Oral History Program Audrey Carr Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 16 March 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Audrey Carr Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 16 March 2017 Copyright © 2018 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 World War II "All Out for Uncle Sam" oral history project contains interviews from veterans of the war, wives of soldiers, as well as individuals who were present during the war years. The interviews became the compelling background stories for the "All Out for Uncle Sam" exhibit. The project received funding from Utah Division of State History, Utah Humanities Council and Weber County RAMP. ____________________________________ 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: Carr, Audrey, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 16 March 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Audrey and Vince Carr 1945 Audrey Carr 16 March 2017 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Audrey Carr, conducted on March 16, 2017 in her home in Bountiful, Utah, by Lorrie Rands. Audrey discusses her life and her memories involving World War II. Alyssa Chaffee, the video technician, is also present during this interview. LR: It is March 16, 2017. We are in the home of Audrey Carr in Bountiful, Utah talking about her life story for the World War II and Northern Utah project at Weber State University. I’m Lorrie Rands conducting the interview and Alyssa Chaffee is with me as well. Audrey, thank you so much for your time and your willingness to sit and chat with us. I appreciate it very much. So my first question is, when and where were you born? AC: Brooklyn, New York. New York City. You know Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, it's one of the 5 boroughs that incorporate the city of New York. LR: OK, and then when? AC: October 4, 1920. LR: October 4. What do you remember about growing up in Brooklyn? AC: We played on the streets in New York City. We rode on trolley cars. Hardly anyone had cars or automobiles. We took a trolley car to go to Central Park. I can’t tell you how far it is. I don’t know. LR: So you spent a lot of your time as a child just playing out on the street? AC: And in dancing school. LR: What kind of dancing school did you go to? AC: It was this acrobatic toe and ballet. You have to do ballet before you do toe, of course. I did that until I was about sixteen. 2 LR: You did that a long time. So when did you start doing that, do you remember? AC: I guess it was about two, three possibly. I don’t remember. LR: You were really young when you started dancing. AC: People, they either did that or piano. You have to live on the ground floor to have a piano. Otherwise, it was by rope just through a window. I don’t remember whether I actually witnessed when George Gershwin put his piano in his home. He lived upstairs. LR: Oh really. So did you live underneath him? AC: No. I’ve seen pictures of pianos since, but I remember seeing pianos being hoisted up. It may not have been his piano, but that’s the way it was done. LR: I’m trying to envision that and it’s scary almost. Don’t be underneath it. AC: Well, the streets had to be cleared. So, I’m sure they did that. LR: How many siblings did you have growing up? Or did you have siblings? AC: One. I was seven years old before my sister was born. LR: There’s quite an age gap between the two of you. Was that weird? AC: No, that was wonderful. Why, she was my baby doll. LR: Where did you go to school in Brooklyn? AC: Catholic school. Saint Michael’s, I think it was. LR: Was that your elementary school, junior high? AC: No, we didn’t have a junior high back then. My mother was left on a door step at a nunnery and she lived there until she was about to take her vows, and then somebody came in and adopted her. But I never knew these grandparents 3 because my mother died when she was only twenty-nine. Anyway so that’s how life began. LR: If this is still too close to the subject, just tell me. So did your father remarry and that’s where your baby sister came from? AC: No, my sister was my mother and dad’s. LR: Did you kind of raise your sister then? Were you kind of her mom in a sense? AC: No, cause after my mother died I had to go live with my grandparents. My mother died, I think it was 1930 or 1931. Then my grandpa died and then my grandma died, all three in years. It was depression time. My little sister went to a relative in Pennsylvania and I was shifted from pillar to post. It was the depression, no one wanted to feed a ten year old, but they wouldn’t mind a three year old. Besides, three year olds were cute, and I might have been sassy. LR: So, for you the depression was not great. AC: No. The other thing was I didn’t know where my father was. It wasn’t until maybe forty years later that I knew that he’d been somewhere else, Colonial Williamsburg. Of course, now it’s called something else, Starbridge or something like that. It’s in Virginia. It’s still drawing lots of crowds. My husband and I had a car and we went out to see, maybe ten or fifteen years ago. They’re all dressed in the colonial clothing and the tools. LR: They kind of stay in that old time AC: They do completely. It is a village. 