Oral History Program Lonna Sorenson & Nancie Watson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 4 September 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lonna Sorenson & Nancie Watson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 4 September 2013 Copyright © 2023 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town with terminals from nine rail systems. Business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden, with both east-west and northsouth rail lines, became a shipping and commerce hub. After World War II, the railroad business declined. Some government agencies and defense industry businesses continued to gravitate to Ogden after the war—including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations. However, the economy became more service oriented, with small businesses developing to appeal to the changing demographics, including the growing Hispanic population. ____________________________________ 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: Sorenson, Lonna, and Watson,Nancy, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 4 September 2013, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Lonna B. Sorenson and Nancie Watson September 4, 2013 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Lonna Sorenson and Nancie Watson. The interview was conducted on September 4, 2013, in West Haven, Utah, by Lorrie Rands. Lonna and Nancie discuss their memories growing up in Ogden, and their experiences with 25th Street. Brook Lambert, the video technician, is also present during this interview. LR: It’s September 4, 2013 we are in the home of Lonna Sorenson talking about the Mansion House and her memories of Ogden and growing up here. We are with Nancie Watson; Brook Lambert is doing the recording and I’m Lorrie Rands. So beginning, where were you born and where did you grow up? LS: Right here, in Ogden our whole lives. NW: Dee Hospital. LS: Dee Hospital on 24th and Harrison, it’s now a park. LR: So the original Dee Hospital? What year? LS: 1942. NW: 1952. LS: Oh Nancie you know you’re older than me, don’t try and trick her. NW: Not going to work. I was brought home to the Mansion House, that’s where we lived at the time. LS: We lived upstairs. LR: [To Lonna] When you were born did you live upstairs? LS: No, I was four when they bought it. LR: Okay, so where did you live before that? 1 LS: Well, I came home to a little home up on 23rd street there’s a picture of it. A little home up on high on 23rd street in the 1600 block. NW: And then papa went to war, he was drafted right? LS: He was drafted. NW: And a man who works at a Cereal Mill with two kids, drafted. I don’t know… LS: He was deferred for a while because of his job. He was a cereal chemist at Globe Mills and so he was deferred, but then they got him. So, he left with two kids, it was a very sad day. I got a picture of that day. LR: How old were you? LS: I was 18 months old. NW: How long was he gone? LS: He was gone for, I was three, so he was gone for 18 months. LR: Was he in the European Theatre or the…? LS: European Theatre. He was over in Germany and he was there during the occupation and he told us some of his experiences, he was a medic. NW: Drove an ambulance. LS: He drove an ambulance and we didn’t find out until later, my son found out that he was in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a medic during the Battle of the Bulge. NW: And he saved a family, a Jewish family. LS: He smuggled them over the Swiss German border, a woman and her children in his ambulance under a blanket. The guard actually saw a foot of the child. NW: When they were stopped at the checkpoint. 2 LS: But he said, “I don’t ever want to see you again,” and he let him go. The woman had a gun and she was going to kill herself and her children rather than be under the rule of the Russians. She was so grateful to papa that she gave papa this German luger and he had it for years and years and years. It was stolen from him at the Mansion House. NW: And a ring, didn’t he? LS: Did he? I don’t remember. He had the gun I remember the gun. LR: So he comes home, what is going on there? LS: See while he was gone to the war mama, we lived in grandma and grandpa Berlin’s basement. Bonne and I and mamma. Mamma waited tables at… NW: Eve’s Place. LS: Wait a minute, I got to get this right. When he came back from the war Ede, who was Italian, had not been able to go back and see her family in Italy. So mama had been waiting tables at Ede’s Place and Ede said, “Rita, do you think you and Milt could run this restaurant for us while I go back to visit my family for a year?” So we lived upstairs at Ede’s Place and mama and dad ran Ede’s Place for the year. I was three when mom and dad ran Ede’s Place and then when Ede came back, mom and dad found this old Scowcroft home on 2350 Adams, which had been vacant. It was a beautiful old home, run as a boarding house. They cleaned it up and ran it as a restaurant. We lived upstairs there. NW: It just started on the main floor with the kitchen and the two dining rooms. A big dining room was the living room then the porch instead of being a porch anymore they built it in right? 