Oral History Program J. Levi Beus Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah J. Levi Beus 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: Beus, J. Levi, 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 J. Levi Beus. Mr. and Mrs. Beus share their memories of the Depression years, what they did to get by and the lessons they learned from their experiences, especially focusing on how they provided for their family. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Were you living in Weber County during the years from 1929 to ’39? LB: I was, yes. MT: Where did you live then? LB: Lived right here. MT: Right in this home. LB: That’s right. MT: When were you made Bishop of the ward? LB: In June of 1937. MT: Oh yes. Did you notice any particular difference between members of the Church and how they got along and people who weren’t members of the Church in the community? With the coming of the Welfare plan, I think that was invented in 1936, were there any differences there that you noted? LB: No – there really had been very few non-members of the Church here to experiment with or to watch, and they mainly joined us in whatever program was inaugurated to benefit the community or the people. They were good neighbors and friends. MT: How long were you Bishop here? LB: Four years – a little over four years. MT: Who was your predecessor as Bishop? 2 LB: John D. Hooper. MT: Since that time, you’ve been a member of the Stake Presidency, and you’re currently the Patriarch in the stake. LB: That’s correct, yes. MT: What do you remember most about the Depression? LB: Well, our trouble was to get cash, to market our crops. Our potatoes just stayed in the pit – one year we had a crop of potatoes, and those that we sold we sold for eighteen cents a hundred-pound sack. Many of them were not sold. The price of sheep and cattle – we purchased, at the beginning of the Depression, about 1929 or ’30, a hundred-head of ewes. Everyone thought that they’d be a good investment. Sheep were on the farm then. The price of sheep went down and down until they were very cheap. In fact, the by-products [collectors] wouldn’t come and get them hardly. An overproduction of about everything that was produced on the farm, and a very scarcity of cash for the trouble. MT: Did you have problems with food or clothing, or things along this line? LB: No, we had an abundance of food, and pretty well fixed up for clothing. Patched and worked over and got by, but clothing. It was to pay taxes, pay mortgage payments, interest payments; that was the difficulty. MT: Did the government come through with some help along through those years that you were able to participate in? LB: Yes – they attempted to help us in a number of ways. I remember they made wheat available. Of course, we had plenty of wheat, but some people didn’t, city people didn’t. That was made available, and they attempted to peg the price of 3 wheat too, to stop it from going too low. I forget the names of the programs they inaugurated in, but they had some programs. MT: The AAA came in that period of time, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as I recall. LB: Yes. MT: In your marketing process, particularly for your dairy products and things along this line, were there methods that you developed through those years that were helpful to you in marketing? LB: Yes, I think cooperative marketing had its birth in that time. MT: What particularly did you do in this line, to market your crops? LB: We were principally in the dairy business, of course, and the Weber Central Dairy was created a little before that. They played a big part in growth and helped the farmers who were dairymen during that time. MT: Did you do anything cooperatively that you recall in the other crops and so forth? LB: Not in a big way. Various groups of farmers cooperated, I remember, in helping one another in their harvesting, and anything to save cash. MT: In Southern Utah, where I lived during that period of time, people just didn’t have money to hire a man to come and help them on the farm, so they used to go with a neighbor and put up his crops, and then exchange. Did you have a similar…? LB: Yes. We went around in various ways and helped with a harvest, and planting of the crops. People were very good to help and cooperate. MT: Do you think of things now that – let’s back around a little bit – do you think of things that you did then that you think now were very desirable, that we have somewhat forgotten today? 4 LB: Well, we got along very well with much less than they think they have to have today. Of course, we still do. Canned and preserved and did all we could do to get along with what we had without buying any more. MT: What about the community and activities in the community? How would you compare the activities of the community during those years with those of today? LB: Well, they were more plain and simple in those days. A lot of people with creativity produced shows and activities and amusement with very little to do with. More so then than we do today. MT: You provided most of your activity and most of your own entertainment during that period of time. LB: That’s right. The horse and wagon, and bobsled; they provided a means of travel. We were seven years without a car during that period, and we gave everything to pay our debts. MT: Do you recall any – I don’t know whether I should call it a habit, or a trait, or a characteristic – that you have carried over as a result of your experience in those times? LB: I think that some people became more thrifty and were benefitted by it. Others became bitter and felt that they should be assisted in their recovery. Perhaps the recovery did them more damage than the Depression. MT: Do you recall anything now, in your experience as a Bishop through those years, that – of course I wouldn’t want you to mention names or anything of this nature, but – do you recall any experiences that you had that might be interesting? 