Oral History Program Bertha Larimore Interviewed by Pam Wilson 27 November 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Bertha Larimore Interviewed by Pam Wilson 27 November 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. 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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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Bertha Larimore, an oral history by Pam Wilson, 27 November 1972, 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 Bertha Larimore. The interview was conducted on November 27, 1972, by Pam Wilson, in the location of Mrs. Larimore’s home at 5130 South 2175 West in Roy. Mrs. Larimore discusses her career and personal experiences with writing and literature. PW: This is an interview of Bertha Larimore, by Pam Wilson, on November 27, 1972 for the Weber State College Oral History Program. This interview is being conducted at Mrs. Larimore's home at 5130 South 2175 West in Roy at 8:10 PM in the evening. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Mrs. Larimore, your childhood and your parents. BL: Well, I was born in Blanding, Utah, which is in the southern part of Utah; a little Mormon community. It was just a normal childhood, you might say. My parents were the kind of parents in which you felt, well I always felt a great sense of security in my early childhood. My parents, we didn't have a lot, but we had the necessities and everything that we needed. My mother was the kind of person who could sew and make, we had nice clothes because she could sew. We maybe didn't have as much money as some people, but we had nice clothes. My father was a cattleman and he was gone quite a bit, so I didn't really know my father as well as some children might. We always got a little homey when he came to town, it was always a great event. I remember that my mother would always cook the things that he liked the best, fried chicken, lemon pie, and it was always quite an event. My mother, I always remember how much I depended on my mother that is in my own mind. I always had the feeling that she could fix anything or do anything. No matter what kind of a problem I had, I always felt that my 1 mother could correct it. I think that I grew up with this sense of security and I think it has carried over in my adult life. I feel that it was a very, very important part of my life. PW: That is interesting to hear about that. BL: I might mention the way that I felt about her, when I was maybe eight or ten, I had an aunt that sent me a beautiful red hat for Easter, and I thought that this was the most beautiful hat that I had ever seen in my entire life. I would wear it to Sunday School, and after Easter I wore it every Sunday. This one Sunday I wore it to Sunday School and when I came home, there was a large canal of water down below our place (we lived on the edge of town) and, of course on Sunday we were not allowed to go out on those kind of places in our Sunday clothes. But somehow I did go with some of the older children and a gust of wind did come up and whip this hat off into this muddy canal of water. I was heartbroken but one of the older children fished it out with a stick, and I took this hat, if you can imagine pretty red velvet trimmed in white, but I knew that if I could get that hat to my mother, she could fix it. I ran home crying with this red hat and, of course, that is one thing that she couldn't fix. My mother really gave me a sense of security. PW: That is great. Speaking of your mother, just in relation to your writing, did she do any reading to you when you were young? BL: Oh yes, she always read stories, and we always had story books, the usual. She always read us a story at night. PW: Can you remember any of the stories or names or titles? 2 BL: Well, just the general, the nursery stories, you know, those type. Then as I got older, then of course I read my own. My father was not formally educated. He only went to the fourth grade but he was really a very well educated man. He was very well informed in American and English literature. He had many books. I remember seeing The Lady of the Lake and these type of things in literature books. He liked to read. He was very well informed politically and social problems, even though he was gone a lot. He was a very refined man and at one time there was some archaeologist from the Smithsonian Institute that came to southern Utah and my father went out with them for several weeks because of being a cattleman, he knew the country very well. When they came back in, this one man told me, his name happened to be Mr. Smith, I was a little older then, maybe twelve or thirteen, and he said your father is a very well educated man, if he had had a formal education he could have been an historian, I remember this. He was very much for education and wanted his children to have education. He was ten years older than my mother and, of course, in those days, and in that country sometimes you just didn't have the education. He was very well educated. I always think of that saying "People will always bring themselves to their own level whether it is by formal education or otherwise" and he certainly did. PW: That is great. Now as far as not only in your childhood, but continuing on, what kind of reading background do you have? BL: Well, I suppose just a normal reading background. I always liked to read and I always read magazines and books and when I went to school I had a very good education, even though it was a country town we had the several grades. It wasn't one of these all grades in a room, you know. We had good schools, and we had good teachers, and 3 they were very strict. I, maybe I sound like I am bragging a little bit, but I feel that I am almost equal to anyone as far as the background I have had in