3 LS: Well, it had been built in. NW: Cause it looked permanent. LS: Well, it was brick, but it had been glassed in and it had two French doors and it just had the two dining rooms. There was a law at the time, well the city had an ordinance that said that they could only have 18 people at that time. It was soon changed, they went to the city council and got it changed, but at that time they could only have 18. LR: Wow. LS: Then pretty soon they got it to be 30 and then pretty soon their business grew and grew and pretty soon they needed some of the upstairs bedrooms so as our family grew and as the business grew, we just had fewer, NW: Less and less room for family. LS: My oldest sister and I had our twin bed in a closet. We slept in this twin bed and it was a great big closet. Our chested drawers was at the end of the twin bed and my clothes were in the bottom drawer and I could just sit at the bottom of the bed and pull the drawer open a little bit and just get my clothes out. It turned out to be this room right here, La Petite. Then they knocked the wall out of the closet and it got to be twice the closet and it turned out to be this La Petite room. LR: Going back just a little bit. Where was the Ede restaurant? LS: It was on 2750, NW: Monroe. LS: Madison. NW: Oh Madison that’s right. 4 LS: Because when I got married our apartment was right next door to it, our apartment was 2751, and it was just south of it. LR: And they ran that in what year? LS: 1944 to let’s see, he got home it must have been…see this is a brick from Mansion House. Nancie went over after it was knocked down and got seven bricks. NW: This says 1945 so was it 1944-1945? Or is that a mistake? LS: It didn’t tell us, but he had to stay over there. He was one of the people who stayed in Germany during the occupation. He stayed there for six months after the war ended. VE-Day in Europe, he was there for six months after that. I can’t find out what day he came home. NW: But it was a year after that? LS: Yes, and then they ran it for a year and in 1947 was when he started the Mansion House. LR: Did your parents both together run Ede’s in that year? LS: Yes LR: So that actually would made sense because VE-Day was April or May in 1945 so he probably wouldn’t have been really home until the end of 1945. LS: NW: Okay. Cause I did get that from the letter they wrote so that’s right. LR: So what are some of your memories of growing up in the Mansion House? LS: Boy there are ten million of them. I remember they were so busy. I had a great childhood. Just a great childhood cause they were so busy that I was pretty free. 5 NW: LS: NW: But didn’t you work for them? Well when I was older, yes I did. When I was 12. Yeah he started us all off at 12, we were water and coffee girls. We would set and clear and water and coffee and that’s about it until about 16. I had so much money going to high school. If we didn’t want to do school lunch I bought everybody’s lunch across the street from the old Weber High. LS: NW: She was one of the younger ones I didn’t bring all the money in. We had a lot of money. But he started us all off really early. He would come and we would get on a bus, we lived in Pleasant View actually. We would get on a bus whatever bus would take us closest to Ogden and then he would come pick us up or we would ride a bus in and then work all night and go home at 11:00 at night. His famous saying was, “We need to hurry and get out of here, so we don’t meet ourselves coming back to work in the morning.” LR: NW: So were you there when it was just living in the Mansion House? I only lived in the Mansion House for six months. We left at about 1953 and then all of the upstairs was restaurant. Just little private rooms for card players and meetings and family get togethers, lot of business meetings. Women’s groups, men’s groups, the Kwanis, the Rotary, realtors. LS: This is a letter that papa wrote to mama while she was in Chicago taking this cake decorating class. I just wanted to read you this one paragraph. He says, “Honey just now 9:30 p.m. I found out that I have 315 chicken dinners going out tomorrow for this ward. It was tentative and hadn’t fallen through as I thought so and I don’t have any groceries for it.” He’s got 315 dinners going out tomorrow 6 which he didn’t think he had. He