Oral History Program Van Summerill Interviewed by Dana Gatrell 6 December 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Van Summerill Interviewed by Dana Gatrell 6 December 2008 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 Kelley Evans, 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: Summerill, Van, an oral history by Dana Gatrell, 6 December 2008, 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 Van Summerill. The interview was conducted on December 6, 2008, by Dana Gatrell, in Summerill’s home in Ogden, Utah. The interview mainly concerns his experience with Peery's Egyptian Theater in Ogden, Utah, and the Theater Historical Society. DG: So, your name is Van Summerill. VS: Yes. DG: Where were you born? VS: I was born in Ogden, Utah, Weber County. I've reached the age where the hospital's been torn down I was born in. My grade school's been torn down and my junior high. DG: Oh wow. Do you know the story behind your name, why your parents named you Van Summerill? VS: Uh, actually uh, it's, my middle name is Van Dike, and that was my mother's maiden name, and they did what you really shouldn't do to a person - call them by, not only call them by your middle name because the computer age is not set up to deal with that, but also a nickname. (Unintelligible) - call me Van, and the reason they did that is my mother's dad was named Wes Van Dike, and his nickname was Van. Everybody called him Van. So, on most of my papers, and uh, the whole time I was at Weber State I was listed as L. Van Summerill. So, it's more or less my official name except on my driver's license and then when you go to the airport you've got to use it the way it's, um, down on your records. DG: So you said that the hospital and your grade school have all been torn down. What was your house like, what was your first house? 1 VS: I lived in back of my grandmother's house. It was built for my mom and dad, a little small frame home down on Van Buren between 23rd and 24th and it was built as a wedding gift, uh, when my mom and dad got married. And so we lived there, and then, um, when I was about five years old my parents bought the vacant property next door to my nana's house, which was my mother's mother, and they built there. My mother always said that was a mistake, living next door to your mother. And so I only lived in two places before I moved out on my own and uh, so that house was built in 1947, still there. My dad is 93 years old, still lives there on his own and urn, takes care of part of the property and such. He rakes his own yard and uh, does his own wash and everything else. So we're fortunate in that sense. DG: What was your family like? VS: I had, I have one brother, one sister, so there were three of us, and uh, had a mother who was a great cook. Everything was made from scratch, home cooking. Although I remember growing up just after the war years and that we didn't have such things as fresh vegetables there, everything was canned. So to this day I still like canned beans and canned peas, even though the color's off. Had a very happy childhood and uh, I look at how kids are raised today in front of a TV or in front of a computer, and I think, you know, their creative skills are hurting. We always played outside, which was healthier and made up games and uh, all kinds of- used our minds and our imaginations all the time, so it was a happy time. DG: What would you say was your favorite game that you would play? VS: Oh, we played hide and go seek, I remember. In those days you could play it because they didn't have daylight savings time, so it got dark in the summer early enough that you 2 could play it. Of course, with the daylight savings it's not dark until a quarter to ten, so when you're a kid you're in bed nowadays. Well, I don't know about nowadays kids being in bed, but anyway... DG: When you were growing up did you have a favorite sport, or a sport that you would follow, like a team? VS: Not in my youth. When I started junior high school I started following, following junior high basketball. That was Central Junior High, and on through high school, Ogden High, and uh, Weber State. I had reserved seats at Weber State basketball games for years, even back in the old gym. Uh, I started in school in the fall of 1960 and uh, soon after had reserved seats, and then uh, was on committee when the Dee Events Center was built. Actually it was the Seat Back Committee - uh, Seat Sales Committee, I guess it was, and so was one of the charter members of uh, having reserved seats in the Dee Events Center. DG: When you were going to school did you, did you have a favorite subject? What um, what's probably your strongest memory of school? VS: Well, I think it kind of changed over the years. In grade school um, I was, I was trying to think um... My experience in grade school, Lauren Farr Elementary School, and in the city schools in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades you actually changed classes, so we actually had three different teachers during the day. And urn, I always enjoyed the music part of it, and um, uh, and that. When I got into high school, surprisingly, I think my favorite class; at least the one that I figure gave me my most benefit was typing, of all things. Because I benefitted from that, and then it eventually played into my profession, which was graphic 3 arts, and so I did a lot of type-setting, so to speak. And uh, so I thought that was the most valuable class I took. DG: When you were, when you were growing up did you always think that you would be going into what you're in now, or was there something else before that you thought you would do with your life and then it changed over time? VS: Well, I - early on I had a great