reading, spelling, and this sort of thing. These teachers taught us this way, the old way, and we did learn to spell, and we did learn to read and we did learn words and we were just taught that way. Of course, then we didn't have what you call speed reading, but yet we had a tough reading class where we would read then he would question us on it. Comprehensive, understanding of the subject. With this I feel really fortunate of having such an extremely good background, top through the grades, up through the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades and up through there. I feel that this was very important in life. Why, because later on they didn't, they kind of switched to this other way of teaching and I don't think that it was really as effective. I believe in going back to the old way which seems to be more effective. PW: Did you go into college at all? BL: Yes, I went to Business College and I had some college too. I, of course in business college, I had typing and shorthand and this sort of thing. In college I took journalism classes and human relation classes and the things that I wanted to take. I took the understanding of words and writing and things like that. Then of course I took classes in education counseling, but this all ties in. PW: Now you said that your profession is in education counselling. BL: I am an education counselor for the military at Hill Air Force Base. PW: I see. 4 BL: I counsel the people that we send to school, high school, college. We have a large group that go to Weber every quarter. A large enrollment. I counsel those, I counsel everybody from high school graduates to officers working on their PhD's, master degrees, I have no difficulty, this is what I have done for the past five or six years. It is very interesting. PW: That sounds like it is very interesting. Has that helped you in your writing at all? BL: Well, I think that everything helps you in your writing. I haven't used it in my writing as such. I think that my writing has maybe helped me in that. Everything I have I use in my counseling situations. Of course, it is sometimes fellows that we counsel and some of our problems are with non-high school graduates which are young fellows. Some of them have problems and some of think they have problems and they really don't and I have been able to establish a very good working relationship with them because of my background and two boys of my own. I always say that regardless of what the problem is as far as school is concerned, I think I have had it, because of my own experience with my own boys or friends, or just general experience it has helped. As far as my writing is concerned I don't know, but I feel that every experience you have helps you with your writing. When I was in High School, I did a little writing but I mostly did poetry. I always remember when I was in high school we had a writing contest in one of our English classes and we had to write a Christmas poem and the winner would have, the winner's poem would be published in the county paper. So I wrote a Christmas poem and my best girlfriend who couldn't write anything at all said, "Now write me one". So I wrote her one. So I won first and she won second. She always said, what if I won first and got my poem published and you won second. I guess my first writing, this same 5 girlfriend and I decided to write a story, several years before that. Just a real, real fiction story. So we did. This was our first attempt. She had an aunt that, who was a school teacher who had moved down from Salt Lake, so she read the story for us and corrected it for us, you know. I think she really thought that it was funny, she really laughed. But she assured us that it was very, very good. PW: And that was the first thing that you can remember writing? BL: Well, no. My first with this same girlfriend, well there were three of us and we ran around together and we were a little mischievous sometimes and we went to Primary. The president of the Primary was rather a stem lady so she told us one day that we were all going to write a poem and that they were going to set it to music, or that we were to set it to music. Now they were going to put it to music and sing it to the Stake Primary president as a tribute when she came to visit. So she asked us all to compose for her and then we were going to sing them and try them out. Then they would select the best one. So these two girlfriends and myself, we wrote one. I don't know if I dare say it or not. This lady's name was Mrs. Perkins, Corniela, and her husband’s name was Dan. So we made up this song to the tune, well I don't know just what the tune was, there was kind of an old fashioned old song. The poem was, “Corniela Perkins, she was a big sap. One hot summer day she sat on Dan's lap. Around her he put a big hairy arm, a little more whiskey would do us no harm." Needless to say, the Primary president was shocked out of her shoes. She was completely horrified, and of course, this is what we intended for her to be. The rest of the children just went into hysterics. Of course, we weren't banished, we were about eleven I think about then. I can't say that I am very proud of that one. 6 PW: It was a good beginning. BL: That was our beginning. I wrote many, many poems and I always wrote them in my school books all the way up through school. You know we bought our books and then sell them the next year to other students. My books always brought a premium, everybody wanted them because they were so entertaining. In the old history books, especially, they would always, you know, have a picture and then on the back page it was a slick white blank. I always had it filled in with poetry and various things, and humorous things so everybody always wanted to have my books because they thought that they were so entertaining. PW: That is real great. As you began to write, was there a writer that you admired in particular. BL: I don't think so, I don't think that I wanted to write because of that. In fact, I really didn't know that I wanted to write. It is strange, I never was encouraged, I never had the feeling that I was going to write, I never thought about it consciously that I wanted to write. I just always did it through high school, these humorous things, and then if I wrote anything serious, I was a little embarrassed about it, you know, even like this high school one that was published. I felt very embarrassed about it even when people congratulated me on it, I didn't even think about doing anything. I didn't even keep my writings. It was just one of those things that I sort of did. Then I didn't do any for a long time after I was married for quite a few years. I didn't really think about it. Just suddenly, I got this terrible urge, a compelling urge to write. But I really didn't let it come to the surface. I guess if I thought about it I subconsciously said I would never do a thing like that, but it just kept setting stronger, and stronger, and stronger. 7 PW: Have you ever had a preference to your reading? BL: Well, no I can't say that I do. Oh I just read everything. I think I liked fiction very much although I liked nonfiction too. I can't say that I really did. PW: You mentioned that you wrote a lot of humor. Were you ever attracted to reading humor? BL: Yes, I liked humor, I read humor, I enjoyed that very much. But I liked serious reading too. I think I probably enjoyed serious reading more than I did humor. It is hard to say, I was always reading. PW: I like your beginning. Whenever you are reading something, what is it that makes you want to go on and finish your reading rather than just drop it, or give up on it? BL: Well, if it is fiction, you naturally want to know what the ending is. If it is nonfiction, if it is something instructive or something you want to find out, you want to see how it ends. I read now differently than I used to though, I read much more critically. I read for, not only for content but the way it is written. Now I might mention that, before I was an education counselor, I was an editor in publications for two years on the base. I can justify, I read very, very critically on everything that I read. I can pick up a paper and I cannot even read it and if there is an error on it, it will just jump right out. Things that come from, well oh yesterday in church, I noticed that one of the hymns that had the plural with the singular which it shouldn't have, and I pointed it out to my daughter and she said, "only you would see that". So I read very critically, and I guess maybe too critically sometimes. PW: In your opinion, what is the greatest quality that a writer can have? 8 BL: Oh dear, that is a very… PW: Or qualities? BL: A writer, or writings of a writer? PW: A person. BL: A person who is writing. Well, I am not an expert. It is just I feel that you have to feel what you are writing, you have to see what you are writing. I see everything I write as If it were on the screen before me. I doesn't matter what it is, I can visualize it as a movie whether it is fiction or nonfiction. I think you do really have to feel it to be able to write. PW: Then you are saying too, you need to know it, you need to know what you are writing? BL: Well, you don't need to know it from actual experience, no. I think you have to have a very good imagination and you have to be able to project yourself to feel something even though you have never ever experienced it. I don't really know how to say it. PW: I think I am understanding what you are saying, are you saying that you imagine, like if it is a movie picture in front of you, you are imagining to that degree? BL: I see everything. I see everything I write. It is just as if the characters, this is in my mind of course, it is not a conscious thing but it is there, I can see it, I can visualize it. I think you have to visualize it and I understand that some writers can't do this, they can't visualize. To me I think it is a very great asset. PW: Oh, yes. BL: Everything, and I think you have to hear everything. Everything I hear is in terms of writing, everything I see is in terms of writing. Where a Painter, everything he sees is in 9 terms of painting. Of course I have taken up painting in the last two years. So I can also see things in terms of painting. When you look at a mountain, you can see it in terms of words, describing it. It is very hard to put into words what I am thinking, but I keep getting back to visualize and projecting a thought you might say. To me it is very important. PW: OK. Well, now in your own writing, as you are visualizing, do you visualize as you write or before you write? BL: Well, I really don't know how to answer that. You always think about it. Now you are talking about fiction or a novel or a story or something. Because when you are talking about facts, facts are facts for articles, and I do those too. But I prefer fiction, I prefer to do that. Although this book isn't fiction, I have done two novels, and… PW: What are your novels called? BL: Well, they always change the titles when they are published, they are not published. One I titled it At the Foot of the Hill, but whether that will be the title or not, that is a serious novel. Then I have had two humorous units, things that I am working on, I am supposed to be working on them, I am not doing very much right now. But, you sort of think of these sort of things, they are just there. You write them. I know this one novel I worked on, to me those people are just as real as you are. It is not fiction to me, it is real. I have worked on those people, I can see them, and all the things that they did. It is just as