Oral History Program Ann Maruri, Becky Mendenhall Maruri, and Brian Maruri Interviewed by Brian Whitney and Tokiah Barker 10 April 2015 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ann Maruri, Becky Mendenhall Maruri, and Brian Maruri Interviewed by Brian Whitney and Tokiah Barker 10 April 2015 Copyright © 2015 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 Immigrants at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories, photographs and artifacts related to the immigrant populations that helped shape the cultural and economic climate of Ogden. This project will expand the contributions made by Ogden’s immigrant populations: the Dutch, Italian and Greek immigrants who came to work on the railroad and the Japanese who arrived after World War II from the West Coast and from internment camps. ____________________________________ 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: Maruri, Ann; Maruri, Becky Mendenhall; Maruri, Brian, an oral history by Brian Whitney and Tokiah Barker, 10 April 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Maruri sisters outside Royal Hotel, 2016 Ann Maruri (left), Brian Maruri (center), Becky Mendenhall Maruri (right). 10 April 2015 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Ann Maruri, Becky Mendenhall Maruri, and Brian Maruri, conducted by Brian Whitney and Tokiah Barker on April 10, 2015. The interviewees discuss their family’s Basque heritage, language, dining customs, and experiences during prohibition and wars. Their grandparents immigrated to Ogden around 1915 and owned the Royal Hotel just south of 25th Street. BW: Today is April 10, 2015, we are at the home of Ann Maruri. We are interviewing Becky Mendenhall Maruri, Ann Maruri and Brian Maruri regarding their vast heritage and immigration into Ogden. Interviewing today is Brian Whitney and Tokiah Barker, the time is about 1:15. Thanks for having us back, appreciate it. AM: Thank you. BW: So I think the best thing to do is just to start as early as we can back in the old country. I think a lot of people would be interested to know just a little bit about the Basques for a couple of minutes before we get into your specific family. AM: Well I’ll start. So the Basque people are people who inhabited the north, what part guys? Northwest part of Spain and the southwest part of France. They’ve never had their own country and they’ve inhabited that land as long as time. I mean there’s not much clarification about how they got there, but nonetheless they maintained a tight network and therefore Basque people have quite a common genetic material and quite a distinctive look despite really not being able to see them in America culture. When you go to Basque country it’s quite easy to see who’s Basque and who’s not. The Basques were tough people who were not 2 conquered by anyone. The Moors, the Turks, Spaniards—no one conquered them. As a matter of fact, many cultures who tried to conquer the Basques or tried to conquer Spain went around them, left them alone because they were known as I think the term would be in English, savages. Anything you want to add to that? BM: Well just what you said, they were invaded quite a few times, but they never were conquered really. I believe there was a 700 year period where they were autonomous actually for what that’s worth. AM: The Spanish government didn’t really like the Basques. They wanted them to integrate into Spanish culture which the Basques hung on with all their might. The Germans bombed the Basques in I think it was the early, maybe late ‘30s and it was… BM: Guernica. AM: Guernica. Franco had palled up with Hitler and they bombed. There’s not a real good record of how many people were killed. It was between 10 and 100,000 Basques. That’s the famous painting by Pablo Picasso called Guernica. BW: Excellent, so let’s move into your family. This was your grandfather who grew up out there is that correct or both? BM: That’s our grandparents. BW: Grandparents, okay. First of all let’s just say their names, Grandma and Grandpa’s names. AM: So Saturnino Maruri and he went by Sam in the United States. Josefa Osa. BW: When were they born? Do you know? 3 AM: Grandfather was born in 1894? BMM: I think 1894, I’ve got it written down. AM: 1894, and Grandmother was born in like 1896, 1897. BW: So tell me about their background. AM: Well it’s our understanding that Grandfather came from a maybe moderately affluent family in a beach community in the Basque country. Supposedly his father was something like what would be equivalent to a mayor or something of that city. Grandfather wanted to emigrate into the United States because, I think it was the fact that many Basque men were being recruited into the Army to fight against the Basques, so many of the young men were fleeing. Grandmother was in a family that had—I think they were, it wasn’t anything real special about them. I don’t mean special, I’m sure they were very special. Her brother, her youngest brother was a boxer and was quite well to do in the mid, early 1900s. Interestingly they met in the United States despite their villages being less than a mile away or a couple miles away. BW: Yes, you told me you could literally throw a rock. AM: Yes off the villos and down to the beach where Grandfather’s house was. BW: Your grandmother’s family, do you know what they did for a living? BM: No actually… BMM: I don’t know how many siblings my grandpa had, but my grandma had quite a few siblings. One of them was here and I remember my grandma telling me once that they came here and whatever money they made they sent it back to Spain to help their families there. My grandma only had like a third grade education which 4 was important because that’s when they, I think, got not baptized but they got the first Communion. When they had first Communion so they got educated up until that point then they went to work. BW: So it’s probably important to know that this was a Catholic community. When did Grandpa emigrate? BMM: I have the paperwork over there I think he came here around 1915, 1912 maybe. Grandma maybe around 1915. BW: You can get the paperwork if you’d like. BMM: Yeah let me grab it because I did get it all down. BW: While she’s getting the paperwork let’s talk about the reasons of why he came out here. What brought him here? AM: I think he was a, go ahead… BM: Well you know these reasons are all new to me. I was under the impression that he had gotten in some sort of trouble with a priest. I have no idea because they were so… My grandparents didn’t