Oral History Program Judy Anderson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 3 July 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Judy Anderson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 3 July 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honors men and women whose lives exemplify the independence and resilience of the people who settled Utah, and includes artists, champions, entertainers, musicians, ranchers, writers, and those persons, past and present, who have promoted the Western way of life. Each year, the inductees are interviewed about their lives and experiences living the Western way of life. ____________________________________ 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: Anderson, Judy, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 3 July 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Judy Anderson July 3, 2014 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Judy Anderson. The interview was conducted on July 3, 2014, by Lorrie Rands, at the Cowboy Museum at the Union Station in Ogden. Anderson discusses her involvement with rodeos while growing up, and also, her involvement and legacy with the Cowboy Museum. LR: Let’s start with something simple. When and where were you born? JA: I was born in 1940 in Ogden, Utah, at the old Dee Hospital. LR: Okay, and what year…or, you said 1940. Where did you grow up, in Ogden? JA: Well, my early years were spent in Riverdale, Utah, and that’s just about four or five miles south of here. My father had a small fruit farm and acreage that he planted in fruit trees and so forth. Then I had uncles that were farmers that were in that area; and really, the only horses around were the draft horses that they used in pulling the wagons. So I didn’t really ride those, but like most young kids of that era I was cowboy crazy. I wanted to be a cowboy and I wanted a horse, and I had my cap guns; I played cowboys and Indians all the time with my cousins. I had quite a few cousins in the area, and I had a Gene Autry cap gun. I still have my Gene Autry cap gun that I kept from that time. We moved, because of health problems of my parents, in 1949 to Ogden. We lived up on Harrison Boulevard very near Ogden High School, and it wasn’t until we moved to the city that we got horses. My brother worked for Quaker Oats Company, and they made Ken-L Ration pet food and they had a plant out west of the tracks here. He was an 2 office clerk, I guess you would say. He was a photographer. He used to take pictures and stuff for them to make a history of the plant and what they were doing, and how they did it, and so forth. They would buy horses on their last legs to use for their pet food. Every once in a while they would get one in that had a foal and rather than kill the baby horse, you know, they would either give it away or sell it for five dollars. My brother knew that I had always wanted to have a horse; we still had some land out in Riverdale. We didn’t get rid of all of it. So he called my father and asked if he wanted to give it a try, so he went out to look at it and the mother was just kind of a nag. No, that wasn’t right either, so that’s probably something you’ll want to cut out. The mother was a good looking horse for just having given birth. So my dad went to the stockyards. He worked for the railroad and he had friends that worked at the stockyards. Got an old spavined nag and traded it for the mother of the filly plus five dollars. He came home that day and asked if I wanted to go for a ride, and we went for a ride in the car out here to the stockyards. He said, “What do you think of that?” I’m like, “Oh she’s beautiful.” He said, “Do you want her?” I said, “Are you serious?” And he said, “Yes, she’s yours.” So we took them to the pasture in Riverdale and started training them. My father had been orphaned at an early age and done all types of work and learned all types of skills to keep things going. He was married quite young. My parents lived during the depression and I was the last one to come along. I have a brother and a sister, or had a brother, he had just died in June, who were a number of years older than me. So I was the last one, and essentially, I was an 3 only child from the time I was 10 because my brother and my sister both were married by then. My father and I started training horses together, and he taught me how to do things with the colt. I learned to ride on the mother. I’d ride her up and down the lanes in Riverdale. Everything was dirt then instead of being paved as now. I mean, the main road that went through Riverdale was the main road leading to Salt Lake, but everything off from that pretty much was just a dirt road. So I would ride up and down the dirt roads and up the hills where the freeway runs through now, out west. That was all dirt hills and sandy soil, and that’s how I learned to ride and keep my balance—going up and down through the sand hills and chasing jack rabbits. The mother didn’t much like being separated from her little filly; so, we’d come running down 4400 south–our lane ran south to the pasture, and I would want to go straight, and she would want to go left. We both won usually. LR: How does that work? You both win? JA: She went south, I went west. LR: I get it. JA: So, that’s how we started, and I named her Ginger. She was a sorrel, and so I named her Red. Her little filly was Ginger, because she was a sorrel also. I learned my basics of riding on the mother while we were working with the filly. When she was six months old my dad put a saddle blanket on her back until she got used to the weight of that. Then when she got used to the weight of that, we’d walk around and then he’d put a saddle on her. Just set it there at first, to let her get used to it, then, try to walk her, and later, he’d cinch it up just a little step at a 4 time to get her trained, so that by the time she was two years old, I could ride her. We eventually had four horses out there. We had them bred but they were the ones that I learned to ride, on and I just rode every chance I could, and learned to ride. I said it was really rather strange at the time, because it seemed like it was all the city girls that were winning the title of Miss Pioneer Sweetheart - what it was during my time. It later became Miss Ogden Rodeo and then Miss Rodeo Ogden, and it has stayed Miss Rodeo Ogden since then. That’s how I got started riding, I read an article in the newspaper one day, when I was 17, about the contest and decided I wanted to try out. I