Oral History Program Jeanine Hodgson Downing Interviewed by Michael MacKay 17 March 2004 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jeanine Hodgson Downing Interviewed by Michael MacKay 17 March 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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 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 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: Downing, Jeanine Hodgson, an oral history by Michael MacKay, 17 March 2004, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Leslie Simmons Hodgson 1879-1947 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Jeanine Hodgson Downing. It was conducted on March 17, 2004 and concerns Leslie Hodgson. Hodgson was an important architect in Ogden during the early part of the 1900s. He is best known for his work on Ogden High School, the City/County building, and the Egyptian Theater. The interviewer is Michael MacKay. This oral history was part of MacKay’s senior thesis for the Weber State University History Department. MM: I'm Michael MacKay, and we're doing an interview today with Jeanine Hodgson Downing, and Jeanine is the granddaughter of Leslie Hodgson, and her father was Robert Hodgson. So maybe now that we know the relationship, maybe we could start out with a real simple question. What do you most remember about your grandfather? JD: Well, when I was a kid, my grandfather and my father had an office in the top of the Eccles Building. It was on the 8th floor. And you went down the long hall, and I remember you opened the office door, and it just smelled different. It smelled like paper and the old linen and ink, and it had a lot of windows in it, and there was marble, a gray and white marble, and dark wood, but I remember there was a beautiful...It was a little picture on the wall, and it was some men building a building, and a quotation from John Ruskin, and it said something like: "When we build, we build forever. As we place these stones on each other, we've got to remember that we're building forever." And John Ruskin said it better, of course than I, but I remember that, and it was always an exciting to go down and visit Pop's office, because my grandfather would be there, and we called him Pop, 1 and later on we called my father Pop. At the time they were both alive, it was Pop and Papa, and the secretary was there and it was just an exciting time to be able to go down and go up that wonderful elevator. But downtown Ogden was an exciting place back then. It isn't like it is now. MM: A little different now. JD: And I remember going to Gammy and Pop's. During Christmas time Pop would decorate the Christmas tree, and he would put icicles, the old foil icicles on it, and every one had to be perfectly straight, had to hang absolutely perfect. And his home had a vaulted ceiling. It wasn't a very large home, but it had this round, vaulted ceiling, so he could have a rather tall tree, and every icicle hung perfectly straight, and it was the most beautiful tree always, and Gammy was just a little tiny lady, and Pop was...He seemed very, very tall. I'm not sure how tall he was. He was six foot or over, but he seemed very tall to me, and he had a wonderful garage out in back that was a workshop that had every tool imaginable in it, and he would let Papa go over there and work whenever he wanted. Papa would sometimes take me, and I remember Papa telling me a story once about designing a cabinet that he thought was beautiful and wonderful, and he showed it to his father, and his father agreed that it was beautiful and wonderful, and he said, "Now, son you go out in the back and build it." And so Papa went out in the back and found out that it was impossible to build, and through that experience. Papa designed things so that they were buildable. He learned by experience from Pop that he had to build things that were buildable. MM: Yeah. Now, where did your family live during that period? 2 JD: We lived in Ogden on Capitol Street, and Pop lived over on Maryland Drive, which was only about six or eight blocks away. And I remember I would walk over there every once in a while, because I went to Polk School which was in between, and Pop also designed Polk School... MM: Right JD: Which I loved. MM: Now, did you ever know McClanahan, his partner? JD: I didn't. MM: I guess he had passed away in 1940. JD: I was only four years old. MM: Yeah, you were only four years old. Okay, okay. And from what I understand, your father, he became your grandfather's partner, or he became the apprentice? JD: He was sort of the apprentice to him. He started working for him, and my Uncle Holbrook. Roy Holbrook started working also for him, and then.... MM: Roy is Phyllis'... JD: Husband. MM: Okay. JD: And then when my grandfather died, they kept the office open on my Uncle's engineering license, because Papa had not gone to college for architecture, so he hurried up and started to get his license. MM: Uh huh. JD: And Pop was awfully smart, and he took all of the tests, and back then if you didn't go to college...If you could pass the test... 3 MM: It was just as good, huh? JD: It was just as good, and Papa had really, really