Oral History Program Don O. Carlsen Interviewed by Jamie J. Weeks 11 October 2013 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Don O. Carlsen Interviewed by Jamie J. Weeks 11 October 2013 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983, with additional interviews being conducted by members of the Weber State community. In 2013 the campus prepared to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Weber State University in 2014. In order to document the student experience, interviews were conducted with Weber State College Alumni on an ongoing basis. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Carlsen, Don O., an oral history by Jamie J. Weeks, 11 October 2013, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Don O. Carlsen October 11, 2013 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Don O. Carlsen. The interview is being conducted on October 11, 2013 in his home in Ogden, Utah by Jamie J. Weeks. The subject of this interview is Don’s time spent at Weber State College from 1946 to 1948. Also present is Stacie Gallagher our video technician. Don starts his interview with a PowerPoint presentation he has put together documenting his life. DC: I was born in this house (App. 1) at 774 20th Street, Ogden, Utah, October 25, 1926. I graduated from Ogden High School in 1945. I was drafted in the U.S. Navy until World War II ended and then I attended Weber College, on the lower campus, graduating in 1948 in Business Administration. I married Josie Bush, September 15, 1948. I was drafted at eighteen years old at mid-year. There were fifty other senior class mates and we were all drafted. I was drafted into the Navy. (App. 2) I was raised in Ogden, Utah, in the Rocky Mountains. The arrow in this area of town was where my parents lived. (App. 3) This is what I looked like at eighteen, and when I went into the service. I only served for eighteen months because that was the end of the war. (App. 4) Then after the war, I was on the GI bill that I had earned when I was in the Navy. I majored in Business Administration at Weber College in Ogden, Utah on the 25th Street campus. (App. 5) 1 My first year at Weber College, I went to summer school and they spent the whole summer semester going to Mexico. The summer school class was very educational. We slept out and cooked our food. We were known as the “lava chasers” because we saw live volcanoes that had covered over the entire villages with 2000 degree hot lava. Walter Buss was our organizer. (App. 6) Then we climbed the Mexico City Pyramids, slept in jungles, visited caves, saw pure white sand dunes, toured Mexico City, joined in Mexican fiestas, which happened to be there while we were there. We saw hot lava flowing and its devastation in mountain villages, and we saw steep mountain hillsides being farmed with wooden plows pulled by a mule. (App. 7) The live volcano spewed out lava and went down the valley, and there were at least three or four villages that it covered all up, except the church houses with the steeples and the crosses on the top and that is all that was sticking out above the lava. JW: The people were able to get out of their homes? DC: Yes, that’s what we understand. On the way home we visited a crater that was made from a comet hitting the earth in the state of New Mexico. The crater is huge, and it makes me feel good that the earth is not pocked like the moon is from comet strikes. You can see how big this whole thing is. That could have 2 been one of the hits that killed all of the prehistoric animals that were on the earth. (App. 8) DC: This is our group though. Right there you can see who that is because he’s got the widest body. That is our Spanish teacher. I earned this purple W letter running track while at Weber. (App. 9) JW: Tell me about the track team. DC: Okay. We went down to BYU and ran track in anything we wanted to compete in. I was part of the mile run, relay team. I ended up running the 440, so I was surprised when I got back that I had received the letter and the sweater. Here is my degree for the completion of the business courses. It took two years of hard work, but I graduated, and wisely used this degree to start my printing business in Ogden. (App. 10) And this was my next major event in my life. Right there is my wife Josie Bush. We had been married 62 years and she died a couple years ago. (App. 11) This was our home where we raised all five of our children. All of the kids graduated from Ben Lomond High School and they worked in the print shop which helped finance their college educations. (App. 12) These are the things that the kids were involved in during all of their growing up period. They were all born into a world of changes. Triumphant feats of engineering, important inventions, modern ingenuity in 3 sciences, physics, art, entertainment, transportation