didn’t really know anything that was required. At that time you spent your time in the Hotel Ben Lomond during the contest. They would have the judges interview you on the mornings of the breakfasts and you would have your rides and so forth. I found out the night before that you had to know all this other stuff. You know, all the parts of a horse, and the types of horses and the names of the various parts of the saddle, and who the leading rodeo competitors were at that period of time. I just thought—I didn’t know any of that. I just rode, but the girls that were in it that year were all very nice and we had a jam session that night and I was able to absorb enough information that I didn’t come off as totally stupid, but I didn’t place. I decided I was going to try again the next year, and I was going to win. So I checked out books from the library and began studying and learning all those things that I needed to know, so that by the time the contest came around the 5 next year, at least I felt prepared for what I was going to have to face. I was fortunate enough to win so that’s where it started. 1959. Well from the time I won. My dad always told me, “You’re not going to win you know; it’s fixed. They’ve decided who they want for queen long before. You just don’t even have a chance, so don’t be disappointed.” He changed his tune when I won. He said, “Oh, I guess they don’t fix it after all.” From that time, he thought that we should have a reunion of all the past queens, and in 1960 especially, there were about four or five of us that went out to watch, former queens that went out to watch the riding portion of the contest at the stadium. He got us all together and had one of the photographers that was there from the newspaper take a photo of us. Then he got us together at one of the past queens home, spearheaded us organizing, and we became the Ogden Rodeo Queens Association. Then from that point he researched all, in the old newspapers, and I helped him. We’d go to the old Carnegie Library which used to be in the same lot as the municipal building. We’d research from the newspaper to find out who the former queens were, and clues as to who we needed to contact to find them. Of course it was still new enough then—this was back in, well, ’60—the parents and aunts and uncles and everything were still alive, so we were able to track down all of the former queens. In 1962 we had the first reunion and had all but three of the former queens here for the reunion that year. They were very well received. The public really seemed to appreciate their being there. So we organized as a whole group then. We had everybody there; before, there were just those of us who were from the local area and we 6 organized and had our president and vice president and secretary and historian, and so forth. I started out as secretary of the organization and served in that capacity until I graduated from Weber, then I worked a year and went down to University of Utah. I knew I wouldn’t be close enough to keep up with everything, so they chose someone else, but they made me historian. I was historian of the organization from that time until about 1992 when it died. The older women lost interest. You know, they were older; it didn’t mean that much to them anymore. The younger ones were so busy with young families or going to school that they weren’t really that interested anymore. Our numbers started just dwindling as to who would come to meetings, until we had nine people. So like I said, it died. During that time we always supported the rodeo queens and did the best we could. We started out on a shoe string, literally. I think the Eagles lodge sponsored the first reunion that was given, and they gave us 25 dollars to start a savings account. We made boot jacks out of wood—cut them. I would burn the Whoopie Girls in the ones that I made, or they would just stamp them with other patterns and designs. We’d sell them to earn money for the organization; and the stockyard was still operable then. C. W. Cross or Ken Cross from Cross’s Western Store had a store down there at the stockyards and they took some of our boot jacks and sold them for us to earn money. We did that. We got started, eventually, with Queen’s Clinics and we’d have two. We’d have one for the younger girls that dealt strictly with horsemanship and what to do; another one for the older girls who wanted to try 7 out for rodeo queen. We’d teach them the fundamentals of proper speech and how to dress, watch them ride and help correct, you know what they were doing. Sherrie Cunningham was the one that spearheaded that and started that up, and she was the queen in 1964. She got everything going very well with that, and then the Allred girls took it over from that. There was Karin and Kristin and Shannon, and they had all served as Miss Rodeo Ogden. Kristin and Karin were Miss Rodeo Utah’s also. Of course Karin married Cotton Rosser, so she was involved with the rodeo there. What helped us raise the best amount of money were those clinics. We were the first ones to do that. Other places found out – Oh, this is a good thing to do so we’ll start our own! So the attendance started dropping off because of the clinics that were taking place in other areas. So, we lost that method of being able to raise money. We’d buy beef and raffle it off and get the money from that. Or, one of our members that lived up in Logan, they had beef and they would donate a half a beef and we would raffle it off to raise money. We did that a lot because after 1960 and ‘61 and ’62 - I don’t know if it was because times were tight that they decided to cut down on doing so much or funding so much—where before, the girls had a two day competition, were housed in the Ben Lomond Hotel during that period of time, and taken to eat at various restaurants in the city and so forth, they chose the queen on the basis of her riding ability only. It was one evening out at the stadium. They would come and ride their horses around in a circle. Then they would trot, and they would canter, and they would start eliminating them until they found their queen and attendant, and that’s all they 8 did. They did that for two years. The Miss Rodeo Utah contest started in 1954 and Karen Neuenschwander from Ogden, city girl again, was chosen as the first Miss Rodeo Utah, she was also Miss Rodeo Ogden. Every one of our Queens from then until 1959 was Miss Rodeo Utah. 1959 was the year I was queen, and the city that time decided they weren’t going to sponsor the young women