Oral History Program Mary Beth Morgan Interviewed by Stephanie Morgan 10 March 1998 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mary Beth Morgan Interviewed by Stephanie Morgan 10 March 1998 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Morgan, Mary Beth, an oral history by Stephanie Morgan, 10 March 1998, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Mary Elisabeth Jensen Morgan, also known as Mary Beth. The interview was conducted on March 10, 1998, by Stephanie Morgan. Mrs. Morgan discusses her personal history and a few of her life experiences while growing up in Utah. SM: My name is Stephanie Morgan and I will be interviewing my Grandma. Will you state your name please? MM: Yes I will. My real full name is Mary Elisabeth Jensen Morgan. SM: Why were you named, were you named after anyone? MM: Well, They were kind of family names, there were the Mary's, we had a lot of Elisabeth's. And I think they were just favorite names of my mothers. My mother's name was Mary also. SM: Did you have a nickname while you were growing up? MM: Well, I was trying to think about it. I don't believe I did. I think they always pretty well called me Mary Beth. I was the oldest child in the family and so it kind of—respected me. I don't know why. SM: Have you had any nicknames as an adult? MM: We did cut down the Mary Elisabeth part to be Mary Beth, and that's what really I've always gone by. There was one period of time when I thought it might just be better to be called Mary. There was another period when I thought I'd maybe go by Beth. But as I grew up I decided Mary Beth wasn't too bad. I'd just go with the whole thing. 1 SM: Where were you born, and when? MM: I was born in the St. Marks hospital in SLC Utah on Feb. 21, 1919. SM: Do you remember having your grandparents describe their lives as you were growing up? MM: They didn't talk an awful lot about it, but the sad part of it is my mother's parents died when I was still quite young and all I do remember that my mother’s mother said that she had come from Scotland, she did mention some things about Scotland. I wish I had paid more attention, but I was only about six or seven years old and it sounded like such a faraway thing that I don't remember as much as I'd like. SM: Who is the oldest person you can remember in your family as a child and what do you remember about them? MM: I think I considered my grandparents to be the oldest. I had- -this is on my father’s side- my grandfather died when he was about eighty four and my grandmother was about eighty. I knew them quite well. We even lived by them in one part of our lives in Providence, Utah. SM: Do you ever remember your family discussing world events and politics and what was going on— MM: Well, I remember my dad and his brothers used to sit together. They were always very good friends growing up through the years and they would talk about things like that. But I don't remember being in on it as a child you know, with the discussion at all. They did, they talked about the possibilities of war and different things. I guess they talked about who was president of our country at that time. 2 SM: What kind of chores did you do as a child, and which did you hate the most? MM: Well I think I was like most kids and I hated doing dishes- - of course we didn't have a dishwasher or anything at that time, in fact we didn't even have nice swaps like, oh Palmolive or anything that softened. Everything was just a bar of soap that just squished easily- -Didn't even have chore girls to scratch off the had to take a knife to scratch off the hard cereal that had settled or anything. We kind of hated the dishes. SM: I can't say as I blame ya. Laughter What would you consider to be the most important inventions that have been made during your lifetime? MM: Well you know Stephanie, there have been so many. Everything from - - well of course we had automobiles- - but they were very, very well you might say amateurish I grew up. We did have electricity, we had phones and all, but they weren't always that accessible. I would say any of our modern household, you know, utilities like vacuums and dishwashers and even lamps and things. The first things I remember was a hanging cord with a bulb on the end of it, you know, and of course as time has gone on I would say our computers, our airplanes everything like that. I feel like I've lived in a lifetime when there have been remarkable changes. SM: There really have. How is the world now different from when you were growing up? MM: Well, as I see it locally, there's many more people. It seems like you knew your neighbors better. Course it depends on the area that you live, but I feel like most of the cities are getting so crowded. And all of our streets and highways and all it seems quite different from when I was growing up, anyway. 3 SM: More and more people are moving into the area. What kind of books do you like to read, and what kind did you like to read? MM: Anything I could get my hands on. My mother always said 'you're a bookworm'. I liked to read anything. Even anything that was printed on a cereal box. Anything. I loved books. I come back to books like little women and I enjoyed that type of a book anyway, as a young girl. As I grew through my teenage years I liked mysteries and novels and most anything. SM: And now? MM: And now I still enjoy mysteries and novels. Laughter I like novels that are based on history and those things a little bit. SM: Do you remember having a favorite nursery rhyme or bedtime story that you told to your children that you were told when you were a child? MM: I can't think offhand too much. My mom used to - -she had a very pretty voice- - and nursery rhymes she would sing, you know like "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", still the ones that are popular now. "Bye Baby bunting", "Daddy's Gone a Hunting", I don't remember any specifically favorite ones or anything, but I remember enjoying them very much. Listening to my mom sing. SM: What was your mother like? MM: My mother was a very sweet lady. She wasn't what you would call aggressive. She was just, I would use the word kind of mellow. Mellow. She was a very nice lady. The only time I remember her getting after us was when my brother and I would squabble when we were washing and drying dishes. Then she would threaten to knock our heads 4 together. She never did it- -but Laughter , I've often thought what did our mother get after us? I can't remember her ever getting after us. I think she was quite easygoing. SM: What was your father like? MM: He was a real nice easygoing man too, I think. Let's see, how could I describe dad- he was a worrier. He worried about us all the time. If I could change anything I would change that, before he moved on. If we were gone too long or if we were, you know, he seemed to think of so many things that could happen. But, he was always very good to us. SM: What did you father do for a job? MM: Well, the main thing he did was as a salesman. He worked in various clothing stores, and things like that. SM: Where did you go to school? And what was school like as you were growing up? MM: I started school in Salt Lake City. Kindergarten in the Whittier school and then I went into the fifth grade we moved into a little farming school up in Providence Utah. I found quite a difference from the Salt Lake schools. There was only one class for each grade, and so the teachers would go from class to class instead of the students. SM: Were there many girls going to school at this time? MM: Well, the school in Providence which I remember the most, I think we had about twentyfive girls. I know when I graduated there was about maybe forty altogether girls. We graduated from the eighth grade and went on to the high school situation. SM: Do you remember when you first met your husband? 5 MM: That I remember very well. We lived in ward, and there, too, we had a group of us that did things together, of course, by then this was high school, my senior year. We went up into the canyons, and such. Eventually we paired of and I went with a few different fellows and my husband went with a different girl. She would always ask him. He'd never admit that she was a date to him, but she would always ask him. But we found that we liked each other the best. SM: How long were you dating? MM: We dated about a year and a half before we got engaged. We were engaged in July and got married in October of 1940. SM: You've been married for how long now? MM: Fifty-seven last October. Quite a while! Laughter SM: How many children do you have? MM: I have six, five girls and one boy. tape continues for about thirty more minutes 6