Darlene Lowder Interview

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Dr. Radke- Moss Women’s Oral History Collection Darlene Lowder By Darlene Lowder October 3, 2005 Box 1 Folder 17 Oral Interview conducted by Breanne Condie Transcript copied by Dawn Kim June 2008 Brigham Young University- Idaho 2
Breanne Condie: This is Breanne Condie on our take two interview on October 3rd 2005 interviewing Sister Darlene Lowder. Sister Lowder, what is you full name including maiden name. Darlene Lowder: My name is Darlene K. Hadley Lowder. BC: When and where were you born? DL: I was born in Boise, Idaho, August 29, 1931. BC: And your parents’ names? DL: When I was 4 months old, my mother, Myrle and Joseph Evanston Hadley adopted me and took me to Menan, Idaho, where I was raised. BC: And you were adopted through the Salvation Army in Boise. DL: Yes, I was adopted through the Salvation Army in Boise. BC: Okay, and your religious affiliation? DL: I belong to the Latter- day Saint Church. I have been all my life. BC: So your parents were members? DL: My father was not a member. My mother was, but I usually went to church with the neighbors because they were not very active. BC: You grew up in Menan. Is that correct? DL: Yes, I did. BC: And then how many brothers and sisters did you have? DL: I had one foster brother. He was also adopted; he was five years older than I. BC: And his name? DL: His name was Max Jr. Hadley. BC: And, what was one of your earliest childhood memories?
DL: The earliest thing I can remember much of is playing with my dolls. In my day, the doll was made with cloth bodies, and I always wanted to be a nurse. And so I’d cut them open and 3
take out the stuffing and operate on them and put them back in sew them up and put some methylade on them and wrap them up. That was my surgery for the day.\ BC: What’s the methylade? DL: It’s like an antiseptics type thing. BC: So you were born after the Depression, but did you guys suffer from any effects after the Depression? ( Actually, she was born in 1931, right after the beginning) DL: We really didn’t— we weren’t bothered wit the Depression because we lived on a huge farm— ranch and we grew everything we ate. My dad used to grow a lot of sugar beets, so we’d sell them and get sugar back. We had a lot of milk cows, so we’d sell the milk and get our cheese and butter. We had a lot of chickens, so we sold the eggs. And we just, more or less, raised our own foods. We never really did know the Depression years. BC: Tell me a little bit about farm life. What is was like working on the farm, how many hours you put in? What some of your duties were? DL: I can’t really tell you how many hours I put it because I was always over in the “ barnyard.” I loved the animals. We had everything from chickens, duck, geese, turkeys, sheep, cattle, horses, pigs, goats, we just had them all. My chores, when I was quite young, was, of course, to clean the pens out for the little lambs or the claves. And sometimes when the little lamb was born, the mother would die or freeze to death. And so the lamb would be called a bum lamb. Then I would go into the barn and get a great big bottle of milk with a big ole’ nipple on it. And take it in a feed the little lambs. And that was one of my chores and then to water and take care of the calves mostly during the winter time. And then in the summer time, we had probably about a thousand acres out what we called across the north river from Roberts. We used to take our sheep out there and, sometimes, a lot of our cattle, and we just herd them; hauled them in a vehicle which was, probably, about 20 miles. And my mother’s brother was a sheep herder, and he’d just live out there in a sheep camp and take care of them all summer. And we’d go out there and help him a little bit or take him food, and when it came sheering time, of course, I’d always have to have my nose in the sheering shed so I could watch him. And I’d help m mother cook for the thrashers, they hay men. In those days, if only one man had a threshing machine like my dad, who had the only threshing machine in the area, so he’d go around to all the neighbors to help them thresh. And they’d come help him do his or hay. And then my mother would cook for them three meals a day. And I used to help her set up big tubs and boards on milk cans for tables. BC: So tell me what exactly is the threshing machine? DL: Well, when you cut the grain, it was a great big machine, and you cut the grain in the field, and you’d stack it. And take a few of the stalks and put them together, and then a wagon would come along and pick up those stalks and take it and throw it in the back of this threshing machine. And then it would take out the grain and throw it up into a great big pile and leave the stalks and things as straw. 4
