Oral History Program Brenda Kidman Interviewed by Kacey McClellan 24 May 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Brenda Kidman Interviewed by Kacey McClellan 24 May 2019 Copyright © 2022 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 Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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: Kidman, Brenda, an oral history by Kacey McClellan, 24 May 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Brenda Kidman (Left) & Elizabeth Warren (Right) Circa 2018 Brenda Kidman Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Brenda Kidman, conducted on May 24, 2019 by Kacey McClellan. Brenda discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Sarah Storey, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: Okay, today is May 24, 2019, it is approximately 12:00 p.m. we are here with Brenda Kidman for an interview for the Beyond Suffrage Project. Interviewing her, is Kacey McClellan and recording, is Sarah Storey. [To Kacey] Okay, go ahead. KM: When and where were you born? BK: I was born in 1961 and I was actually born in Maryland. But my family, they were just up there temporarily. My dad had a tech job up there, but we are actually Texans…generations, generations, generations, generations. Only one born outside of the state, and not a lot of people know that—don’t tell... that’s one of my three security questions. KM: When you were a young girl, what… who were, who were some of the women you looked up to and why? BK: I have no idea. Not a lot of sheros when I was growing up. Just regular people. Nobody that I particularly wanted to be though. KM: How do you think the role of mothers has changed? BK: Before, I think moms could be a little more hands off, but I think they have to be more hands on now. I was fairly hands on with my daughter—I was a single mom. But now, with all of the social media and the telephones and all of the 2 different things, I think that moms have to be in their business almost every day just because it can go from talking to somebody on the internet to, “She’s not home from school yet, where is she?” I just found out about “Locations” on Google Maps and so I wanted to play with it, so I put my location, I gave it to my daughter so that she could what it’s like and then I put my husband’s location up, I put him on my phone and so you know, we are all connected. And we are also on each other’s calendars—talk about up in your business... So I started playing with that and I was like, “This is so cool.” And I think you should talk to my grandkids, my granddaughter and grandson and put this on their phone. Not so you can, “Where are they?” because they are not those kinds of parents. But just, if they are late home from school, was there bad traffic on Loretto or do I need to go looking? So, I think you need to have that kind of contact with your kids, boy or girl. KM: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? BK: No. KM: What were your career options once you had your degree? BK: I got married at 16. I went to most of my 10th grade, except for the class right after lunch. You know, an hour for lunch is just not long enough. Not whenever you have all of the things to do that I did. So, no. But they used to cheer in math class—which was the class right after lunch—if I would go in and the teacher would be like, “Brenda, do you have an excused absence?” And I would be like, “No.” “Sit down.” But if I actually said yes, and I had the little pink slip from the office, the whole class would clap. That’s how often I went to math class. So no, 3 pursuing an education wasn’t really my jam, which is one reason that I was all up in my kids’ business when they were growing, it’s because I was not, I was not followed like that. I was the fourth kid out of five. I think she was tired. They were both tired and they weren’t very good married together, but they stayed together for the kids. Which god forbid, don’t do that. But yeah, so no education to speak of, if I wasn’t such a voracious reader I would probably sound like a hick. But I’m actually really really smart and a lot of that is because I read all of the time, everything. Growing up, I never got grounded from the radio, the telephone, the television, going to my friend’s house, I would get grounded from books. And I would hide them in the bathroom between the towels and the sheets and I just had stashes of books all over the house. And then I would be like, “Okay, I’m going to go use the bathroom for a minute.” 30 minutes later, my mom would be banging on the door, “Brenda Dawn, get out of there, I know what you are doing.” Because I’d be in there reading. So, that was my education, was education by books. So yeah. KM: What was your first job? BK: My first job in high school was actually modeling for Blue Spirit Denim at the Dallas Apparel Mart. But the first—and that was just for like a week during the apparel mart where the buyers would come in and buy the clothing lines. But you know, not everybody gets to say their first job was modeling. So I have to throw that in there. But I actually worked at Six Flags in a stuffed animal shop because I’m from Arlington, Texas and that’s where Six Flags is—the very first one. That was my first job and then the summer after that, I went from selling 4 stuffed animals to buying them for my baby. So that was