seem to ever relay much about that sort of thing. We would for instance, I wanted to know some Basque language, “No no no, you’re American. You’re here, you speak English. Don’t worry about this.” We got a lot of that yes. BW: But you think there might have been some trouble that caused him to say maybe I shouldn’t. BM: Well I mean that’s kind of what I got out of it. AM: I’ve heard that before also. It doesn’t seem like we know very much about Grandpa Sam’s side. 5 BW: Did he come out here alone? AM: Well he came we think with a Garamendi, one of the Garamendis. The Garamendis now mostly reside in California. Ray Garamendi was always in our lives and we think that Ray’s father was on the ship with Grandfather Sam to come to the United States. There was a period of time that they were both boarders in the Royal Hotel and then they both owned it for a period of time together. Then Grandfather Sam owned it by himself. So there’s a lot of information about that because Grandmother came I think to get a better life. She was supposed to marry a Garamendi and she ended up marrying Grandfather Sam. So there was some thoughts about this marriage that was supposed to be organized or arranged and then she said, “No, I want to marry Sam.” BM: Didn’t our grandmother, did she have to be convinced to come? AM: I think she was very scared. BM: Yeah, Purra had to convince her to come. She didn’t want to come over here. She had really no interest. AM: She was frightened too. BW: So about how old was she when she came? BMM: She was like 18. She came over in 1915. AM: She came with her older sister and I think when they came through their papers said “Maria and Maria,” Despite their names being Josefa and Puravacasion. BW: Whatever the border agent could… BMM: Yes, spell. AM: Yes, that’s what happened. 6 BW: Where did they go into? Ellis Island? AM: Yes. BMM: They did. BW: Were there ever any stories about coming over? BMM: Yes they took a train and she, Grandma, we have a tape of Grandma. She talks about coming into Ellis Island. They didn’t know any, like what the money was or anything. So when they needed to give someone money they just would hold out their hands and let the people take it. Then they took a train across the United States and were terrified. BW: That would be frightening to be in a strange country not knowing the money. You just hold out your hand and you trust them… BMM: That they take the right amount. BW: Interesting, so she came straight to Utah? AM: Yes which was sort of the point because the Basque Hotel was on the rail line. I mean as you know it’s on 25th and Wall and the rail station was across the street. So most people who came to the United States that wanted to come west came through Ogden. That’s why there’s such a rich history, but the Basque Hotel was there owned by a different owner besides my grandfather. He received those Basque people and helped them find work in the more prominent Basque regions which would be Boise, Fresno, Bakersfield. BMM: Elko. 7 AM: Elko, Winnemucca, all those places. So that’s why Basque people came here and of course they stayed at the Basque Hotel because they could speak to people, they could help them. BW: Absolutely, sheepherder was a dominant profession… AM: Not in Spain, but here in the United States. BM: Just seemed to be something they could do over here because it really wasn’t. It’s not like Basque sheepherders because they do that, but they don’t. BW: So it’s a myth we think of. AM: Well Basques are known for being amazing fishermen and amazing sailors. Ship, boat builders there is some evidence that the Basques came to America before Christopher Columbus came. There is clear evidence that the majority of the people on Christopher Columbus’ boat, ship was it, were Basque because they were fierce and they were strong. They knew how to sail and fish. They were tough guys. BM: They also knew how to build ships because those ships were built by Basque. AM: But the sheepherding there, the Pyrenees have many lambs and the Basque people do take care of lambs in Basque country, but it wasn’t like a profession. When they came here, because Basque people had lambs and came to the United States and had lambs then the Basque people went to work in those industries. BW: It seems like in Utah a lot of the folks that came out here particularly not knowing the language tend to go into mining and railroad. I think this holds true in your family. 8 AM: Oh yes, Grandfather Sam did work at Kennecott. BM: Bingham Canyon. AM: Bingham Canyon. BW: That was pretty early on? AM: Yes, but Dad told us that Grandpa Sam didn’t want to do that kind of stuff. He wanted to be a little more, have a job of more sophistication like keeping banking out of the hotel. BM: I think Madsen, Keith Madsen had said that he was a big shot, wanted to be a big shot. We say that lovingly of course. BW: So let’s talk about his involvement with the hotel. What came first, the hotel involvement or his marriage? AM: I don’t think they owned the hotel until after they had gotten married. BW: Okay so let’s talk about the meeting and marriage, the fun stuff. AM: Well they were married February 1, 1922. BW: So out here for about 7 years at that point. AM: He was here about 7 years. He was a boarder in that hotel. BW: And he stayed in the hotel the entire 7 years? AM: I think so. BW: You told me this wonderful story about their meeting during the preliminary. AM: Well I don’t know that we know with great clarity exactly what happened, but Grandmother Josefa came to the hotel with her sister whose name was Purra or Puravacasion was her real name. They were supposed to be getting on a train to go to California to meet the Garamendi boys and when Grandmother saw 9 Grandfather Sam she was smitten. He was a bit older than she was and he was at this point in time I think kind of a big guy on 25th Street. He was maybe managing some alcohol type stealing and creating a little banking situation that I think he did. We have some ledger books that show how tight he was about his banking for others. That was that and Purra went on to marry someone else. I think it was someone in the Garamendi family, but I don’t really know exactly how that whole thing played out. That’s what happened. BW: When she met him, this is it I’m staying. AM: This is the guy. BW: So you brought up stealing, let’s talk about this is the prohibition era. AM: That’s right. BM: Well, being from the old country you’re going to I mean it’s unconscionable, I don’t think we ever sat down to