Belva Jean Jensen Mugleston Interview

              Dr. Radke- Moss Women‟ s Oral History Collection
Belva Jean Jensen Mugleston
By Belva Mugleston
Winter 2008
Box 5 Folder 12
Oral Interview conducted by Chris Howard
Transcript copied by Chris Howard Winter 2008
Brigham Young University- Idaho
2
Chris Howard: Here I go. Alright, what is your full name, including your maiden name?
Belva Mugleston: My full name is Belva Jean Jensen Mugleston.
CH: Thank You. And when and where were you born?
BM: I was born in Osgood, Idaho, June the 19th, 1930.
CH: 1930. So what were your parent‟ s full names?
BM: My dad‟ s name was Victor McKinley Jensen. My mother‟ s name was Josephine Elizabeth Hinckley.
CH: Hinckley? Any relationship to …
BM: Yes.
CH: Gordon B. Hinckley?
BM: Her grandfather and his grandfather were brothers.
CH: Now say that again.
BM: My mother‟ s grandfather and President Hinckley‟ s grandfather were brothers.
CH: Cool. Cool. So did that, obviously, with his passing away here more recently, did that…
BM: I always had a great, great deal of love for him because of that. Because a lot of the characteristics of the Hinckley clan was in him. You could see the characteristics, but I felt very honored that we were that closely related. He‟ s basically her second cousin.
CH: Wow, I would have felt honored too. So I didn‟ t know that. So that‟ s good to know. So what is your religious affiliation?
BM: I‟ m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints.
CH: Ok. And you‟ ve been a member your whole life?
BM: Whole life.
CH: Ok. Obviously it goes back quite a ways…
BM: It does. It does.
CH: So where did you grow up and go to school? 3
BM: I grew up in Osgood, Idaho until I‟ d finished the third grade and starting the fourth when we moved to Lorenzo.
CH: So Lorenzo. And that‟ s just down the road?
BM: Yes, just about four miles north of Rigby.
CH: Ok. And so in Lorenzo, how long were you in the Lorenzo area?
BM: My whole life until I got married.
CH. Ok.
BM: Then I came to Rigby and I‟ m still in this area. I haven‟ t traveled very far.
CH: Ok, so you graduated from Rigby High?
BM: I did.
CH: And what year did you graduate?
BM: 1948.
CH: 1948?
BM: Um, hm.
CH: So back in the day what kind of music did you like?
BM: Well I liked swing; the big bands were big during my high school and young married years. I like pop music. I like country music. I like classical music. I don‟ t care much for jazz or the blues, or rock and roll.
CH: How come you didn‟ t… how come you don‟ t like any of those?
BM: They didn‟ t seem like music. They were loud and couldn‟ t hear the words, and my youth and my married life was more into the softer music. You could hear the music or you could hear the words above the music. Now you have to really strain to hear what the singers are saying. But when I had children, I mean, and they were big rock and roll, but I love swing. And then my husband played in a dance band.
CH: Oh, really?
BM: Yes, he was a drummer. He started in high school and he drummed until he took sick and couldn‟ t work anymore. But he was a good drummer and he belonged to a lot of 4
good bands. And during my childhood and young teenage years and young married years, dancing was a big part of our entertainment.
CH: Was that church and outside of church?
BM: Church and outside.
CH: Ok.
BM: They‟ d have dances in the armories, they‟ d have, of course, church dances at the stake tabernacles, and then they‟ d have back in those days in the church, they have Gold and Green Balls once a year and they just played. And he played at a lot of clubs. He played at the Elk‟ s Club thru the years…
CH: The Elk‟ s Club, is that in Idaho Falls?
BM: Um- hm.
CH: Ok.
BM: Yeah so that kind of music was the music I liked.
CH: That was the “ in” music?
BM: That was the “ in” music.
CH: Ok. So what games do you remember playing as a child?
BM: As a child when we lived in Osgood, when I was growing up we didn‟ t have any close neighbors that had children and I was the middle child of six children.
CH: Ok.
BM: So I had an older brother and an older sister and lot of the games we made up.
CH: Ok.
BM: But what they did down there, was on Sunday nights, a lot of the neighbors would get together at one place. Mother was always good at making home made ice cream, and they‟ d come to our place, so kids would be around. We could play and we‟ d play Annie- I- Over, kick the can, hide and seek, and that pretty outside game, and inside games we played an awfully lot of checkers.
CH: Checkers?
BM: Checkers, Chinese checkers. 5
CH: Ok.
BM: And a game called Tiddlywinks.
CH: Tiddlywinks.
BM: I hadn‟ t…
CH: I‟ ve heard of that…
BM: I hadn‟ t seen one of those games for quite a while till a few years ago I saw one in a store and I was so excited. They‟ re little discs and you have a bigger disc, they‟ re just little flat discs and you take the bigger disc and hit the little disc and make it pop. And you had a little canister that you‟ s trying to get „ em to land in. And of course we always made games out of games and so we were basketball teams and the one that could sink the basket would win. I loved that little game. It wasn‟ t real complicated, but it was fun to play.
CH: Well that‟ s good. So were you in any activities in school?
BM: I wasn‟ t. Back when I was in high school they had some social clubs and I belonged to one of those, the Delta [ Eplon] Epsilon. And we had to support the ball games, you know, we were really the cheering squad and we‟ d wear certain uniforms on days just to show who we were. We though we‟ s quite special. But I was not athletic.
