How do you evaluate the CC Camps as a program today? What value did we receive from it? JB: Oh, not being closely connected with it, just seeing the project from the outside, I think that it provided something real worth-while and something possibly to keep in mind for our conditions of the present, if we arrive at some condition where we don't have work for the youth to do. I think it provided something for them to do, and if well supervised, it could be a good thing. MT: Do you remember your father, or any of the people in the community there as having anxiety in paying their taxes and things along this line? JB: Very much so. In fact, just recently in a funeral service, there was a story told of neighbors who were working their farms, and working diligently to provide a living for their family and pay their taxes, were struck one summer with a drought and 5 they were not able to harvest any crops; and as a result weren't able to pay their taxes, which of course brings anxiety to any family, and those sort of hardships, in those days. I'm sure a lot of farmers witnessed this because we relied strictly upon the irrigation water to provide water and irrigation for the crops and i f we didn't have storage enough or water shed were not filled with snow that was filled with water then we were short of water, and also we had a few blights which hit the area, such as the white fly in the tomatoes, and for years we weren't able to grow and reap a crop of tomatoes. And there were a lot of hardships in those days, a lot of problems, a lot of anxiety and not only to make a living for the family, but also to pay the taxes and keep on top of things. MT: Jay, what do you remember about the White City Ballroom? Did people in your area regularly attend over there, or what? JB: The White City Ballroom was a large place that the youth as a whole looked forward to, especially on Saturday night and holiday nights to go. There were a lot of name bands that came in as orchestras to play, and give entertainment to the youth and was real well attended. There were a lot of good times up in the White City Ballroom. We had maybe a few elements that weren't maybe the best, but you can find bad elements almost anywhere, but it provided a lot of good dancing for the youth. I remember going up there quite regularly on Saturday night to a dance, and during the holidays. MT: Do you remember any of the big bands that played there? 6 JB: At the moment I don't recall any, but if I thought a little bit I could probably think of two or three that I remember going to see. But at the moment I don't recall the names of them. MT: What about food and clothing? What problems did that present to you? JB: Well, of course food on the farm probably wasn't the problem that city people had during the Depression. We raised a lot of our own food. We did canning during those days, especially fruit and vegetables, and we usually raised our own meat and killed a beef or a pig or both during a years' time, providing a lot of the bacon and meat and beef for the table and a lot of the vegetables were raised right on the farm, a lot of the fruit and a lot of the berries. So really, we had no particular need to have to buy any because we raised it all. So from the standpoint of food, I don't think we suffered too much, probably a little more so with clothing. Naturally in those days a lot of the clothing was made by the sisters and mothers, and of course I think we wore a lot more hand-me-downs in those days from one to another than we do now. And it was quite a special event to go to a store and buy a new pair of pants or a new suit; something to look forward to and kind of a rarity. MT: Did you have shoe repairing equipment in your home? JB: Yes, we had some shoe repair equipment. I remember these little things that you put the shoe on and we had special little tacks that we could tack a leather sole on with, and did some shoe repairing in the home. I don't recall of any shoe repair shop probably closer than Ogden, some 10 miles away, so a lot of that was provided in the home. 7 MT: Do you remember any other materials that you used to half-sole your shoes with other than just leather? JB: No, not particularly, of course there was a lot of tanning of hides in those days. And that sort of thing was used somewhat. I do remember a rope maker, I don't know what you'd call it. It had a place to tie your clothesline, say about eight strands of twine, and then with a handle you could turn, these little hooks would turn different directions and twine the rope, twine the string into a rope. MT: Some of the people have mentioned trading work with different farmers. Do you remember anything about that? JB: That was practiced quite a bit in those days because especially at harvest time, we'd harvest the grain with a thresher, and would move from one farm to another and the neighboring people would join together and provide a crew of some 12- 15 men to keep this thresher going all the time, and bring their wagons; no trucks in those days, all wagons, usually iron wheel wagons, and then there would be some hand labor work too, such as carrying grain from the separator to the grain bin. During harvest time especially, the farmers would exchange a lot of work. During the year, too, on the harvest of hay, you'd oft times see neighbors exchanging work, and providing enough crew to keep the operation of the hay moving so that they could put up a stack of hay in a day, rather than have the harvest of a crop of hay linger over several days. They would join together so that they could harvest their hay in possibly one or two days. MT: Now, is there anything else that comes to your mind? 8 JB: I don't know. In those days, we enjoyed each other's company. We relied on each other as neighbors and friends for recreation to enjoy different things together while the Depression years were real rough. It seemed like joining together and associating together, working out problems together, we could solve the problems easier; by working together in the spirit of a community like this, it wasn't so bad.