Oral History Program Frank Salimeno Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 7 October 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Frank Salimeno Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 7 October 2014 Copyright © 2014 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 Immigrants at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories, photographs and artifacts related to the immigrant populations that helped shape the cultural and economic climate of Ogden. This project will expand the contributions made by Ogden’s immigrant populations: the Dutch, Italian and Greek immigrants who came to work on the railroad and the Japanese who arrived after World War II from the West Coast and from internment camps. ____________________________________ 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: Salimeno, Frank, an oral history by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney, 7 October 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Frank Salimeno 7 October 2014 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Frank Salimeno. It was conducted October 7, 2014. Frank Salimeno‘s Italian family came to Ogden after his grandfather began working for the Union Pacific Railroad. He talks about growing up in Ogden, and his family’s grocery store, Salimeno’s Market, one of the earliest markets in the residential areas of Ogden. The interviewers are Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney. LR: So it’s October 7, 2014 we are in the home of Frank Salimeno in South Ogden talking about his remembrances of growing up in Ogden and his grandfather, father, and Nate’s Grocery Store. My name is Lorrie Rands and Brian Whiney is on camera and asking questions as well. That’s it. FS: A lot of our family settled in Rhode Island, New York area and Massachusetts. There’s a lot of people that are Salimenos that are there. This particular branch of the family came west because this was the farming country and they settled in Pueblo, Colorado. They had a large farm there, raised crops, animals and that was their livelihood at that particular time. Now my grandfather he was the oldest of the family and after he married my grandmother, at that particular time, there were always conflicts in the family too, Italian conflicts. You know, go to an Italian wedding you might end up with somebody getting beat up. So at any rate they decided they were going to leave Pueblo. My grandfather was a farmer basically. He got a job with the Union Pacific Railroad and came this direction, this was the hub. So he came here and settled in. 2 My father was born in 1919 and he was just a baby so they moved here, worked for the Union Pacific Railroad. He worked for the railroad for a number of years. Then he got a job with—there was a strike that went on and there was actually a train trestle that was blown up. They got rid of a lot of people. Well my grandfather then got a job with a gentleman named Frank Brunetti. Frank Brunetti’s kids, Andy was the one that set up the bank, Ogden First Federal. Is it Ogden First Federal? Anyway he was the son of Frank, I believe that’s how it went. So my grandfather knew him, got a job in Frank’s mercantile down on 25th Street; that was kind of a busy place and worked there. Then in the late ‘20s, early ‘30s my grandmother and grandfather were very, very frugal. My aunt was born in 1921 Aunt Louise. They had a child named Mary that passed away when she was like 3 years old. She had an ear infection and of course medical care at that time was pretty iffy. So the family moved up from, they lived down on Pingree Avenue and they moved up to above Monroe which was, they were dirt roads. Harrison Boulevard was just a trickle and it wasn’t paved or anything. They moved up to Jackson Avenue and 29th Street where they built their house and in the front of the house there’s that picture I think I took up to Weber State. This picture right there was taken with my grandmother and grandfather in front of what they call the Jackson Avenue Market which was on the corner of Jackson. The house was built, it’s a large house, still there. The front was the grocery store and the back was where they lived. Then my grandfather bought a lot of property between 29th Street and 30th 3 Street and built some houses there. So kind of multi-faceted. Only had an 8th grade education and yet he was a very, very intelligent guy. So he purchased property, built houses, did the grocery store and that’s where my father and my aunt grew up, and my father was the last graduate of the old Ogden High School which then became Central Junior High and now is the school that’s over there on Monroe and 25th Street. That was the old Ogden High. Then they built the new one, my aunt was one of the first graduates out of the new Ogden High on Harrison. BW: Do you recall the grocery store? FS: Yes in 1948, I remember the old grocery store in a very vague sort of way. It was a small place and it was what they had during WWII and all. Then in 1948, of course my grandfather had property there, and in 1948 they built the new Salimeno’s Market which was on 29th Street between Fowler and Jackson. The building is still there. My father sold it to someone else and it was supposed to be an antique shop, but she closed it up and I think there are some things in there. At any rate in 1948 they built the new grocery store which really was large for the area, the era I should say. There were a number of other grocery stores around, but it was kind of, it was very busy and of course my parents lived above Ogden High School and I grew up there, but I also would go down in the summertime and it was like two different homes. Spent a lot of time with my grandparents and then the grocery store and I stocked shelves and worked there through periods of time. 4 My grandfather passed away in 1976 and my grandmother passed away in 1999. They closed the grocery store up in 1982. My father retired, it was my father took the grocery store over, but as time passed of course the big supermarkets came in, but it was a very big place in the ‘60s, the ‘50s, and the ‘40s. My grandfather was a butcher, he knew about