plain as if it actually happened to me. So if the, I guess you think about it you kind of see it, and as you write it you kind of see it again. It is hard to explain but I remember reading an article one time in a writer’s magazine that was speaking of this and mentioned that some writers can't visualize. I thought how strange, to me that is 10 very important. It is something that is just there. It is not something that I just developed, or something that I cultivated, it is just there. It is part of the writings as far as I am concerned. PW: That is quite a talent. Wish I had it. Do you feel that writers in general need to experiment with different styles of writing? BL: Different styles have worn, like of articles, you don't mean like articles, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, novels, humor or just different styles of one type of writing. PW: Well, it might be better if you answered both. BL: Well, as far as style, I don't think that is something that if you try to cultivate a style consciously, I think it would probably would show, I think that each person probably will have his own way. It is something that I have never thought about consciously or done, I just do what I feel like doing and that is the way it is. I am sure it would be interesting and helpful for an experiment if you wanted to. I don't feel that I want to. I feel like I have to do things the way that it just comes naturally, you might say. Then just improve in what I have done. I like to do humor very much. I enjoy that and think I do that as well as anything. Yet, I can do very serious things. The story I sold Teemex in May was a humorous story, but I thought a lot on it and I quite enjoyed it. Speaking, going back to this visualizing, I could never have written that if I hadn't had a very keen sense of wellbeing able to visualize very well because these things just popped into my mind when they come into my mind I could see them and I just start myself planning it. I wrote this story and yet if I am serious, I do a very, very serious one. I won third place in the writers contest. It was in the Utah Writers contest this last September which has been accepted by an agent for sale now. I don't know if he will sell it, but it is so completely 11 different. So it just depends on your sense of humor. I couldn't write that in a different style, I could only write that in one style, I could only write humor in one style because that is me and my way, where someone else may do it completely a different way. PW: Now you mentioned that you write articles, as you write articles and you are with this critical quality you have, as you are rewriting how many times do you feel like you have rewritten things sometimes, do you feel like that is an important part. BL: Oh yes. It is very important, I think, because each time you read it over if you put it aside for a while, you can see something that you can improve. A little change of word, or leave something out. I don't know if all writers are like I am, but I think we are. We get very attached to what we write. We can hardly bear to part with any of it. We think that it is very great and after you put it away for a while and bring it back, you think, what in the world did I do that for. Going back to this story I wrote, then I read it to a writers group that I belong to. Someone pointed out that there was one instance in the story that was very, very funny but it really didn't belong there. It was just like an extra arm sticking up. I thought that is so good that I couldn't possibly remove that. But I did, I took her comment and read it over and then I took it out and tied it in together and sold the story immediately. So it does help to be critical and I feel that this group that I belong to is very good in reading things, you have got to be able to take criticism and not take everything that people say. In one story that I have this agency maintained that this was a novel and this is not what I had. This could not happen, this should not be in there. I said well, it shouldn't, it is true, polite. I am from the country and my father was a cattleman, and I know that it is to do with this sort of thing and I was insistent in leaving it in. Later the agent in fact said you are right. We will leave this in. So you have to be 12 able to accept criticism, and critically evaluate it yourself and not blindly accept everything that people say. Well you should take this out and you should put that in. Some writers do this. They get so torn between what to accept and what not to accept. But I am able to listen to what people say and then do as I please. PW: That is interesting. That was going to be my next question, what help you have received in criticism and in cutting? Can you think of any other instances maybe that you could mention? BL: No I don't because I don't really let anyone see my work usually. I do it myself. I think that it is far better because it is like they say, if you have friends and relatives, and you have people read this to criticize it for you, they are usually so torn jealously that they say that it is no good or they are so lined with love that they say it is perfect so it doesn't help. So I do go to some of the writers meetings, I haven't gone for several years. I felt it could help me with some of the journalism classes I took down to the college helped. Because we would read things and get not another writer's view point as much as another reader's view point. Then you could evaluate this and do it yourself. Most of my things I don't read to anyone, I just do them. I put them aside and re-evaluate them later. PW: How do you feel about writing as a career? BL: You mean a career for money? PW: Well, maybe not even for yourself, but as a career, well for yourself and for other people that are going into it as a means of income? 