Oral History Program Annelie Furner Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 26 October 2023 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Annelie Furner Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 26 October 2023 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Furner, Annelie, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 26 October 2023, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Annelie Furner, conducted on October 26, 2023 in the Stewart Library, with Lorrie Rands conducting the interview. Annelie was being instructed in how to conduct an oral history interview, so there are teaching moments within it. Annelie discusses her time in college, attending the three major universities in Northern Utah. She describes her time at Weber State University and her hopes for the future. Also present is Raegan Baird. Note: Active listening, transitions in dialogue (such as “um,” “so” “you know,” etc.), and false starts in conversations are not included in transcription for ease of reading. All additions to transcript noted with brackets. LR: Today is October 26, 2023. We are in the Stewart Library oral history recording studio, having an oral history interview with Annelie Furner for the Weber State University Oral History Program. I'm Lorrie Rands conducting and Raegan Baird is on the camera. Okay, that being said, thank you for your willingness, and for having the experience. AF: Thanks for teaching me. LR: So, let's start the basic when and where were you born? AF: I was born in Delta, Colorado. It's like this teeny tiny town next to Grand Junction, on September 30, 1995. LR: Did you grow up in Delta? AF: No. I grew up mainly in Grand Junction for a couple of years, and then when I was maybe six or seven years old, we moved to Utah. LR: Okay. Do you have any memories of Grand Junction? 1 AF: Just like vaguely a swimming pool. Like, my grandparents lived there, so they would put out a swimming pool in their backyard, and that's all I really remember. LR: Okay. Do you know why your family moved to Utah? AF: My adoptive father, his family lives in Utah, so we transplanted. LR: Okay. There's a story there, adoptive father. Are you willing to talk about that? AF: Sure. My mom is from Colorado, and she went to school at Snow College and met a foreign exchange student there. I was one of those magical out-of-wedlock children. After I was born, we moved to Sweden when I was about four months old, lived there for a couple of months. Then my mom and I came back and my dad didn't. So, when she met another American man, he just asked to adopt me and that was that. So yeah, kind of fun. A little different. Usually, I have like a white board of like, here are the different characters, here's where they went. LR: Do you have any contact with your birth father? AF: Yeah, he made contact with me when I was 11 or 12. Found me on social media, so, one of the perks or dangers, I guess. But yeah, we've been in contact and I try and go every other year to Sweden to celebrate midsummer with the family. LR: How fascinating. AF: Yeah, it's been kind of fun to get to know them and everything. LR: I know we're a little out of order, but—Okay, I'll ask the question when we get to that. AF: Okay, no problem. It usually throws people off. I don't have a typical childhood growing up story. LR: When you moved to Utah, where did you move to? 2 AF: Salt Lake. LR: Okay, and have you lived in Salt Lake pretty much—? AF: Yeah, basically all since then. LR: Where at in Salt Lake? AF: Kind of in the Millcreek area. We've kind of just stayed in that hub. LR: What high school did you go to? AF: I went to Olympus High School. LR: Oh, okay. I say that because I went to East High School. AF: Oh, okay. RB: She understands. AF: I understand, yeah. There's a whole dynamic. LR: At least you're not Highland. AF: That's fair, could have been worse. LR: It could have been. So, Olympus high school, you kind of have a dynamic that’s you have the super wealthy and then you have the not extremely poor, but very different money wise, right? AF: Right. Yeah. LR: So, you don't really have the poverty that you would see at like East High School or West High School. AF: It's like average people. LR: It's average people, and then you have the super wealthy. AF: Right. LR: So what was that like for you, and where do you think you fell in that spectrum? 3 AF: We were definitely the average. Maybe even lower average. The humble average. I mean, luckily, I was kind of in the middle, so I feel like I was kind of in that sweet spot of, like, all the older kids didn't really—I mean, they got to do the sports and stuff, and towards the end all the younger kids got to do all the handme-down kind of things. But it was fun. I kind of rolled with the theater kids and the debate kids. I'm not a sporty person. I don't know how to coordinate my body space. So, that was the kind of groups that I rolled with, but it was interesting. I feel like it hit my siblings maybe the hardest because it was hard to have friends who were in these mansion homes with these new fancy cars and had their parents' credit card, and we just didn't. We had to have a job from the time we were 15 and pay for everything. It was just a different type of