meat and people would come from all over the place, all over the area, to get his cuts of meat and his special meats that he made. He made Italian sausage of which he has a recipe that I have, they brought that from Italy. I still have the recipe, he never would sell it. When Rico Del Carlo opened his restaurant on the corner of 27th Street and Washington Boulevard he wanted that recipe of course my grandfather wouldn’t. He said, “I’ll sell you the sausage, but I won’t give you the recipe.” So anyway that was what he made. He made a lot of things and his meat cuts and everything were really good. The grocery store was a busy, busy place. Personal grocery orders, people would call, take orders, drive out, deliver groceries to them on Saturdays and anytime. So that’s what they really had was the delivery business. So it was really very good. LR: So what year did the original grocery store open? FS: The Jackson Avenue Market opened in probably the late ‘20s, early ‘30s. It was right around the Depression. Depression era had started in the ‘30s of course in the early ‘30s and they opened the grocery store about that time. LR: So when and where were you born? 5 FS: I was born in Ogden in 1943. My mother and father—interesting, it’s very interesting. My mother was a nurse and she worked special duty nursing and that means, that doesn’t occur now, what it would mean was that if a person who could afford it would go to the hospital rather than having just regular nursing on the floor they would hire a special duty nurse. They would hire a nurse to take care of them while they were in the hospital for either they were ill or had surgery or whatever else for that period of time. They would hire a nurse and my mother came from Idaho. She grew up in Bancroft, Idaho, she came to Ogden, graduated from the Dee Nursing School which eventually became Weber State Nursing Program. She graduated from that and at that time it was a 3 year program and she graduated from the old Dee Hospital it was over there on, it’s now torn down. It was on Harrison, 24th or whatever 24th and such, 23rd I guess. At any rate she graduated from that she was doing special duty nursing and my father had just broken up with his squeeze at that time and this was in the early ‘40s and they met in the hospital. The reason they met was my mother was doing special duty nursing for a friend of my grandparents. Her husband, Lena was her name, Lena Macena and her husband they lived in Rock Springs. He came down for surgery or he was ill or something I’m not sure what it was, but my dad we went up to visit him in the hospital and there was my mother as a special duty nurse. They met and clicked and he started to take her out and they were married in 1941 and I was born in 43. LR: What were their names? 6 FS: My mother’s name was Jolene, and my father of course, Frank. LR: And what was her maiden name? FS: Rugar. BW: Was her family’s background here? FS: No, she was Swiss and that’s an interesting story too. I could go on with that part of the family. They came, migrated, her grandfather migrated from Switzerland by virtue of the Mormon Church having missionaries. Her grandfather was head of the University, The Conservatory of Zurich’s Music Department. This occurred back in the mid-1800s. He migrated, actually not the mid-1800s but somewhere around 1880s to 1890s. He came from Switzerland with his wife, who then passed away. Settled in Chesterfield, Idaho, he only spoke German, but he taught violin lessons to make money and then my grandfather was born, so that was my great grandfather. They lived in Chesterfield, Idaho Bancroft is the city that’s right there. Chesterfield’s kind of a desolate area if you’ve ever been there. She grew up in Bancroft and then she came to Ogden to go to nursing school after she graduated from high school. She just packed her bags and she was no, there was no problem. She just wanted to be a nurse all her life and the closest place was Dee Hospital. So she came down here and met my dad and then they were married. LR: That’s great. So what do you remember growing up about the Italian community in Ogden? FS: There were a lot of people that were related. The Italian community moved here to the Ogden area, mostly in the west area. They were again, a farming 7 community. We were related, my great grandmother’s last name was Russo. Her maiden name was Russo and there were a lot of Russos that lived out in the west area. This whole area really was a very agrarian region when I was growing up in the grocery store. My grandfather would go out and buy his produce from people that he knew that were Italians out there. So but now all that area out in West Ogden is all developed and housing. The kids, as the generations went on, they didn’t want to deal with the farming areas. So there was a lot, there were Greeks and there were Oriental, Japanese people who raised crops as well. So it was ethnic oriented to the region of farming and all. BW: Did you experience some of that diversity yourself with the Greek and Japanese? FS: Well I saw, yeah I saw. You know it’s interesting in that of course my family my grandparents were Catholic and so they were definitely Catholic, but when you move to an area especially where they moved from here to Ogden very, very LDS. They never did have any conflicts with that. They in fact made it very specific. They lived in the area, they donated to the LDS Church. They did their Catholic thing, but they had a lot of friends. You know I wouldn’t say friends because they maintained more friendships with the Italian population. They used to have you know, the Silos were from the same area of Italy as my grandparents. So my grandfather they had a close relationship with them. I remember that they would come and play cards and stuff at my grandparents’ house when I was growing up. So as far as being—really I kind of observed them mostly. Then of course I lived, grew up above Ogden High School and I had very diverse friends. 