Oral History Program Nora Wall Williams Interviewed by Janice Dawson 19 August 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Nora Wall Williams Interviewed by Janice Dawson 19 August 1976 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Williams, Nora Wall, an oral history by Janice Dawson, 19 August 1976, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Nora Wall Williams. The interview was conducted on August 19, 1976. Mrs. Williams discusses her life and experiences while growing up in early Utah. JD: This is an interview with Nora Wall Williams in East Layton conducted on August the 19, 1976. Interviewer is Janice Dawson. Nora would you like to tell us just a little bit about yourself, where you were born, a little bit about your family background? NW: I was born in East Layton, July 9, 1903 and my father was Thomas Holwell Wall and my mother was Florence Jacques Wall. I was born in a little log house in East Layton near the Mountain Road and Cherry Lane. I started to school when I was five and my brother Tom was seven and because we had a long way to go, my father started us at the same time. Jabez Adams was the teacher, and I remember he taught us from a big chart and the first page on the chart was a big, red apple and he said, "This is an apple," and the next page was a chair, "This is a chair." Then there was a dog, and a cat, and on separate pages and all through the chart. "And this is a chair, and this is a dog, this is a cat." Well, we learned to read the chart and then he gave us a book that duplicated the chart and we read it all over again. I went there to school until I was in the seventh grade. The schoolhouse sat all by itself down in the hollow with oakbrush around it, and we played Danish Ball because there wasn't room for a ball diamond, enough level ground for a ball diamond. Danish Ball only required two bases. JD: Can you tell us how that worked? NW: No, I don't remember. I know that you batted the ball and ran for the base opposite first base and back; I don’t remember the rules. There was a hill for sledding and it seemed 1 there was always snow. It seems that the seasons have changed because you used to have snow early in the fall, usually before Thanksgiving, and it would come two or three feet and we'd have snow all winter till late in spring. So there was always snow on that hill for sledding. Then sometimes in the spring the girls built playhouses in the oakbrush and they just marked off the rooms with sticks and anything they could find. We always had a Halloween party, invited our mothers and sometimes our fathers too. We usually had a program and brought lunch. JD: Would this be in the evening? NW: Yes, it would be in the evening, and then for Christmas we had a big party. We had a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus; gifts for all the children. The parents came and the mothers brought a picnic lunch and sandwiches and cakes and pies. Usually there was a play too; children put on a play and sang songs and then after the gifts had all been distributed then the parents, or the fathers, all stacked the desks. They weren't fastened to the floor, they were on planks so they could be picked up and stacked because the schoolhouse was a many-purpose building. It seemed like everybody could play the violin in those days. My father played and several of the other men played. Anyway usually Henry Forbes came and brought his violin and sometimes Flora Forbes— that was Tommy Forbes’ wife— would bring her organ, put it in the bob sled and bring it so they'd have organ music and violin for dancing. The parents would all dance. There was room for two sets of square dancing in the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse was really quite a large building 1. JD: Can you estimate about what size it was? 1 The old foundation was measured and found to be 20” by 32” outside measurement. 2 NW: No, I can’t, but the old foundation is still there. We should measure it. I just wouldn't know, but as I said there was room for two sets of square dancers, and they danced square dances and waltzes and the parents had a real good time. Sometimes the children went to sleep around on the stacked up desks and it'd be late, midnight maybe, before we all went home. That was the big Christmas party for the community; it was the school party. JD: Would they exchange presents, or did they do that in those days? NW: The children did. The children each took a gift for all the school children and usually the parents, if they had smaller children, would take a gift for the children they had at home so all the children had gifts. JD: Would this be something homemade? NW: Oh no, I got a little flat iron and it was cast iron, a real one that I ironed all my doll clothes and even when I got married I pressed my baby clothes with it because it was tiny and could get around. That is the only gift I remember, but they got books and crayons and all kinds of things. Anyway when I was in the seventh grade Sarah Jane Humphrey then—Adams now— was the teacher, and she didn't want to teach the seventh grade. But my father, he insisted we go to school because he didn't want to send us five miles to Layton, so he sent us to the Dawson Hollow School. She finally compromised by teaching us half sixth grade subjects and half seventh grade subjects. At midyear they gave us a special test— the whole seventh grade— and we all passed. So, they sent us to Layton in the eighth grade and we had to ride a horse to Layton; five miles down and five miles back in all that snow and mud. JD: About how long would that take you? 3 NW: Well, a good hour each way, and it's a long way. The next year— I think the school finished that year— I think the next year they closed it and sent all the children to Layton and they went in a covered wagon. That took— when the roads were bad— two hours to get home and it'd take a good two hours and sometimes longer to drive a loaded covered wagon from Layton to East Layton. JD: Would they use horses to pull it? NW: Oh, yes, horses. For several years we went in a covered wagon, of course I soon went on into high school, but— JD: Excuse me, did you go to Davis High School? NW: I went to Davis High School. When I first went to Davis High School the grounds there weren't anything done to the grounds. The school was just new and I don’t know for sure if it was the second year that Davis had been there or not, but there were piles of red dirt, sticky old clay all around the school. Eventually they put in a sidewalk. It was several years before they got the grounds landscaped. JD: How many grades did they have in there at that time in the high school? NW: They had freshman, and that would be the ninth grade, and the tenth, eleventh and twelfth. JD: They had all four grades? NW: Yes, and I think our class was the first one to graduate. They had had other graduations but we were the first ninth graders that started and went through and graduated. JD: Are there any things that you remember in particular about Davis High that would be interesting? 