BC: I’m not really familiar with the farming equipment. DL: You don’t see those around anymore. BC: So, at what point did you start attending school? DL: I was six. And in my day, they didn’t have kindergarten in my day. So I was six years old in August and started school the first of September, right after Labor Day. BC: What was the name of the school? DL: Menan Grade School. BC: Was it first grade through eight grade? DL: Yes, it was one through eight. And then my high school was nine through twelve. BC: So grade school. Tell me a little bit about the activities you were involved in, in grade school. DL: We didn’t have a lot of activities, especially, for girls in those days. But I loved sports, and whenever I could get on a softball team— mostly the boys played softball, and whenever I could get on one, I would. Not too many girls were interested in it. I liked to play jacks and t able tennis, and so whenver I could get a person to play with me, I didn’t get beat very often but I didn’t get a lot of people to play with me. But those were about the only things I got involved in, in grade school. by the time we got into high school, we still did not have girls’ PE classes, but a lot of us, girls, would go to the coach, maybe, during noon time and, maybe, have him do some tumbling tricks with us or something like that. But there never were any girls’ sports. BC: So, I guess, back to your table tennis days, did you play at recess? DL: Yes, just a recess or, maybe, after school. I lived about two miles from the grade school, and I had to ride the bus. So sometimes, if I wanted to stay after school and do anything, I could walk home or, maybe, mother would come and get me. BC: So I know you were a table tennis shark, but did you play against both boys and girls if they challenged you? DL: I did. Even up into junior high, I challenged a lot of the students and even the teachers. And there was one teacher that could beat me quite consistently, I beat him once in awhile, but he beat me most of the time. I never had students that could beat me. BC: So they didn’t have any sports, PE in high school. Were there any teams you played on besides on tumbling that you said you did? DL: No, they didn’t have any girls’ sports at all when I was going to school. 5
BC: Did your brother play any sports? DL: No. He really didn’t. He didn’t care for school much, so he didn’t study much and didn’t get involved into too many other things. He liked mechanics and liked to mess around with cars and things like that. So he wasn’t too interested in sports or other activities. BC: So did you go spectate a lot of the sports in high school? DL: I tried to go to all the sports the boys played, of course. I was in the pep club. BC: Memories of Word War II? DL: Oh, I thought I was in love during World War II. I met my, now, husband before he went to the service in 1943, I think it was. We wrote to each other during all the war. I remember exactly where I was when the war ended in 1945. in fact, I think it was August 7, 1945, but I remember we had gas stamps you could only go so far on so many stamps. And they would only give you so much per week. We were farmers, so we got a few extra stamps. And, sometimes, if we didn’t use them on the farm, then we would use them for a car. Here, again, we weren’t limited in a lot of things. BC: So where was your husband at then? DL: He was in the Philippines and in South Korea, Japan. BC: Do you know what kind of duty he had in the war? DL: he was a paratrooper. He was a radio man in the paratroopers. BC: How long was he overseas? DL: Overseas, I do not know how long exactly. He was overseas but he was in the service for two years. BC: I remember you and your husband were high school sweethearts, is that right? DL: Yes, sort of. BC: Tell me your love story.
DL: He had a friend that lived in Pocatello. And he would come up, and they would double date together. And it was, probably, I was about eleven or twelve years old. He was over to my ward one night for sacrament meeting and was sitting by one of our friends. And his girlfriend and I were running around the halls. And he asked this lad who I was, and she told him that was Darlene Hadley, and I was a spoiled brat. Which is was! And he says, someday, she’s gonna be 6
pretty popular. Anyway, he said he knew right then that who he wanted to have and oh, two or three years went by and he saw me a time or two after that, but this friend of his had a brother that was my age. So he had the brother come up so we could all double- date together, and that’s how we kind of got more acquainted. When he came back from the War, like I said we wrote to each other during all the War. And then when he came back from service, he came over and asked me to go with him on night and I had to sing in church so I told him, no. and I never saw him again for a good month. And then we had a carnival dance at our high school, and I asked him to go with me and then after that we just got together! BC: So at what point did you guys get married? DL: Umm... we eloped; went to Dillon, Montana because I was pretty young. I was not quite sixteen and I knew my mother would not give consent because she and my dad had just gotten a divorce a couple years before and my brother had left by then. So she and I were the only ones home, so anyway, we eloped up to Dillon, Montana. BC: What day did you elope? DL: This was on the eighth of March, 1947. He lived at his home and I lived at mine for about a month and the new decided that was for the birds. We decided to tell my mother, and she said everything but nice things. Anyway, in those days, you didn’t have to wait a year to go to the temple. So on the second of April, that same year, we went to the temple and were sealed. BC: Which temple did you get sealed in? DL: Idaho Falls. BC: What was it like with your husband over in the Philippines and you being home in Idaho? Was that hard for you? Did you have any fear of him not coming home? DL: I never really thought of that. I never considered he wouldn’t ever come back because we were both so positive in our letters and things that someday we would be together and those kind of things. I never really thought about him not coming home. BC: Your husband’s name? DL: His name is Lyle Lowder Jr. He was born and raised in Louisville, Idaho. And he was born August 20, 1926. He is five years older than me. BC: At what point did you move from Menan?
