Oral History Program Bettie Jean Marsh Collins Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 9 August 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Bettie Jean Marsh Collins Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 9 August 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: Marsh Collins, Betty Jean, an oral history by Sarah Langsdon, 9 August 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Bettie Jean Collins Circa 1967 Bettie Jean Collins 9 August 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Bettie Jean Marsh Collins, conducted on August 9, 2019 in the Stewart Library, by Sarah Singh. Bettie discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Alyssa Dove, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: This is Sarah Singh, and I am here interviewing Bettie Jean Marsh-Collins. It is August 9, 2019. We are in the Stewart Library. Bettie, thank you for coming and agreeing to do this with us. We’re going to start with the beginning, why don’t you tell us where and when you were born. BJ: I was born September 27, 1941 in El Campo, Texas. SS: Was your dad in the war? Oh, I guess it was before the war, cause it was September 1941. BJ: My father was a seismographer who searched for oil for Continental Oil Company. He was assigned to El Campo when my mother was expecting me, so that’s where I was born. SS: What were your parents’ names? BJ: Lorenzo and Imogene Neaves McJunkin. SS: Were you an only child or did you have siblings? BJ: I was an only child. SS: What was it like growing up in Texas? BJ: Well, I didn’t, because of the nature of seismographing and the crews, they moved frequently. When I was five years old my father was transferred to, what was then, the headquarters of Continental Oil Company. It later became Conoco- Philips, Conoco-Philips Oil Company. The headquarters were in a town called 2 Ponca City, Oklahoma. That’s where I grew up from when I began kindergarten until I graduated from “Po High,” as we call it, in the class of 1959. SS: What brought you to Utah? BJ: I married a man who was from Utah, a lawyer. We were both in the poverty program in the legal services offices in Chicago. His great-grandfather followed Brigham Young to Northern Utah where he homesteaded. My husband and I moved to Utah because he wanted to return to his family home. SS: Where did you go to college and law school? BJ: I graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS degree, and then I went to the University of Wisconsin for three more years and graduated in 1966 with my Doctorate of Jurisprudence (law degree). Then I spent one more year in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin because I received a Russell Sage Foundation Fellowship, which involved providing free legal assistance to low income clients. SS: When you were growing up, did you have any women that you looked up to? BJ: Oh, certainly my mother was one. As I grew older, I really quite admired Jaqueline Kennedy, our First Lady in the early 1960s, and if I remember, I’m sure there are a number of them that I admire, that were public figures. But I didn’t know them. Such as Eleanor Roosevelt, I even remember her. SS: What did your mom do? Was she a homemaker? BJ: She was a school teacher. When I was seven years old she retired from teaching to raise me. SS: What encouraged you to go to college, or basically, to pursue your education? 3 BJ: I was never given an option, it was just going to happen. In Ponca City, we had very educated people working for both Conoco and another big oil company. For all of my friends, it was not a question of, “If you go to college,” it was, “When you go,” and we started preparing in early high school years to do this. SS: So when you went to college, what drew you to the law profession? BJ: I wanted to get a higher degree. I had majored in history and minored in political science. I was intrigued by law and I wanted to do something that allowed me to make a difference in life. Law seemed to be that challenge in 1963. SS: Did you face any challenges going for your law degree? BJ: Well, yes. At times I had doubts, it was a really hard grind. When I entered my law school class in 1963, I think there were perhaps a dozen women out of about four hundred students total. When I graduated, I was one of six who had not quit. It was a challenge. Women had not gone to law school, they were expected to stay home or take up other more traditional occupations. Law was a man’s world. By the time I graduated in 1966, admission of women to law schools was growing. I said I was one of six, but I could look in the classrooms and see a substantial number of young women who had entered law school by 1966. That was really a visible turning point to me for women in law. SS: Did you feel like you faced any discrimination because you were a woman in the law program? BJ: I personally did not. Socially, I was somewhat shy so I would study in the women’s lounge during breaks at first. Slowly but surely the students started asking me to join them in social activities such as golf or hiking or concerts. By 4 the time I graduated, I felt very comfortable, like I had a number of good friends, regardless of their sex, and that made it easy for me. I also had a scholarship for out-of-state tuition that was awarded to me by a professor named Walter Brandeis Rausenbush, the grandson of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Walter Brandeis. He encouraged me to go to law school. SS: That’s a great connection there. When you graduated