Oral History Program Vickie McCall Interviewed by April Pratt 30 May 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Vickie McCall Interviewed by April Pratt 30 May 2019 Copyright © 2022 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 Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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: McCall, Vickie, an oral history by April Pratt, 30 May 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Vickie McCall Circa 2015 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history with Vickie McCall, conducted on May 30, 2019, by April Pratt. Vickie discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Sarah Storey, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: Today is May 30, 2019, it is approximately 12:30 pm and we are here with Vickie McCall and April Pratt is interviewing and Sarah Storey is recording. AP: When and where were you born? VM: Ogden, Utah. And let me see, when and where? Do I have to give my birthday? I mean, if you really wanted it, it’s okay. 1948. AP: When you were a young girl, who were some of the women that you looked up to? VM: You know that’s really a tough question. I loved my mother, she was a great nurturer. You know, you always respect your mother. But I would guess, this is crazy, the first person that comes to mind is a neighbor that lived across the street. And she was so involved in community things and I just thought it was always so cool. I would look at her and she would be leaving with white gloves and her purse. Back then, you would dress in suits and she was off and I thought, “Someday I want to do that.” I don’t have any white gloves but I have a dozen suits that I can get dressed up and leave. AP: Did she tell you what she was doing? 2 VM: I knew what she was doing. I think what fascinated me more was that just that she was out. Where we were such homebodies and my mother and my grandmother and all of my aunts and uncles, women didn’t work and in fact, the discussion at my house was, my father would bring home the paycheck and my mother would take care of the house. And at one point she even wanted to get a part-time job and that was a major discussion. So to see this woman just have the independence; leave her family, go and do something that was more for herself or more for her involvement. That’s really what I found intriguing. Come to find out, she was wearing the gloves and carrying the purse to go to teas and not really a career but she was involved in a social circle where they would go and do book clubs and teas. So I let my imagination just run wild. I thought she was solving world problems. AP: I’ll take that. How do you think the role of mothers has changed? VM: I don’t think they have the restrictions and the confinement. I was talking to Sarah, you probably want to edit this out. But I think women have realized that they have potential and they are looking at what makes them feel fulfilled. What is it that they want from their life in addition to motherhood and being a wife? The parameters have just expanded and there aren’t any limits anymore. AP: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? VM: No. My parents thought that my role was to graduate from high school, which was a really big deal. And maybe work part-time until Sir Lancelot came along and would take care of me for the rest of my life. I think, I had a brother that was 3 two years younger than me. They always thought, “He should go to college. But I would be taken care of.” AP: So it was definitely a gender thing then. VM: Oh definitely. AP: What were your career options once you had your degree? VM: Well, I chose a career in real estate and I did that thinking…my husband wanted to go into real estate and we thought we could work together. I thought I could set my own hours, which you do not do. I’d have more time to do the motherhood things, the family things, and then kind of do what I wanted to do. So I think the options were there but I was really focused on the real estate. AP: In that occupation were there a lot of women that were doing that? VM: Back then, I would say maybe if I had to, I’m guessing at this. The ratio was probably maybe 25% women, maybe 35% and then the rest were men. But, real estate really is… I mean there is a home for women there because people buy homes and women typically pick the homes. So it’s kind of natural to be there. AP: What were some of the challenges you faced while obtaining your degree? VM: Well it’s always money and it’s always time, trying to do everything and then put that in balance and perspective so that that’s not all that you do. Because I think there’s a life… you have to have a life. And if you just do this, then you miss out on this, and if you just do this then you miss out on that. So I think it’s just balancing and juggling and finding out where your niche is. 4 AP: What was your first job? VM: Ever? Or one that has one of those little FICA lines on the tag that says that you do owe the federal government. Because