Title | Slater, Dean OH5_011 |
Creator | Weber State University, Stewart Library: Oral History Program. |
Contributors | Slater, Dean, Interviewee; Marriott, Wess, Interviewer |
Description | The Marriott-Slaterville City Oral History Collection was created by the residents of the town to document their history. Each participant was provided with a list of questions asking for; stories about their childhood, schools they attended, stories about their parents and grand-parents, activities they enjoyed, fashions they remember, difficulties or traumas they may have dealt with, and memories of community and church leaders. This endeavor has left behind rich histories, stories and important information regarding the history of the Marriott-Slaterville area. |
Image Captions | Dean Slater Circa 2019 |
Biographical/Historical Note | The following is an oral history interview with Dean Slater, conducted circa 2019, by Wess Marriott. Dean discusses his life and his memories of Marriott-Slaterville, Utah. Dean's daughter, Lisa, and another unknown individual, are also present during this interview. |
Subject | Marriott-Slaterville (Utah); Agriculture; Livestock; Ogden (Utah); Oral History |
Digital Publisher | Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, USA |
Date Original | 2019 |
Date | 2019 |
Date Digital | 2019 |
Medium | Oral History |
Item Description | 34p.; 29cm.; 3 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 video disc: 4 3/4 in. |
Spatial Coverage | Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States, http://sws.geonames.org/5779206, 41.223, -111.97383; Marriott-Slaterville, Weber Utah, United States, http://sws.geonames.org/5777956, 41.25161, -112.0255 |
Type | Text |
Access Extent | 0:37:33 |
Conversion Specifications | Filmed using a video camera. Transcribed using Express Scribe software. |
Language | eng |
Relation | https://archivesspace.weber.edu/repositories/3/resources/506 |
Rights | Materials may be used for non-profit and educational purposes, please credit University Archives; Weber State University. |
Source | Weber State University Archives |
OCR Text | Show Oral History Program Dean Slater Interviewed by Wess Marriott Circa 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dean Slater Interviewed by Wess Marriott Circa 2019 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Marriott-Slaterville City Oral History Collection was created by the residents of the town to document their history. Each participant was provided with a list of questions asking for; stories about their childhood, schools they attended, stories about their parents and grand-parents, activities they enjoyed, fashions they remember, difficulties or traumas they may have dealt with, and memories of community and church leaders. This endeavor has left behind rich histories, stories and important information regarding the history of the Marriott-Slaterville area. ____________________________________ 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: Slater, Dean, an oral history by Wess Marriott, Circa 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Dean Slater Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dean Slater, conducted circa 2019, by Wess Marriott. Dean discusses his life and his memories of Marriott- Slaterville, Utah. Dean’s daughter, Lisa, and another unknown individual, are also present during this interview. DS: The old Dee hospital—McKay-Dee hospital on 24th street. WM: Alright. Tell me a little bit about your family, how many kids were in your family when you were growing up? DS: I was the youngest of six children to mom and dad. WM: And who were they? DS: Well I had a sister, Lavora. A sister, June. A brother, Melvin, who passed away at infancy. My brother Floyd. A sister, Evelyn, and I’m Dean. WM: And what were your parents’ names? DS: Iona and my dad was Leland. WM: And where did you live when you were born? DS: 200 S 1200 W on the corner. WM: On the corner? Alright, what kind of work did your father do? DS: Dad farmed and then when the cows got sold, we had a dairy herd. WM: Oh, did you? DS: And the cows got sold by—he went to work for Ogden City Cemetery for a while and then he went and finished his working career with Weber School District. 2 WM: Oh, did he? Was he a teacher or what? DS: No, custodian and maintenance. WM: Oh maintenance. Okay good. So what did you like about your mother? What did she do? Was she a good cook, was she? DS: Yes, she was an excellent cook. WM: She was? Did she manage the… DS: She was the unit manager at the school that… she was at Wahlquist and then went to Weber. WM: Oh Wahlquist. DS: And she went along with me when I went from ninth grade to tenth grade. She moved from Wahlquist to Weber so I couldn’t sluff school. WM: Oh, that’s great. So how big of a… did have a home and some acreage as well? DS: Just a small farm. WM: Just a small farm. What kind of things did they have on the farm? DS: We had some peas and some hay and some grain and some corn and some dairy cows. WM: Okay, how long did you have the dairy cows then? You said you got rid of them after a while. DS: Yep, 1949. It was a bad winter from 1948-1949 in February. 