curly hair, and I remember after one of those tests, he came home, and his hair was straight. But he passed them, and so he got his license and was able to carry the office. MM: That's pretty amazing. He didn't even go to college, but he passed the test. JD: He went to. I think, a year or two at Weber. MM: Uh huh. But never finished that program, but he could still pass the test. Was your grandfather...was he teaching your father? JD: They were working together, and Papa was a draftsman there, and my father was...he was fantastic in mathematics, very, very good at that, and I think that was one of the reasons that he was able to pass the tests is because he was so good at math. MM: So good at math. I know Leslie was considered a type of an artist, because he was so artistic. Was your father the same way also? JD: Oh, yes. I have a number of paintings that Pop my father painted. MM: He was a gifted artist, too. But just so I can note this, Jeanine is a professional artist also. In her home she has all over all of the walls just beautiful paintings, so the abilities come down through the line. JD: And I would hope that I'm making my father and my grandfather proud. MM: I can imagine that these paintings...With these paintings. I wouldn't know how you wouldn't. JD: By the way. I do have another drawing downstairs of the home on 26th and Eccles. you probably would want to see. 4 MM: Okay, yeah, I'd love to see that. JD: Just a neat drawing. MM: Uh huh. JD: Kind of nice. MM: Oh yeah. I'd love to see that. JD: He did a lot of homes. They're beautiful. MM: Eccles Avenue... JD: 26th and Eccles. MM: Yeah, where the...That's actually famous now because of the homes that he built. JD: Yeah, it is. MM: Was there a pride in that small little street there that they had...that your grandfather had for that street? JD: I was very proud of it. MM: Yeah. I've actually gone down there and looked at each of the houses, and they all have plaques on them and say who the architect was, which your father was the architect for most of them, or your grandfather. (Excuse me.) But. now after your grandfather died, and your father took over the business, him and Roy, were they doing the same type of scale of architecture? Were they doing large buildings and any houses? JD: They were not doing a whole lot of houses by then. They were doing...There's a church building over on 26lh and Tyler that Papa did, and the Taylor School. Oh, and then the Quincy School was one that Pop did, and then Papa did a number of schools around town, but mostly it was the old Key Bank before it got redone, 5 the gas building in Salt Lake. There are a number of them in Ogden, but they were building office buildings mostly. MM: It wasn't as much residential. It was more commercial. JD: No, no. There was one beautiful residence, up on Taylor and 29th that he did for a friend. But mostly it was not residential. MM: Mostly commercial, and you say quite a few schools then, too? JD: Schools. MM: Okay. Now, did he, did your father still work for the education office of Ogden, because I know Les your grandfather worked for them. He was the commissioner. JD: Pop didn't, or Papa didn't MM: Okay, but he was...He still had the contracts. JD: He did a lot of schools. MM: Okay. That's great. So now...So he started....He took over the business, he and Roy Holbrook in... JD: And Ken Hall. MM: Ken Hall? Now, who is Ken Hall? JD: Well, he was a draftsman clear back when they were in the Eccles Building, and he was a very fine draftsman, and he was Pop's partner for a long time. It was Hodgson. Holbrook and Hall. MM: Hodgson, Holbrook and Hall. Okay. JD: I remember in the Eccles Building, they had some pellet pistols, and they used to shoot pigeons out the window. The pigeons were always a problem downtown, 6 and Pop was an awfully good shot. But I think that's something that my grandfather probably did, too, knowing him. MM: Yeah, I've heard that they did have quite a sense of humor, and a sense of fun to them also. JD: They did. They did. MM: How would you describe...Like, if you were to describe your grandfather as a person, like, how he was perceived, how he acted, how would you describe him? JD: He was very quiet. And he was...To me, he was very tall. I'm not sure whether he was or not, but to me he was very tall, and very kind, and he seemed very stern, but I know he wasn't. Does that sound funny? I guess it does. I know how he took care of my grandmother. It was like he carried her around on a cushion almost. He took such good care of her. MM: Uh huh. JD: And she was not very well a lot of her life. She was pregnant for 16 summers, and he took very good care of her, and he raised those beautiful roses, and if there was anyone outside my family, my direct family that I felt truly loved me. It was Pop Hodgson, and I can't even tell you why. I just felt that love, and I know that my brother and my sister didn't feel quite that way, because he seemed so stern, and kind of unapproachable, but he didn't seem that way to me. I remember seeing him a number of times after he died in dreams. And it wasn't scary at all. It was comforting for me. It was good. MM: And you were saying, telling me before we started this, that you kind of felt that he's been your guardian angel. 