Title | Reynolds, Ellie OH24_007 |
Creator | Weber State University, Stewart Library: Oral History Program |
Contributors | Reynolds, Ellie, Interviewee; Kammerman, Alyssa Interviewer; Baird, Reagan, Video Technician |
Collection Name | Aerospace Heritage Foundation of Utah Oral Histories |
Description | Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation oral history project is a series of oral histories documenting the life stories and experiences of the board members of the Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation. Board members recall their time in military service, as well as their memories of starting the foundation in 1983 and opening the Hill Aerospace Museum in 1987. Each interview begins with a brief life sketch of the individual board member, then moves onto their memories of the early days of the Hill Aerospace Museum. They discuss ongoing efforts to make the museum the premier location for preserving Utah's Aviation and Air Force history and name important figures on the Board of Directors, base command, and museum staff who helped to make the museum an important influence in the community. |
Abstract | The following is an oral history interview with Ellie Reynolds, conducted on April 22, 2019, by Alyssa Kammerman. Ellie discusses her life, her memories while living in Ogden, Utah, and her time while serving on the Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation Board. Reagan Baird, the video technician, and katrine Kucej, Ellie's duaghter, are also present during this interview. |
Subject | Military museums; Aeronautical museums; Business |
Digital Publisher | Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, USA |
Date | 2019 |
Date Digital | 2021 |
Item Size | 27p.; 29cm.; 3 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 video disc: 4 3/4 in. |
Medium | Oral History |
Spatial Coverage | Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States, https://sws.geonames.org/5779206, 41.223, -111.97383; Dayton, City of Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, United States, https://sws.geonames.org/4509884, 39.75895, -84.19161; Provo, Utah, Utah, United States, https://sws.geonames.org/5780026, 40.23384, -111.65853 |
Type | Text; Image/StillImage |
Conversion Specifications | Filmed using a Sony HDR-CX430V digital video camera. Sound was recorded with a Sony ECM-AW3(T) bluetooth microphone. Transcribed using Express Scribe Transcription Software Pro 6.10 Copyright NCH Software. |
Language | eng |
Rights | Materials may be used for non-profit and educational purposes, please credit University Archives; Weber State University. |
Source | Weber State University Archives |
OCR Text | Show Oral History Program Ellie Reynolds Interviewed by Alyssa Kammerman 22 April 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ellie Reynolds Interviewed by Alyssa Kammerman 22 April 2019 Copyright © 2020 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 Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation oral history project is a series of oral histories documenting the life stories and experiences of the board members of the Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation. Board members recall their time in military service, as well as their memories of starting the foundation in 1983 and opening the Hill Aerospace Museum in 1987. Each interview begins with a brief life sketch of the individual board member, then moves onto their memories of the early days of the Hill Aerospace Museum. They discuss ongoing efforts to make the museum the premier location for preserving Utah’s Aviation and Air Force history and name important figures on the Board of Directors, base command, and museum staff who helped to make the museum an important influence in the community. ____________________________________ 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: Reynolds, Ellie, an oral history by Alyssa Kammerman, 22 April 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Ellie Reynolds, conducted on April 22, 2019, by Alyssa Kammerman. Ellie discusses her life, her memories while living in Ogden, Utah, and her time while serving on the Hill Aerospace Heritage Foundation Board. Reagan Baird, the video technician, and Katrine Kucej, Ellie’s daughter, are also present during this interview. AK: Today is April 22, 2019. We are in the home of Ellie Reynolds, Speaking with her about her life and experiences with the Hill Aerospace Museum. My name is Alyssa Kammerman and I’ll be conducting the interview, and I’m here with Regain Baird on the camera and Ellie’s daughter, Karine Kucej. So Ellie, when and where were you born? ER: I was born at home in Ogden on 28th Street. AK: What are your memories of growing up in Ogden? ER: You know it was kind of like a lost time. In school I was very smart. I got straight A’s and so the teachers were very nice to me, but about all I did