Oral History Program Blanche C. Jansen Interviewed by Carla Jansen 18 May 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Blanche C. Jansen Interviewed by Carla Jansen 18 May 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Jansen, Blanche C., an oral history by Carla Jansen, 18 May 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Blanche Jansen. The interview was conducted on May 18, 1971 by Carla Jansen. Blanche Jansen was born on October 24, 1892 in Springville Utah where she spent her early life. After marrying she moved to Ogden where she has now spent the last fifty-three years of her life. In this interview we will discuss her early life in Springville and Ogden. CJ: What can you remember about Springville when you were small? BJ: Springville was a small town, not too many hundred people, or thousand people. We lived on a farm and did the work of farm children. CJ: What was your home and family like? BJ: I had a nice home with, well packed with children. There were nine of us in all, and we did the work that a farm required. CJ: Was there anything significant about your childhood? What was your school like and what were the subjects you took? BJ: The people in Springville were very nice, friendly people. They were very progressive. The first school I attended was the Sage Creek School or the First Ward. It was a one room affair with a big potbellied stove in the middle of the room. A blackboard was across the far end with an elevated—elevation or stage below it. The teacher’s desk was on this stage over which she presided. It seemed like she always wore a black dress, and as large as she was all I could see was the pointer she held in her hand. My desk was usually at the back of the room so I guess I didn't amount to much. I can remember her scolding the bad boys and making over the popular girls. What I learned, 1 I learned in fear. We learned our ABC's and all the consonants and we were good readers when we were in the second grade. Our numbers, as we called them, was arithmetic, which we learned to add, multiply, and divide. We also learned to sing many songs and recite many poems. One song was about Octobers Party, Oh We Are Little Dollies, the Wind, and one about snowflakes. And we sang it at a program made up stage in the Washington school. I wore a long white dress and cap and had our pictures taken which didn't impress me much because I caught my dress on the broken board, stumbled and fell. I was so humiliated. CJ: What kind of games did you play when you were a little girl? BJ: We played hopscotch, Guinea and other games. CJ: Can you remember anything that happened in your youth that was exciting? BJ: One morning my mother sent me three blocks down the street to Leighters store. It was a very small country store. I had a bucket of eggs to trade for groceries. I remember the excitement of it all so well. Because as I left the gate I crossed the sidewalk path into the street. I saw two horses and a buggy racing up the street. I hurried back onto the sidewalk as the horses ran by. My mother watching from the door called for me to be careful and not get run over. I hurried to the store, did my shopping and I was on the sidewalk going home more men on horseback with rifles and a wagon full of men with guns, went running by. One man in the wagon called out, "Springville bank had been robbed. We are after them! The next two hours were filled with excitement. Most of the men in the town road up to the mouth of Hobble Creek Canyon where the robbers had gone. S0me of the neighbors took their horses and buggies and followed. I remember the Berry family coming home calling, “They caught one, they killed one!” --meaning the 2 robbers. Our neighbor was shot in the leg by the robber he killed. It had to be amputated so he was given the $500 reward money. The robber who was killed, no one claimed his body and it was buried in the northwest corner of the Evergreen Cemetery. The kids all around immediately said the cemetery was haunted. This happened in May the 28th, 1898. I was not quite six years old. CJ: What was it like to be a teenager in those days? BJ: When I was a teenager we had many parties in the church, dances and then in our homes we had card games. I remember going to Salt Lake on the train to the Great Salt Lake Pavilion (Old Saltair). We danced, had our lunch, and had a wonderful time. These robbers belonged to the "Wild Bunch" or the Butch Cassidy Bunch. Maxwell was one of the robbers. My mother and father sent me to the BYU after I had finished High School. When I returned home I taught school for six years. And in that time the Springville art gallery was opened. I remember how hard we worked to buy pictures and to make it successful. I bought and paid for my piano. I made a month, eight months of the year. These six years of my life I crowded with school, parties and church work. CJ: When did you move to Ogden? BJ: I made several trips to Ogden to visit my oldest sister. And also trips to Brigham Canyon to visit another sister. I saw the Utah Copper mine when it was a Mountain and they were digging it down. Now it's the deepest hole in the world. I met my husband in Ogden and I came here to live. In 1920 we moved to the 13th ward. I've lived in this house to the present time of my life. CJ: What was the occupation of your husband? 3 BJ: My husband was a railroad man. He worked for the OUR&D company down at the station where the trains were many and work was required by everyone that could work. World War II—World War I was just completed and there were a lot of transportations going on, on the trains. I remember my husband going out on the Great Salt Lake at high water. The blocks of ice were so large that they almost knocked the piles out of the track across the lake. During World War II was a very busy time in the lives of everyone. In 1943 my husband passed away during the Second World War. This war took my son and my son-in-law into its ranks to fight. One fighting in the Pacific and one in the African area. There was a great depression before World War II where no one had a job, everyone was shabby and hungry. Men were busily walking up and down the streets looking for work. Nobody rode the buses. They didn't have any money to pay for it. There were many transients on the road. They used to come begging up into the city of Ogden and many a time I have fed them at the back door. I never turned anyone away hungry. The Second World War killed this depression then everybody was busy once more. CJ: What was life like in Ogden after the war? BJ: At this time the