Oral History Program Harry Papageorge & Mary Kogianes Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 25 March 2015 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Harry Papageorge & Mary Kogianes Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 25 March 2015 Copyright © 2015 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 Immigrants at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories, photographs and artifacts related to the immigrant populations that helped shape the cultural and economic climate of Ogden. This project will expand the contributions made by Ogden’s immigrant populations: the Dutch, Italian and Greek immigrants who came to work on the railroad and the Japanese who arrived after World War II from the West Coast and from internment camps. ____________________________________ 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: Papageorge, Harry and Kogianes, Mary, an oral history by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney, 25 March 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Jimmie Papageorge Left to right: Aspacia Thiros, Kay Papageorge Thelma Kolendrianos, Helen Papageorge Helen Papageorge & Thelma Kolendrianos George, Herman & Chris Markos Markos Clan, 1993 All the brothers and wives, 1994 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Harry Papageorge and Mary Kogianes, conducted by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney on March 25, 2015. Harry and Mary, children of Greek immigrants, share their parents’ story and discuss the family’s Greek heritage. In the 1920s, the family owned a store in Ogden, then later moved to become farmers in Weber County. BW: We’re at the Papageorge farm with Mary Kogianes and Harry Papageorge on the 25th of March 2015. Interviewing will be Brian Whitney and Lorrie Rands; we will be discussing the Greek heritage of the Papageorge family. The time is currently 1:15 p.m. Thanks for having us back. HP: You’re welcome. BW: So how we would like to start this is I’d like to talk about your parents individually. So starting with your father’s history and then when we’re done with that we’ll talk a little bit about your mother’s history. So if you could just start by giving us your father’s name and when he was born? HP: Let’s see his birthdate is January 20—of what year? 1892? MK: He was 18 years old when he came, wasn’t he? HP: He arrived here in 1910 because in 1926 they got married. MK: That’s right, because he was kind of on his own. He didn’t have anybody— HP: To travel with. BW: Ok, so he was born in 1892. Where was he born? HP: He was born in Argos, Greece. BW: What do you know about his life growing up in Greece? 2 HP: Well, they had a farm and they raised olives and tobacco. He says he left because tobacco was so much work. They had four sisters, two of the brothers were sending money back to support. BW: Sending money, he was sending money back? HP: No, the other brothers, he had two older brothers that had come before him. BW: Okay so they were in the U.S.? HP: They were here in Ogden, yes. Then they send for him and once they all got going here and got established in Greece, it was a tradition that the bride had to have a dowry. They sent money to their sister, their oldest sister and she married. Then the second sister and the third sister and fourth sister. Then the oldest brother he went back. The dream was to come to America and make a mint and go back and live happily ever after. Then his middle brother went back and he opened up a tavern back there. The older brother went back to the farm. Then my dad, that all took place while he met my mother and they married and bought this place. Actually they got married in the front of the house here on the farm. BW: So going back to when he was young, when did his brothers start coming out here to the United States? HP: I don’t have an exact date. BW: Oh that’s okay. Was it when he was real little? HP: He was quite young, yes. BW: And you said they would come over to try to make some money so they could pay to go back and have a good life? 3 MK: That was their dream. BW: When they were coming out to the U.S., his brothers, were they all coming to Utah as well? HP: They did because they had older cousins that were here. BW: Okay what was the attraction to Utah? HP: I guess the railroad and whatever else… MK: Agriculture. BW: So there were some jobs in land. LR: And what was your father’s name? HP: Alex Papageorge. BW: So your grandparents, Alex’s and the siblings’ parents, did they come here as well? MK: No. HP: No. BW: They stayed in Greece on the farm that they had? HP: As far as I know yes. BW: But the siblings came out and they would one at a time start— HP: Going back. BW: And bringing others out it sounds like. HP: No they never brought others out, just the three of them. My father was the youngest one of the family to come. BW: And your father, is he the only one that didn’t return? HP: He’s the only one that didn’t return, yes. 4 LR: So you said that he stayed because he met your mother. Had he already established— HP: Well when he first came he and a cousin went out in Weber here on Taylor and