Oral History Program Mae Baker Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 11 April 2007 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mae Baker Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon Assistant Curator of Special Collections 11 April 2007 Copyright © 2012 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 Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ 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: Baker, Mae, an oral history by Sarah Langsdon, 11 April 2007, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Walter and Mae Baker in their home in Mountain Green, Utah on April 11, 2007 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Mae Baker. It was conducted April 11, 2007 by Sarah Langsdon and concerns her recollections and experiences with Weber State University and her father, Aaron Tracy, who was principal from 1922 to 1935 when the institution was Weber College. Patti Umscheid was also present during the interview. MB: This picture is in front of our house because I remember when we planted that tree; it was taken on the sidewalk and curb. That is the way my dad used to dress and it looks just like his hair. Isn’t that funny, but the face doesn’t look like his. But that lady is Lydia Tanner. To this day I remember how she used to say, “Now you have to scrape every bit out of the bowl, because if you don’t you won’t be rich.” And Eva Browning, she was a sweetheart. She was so good to us girls. We would go to the library and she would give us books to read. She was a very sweet person. I knew her for a long, long time. Her sister was my sewing teacher at school. But all this food, I guess they took a lot of it. Lydia Tanner ran the cafeteria. I don’t know if they would feed some of it to the students, but I’m sure they gave some of it to the teachers in place of money. Oh I wish I knew who that was. I don’t know if that would be Mrs. Allred or not, but I don’t think she taught there. SL: The only one we know in there is Lydia. MB: But the one behind her is Eva Browning. She was the librarian there. WB: You better write on the back. 2 MB: But that one looks like Willard Marriott when he was young. He went to school. I don’t know what year he went there, but you know he went to Weber College there. Yes that was a neat picture. SL: Okay Mae, will you just give us a little bit about your background? MB: Okay. The night I was born they had a big show called Mary Ann over at the college. My mother started having pains and she couldn’t get a hold of daddy of course because he was over there. So she got the neighbor and she took her to the hospital and I was born that night. Everybody at the school thought I should be named Mary Ann, but when my father named me, he named me Mae. We lived on Adams Street when I was born and then we moved on 24th Street where the Institute is located. They tore that house down or they moved it or something, but we had a duplex. At first we lived in just half of it, then eventually we lived in all of it. But all the teachers and professors, or what you want to call them, lived on that block. On one side of us was Thatcher Allred. Then up from there were the Hyde’s, and a couple of homes that they rented. Mr. Hyde was the custodian of the school. Then a little way around the corner on to Jefferson there was a dormitory. That was a girl’s dorm. Then as you went along you came over to the Moench building. Our backyard of course was the back of the Moench building. Then on the other side we had Roland Parry. I don’t know if you know him. He taught music. He was one that wrote the “All Faces West.” Then J. Clair Anderson was next to him. He was the 3 musician. He always played the organ at the school. Clarissa Hall lived a couple of doors from her. She had a daughter that was my age that was a good friend of mine, Gloria Hall. I think she lives in Bountiful the last I knew, I’m not sure. Then down around the corner on Adams lived the Monson’s, Leland Monson and his boys and Dolores who was my age. Those are the ones I remember the best. There was a Dr. Rich that lived over on the other side of the Moench building, and a Mrs. Clark who eventually married Dr. Petty that lived in the apartment. She taught at the school. I don’t know where Lydia Tanner lived. She didn’t live on the campus. Neither did Eva Browning. Eva Browning lived up some place on Marilyn Drive, I think. Then the College Inn was on 25th Street, and the gym was on 25th Street. So all these places came in; their backyards all came together and that was the campus. That is how the kids all got to know each other so well because we would all play out there. They had one building that they built, and they had a skeleton in it: things in bottles you know, dead animals. We would always dare each other to go in and shake hands with the skeleton. One day a week all the kids went swimming. The faculty could go swimming. My sister, June, and I we were over at the gym an awful lot. I don’t remember anybody else around, but I am sure my dad was probably around. Then we would go to the basketball games. He always took us to the basketball games and we would run around the track. They still have that track up there. They ruined it. Anyway we had a lot of fun. 4 WB: They had the track above the gymnasium. MB: Above where the basketball players played. They have turned it into a running track, but they ruined it. They should have left it like it was. In our house we had a big blackboard on the kitchen wall, I remember, where we used to write all the time. It was an old one that we got from the school. Our backyard was beautiful. I don’t know who planted it, I can’t remember, but it had roses in it. It was pretty. It was a pretty backyard. It had a tennis