I was working at a very young age. Cleaning houses at 12 and babysitting. My first real job was at 16 at the Davis County Library. And that’s where I received a government paycheck, where you had all of those little exemptions. And then, after… I mean I’ve always worked. So there have been a number of jobs but that would be the first job…. Which I hated. AP: We talked about the motivation for you to go into your chosen field, how did that end up working out? Did you feel like you chose the right field for you in your life? VM: Without sounding boisterous yeah, I think I did. My husband and I had a very successful career. I was realtor of the year, salesman of the year, sales master of the year, presidential award winner. I mean if there was an award, I won it from the board of realtors. So I would say when I look back I thought, “Yeah, I guess I was pretty successful.” You know, I mean, it was good for us. AP: So you picked something that was good for you. When you were working was it you and your husband? Or did you end up kind of going on your own and selling houses on your own? VM: Oh yeah. My husband and I are totally different. I’m very outgoing and he’s a little more introverted. We approached the business in different ways and he became a broker which meant he had more responsibility and duties in the office managing people where I was out beating the path. 5 AP: How did you balance the responsibilities between your work and your home? VM: My husband is very modern day and he would have to be married to me. He just allowed me the flexibility to do what I wanted to do and he’s—he loves being a family man and so if I couldn’t be at home, he was there with the kids. If I couldn’t pick them up, he picked them up. If I wasn’t there for dinner, he fixed dinner. So I’m lucky in that sense in that our roles were very non-traditional. Yeah, he was very modern. But, also, can you imagine having to live with me. AP: How many children do you have? VM: We have two. AP: Was there a time that you were brave at work? VM: I think… I’m going to separate work from community involvement because you know, you can go to work and yeah you can be brave and you do things and you do whatever it takes to make your career successful. Part of the reason I had a good real estate career was because I learned to branch out and I had to find that clientele. I had to find where am I going to fit so that … I’m doing things above and beyond and more than what—I had to beat the competition. So I started doing things like corporate relocation which was a very novel and new field at the time. And then I kind of settled and I thought, and I looked at Hill Air Force Base and I thought, “Those people come in and they go out and there is a lot of movement. If somehow I could make that part of my client base, I would do much better.” Well then I got involved with that and one thing lead to another and there were many times along the way that I was scared to death. And I 6 might divert and just tell you—So I worked at the base and once I started working with that clientele I was appointed to a community leader at the base. And then I was involved in Base Realignment and Closure, where the government plans on closing installations and I was the only woman and I put a committee together of 14 men. Not because I just wanted men, but there were no other women that were involved. Along the way, I was the only women on the military affairs committee, you have to be a brave soul to walk into a room that is really stereotypical men. So along this journey, I was nominated and appointed by the secretary of defense—Bill Cohen. To be on the committee, he called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. I accepted this appointment; it is a very prestigious committee. I didn’t realize how much so until I got there. You have a supreme court justice who was serving on this committee, you had… I mean, if I just went down the credentials—It blew my mind. And I remember thinking, “Okay, I can do this. I’ve had all of this background. I’ve been working on these issues. I get it.” And the very first day, I walked into this huge room surrounded by press. There were senators, the Secretary of Defense was there. We went through the material and they don’t start you out on step A and graduate you up. Wherever the committee in their terms of discussion, that’s where you step in. And I remember going to the meeting and then going back to the room and calling my husband and saying, “Buy me a ticket home. There is no way I can do this.” Tears streaming down my face because I felt so unqualified and so… I thought, “I do not have the level of these very sophisticated people that are working these issues.” And he said to 7 me, “Just hang in there. Give it one more day and then if you want me to buy a ticket and you want to come home, you can come home.” I’ll move forward three years, I became the chair of the committee and was reappointed for a second term which was unprecedented. So yeah, scared to death, scared to the