CH: Ok.
BM: I loved the athletics, but I don‟ t know whether I wasn‟ t coordinated or what but when we‟ d have baseball games and that I was always the last one chosen, first one out of the games. But I did enjoy them. But no I wasn‟ t in any athletics.
CH: So what was, that was the Delta…
BM: Delta Epsilon Kappa.
CH: And that was a women‟ s…
BM: Um- hm. They had two at Rigby High School, one was called [ Jowatavie] and then we started a new one and I was in the other one. And we kind of thought we ruled the school. I‟ m glad they stopped that, no, if you belonged to a club you were a little, which wasn‟ t really true, but we thought we were.
CH: So you said you graduated from Rigby High in 1948?
BM: Um- hm. 6
CH: So, did you work at all during high school?
BM: Just at home, we worked hard at home. Dad had a farm when we moved out of Osgood. I just want to say that when we lived in Osgood, you probably are going to want to know this later, but I worked at home. We had potatoes, we had beets, and we had grain, we had hay, and in the spring we‟ d start cutting potatoes. As soon as we finished cutting potatoes, we had to thin the beets. As soon as we finished thinning the beets it was time to hole the potatoes. And after we holed the potatoes, it was time to do the hay, and when we finished the hay we had to go through the potatoes again, a whole…
CH: So you had year round work?
BM: Yes. We‟ d herd cows, we‟ d… there was not much idle time. I was sad for school to start. I loved school.
CH: So how big was your farm?
BM: Dad had 120 acres.
CH: 120 acres. And you had cattle, you said?
BM: We did.
CH: How many head of cattle did you say?
BM: He had, at first we had milk cows, might have had 10 or 12 milk cows. Later on in his life he changed from farming when, he called us little Indians, after we all got married and left, and had no farm labor. But he went into ranching more and raised cattle, hay, and had a lot of nice cattle.
CH: Ok, what kind of cattle were they?
BM: He had Herefords.
CH: Herefords? Ok.
BM: Um- hm.
CH: Good beef cows, right?
BM: Oh yes. And then he started going into the Black Angus.
CH: Oh, ok.
BM: They fattened up a little faster and brought more at the market. 7
CH: Ok.
BM: So he had a pretty herd of cattle. Dad was a good farmer, a good farmer and a good cattle man.
CH: That‟ s good! It‟ s good for business.
BM: Yes.
CH: Ok, so you said you mainly worked sole at home, you didn‟ t have any outside…?
BM: No. No, I didn‟ t. I just stayed at home and Mother wouldn‟ t allow us to go anywhere else, she needed us all day long.
CH: Ok. So what did you do after high school?
BM: When I was ready to graduate, I loved Idaho State University, short hand, stuff like that. I had planned that I wanted to be a teacher I wanted to do something that I could have a desk. I loved desks. And my shorthand teacher told me there was going to be an opening up at the bank, and he wanted me to go up and apply. And I wasn‟ t particularly interested in that, but I went up and I got the job and so I started work. I graduated the end of May and I started work the first week in June at the bank. I didn‟ t have a full week between high school and graduation and starting at the bank and that became my vocation. I worked there for 40 years.
CH: So what did you first do when you went to the bank?
BM: When I first was hired, I was hired as a bookkeeper.
CH: Ok.
BM: And I loved that. I loved the machines. I loved finding things and, anything with figures. And then I was promoted to a teller, and I loved that „ cause I had the interaction with people…
CH: Customers…
BM: I loved to do that. And then they moved me up in to the loan department. I went and what they called the note department and I helped people when they came in to pay on the notes. Then I had to figure the interest and do that. And then I had to be a secretary. I didn‟ t have to be, but when my second boy was born I quit for a time. And when I went back I went back as a secretary. And I was a secretary for a while and then they moved me in as a loan assistant. Then when my husband took sick I moved up to loan officer and then I moved up to assistant manager.
8
CH: Ok.
BM: So I went through all the phasing of banking.
CH: When you were first started what was your pay?
BM: Oh, you know, I started at $ 75 a month.
CH: Ok. And this is in „ 48?
BM: This is in ‟ 48. And I remember we‟ d get about $ 5 raise a year.
CH: Ok.
BM: And after about four years I remember my boss came in and said, “ Well you‟ re gonna get another raise.” And I was trying to be sarcastic because $ 5 wasn‟ t a great deal and I said, “ Well, you know I think maybe the bank better keep it because it will do, they probably need it more than me and it would probably cost me more money for income taxes.” And I was saying it just to say, you know, and he went up to his office and he was quite a stern little guy but he was really good to me, and he came back later and he said, “ You know, I just can‟ t let it go without you having a raise, they‟ ll think something was wrong with you and you‟ re my very best help so you‟ ve got to take it.”
CH: So you were trying to be sarcastic and he took you seriously?
BM: Yeah! He took me seriously.
CH: Was there a point where you topped out, where they kept your…?
BM: Well, you know, women weren‟ t ever to… for years there were no officers, you know, in our bank of women. Women did the secretarial and the tellering and what have you but when they started to promote me, and just before I had to quit to take care of my husband I was starting to make, not equal to men, but I was making a good wage. What I considered a good wage…
CH: A good wage…
BM: A good wage for me.
CH: So near the end was when you were beginning to make a good wage.
BM: Just when the meat was coming in, you know. I had to quit. They gave bonuses each year to the loan officers, and the first year I was made loan officer they quit that, so I never even got in on the bonuses.