7 JD: I do, and I don't know why. I just have felt that. MM: That's awesome. JD: I think a lot of the influence in art has come from him. MM: Uh huh. Like he's kind of inspiration to you? JD: Yeah. To a great extent, yes. MM: Now did you know of anything where he actually did artwork like where he actually sat down and drew something? JD: No. MM: Mostly his artistic ability came out in architecture. JD: Yeah. I don't think that back then...It was during the depression that he was keeping that office open. MM: Right. JD: And back then that was an awfully hard thing to do. MM: Yeah, definitely. JD: And you didn't waste time on things like art. MM: Art... just things that were necessary. Yeah. JD: But he made things that were functional, beautiful. MM: Right. JD: So he used his art in that way. I mean, you look at any of his buildings, and they are not just functional. MM: They're beautiful. JD: They're beautiful. 8 MM: Now that was one of the big debates when Ogden High School was going up. It was right in the heart of the depression. How can we afford such a beautiful high school if we don't have any money? And it turns out as it was built, it produced so many jobs, and it was such a...and even today, when you think about Ogden, you have to think about Ogden High School. JD: When they did the addition on to that, they hired Papa to do it, and they went to the same place to get the bricks. It was Denver Terra Cotta, and they could not match the bricks. They used the same everything, but the bricks were so many years old, and had so much accumulation of dirt and use, and so they got all of the bricks that were supposedly the right color and sprayed them with used motor oil... MM: Oh, really? JD: And let them set for a while, and then they paid kids. I believe it was, a nickel a brick or something like that to clean them off and then use them, and they matched perfectly. MM: Just matched perfectly. Now when was it that your father did that? JD: I'm not sure. It was after I went there, so it was after '52, '54. And my brother said he was one of the kids that worked on those bricks and cleaned them up. So...and he's seven years younger than I. MM: How did your father feel about adding to your grandfather's masterpiece? JD: Well, he knew it was necessary, and I think he'd surely be angry if someone else had had the opportunity. In fact, there were a number of architects in Ogden. He did not think much of their work. And he told me so in some not very 9 MM: In blunt language. JD: Well, yes. MM: That was your father that told... JD: Yeah, father. In fact, Papa did two or three other buildings up at Weber College, three, four. He did a number of them up there. He did the science building, the education building. He did the library before it was redone. But I remember, he took me up to either the science or education building and took me over to one of the windows, and you know the bell tower up there? MM: Yeah. JD: And you might want to cut this out. MM: Oh, no, no. JD: But anyway, he took me over to one of the windows and pointed to the bell tower, and he said, "Look, there's John Pierce's big dong." And that's how he felt about some of the other architects. MM: He didn't think that was that good. JD: He just didn't think that they were that good. MM: Uh huh. JD: And, I know that he dearly loved architecture. MM: That was his life. JD: That was his life. Well, hunting, both Pop and Papa loved hunting and fishing. It was a big part of their lives. My grandfather built a little shack up....Before the dam was raised, there was a little creek up in Ogden valley, Spring Creek. MM: Uh huh. 10 JD: And they built a little teeny shack up there. It was maroon. And just one room, had an old wood stove in it, and they went up and played poker in that little shack on Wednesday evenings. MM: Oh. JD: And my grandfather built it in 1927. And the shack is still up in the valley. It's not on Spring Creek any more. My brother owns it now and it's painted.... It's got some kind of an outside covering on it now that's horrible yellow instead of the old maroon siding, but it's the same shack, and it's got 1927 written on it. MM: Right. JD: And Dan Ballantine in one of the Salt Lake Newspapers wrote an article about it MM: Uh huh. JD: About the floating poker game that went on there every week for I don't know how many years. Fifty years, and they did. They went up there and played poker every Wednesday night. MM: Now who would go up there with them? JD: Um, well Joe Reed was one of those guys, Reed brothers and Burt Himley. He was Commercial Security Bank. Hal Armstrong. Hal Armstrong Sporting Goods was down on 25th Street years ago, and oh, I really don't know all of the guys. MM: Sounds like a lot of them... JD: Joe Roden who worked at L R. Samuels and then had Rolands which was a beautiful store downtown Ogden and a bunch of these guys would just go up there and play poker. MM: It sounds like prominent men of Ogden. 