Oral History Program June Meyerhoffer & Betty Jo Slater Interviewed by Marci Farr 31 July 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah June Meyerhoffer & Betty Jo Slater Interviewed by Marci Farr 31 July 2008 Copyright © 2010 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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 Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Dee School of Nursing was founded in 1910 to provide training for nurses who would staff the new Dee Memorial Hospital. The first class of eight nurses graduated from the school in 1913 and the school continued to operate until 1955, with a total of more than 700 graduates. A new nursing school and home located just east of the hospital was completed in 1917 and all nursing students were required to live in the home during their training. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the school's alumni before their stories disappear in the same way the Dee Hospital has disappeared. The oral interviews focus on how the women became involved with the school, their experiences going through training, and how they used the training. ____________________________________ 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 Special Collections 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: June Meyerhoffer and Betty Jo Slater, an oral history by Marci Farr, 31 July 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Betty Jo Slater and June Meyerhoffer July 31, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with June Meyerhoffer and Betty Jo Slater. It was conducted 31 July, 2008 and includes their recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The Interviewer is Marci Farr, and LeAnn Meyerhoffer was also present. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing June Meyerhoffer and Betty Jo Slater at June’s home in Marriot-Slaterville. It is July 31, 2008. They graduated in 1945. Tell us about your class. BS: There was fourteen of us that started out. This was in ’42 just after the war when Japan bombed us. What was it? February when we came in? JM: Yes. BS: February. JM: Bombed in December the 7th and we went in in February of ’42. BS: The hospital just put in this new class extra because of that. MF: Oh good. BS: There was only fourteen of us who started and only seven of us graduated. MF: Really? And you were in 1945, right? Is that the year you graduated? BS: Yes, ’45. MF: There was only seven? Did you learn pretty much everything? BS: We did. JM: We did. BS: We even started from the bottom and went up. JM: Nowadays they don’t even empty their bed pans but boy we did. MF: You did, though. 1 BS: We did everything. We went to college at the same time. We walked from the nurse’s home. You know where the old Dee Hospital was? MF: Yes. BS: We lived in the nurse’s home and we walked down there after breakfast to have classes at the college and walked back up to the hospital to eat our lunch, then walked back down to the college. We were on the go constantly. In between that we were working at the hospital, too. MF: Oh good so you had shift work that you had to do? BS: Yes. JM: Yes. MF: So you were on regular shift duty after so long or did they start you off just doing certain things? How did your normal shift go when you were at the hospital? JM: Well we did everything. BS: Yes. JM: In fact, we had what we called chapel and we would have to get up early in the morning and go to chapel. They would have a prayer and a song and a scripture reading. MF: Okay. JM: And then they would give us our assignment for the day. And, of course, if we were fortunate enough to be the bedpan nurse then we would have to get up and started early because they always gave enemas before surgery at that time. They would come in the night before and then we would always have to give 2 them an enema before surgery and they certainly don’t do anything like that nowadays. They just take them right straight in. BS: No, no. JM: Then they would assign us our duty on the floor plus our school assignment. MF: You still have that to do too? JM: Yes. MF: So you were kept busy. You learned every part of the hospital, right? You didn’t have one specialized area, you learned everything that went on, right? BS: We were assigned. We were six months in the surgical division with the surgery patients, taking care of them. We had six months of the medical division and then we had six months of pediatrics. And six months of the OB which included the delivery room and the OB floor and then the nursery. Oh and the kitchen, in the diet kitchen, we were in the diet kitchen for awhile too. We had to learn the different diets and we had to do some of the cooking too. JM: We ate at the hospital for three years and people complain now, “Oh that hospital food,” and they are there for one day and I think, “We ate hospital food for three years.” BS: We sure did. We even cooked some of it. MF: That is what everybody has said, that the food was not very good and that they would never eat anything else. One lady said, “I will never eat eggs again.” JM: Oh I didn’t think it was so bad…some of it, because we didn’t have any choice. BS: We didn’t. MF: Exactly. 