Oral History Program Clarence Waterfall Interviewed by Kandice Harris 21 October 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Clarence Waterfall Interviewed by Kandice Harris 21 October 2021 Copyright © 2022 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: Waterfall, Clarence, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 21 October 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Clarence Waterfall Circa 1965-1970 Clarence Waterfall Circa 2021 Clarence and Margaret Waterfall Circa 2022 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Clarence Waterfall, conducted on October 21, 2021 at Clarence's home by Kandice Harris. In this interview Clarence discusses his family history in Ogden, his life, his career, his time as a student at Weber State from 1961-1964, and his time as an English professor at Weber State University from 1965-2005. KH: Hello. Today is October 21st, 2021. We are with Clarence Waterfall and Kandice Harris is conducting the interview and Marina Kenner is filming. When and where were you born? CW: My name is Clarence Malan Waterfall and I was born October 16, 1930. KH: Oh, happy birthday. CW: Yes, just last week. What's strange is my neighbor who's 94 said, “Well, what's it like to be 91?” And I said, “I'm not 91, I'm 77.” He said, “Oh, congratulations.” KH: Well you definitely don't look 91. I was very surprised to find that out. CW: For me numbers are merely digits. Sometimes significant, but otherwise it's, “How do you feel today?” KH: Would you talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background? CW: Both my fraternal and maternal grandparents were immigrants to the United States. My grandfather James M. Waterfall and his wife Harriet Sellars—both English—converted to the Church, married, and sailed in 1884 to New York City. They both had cousins living in Southern Idaho who encouraged them to join them in their farming enterprise. The Waterfall family now with a child, Alice, 2 stayed a year. However, farming the heavy alkali soil and depending on “dry farming” wheat proved unsuccessful, and both families nearly starved that year. Without money, James walked to Ogden (West Weber), found relatives who fortunately took in the young family. James sought many kinds of work to generate income: mining in Park City, renting land and farming, laborer. Sensing that a steady income was necessary to provide for his growing family, now nine children (five living to maturity), he decided to establish himself as a cobbler, a trade he had learned as a young man from an uncle in London. Riding his bicycle from West Weber to Ogden, James partnered with an established cobbler, Dan Jones, who had a shop on 24th and Grant Ave. On weekends, James returned home to his family obligations. With time, James established his own shop and moved his family to Ogden City. My father Clarence Fredrick Waterfall was born Christmas Day 1894. As a youth he split his time between the city and West Weber where he had friends and relatives. Fortunately, Clarence attended Smithsonian College, a business school where he learned accounting and business management that led him later to manage Wheelwright Construction Company—a major corporation at the time. At college, my father learned cursive writing that he perfected using the Palmer R, a rounded scripted letter rather than the common R that looked like a hiccup. When I was in the fourth grade at Madison Elementary, I was taught cursive by a patient teacher, Miss Ballard. At that time, I thought my penmanship was equal to my father’s. 3 My mother Pauline Malan’s father’s family were also immigrants. The Malan’s had lived in the Piedmont (North-eastern Italy) as members of the Waldenses. In 1854 Mormon missionaries Lorenzo Snow, Joseph Toronto, and Thomas Stenhouse baptized the John Daniel Malan (my mother’s grandfather) family of seven into the Church. The family accepted the call to join the Saints in the West, so in 1854 they sailed from Liverpool and then journeyed to Utah by wagon train. Brigham Young dispersed the Malan’s to Ogden where they settled. Unfortunately, those pioneers suffered near starvation since the crickets had consumed the valley’s vegetation for two years. However, Bartholomew (Tim) the youngest son was seven years old and seldom complained of the family’s hardships. Louisa Pool Alexander Hatch, my mother’s mother, was one of eleven children sired by Jeremiah Hatch. Louisa and Tim Malan married and determined that they would have MANY children, and just for fun they decided to name their sixteen children by the letters of the English alphabet. AB became Alexis Bartholomew, CD was Claudius Daniel. They ran through the alphabet naming XYZ (Zella) as the last alphabet child. My mother number 15 was named after a grandmother and the 16th child Benjamin died near birth. Tim and Louisa acquired acreage near 27th and Taylor Ave, built a home, planted fruit trees, built a reservoir for irrigation, and raised a family. Through a federal land grant, Tim received ownership of the mountain side east of his home now named Malan's Peak and Malan's Basin where he ran a saw mill, built a two-story hotel, and entertained visitors. He and his sons 4 scraped and blasted a road up through Taylor's Canyon to the Basin dedicating a finished road on 23 July 1892. My family, the Waterfalls, resided in what we called "the Skinny House" at 2429 Monroe Blvd since the building lot was merely 20 feet in width and 86 feet in depth. The 2-story house constructed in 1892 with four bedrooms, a dugout basement, and a new forced-air natural gas furnace meant that we could eat clean white snow during the winter rather than dig through the soot covered snow in our neighbor's lot. It was here where I spent my first ten years. To me, our family of four kids (Gerald 1921, Ruth 1924, Roger 1927, Clarence 1930), an employed father, and a stay-at-home mother seemed normal. Even my attending Madison Elementary School appeared normal, other than my first-grade old maid teacher Miss Blutcher who sometimes flustered called me Ruth or Gerald since they too had been in her class. I was a member of the "Monroe Gang," a group of kids in the neighborhood that played together. Our territory encompassed a full city block. We frequented the corner Texaco gas station manage by Shorty Ross where we gathered a variety of soft-drink soda bottle caps. The most sought-after cap was the Mt. Ogden soda bottle cap with the nearby mountain peak silhouetted on bright orange metal. The next valuable cap was the root beer, then grape, and las was the lemon-lime. Pepsi and Coca Cola were too numerous and had no value. We spent a few pennies of our weekly allowances on chewing gum packaged as "war gum." An illustrated card with the gum showed the war 5 atrocities of the Japanese army upon the Chinese populace. The standard format on one side showed a Japanese soldier thrusting his bayonet into a helpless Chinese peasant. On the flip side were scenes of further atrocities organized into six neat squares. Black and white illustrations of bombing, tank battles, beheadings, and fires. To us kids, such a war was happening in some faraway place called the Orient. The two neighborhood stores we frequented were Mortensen's and Johnny's. Mortensen's on 24th Street was a regular family grocery, but the newly constructed facade of the store--mirrored glass is what attracted us kids. We took turns standing against the corner glass reflective panels of the store swinging out our arms and legs that reflected double. Creating physical gyrations and distorted faces in the glass often occupied us during a lazy afternoon. Johnny's Confectionary on 25th and Monroe had a soda fountain where the attendant clad in a crisp white smock always performed a few dramatic tricks before dispensing soft drinks, ice cream sundaes, malts, and sandwiches. We so wanted to see the attendant fail in his routine, but alas, he was always perfect Johnny's also sold candy, nuts, and stuff like aspirin and quart bottles of milk. His magazine rack, however, attracted our youthful eyes like bees to honey. When Johnny was busy serving customers, we took pleasure in thumbing through the latest comics. Wow! It was June 1938 when we first skimmed through the pages of Superman and read of his fabulous adventures. On every Wednesday afternoon our gang watched for the dark forest-green Farr Ice Cream truck to arrive at Wheeler's house 2455 Monroe Blvd to deliver 6 ice since the Wheeler family still had an icebox rather than an electric refrigerator. The driver wearing a thick leather smock and heavy shirt delivered a forty-pound ice block that he chipped from a 100-pound iceberg in the back of his truck. The moment he lifted the heavy load and turned toward the house, the kids swarmed into the truck's huge dark box to retrieve ice chips to suck on bringing them relief from the summer's sun. Childhood diseases such as whooping cough, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and diphtheria were contagious, so kids simply stayed home and were treated by brave doctors who visited the family. To warn neighbors and visitors of the danger of these diseases, a county health worker came to the house to verify the ailment and then placed a colored card about the size of half a newspaper in the outside window or stuck it to the front door. Red was for measles, purple for scarlet fever, yellow for whooping cough. In 1940 our family moved to East Kaysville into a new house architected by Art Grix, a modernist, who created large rooms and a modern kitchen, but the furnace was coal fired just like our neighbors in Ogden. On the 22-acre lot, Dad planted 547 fruit trees and 2 acres of alfalfa. In addition, Dad bought two pigs-a sow and a boar, a dozen laying hens, a horse, and a cow. With a couple of dogs and cats, Dad suddenly had a farm. Brother Gerald had married and moved from the house. Ruth was living in Provo attending BYU; their absence Ieft