Oral History Program Barbara Lindquist Tanner Interviewed by Kandice Harris 22 August 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Barbara Lindquist Tanner Interviewed by Kandice Harris 22 August 2019 Copyright © 2022 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 Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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: Tanner, Barbara Lindquist, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 22 August 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Barbara Lindquist Tanner 1935 Barbara Tanner & Kyle Braithwaite 22 August 2019 Barbara Tanner 22 August 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Barbara Lindquist Tanner, conducted on August 22, 2019, in her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Kandice Harris. Barbara discusses her life, her memories at Weber State University, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Marina Kenner, the video technician, and Kyle Braithwaite are also present during this interview. KH: Today is August 22, 2019 we are with Barbara Lindquist Tanner, in her home. Kandice Harris is doing the interview, Marina Kenner is filming, and Kyle Braithwaite is also present. When and where were you born? BT: In Ogden, Utah. January 14, 1917. KH: Who were your parents? BT: Charles John Aaron Lindquist. So everybody called him CJA. My mother was Ada Theurer, it’s spelled T-H-E-U-R-E-R. It’s a Swiss name and it’s really should be pronounced, “Thur”. KH: Would you talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background? BT: Oh my gracious. My early life. Well, I was the oldest daughter of my mother and father. But my father had been married before and he was a widower when he met my mother. So I have seven half brothers and sisters. He was considerably older than my mother, so these children were all grown except one. One boy was on a mission I think, or came back from a mission when I was small. And he was still home. Clyde—and this was his name—he stayed in a mortuary with my 2 father. My father incidentally owned the Lindquist’s and Son’s Mortuary; he started it. Clyde lived there for two or three years and he, when I was little, was my best friend. He really kind of protected me. He was of course old. But he was living at home and he took me on as a sister, a little baby sister, even though I was a half-sister. But, he often in my life, I could go to him, if I needed somebody go to for advice or help. [If I had a problem, I went to Clyde because he was much younger and much more understanding than my father. My father wasn’t gruff, but had very strong principles. I remember the first time I got in an accident; I pulled out and backed up right into a car that was coming around the corner. I did some damage and I was very apologetic. The man knew my father and he was very nice. I said I would get it fixed, but I remember not wanting to tell my dad because I was afraid he wouldn’t let me drive again. I went to Clyde and he took care of it. Later, my father saw the bill and found out what had happened [pulled from 2011 interview]. So anyway, he and my mother got along very well, even though she was his step-mother. They later started a Lindquist investment and did a lot of things. And mother and he were responsible for the mortuary that’s there now, which wasn’t there when I was small. It was on Washington. So anyway, he really kind of was like a big brother to me through my early life. And right up until when I went to college. And I still, his family too are very kind of close. I was close to them. But the rest of dad’s family had kind of gotten married and left—not left, but mostly lived in Ogden. One lived in Salt Lake and so on. And they were not close to me at all, they were married and gone. I grew up as the 3 oldest in our family. Mother had three children. I was the oldest and I had my brother John Lindquist, and I had a sister, Jean Pell. John was always kind of my little brother that I was supposed to take care of, and Jean was just a wonderful person. She was killed incidentally, sadly, and tragically in an accident you may have heard of. A lot of Ogden women were in a bus that was going up to see the fall flowers at—I can’t think of the name of the place now. It’s just down out of Provo a ways. And in the fall they have beautiful fall flowers. KH: Was it Nebo Loop? BT: Nebo, I think it was. Yes, that’s it. And fall foliage, you know, and so they were down in this bus. Anyway, the breaks went out and the bus went over the cliff and killed 8 women. Do you remember that accident? Oh it was terrible. Jean was in that. That bus had all Ogden women who used to get together to go on bus trips to different places, and one thing they always did was go down there to see the fall flowers. They always had the same bus driver and so this was just kind of an annual thing. But anyway, she was eight years younger than I. So I had this little sister and I just adored her. And she and I became very very close friends over the years. I guess she was not only a sister, but a confidant—we were just very close. Well, let me think, what else do you want? KH: Where did you grow up in Ogden? BT: Oh I lived on Adams and at that time, it was kind of a family home that was between 27th and 28th, and we owned the block all of the way through. So we would walk through onto the Washington side and so I was close to downtown. I 4 walked every place I could walk to. Just about. But it was an old family home, and I loved it. It was kind of big, the kitchen was old fashioned, but all of the rooms were large. Mother always had a garden, and always had flowers and such. Our yard was always beautiful in the way we could see. Loved flowers and she’d have a flower yard. I enjoyed living there, but it’s the old part of Ogden now. I drove by the other day to see it and I just—I didn’t want to go back because it was so shabby now. It really looks pretty awful. But when I lived there, there were a lot of prominent people right around us, we had very good neighbors. It was just a friendly, wonderful place, to grow up in a lot of ways. Let’s see, what else? KH: Where did you go to elementary school? BT: Lewis. I always kind of wanted to go to Central, because I thought it was a little better school. But Lewis was good. I had a lot of good friends there, so on and so forth. But, I understand now that it’s one of the poorest schools in the state. Have you heard of that? KH: I have not. BT: You don’t know anything about it? Well you know, there was a fundraise by some group “I’m in for shoes” for the kids that went to Lewis School and I was so shocked. But even Adams now, I guess, is poor. All of that area. And I drove by my old home. I couldn’t believe the area, how it’s changed. But anyway, when I lived there, it was a very nice neighborhood. I had good friends around and we knew all of the neighbors. It was kind of like the big family in a lot of ways 5 because if you misbehaved, your neighbor might tell on you. I remember there was two houses down from me a Mrs. Browning, and she had a daughter that was near my age and we were good friends. And when I’d be over there, if I did something that wasn’t quite right or something, she would treat me just like a daughter she’d correct me for anything I did wrong. I remember once, she had a beautiful cake, and I’ll never forget this because it helped me grow up in one way. She said, “Barbara, would you like a piece of my cake?” It was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I remember. And I was just drooling for a piece of that cake. But, you know how kids are. I said, “Oh, I don’t care.” And I did care, you know, but I was too bashful to say yes. And she said, “Well, if you don’t care, I don’t either, so I won’t give you any.” And I’ve never forgotten that because I wanted it so badly. After that if somebody would ask me, I’d say, yes. That’s the way it kind of was in the neighborhood. I knew that if I did something that wasn’t proper, Mrs. Browning might tell my mother and this sort of thing, you know, it was kind of a neighborhood. She had a daughter too and they’d just kind of keep track of us. One of our next door neighbors was Sam Browning who—well this was two houses down–had been ill and was very a little disadvantaged. He couldn’t walk well, and he hadn’t walked after some kind of an illness. And, this is something interesting, it was due to the fact that they kept him in bed too long. He couldn’t walk for a long time, he was sort of crippled. And they helped him. Anyway, it was an interesting neighborhood. [There were a lot of children in the neighborhood and we’d play a lot of games at night with the other children. – pulled from 2011 interview] 6 KH: Where did you go to junior high and high school? BT: I went to Lewis until—that was a junior high too, at that time. I went to Lewis until I went to Ogden High School. [I went to Ogden High School when it was just a little building. Our gym and auditorium were the same room [pulled from 2011 interview] KH: What are your memories of the Great Depression? BT: That’s an interesting question. I remember never having any money. Have you ever heard of green stamps? Well they’d give them to you at the grocery store, I don’t even remember where. But if you bought anything at a department store, they’d give you green stamps and if you saved them all or saved a lot—I forgot how many. You’d save them, you’d put them in a book you had, and when you filled the book, you would get a dollar. And oh boy, was I conscientious. If I could just fill up one of those books and get a dollar. Well a dollar is like $100 today about, you know. It was just a small fortune to you. I was never deprived in the sense that I had a good home, I always had food, and I had a used car when I was in, I guess about high school, or a little later. I got one that my dad got as a payment on a bill. And it was just a little one— A coupe, I think we called it. But there was one seat in front with one door, but you could go behind and there was another seat behind, you know. I guess they have cars like that now, but there wasn’t much room. You could get some kids in the backseat enough that I’d take some other kids with me sometimes. And then, most cars, or a lot of them had rumble seats. 7 You know, the seat you could pull it up, there was some kind of an opening in the door. I’m not sure, maybe you could crawl into it from the first door. But you could get into the rumble seat and get back there. And get two more people in there. So anyway, let’s see, now we are talking about the Depression. I myself, I was fortunate I’m sure, I never felt any personal hardships while—I did, but I mean, I never worried about food or housing or anything like that. So I didn’t suffer, but money, cash, was just almost—well it was something you cherished because you had very little money. For example, you never had spending money, much. I got a quarter a week as an allowance, and that had to do me for everything. So I sometimes, as I got a little bigger, I taught piano to a couple of children and I’d make 50 cents or a dollar—I’ve forgotten which—from the lesson. So if I could get my piano lessons in - they wouldn’t always have me - but when I had maybe twice a month or something, I’d have some cash. But, you were very short of cash. And you read about it a lot, you always heard. And there were bread lines, and you saw the bread lines at the unemployed and so on and so forth. But, I never knew anybody that didn’t have food myself. None of my friends suffered that way, and food was very inexpensive anyway. But people put up everything. And lots of times, the wards would have days when we’d go and pick vegetables and many fruits that were leftover and then bottle them. And of course, everybody put up everything there was to eat so that you always had plenty of food. At least, I’m speaking for the people I know because food was very inexpensive and you could pick a lot in the summer. 