by land and air, electricity, radiation waves, space exploration, social change, implement s of war, architecture, computers, internet communication, tourist attractions, digital photography, nuclear reactors, printing, radar, robots, etc. It was a great time for our family to be alive. (App. 13) This is a picture of Carlsen Printing, our family print shop located at 419 22nd Street. (App. 14) JW: Is that building still in existence? DC: Yes, though it is not a print shop anymore. It turned into just a storage area. This is a picture of our kids and their spouses and then their kids. This is my wife’s sister, brother, sister in-law, brother and this gal here and this one here both worked at the print shop for us quite often. (App. 15) This is when I was president of the Ogden Rotary Club in 1971 and 72. (App. 16) These were the people who were in office. R. Gilbert Moore was a General Manager at Thiokol over the shuttle projects, Thomas E. Curtis was the Manager of the Deseret Gymnasium, William A. Williams was the General Manager of Shupe-Williams Candy Company, which was down by the railroad, Kenneth M. Burton, was President of the Board of Education Ogden City, George W. Craddock was the Forest Service Chief, and Lynn L. Foley was with the Natural Gas Company. 4 This is when we went down to the International Convention held in Sydney, Australia. My way was paid for as president of the Rotary Club and Josie was able to make the trip with me. So, we went on and finished with a complete circle, going around the world. (App. 17) JW: What route did you take to get to Sydney? DC: We flew out of Salt Lake City Airport, then on to Hawaii, to New Zealand, then to Australia, and then on to Hong Kong making a complete circle of the world coming back. JW: I’ve been to Sydney and found it incredibly beautiful, how did you like it? DC: It was great! My wife and I were even able to eat with one of the families who lived in Sydney and were members of the Rotary Club there. We of course had lamb. The convention was a great experience for us and we only stayed there for about four days, then we got on with the trip. JW: How long did the entire trip take? DC: The entire trip was about two months. DC: I don’t know if any of you know, but Richard L Evans gave his talk on “Service to Others” at the Sydney Convention and he received a standing ovation. (App. 18) This is just a copy of the flyers used to advertise the Weber College 25th Street Campus Reunion and the “Share You Memories” project. (App. 19 and 20) 5 I don’t know if you have taken any pictures of this or not, but this is the casting pledge located on about 3650 Harrison Boulevard. It says, “Erected by the Ogden Rotary Club as a symbol of its faith in the future of Weber College.” This was installed before there were any buildings up there at all. (App. 21) And the pillars are still there, but as you can see, the campus has grown since then. (App. 22) During my days of retirement, we served a mission for eighteen months in Lansing, Michigan. We spent four years touring the whole U. S. in an RV. We cruised to Alaska and part of Europe, we spent ten years living in our Liberty summer home, and we wintered in a condo down in Scottsdale, Arizona. (App. 23) All because we got into that printing business through Weber College. JW: Let’s go back and fill in a few holes in your life and your time at Weber State College. How many siblings did you have? DC: There were six boys and no girls, but one of the boys died just before I was born. JW: Did anyone else participate in track? DC: My younger brother ran track for Ogden High School and held the record for the indoor 440 for years. I was the only one that ran for Weber State. We all got into the service during the war years. 6 JW: Here you are as a freshman in the 1947 Yearbook and then as a sophomore in the 1948 Yearbook. (App. 24 and 25) DC: Yes, that is me. I also recognize a few others including Harry Burchell who played on the football team, I knew him well and Adona Call (Nye) used to live by me when our kids graduated from high school. JW: What schools did you attend while you were growing up? DC: I first went to the Dee School and then during the Depression we had to move out to Sparks, Nevada because that was where my dad worked for the railroad. We went out there and that’s where I went to kindergarten, then I went back to Dee School, Madison School, Central Junior High School, and Ogden High School. JW: That seems to be a theme I hear in these interviews. Everybody goes to different schools but then you all emptied into Ogden High. Was the Ogden High that is there now the one you went to? DC: Yes, Ogden High is still the same building. It was the first building in the U.S. to cost a million dollars for a high school and it had only been there two or three years