Oral History Program Cindy Simone Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 6 August 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Cindy Simone Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 6 August 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The 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: Simone, Cindy, an oral history by Sarah Langsdon, 6 August 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Cindy Simone Circa 2010 Cindy Simone 6 August 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Cindy Simone, conducted on August 6, 2019, by Sarah Langsdon. Cindy discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Alyssa Dove, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: This is Sarah Singh, and I am here interviewing Cindy Simone at the Stewart Library. It is August 6, 2019. So Cindy, let's start at the beginning. Where and when were you born? CS: I was born May 21, 1949 in Ogden, Utah at St. Benedict's Hospital. SS: So you were at St. Ben's right after they opened 'cause they opened in 1946, 1947. CS: Yeah, couple years after. SS: So did you end up living with your parents or you said went to your grandma's? CS: My mother put me up for adoption the day I was born. Yeah. But my grandmother, her mother, adopted me, wouldn’t let me go. And my grandmother was fifty-five years of age and she took me to 537 29th Street. I have a picture of the house on my Facebook, or on my tablet. I go there a lot. I sit out front, I sit across the street and I reminisce. SS: So, what was it like growing up with your grandma there. CS: It was tough for everybody but me. I was spoiled rotten. My grandma loved me to pieces and I could do anything I wanted and everybody else would get a 2 whipping. She’d say, “Go out and get stick,” you know, ‘cause she’s going to spank us. I'd bring in a twig about that long [gestures a small distance], and I never got a spanking. But we were poor, we were raised on a box of food that'd come to the porch and there was powdered eggs in it. I mean, we were really poor. I didn't know how poor we were. I know that I always got my clothes from the Sunshine Closet. And that's what I call this thing at the Kokomo now, 'cause I hand out clothes, I call it my Sunshine Closet. But with the Sunshine Closet at school they make fun of you 'cause, "That used to be mine, and I look better in that than you do." But I didn't care, I was going to school and I was clean. And we were very poor as I said, but at Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter, my grandma would call Hill Air Force Base. And I've got to back up here because she didn't only adopt me, I had an older brother and an older sister and then I had ...[counts quietly] four more siblings that came along the way as my mom would deliver, Grandma would take them in. SS: So your mom ended up giving all of you away? CS: All of us up. She would take the other ones back and forth, back and forth, and I was so fortunate I didn’t have to go. Grandma wouldn’t let me go and so I had the best of Grandma, I had a great childhood, when they had to go through eight husbands. Anyways, at least she born me. Anyways, but Grandma would call Hill Air Force Base on every holiday and say, “I know that there’s a lot of guys and gals that can’t go home for Christmas or Thanksgiving, send them to my house. Write the address down.” And she’d say, “I can probably set four, five, or six of ‘em,” and they showed. They showed and sit around and eat. We never 3 had turkey because we couldn’t afford it, but we had chicken. And in them days it wasn’t that easy to get food donations, but you know what, my grandma could make it stretch. She made it stretch. And she made the best hard rolls, we called ‘em hard rolls ‘cause they were hard as a rock. And she was good to people, so very good to people. And she’d make sandwiches and stuff and we’d go out, me and Grandma would go out and feed people on the street. And that’s where it came from. SS: What was your grandma’s name? CS: Louise Telesa. And she worked at the State Industrial School. Until she was shopping one Easter, trying to get us something and she was behind her car with the trunk open, and somebody ran into her and hurt her back so she couldn’t work anymore. SS: So where did you go to school? CS: I went to Lewis Elementary, and then it burnt and then we had to go up to some other place, I don’t remember what it was called, for like five years until they re-did Louis. And then we had to march back in row, I mean it was like five blocks, we all had to carry our books and walk. I was in 1st grade when the school burnt down. And then from there I went to Ogden High School, and I didn’t graduate right away. I thought I was doing good, but I had a counselor that called me in his office one day and he says, “You know, I don’t even know why you’re in school, you may as well drop out and go to work.” And I said, “Why?” And he says, “Because you won’t graduate, you won’t have enough credits. So you may 4 as well just check out today and don’t come back.” So I was like, “Okay.” Turned out he was gay, I didn’t know it. He didn’t like women, and especially for some reason he didn’t like me. I was really cute, I was petite, and I had a lot of boys chasing me ‘cause I was cute at that time. Not so cute now, but I was really cute. So I dropped out and I applied for a job at Hill Field and I lied, I told them that I was eighteen. And Grandma was really, really old and didn't know, but she was hardly ever outside and I always stole her car and I would take it to work. I worked at Hill Air Force Base for a full year in an area where you had to have a combination to get in. It was the library, and everything was on tapes. You had to have a combination to get in and then a combination to get in the other place. And I walked in there and they're all playing Pinochle or something, and I never played cards. I'm probably the only one that worked. Or somebody would come out of the bathroom and they got a big red mark on their head cause they slept in