8 You could go cherry picking and things like this and the farmers didn’t have much to pay you. You’d cherry pick all day for ten cents for so many cherries by weight or something. I used to do that, a little cherry picking, because you’d eat a lot of cherries. And take care of cherries for you for the season. But, you might make a dollar and a half or two dollars. I’m not sure if you’d make that much, but maybe. So you could earn a little money in the summer. But you know, I had a lot of fun during the Depression. I’ve thought about it, we used to dance every Friday night. And I think there was a school dance on Friday nights and another dance at the Berthana, have you ever heard of that place? Well it’s down off, it was a big open room. No accommodations, sorry. I guess there was a bathroom, but you didn’t even have chairs particularly to sit on. There might have been one or two, but it was just a big hall and they would have a band there from local kids. There were a lot of bands. And they would play on Friday nights and I think it cost—if I’m not mistaken, I think it was a dollar for a couple to go to the dance. And anyway, they would play all night from nine until twelve. And then at 12 o’clock it was “Goodnight, sweetheart.” They always played that and that was the sign that we had to go. But we went dancing, by we, I mean a lot of the high school and college kids went dancing on Friday nights. And oh, I always had a ball. I loved to dance so that was real fun, and usually you had a date for the dance. And I’m trying to remember what—I don’t think there were singles yet. There must have been a few because there were always a few girls sitting down or fellows too I guess. Anyway, that didn’t 9 dance every dance because once you went there, you had a little book, a little tiny… KH: A dance card? BT: Yeah, a dance card. There wasn’t a book, it was a dance card of course. Just a little one. And you’d fill it out, people would ask you for a dance, fellows that would come up or maybe while you were dancing. If someone wanted to change and dance with somebody else, just have to change. They’d come tap you on the shoulder and you’d exchange dances, and dance with somebody else. So consequently, as a girl, you have to learn to dance with every fellow regardless, you know. And you would get all kinds of dancers so you had to learn how to dance and follow whatever the fellow did. And boy, I remember the first dance I went to. I didn’t follow some of them well and I was embarrassed but I thought, “I’ll never not be able to follow anybody.” Because I thought that, I just was so embarrassed. I stumbled a little bit. So, I did, I did. I was a good dancer after my first experience. But it was real fun, at least to me. I just loved going to the dances and I fortunately used to often date a fellow who was excellent dancer. And he was, and there were two or three that were really really good, and I’ll tell you this. Interestingly, we were all innocent kids. We, oh we were so different. But anyway, everyone of those dancers, I look back now and they were gay. We didn’t even know it I’m sure. But looking back, I’m sure because I used to go with one of them a lot. He never tried to kiss me, and I thought it was kind of strange. But I thought it was nice, I was real happy that I didn’t have to fight him off. So I 10 didn’t think much of about it. But as I got older, looking back I’m sure he was gay. And that was true for two or three of the others. And all three of those fellows that I could tell later, all were the best dancers. But anyway, those experiences were really fun. I just had a great time all during the Depression. And you know, no one had much money, it was very inexpensive to go to a dance. And then if you went to something after, you could go and get the equivalent of a hamburger. What we usually had at that time something called, “Barbeques.” And the meat had been barbequed and they were really good. But lots of times, I would pretend I didn’t want one. I always did, but if I thought the fellow was hard up, I wouldn’t go because I didn’t want him to spend any money. But anyway, he could take a girl out, get a barbeque for ten cents and I can’t tell you for sure what it was to go to the dance. But it wasn’t very much. And sometimes the schools had dances and they’d have the school band or group to play, or they’d turn on a phonograph and we’d dance. And it wouldn’t cost anything hardly, you know. So you could go out and have a good time. The fellow didn’t have to have any money to date much. Of course, everything was valued. Well I saw a fellow once walk and he was dropping money. He had a hole in his pocket and he’d drop money and I followed behind him, picked it up and I remember mother said, “Oh don’t do that.” But I was a little kid, and she didn’t want her child to do that. I gathered a quarter, well I just thought that was wonderful. I’d found a quarter. And I wasn’t really ashamed for following and picking them up. And I remember feeling guilty, I got to call him and tell him, but he had gotten ahead of me, and so I didn’t. I 11 thought back on that and thought, “Well, I didn’t do the honorable thing.” But, it was a quarter and I thought that was a lot. Just goes to show you though, how valuable cash was and money. A lot of people could get by on groceries one way or another because there was plenty of food and lots of it was being wasted. And you could, if you wanted to, go out and there’d be people that could go out and pick extra tomatoes and one thing or another because you know, they hadn’t cleared the field well or something. For example, you could go to the milk factory and you could get free buttermilk. You could bring a cup or something or another and you could take home all the buttermilk you wanted because… I guess they couldn’t get enough money for it and they just couldn’t sell it all. But I thought, “Well you could live on buttermilk.” At the time I thought what you could do if you didn’t have any money, there were just a lot of things you could do because we had surplus food, really. You know, that’s when the government stepped in and tried to help and so on. But, they couldn’t sell all of the food, so there were ways you could help yourself. But, not everybody did. Maybe you couldn’t cherry pick, you know, if you were too old or something. So there were undoubtedly people that had a hard time that were older. I think everybody that went through the Depression was changed a little bit by it, one way or another. And I remember thinking at the time, “You know, if someone wanted to make some good investments right now, stocks and all of those, you could buy stock for very low.” And undoubtedly it was going to go up. Now would be a good time. I was a student enough about that to know, but I thought also, “What would you want to do, help somebody?” 12 Because there were so many people that were in drastic need. Or, “Try to make money.” And I thought it was a real moral question to me because there were people who were buying stock at a very very low price. In particularly after Roosevelt came in, incidentally Roosevelt was a wonderful president in my opinion. Whether you liked his policies and a lot of people then, just like now, were very strict Republican, you know. Right winged Republicans and didn’t like the idea of helping people. And they would say that what you hear today, “Well they’re just lazy. They don’t work, that’s why their unemployed.” I used to hear that from some right-winged people. Even young kids that mimicked their parents you know. So I’d say, “Yes.” But if you put a sign up that said, “Workers wanted.” There was a whole line up of people waiting. All of those people want a job, but that was the kind of reasoning that you’d hear a lot. Anyway, when Roosevelt came in, times immediately started to change. The attitude, and people felt better, and regardless of a lot that was going on in the time which was very anti-Roosevelt, he proved to be a tremendous help in turning the whole thing around. And he brought a whole kind of different atmosphere which, I think, someone else could have maybe done it, but maybe not as well because he had such a personality. You know, that he brought this great wave of hope and optimism. For example, that’s when the song, “Good Times you’ll hear again.” And this sort of thinking and a call for a lot of help. Let’s see, am I telling you more than you want? KH: No, not at all. BT: Or do you want… or is it what you want? 13 KH: It is. BT: I learned a lot from the Depression, and frankly, I shouldn’t wish it on anybody, or that time back on myself as far as that goes. But, I’m glad I went through the Depression and I saw people that had so little that did so well on it, and that braved it through. [I think the Depression created a lot of strong people in some ways-people who learned to be more sympathetic and giving because they saw people without. My mother was not someone who would tell people what to do or would proselyte or anything of that sort. But she was a worker. She worked all during the depression to help people—mainly through the Church because she was Mormon, but she was never narrow-minded. She accepted all religions and all people. She always had people around our house that she was helping. I remember people that she was taking care of in her quiet way. She never said much about it. My dad was always helping too. He’d forgive people for bills. I’ve always thought that I was lucky I didn’t need help and that I would always try to help if I could. –pulled from 2011 interview] But you know, there was another interesting thing. We didn’t lock our house during those years. We used to leave our house wide open. And only once did we have any trouble. And that time, my brother was there and this fellow came in. And what do you think the fellow was doing? He opened our refrigerator. And my brother came in and said, “Do you want something to eat? Well listen, let me help you.” And he talked with him you know, and so I’ve forgotten what happened after that, but he wasn’t opening the doors and throwing stuff out. He went right to the refrigerator. I thought that was so interesting. And gosh John said he was ready 14 to sit him down and feed him you know. I don’t remember whether he took some food and left, or what. It was interesting. And all of that time, see the house was open. And it was amazing there wasn’t crime going on, that I was aware of anyway, that there is today. It was an amazing time. It really, there was, I think more consideration and so on, in a lot of respects in a lot of incidences than there is today. I guess there’s always some. But, I think people were kinder basically. Well that’s enough, but I look back on the Depression and—oh, one thing that I’m very, oh I was always wishing that I had some money. I remember L.R. Samuels was a store that we had in town that had beautiful clothes. And oh, I was always going by the windows and the clothes, you’d have blue shoes to go with the blue dress and they had more specialized shoes in those days than