from law school, did you face any challenges entering the workforce as a woman? BJ: Well, I can recall only one incident where I felt there was some discrimination, and that was here locally when I applied for a job. There was a vacancy in the Ogden City Attorney’s office, and when I spoke to the city attorney about the assistant city attorney’s job he said that there were a lot of young men out there that had wives and children and they needed the financial help more than I did. So I didn’t pursue that one, needless to say. SS: Understandable. When did you come to Utah? BJ: We arrived here in the Spring of 1970. SS: When you first arrived, did you come to Ogden or were you in Salt Lake? BJ: My husband’s old farm, that his great-grandfather homesteaded, was north of Ogden. It was built by his great-grandfather with the local stone and brick in 1849 when he came out here with Brigham Young. The walls were at least five feet thick. We modernized the inside, moved in, and lived in that house for two years before moving to Ogden. SS: What was your first job when you came to Weber County? 5 BJ: Well, the first thing I had to do was study for the Utah Bar Exam. There was a lot of pressure there, as most law students know when they’re trying to go through that passage rite. I passed the bar exam in February of 1971. I started a private practice but I received an offer for my first job here as assistant attorney general for the Utah attorney general. They had an opening in the state attorney general’s office and I applied. Vernon Romney was the Utah attorney general at the time and I think Mr. Romney wanted to help women pursue their goal of practicing law and being active in the legal community. Every newspaper and many television stations in Utah ran a story about my appointment as the first woman in the history of Utah to become an assistant attorney general. I held that position for five years. SS: How did that make you feel, knowing you were sort of the first? BJ: I felt honored and I felt a little pressure, I suppose, about the position. This is where I became involved in the beginning of the Utah State Child Support Program. Congress had passed the Title IV-D program under the Social Security Act, to be implemented at the state level. It was a program that each state had to adopt in its time, or else lose federal funds. It was Utah’s time and they complied with the statutes, rules, and regulations. I began my career in child support by establishing paternity and child support orders. SS: So did you do anything other than the child support stuff as the assistant attorney general? BJ: No. I did the work of child support because they were just starting to do child support here in Utah. The attorney general’s office began implementing the 6 requirements, then later on they turned the program over to the district attorney offices. When I moved back home to Oklahoma, I became an assistant district attorney for the eighth district of Oklahoma of the child support program. The district attorney heard about my experience in Utah’s child support program and he was eager to grow his new program. When an opening came, I became the assistant district attorney supervising the child support division. SS: Let’s go back to you being here in Ogden, Utah. Was there a time when you felt you had to be sort of brave or stand up at work? BJ: I don’t recall ever feeling challenged in that way. I have known women who were concerned about being discriminated against. I had a friend who was a woman assistant district attorney in our office in Oklahoma who was frequently offended by or intimidated by something or someone in the workplace. I just simply never felt that way. I had good employers. I was a supervising attorney with a great deal. SS: How did you, because you had one child during this time. How did you balance that, being a working mom? BJ: That was probably the most difficult part of my years working in Utah, especially in the AG’s Office. I had my son, who was very small, and my daughter was a baby when I joined. I commuted from Ogden to Salt Lake City and there were nights when I couldn’t get home because of a blizzard. So I did rely on babysitters and housekeepers, my husband helped but it was still difficult. For example, I was not always able to attend a teacher’s meeting. SS: Was your husband working? 7 BJ: He was an attorney who practiced law here for a time. Then he became self-employed and involved in real estate. SS: Did he work for a firm here in Ogden? BJ: No, he was doing his own thing. For a time we practiced together, before I joined the Attorney General’s Office. SS: What kind of law was he practicing? BJ: Real estate law and family law, but he emphasized on real estate law. SS: What was it like, do you think, for your kids growing up on the family land? BJ: My son is still here, happily married and has three children. He will never leave Utah. He has every friend he ever made from grade school through college. He loves Utah. I think that speaks well for living in Utah. My daughter grew up here, although we moved back to Oklahoma when she was entering highschool. She graduated from Ponca City High School. SS: So what brought you back to Oklahoma? BJ: My father was living there and in poor health. My mother had passed away and I was the only child. My daughter also wanted to move to Ponca. So in the end, everything just worked out with the timing for me to move back and pursue the career that I’d started in child support enforcement. I retired in 2006. SS: