Oral History Program Gina Timmerman Interviewed by Sarah Storey 9 July 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Gina Timmerman Interviewed by Sarah Storey 9 July 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: Timmerman, Gina, an oral history by Sarah Storey, 9 July 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Gina Timmerman Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Gina Timmerman, conducted on July 9, 2019, by Sarah Storey. Gina discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Reagan Baird, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: Today is July 9, 2019. It is approximately 2:30 PM and we are here with Gina Timmerman, interviewing her. And Sarah Storey is conducting the interview and Reagan Baird is here recording for us. Ok, so the first question I have for you is when and where were you born? GT: I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in January of 1964. SS: What brought you to Utah? GT: Well, after moving across the country, a few other locations, my mother was from Utah. And my parents split up and we moved back here. She had family support here, and that’s how it happened. SS: So were you pretty young when you moved back here, then? GT: Yes, I was about five. SS: So you’ve been here pretty much your whole life. So, did you go to school around this area somewhere? GT: Salt Lake, and then Davis county, and then I went to Utah State. SS: So you just ended up in Ogden cause you... 2 GT: Oh, I moved to Ogden almost four years ago. SS: Ok, so not very long. Did you just like the area? GT: Yeah. SS: Ok, so when you were a young girl, who were some of the women you looked up to, like role models for your life? GT: You know, probably supermodels. Honestly that’s who’s on the cover of magazines when... there weren’t a lot of women really. Like, if it were now I’d say Michelle Obama, you know. In college I was not a fan of Nancy Reagan. I wasn’t. She spent $25,000 on her inauguration dress and I’ve never forgotten it, cause I was upset about that. So that’s a tough question. Now I’m trying to remember. Everybody who was in leadership, they were all men. You know our governor, our state leaders. I liked some of my school teachers, I can say on that kind of a level, I had a few good teachers. But in terms of like, the people that, you know, everybody’s paying attention to, nothing really comes to mind. But you know, that’s kind of odd to me in a way, because I think about it, it’s like, “We were aspiring to be pretty and skinny,” you know, that’s changed a lot. That’s a good thing. SS: How do think the role of mothers has changed over the years? GT: Oh, huge. So when I was growing up with a single mom, that was rough. Single mothers kind of, there were the divorcees and that came with it’s... comes with baggage, whether deserved or not or whatever. And so, you know, other kids who had two parent families, there was a difference in how you were treated for 3 sure. Women at that time, I remember this because my aunt was a school principal and she was single all her life, and she was always telling me these things, that women couldn’t get loans by themselves, they couldn’t buy a home by themselves, I mean, this was really difficult stuff to accomplish. So, you know, that’s kind of what I remember. Women were still at home a lot, they weren’t so much in the workplace. She was doing both. SS: Yeah, that would be really hard. So, what did you mom do? GT: My grandparents, they were very elderly. And for her to get work... they lived in Tremonton. We couldn’t live there. There’s no work there. SS: So what did she end up doing, if you don’t mind me asking, like when you were little? GT: She worked for state government eventually. She’d been a teacher and a therapist with children, and then she went into human resources, and she spent over twenty years doing that. So she retired. SS: So, in your youth, did your mom encourage you to pursue and education? GT: Oh, you knew you were going to college. My grandfather sent all of his daughters to college. You do that. I just didn’t even question it. I was just always.... and that’s what I did and I was not a great student, but... you get to the point where it’s like, either... I was so far ahead, it was like, “Well, might as well finish.” It wasn’t that practical to me. SS: To go to college? 4 GT: A lot of what I had to study was not practical to me. I was like, “What do I need this for?” I still think that. I still have really strong opinions about how long people are in school, what they’re spending in school, and what, you know, the cost of it, and then what you get out of it that actually applies to your career or the skill set that you can market. SS: That’s a valid point. Just for the record, tell us you went into, like what field you went into? GT: I was studying interior design. SS: Really? That’s so interesting, cause that’s not what you ended up doing, right? GT: Nope, you know, I could not get through algebra. That was a really rough class and I couldn’t... yeah, I could do it, more so now, but then, I was really struggling with it, it was miserable. All of our professors were from out of the country, because we didn’t have people locally that I guess were qualified to teach it. I had a professor with a really thick accent. It was really hard. I didn’t fail the class but I didn’t do well, and then it was kind of like, “Do I want to re-take this?” And, or, you know, I’m into this four years, and I had to work part time through college. I was like, “I’ve got to get out of here, I still don’t really know what I want to do, I don’t know that I’d be a great interior designer and that I wouldn’t starve.” So I wound up switching majors, took statistics, got through that time, and I finished in Psychology. I did not know what I was going to do with that. SS: How interesting. So, now if I remember right, you told me that you were a social worker. 