they do today. Better looking, beautiful, and clothes and everything. In order to get the market, they’d have to get very good material and articles, whatever. And oh, I remember when I mother spent $20 on an outfit for me. She was a sewer, she’d copy and she kept me always well dressed. Because she could sew beautifully, she’d watch the remnants they’d have. Always in the department stores, they had yardage, people made their clothes so much. It wasn’t often, but most of the time. And the yardage they’d have at the end of the roll, maybe two yards left or two and a half, and so they’d make a package of it and it would be remnants. And so mother would watch the remnants. But she wouldn’t buy the remnants when they were first there usually. She’d wait till the remnants, which were reduced. They were on special and be cut in half and then mother would watch and she’d find a few big enough to make 15 me a dress. And one day she said to me—and by the way, my clothes, she made them beautifully. So no one knew I was proud though. I told everybody. But anyway, she said, “Barbara, do you know what that dress cost me?” And I said, “No.” She had been watching the remnants, and she said, “25 cents.” And she waited until the remnants were down and she got them for 25 cents. Things about the Depression weren’t all bad. Of course, I was luckier than most and I always had a home and food and all of that taken care of. My whole worry was just getting enough money. If I could have a dollar, oh I was in heaven. I could do so many things with a dollar. I remember I invited somebody to dinner once, and it seemed like I… it must have been when I was in school. I don’t know why, but anyway, I was kind of responsible and I was worried because I didn’t have enough money. And I thought, “Oh well if I only had a quarter.” Now, a quarter, I couldn’t do a thing with a quarter today if someone were coming to dinner. But I thought, “Oh, if I only had a quarter.” And I’ve forgotten what I did or what. I somehow got a quarter, maybe I used to save my money or maybe just about to buy an extra item or something. But I got a quarter, and I thought, “Oh thank goodness, now I’ve got enough I can buy some extra special food for that quarter.” [I look back on those days and I can’t believe what you got for the money. You could get a loaf of bread for ten cents; milk was about ten cents for a quart. – pulled from 2011 interview] But you know, I was really happy during the Depression in a lot of ways. 16 KB: Did you attend Weber State during the Depression? It would have been about that time right? BT: Let me think now, not the bottom of the Depression. The bottom of the Depression was ’33. That’s when I was in high school. And so I was at Weber in ’34, I think, ’35. ’34-’35. I think, maybe I graduated high school in ’33, so I would have started Weber probably. And I think Weber cost, at that time, about $25 a quarter. Something like that because my father died about ’33 or ’34 and I didn’t have enough money for the one year. Because it was my second year, so, I asked my brother Clyde that I mentioned was such a good friend. And so he gave me the money because mother was having a hard time. But mother, fortunately too, was a business woman, very capable, and was president of our mortuary. She and Clyde, the one she got along with so well, built the new mortuary during the Depression. They got a loan. But mother had a lot of vision and she and Clyde built the new mortuaries. It’s the same one that’s there and they built it really well. And they just thought that the design and architect and everything so that it’s still good today. KH: Yeah, it’s a beautiful building. BT: Uh huh and she got a loan from the bank. And so there were things that went on that were progressive and people that knew how to manipulate work and could see ahead. And so it wasn’t all gloom and all bad. But, the terrible part of it was that it lasted for so long. But, you know, you look as a child, I was a child. You live during whatever times you are born in and they’re normal. So Depression times seemed normal to me. That’s all I knew. You go on living and you make 17 adjustments and so on. And a lot of things that happened during the Depression, turned out to be for the best. Of course, then Roosevelt came in and brought in all of these social changes: welfare, social security, all of the things that we have today which probably wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t had a Depression. I don’t think society moves very fast, and even people that can see and know what should be. And, excuse me for philosophizing for the permit of it, you know we were brought up as a nation on, “You do it yourself.” You know, you have to be an independent individual and stand on your own two feet and all of that. Well, that is fine if you already have something. But it doesn’t work in today’s society alone. Of course, everybody could do better with what they have and do poorly and so on and so forth. But the idea that you could live alone in today’s complicated society is ridiculous. And if we didn’t have social security and all of the things that we have today, see there would be people that would have a terrible time. So we have to have social safeguards, and all of that had to come about through real necessity. And I think that’s really what the Depression did for us because we are all dependent on the general welfare. If we had a Depression again, we’d have to have a welfare like we had. But during the bottom of the Depression for a while and right now we have so many securities we never had then. It was bare capitalism with no help from anybody, and if someone got unemployed there was no unemployment insurance to help them for a little while. No government that would help you. If you were about to lose your business or something or if you didn’t have anything you went on welfare and it was pretty 18 hard on people. Socially too, they were looked down, but it was a different time. And I think the whole, we as a nation, we just learned the facts of life. Get real, none of us live alone. We are all dependent on society and all of the mechanisms of society and so on and so forth. And if Trump has his will, we will have some problems. We have some problems again, other kinds. Oh well, I won’t get into that, sorry. KH: With your dad’s mortuary, was he generally paid in cash or was it more bartered? BT: Oh it was lots of barter. A lot and my dad was very liberal and very generous. When he died he had so much money on the books that nobody paid him and he was the mortuary for the state really. We had the biggest, most clients for the mortuary. But we took all kinds of stuff as barter. I mentioned, I had a used little car. Well that came from somebody who owed him money. They gave him this used car I had, but Dad on the other hand—he was unusual. He knew the people had really hard times. So at Christmas time, we used to go around and I used to help him deliver boxes of food and everything to people that hadn’t been able to pay their bills, but he knew that they were having a hard time. And so we would take them all kinds of food. Among the food was peaches and such my mother had put up. So, my mother helped pay this generosity of my dad. But, there was a lot of barter. KH: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? BT: Oh yes. I wouldn’t have not. I was determined I was going to go to college. And I had a half-brother who thought, I shouldn’t be going to school. I should be 19 working and helping, this sort of thing. But, he was the only one. Otherwise, all of my family encouraged me to go to school and they supported me. And all of my brothers and sisters went through college, my sister has a master’s. Anyway, my mother certainly would always encourage me. She did as long as I went to school. My mother was, I think, a very bright woman. And I used to wish that she had been able to go to college. But she was orphaned at 16 and she did have enough money, but she went to a sewing school and that’s why she was so professional. I don’t know why she did that instead of trying to go to college. But that was quicker and easier and not as expensive probably. And she could start working right shortly after. But she became very professional at it. And then she started a sewing school and when she married my father, she had a store in Ogden—oh, we had a lot of people that came. [In fact, she eventually hired all of her sisters at one time or another.-pulled from 2011 interview] And the women had to make their clothes in those days, you know. Mostly and they would come and learn how to sew, but also, they often couldn’t finish them well and mother would finish them and do the difficult details. Because in those days clothes are fancier than they are now. KH: Yeah. BT: You know they had pleats down the front or maybe pleated skirts. And a pattern you’d buy wasn’t a simple little pattern. It was much more difficult. I don’t know if you remember that time at all, but you wouldn’t remember it probably. You’re not old enough. I have a picture of mother in, her dresses, real fancy. You know, this… all of the part of the front of it is tiny pleats and this sort of detail that we 20 don’t bother with today. Don’t need it. Thank goodness that we don’t have to put in that much time and all in sewing. But anyway, where were we? KH: How did your mother and father meet? Well you know, that’s interesting. My father was a widower, as I say. And mother had this sewing school, and oh he was introduced to my mother by a friend and he was a Mr. Tanner. He was a relative a little bit now. And a very very good friend of my dad’s. And he knew mother somehow. Anyway, he introduced her to my dad or vice versa whatever. KH: What made you decide to go to Weber State? Or Weber College as it was called? BT: Well should I be honest? I didn’t decide to. I had to go. My dad was very loyal to Ogden and at that time, Ogden was the industrial center. Salt Lake was the capitol, but Salt Lake wasn’t… anyway, Dad just thought Ogden was superior and he thought I should stay in Ogden and be loyal to Ogden. There was this kind of rivalry a little bit. And I wanted to go to the University and I wanted to go away from home. You know how kids are. They always want to go away from home. Of course, it was quite a bit more expensive because I’d have to pay for a move and it was Depression times. So, dad insisted that I stay home and then too. I almost didn’t tell you this. But, he thought that I would go to the University of Utah and they taught science and evolution and all of these things that contradicts the bible. He was a good Mormon and had heard stories about people going to the University and losing their testimony. And so—[To Kandice] well are you a good Mormon? KH: For the most part. 21 BT: Well that’s fine. You can go to the university and keep and be a good Mormon. Or you can go there and not be a good Mormon. It doesn’t make any difference. But dad had these ideas anyway I’d come back a heathen child. He didn’t want me to go there. Dad incidentally was a very good friend of David O. McKay’s, did you know that? They were very very good friends. I used to go to their birthday parties and I think he was a good Mormon. But he kind of had a closed mind about it. You know how some religious people are. And he just thought that I would not be a Mormon if I went to the University. So, you don’t want me to go there. That was one of the reasons and anyway, I had to go to Weber, I had to stay