8 LR: So there was an Italian Association that kind of started around the late 1920s and early 1930s. Do you know if your grandfather was a part of that association? FS: I’m sure he was, but I have no knowledge of that. LR: Okay so it’s not maybe something he passed on to your father? FS: Not necessarily, no. They maintained a close relationship with the Italian community and the more ethnic because he knew the Greeks, but I know there were lots of friendships within the Italian community because my dad played accordion for a few years when he was growing up. His teacher was Sam Pisapanni and Sam taught that. That was an automatic, if there was anything to be done it would be more related to, if there was work on the house or there was construction, it was always related more to someone that was Italian. LR: Okay well that makes sense. BW: Sounds more like an organic… FS: Yes kind of a thing. BW: Were there organized community events? FS: Yes and I remember and again being very young I remember going to a few, just kind of standing there and looking, probably because they couldn’t find a babysitter. BW: What do you recall about those? FS: Just that they were a lot of fun. There was a lot of… BW: Location wise… FS: Gosh you know to say where they were. There’s so many places that are gone now. Like even before there were I wouldn’t say, more like lounges or bars or 9 cafes or restaurants or whatever. They would close down and then they would have all these people. I remember them having things at Lagoon too. Italian Day at Lagoon, but I’m not sure I ever went to one of those. It was more local rather than taking in the whole Northern Utah area. LR: I was going to your grandfather’s store. Did you ever work in the store with him? FS: Oh yes, stocked shelves. Hung out with my dad and my grandfather and grandmother. It was a family business so you had my grandfather was there and my grandmother, my aunt worked there through the ‘60s, Louise was her name, Louise Hamblin was her married name, but she got divorced in 1970 and never did get remarried again. Married the same guy twice. Then they divorced for the second time a year later. She left the grocery store and she went to McKay-Dee Hospital. She worked in the lab and she worked there until she was 85 years old and IHC finally said you’re the oldest employee we have, you’re retiring that’s it. Of course she was single for all those years and she passed away three years ago. She was like 88 when she left her job, there was nothing else to do. So my sister and I, I have a sister and she’s also a nurse. She’s retired and we took care of my aunt. My mother passed away first and then my father passed away and she passed away about a year and half to two years before my dad did which was kind of, they were very, very close. That kind of took the air out of my dad. So we’re kind of caregivers to my father and my aunt especially. I spent a lot of time with my aunt as did my sister. So we kind of took care of the family. Now what was your other question you said, you asked me… 10 LR: Well my other question was going to be while working in the store do you remember any of the characters or individuals who would come in? FS: Oh there were all, you know it was a regular customer. You just had in the local area of the store there were the people that lived in the neighborhood which you’d see all the time. They were very nice people. You had people and again the LDS community lived there. There was a ward that’s just down on 29th Street I think it’s closed, the ward is owned by somebody else now. It might even be another religion of some kind, but I remember that. I never went down there, but I know that that was the local ward for the neighborhood. Also at that time the school that’s now St. Joseph Elementary where my kids all went through and grandchildren was Quincy Elementary School at that time. Then St. Joseph bought it and it’s now St. Joseph Elementary School. There was a school there, I never went to Quincy and that’s what it was when I was growing up. Monroe Park was there and in the summertime I played baseball down there. I was on a Little League team. So it was a very active area. Then you had people who would travel from the outlying areas to shop. Everybody was a customer, meaning that you didn’t see a lot of transient people. Now I’m sure there were people that would come through and buy a loaf of bread because they were headed out somewhere, because it was on their way home or whatever. Most of the people that came to the grocery store were customers that were long-term. They were regulars and they would either come to shop or they would call on the phone and say, “Yeah fill my grocery order.” Then we’d deliver that and of course when I became older I would drive the 11 delivery truck too, the station wagon, and deliver groceries to people in all outlying areas. It was like when the big stores came in, Wiseway which was one of the bigger stores, it was up on Harrison. They catered more to the people that would come in and purchase and shop at the grocery store. They weren’t as much into the delivery business and that was the convenience. You had widows, you had older folks, you had people that were somewhat disabled they would call on the phone and then they would say, “I need this and I need that,” and we would make those up in delivery baskets, put them in the station wagon and take them to their house and deliver it to them. There wasn’t any extra charge for it. It was just the way it was and that made it more convenient for people. They enjoyed it and that’s why they stayed as customers with the grocery store. Then as the population aged and you go through the ‘70s people decided they became more mobile, there were two cars rather than just one or none. Then Smith’s came in and the shopping, the big supermarkets came in and people wanted more variety and that’s what they got. The people who wanted more exclusive or personal care still stayed with the grocery store, but the population aged and there was attrition, younger kids didn’t want that, they want to go to the supermarket and so that’s where we are today. Even though there is somewhat of a reversal in some areas where more of the personalized, custom type, small, boutique grocery stores are popping up and not so much in this area. Maybe in Salt Lake