3 BS: And we were hungry because we were walking all that way every single day and using up a lot of energy. MF: Were you roommates for three years? JM: A lot of them changed roommates over a period of time but she and I stuck together through thick and thin. MF: That is great. BS: And when we entered, you know, they assigned us to each other. I mean we didn’t know each other, never met before. MF: Yes. BS: I think they just had it on a paper and we were put together because your name started with “S” and my name started with “S.” JM: And yours started with “S.” MF: That is great. JM: We didn’t have cars. We would have to catch the bus for our transportation but usually we walked. And even if we had a date, I remember dating…of course, the military, the Hill Field, was all military at the time. MF: Yes. JM: And I dated several of the military at Hill Field. I remember we had a curfew so we had to be in every night at ten and on Saturday we could be out at twelve. MF: Oh yes. JM: But we had gone to this movie together down Washington and I knew it was going to be late. When we came out I said, “Oh, it is nearly twelve o’clock and they will lock the door on us for sure.” I says, “How are we going to get up 4 there?” And he took a hold of my hand and said start running. And we ran from Washington Boulevard up to Harrison, but I was still late. And then we had to have the administrator, the supervisor, take us over to the nursing home. That usually resulted in taking a few privileges away for all of us. BS: You are right. MF: Why did you decide to become a nurse? BS: Well all through high school I wanted to do something in the medical field. I had high hopes and my aspirations were high…I wanted to be a brain surgeon. That was my one hope when I was in high school. As I grew older and a little more wise I thought, “Well, maybe I just better start nursing at first.” So I applied to, I think, a couple of schools in Salt Lake and the Dee Hospital. I lived in Logan. I was born and raised in Logan. MF: Okay. BS: And I wanted to be close to home. We had a hospital there in Logan but there wasn’t a nursing school attached to it. So they accepted me in two hospitals in Salt Lake and Ogden. I didn’t want to go clear to Salt Lake really because I had to ride the old Bamberger. Do you know what the old Bamberger was like? You get in that and I thought, “I don’t want that.” So I said, “Well, I will try the Dee and see what they’ll do.” So that is why I chose the Dee. June why did you? JM: We graduated in June of that year and I registered at Weber State College. And I was in college at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I thought, “I want to do something to, I guess, help my country.” MF: Yes. 5 JM: And so when they started this new class in February I joined. MF: Good. JM: I think it was just because of the war that I decided that I would go in and do something for the military. MF: Where did you grow up? JM: I grew up in the same little town that I am living in right now. In Slaterville. MF: When you got up to the nurses home. Was it very strict? How were the rules? BS: We had a housemother. Her name was Mrs. Woods? JM: Yes. BS: She was a very nice lady but she was strict. We had a kitchen that we could sometimes cook in, make candy or cookies or something. We very seldom did that. I hated to clean up afterwards. JM: Well I remember we had food stamps. Sugar was rationed at that time as was most everything else. We had to put our sugar stamps together to get enough sugar to make a batch of fudge. MF: We have heard some good fudge stories. When you were at the hospital, you had class at Weber College and you also had some at the hospital, right? BS: Some of the doctors taught us right there in the nurses home. MF: Oh okay. BS: We had a school room there. MF: Would some of the supervisors teach also, or were they graduate nurses? JM: Lucille Taylor was our supervisor and she taught classes. Miner…she was one of the… 6 BS: Yes. She was a supervisor. JM: …supervisors and she taught us. BS: And she worked in the hospital and taught us also. JM: I can’t remember. There was a Mrs. Knapp, in fact, she is in one of the pictures I have got in there. I think she was a teacher, I am not right sure about Mrs. Knapp. BS: I think she was a…did we have anything to do with her? I can’t…I remember the name… JM: Well I have got a paper article with Mrs. Knapp’s picture in it. I don’t really remember. She must have been a teacher. BS: Yes, she must have been. MF: That is good. BS: But I remember a couple of doctors taught us. McQuarry, do you remember McQuarry? JM: Yes. BS: And who else was it? Oh Doctor