So you didn’t leave Utah until your daughter was in high school? BJ: Well, she was entering the ninth grade here at Ogden High. SS: So you were at the AG’s Office for just five years, what did you do after? BJ: After I left the AG’s Office—I resigned because of the children, they were growing up without me. That is probably the greatest pressure I felt and it was certainly 8 genuine. I went into law practice in Ogden for ten years and then my husband and I divorced. That’s when everything worked toward going back to Ponca City and that’s when I moved. By the way, my address was 1540 Country Hills Drive, which is just about five blocks away. I came over here to the stadium and walked a couple of miles a day when I had some health problems. It’s like my second home. SS: So you were in private practice? BJ: I was in private practice from 1979-1989, and then we moved back to Ponca in 1989. SS: So when you were in private practice, was it mostly family law? Given your background? BJ: Yes, and some bankruptcy law, but mostly divorce, child support, and custody cases. SS: Were you fulfilled with that? BJ: Yes, I was. Although, it could be very difficult because custody cases in particular are very... what’s the word I want to use? They’re difficult. There’s lots of strain and unhappiness and concern about children, you know, it’s a difficult area of law. SS: Was it hard for you being a single mother at that point? BJ: No, we had moved back in with my father, temporarily, in 1989. We ended up living with him until he passed away. We were a three generation family and it worked really well. SS: When you were here in Utah, were you involved in things other than law? 9 BJ: Yes, I was a member of the Weber County Historic Society. We evaluated homes and businesses for historical purposes and decided whether they had to comply with the code or it could be modified. Then for one year I was the chairman of that committee. I was also a member of the Junior League of Ogden for the years I lived here. The girlfriend who came to the door was my best friend for twenty-five years, and in the twenty years that have lapsed since then we’ve stayed pretty close in touch. SS: Did you meet her through Junior League? BJ: Yes. In fact, we were members of the same church. She actually was responsible for my joining the Junior League. So there were those two interests. I was also in the Mental Health Association of Weber Basin, the Utah Association for Mental Health, and the Montessori School of Ogden. I was a member of the American Association of University Women, known as AAUW. I was also listed in “Who’s Who of America,” “The World: Who’s Who of Women,” and “Noble Americans of the Bicentennial Era.” SS: Do you remember when you were active in the Junior League, what the Junior League was doing at that time? BJ: I remember I participated in the Junior League's annual rummage sale. It was hard work and a lot of fun. Were you a member? SS: I am not. They keep trying to get me to join, I just have yet to find the time to be able to. 10 BJ: One of the other pluses about the Junior League was that I met many, many lovely women from Ogden. So it was just a good way to meet and become friends with people. SS: Do you feel like the Junior League is good at giving back to the community? BJ: Yes, I think that they are. SS: Do you remember anything other than the rummage sale that you were doing? BJ: I think they had an education fund to provide financial support for needy children or young adults in school, but I cannot be specific about that. SS: They hadn’t started the Guardian Ad Litem Program yet while you were there? BJ: No, but I’m certainly familiar with the role of Guardian Ad Litem in the legal world. SS: Were you involved in anything else in Ogden that you can think of? What were you doing with the mental health boards? BJ: I cannot remember. I’m too far removed from any of these specifically. Other than the Ogden Historical Preservation Society, I cannot remember what they were called for certain. SS: That’s ok, I understand. Let’s go back to Oklahoma. What was your life like when you moved back there? BJ: Well, it was busy. I was hired as an assistant D.A. in February 1989. At that time, I was the only attorney in the civil division. My duties included civil and juvenile cases. Then about a year after that, the position opened up for Supervising Attorney of the child support division. Based on my earlier experience in Utah’s child support program (the Office of Recovery Services), I assumed the job. I had three case workers who helped me prepare cases for establishing paternity, 11 obtaining child support orders and enforcing them. I think we were thrilled when we brought in the child support amount that we recovered, it was about $75,000 for the year. Gradually, we expanded the program. I had Kay County, Grant County, Garfield County, and Noble County; four counties in north central Oklahoma. I appeared in the courts for these counties every week. I had fifteen case workers plus one process server and a receptionist. By the time they split the program up, we had 8,000 cases. I was traveling all over Northern Oklahoma to handle the cases. Then because it was just so overwhelming, we split off two of those counties. I covered the county I lived in, Kay, and the one adjacent to it, Noble, until I retired in 2006. At the time of retirement, I still had over 3,000 cases. I still had nine case workers and my dockets in those two county courts sometimes contained one hundred people. I ended up