CH: So you never even got a bonus? 9
BM: No bonus.
CH: What would the bonuses have been?
BM: Oh sometimes they were… the managers got really good bonuses, sometimes it would be seven or eight thousand dollars. They were bonuses based on how much the bank, their branch made that….
CH: That‟ s a pretty hefty sum…
BM: Yeah, yeah.
CH: In the day seven or eight thousand dollars…
[ Crosstalk]
BM: But the officers, sometimes they‟ d get $ 500 or $ 1,000 or what have you.
CH: That would be good Christmas money.
BM: I would have been happy with that.
CH: You said one thing, so obviously the men and women‟ s pay wasn‟ t equal…
BM: No.
CH: … at that time.
BM: No.
CH: Not even…
BM: No, but I don‟ t know, I‟ m sure it got equal towards the end. Towards my final years in banking women were taking on some pretty… they were in the corporate end of it and…
CH: What year was like your final year?
BM: I quit in … let‟ s see. I‟ ve got to think. 1988.
CH: 1988. Ok and that‟ s when it started, like, coming more equal.
BM: Oh yeah, it was starting to. They were using a lot more women, you know, women‟ s rights, women‟ s liberation would come on and it was making a difference. I‟ m not sure they ever did equal out actually in pay… 10
CH: Ok.
BM: … and I don‟ t know whether it‟ s still equal or not, but at least they were…
CH: I‟ m sure it closer now.
BM: … yeah, they were getting more recognition. And they were being able to be into some of the higher offices and responsibilities in banking.
CH: So you were in banking almost 40 years.
BM: Yes, I was in there 40 years.
CH: 40 years. I know what I was going to ask… Ok, $ 75 a month, what would that have bought you, I guess.
BM: Oh my gosh. Let‟ s see. I think we went to the shows, was paying about 25 cents to go to the show. You could buy a bag of popcorn for about 10 cents, and you could buy three pounds of hamburger for a dollar.
CH: Wow.
BM: And I think a loaf of bread was 25 cents. I‟ m not really accurate as to it, because…
CH: What would a rent on a home?
BM: When we bought this home in ‟ 51 we paid $ 11,000.
CH: Wow! So you‟ re paying more for cars now?
BM: Oh yes!
BM: That‟ s why I don‟ t like buying a new car, took me a lifetime to pay off this house, why would I want to buy a car that cost me so much more than a housed did? Yeah.
CH: That‟ s funny, that‟ s funny. So do you have any memories… you were born in 1930, what memories do you have of the depression, yourself, or maybe from your parents?
BM: I was born during the depression, the depression hadn‟ t ended yet, but I remember my folks talking about the depression. I remember how my dad always felt. And he hammered it into us, it didn‟ t stick a lot, but he hammered it into us just to save, to don‟ t spend all you make. Save for a rainy day, save for a rainy day and they didn‟ t believe in debt. You didn‟ t have it, you didn‟ t buy it. And this adage President Hinckley always used, “ Fix it up and make it do, or do without.” That was my folk‟ s philosophy. They were hard working, they took very good care of what they had. But if you didn‟ t have it, 11
you didn‟ t buy it. And I didn‟ t ever know we was poor, I didn‟ t ever know there was a depression because we always had food. Dad and Mother‟ s life when they were young helped to make them a lot more frugal than some people. Dad‟ s father went on a mission when Dad was 12 years old.
CH: Oh.
BM: And it was one of those missions you just go with purse and scrip. Purse and script.
CH: Right.
BM: And Dad was 12 and his mother had eight children. In fact, she had a baby born right after Grandpa left. So there was eight children and Dad was the oldest boy, and they had a dry farm up in Ashton, so he was responsible for that farm. And they had a debt on it and Grandpa, I don‟ t know how many years he was gone, I think it was probably just two, but when Grandpa came back Dad had got the farm paid for.
CH: Wow.
BM: And I heard people talk about… they had combines and they had to have six horses to pull this big equipment and they said, “ That 12 year old boy could handle those horses like any man.” So they learned to, you know, just work and you took care of things and you didn‟ t squander, you didn‟ t. And then Mother, her dad died when she was eight years old. And back in those days women‟ s work was almost nill. So they would milk cows, and they would churn and make butter. And then on Saturdays they‟ d go to town and sell butter and they‟ d sell eggs from chickens. And Mother would clean houses and clean doctor‟ s offices and that when she was a little girl to get money. So they weren‟ t brought up in plush circumstances but they learned to make do and so they always had… Dad always said, “ If you buy some land always have some land.” Land is important. If you‟ ve got land you can survive anything. You can have a cow, you can have a pig, you can have chickens, you can have a garden. You can raise everything you eat and you can feed your family, and that was basically how I grew up. He had all those things. We had food. I never knew that there was bad times.
CH: That‟ s good though.
BM: Yes. That is good.
CH: You pretty much summed it up, right in the end. I was like, you had, you know, the beets, and the dairy cow, and meat cows…
BM: That‟ s right.
CH: And so you had everything so…
BM: We had… 12
CH: So you didn‟ t have to go without…
BM: No, and…
CH: Food- wise anyway.
