Pat Widmer Interview

              Dr. Radke- Moss Women’s Oral History Collection
Pat Widmer
By Pat Widmer
January 20, 2005
Box 1 Folder 31
Oral Interview conducted by Matt Holmes
Transcript copied by Dawn Kim
Brigham Young University- Idaho
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Herein is the text of an oral interview conducted by Matt Holmes, a student at BYU- Idaho, with Pat Widmer, a member of the LDS church residing in St. Anthony, Idaho. This interview was conducted on the 19 January 2005 at six o’clock in St. Anthony, Idaho in the Widmer home.
Matt Holmes: Where are you from?
Pat Widmer: Alabama. Aniston, Alabama, originally.
MH: Tell me about Aniston, Alabama.
PW: Well, it’s down in the south, there’s lots of trees; it’s warm. You can plant your garden in February, and it’s just a really nice place.
MH: Alright, is it close to Birmingham or Montgomery, or…?
PW: About 90 miles from Birmingham. It sits sort of between Birmingham and Atlanta.
MH: Okay, so what kind of town is Aniston? Is it more of an industrial town or a farming town?
PW: Definitely not farming. It has lots of businesses and factories and that sort of thing; yes, it’s a large town. Oh yeah, it has an army fort: Fort McClellan.
MH: What about your parents— what were they like, what were their names, what did they do professionally?
PW: My parents were Earl and Irene Infinger. My dad was a millwright and a repair man for major machinery. And my mom was a homemaker and stayed at home with the children.
MH: Okay, interesting. Growing up, when you were younger in the elementary school days, and such, what were your favorite activities, like on a summer day, when there was nothing to do?
PW: Summer days, nothing to do. We had a whole group of children in the neighborhood, and we’d get together and play different kinds of running type games, none of the inside watching TV things. We were out playing cowboys and Indians, kick the can, little red devil, or we traded comic books and did a lot of reading.
MH: Were there any sports that you particularly enjoyed?
PW: Oh, not really sports. I was very good at jump rope and hop scotch and things like that: running, but yeah.
MH: Alright. Just a few more questions about [ inaudible]. What about high school, what was your high school like?
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PW: Well, I always excelled in school. I had no problem staying ahead. But in my senior year, I worked 48 hours a week. I still didn’t have any problems staying ahead in class, but it was hard to stay awake in class. Um, yeah, basically that was it.
MH: What were your doing for the other 48 hours?
PW: Ha, ha, you mean in the day? I worked 48 hours a week. I worked, okay, I got off from work at seven o’clock in the morning, school started at eight. I got home at five, went to sleep till ten and got up to work at eleven.
MH: Alright, but what do you do work- wise?
PW: Oh, I worked in a factory. Uh huh, I kept machines operating in a factory.
MH: Did you work with your Dad?
PW: No, no member of my family was there.
MH: Then how did you get that job there?
PW: How did I get the job? Well, let’s see. My branch president managed the company, so it was pretty easy to get that job. I just told him I wanted a job, and he got me one that would work with my school hours.
MH: Definitely interesting, um, I hope that you will forgive me if I ask something that might be somewhat personal and you might not want to go into it.
PW: I’ll tell you, no.
MH: Okay, please don’t take offense.
MH: Did you attend a segregated high school?
PW: I actually did attend segregated. They didn’t start integration while I was there and even still, I don’t think there’s that much integration in the South. People lived on different sides of the town even. It was sometimes scary to drive through the black side of town.
MH: Alright. In all honesty, that’s something that… growing up in my town there were two sides of town.
PW: Yes, still. And we were down in Selma not that many years ago, it’s still that way; you’re cautious.
MH: So there weren’t any attempts at desegregation while you were in school?
PW: No. 4
MH: Socially speaking, then, what kinds of expectations were there of you as a young lady as opposed to what might not be the expectation today?
PW: I was not a member of the church at that time. Um, expectations of me? Probably, do a lot of house work; take care of my little brothers and sisters. Um, do well in school, but it didn’t really matter; if I wanted to drop out of school, I could have. Uh, I could have gone with anyone I wanted to, there was just mostly no one that I wanted to go with. So, I don’t think that really mattered to my parents.
MH: Okay, when I said socially, I didn’t mean it quite in that sense ( dating). Society, what kinds of expectations did they have of young ladies?