a pretty quick transition. My ex-husband was in the Marine Corps, and it’s really a good thing that he was or we would have starved. But at least we could collect change in the couch. They were hard times, just because you are in the military—well you know—it doesn’t mean that you have all of this money. But we lived in North Carolina while he went to ‘A’ school. Then we moved to California for five years, then we moved back to South Carolina for five years, and then I finally left him so, it was bouncing around the country. But that also meant that I got to form my own opinions and see how other people lived and I encountered diversity that I probably wouldn’t have, if I had stayed in that little family circle back in Texas. So it really encouraged me to be my own person. KM: What was your motivation to go into your chosen field? BK: I was an insurance agent for many years because my dad was a State Farm agent. So I grew up answering the phone, “Oh, is B. there? I just had an accident.” “Oh, was anybody hurt?” You know, I was seven years old and I could take a claim down over the phone, you know? “Is your car drivable? Where is it now? Okay.” Because if Dad came home and you just said, “Joe Smith called and he had an accident.” “Well is he okay?” So you quickly learned to—and we didn’t have a form to fill out. You just had all of the questions memorized. So I became an insurance agent and that’s what I did. KM: When was there a time that you were brave at work? BK: Brave at work. There’s a lot of times I’ve been brave at work. I think anytime you have to stand up for somebody else, that’s bravery. Not necessarily for 5 myself, but we had a supervisor at the last insurance job that I had. And it was a great job. I loved the company, loved working for the people, but corporate came in and started stirring things up and it got kind of ugly for a while—I’m not there anymore. But we had a great little office, it was three other women, yeah. Three other women and me, the supervisor wasn’t my supervisor because I was an agent. She was just a supervisor of the office. But she would try to get one to play against the other and just create this antagonistic attitude. She liked to be the friend of one person and have the other people out because it made her feel bigger. So I talked to the girls one day when she was at lunch or something and I said, “Look, we can’t do that because we know what’s going on. We have to stop it.” So the code word was, carrots. And anytime we would notice her sidling up to one of the people, trying to become friendlier with them and kind of push the other people off we would say, “Carrots.” And that meant, you know this is garbage, this isn’t real. So just little things like that where—I also told her she was an old bat because she wasn’t my supervisor. So you know, but helping other people recognize that they don’t want to become a pawn in the office politics. I think that was pretty brave and finding a way to resolve it without telling her that she was an old bat—I did that later. KM: As a woman, how do you define courage? BK: Still, standing up for injustices. I am really really big on equality of people. I… if you want to make me angry, that’s how you are going to do it. By treating somebody less than. I have all of these t-shirts and they say, “Love is Love” and “Science is Real”and “Black Lives Matter” and “No Human is Illegal” and you 6 know. And they just come down and they say all of these things, and I’ll have people stop me and go, “Oh, is that really what you think?” And I’m just waiting for somebody to take it further than that because yeah, I’m ready to defend my positions but people see this old lady with this pink and white hair, wearing Doc Martens and they go, “Maybe, I’ll pass this one by.” So, I think we should all be working to a place where there is equality. KM: How did you balance your responsibilities between the workplace and home? BK: Well as an agent, I could set my own hours. Which was really nice. I didn’t become an agent until my kids were older. And whenever they were younger, after I just left my husband, didn’t have a lot of education that I could put down on a resume. I had just been a mom and before that, a high school student. So I got into the apartment management business. And I became an apartment manager and then we lived on-site. And so, you know, I’d say at 3 o’clock or whatever time the kids were supposed to get home from school, “Okay, I’m going to walk the property.” And that meant, I’m going to and check on my kids, make sure they have an after school snack, get them started on their homework. So I’ve been very fortunate that I was able to choose jobs that allowed me to still have that contact with my kids. Seeing my upbringing, where my mom was very hands off and that was just the way she was brought up—her generation. My ex-husband was abusive and I called her once and told her I wanted to come home and she said, “What are you going to do? You don’t have an education. You got two kids. How are you going to make it?” She said, “You made your bed, now you lie in it.” And that’s what they did then. I decided I was never going to be 7 that mom. So I was all up in my kids’ business and I knew all of their stuff and I would tell them if I was going go through their room. My daughter, I did have to go through her room once, I didn’t really