Helen Jean Molthen Interview

              Dr. Radke- Moss Women‟ s Oral History Collection
Helen Jean Molthen
By Helen Jean Molthen
January 2, 2008
Box 5 Folder
Oral Interview conducted by Jeb Stokes
Transcript copied by Jeb Stokes Jan 2008
Brigham Young University- Idaho
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Oral Interview of Helen Jean Molthen ( Adams) conducted by Jeb Stokes on February 2, 2008 via telephone.
Helen Jean Adams: My name is Helen Jean Adams. I was born on a Saturday morning in Sheridan Wyoming. I was born to Elizabeth Catherine McCardy Adam & Archibald Kelson Adams. We lived in Sheridan until I was about four and a half. My grandfather ran everything at the railroad. And my Father worked with the railroad as a machinist. Nobody had much work to do so he got laid off and there was no work so we got in our “ Model T Ford” and went to California. We ended up in Long Beach where we stayed for three to four months. They looked for work and never really found much to do except sell vacuum cleaners – but he never did sell one – so we had to pack up and go back home. We lived right down on the ocean where they had those apartment houses that we lived in that they were selling for three thousand dollars a piece – right on the ocean back in 1932 or something like that. I also had an aunt and uncle that lived out there and they lived in Long beach too – and they had been in the military – and they lived in a senior housing area. And my mother had gone out there in her [ the] 20‟ s to go to school in San Diego and they all lived in San Diego together for a while. So she had family that was out there. My Dad‟ s sister and her husband – we lived with them for the three or four months that we were out there. The best thing I remember about it was they had the Ice cream cart that came by and sold you ice cream bars for a nickel and if ya got a special little stick, you got one free. And I learned to roller skate. I don‟ t remember too much about where we lived but I do remember the ocean. And going down to the ocean and being there every so often. And they had a pier down there that was sort of horse shoe shaped that you could go out and you could ride around on a tram. And then on the inside off there was all kinds of little stores; it had Chinese stores and bathing suit stores and all that kind of thing that the beach had. Then next door was a roller coaster and a big place where you could go and ride the merry- go- round and that sort of stuff. And [ I] can remember being around five years old being there – going out and my dad taking me – my dad was always really good to me, so was my mother. And then we came back and took our little old ford and then we came back and, lets see, we went back to Montana in probably 1933 or 1934. And my dad worked at the Dam – I don‟ t know what he did there. But we lived in a little second floor apartment. I could remember when I was five my mother would give me a nickel and I was aloud to walk down about a block or two – and could do that all by myself in that town. And I had a little garden where I grew beans, you know those little red beans like we used to eat. We ate a lot of beans, a lot of beans. And mother made all my clothes right about that time and we ate beans. We didn‟ t have a lot! We probably stayed there for about a year and then we moved to ( Graybell) Montana – and I can‟ t remember what he did there. But I do remember that I went to first grade there. And we lived in a basement apartment for maybe a year or so and that I was six and I went to school there. And the only thing I remember about that school was that it was three stories high and that it had those old winding stairs that went up like a circle and one time some kid jumped over the middle of it and went down the three flights of stairs and all of us were standing there looking over it. I wonder if it didn‟ t bother me thru the years. But [ I] don‟ t remember at all what my dad did there and then I guess we went back to Wyoming and we stayed there with my dad‟ s parents for a while, for a couple of months. And my mother had another baby, [ she] had Betty.
Jeb Stokes: What year was that?
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HM: That was 1937, I think. 1936? It was 1936. Betty was born in May and at that time Dad had left there and left my mother in Sheridan with his parents and her parents were there in Sheridan Wyoming too. But [ he] left us there and went to Billings, Montana and went to work for an engineering company there. And we probably worked there for a year or so, and then he had a chance to got to Butte Montana and work there for another, for Sullivan Valve Engineering Company. And he went there and, lets see, and we rented a house kinda five or six miles form the center of Butte Montana and there were two families living in the house. And I started school there in the second grade, I believe so. I think I went to the first grade in our first rented house, but it was called a Whitter, out in Floral Park in Butte.
JS: Wait, when did you move to Butte? What year?
HM: That was 1936. And in 1937 they bought a house on Argyle Street, 2124 street, and it was closer to town, not real close to town but it was closer than the other house we had. They bought the house and then shortly after that, about that time, my dad bought a.. I met someone he worked with, when he was working with at the engineering company and they bought a company called Magrue Machine Works. Magrue Machine Works did a lot of work for the Anaconda Copper mining company for a lot of the mining equipment that they used. They also built gas tanks for the ACM Company and they did a lot of work for them. The two of them were partners in this and they probably, let‟ s see, at that time I was in the third grade at the Emerson School and I had to walk about a mile to school, but I came home for lunch too in the snow. And the snow was bad. Sometimes the snow was so bad that you couldn‟ t even get to the corner where we lived. One time it snowed in May so that we couldn‟ t even walk to the corner, and we were in Butte, Montana at this time. I don‟ t know if I said that before but we were in Butte and I went eight years to that elementary school. I rode my bicycle a lot of times. I can‟ t remember much else to tell you that is exciting except that I grew up. I had a couple of girl friends that I knew until we were out of High School real well that were in the neighborhood that I still know and occasionally write to, but not very often.
JS: Is that where you met Shirley?
HM: Oh I met Shirley when I first went; I made lots of lots of friends when I went to… now I remember something about Emerson. I was a campfire girl. And I went to Campfire Camp all my summers through fourteen years of age. I went all my summers for a month up to Georgetown Lake up by Anaconda, Montana to Campfire Camp. I made lots of friends that I still know and that I still have that I met doing that. It was just like girl scouts only you have different names for things. And I went all the way to the top of the ranks, we had Indian costumes and all sorts of Indian prayers that we did and were lots of fun and kept me busy. During the War they would do all sorts of things. They would collect fat, like baking fat and you would go around to peoples houses and collect these old cans of peoples baking fat or whatever turkey fat or whatever they had and we would take it and we would sit it outside in the sunshine and melt it down and put it into bigger cans and then we send it away for whatever the war did with people old fat. It kept us busy doing things like that. I look back on it now. But I met Shirley in the fourth grade and I still talk to her every month or so and she, lets see, I‟ m two months older than she is and her husband died about four years ago and mine died about two years ago. So we talk once in a while. I met Shirley in the fourth grade and I still can remember the names of some of my teachers if I think 4
real hard. In the eighth grade I went to high school when I was thirteen and I turned fourteen after I started. I was sort of a young one among them all because everyone had turned fourteen by the time they were out of the eighth grade. Let‟ s see what did I do? I don‟ t know what I did during High School.
