Oral History Program Debra Darrington Interviewed by Micol Karras 14 June 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Debra Darrington Interviewed by Micol Karras 14 June 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: Darrington, Debra, an oral history by Micol Karras, 14 June 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Debra Darrington Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Debra Darrington, conducted on June 14, 2019, in the Stewart Library, by Micol Karrass. In this interview, Debra discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Sarah Tooker, the video technician, is also present during this interview. ST: Today is June 14th, 2019. We are in the Stewart Library. Sarah Tooker is here with Debra Darrington and Micol Karras. We are doing an interview for the Women 2020 Project, “Beyond Suffrage.” And we will be... Micol will be doing the interview and I will be doing the camera work. MK: Would you tell us when and where were you born? DD: I was born in the Cooley Hospital in Brigham, Utah. Family homestead was Syracuse, and I stayed there for 42 years. MK: So Utah born and raised? DD: Born and raised. MK: Tell me a little bit about your childhood and the influences that might have led you on this path. DD: Absolutely my parents. I am the youngest of six kids, I lost two siblings to cystic fibrosis, so raised with all girls. All of us have ventured off as very strong business women. And I think that was my parents, both had Thursdays off. They both worked at R.C. Willey and my mother ran the credit department and I literally grew up underneath her desk. And my dad was a salesman there and perhaps... no, not perhaps, he was the greatest man to ever walk the earth. And watching them love to work. Every Thursday on their days off it was our day to 2 play and that’s what it was called. And so on “our day to play” we planted flowers, we worked in the yard, we painted shutters...we did all of that. So I grew up thinking that work was play. And they made it fun, they made it rewarding, so that was a huge influence for me. MK: So all of your sisters, are they all in careers like yourself, or have they all gone in different directions? DD: We’ve all gone in different directions, but all took very strong courses—my sister actually owns many 7-11’s, she runs resort retailers and she’s my oldest sister. My other sister has gone into the news and marketing. They buy and sell news for wayford network, and so she is employed by someone else. And then, my other sister is a travelling nurse, she has several degrees and she started a wellness clinic and then, just about two years ago fell into this course of travelling nurse, and so she does heart transplants for infants. MK: Wow, that’s incredible. So when you were young and you were growing up with this house full of women and the strong influence of your father and they’re teaching you how to work, what kind of dialogue was it about education? DD: I know that my upbringing was different than my sisters. They were running a service station and had a ranch when my sisters were growing up, so a totally different background than I had. I’m five years younger than my closest sibling. And so my parents were pretty well established at that point. And I don’t think I was a planned part of the family. My dad used to call me his little caboose and his biggest, best mistake. So, because of them being established and where they were, and also coming from the background that they came from, my other two 3 siblings that passed away from CF, they played a big part in that. That’s a financial strain for someone who was not educated, college wise. My parents both married straight out of high school and so they did very well for themselves, considering that they came from no heavy background on that. I remember in fourth grade, I came home and I had a -2 on my paper and it was huge, red -2 and it broke my heart because everything was 100% and I loved how 100% was written with the double-zero connected and so proud of it. So when I got a -2, bear in mind that was only one question that was worth two points, but I had missed it and I was devastated because perfection was all I knew and I dreaded coming home and my dad, the way he handled it was brilliant. He looked at it and said, “Two? Two?” And my heart just sank and I thought “I’ve disappointed him, I’m a failure.” And he goes “Oh, you missed two. I thought you only got two right.” And I remember just taking this, as a little kid, taking this huge sigh of relief and realizing you can mess up and still be successful. And I remember how proud he was and he took time to talk about that and... it’s emotional at this point, because I remember how poignant that was in my life, for him to recognize how scared I was and yet to let me know how proud he was of me. And I loved that, I love that moment. My mother, she didn’t demand perfection, but she knew I was capable of great things, and so they signed me up for everything. They were in a position where they could put me in gymnastics, which built a huge amount of confidence. My mother gave me my best advice. She said, “No matter what classroom you’re in, sit on the front row.” And I followed that clear through my Master’s in English. Always sat on the front row. 4 And that meant I was never distracted by the person in front of me, I could hear the teacher clearly, I was up front where I could raise my hand if I had a question, the teacher knew me, knew my face, knew my name, because I was right on the front and that made a huge impact in where I was. That’s the single most advice I’ve passed on to my own children, “Sit at the front.” And they put me through... I actually graduated my Junior year, went to BYU and at that point you could clep out a lot of classes, so I entered in a really high level. So I was a fish out of water, I didn’t have a boyfriend, wasn’t old enough to date, wasn’t old enough to drive a car and so college was the focus. I lived in the library, not to meet guys, but to study. And I kept that perfection, that was a standard I held for myself, but it somewhere was instilled in me by my parents of accepting mistakes, but expecting them to be corrected. MK: It sounds like you had a plan and you ended up at BYU. Is that exactly where you wanted to go and what did you want to study? DD: With that, I always knew I’d go to college because I loved school, loved learning. I would still be in school if I didn’t have to make a living. In fact, I’m sure I’ll go back and get additional degrees. But I fell in love with English from my Aunt Ruth. She actually taught at Ogden High, taught English and Theater down here, everyone knows my Aunt Ruth. And she was doing a reading and I remembered how eloquently the words rolled out of her mouth and I fell in love with the English language at that point, bought dictionary after dictionary and dictionary— it’s my favorite thing to read. And it was her that instilled that in me. Um, I’m not a big reader, which is shocking for someone who has a Master’s in English. And 5 it’s because I wanted to write. Started writing when I was 9, wrote a poem for my mother for Mother’s Day and it turned out pretty darn good. And from that, I was always in Honors English, all of my classes were honors, but English was my passion. I had two teachers, Mr. Reed and Mr. Reed, father and son. They both taught at Clearfield High. And I guess backing up to that, in Junior High, excellent English teachers as well, but Mr. Reed and Mr. Reed understood me. I don’t have a learning disability, but I comprehend better if I read out loud and hear it. And they both allowed me to sit outside the classroom on the stairs and read. And it’s because I love the sound of language, I love the connecting part of it more than I love words on a page. So I fell in love with it there and I started writing and those two men challenged me. And at that point, I knew I wanted to be an English major, didn’t know I wanted to be an English Master, and didn’t have a desire for using it for a job, I just knew it was a passion for me. In fact I remember someone asking me, “Why did you go into English?” I said, “Well, I already speak the language, so I’ve got one up on them.” But, it really was just a love for that. And I remember graduating and thinking “Good grief, what do you do with that degree other than write or teach?” And I knew I didn’t have the patience to be a teacher so I started writing and at the same time that that happened—my life moved really quickly after that. I got married, bumped into a property that I needed to make money for medical bills for a terminally ill child, and that changed my path right there. MK: So you connected that you needed to read out loud to learn, you knew that about yourself, how did you communicate that with these teachers? Is that something 6 that they figured out themselves or is it something you asked them to accommodate? DD: It was a combination. It was a combination, I remember specifically when I was reading and I was whispering to myself, I had my down and I... trying to quietly hear myself because when I read in my own room I would read out loud, I was almost theatrical with it. Because the book is more interesting that way, these are characters! They’re not silent, they’re not monotone, they have a diction in their voice and that’s how I created these characters and understood them. And I remember Mr. Reed coming over and he said “Is there something you are needing to talk about, or...? What are we doing here?” I said, “Oh, I just comprehend better when I read aloud.” And he said, “Would you like to read out in the hall?” And I thought he was joking, like “You’re now excused from the class.” And I said, “I really would.” And he said, “You’re welcome to.” And I think that was the respect that I had earned as a student. It wasn’t something to cut out of class, it wasn’t a made up excuse, it wasn’t a story that was bigger than what it was, it was just a simple thing that he understood. And then he passed that on to his son, I had his son the following year and as soon as I walked in, he already knew me and he said, “Oh, you may go outside to read.” MK: That’s a great measure of teaching you success, though, because you learned in that moment that you can stand up for yourself. DD: Correct. I think that also falls back with the day that my father let me know that it was ok to miss a question. Because I knew that wasn’t something that.... it’s... I think we’re all broken in different ways. None of us are successful... Einstein 7 summed that up when he said, “Anyone can be an idiot if you get them off on a subject they don’t understand.” And