PW: Girls wore dresses to school, it wasn’t… blue jeans weren’t in. My grandmother really frowned on whenever we wore blue jeans. In those days, it was really a bad thing, and she’d let us know. But, my mother was permissive as far as that was concerned.
MH: Do you come from a fairly tight family? Sometimes, they all stay in the same area, and they all maintain relationships. As opposed to my family, where I have, my brother is in Hawaii, I’m here ( Idaho), and I have two sisters in Provo. And my parents are back home, in Tennessee.
PW: My family is spread out from Hawaii to Oregon, to Florida, to Georgia, Alabama; yeah, all over. And we live here in Idaho. South Carolina, ( as well) yes, thank you.
MH: So, what about the Civil Rights Movement. I know you said that when you were in high school it wasn’t around, but…?
PW: There wasn’t much but I remember my dad and my mother used to go to meetings. I must have been really small at the time, and I don’t know what those meetings were because it was pretty quiet. Uh, I remember hearing about… was it Nat King Cole that came down to perform and people got up on the stage with pop bottles to attack him? I, of course, don’t know anything about that except what I remember hearing. That was really a bad thing, and I can remember service stations that would say things like we serve whites only. That was not good. Oh, and I remember once when my brother came home from the service, and he was going back into the depot… was it train or bus, I don’t remember, but there was an area for blacks and an area for whites in the depot. And they weren’t allowed together. But the black guy did come over to talk to my mom, and it was really neat; how he, he was a nice guy. We really liked him.
MH: So, were your parents actually involved in the Civil Rights Movement in any way?
PW: My dad might have been. I don’t know that for sure; he would have been in… any way, that he could, I guess.
MH: Excuse me?
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PW: He would have been if he could have been. I know that I had an uncle, and I didn’t know this at the time that he was alive, but he was a member of the KKK, which could tell you something there, too.
MH: Well, there were people, growing up, even today, that everybody had their suspicious about.
PW: I know that.
MH: But you don’t ask.
PW: Right, you don’t ask.
MH: What about people like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks; um, really it was kind of…
PW: Do you want to know how I feel about those people? Or how my family…
MH: Um, I was eventually going to get there, but I wasn’t sure how to ask.
PW: It’s okay, you can ask me that. I totally admire them; I think it’s wonderful what they did. And probably, if I had been active, I would have been on their side in that particular time. I think was a probably a little young to be involved with all that was going on but, no, I had people that I knew and really enjoyed friendships with that were black, and that was fine with me.
MH: So, what was the overall attitude of the town towards the Civil Rights Movement? I know that this is really one of the more passionate debates, even when you were older, like when Wallace stood on the steps of the University of Alabama…
PW: A lot of people thought Wallace was a hero. A lot of people did.
MH: Was it a vocal minority, did all of the scum show up to support Wallace?
PW: I don’t know that that’s true. I think that it was really hard for everyone. I think the blacks didn’t’ want to get into it either. It was something pressed on to everyone at the time. We’d always managed to get along really well, and I just remember little things like, being a kid in the town. And we lived up on the white side of town, of course, and one day, this little black boy came through the neighborhood hiring out to mow lawns. And my brother had never seen a black before, so he went out to ask him point blank, you know, and whoa. I can’t believe you said that. I really don’t, I don’t think we were as pushy about it as it came across in the news.
MH: Do you remember or have memories of things like the Montgomery bus boycott, or Martin Luther King and his march ( from Selma to Montgomery), or the sit- ins? Do you have any specific memories?
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PW: I just saw them on TV and things like that. I can remember how disgusted my mother was once when she didn’t get a seat in the front of the bus, because there was a black person sitting there, and mother was not happy about that. Basically, that’s pretty much it.
MH: We’ve spoken a lot about the Civil Rights Movement as in African- Americans, but what about women as well? They were there too; people like Betty Freidan and such as the Women’s Rights Movement progressed, what memories do you have of those kinds of things? What kinds of feelings do you have?