Roger and me to quickly take on responsibilities to run the farm. Dad bought a Ford tractor and placed me behind the steering wheel on the morning it was delivered and proudly declared, "Son, this is your tractor. Learn it, love it, and 7 do it." His proclamation proved true during the next ten years as I tilled the soil, cut the alfalfa, raked it, and put it in the barn for the livestock. I quickly learned that Bessie, our Jersey cow, had to be milked-TWICE A DAY. That chore fortunately was shared, but on many occasions, I was milking Bessie under the dim light of a kerosene lantern at 10pm. When World War II began, I was in junior high school and became friends with a Japanese boy Shig my age in 7th grade homeroom. Ironically, one morning after the students stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance, the teacher led the class in singing several patriotic songs. I noticed that my friend Shig displayed the same patriotism as others. He was an American. No one discriminated against the Mexican kids either. Even though the demographics of Davis County changed, strangely, there were no Black kids in the school, even though thousands of new families had moved into the area to take jobs at Hill Air Force Base and the Clearfield Navy Supply Depot. During the summer of 1948 after graduating from Davis High School, I with friends Lloyd Bishop, Paul Nance, and Wesley Wicker attended a question/answer orientation introduction to college and university. At that time, only Paul knew what studies he would pursue at the university, the rest of us thought that college time was "play time." So, Paul enrolled at the University of Utah majoring in chemistry while we other three enrolled at BYU registering as students in "General Studies." After a year at BYU, I determined that I must change both my physical environment as well as my social activities. Fortunately, the University of Utah 8 accepted my transcript and I became a Ute. I pursued not only academics, but also became reacquainted with Margaret Tennant, a girl I met at a high school basketball game. We dated, but my driving the 80 miles from Kaysville to and from Sandy nearly puta halt to our dating. I was careless and received three speeding tickets that summer from the State Highway Patrol and lost my driving privileges. Besides, that hindrance, Maggie contracted to work at Yellowstone's Old Faithful Hotel for the summer. I finally approached my 20th birthday and received my mission call for a 2 ½ year stint in Switzerland. Maggie and I seriously contemplated marriage upon my return, but neither of us realized how much we might change. Regardless, with a diamond ring in my pocket I proposed and Maggie said yes. After a year at the U, Maggie found employment with United Airlines. She flew as stewardess aboard DC 3s and DC4s along the Pacific Coast and from SLC to Chicago. At that period, a stewardess must be unmarried and meet specific physical requirements. Upon my missionary return, we married. I began full-time employment with my father and brothers at Waterfall Construction Company, and we became a suburban family with four boys. After working and being responsible for so many projects during my 15 years with the Company, I simply burned out. I decided that I could finally earn a BA degree at Weber State, so at I became a 43-year-old college student. My first choice was a teaching major in history with a minor in German. But with the wave of a magician's wand, I became a follower of Dr. Leland H. Monson. He 9 enlightened me and mirrored the teacher I might become. There was a fellow in the class named Jack Steele, and he really took it upon himself to memorize a whole bunch of poetry. And I envied him because he had such a power of memorization, and I didn't. I didn't have that gift at all. So it was interesting to be put through the mill and I had a minor in German because I'd been learning German in Switzerland—German speaking Switzerland for a couple of years. And so that was interesting. While student teaching at Bonneville High School, a friend counseled me that for me to be accepted by the faculty, I must have a master's degree. After his admonition, I entered a Master's English Program at Utah State and graduated in 1965. At this time, an abundance of entering freshmen students at Weber State applied for admission. I felt fortunate to be hired as an Instructor of English along with several other applicants and began my dream. The facilities at Weber, however, were inadequate in classrooms and faculty offices to be effective teachers. For example, Freshman English 101 was taught in the Austad auditorium with well over 100 students in each class. In order to facilitate reading students' essays, townspeople were hired to critique each student's written essay. After a hectic year, the completion of additional buildings allowed normal class size. I respect Dr. Helmut Hoffman who was hired to assist in faculty development. He admonished each faculty member to set up a five-year plan and then follow it. For me, that would be I was to earn a doctorate degree. I determined that I did not want a Ph.D. but rather a degree that would aid me in 10 a broad understanding and application of educational principles. The University of Idaho had started a new program "Doctorate of Arts" that sounded right. After two semesters, however, I was told that a major portion of my final requirements was to be quizzed on my understanding of 235 selected books. After leaving Idaho, I sought out the Ed.D. program at Utah State. One professor William Strong had newly published a teaching system he named "sentence combining." I determined that I could easily add research to his treatise using freshman students at Weber State as my control group. Over a period of time, I was able to study and calculate the findings of these students that I developed into my doctoral thesis. In 1963, Weber College was often thought of as an extension of Ogden High School and called "Harrison High." Since the college campus consisted of only three brick one-story buildings, one two-story building, and a wooden one-story building called "The TUB" (temporary union building), the campus was under question by the townsfolk as to whether the junior college would mature. I recall while studying in the library-the second floor of building #4-a woman's voice over the loud speaker announced, "Today's women's PE classes are cancelled because Mrs. Westmoreland is ill." At that time three women constituted the entire women's PE teaching staff. In 1965 the newly completed Fine Art Building basement offered sanctuary. In the "green room" I shared space with five other instructors. Any storage area in the building became an office: the cloakroom housed two, the ticket office two, and several mechanical rooms also housed instructors. Space 11 was at a premium until the Social Science classroom building was completed. The "old timers" in the English Department were the center of attention for newcomers. Cluster Nielson, a veteran of 25 years at Weber, became a mentor for several while Woodfield, Green, Erickson, and Grove served as backup. The 35 members of the English Department spurred on by the veterans enjoyed Thanksgiving feasts and birthday parties where we leisurely ate and conversed. Most of us felt camaraderie and a unity of purpose within the department knowing that others cared. After the Student Union Building was completed, each Thursday at 11:30 in the large room members of the social committee sponsored a "noontime tribute" assembly. They were fun. Students, faculty, and other talented people did their best to entertain the appreciative students and visitors with music, dance, magic, and jokes. Further entertainment was shared by members of clubs, sororities, fraternities, and groups of friends who competed for the "Best of Show" award with their 15-minute skits. Some students exhibited pure talent and harmony, while others merely amused. In addition to student-sponsored events, Weber's music department cast well-known Broadway musicals. For example, who can forget Dean Hurst authentically playing the role of Harold Hill in "The Music Man"? Many national touring groups brought "Carmen", "Man of la Mancha", "Evita" and other musicals to the college stage. After my advancement to professor, I took on the responsibility of student­teaching advisor for the English Department since my major was curriculum and supervision. Each week I visited English teaching-major students in their 12 classrooms. I enjoyed this opportunity to share and propose changes in their instruction methodology. So after 40 years, I decided I've got to do something else. And what really prompted me to stay a few years was, I think it was 2008, the stock market took a crash, just overnight, and 40 percent of my retirement was gone, just overnight. There's no reason because it was political, and there were some financial problems that were not solved by the feds of that problem. And I thought, “How are we going to get that much money back now so I can retire and have at least a decent retirement?” And so I said, “Well, I guess back to the slave market.” So that propelled me to stay on until I was 75. And I thought these poor students. Every once in a while, somebody come and say, “Hey, your hair's getting gray, when are you going to quit?” And I laughed and say, “Well, when you can pay for my retirement.” That's good. I still enjoyed what I was doing with it and suddenly became, you know, just a job rather than the incentive to make changes in the world. I was a little disappointed in myself in allowing that to occur. But, you know, I just got tired and I made my mind up. I had an office in what's called Lindquist building now, I guess it is. But it was on the top floor, and I said to myself, when I have to take the elevator instead of walk up and down the stairs, then it's time to go. That's a good marker. And so one day I stopped myself on