litigating a great many orders to show cause for contempt for not paying child support. Those defendants who failed to pay sometimes would go to jail for a while. All of the judges were very supportive of the child support program. There was, for a time, a lot of pressure, but as my staff grew and learned more the pressure eased up and all the court work and everybody on the staff knew what they were doing. I retired in 2006 and the program has collected millions of child support dollars over the years. SS: I didn’t realize child support didn’t come into effect until... BJ: The early 1970s was when it really started to roll. Now, I wasn’t through with child support when I retired. I received a phone call in 2006 saying, “We at the Kaw Tribe have applied for and are receiving funding to establish our own child 12 support program.” All the tribes, recognized Indian tribes, can do this. It’s Indian land, it’s subject to their laws, so state and local courts have no jurisdiction. So the Kaw Tribe hired me to write up the Kaw child support program. I spent a year writing and working in the Kaw Nation’s child support program to bring it into compliance with state and federal law under the Title IV-D Act. Then I retired for good in the summer of 2007. SS: Well, what was it like working with the Kaw Tribe? BJ: Oh, I have the greatest respect for Native Americans and Native American culture. There were six tribes around Ponca City and each and every one of them has developed a child support program since the initial one by the Kaw Tribe. Then I became involved in the Native American Project, involving a museum and a statue. SS: So, what other things were you doing in Oklahoma? I mean, I’m sure you were extremely busy, it sounds like it. BJ: Yes, I had my hands full. I worked long hours but it was very fulfilling because, by the end of my tenure there as the head of the Child Support Office, they were bringing in a couple million dollars a year for two counties. The Standing Bear project was where I volunteered to become involved. Our six Native American tribes near Ponca were also involved. The Ponca Tribe is a small Indian tribe that split away from the Sioux Nation and Chief Standing Bear was an early civil rights advocate for the Ponca. We interviewed a Native American artist who came to Oklahoma from Utah. He was a Ute, and very, very talented. We ended up raising the funds to build a beautiful statue sculpted by the artist. Then we 13 built a lovely little museum commemorating all six tribes. I was on the board of directors for that, and I also served on the board of directors for the Marland Estate. Marland was the governor of Oklahoma and fabulously wealthy due to oil discoveries. He built a beautiful mansion in Ponca City that he modeled after the Davanzati Palace in Florence, Italy. The ceiling lights in the ballroom are Waterford Crystal chandeliers and gold leaf. We worked hard at updating and trying to save the mansion, which had suffered a lot of neglect before it was purchased by the city. When you ask about involvement in communities, the Standing Bear project and the Marland Estate project were my two biggest loves. I was heavily involved in those. SS: Did you continue with the Junior League when you went back to Oklahoma? BJ: There is no Junior League in Ponca City. It’s a small town of 26,000. SS: Let’s go to your kids. So your son was just there for a few years, a few semesters? BJ: Brad earned his two year degree there. Stacy graduated from Oklahoma State University at Stillwater. SS: Ok. Then what happened to your kids after that? What did they choose to do? BJ: Well, my son still lives and works in Weber County. His employer is Mission Support and he is an aircraft technician. My daughter won a Hilti Foundation fellowship when she graduated from OSH. Hilti flew her to Cologne, Germany to study German at a language institute. Then they moved her to Hilti’s world headquarters in Lichtenstein where she lived and worked for one year. She had, 14 much to the public school system’s credit here in Ogden, studied German since she was in seventh grade and was fluent in the language by then.. When she finished her fifteen month Hitli job, she worked for an Austrian company called Wolford. Wolford is a very upscale Austrian women’s garment manufacturer and that took her back to Manhattan to work there for a couple of years. Then she applied for a job with Chanel and she worked in Chanel’s corporate headquarters for several years in New York City. Then she accepted a position at Victoria’s Secret and moved to their headquarters in Columbus, Ohio and then at Fossil in Dallas. She’s not married but she is a senior manager at Adidas headquarters in Portland, Oregon. She’s had a very nice career. SS: That’s amazing. BJ: Yeah. She’s never married. She’s been free to do her thing and I’ve always encouraged her. SS: Looking back over your life to date, are there women that you can see throughout your career that you have looked up to or supported you? BJ: Yes. I would say, most recently, there’s an organization called the PEO for short, but the PEO is a women’s organization and very active in Ponca City. It is devoted to Cottey College, a fully accredited liberal arts and sciences college for women in Nevada, Missouri. It provides need-based grants to women whose education has been interrupted and who find it necessary to return to school to support themselves or their families. I also study classical piano at Oklahoma State University, I’m a student there. The women