Oral History Program Mary E. Swain Interviewed by Deborah M. George 10 January 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mary E. Swain Interviewed by Deborah M. George 10 January 2014 Copyright © 2014 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The New Zion Community Advocates worked with community members age 80 years and older to have contributed to the history of Ogden city. The interviews looked at the legacy of the interviewees through armed services, work, social life, church, NAACP and educational systems in an environment where their culture was not predominant. This program has received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State history. ____________________________________ 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: Swain, Mary E., an oral history by Deborah M. George, 10 January 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Mary Swain, photo taken at her home on January 10, 2014 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Mary Swain conducted on January 10, 2014 by Deborah George. DG: Okay I’m Debbie George, I’m here today to interview Mrs. Mary Swain. We are in her home in her luscious living room and we’re going to start our oral history interview. So tell me your full name. MS: My name is Mary Ellen Swain DG: What is your birth date? MS: May 9th, 1937. DG: And are we related at all? MS: No, we are not. DG: What are you doing now in your life? MS: I am just having fun, enjoying my grandchildren. I have been traveling quite a bit. I have gone on a few cruises, and I am just enjoying a life of leisure. DG: Alright wonderful. So tell me some of the important lessons that you have learned throughout your life. MS: Well let me start back when I was in Arkansas. My father worked for the railroad and he came here about a year before we did. When we were told that we were going to come to Utah, I got a book and I started reading all about Utah. I thought, “That is a religious state. Things are going to be so different than they are here in Arkansas.” 1 You know in Arkansas, we were aware that we were segregated. We knew that we had our schools there, and we knew that there were other schools there, but we knew where we were supposed to be. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do. When I began attending Elementary school here in Utah, I had very high expectations for change. I did meet a lot of people and built a lot of strong friendships. One of the girls that I had become friends with was named Ruth. One day, Ruth and I had planned on going to her house after school. Ruth asked her mother if I could visit and her mother agreed. I asked my mother if I could go with Ruth to her house, and my mother agreed. With both of our parents approving the idea, Ruth and I got on a bus and went to her house, I had not been in Utah very long and I was not familiar with the area. She lived somewhere up on the bench above Washington Boulevard. When we arrived at her house, her mother said, “No Ruth. You cannot play with her. WI did not know that she was colored!” Ruth broke into tears and her mother asked me to leave. This was the funny part. I left, but I didn’t know where to go. I could not find my way back home. I wandered around. That was very frightening. I was so afraid. I knew that I lived on 25th Street, and I knew that I lived west. I walked until I could see a big hotel that we lived by. I had finally found my home and I was so happy to get there. The next day at school, Ruth apologized. We were best friends you know. I was just shocked because I had no idea that would happen in Utah. I thought I could have white friends in Utah. I thought that I could have all kinds of friends. There were Japanese, Hispanics, and Caucasian, a little bit of every race in my 2 classes. I thought that was great. I thought Utah was the place, but that was one of the worst experiences. I did sing in the choir, and going from church to church, we were always welcomed with open arms. We never had anyone say anything about our race. We would just walk in with the choir and sing. We would go out and we would go back home. Nothing was said, and I could not figure that out. I wondered why could I sing with them at church, but I could not visit them in their homes. DG: That surprised you? MS: Yes, that was shocking to me. As I think about it now, it was funny that I got lost when I was going back home from Ruth’s home. I think I had been in Utah for about eight days. DG: Wow, eight days! MS: Yes, I had no idea where anything was. I was just going home with her. I was happy to be in mixed company. It was just something I had looked forward to doing. DG: What was your proudest moment? MS: I think that my proudest moment is the birth of my children. Not just the birth of one specific child, but the birth of all my children. I have been blessed with seven children and nineteen grandchildren. I am also proud that I have been able to work in different areas. I have had some good jobs. I have been blessed in so many ways. I remember a time before I became eligible for each job, a friend and I were going to work in a 3 cannery to peel tomatoes. We were so excited about it. We got a ride out there because we were young children, and our parents did not own a vehicle. When we got there, the supervisor had a long line of people. We had called ahead of time and were told that he needed people to work for him. When he saw us, he told us that he could not hire us because he could not hire colored people. We had to walk all the way back to Ogden from Clearfield. That was a bad experience. Even though we had to walk all the way back to Ogden, we were not angry or upset about tit. We laughed at it, and came on back to Ogden. I had that same experience with so many jobs I had looked forward to being hired onto before. Colored people would not be hired in many areas at that time. I did enjoy elementary school though. I have a lot of good memories of elementary school. I cannot say I have many from junior high or high school. When I began Junior High, there were a lot of dances that were held at my school. There were only three black people in my school and were all females, so we would not attend the dances because we never had a partner to go with. We were not allowed to dance with white males and they were not allowed to dance with black females, so I missed out on that. I remember a time when a Japanese boy asked me to dance with him. There were no special events on this day like prom or anything, it was just a normal Friday afternoon. I was so excited to have the opportunity to dance and as he began walking towards me, a few guys started teasing him and he ran off. I was not going to let that spoil my time, and I did not let that make me dislike 4 people. I felt sorry for the guy because I was no stranger to rejection. Being rejected did not hurt me. While working with Ogden City Schools, the social worker and I were going to do a home study with a family. While we were in this home, the social worker said to me, “I am going to write them up because there are no books being displayed anywhere in side of this home.” They had a Jet magazine, and Ebony magazine on the coffee table. She said she had never heard of them before. I informed her that is how we learn about our history. That is how we know what is going on in the Black community. We take Utah history classes in our schools, but we do not learn much about Black History. One of the Psychologists was writing a program for under privileged students, but not including the areas where most of the blacks lived. I asked him where the black students were going to go when they needed help. His reply was, “blacks take care of themselves. They do not need help. They are usually well behaved. They rarely have behavioral problems, and when they do, they can go see their school counselor. Blacks have always taken care of their own problems.” I told him, “If you think that makes me feel better then you are wrong. We were born oppressed. We have just learned to live in the society that we were born in. We have adjusted to being treated as second class citizens. We take care of our own issues because people like you refuse to help us. We have problems just like everyone else in the world does. We do not have access to the same resources as you do. We have worked two and sometimes even three jobs just to make ends meet.” 5 Although we lived on 25th street, we were not able to eat in any of the restaurants on the street, or any other eating establishment for that matter, unless it was owned by a black person. There was only one of two black school teachers in the Ogden area. When I came here in the 40’s, there were employment opportunities working with the railroad system and the government. They were not the best jobs. If you would go and apply at any of the local stores, they would tell you that you could iron the clothes and unpack the boxes. No matter how busy they were up in the front of the store, we were never allowed to go up to the front and sell anything. We were not even allowed to greet customers. Although, when you have the support of your church, family, and local black community, at the end of the day everything is not all that bad. When we tried to buy a home located on Polk Street in Ogden, we were unable to do so because the realtor that we were working with told us that if he sold that home to us, he would be run out of Ogden by his peers. There were several black businesses here when I first moved her. Blacks owned beauty shops, clubs, dry cleaners, hotels, and new paper companies just to name a few. Somehow we got systematically destroyed in that area. I am not quite sure how or what happened, but one by one, the businesses started to disappear. DG: Thank you so much, Mrs. Swain. This concludes our interview. 6