BM: … you didn‟ t have to spend money. It was scarce either end of the depression. A lot of people couldn‟ t find work, and because the business had failed the banks had failed, a lot of people lost great money in the banks. Dad didn‟ t trust banks for a long, long time. I don‟ t think he had any money in the bank to lose because when you‟ re a farmer you get some cash crops, and when you get the cash crops that‟ s when you pay your taxes and pay your bills. He rented down at Osgood, the Utah- Idaho Sugar Company had the land down there, and they would allow these farmers to come in and, I don‟ t know whether they leased it or rented, but I know my dad had to raise so many acres of sugar beets. And then the Utah- Idaho Sugar Company took a portion of those sugar beets. I don‟ t know what the quota was. But then they could use the land to grow whatever else they wanted on it. But they had to raise so many sugar beets. And then they could never own the land, they were just renting it. But and then they would bring people in to help with the harvest of the sugar beets. But that‟ s where Dad acquired, accumulating a few things, you know, he‟ d have his milk cows and Mother would milk. She helped him with the farm. She‟ d milk the cows in the morning and at night during the hot growing season. She‟ d even go out and help with the machinery. They didn‟ t have tractors; they had horses. So you grew hay to feed your horses. I think Dad was the only one that had a car for a good long time, around the immediate area that we was living in because a couple of men got hit in the head with the horse, you know. They‟ d hit, these big work horses have hooves like this, and while they were hitching the horses some of the horses would kick and so they got kicked in the head with the horse and they would come and get Dad because he had a car to drive them in to the hospital. And I remember, I think, that‟ s when I got a fear of horses because those men died. But I knew that Dad had a car, I don‟ t know how he ever got it or what, but Mother was really good to make sure that they canned everything. Everything we ate she canned. She was a working woman. And we didn‟ t have water in the house, but then nobody else did either, so you didn‟ t know. You‟ d have a pump outside and you‟ d go pump it, bring it into the house in a little bucket and you had a little cup, you‟ d drink it. And then you‟ d heat the water on the stove to boil and for bath water. Many times I remember going to the ditch. We had a ditch on our place and Mother would give us some soap and a towel and we‟ d go out to the ditch to do our bathing and…
CH: What did you do during the winter time?
BM: During the winter time, you know, in Osgood I don‟ t remember because I imagine we bathed in a little tub like we did up in Lorenzo. We went to school in a sleigh, a horse driven sleigh and it had a canopy over it. I remember that it was cold and then in summertime they had a little wagon that was covered, but we had no busses when we went to school, but we had a very nice schoolhouse. The Osgood school house that‟ s 13
there now is the one I went to school in and they had a gymnasium. It was wonderful. And they just closed that about two years ago. They were still using it. It‟ s a good, wonderful school…
CH: Did they make it a historical site, or did they just…
BM: No…
CH: … shut it down?
BM: No they wanted to consolidate, I don‟ t know what it was being used for or if they have anything else in it but they made the kids that was going there come into town.
CH: So you said you rode in a sleigh to school. Was this like the school sleigh or was this your personal sleigh….
BM: A gentleman must have run the thing because he‟ d come by and pick us up.
CH: Wow.
BM: In the little sleigh they had little benches and you sat on the side. We didn‟ t have far to go to school; it was only about two and a half miles. But yeah we had a little sleigh „ cause the snow, you know, the roads, and we didn‟ t have snow plows. Dad would leave his car parked out at the highway in the wintertime and we would get on a sleigh with horses to go down to it, to go into Idaho Falls to get groceries.
CH: Wow, that‟ s funny. That‟ s cool though. So what do you remember about World War II?
BM: Ah, World War II. I remember exactly the night that President Roosevelt came on the phone, or not on the phone, on the radio cause we always listened to the radios, that was some entertainment. And they broke in to it and he said that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
CH: So you remember that?
BM: I remember that. I was probably about 11 years old. And we were just devastated. We were shocked, devastated, didn‟ t know what to do. And the next day he came on and announced that the United Stated had declared war on Japan. And a little while later, why, they had declared war on Germany. I don‟ t know how many more months, but it was real upsetting. My grandfather had a farm and he was a trucker by trade, but he had a farm and invested in it and he had a Japanese family that worked for him and there was a Japanese family in Sugar City. They were good friends of Grandpa‟ s, so it was such a traumatic thing for us to know that the Japanese did it, „ cause the Japanese people we knew were just wonderful people. And this one Japanese family that worked for Grandpa, I don‟ t know, I‟ m sure they were citizens of the United States because their sons went 14
into the service, and they didn‟ t have to go into those [ intern]. I don‟ t know whether it was because they were citizens or whether it was because my Grandfather had them working on the farm, and farm became priorities. So many of the young men was drafted and taken so they needed help to do harvest and work and so. But this Japanese family stayed and worked for Grandpa during the war. Their last names were [ Jo] and the elder gentleman was named Te so, was Te Jo.
CH: Te Jo?
BM: But he had three boys the age of my older sister and my older brother and oh, they were very good looking, well educated boys. But they went into the service and one came home on furloughs and stopped at the folks‟ and from that time on we‟ ve never heard anymore about them. And Te Jo moved down into the Grace area, I think it was. We never heard anymore from them but during the war years and they were accepted. There was no prejudice there and…
CH: You don‟ t think anything in this area, probably just „ cause it was in this area?
BM: I think so. I don‟ t know of any, course I didn‟ t know a lot of Japanese. We didn‟ t have a lot of Japanese families here. We had one in Rigby and their boy went and he was killed in the service. And the ones in Sugar City were, I mean, they were very fine caliber. I learned to have such respect for those people. They were so gracious. You know they were just… and in their families so respectful, yet, you picked up on that real quick, that the youth respected the elderly. And so I didn‟ t really know about the [ intern] and that until you heard about it on news reels and later, what they had done to some of these families, moved them, and maybe its because they wasn‟ t right on the coast, I don‟ t know.
