Oral History Program Amos C. Richardson Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Amos C. Richardson Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 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 The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ 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: Richardson, Amos C., an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Amos C. Richardson. Mr. Richardson describes his experiences during the Depression; the LDS church helping members, especially with medical expenses, cost of living, entertainment, and the closing of the Ogden State Bank. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: What were you doing from the years 1929 to 1939? AR: In 1928 I went to work for the Globe Mills, and in 1935, Pillsbury took that over. I was there until 1944 when I went into business for myself. MT: What type of business did you go into? AR: Feed business, feed grain, hay, fertilizers. MT: What do you remember about those years as regards the economy of the country and your own personal finances, and things along that line? AR: I was one of the fortunate ones during the Depression. The wages were very low, but everything was very cheap. During the Depression when others were looking for jobs, I was making $110 a month. And then I went from $110 to $140 during the Depression. We could go into a grocery store and buy all the groceries that we wanted for $10 without any trouble at all. I was driving one of their cars, so I didn’t have to have a car of my own. I fared very well during the Depression. I didn’t have a Depression. MT: What did you observe about others around you? AR: Those that weren’t as fortunate as I was were having a very hard time, especially if they were in debt. That was another thing. I wasn’t in debt during that time, so I didn’t have that to worry about. The boys that were in debt, and some of them were out of work half the time, and when they were working they were taking 2 jobs that would pay them most anything that they could get. And our new fellows that were working for $1.50 a day and trying to keep a family and pay off a home or a farm or something like that – it was rough, very rough. MT: When did you go into the bishopric of the [LDS] Twelfth Ward? AR: I went into the bishopric in 1939. MT: What do you remember about those years as far as the church was concerned and the church welfare, and things along that line? AR: The church was very kind. They were very good, and there were a lot of these people that I guess don’t know what they would have done if it hadn’t been for the church. I know when Bishop Paul was bishop, and I was his counselor, many times we’d go up to the hospital, and somebody would be in the hospital without any insurance to pay. In those days our health and accident insurance was very meager, and hospital insurance was unthought of almost. And although the hospital was cheap in comparison to now, it was very expensive at that time. I’ve seen many a time when Bishop Paul had gone in and some of the patients, about half their problem was worry. He’d say, “Well, your worries are over. I’ll stop and tell them to send me the bill.” And we did. He used to just have the man send him the bill, and he’d pay it through the church. He was very good that way. We had a lot of widows in our ward, and a lot of elderly people. This was an old ward, and we had a lot of people that were having an awful hard time to get along. Bishop Paul was very kind to them. MT: What else do you remember about the Depression? AR: Well, I don’t know too much about it. Prices were way down. For example, you 3 take canned milk. Canned milk was selling for five cents a can, and it was a 16 ounce can. Then later on, they hesitated about raising the price of it, so they cut it down to a 15 ounce can. Then they didn’t raise price of it, and they cut it down to a 14 ounce can. Now it’s about a 13 ounce can, and they’ve raised it several times. Now it’s about four times, at least four times, what it was then. They’ve cut down the volume by about 25 percent. See, I was on the road, and I happen to know about all those things. A lot of those things were the same way. A lot of canned goods were buying for five or six for a quarter. Now we’re paying 25 and 30 cents a can for it. There’s a lot of difference, of course. The wages are a lot different. My job that I was getting $110 for is now paying around $700 or $800 a month. MT: What type of job did you do for them? AR: I traveled. I was on the road. I covered the local here, and up as far as Idaho, and down into Nevada and Southern Utah, and up into Wyoming. MT: What was your major product that you were selling? AR: When I first started with them, we had a feed line. Of course we mixed the dairy feeds and the laying mashes, and we didn’t have any hog feed. Then, of course, we had all kinds of grain and by-products such as bran and shorts. Then in the fall line, about all we had then was our low-bay [sic] one flour, whole wheat flour, and grain flour, corn meal, and I believe that was about all. And there was germ made. I take that back. There was germ made, and one or two items like that. MT: Now you sold to the retailer? AR: No, I sold the goods. Well, I sold to the stores, directly to the retail stores. Then, 4 of course, all these mills had a grist, too, so that the farmer would bring his grain in to pay for flour. MT: Your different accounts that you had, how many of those, through those years, were able to enjoy credit through your firm? How many of them had to pay cash for what they got? AR: We didn’t have many that