there for hours, you know. But anyways, they found out how old I was and they were so upset. Because they wanted me to stay there. I'm pretty good with people, you know. So anyways, I got fired there. I had a couple jobs and I finally decided to go to night school. I didn't even know about night school. So ten years later, I end up at Bonneville High School. And they did a check on my records, and I would have graduated with three credits ahead, even if I dropped out that day, I still could have because I had so much credits. Because I was doing credits at school, I was taking extra classes, and working credits. Because I was working at the same time, I was working growing up with Grandma. So what they 5 says was, “You still have to at least take half a class in order to get your diploma, even though you’ve got enough credits.” So they put me in a class where Vietnam students were and I taught them English, me and the teacher taught. And then I got my diploma, I walked across the stage. SS: So when you were about twenty-six? CS: Something like that, yeah. SS: So you dropped out about sixteen? CS: Yes, I dropped out at fifteen. SS: Were you still living with your grandma then? CS: No, I was living in an apartment by myself. I was working odd jobs and selling Christmas cards and doing everything I could. There was so many kids in the house, and half the time Grandma didn’t know I was gone but I was. But I always went home, but I never stayed there. SS: But you were self-sufficient? CS: Yeah, I was. SS: So when you were a little girl was there someone other than your grandmother, as a woman, that you looked up to? Or was your grandma sort of your role model? CS: Uh…Grandma. SS: Just Grandma? 6 CS: It was always Grandma. There was a lady across the street in a wheelchair that smoked a lot, and she thought that she was my role model, but she wasn’t. She started me smoking. But no, Grandma was my role model. SS: So you went back, got your GED. Did you ever pursue any higher education or did you just get your diploma? CS: I couldn't afford it. You know, there was Dale Browning, lived next door to us when I was growing up, and he was an attorney. He had a big family and stuff, but while they were still living there, he always told me, "If you graduate from high school, I'll pay for your college. I'll put you through college." But I didn't really understand what he was saying, I really didn't. I didn't have anybody to talk to me about that and to tell me to stay in school, and I was ashamed to even tell him that I had been told to leave, because I didn't want him to feel bad. He used to take me along with his family every Saturday to have ice cream at Farr's Ice Cream, and I didn't want to knock that off, you know, 'cause Grandma couldn't afford ice cream. But I was afraid to say anything to him for fear that he would put me down for what wasn't even my fault. But hey, you know what, I had the best childhood ever, I'm going to tell you that. I mean some of this stuff sounds pretty crappy, but some things you can't get with education, it's love. And I got the love, I got so much love. I know Grandma loved me more than anybody else. SS: You always knew you were Grandma’s favorite. CS: I was, I was always her favorite. SS: There’s nothing wrong with that. 7 CS: Oh, one more thing. She adopted me and the other two older ones. SS: But not the younger? CS: No. SS: So what was sort of your first permanent job, other than these little odd jobs you were doing here and there? CS: First permanent job, the ones that I would get checks and stuff. Okay, my first permanent job was the Kokomo. Grandma always told me, "Stay off 25th Street, it is not good for you. Things happen on 25th Street." Well, my mother wasn't a very good mom. She was back and forth with four kids, and I'm trying to say this nicely, she just didn't do what she was supposed to do as a mother. She liked to drink. She used to hang out on 25th Street and that was a horrible street. It was a scary, scary street and Grandma said, "Stay off of 25th Street, you can get hurt down there, you can get killed down there." Well, the welfare department called my grandmother's house and I answered the phone, I happened to be over there that day, and they said, "Dorothea has left the kids again, she's been gone three days, the kids are by themselves. You need to find her, take her up there, or we're going to take the kids away." Well, in them days, they didn't take the kids right away. If they're so bad off, take those kids! Well, they didn't. All they did was give warnings, they wanted them to stay with their parents. And she was making money off 'em, because they were helping, giving her money, you know. But anyway, so I'm out there and I knew she hung out at Kokomo, 'cause she'd worked there three times for Ed Simone. Ed Simone fired her every time for 8 stealing, but she was good for business 'cause she was pretty, she was a little thing, and the guys really liked her. So I go in there looking for my mother to get her home with her children, and I walked in and I see her sitting there with some guy, and I just broke down crying. And Ed come over and he put his arm around me and he goes, "So, what brings you in?" And I said "Her. She needs to go home to her kids. I'm her daughter." And he says, "What's going on with her kids?" And I said, "She's left them again, she leaves them all the time. She's left them again and she can't do that. She can't do that, they're going to take the kids away from us." So he put her in a cab, sent her home, and he took me across the street for coffee. And I've been with him ever since. And I was nineteen. SS: You were nineteen and how old was Ed? CS: In his twenties. SS: I was thinking he wasn’t a whole lot older, ‘cause he had lied about his age as well, to get his liquor license. CS: Yeah. SS: So what kind of things were you doing? Were you working behind the bar? CS: I was behind the bar, it was both sides. In the Kokomo Club, you’re a bartender and a cocktail waitress all in one. I couldn’t even get a permit to