Oral History Program Charlotte Larsen Interviewed by Allen Larsen 27 July 1980 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Charlotte Larsen Interviewed by Allen Larsen 27 July 1980 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. 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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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Larsen, Charlotte, an oral history by Allen Larsen, 27 July 1980, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an interview with Charlotte Mildred Allen Larsen conducted by Allen G. Larsen, her son, on the 27th of July, 1980. The interview took place in her home at 2154 North Main, Centerville, Utah. AL: Mom, I would like you to tell me just a little bit about your life, when and where you were born and about the town where you grew up. CL: I was born August 12, 1923, in Garfield, Utah. Garfield is not in existence any more. It's been torn down. It was a town that was owned by the mine where my father worked. He was a master machinist at the smelter. The town was owned by the smelter - you paid 15 dollars a month for your home and you had to do nothing. No painting, or if you needed a light bulb put in you called the town site - that's what they called the people who took care of the town. There was a picket fence around each house. I was born in what was called the east side of Garfield. We had a real happy childhood, because of the way the town was arranged. They called it little Rome because there were seven little hills - these hills were just the right size for the kids to hike in and to take their lunches and to spend time in. We lived close to the tailings but we were never allowed to go to the tailings. The other children in town would often go down and play in the tailings but my folks never allowed us to play there. It was a town where the shows were free - during the depression you could go to a show three times a week and it would cost you no money. There were two classes of people there. We were all poor but there were the Mormons and the Non-Mormons - I was a non-Mormon. I went to the church that they called the Non-Sectarian Church and then there was the Mormon Church. Now the children didn't pay any attention whether they belonged to the Mormon Church 1 or the Non-Sectarian Church - it didn't make any difference to them but the people in town were segregated, because of their religion. One time in the non-sectarian church would have a Baptist minister or a Methodist or Episcopalian or whatever minister happened to be in Magna and would come to Garfield and do the religious services. The thing I remember most about the Non-Sectarian Church, which you don't find in the Mormon Church, which I think is a good thing, is every Sunday morning they'd ring the bell. As soon as that bell rang we knew that in a few minutes it was time to go to worship services. It was fun - we always went to church every Sunday - my mother and father and brother and I. The rest of the week was spent in this dry, hot, little town. There was no grass, there was no vegetation of any kind because all the smoke killed it. There were trees and we had treehouses. Our father built us a beautiful tree house that we spent a lot of time in. One of our main fun things that we used to do was to go up to the Non-Sectarian Church with a bottle of water and our sandwiches. They had a ledge around the church of brick and we'd start at one end and walk around and around that ledge. That's all there was to do all day. Then in the evening when it got cool, as a family we would go down to a place that they called "Sandy Bottom". Sandy Bottom was a swamp I guess. It was a randy old dry place with water. We'd sit in the sand and bake our brains out and then jump in the water. Everybody in town went to the Sandy Bottom. We were never allowed to go there unless the family went because the folks felt that it was not too good of a place for little kids. AL: What was the address of your house, do you remember? CL: I don't remember the address because you either lived on the east side or the west side of town. It was a brick house. When I was about 9 we moved to the west side of town to 2 a home on the corner. This was a fun house because there were lots of kids in the neighborhood that we could play with. My brother used to make stilts and covered wagons and then we'd walk fences, too. Murray would make all these things but I'd use them. I was the town tom boy because Murray was very creative but he didn't care much about using them once he got them. We'd have stilts as high as the house and I'd be walking them while Murray would be sawing and hammering and making them. We had old coal sheds where we kept the coal and the kindling. Murray would go up the alley and at each house he would make a caricature of the people in the house. He'd draw their picture - make them funny faces. Then the next day he'd have to go up the alley and wash it off. That that would last for a few weeks and then pretty soon he'd have his chalk again and then up the hill he'd go and make caricatures of everybody in the family on these coal sheds. I had two dear friends in Garfield. One was named Paula, Paula Comly was a little Christian Scientist girl - her father and mother lived right across the street from us and she had an older brother and sister. We'd play dress-up. We'd get old clothes and play dress up by the hour with big high heels. I remember once she came over to our place and brought all of her long dress-ups and after a few days my mother found bed bugs and that ended that. We weren't allowed to play dressup in my bedroom anymore. She was quite a tomboy too. We'd put on plays and we'd charge for them. Her older brother was quite a bit older - he would conduct them. He would show us how to play the parts. One day I was supposed to be a cowboy. We'd charge pins to go in to see these plays and we'd have the curtains and the whole thing. One day I had this big role as the cowboy and Paula was the heroin. I came in and I 3 was supposed to say, "Does anybody need a fine cowboy?" and I came in and said, "Does anybody need a fat cow?" That was my last experience on the stage. AL: How old were you at this time? CL: I must have been about 10. AL: Did you charge the pins? Were they worth anything or was that just… CL: No, it was just a way of charging. They weren’t worth anything. It just took 2 pins to get to the see the show. Nobody had any money - in those days we were all poor. It was during the depression. I remember my mother and granny used to make me clothes out of old clothes. I had flour sake bloomers. We used to wear bloomers in those days. The pair of bloomers that I hated the most were a pair that granny had made me out of black sateen. They were supposed to come down over the tops of your stockings over your knees. One pair of bloomers would be enough to fit 3 little girls. They'd pull the bloomers down over the tops of my stockings and as soon as I got out of the door I'd pull them up as high as I could pull them and roll my long ribbed stockings down to my ankle. In those days they made you wear long stockings and bloomers. There would be this big dress sticking way out to here with our pulled up bloomers and this big roll around my ankle. Before I came home I'd have to pull my stockings back up again and pull my bloomers down over my stockings. My folks felt that you had to wear stockings on your legs at least until June so you wouldn't catch something terrible and die. AL: Was it for cleanliness sake or for modesty? CL: No, it was just a style. We didn't have central heat in the house and they felt that that was the way you should dress in order to keep warm. It was the style of the day that you 4 wore these bloomers. I was lucky, I had a pair that were made of flour sacks and had "Pride of Utah" on the seat of the pants. But we all had them and nobody felt that anyone was better than anyone else because we were all poor. Dad, during the depression, was out of work as most men were. We were one of the fortunate families in town because my mother was a school teacher and she was able to pick up substitute work. In those days they didn't allow a married woman to teach school but she could substitute. And so she was the town substitute and she was able to keep the family together. Dad did all the housework. He'd do the washing, and the cooking and the cleaning and take care of the children. Then at each change of shift he would walk from Garfield over to the smelter which was 3 miles. He'd do that 3 times a day in hopes that