Oral History Program Phyllis Merrill Norton Interviewed by Sydney Teuscher 27 February 1998 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Phyllis Merrill Norton Interviewed by Sydney Teuscher 27 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 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 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: Norton, Phyllis Merrill, an oral history by Sydney Teuscher, 27 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 Phyllis Merrill Norton. The interview was conducted on February 27, 1998, by Sydney Woytko Teuscher, at the address of 109 E South Temple, Apartment 7F, Salt Lake City, Utah. Mrs. Norton discusses some of her personal memories and experiences throughout different periods of her life and childhood. Also present during the interview is Stephen Blake Teuscher and Roman Grant Teuscher. ST: My name is Sydney Teuscher, I am interviewing my great-grandmother, Phyllis Norton. It is February 27, 1998, and we are interviewing at 109 E. South Temple, apartment 7F in Salt Lake City, Utah 84111; my great-grandmother's apartment. And if you could introduce yourself. Where and when were you ' born? PN: Is that there? Well, my name is Phyllis Merrill Norton and I was born November thirty, 1909, in Chicago, when my dad was going to school back there, and I was the fifth child in the family. Then we moved to Brigham City,-do you want me to go on?- moved to Brigham City in January of ten, 1910, and the family built a home in Brigham. And Dad, my dad, was made principal of the Box Elder High School. And we were there through 1917 (pause), or sixteen, sixteen I guess, because ... and we—. Then the family moved out to Sandy, to the Jordan High School, where Granddad (interviewee's father) was principal out there for three years. And then the family moved to Ogden in 1919 and lived there and (pause) while grandfather was the principal of the Ogden High School for twenty years until his passing in 1939. ST: Ok, you said you were in Brigham for a while, what was—and you had five—? 1 PN: There were five children in the family, there were three girls and two boys; and we were there, I was there through the first grade. And then we went down and I spent three years in Sandy, in the second, third and fourth grades. Then we moved to Ogden and I was there for the fifth, sixth and seventh grades; back in Salt Lake for the eighth grade and then back up to the Ogden High School for the eleventh and twelfth- tenth, eleventh and twelfth. ST: And how old were you when you graduated? PN: Sixteen. But you see my birthday coming in November I got in early, with permission, to go start earlier to see if I could handle it before I was six. And then (pause) I put—I skipped a grade going from Ogden High-going from Brian Junior High up to Ogden High School because I'd had Algebra and some of the classes that qualified me to go in there as a sophomore. And Dad wanted me up there at High School where he could watch over me, I guess (giggling), along with my sister. ST: Now was that—did you feel a lot of pressure with that, your dad being—? PN: No, it was very comfortable. ST: Good. PN: And, I can tell--1 can say now, it was completely different (pause) in the discipline situation that they had then and they have now. If it got loud in the hallways, Dad would step out of the office, and as he stepped out, everything would quiet down. We'd go to an assembly, and the kids would be yelling and talking, and a lot of confusion; and Dad would walk up on the stage, or the platform, wherever they were, and everything would quiet down. There was just no-no problems with discipline in those days. And I used to 2 go in his inner office and sit on his lap, it was just-he was just a warm, friendly father. And I felt very comfortable with him. ST: Did you feel like your teachers privileged you at all, for having your father there? PN: In a way; sometimes I did. But now, when I went to Ogden, as I said, up to High SchoolIs this on or not (giggling)?-When I went up to high school, I was supposed to be preparing the evening meals and the breakfast for my dad and my sister and myself: Now she didn't want to cook. She would make the bed and help clean up the house, but I had to do the cooking. And so my cooking teacher, who was a Merl Chipman, at that time, would help me with menus, and help me with recipes, and give me ideas so that I could go ahead; and she would do that on her free time. So it was a close relationship that I had with her. And then later on, she came down to the University of Utah, and headed up the cafeteria program down there. That was one of my favorite teachersThere was an English teacher, who called herself Mother Nookum when she signed my yearbook, and it was, and--. She was the English teacher, and kind of a motherly person, and-. I thought that she gave me privileges, because she assigned us to write poetry, and I couldn't make things rhyme, I couldn't write poetry. And I told her I couldn't do it, and then she says, 'Well bring in your attempts.' And I remember taking in a stack of papers where I'd started to write something (giggling) and couldn't complete it, and I got credit for it. So I think in some ways I did benefit from having his-him there. On the