Oral History Program John M. Belnap Interviewed by Max Belnap 3 June 1971 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah John M. Belnap Interviewed by Max Belnap 3 June 1971 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 College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ 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: Belnap, John M., an oral history by Max Belnap, 3 June 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. John M. Belnap 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with John M. Belnap (born 1883). Mr. Belnap was a student at Weber Stake Academy from 1900 to 1906. The interview was conducted on June 3, 1971 by Max Belnap in order to gather his father’s recollections and experiences with Weber Stake Academy. MB: I'm Max Belnap. Dr. Harold Bateman has asked me to interview my father, John M. Belnap, pertaining to some early happenings relative to Weber Stake Academy. I will conduct the interview as has been outlined by Dr. Bateman. Father, will you relate some of the early happenings relative to the beginning of Weber Stake Academy? JB: I graduated from Hooper 8th grade in 1900 along with William Manning, Clara Cottle, and others, and if we wanted to get higher education, we had to seek it otherwise. Of course we went to Weber Academy as there was no other high school in Weber County. Weber Academy was then at the Ogden Second Ward.1 The first principal was Louis F. Moench. In order to qualify as graduates from the 8th grade, we had to go over and take a written examination under the direction of the county superintendent, and if we passed then we were allowed to go on to the higher schools. MB: Father, you mentioned that Louis F. Moench was the first principal of Weber Stake Academy. Who were some of the other teachers and some of the departments and subjects that were available for students to take when you were at Weber Stake Academy? 1 Weber Stake Academy used the Ogden Second Ward and the old tabernacle in 1889 and 1890. By 1892 the academy held classes in its new building on Jefferson. 2 JB: Sarah Evans had charge of the domestic science department. We had a preparatory department to accommodate a lot of those students who had lived out in the country and had failed to take advantage of some of the earlier education facilities. They had these departments under the charge of one individual to give the students special training so they could go on to high school. But when the school became an accredited high school, the preparatory department was done away with.2 Other departments in the school were supervised by William Terry. He was a historian. In the elocution department was Jennette McKay. David O. McKay had charge of the English department. John G. Lind had charge of the Latin, botany and zoology departments. Thomas E. McKay had charge of the athletics. William Terry of the history department was a very good teacher. He made a comment one time, "I am credited with having a good memory and the reason is I never trust it, I always write it down." Jennette McKay once put on a play entitled All That Glitters Is Not Gold. She had that play presented in Kanesville, Hooper and three different wards in Ogden City. It was very well received and appreciated. Thomas E. McKay had charge of basketball and we played at Lester Park—in the middle there was a pavillion. We dressed at Weber Academy and then crossed over to the park to play and practice basketball. The basketball team for 1905 was William McKay, William Manning, George R. Doxey, Earl Emmett, Henry Belnap, John Belnap and Frank Becraft. The first basketball league in Utah was a church school league and those that belonged were 2 Some time elapsed between being accredited as a high school and discontinuing the preparatory department as the first diplomas were awarded in 1896 and the preparatory department still functioned in 1910. 3 Brigham Young University at Provo, the LDS at Salt Lake City, Brigham Young College at Logan, later the Deaf and Blind School in Ogden. When we went on these trips—the cost of transportation was not very high at that time and it was taken care of by the school. One time we when went down to play BYU in Provo, we stayed at the Roberts Hotel. One time we were coming back from the old gymnasium on Center Street and coming along there some boys got eggs and egged us but we got in and played the game. MB: You mentioned that Weber Stake Academy had its beginning in the Ogden Second Ward. What are your recollections of the building on the old Weber Stake Academy campus? JB: The building consisted of just one main building known as the Weber Academy. The building was constructed and paid for by the various wards in Weber County which belonged to Weber Stake at that time. The first building there was also known as the Moench Building. In the rear, where the janitor operated, there was a row of trees which had to be dug out so that the Weber Gymnasium could be constructed and I helped cut out that group of trees and rubbish. MB: Was the gymnasium building finished before you graduated? JB: No, it was not finished until after I had graduated. MB: What was the first year you attended Weber Stake Academy? JB: I started attending Weber Stake Academy the school year of 1904-1905. In 1905 there was a group running bachelors' hall at 549 22nd Street. One