Oral History Program Verona M. Creer Interviewed by John R. Sillito 7 March 1980 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Verona M. Creer Interviewed by John R. Sillito University Archivist 7 March 1980 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: Creer, Verona M., an oral history by John R. Sillito, 7 March 1980, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Verona M. Creer Dr. Leland H. Creer 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Verona M. Creer, wife of Weber College President Leland H. Creer. The interview was conducted on March 7, 1980 by John R. Sillito in order to gather Mrs. Creer’s recollections concerning her husband’s career at Weber College from 1920 to 1922. JS: Let’s begin by getting information about Dr. Creer's appointment as President. Where was he employed prior to coming to Weber? VC: He was professor of Greek and Roman History at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was offered the position at Weber and decided he wanted to come back to Utah because his main interest was in American and Utah history. He wanted to write a book and do some research on Utah. He wrote his PhD dissertation, Utah and The Nation, at the University of California. JS: Was Washington his first appointment after he got his PhD? VC: Yes. JS: How long had he been there prior to coming to Weber? VC: When I married him he had been professor of History for ten years at the University of Washington. I was there for two years and then he was offered this position down here. JS: What was the circumstance behind that? Did he contact them or did they contact him, or do you recall? VC: He contacted them I'm quite sure, it’s a little vague in my mind. JS: You think he contacted the school and indicated an interest in serving as President? 2 VC: I'm not sure whether they contacted him first or he contacted them. I think he wrote to his uncle, John Preston Creer, and said he was interested in coming back to Utah. He may have done the preliminary investigation to see if there were any openings. They didn't want Aaron Tracy to continue because he had been President under the church system for so many years. They wanted a complete change. JS: What was the reputation of Weber at that time? How did you feel as a young wife going to now be the wife of a president of a junior college? VC: Well, I think when he came here my husband felt he had to upgrade the college. He wanted to get it accredited, that's all I can say. I don't know if church colleges or the junior colleges had state accreditation or not. JS: I doubt it. VC: I know my husband was a member of the Northwest Accrediting Association. They had to meet certain requirements to become an accredited college, so the credits would be accepted at any university. So, I think his first priority was to upgrade the faculty of the school and to make it an accredited college. JS: He was quite a scholarly individual and Weber was not really a scholarly institution. Many of the programs were technical programs and commercial programs. Did he feel that presented him a problem in terms of what he would like to see the college achieve? VC: He was a scholarly person. I know the salaries were terribly low and of course, when the opening came to come to the University of Utah history department he 3 immediately accepted that position because his primary interests were in teaching history—although he was considered a good administrator. JS: Had he had administrative experience at Washington? VC: No, he taught ancient history, Greek and Roman history at the University of Washington but he had been President at Gila College in Arizona. JS: Now that was a church college too? VC: Yes that was a church college. He was appointed by Adam S. Bennion to go down there when he was twenty five years old. I think he had his master's degree but he didn't have his PhD. He went down there as president of the college and while he was there he was granted the Woodrow Wilson Scholarship at Berkeley for his PhD. JS: What are your memories, as wife of the President, of contact with other faculty members and students? VC: Well, it seemed to be a very friendly faculty. I know we met many wonderful people in Ogden those two years. We met so many that they're all kind of in a haze. We met almost everyone in the northern end of the state, you know. I remember the first Christmas tea we had. We invited the governor and state officials and they came up. You know when you're only somewhere for two years you meet so many people that they're all kind of a blur. JS: You were a young wife and had young children. Did that pose problems for you in terms of your responsibility as wife of the school president? VC: I know I was invited to a lot of teas. [Laughter] I had to have sitters for the babies. I didn't have a full time maid, but I could call on students. 