Oral History Program Brad H. Paul Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Brad H. Paul Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 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 Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ 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: Paul, Brad H., an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Brad H. Paul. Mr. and Mrs. Paul discuss the difficulty of running a store during the Depression; they also comment on activity in the LDS Church. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Where did you live during the Depression? BP: We lived above the store at 2353 Harrison. We still own that property where the store is. MT: What was your primary business? How long did you carry that on? BP: Groceries and meat. We were in the business for over 40 years. Then I broke my hips and no one would take the store. The kids all had jobs, so we just closed it up. MT: You mentioned leaving the store and going to work... BP: During the Depression, we stayed with the store. We had some good years during World War II. We were out of debt and got a few things around us, but were never very prosperous with the store. Just made a living. MT: Where did you work while your wife was taking care of the store? BP: Wheelwright Lumber Company. Mrs. Paul: He’d go down there for four hours while I was minding the store. We didn’t have too much business, though, because we didn’t have enough on the shelves. BP: We still had to stay open. People owed us money. Mrs. P: Yes, and there was some you never got. MT: What are some of the things that affect your life now – lasting impressions that you think guided you in your business or in your life? 2 BP: Well, my wife will tell you that I neglected the business to do church work. Mrs. P: He did, too. He used to stay open at 7 in the morning and stay open until 11 at night. We shortened the hours a little bit. BP: They asked me to be bishop, and I cut it off at 6:30 p.m. Mrs. P: I don’t think the Depression ever bothered Brad as much as it did me. Because he’d been poor, he knew what it was to be poor. And mother takes care of the children and hears all their wants and everything. BP: My parents had ten children and homesteaded up in Teton Basin. We didn’t know what money was. We raised everything we ate, had cows and chickens and grew our vegetables, killed our meat for winter. We’d take eggs over to the store and trade them for sugar and spice and things that we needed for that purpose. Mother knitted our stockings and mittens and caps. Outside of that, we didn’t know what money was. MT: What year were you married, Brother Paul? BP: 1917. Mrs. P: During the summer, it got as hot as 106 up in that apartment, and we didn’t have any grass around it. I used to sit out on the side step at night when he’d work until all hours of the night, and I’d bawl because it was just too hot, and I didn’t know what to do. Dad used to say, ‘You’ve got a good man. You’ve got a good man. Don’t complain.” MT: When were you made bishop? BP: December of 1939. MT: Had things started to get a little bit better by then in your business? What caused 3 the improvement in the business by then? BP; Well, we borrowed some money and went IGA, which helped us for a few years through their advertising and help. MT: Do you think of anything now that you would advise young people that might help them to avoid problems later on, such as you experienced during the Depression? BP: My advice to them would be to live within your means. A lot of people just go out and go in debt for everything, expecting a rainbow at the end of their road to pay for things, and they can’t make it. MT: Certainly that’s good advice to anyone. Were you acquainted with anyone who lived in the rural area at that time, or close to them in your family? BP: I had a sister in Pleasant View. That’s about the only one, isn’t it? Mrs. P: She didn’t have it too good either. MT: Did you raise a garden here in town? BP: We didn’t have time to raise a garden or a lawn or anything else. Mrs. P: He really didn’t have time to do anything but work in that store and go to church. He just went to church and worked in that store. I think when I read Gone With the Wind I was like Scarlett O’Hara. I just made up my mind I’d never be without. I’d never be broke again. It was me that started up the bank account when we started to do better. It was me that bought the lot to build this house, from just saving. I was so angry over the Depression. I just made my mind up that we would never be broke again. BP: One of the things that helped her was that she had an allowance, and she sure 4 took care of it. MT: How long were you the bishop? BP: Ten years. I was on the high council thirteen years. Now I’m the patriarch. MT: That’s a wonderful experience. Are there any amusing incidents that you remember that happened during the Depression? Mrs. P: They might be amusing to other people, but they weren’t funny to me. I’d have brothers, that while I’d sit out on that side step, they’d take their families up in the evening to picnic in the canyons, while we just had to stay home. We had a car but the darn thing, we’d start out with my brother Wilford, but we couldn’t get away from home because the car would boil, and we’d just have trouble anywhere. He could have gone anywhere in his car, but he’d stick around with us. BP: This was amusing. My father had a farm and had some Japanese running it. They had the liberty of going down there and getting their vegetables whenever they wanted, and of course all the family would go down except for us because we had the store. And they’d scatter the vegetables around. And my wife said to my mother one time, “How come we don’t get any vegetables? You take them to all the other kids, and you don’t bring us any.” My mother said, “Well, you’ve got a store!” And my wife said, “But who pays for the vegetables that come into the store?” And she said, “Well, I never thought of that.” MT: That is amusing, isn’t it. I guess during most of the Depression, most people thought that anyone who had a store had an easy time of it – except those that had the store. 5 BP: Well, we had a good living but we didn’t have much else. Mrs. P: I don’t think my girls ever had a new dress. Everything they had was something I had made over from something I had had, until I didn’t have anything. I’ll tell you an amusing incident. I belonged to a little club, and I hadn’t had a new dress for so very long. Brad gave me $8 and he said, “Do you think you could find a dress for that?” And I said, “I’ll try.” And so I went down and bought myself for $8, and I thought it was the prettiest thing. I was so thrilled over it. And I went to club, and the very first time I wore it, one of the other ladies at the club had the very same dress on. BP: We had some good times, too. We had a group that we would party with at each other’s homes. We’d just go surprise them and say, “We’re here for dinner.” We had some real good times. MT: What did your children do for entertainment? How old would they have been? BP: They had some good friends. They were about 10 and 12 years old. They didn’t have an unhappy life. They had a happy life. Our oldest son had about four or five good friends, and they were all stuck on the same girl. They’d brag about taking their turn at taking her out. They didn’t mind it, they had a good time. Our boy came in one night to kiss us good night, and he was so tickled. He said, “Mother, Mother, I’ve got something to tell you.” She was anxious to hear what he had to tell her. And he said, “Jean’s promised to go steady.” She’s the one they’d all been chasing after. And they went steady for a few months, and then he got his call to go on a mission. He went over to France to the French Mission. She swore up and down she was going to wait for him, but all the time she was 6 chasing out with the other guys. She got married to one of his best friends. But that’s life. We never thought he was ever homesick over there, but after he got home, he said, “Boy, was I ever homesick over there. I think I could have swum that ocean.” But after he lost his girl, I don’t think he was so homesick.