Oral History Program Carrie L. Vondrus Interviewed by Jordan Chavez 18 July 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Carrie L. Vondrus Interviewed by Jordan Chavez 18 July 2013 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 Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. After World War II, the railroad business declined. Some government agencies and businesses related to the defense industry continued to gravitate to Ogden after the war—including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations. However, the economy became more service oriented, with small businesses developing that appealed to changing demographics, including the growing Hispanic population. ____________________________________ 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: Vondrus, Carrie, an oral history by Jordan Chavez, 18 July 2013 , WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Carrie L. Vondrus July 18, 2013 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Carrie Vondrus. The interview was conducted on July 18, 2013, by Jordan Chavez, at Endless Indulgence in Ogden, Utah. Carrie talks about her business and her experiences with 25th Street. JC: My name is Jordan Chavez and I am sitting with Carrie Vondrus at Endless Indulgence on 25th Street. Today is July 18, 2013 and we are going to talk with her about why she created this business and why she chose 25th Street. CV: I created the business because I didn’t care for the modern day clothes of today. I like the way the gals looked back in the 1940’s and 1950’s and I have always dressed like this since I was a young girl. I got tired of having to leave the state or look online to find the clothing that I wanted. Ultimately, it was out of necessity for myself and with that I have found that there are a lot of other gals that really love this type of clothing. It takes us back to simpler time. Most everything we have is made in the USA, which is a really big deal for us. Why on 25th Street? It’s mainly because I loved the culture on 25th Street and the fact that 25th Street is vintage. For me it was a necessity and it just seems to fit the style of clothing. The building was built back in 1896 and was a hotel and brothel at one point. We get a really big kick out of that. The guys and gals that come in here are the type that like classic cars and classic clothing. It fits really well as a whole. I couldn’t imagine us being in a strip mall because it would lose that appeal. 1 JC: Did you have a specific influence that made you want to put this business on 25th Street? CV: My husband and I moved here 18 years ago and have always gravitated toward any cities known as “old town”. Any place I’ve ever been, if I hear they have an old town, we go to it. When we moved here and we heard that Ogden’s old town is 25th Street, we came to it and I fell in love with it from the beginning. I knew that at some point if I ever had any kind of a business, it would have to be on 25th Street. A lot of it is that I like vintage and the way things were done back in the day. I’m kind of enamored of the fact that Al Capone stayed up the street. I love that kind of stuff, and I just knew that if I was going to do something it wasn’t going to be in a strip mall or a regular mall because modern day stuff doesn’t appeal to me. So, 25th Street character from the old buildings, the history and ghost stories were all things that drew me to the street. JC: You did mention that your building was a brothel back in the day and you’re very proud of that. CV: I am very proud of that. I think it’s wonderful. JC: Do you have any stories about how it looked? CV: I like to think that the girls that were in here are over-the-moon happy with the fact that we’re in here because we offer swing dance classes, sell beautiful dresses and we have good looking men that come in all the time. I like to think that the girls are very happy here. From what we understand, the upstairs was where the ladies of the evening hung out. Since we’ve moved in, we’ve had 2 everything from certain lights that will turn on and off and doors that open and close on their own. We did have one episode where my golden retriever, Kona, decided to go downstairs which is interesting because most dogs will not go downstairs in our basement. We have a full basement underneath the building. My golden retriever will go down there with me and one day he decided to leave a little present and I have to assume the girls weren’t happy with that because they closed the door on us. It took two days of my husband sweet talking them at the door to get them to unlock the latch. We have many people that were in here that saw him doing it and saw the fact that the door was closed. We could not get it opened for anything for two days. He must have finally said the right words and they weren’t mad anymore. He touched the door and it opened by itself all over again. We actually have a photograph that I had taken during one of our swing dance classes of my son’s girlfriend who was dancing. I snapped a picture with my phone