that was something that because I was so confident in my upbringing, that it didn’t, it never registered to me that it was a disability, it never registered to me that it was something I should apologize for or to back down and go, “Oh, sorry, I’ll just read quiet.” I enjoyed reading out loud and I enjoyed reading and I think that we can stifle students by taking that away, by putting everyone into the same mold. We don’t all fit into a mold. Some of us don’t fit in the mold at all. MK: Do you want to talk a little bit more about that, how your education fits in with your career and how your education led you to where you are now? And being a female if you found there were any moments where someone tried to stifle you or disrespect your motivation? DD: Oh, absolutely. On the first note of that, I have actually been pleasantly surprised at how much my education was necessary for what I do. I don’t know if that would be the case with... any career that you choose. I do know this: that most people when they graduate, their path takes them generally a different direction. I think other than the medical field, I think that becomes a directive, but I know so many people that have chosen an education, chosen a degree and then ventured off somewhere else, but that degree absolutely shaped and formed them and you’ll fall back on it time and time again. I think there are two really pertinent things that that caused for me. The first is, it is amazing in business how much is required in the English language. Writing, whether is advertising slogans... I go back to some of the basic things I learned in English in junior high, as far as 8 doubling up same consonants back to back and how that flows better and that... that’s my love, that’s my passion of what flows the smoothest. And I use that all the time in business and I have people all the time who are asking, “Will you just write this for me?” Because they don’t have that background. That’s another thing, as a side note: You’re not going to be an expert in everything and use people around you. When you hit a roadblock, use people around you. There’s an expert in every room, that... whatever you need, you’ll find it. But, um, with that education also, my fascination with characters and books, it made me larger in life, I became a character: Instead of just me I could chameleon into anything that I wanted to be. There was this huge level of confidence, there was huge level of just knowing other parts of the world. I have people that look at me and laugh... I don’t have a passport, I’ve never been outside of this country, and yet people are amazed because I know everything about all different countries and that’s because I learned it in books, I learned it in that education. And I wrote about characters, I created them and most of them were people that I wanted to be, that I aspired... and eventually became those because I could write it on paper and if you could write it on paper, you could become that person. And so all those things just opened one door after another. And the other part, in my English upbringing that I think was really important was I was infatuated with, I was just fascinated with quotes and I think in hard times, those quotes just pop back into my mind and it pushes me through. People look at them as clichés and they look at them as things that... that’s just... you know, you can’t use subliminal things, or just because you say it doesn’t make it true. 9 You know what, it does pull your through and rock and a hard spot though. And I still to this day will have quotes that pop into my head that I read in books in junior high, high school, college and since then. And so that was a huge thing. The second question, as far as being a woman in business, I remember when I started Chantilly Mansion. My father was alive at that time, and... huge help. Huge help for that. He believed in me and I think that was... that’s why I dared do so many things. My parents believed I could do anything and if they believed it, it was true. And so my dad just dove in head first. He was retired and just helped me with that. But I remember one day, changing back and forth. We were scraping paint and I mean, I was hands on, I did everything. And I was in ratty old clothes because I’d been scraping paint and then I needed to go over to the bank, so I quickly changed into my dress. My dad said, “Why are you changing to go over to the bank?” I said, “Cause no one will take me seriously if I show up in this.” And I remember driving over to the bank that day in my black dress, which became a standard platform because I had to prove to them that I knew something. And my dad certainly could have walked into the bank in his scrubs, whatever he was in, and they would have taken him seriously, simply because at that point in time... he was a man, and that’s the way it was viewed. But I had to dress up and I had to be powerful. I’ve wore stilettos since I was thirteen years old, and I still to this day mop my floors and everything in them. And I had a circumstance, I was on the phone with a friend of mine and... I love debate, I don’t necessarily have to be the one right, but at the end of the conversation, we’ve got to be right. And so, I love debate, not arguing. And as we 10 were debating something, I could feel I was losing and I still thought I was right. And so I was just on the phone, I went in, I have the balcony off from my office, and I went back into the house and I put on my tallest pair of stilettoes and I came back out and he said, “Why’d you do that?” I said, “Why’d I do what?” And he said, “Why’d you put your heels on?” I said, “How’d you know I have my heels on, are you like stalking me?” And he said, “No, I can hear them.” And I said, “I don’t know, I just put them on.” He said, “No, you know why you put them on.” And it was that moment that I realized that from the beginning of business, I have had to put on the image that I was powerful, that I knew what I was doing. And that was an eye opener, that was only two years ago. And I remember from that point on thinking, “No, you have everything you need. Absolutely everything that you need.” Then I realized I do like to dress up, I like the way it makes me feel. I think that the more you take care of yourself, the more you present yourself, the more powerful you feel in the room, the more confident you feel. So I realized that was a choice, that was a personal choice that I did for me, not for anyone else. But I also realized at that moment, “Do you know what, someone calls and they need me and I’m in my scroungy clothes, show up.” Because I’ve earned it. I’ve worked hard and I’ve earned it. And that confidence took years to build and I’ve built it here, I moved to Ogden almost six years ago. I live in a community with some really strong women. And that... binding people together, women with women, and I will have to say that I’ve seen in the last two years a big movement of men backing women, to where we’re seeing that wall come down, to where we’re all people in business instead of 11 women in business, men in business, we’re all people in business and we’re all realizing those strengths and not all of them are feminine and not all of them are masculine. Because I carry a lot of masculine, a lot of masculine qualities. But I’ve got a sensitivity as well. But I’m loving that. I’m loving the era that we’ve come to and I’ve watched it evolve. I’ve been in business since I was eleven years old and I’ve watched that transition and I love it. I love where business is now. MK: I love to hear that men are accepting women as equals in the workplace. So, you just learned this lesson two years ago. Is there anything that you would do differently? DD: I think we’d all like to live life backwards. We’d all like to have the intelligent that we have and start over as a teenager and move through there. Life doesn’t work that way. I think we learn what we need to learn when we need to learn it and when we’re ready to learn it. That lesson may have been presented to me ten years ago and I didn’t see it. Wasn’t mature enough to see it. Or the people around me weren’t mature enough to see it. Because, somewhere we have to have an evolution. And that’s progress in everything we do. Everything is progress and that’s what brings us joy, that’s what makes us who we are. There are a lot of things that you can teach in a classroom, but that becomes something that you have learned, not something that you know. It takes a minute to know it. And I love those “Aha!” moments. I love that epiphany when you’re sitting there and you’ve done it over and over and over again, and you’ve been immaculate in your presentation of it, but you never knew it. You were a robot, you were just 12 going through the motions and then one day it just hit you and you go, “Oh! That’s why I do that.” And you know that that becomes internal, that’s your core. That’s when you have been able to take that knowledge and internalize it and it’s you. And we’re not going to do that overnight. Do I have any regrets of that? No, because it made me tough. It made me tough out there. I spent a lot of time being a people pleaser. I forgot me in the picture, a lot of times I forgot that I mattered and didn’t think I mattered and thought, you know I went through phases where, “No, it’s selfish if you matter. You’ve got do this for someone else.” I realized if you don’t figure you out, then you don’t work with anyone else. You don’t work with anyone else. You’ve got to figure you out and you’ve got to figure out what your core purpose is. Whatever religion or non-religion or whatever it is, there is something that each of us, only each of us can do. We’ve got to contribute that and if we continue being someone else... that’s one of my favorite quotes, “Be you. You’re the only one that can be cause everybody else is taken.” And if I don’t be me, if I try to be my neighbor next door, if I try to take on that, and that is what empowered me, because my ideas were my ideas and the world needed them. The world doesn’t need all of them, in fact 90% of them go out the window as... you know you wake up and you’re like, “Oh, that’s such a great idea,” and then you do it and you’re like... “Good grief. What was I on?” MK: Not everything follows through, but it does lead to something else probably. DD: It does. And you keep your eye open. And bad luck’s part of that. Challenges. I think I’ve learned more from bad luck than I’ve learned from good luck because when things are going smoothly you just stay with the same thing, you just keep 13 doing the same thing. You wake up and its Groundhog Day all over again. But you hit a roadblock