the stairs and said, I don't need this. And so that is pretty much my life at Weber State University. So I saw the change. It was called Weber College, Weber State College, and then Weber State University, I guess that's what it was. So we started at 13 Weber College. Some cohorts, they were priceless. There was one, and his name was Cluster Nielsen and the first day of class he would go into meet his class and carry a wastebasket with it that he had in his office. And he tells the students, “Now, I'm going to teach you how to write effectively and you're going to be competent and you're going to be satisfied with what you're doing. Or I'll put them in this wastebasket.” I asked, “Was that effective?” He said, “It got the attention of the class. They knew they were here for a purpose other than just to attend classes.” Oh, there was one other, in looking through the Weber Academy books, there was an instructor there, and his name was William Z. Terry. And he was an instructor at Weber Academy. And during the war, 1942-1945, during those four years, there weren’t any young men around the period as they were in the army, but they pulled him out of retirement to take on, as I recall, mathematics. And we thought, “Boy, here's a man that, you know, he should have died ten years ago, and now he is ancient and that they had to have somebody in the school for him to deal with that particular curriculum.” And so here was this ancient man walking around campus. I always thought about him. But Weber has always been, seems to me, dealing with issues that are current and worthwhile. I’ve been delighted that the Board of Regents finally allowed a master's in English and nursing and several other disciplines, and now they have a doctorate in health medicine? KH: It’s nursing. CW: I think that that is great because at the onset, Utah State was very adamant about not allowing Weber to have any graduate classes. And then the University 14 of Utah chipped in and said, “You're not at the university, so you can't have any of these graduate classes.” So that was a real breakthrough to finally get that done—to be treated like a university. KH: Yup. CW: Which you are. KH: So what was Weber like as a student? CW: As a student? I had an attitude. I really had an attitude. I felt that educators were lazy and they were not caring. And this is from, you know, being a student all these years. And many of them were ignorant. They just didn't know what was going on, and they lived in a little curriculum and then always need to have a job in the summer because they didn't have enough pay. And with the construction business where you had a lot of school teachers would come work this summer. So I had a foul attitude about the work of teachers. And when I was a student, there were a couple of teachers, professors, who were just overwhelming. I mean, it was all seemingly a putdown, you know? And I felt inferior because I hadn't been a student for so many years. And so I don't think I contributed too much. And I always had this kind of a barrier. And then these classes from Claire Johnson, in German. That was before there was a foreign language program, but he had been a missionary in Germany some years previously. So he was teaching German classes and that was helpful for me. Then there was a woman Inga Adams who was German and she married Ken Adams, and she was a delightful person and helping me with German. So I 15 had a German history minor and an English major, but I got along with students very well. And oft times served because of my age and experience and expertise in life, they would ask me, “So what did you do under these circumstances?” Yeah. Oft times they were personal. It happened in advance with another person, so I became sort of the granddaddy for them. And so I thought I was doing the right thing. But I enjoyed the classes. Finally, when I realized that I needed to regulate myself and think about the moment, rather than, "what if?" And I remember in an education class. I don't recall the fellow’s teaching, but he was talking about classroom discipline and classroom etiquette and such. And so I just casually said, “Well, how do you handle situation when a kid stands up, runs through the door, and vomits all over the door handle?” He looked at me like that was the craziest question he's ever heard. And I said, “Well, what do you do in that kind of a circumstance?” He said, “I never thought of it.” I said, “Well, what do you do?” He said, "I don't know, you call the janitor." I said, "How do you handle the doorknob?" He said "I never thought about that" So, the theoretical and then the, you know, the practical, the real world, are sometimes quite different. But I finally realized that, “Hey, these guys are doing the best they can, and I need to humble myself to the point that I can say, ‘Yes, sir, that's the way it is.’” So I was able to change my attitude substantially. And it was good. 16 KH: So were you working the entire time you were going to school for that year and a half at Weber? CW: Yes. KH: Did you get the opportunity to go to any events on campus? CW: Yes, we got to go to football and basketball. Basketball was held in the Swenson gym just before that, and there was also an event that was Robert Kennedy stopped there and gave his political spiel on his way to California, where he was killed. And that was interesting just thinking back on that. And since Maggie was in the PE department, we always had the best seats right on the floor itself. So it was fascinating to see the basketball and wrestling. Wrestling was a great sport at that time, too. And those were just favorites to see. My being Maggie's husband meant that I was included with her in the many PE parties. The steak cookout was Dr. Swenson's favorite: marinated flank steak slowly cooked with lots of love. The faculty tended to support each other and had a good time. One event, however, stays in my mind. On 26 March 1968, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy visited Weber State to deliver a political speech. Nearly 7500 students and townsfolk crammed into the Swenson Gym to hear his campaign speech that proved to be less than an hour. Amid cheers and applause Kennedy appealed for a change in foreign policy and peaceful demonstration in the United States. On 6 June, Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. 17 KH: You mentioned some of the professors like Leland Monson and Cluster Nielsen, were there any other professors that really stuck out to you as a student? CW: Yes, I took a class from… he was in the history department and we were taking a class on American history. He came in with the newspaper, and read the newspaper to us. I thought what in the crud is going on here? This doesn't have anything to do with American history. And then he just magically turned what he had read to us, the current event, into some historical context. I thought this guy is smarter than the rest. But that quite amazed me. That kind of the technique is come in every couple of articles from the newspaper current, that happened in Ogden or wherever, and then manipulate that into some historical fact. I appreciated that technique. And let's see. Oh, there was a Gerry Grove in the English department. I liked him because he was an aviator during World War II, at the end of World War II. So he was a flier. And so he told some wild stories about being on an aircraft carrier or something. And my brother had been on an aircraft carrier, so I had some affinity with him there. And before he got an education, he was a welder in Kansas. And I'd done a lot of welding myself and seen a great deal of it done in pipelines and such. And so we talked a lot about welding and such. One day I was complaining about the weather and he said, "You don't have any weather in Utah, you oughta go to Kansas". I said, "Well, what happens in Kansas?" And he said, "If you don't get your car in the garage when a hailstorm comes, your car is ruined. You've got all these big dents all over the hood, breaks the windshield and such.” 18 I said, "You've got to be kidding". And so one day, he brought pictures of hail that was as big as your fist. And he said, “Yeah, that stuff just thunders down and ruins your car.” He said, “Many people, just have to drive your car with all these bumps, replacement glass.” But he was a good guy. KH: Would you talk about your wife's career at Weber? CW: A year after the death of our youngest son David in 1960, my wife Margaret Tennant decided to finish the requirements for her BS degree in dance at the University of Utah. Within the year she finished, graduated, and began a search for her teaching skills. Substitute teaching was not the answer. She hated playing that role, but in her search, she made a friend with Carol Westmoreland, a PE instructor at Weber. Carol's responsibilities included all women's activities. The remainder of the PE program was shared with two older women. Carol stated that she was overwhelmed with teaching and supervising women's activities, so she asked Margaret to help her with her schedule. Dr. Reed Swenson was the PE chairman and open to Margaret's suggestion that she teach the dance classes offered by the department for the year at no salary. The following year Dr. Swenson hired Margaret as a PE instructor with a salary of $4300. Maggie remained teaching for the next 30 years with a change in the PE nomenclature. The change to Health-Physical Education-Recreation- Dance (HPERD) made dance a distinct selection to the college program. In addition to her teaching, Maggie supervised the Weber Colleens-a girl's 19 group who frequently traveled and added cheers to the men's athletic teams. Lack of travel funds for the football and basketball teams demanded travel by bus or local airlines. Because Maggie had worked two years for United Airlines-as stewardess, she volunteered to do the same for Weber's teams when flying on Edde Brothers aircraft. The Brothers owned two DC 3's capacity 24 passengers each and one Lockheed Constellation capacity 74. A single emergency occurred on a DC 3 flight to Los Angeles when a wheel would not extend, but the soft landing assured no damage to the aircraft. When travel funding finally came available, the teams travelled commercially. Sadly, both Edde brothers were flying their DC-3 with thirteen BYU boosters to Arizona when the aircraft crashed into the mountains near the SLC airport killing all aboard. In order for Maggie to advance to associate professor, she needed to earn a master's degree. The U of U was a perfect match. She sailed through curriculum and dance reviews and began her 290-page thesis: "A History of Dance at The University of Utah (1906 to 1968)." At that time a candidate for a master's degree must pass a language requirement. Most students chose Spanish, French, or German. Maggie chose German, took special German classes designed for master's candidates, but unfortunately nothing clicked. After several attempts, Maggie determined that the graduate program was a failure. Much to the dismay of the department chair Dr. Elizabeth Hayes, she shifted Maggie from a MS degree to that of an MFA and saved the six months of Maggie's thesis research. 