Oral History Program Zina Cottle Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Zina Cottle 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: Cottle, Zina, 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 Zina Cottle. Mrs. Cottle relates her experiences during the Depression, raising food, sewing clothing, and enjoying celebrations with the Hooper Band. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: What was your husband's occupation during that time? ZC: Farmer. MT: What type of farming did he do mostly? ZC: Beets, and hay, and tomatoes and beans, lima beans. MT: What do you remember about the great depression and it’s effect on you and your family and the others around you? ZC: Well, it was hard. You just had to count every penny that you could get ahold of and the kids couldn't have clothes like they have now but everybody was alike, so we got by. But, it was a happy time in a way, but it was hard. MT: You said it was a happy time, in what way do you feel that… ZC: Well, our children, and all the children were close to home they didn't have this to go to and that to go to and all kinds of money to spend to get them in trouble and that, and they just made their own fun and danced every week and things of that kind, and they all seemed to be happy about it, so. . . MT: Would you tell me a little about the recreation that they had, the dances and so forth? ZC: Well, every Saturday night in the Old Hall down here they had Saturday night dances and they came from far and near to the dances, and they had huge crowds and they danced at Christmas time. . . they danced every night but Sunday night. I remember when I was a girl that's the way we used to have it, 2 and we danced every night through the two weeks holiday, and that's about the only recreation there was in those days. I remember one night I came home and kneeled down to say my prayers, and I was so tired I fell asleep kneeling down. When I woke up, I was cold, but it was a lot of fun. MT: How many children did you have? ZC: I had four. MT: When were you and Brother Cottle married? ZC: 1913. Our first child was born two years after. MT: 1913 to 1930, your oldest daughter would have been about fifteen then, when the depression first struck. ZC: Yes. MT: Do you remember anything particularly about the crash of the stock market, or anything along that line, do you recall feeling any real concern about. ZC: Well, that's been quite a long while ago, I don't remember too much about that. MT: What were your most important problems along that time? Were they food, or clothing, or transportation, or what? ZC: I made all the clothes for the children and myself, you couldn't buy things like you do now, we had to start right from the bottom, and they wore so many more clothes then than they do now that you made every stitch they wore. And our transportation was limited. There was a bus that came down, a Hooper man, Mr. Fowers, used to take a bus about once or twice a week over to town, and we'd go over and back, and that's the way we had to get around that way. MT: What did it cost to ride that bus do you remember? 3 ZC: I think it was fifty cents a trip. MT: Was food much of a problem to you here? ZC: No, not particularly, because he always raised potatoes, we always had potatoes and we always kept a pig and not too much beef, but we had milk cows, so we had plenty of milk and fruit was quite plentiful and we bottled a lot of fruit, and jellies and jams. MT: Then you and your family didn't suffer from any want of food, or things along this line then. ZC: No, no, it was hard in a way, now we had a girl that was in an accident, and she was hurt quite bad, and had her leg broken and her wrist and nose, and had eleven stitches across her eyes and it happened up here, on the corner coming from a dance one night and it took us a lot of money she spent two months and two weeks, and we couldn't pay it all off at a time, and the hospital was very nice to us and we paid it off, we made 20 separate payments, and that's what we did to pay the bill off. MT: Are there things in the community and the church and so forth that were better then? ZC: Well, I have made the remark, and I've heard several people that have made it, and that things come too easy for children; all they've got to do is just ask for money and go up here to the store early in the mornings and that is just full of children, that early in the morning, buying stuff to eat, you know, just pastry, and I don't think that's too good for them. And I think when you get things the hard way, you appreciate them more. 4 MT: What do you remember about the entertainment and the celebrations that you used to have during the depression years? ZC: Well, they had a celebration over here to the park, as long as I can remember, even as a little girl, they celebrated and they'd make their own ice cream, they'd go around in the mornings the day before and get the milk and cream and they'd make their own ice cream and sell it for a nickel a cone. MT: I've heard mention of the Hooper band... ZC: Yes, they'd start out just as it was coming daylight and they'd raise the flag, and the band would travel all over Hooper and kind of give people the spirit of the day. They had big crowds; I guess this ward here was about the only one that ever did do much celebrating, so they used to come from all over. MT: Is there any interesting incident that occurred during the depression years that you would like to relate? ZC: Well, we had a big wind storm, I remember that very well, and our string beans were about six inches high, I guess, and it just cleaned everything out and the ground was just bare, everything was just absolutely bare and of course that made it hard for the farmers. MT: Do you remember how much you received for potatoes and other crops that you grew? ZC: Well, he loaded the car with potatoes and they got twenty-nine cents a bag for them. And then a lot of them that sold them that way . . . they always cut the bags open to see how they were you know, they'd cut a sack open and if the sack was good, they'd take them, and if it wasn't why they wouldn't, and a lot of 5 them had to cull 'em, while they were over here after they'd loaded them and brought them that far, and loaded them in the car. MT: What about sugar beets and so forth, that would they have sold for? ZC: I really have forgot what those sugar beets... but it wasn’t very much though.