PW: I didn’t learn to drive when I was a teenager. Women in the South didn’t’ drive, which is, I think, a hold back. I really wasn’t proud of that. My sister, though, became a lawyer, and one of the things she really went for was women’s rights. I’ve got another one that… you know, their totally, like the apron that one of my sisters sent me says: “ The opinions expressed by the man of this house are not always those of the management.” And I thought that was pretty cool. But, yeah, my one sister really went all out for women rights, and she became very famous in the country. She worked for President Carter; she knew all of the living first ladies, still does. She worked with… well, she was an ambassador to South Africa and Ireland and did a lot of work and research on that. Plus, writes on Civil Rights.
MH: What was her name?
PW: Dale, it was Powell; now, it’s Spencer.
MH: Dale Spencer?
PW: Uh, huh. She’s in Hawaii now as a business consultant for, what’s the name of that place, Pangaea. In fact, they own the company.
MH: So, were there ever things that, prior to the Women’s Rights Movement that you felt excluded, upset, or left out because you were not allowed to do something based on gender?
PW: I could have done whatever I wanted to do there. I don’t’ think it had so much to do with gender as intelligence.
MH: Could you explain that further?
PW: What I’m saying, I think a smarter person could have done anything they wanted to do. I think you had to have the mental ability to do it, and you could have done it. As far as driving a car was concerned, I didn’t care to drive one either. My mother never drove. In fact, she got her license after I did. It was just something to have the man chauffer us around. We always liked that.
Bruce Widmer: Tell him about… when we went down there for Thanksgiving.
PW: Oh, there’s one, right. In my Grandma Taft’s house, there it was a pretty good size house with a big dining room table and everything, but we had a lot of people come. They always fed 7
the men first and then the women. And Bruce sits down at the table, and he goes “ I want Pat to sit right here by me.” And everybody’s like whoa, what’s wrong with him. But he wasn’t from the South, so he didn’t get it. We just let it go.
MH: That surprised me because my dad always did it the other way around.
PH: Oh, the women ate first?
MH: Well, more particularly when there were visitors. In fact, I remember one; I think it was somebody’s birthday. One Sunday, my grandparents had come over, and we didn’t stand back and let them get their plates first, and we spend three hours with our noses in the corner.
PH: We’ve changed a lot.
MH: That really surprises me. Was it a paternal, ( male oriented) society?
PW: Not really. I don’t know, we just enjoyed serving the guys. I don’t know, I didn’t mind at all waiting. I never was hungry so, it didn’t bother me.
MH: You know what you said about driving a car?
PW: Yes.
MH: There’s still by a law in my town, obviously, it is not enforced. But women are not allowed to drive unless the husband sits on the hood of the car with a shotgun firing off warming rounds to let everybody know that there’s a women…
PW: Now, you know, I don’t believe that.
MH: It’s true. In fact, I saw it on a Denny’s, uh, you know, the placemats that have fun facts; it’s true. At least the placemat said it was.
PW: Where did you grow up?
MH: I’m from Columbia, Tennessee; an hour south of Nashville.
PW: South of Nashville, how many hours?
MH: Just an hour.
PW: Oh, yeah because I was going to say, you don’t drive very far in Tennessee, and you’re in Alabama. It may take a while because of the lousy roads, but…
MH: Right. Well, there’s one county in- between us and Alabama.
PW: Uh huh, that’s about it. 8
MH: And an hour is actually stretching it some.
MH: Moving on, you said you enjoyed school. Did you attend college?
PW: Yes.
MH: Where did you go?
PW: Utah State University.
MH: So was that after you met your husband?
PW: Yes.
MH: What was your major?
PW: Elementary Ed/ Special Ed.; dual major.
MH: Now, bishop, you were involved in a similar career weren’t you?
PW: Sure, same thing.
MH: Right, just asked out of curiosity.
PW: Would that have been, what was the environment like on campus? Would there have been anything going on…
MH: You mean like rights and stuff?
PW: Yes.
MH: No, not really. I went to school later in life in Utah just not the same as in Alabama; we might as well face that straight- up, kind of like Tennessee.
PW: The Mountains give them an awful lot of insulation.
PW: I guess so.
MH: How did you and your husband meet?
PW: Remember Ft. McClellan down there by Aniston? He was down there in basic training, spent four months at Fr. McClellan, four of his six months in basic training in the army chemical, biological, and radiological warfare. We met in Sunday school. I walked in, and there were three new guys. And I picked him out by the back of his head, and I decided I’d just go ahead and take him. True.
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BW: She didn’t see my face.
PW: Nope, I liked his hair.