for the Miss Rodeo Utah contest anymore. Nothing was ever even said to me about it. I didn’t know I had the option to go down on my own or anything. I just figured, oh well. Then the next two years, like I said, after we had our reunion in—well ’60 I guess, they still did it. It was in ‘61 and ‘62 that the state contest was discontinued. We organized in ‘63 and we talked the committee into letting the past Queens run the competition, and a sheriff’s posse let us use their clubhouse out in Harrisville. So we had a dinner there and we made up the different questions, and got our judges and had them ask the girls the different questions. That was beginning to get it back on track again as to judging them on appearance and personality and horsemanship and knowledge. So, since that time, someone from the past rodeo Queens’ Association, or who has been a former Queen, has been on the contest committee every year, and some of them have been on it for several years. Like I said, by 1992 our organization was dead and that was the end of it. I have collected all this stuff on the association and on rodeo and on the queens for that long. I just, for some reason, didn’t quit. I just kept keeping up with things. We were coming up on the 75th anniversary and I thought—I had 9 wanted to do a book about it earlier and thought maybe it could be a fundraiser for our organization. None of them figured anybody would buy a book like that, and I think they were right. Nevertheless it had never been done, and I finally decided - okay, the organization’s dead; nobody can tell me what I can do or not do. I’m going to do a book. So I decided to write a history of Ogden Pioneer Days and the rodeo queens. As I started calling some of the Queens that I knew were still in the area to get information from them, I think it was Elizabeth Felt Goff that said, “You need to call Susie Vanhoosier.” Well, I didn’t know who Susie Vanhoosier was from (sound effect) and I said, “Well, who is she?” They told me and I said, “Well, why should I call her?” She said, “Just call her.” So I thought, okay, so I did, and she was just totally excited over doing the book. I don’t think she actually has a western background at all, but she’s very pro-western. She loves the rodeo, she loves everything to do with it. She just thought it was a wonderful idea and at that time she was the president of the Weber County Heritage Foundation. Then things just kind of started going from there. Rob King, from Rainbow Gardens, heard what I was doing, and called me. Harm Peery was his grandfather and the one that started the rodeo and so they were pro rodeo. The first part of my book pretty much had to do with Harm Peery and starting up the rodeo and what it did. He said, “You’ve done more than I’ve been able to do in years about his history.” He said, “I want to help you do this.” So he did. Then the Weber County Heritage Foundation used their abilities to 10 write up a R.A.M.P. grant. We got presubscriptions to the book, and between that and the R.A.M.P. grant, it paid for the publication of the book. Then all of the earnings from the book - I didn’t really want to earn money for myself - I didn’t even have that in mind, but I had hoped that I could get some money for the community for various organizations. Union Station has books. They preordered them, so they paid the publication cost for their books, but everything else that they get is theirs. Weber County Heritage Foundation, the same, Ogden Pioneer Days, the same. I sold some to raise money too, but it was for the Ogden Rodeo Queens Association. I mean, I’m it anymore. It doesn’t exist, but we still opened an account under that, and then that money goes toward helping the incoming Miss Rodeo Ogden with gas money, as she has to travel around all of the different rodeos. In 1964, Ogden city presented each past Queen—we had another reunion that year and they presented each past Queen with a belt buckle with a Whoopie Girl and their year of reign on it. We’ve got a couple of themhere, down in the case down there if you want to take pictures of those. It just - it mushroomed - it went. I was able to earn enough money to do that for ten years. Then it will be up. I was able to find out the people who had done the original belt buckles for the past Queens and they did these pendants. The past Queens could order them for cost. It was Comstock Heritage, and they’re the ones that did the belt buckles before, and the bolo ties that they got for the Pioneer Days committee members. He offered to make a pendant for each of the incoming Miss Rodeo 11 Ogdens, so normally, I’d give them the money to help with gas, plus, I give them the pendant that’s donated by Comstock Heritage and request that they write and thank him for doing that. This year we got stuck in the middle. I called them and called them and called them and e-mailed them and they never replied, so I decided I guess they decided to stop sponsoring it for some reason. So the girl didn’t get a pendant this year. She will, but she didn’t the night she won. About three weeks ago, I got a call from Comstock, and I guess they had gotten my very last e-mail where I was thanking them. I mentioned—I said, “I’m sad that you’ve decided to stop sponsoring the pendant. I’m sure you have your reasons and I understand that. I just wanted to thank you for doing that for the time that you did and to know how much the girls enjoyed it.” Well, it was probably – oh, it had to be a month after I sent that e-mail - that I got a call. They were located in Carson City, Nevada, and they were moving to Reno, Nevada, and they had been in the process of moving. They had to get a new server to handle their internet business and stuff. They had assured them that they would be able to transfer all their calls from their previous line to their new one. Mrs. Stegman said, “We weren’t getting any calls. We got like 25 calls and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. We have lots more than that all the time. We didn’t get anything. We found out we had received 500 e-mails and a number of them were unrecoverable.” So then I guess this last e-mail I sent they saw. They had 243 buckles that they had to have made before. She said, “Hey, when did you need it?” I said, “Two months ago.” She said, “Oh!” So I said, “Do you think you 12 can get it to me by the 4th?” She said, “We will get it to you by the 4th.” I got it this morning. LR: Oh nice. JA: So I’ll be able to contact Rachel Halverson, who is this year’s Miss Rodeo Ogden and