interest in the movies, and that mainly comes from going to the kid's shows in the Egyptian, and that'd be in uh, around 1950. Every Saturday morning there was a kiddie show. Cost twenty cents to get in, and so I was fascinated by the movies and particularly that building. I knew it was special, the Egyptian, but I didn't know what was special. When you're eight years old or nine you don't know the details of such things. But I was introduced to uh, the likes of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and uh, serials, the chapter serials and uh, cartoons, and so on and so forth. So I always had that interest in the back of my mind. Um, I always was inclined to be a little bit uh, in the area of the arts, in graphic arts in particular. And so those were my two fields. But uh, at the age of nineteen I was assistant manager at the Egyptian theater, and I only lasted eight months down there. I couldn't uh, the manager was a hard person to work for, plus you go, you, you, you have to plead poverty working for the theaters even in those days. I went directly from there to work in the - working at Weber State Printing while I was in college at the university and uh, worked there. Ended up working there forty years doing graphic arts work and uh, production and uh, even ran some of the printing presses and that, so the two kind of tied together in a sense. DG: Was the Egyptian your first job, or was there something else before that? 4 VS: I had a part-time job before that. One that probably, as I look back and I've said many times was my favorite job and that was cleaning a Laundromat twice a day. And the Laundromat’s still there. It's just below uh, Monroe on 24th street. And it was run by my mother's cousin, and um, so I usually went in there um, I was trying to think - I think that I was working that maybe my last year of high school, certainly my first year in college. Uh, I'd go down after school about four 'o clock and do uh, uh, a quick clean-up, and then go back that night at ten 'o clock and, and then do a more thorough clean-up. But I knew exactly what I had to do and when I had to do it, and uh, it was really a fun job. DG: You said, you said earlier that you would go to the Egyptian when you were eight or nine. Was that your first movie experience, going to the Egyptian? What was that like? VS: I remember um, I must have been about five years old, and I'm not sure whether I was in the Egyptian or not, but I was with my parents and there was a Superman serial on before the feature started and I - to this day I can remember how terrified I was 'cause he was unconscious on this conveyer belt going, heading towards a furnace with fire and brimstone and flames and, of course, that's where it ended. Uh, I also remember being specifically in the Egyptian. Maybe I was a little older then, maybe seven or eight or something like that um, and the movie was She Wore a Yellow Ribbon with John Wayne. And I remember I got a little antsy like kids do, and so I went out and kind of wandered around the lobby and go to the drinking fountain and then go back and sit down and such. Those are my earliest memories, and then when I got old enough to start going to the kid's shows by myself and taking my little brother that's, that's when that started. 5 DG: Now uh, did the Egyptian uh, stay your favorite place to be, or, as you grew up, was there another place in town that you would often go to hang out, to be with your friends uh, to socialize, was there somewhere else? VS: I was um, I was fascinated by the movies, and Ogden at that time had four great downtown theaters. Across the street was the Orpheum, which was the oldest theater, opened in 1890 as the grand opera house and lasted into the 70s. Uh, and then, on the block below uh, just west of the Egyptian on Keisel was the Paramount Theater which was a 2,000 seat theater - was huge, beautiful theater and uh, was always kind of fun to go there. I, very seldom did I see it filled up. They couldn't fill it, it was so big. And then up around the corner on 25th street above Washington was the Ogden Theater, which was affiliated with the Egyptian, it was owned by - built and owned by the Peery’s, and then eventually taken over by Fox. So my main fanity - fantasies was, were er, connected with movies and theaters, I, I, I, and I eventually grew to love the building so much that I joined an organization called the Theater Historical Society which I've been a member of for thirty some-odd years, and we have a convention every summer in various uh, metropolitan areas and tour the old movie palaces and such. But um, I was asked to comment a few weeks ago there was an article in The Standard on "draggin' the 'lard," dragging the boulevard. And I remember that during high school, so we did that a lot up and down the street. Going from drive-in restaurant to drive-in restaurant and gettin' to the North end of town, then turn around, drive back and that, so - that, that was one way of having fun, but um, we had a close-knit neighborhood um, uh, lot of, lot of close, neighborhood friends, and we did things together as friends, and such. I even remember one night, I don't know how I ever got permission, but we got permission, I got permission 6 to go with my friends to a midnight show at the Egyptian, it happened to be at the Egyptian in the summer. And we walked down, 'cause I was less than a mile away, our neighborhood was less than a mile away. And uh, the midnight movie was The Thing, the original The Thing, and when we came out of the theater there, there must have been five, I would guess maybe five, six, seven of us - we started thinking of that movie and remembering we were gonna have to walk home at two in the morning, and we