childhood than we watched our friends have. LR: Right. So, you're the oldest? AF: I’m in the middle. It gets weirder. LR: Okay, now I'm confused. AF: I know, this is where the white board comes in handy. My adoptive father and my biological mom, they eventually divorced when I was 10. He remarried, so I have two step siblings that are older than me and I’m in the middle. So, biologically I'm the oldest, but I'm also in the middle of all these step siblings and fun things. LR: Okay. Did your mother remarry again? AF: She has been married five times. So, she married my Swedish father, my adoptive father, had a brief marriage with an army nurse in the middle of that, 4 and then became a widow with her next husband. She just barely got remarried last year to another man, so. LR: Okay, this is going to sound like a strange question, but was that difficult, the constant—it's not constant changing, but having a different male dynamic coming and going into your life as you grew up? AF: A little. I'm trying to say this in like, the most delicate, nice way possible, but it kind of made me think men weren’t that important. I don't know how to say that in a kind way. It was just like, “Oh, men come and go, women stay.” Women build the community you have, you know? LR: Interesting. AF: Yeah, it was interesting to have men as kind of like a transitory, temporary aspect of life, and made women kind of more the constant central part of it. LR: You mentioned that when you were 12 you made contact with your biological father, and that you go there every other summer. Have you been doing that since you were 12? AF: Not since I was 12, no. The first time that we kind of did it was at my high school graduation when I was 18. They actually came to the States to attend my graduation, and from then on I went to Sweden. Every time that they come to the States, they try to go somewhere different than Utah, just because it's kind of the same every time. So, I've met up with them in New York last year. We went to Florida another year. Any year that I'm not in Sweden, they come here to kind of balance it out. LR: Okay. What are the differences you've noticed between here and Sweden? 5 AF: So many. So many. I think they trust their young people a lot more than we trust ours. I think that there's a lot more like social responsibility and social freedom that comes to them way earlier than I think we're allowed to practice here. Their food is so, so bland. So bland. They love potatoes and meatballs and that's basically it. My father lives in kind of the farmland of Sweden, a little bit more towards Denmark. I mean, I've only ever really acclimated to that culture. I don't know what north Sweden is like. I just know his areas. LR: Okay, that's really fascinating. After you graduated from high school, did you have aspirations to go to college? Is that something that was on your radar? AF: Yeah. So, I went to Utah State for a little bit, just right after high school, had a couple of months and then went straight up to Utah State. It was fun. It was great. I made a lot of good friends, but there was a lot of cows. That's the only way that I can really explain it, like it wasn't my fit. It wasn't the kind of school that I wanted to be in. It just didn't fit me right. So, I went back home, lived there for a little while, worked for a little while, and then went to the U to finish up my undergrad. LR: That's interesting. I honestly thought you went to Weber State for your undergrad. AF: No, no. I've kind of hopped around all over the place. I went to Utah State, finished up at the University of Utah, and then decided to do my master's degree up at Weber State. LR: Okay, so you've been able to experience most of the colleges in northern Utah? AF: Yeah. LR: I'm going to be honest, I'm kind of going all over the place. I'm normally not this— 6 AF: Sporadic? LR: Yeah, that's a good word. I normally follow a logical, what am I trying to say? I normally follow more of a chronology. For some reason, it just didn't feel right. It's fine. AF: That's okay. LR: I'm just going with what— AF: Go with the flow. LR: With the flow of this one. Okay, so having experienced, let me back up just a little bit. Let's start with the difference between Utah State and the University of Utah, 'cause they are two rather large schools. AF: Right. LR: U of U being even bigger than Utah State. But what were some of the differences between those two universities? AF: I think that the people that I interacted with in each setting were very different. You know, it was kind of disorienting going into an area that was like still in your home state but so different, and everyone that went to that school kind of knew the area already. So, you were kind of a fish out of water, and a lot of them came from agricultural backgrounds, which was something that I wasn't really focused on. I kind of picked Utah State based on the scholarship that I got, not necessarily on the schooling that it could provide me. But at the U it was, you know, a lot more research based. I had professors that taught really, really interesting things. I just think I felt just more at home there. It was my, I don't know, territory, I guess. I was comfortable operating in that space so, yeah. 7 LR: You weren't far from home either. So, were you able to live at home and go to the U? AF: Right, yeah. LR: Okay, that probably helped a little bit. AF: Well then, it's fun too, because I mean, at Utah State I used to run into people that I knew from high school, like, occasionally. But at the U, it's like, oh, I have four classes, or I run into people on campus all the time and I guess just has a different community feel, I think. LR: Okay, what did you get your undergrad in? AF: English. LR: After you graduated, what were your aspirations? AF: I thought really long and hard about law school. I worked as a paralegal while, like, during that brief stint of not being in school. While I was in school, I worked as a paralegal as well. I thought that it was just the path I wanted to do, and then I realized that it really wasn't. After, you know, switching a couple firms and seeing all of the younger new associates that were coming into firms and how much time they'd sacrificed, and how much exhaustion they had, and how hard— it's just a cutthroat industry. I realized that wasn't really what I—I'm a good writer, but I didn't want to devote all my time writing to just legal things. I thought, you know, I definitely want to continue with school, I definitely feel the most comfortable in school. So, I thought that I'd probably just want to teach at a school. So, I decided to come back for my master’s degree so that I could teach. LR: What made you choose Weber State for that? 8 AF: It was the opposite of the U, where at the U you're kind of lost in a mass of people that you know, whereas Weber, it feels so much more intimate. For something like an advanced degree like this, you want smaller classes. You want your professor to know you, you want to have your voice heard in class, you know? So, I really liked that cozy aspect of it. I liked that it was kind of in between those two different spectrums, right? Like Utah State, I was so far away. The U, I was so close to home. Weber was kind of like that sweet spot of like, maybe I'll run into someone I know, but I probably won't, and that's okay. LR: All right. How long have you been working on your masters? AF: I started last August, and I'll graduate next semester. LR: Oh wow, you're almost done. AF: I'm almost done. I know. It's bittersweet. LR: Well yeah, it kind of is. So, as you described Weber state and the coziness of it, when you look at the campus in comparison to the other two, which of the campuses would you—this is going to sound like a really dumb question. AF: No, you're fine. LR: But which campus feels more at home? AF: Definitely Weber. LR: Okay, and why do you think that is? AF: The University of Utah campus is constantly changing. They're constantly building things, constantly moving things around, and it's really easy to become disoriented. Like, for the very last stint of my degree, it was COVID. So, I couldn't 9 really get a feel for the campus or like participate in the ways that you probably should as a student. But here, I feel like it's almost inevitable to kind of like run into things as a student to do. Like, you walk through the Weber Center and it's like all of these stands and all of these posters and all of these things that are happening. Teachers are constantly reminding you of like, “Hey, this author's coming to read,” and like there's things to participate in. I feel like I kind of, as an English major, just stay within the three zones of campus. I mean, I don't know, there's something just—Like the coziness aspect maybe is also from the mountains, as weird as that sounds. I don't know where I'm going with this thought, but I'll just let it play out. But it's like having the mountain so close. The U, you also have them, but there's something different about the Weber Mountains being so close and cozy. I don't know, I've noticed them a lot as I've been walking around. That's something that I didn't think I would love so much, and I really do. LR: Okay. Going back, and this is why I tried to go chronological. AF: No, you're fine. LR: Going back, what year did you graduate from high school? AF: From high school? ‘14. LR: Okay, so when did you start at the U then? AF: I started in 2019. LR: Were you able to transfer your credits? AF: Yes. LR: So, you had what, about a year under your belt? 10 AF: Yeah. Around there. LR: So, you start in 2019. Did you start in the fall of 2019 at the U? AF: I started in the fall, yeah. LR: Okay, so you only have one actual semester at the U where it's actually normal, everyday, this is what it's supposed to be like? AF: Yeah. LR: Then 2020, you start your first semester, you're— AF: Everything shut down. LR: How did that come about? How was that for you? AF: It was okay. I mean, everything was online. Luckily I was married by then, and my husband was also at the U. We were able to kind of make a homework, school dynamic in our house, which was kind of fun. But yeah, it was hard to make friends and make connections like that when you're on a remote campus. But luckily, I graduated from the U in 2021, and by that point, I think my last semester I had a couple of classes where I got to go on campus again. So, that was kind of fun. There was definitely distancing. It was kind of isolating to not