DL: Probably, we moved up here to Ricks in 1947. And I took some classes from here and had them transferred to high school so I could graduate in three years. I did that and we both graduated from Ricks in 1948. And then we moved down to BYU, Provo. My husband got his master’s degree in 1951. He got his degree in zoology, and we didn’t have any money, so we 7
decided we would go out of school for a little while and work and then, maybe, go back and work on a doctorate degree. So he got a job teaching school at a little place called Merta. It’s just around Burley and Twin Falls. He taught everything including home EC. BC: Like how to sew? DL: They made a lot of candy. He taught there for three years, and then we moved to Rigby. And he taught in Idaho Falls clear down to Bonneville Junior High; taught science down there. Then we went back to Utah State to work on his doctorate degree. And while we were there, I finished my bachelor’s degree. And got a few credits on towards a masters degree. And my degree was in just education and elementary education. And when we came back here to Rexburg in 1961, I didn’t teach the first year. I babysat. And we had all our girls by then, and then in 1962, I started teaching at the junior high school. BC: You had your children, then, when you were down in Utah? DL: Yes, they were all born in Utah. BC: You had five girls, right? DL: Right. BC: State each of their names and date of birth. DL: Our oldest daughter was Kae Lynette. She was born the 11th of April 1949. Our next one was Judy Ann. She was born 21st of November 1950. And Toni Diane was born 20th of January 1953. Kathie Myrle was born 15th September 1955. And Cindy Larene was born January 28th, 1958. And Cindy was killed in an automobile accident in 1999. She’s the youngest. She was married and had four boys. And at the time she was killed, two of them were on a mission, and two teenagers in high school. Things will work out, though, for both of the families. BC: Retell the story about you and your husband not having any sons. DL: My husband used to always get kidded because he taught biology down here at Ricks and the faculty would always tease him because he had five girls and teaching biology; he should know how to get a boy. But he never did. He even had a mother- in- law and a female dog. He didn’t even have a father- in- law. BC: Tell me about your teaching career.
DL: I started teaching, like I said, in 1962 at Madison Junior High School. I taught physical education and health. I was over the intramurals and pep club, drill team. And then, eventually, what I called the tumbling team. I wanted to involve gymnastics into my classes, and we didn’t’ have any equipment at all, and so we had little programs or sell hot dogs or things during the noon time or before or after school to make money to buy equipment. And eventually, we had time to buy a piece of gymnastics equipment. Over the years, we got all four pieces of 8
equipment. The uneven parallel bars, the vault, balance beams, we have four balance beams at different heights and the tumbling mats. The tumbling mats were also wrestling mats, and so both boys and girls could use those. And then as time went on I coached volleyball, basketball, track and field and gymnastics. It took quite a while to get the gymnastics going in the district because there weren’t enough teachers who were trained well enough to be able to coach gymnastic teams. But we did play about four of five other schools to compete with for, probably, ten years. And then that kind of fizzled out because the high school couldn’t carry the workers here again; they didn’t have teachers to do it. I coached those sports, probably, about 20 years we had to share the gym with the boys. So every other morning I would go six and then we trade off the next week or we would go after school. All of our games were after school. BC: So you taught the PE class and also coached the after school programs? DL: Yes. BC: What were some of the sports you taught in the PE class? DL: Well, of course, we did the volleyball, basketball, track and field. And then gymnastics of tumbling which ever the student could handle at that point. And then we did soccer, shuffleboard, table tennis, floor hockey, softball, archery, jump rope routines, ball rhythm routines. I did a creative dance until where they had to take a nursery rhyme and work in two or three people and make up their own interpretive dance. They thought this was kind of fun. At first, they say this is kind of dumb but they did it and kept going on it, and it was fun. I don’t remember… BC: Can you tell me about the PE uniforms? DL: We did have uniforms, and I would purchase them in the fall and the students would either purchase them, or if they couldn’t afford them, I would let them use them and return them to me at the end of the year or the end of the semester. The shorts were mid thigh. I never did let them wear those short ones that looked like they were up the crotch. When we first started to wear them, they were snapped like a blouse top. After a few years, I talked them into letting us get the T- shirt type them. It had a little logo on it of a Madison Bobcat. They were nice. BC: Discuss the girls’ involvements in sports. Were all of them quick to jump into things? DL: Yes. Once the girls’ sports came into the school we never had any trouble filling a team. I always had more girls then we could use. And sometimes, we would have a father or two who would complain because I wouldn’t play their daughter enough. I only taught girls. Sometimes we got a few parents who would complain because they didn’t get used enough. I never had any trouble making a team. Girls were interested, and they wanted to play. Even in the gymnastic areas, I was surprised that there were as many that wanted to get involved in that because parallel bars, of course, are the hardest to do. I always had three or four that were very good on that bars. BC: Were their injuries while teaching and coaching? 9