were so scared we called a taxi and piled in the taxi cab. DG: If you don't mind me asking, how did you meet your wife? What was your experience there? VS: I'm, I'm not married. DG: Oh! I'm sorry. VS: I, I've remained single. DG: I'm sorry, that's my ignorance. Um, you said you joined the Theater Historical Society. Was that before the Egyptian Theater was renovated or was that afterwards? VS: It was before, and um, I witnessed across the country the scenario that would, would happen to the Egyptian Theater, so I knew what was coming. Um, what happened to the Egyptian, how it uh, eventually closed as a dollar house, a run-down dollar house, and that was the common scenario across the nation, and so I, I knew what was coming um, and it sparked me to um, initiate to –I wrote the letter in the paper to found what became the Egyptian Theater Foundation, and that was in the spring of uh, I think it was March of 1985. And uh, that - thus began a twelve-year saga of trying to save that theater, eventually saving it, and then raising the money, and then seeing eh, working with the 7 architects on the restoration of it so that we were as accurate as possible in the restoration. But it took uh, took uh, twelve years, reopened in 1970 - in uh, 1997. DG: What did um, what do you think was the hardest part of the restoration process? What was hardest to fix in the theater? VS: Actually the hardest part, I think, was uh, educating the community that it was a worthwhile project for the city was actually the hardest part. Um, and it took a long - it took many, many years. And um, Weber County, for new residents at one time, used to have a new residents' bus that would bus everybody around the town. And they asked me one day to stand in front of the Egyptian and wait for that bus 'cause it would stop there in front of the Egyptian. And I got on the bus to explain - well, it just so happened that Paul Thompson, who was the new President of Weber State University, and his wife Carolyn were in the front seat on that bus, right in back of the bus driver. And so, I gave the history of the theater and why it was important, and certainly very unique architecturally, and important to the city and the state. And um, got off the bus and they drove away, but I like - I'd like to think I that in some way was responsible for sparking an interest in President Thompson who uh, they eventually came up, the university with this idea of combining with Weber County, Ogden City, the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, and our organization, the Egyptian Theater Foundation, to uh, put together an organization that would save and restore that building and, and uh, eventually it was under the auspices of Weber State University, which they uh, soon realized they didn't have the funds to, to keep it operating, so now it's under the auspices of Weber County. But in fact, I would like to think that uh, my little spiel on that bus may be something that somehow stirred something in President Thompson. And so, I'm forever thankful for him uh, and the others 8 around him, and the others connected with the county and that coming up with the conception of a restored theater connected to a conference center. That's what pulled it all together. The conference center was interesting to Weber State because they wanted to move some of the activities downtown. DG: What uh, you said that the Egyptian Theater was reopened in 1997, now what was, what was that day like for you? VS: It was very emotional. And um, it was a great day. We had several days of uh, celebrations and occasions and such. And uh, uh, we formed a committee to pick uh, opening movies. There hadn't been movies shown in there in twelve years. And uh, movies we opened, we came up with were, in the afternoon we ran Danny Kaye and the Court Jester, which ironically never played at the Egyptian. It played across the street at the Orpheum. And then eh, that night we ran two showings of um, Hitchcock's North by Northwest, which also didn't play at the Egyptian. It played across the street at the Orpheum. So, but, uh, we filled every performance for those shows, and um, it was just exciting to see the, the theater filled again. The night before they had special presentations and uh, honors and uh, had a full house to view the theater for the first time and the conference center, including a dinner in the conference center - as a great experience. DG: Uh, you mentioned earlier the community, trying to get the community involved. What was their response during this process while you were trying to get the renovation going and also after the theater opened? VS: Well, looking back on it uh, I almost get a smirk on my face because it's the old bandwagon concept. At first we could get no one interested, and sometimes it's hard to 9 have a vision when you're walking in a dilapidated building in, say, February, and you're showing people around and there's plaster falling off the ceiling and it's freezing cold in there and not really much to look at. Sometimes it takes um - it's hard to paint a picture of what it could be and, and what it should be. And um, luckily our organization, the Egyptian Theater Foundation, we had two people come along just at the right time who had connections and uh, become President of the organization. The first of those two was Rob White who was connected with um, local businesses and companies who had um, the capacity to network with these people, excuse me just a minute... (leaves and answers the ringing phone, has short discussion)... Um, but we had some people in different organizations around the city, I think one person in particular, I think was involved from the Chamber of Commerce, perhaps. Uh, in fact I know he