Oral History Program Joseph Anderson Interviewed by John R. Sillito 23 February 1979 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Joseph Anderson Interviewed by John R. Sillito University Archivist 23 February 1979 Copyright © 2012 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 Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ 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: Anderson, Joseph, an oral history by John R. Sillito, 23 February 1979, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Joseph Anderson 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Joseph Anderson (born 1889). Mr. Anderson was a student at Weber Stake Academy starting at the age of 14 in 1904 to graduation in 1905. The interview was conducted on February 23, 1979 by John R. Sillito in order to gather Mr. Anderson’s recollections and experiences with Weber Stake Academy. JS: Why don't we begin by asking you a question or two about your early life. Why don't you tell us when you were born and where, and a little bit about your family. JA: Well, I was born November 20th, 1889, in Salt Lake City, Utah. We lived in Salt Lake City only two or three years, then we moved to Kaysville, Utah. I might say that my father, George Anderson, was a section foreman on the Oregon Short Line Railroad at that time. Father and mother came from Scotland. I'm not sure of the year. It must have been around 1875. JS: Were they converts to the LDS Church when they came? JA: Yes, they were converts to the Church. They came here for the gospel. I was the yougest of eleven. I have a very hazy recollection—some people kind of scoff at the idea that I can remember this—but, I can remember when I was about two or three years old being with the bigger boys when they lived on 8th West in Salt Lake City. That's where I was born. I am not just sure how far south, but I think about Fifth or Sixth South. JS: Didn't the Cannon's live in that general area? JA: Yes. A little farther south and farther west. Well, that is about all I can remember about Salt Lake City at the time of my birth. 2 JS: So you moved to Kaysville when you were a small boy. JA: We moved to Kaysville and were there for a short time. Father was a section foreman there. From Kaysville, we moved to Roy, which was Hooper at that time, on the railroad. We lived in the section house there on the Oregon Short Line and spent a number of years there. JS: Was there just one family living there or were there several families? JA: Just one family, but there was a crew of men working on the railroad. They had a big bunkhouse where they stayed. My father and mother gave them their meals. JS: Most of the crew were single men as opposed to men with families? JA: I'm not sure as to that. I don't remember anything about that. I think they must have been or they wouldn't have been living in the bunkhouse. Father was a strong man. He was not a tall man, but he was very strong. I would say that he was just a medium sized man, but I've heard men say of him that he could pick up one end of a railroad rail, and it would take three or four men to carry the other end. JS: That is pretty strong. JA He was an honest man. He was a good old honest Scotchman. JS: Thrifty? JA: Very thrifty. He didn't believe in going into debt for anything. Sometimes the girls put one over on him. He was pretty much annoyed when they would want a bed or some piece of furniture, a chair or something, and get it on time. He didn't like that. He wanted them to have the money to pay for it and pay cash directly. 3 It was while we were in Roy that father retired from the railroad. He bought a little farm of forty acres, just west of the Rio Grande tracks. The bishop of the ward had the first forty acres and we had the forty acres just below it. Our home was there and we farmed there. My father was not much of a farmer, but he had boys who were growing up, and they could help. JS: You said he retired. How old of a man was he then? JA: He must have been about 70 years old. JS: He still had fairly young children though? JA: Yes. I was the youngest. JS: Did you go to elementary school in Roy? JA: Yes. JS: What was it like? JA: It was a one room schoolhouse. We had eight grades all in one room. Some of the boys were pretty wild. We had a lady school teacher as I recall. Well, they made things so miserable for her that she had to resign. She couldn't control the class. Some of them were pretty large. So we got a man from Hooper. His name was Soule. I think it was Orson Soule. He took care of them in mighty good shape. In those days, they weren't afraid to beat up on kids if they had to have it. He would take one of those big fellows to task. JS: So he straightened them out. JA: Yes. I graduated from the 7th grade. We only had one student in the 8th grade and he was my brother. In those days they graduated in the 