and you look at it and you think, “Either this works and I’ve got to figure out a way to make it work, or it’s time to abandon it, go to something else.” MK: What you’re describing to me, I like to call those moments as a door and a hinge in the door, because you come up to the door and it hinges and then you’re moving in a different direction. Can you think of other moments in your career or in your life that was a hinge in your door? DD: Sure, sure. There’s tons of them. I think probably the most telling was the beginning. I had a son who... it was a life-threatening pregnancy, they asked me to abort the pregnancy because they had never brought a mother and child, neither one of them had survived, and so they asked me to abort the pregnancy. And I said, “Absolutely not. Not my decision. There are some things that are in my control and some things aren’t and I won’t take another life to save my own.” And so that baby was born and it cost a million dollars, a million plus to keep me alive, and then we spent another million and a half on him. So I had medical bills and he was deemed terminal by everybody else’s medical standpoint, but I put my life on the line and I’d be darned if that kid was going to die. And so I have... it was back in the day when insurance could cap out. And so insurance could cap out at that time and so that responsibility was mine and so I told my husband, I said, “At the end of the day, either you need a new job or I need a job.” And I was taking care of him 24/7. And I wasn’t just saying that to vent, I knew it was fact. And so I put my mind in that order and started thinking, “I’ve got to find a job.” I 14 didn’t have a plan at all, but I loaded my four children, my three older kids, my oldest was four and a half and this terminally ill baby on oxygen and we scrounged up two dollars and twelve cents and we headed to McDonald’s, back in the day when you could buy the happy meal without the box, cause it was a $1.99 if you got it in a sack, and so $2.12 with tax and I sent the kids on a hunt. “Look in your jeans, look in the couch, look in the cupholders, look wherever you can.” And we found $2.12 because everything else had gone to keeping our medical bills current. And so we loaded in the car and we lived in Syracuse, coming across the train tracks, there was a train that stuck on the tracks. And that could have been, “Oh, let’s go back home,” but nope, we’ll just keep going till you don’t see the train. And that routed us to Gentile and we came up that road and then there was a roadblock again. And... “Good heavens, are you kidding me?” And so looking at it as bad luck, but no, it was steering me in the right direction, that was the hinge that was there. And I drove passed what is now Chantilly Mansion, a broken down old mansion, been vacant for ten years and I pulled up in the parking lot and I thought, “I’m going to make a reception center out of it.” And my background from that was I... had cooked food. And so I called the realtor and with all four kids, we walked through and it was a mess. MK: Right then, you did that? DD: Mmhmm. I called him. And I remember walking through and I said, “It’s perfect, I’ll take it.” I’d never bought a house before. And he said, “Ok.” And I’m sure he’s looking at this mother with four children like a joke. I had a homemade jumper on that I had sewed, because we literally were... scrapping it together. And so I said, 15 “What do I need to do to buy it?” And he said, “Well, you need $3000 in earnest money.” I said, “Ok.” So I wrote out a check for $3000 and I had zero money in my checking account. And I handed it to him and I was an honest person, so I said, “What are you going to do with it?” And he said—back in that day, I do real estate now and it’s not the same, they cash it at that point, it goes in a trust account, but they used to just put it in a safe—so he said, “I’m going to put it in the safe and then when we close that $3000 will go towards your purchase.” And I said, “So it’s not going to the bank?” And he said no, and I said “Good, cause I don’t have any money.” He looked at me and I said, “But when you get ready to cash that, there will be money in the bank I promise you.” I had no plan. So I got into the car and I remember my oldest child, Hans, he said, “Does this mean we’re not getting the Happy Meal?” And I said, “Yes. That’s exactly what it meant, cause I need the $2.12.” So at that point my mind just started putting things together, cause I had a problem to solve. So I drove to my father’s house and I said, “Would you give me $3000 no questions asked?” And he looked me head to toe and said, “For you, I would.” And that was because the integrity, I’d been a good kid. I hadn’t caused him trouble and I was honest every day of my life, I worked hard and life, through consequences that didn’t belong to me but they were mine to own up to and to fix. So he wrote out a check for $3000, I took it to America First, put it in the bank, then I called Brent and I said, “The check will clear.” And then I thought, “Ok, now what do you do from here?” So again, a mother of four kids, one terminally ill taking care of him, I called my sister who was magnificent in business, she’d been very successful, 16 years older than I 16 am, and I said, “I just bought a building and I need to make a reception center and I don’t know what in the world I’m doing, but I need some help.” And she said, “Ok, well, get an SBA loan,” we spent 72 hours, that was my first 72 hour shift. And I wrote out a business plan and borrowed a dress because I didn’t own anything respectable, which is probably why I dress up today, because I had two homemade jumpers and one shirt that I washed each night. I mean, it was pathetic. And... but I’d done that to keep my credit impeccable, I owed medical bills, it was my responsibility, and I paid them. That came because my mother managed RC Willey’s credit department, so you see how all of these things just back up into each other, so all of those stepping stones were there. I had to step on every one of them. So, I remember being in First Security Bank and that banker looking at me, I’m this young kid in a borrowed dress that was too big for me and hiding my shoes because they weren’t respectable shoes, which also probably means why I love shoes now, but I remember he called on the phone to whoever, the higher ups. He said, “She’s young, her credit’s impeccable, and she has grundles of equity in her home.” And that was because my parents subdivided property, gave each of us a lot. They had, there were... You know, you can never claim that you did it on your own. You have to work hard, but there are a lot of people that you owe a lot of credit to. So the SBA loan sailed through and I remember the first time I took a tour at our open house at Chantilly Mansion and I was young and people said, “How did you dare do this?” Because everybody wants to do it but no one dares. And I stood on the top floor of that and... it used to have a balcony up there, but they 17 closed it in because... Alta Adams who owned the house for kids kept jumping off the balcony, so they closed the balcony. And I said, “You know, I heard this story that Alta’s kids jumped off this balcony and there’s not a chance in the world that I’d jump off this balcony.” I said, “Actually there is, if there was fire at my back I wouldn’t hesitate and I would jump right off this balcony and wouldn’t hesitate.” And... that’s what had happened. I had circumstances that I had to deal with, my daughter calls it “hashtag adulting,” and I had to deal with it. Wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility. I was the one that chose to have this baby, I was the one that chose to mount up those medical bills, I wasn’t the one who chose the medical condition, but I chose to fight it. And so that was my first... my first moment with that and that gave me courage from then on. That you know, you don’t always have to have fire at your back. Sometimes you just have to have a good idea and you can go on it and you have to also understand that you might break your leg when you fall off the balcony, you might have to go with a different plan. But all of this was about daring to fail. Daring to fail. MK: I think that took so much courage. And I wonder if the fact that you had this little boy that was so sick. I wonder if that had something to do with that courage? DD: Well, going back to another quote, “When you think you’ve tried everything, you haven’t.” And that’s what it was. The doctors thought they had tried everything. My son just moved to Maine, he’s 27 years old. So, he wasn’t terminally ill. Make- A-Wish thought he was, the fire department thought he was, my doctor’s thought he was, I knew he wasn’t. And it would have been ok had he passed away. I was 18 ready to face that, but I wasn’t going to aid in it. And I was going to do everything I could. Had this not worked, I would have found something else, I guarantee it. MK: That’s really motivating. You should be a motivational speaker for young girls. DD: That’s actually what I do. MK: You were saying you buy these businesses and help entrepreneurs but you still work with Chantilly Mansion? DD: Chantilly is my baby, it saved the family. MK: Do you still own and run Chantilly? DD: My son runs it. I raised the kids in it, gave my oldest son the opportunity to run, I also have Bellington Manor and, um..., as they were growing up, they grew up in the business and learned a lot of skills. And my oldest son expressed interest in it, and my second oldest son expressed interest. So that’s when I thought, “Ok, we’ll get two of them. And I’ll do the same thing that I do for everyone else, I’ll build this business up for you.” My oldest son, I remember he was in it for about two months he came to me, well two weeks into it he said, “Do we ever take a lunch break?” I said, “I don’t, but you’re welcome to.” He said, “Ok.” He has a really fast metabolism. He eats like 2100 calories a day and starves. That happened from taking care of Tate. I had to work round the clock to take care of him, so again, that’s another stepping stone that it just kind of conditioned me for being an entrepreneur, cause it takes a little bit of time to get it off the ground, but, then about two months later, Hans said, “You always make this look so fun and so easy.” He said, “It’s freaking hard.” I said, “Yeah, it is.” And he said, “Not for me.” Which was great. He had it handed to him and had the courage to say, 19 “It’s not for me.” And so with that, um, I put another person who’d worked for me for 17 years in his place. So, do you often find me washing the dishes and cleaning the toilets