was uh, he will go unnamed, but he was advocating tearing the theater down. And some other people in civic positions couldn't see the value of it and uh, there was a certain newspaper editor to The Standard Examiner who, I remember, would call up whoever was then president of the foundation and say, "I'm gonna write another negative editorial about the Egyptian. Do you have any comment?" and so on and such. But as time went on and um, Rob White uh, and uh, was able to uh, find some interest, and we got major funding from the Delores Dory Eccles Foundation. A matching fund - they'd match us two dollars for every dollar we raise up to a million dollars, so we (unintelligible) did that quickly and there was three million dollars. Once the impetus started turning towards the theater, I, I - in retrospect I'm really amused to see these nay-sayers in that all of the sudden jump on board, and one in particular now uh - you'd think it was his theater, because he's so proud of that theater, 10 and I, and all I can think of in the back of my mind is, "well, yeah, but he didn't help in the beginning." DG: Um, since then with the Peery's Egyptian Theater is that um, have you been involved with other historic theaters across the state, or are you just solely focused Peery's Egyptian Theater? VS: I have an interest in theaters across the state, and in particular one in Ogden, and over the years have a collection of photos and articles and things on um, uh, all the Ogden theaters. I did some research and um, drew a street map on where I located every theater that was in Ogden say, between 1900 and 1960. And uh, it was interesting to, to know a lot of those were, were storefront movie theaters, what they call "nickelodeons" downtown, so they didn't last very long but uh, I was amused to see that for one year Ogden had a theater named, "The it." I-T, whatever that was. DG: I'd like to double back to your earlier experiences. When you were growing up what were some of the uh, what were some of the purchases? Like, the everyday purchases that you would make, and like, how much were they? Like, what was the cost of gas when you were growing up? VS: Oh, I remember well uh, it was not long after I got my driver's license which was at the age of sixteen that gas was 32 cents a gallon. So I could - in those days you all had the big V-8 gas guzzlers, I could, I remember I could fill that gas tank for five dollars. And um, uh, I was just looking back through um, some newspaper archives the other day, this was back in the '30s, but I couldn't believe that a can of peas was eight cents and things like that. I mean, that was before my time, but uh, I still have, and we used to always wait in the, especially in the summer, we'd wait and wait for the local market, which was Coop's 11 Independent Market around the corner, to get the next Mad Magazine. I have a whole collection of Mad Magazines. I have the first issue up through, oh, about the first forty issues of that. I've kept them all these years. I don't know why, but that first issue is just ragged and dog-eared and, and everything 'cause we read it over and over, and -1 think they came out monthly, I guess they still do, but I remember it seemed like it took forever and then somebody would come up and say, "Hey! Coop's has the new Mad Magazine!" So I think they were uh, seems like they were 25 cents I think, and uh, I don't remember buying much - oh, soda pop, of course we all - and I particularly remember the soda pop machine. It was um, like a reservoir with chilled water in it. And then it had these um, kind of tracks that the soda pop - they were all in bottles, and they'd go down in these tracks and you could move them around and that when they were dunked in this cold water to make them cold. And you'd put the money in, or you open the lid and then you slid them around in these tracks 'til you got the one out and put it in the place and then you put the money in and you could pull it out. I think they were a dime. In fact, I remember a stupid collection that some of us had. We'd go around all the stores and collect the bottle caps out of the bottle cap thing where you would pull the caps off and had a little container in it. I had mason jars full of those stupid things, separated to whether they were Coke, or uh, Orange, or whatever, for whatever reason. DG: You mentioned a lot of, a lot of popular things that were, were around. What about, what about people? Were there people that you followed when you were growing up that you, that you enjoyed like, especially with the movies, or, or other celebrities that you looked up to? 12 VS: I, I look at these -I guess this is an age thing more than anything, but I - there's so many of the current movie stars and celebrities that I don't even know who the hell they are. But um, in looking back people I really looked up to were some of my school teachers, and they were always the ones that were the meanest, strictest, strictest ones. I remember coming home for lunch one day from when I was, was the end of the fifth grade, I guess, and I was bawling. My mother was out working in the gardens, and I came home crying, she said, "What's the matter with you?" and I says, "I got Miss Clark next year for teacher - homeroom," and all this stuff. And she was a meanie. She, she could, she was strict, but she was my favorite teacher in all of grade school. And I remember her standing at the - in the doorway, and waiting when the bell rang. She had a ruler in her hand, and if you'd come in after the bell rang she whacked you on the head (laughs). And I remember she was reading one day out of the book and somebody in the back of the room was acting up, and she just took that book and she threw it, and it