when I graduated. JW: Then you went to the war and came home; did you meet your wife before the war? DC: No, she was working out at Hill Field when I came home and while I was going to those two years of college. I was dating her off and on, along 7 with a lot of other gals. We hadn’t even had girls in my family, I was going to try a few of them out and see. We had fun doing it, but the dating really started for all of us when we came back from the war and after it was all over with. We dated over a two year period and that was a great time for us to get acquainted. Then in 1948, just after I had graduated from the college, my dad said, “Why don’t you get married”? He didn’t want me around anymore, and I said, “Well I guess I better ask my mother.” I asked her and she said, “I don’t know what you’re waiting for. If she’s got all the talents that you say she has, then get married.” And that was the best thing I have ever done. She was a very talented woman. Here is a book that she has written, full of poetry for each one in the family. She had the talent, and I was glad to say that I was her husband. JW: This is wonderful and I like that there are pictures with the poems. DC: Yes, she worked with me in the printing business. The whole thing worked out so well because she was a great speller and proof reader, and here I just ran the business and told everyone what to do. JW: Going back to your time at Weber College. The campus is down on 25th Street and I guess I want to know a little bit more about the activities you were involved with, and maybe some of your friendships there. DC: Well I went to the dances with different dates. In fact, I had one gal I knew, her name was Elaine Jenson, and I really liked her. When I went to our 30th Anniversary Reunion, she jumped up from the table and came up and 8 gave me a kiss with my wife right there. It was kind of funny and surprising, but anyway she was married to a professional golfer. JW: What were some of your favorite classes you took while you were in school? DC: I think Health is one of them that was a good thing for me and I really enjoyed it. I liked the Math classes of course, and I took Bookkeeping and Accounting, and that was all hard to remember because I had been away from it for so long. I think as far as bookkeeping goes, that was the thing that carried me through to start the printing business, so what I learned at Weber College was a real asset to my life. JW: How did you decide to go on the Mexico trip? DC: I was in Walter Buss’s class, which I really enjoyed, and he wanted me to get involved in geology, but I couldn’t see that there was any kind of future with it. I enjoyed all of the different kind of rocks and different formations. Walter Buss had the idea, “I would just like to drill out in the middle of that Great Salt Lake and see what is underneath it”. You know that Great Salt Lake used to be Lake Bonneville, and it all drained out to the North. All of those things are very interesting to me, as far as the geology and the levels that we see up on the mountain side—up here where all of the houses are built on each one of the steps of the levels that come from the lake. JW: Did you know President Aldous Dixon as a student? 9 DC: Yes, I did. In fact, he was somewhat of a shirt-tail relative of mine, but I never pursued that relationship. JW: Did he seem like he was involved with the students? DC: Oh yes he was. I don’t know how he held it all together with all of us crowding in there at that time. I took a slide-rule class, and I didn’t even get a slide-rule, because even though I was on the GI bill there just weren’t enough. So I just went out and bought a wooden slide-rule and got through the class in good shape. JW: Because there were so many of you coming back from the war? DC: Right. JW: What was the political atmosphere like as you were all coming back? DC: We were just so happy to get home. While I was in the Navy, I was on a troop transport ship, and we would take troops out to the Marshall Islands and to parts of the pacific, and pick up others and bring them back. My home port was in San Francisco, and I was only eighteen and I thought, “Hey, there are two or three of us aboard this ship; we just as well go over to this high school dance.” We all picked up girls and walked them home after the dance. It was a great time. The war ended while I was in San Francisco and we had to ship out again to go down to the Philippines to get the occupational troops and take them up to Japan. They just had us 10 pick up the ones on the island as we passed by and went home and decommissioned our ship, and got out of the service. JW: How long after the war did you have to stay in the service? DC: It couldn’t have been over six months. JW: Are you saying you sailed over there after the bomb had been dropped? DC: Yes. Before that, we went crisscross across the ocean and it took us twice as long because we were never going in a straight line. We were trying to stay out of the way of the submarines, but when we went over there it was only about 35 miles an hour. I had a Model A Ford that could go that fast. Anyway, you don’t travel that fast on the ocean. JW: No, but did you see the Hiroshima? Were you able to get off the ship in Japan? DC: Yes. I got off the ship. In fact, I had a friend that I went to school with, Don Shligowski. He was on one of the islands. I went to the island and he took me on a tour in a jeep around the island. He said, “We cannot go into the jungle at all, but I can take you around the outside. There were Japanese soldiers living in the jungle. I didn’t really see any military action at all, but my job aboard ship was feeding the big five inch gun on the back. There was a powder keg in canvas, and we would put those in and then shoot the thing off. You could only shoot off the back tail of the ship because it would tip the ship. It was pretty limited, but the ship that I was 11 on was the troop transport that had been converted from a cruise ship, so it was a very nice ship. JW: This wasn’t actually a Navy ship, and you were transporting people and they all needed rooms to stay in. Did the Navy just take whatever they needed? DC: Yes. They just confiscated it and said we need this for the war effort. JW: That is interesting; I did not know that’s how things were done. DC: So I was on the USS James O’Hara, and the number of the ship was APA-90. One interesting thing we did when we came back with the last load of troops when the war was over. We had just gone under the Golden Gate Bridge, and there were all these ferry boats filled with all these girls. All of the guys that were aboard ship hadn’t seen white girls in a couple of years, and they all run over to the side and the captain had to yell, “Get over to mid-ship or we are going to tip over!” We were tilting sideways with all those people aboard ship. It was a great time for me to be in the service, and it was a good experience for me. JW: That’s a wonderful story. Let’s go back to the subject of Weber. Are you still involved with Weber at all? Evidently you attended the reunion, are you still an active member of Alumni? 12 DC: Yes. I still get the magazines and things, but I’m not actively involved in giving any money to them or anything like that. However, there was a time when I was in the printing business and I was asked by President Miller to give a night class on the printing business. I taught for two night school semesters. I also went to several basketball games and things like that since I lived here. I am going to turn 87 on the 25th of this month. JW: Wow that’s amazing, and you are doing so well. DC: Yes. I am enjoying life, and like I said, the best thing I ever did was marry my wife. I was just the husband, and she sang and was very musical. I just have a great family. JW: Well with five kids it looks like a lot of fun. DC: There is a picture of my children on the wall. The oldest daughter lives up in Montana by the Glacier Park, and she is flying down to spend time with me. The oldest son has a Doctorate Degree in Computer Science, the middle son is an Electrical Engineer and he lives in Arizona, the other son is the one that took over the printing business when I retired, and then the other daughter lives up in Billings, Montana, and her husband is an Institute Instructor up there at the college and he’s also a Bishop. JW: All but one of them lives out of state? 13 DC: Yes. The printing business has changed so much he doesn’t really do much with it anymore, but his wife is over the Ogden Tennis Club out in South Ogden. I just had a great time going back and seeing my oldest son’s children, and then their children, so we have several pictures of the family and great-grandchildren. I even took my tennis racket and was teaching all of these great-grandkids how to hold a racket up and bounce the ball on the racket. They got so they were pretty good—especially the ones up to ten years old. JW: How many grandchildren do you have? DC: Fifteen grandchildren and about eighteen great-grandchildren. One thing that I’ve done, I don’t really think that my grandchildren are going to do much with their retirements because of the way things are going, so I just gave each one of the fifteen grandchildren $500.00 and if they keep that in their retirement plan, it will be the better part of a million dollars when they are getting ready to retire at say 65 or 75, or whatever is the age will be at the time. JW: That is a great gift. DC: I have heard a thank you from all of them. Many of them now have their degrees in engineering and everything else, so they just added it to what they have, so they will do okay. I had somebody tell me that that’s what I ought to do, and I did it, and I feel good about it. JW: Well family is what it is all about. 