5 LB: Well, we distributed our surplus commodities around the community to see that – I don’t think that anyone went hungry, or anyone went particularly cold. There was plenty to eat, and plenty to keep warm. That sort of thing. It was a Depression of cash. MT: How would you rank the spirituality of the community as compared to it today? I know that’s a tough question, but I’d really appreciate it. LB: I think it compared well with the spirituality we enjoy today. In this community, there’s always been a high standard of spirituality and helpfulness. It’s a good community in that respect, you know, always has been from the beginning. MT: Are there any incidences, amusing or otherwise, that you can think of that might be of interest? LB: Well, to think of on the spur of the moment – I don’t think of any coming to mind. There were interesting times, and challenging times; and those who lived through them with honor, and were true to their obligations and responsibilities, have come through very well. I don’t think they have any regrets. I think there were others that became bitter, and perhaps their home attitude wasn’t good during that time, and it may be reflected in their children and in their grandchildren today. It may have something to do with the campus riots, the unrest and the feeling of the world that the government should do something for them and help them that they can’t do. MT: I think that’s a very interesting observation. Very interesting. I surely appreciate your sitting with me, and talking on this subject. In this study, I’m getting a real 6 bang out of going around and talking with different people, because it is a really interesting thing. I very much appreciate your help with it. LB: Well, I haven’t done much – my feeling is often they’ve created something to cure – the cure has been more damaging than the Depression. MT: Do you think of a specific thing along this line, or just more in general? LB: Well, I think the agricultural program is really a mistake. MT: I think a lot of good farmers share that feeling. LB: I’ll be glad when it can be moved off of the program. MT: Just go on to a competitive type economy in agriculture. LB: That’s right. MT: Very interesting. Well, thank you very much, President Beus. Sure appreciate it. LB: You’re welcome. [Tape is stopped, then restarted.] LB: At Christmas time they’d notice other children that were – had gotten much more than ours, and they mentioned it, and they felt the Depression somewhat – like we weren’t treating them fair and right. Mrs. Beus: I don’t think they felt too much that way. They noticed other children getting more things sometimes, all right, but… MT: Well, you see that even today – you know, in our family, I guess I was raised enough in that Depression era that I’m still kind of conservative too on my savings. LB: I imagine. 7 MT: I still can’t see – a lot of people go in debt for their next year’s Christmas, or for this year’s Christmas they’ll be paying for it until next Christmas. I can’t go with that. Mrs. Beus: Actually, things don’t make you so happy after all. It’s the way you live, and the things you do with what you have to do the best you can. I think that’s where you achieve and accomplish more, more satisfied really. MT: Yes, there’s no question about that. Mrs. Beus: Children maybe feel a little hurt right at the time, but as they get a little older and understand, I think they appreciate the fact that what we did, we did on our own, and we didn’t expect other people to pick up the things and do for us that we could do for ourselves. I think as they get older they appreciate that fact. LB: If people just knew that there isn’t anything free in this world, everything’s got its’ price tag, somebody pays for it along the line, you know. If certain groups get by without paying, why some other group has to pay for it. MT: Yes. Mrs Beus: People that go ahead and spend and get into condition, they’re going to have to take out bankruptcy or do something, you know – someone has to pay for that, and I kind of like to pay my own way, I don’t like people to be obligated. MT: That certainly is right and commendable. Sister Beus, you mentioned after we had turned off our recording on your part there, that probably shoes were the most difficult. Would you like to comment on that a little bit? Mrs. Beus: Well, when children are small, of course they’re hard on shoes. That used to be a problem – we’d get them a pair of shoes each, and then they’d have to 8 wear them for every day and for best too. I was just thinking about how on Saturday night, we’d have to wash those shoes out and dry them and polish them and get them ready for Sunday, you know? It was a problem, because we couldn’t go buy shoes like – so they could have two pair each or something like that. Tough time. LB: Our children didn’t cost us much. You didn’t tell them about that time when the doctor didn’t get here. Of course, the doctor come to our home, and they were willing to do it, and rendered good service, and I appreciated it too. Appreciated having them come in our home. The children were born here, and just got along very well, with the help of some neighbors who were experienced. Mrs. Beus: Our second child, Ulna, was born on the sixth of January. It was a winter that it was so cold, and the snow had been plowed up so you couldn’t see over the top of it in the roads, you know. It was really just a big furrow of snow. The night that she was born, it dropped down to about fifteen below zero. Dr. Merrill, who made the trip out here, he didn’t get here in time for the baby. She was born before he got here. But he came, and I tell you, that would be quite a hard drive. I guess he had a car, an old car that he drove out here in, but he came, but it was cold. Of course, we just had three rooms when we first came here, and we had a coal heater here and a coal range in the kitchen. It got so cold that night that even though we closed up the bedroom and moved my bed in the living room here, the windows froze right to the top, and they didn’t thaw down for two weeks, it stayed so cold that the ice – the steam on the inside of the house, they froze right to the top. Of course, this was a coal stove in each one of these 9 rooms, to keep the house warm. It didn’t stay too warm, and of course the houses weren’t built insulated like they are today, and it was quite a cold night that he came out. Very good of him to come. Doctors wouldn’t do that today. MT: Dr. Merrill was quite an old gentleman. It hasn’t been long since he passed away, has it? LB: You may be thinking about two. There’s Merrill and Morell. Morell lived quite a while – Dr. Merrill didn’t live too long. MT: I am, I’m confusing the names. Mrs. Beus: Dr. Merrill. But he died several years ago, but he wasn’t really very old when he passed away. MT: Well, I certainly appreciate your time, and the information that you’ve given me here. Thank you very much. LB: You’re welcome, very welcome.