4 LR: I’ve heard of that. That’s really cool. During the depression, you were kind of just living here and living there. Did you have a way to have fun? I mean, you were only ten. AC: No, I just tried to be a good girl. I might have been sassy, I didn’t know. I wondered if somebody would love me. I didn’t have any love. LR: Was there ever a time when you found somewhere to live with a family? AC: Yes, it was my grandpa’s sister. She was very sweet to me. I remember she played the piano but it was a spinet. My aunt played the piano in Pennsylvania. My grandma and I would dance before my grandma died. Of course, she’d play the piano and I would dance because I was expected to. Of course, I may have wanted to, but I don’t remember that. LR: You were still able to go to dance class through all of this? AC: Well you remember what you’ve learned, after I couldn’t go anymore. LR: So you were kind of just keeping that up on your own. Where did you end up going to high school, then? AC: West Virginia. LR: You moved from Brooklyn? AC: No. I went from Brooklyn to Pennsylvania. My father remarried and we went to West Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia. He married a woman. I loved her by the way. She had a little girl. Her name was Sue. Sue was the same age as my sister, so they were playmates. My father got mean and was nasty to Sue. That’s his step-daughter. I loved Sue and I loved my sister, of course. I didn’t like that he was criticizing Sue. She had a lisp and he would correct that. That started 5 when he started getting mean to her. I don’t know if he ever spanked her or anything but I could hear the tones. Then they got a divorce. He had moved back to New York. I remember what it was being in West Virginia. He couldn’t find a job. It was still the depression. I guess it was not quite anymore, the recession maybe. He says, “As soon as I open my mouth to apply for a job, you know I’m a damn Yankee”. His accent. I guess that’s why they got a divorce there, because you couldn’t get a divorce in New York at that time. They had to be caught in the act. LR: When did you graduate from high school? AC: I was sixteen. I was down in West Virginia and they didn’t have the knowledge. LR: A little backward. AC: Yeah. When I was there, I was so far ahead of them already. I was put in the rapid advance class, so I got through. I was sixteen. LR: Do you remember what you did after you graduated from high school? AC: We went back to New York then and I went to the New York trade school. In New York City, when I was living there, we didn’t have junior highs. You graduated at the age twelve. So either you had to take a test when you were graduating and you were either academic or a stenographer. So they put me academic, and it meant that I was more knowledgeable. So the other ones who weren’t, who drew the typing, they became stenographers. You weren’t hired as a stenographer cause I didn’t know how to do those things. I didn’t know how to type. LR: If I’m understanding correctly, you went to a trade school. AC: It’s called New York trade school. 6 LR: You weren’t learning how to type, right? You were learning something else? AC: I went to New York school because there wasn’t nothing to do with stenography. I had to do something and I felt like I had to earn my living. LR: Do you not remember what you were learning at the trade school? AC: I became a mechanic. LR: This was before 1940, right? When you were in the trade school? AC: Yeah, I can’t remember. LR: Were you living with your dad at that time or were you on your own? AC: I was doing housekeeping for an old gentleman and his sister on Staten Island. LR: So you were living with them? AC: Yes. LR: It sounds like you were really independent, taking care of yourself. AC: Trying to be. That man, he was sixty-three years old. We didn’t have social security then and he gave me twenty dollars a month and I lived there. His brother was named Winfield Scott. I called him Uncle Charlie. He was his younger brother. That house was built in the 1800’s, so the house was very old. We had a gas mantel to light each room, but only one at a time. They had a beautiful staircase going upstairs. Of course, there weren’t any bathtubs, you carried the water. He had a bathtub up there. His sister, she was not exactly crippled but she needed help. So I had to carry her two flights of stairs all the way up to the bathtub. You carried the boiling water from the stove, the coal stove in the basement. That’s where she lived, where she wanted to be. I remember the beautiful staircase. I was afraid I was going to ruin that because it was 7 mahogany, African mahogany. I had to clean that whole house. That was a lot. So, I earned my keep. At that time there wasn’t income tax and Uncle Charlie did that. He was in real estate. He said he would help me and he did. He showed me how to do income tax. The sheets then were several feet long and he showed me how to do each section. He charged five dollars, so for every one that I did for him, he paid me two dollars. The first couple of times, I said, “When are you going to give me my money?” He says, “No, I’m going to save it for you.” He had a Seymour, a safe. So he put mine in there and when income tax was finished April fifteen, I had two hundred dollars. Then I was able to get myself some clothes. I was so proud. LR: I can imagine. You’ve earned your own money and you get to buy things for yourself. That’s great. How long did you work for that family, cleaning house and going to the trade school? AC: It was previous to cleaning the house. LR: What do you remember about Pearl Harbor day? AC: I was on Staten Island still. There were some friends visiting. Uncle Charlie and I went with them. It was Uncle Charlie’s friend. I guess it wasn’t until the next day that we knew Pearl Harbor had been bombed. It was people next door that told us. Later in life, I met Mary, who lived in Hawaii, and became a good friend of mine. She and her little boy were in the cane fields when the bombs had started. They heard them before they came. They had to get out of their houses. Mary told me that, and now she’s gone many years later. 