4 NW: Oh, it was very slow and it seems there were only about three hundred students, something like that. I still have my old yearbooks and I should have checked it. JD: Now they came from all over the county, right from the first, did they? NW: Yes. JD: And how would they transport them, like from Bountiful? NW: Well, the old Bamberger Railroad was running then and they gave us a book of tickets and we could catch the Bamberger at Layton. I still had five miles to go before I could get on the Bamberger, so I usually rode the school bus down; which wasn't quite legal, but they let me ride it. Coming home, that was my problem. Many times I walked from Layton home, sometimes with snow up to my hips. Eventually they tore the old Dawson Hollow School down and the block that had the date when it was built has been lost and no one seems to know the exact date of when it was built. JD: Do you happen to know who built it? NW: No, I don’t. I know my mother went there to school and she was born in 1883 2, I believe. She went there to school and I know people older than her that went there to school. Someone told me at one time it was used for a church, but I'm not sure about that. JD: It wasn't during your time though. NW: No, they used to have religion class there after school and Cass Dawson was the teacher. JD: And how often would they hold that? NW: I imagine once a week, after school. JD: Would all the children that attended the school go to the religion class? NW: No, sometimes we didn't stay; we'd had enough school. 2 This was later corrected to 1882. 5 JD: Who usually did attend the classes? NW: I really don't remember. They usually had a class though. There was enough that stayed so they did have a class, but sometimes we stayed. JD: It wasn't generally for adults though? NW: No, it was just for the children. It was more like our primary that we have now. That was before the days of primary. JD: Could you tell us a little bit about what they did for entertainment and their social life when you were growing up? What were the main things that you remember doing? NW: Well everybody celebrated the Fourth of July; that was a must. If they only went somewhere for a picnic or took the children out and ran races, and many people went up to Thornley's Grove up Weber Canyon for a celebration. I remember one time we went over to Love’s and my Uncle Owen Wall, he'd got prizes and he had all us children get out and run races and the one that won the race got a box of popcorn. After the race was over we all ended up with popcorn and pop. We had to have a new dress for the Fourth of July. Everybody had a new dress for the Fourth of July; that was just a must. But, other than that, people used to visit a lot. Any Sunday you better be prepared for company because they'd bring their family and spend the day. Mother, she usually had chicken and dumplings for Sunday dinner if she was expecting a crowd. People dropped in, they didn't wait to be invited; they just dropped in any time they felt like visiting you. And too, they had quiltings. Everybody made quilts and they invited all their friends and relatives and the lady's whose house it was didn't get to do much quilting because she prepared a big feast. Of course the children all went under the quilt, got their heads thumped—thimble pie they called it. But other than that, I don’t remember my parents doing much for entertainment 6 except to visit and, as I said, quiltings. The men had bees you know, to shingle somebody's house or something and they'd all get together. JD: They still did that then, worked together like for raising a barn and things like that? NW: Yes, and they got together to do their threshing, and that was always a big feast you know. We children enjoyed that. I still get excited in the fall because threshing time was always an exciting time. Then there was weddings, and weddings always had a dance. That's about the only time I remember our parents leaving us home or with our grandparents, is if there was a wedding they felt they had to go to. There was usually a supper and a dance after a wedding. But other than that, I can’t remember. JD: Did they do much dancing then, aside from weddings? I mean did they have local dances that the people attended? NW: No, I don’t think so, just for the sake of a dance. They had wedding dances, and if they did, I didn't know about them if they did. Maybe they did. But my parents liked to dance and they went occasionally. I remember Uncle Will Jacques when he built his new house, before he put the petitions in he had a house warming and a dance, and we all went to that. We kids went too. JD: That's exciting. NW: Yes, it was fun. So they did things like that, you know. JD: When you were, say, a teenager, and you began to date, what did you do in those days? NW: Oh, well there was movies by then. I went to my first movie when I was, oh, six or eight I guess. I remember it was Mary Pickford in "Childhood" or "Child Days" or something. We went for a circus. That's another thing people did for fun, was go to circuses. Our dad nearly always took us to the circus. 7 JD: Would that be in Ogden? NW: Uh huh, it was in Ogden. We'd drive over in the buckboard and had dinner at the cafe, go to the circus and come home. It was an all-day-long trip to drive to Ogden. JD: That would be about once a year, huh? NW: Yes, this time we went to the movie. We went to Ogden to go to the circus and then we found that they were having it way out in North Ogden somewhere and we would have to take the street car out. My father said, “That's going to be so far and time we see the circus and we'll have to wait in line to get a street car back, there'll be such a crowd.” He says, “The children will all be sleepy, I don’t think we better go.” He said, “Let’s just go to a movie instead,” so we went and saw Mary Pickford and that was our first movie. By the time I was a teenager there was movies and there was dances. When we were real young we used to go to Uintah to dances and South Weber and later to Layton and to Ogden to movies and finally there were movies in Layton. JD: Were you still traveling horse and buggy? NW: Well, my first date or two was horse and buggy, but that was when I was only about fourteen. There were cars then, but I remember going for a couple of buggy rides. JD: Not too many people had a car then? NW: My brother Tom bought his first car when he was about, gosh I don’t know whether he'd be seventeen or eighteen. I don’t know just how old he was, but I was just a teenager and so after that we went in a car and then our dates had cars you know. Horse and buggies were out by then. JD: Did Lagoon play much of a part in your life when you were younger? 