find anything. But I did find some notes that concerned me. I told her, “You are acting strangely and you are starting to distance yourself and I really don’t like this new person. So I’m going to go through your room and find out what is going on.” And she was there and I could tell, it was like playing hot-cold, you know? That game you play whenever you were a kid, “Am I warm? Am I warmer?” Even though we weren’t playing that game, I could tell by the hot-cold reactions what she was doing. But… so that’s one reason that I pushed my kids to be closer and so that they would know that I could go into their world anytime. And I resolved to never be that distant person. My daughter was dating a boy—girls tend to marry their fathers. And I married my dad, that was not a good choice. But, it’s what I recognized as love because that had been the situation that I had seen. So, I decided that I wasn’t going to be like that. My daughter was dating a boy and he was very much like her dad. And so I sat him down at the table one day and I said, “I just want you to know that if you ever hit my daughter, I will come and beat the crap out of you with a two-by-four.” And he said, “What?” And I said, “I’ll beat the tar out of you. She may ask me not to, she may be standing there crying and screaming, ‘Stop, stop, don’t do it.’ I’m still going to beat the crap out of you with a two-by-four. So don’t ever hit my daughter.” And he said, “Well what if she hits me?” And I said, “That’s between her and your mom. I’m just telling you, I got this.” So, that 8 relationship didn’t last long, and now she’s married to a man that I couldn’t have picked better. KM: What does’ “Women’s work” mean to you? BK: A woman’s work? That is a really bad question, sorry. Yeah, a woman’s work means getting done what she wants to get done. Not what she needs to get done, or what society thinks she should be doing, but what does she want to do? That’s what her work should be. Does she want to climb trees and chop down the tops and make kindling? Have at it. That’s a really dangerous job, I wouldn’t want it. But a woman’s work is whatever she wants her work to be. KM: How do you think women receiving the right to vote, shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? BK: Well, I’m part of a group that is celebrating women’s right to vote. Utah was actually the first state where women could vote and that’s being recognized. There’s a women’s right to vote day that’s been declared, February the 14th, The governor signed it into law and so everybody was all, “Woo Woo!” excited about that. And the organization that I’m with is trying to get 1,000 women or people— it was women, but that didn’t go over so good, that men weren’t allowed in the party. So, 1,000 people to sign up 20 women who weren’t registered to vote before. Calling it the 2020 campaign because of this 100th anniversary. Well I think that’s great, but 100 years ago white women got the right to vote. It wasn’t women, it was white women. And Black women actually started in their churches, working to get the right to vote before the white women did. So for a while they were a united front and then the white women said, “You know, it’s 9 going to be really hard with these Black women bringing us down. So let’s just get rid of them.” So, it’s just white women that got the right to vote 100 years ago and then Black women came along and they got the right to vote whenever the American Civil Liberties Act was passed, and then Native American women got the right to vote. So and I have a problem with that because they’ll talk about the 100th campaign and women getting the right to vote and I’ll be like, “White women.” And they’re like, “Do you have to say that every time?” “Yep, I do.” I do, because it’s an important distinction to make and yay! Utah women got the right to vote but women did not get the right to vote. So I think it’s really important, but again, I think we are glossing over things with our white supremacy. A lot of people that made this program, I asked them on the internet when they were talking about it I’m like, “Okay, that’s great for this celebration, but what about this group of people and that group of people.” And they were like, “Okay.” So now, whenever they introduce it, they also throw in a few dates to kind of gloss over the fact that they didn’t think about any group but themselves. I think it’s important, I think it should have happened sooner for all of the people, a lot of people, but there are still a lot of women out there that don’t really have the right to vote because of the households that they are growing up and living in. There are still a lot of patriarchy, especially in Utah. There is a lot of patriarchal societies that are trying to keep them down. So yeah, I’ll work to help get them the right to vote too. SS: Can I add a few things? Would you elaborate a little bit on the things that you are working on now as part of your activism and your involvement in Indivisible? 