of the boys developed what they thought was a breaking out and there was fear that it was smallpox. So a group of us, Ike and Rell Cooper and myself went down to the 4 corner of 22nd Street by the tabernacle and waited results. After a while we looked up and there was a yellow flag floating on 549 22nd Street. We did not go back there. I walked to Hooper that day and Ike and Rell Cooper caught a freight train and went to Iona, Idaho.3 MB: You mean you didn't attend any more school that year after leaving your quarters on 22nd Street? JB: That year I didn't attend, I went down to Hooper. When I got there, the quarantine physician got wise of it, and he put up a quarantine in Hooper. The Mitchells, the Mannings and the Johnsons, right close neighbors, they were all quarantined because of smallpox epidemic. It worked out so that there was just one person who lost his life because of the smallpox that time. MB: How much of the school year did you attend that year? JB: That year I attended only a very short time because that happened in the fall of the year. After I went to Hooper, I got my first teaching experience. The superintendent of the schools, at the beginning of the fall after the consolidation of the schools, came to me and asked me if I would teach an overflow school at Hooper for three months. I told him I would and I had a first and sixth grade from the Central School and had the fifth grade from the north, west and south schools in the old Relief Society Hall there in Hooper. That's where I had my first teaching experience. 3 Weber Stake Academy Annual Record (WA/90/2) book AA indicates that John M. Belnap of Hooper attended W.S.A. from September 1900 to June 1903 and from September 1904 to June 1906. This record also shows Isaac Cooper began attending W.S.A. in September 1898; his brother Arelius began in 1900. Both continued to June 1902, but neither enrolled at Weber after that date. This record also indicates their home was Leorin, Idaho, not Iona. The list of students attending the previous academic year which appeared in the 1901/02 annual catalogue shows both Cooper brothers and two other students coming from Leorin, but it also lists Rufus Birch and two Stanger boys as coming from Iona, Idaho. The 1900 and 1910 censuses do not show Leorin, Idaho; the 1910 census does include Lorenzo precinct northeast of Idaho Falls. During a telephone call to the L.D.S. Church Historical Department, one of the reference people there found no mention of an L.D.S. organization in Leorin, Idaho. 5 MB: Well, after this teaching experience you came back to Weber Stake Academy and taught and took other classes then for another year, and you were on the basketball team for another season, is that right? JB: I was on the basketball team in this way: in order to be able to go on and get some more schooling I got a position as supervisor of the blind boys at the State School for the Deaf and Blind, and that was very interesting. We played basketball there in the gymnasium. I learned many things and appreciate that year's experience and working with the deaf and blind boys also. MB: Now this was the year that you graduated, in 1906. Can you recollect the graduation services that were held for this graduating class? Can you relate any of the experiences centered around this? JB: Our graduation exercises were held at the corner of 22nd and Washington Avenue, in the old Weber Stake Tabernacle. There were eighteen graduates that year. They were as follows: Olive Belnap, Effie Reast, Henry Jensen, Annie Williams, Carrie Anderson, Frank Becraft, Earl Ballantyne, Prudence Quirk, William McKay, George R. Doxey, Edward Bingham, John M. Belnap, Roy Cardon, Edwin Peterson, Raymond Bingham, Priscilla Montgomery, Sarah Williams and Jennie Groberg. MB: Do you remember who gave any of the talks or any of the exercises for the graduating class? JB: Effie Reast was the valedictorian for the occasion. I appreciated very much my attendance at Weber Academy because it gave me a wide acquaintance with all the various communities whose students must have come to Weber Academy to 6 get an education from all over the county when Weber County was all one stake, including Metropolis, Nevada, as a branch.4 This gave me a wide acquaintance I appreciated very much. MB: Was Louis Moench the principal for the entire four years that you attended Weber Stake Academy? JB: No, he was not the principal all the time. President David O. McKay was the principal of the school for a long time, and he was a teacher in the English department. I remember very distinctly when he came back from Salt Lake, after being called as an Apostle, he made this statement one day in English class: "One reason for you being called to the Apostleship is because of your personal purity in your life." How true that had been all through his life. He was a great example for all mankind. In the last few years when they wanted to tear Weber Stake Academy down, I figured I would like to hear the old class song be sung and put into effect, "I'll be true to you, Oh Purple and White, and fight for you through all your fights." MB: Thank you, father. 4 The reference person in the Church Historical Department indicated during the telephone call mentioned in the previous note that Metropolis Branch was organized in 1912 as part of the North Weber Stake.