Oral History Program Kathie Olsen Interviewed by Stephen Petersen 23 April 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Kathie Olsen Interviewed by Stephen Petersen 23 April 2008 Copyright © 2014 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Olsen, Kathie, an oral history by Stephen Petersen, 23 April 2008, 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 Kathie Olsen. The interview was conducted on April 23, 2008, by Stephen Petersen, in Kathie Olsen’s condo. It concerns life in the unique Avenues of Salt Lake City. SP: Kathie, were you born in the Avenues? KO: No, I was 3 years old when we bought a home on 1st Avenue. SP: And what year was that? KO: 1945. At the end, in December. SP: What is your earliest memory of living in this part of the Avenues? KO: My first memory starts at school; at Longfellow school. We lived on the corner of K Street and 1st Avenue and Longfellow school was on the corner of J Street and 1st avenue. It took up half of the block. I remember those experiences at school and playing on the swing sets. The church was also there. The church was on the corner of 1st avenue and I street. All those were convenient. There was a store; a grocery store down on I street. I remember going there to pick up groceries. Pick up penny candy and whatever. That's something that is different on the Avenues. There was a little store half way up on first and Second Avenue on the west side of J Street. It had penny candy and I don't know what else they sold there, but across the street from that was a cleaner’s. So there was more commercial, or what seemed like more commercial things. Up on the corner of 3rd and K there was another grocery store where that bicycle place is now that was across from what is known as 7-Eleven. SP: So would you say the specific part of the Avenues you lived in was a family area? KO: You bet. All the homes had families. In fact not the area I lived in then, but the area I lived in later they use to love to laugh about that because kids my age at one point in an LDS 1 ward area there was 45 boys in the scout group. Yes when I was a child there was a whole lot more families and lots more children on the Avenues than there are now. SP: Do you remember if they were any open spaces, or was it like it is now lots of houses not many fields? KO: No it was always a residential area. There were homes where there are now. I think it had been a residential area when all the homes were built. In the place I lived there were homes. SP: Could you talk about the house you grew up in. Do you know what year it was built or any information about that? KO: I think it was built in 1905, 1906 and I think that it was…a large home for our family. We had 4 kids when we moved in. We had one more brother in 1948. So there were 5 kids living in that home. My parents lived in that home for 65 years. Until after the death of my mother then we put our father in a care center and sold the home. It was in our family for many years. It was a lovely family home. People in the neighborhood were always welcome there. There were parties and activities and other sorts of things. SP: Do you know what style house it is? Is it Craftsman? KO: No it's a Victorian. And in 1956 on a hot august day, I was about 13. There was a hot wind blowing from the south and my sister was doing the dishes and looked out the window and the garage was on fire. And that fire eventually took out the top story of our house and the neighbor to the west, it badly damaged their home. It got a couple of other homes and roofs. All the way up to 2nd Avenue. And so that required remodeling of the home. We looked at other houses at that time but decided it would be best to stay in our home. SP: So your parents had looked at moving? 2 KO: They had looked at new things but in the end they decided to just remodel it and rebuild it. We didn't have a garage after that; we had a car port in the back. And my Mother did a lot of cement in the back. The lots on the Avenues are small, well some of the lots on the Avenues are small and some are large because they go into the middle of the block. But this particular house was in the smaller block. And they did the second floor and at that point we had four bedrooms and a sewing room and a bathroom. And that was one of the big changes in Architecture from people remodeling is adding another bathroom because there was only one bathroom on the first floor. SP: It seems that the house, because I have been in it, hasn't changed much from the 1950s. How much, if you can remember, did it change from pre-1956 before the fire to where it is now? Because it was all wood floors and now carpet. Did your parents do a lot of things that were common for the 1950s? KO: You bet. And of course the 50s and 60s era in the whole United States, I think it even went into the 70s era. Where it was believed you should get rid of the old stuff and update more then. People now restore it back to its original appeal but include more bathrooms and modern kitchens and stuff like that. So it was remodeled in the 50s to a modern look, new bathrooms all pink tiles. Didn't have a pink bath tub but some in that era might have. My mother did stick with white fixtures though. SP: How old were you when you left your home? KO: 21 was when I got married. I lived in that home until I was married. An interesting thing at that point, in 1964 is also the same time they were constructing the Bonneville Towers where I live now. I have been here a year and a half. It's incredible to me, and I guess there wasn't zoning in the 60s so they tore down some lovely homes in this block, they 3 were our neighbors, but it was beginning to run down, the area was beginning to run down. So someone had a brainchild to knock down some houses and built this, for which I am very grateful now, but I don't think you could get away with it now. SP: So the area was beginning to run down? With crime or how do you mean? KO: No. I think, maybe what was happening was that the original occupants of the homes had gotten old and were unable to care for the property they owned. And they didn't move out of the homes or anything. The maintenance, the yard, and the whole thing. And that actually lasted into the 1970s and later. Because in1973. I left in 1964 and left the state of Utah, Illinois, Scotland, and Canada before we came back in 1973. In 1970 my grandmother had passed away she lived in a house 8th avenue and J street. We had a lot of traffic between 8th avenue and J Street and 1st avenue and K Street. As children we would walk up and down the hill to visit our grandmother. I spent a lot of time there as a teenager helping my grandmother, she was old. I was washing her dishes, vacuuming, so I spent a lot of time with her, and my uncle who lived in it with her. And even in 1973, in 70 she passed away and in 72 my uncle passed away and they put the home up for sale. And at that particular time my husband and I were at a crossroads in our life and decided to move on back to Salt Lake City too. The situation was such that we should buy grandma's home and come back to Salt Lake City. So that's what we did. SP: And that was in 1973? KO: Yes. SP: So let’s see, you left your house in what year? KO: 64. 