10 BK: I was never really a political person. I didn’t vote whenever I was young because we were moving all over the country. In the Marine Corps you couldn’t really… you had to vote by mail and all of that and I just didn’t really care, I was 16. Whenever I got bac, the first presidential election I voted in, it was a presidential primary and I voted for Jesse Jackson because coming back from being in the Marine Corps with all of this diversity and seeing my family from the outside, I realized that they were not diverse. And I knew that Jesse wouldn’t win, and to be honest I didn’t want him to win. I don’t really think much of him as a person. I was voting for the difference. I wanted people to know that yes, we are ready for a Black person and then I got busy and moved to Utah and got busy being an insurance agent and raising the kids and going through my kids room and being all up in their business. So I quit doing politics. And then my son came to me and he said, “Mom, you’re not going to like this, but I just joined the air force.” And I said, “No.” And he said, “I knew you’d say that, the paperwork is signed, I leave in a week.” That was when George “Mission Accomplished” Bush was in office and I said, “This cannot fly.” He made his four years. He never went overseas, he was actually on deployment at Beale Airforce Base, which is in Northern California but I immediately I went out and got my passport in case I ever had to fly over to Germany because he was in a hospital there and just realizing what all of these parents are going through. I said, “You know, it’s… I can’t not be involved anymore.” So then I… I was a Hill girl. I loved Hilary and Obama came on the scene, loved him. So when my husband and I went for the primary, I voted for 11 Hill and he voted for Obama because we just couldn’t decide which one we wanted more. And then after Obama won the primary, then I did phone banks— call centers from here at Weber State over in the ballrooms. People would come in there with their cell phones and we called into Colorado. I went to Colorado for five days with my girlfriend, got super involved in all of that. And then, this presidential campaign came around and I did not see it coming. A lot of people were surprised so I said, “You know, this national stuff is great, but you can’t just get involved every four years. I need something that is going to make me feel better about the direction we are heading on a regular basis.” So I went to the Women’s March. Everybody had on pink hats and I found Pam Harrison. She had put together an Indivisible Ogden Group. And she said, “You know, we do this and we do voter registrations and we do marches and we do all of this stuff.” And I said, “Here’s my name, phone number, email address.” And we got to be really close and I started doing that. Voterise is a non-profit, non-partisan group that started here in Utah—up in Park City actually—by Elsa and Dick Gary. And they have a voter registration campaign, we wear bright lime green shirts, I’m talking lime green shirts. And we go around with our clipboards and try to get people registered to vote because the more people that voice their opinion and vote, the more balanced it is. You can’t just have these little groups that try to make other people feel like they don’t need to vote because it’s already taken care of, they’ve got it done, because that’s what’s lead us to where we are. So, I did voter registrations 12 literally every Saturday last year. Balloon Festival and if there’s any festival we’re there. And it made a difference in the participation last year—no, it just recently came out, but it said that we were 45th in the nation for voter activity. We have come up to 18th… no 13th. From 45th to 13th and I think a lot of that is Voterise. Daniel Wade is the Weber County Elections Clerk and he said that last year there were 10,000 new voters in Weber County and that’s because of Voterise and us having boots on the grounds and going to all of these activities. This year we’ve done, Islands of a Common Sea, Cinco De Mayo, Jazz at the Union Station. We’ve done the Free Community Meal, we’ve done the Heritage Festival for three days. We’re doing the Ogden Uncon—which is like a Comicon. We’re doing the car show that same weekend. The Farmer’s market starts on the 22nd, we’ve got the Balloon Festival, so I just comb through Facebook events all the time saying, “This is something we can do, can we make a difference.” Last election season, we had a carrot, we had all the propositions, especially Prop 2. We don’t have a carrot this year, it’s “just” a municipal election—which are more important. These Weber County people, have you seen the golden parachutes they are giving themselves? Do you know how many thousands of dollars are walking off after just a few years on the job? Make me a councilman. I could use a few thousand. So these elections actually impact your pocket more and they are important, you need to go out and vote. So we are trying to do that even though this is an off year and then of course, next summer we will be touting the presidential election. Which is another carrot to make people get involved, but if 13 the carrot doesn’t work, I’ll just beat them with a stick until we can get that signature on the form. It’s important. SS: That’s wonderful. Would you also give some details about—you’re not from Utah, but you came to Utah—I know your story, but I would love everybody else to know as well. BK: Okay, I was a single mom in Texas. I did own a house, cute little house, wonderful little cul-de-sac, great cul-de-sac, all of the neighbors were really tight, we were the new kids on the block. There were only four houses. My daughter turned 14 and I started needing to go