they rented a farm and they actually farmed for a few years. They weren’t doing as well as they thought so they came in and they opened up a confectionary on 25th Street. MK: Traveler’s Grocery. HP: Yes, Traveler’s Grocery. He ran that until he met my mother and they also sold alcohol in confectionary. He thought, he didn’t want to raise a family in that kind of environment where he wouldn’t be with them, so he came out here and bought the farm and we’ve been here ever since. MK: That was in 1926. BW: So it wasn’t the line of work, per se, of the confectionary that made him want to change careers. It was the time demand that he had being a retailer? HP: Yes and he wanted to be able to be with his family. LR: One would think that being a farmer is time demanding. HP: Oh it is believe me. BW: But you’re here. LR: Well that was my question: being a farmer was just as time demanding, so was it just being able to be together? MK: Yes we were right by him. HP: We all worked together. 5 LR: So it’s something he could involve his family in whereas in the tavern he couldn’t? Okay that makes sense. BW: Let’s talk about your mother a little bit. What’s her name? MK: Her name is Anastasia and her maiden name was Markos. BW: And where was she born? MK: In Leminos, Greece and it’s an island. It’s still the same, you can’t get to it. Only by plane or boat. BW: What year was she born? MK: She was born in 1909. BW: Okay and she came out here to the U.S. when? MK: She was 6 years old. LR: So in 1915. BW: 1915, so about five years after your father came out here. HP: Yes. MK: Her history was her father married her mother, you know our grandparents. Then my grandfather got a job as a cook on a boat, I guess, and then he came to the United States by himself. Well she didn’t hear from him for a few years but I know my mother told us this. So then my mother or my grandmother sold all their possessions, everything that they had in Leminos and got two tickets to get on a boat and came here. That was her history. BW: Did they come immediately to Utah or did they stay— MK: They came immediately to Utah and then my grandfather was working at the railroad at that time. So my mother, she was 6 or 7 years old, and she would 6 always tell us about going up and down the tracks and picking up coal, that was what they used as their fuel. She graduated from the Sacred Heart Academy in Ogden. Then when she was 17 or 18, when she graduated, she got married. BW: How did your parents meet? HP: I guess just the fact they both lived in Ogden. They’d met, I don’t really— MK: We never have had that story told to us. BW: So do you think it was because they were both Greek families? MK: Oh yes. HP: See back in those days there were a lot of marriages arranged, and it wasn’t that it was arranged by their parents—well maybe on my mother’s part it would’ve been—friends encouraged them to get together. LR: Well she was quite a bit younger than he was. MK: She was. HP: Yes. LR: Did that cause an issue between them at all do you think? MK: No. HP: No not really. LR: I was kind of shocked at the age difference. BW: They were married in 1926; at that point your father was running the confectionary? MK: Yes, but he was on the farm here. HP: He just purchased the farm. BW: I see. 7 MK: But he would go, I guess. HP: Yes, he still worked in town at times. MK: Because when he married my mother he made their whole family—she had four brothers and my grandfather and my grandmother. When they came to the farm they all moved together here. LR: So her family came with them? HP: Yes. MK: Then my grandmother died—at what age do you think? HP: Jimmy was 2, so four years after their wedding. MK: She passed away, and this is a story that my mother told me so many times. She was ill, she couldn’t swallow and they took her to the doctor and the doctor performed surgery on her throat. The doctor came out of the room. He took them all, my mother and dad and my grandfather, and went to the chapel, and he says, “Let’s kneel and pray that the Lord takes her because we don’t know what to do.” It was cancer. Do you remember that story? HP: Yes. LR: So this was your mother’s mother? MK: Yes, she passed away at a young age. HP: My mother had the responsibility of raising her four brothers. LR: So even though she was married it was still her responsibility to raise her younger brothers? MK: Where were they going to go? 8 HP: They were all born after my mother was 6 years old, when they came over. They were born bang, bang, bang, you know. There wasn’t enough money to take rent or go on their house for quite a few years. Finally they found a place and rented it. Moved down here to Marriott. One of them, the youngest one, never did really move. HP: He stayed with us. LR: Well that makes sense, take care of your family. BW: I just had one more question about the confectionary before getting to the farm. You mentioned that he sold alcohol at the confectionary. This was the 1920s, this is the Prohibition era. Was this legal, do you know? HP: I think they did it illegally, I don’t know. BW: I’m just curious because Prohibition wasn’t lifted until ’33. LR: Where was the confectionary? MK: On 25th Street. LR: Do you know the address? HP: No. MK: It’s on that letterhead. LR: Do you know if it was on the 100 or the 200 block? MK: No it was down by the Union Station. LR: Okay so it was on the 100 block. It’s just—those buildings are fun to look at. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have a couple of hidden stills. HP: Well I don’t think he was involved in that himself. He might have helped some of them merchandise them. 9 MK: We had a little shop, my husband and I we had bagels and buns. You go back, there’s little paths that go downstairs and that’s where we learned that all the bootleggers were. BW: Yes I just wasn’t sure if you’d heard anything because that’s the time period. HP: Oh yes, well it was going on. Had cousins involved in it. BW: So what was life like here on the farm for this large family? HP: Well I don’t remember; I’m the youngest. MK: He’s the youngest, so he wouldn’t remember much. BW: Mary, tell us. LR: Before we do that why don’t we start with both of your names and your birthdates? MK: Oh my name is Mary Papageorge Kogianes and I was born August 19, 1927. I’m the oldest. HP: My name’s Harry Papageorge. My birthday is November 29, 1933. LR: Okay thank you, I appreciate that. MK: He was born during the Depression. BW: Yes and that’s kind of what I want you to talk about. I mean the farm was purchased and then the Depression hits. HP: Yes, so my dad was really struggling, and he did any odd job, whatever it took to try to keep it together. He wasn’t able to make enough money. He got behind on the payment and they issued foreclosure papers, but prior to that, Roosevelt had just got elected and they passed a law that if you could pay your interest they couldn’t evict you. He was able to pay the interest and we struggled. Things 10 really changed just before WWII broke out. Anybody that could drive a nail could get a job at DDO, Defense Depot Ogden, as a carpenter to build all the barracks and all the facilities they had there. My dad rented the neighboring land around here, and us four kids, along with some neighbor kids, we did all the work. We raised tomatoes and sugar beets. We did some potatoes and onions. In 1944 I think it was, when the beet check came, it was enough that he could pay the mortgage off. There was quite a party at that old house that night. I remember him pulling that mortgage and burnt down, they set it on fire and it burnt right to his fingernail. MK: Then in the meantime the boys, my dad put some through college. We always called them the boys, my uncles. They’re all gone now. BW: So you had some cash crops— HP: Cash crops but we always had dairy cows. It was always cow’s milk. There’s never been a day since we’ve been on this that there wasn’t cow’s milk here on the dairy. BW: How much of this was subsistence farming at the beginning, or was it always business, or were you trying to take care of your own needs first? HP: Oh we just tried what we could to survive. MK: That’s right. Well before we had a lot of cows like they have now, we had chickens and we sold eggs. It wasn’t just a dozen eggs; we had big cases of eggs that we brushed with a brush, with a sandpaper brush, and put them in the things. They’d come and get them. There was an Ogden egg company and one in Draper. 11 HP: Draper Poultry they called it. HP: My mother oversaw the chickens. MK: She was in charge of the chickens. In those days you had to carry water and buckets and everything; she worked hard and we did too. Take the water to the chickens and put them in the troughs and that. Now it’s all— HP: It’s all automated. MK: Yes, automated and everything. BW: So in these days you would have some sort of a wholesaler come by and pick them up? MK: The eggs? Yes every week, boy, we had to have them ready. BW: Then they would take those out to the retailers or home delivery or something? HP: Well how they handled them I don’t know. It used to be Ogden Egg Company on 20th between Wall and Washington there, just above Grant, a big wooden building. They’d take them in there and they packaged them and distributed them. They took them for many years and then Draper came along and they’d pick them up at the farm. Ogden Egg never came out to pick them up, you had to take it to them, so then my dad started selling to them to Draper. BW: Did you have a truck at this time so you could get take the stuff into town? MK: My dad yes, he had a Model T. HP: He had an old Model T to begin with and then after we started raising sugar beets he got an old ‘34 Chev Truck. BW: So you had vegetables, you had eggs, you had dairy, and dairy you were supplying to where? 