was bicycle. I remember bicycling because I took off once in front of a car so I’ll never forget that. The car did stop in time. AK: Did you always live on 28th Street? ER: Mm hm AK: That is terrifying about the bike. Do you have any other memories about Ogden or 28th Street when you were growing up? ER: Um not too many. No I don’t. I feel bad that I don’t recall all those things. AK: Don’t feel bad, that’s just fine. What was your first job? 2 ER: St. Benedict’s Hospital which is Ogden Regional Hospital now. But this is when it was up on Polk. AK: What did you do there? ER: I posted all of the things that happened during the day, like their room and all their medicines and things like that. I posted it so they could get a bill. AK: Okay so kind of like being a secretary in a way? ER: No, it was more math. I had to figure out the payrolls. AK: Oh ok. Did you have any schooling for that or did they train you on the job? ER: I was going to school for that. I was going to Weber College for Business. AK: So when you were studying business did you have a specific idea of what you wanted to be after you graduated? ER: You know you always think you’re going to be secretary but I didn’t want to be a secretary. I did take all those things like shorthand and all that stuff, but I wanted to do something beneficial, more than a secretary. AK: So you weren’t quite sure what you wanted to do— ER: No. AK: But just something more. Ok. Could I ask you about some of your memories of St. Benedict’s Hospital? ER: Well I really liked it up there. The nuns worked there and they were just very nice to me. I was in one little room that everybody had to walk through from the front desk, back in the back where they kept a lot of the files, so I had a lot of traffic going through that one little room. AK: Kind of backing up, where did you go to high school? 3 ER: Ogden High School. AK: Were you involved in any clubs or sports? ER: I was involved in a drama club and a business club that was kind of connected to that class. AK: What did you do in your drama club? ER: Well one thing was at the closing of the school year, I used the pep club a lot, and who else did I use in that drama? But I was always in drama. AK: Were you in plays with drama as well? ER: You know, most of all I was the director. The church had a lot of traveling shows and I directed those and wrote some of them, you know. Everybody participates when you’re doing that. AK: Are those road shows? Is that what you’re talking about? ER: Mm hm. AK: Ah I’ve heard of those. Ok. So you say they were traveling. Where would you travel? ER: From ward to ward. AK: Ok. That’s a lot of fun. Do you remember some of the plays that you directed? ER: Uh let’s see; One of my favorite ones was “Happiness is the Best Medicine.” Everybody in the play was all in red and white. The whole theme of the play was that the guys had gotten very boring and weren’t paying attention to their wives so this big band came into town and just started dancing and doing all this stuff so they paid attention. 4 AK: That’s cute. So when you directed, was that mostly watching the actors and kind of giving them tips on how to act better? What did you do as a director? What was that like? ER: That’s about it, and then if you spot something that’s wrong you try to help them with that. My daughter was in some of the plays and I have one daughter who was in that red and white show and I remember she had a red and white dress. AK: What all did your business club in high school entail? ER: We did a lot of accounting and setting up a business. AK: Oh like entrepreneurship stuff. ER: Um, kind of. Small business. AK: What kind of a small business did you start with your group? ER: Let’s see, what did we do that was small business? Oh after St. Benedicts I had started working at a library and we decided to go into the library and see what they needed. So there were four people in the group and we went and interviewed people for what they thought would improve the library. AK: So when you compiled the opinions, did you come back and report on them? ER: Yes and one of the things we found out that they weren’t doing right: people wouldn’t know who were the people that came into the library and who were the people that worked there. So we decided to have them make badges so that they would know. And what else did we do? Oh we thought they were lacking in something that the Weber College was offering, so we had them come down and we gave them a class. So it worked out well. AK: That’s really cool. So that was all in high school? Or did you do that in… 5 ER: No, that was in Weber College. AK: Oh Weber College. Ok. ER: High school was drama and I just did mostly things for the assemblies and things like that. AK: That’s really fun. ER: It was fun. It kind of carried over into the church so we did a lot of the drama productions in church. AK: So when you