there? Absolutely. Love it. If ever I could choose a career, I’d be a greeter at Walmart, if I could pay the bills that way, or I would wash dishes. Because my parents bought a dishwasher when I was a kid and I got gypped out of that. Again, my parents taught me that work was fun! And I watched my sisters, you know, that I finally got tall enough that, standing on a stool, I could wash the dishes and they bought a freaking stupid dishwasher. I thought, “What in the world!” And so still to this day, I live in a really, really nice home, don’t run the dishwasher. It has the same set of dishes that was in it when we moved in and that was six years ago, cause I wash the dishes. MK: So many parents have their idea of what they want their children to be and do, and it’s really hard for parents to give up control, and when your son said that this was not for him, you said, “Ok.” And I think that that’s really admirable. DD: I want all of them to take their own course and figure it out. It’s their life. Yeah, I’m not a controlling parent, at all. MK: So you got the money together, you had time with your sister, you put it together, let’s fast forward to it’s all ready to go and you’re open for business. Tell us about that experience. DD: At the ribbon cutting, Tate was on oxygen, he had made it to 18 years old, I had all of my kids there, we did the ribbon cutting. I was... a fish out of water. I had no clue, no clue about business. I knew a lot, I had an education, a good head on my shoulders, but had I ever ran a business? No. But I just... everything I do, I 20 just figure it out. Just figure it out. And I have had people often say, “You know so much,” or “Ask Deb, she knows about it,” and I said, “You can figure it out, too. Everyone can figure it out. Do you need an answer? It’s out there.” Google. Oh my goodness, had that been around... mine was all, go to the library, figure it out. So, yeah, education, or there is someone... there is someone out there to get that answer from. So we opened up, we did an open house, cause I thought, “Hey, people have expressed interest in coming.” But we actually started... we started the renovation and that creates interest. This was a landmark for Layton and people all of a sudden saw this, it’s sits back about 1000 feet off the road, so suddenly people are like, “Wow, there’s like a big building there!” And it was tiny when we opened, we’ve done three additions since, but I didn’t have money to do an addition there. I barely had money to buy the place and so we had people that would come up and say, “Hey, what are you doing here?” “Oh, it’s a reception center,” and I mean, not fake it till you make it, but I was pretty much just making it up as I went along and I remember taking the first person through, we had cardboard lined up for the sidewalks, it was just mud because we had to scrap the whole yard. So, it’s February, people are coming on this cardboard sidewalk, I’m throwing on my jumper, cause I don’t have that borrowed dress anymore, I can’t afford one, trying to look all professional. And I remember the first time a lady said, “So where do you serve?” Like... hmm. So I looked at it and, without skipping a beat, I said, “Oh, all of our servers will be in tuxedos with white gloves and you’ve seen in like the movies from the 1920s where people are walking around with the 21 trays? That’s how we serve.” I made it up, well then I had to follow through. So that’s what we did. Because I realized, “There’s no place to put a table in here.” So that actually ended up being what set us apart. Because nobody else did that. So everyone was like, “Oh this is so cool.” I had to buy a few tuxedos, but, yeah, it was... it just... if someone asked a question, I had to come up with a solution right then and there. And most of those worked out. And the weather was in our favor and then I realized, “We’re going into winter, we don’t have the outside grounds anymore, so... don’t know what I’m doing now.” And that’s when I said, “Alright, got to figure out a way to build more onto it.” And so I went back to the bank, and he said, “Oh, actually there’s a fast-track loan because of your credit history,” and it just fell into place. Well, it fell into place because I put it in motion. And what I did find in that business and everything else, this is what I absolutely have loved about being in business. Because of the nature of my business, it was an ideal platform for entry level kids. You could either work at Lagoon or you could work at Chantilly Mansion, we were probably the only place that accepted fourteen-year-olds. And I recognized that I could take a young person and do exactly what my parents had done for me. Build ultimate confidence in them by teaching them basic skills, and every single one of my employees have gone on to have incredible careers. Some of those careers are mothers, because some of my employees started at fourteen and they didn’t leave until they had their first kid. Because we created such an atmosphere that they could exceed in, but everyone that I hired, I said, “This is not a career, this is a job. So while you’re here, you learn good work 22 skills and you learn great people skills, I will give you a recommendation, and then I will launch you somewhere else.” So they all felt like my children, just move them to wherever they wanted to go, and I still to this day, hire these younger kids and it’s amazing. MK: So I’m hearing you talk a lot about the business side, but that type of work has also a creative side that’s very important. So how did you pull the creative side off? DD: So that’s probably the strongest part of my personality. It’s what drives me and gives me... business can become mundane, so the creative part, especially I think, that is something I think crosses over that... that feminist... I think we have a creative side of us that we need, we need to put that out into the world. I remember my dad said to me, I was six years old and I used to draw these crazy little monster characters that I’d made up in my head. He said, “I don’t think you will ever live long enough to get all of your ideas out of your head.” And that’s why I loved this particular platform, because everything was different. It’s also what set us apart in the business because everyone was cookie cutter because they weren’t as creative, so it was just like, “If you get something that works, just do it over and over.” I don’t like doing the same thing twice. And so, um, that was a great creative outlet where I could... that’s the first time I recognized that not everyone has an imagination. And then I started to realize I had really great employees that came along that, some were micromanagers, some were creative, some were followers, some were designers, some were production, and I loved that aspect of my career, in being able to identify how different we are and 23 so, you don’t take someone and try to put them in someone else’s job, you create a job for them. I noted that, the very first time I noted that, and this is off the subject of creativity, but I think it’s important. I had a girl who went on to become a microbiologist. And weddings are chaotic. Sometimes you all of a sudden have a spurt and there’s more people than you can even fathom taking care of. And we were in such a given moment, so then you change your protocol at that point and your motive is just get the food out to everyone. And we were all just hustling and I came back and she is just like, meticulously fixing the napkins. I said, “Good grief, Holly, what are we doing?’ And she said, “Oh, just doing the napkins like you like them.” And she was a perfectionist. She paid attention to minor details. Well this was not a minor detail, this was a fire. But then I realized someone like that is so valuable. I also knew that keeping track of our sashes and linens and things like that... I had no desire to do that, because I am not a micromanager. I hate that. I thought, “Holly is ideal for that.” And she thrived in that. And so that was something I needed, it was something she was good at, something she was happy at, and so she stayed for five years. To throw her out on the floor in chaos? No, it freaked her out. And so, I’ve loved that, but as far as the creative aspect... I have an equal balance. An equal balance of it. I have tried not being creative and doing strictly business. Shuts me down. Shuts me down. So in regards to that, that’s actually what spawned my next business that came literally six months after I started Chantilly, and that was retail stores. I originally opened that because I thought, “Oh, you have this education in English, you really should 24 use, you have all of these books and poetry that you’ve written,” and so I decided to open a store to highlight those, and it went a different direction. We still carried the poetry, but I realized my retail background was heavy. And I was strong in it. And so that became my creative outlet on that, and then I was able to teach the creative part of business, of the wedding business, to people, but I realized there are some parts of creativity, there are some businesses that if you own it, it remains a mom and pop shop forever, because you’re the heart of it, and you can’t train someone to do that. So that’s a challenge that’s come up in business as of recent. You hear all of this on Instagram of branding yourself. And I naturally branded myself, I didn’t expect to. It’s just, I was very strong with my personality and my creativity and it was different. I didn’t recognize it was different, because it was me. But other people that’d see it and they go... I remember moving our store and changing the name and I’d have clientele that came in and they’d go “Oh, this is...” and they knew exactly that it was me. And so that... that was, um, that was an exciting moment for me at that time to realize that I had enough creativity that it was strictly mine, it wasn’t copied from anyone. And so, I’m grateful for that. MK:. So what happened after that? DD: After the retail store? So I expanded that, again, it started out just as a little creative outlet and then I recognized, “Hey, people like this, there’s a need for it.” And so that’s when I realized I was a business woman. And that I had a passion for it, I loved it, I loved being in the workforce, I loved being in women in business, I loved the chamber. And so I opened a second store and then a third 25 store. Life goes on while you’re there and I think that’s something that’s individual to women. We’ve got a neighbor that, he’s a stay-at-home Dad and his wife’s a nurse and she supports the family and that’s awesome as well, but I recognize that I