Fister, he taught us a class on Urology. Anyway, and they came to the nurses home to do that. The rest of the classes were down at Weber College. MF: Were you required to attend church on Sunday if you didn’t work? JM: I don’t remember of it being a requirement, I attend church but I don’t know it was required of us. Do you remember that it was required of us to go to church? BS: No it wasn’t but we had to work Sunday a lot of the times. They gave us a regular schedule. We worked all week long. We had one day off a week didn’t we? 7 JM: Yes. BS: And if we didn’t have to work they didn’t make us go to church but June and I usually went. We only lived…it was over a couple of blocks wasn’t it? JM: Just a little church, yes. BS: The closest church house to us. JM: We had different faiths within our class. Faye Carpenter, she was a…I can’t remember. What was she? A Lutheran. Faye was a Lutheran. BS: Lutheran? Yes, that was Faye wasn’t it? JM: That was Faye. BS: Faye was a Lutheran, yes. But I think the rest of us were L.D.S. JM: I think the others…I think they were all L.D.S., yes. BS: Of course, a lot of them didn’t go. MF: I know the earlier classes said that they had to say if they went to church. You know, if they were off, they had to go and they had to say yes or no if they attended and they kept track. It was kind of interesting. JM: I think that was optional. MF: It was optional. It was your choice. JM: Because I lived here in Slaterville, my parents could still come and pick me up and I would go with them occasionally to church too. MF: Tell us about your capping ceremony. When did that take place? BS: The what? MF: The capping ceremony. 8 BS: We were in six months. We were called probees for six months and after that the capping ceremony was held right in the nurses home? JM: Where we had our chapels in the morning, just kind of an assembly room or something. BS: Yes. And there were fourteen of us who received our caps. We were so proud. MF: You’d survived six months. JM: We made it! BS: It was just a plain white cap. After six months probation they put a stripe on it so we were a freshman. And when we were juniors we had two and seniors three. And then when we graduated we got the velvet, the black velvet stripe across the brim that way. MF: Okay. So they could tell which one you were? BS: Yes. MF: That is good. Where was your graduation held, do you remember? BS: Down at Weber College. Yes. MF: Okay. And you were the class of ’45? BS: Yes. JM: Now we graduated with the class right behind us because there were only the seven of us. MF: Okay. JM: We have our certificate and it has February on the certificate but as far as the exercises itself, we had our exercises with the class just following. BS: They graduated in ’45 also. We get a little catalogue every year. 9 JM: The roster with the names of all the… BS: Yes, with the names of everybody who is still alive. They are all…the class of ’45 includes those that came in after we had started. MF: Do they do January classes and June classes? Is that usually how they did it? JM: No, usually they had just the one. But after the bombing and the beginning of the war… MF: That is when they did the second class. JM: …they did a second class. MF: That is good to know. What did you do after you graduated? Did you stay in nursing? BS: Yes, we stayed there for a while. We rented an apartment. There was me and you and… JM: Thora. BS: Yes. JM: Did Collette live with us for awhile? BS: No I don’t think she… JM: Just Thora. BS: She went back to Wyoming didn’t she? JM: Probably. I believe she did. BS: And Norma Jean, she didn’t stay. JM: No. And Andy, she didn’t. BS: No, she didn’t stay either. 10 JM: And Thora stayed…I have got a poem I’m going to have to let you…I have gathered some things up in my bedroom there that I want to show you. But Aunt Millie wrote about the three of us living together in that… BS: Yes. JM: …little apartment. BS: Yes. MF: Did you stay with nursing after you graduated for a little while? Did you stay at the Dee Hospital or did you go elsewhere? What did you do with your nursing career? BS: Well we lived together in that apartment how long? JM: Well we lived until June and I got married in June. BS: And you got married, yes. JM: And I went with my husband. BS: I got married before I graduated and I had a hard time getting them to give me their permission to let me get married. June’s cousin, she introduced me to him and we became very friendly. He was to go overseas so we wanted to get married before he went overseas and it was about six months before I graduated. MF: Okay. BS: So I had to get permission from the nursing service, from the head nurse, to get married. JM: One of the ladies climbed out of the window and ran off and got married during our training and she was… BS: She quit. They kicked her out. 11 MF: Was it Ella Merrill? JM: No. MF: It wasn’t her? JM: I can’t remember her name but that doesn’t ring a bell. BS: No. JM: I can’t remember who it was but I remember the incident. BS: Yes. JM: Because I think I helped her climb in and out of the window. BS: I think we did once. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. When we first got into the nurses home where we lived, we were put in the basement. It was a lot easier to climb in and out of the basement floor. Then when we became juniors, we were put on the middle floor and then seniors got the… MF: Top. BS: …top floor. It was funny because the basement was the most comfortable. They were supposed to have air conditioning in it but boy, you would never know it. It was hotter those places. When you worked nights, you know, when you worked nights and had to sleep during the day it was miserable. MF: Oh I bet. JM: It was. BS: It was miserable. JM: We were just really wet. I remember laying there in bed and it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water and you are soaking wet. BS: You would get up and your sheets were just soaking wet. 12 MF: When did you retire from nursing? When did you end your career with nursing? BS: Well June did a lot earlier than I did. JM: I got married in June and my husband was in the Navy. So I went with him and we went to Alameda and the naval port, you know, where the navy was stationed. MF: Yes. JM: I went with him to Alameda and I had gone to the hospital to apply for a job there at Alameda so that I would have something to do while he was at work all of the time. We just got a little apartment. But I just prolonged it and didn’t get around to going to the hospital and then the war ended in…when did the war end…September? October? BS: I can’t remember. JM: I can’t remember for sure either. So I didn’t stay in the nursing. Then I got pregnant as soon as I got home and I had six kids. I didn’t go back to work. BS: She had her hands full. JM: My six kids kept me busy. MF: Quite busy. They usually do don’t they? JM: But Betty Jo…she has worked forever. BS: Forever. I sure did. I worked forever. I married June’s cousin and when he came home he started farming out here in Slaterville. We moved out to…I can’t remember where we lived…where did we live? JM: Right on the corner. BS: We lived in that apartment in… 13 JM: By Uncle Harold. You lived in there for awhile didn’t you? BS: No. Well after he remodeled it but while he was remodeling that house we lived out in…what is that little town just outside of Ogden going south? JM: Farr West? BS: No, going south, straight south. Anyway… JM: Wilson lane? BS: No. Well, it was around Wilson lane, yes. MF: Taylor? JM: I can’t remember where you moved. BS: We had an apartment there. Well I worked just as…let us see, I worked in the surgical division for a long time. Was it? This is so long ago I can’t remember. All I know is that I worked at the hospital for ages and ages and ages. We wanted children but I couldn’t get pregnant so I just kept on working. Then I started working for a couple of doctors. I was charge nurse on the surgical division for all that time. But we had to…we couldn’t say I am going to work days and that is it because the students, of course, had to have their turn at days. They had to learn. MF: That is true. BS: We had to take our turn at the three to eleven shifts. I worked a lot of three to eleven because my husband was working in the mornings so I was at home and he could do what he wanted to. I did work a lot of three to eleven. I never did work any eleven to seven. I put my foot down on that. That is a horrible shift. MF: That is right. That ruins your whole day. 14 BS: Yes. Then we adopted a little boy. I am thirty years older than he is. So when I was thirty. We had put our name in. Then you could wait and wait forever. Finally they came up with this little boy for us and he was only two weeks old. I had to take a year off or the adoption wouldn’t be legal. MF: Yes. BS: So I went back after we adopted him and I worked three to eleven all the time because then I could take care of him all the time and my husband could take him in the afternoon. Then when he was six they gave us another one, a little girl, so we had two. MF: Good. BS: And I kept working three to eleven after we had adopted and the legal business was over with. MF: Yes. BS: Then I decided that I was getting tired of working in the hospital. A couple of doctors asked me if I would work for them in their office. I said, “Yes, I would love to do that.” And they said, “We will pay you just as much as you get here.” Because I know they didn’t pay, the doctors didn’t pay as well as the hospitals. So I worked for Doctors Taylor and Stagg and they were general practitioners. MF: Good. BS: Did you know…I guess you were too young to know about that Catholic school that was on 25th street, that big old castle looking affair. JM: Our apartment was right across the street from it. 15 BS: Across the street, yes. It