says, “So I have to take Sue and Dan home and sleep two hours and get right back. So you can tell by my writing that I’m a nervous wreck.” So besides the 600 people that he’s going to feed tomorrow, he’s got 315 dinners that have surprised him and so he doesn’t have any groceries for it and he’s got two hours sleep and he’s tending the kids besides. That’s unusual, that’s what his life was like. LR: So, living in the Mansion House, was it hard? LS: No, it was good. I have great memories of it. I remember one time I decided, you know the searchlights that are in the sky? We lived right there in the middle of town and I decided that I would go find out where its’ origin was. It was about 7:00 at night when I decided I’d go find it, about 9:00 when I found it. When I got back to the Mansion House, mama was so upset with me. She says, “I’m so upset with you. You go down in the basement and I’ll deal with you later!” So I went down in the basement and I remember sitting on the potato peeler down there and they didn’t come. She didn’t come deal with me and she didn’t come, and she didn’t come. She had forgotten and gone to bed. I thought she’s so furious with me she’s just going to tell me she can’t deal with me cause she’s so furious with me and she’s gone to bed. NW: Forgotten all about it. So when they opened the Mansion House in 1947 they, mom was the chef and then papa would take over one little thing at a time and papa was the waiter, is that right? He was a cereal chemist before the war so he knew how to make the rolls and his rolls were amazing. LS: They were amazing. 7 NW: His pies were amazing. LS: He was known for his pies, they were so good. His pot roast, but you know mom would make it and he would think, “I can do better than that.” NW: “I can do it better,” so pretty soon he was the chef. LR: What kind of food was served? NW: Pot roast what was the other. LS: Steak. NW: Swiss steak, chicken pie, no, fried chicken, there was another chicken dish wasn’t there? LS: Chicken pies. NW: Chicken pies, pork chops, baked ham. LS: You know just homemade American food. NW: With a potato spiced apple with parsley in it; vegetables and all the rolls you wanted and a salad. LS: And fabulous pies NW: Little appetizers and pies LR: Obviously the customer base grew and grew. You were talking about having 600… LS: He had all the service clubs. Kiwanis, Rotary, the Exchange Club, Chamber of Commerce. Help me… NW: LS: Women’s club Yeah, there were American Businesswomen, the Catholic women, lots of clubs. Then he had a lot of little card clubs because all those bedrooms up there were 8 private. You had your own little private room to meet in so it was ideal at that time for Ogden. Then besides that there were lots of weddings there. NW: Lots of weddings LS: Lots of families started there. Lots of wedding breakfast there. You know people would get married in the Catholic church or the temple and come there for the wedding breakfast. NW: I served many of my friends at their wedding breakfast. LS: Yeah, me too. LR: Was I misreading that your mom learned to do cakes? LS: Yes, see we had these wedding receptions at the Mansion House and they would have the whole downstairs and then people would be coming through the wedding reception and going upstairs to the little rooms. They’d be going through the wedding reception to get to these rooms to eat and they could see that it wasn’t an ideal set up for these wedding receptions, so mom decided, they decided that they wanted to have a separate place for wedding receptions. Mom started the first wedding reception center in Ogden, the Threshold and that’s in there. LR: I just realized I don’t even know your parents; names. What were their names? NW: Milton, M-I-L-T-O-N and Reta, R-E-T-A. LR: Last name? NW: Berlin, B-E-R-L-I-N, like Germany LR: Berlin? Okay. NW: That’s important 9 LR: Yeah that’s kind of important. So your mom did the Threshold and then your dad ran the Mansion House. Was there ever any competition between the two? LS: No, they worked together. Well one time there was an article written in the paper about them and they kind of gave papa for mom’s business and mom said, “I kind of thought I did that,” but that was the only time there was any… NW: Contention. LS: Feeling because when mom would get in trouble papa would be right there to help her. NW: He made all the rolls, he made some of the food for mom. LS: Mom did teas and things and when it required anything more than light refreshments papa would do them. LR: She got really good at doing cakes? LS: She did. I got to tell you a story about her. Mother did not think there was anything she couldn’t do. She wasn’t held back by, she just knew she could do things. She started it in 1958, didn’t