there was someone being hired and he'd get hired. AL: Did it work? CL: He never went to work - he walked to be there just in case there was some work. AL: Did he ever get a job? CL: Yes, he finally got on and he got a job 2 days a month. He was one of the lucky ones that got to work that much. My mother was teaching school. There was no way that you could raise anything because of the smelter smoke. You couldn't raise a garden or your food. Everything you got was bought out of the trading post. They called it the "trading." They didn't feel compelled to go the soup kitchen because my dad was working two days a month and my mother was working. We were able to live without. We never felt picked on, we never felt poor and we never felt deprived because we had a lot of fun. We would sleigh ride in the wintertime on the hills that I told you about. There was one hill that was on the east side of town when we lived there. It was called McKinley Hill 5 and we'd get our sleds and slide down McKinley Hill. There was a family there that had no children - their names were Barton. They had a big beautiful collie dog. This dog would take a note down McKinly Hill to the meat market downtown and the butcher would read what was on the note and put the meat in the dog's mouth and he'd bring it home. They'd wrap it in paper and the dog would bring it home. The dog would also run other errands with just a note. The woman would put a note in his mouth or around his neck and he would come home with whatever he was told. We thought that he was the greatest dog in the whole world. We had lots of friends in Garfield. It was a good place for children to be raised. It wasn't a good place for young men because they would start working in the smelter and then they'd be tied there for the rest of their life but it was a good place for children. I played with Paula, my oldest and dearest friend and then when I was about 10 I met Dorothy Thompson. She was my lifelong friend too. She was more fun to play with than Paula. She wasn't a tom boy but she had an aunt who was a dancer on the New York stage and she had all these beautiful costumes that she had brought back to Garfield and given to Dorothy. So I always wanted to play with Dorothy because she had all these beautiful dance costumes that we could dress up in. Paula and I would get Dorothy up in a tree and then we'd get all these fancy costumes and then we'd run off. She was such goody and so frightened that she'd stay in the tree until someone came to get her down and sometimes it would be hours. Then we'd have these costumes to play with all these hours. She was never a regular tomboy - she was the kind that you could sit quietly with and play paper dolls. Her sister was real talented she used to make a lot of paper dolls and things for us. But the children didn't like to go to Dorothy's house because her mother was so clean that they felt like they had to strip 6 before they could go in the house. She'd say "Mid Allen, did you bring dust into my house?" and I'd reach down and wipe it off and say "No, I didn't." But most of the children were afraid to go because they were afraid that they'd leave a little speck of dirt. She was a good person and I liked to go there because she baked such good cookies and she always treated you well. We had a big Halloween bonfire on Halloween at school. Everybody from the grade school would come. They only went from 1st to 6th grade and then you'd go over to Magna to school. I had a teacher whose name was Miss Allquist who was one of my mother's very best friends. She'd hit the kids. She'd hit them with rulers or she'd smack them with her hand. She never hit me but she always frightened me so bad that I'd wet my pants. Or she'd throw a book at you. I can remember starting in 1st grade in Miss Allquist's class and she threw a book at a kid next to me and she missed and hit me. I ranted and cried and carried on and finally she set me up on her desk and she told me that she didn't ever want me to do that again that if I ever wet my pants again there was going to be trouble. Then the next day she took me down to the drugstore and bought me a sundae. AL: Why don't you tell me about some of the experiences you had in school and some of the subjects that you liked to study the most? CL: Well, we had a lot of fun in school. We had good teachers. I had one teacher named Mrs. Frisbee that everyone was frightened of because she was such a tough teacher. But she was a good teacher and she was a fair teacher and she was one that taught the kids a lot. She liked me because of my mother I think. She was a real good friend of my mother's. But I was always good in school and I was always afraid that I wasn't going to be good enough so I was always very quiet and very obedient. Even though I was a tom 7 boy away from school I was always frightened in school. Murray was always sticking up for me - he was always fighting for me. If I had a little trouble with one of the kids he'd wait for them after school and beat them up. He always took care of me and always saw to it that his little sister was never hurt. I think school was just like any other grade school. We were afraid of the principal - we were deathly afraid of him. If we saw him coming, we'd shake in our boots. He was a kind man but he was also one that expected you to do what he said. We would put on school plays. My singing career was spoiled in about the 3rd grade when they told me not to sing so loud. We were in a little operetta and they told me not to sing so loud and that's when I stopped and I've never wanted to sing since. Murray and I always played together. We had a good time together. We never fought which is really unusual. I think that one reason we didn't was because Murray was a sickly child and I was a healthy child. When he was born and when I was born 15 months later we were almost the same size. He was sickly and got a poor start. I can remember that every time I got a new dress Murray had to try it on and stand while mom pinned it up because I wiggled too much. She'd make him try on my dresses because for several years we were the same size. She used to call me "mean" to a new dress because as soon as I got a new dress the first thing I'd do is jump the fence and rip the seat out. In many a new dress, instead of walking around to my friend's house I jumped the picket fence and would take the whole seat of the dress out. In the summertime after school was out and dad got off work we'd all go over to the Great Salt Lake swim every single evening, it was hot, it was a dry town - it was right at the foot of the Ochre Mountains. It was such a hot place that most of the families, if they had the means and if they could would go swimming in the Great Salt Lake, it was quite a place. 8 AL: How did you get over there? CL: We had a car at that time. Dad had an old Essex and we'd drive over after work and swim. AL: Was that after the depression? CL: It was during and the latter part of the depression. Then when I was about 12 my cousin Elsie who lives in California now, came to live with us. She was having problems at home. Her mother and father agreed to let her come and live with us. She was there for a short time and then we moved to Salt Lake. We moved to 33rd South and 11th East. The reason we left was my dad had always said that when Murray turned 14 he was going to get out of Garfield because he didn't want his boy to get stuck in the mines and the smelter. If you were not a foreman and of course, most weren't, you were stuck the rest of your life with the smelter smoke and it was dangerous place to work. So we left and moved to Salt Lake when I was 12, soon to be 13 years old. And that started a new life for us. My cousin who had come from California to live with us moved with us. We ever resented her - we always enjoyed having her - she was a lot of fun. Murray called her Effie and she hated it. We lived, there on 33rd South when I started seventh grade. AL: Can you tell me what was life like living on 33rd south, what school was like and what you did for fun? CL: Well, it was an entirely different life than in Garfield. On 33rd South there was a little girl who lived across the street from us that I got to know. Then there was Grace Riches Parrish that I got to know and there was an abundance of boys and girls that we got to know. We'd walk to school which was about a mile. 9 AL: Which school was that? CL: Granit Junior High School. We had a lot of fun there. We were close to the mountains then. Dad was the type of person that was always gentle and kind and liked