get it to her in the next week or two when I have an opportunity to see her. LR: That’s great. JA: That’s how I got involved with everything, and then Susie got me dragged in with this, the museum. That’s pretty much what’s occupied my time for the last three years, because we started it three years ago, and we had it just for a month over in Gallery 51, just during Pioneer Days. Pioneer Days, well it was Pioneer Heritage Foundation then, had received the grant from the state to do a museum. I think all that had been done was some blueprints had been drawn up for a museum and then nothing else was followed through on. All of a sudden, they found out they had to use the money or lose the money. So they called Susie and asked her if she could get a museum together. She called me and I was horrified. I thought, “No. I don’t know anything about a museum.” So we are learning by the seat of our pants, as the saying goes. You know, flying by the seat - we’re learning. We had less than three months to get it up and going, and so we bought a few things, but most everything we had that first year, people allowed us to borrow and display. We got everything set up and we got people chosen for our hall of fame; and that first year, because of the time factor, we had to do that amongst ourselves. That was the only way to get them and get it done in time for the event. Then we decided this would be a good place to have the 13 museum because of the closeness of all the others. It would be a drawing card to keep people coming to all of them. So when this became available, we started working on that, and Alan Hall, who is the chairman of the foundation, donated most of the money to pay for the rent for this for 10 years. Then, Union Station gave us a bargain rental rate, a real bargain rental rate. We started getting things done. Brent Baldwin is one of the individuals on our committee, and he’s collected western items for years and years. So much of the stuff that we have in here we have bought from him, or is here courtesy of his kindness and letting us display it. Now that we’re beginning to be a little bit more known, we’re starting to get some things donated. We just got a saddle, it’s over there. It’s a Sam Stagg half-seat saddle from the 1870’s; and Dave Prevedel, who is also on our committee, happens to restore saddles. He’s collected vintage saddles and restored them, and a lot of them are on display at the cowboy hall of fame museum. Is that it, or is it the PRCA? Might be the PRCA museum, or maybe they’re one in the same. He fixed it. It was pretty dry and in pretty rough shape, but he took it all apart and cleaned it and oiled it. It’s still fragile. It’s an old saddle, but it’s - most of your saddles are lined with sheep’s wool, you know, sheepskin with the wool on - this is lined with wool felt, and he said, “That’s normally something that’s done in Mexico. That’s how they line their saddles in Mexico, but this saddle design is strictly American.” So we don’t know yet, and we don’t know if we’ll ever find out or not, but our guess is that it came from New Mexico from the Mormon colonies, and when they were slipping out of there it 14 was brought back state side, and it was bought from somebody in Slaterville 45 years ago by Robert Perry, who donated it to the museum. We’ve had that saddle donated, Susie Bauter Adams, who was Miss Rodeo Ogden and Miss Rodeo Utah in 1966, just donated her saddle that she received as Miss Rodeo Utah in 1966. It was made by the Cross Brothers, so it’s been made by a local maker, which is nice. Shannon Conley Mullins, ‘82 I think, she was Miss Rodeo Ogden, and her saddle was made by Glen Thompson, who is from Hooper - I think - is a well-known saddle maker. He made it, and the plus with that is that it has the Whoopie Girl on the stirrup leathers. LR: I have to ask. What is a Whoopie Girl? JA: Well, she started out - I was talking to the lady that was in here earlier about Lorene Donaldson. Originally she was called the Yippee Girl: “Yippee! We’re having fun, we’re going to celebrate!” LR: Oh, okay. JA: Then later, what, about 1942-43, somewhere in there, they decided to call her the Ogden girl. Then, for whatever reason, between then and 1948 sometime before 1948 - and I haven’t been able to find out when - she was named the Whoopie Girl, because “Whoopie! We’re having a good time!” So the Whoopie Girl became our symbol. She was on license plate covers and decorative plate covers, tire covers, on the rodeo programs, and she was…Lorene herself - they took the photo of her - was used a lot; but then, the artist’s rendition of her painting, the Bolles painting—and her picture, was used a lot, too, up until 1946. Then after that, they mostly used the artist’s rendition for the Whoopie Girl. 15 There were periods of time when she just kind of disappeared from being used. I did a DVD animated – well, yeah, animated - narrated slideshow on the history of the Whoopie Girl for her 75th anniversary, which was in 2011. It told how she came to—came about, but she’s off and on she’s been focused upon during the celebrations. Then there will be a span of time when she wasn’t. She might be found on some of the advertising inside the magazine, but she certainly wasn’t on the cover. I think it was in the ‘80s before she—before they put a little cartouche up in the corner of the magazine, or down in the center somewhere. They’d have a picture of the rodeo queens and her attendants and this cartouche with the Whoopie Girl. It wasn’t really until the 75th anniversary again that they made a big deal out of her - a really big deal. Susie Vanhoosier had been trying forever to get them to trademark, or copyright actually, that symbol because it pops up over everywhere, and they can change one thing on it and that’s okay, it doesn’t matter. Finally, this year, they did that. She is now officially and legally Ogden’s trademark for Pioneer Days. So but she has been used since 1935 and Enoch Bolles who was did the painting gave his permission to use her. It was like the one on the cover of the magazine’s cover, down here at the end of the museum, too. Harm Peery saw that Film Fun magazine with that on and he thought, “That would be a good idea.” Someone else had suggested having a rodeo queen, and so he wrote the publication company asking about it. Then it was pin-up art, and it wasn’t considered fine art, and it was no big deal, you know. Nothing anybody really was keeping a lot back then. They sent him the original 16 painting and so it hung in