dinner. As family we gathered weekly for dinner with our grandparents and there was always red wine probably on the ground next to him and glasses full of wine. As children, my parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents they would drink their wine. There was always this much left and that was for us. Go around and grab that wine, but I bring that up because it was probably for them to be in America and have it be prohibition, they couldn’t fathom that. I know that you know they had the hotel and they had a restaurant. They served family style Basque meals there and they served liquor. When the revenuers came around the doors were locked. They’d bang on the doors and he’d station my aunt, Aunt Conch at the front door and he’d tell her, give her the signal for when she could open the door and let the revenuers in. So 10 that was probably when he would get all the liquors you know in the secret whatever it was under the staircase or the shaft. I’ve heard stories about a shaft that went underneath the hotel, a tunnel you know because 25th Street was so notorious. AM: Dad would tell us stories about the federalities or whatever he called them would come knocking and one person to be signaling and one person to be dumping what they had down the drains trying to hide it. You know I have some archive newspaper articles where both of them were arrested. Grandfather Maruri and Grandmother Maruri were both arrested and some of it says for selling spirits for a dollar. I can’t imagine how it would’ve been for Grandmother because she was quite frightened of almost everything, but to go to jail would just be horrifying I would imagine. I think Grandpa Sam would just be tough and strong about it, but Grandmother wasn’t, she was fearful so much. Our Aunt Conch who is our dad’s sister our whole lives she denied this alcohol until probably she was 75 and then she finally told us that yes it was true. All the things you’ve heard are true. BW: Interesting. BM: She hated it. AM: She did. BM: She hated that fact, she wanted to assimilate into the community and this wasn’t how to do it. AM: She and dad were teenagers and early 20s when they left the hotel and she told us so many times… So their dating lives, I don’t think it affected our father’s so 11 much, but Aunt Conch was humiliated to have people come to the hotel to get her to go on a date. She didn’t want people to know that she lived there. BW: That’s very interesting. Did Grandpa adopt English pretty easily or… BM: You know actually there was a time I can remember when I was young he was in our house and one of the neighbors came over and it might have been Francis Cooperman. One of the females and he was speaking English without an accent. He regressed later on, and my grandmother never spoke anything good. She didn’t speak good Spanish, good Basque, no good English, she mixed it all together, but Grandpa I thought about this quite a bit, when he wanted to do it he could do it very well. You know there was something going on there. AM: Might have been a little bit of a hustler, I don’t know. BM: I think so. You know I mean no doubt about it he was a big shot and they had, Jack Dempsey bought his mother, Jack Dempsey the boxer, bought his mother a Doberman Pincer. Have you guys told this story? BMM: No. AM: No we have a picture of it though. BM: So he buys this Doberman, I guess he didn’t like it, but anyway I don’t know how Sam knew Dempsey or whatever but they end up with the dog. They have this oversized Doberman Pincer, it’s a big dog. They name it Dempsey and this is kind of Sam’s demeanor. He’s sitting on the front porch—he’d be out sedentary on the front porch with Dempsey sitting there. BMM: Peeling an apple. 12 BM: Yeah maybe peeling an apple or slicing off parmesan or something like that. So along comes a little dog barking at Dempsey. Dempsey was just wanting to go get this little dog right. Sam says, “No, no, no.” About the third day or something, this little dog comes by he says, “Get him.” Dempsey flies off the porch, gets this little dog underneath the car before Sam calls him back. That was kind of this thing. You can get some sort of picture of Sam from that. AM: Yeah he was a big, tough guy. I think we have an image over there of Dempsey, not the dog but also of Jack Dempsey. Somehow, and I don’t know the exact about this story but Grandmother’s brother, her youngest brother was a boxer and he was the middle weight champion of Spain or something or other. He wanted to come to United States and box at Madison Square Gardens. Well he didn’t, we thought for a while he must have fought Jack Dempsey but no he didn’t, he fought a lesser boxer and he was the preliminary fight to the Dempsey fight. Grandfather, it shows him at Madison Square Gardens with Mateo the boxer. Grandfather looks like he’s in the mafia. I mean he’s got pin stripe and a hat. I think he was, I don’t know if he was all that or not, but I think he was doing okay in the money there for a while and especially during the prohibition because I think it brought in a lot of money. Mom even talks about, Mom who’s a Scottish woman, her family had been here for several generations. She tells about our grandfather going down, the other grandfather going down to the Royal to have a few cocktails. I think everybody in town was going down there to have some food for sure and a little beverage or two. BW: I’m getting this picture of Marlon Brando in my mind about Grandpa. 13 AM: Yeah a little bit but maybe taller and slimmer. BM: Taller and slimmer, yes. AM: And slower, he always had quite a relaxed gait. BW: Tell me about the family style Basque meals. BM: Oh my goodness. BMM: They smelled so good. It was so great when they were cooking and the smell in the house. Oh we’d have, a lot of time we’d have meat. A lot of lamb, a lot of beans. I remember Grandma cooking like chorizo, which is a Basque chorizo, which is different than a Mexican chorizo and beans, like garbanzo beans. Oh they were just heavenly. AM: And bread. BMM: Yeah, and salads. AM: Wine. BM: The food, I took it so much for granted because you can’t get it now. You know when they cooked it was a grand affair. On Sunday they cooked for everyone. BW: Everyone that was staying at the hotel? AM: Well them too. BM: Them or just the family. Later on in life when they were retired it was a grand affair for the family. Spread it out, everyone comes over, everyone eats. The stew, the potatoes were round. She cut them into round balls in the stew. The lamb it was just something