kids. He would always be in the middle of all the kids. If they wanted to do something he was always right there helping them. If there was a slumber party or whatever Dad would always be right there cooking or taking us places. He always loved kids and kids loved him and so we would spend lots of times in the mountains and Dad would be the chaperone and it was fun. In fact the kids would always say "I wish he were my daddy." He was so gentle and such a kind person. My mother was the boss - she ruled the money and ruled the house, but Dad was the one that had the soothing influence because he was so gentle and kind that you would never do anything to hurt him. He was so sweet all the time that you just wouldn't hurt your dad. All he had to do was to say, "That's not the way to act," and it would crush us because you wanted to do what he wanted you to do. We had a lot of fun - there must have been half a dozen boys and girls that we would do things with and go to school with. Murray was quite a leader - he was in lots of activities and he always took his little sister with him so I got to go to a lot of fun places with Murray. With his art work and his cartooning and his personality he was always the leader and I was always proud of him and always had fun with him. AL: What classes did you like in Junior High? CL: I leaned towards English and history, mathematics. All social studies I was better in than anything else. I always got an A in art. The reason I did because my brother had been before and they thought sure that if he was that talented that I'd have to be too. I couldn't draw a thing - I was terrible but I got A's because of him. We felt like we were 10 really fortunate in junior high school because when we got into 9th grade we were allowed to swim over at the Granit High School swimming pool. I learned to swim there. We had the opportunity of having a lot of things that Garfield didn't have. It was a big jump from Sandy Bottom to the swimming pool at Granite High School. After I moved from Garfield, my friend Dorothy Thompson that I told you about would come to spend the weekend with me. One weekend she'd spend with me and the next weekend I'd spend with her. My dad would take me out Friday night when he went to work and pick me up Monday after work. We were close, close friends. She was a little girl that never said a cross word to anyone in her entire life. She was always fun and a loyal friend. She would never quarrel. We had a good relationship for all those years that I was in Salt Lake and she was in Garfield. Then one day Dorothy and I went for a walk and up on the corner of 33rd there was a house for sale. I knew the people that lived there so she and I got brave and we went in and talked to the lady and asked her a little bit more about the house and looked it over. Dorothy told her mother and dad about it and I'll be darned they bought it. So then we were together the rest of our lives. We were able to go to high school and college together. I stayed at her house just like it was my very own and she stayed at mine. We did everything together. It was wonderful to have a friend that you could depend on that was loyal. If I've ever known a friendly child, it was Dorothy. She taught me a lot. She taught me to be kind to everyone if possible. Once there was a child in our class that was very dirty and smelly and very poor and the teacher took her home and gave her a bath and cleaned her up and put a ribbon her hair. I said one day, "Doesn't Shirley look nice today?" and Dorothy said "Why are you telling me, why don't you tell her?" I've never forgotten the wisdom that came from that 11 little girl. All of my life if I think something nice about somebody I always try to remember what Dorothy said. Dorothy would be the type that if someone didn't have very many redeeming features, Dorothy always found something. To this day, I try to remember what that little girl taught me - to sincerely tell someone something to make them happy because everyone has something. And she always found it. Dorothy never got any dates so my brother was always try to set her up - those didn't take for some reason, I don't know why. I was always setting her up in high school, trying to find her dates. She was fun and witty but she just could never get her a boyfriend. AL: How old were you when you started dating? CL: I had just turned 13 when we moved to Salt Lake and I started dating about 16. But then I could only date if Murray thought it was O.K. He was quite a guy. He wouldn't let me date just anybody and he would tell the folks and of course they thought that anything he said was great. He'd say tell them not to let me go with this person or that person and they wouldn't because what he said went. During this period of time Murray was always looking after me and always seeing to it that if I didn't have a date he'd find me one or take me with him. Many times I went with him instead of him taking a date. He was editor of the yearbook and also photographer and he'd take me with him. We had a close relationship. One time I got a date with a football player and oh, I thought that was the greatest thing in the whole world because everybody wanted to go with this guy because he was the star football player. Murray didn't want me to go with him and he told the folks. They could see how sad I was because I really wanted to go with this kid and so this one time they didn't put their foot down. I was so elated. But about 10 minutes before this boyfriend was supposed to come, Murray picked me up and put me 12 in the irrigation ditch, a muddy irrigation ditch - hair, dress, the whole thing. That way I was unable to go this party because he fixed that. Later on, I realized that he was looking after me because this kid wasn't really a nice boy and he wasn't the type of boy that brothers would want their little sisters to go with. Murray was always looking out for me. I was in the 7th grade and Murray had just gotten a job at Woolworths in Salt Lake City, he would ride the bus to Salt Lake and work all day and then come home at night. He was lucky because a lot of kids didn't have jobs then. When he had saved enough money he rode a bicycle home one night. For no reason at all he bought me a bike with the money he saved. I still have it - I'll never part with it, not because it was such a great bike but because he so unselfishly wanted me to have a bike. He did the same thing one time on my birthday. He was a terrible tease. For my birthday he gave me a water jug - the kind that keeps things hot and cold. I was always loyal to Murray and my mother said "Isn't that a strange gift?" and I said "It's just what I wanted - I love it." She'd say "I think it's awful strange" and I would always defend him and tell her it was just what I wanted but secretly I was a little bit disappointed because I didn't know what I was going to do with a water jug - what would you do with a water jug? We didn't have much use for it. But that night when I went to bed there was a box on my pillow and in the box there was a watch - he had used the water jug just to throw me off. He was always pulling tricks on me. One day Dorothy and I made him a sandwich out of cat food and he ate it. We just had a good relationship and a lot of fun. His boyfriends were my friends and my girlfriends were his friends. We always did things with each other. The folks never needed to worry about me when Murray was around. We did have a reciprocal agreement once when we were dating - we often were in the same crowd 13 because our ages were so close. He would give me a quarter if I would come home at night and say "We're home." The folks never really went to sleep at night as most parent's don't until the kids are tucked in bed so I would open the door and say "We're home" and then go off to bed. I don't know how much later he'd sneak in the house. I'd get a quarter for that. I got a quarter for ironing his shirts - that was quite a bit of money in those days. The reason he gave me a quarter was because mom would always burn them - she'd burn the corners. She didn't like housework much and she didn't like wifely duties - she liked clubs and bridge and sewing. She liked and belonged to literary clubs and social clubs but she didn't like housework. This is how he got his shirts ironed was by giving me a quarter. It was a pretty good deal on his part because I would save them and he could always borrow them back. When I'd save up several dollars’ worth of quarters and he wanted to go on a date then he'd borrow them all back but I always got paid back