through her room because I didn’t like where I could see that she was headed. She was not making bad choices, she was making choices that she had to make and there weren’t very many good options available for her because the house I could afford was $46,900, that’s what I paid—couldn’t buy a storage unit for that now. The surrounding area of the cul-de-sac wasn’t good but we were in a nice little pocket. But the pocket was intruding into the rest of the world. So I recognized where she was going because I was 14 once and I did not want her to go the same place that I had gone. So I was talking to my ex-husband, he did not pay child support or anything but I still let the kids see him because I picked him, they didn’t, it wasn’t their fault that they had a really crappy father. And he lived in Nampa at the time and I was telling him, you know, “She’s driving my crazy.” And they were already going to go out there for the summer and he said, “Well keep her out here, don’t bring her back home, she’ll have to ride a school bus, the nearest mall is 40 miles away, we don’t even have a Taco 14 Bell in town…” Boise was a little bit smaller then. I said, “You know, that sounds pretty good.” And so she left and she had the cockatiel bangs with the permed hair and the blue eyeliner—really blue. And the brown lip liner, she was gorgeous, the prettiest little Hispanic girl that you have ever seen, but we are not Hispanic. So she got on the plane, she left, she hated me. Oh my gosh, I used to send her presents all of the time, I sent her a postcard everyday—she’s got a stack of postcards this thick from me. But she was really really mad. But then she came back the following summer, and she got off the plane, I seriously did not recognize her for a minute, a minute and a half. She got off the plane, she had a short, cute little pixie cut. Her makeup was natural looking, she was wearing a houndstooth…hounds check jacket with black leggings and little black flats— a little white tank top. I remember her outfit, the whole thing because I was just like, “Oh my gosh. Who is this person?” It was exactly the change that I had wanted for her. And so we spent the summer together and I told her, “I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but you are not quite as solid in this new person that I want you to be.” And she went around and saw her friends and she was like, “They wear so much makeup.” And was like, “Hmmm, imagine that.” So she recognized also that she had gotten out of that a little bit. But I told her, “You need to go back for at least one more year because I want you to solidify this new person that you are.” And my son said, “Well I want to live in the snow and I want to go on an elk hunt and I want to do things too.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s fair.” So I sent both of my kids off on the plane this time. Thanksgiving wasn’t bad. It kind 15 of snowed, Cowboys played, I had people over at my house. Leon Lett slid on the snow and made a touchdown for the other team, memorable day—go Cowboys. But then Christmas came, and if you are not a mom, what are you? So I talked to my kids on the phone, I was over at my mom’s. And I was crying the boohoo tears. The big purple faced, snot running down my face, tears. And she said, “If you don’t like it, change it.”—some of the only good advice she gave me, put this in gold, okay? Surround this on a little plaque. And I said, “I’m not going to bring my kids back here to this. You know, they are doing too good. I own my house, I have a great job that I love, and a lot of friends, and you know, the whole family is here.” And she said, “But where are your kids?” And I said, “You’re right.” So I was in Utah by April. I quit my job, I sold my house, I said goodbye to the fam and the friends and I’ve been here ever since. SS: I just want to make a comment about how I feel that is an incredibly brave thing to do as a woman and as a mother. And I can appreciate that, so that’s why I wanted you to share that story. BK: Yeah, it was for the kids and it turned out to be amazing. It was the best choice I ever could have made. So thank you. SS: You are a wonderful person. BK: Oh, thanks. SS: Is there anything that you would like to add, that you would like anybody to know? Like I said, this is going to be displayed down at Union Station. BK: Don’t be afraid. Be brave. It’s hard to put on the shoes, check your hair before you go out the door, and walk up to people, but you will find some amazing 16 stories. Some people will just brush you off and, “No, I’ve already registered to vote.” But by getting involved, you’ll get more thank you’s and, “This is amazing what you are doing.” And, “I live in another state, but I wish we had people like you there.” And I’ve made some super great friends and I’ve had some really good times. So even if it’s only for an hour or two, if talking to people isn’t your jam, then find a group where you can do data entry, or walk a dog by yourself, volunteer at a shelter. But you need to give something back because it will come back to you, magnified by many many thousands. SS: Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. BK: Yeah. SS: We appreciate you being a part of this project and we are going to conclude the interview, it’s approximately 12:45, and that is everything. SS: Thank you so much. BK: Okay, thank you.