had to pay cash. We had a lot of them that were limited. They could only buy so much, and they had to pay for that before they could buy more. Then we had those that were on a 30-day. And then when I took over, when the Depression came, they had several that owed them big amounts of money, and there were a lot of them. Some of the boys that are retired now owed the Globe Mills $2000 and $3000 and $4,000, and they just marked them off the books. But the people that stayed in business, they maintained their businesses and they finally came out. But they couldn’t pay anything on their account until it was outlawed, see. But we did very well, personally. I did exceptionally well. I’ve got a letter from them now that was sent to me from the manager of our plant, and when he sent that letter, he was talking of the year previous. I had lost only $3.06 that was taken off my accounts. The rest was all closed and collected. In fact, I did a better job for them than I did for myself when I was in business. When this last slump came, we had an awful lot of people that took out bankruptcy. That bankruptcy law is terrible. It costs the merchants a lot of money. And I blame the merchants, a lot of merchants, for it. The reason I blame them is because you can pick up the paper, and they want to sell you this, and they want to sell you 5 that, and you don’t have to pay anything for 90 days or 120 days. In the fall of the year, they want to sell you your Christmas presents, and you don’t have to pay anything until the first of February, and things like this. They just invite those things to happen because some people can be honest, but they don’t have good judgment. I remember a salesman when they used to come around to sell the individual insurance and things like that. It only costs you five cents a day. Well, some people don’t stop to realize that five cents here and five cents there, and they keep up with that five cents. Pretty quick they’ve got $3 or $4 a day. I have a son-in-law that’s in the loan business. He says it’s just surprising. People would come in that would get themselves in a jam like that, and would analyze their accounts. They owe, their payments per month sometimes will exceed their wages by several dollars. If they paid the whole check out, they couldn’t make their payments. So they borrow money, and they take the loan out longer, and pay higher interest. He said many times, within a year or two, they’re right back again, back where they started from. So I say, it isn’t altogether the individual; it’s the law. It’s the individual and the merchant. But there’s got to be something done about the bankruptcy law because there’s a lot of people who are just taking advantage of the situation. They say, “Well, if I get in too far, I’ll take out bankruptcy,” and they do it. MT: What attitudes do you feel you might have developed as a result of the Depression that you feel kind of guide you today? AR: I live within my own means. That’s the big thing. That was always my ideal, to 6 live within my means. A lot of people took credit because they couldn’t afford what they were buying. That hasn’t been my attitude at all. I might have to take credit because I can’t accumulate that much money all at once, but I know that I can pay it when I take it. For example, buying a home. I couldn’t accumulate enough money to buy a home, but I knew that I had put it on a basis so that I know that I had three times each month that I could have paid each month if I would have had to, as what I did have to pay. And I set it up so that I could pay it that way. If I got far enough ahead so that I could make an extra payment, or a couple of extra payments, I could do it. And when I bought my home, I set my home up on a 30-year basis, and I paid for it in about 1/4 of that time. In fact, I paid mine off so fast that the people I bought it from were going to penalize me. I said, “Well, but I’m still going to be borrowing money because I’m going to be investing. If you’re going to do that, then you and I are all through.” So they didn’t. And I’ve kept a savings account with them ever since. MT: What feed businesses were around during those years, that you knew of, in the local area here? AR: Well, we had a lot of small feed men that, though we were making money, went into the feed business but didn’t last. But I couldn’t tell you all their names. There was Walker Feed out here, and George Bell, and Albert Bell, and the Rasmussens, and the Farrs, and R. J. White, and Farrel and Jackson, then they separated, and it was B. J. Farrel from then on. Then we had different people out through the country that were handling groceries and were also handling feed, such as out at Hooper. Both those boys out there, at one time, were handling 7 feed. Johnson and the man across the street from him, and Mrs. Simpson. I used to call on her all the time. Of course the West Weber Store still handles feed, and then we have a fellow in Wilson Lane. He handled a little feed. The one in Plain City, and one in Warren, and we had a lot of places that were handling feed. MT: The cake mixes and things like that – they gradually came later? AR: It gradually worked its way in. Yes, pancake flour. At first we didn’t have pancake flour. We had what we called self-rising flour. To begin with, nearly all of that went down to the Southeast. We used to send carload after carload down there because they were great for hot breads and stuff like that. But later on, there came the pancake flour, and then the biscuit flour, and then the cake flour, and now they’ve got about everything that you want to make. You don’t