8 NW: Oh, yes. We loved to go to Lagoon. When we were just kids, why, we'd go pick cherries and just pray that they'd get ripe before the Fourth of July so we could pick cherries and have our money to go to Lagoon. We'd go blow it all; we'd really have a good time. Of course there'd still be cherries to pick when we got back, but that first check, we planned on that for Lagoon. Yes, when we were teenagers, we went to Lagoon all the time. JD: You'd go on the Bamberger I guess? NW: Yes, we'd go to Layton and then go on the Bamberger. JD: Did they have very many rides then? What did you enjoy after you got there? NW: Well, course they had the merry-go-round and the Dipper, they called it. Oh, and they had, what did they call it, they came down in the boats, came down in the chute. I've forgotten what they’re called… JD: We were talking about that the other day; Log Flume is what they call it now. NW: It was Shoot the Chutes. We'd go up in a boat and then come down and shoot out into the water. JD: I remember that. NW: I don’t know why it was fun, but we thought it was. There weren't too many you know, merry-go-round like I said, and the Dipper, and the Shoot the Chutes is about all I can remember. JD: I guess they had the swimming pool then. Did you swim much? NW: Yes, somewhere there is a picture of my brother Tom in there swimming and he looks just like my Frank did when he was a teenager. Tom was, I guess he was about fifteen, maybe seventeen; just a skinny kid. I didn't go swimming then. It was years before I went swimming. Then they opened Como up about that time. I remember I spent my eighteenth 9 birthday up there and a crowd of us girls went up and stayed for over a weekend, or maybe a week. We took a tent up and stayed in a tent; that was before they had cabins. We'd hop up in the morning and go over and jump in the pool before anybody was there and have us a swim. Then in the afternoon we'd go back and then we'd have to pay to go in, you know, but the pool wasn't fenced and there was nobody around so if we went before they got there it was free. We always went swimming again in the afternoon, you know, when they were there. Then there was dances at night; we went to the dances. We had lots of fun at Como. JD: What about Saltair? NW: You know I never did go to Saltair. JD: Never did? NW: I never did and I always wanted to. After I was married I wanted my husband to go to Saltair, and he says “There's nothing there, there's just nothing there.” He'd been and he didn't care for Saltair and we never went. I've been there since that; there's no resort there, but I never went while the resort was there. JD: Do you ever remember your folks talking about Lakeside or Lake Park? It used to be on the lake just west of Farmington, there was a resort. NW: No, I don’t, I never heard. Now Lagoon was there when my dad and Mother were dating. They went to Lagoon; it was there when they were dating. JD: This was a little bit before then. I know they moved one of the buildings from Lake Park up to Lagoon, after they abandoned the site, but I just wondered if you had ever heard of that. NW: No, I never heard about that. 10 JD: Well, they had fun in those days anyway, didn't they? Would you like to tell us a little bit about what East Layton was like? Maybe a little bit about the history of the red brick house over there on the highway that was connected with your family? 3 NW: Oh, my grandparents, they were living in Kaysville. They had a big farm next to where the mortuary is now, just north of the mortuary. And anyway they sold that. Grandma wanted to come up by the mountains, and they bought this farm from one of the Dixons, I don’t remember his name, but it was Rufus Dixon's father. It had a three or four room log house on it; quite a nice house. It was still there after, I remember part of it. I don’t know how many years they lived in that, not too many I don’t believe. Then they built the brick house and my dad's sister's husband, Jesse Ellis, built it. He was a carpenter and a mason, and he built it. They moved into it; that would be sometime in the late 1800's because shortly after they moved into it my dad got married and moved into the log house. But Grandma said there used to be a stage coach over east of their house, a little north and east of the old brick house. She said that at one time there was a robbery, and they followed the robbers and the one was killed right there, just a little north of my house here. They got the robbers, but they never got the money that was stolen and she always thought it was buried somewhere. I'm sure she looked for it as long as she lived. She'd take her shovel sometimes if she saw a suspicious looking mound and dig in it to see if there was buried treasure there, but nobody's ever found it. It’s probably buried even deeper now. JD: That's an interesting story. Do you recall any Japanese people living over towards that home there? Ray mentioned that the other day. 3 1363 No. Highway 89, East Layton, Utah 11 NW: Oh, I might say that when Grandfather Wall bought that Dixon place he owned all the property from Cherry Lane over to East Gentile; that was all his farm. Then my father bought 25 acres from him next to Cherry Lane and he gave my Uncle Owen a little place over next to Gentile. Uncle Owen had married Nettie Bruce, and the Bruces lived where the Waltons live now. 4 They had quite a nice frame house there, quite a big frame house there. We always called them Grandpa and Grandma Bruce. They were a real nice old Scotch couple. I loved to hear them talk in their Scotch brogue. When they got older— old I should say— they sold their little farm there and bought a little house in Kaysville. From then the house changed hands several times. First they sold it to a Layton from Kaysville—a man by the name of Layton who lived in Kaysville. Then he sold it to some people, a lawyer from Salt Lake by the name of Souls. They just lived there and used it for a summer home. They furnished it quite nice and came out there for the summer. And then I think it was him that rented it to the Japanese. JD: Oh, I see. NW: There was a Japanese girl that was just a little younger than me and she used to go down to the little red schoolhouse and— I've almost forgotten— it seems like her name was Utah. Did Ray remember her name? JD: Yes, but I don’t recall what it was. NW: Anyway, she was a nice little girl. But what was so interesting, her little lunch, she had a little tin lunch bucket and in it she took little rice cakes; they looked like little hot cakes. They'd get all mixed up walking to school and she'd stop and restack them every once in a while and we were all so interested in those little cakes. I had a cousin Mabel Wall that 4 1148 No. Highway 89, East Layton, Utah 12 was about the same age and they were real good friends. Sometimes she shared those little cakes with Mabel. I used to feel sorry for her because that's all she had was