and there would always be a bonus - he would always give me extra. He always saw to it that I had what I wanted. One time he and his friends were on a tandem bicycle. Well, Murray made a tandem out of two old bicycles. In those days, that was really something to see a tandem cycle. He and his friend decided to ride down to southern Utah on this tandem bike. It really created quite a storm to see these kids going down the street. AL: How old was he when he wanted to do that? CL: He was about 17. Mom and Dad let him go. They haul friends along the way and they had a schedule that they were to stop at their house and they had it all worked out. Well, when he got down there he used that money that he was supposed to spend on food and bought me Indian jewelry. He was always doing things like that for me, I don't 14 suppose that there has ever been a brother and sister who cared more for each other than my brother and I did, I think probably one reason was that he was so sickly when he was a little kid that by the time he was able to do things I was doing them with him and we were always doing things together. Dad always saw to it that he was my big brother and took care of me. We never fought. The worst thing he ever did was when I first met Sterling. It was in 1943 and I had a date with him. It was for the Military Ball the war was on at that time. Sterling sent me an orchid. I’d never had an orchid - I'd had other flowers that boys had given me but I'd never had an orchid. When I got a flower I saved the ribbon off of them after the flower was dead, I don't know why. Murray took the orchid out of the box and went out in the garden and plucked some cornflowers and a few straggly flowers and put the ribbon on them and put them in the box. As soon as I came home he said "Hey, Mid, you got some flowers from Sterling for the dance." Immediately I went to the fridge and I pulled out these flowers and you've never seen a more horrible looking corsage in your life. I was very disappointed because I thought that Sterling had money because he drove his sister's Buick (he had these bigger sisters that we were always looking out for him) but I was really disappointed. But here again I was loyal and I said "I think it’s pretty” and my mother said "That doesn't look like Sterling - I wouldn't think that he'd send you something like that." and I said that it was just what I wanted and so they let me go on with that flower. My mother had made me a new formal for this dance and I got all dressed up in it and I put the flowers on one side and a few petals would fall and it didn't look good and I'd put it on the other side and it didn't look good and I put it on my waist and it didn't look good and I just didn't know what to do with it. Would you believe he even went so far as to let Sterling come in and 15 see those horrible flowers pinned to my dress before he said anything? Sterling's eyes just about bugged out of his head when he saw those flowers. He didn't know whether to turn blind or what to do and he was obviously shaken by it and then here comes Murray with the real orchid that he'd sent me. He's always doing things like that and I used to get so mad at him and he teased the very daylights out of me but I always forgave him. AL: Mom, why don't you tell me a little bit more about your high school years and the things that you did there? CL: Murray was just ahead of me in high school and he was editor of the yearbook. I was lucky enough to be the little sister of the editor of the yearbook. In those days it was quite a thing to be editor and he was also photographer so I was able to go with him every place he went to take pictures of the different functions for the yearbook. I got working on the yearbook too and when Murray graduated from high school I came along and I became editor of the yearbook. That was one of the highlights of my life - never having done anything spectacular. I was never great in drama or a fabulous scholar but to be editor of the yearbook was quite a feather in my cap and my brother was really proud of me. We put out an all-American yearbook that year. The year that I was a senior was the year that the war broke out. I remember that. We had walked over to sugarhouse to see a movie - all the gang would often do that. We'd go to a movie and then we'd stop at Snelgrove's and get an ice cream cone and then we'd come home. That was often what we'd do on Sunday. But this day we had gone and when we got into the house Dad was sitting in the chair and tears were running down his face and my mother was white - my granny was there at the time. Course we thought that there must 16 have been a death in the family or something terrible but they were listening to the radio and it was Pearl Harbor. The reason tears were rolling down ay father's face was because he had a son that was just exactly the right age that would be going to war and he knew it. It was such a shock to us. There was a truck farm down at the end of 31st east- a bunch of lovely Japanese truck farmers. It was hard for everybody - they'd wonder if they were a part of the Japanese that had bombed Pearl Harbor. In the community that we were in we always treated them well and they were not taken away they were allowed to stay and do their truck farming, I'll never forget that day as long as I live to see my dear father sitting there with tears in his eyes knowing that his only son would probably have to go to war. I finished my senior year and Murray did go. He joined the Marines and left and I'll never forget what a hardship it was, especially on Dad. In his quiet way he probably was the most sincere person and the most loving person I have ever known. I kissed my dad good night when I went to bed until I left home for good. He loved his family so much that it literally turned his hair practically snow white that his son had to go to war. Every night he would walk up the street to a little Greek store around the corner called Coumaritas. He would talk to Mr. Coumaritas about his son that was in the Marines and the other boys that had gone and about the war. This Mr. Coumaritas would send packages to all the boys in the neighborhood. This was real hard time in our life. That was after I got out of high school. Then I went on to the University. Dorothy and I would catch the bus there on 33rd south and 11th last to college. We had rationed shoes and rationed meat and rationed gasoline. Dad got rid of the car because there was no gasoline. My dad devoted the rest of his life to buying war bonds for his son. I'm sure that they went without things that they should 17 have had so that they could buy war bonds. Murray was ready to ship overseas when I was going to college and he'd finished his boot camp. It was right during the heat of the war when things were really bad, I can remember when he left. I can remember Dad his face just white and tears rolling down his face. He'd say "God bless my boy." He'd say it every night before he went to bed. Dad was not a religious man as such but that's what he would say every night before he went to bed. Murray got to Mirmar where he was supposed to ship out when he got scarlet fever. All the boys left and there he was with scarlet fever. It was hard on Murray because all of his friends had gone overseas but it turned out to be blessing because they were shipped to Iwo Jima and Okinawa and they were in some of those terrible battles. Murray was sent over to a little island called Ulethie. He was in intelligence but it was a base where the planes would come in and be fueled and repaired and then they would go out for their strikes. He never saw a Japanese, he never saw any action of any kind. They had malaria and it was certainly no picnic but they never had any combat. He would see the planes but he never got in any battles so in order to make himself look like a brave Marine he would pretend he did. He would tell people these stories. He'd say "Don't ask me to talk about it - it was too gruesome." Then they'd say "Well, tell us what you did during the war" and then he'd tell about these horrible things that happened to him which were all made up. I kind of got the feeling there for a few years that he half believed them but he was on Ulethie and my dad's prayers were answered along with all of our prayers. It was during this time that I was going to college that I met Sterling. I didn't really meet him. I'd see this kid on the campus and every time I went to a class he'd be there or I'd see him going one place or another and we finally got to where we'd say hello because every single 