5 GT: I was. SS: So did you go back to school? GT: I was qualified to work in social work with that degree. I never became clinical. So I went to work for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. You can have a related degree to do that. So education, social work, psychology, criminology, various fields apply to this kind of work. SS: That’s interesting, how did you end up doing that? GT: Because there was an opening and I applied and they took me. And then I never left. I mean, you go where the opportunities are, right? That’s what happened. That’s how I got to retire... cause I was there for thirty years, I never left. So if you start right out the gate somewhere and you stay, you can go... if you have a little luck, and you plan a little, I guess. SS: So, I know a little bit about DCFS, and I can only imagine... so, like, how was that experience working there for all of those years? I imagine it would be hard, I imagine it would take a toll on you. GT: Some people can do it for a long time, some people can’t. And I wouldn’t say I knew very many people who stayed in the investigative role forever. We’ll call that the front line or the trenches, where you day in day out, you’re investigating child abuse or working with families, trying to get their kids returned back to their care, that kind of thing. That is a stressful job and I don’t even think for me, when I left that position, I realized that... so much until I’ve been out of it for a while, and then it’s like, “I can’t go back to that. I can’t do that.” But at the time, you’re 6 just so busy putting out fires and running around all the time... kind of blinders on, maybe? I don’t know. Then I changed from... I was in foster care and in-home supervision my first three to five years, I can’t remember. And then I did the investigations for one or two years, and then I went to supervise the child abuse hotlines, which those are the people you call to report abuse, and they also farm out the investigations to the field staff to respond to. And then I switched gears because I was married and I had a couple of kids and I went part-time for a while, and then I shifted into the Utah Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. Which is—yeah, it’s like a mouthful, like what does that mean?—so what that is, if you have a child in state custody, and let’s say I wanted to send that child to a family member, a non-offending parent, or up for an adoptive place, a kind of placement outside the state, you have to work with another state to make that happen. You have to put through a request for home study, their agreement to supervise the placement, you have to have a plan in place to support that child medically, financially, educationally, any special needs... you have to get that all figured out in order to send that kid out of the state, you can’t just go drop them off in another state. Right? So I worked to make sure that was happening correctly for the children leaving this state from the Salt Lake region, and then I also had to make sure that I did the studies on the other end. So if another state requested us to take a child, I did the home study, reviewed the plan, and recommended the approval or disapproval of the placement request. So I did that for most of my career, I did that for over twenty years. It wasn’t as crisis oriented 7 for sure. But it was interesting. I met so many interesting people from every walk of life. SS: Yeah, so many threads that have to come together, that’s a pretty intense job. GT: Yeah, it was complicated sometimes for sure. SS: That’s so interesting, you worked your way up and it sounds like you did really well for yourself. GT: Yeah, and that’s a division that actually employs a lot of women. There’s a lot of diversity in social work, it attracts you know your minorities, LGBTQ. It’s a profession in which they’re constantly teaching you how to work with a diverse population and understand cultural backgrounds and work with that and, you know, work on your biases, things like that. So to me, I can understand how they attract people into the field with the same kind of background. SS: Was there any other prospects or anything else that you did before you joined with DCFS after you got your degree, or was that kind of like the first thing you applied for and you just moved right into that? GT: Oh, no, no, no. I got in the door. The job market was horrible when I got out of school. It took me three months to get a job. There wasn’t anything at McDonald’s, ok? No, I actually was a receptionist for the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation my first year. Then I applied with, it’s now known as the Utah Department of Workforce Services, but it used to be called Welfare then. Or Community Operations. I can’t remember, they’ve changed the names a few times since I started. But, I applied there and then I applied with DCFS. It was all 8 within the same frame, it was almost like if I recall correctly, a hiring freeze had been lifted. Cause there was no funding so nobody was hiring, so, then I was able to... I shifted over from answering phones and wearing a park ranger uniform. SS: What were some of the challenges that you faced while you were obtaining your degree? So like as you were going to school, did you have any particular challenges that ever arose that you had to deal with, or being a woman, did that