4 JS: Did you have an official residence? VC: They offered us a home on the campus but we weren't interested in living right on campus. We wanted a more private home life so we rented a home. JS: So the reason you didn't take it was more a question of privacy? VC: Yes, I think you need a private life as well as a public life, especially when you have small children. I didn't think it would be good to live on the campus. JS: The house they wanted to provide was physically right next to the Moench building? VC: I think it was one of the Rich homes that were on the campus. I'm not sure of that but it was a home right on campus. JS: What sort of interaction did you have with other faculty members or faculty wives? Was there a formal type of association for faculty women or a faculty association? VC: Well they were all really friendly. I remember Lydia Tanner who was head of the home economics department. She was a big help to me, helping me prepare the teas and the public functions. I remember we rented a big home up by Dilworth Young, a big red brick home, so we decided to have the senior dinner at our home one year. They prepared rice curry and all the students who were graduating came and we served them dinner. That's the only function we had in the home. After that we had them all down at the college, it was a lot easier! JS: In later periods Henry A. Dixon, who was president, used to talk about what he called the "Weber family", and tried to develop a very close relationship between faculty, students, staff and administration. Did your husband try to do a similar 5 thing or did he believe that there needed to be some distance between the faculty and students? VC: I remember it was all very friendly. JS: Friendly and informal? VC: Very informal and friendly. It was a very fine group of young people that went to the college and the faculty was very popular and friendly. But I do know my husband thought the salaries were ridiculously low, and he spent a great deal of time coming down to the legislature to raise the salaries to the level of a living wage. JS: What was your husband's salary? VC: Thirty-five hundred dollars a year. So you can imagine what the teachers were getting. Although the dollar would buy quite a bit, still that was a very meager salary for a college professor. I think we paid $45 a month rent then and our grocery bill would be about $45 a month; so you see, it's what the dollar buys that's important. We got along okay. JS: So all your expenses would come out of his salary by having a private home? VC: Yes, we paid our own rent and our own expenses. JS: I get the impression that one of the things that President Creer wanted to accomplish was to formalize the structure of the college, upgrade the faculty, and things like that. Is that true? VC: Yes, he wanted to make it an accredited junior college and he did. There were no deans so he appointed two: Merlon L. Stevenson as Dean of Instruction and Lucille Clark as Dean of Women. I don't know whether he organized the different 6 departments or not, but I know he appointed two deans. He tried to upgrade the faculty and stimulate them to do better work. JS: Not only in salaries but in terms of quality teaching? VC: Oh yes. They had some good people there, as I remember. Three or four of them followed him down to the University and worked on their PhD's. I think for a small college it was a fairly good one. I never did hear my husband complain of the work of the teachers. JS: But it was a completly different environment to what he had been used to at Berkley and Washington? VC: Oh, yes. JS: Was that a frustration to him? VC: I don't remember. He enjoyed meeting people, he was very friendly, and he enjoyed the faculty and they were very friendly with him. JS: So there was not any particular distance between him and the faculty? VC: No, he wasn't formal or distant from the faculty. I remember one humerous incident that happened. S. Dilworth Young came over to the house. He was our neighbor and was head of the scouts, I think. He wanted Lee to give a talk on the "Great Basin before 1850," since my husband had been working on a paper on this subject. They were always pulling jokes on each other. They were both Rotarians, and when my husband would go to the Rotary meetings he would forget his tag, and he'd steal Dil Young's and put it on. Dil would come in and he couldn't find his and if you couldn't find your tag you'd have to pay a dollar. They were always playing practical jokes. So I guess Dil decided to play one darn big 7 joke on him. He told him that he wanted him to give a talk on the "Great Basin before 1850" before a group and he gave him the address. My husband called me up the afternoon he was going to give this talk and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him and I said yes. So he picked me up and we went over to this address and rang and rang the doorbell and nobody answered. So we went back to the secretary of the college and said we must have the wrong address. She looked at the invitation, and looked at it, and it was signed, "D.S. Yoking" It was just a big joke. But that developed into the book he wrote for the centenial, The Founding of an Empire which was the Great Basin. He had done a great deal of research and he was very thorough in research. He was a good scholar, my husband. He had a reputation of being a scholar. JS: Yes, he did. VC: He had done so much research to write this paper, he decided to go on with it and it developed into the Founding of an Empire. JS: You mentioned Dilworth Young, and the fact that your husband was a Rotarian. Was he involved with community affairs while he was president? Did he see that as an important part of his job? VC: Yes, he thought that the college should be friendly with the community and get them involved in the college. We belonged to social groups in the community as well as college faculty groups. JS: Now were these formal groups? VC: No, just friendly, social groups. 