went to college, were you encouraged by your parents and people around you to get a job post-college? ER: No, my mother was a single mother and she didn’t have that much money going for her so I decided I’d have to work to go to college, so that’s what I did. And it worked out well because I worked real early in the morning. You had to get everything posted at the hospital before they even opened so I worked early in the morning and then went to school so it worked out. AK: What was it that made you want to go to college even though it wasn’t very convenient? ER: I’ve always liked school and learning different things. Marc, when I married him, he hated school. He went to school but he graduated from a school in Rhode Island. And it was just, it was funny. I would have gone to school forever I guess. AK: How did you meet your husband, Marc? ER: I was in the Chamber of Commerce because my job entailed raising money for the library and I was the person who set up the different parties or get-togethers in the Chamber of Commerce. I invited all the leaders in the town like mayors 6 and Mark was the Commander of the Hill Air Force Base and he happened to be sitting across from me. And about it was two weeks later when he came home from a trip to Germany that he invited me out. The first place we went was Marie Calendars. My daughter worked there so she brought us the coffee and pie. And that was the first date. AK: Cute. Ok so Mark was your second husband then? ER: Yes. My first husband passed away and I had my four daughters with him. They are my pride and joy. AK: So do you mind if I back up a little bit? What year did you graduate from college? ER: 1981, because I went back after the kids had grown up. AK: Oh ok. Did you find your first husband while you were in college? ER: Nope. I was married already. It was funny the way I found my first husband. Ralph called up—He was going with my sister and I said, “Just a minute, I’ll go get Barbara.” And he says, “Well I was kind of calling for you.” So that was my first husband. Poor Barbara. So like I said, that ’s where I had my four daughters and they were all kind of close. Except my first daughter. She was six years older than anybody before I had another child. We went to live in Lawrence, Massachusetts—Ralph went there because he did all of the programs for the IRS. He was a real brain, wasn’t he? KK: I don’t remember, I was too young. ER: He passed away before she would know him. So that’s the first husband and then my second husband I met at the Chamber of Commerce. One of the most fun parties we went to, I was just dating him. I had been staying with him the day 7 before and we were going to have it outside and it started raining so we went all across the big lawn and went over to a house that was empty and everybody was calling me Mrs. Reynolds. I got a little embarrassed. [laughs] “I’m not Mrs. Reynolds.” We had several dates and they were fun. And then one time he says, “I’m going to Dayton, Ohio, but I won’t go without you.” So, I went to Dayton, Ohio. And I know one of your questions are, “How did it feel being married to a general?” I was always kind of a goof off you know and did a lot in drama and that and I had to become a lady. So that was a little difficult. KK: You’ve always been a lady. ER: No. KK: Yes, and if I could interject I think their first meeting Mark said—you were giving a speech at something— ER: Oh I did that too. KK: —at the Chamber of Commerce or something and he asked who she was and then he wanted to meet her. That’s I think because he saw how impressive you were. ER: I went traveling all around, giving speeches to all the clubs and sure he saw me there but when he saw me closer was when I invited him to the Chamber of Commerce thing. AK: That’s so cute. KK: And the rest is history. ER: Yes. KK: They were love birds. 8 ER: Oh but it was so embarrassing when he asked me to marry him and I’m gonna tell. KK: Go right ahead. It wasn’t me, it was Kristin. ER: It was her underwear? KK: I think so. ER: We were in the front hall of our house and we rented our big house and were living in just a condo. We were standing at the door of the condo and he asked me to marry him and I looked down and there was a pair of underwear so I kicked him out. I didn’t want that in mind. KK: Yeah since Kristin’s not here I’ll say they were hers [laughs]. ER: I don’t know whose they were but I sure got rid of them fast. AK: [laughs] Oh that’s so cute. What year was that? ER: We got married in 1984. AK: Ok. So your kids were still pretty young when you were married? ER: Oh no, I had two teenagers but they were like 17 and 19. KK: I was in high school and Kris was, I think, starting college. ER: But then in between my second child and my first child was six years. And then between Karine and Kristen there was like nineteen months. So it compacted. AK: So you said being a military