20 At Weber State there were only two teachers it seems to be in the PE department. One was a woman named Carol Westmoreland. There could have been a third one, but it was limited. So they did all the women’s basketball, swimming, whatever it was involved there, but they didn’t have anyone to teach dance. And dance was Margaret’s major. So that was going to be an alternative program for the football players because they had to have a PE class at the time. I guess that’s been dropped, hasn’t it? KH: I don't know, but probably. CW: The football players had to have something that was out of their department, and so they would sign up for dance. And it got to the point where she said, “You know, these guys, they don't have any rhythm at all. And it's a holding class.” They registered for and negotiated the grade and got out of there. So she said, “Well, let's do some fun things.” So she introduced folk dancing, square dancing, western dancing. Oh, five or six other kinds of dancing to entice and give some outlet for these football players, the athletes, so they can participate and feel that they were doing something. But what brought this on is she made friends with Carol Westmoreland, who had been there for probably three or four years prior to Maggie, in 1962. So Maggie said to Carol, “Can you get me an appointment with Reed Swenson?” He is the head of the department of the department. So Maggie talked to Reed and said, “I've got my degree in dance, and I'd like to supplement your faculty for a year at no cost to you." He said, "Great!" So she started out down at the old gymnasium on 25th Street and her classes were held down there. There were social dances and other events programs. So she worked 21 there until the gymnasium was built on campus. And then the next year, Reed said, “Well, we'd better put her on pay roll and make you a faculty member.” So she started there, and then she introduced yoga, which was a very popular class. And rape awareness for women, because at that time, there wasn't anything that was being taught in the schools at all about women and the crisis of rape. And so she taught that one and introduced that one and stress management, was another one. And so we went to several conventions and conferences and such to see what's going on nationally and also internationally. So we went to India and spent some time there with the yogis. So that was something else. And then we spent some time in Florida at the University of Florida because they were forward in the nation in teaching rape awareness in college, which is to be taught in junior high school, you know, in reality. But no one was even touching that subject at that time. And then she was also given the responsibility of taking care of the Colleens, the dance group for cheerleaders. It was a dance performance at basketball and football games and such. And so we took some of the cheerleaders to California when they were doing a program there. Oh, a sideline to this is with Maggie being a stewardess. At that time football teams were flown to Hawaii specifically. And that was a big, big plane. It was called a Lockheed something. There was another plane that was a DC3, which held about 24 passengers. And they had contracted with the Eddy Brothers in Salt Lake, they had several airplanes, and they would hire out to fly the team. Maggie, with her flying experience, went with the football teams and she served as stewardess. So 22 the school is getting their money's worth, otherwise they would hire a woman to do that. And so we had some experiences with that. She had one experience with flying to California, and they needed to stop the plane at Las Vegas to fuel up. And they were ready to land and one of the landing gears wouldn't come down on this DC3 in the air. The Eddy brothers, there were two of the brothers - one was the copilot and the other pilot - were very concerned about it because they had to land but they had one landing gear down. So they called the control tower, and they said “We'll be ready with the fire department and such because you're going to crash if that's going to happen.” They landed and somehow or another they were able to trap down the right landing gear, and it did hold until they came to a stop and then it collapsed. So that saved everybody a crash because it would definitely have been a crash. She has some similar experiences like that. Those were interesting. I flew with them on a couple of flights with the basketball team to Montana and Idaho, I guess it was. So that's what she did, and she developed this curriculum for women and also did a lot of workshops, but she had a class for elementary school teachers to deal with dance or something like that, and activities for entire elementary school, she was involved with that as well. Maggie and I loved to travel, so we set up a system of making loans from the Weber College Credit Union to pay for our escapades. Blain Hartog, a faculty member in automotives, was the single employee of the Credit Union. He made loans and kept all of the paper work in his office 4-drawer metal filing cabinet. "Where do we sign?" became the talk at the time and Blain understood. 23 So Maggie worked there for 30 years, and she said that's enough. But the school had diversified. By that time, they had taken the dance program out of the physical education department and put it in the drama department. So they eliminated all of the dance and then the health department came forth and took on some of the other classes. So she said, “It's time.” KH: How did the English department change throughout your career at Weber? CW: Mostly in numbers, as I mentioned earlier during those first couple of years when there was such an increase in student bodies you were teaching and being involved with students in the hallway to just get through a program so that it had some exposure to freshman composition. To be 150-200 students in the auditorium, and I’d lecture there from the stage, and discussed how whatever could be done. So that was really a hardship on the students particularly. But it was resolved, I think, within three years and you had other buildings that were available for classroom activities. And then suddenly the English faculty became large, and I didn't know the names of who was what, what their specialty was and who cared. And that was awful. That was an awful experience because the intimacy of the fellowship or sistership or whatever, it just diminished. And so it was every man for himself. And that was that was too bad. We had committees and the committees didn't have any power. So we just met in committees, and blah blah blah, and nothing came of it. And it was just sort of the keep busy. That was too bad. So as far as the human relationships, concerned it diminished very quickly. I took a sabbatical to complete my doctorate in 1976 and upon my return 24 to the campus, I found the teaching faculty in the English Department had enlarged with specific literary topics now being taught by experts. An attitude of self-improvement became paramount and the intimacy and fellowship of earlier years had slipped away. Committee work became meaningless. Five or six of us would meet often with an agenda that repeated itself: "What can I do to enhance my career? What can I do to reduce my teaching load?" KH: What types of committees did you serve on? CW: Anything to deal with secondary education. So I was the sole supervisor from the English department to go out to the schools and observe the student teachers. I represented the English department in the School of Education. So all of their meetings that involved teachers, I was involved with that one. There were a lot of politics in who did what on a campus-wide basis. I personally wasn't interested in feathering my nest. KH: Okay, were you a part of any professional organizations? CW: I held membership in the Modern Language Association, Mormon Letters, and National council of Teachers whose annual conferences added dimensions to my teaching abilities. I presented theories of grading student papers at several seminars as well with secondary teachers in Ogden and Davis counties. I also conducted a survey with 200 teachers recording their techniques in grading student essays. Using the research of my dissertation, I personalized my advice to secondary faculty. Locally, I wrote a byline for the Ogden Standard Examiner for 12 weeks for young-adult readers. This opportunity kept me abreast of 25 current literary topics and young-adult interests. KH: What did a typical semester look like for you? CW: The value of a class syllabus carne to my attention early. Four blind students registered for my Introduction to Literature class told