had more responsibility at home and so I was ready to just expand and brand, go overseas and start creating my own line with my own brand name on it. It just didn’t go right at the time. And I remember going to my husband at the time and I said, “Ok, we’ve got these businesses up and running, this is our livelihood, but I feel like I need to be home with the kids.” And he said, “I don’t understand, the kids are teenagers now, so I don’t understand why you think that they need you now.” I said, “I don’t know, but my sixth sense tells me I need to close one business or the other.” And he said, ‘Well, you’re the heart of the stores, no one else can buy like you can, no one can merchandise like you can, so let’s run the reception centers.” And I agreed with that, and we closed the stores and the purpose of this story for you is that women intuition is important, because two weeks after I had been home and I was elated because I had worked the whole time, and I’d taken, I drove and I dropped my kids off to school and I picked them up every day, they grew up in the Kaysville theatre, and they were with me all the time, I figured out a way to be a mom and a business woman, but two weeks later a girl moved in across the street from us and she turned around, I said, “Woah, you are like... really pregnant.” And then I said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” But she said, “Yeah, I’m expecting twins in a month,” so I helped her move in and... those are my two 13 year-olds. I didn’t know at the time that the kids I needed to be home for were kids that I 26 would adopt and kids that I was their mom... life has a really neat way, if you pay attention to it. I remember on their birth announcement, it was when they had turned a year old is when we had adopted them, I brought them home from the hospital, I had no intentions of having more children, I had four and thrilled to, and really thought that I would just move on and get my kids out of the house and go for a full-fledged, very strong career. And I remember on their birth announcement, I put “Some of the greatest blessings in life, we never knew to ask for.” And those kids have saved my life, multiple times over. And I became a new mom again and that changed things. I tried having my husband run the business and realized that wasn’t his thing. So he went back to his career and with twins, I went back to running Chantilly Mansion full bore, we completely shifted gears, we put a new addition on, we dominated the market that direction and, again, figured it out. You just figure it out. You know, how do you take twins and run a business? You buy two pack-and-plays. And you time appointments around their naps and that’s the reality of any woman in business; you either neglect your family or you figure out a way to take better care for them and provide for them. And so you know, they say you can’t have your cake and eat it to. Yeah, you can, you just have to figure it out. Just have to figure it out. It’s like we were mentioning, when I was visiting out in the hallway, there has to be a why. It doesn’t matter if you know how, there has to be a why. Because we can always figure out the how if we know the why. And my why with the first business, I had medical bills I had to pay for. And I wasn’t going to let my kid die. That was my why and it was huge. That was a 27 huge why. And it built confidence and there wasn’t a thing that would come in front of me that I couldn’t figure out how to get through. I actually, in my second business plan, because I thought it would be easier, after you had already started a business, to just start another. I mean, I was just invincible that way, I just thought, “Ok, you did it once, so of course you do it again.” No, it’s tougher! You go back to SBA and you ask for another loan, they’re asking you “Why?” They think you already have a career, you have a business and it’s successful and up and running. Mine is, “Why not?” Of course I’m going to. I said, “I don’t care. I don’t care if it’ll be challenging and touch. It was tough the first time, it’s going to be tough the second time, but I’m tougher than I was the first time, so...” And I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and then the third one became easier, and the next one I didn’t need cause I had my own money. MK: Do you a direction you’d like to go or something you’d want to say that I haven’t asked? DD: Um, oh goodness, there’s probably plenty of things to say. Do you know what, I’ll take a most recent lesson. My life has been anything but easy, and I’m grateful for that because I would not have developed to who I am, I would not have the confidence I have, if life hadn’t been extremely, what people would deem, unfair. I’ve dealt with a lot of consequences that weren’t my doing. You know, I took care of myself and yet suddenly I had a terminally ill pregnancy, did everything I could to get that baby here and then he was terminally ill. I recently, two years ago, had a husband that snapped and pulled a gun on me and my son. That’s an extreme thing, but it’s real. And I’ll talk about it because we went from a 28 completely peaceful successful family in a status quo that normally, people stereotypically don’t think that happens to. Happened to me. And I had to figure out life from that point. I could have been the victim, I could have said, “Oh, poor me,” I could have screamed and yelled, laid down and died, could have done any of those things. But I came across in all of my reading, something that said, “You haven’t lost everything, you’ve just lost your wallet.” And I thought about that for a minute, and I thought, “That is probably the most powerful advice to carry me through this situation and probably though a lot more.” And what that meant was, I still had everything within me, I was awarded my businesses, but suddenly, I was running everything by myself, and I had other challenges that came with that. My husband lost full custody to our kids and so suddenly, not only do I own... all of the businesses and everything that I have going, but I’m also solely responsible for two thirteen-year-old kids, well they were eleven at the time. And that was tough. And I could have gone and just closed everything up, taken that money and lived on it, but when I came across that, “You’ve only lost your wallet,” and I kept thinking about that. So what do you do if you’ve lost your wallet, doesn’t mean that you’re washed up, it doesn’t mean that you don’t... that you can never get back what you had. It just means that you’ve got to ask someone for some help. And I remember recognizing how many people I had around me, and I built that up because I’ve been integral, I’ve been honest, I’ve worked hard, and had a lot of really, really good people around me. And so at what could have been the end of a career, became the beginning of an incredible 29 journey that I had to dig deep and rely on everything I had learned, everything I knew from the past, and I... I had to fall back on what my dad had taught me, that it’s ok to fail. And at that point I had to know that more than anything. And I remember a friend of mine recognizing, he said, “You’re broken.” “No, I’m not.” He said, “Yeah, you’re broken.” And I denied that, because I thought if I admitted that I was broken, then I had failed. No, admitting I was broken was the strongest thing I could have done. Because what I realized at that point is, “Deb, you’re human, you’ve got take care of you, you’ve got to be real with what’s happening. You’ve got to face it head on. No more of this invincible, no more of this just, keep that attitude and everything will fall into place.” Because you know what? Nothing fell into place for a very long time. And I realized all I was doing was hanging on. Nobody knew that, because I had to keep things going so you don’t spread that around. That’s the making of a real leader; is someone who knows that everything is falling apart and yet, no one around you knows. I realized that, you will have a handful of people of around you that you can confide in, there will be a handful of people that get it, and those are the handful people that went through it too. Not exactly what you’ve been through, but they’ve gone through it. And then I started paying attention to the strongest people that I had admired, not just on a city level or on a state level, but on a national level and I looked at these heroes that I had watched and thought that everything was so easy in their life. I remember, one of the first was Tony Robbins. I follow him, I have since... when he was fat. You know, so that’ll tell you, when he was first starting out. But I remembered him saying “Nobody has a perfect portfolio.” And it went back full 30 circle to that minus two on that paper. I had been perfect for so long and people would say, “Gosh, she’s got the Midas touch.” And I just expected that, and I worked hard at it, it’s not like it was just given to me, I worked and I worked through really hard things, but this was devastating. This was a huge thing. And this was my minus two. And my dad had since passed, and I thought, “Who do you go to? Your mom’s 89, you can’t bring it to her.” And realized, I got to put on my granny panties and buck up and do it. And I absolutely loved the last two and a half years, because I was able to peel off all of those layers of who I thought I was and who I thought—I guess more so of who I thought I had to be. Who people expected me to be. And I got down and realized, “You know what, the core of who you are, Deb, is a really great person. And you had everything that you needed, that integrity that your parents instilled in you, your hard work, and all those things are still right there. It’s not the dress you wear, it’s not the stilettoes.” I’m every bit as fierce barefoot. And I recognized that. And that I fell back on this “You’ve only lost your wallet,” and I had to rely on that over and over and over again, because when you go through something like that, when you... after 32 years lose half of you, you’ve got to rebuild that and you’ve got to rebuild your kids on top of that... takes a lot of work. And as I went through that, I came to understand more and more and more of how there is this balance in life. We have to balance it. And sometimes we take on more than we can because we have to. That’s when I was staying up 22 hours a day and sleeping 2 hours a day taking care of a sick kid. Cause I didn’t have any other options. But the minute I 31 could turn some of that around and get 4 hours of sleep, I needed to do that instead of filling my plate with so much thinking, “Oh, I’ve gone on 22 hours of sleep before.” So, you’ve got to balance that. And I think that’s the whole... whether it’s in business, whether it’s in life, whether it’s as a mother, whether it’s as a wife, or a daughter, whatever it is, you’ve got to find that balance and it’s different... my life is completely in a different place right now than it was before. It’s no better, no worse than it was. It’s just different. And that’s the whole course, that’s the whole purpose of this. I know there are people my age that are thinking, “Oh, got to retire!” Retire for what? Human progress is what makes us happy and I might shift a direction, like my sister. She’s made her money, so now she has to take all of that time and all of that energy and put into charities and things like that. That might be my course, it might not. My course might take me somewhere else, but I think that that single thing, I would pass on. That when times hit you and you think that there’s no way out, no, just look around. You just lost your wallet for a minute. Look and ask for help and when you get that wallet back it all starts right back up. All of my businesses were still there and I was more powerful and the really great thing, when I found my wallet, I didn’t need it. So I was able to give everything in that wallet away and start someone else on a different journey. And so, business is life, I think. So when you’re not a working woman, that’s why I say, “Yes, you are.” You work is just different. Your work is different. 