she? It was 1958? NW: Yes LS: She bought the building in 1958 NW: And that was at 2408 Van Buren, and its now the Children’s Justice… LS: Center. NW: Department or Center… LS: Where they look out for abused children, lawyers and things like that. She wanted to learn how to make the weddings cakes. She was going to learn how to 10 do the cakes and there was this lady up in Logan, Lucinda Larsen, who made gorgeous, just gorgeous cakes. Very intricate. At that time the style was very… NW: Different than it is now, very lace. LS: It had the hang down lace on the cakes and lots of flowers on the cakes, so different. NW: Frosting flowers. LS: The hard icing, the royal icing and mom wanted to learn how to make these cakes and she asked Lucinda Larsen. Lucinda Larsen, you know she was competitive, and she didn’t want to teach mom. But my mom was very persistent and finally she said, “Okay I’ll give you lessons.” So mom went up there and she gave her a lesson and they kind of hit it off. Lucinda said, “Okay when can you come for your second lesson? Can you come this day?” Mom said, “Oh no I’ve got a cake that day.” NW: She was already scheduled. LS: You just don’t do that. You don’t take a reservation for a cake when you’ve only had one lesson, but that was my mother. NW: Then she went back to Chicago and that’s where she was when papa wrote that letter. She went back to Chicago to learn from the Wilton Company, and she was there for like a week. She was amazing, they had all different styles of cakes that they made. I think she won every single competition. LS: She did, she won every category. I don’t know if it’s in here or not, but there were five categories and she won every category. 11 NW: Yeah, oh talk about when somebody decided on the sponge sugar cakes; that’s this hard candy. LS: There’s a picture in here, and Maria Osmond had that on her first wedding cake. Here it is, Maria Osmond had this, those ribbons are candy. LR: So did your mother make Maria Osmond’s wedding cake? NW: No. LS: It was that kind of cake. LR: The ribbon on this cake is frosting? LS: It’s hard candy and it just burns your fingers so bad to have to make those. NW: And then you have to put it on the fire and stick it when it gets hot, stick it to something. She was amazing and so artistic. LS: Anyway, she ran this reception center. She didn’t run it too long because she had nine kids. NW: Well we did in the Mansion House. You were free to roam. We were upstairs and we kind of snuck out. LS: NW: They were scaling the building. Yes we did it like Batman, no Spiderman. The bricks had the grout that goes in and we would stick our fingers in there and climb down. She thought we were all tucked up there nice and safe and we were out roaming around and going up to the hospital drug and buying candy and charging it to her. LS: She had a 100 dollar a week candy bill back then in 1960. NW: We liked candy. LS: Eventually she decided to sell the place. 12 LR: So you were living in the? NW: Living upstairs of the Threshold. So we went from living on top of the Mansion House, and then we owned two homes, just the one on Adams and the one on Marilyn Drive. Then we bought the Threshold, and we lived upstairs in the Threshold. LS: Then I got married, I was the baby sitter and I got married and these kids were… NW: Then we got naughty, a little bit. LS: She, to keep the kids quiet during the ceremony, there was a maid’s room in there and she would put a box of tide in the tub. NW: Not the whole box, just sprinkled it in, it’s very gritty on our bottoms. LS: So then she gave them washcloths to sit on cause it was too gritty. NW: It helped to keep all the kids in one place and away from the ceremony. LR: So this was in the Threshold? There were actually weddings held in this? LS: Yes. NW: Oh yeah, she was busy. LS: She was busy, she had like in August and June they have the wedding months. Sometimes she would have a wedding every day and sometimes she would have one during the day and one at night. She was busy NW: And she made wedding cakes for all of them. Plus, she was the one who made the reservations. She was the one who got the napkins printed and the invitations printed. She was a full service, she did it all. LS: NW: Ordered the flowers, the photographer And the music 13 LS: Then after she gave that up she was just as busy cause the kids were up tormenting the neighborhood. So then she got a little bake shop in the back of the Mansion House. NW: She made cakes for the white house and then the Threshold was turned into the Ivy House and she made wedding cakes for everybody. LS: For all the wedding, there were lots of wedding centers in Ogden NW: Three, didn’t we decide: The Edgewood, White House and Ivy House? LR: When