Oral History Program Ralph Johansen Interviewed by Marvin Hansen 14 September 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ralph Johansen Interviewed by Marvin Hansen 14 September 1972 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: Johansen, Ralph, an oral history by Marvin Hansen, 14 September 1972, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an interview of Ralph Johansen by Marvin Hansen on September 14, 1972 for the Weber State College Oral History program. This interview is being conducted at Ralph Johansen’s home at 1465 7th street Ogden, Utah at 10 A.M. MJ: I was wondering, if you could tell me a little bit about your background where you were born and raised if you could. RJ: I would be glad too. I was born and raised in Weber County going to grade school, junior high school, and Ogden High School. My early life was spent picking beans and fruit where D.D.O. is now located. When I was going to high school, I worked at a brick yard during the summer vacations from high school to toughen up for the football season. This was hard work and the pay was very low. After graduating from high school, I was called on a L.D.S. mission and about two years later to Denmark. I spent from March of 1938 to October of 1939 there. I witnessed the war build up that Hitler was doing at that particular time. MH: How did this happen? RJ: We noticed several places being sand bagged and there were several ships in the harbor being painted a camouflage color. We noticed the tension of the people, we noticed that food was getting scarce in Europe at that time. Shoes were hard to obtain and clothing was much harder. Everything seemed to be going to the military. This was the Denmark and the German military. I was stationed in a little town which was right next to the Queal Canal country of Germany. MH: Was there any other things over there that you noticed? 1 RJ: When I was evacuated from Europe we were obliged to go up through Norway and then through the Shetland Islands and then home, we noticed several mines floating in the water that had been planted by German war ships. Occasionally we noticed German aircrafts in the air. The little town on the coast of Denmark just before you leave England had already been bombed. So you could say that we barely got out just in time. MH: Was there anything else that you noticed over In Europe at this time? RJ: Only that the people were very tense and very apprehensive. Proselyting was very difficult at this time. MH: How long after you left was Denmark taken? RJ: Denmark in and of itself was never taken. Denmark had an underground movement that thwarted all the German resistance. Norway was invaded, and that was shortly after we left. MH: You mentioned that you were on the ship coming home. Did you see any other things than mines coming home? RJ: On the way home there were several people that had been visiting at this particular time and especially Germany and Austria, Switzerland and the like; and they were glad to get out of that country. I made friends with a little German youth and tried to teach him English on the way hone. We became very fast friends. So there were a lot of people evacuating these countries. In fact there were hundreds of them. MH: On your way hone did you see many changes? RJ: Well, there isn't much to see on a wide open ocean; and all you see is other ships flying back and forth and some leaving America and some going to Europe and others coming 2 from Europe to America. We were obliged to come home on a very tiny ship compared to the one we went on to our mission field. In America, after we reached here we noticed the hustle and bustle. After I was home from my mission, I married a young lady from Davis County, and my first job was at the Dee Hospital. I was a reception clerk, you might say, or an admitting clerk. There I admitted people to the hospital for their operations and assigned them their rooms, and we noticed that there were more people being operated on and more people having babies than prior to the war, possibly because there was just more tension and people were more ill at ease. They figured that they had better have these things done while they could. There were of course, fewer doctors to do these particular things. MH: Did you notice any preparation for war when you were at home? RJ: There was some preparation. Shoes were hard to obtain and there were certain kinds of restrictions on certain types of food. I suppose that you had to get them with these food stamps that were issued at that particular time. It wasn't long after I was married that D.D.O. was started and Hill Field was started. I mentioned that I had spent many hours in the fields where D.D.O. is now located. I used to pick beans for several Japanese families that had their farms in that area. MH: How did they feel when D.D.O. came in? RJ: Well l suppose that they felt quite badly because many of these people, that was the only livelihood that they had ever known that of a truck farmer and a grower of beans. Then property was taken over by the government and I suppose that they were reimbursed I don't know exactly. Some of them I think fared pretty well and others did not fare quite so well. I worked for Japanese people and many of those people were 3 sent to concentration centers where they were watched 24 hours a day. This happened to be in Toole Lake, California. MH: Did you notice any other change? RJ: With the advent of D.D.O. that brought new families to the community and new housing areas were being developed and homes were at a premium to obtain a home to live in. As far as the economy was concerned, we didn't notice too