Oral History Program Agnes Cleverly Interviewed by Darrin N. Haslem 31 May 1997 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Agnes Cleverly Interviewed by Darrin N. Haslem 31 May 1997 Copyright © 2011 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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, including Dr. Kathryn MacKay and Dr. Richard Sadler, 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 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 Special Collections 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: Agnes Cleverly, an oral history by Darrin N. Haslem, 31 May 1997, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Agnes Loraine Cleverly, conducted by Darrin N. Haslem on May 31, 1997 in Ms. Cleverly’s home at 2953 South 450 West, Bountiful, Utah. In this interview Ms. Cleverly discusses her memories of life during war, and society’s views toward education and women in the work force. It should be noted that Ms. Cleverly requested that the tape be turned off at several points during the conversation whenever she felt uncomfortable about what she was saying and did not want it recorded. Bruce Haslem was also present during this interview. AC: I think when I was growing up we were taught to be homemakers. We were taught to get married. We weren't pushed to get more -- I never even thought of getting more education other than high school. DH: Did your friends ever talk about doing something other than that? AC: No. Like the kids now days, they can think of going ahead and going to school and being nurses, even doctors, teacher, lawyers. We never even thought of doing anything like that. We didn’t even think of the boys being educated to become doctors, or anything like that. DH: That's kind of interesting, because I have read articles all the time lately in my women's studies class that try to point out the people who went beyond this, and you hear about a lot of women, of the time who were pushing for women to get educated. There were a lot of movements going on at the time. Did you ever see anything like that around here? AC: We never got mixed up in anything like that. 1 DH: Did you ever hear about those as you were growing up, or was it ever talked about? At this point Ms. Cleverly asked for the tape to be temporarily turned off. When she is finished answering the question, she allows the tape to be turned back on. AC: The only thing I remember was the big Depression, and my brother going to war and losing his job. He was married and lost his job because of this. My father always worked so we didn't really ever want for anything. I just thought I lived a normal life. DH: I think you did. I think a lot of times though, people who were very outspoken, really may not represent all of society like they want to portray it today. AC: But I have my daughter that graduated Utah State. She always wanted to be a school teacher from the time she was very little. I just encouraged her and she got a four year scholarship to Utah State. She was an honor student at the high school and she worked towards it. I think about that time was when the girls were wanting to go to college. That's when I saw most of it, was through my daughters, and my son went to University of Utah and the other one went for a while at Weber. So we never did push our kids because we weren't raised like that. AC: Well, losing my brother in the war was very tragic. That was a big event. I think the war was a big event in my life. DH: What was the mood like in Utah during the war? Was it very patriotic and supportive? AC: I think they were, because there were so many of them that had their sons, and brothers, going off to war, and there were a lot of them that were lost. That was a sad point. The war to me was a sad point. It should be noted that prior to the interview we had discussed some of the things Agnes might want to talk about. Her brother's death in the war was particularly tragic to her life. He was part of one of the largest and most 2 successful bombing raids in Europe in which only one plane did not return. Her brother was a crew member on the plane . I had an uncle that was in the First World War. I remember things about mustard gas and stuff that he suffered through. And then losing my brother, I guess was an event that was sad. I think winter's worse for me. DH: I remember, we were talking in world war history class about the patriotic things that people do during the war. A lot of families had stars in their windows, one for each child they had in the war. Can you remember anything like that? AC: My husband worked in the arms plant during the war, and I worked there for a while. I worked in the cafeteria in the arms plant during the war. People were really patriotic. They just really worked hard. DH: Was this a time that a lot of women came back to work to help the war effort? AC: There were a lot of women who went to work in factories and in the arms plant. There were a lot of women that worked there. DH: After the war was over, did those women try to continue on working or were they anxious to get back to their families? AC: I think a lot of them wanted to get back to family life. I don't know whether they wanted to be more educated at that time. DH: Did you find similar things in the other wars such as patriotic attitudes during Korea and Vietnam? AC: Vietnam. That kind of scared me because all three of my sons went to basic training. Brent went there so that he wouldn't have to come home and be drafted after he went on a mission. Grant, my son, was in Vietnam and he was stationed in Alaska. But I lived many a hard times worrying about them. 3