Oral History Program Myron Stevenson Interviewed by Wess Marriott Circa 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Myron Stevenson Interviewed by Wess Marriott Circa 2019 Copyright © 2018 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 Marriott-Slaterville City Oral History Collection was created by the residents of the town to document their history. Each participant was provided with a list of questions asking for; stories about their childhood, schools they attended, stories about their parents and grand-parents, activities they enjoyed, fashions they remember, difficulties or traumas they may have dealt with, and memories of community and church leaders. This endeavor has left behind rich histories, stories and important information regarding the history of the Marriott-Slaterville area. ____________________________________ 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: Myron, Stevenson, an oral history by Wess Marriott, Circa 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Myron Stevenson Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Myron Stevenson, conducted circa 2019, by Wess Marriott. Myron discusses his life and his memories of Marriott-Slaterville, Utah. WM: Do you have anything special that you’d like to talk about? Because our purpose is to get your life history and to find out things that you enjoyed and the things that you did. Are you still married? MS: No, my wife has passed away. WM: Your wife has passed on. Okay, well we will talk a little bit about your life and your children and your parents and you’ve been in Marriott the whole all of your life? MS: What’s that? WM: Have you been in Marriott all of your life? MS: No, I’m a transplant. I was a transplant in 1959. WM: 1959, okay. We will spend most of our time talking about you from 1959 to now. But we will get a little bit of information about your background before that. Okay, are we on? Are we live? Myron Stevenson right? MS: Yes. WM: Tell me, how old are you? MS: 89. WM: When were you born? What is your birthdate? 2 MS: 1929. July 21. WM: And where were you born, Myron? MS: Willard, Utah. WM: Willard, Utah. Alright. Well, and when did you get to Marriott-Slaterville? Or at least this area? MS: In 1959. WM: And what brought you to Marriott-Slaterville in 1959? MS: Just our family moved. WM: Okay, and who came with you? MS: My wife and my five children. WM: Five kids. MS: uh huh. WM: That’s a big family in this day and age. MS: We had six but we lost the first one. WM: Lost the first one, okay. So tell me where did you move to in this area? MS: 1314 west 1200 west. WM: Okay, and who’s house did you buy? MS: Willard Marriott’s. WM: Alright, that’s my uncle. That’s great. Well tell me about the house. 3 MS: It was an older home. WM: Okay. MS: A brick home. A solid brick home, it wasn’t veneer. WM: How many bedrooms? MS: Two bedrooms. WM: What about the rest? A kitchen? MS: We had a kitchen, the washroom, a basement, an old coal furnace. WM: What about any land with it? Other than just the yard? MS: It was an acre. WM: An acre, alright. MS: Uh huh. WM: Was it big enough to do any farming, not farming. But did you have a garden and stuff? MS: Oh I had a big garden. WM: Tell me about your garden. MS: It was all hand dug. I didn’t have any power equipment at that time. WM: Okay. MS: But I got some later one. WM: What kind—what did you raise? 4 MS: Corn, tomatoes, beets, turnips, just about any vegetable there was. Pumpkins. WM: Did you have pumpkins too? MS: Yeah. WM: That’s great. Well in that little house then, where did your kids go to school? MS: Wilson Elementary. WM: Okay and how many did you have? How many kids? MS: Five children. WM: Tell me their names and… MS: Pardon me? WM: Tell me their names? MS: Michael is the eldest, Bob—Robert actually is the second. Lavell was the third. Nancy was the first daughter. Peggy was the second daughter. WM: Alright, boys and girls. MS: I worked at the railroad. WM: Oh did you? What did you do at the railroad? MS: Well they had me as a sheet metal worker. WM: Sheet metal? MS: Uh huh as I worked on the steam engines. WM: Really? Is that right? 