Oral History Program Amanda Widdison Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Amanda Widdison Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Widdison, Amanda, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Amanda Widdison. Ms. Widdison describes her experiences as a widow with nine children during the Depression; raising food, holidays, and LDS ward and community entertainment. The interviewer is Mack Taft. AW: We were in bad circumstances. We, of course, could pay for part of our house, but we had to have a home owner loan for the rest of it. Thank goodness for that. That was a lifesaver. Of course it took us years to make it up, but we had a big family... The mail carriers in those days didn’t have the big wages that they do now. MT: Did your husband carry the mail then? AW: Yes. MT: Did you have a big family then? How many children did you have? AW: Nine. Marlene was the only one that was born here in this house. MT: What year were you married? AW: 1911. MT: Then you had some – how old would your older children have been? Which is the oldest? AW: Bessie, then Mildred, then Melvin. MT: What was the most difficult thing to come by, food or clothing? AW: Well, I really don’t know which was the hardest. Of course we could raise some of our food, but our clothing, we had to buy all of it, so I guess maybe the clothing would have been the biggest problem. But they didn’t have a lot of clothes like the kids do these days. They had not any more clothes than – they 2 weren’t naked, but they didn’t follow styles. MT: What year did Uncle Willard die? AW: 1933. MT: Right in the depth of the Depression. Now, how old was Melvin then? AW: Eighteen. MT: Well, you had some experiences then, didn’t you? Did you have a farm or anything of that nature? AW: No, we didn’t have any farm. By the time we came here, this was all the property we had. We raised a garden, and things like that. We had chickens. We went into the chicken business a little but not a lot. But we had a couple of cows, so we had our own milk and eggs, and the chickens furnished a lot of the meat, too. And we raised a pig or two, when we could. But when the boys had to go into the service, then we had to do away with the chickens. But it was going downhill before they left... But it got to where the prices of eggs and the price of chickens would go down, and the price of meat went really high. And of course we had to buy almost all of our meat. So we just had to get rid of the chickens, but we did keep them until the boys went in the service. MT: What did the boys do during the Depression for work and so forth? AW: They weren’t like the boys of today. They’d go do anything that anybody had to have done. They would thin beets; they would hoe beets; they would pick tomatoes; they would go haul hay; and they would go threshing and anything – work in the pea-viner. MT: About how much did they earn then? 3 AW: Don’t ask me that. I really don’t know. I just couldn’t begin to tell you. MT: Did Melvin take over your husband’s mail route right after he died? AW: I’ll tell you, we had some mighty good people. Bishop Beus and Bishop Hooper did some, and John Meldrim done some, too. You know, it took some work. They didn’t pull any crooked stuff, but they had to work with the mail people to get them to understand. And he [Melvin] had to do his part. He had to pass the examination, and there was quite a bit of competition at that time for mail carriers. But he did real well with his examinations and so they got through for him. I can’t help but think that these influential men going to talk to some of the mail people [helped] because, you know, a young boy like that – they don’t take much notice of what he’s got to say. It had to be somebody that’s a little older and has had more experience, and knows some of the people, and knows the circumstances. It’s quite a deal. MT: Did Bessie work during that time away from home? AW: Well, she was working down to Bishop Hooper’s at the time. But she didn’t have any job. She worked for one and then another. But she didn’t have any steady job. I believe during that time she was down at Bishop Hooper’s while his wife was sick and wasn’t able to get up and do her work. Then I think after she died, I think Bessie worked here for a little while after that, and then she got a job over in town houseworking for a little while. But she didn’t have any job that you could call a job. But of course those things all helped out. MT: Can you think of any real interesting or particularly difficult or enjoyable time during those years? 4 AW: That’s a pretty difficult one. I don’t even like to think about those times. I’ll tell you, we had such a little bit to do with that. We didn’t have any way of going anywhere or doing anything, for anything spectacular that you might recall. I really can’t think of anything over those years that wasn’t just hard work and worry. MT: What did you do for entertainment during those years? AW: Well, outside of the entertainment we have down here in the ward, the entertainment was very little. Maybe once in a great while, once or twice a year if there was a right good show on, we might break down and go to a show. But our entertainment was very scarce. After Willard saved to get a car, a Model-T, we had a relative in Cache Valley, in Paradise, we used to go see once a year. That was quite a celebration to get to go up that far. She was such a nice lady, and they had so much fun up there that they always remembered that. Sometimes maybe a little short ride somewhere, on Sunday afternoon or some other day of the week, we might go for a little ride in the evening. But as far as entertainment goes, it was very scarce. MT: What you had then was largely here at the ward and in the community? AW: Oh, we’d go over to the 24th of July parade, and that was about the biggest celebration. Of course after the parade was over, we’d come home. There wasn’t anything else to do because we didn’t have enough money to take all our kids to the rodeo or anything of that kind. Of course in that day, a lot of people didn’t have very much entertainment outside of their home or wards. We used to have better entertainment in the wards than we do now. The celebrations were more 5 special. Of course when we’d have a celebration here, all the towns around used to come, from West Weber, Taylor, Warren, Plain City, and there was really a big day. They had big county baseball games, so the kids got quite a lot of kicks out of it. MT: What would have been a typical meal that you would have served to your big family during those years? AW: I’ll tell you, when it came to this time of year, near July until Christmas, we’d have fried chicken dinner nearly every Sunday because we had our own chickens. They were real good fryers at that time of the season, so we ate all we wanted. Then I used to have to make cake and pie during that time for all that big family.