CH: True.
BM: Too young and I didn‟ t really care about that as long as we got our little, had our little friends here to play with and help get the beets out.
CH: Ok so when were you married?
BM: I was married in 1950.
CH: 1950. So that‟ s two years after high school.
BM: After I graduated.
CH: Ok.
BM: I was married in the Idaho Falls Temple.
CH: Oh, ok. So that must have been fairly new at that time, the temple? 15
BM: Yes. Yes.
CH: So that was probably pretty exciting.
BM: Yes, it was a beautiful thing.
CH: So before this you‟ d have to go to Salt Lake Temple?
BM: Yes.
CH: Cool.
BM: When my mother and dad got married, they were married at Logan, and they went two days in the horse and buggy to get down to Logan.
CH: To get down, yeah. So you had a fast trip right down here to Idaho Falls.
BM: Oh yeah, yeah. Had the whole family there and, yeah, we‟ ve been really blessed.
CH: So was it pretty exciting when they finished the temple here for everyone around here?
BM: Well you know, I was so young, I didn‟ t get the full impact of the spirituality of it.
CH: K.
BM: It was just such a beautiful edifice and, you know, my folks have always been active in the church, both of their parents. Dad‟ s father was a Dean and they came from Denmark.
CH: Ok.
BM: Over here settled, so his dad was born in Denmark or his granddad. No it was my granddad and Dad‟ s dad and so they migrated over here because of the church and of course the Hinckleys was born up in Canada and came down. And my husband‟ s mother came straight from Sweden, or Switzerland. Excuse me, she was born in Switzerland but she came over because of the church. And his father was born in England and so just to have the temple and the church here was a great thing for them, you know. They sacrificed a lot just for the church and to have a temple close by. It was wonderful.
CH: I bet it was. You have some kids don‟ t you?
BM: Yes. I have two boys, ten years apart. And the oldest boy, I don‟ t know whether it was because of the war or what but anybody in uniform, he thought what most kids think superman would be now, I mean. If he saw a uniform he just wanted to be close to that 16
person and so he grew up and he, and my husband, of course, got sick and couldn‟ t work. And so for him to get his education after he came home from his mission, he went down to Pocatello and joined the ROTC program which helped to pay for his college. And then he went into the service as an officer and he made it a career. [ He] was in there for 21 years, came out as a lieutenant colonel. And he‟ s now up in Yakima, Washington teaching ROTC and teaching in the high school up there. And because he got to travel around a lot, I got to see a little of this country as we go to visit him and that. So it wasn‟ t all bad except he‟ d come home once a year and when he was in the states he‟ d come home twice a year. But yeah, he has four children – three boys and a girl. [ I] got my first girl with our first grandchild. Couldn‟ t believe it. Very excited. My second boy, after his mission, he went down to BYU and he got his degree in investment banking and got a job at a bank in California. But he was interested in… he started going around… Let me go back out. Before he graduated he went to California to work for selling, I don‟ t know whether he was selling doors or windows or what for a company during the summertime. And in the evenings he got to know police officers so he would ride with them at times and they was making these drug busts and they‟ d go into garbage cans and stuff and look for drugs and where the kids threw the stuff. And he became so enamored with that lifestyle and so he applied to go to the FBI. But when he came back to go his last two years at Brigham Young he started taking courses that would add to that choice. And he hadn‟ t worked for the bank, I don‟ t think, 6 months and the FBI hired him and that‟ s been his profession, in the secret service portion of it.[ inaudible] He‟ s just traveled all over.
CH: So he does his own, quite a bit of traveling, doesn‟ t he?
BM: Yeah, yeah.
CH: So both of them are well traveled.
BM: Yes. They‟ ve seen a lot of the world. They got further away from Rigby. The one boy wants nothing more than to come back to Rigby and live, he‟ s bought some land out here by the high school and he‟ s had it for quite a while. My other one, Rigby just isn‟ t quite big enough for what he wants. He doesn‟ t have the aspiration to come back to Rigby. But my other one, that‟ s his big dream is to come back and settle here.
CH: I‟ m sure he‟ ll enjoy that.
BM: He‟ d be a garbage man or whatever. He just wants to come…
CH: So did you have any experiences when you were growing up with like race issues?
BM: You know, like I said we had Japanese…
CH: Right.