point that I was crying and shaking and felt so inadequate, so over my head. I’ve had a few of those. AP: Do you feel like your need to be the best helped you? VM: I don’t know that I ever wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best for me at what I could do. I wanted to show my best but I didn’t have to be the best. AP: That kind of goes into courage too. My question is, as a woman, how do you define courage? VM: You know, I think you have to look at the situation and say—this is what happened to me and a couple of the committees and a couple of the different venues where I went to work, is that I looked at it and I thought, “I can do that. I know that I can do that and there is no reason that…” And remember I go back a long time. So I was breaking some foraging paths and breaking some glass ceilings because there were no women and I was the only woman and the first woman to do a number of those things. And I remember going into one of the community leaders here in town and he was guru. Everybody looked at him as— for lack of a better word, a godfather. He was an amazing man, very very smart. But I walked into his office one day after making an appointment, I said, “I can do this. As a woman, why can’t I join this committee? Why can’t I be there?” And I 8 think he looked at me like, “Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into.” But I think you have to believe in yourself and you have to know the limits and you have to be willing to take down those walls and those barriers and not be afraid and that takes courage because you’re out there alone and you have a lot whole bunch of people wondering why you have the audacity to think that you belong. AP: What does women’s work mean to you? VM: Women’s work is men’s work. I don’t think there is anything that defines work. If you’re a woman doing the work, then it’s women’s work. If a man’s doing it, it’s man’s work. But it’s not… I don’t think you can separate and say, “This career is only for women.” Or, “This career is only for men.” That doesn’t exist anymore. I mean, that even applies to the home. It isn’t my job to cook dinner. It isn’t my husband’s job to take the trash out. Whatever needs to be done, just gets done. Whoever is there to do it. AP: Did your children ever have any questions about the working structure of your family? VM: My son is now… and he’s married a professional woman. And they are… it’s so fun to see them raise these two little babies with no job parameters, no responsibilities, no restrictions and he will… because of some of the things that I’ve been able to do—he will say, “Yeah, I remember being in school and the room mothers would come and they’d been baking cupcakes and you were off on a submarine or something.” You know? But he laughed and he was always really proud of that because I did things that were very non-traditional for the 9 mother. But still, I still was a room mother. I mean, I usually bought cupcakes, didn’t make cupcakes but… AP: How do you think women receiving the right to vote, shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? VM: Well I think the right to vote was one of those things that really established and probably left an indelible mark on women and where the progression is that they are equal now, and their vote counts. Before that, you could have an opinion but opinions until they count somewhere, it doesn’t really matter. So that was the beginning—I don’t want to say beginning because ever since the Civil War, women have… women disguised themselves as men to fight in Civil War battles and Revolution… I mean, so women have always done things that are somewhat non-traditional. But the fact that they were legitimized by having the right to vote, I think that was a huge step. AP: How did the women in your community react to you not being traditional and not following that sort of gender stereotype? VM: And back then, I remember even my mother—I would say, she would… you know we were chatting and she’d say, “Where are you going today?” And I would say, “Well I have a lunch with Joe Smith.” “Well is your husband going with you?” “No, he’s not going with me. This is a business luncheon.” And she was a little taken back at that. Also, I remember—and this is always… I think this is pretty typical too because I’m out there and I’m moving into a group that is not inclusive of women. There would be some jealousy there. Women would, “How? What is 10 she doing? And how dare she.” And, “I wonder what’s going on.” You know, you have all of those things. But now, I love to go to functions, Women in Business, which is part of the chamber. I spoke maybe several months ago to this group and they had asked me about a career path and some of the things that I had done. Well I became the first women’s biker, and then I was the chair of the chamber, and I opened some doors—military affairs. I did some things that other women had not done and it was pretty brazen at the time. And they applauded, and I thought, “That’s what I want.” Not because I’m a