11 JD: Oh, yes, very prominent men of Ogden. MM: Huh. JD: It was a lot of them that belonged to the Weber Club when the Weber Club was down in the old Ben Lomond Hotel, which was also Pop's. MM: Right. JD: And they had a lot of fun along with a lot of hard work. MM: Uh huh. Huh. So he was very involved with the Weber Club. JD: Oh yeah. Papa was and so was Pop. MM: They were both involved. Now, as I recall, they were also involved with the Rotary Club also. Is that right? JD: Yeah, uh huh. MM: So several clubs. Now as I recall also, your grandfather was the head of the Rotary Club also. Is that right? JD: Yes, he was. MM: So very community-involved, too. JD: Yes, uh huh. MM: That's great. And your father followed those same traditions. JD: Yes. MM: Was he ever a leader in either of those groups also? JD: Um, I don't believe so. He might have been in the Weber Club, but I'm not sure. I'd have to look back into my records. I really don't know. Of course the Weber Club was purely social. It's not... 12 MM: It wasn't more of a philanthropist group. It was more of just a fun group. Right. Now with your father taking the business, did someone take on the business after he stopped doing the architecture, or what happened to the business? JD: Well, Uncle Roy died...Well, first Ken Hall died when he had to have heart surgery in 1970, and that truly broke Pop's heart, because he had been like a brother and a son, and he'd been so much to Pop, a partner, and then Uncle Roy died of complications of diabetes, and Pop got...Oh what's his name.. Jim Chamberlain, and they kept going, and they had an office building on Monroe across from...between 25th and 26th. You know about that. MM: No. I didn't. JD: Oh the building's still down there, a lovely little building. It's about 2554 Monroe. And they had that for a number of years, and then Papa just got kind of old and got sicker, had a couple of heart attacks and sold the building and went over and worked with Jim Chamberlain at Frandsen on 24th Street, and then Papa would do a lot of consultation work on the side, and then he retired almost completely. He was still doing some consultation when he got hepatitis and passed away. MM: Passed away after that. So he kind of sold the business and went to the consultation and doing side work. JD: Chamberlain. I think was the one that would have taken over, would have bought it. MM: Uh huh. Chamberlain. Huh. Now did all the records, like of your father's and your grandfather's business, would the Chamberlains have that? 13 JD: Jim Chamberlain gave most of the records to Weber State, and I remember when Pop retired he took an awful lot of the records and took them to the dumps, and I remember I took...I grabbed a couple of arm loads of them, and I. at one time, sold the plans for the Ben Lomond Hotel to the Ben Lomond Hotel. MM: Uh huh. JD: And Jim took Ogden High's plans and took them and gave them to the library. MM: To the library, right. That's where they are today. JD: And I have some of the deaf and blind school plans that I took over to the deaf and blind school, oh, within the last two years and gave them to them. And I've only got very few left. I'm not sure exactly what I've got. I've got a little bit. MM: Oh. Okay. Huh. Now, do the Chamberlains...Are they still in business now? JD: I'm not sure whether Jim retired or not. He lives in North Ogden. He's a neat man. He plays the guitar. MM: Plays the guitar. Huh. Wow. I'll have to... JD: But he would know a lot about my father. He wouldn't know a lot about Pop. MM: Right. He never knew your grandfather. JD: I don't think so. MM: But he did know your father. That's interesting. It just keeps going, doesn't it? JD: It does. It docs. MM: Now now your grandfather, he died in 1947, and it seemed to have had a big impact on everyone when he died. Did you feel that same impact when he passed away? 14 JD: Yeah. We were up at a little cabin that we had on Pineview Reservoir, and one of my cousins who is now dead came up and told us what had happened, and the world just changed. Papa got very, very serious and. I don't know, took life a lot more seriously from then on, it seemed. Of course, all of the responsibility was his then. MM: Right, so you felt more pressure with business and... JD: Well, and with taking care of his mother, although he has four sisters. And I think.... MM: Was your father the one that mostly took care of your grandmother? JD: No, not really, not physically. She still lived on Maryland Drive, and two of her. Well one of her daughters still lived there. The other one had moved out. Roy's wife, LeRoy and Phyllis had moved out to North Ogden, but Norma still lived there, and she took care of Gammy for quite a while, and Aunt Adele didn't very much. But Phyllis came in and took care of her a lot, came in from North Ogden. It's funny. My grandmother had dark red hair when I remembered her to begin with, and then she finally, finally decided to let it go gray, and when she let it go gray, there was a yellow streak in the back which she hated, so she started using a blue tint to it, just a little bit of blue, and as she got older, the blue got more blue. MM: Uh huh. JD: And finally she...She was in a different ward than we were, but we both went to the same building, and the little kids in the