JS: Did you do anything extracurricular, like clubs or…?
HM: Well, Mother took me to play the piano because my little sister was learning to play. But they told me that I had two left hands and she might as well not waste the money. There were lots of boys in my neighborhood so most of the time I would go and watch them do high jumps or play football and do a lot of that stuff. But then I played a little bit of tennis with one of the girls down the street. Her dad had a moving van company and we used to go with him. He also delivered newspapers and we used to go around with him and deliver the newspapers to the paper carriers. Part of the place where he picked up the papers was in a red light district in Butte. We used to have so much fun making fun of where we had to ride through to get the papers all the time. There would be all the prostitutes sitting outside their little doors with little candles waiting for the miners to come by. Butte was a mining town and it was I don t know what percentage, but most of the men who lived there worked for the mines, going down underground. And when we would drive through for the papers the prostitutes would be sitting on their steps and [ would] have a little red lamp in their window if they were open or whatever you would call them. We used to hide in the back of the truck and peek over the top and as we got to be ten or eleven we didn‟ t do that anymore. I was just a part of Butte. Butte was a rowdy town. There was a lot of drunks and liquor. And there was a town about twenty miles from there called the Anaconda Mine, Anaconda. And the mine would take all of the ore from Butte for our mine and they would take it and smelt it and the smelt stuff that came out smelled like copper stuff, sulfur stuff and it killed all the grass in Anaconda and all the grass in Butte. And so there weren‟ t many trees and stuff. I think that they have changed it somehow or another because after a while we were able to grow more things there. It was kind of a fun town. There were characters all over the main street and stuff that you don‟ t ever see around anymore, people that you just don‟ t see anymore. I don‟ t know what happened to them really.
JS: What do you mean? What kind of people?
HM: Well like they had a woman they called “ Crazy Mary” and then they had Carol or something like that and these women would just walk around and they must have been crazy. They had big rouged cheeks lots of makeup on and outlandish looking clothes. Then you would [ see] miners walking up and down the streets with their old boots and their old cloths and dirty. They‟ re all kinds of bars up and down the streets of the main part of town and their music was real loud. Someone would throw someone out on the ground. One time they had a strike out there, 37 or 38 sometime in there. We lived in the lower part and we would come up and drive around the city where the miners had gone on a rampage. They had gone into the houses of the miners who were still working and they would throw everything out of the windows. They threw the pianos and the tables and everything and all of this stuff on the street and you could drive by and see all of these houses where the miners had thrown all of the stuff into the street. And no one was allowed out after so long because they had to stop all this stuff that was going on. And 5
for kids that were ten years old or so, I don‟ t remember how old we were, but this was scary. It was a rough town. Everybody was rough.
JS: So where did you go to High School?
HM: I went to Butte, the public High School. They also had two Catholic schools, one for the girls and one for the boys and my high school would graduate about 300 a year. While I didn‟ t do music real well I would march in the band when they had someone that couldn‟ t march and fill in the places and other than that I was twirler. Sometimes I did flags and sometimes I did batons and they did that during the good season and during the off- season they had an orchestra. They put on music and twirlers and dancing and all that kind of stuff. And my summers for the first couple of summers I went to Campfire Camp. One summer I went up to Flathead Lake it was north, up north in Montana and picked cherries in cherry trees and that was fun but we didn‟ t do an awful lot because we were out away from everything. We would pick the cherries and then take turns going out and selling them on the road.
JS: What year did you graduate High School?
HM: 1947. I can‟ t say anything good, and then that year I went [ to] Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri. I think that was the summer I went cherry picking. [ It ] was the summer before I went away to college. I left all my friends. Two of them stayed there in Buttes and didn‟ t go to school, and one got married and the rest of them went to college. The colleges weren‟ t too far away, most everyone went to Montana State or the University of Montana.
JS: So how come you went to Stevens?
HM: A lot of them went into the war. WWII was on and a lot of them graduated and went into the army or the navy. Another thing I did during that time, when the troops were going overseas, they would come through Butte, and we had a big train station there and we would on the USO would work on them and we would go up there and we would have little trays with candy bars and gum and papers and pencils and stuff and we would stand up there and talk and give them to the fellows that were going over to some place over by Seattle and ship out to go over to Japan or someplace like that. I did USO work.
JS: So if everyone was staying around local to go to school how come you went to Stevens?
HM: I guess that is where my mother wanted me to go. It was an all girls‟ school and that [ was] where she always… or she had friends or she knew people that went there and she felt like that would be a good place for me to go. I just… I did not make choices I just went where I was told. I don‟ t remember making much of a choice of anything, except that I would never call my mother and tell her where I was because she was always up at the office working. She did bookkeeping for my dad in the business he was in. I would never telephone them [ or] tell them I was gone. Otherwise I just went where I was told. So I went to Stevens. And I stayed there for two years. Where was I?
JS: You were done with Stevens. 6
HM: I went there for two years and we had to dress for dinner all the time.
JS: What did you major in?
HM: It is kind of vague. I went home between the first and second years there and I worked in Yellowstone Park and I lived in a dorm and I waited on tables in the big dining room at Old Faithful. I worked in the morning form 7- 11 and I worked 2- 8. So I had drinks in the time we were there. It was a lot of fun.
JS: What was you major?
HM: Psychology in school. Psychology.
JS: And did you finish?
HM: We all had roommates and two bedrooms and a bath so there were four girls in a room. There were several different dorms that were all over the place and they were built hither and yan. It was a nice college. I got along there real well. There were lots of nice girls that were from all over the place.