great person, or not because it was a great speech, but I opened doors they’re going to have to open. And my challenge would be to them is, “The doors haven’t all been opened. Now you have a responsibility. You’re there, you’ve crossed the threshold.” Some areas that were not available to me, now you owe it to the daughters that are coming behind you to make sure those doors stay open and they are wider and maybe tear down some walls, you know? This is not over by any means right now. AP: Do you think that it’s not worse but maybe more stereotypical because the expectation of the culture here in Utah is that, you stay home, you raise babies, and work is for people who don’t have children or aren’t married? VM: I don’t know, I think things are changing even in Utah. I do, I spend a lot of time out of the state. I do an awful lot of traveling and I think the fact that you are a woman—and I’ll relate it maybe to the Airforce because I’m on some committees there were I deal a lot with women and discrimination and whatever. We have a hard time keeping women—retention. After they reach maybe the rank of Major, 11 Lieutenant, Colonel because at that point they want a family and our military is not really structured to accommodate a woman’s stepping out and having some children and then coming back in without paying a price. But when you look at society in general and just the working market, it parallels. If you want to be a vice-president or a president of a corporation or move up that ladder, there really aren’t accommodations other than three months maternity leave to step out, do what you need to do—you know to satisfy those needs in the family and then move back in. So, I think that’s a challenge that’s out there. I think we have to look at the problems and challenges maybe a little bit different in terms of having doors open. It’s, “How do we keep women interested? How do we allow for motherhood and careers and not have to compromise one or the other?” I will say that the culture in Utah is a little more restrictive. I remember thinking when I first went to work, I thought, “Oh I’ll just do this for spending money. There’s not enough spending money to do that.” But I think that it’s changing a little bit. I think you can’t have the internet; you can’t have T.V., you can’t have social media, and keep Utah in these little boundaries. I think the women are too smart for that. AP: Did your mom ever get a part-time job? VM: Yes, she did. She did. And she really—you could just see when she came home from work, and I mean her jobs were—she had two. She started… I remember the huge discussion she was going to be a census taker and they needed—you know, how you have to go door to door. And she loved that. She got to meet new people and I think there was a paycheck and my dad probably thought that 12 probably wasn’t such a bad thing and then she worked as a seamstress. Not skilled jobs, but she was out and you know, I mean and that said a lot for her. She got to work pants, she never got to wear pants at home. Yeah. Back then, women didn’t wear pants. I never wore pants to school. That tells you how old I am. SS: Would you elaborate a little bit about your work with the hospital? VM: Yes, but I could tell you that there are other things that you might find more interesting because I was just the chair of the board for the hospital and it’s just being the chair of the board. But I was appointed to the Utah Alcohol Commission. And I think that is, that is a board that is very non-traditional for women. So when I was appointed by the governor, I was the first woman, the first non-Mormon. The first, what they called, and by the way this made my mother happy because every headline that hit the newspaper, including USA Today is, “Utah appoints a drinker.” Well having… and I thought, “It’s like I’m so alcoholic.” You know you have a glass a wine every once in a while and I became the imbiber. And the expectations for me in that role statewide were huge. I made press every time I went to a board meeting and it was once a month because the board votes would typically go. When I started out, it was four to one. Well guess who the one was? And then sometimes we would get three to two, and then a few of the issues that I actually… and they were just reasonable issues like, you probably don’t have enough time but I’ll tell you anyway. So one of the things that I was really proud about, this was during the 13 time of the Olympics and we were welcoming the world here, but if you were going to buy alcohol as someone visiting, you had to pay cash. You couldn’t use a credit card, you couldn’t—most people don’t know this. This was true, you couldn’t write a check it had to be cash. And I thought, “This is just crazy.” But, so I was trying to convince them that we had to open the stores and be a little more welcoming to those that were coming in. So I take that. That was one of my first things that I did, but with the commission. I thought, “I’m going nowhere, I’m just not getting any traction