wife, or especially wife to a Lieutenant General, was something that was a little bit of an adjustment for you. ER: Yeah, I’d never had anything to do with the military. I was all business downtown working for the libraries so it was an adjustment. And I did act like a lady. KK: She was amazing at it. 9 AK: I believe it. KK: They opened their house up to my sister and I, and we followed them a year and a half later. So Mark had to endure two teenage girls. ER: Yes they came to Ohio. We put them up downstairs. Our poor aid tried to cook for those girls and they were never around. Then our aid and the aid of the other general were driving down the street and these two girls were in a car and drove by them and they saw the girls and kind of chased them and then they saw that they were our daughters. It was funny. What was his name? I forgot. KK: John. AK: So would you tell me a little more about your involvement in the business world before you married General Reynolds? ER: It was in collecting donations. I first of all worked for the March of Dimes and we did a pretty good job of raising money for the March of Dimes. And then the library wanted me to start a thing where they collected money for the library. So with the March of Dimes—which I loved because we did a lot of fun things—we went to the library and set up a place where you could donate and I went out and collected money that went to the library. Libraries needed it and I guess they thought about that’s what they needed to do—needed money. AK: Ok. And was this all in Ogden, then? ER: Yes it was the Weber County Library system. KK: And remember you got enough donations to have the North Ogden library built. ER: Oh yes I’m proud of that. Collected for about four years and then had enough to start the North Ogden library so I had a lot of involvement in that. I loved all the 10 things they did in there. They used new ideas, they put in windows that caught the sun. It was a good little library. Still is. AK: What were some of the things you did to help raise money for that or for the March of Dimes? ER: Well, you just go to a lot of people and I… how did I do it? I went to a lot of people, and we had a ball. KK: You were involved with the March of Dimes telethon every year that it was still on. ER: Yes, we had a March of Dimes haunted house. It was such a great success that most of the March of Dimes people around the country started haunted houses after that. Some of the dumb things we did: We’d go down and get the mayor or somebody like that and lock him up in jail. And then people had to donate money to get him out. That was fun. And we had a roller-skating thing and I think we roller-skated for three days and then people came in and would donate there too. I think that’s where we locked him up. KK: Yeah I think so. I just remember we always were able to be involved and had an absolute ball with everything she did with the March of Dimes and with the library. ER: Yeah, every time we went somewhere my kids were there. The funny thing… I won’t say. KK: You can say whatever you want. I was a kid then. ER: Karine needed to do community hours because she had driven the truck and she was only 15. 11 KK: Oh you had asked me to bring something to work and I got rear-ended and because I was under age I had to do hours, even though it wasn’t my fault. [laughs] It wasn’t my fault but I was trying to get something to work for her. ER: That library was on the list for places you could work off community hours. So she chose the library. AK: That is really funny. KK: I’d take the bus down and jump off on 25th street and walk up to the library [inaudible] ER: Yeah and when she was through one day she left a note for me. I am glad nobody read that note. What did it say? KK: I said I’d “brang” you something instead of “brought.” I mean I was young. ER: Yes she was sixteen years old. She was very [inaudible] KK: I was fifteen. ER: Fifteen. “I brang you something mom.” I‘ll never forget that note. KK: I’m surprised she doesn’t have it in a folder and shows everybody. ER: Save it? KK: Yeah in a photo album or something like Grandma Rica used to do, huh mother? ER: Yeah. Grandma Rica had a chair in her place and that’s where all the pictures were taken. Everybody was sat in that chair to get their picture taken. My mother was a really [inaudible]. She was from Holland and the first words she learned were swear words so she knew every swear word there was. KK: And she taught all of us. 12 ER: And she was a good, good woman. She worked very hard and raised two girls. I have a sister and so my mother had to raise us. AK: So she was a single parent for as long as you remember then? ER: Pretty much so. Uh huh. I was about ten when they got divorced. AK: Do you feel like watching her work so hard gave you more of a drive to go into business? ER: I think so. AK: So what did she do to support you? ER: She worked at the Wonder Bread bakery. And she did a man’s job, she didn’t even do a woman’s job! She picked up those heavy pans that you had to turn over and all the Twinkies fell out and she worked there for fifteen years. So she was a hard worker. AK: So when did your parents come over from Holland? ER: My mother came over when she was seven years old. AK: Oh, young. Ok ER: And my great-grandma just kept on having babies and babies and she was the oldest child so she only went to the eighth grade cuz she had to stay home and take care of the babies. AK: How many kids did your grandma have? ER: Nine. AK: That is a big family. ER: My great-grandma. My grandma—how many did Grandma have, honey? KK: I—Grandma Rica? 13 ER: Uh huh KK: That’s your mom. ER: Two. KK: No, she had Evelyn and she had you and she had Barbara— ER: Oh four! She— KK: —and she had Bobby [inaudible] ER: Her first husband died at twenty-three and she had two little children. and after he died she found out that one of the children was handicap so she really had a tough time. AK: I’ll bet. Ok. And then she married her second husband and had you and one other? ER: Mm hm. Barbara. Barbara the beauty queen. She was Miss Ogden and runner up to Miss Utah. AK: So you married General Reynolds in 1984, and around that time you said he was in charge of Hill Air Force Base, right? ER: Yes he was the commander of Hill Air Force Base when I married him. AK: Ok. So what all did that job entail for him? Was he away from the home a lot? ER: We lived on the base. KK: She actually [inaudible]. He was a two star at the time when they met. He got his third star shortly after when they got married and they moved quickly so she didn’t have—you weren’t there for very long anyway. ER: No not in Ogden very long. But I do remember when he got change of command from the two star to the three star. They had a ceremony and his aid had to walk 14 me up the stairs with his gloves on and everything and I was so, so nervous because I didn’t know all that stuff but I made it up the stairs and through the change of command. And then he went on to Dayton, Ohio and he was Vice Commander there. KK: Was it an AFLC (Air Force Logistics Command) there? ER: It was for a while and then it turned to Air Force Materiel Command. AK: How long did you guys live in Ohio? KK: You guys came back in 1987, I believe. He retired in 1987. ER: Three years. KK: He had developed prostate cancer and so he ended up just retiring and they moved back here. ER: But we came back and he came first and looked around for a home. He found us a beautiful home up on the hill. It was as far as you could go up and I loved that home. I never wanted to go out of that home but he wanted to build so we built a home in Huntsville and I’m glad he did. It was a nice home. AK: Is that around the time that you started getting involved with the Hill Aerospace Museum? ER: Yes. In fact, Marc and John Lindquist went up to Alaska to pick up a plane, and while he was gone a girl who used to take the minutes and do all the dirty work for the Air Force Museum board went to Hawaii because she was in the Air Force. So she was whipped to Hawaii so I had to start doing that. So as long as—with the exception of a couple of years—as Marc was on the board, I was on the board. We were on there together. 15 AK: That’s a lot of fun. So did your husband start the idea of the museum? I’m trying to remember, because it kind of sounded like he was a key part of that. ER: Yes he was key. He and Hadley. In fact, you’ll see things about General Rex Hadley. General Hadley worked for Marc because he was in the Reserves. Marc had an assistant and he had somebody from the Reserves. And so when Marc was thinking about the museum, Rex Hadley was too so they worked together and Rex was really the first one that started it. AK: Ok. Do you know what prompted them to think about starting a museum? ER: We needed to retain some of the history from Ogden. Now they had a lot of things back in Dayton, Ohio. They have a huge museum back there—an Air Force Museum, and while we were back there I used to take tours of people through that museum so I knew quite a bit of what was going on back there. So when they started it here, oh they did it well. They had good things and they didn’t. They kept Hill Air Force Base as their main thing; Everything had to have been at Hill Air Force Base. In fact, they had to make the engines at Hill Air Force Base, they had to clean out the big ones at Hill Air Force Base so that’s what they did. It was connected to what Ogden was doing. And they got a lot of good things in there. Any of the planes in there were either maintained at Hill or they came in and brought them in to be maintained at Hill. So that’s what he did and he got a lot of the aircraft that are in the museum—he picked them up. He went back to Wisconsin and got one and went back to…a lady