MH: How did you come into the church then, because I had assumed that it had been affiliated with your husband?
PW: No, no. I was seventeen, and my aunt and my cousin and my uncle stopped by. It was on a Saturday afternoon. I, we were just serving, you’d call it lunch now, we called it dinner then. Anyway, they came and when you come in the South, you stay and eat. So, we were set up the table to eat also, and I was putting out the ice tea glasses. And Judy, my cousin, goes I can’t drink tea. And I had a good laugh over that because you can drink anything, all you have to do is tip it up and swallow it, you know. And they, they explained to me that she had just been baptized and that’s where she had been and that’s why they were stopping back by. So, then I asked about it because at that time, I had totally quit going to church. I had always gone to the Methodist church or to any of the revivals. And I had investigated every church that was within distance of our house, and it was about a church on every corner really. So I had investigated all that I could find, and I was like, there’s no true church, I’m done; I’m not going. I can’t take this any longer, and I quit going. My parents would send me, and I’d take my little brothers and sisters and send them in, and I’d wait outside and bring them home again because I wasn’t going in again; I’d had it. And then, when they told me about that, I told that, I told Aunt May, who was really my best friend, about it. And she said, before you totally quit going, you should probably just go once to the Mormon Church, and I did, and that was Saturday. And I went the next day, and there’s where I made the change in my life.
MH: So, it should like religion was a pretty big thing for you throughout your life.
PW: Well, I looked for it.
MH: Were your parents religious?
PW: Not really; not at all. My grandfather was. In fact, both sides my grandparents, uh, Grandma and Grandpa Infinger had joined the church when they were younger, but there was no church around. They were baptized by traveling missionaries, and then when the missionaries left, so did the church. So they went back to the Baptist church. And on my mother’s side, Grandma and Grandpa Taft, Grandma didn’t do anything with religion but Grandpa was like a Deacon or lay minister or something in the Methodist church, and he would go every Sunday to church, and Grandma would stay home and make these awesome dinners. And that’s why we were always to her house for dinner on Sunday. But um, my grandparents were always fairly religious. My Grandpa Taft always said the blessing on the food and always said his prayers at night; things like that. But, I tried all of their churches, and I wasn’t thrilled with any of them.
MH: I had friends like that…( the parents did not go to church) but their parents made sure the kids went.
PW: Which isn’t a very nice thing to do. 10
MH: So, could you talk a little more about your religious explorations prior to coming into the church?
PW: Just whatever I have done investigating churches?
MH: Yes.
PW: Well, there were tent revivals that came down South, and that was miserable, awe. I went to one of those, and I was ready to scream. I needed out of there. Those people were horrible. I couldn’t believe people would act like that in a church house, you know, jumping over benches and jumping up and screaming. We went to a church with my mom later on, and it was a Methodist or Baptist, I think. And in that congregation, the minister would say something and everyone would raise their hands and, you know, like they were agreeing. It was a weird situation. And I remember, once, we went when I was really young, went with my brother, I guess my family, but I was sitting by my brother— and he’s sox foot six and a half, so he’s pretty tall, and his voice hadn’t changed yet. And the minister said, “ If you’re glad to be here, shout amen.” And he shouted “ amen” and I could have killed him because everybody thought I did, and so that was a miserable situation. I don’t know, I just never felt good in those…
BW: Didn’t they drag you up to be saved?
PW: Oh, yeah. They dragged me up to the alter once to be saved. Which is another strange and I like, just, get away from me. I went to the Catholic Church, and I couldn’t believe that. I tried about everything there was around.
MH: But never felt satisfied?
PW: Oh no, you’d have to experience it to believe it.
MH: I’ve been to a few others, but I’ve never had to search.
PW: That’s true, you’re lucky.
MH: There’s certainly a difference when you’re confident in what you have and not trying to look into a church.
PW: When I heard about this one, I decided to investigate it too. So, it did.
MH: And you say you were 17 when…?
PW: Uh huh, 17.
MH: So how old were you when you met your husband?
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PW: Eighteen. We met in February. I had just turned 18 and, yeah, we met in February and we dated through April. And he had to go back, and we got married in June. But we had two months to date.
MH: And you ( Bishop Widmer) were in Fort McClellan doing what?
BW: CBR School.
MH: What does that stand for?