JS: Did you graduate?
HM: Yes I graduated with an Associate of Arts. Two years and second year when I came home I… what did I do? I don‟ t remember. The first year when I came home was when I worked at Yellowstone Park. The second year I don‟ t remember what I did.
JS: When did you work at the jewelry store?
HM: Oh when I was in High school. My junior and senior year‟ s everyday after school Monday through Friday at the jewelry store from um, I had to be there from three to five, something like that, as soon as I was out of school in the afternoon. We got out about 2: 20pm or something like that. Then I would walk about four blocks or so uptown and then work at the jewelry store. I met lots of people that way. One of my jobs there was to take care of the class rings, so I got to meet all of the kids that came in and wanted class rings from all the three High Schools so I made a lot of friends that way. Everyone well not everybody paid for things at that time with silver dollars. I had a little drawer that I kept all the money for the class rings in each envelope for each kid that bought one would have a silver dollar in it. After a while I would collect them all and add them up and put them into the cash register as class ring stuff but one of the pieces of money that you used in Butte at that time was the silver dollar. One of the things about Butte that you didn‟ t find anyplace is that it was a gambling town. Out at one end of the town called Meterville they had I don‟ t know or remember how many but they had maybe ten different places where you could play blackjack or poker and games of chance and they had slot machines. Many of them were steakhouses and lots of them had little dance floors and you could go out there and spend your money. Of course you had to be 18. During this time my dad was, you know I can‟ t remember what it was, like the president of Kiwanis. Have you ever heard of Kiwanis? 7
JS: Yep.
HM: And he was president of that there in Buttes and he was very active with doing good do gooders or something I used to call them, I guess I still do. He did a lot of work with kids and people and such. He was also a Shriner and he was a potentate of the Shrine in Butte and he at one time held a state office. One year he went back to I think it was Atlantic City for a convention and he was on a couple of committees for the international, [ I] can‟ t say international but all the states got together and went back there to this convention that was back there in Atlantic City and he had a couple of offices in that. He was just very good. He did a lot of… and he went up in offices and he had a lot of people who liked him. My Mother was an Eastern Star and they both played bridge, lots of bridge. They had friends that they played bridge with lots of times.
JS: When did they start hanging out with other couples do you remember? Like in the 50‟ s?
HM: Oh my dad always had friends. It seems like your... I'd go to Shirley‟ s house and I would say something about my dad and her dad would say, “ Oh is your dad Archie Adams? And I'd say, “ Yes.” And he‟ d say, “ Oh I know him.” And that would happen to me a lot because of the people he worked with and the people he messed around with like Kiwanis and [ the] Shriners and the different things he was into. He met and knew a lot of people. He was well liked like I said before. My mother would work a half a day up in the office up there doing paychecks and the stuff a secretary would do for the office. They drove Chevrolets „ 39 the first car I can really remember having that I paid any attention to was a „ 39 Chevrolet. That was the car I learned to drive on. They let me drive when I was 12 back and forth to a friend‟ s house that was maybe a mile away. I used to go over there and pick up eggs and cream and stuff like her dad they had a girl that was a little bit younger than I and her dad had a dairy, not a dairy but dairy products that they delivered and he took care of over there. I used to go over there once a month and get eggs and milk and stuff from there. I remember coming home one time and somebody looked like they were going to hit me, walked in front of my car and I stopped real big and I broke about four dozen eggs on the backseat. They weren‟ t very happy with me. But they said that what you get for letting her drive. I also ran over the dog. I said to dad that I was sure the dog, my dad was with me when I was learning to drive and dad says why did you put the brake on? I said well I though the dog would get across the street, but the dog was old and he didn‟ t make it. He lived across the street and so my dad had to go over and tell them that Sally had ran over their dog. They said that was fine he was old anyway but I never could talk to those people after that. I turned my head to go the other way after I killed their dog. That was the only accident I have ever had very much with my car. The very first one when I was 12 or so. Drivers License‟ s back then were only fifty cents or so. To get one all you had to was go up and sign up for it, you didn‟ t have to drive, you didn‟ t have to do anything you just go up and say you want a driver‟ s license and you paid 50 cents and you got a little orange colored piece of paper and it had your name on it with your driver‟ s license. And I don‟ t know what ever happened to it but nobody ever asked me for it all the time I was driving or never nobody paid any attention to driver‟ s licenses back then. But you were supposed to have one so I got one when I was 12 or 13, something like that. I was 12 when he started to teach me to drive and I don‟ t know I might have been 13 when I got my license. But I drove from then on. I had a „ 39 Chevrolet that was our car. 8
Dad drove it to work and when he wasn‟ t driving on Saturdays I got to drive it. [ I‟ d] go to my friend‟ s house. I wasn‟ t allowed to drive with anyone, just me in the car. Maybe Betty got to go with me once in a while but not very often. I had to go by myself. And then they started buying Oldsmobiles. They bought Oldsmobile‟ s for the next three or four years that I know of. We always had an Oldsmobile. He had a big Dodge truck I think too. They used to drive back and forth to work once in a while, and he used it for stuff where he worked.
JS: What did you do when you came home from Stevens?
HM: I don‟ t remember. Let‟ s see. After I graduated from Stevens, let‟ s see, the Christmas the second year I was at Stevens.
JS: What year did you graduate?
HM: Did what?
JS: What year did you graduate from Stevens?