some, but not in Ogden, most everybody’s going to go to Smith’s or Fresh Market or whatever. I do. 12 LR: Did you and I don’t know if you’ll be able to answer this, but from what you or maybe your dad noticed or even your grandfather maybe talked to you about if there was ever any discrimination that happened? FS: There was, yes, there was some discrimination especially in the early point when they moved up. Now that there’s double discrimination. When they moved here, just to begin this story, from Colorado and again you’re looking at a closed community in Colorado. There were stories of in that area of the mafia, they called them Black Handers. So there was, and my grandmother was definitely, it was like it came from Italy. The provinces were even, very encapsulated so someone who lived in a different province, like there’s the areas of Italy if you break it down there’s Campania then there’s Calabria, Viscilla Cotta, Apulia, that’s the boot area, Campania. There are some other areas on the Adriatic, that border the Adriatic and Sicily, and people would say, “Oh, we’re not, the Sicilians,” of which they really came from. They said, “No, they’re bad. The Calabrays yeah they’re bad, they’re criminals you know.” Well when they came to Colorado there was a tendency to break that up too. People when they came to Utah it was then more cooperative because it was like there are fewer of us here. So we’re going to be cooperative and get along together, which they did. So there was not, you’re talking about discrimination even within the community of Italians, but not so much here, that wasn’t really what happened, but in those early 1900s in Colorado there was. Well, they came here and of course they heard of the Mormons and they definitely believed that Mormons had horns. They were weird, they were bad, 13 they were just, you don’t want to get involved with them. So I can remember my story of my grandmother, my dad was just a baby in a little basket. They lived down on Pacific Avenue which I don’t believe there are any houses down there anymore. That was when my grandfather was working at the railroad. Well my grandmother came out, and of course she did her wash and she had my father and she carried him everywhere and she put him out. She was hanging clothes out in her backyard and the lady that lived down the road a little ways was a Mormon lady. She came walking down and she walked into the backyard. Well this was the first experience my grandmother had ever had, she knew this woman was Mormon. She was like, “Oh be careful.” This lady came into the backyard and said, “Oh what a cute little baby,” and she wanted to go pick up my dad and my grandmother grabbed the basket and took off and locked all the doors in the house because she was fearful of the Mormons, that they were bad and evil and they were different. So that was kind of the philosophy that the Italians had bred into them. My grandfather on the other hand he came working at the Union Pacific Railroad. He was going to work with Mormon people and their religious aspect. Then there’s the other part, Italian versus WASP or the regular indigenous folks that came with, that settled the area. There was some of that, but the assimilation was different in the sense that, I can relate this because my father said that. My father said when they came from Italy of course they didn’t speak English. So they spoke Italian and my grandmother and grandfather they spoke Italian, but my grandfather said, “We’re Americans. We will speak English and we will learn 14 English.” Very rarely, which I think is unfortunate for me and even for my father as he said that when they would communicate. When my grandmother and grandfather would communicate with relatives either on the phone or around the house they would speak Italian, but not so much. My grandfather said, “You are Americans. You will speak and you will write and you will read English.” So much different than what exists now, they wanted to assimilate and so they did. There were a few Italians who moved into this area for example the Malans they’re from Northern Italy, they changed their name to Malan. Whatever the likelihood, there were names that were switched over that were made more American when they came to this country to be further assimilated into the culture. They existed, but so my grandfather and grandmother were definitely, they could write and read and speak and do everything Italian, but they learned English. They made sure that the family learned English. During WWII there were prisoners that were at DDO, German and Italian. Some of those Italians stayed in the United States, but it was interesting my grandfather used to talk about and he would go out and he spent time out there with those prisoners. He’d bring them food, he’d invite them. They could come in on weekends and come to their house. My grandmother would fix dinners and that’s one thing my grandmother was known for, whenever you visited the house you got fed. That’s what was interesting about WWII. The Italians were lovers not fighters. They stayed either in the Utah area or they stayed somewhere in the United States. 15 They had dances and they had parties and the ladies in Utah would go out and spend some time dancing. Italians love music and dance. So they would go out and of course that one went to another and there were a lot of marriages occurred with local females and the Italian prisoners. So that was a period of time and yet there wasn’t, I’ve been reading in the Examiner unfortunate things about the Muslims and whatever that’s going on, the discrimination. I’m, from my standpoint, and again this is more of an encapsulated community different than maybe occurred in New York City or the big areas where the city had Italian areas that were kind of poverty or whatever. BW: Little Italy. FS: Little Italy and things like that where food’s great, wonderful. Those are really neat places, but maybe the discrimination was greater so much here. I know that even the Japanese communities that were here were from my grandfather’s standpoint they were very friendly. Yeah the war was on, but there wasn’t a fear of that kind of a thing. German population wasn’t that great here. I think that was more in the upper Midwest, Minnesota, Michigan were more of a German population. Although, there are I’m sure a lot of German people here. Greeks are here, but it wasn’t the discrimination, wasn’t much different than just the fact that you’re a different race. Assimilation occurs you know. LR: You mentioned Little Italy a little bit and I’ve read from newspaper clippings about Little Italy here in Ogden. Did your grandfather ever mention a reference to that at all? 16 FS: Yes, but it wasn’t as large as what you might think. 