8th grade. The teacher, Mr. Soule, wanted to have two graduates. Though I was in the 7th grade 4 he sent me over to Ogden to take the graduation exercises. My brother, who was two and a half years older than I was, wasn't too happy about his kid brother graduating the same time he did! JS: You were fourteen at the time. JA: I was fourteen. I started at the Weber Academy in the fall of 1904. JS: Did you take what was called a commercial course? JA: Yes. JS: What exactly was that? JA: Well, I took English, arithmetic, algebra, shorthand, typewriting, and bookkeeping. I guess that would be about the size of it. JS: That was a two year course, wasn't it? JA: A two year course. JS: What motivated you to do that? To take that particular course? JA: I'll tell you what happened. We were poor farmers. We had a hard time making a living. In those days you couldn't get anything for your produce. We would sell beets for $4.25 a ton. We would try to sell all kinds of things. We would almost have to give it away. If we got ten cents for it we thought that was pretty good. Father became the postmaster and, although it was just a small community, he made a little money there which helped. My brother, Alexander, who had graduated when I did, went to Salt Lake City to the University of Utah. My sister Clara, who had graduated the year before I did, went to Salt Lake City to the University. So Dad sent the two of them but when it came to me he said, "I can't 5 do it. I don't have the means. You wait a year or two before you go to college or high school." I said, "No, dad, if I wait a year or two, chances are I will never go. I want to go now." So, I worked in a canning factory, in a tomato canning factory. JS: There in Roy? JA: Yes. There were two of them as a matter of fact. One down by the Rio Grande tracks called the Roy Canning Factory, and the Hardy Canning Factory right next to the Oregon Short Line tracks. I guess I worked there about six weeks after school started to make enough money to go to Weber Academy. JS: So you started late in the term. JA: I was about six weeks late, I think. JS: That must have made it hard to catch up. JA: Yes, you see I was only fourteen years old. I rode horseback over there. JS: Oh did you? You rode horseback from Roy to the Academy? The Academy was in downtown Ogden then wasn't it? JA: The Academy was on Jefferson, a couple of blocks above the main street. David O. McKay was the principal then. JS: Tell us a little about what you remember about President McKay. We always hear that he was a great teacher. I'm sure that is true, but what was it about him that made him a great teacher? JA: Well, I guess there were different things that entered into it. In the first place, President McKay always had a great personality; people loved him. When he taught us the classics—The Princess by Tennyson or the Lady of the Lake by 6 Scott—well, he just lived it. We all fell in love with him. He became so absorbed in his subject that he wouldn't even hear the bell ring sometimes. We were glad he didn't because we enjoyed him so much. I hadn't learned too much, I guess, in that school in Roy. I had come over late and the other students had gotten a good start, for instance, in English. President McKay would get us up to the blackboard to diagram. I was very embarrassed—just a kid in short pants. But, while we were backward about it, he taught us in a way that we enjoyed and we learned. JS: So he took an interest in his students, didn't he? JA: He surely did. This is out of order maybe, but when I became secretary to the First Presidency, I used to write letters, and he would say, "Didn't I teach you English," if I made a little mistake. He would straighten you out! We had a little study room, on the second floor I believe it was, and kids would become a little bit noisy sometimes. All President McKay would do was walk in through the side door and he wouldn't say a word, but you immediately got the message. JS: He really was, in many ways, the dominating influence at the Academy during those years wasn't he? JA: Oh yes. He was a good principal. I think we really had some good teachers there too. JS: Why don't you tell us a little bit about some of those teachers. Wasn't Thomas McKay a teacher there at that time? JA: Thomas taught there but I didn't have classes from him. Perhaps I should mention this—because I was late, the class had gone on in shorthand. There 7 were only two of us that were late, Ed Saunders and I. Ed Saunders later became a contractor but he was in the shorthand class. We took a little separate class, you see, to try to catch up. The teacher we had taught us Pittman shorthand. The teacher—even in those early days—said to me, "You ought to be a court reporter. You just have a natural ability to write shorthand." JS: Who was that teacher? JA: His name was Nelson. I believe he