HM: „ 49. But the second year I was there the girl whose father owned this dairy products place where I broke the eggs was going with Uncle Fred and she said that I needed to meet his brother. And she was always going to introduce me to Ed and she never got around to it but this year, that was during the summer, between the two years she never got around to it and he was going to, I think, he was going to Missoula then. I think he was going to the University of Montana, Ed was. When I came home at Christmas time I had been going with a boy a little bit, I don‟ t know if I was going with, I was kinda. And we were supposed to be going to a… he was going to the University of Montana and we were supposed to be going to an SAE – Sigma Alpha Epsilon – party Christmas party and while I was at Stevens he started dating someone else. And he told me “ I don‟ t know what to do.” He said, “ Should I break my date with her or do you mind or what?” And I said, no I didn‟ t care. “ Just go ahead and go with her.” And he said he had a friend and he doesn‟ t have a date for the party and he would like to go and would I go with him. And I said sure and he said we could double date and I said no I‟ ll go with him. But we were not going to double date because I‟ m not going to double date with you and be half your date and half his. And so he introduced me to Ed and I went to the dance with Ed. It just kinda… it was Ed from then on. I don‟ t know what I was going to tell you. I know what that the summer I went down to Yellowstone Park to work after my second year. After my second year at Stevens, after I graduated, the girl that had been my friend through grade school, she lived two blocks down the street from me, she‟ s the one who had the Dad who had the transfer company that would take us by the prostitutes place all time when he was going to collect the papers. She was a year ahead of me in school and she went to New York and she sang and played the piano and did stuff like that and she went back to a place called the Parnassus club in New York City. She went to school there taking music. After I graduated from Stevens I packed my bags and went to New York City and spent about 10 days with her there before she was ready to come home. Then we took the train home from New York City together. I went to the top of the Statue of Liberty and we rode the boat around Manhattan and she took me to see all the stage shows and went shopping and just had a wonderful time. We had a… I had a really good time. And then we got home and I went to a couple of weddings and I wore all my new clothes from New York and stuff and then 9
my parents took me down to Yellowstone Park and I worked down there for a the summer until September.
JS: Then where did you go in September?
HM: Then I went to the University of Montana. I went over there and lived in the dorm. I lived in a dorm and I was a junior.
JS: Then what happened?
HM: I don‟ t know I can‟ t think of anything interesting. I was still going with Ed.
JS: Did you finish school? Did you graduate from Montana?
HM: He, I don‟ t know what he did. He did, I guess, that was my senior year… I know what he did. He went and joined the Air Force and so he wasn‟ t around. And he was done in Biloxi, Mississippi and stuff and I finished my junior year there and then he came home to visit. He and Fred and Grandma and Grandpa Molthen came down to visit. I went to summer school between my junior and senior years down there they came down to visit and Ed asked me to marry him. That would be the summer of „ 57 „ 47 „ 48 „ 49 „ 50 I think that was the summer of „ 50 and he had to go back because he was in the Air Force.
JS: And so did you go with him?
HM: And so I didn‟ t go to school that fall. I don‟ t think I went to school that fall. Anyway I only had one semester left to go to school and I quit. [ I] got married. I got married in December. I went to work for the telephone company in Butte for about four months before I got married. I went to summer school and then I quit school.
JS: So wait. Why didn‟ t you finish?
HM: Because I got married.
JS: Yeah but you didn‟ t get married until December. Why didn‟ t you go to school in the fall?
HM: Because I wanted to quit and make money. He asked me to marry him in August and so I was going to marry him as soon as we could. We decided the best time would be Christmas. He didn‟ t have free time until November so we decided we‟ d get married at Christmas. And then we decided we couldn‟ t have a big wedding because he was Catholic and I wasn‟ t. Things just didn‟ t work out very good. My folks told me I could a choice between a wedding or a car or money. And we took the car. When he found… then before it was supposed to Christmas time we were going to get married at Christmas and he was going to come home and have a little family wedding. He found out he was going to be shipped overseas in early December so I got in our new car and I left Butte and my mother went with me and we went down to Albuquerque and met Ed and we went to the Catholic church to get married. And they said they wouldn‟ t marry us because I was a heathen or a what do you call someone who has no religious affiliation or a 10
heathen or a, can‟ t remember the other two. But it really broke my heart they wouldn‟ t marry us. So we went to the Episcopal Church and he said fine and that was ok with him and he did all of the good stuff he had to do and they married us in the Episcopal Church. Then we put my mother on the train and sent her home and I stayed down in Albuquerque. Let‟ s see I guess I skipped over that I worked in Yellowstone Park that summer.
JS: Wait. I‟ m still want to know why you didn‟ t finish school. You only had one semester left.
HM: Yes well ask me then, ask me now. I don‟ t know I wasn‟ t going to go to school anymore because I guess basically I didn‟ t go back because I wanted to change schools because I wanted to changed schools and go from being the Psychology major to being the Teaching and I had to go to Billings which was a different school to get a teaching credential, you know for teaching and stuff. I never really got around to working, to being admitted to that school before he asked me to marry him. So when he asked me to marry him I just figured what the heck, I‟ ll just get married it doesn‟ t make a difference. But it did make a difference because I was never able to go back. When I did want to go back they told me it had been 20 years since I had when we did get to the point where I could go back and do it they said I was too late after 20 years. I had to start all over again as a freshman. I didn‟ t want to do that by the time I was 40 years old. I did almost go to University of New Mexico for a while but I hadn‟ t shipped out of Albuquerque I‟ d probably gone to school there for a while. I‟ d put my name in and I‟ d been accepted there for a quarter I thought I could work and go to school but then he got shipped out so much sooner than what we had thought when he first said he was going to be shipped out in December. After we got married they changed it and put him in for going in May and then we figured he might not go at all so I decided I‟ d go back to school and then they sent him in April I think. And he went to Guam.
JS: And when was this? 1950?
HM: I‟ m trying to think. No 1951 because Rick was born in 1951 and so he left in April of 1951. We were married in 1950. December 9, 1950.
JS: So he got shipped out to Guam?
HM: Yeah he went to Guam and he was working with atomic energy, the bombs that they had dropped on Japan. Well those planes that dropped those bombs on Japan were all stationed out of Guam and he was in the Air Force group that took care of the airplanes, not the airplanes but the bombs on Guam. They serviced them, they kept them going so at anytime one airplane would be ready at anytime to leave at any time someone said they were going to bomb something here they would be ready to go. I went over there, lets see… I got pregnant right away, not right away lets see December I guess I got pregnant in March. I knew I was pregnant when he left in April because I was going to stay and work in Albuquerque in a bar mind you as a bar maid and he was pretty upset abut that. But that is what I was going to do. At the time I was working I went to work for geez I don‟ t remember the name of it, Atomic energy. Some sort of something to do with it anyway working in the hiring office where they hired people I was just kind of a messenger girl or something like that. That was in ' 21, ' 22, ' 21 I guess and I worked in the office 11
and I thought I could go to school while I was doing that but then when he shipped out in April I decided that I would go home so I went home to Butte pregnant. Drove my car home.