make in any more difficult in any way? GT: I don’t know specifically being a woman. I know that I never, there’s things I wouldn’t even consider pursuing because I was a woman. Like, it was male dominated. And it’s like, I had already been through a guitar class where I was the only girl in the class as a child. It traumatized me for life. No, I was not up to that. You know, now, you know my daughter who finished in web and user experience in computer science. She was like one, two, maybe three girls in some of her classes. But I think men behave better now. You know, with the women in the classroom—that’s just a perception I have—than they would have been. SS: So what was your first job that you can think of? GT: Very first job? Probably... first real job was K-Mart in high school. Wear the turquoise coat. SS: What did you do when you worked there? GT: I was a cashier. 9 SS: What was your motivation to go into your chosen field. So you said that you decided to go away from interior design and to go to psychology instead. So why did you chose psychology instead? GT: Cause I could do it. Cause I could get done and have a degree. I never knew what I wanted to do. You know, I still don’t. Some people are really lucky to know what it is they want and they go after it. I could never make up my mind on what I wanted. So life just sort of, I guess more or less, happened for me. SS: Was there a time when you were brave at work? That you stood up and you were brave in a situation. I’m sure you have plenty. GT: Well... I have a few different scenarios like that. It took a lot of bravery and courage sometimes to testify in court. And so, like, there’s family that never could get their kids back, ok? And the parents probably... I’ll be generic because yeah, I can’t be real specific about that, but you would from time to time, for whatever reason, for example, parents who didn’t... overcome drug addiction. So you get to a point where time runs out. And adoptions become the new goal, not going home to the parents or parent, whatever it is. And no family members available. Or if they are, maybe you have placed them with a family member, but you’re looking at adoption. so you would file a Termination of Parental Rights Petition. And you... the parents didn’t like... sometimes they would go in and sign away their rights, and that’s nice cause you don’t have to get up and talk about how they failed or what a horrible parent they were. 10 That’s a horrible thing to have to do. And that’s... if you go to trial, that’s what you’re going to wind up doing, is talking about that and trying not to... it’s kind of funny, it’s such a serious thing that has to happen, but at the same time, you want to be as tactful about saying, you know... “You’re a terrible parent. Just... it’s not for you. And your child has a life to live and... needs permanency and stability.” So that was hard. And yeah, that took some courage. A lot of those scenarios took courage. I went to some pretty scary scenes with the police and... sometimes wondering... I remember, we had loaded guns sometimes and... no one held one, but they were there. I saw one on a table when we walked in and... “What am I doing here? Why am I not still out in the patrol car?” And it’s a little crazy at times. SS: Yeah. So did you ever have any problems? Did anyone ever, like try to threaten you or anything like that? GT: I had mail threats a few times. SS: It takes a strong person to be able to work in that field. I mean, I think you’re very... it’s very admirable. SS: As a woman, how would you define courage? Like, what is courage to you? GT: Um... don’t give up. I mean, that’s really all there is to it. Find another way. If you have obstacles, barriers, find a get around. There is always going to be one, you just have to figure that out. Some people I think, they keep beating their head against the same wall and it’s like... it’s just like, sometimes trying to... some of these debates we have, socially. It’s like, you knew some of these issues that 11 you can never... there’s never resolution, their just... like that. It’s like, you know, there is a way to resolve this. We could gain some ground, we just got to try a different way, cause we’re stuck in one view point. And... you know what I mean. Like, there’s other issues we could be discussing this around, this issue... that could help people. One example could be, do we have to criminalize everything? Does that... how does that really work? It’s just expensive and it usually doesn’t work. So when we have kids in state’s custody, maybe we have parents in jail for drug use. Ok, we just.. we’re paying to keep this parent in prison, we’ve got their kids in state’s custody, this is all really expensive and so... maybe there’s a different way to work with this that might work better? Oh yeah, and working with the families. It’s really hard for the families, too, it puts them in a really awkward place. And you have to be really strong. We’re very punitive in nature. We want our pound of flesh. SS: True. So as you were going through all of this, your career and your school and all of this, how did you manage to balance your life between workplace and home? GT: I don’t even know. Being not working at all now, it’s like... I don’t even know how I did that. I mean, I’m still busy. I have forty hours a week that a full-time employee doesn’t, in terms of work, unless you’re working more jobs, and it’s like... it’s not that much time. You never have enough time. Um, getting organized, what can I say? Try to be really organized and have a plan. That’s, you know... I feel like I’m trying to give advice and that’s all