12 HP: Our dairy milk always went to the co-op and Cream of Weber. Clear up until it merged and merged and merged. Now there’s Dairy Farmers of America, but we don’t sell to them anymore. We sell to Gosner Foods. BW: I’d like to talk more about that but I want to talk about the co-op first. Tell me about how the co-op got started. HP: Well the co-op got started by some—there’s some confusion about who started it and how it started. Not really confusion, the people in this area all had a cow or two and they would assemble their milk down at this little junction down here by where you come. They’d take—there’d be one guy that took the load of milk every day clear to Ogden Avenue with a team of horses. Then there was another group of dairymen out in West Weber that did the same thing. Which one started first is the question but that’s what started Cream of Weber Co-op. BW: And about when do you think it started? HP: In probably about 1930. BW: Did this help everybody get through the Depression? HP: Well yes it helped, it was a way to get their milk merchandised. BW: Your dad was involved in the co-op obviously. HP: Yes, he was pretty active as far as going to the meetings and things later in years when it got to be a little bigger, you know got more producers and got where they had trucks to transport the milk and stuff. Used to have to cool the milk in water, cold water, with 10 gallon cans to keep it from getting sour, it was challenging to do. Winter you’d have to avoid getting frozen and summer you had to keep it from getting sour. 13 LR: So Mary, I kind of cut you off earlier talking about what it was like growing up during the Depression. You never really got a chance to talk about that. MK: Oh well it was a difficult time because your parents wanted to give you what you wanted, but there was just no way they could do it. They were, “You just have to accept it,” and they’d be pretty good about telling us we couldn’t have that or we couldn’t have this. Yet my dad was progressive; we had an old Model T and he took us wherever we really needed to go. HP: In the process, you said what are some of the things he’d done, and I never mentioned this before, but he had an old Plymouth car, ‘33 Plymouth car. He made a trailer that you put a cow or two in it and he would go around and buy veal calves and he was a good butcher. He’d butcher them and sell them directly to the markets. MK: But that was before inspection. HP: Oh yes, and he had a good eye on him for livestock. He’d buy lambs and do the same thing. So he did what he had to do to make a buck. MK: Honestly because he had to do it that way. He would preach to us. HP: You know I can remember, course, I was a spoiled brat because I was youngest. I can remember when I was 10 years old I wanted a BB gun, he got me a BB gun and that was something, Red Ryder. BW: You mentioned that he placed a value on education. He got some of your siblings through college. MK: He did. Our sister, his twin, was a teacher for how many years? HP: Until they forced her to retire. She taught until she was 65. 14 BW: How did he get them through college; that’s not cheap? HP: Well it wasn’t as expensive then as it is today. We worked together and we, she went up to Utah State and lived up there. On weekends she’d come home and never had her own vehicle. Well at that time vehicles were not really easy to come by. You know during the war they didn’t manufacture anything. After the war you could buy a car if you could get it. For 2,000 dollars drive around the block and sell it for 3,000. You had to get a permit, no I shouldn’t say a permit but you had to be on the list. BW: So there was a list that approved who could buy cars? HP: Not really, it was run by the dealerships themselves. BW: Okay, so it was like a waiting list? HP: Yes, you had a waiting list. BW: I see, so anybody could buy a car that could afford it, but you had to be on the waiting list because they didn’t have the inventory. HP: Then during the war, sugar was rationed and gasoline was rationed, but they did give farmers that needed the extra gasoline. BW: Let’s talk a little bit more about during the war time. Were any of your siblings old enough to be part of the draft? MK: Not us, but my uncles. BW: Your uncles? MK: The four of them, all except one. HP: They went into the service. I think two were drafted, one enlisted. MK: There was one in the Air Force, one in the Tank Battalion— 15 HP: Jim was in the Army too. MK: Just the Army, yes, then the fourth one the reason he wasn’t drafted was that he was a farmer and they were exempt. BW: Okay, so you could have some hands stay and farm? HP: Yes. BW: Do you know where the others served? Where they were sent out to? MK: One was in Africa, Jim was in Africa. Italy, Herman was in Italy and Chris was in Japan. HP: Chris was in Japan, he was in the Air Force, a tail gunner. BW: Any of them stay with the military after this? HP: No, once the war was over they all came back and married and went to various jobs. BW: Any of them stay with farming? HP: Well the oldest one [George] who was deferred, he stayed in farming. MK: The oldest got the exemption and then the youngest one [Chris] was in the Air Force. When he came back he worked at Hill Field. HP: Jim did odd jobs for a while, and then he finally got a job at DDO. Sent him all over the world. MK: Herman worked for wholesale. HP: Yes, he was a wholesale distributor, then he opened his own after a few years. BW: You said they came back and got married. Did they marry Greek girls? HP: Well two of them did and two of them didn’t. MK: They were good. 16 BW: Nonetheless. MK: No, they’re good people. Those are good boys. I mean good men. They’re all gone now. Good families. HP: Good families, they’re very successful. Several doctors in their families. MK: Two veterinarians, but they’ve kind of scattered. Some live in California. HP: Several with their doctor’s degrees. MK: Yes and then their children are the same way. They’re all well-educated, most of them. BW: So let’s talk about post war. What happens with the farm? You start coming into the picture a little bit more. MK: When he was 10 years old he learned how to use a milker, a milking machine and he hasn’t quit. HP: February of 1944 my dad was able to buy a milking machine. We ran it, I mean my dad never did milk. My older brother milked for the first few months. One day they were all out working in the fields, we were all out working in the field then topping beets or something. My dad says, “You go get the cows so we can have them ready when we get there so we can start milking.” We used to pasture them then and you’d have to chase them to pasture and back. Well I went and got them and I thought, “Heck, I’d watched them enough I know how to do it.” I did and I’ve been doing it ever since. MK: A lot of years, but it’s changed. The milking machines have changed as everything else has. BW: So when did you start taking over the family farm? 17 HP: Well my brother and I worked with our dad right from the time we got out of high school. In 1960 we bought the farm from him; we’ve owned it ever since. We’ve expanded it quite a bit and made a few changes. MK: It was kind of hard for him on some of the changes. HP: Oh yes, just like it is now for me to see my son. BW: Is that what’s happening now? HP: Oh yes. BW: Transitioning to the third generation? MK: But he liked, he had the first tractor and it was sold in Weber County, my dad got that and he was progressive. BW: It sounds like he had a good reputation. MK: He did. HP: He did. He was a good man. Well I think the really interesting thing is he came over to this country and didn’t know a word of English and he learned English. It was kind of broken and he got involved in politics. I don’t know, somebody came along and talked him into going to Democratic Convention or a town meeting. I better go back when President Roosevelt passed that law that you couldn’t foreclose on a farm. My father made one X for the Democratic Party and that was what he did. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat from that day on. He got involved, he actually was a delegate to the Weber County Convention. That’s quite a feat for an immigrant to come over at that age. Had limited amount of education, but they were proud to be American citizens. Both of them, course my mother was well educated as far as I’m concerned. I was a 12 year graduate of 18 school and my mother could help me with any problem I had all through school. She was well educated. BW: Politics continued to play an important part of your family. HP: Yes. MK: Yes, my brother. HP: My brother, he was the first mayor of Farr West. Being non-LDS in a community like this, that was quite a feat. He stayed in, I think one or two terms then and then they wanted him back and he stayed in for an additional at least 20 years. He died in office. LR: You mentioned growing up in a non-LDS environment. What was it like growing, knowing your parents are Greek immigrants and you’re trying to be Americans? What was it like growing up in Ogden or in Farr West? HP: Well I don’t know, my mother of course spoke the language well. There was a lady who lived across the street here in the little rock house. They became good friends and she attended Relief Society with the LDS people. We were Boy Scouts and attended mutual with the LDS boys and played on their basketball teams. Then there used to be a Farm Bureau League. It was not discriminatory at all. MK: Then we had 4-H too. HP: Yes, we were involved in 4-H. The neighbors really, when my father had a problem they didn’t hesitate a minute to come over and help him out. If he had a sick cow or a sick horse because somebody, veterinarians were a little 19 expensive, somebody had some kind of cure for an ailment. Oh the LDS people really treated our family good and we have nothing but respect for them. MK: Then another thing that was common in this area was you’d help each other. Like if it was harvest time when they were thrashing wheat or grain or something, they’d go from neighbor to neighbor. HP: That thrashing grain was something because there was only one or two thrashers in the whole area. You’d go from farm to farm and if it was a small farm maybe they could do it in a half a day, took a little while to set up. You could get two of them done in one day. If it was bigger, if they had bigger crop it’d take a day, but the family whose grain was being thrashed that day would provide the dinner for everybody that was there and all the neighbors were helping one another harvest their crops. We did that for years, and finally combines and that came in, but when chopping machines came in we started raising corn silage. Well you know my dad and two neighbors couldn’t