Oral History Program James Carrell Interviewed by Jordan Chavez 8 April 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah James Carrell Interviewed by Jordan Chavez 8 April 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Golden Hours Senior Center provides services to many patrons in Ogden, Utah. In 2014, the public history class conducted oral histories with several of these community members, covering topics such as World War II, education, segregation, Weber State University, Ogden City, and 25th Street during the 1940s and 1950s. These interviews add to the community history of Weber County. ____________________________________ 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: Carrell, James, an oral history by Jordan Chavez, 8 April 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii James Edward Carrell April 8, 2014 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with James Edward Carrell, conducted by Jordan Chavez on April 8, 2014 at the Golden Hours Senior Citizen Center. Carrell discusses his life here in Ogden and his involvement in the community. JC: For the record can you state your name and age? JEC: James Edward Carrell. I just barely turned sixty-nine on the thirtieth of March. JC: Wow, well happy belated birthday. How long have you lived in Ogden? JEC: Going on pretty close to twenty-eight years now. JC: That’s a long time. JEC: Yeah. JC: What brought you out here? JEC: What brought me out here? Well, I had a tragedy. One of my kids passed away years ago and he got killed in Tacoma, Washington, and so we brought everybody out here to bury him. Unfinished business. You know that damn funeral was so expensive that we just had enough to bury him but we didn’t have enough for the insurance, so I came here worked for the Standard Examiner doing ten rounds of papers until I couldn’t find another job at the time and I checked every dime I made and put it towards his headstone. And I just was sitting in my lonely apartment doing nothing, and I said there’s got to be something better for me out there than watching television, so I started going to meetings. 1 I got involved with the Neighborhood Watch. One night, I was actually conducting one of my own meetings, a lady from Catholic Commune Service came and asked me afterwards, “Have you ever heard of community action?” I said, “No, not exactly.” She said, “Well I’d like to invite you as a visitor.” So I went, but then a year or two a time, I was sitting on the board of trustees at that board, and I’m still on it today after all these years. One time, I said to them, “I want to know everything about everything in here”. I said, “What is this thing called Head Start?” So this Maria Alacoco, she was a college professor at Weber State University, she said, “If you really want to know about this, I will give you a name of a person from Human Resources to talk to and you can get involved in the Foster Grand parenting.” I said, “Ok, I’ll do that.” So I did, and while I was doing that I decided well, I’ll go to Weber State University. So I went there for a period of time until I got a teaching degree, and I started actually teaching my own classes. I believe education is where it’s at. If we don’t reach out and help the kids today, they haven’t got a chance. Have you ever heard of the AmeriCorps? The AmeriCorps gets a grant, federal government grant, every year to train teachers, to train supervisors to oversee and work in different classrooms especially with the handicap kids, kids that there is something wrong with their learning skills, their grades, to be there as a mentor and teacher. Well, I left the Head Start program, and after I did that with the college, I turned around and went to the Ogden City School District building. I filled out some papers, went to a few meetings, I got to find out who I needed to report to at the Highland Middle School, and I went to work under an 2 instructor as a mentor, and when my instructor was off training, she would mostly turn to me over the functions of the classroom. I went on after that to go through the training myself, and I became an AmeriCorps instructor. JC: That’s very cool. JEC: That way I had to… you don’t start at the top. You have to start at the bottom like the ladder of life. You have to work up that ladder to succeed in anything. But, it’s where the education goes. Two kinds of education. I was telling this young lady here (points at Jordan Chavez) that I did a neighborhood watch youth group meeting at Highland Elementary. I said to these kids, “You know what, there are two kinds of education. Can you tell me what they are?” They looked at me kind of funny. I said, “Well I’ll tell you. You got gangs; you got drugs on the street. You got education in the schools.” I said, “Which one will you choose?” This one here, you got the idea and right after that a youth neighborhood watch was started so kids that age could be a mentor and leader to other kids to get them going in the right direction rather than wasting their life away. JC: That’s pretty impressive. Everything you’ve done sounds very involved with the community, which I think is really great. Last time we spoke, you mentioned that you helped bring the neighborhood watch on a nationwide scale. JEC: Yes. JC: Can you go into detail about that? JEC: I started with my own neighborhood watch group to begin with, and I adopted two other groups that had no leader whatsoever for the central area. It was during the time they had the 9/11 attack on the USA. Threatened by terrorists. I was asked 3 to go to Los Angeles to a conference. I came back and I was back about a month and a half. They sent somebody from the Attorney General’s office to the city of Ogden to a citizen court council meeting to talk to me. And she said, “Mr. Carrell, I heard that you’ve got a good reputation of working with law enforcement to help rid them of crime in the area,” and