8 JS: Was he a member of the other organizations like the Chamber of Commerce? VC: I don't remember him being a member of the Chamber of Commerce. I remember him belonging to the Rotary Club. We were just there two years. I remember so many many trips down to the legislature trying to get money for the college. JS: What was the response to his activity in that regard? VC: He did get a raise for the teachers, a better appropriation I know. I don't know how much, I can't remember. JS: What do you think his major goal of President of Weber was? Aside from the accreditation, did he want to take Weber in a particular direction? VC: Well they were all ready talking about moving the campus that is all I remember. JS: Even that early? VC: Even that early, but it was during the depression, or right after it, and it was very difficult to get funds. So it was just a dream. JS: What was his philosophy of education? I have the picture of President Creer as someone that was very much a meticulous researcher, a scholar, an intellectual, in a college that had perhaps a lot of emphasis on more practical things. I'm wondering if he wanted to move the college into a more scholarly phase. VC: Well, I'm sure he did because he was a scholar himself. If he had stayed longer he might have moved in that direction. The first two years was a period of transition from a church college to a state college and getting some more money so he could upgrade the teaching staff. I think there were only about 300 students at that time. 9 JS: What contact did you have with Aaron Tracy? VC: I don't ever remember meeting him. I think he disappeared completely from the campus. I think he was a little sad about leaving after being there so long. JS: One of the criticisms made of Tracy is that he was not particularly well organized and that the college suffered because of lack of direction in the last few years, and that's one of the reasons he was replaced. Do you remember those criticisms? VC: We heard comments like that, but we didn't participate in any criticisms of a previous president. My husband just went ahead to do what he thought was best for the college. The main thing was getting it organized, getting it accredited, and getting some funds to run it. JS: So he was primarily involved in practical things? VC: Yes, for the two years he was there. JS: What about the change from a Mormon church owned school to a public school. Were there feelings on the part of some people who had been there for years that maybe this was not the right way to go, that they would lose some sort of control? VC: I didn't see any reactions that way. There might have been a little sadness on the part of some people, but they didn't communicate it to us. They were very friendly to us. JS: So there was not a lot of resistance on the part of faculty or staff when your husband took over? 10 VC: No, it seemed to me like they were all one family. And they appreciated my husband and they hated to see him go, because they felt like he made a step forward. He had only been there a few years but they felt like he made quite a giant step forward for the school. JS: Now he left in 1937 to go to the University of Utah? VC: His first love was history. He was a research man, a writer. He wrote well, of course maybe I'm bragging a little bit, but I'm not the only one who felt he wrote very well. He was a good research man. JS: Now he went as a professor not as an administrator to the University? VC: Yes. JS: Was it an increase in salary? VC: Yes. I can't remember what the increase was, but there was an increase, of course, going from a college to a university. JS: Do you think he ever had second thoughts about taking the position at Weber? VC: At Weber? I don't think so. He was just looking for a way to come back to Utah, because he wanted to write Utah history. JS: He didn't see his career as moving from the presidency of Weber to the presidency of another school, moving up through the administration like some people do? VC: His first love was research. You know if you're going to be an administrator you don't have the time to research, all your time is public relations. But his first love was history and when an opening came he immediately accepted it. Levi Edgar 11 Young joined the presidency of the Seventies and that left the opening at the University. JS: I guess he was not able to do much in the way of research and writing the two years he was at Weber either. VC: No, it was all public relations. Busy, busy, busy. [Laughter] JS: How did he feel about that? VC: He was a good administrator. JS: Was he a good public relations person? VC: Yes, I think so. He had a run in with Abe Glassman. I can't remember what