went down the aisle. Everybody ducked down and the thing splattered and broke against the back wall. But then in junior high uh, Anna K. Smith, I remember Miss Smith taught algebra, and uh, no, not algebra math, I don't, I can't, I don't think we even had algebra in the ninth grade. But she was another strict sourpuss and that. But I, I uh, I always learned the most from those people, so I always kind of liked them. Those old school days, I mean eh, you could be politically incorrect. I remember having eh, one teacher, and I can't remember what he taught, but I looked over one day and he and one of his students are rolling around on the floor (chuckles) wrestling (laughs). His name was Cranford Taylor, and I remember everybody called him behind his back "Crannie." But um, as I got older, and this was more at the end of my teens, I discovered Alfred Hitchcock in the movies and uh, learned to appreciate 13 him so much and uh, admire him, and in retrospect some of the early movie stars that I really learned to love were, were um, people like Jimmy Stewart and uh, uh, Grace Kelly and uh, who was such a beauty and uh, Cary Grant and some of these people. To this day I still admire those people. I actually have a film collection in sixteen millimeter, not thirty 35 is what they run in the theaters. I started collecting films in the late '60s, and actually have a movie theater downstairs. It runs film, no video. But, so over the years I've collected some of the great films and such, great actors and stuff. DG: You mentioned that uh, you mentioned that you were born in Ogden and you've obviously stuck around. But, while you were growing up in the course of your life, have you ever, you ever travelled? Have you ever gone to other places and experienced other things? What's your experience with that? VS: I've been in almost all of the states of the United States, and a good part of that was through the Theater Historical Society travelling each summer. Uh, I figure uh, I had a good friend who joined the year after me from Kansas City and we've been friends ever since. And I joined in '73, he joined in '74, so we were trying to figure how many theaters we've been in over the years, and we figure it's uh, between 800 and 1,000 theaters that we've seen. But we've been in virtually every big metropolitan area in the country other than the South. We haven't, we haven't been in Florida and we haven't been in Texas. Uh, actually, they did go to Texas one year and I, I didn't attend that year, but uh, and then uh, we take buses into the smaller cities and such, so uh, I've been in uh, oh, ninety percent of the states and uh, Mexico and Canada. I really would like to travel and uh, see Europe and a few of these places before I die. Right now I'm tied down with two dogs, and I won't put them in a kennel, so as long as, as grandpa, which they know my dad as, can take 14 care of them while they, they - in fact, that's where they are today, but uh, so I'm kind of tied down that way. But I've enjoyed seeing the rest of the country and uh, meeting people. I have long - uh, nearly half life-long friends around the country from the Theater Historical Society. DG: What would you say is your favorite experience? Outside of the Egyptian Theater, of course, what would you say is your favorite experience with the Theater Historical Society? VS: Well, it used to be to see these wonderful theaters, but now we're seeing repeats, sometimes three times 'cause we've seen them all and we've been members so long, and now it's just uh, the friendships that I have and uh, like I have a very, very good friend that's in Boston who's originally from Philly. Actually, I, I noticed that you're from Pennsylvania and I was going to ask you if you were from Philly, Philadelphia. Uh, some people on the West coast and such, and so it's the friends that mean the most now, but I was saying to John, my friend in Kansas City, I said, "You know, when we joined this we were all the young studs, and now we're the old farts." DG: Um, you mentioned earlier that you had, that you have dogs. Is there uh - have you always had pets in your life, or is that a recent development? VS: No, we always had pets. We lived in the middle of Ogden City, but in the 40’s there were not the restrictions there are now. I remember very young, my parents bought me two Banty Roosters that were in the backyard, and my mother-I, I can barely remember them, but she said those roosters would follow me around the yard wherever I went. I know we had a rabbit. I know we had some docks for the summer and then they ended up at my uncle’s farm up in Corinne which was the kind thing to do. We always had dogs, and my 15 sister always had cats, so uh, I always had animals. That’s (Pointing to a picture over the fireplace) my first little dog that, uh, had a horrible cancer that I had to put down. That’s why I’ve got her up there. In fact, that’s her ashes right there in that box. DG: Oh. VS: That doll up there, my mother was a doll collector, and of course, as you can see, I’ve got a lot of stuff Egyptian around here. My mother’s been gone fourteen years, but she gave me that doll of Nefertiti, so that’s why she has a place on my mantle. It’s kind of an unusual thing to see in a house on a mantle. DG: If you ever make it to Germany, you should go to Berlin, and the museum in Berlin. That’s where they have the statue of the head of Nefertiti. VS: Oh, I would love to see that, I (Unintelligible). DG: At least that’s where I think that’s there. VS: I didn’t realize that was in Germany. DG: Mm-hmm. You said that you lived pretty much downtown, with this, with this family, with your house, and with all these pets. Was downtown, at that point, mostly residential