PW: Chemical, Biological, and Radiological.
BW: You see Fort McClellan was a chemical fort. When I was… I was in a chemical unit down in Montpellier.
PW: Montpellier, Idaho.
MH: Yes, that’s by Bear Lake. I had a companion on my mission from Montpellier. Phelps was the last name.
PW: Really?
MH: He was a direct descendent of, um, uh…
BW: W. W. Phelps?
MH: Yes, William W, W. W. Phelps.
MH: Anyway, though, how many children do you have?
PW: We have five.
MH: And how have they affected your life? Have there been any goals or ambitions that you’ve had to put on hold?
PW: Well, let’s see. Our hair is turning grey, I guess… they say insanity is hereditary; you get it from your kids. No, not really. Our kids have been really, pretty good kids. I could joke about it but, we’ve got some really good kids and…
MH: Did you spend most of your life as a stay at home mom?
PW: Yes, mostly I was a stay at home mom. I’ve done a few odd jobs like secretary work and financial work and things like that but, mostly, I’ve been home with the kids.
MH: Something that has always struck me about that is, for instance, I have a friend. I knew her my first year up here. She’s actually from Bear Lake, Montpellier, and she got married within 12
that first year, and they have a child now. You know, she spends her day caring for that child. She’s not enrolled in classes anymore, and it has always struck me the level of commitment that it takes to raise a kid; whether it’s one or whether it be five. Could you talk about that a little bit? Is it hard? How do you deal with difficulties of having to focus your life so selflessly?
PW: I think you’ve got to consider what you want your child to be first of all. And, of course, you’re gonna clean, you’re gonna cook, you’re gonna do all those things but you need to spend time with the children and teaching them and showing them things. I liked to take walks with the kids when they were little and take them to learn about businesses and to learn about the church; I took them a lot of times to temple square so they could learn those things. I tried to make sure that the children were well taught, and it really works, the more you put into it. We didn’t keep TV at all times because of the children being young, and even playing hose with the kids was a lot of fun. If we had our different rooms in the house, that’s your house and that is my house, and let’s go visit; and it was just fun to be with them and out on the farm and taking walks and doing good things together. It was always a good thing to do.
MH: You mentioned teaching your children and making sure they’re well taught. How do you make sure they are genuinely well taught, people of understanding as opposed to something else?
PW: Well, you expose them to really good literature for one thing. Teach them how to read, and I’m a reading teacher so it is pretty easy for me to say that but, yes, I think most people could teach their children how to read and to appreciate music with a good beat to is good for learning math. And also if they take a music lesson such as piano or, our kids did piano, they did drums, they did trumpet, violin, they did all these different music instruments which also helps develop their brains. We taught our kids, and our children are doing this now, that they read to the baby before the baby is born, which is really good. I know that two of our children’s IQ’s measured 140 and the other is 141 of the two that we’ve had measured, I think that’s awesome. I don’t know how it comes about unless we do teach them how to exercise all areas of the brain, so that, and I understand people are born with birth defects and things. But I think you can work with children who are deprived and I’m talking deprived and not cared for as they should be. Even though, they might have started out with a good IQ, might drop. I’ve seen it happen. It’s kind of a sad thing to see happen, and I feel like a parent has a huge responsibility in the life of the child, and the effect their child will have on the community.
MH: This is a fairly similar question, what have you done to make sure that your children are good members of the church. I can think of people that I know, tow guys I knew growing up. One guy, he really likes to go hunting with his dad on Sunday. Whenever they came they came for sacrament meeting then take off and yet, this young man went on a mission, came home honorably, got married in the temple, and doing all the things he’s supposed to be doing all along the things his mom wanted him to do. By contrast, I could pick another guy that was a great guy. He was always everything he was supposed to be, the quintessential peter priesthood. And yet, he’s living in Florence, Alabama right now with his girlfriend. He declined to go on a mission. So as a mother, what have you done to ensure that your kids are quality members of the church?