have normal classes I guess, but yeah. LR: Okay, so you mentioned that you had met your husband by then. AF: Yeah. LR: Where did you meet your husband? AF: We actually knew each other all the way back in junior high, and then we kind of ran into each other a couple of years later in a breakfast diner. I can't remember 11 what we were doing, but we dated for three years, and then we got married in 2019. LR: Oh, okay. This is more for my own personal, but what junior high did you go to? AF: Evergreen. LR: I don't even know what that is, so never mind, we'll just let that go. You met him in junior high, and for some reason I missed all that, yet I didn't. I heard what you said, but it— AF: Didn't click. LR: No. So, you met him between Utah State and the University of Utah? Or were you going to the U when you met him again? AF: I wasn't going to the U at that point. We just ran into each other. I was working full time. He had just barely started at the U. He had gone on a mission to El Salvador, and then came back and we met. I guess we ran into each other maybe two months after he had come back. We dated for a little while and then got married in 2019. I'm trying to figure out what year I actually, like, ran back into him. Kind of a blur, I can't remember. LR: Did you get married to him before you started at the U? AF: Yeah. But he hadn't gone to school before like I did. I was kind of at the same spot as him when I started, so we were on the same track to graduate around the same time. LR: You mentioned that he had served a mission. AF: Yeah. LR: Where did you get married? 12 AF: We got married in the Salt Lake Temple. LR: Okay, that was just curiosity. AF: No, you're good. He reconverted me. I was on a brief stint during those years. Irrelevant to the conversation, but. LR: Not necessarily. Religion is one of those things. AF: Yeah. It's interwoven into everything. LR: It is interwoven, and yet it's sometimes hard to ask the questions. AF: Right. LR: I'll explain more when we're done. So, did you—Again, this is not normally how I do this. AF: That's okay. LR: This is one of the strangest interviews I've ever done. Did you grow up in the church? AF: Kind of. Going back to my biological mother and my adoptive father, they were not members, and then they divorced. My mom hasn't ever been a member. But my dad, when he remarried, he remarried to a Mormon woman. She's really dedicated to the church and stuff. So, when we flipped houses every week, it was like, okay, some Sundays we're at church, and some Sundays we're not at church. It was kind of nice to have like a balanced view on it of like, okay, here's all the good things about the church. Then you go to another house and it's like, okay, but also think critically about these things. I mean, our siblings have kind of landed all over the map. Some of them are super devout, others have fallen away from the church, like just decided to walk away from the church. 13 LR: So, when did you decide to become a member? AF: I decided when I was 18, right before I went up to Utah State. When I came back home, I lived with my mom, and it was just something that I was like, you know, maybe that's not something that I need in my life right now. I was starting to think really critically again about it. I still have, you know, a lot of thoughts and opinions about it. But my husband, when I ran into him again, he'd just come back from his mission, and it was really important to him to have a partner that was in the church. I don't know. Religion, like you said, it's important, but to me it's kind of like a background important. Like, I wouldn't name it as some of my top values. So, it seemed like a compromise that I was like, okay, yeah, I can be a part of this organization if it's important to the person that I love and care about. So yeah, I came back into the church, I think like a year, maybe a couple months before we got married. LR: So, I'm not sure where this question is coming from, what to you is more important, then? The religious side or more of the spirituality side? AF: Definitely the spirituality side, yeah. I don't know, I feel like there's truth in so many different places. Like, there's goodness in so many different places. To slap a sticker on something and say that it is the one is very, very skeptical to me. But having alignment with something bigger than yourself, that is also very important. I kind of just take pieces of wisdom from anywhere that they kind of come at me or float by me. LR: Interesting. Okay. I'm completely changing topics now. You—Literally 2019, you get married, you go back, start at the U, and then bam, COVID happens. So, now 14 you're a newlywed, you know, within a year of being married, and you're forced to be at home with this person. How did that go for you? I mean, because there's one of two things is going to happen. You're going to realize I absolutely want it, this is important, this is where I could be, or what the hell did I get myself into? So, what was that like for you? AF: No, you're good. LR: That— AF: Transition? LR: Transition, yeah. AF: It was okay. It was okay. Before we got married, I lived by myself in my own place and sustained myself and stuff. So, before we got married, I made certain with my husband to sit down and be like, “Okay, independence is important to me. Having my own private space and time is important to me. I can't be with you 24/7. I love you to death. But I can't do it. I'll go insane.” When COVID happened, I mean, we'd already kind of had practices in places of like, okay, these are moments of the day when we are separate and we are doing our own thing, having our own space, practicing whatever we want, and then we could spend some time together. So, I think that helped us kind of get through it. It definitely was hard like, you know, you get married and you're like, “Oh, we're going to travel everywhere, we're gonna do all these fun things,” you have all these plans. Then the world shuts down around you and it's just awful. LR: Interesting. 