came from Tooele. He later moved to Salt Lake City. He only taught us for one year, the next year they taught us the Gregg, and we sort of had to teach ourselves. We didn't know anything about that. The new teacher didn't know anything about Pittman. JS: So you learned both the Gregg and the Pittman? JA: I really didn't learn the Gregg but stayed with the Pittman. We had to do it pretty much on our own. It's remarkable that I did as well as I did. Then in typewriting we had an old-fashioned typewriter. The capitals were on the upper part of the machine, and the other letters, the small letters, were on the lower half. In order to make the capital you had to move up and then down to make the others. So, I really started off wrong in shorthand and typing. I enjoyed bookkeeping very much. W.M. McKendrick was the teacher who taught us arithmetic and algebra. We also had William Terry who taught there. I don't think I had any classes from him. Those teachers I remember very well. JS: Did you often meet in the Ogden Tabernacle? 8 JA: Yes, we frequently marched down there as a group. They held a sort of devotional service. We had our devotional services really in the academy, but we would go down there and they would have a lecture or something. JS: Part of your course of study at the stake academy was religious instruction, too, I guess. JA: Oh yes. Every morning as I recall, we met in the big auditorium. We would have prayer and singing, and then the principal or someone would talk to us. But they didn't have a lengthy service. JS: Did you have theology classes and that sort of thing? JA: I don't remember. I don't think we did at that time. JS: Weber County has always been predominately Mormon but Ogden has often had a more mixed population. Was there any feeling of animosity toward the academy on the part of Ogden non-Mormons at that time? JA: No, I think not. Not that we recognized, anyway. I might tell you that, while I generally rode to the academy on horseback, in the cold weather we stayed in Ogden. We lived up on Monroe at the Lindsay's. I'd go home on weekends. JS: Were most of the students at the academy LDS? JA: I suppose that all of them were. As far as I know they all were. JS: I assume the faculty were all LDS as far as you know. Did you need extracurricular activities like athletics? JA: Yes indeed. JS: Did you participate in those activities? JA: No, I didn't. I was too small. But we did have a fine basketball team. 9 JS: Who did the team play? Local schools? JA: I think we played Logan. I don't recall that we played Salt Lake. They had a group of schools they played, the same as they have now. JS: Did they have a football team too? I know President McKay was a football player in his youth. JA: I don't know. I don't think we had a football team. I'm sure we didn't. JS: What about a band? Did you have those kinds of things, drama, plays, that sort of thing? JA: No, I don't think so. I can't remember. It's always a long way back. I don't remember having drama classes. I do remember going to the showhouses there. JS: In Ogden? JA: In Ogden. President McKay loved the theater, and I always loved the theater. We had a little theater just above the main street where the Ben Lomond is now. We saw various Shakespearian plays there and other plays. JS: You know, Ogden has a kind of notorious reputation as a wild town—25th Street and all that. Was it a wild town when you were here as a boy? JA: I don't remember. Nothing like the reputation it had later. JS: What do you remember about your fellow students? JA: Well, not too much. I do remember Ed Saunders. I kept track of Ed over the years. He became a building contractor and a very successful man in Ogden. I think he became a county commissioner there and the father of 12 children. Of course I was sort of a backward boy and didn't get too well acquainted. I remember Rube Saunders. I remember the Saunders boys. They were from 10 Hooper. There were the Belnaps. And Bill Manning who was one of the basketball players. There was Estella Holland. She recently passed away, I think. She must have been 90 years old. JS: So you are likely the only living member of that class then, aren't you? JA: I think so. JS: Since many of the people you have mentioned went on to prominence in later years, one could assume that the education they were getting at Weber Academy was quite good. Of course, many of these people went on to further education. JA: Yes it was. We enjoyed it and we worked hard. We did take it seriously.You see there were only two or three boys in that commercial course, and I was the only boy that graduated. There were some girls that graduated. Some of the other students included Ed Bingham—I think he was from Riverdale. There was Effie Ballantyne. I remember she was the daughter of Richard Ballantyne who started the LDS Sunday Schools. JS: There