25th Street had, you know it was kind of a melting pot down there. There was a lot of, more the Little Italy aspect, very small, the restaurant business, and Italians really boomed more in the ‘50s than the early part. People would come to your house and eat and they would have friends over and they would go there and back and forth. Little Italy surrounds more of the food aspect. My uncle was the other member of the family, Joe was his name and he came too, he was the youngest of the brothers. He came to Utah and he became a barber and he had a barbershop down on 25th Street. So there were Italian mercantiles, Italian grocery stores, Italian barbers, but as far as saying an area of the community that was more Italian than another area. The only real more Italian probably was the farming areas out west. LR: That makes sense. BW: What kind of a role did St. Joseph’s play in your family and the Italian community? FS: Well from my recollection—St. Joe’s, you mean the schools? BW: The schools and also the church. FS: That was the church down on 25th and Adams. I guess that’s where it is right? It played a very key role for the Italians. At that point there were not many. There were some Irish here and again Irish Catholic who attended the church, but they would have them at almost different, you know mass would be a different time. My mother and father were married at that, in St. Joseph, that’s where they were married. It was a Sunday effort although it’s extended down to my father. He attended mostly as I knew growing up was Christmas and Easter. That was the 17 most important time to go. They weren’t a regular because I’ll tell you one thing when they opened the grocery store it was a 12 hour day. They opened at 7 a.m. and they closed at 7 p.m. They worked Saturdays that same period of time. They may have closed at 5 o’clock rather than 7 on Saturdays and the Sunday opening was a real question my grandfather said. The state of Utah had a law against businesses being open for a period of time in the early, I can’t even put a date on it. They wouldn’t let businesses open on Sundays. I do remember that the big thing came when Grand Central which is no longer here. It was the big place down on 27th Street and they had this huge parking lot. In my mind it was the big place, it was the Target, it was the Shopko. It was Grand Central. Grand Central fought the closing on Sunday and apparently had won. The legislature said okay and they were the first ones to open on Sunday. My grandfather wanted to do that but the family said, “No, we’re not going to open on Sunday.” So they worked a lot, they worked and that kind of took away from some of their, the religious masses and the other things. They’d rest on Sunday. Sunday was the day you mowed the lawn and Sunday was the day you did the repairs around the house and you know because my dad worked. My mother, after she finished, when special duty nursing went out of the way then she stayed. She was a nurse and she became head of the recovery room at McKay-Dee. She worked at McKay-Dee all her life. She became a supervisor in her later years and then she totally retired back in the early ‘80s when my dad closed up the grocery store. 18 LR: Do you have anything else? I have one more. You said that Irish and Italian masses would be at different times. Is there a reason for that? FS: Hard to say. BW: Language? FS: Could be because, well all Catholic masses and it could have been because I didn’t, I wasn’t privy to that but it could’ve been because Italian masses at that time were all in Latin or Italian. Of course the Irish was different, but there wasn’t a big Irish community but I can remember my grandfather saying that masses were different times. BW: Were the majority of Irish out here Mormon? FS: Yes. So that was another thing that occurred. Out here a lot of people that I knew of assimilated also by joining the LDS church. That was one way, you changed your name and you joined the LDS church. My grandmother and grandfather and father didn’t do that. LR: I was going to say it doesn’t sound like your grandfather changed his name. FS: No, absolutely not. LR: He wanted to assimilate in the sense of language… FS: Right. LR: But when it came to… FS: There was not a reason. There was a family, the family is the family. You don’t change your name, why would you change your name? You know that’s not a, you have a heritage, but you don’t have to give up your heritage to become something different. 19 BW: So those who did gave up their name or convert to the Latter-Day Saints; what kind of sentiments did you hear from your family and community? FS: None, nothing at all. I can remember I worked, this goes to the Jewish side. I worked when I was in college, I got a job at Bon Marche down on Washington. I remember Bon Marche and I worked for Sam the Record Man. Sam Morrison, great guy, hired me. He lived up on 29th Street where we lived above Ogden High. He was directly behind us on Kershaw. Sam was at, he owned the Reliable, he owned the Record Shop and Reliable and I used to go buy records there when I was a little kid. Reliable was owned by the Herskavitches and his wife was a Herskavitch. Now Morrison doesn’t sound Jewish at all does it? When they closed Reliable he then went to Bon Marche and hired me and worked down there. He used to talk about families that were Jewish that converted to Mormonism. He said, his philosophy was, he said and then it became more animosity in the fact that your tradition is Jewish religion right? I mean that’s part of it. You’re also racially Jewish. He