afford one alone, but three of them together bought one. We traded work, we helped one another and we did that for years. MK: Yes, it was no problem for us. HP: That was no problem at all. MK: We still just love all these neighbors around here. BW: So let me ask you a question. What I’m hearing, if I’m right, do you think that farm life and kind of the community interaction in farm life is more conducive to creating that sense of neighborliness? MK: Oh yes, it does. 20 HP: I think it does. Course things have changed now so it’s difficult to make a living on the farm anymore because you got to have so much volume. The cost of equipment is so high. Still farmers keep in touch and know what’s going on, we have a lot of association with all the dairymen especially. BW: The other thing I’m hearing you say is that your family’s activity and involvement with organizations, civic organizations helped you integrate into your community. MK: That’s right. HP: Yes. BW: You think that’s gone away nowadays? Are people doing that as much? MK: I don’t know because our kids have all grown. BW: Your grandkids, do you see them having this? HP: Oh yes, the kids out there, they all do things together. BW: Okay, so you still see it? HP: Oh yes. BW: Good. Let’s talk a little bit about how your family kept in touch with Greek culture and roots. HP: Well we’ve always been tied to the church even though we didn’t have a church in Ogden until maybe early sixties. We built a church then. LR: And that church would be? HP: Transfiguration. LR: Okay. HP: But through some of the organizations within the church and Greek community we mingled at various times. All the Greek people would get together—like this 21 25th of March for instance—and that would be quite a celebration. Now we have the facilities, but we don’t celebrate near as much. I remember when we were in high school we wanted to put a Greek team together in basketball and we did. So we all chipped in to rent the facility to practice in. Then we could enter into the Ogden City League and we’d get a sponsor to pay that. We had a team, now we got a nice gymnasium and all the kids are there all the time, but they don’t get involved in any of the inner city leagues. They do get involved with the church diocese. They send a team to the Intermountain Area somewhere. BW: So the church was a big part of staying connected with your Greek heritage? HP: Oh yes. MK: Well, Name Days are the thing that kept the people together I think. BW: The what? I’m sorry. MK: They’re called Name Days. HP: On the Saint’s Day, why if the Saint’s name was Harry and your name was Harry everybody would come to your house. When we first got married we had a little four room house across the street. We’d have 50 people in there. MK: That’s a tradition from Greece, so that carried over here. That’s what kind of kept it together. BW: And is that still happening? MK: Oh yes. HP: To some degree, but nothing like it used to. MK: Like it was because we go to church every day. I mean every Sunday. HP: You see everybody. 22 MK: You see them there. LR: So actually not having the church close by, from what I’m hearing, not having it close kind of made everyone want to be closer, but now that it’s right there. HP: The Greek community stayed together. LR: Okay, but do you feel that they’re still connected as they were after the church was built? HP: Yes. MK: I think so, yes. HP: We’ve got other, one of the things that’s happened is we’re Orthodox and you know there’s Russian Orthodox, there’s several different. We have probably more non-Greek Orthodox in Transfiguration Church than we do Greek. MK: Yes, we even have some colored people and I don’t know what. HP: Well the Ethiopian people. MK: Ethiopian I guess. HP: We’ve let them use our church for service and one of our parishioners bought a building down in Layton and worked with them to get it, to make it into a church so the Ethiopians have their own church down in Layton. BW: Let’s talk about the building of the church because your family was a big part of that. HP: Yes, this lady here even though she wasn’t on the parish council, my dad was a parish council member and several of the older Greek men in the city. She kept all the records, kept all the books. She took care of all the money for years and my generation came along with the older and they decided to take the bull by the 23 horns and buy some land and build a facility. They got her done and my brother was on the parish council at that time. He’s the one that signed the note to borrow the money to build the church. LR: Wow. BW: Who loaned him the money? HP: Bank of Utah. Frank Browning, he’s a great friend of the Greek community. He’d come to all our Greek functions. His son Rod, he was— LR: Any relation to the Browning family in Ogden? HP: Yes that’s it. Frank M. Browning, he used to come out and sit at that booth, sit at the kitchen table with us. My dad, it was a Greek custom to have a little alcohol and I shouldn’t say this, he, Frank, would have a drink right alongside my dad. When my brother and I bought the farm from my dad we wanted to buy some cows and there was a sale over in Colorado. Went over and saw Frank Browning himself and asked him if he’d loan us money. He says, “Son, you go to Colorado and buy all the cows you want.” Then he says, “You give them a check and call me up and tell me how much it was and the money will be in the bank.” Now that’s something from the President, owner of the bank do that, and me and Jim went together. Koagie went with him. Remember they went on the train. MK: Of course that’s right. HP: They went on the train and it was in wintertime. BW: Can we talk a little bit about the Utah State Industrial School? Tell me when it started and how it was operated. 