8 LR: By then you’re twenty-one, in 1941. AC: Something like that. Yes. LR: From what I heard from the conversation you had with Sarah, you ended up going and working in a factory in New Jersey. AC: I was at Wright Aeronautical, the Wright Brothers. LR: What led you to that? How did you get to that point? AC: Going to the trade school. LR: Did you just hear about that job and you just went and started working? How did you get the job? AC: I’d been in the trade school and they placed me. LR: What did you do while you were working there? AC: I don’t know where the wood came from, but it was from a tree eventually. One of the first things that I had to do was called a barker, because there still had a lot of bark left on it. After that, it was called a shaper. You had to put it into a shaper so that it became a shape. After the shape then it was called a planer. I had to learn twenty-six different machines. LR: Do you remember what you were making? AC: Yes. Eventually, I became a turret lathe operator. LR: What is a turret lathe operator? AC: It’s a big machine and it has four different shapes on it. You have to know what action that each one will do. Then you had to know what tool to place in the right place. The last one, which I’d learned to do too, was what they called a sander. Of course you had to wear pants. 9 LR: To work in the factory? AC: Yes. You had to do everything, all the rolls, of course. I couldn’t work late. We had a half an hour for lunch. I was stationed on the third floor, or maybe it was only the second, but lunch was down in the basement. You only had a half an hour from the bell to back so sometimes you didn’t eat very much because you had to go. Of course, you had to buy your own meal. It was cafeteria style. LR: Were you helping to build an airplane? AC: Yes, it was a B-17 that I was working on. The B-17s were the bombs that were the ones before the Atomic, of course. There was a movie called Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. That’s what was being bombed with the B-17s. LR: I know what you’re referring to. The Tokyo bombing in March of 1945, more people died during that bomb raid than died in Hiroshima. I’ve heard of the movie. So, you were building the planes that were dropping those incendiaries. Is that correct? AC: Yes. LR: How did it feel being a woman working in a factory, because up until that time you weren’t allowed to work like that? AC: Stenographers were women, of course, or school teachers. LR: Right. So, did you feel a sense of pride being able to do that? AC: No, I just didn’t think anything of it. LR: How long did you work at the factory? AC: I don’t know. Several years, I guess. LR: Were you still working there when the war ended? 10 AC: No. LR: What were you doing when the war ended? AC: I went to live with my sister and her husband John back in New York City again. That’s when, through them, that I met my husband. He was an officer and he came into the apartment at a quarter to six in the morning. I’ll never forget this. On a Sunday morning in New York City, that’s when the city is asleep. He knocked on the door. I had moved in with my sister, a two room apartment. That’s when Uncle Charlie died. So I had to flip this couch cause I was sleeping on it. I had to answer the door and he wanted to know if Private Bramley was here. I said yes. He said, “I need to speak to him.” I said, “Just a minute.” Of course you have locks on, along the door, and I put those on and had to wake them up. So, my sister and I got up and let him in and my sister put on the coffee pot. He was a lieutenant, and he needed to speak to John. Well, we were sitting around and we were all smoking and drinking coffee. I offered him a cigarette. He was across the table from where I was sitting because he was right next to Johnny. After the second time around, I offered another cigarette. He said, “No thanks, I don’t smoke. I said, “You don’t? Well how unusual, especially for a man. How come?” He said, “I’m a Mormon.” I said, “What’s that”? Right after that, I became interested, and seventeen days later, we were married. LR: Seventeen days! Talk about love at first sight? AC: Well, in a way, but I think it might have been security. I didn’t know then, but I realize now that’s what it was. That day, he spent the rest of the day with me. I had an appointment to go with a friend of mine to Times Square. She lived in 11 Jersey, so we were meeting her. We stayed in the Pennsylvania station, he told me that Mormons marry for eternity. We were corresponding by phone, but we didn’t have a phone. The phone was downstairs, five floors down, or down to the candy store where they have a telephone. We had to call long distance to get somebody like that. That night, when he stayed until it was time for his train to go, that was like one o’clock in the morning. He wanted to give me five dollars to go back on the train to where he could pick me up at Stell’s. I said, “No I don’t want it.” He said, “Well, yes. It’s going to be alright.” I said, “Why don’t you save it.” The subway, it’s only a nickel for one of the turnstiles that gets you in. I