the fuss was about but he came over and he wanted to do an article on something. I can't remember what it was. My husband wouldn't let him write it so he accused my husband of hampering the freedom of the press. If you look back at the old paper you will find there was an article in the paper about President Creer hampering with the freedom of the press. [Laughter] I think that was the only run in he had. JS: So, generally his relationships with the press were good? VC: It was very good. He was very friendly with Carl Hopkins, superintendent of the schools and a fine teacher. JS: Now did your husband try to go to the different high schools and interest them in Weber so the students would want to go to college as opposed to the U or BYU? VC: I don't remember him doing it but he may have. As I remember he was so busy coming down to the legislature getting money, the salaries were just ridiculously low. To get good teachers you've got to pay good salaries. Most of the Weber 12 faculty had their masters degrees—only one or two of them had PhD's—most were teaching there and looking forward to coming down and getting their PhD's. JS: Were there particular people on the faculty that were close to your husband? You mentioned Merlon Stevenson and Lucile Clark. VC: Lydia Tanner who was very helpful to me. So was Clarissa Hall. She was the registrar. There was Ruth Browning. Thatcher Allred was head of the drama and he put on very good plays. He was a very good man. His wife was a very good actress. She was very interested in that. JS: Was your husband interested in promoting things like theater and music on the campus? VC: Yes, they had a good band, and he thought that these things contributed to the school spirit. I know there was a movement in Chicago around that time, wasn't there, to get rid of the athletics in the college, but they found out that students would take off on tangents, if they didn't have some way to let off steam. JS: Was he interested in athletics? VC: Oh yes. When he came to the University he was offered a position on the athletic council, and served for eleven years. He went with the team, he knew every player. That was his hobby. They called him an armchair athlete. He knew baseball, and every player and all their scores and basketball too. He went to all high school games, any kind of ball game he would go to. JS: So he promoted athletics at Weber? VC: Yes. They didn't have a big powerful team, but they had a team and they played games, I guess with other junior colleges. 13 JS: He would go to the games? VC: Oh, yes he loved to go, that was his hobby. That is where he would let off steam. JS: That's interesting I didn't know that. VC: Oh yes, he went with the University team when they went out of state. He would go with them, fly with them when it was possible. JS: During those years there was a controversy on campus over whether the college should build a vocational building or whether they should build a library. My impression is that your husband believed they should build a library. VC: Oh, yes. JS: What do you remember about that incident? VC: I don't remember anything particularly about it but I know him well enough to know that he would go for the library. If they didn't have enough money for both he would choose the library. JS: Do you think he felt some frustration with that aspect that he would be trying to upgrade the scholarly while some people were trying to upgrade the technical or extra curricular? VC: Oh, I think so. There would have to be a balance there. He'd feel like they needed the athletics to let off steam. The students like it and the alumni like it; you know that. JS: Sure. VC: There was always a big alumni. Sometimes they go overboard on athletics. JS: How do you think he saw Weber in terms of the overall picture of higher education? Did he see Weber playing a role as junior to the University of Utah? 14 VC: He felt there was a place for junior colleges where students could get a two year education. Some students could go there who couldn't afford to go to Salt Lake City or away to college. But if they could go for two years, it would stimulate them to make an effort to go on. He always encouraged them to go on for higher education. JS: So he thought it was an important part of the overall educational system. VC: Yes, he thought it was a very important part of the educational system. He thought it was a good thing. JS: Did he work pretty closely with the University of Utah and Utah State (USAC) in terms of orienting students that way, or did he believe they should go out of state? VC: I can't answer that. I can't remember. I know that he would encourage them to go on to school after spending two years there. He would encourage them to go on to school. He definitely thought there was a place for junior colleges in the state. It gives more students an opportunity to get interested in college education. JS: And not only technical education but two year preparatory education. VC: Oh yes, a preparatory school for college. He worked pretty closely with the president of Snow College, Owen Horsfall. And I know they had meetings among the junior college presidents. JS: So there was