BM: … that we had nothing but respect and love, and infact I think I had a small crush on Calvin Jo. But I was way too young and he didn‟ t even look at me. So I had that, so I 17
didn‟ t have any ill feelings there at all, and the African Americans, I hadn‟ t ever really seen a real one, or a live one or whatever, except in the movies. When I was about 17 I went to Oakland California where my sister was living and her husband had after the war he settled there in Oakland. And they were living in what they called Veteran‟ s Projects and there would be a section, I don‟ t know how many acres, where the veterans from the war could rent and live. And on the other side of the road was places for veterans who served in the war, that could live, but they were African American. And they were separated by this street. And that was the first time I‟ d ever seen a little African American child. And they were going to school, and I don‟ t know why they‟ d be going to school in summertime, but they were and every morning they‟ d get all dressed up and go walking on their sidewalk. And so I„ d go out to watch them. They were the cutest things that you ever saw. And I don‟ t know but white is so white, on their little anklets and their hair all in these braids. They were just dressed so cute and I was just absolutely fascinated, watching these children go and come from school. And my sister and I decided we wanted to go over to San Francisco, across the bay, and we got on the city bus and that was the first time it hit me that those people were treated differently. My sister informed me that there was a woman on the bus with a little baby, and I was informed that they couldn‟ t sit at the front of the bus. They have to sit towards the back and that was the first time I ever knew that they were treated, in a civilized world, differently. And then my son, when he was in Ft. Benning, Georgia, we went to visit him and it was after the African Amer- well the blacks, I should say, was given the priesthood, and he had a, a good friend, a man a little older than he was, but he was African American, and such a, such a kind and caring man. And the temple had been built in Atlanta and he came over and Darin or Gary wanted to introduce me to him and he was telling about when he got to meet President Kimball, and it was when they were dedicating it, [ the] Atlanta Temple. And he went there and he thought they said, “ No, you can‟ t. He‟ s not here to greet people. He‟ s here to do specific things.” And he had security around him. And this gentleman, he wanted so badly to just be close to the prophet, the one who‟ d given him the priesthood. And so he was crossing the lawn and he prayed and prayed that there would be someway he could talk to President Kimball. And he said he found an usher‟ s tag on the ground and he picked it up and ushers could go break the lines and go where they wanted, and he got up and he got to where he got to go and shake hands with President Kimball. And when he got to President Kimball, and I don‟ t remember the words he said to President Kimball, but President Kimball kissed him on his cheek. And that man was just, you know he sat and just weeped when he told us of the thrill of being that close to the prophet. And he‟ d been a member for quite a while where he couldn‟ t have the priesthood. And my son hurt his knee, my younger son hurt his knee, while we were there and blew his knee out and he needed surgery but we had to bring him home to have it and see he was in a lot of pain and this little gentleman, Gary, went and got him because he was the most spiritual one he knew, to come and help give Darin a blessing so that we could bring him home and have him endure the flight. Oh, to me I just had nothing but great love for them. I‟ ve heard comments about that race, but to me, I‟ ve never seen anything that showed anything but a great love and appreciation for their Lord and for people.
CH: Cool. So who is your favorite President and why? 18
BM: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I think it‟ s because, when all my growing up years, he was president. You know, it was after his term that the congress made it so that they could only run two times. Because he was elected four times in office, he was the president for almost 16 years. And he saw us through the war and he always demonstrated, when, of course, we didn‟ t have television, but we had the radio, and his voice. He sounded so strong and so wise and he became such good friends to Winston Churchill. You just knew that these men were brilliant and they would see us through anything. And after the war when, you know, during the war they had to ration things, you couldn‟ t, for a woman, silk stockings, something that you never seen during the war. Ah, cars were not made. Farm machinery wasn‟ t made. Every piece of steel or metal was used to getting war planes and ammunition. And they had to use assembly line plants and so they rationed gas, they rationed sugar, they rationed flour, commodities that was raised on the farms because a lot of people who had farms had to go into the service. So the government tried really hard to make sure that there was help to help run the farms and farmers got extra rationing stamps. Because Dad grew sugar beets, he got additional ration stamps and so we never wanted for sugar. And because he had a farm, he got extra gas for the tractors and the trucks and that. And, there again, because they weren‟ t wasteful people and we never, you know, experienced the hardship of not having the gas. And he raised his own grain so we would have the grain milled and we could have our own flour. So there was many things to do on the farm, the things that was rationed, you couldn‟ t find parts for your equipment and you learned to be very innovative and repair what you could and bolt together, or wire together. There was rationing that was on, but like I said, we didn‟ t experience it like some families had to.
CH: That‟ s good though.
BM: Yes.
CH: So which prophet do you remember most? And why?
BM: The prophet is President Hinckley, of course.
CH: That‟ s what I figured…
BM: I‟ ve loved every prophet, some of my favorites were President David O. McKay and President Kimball because he had such obstacles and I couldn‟ t believe the poor man had to be a prophet too. That throat cancer and couldn‟ t hardly talk and he was frail, and he was a wonderful prophet. But President Hinckley, I just thought he was the most special. I loved his wit and I loved his work ethics. I just loved everything about him.
CH: I think a lot of people did. I think a lot of people did. So come back to basically for the 40 years you were in the banking industry.
BM: Yes.
19
CH: So that‟ s quite a long time in one profession.
BM: That‟ s right.
CH: You could have retired two times over in that. So what have been some of your favorite church callings?
BM: My most favorite was teaching the Mia Maids, at that time the Mutual Improvement Association and it‟ s now called Young Women‟ s – the 14 and 15 year old girls. I never had a daughter, always wanted one. And I loved, I loved those girls and I loved teaching. [ It] gave me the most joy of any job I‟ ve had. I haven‟ t had a job that I enjoyed as much and I taught Sunday school to the 16 year olds. I loved that. I‟ ve really liked all my jobs. But I did hate to give up my girls.
CH: Ok. So were there any that were your least favorite?
BM: Oh, my least favorite would have to be the leadership callings I had. I didn‟ t enjoy being the one in charge. I was president of the Young Women‟ s and I think that was my least favorite. You didn‟ t get to interact as much with the young people, you was more involved in the leadership and I just didn‟ t like that responsibility. I liked having just one thing I had to focus on. But that would probably be my least likeable one.