said, those people that joined the Mormon Church he said, “You can’t be a Mormon Jew. You will always be a Jew. You can’t be a Mormon Jew. You can have a religion that’s Mormon, but Jewish is religion and race together. So you can join the Jewish church belief from being a gentile and be Jewish religiously, but you can’t be Jewish and then become a gentile. You’ll never be a gentile.” He used to say that all the time. That was a problem that those people that tried to become, by virtue of joining in the neighborhood or wherever they lived. Again, Jewish people, there aren’t that many even in that particular time. You look in the ‘50s, ‘40s, ‘30s there were very 20 few Jewish people out here and then they came here after the war and whatever else. There was a lot of immigration in the United States as well. Came west, but they would live in the neighborhoods and that was Sam’s philosophy is that, “It doesn’t matter. You can live in the neighborhood, but why do you want to become, why do you want to leave your heritage?” LR: One more question that goes all the way back to the beginning of this conversation we’ve been having. You mentioned that your grandfather worked for Brunetti. FS: Right. LR: The owner of the Ogden… FS: Well it was a mercantile. I can’t even say what it was. It could’ve been Brunetti’s for all I know. LR: Okay so as he was working for Brunetti probably in the early ‘20s. FS: Yes early ‘20s. LR: You said he was just really frugal so that by the time he, I mean he opened his shop at the, almost at the beginning of the Depression. FS: Right. LR: I guess it’s not really a question as much as it’s—was that just your grandfather, was he just that type of man that could save all this money and then… FS: Right, he does. He had to, he really, really pinched the pennies very closely. In talking to my grandfather, my father grew up in the Depression and it was like they ate well, they never went without clothing, they were just fine, but everything was very limited. You didn’t get to go out and do things, even in the grocery 21 store. You know they ate Farr’s Ice Cream, the ice cream counter and the popsicles and stuff like that. My father and my aunt they didn’t get all the best, they had food to eat, they had good food to eat, clothes on their back, but they didn’t take away from the profit of the grocery store. That was to be sold for the area they were in. So they were frugal, very, very frugal. My grandmother she worked even when she was raising her, well my grandfather was working in the mercantile, my grandmother was working in the can company. In the Ogden Canning on the line canning tomatoes and various things because Ogden Can was down there and Del Monte and those places. She would walk from 29th Street and Jackson Avenue all the way down and walk back. That’s a long way; that is a long way. The bus service wasn’t there. My grandfather had a car, he had a model A4, but it was for delivering groceries. Okay so my grandmother helped in those days, you know it wasn’t the busy times in the grocery stores, so my dad helped and my aunt helped and my grandmother would walk all that way down to the can company. She was a very hard worker and she was, I remember her being extremely hard. It was a family thing. My grandfather took care of the grocery store at that time and then when WWII came, then Hill Air Force Base, a lot of people were making money. It was, even though there was a limitation in WWII for gas and things you could buy, Ogden started to build up. There was more money to be spent. So the grocery store became busier so then my grandmother had to be there and my aunt and my dad. LR: Then she could stop working at the cannery? 22 FS: Right. Yes and then my father quit, he worked in the grocery store until WWII occurred then he went, he worked at Hill Air Force Base. On bombers, he was the guy that was trained and working on repairing bombers. They would ship here, to Hill Air Force Base, aircraft that were damaged either in the European front or in the Pacific that were shot up and damaged. They put them on trains and sent them to Hill, which was a great big repair station, and then they would work on the engines and then they would fly them out back into battle. LR: So how long did you work for the grocery store? FS: From the time I was a little kid, probably because they wanted me to make sure that I had a work ethic and they had a work ethic. I was of course a little more lackadaisical and I’d sit and read magazines on the couch, sit there at the comic book rack. When I was, in the ‘50s I was, I guess I really started to do it when I was about 10. So in 1953 I started to stock shelves and work around the grocery store. They didn’t want me to be a lazy, but they always had, they also had an ethic of education. That was one thing that they were really big on is making sure you’re educated. From the time I can remember they said, “You’re going to be going to college.” Now when you’re talking about the ‘50s the number of people that went to school after high, were most people got out of high school and got a job and did whatever. My grandfather always used to say, “You don’t want to grow up to be grocer man.” Of course he had an eighth grade education, but he was as I say beyond his years. He had financial knowledge and things that were just amazing. They saved money, my parents and my grandparents saved money for my sister and I to go to school. So it was an expectation. 