work there, but I did. When I turned twenty-one, I said, “Well, let’s go down and get a permit,” and I still have the permit at my house. But at the same time, I would ... Let's see, how do I put this? I got married on Eddie's birthday to somebody else, because sometimes I do things on the cuff and I thought it would be funny. I used to drink, 9 but I don't drink anymore, that kind of cured me. But I met this guy, and I'd seen him a little bit on and off, and we're drinking, and he says, "Let's get married." And I said, "Okay, what are you going to give me?" And he says, "I'll take you to Disneyland." I'd never been to Disneyland, and I wanted to go to Disneyland. So we took off and we got married in Nevada, and I got to go to Disneyland. And this was October 1st, it happened to be Ed's birthday. That was the joke, that was the joke, and so I called him up that night and he goes, "You need to come down here, aren't you going to work? It's my birthday." And I said, "I got married today." And he goes, "You what?" I says, "I got married today, it's going to be my anniversary from here on out along with your birthday," and he didn't think that was funny. But anyways, we come back to town and I celebrated every one of my anniversaries after that with Ed on his birthday. But I had a hard time getting rid of the guy that I didn't know, 'cause he wouldn't move out, and I finally got a divorce form him. In the meantime, I bought a house in Layton, but I worked at Ford, I worked for the Kokomo, and I worked for Eagle Bail Bonds. Three jobs at the same time. And then after that, I found my son, you know. But I still had to work three jobs to support him, to show the state that I could afford him. Now when he started calling me, “Cindy,” and the babysitter, “Mama,” then I dumped a job. I had to, and it was at Ford. SS: So you still worked at Kokomo and…. CS: And Eagle Bail Bonds. 10 SS: Then did you end up owning your own bail bond company? CS: No, me and Eddie owned it. Eddie owned it with Sam Reuban from Eagle Clothing, and Sam passed away. I was writing bonds for them then, and I was getting 15% for every bond I was writing. And I was taking my kid to the jail with me, all wrapped up, taking him to jail and setting him in his little car seat and stuff. But I was making money to support him and he was sleeping through it, so. SS: No worse for the wear. Single mom. CS: I was a good mom. You gotta do what you gotta do to take care of your child. I was the first single person in the state of Utah to adopt a non-blood child, and I'm very proud of that. He's forty years old now. I turned thirty on May 21st and he was born May 23rd, and like two days later I found him on 25th Street. And the girl signed him over to me, and like six months later, almost six months later, I'm in an adoption in Davis County. It was in December and the judge looked down and he said, "Cindy, Merry Christmas. You are a mother. This is your gift." And all of a sudden-I'm in there by myself with my lawyer, I didn't have any family or anybody with me, and my son-everybody stood up, I've never seen that before in a courtroom, and they clapped and they applauded. And I'm looking around and it's Weber State College students. They knew that that was going to take place and that was something really, really special. And it was me and my son, 'cause I did that without being married. Then I got married and my husband adopted him. And we had it all set up in the courtroom here, Judge West was going to do it. And the newspaper called 11 me that morning and they says, "You've got something very special going on today." And I say, "My husband's going to adopt my son." And they go, "Well, can we go?" I goes, "Why would you want to go to that?" And they says, "Because you're in the history books of Weber State College 'cause you were the first." And I went, "Well, I didn't know I was there, but you know, if you want to come." It was Carole Mikita and I says, "You better clear it with Brent West." And she says, "We already did and he says it's up to you. 'You're welcome,' he says, 'you're welcome to come into the courtroom, but ask Cindy first.' "I said, "Sure." So we're in there and they do the adoption, and I hear in the background [crying sounds] and I turn around, and somebody is just sobbing back there, and I turn around and it's Carole Mikita crying her eyes out. And I mean, it's a tearful... because it's a happy event it's happy tears. We go out in the hallway later on, and she's out there, and she comes over to interview me with cameras. And I says, "Before you start filming, Carole, I want to know ... everybody's in there, tears are coming down, but you are just crying hard." And she said, "Cindy when I was three years old, I was in a courtroom just like this, I was adopted. I had no idea until now how much love is in the courtroom when there's an adoption." So then, my husband adopted him, and the very first Father's Day they got a hold of my son. The news wanted to do a segment on him on Father's Day because he's like in his twenties and he's finally got a dad. They wanted to a segment at his work 'cause he says, "I have to work on Father's Day, I have to 12 work." And they says, "Well, we know that you work at Applebee's," and it was in Salt Lake at the time, where he was then, "can you talk to your boss and see if it's ok if we come and do a segment?" And he goes, "Well, I'm the boss and I guess so, come on." So they did that. SS: So when did you adopt Eddie? CS: He was six months old. He was born in 1979 and May 23rd. It was December, early December. SS: Of 1979? CS: That was the best day of my life when I laid eyes on that kid. He’s 40 years old now, and he’s been with Applebee’s twenty-three years, he’s worked since he was sixteen. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And he happens to be Boss Baby’s daddy. AD: What’s your son’s name? CS: Edward Robert Simone, Jr. There's another story right there. My son's last name was Martin, because I wasn't going to marry. I didn't want to get married. I wasn't going to give my son his name until it happened. But anyways, he got ahold of us, wanted us to go to lunch with him. And so we met him for lunch, and he says, "You know, Mom and Dad, every year, for every occasion, especially for Christmas, anything I want, I've always gotten. Mom, you've gone out of your way, you've given up stuff, you've always given me what I want." And I says, "Okay, what do you want?" And he says, "This year for Christmas, I want Dad's name. I want to be whole with my Mom and my Dad. So can you arrange it? Can 13 Dad adopt me?" And I said, "Yeah, but you're still going to have your bills. Your bills follow you, just 'cause your name ... " But we did it, and they were there again, the newspaper and the news. So he got his name. SS: So what was it like being a woman working own on 25th Street? CS: It was a blast. I just loved it years ago, I did. The winos. I call them winos and bums and hobos. I mean, they're "homeless" now, but, growing up I wanted to be a hobo so bad. I would put tattered clothes on and I would even put fake patches on and, on garbage day, go through garbage cans. I always wanted to be a hobo and I always connected with them, I always connected with them. They would line up in front of the Kokomo and I would get the hose out, and I would give them a bar of soap, with their clothes on, and I would squirt them down, get them wet, and they would lather up and then I would rinse them off. They would sun dry and then I'd let them in 'cause they smelt better. There was so many of them. So many of them, I just loved them, I did. And I wasn't really giving them anything then but friendship. There was a fire next door at the Reed Hotel and there was a lot of them that lived in there that died. It was a horrible fire. SS: That’s where Airplane died, right? CS: Airplane was the last one to die, yeah. AD: How did the fire start? CS: It was really, really cold and the heat wasn't the best, and a guy built a fire in his sink to stay warm, to heat up his room, and it got out of control. And I mean, it was horrible. They were bringing them into the Kokomo. And I don't know if that 14 was part of Eddie's interview, but there was an Indian lady, but we didn't even know if it was a man or a woman, we thought it was a woman, and she was so burned. The paramedics opened up her shirt and her boobs were all burned off, it was just like melted. Melted. There was like twenty-one that died in that fire or something and Airplane was the last one. Then there was a fire across the street, down in-I always called them the cribs, because there was no windows. There was a hole in the ground, a tunnel that went back, no windows or nothing, just a door, and they'd go in there and sleep. I called them the crib. I'd been down there. But it caught on fire and they couldn't get out. One guy come out on fire, and I can't even remember his name, but he left and he never came back. But he was a big alcoholic, I'm surprised he didn't blow up. But I miss them, I do. I miss the good old days. And I hated that, when the last streetlight when down, when the streetlights were hanging in the middle of the street, because I knew that was it. And I always talked to Moore about it too. SS: To Willy? CS: To Willy Moore, I always talked to him about the good old days, and how things are changing. We both stand out in front of his place and talk about the street. SS: And how much you two have both seen. CS: Yep, and Eddie. SS: Yeah, and Eddie. So you didn’t really have any trouble? Well, I know you had some troubles, being down at the Kokomo, being a woman, but— CS: Oh, I got stabbed once. 15 AD: What?! Okay, what was the story? Will you tell me, how this happened? CS: When I got stabbed, my son was little. And we were going to go across, we always go across the street to eat after we close up, and Ed says, “Hey, it’s slow right now, why don’t you go get the boy, and we’ll go across the street to eat.” And I had a X-19 a Fiat, and it was Dr. Rich’s Fiat that I had bought from him when he traded up, because at the time I was working at Gunther Roads. And I pulled up, and that’s when we parked that way instead of that way, and I’m like two stalls down, probably right in front of Tolman’s is where I parked. My window is cracked about that far, and I see some guy come up to the door, and my doors were locked, but I went to roll my window up so he wouldn’t grab it. But on that Fiat, the windows rolled backwards and I wasn't used to that, so instead of rolling it up, I cranked it down, and he got me. He got in. He reached in, and he unlocked the door, and he's standing there with a knife to me, holding my thumb back, telling my to move over into the other seat. Now this is a two-seater and I says, "I'm not moving over there. My son is in that seat, I'm not going to sit on my son." And he goes, "Move over there, move over there now." And I goes, "I'm not moving over there," and I was pretty calm. I'm a calm person; I don't really get upset. I don't yell, and if I cuss, it's quietly, and I usually apologize for saying "Poop" or "Heck" or something like that even. But I wouldn't move over. He says, "You move over or I'm going to kill you." And I says, "Well, you're going to have to do what you gotta do," and I pretended I was looking in my rearview mirror, "Look, I'm meeting my husband right now with our son. We're going across the street to eat, matter of fact he's pulling up right now." He stood up, and he looked 16 back, and there's two guys walking out of the Kokomo, and they yelled, "Hey, Ed, somebody's out there messing with Cindy," so he took off running, but before he ran he stabbed me in the leg. To this day my thumb hurts from him pulling it back, 'cause I swear it was touching, without snapping, it was touching my hand. That's when you're young and limber, I guess. But they came out, and Eddie came running out, and asked me what happened and I says, "This guy had a knife on me, was trying to get me to move over," and I'm not crying or anything like that. So he says, "Get in the bar, get in the