18 day I'd see him a lot. I didn't know who he was, I'd go in the library and he'd be sitting there - he'd come sit across from me and he'd speak but we never carried on a conversation. One day he called me on the phone and asked me if I'd go out with him and of course I said yes. I knew who he was because I'd seen him all over the campus. The night he came in his sister's big Buick I can remember they were playing "Old Black Magic" on the radio and I can remember thinking, "Here's someone that's got money look at this big fancy Buick" and it was his big sister's. But that night he told me he was going to marry me and I was quite shocked and as a matter of fact I was a little bit miffed because I wondered who he thought he was. I said "Yeah, you're just like all these other GI Joes, you're going off to war and so you're going to leave your wife" and I said "You'll marry me over my dead body. You're not going to marry me and run off to war. I'm not ready to get married." And then after the next 3 times after I'd gone out with him he told my mother that he was going to marry me. She thought it was a big joke too. But he meant it. The reason I know that he meant it was because my very best girlfriend other than Dorothy at that time was Wanda. Wanda and I were close friends and she lived up on 13th East and she became engaged to my brother. Sterling would call Wanda to see how he was coming along and to see if he was making any headway. He'd confide in her and she'd tell him the next move to make to get me. He'd say "She's more interested in 2 cats and a bicycle than she is in me." I was going with several different boys at the time. Finally I decided that I really did like Sterling but when my folks found out that I was showing more than just a little interest in him, my mother became very upset because he was a Mormon and because he was going to war. He was allowed to finish college because he was in ROTC. He graduated in uniform – he 19 was inducted into the army his senior year. I remember the big trucks coming up to the University. They'd line up there in front of the Park building and these young men that had been drafted would get into these big trucks and they would take them to the war. Things were looking pretty bad then and I knew that Sterling would be going soon too. Right after graduation - he graduated in spring and by August they took him. He wasn't allowed to get a job or any employment because actually he was in the army so he got in one of these trucks and was taken away like all the rest of the boys. They took him to Fort Sill. But it was trying time for everybody and my mother was hoping by then that I would not be interested in him and that I would find someone else and that I would wait until after the war to get married. But Sterling was persistent, with Wanda's help. He came home at Christmas time (he came to a 2nd Lieutenant from QCS) and we became engaged. We wanted to get married but my mother was very unhappy about it. In fact she would say things like "Well, the first thing you'll do is have a baby and the baby won't have a father because he'll get killed or if he doesn’t get killed he'll come home with no legs or no arms and you don't want that." And she carried on. I can remember my Dad saying to me, "I can't say very much because all it would is cause trouble but all I want in life is for you to be happy - if you want to marry Sterling, then he's the one I want you to marry." I had my Dad's support but yet I didn't because he wasn't afraid of my mother but she was the one that made all the decisions and to keep from having trouble in the family he would come to me and tell me his feelings but he would just be quiet when she was around. AL: Do you remember the day that you got engaged? CL: It was Christmas of 1943. 20 AL: Christmas day or Christmas Eve? CL: Let's see, it was 1944 - it was Christmas Eve. He bought me a ring when he came home and we became engaged. AL: Can you tell me what happened after this time? CL: Well, he had to go back to Fort Sill right after Christmas. I continued working at Fort Douglas at that time. We decided that we'd get married in May. Wanda and Murray were going to get married in April. So they were married in April and we were married in May. But Sterling was unable to get home for the wedding so I took a Trailways bus there was no airplanes - there was no gas. The only bus I could get was an old broken down Trailways. I left all by myself with a suitcase and a few belongings and all this time my mother tried to talk me out of it. Larsen’s came down to tell me goodbye at the bus station. I got on this bus filled with strangers. I'd never been away from home in my life. I went on this old broken down bus - no air conditioning - and set off for Oklahoma, not knowing what I'd find when I got there. Sterling didn't know either because at that time all the soldiers and their wives and families were following their husbands from camp to camp and it was very difficult to find a place to live. But we decided to take a chance anyway. There were a lot of servicemen on the bus and I cried all the way down there because I was afraid. They were talking to me, a young girl, trying to make dates and I was just terrified every minute of the way. I just stuck like glue to the driver so I wouldn't get lost. When we got into a station I'd sit right by the bus so it wouldn't leave me. I knew that if I got into a strange town I didn't have a way to get out because during the war there was just no way of getting around. There was a soldier on the bus who said that we were getting close to Oklahoma and he told me that before I got to Fort Sill the 21 best way to get ahold of Sterling was to wire him a collect telegram. He said not to pay for it but make it collect and then they would forward it to tell him that I would be there. Because chances were he might be on duty or in the field and I'd be in a strange town with no place to go. So I took his advice and wired Sterling collect, not knowing if he'd meet the bus, in fact I thought he probably wouldn't. He was to meet me at Laughton, Oklahoma. When I got there I couldn't see - tears were just about ready to drop because I was scared and I didn't know who would befriend me in this strange town full of soldiers. But as I got off the bus I saw Sterling and he had gotten my wire and was there to meet me. There's a waiting period of three days in Oklahoma before you could married which we didn't really know. So all he could find was a room in an old house they'd taken an old house and made lots of rooms in it - a lot of people did that during the war and made money. They'd take their homes and divide them into rooms. There was this room in this hotel that he had been able to secure. We got our license but I had to wait in that hotel for 3 days and he stayed out to the post. I didn't see him during that period of time - he called me on the phone. I had to wait there and we knew we couldn't live there because we couldn't afford it - it was like living in a hotel. So the day before we were supposed to get married - I guess we looked like two poor sad little kids - we went into the local newspaper and asked them if we could have a paper before it got on the street to let us look at the want ads. They befriended us and let us buy a paper. We found a place that was in a home. There were 3 bedrooms and each bedroom was rented out to families and they had kitchen privileges. That was our first home. The people that we were with were from different parts of the country. There were several different families and of course Sterling was going to pack school and he was gone a lot 22 but at least I found a place that we could live and I could prepare my own meals in the kitchen. They had an old Maytag washing machine that I could do the washing in out in the garage. That was our first home and we lived there for probably 2 or 3 months. AL: Where you married? CL: Before we go any further.....we were married at Fort Sill in the old post chapel. The chaplain married us. One of Sterling's pack artillery friends stood up with him and his wife stood up with me and we were married in the old post chapel. Afterwards we had a steak dinner which was really pretty extravagant because you couldn't even get meat then very easily because of the rationing. We spent quite a bit of time at the post because Laughton was full of soldiers. It was hot and it was one of those places where the climate was so foreign to what I was used to that I was tired all the time. It was humid but the wind blew all of the time. We spent a lot of