did the Threshold close? LS: It didn’t close, it was sold to the Ivy House. LR: So, it was still a wedding reception center your mother just no longer ran it? NW: Right. LS: Right. LR: What year was that? NW: I was in seventh grade, so I was maybe 12 or 13. So that was 1964/1965. LS: But one time father was still at the reception center, Edna the frugal helper made screwdrivers the night before a reception in the orange juice punch bowl and put it in the fridge. We woke up in the morning and said, “Oh mother made us orange juice.” We all had screwdrivers for breakfast. Jenny was in sixth grade, I was in fourth, and Susie was in second. Danny was in kindergarten, and we all came home with hangovers about noon. So sick. LR: I was going to ask what the screwdriver punch bowl was, but now I know. So was that when you were still living at the Mansion House? NW: No, we were living upstairs in the Threshold. 14 LR: Gets confusing. NW: I know! Lots of businesses LR: When you left the Threshold where did you move too? NW: Pleasant View, Majestic Heights way out on the mountain, up the mountain. LR: So when you talk about getting the bus to come into Ogden for work it was a bus ride? NW: Yes, yes. We were going to Wahlquist so we’d get a school bus to take us as far as we could into the city and then from there we’d walk or ride the bus or papa would pick us up. LR: And he was already in town? NW: Yeah, he was at the Mansion House. It was in between lunch and dinner so he would just take a minute and come pick us up if that’s what we decided the day before, or that morning. LS: Papa would get there very, very early and leave very late wouldn’t he? He would say, he would change his shoes and he’d say, “Ahh.” What would he say? NW: “A change is as good as a rest.” LS: Yeah. NW: Just a new pair of shoes, a different pair of shoes, it had a different feel to it and, “Ahh, I’m ready to go again all day.” He worked all day every day and my husband wanted to own a restaurant and I said, “No! I do not want to,” he was married to it. He was there all day every Monday through Saturday except for on Sunday and occasionally he would open on Sunday for good customers, but man that was a tough life for him. 15 LS: It is and then after he worked all day long, he’d get his rolling pin out and roll out 500 chicken pies. LR: How long did he run the Mansion House? NW: What are the years? The book says 2000, but I don’t think that’s right. LS: You know, I’ve got articles downstairs. NW: Oh 1990. LR: Did he sell it or did he just? LS: He sold it to his sons. LR: Okay is it still operating as a restaurant? NW: No, it was torn down. LS: He sold it to his sons and then Gus sold it to the Catholic Church and now it’s gone. NW: Yes, Lonna called me, left a message and said the Mansion House has been torn down. So I drove by and the house to the north had some bricks that looked like Mansion House bricks around their front porch so I knocked on the door and he gave me seven of them and I made them into those bricks LS: That was the Mansion House logo. That was on our sign out front and the menus. Most correspondence was with that logo. LR: So would you say that the Mansion House was a famous restaurant in Ogden? LS: Oh yes NW: Most everybody knew where it was. Everybody knew about it. Everybody who has been there had an experience or they would say, “Oh the pot roast.” Just the other day I was at a pie night at a friend’s house, this man, one of the guests 16 said, “This is good pie but the Mansion House rhubarb pie you just can’t beat it, it’s the best in the world.” LS: Coconut cream. NW: Coconut cream pie, their rhubarb pie was just to die for, it was very famous. LR: So when the railroad stopped coming through Ogden was there a decline in business? NW: We just got busier and busier. LS: No, it was a local business, it didn’t drop in trade. We didn’t have drop in trade. NW: We tried a little bit, but papa wasn’t set up for it. We would do mass feedings of 100 in a group, and they would have two choices of those eight menu items. When someone would call, I would rattle those things off and we had two of each of the different types of menus. LR: So you’re always busy even after the train? LS: It didn’t matter. NW: He would serve 100 people and he was used to those big things, but when he had a short order cook, he did German for drop in trade. Sour gratin, Hungarian goulash, Wienerschnitzel, those were the main German dishes. They were amazing. LR: So, he did better when he was catering to larger groups? NW: Oh yeah, he had that down. He kind of cornered the market on it. He knew what he was doing, and they knew what to expect and what they would get; the quality of food they would get when they came. So we were busy every night except for July and he took the month off to clean and go on vacation. I hated to clean. 