those little cakes for her lunch, you know, and they looked like little hot cakes. They were probably little rice cakes. But they were nice people. JD: Was she accepted by the children? NW: Oh, yes. JD: No problem there? NW: No problem at all. Well, she was a novelty. We liked her. JD: That's interesting. NW: Yes, one time we walked home with her and the mother came out and gave us all a piece of— it tasted like mincemeat pie. We weren't sure if we ought to eat it; I wasn't. I carried it home with me and mother tasted it and said, “Why that was really good pie!” She said “Eat it.” I wasn't sure if I wanted to eat it, but I did. They were nice people and real nice neighbors. JD: Now can you tell us a little bit more about who has lived in this house up to the present time so we could have just a little bit of history of it? NW: Well, after they lived there Mr. Walton bought it— Orson Walton, that's Larene's dad. JD: Now this is the red brick house? NW: No. JD: We're still talking about the frame house. NW: We're talking about the Bruce home, the frame house. That's where the Walton home is now. My father died when I was thirteen, and just a few months before he died, his father died. So Grandma would walk up and stay nights with us as she was afraid to stay alone. 13 Then the next year my dad's brother from Idaho moved into the house and he ran the farm that year, but he was a carpenter, he wasn't a farmer. So my dad's brother Owen had a homestead in Idaho, he sold his homestead and moved to Layton and he bought ran the farm for grandma. Then he bought it, he finally bought the farm, and he owned it until he moved and he sold it to Willis Walton's father. Willis Walton owns it now. JD: Then his father ran the orchard for a while before Willis took over, right? NW: Well, just a minute now—he didn’t sell it to Willis's father come to think about it. He sold it to Pratt Whitesides and Sterling Sill. They're the ones that put in a lot of the trees. They tore out a lot of the old orchards, even the shade trees and the lilac bushes and the big new raspberry patch. They just bulldozed everything out, practically wrecked it; had it done you know. They were going to make a fruit farm out of it and they put it all into young orchards and they sold it eventually to Mr. Walton. JD: Oh, I see. NW: I was a bit confused on that. Now the old house, Willis has leased it and some woman is going to make a gift shop out of it, antique shop. JD: Well, it's nice the home is still standing isn't it? NW: I'm glad that they didn't tear it down. I often said if I could pick it up and set it up on my place I'd sure like to, I didn't think that'd pay me. JD: Let's talk for a minute about the floods during the 20's and 30's. You lived up in here then, did you ever witness any of these floods? Can you tell us about it? NW: Yes, you know I can’t quite remember the dates. I've been trying to think just when they happened. The first one happened while I was a teenager and while I was still living at Mother’s. The house where my brother Irvin lives is the house my father built before he 14 died, and that's where I was living when I was a teenager. Me and the girls had gone to Como, as I'd told you we had gone to Como, to spend the Fourth of July, and while we was up there this terrible, cold storm came and it actually snowed a little and rained, and it was terrible cold. We stayed dry, but some of the girls they had to move, a lot a people had to sleep in the dance hall. It was such a terrible storm. But anyway that storm down here was even worse. It had a cloudburst on the mountain here and when Uncle Owen came to get us instead of coming down the mountain road, we had to go down where the Hill Field Road is now and nearly to Layton and back up around because this road was all buried in mud. Then the next time, I think they just built a road right over that flood, that time. That used to be north of here; it was the prettiest, like a little valley that ran down through there and the stream of water and there was birches and it was so pretty down through there and it just buried it all in mud. JD: Now where would this be now? NW: Well, do you know there's a stream which runs across the road in the spring up there, just right near Fernwood Drive? They call it Dry Creek because the only time the water runs is in the spring; in the summer it dries up. That stream's still there but it's moved a little bit, it doesn't run just where it used to because it made it a new channel. JD: And that's where this first flood came? NW: That's where the first one came down through there. When the next one— I think I was down to mother’s that time— and I think we were living here, and she called us to the door to see and she said, “Just look!” And we looked up this canyon, this Kays Creek Canyon, and the mud and the trees were rolling out of that canyon. Tall pine trees, tall as telephone poles or maybe taller, were coming out end over end and huge rocks as big as this room 15 were rolling out of that canyon. Mother said “That frightens me!” Anyway, when we came up, this road was buried and it was a terrible flood. I had an aunt that was living up there in the little house; the mud parted and went around the house. But it buried her cellar, and she had it all full of choice fruit, a lot of storage in there. It’s still buried up there. JD: Is that right? NW: Yes, and I've thought maybe some time when someone's building up there they'll get to digging into that with a bulldozer and find that old cellar. JD: That would be interesting. NW: Yes, she had a lot of things down there she'd stored. She kept remembering more things that was in that cellar. They never lived in the house again, they moved out. JD: It ruined it then? NW: They moved the house away. They moved it. JD: Oh, I see. NW: They moved to Ogden, my aunt did. JD: The floods never touched your property then? NW: No, no, they didn't except this big pasture then belonged to—my mother owned a third of it, it came down through that, but it didn't come on our place here. I worry about it though if there's another one. Now that it's filled up that hollow maybe this time this will be the low place; it will come this way. JD: You feel like we could have some again then? NW: I said if I ever see trees coming end over end down that canyon I'm going to leave. JD: I guess that made a lot of noise. 