JS: What did you do when you got back to Butte?
HM: Had a baby, I didn‟ t do anything else. I don‟ t remember doing anything else especially anyway.
JS: So then you went to Guam after that?
HM: Yes then Ed had to wait until he was either a sergeant, a staff sergeant I guess before he could have any family, before they would pay for any family to come over there. And so Rick was born in December and along in April, had been there for a year over, therefore a year so they gave him the staff sergeant necessary to go and all the paperwork went through and I left for Guam in June.
JS: Did you fly or take a boat?
HM: I took… Betty drove down to California with me and I put my car on the ship with me and I took a ship over. And it was just full of military fellows that were transferring that were going over there for new and then other people were transferred and come back and wives. It was… I don‟ t remember too much about it, but it was kinda funny because they had security all the time to watch that all the military personal that were transferring over there weren‟ t messing around with all of the wives that were going over there by themselves. Of course I had a baby and I was with another girl who had a baby as a roommate, but there was monkey business everywhere in the world.
JS: How long did it take you to get there?
HM: You know I don‟ t remember. But it must have been a week. It was a big ship, a great big ship like a troop ship. All the personal, the Air force personal, were sleeping down below in bunks that were six high or something like that. That [ was] the way Ed said he went to Japan was on a troop ship where they were six high where everyone was sick and he said he was one of the few that didn‟ t get seasick.
JS: He didn‟ t go until the 50‟ s though right?
HM: No Ed went to... Ed went to the army when he was, you know I‟ m not sure how old he was but he had enough credits so he could graduate in January and let‟ s see… his birthday was in November so he must have just turned 17. I think he was 17 when he signed up to go into the Air Force, the army excuse me the Army. He was in the Army before and he signed up to go into the Army and he had enough credits to graduate from High School so they just let him graduate the coming January and so he went over to Japan and he spent a year in Japan.
JS: What year? Do you remember?
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HM: Maybe a little bit more… let‟ s see that would have been ‟ 47. He would have gone over there from „ 47 to „ 48 to „ 49 sometime „ 49 sometime in there and then he came home to go to school in September in Missoula at the University of Montana. So he went to Missoula, no he must have gone to Missoula in the fall of „ 48 or [ the] fall of „ 49. I can‟ t remember too well. It must have been in „ 49 when I went there. Yeah I went in „ 49 but he wasn‟ t there then. He‟ d been there a couple of semesters beforehand. Fred was there.
JS: So when did you come back from Guam?
HM: Umm „ 52, ‟ 53… lets see. When did I go over? I went over there in June of „ 52 and came back in June of „ 53.
JS: And did he come with you or did he stay there?
HM: No he came with me. He came home then too. While we were over there I took my one time when I was when we were first married Ed's Grandmother died and we drove our Chevrolet that we got for our wedding home and we went to the funeral. We went home from Albuquerque and we went to the funeral and before I left we took it up to have the oil changed and checked before we drove back. And they forgot to put the little thing on the oil pan and we got as far as some place in Idaho and then all the oil drained out and the engine seized. I can‟ t remember. And we got stuck in this little town and so my dad sent some men down and we came home on a trailer and Ed hitchhiked down to Albuquerque and I came home with the broken car and they gave us a little Bel- Air Chevrolet a little black one with red seats in it and it was one of the first, one of those little Bel- Air's they looked like little hard toped convertibles is what they looked like. And they gave us a new car that was a little green Chevy two door Chevy and they gave us a little this little Bel- Air, black with red seats, it was really a nice little car. And so I came home until they got it straightened out and everything and then I went back to Albuquerque. This is only a month after we were married and I drove back down to Albuquerque in my little Bel- Air car. Oh was really nice and I took that one with me to Guam. We sold it over there for probably as much as we paid for it because there are not too many cars on the island of Guam unless they came in with the military and then when we got here we took a train back to Detroit, someplace around Detroit, and picked up a new Oldsmobile. We got a „ 53 olds and during that year they had trouble with a fire in factory that built the automatic shifts and so all the cars had stick shifts kind in it the stick shift was on the steering wheel. The Oldsmobile had didn‟ t have automatic in it. That year we started school down in Bozeman and we had, let‟ s see, I was pregnant when I left Guam and shortly after I got back to the U. S. I lost the baby and so that was my lost baby of my life.
JS: Between Rick and Mike?
HM: Yes.
JS: I never knew that.
HM: Another little boy.
13
JS: How did you know?
HM: How did I know? They told me.
JS: They had ultrasound?
HM: They didn‟ t have ultrasound then. They saw what it looked like. Looked like a little boy. I mean I must have been three or four months pregnant. So they must have looked at the fetus and saw what it looked like and told me it was a little boy. The only other way they told us what kind of babies we were having was by the heartbeat. The heartbeat was umm you know I‟ ve forgotten. If the heartbeat was fast it was a boy and if it was slow it was a girl or the other way around I don‟ t remember. That [ was] the only way we knew that we were going to… and then another way they had of telling boys and girls if you carried a baby high up, high it was a girl and if it was kinda carried down low it was a boy. When I had Rick they thought he was coming breech and so they treated me very carefully to say the least. The couple of days before and he was supposed to come around Thanksgiving, around the 15th of November is what they gave me as a date. And he didn‟ t come and he didn‟ t come and he didn‟ t come and Christmas came and he still hadn‟ t come. And I had this breech baby and one of my best friends from grade school her best friend was having a baby at the same time and going to the same doctor and we used to compare a lot and she was about shed gained too much weight and she was too big and she was two weeks overdue and I was the same way and we had a lot of fun talking to each other. But I went to Mass with Fred on Christmas Eve and I you know how I am, I wouldn‟ t let anyone hold me up or touch me or anything so what is I do but fall flat on my back.
JS: On the ice right.