13 BL: As an exclusive career and not anything else? I think it is just marvelous if a person has that much talent and can do it, I don 't really feel that I, I just don't know if I could do that because I have never put that much into it. Really I am not qualified to stats, because I am not really a writer. One tree doesn't make the barest here. Oh, I have done other things, but I think that I really admire people that can do it and I think it is a wonderful talent. I am sure that I could do much more if I just get down to business and do it. I really have spread myself kind of thin. I haven't done as much writing as I am capable of doing, I know this. PW: Do you feel that this kind of interferes with family life to try to sit down and try hard to work at writing? BL: When I had my family home, I started this writing when they were still home and I would simply go in the bedroom in the evening and do this writing. I would have lots of time, and I didn't feel that I could put in the time that I wanted to, and the time that I needed to because it did take from the family. If you have a husband that is just around, but I had one that is always doing quite a bit of running around doing other things and then he took up skiing with the children. I had a bad leg and I had to stay home and write, while he went skiing and things like this, I would just sandwich my time. It does interfere with them, if you are seriously going into it, if you are really seriously going into it in a really serious way, I think it would be a little difficult unless you are just doing it on the side, I was working too. I was working and it was hard to try to do very much. PW: What do you think of contemporary literature, today? BL: Well, I think some of it is good and some of it isn't. I don't really feel qualified to really criticize it. I know what I like, I know the things that I like I still like to read everything. I 14 just don't have enough time to read is my problem now. I really don’t have enough time to read all the things I would really like to read. So I really don't feel that I am in a position to really criticize it. Maybe I probably should be. PW: Are you acquainted with other people that are actually writers. BL: Yes, I belong to the Utah Writers and the Utah State Reporter Society, and the Quills, the Armed Forces Writers league, and all these people write. There are some of them that have published books, stories, plays, but there are many of them that are professional full-time writers. PW: How do they feel about writing? BL: Well, they are very good, I think they all feel about the same. It is a very important part of our lives. It is not something that we just go choose to do. I don't feel that I went out and chose to write. It is something I had to do. I can't really explain it, but when we were living in California and I was, it was just this naming thing that just kept coming back and coming back and coming back. Then I started to make a few notes in the back of my mind thinking about it and I said, oh well, you never could do that. Then we moved up here and after a year or two I got brave enough to go down to Weber College to take same classes. I got myself started and it is something that all writers, it is something that is about first in their line. You just feel an urge to do it, so you do it. PW: What kind of writing have you done recently? BL: You mean before, when I did the book or…? PW: Yeah. 15 BL: Well, I haven't done as much as I should have done. I sort of had it, something happen in my life to stop me for a while, but I think I will get back to it again. I had published ray real first story on teenagers, a humorous story. And my husband suddenly had a fatal heart attack and this sort of stopped me for a while. I haven't been able to write for quite a long time, and I am just starting to get back into it. I think if I could get this book done, which is one consolation, I could of kind of summarize it and that would kind of get me in the mood again which I think it has. A couple of years I tried to write a little, but I just simply couldn't do it. I thought that if it continues I would do some painting which I wanted to do. I think that all the arts are related, although I thought I could never paint, even though I had this ability, I found that I could paint. Which reminds me, I did read some years ago an article how inter-related we are. It started these names of these, oh I wish I kept this article, I wish I could remember it, but it was about this famous king that had a son that was a great mathematician and this great mathematician would have a son which was a writer and this great writer might have a daughter who was a great musician and so on showing that we are interrelated, I think that if this hadn't happened, I think I could have done much more with my writing, this kind of stopped me for a while. I have, I had a novel, I had two novels. I had two humorous books, and various articles and always getting ideas and jolting them down. I have a file cabinet full of things. PW: What is the greatest difficulty you find in writing? BL: Well, right now it is time. My greatest difficulty is time. In fact it has always been that. When I had my family, my family would be home and then I would be careful on time. I am working and so now I am doing a few things. I am helping to promote a book and 16 things like that. I enjoy my painting even though I haven't done any of that for years. It is just finding the time, finding as much time as I would want to write. PW: Have you ever felt that you would like to give up your job to write a book, or to find time? BL: No. I don't think I am ready to do that. I don't want to be alone that much yet. I thought I would even work the Holiday. Saturday and Sunday are okay