17 LS: We weren’t very good at that were we? We weren’t participants. NW: One day okay this is a bad story I won’t tell it. LR: Oh no now you need to share. NW: Well, I got tired of, because every time I got finished with a job he would give me another one, and I wanted to do my own thing. So I decided to clean the men’s bathroom. I cleaned the walls, everything was just spec and span. Papa said, “Where have you been?” I’ve cleaned the men’s bathroom.” He says, “You cleaned the pee on the walls? “That was pee!?” I had no idea. I told you it was bad, sorry. LS: You wouldn’t have done it. NW: Oh heavens no. Not without gloves or something. I didn’t realize. LR: Never did that job again did ya? NW: Nope. LS: He was very, he loved the little old ladies, the sweet customers. What he hated, oh what he hated was to be drug out… NW: In public… LS: As the chef… NW: To honor him, he’s very shy. LS: He had plaques that they prepared for him, these groups that had been there for years. Oh man did he hate to go get those plaques. LR: Kind of a shift a little bit. I love all the stories of Mansion House. I’m curious though what your memories are of just downtown Ogden. 18 LS: Okay, you know what I was thinking is maybe you’d like to see if you wanted to know about other businesses. I’ve got yearbooks that have other businesses in them, like the old downtown Ogden. NW: Keely’s and Woolworth’s. LS: The Emporium. NW: I don’t remember that, but Grant’s. LS: Grant’s. NW: What was the letters before? G. W. Grant? Castleton’s that’s when I was growing up. LS: L. R. Samuels. NW: Yes, oh yes! LR: Now was this all on Washington? NW: Yes. LR: And in between like 23rd and 27th? NW: 25th LS: These ones were between 23rd and 24th. NW: Okay, but Samuels, LS: Samuels was between 23rd and 24th. NW: No, 24th and 25th. Sammy’s was on the south side of the Egyptian. LS: Right. NW: Then Keeleys was in there and Egyptian, between 25th and 24th. LR: What was Keeleys? LS: Keeleys was where you went after your dates. 19 NW: It was kind of a café, they had great malts. LS: They had the best malts, they made homemade candy. One time papa went down there and he stopped and got some candy. He said “I’ll take 25 cents worth of candy.” He was living back in the old times cause he didn’t realize that 25 cents didn’t buy you anything. NW: Back in the day I got pictures of papa in a suit and a tie and a hat to go shopping. And mother, they had the hats and gloves to go shopping. That was a big deal. LS: Do you want to borrow that book for those pictures? LR: Would you mind if we copied it? We will bring it back. We would love to make a copy of that and share that. LS: I put a marker in there for you. LR: If you don’t mind, we’ll copy the whole thing. NW: A lot of its family stuff at the back. Look at it, see what you think. LR: Did you guys ever go down on 25th street or was that taboo for you guys? LS: No, NW: It wasn’t taboo, but there was nothing there. LS: No there wasn’t anything there for families. NW: That we were interested in. LS: Our grandpa had a barber shop down there. NW: Anderson, oh really? LS: Yeah, our grandpa Anderson had a barber shop down there. The Star Noodle was down there and so we went down there for that. NW: As a family. 20 LR: You’d never just, to have fun to see what it was like? NW: Oh yeah, LS: Oh sure, but we didn’t walk down there. LR: I’ve just heard a lot of stories about the teenagers getting in cars, parking, rolling up all the windows and just watching the foot traffic. LS: Oh really? NW: Yeah, not me. LS: We were very boring teenagers. NW: And sheltered. LS: And busy, we worked a lot. LS: Who didn’t drive up red light alley, did you? NW: No LR: So after you were married did you still work in the Mansion House? LS: I did. I worked there until, when I was 36, I went back to school to learn to be a nurse from Weber State. NW: And I put myself through Weber State working at the Mansion House. LS: She’s an administrator, she’s a school administrator LR: Oh really? NW: Cause I have my bachelor’s and master’s from Weber and if they would have had an administrative endorsement because I love Weber State, just love it. I just have these wonderful fond memories of it. LS: I remember being on campus and thinking, this was early in my nursing years at Weber State thinking, “I’m the luckiest woman in the world to be here.” 21 NW: Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. LS: I remember those years at Weber State. LR: All I have are my few years which are fantastic. LS: I didn’t get to go when I was young. I got married when I was 17. Well I graduated from high school when I was 17 and