16 NW: But that same flood you know came down Farmington Canyon and there were some boy scouts were drowned and buried in the mud, you know. JD: I've heard of that. Do you know anything about it? NW: They were up there camping, the boy scouts were, some boys from Farmington. That flash flood came down and brought all that mud and some of the boys escaped— I can’t remember now— there was two or three I think that the flood brought down with them. They dug them out down on the Farmington road somewhere, and they said that one boy, his father was there helping and they found this boy's body. They took it over on the lawn and turned the hose on it to wash the mud off, and he said, “That's my boy.” It was terrible. JD: That would be sad. NW: They're wicked, these floods. JD: They really are. You just remember the two floods then in this area? NW: Well, big ones like that did so much damage. JD: Well, I hope we never have them again. NW: I do too. JD: Do you have any other stories you would like to tell us about the early history of East Layton? NW: Oh, I don’t know, I can’t think of anything. JD: Do you recall anything about where you went to church? NW: Oh, we went to church down in the, where Carl Craig's house is now, 5 that was the church then you know, and the lightning struck it. That was long after I was married though. JD: Do you recall where you went to church as a child? 5 367 East 1000 North, Layton, Utah 17 NW: That was where we went to church. JD: Oh, it was still there. NW: That was it. That was the church when I was a child. JD: There was never one any closer than that? NW: No, not until we built this one down here. No, that was the church and that's where my father's funeral was and Grandpa's and Grandma's. Then after the lightning struck that we met in the schoolhouse I think for a while. JD: Now which schoolhouse would that be? NW: That would be the old Layton Elementary School. Then we built the white church. My husband worked all one winter on that white church for half wages; donated half his time and got half wages, and the same on the fourth ward church. He worked all one winter on that, just for part of his wages. JD: Now he was more of a mason, or was he a carpenter too? NW: He did both. JD: I know there's a lot of rock work around that he's done isn't there? NW: Yes, he's done a lot of rock work. Oh, I remember as a child we used to have lots of Indians come. They came in their covered wagons and stopped and come in begging. They'd want some of everything. If mother had just turned out a big batch of bread, they wanted the whole thing, but she'd say, “No, you can only have one, I have to feed my family.” Once, my father had butchered a pig, they wanted that. Well, Mother, she gave them a piece of bacon, a nice piece of bacon, but they wanted a ham. She told them she couldn't let them have that. We had to watch them. As far as I know they never stole anything, but we always expected they would, you know, because they went around the 18 house looking into everything; they'd nose into everything. We was frightened really when they came, we kids were. But we always gave them something. JD: Did they live around here? NW: No, just traveled through. They had to get permission to go off the reservations then, and they would just be traveling from one place to another, I never knew. They would travel through, maybe they went from one reservation to another, I don't know. JD: But they would just kind of beg along the way? NW: Yes, they'd beg along the way. They wore long braids and dressed like Indians you know, they was kind of spooky. Then we had lots of gypsies too. JD: Did you really? NW: Yes, we used to have lots of gypsies. JD: And where would they come from? NW: Where do they come from? JD: Where do they go? NW: They just wander from place to place, don't they? We used to have gypsies come through and we'd have to watch them too, because they would really steal you know. And peddlers—we'd have peddlers. They'd come with suitcases full of material and different things you know; we were always having peddlers. They'd come and open up their big cases and they'd have bolts of material, pots and pans, all kinds of things they used to sell. JD: I'll bet that would be exciting. NW: Oh, it was interesting. I can’t remember buying much from them, but my dad would usually buy something you know, just to help them out. One time two guys— that was 19 while we still lived in the log house— came with an organ, a brand new organ, and wanted to sell it. They talked and they stayed on and on and finally he asked Tom and I— we had picked beans and had a check— he says, “Do you want to turn your check on it?” And we said “Yes, we wanted it.” So we did, we turned our bean check on it and he finished paying for it. JD: Oh, really? NW: And so he had arranged for me to take lessons on it but he died before I ever got the lessons, so I never did get them. JD: You never learned how to play it then? NW: No, not any more than pick out little tunes when I was teaching. I used to pick out the tunes you know, it would help me in that way, but I never learned to play it. JD: Did anyone else in the family learn to play it? NW: Not really. Dorothy, when Tom married Dorothy, she used to play it; she was good. It was left in the house. JD: And who has the organ now? NW: It was put out, broke I guess. JD: I've heard a lot of sad stories about organs like that. I guess we all wished we had them now. NW: Anyway, they stayed overnight. We only had two long rooms, but they stayed till it was late and they had a horse and buggy and had to go back to Ogden, I guess. So my dad asked them if they'd like to stay, they'd had supper with us. So Mother brought out a feather bed and sheets and made them a bed on the floor. They slept there, had breakfast and went on their way the next day. People used to be that way, but you couldn't turn 20 anybody out in the night. Even as awkward as it was, you know to make a bed for them, they did. JD: That's interesting isn't it? Did you have many visitors from out of town in those days? You know, besides the local people? Or was it too far? NW: Just relatives really. Grandma Wall's house, her red brick house, the people from up Morgan way, on their way to Salt Lake, used to stop and stay with her. They called it the half-way house. She'd often have people stop in, people they knew, usually you know, but they had friends up Morgan way and they stayed on their way to Salt Lake. Then grandma, she had relatives that came. She had a sister that used to come and Grandma Wall's name was Bear before she was married. The Bear's from up in Lewiston, up that way, used to stop and stay with her sometimes. She had a cousin Frank Bear who used to come pretty regular; he was a Civil War veteran, he never married. He'd come and stay for weeks or months sometimes. They always made him welcome, you know. They had plenty of room and she was always glad to see him because he was her cousin you know. JD: One thing I would like to know, what effect did the Depression have on you and your family? Did you feel that it was a real hardship or did it affect you very much? NW: Well, I wouldn't like another one. JD: Nobody would. NW: Yes, and when I've heard of other people's problems I feel we were lucky. We built our little house, we had two frame rooms here, and built it the year after we were married, and so we had that all paid for. We had a cow, and my