Oral History Program Edith Fern Heath Interviewed by Michelle Stephens 12 February 1998 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Edith Fern Heath Interviewed by Michelle Stephens 12 February 1998 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. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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 Kelley Evans, 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 All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Heath, Edith Fern, an oral history by Michelle Stephens, 12 February 1998, 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 Edith Fern Heath. The interview was conducted on February 12, 1998, by Michelle Stephens. Heath discusses her life, her move to Utah, and some experiences she’s had. MS: I need you to state your first and last name. EH: Edith Heath. MS: Edith Heath? Why do people call you Fern? EH: Well that's my middle name. Are we recording? MS: Yeah. When were you born? Your birthday? EH: I was born in Oklahoma on December 31, 1924. MS: How did you get to Utah? EH: Well, my first husband passed away and some years later I knew a man who lived here in Utah and I came here and we got married. He was formerly from Oklahoma. MS: When did you come to Utah? EH: I came in 1978. Got married in February the eighteenth 1978. MS: How old were you when you married the first time? EH: Oh well, about twenty-four, I guess. MS: How long were you married? EH: About fifteen, sixteen years. I first married in 1948 and had four children. And then my husband passed in 1966. And then I finished raising my children and then got married again in 1978. MS: Did you go to school in Oklahoma? EH: Yes, finished high school. 1 MS: Did you do any college? EH: I did not. MS: When you were in high school did they have any women's sports? EH: Yes, but I didn't play any. We had basketball, not too many others because I went to a rural school. A school bus took me to high-school. MS: How did you meet your first husband? EH: Oh, met my first husband across the back fence through his sister. His sister and I worked back to back; then in Oklahoma we had servant’s quarters. We did house work and lived in quarters. He was visiting her and saw me and he wanted to meet me, so his sister introduced me. MS: So that job, what kind of job was that? EH: It was just housekeeping, general housekeeping. MS: For one family? EH: Yes one family. MS: Did they employ a whole bunch of women? EH: No, just kept someone to work in the house and the yard. MS: How many kids did they have? EH: They had three, but one daughter was married when I went there. She was married to a serviceman and they had two children. They were there part of the time and part of the time they were on the road with him. Then she had a boy and a girl who was still in high school, I guess. They kind of grew up with me in the family there. MS: Was it on a farm? EH: No it was in town in Oklahoma City. 2 MS: Did you have any other jobs? EH: No, not really, and then later I got married. I didn't work out much longer because I had children. MS: So you stayed home with them? EH: Stayed at home and then lived in Oklahoma City. Later bought acreage east of Oklahoma City, we had a little acreage with chickens, a lot of garden stuff. We raised everything and canned a lot and froze a lot of stuff. And then later when my husband passed, well I started keeping children. MS: What did your husband do? EH: He was a custodian for the Oklahoma City schools. MS: So he drove to work? EH: Yes. MS: And you said you had four children. EH: Yes, four. MS: How many boys and girls? EH: Three boys and one girl. And then when I came to Utah, my daughter came. She had a young child, almost three, and she came out here two months after I came. She was here about a month and she got killed in a car accident. And then she had a little girl so I raised her and that was her you saw in there with the baby. Now she has a little girl, almost two, two and four months. So I raised her from three years old. (Skipping portion of tape) MS: Did you ever do volunteer work when you were in Oklahoma? EH: Oh yes, I volunteered in Oklahoma with the well-baby clinic. 3 MS: What's that? EH: It’s a clinic that you went to, young mothers, went to with their children to get their shots and check-ups for their health. So I used to do the book work at that clinic, I guess that was about once a month. They had certain days that year brought your children to the clinic. I would pull file cards and check for ( ) who would see him that day. I was on community action in Oklahoma also. MS: Did you ever have a soul mate or a best-friend? EH: Didn't have really such close friends. My sister and I were always best friends. I didn't have really personal close friends, MS: How did you meet your second husband? EH: Well I knew him in Oklahoma when we grew up in sort of the same neighborhood. He married and moved to Utah at a fairly early age He raised a family in Utah and then he got divorced. So since we knew each other and my husband had passed well he got in touch with me. So I decided to make a move. The children were grown. MS: How many brothers and sisters did you have? EH: I have three brothers and two, three sisters. Two sisters deceased and the others are still living. MS: Did they all grow up in Oklahoma? EH: Yes. MS: What did your parents do? EH: They were farmers and my mother died when I was young. She died when I was eight. Then my father had five children to raise, but we lived on a farm so it was fairly easy, with me being the momma. 4 MS: Do you have any interesting stories? EH: No, not really. I guess well once the other day I was just thinking the most terrifying situation that I was ever in I was keeping some kids and I think it was two of them still there late in the evening and my son was at home and he was getting ready to go to work. And I said before you go I'm going to the chicken house to gather eggs. And I went into the chicken house and the wind blew the outside latch across the door and latched me in. And I didn't have any kind of stick or anything to slide back through the door and get it unlatched. And in the meantime my son went out the door and I was screaming and hollering and he thought I was saying goodbye. And he said "bye." and went off to work. And it was cold, real cold. And I had an open, then we had open fire stove. And I was terrified that thinking that the kids could maybe stick some paper in there and catch things on fire. And it was almost time for little Carlos' daddy to pick him up, so I decided well, I guess just slow down on screaming and wait until I hear him come up for his little girl and then start back screaming again. So he would hear me and I did. But these kids were under school age. And so then I screamed when I heard him and he came and let me out. That was pretty terrifying because I thought what if they set the house on fire. MS: What kind of work did your husband do? EH: One did custodial work for the school and the other one was a welding, instructor at Clearfield job corps. And he is deceased now. He passed in 94. MS: Do you like northern Utah? EH: Yes, I like it. MS: Has it changed a bunch since yon have been here? EH: Quite a bit I guess. But, I still like it. 5 (Skipping portion of tape) MS: Well I guess that is it unless you have any more stories to tell. In Oklahoma, in the servants quarters, were they real common? EH: Oh yes, all the well to do had them. Mostly their homes were built with servants quarters on to the garage, which might have been off from the house a few had the quarters on to their home. Well, if the garage was attached to the house then the servant’s quarters were usually above the garage or something. So that was a common practice in Oklahoma, to have servant’s quarters in the city. MS: Was there a lot of functions like dances? EH: Yeah, but I never was a dancer. I enjoy going to the big bands ( ). We had the big band era. They had one night stands there on occasion. I didn't do any other activities. MS: Well I think that's it. Thanks a bunch. EH: O.K. 6