home. But then it saved money. So I went to Weber out of necessity in a way. But, you know, I really did love it. I liked Weber and I look back on it and there were things that I learned at Weber that I might not have learned if I would have gone to the University for the first time. I wouldn’t have. I had one teacher I just adored. Monson? Maybe you’ve heard of him. KH: Leland Monson? BT: Leland Monson. I guess he’s the main reason. But I was glad that I went to Weber because he was the debate teacher. I debated, and of all the western states’ reputation, we were the best debaters. We won every competition. Everything. Not we, when I say ‘we’ I don’t mean me. Weber. And that was a big thing in those days. I don’t know why, but at least it was to Weber, to us there, because our debate teams went all around the intermountain area and we almost always won. And so we had a really good reputation because of Monson was such a great teacher, and a good person, and everything. We had such fun, 22 and we just were a great group. Oh and I also took Shakespeare from him. He was a great Shakespeare teacher. And he himself inspired me because of his own life and how he managed to get an education. He was an amazing man. He was married and had children when he started going, and was teaching. He was going to Weber when he had to go at nights. They must have had night school. I didn’t know they had night school in those days. But… that early. But anyway, he went to school so his classes were at night after he worked. And he didn’t have enough money to take the street car. His story is very inspiring. And he was really a good teacher. And I think he kind made of my years at Weber especially interesting. KH: That’s good. What were the type of things you would debate about? BT: Oh whatever at that time was—maybe the problems in the political scene. It might have been something like… see that was about the time Roosevelt came in too. And it would be about the injustices of the social system, and how we could help other and so on and so forth. They were always political and it taught us—it surely taught me—first of all it helped me speak extemporaneously and speak before an audience and all of this sort of thing. My partner and I once won some contest in the Intermountain area. It was fun because there was one Chinese boy, he was really good, and he thought he was the best debater and speaker and everything else, you know. And he expected to win, he and his partner. My partner and I—it was Elma Skelton—we defeated them in one of the debates and he was furious. He was not supposed to have been defeated, and he was better than we were, and we only won because we were girls. I 23 remember it so well. That was kind of one of the things we sort of got a lot of pleasure out of because he just thought he was the… you know, you kind of like to see someone who is so egotistical be defeated once in a while. Just knock a little pomp out of him. KH: Who were some of the other teachers that you took that you remember? BT: Oh Neville, I think his name was. I remember him because he taught sociology and I’ve always loved sociology. Today I’m very concerned about social problems and so on. I think I would have maybe specialized in that but it was something kind of easy—I mean it was easy to learn. And I thought it wasn’t challenging enough for me to learn. I mean, I could learn it and I loved it. I just thought, “How would I use it?” What is interesting, I use it a lot but I liked him. Neville, I thought that was his name. He was just a young teacher, but he was married and oh you know, they paid so poorly in those days. I remember him because he lived in an apartment house that was blended into some property that was close to where we lived in our house. And I always felt sorry for people that had to live there because it was built kind of cheaply. You’d go down the halls and you could smell everything that came out of all of the apartments. You know their—and it… anyway, he lived there. That apartment house, and I thought, “Gosh, he must not make any money because otherwise I didn’t think he’d live in that apartment house.” Which wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t built like it should have been. It was okay, but it was about the cheapest apartment. So, I remember feeling kind of sorry for him. And of 24 course, they didn’t make very much money, none of the teachers. Well, they don’t make very much today. KH: Were there any other professors that stood out to you? BT: Not that much. Although I think there might have been good teachers and so on. But over the years… Let me think, oh there was a writing teacher, I’ll have to remember his name. I took creative writing with him. He was good, I liked him. Oh let’s see [Looking at 1935 Acorn yearbook]. Are these the teachers? KH: They are. BT: Oh I remember Tracy. I know his family too. Let me just look through it and see. Oh I know a teacher I very much was impressed with, and I don’t think it’s so much because of her teaching. She was such a lovely person, and she taught Home Ec. I took this class, oh it was on a conglomeration of things, it was about child development. She taught cooking and all kinds of things. But the one that I enjoyed was the child development. It was the homemaking side and she…. The name was Tanner and everybody called her Sister Lydia. Lydia Tanner. Oh and let’s see, oh here, David Trevithick. Yeah, he was the English teacher, I liked him and I learned from him. Oh and let’s see, there was another science teacher. Oh, who’s this? This woman I don’t remember. KH: Lucille Clark. BT: I knew her well but I I don’t think I had her in a class. I liked her as a person. John Benson. I took him for education and I liked him very much. Walter Bussfor Geology. Oh I had a class from him and I liked him very much and 25 there’s Monson. I took—I told you I took a Shakespeare class from him. It was a wonderful class, it just opened up for me. This guy [pointing at someone in the yearbook], he knew every girl on the campus. We looked at him, you know, he’d size you up and boy you knew. He had his eye on them. He behaved himself, but he made me very angry once because I handed in an essay or something and my cousin Bernice Lindquist handed one in too. I knew hers wasn’t as good as mine, but she was more developed sexually than I was in a lot of ways. He had his eye on her all of the time. I think we were in class together and she handed this paper. I kept that paper and I’ve read it since I thought it was pretty good at that time and now I see that it wasn’t very good. But it was, I guess, good for my age and grade at the time. But Bernice handed one in and hers wasn’t, I thought, nearly as good as mine. She got an ‘A’ and I got a ‘B’. Bernice was someone he took out for a while. He really had to have a crush on her. I was so mad when I saw that difference in these two papers because mine was far superior than hers, I thought, and I’m prejudiced. The point of view was still there. Oh it was funny, yeah, I could be wrong. You know some of the science teachers I later really appreciated. I thought they were good. But there are a lot here I don’t recognize. I don’t remember. Oh Bernice Hall, she was—what does it say there? KH: Secretary to President. BT: I was just going to say she was a secretary but I had forgotten to the president. She was a lovely person. Reed Swenson, oh my gosh, I just remembered him 26 but I didn’t ever have a class. I don’t know, there’s so many. Oh, Clair Anderson, he was a very fine musician. I took a class but I thought it was organ from him, and that was good. Anyway, I’m taking a lot of time and it isn’t helping you much. KH: No, it’s been good. What other activities did you do at Weber? You mentioned that you went to dances. Were there other activities that you did? BT: Oh let’s see. I think I was in the theater a little bit. But I was in something, I was in some play which I very much enjoyed. KH: What was Aaron Tracy like as president? BT: Tracy? Was he there my first year? I’m not sure. I thought then he left. I didn’t get to know him well. I wouldn’t want say. I didn’t know him personally. I think I knew his daughter. Didn’t he have a daughter? KH: I believe so. BT: I think I knew his daughter. But, I didn’t know him. KB: What was the campus culture and campus climate when you were at Weber State? The culture… what else? Or the climate. Just what was it like being on campus at that time? BT: Oh being there? Well it was kind of informal and friendly and relaxed. You knew most of the students. I just thought it was very friendly and easy. And you know it was Depression days as you were mentioning. I just was thinking that I remember one of the fellows I knew quite well, just socially and all. He was well 27 liked and popular on the campus and all, and I found out he used to have absolutely no money. He went through and he didn’t have soles on his shoes. He put in cardboard. I’ve thought about him a lot and I don’t know why that impressed me when I found out. But he didn’t have enough money to have his shoes soled. You know, to get your shoes soled was very little. Incidentally, I once went to get some shoes soled. I took the shoes and she told me the price of them and I… you know, being a Depression kid, this happened often. She told me what it cost to get the shoes soled. And I said, “What?!” Say it was $2.50, I don’t know. “$2.50? Oh my heavens, that’s terrible!” And I was so shocked because I think we could have done it maybe for a $1 or whatever. I said, “Well gosh for that, you almost could buy a new pair.” Or something, I made some remark like that. And she was kind of disgusted, you could tell. Looked at me like, “What’s the matter with you? That’s not much.” But it was the contrast of what I was used to hearing or paying. This was a little after the prices started going up and so on, and it was quite a bit more. I made some remark and went, and I had to be careful for a quite a few years after not to make remarks like that because always the other person, the salesman, would look at me like I was kind of crazy and nutty. But the prices would have started changing after Roosevelt came in and things changed. And the prices started going up and after you had gone through the Depression, sometimes they would change enough that you would be shocked and it would come out. And if they were younger and hadn’t gone through the Depression, they’d always look at you like you were nutty. So I was kind of 28 careful to be sure not to say too much because you… well it was just different. And you were a Depression person and they weren’t and you had nothing in common in regard to the price of things. It was interesting because it really changed a lot within a few years. I mentioned it once to somebody and they said, “Well all Depression people were different, or you were affected by the Depression on your opinions, and your outlook of a lot of things.” It did have a very decided effect I’m sure, on me. KH: What was it like being on Otyokwa? BT: Well you know I was president of Otyokwa. KH: I didn’t know that. BT: And I was one of them that started it in the beginning. Well it was the first. Well, we had a great time. We really enjoyed it and all of the girls in it were… well we were kind of loyal to each other and all of that sort of thing. And it was fun. It was a good group. But, looking back I think, in a way… I hate to say it but it’s true. It was probably a snob group in a way. You know, a little bit. We probably