I’ve got. 12 SS: Well, was it challenging cause when you were working your kids were still not full grown, right? GT: They... well, fortunately for me, I had a very flexible work schedule, in fact, it was actually easier for a lot of things I was doing, for the families I was working with to work in the evening or weekends. So, my husband would be with my kids or at some point later, my mom retired and she was with my kids. So I was juggling that and I was working part-time until my kids were in junior high, for a period. So that worked out really well. I would like to see that kind of flexibility for anybody and everybody. I mean, it’s like, really how many jobs do you have to be there physically on site anymore? A lot more, I think could get off the road and telecommute. If they can perform at home. Some people can’t, they need the structure of the workplace. Well, it’s like, if you get to telecommute, you are an A+ employee. You don’t want to lose that. So you know, I get up in the morning in my bathrobe and drink my coffee and I can go to work, I don’t need to spend an hour getting ready, right? In fact, you don’t have to spend time on the road, I mean you can be so much more productive in that situation. And you’re not distracted cause you’re worried about your kids. You know your kids are ok, they’re somewhere in the house, someone else is watching them or they’re with... but they’re close or whatever. It takes a lot off. Yeah, I was really lucky that way. But you know, Family Services, you know, at times, they really tried to practice what they preached somewhat. There was a time when we had a lot of moms at work with their kids and, you know that... the Health Department had a daycare, I imagine they still do right in their building. 13 SS: For the project, they’re trying to see how you would define “women’s work.” GT: You mean traditionally? SS: Whatever you think women’s work means. GT: Whatever you want to do! For me, there’s no limits, really. Whatever you can do, want to do, go for it. I’ve got to tell you, when I was canvassing in the last election, I came to these homes... this happened with two women who told me, they told me, they would do what their husbands wanted them to do on the ballot. They didn’t want to know anything. “Well, my husband will tell me how to vote.” I mean I just like... I just... Ahh! That just made me so upset. I was like, “I just can’t even believe I heard this and I can’t believe it didn’t bother them at all to say that.” I’m not that young, you know, and you’re not that much older than me... maybe not a lot... how in the world is this happening right now? Blew my mind. Yeah. Try the three minutes or less. They have that on their Voterize’s website, “three minutes or less,” so I thought, I’m going to use that. Some people probably don’t realize it’s that quick. SS: So the final question is how do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? GT: That’s really an involved question. I would have loved time to think about that one. That’s a three part question. Well, you know, my first thought is people don’t really appreciate what a lot of people went through so they could vote. Everyone though, not just women. So I’m just going to kind of... I’m thinking about the 2020 challenge and how 288,000 women, I think is the number, did not vote who were 14 eligible to vote. So that troubles me. So, maybe that’s why I’m so interested in being active right now. I also think about how Weber county elections came up with a slogan for “Honor our veterans by voting.” People did die for your freedom and that’s... voting’s a big one. So you know, think about how we’re always going on and on about how we should... honor military and... that’s just the theme all the time lately, just appreciating that your military’s out there protecting your freedom. And I think we should make... more noise about the fact that that freedom is voting. Among other things, but that’s a big one. I mean, that is huge. So maybe that wasn’t sort of the answer that... that hit me. That question was kind of, I think, designed for a different answer, but I think that’s what I’m worried about right now. SS: So, this is off the questions, but would you be willing to elaborate a little bit with all the stuff you’re doing with Voterize right now and all your activity. I know you’re very busy. GT: So, yeah, I did, I started with Indivisible Ogden. That’s how I kind of got started with Voterize. Cause they help Voterize. You know actually it’s cause I had a friend who was with Indivisible, but mostly we were working together on the campaign for Eric Eliason. We were trying to unseat Rob Bishop. We worked really hard. So yeah, and she, you know, she’s someone who shows up. I’ve met people who show up. And so she was a member of Indivisible, and I went to a few of their meetings, and of course I’m still in touch with them and I’m still in touch with Elsa and Dick and because I’m kind of doing some things that I want 15 to do, you know. So for example, we’re in the library every Saturday in July—my friend Peggy and I—seeing, you know, who else can we get registered. We’re trying to see where else could we be. Indivisible hits big events on 25th, and I don’t... they continue to do that and that’s great, but I thought, “Where else could we go?” We’re still... we’re working in the high schools, we were in the high schools in the spring, we’re gearing up to go again in fall. We’re hoping to get some sort of endorsement from the Department of Education or the Lieutenant Governor’s office or something. Um, so that’s still something we’re trying to get, because we’d like to have something