time out at the post which was a beautiful big army post. Shortly after that he was transferred to North Caroline and we spent some time in North Carolina. I went with him. We stayed in North Carolina for a couple of months I suppose. I knew when I married Sterling that our time together was short - that he was going to go off to war. So we had a good time in North Carolina. We lived with a doctor who had a beautiful room that he rented out to us and a black house boy that had been with the family for many, many years that did all the work. It was lonely however I made some friends with some of the ladies - the young officers' wives and I had a group going there at Fort Brague. Sterling got food poisoning and we had to take him in the ambulance in the middle of the night to the hospital. When you get in the army hospital you can never get out. He was there for what seemed like weeks to me because I was very lonely and couldn't drive. Here I had a car but no way to get out to 23 the post to see him except on the bus. This friend that I knew did know how to drive so she would drive us out and I could visit with Sterling. After that he got orders to go back to Fort Riley, Kansas. That was our next stop. We had a few days so we decided that because we didn't have a honeymoon we'd do a little traveling on what small gas rationing we had. We weren't able to go a long distance because we were afraid we'd run out of gas and if you run out of gas and you don't have stamps you don't get gas. But we got up to Washington DC. We got to see Smithsonian and the Capital and the White House and a lot of historical places in Washington DC. We had a very pleasant time there - it was like a honeymoon. We lived in the homes that were converted into inns that were family style. We had a very nice time visiting in Washington DC. We'd have liked to go up to New York but because of the gas - we had the time but because of the gas we were afraid that we might not get to Fort Riley. So we headed back west to Kansas. In Kansas we had another room in a home with a man and a woman who had just married children. There was no other people at home and she was a motherly woman. We became real good friends and she kind of looked after me. I had made friends with one of Sterling's army friends. The 4 of us would have a lot of fun - we'd go places together - to shows and to dinners on the post because everything was cheaper there. It was a pleasant time but we knew that our time together was short because, the school he was in would soon be over. Then he got orders to go to Riverside, California, and to embark for overseas. So we came back to Salt Lake with the idea that I'd stay in Salt Lake and he'd continue on into California. We didn't know where he'd go of course. So I went back to my folk’s home and stayed there. As it turned out we were always sorry that I didn’t go on with him because he was at Riverside for about a month or 24 more. I could have been with him. They told them not to bring their wives and families because they would be going overseas, but as it turned out, I could have gone anyway had we been a little more brave. I stayed there - in the meantime my brother had gotten orders to go overseas too and he was in Santa Barbara. So while I was waiting for Sterling to go overseas, Murray went overseas. AL: How did Uncle Murray stay out of the war for so long? CL: He was a student - students were deferred for a certain amount of time. Sterling stayed out because they allowed them to graduate if they were as far along as he was - Murray didn't graduate at that time. But Murray's number wasn't called -he enlisted before he was called. That's why he was out as long as he was. But anyway, Sterling went knowing where and Wanda was living in Santa Barbara. She had found a cute little apartment in a home. She suggested that we live in California and wait for Sterling and Murray to come home. So in the meantime, Starling left and I didn't hear from him for probably a couple of months, but I still left for California. I was able to write to him through a post office box and he was able to get the letters, however I wasn't getting any. I wrote and told him that I was going to be in Santa Barbara. My friend Bernice Cunnings, who we called "Pink", came along with us. She was an unmarried girl but she had no mother or father so she wanted to go live with us in California. We had this nice apartment and we lived with this widow lady in her home while Sterling and Murray were overseas. We went to work at a port called Port Hueneme - it was just off of Oxnord California. We commuted every day from Santa Barbara to Oxnord and worked at this port where they sent all the soldiers overseas. Anyone in the south pacific came through this base - they not only sent them but sent supplies for them. 25 AL: What did you do there? CL: I worked in an office as a filing clerk where they sent supplies to the CB's in Okinawa and Iwo Jima and 11 these south pacific islands. I worked kind of down on the base, Wanda and Pink worked more up in. I had to take a bus to get down to the area where I worked. We watched many soldiers come home from the war zone. Some of them had been there for 3 or 4 years and they would have us come down to the ships to greet them as they came in. It was a very touching sight because they were Marines and CB's and sailors that had been in these terrible battles in the south pacific. They had not been home for several years. I remember one day they told us a big ship was coming from Iwo Jima with a load of seasoned Marines and we were all told that we should go down and greet them as they got off the boat. There was a little girl in our office - she was from Texas - she had been waiting for her husband in California because she knew that if he came home, he would come through there. But she had no idea that he was coming home at this time. We were standing and watching the soldiers get off the boats - as they would get off and see the flag and see all the people they would all by crying tears in their eyes to be back home again. She looked up and saw her husband and he of course was looking for her because he thought she might possibly be there. We saw many of these troop ships come and go. It was a very sad time because at the time we were there, the war was not going so good but at that particular time Pres. Roosevelt died and there was lots of turmoil. We had a good time - we spent our Sundays at the beach. We went to a show every single Friday night - we'd go out to dinner and a show. We had fun together. We had our bicycles sent to us and we rode bikes everywhere we went. We had as happy a time as you could under such circumstances. Santa Barbara 26 was a very beautiful place. It was warm - it was like a millionaire’s paradise and we spent a lot of time on the beach. When it looked like it was time for the boys to come home Wanda stayed because she knew Murray would come from that area, but I decided that I would get back to Salt Lake because Sterling would probably come from the other area. He'd probably come in from the east coast rather than the west coast. I thought it would be better if I was home in Salt Lake. So Pink and I came home and Wanda stayed - she was kind of caretaker for a woman whose husband was in the service. She took care of her home and lived in it to keep it up for her. I stayed at my folk's home - I must have been home about 2 months when I got the phone call. I was out on my bicycle with my friends -we'd gone for a long ride out to Holliday. A phone call came through from Florida and I wasn't home to receive it. It was Sterling and he said that he would call again at such and such a time so when I got home I waited for his call. He had flown from Calcutta to Florida and that's where he was. It took him longer to come from Florida to Salt Lake than it did from Calcutta to Florida. But he had to come by train. In the meantime - places to live were very scarce and I knew that we didn't want to live with his folks or my folks so I went out and found a little apartment on 2nd South and 11th East. It was an old house made into apartments. There was a couch that made into a bed in the front room. It had a bathtub, a great big bathtub but no refrigerator - we had an ice box. But it was a clean place and I rented it and that's where we lived when Sterling arrived home. He arrived at Ogden on the train and we were there to pick him up. That was our first real home was that little apartment on 2nd South and 11th East in Salt Lake. After Sterling had been home for a few days, we got in the old