23 I graduated from Ogden High. I went to Sacred Heart Academy for a while which is gone. There’s a medical clinic and I think Workforce Services or some social services bought that building, bought that little building. I went to Sacred Heart Academy then I went to public school and graduated from Ogden High in ‘61 and I just went right on to school. Four years at Weber State, got a Bachelor’s Degree. Pacific University, I got my Doctorate. I was on a 2 year U.S. deferment and then in 1969 I graduated in the military, Army Medical Corps. I went in in 1970 and then spent 2 years as a captain in the army out at Dugway Proving Ground, which is kind of an interesting place during Vietnam, but they sent us out there. I found, when I got there, there were a lot of people from Intermountain area out at Dugway Proving Ground because people that were from outside the area applied for transfers to get out. So they put people that were from the Intermountain area saying, “Maybe they’ll be happier out here,” which was okay. So and my sister went to nurse’s school. So that’s been a real ethic thing to be educated. You know go to school, get your degree. BW: What was your Doctorate in? FS: Optometry. BW: Did you mention land purchases early on? FS: About my grandfather purchasing land. BW: Tell me about that. FS: Well at that time they moved up to Jackson and 29th. Monroe was what Harrison would be now, even though it was just a two lane road. It was just a two lane, paved, concrete road, but above that they were kind of like, there was a lot of 24 land available. So that area where my grandfather built his house on the corner of 29th and Fowler, that area between 29th and 30th Street was, there were a couple of houses in there between on that whole block. There was a lot of land that was open. So he went up and when he went up there land was pretty inexpensive. I mean nobody wanted to live there. You know it was not like it is now. The higher up on the hill you go the more expensive the property gets. Most of the population was down close to Washington Boulevard between and Monroe was like I say it was one of the main thoroughfares through there, but most of the population of Ogden lived down just south of Washington or a little bit north of Washington. I mean west or east I should say. West or east of Washington and then you got all the farm land out west. So people were, that was the heart of the city. Up here was not. I remember pictures, and my grandfather purchased my parent’s property early on from Malan who had Malan’s Orchards. Malan lived up on the mountain area and he had orchards, apple orchards that were, they extended down almost to Harrison Boulevard. That whole area was orchards, Malan’s Orchards. He had stables and he had horses and he had whatever up on 29th Street. So my grandfather purchased a property up there too, purchased my aunt’s property and my dad’s. My aunt lived on the corner of Tyler and it was just south of 30th Street. Any rate then that area where they were, down on 29th and 30th street, that area was pretty much, there was just a few, couple three houses in there. Lots of just land property. 25 I can remember, it was interesting too, when we sold my father’s house after they’d passed away and sold the house. The quick claim deed to the house that my sister and I had when we went through and sold it, went to the real estate deal they checked the property and they said, “That’s not the house that’s on the quick claim deed.” We said, “You’re kidding? What is the deal?” They said, “Well we have it registered that quick claim deed is a property that’s down on Fowler, on Jackson Avenue that your grandfather owned.” I thought, “You’re kidding.” So we had to go through a big process to get the, do the title search and do everything for the house up there. He figured when he bought that house and he built the little grocery store he was thinking ahead. He said, “Well I’m going to put another grocery store in here. Bigger one, down the line, it will be 20 years maybe.” BW: So this was in the ‘30s that he was acquiring land? FS: Right and the property was inexpensive. You got the Depression going on and he had to go through a lot of property, the changes from residential to commercial in that area because it was all labeled for personal residential and he had to do commercial. I remember that in their house the house that had the grocery store attached in front. They had a phone that was, had a little hole that was in there from their residence. There was a telephone that sat on this little niche that you could use in the grocery store to take orders and also answer in the house. At that time Bell owned all those. They didn’t like that idea that you should be able to use a commercial and a residential phone for the same purpose, but they did it. 26 BW: I just have one last question. In your opinion and this is just going to be a subjective question. What was the Salimeno reputation in the community? FS: Very well, very good and it remains that way. The Salimenos had, were well off people. Granted, my grandfather and the family has been able to maintain that. Never owed anybody anything. My grandfather in fact, I can remember him at J.C. Penney’s, this was back when I was a little kid. Maybe it was in the late ‘50s, I mean I was in junior high. My dad said to my grandfather, told my grandfather he says, “You’ve got to get some kind of a credit rating. You don’t have any credit rating.” Of course my grandfather never, never, never paid anything but cash. If he bought a car it was cash, if he bought anything it was cash. His house was cash. He paid for the house cash. He bought property cash. It was like wow unbelievable, and anyway my dad says, “Well you’ve got to get a credit rating. That’s a really big thing now.” Even then when you bought stuff for the grocery store they no longer wanted you to lay out cash to pay for a side of beef. It was changing, you had to essentially charge it and, credit ratings were just really the beginning in those years. My grandfather had, he gave credit to people. He had this box full of, for his customers and they would charge it, but he never charged interest and he would never do anything like that. My dad says, “You need it.” He went in and said to Penney’s they wanted to buy a mattress. He said, my grandfather was really against it. He just said, “I want to buy a mattress, box springs I don’t…” My dad says, “You got to get a credit rating, you have to do this.” He went in and they said, they wouldn’t open an account because he again had no credit rating. He had to go through a big process to get this credit and 27 then he got the credit, got the mattress, paid it off immediately through the credit and then he had a credit rating. My grandfather had, when he bought his car, his ideal car was a Cadillac, and he’d drive to the bank every day. At a