and you can see a white shadow figure, if you will, that has a full dress and she’s pulling it out to the side. We assumed that the girls were dancing with us also. Everything that we’ve had happen has been pleasurable, we haven’t had anything negative go on at all. I have had a few times where the girls have played around a little bit and I’m stressed and tired over it and I’ll stomp my foot and yell at them and they’ll usually turn the light right back on for me. We do talk to them a lot. When I come in the morning I say, “Good morning,” to them. As a matter of fact, last night as my husband and I were walking outside he asked, “Did you say goodnight to the girls?” I said, “Nope, I didn’t,” and I stopped what I 3 was doing to come back in to say goodnight to the girls. We also had an incident when we were painting the building on the inside. Myself and two other people were standing in a triangle and we felt a cold breeze go through. It was the dead of winter so all the doors were closed and we don’t have any windows that can be opened, but everybody saw the painter’s cloth do a wave. It was just the three of us standing there and everybody else was standing in other areas painting and doing other things. It was interesting. That’s when we figured that there was definitely something going on here. I’ve never had any problem with the girls misbehaving. I think they like to tease Megan, who works for us, a little more than they do me. She did have a couple of times where she went into the bathroom and the girls decided she should stay in there a little bit longer when the lock is on her side of the door. She’s had a few different things happen, so she always reminds me. She has found a way to tame the girls by playing Frank Sinatra. They love it and they do tend to calm down a little bit. It keeps us on our toes. I always tell the men that are in here sitting in the lounge area that if they ever feel someone come up and rub their shoulders and turn around to find that no one’s there, it’s just the girls. JC: Do you know of anything that happened upstairs with them? CV: I do know that they had what they called the crib and that was the bed that the gals used. When you go upstairs, you can see where the hardware or the metal from the bed was against the brick walls and you can actually see where the girls were entertaining and the bed would scrape against the bricks. There are marks from their cribs. 4 JC: You also said last time that we spoke that you were enamored with the idea of specialized customer service. Why is that? CV: When I was a young girl, my mother had back surgery and she had a wedding she had to attend. She was in a hospital bed in our living room from having surgery and I remember the department store, Nordstrom, came to my house in a van with 30 or 45 dresses, stockings, jewelry and shoes. Three people got out of the van and they took care of my mom like I had never seen before. They helped her get into these dresses and when it was all said and done, she purchased one dress, a pair of stockings, and a pair of earrings that I now have. I just remember asking my mom, “Are we rich?” She said, “Well, no. We’re fine, but why are you asking me this?” I said, “Because that had to have cost a lot of money to have Nordstrom come here.” She said, “No, it didn’t cost me anything.” That’s just how they did their customer service. I also got my hands on the Nordstrom customer service book. I used to love to shop there when I was in the workforce in southern California, they were amazing there. Part of it also, is that we like to live the golden rule. I like to be able to take care of every single guy or gal that comes in here, as do my husband and Megan, as opposed to walking in and have someone greet you and then stay at their station and not help you out at all. When it comes to this type of clothing, a lot of gals need assistance because it’s very different from modern day clothing 5 in the way it fits and the way it’s cut. I’ve found that I hated it when I went to the malls and I knew what I needed, but I didn’t know where to start. I think that’s where we come in and we get you started. I will pick your brain like I did with the gal that just came in that was attending a wedding. I asked, “Is it a day wedding, an evening wedding, a black tie event, an indoor wedding, an outdoor wedding?” All of those things I take into consideration when I pick out clothing for you to make sure that it is going to work. All of those things matter. Whenever I start picking clothing that I know will work for gals bodies, ultimately, they find the perfect dress. I’m very happy with it because I love it when my girls come back and say, “Everybody ranted and raved about how wonderful I looked.” I feel like I’ve done something special and we just do it for every gal that comes in. A lot of it stems from back in the 1950’s when there really was customer service. They actually cared whether or not you found something that you loved. That’s where it comes from for me. LR: I couldn’t help but notice, as you were putting