felt a little superior. We weren’t—I hope it didn’t show. But I’m just thinking of why we started it in the first place. KH: Why did you start in the first place? BT: Well I thought there were two or three of us that were good friends, and you know how you like to form a group. You like to have a group. And I think we just wanted to be a group and do things together and one thing or another. But, that need for a sorority unfortunately shouldn’t necessarily be, but it is. I mean, not a 29 need but a cause of it. You feel like you’re leaders kind of. And so basically it is a little bit of a superiority for me. I don’t think that we felt superior, but I think basically you picked out the girls that were the best in something and outstanding in this or that and all. So you had to be a little bit superior to get in. Then after you formed it, it’s just to have that group to work with and be with and together. I think it’s a problem on all campuses, whether they should have allowed sororities and fraternities and this sort of thing. But on the other hand, sometimes, those groups from all of the school, they are always loyal to the school and they have to be good students. They have to keep up an average to be in, and there are certain advantages to the educational system in a way. It’s a problem, and I’m not sure if I were running an institution, whether I would encourage you or not, but I’ve heard administrators say that they get their support from fraternities and sororities so much. I think it’s one of those philosophical questions—sociological questions that isn’t easily answered. You should be democratic about everything, and you want to be democratic. You don’t want to show partiality, but people themselves tend to form in groups and you get more done in a group. And even in society you have Rotary, you have Kiwanis, and have all of these different groups and it’s a national thing. So philosophically I think it’s kind of a dilemma in what you should do in a democracy from an administrative point of view. But I’ve heard administrators say that if there are sororities and fraternities in the school, they have more people to work with that support them and help them. I don’t know, what do you think? 30 KH: I never did a sorority when I was in college, so I don’t know. BT: Oh, well I’ve wondered about it in my own life, “Would I want to join a sorority and a fraternity?” And I did at the University of Utah, I went there from Weber. But you know, it really helps you socially—you have a group that you can go with and back to the house and one thing or another. And I did join one, anyway that has always been a question in my mind. KH: What did you end up studying at Weber? BT: At Weber. Gosh, I don’t know, I just filled in all of my necessities of basic ones and I don’t think I did anything in one field. I’m trying to remember now, maybe I did. Just—yeah thank you. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So at Weber I don’t know that I made any choices. I think I just filled it all with the requirements but I always took other things that I was interested in. So I always took 20 hours at least and I liked to spread myself out. I still do that. I’m interested in too many things. I’m not an expert in anything. KH: There’s nothing wrong with that. BT: Well, yeah, I don’t like to narrow my education down to any one field. And I think I just tried to take as many things as I could. I was always hoping in school I’d find something that would just set me on fire and I’d want to do that, you know, or something I have a great talent. I never found any great talent. Just a wide spread intelligence. I was always the youngest. I skipped a couple of grades in grade school so wherever I went, I was always the youngest one. I thought back on it and I thought, that kind of changed a lot of things in my life I was in some 31 ways maybe not as mature as some of the others. I don’t know. I certainly was always the youngest. KH: What did you do after you left Weber? BT: I went to the University of Utah and I finished there. I always wanted to go on, and I’ve always tried to go back. I’ve gone back and taken classes but I’ve wanted to go back and restudy English Literature. My great love is literature and writing. I still really thrill reading literature. I never was unfortunately interested in sciences. I wish I had been a little more so sometimes. I was just always in more of the arts, all of the arts. KH: Did you graduate in English at the U? BT: I wanted to teach English at the high school. But I had always been a dilettante, I always had classes from a wide range of things that I was interested in. And so the last year, I had to decide what I wanted to do to make some money, get a job. I didn’t have enough to graduate in English and get a teaching degree in English, I didn’t think of it. But I could get a teaching degree so I could teach grade school kids. But I couldn’t teach, I had to take some more English classes. I only lacked a little bit, about two classes but anyway, I got an educational degree. And the strange part was that I taught the second grade, and I loved it. I loved those kids. I couldn’t have chosen anything better. I have loved to teach kids about six and seven and eight you know. So I enjoyed it and I just taught. But oh, I missed those kids after I left and didn’t teach. KH: What did you do after you left teaching? 32 BT: Just got married and had a family. That kept me busy. KH: Who did you marry? BT: Norman Tanner. [We first met at Weber College. We were debaters. He was on the University of Utah junior debate team. He came to Weber to debate and I was debating. Then when I went down to the University of Utah, he looked me up and we started dating my junior year.-pulled from 2011 interview] KH: When did you get married? BT: I got married right after Christmas in 1938. My mother made my wedding dress and we had the reception at my parents’ home. January, early January. But anyway, I was teaching as a matter of fact, and I was teaching second grade. I didn’t apply in Ogden as I should have until after all of my grades came in because I thought they’d want to see. And I waited until my grades came in and all of the positions were filled. And the only position I could find was up in Bear River City. Do you know where that is? KH: I think so. BT: It’s between Brigham City and Tremonton. So I had to move up to Bear River City and I had a second grade class. But that was the sweetest class. Oh those kids were adorable, they were such nice well behaved children. I only had one problem and that poor kid was from a poor background and parents and all kinds of stuff. And he really had problems but the rest of them came from all of these stable homes and they were good kids, you know. It was a wonderful experience for me. I loved it.I didn’t want to teach at Bear River but I waited too long and it 33 turned out to be a very very nice experience. [I lived in a house with three other women and a family. The woman fixed the meals. They had been living in one of those basement homes and added on over it and gave us the rooms on the top floor. I made $900 for the year. -pulled from 2011 interview] What did you ask me though? KH: When you got married. BT: Oh, I was going to avoid answering you because I had a contract to teach up in Bear River City. And I really loved it and I would have, but Norm wanted to get married. He didn’t want me to go up there. I just said, “I just want a year to establish a career.” In quotes. And I said, “No, I need this experience.” But he was so persistent and he would come up to see me all of the time. And he was, at that time, just started working for O.C. Tanner Company. He was traveling a lot and at that time, it was just selling class rings and seminary pins. And so, he would come up to see me at night and then drive back to Salt Lake. And I thought, “He’s going to kill himself. He’s working like a dog in the day time and so on. And when he wasn’t busy he was coming to see me.” And he wanted to get married at Christmas time. At least then, wanted me to quit and I said, “I can’t quit, I’ve got a contract.” And so on and so forth. Well anyway, finally, he persuaded me. And what scared me was all of the driving he was doing and everything. So I was so ashamed, just to break my contract teaching. The superintendent of schools was a good friend of my fathers and in fact, my father had helped put him through school. And so there was this history. And I thought, “Oh I can’t go 34 to the superintendent now and tell him I’m quitting.” But Norman is a salesman, so he sold me. And so I agreed to get married at Christmas time. And my mother too, she said, “Barbara, don’t get married at Christmas. You wait till spring and we’ll have a nice, you know…” The house, she was going to do something to the house. “And everything will be much more attractive, we can have a much nicer wedding, and oh blah blah blah.” And so on and so forth. Well that didn’t matter to Norm at all. And so anyway, he persuaded me to quit. And so I went in to see the superintendent. This is funny, I think, it was kind of a cute story. And the superintendent as I said was a good friend of my father’s and really nice, and I was so upset to have to resign at Christmas. And so anyway, I went in very humbly and very apologetic and feeling pretty sorry about the situation. And he said, “Oh, Ms. Lindquist, don’t feel badly. That’s just fine.” He said, “I’ve got so many teachers, I would love to see them get married.” And he said, “That’s more important in your life.” And he went on to give me this talk about feeling good about it and so on. And he said “I just have a lot of teachers, I’d love to have them come and tell me they were getting married.” And then he told me about the problem with teachers who were isolated, they don’t get to meet men and blah blah blah. He was giving me the talk. So, anyway, when I went home and told me mother what he had said she was surprised and she kind of relented more. She really liked Norm. So we got married at Christmas and I retired. But that was the story of my career, six months. KH: Did you want to keep working after you got married? 