CH: K, so what are your interests at this time?
BM: At this time? My interests are family. I like traveling. I like decorating my home. I like shopping. I love reading, like reading all kinds of books, a lot of biographies, church books, fiction. I just love reading. And my church callings. I‟ m interested in those, I enjoy that.
CH: So who‟ s your favorite author then?
BM: Well you know it‟ s varied, that most of them are church books that I read.
CH: Ok.
BM: Some of the favorite books I read are auto- biographies like from Ernie Pyle who is of course older, their World War II, and Art [ Rash? Thrash?] the tennis player. I like the bio- and I read about the Kennedys and that and who the authors were, I‟ m not really sure. The one about the Kennedys was their driver, the limousine driver that wrote that so I don‟ t know how much truth there was in that. But I love the church books.
CH: So you‟ re a …
BM: I love Sterling W. Still [ inaudible] books, very much.
CH: So Deseret, or thee Seagull books has a lot of books that you… 20
BM: Yes, Seagull books, and Deseret Book, there that…
CH: So, I guess what were some of your interests, I guess, when you were in high school, stuff like that?
BM: Well, back when I was in high school we had the Riverside Gardens, that was just about two miles from my place, and it was a swimming pool.
CH: Ok.
BM: And a dance venue. And they would bring many bands into that dance, to Riverside Gardens. You could go and dance to the big bands, to Glen Miller and some of these traveling bands, and it was a big thing. Dancing was big when I was in school, high school and younger. And we had the swimming pool, like I said, at Riverside. We could go down there and swim in a swimming pool. We also swam a lot in our canal, but, not as nice. After dancing kind of phased they turned it into a roller skating rink, and so we would go down there and roller skate. You could rent your skates and that was wonderful. So we skated, we swam, my family had horses, my brother always had a nice pony so we did horseback riding. We did a lot of bicycling. We did a lot of things within our ward, became a family. And whatever you did… all the boys and girls my age, we‟ d have parties together, we‟ d go to the sand hills, and we‟ d go up to Green Canyon through the mutual association. Whatever activity we had was usually through the church, but we bonded like brothers and sisters for a group. And then my family, because we worked together, we made fun out of a lot of things we did when we pulled beets. My brother would be the announcer for the race horses and the first one at the end of the row won the horse race. Mother didn‟ t like that too well, cause he wasn‟ t too good at getting all weeds because he wanted to win the race but… we did things, we played a lot together and made up games and did fun things like that.
CH: So what are some of your hobbies now?
BM: Some of my hobbies now. Well, I still love to read. I like shopping. I like decorating my house. I like anything to do with fashion. And I love traveling. Because of the boys living different, I‟ ve been able to go. I‟ ve seen all the church history sites. I got to go clear up to Maine and I got to travel to California and see all the things there. I just love seeing… we went and when my boy got married, he married a Samoan girl and he was married in Hawaii, so we got to go to Hawaii for that, got to go to a real luau and experience that. And I love doing that. Whenever I go see my children they always take me some place different. I‟ ve been able to see quite a bit of the northeast because of Darin up there, got to go to Niagara Falls, spent the night in the little boat under the mist there. And we went to Tennessee and the Grand Ol Oprey and those are the things that I enjoy doing now.
CH: So you like traveling quite a bit?
21
BM: I do…
CH: So where is the furthest you‟ ve been?
BM: Well, the furthest I‟ ve been… I‟ ve been outside the United States. I‟ ve been to Canada and I‟ ve been to Mexico, but I haven‟ t been across the waters.
CH: Ok.
BM: When Gary was stationed in Germany, I couldn‟ t, my husband couldn‟ t travel. I didn‟ t get to get there, but I‟ ve been as far as I can go on the east and I‟ ve been as far as I can go on the west.
CH: Sounds like you‟ ve been, yeah, everywhere in the U. S. So…
BM: And that„ s been fun…
CH: Is there anything that I didn‟ t bring up that you would like to talk about?
BM: No, I think you‟ ve covered pretty much… I can‟ t think of anything else. My life hasn‟ t been all that interesting. I just …
CH: Well it has to me. No, it has to me. That‟ s for sure…
BM: But, I was gonna say that during the war years, and this rationing, and I had two uncles that went into the service, one was in the Navy and one was in the Army and the fear that was around people, because when you turned 18 you had to go register for the draft, and if you‟ s 1A it didn‟ t matter, you went into the service, if you passed the physical. But if you‟ s 4F you had a physical problem that you couldn‟ t do it. And those boys were really, they were really chastised, you know. And so the military… I still feel like that, and President Roosevelt after he died just before the end of the war and [ I] always felt bad at that, that he didn‟ t get to be there for the signing of the treaty and the vital things. But the war sticks in my mind. At the time we had great, great respect for this country and for the military and we had a lot more loyalty.
CH: People were obviously more… you think then…
BM: They are… pride in this country than there is now…
CH: So obviously the young men were more than willing to join, fight for our country.
BM: A lot of them went, joined to get in the different branches. They would join, and they went and they signed up, some tried to get in there before they was 18, you know.
BM: Just that and that I still get a thrill whenever I see a young man in uniform. [ Inaudible] To know, they sacrifice a lot, their families sacrifice a lot. I remember how 22
my grandmother worried over her son and your thoughts were just all on them. But it was a wonderful day, the day that the war ended.
CH: What were the women doing, during the war, to help out?