was there and they tore that down and they built the medical dental building that is there now. MF: Okay. BS: Only they have remodeled it again. They are using it for government I think. MF: Yes. BS: Their offices were there, right there. Living out in Slaterville, it was easy for me to get back and forth. I worked there for years and years and years…eighteen years. JM: I think she just quit the other day. MF: Probably did, huh? BS: I did. I quit. I kept telling those doctors, “I am tired of working, I want to quit.” And they said, “Oh, you can’t leave us. You can’t leave us.” We did a lot of surgery in the office. We did a lot of things in the office. I know they appreciated me because I could catheterize people, I could change dressings, I could help them with their surgery. MF: Everything. BS: What somebody just off the street could not do without a lot of training. MF: You were trained, I think, as far as nurses, how to do every single thing in the hospital whereas now they are educated but they are educated to learn how to take care of the monitors, right, don’t you think? BS: Yes. JM: They don’t have the floor duty that we had. We had floor duty right along with learning and being trained. 16 MF: Yes. BS: But we were six months in the operating room. So we didn’t have floor duty then. In the delivery room also, we were right there. MF: That is good. So that served you well. Your training served you really when you got done for your hospital training, for your office. That is great. BS: Yes. JM: Doctor Dumke was a very great surgeon. He had one operating room just for him. All the rest of the doctors shared an operating room. He performed surgery, he operated from morning to night I think. MF: Really? JM: He was a great surgeon. BS: And he was a nice guy to work for. Some of those surgeons…ooh you were on eggs, pins, and needles all the time afraid you are going to give them the wrong instrument or they are going to yell at you for something. MF: Exactly. BS: Some of them would even throw their instruments at you. If you gave them the wrong one they would just throw it at you. “I don’t want that!” MF: So you kind of had to be one step ahead of them. BS: Yes, really. Really one step ahead. JM: But I think he did more surgery in Ogden than all the rest of the doctors put together I believe. He was a great surgeon at that time. BS: Yes he was. He would come down the hall and you could hear him coming clear… 17 JM: Thundering down the hall. BS: He was a big guy. He talked at the height of his vocal chords and you could hear him coming and you got all of his charts ready for him so he… JM: “Doctor Dumke is here! Doctor Dumke is here!” BS: Oh dear. MF: Did you know any of the Dee members, the Dee family? Did you associate with any of them or know any of them? BS: I didn’t, did you? JM: No. BS: I never saw them even. MF: Did you know Elizabeth Stewart at all? Did you know her? BS: Who? MF: Elizabeth Stewart. Elizabeth Shaw Stewart. BS: No. What was the name of our nursing supervisor when we went in that. That old woman, what was her name? Do you remember? JM: Oh she was quite large. BS: Yes. JM: Oh what was her name? She went thundering down the halls too. Oh I can’t recall her name. But I can see her. BS: I can too but I can’t remember her name. JM: I can see her in my mind. But I was afraid of her. BS: No. You weren’t? JM: I was afraid of her. 18 BS: I was going to say…I was too. I was afraid of her too, yes, boy. JM: Oh, I can’t think of her name. BS: But she was a nice woman. She told you what she expected of you. And if you performed the way she wanted you to you were okay but if you didn’t… MF: Then you were in trouble. BS: …look out! MF: What was your favorite floor that you did your training on? BS: I liked pediatrics. I really loved to take care of the little kids and the nursery, I liked that too. Which one did you like best June? JM: I think I liked the delivery room. I supervised…from the time we graduated until I got married in June and when I left I was a supervisor in the delivery room...for just a few months but I quite enjoyed the delivery room. MF: That is good. I appreciate you letting us come visit with you. If you want to show us your pictures… JM: I have them all spread out there on the bed. I didn’t know whether you’d be… MF: Do you care if we bring the camera in and you guys can still talk? JM: Oh yes. That is fine. I spread them all out there on the bed. MF: That would be perfect. JM: This is an article in the paper. This is our graduation. BS: This is our class. JM: You can have that and Jo if you want. MF: Oh good. Tell me where you are. BS: She was the beauty of the class. Thora Bean. 19 MF: Thora. Good. BS: This is Hopkinson, Norma Jean. This is June. This is me. And this is Bonnie Mae Anderson. Girl from Trenton up above… MF: Above Logan, yes. BS: Logan. This is Beth Collette and she was from Wyoming and this is Faye Carpenter, she