PW: Well, that’s a good question because you don’t take away your child’s free agency, but you can teach them and you don’t, I mean, we always took the kids to church with us. We went with 13
them. Bruce has always served in a position such as a bishopric or something of that nature, so we watched him do service most of his life. When our last children were quite young, I was primary president which gave me a good opportunity to set a good example with them there, also, and it was really nice to be there, to be teaching them. And I always, when they were younger, made sure that they did go to church on Sunday. You don’t, it doesn’t do a lot good though to nag them and force them into it. Sometimes, I wonder if your friend’s dad might have been smart to say, okay, let’s cut the meeting today and go hunting. I don’t know, because sometimes the children have felt that we have made them miss things that they wanted to do, you know, they’ve made up for it in their adult life but, basically, our children are doing fine. And so, I guess, we’ve gotten through somehow. But we still don’t let them forget, and we still see them and make sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
MH: My mom doesn’t let me forget either.
PW: What kinds of hobbies have you enjoyed as a wife and as a mother?
MH: We’re back to those summer days when the kids were all at summer camp.
PW: We never did that. No, ha ha, I liked going for walks with the kids. I like going on mountain hikes. I like crocheting. I like reading. Some music, I enjoy listening to. Um, if I watch TV, I usually want it to be funny. I want it to be, not have a bad rating. But I like things that are fun and funny. So, I’m pretty careful what I watch on TV because that’s not usually all that great. And when I read, I always pick authors who don’t write garbage. I rate books too. But, I like writing. I’ve written some poetry and stories, etc. I think, when I finally retire from teaching, I’ll become an author. I enjoy it.
MH: So how often do you write aside from your journal?
PW: Um, not that often. Sometimes, I’ll, well, in school, of course, I write because I write examples for student I teach like… well, basically, every other day, I would guess in school, but not at home to write books or anything. I’ve started but I haven’t completed it but, I do have a book of poetry and short stories that I’ve written, and I’ll go back to it.
MH: Have you ever shared those with your husband or family members or friends?
PW: Some, uh huh.
MH: What about as a Grandmother, are you a grandmother?
PW: Yes, we have almost ten grandchildren. One will be born next month.
MH: Are you close by?
PW: No, from two and a half to three hundred miles away. They are a distance away.
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MH: So what about as a grandmother, what kinds of things does Grandma Widmer like to do and what kinds of things is Grandma Widmer known for?
PW: See that was my mother- in- law. She was Grandma Widmer, I’m just Grandma.
MH: What’s Grandma known for? Why do the grandkids get excited when Grandma is coming?
PW: It’s cute because our son- in- law, the other day, was cooking brownies while the little two year- old was in bed asleep. And when he woke up he was feeding Addison the brownies, and he goes, “ Addison, who loves you more than anybody else in this world?” And he goes, “ Grandma.” But, like when they come here, I rebel one of the cupboards Harrison/ Addison Cupboard, and they know that anything in there they can have. And they love to go and raid that cupboard so I got a phone call the other day, “ I’ve got a good idea grandma, take everything out of the Harrison/ Addison cupboard and come down to our house.” But, we’ve got one grandson, and he is fifteen, he’ll be sixteen in August. And every time, we go down he packs a suitcase, he’s going home with us. He’s got his suitcase right there by the door when we’re to go. Unless he is in summer and we just do things. We just do fun things together. We work in the yard. He works right by my side the whole time. I like to take him to the show and things like that. But, he’s just a, he’s my boy. That’s all. He knows that and so do I, so… yeah.
MH: And what is Grandpa known for? What does Grandma do?
BW: Laughs.
MH: Just work?
BW: Yeah. ( Still Laughing)
MH: Were there any activities you enjoyed as a grandfather, with your grandkids?
BW: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that.
MH: I know sometimes, when things are a part of your daily life; sometimes it’s hard…( to answer those questions).
PW: Well, you like playing computer games with Harrison.
BW: Oh yeah. I do, I do. And he’s learning to play chess, so…
PW: Harrison is five.
BW: Harrison’s five, kindergarten. He’s learning to play chess and so when he gets all the moves why, you see my chess board sitting right up there?
MH: Yes.
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BW: I love to play chess.
MH: It’s kind of interesting, I know a couple back home and they work at the temple in Nashville now. And it’s kind of funny because they like to kind of fight over their grandkids. Granddad, Grandpa has the tractor and Grandma has the cookies
PW: Grandma would win every time.
BW: You see, when go down there we always go together. And when they’re first, when they’re really young, they don’t know whether it’s grandma or grandpa.
PW: Right, children don’t distinguish who’s who. But they soon figure it out. Grandma’s the one who goes out to play.