was also a Joseph Ballantyne on the faculty. JA: Yes, he was in the music department. I remember Etta Halverson and Parley Taylor. The names are very familiar. JS: Did you keep in contact with some of your fellow students in later years? JA: No, I really didn't. You see I was there in 1904 and 1905. Quite soon after I graduated I came to Salt Lake to get a job. JS: Where did you work? 11 JA: Well, to begin with, I worked for two months in Ogden. I worked for the Volker- Scowcroft lumber yards. JS: As a bookkeeper? JA: Well, doing typewriting and office work. I remember J.W.F. Volker. I worked there for two months. I stayed in Ogden for those two months. I paid $15 a month for board and lodging and I got $15 a month working at the lumber yard. JS: So you were just about even. JA: Well, my dad said to me, and I think he was right, "We want you to work immediately. If you don't go to work and do the work you have been studying, then you won't become so qualified. We want you to get the experience." I did. JS: Then you were just about fifteen years old, weren't you? JA: Fifteen years old. JS: So you've been working a long time, haven't you? JA: I have been working all that time except when I was on a mission. I came to Salt Lake City then. I would go around and apply for positions and they would say "Can you do that kind of work?" JS: Is there anything else you would like to mention about your experiences at the academy? JA: I might tell you that while I was there, during my second year, they built the gymnasium. It wasn't finished that year, but I remember getting out and working on the foundation and so forth. JS: Did you have any contact with local community leaders who were involved with the academy? 12 JA: No, I don't think I had any contact with them. I do remember President Shurtliff, though. He was stake president there. I remember we heard about Brother Moench all the time, but I had no contact with him. I'll tell you one man who was at school at that time—Aaron Tracy. He later became president of the college, but he was just a student at the time. I knew him very, very well. JS: In later years you were secretary to the First Presidency of the LDS Church and worked with President McKay. Did President McKay talk about the college and maintain an interest in the affairs of the college? JA: Well, of course when I came to Salt Lake, I had no contact with him for several years. After he became an Apostle, he became head of the Sunday school and the Church Board of Education and so forth. So, I didn't really renew our acquaintance until 1922. So, you see, that is really quite awhile. In that year I started to work for the president of the church. President McKay was still then an Apostle, of course. JS: Later the college went from being owned by the church to a state college. Did President McKay play any direct role in that? JA: I couldn't say definitely. He may have. I was with the First Presidency when they did away with those schools. They did away with schools in Logan, Arizona, Rexburg, Idaho, and other places. President McKay, I can tell you, was opposed to that. But, the church was growing, and we couldn't afford to have stake academies everywhere. People were paying their taxes for public schools and there was duplication more or less. Having been a "church school man" it was very hard on President McKay to let go of them because they did get theological 13 training there. By the way, as I think about it, we must have gotten instruction in theology too. I think the same teachers taught it. JS: Tell us a little more about your recollections of President McKay. JA: I knew President McKay very well. He always took an interest in his students. In later years when he was in the hospital I would go up to see him and talk about the old days at Weber Academy. JS: This was while he was president of the church? JA: Oh yes, just before he died. I quoted to him The Lady of the Lake the way he taught us to say them. So he was quite happy to have one of his students who could remember those things. But, he was my teacher in later years in a sense. I had some wonderful teachers in English in my later years. I think of James E. Talmage, David O. McKay, J. Rueben Clark, Stephen L. Richards, John A. Widstoe, and all the others. They were all scholarly men. So, as far as the academy was concerned, President McKay and I had a little in common when we worked together. JS: It must be nice to have spent time as a student with someone and then later work with that same individual. JA: Yes it is. JS: You really had a long association with President McKay, didn't you? JA: I certainly did. JS: And a pleasant one, I am sure. JA: Yes. A very wonderful one. 14 JS: Well, Brother Anderson we appreciate your willingness to sit down with us and discuss your recollections of your days at Weber Academy. Thank you very much.