35 BT: I would have loved to have stayed and worked. But, Norm was in Salt Lake and he was working very hard at the time. So I needed to be in Salt Lake. So I left, but I loved it while I did it. And anyway, the superintendent said at the time, “Well, we can find somebody else to take your place.” You know, and so on. So, it worked out alright, but I’ve always felt a little guilty about not staying through the year. KH: Have you and Norm lived in Salt Lake since you’ve been married? BT: Yeah. Yeah. KH: How many children do you have? BT: We had four. I had one die though, a boy—so I’ve got three girls left. Yeah, but I’ve got some wonderful daughters that I’m really proud of them. KH: How did you get your start in philanthropy? BT: I think I’ve always had that, the desire, the urge or whatever. And my mother was very helpful. All during the depression, mother was a Stake President of the Relief Society for the Church. And they used to come to her, you know, the national organization, the government. And they used the Relief Society for a while to help them distribute. Mother used to give a lot of the welfare checks out for the government, and they’d come to our house. But also, my mother, as I say, stayed president of the Relief Society and she had done so much work. She worked for the church like she was an employee. But they wouldn’t release her she was so good. So I’ve seen a lot of that, and I was very aware of people that were in need and that sort of thing. And my own family were very very generous 36 during the Depression. And I just think, well it just came to me naturally. I was always concerned about people that didn’t have enough. And I was also very liberal in my political thinking, so it just all feel together. KH: What committees or organizations have you been a part of? BT: Oh my gosh. KH: I know there’s a lot. BT: Well let’s do the main ones. Alright, I was the one that started the Utah Girls’ Village in 1969, which has become the Utah Youth Village. I think they’ve done a lot of good work. They’re doing a wonderful job today in Salt Lake City and all. But when that first started, the woman that had the vision that started it was … oh my gosh, I know it so well, wait a minute. Her son Eric is running it now. Oh my word, it will come in a minute. I hope. Gosh. Anyway, she came to me, and one other girl, Miriam Smith. Do you know that name? KH: I don’t. BT: Well she and I did a lot of things together. But anyway, she came to us and said that she was working in the juvenile courts and there was no place to send women or girls that were in trouble except to the reformed school. Well that had a nasty name, you know, and so the girls were kind of tainted by that. It wasn’t a good place for them, it was run by the state and they tried and so on, but she was not satisfied with the way they were treated. And she felt we should have some really good place they could go where they could be helped, and so on and so forth. So she asked me, and she asked Miriam if we would help her. And she 37 didn’t have any connections I guess, so anyway, we did it. We started and raised the money for the first girls home. And it was called, “Utah Girls’ Village” We raised the money for the first home, and then we stayed on the board and worked with that, and so on and so forth. For quite a while. We were the first ones to get really trained social workers and professionals to help with these girls. And we got a program started that was tried in Kansas. It was developed in Kansas University by the federal government and Kansas University, and they experimented and worked. And then they worked a program out that was professionally done and experimented with that is a program that we use for that. It’s still being used, and it’s a wonderful program. They have lots of freedom with it and so on, but it basically… it’s the same program more or less. And it’s based on encouraging, never discouraging these children that come to you. And they start out just by teaching them manners and complimenting them on everything they do good and since then, I’ve thought, “Boy, I’d wish I’d known this program when I was raising my family.” But I did do a certain amount. But you know, this is just a whole program that’s based on encouraging and never discouraging. And you compliment them on everything they do right, and all of the time your teaching them what they should do and so on, and the whole thing is building their self-esteem, their own appreciation of what’s right and wrong and so on and so forth. And it works just beautifully. So anyway, we started this Utah Girls Village and it’s now developed into Utah Youths, because they’re now fellows. Have you been out and seen the home they have out… gosh I’ve forgotten the name of it is. It’s out in south west, 38 but out in the area that I’ve never even gone out to. But I went out to see it recently and I just—I haven’t kept up with it well. I’m not on the board anymore. But, I’m still very interested so I take a part a little bit sometimes. And I took a group out recently too to see it. It’s absolutely amazing. They have a campus and they have one campus which is for money and they sell let’s say, the services on a national basis. And they have a reputation for having wonderful results. They used that money to pay for the one that is free, that is used for here in Utah, for their own Utah Girls Village—or Youth Village now. It started with girls and then it expanded some time ago. But, they… because it cost more than what the state will allow you. And you can raise privately. We lived on donations and had to raise money all of the time, you know. But you need to really do it correctly. You need a lot more money than you can get. And this is an ideal place though, but anyway, the fellow that took over for Bjorklund… I forgot the name. It will come in a minute. KB: Is it Lila? BT: Lila, thank you, thank you. It just didn’t come for me. Lila’s the one that first came to us and so Miriam and I raised the money. Lila, at the time, didn’t have any money. She had been working for the juvenile courts and she wanted to get this started because she knew that it was needed and so we helped her build it up. But she was the one that saw the need of it because she was working with these children. They had no place really proper to put them. So anyway, we built this first home and then since then, it’s grown a lot more. Now it’s used for working with boys too. I’m not on the board anymore, I’m too old. I don’t have 39 the energy. But, I was one of the ones that started it. And so that’s something I’m really proud of though because it’s really doing a wonderful job and because of this other—I was going to tell you, there are two different ones. There’s one that’s for money, and one that’s for the public. And the one for money is to raise enough money to help offset the cost of the one that’s for free. You might say to society. And the one with money has such a great reputation that they can charge and they’re very, I mean, greatly considered. And their farm, as we call it, is beautiful. The land for it was donated and then they had to raise enough to get it started, but it since has been paid off. And Lila’s son, Eric, is now running it. And the whole spirit has been carried over and is a wonderful, wonderful place. They are doing, the rate is remarkable. Very high. If you ever want to go out there, let me know because I’ve taken groups out and I’d be glad to do it again. Just to let you see what they have and what’s available. Oh it’s really amazing, it’s really a remarkable place. They do so well with those kids. You know any social workers and ask them about it. They’ll know. But, you asked me in the beginning what I had done and that’s one of them. I’m really proud of it because they’ve done so well. I’m not in it now, I’m not even on the board. I’ve thought of telling Eric I’d like to be on it but, you know, I’m older and there’s young people that can do it with more energy. And now, I’m kind of out of it. I saved the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in 1980. It was dead practically because they had been sponsored and supported by the BY (Brigham Young University). But they were expensive, they had to supplement it at BY all of the time because Paul Pollei - he’s a fine musician. I 40 love the guy. He’s like a lot of artists, has a lot of vision but he’s not practical. And it was costing so much money, they wouldn’t do it. So it was going to die and then they came to the Utah Symphony and asked if the Symphony would sponsor them. Well the symphony said, “We don’t have money. It’s all we can do to keep our own head above water.” And that was before the Eccles and some other big money had come in to help the symphony. Paul had come to us to see if the symphony would sponsor them. Well the symphony turned it over to me to investigate it and come back to symphony. Well I thought it was a great idea for the city because it would bring… the symphony hall was new and a lot of people in the city, were afraid to go. People from the west side thought it was elitist. We were having troubles with the symphony a little bit at first because we weren’t getting the crowd in. We weren’t getting the public in the new building, and it wasn’t helping the symphony in some ways. We had to get more audiences using it and people that hadn’t been into the new building so it became part of the community. So the symphony asked me to look into this. Anyway, so I came back and what I thought, it will bring other young pianists to hear all of this. It will get them into the symphony hall and let them see that the symphony hall was for everybody. It wasn’t just for the elite and so on and so forth. And I was really enthused about it. So I went back and very enthused. Went to the symphony and they said, “Well Barbara, we don’t have any money.” And then I said, “Well there are things we can do.” I had some crazy ideas. You want to hear all of this? So anyway, 41 they said, “Well go back and make a budget.” Well we didn’t have any money, Gina Bachauer didn’t have a budget. They’d always run over. B.Y. would pay all of the…and Paul didn’t know anything about budgets. He was a complete artist, he did not know how to raise money or handle it. They said, “This sounds like a good idea, but it can’t cost us any money.” Well, I was still very enthused and I got up and I didn’t have any ideas, but I went back to the symphony. After looking over some possibilities and things we might do to raise money and so on. And I thought that to some extent, it would pay for itself. Which was kind of dreamy. But anyway, I went back and they finally said, “Okay, we’ll do it. But you’ll have to be the chairman and it can’t cost us any money.” And so that’s the job I got. Somehow or another, we did it. I can’t tell you how we raised the money, but I got some donations in some way or another. But we did it. Once it got started, it wasn’t well accepted. And of course, now it’s here permanently. It’s become a drawing for a lot of pianists and quite a big international competition. I guess it doesn’t compare to the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. But next to Van Cliburn or second. But after this was all over Paul and I were invited to go to the Van Cliburn and meet the people and one thing and another, they were interested in this new competitor they had. And so we were very pleased that we went to visit them and so on. The first thing they asked us, “What is your budget?” And we looked at each other and started laughing… we didn’t have any budget. We just raised what we had to, somehow or another. We just kind of 42 laughed and we said, “Well, we raised…we got…” Oh! I went to Eccles, there’s George Eccles and Loli. KH: Delores? BT: Yes, it’s Delores. But she’s Loli. She was a music lover. And so I went to her about this and got $70,000, which seemed like a fortune at the time to us. It’s nothing to what you need. But I got $70,000. I told them that we had raised $70,000, plus I raised from friends, and we made contributions. Small in comparison, but we got it up a little more. I think I got about another $4,000 or $5,000. And that was it. We said, “What is yours?” And they said, “$6 million.” KH: Oh wow. BT: We don’t have the money they have and never will. You run into all kinds of problems you hadn’t foreseen. So I won’t bother you with all of that. But, anyway, we got it started and on the map, and saved because it would have been the end of it. And so it is instituted. Now you read about it in the paper and think you probably have heard of it. A lot of musicians come here now to compete and one thing or another. So it brings a lot of pianists to symphony hall. The competitors and the winners and such. And we have a program for the winners that are eliminated so that when they come here, they get something for having