14 DC: Yes it is. I now have one grandson that is over in Israel and he is trying to make it so that if there is ever an incoming missile, he will be able to shoot, on short notice, and hit that missile head on with a bullet and blow it up in the air. So that is technology right there, but he is as smart as a whip and great kid. JW: He is just over there working? DC: Yes, well he works down there in Arizona and they fly him over nearly every month or two, you know to make sure everything is working the way it ought to. They had a good success with their tryouts. I think they had thirty of them and they only missed one or didn’t hit it directly on. JW: We are really grateful to have been able come here today.. DC: Well I had a great life, and I think probably the thing that was the greatest was in connection with that Rotary Club and going around the world. JW: So many good things have come from the Rotary Club and they continue to do great things for the community. DC: Well, it’s just like that plaque states, “Service Above Self,” that’s the motto. It is a great thing and that was a great thing for them to help Weber College get onto the upper campus. 15 1 Don O. Carlsen was born in this house at 774 20th Street, Ogden, Utah on October 25, 1926. He graduated from OHS in 1945. Drafted in U.S. Navy until WWII ended then attended Weber College. Graduating in 1948 in Business Administration. He married Josie Bush September 15, 1948. Appendix 2 Don was drafted at 18 years old at mid-year of his senior year along with 50 of his senior classmates. Don was drafted into the U.S. Navy. 3 Don was raised in the Ogden, Utah in the Rocky Mountains, the arrow is the area of town was where his parents lived. 4 Don served aboard a troop-transport ship as a Storekeeper until the war ended. He only served for 18 months. 5 In the fall of 1946, Don started College on the G. I. Bill that he had earned while serving in the Navy. He was majoring in Business Administration at Weber College in Ogden, Utah on this campus. 6 After Don’s (see arrow) first year at Weber College, he also attended this summer school class, they spent the whole semester going to Mexico. This summer school class was very educational. We slept out and cooked our food. We were known as “lava chasers,” we saw live volcanoes that had cover over entire villages with 2000 degree hot lava. Walter Buss our organizer. 7 We climbed the Mexico City Pyramids, slept in jungles, visited caves, saw pure white sand dunes, toured Mexico City, joined in Mexican festivals, saw hot lava flowing and its devastation to mountain villages, saw steep mountain hill sides being farmed with wooden plows, pulled by a mule. 8 This crater was made by a comet hitting the earth it was in the state of New Mexico. The crater is huge and makes me feel good that earth is not pocked, like the moon is from its comet strikes. 9 Don also earned this letter running track while at Weber College 10 It took two years of hard work in college to earn this certificate of completion in business, this he wisely used in his printing business in Ogden, Utah 11 My wisest next major event was that of marring Josie Bush, September, 15, 1948 12 All five of our children where born and raised in Ogden and graduated from Ben Lomond High School and worked at our Print Shop which help with their college educations. 13 We all were born into a World of Changes. Triumphant Feats of Engineering, Important Inventions, Modern Ingenuity in Sciences, Physics, Art, Entertainment, Transportation by Land and Air, Electricity, Radiation Waves, Space Exploration, Social Change, Implements of War, Architecture, Computers, Internet Communication, Tourist Attractions, Digital Photography, Nuclear Reactors, Printing, Radar, Robots etc. 14 This was our Family Print Shop at 419 22nd Street Ogden, Utah. 15 16 The Ogden City Rotary Club Officers for 1971-72 17 Josie and I attended this International Convention the year Don was President of the Ogden Rotary Club. This trip made it possible for us at this time to complete a circle world trip. 18 Past-President Richard L. Evans receiving a standing ovation after his talk on “service to others” at the Sydney Convention. 19 25th Street Campus Reunion Aug. 31, 2013 20 This casting pledge is located at about 3650 Harrison Blvd. south to Country Hills Drive. Before any buildings where built on the present campus of Weber State University. 21 Enjoying our retirement years, 18 month LDS Misson in Lansing, MI. Four years RVing the whole US. Cruising to Alaska and part of Europe. Ten Years of living in our Liberty summer home and wintering our condo in Scottsdale, AZ. 22 Weber State University Ogden Campus - 2013 23 24 25