me that reading was no big deal because the editors and publishers of books used in class would be read and recorded and be available for the challenged student in the college's learning center. Similarly, the deaf students had the same treatment from editors and publishers. In addition, often two or three sign-language interpreters assisted the students while in class. During my graduate school classes, a pertinent issue of the moment was that of teaching values though literature and through social interaction. Much discussion centered on the personal bias a person might have derived from nationality, culture, religion, family, skin color, economics, tradition, and language. We considered the values spectrum ranging from altruism to psychosis. In my Young Adult literature class, junior and senior grade students attended, so a meaningful discussion of values would validate my syllabus. We talked about linguistics and semantics-how the use of words came into common usage. l wrote the F-word on the chalkboard and asked the class to interpret the word. Absolute silence. We then discussed the historical use of words, their etymology, current meanings, and changes to acceptable euphemisms. One book l recommended 26 Freddy's Book takes the reader through several stages of the F-word's use and meaning. The following day, I am called by the department chair to explain two mothers' phone calls with complaints about the smut that I have been teaching. KH: What are some of your favorite memories at Weber State University? CW: As a student or as a teacher? KH: Either or both. CW: As a student, I was working as much as I could, so I had no affiliation with any student groups. It was just a matter of getting through and earning my bachelor's, but attended the football and basketball and wrestling. Those were normal programs at that time, and so we would do that. So we never miss for a number of years. Those three sports then wrestling was dropped and basketball and then the building of the Dee Event Center that really enthused the entire community. If you didn't buy a ticket for a season, you just didn't get in in those early years. The students I associate with in class, they were now dating and such, so we just didn't have anything in common. KH: Did you attend any of the festivities when Weber transitioned from a junior college to a four-year university? CW: I don't remember. Other than just the name change, I don't think it impressed me at that time KH: Did you participate at all with the 2002 Winter Olympics? 27 CW: Yes. And that was interesting. The Olympic Curling was held in the ice sheet, which is just west of our home. And so we had two Norwegian girls who stayed here, I think, three or four days with us. And school was pretty much shut down as far as classwork was concerned because of the need for sponsors and the go-fers and drivers and everything else. So that was a great experience and the community supported it so well that I believe the athletes and the whole Olympic Program were impressed with what was going on. And then the student housing on 46th street that was built prior to the Olympics for the Olympians. And so that was a boon to the college as well. KH: You mentioned that you've written several articles, what were your topics for your articles? CW: One was the one that I relished. The best was, oh, it was a review of a book, a young adult book that could be pushed down into the fifth, sixth or seventh grade. But I made an issue of this, in my adolescent literature class is to how to deal with some topics that are new for a student. And so this book dealt with the F-word, and I recall so distinctly so I wrote in this class when I was introducing this book because I thought it was important. So I wrote the F-word on the board and said, “This is what we're talking about today is how do you deal with values in literature and what age might values be instilled in and a student, rather than just sense that all of their answers are going to be taken care of in the classroom?” And so this was an excellent example of semantics at this book and also linguistics. So here's this little boy who goes into the bathroom and he sees the F-word on the wall. It's the first time he's ever seen the word. He doesn't know 28 how it sounded or what it means. So he asks his buddy, same age, “What does that mean?” He says, “Oh, everybody knows about that.” And that was all he ever got from his peer group. And so he went home and apparently the household was wealthy and there was a housekeeper. And so he said, “I've got a new word for you.” So he spit it out the best he could. And the housekeeper just laughed at him and said, “Oh, you better talk to your mother.” So he went to his mother and mother said, “Oh, where did you learn that?” He reiterated the story that related to what he saw on the bathroom wall. And she said, “Oh, you've got to talk to your father about this.” Well, the father came home and he said, “You've got a problem.” And he said, “Yes, come into the front room and we'll talk about it.” On the way to the front room, he has an older sister. And so he tries the word on her and she just runs to her room and slams the door. So dad gets out the encyclopedia and gives the whole spiel on sexuality. And the poor kid, he’s just inundated with all of this knowledge, and all of this information and he still doesn't get it. The father doesn't get around the F-word. And so the poor kid is bewildered, so he gets back to school and he talks to his buddies. And he said, “Nobody knows what this word means.” And one of the guys said, “Well, my older brother's in school. He's a couple of years older than I am. Maybe he knows what the word means.” So the kid goes to the older brother and says, “What does the word mean?” And then the big brother spills the beans what the f word means. Now the process of this is just wonderful because we're initially exposed to something semantically and linguistically that we don't understand. Then we go 29 through a whole process before we finally get to the meaning of something and how it is used. And so that was a good lecture and discussion. And of course, the next day, the department head called me and said there have been two women who have been calling me frantically telling about this smut you're talking about, in your literature class. So I went through the whole process and these students were going to be schoolteachers. I said, “You've got to deal with values, its values as a part of our culture of literature, religion, everyday life and so forth. You've got to deal with these issues. So how are you going to do it?” So it was a wonderful experience for me, but it was really alarming to these two students and their mothers. There was another strange experience. There was an anthology that we had of literature anthology. And one of the stories in it was "Menstruating in my science class." That was the title I remember. And you know, so this girl has a period and it starts in her science class. And so she reacts to it, not only physically, but sociologically within her, her family and other students and such. And I thought, “Oh, that's interesting to have that kind of a topic.” Well, when school started, I didn't put it in my syllabus because I knew it was going to happen. But within a week there were, oh, I don't know how many phone calls to the department head and the dean, that went up to the president about all of this. These things were dealing with sexuality and in a literature class, it shouldn't be taught. So the department head was smart enough to drop the book and bring another book, and it didn't have that short story. And I thought, “Oh, well, I think that's one of the reasons you go to college is to, you know, be exposed to 30 different ideas rather than what mommy and daddy say all the time.” And but, you know, it's alarmed several students, apparently. So those were just some curious events that transpired. KH: You mentioned Cluster Nielson as a mentor. Did you have any other mentors while you were at Weber? CW: I enjoyed Gerald Grove at the English Department chair. He was kind, understanding and often told World War II stories of his flying a Corsair fighter in the Pacific Theater. Gerry frequently wore his Air Force bomber’s leather jacket with patches on front and back. One morning he showed up carrying a .45 automatic pistol. I queried, “What’s that all about?” He replied unemotionally, “I’ve got faculty I to impress today.” I replied, “Gerry, you wouldn’t?” With a big grin and speaking through his teeth he quietly muttered, “I wouldn’t, but I’d sure like to.” KH: What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? CW: Just my own pat on the back. I have endurance. All those travels to Pocatello, particularly, and to Logan. I got tickets driving up Logan Canyon. I only had one class and it was the very important class. And so I was tooling up through Logan Canyon and they pulled me over. I told him that it was very important that I get to my class because I had 30 minutes. I had to be at this class. He said, “Let me look at your license.” So he looked at my license. He said, “Oh, you're not one of us.” I said, “What do you mean? Not one of you?” And he said, “You don't live in this area.” You know, I live in Ogden, a student at Utah State, and I drive up 31 every day of school. He said, “Oh, well, I'm placing you under arrest.” So he took my license and said, “Follow me” and I said, “Aren't you going to handcuff me?" And he said, "Well, you wouldn't be able to drive the car that way. So you follow me, but I got your license." And so he took me to the police station and hummed and hawed. The judge who was there, said, “Well, you've got to pay the fine. It's $80.” And I fortunately had $80 and I said, “Well, what if I didn't have the money?” He said, “Well, I just put you in jail overnight and you'd have to have someone come in." And I thought, "You rascal, why would you be this harsh?" Well, the irony of this is at that time, I was teaching a class called, Police Report Writing, and I'd done workshops in Camera, Wyoming and Utah State Prison, West Valley, Weber County Sheriff's Department and one in Logan at the police department. And so ironic that I'd been to all of these places dealing with police officers and this little bum, you know, insists to arrest me if I that, yeah, it's good for you. That's certainly an inconvenience. KH: How have you become a mentor to others in your field? CW: In my field, I sense that there were many of our structures and professors who really didn't understand what the procedure is and the avenues that a potential teacher in second education is going through and what that person faces in the classroom every day. And so I tried to instruct them, or at least have them be sympathetic to these people who are going into this kind of a profession rather than just think of them as a student. That they can enrich their classes by thinking, what is the take away from my class for these students who are going to be teaching? I thought that was very important. 