was from Nebraska. MF: Oh good. BS: She was the one farthest from home. She would go out and look at the mountains and she would say, “They are going to fall on me! They are going to fall on me!” MF: Because she is from “Flatville.” Now is she in California? Is she the one that is still in California? Do you know? BS: She is. Do you know her? She moved. She did move to California. JM: I lost track of her though, I don’t know where she is now. In fact, when I went with my husband to California during the war, we went out a few times, she and her husband and my husband and I. We went out to eat a few times. BS: Bonnie Mae Andrews married a guy, a bilateral amputee. MF: Oh really? BS: Bonnie Mae Andrews also worked at Bushnell for awhile. JM: Bean, wasn’t that her name? BS: Met him and married him. Thora married and moved to California. Her maiden name was Lewis. Thora Lewis married a man named Ben. MF: Oh okay, good. 20 JM: Now this is that picture of Mrs. Knapp. Look at these old things that are just practically fallen to pieces. That is one of the paper clippings. BS: Oh yes. MF: There are your stripes. BS: There are the junior the senior and the graduate. MF: That is so great. So this is June right here? BS: No. MF: Is that June? BS: Oh yes, yes that is June. I was here. I was sitting here and they didn’t even take my picture. JM: Now these you probably wouldn’t even…Jo might be interested in them. This is when we were getting ready for a junior prom. Here is us in our dresses and it tells about the junior prom. Betty Jo was the chairman of it, it says here in this article. “Those in charge was Betty Jo Salisbury, the chairman.” And it lists all those that worked on the junior prom. This is the choir, the nurses choir. This is just completely fallen to pieces. MF: How fun, that is great. BS: This is Norma Jean, that is Faye Carpenter, that is Beth Collette, and who is this? JM: Let me see. BS: Under the thing, who was that? JM: Oh that was Thora Lewis. BS: Thora Bean. 21 JM: Thor and Norma Jean and Faye and Beth, yes. BS: Who is this here? JM: This is Andrew. BS: That is Bonnie, isn’t that Bonnie? JM: I don’t know the others. I am not sure who the others are. BS: Boy you really did keep everything. JM: This is me right here. I sang in the nurses chorus. I put a little “X” on me there. BS: So you would find yourself. JM: So I would know who it was. MF: Oh that is great. So Faye Longhurst was in this too right? Faye Ball? Yes, she is right there. JM: Ball was in the class right following us. MF: Yes, she graduated in ’46, her and Helen. Is it Helen? BS: Helen Farr, yes I know Helen, she is still around. MF: Yes. We interviewed her a couple of weeks ago, her and Faye together. They were so fun. BS: We look so young there June, don’t we? JM: This is the clipping that was in the newspaper. This is Betty Jo here. These are just pictures. We went up to the cabin. BS: Oh yes I have got this. We went up…this is when the dam wasn’t as big as it is now. June’s aunt and uncle had a cabin right on the dam and we had vacation and we spent a whole week up there. It was wonderful. MF: That is the way to do it. How fun. 22 JM: Here are a few more pictures of us. BS: There are some more of us. JM: We were sunbathing on the top of the nurses home. MF: We heard about that. We heard about the sunbathing. That is great. How fun. JM: Here are a few more pictures. This is our room. Isn’t that our housemother? I can’t see. BS: That is the one I was thinking that I have got. That is Mrs. Woods, our housemother. JM: Then I think I put another…I have got some pictures here I think of Thora. Here is Thora and here is Bonnie Andrew. Do you remember this one Jo? BS: Is that Thora? JM: Yes. BS: I was going to say she looks like Kathleen, that is my sister-in-law. JM: That is Kathleen. No, that is Thora. BS: Kathleen. JM: And then here is a few more scattered ones. Oh here is Vernal. BS: That is my husband. JM: I was going to give you that. Maybe we can’t even take it out. BS: I have got one of those. JM: Oh have you got that? Then I tried to put a piece of paper in where… BS: There is a young picture of you, isn’t it? JM: Oh yes. This is Vernal and Jo swimming. MF: Oh fun. 23 JM: And this is Jo on a horse. BS: And Vernal in his uniform. Not the horse. MF: Oh that is great. JM: Let us see. I can’t see upside down. Are these…? This is Betty Jo here. BS: You have got plenty of me. See that was me too. MF: How fun…and the horse. BS: I love horses. One of the reasons I married Vernal. MF: How fun. BS: Because he was a farmer. MF: Where do you live now? BS: In Ogden. MF: You are still in Ogden? BS: Yes in Ogden. Where else? MF: That is alright. Well those are great. JM: Then, of course, I have got all these rosters that they have put out every year. BS: Yes we get one of those every year. JM: This on had down memory lane. There is quite a little bit in here. Do you have this one? There