32 MK: Okay, so you’re kind of heavy in it right now, what you’re doing, but when you do want to start to slow down, what are your dreams? What do you see happening then? DD: So I have... my dreams won’t be to slow down. But right now it’s the same as where I was at the beginning. You look at “What do I have? What do I have to offer? What can I—” again, finding that balance. “—What can I give? And what do I need?” What can I give and what do I need? And so I recognized, coming through this last two years came with a lot of implications, there was a lot to deal with. And I... there were points and times that I would think, “Oh, I’ve made it through.” And then... Have you seen Tangled? So that one scene where there’s the tree, and she’s just gotten out of her mother’s, you know, broke out of the tower, and she’s swinging around, “Oh, this is the best day of my life!” And then, she’s like [crying noises] and then she goes around and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that was my last two years.” And that’s sometimes as we’re coming through that, you recognize it. And then I.... I’m very observant and I recognized that part of what pulled me through what I did was people having a voice and admitting that they had gone through that too. That’s why I think it’s so important that we don’t always try to be perfect, we don’t always try to personify the Instagram or the Facebook that we are always perfect or that everything’s in place. Side note on that, my nephew who I greatly admire, he and his wife and their two kids were at Lagoon, and the kids were fighting with each other, he was fighting with her and, this is a good solid family. And then Crystal took a picture and posted it on Instagram that “Had such a great time at Lagoon!” And Cameron said, “What’d 33 you do that for?” And she said, “Well, cause I wanted to... I needed something to post on Instagram.” He said, “Then why didn’t you post the truth, that this is an absolutely horrible day and we should never repeat it as long as we live!” And she said, “Cameron, we can’t do that.” And he said, “Oh, but you can lie? You can make everyone think that or lives are perfect and we never fight?” He said, “Is that who we are?” And she thought, “You know, you’re right.” And sometimes we fall in that, where we not only expect ourselves to be perfect but we start to believe that everybody else’s lives are perfect and what got me through this were a few brave women who said, “You know what? It happened to me too.” Kate Spade, you know, you see these strong, strong women. Where was someone to tell her? And when they broadcast that and let it out there, there’s a purpose for that, to let us know, “You know what? No one’s immune. Nobody’s exempt from crap.” They aren’t. And so that’s just a really, really important thing for people to recognize. And so as I thought about that and recognized how happy I am right now, happier than had I not gone through what I did. Would I wish it on anyone? No. Am I grateful that I went through it? Yeah. Would I wish it on anyone’s kids? Absolutely not. Would I ever take it away from my kids? No, I have the best, grounded, most intelligent... these kids are thirteen years old and they don’t have a father. He lives here, and they don’t have a father. And that could be devastating. So, Boston asked me on Monday, she said, “Is Sunday Father’s Day?” And I said, awkwardly, I said, “Yeah, it is, honey.” And she said, “Cool, can we go get a present for Hans and Alex” and she 34 went through and she named all of her brothers who stepped it up. She doesn’t know she doesn’t have a traditional dad. MK: Those are father figures. They fill that for her. DD: Yeah. So, our family is normal. And I love that I was... that I had been through enough, that I had got a minus two, that I could explain to them that there is no such thing as normal. That a family is what we make it and we have, absolutely, the most incredible family. And those kids have exactly what they need. So putting all of those into place, I realized, it’s time for me to go on the road speaking. And I am finally—writing is my passion, and I had to put it on the backburner for a while, but now I have businesses up and running, real estate is easy to me, creating business is easy to me, it’s not challenging anymore, but it is a necessity. And so now I have finally gotten to the point that, as a starving actress or a starving motivational speaker, I have the capability to fund that and to go out, I don’t need to be paid for that, because I have a passive livelihood that no longer fulfills what I need to do because it’s not challenging anymore. But it is challenging for the people who are running it and it’s filling that part in their lives, so that’s their season, I’m moving into a different season, and so I’m finally at a point that, I’ve had it in my mind, I’ve wanted to do it forever, and I’ve continued to write, but it’s all in bits and pieces. So I’m finally at a point that I can sit down and I can put those books together and I can go out and I can motivate people and let them know that broken is beautiful, it really is. And breaking is how we fix ourselves, if you can’t acknowledge that things are broken you will never fix them. You’ll keep putting band-aid after band-aid, and you will never get to the 35 heart of who you are if you don’t acknowledge and look it square in the face. And I love that. MK: So when you’re going around doing your motivational speaking, you’re speaking specifically to people who are going to start a business. Who’s your audience, I guess is what I’m asking? DD: I actually have several platforms, one is very much education/business. And that you can do it. And that all of us have something to contribute and you can make a career out of it and you can make a hobby out of it and that’s up to you. The other is, I am very outspoken on rape, I’m very outspoken on domestic violence, I’m very outspoken on being aware that you’re... with a narcissist. And those are things that aren’t spoken about, cause they’re difficult subjects, and nobody wants to admit that it happened to them. And I think that’s where the stereotypical nature of it comes from. The ones that do speak about it, are crying out for help. The others that are on the flip side of that think it will show them as broken or damaged or the victim and that’s not the case. That’s not the case. So, that is a huge, huge platform. MK: How’d you get involved in that area of speaking? DD: I was raped by my husband. For 32 years. 32 years. And that’s a subject that my kids didn’t want to come out, so at first I thought, “I’ll protect them.” I thought, “Perhaps that’s why everyone’s being protected.” And so, when you remain silent, it might feel good to the people around, but what it does is it encourages and it endorses the perpetrator. And they trap you and they give you... you don’t dare talk about it. They’ll flip it around and you will always be the victim. But 36 another favorite quote of mine is, “There’s a lot of violence that happens in this world. Not necessarily because of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.” I remember being in the police department after my husband pulled the gun on me. It took me a week to go there, because I didn’t want my husband to lose his job, I didn’t want him to be embarrassed, I thought, “I’ll... I’ve put it together before, I’ll keep putting it together, I’ve hidden it so well,” and I remember filling out the first part of that police report, and I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” And he started reading it and he said, “You have to do this.” He said, “Not only for you, but for every other woman out there. You have to.” So that’s a huge platform that I’ll stand by. MK: Do you find that these are all female audiences when you speak of that? DD: Many... the majority is female, but many of them bring their spouses, their husbands, their brothers, and so there’s a handful of abuse victims, sorry not victims...survivors, that come through. At that point, they probably are victims if they’re still in an audience listening. But the majority of them have come to support the women, but, you’re at about 75/25 percentage on that. But at the end of the night, they recognize that because a big part of what I teach is... good people make bad decisions all the time. But owning up to that, because that’s the thing that helps you move on. Validation is such a huge thing. And if someone continues to deny what they did, it’s tough to close that door and move on. Because it leaves that doubt there, whether you’re a child that’s been abused or whether you’re an adult. I recently participated in the function for Safe Harbor. 