husband, he could do most any kind of work. He could do farm work, or he could do mason work, or he could do carpenter work. He always seemed to be able to find some kind of a job. Of course during the Depression 21 there weren't any jobs, but if there was one, he found it. But, yes, we got pretty low sometimes and we had the three children, we had Vird, Ned and Carl. I remember one time, we'd had breakfast and had lunch, but I was out of groceries and I didn't know where I was going to get any more. I can’t remember being terribly worried because Jack always did something. I thought, I'll think of something. I didn't know what we were going to have for supper. And that afternoon here came my brother Irvin. He had a Model T Ford. He pulled up and he said "Bring your dishpan!" and he said "Oh, bring all your pans and your flour sacks." And so I gathered them up and went out. He had bought a bill of groceries and he had bought 50 lbs. of flour and he divided it with us, and their sack of oatmeal and everything he had, he just halved it with us. And like I said, we always had milk, and we had chickens and if worse came to worse, we always could kill a chicken. We could make butter. We had milk and butter and cream, and Jack always stored. When he had money, why, he always bought up a good supply of food. But like I said, we had run out that time and Irvin knew we all had about the same, and he had got a day's work or something and anyway he brought his bill of groceries up and divided it with us. And before that was gone they got a job. So that's the lowest we ever got. I thought we had it really hard, we didn't have any new clothes and I had an old trunk that I'd stored things in and Mother used to say "I don’t know what you'd do without that old trunk,” because I kept pulling things out and remodeling them you know. There was two years that I had a house dress that—my mother-in-law sent me a piece of material for my birthday, in two years I bought two pairs of garments and two pairs of cotton socks and that housedress and that's all the clothes I had in two years. Jack hadn't had any more. He was real easy on his clothes, of course I patched everything and he can wear his shoes for years and yet doing heavy work like he 22 did you know. And of course our dress clothes, we didn't go anywhere much, so we usually had something we could dress up in you know, but our everyday clothes got pretty low. JD: Was it harder to keep the children dressed? NW: Well, we made over everything. Yes it was hard to keep them. If they had one outfit for school, that patched, why, they was lucky and wash it out at night and put it on them again. We kept them comfortable, you know. But this friend of mine that I have now told me that during the Depression that she and her husband were in California, and he'd gone down there to work and got out of work and she told me how they had to live. When she had her baby she went to the county hospital to have her second baby and when she came out of the hospital she took that new baby and lived on the beach in a tent. He had a little job with a photographer that went out and took pictures and he wasn't making very much. He gave her husband a quarter a day. I said "What in the world could you do with twenty-five cents?” She said "I could buy a soup bone and a carrot and a potato and an onion and I could make us a stew that would last a day or two." She nursed her baby until it nearly starved and then one of her friends came and she says "You've got to take that baby to the doctor." She did, and the baby was starving. She said she thought as long as it wasn't making a fuss, you know, that it was doing ok. But anyway, then he put the baby on can milk and she had to buy milk for the baby, but she still did it. Anyway, this fellow that her husband was getting a quarter a day from, he finally even couldn't give him that anymore. So he hauled them outside of town and they put everything they owned in a clothes basket she said, and he was carrying one baby and her the other one, and they was walking and it started to rain. So she said some man came out and he says "You look 23 like you need some help." So he took them in. He had a bunk house, and he says "If you want to clean up one of those bunks you can live in it." He went to the grocery store and got them a bill of groceries. They stayed there and she said years afterwards her husband went back and paid for them groceries. She finally wrote to her brother and he sent her the money and they came home. Her folks lived down in Tooele somewhere, down where the Depot is now. I think they had a farm there. Anyway, it was her pride, she could have written home sooner you know, but I guessed they nearly starved to death. But I said “Well I guess we were lucky because I always had a home,” and I said, “We had a cow, and we had a garden, and Jack could always find a little work.” We never went hungry, but we did without a lot of things. JD: Everybody else was the same, too, so it wasn't— NW: Yes, I worried when Carl was born and I thought I needed a dress to go have him blessed. Things were cheap if you had any money; so I bought a dress for a quarter. They'd stack out big tables of things that you'd want so bad to have but nobody had any money. But anyway I bought this dress. It was kind of a summery dress you know, Carl was born in the spring. So I put my new dress on and went to church to have him blessed and I looked around, everybody was shabby. Their shoes was shabby. They was wearing older dresses than mine was. I thought I need not have worried about going to church in my old dress because everybody was just as shabby. I hadn't been going—I'd been pregnant you know. You didn't used to go out and parade around when you was pregnant. Sometimes I think the girls now ought to be a little more modest about it. JD: I think they could. NW: I'm saying too much on tape. 24 JD: When Franklin Roosevelt came in and the new deal came into effect, do you think you felt any change during that period of government or did it help you out any? NW: Oh, heavens yes, there were no jobs at all. That's the time I told you we were down to no groceries and Irvin divided with us about then, and so I think they got a job on WPA. I think it was about something like maybe $23 or $27 a month. They only worked about two weeks for that. They divided up the work so everybody would get a little bit you know. But that'd buy, things were so cheap then, that'd buy a month's groceries you know. Then Jack soon was made a foreman and he got $43 a month. JD: Where was he working? Where was this project? NW: Well they built a road up Farmington Canyon, and one time they went out and leveled up the Syracuse Cemetery. It was all up and down and the graves hit or miss and they went out and leveled it off and set the headstones straight you know. Then he built a big wall out there, I guess it still