come and gone that far in the contest. So it’s a very good program but I’m not on the board or anything anymore. I’m retired. We got it all started and it’s going, but boy, what a struggle. It really was. We have good contributors now and I think it’s here to stay. 43 KH: Hopefully. Are there any other committees or organizations that you’d like to mention that you’ve worked with? BT: Oh yeah, let’s see, let’s see. What are some of the others? Gosh, right now I can’t think of any. But, I know there are some more. KH: That’s okay. BT: I’m drawing a complete blank. KH: That’s okay. If it comes to you, we can share later. BT: I’ll wait till later. I’ll have to call you. KH: Yeah. How have you stayed connected to Weber since graduating in 1935? BT: I’ve done some donations and scholarships and this sort of thing. And I go to events there. I like to go to things with the theater. Weber is good. Weber has good theater, I think. KH: I agree. BT: But now I’m in Salt Lake and I can’t drive anymore. And unless I can get someone to go with me from here, and I have to go up there to Ogden and then come back, and it’s late when I get home. I guess a few years back, if I had to drive up to Weber, that was great. I’d go see my brother, stay with him and I’d see my sister. All of these people, they’ve all died. Even the friends I knew. They don’t live in Ogden now. They live in Salt Lake. And I thought the other day, “All of the places that I could have stayed, even my nieces and nephews don’t live in Ogden anymore.” Most of them have moved to Salt Lake or further 44 away. So I don’t have anybody I can… I do have one niece, but she has kind of a big family and I don’t like to ask her to stay overnight. The last time I came up to Ogden I just took someone with me and we stayed in hotel. Which was an experience for once. But, it is a different world now. But, I did know the president too. What was her name? The one that is retired now. KH: Ann Millner? BT: Yeah, I knew Ann Millner. And when I’d go up with my brother, John, of course. But John’s gone now and it’s just changed so much. I would love to go, especially like an invitation to something special. But you know, if I drive up to Ogden and come back to Salt Lake, it’s pretty late by the time I get home. It’s half an hour to get on the way, so it’s a long night for me. And at my age, I’m 102 you know. I don’t like to be up late at night. I usually pay for it the next morning. So, it’s just hard for me to get up there. But every time I see something, I want to go. So don’t give up asking me because I might find a way. KH: Do you like football? BT: Not particularly. KH: Well they’re celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year. BT: Oh are they? Oh I might have seen that too. But, now that wouldn’t make any difference. But I do love the theater they have. I’d love to go up to that. And there are just events, you know, once in a while that you have. I think, “Oh I’d like to go.” 45 KB: We’ll have to plan another trip, you and I. Like when I came down and picked you up and took you up to lunch with the president. BT: Oh yeah, that was nice. KB: We’ll have to try that again sometime with the theater event. BT: Uh huh. KB: We’ll make it another date. BT: Okay, that I’d like. KB: I like it. BT: Daytime affairs. KB: Yes, we’ll do one of the matinee shows. BT: Yeah. That’d be great. KB: That’d be fun. BT: That’s a date, don’t forget. KB: I’m not going to forget. BT: Don’t stand me up. KH: What ideals and programs do you support? KB: We’re going to be here another hour if that’s the question. This is my favorite part about Barbara. 46 BT: Yeah, I guess so. I just like… I give scholarships. I want to help all of the kids I can. And I don’t just give them to Weber, I give them to the University of Utah and I give them to Westminster, and I give them to Salt Lake Community College. Not that I have all that money. But that’s what I want to do with what I do have. So, I give scholarships and I don’t care what specifically what the school is. So I give them to different schools. I don’t just concentrate on Weber. But, I think Weber does better with their money than most. So as time goes on, I think I’ll give a little more to Weber maybe because I think your money goes further up there. I don’t know if you have any more need than anybody else. But I also like to give where I think there’s a need. I often give to black students and the minorities because I think there’s more of them that need help. Just for a lot of reasons. And particularly blacks have been very neglected. And I think the more blacks we have the better. The better relationships we will have, just everything. So I really like to support black students. And I don’t necessarily give scholarships specifically to blacks, but at least I know you’re going to be that way. I may have been misinterpreted a time or two, but the preference would be to a needy black. But, any student that needs it, needs it. So I don’t want it to be always just black students. But just in order of if they apply, their just as good and so on. KH: And you give to the arts. Are there other programs that you feel are particularly worthwhile? You mentioned the Youth Village. BT: Oh other programs that aren’t with the school you mean? Oh yes, I support the arts in a lot of ways. I can’t think of anything right now. But I sometimes hear of, 47 or they might solicit me, for a program of some kind that I might give to something that is in special need. KB: Barbara, once you shared with me your creed. BT: Oh yeah. KB: As far as ideals that you support or what you stand up, a creed that you wrote, do you remember that offhand that you could share? BT: I think I might have a copy of it in the other room. I’ll look and see, do you want me to? I forgot. KB: I think it’s okay. I have a copy of it in my records too that I can get them. BT: But offhand, I can’t remember. I know the first one is, “Be Kind.” KB: I know plant a tree was in there. BT: Oh yeah. Plant Trees. That’s right. Plant trees. KB: Oh here you go. There’s a copy of it right there. KH: Be kind; appreciate; help wherever you can; help to better your community; plant trees; make a friend, be a friend, appreciate your friends; create beauty wherever you can; enjoy the grandeur and the wonders of this amazing planet, but leave a minimum footprint; respect your body, maximize your health; remember your greatest legacy is your family. 48 BT: Yeah. I just sat done one day and wrote that. I don’t know why, but I just thought, “Oh.” It kind of came to me and I wrote it and I haven’t changed anything in it since. KH: That’s a good one. How have you been recognized for your accomplishments? BT: Well let’s see. I have three honorary Ph.D.’s. And let’s see, I’ve gotten some awards in there. Those are the main ones that are the most important, off the top of my head. I think that’s it and let me think. What else? I’ve forgotten, I don’t know. They are the most important. KH: Okay. How have you been a mentor to others? BT: Maybe I’m not. I don’t know. KH: I find that hard to believe. BT: Well I can’t… sometimes to my family in different ways. A lot of them. We have a family party once a year. Our family, they get together, every once in a while. Smaller groups, and sometimes someone will just call me up and we’ll talk and they might ask me what I think of something. But, that’s about all that’s sort of informal. KH: What advice would you give to students or women starting their education or career? BT: Oh gosh. Well first of all, I’d tell them to learn all that they can and absorb as much knowledge as they can. And take as much as they can if they are taking classes. I always took 20 hours, you can easily take 20 hours. And study and 49 enjoy every asset that you can get from a college, or your school, wherever. Because you’ll never have another time in your life when you’ll have that much freedom to study and to learn. Get to know your professors and all of the teachers you get. And the administration, everybody involved if you can in the school, as many as you can because they’re your friends. And particularly professors, you can learn so much from them if you ask them a questions and get to know them. Stay after if you have a class and ask them any questions you might have in your mind. Because you’ll never have another opportunity to talk with someone who is maybe an expert in some field that can give you good advice and can help you. So get to know the professors and all the administration. As many people as you can that are involved in education because they’ll all have wisdom and experiences and such that might help you and make use of their knowledge. And if you can, make a friend with them. You might make a friend for life and it might be a very rewarding experience to know that person during your life. So I think the more you can just take in, all of the experiences you can when you’re in college. You know, I hear of people all of the time that say, that they are taking classes and have all of their college credits in and such. But they didn’t got to the university. They did go to the college. Well to me, they’ve missed half of their education. I think that’s not the way to get an education. That’s helpful if that’s all you can do. But, it’s not college to me. And I think that person who just does it all by night classes and such and whatever, he’s missed the college experience. You’ve got to be on the campus, you’ve got 50 to know the teachers and the students, and the experience of going to classes and discussing things, and getting other people’s point of view. That’s the college experience to me. And the friendships you build, all of the things that you get from association is not just studying and getting a course and passing it by remote controls or you know. That is not college. I think you can learn a lot of really great books. I don’t question that at all, but it isn’t the same thing as experience of reading a book for example, for a class. Discussing it in class, getting everybody’s viewpoint about it, and the professors, and just digesting it, not just reading it. I love to read literature, so I love to read a good literature by myself. But, after I read a book, I want to talk to somebody about it. And it’s so much more meaningful. So much richer if you can talk about that book and get other people’s viewpoint—there are things in it that you were going to miss. You just learn so much more, I think, by having a discussion about it or a class. And other people will point out things that you may have missed. You even go back and reread a book and you get a lot more out of it. I would like to discuss it if it’s something that really affected or stirred up your mind. I’d like to talk to people about it, don’t you think? I just think that the college experience is a lot more than just taking classes. So I know that that’s the only way some people can get credits and such you know. But I don’t know, for me it wouldn’t be adequate. Do any of you feel that way? KB: Yeah. BT: Have you thought about it? 51 KH: My graduate program, half of it was online and half of it was in person. I always got more from the in person experience than the online. BT: I’ll bet. I have never had to do it online but that wouldn’t be adequate for me. I think there are people maybe that are satisfied with that. But anyway, I’m much more would rather whatever I’m doing kind of share my ideas with somebody. KH: Okay. How do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? BT: Oh my