much of a pinch because my wife was raised on a farm and her daddy provided us with meat, eggs, and the staple items of life. MH: You didn't notice the pinch that some of the people were in? RJ: Not as much as some people might have. MH: Did you serve any time in the Army? RJ: Yes; it was while I was working at the Dee Hospital in Ogden that I was an admitting clerk that I was drafted into the Army Air Corp. I spent my training in Shepard Field, Texas. Shepard Field was a huge base, and it was quite rugged. It was new to any of us and, of course older kids that took it in stride. The young recruits were quite disappointed with their surroundings. We had army barracks where there were a hundred or more men in each barracks. We had to stand in line to shower. I shall never forget that. The thing that I disliked most was having to stand in line in the rain to be fed. It seemed to be that we were in the army just to hurry up and wait. The basic duties that I had in the Army was that I was the company clerk for several months. My duties were to prepare the duty roster for the men with the aid of the commanding officer. I was in 4 charge of the sick book. I even attempted to prepare a pay roll along with the staff sergeant who knew more about it than I did. MH: Did you run into many problems? RJ: I suppose the biggest problem that I ever had was the army pay roll and the use of punctuation marks, which is a no-no. The first pay roll that I ever prepared came back three times before they paid on it. It was then that some of the men were quite mad and they were just about to hang me from some of the rafters in the hangers in the field. MH: Was there any other problems besides this? RJ: No more than the usual. I was a little disturbed when we had to drill so much, but I took it in stride and made the best of it like most men do. MH: Were you building any new air bases in Louisiana at all? RJ: Actually, the bases were built, but they were very crude and very primitive I would say. We were a trainer squadron. We trained men for their various duties in the other outfits attached to the Air Corp. We conducted aptitude tests and those that showed an interest toward radio were sent to radio school. We sought after men who were supposedly more daring than the rest of us and could become gunners. They went to gunner school in Texas which was another air field. MH: What other duties were you assigned after basic training? RJ: I was assigned as a company clerk after my basic training. MH: You mentioned that you were going to go into intelligence at one time. 5 RJ: Because of my ability to speak a foreign language, I was interviewed for Intelligence school. My Interview was quite simple. They asked if my parents were foreign born and I told them that my father was. They asked me if he was sympathetic towards the German movement, and of course he was not, I emphasized that he wasn't. I was able to speak Danish fluently and Norwegian and Swedish, and because of my being stationed in this little town Flintsberge, I was able to clear myself in the German language. Very rarely could they find a young man except L.D.S. missionaries that could speak a different language that were in the army or the air force at this particular time. They were quite open with their remarks and they told us what our obligations would be and what we would be expected to do for the government. Some of our obligations were to seek out the enemy the best we could, we were told that we would probably be dropped behind enemy lines. We were to adapt ourselves to their living conditions. We were in reality to be as near like a native of that country as possibly as we could. Upon my interview I was also asked to have a physical examination, and it was there that I was found to have an ulcer. MH: How did you feel about this? RJ: I felt that this was a good opportunity to raise up into the ranks. I was a little unhappy at the time. MH: How did you feel about being dropped behind the German lines? RJ: I rather welcomed it. I thought it would be a good experience. I was young then. MH: What happened after they found out that you had an ulcer? 6 RJ: I was given a medical discharge, without a pension by the way. On returning to Utah, I again went back to the Dee hospital but the salary was much lower than I could get along with so I was obliged to seek other employment. From the Dee hospital I went to the Royal Bakery where I worked on the ovens, and the pay was considerably better. MH: What was it like when you came back home? Did you notice any changes? RJ: Everything seemed to be humming, and the war was gaining more momentum in Europe, and America was preparing the best they could for their defense. MH: What was Ogden like at this time? RJ: Ogden was a bustling community. There was a lot of people that had moved in. There was a lot of employment in the defense centers, Hill Field was buzzing, and Second Street was buzzing. MH: Did you notice much growth as far as the population goes? RJ: Yes, there was considerable growth because of the influx of new people. It was necessary to build several government housing areas. Bonneville Park was one, and we lived here. They were made out of cement blocks, and I thought that they were quite inadequate. It was the only thing available at that particular time. MH: What do you estimate the city to grow from to what in population? RJ: It seemed to me that Ogden had a population of 45 to 50 thousand people. I suppose that if you took in all of these outlying areas like Hill Field, who had a housing center and Bonneville Park, it would probably grow to 75 to 80 thousand people. MH: Did you notice any