37 And we were getting our pictures taken, so we were all in this room about this size. And I remember sitting there, and again, I’m an observer of everything. And I looked around that room and I thought, I bet if you polled 100, 1000 or 10,000 people and asked what was the linking factor to all of us sitting in that room, no one would have known. No one would have known because the diversity in that room, from the youngest age to the oldest age, to pink hair to gray hair, there was not one thing that connected any of us except we had all been raped. And our rapes were not even the same. MK: So you have these men in the audience and you have a range of women in the audience... how do you know what to say to these men or these family members to support these women? DD: I have a basic outline, but once I start talking it just kind of takes a direction and again, going on that intuition, I’d be a fool to get up there without a guideline, but have I ever got the beginning, the middle, and the end of that? No, I haven’t. And... kind of, um, from the reaction from the audience, you can tell which direction to go, or... I don’t know what connects intuition, I really don’t. I have my ideas and my own perspectives on it, but there are, there are two messages that are really important. Among many, there are many. But for those who are the perpetrator, there is a side of humanity in most of them, because that’s what makes it so unbelievable. Because... I’ve never been a perpetrator, so I don’t know that mindset, but I’ve studied a lot about it. And, I’ll use the example of that man that killed his wife on the Alaska Cruise. He was a youth counselor, everyone had such a high opinion of him, everyone loved and adored him, and 38 they couldn’t fathom that he did that. And yet, myself as a victim and having been in that situation and survived it, everything that would normally go behind the public and no one would notice of her demeanor, like... “She couldn’t have been scared because she was laughing.” Laughter is a really big way to try to change a perpetrator’s mind. You try to make light of it and laugh and... so, I could completely see that as I watched Dateline, I can see that. Like, people will have a behavior that’s so bizarre, and so they’ll totally think that the person who was raped or killed was just making it up or was... No. Because to be raped or killed is really bizarre human behavior, and so it’s tough for us to fathom that, but for someone to be a youth counselor or to be so kind at work and so helpful and you know, the first person you’d call to help mow your lawn, or whatever, that’s believable. That’s what we want to believe. No one wants to believe that those things happen and no one wants to believe that it could happen to them. And that’s where my voice became really important, because for 32 years, my family didn’t know. I didn’t think my children knew, but my older sons knew, but they didn’t dare say anything. And that’s because we spend so much time trying to be normal and trying to be perfect that we don’t acknowledge that it happens to good people, it happens to good families, it happens to people with jobs. It happens to people who are homeless, it happens to people with huge homes. That none of us are immune and so not only, not only does the person who was preyed upon, they don’t get help, but the person who’s preying upon them doesn’t get help. Mental illness is mental. I mean, that... I don’t know why we’ll 39 pay so much attention to someone with a broken leg, but we see someone who’s depressed or suicidal, and we don’t know what to say and so we say nothing. Why don’t we just say, “Something’s wrong. Let’s fix it.” And that’s back to that, we don’t want to admit we’re broken. We just don’t want to admit it. And so that’s the message to get out there that, whichever spectrum you’re on and... the many times that I asked my husband to get help, cause I was unbelievably patient through it and I kept thinking, “We can make this work.” It’s a lot different to be raped by your husband or your boyfriend than it is to be raped by a stranger. They’re totally different crimes. They have a different impact. There’s crossover, when you’re sexually violated, and it’s horrible, and there are similarities that... because that’s the weapon held against you is you and so you live with that. I don’t know that you’ll ever fully get over all of the triggers from that violation. But when you have to sleep with them night after night and you have to consult on how to take care of your children and things... it’s a tough thing. So I try to get across to, whether it’s the male or it’s the female that were the perpetrator, if we label me as the victim, as “damaged goods” and we label him as a rapist and a monster, we lose humanity on both sides of that. I become weak when I had no reason to be, and I curl up in a ball and die, and he continues to suffer as well, either ignoring the fact that he’s a monster, or acknowledging that he’s a monster when... not all of them are monsters. They have really good qualities. But we’ve got to come to a point somewhere, and we’re getting there, but we’re a ways off, but that’s what’s going to stop it. That’s what’s going to stop it is when the humanity comes into that the victim and the 40 monster are neither of those labels.I think it’s more difficult for that side to admit it, because there comes some criminal... charges and things like that that come with it But you know, consequences came with me too. They came with me too. There’s things I’ll carry with me forever. But he also has sons that need to know that we don’t treat women that way. That no one is entitled to another person’s body, whether you’re male or female, none of us are entitled to that. And that conversations opened up. I mean, never with my first four children would I ever have said, “You should ask a girl before you kiss her if it’s ok to kiss her.” That would never have been a conversation, but it is with my thirteen-year-olds. Before you ever think of holding someone’s hand or hugging them, or... And that seems so silly. That seems like a silly thing. I’m a hugger, I really... you know. And you can tell, if that invitation is there, you can also tell when people... I have a daughter who hates to hug and I want to just hug the death out of her, but I can’t, because it’s not a touch that she’s comfortable with. And I don’t need to know the why, I need to just acknowledge that it’s not her. So to ask, you know, and moving forward, trying to put a life together after that for me, personally, there’s a hesitation. But there are people that respect that. So we can get there. We can get there, but both sides have got to be willing to own it. And I think that if it’s easier for me to admit and bring that conversation to the platform. Because that’s what saved me. Had I not seen someone that I could relate to and know that it happened to them... the #MeToo movement was huge. I know for a lot of people, they thought it was extreme, and that’s the other, on the balance... and I’ll point 41 this out, cause I think it’s so important. You have to acknowledge a story and you have to admit that it’s there, but you don’t have to make it bigger than it is. Don’t make it your whole life, don’t let it consume you. Don’t make it the only thing you’re about. Acknowledge it, fix it, and revisit it every once in a while just to remember that that’s probably why you feel this way. Cause it’ll surface sometimes, you don’t look for it, it finds you: Own your story, but don’t make it bigger than it is. Don’t make it more than it was. But also on that same token, balance it out, don’t sweep it under a rock and pretend like it didn’t happen, it’ll eat you to death. You have to own it. Do you know what? Was I raped? Yeah. Am I going to put that on a resume? No. But am I going to take every opportunity I can to tell somebody about it? Absolutely. Cause you know what, it gets better when you tell someone that, “I didn’t bring it on.” There’s a really powerful, powerful girl who was raped by her boyfriend and I absolutely love listening to her because she said, “I was raised to believe that people rape people because they had their skirt too short or they had alcohol on their breath or their smile was too flirtatious. And I realized I was guilty of all of those. And then I realized, no, the only thing that could have stopped me that night from being raped, wasn’t my smile, it wasn’t my childhood trust, it wasn’t that my skirt was too short, the only thing that could have kept me from getting raped that night was the man who raped me. He was the only one that could change that.” And that is solid truth. That is the only way and that... that particular boy speaks with her and he was owned it, he’s owned it. But it took them eight years of talking back and forth on it for him to realize. Cause he didn’t think he violated her. 42 MK: Right, in his mind, he was doing what he had permission, or not permission— DD: The right to do. He was her boyfriend. MK: So if you’re comfortable, I would like you to speak a little more about how you see the #MeToo movement. So in the scheme of all of this, how do you think the #MeToo movement is hurting and helping, what are your thoughts? DD: Again, going back to balance. Um, and the exact same thing that I just said with “Own your story, but don’t make it bigger than it is.” I do know that in the #MeToo movement, there are people that looked for a reason to say that they were part of the, the “Me Too.” MK: Which hurts women ultimately, because it loses credibility for the future. DD: Absolutely, and then that causes the other person to pull back because they think, “Okay, well what if someone thinks that mine was fabricated, what if someone thinks that I was wrong?” So in every instance that I talk I do point this out, that silence means no. Crying means no. Freezing means no. There’s a body language that-- MK: What do you mean by freezing, like they stiffen up? DD: Absolutely. And that’s probably the number one thing that women do. Not to get, um, too graphic, but I got to the point after 32 years that I knew, I knew it was coming, and so I would say, I would just close my eyes and do an out of body, you know, pull, as robotic as I can. I’d become so objectified that—there was no such thing as sex or intimacy or anything. I’d gotten to the point that to go into a men’s restroom wouldn’t have phased me because it was no different than going to the doctor. I mean, I was s objectified that there wasn’t anything private or 43 personal any longer. So I’d roll over and say, “Just get it over with.” And so I would totally submit to it. And so with that, that becomes chronic when that happens. And then you start to get to a point when you’re like, “Well, you know, I’ve dealt with it for so long.” And then you realize, “I still cried every time. Every time I still cry.” And in that type of situation, you get to a point that you feel so stupid. MK: Cause you’re a smart woman and you’re in control of so many areas of your life. DD: “Oh, I’m not trapped here, I can leave any time! I’m the one that makes the money!” And so they play all these mind games with you, but