the dresses away, you refer to them as your girls. Why is that? CV: All of the dresses have names in here. We give them all names and some of them come with names. They’re mine, so I take it very personally. I’m not exactly sure where it came from, it’s just me loving the clothing, so I do get attached to them. You did catch it right; I do call them all my girls. I have the Megan dress, the Diva dress, the Trixie, the Audrey Hepburn, and the Donna Reid dress. It’s funny because I’ve done that since day one and gals pick up on it and they get a 6 kick out of it. Now, when my regular girls come in they ask, “Okay, What girl is perfect for me?” LR: One last question, maybe it’s two. On 25th Street, do you feel it’s more of a family type environment? CV: I definitely do. I think Ogden City has worked very hard to make this a family friendly street not only for families to come down and shop, but among the storefront owners. Not everybody, but a lot of them really do what they can to support the other businesses. I know from my end of it, folks will come in here and they’ll purchase something around lunch time and I’ll ask them, “Have you eaten lunch yet? Can I give you some suggestions?” The places that I suggest are always the ones on 25th Street. I go through the list because I’ve eaten at every restaurant on this street. If you’re interested in sushi, go to Tona’s, if you’re interested in Italian, go to Rovali’s and so on. I do know Cassie, that owns Bravaria Boutique on the end. She will send people over to us and if I find some of the gals that come in say that maybe this isn’t their style of clothing, that’s just fine, I send them over to Cassie. She’s a fabulous gal and her prices are wonderful, she may have something that you’re looking for. On this street, we do try to help out each other’s business. If I don’t have what you’re looking for, I’ll send you down to Sock Monkeying Around. If you’re looking for real vintage, C.J.’s has some fabulous pieces down there. So yes, there is absolutely a family atmosphere. The 25th Street business association works very hard to facilitate that as well as the City of Ogden. LR: How long have you been here on 25th Street? 7 CV: We opened up January 28, 2012 and we’ve been in this space for about 7 months now. Before that we were in a smaller space on this street. At one point, we knew we needed to get into a much larger building and we were getting very nervous because it’s very hard. Once people get onto this street, they don’t want to leave, so vacancies on the street are not readily available. It just so happened that we were blessed and this space opened up at the same time that we needed to get into someplace larger. As I put it, this is our final resting place. I have no desire to move anywhere else. I love the building and the neighbors. We can go next door to order lunch at the Lighthouse, and Amber will come and run it over to us because she never knows if we are going to be too busy that we can’t get over and pick up our food. She wants to make sure that we eat it hot, so she’ll deliver it over to us. JC: I was reading an article the other day and it said that you and Michelle from Vintage Cupcakes were working together. CV: Yes. She was in a location on 24th Street and asked if I wanted to go in and help pick up some of the rent and possibly see how this was going to fly. Before we did the brick and mortar shop, my husband and I worked out of our home doing classis car shows. Michelle and I ended up talking through Facebook and she had a very large area that she was not using and asked if we’d be interested in going in. My husband and I gave it some thought and said, “Let’s see what happens.” We went in there and it worked out really well. Only two months into being at the location on 24th Street, a spot opened up on 25th Street and we jumped on it. Unfortunately, the loft was smaller than what I had at the 24th 8 Street location. We knew within months that it was going to become a problem. All of a sudden the shop started really taking off and I couldn’t keep inventory in stock. It got to the point where I couldn’t keep the inventory in that I needed, so it was a few months after that that we started looking on 25th Street to get into a larger location. After a year of being together over at the location she’s at now, this opened up over here. JC: It’s certainly a great community feel. CV: It is. It has been a lot of fun. JC: You mentioned that there was a spot in the basement that everyone just got a little uncomfortable with. CV: Yes, there are actually two spots in the basement. One that’s a little more nerve-racking and that’s where my golden retriever decided to leave a gift and another that is directly underneath us. That is the other one that people have gone down there and just really shy away from it, they don’t care to be in that spot. Personally, I haven’t felt any of it, but my girls that shop with me will lovingly call me the Madame and say that the gals that are still here consider me the Madame. Who knows, maybe back in a past life I