have encouraged me to 15 perform locally. I’m waiting for the Philharmonic but I don’t think that’s going to happen. But anyway, yes, once I retired, I went back to my love. I had majored in piano my freshman year of college and then I walked away from it to do everything we talked about up until now. Then about three years ago, one of my girlfriends that I played a lot of music with in Ponca suggested I apply for a position as a student at Oklahoma State University and study with one of the piano teachers in the music department. I was accepted after I auditioned and now I spend many hours each week practicing before my piano lessons with Professor Heather Lanners in the OSU Music Department. SS: Do you think your life would have been completely different if you had done piano? Can you even imagine? BJ: Oh, yes, it would have been very different. Very different. I sometimes regret that I didn’t do it. I studied with a world-known concert pianist my freshman year of college, Ozan Marsh. He toured with Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops. He played at Carnegie Hall and he played all over the world. I regret that I didn’t stay with him, but I didn’t think I’d be a good teacher and that’s just about what you have to do; you teach and you play musical instruments. I didn’t think I was good enough for that. I thought I was good enough for law. SS: Sounds like you were good enough for law. As a woman, how would you define courage? BJ: Well, I would say courage includes knowing the difference between right and wrong and doing what’s right, even if it is not the most popular way to go. That 16 would be courage. I think striking out into the unknown and not knowing for sure what’s going to happen is a form of courage. I know friends thought that it was unusual for me to go to law school and didn’t understand why but I was just determined to do it. There were times when it could be a little bit difficult. But that’s courage. It’s the ability to do what has to be done, or what is right and needs to be done, regardless of consequences. SS: I’m going to jump back to the women who influenced you question. Can you think of any women that influenced you when you were here in Utah? Were there any? It doesn’t necessarily have to be in your work life, it could be in your personal life and you know, anything like that. You talked about your best friend that you met through the Junior League. What was her name? BJ: Susan Stacy, as I said, met me shortly after I moved into town and just took me under wing. She introduced me to many people and sponsored me in the Junior League. She’s always been a good friend. Carol Lapine is another friend I have known for years. She was also a Junior Leaguer, divorced with four young children. She told me that when she heard the news of my appointment by the Attorney General in 1974 she was inspired to enroll that afternoon at Weber State because of my story. Carol graduated from Weber State and became a full professor there until she retired. SS: When you were at the AG’s Office, were you the only female that was working? BJ: Well, there were secretaries but I was the only woman attorney. I was the first one in Utah’s history from statehood to 1974. They had not ever had a woman hired by the Attorney General. 17 SS: Were there any hired on while you were working there? BJ: No, I was the only one. It’s just that time was passing and change was happening in America like the Civil Rights movement and the Women’s movement. Women were becoming more independent and involved. I mentioned Jackie Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Steinem, Golda Meir, Maggie Smith, Meryle Streep, Barbara Streisand and Carol King to name a few. SS: You had mentioned the Civil Rights movement and the Women’s movement, were you involved in that in any way? BJ: I joined a demonstration on the campus at the University of Wisconsin. I regret that I did not go to Washington DC to hear Martin Luther King Junior give his famous speech. I wish that I could have financially afforded it because I feel like that was such a major historical moment. SS: Was that when you were in law school? BJ: Yes. SS: Were you involved in the women’s rights movement? BJ: No. AD: Looking back and seeing your school experience, how would you say that education empowers women? BJ: Well, my own personal example would be that I would never have been hired as an attorney anywhere without having been educated as a lawyer. That led, in a way, to being the first woman to be the president of our local bar association, the Kay County Bar Association. But absolutely, education is big, very big, on my list. I know that you have to have the tools for your profession and that’s where law 18 school was so important. They have what they call “continuing legal education,” CLE, courses where lawyers are required to attend so many a year and they rack up their points to meet the number required for the purpose of staying current on the law. How can you give someone advice if the law has changed on the subject they’re asking you about? AD: What advice would you give to the upcoming generation of women? BJ: I think they need to look for the area of expertise they want to learn and apply. It’s still difficult in our country to, I think, have children if you don’t have family members to take care of them or live in large metropolitan areas where they can provide really good services. We definitely need more daycare centers and we need government assistance for daycare centers so that women