automobile became very prevalent. I remember the first one I ever saw. It was a Maxwell and owned by my brother-in-law. He came sailing into Springville one day with his family packed into this small car. Then they grew bigger and stronger and years later I was the owner of a 1927 Chevrolet. I always tried to look for the good things in life and I didn't see too much bad. But after my husband passed away I worked in a candy factory for a while then I went out to Hill Field to work for the government. Early Hill Field was not as large as it is today. Everybody was in a hurry trying to get to 4 work on time. We would get up— leave home at quarter to 5 and quarter to 6 in the mornings to get there at 7:00 and 7:30 shifts. CJ: Did you have planes there? BJ: Oh yes, they had many planes. They brought in all the war planes from World War II to be repaired and reconditioned for future use. I made many friends in my working years and also at church. Some of these people are my dearest friends and I love them all. CJ: What did your Ogden Street where you lived look like? BJ: The neighborhood in which I lived was not as well kept as it is today, because we've had to replace pavement, sidewalks and curb and gutter. The houses in the neighborhood were nice homes and nice people lived in them with children who were well behaved. While we had been living here my husband helped build a church upon the corner of Jackson and 23rd. They worked nights after they had worked hard all day long they worked pouring cement and putting up the walls and building the building. We had many happy times in this — in the recreation hall in this church and I appreciate it very much. CJ: What was downtown Ogden like at this time? BJ: It isn't changed too much. There’s a lot of building gone on in the suburbs and the city of Ogden is much larger. All the streets are paved, everybody has a car and a lot of other recreation. CJ: Were the stores the same? BJ: The stores, nearly all the stores were the same. A few have gone out of business but theirs been another one take its place. 5 CJ: How do you compare the youth today with the youth when you were young? BJ: Well, the youth when I was young we had to get out and work. When I came to Ogden all the boys and girls seemed like they found something to do, mowing lawns and helping their friends and neighbors. They were good in scouting same as they are now but children now don't appreciate what they have. Its mother and father that furnishes everything and not them. I guess they don't have time because they’re certainly busy with school and all the social things of life. CJ: Did you have draft riots and things like we have today? BJ: No we didn't have any riots at all. Everyone went to school, everyone was either in the band or the some other form of recreation. All the boys and girls marched around school and in the parks and because it was on exhibition and not a mob. They went to the parks to the ball games and I don't know what they do now. CJ: What do you think about our affluent society we've got now? Everybody has a boat and everybody drives a car. What do you think about that? BJ: Well, we didn't think anything of walking about three or four miles on a Sunday afternoon but now everybody has a car. Everybody goes to the canyon with a camper or boat to sail on the dame and the lakes— manmade lakes, and I don't know. Life seems so strenuous and everybody's in such a hurry. I wonder where they’re going. CJ: What did you do on your holidays? BJ: Well, we had a holiday on Monday, so we always, while the children were in school, we went for a ride. Sometimes we would leave on Saturday morning and go camping until Monday night. 6 CJ: What do you think of all the modern technology we have now, like the space ships and going to the moon? BJ: Well now the people are busy paying taxes to help men get to the moon. I often wonder if it will help this group of people out or not. Seems to me like we need to spend the money at home helping those who need help and helping to educate the ones that we have. CJ: In your day did you ever think of people going to the moon? Did you ever think it was possible? BJ: Well I used to look at the moon and wonder if they'd ever go there but I didn't think that it would ever be possible. CJ: Did you have electricity when you were a little girl? BJ: No, I think electricity was just coming into the country when I was a little girl, and I remember my father and mother had their house wired and when the lights came on we had a globe hanging from the middle of the room and when the lights came on they were so faint that we had to strike a match to see them. CJ: D0 you remember when the radio and the telephone and the TV came in? BJ: When the radio was invented I remember one of the boys had about a 100 yards of wire tangled up in the window attached to his bed springs so he could listen by ear. Everyone had headphones for the radio then and it wasn't like it is now. Then when the real good radios came, why there was a big antenna on top of everyone’s house, just like there is now for the TV's. I think TV's are alright if they put on programs that are worthwhile and are not misleading to the young people. 7 CJ: What was it like before you had the telephone? BJ: Well I remember the first telephone I had, here in the house. Everyone ran here to use it. My neighbor up the street had one and I used to go up there before we got one. But now everyone has a telephone it seems like. There are three in our house now and they're busy. CJ: Would you like to sum up for us now Mrs. Jansen? BJ: Yesterday we worked hard at home and in the fields. We didn't even have automatic appliances. We had a cooled cellar instead of a refrigerator, washboards and clumsy washing machines instead of electric ones. To think of it we didn’t even have electricity. We used oil lamps, we drove a horse instead of a car because we didn't have cars then. I have tried to make my life better each day. If we had had the knowledge yesterday that we have today perhaps we could have done better. Life in those days was hard and trying but we learned to obey and honor our parents. Because they demanded it and I didn't hurt us at all. This is denied of the children today because parents of today are living the social laws of today. Mrs. Jansen is old and her mind wanders a lot so some of her thoughts are incomplete and mixed up. She was also very inhibited when talking into the microphone so some of her thoughts were not complete and she didn't tell a lot of the things she had told me before the interview. 8