where it was houses with yards at that point? VS: Well no, we actually lived eight-seven blocks East of Washington Boulevard, so it’s a walking distance. But it, yeah, it’s a residential neighborhood, always has been, kind of getting scary. I worry about my dad down there, because that area of town is some of the worst parts of town now, as far as crime and gangs and things, so in that way it’s really sad to see the old neighborhood, and how it’s changed. DG: You mentioned earlier that you got your license at sixteen. When did you get your first car, and what was it? 16 VS: Oh boy, um, I was given the first car, and it was a Hudson we had, and it was the first year we-I was in high school, I didn’t have one up until-err, I mean, first year in college. I didn’t have a car until about a year before, and they gave me this Hudson, and that was when it was Weber Junior College, and a very small campus and that. There was about 1,800-2,000 students up there. But I hated that, I hated driving that car and being seen in it so bad that I’d park it across Harrison in the parking lot over there and walk over to the school so nobody saw me get in and out of it. Of course now, I wish I had it and had it restored because it would be worth a lot of money. The first car I ever bought was a 1958, it was a four-door, hard top Chevy. What the heck was the model of it? 1958 Chevy’s were, to me, the most beautiful Chevy. I know that most people classify the door hard top, so it wasn’t a classic. It was a Bel-Air, I believe-was a Bel-Air. That was the first car I bought, and would be in uh, 1962, I guess, when I couldn’t drive that Hudson anymore. DG: You remember how much the Bel-Air cost? VS: You know, I don’t. Um, the-I remember I bought a 1973 Monte Carlo, I think it was, and it was $4,000-$4,300 I think. Brand new car. That ’58 Chevy was probably in the high hundreds, maybe $1,000-$1,500, but in those days that seemed like a lot of money. Sounds like my dad, “in those days…” DG: It happens. You mentioned that you would park across the street from Weber Junior College on Harrison. Do you remember what the roads were like here in Ogden? Like, I’ve heard many times how some people will say they remember how few street lights there were. Do you have any memories like that where you’ve seen Ogden grow now to where there’s much more traffic? What was it like earlier? 17 VS: Yes, if you’re familiar with 24th Street-runs downtown-it’s got those beautiful trees that, that creates an entire canopy during the summer, it’s a beautiful experience to drive in that. When I was in high school, Harrison used to be that way. It was lined with the same trees. See, Harrison and 24th Street was a straight-straight highway. Harrison still is, but they ceded 24th Street to the city. But then they widened Harrison and took all those trees out, which I think was really sad. Street lights, especially in central Ogden, I don’t think there’s any more or less than there were in those days. The one thing I remember on street repairs-I mean, now you have those flashing lights, battery operated. They had what they called smudge pots filled with an oil, or some kind of gasoline substance. It had a wick in it, and they put those in the street and light them every night, so, and then, of course those have all been replaced. But the one thing that most people forget, when I bring it up, I ask them, they don’t remember it, but stop signs used to be yellow. And I was trying to think when they changed that, probably be about 1960, maybe a little later, maybe a little earlier. Uh, and the no parking strips were yellow, not red, and then they went to red. But I remember the stop sign at the end of Van Buren was yellow, octagonal, and then the letters had reflective marbles that were actually embedded in the metal, and that's what reflected for the STOP on the stop sign. I remember a few years ago seeing a movie um, actually saw it in Kansas City, and I think that's the name of the movie, Kansas City. And it supposedly took place in the '30s, and I was there visiting my friend that I was telling you about, and we were in that movie and they were filming with the old cars and that in front of the union station in Kansas City and I said, "That's not accurate." And he said, "What is?" and he says, "They've got a red strip in front of that building, it would have been yellow." I mean, I don't know why I remember stupid things like that. I can't 18 remember important things, but yeah, traffic is, is increased uh, so much. The upper road to, to Salt Lake was always just one lane each way, and starting there just this side of Lagoon when you come up the hill it was four lanes, and I remember always coming home from Salt Lake, this was as late as in the '60s, speeding up there because you'd see these big semi- trucks in front of you and you had to try and get around those before you got on the one-lane highway, so it was, was very dangerous because you, you had to pass into the oncoming lane to get around it. But like I said uh, Harrison was such a beautiful street like 24th street and uh, it uh, aesthetically has suffered greatly because of the need to expand the lanes and traffic. DG: You mentioned earlier that you went to Weber Junior College uh, which of course would have been much smaller back then. What was it like? VS: Well, it was a two-year school. Uh, it turned a four-year school while I was in school there. My first year was 1960, fall of 1960, and uh, they hadn't even built the gym at that time, and so it was a joke. You had to take gym class, and it was at the old campus down 24th street. The Weber Gym just above Washington, just above Adams on 25th street, I should say. So you had like fifteen minutes to get down