5 MS: Yeah. WM: What did you do on the steam engines? MS: Well are you familiar with the coating on the steam engine? WM: Yes. MS: Underneath that tin, there was asbestos. WM: Oh really? MS: Yeah, blocks of asbestos. The tin part was covered with that for insulation. WM: Right. So what did you do? MS: Well I basically did about everything on all of the plumbing on the steam engines. WM: Really? MS: Uh huh. All of the piping. WM: So you’ve been to the historical museum? MS: Nope. WM: Haven’t you? MS: No, I’ve never been there. WM: Really? MS: In fact, I worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad for four and a half years and I finished my apprenticeship and I got laid off. So I went to the Union Pacific Railroad and I worked there for two years and got riffed out so I ended up with 6 the OURN and Dee company—Ogden Union Railroad and Dee company. I finished my career out there. WM: Really? How many years were you there? MS: The railroad? 43 years. WM: 43 years. Wow. Well there is some beautiful engines over there. If you haven’t been there you ought to go. MS: I’ve worked on some of those pipes probably. WM: You probably have. That’s why I thought you would enjoy going over there. MS: No, I haven’t been over there. WM: It’s a great thing to go to. MS: Yep. WM: So you ought to visit there. So how did you like living in the city versus where you used to live? MS: I enjoyed it. WM: Why? MS: Wonderful neighbors and it was just a real fine community. WM: Talk to me about the community a little bit. What struck you as interesting and desirable about this community? Besides the people. Anything else? 7 MS: Well at one time, it was a wide open space. When I moved here, there was no houses to think of. It was all farming. WM: Well your work must have been interesting. Why did you stay in the railroad work. MS: It was a career for one thing. WM: Where did you get your training? MS: At the Southern Pacific Railroads. WM: Southern Pacific. Okay. MS: I served my apprenticeship there. WM: Okay. Did you travel at all? Was everything right here at the Ogden Railroad Yard? MS: Being a sheet metal worker, the head sheet metal worker and I would go to different places. Corinne. We’d go to—you’ll have to forgive me my mind don’t work very good. WM: You’re fine. Take your time. So you went in different cities around Utah and Idaho? MS: No, not Idaho. We went to Nevada. WM: Oh Nevada. MS: Yeah, Southern Pacific was Nevada area. Union Pacific was the other way. 8 WM: Alright, so you took care of a lot of engines. What did you like most about your work? MS: I can’t really say. It was just… WM: You like working with metal? MS: Oh yes. Uh huh. WM: Why? What’s there about metal that’s kind of fun? MS: Well, it’s really hard to say. I just enjoy putting things together. I had installed a lot of furnaces and cabooses. I did a lot of metal work on the cabooses. WM: Oh really? MS: Yeah. WM: Well some of us are better at it than others. I’m not very good at it. MS: Oh I’m not that good. Just mediocre. WM: That’s alright. Well tell me a little bit more about your family? What kind of things did your family do as hobbies or just special interests kinds of things? MS: Well one of our hobbies, the whole family enjoyed farming, I mean gardening. WM: Okay, so what would the kids do to help you? MS: They’d hoe weeds and pick corn and they’d just do about everything. WM: Oh that’s great. So that was a family activity. MS: That was my son, my daughter didn’t get involved. 9 WM: Oh okay, just your sons. MS: Yeah. WM: Alright, did you just use your own farming results or did you sell things as well? MS: Didn’t sell very much. I gave away most of it. WM: Oh did you? MS: Yeah. WM: Why did you give it away? MS: I don’t know. WM: You like to help people? MS: Yes, I do. WM: Do you? So that’s a trade of yours? MS: Yeah. WM: Well that’s good. Did you have good neighbors? MS: Oh I always had good neighbors. WM: Tell me about some of them. Who was your best friend? MS: Best friend? WM: Or a good friend. Who was a good friend? MS: Right now? WM: Oh back then. 10 MS: Back then…Walt Morris WM: Okay. MS: He was a very good friend. In fact, he lived in Marriott. He worked with me at the railroad also. WM: Oh really? MS: He was very good friend. WM: Morris, huh? MS: Walten Morris WM: Probably a relative of Bill Morris, maybe? MS: Some relative. WM: I bet he was. MS: I think he was Bill’s uncle. WM: Bill’s uncle, okay. Now why was he such a good friend? MS: We just got along good all of the time. WM: What did you do together? MS: Well other than working at the railroad, not much of anything other than railroad. WM: Okay. Alright, did the railroad do any special activities to honor you? Did you win any prizes? Did you get a good promotion that you liked? MS: No, no extra promotions? 