but if I have the holiday, they are at a time that I am not doing it, even though I could. I just can't be home alone, I need this job. It is very, very good for me to work with people. I enjoy it very much. It is very good that I have a job to go to. I don't think, I think sometimes your job is quite a comfort. PW: What advice would you give to a young writer? BL: Well, just to write. Start writing, and not be discouraged and not care too much what other people say about it, but to do it. Write the things that you feel like doing, the things you want to do and I would say not to broadcast your writing. Don’t show it to a lot of people or read it to a lot of people except to people in writing classes, or maybe a group now and then. I feel that you lose a lot of the impact of your writing this way and another thing, not to talk about it before you write it, or tell people about it or discuss it with them. Your thoughts, your ideas, I think you will lose very much of the impact of the whole thing. I would also say to always write down every thought that comes into your mind that you think you are going to use for writing because if you don't you are going to lose it, you can never remember it and sometimes it won't come back the same as it did the first time. Get it down, all the thoughts you can on paper. PW: Do you do that yourself? 17 BL: Yes I do. I have little scraps of paper that you can't believe. I will be sitting in church, or I will be at work and a thought will just flash into my mind thoughts, or somebody will say something that reminds me of something else, and I just grab a scrap of paper and jot it down and I put it into a folder when I get home. I have folders labeled different things that I am writing. I think that your subconscious really works for you in writing. I know that it does for me. These things that pop into your mind then when you get them on paper, then you begin to think about writing them. The stories that I did, I am told has just been a chance, a remark that someone made just clicked. A novel that I have is the same way, just one thing like that. Then it just grows and grows and I folder that I just keep writing things down and dropping them in. Then I sit down and cross it off. I don’t do that. PW: Do you find yourself with writing as you go or do you kind of follow an outline? BL: Well, it sort of depends. I think you can do it both ways. I think you can start with kind of an outline, but you would maybe have to let it grow in some way. You may be able to follow the outline, or you might invent, as you say, or imagine, or fictionally something to make it do better. But I think things just kind of fall into place more or less as you go along. PW: Would you encourage people trying to write, to read anything in particular while they are writing? BL: Oh people, I don't think it makes any difference really. You mean along the line in which you are writing, or more things, or just anything? PW: Just anything. 18 BL: Oh yes, I think that you just don't sit down and write something, at least I don't. I write a little bit and think about it and write same more. Oh you have your general idea, you just dash off your outline or something. I read every day. I read on my lunch hour. I am very anti-social on my lunch hour, I jealously guard every minute of it. People at work did invite me to go to lunch with them but I declined. They felt that I didn't like them anymore because I felt that I would rather go in a room by myself. I have a small room I can go and close the door and because I am with people all day, this is when I read. I am a very fast reader, I do a lot of reading all the time. PW: That is interesting. What kind of reading are you reading now on? BL: Well, it depends. One thing that I do read is the Reader's Digest because it gives me a quick idea of what is going on in the world and I don't have enough time to read. I always read my writers magazines and sometimes I will read a book or other things, it just depends on what I happen to have and what I want to read. PW: Do you feel that seeing movies or watching TV are beneficial? BL: I see very few movies anymore, and I don't watch very much TV because I don't have time and I feel that it is wasting my time. Although I do think you need to do same of that to get a broader view of things. I don't spend very much time on either one. PW: How do you feel about censorship? BL: Well, specifically what do you mean in regards to? PW: In literature and like as far as censorship in the school or on a college campus? BL: Well, when you get to a college campus, the people up there are adults and I suppose, I don't feel too strongly about it. I think at lower grades it should be used in some way 19 some of it. I suppose, yes, I think we should have some, some censoring, but not as much. Personally, I think we are much more liberal now than they used to be, and I think I am inclined to be the old fashioned type too, but I still get shocked at some of the things the young people do now days. PW: After you were accepted by the publisher after writing this book, how did you feel? BL: Well, I couldn't believe it. I was home alone here when I found out, and of course my daughter was gone and I was just so excited that I didn't know what to do. I just had to call somebody up, all my friends up and tell them. Well, what really happened, the day I actually found out, I was going to lunch in Salt Lake down at the Hotel Utah with friends from work. I didn't get there quite on time because of this and when I got there I was so excited that I could hardly talk, but it was a very fitting place to make the announcement. They were all so excited and so was I. It was really exciting. Yet, I am going to mention going back to visualizing again, I always visualized this. I always visualized