15 AF: It definitely made me really frustrated seeing my husband with COVID, which I didn't know was going to be an aspect of myself that I'd need to figure out. But yeah, he got it like four times. He's had it four times. LR: Oh wow. AF: It's like every time it—and I've never gotten it while he's gotten it. So, it's kind of to the point where I'm like, “Okay do have to do this again? We have to do this again? We can do it again, okay.” But I love him to death and I’m glad he is okay. LR: Wow four times. AF: Yeah. Four times. I know. LR: You said you've never gotten it when he's had it. But you've had COVID? AF: Yeah. LR: Okay, so you understand what he's— AF: Yeah. Then I understood, but when you're watching it from the outside, you're like, “Okay, it's been three weeks. Are we okay now? Are we fine?” Especially as newlyweds when you're like, “Okay, this is how you are sick? Don't do anything for like nine hours straight. Okay, good to know.” LR: Well, trial by fire. AF: Right? Yeah. Just gonna learn. Yes. LR: Okay, going back to Weber. Not only are you a student, but you're also taking some time to do a little bit of teaching. How is that in the sense that you're a student, but you're also teaching, you're getting both sides of the spectrum. How has that informed how you teach? 16 AF: I think it's been awesome, because as you're learning all these teaching techniques and learning how to communicate with students, you get to watch your own professors do it with you, and see what works in the classroom. What would you do differently? Watching it from the students’ point of view gives you a lot of empathy for where they're at. I think it's helped me become like a lot more honest and open with my students of like, “Okay, I'm in the trenches with you. I know we're in different paths, but like, I know how it feels.” Which is important for teacher, and anything I think. That's been really fun to kind of play around with different techniques that I've watched my own professors using, and trying to implement them in my own kind of teaching practice. LR: Is that something that you want to pursue, the teaching side? AF: I think so, yeah. I really love it. LR: After you graduate next year, is that something you want to continue to pursue here? AF: Ideally, yeah. I mean, they constantly have openings open for us. So, I'm hoping that there's one that's available. I mean, if there's not one then I'll, you know, obviously go elsewhere. But it's definitely, like, it's been nice to do it here in conjunction with my master's degree, because then when I graduate I'll already have all of this experience and I know that it's what I want to do now. It's something that I can apply elsewhere. LR: That's really cool. What are your—Normally towards the end of an interview I would ask a question of, you know, more of a legacy type question, but you're still 17 so young. So, what are your dreams for the future? What are some of the things that you dream about that you want for your life? AF: Man, I immediately forgot all of my aspirations. I don't know. I think that I just— We all have, in terms of my career and stuff, we all have those like professors or teachers that make an impact on the directions that we go or the things that we think are possible for ourselves. I don't know. I know that that's not going to be like every student that I've ever had. But if I can help at least two or three recognize that in themselves and feel confident enough to go in a direction that maybe they were scared to before, I think that that would be a legacy that I’d want to leave. I mean, I don't need anybody to remember my name, I just need them to know that like, “There was this one class when I was in undergrad, in the trenches, and totally changed my path.” That's kind of what I think is important. LR: That's pretty cool. Do you have any questions I normally would ask? This has been the strangest interview I've ever done. AF: I know. [Laughing] I feel like it went off course way fast. I should’ve prepared. LR: It did. I kind of went with the flow. That's one of the first times I've ever done this. I've just been following the—it's been very strange for me. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we turn off the camera? AF: No. LR: Okay. AF: Thanks for teaching me. This was a lot less stressful than I thought it was going to be. 18 LR: It typically is. It’s freaky to begin with, but it’s really not. Alright well, thank you, I appreciate it. AF: Thank you. 19