11 WM: Was there anything about Southern Pacific that you enjoyed? MS: I just enjoyed working on steam engines. WM: Yeah? MS: In fact, I worked on the first diesel engine that came into Ogden. WM: Did you? Wow. That would be different. MS: I can’t remember the year, but… yeah. WM: That’d be different. MS: Yeah. WM: To have a diesel. What were the engines before that? MS: Steam engines. WM: Steam engines and then you went to diesel. MS: Uh huh. WM: Alright. It’s a big difference. MS: Yeah. WM: Did it cause you any grief? MS: It took some time to get used to getting the engine—the motors. WM: Right. MS: Basically, it was about the same work, the plumbing part of it. Piping and stuff on them. 12 WM: Right, okay. Well tell me about your wife. What was her name? MS: Deola. WM: Deola. Alright and where did you met her? MS: I picked her up on the side of the street. My cousin and I had dates with some girls in Brigham City with these telephone operators. And we went to pick them up for the date and they’d got called to work. So they was in Brigham City and we came back through Willard and these two girls was walking down the street alongside the street. I told my cousin, “I want the little one.” WM: Oh that’s funny. MS: So we pulled up alongside of them. Boy, they bolted. They took off and ran into a yard. So we drove on by and looked in the rearview mirror and they came down and across the highway and so we swung back. They were standing on the lawn of this house and started talking to them and asked them if they wanted to go to Peach City for a drink or something. WM: What did you call it? MS: Peach City in Brigham City. They said, “Oh we aren’t those kinds of girls.” So we just were talking to them for a while and being from Willard I had cousins that lived there in Willard and I asked them if they knew this Blaine Richards and they says, “Yeah, he works for Dad.” And we got to talking. After a few minutes of conversations, I still asked them if they wanted to go to Peach City. They said, “Let me go ask mother.” And I told her who I was and that I’d been there and 13 that I lived there in Willard. Come to find out, her folks and my folks were very close friends. WM: Oh you are kidding. MS: So we went to Peach City. WM: So what did they mean when they said, “We’re not that kind of girls.”? What did that mean? MS: They weren’t pick-ups. WM: Oh okay. MS: She doesn’t go with just any person. WM: So they got permission and they said yes. MS: Yep. WM: Wow that’s great. MS: A year—this was a… yeah, a year and half later we was married WM: Really? MS: Yeah. WM: What year were you married? MS: 1949. WM: ’49. When you said that you wanted the little one, why did you choose the little one? 14 MS: Well the other one was taller and the other was shorter. WM: How tall were you? MS: I was only about 5 foot 1. WM: Alright. MS: I’m shorter than that now. WM: Wow. We get different things when we were born right? You don’t really get a choice about that. MS: That’s right. WM: Well that’s great. Well tell me about your health. Have you had good health? MS: What’s that? WM: Have you had good health while you’ve been here? MS: Pretty much. Pretty much good health. WM: That’s good. MS: Except for the last few years. But we won’t go into that. WM: Alright, so what is your impression of Marriott-Slaterville as a place to live? From the point of view of the kind of activities that are here. What can you do in Marriott? What kind of things do you do in Marriott-Slaterville? Any activities in this city, in this town, in this community? MS: No. 15 WM: Nothing in particular? MS: No. WM: Do you come here very often? MS: Here at the office buildings? Not very often. WM: Not very often. Do you go to church here in the city? MS: Yes. WM: Where do you go to church? MS: In the Marriot-Slaterville ward. WM: Okay. What kind of activities did they do in the ward? Did they have anything special? MS: They have… WM: Did they have road shows? Did you go those? MS: They don’t have any more road shows anymore. WM: Anymore? MS: No. WM: Okay. MS: They do have activities. They have ward activities now and then. WM: Okay. So what do you do to keep yourself busy? Do you watch television a lot? 16 MS: A little bit. I’m secretary of the Perry Ditch Company. That keeps me pretty busy. WM: Oh you are? Tell me about what is that organization? MS: We supply water to the people in this area. WM: What area does it cover? MS: Well, it’s from Millcreek to 400 south. Oh I can’t really describe it. WM: Okay. Well how has Ogden changed since you got here? MS: Oh drastically. WM: Tell me about it. From your point of view. MS: It’s gotten busier. It’s more congested. Same with the city here. There’s so many more buildings and many more homes. WM: Kind of a big city. It used to be kind of a little farming community in it. MS: Yeah. WM: When you moved here, you bought my uncle’s home. MS: Yep. WM: Yeah, it was just kind of out here. A few homes and that was about it. MS: Yep. WM: Yeah. Well it’s not a big city yet—Marriott-Slaterville but it’s a lot bigger than what it was. 17 MS: Yeah, I’ll say. WM: What do you do for fun? MS: Well I like to fish. WM: Do you? MS: Every chance that I get. WM: Where do you fish? MS: Well I stream fish anymore because I’m too unstable but my boys have got property on Sourdough Ranch and I go up there and fish up on the lakes and that’s about it. WM: Oh good. That’s great. What do they do? Do they fish also? MS: Not very much. WM: Really? MS: They fish when I fish. WM: I see. MS: Yeah. WM: What kind of hobbies do they have? MS: Well, my oldest son, his hobby is work. He has his own communications company. WM: Does he? 18 MS: He does a lot of communications work. In fact, he does work here sometimes. WM: Does he? MS: Yeah. My second son, his hobby is snowmobiling and Sourdough Ranching. Same with my third boy, he does the Sourdough bit. WM: Where is that? MS: Up Ogden Canyon, on your way to… WM: Hunstville? MS: It’s past Hunstville. WM: Past Hunstville. MS: What’s the pass that goes over into Wyoming? WM: Okay so that’s the area where Sourdough is. MS: Yes. WM: Did they have ranches up there? MS: Well it’s a recreation community is what it is. WM: Oh, recreation community, okay. MS: Yeah. WM: That’s great. So do they have places up there where they just rent places? MS: They rent. 19 WM: They just rent. Alright, great. How is the weather different today than it used to be? MS: Well, we don’t get as much snow as we used to. I remember that. WM: How much snow did you used to get, can you remember? MS: Well, I lived up on 8th street in Ogden and it snowed so much in the 1948. I lived in a basement home and we’d walk on the snow right on top of the roof. WM: I’ve got a picture of that. MS: Uh huh. WM: It’s unbelievable. MS: Yeah. WM: Snow was all the way up to the roof. I’ve got a picture of my Aunt Clara that was next to that. That’s a lot of snow. MS: Yeah. WM: How did you get in and out of your house? MS: With a snow shovel. WM: That’s so funny. Oh my gosh, you ever been in any of the hail storms? MS: Hail? WM: Hail storms? MS: Nah. WM: Well tell me about your mother and father. Who were they? 20 MS: Well my father was from Willard. His mother was a Field and her dad—in 1858 settled here in Slaterville. WM: Really? That’s terrific. MS: My mother, she was from Perry Utah. WM: Perry. MS: And she was a Nelson. WM: Tell me about the leadership of this community. Who do you know in the leadership of the community? Have you been impressed with any of them? MS: Well I’ve been really impressed with both mayors. WM: Have you? MS: Yeah, really impressed. Really knowledgeable and have the community in heart. Just really impressed with them. WM: What makes them special? MS: Well, they are friendly. They have the community at heart. I have no other words. WM: Is there special stories about your family could tell that would be kind of fun to hear? About your kids and them growing up? Anything exciting that ever happened? MS: Nothing really. We just did a lot of camping trips and stuff together. WM: Did you? Where did you go? 21 MS: Well, mainly Ogden Canyon was our main stay. We used to go up through Logan Canyon. WM: Have there been any disasters or anything? Flooding or anything like that that’s happened during your time here? MS: No. WM: Okay, so any special memories from the time that you were working in the railroad? Anything kind of special that ever happened then? MS: I can’t think of anything special. Well my dad worked in the railroad and he got knocked off a steam engine with one of them metal covers one time. WM: Oh you’re kidding. MS: He had to go to California for surgery and while he was there. I was the man of the house. I was responsible for the family and I was only 16 years old. WM: OH really? How many in your family? MS: Pardon? WM: How many people in your family? How many kids? MS: Let me think now. Shoot. Six. WM: Six? That’s a lot. MS: It takes me a minute. WM: That’s okay. Alright. Well Myron, it’s been fun meeting you and getting to know you a little bit. I’m glad that you are here in this community. 22 MS: I am too. WM: It’s a great place to live. MS: I’ll say it is. WM: Good people. The people what it—it all revolves around the people and the kind of people that they are. Glad that you are here and that you could help out. MS: I am too. WM: Yeah, thank you very much. MS: You bet. WM: All of the best to you.