bar." So I grabbed my son, and Eddie took off in his truck chasing the guy. He got him pinned against, was it the Comedy Club? He pulls up on the sidewalk in his truck, and he pulled the gun out and he shot at the guy through his windshield and the gun didn't go off. And he's like, "What am I doing?" He threw the gun down, and got out and beat the crap out of the guy, just beat him to a bloody pulp. And the cops came and took him, and in jail, he told the jailers that he'd been beat up by five Mexicans, but it was Ed Simone and a mighty fight. In the meantime, I’m in the Kokomo with my son. And the cops came, the paramedics came. And then it hit me, I got overwhelmed, 'cause I was in the mama bear protective mode. All of a sudden I can see I've got help, and I start crying, and I'm pretty tough, but it scared me. But anyways, got me in the leg. And then one more time, I was across the street with a bunch of cops, eating. Keith Taylor was there, we were eating. We used to go eat with the cops, I don’t know why, but we used to always sit with the cops. Maybe from the jail or something? I leave, and I’m going to go home, and I’m in my little truck, 17 and I get down on Wall Avenue. All of a sudden, there’s some guy at my door trying to get in. He’s a transient, and he’s beating on my window, he jumps on top of my car, he’s trying to kick in my front windshield. I turned the corner so hard that he rolled off. I went back to the state and I told Eddie, Eddie was still there and Keith was there and some cops, that a guy was trying to get into my car and get to me. And they went looking for him and they found him in St. Anne’s, it was St. Anne’s at the time. They took him outside and beat him up. There was a woman police officer, “You can’t do that!” And they were like, “Watch me,” they beat him up. I pointed him out, I was in there, we went from bed to bed looking for him. SS: So when did you and Ed finally get married? CS: I’ve got a picture in my barrel room, but it’s u high and it’s got a date on it, and so when it’s close…. It’s November, I could call a friend. I think it’s like November 20th, ‘cause there’s no way I’d get married on the 13th. So I think it was seven days later, November 20, 2000, or something like that. SS: Oh, so quite a while later. CS: Oh heck yes. I didn’t want to get married, Sarah. No. SS: Other than as a joke? CS: Yeah, other than a joke, and it was hard to get rid of that guy, he hung on. He didn’t work, I worked. I’d go home, find him in bed with women. Get him out of there! I was just young and dumb, I didn’t know how to get him out. 18 SS: But you and Ed were together the entire time? CS: We were together, but I never lived with him. I would not live with him. No, nothing until we got married. And he proposed like six times. SS: Did he? CS: But I didn’t want to get married, I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t need to get married, I was very self-sufficient. SS: So what finally made you change your mind? CS: He just kind of put his foot down. I always had my own houses and I always traded up and I paid everything off. I never charged anything. I only have a Visa card because they say you have to have that in case of emergencies. So I've got a debit card with a little bit of cash in another account, because I don't want to get dinged on it. I'm so cautious. I'm always cautious, and aware of my surroundings. I go get gas, and I'm making sure that there ain't nothing stuck up there that's going to take my number off my card. I don't put nothing on the internet with my number, my card number, nothing. I didn't want to get married. I didn't need anybody to take care of me, I was a caretaker. We got married in a church. I didn’t even send out one invitation. Not one. But my bartenders knew. And it was like three weeks notice, "Ah, I guess we're going to get married." My bartenders knew, and they got big mouths, and it was like standing room only in that church. I mean, I walked down ... and I had a dress on, it wasn't really short, but it was kind of short and I'm cute. I curled my hair real tight and stuff. I stood at the door, and I turned around and Roby Kap's 19 playing. Roby Kap played at my wedding, his guitar. And I turned ... I'm standing at that door, and everybody stood up, and I'm going, [confused face] "What's up with this?" My brother walked me down the aisle, 'cause I couldn't decide which of the eight guys, eight fathers, you know. He walked me down the aisle, and we said 'I do,' and it took me a minute to say it. I think everybody thought I was joking, but I wasn't, I just wasn't sure. Finally when that preachers gives me the look like "Are you ever going to answer?" I went, "Okay, I do." I mean, I'm glad I got married, I really am. I love Ed, I do. I mean, I love him, love him. I've always loved him, but... I don't want to be a kept woman. In the beginning, Eddie was married. He was married, and his wife was very, very sick. She had cancer. He wanted to leave her and marry me, and I said, "No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that." She passed away, .and it was ten years after she died that I finally married him. I didn't want to get married, I had my own house, he had his house. I told him, "You know what, you don't like my house and I'm not going to live in a home where you lived with your wife. You know, you've got your memories there ... So maybe someday we can sell both our houses, and get one together or build one," which we ended up building one. But no, I didn't want to get married. I'm glad I got married, okay? I'm glad I got married, maybe not as glad as he is, 'cause I'm the one that takes care of him ... I always have. I'm the one that didn't want to be taken care of. SS: So as a woman, how do you define courage? CS: Courage. I don’t know, I think Cindy Simone is the definition of courage ‘cause I always jump in. I’ve been told by a couple bikers that I’ve got bigger balls than 20 any guy they’ve ever met because I had the courage to stand up for myself and stand up for others. Not necessarily