on this.” And so I said, “How am I going to get these men to see the value of moving ahead.” And finally I had to say, “Okay, you guys, let’s just think about this. You’ve got all of these people coming in. Every woman that goes in to buy for her boss as a secretary for the hospitality suite is carrying a boatload of cash. Don’t you think that makes her more vulnerable?” I wasn’t happy with my argument, but that’s what persuaded them. “Women could be vulnerable carrying cash.” And I thought, “How dumb.” But again…It worked and I got it. And the other one was a reciprocity issue. So when you come into the state and it used to be that if you were a visitor and you were going to have alcohol or you were going into a private club—I mean this goes back a long time. You had to spend the money to go into this one venue that would serve alcohol. So if you went into, let’s say the Hilton Hotel and you had, you met with your study group or your group and they served alcohol and then you decided after, “Well, you know, let’s go over and have some entertainment.” Then you would have to walk over and buy another membership and then you had dinner and you 14 thought, “Well I’d just like to listen to some piano music.” Well, you’d have to go to the third place and buy another membership. And I said, “Someway we have got to look at some reciprocity. There has to be a better way of doing this because you really are telling the world, ‘You must live by our very strict—our morals and not what makes sense.’” And finally, they agreed. But I remember the four men saying, “People wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t go to more than one place.” And I thought, “Oh please. Oh please, you’ve never left the state of Utah in your life. “ And you know, I’m having to listen to this and then I also think they didn’t know what to expect from me. I think they thought that I was going to show up in a wet t-shirt and fishnet hose because I was the drinker in Utah. Yeah. So, that to me was really challenging, just to try and make sense and within—I don’t want to say I was the voice of reason, but I had a different perspective on some of the issues and that’s a very difficult thing to do when you… when the cards are stacked against you going in. So, I would say, you know, like I say, as a woman, they were not willing to accept me and then you add all of those other things on it and it was, it was challenging. It’s much more interesting than being the chair of the board of the hospital. I loved that. That was one of my favorite things I’ve ever done in my life being the board, but I just don’t know what I could tell you, because remember, in that career field, you have nurses and health technicians and physicians and more and more women are becoming physicians. So I didn’t see as being chair of the board discrimination. I just never saw that. Where I’ve seen it in a lot of other things. 15 AP: Did you ever feel like the men were ganging up on you because of your outside perspective? VM: Never. Only in the alcohol commission because their views, you know, I don’t… I want to be respectful. I don’t know what your backgrounds are, but they were four bishops. And the bishops are going to see things differently than me. I mean, they are going to see. None of them have ever been in a bar or ever had a drink. And so my perspective is like, when they would look at me, they didn’t know if it was because I was a woman or because I weird. You know? It was just odd, so. But I felt like my views were representative of a very large group of people that had never had representation. And since then, they have had lots of women on the commission and it’s opened up and it’s not necessarily… they’ve even had, I think people that have been in the alcohol distribution industry on the commission, which makes a lot of sense. So it’s changed a lot. Yeah it was interesting. Especially coming home to my mother. “Do they have to put that you are a drinker? In the newspaper?” Oh mother, come on, mom, it will be okay. AP: Yeah. The community where drinking alcohol is pretty scandalous. VM: Oh USA Today, you know where they have that little feature? They go through all of the states in the U.S. and that was it, Utah Appoints Drinker to Alcohol Commission. And then had my name and I thought, “It’s probably only national, big national press I’ll ever get. Yeah. SS: Is there anything else that you would like to share with us? We would love to hear it? 16 VM: You know, I can tell you a couple of fun stories when I did feel bullied and discriminated. I don’t accept bullying and discrimination so I think they were trying to intimidate me but…Yeah, they were trying to intimidate me but it doesn’t happen easily. Unless… I mean its self-intimidation when I felt so inadequate. So, when I was on the submarine, a number of years ago, this DACOWITZ Committee that I was on. What we were looking at is what roles should a female have in the military. And they were very very limited in terms of being able to be promoted or have