stands. Where it needed a retaining wall, Jack built a big wall there. And oh there was a lot of jobs they did you know, road work that needed doing. JD: You feel like this was kind of the beginning of the road back then? NW: It was the beginning, yes. As people got a little money they could spend more and that helped everybody you know. When they had some money to spend, why, a lot of merchants went broke you know, during the Depression, just a lot of them, especially them that couldn't resist giving credit. JD: It would be hard not to wouldn't it? NW: Yes, but it got to where you couldn't get any credit no matter how good your credit was. You couldn't buy anything on time. Nothing. JD: It's different from now. 25 NW: Yes, I still don’t. JD: I don’t like to either. NW: I don’t, I might say never anymore, buy anything on time. JD: I think one thing about the Depression, it raised a thriftier generation didn't it? NW: I'm sure it did. It's sure hard to throw away things. I was thinking last night, my old slippers I was wearing had a hole in them and I said to Ned I must have better ones. I've got thousands of slippers, but I have a few that's comfortable. Then I've got—the kids are always giving me, grandkids, slippers you know. I've got lots of them. JD: I don’t think kids appreciate what they have nowadays like those that were raised in those days where you had to work for everything you had. NW: No, and it's really going to be hard on them if we get that bad off again. They won’t be able to manage. This lady was telling me yesterday that her daughter wrote home after she was married and she said "I would like to make a cake but I don’t have a Mixmaster." And she said “I just thought what have we done to these children? They can’t make a cake without a Mixmaster." JD: Or else they're out of a cake mix. Well, do you recall any other incidents about the Depression or soon thereafter that might be interesting? NW: Oh, I don’t think so. JD: Well, why don’t we just wind this up then? And I'd like to tell you I've appreciated visiting with you and appreciate your help. 26 ORAL HISTORY REPORT The subject matter of this series of interviews was planned mainly around the floods which devastated Davis County during the 1920's and 30's. This was of particular interest due to the recent disaster in Idaho at the Teton Dam and also in Colorado. There was a curiosity as to exactly what happened locally under such circumstances, because of the limitations of this subject other items of interest were also included, particularly reminiscences of the depression years. The problems of this period are so remote to our style of living today that it would be well for current generations to be able to hear these people describe just what it was like during hard times. This was also a period when social life was moving from strictly home and church centered activities to more commercial types of entertainment. This proved to be a unique experience, especially from the vantage of today's commercial exploitation. As the project progressed I became aware of a number of people in Layton who had been connected with the sugar industry and planned to include this information in the interviews also. I soon discovered that the number of people who not only lived during the flood period but who had actually seen this phenomenon was rather limited. Several contacts were willing to discuss this period, but when it came to putting it on tape they flatly refused to cooperate. It was rather frustrating also when people were helpful only to reveal during the interview that they hadn't actually been present at the time of the flood but were relating what others had told them of the experience. However, some of the problems they told of related to the aftermath were very interesting and there was still some good information obtained. 27 It was interesting to note that several of the people interviewed seemed to pass the depression era without undue suffering even though, as they related, they would not like to live through it again. This seemed due to the fact that they owned their own property, were able to raise a garden, and had cows and chickens. This might hold a message for people of the present day who are concerned about disasters of one kind or another. Although the information gathered about this period was not particularly unique, it was enlightening. Unfortunately the interviews with people connected with the local sugar plant did not work out as planned, there was one man who had been active in this business from its very inception and had worked as a boy in Canada learning the business. His father established the sugar plant in Layton and he had been active in the plant most of his life. However, he would not cooperate in the taping of the interview, probably due to a slight speech impediment. Several other contacts were either hospitalized at the time or were out of town. This is unfortunate as the sugar industry would make a particularly interesting chapter in local history. Although most of the interviews followed the general trends of the time there were numerous scraps of information that were fascinating which help to relate the broader view of history to the average people and give it a personal touch. The fact that East Layton was a stopover for travelers, especially those going from Morgan to Salt Lake, was interesting; and the comparative isolation of the community until the more recent times of the automobile was difficult to realize. A background history of one of the old landmark homes of the area proved enlightening. Also there are still people who recall Indians 28 coming through the area when they were children. An anecdote connected with the coming of the railroad through Weber Canyon was also interesting. Discussion of early entertainment revealed other facts. For example, the first ice cream cone of the area was called a say-so and cost ten cents. This was more than most children could afford very often having only 25 cents for the whole day's outing. The first merry-go-round at Lagoon was pulled by horsepower—the four footed variety. The popular bands of the era we-e a main part of entertainment at Lagoon and other resorts. One of the most enlightening discoveries for me was the information about the early phases of Lagoon and its predecessor, Lake Park, and how many buildings of the earlier park were moved up to Farmington to establish the present resort. Mrs. Hess had many interesting facts about early Lagoon as they actually lived for many years right next to the midway. She told of some of the early fires as well as the floods. Also her reminiscences of Adelia Rogers were amusing. As the interviews progressed with the people in the East Layton area, a pattern began to emerge—that of attendance at the Dawson Hollow School. Several had attended the school as youth and Mrs. Knowlton had been one of the last teachers there. This