price change in property and food? 7 RJ: Prior to going into the service the homes were selling around 4000 to 5000 dollars; and after we got home, they were going for ten to eleven thousand dollars. MH: What are some of the reasons for this? RJ: I don't know but I thought it was quite unfair. I suppose in order to obtain their money out of them, the builder had to charge that much because he was paying higher salaries to his workers. Of course there were new bases being built all over the United States and lumber had to go to build these bases to accommodate these service men. Lumber was hard to come by, and plumbing equipment was hard to come by and electrical equipment. I suppose that these government bases had top priority which is only right. MH: You mentioned working for Royal Bakery, I was wondering what it was like working with them? RJ: It was a sweat shop to be honest with you. I worked on the ovens, and it was hard work. The lifting and the stooping wasn't too good on the stretching of the stomach ulcer so I left there, and like any other man I wanted something that would suit my health as well as making a little bit more money. I went to work as a salesman for the Morning Milk Company. They were good people to work for. They provided me with a car which I could also use for my leisure as well as my business, also, because gas was rationed and cars were hard to come by. This was a very handy item at this time. MH: You said you were a salesman so what was your job? RJ: Actually my job was to visit the wholesaler. I would sell him a car load of milk or two car loads of milk or whichever he needed. Then after selling him, I visited the retail trade and there I would try to attain a prominent spot for my product. In addition to visiting the 8 retail trade, the morning milk was known for their special morning milk for infant feeding. So I also visited doctors and hospitals and told them of the quality of Morning Milk and sold them on the idea that if a person or mother could not breast feed her baby, then they should use special Morning Milk. MH: How big of an area did you have to sell in? RJ: I worked from Ogden to Downey, Idaho on the north and Rock Springs, Wyoming on the east and Layton, Utah to the south. MH: Did you notice many changes between states as compared to Ogden? RJ: I don't think so. I think that most of those people left those areas and came to Ogden. I know that there was and is yet a bus that commutes from Cache Valley every day of the week except Saturday and Sunday that brings people to defense depot Ogden now. MH: After you left Morning Milk, where did you go after that? RJ: After the Morning Milk Company, I thought that I would cash in on the G.I. bill of rights. I was given the opportunity by the manager of Wangsguards to become a meat cutter. MH: You mentioned the G.I. bill of rights how did this help you? RJ: I think that the Bill of Rights in my instance was quite a farce. My employer told me one evening “Why don't we chuck these bill of rights and I will make up the difference in salary to you?” MH: Why did he say this to you? RJ: I suppose that it was that I was working so many long hours that I didn't have time to go to school in reality. I use to work ten and twelve hours a day. 9 MH: Go to school, what do you mean by this? RJ: There were certain things that you had to go to school. You had to learn sanitation, and you had to learn how to bone out a beef. You had to learn how to cut a round steak and how to break down a beef for the various cuts like pot toasts and rump roasts, round steaks and the like. They taught me this at Wangsguards. It was on the job training right there. There was certain amount of book learning that you had to do as well. MH: The G.I. bill of benefits should have checked on you. RJ: They should have, but they never did. MH: You mentioned that your employer was going to pay you for what the G.I. bill of rights was paying you? RJ: That's right. He was going to make up the difference, but he never did. So after four years of learning my apprenticeship and not getting any more in salary, I left the meat cutting trade. I had taken a civil service examination for railway mail service. In October of 1950 I did enter the railway mail service. MH: What was it like after World War II? Was there wind-down in the economy or was it still going strong, and were jobs as easy to find? RJ: Everybody expected a wind-down in the economy, but I don't think that it has occurred yet. There seems to be just as many people employed at Second Street as there was then, and there seems to be even more at Hill Field. MH: Why do you think that this was? RJ: I don't know. I would like to know the answer. 10 MH: You mentioned working for the brick yard. What was it like before the war to work in Ogden? RJ: Jobs were not too plentiful. We really had to look around for a job. They were hard to come by. We were glad to get almost any type of employment being new out of high school and the like. MH: Was the pay high then? RJ: The pay was quite low. We got 33 cents per hour. We felt lucky because we were taking home maybe $125 to $130 dollars a month when other people were on W.P.A. MH: How did you feel about these work projects? RJ: Some of the people seemed to earn their money then as they do now, but others it was just a picnic for them. They were scoffed at quite a bit by the citizenry... I think sometimes it was justifiably so. Some people would like to have everything given to them. MH: Is there anything else that you would like to add? RJ: I think not. MH: I would like to thank you for contributing to the Weber State College Oral History Program. 11