have to buy a sack of flour anymore because nobody makes any bread. The bakers use it all. The bakers had a big business, but not like they do now. MT: What do you remember about the construction business during those years? AR: I didn’t have much to do with them. Looking back now, I would have to stop and think about that because I didn’t associate with them very much. MT: Do you think of anything else that might be of interest – any amusing incidents that might have happened to you that might indicate the situation of the times? AR: Well, in entertainment, and I imagine you remember this, the Alhambra Theater, it was called the Alhambra at that time. It’s the Paramount now. The Alhambra Theater and some of these, every Thursday night, I think it was, was grocery night. They used to give away groceries, and those theaters were just filled to the 8 top, trying to win those groceries. They used to have big sacks there that you could hardly carry out, and they were all full of groceries. Along with it, a lot of times, they would give a sack of flour to go with it. You could come out of there with $4-$5 worth of groceries. Well, $4-$5 wouldn’t mean much now, but then $4-$5, you had to have help to carry them because you couldn’t carry them all, there were that many groceries. They would go around to the stores and pick up a lot of the stuff for advertising, and then give it out. I remember people who really used to go to those shows to get the groceries. A lot of those poor people that would just hope and pray, and they just depended on something like that. A lot of these people that didn’t have steady work, they always found enough money to buy a ticket to the show, and they killed two birds with one stone. They had change for a little entertainment, and they had an opportunity of getting their groceries, not for a week but for two or three weeks. MT: What about the Berthana and the White City? Do you remember anything about those? AR: We used to go to the dances all the time, and they had good crowds. But you could go to a dance for 50 cents, and they had good music. They had good crowds. They used to have prize dances, and give away candy and things of that sort to induce you to come in. These celebrations, these little towns used to have a lot of celebrations. Every one of the holidays they could possibly have, they’d have a celebration and give away stuff, you know. They used to have a big crowd there, and it didn’t take much, maybe 25 or 50 cents would last a boy or girl all day. Sometimes they would come home with something. But we don’t 9 have a lot of that now. MT: What about the entertainment in the ward, and so forth? What differences are there today from what they had then? AR: Well, they used to have a lot of entertainment in the ward, different kinds of entertainment. You could have a dance in the ward, and you’d fill the ward hall. Toward the latter part of my career in the bishopric and the high council, it had to be a pretty professional dance to bring out the people to the dance. And it still is. However every Thursday night, over here in our hall, it’s been going on for years, the young people have their dance, and they don’t have an orchestra, they have a player. But they have these players. I was standing back there listening, see. My lot goes right up to the back there. I had the windows and that up, and they have a fine group of boys and girls back there, and they were dancing and having a lot of fun. They’re dancing dances now that I didn’t know they were dancing. They’re much nicer dances than what they were there for a while. But I was back there last night for about 20 minutes, and they were having a lot of fun. I don’t think those kids were over 14 or 18 years old. Now, when I was bishop, we had a group of what we called the un-marrieds, and they included the widows and widowers, and those that used to come. They used to use our hall all the time. Sister Stevenson used to be the mother of them. She would be there every week, and I used to go over about every week and check on them, but they were all older. They were anywhere from 18 to 30, and they used to have a lot of fun. But I’ve noticed that these here, the last year or so, are younger people. In fact, I said last night when I 10 came in, “I don’t believe some of those kids are over 12 or 13 years old.” But my wife said that they had to be 16 before they could go, but you can’t tell. MT: What do you remember about the Ogden State Bank when it closed? Did you have any money in it? AR: Just a small amount, my paycheck. But the thing that was, that I put my check in the bank, and then I went out and paid my bills, rent, and everything out of it. Then the checks never went in before the bank closed. MT: Now, did you ever get that money back? AR: I got about 50 percent of it over a period of a good many months, but there was about 50 percent. MT: What about the Ogden State Bank? Were they good people to deal with? AR: Very good. Very good. You bet. They were people that would do everything to help you. In fact, this was one of their troubles. They were just a little bit too good. They were honest, I think. I always felt that they were. They always felt that the people that they dealt with were honest, and I think that they were, perhaps, absolutely right. But I think sometimes honest people get caught in these jams, and it makes them dishonest even though they’re still honest. But if they can’t pay, they can’t pay. I think that they had been a little bit lenient, and somebody, I don’t know, somebody caused a run on them, and none of these banks could take it at this time.