3 WM: That’s right, it was a big snow. DS: Really snowed and it got cold and the waters froze. The cement trough out in the back of the milk cows—where we stored our milk, it was picked up, froze, and broke. WM: Really? DS: And the inspector had come from the diary and told us that we had to put in a milking machine, we had to cement the grail, we had to, we had to, we had to. Dad says, “I don’t have to.” And the cows were gone in six months. WM: Oh my gosh. That’s so interesting. DS: 1949. WM: Do you remember how much snow there was? DS: A bunch. WM: Can you talk about it? DS: My sister got married on the 4th of February at the old Wahlquist School that’s been torn down. At that time, we were in the process of building dad and mom’s new house. We lived about two and half blocks west of 1200 west and we walked east and west to go up and do the chores and work on the house. Dad started it in 1949 and finished it in 1952. He did it himself. WM: How many bedrooms? DS: I’m sorry? 4 WM: How many bedrooms? DS: Three. WM: Three bedrooms. DS: Not in the new one. WM: Yeah. Well that’s great. Did you like the new house? DS: Yeah. When we finished the only ones lefts was my sister and my brother and I. So everyone else was married off. WM: That’s cool. In the new house, obviously you had plumbing and so forth. DS: That was the first we had. WM: But you didn’t have it in the prior one? DS: That was a path. WM: Alright. So let’s talk about the difference between the two and what that meant to the family. DS: Well each of us had an assignment. My assignment was the wood and the coal. We milked the cows and come in and do our chores and then we would go to school and then we would come back and do the chores the same. I was still assigned to pumping the water out of the old pitcher pump and getting the coal and the wood in. That was my job as the family chores. WM: What did the rest of them do? What were their chores? 5 DS: Well a couple of them was married off by then when we moved into the new house. We moved in 1952. WM: Before you moved in, I was just talking about the chores at the old house. DS: The old house? WM: Yeah. DS: Well my brother was older and he was starting to do a lot of work on cars. He was into cars and girls at that time. One girl, was married and the other one was, well she got married in 1949 so she was married. I was only thirteen when she got married off. But we had two bedrooms then. The girls shared and Floyd and I shared half a bedroom. Mom and dad saved the other half of the bedroom and separated us with a quilt and blanket. That’s how we slept. WM: That’s great. Well it’s important, you see, you’re trying to figure out we are here. Those are the kinds of things that have changed. DS: Oh yeah. Changed a little bit. WM: Yeah, we are trying to discover in your words what it was like in the old days and what the differences are. DS: Well we adapted to what we had. We weren’t rich, so we adapted and did with what we could with what we had. So I got along alright. WM: What were your mother’s talents? DS: I’m sorry? 6 WM: What were your mother’s talents? DS: She was an excellent cook. She loved to sew. We loved homemade ice cream. So she would save any of the cream off of the Jersey Cow’s milk and we made a lot of homemade ice cream during the summer. WM: Oh that’s great. DS: We got to stir the old hand crank. WM: The old hand crank, yeah. I remember that. So what kind of—well you already mentioned about you made your own ice cream, anything else that’s different? Who made the cream? DS: We got the cream from the cows. WM: Yeah, who made it? DS: Oh Mom prepared it and us kids cranked. WM: Yeah. That’s what I mean. DS: She put the fixings together and we turned the crank. WM: Who took care of the cows when you had the cows? DS: My dad, my brother, and I. WM: You had—did you actually milk the cows as well? DS: The old hand squeeze. 7 WM: The old hand squeeze. We kid a lot about that now. You see different places you know, things that you can play like you were doing. But you don’t see that done anymore. DS: No. No. WM: Was it hard? DS: No, it’s not hard. You get some good cows that get used to you and you cleaned the bag down and clean the utter up. I call it a bag—clean the utter up and start milking. WM: How much can you usually get out of a cow? DS: It depends on the cows. Jersey’s spit a lot less than Holstein’s as far as milk capacity. But it’s a richer milk and a lot more cream to a Jersey than a Holstein. WM: The first time that you were milking a cow, they didn’t know you. What was different about it until they got used to you? DS: They knew me because I undid the stalls to let them out to water at night and then back in to clean. So they knew me. WM: Oh so they did know you. DS: Cleaned up behind them and uttered and milked them and feed them hay. They knew me. WM: But if they didn’t know you, what kind of problems would they have getting milk? DS: I don’t know. I didn’t have a problem. 