gosh. You mean you wonder if they didn’t have it? The right to vote? Oh my lord, oh that’s a very heavy question. I think it makes all of the difference in the world to get the women’s point of view, and for the women to get involved in politics and in world affairs. And to be part of the community. You aren’t part of the community if you don’t get to vote. If you aren’t caring about your community, if you couldn’t vote, god, wouldn’t you feel like you were tied up? Your mouth was bandaged? I just think it’s incredible that women at one time weren’t considered worthy of the vote. And that women themselves had to sit back and let their husbands assume all of the responsibility. That is just unimaginable I think. Anyway, women are half of society. They should at least have half of the power. And if the men don’t stand up to it like they haven’t in a lot of cases lately, or ever, the women need to come in and change it. But I think women anyway generally have a more moral point of view. They are more concerned about the family and the community and about a lot of social life. They are more 52 concerned about right and wrong, than power. I think men are often—I have nothing against men, I love men—they are sometimes more interesting than women. We need both. We need both, but we certainly need the women’s softer approach, their community approach and family concerns. And that’s our main concern. And they’re more kindly, more thoughtful, more… you might say emotional because they really care about children, about all children. And good men do too but they’re main purpose is women and children and families and communities. Whereas men are often more concerned about power. You have to have both. You just need a mix. You do in everything. So, did I answer the question? KH: Yes, you did. What are your thoughts on how women’s rights have changed over time? BT: Oh I think it’s wonderful that they’ve gotten more rights. And I look back over history and it’s incredible that all of those centuries, women were property. They had no rights. The woman belonged to the man. It’s really quite fascinating to read some history and find how even the most powerful women almost were subject to controls, and they never had the freedom. They weren’t supposed to have a mind of their own. And still today you find women who accept their husband’s opinions in politics and things instead of thinking for themselves. It’s been a tradition that women just were never accepted as equals. They’re property of men for so many years that it’s handed down to us as a history, so that it’s kind of woven into our history so that women still aren’t accepted. So many places in the world today… women still don’t have any rights. Still pawns. 53 In fact, they look at the forced marriages and planned marriages and all of this sort of things that go on today in some countries. It’s incredible. It’s just incredible that women were always considered inferior. They were considered as bribes and everything else. The history is fascinating in the way you think how long this went on. But, it’s interesting to read about though. It is. KH: What are your thoughts on how women’s rights have changed in your lifetime? BT: Let me think a little bit. Women didn’t even get to vote until 1917? KH: It was 1920. BT: 1920. Well that’s my lifetime, but I don’t remember any of that time. But, I’ve just watched women’s rights increasing and partly because women improved what they can do in so many ways. They keep breaking that ceiling, as you say. You know that they talk about. We keep even surprising ourselves, like about some of the things that women have been doing. For example, when I was going to school, the head of the law school at the University of Utah, did not think women should be lawyers. And he would make slight remarks sometimes to the women who were going to law school. In classes he would embarrass them on purpose. I remember one story that went around the campus. This young girl was in a law class and she was telling some case came up in which the woman was pregnant. She was a little bit bashful I guess, and in those days, I guess pregnancy wasn’t as easy word as it is today. And she said, this woman was going to have a baby, or was with child, or something like this. And he stopped her and he said, “Say she was pregnant. Don’t fiddle around like that.” Or something, and he corrected 54 her for saying what she did. It embarrassed her. But, the point of it was that you weren’t as free in those days to talk about pregnancy. And so it was kind of a shy thing to do rather than say pregnant, and he made fun of her for doing this. Well actually, he was only doing that because everybody knew him. Leary was his name. He did not think women should be lawyers. He would make fun of women and make some remark about it because he didn’t want them in law school, and everybody knew that he didn’t. But another thing that the administration didn’t call him on it, as far as I know, because it was well known that he didn’t think women belonged in law school. So now we’ve got how many women in law school? They are making good lawyers, just as good as the men. But you have to prove it, sort of. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen that we’ve had to prove to the world that the women can do it. Then they finally accept it. And in medical school, half of them just about are women. And I know, when I was young, I thought, all I could ever do was be a secretary or a nurse. That was kind of what was held out as possibilities. And I remember at the time thinking, “Well I might like to be a lawyer.” But I thought, “Oh, I’d have a hard time. It would be very difficult.” The law school was not a friendly place for a women then because Leary was head of it. And as I say the administration didn’t seem to mind it. He was against women. I was kind of upset. I just got a copy of Ruth Bader’s story, I haven’t read it but I’m looking forward to it. But she evidently had a very difficult time. But, you know, I think that that’s just about over because I think that women have proved 55 that they can do it. They can do most anything else mentally. There are some things physically that men can do better than women, maybe. There are differences, but it isn’t an intelligence. So I think that’s being recognized. But I’ve seen a big change in my lifetime. I had one friend that was going into medicine. But her father was a surgeon, and she’d grown up and the whole family were all kind of doctors. But other than that, when I was growing up, I didn’t know any girl that was planning on being a doctor. I was brought up enough I didn’t even think of the injustice of it. It just was that way. You know, we don’t see our own faults of our societies sometimes. So when someone points them out… except I did in law because I had kind of thought, “I wonder if I’d like to be a lawyer?” Just as well I didn’t try. But it was a question, and of course I’m pretty old now, so it’s changed a lot. Changed an awful lot. I’m sure there are injustices and it isn’t quite equal, but I don’t feel it today. I think a woman has a perfect life to do what she mentally and physically is capable of doing. But, I didn’t think so when I was young just because I wasn’t even aware of how upside down it was. Wrong. It was discriminative, it just was that way. Does that answer your question? KH: It does. BT: Oh good. KH: Okay, that was my last question. Is there anything you’d like to add? BT: No, I don’t think so. I think you pretty well covered it. 56 KB: Hey Barbara, I have a question. Just one, it seems like you were very close with your mother. Other than your mother, was there a particular woman who really stood out for you in your history that really influenced you to be the woman that you are and have been? BT: I don’t know offhand. I’m just trying to think. One woman who influenced me a lot, but it wasn’t in that regard at all. She just influenced me a lot in the home and things about the house. An aunt of mine who, I can still hear because she had prejudices that kind of carried over. Well didn’t carry over. But she didn’t believe in ever cooking with package sleeves. She’d say, “Oh don’t like it. Don’t buy that cake. You don’t know what’s in that. You make your own cake with your own eggs, and your own milk, good products. Don’t trust anything in a package.” And this sort of thing. I remember she really hated the new cakes that came out. And I thought they were great, I really did. I didn’t always use them of course, but one day she was at our house, and my sister had made this cake from a package of course. And it was really delicious, and Aunt Pearl came and she said, “Oh Jean, this is the best cake I’ve ever eaten. It’s so good.” She said, “You didn’t use those old packages I’m sure.” She said to me something like, “I can tell you used your own eggs and your fresh milk, all of those good things.” And she said, “I’m so glad you don’t use those packages.” And she went on, and of course it was a packaged cake. And it was funny. But I don’t remember any women in my life particularly except my mother who was strong in just her own strengths and she wasn’t influenced just by customs. She thought for herself and I think I learned 57 that from her to some extent. Anyway, I picked that up from her. She really didn’t need education, in a sense. But if she had gone to college, a thought sometimes, she would have been so articulate. I heard her say a prayer when they called on her, and it’s the most beautiful prayer I’ve ever heard. And I thought, “Mother didn’t have an education or college. But she went to high school.” She was so beautiful in that prayer, I thought, “Where did she learn that?” Well, you don’t have to learn anything from school of course, and she didn’t. But it was so beautifully stated and all, and I thought, “If she would have gone to college, she might be a writer. She could have developed that articulateness that she had.” But like all of that generation, most of her generation, they didn’t go to college unfortunately. But anyway, some of us go to college and never learn. KH: Sometimes. BT: Now it’s my turn to ask a question. What are your thoughts on women’s rights? KH: I have been very fortunate, I have had so many opportunities. I know women couldn’t get credit cards until fairly recently. BT: That reminds me. I borrowed money from the bank on my own. Something came up, and they said “You can’t borrow money yourself.” I knew the banker and I said “I did. I did it myself.” I had a certain income, and I had enough that I could get credit. I had the money and ability to back it up. Later I found out that the banker had let me sign for it, but he had also called my father or somebody to make sure that it would be taken care of. I can’t remember who he called to get 58 that reliance. I was insulted because I had thought I had done it myself. I had an income and so on and so forth. It was a matter of character, and credit, and that he could rely on me. But what did he do? He didn’t say anything to me, but he called up somebody else and got them to assure or sign or whatever. And I was so mad afterwards. That was a day when they didn’t take women’s honesty, character, whatever, credit as any good. You had to have a man, I guess to sign it. I was really insulted when I found that out afterwards. I was really angry about it. They didn’t take a woman’s signature for anything. By now they’ve learned. KB: Thanks Barbara. BT: You’re welcome. I hope that satisfied. KH: Yes, it was great.