DL: There were a few sprained ankles. I remember one day, when we were playing softball outside a girl, hit a ball and it hit the pitcher in the nose and broke her nose. I had a girl with diabetes and, of course, had a problem one day in the field. And one time when a kind of heavy girl was doing the vault, I always told them, if they felt like they were going to fall, when you go over the fault, don’t put your arms down. And this one girl got up to the vault the first time and didn’t even get up to go over. She said, let me try it again. We always had spotters on both sides, and I was one of them that particular day. She got to the top of the fault and caught her foot. Anyway, when she went down, she put her arm down and her arm went out of the socket. I put that back in. And there were also several fingers that were knocked out with the ball and things but serious injuries, no. We never had a problem. BC: Where did your love for sports come from? Did your dad instill it in you or did you have influence back in Menan? DL: You know, I really don’t know. I was just always interested in sports of every kind. I used to ride my bike a lot when I was a young girl, but there weren’t any sports to do. But I don’t know. Another thing that I did, we had a big town hall next to our grade school. I used to go there and roller skate quite often after school at night. I just liked them. I don’t now, why- my dad is a sports person. BC: At what point did you decide you wanted to do physical education? DL: Well, seeing that I liked sports so much and, like I said, when I was younger, I always wanted to be a nurse, I figured it was kind of coincidental I as in the health area. And so I decided I would use that as my major, physical education. BC: Besides teaching PE classes, did you teach any health classes? DL: Oh, yeah! BC: What were some subjects covered? DL: We covered every system of the body. And, anyway, this one year we were talking about the reproductive system. And in grade seven through nine that is a maturing age year for these young girls and is a time in life were I felt and 99 percent of the public did, too, that these girls needed to be taught about their bodies and how to take care of them and so forth, but I had this one mother who really raised Cain when we were talking about cesarean births. And oh my goodness, her daughter went home and was moaning and crying that she never wanted to have a baby because she would be cup open and all this other stuff. So her mother came after me and just about got me fired. So from then on, there was never the reproductive system; I didn’t even use the word sex. I would just say a boy or girl or something like that but it was completely wiped out. BC: Under what terms would you have been fired? 10
DL: Because… I don’t know. I was told not to test that subject again in any way shape or form. BC: Did any girls start their period at school? How did you then go about telling them what was going on with their bodies? DL: I can remember one little girl. She came in and was crying. And she thought that she was bleeding and didn’t know what was going on. So I kind of explained to her a little bit. That she was maturing and becoming a young woman, and I had napkins there all the time or tampons so they could get one anytime they needed. Most of them got, so they didn’t even ask. They knew where they were; bottom drawer of my file. We didn’t’ talk about it much, and after that we didn’t talk about it all. It became a problem. BC: Did you discuss birth control or abortion with them? DL: No, never when I was teaching did I talk about birth control. When I was growing up, I didn’t even know anything about maturing and menstruating and these kids of thing because in my day, it was a taboo subject and so, of course, birth control wasn’t even talked about then. BC: What about abortion? Did you hear anything fro many member of your community getting abortion? DL: No. like I said, anything that had to do with sex or any sexual activities for abortions or anything like this were just hush- hush. No one ever talked about it. And when I was teaching, I never did even before this problem happened; we never did talk about that. BC: Tell me about your girls and the activities they were involved in and if you had any influence on them in sports and other areas of interest? DL: We were quite adamant in having them get involved in music and from the time there were about three years old, we started them in dancing. And they took dancing and from the time the oldest was 13, we started a dancing school. We each took turns teaching dancing for about ten years, maybe more. We had our own dancing school in this area. Someone even carried that on even after they were married and moved away. They all played the piano, concert pianists. They all played the organ, were all singers, they sang in public solos, duets, or trios while the others would play piano for them. They were very musical. BC: Were there any sports then for grade school and high school?