can be comfortable leaving their children in the hands of others while they go to work. SS: How many grandchildren do you have? You have three, from your son? BJ: Yes. SS: And what are their ages? BJ: Boston is twenty-five, Amber is twenty-six, and Saige is twenty-three. She just graduated from Utah State University a couple of years ago and I’m meeting her this evening, so we stay closely in touch. SS: So what did they end up pursuing their education in? BJ: Well, the oldest one is the mother of two and a housewife. Saige has her degree in Business Administration because her Aunt Stacy is her guide. She has a job with Adobe in Orem, Utah so she’s doing very well. I was surprised that she had 19 a good job so soon after her graduation. Now she has been promoted to a more responsible position at Adobe. SS: Do you feel like they have looked up to you as sort of a role model for them? BJ: Yes. I’ve had that written in birthday cards, emails, and notes several times. SS: Seeing what you have achieved in your life has made them... BJ: There is something else I would say and that is, when I mentioned that my daughter has never married, I’ve never encouraged or discouraged her. It was, “You can work it out, just make sure that you get your education and then you start climbing your professional ladder. Keep climbing, don’t step aside or drop off. You work through your family plans, just make sure that it’s something that benefits the entire family, in terms of Mom working.” SS: So looking back and looking at the difference between your mom, who retired when you were little, and now encouraging your children and your grandchildren to find that balance, how do you think the role of mother has changed over time? BJ: Oh, well, certainly working outside the home has become far more acceptable. Becoming executives in big companies has become much more normal. One example is Mary T. Barra, the chair and CEO of General Motors Company. She is the first female CEO of a major automaker. Women have an increasing presence in the workplace. They are still not paid on par with men who do the same work. We have a ways to go there. I always kept a little paper taped inside my closet at the office, my law office, and it said, “Do you want to ask the man who’s in charge or the woman who knows what’s going on?” It’s probably old and trite but I kept that to remind me. 20 SS: It’s true though. Do you think your mom regretted retiring? BJ: No, I really don’t. That was the way they lived in West Texas when my mother was growing up, and it was just very similar out here. Women were encouraged to stay at home and have children and let the man be the breadwinner. That might be a little controversial, but I feel that there is some truth to it and it shouldn’t offend anybody. SS: Right. So your mom, she would have had a teaching degree? BJ: She had a two year teaching degree. SS: So did her parents encourage her to go to school? BJ: As long as they had the financial means. But she was entering, I believe, her second year and the stock market crash of 1929 occurred. There was simply no money and she returned home, she did not want to but there were too many mouths to feed. She was one of nine children. SS: So did she go back and finish after? BJ: She took some classes at OSU after we moved to Ponca City. I remember her driving to Oklahoma State for classes. It was forty-five minutes to Stillwater, so she would take me with her when she had classes in the summertime. It just became too much for her, and while she was determined to get a degree, it just slowly wore away. Especially as she became more interested in hauling me around to activities. She had me very involved in music, playing cello, organ, and the piano, and other school activities. So her days were really devoted to chauffeuring. SS: So you had a nice, well-rounded childhood. 21 BJ: I did, I had a wonderful childhood. SS: I’ve got our last question. This is a question we’re asking every woman that we’re interviewing. So as I told you, this project started because this is the hundredth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment next year, women getting the right to vote, and we saw that as an opportunity to look at women receiving this right and feeling like they now had a voice, whereas before they may not have. Now that was a little different in Utah, since women had the right to vote since the 1870s, but that of course was taken away from them with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. So my question is how do you think women receiving the right to vote, shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? BJ: I can own property in my own name, keep money I earned while working, and choose how I wish to spend my life. Certainly, there are many freedoms and advantages that were given with the passage of the amendment. The women who are involved in voting go out and try to make a difference in whatever area in their lives they are interested in. It partially freed them up to do so. I mean, even our clothing was changing. Going from the voluminous skirts of the nineteenth century to the 1920s dresses. So it really changed many aspects of our society in the United States in many ways. I know it’s been a slow process for women to come out and do more. It was really visible to me when I saw the number of women that had enrolled in law school as I was graduating because there were so many more. I’ve always used that as an example of how women are growing in their professions. SS: Well, thank you, Bettie.