then three months later I was married. LR: So what high school did you attend? LS: Ogden, 1960. LR: In the new building? LS: Yes. LR: My dates are all sceewompas, of course it was the new building. For some reason I’m thinking that’s a different place. NW: The two oldest graduated from Weber or Ogden and the five youngest from Weber. LR: And that’s in Pleasant View? NW: That’s in Pleasant View now, but it was on 12th and Washington when we went there. Then it was much easier when I was in high school to get to the Mansion House to work at nights. LR: NW: Oh I’m sure. So, would you stay late with your dad even on school nights? Oh yes, 11:00. Quite often we served breakfast also, when I was in high school I did. When I was in junior high I just did the evening meals and water and coffee and set and cleared. But when I was in high school I would do breakfast and lunch, and when I was in college I would do breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I would 22 study in between lunch and dinner and go to school in between breakfast and lunch. My cousin was a policeman and he picked me up three days in a row blining it from Weber State. I had to get to the Mansion House to serve the luncheon. I sped a little bit cause I had to hurry. LR: Did you go to Weber College? NW: Weber College. LR: The one that was right there on 25th street? NW: No, no. LR: What am I thinking? NW: Weber College that was back when papa was young. I think my first degree is from Weber State College. My second is from university. My first degree was in 1976 and it was a college. But it’s been there for a long time. They had to change the sign out front that said Weber State College and make it a little longer. LR: Is there any other memories you’d like to share? LS: Oh I thought of one. It was with papa. Do you remember the one where some lady came up to papa and said, “You’ve got to tell the boys that drive your truck…” NW: Well papa was always in a hurry between lunch and dinner and going to the store, picking up what he needed for that evening’s meal and he drove like a crazy man. LS: Yes he did NW: He would tailgate and go around people and through. He received a call when he got back to the Mansion House. This kind older lady said, “You have got to tell 23 that young man that drives your Mansion House truck that he needs to slow down cause he is a crazy driver.” Papa said, “I will tell him.” LS: “I’ll be sure and tell him.” He was a bad driver, he’d drive sometimes and my husband would look over and he’d be terrified. NW: We got in an accident once. Papa was coming home from work and it was late and the kids always liked to steer so we were all in the front of the bus. We were going from the Mansion House. I had just finished my junior year so this was June of 1969. So we were coming home, it was like 11:00 at night, we’re in the front of a Volkswagen Bus, papa fell asleep. Dan was steering, he fell asleep and I’m in the passenger seat and ran into a parked car. They were both sound asleep, actually I was asleep also cause I didn’t see it coming. LS: We should tell her just a couple of the things with mom at the Threshold. NW: Like what? LS: Oh like the time when that guy spent his reception in her bed because he had an appendix attack. The time the bridegroom kept fainting through the whole ceremony. She just had ten million memories. Oh if she had only written those down. NW: That would be a great book. LS: The time when the bride and groom, they were an older couple, said they wanted to use the bride’s room between the wedding and the reception. LR: Did she let them? LS: Yeah. NW: Well it’s the bride’s room. 24 LR: She was very kind. LS: The photographer said, “Now I’d like the groom to stand behind the bride for this photograph,” and the bridegroom said, “Oh no I can’t. I’m too tired and she’s too sore.” She just had a million memories. NW: That’s crazy. LR: Well, thank you ladies so much for your time. NW: You’re welcome. LR: This has been fantastic. Your memories of Ogden and the Mansion House are just phenomenal. So thank you so much for your time. LS: You’re so welcome. NW: That was fun. 25 WEBER STATE UNIVERSilY STEWART LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW AGREEMENT Sert- day(s) of L( by and between the Webetate University, Stewart Library, Oral History Program (WSUSLOHP) This Interview Agreement is made and entered into this and t L --. -za hereinafter called "Interviewee." Interviewee agrees to participate in a recorded interview, commencing on or about 1: with L<gz,-1?-L time '-I date, -t;>' 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 all his or her copyright, title and interest in and to the interview. 2. 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