DL: Not too much in grade school but when they got into high school. They… well, in fact, started in junior high. The first year our oldest daughter was in junior high was the year I started teaching junior high. So she would get involved in some of the sports while I was teaching, and most were involved in drill teams and cheerleaders, mascots, that kind of thing. They all tried out for junior misses. One of them was, about two of them won state as a junior miss. Two of 11
them are concert pianist and the Idaho Symphony Orchestra, mostly that kind of thing. They really didn’t’ get involved in participating in sports. BC: How did you manage raising the children and also teaching? Was that difficult? DL: No, I didn’t. I felt like I was with my girls more than most people that stayed home. So when they were home from school, I was home from school. During the summer, once in awhile, I would take some classes or some night classes, and I had all but nine hours of having a master’s degree before I finished teaching. I felt like I spent most time with them because of my teaching career than I would if I had another different kind of career. BC: Did you have any of your girls in your classes? DL: Oh yes, I had all of them. BC: What kind of help did you receive in the sports departments teaching? What were your responsibilities, and at what point did you have help? DL: I, probably, coached, maybe, three or four years. The seventh and eighth graders made one team and the ninth graders another team. And I, probably, coached those by myself, maybe, five years until they got another lady to help. She took the seventh and eight group, and I took the ninth. The only thing she couldn’t do was the gymnastics, so the other things we worked out pretty well. BC: At what point did you retire? DL: WE both retired in 1991. I taught for 30 years and my husband taught for 35 at Ricks. BC: What subjects did he teach? DL: Anatomy and physiology, microbiology and, of course, the pre- med. He was pre- med advisor, so most of the doctors around the country are his students. We just hope they learned something. BC: What were some popular women sports at the time while you were teaching? I guess at a collegiate or professional level? DL: I think basketball and volleyball, tennis, of course, track and field, gymnastics. BC: Were there any sports that, maybe, were harder to be accepted by the public for girls to be playing?
DL: I think basketball laws harder for the public to accept as a women’s sport. Another thing that I thought about too is while I was teaching, probably, the last ten years of my teaching; I kind of dropped a different sport each year from coaching to give me a little more time off. And 12
I got so I could go over to the sports center down here and play racquetball four nights a week. And I loved that. I did that for about ten years. BC: Was your husband into sports? DL: Yes, he always played football in high school. And the first year or two in college he played football. And then, when he was teaching down here, he taught handball for several years and then he taught racquetball. And then, there again he didn’t get beat very often. And we played table tennis too. BC: As far as women and sports go in the Church, did the Church have any ward or stake teams play each other? DL: Yes, they did. The wards had volleyball, basketball, and softball. One time, when I was sports director, we did bowling. I think that was the only other one. The bowling program and the softball program went pretty well, and the volleyball. Basketball, we had a hard time getting girls to participate in. So it didn’t go over too well. And that didn’t last too long; they still did volleyball and basketball for the ward play. BC: Did you and your husband spectate the sports at Ricks College? DL: We’d buy season tickets and go to all the basketball games. Every year we went to those. For years and years and years until, probably, up until about four or five years ago. BC: Tell me your views on the women’s rights movement. DL: I feel like if the woman is doing the same kind of work as a man, she should get equal pay. But some positions I don’t think a women ahs a right to be in. for instance, the military. For some reason or other, I think that’s a man’s world. Of course, that’s my own opinion. A lot of women have had good careers in the service. There’s a place of a women in the world but I also think there’s a lot of places where she shouldn’t be. BC: Your views on abortion? DL: I don’t think a woman should have an abortion unless a mental or physical problem with the fetus or the mother’s health. Just to have an abortion to get rid of the baby is wrong. If she got herself into that problem, she can get herself out of it. BC: Views on sexual harassment? Any instances where you were sexually harassed? DL: No, I was pretty tough, I stuck up for myself. BC: Your views on birth control? 13