his office during that time when he was serving as mayor, but somehow in the interim it got lost. They got looking for it again when I started doing the book, because I had only ever seen the one like we have in the window. Everybody mostly had only ever seen that one, and they thought that was the original one. That’s our Whoopie Girl. So Susie says, “Well, I know it existed one time. It was in City Hall. I even had it at the house for a little while because I took it to have it reframed.” She didn’t know that wasn’t the original, and neither did I. I started looking for it. They’d done some shifting around while they were redecorating, I guess, and it had been taken over up to the Parks building that’s up off of 36th street and what? I don’t know. But I went up there and asked about it. They said, “Oh, well, it was here, but it went and left some time ago.” They didn’t know where it was. So they’d lost it; and then, they got looking for it more and more and finally, because I had a gentleman call me from back east who was a real fan of Enoch Bolles, who was writing a book about him and he was interested in that picture and wanting a photo of it, so they started looking in earnest for it. He called me initially and wanted to know who had it and I said, “Well I don’t know for sure.” That was before I got looking for it too. I said, “But I would imagine the King family since it belonged to Harm Peery.” They said, “No.” They didn’t know where it was. We still assume that it was this one that was missing that we couldn’t find that had been up in the parks building and was no longer. 17 So we got looking around and looking; got everybody looking. They got the police involved. They called me to find out what I knew about it. I said, “Only what I told everybody else.” I said, “I’m the one that’s got them looking for it.” Then the fellow back east sent me a picture of the painting from the magazine cover, and I knew that the one we were looking for wasn’t the right one anyway. Then there was a big write-up in the paper. They found the original Whoopie Girl. I thought, “Oh great.” Well it wasn’t, it was another rendering of this. They did have three original renderings made of the Whoopie girl and it was one of those. So we still didn’t know where it was. One day Rob King got busy. He was cleaning out his mother’s basement because they were trying to fix an apartment down there so someone could live with her to watch over her. He came out with the painting, it had been stacked behind stuff and leaned against the wall and luckily it was under glass. So it was fine and so the first—well for the 75th anniversary—they unveiled it. He told me before that, he said, “We found it, but don’t tell anybody. I want it to be a surprise.” That was the hardest secret to keep for a whole year. So they unveiled it that year and right now it’s worth 100,000 dollars. So it’s under lock and key in a vault in, I think, Salt Lake. I don’t know, but he did have some giclee prints made of it and I have one of those. Plus, I have an original magazine and so does Susie. I had it framed archivally to save it. That’s where our Whoopie Girl is, and how she came about. Some people don’t like her. They think she’s too risqué. I’m pretty straight-laced, and I think she’s fine. LR: So the Whoopie Girl is based on Lorene Donaldson? 18 JA: It’s based on the cover of the magazine-Film Fun magazine. That’s the Ogden artist rendition, it’s a painting. Lorene was the physical embodiment of the Whoopie Girl so that they, kind of became intertwined, you know. LR: Okay, that makes sense now. Okay. JA: Yes, so you see there both of them in conjunction with that. Her daughter made the cut out, had the cut out made of her down there to give to the museum. So, if people wanted to stand by her and have her picture - their picture taken or whatever. That, unfortunately, is from some printed source because it’s so pixelated when you get up close. She’s got a large picture that she did of her mom because she does photography and copied them. I wondered why she hadn’t used that instead of the newspaper print. I think was the one that was in the newspaper. The original, original Enoch Bolles cowgirl (her Hall of Fame panel on the wall), and I think she, up there, had a green neckerchief around her neck, but that color’s changed over the years. It’s been presented on the programs and so forth. It’s been blue and it’s been red and it’s0 been green. That is our official symbol, and if you talk about Lorene Donaldson you’re talking about the Whoopie Girl. LR: So, then that’s what’s on the pendants too? JA: That’s what’s on the pendant. LR: Okay. JA: That’s what our symbol is now for Ogden Pioneer Days. LR: That became the legal symbol in 2011? 19 JA: No just this year. We were given permission from the artist to use it in 1942, or something. He says, “We had permission to use it in whatever way we wanted to for advertising purposes.” Now Comstock Heritage has a copyright on this because they made the original model or mold to do our belt buckles. They used to do the what Montana Silversmith does—the crowns and belt buckles—stuff for Miss Rodeo Ogden, Miss Rodeo Utah. At that time it was Comstock Heritage and they didn’t give belt buckles. I mean we didn’t get anything. We got to stay—well we did, we got to stay in the hotel for the week of the 24th and have our food and stuff paid for. We got the scholarship, but they didn’t give a trophy, they didn’t give a belt buckle, they didn’t give a saddle. Nothing like that. LR: So it’s really grown? JA: So it’s grown; it’s really grown over the years. They have the copyright on this figure because they’re the one that did the buckles in ’62 and all the rodeo officials, not the rodeo officials but the Pioneer Day officials, have bolo ties with the Whoopie Girl on it too. My dad, after he helped with getting the reunions up, he was on the rodeo committee from 1962 to 1965. So he has a couple of bolo ties with the Whoopie Girl. I have one of them, and I had it framed; and my brother had one, and he just passed away, and his wife said she found it along with some tie tacs of my dad’s that she was going to send to me, but I haven’t received them yet. LR: Is it fair to say that you were a driving force behind keeping the Miss Ogden Rodeo going? 