MH: Just a few final question and then we can wrap this up; could you talk about some of the callings you’ve had as a member of the church?
PW: Different types of callings. The first calling I ever had was teaching nine year- old boys, and I had a group of them. And we met in the shower room of the church house. Boy; that was a tough calling. And I was used to little brothers too. I didn’t let them get out of line at all, I was really tough. But, I remember once the Bishop, the member of the bishopric, and I didn’t know the kids. I was brand new. He said, “ Well, how was the class today?” And I said, “ Well, I had two boys,” and I said what they did and everything. And he said “ ones mine, ones the Bishop’s; it won’t happen again.” And it didn’t. But let’s see, I’ve taught 11 year- old scouts, taught primary, taught 16 year- olds in Sunday school. I’ve taught Relief Society lessons, um, I’ve been Primary President, counselor in the Stake Relief Society, Stake Primary President, um, what all have I done; lots of times as primary teacher.
BW: Worked three and a half years in the temple.
PW: Oh, yes. Temple work, we served in the temple for three and a half years. I’ve been a bishop’s wife a couple of times. That’s a job, nothing major.
MH: I know that all callings come from the Lord, but have there been any callings that you have just really enjoyed or that really made you grow?
PW: There were two callings that I never, never wanted to be released from and the one was teaching the 16 year- olds in Sunday school, and they called me from there to the nursery and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I was enjoying those 16 years- olds so much and then they put me in the nursery, and I was like, “ wow, that’s a demotion.” But right from the nursery, they and I hadn’t been there very long, and they called me as a ward primary president. When I first got into that I thought, holy cow, that’s way over my head. But, every time, we got three bishops. We served under three bishops and every time a new bishop would come in, we’d go “ don’t you dare release us.” We totally enjoyed it. It was so good; it was just a wonderful calling. So between those two, I don’t know which I liked best. They were both really good.
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MH: Alright…
PW: Well, serving in the temple was awesome too.
MH: Well, obviously…
BW: Then we were stake missionaries for six years.
PW: That’s right; we were stake missionaries for six years.
MH: Were there any, as a couple were there any wonderful experiences that you had as stake missionaries?
PW: I think it was really neat to teach the new member lessons to Brother Parker, who is also serving over on campus, now, as a councilor in a bishopric. He’s a nice guy. He’s a nice guy.
BH: He’s actually, of course, the St. Anthony area but, this part, led the mission for about two years…
PW: For quite a while.
BW: In convert baptisms. The Pocatello, Idaho Mission; we led it. So, this is a very fruitful area.
MH: You must have worked hard.
PW: Not as hard as we could have, I’m sure.
BW:… and we had good fulltime missionaries.
PW: True, one of them is in your ward now. What’s his name? Mike Atherton?
BW: Mike Atherton.
PW: Do you know him?
MH: Um, I knew a guy, Jared Burke. He went to school here when it was Ricks College, then he went on his mission to Pocatello, and he was assigned to serve in Rexburg.
PW: Mike was here while we were on stake missions.
BW: Yeah, Mike was here. He’s in apartment number 21, yeah.
PW: You’ll have to meet him.
MH: What was his last name? 17
PW: Atherton.
MH: How long has he been in the ward?
BW: Well, he was in the ward two years ago, then he went home for an internship. This is the first semester he’s been back.
MH: Well, um, as we’ve spoken tonight, have there any just outstanding memories... that you’ve thought about and would like to share?
MH: I know that’s a very broad question. If the answer is no, then…
PW: Probably no, I can’t think of anything.
MH: Well, I appreciated both of your time, uh, times.
PW: Ha ha, right. The time both of you have shared.
BW: She, when we got married in June and until we stayed, I was working on a farm, a big cattle farm. And we stayed there from June until October, no September. And she spent every day riding horses.
PW: Well, it was the first experience I’d had with riding horses.
BW: She enjoyed riding horses.
PW: Clear until we went to Oregon that one year and rode race horses. That was dumb. Boy; those horse, he clicked, went tic- tic, and then both took off. And I couldn’t hold that horse back. The only thing I could have done was pull him up and flip myself off the rear end of the horse.
BW: ( Inaudible) very spirited animals.
PW: And I decided never to let a dumb animal take over my life again.