is quite a bit in there of history that you might be interested in some of that history. MF: We don’t have the ’95 roster? JM: There is quite a bit of history in the front of that. MF: So it has just little thoughts and memories. JM: Yes. 24 BS: Yes. MF: I haven’t seen this. This is great. So then it has got the roster in here. Oh perfect. I haven’t seen this one though. This is great. JM: I have got several others but just going through them I think that is the most informative. MF: Oh yes. That is great. It has just little memories of the classes that went through. Oh good. That is wonderful. Would you mind if we borrowed this and scanned it? JM: You can take it. MF: Would that be alright? That would be so great. JM: Yes. Then I wanted to show you this Jo. Do you remember that? BS: Oh yes. This is…my mother-in-law is quite a poetess. MF: Oh yes? BS: She made this poem about us. MF: For you because you were the roommates. BS: And I married her son. That is June and me and Thora. MF: That is great. How fun. BS: I’ll have to tell you about what happened to us when we got married. JM: Oh that was quite an experience. You had better tell them that. BS: I had six months to go and I had to beg them to let me get married. JM: Why don’t you sit down here on the bed? BS: We were married in the Logan temple and we were going up to Bear Lake for a couple of nights. I had to be back to work in two days. They used to have a girls 25 scout camp up there. It was a beautiful spot. When we were Beehive girls, you know, in mutual, we would go up there every summer and we hiked around in the mountains. So I said, “Vernal, I want to take you up on this trail.” This was in October. We were married the 26th of October. The weather was beautiful, it was just perfect. I just had a jacket on and he had his uniform so I said let’s get up on…it is called Crimson Trail…and you get up there and you can see all over Logan, it is a beautiful hike and really the right kind. It is short enough and long enough, just a perfect hike. So we got up there and were up there and we stopped to rest for a minute. All of a sudden I felt this…I thought it was a wasp. It just went right by. I could feel it, feel the air right…I could feel it. I thought “what is a wasp doing up here in October.” I heard it plop over there. Vernal…he tackled me. He said, “They are shooting at us.” MF: Oh it was deer season. BS: It was deer season. And he had his kakis on and I just had black slacks and a white blouse. They were shooting at us. He stood up and waved his arms and yelled, “We are people! We are people!” And they shot him right here. MF: Wow. BS: Right into his shoulder and it came right out again. I of course applied pressure to stop the bleeding. Pretty soon they came up. They had to use flashlights to get up there. We heard them talking and they said, “We’ll find it right about here. We’ll find it right about here.” MF: Oh my gosh. 26 BS: And Vernal spoke up and said, “Yes you sure will, you will find us right about here.” They just about died. They thought it was a deer they were shooting at. They thought they were going up there to get a deer. The thing is, they were shooting from the highway which is against the law and the river was running right there you know. MF: Wow. BS: I don’t think they did anything to them. I know we didn’t do anything to them. We didn’t press charges. JM: He spent all of his furlough in the hospital. BS: Yes so our honeymoon was spent in…he had to go to the hospital. JM: His honeymoon and furlough. BS: I just kept on working. MF: He was okay though? BS: Yes. He got another month off. He could stay for another month when they found out what happened. MF: That is the craziest honeymoon story I have ever heard. I am glad he is okay. BS: Never forget that. JM: Bushnell was an Indian school after they… MF: Up in Brigham City. JM: I don’t know whether you remember the Bushnell Hospital out there in Brigham City. BS: It was an Indian school after the war. JM: And then it was a school. 27 MF: I remember the Indian school but I don’t remember the hospital. Well thank you for sharing that with us. And if you don’t care we’ll take this and I can just bring this back one day after work. Then we can get this done for you. JM: Now if you want I was going to give Betty Jo one of these. Do you want one of these Jo? BS: Oh thanks, yes. I appreciate that. JM; I don’t know whether you have any way…this is the original paper clipping but I don’t know how you could… MF: I think this is the one that Fern gave us. Doesn’t this look like the one that Fern gave us? JM: Did you get one? MF: I think that was her sister. I am trying to think if that is… JJ: It does look like it. MF: I will check and make sure but I think she gave us that. Her…is it Bonnie? What is her name? JM: Oh she had a sister…Fern Andrew. MF: Yes. We talked to her the other day and I think she gave us that same picture. I will