24 HP: Well the affiliation I know of at the State Industrial School, it was a facility for troubled youth, and in order to keep, teach the kids some trade and actually produce food for the inmates or those that were in the Industrial School, they were in where they garden all the time. MK: Delinquents. HP: They had registered dairy cattle and the manager was one of the smartest men I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. They bred some of the best registered Holsteins in the whole United States. They used to assist my father and us when we were selling to a breeder or seedstock. BW: It became nationally renowned for their Holstein. HP: Oh yes, greatest in the world and as a result the cattle in the state of Utah the genetics flowed out of there made this the hub for people from all over the United States to come to buy breeding stock. We made a lot of good money from that, but now everything’s international, it’s through artificial insemination, embryo transfer and all this. MK: The Industrial School used to be real popular for some time. Now you don’t ever hear of it. It was something else. HP: Well they have juvenile delinquents in other places now. BW: I just wanted to go back to your feelings on what kind of a legacy your father has left here in Ogden. HP: Well I think because of my sister and brother they’ve exemplified, especially my brother, that you can donate most of your time to a cause such as the city, the Irrigation Company, the Sewer District and the Water. He was involved in all that. 25 First sewer that was here he was on the committee that put it in. I think the legacy would be helping others and Mary through her work at the Extension Service and through 4-H, did a great job for a lot of young people. There’s so many young people in Weber County that won trips to the National Dairy or the National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago. She assisted these kids in filling out their applications and their record books. I think they all have a lot of respect and admiration for what she did for them. MK: Well and then there’s a lot of scholarships given to the youth. It’s working with youth, it’s a real pleasure. It really is a pleasure because they want help, but you have to work with them a certain way. BW: Mary, what was the Extension Service? MK: It’s the Utah State University Extension Service. BW: What’s it about? I’m not familiar with it. HP: It’s actually part of the Department of Agriculture Land Grant colleges. They are over the extension service and that’s your county agents, the county fairgrounds is the office now. Mary was the secretary of the office when it was in town. She and two men and one lady did all the work for Weber County and they got a big staff with modern computers and everything doing the same thing that she did. MK: Well it was different in those days. HP: But extensions don’t play quite as big a role in agriculture as they used to because there’s fewer and fewer farmers. The ones that survive are big, they’re huge. LR: So do you see your son being able to maintain this lifestyle as a farmer? 26 HP: Well it’s very challenging. You have to expand and get a bigger operation than we got, and land is so expensive, especially in Weber County. Even if you go out of state, land is really expensive. So it’s challenging, it’s not like the old days. Not to say that it could be done if you’re a good entrepreneur, but it’s really challenging. BW: The Greek community in Ogden is still fairly well connected together. What do you see for the next generation? Are they keeping it? MK: I think so. HP: Yes I think that the Orthodox Church probably maintains and grows a little because we’ve got a lot of young people that participate now, and beginning to take leadership roles. It seems like, and I guess that has happened in most religions, they’re very active as kids, go to Sunday school and get involved as teens; in the teen groups they go into what we call Greek Orthodox Youth, but as they become young adults we see them kind of not being attentive and being involved. Once they get married and start having children they kind of find their way back. So I look at the future and I think there’s a bright future for the Greek Orthodox. BW: Any last questions? LR: No I’m good. BW: Anything else that you would like to say that’s on your mind and we haven’t asked? MK: You’ve been good and thorough. BW: Harry, anything? 27 HP: No I think that’s pretty well covered it. BW: Thank you for sharing this with us.