else. I can’t, I don’t know how you replicate it. Although when they talk about the finest, the other day on MSN they talked about 14 each state and what it was famous for and when they get to Nevada they say Basque. I’m like, “Oh!” BW: Plan a road trip. BM: Yeah! AM: I think one of the things about Basque dining or Basque family style dining is that you sit at the long tables with people you may or may not know. The food is shared and it’s enjoyed and it’s talked about and it’s conversation. I mean I’ve been to some Basque style dinners that I didn’t really think the food was very Basque, but it’s the fact that you are sharing with people you don’t know. The expectation is that you’ll have great conversation and share and just be together. That’s what it was and many stories were exchanged during that time, during those times we were eating. But at the Basque hotel she cooked, Grandmother cooked and the kids worked very hard. BM: That’s kind of Basque essence right there. You know the way that Ann just described that. I think that’s kind of Basque essence to me. The people you talk about, people today they don’t talk about the meal like that. It’s something we have to do. AM: I was hoping Becky could tell this story about later in life for Grandmother going to the basketball game. BMM: Yeah so my little grandma, I’m three years younger than Ann and I think 10 years younger than Brian so my memories are not quite the same as theirs. I was thinking the other day about what we were talking about and there’s two stories. One of them is both my sisters played basketball for Weber State and when they 15 played in the old gym before the Dee Events Center was built it was too hard for Grandma. By this time my grandpa had passed away and it was too hard for Grandma to climb up the bleachers so we used to take a lawn chair and we’d sit it there. Grandma loved it, so she was sitting right next to the court and when the basketball team would come out and like I said the Basque language was kind of hard to speak. Grandma would raise her hands and she’d say, “Eskerna, eskuvana” which means right hand, left hand is all. The kids, the basketball players would say the same thing and she’d stand and they’d clap. They were so excited to see her. She was cute and my grandma wasn’t very tall. I bet she was I don’t know… AM: 5’ 2”. BMM: 5’ 2” maybe and she was built pretty much like me. Built like a brick, kind of round, not tall. The other thing I was thinking about too. I bet I was probably 13 and so the Dee Events Center was built and my parents had tickets to the Dee Events Center, to the men’s basketball games. Of course they went to the women’s too but I don’t think you could buy season tickets to that. I think you just went, it might have been free. Anyway so we went one time with my grandma and they started out playing the Star Spangled Banner and so they did the Pledge of Allegiance and everyone stood up. My grandma stood up and like I said she’s not very tall, but I remember even as a kid watching her and I think there was probably a part of me that was a little bit embarrassed because my grandma looked like she was 10 feet tall. She couldn’t have tried to stand taller if she, I mean she was so tall in her little stature. So they started singing the song 16 and she only knew maybe the first like few words. I think oh say can you see and then she started doing the la, la, la, as loud as she could. I remember thinking as a kid like, oh my gosh, because everyone around her was kind of looking at her. I also recognized even then that she was so proud to be in the United States and to live here and she was going to let everybody know that that was in that Dee Events Center. Her voice was carrying, it was very cool. AM: I wanted to just tell the story about my grandmother when the kids were young in the hotel she would tell them that she could play, only play with the Greek kids, the Italians, the Mexicans and the blacks because she didn’t trust those white people. I mean I get such a kick out of it because I can just hear her saying that. Her physical appearance was similar to mine, fairly light skin, dark hair, green eyes but she didn’t trust those white people at all. She could play with the black kids but not those white kids. Which then reminds me of the story where they were in the hotel living and I don’t know how old Aunt Conch must have been or our dad, probably in their teens. The hotel was mainly for train people that would come and stay, so men. Aunt Conch woke up one morning, which is my dad’s sister. Aunt Conch woke up and she could hear a baby crying. She thought it was odd because there would be no women in the hotel, it’s kind of a boarding hotel. She looked down the stairs and on the landing was a paper bag and she went down and looked inside and it was a baby. The baby had kind of dark skin you know for darker skin and they kept the baby. They notified Social Services, but they didn’t have any placement for this baby so they kept her for about a year and they 17 named her Genie Royal. Then after about a year Social Services came and got her, had an adoptive home for her. I think something in the note in the bag said something like, “We know you’ll care for her.” So years went by and apparently our aunt was quite upset by the idea that this child, she never saw her again and didn’t know what happened to her and she’d spent that year with her. It was quite a difficult situation for her. In the ‘80s the hotel was purchased by the Kier Corporation and they remodeled it and allowed people to take tours. Aunt Conch was one person that was being interviewed because she was I think the only surviving person from the hotel. So she was being interviewed by the Standard and her niece, this Genie Royal’s niece read the story in the Standard and said, “I think that’s my aunt.” Contacted her and Genie Royal came to Ogden and met with Aunt Conch some 70… BMM: About 53 years. AM: Oh 53. BMM: Yeah 53 years later she met with Aunt Conch. BM: You know I didn’t even know that story. I’m at a baseball game in Wyoming with some friends and the friend pulls out the Denver Post and lets me read about that history. AM: Oh really? BM: Yes! I mean I guess what’s it go on the wire? But it ends up at the Denver Post. I mean yeah there’s no mistake this is my family. BW: So this is probably a good time to talk a little bit about the hotel because one of the biggest things that the Royal Hotel was known for was being non-segregated. 