for my family, ‘cause I don’t much care about my family a lot, sometimes some of them I do, but before I stand up for them, I would stand up for a friend that I know loves me. I’ve got a lot of people that love me and a lot of people that I love. My family is my friends. I have the courage in any situation, I'm the first one that steps out, if it's right, to take care of that situation. If it's wrong, I turn around to the group and I say, "Let's talk about this, because this isn't right." But I've got the courage to help people. I don't know how to talk about courage, because I always think I am. SS: I think you’re a perfect example. CS: I’m pretty tough. SS: You are tough. I mean, the fact that you were down there and you took nothing from a lot of the people that frequented 25th Street. CS: I still don’t. Me and CJ arrested a couple guys that stole from her store. Citizen’s arrest. We zip-tied them. I had handcuffs, but I didn’t want to give one cuffs and one not and have one feel bad ‘cause he wasn’t cuffed. So I zipped them to lawn chairs and waited for the police to come. He said I couldn’t do that and I go, “He’s a felon. These are felons, and in felony cases, you can do that." SS: So why don’t you talk a little about the events you do for the homeless in Ogden? How did that start? CS: Well, you know… you’re living with the those people. You live in your house, you go home, and you change clothes, and you cook some meals and stuff. But 21 where you live is where you spend most of your time, and that was always at the Kokomo, always on 25th Street. I was outside a lot, and I watched people, inside and outside. But I would go out, and there’s a cement stoop out there, and that was my stoop. I would sit out there with the homeless, and I would talk about them. Somebody would come to town, and I would talk about their life and where they'd been and this and that. I was always gathering stuff up for them, and I thought, "I got to do something for these people." The Kokomo is closed Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day, that's the only time, only days that we're closed. I decided years ago that I'm going to do Christmas Eve with the homeless and less fortunate. It's not just the homeless, there's a lot of people that are on Section Eight, and they've barely got enough money to pay their rent, they've got children. I'm sure they have jobs, but they really don't have enough to make ends meet. I advertised on Facebook that I was going to do it, and I was really, really surprised that I got the outpour of love that I did. I was getting toys and stuff. It was overwhelming, I mean, anybody would bring in a can of soup, and I'd start crying. It's like, "Thank you, I know who's going to have this." I had a guy get a hold of me to cook hamburgers, he donated all the meat, he donated all the buns. Then we got people to donate mustard and lettuce and potato salad. Then a guy, he donated a half a cow, so we cut 'em up into steaks. And these people are like, "I haven't had a steak in ten years!" They ain't got no teeth, but they're gnawing and pulling on it, because they got steak. Then I take these fire pits, and I light them, so they feel like they're at home because down by the river they sit around fire. We were making baked potatoes, and people were bringing baked 22 potatoes in coolers 'cause it makes them stay hot. It was so cold one year that I had these baked potatoes in my pockets to stay warm, and I pull them out, and these bums, these hobos, they're going, "You had those in your pockets?" I go, "Yeah, they're like my gloves. They're better than hand warmers. Why don't you gather up some of them and put them in your pockets? Take them down to the river where you're staying, and they'll keep you warm all night long, and tomorrow morning you'll have breakfast." They said, "You're the best hobo ever. We wouldn't even have thought of that." People bring in stuff and they give it to me, and the night before we try to separate. I start in October. We separate the whole time, because sometimes you bring things that, you want things better than what they got on their back, and sometimes it just isn't. So I really have to go through things. I'm not going to hand somebody something dirty and something so oily that they wouldn't want it. But we have food, and we've got a couple hotels on the street, there was more around the corner at one time. But I know in those rooms where they rent, they have hot plates and things, so you want to give them nice blankets, and stuff that they can cook on their hot plates. So I would have somebody that knew these people be there, to make sure it was going to the right people, 'cause I don't want somebody that is just living on the street to drag a brand new blanket around with them and sleep in the bushes, get it dirty, and leave it laying, and then come in the next day for another one. So I always had old blankets to give them. I'll give them all they want, all they want, every day I'll give them a new one if they want, 23 plus hand warmers, but they can't have a new one because that goes to the hotels. I always got food down there for them, I got goodie bags, I got hygiene bags, and socks. Socks is a commodity. You ever heard of Boot Rot? Boot Rot, that's the most horrible sight you'll ever see. These people wear their shoes or wear their boots, and they wear them for weeks, and they take their shoes off, and they've got cuts and sores all over their feet. They don't have any clean socks, so I give them a bar of soap, have them wash their feet, and then I give them clean socks, and I give them another pair to take with them. You want to see somebody cry, a grown man cry, say, "I've got some socks, do you want some socks?" "Please, oh please." They get their socks, that's the thing they need the most. I've got people that crochet hats and scarves and gloves, I mean, we get so much stuff, it's like, "Whoa, what am I going to do with all this?" All the good stuff ends up being gone, and the rest of the stuff I take to the Salvation Army. I make a phone call, and they come and get it the next day. Ogden takes care of their homeless, but they don't take care of their mentally ill. It's ... sorry, had to-say that. We've got them running around, they're just loony tunes, paranoid, schizophrenic, and they're going to get beat up. But I help them too and they respect me. They would never hurt me, because I'm the one that gives them food. 24 SS: I kind of know the answer to this question, but I want to know what you think it is. I know that you have a lot of female bartenders, do you think they look up to you and respect you? CS: No. SS: Really? CS: Yeah, they do. They call me “Mom,” and, “I want to be like you when I grow up,” and stuff. But sometimes I have to separate ‘the mom’ and ‘the good friend’ from ‘the boss.’ They know that if I say, “Come on, let’s go in the back room for minute,” they’re going to get a talking to ‘cause I don’t do it in front of the customers. I’ve got one, she yells at me, and I say, “Okay, you want them all to hear it? Hear it is.” But I think that my bartenders respect me. I pay them well: they make me money, they make money. I pay them very well, and I treat them with respect. I always tell them with the customers, "Don't let them touch you. You demand respect. If you don't demand respect, Honey, you're never going to get respect," same thing with the guys, you know. They don't go out there, and they don't fight the bartenders, that bar is a safety zone. They start coming behind the bar after you, you call 911. I was the first bar to start scanning people for weapons, too. I've got the Garret wands. They'll come in and I'll say, "You've got to empty your pockets," some of them get down and ... there's a crack pipe. I tell them, "You know what, I'm not after your crack pipe, I'm not after your drugs. I'm after knives and I'm after guns. I'm not a cop, just don't do it in my bar." They respect me for that. I've 25 found one gun, and I told them, "You better take it out," and he says, "I have a permit." I goes, "This is my house. These are my rules. If you can't live by my rules, then I'm not going to let you in. But if you want to go put in your car, you're welcome." If somebody's got a knife, we put their name on it and their phone number, so if they forget it they can call, or we can call them the next day and tell them, "Hey, you forgot your knife." But as far as drugs go, I don't want them in the bar, you know, but I'm not there looking for drugs. I'm there looking for weapons, I want to keep people safe. At first they were against it, but now they're for it because they do feel safe. SS: How would you describe your clientele at the Kokomo? CS: I've got a mixture of everything. Years ago, Gary Gale used to call it "Star Wars Bar" because I've got a mixture. I've got Spanish, whites, young, old. I call from opening 'til 5 o'clock the "rest home," because that's when the old people come in, and I've got an old bartender. From 5 o'clock, I walk in there and I say, "Turn that music on and crank it up, it's time to party!" I don't get fights, they know that we don't put up with that, but I've got some really good clientele; I've got blacks and whites and Spanish, and we all mesh together. We all mesh together. I've got people with tattoos-I've got a tattoo, a new one here. Cancer sucks, it does-and I've got attorneys, I've got cops, I've got undercover cops. And I've got me. SS: I know professors from Weber… 26 CS: Oh, yep. I have them, I’m not saying their names, and they’re never out of control, the professors. I think they’re coming in there just for reference work to tell you the truth. SS: So being a single mom most of your life, how do you think you balanced your responsibilities between the workplace and home? CS: I feel like I neglected my son, I really do. I mean, I loved my son, I loved him so much that I didn't want him to go without. I wish, I totally wish that I had been able to spend more time with him when he was growing up because I missed out on a lot, but he knew I loved him. It turned my son into the best father that walks this earth because he leaves his job, and he goes home late at night, and he wakes up his son to spend time with him, to play with him, and to play video games, and to talk with his son. He's a family man. He didn't have that, he had his mom, but he didn't have me. He told me, "You're wrong, Mom. You're wrong." I'm like, "No, I'm not wrong. I should have decided to give us less and to give you more," by spending time with him. I mean, I went to his school stuff and all that, but I just didn't feel like I was there like moms should be, you know. He had to go to his friend's house and hang out with their family because Mom was at work. I worked too much. I worked too much, but I had to work what he told me to work. SS: That’s the unfortunate balance— CS: But I was a good mom. I was a good mom, I just don’t feel like I spent enough time with my son. 27 SS: I do have one more question, and you probably won’t like this question because I know how you are: How do you feel about the new term that’s been given to you as “The Angel of 25th Street?” CS: That’s an eye roller. SS: I know, that’s why I said you weren’t going to like the question. CS: I am not "The Angel of 25th Street." I am somebody that loves people and ... don't make me cry. I love people. I love people a lot, and I don't care if they're rich or poor or dirty or what. I wanted to help them, and the only way I could help them was to get help. Anytime anybody gives me things, and I reach out, and it comes pouring in, dropping in, buckets full. People hand me money on the streets and say, "This is for your next Christmas deal," people I don't even know. I went to the ballpark and a guy gave me three hundred dollars, and those are the angels. Those are the angels of Ogden. I'm on 25th Street and the thing is, I'm at the Kokomo, I'm around all those people. I can't do that at my house, or I would. But I would never, ever be able to afford this myself without all these angels helping me, and those are