careers because they were limited by a number of laws. And for a woman graduating from the Naval Academy, the only way that you really are going to get promoted and ultimately make Admiral is to have command of a ship. There aren’t a whole lot of ships in the Navy. I mean, you could do a little dingy going back and forth, but that’s never going to get you promoted. And when you looked at the total number of ships that we have, you know, and they represent a good number, but we have lots of submarines, but women were restricted from any kind of submarine service. And while I was on this committee, the secretary of the navy said, “Okay, we’ve got a brand new class of submarines on the drawing board—The Virginia Class Submarine.” In fact, Utah is going to have one of those submarines within two years. So since I was on this committee, now the submarines have been off the drawing board, they’re in production and they will accommodate women. But in preparation for that, they picked three women and they sent us out to sea on a fast attack nuclear submarine. We stayed submerged for five days and we became working 17 members of the crew. When you are working members of the crew, I mean, three of us bunked in a room that was no bigger where that partition is, right to here. So three of us have this little space to live and those were officers quarters. And they had to close the restroom for the whole boat—A submarine is a boat, it’s not a ship—so that the three of us could either take a shower or use the restroom. And you can imagine what the men are saying and when we are there and they know what we are trying to do. We are going to take over some of their jobs, we are going to be on that submarine. So, they didn’t want to make life real easy for us. But in the end I remember one night—on a submarine, you have 24 hour cycle. There is no, you know, breakfast might be at 6 o’clock at night, you just… it just keeps going. So during our sleeping hours, they conducted a fire drill. If you have a fire drill on a submarine that’s dangerous. I mean, fires. You don’t want to be at the bottom of the sea and have a fire in the kitchen. And so it’s all hands on deck and you just got up and you ran. And we are sitting there in our lovely—and of course, we were smart enough to know, don’t sleep in anything that you can’t… but the guys come out and whatever they have on. You know? And you just… and what have just, “This is completely normal to me. I am just… yes, this is just exactly how my life is.” And I’m sitting with 100 men that are sitting there in their skippies and just not. And I’m just paying attention, you know, like nothing is beyond. But it was fun to do that and I mean, I changed the hydraulic fluid in a submarine and had to drive it and we did a deep dive and then had to surface and we did all kinds of stuff. But they were trying to suggest that we couldn’t do it. That us, 18 “We’ll show you. It’s not going to work.” And now women are going to be on submarines. AP: That’s amazing. VM: That’s a fun story. SS: What a huge step forward for women too. VM: Oh huge, yeah. Well and you can tell it’s one of those personalities, “Just tell me I can’t do it.” Just tell me I’m not going to be able to do that and I’ll show you I can do this. It’s going to kill me. AP: We need those personalities to get the doors open. VM: Wait till you see, do you know Kym Buttschardt? AP: No. VM: I love Kym Buttschardt. She’s going to come at this with—you’re going to see a whole different—I have the utmost respect for her. Hugely successful, hugely successful but she is going to be softer, nicer. You know, I admit that if it’s a character flaw, I can be very direct. But I also, since if you are in a meeting and you have limited amount of time, we don’t have time to talk about all of the niceties and waste fifteen minutes. I want to come in, let’s welcome everybody, let’s get going, here’s what’s on our agenda, bam bam bam, these are things we must have an answer to, and we will be out of here in one hour. That’s pretty direct. Or being able to say—and this is one thing that women still have to work on. We are not as good at saying to a man, “I disagree with you.” Because 19 that’s not how we function, that’s not the way women, you know we are listeners and nurturers and say, “No, you are wrong.” AP: Well we’ve also been taught that you don’t tell men that they are wrong. VM: We have to… you don’t do that. Yeah. AP: Because they are the leaders and they are always right. VM: Well I didn’t ever learn that. I think that’s probably, in some ways, you know I’ve had people say—I’m sure there have been people that are not been real happy but then there have been those that have said, “No, we are happy that you are direct because it sets you apart.” So I think it’s just finding out who you are and how you can interact and you don’t…. Kym doesn’t have to be direct. She gets it accomplished by—wait till you meet her. She’s… you tell her, I’m one of her biggest fans. Do you get to interview Kym? You tell her that.