certain time in the morning he’d take the day’s receipts before and deposit them in the bank. He had this Cadillac and he bought a number. He was very opposed someone told him, at that time it was like early 1960s. Why don’t you buy a Mercedes Benz? They’re the same price. My grandfather said, “No, you don’t buy foreign cars. I wouldn’t buy those.” I on the other hand, later on my dad bought to deliver groceries back in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s I was away in the Army. I was away at school, I had four years here at Weber State and I went four years up at Pacific. Then I had two years in the Army so I was kind of out of the way from the middle ‘60s on. My dad bought a little Volkswagen, one of those little type two square back jobs. My grandfather hated that car, he didn’t like foreign cars. I like foreign vehicles so every car I’ve had, and I can remember in the Army when I went in the Army. They paid me 1,000 dollars a month as a captain and 200 dollars professional pay. I was head of the eye clinic at Dugway Hospital. So I bought this MG and drove it back from Reno. Bought it brand new, I still have it. It’s only got 35,000 miles on it if you’re interested, but at any rate a little red roadster. My grandfather and grandmother came out to visit us at Dugway. My son was born in 1970 so they came out to visit their great grandchild. I told my grandfather I said, “Let me take you for a ride in the MG.” He was like ugh. He said, “That puddle jumping roller-skate, that’s a piece of 28 junk.” He rode in it once his whole life and my grandmother was totally different, she was just like, “Anything you want Frankie, anything you like.” I remember when I bought my Porsche I took her for a ride and that was the early ‘90s and she went out in it. Strapped her into the seatbelts and just took her around the block. She says, “Oh this is a nice little car. I really like this car. This is so nice.” That was one thing my grandmother and grandfather were totally different on. My grandfather was very authoritarian. He didn’t put up with anything. He was a fun guy to be around, but he didn’t put up with anything. If you stepped out of line, if you did something wrong, you should be punished for it. Of course working down at the grocery store he’d come by, my dad was similar to my grandmother, but he was, if you stocked shelves the labels all had to be out front, labeled exactly right. The price, every can had a price tag that you put on with a rubber stamp. It had to be exact. My grandfather would be very specific. He’d come by and he’d inspect and he’d say, “This had got to be this way and this has got to be that way. You’ve got to stack it this way and get these moved over here.” He wasn’t and I’m just a kid you know, but I didn’t get away with anything. My grandmother on the other hand was, “Psh, you’re okay. You’re fine. Don’t worry about that.” She’s just, don’t worry about it. So they were totally different. My grandmother was just very acquiescent, let them do anything they want. My grandfather was, “No this is how it’s going to be.” That was kind of the old country philosophy. He was like very definitely, he never hit anybody that I saw, but he would get very, very angry with things. 29 This is another story that I think is very interesting is that in an Italian family you grow up in the kitchen. A kitchen is the area where everything happens. Everything happens in the kitchen. The family gets together at night and you discuss everything that goes on. If you’re going to be punished, if you’re going to be yelled at, if you’re going to be any kind of concerns occur in the kitchen at dinnertime. I can remember when I was in like first or second grade and the teacher was talking about, we had like a little health class and you had what was good for you to eat the vegetables, the fruits or whatever. You’d always talk and the teacher I can remember saying, “At dinnertime you should be very quiet and everything should be just fine because you want to ingest your food properly. There should be no upset, that dinner is the time for casual conversation and just kickback.” That wasn’t the way it was in our family. If there was anything to be done, dinnertime, that’s when you got leaned on. So I always thought, “I probably am not going to live very long because it’s like that’s where the bad stuff happens.” They let you know it at that time. If we ate at my grandmother’s and grandfather’s house, my grandmother, she would be waiting on everybody, she rarely sat down. My mother was the same way so my grandmother and my mother would be around serving the males in the family. My grandfather would be yelling about things that went on during the week or during that day that should be. So it was like oh gosh you’re really going to, it was the time when things just happened. So the kitchen, if there was anything that happened and it wouldn’t be the living room because the living room area was always nice. You went in there, of course pre-television, that was 30 where you went to read the newspaper or book or whatever. Listen to the radio and then the television was in there, but that was the relaxation area. The kitchen was where everything happened. Business went on in the kitchen and you grow up that way that was the most traveled area of the whole house was the kitchen. I’ve seen movies, there was one with Cher in it that I can’t remember, something moon… BW: Moonstruck. FS: Moonstruck, and you relate to that if you see the movie you see that everything in that movie goes on in the kitchen, everything goes on in the kitchen, even love making went on in the kitchen, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that, but the show really was personified. BW: It’s a cliché that came from something isn’t it? FS: Yes, I think most everybody that you talk to that’s from the old country or had that old country philosophy, not only Italian, but if you’re Greek or Spanish or whatever you know it comes from that kind of a deal. BW: Connection of food. FS: Yeah food is the key. BW: Social binder. FS: Right and you have to be a good cook. You know you got to be able to cook the food. BW: Wonderful.