this book would bring big premiums, and how it would look. Not the actual book, I had an artist design the cover, but I could visualize this book with my name on it. There it is with my name on it. It was a very exciting thing. PW: Have there ever been times of discouragement in your writing? BL: Well, in the very, very beginning. The first time that I think I really wrote anything seriously thinking that I was going to write this for publishing. And I had the feeling, (by the way, at this time I was taking a correspondence course), I took a correspondence course in writing also, and I felt that if I could get this article and I worked on it in the summer, I didn't work last summer. That was the only summer that I took off and didn't do anybody’s work. About four years and then I will quit working. I worked quite 20 diligently on this article. It was for the headers Digest, it was the first person’s story for $2500.00. I thought now look at me, I will get this sold and then I will quit working and write. So I wrote this article and sent it in and of course it came right back, I was completely crashed, completely, oh I was really disappointed, I am awfully glad that it wasn't published because it was not good writing. You can imagine that it wasn't good writing and I had not had any experience in this kind of thing, it wasn't anything like it should have been and I can very well see it now. I couldn't see it then, and it would have been a big mistake if that had been published, because I would have felt that I had a brain. Since then I don't think you could crush me. It is a big disappointment but not a crushing defeat. I think all these things you have to learn. I think that everything that I do if it isn't good it will come back. Another thing that I do is that I enter every contest that I can, regardless whether you win or not, I think it is very, very helpful and I did win in quite a few contests, first, second, third and various ones but it is not so much winning as it is in getting a good criticism. This is real important to you. PW: I have heard writers say that they have a feeling of satisfaction after all. Do you ever feel that way? BL: Is that as you are writing? PW: Yes, what do you feel as you are writing? BL: I really feel that I am living whatever I am writing. I don't feel frustrated and I don't feel any feeling of satisfaction. No, I don't really feel any one of those. I just feel like, well, it is something that I enjoy doing. Well, sometimes I don't know if I am really enjoying doing it because I am working very hard on it. And I am not sure that it is right, that is the part where you might really feel frustrated even though I don't think I have felt that 21 way. I have felt that, especially on the fiction thing, I just feel like I am living it as I go along. And then these other things, well this article, this very serious one that I just did, I felt that I was living that too, although I never came near experiencing this episode that I wrote about. When I sent it in I purposely put my initials on it only, because it was from a man's point of view and I didn't want people to know that a woman wrote it. It came back, and a very, very complimentary statement for Mr. Larimore. Yet, I felt that I was living it but yet it was from a man's point of view, so I think that you have to sort of live what you write, at least I do. I put my whole self into whatever it is. It is not a feeling that you can't render satisfaction, or frustration, it is just hard to explain. But this is the way that I do it, I don't know how other people go about it. 22 SUMMARY PAPER ON WESTERN WRITERS The subject which I chose to explore through the Oral History Program was one in which I had considerable personal interest. The idea of interviewing writers came to me almost simultaneously as we discussed possible topics last summer during the workshop. Writing had been my emphasis as an English major, so naturally I had a great love for a study of writing in regard to this program. The project itself had to do with the personalities and attitudes of the writers themselves. Rather than an information-oriented project, mine was a person-oriented project, which, nonetheless brought forth considerable information. Each writer was questioned along similar lines about their attitudes, feelings, experiences, and opinions about three areas: (1) their own personal development as a writer, (2) the development of other writers, and (3) the world at large. The questions were designed to be the kind which allows the interviewee to go into as much detail as he desires, and the questions I used were formulated and improved as I perceived their strengths and weaknesses. In attempting to analyze the project, the greatest benefit I derived from it was an understanding of people, how to talk with them, rather than to them, and how to perceive their feeling and thoughts as they are speaking. Last summer after learning and discussing the techniques of a successful interview, I experimented with friends. Friends, much the same as interviewees, require in conversation someone who can, who wants to, and who does listen. In observing discussions between people at various gatherings, it it surprising how few people listen—most of them are merely planning what they are going to say next. I admit that I have not been strong in this area in the past. Indeed, I have been one of those who drifts off away from the words of the speaking person, or who plans hurriedly a quick reply before he ever knows what to reply to. This project has changed that aspect of my personality, giving me a greater awareness of others, their needs and their feelings. Further analysis of the project would include the mention of my conclusion that there is an incredible difference between writers, although