school had been built upon the property of my husband’s great grandfather and the foundations are still visible today. This created a very deep interest in the history of this school and is a project which I wish to pursue in depth in the future. In fact it would be a worthwhile project to compile the history of ail the early schools of Layton. Although material might be somewhat limited, a short history of the flood era would be a noteworthy addition to county history. Host of the available material at the present time consists of government documents which are some-times very uninteresting and of 29 course are more concerned with facts than experiences. Such a more personal approach would have to be made within the next few years while there are still people around who lived through the experience. I feel very strongly that a comprehensive history of Lagoon and some or the earlier resorts would be of interest to many Utahns. A project such as this could easily expand to include Saltair, Liberty Park and other resorts in the area. I am not really aware of what has been done on this subject, but a consolidation of the material plus new additions and personal remembrances would make a fascinating addition to Utah history. As one will soon learn upon attempting an oral history project, there are many problems connected with it which must be overcome. One of the first hurdles is not in fretting people to talk to you, but in convincing them to talk in the presence of a tape recorder. Reactions here will be from hesitant cooperation to outright refusal to even discuss the project. Sometimes a pleasant discussion talking about old times in a relaxing atmosphere can convince people that the proposal is worthwhile. It is veil to point out that the interviews will be entirely informal and that they will merely be asked to reply to simple questions in their own words about the selected subject. It is well to discuss with them what questions will be asked so that they may consider them in the interim. Most people are usually cooperative at this point; however, if they are still extremely reluctant, it is best not to go ahead with the interview. One woman I interviewed was hesitant through the whole process and when the interview was completed and transcribed she wanted to dispose of everything and forget it. This can be a very difficult experience for both parties. It is much better if each participant has a positive feeling toward the project. This attitude also makes for a better end product. 30 As was mentioned earlier, some interviews were in progress before it was learned that the person had not actually witnessed the event. This problem could be avoided with a more thorough questioning during the pre-interview period to try and discover their actual depth of knowledge of the subject. This is also why it is well to have several additional subjects to fall back upon so the interview won’t be a complete waste of time. Another problem was encountered when the person being interviewed would ask you to turn off the tape recorder and would then proceed to tell you about a particular incident and ask if that was what you wanted. When they told the story the second time around it had lost its spontaneity and became a more mechanical action, --his was disappointing several times and I did not know how to handle the situation. Perhaps mentioning this before the interview might help. One suggestion which I very strongly recommend is that the interviewer stop and transcribe the first tape or two before proceeding with the remainder of the interviews. Hearing your own voice and the speech problems you might have certainly gives you more empathy with those being interviewed and also gives you a chance to correct your own mistakes. I discovered this fact a little late and felt that my technique was certainly not very scholarly. I didn't realize how much talking I was doing myself with many unnecessary comments. I took my own advice to relate and enjoy the conversation, whereas I should have let the interviewee feel this way and I should have been a little more reserved. However, I would like to point out that this relaxed attitude certainly helped to bring out some beautiful comments, particularly with Mrs. Hess whom I did not know personally. This would not have happened in a more formal interview. Perhaps sometimes the information revealed and feelings evoked are just as important as a 31 scholarly presentation. Even though this problem was stressed in the class periods before the interviews began, I think that each person has to experience it for himself to discover his own weaknesses. This is why you should at least listen to the tapes before further interviews. There were several aspects of this project which were difficult for me to accomplish. One was setting up an interview with those people who were strangers to me. However, once the initial contact was made it became much easier as most people who accepted the project were very friendly. Setting a definite time schedule also proved to be somewhat of a problem and if this was adhered to closely the project would certainly be completed more quickly and smoothly. However, the greatest obstacle was the transcribing of the tapes. The time required for this portion of the project was overwhelming. There is no solution to this except to hire the work done. So it is a choice of spending either the time or money in order to accomplish this most distasteful job. If there was one idea that struck me more than any other during these interviews it was the fact that there are so many older people who have wonder-ful stories to tell. They are eager to share their experiences with others. It is a shame that more of this cannot be accomplished. Of course it is a greatly time-consuming task to both gather and listen to oral history, but in my opinion it is one that is very worthwhile. It captures an essence that is completely missed in other forms of history. It is something beyond what the printed page can offer. Although oral history can never replace that which is written, it certainly deserves a place in our records of the past. 32 READING LIST FOR ORAL HISTORY WORKSHOP Janice Dawson Pages History of Farmington, Utah to 1890 146 Glen Milton Leonard The Wall around Farmington 2 John W. Steed Cloudbursts Floods in Utah 1850-1938 80 Ralf R. Woolley Floods and Accelerated Erosion in Northern Utah 21 Reed Bailey Torrential Floods- Northern Utah 1930 51 Special Flood Commission The Floods of 1923 in Northern Utah 20 J. H. Paul and F. S. Baker Beet Sugar in the West 175 Leonard J. Arrington East of Antelope Island 200 Daughters of Utah Pioneers Utah- A Guide to the State 116 Writers Program WPA 33 The Great Salt Lake 370 Dale L. Morgan Flood Plain Information- Farmington Bay Tributaries 35 Army Corps of Engineers Flood Plain Information- Barton, Mill and Stone Creeks Army Corps of Engineers 34 26