she said, “Have you ever heard of USA on March?” I said no. She said, “Well that’s the thing that’s been put in place by President Bush, Bush Jr.” She said, “We want you to not only go and have your own meetings; we want you to go to large apartment complexes in Spanish communities. We will provide you with an interpreter to go as a USA on Washington Representative for all the neighborhood watch area group leaders.” I, still today, in North Ogden, meet on 12th Street at a place called Winegars, or a café like that. About ten or twelve of us meet there from the different areas and we discuss the problems of the community, because I’m over them and I want to make sure the groups are running the way they should be. So we can continue to make our community safer and a better place for us to live and raise kids and get the education we need without worrying about somebody going to do us some kind of bodily harm. And I feel pretty good about that. JC: I’m amazed by with all you do for the community, how do you find time to have fun? JEC: I do try to come over here and shoot pool with some guys and go to group meetings and stuff like that. I have always been the kind of person that if I see somebody that needs help, I’ll be there to give them my undivided attention and my time rather than just think about my own problems, my own concerns, my 4 own needs. I will be concerned about the welfare of others. I’ve always been that kind of person. And I think that by being that, I think I’ll stay on the right path. For years I’ve had different people say, “I’ve heard your name and seen your picture in the paper and read how you have done this and that.” It doesn’t stop, I hear it all the time. When I got involved with the Weber County Search and Rescue Team, kind of funny how it happened. It was on a sunny afternoon about twelve o’clock, my neighbor noticed a big cloud of smoke down on Quincy. So I went down as the neighborhood watch representative. Barry something said “Mr. Carrell, I know who you are and heard about the good work you’ve done for the community and I have a problem.” There were about 303 people standing around watching their home burn up, a 3-story apartment house. He said, “I need your help.” And I said, “What do you want me to do?” He said, “Whatever it takes.” So I went and soul searched. I heard about a guy who was connected with this search and rescue team. So I went and knocked on his door, and I said, “We got a problem.” He said, “It’s Sunday afternoon, the day of rest.” I said, “So what? These people aren’t going to rest until there’s something done.” So I sat with him on his computer, each one of us took a phone. We called around till we got a round of parties to find a place big enough to house these people before the Red Cross could get them. It took us three days and three nights to get things settled down and find them a temporary home and the things they needed. I remember how hard it was for me, sitting there with the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. A couple people running around in this orange vest, orange hat. I didn’t know 5 anything about the Red Cross or anything, but I said, “There is a neighborhood watch volunteer.” It was a hardship for me to tell these people, “I’ll let you through, but I have to see some ID.” How are you going to ask them for ID when all their paperwork just got burned up? I felt the pain and suffering from these people. I stuck with it until I made sure they were alright. The next thing I do, this guy from the Red Cross said, “You are pretty good at what you do. Have you thought about taking the training to become one of us?” So I became Red Cross and Weber County Search and Rescue certified. But fun? I still find time to have a lot of fun, but I can’t help to reach out to others that need my help. JC: We talked a lot about the community and your involvement with it, but why don’t we talk a little bit about your family. You mentioned last time that you had how many kids again? JEC: I have six kids. I have one married. Three girls and three boys. JC: That is a lot. JEC: But, when my wife passed away, I remarried to a girl that had three sons. I adopted them. Turned around and gave her two more daughters. On top of that I’ve got about 26 or 27 grandchildren. JC: That is a very large family. JEC: I don’t regret it. I love it, and I think about how much I love my kids and how much they love me. I think about their mothers. Especially Verna from Woods Cross that passed away from cancer. I think about her all the time. I’m just grateful that the father keeps me strong enough to keep doing what I need to do to keep my family together. 6 JC: I’m sorry to hear about her death. I know that’s pretty sad. What was your life with your family like here? Were you all involved with the community or was it just you? JEC: Well I’ll tell you what. I don’t know what religion you are, but I’m LDS. My grandmother on my dad’s side was a little girl when the pioneers came over into Salt Lake. I remember her saying that the mountains here were a monument to God. I guess that is what steered me to Utah. My dad’s side of the family comes from England and my mother’s side comes from Tennessee. I would have been the second oldest of my family, my immediate family, but my older brother died of crib death, so I became the oldest. I still keep in touch with my family although they are scattered all over the place. JC: Earlier, you had mentioned that you served in Vietnam. In what part of the military were you in? JEC: I was in the army. I was in there four and a half years. JC: Did you like being in the army? JEC: Well, boot camp was okay, until you got over there and everything was a reality. The frontline duty, I had a lot of missed calls. I saw a lot of buddies get killed. At that point, I decided not to make too many friends, because I knew they weren’t going to be alive too long. I had to