court. The tennis courts were back there. Ruth Tomlinson used to play tennis. She lived next door to us, too, but I don’t know what her dad did. MB: My dad was a good principal. He loved the students. I was surprised. You know he did anything to save money because they did not have enough money to run the school. He used to build fires in the morning and get the buildings heated in the winter. That is what my sister was telling me. And then everybody that went there usually had a job they did to help pay for their education, or maybe some of them were given a little money. But I know my sister, Hermoine, used to clean the restrooms and I used to go over with her. I probably wasn’t much help, but she was in college at the time. She was nine years older than me. I was talking to her last night to see if she could remember some things. She said, “I got five dollars a month.” But then she said that five dollars went a long way. MB: June and I were just two and a half years apart and we had a good time. The Monson boys were a fun bunch. They were full of the devil. Their 5 father was such a very calm man, but they would jump off the balcony into the water at the gym. I don’t know if you have been over to that gym and know where the balcony is, but why they weren’t killed I’ll never know. But every time they went in that pool, they would never go in it the right way. They would come out of the balcony and over they would go and jump into the pool. That was Wiley and Hans. WB: What was Monson’s first name? MB: Leland. WB: He was the English professor there. MB: I lived there until I was in the seventh grade; I guess when they sold it. You know the Church was going to do away with it. They were just not going to have it because they couldn’t afford it anymore. They couldn’t afford to pay the teachers and they couldn’t afford to keep it going. So I know daddy really fought for the State to take it over, and they finally did. He stayed there for maybe a year. WB: Logan University didn’t want the Weber College to take their enrollment away, and he fought tooth and nail for it with him against them. MB: His favorite saying was, “Weber College is going to be a great university and Utah State will be nothing but a cow path.” I don’t know what else I can tell you about the “old” Weber. I know another thing we used to do. June and I used to go out and play the Victrola, you know those old ones you used to wind up. And the 6 school would freeze the tennis courts in the winter, and then everybody would ice skate. WB: How about this guy from Hawaii? MB: Oh yes, I forgot about Sam. Weber College went over to Hawaii to play football, then Hawaii came to Utah to play football against Weber College. Some of these players came back here and played for Weber: I think there were three or four of them. They lived a couple of houses up from us and they used to play the ukulele for us. There was one that could play tunes on leaves, I don’t know how he did that. But, they were so good to us. And that little Gordon Allred was just about a year or two old and he would run away from his mother. I can see her now running up that hill and he would be running because he wanted to go see those Hawaiians because they were so good to him, and she didn’t want him out there alone. I know he remembers that. WB: How about the one that kept coming over to your house? He was in the Weber College thing a couple of years ago. MB: Oh, that one. They had him in the Alumni magazine they put out. They had his picture in there and they said he was 90-something years old. He was the one that used to come over to our house quite a bit. I would like to have his address. I don’t know if he is still living, but it was about a year ago. WB: It was in the Alumni magazine. 7 MB: Then of course, I think most of the ones my age are still living. We went back to Chicago after my father left the College to get his doctor’s degree, and we lived there for a year then we came back home. I don’t know if you want me to go on anymore. Leland Monson and his family also went to Chicago to go to school the same year. Walter moved to Utah in 1940 with his parents when Hill Field was being built. His father was Chief Clerk of construction. I met him the summer before our senior year at Ogden High School. We were married in 1943 when he was at the depot. I can remember he was out there. Of course daddy was in the Church a lot. I don’t know if you are members of the Church, but everybody had a fit because his daughter was marrying somebody out of the Church. My dad used to say, “Oh look at him, though someday he’ll be fat and be a Bishop.” My dad loved the students. He loved to teach. He really did. But anyway that is about it. PU: So you didn’t work out at the depot? MB: Oh yes I forgot, I did go out to the depot and that is a story. Walter put me on the bus. That was before we were married because I didn’t want to go out there, I was too scared. He put me on the bus and it didn’t stop until it got to the depot. His dad said, “Now you come out there and I will see that you get a job.” So I went out and he did give me a job, and I worked there. I worked there for three or four years until I had my first baby. So I 8 was working there when I got married. I remember the prisoners out there. PU: Did you know Cleone Battisti? MB: Cleone Battisti? No. SL: Where did you work at the depot? MB: I worked in payroll. PU: They probably worked in administration; they both worked in the office. SL: Her husband worked in the medical services and she was like a floor down from that. MB: When I worked there they didn’t have the big building built. Then I worked in payroll and I can’t remember where else I worked. SL: Who else worked? Allie Lawler? PU: Allie or Gene