HM: On the ice in the middle of the street and it turned the baby at the time and then I had the baby the next day. And so he came naturally. He wasn‟ t that big either for being such a… for taking me so long, unless they were wrong. But they couldn‟ t be too wrong in guessing when my time was because Ed left in the first part April and I couldn‟ t have been too far pregnant. Anyway I had the baby in what‟ s called the Murray Hospital in Butte, Montana and the other Hospital was the Catholic hospital called the St. James. And all of the people were being taken down to St James and they were closing the Murray hospital and I had the very last baby that was born in Murray Hospital in Butte, Montana. And it was a real, real, real old building and the other hospital was newer and everything and so they were closing it down because it had been kind of, you know how they say, it had they don‟ t want anything there like this they don‟ t want any hospital there anymore. It had all of the fire escapes running down the outside of the building and I don‟ t know, I guess you have to be around an old town and old buildings and awful old stuff to remember what stuff like that is. My mother used to always be afraid that she would be left in a convalescent home someplace and the place in Butte was an old hospital and it was out in the first place around the area where she lived when we first lived in Butte. And there was this three or four story building, just an old brick building that was like a square or a rectangle or something like that. And it had all of these old fire escapes coming down the edges of it and everything and all of these old people be sitting around outside and it was called the county, oh I cant remember, the county something- or- other and all of the old people in the county that didn‟ t have anyplace to live, the poor farm , we called it the poor farm. My mother was so scared to 14
death all of her older life that she was going to have to go to the poor farm. And I have never seen anything like that, anyplace except there in Butte.
JS: So then where did you go after he got out of the War?
HM: Well, we got home in July and we went back and got our car which took us a couple of weeks or so in June and he went to work for the mines for a month just to have something to do and his dad was on the police force. And he, Ed, had an uncle that worked for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and so he got a job putting up beams and doing like they have little railroad tracks underground and he worked down there putting up the beams, the big wooden pieces of wood that they would put up on the sides and reinforce the ceilings and stuff so all the little railroad cars could run down there. And he got that for about six weeks after we got home that is what he was doing. And then we went down to Montana State College in Bozeman and we lived in army barracks and we had an old coal stove.
JS: What year was that?
HM: „ 53 I think.
JS: So this is before the Korean War?
HM: Oh yeah Korea must have been 60‟ s.
JS: 1957.
HM: Something like that. I remember Korea being when Rick should have gone but he never went.
JS: No that was Vietnam.
HM: To what?
JS: Vietnam not Korea. Rick would have only been like 10 years old during Korea.
HM: When was Vietnam?
JS: 19…
HM: That‟ s when you were born. That [ was] when Rick was going to be drafted so he couldn‟ t have been 10 years old.
JS: No I‟ m asking about Korea. You said that Rick would have gone to Korea, but I think you meant that he would have gone to Vietnam.
HM: Well which one was first?
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JS: Korea.
HM: Well I think that Rick would have gone to Korea. Wasn‟ t Korea in 67?
JS: No like „ 57.
HM: „ 57 all right then Rick would have been. You know I have Vietnam and Korea I don‟ t understand them. They are so vague in my mind I don‟ t have dates for them.
JS: So no one had to go to either one right?
HM: Just Ted.
JS: Ted went to Korea?
HM: But Ted was an... I don‟ t know what you call it but he was in the army because he enlisted in the Army and he was a colonel. Ed went to us let‟ s see. „ 53-‟ 60.
JS: In „ 53 he would have been like 25 so he didn‟ t have to go?
HM: No that [ was] in „ 53 Ed got out of the Air Force he was in the Air force for I don‟ t know how long. What did we get married in. 1950 and he got out in „ 53 so he was supposed to be in for four years and he got out a few months early. And then he went back to school in the fall of „ 53. And between the army when he was in the army and between and before he went into the Air Force he went to the University of Montana at Missoula for a almost a year. But he drank too much and caroused around too much and was too crazy they kicked him out.
JS: He still would have only been 22 in 1950. Korea was „ 50-„ 53 he would have been 22, 23, 24. So he never had to go?
HM: Well no when he went in the army when he as 17.
JS: Yeah but that was like 1945.
HM: ' 46, ' 47, yep I think it would be ‟ 47. Must have been „ 46 and that was called WWII and that was what he got GI bill on. And we went to school on GI Bill. All the time he went to school for four years he was on GI Bill. And we got 120 dollars a month or something like that going to school on GI Bill. So we lived in college in old barracks stuff from WWII. He got that mostly from his army stuff but he got a lot of it from his Air Force stuff too.
JS: So after he came back from Guam you moved back to Butte?
HM: Yes.
JS: Do you remember when that was?
16
HM: We were only there for a couple of months.
JS: And then where did you go?
HM: We went to Bozeman where he started in engineering school.
JS: And what year was that?
HM: „ 53.
JS: So after he finished school in Missoula where did you go?
HM: No. No wrong school. He went to Missoula after he got out of the army for almost a year and then he got kicked out. Then he joined the Air Force.
JS: Then he went o Bozeman after he got back from Guam?
HM: Then when he got out of the Air Force and I was with him and Rick was with him. Then we went to Bozeman to Montana State College which is now Montana State University.
JS: Then where did you go after Bozeman?
HM: Let's see, four years, 1959 he graduated from Bozeman with an electrical engineering degree.
JS: Wait so you left Bozeman in „ 59?
HM: He taught in Bozeman for a year maybe two years. Let‟ s see „ 57 to „ 59 and also at the time he got his masters degree at that time. And he worked for, I forgot the name of the company, and he taught school for a year.
JS: At the college?
HM: Thesis associates. I don‟ t know what it is, [ a] teacher anyway. He taught grad students.
JS: That‟ s during the whole time of the Cold War beginnings in the 1950‟ s. What was that like?
HM: I don‟ t know.
JS: You don‟ t remember having to have bomb shelters and gas masks and stuff like that?
HM: That was during WWII.
JS: It happened during the Cold War too.
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HM: Well I know that grandpa Molthen was in charge in Butte of that when they were digging the bomb shelters. I thought that was all in the 40‟ s. I don‟ t remember. I must have been too busy having babies.