32 KH: What advice would you give to students starting in your field? CW: The advice would I give to someone interested in teaching? Teaching is not subtle nor for winning points. It's hard work, and you must not have only Plan A for the students but also Plan B, C, D, and E. You can get a better paying job working at a bank or retail store without carrying the burden of "if only I..." My teaching at Weber has been a disappointment with my salary, but the benefits have been generous. I met with Vice President Dello Dayton who responsibility was maintaining the faculty and staff at the college. I told him of my concern that my low salary of $5400 just wasn’t enough. Dr. Dayton then gave me a lesson in economics: “Well, Clarence, this institution is just like every business. It’s supply and demand, and there are too many English teachers and not enough business teachers. And that’s why we have to pay them more. I can’t help you at all.” Only recently have Utah State employees’ salaries been available for public view. I saw Gordon Allred’s salary (English Dept.) and compared it to his son Tony’s, my neighbor, who teaches business. Tony’s salary was nearly double his father’s, and Gordon had been a faculty member for 30 years. In fun I asked Tony if he knew his father’s income? He casually replied, “Well no” he chuckled, “but that’s what the old man deserves. KH: Okay. CW: Now, interestingly enough, maybe I shouldn't tell this, but it's fun I think. When I was a student, I took a class with Gordon Allred, and he was just the nicest, humble, helpful individual that I had met and he was the same age as I. And he was Thatcher Allred's son. That's Thatcher and Pearl Allred's son. And who had 33 both taught at Weber College. Okay, so for years at Weber State everybody's salary was secret, secret, couldn't find out about anybody. So there's no comparative of who's doing what or how much more are you getting or how many teaching hours are you in view of this. Well, finally somebody, I guess, was with the Tribune or otherwise got the Board of Regents to release the salaries of all of the city employees. So one day I was looking up Gordon Allred and I saw what he was making. And in our neighborhood is his son. It's his son, and he teaches in the business department, and Gordon had been teaching for 30 years and his son, in the business department had been teaching only for a couple of years. So I saw the son, at church, one time. I said, “I just saw the disparity between your salary and your father who's been teaching here for 30 years.” And he laughed and said, “Well, that's what the old man deserves.” I said, “Oh, you sucker. You’ve just been on the payroll for a couple of years and you're making twice as much than your dad who's been here.” He's had 10 kids and he and his wife, Sharon, they had 10 kids, and then they sponsored several Korean kids and other homeless kids in their house. And when Gordon was ready to retire, I said, “What are you going to do? You going to travel now?” And he said, “Oh no, I get to put my money in my house.” And I said, “Well, you've got this little house. I think they're are just four or six bedrooms in the house, small.” He said, “Oh, I'm going to put air conditioning in the house.” KH: Oh, that's a good way to spend your money. CW: I'm like good for you. But they are nice people. Gordy Allred. 34 KH: So I know that you attended Weber State and your mom did and some of your aunts, did any of your other family? Is it a family tradition to go to Weber? CW: Three of my mother's Malan sisters attended Weber Academy in the 1910's. My wife Maggie and my two brothers graduated from the U of Utah while I graduated from Weber State College in1964-the first year of a 4-year curriculum. My three sons also graduated from Weber with a BS degree. Scott then earned his law degree at BYU, Brian earned his MD at the U of U, and Michael is waiting for his ship to come in. KH: Did any of your siblings go to Weber State? CW: I had a brother, Roger, who went Weber State. This was after the war. So he went there in 1945, I guess was ‘46. Then went to the field to finish up for a bachelor’s degree. And then he finished an MFA at Utah State the same time I did. So I think at that time, even talking to my dad, he never mentioned school other than this Smithson College that he went to this business school that was held in Ogden. And I don't know the details of that, but he did learn to write. He had good penmanship. He learned calligraphy. KH: Any of your children go to Weber? CW: Yes. The three boys all graduated from Weber. The oldest, then went to BYU for his law degree, and he practiced law for a number of years and then was a judge for South Ogden City, and then Roy, and then retired from that. And the second son, Brian, finished here at Weber. In President Bishop's introduction to the entire faculty and staff crowded 35 into the Fine Art auditorium, Bishop mentioned that after he had been accepted by Weber's Board of Regents to be the president, he wrote in the flyleaf of his Book of Mormon, "I've been divinely called." I sat next to Merrill May, a professor of psychology, who muttered to me, "Oh no! We’ve got an admitted nut far president." Well, within two years, there was a house that the president lived up on and his kids were having a birthday party and apparently they had candles that you blow out and they reignite. Have you heard of those kind of things? Well, apparently that sort of happened and started the house on fire and burn it down. It was just strange in that respect. And I never saw him as a personable president or administrator. He was just sort of there. For more than a decade, Weber State students with high grades wishing to enter the University of Utah’s medical school were competitive with other contestants. But after Weber’s president Joseph Bishop bragged to the public press that Weber’s candidates are always accepted, no Weber applicant was accepted that following year. Several deserving Weber candidates were disappointed by President Bishop’s remarks. A businessman, Rodney Brady, during his introduction to faculty and staff, stressed his ideal that we at Weber State by setting positive goals and then following through, our goals then naturally become action. He then with enthusiasm shouted, "We must 'up our goals' and become better people." Brady became our cheerleader for improvement and personally distributed cards describing his 10 STEPS TO SUCCESS. And I saw him downtown buying a suit one time where I was purchasing a suit also. It was a blue suit. And I asked him 36 about his suit because I see him in anything but a blue suit. So he said, "Oh yeah, I've simplified my life. Red tie, blue suit, white shirt, black socks, black pants." I said, "Well, that's fine, but don't get tired of that?" And he says, "No, it eliminates my whole problem in the morning of what I’m going to wear". I said, "Well, this is a uniform.” He said "Yeah, but I don't have to think about what I’m wearing it. And I just go bang, bang, bang, and I’m off." If it's dirty put it out. And that was curious. There was one, the other is I have to tell you about Rodney Brady. He had this mindset that in essence, if you set your goal, you could achieve it. Whatever the goal would be, it didn't matter. But you set your goal and you can work your way to achieve that goal. Well, he was talking this kind of business sense. In fact, I mean it. And he said irregardless of. And my wife, Maggie, she spit whatever it was on language usage. And she said to me, “There's no word irregardless.” And I said, “No, I know there is an ‘irregardless’ because there's a guy in our ward who would use irregardless. And we corrected him 50 times.” and then he would just spite us by saying, Come up and say, "Hey Waterfall, irregardless of your stature" So, Maggie, send a memo to President Rodney Brady mentioning that it irregardless is not a word. The word is regardless. And he fired back a little while later with a dictum and saying, in present usage, ‘irregardless’ is not used, but it has been used in the past and so forth. So I am on a very defensive board rather than thank you for bringing this up to be not such. But Maggie and I used to laugh about that irregardless. 