the "Angels of 25th Street." Not me, I'm just the voice. Got it? SS: Got it. I know you don't like the moniker that has been given to you. CS: I have no wings. SS: You have been deemed the new angel after Mary Uke. CS: I remember Mary. 28 SS: Tell us a little bit about Mary, she’s one of the those that’s on my list. She has long passed, but she’s on the list. CS: She was there, down the street. I remember in the wintertime, me and Eddie would go in there to eat, and all these bums would come in and stuff, and they'd go back, and she'd be putting coats on them and trying them on and stuff. In the back, they had a great big stove that was fired up, fired up, fired up; it was so warm in there, it was so cold inside. She'd bring out a pancake for me, and it was over the plate it was so huge, and it's like, "Ah, can't eat this!" You know, I was always in there, always in there. I think she kind of influenced me too, 'cause I'd seen. She did something different. Their checks would come to her, and they would sign them over to her. She would keep track of their money, and she'd have these little cards with their money on it, and subtract this and that. They would pay for their meal, and she'd subtract it. But she helped them, she helped them. And then they closed up there and moved over to a school or someplace. AD: What was it called? On 25th Street? CS: Dee's Cafe. I was there everyday, I was there when I didn't have to be there. I didn't take Little Eddie there, that was before he was born. It's hard for me to look back that far. I used to be in the Kokomo and I'd hear all these old people, and I'm young, you know, I'm nineteen, twenty years old, and they'd be talking about "back in the day," and I'd hear their stories. Now I'm "back in that day" talking about stories. But they're true stories. 29 SS: I know when I asked you earlier, that your grandmother was sort of your influence growing up; now that you're older, have there been women that as you've looked back on your life, you think have influenced you? CS: No. It was Grandma. I really didn't hang out with any women. I was always a loner. I had friends, but I wasn't like my friends. I had some really wild friends, and people thought that I was a wild girl, but I wasn't. I really wasn't. I kind of always kept to myself and I stood back. I was a watcher, and I'm still a watcher, I'm a people watcher, and you learn a lot from that. But my grandmother was number one. She always will be. I always talk about her on Facebook, you know. I get a "memory," I write a lot. People say, you need to write a book. Well, I am writing a book, read Facebook. I don't know how to look back on Facebook to make a book, but I've got a lot of stories on there because all of a sudden, something will spark a memory, something that I see or something that happened, and I go, "I've got to write about this, because this reminds me of something," and that's when I start writing on Facebook. And I write a story; people write posts, Cindy writes a story once in a while. And people love it, they tell me, "I like your story!" I hate to bore you, but this is the truth, you know. SS: That’s what Facebook is for. AD: So you talked about your love of people. Have you always been like that? Have you always had that love? CS: I’ve always loved people, I really have. I’ve loved people, but there’s really nobody that I wanted to be like except for the hobos. I wanted to be a hobo! 30 AD: Why? CS: Because they weren't phony. They're not phony and some of them have a handout, but most of them are there, and it's not their fault. I can sort through them really, really easy, and I'll be the first one to put them in their place and get rid of them. If I think they're out there panhandling, and I know better, you know, then I'll get rid of them. But I never wanted to be like anybody except for a hobo. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian at one time, but then I heard at a young age that they had to put animals to sleep, so I wasn't going to be veterinarian no more, and I went back to wanting to be a hobo. _I wanted to go camping and sit around campfires and stuff like that. We'd set a garbage can on fire, me and my neighborhood kids, and we'd cook a snake, and we ate it because we were hobos. I turned all the neighbor kids into hobos. Their parents didn't like it. Then we'd go for scavenger hunts. I told Grandma, "What's for dinner?" And she says, "Well, I want to make pancakes, but I don't have any eggs." I go, "I'll get you some eggs." So I grab the neighborhood kids, and we'd go door to door and we'd go, "We're on a scavenger hunt and we need some eggs and we need some milk," and we got all the ingredients and took them back to Grandma, and we all ate. I was a leader. I always tried to be a leader and not a follower, but at the same time, I hang back. I don't go forward and be a leader until I feel like it's needed. SS: Okay, so here's the final question. Everyone gets asked this question. So how do you think women receiving the right to vote has shaped or influenced history, your community, or you personally? 31 CS: Hmm. Call me crazy, but-I do vote, but I don't watch the stuff on TV. I don't watch the stuff, and my husband gets so mad at me 'cause I won't sit there and listen to them talk about presidents. I don't like to argue. I don't like to hear arguments. When I vote, my husband tells me who to vote for, and he thinks I'm going in that booth and voting for who he says, but not me. I look them up, I Google. I look them up and I learn a little bit about them, but I usually vote for the guy that everybody hates. I don't why, that's the way it turns out a lot. But I don't watch TV to do that, I watch The Bachelor. SS: It’s pretty depressing to watch TV and listen to the news anymore. CS: That’s right, I don’t like that! And I worked for Gary Gale one time, I was a legal secretary for five years, and I saw a lot going on there. And I just don’t like depressing, I like happiness. I want a happy life. SS: Well, thank you so much, Cindy, I appreciate it.