8 WM: You didn’t experience that. DS: I’m not sure what kind we could have had. None of them took me out of the barn. WM: I think that’s one of the possibilities actually. Yeah, that’s great. Well, you had a great family. Now let’s talk about your family. Where did you live? DS: I lived on 200 S. and 1200 W. The road that’s still there, 1200 W. It was right on the corner. When I was married to the wife, we built a house immediately west of mom and dad’s house—the new house. In 1996, we built the second house north of dad and mom’s house. Mom and dad’s new house was built in 1952 when they moved in. It’s still there, but it’s been added to since—by the new owners. WM: Oh got you. So how many—tell me about your family. How many children? DS: Four kids. WM: Four kids. DS: Three girls and a boy. A pair of twins. WM: Did you really? DS: Yep, there’s one of them. WM: Really you’re one of them, what’s your name? Lisa: Lisa. WM: Oh hi Lisa. 9 Lisa: Hi. WM: What was your other one’s name? Lisa: Lori WM: Lori. Two girls huh? DS: Yep. They are my driver’s now. WM: Are you Identical twins? Lisa: Yes. WM: Are you really? Oh my heavens. Do you have a picture of the two of you? Lisa: No, but she may be coming in a little bit so. WM: Oh good. That’s great. DS: When they was in high school, they switched. They wore identical clothes to school and they tried to switch teacher, class, kids. She had been in her class, she’s right handed and the other girl had come in and she was left handed. That’s the only way that they had known in high school… WM: That they was different. DS: It was a difference of handwriting. WM: That’s funny. DS: Yeah, they were close. WM: Wow. 10 DS: When they were born, the wife could identify them. I identify them by, “Hey you” and “Hey you you.” WM: That’s so funny. DS: Very close. WM: I think that would be a hard thing. Tell us about what it was like to have twins. I mean. DS: To have twins? WM: Yeah, like in the house. What was it like to have twins in the house as opposed to just… DS: Well I learned… WM: kids just running around. DS: I learned how to change diapers real good. I did a good job of it because I used the old diapers that we had at that time. I pinned them to the kid, they never did fall off. WM: That’s funny. If you didn’t pin it to the skin, you’re okay. DS: I pinned it to the skin, it never did fall off. WM: Oh my gosh. Oh brother. Well twins would be fun I would think. Challenging though, to have that extra work. DS: I’m sorry? WM: It would be challenging to have that much extra work. 11 DS: Well, yeah. WM: Twice as many diapers, that’s a lot. DS: Very much so. WM: Yeah. Today, we have different diapers. We used to use cloth diapers. DS: We had the cloth, we used the cloth. WM: It was smelly and the whole nine yards. Yep, well that’s great. What things did your family do—sports wise, or family activity wise, or whatever? DS: Well my brother wasn’t much into sports. I was considerably. The kids come up, they was both on the—it’s not the cheerleading squad, what was it? Baton twirlers? Lisa: Majorettes. DS: Majorettes. Yep. They were the Majorettes in high school. They would come up. Baseball, when I was working during the summer. We would work until—well I started driving and I was 18. We would work till one o’clock and then have a baseball game at two o’clock on Saturdays. I loved the game of baseball and softball. WM: Did you? DS: Very much so. WM: Now did you compete in school or in church? Or in both? DS: Yes. Both. 12 WM: Both. DS: Yep. WM: Which was better? DS: Well the old Farm Bureau League—they called it. It’s no longer going. But we went to South Weber, Uintah area. We went up into Liberty, we went to Plain City, and we had the Slatervillle Park that we played on. WM: So that’s The Farm Bureau League? DS: It was the old Farm Bureau League. WM: So that would be independent of the school or the church? DS: Yes. WM: So there was three then. DS: Yeah. WM: The Farm… DS: Independent. The Farm Bureau’s—I don’t know why it was ever called that way. I never did ask and I never found out really. WM: Well farming community was a big central figure. So I guess I could see how that would work. But then the church was too. DS: Yes. I played a lot of church ball. WM: Did you? 13 DS: Yeah. I got my cleats and it’s 50 years old. WM: Really? Wow. Well tell me about which position did you play most of the time? DS: Center field and pitcher in baseball and softball. Any place that they needed. Church basketball, I was a forward. We just played if we were short a position. One of us would take who was every short. If a guard was missing that night, one of us would go as a guard. Missing a forward, we had five or six guys and if they showed up we had a team. If they didn’t, we played the whole damn game—darn game. WM: I understand. Oh gosh. Well how have fashions changed in your mind