18 AM: Right. BW: Tell me about its place in the community. AM: Well I think that it was non-segregated and it became the epitome of non-segregation when it was sold. My grandparents sold it Legrand. What is her name? BMM: Davis. AM: Davis, Mrs. Davis, a woman who was black and so she was very much interested in having… BW: Do you know what year that was? BMM: I want to say, well I’m not sure. AM: 1940, ‘45. BW: Wow. BMM: I think that’s when she was involved with Porter’s and Waiter’s. So the Davis lady was. AM: When my grandparents were there I think they saw themselves as immigrants and they were welcoming all people. It became very much known as a non-segregation hotel when it was sold to the Davis’. Our grandparents moved around the corner onto 26th Street near Wall Avenue, probably Grant or Lincoln, I don’t know which. They didn’t move far away, but that was more of the Davis era. BMM: I think too though the hotel and its location and Aunt Conch struggling so much with it. I don’t think that my grandparents, was the alcohol there, but I don’t think there was much, there wasn’t any funny business. You’d hear the stories about 19 25th Street and how the prostitution and I don’t think there was a lot of that going on in the hotel. Wrong? I swear. BM: You might be wrong. BMM: I don’t think there was a lot of prostitution, I think there was alcohol because I remember Aunt Conchie saying that it was important that they felt safe as far as like their personal beings were. No? I could be wrong. AM: Maybe so. BW: Do you have a different story than that Brian? BM: No just from talking to old timers it’s natural for me to say, “Hey you know the Royal Hotel?” “Oh yeah, boy I know about that place.” BMM: I’ve heard that too, but I’ve heard it more of the whole 25th Street and I think that the reputation of 25th Street spilled over, but I don’t think there was that kind of stuff. AM: You’re so nice Becky. BMM: They were nice. BW: Let’s talk about the court behind the hotel. BMM: Oh the jai alai court. So Grandpa had that built, it’s a jai alai court and jai alai is a game that Basques play. They play with a really hard, it’s harder than a baseball ball. AM: And littler. BMM: And littler. Then there’s a basket they put on their hands like a glove, but the basket’s big and it goes like this and has a big hook on it. So they would throw the ball against the wall and they’d catch it in this basket. I think if you got hit by 20 the ball it could like kill you. When the Kier Corporation bought the hotel and wanted to redo it they want to knock down the court. They thought it was just a garage but it’s kind of a weird garage because it’s super skinny and to get a car in there, you couldn’t really park a lot of cars in there the way it’s set up. The state wouldn’t let them because it’s a historical monument now. BW: Is it marked? BMM: Yes. AM: It was the first jai alai court built in the western United States and the Basque people wanted to come to play because there were so many Basque people that came here and they played. Then Nevada, Las Vegas had it for a long time and there was quite a lot gambling surrounding jai alai play. Now there are, I think Boise has kind of like a modified court that’s a little bit smaller. BM: It’s big in Florida. AM: Yes Miami. BW: I’m getting the sense, I mean this was a transient hotel obviously, but I’m getting the sense that there was community. AM: Oh yes. BM: Yeah a lot of the Basques would stay there for a long time. If you look at the ledgers you can see where my, you tell them about the ledgers. AM: Well we looked at the ledgers, but where people came and came through and left. The Basque community was pretty big here. The Bangochez, the Echaprias, Echaveries… BMM: Etrapides. Ospitals. 21 AM: I mean there were… BMM: The Winos… BW: Were they mostly in Ogden? AM: Yes. BW: And they would come together for these family style meals? AM: Oh yes. BW: St. Joseph’s… AM: Everybody went to church that was Basque. I think that the Basque names are very distinct, but what happened when the Basques came to the United States they stopped using the “tx” to make the letter, to make the sound “ch.” So tx says ch, but no one would get that in the United States so they changed them all to be like Etxaveria was etx, but now it’s ech. So some of those distinguishing features of the Basque names were lost when they became Americanized to use the ch rather than the tx. You still see it, you still see that tx in places and especially when people are just talking like patxi or what are some other? That would be tx. BW: Your dad let’s talk about his, let’s start with his birth. BM: 1925, July 31st born in room… BMM: 5. BM: Was it 5? BMM: Room 5. BM: I’ve heard 25, but… BMM: I don’t think there’s 25 rooms. 22 BM: Okay well there was a block of rooms that the family stayed in Oakdale. He was born, even though he could’ve been born in a hospital in 1925 he was born in the hotel. BW: And old Dee was up and running? BM: Yeah. BMM: Well both of his siblings my Aunt Conchie and my Uncle Joe were born in the hospital. Aunt Conchie was born in ‘24 and Uncle Joe was born in ‘23, but I think that it was very difficult for Grandma in the hospital because she couldn’t understand what they were saying to her and they couldn’t understand what she was saying to them. So I think that when my dad was born she had him there. BW: That brings up something very interesting I haven’t heard from anybody else, the language barrier in using hotel or using hospitals and getting things like that. AM: As a matter of fact for Aunt Conch’s birth, her birth certificate had to be, oh amended that’s what is was, the word I was looking for amended several years later to have her name corrected. They didn’t have anybody’s name correct on the birth certificate for Aunt Conch. Grandmother was a very fearful person, she never drove the car. I mean she did like a couple of blocks but that was that. BM: Out of anger. AM: Oh she was mad because they told her she couldn’t. BM: She was mad. You know somebody said, “You can’t do it.” You know, just had to prove them wrong. Plus, do you remember what she called the old car? The model A, the portingo. She called it the little portingo. That’s what she called it, it’s not even a good word. 23 BW: What does it mean? BM: Nothing. BW: Oh nothing. BM: It’s a cute little name like you’d name your dog that and she named her car that. BMM: She used words like, it’s funny when we were saying that my grandmother spoke three languages all at the same time. So when you were, if she would ask you to get