JS: You weren‟ t too worried about the communists then?
HM: No.
JS: They didn‟ t care about the communists in Montana?
HM: I guess they did, but I don‟ t think I did. I know that Ed was. They had a lot of classes on it in school and he had a lot of homework on communists and communistic stuff in some of his classes but I didn‟ t pay any attention.
JS: You don‟ t remember any of the Joseph McCarthy hearings or…
HM: Oh yes I remember hearing about them. But I don‟ t remember them. We didn‟ t have a newspaper. We didn‟ t have television I just went on about my business. I don‟ t know.
JS: So after you…
HM: At least I don‟ t remember. When you tell me the names and the stuff on it I can say yes I knew about it but I don‟ t remember being terribly interested enough to answer any questions about it particularly.
J: So after you left Bozeman where did you go?
HM: After he graduated he got his master degree and then [ in] ' 61 maybe we started, we went to several places to find a job and we were supposed to go to Boeing and he had a thing set to going to Boeing where he could work for Boeing for a year and during that time he[„ d] go to school at the University of Washington and get his doctorate degree. And then he got an… a thing came through for him to go to Chicago and work for University of Chicago and the Fermi Institute with atomic energy stuff and so we took that one instead. And so we went there for oh 5- 6 well Jeb was in the… Rick was in the third grade and he graduated from high school, third, forth grade and graduated from High school. We must have been there for eight years.
JS: In Chicago for eight years?
HM: Yes.
JS: So like from ‟ 60 to „ 68?
HM: „ 69 yep. I think we went in „ 61 and I think we left in „ 69.
JS: What was that like?
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HM: What was it like in Chicago?
JS: Yes.
HM: Well we started out in a third floor apartment and the neighbors would call and say that my two boys were out on the banisters in the back crawling around the windows and it was a kind of turmoil thought that thing. The blacks were moving into Chicago and they had started up toward the upper town and while we were there Ed worked at the University of Chicago and they went through all of the area north of us and started living in all of the areas. Then in „ 65-„ 66 they started moving in to the areas. We were living in south of the university and so we left our apartment because the public school that Rick was in had gone to 90 percent black and so we left there and we went out lest see. We lived on 70th street and we went out to 95th street and got a duplex and so we lived out there for a couple of years. And Mike joined the boy scouts and Sally Liz was in the first grade, Kindergarten I guess. Mike was in the second grade and Sally Liz was in Kindergarten and Rick started to go to the university of Chicago Lab School. So he rode with Ed everyday to school while Ed went to work. And we lived out there for a couple of years and then we bought a house back closer to where we had moved from before, but it was an area where multiple housing was not allowed. And so you could only have one family in a house and so they didn‟ t sell to black families because in this area the only black families came in 10 or 15 kids and two and three mothers and all kinds of stuff. And so there were no black families in this area we moved into. And we had this huge beautiful house and we lived there for four years, three of four years. Anyway Rick graduated from high school and Mike was starting his freshman year and Sally Liz was going into the eighth grade, or seventh grade something like that. And they all went to the University of Chicago lab schools. While we were... were there and we had this big house and your dad got a corvette, your grandfather got a corvette and he used to park it in front of his office so he could watch it all the time. Price Phillip came from England to visit and go through the Fermi Institute there one time and they had to clear the street all off and Ed had to park his car a block over and during that time someone stole it. So he lost his corvette.
JS: I remember him being so bummed about that, keeping the steering wheel because that was all that was left.
HM: Well they… it was gone for about three months and they brought it back with no motor, no tires, no fuel injection, no nothing, no radio. And we just had the body mostly and we thought we would fix it up but we never had enough money to quite make it. We had to pay so much to pay to 2000 about 1800 to get it from the place that picked it up or whatever it was and bring it back. And then we had to buy tires and an engine and all that sort of stuff and putting three kids in a private school and buying a house and stuff we just didn‟ t have the money to really fix the corvette up again. It was a 1963 split window back it was the number three corvette that was made. I bought it off the floor of the museum of science and industry. I didn‟ t tell Ed about it until I had bought it. I took everyone‟ s savings account and all the money I could lay my hands on to get a down payment for it. That was the corvette, a red corvette.
JS: So when did you leave Chicago?
HM: We left Chicago in „ 69. 19
JS: And where did you go?
HM: Here we went to Ed worked for the Fermi Institute and they did atomic engineering here the nuclear stuff broke the protons and neutrons up into little tiny pieces and all his stuff was working with they wore meters all the time to meter how much radiation and stuff they were getting in there and they decided they weren‟ t going to have it there anymore and they were going to move it out to a western are west of Chicago maybe I think the name was Weston and build a new accelerator out there and so they were terminating him and his job at the University and there was a job waiting for him at Weston but I don‟ t remember what happened right in there that was in 1960 and for some reason or another the Democrats were in and they closed down all government hiring. And Ed's job would have been government and so he didn‟ t have a job and this really, really bothered him terribly to not have a job and so my dad died in ‟ 68. And so he came out here to California and stayed with my mother and visited all around San Diego for a place to work and they all told him he was overqualified for everything they had down here. Nobody could have any work for him. And it‟ s too bad that he didn‟ t go to Livermore or something like that and work where he would be doing the same type of stuff he was doing in Chicago. But we came down to San Diego when my dad died and he liked San Diego so he just came down here to try and find a job. He ended up with Cubic Cooperation and we had to take a three or 4100 dollar cut in our pay a month for him to come out here „ cause nobody wanted to hire him for what he was worth at the time. So he went to Cubic Corporation in ‟ 69, Feb ‟ 69, St. Patrick‟ s Day, must have been March. I know he was here on St. Patrick‟ s Day anyway and he was working for Cubic and he stayed with my mother during that time and then he was here for about a month or two and then he bought us a place to live on Rostrada Road in Green Valley just a little bit east of Rancho Bernardo. And he moved over there and stayed there until in July Sally Liz moved out there to live with her with him by herself and grandma. And in August, August I guess it was I came out with the boys. I sold the house in Chicago and drove out with Rick and Mike to their house on Rostrada Street. And we stayed there for three years, four years. I‟ m not positive. Four years, I guess, and during that time we found a piece in the paper. Let‟ s see, the kids had graduated, let‟ s see, Rick had graduated from the University Lab school and he came out here for three or four months and then he [ went] back to Chicago and then he stayed there for awhile and then he came back and I enrolled him at Palomar. And when he found out that I‟ d done that and that he could back here and go to college he came back here and went to Palomar and Mike went to Poway High School and Sally Liz went to, I think, she went to the Catholic school and I can‟ t remember the name of it. I‟ ll be darned. Well anyway and then she didn‟ t go there very long and she ended going to when she got into the 7th grade, lets see, 7th and 8th grade she went to the public schools. And he bough the place on Rostard where we had a nice little corner place, an acre and a half or something like that and a swimming pool and all. California… everyone liked it or seemed to like it real well. The only trouble was that there‟ s no bus, no travel, no way to get anywhere or do anything where we lived. So we had to buy a coupe, more cars to take care [ of] us all. Rick went to work, went to school to learn welding and Mike went oh to High School and graduated and Sal Liz also graduated from Poway. No she didn‟ t, she was a senior in Poway. We found this piece of land in Ramona and she spent her senior year half in Ramona and half in Poway; or half in Poway and half up here in Ramona. And during that time Ed worked for Cubic Corporation and he worked with anti- submarine warfare working with circuits and airplanes and I don‟ t know what all. He did a fair amount of traveling and [ a] lot to 20
do with military and army bases and lot of stuff like that. I don‟ t really know exactly what. And he enjoyed his work. He said it was like going to play and so I guess that‟ s what‟ s good.