close contact between the junior colleges presidents as well? VC: Yes. 15 JS: Basically until the time your husband became president, Weber was a church school. It's still overwhelmingly a Mormon school. Was there a lot of Mormon influence in the school even though it was a state institution? VC: I didn't feel there was too much conflict between church and state. I didn't feel it personally myself and I didn't hear my husband comment about it. He didn't feel the pressure of the church in trying to influence him. JS: You don't recall any pressure by them trying to orient him one way or another? VC: No, well they couldn't have anyway. JS: At the time he was president was he active in church responsibilities too? VC: No, he was too busy getting the college on its feet. He went to Sunday school, you know, when it was possible, and that's about all. JS: He wasn't involved as a bishop or anything like that? VC: Oh no, he wasn't involved in that while he was at Weber. JS: Was that a characteristic of him? VC: No, actually at the University of Washington he was the first counselor to the president of the branch up there. They asked him to serve and teach the gospel doctrine class in Washington. It was just a branch. JS: So he was an active Mormon prior to coming to Weber. Do you think that played some role in the fact that he was finally selected? VC: No, I don't think so. I think mostly it was because he had a reputation as a good professor. JS: Did he keep in touch with the school much in later years? 16 VC: For a while he did. I know that some of them came down and had social evenings with us for a while, but then he became so involved with the University those contacts died down. JS: Sure. What is it that most distinctly stands in your mind about those two years at Weber? What sort of impact did they have on you as a person, or your husband? VC: Well I think we met a lot of fine people. We enjoyed the people in Ogden, they were very friendly and cooperative and supportive of me and my husband. We felt nothing contrary to that. JS: You felt very much a part of the community? VC: Yes, we felt very much a part of it; they welcomed us and they were very friendly toward us. JS: Did you ever later regret leaving there and coming to the University? Was it easier to be a wife of a professor than a wife of a college president? VC: Oh yes, definitely. Well I had two babies and I didn't like to leave them. It's a public relations job. It was kind of a relief—I'll have to admit—to come down where I could be responsible for my social Life. JS: Did he have any hand in the selection of his successor? After he received the job offer did he just submit a resignation? How did that work? VC: Yes, he submitted his resignation as soon as he found out that he was going to be appointed in the history department of the University. But I don't remember him having any part in choosing of the new president. I imagine the board did that. JS: Was there much pressure put on him to stay on the part of the board? 17 VC: Yes, they wanted him to stay. JS: Do you mean board of education? VC: Yes, the faculty wanted him to stay too. But, my husband wanted to write history. You have to choose whether you’re going to do administrative work or do research and teach. He was a good teacher and a very good lecturer. He wasn't only a researcher. His classes were stimulating. He was a good speaker. JS: When he left, do you think he felt that it had been a successful two years—that he had accomplished some of the things he wanted to do? VC: Yes, they told him he had and they appreciated his efforts. He put Weber on its feet and got it started toward becoming a better college. JS: So he laid a foundation to build upon. VC: Yes, and that's what happened. Who followed him? JS: Henry A. Dixon. VC: He was a good president, a very good president, and he was there about ten years wasn't he? JS: Oh longer than that. VC: He was there long enough to really change things. JS: He was there from 1937 to 1953. VC: Didn't he move it up to the new campus? JS: Well it was started under his administration but really the physical move was done under Miller. VC: Oh, was it? JS: Dixon went up to be president at Logan. 18 VC: Then he became a congressman. JS: Yes, and served two terms I guess, then came back and retired. But the war had a real impact on Weber College, a large number of students training for military duty and for war production. VC: Oh, it happened to every University. The University of Utah when we came down was 3,500. During the war it jumped to 8,000 students. JS: So it more than doubled during the war? VC: More than doubled and since then it's been climbing up. It's leveled off now. I think about 22,000. JS: Well, is there anything else you think that you would like to say either about your husband’s activity or the years that you were there at Weber or have we pretty well covered it? VC: I think we've pretty well covered everything I can remember. Sorry I can't remember more, but it's been forty five years. I wish you could have had an interview with my husband. He could have given you some interesting information about Weber College. JS: Thank you Mrs. Creer.