in many areas they seem to agree, at the same time. Each of them developed in a different manner; each has his own style and his own philosophy in regard to writing. Yet, they all agree that writing comes through intensive effort and persistence. Also, each one indicated a great need for empathy on the part of the writer, a quality which I think many people would not place such great emphasis on. Finally then, the project was one of enjoyment for me. I was able to learn about people, but also writing, and in addition, obtained a feeling for the task of writers, their frustrations as well as their hopes. A critique of any kind requires an objective analysis. A critique of oneself requires considerable objectivity, and at the same time, honesty in determining the positive and negative results. In critiquing my project I find many weakness, but I also find strengths. A look at the positive and negative aspects will reveal these. To begin, I think the most positive thing in the project was the interviewees themselves. All of them were more than willing to talk, to submit to questioning, and to donate their interviews to the college. Having designed the questions as open-ended and rather general, I was overjoyed to observe their uninhibited (or almost uninhibited) responses to them. In addition, those interviewed were all intelligent, enthusiastic people, extremely knowledgeable and competent in their field. From them I was able to obtain quite explicit information, without a great deal of rambling, although once in a while this became a problem temporarily. The best thing about the interviews themselves was the long response of the interviewee to one of my own short, general questions. An examination of the negative aspects reveals a lack of knowledge on my part in regard to those I interviewed. Had I had a better knowledge of them personally, I would have been able to zero in on specific areas or issues immediately, rather than come around to them by accident as the interview progressed. However, in spite of that handicap, the interviewees many times came around to revealing things of importance anyway. Another area I had difficulty with was the effect the tape had on the interviewee in regard to his willingness to divulge personal information of a negative nature. Even though the tape recorder was out of sight, more than once the interviewee remarked that he just couldn't say such things on tape. I assume from this then, that the tapes caused them to consider a bit more carefully what they were saying and how they were saying. This of course, would have an effect on the accuracy and completeness of detail, and even of attitude in the interviews. Whenever this particular problem occurred, after one or two tries to bring them forward and out of their shells, I gave up. Perhaps this was a weakness on ray part, although I still felt that withholding information was their privilege. Therefore, I did not press them, and maybe I should have. Looking at the specific interviews, the worst was surely the first. Hoping for an hour interview, I did not plan for all the conversation and activity that went on prior to the actual taping. Mr. Perrins was very anxious to show me what he had written, and I was anxious to see it, but all the time our time was slipping away, and I ended up rushing him through the interview, making it impossible for him to explore any question or go into any depth concerning it. This could have been one of the best interviews, but my lack of planning lessened its success. The second interview I conducted was one I was very pleased with. Mrs. Larimore was easy to interview, and went into a lot of detail without unnecessary pushing. The unfortunate thing about her interview was that at one point I stopped the tape recorder and thereafter, the sound was very muffled for some reason. In the transcript, the interview halts suddenly, because of the inaudible words. The interview of Dr. Allred was perhaps the best, due for the most part to his own relaxed state and his dynamic personality and ability to express himself. He expanded upon many of the questions in much greater depth than others I interviewed. Mrs. Knowles's interview was very good, but due to the fact that she adheres to an extremely busy and hectic schedule, she rushed the interview slightly, thereby not going into the depth she might have if she had been freer in regard to time. My final interview, that of Olive Burt, was one of ideal circumstances. Seventyeight years old, Mrs. Burt had unlimited time, and with great intelligence and recall, turned out an excellent interview. In this interview I was able to steer the questioning into other areas not related specifically to writing, and she explored them with enthusiasm. Perhaps an additional reason for the success of this interview is that her age and accordingly her experience enabled her to expound on a greater number of subjects and incidences with a more refined perspective. Thus, the interview were anything but flawless. Many unexpected problems popped up, requiring immediate action, and the action was not always ideal. Still, all in all, the project was, I think, a success. The five interviews do present a well-defined picture of writing as a profession or otherwise. To the listener of the tapes, or the reader of the interviews, the project can and will contribute considerable knowledge and understanding. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brooks, Cleanth and Warren, Robert Penn. Modern Rhetoric. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.), 1961. Brooks, Van Wyck. The Writer in America. (New York: E.P. Dutton), 1953. Hall, Donald. The Modern Stylists. (New York: The Free Press), 1968. Perrin, Laurence. Story and Structure. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc.), 1966.