37 KH: You've kind of talked about two presidents, would you talk a little bit about the other presidents that you worked under? So what are your memories of Miller? CW: Our the first president was Miller. Dates way back to him when the new campus was being built. The governor was J. Bracken Lee, and the people politics from Ogden certainly wanted to have a new campus, because the one on Jefferson with the plan, and they had a swimming pool, gymnasium, to fix up. So Miller, now it seemed to me Miller came out as a principal of a high school. Because Maggie's PE office was in the Swenson Gym, she had a key to the building. One dull Saturday afternoon, I suggested to her that we could test out in the college's swimming pool a 12-foot fiberglass canoe we had just constructed. She agreed; we loaded our three kids, the canoe, and our dog into the truck and drove to the gym. At this time of the year, a Saturday meant a total lockdown for buildings. Maggie unlocked the door, and we walked to the near Olympic-sized pool, tested the canoe, swam, and even our dog Scruff enjoyed her swim. I was sitting on the pool's edge dangling my feet in the water when I heard the south door open and muffled voice proclaim, "Oh, it's you." President Miller then turned around and walked away not waiting for a reply. And I guess he's seen a car parked in the parking lot and, you know, wanted to know what was going on at the school. And I’ll never forget that moment, he just sort of stood there and looked around and walked out. That was the end of it, you know. And so I asked Maggie later whether Swenson had been alerted to bringing dogs, and kids, canoes into the swimming pool. She said, “No, it was never mentioned.” And I thought, “Now that's a good.” I don't remember who came after him. KH: It was Bishop. 38 CW: Oh, Bishop, and I've discussed him. And then, I guess Brady came after that. [To Kandice] Who is after Brady? KH: Nadauld. CW: This president brought peace to the academic factions at Weber. He personally visited faculty in their classes and listened. He often stood in line with others in the Skyroom waiting for his turn to be served lunch. l believe our knowing that while a student at Harvard, he was a member of the East Coast Championship rugby team also made points with the faculty. Do you want a side story with Nadauld? KH: Yes. CW: He left the university. He was called by the church, I don't know whether to be a member of the seventy or whatever it was, but he had jurisdiction over the missions in Europe at that time. That was his responsibility. Well, we had some neighbors, Deon Greer and Julie Rich, and they were called on a mission to go to France and Geneva. In their calling was to work with international groups such as the Red Cross, or the UN, or UNICEF or whatever, because those were headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. So they spent a year or two over there. Well, at that time, The Dead Sea Scrolls were on loan and they were going around the world and such. And Deon Greer said, “Well, you know, maybe we can get them here so the local folks can see them and we get some press time for these Dead Sea Scrolls, they're unique.” And so they tried to work through some channels there in Geneva to get these, and nothing was moving. So Deon Greer called Naduald, because he was a professor of geography. And Julie, I 39 guess she is dean now. And so he called Nadauld because, you know, these are a classic. Nadauld said, "Oh, I'll see what I can do." So he got in touch with somebody. I don’t know who he got in touch with. So they got the Dead Sea scrolls into Geneva for a week or so, and they got a lot of press and a lot of visitors and such. So it was a real success story. . And it was based because they don't have the authority or the juice or whatever you call it to bring that to pass. So that was an interesting sidelight. [To Kandice] Then after Nadauld is? KH: Thompson. CW: Paul H. Thompson a local boy who made good. Born and reared in Warren,a small farming town west of Ogden, though educational endeavors at Harvard and serving at BYU as vice president, he was readily accepted by Weber's staff and faculty. A regular visitor to the State Legislature for funding and increasing graduate-level classes made him very much appreciated. And the first thing I noticed about Paul, was his handwriting. You know, it looks like a five year old 10 year olds handwriting. And you know, that bothered me. And then, I was listening to Channel 11 one time, and here is a broadcast of, I don't know, sort of the devotionals. There's Paul Thompson sitting on the rostrum, you know, right there. And so I thought, “Where does this guy come from?” So I looked up some stuff and he’d been to Harvard and been the vice president at BYU. And you know, he had all the documentation and his wife was just the sweetest woman in the world. He lived in the neighborhood and in the house the school had bought since the Bishop burnout person. And so he lived up here, in the same ward as we did. So he was in priesthood meeting, and I would often give 40 the lesson, and there was Paul Thompson, President of the University, and Dello Dayton. I thought, “I don't know how I feel about this.” So I really tried to stick to the lesson and stayed away from personal responses. Paul had his daughters, they were talented. I don't remember if he had any boys at all. I think they're all girls, but they had beautiful voices and they sang in the church meetings several times. Delightful family. Just delightful. Now, it seems to me that… [To Kandice] Who came after? KH: Millner. CW: Oh, okay. This admirable woman remained an enigma to me. The single occasion of our meeting happened at the university's faculty retirement party where President Millner presented me a memento far 40-years of teaching-a $50 wristwatch. While Paul was still president, we were talking in the neighborhood once— that while Paul was in our neighborhood, we ought to get some things done in our environment here that only he could propose and afford. And one of them was getting these trees down in this parking lot, which was absolutely bare. So I talked to Paul about putting some trees down there to beautify the parking lot on the south east corner there. He said, “Oh, that'd be a good idea.” And then he said, “Well, there's piece on the sidewalk that ends abruptly over on Country Hills Drive. It's only about 10 feet, but it's an inconvenience for us. It’d be sure nice if you could have your carpenters come over pour that concrete.” He said, “I can do that.” And so that was just great. Now, as I recall, the college university sold his house before he was through being president, and he lived next door in the 41 Burnett’s basement. The basement was finished into an apartment, so it was complete. [To Kandice] And what's his wife's name? Barbara? KH: I think it was Carolyn. CW: Carolyn. And so I would see he and Carolyn, walking between the houses. And I think that went on for like, it could have been three months or so. I thought, “How convenient just to have the president of the university stay that close.” But he was kind and he would listen. And that's what I admired so much about Paul, is that he would listen. And Brady wouldn't listen. Bishop, you never knew where he was. And Miller was so compassionate. But he had just, you know, a small faculty. I don’t know, there was maybe 60, when he's out there. Now, just another sideline, there's a sculpture of Louis Moench and they're down here, right? My brother Roger was a sculptor and he was taking classes from J. Fairbanks. He's got a first name to go with Fairbanks, and Fairbanks was a renowned sculptor. He did a George Washington, for example, that sits in Mount Vernon now, and he also did the Dodge RAM that was put on cars. And he's done others like, I don't waste name doesn't come up with J. Something, Fairbanks [Avard Fairbanks]. Well, he did the sculpture over here, really. And it was my college. I don't know what they paid for it or whatever, but they said, “Yeah, we'd like to have it put over here, but we can't pay to have it shipped or erected. Now, at that time, we were still in the construction business, and so they got a load in Salt Lake from the Foundry and brought it up here, and then it sat for a day and they were puzzled. The grounds people were puzzled how their lift lifted off the truck and set it there. So they said to Waterfall, “Will you bring your crane up to set it 42 over there?” And so we brought a crane up and picked it up on set or over on the grounds there and said, “Well, who is going to pay for this?” The school said, “Fairbanks.” And Fairbanks said, “The school.” So we're never paid for so little spoons. So that was curious. Now, when the fine arts building was being excavated, we did the initial excavation—the Waterfall Construction Company. And then the Halverson Mechanics put in the plumbing and the mechanical stuff in there. And we never got paid for that either. And I thought, “This is wrong.” But it's interesting, the association with the school has come that far. Louis Moench, he wrote a hymn that’s in the church songbook called, “Come All Ye Nations.” And he wrote it, of course, in Germany because he was a German, but he was an early educator at BYU. And so I've always had an affinity because when I was in Switzerland on a mission, we all often sing that in Deutch of course. And so some of the times in my discussions with students, I'd say, “Do you know who's standing out here?” And they had no idea that there was even a statue on campus at all. They said, “I just get in my car or go home. Then drive here or go to class get in the car go home.” And it was just very curious that they'd never heard of Louis Moench. And then I got involved one day with a student. I just asked, “What is the elevation of Ogden?” Nothing. I said, “You know, the story of Malan or Malan Heights?” “No where’s that?” It’s just curious how visually ignorant, I guess it is, of students who are focused on getting in and getting out. That's all they want is the diploma. And I don't blame them for that. But, you know, on culture days, I thought, “Well, why 43 not explore the territory in which you live?” At least get a rendition of something historical that you can take it away from school other than just an A, B or C, you know. KH: Would you talk a little bit about participating in the Delta Site Seer Challenge? CW: A year after my retirement, Maggie learned of The Delta Airlines SiteSeer Contest with a million mile award