ward called her the blue fairy, which she thought...Why, she took it as a compliment, and the kids loved her, because 15 she came in with blue hair. And she looked just as pretty as can be with blue hair, little tiny lady with blue hair. MM: Now, is there any other stories you can remember about your grandfather? Now, actually, I wanted to ask you this first. You told...Before we started the tape, you talked about kind of the things that you remembered about your grandfather, like even the way he smelled, the way he treated you. Could you tell us that again? JD: Well, as I said, he was tall, and he smelted like pipe smoke, pipe tobacco. He always had a pipe as long as I remember him, and it was a good sweet-smelling pipe, and he grew cabbage roses that were wonderful, and I remember going over and thinking how marvelous his roses were and how kind he was to me, although he seemed stem to everybody else, he seemed very, very kind to me. And I loved him. I loved him very much, and I guess that I would regard him as my guardian angel. If I have a guardian angel, it would be my grandfather. I do remember a story, though, and I don't know whether I can tell it very well. When Papa was a little boy, he went on a fishing trip with a number of his old cronies and my grandfather, and one night when they were out in camp. Pop and this kid were looking out under the tent, and they saw a man who was invited, who was a very poor man. He was a workman, and they saw him come out from the other big guys' tent with this beautiful, split bamboo fishing rod and put it in his old beat-up truck, and Papa thought he was stealing it, and he forever more thought this man was stealing that, and later in life. Papa asked his father if he knew that this man had stolen that wonderful bamboo, split bamboo fishing rod, and Pop said that Papa had to look beyond what things looked like, because the night 16 before he had given that man that fishing pole, because that man didn't have one of his own, and it was a gift, and here all these years. Papa had thought that the man had stolen it, and Papa shouldn't ever believe the things he saw. He should find out what was behind them. And another thing Pop Hodgson did, he admired any kind of craftsmanship. If a ditch digger dug a ditch that was correct and straight and perfect, he was admired as much as someone who created a marvelous painting or some beautiful music if this man crafted a ditch according to the specifications and in a perfect manner, he was a wonderful craftsman, and that was one thing about Papa too. He and Pop treated the workers on a job as equals, and that was always the norm, the plumbers, the electricians. They were always Papa's dear friends, and I suspect that they were Pop's also. MM: They respected a good, hard laborer and how well he did his job as much as the architect that designed it. JD: He respected them. They respected him and that was the same for Pop and for Papa. MM: He sounds like such a noble man like a real— JD: That's a perfect word for him is "noble." MM: Well, I was speaking to Michael Crouch the other day, and he's Phyllis Crouch's son and he's into architecture now. He actually does design, but the effects of Leslie Hodgson, you know, in the early 1900's has affected all the way down to great grandchildren, great, great grandchildren. He says his daughter's even interested in art now and architecture. So it's pretty amazing. What an influence one man can have on people! 17 JD: Oh yes. MM: That's pretty amazing. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us? JD: I just don't think I know anything else, really. One more thing about Papa, he did the St. Joseph High School, and a little convent that went with it, where the sisters would live, who taught at St. Joseph High. And I remember when they wanted the cross up there. Papa found the finest wood that he could have, that he could find, and then he had a saddle maker put it together with rawhide, where it would tit just perfectly in being very, very authentic in the old style, and so the cross piece was put together with rawhide, and then the brass fittings on the doors he had made specifically so they looked very, very, very old and beautiful, and then shortly after the sisters moved in there, there was a fire, and it damaged a lot of the little chapel there, and the sisters had to move out for a while, and Papa got every workman that he could to work extra hours and off the clock. Even my little brother was up there cleaning up to get those sisters back in there. And I remember Bobby my little brother telling me that he was cleaning off some of the little statues that were up there, cleaning the smoke damage off, and they got those nuns back in there in a very, very short period of time, and then later they brought Papa a cake that they had made as soon as they got back in the building, and Papa had always appreciated that, and one of the beautiful sisters that lived up there when they were building it, she could not stay away, and she'd come work right along with the workmen, and she was good. And Papa admired her very much, but she was a very good worker. MM: Yeah, that's a great story. 18