DL: I think a family should judge how many children they have. There are different ways to do it. Some ways work for some, some don’t. So I think each couple needs to decide what’s best for them. You can’t just say abstinence because that takes all the fun out of life. But just behave until you get married. BC: Did you use an oral contraceptive then? DL: No, we just were careful. BC: How long after you were married did you have your first daughter? DL: Two years and one month, because I was so young everybody said “ oh, she had to get married and blah, blah, blah.” We just showed them that we didn’t have to. So we waited two years and one month before she was born. BC: So your daughters, did you teach them about birth control? DL: Well, we always taught them to behave themselves, of course; take care of their bodies. And we were always very, very careful on who they dated. And whoever they did date had to come to the house and get them, they couldn’t sit in the car and honk. They’d go running out like and obedient dog. And my husband gave them the third degree about where are you going, what time you are going to be home and other stuff. And if they were going to be late at all, they had to call. They had a certain time to be home, and they always had to come in and tell us goodnight. We just kind of, not specifically said: “ don’t have sex.” We just kind of encouraged them to be careful; to be clean and dress properly. My husband was always one to say, “ Now, if you girls dress properly, the man will behave himself.” They remembered that. BC: Did you and your husband serve a mission? DL: Yes, we went to Salt Lake City and served a family history mission in the Joseph Smith Building. We got to do medieval research which was before 1500. It was very interesting. After we got back from our mission, it was in ’ 94, ’ 95. Let’s see, March of 96- 99 we served three years down here inside the Idaho Falls Temple. My husband was an assistant supervisor, so we had to be there at four in the morning. We had to be up about 2: 30. We did that for about three years and loved it. It was really a nice experience. BC: How many grandchildren do you have? DL: We have 25 grandchildren, 34 great- grandchildren, and a couple months ago, we had a little 10 year- old great- grandson die from a brain tumor. Other than that, we got a bunch of cute kids. They are very talented in going after things. Our daughters are all teachers like mom and dad, I guess. I don’t know how we instilled that into them but they are all teachers in one kind or another. They are very active in their positions in the church; played the organ. BC: Tell me about the Teton Dam incident. 14
DL: I remember I was outside about noon that day working in my flowers and the police were going around with their speakers on saying the Teton Dam had broken. I thought, nah, five or six inches of water will probably come down in this area. Well, probably two or three hours later, you could see a great big wall of water coming down the fields north of us and house and trucks and logs and animals and everything were coming down in the water. It was about seven feet deep 12 miles wide. It was so devastating; it came clear up to the roofs of the buildings that were downtown here, just completely wiped everything out down there. Houses would be just floating down the streets out at the airport. And it think that if it hadn’t have been for all the people coming in by the busloads from other cities, even state, being here in daybreak and not leaving till after dark, and helped clean up, if it hadn’t have been for those people, I think a lot of people would have been left completely or committed suicide because they lost everything. But they were repaid, the cost of rebuilding what they lost. That’s why this hill up here as such big homes, because they came up here on the hill and built up. We had a little motor bike down at one of the fix- it shops and some things in the cleaners. And we got reimbursed for those as well; that’s all we lost. BC: What was the recovery time? DL: Down at the junior high where I was teaching, of course, my room was in the basement. The mud water came about six inches up across the gym floor, which is on the main floor, so, of course, the basement was full with all this water and mud. We didn’t get back into school until middle of November. It took us all that time to get things cleaned out. Try to get things reordered, equipment and stuff. A group called HUD ( Housing and Urban Development) brought in hundreds of trailer houses and put them up around Sugar City, and they called it HUD village, so people who lost their homes would have a place to live temporary until they could get something else. We didn’t have any grocery stores or things like that and in order to get out of town, we had to go to Rigby or St. Anthony. Well, St. Anthony was even in trouble, so we had to go to the Rigby area for groceries or anything like that. The police were along the road, and they checked everybody coming and going. I remember, if there was a lot of looting, I don’t think there was anything to loot because it had all been washed out, but, oh, it probably took two or three years to get everything back in shape and get the stores rebuilt and cleaned up and everything. BC: I don’t have any more specific question but is there anything else you would like to include? DL: Yes. Well, about in 1962 every summer, we would take our family and travel some place. And, so, usually about April, faculty or people would say, “ Well, where are you going this summer?” They got used to us doing this. We have been in every state in the United States, eight countries in Europe, Hong Kong, Japan and Philippines, Korea, Hawaii, and white we were in Hawaii this is for the whole summer— my husband did a marine biology experiment over there. And did research for the whole summer— went to Canada, Mexico. We went on a camera safari in Kenya, Africa, Austria, New Zealand, and my husband went on a health mission to Guatemala and surrounding areas there with three other guys from Ricks College. 15