had a big truck and she loved Marc so she took this one plane to an airport where he could transport that 16 plane back to Hill. So that’s what the museum was all about: trying to maintain the history of Ogden and Hill Air Force Base. KK: He’s even got his picture in there, next to maybe the F-4? Which one did he used to fly? ER: Yes, he flew the F-4. KK: And he’s got his picture a couple times at the museum in Ohio. ER: And one of the pictures that was close to the front, he was very small in that picture, but the kids used to grab people, take them in, and show them their dad [laughs]. “That’s our dad!” KK: And we were old! AK: So you mentioned that he wanted to keep the airplanes in the museum authentic to what would have been to Hill Air Force Base? ER: Yes that’s correct. But they have brought in others and used such a little bit of connection, but they had a connection like “this plane flew through here,” or something like that. But I think they have a very good museum out there. And they also have a very good board, which works hard to raise money to get those things and that’s what the board is for—it’s to help support the museum and help get money to bring in exhibits that are going to be shown at the museum. They added on the second hanger while Marc was in there. They just had the first hanger when they started but now they added on that second hanger that has the big—is it the B-1 that’s in that hanger? The great big plane? KK: Um, I’m not sure. 17 ER: But anyway, all the planes there, like I say, were connected to Ogden. So, we have a good museum and that’s why the board works so hard to raise money because they know how good it is. A lot of local people were on the board. John Lindquist, who owned the museum, loved the Air Force. In fact, he was in the Air Force so he donated and did a lot of things in the museum. We felt so bad when he passed away. We did a lot of fun things with him. After we collected all these things for the museum, then they have to maintain them or get somebody so they got ideas. They had different departments at the Hill in charge of a plane to keep it clean and updated because it’s around $6,000 to paint a plane so they had to raise that $6,000 to paint any of the planes. And of course it’s all different for different sizes but that was one of the numbers I remember. AK: That’s a lot of money. Did your experience with the March of Dimes and the library help in raising that money? ER: Yes it did. AK: What were some of the fundraising efforts you had to help plan in order to get the money for the museum? ER: A lot of them just came because they did them automatically because they’d done them in the years before so you just work; Where they have the chili cook off you just alter things you help with and that’s what I was doing. Got to a point where I had done it all before so I was kind of tapering off on all the things that I was doing. AK: So you kinda had it down—getting the ingredients for the chili bakeoff, sending out invitations, etc? 18 ER: Yes. Had to get an invitation list of the people in Ogden who were the most affluent and a lot of them were interested in the airplanes too, so the Hall of Fame that’s there, that’s all the people from the Ogden area that have helped with the Air Museum and Hill Air Force Base. And then that used to be where they had all the pictures of the generals and others that were involved with Hill. We changed that all over to a little room and in that room they now have pictures of each general or like Colonel Hill who Hill Air Force Base is named after. They have these DVDs that tell about each person. You can go up to the picture of the person and press the button and hear all the DVD. And so someone’s collected all the information on that so they’ve done a great job. AK: Yeah, I think I’ve seen that. That’s the Hall of Fame that you’re talking about, correct? ER: Mm hm. AK: Ok. They did do a really good job on that. ER: Yeah, as you first come in, on the right. AK: What are some of your favorite memories of when the museum first started off? You know, maybe memories of some of the people on the board or some of the fun things that you had to do to get it going? ER: You know, most of the things were fun. We would invite the people from the city, they had Chamber of Commerce night there, but all of them were very interesting and-- [coughs] I don’t know if I can go much longer. AK: OK. Are there any more memories you’d like to share before we wrap it up? KK: Well, one neat memory was having Marc’s funeral there. That was really neat. 19 ER: Yes, they did such a beautiful job. KK: And then the ribbon cutting for the area they named after him. ER: The educational area is named Lieutenant General Marc Reynolds Education Center. And that’s got everything in it for kids to come in and learn. So it’s a [inaudible]. KK: Then they’re gonna be adding on. They’re gonna