Lawler? He was a military policeman out there, I guess for the Germans. MB: I know my sister Elaine went out to work, but that was later. I’m trying to think who I worked with out there. PU: Did you know Beth there, or when she worked at IRS? MB: No, I knew her better when I worked at IRS. I didn’t know her at the depot. I think she is about my age. SL: Yes. MB: I just remember her at the IRS. She said, “I’ve got to get home tonight and patch up the walls that my boys punched holes in when they were fighting before my husband gets home.” I got to know a lot of people from 9 Plain City when I worked at IRS because so many people out there did work at IRS. I have a grandson who lives out there now, Tim Crompton. By the way he is the girl’s soccer coach at Weber now. That is our grandson. SL: So did you go to Weber? MB: One year. WB: We have a granddaughter that goes to Weber. She is two years now over at Weber. MB: I had four children graduate from Weber, and I think we had about three grandchildren that graduated from Weber. They didn’t wear caps and gowns at the old graduations at Weber, the girls had the most beautiful dresses. That was the big thing, you wore these gorgeous formals and then walk down the aisle there at the Moench building, you know up in the auditorium there. Then they would all have their pictures in the paper with their dresses on. It was pretty. I don’t know when they started wearing caps and gowns. Another story at that auditorium was one year they had some kind of a party there, and someone dressed up like a big gorilla came down the aisle and got June and I and hugged us. It scared me to death; I thought it was a real gorilla. PU: Who was it? MB: I don’t know. Probably somebody I did know, you know, because they certainly knew where to come and get us, they knew where we were at. 10 But they used to have these parties for the faculty and their kids, I think it was. It may have been at Christmas time. Then they used to put on a lot of plays. Thatcher Allred was the drama teacher. I remember my sister Marion was a baby and she got to be the baby in the play, in the blanket. We thought that was pretty neat. Then there were the Loveland girls. Virginia Loveland, I don’t know if she was going to school there or not. Did you know the Loveland Studio? It used to be on 24th Street by the Larkin Mortuary. She was my best girlfriend. We lived right there. We moved over on Jefferson about two years before daddy left the College. David O. McKay said that he should buy himself a home, so he bought this home and my sister still lives there. PU: Oh really? MB: It is a beautiful home, but such a terrible neighborhood. SL: What sister is this? MB: My youngest sister, Karen. She was two years old when I met Walter. She says she has never known life without him. She is really a nice person. SL: Did your oldest sister graduate from Weber? MB: Oh yes, she graduated from Weber and my sister June graduated from Weber. SL: What is your oldest sister’s name? 11 MB: Hermoine Jex. She lives in Salt Lake and has done so much for the City of Salt Lake. She was a great student at Weber. She will be 92 this month. Her husband taught at the University of Utah. My sister June worked at the depot. Then she married a man from back east so she lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, most of her life. Then I have a younger sister, Marion, who was with us at the school. Why don’t you get those pictures out of the top drawer in there? I’ll have to get them afterwards. I’ll have to show them to you. But we had a lot of fun. Have you ever met Jimmy Parry and Gloria Parry? SL: I haven’t met Gloria in person. I have talked to her several times on the phone. MB: Oh, have you? SL: Yes. MB: She is a sweet person. She lived next door to us and she was my sister Marion’s friend. They were always over at our house. Roland Parry in fact taught us all how to tap dance. SL: Did he? PU: I see his picture a lot in archives. MB: He was good to us kids. He taught music over there. Then I took piano from Clair Anderson, but I was not a great pianist. Mother and dad bought this piano when he first became president of the College. She played the piano a lot. When they bought the pianos for the school he bought one for 12 mother, too, so she had that all her life. So it is pretty old when you think about it. SL: What years was your dad president of the College? MB: Let’s see he went in 1922 and I think to 1937. I think that is what it was. So he was in there quite awhile. I met a lady up in Morgan who called me on the phone and said, “I just wanted to call and tell you how I got to go to college. Your father came up with a couple, oh I don’t know who else was with him, and they interviewed all the high school graduates and told them to come to school. He arranged for us to have rides and there were about four of us girls that went down there and graduated from Weber.” And I guess that is what he did. They would go around. They would go up to Preston and Malad to try to get people to come to the school here. I’ve got some pictures, when we are through I will have to show you some pictures. But I had a wonderful time growing up. My father, Aaron W. Tracy, was a wonderful father, president, and educator. He made it possible for many students to get an education during the hard times of the depression, and he continued to help and educate people all his life. Let’s see what else I can tell you. You know things come back to you. Oh, remember Fawn McKay Brodie? She was a good friend of mother’s. She was younger, you know. She went to Weber College. When we went to Chicago she used to come over and have Sunday dinner with us all the time. I guess I could go on forever, but that is probably about enough.