aboard Delta flights--domestic and international. Maggie's attitude for entering contests was simple, "Somebody has to win." We produced and submitted a 40-second video demonstrating why and how we could become Delta Airline's best travelers. Within the month, Maggie received a phone call, "Can you be available during the month of June?" "Yes" was her reply. "OK, we'll send you the contracts." In three weeks, another phone call, "You're going to be one of the contestants sponsored by Delta Airlines, American Express, and Hilton Hotels. Ten national contestants had been chosen as members of five teams. We'll have the tickets for you at the Delta counter in Salt Lake. You'll leave next Wednesday at 11 am and fly to New York City. We have a room at JFK, and we'll meet you there." What a surprise. In New York we met the other eight members: two women cousins in their 30's both police officers in South Carolina. Two brothers, late 20's, one living in NYC and the other in San Francisco. The third couple, unmarried, late 40's from Michigan. The fourth couple a Black brother and sister from Iowa. The question we all asked our sponsor, "Where are we flying?" The answer, "Budapest." The flight was comfortable. We checked into the Hilton built on Roman 44 ruins and provided a breath-taking view of the Danube. Each team was given an Apple laptop and a digital camera. Both of these devices were new to us, but we were told that we must take pictures with the camera, download them onto the computer, and send then to a NYC address. In addition, each of the five couples must spend the day with a manager and cameraman recording the planned activities. Although Maggie and I felt overwhelmed, we learned quickly how to manage our duties. At the conclusion of this trip to Budapest, one of the couples was dropped. This procedure continued to other Delta sites: Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, and the final site-Dubai. Two weeks later we were told to take a Delta flight to Atlanta where the winner was announced. Much to our delight, the Waterfalls received the million miles reward. As I consider my life’s experiences at Weber, I fondly recall Blain Hartog’s credit union loans from a half-century ago that provided Maggie and me opportunities to see the world: 83 countries and 109 cruise ships.KH: Is there one that stands out as a favorite? CW: Oh, Switzerland, of course, is always, always a favorite because I had been there for a while in its beauty and we'd been back several times. But it's so expensive to travel in Europe now. But we've had some great, great times. We went to Bali, in Indonesia to travel. There is just a phenomenal feeling in that culture and such. So Indonesia was great in traveling to Jakarta. In Brunei, there's an island of Brunei that's sort of the capital of Indonesia. And the king there and his family, they have a lot of money, oil money. And this happened a long time ago. So they 45 had substantial wealth and they used to import girls from California, particularly. They wanted them from Hollywood to go and stay with them for weeks on end. And we're aware of that, and we were talking to the guy who was our guide. And we asked, “Why doesn't the King do something for the people?” Because many of the people live in stilts on the water. And he said, “He has.” “Well, what happened?” He said, “The king's brother had a birthday. So the king had television installed in all of the houses in Brunei.” I thought, “Sure, that's great.” So we've had a day with the orangutans out in the jungle, and the blow guns, and just lots of stuff. KH: I heard that you took contraband pictures of the Dalai Lama into Tibet. CW: Oh yeah, that was interesting. We were going to Tibet, and at that time, the Dalai Lama was outlawed for being there. And he'd lived in India—I don't know whether he'd actually lived in Tibet. But he lived in India and he was revered in India and the folks in Tibet were very much following his dictates or whatever. And so he had some friends who lived in New York, and I thought, “That's the guy.” So we called him and said, “Can you get us some postcards or some small pictures of the Dalai Lama? Because we're going to Tibet. We want to take them and bring some kind of conflict into the country by passing pictures of the Dalai Lama.” So we got about 50 of them sent to us. So we took them with us and we said, “Well, we'll be in trouble if we just hand them out.” We had some pictures of our family, so we put that on one side and the Dalai Lama on the other side. So 46 when you're passing them out they saw the Waterfall family rather than pictures of the Dalai Lama. But the Chinese had during their last revolution of the intellectuals and the educated, where they put them on either collective farms or held them. They took over Tibet as their property and they were very malicious with the Tibetans. The monasteries were not on the lowlands they could easily destroy, that were up in the sides of the mountain. They brought the Chinese army, brought in artillery pieces and would blast away and destroy these monasteries up on the side of the mountain. And of course, the Chinese knew that Tibet is rich in mineral deposits, copper, iron, and gold. So that's been turned into their gold mine, I guess. But that was fascinating. We took balloons for the kids. They'd never see a balloon. Ballpoint pens, no idea. Paper to write on. Yeah. Just, you know, these are the folks out in the villages, in the town itself, oh whatever the name is. We stayed in a nice hotel, but it was run by the Australians because the Chinese didn’t have anybody who could run the hotels. But a nice Australian outfit that did that. KH: How has your life changed because of the pandemic? CW: At the beginning, I thought it was, you know, real serious. And I went directly with the masks like everybody did. Church was shut down and the idea of going to a movie or otherwise, you know, social exchanges, but that diminished it a great deal. But then we just took it along, it is what it is. And I finally got shots this year for COVID and even the flu shot. And I thought, you know, all of this contention about the federal government telling us what to do. I thought, “What's the big deal here?” You know, its like, “I'm not going to pay my taxes because the 47 government's telling me I've got to pay taxes.” Well, you know, you pay taxes. That’s all there is to it, or you can go to jail. And so I think that those folks who haven't done it really… I don't know. KH: Okay. Well, those are all the questions I have. Is there anything else you'd like to share? CW: On our first visit to China, in Beijing, there were no hotels that were suitable for Westerners, in the city itself. Somebody had put a hotel about two miles out and it was a beautiful, beautiful hotel. We ate there, and some of the folks in the tour said, “I'd like to have some ice for the drinks.” Of course, the Chinese don't drink anything that's ice, nor do Europeans. They puzzled with them. Finally, came out from the kitchen with a platter about this big chunk of ice on it. And so chipped away at the ice. And then in our room there was a two-quart thermos with absolutely boiling water. And of course, that's what we drank. Everything else wouldn't suit the Westerner. But the strangest part was there was a rainstorm and the roof leaked right down in the middle of the lobby. They [the employees] brought out some pans and stuff. And they had the most beautiful, thick, Chinese rug. It was about this thick [Indicating width with index finger and thumb about an inch and a half]. Just beautiful. And here was this water dripping down. And so I inquired, “Well, who's running this hotel?” And they said, “Well, the Chinese Government is running this hotel. But we've got some people from Australia to come in and help us organize and maintain the hotel.” And that was so curious. On an earlier trip to China, we stayed in Shanghai and this was before the big boom in Shanghai—which is a fabulous place. But we stayed at the established 48 western hotel. The rugs in the hotel were drug out on the morning and put over a line and beaten and they brought out a vacuum cleaner. An old Hoover type vacuum cleaner and said, “We will do the stairs.” They were carpeted. “But the other stuff we can take out.” So it was a different world. We finally went back two or three times and saw this marvelous architecture and the Three Gorges Dam. I mean, their engineering and they're top of the line people. I have a total different respect now than when I was a child. When I was a child, there was gun that we could buy it at the store and it was like these flare guns that were about this big [Indicates with hands about 5 inches in length]. And they had a card and the gun underneath it. They were called, War Cards. And I always wondered what war it was. And it was a one with the Japanese-Chinese war. And so they'd have it printed on these cards, carnage and people being shot. People blown to pieces and buildings. And I thought, “What in the world is going on with the Chinese and these kids?” But these were war cards. And I guess you know, we saved a hundred more over the summer. I don't know what happened to them, but I thought, you know, what a way to market your product. So that was China. KH: One last question. How many children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren do you have? CW: We have 13 grandchildren and I think 28 great grandchildren. KH: Is there anything else you'd like to add? CW: In conclusion, a few years ago, the best compliment was given me. On the phone: “Is this Waterfall?” “It is.” “My name is Don Bramwell. I was a freshman 49 student of yours, and after thirty years working as an attorney, I am now packing up my office stuff and ready to retire. But I had to call and tell you thanks for teaching me how to use the comma.” KH: Thank you so much for your time. This was a pleasure. CW: Life is pretty interesting.