other hand, I think that he guided me a little bit too closely; because as I recall, he pretty well got me into the University and signed up the classes that I was supposed to take, and did things that people now do on their own. So. ST: Were you comfortable with that, with him doing all that? 3 PN: Yes, yeah, he just told me what I was supposed to do and it was a natural thing to do it. (Both parties giggling) It's different, isn't it? ST: Yeah. It sounds like you had some pretty close relationships with those two teachers. Were there others? PN: I did. I did with teachers. My Chemistry teacher wrote me a poem in my yearbook that was very flattering; and he was of the students when my dad was teaching in earlier years. His name was Ed Smith. And, (pause) then there were the Waynesgards, bothtwo-two Waynesgards who were teachers at the Ogden High School at that time. And Lacont Stewart was also the Art teacher during my high school years. ST: So what were your favorite subjects in high school, or in—? PN: Well, some that weren't my favorite were Latin (giggling), that I had a hard time with. But, oh, I liked most of them; Geometry-Math was hard for me. I didn't—I could do better in English and in other languages. ST: Now it seems like the push now days for school is to go out and get a job and get an education so that you can get a job. Was it more-was that the aim at school then, or was it—? PN: Well, maybe my dad was a little bit different, and maybe it was because it was so many years ago, but his goal was for his children to have college degrees. And we all felt that that was the process; that that's what we were supposed to do was go ahead and go through, get our education. And, I think that, well I lost one brother, I didn't mention that, during the flu epidemic, during the first World War-he was twelve or thirteen, and-. Then the four of us finished all with bachelor's degrees, my brother got a lawyer-what do you 4 call it?—he got his law degree at the University of Utah. So that takes care of the family pretty much there. They're all gone now, except one sister, who's in a rest home now. ST: And then-so with the goal of getting an education, did your father expect you to work after your college degree, or did he just want you to have an education? PN: (Giggling) well, he wanted us to have a college degree, but I remember I was being interviewed for a teaching job out at Wasatch High School in Heber City. I-They offered the job to me and I said, 'Well I have to think it over.' So then I went to Ogden that weekend and asked Dad what he thought I better do. And he looked at me and he said, 'Well don't you think I've supported you long enough?' (Both parties laughing). So I went out and I taught high school for two years. But I was twenty and I taught in high school and the kids were juniors and seniors so they weren't much younger. ST: About the same age. PN: So about three or four years younger, most of 'em. ST: And did you enjoy teaching? PN: Hmm-mm. ST: No? PN: No, I did it because I wasn't-l wanted to be married and have a family, I guess, was my main goal. And this teaching was about the best thing for a woman at that time. But all through high school and all through college I had worked part time by going down to the five-and-dime, it was called Woolworth's then, where we got a dollar fifty-eight a day, and ten dollars a week during the summer when we would work full time. And there in Salt Lake there was a Scram Johnson's, who used to have two-for-one sales and I 5 would be asked to help out with those. So—and I had experience at a soda fountain, when a man who owned the confectionaries would have me work evenings so he and his wife could go to a movie. So I was doing little jobs to get pin money for records and-phonograph records that we used to get. ST: What kind of records? PN: Oh, In a Little Spanish Town, (giggling) Darnella, and some of those old, old ones that you have never heard of probably, (both parties giggling) But we had a record player inon Adams when we lived there, up in the hallway upstairs. And Helen and I both would buy records with our money. But I always saved fifteen cents out of the dollar sixtyeight, and kept that to build up for whatever I might want; something else so we- we were taught to save. And (pause) — you better turn it off, I'm talking too much, (giggling). ST: Oh, no, you're doing great! (Both parties giggling) This is wonderful. Now— so you saved your money. You started working when you were how old? PN: I was fourteen when I went down to there, but the fact that I was a sophomore in high school, they thought I was sixteen. And I applied, and they put me right to work. And I no sooner got down there, without telling the family about it, and Dad walked into the hardware counter (giggling). And I ducked under the counter, so he wouldn't see me, because I wanted to tell him, before he found out that I was there (giggling). So I had gone at fourteen to go down there. ST: But you weren't afraid that he would say that you couldn't—. 6 PN: Oh no, Oh no, no, no. That was just that I wasn't old enough then, the law was sixteen. And I was only fourteen, (baby fussing in background). ST: There's my baby, Roman, making some noise... (Tape continues)... 7