Buick and headed for California - we took a month's vacation. We went to the 27 canyons, we went to Bryce and Zion's and hit all the places of interest along the way. We ended up in Santa Barbara and I suppose that in my life with Murray and Wanda this was possibly one of the happiest times we had together. Murray had come home and Wanda was still living in that house taking care of it and we were able to stay at the house. We spent two weeks doing nothing but playing on the beach and having fun and doing fun things together. It was a real pleasant time and a vacation for us. We had many things that we did. But then we'd do nothing but sit and talk and still have a good time. We stayed there for two weeks - we didn't intend to at the time. Most of our time was spent on the beach and of course Wanda and I had a good time showing Sterling all the things that we had seen on our bikes while they were overseas. Then the day that we left, Murray went and got some rabbits to cook so we could have rabbit for dinner. He must have bought half a dozen, it seem like it. We fried rabbit and we ate rabbit and we took rabbit with us and we had rabbit all the way home. It's still a big joke that we talk about - the rabbit that we had when we were in California. We went up the coast to San Francisco and saw the scenic sites there and all along the way. Then Yosemite and all the interesting places and then we came back to Salt Lake. This trip took us a month. When we came back then we were ready to settle down and Sterling was ready to look for a job. He had received his honorable discharge from the army and he was now a civilian. AL: I'd like to just ask, what other jobs did you have during the war? CL: I just worked at Fort Hueneme while he was away. Before I went to California I worked at Fort Douglas. I was working for a dentist while I was waiting for Sterling to come home after I was in Salt Lake. I continued working for this dentist after he came home. 28 AL: What jobs did you have when you were younger - what were your first jobs? CL: I had done nothing but go to school. I clerked at Kress's store for a while. Then I worked at Ito-Mccullough which was a war plant before I got married. AL: What did you do there? CL: I was a filament winder and a riveter for the radar equipment. You'd wind these filaments and rivet them. A spot welder was what I was called. I worked all shifts – day shift, night shift, afternoon shift, I was a good filament winder and I could do a lot of them in a night. Then they took the filaments and made the radar and that's what I was working at until the Christmas Sterling came home and that's where I worked until I got married. AL: Why don't you talk about what you did.......? CL: When we came back from California I had worked for a dentist and I still had the job so I worked for the dentist and Sterling got a job at a place called American Paper at 165 dollars a month. We had everything we needed. At this time, he met Iren Bosch and they became very good friends and through her we met Farrell and we were very close friends and did a lot of fun things together as couples. Then Murray and Wanda came back to Salt Lake. In the meantime we moved from the little place we were living to the place in front. We moved over there and Murray and Wanda also moved in. We had the top floor - there were the 4 of us and we were together again and we had lots of fun. Sterling was working and Murray was going to school as I recall. He finally got his degree and started teaching. I think that was his first year teaching while we were living there. He taught in junior high school and by that time we had Lynne. Lynne was born a 29 year after Sterling got home from the war. Murray and Wanda would come and play with her and come and get her on Sunday mornings and they enjoyed her and we had a lot of fun together. I remember out to Dad's place we had some turkeys. We had got 6 turkeys and raised them. We were going to freeze them and have turkey anytime we had a festive occasion. We each put in the money and we were each going to end up with 3. One day we went out to my parent's place and when we came back Sterling said to Murray "One of your turkeys died!" and we've laughed about that a lot. We did lose a turkey but they became about 30 lb. turkeys. We'd sit with pliers with the turkeys on our laps after they had been killed and pull the pinfeathers out. I can still see Wanda with this big 30 lb. turkey on her lap, cussing and pulling out the pinfeathers. But we froze them and when we'd get together we'd have a big party and have the turkeys. This is the time that I met Edith Powell. She lived downstairs in the basement apartment. Murray and Wanda were both working and this is when the candy started. Murray had taught school for a year and they decided that they would go back to California and Murray would go to an art school and further his education. They had no children and they packed their little old car with all their worldly possessions and were going to head off for Long Beach, California. We had this candy that one of Murray's students had given him that was very terrible. It was very inexpensive and very bad chocolate but he would pass them around and we would always decline. So when he left, he left them in my closet but I found it before he left so I put it in his car. The next Christmas I got it under my Christmas tree and this has been going on now for 33 years - this candy has been passed back and forth. 30 AL: Why don't you tell about some of the different ways the candy has been passed back and forth? CL: The first year I left it with Murray in the car, then they came home for Christmas and I found it under the Christmas tree. For a few years we did nothing special but for instance I'd give it to Wanda's mother to put with gifts and they'd sneak it under our Christmas tree and then it started getting a little more elaborate as our children got bigger. Wanda and Murray had Christine in California and we got Bart and it got more elaborate each year. Some of the ways; the candy has been to New York and back and the candy's been hidden in popcorn that's been given by different people. We had television people give it to them on our 30th year - it was on television- them getting the candy. One year it had worms and Wanda put it up on top of the house and forgot it and it rained and it even got more lovely that year. One of the best ways we've had was two or three years ago Allen and Sue took it down to Murray and Wanda's and hid it. But they found it just before Christmas. They had hid it in a closet - for some reason Murray and Wanda never got in that closet for anything but some neighbor wanted something and she was rummaging around and happened to find it before they left. So when they got home they had the candy again. The rule is that you can get the candy back up until Christmas day if anyone is that clever. So we had the candy back that year. It was quite depressing because we didn't have any ideas on how we were going to get it back to them and we'd had it two years in a row. But this particular Christmas, Murray and Wanda came up to see us. They locked their car all up because they knew that someone would slip that candy back. We knew that we would probably never get the candy back this year, we'd have to think of something next year. But Kathy sat next to 31 Wanda and Wanda's purse was in between them and Kathy reached into Wanda's purse, stole the keys out of her purse, opened up her trunk, put the candy in the trunk, closed it back up again and put the keys back into Wanda's purse. Nobody was the wiser. They were flabbergasted when they got home and opened up the trunk and found that candy because they had locked everything tight. That was one of the good ways. We had many other interesting ways and clever ways of getting the candy back and forth. Last year my cousin that my brother had not seen for 30 years, came to see me. He had not seen her so we had her send it as genealogy for Wanda to work on. AL: Ok, can you talk about what happened after Murray and Wanda moved to California? CL: During that time Lynne was a baby. Before Murray and Wanda left, Wanda taught her to walk at 9 months. Then they went to California. When Lynne was about a year or so old they came back. In the meantime we continued living on 2nd South and 11th East and Sterling was working for American Paper. He changed jobs during that period of time and went up to the University and worked up there for a while. I became pregnant with Bart. Before Bart was born, Sterling went down to Moab for the