up and get her a little trago which meant a little drink or if she was telling you how to cook something she’d tell you to wait for the water to bil-bil or pur-pur, which meant to boil. So you kind of have to pay attention because she was speaking all languages. AM: When we did the laundry she would say, “barakata, barakata” Which meant shake the laundry before you put it on the, I think they’re called onomatopoeias, but she was very expressive and her voice and her inflection. Oh my goodness and then she’d be low voice when she was serious and high voice. I think Becky mentioned that Grandmother was very protective of us kids and really wanted us to have such fun times all the time. So we would go to her with our complaints about, “Oh mom wouldn’t give me money to get a new dress.” “Oh that Bonnie, she’s no good for nothing.” That’s what she would say and our mom’s name is Bonnie. She was very opinionated about different things. “He’s no good for nothing,” or I don’t know what she would say. She would say things like that all the time. 24 BMM: She was great because you could make easy money on Grandma because she wouldn’t kill anything. So I remember her and her sister had me come over and kill a spider. I’d get like ten bucks for it so I was all over that. BM: It seemed to me like Basque women swore a lot. You know my older brother… BW: God bless him. BM: Passed away. “Tony, Tony” and we’d say, “Tia, it’s Tommy.” “Yeah, yeah, Tony, Tony. You son of a…” BMM: They did, they did swear a lot. BW: Just to let you know it’s okay to cuss in here. This is your interview so it’s fine. BMM: Oh she did. BW: Well let’s talk about the role of religion in the family. How important was religious tradition? BM: My dad was going to be a priest. I think my grandmother wanted him to be priest. He thought about being a priest so they had to have been, there had to be something about that. BW: I personally, I mentioned this before. I love the dichotomy of this community as seen as kind of the rule breakers and yet the devotion of wanting their son to be a priest. I think that’s a neat paradox. BMM: I think that carried on too because like my godparents were Italian and they wanted their son to be a priest. I think it carries on through other Catholic families especially ones that the religion and the culture are kind of one really. AM: I also think that when you’re an immigrant to the United States and you’ve lived in a culture where alcohol is part of your world it isn’t forbidden, it never has been 25 forbidden and it’s something that you take pleasure in with meals and that you want to share with others. That you get to the United States and all of a sudden it’s against the law it was just absurd for them. So I don’t think that there was the religion conflict from that standpoint. Maybe my grandfather was doing some things that were maybe a bit disingenuous. Maybe, we don’t really know, but I think it was fascinating that he was a banker type person that was not affiliated with a bank. He was just doing it and his ledgers are pristine, it’s amazing. BM: You know when we talk about Samuel, I used to mow his grass and they paid very well to mow their grass. He would go and set this great big bedspread out and we would pour the grass clippings in that. Then we would tie up all the corners and we put them in the back of the car. Well I was 12 years old, 11 years old and then we would drive up… AM: Here. BM: Yes here and dump the grass for the horses to eat. Well I’m 12 and he insists that I drive the car. Okay so on 37th Street I got to get on Harrison and I’m driving the car. You know I’m thinking, at 11 years old you’re thinking I’m going to jail because the police. He insisted on that. “You drive. No you drive.” He’d sit over there just stoically and maybe keep an eye on me. So does that tell you a little bit about him? If you’re talking about somebody that wants to break the rules. BMM: I don’t think that’s the thing, it wasn’t like breaking the rules. I was talking to someone the other day and was thinking that when I was 5 I think I started drinking coffee. I would not let my grandchild drink coffee, but everyone had 26 coffee in the morning so I went over to the neighbor’s house and had coffee. I was probably 4 or 5. Then I had an Uncle Urglen who’s also Basque and I think I smoked cigarettes with him and I was like 5. So I don’t think anybody thought it was a bad thing, it was just we were all together. It wasn’t like I snuck it or anything. I did it with my family right there. AM: Grandmother, many of the Basque people had a little bit of brandy in their coffee after dinner, Grandmother salted it and I thought, “That’s odd.” But I thought it was quite delicious. We were always swizzling a little of their beverages. BW: What I’m hearing out of this though is this sense of we’re going to maintain our culture, at the same time they love being in America. AM: Yes, well no actually that isn’t really true. I think that there was a lot of they wanted to be enculturated into the ways of the United States. Grandfather was a little bit resistant, Aunt Conch was a bit resistant but Dad wanted us to know about the Basque culture. He wanted us to be aware of what our culture was, who our people were, what they did, what was important about them. He wasn’t embarrassed by what happened. I think he just thought of it as this is how I lived. As we were growing up, Basque people wanted to hang out together because they wanted to talk to one another and they wanted to speak Basque because they knew and it had been said for years it was a dying culture, a dying language. So they would get together and I remember just sitting, just listening to them talk because it’s so pretty and so interesting to hear. It’s like nothing else. So in our later years we all became very interested in the Basque culture and so we started asking and wanting information. Yes, the maintenance of the things 27 like dining together, going to the Catholic Church, having tight knit Basque and other cultures; the Italians, the Greeks and they all maintained this sort of relationship in Ogden. I think it was a protective environment so that they could maintain some of those cultural things because most of them were immigrants. To be safe from the bigger picture here in Utah. BM: I think we lived in this little enclave in the middle of Ogden. There were two Italian families, there was actually some Jewish people across the street for a while. Who am I missing? AM: Well mostly Italians. Depachies, Dacharias, us, Coopermans. BM: Coopermans okay but then across the street were… BMM: The Whickstroms… BM: No they weren’t in the neighborhood. So it felt like a lot of immigrants right on the same, you know, packed in. That’s why I call it enclave I guess. You know there were a lot of Latin languages being spoke. BW: So you just mentioned in the bigger picture of Ogden how did they mesh with, I mean let’s say it’s predominantly Mormon, northern European area. How did they mesh? AM: Well both Aunt Conch and our father married English or Scottish descent people and they were both Mormons. Interestingly, my mother converted to Catholicism and Uncle Keith he didn’t really do anything. They maintained, despite having their spouse be a Mormon, they maintained that Catholicism and we were all raised in the Catholic Church. My mother’s Catholic today, she still is and she was a Mormon prior to that. I think that that has a lot to do with the way the 28 community was. We had a lot of Italian because I mean the Church was a big deal, Catholic Church. I mean we were there. Brian was an altar boy like every Sunday we would spot him up there doing his thing and our other brother too. Then Uncle Joe never got married, but he remained a Catholic. A couple other interesting things about the hotel and our grandparents were that people trusted them with their money, with their children. Grandmother and Grandfather had many other kids living there for long periods of time. For example we had two Aunt Conchs which is quite an unusual name. We had an Aunt Rosie and I don’t even think they were related to us. Ray Garamendi is another person who spent a lot of time in their home and I think that there was a little boy that lived there too that died of pneumonia. There were a lot of people that entrusted their children to our grandparents. They raised them as if they were their own and took care of them. BW: Sound like they’re pillars of the community, of the Basque community. AM: I think so. BW: Let’s talk a little bit about getting through the Great Depression. I’m kind of back tracking a little bit here. How did the Great Depression affect, if at all, the family, the business? BM: I don’t think that it did, but I think they just lived their life. I don’t think they were moving somewhere to start over or anything. AM: It always seemed that food was plentiful for them and I think there was hardship because they didn’t have a lot of money as most people didn’t. Food was plentiful, they stayed in their little neighborhood. They didn’t travel anywhere I 29 mean particularly. I think Dad went to Europe a few times. I think they were fairly unaffected and I think people came to the hotel because they knew they could eat. They knew they could be safe there. They knew that they were welcome. BW: It was a refuge. AM: Maybe. BW: And then, oh go ahead… TB: Oh I was going to say did they tell you any stories about just the daily happenings of the hotel? Like what was an average day in the hotel? BM: Well I know that Dad had to carry the clinkers to the dumps. Okay, so do you know what clinkers are? TB: No. BM: I think it’s the leftover pieces of coal that don’t burn something. I know he talked about that, I know he had a St. Francis medal and we all wore medals around our necks as Catholics, as children. He lost that in the clinker pot and Purra told him to pray to find it and he prayed and found it. AM: Well then the kids would tell stories about sitting on a sheet or some sort of cloth and then pulling each other up and down the halls to shine the floors that were wooden floors. They worked hard I think and I think they worked to maintain the hotel and take care of the linens. BM: I especially think Grandma worked really hard. Sam more or less was an overseer type, commands. You know do this, do that type thing. BW: Let’s go up toward war time. Your father was old enough to be in the war. BM: He was drafted. 30 AM: He went in high school. He went during high school. I just saw the letter that tells about they were going to reserve his credits and give him a diploma because he got drafted before he was able to graduate. Then he went on to go to Weber State and got an associate’s degree. BW: Let’s talk about his experience during the war. BM: He was a staff sergeant. You know he didn’t really want to talk about it a whole lot. I guess that’s common. BW: Do you know where he… BM: In the European Theatre. AM: No Mom told us yesterday he was in Japan and he was a Japanese Assistant like Becky had suggested. BM: I know he was a motor pool, he was in charge of a motor pool. That’s one thing he told me. That he was in charge of a motor pool as a staff sergeant. I don’t know where I got the European Theatre. AM: Maybe because Uncle Keith. We have all kinds of images of him. You know with his shirt off, I don’t know, out toting some guns around. BM: His dog tags. BW: So after the war he returns back. What does he do? So the hotel was sold to the Davis’? AM: Yes. BW: So what does your dad do when he gets back? BM: Goes to college and I think he went to work in the Firestone store about 22nd and Washington. It was on the east side of the road there and he ended up being 31 the manager there. Well, maybe the manager, Firestone at that time sold appliances. So he managed that part of it. AM: I don’t know, Mom and Dad got married in what? BM: ‘48. Well yeah was it ‘50? Tom was born in ‘52 and I want to say that they had been married 2 years before Tom was born. AM: So Dad was a guy that could do anything. He could fix anything. He was a person who loved to talk to people and made them feel important. I don’t think he ever really did the job he wanted to do. I think he never quite got to do what he wanted to do. He was a great guy. BM: We never went anywhere that he didn’t know somebody. You were in the grocery store he was talking to somebody. AM: Interested, concerned. He died very young so he was just 54 when he died. He was kind of the life of the party, but as I look back on how he was, he was very serious about many things. They were things like cleanliness, manners, speaking properly and he let you know if you weren’t doing those things. Hard work, he was all about that. BW: Do you think that some of that comes from being a second generation? AM: Yes, yes I do. BM: He was so different than his dad. To me he was just so different. AM: Well Grandpa, I can hardly remember any words Grandpa said. I can hardly remember him talking. Now Grandmother she was talking all the, she’s just like Becky. Becky and