20 JA: I was not the only one. You know our whole group got behind keeping things going. LR: Right, but if your father hadn’t started the… JA: No, if he hadn’t started it, it wouldn’t have been. LR: I know you’re not one to just say, “Well of course,” but reason kind of dictates that you are the reason that this is still… JA: Well, he was. He was, and I helped him. LR: Okay. We’ll give your dad credit. JA: Okay. LR: Was he kind of an example for you, your dad? Did you enjoy? It seems like…let me rephrase the question: it seems like your love for riding came from him. JA: Well, he didn’t ever, I don’t ever remember him riding. He didn’t start riding ‘til I started riding. I’m sure he probably did before but we didn’t have horses. So he got himself a horse later and we would ride. We’d ride up in Ogden Valley. We’d ride back to Ben Lomond. We’d ride up Weber Canyon. We’d ride up into the foothills above our place. We lived on Harrison. We’d just ride up the street and go up in the mountains from there. Had a great uncle and aunt in Huntsville - no not Huntsville, Liberty. Sometimes we would take our horses up there and summer them. Summer them and then on the weekends we would go ride. He was—he had knowledge of how to work with animals and that’s why the training was so successful. He used to shoe horses too. He—I mean, he did everything. He learned how to do a lot of things because of the Depression. He learned how 21 to fix cars, he learned how to shoe horses, so he always would shoe the horses when they needed it. LR: I lost my question. I’ll go back to what… JA: You’re not supposed to do that, I do that. LR: You mentioned bootjacks and I have no idea what a bootjack is. JA: I know of three right off, but I’ll only mention two. One is like a big bug and it’s shaped like this way, with the antennas that come up, and what you do is put your heel of your boot between that part, the split. Then you step on the end, because they’re usually this shape, basically, say, and pull back, and that pulls your boot off. Sometimes it can be hard to get a high top boot off as they fit really tight. The ones we made were out of wood, and they were that shape with rounded edges that came down and a stand on the bottom. Just made from wood, but… LR: Right that’s cool. Bootjack. JA: Yes bootjack. That would get them off. There’s boot hooks, too, down in one of the smaller cases, and that would help to get them on, because you could take the loops that are on the sides of the boots—you can see them on those down there. You’d slip the hooks through those and pull, and then you could pull your boot on a lot easier. LR: That’s Cool. So when the opportunity arose to start this museum did it just seem like a natural thing to transition into? JA: Oh, from what we did before to this? Yes. Pioneer Heritage Foundation wanted to keep it going, that was their plan all along, but we’ve just kind of had to take a 22 step at a time. We haven’t—we had a fair amount of money to work with left from the grant from the legislature the first year, and that’s what we bought with the money that was left on that, so, that we had a basis to start with. And then—like Jerry Hancock, who’s an artist here in Ogden, he had an old doctor’s buggy that had been used in North Ogden. He let us borrow that, that room over there is big enough that we could put a buggy in it and still have lots of room to walk around. We couldn’t do that in here, it’s not large enough. We hope eventually, when they redo things at the Union Station, and I assume their plans are still the same—I don’t know, they had anticipated renovating and doing whatever they needed to do with the old laundry building over here and moving the railroad museum over there. Then we would get their spot, and that would give us a lot more space. LR: Right, that would be kind of cool to fill that space. JA: It would, and we could. I mean, we just got that one saddle, this one’s on loan and it’s an older saddle. It’s kind of beat up, but it’s an older saddle. So we’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight saddles here now, and the only thing we know we could do is to set them down the middle. Our fear is that people would sit their kids on them and that would be a danger, because they will slide on those. We can’t cinch them tight enough that they wouldn’t slide. LR: That’s probably a valid fear. JA: We supposedly have another one that’s going to be put on loan here soon that is—and you probably can’t put this in your recording—but it’s a Nigger Boy saddle. That was J. G. Reed Company who was a saddle maker and leather worker and so forth in early Utah. This saddle is one he opened his shop with in 23 1882, and he had a racing horse. Sulky Racing, and they named him Nigger Boy, and it was their favorite horse. Everybody, even the whole county, loved Nigger Boy, and usually they called him Ol’ Nig, but they used that as their branding name for their leather work. LR: I’ve heard that term before. JA: I have it written up over there, I’ve done all the cards and everything for the explanations in the museum. LR: Maybe it was from one of the other interviews. JA: That’s possible. They called him that, and he would be in the parades and everything. He was in a parade and a car behind wasn’t watching what he was doing and ran into his hind legs and broke them. LR: Oh no! JA: So they had to put him down, but that was the stamp on all of their saddles and their leather work. The chaps up here have Nigger Boy stamped on them. When it became politically incorrect to use that term, they were asked if they would please change it and they did. They didn’t balk at doing it and so they became Reed Brothers. So, now the saddle, these chaps that are down here, they’re J. G. Reed Brothers. So that’s when they changed. I’ve been learning too, I mean by necessity, about all this stuff, and I have written up the cards, and I do research to find out a little bit more about them so I can tell people a little more. It’s closed right now. LR: Well, it seems to be something that you enjoy. Well, I just have two more questions at the most. So, from 1992, when the Ogden Rodeo Queens 24 Association petered out until the museum opened you were just writing your book? JA: Really, I wasn’t doing much of anything during that period. I started my book - it took me three years to do it - and it came out in 2009. It would’ve been ready to come out in 2008 but they wanted to leave it for the 75th anniversary. So from 2005 until 2009, I was writing the book. Before that I hadn’t been that much involved in rodeo anymore because we didn’t have horses at that time. We had them when I got married, but I married a schoolteacher and we couldn’t afford to keep them. We sold them and he said, “We’ll