JS: So this is still the early 70‟ s?
HM: Sal Liz graduated from High school in „ 76 and Ed worked there until he had been there 19 years and 11 months. They did give a gold watch, but he never told me about it. I said it was terrible that he wasn‟ t going to work there for 20 years and not get his gold watch but he got really sick. And in 1990… and so he said that he was going to retire and retire and that‟ s all he was going to do and he retired. He had a month and a half he supposedly worked until after Christmas into January and then he took all of his vacation time and it was a couple of weeks short or being 20 years. He didn‟ t quite make it until St. Patrick day. And he had kind of a nervous breakdown and he spent a long time in bed there for a while And then he went back to work for SAIC for a little while and traveled back east for a little bit with it, but it didn‟ t last very long. He was just really through working. And then he just went downhill from then until the 90‟ s.
JS: I don‟ t remember much of that actually.
HM: You were there, but you don‟ t remember it just like I was there and I don‟ t remember it because it just was not rememberable. All I did was taking care of Ed and run you to tennis and I don‟ t remember doing much else. You know I had my hands full because Grandpa Molthen was there. Do you remember him being there? My mother was there for a little while, not more that eight or nine months. Grandpa Molthen was there for a year or so and I had Max and I had you and it was just you didn‟ t have time to think about much where you were going or what you were doing, you just took care of business. I guess during that time grandpa was in bed and Grandpa Molthen was there and well I guess Grandpa Molthen wasn‟ t there. He was there while grandpa, your grandfather was still working because I can remember after Grandpa Molthen came there, he came there with prostate cancer and he was in the hospital and had operations, a couple of operations. And then he had his leg cut off and I remember you dad used to go every day and visit him at noon when he was working. I think that might have been part of what got to his day too long. He had the rode back to Poway or Ramona wherever we lived and then he had to take his lunch hour and go and spend it with his dad every day and between that and the work I guess it really got too much for him.
JS: What are some of the major events that you remember happening?
HM: I liked getting married.
JS: Like major historical events like Watergate or The Kennedy Assassination or…
HM: The one I remember when I was in High School was VJ Day because there was lots of parties and I was in high school and we got to get out of school. And the actual day it was we all skipped school and everyone was so happy and that was a big day at the High School, Victory in Japan.
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JS: What about Kennedy? Where were you when Kennedy got shot?
HM: Oh for goodness sake when Kennedy got shot I was in the basement of the store in heck it begins with a W and I can‟ t think of it. I used to go to Chicago to shop for white shirts for your grandpa because he wore white shirts and I needed seven or eight of them, just like you needed seven or eight a week and I was in the basement shopping and it came over the loudspeaker that Kennedy had just died.
JS: What about Watergate?
HM: You know I don‟ t remember Watergate particularly. I know about it and I know what happened and I know all that sort of stuff. I didn't think it particularly had any setting with me because I was no longer when I was in Chicago. I was more involved in what was going on in school and in the world and all this sort of stuff because the last year we were there in Chicago for two years before that I had worked in the, I guess its called a rummage sale, a rummage sale that lasted three days and it took up to the gym and a couple of other big rooms at the University of Chicago. And they probably had over a hundred people working it and somehow or another I got involved because I did a lot of things I worked on a lot of things for the school and I was a den mother and I went on the trips for the kids with the school all the time. And I was always involved with that because Sal Liz was in school and I didn‟ t have a lot to do during the day and I wasn‟ t working or anything and anyway the two years I was there Rick‟ s sophomore and junior year I got involved in this big rummage sale thing and this last year they put me in charge of it and I didn‟ t like that one bit, but I ended up doing it. That was the year they had the riots in Chicago and they had riots everywhere with the black people burning and doing this all this messing around and everything and they were afraid they were working there way down to the southern part of the town where the university was and they closed my rummage sale up on Sunday and we couldn‟ t do that and the army came in and built and put up pup tents all over the area around the University of Chicago and the whole town was put on a nine o‟ clock curfew and everything was burning on and off all over town they had stuff burning and then they decided they had to close it up and they couldn‟ t sell any of the stuff and they would have to give it all to charity. And they decided they would have another rummage sale like that, they would open a thrift store so that was the end of all that come along. February I had to leave anyway that was like September, October, around October in 196o. Let me think, when did we leave Chicago? That was 1968.
JS: Is there anything else that you can think of that is especially important?
HM: No not really.
JS: Ok well thanks a million for taking the time to do this for me. I really appreciate it. If you think of anything else just call me and let me know and I will add it later.