over the years? DS: How fashions have changed? WM: Fashions have changed. Did your parents—did your mother make your clothes? DS: No. She did a lot of sewing but I don’t know if she did much… WM: Fashion making clothes. DS: She made some clothes. I won’t say she didn’t. But she made some but not all of them, no. WM: Okay. Alright. DS: Mostly shirts. WM: Okay. So what other talents do you feel your mother had? 14 DS: I don’t know if you would call them talents. She did everything that was required as a mother. She did everything to do to keep the house going. She did everything to support the kids. I guess you would call those talents. WM: They are absolutely talents. That’s exactly right. Yep. What are your fondest memories of your parents? DS: Well dad would always come out and have the kids mow the lawn. They would have one on each to side pushing the old hand mower. He would give them the dollars. They would turn around and take it into the house and put it in a designated spot by the sink in the kitchen. I don’t think dad ever knew. WM: Really? DS: I don’t think so. WM: Oh my gosh. DS: But we got by with what was could. On Saturdays, it was our get up and get chores done. Go to town, get a hamburger in town at the old farm well. It was behind Sears and—it was C.C. Anderson’s at that time. 10 cents a hamburger. WM: 10 cents. DS: Get us a little snack in town and come home to do the chores. WM: What does it cost today for a hamburger? DS: Then? WM: What does it cost today for a hamburger compared to ten cents? 15 DS: Hell I don’t know. There’s so many varieties, you could go anywhere from 50 cents for the little small sandwiches, clear up to $6 and $7 if you want. WM: Compared to… DS: Well… WM: Compared to ten cents. DS: Hyde Baird and his brother and they would just a patty and a bun. Onions and ketchup if you wanted. WM: Right. A lot of change. DS: There was. There is. WM: Yeah. So what do you think of the economy in this area? DS: The economy is doing alright. But don’t get started on politics because I don’t like to argue and I don’t care for the way that things are going. WM: Okay. DS: But we won’t talk about them. WM: But just economically, you see this being a strong area? Do you see this being a strong economic area? DS: Well I think the economy is doing alright. WM: Is it still agricultural or moving to commercial? 16 DS: When the farmers had their ground, they farmed it and the kids come up. The parents died and the kids would sell the ground or divide the ground it in the family and sell it and keep. Or sell it individually if they wanted. WM: Right. DS: So we have considerably more houses now than we ever did when I was coming up through the ranks. WM: Right. Yep. DS: So I guess if you call it the economy. I worked for a dollar an hour for a good many years and times and the kids now, don’t know what a dollar an hour is. WM: Most don’t know what a dollar is. DS: Well… WM: Do you know what I mean. DS: Yes, they don’t have much consideration of what a dollar value is anymore. WM: No. You get a penny as change and you don’t even put it in your pocket sometimes. DS: No. WM: It’s very different. So what do you think of—what is the golden age? You’ve been around awhile, so what was the golden age? Or was there a golden age for Marriott-Slaterville? DS: A golden age for a man in Slaterville? 17 WM: A golden age for the city. In other words, the city has gone through a few phases between it’s beginning and its current. So when was it best? DS: Well it’s good now because I’m retired and I don’t do a heck of a lot. But we worked when we was younger coming up and we adapted to what we needed to and could do. WM: So what about the city of Mariott-Slaterville? How has it evolved in your mind? Not politically just as an economic area? DS: I think it’s doing alright. A lot more people considerably than there was. There’s no pheasant hunting anymore. So. WM: I didn’t know that. DS: It used to be good pheasant country. WM: Okay. Do you remember any periods of time other than 1949 when they had the big snow, has there been any other disasters or problems or fires or anything else that has occurred that you can recall? DS: We haven’t had any in our family to speak of. No fires. WM: Okay. What traditions did you have in your family? When you were a child and then when you were a father? DS: Well, we would do the chores. We would get up on weekends, we’d go to town and do our grocery shopping and Sundays we would go to church. During the rest of the week we did the chores and did the necessary work to run the farm. I guess they are traditions if you call them, but it’s necessary. 