spring planting and he and his brother were going to farm the land that his father had left them and we were going to live in Moab. As soon as Bart was two weeks old we moved to Moab for 2 years. AL: What did you do in Moab? CL: We had a good time. That's where we met Marrion and Lawrence Palmer. It was a nice place for the kids but Sterling was working too hard. We didn't see much of him because the hours were hard and long on the farm. I made friends with Marrion Palmer, her husband was the coach at the high school over there. They had no children so they kind 32 of took charge of Bart and Lynne. We had a nice time together and became close friends. We were there for two years and then we moved back to Salt Lake to a little home in Murray. It was our first home that we bought. We had a nice little home. We lived there for 4 years. When we lived in Murray, Allen was born. After that Sterling began working for the Salt Lake Country Club as an assistant manager and he worked there for quite a few years. We sold our home in Murray and moved to Millcreek where Bart started kindergarten and Allen was just a year old. We lived there for a short while and then we moved to Bountiful. AL: Can you tell me about some of the funny experiences you had with the kids as they were growing up and interesting things that you did as a family? CL: We had a lot of fun. When Sterling was working at the Club we would go to all the 4th of July functions and the 24th of July and - all the big things where they had kids. The kids were always included. They had swimming and they had a good time at the country club. Bart had a little friend next door that he played with. Allen was only a year old. I remember the people nest door had 4 or 5 little boys and a day or two after I had Allen she had a baby girl. I looked out the window and one brother was running round the house with the brand new baby and the other brother was chasing him trying to get her away from him. I was horrified. These little kids grew up but it seemed to me that they sure had rough treatment from their brothers and sisters. Kola Winget, our neighbor was a good neighbor - we had good times together. That was the time that I started going to Relief Society through Nola's influence. I had never gone to church before. I began going to Relief Society and I would pack up my three little kids and I enjoyed it a lot. That's when I got interested in a little activity. However, the children were always going 33 to church - no one knew that I wasn't a Mormon in the ward because I took the kids and we went with them to church. We went to the same ward that Sterling went to when he was a little boy. The Wingets were a good influence because they wanted to take our kids to primary. Bart played with John Winget and he was a little rascal - so was Bart. Every day I'd get Bart ready to play in the winter. He was a child that wanted to be outside all the time. He had corrective shoes and so he had only one pair of shoes to his name. I'd send him out to play and the first thing he'd do is to break the ice on the cow's drinking water and let the water run up over his boots and over his shoes. Every single day. Every single day he'd come in and I'd have to stuff his shoes with paper and put them in the oven while he was in bed because he couldn't go without his corrective shoes, I understand from the later years that he used to go with John and ride the cows. Mothers always think that they know what their children are doing but I realize that I didn't always know what they were doing. One day the wind was blowing really hard and he had to go out and play so I bundled him up and put him on the back porch. The wind blew him right into a garbage can. I couldn't hear him crying and hollering for me. I'd look out the window and call to him, he was big enough that I didn't have to check on him every minute so I didn't pay much attention - I knew that he wouldn't go very far because it was such a cold day. Finally I went out to find him and there he was, jackknifed into the garbage can, I don't know how long he'd been there. We had a good relationship with the Wingets and we had a nice time in the ward. AL: Why did you decide to join the church? CL: Well, when we left Murray we sold our home and were going to move into Salt Lake into a home on 39th South. Before that we moved into this apartment when Allen was a year 34 old. We were going to church at the ward on 8th East and taking the children. Lynne was getting close to 8 years old. We discussed having her baptized and we made an appointment with the bishop. We talked to the bishop and while we were talking I said out of the clear blue sky "Let's make that two, I'd like to be baptized too." That's when I joined the church. I was baptized with Lynne down at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Many people didn't know I wasn't a member because I'd always gone and supported Sterling and supported the children in whatever they did in the church but I had never joined. My family had taught me all my life not to be prejudiced against any religion. To seek after the best people whether they be Mormons or whatever and to not judge shortcomings. I was always tolerant toward the Mormons and so it was easy for me to join because I believed it, I think the one main reason I joined was because Starling had lived his religion to the best of his ability and tried to be honest and tried to do what was right. I saw religion in action and felt like that was more than a true church than perhaps what I could have learned in books. It influenced his life to do what he thought was right. I remember the day Lynne was born he held her in his arms and he told her as long as he lived he would never knowingly break a law or do anything that was dishonest. That was his promise to her and 11 of his children. I firmly believe that he has never knowingly broken the law or been dishonest because he wanted to be a good influence to his children, I think that he has been because I think that 11 of our children are the same as their father and try to do what's right. AL: While we're talking about religion, why don't you tell me about when you got married in the temple, when it was and what it was like? 35 CL: After I was baptized we went to our new home in Murray but Sterling was chosen to be the manager of Oakridge Country Club. But the commuting was quite bad so we moved to Bountiful. We bought another home in Bountiful and moved there. On our 15th wedding anniversary we decided to go the temple and get married. It was a very beautiful experience for me but the most beautiful thing in the whole temple was when our 3 beautiful children in white were brought to the altar and sealed to us. They looked like angels to me and I'll never forget the joy it was to see these 3 children, all dressed in white, their brown eyes sparkling and they were so lovely and having them sealed to us. It was a very touching time and it was one of the highlights of my life. It's a time that I don't think that anyone who's ever been through it would ever forget. It was a second marriage - we were married on the very same day in the temple and I've never regretted going to the temple - I've always felt that it was the one thing in my life that I did that was right. AL: Let's go to Bountiful and talk about what life was like there - what you and the kids and Sterling did? CL: Well, when we moved to Bountiful, we got there just a day or two before Halloween, it might have even been Halloween. The kids went right to school that day. Allen was 4 and we took Bart and Lynne down to the school and got them put in. I had to hurry and fix Halloween costumes because even though we weren't settled in our new home the kids were going trick or treating. I got the kids all togged out in costumes and they went down the hill and they got to Clyde Williams home and they rang the doorbell. Someone yelled out through the intercom and scared them to death. They had never seen an intercom or known about such a thing. They were so frightened, that that ended the trick 36 or treating for that year. They came home with not nearly the loot that they would normally have because they were scared to death of that intercom. We lived in that nice neighborhood. Our children had an abundance of young friends - boys that were raised with Allen. Carol Mears and I became very close friends. The kids learned to sleigh ride and to build huts and to have lots of fun. AL: Mom, I'd like to continue this interview but right now we're out of tape so we'll continue at a later date. Thanks Mom. 37