was, I don’t know. I love it and I think it’s fabulous. JC: Do you know anything about why that spot makes people uncomfortable? CV: I don’t. Nobody has come by to check it out for a couple reasons. One, I haven’t let anyone in, because I don’t want to do anything to get the girls angry. If someone can come in and just tell me what they’re feeling and what they think 9 may have gone on, I’m fine with that, but I don’t want to do anything to be disrespectful to the girls in any way because I wouldn’t want that for me. The one spot where Kona left his gift is where we believe is the opening to the tunnels that go underneath the street. Anybody who’s intuitive really has some feelings there. If you want to go down there, I’d be happy to take you. JC: I kind of do. Do you know where those tunnels lead? CV: I don’t. I haven’t seen a schematic for underneath the street. I do know that they go underneath the street. Most of the buildings, except for the newer ones, have been blocked up where the tunnels to the opium dens were and where the alcohol trafficking was going through and that kind of thing. The very front of our building in the basement has the brick just like it normally would all the way down. But in this one area which is where the door is rocked up as opposed to brick and mortar is where we think the opening for our tunnels were. LR: Is there anything else that you can think of that you’d like to add? CV: I don’t think so. JC: Earlier you said that the girls would play tricks like turn off lights and lock doors. Do they do anything else? CV: One of the biggest was them turning out the lights. It really scared the girls in the shop because the music stayed on and the computer stayed on and our display cabinets stayed on, but all of the lights throughout the shop would turn off. It would freak out Megan and a couple of the other gals that were in here. Eventually, those came back on. One instance, I was standing where my 10 husband is standing now and we were working. When you first open a business you’re working 14 hour days and we were doing that and I was very tired and he was standing right where the mannequin is and the light was going off. He was standing there and he looked up and said, “Carrie.” I looked up and I knew there was nothing wrong with the lights. I was perturbed because I was tired, so I just stomped my foot and said, “Girls, stop it. Just turn the light back on. Enough of this.” Sure enough, the light went right back on and he said, “Are you kidding me?” They like to mess with the lights quite a bit. I’ve had people in here that are a little more intuitive that have said that it can be quite overwhelming. We had a gentleman in here not too long ago that came in and was like, “Oh my gosh. Can we go downstairs?” I said, “Sure.” He went straight over to where Kona left his gift and he said, “I don’t like it over here.” He had never been downstairs and when we had talked I said, “I’m not going to tell you where people have issues, you figure it out when you get down there if anything at all.” Sure enough, he nailed it. I do have a very good friend that is part of search and rescue. Her dogs hit on cadavers and she has bomb dogs and avalanche dogs. She brought one of her dogs in when she was visiting and I was giving her the ten cent tour of the shop. We went downstairs and her dog went downstairs too. As we were talking he went straight over to where Kona left his gift. I thought, “He could have smelled something.” Now, he didn’t do the same thing, but as I was talking to her I told her what Kona had done and she said, “Did you know that is actually how dogs will hit on where there has been a body?” I didn’t know that. Apparently that 11 is what dogs do when they are looking for bodies. One case in particular, she was working a fire and a four story building had collapsed and they knew there was a nine year old boy that didn’t survive and he was down there and two of the dogs including her own were doing their tracking and got up to that spot and left their gift. She was mortified at that point in time because they didn’t typically do that and her second dog went up and did it too. She had a third handler there that is one of the best in the United States, and he commented that actually her dogs were doing what they normally would do and I bet that is where the body of the boy is. Sure enough, that’s where the body was. That is not uncommon for dogs to do that when there has been or is a body in that area. JC: Do you believe there is a body in that one area in the basement? CV: I wonder if maybe at some point somebody was in the tunnels got into a fight or something along those lines and maybe someone got severely hurt or killed in that spot and Kona picked up on it. I don’t know. He’s never done it since, just the one time. We’ve had many dogs in here and we’re very dog friendly, I always have bowls of water sitting out for the dogs in the back and in the front and he’s the only one that will go down there. The other dogs will stop at the top of the stairs and will not go down. 12