be doing [inaudible]. ER: Yes, they were gonna have something on May 17th. And what they’re doing is, they’ve brought up an airplane and they’ve kind of dug a pit for that to sit in so you can walk straight from the educational center into the airplane and they can see hands-on what an airplane consists of—all the dials and how they operate. So another learning tool for kids. AK: So was General Reynolds involved in the educational side of things? Is that why they named it after him? ER: He just thought it was important to keep kids interested in the Air Force because if you start when they’re young, they’ll join the Air Force when they get older. Mark started flying when he was fifteen years old and that’s why he was so interested in the Air Force. AK: So did he start an education program while he was still alive? ER: He started the educational center and four different companies came in there and put in their rooms, their separate rooms. Like one of—do you know the four that came in? KK: I can’t remember the names of them. ER: But it’s big companies. And that changes every once in a while too. 20 AK: Ok, interesting. I didn’t realize that was a passion of his. Well, wrapping up, I have two last questions and then I’ll let you go. First is, of everything that you’ve accomplished in your life, which accomplishment are you most proud of? ER: Well, I’m most proud of my girls. I have four girls that are all good girls. And then I was proud that I got to go to BYU and graduate with my Master’s, so I’m proud of my schooling. I always liked schooling. I wanted to keep on going to school but after a while you can’t. When you get to be eighty years old you can’t go to school anymore. And so I guess my education and my girls and my husband are the most important thing. AK: That’s wonderful. Of everything that you’ve achieved at Hill Aerospace Museum, which achievement were you most proud of? ER: Well, I kept all the records and I think it’s important to keep the records because they redo their self—like every twenty years you start doing some of the same things. And so I was proud that we kept all those records. AK: Was there a part of the museum that you were involved in that you were proud of as well? You mentioned records but were there any activities or even parts of the museum that you had a hand in? ER: They had most of the parties from the community in the back part of the museum and so we were always involved in a party of some kind that was back there. So they really made it nice back there and they had one plane that was on the right side and that was Mark’s plane so he actually had a plane there. KK: Didn’t you do something with the gift shop, mom? 21 ER: Oh yeah, I worked there for a while—just volunteered at the gift shop, but the ladies that were there were just marvelous. They knew everything that was going on and when we changed things around. I helped them as far as knowing what was happening I could help them change around cuz they’d say “let’s move all these over here.” I could do that. And the gift shop got bigger and better. I thought it was a good gift shop. AK: It is a good one, definitely. Well, thank you so much for your time and for allowing us to come and speak with you. ORAL HISTORY I is In erview Agreement is made and entered into is a -:;1... y and between the Weber State University, Stewart Library, ral - s: - Museum, and £\ \ 1 <L [) J!. <C, , hereinar er ca Interviewee agrees to participate in a recorded interview, commencing on or about with h.\c;s<A- '{WV\ :2 time /;),2/11' date, I I This Interview Agreement relates to any and all materials originating from the interview, namely the recording of the interview and any written materials, including but not limited to the transcript or other finding aids prepared from the recording. In consideration of the mutual covenants, conditions, and terms set forth below, the parties hereby agree as follows: 1. Interviewee irrevocably assigns to the WSUSLOHP and Hill Aerospace Museum all his or her copyright, title and interest in and to the interview. 2. WSUSLOHP and Hill Aerospace Museum will have the right to use and disseminate the interview for research, educational, and other purposes, including print, present and future technologies, and digitization to provide internet access. 3. Interviewee acknowledges that he/she will receive no remuneration or compensation for either his/her participation in the interview or for the rights assigned hereunder. 4. WSUSLOHP and Hill Aerospace Museum agrees to honor any and all reasonable interviewee restrictions on the use of the interview, if any, for the time specified below, as follows: Interviewer and Interviewee have executed this Interview Agreement on the date first written above. INTERVIEWER ( (Printed Name) ="- k-°'-w\V'\.i? f "'-'0 · ame) (Address) (Address) 'v |
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