BC: So you did most the traveling with the five kids? DL: Yep, with our whole family. And then, since, we have retired, we have been back to Europe three times and two of those times we went with the humanities group of the college and with about 20 young people and four professors and those were very educational— they knew all the back roads and all the bed and breakfasts. BC: Where was your favorite place to travel to? DL: We went to Austria. It was really beautiful and, of course, that was where the Sound of Music was made. And we would get to see those places over there. We loved Hawaii. And while my husband, the girls, and I and my mother went was there we went to the beach and sat on the beach and swam in the water and so forth. That was fun; we really enjoyed that. We don’t travel much anymore, we are glad to stay home, now; we have seen most everything. While we were in London, one year, we saw The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserable. And another time, when we went back with the college group to see Phantom of the Opera, it wasn’t as good the second time; even though, it was pretty much the same, once you see something it is not near as exciting as it was the first time. After we retired in 1991, we have taken classes at the college. With Lyle having been in science all his teaching career time, he decided he wanted to expand his education. He loves to read and loves to learn and still, to this day, he reads very hard stuff. But anyway, I guess he has probably taken 25 classes, and I have taken about fifteen. BC: Do you do night classes? DL: No, we just go down and sit in one the classes at the college. We don’t have to pay tuition because we are retired. We took one from Brother Peck, Operas Bresses, and got him interested in going to operas. So we would go down to Logan to the operas there, they would have four every summer and they are so good. We have a cabin in Island Park, so when we go up there in the summer, we took an astronomy class so we could learn the stars. It has been fun and broadened our education and made our life richer to get a few more classes on different things. BC: Are you taking any now? DL: Not right now. He started taking an advanced bio- chemistry class but since he has had this surgery, he had to stop. But he, of course, can’t go but will be able to; maybe, pick it up in the winter or next year. He has a 60 acre farm at Egin. We bought that in 1980. He rents out, and right now, I think it is all into hay but grain and potatoes. One of his former students runs it. At the top acre, there is, probably, three acres of ground, two sheds, and he has put it all until lawn. So he takes care of the yard and, probably, has about 20 or 30 apple trees out there. There is huge, huge old trees that have, probably, been on the property for hundreds of years. He loves it out there. We built a cabin out by Henry’s Lake. We used snow machine, but our backs won’t let us do that anymore. Our grandkids and kids use it. BC: Discuss with me your finding about adoption. 16
DL: I was in seventh grade before I knew I was adopted. As far as I was concerned, mother and dad were mother and dad because I was just a baby when they got me. But it didn’t’ make any difference in my life. I didn’t have any hard feeling because they had always treated me so good. Mother used to, always, sew my clothes for me and, of course, in those days we always wore dresses and I always had the best, cutest dresses at school. BC: You were the spoiled brat as your husband said. DL: And after that, she and I made dresses a lot for all our girls for a few years. We, probably, have 15, 16 set alike. BC: have you ever tried to trace who your original birth parents were? DL: Yes, I did after our Cindy was born. She was born with a cleft lip and pallet so I tried to establish with the Salvation Army over there in Boise to discover who my mother was. The only thing they had on her was a name and an address which I wrote to up in Oregon. I never did get an answer, so I wrote to them again over in Boise, and they didn’t have anymore information for me. But the only thing we could figure that happened here was that my husband was working out at a site with radiation. BC: Where did you say he was working? DL: He was working out at the site at Hyineelle and was working at radiation. BC: Did she have a surgery? DL: Yes, she had hole on the right side of the roof of her mouth, and there was no lip. Her nose came over to her chick with a great big hole right there, so we took her to the Salt Lake City Children’s Hospital. And they pushed the roof back over a quarter of an inch. She was about four or five, we took her to Boise. They filled that space in and then she always had to wear a retainer, and it had four teeth on it because she couldn’t get teeth in that space there. You’d never know it. They took good care of her. And they sewed that lip together; it was just like tatting— kind of a Z- shape incision there. But when she was about 16, it started to pull toward her chick, so we took her to Salt Lake, and they reshaped her nose. You never know it was there. BC: Thanks for letting me do another interview with you!