there, then you had like five, seven minutes to get dressed. The same on the reverse, so you actually, like if you were playing basketball, whatever you played you had like ten minutes at the most (laughs). It was such a, it was a study in frustration, I mean it just didn't make any sense, but anyway that's how it had to be. And uh, what I do remember was um, from the old campus down there when they moved up to the new one which I think was the fall of 1954 I believe. And um, the old campus had some old army barracks in between some of the, the grand old buildings down there, and they moved one up there and it was put directly in back of 19 building four, and it was the temporary union building. So it was just a one-story army barracks, and I remember it had a soda fountain in one end, had the, the, the, I don't know what you call those lights, the milk glass lights hanging from the ceiling. And it had the soda fountain in one end, it had the bookstore in there, it had a jukebox in there, and it had one room that was The Signpost office. And I've often thought, because the union building didn't open 'til the next fall, it was under construction, first phase of it. And I've often thought if they had of kept that up there, that would have been such a funky place now, it was just such fun to have that old jukebox and the soda fountain in there. I think it would have been a big hit now if it were still there. So there were only the four main buildings. One, two, three, and four. One and two, of course, are gone now, and then the tech building, the original tech building, the lowest part on the North end of the campus were the only buildings on campus, so it was a very small campus. And it was such a let-down for me because I went to Ogden High, I don't know if you've been in Ogden High or not. It was a WPA project and it was called the first million-dollar high school, which was, I understand, was very controversial when it was under construction. A lot of people thought that was such a waste of money, but what they did was put to work all these artisans, so that is all marble halls inside. The auditorium looks like an art-deco movie palace in there, it was just beautiful. And then to go up there to those crummy buildings, one, two, three, and four at Weber State that always looked like a prison to me, it was such a let-down to go from that beautiful Ogden High up there, but uh, spent forty years there, so I've seen a lot of changes in that campus. DG: Right now at Weber State I think, I think the main - of course it's the Weber State Wildcats. VS: Mm-hmm. 20 DG: And, I think right now the colors are purple and white, or purple and silver. Has, is that, is that different from what it was when you went? The colors, or the mascot? VS: Nope, it's always been the wildcat, and it was always purple and white. I was a little distressed when they came up with this new logo, the W. I always call it the Warner Bros, logo, 'cause it's the shield with the W in the middle. That, that's when they added the third color, which I believe is gold, which, when you get the three together it, it kind of takes the Christmas, to me, out of the purple and white. I, I actually preferred the purple and white. But I have to tell you a funny story. It was one of the first, first couple years in the, in the gym basketball. Weber joined the, Weber had become a four-year school and they were members of the Big Sky. They were, of course uh, one of the founding members of the Big Sky, and the marching group - I don't, I can't remember whether they had changed to the Chantanelles ? . I think they had. Originally they were the Coleens ? , but they were military. Shake their heads around, and that. I remember it was half time, and, and I knew a girl. Actually, I kind of dated a girl that was a member of the Coleens. It wasn't her. But now, this was in the early '60s where they had those beehive hairdos, up like this (indicating). And, I'll, I'll never forget it. It was half time and they were out marching, doing their military march, and flipping their heads back and forth, and this one girl had a hair piece on top to poof her hair up as high as she could. She flipped her head around at it came loose in the front, and so it, she, every time she did this it was flapping around in the back. Or the front, I can't remember, but I swear to God, this is the truth, that they formed a circle, danced in a circle, marched around the jump circle in the middle of the floor, and shook her head once more and that hair piece fell off, and it fell right in the middle of the jump circle, and then they danced around it like they were in some kind of, like it was 21 almost planned that way, and she looked so funny because the top of her head was flat. She had put that, that hair piece on top, so I, that's one thing I'll never forget. DG: Uh, you might have opened a can of worms there earlier when you mentioned uh, uh, hairstyles. Did you ever, did you ever follow any, do any trends, follow any trends with hairstyles, or just with styles in particular? Were there any styles over time that you followed? VS: I tried to steer clear of that. First of all, I've had baby-fine hair my whole life. I did have a full head of hair, but uh, lately it's not much uh, I can't follow any hair style. Um, my first couple a years in college the, the, the men's hair style was called Beta hair style, and it was short but it was combed forward, so you had short bangs. And uh, I guess I kind of followed that, but ah, a little bit, but I, I look back at some of the movies, home movies I took of, of us back in the '70s, and I just cringe because I let my hair grow out. Now your hair looks good grown out. My hair does not look good grown out (laughs). And