18 WM: Absolutely. DS: To earn a livelihood. WM: Did you have very much vacation time when you were a kid? DS: No. WM: What about when you were a father? DS: We took a couple. WM: What did you do? DS: We went on a Caribbean cruise. That was a few years back. That’s about it, as far as a long cruise. We’ve visited the family in Oregon a couple of times. California a couple of times. Wyoming we went quite a bit because mom and them were tied in quite close. So we did a lot of time spending with the resident’s older brother Wyoming. WM: Did you go fishing together? DS: I don’t fish. I don’t have the patience for fishing. WM: I understand that really well. So any other activities that you did as a family that you know of? Any at church? Did you do anything special at church? DS: I held a few positions at church. Louise held a few positions in church. WM: Like what? 19 DS: Well she was in the Primary. I was in the High Priest Group leadership. A bishop counselor. The kids really haven’t held a lot of positions but they went to church regularly with us. WM: Good. Okay. DS: But it’s changed an awful lot as far as things I can remember back when you start thinking of what years have passed. I lived along 1200 W and when the ward was started, my grandmother lived where 2nd street—if you start at Wangsguard and head west at 2nd street, if you come a couple of blocks south that 200 S but they are not together. Where grandmother’s house was, they tore it down to build the depot. WM: So she was in there. DS: She was there. She moved into mom and dad’s house in the fall of 1941 and in the spring of 1942. They tore down her two-story brick house with her looking out the window at it. WM: Oh my gosh. DS: They just tore it to pieces. WM: Wow that’s sad. Man: Say that again—six months later DS: I’m sorry? Unknown: Was that six months later? 20 DS: About six. Unknown: That she died? DS: She passed away. She watched them tear down brick by brick of that two-story brick house. They wouldn’t let her have anything out of the house. So a midnight requisition got two old chandeliers. My father go tone and my uncle got one. My father gave my older brother when passing away, he gave it to my brother. My brother sold it to me. I had it rewired and it’s hanging in our house now. So it’s been around a while. WM: Wow. DS: We had a canal that went across in front of our place that when the army came in after the war was out, they filled it in with anything that could go into the canal to fill it up. Besides dirt and it was radioactive. I won’t say radioactive, contaminated is better. It was like that for quite a while. WM: Oh my gosh. Wow. DS: But we used to go in and get our water. We still have to go into the depot to get our water now but it’s considerably different than it was. WM: Does Slaterville have parks? DS: Sorry? WM: Parks? DS: Park? 21 WM: Does Slaterville have parks? DS: We have a park, yeah. That’s where we played our ballgames on was the old park. WM: Did your family do anything at the park? DS: Oh yeah. We had a fourth of July celebrations for a number of years as a community. I went up on Monte Cristo on the fourth of July and got a great big load of snow and brought it home. WM: Oh you’re the one that did that? DS: I did. WM: Oh really. DS: I took two teenage boys. WM: I heard about that. You’re famous. DS: No. WM: All the kids would throw snowballs at each other. DS: Yeah, they would throw a couple of them but Fourth of July snowball I don’t think was much undermined at that time but it was still brought down and dumped into the places. WM: Oh my gosh. Wow. DS: We had the dunk tank. 22 WM: Oh the dunk tank. DS: Where the guy gets on there and sits on it. I got him. WM: Oh did you? DS: Street clothes. WM: Street clothes really? You got it in street clothes. DS: It cost me five dollars a ball but I got him. WM: That’s funny. That’s really funny. Well what would you like your grandchildren to think about you? DS: I don’t know. I’d let them kind of let them form their own opinions. I would like to prompt time be one of the things that we’ve always got it. If you were assigned to harness up the team of horses and go help the neighbor do his straw, his thrashing them into straws, you’d be on time. If he said be there by eight o’clock, you hitched up the team and you was there by eight o’clock. I’d like for them to remember the promptness and fairness is one good thing to have. WM: Yeah. Is that a problem do you think of people? DS: Yes, I do. WM: Yeah. I wonder why. DS: No consequences for being late. WM: Yeah. Right. Well I think that’s a big issue. I think you bring up a big issue. Well let me shift the question back a little further, did you have pioneer ancestors? 23 DS: Did I have? WM: Pioneer ancestors? DS: Yes, but I don’t know much about them. I didn’t do much genealogy work. I don’t know. My sister has, but I didn’t. WM: Okay. And your grandparents, what kind of occupation were they in? DS: Farming. WM: Farming. Okay. Because you were raised here, did anyone come—where did the family come from originally do you know? DS: England. WM: England. Okay. How many generations ago, do you think? DS: I can’t tell you. I didn’t do the genealogy. WM: Right. DS: Not like I should have but I didn’t, I haven’t. WM: You did go to Weber or not? DS: I did go to Weber. WM: How long did you go there? DS: I’m sorry? WM: How long did you go to Weber? DS: Three years. 