Oral History Program Roy C. Phipps Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Roy C. Phipps 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: Phipps, Roy C., 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 Roy C. Phipps. Mr. and Mrs. Phipps discuss employment during the Depression; the scarcity of cash, cost of living, medical expenses, and providing food and clothing for their family. Some discussion of WPA government programs as well. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Where were you living during the Depression? RP: Right here in Ogden. MT: What was your occupation during that time? RP: Well, I worked in the baggage department at the railroad. MT: What duties did you perform there? RP: Well, we transferred baggage, and that type of thing, but the biggest part of our work was handling the US mail. MT: If you would, just give me an idea of what you remember about those years. RP: Well, I didn't actually get a steady job until about 1936, and the Depression was more or less over by then. Prior to that, I worked a few months on the Rio Grande - that was out in Roy - for two different parts of two years. And of course there were WPA projects and that sort of thing prior to that. MT: Where did you work on the WPA? RP: Well, there were several places. There was one place out in North Ogden where we dug up an orchard and cut up the wood by hand into fireplace logs. Another project I was on was helping to fill the Pineview Dam when they started that - our present Pineview Dam. And before that, we were building a road up at North Fork. Of course this wasn't all steady. This was just when our turn came during the money. Maybe we'd work two or three days and that would be it, but in a 2 couple of winters, we shoveled the snow in the gutters, and we did just whatever they had for us to do. There wasn't much pay involved. It was all right. That's the way they paid us then - script and foodstuffs. And we had to kind of scratch and one thing and another to pay our rent. It was pretty tough going, especially for a man with a family, and I had a couple of kids. MT: When were you married? RP: I was married in 1929. Of course sometimes we'd have to let the landlord go without his rent, but he was in as bad of shape as we were, and so it didn't matter too much. MT: What did your rent cost you at that time? RP: Well, I don't think any place I ever lived was over $12 a month. The rent was cheap in those days, but it was hard to get a hold of that. MT: In those part-time days at the railroad, approximately how many days a week did you work? RP: Well, after 1931, I got a job where I worked about three hours a day, three or four hours a day. It was a contract job at the baggage room, the same place that I am now. And that paid us $45 a month. But then the railroad, they evidently got into pretty bad straits, so they asked everybody to take a 5 percent cut, so the employees agreed to that. After that, we were only getting $40 a month. After I got on at the railroad, I couldn't work at the WPA anymore. MT: You are still working at the baggage department. Would you mind telling me what you earn there now? 3 RP: Well, I think that we can buy more now for the wages that we earn than we could then. I haven't actually compared it, but I believe that we can. I know we're a lot better off now than I was then. MT: What about food during that time? Did you have some method of getting it from the rural area, or did you buy from the grocery store? RP: Sometimes two or three of us got together and went out to the farms and picked up the potatoes that they had left. That helped us out that way, and different foods that would be given to us. We'd go out and get in a box. Then at that time they had where you'd go down there, and they'd allow each person or family so much food weekly or monthly, and I forget. They had a program that supplied us with the staples, nothing fancy, but we got by. Whatever was in season, they doled out to us. MT: Would you compare for me the availability of food with clothes and shoes and this type of thing? RP: I never had to go after any clothing, as I recall. We seemed to get enough clothing, but I don't know if they had a clothing dole or not. I guess they did. I guess they had clothing donated, and we picked up enough to get by with. I'm not sure, but it seemed that Utah pretty well took care of their own. I never heard of anyone starving to death, but it was pretty tough for a lot of us. Of course in 1932, we got some federal help, but there were two or three years in there when it was pretty tough starting, I know. My brother and I lived at Wall at about 30th Street, and we used to walk to work. We didn't have bus fare or street car fare. In fact, there was no cash anywhere. 4 MT: Looking back now, how do you evaluate the government programs that were available at that time - say the WPA and other programs? RP: Well, from my experience, I think that they were helping the people out more then than they are now. But of course I'm not too familiar with how the other class of people get by. How some of the welfare people get by, I don't know. But I know if it hadn't been for the government then, we might have starved to death. Well, I guess too that there was so much surplus in livestock and things like that, that rangers couldn't afford to feed them. So they fed them to the people that needed it. But anyway, we were provided for pretty well here, pretty well. That is, like I said before, nothing elaborate, nothing more than the staples we needed, but we got by. MT: When were your children born? RP: One about 1930 or 1931, and the other one a couple of years after. MT: What about the doctor charges and this type of thing? RP: Well, they were very cheap. I remember one hospital bill, one of the births, and then they kept them a lot longer. I think one only cost us $10, $25. So they weren't making too much money either. The doctors were very cheap. They used to come for almost nothing. Especially one old doctor we had, a family doctor. He used to take chicken eggs, livestock, or anything for payment. That was Dr. Draper. But I guess the generation that I'm in, they all went through it. Of course if a man had a job, he was well off. If he was making $4 a day, it was good money, if he could make it every day. MT: What about other occupations as compared to the railroad during those years? 5 RP: Well, at that time, there was very little civil service. There was the police force and the firemen and things like that. There were no defense people or anything like that. The store clerks were about the only ones on a salary basis. Construction work was seasonal. Maybe a guy would work three or four months in the summer, if he was lucky, and if he didn't, he had to last. MT: Other than the projects of the WPA, that you were on, were there other projects at that time that we might be aware of now? RP: A little later than that, they came along with this one. That was a little later. And some of the fellows that weren't married - that was preferably single fellows - the married fellows didn't participate in that too much. I know they had a camp of them up in Huntsville, and several of the fellows I knew went down to Southern Utah. They were scattered around. MT: Who are you acquainted with that was in the CCC that is still around? RP: Well, there's Harold Shaw. He lives out in Roy. That's about all I can recall right now. MT: What did you do for entertainment during those years? RP: Well, mostly I ran back and forth from home to the library. I could get free literature there. I did quite a bit of reading then, that is fiction. I didn't do anything worthwhile; I guess I was too young then. And there was a 10 or 15 cent movie, and if you could get a whole of a dime you could go there or to a dance every Wednesday night. The dance was free at the White City up until 9, and then you had to pay. I don't know. People let down a little bit and had a little fun. 6 MT: Did you have some community activities and church activities that you participated in? RP: We probably did, but I wasn't much of a church member at that time. Most of the wards had a dance at that time. And there was the roller skating rink. There were a couple of those around. And there was the Berthana Ball Room and Rainbow Gardens. Mrs. Phipps: You know, my dad, during the Depression days, worked for $2.72 a day in the railroad shops.