Oral History Program Marion Hamblen Garfield Interviewed by Sally Farrar 08 February 1998 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Marion Hamblen Garfield Interviewed by Sally Farrar 08 February 1998 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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 All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Garfield, Marion Hamblen, an oral history by Sally Farrar, 08 February 1998, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Marion Hamblen Garfield. The interview was conducted on February 8, 1998, by Sally A. Farrar. Garfield discusses her life and experiences she’s had. SF: State your full name. MG: Marian Hamblen Garfield. SF: How long have you lived in Utah? MG: All my life. SF: You were born here? MG: Born and raised here. SF: When were you born? MG: June 29, 1921. SF: When did you get married? MG: April 17, 1940 SF: How many children did you have? MG: Five; three girls, two boys. SF: How long were you married? MG: We were married…We had our fiftieth anniversary in '94, then he died in April. SF: I'm sorry. What was your occupation? MG: We had the Troc Lounge and Grill. We had it since 1953. 1 SF: Have you owned it since it first opened? MG: No, we bought it from a friend of ours and I've worked there ever since! And I'm still working there. SF: You sometimes have four generations working there don't you? MG: Uh huh. With Nikki, (Great grandchild), that makes four. SF: How have people accepted you as a working woman? MG: It's been great. I have the best friends ever. We're like family there. SF: Are there any organizations you're involved with in Utah? MG: Just, battered women and children and Primary Children's Hospital SF: Do you still work full- time? MG: No. I work four days a week. SF: Are you going to pass the restaurant down to the next generation? MG: No, I don't think so. Janet (her daughter) is just about ready to be through with it. I don't have very much longer so I don't think it will be too much longer. SF: Did you enjoy it? MG: Oh, yes! Loved it! SF: Did you and Wayne work together? MG: Oh yes, we worked double shifts. But you see I had my mother. My mother and father just wanted to see us get ahead. I had all the support of my family. We were very close. SF: What was your most memorable experience owning a restaurant? 2 MG: Every day was a memorable experience. Every day! Now the thrilling part is having people come back that we started out with. Young men and women that were in college and every year some of them always drop by and that's a thrill to see them. SF: Are your grandparents and everyone from Riverdale, Utah? MG: I live in the house that my grandfather built for my grandmother and she raised—he died—and she raised three sons. My father was the baby. He died when my father was sixteen months old. She lost him. She raised the boys and…she bought them each a farm and gave it to them. My mother and father were married; they lived in the house next door. It had two rooms and I was born there. I was born in the house and I had a brother three years later and I remember as a child—I was only three years old—and the doctor came—I was over here with my grandmother at the time of the birth, but I can remember. I was outside and the doctor came out of the side door after Jim was born and he was carrying a suitcase, a satchel, and it was in the shape of a baby. SF: He had the baby in the satchel? MG: No. I guess he just carried that case when he went on maternity visits. That little black case was in the shape of a baby! And it meant we had a new baby boy. SF: How many brothers and sisters? MG: I just had two—two brothers, I was the only girl, and when I was twelve years old I would stay with my grandmother in this house and sleep with her. My parents didn't want her to be alone and so it was on the big feather bed and mattress. I couldn't wait to go to bed at night 'cause that big feather mattress would just cover me all over. Oh, it was so lovely…and the pillows were the same and Grandma and I…she had hair clear 3 to her waist and then she would let me brush her hair…and then she would make…braid it because she wore two buns on her hair; one right here and one right here. During the day and she would braid it at night so she could sleep. She would always let me brush her hair. SF: Did your family help settle Utah? MG: Uh, well I'm sure…yes, the family…she was a Patterson, a very well-known family in Utah and my grandfather was from West Virginia and he was a sheep man. He came to Utah and met my grandmother. His family disowned him…because he married a Mormon and when he died my grandmother could not locate anyone in his family to let them know. Where the church is now, (Mormon), my grandmother donated the land to the church after my grandfather died. SF: What did your mom and dad do? Were they farmers? MG: No. My dad was a railroad man and he helped us out on the farm as best he could. Mother was the head of the elementary…the cafeteria in the school. I had a great- aunt and uncle who owned the hotel right across from the depot. A great big beautiful hotel. It was called The Healy—Hotel and it had chandeliers; crystal chandeliers. Just huge, huge chandeliers all over and all the lobby was marble…and there would be a lot of dignitaries come in to Ogden but they had a tunnel under the train tracks where the dignitaries could go underneath and go right to the Healy Hotel; they didn't have to come up on the street. SF: Is it still there? MG: I don't…I, I suppose it's still there but they've torn down the Healy Hotel now. 4 SF: When did they tear that down? MG: Oh, it's been at least, I'd say thirty years ago. SF: Did ya'll have a TV as a little girl? MG: We had the first TV in Riverdale, in this house. Daddy would always call Michael, my brother, when the wrestling matches would come on and they would sit for hours and watch the fights. Our home was open to lots and lots of kids. Daddy would go down and buy us hotdogs and hamburgers, and bring them back to us while we watched TV. SF: Did y'all go to Salt Lake much? MG: Oh, yes. Mother…we had a 1936 Ford and mother would take me and my aunt and my cousin and we'd go to Salt Lake quite often. SF: What would y'all do there? MG: Shop! But the first car I ever remember my father having was a Humpmobile. It was a big touring car like the gangsters later used, you know? And it was a big navy blue car. He brought it home one day and my mother cried for hours. SF: Why? MG: It was twelve