so, you know, over the years stuff, and um, you look back on things like that and you think, "Oh my hell, how silly, how silly." Every once in a while I'll be flipping the TV around and there's that Laurence Welks ? show, and their doing a '70s show, and they've all got their hair down over their ears, and you know, combed. It's not loose and it's all hair-sprayed down. DG: Uh ... well, aside from the uh, aside from the friends that you've made over the years in the uh, in the Historical Theater Association, has there been any part of the travelling that you've enjoyed the most? Uh, seeing the theaters? VS: I love visiting big cities and I love the architecture, places like Milwaukee uh, where the Frank Lloyd Wright influence is so great, and uh, around that area. Madison and uh, 22 Chicago is one of my favorite cities. I've never been there in the winter, and uh, it's probably just as well. That might change my mind to being the favorite city, but I love the great architecture. New York's fun to visit, but I think Chicago, architecturally, has as many interesting buildings as New York. I like visiting those cities. I wouldn't want to live there. Um, I can take New York City for maybe four days, and then, and then I, just, I "Get me out of here!" I got to get -I mean, wall to wall people, and yet I have friends that, they think New York City is the center of the universe. You know, I have some friends and we'd be on the bus somewhere in the Midwest or wherever, and uh, Eric Meyers would come on the bus to tell his other friends from New York, "I found a New York Times!” and such. But uh, the museums um, of course New York has some wonderful ones. The ones I'm most familiar with are the ones in Chicago, and I could just live in the museums. The art museums or the museum of science and industry, and so on and so forth. The field museum and stuff, you know. That's what I like. DG: Now, of course, even with all of this travelling Ogden has been your home your entire life. When did um, when was the first time that you had your own place? Like, what was your first home? Where did you live first here in Ogden? VS: I rented uh, and it was rather late. I lived at home until I was thirty-something and in the basement. The basement was almost like a separate apartment. And then uh, a friend and I rented an apartment together, and that would have been in 1976, and then from there I moved to a home, rented a home, and then here. I've been in this house for thirty years, so this has been home. So, I, I moved very little. The only time I lived away from home was when I was in basic training for the National Guard at Fort Ord ? , which was six months in 1960, early 1964, so otherwise this has pretty much been home. 23 DG: What was, what was that experience like? VS: Well, I didn't want to go. Uh, and now I can laugh about it um, it, it, it was an interesting experience, and, and I, I did a Bill Clinton. I was being drafted, and so I joined the National Guard. And then get back home, and then our unit, I was in the howitzer battalion out here in uh, South Ogden, and then our unit was being activated to go, and we were doing double drills, and dressed in our class-As and such, and uh, but in the mean time I took we went to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake for a physical and they found out I had high blood pressure - high enough I was out within a week and a half, so I was thankful for that, but I've had high blood pressure ever since, so under control with medication. I got to get running, but... DG: Okay, I'll, I'll make this my last question. Uh, in your experience living here in Ogden during your life uh, what would you say is your, your - of course, there's been a lot of changes. What would you say has been your favorite change, and what would you say has been your least favorite change? VS: Actually, um, favorite change, I guess would have to be the development and growth of Weber State, because it, it adds prestige, and it, uh, I mean it's, it's certainly the center of this community. On the negative side, I'm saddened to see what's happened to our downtown area, and Ogden is one of the few cities that has a bona fide downtown, and I've done so much research over the years on the Egyptian that, that I realize that in the '20s there were a lot of people predicting Ogden would be bigger than Salt Lake City. And so, I think the saddest thing was um, the loss of the railroad, and it took me a long time to figure out what caused that, and it was the freeway system that went in, killed the railroad and all the ancillary businesses. We, we had huge stockyards, and um, a big Swiss 24 meat-packing place, plant and such. But the freeway went in and it put Ogden a half hour closer to Salt Lake, and killed the railroads, and so Ogden has struggled ever since, but I keep thinking we're going to turn things around. We got these wonderful buildings downtown, and, incidentally, the architects who designed the Egyptian did the City building, the art-deco building, they did the Ben Loman Hotel, the art services building - or the art, the floor services building, and then Ogden High. So they were the premiere architects, so we've got these great buildings and so many of them uh, I've said to somebody, to, to, on occasion, that in spite of that new construction downtown, the, the gateway imitation over there, the rest of Ogden looks worse than I think it ever has. I've never seen so many empty buildings and dilapidated ones, and so that saddens me, and I'm, I'm hoping we can just hold on to these and that they'll uh, eventually be used, because they are great architecture and deserve it. DG: All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Summerill. VS: Okay. 25