BM: Up until then women‟ s place was in the home. And to find work as a woman was quite rare, but during the war they needed the women in the plants, [ to] help build the guns and the planes and that. Women got to go to work. That changed the whole process after, „ cause when the war was over women had learned that they could make money, that they could do things, and that started a big change in the way. And it gave them some independence and they found out they weren‟ t stupid. But women, women manned a lot of those, and they had to do a lot of things that men had been doing. And so they got to evolve a little bit. Education became a lot more important after the war „ cause they knew that they could do things and there was a whole world out there for them to do. And women went into the military, worked in the office.
CH: So you think the war kind of liberated a lot of women…?
BM: Oh, yes, I‟ m sure it did. Yes, I know it just opened up a whole new world for women. They got to be seen as something besides just being at home and being a housewife, which is very important. But it did allow them to… they went a lot more, I think, went into education after, or got educated after that. Don‟ t think things ever went back the same.
CH: They never did, did they?
BM: Hm- um.
CH: So that‟ s good. Um, just trying to think. I don‟ t want to miss anything because this, this has been very interesting… just so you know. I appreciate you doing this. I don‟ t know how you could think that any of this wouldn‟ t, uh, be good enough. No, this has been awesome. Did you ever feel like you wanted to go to college?
BM: No, I didn‟ t. You know, when I graduated women were either secretaries or teachers and because I got my job before I graduated Dad told me, he said, “ If you want to go to college I‟ ll pay you. But I thought, why do I need college? I am so smart, I knew shorthand… had that new job… Math? Who needs math, you know. And so I never had that desire. I was well into my years when I realized that I wished I had went to college.
CH: So you do wish that you would have went?
BM: Oh, yes. And I wished I‟ d paid more attention to the math. I was a good student in the things that I really liked, the things I didn‟ t like I didn‟ t want to spend the time, „ cause I didn‟ t think I‟ d ever use them. And I remember algebra in that wasn‟ t particularly interesting to me and I thought where in the world would I ever use this? 23
And I remember at the bank when I became a loan officer and I had to have to figure out budgets for farmers and that and I‟ d go to my dad a lot and I‟ d say, “ How do you know how much hay is in a stack?” And it amazed me at his math abilities and all through school I never bothered to ask him a math question because they didn‟ t finish grade school. Mother only went I think to 4th grade. And Dad, I‟ m sure he didn‟ t graduate. I think he might have went to the 7th grade. But I didn‟ t want to embarrass him, you know. I knew they didn‟ t have algebra back in the grade school, and he was a whiz. He could look at a stack of hay and he‟ d walk around it and he‟ d know exactly how much was in there. And I thought, I could have used him… at school. He could know how much grain he had in the bins, but he had to learn it the old hard way. By experience, it was a real eye opener to me. And as I got, like I said, into the loan officers, the thought process to be able to think through a problem and that, I missed that because I didn‟ t take the courses that would have helped me in problem solving, in the financial. So I had to work twice as hard.
CH: What college would you have went to?
BM: Oh, it had to have been Ricks College.
CH: It would have been Ricks College?
BM: Yeah, because Ricks was close and I don‟ t know if I even knew about Idaho State.
CH: Was that a big deal, the college?
BM: It‟ s not as big, but that‟ s where so many people got their education, was up at Ricks College.
CH: But you don‟ t think it was a big…
BM: I don‟ t remember. Now when my boys got bigger, you know, there was Idaho State, there was Provo, there was Ricks. Neither one of them wanted to go to Ricks because they thought it was too strict and it was just a two year college. Lots of times when they transferred, a lot of the credits wouldn‟ t go. But I insisted because we didn‟ t have the money and they could live at home and they could drive up there. But my oldest boy after he came home from a mission, he was kind of the rebel. He didn‟ t want to be told to keep his hair short. He wanted to grow it long, and they wouldn‟ t let it. If it hit the collar it had to be cut and he was wanting long hair then. He was right into the rock and roll era, and so he wasn‟ t happy going up there and he was so glad when he graduated and went down to ISU. But about six months into ISU he came and he said, “ You know, I‟ ve never been so grateful in all my life for being at Ricks College.” He said, “ Mom, you can‟ t believe… the professors up at Ricks would try to help you. You could talk to them about things you didn‟ t think was fair.” And he said, “ Down there they could care less about you.” I went to his graduation, the professor of the year had a pony tail, he walked with his gown and tenny runners, you could… I mean up at Ricks College suits, ties, white shirt. He said, yeah, it‟ s an entirely different environment. He said, “ I‟ m so glad I, I had that.” Of course 24
he‟ d had his mission, so he was a little more mature up there, but he thought it was terribly important that the young people go up there before they go out in the world that doesn‟ t care that much about the individual. So his eyes were opened and I felt pretty good about that.
CH: He saw the light.
BM: Yeah, yeah. Yep, he did.
CH: I don‟ t have anymore questions for you, but if there‟ s anything you want to add you just…
BM: No, I could rattle on a lot, but I don‟ t know if it‟ d be anything special.
CH: Well, like I said, I appreciate your time and on this. This is gonna be great. I think it‟ s great.
BM: I hope I haven‟ t rattled into things that isn‟ t of interest. I just know that I‟ ve been blessed to live in this valley because we haven‟ t had the prejudices that we would have growing up any other place. And we‟ ve been blessed to have good people that we could emulate from all races.
CH: It‟ s true, that‟ s very true.