24 WM: Did you? DS: Yes. Weber High, at that time, was on 11th street and Washington Boulevard. WM: Yeah. DS: It was 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. WM: Okay. Alright, did anybody in your family go to college? DS: I did. I don’t know of any other child in the family that did. No, I did. WM: Okay. What are your school memories? DS: Well I enjoyed all of the sports. I participated in a good share of them. I had some good teachers. Some teachers that I talked with for several years after we had graduated. WM: Oh really? DS: We would recognize each other and talk. So the memories is of the teaching capacity they had and did for us. There was not—well, I got to be careful, there was no bull. They taught. WM: Right. That’s a good statement. Well as far as—who are the current leaders, not the current. Who were the most important leaders in the community in your lifetime? DS: Well mom and dad to start. A good share of the people that was Mom and Dad’s age was. Their friends. WM: Yep. Help me out. 25 Lisa: What? WM: Help me out with some questions. Lisa: Okay. So our family, tell us a little bit about the Slaterville Park that the family maintained. When we mowed the lawns and took care of the park. DS: The weeds got pretty dominate and the people they had to do the lawns didn’t show up on time so if there was ever an activity down there, you didn’t know if you was going to a knee high weeds or if you was going to a mowed lawn. WM: Oh you are kidding. DS: So we would cut it as a family. WM: Really? DS: Trimmed around all of the trees. WM: Right. DS: We did that for two years. I think, almost. Two summers. WM: So it was just your contribution. DS: Just our contribution. WM: Because you have a lot of integrity brother. You do. It’s impressive. DS: I built the back stop. Well I didn’t do it. I designed the backstop to where I wanted it to for playing baseball. Because I pitched off the mound. WM: Yep. 26 DS: And our neighbor to the side of us there gave me the dirt. I took the dirt in a wheelbarrow and lugged it up from there to there and put it on a mound and topped it down to the old stamper. WM: Really? DS: Built the mound. WM: Good for you. That’s great. DS: We had some good people. WM: [To Lisa] What else do I need to talk about? Help me out. DS: There’s a couple of things that happened while I was younger coming up through the ranks. My older sister, the prisoners of war that were at the depot in there. They used to come along the fence line and we lived right along the fence line. WM: Really? DS: They would come with their hose and buckets and everything—the guards. They would get in front of our place and our place had some real good clean, cold, water. So they’d bring the buckets set them down. My older sisters would go fill them out of the pump and take them back over and give the prisoner’s the water. WM: Oh that’s great. That’s very nice. DS: The old perimeter was covered by guards on horses. WM: oh really? 27 DS: Dad had to go in and get the water once a week and go turn it off. At night, they had the ladies on horses and the men on horses that would go around the perimeter of the depot. WM: Wow. DS: And if you are familiar with 1200 West. You start at the IRS and come this way, there’s a little dip in the road. Just before you hit that little elbow, look on the right hand side and you’ll see a little four-by-four shed. That was one of the guard sheds that they had. WM: Oh really. I’ll be darned. DS: Dad was in their one night and he was changing the water and the next thing he, “Halt, who goes there?” “Click.” The lady had pulled and cocked her gun. “Who goes there?” Dad goes, “It’s me changing the water.” He says, “I damned near died. I didn’t hear her coming” He was hard of hearing like I am. He didn’t hear her coming. The next thing you know, is there is a horse standing there right beside him, “Halt, who goes there?” WM: Oh gosh. That’s wild. That’s a great story, thank you for sharing. DS: But we… I was only 13 when the depot was put in. That was 1936-1949 to 1952. I was 42 when grandma died. So it would be a number of years ago that I remember Dad going in. I went ever since. They have changed it a little bit. They padlocked it and we used to have to call the guard and he’d come down and undo the key and let us in and out. But while the prisoners were there, they rode the horses around and outside. The prisoners kept the weeds down. 28 WM: Well you’ve had an interesting life. DS: Yeah, no complaints. Except I’m getting old. WM: That’s hard to live with but you got to do it. DS: Well I just tell the doctors, you take care of my ears, you take care of my eyes, you take care of my heart and you take care of my legs, I’m in good shape. WM: Oh my gosh, well it was fun talking with you. I appreciate you. DS: Thank you. |
Format | application/pdf |
ARK | ark:/87278/s6dbwkr4 |
Setname | wsu_ms |
ID | 60864 |
Reference URL | https://digital.weber.edu/ark:/87278/s6dbwkr4 |