they know how to control and how to hold you there and that’s another whole platform that I talk on. That not everyone controls you because you’re incapable, sometimes they hold on to you because you’re the one providing a great life for them. And so with that, with anything that comes up, there’s going to be an extreme, and there are going to be people who jump on the bandwagon. They’re struggling for something else, they need attention somehow. We all seek—I teach this to my little thirteen-year-olds all the time—we all want attention, we all want to be recognized. And some people get that through violence or through crazy ways. And so we did see that with the #MeToo movement. And then you saw others that, I followed it and so I’ve seen a lot of people that, you know, they said, old stars—movie stars, that’s how old I am—old celebrities that would say, “Oh, yeah, of course I had to sleep to get where I’m at, but it didn’t bother me.” And you know what, that probably isn’t a #MeToo. And some people would argue that, that say, “Well, no, you need to jump on the bandwagon!” No, do you know what, if it didn’t feel like a violation 44 to you, it doesn’t matter that the act was the same. And then you hear some people that are a #MeToo because someone grabbed their butt. Well, for a lot of people, who cares? But for some people that’s devastating. And they could let ten people do that and it wouldn’t bother them, but one person, would... it’s... when you’ve been sexually assaulted, you feel it. And you know it. And it doesn’t matter how right it is in someone else’s mind, if you feel violated, you were violated. But also, we’ve got to be so cautious, as men and women, that we don’t start making up accusations, if it didn’t bother you, then leave the #MeToo alone! If it was not an issue and it doesn’t keep you awake at night and it doesn’t keep you from being intimate with your new partner, it’s not a problem. It’s just not a problem. And don’t tell... along with that, don’t tell me how to get through my recovery, don’t tell me to just get over it, because you haven’t been there. And there are some things that... it just doesn’t phase you at all. I will give this example. Not that you ever want your husband to ever pull a gun and threaten to kill you, especially a shotgun in your face, but... no one’s prepared for that, but maybe it’s just my optimistic outlook in life, but I was actually grateful for that, because I would probably still be trapped in there if it hadn’t gotten to that extreme—I even contemplated keeping the marriage together, until I had a very dear and older friend of mine who said, “Once there’s a gun, you’re done.” And it was small and simple, and so I kept... when I’d want to go back and you know, put everything back together and pretend like we’re all normal and just make it go away... No. I couldn’t. Because it was horrible. And my life was now in danger. But with that, some people will say, “Just get over it.” Because I was so happy 45 when, again, going back to Rapunzel, you get out of that cage, and you’re just flying around, you’re so happy! You feel so free. And then you realize I’m not equipped to be out here, and so you go right back into that cage and you stay there. And you have people be like, “You shouldn’t be afraid anymore, you’ve got a protective order, you have—” You know what, I know, logically I get it. But also, logically, I shouldn’t have been in this situation, I should have ran from it in the first place. So that’s what we have to recognize with statue of limitations and all of that. People are like, “Well, why it take you to get age 50 when your father did this at age 7?” Do you know what, sometimes it takes that long, and most often it takes that long. Was two years ago the first time my husband raped me? No. Was it 32 years ago? Yeah. Did I tell anyone? No. Because at that point I was naïve and I thought, “Ok, maybe this is just what marriage is.” And so, you try to make it work. And there are good times. You know, we do have good memories. It wasn’t 32 years of Hell, there were good things. And. I don’t remember who it was, but I... actually I do, but she’s local, so I won’t divulge her name, she’s a celebrity here in Ogden, but I remember her saying, “So are all of my memories crap? Is everything crap?” No it’s not, but it takes a while to sort through that and for a while you have to swing the pendulum all the way over here and then you have to swing it all the way back. And so, I guess in answer to your question with #MeToo, there’s a reason why someone puts a #MeToo, not all of the reasons are the same, but all of them are a desperate cry for help. So maybe they weren’t sexually assaulted, but there’s something else that they need help with, so I think 46 we reach out and we acknowledge that we all need help, that we’re all broken. But then we also take responsibility. Do you know what, if we did jump on that bandwagon and it wasn’t true, then we take that step and we say, “Do you know what, I misunderstood. And for a minute it felt like it was, but I understand that...” And I’ve also learned that we can’t compare, we can’t compare what my rape felt like compared to what someone else’s rape was and put them in categories, to say that someone who was slammed up against a wall and forcefully raped, to say that that was worse than me being raped over and over by someone that I knew how to be safe around? No. And, cause I don’t know... I don’t know which of those is worse, what I do know is, neither one of them were. For that person, that was horrible. For me, it was horrible. And so from that, we all recognize that there’s a big problem that needs resolved. And my body is my body, it doesn’t belong to anyone. And I’m the one that can give it, I can give it to someone. MK: Our final question is, how do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally. DD: I’ve expressed through this, the progress that I’ve seen, just in my career, the progress of women. I can’t imagine not having a woman’s voice in voting. Most women, not all, but most homes have a woman as the nurturer and the heart of the home. Not only do we know what’s important to us, we know what’s important to our spouses and we know what’s important for our children who are up and coming. And with that, I remember taking that for granted. I remember not even bothering to vote after having the right to. And then I voted, just as an opportunity, didn’t study the candidates, just went in and voted straight one 47 category. I remember especially being in business, recognizing how important it was for my voice to come out in the voting situation, because it was when the economy was on a downhill slide and Mitt Romney was running for president. And more than anything, I knew that we needed someone who knew how to save the economy, this business. That might not have been important for anyone next door to me, but for me it was because I was a woman in business and I saw the challenges that were coming up, with higher taxes on it and all the control that the government had over my small business and it was threatening it. And I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Mitt Romney didn’t make it, and it was that day that I recognized how important my vote was. Because I had voted, but I thought, “How many people who had that same...”— But I remember at that point thinking never again will I diminish how important that vote is for me because everyone had a chance to vote and not everyone took that. Just like I didn’t take it seriously before, but I realized this was an issue that made a difference to me, it made a difference to me as a woman, it made a difference to me as a mother, it made a difference to me as a provider, and so ever since that date, and that wasn’t that long ago, ashamedly, it wasn’t that long ago, but at that point I recognized, “That’s why someone fought, so that I would have a voice. That’s why someone fought, so that every woman had a chance to vote.” Incredibly important in shaping this, because what matters to me doesn’t matter to someone else, but as the majority, we find that. And with that, with that voting that made an importance to me, whether my candidate won or whether my candidate didn’t win, whoever was president was president and I supported them 48 and I continued to fight for the next election so that my voice was heard and what was important to me. But we’ve got to have that, again going back to that same balance, if you’re candidate didn’t win, you don’t sit there and make the story bigger than it was, you don’t keep blaming people, you support that president the very best that you can and you speak up against him in a legal matter, the way that it works, you lobby and you find people with your same voice. But the fact of the matter is, we all have that voice, but sometimes we get spoiled as Americans, and we just think we’re always going to be free, we think it’s always going to be easy, it’s always going to go our way, everything’s going to work out. But that voice matters, every single voice matters. Again, that comes full circle with what we’ve talked about, in the past, had these women stayed silent, had they just accepted that they didn’t have the right to, and so they just stayed silent... but somebody’s got to step up to the front of the bus and say, “No, I will sit at the back of the bus, I’m going to sit at the front because I’m no different than anyone else here. I don’t want to sit in a premiere seat, but I deserve to sit where everyone else sits.” And those women spoke up and fought when it wasn’t popular. And everything, everything that every one of us do, whether we’re men or women, that we speak up and we let our voice be heard, and we balance that, we take time like you said earlier. You’ve got to step back and listen, too. You’ve got to step back, listen to what the other person says instead of just waiting to respond. And that’s what happened here, enough people spoke up when no one was listening, but they kept speaking up. And I’m sure that part of that turn was those women listened. And they listened for that 49 opportunity to push it through. And they finally got the platform to someone who listened and someone who understood and someone that moved it forward. But there will always be those issues, as long as mankind is alive, as long as we keep progressing, it’s going to take people pushing. And when someone has pushed the door open for you, you say thank you, and you respect that 100%. ST: So one last question, your parents’ names, their full names, including your mom’s maiden name. DD: Okay, Althorra Marie Bell, and my father was Mont Kay Darrington, but he went by Kay.