get some later.” But later never came. LR: Right. I understand that. So, through all this, and I know you’re not one to toot your own horn, but if you would indulge me in just this one little instance: what do you think is your legacy in this? How do you think your children, I’m assuming you have children, how do you think your children see you, or even your grandchildren, see you in this capacity that you’ve filled for so many years? JA: This crazy lady who likes rodeo and does genealogy. LR: That’s not a bad legacy, though. JA: No, I feel like it will be a good legacy, and some day they will appreciate it. Strange as it may seem, none of my family is very interested in rodeo or anything to do with it. Even my husband, he comes along to please me because I still like it. So, for a long time, we didn’t go to the rodeo and I missed it because I’d go every night if I could. I enjoy going to it. I thought for a while, maybe my daughter because when she was married her husband, he had horses and the kids rode 25 them, but they were always getting out and it became such a problem they got rid of them. The girls were never really that interested; older ones liked dance, the younger one liked sports. LR: So, really, your legacy is for those who come into the museum and get to see what you’ve put together? JA: Yes. LR: That’s a fantastic legacy. I like that idea. JA: I hope it’s something that will stay. It’s taken a lot of dedication from—especially from, Susie and myself, because we’re the two that are primarily involved with it the most, and I do most of the historical part. I do the typing up of all the cards and display information that goes up. She comes down and we work together at switching things around and doing other stuff. We’ve gotta find time to pull, to file all of our ephemera, because we got a big tote of different items that need filing. That’s why the file case down there, although it does serve as a good TV stand. I’ve said, “Well let’s just—we can do that after the 24th is all over and take the stuff home, and our files just get them all filed and then bring them down here and put them in the case. We don’t have to sit down here and do it.” It’s disruptive when people are trying to go in and we’ve got files all over the floor. Once in a while we just have to close the museum so that we can take care of making changes and doing other things. LR: So we can get these wonderful interviews. It’s interesting for someone who didn’t grow up with this cowboy mentality, even though I grew up here in Utah. I’ve 26 learned so much about what this lifestyle means to those who live it, and it’s unique, and it’s kind of fun. I wish I’d known more about it earlier. JA: Well, like I said, as a kid I was always playing cowboys and yet I really feel undeserving to be up amongst the rest of these because they were truly Westerners. LR: Yet where would any of them be? They wouldn’t be up there if it weren’t for your dedication and the fact that you wanted to put this together. JA: Well, Susie too. She needs to be interviewed. LR: Oh, don’t worry. We’ll get to her too. JA: Yes, she’s put a lot of effort in this. She does a lot of the leg work and the running around to get people to donate refreshments for events and stuff like this. Where I do the grunt work, shall I put it that way? LR: Sure. JA: It’s nice now to see people starting to realize what we’re doing because we also we decided with the arts stroll - the first Friday of every month - that we wanted to take part in that, even though sometimes it’s not technically art, but it’s crafts: craftsmen and artists. Like, we’ve had Kelly Donovan here and he brought his paints and he began and finished a picture out in front while they looked, watched to see what he did. We had Steve Johnson, he’s another western artist that lives up Huntsville. We had Glen Thompson who’s a saddle maker. Christmas time we had Bob Urry who is a cowboy poet, and his son and grandson read cowboy poetry related to Christmas over there, and then we decided, just for the kids, to have an exhibit for Christmas of vintage western- 27 related toys. So we had this case full of different stuff. We had the case down there of chaps sets and cap guns and spurs and boots. Books, just whatever we could find that was old. My husband and I got some of our dealer friends to let us borrow stuff to bring down here and put on exhibit. We have a doll that’s the size of a toddler that we—a friend of ours, gave us the doll. She’d painted it. It’s a vinyl doll but she’d done the painting and everything on it and made the little ‘50s western blouse for it. Gave it to us and then my husband finished dressing it. He’s very talented and made it a little girl of the ‘50s in an outfit like a little girl of the ‘50s would’ve worn. So, we decided it was successful enough we’ll do that every year probably. We have a little boy that we’re working on now, that will go with the little girl, only he’ll be from probably the ‘60s or ‘70s for this Christmas. That was for December. We’ve had Jim Mower, I hope I’m right when I say Jim, he’s from L&M Spurs, anyway, and he makes spurs and his son-in-law engraves them. There’s a pair on the orange boots back there that are his spurs. So we’ve had him. We’ve had Kelly Wahlen, and he’s a horse hair braider and horse hair hitcher. He left us with a head stall that he’d hitched, and it’s down in the case at the other end of the studio. We had a leather carver, Don Johnson, who carved leather and made it pictures. This last month we had backcountry horsemen, and they came and set up a life-size plastic horse out in front and showed how to pack a horse, and how to tie, cover it, and tie the correct knots and everything to hold the pack in place to do extended backcountry camping. So we try to do something that is western-themed every month and teaches 28 people a little more about all the work involved in a western lifestyle and the artists who’ve helped create it. There are a lot around Utah. We hope to extend our reach and get them to come in from some other areas. Like get boot makers and hat makers and so forth and have them come in. LR: So, it’s literally safe to say that we’re sitting in your legacy? This, I mean, I know it’s Susie’s too but… JA: Well, it technically belongs to the Ogden Pioneer Days Foundation. I think that’s what they’ve changed their name too now. They’re the ones that have sponsored it. LR: But they’re not the ones that put it together. I’m trying to give you all the credit… JA: No, they’re not