4 SP: So roughly there was a ten year gap between that time. In that 10 years, coming back to the Avenues, were there a lot of changes? KO: No, not so much because what happened was the whole area was in a....the area was deteriorating. Many of the children were gone. Older people stayed in the homes. You would expect that it would have flipped over and into families. But something happened in the Avenues. Even when we bought our house in 73, the Bishop of that ward told us we were the first family to move into that ward in quite some time who plan to stay. The homes in the Avenues; there are bigger homes but there are lots of smaller homes. There were people who thought we were taking a huge risk buying a home in the Avenues in 1973 with the Avenues deteriorating the way they were. We weren't into preservation or whatever, and it was kind of a turning point in 75, 76 and 77 where we turned to more improvement of the property. Where we would buy it and improve it. A lot of the homes, especially the lower Avenues not the higher Avenues because I think that there was zoning at some point where you couldn't build apartments above 7th. But a lot of homes were torn down and apartment complexes put in. And you know just on deteriorating property. But in 76 in that era there was a real change and you could almost watch the Avenues improve and that's been going on for the last 40 years. Where from 1973-2008 there is very little rundown property on the Avenues now. Everyone took their homes, and people owned them and invested a lot of money in it. They improved the sidewalks and the landscape. The Avenues is a great location for people. Always has been. Of course it's trendy now because it's close to the U, close to the town. The layout of the streets are nice. Traffic flows easily on the Avenues. It's a favorite location for a lot of people. 5 SP: If you don't mind me asking, and if you don't want to disclose this I understand, but in 1973 how much did you purchase the house for? KO: It was out of an estate. It was out of my grandmother's estate and it was in fairly run down condition. We paid 13, 500 dollars for it. Which immediately we put in 100,000 dollars into the house before we could even move in. In remodeling in the next 3 years. It had to have new furnace, a new roof. SP: It was a craftsman right? KO: It was a craftsman. And it had originally a Tudor stucco on the side, but we tore that off and put cedar siding. We raised the roof and put a master bedroom suite on the back of the bedroom and enlarged the kitchen, and put in hardwood. We did a lot of cement work and stuff like that. We paid 13,5 but we put that 100,000 in improvements. And really we kept putting money in for the next 30 years. And then if you want to know I sold that home in November, 2006, and I got 400,000 dollars for it. I could document for the government the 150,000 we put in so I didn't have to take any capital gains on it. SP: Speaking of prices, obviously the Avenues had become a hotspot. Do you know when you started to realize you had landed in a gold mine? Was it the 80s or the 90s when you started to figure you had made a good move with the Avenues? KO: Well I'd don't think it was until the 2000s when it really zipped up. I bet if we had tried to sell it, my husband died in 2003 and I just couldn't take care of it, it was too big. I think it is actually in the 2000s when it took off. It was in the high spot when I sold it in 2006. SP: Had it grown prior to that? KO: Oh sure, over those years. But slowly. All of a sudden it took a leap. I imagine if I had sold it before that I would have only gotten back what I had put in it. You know the 150,000. It's 6 only in the last few years people thought they could double their money in real estate. The market did jump once. There was a guy from California that bought a bunch a homes he was buying a lot. That drove the whole Avenues houses up. Since then they have stayed up. And as far as the Avenues being a safe place. I remember as a kid playing kick the can. It was pitch black and there would be a bunch of kids outside playing. And I don't think anyone was worried about that. We would leave home after breakfast and ride off on our bikes and go down to City Creek or whatever. Certainly not the worried we have for our young children now, another fun game, life was simple no swimming pools. We had this big laundry tub we would take out on our yard our mother would let us borrow towels. We would fill it with cold water and invite people to sit on it and fall in and we would play that a lot. SP: Speaking of safety. You had the opportunity to be raised in the Avenues and then raise a family in the Avenues. Did you have that same comfortable feeling raising your family in the Avenues? Was it safe for them just as much as it was for you? KO: I think that at the time we were raising our children there were not merely as many children on the Avenues. I mean some of our kids were the only ones in primary and in classes. But we still felt safe. They walked to school every day, they would walk to Bryant every day. So I don't think there are the same issues then. I think our whole society is trying to deal with these problems not just the Avenues. SP: Well a couple last questions for you. What laws or zoning laws or regulations did you have? Because the Avenues is a historic district But when did they start deciding no more new houses? 7 KO: I think there was a big redevelopment process in 1980 people could sign up for and we did actually that is how we finished the exterior and got a 0% loan from redevelopment. Burt I don't know when. I think some of the rules in that era. Maybe in the 80s there were zoning laws before that because I knew the no apartments above 7th Avenue. But I do know that things change. And they put into place zoning and so forth. A lot of the historical homes are lower on the Avenues for the most part. Lower than 7th Ave. And a joke with my parent's home as I said in 56, they had replaced the window and siding it because my dad was tired of painting. And some people came by and said if we wanted to have a historic plaque on our home all we have to do is take out the windows and take out the siding. I think my parents were away on a mission in 79 and 80. My parent's response to that was forget it. They weren't taking out these modern connivances for the sake of history. If it were to be done right, if someone were to restore my parents’ home to its 1906 finish they would have to do extensive work. The woodwork would have to be taken out. SP: Is your old house on the historic record? KO: No but it was built in 1906 or 08, but it was never on the historical register. We were never offered the opportunity. We made some changes to it as I said not to the front but to the side. SP: In closing what was the most memorable thing about living in the Avenues? KO: It's been a great place to live. It's a lovely location. It doesn't take us long to get anywhere. Every time I get on the freeway I am happy I don't have to get on it that often. The people who live here are good and special people. Who chose this area for their home who are hard workers who have worked hard to bring this back to a historical area. SP: Thank you Kathie Olsen 8 KO: You are welcome. 9