Grandmother are just alike, just talking and using their arms, very gregarious, but couldn’t understand half the things she said. I mean she one 32 time sent me to the grocery store because I just wanted to hang out with Grandmother. I refused to go to school. I did all kinds of things. My mom went to work and I said, “I’m not going to the babysitter. I’m going to Grandmother’s.” I think I had a Basque accent until I was like in school. She sent me to the store one time and said, “Honey, go get some brio pads.” In her little Basque accent. I went over to get them and I told the lady, “I need some brio pads.” I was probably 5. The lady said, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” So I went back to grandmother’s house and she handed me the box and I took them back. I said, “This is what I need.” She said, “Oh, brillo pads.” So I put it on their account and when back home with the brillo pads. BW: That’s great. BM: I remember one of the store workers making some comments about how she spoke. He was mocking her, wrong move, wrong thing to do. My uncle went over there and just had a heyday in that store. BW: We’re going to go ahead and wrap up. A couple of questions I have. Did they stay aware, your family, your father or grandparents did they stay aware of what was going on back in the old country? AM: Yes. BW: How did they do that? AM: They did, they wrote letters back and forth. Dad went back to the Basque country when he was very young and again when he was a teenager and again later in life. So he went to Europe three times to go to the Basque country and they communicated with their relatives. When Grandmother and Grandfather had their 33 50th wedding anniversary some people from the Basque country came and many Basque relatives from the western United States came to that. It was a big to do. Yes, Dad was aware of the conflict and he talked about the BTA, which is the Basque Terrorist Association and what they were fighting for. He didn’t agree with it of course, but he was aware of the issues and why it was happening. I actually think Dad came and spoke to our history class in junior high to tell about the Basque people. He was very aware and he hung on to that Basque language as hard as he could until the day he died. BW: Do you get a sense of that slipping now with the next generation coming up? AM: No question, it’s gone. As a matter of fact the consulate from New York, the Basque consulate from New York wrote a letter to Grandfather Sam and said, “Could you please collect some young people together because I want to come and talk to them and tell them how important their culture is and their language and try to have them learn to appreciate it, to become aware of it.” That was in the ‘40s. They were aware of this lost language. You know Basque was almost lost because during the Spanish, which Franco was in power you couldn’t speak. The schools couldn’t allow kids to speak Basque. There were no street signs that were in Basque. In the last I don’t know, 20 years I don’t really know exactly now kids are in Basque schools speaking the Basque language. In the times I’ve been there the Basque culture is very distinct to the Spanish culture and Brian and I went back not long ago. The street signs are now primarily in Basque with the Spanish translation below. The Basque country is very Basque and they’re hanging on very well. There’s very few, very few people. 34 BW: Do you have anything else to say? TB: I wanted to talk about, the way that you said it was your grandfather never went to get money from a… AM: So Mateo when he, when Grandfather figured out how to get him to the United States to do the boxing at Madison Square Gardens it was quite a costly thing. Then Mateo went back to Spain and became quite well to do. So when Dad was about 16 or 17 they put him on a boat and told him to go over and get the money back. So he spends six months in the Basque country trying to get the money back. I don’t know if he was successful in getting it, but I think Grandmother and Grandfather had sold the hotel. They weren’t having a lot of money so they thought, “Come on, give us the money back.” Apparently it caused quite a rift because when I recently went back to Spain and met my cousins over there they were a little defensive of Mateo, which is their grandfather. I was like we were so excited to know about this but maybe the story about my grandfather trying to collect a debt caused some trouble, I’m not sure. Yeah sent my dad over to get the money, he was like 15 or 16 or something like that. Maybe younger, I don’t know exactly. Yeah that’s what happened. BW: Your family’s played a pretty important role in Ogden, the hotel in particular. What would you say is the legacy of your family here? BM: For me it’s just a, I just have to say it’s a legacy of diversity. That maybe broad but I just can’t… BW: No go on, what do you mean by diversity? 35 BM: Well I think if you grow up in a community like this you become aware of your difference. You know it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be, it doesn’t have to show that, but you become aware of your grandparents that don’t speak English and your friends that mock her. You know it brings you to be maybe a little self-conscious. You have to overcome that and when you do overcome it you tend to be proud. When you become proud then you embrace it, you embrace the diversity. AM: I think for me what the legacy is, is this rich Basque culture that is mostly in the western United States because people came here to work. That they all came through that Basque hotel. I mean almost every person that was Basque that wanted a place to go came to the Basque hotel. I think my family represents a great deal of generosity toward the community. Like Brian said, really diverse with other ethnicities within our society that created a protection for one another. We still have communication, I’ve never known life without the Gabardies and the Dacharias. Some of Becky’s kids think they’re related to us and they’re not. They’re just people we’ve known for so long they seem like they’re part of our family. I think what I see from my dad and my aunt and my uncle were that everybody knew them. They touched many, many lives in so many ways. They were so willing to experience other people’s culture and other people’s thoughts. We never, I never noticed any sort of prejudice in our home, ever. It seemed like everyone was always welcome, and food was such an important part of that. BW: Thank you for sharing this today.