make sure it is the same one. JM: Oh yes. Fern. Do you remember Fern? Bonnie’s sister? BS: Yes, sure. JM: We used to go to her place and visit with her sometimes. BS: Yes. Fern, yes, she worked in one of the stores in town didn’t she? 28 MF: Yes. She called and said, “I have this picture.” So we talked to her the other day. Very, very, very nice lady. She still volunteers at the hospital. JM: Haven’t seen her for years. BS: Did she ever marry? MF: Yes she did. BS: Oh good. JM: Did she? MF: Yes. She volunteers at the hospital. She is 95. She still volunteers at the hospital. JM: Is she really? She never had children though I guess. MF: I don’t…it didn’t sound like she did. She didn’t ever really say so I don’t know. But very, very kind. That was fun. BS: Yes she is. MF: I will make sure that it is the one. BS: Yes. Bonnie was a real nice kid. I guess she…I don’t know if she is still alive or not. JM: We’ve lost track of them. I am quite certain that Norma Jean passed away. It seems to me like I have heard of her passing. The others…just lost track of the others. MF: Yes. JM: I used to write to Faye Carpenter all the time at Christmas. It has been a couple of years since I have heard from Faye. MF: Since you have talked to her…okay. 29 JM: So I don’t know if any of them have passed away or whether they are still with us. BS: I think Thora moved to California, too. Didn’t she? JM: Yes. MF: I know Fern gave us her number so we do have her phone number. We are hoping we can call her and be able to get an interview because she said she is still alive. JM: Thora? Oh, Bonnie Andrew. BS: Bonnie. MF: Yes. BS: She is still alive, is she? MF: Yes. BS: Where does she live? MF: Royal…I can’t remember. Royal something. Let me look real quick if it is in here. JM: It might be in one of these rosters. MF: Let’s see. What was her last name? BS: Andrew. JM: Andrew. MF: Okay it is Royal Grande, California. JM: Oh California? MF: Yes. So that is where she is at. We just got her phone number so we can all her. I guess Fern sent her the article and she was so excited. We’ll be set so now. JM: I don’t know if I have even got Carpenter’s address or not. I had it. 30 MF: I know that they just did an updated list that I do have a copy of. They had one in 2007 we got from Faye Ball. She did the minutes so we have a new list. I can check and see on that one. That was our latest list that we had. JM: Here is Faye Carpenter and Beth Swetfield. I was trying to think of her married name, Swetfield. BS: What is it? JM: Swetfield. BS: Oh, Swetfield, yes. MF: So Jean Woodfield, Jean Graham, was in the other class, right? You guys were the ones that were put together. JM: She was the class that followed us, yes. MF: Okay. We are talking to her next week. JM: They graduated in ’45 too. BS: Yes. JM: Here is Jean Graham right here. She has an Ogden address. MF: Yes, we are talking to her next week. You know Josephine Manning, Josephine Heslop? Do you know her? BS: Who? MF: Josephine Heslop Manning. BS: Yes we knew her too. JM: She graduated. MF: She was the year before. JM: She graduated in ’44. 31 BS: She was a year before, yes. MF: Yes. Yes, she lives out by me too. JM: Oh does she? MF: Yes. We interviewed her. She is my first one I did. It was good. I will make sure we get that address and make sure that is the right one. I’ll get that for you. JM: Eva Dean Law, she was a supervisor. She held some big office for years and years. I don’t remember what it was now. BS: Who? JM: Eva Dean Law. BS: Oh Eva June Frew. JM: What was she? I don’t recall. BS: She was…what? A supervisor or a teacher or something. JM: Yes. BS: But not here. Not in Ogden. I heard she died. I think she died. JM: I believe I remember her obituary in the paper. BS: Yes I think she died. JM: I think she did, yes. BS: Most of us are tough old birds, though. MF: That is good. We are glad you are still here because we need to hear your story. JM: I wonder for how long sometimes. MF: Well this is great. We appreciate you for letting us come. JM: There is quite a bit of information in that one, more so than any of these others. 32 MF: Yes. That will be perfect. We will just get those copied. That way the ones that we don’t have from the early ones…that will be good to have. JM: That has some history of the Dee. MF: Oh okay good. JM: And the Dee family. There is quite a bit of information in that little book. MF: Well good. I know I haven’t seen that so that will be absolutely perfect to have these little histories too. That will be really good. We just have a little paper we just need you to fill out just so you give us permission. We appreciate you letting us come. We appreciate your time. So thank you. JM: Well it is kind of exciting. MF: It is. We are excited about this project. It is going to be a good thing. It is part of Ogden’s history so we need to get it recorded. BS: That is great. MF: We are excited. Yes it is good. 33