that’s... it’s sort of ragtag right now. You have to approach the schools on your own every time and some of them are really cooperative, but like... we went to Bonneville last time and that was fine, but all of their administrators are leaving this year, so it’s like we’re going to kind of be starting from scratch a little bit in the fall, rebuilding a relationship. So, register the voters at the high school, I’m going to be working... I’ve got my block party to work on at Weber. I am officially the Weber liaison for Voterize right now. And I’m working with, let’s see... is it the Alliance for A Better.... I can’t remember what it is. You’ve probably heard it... Alliance for a Better Democracy? I can’t remember what it was, something like that. Yeah. Jim Priest is in on that. He’s with Weber State Democrats. And I guess there’ll be some events that we’ll be able to be involved in on the horizon with that project. And then, of course, in April I went to the county convention for the Democratic party. And I wound up walking out of there as the house chair for district ten. 16 Yeah. Luwanna informed me it was my job to protect her seat, I’m like, “I’m not even, like... know what I’m doing.” But I’m finding out. SS: Congratulations. GT: Thank you. So I hope you’ll stay involved, and I’ll definitely be reaching out to you as things go along, because I just kind of feel like things will continue to build by 2020, I feel like this is getting ready for that. And of course, you know about the debate with Angel Costillo next week. SS: So, when you’re doing your research to try to see other areas, do you just like... canvas? Are you going door to door? Are you just looking at the events, like off 25th street? GT: For doing Voterize? So, I was at the library with my husband, he does Sierra Club. And I was noticing how busy that place is and there’s a lot of diversity there. And I know, so at the county convention, the leader of the democratic, state Democratic Black Caucus was there and he chewed us out for not having more people of color. And I thought, “Well, ok, we’ve got to work on that!” And so I, when we were at the library and I was recognizing that we had a diverse population there, and it’s more towards the center of the city, I thought, “This is a place to stake out and see who we can engage with.” SS: Yeah! So did you get permission from the library? GT: I did. No, I didn’t just like, “Oh, here I am!” No, I did, I contacted the library cause I wanted a table and I wanted, they told me, when I first called, I got a woman who said, “Now if they do say no—” cause she wasn’t in the appropriate 17 department to tell me one way or the other, but “—it is public property, you can be out on the sidewalk. You can be out in the park next door if you want to.” I thought, “Well, that’s good to know if it doesn’t pan out.” But no, it worked out. And people need information. We were there last Saturday, now holiday, it wasn’t very busy there like it normally is for a Saturday, but we did engage a few people and they thought they had to have ID to register. That’s not true. So you know, you’re battling so much misinformation. People who are felons or have been in ja- they think they can’t vote. Not true. Um, so, um, we had candy, we entice people to come over. But you know, once you get people talking it’s great. And a lot of these people do want to register, and “Oh, yeah, I did move and I need to... do whatever.” SS: Yeah, I feel like 25th Street’s a good idea, but sometimes they get bothered, cause they’re like, “I’m here for something else,” some kind of activity and then they don’t want to be bothered. GT: We did the Heritage Festival and I felt the same way. So many people there were from outside the country actually, I just kind of felt like, “Ah, this is so hard to do,” cause you can tell this isn’t what they want to do right now. You know, I kind of want to go sit in a dive bar. I was thinking, you know, I’m actually thinking about... I don’t know about it, cause some people might really look down their nose. If there’s anything wrong with registering to vote even if you’ve had a few beers? Probably not. I didn’t convince you to actually vote for anybody. But I thought, “What if the guy at the Lighthouse Lounge wanted to...?” I could just sit in the 18 corner with my laptop, go “Hi, you can register to vote while you’re having a good time here at the bar.” SS: I love that. So I tell people, “Even if you don’t vote, there may be a day where you want to vote and now you’re registered. So you’re ready to go.” Well, I think that’s all the questions for this project. Is there anything else you’d like to add or a word advice out or anything you’d like people to know about your work or what you’ve done? GT: Get involved. That’s it. Just get involved. There’s still half of us don’t even vote, tells me maybe half of us don’t even know what’s going on. Which is frightening. I can’t even tell you how many people I worked with who were... they were receiving benefits of some kind, a lot of them, Medicaid, CHIP, food stamps, whatever, and they would tell me.... it was really hard cause like, I am here representing the state of Utah, but what you’re telling me, that what you believe, what you’re for and against, is against your own best interest. And so, you know, I found myself trying to explain, you know, state programs and federal programs, trying to help them understand, “You know if you support that, you will lose this.” It’s like... maybe you need to look into this a little more. SS: That’s sad. GT: Yeah. People vote against their own interest, because they don’t take the time to be more informed.