guess that’s what secured him to me, and now we’ve been married just four months less than sixty years. LR: He was a lieutenant in the Army, is that right? AC: Yes. Venice Carr, my second husband. He was in the Signal Corps. When he came to talk to Johnny that day, it was because they were about to invade Japan. Of course, that’s very hush-hush, you know. LR: Did he end up going to Japan, your husband? AC: Yes. He was the one that that took the whole troop. LR: This was after you were married, that he went. Is that right? AC: Yeah. We got married in Philadelphia before he left. The reason we got married in Philadelphia was because he was LDS. I wanted to get married in the church. LR: What church were you married in? AC: Methodist church. But he never took me to the temple. LR: Even after you came here? 12 AC: Oh yeah! But, of course, the war was over. He was in the Army, in the occupation for a while. I was here cause he sent me. He sent me, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was catholic, I was not LDS. In that time there was only three thousand people in Bountiful, including Davis County. LR: OK, so you came to Bountiful in about 1945. AC: Yes. LR: I know you said you stuck out like a sore thumb. What was that like coming from New York? AC: Awful. LR: How was it awful? AC: Because I wasn’t used to what they did and they didn’t want what I was doing, what I had been doing. I was ostracized. It was two ladies that were befriending me. They helped me. I didn’t have any hard feelings, but I just felt like I wanted to be worthy of their friendship. LR: Do you remember their names, those two ladies? AC: Yeah, but they’re gone. One was Theresa Hood. I would call her Mother Hood cause she was old enough to be my mother. LR: And the other? AC: We called her Wilhelmina, but her name was Billy. Stringham. LR: What about your husband’s family? Did they welcome you in? AC: I went to live with his mother and dad. LR: What was that like? AC: Terrible! 13 LR: How often were you able to talk to your husband? Just through letters? AC: Just a couple of letters. LR: So, you didn’t really communicate with him. You’re by yourself in a strange place, don’t know anybody. That had to have been interesting, to say the least. AC: It was a big adjustment. LR: When did your husband finally come home? AC: It was almost a year. LR: Once he was back, did you guys get your own place? AC: Not for a while. LR: So you lived with his parents. AC: Yeah, I think there weren’t enough houses. It was after that, people began getting enough money to build a house. We moved into a two-room apartment, which belonged to somebody that had the house. LR: Do you remember where your first house was? AC: Yes, it was. I can tell you the address. I loved it. 672 West 3600 South. It’s in Bountiful. It still is. That was the last house that was built on that street. All the other houses were seventy feet around and from front, but this one was next to the pump house, where the water came from. That was only fifty feet, but they decided they were going to do that. So, it was only a two bedroom house where the others were three on the same street. We lived there, I don’t know how many years. Me and my daughter bought the same house that we traded back and forth, but eventually that house became mine. The last time is when I sold it and moved here. 14 LR: You were in that home for a long time. AC: I loved it. LR: So, you have three children? AC: No, I had six. LR: After you and your husband moved into your home, did he go into the family business? AC: Of course. He was expected to. LR: What did he do within the family business? AC: He mostly set typophoto and designer, but they all took turns. Sometimes, when one couldn’t fill in the other one would. He was one of ten brothers. He was number seven. They had a lot of experience. LR: Do you know anything about the Carr printing, how it started? AC: Yes. LR: Would you talk about that a little bit? AC: Yes. I’m happy to, really. The elder Carr, Mr. Willard Carr, and John Stahle, were partners, and they ran a place called The Little Clipper. That was the beginning of it. They got too much business or something like that, so they divided. John Stahle did the newspaper, the Davis County Clipper, and Mr. Carr took the printing press. It’s only been maybe six months that they changed from Davis County Clipper to the Clipper. Then it was tabloid. Now it’s regular size, standard size. They’re still the Stahle’s, their descendants. LR: So, the Stahle’s are still running the Clipper? AC: Yes, but they never speak to the Carr’s. 15 LR: So there was a rift or something. AC: Evidently, yeah. I don’t know why. LR: Would Carr do print jobs for the community? AC: Yes. LR: Didn’t they do phone books? AC: Oh yeah. I was the first one that ever got that one together. That was 1959, but it was published in 1960. LR: Is there anything else you’d like to add to Carr printing that I haven’t asked? Any other story you’d like to add? AC: I still attend their annual meeting, which is in May. The President of it now is Lloyd Carr. LR: What relation is he to your husband? AC: A nephew. LR: Did any of your children decide to go into the printing business? AC: They tried. I had one son, and he was with them for a while. Chaffee: You said that you helped with putting together the first phone book, is that correct? AC: Well, I was the one that did all the phoning to ask people their name and verify that this is the correct address and their wives’ names too. Chaffee: How long did that take? AC: A year. It was printed in 1960. Chaffee: Did you do any other work for Carr printing yourself? Or was it just your husband who did most of the work? 16 AC: I began to learn how to do the gathering pages, folding, etc. Not a press, just the work that needed to be done. Chaffee: Did you work in mechanics at all after the war? AC: No. LR: How do you think your experiences during World War II shaped and influenced your life? AC: That’s hard. I just told you the whole thing. LR: It’s not necessarily a fair question. Do you think that working in the factory the way you did, do you think that helped you in any way as you got older? AC: I guess that’s what shaped me. That’s like asking, how does your food digest, and we can’t explain that. I try, I try to share what I have, so one thing leads to another and becomes good. LR: You’re time working in the factory during World War II, that’s something that you definitely share with your family? AC: No. I don’t think they ever knew it. LR: Is there a reason why you didn’t talk about it? AC: I just forgot about it, I guess. LR: Is there anything else you’d like to add before we turn off the camera? AC: I don’t know whether we should even talk about it, but it’s in the other room. LR: What is that? AC: A newspaper clipping. Now that’s very old. LR: It’s only sixteen years old. So, you performed at the New Amsterdam Theatre on forty-second street in Times Square. 17 AC: Yes. LR: Florenz Ziegfeld staged his follies. So you danced. AC: Yes. Right after that Roxy Theatre became Radio City Music Hall. I didn’t qualify because my legs were too short and I was too short. LR: They were very particular, weren’t they? AC: You have to be because they became the Rockettes. LR: Your dancing was actually a really big deal for you. You were a founding member of the Jeep Posse Auxiliary? AC: Yeah. LR: Was that here in Bountiful? AC: Yes. The Auxiliary, the original Jeep Posse, they came here. They’re called Jeepettes now but they didn’t change the name. When the guys went to their meeting once a month, we’d get together. There’s only one who knew how to drive, so we’d go to a restaurant in Salt Lake. LR: You were a sharp shooter? AC: Yes. LR: What did you shoot? A rifle? AC: A twenty-two I guess it was. I missed being an expert by one point. That was because I was so proud of it I thought I could do it. I missed by a point. You had to hit twenty to be expert and I hit nineteen. That was in all the different positions – prone, kneeling, and standing. LR: You also opened your own gift shop. AC: Yeah. My husband did that. 18 LR: What was it called? AC: The Accent gift shop. At first we called it the Bookmark and then we changed the name to Accent. LR: How long did you guys have that business? AC: About three years. It was right out on the corner of Main and Center Street in Bountiful. LR: Where the Book Garden is now. AC: Yes, that’s why we called it the Bookmark at first. It was the same building. LR: I love that store. I go there all the time. You were also a bowler. AC: Oh that was fun. That was with a girl, she and I bowled. She was a better bowler than I was. Chaffee: What was your best score? AC: Oh mine was like 138, but she made the 150s. LR: You were very busy when you were a little younger. AC: I still am. I do everything that I’m allowed to do here. LR: That’s what you said, that everything that they do here you’re active in. Do you remember being a part of the Roxy Theatre? AC: Yes. LR: What kind of things would you do? Just dance? AC: Yeah, of course. Some of them were show girls, but we were dancers. The show girls were the ones with the big feathers and stuff. LR: How did you get involved in the sharp shooting with the National Rifle Association? What prompted that? 19 AC: Well I was still living where Carr printing was, and we were across the street from the National Rifle Association. Maybe he came in the printing office and I was there and waited on him or something like that. They were trying to get women into it. He said, “You’re pretty good.” I said, “I don’t know anything.” He said, “We’ll teach you.” And they did. His name was Lou Bernard. LR: I’m curious about the Jeep Posse. How did you get involved in that? AC: Cause my husband was one of the founding members. There was about eight or nine of them. Chaffee: Did you continue dancing after you had your kids, just for the fun of it? AC: Yes. My husband and I. He began to take dancing, but I had never had ballroom dancing. Then, when he started that, I went. LR: Sounds like you guys competed a little bit. AC: We did. I was not allowed to dance with my husband. LR: Why not? AC: Because they figured there might be a rapport between us. I think that must have happened because we had to go through three different tests. We got our certificates. There were seven of us that qualified to go to San Francisco to compete there and we did. There were seven of us that got there but there were only three of us that passed. There was my husband and I that passed and got our trophies, and the other one that passed, later married her instructor! That rapport! 20 LR: Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it. You’ve had a remarkable life. You’ve done some pretty fantastic things and I hope you know how much value your story has and how incredible it is. AC: I hope so. LR: Oh, absolutely. I feel very privileged to have been here and to be able to listen to your story and that you were willing to share it. I appreciate it.