the ones who have put it together. It’s been primarily Susie and I that have put it together. Brent helped some in the first and with this case, with getting things and that, and the first year, but his situation has been such that he hasn’t been a lot of help this year. It’s nice to have it, and it’s nice to be in here once in a while and have people come in and say how much they enjoy it. You know I still go through and think, “Oh crap, I forgot make a sign for that.” You know, and I go home and make up another sign, next time I come down I put it in. Like I said, I’ve learned. I bought and donated to the museum a lot of guides on western memorabilia so we could learn about it. So I could learn about it and do what I was doing. I mean, I still don’t know all. Fortunately, we have, like, Brent Baldwin and Dale Prevedel - they’re more knowledgeable in those areas. Now Steve Johnson too: he’s also on our committee. We have some people that 29 know more about that type of thing than Susie and I did. We’re learning and I’ve been lucky. Went to an auction here last month; first part of last month, and got up a pair of Visalia Stock Company monkey nose tapaderos. You know, I got them for 20 dollars, and we try as much as possible to get things that have been made by Utah people, and you know, Utah craftsmen. We realize that not everybody bought from Utah. Some bought through the catalogs and bought through other companies. If we have an opportunity to get a good example of something we ought to do it. We didn’t have any monkey nose tapaderos so I have them home in a sack with moth balls now to kill the bugs off that get into the wool that they line them with. Then we’ll clean them up and bring them up. I showed them to Dave and he looked at them and says, “Hey that’s a good mark.” I said, “I paid 20 dollars for them. Did I do okay?” His eyes got big and he said, “They’re worth 275 dollars.” I thought, “Yay!” because, like I said, I’m not that all knowledgeable about western memorabilia. Every once in a while now…I picked up those boots. I’m not ever sure the pronunciation of the name - Lucasia, I think it is - boots for 10 bucks. When you get the layered leather work like that and different colors they’re expensive. So…and they’re unique. That was one exhibit we had too. We had Trent Turner, who is the antique dealer who sells western memorabilia, and he collects cowboy boots and he brought an exhibit of some really fancy ones: really, really fancy ones. The big case down there - that’s what we put our rotating, I guess you’d call it, exhibits in. Whatever craftsmen we have come leaves items for the month 30 until the next stroll and we display it in that case. If they have opportunity to sell it that’s great too. So that’s our rotating case, and he had all these boots in there. There were about 15 pair or better of boots and he came the night of the stroll and he had even more from children’s to adult’s sizes on a table out in front, and talked to people. We’re starting to get more people stop by. We knew we’d get them because most people aren’t into western art that much, really. I mean there are, it’s a hardcore group of people that are. LR: Right. JA: They go over to Gallery 21 or Gallery at the Station as they call it. Now that they’re getting used to us being here out in front, they’re starting—they’re stopping by. We get more all the time to start stopping by to see things. We didn’t get a lot for the backcountry horsemen because that was a different situation. Plus, it was the car show that night and most everyone was up looking at the cars. The ones that came down asked some good questions and were very interested in what they’re learning, but there weren’t a lot. One of our committee members said, “Oh don’t bother to do that this month, not enough people coming to even worry about it.” I said, “No not yet, but there will be if we persevere. It will take a while to build a following.” So we are doing it. Yeah, take this down there. LR: One more quick question and then we’ll be done. It’s the simplest question. Is there anything else that you would like to add that you think would be vital or important? JA: Vital or important. LR: Or meaningful. 31 JA: Well, I hope people continue to remember their Western heritage, because there’s a certain work ethic and moral value to those people that is critical to our country, I think, at the present time. We’re losing too much of that because they’re hard workers. They do what they say they’re going to do. They seem - they involve their families in the work that they do so they learn how to work and do good things. Plus, it’s fun. This, even the people that are into the western lifestyle, have expressed their appreciation for the museum. You know, there are a lot that come in (sound effect), you know, boring. There are a lot that come in and say, “Oh this is really interesting. Thank you.” I’ve been surprised at the number, like our first month over there, we had maybe that many pages that people had signed on. This is the second time that I had to—I’m nearing emptying this book again because that many people have signed back and front, both sides of the paper that have been in the museum. We figured there’s probably only 10% of the people that visit the museums down here that’ll sign the book. So that’s a lot of people. LR: Yes, that is. JA: They’re from all over. LR: Well obviously, the couple that was in here from back east when we first came in. JA: We’ve got them from Germany and Japan and Spain and Australia and different states, you know. Way back east, too, so they’re coming in. It’s something, some people just wander, kind of (sound effect) and wander through, and others really stop and look and read everything. So it just depends. But we are just glad to have them come in regardless. 32 LR: Yes, absolutely, and I’m glad that this place is here so that we can do these interviews. JA: Well, I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity of being involved in this even though there are times I think, “Oh I’m tired. I want to go home.” LR: Well, it’s obvious how much you love what you do here and I appreciate it. I know my daughter was in here and she thought it was the coolest thing. JA: Well, it gives me something to look forward to. It stimulates my brain, and I’m getting old so that’s important. LR: Well, thank you Judy so much for taking the time. I know Susie’s going to be thrilled that you did this. JA: I glared at her yesterday morning. She said, “I don’t care.” LR: Good for you.