carry wounded soldiers and put them on helicopters, and then go back and take care of the dead. You’re still there on the frontline, you put yourself in danger, you know, you could not come home yourself. That’s pretty serious. But then when I got back state side, I wasn’t good enough. I worked for the Veterans Administration Hospital. These guys coming 7 back from the different wars were wounded, and they never recovered completely from their trauma and their experiences. So I went to work for the Veterans Administration Hospital to be of service and help them as much as possible to help them restart their life and readapt. I had flashbacks for a while. I would think about being there, still on the mine, under fire, and it stayed with you. Sometimes you’d wake up in the middle of the night, and it actually felt like everything and everybody was an enemy to you. That was awful hard on my first wife, but she put up with me. It was just, when you see, what you see in experience during wartime, it’s the most trying and disturbing time that you can ever imagine in your life. It’s not like seeing a car coming head on at you, it’s different when you’re being shot at. JC: Well, I think we’re all glad that you’re back and safe. JEC: I felt bad because, over in Nam, as much as I love kids, it was like being…when we were fighting the enemy, they had kids over there, young kids that had explosive devices strapped to them. It was kill or be killed, and innocent bystanders, women and children, were killed during this raid, because of that. We were there for one thing: to try help them win a war, you know, South and North Vietnam, to help them win a war and give them back their country. Two million people lost their lives as well as soldiers. JC: That’s pretty tough. I don’t think anyone could really understand unless they were there. I just have one or two more questions. You said earlier that you enjoy working with children, what’s the best part for you? 8 JEC: What’s the best part? Well, one of the best things that I could ever think of was: this coat I have at home, I never got rid of this coat—I still have it in my closet after all these years—these little kids from Head Start, they came in there from poverty stricken homes, low income, some of them didn’t have proper coats. One time it was really cold and there was this little girl named Samantha. My coat had like a fur lining, corduroy. So I was out there in the freezing cold, I took my coat off, put it on this little girl—big huge coat, couldn’t even see her little hands—to keep her warm. Then I found out she didn’t have a decent comforter for her cot. So I better use my coat also as a comforter or a blanket. So after all these years, I kept that coat, all worn out and everything like that, hang it up in my back closet, because it has sentimental value to me because of that. I teamed up with a teacher and the community action coordinator, and we went over to Kids ‘R Us, we made an agreement with them, and the very next day we started receiving boxes and bags full of blankets and coats and sweaters for these kids. I think back about this little girl said to me one time, “Teacher James,” she hadn’t seen me with my hat off before, “Teacher James, you got snow in your ear.” Little things like that made my teaching wonderful. To see the look on their eyes and the pleasure of having them be comfortable with you and have respect for you, to have respect from the kids, you have to give them respect. And the love that you receive from those kids, from their little hearts to yours, is worth more than gold. JC: You had shown me one of your plaques that you have right now, that you were a foster grandparent. Can you explain what that is exactly? 9 JEC: Well, this administrator over there, he was there two or three days, he had a frown on his face, so I went to these two teachers that I knew had their own classes. I said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to call this secretary up, and I’m going to set up an appointment.” So I did. Nine o’ clock in the morning I come the next day. I walk in the office and say, “Hide your candy.” He says, “What?” I said, “You got some people coming, little people, coming to see you. We crowded his room with little kids, and I said, “This is why I wanted you to hide your candy.” He said, “I got so many kids in my classroom right now, I can’t find my work.” I said, “Good, good morning.” I said, “These kids wanted to meet the administrator so, hello.” He sent his receptionist out right away, “Go get your camera, I need a picture of this.” So there’s copies of those pictures all over the place out there. He was pretty busy, he said, “Mr. Carrell, what’s this all about?” And I said, “I just wanted to remind you what your job is, why you’re here.” The teachers told me, they said, “We’re glad you serve on the board of trustees, because if you didn’t and we had to do this, we’d get in a whole lot of trouble, we wouldn’t get away with anything.” And I said “Good.” JC: Is there anything else you want to share? JEC: Well, I’m glad that Weber State University has come up with this idea. I feel that the seniors out there in this world, senior citizens, you feel like you get so old and there’s not enough for you to do. You just have to open up your eyes, because there’s an old saying, “When one door closes another one opens.” There’s a world of things out there for senior citizens to get involved in, such as something 10 like this. Let the world know, I’m still important, I’m still here, I’m willing to do what I need to do for my community, to make it a better place for us to live. JC: Well, Mr. Carrell, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to come and talk to you and learn about your life here. It sounds like a pretty incredible one to me, how much you were involved with the community and everything. I’m just glad we met you, thank you so much. 11