hundred dollars and she said, "How are we going to pay for this?" SF: When did you get married? MG: We got married in 1940. I graduated in 1939. He gave me my diamond that summer. He knew he was going to be called into the service so he enlisted. He was to embark for over-seas and one of his gunners' mother died in Salt Lake. They were in…I can't remember where they were, but on the flight line—they let them come home. When they 5 were that close they never replaced with another gunner. They had to go with the ones they had practiced with; so, he never headed overseas. He found out later that he was with the group…that would…drop that spoken softly bomb. His group, his group that was on that flight line, dropped it. So he was so… grateful that he didn't have to do that himself. He said "I don't think I could ever live with myself if I'd have gone." SF: Where were you married? MG: We were married in the temple. Salt Lake Temple. President David O Mackay (president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) came and married us. And I will never forget that day either. Wayne's (Husband) mom and dad were very religious, and they knew him and asked him to marry us. So when we got up to the sealing room, why he came and stood at the door…and I swear— he was in a black tuxedo— white shirt, white tie, and his hair was as white as the snow. I could see a halo all around his head, and that Halo remained there all through the ceremony. He married us, and he had to ask me twice if I took Wayne to be my husband, because I was crying so hard. I didn't hear him the first time. SF: Why were you crying? MG: Because I was happy. Afterwards he says, “I know this is your new bride Wayne, but I get the first kiss." I'll never forget it. I loved that man 'till the day he died. SF: Where did ya'll go on your honeymoon? MG: You will never believe it. We went— I had two cousins and their husbands that went through the temple with us. Oh we went; we went and had a wedding luncheon before. My mother and father weren't Mormon so they couldn't see me married in the temple— 6 that was the only thing that was sad for me, but my whole family was waiting when we came out, and my family, we went and had lunch, and the cousins too. Everybody went and had lunch, and then we went and saw a movie and you'll never know, believe this, but the movie was Of Mice and Men, have you heard of that? SF: Yes. MG: I still don't understand that movie! And when they went to come home, I wanted to come home with them, I didn't want to stay in Salt Lake. We stayed in Salt Lake for two days. At the motel, the motel is torn down now. It was just as you went into Salt Lake— and it was across from the old swimming pool. I can't remember its name — but it is torn down now. SF: How many grandchildren do you have? MG: I have ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. And they all live close around here. SF: Did you have a best friend? MG: Oh, I had five best friends. From the time we started first grade. And we lost one last fall— was the first one— and it wasn't two weeks before, that we lost her— that we had talked— not to her— but I had talked to a few of the others, and uh, we said aren't we lucky, we've been best friends from the time we were in the first grade— till this time in our lives and we are all still here. Two weeks later we found out one of us had cancer, and we lost her— but we still have the four of us. Every once in a while we go out to eat, see a movie, and we talk on the phone. We are lucky to be together that many years, because we are all seventy-seven now… and we were best friends from the first grade. 7 SF: Did you ever have a soul mate? MG: Yes. My soul mate is Wayne. I know that. My guardian angel is my mother. SF: You seemed blessed. MG: Yes, very blessed. My mother passed away in ‘80, she was uh, she would have been seventy- eight on her birthday, long pause and we lost her in September— October. SF: Do you have any regrets? MG: I miss my mother, I miss my father, miss my husband, but I have no regrets. I've had an interesting life. I've had so many friends and a wonderful family, and they are all so precious to me and I know the two girls that we lost are O.K. They are in a better place. SF: And the two girls were? MG: I lost— we lost Cindy and Kerry (her daughters). We lost Cindy in Nineteen SeventyFive, and we lost Kerry in Nineteen Eighty— No, Nineteen eighty-eight. I lost my mother in Nineteen eighty— but I know they are well now. It nearly broke our hearts, but I know they are well now— I know those girls are well. I can feel them. Sometimes I have to reach on the other side of the bed to make sure it isn't Wayne. SF: So, no regrets in life and you are not afraid to die? MG: No, no I'm not afraid to die. {End of tape 1, side A} MG: I just want to see these little ones grow up a little bit more. SF: So you just want to watch? 8 MG: I just want to watch and see what happens. I know for sure that Wayne will come for me, but I know he won't come till my mother tells him it's time— and in some ways I feel like my mother has something else for me to do, but I don't know what it is. I keep asking in my prayers what it is she wants me to do, but I know there is something she still wants me to do. SF: So the women in your family, were they strong? MG: Strong, very strong. Sometimes a little too independent, we are. But I don't think that is all bad either, as long as it is in a good way. SF: Did you go to college? MG: No, my parents wanted me to, they wanted me to go so bad— I didn't want to go. SF: Do you regret that? MG: No, no I don't, I have had a good life. I've had some interesting things— I've been taught a lot. And I feel like I am…I still feel like I can handle my own affairs and I do the things that I would like to do. SF: Are you happy to see how your family is today? MG: Oh yes, I am. I like how they turned out. I'm proud of them. SF: Is there anything you can tell people— because you seem like you have a wonderful, full, rich life. What would you tell them, how— how did you get what you have? What was the key to your happiness? MG: Well I think just…the most important word in my life is love. I think that is the most important word in the English language. If you have love, you have everything. I just 9 love my family— adore my family, love my friends, and I love my neighbors, and like when they're married, they just have to work together to get what they want, and to be content. Love, love is the most important word. 10